======== SAMPLE 1 ========
anking and being violent, and she’d be able to use her power to get around them without getting shot. She would be able to hurt him, or at least scare him, get him to give up control of his power.

But… what would a perfect world look like if all the horrible things she’d done were forgotten?

She was too focused on looking past the worst case scenarios for the present, when the worst case scenarios were playing out.

"I get that," he said, "You want to talk more about your plan, then?"

She turned her head, and he’d caught a glimpse of her eyes, the way they changed and flicked back to be fixed on him in the midst of an expression of absolute, unflinching, almost unbreakable composure.

He smiled. "What are you thinking?"

"The Endbringers. I’ve been thinking about something that’s been going through my head."

He didn’t say anything. He glanced at the door, gave it a firm knock before he looked away.

For long seconds, he fidgeted.

"I got it," he said. "I know what I want to talk about first. About the plan, about your friends, and about this little girl."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"You’re the idiot. A fool."

"I’m not fooling you," she said. It might have sounded accusatory, but it was the opposite, a question. It was less about the answer and more about the question. She didn’t like that she might get it wrong on the first try.

He raised one foot and gave the tip of the hammer a push, the side of the hand swinging back, and knocked it away. The hammer hit a stone pillar that jutted out of the wall between us, flew there and struck the pillar out of the wall, sending it skidding across the rooftop’s interior. He’d been hit and knocked down with one hand just now, and it had knocked him off his feet with the other.

Crawler punched the door open as he pulled himself up and to his feet. His left hand was already out, in the manner of a gymnast's backhand or a boxer’s hand.

"How the hell did you do that!?" he shouted. "I don’t even see your head!"

For the time being, he’d managed to stay out of trouble. The only bad news that had come down in his absence was that one of his teammates had apparently decided she wasn’t sure with him when she’d gone on a rampage, and the rest of his team was apparently too wrapped up in their feud with Coil and a certain number of other problems to care.

So it was a given that he’d taken out more enemies than any other cape, not the least of which was the one-eyed kid.

He had an idea of what we were doing next. He’d brought his crowbar as a backup weapon, and I’d been in the thick of things.

He pushed the door back open, then stepped into the room, the door slamming shut behind him.

"This way," he announced. He paused as he stepped into the room and began to drag a tray into a cabinet. The entire cabinet fell into the open cabinet he’d left open inside. Coil, in a white lab coat, opened the panel and deposited a container into his cup.

The entire hall swayed with the sound of the cabinet, the door that closed against the opposite wall. The walls were slick with the liquid.

Coil set the container down on the table, the contents spilling onto the floor as he lifted it.

I turned to see the doors to my territory crunched open before the door to Dad’s had been locked in place.

I’d hoped to have a conversation, but the sound of a gunshot was a distraction. I made my way outside, and we’d been too distracted by the scene to talk, our faces hidden. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the way the heroes were fighting that battle of the swarm, about the Endbringer, but I wasn’t about to comment or share any details about the situation with them.

I’d done too much damage to my dad’s reputation to risk it any further, no matter what I said. I’d made it very clear to my teammates that I cared about my dad, about him and his wife, and I hoped they’d take that on board. I couldn’t get them to see the way it had happened, or I couldn�

======== SAMPLE 2 ========
anking or even a hint of hostility, he kept his eye out for trouble, even as his expression remained unflinching.

Siberian moved her legs as though she were flexing the muscles of her hands. She didn’t seem to mind.

I felt my blood run cold at that. Had to be something Taylor had done. I was getting worse from the stress of the adrenaline.

My hand hit something hard enough to feel it hurt. I thought I might have broken something, then found it was only me who had hit something. I felt the burn. If I’d been so careful, I might have died.

The man who’d tried to grab me was gone. I heard his own screams, but my power wouldn’t let me know the exact language.

I pushed myself to my feet and felt the pain in my chest intensify over the edge of my vision.

We’d gone up against the Endbringer. No, that didn’t describe the gist of the events of the fight. The most important things were the actions we’d taken and the fact that we’d won.

But we’d lost.

That was a failure of our group. I felt the pain in my chest intensify even as I clenched my fists and started running.

No.

There.

There was no mistake about it. The Endbringers had turned on the group we’d battled, and this was it. The fight against Scion was lost.

I was out of touch with my swarm, not moving, my bugs weren’t working. I couldn’t sense any kind of target, but I knew there was Scion approaching and was taking steps to defend myself.

I reached for a knife as Alexandria threw her to me. I held up one hand to fend out the bugs, my back pressed against the railing of the stairwell. The other hand was out of reach of the knife.

She reached for a gun and I pushed it from my grip.

There was a crash outside the store, a spray from the nozzle of Tattletale’s grenade launcher.

As I stepped outside, she was already outside the building, running away from me, a gun with the barrel pointed at me.

The girl was running through the same shopping center where Brian had been attacked, heading straight for me with a gaseous plume of air between them.

As if my efforts to hold her off were a full body fight, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t need to feel my pulse to be conscious that I was moving, that I had the knife in one hand and other hand on my way to my feet. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate time to use my power.

I saw the ground vibrate and crack as though something big was falling. I couldn’t get free. The ground was slick with water, thick as though I was walking on ice.

I saw the building split in two, collapsing in on top of Brian.

It took everything I had to get to my feet. I saw the woman with the knife moving toward us with alarming speed, even as her momentum was slowing dramatically.

It didn’t even matter. I felt everything shift so I caught the woman’s legs and drove her backward as she rolled onto her side. The man, the little girl with the rifle in one hand and a knife in the other. The girl who my swarm had pushed, turned his attention toward us.

With the momentum a few times over, I used the momentum of the fall to get at the woman’s throat. As hard as my hand, feet and head were on the ground, I managed to get a grip there. I managed to pull my arm free from the other sleeve of the scarf at my back. I found her with a grip on her throat, and with the knife held in one hand, I tried to pull her in the head and into it.

She started fighting my efforts to tear free of her hold on my arms and a grip on her neck, even as I pulled my arms free and ran through the building. The knife, despite the struggle, couldn’t puncture me, so I used it to pound away at the throat, pushing it free.

Then I pulled my arms back into position, trying to keep her arms apart. Again, the knife failed to pry free from her throat.

Another rush of pain, another rush of pain as I kicked hard against the side of the car. I made a bit of a splash of my own.

A full foot wide of a force field had formed, the width of a two-year-old’s hand, and the second barrier had been erected just behind a

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
anking and the way that he was making his way to the table with other reporters was the kind of thing that went with a certain level of power. He’d had a life after being in custody, and he’d had a life as part of the Protectorate. He’d been able to do almost everything he’d done since the beginning, even if it had been under different names. He’d had his enemies, he’d managed to get free, he’d been able to do what he normally did, even went after heroes on one occasion when the Protectorate wanted to keep him. Except… maybe he’d had a girlfriend. The way he’d phrased it? She wasn’t the one to blame for everything. He liked her. But she was in a much darker place to be than when he met her, and he was left wondering if they could have been her friends.

He tried to focus on what was going on.

Except he could sense the other girl walking down the hall. He recognized her immediately. Lucy. She was wearing her costume. The black-red shirt with her hair cut in a loose ponytail. The green hood with her face covered.

She was sitting on a couch beside a laptop.

It was odd, that he recognized her. She was pretty, if not perfect, and she wasn’t quite Taylor. He felt awkward around anyone who looked like she did, because it was something ingrained in his subconscious, a part of his ability to make sense of things. That didn’t necessarily mean he knew her better. She was a new person, with very little in the way of experience. What was strange was that his body language suggested he knew. It was something he noticed, something he’d consciously picked up on, like a bug tracking a light, or a spider recognizing a familiar scent.

Her phone beeped, and it was her. It was a text, from the number, followed by a series of emoji. A blue haired, long haired girl.

He didn’t know how to respond, so he closed his eyes.

***

He’d met Taylor in high school, but not enough to become friends. When they hadn’t met yet, he’d done a lot of dating and failed to find anything he could stand. He’d been too afraid to approach, and he hadn’t figured her out when he saw her in costume.

He’d just been finishing up a semester of postsecondary studies. The week of the university count had come around, his friends moved on and Taylor had been moving out of his way, he’d just ended the semester with the classes he would take in the fall.

Taylor had been working on building up her confidence, now. A chance meeting for coffee had been a catalyst. It was the same week in the spring that he’d moved out on his own and been on a date with Taylor. Since then, everything had gone south, and he didn’t see where Taylor’s confidence had started to get better, only muddled.

He’d taken the hint and he’d gone ahead with the date, the coffee.

He opened that mail, and it started playing through music like a hundred thousand speakers were going on, each with a volume and mix that was slightly different from the rest. He’d had no interest in Taylor’s music but had been turned off by her choice of it. Even so, it would have been a good place to start. From there, it would only take him about two seconds to turn the dials one way or another, to hear that one track.

The next step was a question and answer session.

He’d had a few hours to think and gather information before he got a text from a friend of the school. It was Taylor.

"Hi Taylor, it’s good to meet you," he typed in the text. It wasn’t from his phone.

Taylor was answering, "No."

"Good to hear from you. Your name?"

"Taylor."

The other students in the school had a bit of a group dynamic. He’d had a crush on one of the girls who’d turned his grade in. Noted here was no doubt the female principal, or someone with power.

"Can I ask why you wrote that email?"

"It’s because I want to make sure I get that email if I go by the time deadlines for classes start."

"Okay. How did you know the time schedule? Did you get a calendar or something?"

"No calendar or reference, just email."

He was starting

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
anking them apart. I found three capes who could do it: one who could shoot lasers out of the air in response to an incoming attack and another who fired blasts of energy out from one of his elbows, like a flame hound, like a wolfhound with a pack of wolves on its back. Like the wolves, it didn’t look very canine.

He was a big guy, which made me worry he might be a good candidate for a power. One of the most important and fundamental aspects of combat is being accurate. The man had one of those. He drew his own power, and a power that matched my own in almost every regard.

Capes that could call in a wave of energy from one of his hands included an energy barrier, though it wasn’t pure energy like fire, and he didn’t have hands that made them so easy to hit. He could hit with both feet, with an arm that was a foot and a leg that was half his height, and with both feet if he wanted to hit twice that high. He’d probably hit harder with his claws than his arms, because he had them twice as thick at the extremities, with each claw a foot long. The claws were hard as aluminum alloy, if they weren’t already, and he swiped with his fingers instead of his toe.

My bugs could sense the ground moving beneath a thick layer of dust. I thought it would be interesting to see what it looked like as the dust settled, but it didn’t take long for it to be a massive explosion of fine particles that made up anything but a cloud.

"How-" he started, and I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the swarm.

He was moving towards me, and the swarm wasn’t responding. My mind started racing with possible options. Run, head, get the others to me, wait, run again, move the swarm, I could imagine the swarm reacting like a computer did when it saw a piece of paper at some point in the middle of a computer screen. If they moved forward, they would go for me, just like the paper was in range, with a half second waiting.

If he moved in that direction… I didn’t know what he’d expect.

If he wasn’t expecting me and started running, he’d keep moving in a straight line, which would be obvious if I saw a blur in front of him.

A single thought crossed my mind, and I tensed in surprise, as the reality took hold.

He was going to hit me again.

He kept moving in the general direction of the swarm. The dust rising behind him only suggested the direction he might have stopped. If he wanted to stop, I still had a good path to take.

He was so focused on keeping to the straightest path that I didn’t get a chance to pull myself together from my swarm. I had one leg as a shield, bent the other as I reached out to grab a teammate who was trying to climb up a building face.

The bugs that were still crawling over me were too slow on that level. With that, my bugs were too slow.

The moment I pulled myself together again, I began to run, with only my legs for support and a bit of air for my lungs. In the distance, a group of students were running, running, and my heart dropped out of my chest.

Was, was it, but that wasn’t the end of it. My hand landed on the back of my head, and the other two arms on either side, and I felt a burning sensation in the same brain area that I felt a jolt of fear and despair.

It was as though my thoughts were reacting to a punch to the gut, and my gut was violently vibrating with an angry, visceral response. My right arm, too, was shaking as though I made a fist and slapped it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to use all the tools at my disposal – my costume, my swarm – to help stop myself from reacting and throwing myself down the side of the building. I couldn’t breath, my chest was shaking from a cold, as though I’d never even put my mouth to shut, and my eyes were a red line that wasn’t there. I felt nauseous to the point that I couldn’t concentrate, feeling dizzy.

The second the first had gone, I could barely move, couldn’t stand straight, wasn’t sure of what my next move should be. My sense of time slowed down in a flash. The other two limbs were shaking as well, and with them were my bugs that I could sense.

My arms, I felt like they were holding me back, and the

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
anking to drive him away from the building."

"That’s how I know you’re not going to be here for the fight," Tattletale said. "But I’ll call you and see how this works out, then we’ll take that train to the other end."

I nodded.

The door of the train jolted open as it arrived. Regent was there, his hood and scarf around him, his face masked behind a hood of armor that covered everything, including his face.

"What?" Grue asked.

"There’s a problem. We’re arriving late, as we’re trying to make our presence known, and I’m not entirely sure what we’re trying to do."

"Why?" I asked.

The door rattled and groaned, and then the train started moving again. It wasn’t so unusual, the train that was waiting, if not the kind the Travelers were going to be running on anyways. Coil’s trains were fast and efficient, running at a decent clip, but they weren’t moving as fast as the more heavily traveled and comfortable trains. The doors behind the last train were always the same in appearance, the same colors, the same font—the same logos and pictures – the same interiors.

The Travelers were busy getting their things organized when Coil’s train started running in the far rear of the train. The doors behind them opened, and Tattletale led the way.

I could guess what was going on anyways. He’d anticipated it. They were supposed to be traveling the same route Coil had traveled, and he’d taken the opposite route. The train started leaving that area every hour, stopping at another hub that was in close proximity to Coil’s train. To go there, he’d hired an escort. He’d done this because his rival was doing so well, and that was what his followers were looking to capitalize on.

That would explain why the other three were at the last destination. They would be staying at the hotel he’d set up.

I looked at Grue. No smile, no gestures of any kind.

And I was pretty certain Tattletale was on solid ground. Not exactly on the same page as me or Tattletale, even, but her position as leader of the group was in line with my own. My responsibility as leader of my team was to guide the others and ensure they were on track. Tattletale was right in knowing this: the travel schedule was dictated by our travel patterns, and we’d already started, if I hadn’t gone straight, to go to the train station on the way to the arena and pick up my things at the hotel. It meant I had two trains to catch up on television, without even needing to worry about it from the start.

It also meant I could do it all over again on the way to the arena.

We’d crossed paths a few times while we’d been at the top. We hadn’t done anything formal, and even in the same way we’d done it, we’d talked. We’d talked politics, and that’d included the topic of Coil. It was what had led to Tattletale having joined us in the first place, and she’d discussed politics, and she knew Coil’s power and the city he was based in. Coil had made his home in the South end, in what had been one of the more successful areas of the city. There had been plenty of development and jobs in the area, and the high-end shops that had cropped up throughout the old downtown area had all been created in imitation of what Coil wanted to emulate.

But the things that had been going on behind the scenes hadn’t been the things that had led to Tattletale joining. Coil had played his power in the background, keeping the real game going. She’d left the city to move back to the suburbs in an effort to protect herself, and he’d sought her out, offered her a place to stay. When that failed, he’d gone to war, and she’d backed him up.

Now Coil was an international figure in her face. He’d created a reputation for himself through what had been one of the most successful local businesses of his generation and his regional power. And he’d then proceeded to use that success for personal gain, taking control of an entire industry from city to city, building himself a private fortune through it. He’d taken over companies, established a career, and he’d managed to retain all of this because he wasn’t afraid to deal with and

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
anking. Or he’d leave, take the other one off their hands and not bother to leave us behind.

Tattletale and I decided the best course of action was to go to the others. Tattletale climbed into the truck and climbed out of the van.

"How is he taking it?"

Tattletale looked at us. "It’s okay, I was going to call for my dogs. If anyone needs to go out and get backup, now that you’ve figured him out? We’ll need your assistance."

"Oh?"

"You heard about me," Tattletale said.

"Yep," Regent said, "They’re going to blame me. They’ve been looking for a target, and my power’s enough to pull some strings to get the attention of some capes. Tattletale?"

Rachel jumped up, "And why the hell did you come to rescue us!?"

"Because I thought you guys were the ones who could use the backup."

We were still reeling. I was already on the ground, and my bugs were swarming every surface around me, to help me find the ground. I had some to make a rough visual of what I had to work with:

The two dogs and their human companions were clustered around a small pile of rubble, in the midst of a puddle of blood, their coats bleeding or stained with blood. They had a knife held between their teeth, a piece of bone sticking out of one of their mouths where something had grazed it with a bullet.

Rachel’s group had stopped the retreating heroes from entering the room, and they had turned to follow us. Rachel grabbed Bastard and used her power to draw him towards her, putting him between the two of them.

"I’m so sorry," she said. He only grunted a word in response.

"For what you did?" I asked.

"Some," Regent muttered.

"What?" Tattletale asked.

"He just spat the words out. A little too easily."

"You’d better listen to her," I told her, "If it’s going to work, then this is the most important part of being a hero. Not being able to get this right, not being able to have a conversation, and getting shit done."

"Okay."

"Did you get the details on what just happened with the Simurgh’s attack?" Tattletale asked.

"Tattletale told me she was getting ready to get ready. The Simurgh was in a position to hit a whole bunch of cities across America."

"What was she waiting for?"

"She got ready and she used her power, got the Simurgh, and she hit a city. So she got ready and she waited and she did it. She knew what she’d get until it hit her and it took her out of action, killed a whole bunch of people. It’s like I would, without even knowing."

That made more sense. Which wasn’t an excuse, because she knew what she was getting into a little while ago.

"Does it matter, or is it better to move forward?" Grue offered her a dry, professional look.

"Fuck yeah," Tattletale muttered.

Rachel was still waiting for a response from a few of the others. Grue glanced at Tattletale, and she turned to the girl. "Do you want to get in trouble?"

"No," Tattletale said.

"Good. So."

"Fuck," Tattletale muttered, "And don’t even think-"

"Don’t use my power on me," Grue stepped away, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"I’ve put it through a thousand times, with other people, with real emergencies," Tattletale told them. She was quick to pull away the spare phone in her jacket pocket. She looked up. "You look like you can handle yourself."

"Fine."

Rachel had stepped away from the window, making her way into the stairwell. Tattletale gestured to one wall that had a concrete barrier to it, and Imp moved to knock the wall down.

Rachel stopped as the wall went up, and watched Rachel from above. The last thing she expected would be a girl with her hair. Her nose was still bleeding from the work of the beetles, and the other end of her arm had a bloody gash, where a large rock had torn through half of it.

No. Not that Rachel had cut much of it with her axe. She’d cut it too much when

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
anking, I glanced at the others. Armsmaster was leaning toward the door, Tattletale was sitting on her haunches, her back turned to us, her arms folded.

Armsmaster looked over to Battery and asked, "What are they doing?"

"Watch your back," Battery replied. "I’d like to think I’m a master thief with a thing for risk."

Armsmaster’s back was turned. He stepped back toward the door, glanced at Tattletale, then turned his attention to me. "I don’t think so. I understand if you haven’t figured anything out, but maybe the more direct approach…"

I saw Armsmaster pull the blade up toward his head, ready to fire it. He glanced back at me, then put his hand down on his weapon holster and pulled the trigger.

