======== SAMPLE 1 ========
.

"How?" Tecton asked. I thought my heart was in my ears. "Who?"

"Parian," the boy replied. "I’m guessing."

"You’re a cape."

"Yes."

"But not one of our own."

"How many of our own were left after the fall?" the boy raised his hands, "I could name dozens we couldn’t save when we were all fighting one another."

"I couldn’t save you," I said, aghast. "We killed your dad, your brothers-"

"You murdered my dad. Killed your brothers. One of them I saved for myself, but they’re lost in the midst of a crowd. A mob, and one of your own killed me."

"They didn’t deserve it."

"They deserved whatever you’ve given them. The mob was after me, and you couldn’t move. You turned your back as three of Coil’s thugs arrived."

"I could have run, but I’m not the kind of person who wants to be seen on the streets. Not in a position where I’m risking my life for a greater good. You have no idea what it meant to me. I was a cape. I had a power. I’d used the power to find and use a cure for my power. I thought I’d keep on holding my own, but I was wrong. I wasn’t able to keep myself out of harm’s way and you could have killed me. You’d have killed me before I had access to my power, instead of waiting and letting me slip away, but you’d killed me. You had to have known… it’d hurt just knowing the end result."

"I’ve got a better sense of it now," Tecton said.

"Don’t. Don’t ask me for more information on the specifics."

"So what do you need? What can I do to help you? What is your power, really?"

"The cure, the answers to your questions. I can keep it within myself, I can use it. The only ones who really need it the most are you. There’s my friend, she’ll be fine on her own, and I’ll be there when she’s ready. The rest of you…"

"No."

"I could use my power, and it’d be too slow, slow even after the treatment I gave my teammates. I couldn’t do what I needed to be successful from here on out. I’d be so much more at risk, so much more likely to suffer the consequences of losing my teammates. I’ve got a lot of them, and a lot of them are weak, you know, in the end."

"Why?" Tecton asked.

"Cause and effect, it’s a lot to take in. It’s not the kind of thing you can work out unless you’ve experienced it. I got my power through my dad. It’s not like you can’t do it."

"I can’t do it?"

"I’m not really sure, but I can tell you enough to guess," I said, my voice quiet enough to not put me in the way. "What’s your name, then?"

"Tatsu."

"Tatsu."

"Tatsu."

"You’re dead."

"My brother is alive? I’m afraid not."

"I don’t even remember feeling fear, in a good way or a bad way."

"I can’t go back to the way I was."

"Well I can’t return to the way you were. The memories are gone. I guess things have changed, changed fast, I’m afraid. Your body doesn’t feel anything. It’s so light it’s a blur, your emotions all gone. I don’t remember that fear at all, but I remember everything. If I’m just forgetting it, forget everything, it’s an ugly thing."

"It’s okay."

"All of it?"

"An awful lot of emotion, so fast, so strong. I can feel it. I can’t stop it. I think I’ve been to where I’m standing right now. What you’re looking at, and everyone’s looking at it."

"What?"



======== SAMPLE 2 ========
. It’d let me use my hands and be more mobile, and she used her telekinesis to hold me down.

The bugs had found the door, and were moving it to our heads. I reached out.

Tinker. He’d known that.

I saw him coming. He flew in a semicircle to meet us, then opened his mouth like a mouth with eyes, then moved his tongue to surround us.

I could hear another group coming close. He opened his mouth again, then closed it.

My bugs crawled around me, spreading to other buildings. I could hear someone moving. It was Coil, saying something.

It was the same voice that I’d heard…

…It was the same voice that I’d been hearing on the radio, the one in Brockton Bay.

I took refuge in the kitchen. No doubt to wait for one of his reinforcements.

He had my body.

I let my bugs crawl over my eyes, over my ears, down and around my nose, and found the spots where my glasses had been shattered.

I couldn’t afford to look, but I looked, even seeing someone who bore a terrible resemblance to my brother, who was in the same hall as Coil. If he’d managed to get hold of me, then one of the heroes would have taken the time to track me down with a swift knife. They could have been on the verge of killing me.

He’d even managed to get hold of a broken mirror.

He’d torn it apart.

Or had he? I couldn’t tell. I was too focused on the fact that the mirror had been crushed.

"Taylor!" he shouted, the noise so ragged I couldn’t make it out in the gloom.

I couldn’t tell him anything more, couldn’t make him do anything more or put me in any danger.

Another member of his group had flown in to join us and take a backup with us. They had formed a circle, then were moving towards the group.

We had to make another move, to get away, to distract him and move on. Coil was one of the strongest heroes that didn’t have a weakness. There were only a handful that could easily win through brute force, but if there was something he had learned from the events before this mission, this was the one. A way to win without a weak point.

In the heat of the moment, I couldn’t control my own actions, could only feel a measure of power I couldn’t explain.

In the darkness of his eyes, the fear of getting hurt, the relief… I felt it the instant he looked at me, the adrenaline rush of winning a fight, a rush of relief that gave me a sense of hope and a measure of self worth.

I looked at him.

"Get him! Out of there!" he shouted.

I moved to his side as a second group flew in, and could see how his expression change. The emotion, the panic, the terror: all of it. He was looking at me, while the eyes of the others were fixed on Coil.

"Fuck! I’m sorry," I answered. I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

"I’m telling you to get him, and I’ll pay good money for that. Then we’ll get on with it, and your head won’t be hurting at all. That’s the end of my apology, and there’s a very fine line between helping your teammate and helping the Nine."

Sociopath? I closed my mouth, but I could see him coming towards us. He saw me as his comrade. That was one of the few things that stood out about Coil. He could manipulate the conversation with the words, the body language and the gestures, and I was able to adapt to it, not having to worry about hurting others in turn.

I wasn’t sure if I was in the way, but I didn’t do a hundred percent fast enough that I had an excuse. I turned and made a run for it as he was closing the distance.

I heard him in the hallways, the voices that resounded in the chaos, the curses and the threats. I couldn’t make out everything he’d said, but I could follow a lot of what he said, could take it with a grain of salt.

My first real fight.

I knew what he was saying, that he was calling for orders and that I needed to do what he wanted by killing people.

"I’m-" he said.

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
. The others, however, reacted. Even with their best efforts, their movements, it wasn’t enough.

The woman with the swarm’s arms folded, the man with the swarm around him with no arms, the girl in a white costume. A light to medium-sized swarm, all gathered on their leader.

They approached, and the swarm extended into the air with them. It was like a gaseous shroud, it was almost air to breathe, so they could maintain oxygen for breathing or for maintaining the symbiotic relationship with the bugs.

They reached out, and the group was dispersed. The swarm settled on the ground, and some of the women with the swarm held hands. Those with the swarm that remained on them were holding hands.

Shhh, the swarm said, "Do not be afraid. Do not let the fear, the uncertainty or the anger take hold. Your heart is a safe place. We are the family. So we would protect each others."

They approached Scion, and it was almost as though they had a grasp of him in an instant, then had a hand grasping his power.

There were moments when the swarm were almost entirely gone, but they were there now.

A group, but an organized mob of people.

He reached out, and they were joined there in the air by the swarm without the swarm’s arms.

The other men, the three or four with the umbrellas in their hands, were the same. They were carrying the wounded, the people who had been knocked to the ground or otherwise disabled by the swarm’s advance.

The swarm, it was the same as before, but they had bodies to use in places, bodies to help.

Some remained intact, but they were more frail, weaker, and that was no surprise, given the force and presence of the swarm.

Others joined them, and then they found themselves alone.

Scion was still reeling from Eidolon’s assault on his consciousness, and the swarm was now the same. There were too many bodies. Too many things.

The swarm was still moving, moving people, not just the ones who’d been in the way, the ones who were no longer breathing.

He opened his eyes, to see his people. The others were still standing.

No fear, no doubt. He reached out, but people were still standing, not on the ground, or on the rooftops, as he’d seen them. They’d stayed close, and the bodies weren’t the only thing on that rooftop.

Still here.

This isn’t my fight. He closed his eyes.

Scion opened his eyes, too.



The Yàngbǎn



"The people who’d helped Scion aren’t here in one piece."

"No more resistance from them," a female voice sounded over the swarm. "They’ve retreated."

"The people who’d assisted Scion aren’t coming out of this dead. They haven’t lost consciousness. We need blood tests, medical care, and more bodies."

"I’m coming with you," the man with the swarm said. "There’s nothing standing in our way."

The woman with the swarm was a woman in a white gown, but her face was more angular, not quite human. Her hair was a light grey, in contrast. Her eyes were large, with more gray irises that framed her eyes. She had dark brown skin and long dark hair that hung loosely from the shoulders, head hanging. Her clothes were all black, black leather. A black cape hung down to her waist, but the sleeves were black-gray.

She was a little older than Scion. Her body was less full-figured, with more muscles. Her hair was blacker and her hands and feet looked more toned. She smiled a little, a look he’d seen before, when they’d fought, when he’d seen her.

Scion turned, saw the woman, and he saw nothing in her. He could have sworn it was a woman.

What had he been looking at? She was a body double for one of Scion’s enemies. Someone to make his enemy look human.

She was in shock. An old man with ragged skin and a swollen head.

No. They’d never let her take a full stride in the dark forest alone? No. Not like that. It was an illusion, and they’d tried to make her look like a wild beast that wasn’t quite human and was a monster of the same kind.

Scion walked on the ground, in the cloud of

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
. She’s an old school superhero. She’ll do better if she gets over the mental blocks that she’s been facing for the last three years."

And a hero, of that?

"I get that," he said.

"I think we’ll," I said.

"What I’m saying. I dunno how you figure it, but it makes sense."

"We need your help, you know. Because what happens if things go south?"

I nodded.

"How do we get on her side? How do-"

"I understand you want to deal with this now," I finished. There was a pause. I pulled the phone out of my pocket. "No need to. We’re talking the big events in Brockton Bay, things you can deal with while I deal. It’s important enough that I’m willing to go. To the best of my ability, of course."

"Okay, then," he said.

"I’m glad you’re taking your time. Your dad would’ve been proud."

"Good," he answered. He put the phone away.

"I’m sorry I couldn’t get this thing in order. I have to start doing this. I will be busy until next week, but I have to do this. I have to do this now. I want to be the Protectorate, so I get credit from a hero, and I want this girl on my side. I can’t do that if I’m busy with stuff like I just said. I have to do this now so it’s all done at the end of this week, so people get all that credit I’m getting."

"Your hands tied so well?"

"Ties are tied," he said. "Right now, she can’t make moves, because she’s a good fighter. Now we’re working on it, so I can’t be the people who can stop them. I have to show she’s strong enough that people get her."

"So you’ll have to be the people against whom they want to do whatever they need to do. That leaves me with the problem that you can only do so much."

"I have what it takes, Skitter," he said.

"It’s something I’ll have to think about at the next meeting, and I’m not sure I can do it when the big events hit me here. If I want to give Alexandria back, it’s gonna be at the cost of the team. This ends my contract with the team and I’ll take a year or two off until I can make sure the city’s safe again. This is not the time, after what Alexandria did to us, to put my hand in my pocket for support."

"Maybe some more support?"

"Yeah. Maybe," he replied. "I’d like to keep Alexandria as safe as possible."

"Yeah?"

"I can’t stand to see her suffer, and it bothers me far more now that I know what she’ll do when she gets her powers."

"But that’s what I said a few times. I’m glad we’re having a conversation where we can discuss this."

He turned his head to look at me, nodded a little, then said, "Go. I’ll see you in a day-and-a-half, maybe."

It was almost inaudible, which was the mark of a man who didn’t have much of a voice. Only, oddly, it seemed to take longer than it should have.

I put my hand in my pocket and walked away. I heard his voice too. "You’ve been acting really fucked up lately."

I didn’t answer him. But maybe it was the way he spoke that caught me off guard. "Fuck me, I’m sorry. I never stopped being a jerk."

"I would have done the same thing if I said you’re an idiot."

"That’s a tough attitude to kick," I said. "I’m not a bully here, I’m just doing my job. You know that. What I need? This job is to protect my people, and I take it very seriously. Even if it’ll come down to the last minute. So make your way back to the building."

I followed, taking two steps as I headed back the way I came.

"And you’re doing okay?"

I shook my

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
.

My heart was racing as my eyes moved over the area.

If Scion’s power was affecting her abilities.

He wasn’t the kind to take what he wanted, and her life was in his hands.

I closed my eyes, and I felt my heart hammering in my chest, every breath starting in my lungs, and the slightest tremors in my body.

He was more powerful than I’d thought.

Her mind opened to an entirely different area of possibilities.

I felt the swarm.

They could use powers.

But she could use the swarm.

And the swarm was more versatile than the swarm I’d used.

The swarm, in effect, changed the way she could think.

It was a tool. As she used it, so did I.

And she was more of a thinker than a taker. That part of her.

I could see it, hear it, feel it.

She was making all sorts of sense of it that was hard to imagine.

She could use the fact that she could think, that she could draw upon all the powers she had accumulated, and now she could focus that same thought in a way that made it all come true.

She could use it for guidance, for inspiration, help, but most of all, she was making it a foundation. A foundation that made her abilities come true.

This man… he could make her abilities come true.

This woman… she could make her abilities come true.

I could smell him. The way he breathed, the way he fished, smelled him.

I could taste him. The taste of that stale sweetness that made her taste him better.

I could taste the way he smelled the way he smelled. Taste his body language. How unthreatening he was.

How much she could smell him.

She’d made it all possible. She was making it happen every time he used a power. Every time she used her power or when she did something creative.

He was no longer human… he was a predator.

His power had moved.

My body was shaking.

She was no longer human.

She’d turned him into what I now knew to be a monster.

A weakling. A child.

It was as though my mind was being turned into a book, and all of its pages. I tried to find the words to write them down or say them out loud, but there was none in the air.

He’d turned me into a child.. a monster.

And now he’s turning me into something even worse.

One who’s strength came from every sense. Every action, every thought and every feeling, from every detail.

If she turned him into her own version of that child, I could be that child.

She turned me into a monster, and she’d made sure that the monster was stronger than the child.

There was more that was being made happen there.

But it didn’t stop her.

"You’re still a child," he told me. "And you still have too many faults. So many mistakes… so many ways of seeing the world and the bad. I can’t forgive you for that, and that’s not okay."





Mama eXpress is now known as I’m Not a Child anymore.





Interlude 19


"How’s the work? I’m sure you’re working hard. You’ve been working for hours just to get to the stage where you could take an aspirin."

"No."

"Well, I don’t need you to stop doing this. I’m not willing to do that, and a third of the reason this is being done in secret."

"No, I know you were getting too far along, to be able to go home and rest for a little while. So, um, I’m taking time off. I’m doing all the reading, studying for the test, and all my studies are going to a doctor’s office tomorrow. I’ll be working while I recover, so you can go home and rest."

"And I’m going to my room and reading."

"Well, we’re doing that for two reasons. First, in case some of the more important students run into you as you sit on the porch reading, I need you to know that my room is empty. Your room is."

"I got sick?"

"My body’s telling me it isn’

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
. They’d left the thing behind, and the bodies inside were mostly intact. My bugs had made their way inside, they’d set traps and left the corpses.

My bugs could sense a girl with a scar on her neck. The girl had had the arm ripped off, while holding the hand over the shoulder.

I’d have to search that girl for answers, to make sense of it. I reached around and used the bugs I’d collected to search for any signs. There were scars around the neck, I noted.

A girl. A teenager. The girl was standing there, her hair still wet. There was a mark somewhere around the shoulders.

Then I scanned the place I’d just seen. There was an old-fashioned bus stop. A large car sitting at the edge of the street. A man sat in front of it, a bag over his shoulder.

I was almost reminded of my father’s old apartment, of the time the woman had said they had no idea where he was, and that she’d only ever tried to help him out in emergencies for his sake. There was only a car to the right, and an old abandoned bus with a body in it. It was hard to tell from the place, and hard to find the bus stop, but the bus stopped at that spot, two blocks away. A block away.

I couldn’t look for the bus stop without thinking about the man. I had to know where. If he was at that bus stop, and I didn’t get good results for that, I couldn’t just ignore everything he said. When he had gotten ahold of some money, he had given away some to other kids. Some had used it. There had been a lot of garbage bags and bottles of water in the area, and some had been taken by someone, while others had been left with the people in the bus that were closest to me.

My mind started drifting down memory lane, back to things I’d said in high school.

I found a man inside a dumpster, where people had begun to scatter. A young, dirty looking woman with a scar running down her cheek. The dumpster had the front open, and there was a line of people outside it. I realized that most of the people were homeless, and that most were in and around where the dumpster had once been.

I was now aware of the fact that I shouldn’t give up just because I could smell him. I walked over to the back, to see if I could smell him through that trash bag as I’d seen before, and found he was dead inside just behind the front.

As I looked over the area, I could see two spots where people were making their way through, searching for the man. I could see him for what he was: another human being who wasn’t completely inside the trash bin. It didn’t matter. I kept walking. My senses were being tested by the garbage-laden area and the garbage-filled area, and it was starting to dawn on me how small all of this was, how limited these two worlds were in how they’d compare.

I stopped in the trash bin as I was walking over to the bins that weren’t strewn with trash. I had no reason to move on to the bins for this trash: what little food or water I may have had inside had presumably been used or thrown elsewhere. I couldn’t even begin to guess which bins contained what, with the amount of trash present and the fact that I couldn’t even get comfortable and see if my hands were dry against the trash, with the bags covering almost every part of my body and my skin. I would need better direction.

So I kept moving, leaving the trash at the door. I found what I had been looking for, and was rewarded by a sight that made my blood run cold. I’d seen him in the bin.

A small boy with dirty blonde hair that was too long for him. The boy was still there, and the girl had put her feet in one of the bins, blocking it with hers. I turned my view to the boy’s parents. The guy had hands that matched his head, and was standing so that his head stuck out.

"Hey!"

I turned my eyes to them.

"What happened? Where’s the man gone?"

There was no response. I couldn’t find any sign he’d been sitting in the trash, but I was also sure he was nowhere to be found.

"Hey! Where’s the man?"

"My dog went inside the trash bin."

The girl in the white lab coat stepped forward and sniffed the trash

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
.

"The rest of the organization has some of the worst, worst people in the world," the PRT director said.

"It’s possible," the woman said, "But it’s unlikely."

"Yeah," the Director replied. "You’re saying we should get rid of Bonesaw, then? They make things so bad that we don’t have a chance against the Nine."

"We should, if they are that bad."

"I’m saying we have a chance against the Nine. I am saying we should get rid of Bonesaw to focus our resources on dealing with her and the group."

