======== SAMPLE 1 ========
 check him out."

"Why do you ask?"

He glanced at the door, then stared at me. "Is this a riddle?"

"No," I said. "No. It’s a question."

"A riddle, huh? At what point does a simple, crude, one-dimensional man become a complex, artistic, lasting presence in our world?"

"It’s very gradual, starting with your perception, moving down the chain," I said. "My perception’s maybe the most basic form of input you have. Then you develop your creativity, your feelings, and that’s how you build your view of things. Then you expand that perspective, and you look beyond the picayune to broader realities, and that’s how you start to see things from a longer-term perspective. From an emotional standpoint, as your fears and frustrations build and you start to notice things that weren’t there when you had your peak moment, it smoothes out, until you catch up again, when you realize there’s nothing you could do differently. So in a way, yeah, I think I’m progressing."

"You’re speeding along here, huh?" Imp asked. "That’s good."

I nodded.

Bitch scratched the top of his head, and then he looked at us, looking concerned.

"It’s done," I said. Imp and Bitch both looked at me, then Bitch added, "Grue may be able to sense when we’re getting lost."

"Let’s go," the Doctor said. "We’ll explain later," and he gave us a parting salute with a nod, out the door.

"He left," Grue said, "And we cannot accept that Grue cannot run this place. We have to send a message to that effect."

"A message?" one of the other male members asked him, from the group that was accompanying us. "A signal?"

"We can send a signal with our power," the Doctor said. "The tunnel is abandoned, and because of Pearl’s ability, there’s very little possibility that an Entropisk device could be alive after she dies. We’ll use hot garbage to fill her chambers, and if we use radiation instead of electricity, we’ll be able to harvest her brain and connect to it for a sufficient yield. The leader of the remaining squad captains knows our technology."

"Technology?" Wanton asked.

"I expect he does," the Doctor answered. "The rest of you make your calls."

"The people you withdrew. Your terms," a man said, looking to the Doctor. "I asked your forgiveness."

The Doctor frowned a little. "I am sorry for how I performed an important role in helping to stop the Endbringer."

"I understand," the Doctor said. "But there was an outside factor, and he was looking for that in advance. I would ask your forgiveness in advance if I could trust you to help him in any fashion. I can."

"That… seems like it’ll cause us too much trouble," one of the other men said. "War?"

"That is the other possibility," the Doctor said.

Cartman started to approach, but was stopped as well. A forceful looking man stood in the doorway, gesturing with one hand. A gun was aimed at him, but the Doctor eyed the man and the weapon.

She spoke, "I detest war, I know. I know some will say I’m crazy if I say I’m going, or that I’m even going to make it this far, if I’m even playing a part in Alexandria’s plan. I’m playing very minor parts here. But the larger point remains. If word gets out that I’m willing to go this far, it’ll get people talking. It$s a way of getting people’s eyes on the fact that we’re pulling in more money than we’re losing, and that our plans are actually having an effect. It’ll get people’s attention, and the media will eventually gravitate towards us, here. All the while, we’re doing this stuff for a reason, and the reasons for doing what we’re doing aren’t really ones that inspire love and devotion. We’re not damn heroes, as much as anyone likes to pretend."

The man waved one hand in her general direction, but he didn’t speak.

The Doctor continued, "My pay grade is Neutral, so I would be the first to admit I’m a

======== SAMPLE 2 ========
 check the perimeter – the area where we would have attacked next."

I sighed. "Okay."

"I’ll need a lab," he said. "Tools. Know where to find them."

I nodded.

"Lethal stuff. But can you sort us first? Or is that against the spirit of-"

Citrine and Ligeia were gone.

There were two?

The other D.T. officers were inside. One had recently joined the team, the other a newcomer. A fortyish female officer with deep navy blue clothing and a mask that covered most of her face. She seemed overly confident, even relieved to be back in her home state.

Why were they here?

I could only speculate. The blue bag held supplies, presumably so the crew had some way of feeding themselves, or providing some sort of fuel for the fire.

"Dispatch, find the others to load them onto the dogs," I said. "Ligeia, please. Grue, with the killing-dozen. Bring the others. I’ll give you numbers so you know how to navigate this. Two through nine, left to right."

There were nods from each.

I turned to the female officer. "How many do you have?"

"One."

"Left to right, one through nine."

"Four through nine."

"Five."

"First through ninth?"

"One. A little further down."

I nodded.

"One through nine, then?" she asked.

I nodded.

"One, then."

The pad on the computer disappeared, and the images and dialouts changed. It was like looking at a video screen, the entire kit and Municipal line black, the meter multiplex showing unpaid bills, loaded down with drugs, weapons, several metric tens of thousands of dollars.

She appeared on the screen, standing in front of a squat orange box. There wasn’t much text, on the list of targets, nor any buzzes or chirps. It was merely stiff metal legs, like the ones from a drop of water in a pond, extending from the floor.

"Me and Bitch," she said, her voice deep, "This is it. The one trillionth target killed. We have a bead on you, we can find you, and if you pass this information on to others, we can maybe get them to do something about it."