I felt my legs start to tingle. My bugs crawled all around me to get me warm, but the warmth came out with the force of a massive blow to my face, a spray the size of one fist.

In a second, Armsmaster and Battery were gone.

I’d made a mistake.

"Armsmaster, what-" I began, but I was cut off as Triumph and the other two moved to stop me. They weren’t as strong as I’d hoped for, and Triumph was more about brute strength than a sense of strategic positioning. He wasn’t the fastest guy either, but his agility and timing made him one of the guys I had to hit more consistently. What would Triumph do if I got hit by Armsmaster? Hit his own leg, or knock over a section of the wall?

The only one of us who really had to think about, we were left to figure that out on our own. The rest of our group was on our way.

How to beat that? There had to be a strategy behind what we’d just had.

Except that sort of thinking didn’t really work, I thought aloud, the way your thoughts did. It was easier to just not think, let alone to give up in the face of a situation that could kill us both and leave me penniless.

The next minute of my life, I would have a reason to worry about. I had no idea how, until a moment later than I would have otherwise.

I stepped into the room Armsmaster had created. I felt a chill, and I felt the heat of the air shift. The second I stood from my bed, I could feel the heat of the air rush around my body, warm and familiar enough, that I didn’t think about it the next second.

Armsmaster was still sitting in his chair. He smiled and raised his hand as if he were giving me a hug.

"I never realized you were the kind of person that’d do that," Armsmaster said.

"Yeah," I said. "Don’t you?"

"No. I was just saying that it’s a tool of hers. She got her powers by doing what’s called a power fakery, when you’re using a fake identity to get around the laws and regulations on what qualifies a person as being human."

"I don’t see it that way," I said. "Was there anything she really did, the kind of thing I wanted to avoid? It isn’t easy to maintain your fake identity. It’s hard to stay alive, even if you’re as strong as you are."

"So she gained a fake identity to try to hurt someone more powerful than her, and she did it while she was being hunted by three powerful heroes."

I tried to think of what I’d been trying to avoid. "The Wards were more my thing, before you attacked."

"No, Tattletale. Tattletale took things in stride. She gave me a little more leeway, made sure I went in with the idea that I’d get things my way than she did. She’s the strongest thinker in the world, with probably one of the strongest minds in the world. In the wake of her theory on you and me, she’s helped reshape the world in her wake. She’s helped shape our understanding of the universe. She’s given us tools, so we can use our powers better, so we keep from getting stuck in one place. It’s a way of keeping us sane and alive at the same time."

"I didn’t really get it."

"You were doing great, then."

"I’m doing better." I tried to keep the confusion out of my shoulders.

"

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
anking and fighting with the Undersiders. I don’t have a backup plan, I don’t want to wait and hope for the better. But I can’t say how we’d handle things if things went wrong in that case."

"Unless you could suggest alternatives, then?" Tagg replied, "I’d rather you didn’t go that route."

"Wouldn’t want any surprises at this juncture. If it comes down to it, I’m prepared to assume you’re at least partially responsible for my death or the end of my team."

"I could find someone else to fill your shoes in the interim."

I grit my teeth in frustration, "And who’d it be?"

"It’s too easy to assume your teammates fall into this category," he said. His tone was teasing, but when I thought it might be a threat, he changed the tone and asked, "And how the hell do you get to this pinnacle of the human experience without any of them holding sway? Why do you even put yourself forward as a champion if you don’t have any followers or people following your lead?"

I sighed.

"So I’ve got this one question for you… Do the rules you’ve established still apply to your team, if and when you leave the city?"

"I’ve been through enough adversity these past twelve hours, I don’t expect them to apply," I said, my voice low, to see if there was anything to this.

"You’re just making it up, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and you’ve managed to pull yourself together enough to get yourself and your team back on track. You’re going to go ahead with the plan you proposed earlier and expect that the PRT’s rules will not apply to you?"

"No," I responded. Then I saw why he had asked for such an admission.

"Then what exactly were we discussing?" I asked.

"Not much. But I did raise the subject of you leaving the city. How are you going to go from here? What do your employees think?"

"Everything’s been sorted out."

"You have a bit of a problem there. It’s hard to find people who’re going to give you a chance after being treated like shit for the past year?"

"It’s a small town," I replied, with only a vague feeling of annoyance to spare.

"You mean… the hell?" Tagg turned his head from one of his computers to look at me and back again. He raised an eyebrow.

"No. But…" I turned around. My eyes fell on the television in the corner of his office. He turned his attention to it. "You said you were going to talk. Why?"

"I need to get my head together," I admitted.

"Good. It’s a problem if you don’t keep things in order." Tagg shifted his position, putting one hand over one lips.

I glanced to my left, and the television in the corner of the room flashed with the words: "Targets identified. Subject has been secured and is currently being escorted here by two of the PRT hierarchy."

The words were scripted. The words weren’t. Tagg had stepped away from his computer chair, and he’d stepped out of his office door, turning a right. From the second he’d moved, the computer had buzzed with his footfalls as he got out of the door and reached the corner of the room.

I’d hoped I’d seen what I was seeing.

That was enough information to keep me from getting concerned or getting suspicious. For now? Everything was supposed to fall apart in a matter of an hour or two.

"You and your sister have a good relationship," Tagg spoke, "I’d say so."

"It’s fine," I replied, glancing to the television for confirmation. My mind was a little more focused on the news.

"You’re not a very good liar."

My mind went blank. For a second, I doubted I would believe them if I heard them out? It was the kind of doubt I experienced when I thought about a blank page, or the end of the world. If my mind turned blank, my thoughts wouldn’t lead me to think I should know something.

Was there going to be another ambush? A gun shot or gun shot from a nearby sniper?

Or was it that simple. If anything, knowing that they had guns on

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
anking-you-in‘elegant-way’s-not-hiding anything. I’m guessing that was part of it, but you could still be a pretty bad person when people weren’t around. What do you say to that, now?"

Her eyes caught on to the flashbang, the second the last alarm went off.

Miss Militia raised his arm in the direction of the building.

"Okay, I know you’re trying to do some damage in the short term, but you’re not actually doing anything that would draw attention. You’re covering so much of the landscape for people to see, and most of that is the stuff I’ve already spent months documenting, and I’ve spent weeks working toward a story about that. I get it. Just a little."

Miss Militia took hold of the nearest grenade launcher and opened fire from it. It was a bit of a middling damage output compared to what he was capable of, but it was an effective weapon, enough that he didn’t hesitate to use it in the long haul. A moment later, he shot it straight down into the darkness above the building.

The explosion tore an opening into the building, knocking the thing over, crushing the floor underfoot.

Miss Militia pulled the machete from her belt. "You’re armed, with a little of your own knowledge of how to use a weapon, and a reputation as a bad guy. So you were wondering… how’s the fight with the Travelers ended? Well, we’ve done our best to track down and track down and destroy the rest of this city. But where? I’ve got a hypothesis…

"The Travelers… were they really a force for good? A beacon for good guys, a wake for bad guys, a place for good heroes to stay, a place for bad villains to run? Yeah. It’s got some cred, but that’s more in part to the fact that they were a major part of our early understanding of the world. That they weren’t bad people, and they’d been around long enough for that."

The flashbang hit the corner of the room the two of us were in. A brief, sharp shockwave tore through the darkness and shattered it.

"So that’s it? They’re bad and it went the wrong way?"

"They’re bad, and they’re the real villains here. The way things are stacked, this group probably got a huge boost from the fact that we beat the Slaughterhouse Nine. I don’t know why, but they do. In some way. It makes sense if you think about it. They aren’t really villains at their core, and that’s what drove them, shaped them. The bigger picture."

He turned and tossed the grenade launcher to his left. I saw a cloud of powder billowing in the direction of Tattletale, and she didn’t make eye contact.

He turned to face the rest of us. "Maybe I’m wrong, in some way. Not in the slightest. Maybe they were a force for good, but I doubt it."

"They could have been," I said. "They didn’t go that far."

"Well, the Endbringers aren’t that good."

The air was filled with the metallic, buzzing buzz of bombs being set off.

"It’s a possibility," I said. "But it doesn’t fit."

"I’m trying to think about the biggest things in that context."

He scoffed, and there wasn’t anything about that comment that fitted. He’d been asked so many times for something or someone we could all agree had gone the wrong way, that I knew I’d hit the mark as far as him being able to say it all with so few words.

"You have a plan?" he asked, in his calm, collected way.

I shook my head.

"I can believe it. Your power seems to be working in tandem with your power of judgment on more than one occasion, which doesn’t sound like much of a coincidence, but does it really?"

"Maybe. If… if you’re going to explain, just say it all."

"It’s not that I don’t like you. I know who I really am."

"I’m not going to say we could spend the rest of eternity in mutual hatred, but-"

I hesitated. He trailed off.

She wasn’t saying he had to stay with her. He had

======== SAMPLE 10 ========
anking the knife? No, the wound was only an inch by an inch across and I’d cut him anyway.

Not enough room for us to work. I could only throw knives that were less than two feet long, but I doubted that I had the right end to pry the bullet free from his body and still manage the job without causing a large wound around the entire thing. In any event, it wasn’t like he could get any air left in his lungs for another thirty seconds at a thousand feet in the air. I’d be getting hit myself before he could get any air in there. I needed to hit him in the stomach, arm or something.

If I didn’t use the knife, I would have been forced to use my hand and bite my lip, trying not to use the pain to get the blood from my mouth, my throat or ear and then swallow it. Or throw myself at him, maybe, but I doubted I could do enough serious damage when I couldn’t use my hands.

The knife made a sharp sound as it made contact with something that had to be about ten feet away. I knew that thing didn’t need the contact since it was covered in blood and he was just barely moving forward. I had no way of seeing it from where I stood. The knives struck his hands and left his arms and legs where they were.

He slammed into me again, and I dropped to all fours, one hand to my stomach and the other to try to get the blood flowing. That didn’t work either. I could feel the blood run in the stream, taste it and feel it in my mouth, but I couldn’t taste the blood in the air. Blood wasn’t something I could taste, either, but I had an immediate feeling that I wasn’t feeling it in the same way. Not that I was complaining, because it did feel good. The effect that the blood seemed to have was a stronger one than most felt.

His second hit sent me skidding downhill as he brought everything to a stop. I had to get my footing to see a figure moving over the crowd in the midst of the water, trying to climb back up. Another figure caught me mid-air and carried me to the ground by my feet. The momentum of that one strike put me into the air, where I started spinning as though I was falling from a great height, sending my arms and legs into the air to climb out of the way of the incoming attack.

When I looked up at the group gathered around me, that was to say people that were wearing clothes that weren’t my own, I saw more blood swirling around my shoulder than I’d seen so far. I tried to turn myself around to see how I’d done, but my vision was bad and my peripheral vision was poor, so I only got a blurry view of the scene. I had to crane my neck to see what was going on, and the blood that had settled on my sleeves of my costume would have been obvious on the first look. I was lucky enough that I had my bugs at my disposal, getting as many bugs onto my costume as I could and letting them crawl on me in the dark as a defense against getting stabbed in the gut.

A second later, when I had the blood off, I realized there was a tourniquet in my belt, a tourniquet that was attached directly to the back of my neck. The tourniquet wasn’t in my belt. I’d torn myself up trying to dislocate my shoulder with the tourniquet held in my right hand, and I’d torn it up. Had I worn it as a holster for my gun?

My bugs weren’t getting their full attention right away. The second figure had more bodies gathering around him, and was using them as distractions to keep the swarm from picking me up and following me closer.

I wasn’t able to see the swarm in my peripheral vision. My bugs were moving so slowly they were nearly inaudible.

The third attack came in the form of a blur, and I saw it for myself. The blur that was more of an ineffectual blur that followed our main body as the bodies appeared and disappeared over the horizon. I did get the sense the blurred point, as if I could read the information that would otherwise come out with the blur’s depth. As it moved, I glimpsed a face, one that wasn’t recognizable as the face I saw earlier, with what would have been a slight head, large cheeks and a mouth that might have been bulging or bloated. A woman of average build, long neck and slender shoulders.

I made my way closer to the water, but the blur kept advancing.

The figure that moved

======== SAMPLE 11 ========
anking.

The figure stepped forward to stand in front of Lung and his men, a large woman in her seventeenth year.

"I don’t believe it, I can see the scars," a boy’s voice, "The knife wound, the blood gushing out from within his open mouth after any amount of blood."

The woman moved from where she stood to put herself between Lung and the crowd, then stepped back.

"You’re a doctor, I’m afraid," a man spoke, "You’re not in a position to comment on the wounds that a thirteen year old girl sustained when she went to the bathroom? You have my permission to take a pill?"

The woman nodded as the man handed her a pill. The boy at the end of the room shifted her to the other patient, pulling on a sweatshirt with a large, black leather belt. He stepped forward until she was about ten feet away from the group.

"You’re my patient, I’m not your enemy."

Lung glanced at his subordinate, and her head snapped around to face him. She was wearing a full-body cast, and she extended a hand.

"Your patient," Lung said, and his voice was rough with irritation, "You’re doing me a disservice by letting me leave right this moment because you’re suspicious that I’m in the city for this purpose."

The boy with the black costume stepped forward from the group, reaching for Lung’s shoulder that he leaned against the wall, "Just like you said, this is just a matter of getting supplies. If this doesn’t work, I’ll be back a few minutes later."

Lung’s hand tightened, and his fingers hooked around the man’s wrist, pulling it out. He pushed him down, "You need to understand. I just want to know for sure that you’re safe, you’re alive and well. It doesn’t mean the pills don’t work, or that you won’t become more violent, but it might mean the pills aren’t that dangerous."

A look of concentration crossed over Lung’s face, "This is a deal I’m going to stick to. If you’re sure, I’ll take a little."

The man put a hold on the hand, and Lung released the man.

There was a clucking, as the man tried to haul himself up again, and Lung dropped the hand.

The man with the heavy coat, and the man without. They’d stopped resisting, and Lung’s hand was already clenched in his teeth as he pulled the hand back.

"No," Lung barked in a loud voice, louder than he wanted. He raised his arm and stabbed the ball-point pen in the air. When it exploded into a red dot, it had a diameter of an inch and a half. It landed on a counter.

"What? You just let them go?"

He pushed the counter in the direction he’d aimed, then set to working on his knife. His hands weren’t particularly shaky from their previous handling of the knife when he moved it.

She started to speak, "What have you done?"

His head was turning around to watch, as Lung’s soldiers marched him off to the far end of the room, through the window and into the open front office.

"You’re a traitor, Lung. You’re betraying the people and the cause."

"You’ve got to know." Lung reached out and grabbed hold of a piece of paper. It was an old black file.

He held it out with both of his hands, then slammed it against the countertop, "Don’t read it. Keep it between yourself."

She stared down at the file.

"Your clients will be waiting for you downstairs." Lung put one hand on her chest, and another on the end of the knife, "There, I told you. Understand?"

"What’s going on?" she was looking over him. He smiled, "It’s nothing. I don’t know any better, I’m not the type to get upset."

"Then you’re not upset. You’re getting offed for real. And as a villain, you’re not that great." Lung looked at the door, waited and glanced at her.

Her throat churned with emotion, "I do not get it! Why isn’t this working?" Her voice was tight as she asked, "Why are we not able to fight back?"


======== SAMPLE 12 ========
anking out her power and setting it off, then running through it as she’d done with her power, then using her own power.

She had power, but she’d been too focused on the small fry.

The other bugs in her immediate vicinity were all gone, dead or dying as she approached. There was a trickle of blood that seemed to come from every body where he’d used his power.

He’d been a powerful villain. Noelle knew, and it was the only way she could figure it out.

She turned, and she was blinded.

He’d taken the other bugs out of her view. He’d let it bleed.

Had to focus on her.

She’d have to.

Her bugs flew toward the room where she’d been standing, and they had to make their way along a hallway, following an invisible line as she made her exit through a door in the wall, the door on one level being a trap for any bugs that didn’t follow that line, but there were no bugs in the hallway. There was only the door and the staircase that led up. Whatever happened next, she was going to have to fight her way out of there and make her way to one of the other rooms, to find the other member of the Slaughterhouse Nine there, before it was too late.

It wasn’t the safest plan, but it was at least slightly better than not finding out later, when all the important people were in the hallways of high school like she was, or when she got off at home.

She reached the foot of the stairs, then paused. She had to brace herself before she could make the final push, so she wouldn’t drop and break her balance. At the same time, she had to be ready to turn left. The first was the hallway to the right, the other was the door to the far right. She tried it, and she wasn’t much better for wear. That might not be cause to panic, but it took her two minutes to realize the door was ajar.

She made her way to the doorway, making her way to the foot of the stairs. She made her way down to her right, finding the man, the door to the far right.

Once she had her arms around her sides to brace herself from the weight of the glass, she made her way to the man, the door to her right.

She pulled the door closed with her hands and feet, a feeling of panic.

"You okay?"

"You… you didn’t let me out?"

"Right. Can we talk?"

"Let’s. I’ll see what we can do."

She nodded. Wasn’t easy to keep her attention while she used her power. She opened another portal and pulled herself back into the portal behind her. She stared at the portal, then turned her attention to the man.

"You want to come inside?"

"Yeah."

He gave her a funny look. "You’re the one behind this door, aren’t you? How do you-"

"I’m here to help. Not make a show."

"No offense intended. It’s my office, not yours."

It was a bit awkward to explain in this stillness. Why couldn’t she just come out of the other side? She knew the portal was there, so the door couldn’t just be slammed shut.

Then she remembered. It wasn’t the time of day for her to be doing this.

Doubt settled in her head in that moment. "I’m having a bad day?"

"Sure."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t think so, I’m only sorry that things weren’t going well in the first place."

"You’re not the type to apologize over the phone," the voice was hard to make out in the background. She was so focused on the man in the suit that she missed the occasional twitch of his arm or the crack at the collarbone. "You had a really bad day."

She turned around. The portal seemed to stretch out in a line behind her – one person to her left, one to her right – and she could hear it moving slowly, like a locomotive, or a slow moving train. The lines weren’t even connected.

When did she lose track of the lines?

That was what had confused her. Did it mean the man to her left was a stranger from across the city, who was in a situation where they were connected as if they crossed one another but

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
anking."

"If you have a request, I promise to deliver it," the girl spoke. For just a few seconds, we held each other tight.

It didn’t take me long to realize. The girl that’s trying to get us to attack others, she doesn’t have anything to say to me. Maybe because she’s the weakest member of our group?

But she has friends.

The girl I’ve called ‘likes⎜ one, and it’s something they discuss at the group’s group meetings. "Can you go?"

"Can I? I’ve decided, I swear."

"I don’t want either of you to be hurt and hurtling in a spiral of violence."

"I don’t want to hurt anyone here. But I do want us to act like vigilantes. I wouldn’t want any troublemakers to get hurt here, or anyone else to get hurt, but I can lend a hand if we’re needed, and I’d like to be your partner in this."

I thought maybe we were friends, but she wasn’t in my good graces. She wanted nothing more than to get me killed and then go to college instead of fighting in the streets? Where would she fit in?

She was one of the guys that was always around at all times. I was one to her, and to another guy, and even his buddy. A guy she was able and willing to stand by and not turn against.

I’d heard that last bit before I understood this. Two weeks ago, I’d been reading a blog post that had been up on my laptop screen a few days before. A girl had commented, ‘I don’t find the logic to believe she’d be around long term. She’s been hangingout here since the day I came and she’s never had a social life. My guess is she got a job and a social circle, and she got a girlfriend as a consequence of that, maybe broke up with her boyfriend. They’d sort of made it a hobby, and she stopped trying to go back to school. In the time that she’d been hanging out with that girl, her mom and friends had tried to kick her off the group.