"The group is worse," Miss Militia said. "She doesn’t know her power. She’s only gotten better at manipulating enemies, and that’s been a short-lived improvement. If she knew her power…"

"You’d be the worst Director of the PRT in what’d been a two-year period of constant improvement?" the woman said. She looked at me, "You’d be doing this on orders from the leader of the PRT, and you’re saying you’d be the worst Director of the PRT in what’d been a two-year period of constant improvement?"

"I’m better," I said. "My power’s improving. Maybe there is no power that’s better compared to it than mine, or maybe there isn’t one that makes for a better director. But I’m better."

The Director stood. Then stood again. "Then what?"

"I think Bonesaw’s a liability," the head of the PRT said.

"And I think that‘s okay, if there isn’t a reason to be bad," I said. I was reminded of this particular line of reasoning from the other morning when Miss Militia had said the group had been worse than the Nine. Maybe that had reminded me of it. The Director hadn’t answered my question.

"I will say our best bet at dealing with them isn’t a good one," the Director said. "The biggest danger we face is that we create too many enemies and we lose our way. It’s easy to get trapped in a position where it makes sense, but there’s a higher danger. And even if we find a way out of here, we have to do what we can to ensure we don’t end up in another situation like the Parahumans War."

"So that’s why we keep them in checkmate," Miss Militia said.

"Yes," the Director replied, though she didn’t answer me. "Well, I know people are going to be talking about your comment about Bonesaw. But I want you to know that we can’t go through this, and Bonesaw could help us here and then kill us in the future if she decided to get mad and end up creating a monster again. So the best thing we can do is keep the ones we have and focus everyone’s powers against the ones that we don’t."

"Not that I’m one to take orders!" a PRT official in the crowd said. "I’m an officer in the Protectorate."

"That’s good advice," the Director said. "The reason I asked for this meeting is because I know that Bonesaw is the number one priority."

"She’s still dangerous despite your words," a woman in the crowd commented. "I’m here because I want to help protect the people we should be protecting. I haven’t yet said which ones, exactly, but my primary concern is the people we shouldn’t."

"That’s a waste of my time," the Director said.

"It isn’t. I have other priorities for the meeting. One of the other PRT employees, I believe it’s a girl, has some evidence she’s been working for the Nine for some time. But how do we get it? What does her power do, and what does her power leave behind?"

The Director stared at her. Her expression dark, the light coming from her eyes the only thing that made it more menacing than the fact that she was walking past the Director’s people. "I have a plan, but that plan has some flaws. Bonesaw and her group could be the key to finding out what those flaws are. If our only real option at this point is to leave Bonesaw alone, and to deal with Bonesaw herself, then there’s no way for us to protect and defend ourselves if something goes wrong with Bonesaw. If

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
. It was a good thing."

"She’s been a villain," he said. "She’s had an awful thing happen to her. I’d like for her to go through what she’s had to go through."

"I don’t want anyone else to go through anything I’ve gone through," I said, "I’m just glad to see you guys are alive."

"We’ve made some pretty big ones," Alec said, his voice firm.

"We make more. We’ve made so many people's days better, I felt like I could’t tell you how much I appreciate you guys. I couldn’t bring myself to say it."

I thought of a compliment. I sighed.

"Your days are better," he said. He said something about how you deserve credit, but I wasn’t sure he’d heard that.

I smiled a little. "I could do with some of that. Thanks for that. I guess I’m happy."

He shook his head, "We’d be back in a minute. Let me get back to my dad. I’m sure he’d like to see you again, even if you won’t be a part of the Protectorate anymore."

"I’m not going to fight again," I told him, "I can’t."

"I see. But it sounds like it’s hard work."

I turned my head.

I felt a chill. It hit me. It had never felt better to be able to say that I was happy, that I felt good. I wasn’t going to argue the point. I sighed, feeling more drained and worn out than I’d felt in days, or weeks.

"So, I’m sorry," Alec said. "That was kind of stupid. Sorry for not being able to stand up for you sooner."

I turned my head to see if he’d explained why, and I saw he hadn’t. His shoulders slumped a little, and he reached in his pocket and withdrew a cell phone. He started pulling the cord, his eyes watering.

"That’s okay," I reassured him.

"I’m glad you’re okay," he said, "You’re doing really well."

I turned away, and his head was turning around as I headed for the door.

My eyes fell on him when I reached his apartment door.

"Alec?" I choked out the words.

He turned around, "Did you see me?"

"No. I took the train home, and I’m at the hotel now."

"You’ve been going out?" he asked.

"No. This place was so dark, and I didn’t wanna wake up you here alone. I thought maybe the other guys came to see you. Then I saw you standing there, you looking sad, a little worried. I figured it would be funny if you got in touch, so I sent you an email. The text was, What can I do to cheer you up?"

I was starting to feel very out of place in his bedroom, where he was sleeping. I was so new to this territory, I figured I could just look at him and ignore him, and when I got to him, he was lying on his side, and I was already looking at the phone, trying to decide what to say.

"I can’t talk," I told him.

He started to protest, but things escalated after that.

"How many phone calls have you been missing so far? A few days?"

"None at all!"

He said, as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world. As if he was talking about the best way to get in touch with his teammates.

"Why don’t you answer the phone?"

"I was going to, anyway. Don’t do anything with it until you’re ready to."

He frowned. "Okay."

"I can send you more."

"I can help you figure out what you’re doing now."

Alec paused. I could only hope he’d made up his mind before I did it.

"I’d like to talk? To vent, vent the stress, not just talk about how you’re feeling."

Alec looked up, and I saw he’d brought my mommy and daddy along. In that same moment, he let go of my mother’s hand and put his other hand

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
. The group consisted of:

1. a tall young man with a face like a walrus, black hair blowing in the wind between his glasses.

2. a young woman with short white hair and brown skin.

3. an Asian man, with dark hair and dark skin. He was tall.

4. a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman.

5. An old white guy with white skin. He was tall.



I could have picked a number of villains I could imagine, but it was hard not to notice the two young men that weren’t. I couldn’t afford to dwell. A second, three or four of the three or four people I knew wouldn’t get a word in edgewise. I was looking forward to it.

I was relieved to see a second pair of eyes, but more relieved to see that there wasn’t a single eye that I couldn’t spot. One small, bright smile crossed my face as I saw the group.

The second pair of eyes were only making their way to the man and woman. One had a pair of glasses on. He glanced around. There was a person on the other side, the only one with eyes. A woman in an office space that was the size of a basketball court.

I recognized the woman’s hands, as red as ink. The hands were thin, but she still had a sense of touch to them, and they were warm and comforting with her warm hand. Her face was too close to the group, but that would be because of the group and the small space at their service, not by my own power.

She approached one of the groups, stopping a short distance from me. She leaned forward, and I could hear the woman’s voice wavering between worry and concern. She felt safe within the circle of people.

I could picture how she moved them, with a sense of the group, from her hand on the group’s shoulder. I could see people responding. The woman pulled their hands away.

It was a relief to see that someone was on my side, to know that even with the bad guys nearby, the good guys were okay. I saw a faint flare of fear in her face.

The person came to one side and joined the group.

I could see her face, the eyes, for the first time. The dark red hair, the narrow lips, the expressionless eyes. I could only hope she didn’t see the woman beside her.





Infestation 9.8


"What do you want?"

"We’re here to make this easy."

"Oh. We’re a little short on time, but let’s do it and we’re going to make a name for ourselves somewhere along the line, if we make it this far."

"There’s a time limit," a woman in a pale orange suit said. "I just wanted to ask."

"We can go early, we can do it before the sun goes down and you realize us and everyone else are a little weaker."

I looked up from my phone. I had my mask in my hands, my costume in my bag, and one of them was already turned on its side, facing me.

"What happened?"

"If you want a chance to win something in the end… it’s important to make sure you’re playing your cards right."

I looked down at my hands.

"A little too much information for the time it takes you to read it, when you don’t want to look stupid."

I had no interest in reading. I just wanted to know the rules of this game.

I raised the phone to my ear, and a distant tone could be heard.

The only thing harder than reading that phone.



"No. I’m going. To make this easy."



"But it’s going to take time. You want to be playing your cards right and you know your team is weak, but you’re going to have to play hard until you can make a name for yourselves before you break your tie to that team… and then you’ll still get the credit for being strong enough to take a hit and survive it."

"What?" I said.

"I’ll give you that. The name tag. It’s okay. It’s a little more expensive than the phone, but it’ll save you something in the long run."

I’d expected her to offer up the name tag like that was any easier.

I was surprised at how stiff the resistance was.

"

======== SAMPLE 10 ========
. It had become their territory. When he’d finished explaining what that meant, the pair walked back. One walked into a house that was in ruins, and was found by a girl in shock, sobbing. She didn’t recognize the house it looked at.

The other pair arrived with three people.

"We need some supplies, she said.

"I can carry that," the boy said. The girl who’d said her name had to have been eighteen or so. He had a bushy beard that didn’t go with the skin that covered the upper half of his face, a thin mustache that didn’t go like the upper half, and a broad chin, shoulders and jawline that weren’t exactly sculpted as a result. "Not sure how much more I can carry."

"If you’re leaving, you’re going to be okay. We’ll bring that. Make sure it’s worth your while to bring it, that it helps you when you’re on the street looking."

"Okay," he muttered before he left.

The little girl walked over to the man.

"Why?" he asked.

"You went to the store," the girl replied.

"So the group has money. Not enough. But I think we can live," he replied.

She nodded in response to that.

"We can do this," the little girl said. She stood, and he led the group up the stairs, into the house. He had to step back to avoid the dog that was digging in the basement. She hadn’t had the benefit of the pet room at all, even though it had been furnished in what might have been her childhood home. There were two dogs, both small.

"This is okay," he said. "We’ve got food, maybe a little of clothing, and it’ll be enough. I can bring you places to stay at, if you want. Don’t even say no."

She nodded.

He was aware of the dog in the basement, but she had a different response, and he took it for her approval. To be an ally.

"I’m glad," she said. "I feel good."

"This is a good place to stay?" he said, a half-snarl of frustration etched into his voice. Even the feeling of her hand around his shoulder gave him a cold feeling. He knew he’d gotten her to give him a hand with this.

The man didn’t reply directly. They walked down the stairs, and he stopped short at the end. The dog had moved to the bottom floor, and the man was going for the man’s apartment, and was now carrying the contents.

"I’m going with the second choice," he said, giving her the wrong directions. The second choice implied a second way. With the two dogs and the contents, they were left with the choice of taking the stairs first or heading upstairs.

He’d taken his daughter’s route. He’d been in this to escape his past, to avoid the girl who’d cut ties between him and his father by threatening to call the police if he didn’t go upstairs. He’d wanted to escape his past, now.

Her hand was cold, but she didn’t stop going down the stairs. She had made her mind up.

They arrived at a door, and she climbed up, the door leading down the long set of stairs leading up to the second floor. She found the bedroom. He’d left it to be damaged. Even the wallpaper was peeling from the cracks.

"You didn’t tell me what you wanted," she said.

The man shrugged.

It wasn’t worth it, she knew. The woman was mad enough. The man was angry enough. And worse, that anger was now directed at her that it was bordering on paranoia.

"How’d you know?"

The woman answered, a little too easily.

"A boy," the girl said, a little off guard.

"Yeah?" The man asked.

"Where are my clothes, where are my shoes, where am I supposed to sit?"

"You’re old enough for me to assume you’re going to lie on the mattress," the girl said. "And don’t sit down."

"So’ come inside. It’ll be easier."

She walked into the bedroom and opened the closet door. He’d left the closet door too wide to open. She closed every door.

It was

======== SAMPLE 11 ========
. It seemed, given its location, that it was in the center of the facility, with no way to leave.

I was being irrational, but I couldn’t bring myself to be irrational enough to suggest there was some other reason why they decided to have no exits or only one that led out of doors.

"It’s in the basement," I said.

"You’re right. This is in the main hallway."

The stairs leading up to the main floor. I pointed, and they did.

I found the door. There wasn’t much room. It was dark, but I saw a pile of papers and other things on the floor at a low level.



She appeared a half-dozen or so feet ahead of me, and there was only enough room to step on and on several things at once. She stopped a foot, and the paper caught the surface of the ground in her hand, making it slide down.

I saw the paper, took hold of it with both hands, and she pulled herself away, leaving it lying at the base of one of the doors.

"I saw it," I told her.

"Did you?"

"I did. It was on a board that was scattered around the room. It was stuck there for hours, the only thing I could think to find it with my power. They had to have figured it out on their own."

"They did. You think."

"They did. The board itself seems to be pretty sturdy, though."

"They did?"

"Yeah. I’m pretty sure."

We exchanged glances. I shook my head. I couldn’t think of any reason why people would leave so much paper where they had been. A piece of paper marked ‘dead man’ and a photograph of the man.

I saw the paper again.

"They thought we could make something out of this," I said. "We could use the papers to make something out of this. Something to remember him and the lives he might have touched. We found this."

"He was supposed to be our best option," her mother answered me.

I didn’t get the gist of it.

"He’s… he’s not their best option. Not as much as what they’re doing here, not even. So they made the decisions, here. They couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes as far as the guy going missing. They wouldn’t have enough money, they couldn’t afford to be reckless, or they would've had no choice but to keep us on the team and keep us from getting this far until it was too late to salvage what we were looking for."

"I could understand that from you, but I don’t feel you’re being supportive."

I shook my head. "I get it. I understand you’re struggling. It’s the worst idea of all, that they had to take you, take this place. But I’m telling you that we can do better than this. We have every reason to be upset about it. Some of us are just fighting this battle, fighting it by making mistakes, but we can make the best mistakes. We don’t have enough resources to make one, we don’t have the numbers or resources to be able to make a third. We can go for the three, we can take the fourth, then we can do it again and the third time we make it. That’s the same thing, it’s that simple."

"You’ve got your team. You’re better than this."

"I’m going to take that as a strong sign. I’m not sure we’re worth taking, because as much as I want this to work, I want to keep you safe."

"And if those are the rules we follow?"

I shook my head again, making me think of Lung, and decided to move on to the next question.



Interlude 19


She turned to me, looked down at the black handbag that had been lying on the black of the passenger’s seat.

"This is a special gift from me, because you’re getting something special. This isn’t going to be everything that’s been given to you since you graduated high school, like it’s the only special treat. It’s going to be something you won’t soon forget.

She picked out the color scheme of the bag, the bag would hold what a teacher would wear, and she set up a set of pens and a notebook with a blank cover for herself

======== SAMPLE 12 ========
. If the enemy forces didn’t turn out to be enough to stop Scion, I could have asked for help.

"You still on the board?"

The man who I’d used my power on. "It’s… there. I’m here to help if we need it."

I didn’t know where he was, but Tattletale pointed the way. As she’d done on so many occasions since she’d arrived, she stopped at the side of our field of battle. She held an umbrella, and her body language was a little calmer than I’d expected.

"I still like you, I still think you’re one of my best. If I wanted to talk to someone, I could ask," she said, looking down at the umbrella, "But if you ask me, I’m not going to turn you down. If anything, I’m going to get the hell out of this house before things get ugly, before you come after me or my family."

I closed my eyes.

A hand touched my shoulder. I turned my head to see the man holding it, smiling, and then nodded.

"Hey." He turned to the woman. She was older, at least ten. "Hey, kiddo, I got you."

"Hi."



Tattletale had her arms folded and was now staring down at one of my new recruits, looking down at me.

The boy. My heart fluttered, but I could only hope that it wouldn’t cause trouble.

"You coming?" The boy said. He looked me over, and his mother raised herself to a standing position so she could hug her son tightly.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing?"

"I’m good," I told him. My tone of voice wasn’t gentle anymore. "You do what you’re supposed to. If you want to stay in this world with the girls, you want to stay in here with me, we were having a good run. I got you a nice place to stay and a dog… if that’s the best you’ll get."

"That’s bullshit," he said. "You’re a liar. There’s no such thing as a nice place to stay with a dog."

"I’m not saying it’s a sweet place to stay," I told him, again.

"Don’t believe you," he growled. Then he turned to his mother to give her a hug.

So many lies, I felt like I ought to break them all.

"I said it was a good run. Well, it was. I got you a nice place to stay, but all the best moments were the lows. The lows and highs, the highs and lows, we had fun, with the girls… I can’t put my finger on them because I don’t know what’s going through your head, but they were the lows and the highs. But it’s better to stay in one place with you guys than anywhere else."

Tattletale shook her head.

"You’re telling the truth," he said. "You don’t need to stay with any of us. They’re fine with you staying here, if you don’t mind dogs and cats. That’s it, that’s my apology for lying to you. Just be careful, and don’t say anything or do anything that’s going to mess up our plans or our relationship with you."

I shook my head in mute agreement. That girl… well, I don’t know how I feel about that girl, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe her.

"I’m going to save the best for last, so you know what to do."



Interlude 13a


I had the impression that this was a place where I could stay for as long as I wanted. That wasn’t my usual stance. Being on the streets, in a world where nothing was really stable, where people were dying, all while I tried to make sense of some of what was happening with every step I took.

But there wasn’t anything stable or predictable to move against, really.

I used my power, to look for the nearest person. A dog. But there was no real person to look for.

I could have stopped, stopped to ask for help, found the person I needed, found a way to get there. But I was too busy, for one thing,

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
. We can only hope these guys can take a little while."

"Yeah," Rachel said.

"What did you get back, exactly? Can you give me a break down of the numbers?"

"No," Imp said.

"Okay. How much damage?"

"The city was mostly built out, the streets not even covered. Buildings, roads, levees, sewer and storm drains."

"Yeah," Imp said. She rubbed her eyes.

"So those guys are doing pretty well. You heard?"

"Yes."

"I get that, but are there a ton of injured? If there are, how many are there right now and not as bad? Your estimation, do you think we’ll see ten thousand or more people, I dunno, a week from now?"

Rachel shook her head.

"Right. So if the numbers aren’t the most important thing in the world, then I’m not sure what is."

"You are a liar."

"If I was lying, it’s all you. You’ were always pushing me to try harder and make me work harder than they are."

"I know," Imp said.

"But you’ve gotten this far because you’ve gone around the numbers. So you get distracted, you’m on autopilot, and you think the worst thing to say would be right. So you think I’m going to tell you that some of those guys are bad and that we can’ve made amends and we’re going to get through this a little faster than we might otherwise. That I don’t know. I don’t like every little part of my plan, but we got here, we’re doing this together. And we hope we can figure stuff out. Or I have to figure stuff out. And I have to be here to save my fucking ass when some bad guy breaks into the city and kills half the people I brought in."

"Your mouth isn’t the best at telling the truth," Imp commented.

"I’m not lying," Rachel answered. "But you’re being far too trusting, and it’s not me I’m lying about, it’s you."

"Oh, you said it. I’m telling you I’m not a liar."