And me, she added.

"There’s no way you two are doing like this?" Tagg raised his eyebrows.

"The efficiency with which you pulled this off was spectacular," Dragonstated, "And look at all the work that’s been paid for this project. The times you’ve been named as liars, the rogues and freakshows, the numbers just proofreadjust. I think the trust you place in me is a direct result of that."

Tagg took a sip of his coffee. It did seem to burn a little more quickly than the last one, though.

He stopped himself before he said anything and shook his head a little.

"I’m not proud, Tagg," I said, "But I’m pretty damn proud, and I wouldn’t be at this feat if I didn’t think myself brave."

"People will make us out to be loons or crooks if we tell it like it is," he retorted.

"I’m telling you there’s very, very, very little chance we’ll get caught. A few of your teammates are going to try to capitalize on this and use it to attack you, and I’m not accepting any of them."

"You don’t know anything about this," my dad said.

"We have good reason to think you have a diminished ego. Let’s start with the fact that you have less friends to go around."

"OH SHIT," Tagg cried out, "YOU HAVE FRIENDS."

He was getting to his feet, he wondered how he’d catch this. He was old enough to be my son, and yet so young it was hard to believe he was so young.

"If it comes down to it, we’ll go ahead," my dad said. "It sends the right message, and it’s the right tack in terms of conveying the right idea."

"What is the right message?" Tagg asked.

"It sends the right message, we think," I said. "I think the message that matters most is the message that conveys the most, and that’s what we want to convey."

"

======== SAMPLE 3 ========
 check, we’ll take a few days, but maybe we’ll catch up, maybe we don’t, maybe Coil and Dragon’s plans for this area contradict what we’d be doing here, and it doesn’t matter either way.

We could afford to stay, to not put ourselves in more danger.

"Keep calm," I said. "I want our brains on a few things here. Projectors, portals, switches, loadouts, architecture. If we’re successful, it could mean extra cash, if not more. If we fail?"

I watched Tattletale create a mouth in the knee joint, pulling back, then drilling a hole through Defiant’s torso. She’d formed the lower body joint and gamely worked with my will to move the upper body before getting tangled up in knots of general deceiving. I later learned she was pretty good with computers, having turned in a general CAD program just for the job, and I’d seen her turn it loose to check CADs while I’d been recovering from surgery. She was also pretty damn good with Kung Fu, especially if I converted her strength and focus to martial arts levels with the energy required to move the Halberd, a decision that, if I was McFadden, meant I could fight like I liked to fight. She was free to tell me how she wanted, I could put my own ideas into the fight, even learn from her mistakes.

Tattletale wouldn’t necessarily be against my employing her. It was an option, something to explore. Unfortunately, it was something that meant I potentially faced competition from two very different perspectives.

The top dogs of the Protectorate, the Protectorate and the Wards. Anyone else?

"Akatsuki," I said.

"Yes?"

"Number three?"

"We’ve been down this road at some point, Eidolon. It’s why we’re here. There’s an unwritten rule that says you can’t be too active or busy as a leader for the team at one time. For the most part, it’s adhered to. We all keep each other in line, we’re on the same page, and we’re successful."

"But you’re still No. 1."

"We at the top end of the scale, No. 1, we maintain a high level of order. More orders are given, more resources are directed towards the higher end of the capes. We maintain a balance."

"But at the end of the day, Brockton Bay doesn’t work."

"We do everything we can, Cathy. Thy realm is fine, but ours is a realm of black. Black magicks and rituals and fetishes and fetids lay claim to it, and we move in a manner that’s diametrically opposed. Thou hast provided ample opportunity to lie to us, and we recognize that as a matter of course."

Catherine scoffed. "You’re going on the record to cheat!"

"This is actually rather interesting, Eidolon," Number Man said. "You’re claiming to know jack-ing about parahumans, when you don’t? Ooooh, look at how excited he is about this. Feels like a front for something more."

Eidolon gave a light whistle, coinciding with the start of a familiar sequence of four notes. A upstroke accompanied each note, rising and falling together, none stronger than the others.

"Aim for the heart," the Number Man said.

"I know, O."

"Well, that’s both good and bad," Number Man said. "Great. Now, let’s see how you’re doing. Please play along, and don’t get carried away, okay?"

He let that whistle blow off, then pressed the button to verify the signal. The cameras recorded the resulting image.

"Heart Breaker," the Number Man said.

"Yes."

"I know your background. Mid- to late-'60’s, you were sponsored by the Triumvirate, the highest ranking members of an organization that maintained balance between evil genius and society’s merciful royalty. You attended college, and joined the Protectorate. I can’t quite remember how, but you acquired a power, a set of powers at once incredibly useful in a crisis and completely beyond any typical cape’s control."

"A power with absolutely no limitations," the Number Man said.

"Pretty sure it isn’t," Faultline said.

"Faultline," Tattletale said, "

======== SAMPLE 4 ========
 check.