The girl was just a few paces away from my bed, trying to use me as an excuse to take off my clothes.

"I’m not telling you to go find that girl," Rachel said. She was leaning over my bed, staring out at the city. "But if you were thinking of going, don’t. Find someone else before you go any further."

"Just go find my mom," I told her.

Rachel and I both turned to face her. She’d bent her head in an inviting way, while I turned away, trying to cover her face and conceal my hands from her.

"Rachel, I… I’m sorry," I said.

"Are you alright?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah. Just… I’m a little spooked. I know what I’m experiencing, but I can barely process it all at once."

"I can deal," she said.

"Do me a favor?"

"Don’t ever come home from your job at McDonalds in costume, okay? You’ve been a dick to your family, and if they’re going to hate you, they’ve probably hated you. If they’re going to hate me, they’ve probably hate my friends. If they’re going to hate me, it’s going to be because of it. And it won’t be the same fucking people who were in the room with me the first few weeks. It’s going to be people you barely knew, now, and the things you’ve done to them in the hours and days since. And maybe that includes you."





Scourge 21.3


I opened my eye, and my phone was already buzzing. I tossed it aside and checked to see if it was a text from my phone. It wasn’t, only a message that was the same length.

Rachel?

I stared at the phone for a fraction of a second, then looked up.

The alarm was so far away that the entire world seemed so foreign. A man in blue and a red dress standing in a city, in the middle of a storm and against a pale sky, looking out over all of the chaos that was taking hold of the world. It took me a split second before the words left my mouth.

No

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
anking the glass in the table. It didn’t penetrate completely, only slightly, but then again, it had done in one incident.

I’d tried to focus on the conversation without having to take in too much of it, on the way Leviathan’s attacks had killed a woman, the way Lung and the others were dying, the destruction that followed from every single one of them. That would be the gist of it.

But there was something else. The way Lung was holding up in the face of that. He had to be so fucking strong.

It wasn’t that I liked him, or that I even liked him, but in a way, I kind of liked Lung.

I’d seen myself reflected in his face. My dad, the guy who was never that into me or his own goals, I imagined. I found myself thinking, I could do this whole thing a whole lot better. It was the only way I’d ever been able to navigate my way around this kind of stuff, and Lung was the only person at the core of that.

When the group had left, Lung had pulled on the mask and he wore a cloak. The cloth of the mask was flaps at the sides to keep his features from falling, similar to a kimono or a costume for the tall.

I’d never been a fan of kimonos, but Lung could be. A kimono did exactly what a cloak and cloak did – it made you look pretty.

I turned my eyes across the room to see Clockblocker and Vista leaning against the wall, their heads turned to the window.

I turned my eyes back to Legend and Crescent. Their masks were turned toward the door.

It felt strange to look at them with my eyes closed, like I was looking.

They made this weird relationship of sorts, Coil and Coil’s henchmen both. Coil, with his charisma and his ability to connect with people, and his ability to build a team of people who were loyal and supportive of him. Coil, with his power and his abilities.

The same people that Tattletale had described as his family. The same people that he’d told me about. His power and his ability to attract the people who were willing to betray their family for him.

Even the thought of me reminded me of this, in a way, why I’d been so quick to hate him and want to tear him out of the family.

And there was something missing. His dad.

The way he’d sat with his laptop, talking about the state of the game, talking about his job, talking about the fact that the PRT wasn’t his and what that meant, and if it was something real that really did mean something to him. When he’d turned to the screen, I could sense the light of the computer screen dimmer, smaller, the keyboard dimmer. Smaller because more of the screens were being replaced and pushed back to be bigger, less so with the computer desk and wall, replaced with the desk and wall with laptops that were being used.

More than that, the image that filtered in was that of someone struggling with depression and isolation, as if he’d been pushed so far that he’d be unable to use the computer anymore. A sad reflection of his personality.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the screens when I looked up, focusing on all the various files, programs and software on display – it was a small, isolated room that housed the computers that were being used as a research lab, and I could pick up the faintest traces of my dad’s presence in the background. Something I hadn’t noticed.

It wasn’t the same as it had been, before, but it was better than nothing.

In some way, I’d always found him so endearing. The way he’d handled some of the worst situations of his life – bullying, being sick sick sick sick – it had always struck me as something almost heroic. I couldn’t imagine that I’d have had the same.

A part of me wanted to say something to my dad, to explain the situation in a way that was as poetic or heartbreaking as I could hope for. I would have felt like I’d earned something back somehow. Something that I was proud about.

But I couldn’t think of a way or an excuse to say it. Maybe I’d be an asshole, for one thing, or I’d be hurt or disappointed in him for another. But I wouldn’t be able to express it without sounding like a cunt. Even if I offered a simple reason, like he’d let something slip,

======== SAMPLE 15 ========
anking" one of the guards or the one that was already waiting on the other end of the line.

A voice sounded over the phone. "What is it, Doctor?"

"What can I do for you?"

"Do you need to run another blood test before you go to that cell?"

"No need to," a voice answered back from the other end.

The guard had pulled the guard from his cell, and the guard was backing up, stepping out of the way as the girl disappeared behind a curtain.

The woman with the camera pressed to her ear reached in her jacket pocket, withdrew a plastic bag from a pocket beside it, popped it open, then began fumbling with the contents, squishing it into the back of the patrol car. She tossed it at the guard with the bag, and he grabbed it to his left shoulder in the same movement. The bag hit the guard in the shoulder, and he whipped his head towards the car doors before slamming it shut. He tried to grab the backseat of the car, was grabbed again, thrown hard to the ground. He rolled across the pavement as the man who held the car door open for him turned into the back lane in front of the curb and made his way back to the truck.

The guard was yelling something, but she didn’t say anything. She just continued to look around the carpool, as if looking for an opening. The guard in the driver seat pulled away.

Was it something she wanted?

She glanced back at the door of the patrol car. It was open. She pulled up in three and slammed the door behind her.

Frowning, she turned to look at the van that was parked outside. It had wheels rather than a body, but the grille and front grille were the same texture, the same color, like an automobile windshield.

The van was outfitted with what looked like a high-tech surveillance device the size of a refrigerator. There were cameras mounted on the back, the top and sides. Two others, each similar in appearance, but much smaller than on the van. She recognized the ones that were mounted on the back of the van. The smaller of the two was a digital camera, the larger was a video camera. The smaller had a tiny flash, while the larger had an integrated one that flared up into the middle of its circumference. A flash meant she could follow the movements of the lens. For an even smaller device like hers, she’d need to imagine it as it was, not as it moved. An integrated lens meant she could pull back the button without seeing the viewfinder, or turn the camera up to expose sensitive information even if the flashes were off, so long as she had her power to work with.

She turned her attention to the door. The light streamed in through the open window, illuminating the interior. There were windows with a pane that was only slightly larger than her hand, and a smaller TV mounted on the door frame. A small video projector sat on the center of the floor.

Her phone was shoved into her jacket pocket. In a flash, a man wearing a uniform shirt and dark jeans appeared behind her, pulling off his suit jacket and handing it to her. He flipped it open and opened a drawer to retrieve her iPhone. He gave her the device, pushed a button, and a plastic sleeve filled with white fluid appeared, flooding the front of her hand and into her glove. It flooded the rest of the back of her glove, but didn’t sink to the point that it became soggy.

"What is it?" the voice was oddly British, "How did you get these?"

She didn’t know but looked behind her, and found a pair of earbuds. She tossed them to one side, where he stood.

"What?"

She handed him the headphones, "Tinker, if it’s of any use to you. I’m not about to make a big deal of this, so just… get me a box of fucking batteries for my phone and laptop. I’m already working on getting them online, I don’t think I have much more to worry about."

"You already have all the batteries you need." The man with the black shirt was saying.

"And here, there’s an extra set inside these things." The words seemed more to say’–

"No. It’s battery tech stuff, not that."

"Then why do it?" The man with the black shirt asked.

"I’m doing an experiment. A more in-depth study. No, I don’t know a ton about batteries, but I know enough to guess that they take a lot of energy to charge and maintain. That’s why their chargers need

======== SAMPLE 16 ========
anking for information. If his team had caught a signal, he could have alerted the rest of the Undersiders or Team Leaders.

"Go on," Tattletale ordered him. "I’m getting worried, here, and I shouldn’t, in the interest of being a good leader, should’t, be taking you into custody."

"I’ll make this easier," I said. I leaned back in my chair, a bit of sweat running down to the corners of my face. "I’m a little rusty on the law, a little rusty on the law-"

"Don’t bother," Dragon’s voice cut through my thoughts, echoing through the empty office. "I only heard what you said about the PRT officers needing to be careful with the PRT officers. I’ve listened to the recordings of your office."

"That’s it?" I asked her. I was surprised to have made myself look her way, as I got up and headed for Dragon’s office. Even with the bugs that I’d dropped into the area, I couldn’t place where my bugs pointed.

"I thought they were kind of the opposite of what you’d call a bad guy. Bad guys who were good at what they did, who weren’t afraid to use those powers. But I think that’s not what I’ve heard. There’s always been this sort of thing about lying, cheating, using people for your own advantage, but I’ve never heard someone complain so loudly about lying as a villain."

"That’s a shame. If one of us told you, would you be offended?"

I shook my head. "Not offended. Um. I kind of imagined you’d talk to the people I know and that I’d talk to you. Um. The people in that office had a good reason for not giving her a chance."

"Yeah, that’s it," she said, her voice quiet, "It was like. So much for this being serious."

"What is she doing?"

"She was talking to someone," Taylor said, without looking at Ibrud, "It was a woman in the office, and then it was gone."

I nodded slowly, listening as Tattletale explained. "Maybe. But I’d be more interested in finding out what kind of power she could put me against than in what I was talking to."

"There are people still looking for evidence or clues."

"Just me. I was thinking about the power she had in a similar way. That she could put myself in a situation where I could use it to take out my enemies, if I was willing to take a few risks, if I’d go off the deep end and go out fighting like a maniac at a crucial point in the fight. Or a lunatic in general. So what happens if I told her and it turns out right? She wouldn’t be holding back like she did with Lung when he was looking at a career in the news? I wouldn’t blame her for getting her claws into my back when I started rambling for anything she wanted."

"I don’t see how that’s related to her being a villain."

Tattletale gave me a funny look. "I’m not saying she isn’t a killer, just… there was no time for reflection. So she’s still doing what she did in the moment before she put herself out there and went out there."

"She did what she did while she was looking at her family and then looking after her enemies. She did what she did while she was looking for something bigger. She has a purpose there. Something more than looking after the people she loves and playing the game of life itself. It took time, effort and mental and emotional fortitude to get to this point, and now she’s looking at going to another city, staying together. It didn’t work out any better or worse when she had to go somewhere to look after all those people while dealing with this other situation."

She could have died or gone to jail, and it was the failure that made her so dangerous. There was no denying the danger she posed.

"And the other danger she poses is as real to her as it was in the moment she put herself out there. She’s a fucking monster."

I nodded.

"There’s something you should know. I don’t think I’ve been able to look you in the eye to tell you the truth, but it would be better to keep you in the dark. In any event, I’m aware

======== SAMPLE 17 ========
anking, screaming, screaming. It was like a movie. As the first victims landed, the rest of the refugees that were still in the vicinity began to move, gathering into a mass around them. It was too hard to keep up with.

But I wanted to. If this were another city, it would be a disaster. We didn’t even have the luxury of having a cell phone reception here, so I made my way back to my territory.

I was in the city center, now. The main street, the one I’d been looking at when I arrived, was completely deserted. There were more refugees here, but they weren’t clustered in packs. They seemed to have settled, though, and I’d almost started to feel worried for our safety.

The sound of glass shattered the air around us.

A flash of light, and I could see a figure flying in the sky.

The figure accelerated. Like someone who had stepped out of a movie and was firing off a series of laser blasts like they’d practiced in sports, it was the kind of rapid fire, low-level flame I’d think was directed at a distant, fast moving target. The target wasn’t really moving, it was an overgrowth of trees and a steep cliff just below it, and the flames were spreading out over a large area that was clearly too large for a person. I saw one of the capes who had been in the vicinity look up as the fireball began to grow, saw another cape move up to the window, into a spot where the smoke was thicker.

The smoke didn’t dissipate, though. It was there now, thick.

"Fuck!" Grue called out.

Capes started running, the fleeing refugees in the way.

The flame was spreading and I could feel my skin crawling with it from the corner of my eye.

I hit the ground and rolled, using my hands to keep myself upright. My powers were working, and my eyes weren’t any worse for the wear, but I was still feeling a moment’s rest, when I should have been getting more awake and alert.

We were here, Scion. We’d been brought in here with the intention of fighting him, but it was too dangerous to have a fight while we were here, and the other Undersiders didn’t have the means or inclination to mount a meaningful defense. Instead, they fled.

"We’ve got a way to deal with him," Tattletale said. "Somehow. I think we’ve figured it out, or he’s aware of it, or he’s caught up and he’s adjusting his thinking every second of every day and getting ready for a fight. It’s the way he’s always done things."

"Troubleshooting. We need to know what he’s doing with the world, how he’s manipulating it. We can use that knowledge to make it easier for him."

"This is really easy," Grue said. "A power that goes away or goes out of a person? I know what he’s doing. He’s changing his thoughts in ways that help him figure out how that changes the world, and vice versa. It’s a constant cycle."

That was a relief, in a way, because I wasn’t prepared to elaborate.

Tattletale nodded. "Okay. How? This much? It’s not really enough. Unless something like it happens to you, we’re going to figure it out from here on out. And it’s not just me. We’ve been doing this a long time. The others have had something like an Endbringer attack. Not always a direct attack, but a way of approaching the fight from the very beginning. There’s no reason we should stop. The other cities may be safer, but they don’t fit together in the slightest. This is going nowhere fast. It requires everyone’s attention, and I think it’s going to get a bad rap."

"Then if we’ve already lost, we’re not going to bring it back on ourselves. We’ll start anew," I said. "Nobody’s going to tell us we can’t fight the Endbringers. Nobody’s going to ask us to start again. We can’t stop them, we can’t stop them from advancing, and they can’t stop the world from going crazy. But we can deal with the problem and move forward with the plan."

Tattletale folded her arms. She might have laughed, but I wasn’t

======== SAMPLE 18 ========
anking out of her range.

Her aim wasn’t entirely solid in her fist. Instead, her fist struck the side of one of the planes where Scion was.

She let go of it.

Scion charged around the other side of the barrier, the one that had been erected in the air. The other gate that had been erected to keep the Endbringers out of sight was broken, and in the process it seemed like she was getting a closer look at her target.

He’d created a wall of light in that one. Had the wall been that strong against a power like hers? I was pretty sure that if he’d only cast the wall of light a straight line and waited for it to spread, he should have been on our side. With his power, he’d had his power aimed at the weak points first.

She wasn’t getting close.

The Endbringer advanced and she felt her power drop from her already thin body.

The space it had opened through the portal was a crater some twenty feet across by two blocks across.

A hole no deeper than the tip of a needle, not much deeper than it had been when Scion had begun tearing through the structure like a speeding car.

The impact was more like a car hitting a wall than something coming from a straight punch. And my bugs were in this hellish wrecking ball.

The ground beneath her was churning as though some rock from beneath her had come free and rolled down onto it. Her power was going out.

The Endbringer, not so fast to fall off the end of the mountain, stepped forward.

The damage it had sustained, in any one blow, had been catastrophic enough that it would take weeks or months to repair. A few of the smaller holes had become regular earthquakes, but that was it.

It opened its jaws and took a punch from her power before it collapsed, spilling out the edges and bottom in a dozen pieces. The rest of her power was gone in a flash and was gone in a heartbeat – she was in a constant state of shock, her thoughts were a mental blank, much of what she did was instinctive so quick to be based around a hundred things at once, and she went from something that made sense to something incomprehensible in the blink of an eye, and it was so fast her eyes couldn’t catch up.

She stumbled and stumbled again as Scion advanced, until he was on her legs and shoulders again. She felt a tremor, and her balance returned to normal a second later.

"Don’t do that again, you goddamn idiot," he said.

He didn’t. The second he stopped, he punched the other Endbringer square in the face.

"Scion’s attacking," I said, and I sounded almost surprised that my voice seemed to echo around the world. "No! The best defense is a good offense!"

"What-" I stopped. I glanced around, worried about the other people in the group and my colleagues. "What the hell-"





Interlude 12 (Donation Bonus #3)


It was a busy Christmas morning for the kids of his elementary school, all in costume. The kids of the nearby high school, the kids who’d seen some of his costume, the little ones who’d heard about him, and the older ones who had never even heard of him, so they’d assumed he was some freak, a freakish kid of a different color. There was no way for him to miss out.

He was in costume for the day, as it had been in the past and because he felt it was something he wanted to do. It was a costume that suited everyone, to anyone with blonde hair, and it meant he had a bit more variety than he did just looking in a certain way. He couldn’t tell anyone he wore the costume but his friends, he had a mask with a mask of white and green for the school night and a mask with black and red for the day that he dressed himself up like he did. It meant there could be moments where he was in the middle of something or the line of people, and he would look different from the individual. He smiled at the thought as he stepped into a room with a crowd of young women, none of whom were his friends. A girl in a short dress stood off to one side of the room, a book in her hands. She’d seen him, had her eyes drawn to him.

Not him, this girl. Her name was Anna. She was one of the pretty ones. Tall, pretty. Lanky, pretty. She seemed to think he’d be pretty, in a way, maybe even a little attractive. If he didn’t know her better, she would have

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
anking out the word 'No.'"

My fingers gripped my mask and my mask, and I pulled it away from my face where it was on the counter. The buttons popped off. The only metal I was left with was the back of the one finger I’d held behind my back. It flickered with a light as it moved in a constant, constant dance across the back of my hand, the vibrations of the fingers, the noise of them moving against one fingertip, the motion of it shifting so that the tip of the little ring at the bottom’s edge was a hammer while the bottom of the thumb and one of the fingers were fingers.

That wasn’t enough of a hold. I tensed, grabbed the nearest thing I could see as a gun barrel. I pulled it free from the base of the toy and tossed it into the air, the weight of it raking the upper end of the barrel.

The toy didn’t work as a gun. It wouldn’t let go, couldn’t handle even a few seconds of nonlethal damage. That wasn’t what was holding it down. A second later, the tip was pressed into the floor beneath the gun. I grabbed it up, pulled myself up, before reaching around. I took hold of the smaller, more ornate gun, then hauled it behind my back.

She’d pulled herself up off of that base as I hauled the small gun back down into place.

She took two steps forward. I raised a hand to knock her aside, my fingers gripping the sides of her mask to get it higher off the ground. Just under the collarbone and shoulder blade, I found the trigger on the gun that was held down on the ground.

The second shot tore through her, driving the barrel out of her mouth. She landed hard, one hand pressed against the side of the head of the suit, the other hand pressing against the side of her throat. I pushed the gun off and started to grab the other half of the gun, but I heard the click of the trigger, forced myself to steady my grip. I raised the gun at the right hip and pulled the hammer free of the base of the weapon.

The weight in that hip gave me a push on my right side, knocked me onto the ground. I managed to roll a foot, but it wasn’t enough to help me stay upright. My left arm and two legs were numb to the touch, all too aware that my leg had been torn off. I was so numb I had trouble moving them.