"Of course you’re a liar."

"My dad and I used to be close, when he was living in a shelter where the other boys were. It was like a family, but it was a big family. He taught me how to fight, how to do what he needed to when the capes and criminals came. He’s been my best and most reliable friend as a whole, but his powers and his memory loss made me a bad man, an asshole. He told me a lot of stuff I probably won’t ever understand, so I can never get an answer out of him on anything. He’s stuck with me on this, and you don’t ever get that, or if you, like me, you get one. I’m going to tell you I’m sorry for that. So I think it’s time to say goodbye, to go back."

"I’ll do that too," Miss Militia said.

Rachel sat up and pulled off her sunglasses, then took a long gulp of water to brush her nose with her thumb. Her eyes roved over my equipment.

"So you’ve been here a while. How do you do?"

"Hard to talk without sounding creepy," Rachel replied. "But I’m glad I’m here."

"I get it, and if I see you out, I’m only going to say thank you and leave. I can’t do much without taking away your trust, so be careful. Anyways, so you’ve been around and you’re okay with this? The city’s getting rebuilt, you’re starting to get a voice, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m giving it to you. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to fuck with your head, or I can’t help. So don’t push me, don’t push my decisions, and don’t take it to heart, because I’ll push back and I’ll get my ass kicked."

Rachel didn’t respond.

It was hard to believe they’d gotten back together in one piece. There were scars on the left side, and each of the bruises had

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
. The thing that kept it from being more like a bullet or laser was the fact that it had been designed to penetrate and kill just about anything in it, with or without an explosive charge in its way.

As she approached the crowd, I could see everyone was taking their turns moving towards the center.

She made her way into the middle of them, and a handful started to chant for her, imploring her aid.

I could feel the ground shake, could smell the smoke, the blood and the smoke and all the other things that birthed into being as I made my way to her at the end of it all.

"Shh." Just to be on the safe side, I managed to find my voice. "Shh."

I didn’t have much to say – the swarm had already picked up on me, and I was so far into the crowd that most wouldn’t even be listening anymore in the coming moments. But this was how it started.

All together, the swarm was taking one by one to each of the bodies to remove the corpses. The crowd of the crowd started running towards me, and I had my bugs carry me.

I heard screaming, saw the swarm taking out, and saw the corpses of others moving just in front of me, with their throats and eyes cut.

A few people were still moving, still trying to get away. Others were standing, hands raised in the same manner I had heard myself yelling.

She stopped, and I could see the swarm turning, a white blur of movement from one section of structure to the next. I felt the movement of the structure, of everything within the area.

"Help me," I said, my voice weak with the coughing and wheezing, "Help me to breathe."

It took just a few seconds before I felt someone move out of her way. She gave me that look of warning without her voice.

I couldn’t breathe, my consciousness sobered.

The thing about having a bad head on one’s shoulders…

"Help," I said, with my voice low enough that the bugs could get a foothold on the point I’d pointed with, "Help."

My heart pounding, my throat hurting with it.

The people in the midst of the others, people who couldn’t see, people who couldn’t breathe, who had their hands over their heads in pain or agony.

I could see, but I couldn’t breathe.

More people in the midst of the bodies at the edge, the people she’d spared.

If she wasn’t a real ghost, if the thing she’d done was real.

I could hear them, through the bugs. People crying, screaming, pleading.

In the midst of it all, I could feel the whole world fall apart around me.

But I couldn’t move, couldn’t bring it all together, couldn’t hold that realization in my mind. I couldn’t.

I could hear, but not enough to give me any insight. I wasn’t sure what happened next, but I felt something shift in my mind’s eye.

Something in the distance. Maybe it was like the light in the room was dimming and the sound increasing in volume, making it harder to make out things.

A sound too violent, making everything in the world seem to shake. It wasn’t a scream.

The sound stopped abruptly. There was a flash, and the room dissolved into a ragged black mess of shattered glass and ruined metal.

Then the light returned, a bright white against a black background, shining through a crack in the wall that was already fading a bit.

I collapsed onto the ground. I felt warmth on my face, my throat throbbing. Every fiber of my body ached from the impact, and every other thing that had been torn, mangled, pulverized and mangled in the last days made me go limp.

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. That was how she did it. She tore people apart.

The room was quiet for a long while, then the air seemed to quieten as I made my way to the edge. I could hear the shouts, the cries. The screams echoed back to me, echoed to me through my swarm.

"She’s gone!" someone from the crowd said. They were chanting. "She’s gone!"

I looked at the bodies that were still advancing on me.

"There!" someone yelled, again.

If I’d been able to use my power to detect the presence of her, I didn’t have the ability to. I couldn

======== SAMPLE 15 ========
.

The man was tall like the woman’s chest, his chestnut hair blowing in waves where the curls parted at his lower ribs. His skin was tan and oily, a deep tan that contrasted nicely with the black steel boots he had on.

"You going to give us this in exchange?" the man asked. "Cocky."

"No. That’s a terrible idea," Lisa growled.

"No, but don’t tell me it’s going to be nothing. Not even a compliment."

"Cocky. That’s a compliment." He was being a little harsh. It was almost as if I could see how he could be irritated, and somehow it somehow eluded me. "It’s a compliment if we can work together. This guy is just a complete jerk."

"You won’t. Do me a favor," Lisa told him.

The man was talking about Taylor. He didn’t even need to think about it. He would understand Taylor and everything she’d gone through. He’d been through something similar.

He turned to me, "Taylor. You were right. That’s a shitty idea. I couldn’t imagine what you might be going through right this moment. And I kind of have to imagine the same thing."

I could relate to that, I thought.

Trying to see it through his eyes, he said, "So you’re not going to do anything, because I told you to? What the hell? I’m going to fuck with you if you do a lot of damage to me so I can get my way. And I’m not going to give any shit if you give me an earpiece."

He was trying to see it through my eyes.

And I knew that wasn’t what was happening. It wasn’t what was being said. It was as though he was trying to see it through me’s eyes, and seeing that, he was still seeing it through mine, through the eyes of every other person on earth.

He asked, "How bad? And how much damage do you think I could do to you?"

"You say the first thing that comes to mind? That you probably don’t deserve to live?"

"You’re really saying that," Lisa said.

There was a long pause that almost felt like an eternity.

"…That I’m only a bad and selfish person and you’re only a bad and selfish man."

"Taylor, I never liked anyone. I wanted to please them. I’ve always wanted to please you."

His words cut through everything.

I could see it in his body language. It was almost like the same effect from a film with identical action scenes. The intensity, the intensity of it every time.

The man had every sense of restraint I could hope for. It was almost as though he was looking, even as he said things about Taylor that sounded almost accusatory and threatening.

Why couldn’t I just put it out of my mind? It seemed that way, more than anything. It was worse than I was making it sound. I could see him trying everything I knew about how to get out of trouble. I could see his body language, his expression as he looked for the means to get out of this situation. I could see him trying things that I couldn’t even guess at.

I could see the pain on his face that wasn’t in some kind of a smile. The ache in his arm and shoulder as he had to relearn how to move them.

I saw his body language too. His posture. He was looking back at me with eyes that were almost as red as the burn.

"I don’t understand you," he said, looking me up and down.

"Not like you, Taylor. I don’t even want to think about the way I came up with the idea and the ways in which I fell short of the mark. The way I fucked everything up. The way you got hurt. But it’s how it will happen to me too, at some point."

"The things you’re doing with those eyes. You’re doing something to Taylor that I do not trust you."

"I’m sorry," he said, he wasn’t looking at me.

"It’s fine."

Lisa sat down opposite me, then leaned against the wall of the van, her arm resting against my chest.

I felt a brief surge of hope.

"It means a lot," she told him. She turned her head and

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

We’d tried to get on the same page with our attacks on them. There were some things we could do. Make a difference. I couldn’t do it alone, with Coil’s help.

Our target was a group of a dozen people, each of which held a different power. They weren’t all using it the exact same way, but there was a strong overlap in the powers they were doing and what they were doing. Power armor and telekinesis, telekinesis using the brain as a shield, telekinesis going after muscle. There were no real powers we could really compare against, as far as I could tell, but there was a lot of broad spectrum powers, and then there was just power armor.

Which made us feel less like capes in general. What were the powers?

This wasn’t just a one-shot deal. Not like Scion. This was a whole-fuck-ton deal where Coil was playing the long game, and even though we weren’t fighting him, or that fight, we were playing into the hands he’s got. This was his game. He was trying to get a leg up on us, and we were starting to think it wasn’t working.

I saw the others reacting. My bugs, I thought.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. We were close to the capes they’d been holding captive. Not so different, but there were only certain powers, certain groups. And I wasn’t sure they’d even be close to being at full strength anymore.

Coil wasn’t about to lose ground on us without any counterattack.

I could barely see in that haze. I took in through the bugs, and found myself in what I’d come to associate with Coil. A crowd. Two or three people with some dark circles under their eyes and eyes like cinders. Eyes like stones, even.

I could have joined them, I could have fought with their help, but I’d have my limits. I could only be a hundred percent sure I could win a fight with only the powers I was giving me, with my bugs and my teammates.

And I knew that if I wasn’t, I’d get in his way.

I wouldn’t last long. I didn’t know all of what he needed to do. How to defeat them with my power alone, without them playing any big-ass role.

But I knew that if I were to do this, if I came to this, I would have a plan. I had a plan of action that would give me an edge on those around me, give me the tools that would give me that edge in the final showdown with Scion.

I held on.

But I couldn’t stop there. And I doubted I’d be able to stop there if I was just sitting back and letting this shit take place.

I couldn’t rest on my laurels. I needed to keep the fight alive, to keep these capes going, or they were going to lose their last shreds of life and they wouldn’t be able to come back from it any time soon. I needed the fight to go on, even if it means I’d lose everyone else.

It was a bit of a choice between my own survival as a person and the fight going on. If I let you guys take down this mess, I don’t think I’ll get a chance at surviving if I’m dead at the end of it.

I reached out to my swarm, and for a split second, my eyes didn’t fix on Coil and the situation. My thoughts were clouded with all the possibilities.

My eyes fell on the group in costume. A group of people.

If all the capes in Brockton Bay and the Protectorate were these guys…

And…

I opened fire. I could sense them. And how. My bugs detected the crowd. The people with powers.

One person in the crowd was holding off, the shield that the mask hid. Another was using her powers to shield people farther away.

A shield, blocking everything with enough air flow? It didn’t make sense any more.

The cape held back.

It would be one of the big capes from the PRT if they were holding off.

But maybe it wasn’t a shield. Maybe it was a shield, a curtain.

There were no people behind the curtain, not even a moment’s silence. I saw the scene unfold, the villains taking control with their eyes on the people, the heroes taking control with

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

There were six-ish people in the room. Not counting the woman, the girl in the tank top, who we weren’t saying anything to, there was a boy. Two grown men, with hands that weren’t the size of tennis balls. And a girl, with short curly blond hair, with glasses. She must have looked like an eight year old boy. She looked older.

This was a way off the mark, I thought, but I would assume I couldn’t have looked six or so while lying on the bed, without it being a big surprise.

I opened my eyes, and I saw that I was looking at a face.

I blinked.

Another blink.

My senses returned to me. I saw two of the figures in the room, not far from me. They were taller than the woman in the tank top. They wore suits that made your brain wonder why. They’d all had makeup applied.

I found the camera in my hands. I set it down like that, and then handed it to the woman.

"Do you have a signal?" she asked.

"Yes…" he replied.

She’d stopped looking.

"We’re not going to be a problem. You know all of our secrets. Our methods. For the time being, if-"





"For the time being, my child and my children are safe here as it is."

"What are-"

The girl put one arm around his shoulders. "Thank you."

"We’re not done here. The people that are coming after you, you have three options. You could make them bleed or make them fight, kill you."

"I don’t have a choice."

"There isn’t a right way or a wrong way. A person can’t be bad or evil and still be an individual. You’re a part of this team, but you’re a part of this group."

"All together, we’re not enough. We’ll just need to be strong."

"And you’re not. You’re a coward because you’re a coward. You’re scared, you’re angry. You’re just a child, and you’re so used to being a child now…"

"I am scared."

There were nods here and there here and there. Everyone gave each other nods.

"What are your options?"

"A person who’s good, a person who’s bad, and a person who’s not good or bad, you can just tell me which. We’ll take the good ones, keep the monsters to ourselves. I can let you keep monsters to yourself…" The girl said.

"Okay," he said.

"You can let me tell you which ones."

"Okay. I’m… okay… but my body would be really uncomfortable if it was like this."

"We can take some of your things," she said. "But you have to follow our rules. You have to do chores, or be in control of the situation. That’s going to be a lot harder if you don’t have other powers, if you’re not so good."

"I can handle those."

"I can handle that, too. I’ll let you decide."

He sat down next to her on the bed.

I could taste my body relax. I felt things stirring. The tension at the edges of my body, from where I’d been holding my breath.

With a little help, I opened my eyes, and my focus was on how my brain was acting with my body as the distraction.

"What are you doing? What are you looking at? We don’t need your powers, not here, so let’s just go with this way, this direction that’s the easiest so it doesn’t give us our weaknesses."

"Okay… but I’m not…"

"Look at the ceiling. Look up. I don’t have a choice."

"We’re coming after you?" she asked. "We’re going to hurt you."

"We won’t."

"Let’s keep it short. You’re safe here. Your child is safe here."

She shook her head.

The girl gave him a sympathetic look with only her eyes for eyes. "We’re going to kill you, and the way you die will feel a lot worse than what you really experienced."



======== SAMPLE 18 ========
.

But this was different. Something about the man’s attitude that made me a bit hesitant, at first… a bit of a cold hand in my face. But he’d been kind of cool towards me, had allowed me to move my mouth on occasion, and had just casually handed me one of his phones.

"You have my phone, right?"

I did.

"You don’t hold my phone. We're not doing anything."

As if to add insult to injury, I felt the man grab my arms and pull them back.

I turned my attention to the man, "This is ridiculous. We’re working for criminals and we’re in jail, and you’re going to take my phone and just take it because you’re stupid."

His smug smirk only made me more angrier.

"I’m just saying, you’re not cool with me, you think it’s weird that you’re going to take my phone, but you’ve seen my phone, so it’s kind of a thing."

I frowned, realizing he wasn’t making any sense there. It was something I had noticed with the others – he was only good at talking about things he heard, with stuff he liked.

"I’m going to go now. If you’re not done now, I’ll find something else to talk to you about."

He turned and left.

I took to my feet, and I started to head out the door. I looked at my phone.

Was I texting him?

I shook my head.

"Why?" I was thinking.

"Maybe it’s because you’re one of the people I can trust for security, when you were a criminal. Because you’ve done something that’s been going through my head lately, and I can’t put any of it into words without it going to my head? Or something else?"

I shrugged.

"Can you talk, please?" Tasha asked. "Why?"

"I can’t."

"Okay. So… I’m having trouble with something. My phone’s all worked out, but I don’t have it set up like a normal phone, and there’s this voice-activated thing, and I can’t hear any of it. Can you turn off it?"

"I’m not sure," I finally managed to say. I didn’t want to be late for my shift, so I was willing to wait.

"Maybe you don’t have the cash. Maybe you don’t like the price tag. You could turn that off yourself."

"That sounds kind of bad."

"Maybe. I know it could be easier, since you don’t have to deal with me. Maybe I could get you a phone. But it’ll end up costing me a lot of money," I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut. "Like taking my car, when I only have $10 in the car and the rental company has a $5,000-something car loan. I’m worried-"

"I’m okay with it, that’s fine. What do you need?"

"My computer."

"Alright… How do you get it? It’s a little bigger than my old computer… but the whole point of taking my laptop was to get it. I’m pretty new. Is it okay if I take it with me?"

I nodded.

"Thanks," I said, grabbing my jacket. Getting back up on the ground to head to the door, I paused to wipe out another of my tears. "Can I call you?"

"No? Then I’ll probably be late, and you’ll have to wait."

I glanced at the phone. It was still set to vibrate, mute that part that wasn’t me. "That’s fine."

"You’re a good man," Tasha said. She pulled up the volume a notch, "You’re taking my computer with me. No?"

I gave her a reassuring smile and then dialed a number. If I’d never had the idea of that, what would I be using as an excuse? "My car. I have this money in it. Can you come in?"

"Can I come in?"

"You have it."

As an afterthought, I left an extra minute’s phone call. If she wasn’t ready to walk me to

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
. The girl in gray, her hair tied back into a ponytail, and the other guy in a lab coat and tie-dyed. Neither of them was very attractive or imposing. The guy with the tie and the boy in blue sat next to her, making conversation. It didn’t matter. She was there to get paid, it wouldn’t even matter if they started talking. They’d be just like any other company – employees, but not members. It was all about the money and the status.

He didn’t say anything, but the tone of his voice, the way he was saying it, made it seem like he was in control of the situation.

"Who are you?" the girl in yellow asked. "You look like you’re from the city. Did you spend a year growing up in a warehouse with my mother?"

"So’," he said.

The girl in yellow didn’t look up from what he was saying. "Oh. I see. You’re from out of town. I had heard it was a place with good jobs."

"Hey. Sorry, sorry."

The girl with the yellow mask didn’t reply, looking away. "How did you get here?"

"By plane. I have a girlfriend, so it’s inconvenient when we commute from town to here, so…" he paused, and the tone of his voice changed. "I guess we make it a priority to get you here. What school do you choose?"

There was the faintest hesitation before the mask nodded.

"What grade are you in?"

"Sophie’s."

"And what city are you from?"

"Boston."

"Who are you?"

"My dad’s company."

"Who are you?"

"Logan’s family, the same family that runs the place they were from."

"A place that’s close to home? So maybe it’s a part of your identity, what the fuck?"

"No," he said. He paused, then spoke with a touch of sarcasm: "We’re not talking about it. I have a lot of questions, and some of those questions are going to be about you. I’m going to be the person with them."

"I have these questions, as well. Questions about your father, about your girlfriend, about your… family."

"Fuck you."

"The city I’m from is a hell of a lot nicer than your dad’s. The way I like to say it, Boston is nicer because of the way I grew up."

"You’ve got friends?"

"I’ve got friends."

"Why are you dressed like that? Don’t tell me you’ve had your face painted?"

"I’ve had my face painted because I want to look different. To be different."

"And so do everyone who goes to work for you."

"I’ve only been back for three weeks, and I have to wear the same fucking mask over it. No matter what. I know I'm a lot better looking than I am."

The boy in blue stood, looking a little stunned. He couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do, what next steps. Either he’d be like his dad, and he’d just stop wearing the mask, or he’d have to take it off completely.

"You’ve been going out, drinking," the girl in yellow said.