Two hands free, I raised the gun to fire again at the woman. The bullet hit my right hip and the bullet lodged at the back of one knee. I tried to pull my head up and to one side, but the recoil of the gunshot and the weight of the gun pushed my head sideways into the wall.

I turned on my side to get my upper half free and started running, my bugs buzzing with the blood of the others.

Two or three more shots, and no one was out of earshot.

The woman I’d shot had made a run for it. She’d aimed for the side of the building where the PRT officers stood, but had missed the area. She’d headed my way, then she struck out with her knife, slashing through the air with a knife she’d made in her own weapon. She’d cut into the wall at the same time that I fired at her and there was a bit of a pause.

As I pulled myself up enough to reach the wall around the corner that separated the building from the alley, I looked around my side. The light, so bright, had barely illuminated the alley outside the police cell. I saw Glory Girl on one side of the wall, Armsmaster on the other. Armsmaster wasn’t moving, and I was a step closer to guessing what Coil’s plan had been. I could only focus on the woman who was shooting into the wall, and on Glory Girl’s position right beside Tattletale. Tattletale was kneeling next to one of the cars I’d set on fire, using her power to turn the fuel into a flame, a blackened ruin. She’d been the one putting out a fire in the first place, when I’d set things on fire. Tattletale was the one running towards us, her power dull.

"Hebert," I spoke.

"Taylor."

"Where’s Taylor?"

"She’s in the car, I think."

"Taylor, where the fuck is Taylor?"

"In the car," I responded. It was the right thing to say, even if Tattletale couldn’t.

"Oh fuck

======== SAMPLE 20 ========
anking, but I knew better. I knew the others would be listening in.

"You sure?" He asked, "You want to be sure?"

"Yes," I said, before I realized what I was saying and how it was a question. "Yes, I’m sure."

"You’re sure because you’re already looking for answers in everything I do."

"I’m just saying," I said, "You weren’t looking for answers here." I could sense the others with the Eidolon, the Alexandria, the Trickster. They had the right ideas about what the heroes were. For the villains, there’s no clear line, no clear lines of good and bad.

Maybe a few people in my group might not have gotten that, but in the end, it made the biggest impact where I was thinking about it, and I felt like it meant we’d probably have another chance to make a difference in the future when things started turning around. If I could say I was as committed to turning things around as the heroes were, I felt I could be more optimistic about my chances at that latter point.

Which wasn’t my goal, exactly. But I believed I could use my power, to do something, if need be.

■

The group had moved on foot to the outskirts of downtown. I’d stopped to talk with Rachel and then made my way over onto a rooftop. I saw Coil standing as I passed by. He had one hand still on the gun he’d had with the other, but he hadn’t pointed it at anyone.

"You want to meet?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"No, it’s all been a lot simpler since I started school again. You want to stop by?"

He turned towards the entrance of the school, a metal gate with a metal bar at the top, and a large metal sign with a bulletproof glass pane at one corner. The words were bold in red ink and white. Tattletale had the message, "To be continued…"

It was a sign from Coil. Coil had more planned. My bugs found Tattletale at the office and brought her out of the shadows. She took advantage of the chaos at the office door to grab my wrist, pulling it free. She shoved me to the ground, so I fell, face first into the sidewalk, my hands clamped onto the side of it.

"No more fighting," I said, trying to sound calm and composed, "No more fighting, not anymore."

"You’re doing fine," Coil repeated himself, his voice quiet. "You’ve been busy enough that you haven’t gotten involved in a fight. Go home… if you were acting like this while you were gone, I’d know you were in a good mood. Get a rest." Tattletale hauled me to my feet as he led me to my office. She put a hand on my shoulder to steady my fall. When I had my footing, she tugged me back onto the fence.

"No," I said, and in that same second, in a quieter voice, I reached into my utility compartment and withdrew my cellphone. Holding it to my ear, I asked Coil, "What is the call?"

"We’re going to take care of our students," Coil said, from the other side of the gate. He was at least as tall as I’d been at the last minute, if not taller. He didn’t show any real emotion as he handed me my phone. There were dark circles under his eyes, the edges of his mouth shrugging a bit. He didn’t have a chin or facial features that were easy to understand. Tattletale might have, since she was the most direct of his subordinates.

"You said you didn’t want me to interfere?" Coil asked. "And you told me you’d put one of my employees in our midst. That’s not an interference I could make. I’ve gotten rid of the villains, I've taken people off the streets, but there’s still dangerous people out there. I think it’s more appropriate to deal with one state over another."

"And you’re doing whatever Coil says is best for our city."

"I’m just doing what I have to."

"That’s enough," I told the man. "Take Tattletale home. She’ll be a hell of a lot better for our city if she gets out of here alive."

"Okay." He turned and headed home, his feet taking the ground as he made his way to the gate and shut it.

As I

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
anking up my armor like the first time, keeping the straps and hardware together, even though that could be done myself.

"You did the same thing for me," I whispered to the bug girl. I turned to see Tattletale and Regent standing at opposite ends of the room, watching us. I could almost see Tattletale tense, as if she could tell we were approaching and had reason to suspect a trick. The two of them were watching me with the same intense looks that graced the two of them when they listened in on the radio.

"No, I meant it was the exact same thing you’d do for me," I said, quietly. Still, they didn’t argue. I couldn’t help but feel like they were looking for an excuse to keep me from saying my piece.

"You’re an odd boy," Tattletale mused. "It’s a little odd to be a superhero, without my powers, without an army, without the money that comes with being in the Protectorate or the family that’s made it into something."

"You sure?" I offered her a funny look, "That’s a sure thing."

"I guess."

"You have kids?"

I shook my head. "No, and it’s hard to juggle it all, especially with the fact that I’ve got all of my stuff packed away when we go on vacation, and it’s hard to have all of that stuff packed away even after we’ve gone on adventures. It’s a lot of work."

"Like most dads? You have a job?"

I frowned, "No. I’m a supervillain."

She nodded. "So it’s a crime lord, more or less. Except the only reason I’ve been going around is because of an order. You see, when the team was disbanding, Bitch had a friend, an individual who had some skills in the game. She’s since drifted away, but she was an extremely interesting person."

I nodded.

"But things haven’t gone so smoothly between you and Rachel."

"I think I understand where these things are going, at this point," I said. "She was the one that came up with the idea of stealing the truck, and the one who suggested I go undercover after. To steal information for the team, as it was. Then when I learned what she’d stolen, I went ahead, because I didn’t trust myself or my teammates to keep it a secret. They knew what was up, and when I told them, it hurt my pride, pissed me off beyond measure, and I’m not sure I could have dealt with getting caught without a big play in mind."

"Is it true that you planned to go on a mission for a villain in the city with a connection to the ABB?"

"I did. I decided I wanted to prove a point, instead of just killing. But I was more worried about my girlfriend, and there was the constant worry that it would become public information, and then there was the other stuff, how I was so focused on getting revenge on the ABB, and how I’d get hurt in the process."

"With what?" I asked. "A woman you killed? The Empire? The Triumvirate? The Nine?"

She shrugged, "Everyone had a reason for wanting to go after them. There were always big fish to fry in the background, a couple big threats we weren’t really worried about, and when it came down to the big things, like with Leviathan or with the Nine, it was always about the consequences and the overall picture. I knew the worst case scenario would be that I’d get turned in to the authorities, that I’d get arrested or imprisoned, and that I’d wind up with a crappy criminal record. It was just the biggest part of the reason I got going out in the first place, to be a good guy."

"Your reasoning has changed, has it? You were a bad guy."

"No, I’m very much a good guy," she said, "I’m no longer that sort of person, I think."

"You’re still dangerous. If there was a chance you’d die at any moment, and you did get killed, would your teammates still be alive?"

"It’s a risk I take whenever I go in that I’m not willing to take if I have a pretty good chance of getting killed, so those people are alive."

"Okay. And there’s the chance that… would your teammates come out

======== SAMPLE 22 ========
anking.

He moved slowly enough that he barely seemed to notice the knife in his belt and the holster, but his feet were on the ground, and he was on the ground, feet on the ground in a way that was nearly easy to miss. He looked over the room at the main kitchen without the sink and fridge. The couch, a coffee table with the light fixture poking out of one corner, a TV set beside it, and another TV set against the wall and on a shelf above the couch, with a box of cereal perched around the middle of the room. Two chairs facing the TV set sat with covers removed to keep the coffee pot from spitting and the bookshelf from spilling out of his pockets. A bookcase hung by the television and on the top of the couch, as though a book just sat there. One footpad, a desk set to a shelf by the back door to the main living space, and a TV set, both of which were set beside a TV stand, in an area that might have been a bed or a couch.

"You’re here for something good?" she asked him. She had an unnerving accent, her face was round with concern and uncertainty.

He shrugged, "Doing the grocery run."

She shook her head. "I’ll go. I have to. Give me a few minutes to think, then see if I can’t find any items I don’t use."

"Okay."

She left, putting her belongings back in the bottom drawer of the car.

He pulled out his wallet and passed it to the driver, then made his way up the side of the house with a small wave until he found his wife sitting in the back seat along with his dogs, staring off into space.

They weren’t talking, and he wasn’t listening, as he hurried down the hall to investigate.

He pulled the car into the garage, and when he emerged, there was a large white trash can by the windows and a cardboard box nearby.

He opened the box and tossed the empty box behind the wheel. He pulled off his glove before opening the cardboard box that contained the knife. He started to put it into the pocket of his dress shirt, but it was too heavy, too heavy out of reach. He’d forgotten to get a jacket.

A quick check revealed the knife in the inside pocket of his dress shirt was the one he wore in the movie. He looked down at the blade that hung from the belt buckle and adjusted his grip until he felt it close the gap between his fingers, as the knife extended.

He grabbed the remote from the belt and stuck it into the center console. When he saw the TV set up, he put his hand on the display, felt the buttons click into position.

"We’re home free," the voice came from the speakers. "Just one moment."

He looked up to see a man bending down to open the door.

"Hurry," Tattletale told him. There was a touch of emotion in her voice, a sense of dread that he couldn’t put his finger on.

He shoved his way past her, and Tattletale slammed her glove into his shoulder as she made her way to the edge of the garage and then shoved him into the open driver door.

He was knocked out cold as he hit the ground against the front of the car, and the door slammed shut.

Bentley was there, waiting for her to pass. He could see the man approaching through the window in front of them, standing tall, his jaw set in a confident set of jaw.

"Back!" he yelled, raising his voice to be heard over his heavy breathing. "Get off!"

He stopped in his tracks as he saw the man. The man was standing in the corner near the back of the line of the vehicles, watching them all with an expression that was hard to interpret. The man didn’t have a shirt on, and his hair was dyed in a heavy, manly style of black. It set him in stark contrast to his casual attire, his boots and jacket untucked over one shoulder, and he had a jacket off on the ground.

The man eyed the two, then drew a pistol from his jacket pocket and fired it off to get the adrenaline going again.

Two bullets struck Tattletale in the stomach, twice in the side and once in the center. The bullet that hit her was from the handgun that was strapped to a half-built arm, nearly touching the woman in the middle-aged woman’s group.

The other hit an empty holster, a half-cocked gun that was barely visible beneath the jacket and loose-fitting leggings of her jacket. The man with an expression on his face that looked

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
anking.

"I get it," he said. He turned around so he could look me square in the eye, and the rest of the class saw.

"But you are wrong."

"We’re the worst ones at this," he pointed at me, "We’re careless on so many levels."

"You’re not going to let them finish off the rest of the school? I’m sure they’ll do an ok job with only a limited budget."

"It was the students that died," I said. "Maybe it was the staff. Maybe they got a little drunk."

Krouse frowned. "They were drunk and careless."

Owen groaned.

Krouse turned and walked around the side of the stage, past the three students. I heard him laugh. It was something I could've sworn I remember, at least, but I’d never been able to figure it out. The laughter reached me. I could imagine it had something to do with the idea that I was a bad guy, and I couldn’t be sure what it had to do with anything else.

No. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.

But I was still a little shaken by the laughter. I turned my attention back to the two guys in the back, and my dad.

"Fuck," Owen said, in a tone that made it sound as though he’d just punched his girlfriend in the mouth, "Fuck me."

He threw his hands in the air, saying something, then laughed again as he ran after his two teammates.

"Fuck you," Krouse said, before anyone could comment on what had just happened.

The students were laughing hard enough to shake their hands, and the laughter wasn’t from the front row. In fact, it was hard to believe it came from me. When I turned my head to look at my dad, I could see all the faces that were in my peripheral vision at the same time, with one face at the very back of the room, framed by a curtain of faces. I thought my eyes might pop out.

"Fuck!"

"The one in the front here is the one who’s just punched the shit out of your girlfriend," Owen said. "Get the fuck away from that thing."

The curtain of faces didn’t quite die down, they moved in that general direction, and my dad threw his hands into the pockets of his jacket, "Where are my manners trainees?"

The only face in the background was more or less the one I’d seen from the other night. It was wearing a jacket and jeans. There were people outside the window, watching, but I wasn’t thinking to take them into my line of sight before I turned my head and looked outside.

"Yeah," I said, before realizing my heart was pounding hard enough it hurt in front of my eyes. I hurried to put my jacket back in the belt, tugging it hard enough the fabric tickled the back of my neck, and headed upstairs. We’d been waiting for Krouse. I didn’t want to make him wait, even if it was just for a few minutes. I hurried to my room and climbed out of the crook of my armchair. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk in classes, but not to mention the fact that I was leaving the building earlier than everyone else, and that my secret identity was starting to show in my class schedule.

I went downstairs and found one of Coil’s bodyguards there with a bundle of papers, a white folder in one hand and a pen in the other. He set a stack before me. I opened it, flipping pages, and I could see a box for a certain subject.

Cockfighting.







Interlude 11b (Anniversary Special)


"I could let this girl walk away," Marquis spoke. "It would be a win for us all, really. Even if she ends up hurting people badly enough we can’t always take her in, she’s a threat."

"What’s going on?"

"Two things," Coil spoke.

"I heard about it from someone. Apparently her uncle got the chance to meet someone at some conference and found out he was her best bet at getting into the United States."

"You two guys can talk to her and we’ll get in touch with the guys who ran the seminar. Then we’ll see if we can find a better deal."

"A few weeks in… the short run. The long run? It can take months."

"You do know that I have three other suit and

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
anking away my bugs that weren’t focused on the crowd.

I had to keep my bugs moving to keep them from circling around to attack me, to keep them from landing in the area where Lung and Armsmaster were in full fighting shape.

This was why I’d wanted to go to Brockton Bay in the first place. I’d seen enough people in capes and civilian clothes to know that I was one of them or, rather, someone who was drawn into a cycle of violence, drugs, crime, violence and addiction. That I was a part of this, that I was a part of Lung and Armsmaster’s world, in my own way.

That didn’t make me feel any better.

I’d had so many meetings this past year with my dad, with my mom, and with my dad’s friends. I had a very bad feeling.

I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second to get my head in a better position on the pillow, as the bugs drew away from my eye, then opened them again. The moment the pressure of the bugs lifted off my head and the light shone on them, my attention was on the light fixtures and the flickering television.

Lung was fighting one of the girls in the group. His hand was raised out of the way of the flame, and he was using his fire to fight another girl in the group, the one he had on my shoulder, a dark-haired girl. In that same moment, another was making their way toward us. Armsmaster and the others watched in a daze as they tried to flank the heroes in the way, but couldn’t see.

I don’t even know how to begin to describe this, I thought.

I saw Tattletale open her eyes and turn our way.

I moved faster, and she caught the edge of it.

"Stop, Bastard!" Tattletale ordered with an urgent but clear tone of voice.

Bruno stepped forward. His power was a blur by comparison, and it wasn’t doing anything to distract them. He reached out with his other hand, palm up, and kicked one of the girls in the face. She landed hard and squashed in the water, rolling like a rag doll under the water.

The other girl struck out with a kick, and she missed.

Not a clean kick. Too easy for me to take advantage of that.

Still, she got up short to a stomp into the water.

"Go!" Tattletale bellowed.

The darkness around us began to dim. It extended from the sky to flickered with flashes of blue that flickered and flared with a green color.

A wave was sweeping up behind us as we ran. The Endbringer was turning, making a late attack.

Bugs. They found my bugs, and some, like the one on Tattletale’s shoulder, my allies could feel in my general vicinity. Some, like the one on Armsmaster, my teammates could feel on the others. We could sense Imp, Grue and Bitch, who were all clustered around Bastard.

No surprise – he’d taken to acting as the group’s leader. He was charismatic, charming, and someone I could latch onto like a rabid pit bull. That said, he had a bit of a temper, and he’d seemed to gravitate toward women, probably not an asset here.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention. Imp stood at the very back of the pack, standing almost entirely still as she watched us on the battlefield. Grue was close enough that I could feel him tense as we headed down the alleyway. Bitch was standing beside me, her mouth agape, one hand against the back of her shirt, her one good eye on the ground.

And of course, I recognized Tattletale. She had her hands outstretched, her gaze fixed into the air, her fingers in her belt, fingers like the ones that had helped make up her costume. Her face was red from emotion, her eyes wide. She was a little too heavy for being the girl I’d seen at the Academy, and that had been a damn good enough reason to turn her away. She’d seen me, so she wasn’t one for displaying emotions either, and I figured that if her teammates saw what I saw, they’d assume this kind of personality from the two of them.

Except I had seen Tattletale. Not so long ago, she’d had a body double for me. There were so many memories that came to mind, so many images that she’d been able to bring into the present.

I wanted to lash out. I

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
anking."

"Got it." She nodded.

"Good," Lisa said. "Okay, then. We should get to the restaurant, take a look around? We’ll see if we can’t afford a drink if we go this route."

"Okay," Tattletale said.

Lisa shrugged. She took a seat and closed her book, then stood and stretched. It was a nice night. The temperature was in the mid twenties and with the cloudless skies pouring out from the southern lights. It was also the night of the fights. The Protectorate seemed to be doing the best overall, and while we were nowhere near the big guns, we were making headway in getting some serious enemies on the same page as us. I was pretty sure we were a step ahead of everyone else in that respect. We had been in the game for over a year when there would be actual fighting. There was nothing to suggest we’d stop now.

"Touche," Tattletale grinned, "Where were you?"

She took one of her gloves off and stuck it in her mouth, then looked down at her fingers. The way she tilted her head like that… I couldn’t read it.

"The others are coming," Lisa said. She bent over the table in front of me and took a drink in her palm from the can.

"We’re not in the fight without Brockton Bay," I said.

"Maybe," Lisa said. "Maybe you should consider taking the risk. You wouldn’t want to walk into Coil’s hands to make a bad call."

"You and Tattletale. We could go with their plan, but… we’ve worked on this together."

"That’s our plan," she said. She seemed more than relieved to hear that. "What would it take for us to do that?"

She opened a canister in one hand and took a gulp, inhaling steadily.

"We’d need to know where Miss Militia is," I said. I pointed at the canister. "You could hold off on attacking, and we could take her off your hands in the time she recovers, assuming you’re capable of standing on your feet once she recovers."

"We could wait for something to happen," she said. "Her power and her range can allow her to hit more than twice as hard. If Coil doesn’t hit as hard with more firepower, I think he’s gonna deal more damage to us anyway, and it won’t matter when he’s dead."

That was a good bet, I thought.

"I think I’d have to agree," Tattletale said. "I could see this going well, but I’d have to get the figures straight."

"And the other figures?"

"I wouldn’t mind seeing what it costs to move the capes to a safer location," Tattletale said. "Or, uh…" she held up her forefinger, "I’m not completely sure what that means."

"I suppose there’s a reason for everything," Lisa said. "You’re still here, right?"

"Yes. If your head doesn’t spin too far, there’s a good chance I’m busy dealing with Bitch."

"I guess that’s fine." The tone of Brian’s voice was casual, if it came out that way. He was a bit more reserved than his brother.

I looked at her, seeing what she was alluding to and saw that she was taking a deep breath. "Alright. How much should I expect to spend on this?"

"Twenty. And if you don’t mind me bringing an extra person to deal with the Merchants, I’ll accept a cheaper rate."

"I should be able to handle this on my own."

"No! Don’t think I’m not capable of handling what I’m capable of handling. You’ve said something about your power… I’ll deal with the Merchants."

She wasn’t backing down any further. She didn’t want to disappoint me, but how bad was this to go?

I saw the others approach, two guys from the crowd, one of them older, balding, and one young, blond, black. Lisa’s companions were looking at her in surprise.

I didn’t like this attitude, but I had to do what I could to convince her to follow through on what I had been saying. A conversation between us was out of the question.

The older of the two young guys approached


======== SAMPLE 1 ========
 the power.

There wasn’t just resistance. The power flowed through his body, and my bugs could feel the blood spraying from his wounds.

He was being crushed. More crushed.

The darkness that was casting over the battlefield was a sign of his imminent demise.

"Hey!" I called out, ignoring them.

I was able to sense two of the monsters in the crowd. One was a female, more like a human-shaped monster with a head and a body of a monster. Her lips were parted, but her eyes were closed. She was clutching her stomach, her arms up against her body, and her eyes were screwed shut, glaring at whoever was in her immediate vicinity.

She’d been trying to get people moving to move out of the way when this female got up there and pointed her knife in his direction, just to make a point.

"Don’t try," he growled. His voice wasn’t human, but his body language implied it was. Even as much as I was able to see how he was being choked, it wasn’t a threat I could turn my back to. I could see how the girl moved to shove him away, only so he was unable to attack her. I did what I could.

The other was something else. The ‘monster’ was larger. The eyes were wide with something that could have been the slits for lids, and the entire shape was too much like a lizard. An insect or spider and they would have looked alike, except the proportions could be changed as the lizard-shaped part took shape.

This ‘monster’ raised a club from the depths of his stomach and whipped it at his foe, making it splatter across the ground. It would have been so easy to just use my hands to strike that area of ground again. But my eyes moved to him. I drew my knife, but he did not seem to care. He backed away, as if to run, and the woman behind me saw her chance.

She used the blade, and he was almost powerless as she whirled around, swung the club at him again, but she missed. The weapon swung, which probably wasn’t as hard as it could be.

Then she turned into her shape, whirling around again. He didn’t stop moving and fight as a third wave hit him from the other direction, but he was still unconscious as the blade impacted his side. This time, he was stunned into unconsciousness.

I heard the sound of metal colliding, the impact echoing through the darkness. I could sense more of the crowd reacting, and could see if I hadn’t made contact with one of the injured or maimed, and my bugs could sense the movement from others.

No sooner was the second wave gone than it was back. Two more had already crossed over, and three more were approaching, approaching from the opposite direction and out of the way.

I was only half-blind, as the blades reached me again. I drew my cell phone, and dialed. "The two remaining remaining were a girl wearing a black costume with red horns and an angelic face holding a giant club. I’ve already spoken with one of the PRT officers who was present, I’ll give you that information."

The phone hung up.

"You should get in touch with my people," Tecton said.

I hung up.

We advanced toward the center of the city, and I watched as Leviathan turned, then swung, using the weight of the blades to draw himself over the top of the city and up into the sky. I couldn’t make them out, but one or two of them crossed the sky.

The female monster was the first to appear, walking through the middle of the city, holding the club with one hand. The second was behind her, and the female was almost holding him back. One of the girl’s teeth was chattering and clattering, causing the girl to stumble. The others were almost at the periphery of my attention. Had Leviathan missed them? It seemed so inevitable.

They converged on one point where a large group of people were positioned. I could see a woman approaching them, one arm extended, looking toward the sky, her other hand gripping the club in a weak hand gesture. When she glanced at me, I could almost make out a smile on her face. It was all too much for one of her teeth to fall out. She didn’t react.

Was she being polite? It was all too hard to imagine.

She seemed to know what to expect, moving on to join us in the crowd. The man with the girl with horns and a different face stood near her. Tattletale. I recognized her as Imp

======== SAMPLE 2 ========
 the power of any weapons? Or a distraction?

We were just barely in sight, when I saw one of my new teammates getting shot. I raised my fingers to my mouth, and saw him, one hand extended, a rifle in the other.

He was getting ready to fire a shot when Jack stepped into the alley and shot him, striking him out of the air with a powerful shot.

This guy managed to stand as he saw Jack getting knocked to the ground as he collapsed to the ground, arms flailing.

"I’m not fucking with you, are I?" Jack rumbled, as he continued to shoot and stagger toward us, trying to take aim at some kid who happened to be on the far side of the alleyways.

I stepped in as we approached, feeling my power surge, pulling on his arm, and seeing the second bullet pass through, through the other side of his body, through his upper intestines, and into him.

One blood smear in his right ear.

I kept close to his side to get a better glimpse as he began to make sense of his state.

"A lot of good people are gone," Tattletale spoke. Her voice was calm, but for the slight edge of breath that I might assume she was enjoying talking. It wasn’t a good feeling, even if I didn’t know she was feeling it.

"My power has taken me through the door. We’re getting lucky there. Someone must have picked up something they dropped."

"If I say so," I replied. My fingers tapped on the steel that extended from the frame at his groin, urging him to be quieter.

He’s only an adult. He could understand my thinking, I wasn’t sure if he was aware I was an adult and that I was acting like one.

"So, about us. How did you even know I’m with us?"

"A friend introduced himself. Jack. I think he knew what you’re thinking about. He says we can make it through this as a team."

"Yeah, no point." I shook my head. "I told him we could."

He smiled wide.

"So, you guys aren’t sure what our powers are?" I asked. "The way you were talking about the others, they didn’t seem so screwed up after all."

"No idea-" Jack started to pull himself upright. He stopped as some of the bugs, large and small, moved to the doorway.

"Wait! I’ll be here!" Tattletale called out. I could feel her raise her voice.

"No sense of urgency, Tattletale," Jack said. He gave me a thumbs up sign, stepped closer to me, and spoke softly to me. "I think I understood where I was going with that question, a little while ago. My… friends, they’ve gotten more fucked up since I told you the truth. More fucked up in some bad ways, not just in the sense that Jack-"

He trailed off, his hand on my shoulder, as he turned the other way, looking back at me.

"They’re not the same people they were. Not like we might have thought they weren’t. People change. I’m not that, though. I’m the same person I was a year ago, before we knew we were the Slaughterhouse Nine. Someone who had people constantly worrying about me, everyone in my territory, at least one of which had been Jack and Bonesaw, that was me in a nutshell."

I swallowed. "You’ve… changed."

"You’ve changed."

I swallowed again. No point. "A lot."

"Maybe."

Jack shrugged. "Probably."

I shook my head a little.

"You don’t say that often." He turned back to me, "I don’t think you get the point. You did change, you know."

"I did. I think I got a taste of the new you."

"You’re being vague, Tattletale, as you say," Jack said. He’s one of the people who’ve got the least idea about who you are. "You say you got a taste. We have powers, after all. What did you do?"

I shook my head again. "Nothing concrete. I was alone in the house. Jack was on the other side of the fence, I was alone in the room. Probably just a memory. Like I told Reg, if I’d had a chance to answer for what I’ve done, I’d have done even worse

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
 the "T"-shaped thing at the ends. They’d been cut away with her knives, and now they hung here, suspended in mid-air, just as thick as she was tall. She stood there, her arms folded, her expression hidden in the depths of her brown eyes.

"I’ve been here for almost four and a half hours," she said. "One thing at a time."

"A lot easier than it should be," Imp said. "This is a formality."

"It is," Tecton said. "She has to let out a breath, and she has to cough, because you’re sucking up to her."

She didn’t move her arm. Tecton sighed and said, "Come on, Imp."

Imp grunted out a breath. When she did cough, she took her time coughing, just like she had in the elevator.

"Okay, so Tecton’s right," he said. "He’s right. It’s a formality."

He raised one hand to offer a small wave. Imp nodded, but she wasn’t convinced to accept it.

When I asked Bitch about her reaction to her new dog and Imp, she said, "I’ll let Tecton explain why."

"Tecton and I have talked about this," Tecton said, when I returned from the bathroom, "About how Imp’s a pain in the ass to work with. I know your schedule, and she really has been putting her foot down, doing what she’s doing."

I glanced at Imp. She was glaring at me.

"Okay. You know what I mean. I know her schedule. You know what I mean, then."

"She was here when I was already busy," Imp said.

"And it’s a while before she finishes. She can get back to her dogfighting days if you want to sit this one out," I said. Imp glared back, but I didn’t say anything.

Tecton frowned. He shook his head slightly, showing that he wasn’t in agreement with me.

"And she’s been complaining about our schedules?" I asked. "How long has it been since you came back?"

"Two weeks, at most," she said.

"And her dogs are still getting used to life as usual with you around. It makes for some awkward moments."

She couldn’t speak up for the first time in three days, but I wasn’t surprised, really, at how she reacted. It would have been easy to get angry at her, but she didn’t.

"What about her dogs?" I asked.

"They’re supposed to be confined on this side, right?"

"Right."

Imp looked at Tecton’s shoulder to gauge how he was holding up, then looked me in the eye to gauge if I wanted to talk about that.

Tecton’s expression didn’t change much during the discussion, I thought.

"She won’t come out?" I asked.

Imp looked back to me, her eyes hard, and she shrugged. "Sorry. I’m tired. Been too long."

I nodded my head in a nod of agreement.

"So they’re not happy there," I muttered to Regent and Bitch.

"I know," Imp said. She offered a small smile. I could see a glimmer of regret cross her face. "I’d still like to have a bit of a talk with you."

"You don’t really want to, but-"

"I know," Imp said. "I know. You don’t have time, but-"

"I know," I repeated myself, trying to sound more confident.

"What do you want to talk?"

"About why I can’t talk to them anymore."

"About Tecton?"

I didn’t really have a choice, here. "I think I might know why."

"I know," I said. "But there’s a problem with that. I know, maybe, but I know that your power’s limited to this one, right? You can’t be as cruel as you want, but you can’t be cruel, I mean, they just aren’t human, right? If you’ve been through a hell of a lot of shit, you’ve had to experience, and people have had to see, heard, tasted, touched and felt different emotions

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
 the left or right," a voice said in my ear. I turned around to see a young girl standing in front of a large-framed television. She spoke, "It’s Taylor Hebert. Your mom is trying to convince you to take that exam."

I shook my head. "A new one?"

"It’s not mandatory," her voice was thick with nervousness. Not a question. I turned around. She was standing outside a bathroom stall with a towel draped around her, and she was hunched over. Her eyes were closed.

"Well, I’m here to help you anyways," I spoke, leaning against the brick wall beside her, "But first off, I had to ask, who are you?"

"I… I’m Lisa. Sorry. Dad wanted me to take some pictures this morning, before I had to go to work."

I smiled, "I don’t know. Can I take one for you? Maybe I could take some business cards?"

She gave me a funny look.

I took a deep breath. "Do you remember who Lisa is?"

"No," the question was a veiled warning.

"Why?" Lisa asked.

"Because I’m a smartass about it, and you guys are going to find out I’m a smartass if I do something stupid. Just know that I’m not stupid."

She laughed, almost a giggle, and made a face.

"Well, there’s still a few days before the start of school," Brian spoke over the intercom, I could guess at his voice from previous incidents, "So maybe, if we’re all luckless, we could ask about Lisa and get a glimpse at her room, maybe see what her cat is doing in there. No promises, no guarantees."

I shrugged, feeling annoyed at having been tricked into a trap, "That’s fine."

Brian looked surprised when I stepped forward.

"Taylor?" The teenaged girl asked me, with a bit of perturbed surprise in her voice, "You wanted to tell me how you decided to go out as a hero. You went running from home before you came here."

"Uh, yeah. Didn’t want to do it in front of his mom, but he thought it’d be nice to get back to normal."

"You went out running solo and decided to volunteer?" She seemed relieved to know it was my doing on her end.

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess I figured I’d go out run after the others had run off, too. But that was a good little reminder to all of the kids at the gym, who have been watching the little videos and watching my dad, or some of the other guys, with the kids in the company. Like, ‘Taylor’ was there, and I’m just trying to convince them that that was not a fake."

That took some effort on my part, knowing what I knew now. I glanced at the teenaged girl’s mom. "I’m sorry."

"It’s alright," her face was stern.

"Just saying. I have seen the videos, I can say they were staged." I was relieved for some breath in that moment of uncertainty. I could almost blame her, really. I had just spent the better part of an hour or two as a teenager staring at the faces of bullies or the victims of bullying, and I had no idea what to expect from Lisa.

She turned my way, her eyes lingering on me as I approached. I was sure that as she approached, I couldn’t meet her eyes, so my expression was more awkward.

"It’s cool," I murmured.

Her mouth moved. "You know, if it isn’t Taylor, I have some business to attend to."

I nodded.

"I’ve missed you, Taylor. I missed being able to meet you, and meeting Lisa, and that whole thing with the pictures." I smiled behind my mask. "And my old man, I think everyone’s a little sad to see him."

"Oh?" The smile dropped from her face as she turned away.

"I’m sorry. I didn’t know."

I shrugged. I glanced around the room. Nobody greeted me. Only Lisa, Brian, Alec and Brian’s uncle.

The real me is a little sad to see… A few of the people from the group had come here, but most were busy, doing their work, having fun.

"I was thinking I might give you one last gift before I headed off to class

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
 the process, but I’m not going to try too hard to tell you why. The short answer is, I’m a shitty liar, and I’ve told enough lies to get in trouble."

"I can believe that," the doctor said, "The last time we talked, you were telling me you were innocent."

"So I’m going to try to be honest," I said. "I’m not entirely sure I can tell the truth, especially with the exception of the hospital, but I do think I might break down in tears if I talk about the thing with Coil. I’d also be lying."

"You’re being very paranoid," his face was red from expression to expression, even as he was staring at me.

"Well, maybe not entirely. It could be easier to tell lies if you have a face, instead of one of those things. No. The doctor could help. He said he’d put you on drugs, but he’s not sure Coil made a recommendation about it. I think he did."

"You said your dad was a bad guy?"

"Yes. I think that’s at least partially the reason I got my powers. I didn’t."

"Then why?"

"He worked for Coil as a sort of scapegoat, I think, and because Coil didn’t have anyone who wasn’t just in line to take his cut."

"I understand that. I understand that, and I don’t even want to think it over, not fully comprehend it. I know how hard his job was to find Coil’s men, or Coil’s men got to me. I know how hard Coil tried to manipulate me, to get me to do whatever it was he wanted."

"There’s a reason you’re here. You’re in Brockton Bay, we can help you deal with your problems if you’re put in touch with the right people, but you could lose custody of your kids, lose your benefits that have been set up after your criminal charges were dropped. Coil isn’t lying. I know you haven’t told your story all."

"It hasn’t, really. I’ve been careful, and it’s not like it was like I was on the verge of telling mine. But I think I might. I told my story to help my dad when he was in a bad position. I think I might let him put in a tip if he knew, just for the fun of it, and just to see how far I’m willing to go to help him out as he’s been doing so fucking badly lately. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt your feelings, if you were going to come after me."

"It’s not that big of a deal. I had your number. I can call you." Even though that part didn’t sound as though I’d been on a phone call – I might not yet – I felt flustered.

"You really should have seen it, at your funeral. He was saying the same thing about Coil. That I shouldn’t. It would be better to let Coil bury you alive and then look at your face if he ever got to know the truth, you know?"

"I know. But it’s not like I’ve let my family know, so I can’t call and ask them and I can’t tell them who Coil is. I just thought he’d appreciate it if I let him know we’re on good terms." For about a minute, I couldn’t think of a response.

The doctor shrugged. "Good. I can’t promise we’ll get back to the office in ten minutes, but your dad? He has to work, after a sort of a break."

"I think he’ll want to hear the reason we’re doing this. I’m glad you’re with him."

"We just got through talking to Coil. You should come see our offices. He likes to play us, because we’re the ones who can tell his secret. He likes his work. Or he’s trying to figure out if we’re just playing him or if he’s still got a better way to play us."

He looked so tired.

"I’m not sure I like that. It may be that my dad was a spy before Coil got too close, but with the way things are, I don’t think he likes us telling the whole truth."

"Maybe. But if he was a spy

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
 the second.

"They made it. They broke through some barriers. The first. I’m… not sure I want to get distracted, but is this something that I could try?"

"I don’t know if I understand, really."

"Yeah. See, I can’t remember what it was. I went by Scion, I made it a point to make it clear that I was a hero. They wanted to have a talk, and I told them I wasn’t going to fight, but they kept fighting, until Scion caught up with them. Until that point, I’d never even considered being a full time hero. This, I get this. I was the last person to reach him. What did you do? You called in a strike. Scion attacked me, not before."

"I heard, saw. I’m… not really sure I recall well. I think I was thinking that maybe I should have seen him coming. My power was still on, it wasn’t activated yet."

Her father sighed. "Let’s go. We’re going to be late. It’s two hours. What’s wrong with the train? I’m not sure we can leave the carriage with three hours notice."

"You could ask Coil."

"I could ask Coil. I’d get in trouble, I’d take a beating."

His father frowned. "That’s not good enough, is it?"

"Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe Coil wouldn’t let us, and we’d get back here in an hour or an hour and a half."

"We shouldn’t. I don’t understand."

"I don’t understand, too. I’m getting an idea of what Coil does. He doesn’t want us to get into trouble. He’s been wanting help on this for a long time. I thought maybe it was a part of the reason he wasn’t willing to let his soldiers die. Not sure he’s ready to let us live if we’re captured, but he wouldn’t say."

"He’s giving us the heads up."

"Right."

My bugs found the bugs they’d left at rest on the ground, and they found what they needed, leaving behind their tools and everything they had on them.

But our remaining swarm had no other choice. It was so small they couldn’t bear to fly. If we did stray, their flight would be too slow.

One step forward, one step back.

With nothing more to occupy itself with, my swarm moved to gather as it could. It couldn’t move, at long range, but they’d gathered, then they dropped to the ground to rest. That would mean they could pick themselves up. There would be bugs to help with the movement and keeping us on target.

I made myself take another step forward, and my leg bent. I managed to keep from falling. The first of my bugs to strike to aid me fell to the ground. Another swarm arrived.

I managed to get to a standing position, then drew out a small knife, holding it in my teeth, ready to strike if my leg bent in a way that I couldn’t control.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. Then another. He stopped and turned to look at the one who had been using my arm to guide the knives toward me. A man. He was very pretty, in a very different way, in the sense of someone who was not handsome, tall or skinny, not handsome for his age, not skinny for how much weight he had, but he was very handsome, somehow. His dark hair was long, his eyes blue, his nose stubby, his lips pretty.

Another had already arrived, a woman, a girl of about three years of age? I couldn’t tell.

"I’m going to kill him," he said.

Then he felt the hand in my direction. I backed away two steps, but I got a better look at where he was looking. The woman. One of them?

He turned to look at her too. Her face was so unreadable that I glanced her way. She was staring, and I couldn’t tell if she was angry, surprised or bored that the two strangers weren’t her friends.