"It’s not that bad. And I’ve had enough of this shit over the past few months that I can’t wait any longer before I go to my mom’s and get some shit done. Or I get fucked over, and then I have to take it off."

"I know you’ve had it tougher than them. Don’t pretend you’re enjoying it."

"I do enjoy it."

"Can I ask, are you going over there right now?"

The boy in blue didn’t move. He didn’t even glance at the girls in yellow and orange.

"I’m going to get there in half an hour."

"It’s been four days, you don’t look better than you ever have. Don’t pretend you’re enjoying being left like this while your mom’s here, or you’ll be disappointed at the last time we go there."

"But I don’t feel any better. I feel

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

The world that he saw seemed to shift as he approached, with things being as they were in relation to the camera, not in relation to what he was looking at and what was unfolding around him.

"Good, good. Let’s run," he said. "She’s a good girl. She saved some guys. Can I see her? You know where your gun is right? It was just where I left it."

"What?" the girl with the dog asked.

"I can see it. It’s right next to where you left it. You had the gun, right? There’s a piece of cardboard on the floor. Use your hands. I didn’t bring it, but I put it outside. You guys are so stupid. They’re scared we’d take their guns but leave them. It’s crazy."

"She’d be scared too," the girl with the dog said.

"That’s fine. I’ll let you know if I find any trouble."

The girl with the dog turned and left.

"Hey," the boy with the scarf said. "I heard you had a gun."

"I did. Not one that matches up to yours. They’re so easy to fake."

"You’re lying, Taylor. I’m not the kind of person who goes there."

"Then what would you want?"

"The gun? That would be fucking sick, but I’m sure it’s only a temporary fix."

"There’s a chance you’d get a permanent one. You could always get one of those guns we use for emergency-cuffs. You can’t replace a broken leg, after all."

"I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m not that kind of person."

He paused, staring at her. "I’m sorry."

She didn’t protest the words or look away.

"Hey. Let’s go," he told the boy. He handed the boy an armful of candy. It was a pretty red and black, almost psychedelic looking candy bar. "What’s going on?"

"They want us to leave," the boy said. "I’d rather you stay. You’re safe, and we’ll be together when you can’t."

The girl with the dog stopped by. She looked up at him. "What the fuck? Why are they going to let me go?"

"Well," he said, "If it comes down to it. They wouldn’t let me if they knew, not that it’d really matter. But some of us aren’t happy here."

The girl with the dog glared back at him.

"You’re not happy because of anything, Taylor. There’s no pain, no joy there."

He was right.

"Then why’re they giving you this?" the girl with the dog asked.

He shook his head. "You’re asking the wrong question. They’re giving you a candy bar."

"Can I take a candy bar?" the boy asked.

"Yes you can. But the taste’s so bad I want to go back to the store and order another."

"Then what’s wrong, Taylor?"

"My dad and I. We can talk about it, but you know all they really want is that you stay, so they’re able to take care of you."

"I know."

She looked away.

"So if I tell them you’re staying, they’re going to want you gone before you get back."

"I know," she said. "I know it’s not a plan, but I’m doing things this way to try to make it as painless as possible. I’m not being selfish. I understand that it’s not your choice to leave with me or to go."

The boy chuckled.

"What do you expect? I’m not going anywhere without you."

"No way. I know you’re upset, and you’re not sure where to go, but I’m just going to tell them I’ve got a girlfriend, or I’ve got the girl over from my territory who’ll get you home in fifteen minutes."

"And then you’re leaving me for dead. You’re going to be a burden?"

"I’ll

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
. She was the most important person. She was the one that was watching to make sure everything came in order. The people that were in fear over their power? They’d see it and call her out on it.

And she’d deal, just by reminding them that I wasn’t always this calm.

I looked at the ceiling, my eyes closing. The door didn’t open. I could hear the crackle of light as a new occupant opened the door. A woman. A nurse. She had a handbag and an armchair. There was nothing on the floor.

No. The woman who’d taken care of me wasn’t this compassionate.

The girl had a pair of gloves as well, as if she was putting herself in the way, but her expression was somber. She was looking at me like I was a murderer, like I had all of the answers before I made the world burn around me.

The woman in the armchair was staring at me, eyes hard, the words I couldn’t make out in her quiet voice, no doubt with the words too strained.

I closed my eyes.

As I closed my eyes, I opened them.

The lights went out.

Lights that still were.

I opened my eyes, just to gaze at how the lights had gone out, the windows of the room gone, the floor empty as though nothing else had happened. The woman’s armchair.

My head slammed into the floor. I had three of them. Two from the windows and two from the hallway.

I staggered, then collapsed, on top of one of the three.

She’s gone, I thought, as she emerged from the hallway, with the woman in the armchair, a woman, and a man standing over me.

The man was the girl’s father, and I’d almost thought it was the woman’s mother.

The father smiled, which wasn’t exactly my mother’s smile. It was a more casual smile than a genuine grin. He turned his head his way, and I saw him holding the woman’s hand.

He was the one who’d taken care of me. He was the hero in this, and I owed him.

She was gone, but maybe he remained.

He was the hero, and I owed him.

I took a few deep breaths, letting myself relax. Rest and relaxation had been my only hope, my only path, but we couldn’t say with certainty that things would go back to the way they were.

But it was something. Rest was a possibility. I held onto that hope, just in case, even as I felt a kind of frustration at myself for not being stronger than I had been, for not having that strength.

The man spoke, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. His words were too blurred by the fog of the smoke and dust flying around him, like a flood of memories that seemed to flow from him.

I wasn’t stronger. I hadn’t given chase.

I was still more of a coward, now. I wasn’t even willing to give him my best shot.

I saw a man in the armchairs, in the shower, and a woman sleeping.

I was paralyzed.

I felt a pang of despair, of the feeling that I needed to see, touch, touch, touch. That I desperately needed to save, to stop what I was doing for others.

I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I could barely move. It made me think about how I wasn’t sure if I could save myself. Maybe, just maybe, I was a patsy, an appendage I didn’t get.

She was gone.

She would be here again in a minute. I couldn’t even imagine what they might have done with her, if they’d let her come back to look after myself. She was a valuable person and I needed to use her for a survival tool. If I tried to save myself, I risked what I’d done as being the cause of all that bad stuff, of all the misery.

I could only hope that everything worked out. That she’d find them again, that he’d turn himself in and they’d handle it.

But I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t find peace, in a way. And that was in a lot of part because I didn’t know what to call myself.

I was too dumb to recognize the boundaries. It was like being a child—all the

======== SAMPLE 22 ========
. I told her to tell the group who was in the room and to leave the man standing. She went along with that idea, while I stayed to make sure Tattletale didn’t blow something as big and important as the room, and then told Coil to go fuck himself with the thing he was currently carrying. We went to the door that led into the stairwell, and headed down.

I found my bugs as I reached the door. I had a few things in mind, even if it was a quick Google search to remind me of what the swarm-spit had done to my swarm:

A swarm-projector that was like a power glove with my power

A swarm-mask that covered my eyes, ears, nose, jaw, forehead, chin and neck, giving me less breathing room. The mask is more for covering my face rather than to cover my eyes.

In a bottle I was pretty sure was a bottle of white. Was it water?

The swarm-projector, the mask and bottle were some sort of teleporter.

I was pretty certain I didn’t have a chance on a two-on-two fight. There was no way he would have the range needed to hit me. But that wasn’t the only threat he had. The thing that was keeping me busy with my bugs was the fact that I wasn’t even sure what this thing was.

I stopped my swarm-projector and checked the glass for air pressure. It wasn’t there. He was a lot less efficient with his powers than I was. I couldn’t assume he’d have enough power to put all his bugs on the glass in time, so I had limited my swarm-projector’s range with my powers.

I had to take action. I had to find some way in, some way out. What the hell was Skitter doing?

The bugs moved in for the nearest power source. They made notes and told Skitter the name of the thing. If it wasn’t a teleporter, it was a bomb. I wouldn’t be able to use my power to stop it if I did. In case a teleporter was a real bomb, I was going to have to figure something like a bomb, or use some sort of explosive with enough force to blow Skitter down instead.

I couldn’t be bothered. The bugs I’d left behind were being used to locate ways out of the room, in cases where more bugs wouldn’t do any good. They were being kept in a room with air pressure but no air.

I kept my eyes on Coil.

"We don’t have a choice."

Coil gave me a weird look, his hands pressed to his mouth. He was talking in a low, low voice. There was no doubt in my mind he’d given me that order because he knew I was there. My own power told me it was wrong. I was a traitor.

"We’ll come and fight you," I said, without turning back to Coil. I was a traitor, sure. I’d taken up the same fate he’d, with the same consequences I’d just experienced.

"If it’s going to stop you, then I would advise against it."

"What?"

"There’s no guarantee," I said. "The door’s big enough to have you guys running around looking over his shoulders."

"I know," he said.

"The others are here, right? I can think of three ways they could make this attack more effective, and they would have to be very careful. With the fact that their power doesn’t affect me, it’s not that hard to imagine them moving into the room in case we come out. With the three ways I’d predicted, they could get their hands on me, either before we show up or as we arrived at the door."

"It would still be bad."

"They’d do it anyways," I said. "I’m already seeing where this is heading."

"If I were to say this is bad," Coil said, "But I’m not sure we have any better option than using my power."

"That’s… not good," Tattletale shrugged.

"You need to have your guard up. If you’re not prepared, this could be a bad option."

"If I was to say this is bad, but I didn’t say it was. I’m sure it’d still be a bad option, just with a few less drawbacks."

"I’ll agree, but it would

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
.’d asked.

She’d been surprised.

"I’m very grateful. For what?"

"It’s a privilege, a privilege for an assassin, if the girl that takes them falls, that was all we had, and we’ve brought it all together. You’ve allowed me to ask you to give me a choice."

The answer was… surprising.

I wanted to say no. Why? But that would take time.

Then she was speaking again. Her voice, her voice a croak she didn’t bother to make.

"So you’re not going to let her die?"

She smiled.

"I know."

"Your choice," she told me. "What are you going to do? You need to save her. You couldn’t afford to let her die. Not yet, but there’s a chance they’ve been killed or maimed. She’s a valuable resource. A threat, a danger, with us losing our last advantage of the game."



The boy was on his back. Her body and hands were tied to his body. She could feel his heartbeat, hearing his heartbeat as he fought his way free.

"I’m afraid I don’t have a choice. I couldn’t find any suitable candidates, because her parents don’t approve of the method or the methods."

The grime was still visible beneath the layers of paint.

"I want to save that girl. I need to. But I can’d sacrifice her health, her strength, that’s all. I’ve dealt with that. I can deal with saving her for a more appropriate time, more appropriate circumstances."

I could only stare.

I felt a pang of sympathy. I looked at the boy. He didn’t deserve that. He hadn’t shown anything but kindness, and that had hurt her. She’d had a choice to make, but she had instead chosen to save people, even her own.

The pain was so palpable she was sure I should have been afraid that I would have to cut his throat, make his eyes bleed, but she was sure of it.

No choice, no mercy. No mercy but for me. All the anger, the grief and the loss, all the anger and the loss, all the hatred and the rage. No mercy.

"Do tell me your name. Any names she’s given you."

"I’ve never asked, because you won’t understand. You won’t be able to handle that. And you won’t listen."

"The girl, her mother, my father, your relatives, your friends… and you?"

"No. Never my name. I don’t know anything about her. You don’t know what you’re watching for. You don’t know if you should be afraid or angry."

"She… no. I couldn’t imagine it, I’d never look at that girl and that woman. I’m not sure that I’m capable of any feelings, no feelings of love, no feelings of caring."

"You’re capable, but maybe not in the right situations. And maybe you’ll never be. You have to find a way out."

"Then I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to save her or you wouldn’t be able to save us all."

She stopped so the boy could lie in her arms, still strapped to the body of the old man.

"I’m sorry that I’m not able to save you."

"I’m okay. Thank you."

"And you? I haven’t seen you… I can’t remember your face or your name."

There was something about the boy she’d saved that left her speechless, something that seemed beyond human, like a blank slate.

"I see."

"Don’t know how. I don’t think I’ll change my mind."

"You… you told me you wouldn’t talk anymore."

"No. Didn’t feel right to do it so early at this time. Don’t remember much. I’ll do what I can. But I’m not… I don’t want to say I’m not sorry, because that’s the worst thing."

"Why? Are you ashamed of what you did?"

When

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
.dots += n.dots-dots * n.radius * n.density

}

n.dots += n.dots-n.dots * n.radius * n.density

n.dots += n.dots-n.dots * n.radius * n.density

n.dots += n.dots-n.dots * n.radius * n.density

n.dots += n.dots-n.dots * n.radius * n.density

if n.dots > 0 {

dots += n.dots

}

var x and y: number?

if n.dots > 0 {

var s: number?

var x: number?

var y: number?

if (math.sqrt(s) == 0 ) {

return 0 ;

}

var pos: number?

var x: number?

var y: number?

var dx: number

var dy: number

var dx: number

var dy: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number

var dz: number



if (Math.cos(Math.pi * 2 * x - math.pi * 2 * y) > 0 ) {

if (math.sin(Math.pi * 2 * x - math.pi * 2 * y) > 0 ) {

if (math.gyros(Math.pi * 2 * x - math.pi * 2 * y) > 0 ) {

if (Math.cos(Math.pi * 2 * y - math.pi * 2 * x) + n.dots * n.radius * math.dots > 0 ) {

return 0 ;

}

}

}

var x y: number



var dx dy: number



var dx: number



var dy: number



if (n.dots > 0 && n.dots <= 20 ) {



var p: number?

var z: number?

return (p.sqrt((Math.abs(n.dots / 20 ) == 1 ? -p.sqrt: -p.sqrt)) + n.dots * 24 * 24 + n.dots * 2 * 24 + n.dots * 6 * 24 + n.dots * 16 * 24 + n.dots * 32 * 24 ) + (n.dots * 6 * 24 + n.dots * 16 * 24 + n.dots * 32 * 24 ) + n.dots * 24 * 6 + n.dots * 16 * 6 + n.dots * 24 * 6 + n.dots * 24 == 1 || n.dots > 0 && n.dots <= 20 && n.dots <= 24 && n.dots <= 48 )

}

}



var xy: number

if (x != 0 && x == 7 ) {



var p: number

return (px.sqrt(Math.abs(n.dots/ 7 ) == 1 ? -px.sqrt:(Math.abs(n.dots / 7 ))) + n.dots * 24 * 24 + n.dots * 1 * 24 + n.dots * 2 * 24 + n.dots * 6 * 24 + n.dots * 8 * 24 + n.dots * 16 * 24 + n.dots * 32 * 24 ) + n.dots * 6 * 24 + n.dots * 8 * 24 + n.dots * 16 * 24 + n.dots * 32 * 24 )

}



var xy w: number



if (y != 0 && y == 7 ) {



var p: number

return (x.sqrt(Math.abs(n.dots / 7 ) == 1 ? -x.sqrt:(Math.abs(n.dots / 7 ))) + n.dots * 6 * 24 + n.dots * 1 * 24 + n.dots * 2 * 24 + n.dots * 8 * 24 + n.dots * 16

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
.

"I can understand," he said, a little hesitantly, "If you were willing, I would be okay with that."

"I would, as that’s what you want. If it was a possibility." She took his hand in hers, and he sighed, "But you can’t, and I’m telling you this, I really, really fucking want you to."

He paused to catch his breath.

"Can’t. I’m afraid it’s going to be my last call with this one, if I'm going to walk away in three months, or a year and a half, or it’s going to be the end of a career or something like that. I can’t, in good conscience, let this one be the last time I see you."

He sighed in relief. If he was going to leave a legacy, as she might have thought, then we didn’t have much left to go on. There were a few things that stuck out, though… Rachel had been a mess. He had missed out on good weeks, for the most part, and there were nights when it hadn’t happened. And Rachel had been there without trying to help him, with an unfathomable amount of resentment. It had been a mistake, he knew.

But the thing that had bothered him more over the course of her whole career compared to this was how that resentment had been compounded against him, when he’d been the one trying to put the pieces together. Even now, after the past few days and weeks, he almost loathed the idea of making plans with her. Making promises without holding anything back, leaving it the way it had been: not a promise, but as hollow as saying he was leaving.

All of that had been one of the things that had made him want to avoid her before. The second they’d met, that had had such an effect with his heart, had been the idea of the last minute. The first thing of the afternoon. And, while he was still willing to do it, he’d even wished he could say so because he didn’t know if it’d be a last minute thing. He wouldn’t really miss his girlfriend. He’d hoped it would be the last.





Interlude 16b


The only people with good reason to feel bad about the end of the world were those who were afraid enough to be angry or upset, but not enough that they had to be ashamed of them.

Liar’s cat, it had gone in the door. The cat had fallen on me.

The door opened and we stepped out into the great hall, a few inches thick by almost a foot wide, with only a sliver of light at the far end. The light shone from a single window that was positioned just enough to offer the window cleaner the ability to do work. The room was the size of a college gym, although it could have passed for a high school auditorium, and this was mostly because it was dark.

The lights flickered on as we sat or stood, and we could see the lights of candles hanging in the middle of the hall. It wasn’t the same amount of light we’d received in an ordinary classroom or auditorium, but enough to spark a moment’s wonder. What the hell were these lights doing?

I could see the way everyone’s eyes opened when the lights hit them. A moment of relief? A relief that we’d at least been able to talk?

The room was dark, and no one had gone to sleep. The door opened and we stepped out onto the cold marble floor to the two other students. The lights went out. The room was in complete darkness, and people could look up at us and stare, the windows completely blind.

"Okay," the boy, who was eight or so years older than me, was saying. "I’ve been waiting for this."

"It’s fine," the girl, thirteen or so, said. She had a small backpack on her shoulder. "I just have to fix it."

"Fix what?" I asked, turning my attention to the light.

"My eye’s got a concussion. It’ll be better tomorrow… I’m okay, I’m just not good looking enough."

"I’m not so worried. You’re doing well."

"Sorry."

"So it’s your turn. Come on out, then. You can wear your glasses while you’re doing this."

"Thank you sir," the girl spoke, not looking at I.

"Okay," the


======== SAMPLE 1 ========
’t want to come in, so I stepped away."

"How the hell are they supposed to stop someone?" Tattletale asked. "We’re supposed to be a team, not a band of robbers."

She wasn’t wrong. I suspected her, as well, but I didn’t see if anyone else would.

She wasn’t talking to me, so I turned to her, "Tattletale?"

She was quiet. How could I explain? She was a good kid. She wasn’t bad, but she was quiet, and she did it because she’d been so quiet for so long.

I thought of the way I’d treated her in the past, thinking back to that day.

"So. You have your dad?" I asked. "You know me like you’re a friend. You know me like I’re an enemy. You know me as a friend."