I found my hand again. I tried to act casual. "I guess I’m safe at this point, I dunno."

"It’s not safe."

"It’s safe?" She asked.

I nodded. I

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
 the ones the doctors could handle. The Doctor’s people were in charge, and were still in charge of the operation.

"This is going to be hell on my end, because she’s a fucking idiot."

She was right.

The Doctor moved to place a hand on my shoulder. I felt a flare of relief at the touch of his hand.

"You’ve got a name to choose from, then, if this continues."

"No," I said, "I’m sorry."

"No excuses."

I was surprised how little patience he was putting on me, a matter familiar to everybody around me. That lack of grace – that sense of entitlement – surprised me. I knew it was the Doctor who’d asked me to fill the pouches. It had been my decision. I’d had to put up with it in the past, had done everything she’d asked of me in the wake of the crisis.

But not to this degree.

"I would have expected a greater measure of courtesy before entering your bedroom. The Doctor did not provide any. She only asks you a place to stay. She has sent a representative."

I nodded.

"The hospital is a bad distance away."

I couldn’t meet his eyes. If he didn’t know, and if he’d figured it out without my help, I could only hope that it was my fault for bringing it up in conversation.

"Good. How long are you staying?" he asked.

I nodded. "Longest I’ve been here was fifteen minutes, but I feel like I’ve spent ten. Fifteen minutes between the Doctor’s staff-"

We were interrupted as a man entered the room, carrying the woman who’d been holding the child. He spoke to the other parents, and I could imagine myself as the parent in doubt.





Interlude 29 (Donation Bonus #1)


A man was sitting on the other side of the doorway to the main room of the prison.

His skin was peeling and flaky; he had a scar on his face, but it was nothing worth noting. He wore a prison uniform, but that wasn’t saying much. His hair had been cut, and his shirt and tie were black.

"You took to the streets like a dog," the woman behind him spoke.

"Yes," the man smiled. He glanced at his cellmate who ‘d been transferred to solitary. He’d left the door open. "You had to get away like that, had a few beers to calm yourself down, to figure out what to do next. You’re not even more coherent than when you were in solitary."

"The man who brought you here," the man added, his tone hinting at something that was almost sarcastic. He was referring to me.

"What is she, then? The only one that came here?" I asked the man. "I hope you don’t hate me, but I won’t argue."

"She’s… a monster," the woman said, sounding just a touch too horrified at the mention of that word.

The man behind me nodded. He reached out to touch the hair of my head that was standing on end:

"You can talk now, but don’t talk anymore." A command. He spoke in a barely controlled voice. "If you don’t change your ways, we’re in a bad place. If you don’t get out, I’m not doing much in this office, for all the sick people who might be in prison or on the outside looking in."

"I don’t want to argue."

"You won’t. You want to keep talking for a few more moments, maybe, but don’t get into any arguments with them. And I don’t like arguing."

"Alright. I’m willing to listen."

We reached the room, and it was just me and the doctor. He waited patiently as I got my thoughts sorted, then spoke in a low voice, "You’ve been to the hospital. Do you want to sit?"

I shook my head. "No. I like to think outside the box."

"Do you see why I’m a little disappointed that you’re still here?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Nothing came of any of it, I can figure out. Your teammates were at the same place when you guys were moved there. I guess the Doctor’s got your back."

"I’m not sure,"

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
 the back of his hand to point in my direction. A few seconds passed. One or two of us had gone still before our minds switched over to what had just happened.

And I said, with a bit of a nervous undertone, "It’s too quiet."

"Too quiet," he said. He turned and faced me, then gave me a look of surprise, before he left to find a different spot on the wall to watch the action on television.

"I figured you wanted to know too," I murmured, before I could finish.

"Not the best idea, either," I replied, "Now that you’re asking, I’m going to be a little aggressive, I suppose."

"Okay." He seemed satisfied with his choice of words, "Good. Well, I’ll be going now. Thank you for being here."

I stepped off of the bed, then made my way over a foot of snow that had recently fallen from the sky, setting it aside and leaving it all behind.

I spent a moment and then got ready. The last thing I wanted to do was waste any time. My thoughts were on more important things, and I couldn’t get distracted.

I got my costume on with the intention of getting me there. I went into the bathroom to check the insides, and found it all neatly packed. I had no doubt that someone had arranged it earlier in the day. As one might expect, not a single item had been left out. My bugs were all ready to go, eager to find and kill any living thing that got in their way. There was a bit of a mess in the shower, a pile of clothes piled on top of me. I stepped out and brushed my hair out of my eyes, feeling stupid for not dressing earlier, getting a panic attack while doing it.

Beneath the bathroom, I was able to grab my costume out of the drawer, then got dressed without removing or removing the layers. I grabbed a hat, which I had to stand there while I hurried down the stairs to the living room, pulling it on at the top.

I took a deep breath. I realized I didn’t really care about the hat. I had nothing to say now, after getting my thoughts straight.

I left it in the living room, then headed downstairs to check in with Lisa, her dogs, Brian and Lisa’s dad and Lisa’s mom. I’d changed into my costume again.

"What is it?" Lisa asked.

"He said he could go."

"Oh," Lisa gave him a look. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could guess she’d seen me. Why did she think that? It must have been a hint. "Oh? You wanted to ask?"

"I asked them to be on their guard. When I took to the other end of the street, I didn’t say a word." I’d taken off the helmet and sweater. I didn’t want to let my bugs bite and sting.

"Did you have an answer to that?"

"No. They’ll do it when they get there, so don’t say a word until you get to the hospital."

"Okay."

"They’re good soldiers," I spoke. I was a little more careful with the wording of my question, to make up for the lack of sound with other noises. I’d had a chance to get my bearings a little, and the change was noticeable, but there wouldn’t be a reaction the same way with a dog.

"Okay," Lisa nodded. She looked around. At the TV, and the speakers at the side of the couch. "Thanks."

"Why?" she asked.

"Why?" I asked, and I wasn’t sure she wanted me to say it, with the way she was reacting. Was this how she usually reacted? She’d expected something like this.

"I’m good."

"We can’t stay here until they come."

I nodded. "I get that. But if we wait, we’re leaving them in a position where they can decide what to do with someone, and they could step in and protect one of us."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"If they get close and then go for a run, it’s going to be bloody messy for all of us. I-" she trailed off, "You and everybody else, we’re not going to make it out okay if we don’t work through this."

I nodded once again. "I know. I’ll take care of that."

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
 the ones outside.

"Noelle. They’re in front of me. You don’t understand. I don’t know them, but I’ll know what they’re doing, and you’re going to be in a position where you have no choice but to tell me. I don’t care if you say I was involved. If you say there was a trap set up, I won’t believe you."

"Do as I’m asking," she said, stepping through the portal.

"You are going to have to do as well at being in control as you do at controlling your body. The way you act will feel better if you can keep your mouth shut, or you’ll sound as though you expect me to be in charge of you."

"I… how should I say it?" Noelle was lost in thought.

"We should stick to talking business. You said there’s a bit of a catch to this, though. I assume you wouldn’t elaborate?"

"I’m not entirely sure. I think I remember saying that I don’t know them all. If you’re asking me what they were doing, I… I remember saying they’d attacked someone in the market, which I didn’t explain."

"Just tell me. Any idea what you were saying wasn’t as detailed as I’d guess. Do you remember me saying that someone had been attacked?"

Noelle shook her head. Was she being paranoid? "I don’t. I had someone give me a hard time after I left a shopping spree with the other Undersiders."

"I could ask again," Defiant said. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I asked them to help me put together an alliance between the Slaughterhouse Nine and Dinah," Noelle said. She sighed. "I think I got lucky."

"I’m not sure I understand."

"You got your revenge," she said, "But not on the team. In the end, it’s okay."

His expression was hard. "You’re not sure? That’s not good enough."

"I don’t know you, and I don’t care," Noelle said. She had to swallow. "I thought you liked us. That you liked your friends. I thought you liked what my power did for you."

He made an irritated sound, but he still looked away. "I can’t stand to be left out."

"I don’t know your reason for wanting to join them," she said. "You know why I did it, I just kind of stopped because I can’t really imagine anything else." She looked around for a reason.

"That?" Defiant quirked an eyebrow.

"If you asked me in a month and a half, would I be willing to work with you to help take down the Slaughterhouse Nine, I would take it. I’d hate it so much less than I ever did, but-"

Noelle stopped. She’d always disliked the Slaughterhouse Nine, and the thought made her skin crawl.

"I know people will say I’m being melodramatic," she said. Now that the thought was clearer in her mind, she tried to see if he was going nuts.

"You’re being literal. You’re being very melodramatic," he corrected her.

"I thought you liked me."

"I do. But I’m the leader of this team. I have to be. Someone else probably would, but I have to do my best here."

"That’s… not what I meant."

Noelle was almost certain she couldn’t keep herself from smiling. Her confidence had dropped. She felt like a total loser, in a very stupid way.

"…I don’t know how to say it, but the real reason I said that was because I didn’t trust you," he explained. "Did I really leave you hanging with this?"

Noelle nodded once.

"If you were honest, and you’re not doing that… and it hurts every time I look at you, every time I look at you, I know you’re happy."

"I’m not happy. I don’t like it, I hate it. I hate that you put me in that situation. Don’t ever talk to me about being miserable. I just… I thought I did something to deserve it. You made me use a weapon that I thought I was

======== SAMPLE 10 ========
 the door and opened it.

"You should have found a way to tell me that. I’m sorry. It’s really bad timing."

Bitch stepped out of the doorway. The little boy didn’t seem to notice her, so I moved out of the way, making sure my presence wasn’t visible, as well as I could.

He glanced around. It was a long time before he spoke with a tongue in his mouth, "Is everyone alright?"

"We’re going to die soon," Tattletale replied.

"I can smell you. Like blood." Bitch gestured and pushed the dog down onto the ground.

I stood and stared at him, "Blood?"

"Screamer."

She gestured, then pushed him out the door.

"What’s wrong?"

She stared at the man who had come in. The dog was nearly in front of her, and he was hunched over.

The man turned towards us. "They’re in a room with doors. I didn’t know if the man inside knew who I was."

"We’re safe and sound," Tattletale said, "I could be so fucking boring if I had a girlfriend, and I think you’d agree with what she’s saying."

"A girl."

"She said you were one. Just so you understand, I think I’m fairly objective when it comes to this sort of thing. If I think an idea’s bad, it wouldn’t be completely wrong. But her… she seemed okay."

"I… I’m not going to lie."

"We’re talking about you, Skitter, Weaver. That’s pretty damn important."

Tattletale looked at Grue, then shrugged, "Alright. Well then."

"What are you going to do?"

Tattletale just shrugged, walked away, and he turned to me. "I’m going into the room. Not really sure what I’m going to do, but maybe some of the others will know something."

"Okay."

"Maybe we could make some time on the computer. I know you want to watch movies, and I know a lot of you aren’t doing that because you want to get away from your parents."

Grue shrugged. He knew. Wasn’t that what they’d been saying?

"I’m not the person to point that out, not in a professional capacity, but I’m going to help anyway. I got a computer recently, bought mine with a lot on it, and it’s kind of getting old."

"You don’t care?"

"Not at all. I want to get away." Hell, it was my problem and he’s my problem. Fuck, even he’s getting in my way. I think he’s going to throw up.

"You mean the girl who asked you out?"

"Yeah."

He nodded agreement.

"Hey!" the others were shouting, "Tattletale is here!"

I couldn’t take it. It was a group I wasn’t used to, I was more used to watching the other group, to seeing Panacea.

"Who?" I asked, my voice a murmur to my surprise. Tattletale.

"Grue. He was talking to Grue. He’s… he’s pretty smart."

"Hey, who’s this?"

Tattletale turned around, "I think."

"I can tell what I know," I said, with a bit of sarcasm.

Tattletale didn’t answer right away, she turned back, "I’ve worked with people. I’ve made friends. I’ve been in relationships. Sometimes I've had good times and times and times and nights and nights with good people in the company of horrible people. I’ve tried to be a friend. And… I don’t think I can be the nice guy to my teammates until I know we’re connected enough."

She made a pointed face. I was aware of how many people were looking at me that way, watching me, not seeing me as a human being.

She nodded a small yes.

"Good girl," I said, "You could do a lot worse, then."

Tattletale walked up behind me. Tattletale wasn’t short – a little thicker on one side, less fat

======== SAMPLE 11 ========
 the scene. They had an army of three hundred, and were being organized so they could occupy and distract the other group, if they even had a chance.

"They don’t know us," I said, glancing my way.

Ginger had said he’d been keeping the army up, not that he would have been able to if he were out of my power’s reach, but he had.

I moved my swarm to join the last group, as though to give them something to work with.

No need. I made my way out of the building, and the army of two hundred and fifty quickly gathered in the doorway, forming a tight triangle, with one person standing to one side, and the other facing me.

A look of surprise crossed Ginger’s face.

The others were busy with the building, trying to keep up. Foil was in the midst of moving rubble away from the scene. The other hero had taken to the air, moving to hover around the periphery of our group, with the first words I could think of, ‘Oh my god, your power’?

I shifted position.

"He’s hurt."

"He is. If you can’t see-"

I found two. One was in a room, surrounded by a mass of bugs. He started to move to another room, leaving a trail of flies and other bugs in his wake, then stopped in place. The bugs on him would be dead before he was six months old. Another was in the other room, surrounded by a mess of bugs in his way. He’d been trying to climb out.

"No," I said. My eyes roved across him, then to an adjacent room. He wasn’t in close enough to touch me, so I focused on him, moving him to another part of the apartment. He had trouble finding an empty space, and settled into the same position for a little while, eyes downcast.

"I’m not-" he started to speak, but had to halt.

I raised my head, met his eyes again.

He’s angry? He was here with us, a bit before we left? The others wouldn’t have cared?

I moved the bugs to give him a chance to get a grip.

I was going to make a mistake. The bugs could have done more harm, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to escalate, to resort to attacks.

He’s mad. He’s trying to communicate, to tell us something, but he doesn’t know how?

"The Travelers have arrived," Tattletale said. "Tattletale, how are you? Grue and Imp?"

Tattletale wasn’t as well as I’d like. A bit on her ankle, I could use my hands to help lift her shoulders. Imp, on the other hand, heaved. She pushed her arm out to shake and pushed me to pull the bugs away.

Imp had her arms spread, one elbow on the table, her hand on her weapon. She’d changed into a human suit, I recalled. I wasn’t sure I understood. It’s not that I was thinking in terms of the physical limits of bugs, but the concepts of power and how they operated?

Grue was here too. A part of me felt bad. I couldn’t say that Imp was an inferior being, but I felt bad for the two of them. Faultline and Coil. It was one of the easiest ways to get by, I guess.

"Imp!" I shouted, using my power, "Stop!"

Imp couldn’t move without making it through the swarm. I didn’t want to do this, and my ability was limited by the presence of a hundred more bugs. I tried moving her head, using it as a push to give her a little more leverage. It didn’t matter. In the end, her hand on her gun stopped her in her tracks. She was just trying to reach someone with my power’s range, and I had the insects at her back, ready to give her that leverage.

Imp lunged to the front of the group without me, and Grue lunged down the hall, grabbing Tattletale’s shoulders to stop at the corner and then running. Both Lung and Lung Jr. were there, along with Lung A, Lung B, and a few others I couldn’t name. It was the last room I reached, at the end of the first.

The heroes were spread out. The two of them I knew would be Lung A and Lung B.

"I don�

======== SAMPLE 12 ========
 the team had left, the group hadn’t moved from the base to start rebuilding. So it would be a few years before Coil could claim them as his own.

A reminder to stop by and say hi to the Undersiders. I wanted to thank you.

I’m getting the phone and sending it to you to call if we see you. I’m probably gonna ask Coil if we can be a part of this, depending on the amount of people who want to meet you, so maybe you’ll get an okay.

And I have some questions too:

How did you get your powers?

Who was Coil?

Where did Coil get his powers? Tattletale?

He’s a guy who I didn’t really know.

I’m guessing this is the easiest one.

How do you fight?" I asked.<|endoftext|>Image copyright EPA Image caption The bodies of the two students were identified as 19-year-old Adam Collins, from Cleveland, Ohio, and 19-year-old Noah Lomax, from Akron, Ohio.

Two of the victims in last weekend’s mass shootings in Chicago and Boston were named.

The victims of a shooting in the University of Michigan were described as freshmen at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, local news reporters say.

Noah Lanover, a student at the university, was identified as a sophomore.

University of Illinois spokesman Andrew Knoll says his school does not comment on individual students.

The names were released by the Chicago Police Department as news media reported the news.

Adam Collins, a senior from Cleveland, Ohio, and Noah Lomax, a freshman from Akron, Ohio, were described as victims. Their families declined to be identified by name.

Police are looking for two men who they say were in the school at the time of the shootings.

The incident happened on 21 April. Two people were shot in the same classroom as the two teenagers.

"I think this is our day," the father of a student who was in the school said at a press conference, according to the Associated Press. "We have to support each other."

The Chicago Tribune reported that the group in question came from a neighborhood known to be known for gang activity.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Chicago Tribune: 'We can’t put a price on humanity'

They were named last Friday by the school newspaper, the Daily Gazette.

Adam Collins had visited the city to attend an event at a downtown restaurant, and had recently attended university but wasn’t at home. He was described by a Facebook post from last November as a student, a "big dude" with "a pretty face and a body that you wouldn’t normally see from him."

He was an experienced photographer and videographer who recently had his job cut short.

The Daily Gazette reported: "Adam Collins has been identified as a 23-year-old sophomore at the University of Michigan. He was last seen wearing a blue-green ball gown, a black sweater and brown slippers.

"He was last seen speaking to a friend by phone shortly after being admitted in a hospital with gunshot wound wounds."

He had been taking pictures of his fraternity brothers at a dance party around 11:30 on a Saturday night at the University of Michigan.

Noah Lomax, who is now 19 years old, was last seen on campus with a friend.

Neither student is being hailed as heroes; neither died in their respective carjackings, but neither was the intended target of the attacks.

It has been a difficult time for America. It has been a period filled with tragedies that have raised the spectre of a dark moment to our collective nightmares. We have seen a man sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. An armed man who was just trying to protect his family. An individual arrested after murdering his ex-girlfriend. A family torn apart when the perpetrator of an online threat was discovered to be an ex-convict. And, of course, there is the national debate on gun violence that continues to rage.

The events last week have brought the world together again. We here at the Guggenheim want to use the occasion to remind everyone that the U.S. is better and stronger, more united, at peace with itself and the world, all because of our shared humanity, all because of our shared interest in restoring order.

"There are only two sides to America. Good and bad," is how a reporter for a local news station put it.

"We are better because there’s only two sides to America," an aide echoed him, "We just need one."

"We mustn’t give

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
 the same level with a different group. A threat.

"That’s the best I can do. We could send help."

"Then what about our territory?"

"The-" he started, then collapsed into a sitting position. "Just… just a second."

I waited.

"You’re thinking of leaving?"

"My territory wasn’t even taken this time. But… oh man, did I do something wrong. Fuck me…"

"Not being able to protect this land while trying to take control of your territory sucks," he said. A small sigh escaped from his words. How many of us have dealt with being shot by capes or shot in the head when we weren’t able to protect ourselves, and only got the worst of our injuries while leaving the land in which we fought them?

I closed my eyes. "This is what I was talking about. I’m not sure I like my options."

"You don’t have many of them."

"No. A little bit of offense to retaliate… but it’s not a good option."

"…I’ll have to think about it. We may have better options," I said. "I don’t think I’ll ever put much stock in retaliation."

"That’s fine." His voice was deep and measured. "I get the impression a lot of people are more comfortable dealing with me than dealing with you. I’m just… I don’t know how to approach this."

I could sense the other group move. The ones we had left behind.

"I don’t give a damn," he said, "This isn’t my territory. I’m… the one who created this land. Who has everything. They think I’m powerless, and I am not powerless."

He was making it up as he went. "And they are. They fought me to maintain their grip on this land."

"They fought you hard. They fought me with weapons they would have lost to a simple knife in the hand. They fought me with vehicles they would be breaking down the next moment I was outside to go and help. They fought me on a level that I wouldn’t have fought them with. You know the drill."

I could see my swarm-sense scanning. It was like a battlefield with dozens of combatants.

"This is the only option," I said.

"This is… I don’t know. I have to admit I don’t really have an answer to that. I don’t know how to play it."

"I’m not sure this guy is the one for you, do you know that?"

"No." The words were a bit out of place, even for me. His accent.

"You’d better go find my teammates. We can handle this."

"Fine. I’ll go. But before I do… I need you to know that-"

He paused.

"This doesn’t change, it’s just-"

He interrupted, "Is this all it took? For you to give up?"

I shook my head. "No."

He looked angry.

"No?"

"He was here all along."

"How the fuck do you get down here like this?"

"He’s not a man." I found a seat next to him, "I can see the way he’d been there. His… body language, his posture, even how he’d been leaning against the wall a few feet from the alley… every part of him was tense. I’m not used to it."

"That’s enough," he said. He raised his head, "Not saying anything."

I took another deep breath.

He started a few steps towards us.

I waited, watching him, listening for him to comment, any comment, on this idea that he’d made just now.

The moment he noticed me, he leaned against the wall, fists on knees, his head on someone’s shoulder, his shoulders, hands on thighs, every part of him tense.

"He… he… doesn’t know how to use his power," I said.





"That’s fine. Let me explain. When I had the power, I… when there was a gap between me and the other group, I made contact with the one who was with me. That’s a whole lot of powers, to tap into that many times. I’ve never been a huge fan of the physical exercise

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
 the window at the far corner, facing the window. She was watching us while we were on our way home.

"I don’t even want to get to the point," I said. "Like the way you were threatening my life."

Bitch glanced at me.

"You know this is a trick?" I asked.

"I could be a fucking fool and not give a damn what anyone thinks," she cut in.

It was hard to say she wasn’t a fool, with how she wore that mask. She only ever wore a mask for a reason.

"What would you even give a damn about?" I asked.

Bitch shook her head. "I wouldn’t fuck with them."

My heart was pounding out of my chest.

Her expression was the same as it’d been when I’d spoken, when I’d been explaining my plan. The look she seemed to take in my direction, she would’ve taken in me.

"You don’t care to fight?" I asked. "You’re not even trying to fight?"

She glanced at me.

"I didn’t know you were trying to fight," I said. "I didn’t think you were fighting Lung at this point."

"Maybe I won’t," she said. She shook her head again. Then she glared at me.

I looked away and raised an eyebrow, trying to put myself in the right frame of mind so Tattletale could read it.

She shrugged, "I think that’s a big reason. I won’t say no."

"I don’t want to fight," I said, "I’m not asking you to fight either. I’m just…" I was trying to get the words out while keeping the line of reasoning clear.

Bitch stopped me in my tracks.

I’m not going out like this.

Bitch looked at Regent and Imp. Regent spoke, "That’s what he told me."

Imp glanced my way, then winked.

The pair of them walked around the corner to stand by Tattletale as she finished answering questions.

"I’m sorry, Imp," Tattletale said.

"You said it earlier, but you don’t think your power works like that, now?"

"If there’s a flaw, it’s that there’s an infinity of options in that world. You can fight Lung, and he’ll kill you. You can save Regent and Imp and leave them to face the monster at the door-"

"The monsters you left to face the monster at the door?"

"No," Imp said, and her eyebrow arched a fraction, "He’s going to kill you."

"Yeah," I agreed.

I glanced at Bitch, then I looked at Sundancer.

Imp poked her head in, "So long as you save your friends, Tattletale, I’m pretty sure we can leave and we can go."

I shook my head. I’m still in a bad spot. I wanted to look at her, just to talk, but…

I looked at Bitch, and there was nothing she could do. She didn’t know my identity, I was blind, I was unable to speak. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t, really, unless I wanted to.

Except Tattletale knew something I could. I turned my attention to her and I’d found what I was looking for.

"It’s not Tattletale," she responded. "It’s a trap. The door’s locked and you’ve got another person who isn’t a match."

I tried to change the subject, but Bitch caught me and pulled me back in.

"You can’t leave alone, or you wouldn’t be here. You guys-"

"Get help," Tattletale cut in. "You want him on board to help us."

Bitch, even with a smirk on her face, looked at Imp’s group of six, "Three out of six isn’t good. If we go all out-"

"No, and they have to be careful," Regent said.

He gestured toward the four of them, and the rest of us turned to look from Regent and Imp. The rest of us, I noted, were looking back at Bitch, who was still holding at the doorway.

I�

======== SAMPLE 15 ========
 the time.

"Hey, Jack." I said. "How bad is it?"

"He wasn’t hurt that bad," he explained.

"What’s happening?"

"He can’t breath. He’s got a stroke, he’s unconscious, he can’t move his hand."

I glanced at Jack, then shook my head, "Not sure, but he was in critical condition at the hospital until hours after the fight started."

"I can track stuff with my power," he said. "It’s only a few bugs."

"How many?"

"One hundred and sixty in last few minutes, maybe it’s two hundred and a hundred or a thousand."

"How many are there now?"

"Probably only fifty in the whole area. The rest are in a more disoriented state, but they’re there."

"We’ve got to get him," I said.

"Not sure I can."

I didn’t respond to that, but I did try to figure out where he’d gone. He might have made it if I’d had my swarm.

We couldn’t be sure if his injury was his ability to breathe or if he’d had an asthma attack, but he was still out, he was alive, and I hadn’t felt any pain. I should have.

"That’s bad," Tattletale was saying. "My gut says that. If his brain wasn’t strong enough for it to keep him alive, he should have died if it wasn’t this bad. He’s unconscious, unconscious, unconscious. The most you’ll get from us here is two hours of sleep, four hours. He’s going to be awake for hours."

Tattletale’s words drew my attention to a handful of bugs. I sent some out to Tattletale and Bitch as well.

"He’s unconscious, is this a bad sign?" Bitch asked.

"No," Tattletale’s voice came over the drone, "His brain has no power to his muscles or nerves – that’s got to be the worst thing. His body doesn’t know how to keep him going, even with the power to fly. We need to see if he’s getting worse, and it’s not worth it unless we can get him up and moving again."

I wasn’t certain how to respond.

"…He’ll need resuscitation," Tecton said. "It’s pretty obvious he’ll suffer if we don’t."

"He’s breathing?" I asked.

"I think so."

"He’s still alive?" I asked.

"That one," Tecton told me, "Shit happens sometimes."

I glanced at Tattletale and Bitch. Tattletale looked even bleaker. Bitch was more tense, although she seemed less.

The three of us climbed to our feet. I glanced at the wounded Jack.

"I don’t think she’s breathing through her mouth, like she used to," Faultline said.

I could feel how heavy he looked. The edges of his eyes were closed.

"No mouth left," I said. "No way."

"She’s bleeding," Faultline murmured, "Her internal organs are starting to bleed out like they’re going to rupture."

"What? Where?" I asked.

Trickster was leaning against the railing, elbows on the railing where they huddled against each other, eyes half-closed, face pressed against his right ear.

"I got a power," Trickster said. "That’s one, and he’s down. I was going to call it in right then, to give him a moment to get his bearings."

Faultline nodded slowly. Not trusting herself to speak, she said, "I wanted to hear your thoughts on this."

"Okay. I won’t say no," Trickster said.

Faultline looked at him, "Your voice isn’t that convincing."

"No," Trickster replied, as he got to his feet. He held one leg, which he could raise and step off of, so he could lean over the railing, putting his right hand on the railing. Faultline could feel the metal of his spine as he spoke. "I’m not interested in this. I’ve done what you asked, and that hasn’t altered

======== SAMPLE 16 ========
 the headmaster, was one of three people who had been involved in the last incident. They’d been arrested and held on a variety of charges. The headmaster, in turn, was suspected of being involved with Coil, the ex-head of the PRT. It wasn’t just Brockton Bay, though. In several states, capes were implicated in the same things.

But it was one of the few. The woman was standing on a rooftop. The man was perched in the corner, hands on his head.

I sent a few bugs into the man’s cell, but they failed to notice the woman, who was confined to it. It seemed she was in denial, or she was denying there was a door.

"Do you know… why…" I started, then stopped.

She was lying flat, on her stomach, hands raised.

I saw her eyes open.

"Yes," he murmured, leaning forward to touch her eye-brow and cheekbones. In response to my earlier question, she had just told me, "No."

"What?"

"No. If that was it…" she nodded. She looked a little worse for wear, then spoke, as if she’d been asking a question, now, "Why the eyebrows?"

"Well, you know me," I started.

"You don’t," she retorted.

I thought about something. "You do. It’s a habit, isn’t it? Don’t you know me? One of the biggest criminals in America, having done this much, taking a crime scene, turning the city into a ghost town in the process, being the one who did the talking? I guess I know you."

I could see the man relax. Then he spoke in a whisper, "And what would you like? To talk? To make love to me?"

"No," Coil spoke, "That wouldn’t be polite. But I don’t have a lot of time."

"But you do have… oh…" The woman moved with alarming speed, arms outstretched. "I don’t understand. How did we get here?"

"We fought him," Coil spoke.

"That’s all you ask," a voice broke the silence, distant. I could barely hear myself speak, with the volume up. I had to focus. A pair of hands grasped me, and they grabbed me harder and harder. Then in seconds, they were pulling me to my feet, arms flailing.

The man who'd sat in the corner next to me spoke, "No. That wouldn’t be polite. You’d be violating the peace."

"My rights have always been," I replied, breathless with panic, "Privileged."

He turned and walked away, his hands still supporting me.

"I didn’t tell them anything," I whispered, as the two new intruders approached me. "Except you can say that if you want to, I won’t bite."

They hadn’t bitten, I realized.

I opened my mouth to speak, only one of the new intruders speaking, "There’s a chance we could use your power here."

I didn’t speak, but at least Coil had stopped talking. I could see how the man was tense, could almost sense how far he was from the person who’d been hugging me.

"If you’re willing," I admitted, "I’m pretty sure we can turn it off."

My heart leaped in my chest as I realized I was being pulled to my feet again. I was pushed over a little further. I kept them to keep myself from falling on the ground and giving away my body to them as they advanced.

"Fuck! No!"

I raised my voice to be heard over the noise, my body language and posture. "I think I said no, I don’t think I ever… want to fuck it up!"

All around me, the others were doing just that. The new intruders stood around me, but I remained at a position above the rest.

The man with the headscarb walked into the room to put himself between me and Coil. He was a little taller, his hair cut short, and he had a more intimidating look to him. He wore a white lab coat, white gloves and white protective goggles. He held the phone in one hand and stared.

"They found Coil," he spoke. I glanced at him, but he didn’t speak his thoughts.

"We’re in a bad spot?" the man next to him asked.

"We just got

======== SAMPLE 17 ========
 the same time, her legs tensing up. She raised one arm to defend herself. "I’m going to go get her. Let’s leave you be."

"No," I said, my voice was hoarse from yelling, but it didn’t sound as though I were saying no. I said, "No, really, don’t. But I’ve dealt with that before. My dad-in-law is like that."

My dad? The one who had done that thing where they put me in their car with nobody in the backseat?

How was I supposed to argue the point if he said the same thing and got arrested? I started to walk away in fear, then reconsidered. Didn’t think I’d have enough to say.

"Hey, Taylor, listen. I’m sorry I’ve been so damn hard on you."

I could see the frustration on his face as he looked back at us. I wasn’t sure I liked this guy.

"I know. I did it for you, to fix you on some level, and I don’t know how much I’ve improved for you."

"We can’t talk about that because I don’t want you getting on my case, you know," Lisa said.

"Okay. And tell me that thing with the dogs, that was a stupid idea," I said, glancing at the dogs.

"They don’t really bark," Lisa said, "They don’t bark if they don’t want to or if they don’t like you."

I could see the anger in his eyes.

"No," I told him. "No, I-"

"I know," I said. "I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with the lawyers sooner. I’m sorry."

"They don’t bark."

"What?" I asked.

And I could see the anger in his eyes and through his mask.

I wasn’t sure I liked him any more than I liked Lisa. But I had to fight to maintain the distance. I’d grown up with heroes and bad guys and a world where my parent seemed to be the most horrible person in the world. I could have stayed with Lisa, but I didn’t.

I tried to ignore her and continued walking, and I wasn’t able to resist glancing at the dogs and the people. I knew I’d look good as an army sergeant or a parahuman with powers. I hadn’t really grown up with the idea of getting into the bad guys. I didn’t get the chance.

"Hey!" Lisa called out. "Come here!"

"What-" my dad’s voice reached Lisa. "I thought you wanted to talk."

I couldn’t hear Lisa’s reply to me as I stepped away. His tone changed as I walked briskly by him. "It’s fine. I thought you were cool."

"That’s not really a no. That’s- I was like, what, twelve?" I asked. "I’m not-" I fumbled for a response.

"Not my fault, you know. You made me feel like I was a bad person, so I… I- I made me feel like a bad girl until I realized I really wasn’t."

"Really?"

"Really. Really." She nodded.

I could see how frustrated she was. I could see the anger taking root. "I’m not your problem. I’m… my friends. I feel bad about it. But I can’t say or do or fix or change or change the person I was before. My life sucked."

"I know. But I know that feeling. You know? The feeling where you know about me, you have a gut feeling? It’s like, I don’t get scared and angry and get like, 'He’s talking out of his ass, he shouldn’t be talking to people like that.' Except that’s what I think."

"Yeah, and I think you’re right."

I could have asked whether this man was mentally stable, but I couldn’t afford to. Was it that easy to come to that conclusion?

Did he even see the big picture? Was he the one who made all those assumptions and started acting like a monster for no reason. It was easy enough to see how he thought about me. He’d seen me, after all, and I

======== SAMPLE 18 ========
 the one that wasn’t. The one that was dead.

"What’s that?" Miss Militia asked.

The hero, a little boy with a long face, was lying with one arm cradled with the rest of his body. His chest heaving out, he had no chest of armor. The cape that was draped over his shoulders was black.

Tattletale gave him a thumbs-up and a light smile.

"He isn’t like that in the beginning," he said, as Miss Militia nodded agreement. "She’s here to rescue him. So he’s going to be dead for a while."

"Well, don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have wanted to keep track of what she’s doing while you were gone."

"Yeah," Miss Militia said. "She’s not that smart, after all. Can you give me a hand?"

It took only a fraction of a second for Tattletale to realize what was wrong with the boy, standing there with his throat, his heart stopped, his breathing rapid. That’s right! He’s got some sort of heart attack!

Tattletale moved his head to give him a better look. It was like a baby bird or a bat wouldn’t be able to see.

"Don’t worry," he reassured him. "He’s okay."

So he’s dead. Now what?

"I don’t know. I’m not the best cape healer, not really. I’m going to hope my powers work and hope he’s okay."

A minute later, the guy was all muddled. Tattletale didn’t give him any attention. When he opened his eyes, he looked down at the ground. He had one claw stuck in the ground.

He’ll die. The way he’s breathing…

His legs went limp before he knew it, and he struggled to his feet, clawing. Tattletale moved the one from under him, and he’d been the one in charge of it, it would pay, and she wouldn’t pay now.

So he’s dying. Then what?

Did he die? No. Why did he die?

The others were talking, all of the conversation that had passed since they heard the news, the fight in the shelters. Not like this, just like that.

Tattletale, the girl standing by the door, talking.

The boy she’d met earlier, the guy from the other shelter, they couldn’t remember. They didn’t get the hint as to where they were and what was going on, so they just started running for their lives.

The one standing guard behind them, the other cape standing near where the kid had been.

Tattletale could only watch intently. She wasn’t supposed to. She could only watch and wait.

Even in the midst of her own panic, she’d been unable to figure out what other people were doing, what other heroes they might be. The Protectorate was scattered. She could only watch and wait.

The sun was shining on him, the other boy with the dead body. His flesh was black, with a faint green glint, a mottled purple that blended in with the background green of the water’s surface.

The moment it was clear to her that he was dead, there was a brief moment of hope. Tattletale’s eyes roved over the crowd, looking to the others. The young man was the first to turn away, looking back down at the ground. He had some power. And the cape who had been watching him was the only person with power to turn the other guy into ash.

Tattletale could sense the girl who had been watching over the other camp. She was talking to someone behind her.

That other woman, maybe, and she was in another costume, a costume with a different costume design for each of the other people in the group. They were like sisters, together. They were quiet, they were like brothers.

Then she realized why she was here, and left, for her own safety.

Tattletale’s eyes roved over the rest of the group, looking for a potential enemy. She made a mental note to ask for the girl who had been talking to him.

She was the only one at a risk. A cape was approaching, probably in another costume.

■

Capes in various cities descended on buildings to gather. When it was all said and done, they’

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
 the way to her destination.

It was all I could do to maintain some equilibrium to keep me composed, to keep my blood boiling.

It was only when she was safely in my range that I heard my dad’s voice, "She’s trying to kill us."

My dad didn’t sound like him right away. "Are there any others nearby?"

There weren’t. I shook my head. "My daughter’s here. I can’t reach her. I need to talk to her-"

"You don’t? Not to mention the fact that all we did was say goodbye to Armsmaster? Did you have an idea what this was all about?"

I shook my head. "No. I thought it was one of the good ones who left, and as far as I know, she’s still in the group. We should come back and finish what she said back."

That settled that. I was out at least three hours or up to a night if I could sleep.

The other capes were in a different state than me, mostly the same. I was aware of how badly I was hurting as I stood, how my breath was stifling.

"They’re here," Rachel told Tattletale.

"Are you okay?" Tattletale asked. She wasn’t standing. She stood up as I got to my feet and headed into the kitchen.

I could understand why her doing that. I’d been able to hear the alarm in the distance, before my powers were involved. "I… I’ve seen some pretty shit. The Endbringer thing… the kidnapping of the ABB, getting the Simurgh, the hostages from Alexandria. This is pretty shit."

"I know," Tattletale admitted.

"They were trying to kill us. I don’t know what Tattletale’s up to."

"We need to get your information," I informed her. "We knew you weren’t a problem, but we needed to get you in the hands of a cape who could help the situation with the hostages."

Tattletale nodded.

"I was thinking we go after Coil for you. He’s the one who arranged things with Coil, got you and your teammate released from custody."

The words didn’t go through her throat like they had to? "Is that really not fair to me?"

"It’s our policy to get your names inked on your records."

"Who else are we supposed to talk to?"

"My teammates."

"You’re on your fourth group to approach us, and they took the time to offer you their services, and…"

"I couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye."

"She might be in a better spot right now if she could relax a little." Tattletale touched her earpiece. "We’re going to take a break. Don’t worry."

"I’m not entirely sure I understand."

"I know I’m not entirely sure I understand, but there’s no point. It’s up to you, right?"

I nodded. I headed into the room. I had to admit I enjoyed how she made the break to get here. I’d felt like a total lunatic coming here.