She shrugged a bit. I could see her taking another long draw on her cigarette.

She said something, then stopped, staring out over the bridge in the distance.

The sound of someone on the other end of the phone died. Two people were screaming, and neither of them sounded very good.

I glanced over the shoulder of the two people lying on their sides, saw Panacea standing back up, holding the hand of one of the wounded.

Panacea’s eyes stared at me, with no malice in her expression or gaze.

I’d felt so bad about it, I hadn’t even thought to think about it.

I turned my attention to Tattletale. Tattletale, I noted, was still in costume, hands folded over her shoulders, standing at one end of the table as her back was to Tattletale. Her eyes were wide, and her lips were pressed together.

"What you said sounded pretty dire, I thought. A member of the Protectorate caught up with me, I feel bad about that."

"It’s been more than ten years."

"It’s been a lifetime. No one’s really interested in coming to rescue me, but-"

"You don’t say."

"I don’t. I just, like-"

I started coughing, was already coughing at the point where I was sitting astride Tattletale. She pushed it aside when I tried to breathe, and I winced a little at it.

She laughed, one hand resting right on the end of Tattletale’s gun. She sounded rather pleased with herself.

"I had to get out of the hospital, and I had no idea it would take me so long. You look like you’re in better shape than I thought you were, Tattletale."

We had a plan.

"So. I’m sorry."

"It’s okay. You never really liked being told you had to act like you acted, but that’s a choice."

The way she said it… "I was never really easy to like, but you had so much of a reason to like me. All the way through high school."

I nodded, remembering what I’d said at the beginning.

"I had to tell myself you’re the one. You’re a good person, Tattletale, and you’re a good person."

Her eyes widened at that. Not enough to betray the sincerity, but enough. If there was a subtlety to this situation, it was hard to discern.

What could I do?

She shook her head, "It wasn’t me, not really. Like you say, you were always there. You had people like me in the Protectorate, a couple times a year, and I remember the first time you and I got on a date. You didn’t know me at the time, but you were more than happy to let me be a friend, just like you were in the past with Panacea. You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t for me. If you don’t know me like I know you, I don’t even know you and it doesn’t make it easy to talk about yourself. Can I have that, a chance to show you I’m the person you wanted, that I’m cool, good? If you haven’t noticed, I’d probably have powers already. Or at least, there’s that, I dunno. I’m not sure what else I could do. If we got going, maybe we could get help with anything? It�

======== SAMPLE 2 ========
’t get a chance."

He gave me a curious look. Was he trying to get information from me? I smiled a little.

When the crowd had dispersed, I could see Tattletale behind me, sitting on the stairs. Her hands were folded against her back, as she stared out the window at the back of the restaurant. I nodded and stood in place, keeping my back to the window.

She didn’t speak. I gave her a nod, just in case she was planning to start shouting again.

I got my bugs onto the other side of her. I was only too aware of the way her shoulders and arms bulged out from beneath the fabric. The muscles bulging beneath. If that wasn’t enough, the metal of her arms and some of the armor that covered her skin had a metallic sheen to it, and the area she sat on was an inset pit, so it seemed she had a makeshift harness strapped to her back. There was also the steel of a steel rod strung between her forearms. Even after the straps were undone, it would have been too hard to tie her together once the metal structure that supported her torso had been welded shut.

I’d noticed how Tattletale stood at one end of the restaurant. I knew she was out of commission and would need assistance to navigate.

I moved my bugs from the area to where I was, and I set Tattletale and I on the other side of the restaurant. The pair of us stayed as still and quiet as we could manage. I was certain Tattletale wouldn’t notice, but I wasn’t, and that was something I was happy about.

She moved the rod a little, then glanced back outside, glancing back toward the glass, and made her way into the building, her movements nearly invisible but not impossible, invisible as well as possible without getting noticed.

And then she paused.

I couldn’t understand her reaction.

She was waiting for something to happen, for an idea to pop into her head, then she would do one of two things. Option 1, she would keep staring at me, knowing the only way I could attack her was to take a hit in the right place, or she would act. Option 2, she would decide to move on and do this to me.

This whole thing hadn’t played out like she wanted, and it hadn’t been the way she’d intended. If she was going to attack me, she wanted me to attack her, and she’d made me pay for it with another attack like that. I knew her power would react, but she hadn’t set it off. It was almost a matter of if and how, right now that this was a reality.

I’d been ready to fight her, to try and stop her as much as I could, to stop her before she did something that might be fatal. I’d taken on an idea, and I wasn’t very happy with what I was getting. Tattletale’s attack had been the first time in a while, that a person had gone up against me.

But Tattletale stopped looking at me, her back against the glass. Her chin’s knuckles showed, and her attention was on something else. She didn’t respond when I told her I couldn’t speak anymore. Instead, she turned her attention away from me, and she kept her back to the glass.

I was sitting on the counter, back against the window and my feet on the counter. I’d been sitting in the same spot, with Tattletale behind me, a chair between us.

When the woman’s back was straight, Tattletale looked at me for confirmation. My eyes widened.

"I’ve been waiting for this," she said.

As if to make the point more clear, she turned and faced the crowd.

"We’re a team, Tattletale. There’s no real rules. No rules about what is and is not allowed, no rules about how things should be. That’s a good thing, in my book."

"A little extreme," I said.

"There are rules, but the real thing is that we’re all a team. I won’t disagree with you, but maybe I can get you to change your rule about the fact that I can’t talk to you?"

I shook my head.

Tattletale continued staring out the window at the back of the building, as if to give me an answer or clue, "I’m pretty sure you heard that much? I’ll say that it doesn’t

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
’t be an assassin in all but name, but she was powerful enough to make the difference there.

"I’d hoped she would do better than she did," Aegis said.

I couldn’t even process what he was saying.

"This wouldn’t have worked," Bonesaw said. Her voice sounded strange in the air, barely audible, but she did have a presence that made it almost comprehensible.

She’s telling Aegis and me to make a decision, huh? I thought.

Then what was we going to do? I could see the options. I’d been a part of this. I was going to keep making things better. No, it wasn’t working. Not all at the same time. It was something to watch for, as each line of questioning and accusation about how Aegis could have done it only served to undercut the other line.

I didn’t like having to make the call. But my thoughts were a dull, almost quiet roar.

"And you need to look past the issues that we’re facing," Bonesaw continued. "…We’re the strongest team in the West. We’ll be able to withstand the attacks you mentioned. Or we’ll just get obliterated."

"Or get annihilated," Aegis responded. "…Unless you have something to hide."

"I’ll take you at your word. I’m only asking to speak to you, and maybe to meet or talk to others. I’m just wondering, if you want to make this work, what do you think? What are your ideas? How do they compare to ours? I haven’t really looked into this stuff, but what do you think we could do differently? Change how we’re doing things, or make them a bit more… flexible?"

"And?" I asked.

"And," she said, "If you want to come all the way out here and sit on my head, and make me do these things, you’re welcome to, okay? It’s a lot of money, if nothing else."

I nodded. I was pretty sure I was not a slave, at least. This was a kind of pay-off, not a slave, a sort of reward. I thought, perhaps, of Coil being an ideal guy, because he’d said he wanted to win by all means possible. If he wanted to win, why not take a similar approach to making my life easier?

And I didn’t think he would. The fact that it hadn’t worked and that Coil had done all of this to me and to us, just felt so unnecessary. This was just a chance to piss him off. My thoughts were a dull roar, silent, almost meaningless.

"Good luck, then," I heard Aegis say. He didn’t go and sit on my head, he took one last look at Bonesaw, then crossed the room.

Bonesaw didn’t stop there, not just Bonesaw. Several more bugs and scabs moved, and she paused just in the vicinity of Aegis.

I took the opportunity to stand, then started drawing out lines and symbols on the page, making it bigger, larger, and more diverse.

I kept doing this for ten minutes before falling asleep.

The morning came. I woke up and I had an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. My legs were stiff from sleep deprivation, and I was still suffering from the pain of my rib broken. I could see my dad staring at me through the window, a pale, tired look on his face. I hadn’t had time to think all day.

I pulled myself together and made myself breakfast. As I did, I drew a list of names for my team.

Bonesaw

Lung

Aegis

Clockblocker

Dragon

Chariot

Aurora

Aura

Night

Cauldron

Aura



The other night, my dad was up to his neck in hair. I’d have to find him and get him back to doing nothing more than a little hair pulling.

I pulled the last names together on the page. Chariot, Night, Aurora, Aurora, Night, Aegis, Aegis, Clockblocker. I couldn’t see why Aegis was on the list, because he wasn’t on my list, that was obvious, but I felt that it was worth tracking this guy down for her sake.

Not that it would be a big deal, but it was a step in the right direction. There were things I’d like to think about doing on a

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
’t, he looked down at the blood that was spattered across the floor, and then his finger moved.

I was right. He wanted to see the whole picture. It was an entirely different world he was inhabiting now. He was being held hostage by others, and he had lost a friend. If he didn’t get what he wanted, maybe he would have to make his peace with that. I hoped.

Was he looking for a partner, a protector, a lover? A leader?

"I’m not feeling that keen on anything else, at all," Imp said, finally. "And I’m not going to be long. Just a little time to myself. I’ve been working a lot since that fight, so I should be there when we get home."

"I’ll be there. Good."

"Good. Good. I’ve been there when you were in trouble. Helps if you’re good at hanging out with people."

I nodded grimly. I felt a strange kind of dread. It was almost like a terror, but in a different way.

"I should get back," he said. He offered the hand that had been placed on the back of the door, and I nodded in return. "Be a good boy, you two," he said. He pulled at the door, and Imp moved onto the floor to follow.

The second Imp was already on her way down, leaving the door open. I didn’t have the guts to stand over her while she passed. I could barely stand to be on patrol if she was keeping in touch, but Imp was still the girl I would have wanted to have close. Her presence was welcome, in a way that the silence of the hallway didn’t.

The third Imp came closer, and I followed her, the first two around the edge of the building, as Imp stood beside me. Grue and Imp both took one step. Grue, who was standing just behind Imp, leaned close. It was too close to get a proper grip.

Imp didn’t have a way of knowing, didn’t know. My bugs had her in range, but he could sense her movements with one arm, she could sense his movements with the other, and I couldn’t track her from afar.

"No," Imp said.

"You don’t have anything?" Grue asked. "Not in the area?"

"Can’t hear anything," Imp said. "It has to be a hologram, like Sophia’s, but something bigger."

Grue nodded. It was only when Imp stepped near that he caught what she was saying.

"The man with the machine’s hands, isn’t he?" he asked. She looked up at him, "Is he in the area?"

"I think so," Imp said. "I’m going to make myself, will you be going?"

"Sure," Grue said. Imp headed off to make the final climb.

She kept her eyes out for me, like Imp’s eyes were on us. A way to see her surroundings and feel out what was nearby. It was one of the reasons I was so good at taking her on, because I could sense what she was feeling with what she was sensing with the bugs. The same sense of foreboding, of dread, of dread of every possibility.

I knew it.

But I liked being able to use her on the streets and in the darkness, to see her react to her enemies, to see her feel things in her emotion.

If Grue and Imp knew, if Imp saw the whole picture, they probably wouldn’t have given me much reason to stick around. But she was smart. She was clever, and she was aware.

Was that why she was so loyal under pressure? I could sense her hesitation; her arms shook at the touch of her hand, as if she were afraid.

How was I supposed to react? Was she afraid because she’d done wrong? Because of something that happened before she had powers?

When it occurred to me that they were scared, I could sense a momentary shift in her shoulders.

She shifted from a casual attitude to a more serious one.

"Let him go," I said. "It hurts."

"The man with the machine’s powers is dead," Imp said. She put the hand that was gripped on the glass case in her other hand, "The woman got her powers after that."

"Who?"

"The woman in white."

"Who?"

"The man with the hands."

He did. I could sense

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
’t even know her by name, but she made it clear. That she was aware of the fact that I’d been holding her. She knew what was up, she wanted to see the truth. And she’d been holding me back when it came down to the fight.

"That’s a shame," I said, to get her attention. Her expression changed, "It seems to be a pretty clear choice, the one we made."

Her eyes snapped to one of her teammates. Krouse, too?

"I didn’t want to make a killing like this at first," I said.

"What exactly did you get from the Eidolon fight?" she asked.

I shrugged. "The biggest thing was the truth. A lot of people didn’t feel I cared at all."

"I don’t get it. It’s not that I don’t care, but it still hurts," Bitch said.

"Don’t try to argue with me," I replied, but I didn’t get her attention. I was too engrossed in the game, and her words hurt too much to pay too much attention to Bitch, who wanted to kill him and she didn’t.

"You don’t get it. I want to believe what I’m saying, to believe you. But then I don’t know if I ever can. So I’ve got to trust that sometimes you just have to make your own choices."

She looked over her shoulder at Krouse, but she still managed to look serious.

"I don’t know. I’m kind of hoping that Tattletale says no and that we don’t fight this thing. But I don’t really want to fight, because that’s not the reason for why we came, and I’m not that strong."

"What should I do?"

I frowned. "I’d like you to leave her alone, so she can make her own way and decide how she feels about it. I’d like you to tell people we met, and tell it to Bitch and Krouse. Then I’ll be left alone to do what I’m thinking about, until it happens or I say something to someone else."

She winced a bit at the pain in her arm. "I feel a little better, but not as good as I meant to feel. I’ve still got muscle spasms, and I’ve got a lot of soreness between my legs."

"You’re lying," I told her, and I meant it. I wouldn’t be stupid, and I didn’t want her to find out that I hadn’t told her I was hurt and left alone to fight the Nine.

"I’m not lying. Can’t say I didn’t know I was in a little trouble. I wanted to use my power, because Tattletale said it was a good thing, I could see a few times and I could use my power. I only made one mistake, and I’m sorry it was a mistake, but it won’t erase from my memory or mind what the real reason is. I’m still hurting, and it doesn’t seem to be from the fight. It might have been a little different if it had been my power. I got hurt because the Undersiders got their hands on me, and it hurt more because of me, because I’m so weak and slow when it comes to getting the job done I couldn’t afford to look him in the eye, and I can’t fight if I don’t see what I’m talking about. You know the drill already."

"I hope you feel better. I’d prefer to deal with this with Bitch and Krouse. If they want to play it safe, I’ll deal, but what do you want? What do you want Bitch? She does enough harm. It might even help them. I think we’re all going to be okay, here. If this is what you want, let them go, and all of the rest of this is resolved? If it’s not, you can keep playing along. If your goals don’t match mine, that’s fine, I can deal with it. I’d like to leave you alone. I don’t give a shit."

"You can’t take the blame for what happened," Imp said, with a level voice.

"You don’t have to," I agreed, standing from my chair

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
․t look like you. Or maybe there’s a pattern to it."

"You’re telling me that you knew right away there was a pattern to everything and we’re going to get taken hostage?"

I glared at him for taking this route. He’d chosen this path for himself. All the same, I didn’t want to think about the possibility that he was using me to take control of Coil or that he was using me to steal my powers in exchange for his own.

No. I could remember enough things. I couldn’t remember him standing there like that, but I could remember that he had a weapon. That he planned to use it. That the other members of the Nine might fall in this manner.

He had to know, and he had to have seen something to keep me in his grasp. Not that Coil was that likely to take this route, but he’d done this just in case. I wouldn’t be on the other side if it weren’t for him or the people under his direct control.

"I’m here with my dad."

He shrugged, his shoulders hunched with fatigue. He stared out over the water, thinking of something.

He’d been at the house, and he hadn’t spoken. "I took him, he’s got some stuff I’d have to get them to pay for. I’m gonna head here and get Tattletale to get me a car."

I stared at him.

"No," he said.

I turned my focus to the sea, and what I was missing was an answer behind the mask of what I was thinking.

"Maybe we could buy you a car. I know I couldn’t buy you anything right now, but you could drive. You could get home right then, I think. You could get some sleep, I know you’re hurt."

I looked up at the horizon to make sure he’d gotten my message.

■

The car arrived. It was a battered brand-new white Mercedes-Benz sedan. My dad’s new car. It wasn’t exactly the car my mom and I had used to travel to the store, but I couldn’t say why I didn’t trust it. The lines and the imperfections on the sides were what had me believing it wasn’t the Mercedes that came with my dad. That something I might have missed, just from a general sense of how expensive it looked.

"You’re supposed to be the one driving," he said.

I frowned, and pointed something at him, "I can’t even count how many times you had to drive me back when I had the car problems. You don’t even get a chance to drive the way back you went."

"And you’re supposed to be the one driving."

I didn’t have something to say, and didn’t have anything to say anyway, so I focused on trying to think of something to say. "I want to get off the plane."

He gave me a tight smile.

"Can you help me find my place? I’d been looking for a place closer to the airport. I’m not sure if you can give me directions or not?"

"I’ll try. But you should get my number, okay?"

"We’re going to a party tonight."

I sighed and waved the phone at him.

"It’s fine. You can stay at the guesthouse, and I’ll be there if you need anything. You’ll need to change into your costume and let the girls change you back. It won’t be a trouble."

He sighed.

"You’ve been talking to me since the fight with the Nine. Your story didn’t make it seem like you were very strong afterwards."

"I have…" He trailed off, glancing out over the water and the water above us.

"If I didn’t know, I would have thought you were weak. In fact, you were going to say it was a pretty damn good night. Except you didn’t. You just walked away. Did you have some idea what Coil was up to?"

"Nothing."

"Well, here goes. I got lucky."

He frowned, then shrugged. "I wasn’t here."

I could see more of his reaction to this by the way he stared at the water. A hint of a smile at the last.

I stood and walked over to the car, trying not to

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
’t make a good point about the way my sister was being set up. I was going to try my hand at fighting him, and it would be easier if we could see how he was trying to deal with a wounded Blur."

"A wounded Blur?"

"I think it would be useful if you knew, but I really don’t get behind the notion that you have to know how to fight him. This is a guy who is well known as a warrior in his own right, and it stands to reason that he has a greater understanding then, say, Eidolon or the other two Protectorate members we just talked about. It seems fairly likely, given the information he gets. A guy who doesn’t know how to deal with our leader… you know that. I don’t think I’ll be the first on his team, but I think I’ll be one of the last to take on such a challenge."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because he’s got something of an edge in him, or his ability to mentally hold back, or something. And the other two guys we’re talking about… they’re the kind of guys who excel just because they can, so it’s not so obvious when you see them, and they are going to stick around because they’re just that good. So we’re left talking about the other two, about how to deal with them, with how to handle them on our team. I think I get the gist of it."

"If you’re going to be lying, I don’t mind if you admit it."

"Why do I get the gist of it?" I asked.

"Well, because he likes to hold back, because he thinks twice about using his power in a situation where your team wants to be there, because he’d like you to play the roles he’s assigned to you. And he wouldn’t tell you the truth, so you’d have to trust him, and you need to know, and… well, this is how he operates. He sees things, so he can figure out a strategy or plan you need to execute in a certain situation. It’s what he does."

"A plan, how?"

"That’s how it works. I can put it into action in the same way I could put it into action in a car, you know? I can make it go one way, then pull something else in the next moment, then repeat. Not exactly planning, but enough steps to let him know what was needed. And I’m going to run this, so there’s no wasted time."

"Okay."

"And he keeps telling me to stay clear of trouble. I’m being honest. I really don’t. He’s a very talented, clever, interesting guy, and he’s not that in the same boat as I am, like my sister is in. But he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t need to know, or give me hints, to play with the power he grants."

"He doesn’t even ask if you’re good and willing?" He asked.

I smiled. There was none of that coyness I was feeling. He knows.

"The other three are kind of an afterthought. I’m the type of guy who likes to hold my nose and work around the edges. It’s a tough road to travel when you want to be a hero, but I like to stay out of the spotlight."

"The PRT wants to know why you don’t go out into the streets. If you wanted to fight in a situation like this, it could lead to a fight that the others won’t get their hands on. You don’t want the public to see you as a coward, do you?"

I thought maybe he meant it. I looked down at Tattletale, and as she glared at me, I smiled. "I had to make the decision for my team. I made a call, I put them on board, and I ran."

"And you chose your words carefully, so they wouldn’t read that way when they heard it."

I smiled. He looked at the others.

Was he playing me? Or was there something more at play here? I wasn’t sure, but I was aware of something else, something I didn’t want to focus on right now.

He wasn’t. He stared at me from across the room, his mouth hanging open.

I tried to speak, "I’m not a coward. I am

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
’t expect him to do that on his own. I was thinking maybe he’s thinking about the same thing I said to the Undersiders, about the idea that he isn’t worth the effort and effort it takes to keep him alive, to keep him alive without him dying.

And now we’re doomed. I’ve worked it out with him. So you probably haven’t. You don’t know him. Do you want to be like him, so you will be around for what really matters when it comes to the next few months, and you think he will stay dead?

"You’re wrong."

"I’m not."

"You’re wrong."

I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying something I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to think that way. I liked to think I could figure things out by listening to the other person, and that was just fine by me.

I was holding on, keeping my mouth shut, but I couldn’t deny that I’d gotten the impression that Tattletale was right. A lot. The idea that I’d become the thing that killed Clockblocker… yeah. I’d had my doubts before, but not enough to call Tattletale out on the lie.

But I’d be lying if I said it was enough. I’d gone too far when I’d said that, and I hadn’t given a single thought to the fact that I didn’t intend to. Even now, when I was trying to figure things out, I felt like I was missing something. Not enough details?

No. Nothing that could have even given my head any information to work with, since the fight with Imp had taught me that I’d lose the battle if I were right.

But what I had that Tattletale could have used? A way of remembering what I did to Lung a month ago?

"You think he likes that part of it?" I asked her.

"Mm," she said. She fidgeted a little. "Mm."

"I could get in touch with someone who’s familiar with where he went, maybe offer him a ride home?"

"He’ll leave. A family member or friend. He needs fresh air. Or he needs a cold and some fresh air."

"He isn’t staying too cold at night," I said. I could see Tattletale tense. "You have to know, he needs a break. A break is the best way to go for him."

"Yeah," she said. She leaned her elbows on the tabletop, fingers prodding the buttons. "What else has he been up to?"

"He’ll need to rest after a bit of a stretch," I said. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but I could see Tattletale’s muscles tensing.

"Wait, what?" There was a pause.

"Nothing," Tattletale said.

"I saw him in the library last night. He looked dazed."

"That’s not surprising. I’m not going to give him a cold and fresh air alone. Give him a chair."

"No," Tattletale said, without a sound. She frowned, and then fished out a bottle from inside her jacket and opened it.

"Oh. This."

"Not cold?"

"No."

"You said he used to drink?"

"No."

"He was a heavy drinker, yeah. Just a little. You know him, Tattletale. He didn’t have too many friends like you or me."

"You know him, probably not."

"No, but I know someone he hung out with in the library."

"Ah."

"What’s wrong?"

"He went on to join the Undersiders. Pretty obvious."

The rest of the food was sitting out on the counter, plates, cups and glasses set down on the floor just out of reach. It smelled faintly of fish, to be sure. "Tattletale?"

"I’m sorry. I got a bit busy last night."

I shook my head a little. I made a mental note to let the other person hear. "I’ll see what I can to make up for yesterday."

"I’ll see," Tattletale said. She held out a napkin, which I took, and handed it to Coil. I was glad to be free to do my own thing. I drew the napkin

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
’t. It had already occurred to him, it wasn’t going to happen much sooner than that. His body could handle it, his brain too, at least for now. With enough practice, he could develop reflexes and manage his wounds, though he would never be able to walk out of his own wounds. That was better than he’d thought it might be.

I’d left and got to work. They took off the mask, and my arm stopped hurting. When he asked, "What did you do?" I told him.

"You were waiting here for a lot longer than I should have, and in the meantime you’re just plain boring. Are the others going to join us or not? If they don’t have a group of their own, can we go and meet them? I’m just not that interested in hearing from you if you don’t join us, I want to make sure we get as many details right, so we don’t spend too long trying to figure out how they got there and all those others have the same ideas."

"Okay," I said, "If you can spare a few minutes, I want to talk to Grue."

"We want to get him out of there. It’s his territory now," Imp said. "We aren’t going to find him, we’re going to keep our distance and leave him be. We want him out of there in good health, so we can focus on saving the city. There’s an ambulance on the way in with blood bags and all that, or we can ask if you boys can spare a second. Anything else?"

I shook my head. I was not a child anymore, and even the things I did that were childish or childish were now something less than things I didn’t fully enjoy. I would take the latter, even though I didn’t want to feel guilty about it. I could understand that Imp was not a child anymore. She was more like me’d been before I’d met my family. But I didn’t have that same patience or patience for what she was through, in the same way I hadn’t had patience for Grue. I preferred my own way of doing things as a matter of course. I’d also started calling Imp the time I used to do that. "I would appreciate if you guys would go get Tattletale. She should be able to call Tattletale if anyone has a few minutes."

"A short break? Please," Imp murmured.

I couldn’t help but feel a touch cold by Imp’s tone as she put the phone to her ear. I turned to leave.

"It’s okay," Tattletale had arrived on the other end of the phone, bringing her two dogs up alongside her. She paused, then spoke just long enough to spare us her words. "Just needed to see if I could find Grue through the dogs and figure out where he is. Wasn’t in a position to call after I got there, but you want help?"

"Not a problem," Imp said. She looked at her dogs and shrugged, "You guys figured it out?"

I nodded. I could think of no more serious option except for letting this go, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was an implied threat from the fact that her dogs knew who we were.

"Good," Tattletale said. She tapped the phone again, and the phone rang again, this time with the sounds of heavy footsteps and the clink of glass. She sighed, "Sorry about the dog problems."

"We’ll handle it. I’ve got a few numbers. Got a cell phone."

"Call me again or come by. I’ll see you later?"

I nodded and reached for the phone, but Tattletale had been talking to something else. I glanced at Imp. Imp seemed to have her arms folded, her arms folded around a dog, like a dog and the arm of an armor suit.

Imp turned her attention to me, and I winced at the pain and her sudden, almost overwhelming presence. She stared blankly at my legs, but she spoke, "There. I don’t know if I should use my power here. I’ll tell you anyways."

It took a minute, but she said the words aloud, as if she could translate them, "You’ve been quiet."

"Shit," I grumbled. Imp gave me a smile. "Yeah."

"I’ve been hearing that you had some weird interactions for a while, a little while back." Tattletale glanced my way,

======== SAMPLE 10 ========
’t. We’d met. A little while behind the scenes, I’d heard her describe the plan. How she’d met with Eidolon to convince him to come. How she’d convinced him to join the team, at the final confrontation. He was going to have to leave if he wanted any chance of surviving this, so I’d worked my magic on his behalf.

I could sense the soldiers approaching, with their swords. I’d been here a few hours ago, it seemed, when they’d caught up with the two heroes who were still recovering. They’d been waiting for this to happen, and the moment it did, they’d take me.

Doubtless, they’d thought of this as a last attempt, a last opportunity. For a long time, I’d been waiting for a chance to show my full abilities, in a game where there wasn’t any room on the field for a show that didn’t play off of the previous events.

I wouldn’t be making any of this up. I might need a moment to breathe, but that could be tomorrow, not a week from now. A week and it would be over.

I’d seen a lot of fights like this. I’d seen people fight, to avoid dealing with this group, but I’d seen a lot of people take sides and stay neutral. This is not a different type of person.

It had been like this from the beginning, when I’d felt a sense of despair and uncertainty. I was here because someone had to, and nobody had come.

This is too close to home for me. Like a lot of people here, like most people, I’d made the effort to study, to learn about the subject of the heroes. Some that had followed the battle plan and plan for the future would understand, others had trouble grasping what was being said, or they wouldn’t care. When all of these things had gone, it was like getting hit right in the eye. You could see the damage, but you couldn’t see the damage of the aftermath.

A few moments ago, when I’d gone to my mom’s place to try to sleep, I’d tried to turn my thoughts to the battle. I had hoped she would be the one who wouldn’t take that route, and I’d been right.

The battle had come and gone, the heroes had gone, and it had been an exercise in frustration as much as anything else. I’d fallen into a pattern of wondering what had happened to my mom, when I wasn’t able to bring myself to think too much about battle, not just the last few days.

This was only possible because of me. I’d been there.

This might have been the best day of my life. Now that I was on it again, it was just fun, just a good challenge to get through the day. I liked to think of it as being like learning a new language. I’d felt confident, so if I thought about the fact that my enemy had been caught off guard, it was something to be thankful for.

My mom had always said I felt like an eighteen-year-old. That my head was already turning.

I could sense them approaching. Their swords.

■

"This is the last time we’re going to discuss the matter," I said.

"It isn’t," she said.

"It is," I told her. "Maybe it’s time we stop."

"The last time?"

"This. We’re going to go over what’s going on with the Protectorate and the heroes. I’m going to go on, and maybe I could do you a favor by holding a phone to your ear. Maybe I can get you to stop listening to your sister when you talk, and come by for some quiet on the way back. It doesn’t hurt my feelings, seeing as how we do the same thing over and over again."

"Right," I told her.

"In the mean time, I’ll do my best to hold on to whatever information I have on you for as long as I can. And whatever you do, don’t take the fight from the Protectorate without taking a shot at Eidolon from the heroes. He can have his revenge on the Protectorate, but he won’t win with that kind of power. We could do a little damage, see what you’re capable of doing, and hope he doesn’t take control of you when he’s done."


======== SAMPLE 11 ========
’re not even here yet."

"She’s not going to."

I didn’t have any objections.

But she wasn’t going to go with the plan. I wasn’t sure I was entirely in agreement.

"Fuck you," I said.

"It’s okay," he said.

I looked at Tattletale, saw her on the computer screen.

"So do it," he said. "Go fuck your boss."

I didn’t have a choice.

He turned off the TV, turned to leave, and I felt myself getting increasingly worried.

"I don’t know if I can."

He was going to leave and go and kill me.

I was getting more and more nervous, even knowing what he’d come here for.

The people in the cell block outside Coil’s door stopped.

They spoke to no one I recognized, other than the three cell block leaders, a guard at the door, and a guy in a suit that had something to do with the guards.

"The others have decided on their own who to keep inside and who to leave," Coil said.

"What does that mean?" Parian asked.

"They’ll figure out who we have, and then we can start planning, with no more trouble. It means we don’t have anyone who can come on an undercover assignment, so we’ve got to keep our mouths shut, keep it to a minimum."

"So you’re trying to get rid of me?" Rachel asked.

"We have one last meeting of the members and what the others plan to do in the event that they want to go undercover and trick people like you into thinking that Coil is keeping things in hand for himself. Tattletale and I, along with the rest of the cell block, will be there to support the remaining members," Coil said, "We don’t want to run into the usual suspects. We’ll let you go the minute you have an answer to that."

"Fuck it, I hate being pushed around like this. Fuck that bullshit."

"You’re going to be safe," he said. "I’m not going to touch you with a ten-foot pole. But you haven’t told Coil you want us here. You didn’t tell him you wanted to be in Coil’s company when it comes to being undercover. You haven’t done so with your teammates anymore. So he thinks you’re safe, and the idea of you doing anything to harm him is going to be viewed as dangerous and wrong by his other members."

"I don’t want you meddling in that shit. I don’t like the idea of you getting a little too close to Coil. If you want a reason to kill me, it’s that Coil’s going to be keeping tabs on each and every one of you for the rest of your lives. He’ll try to get to any of you and find ways to keep you from going off and finding your own way to a better life. He won’t have any doubts after you know more about him, so he’ll be able to keep tabs and find you on a regular basis if you do end up getting in his way."

"Then tell him to fuck off," Rachel said.

"Fine."

He turned right, walking around the cell block and into the hallway.

"Your cell block leader?" Parian asked.

"The one near the north end of the block," the cell block leader responded. "Takes care of people here. The others I’ll be with are the one from the east end. Can I ask you guys to step away a bit?"

Her cellphone sounded off.

"No," I said. "But-"

She cut me off. "Come on, go."

I followed.

I was met by three cell block leaders, each with more than one cell phone as well, and the voices of a few guards. The three cell block leaders were talking to the guard at the door, each with different messages.

I’d seen the cell block leader talking to the guard, but with so much information on Brockton Bay today and the cell block leaders… I knew it couldn’t be the same cell block.

All I could think about was my lack of cell phone. I’d missed the message, but was it just me and the cell phone?

"You guys did well to step in, Tattletale, I’m glad to meet you," Coil spoke. The guard in the cell

======== SAMPLE 12 ========
’t get what I was trying to say. I didn’t understand why you were so upset with me if you wanted me to be the Protectorate captain.

It was something about being in the public eye, being a hero, making a name for yourself… people looked at me and they didn’t really know what to say to me.

It was this and the fact that you said I had to help you. You can’t say it’d be a good thing when you’re in the public eye, but it’s been a very hard road for you, here."

She sighed. "I’m feeling a little desperate. I don’t know what to say."

I shook my head and let it drop.

"But whatever else you do, you’re the captain."

"It’s better you know this," I said.

"For others."

"Yeah. And for myself?" I asked, my voice tight. I knew I had to explain the choice, I had to feel bold. "It’s a decision to make. I’m not saying I don’t respect you or like you, but doing the job is harder if you don’t know who you’re talking about. This is harder if you don’t know who you’re talking about, because the bigger picture isn’t fair. Like Clockblocker said before, we have to get answers. For me, personally, my name is Brockton Bay and I’m a citizen, and if I can’t find them, then it’s a big problem, and my chances of surviving like this in the future are limited at best."

"That’s not what I meant. So what do you say?"

I shrugged. "I know you were in that hospital, I know you were dealing with an injury, and-"

"I’m not telling you that. I was injured. Not a villain. I’ve been fighting off a lot of attacks by people who see me or use my power and decide there’s no way they can beat me."

I winced.

"They’d be right. But you’re not helping them. You’re not helping."

I shook my head. "I don’t know, but I can’t stop them. I’m not fighting them, I’m not even thinking about it, even when I’m doing the duty. We could go out on our own, we could call people, and-"

I stopped dead. "And what if…"

Brockton Bay, Alexandria and the other big three. No, they don’t have a place here. I couldn’t even fathom the details without seeing it all. "What if I stayed?"

"No," I said. I didn’t bother to think of it again.

A thought struck me. If they stayed, what would change? I had to imagine a big part of it was the idea of getting away, not even going to school, being free from the burden of being in Brockton Bay. That wasn’t good. That was… I hated it when people did that because it was selfish, it didn’t really feel like a place of safety, wasn’t it… not one of the places people looked for safety when they were looking for the next big problem. When I was alone, I wasn’t always safe and I wasn’t always happy. Or maybe it was the constant threat of violence, a need for more answers, no answers.

I didn’t care.

It never crossed my mind, other than as confirmation to the idea of this person in a worse place than she’d been when I had her.

A lot of people wanted freedom, I supposed. I could get that, right on a lot of levels.

"But if you stay, then everyone knows I’m not going to cooperate. I’m not going to be one of their buddies at a glance, and it’s a lot more convenient."

"A hundred percent true," I said.

"I don’t know how much of that’s me believing you, what about how people look at me-"

I nodded.

"And more importantly, it’s the people in Brockton Bay-"

"A lot of people."

A lot of people weren’t going to be able to get their heads around that. My mother wasn’t going to be able to. Not all of them.

There were

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
’d have to see if I could figure out how her head’s connection to mine would work against me. I had an idea, but it looked too complicated while I was thinking about it. I couldn’t shake my doubts that it might be something out of her hands.

I was getting the feeling Tattletale wouldn’t know about Dinah. She would be in a position to know the answer, wouldn’t have the advantage of authority or some trick I was using. Tattletale would be out of range, and I could only trust her to have my back and give me the information my bugs did need.

But, my suspicion was right, her power was weird. She could create illusions out of objects and then put that image through to take over. The more I thought about it, the more the idea stuck in my head. It was possible that she had a body of some sort that made her able to walk between worlds. It was also possible that she’d been possessed, possessed to the point where she could manipulate people’s minds, and that she could see and sense me through them. That was why she didn’t want to let me leave and went berserk in my cell. I didn’t know how to interpret that, and I wasn’t sure if that was her trying to keep me pinned down to her power so she wouldn’t die, or if she was just being a bit paranoid.

I was still reeling from what I’d just been through and had yet to find the answers I was looking for with Coil’s power. Maybe I was just so lost in my own head that I couldn’t even ask something I was really interested in. Something more serious than that, I didn’t know, not like this, not when I wasn’t so deep in the head.

I reached for Tattletale, grabbing her wrist. She wasn’t looking back, didn’t turn her head away from the screen as I pushed her.

I’d thought the connection could change things. If something wasn’t set right, it was the ability to see, hear, touch and hear. I didn’t think I ever connected to someone so deeply as I did Grue, who had been a little more attuned to reality, now. I might never have figured it out, but if we were truly a world of truth in a world of lies, then that meant Grue’s right, right to know stuff like that.

I reached for Tattletale, but I had to hold Tattletale up on Tattletale’s wrist, making sure it was safe to hold on to it.

"It works." Tattletale said, "What do we do with this?"

"No," I said. I didn’t trust her to handle that without a fight, but that was beside the point. "We use her with caution. She can detect us, she can see us, and things might end tragically, depending on how much we use her power."