I found Grue the short time later, in another state of disarray. "Sorry. I didn’t see to it, and I don’t exactly want to explain what happened, here."

"Can I ask?"

"No."

I found he wasn’t upset at all. "What happened?"

"That hostage situation, getting your team-"

"My teammates. The one who was kidnapped, she’s in an underground cell." He shook out his hands, shaking his head. "No. Can I tell you what happened?"

"You were here. Just like you said, you can ask me anything."

"I can’t."

"We’re here for some reason. I can’t tell you what is that reason, and you’ll have to leave with her, if you insist, but I won’t hold my breath."

I nodded and turned to go back to the other room. Grue was asleep, but he was breathing. A little tense. "If she wasn’t here for us, how could she be? I wonder how that would have played out."

Tattletale spoke, "How would it have played out?"

"How would we have handled things if

======== SAMPLE 20 ========
 the bugs in my eyes. Not enough to notice, but enough to give me a sense of what was going on. A dark silhouette had descended on the street. A dog.

"It’s a pit bull," I said.

"A pit bull? I thought you said there were wolves on the loose!" Brian said.

"This was supposed to be a training exercise, a bit of entertainment. I can’t imagine doing something like that. That thing’s too heavy for the dogs."

"You said something before. You can say something now. Look!" he pointed, then pulled on the chain that linked the dog leash to her arm and wrist.

She stumbled and lost her balance as he attached the chain and tugged on the leash. Then he was off again, pulling on the chain and pulling on it.

"I couldn’t find it," I said. "…I’m not positive I did."

"Look!" he pressed one hand on her wrist to signal her, then pulled the leash free.

She let her knees buckle under her, then gasped. "I can’t find it!!!"

He looked for it on his way down the stairs.

"I… I don’t know. Look, here!" he pointed. In front of me, he was pointing to the dog’s collar.

The dog sniffed. I knew it.

"Stop!"

He continued. "The leash must be attached at the exact right moment, right through the skin around the ear and down down to the dog’s mouth. Look at the way my hand is shaking. That’s my right hand."

The dog sniffed again, then stopped in his tracks.

"No!" I shouted. "I do! I can’t-"

His hand moved from my ankle to the side of my midsection, to the back of my head, and then the other.

I screamed. I was glad, more or less, that the dogs weren’t able to see me.

He continued. "Look!!! The leash is still attached! Look at it!!"

I looked, and my eyes widened.

"I’m not an engineer by trade," I said, unable to find a more appropriate phrase to describe the situation, "and my arm…"

He didn’t make eye contact with me, didn’t respond to the question.

"I was thinking…" I started, then stopped. I felt a knot of anxiety form in my gut. I didn’t want to bring my mom’s head down on his shoulder anymore, so I turned and leaned in close.

"You… you want to be a hero, do you?"

I looked at the dog’s ear. The leash cord was still attached.

"I think about it, but…"

I’ll do something stupid if he doesn’t cut the leash off, I thought.

"No!" I saw the dog react again. I’d let out a low whistle. "I didn’t think he would want to."

"Look at what that dog did," Brian spoke, in a low voice, "He’s going up against this thing, and if he lets it slip, it can get me."

I stared at him. And if he didn’t want to say or do that because I wasn’t entirely sure what was wrong with me, the dog wouldn’t seem to like it. He didn’t say anything, and I looked straight into his eyes, waiting for an answer. I couldn’t imagine what would have worked. He just looked straight at me.

Was I being too serious, or was he trying to distract me?

He started to walk toward me, and turned to me instead. "You’re going too far, I know, but I don’t want to be alone."

The dog barked something. It wasn’t a dog bark, but a high tone, something like ‘I can’t believe you’.

I looked at the dog. "And the guy on the left?" I asked, making sure to keep eye contact.

It was the same dog. It’s body language matched, there was only one thing different, as far as posture, eyes and ears. The other one had more fur. He was taller and broader, and his shoulders were wider, though he had a bit more shoulder width.

I turned to look, but I made sure to look behind him. "He? He wants to play vigilante."

The dog nodded.

"P

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
 the "Halo 2: The Long War" game. "The two heroes in question were going after my dad."

I turned around, glancing around. I took a second to absorb the first details I could. One of my dad’s jobs was dealing with Coil, and there were other people at higher risk.

"My dad wasn’t at the party," My dad pointed to his car. My arms dropped to the armrests, my shoulders shaking.

A pause. The words that came out of my mouth in that moment was "Oh, so he had to be."

"Oh my god," a second later, when I’d been forced to take a deep breath.

Coil had given Dinah to the Slaughterhouse Nine, I thought. I’d asked myself whether he had. Was it possible? Was it a coincidence that he was at the party, in any event?

I had to fight through more stress. I clenched my fists, pulled the strings of my costume tight against my skin. I was a machine man, now. A warrior of instincts, impulses and thoughts, now.

I wanted nothing more than to be able to look my dad in the eye and tell him I was okay. I was fine. He wouldn’t have told me what was wrong.

He was fine.

"Coil took Dinah," my dad said.

"Yeah," my mom replied.

How much of that story was she telling? The one that might have been?

"He took her to his lair. His power was making the memories stay with Dinah much longer. Coil made arrangements to have some of her stuff moved here. Made sure my dad was kept in the dark. He tried, he knows how much it hurt him. Made her promise she wouldn’t say or do anything stupid. Said we’d go back and get her if it didn’t work."

I swallowed a lump in pain. "I know, I know. That doesn’t sound like it’s worth it."

"I’ll just need to talk to Coil. See how he’s doing, and then I’ll decide where she’s living."

"Okay."

I looked up. "Dad?"

My dad turned to look, but I didn’t ask.

In a way, it was comforting to have that reassurance.

As I had with Dinah, I had to remind myself that this was my dad, and he wasn’t perfect. He could be evil. He could be dishonest. I was aware of how easily that could have played into my dad’s favor. I could almost forgive him for not wanting to talk to me, for not wanting to give me the full context. I could even forgive him for wanting some things kept off the record, and I could get behind that, but being with my dad meant that I had to share what felt right.

"I guess you’re right. There’s a lot of sacrifices I have to make. I know what it’s like, not so many things to say. The sacrifices I’ve made are my damn fault."

"So I think we already lost," I said, feeling a bit defensive.

"Don’t even know what you―re going to say."

"I’m not sure I buy that. It’s not my fault."

"I’m not going to argue with you about the facts."

My dad had a point. I kept my voice level and calm. "Look, I made a lot of sacrifices as a member of the Wards. If you want to know me, I’ve got a ton of responsibilities."

"I understand that. What we really discussed was the way those responsibilities were structured. There were concerns, no doubt. I don’t know if that’s the entirety of it, but I understand where that’s coming from. So I think we’re really okay here." He smiled, "I’m not sure I want to talk to you anytime soon."

I nodded once, and then nodded again. Nothing came out of it. My breath was heavy in the silence.

"It’s true, really. I don’t think I know you, and I don’t know all that deeply about your dad. But I can understand the sacrifices he’d make if he was dealing with something like this, and I think he could come to understand what you went through if he heard."

I winced a little. I wasn’t sure he should have been on the sidelines when Coil and the Slaughter

======== SAMPLE 22 ========
 the first time."

"You think so?" The leader asked.

Her smile was hard. "I think so."

The two of us walked down the aisle, past the kids, past one of the cars that the parents on the other side of the line wouldn’t stop in their rush to get their kids into the game.

There was a knock on the door.

I glanced around: Sophia was leaning against the doorframe, hands on hips, staring out at me.

"Hey," I spoke. "You okay?"

She didn’t respond, leaning closer to my own bed, and I could see the tension in her shoulders, back, legs and arms.

I didn’t want to say goodbye, and didn’t want to make anything awkward between us, if I didn’t leave to drop by my place later.

"I thought you were going to tell me-"

"He just stepped out of your room," I said. "He was looking for you."

Sophia rolled her eyes.

"He’s in his room. He can leave now. He didn’t mean anymore trouble," I told her.

Her eyes fell on me, staring.

"You okay, Sophia?" the other parent asked.

Sophia shrugged.

"He just stepped out of… the door," she repeated herself. "Went out to get the water from the sink, he doesn’t seem to be in the mood to talk with me. He’s probably checking the neighbors."

"Yeah," the first parent in the door next to me said, almost reassuring. "He just found you."

I looked at Sophia, "The hell? Where did he pick me up?"

"I know where he found you," someone replied.

She’s asking about the neighbors. How did you know our place was with the smell of urine from the living room?

"I came here with you," Sophia said. Still looked like she was struggling to get her thoughts in order. "Brought him home."

"Brought him home."

A woman said something. I couldn’t tell if it was an apology or something else, but Sophia turned her head. I could sense her back.

It was the person in the next room. I asked why Sophia hadn’t run up to the door, got in.

"There’s more to say," someone answered me, trying to sound less defensive. Then he turned to Sophia. "I know he’s in the living room."

I looked. I couldn’t see what Sophia did with her power, but I could guess. Someone spoke, "That’s okay. It was with the neighbor’s kids. I mean, really, who would’t leave a kid back to their house? The parents are supposed to help pay for it. If I’m understanding right, he wasn’t supposed to leave you alone."

"Right," Sophia replied. I was almost glad I couldn’t hear. "And if he is?" Someone else spoke a few words more. I couldn’t make out how many people were in the room that much, being as their names were hidden in the crowd.

I was a little caught off guard by how Sophia felt about that. Like I’d offended her.

Sophia, as much as I liked her in a way, I knew I’d leave her home again sooner or later.

"But if he is," I told the room full of people, "And the woman is really the person who’d give words to someone who’s been through…"

I stopped and turned to look at the woman across from me. Her jaw trembled, and Sophia wasn’t able to make out much of her conversation. She told the woman, as if she could make up for it, that people were trying to find her. I could almost make out the man speaking.

He went on to say, "I’m the person who, um, tried to help… the other kid. I… um, I don’t know how to talk about it. I guess this is my opportunity."

I could barely manage a sigh of relief. "It’s okay."

"But if you have trouble-" he started. Was that man the next door neighbor? I didn’t know. I could feel the tension in the air. Was he ready to speak out now, or was he waiting to see if I moved first, trying to throw him off balance?

He gave me a hard look that asked, ‘what’,

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
 the first time I came back here, I don’t think I really remember what he said.

He talked really fast, and I felt like I had just heard the most incomprehensible phrase.

I couldn’t find my thoughts under the constant, intense pounding, so I tried thinking aloud.

That’s how I got a hold on my blood sugar and a grip on how my brain worked, instead.

"Sierra, we need you to stop, right now."

That meant I wasn’t about to die.

The woman gave me direction, and it was with a little bit of hesitation that I obeyed. I pulled on the hand, felt the pressure of my collarbone growing. It was like being paralyzed, only it was bigger, longer, more distended. I could feel the muscles retract in the small of my back, and the feeling of it was like I was pulling on a strap that held one half of my body back. My mind was reeling, my thoughts were blank again.

I’d be okay, I thought, as I stepped inside the door. The woman spoke, "Come on in. I’m going to see this little thing."

I felt a touch ashamed. If they could get me, maybe she was doing something just to let them know they’d be put in a minority, wouldn’t she?

Sierra was there, sitting in the chair by Sierra. She looked like Sierra had asked her for help.

"I wanted to make things clear, before Sierra started, that I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t find the words. I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought it would be better to keep Sierra at the back door."

"Well, the time has come. It’s my turn now, Sierra." Sierra said. "I don’t like your new costume, and I don’t like the way you’ve done things. Leaving me hanging after the battle with Alexandria was bad-"

"Bad? What’s bad about leaving me hanging? The other Undersiders might have done the same thing. Maybe now I know why the Slaughterhouse Nine think they can take us out because we don’t fight back."

"It’s bad because you are leaving me in that hole, Sierra. Like you said, I don’t like your new costume, and I don’t like how you’ve dressed to start the game, but your hair… well, I dunno. You could brush your hair back, but I doubt I’d brush my hair back. I don’t know if it was worth it."

"You’re so vain, Sierra." Sierra muttered, rubbing Sierra’s shoulders. Sierra looked embarrassed as Sierra rubbed Sierra’s shoulders.

I moved onto the other side of the door, Sierra sitting in the chair behind me, Sierra looking at Sierra, Sierra looking down at Sierra.

"I’ve put together what you want to wear, Sierraie, and I’m tired of asking my teammates for help, which comes from behind, asking to be left alone."

"Okay, okay." Sierra said. "Whatever."

I felt a touch embarrassed at that, and I felt just a bit better about it after a quick conversation.

Sierra left, and I didn’t feel a lot better about it. I felt like a fish out of water.

Sierra and I were walking around the next corner, Sierra looking at me, Sierra looking past me at Sierra. I looked at Sierra with a new intensity.

"Sierra."

Sierra smiled widely. "You’re so cute."

"And so am I. I’ve made love to you twice, you jerk, and I can’t even do that right now. What time is it with me and you?"

"Three thirty."

"How did this happen?" Sierra asked me.

"Oh, I’m just trying to make sense of it, you know."

"You’ve been looking at me funny, this whole time."

"It’s kind of your fault, Sierra. If it’s hard to believe, you might want to think about what a number that is. I can’t get in touch with my old phone anymore. That’s why I’ve decided to hang up."

I could understand. "I think I remember talking about it when you were talking to Tattletale."

Sierra smiled, "Right. My phone. How do I look like?"

"I mean, your face is kind of nice. And your

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
 the "I don’t want to talk about that" scene with the Undersiders.

"And," he said, to the shocked crowd in his defense, "I think she did."

He was getting ready to turn his back to me and walk away when the first of the others appeared at the rear exit. He said something I couldn’t understand, and he had two seconds to turn around to look at someone else.

I waited for him to catch up to me, before I changed my stride. I could see Shatterbird in the distance.

"Good boy," Imp’s voice came from the distance. My eye shifted to her. He had a gun at my head, and his eyes were shining. "And good boy."

"You came to kill me," I said, "You assholes!"

There were a few chuckles here and there. I didn’t spot Imp, but there was more cheering from the crowd. A woman had climbed onto the back of a car to avoid the rain, as she’d been ordered out the door, in an attempt to reach the front and take revenge against the bullies who’d bullied her for years.

"Hey," the first boy replied. He wore his sweatshirt off his back, and was gripping the handle of his gun. "What are you doing?"

"I wanted to ask him the obvious thing, but then the answer came out, and I went too far. I- I think you’re a hero."

He shook his head, but he didn’t respond.

"What? So you’re a villain?" I asked.

"Yes," the girl said. "Don’t have to say it. But I can say I would’ve killed her myself if you hadn’t kicked our ass, and I would’ve done the same thing to you if I was in another country."

"Yeah," the boy said. "I’ve tried."

He’d turned and raised one foot so it rested on Imp’s shoulders, as if she were going to run.

Imp didn’t move. He didn’t say anything.

Except the girl, even with the gun pointed at him, hadn’t taken a single action that had justified the bullet being stuck through her shoulder or back. There was no reason to.

"Fuck," Regent muttered. "Not me, I’m assuming. Don’t know who."

"She wouldn’t be able to take you two on," Shatterbird spoke. "I mean, you can shoot me, and the bullet would come through your shoulder like butter. But you wouldn’t be able to beat us two."

I looked around, noticed that Grue and Aiden were sitting behind the man, too.

I turned and addressed the crowd, "We can help Regent, if you want. It wouldn’t be worth it."

They were silent for a moment, and then the woman at the front of the group walked over to Grue.

"Don’t do that, Skitter," the girl told him, "This is strictly for collateral."

"Hey, no!"

She was right, though. I’d been too focused on the confrontation with Lung, and not enough on the girl, who could be the next in line to the girl.

"What’s wrong, woman?" he asked.

Her expression was hard, but I couldn’t spot the emotion. She said something in Chinese, I couldn’t be sure.

The girl glared at her, then walked over to the back of the truck with Grue and Aiden.

"I thought you were on to us, Grue!"

Grue and Aiden turned, and I saw Shadow Stalker and I were in the corner, facing one another, looking at Regent.

"Shatterbird?" I asked her. "Did you hear what she said?"

"Not really, if you guys hadn’t talked-"

A forcefield surrounded the girl, and she stepped off the back of the truck, heading for Grue and I, and we stopped a good twenty or thirty feet from the girl. We glanced a little, and Grue spoke quietly, "She’s okay, okay? She just called Tattletale."

I nodded. "It’s going to have to do."

The girl, or people with powers, came out of the crowd, and got Grue and me, then walked straight into us, with no apparent difficulty. They stepped in front of her, then backed off, turning their

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
 the "O"s, "Weaver’s’s" and the ones after them, on the wall. "I hope the city can handle the news, but you never know. If you live here, you have only half an idea, and you hear about the crime rate or how fast your city’s going to move, things get bad quicker than they have been in the fifty years I have been writing the newsletter."

"I feel like someone with a bad case of Postpartum depression, knowing how much I should have given to get a better sense of things. I can’t say I didn’t give," one of the kids said. "She’s a nice girl, she gave my mom an extra set of dollars, and she took her mother and sister for a walk on the lake. Can’t say I didn’t."

"I remember," Sophia confirmed.

"The things she’s saying. About her dad, about the war and the aftermath, it’s… just not there."

"Don’t you believe it? The war really affected us? The aftermath?" Noelle asked. "It was the best years of my life, and people who are born right after all this have the worst possible years. You never know what events will come and what events will not. There’s always a time to give, there’s always a time to take. And that’s what you do with us, right?"

Noelle shook her head in a slight nod.

Sophia smiled, "We can accept that. I think I told you last week, I’m glad we are getting this far. I was glad to know you’re taking your time getting used to your new house. Better to talk about our stuff here, then to be out of communication when the family returns."

"I feel like you’re using me," Sophia said, "Showing that you’re not as good at it as I once thought you were. Being in a bad mood on a regular basis, feeling like you don’t have any friends, not a connection with anyone. Like it’s going nowhere."

Noelle nodded.

"And yet it’s still just me, me, me, me. You know, it’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because I’m your sister, and I’m not good like this."

"I’m glad you understand, Noelle."

Noelle shook her head, "You know what? I think I get it. If it’s all about the outside, about being alone, then I don’t get it. But if it’s all ‘Weaver’s gone’-"

"We’ll see. We’ll see how it turns out. Stay by one door, we’ll discuss a plan of action after. Stay by one, I’ll get back to you as this matter develops."

There were nods and murmurs of agreement from both Noelle and her sister.

Noelle and her family headed inside, and the two-year old stepped outside to greet them as though the pair were old friends. The girl was quiet, but relaxed, her arms folded, smiling a little. The two of them shook hands, and Noelle extended a hand to the little girl.

"Hello."

Noelle smiled, but this smile, this affection was something else.

"Hey, little girl. You don’t like that I just got in a fight? Are you? Oh, I love when you say something nice. But I still want to know, do you really really love me like that?"

"I love you. Even when everything started, I loved me."

"I like you too, Noelle."

"It’s good to see you still warm up to me, after I started acting weird. You’re the one who made me think we’d come this far, even if the road was a little bumpier than usual. Your being here means a hell of a lot to me."

Sophia’s smile dropped. It took Noelle a second to get used to the fact that the girl was still smiling.

"What was that?" she asked, looking at the small, tired-looking girl leaning against a corner, arms draped around her. "Can I talk to you? I could say it’s your business, as much as I like being in charge here, I’m not entirely sure you’re in charge of yourself."

Noelle shook her head.

"And I