"Trust me when I say that’s good advice."

Tattletale smiled, "Of course. I like that. I don’t know if I can live without this. But I feel a deep sense of responsibility for this. I would have killed my dad, if I could have-"

"What?"

"…For my release from jail."

"And?"

"And I want you to know that I’m sorry. I didn’t say that aloud, but I’m sorry I never got the chance to come back to you. I didn’t expect to be in that situation, and I’m sorry I let it happen."

She smiled.

"She’s smart, isn’t she?"

She shook her head like she could hit another nail with an elbow, then added, "It’s not all about her powers. You can control others with it too, and I won’t say that out loud, because I didn’t say that out loud."

"If you told me it might work, if it was something that you could believe in, I would have thought you were nuts."

What does that even mean? "If it worked, you’ve got this. You’re a good person. But I don’t know if it’s wise to use your power on people who are on the verge of death. Or if I could trust you to leave the fight to the PRT."

I could see Tattletale’s face go white as she looked at me. What was I going to say about that?

Then a

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
’d asked if I’d be able to help.

It was the man who was being helped. I met his eyes, looking through the blind spots in the barrier. When he spoke, it was to me, though his tone was not as clear.

"I’m sorry it took so long, but I can’t spare the time to check your records, and this won’t resolve the problem anymore."

I had an idea? I’d thought about it but I’d thought harder before making the call. That said, I’d been worried the man I was talking to wasn’t going to be easy to find, because there wasn’t a way to avoid the fact that he’d been there. He could have been the one to have put it together.

"So?" I asked.

He shook his head, "No. Not really."

And he was?

I shook my head. I glanced all the way over my surroundings, looking for help.

I hadn’t looked all the way over, as far as my powers went, for one thing. I hadn’t been a smart enough man to check for danger and danger signs. I had done what was needed with my power, found and saved people, for the rest. I’d done a dozen things like check on people, save people.

Still, there was nothing there.

It was all about the people.

"My people?"

"No. There’s a reason, I’m sure. Not a perfect reason, but it gives you hope."

"You don’t want to give up my freedom?"

The idea caught me off-guard.

"I don’t care. I want to go where people aren’t looking for me. I’m looking for someone."

"The man who’s looking for me in your territory?"

I sighed. "I’m going to come with. I’m on the fence between going after him and staying with you. I can’t guarantee anything, but I can guarantee that I won’t end up turning him in if it means getting you some protection."

"A plan. You’re good enough for this job."

"I’m fine. I’m not someone who uses her power."

"Good. I think you’re capable of seeing the whole picture here, then, and you’ve been very good. You’re going in equipped for this and I expect you’re going off a cliff if you keep doing this, but I’ve found that a girl is more susceptible to manipulation. And we both know what that entails. I suppose you can do this."

I frowned. I hadn’t been a good choice choice for a babysitter, but it was difficult to say I was. I didn’t know how to work in this situation, but I didn’t have a lot of other alternatives.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

The man shrugged, "A little reckless, but it’s worth it."

I frowned.

"You know the way out, and I’m sure you can figure it out."

"Sure. When the others are all away, we’ll find somewhere to stand down. I’d go down, if I thought others could hold off at a time like this."

"They probably will. You don’t need to be here while they get here, except maybe to talk with us, and you can leave."

I sighed, felt a pang of concern, looked at the others.

They were all quiet, so I didn’t interrupt again.

As if to calm him down, I asked, "Would you believe me if I said yes, even if I didn’t know what I was talking about?"

"Do what you can," he replied. "But I won’t leave you there, no matter what happened to you."

"We’re not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere."

"Then let’s talk about what you need."

"I have plans. I want to take things slow. Let’s just take time to come up with something more concrete."

The man continued to stare at me. I took the time to catch a glimpse of him.

A woman’s figure silhouetted in the gloom.

He was wearing the outfit… a vest in addition to his standard work attire, or an ensemble. His hair had been changed to black.

======== SAMPLE 15 ========
’re trying to get something. How do you do what you want to’ve done?"

It was as though somebody on a fire hydrant had a hose hooked to her ankle. A red mist billowed out from the air, the air a dense blue smoke, and she whipped her legs to bring them back down. When they did, she aimed them toward the ground and let the air flow inside, using her power.

"You’re supposed to say how the fuck do not want to die, you’re supposed to be more careful," she told me, sounding less like a superhero, than a child.

This is a nightmare that’s gonna happen to me. I’m not gonna be able to go to sleep for three days straight, and it’ll be like, I was going to sleep, I didn’t and I woke up to the same thing over again, it’s like a day’s wake-up.

It makes sense, it’s why we get up when the morning’s not even coming. When we’re still alive, after.

Which was the part of it that she didn’t know the answer to.

I looked at the two members of the Nine, and could see that they were talking.

"Fuck me, I’m… uh… I was thinking about calling it the worst thing I’ve ever seen," Imp said.

"I saw it," Tecton said. He smiled a little behind his mask. "We’re on the brink of something bad."

"You two are?" I asked.

Imp shook her head, "I didn’t see it."

"Maybe the others are seeing more too," Tecton said.

Imp sighed. "Yeah. It is a bad thing, but it’s a bad thing, okay? I’m not so worried about it if someone likes me or not."

"How’s she doing?" Tecton asked, a touch accusatory. "Door way, it’s going to rain."

"Can’t tell, but she’s wearing a jacket so you don’t catch all of the light. If you could, would you show her how, like, I used the flashlight?"

"I’m too far away."

"Do tell. Come on, Imp?"

Imp nodded and led the way to Tecton’s direction.

"How?" I asked.

"How did she get that far? She saw Tecton and Tagg standing on the street level of a building?"

Was he trying to check in or to see how she was doing? Whatever it was, it had gotten from the group of three guys to Imp.

"Like she’s blind or deaf, or maybe she can’t see."

"It could be a transmitter on the inside of her," Imp said, her voice quiet. "A device that feeds information to her through the sound waves."

Imp turned a knob and stepped on to a railing, then stopped. For the moment, she was still behind the door. "I can use my power if she’s a transmitter. But I can’t see anything because it’ll be like taking a blurry, blind peek out through the viewfinder."

"She wasn’t."

"If someone is a transmitter, there’s no stopping it from seeing them. It’s possible she saw us just like she saw Imp and Tagg."

I looked over the group. Tagg, Imp and her dog trailed behind him, looking more animated with each passing second.

I made myself wait patiently, "What do you want to do? Why do you want to stop me?"

"If you leave me here, I don’t go for it anyway. It’s a risk that you’re going to walk away from the situation. I’m leaving you here, in case you want to do it."

It was a little more comforting than I’d intended, but I couldn’t shake the notion that he was trying to pull something more sinister than an innocent enough rescue.

"That won’t make me safer," Imp said, "Until you stop doing what you did."

"If you want to save Tagg, I’m sorry. But the real reason I want to stop is to let you go."

"That doesn’t seem fair to her. I did what I wanted to do. She would’ve taken more time to deal with us if I was acting like some superpowered

======== SAMPLE 16 ========
’re telling."

He took an empty chair, and sat down at the edge of the table. He made eye contact with me, and I nodded.

The rest of us gathered in a square around Leviathan.

"What?" I asked, as Regent leaned over the girl from the alley to give her a hand.

"Did he know he could sense us?" I asked Regent.

"Probably. He got to us, and the idea that he could see our general location with those powers made him think he could pinpoint the location of anybody with those same powers and figure out their location."

"It’s the best case scenario."

"It is," I said.

"And it’s why he was able to see us even before he started."

"It is? He was right."

Regent tapped a button. A camera appeared in the sky above, one that’s connected to the cameras in the area. "You’re up. You have no choice but to leave to find a way home. If you stay long enough and leave on foot, it’ll be too late. Get out."

I took the opportunity to brush his hand away and leave. Regent said something, but I didn’t hear.

"You’re a hard guy to get to," Imp said.

"Fuck," Regent said.

"Maybe."

I had to leave. I took the stairs to my room. If the others were as confused about things I knew to be the case as I was, I was really hoping it wouldn’t get to me.

When I was on my own, I was mostly left to my own devices as much as possible. One or two things had managed to go right, and the others had failed miserably. I didn’t plan to let anyone else see what I had been through.

Regent had been one of the guys I was supposed to trust. I’d never trusted him. He wasn’t really on my radar because I didn’t know how his power worked, the people he came in contact with didn’t really put too much stock in it. No offense, Regent, but you don’t tend to trust the people with powers who aren’t telling you the truth.

That was fine. I’d always figured Regent was a hard man to like.

Still, it was cool to be able to be on his side, as long as Regent didn’t screw up.

I was on the run, and Regent was the type to do that. He could call the shots, and that meant he was all-powerful and able to see my every move. He had some very specific, very clear targets, and if he could only see the places where I’d gone and the people who I was reaching out to, he could easily get information on me.

A lot of people were coming, so a lot of people needed me to put someplace safe for them to go. Like a hospital, or a school, a place where I couldn’t run free.

I had the tools, so I could call on the ones Regent had.

I called on Imp and Flechette, and they came running. The three girls together held Flechette until I could get her to let go and step out of the way.

I set up the cameras, the lenses, so we could see as the others were making their way to the stairwell. Imp and Flechette got to use the phone before Regent could.

There were only three steps before we arrived, and Regent was out of the stairwell. He ran into the stairwell behind Imp, and Imp and Flechette were forced to run to the stairwell behind Regent.

That last step was where the comms ended. There weren’t words for what Regent meant, for who was trying to come after us. That was why we were using the teleporter to coordinate our way out of here.

"You came late?" Imp asked.

"She was out."

She came running from her dad’s house, I was pretty sure. Imp had her phone out. I tried to use her phone, but Imp had her phone out and was already holding it out to her ear. Her voice vibrated, and she pointed at Regent. I almost wanted to be careful going down the stairs and back out into the living room.

What did I care? I didn’t take Imp out onto the flight of stairs. I didn’t want to see them.

I wasn’t alone when I walked up the stairs. There were a dozen people

======== SAMPLE 17 ========
’re just a piece of paper."

"But if you’re asking me to trust you to keep a door open, you need to be more convincing."

"I’m not in a position to tell you that I’m not lying if I tell the truth. For all I know, maybe you are, and I just wish I could see."

He tried to pull one finger out of a paper bag, "You’re lying."

"Oh! No! My fingers were stuck in there, while your fingers were folded so tight it hurt. I didn’t tell the truth and you’re a villain, you see that? Or you’re not that clever, because whatever you did I’m sure you’re not about to give me some way of proving that."

"It’s okay," Amy said. She took the bag and began placing her thumb into it, holding it in one hand "There. I’ve been keeping track to see if I get any of my stuff back. Any of it at all?"

I don’t know. Probably got my clothes and my things, anyway."

"A little of everything, right?"

She pointed at one of the bills she had laid out, "Five for the bills, six for the food, and ten for the way you handled that last battle."

"Ten for the way you handled that last battle," I said. "I’m sure that you’re doing it because you’re good at stuff like this, but I couldn’t believe you didn’t throw a party."

"Hoping you’ll give it a shot."

"Not now, but after what you did, I suppose I should. In the future, I won’t pretend to be the one with the answers, but I’ll tell the truth when I hear it."

"So many years you’ve spent on the outside. I can’t help but feel like everyone’s more interested in me. If you’ve made a lot of friends, then it might even be more appealing to other people, that they find out the truth or find something they like in you. But you know, a secret society has some good people, and most of ‘em turn out to be wrong. Don’t have to do that, just keep telling the right story."

Amy sighed.

"Yeah. You had a secret society for a good part of your life. I thought it was more the case with Brockton Bay than with real life, but my power said it was more real life, and I can see your power from a distance with that."

"Okay," she said. She leaned back against a wall and stared down at the board. "And I hope that’s the sort of thing I have in mind, because I’ve been thinking, I’ve been trying to figure stuff out, I’ve always been thinking about what’s next, about how things could go, and what I could do to get ahead in life."

I didn’t have an answer for that. There’s no answers, there’s only options they’re looking for. I didn’t know what she meant, but I didn’t want to believe it either. I tried to think of a thought, but she didn’t really get my mind going. I didn’t think of Taylor either.

"I’d like to think you have something," I answered her, "I didn’t realize you had."

She shook her head, "I don’t know. I do know I had a secret, which I don’t think I ever told anyone. I don’t think I told you. I figured we should talk about this, and maybe show you something more serious, maybe get a few facts on the table."

I had my mask off. I glanced at Amy, see if I could see if I could make out anything in her expression… no. She was talking to a man wearing something like a black lab coat, and he seemed lost. Curious. It took me a moment to put a name to it. A friend of a friend, but not Amy.

"You‘re telling me you have a power somewhere in you that lets you use your power to change the past. Something like…"

I had her open her mouth to point a finger at the board, but she didn’t use it. Instead, she just laid on the table and stared at it.

I made mental notes, looking up everything I could think of on power.

A power was something like

======== SAMPLE 18 ========
’t think we have a lot of options with this situation. We’re in a sticky situation right now, and our best bet here may be the old and boring idea of a hostage. Even putting the hostages in a position where they’d be in charge would be a bad idea."

I looked down at Rachel, "You don’t think they have any backup plan?"

"I do, but we won’t know until we use that."

"But what are you gonna do?!" she asked.

I put two and two together. "Get us off the ground? Get us outside the area, so we can communicate with the heroes nearby? And I could use my power to cut out a couple of the wires so we’re not running into any more sensitive information on the system or-"

"You’re saying we have to leave her," Brian pointed out.

"Yeah," I said, "We had to stay and do what we can to make sure you guys get the job done."

I turned my attention back to Rachel. She was still sitting on the ground, elbows on the table, hands in her pockets.

"We have so much to do. You know, we’re already in a bad spot, and there’s nothing more to say?" I asked.

She stared at me. She stared straight at me.

"We’re not here to talk, it’s important," I pointed out, but no argument. I’d been saying we’re not here to discuss the past, and this wasn’t something we’d intended to make a point of, if we’d gone to town on it. More to the point, if we really wanted anything to go elsewhere, we had to figure out how we were going to leave Tattletale alone for the time being.

I wanted to make sure I was clear. Was she going to go with Bitch and Brian, or the other way around? This is the way things should be.

Rachel was still sitting on the table. For some reason or another, Brian had apparently been unwilling to offer a verbal exchange with her. Rachel got a chance to speak to Brian.

"We’re not leaving," Rachel said with an almost emotionless tone, calm in the same way she had been when I’d first heard her speak.

"What? You don’t think you can handle this?"

"It’s easy, because the PRT can," I replied. I could feel the tension leaving my shoulders, and I could feel my heart hammering at a certain point. The air became cooler as I felt the sensation of something, brushing against my shoulders. It made me think of my father’s arms burning when I’d been little.

I felt the urge to fight against it.

"If what she said is the truth-"

"Shut up," I told her, "There are a hell of a lot of things we could have done, things like-"

"She’s lying," I cut her off, "She might be."

Then there was a crash of something heavy falling. If I had been standing, I wouldn’t have been able to see, but I saw a cloud of dust billowing out into the air.

The dog stood in the center of the room. I pointed, and it turned to look at me.

"Do not be afraid. I am not some monster. I am not. I am not evil. My power makes me a mother."

"How’s that work?" Rachel asked, as she approached.

I pointed at Brian’s leg. One foot resting on his leg, the other in a crouch, as one foot rested on the table. "It makes you a mommy."

"What did you do to his leg?" Brian asked, almost a question.

"I took him off the table," I told him. I felt a lump appear in my throat. A lump filled with a thick gel.

"Is that what she’s telling you?"

"What? No. I was just trying to say it’s okay to hug that guy’s dead. Just go away."

"You said I’d get over him, right?"

I shook my head. "I know his name…"

"Then why should I forget him? He was one of the best in this sport."

I felt a touch more pain in my ribs. I clenched my fists, feeling one of them crack. I didn’t want to fight now, but… not so long ago, just before Tattletale’s power was

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
’ll have to do. I can’t even get into the heart of the matter. How many of my people did you kill? There’s five hundred here. If not the five hundred I told you about, then you’re talking about two hundred."

He glanced at the dead, "And if you didn’t have enough of them to form the backbone of this operation, then who was, the target for you to shoot in the head? Your daughter, for crying out loud? My daughter. She didn’t give her consent. She didn’t give you the idea, either."

"Your daughter," I told him, and I felt the need to add, "You really think you can let that stand?"

He shook his head. At least he’s not standing around in the dark. He was, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised at all, but I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

"It all makes a very unsympathetic sort of sense," Koffi said.

I looked down at his hands, and saw the veins and arteries had been stripped away. I imagined, I’d gone out to buy a pen and a set of pencils, and now I had to use those for all the work. "And I’m not the only one who has made sense of this. There’s also the fact that we have to count on you, the Protectorate. But don’t take my word for it. Take whatever others have said. Take what Legend said, take what the other heroes have said. The people who do what you did aren’t going to be too happy about it."

"And why?" he asked.

"It’s complicated," I said. "And we have to get out of here. You see it, we do it, we figure out what we’re going to do now, then we plan it, and we try to stop them. But how do we stop them? We can go all out, you do it, and you see how it doesn’t work, and then we stop doing what we’re doing, see what happens, and then we look ahead and see what can happen next."

At his response, I felt my heart sink.

"If you want to do this as a long series of victories, you’re killing the messenger."

"Yes."

"You don’t want to stop us, but what do you want to tell us?"

I pointed. "To stop you. If you think you have the intelligence to do this, I’m not surprised that you think so. You want to take the path to victory, because this is how you succeed? You’re going to let us die in the process, and we’ll become what we should never have been, people without dreams and aspirations and a sense of justice. No one here is willing to listen to what you try and say because it might even make they become enemies against your kind and ours. It wouldn’t matter who we become if we don’t try to help them."

He snorted, then turned away from me for a moment.

"The other possibility is the one you gave us to consider," I suggested.

"I’m not going to explain that. I think that you are being extremely stupid in trying to explain something like ‘I need a plan, I want a plan, so I’ve decided which of the three things is best, what will make the most sense, and I’ve come up with one that will let me defeat you, because that’s what I like to think of as a plan. But it’s not a whole-hearted plan. It’s only a plan with a big part of it drawn out."

I felt my heartbeat quicken at that.

"You want to try it?" He asked.

"No. No way. I said you want me to make the plan, you know. See if I can come up with a better one. But no, I can’t say yes, because I can’t see the whole picture, and you don’t want to hear about the bigger picture as well, because it might lead to trouble."

That was the thing, really. It wasn’t a wholehearted, wholeheartedly planned plan, but it was a plan with a big part of it drawn out. I wondered if he really was smart as a whole.

"The other possibility is that you want to use me as leverage. If you are a bad guy, you can use me as leverage. And if you want to, and I have something to say

======== SAMPLE 20 ========
’d lost too many.

That would be enough. There were a fair few civilians, and they weren’t the only ones. I could see a few of the capes, who had found their way to the rooftop, the ones I wanted in the air, but I could see how the buildings fell apart. I could see a few of the capes I didn’t want on the ground, the heroes I didn’t trust, heroes I had no business having on the battlefield.

A cape stood on the edge of a pile of rubble, watching the crowd.

In the same instant, there was a clatter as another huge building fell in front of a man. I could see the force of the impact as he was thrown through a gap in the front of a building that had stood in the midst of the crowd, the momentum of the impact catching him just off kilter. A second later, another building fell as well, as though its foundations had been pulverized in the same moment.

I could even hear a small earthquake that rattled the rooftop as the building fell.

There was a flash of green light, then another flash of light.

The cape who had been in the group just in case turned out to be here.

Another flash of light, a crackling of light, then a cloud of dust.

As a wall of dust fell, there was a crash as a building fell to the ground. There was a flash of flash.

Capes here’re fucking dumb. Shit is like that in capes.

The cape who’d been here, the other cape and the capes with the light in their powers and other powers were knocked out.

A cape in the midst of the crowd fell.

I’d noticed. He caught a handful of them and pulled them to one side to try to help. Other capes made it through as the rest broke their fall.

"You fell asleep!" the girl with the knife shouted.

A girl with a mop of black hair in a yellow costume said something else.

A cape with a metal helmet pulled something out of some kind of cloud as it flew out of range, then tossed it at the girl, before she caught it as she approached.

Her powers had an effect, and it was an incredibly useful spell. She moved her helmet and she had to back away a step for balance.

There was a crash as light filled the area, and the cape in question was knocked out. They had another concussion, and another cape with a glowing aura moved out of the way to help.

Heard it.

A cape with otherworldly eyes in green and golden. He’d got knocked out, and it was only a matter of time before he was caught up in something like that, or someone else had him in place of his eyes.

His powers were affecting him. The impact was strong enough to knock him across one knee.

As he walked off to the side, people tried to help him. The girl with the knife and the man with the lightning bolts were left to fend for themselves, trying to find a way to get closer to him while they could.

I’d gone after Bitch. I was getting close to the guy with the chainsaws with my bugs.

Then I heard the sound of something hit the ground, and saw it crackle with force. I moved into the midst of the building that was being torn apart, using my power to move in the air like an unbalanced cat that didn’t know what to do with its weight, and heard the noise. It wasn’t a crash, but a clatter, a sound that might have sounded like something like chainsaws scraping on metal.

The cape in question was on his back, and someone else stood to his left.

Fuck, this isn’t getting better. My power was telling me the damage wasn’t being repaired.

We were almost to the scene when something struck the building, and a chain that extended from one end of Cauldron’s building down to the street was caught and caught again on one side, twisting. The pieces fell free, and my leg caught the ground, where my left foot rested. I tried to move closer, but my bugs blocked my path. I used one of them to get on the other end, then they found a solid surface and I moved to intercept the other end. My feet and my costume stuck together in midair.

Two capes joined me, the cape and the girl that was holding the pulley.

I could see the cape on the other side of Crescent, but she was staring at Cauldron, waiting for him to make a move.

When he didn’t.

I moved

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
‐d tried things," she said. "Faster, to a point where I didn’t realize what the others were up to, and it didn’t work out as I expected."

A second later, Tattletale’s phone buzzed after two. It was Eidolon, trying to contact Tattletale.

"What am I doing wrong?" I asked.

"No idea," she said. "Trying new things. Trying to gather intel. I could see Eidolon in the other room. He turned his back and leaned back. Probably to take a moment."

There are worse things than being caught out of position, I thought.

I tried to ignore the alarm clock on the wall, but nothing ever caught my attention.

I walked in the direction of the building that was supposed to hold the journalists in custody. It wasn’t a good sign. Some of the buildings were razed in a similar fashion, with only rubble left.

I tried one last question before walking off.

"How the fuck is she still alive?" Grue asked. "Couldn’t bring back any more and we only got what she was wearing for a little while."

No, Eidolon had not turned his back to him. Had that done anything, I couldn’t say. I was left baffled as to how he’d been able to move back towards his comrades so quickly once he was in a position to do it. He could’t just stand still, and he wasn’t a person who liked to fight.

It was time to head to the others, I told myself.

"I’m going to ask, but I wanted to tell you that I feel bad too, and you’re the first ones to know. You want to go to jail for betraying Eidolon like this?"

"Why don’t you go too?" Coil suggested. "Tell the others about Bitch. She was nice, just keep an eye on her and you can have her back."

This wasn’t exactly the tone of argument I was used to on a number of levels. Not just with the cape politics, but all the more concerning when that same conversation went on so far in the background.

I had to admit, I thought Coil would win out.

I made my way out of the building and up to the rooftop, the same rooftop that the others were staying on and using as the staging ground for this whole situation.

"You’re in the water already?" Tattletale asked, "What are you on?"

"Just got a text from Bitch," I said, "About a little bit of a trouble, didn’t know why, but we went to get Tattletale and figure it out before the cops showed up."

"Fuck!" Grue said, as he grabbed one waterlogged end from the edge of the ledge and grabbed one of my arms. I struggled for his grip until he gave up, then moved onto Imp.

"What the heck is she doing," Imp asked Tattletale.

"She’s a girl that Tattletale doesn’t know," I said.

"The girl," Tattletale said, looking at Imp. "She was at Arcadia High,"

Arcadia would be the school that the two heroes that had been at that location were staying at before going to the Protectorate and doing what they’d been doing all day.

I could see the panic on Tattletale’s face as she looked at Imp’s reaction to the news. The anger, the rage…

"You guys heard about what happened?" Imp asked.

"Of course!" Coil responded. He started to speak, but Tattletale held the phone out so it was only a text. "Let me see, you’re at the rooftop, standing back there. You had a chance to say something, didn’t you?"

I shook my head.

"But I can tell you were either standing in the water, or out in a boat or plane, trying to get ahold of Tattletale and get her help in dealing with the situation at hand. That’s how she died."

"She died?" Imp asked.

"Yeah."

"I got a text from the cops. Was trying to get ahold of you to ask why you didn’t talk to me before you made that decision. You wanted to get Tattletale in custody."

"The fuck?" Imp asked, her voice unusually calm.

"The fucking fuck? Why didn’t you act like you were being a little caring at the same time you ordered the murder of

======== SAMPLE 22 ========
’t have any idea where to find the boss, if he was dead or gone.

It wasn’t safe to stay. She turned and ran, but he had already stopped.

That meant Scion, and he meant to get rid of him. They weren’t sure how.

But if they didn’t think fast enough…

■

June 17th, 2013, a.u.

Scion reached out with a touch of telekinesis, and I felt the ground beneath his foot shift, moving until it was nearly impassable. The ground below us crumpled and heaved out, and I felt the vibrations sweep through Scion as he vanished, as though he were suddenly and unforeseeably gone.

A hundred other capes were gone, too, they’d done the equivalent of a second suicide by leaving the battlefield.

We made our way down to the main street.

Our destination, we were told, was a skyscraper that would be the tallest building in Brockton Bay. We’d been warned.

We met a group of people who we had a chance of being able to talk into an arrangement.

They were the same crowd as the people we’d left behind, though, and they were mostly the same crowd, except for the people closest to Scion. The tall, thin guys, people with their heads bent at awkward angles and with hair that stretched out behind their heads.

It’s the city they built, I thought.

Scion walked right on by, as though to make us forget about the fact that we were still in the same spot, but that wasn’t the point.

"The rest of our people are waiting and waiting and… you should meet them here, if you’re going to be here longer than a minute," Tattletale’s voice was rough, rough, a whisper.

The people who’d been waiting there weren’t the ones we’d gone up against, we’d left them like this. Too many of them had fallen, killed by the explosions.

"If you need anything, you can call and ask." She pointed at a man who was standing near a bus stop and a woman who couldn’t make any sense of a conversation.

It was a different crowd here than it might have been, the same people there waiting for Scion. They were worried, anxious, worried. I wasn’t sure how to put it: anxious, because he was on his way, and scared, because it was almost certain that something bad would happen.

I could feel the wind in my hair. Had to be the wind as much as the cold. I was almost glad that we’d been late. I wasn’t the easiest person to listen to, not a conversation, not easy, but I had someone to listen to.

"And they won’t think twice about this." Tattletale said a word, and everyone in the crowd echoed the statement.

I glanced through Scion, seeing if I could spot someone he was following or checking.

No. There was no Scion near me. Just me, the tall, thin men with heads turned slightly in his direction, a girl, maybe? My swarm-sense made me think of Shapeshifter.

He walked on, past me.

I could feel a hand on my shoulder, a warm sensation, as though I’d been pressed against something like skin, bone or muscle.

"I’m sorry," I said, "I’m hurt. I wanted to ask. This is the best way to express that, so I can be sure you understand."

"What?"

"You had me concerned. It’s the best way to explain it, and I want to work on it even if it hurts."

"Right."

"Then let me explain," I said.

"You’re not injured, Scion."

"I’m just confused. You want me to get myself off the ground-"

"I’m not telling you to go anywhere. I’ll let you know if anything happens."

"Fine."

I took my step on his shoulder, my bugs following in my wake.

What should I call him? What did names in the Diaspora’s vocabulary mean? Scion?

He could make more people aware when he made them angry. It was something he’d learned to do in the past, after all.

"You can find the boss, if you want to fight him. He’ll teleport here if he’s not there. We’ll have to cross

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
’t know how they knew that," said Tattletale. "If they were, I assume you already knew about the Endbringer problem. But if they weren’t-"

I took the bullet, instead. "You’re trying to trick me?" Howling aloud, I told Tattletale. "I don’t know if I like the idea of going through with this without going through with it, but I feel compelled to stick around and do it anyways. I know this isn’t the best idea, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but-"

She stopped. "Okay. I’ll have to take this, then. And I’ll make sure it’s done right."

I nodded.

"And I wanted to say thanks for the assistance. I think I’d know something about this. As far as what you did?"

"I’m pretty quiet."

I nodded. The girl with the guns was right. I wasn’t talking.

"I saw the aftermath of what you left behind, and I don’t see her doing this very often. I’m not sure I understand this whole ‘talking’ thing, trying to get things done’ thing. The Undersiders were talking to the boss."

If Tattletale was right, as Tattletale had said, maybe her bluff came close to being right. Maybe she would have been on to me.

I didn’t like that, but I didn’t like that I had to be this close to her on this, so early on in my career as Protectorate captain.

"I’ll try." I promised and then hopped down from the wall. "I got a message, I think, about our first fight. I couldn’t make it out. I can’t see the screen, but I think they have a video camera on the roof. Maybe they’re on the way back."

Not that there were video cameras at all, I suspected. I’d seen them installed by some of the other PRT teams or owned some cameras. Even with my bugs I couldn’t make out anything more than the ambient sounds.

Still, it’d be interesting to tune out the noise and see the result, right?

This, I was very glad for, felt oddly liberating.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know anything, though. I was a bit rusty in the ways of the Protectorate, and I’d barely got my feet under me, but I had stuff I couldn’t throw away. I could remember the basics: who was who, what we were, our duties.

I felt old, though, and that was one of the big reasons I couldn’t get my bearings. I was more comfortable with the old guard, more familiar with the hierarchy, the structure.

But I wanted to be old, so when I said I wanted to be older, something else happened.

The old lady who had been tending to the wounded stopped. One arm was limp, the other broken, as though she hadn’t given some care to it. It was hard to explain, but my emotions were stirred.

The old woman looked at the television, at Legend, and then at Tattletale, who had stepped forward to help. The woman looked at Hero, and then looked at the television again, in alarm.

"Are you hurt?" the girl asked.

Hero shrugged, "No. No. She was hurt."

She glanced back at Legend.

That was it. The old lady left.

Another group of people, standing nearby the television set. They were talking to a man who had a mask on.

He didn’t speak, but the old male had a voice. His voice. "I guess we could do…?"

He seemed to be having a difficult time trying to figure out how to say that, so he used the old man’s words to help. "Treat her right, I guess. We should leave her alone. You don’t need to be hurt. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m only… a bit… upset-"

"I’m okay."

"I didn’t want to say that kind of thing, but you shouldn’t try to treat her like you’re supposed to." The woman reached a hand out and touched my cheek. I didn’t respond, though.

The man turned, looked at Kid Win.

"Just wanted to ask… Is everything okay?"

Kid Win shook his head,

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
’t look so good, but I know I’ll be there in a heartbeat."

"I… you’re a mercenary?" I suggested, gesturing up and down.

"We know you’re working for Doctor Mother," Alec said. "No matter what the situation, you’re the type to run around in pursuit of cash on your payday. You see what I mean?"

My brain made a huge noise.

"No," I said. "I have plans. And I’m not planning on walking away from you. What do you know about the Undersiders?"

"I was told they were a gang of criminals from New York, back in the day. The group was run by a man with a name for it: Clockblocker. I don’t quite know that’s accurate. I guess the guy that gave out the information kept his mouth shut."

"The guy with the face?" I pointed at Clockblocker.

"Probably."

"Do you know who that guy is?" I asked.

Alexandria turned her attention back to me. "If Clockblocker was talking to Tattletale, and it was about her, I think we could go with that. She’ll know more than he does. You don’t think you can trust Clockblocker."

Not exactly. "I’m not saying I’ll stick around or trust Clockblocker, but I don’t see a problem if I try. I’ll join Armsmaster and Battery if it takes a bit longer. I don’t want to stick around the way they made me."

"Well, that’s fine. A bit too late for good karma. It’s a good thing everyone has powers, isn’t it?"

"I’ll agree, but I’m thinking I’ll stick around and wait for the other two to finish picking up their places. I’ll see you guys either at a future date, before you’re all done or in a good place. The three of you, in a way."

We left, and I wasn’t sure if I wasn’t being too careful. I wished I could see every person who was there, and I really didn’t know if they’d be interested in this, in their friendship or business. I could think it over with a dozen different scenarios.

I’d hoped this was just a phase. Not that the others were my enemies.

Now I knew about Alexandria. No, she was one of the people who were out to get me. I didn’t quite grasp why, but she was there to get me, and she was out to get me in a way that made me nervous, because she knew what I could do to her. A few of the others would be in touch, and I wasn’t sure how effective that would be.

I tried to look off-balance, and the lines of my fingers brushed the window. I’d had a panic attack, and I was still lying on the ground, trying to figure out how to fix that. "Hey."

She turned, and I flinched. She wasn’t as large, but she was there. No. I’d never really understood people. The larger the person, the less the mental picture. I thought of a man with a beard, tall, and a nose that was too big for him, for someone who worked as a miner. A woman, with an accent that made the smallest of me think of a woman in a lab coat. Her skin was dark and gray all over.

And, I didn’t know, this small-minded attitude? That was exactly what I was feeling.

But before I could respond more forcefully, she turned and grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside.

I looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. The windows. The street was full of people. Cars all over the place. The people just beyond the fences were others. Merchants, looking to make a quick buck, trying to put food on the table. A woman in a green dress that would have been my neighbor. A man with a girl’s face painted on it. An elderly couple, both looking tired. A guy with a long beard in a suit that had been cut to fit him, and his partner with long sleeves. People with dogs. Children.

I stopped and turned toward the nearest window, looking out over Central Park. A man was standing a hundred feet away, staring out at a young boy who had no name. The man’s eyes were yellow, and the eyes could have been the scabs of a beetle�

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
’t have done this."

She smiled. "And we’re in luck. You can have that little secret."

"I’m going to buy me a snack, then."

"You’re a girl that likes to have fun," Bitch said. "I like to have fun, so I’m happy where I am."

"So when you’re all done, are there any more questions?"

"The question? How many questions do you feel want to ask me?"

"Sixteen," Bitch said.

Bitch nodded.

"And you want to give me a hand?" Clockblocker asked. "If you’re going to take one, it might be on the job. Like, you’re going to work with me. You’re going to be friends."

"I’m in," Rachel answered.

"And you’re having a really good day, aren’t you?" she asked.

Rachel gave her a funny look. "Yeah."

The grin dropped from her face.

"No!" Clockblocker shouted.

"I’m not. I’ve been… uh. I guess I was a bit busy lately. I really liked all the stuff I was doing, but I didn’t care when the girls wanted all the money. I don’t know how I’ve got enough for lunch."

"Oh?"

Clockblocker shrugged. "I thought you were in too."

Bitch felt an awkward kind of relief. There was no joy to be had here. This was a trap. Not as an option. But she could understand why Clockblocker hadn’t been able to help out.

She would tell Clockblocker that he’d been an asshole the other nights. But then he might have gotten suspicious and stopped attending, or… maybe she didn’t know.

She sighed, and the smile fell from her face, only to go slack jawed once again. They were supposed to be friends, but they weren’t. It wasn’t her best moment.

"I hope you appreciate what I mean," Rachel said.

"Thank you," Bitch said, not caring the slightest bit. She wasn’t letting Clockblocker off easy.

"I’m really liking this," Clockblocker said. He held his hands out to Rachel, indicating the way around. "If you go with the idea of doing what Clockblocker and Imp do, maybe you can get a chance to meet other teams."

"Oh. Of course," Rachel replied, as if it was totally normal for someone to want to meet someone else as a friend. "Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fun."

"Right."

Bitch had a feeling she’d be a target for Clockblocker. She was a little too used to being in the shadows, being an almost hidden figure.

"I don’t know what to say, but I really appreciate that."

Bitch shook Clockblocker’s hand.

She felt like she was being held hostage on a level, but she didn’t care. She was more out of it than most, a newbie, but she didn’t care. She was her own person, and that was okay with her, because she was her person, and Bitch couldn’t say how to feel, but she’d made her own choices about who was her friend.

Not Bitch, but Rachel and the other girls. And Clockblocker didn’t even care about her being his friend, so maybe she was a friend because Clockblocker didn’t know what to do.

It was her alone time these days. Bitch felt guilty in a gut level, like she was leaving behind a friend and someone she hadn’t made that close. No good way to explain, but she didn’t care. Her friends weren’t a priority, and she didn’t care about them, now. There wasn’t a chance in hell she could convince them.

Clockblocker and Imp had decided on a date, and they hadn’t even mentioned it. Rachel had mentioned Imp was going to go on a date. Bitch knew Imp was on top of the girls, and that was her fault.

Maybe Clockblocker was being unfair, but Bitch couldn’t let that slide.

"No. No," she said, her tone less than confident.

"We’re still friends," Imp said.

She stepped around to