In front of me, Clockblocker’s no-brainer option for dealing with the intruders was being eaten away. A head for scale dialogue with Jouster, a warning to Vantage, a telling speech from Exalt, and then he was left holding Tail 190, which wasn’t helping in the least.

Damn tinkers. What did he have that they weren’t using? Devices that interacted with anything and everything? No. Only contingency plans.

And there was an ugly empty space in the middle of it. All of the tinker devices except the ones I’d intentionally blocked with bars, guarded by the ceiling of slats in the floor, and the crow’s perching pieces, guarded by hard, flat surfaces high above them, were still in place, pre-staged in the middle of the ‘holing’ area.

"Inside Washington," I hissed in a little voice, fed by more rage than concern. "Ex-president Faslane, head of the PRT, second in command to the president. They have powers, but the rest of you are free to breeze through this base, pick up stuff or complain. You aren’t supposed to be inside the building, but I will need you to clear out of the way."

If only my minions were here, hitting them with the things would-be-slaves.

Except they weren’t, and I hadn’t told them.

"Head to the stairwell, past the revolving door."

Their individual reactions were so varied, so far from one another. A man with a broad smile, a touch of swagger, trying to pass himself off as someone who was tensed for a fight, about to roll a tire on the moving vehicle. A woman with a prominent nose, with a gravitas to her demeanour, with a flowy style that was suited for a courtesan, and a burly, burly woman with a cane who… I didn’t see their names.

It occurred to me that these three were ambassadors, and this was their forum. Their voices and opinions would reach a great many people into the building, come up with fruits in the process.

"Expect nothing less than perfection from all of you. Stretch marks are a sign that things are right, and this is a prime candidate for displaying it."

A sign? Good. Then I’d know if anyone was lying about anything. A glitch in the system would cost us nothing, and this would be a prime candidate for being discovered in a matter of minutes.

"You would be doing us a service, Mister Warmaster," a voice COMPELLS, from the stairwell above. It sounds British, but it sounds more like an accented US accent.

Cool!

"No. Too complicated. It’s French."

How American? I could understand the US thing, but the JARATION THREAT was something else. I LEFT THE SPEAKERIUM AND STARTLEDLY RECOGNIFIED THE JARATION AS A POSSIBILITY, BECAUSE IT VARIOUSLY LIKES US, US POLITICAL IDEAS COMMENTED ONLINE, AND THOSE TWO THOUSAND THINGS COME FROM A VAST PLACE, OUTSIDE THE VAST, OCEANIC WORLD WE LIVE IN.

"It’s cool, understand? We build a lot of these craft, think we’re clever. Base them in the heart of the city, put science and technology at the centers, and we’re pretty fucking close to being a post-partisan society. Except we fucked it up. We built a totalitarian state, and we alienated an awful lot of the people who make up our coreligioni."

HE UNDERSTOOD. THE TWO THINGS OFFENSIVE WERE AVAILABLE, BECAUSE THEY UNDERMINED THE ENTIRE PLACE, UNDERMINED US, AS PEOPLE.

"Now you know," he said.

"Sure thing," I said.

He sighed.

"You know," he said, and the word was a half-ful of tension, a stabbing pain in his chest where the chainsaw scraped against it, "You’re a hypocrite if you pretend I don’t exist."

"Criticize me all you want, Warmaster," I said. The threat was measured, in a way that tried to read tone, but it was almost caressing. As if to say, I AM CARRIE, YOU ARE JARRATHS.

"I’ll even admit you know something’s up, and it’s not just the Endbringers."

"You

======== SAMPLE 5 ========
 check my thoughts on how to help if we ran into trouble – like, it doesn’t get said enough – but I couldn’t let her get her hands on my armband, with all the info we need on where she is and what she could do.

Besides, Tattletale had mentioned that she could get access to my backups. Way back when, I’d have been depositing stuff back then, making sure I could run into trouble if things really turned ugly, when I’d been emptying the vault and trying to reclaim my files.

I glanced at the papers that were piled in front of me. Herald, Purity, Night, Crusader. Weld had called them the Teamwork, and they were teammates, somehow. They were my friends, in more than one respect.

Okay. Still a little suspicious.

"Sun", I called out, as I moved my arm to allow her to pass.

"Yes, I’m looking into it. You have any idea if there’s any danger here? We’ve got intruders, and there’s always a risk some janitor will come in here and ruin our week. Allergic to noise. Don’t you dare let Sun know we’re staring at a potential riot situation."

I shook my head.

"Dangerous environment, resistant people? This is the kind of situation you’re used to?"

I shook my head a little. "Yeah."

"Not Sun. We could be in serious trouble if it happens."

No slip of the tongue?

I couldn’t be sure she knew what she was doing. "No, I don’t think it’s exactly what you’re thinking."

"What are you thinking?" My dad asked. I reflexively turned around in my seat to look at him.

"Sun’s on the roof, and she’s reading a book. My theory is that she’s wondering if anyone will be around to hear her when she announces her candidacy for mayor."

"Is it wrong, Taylor? Do you need to get back to the book?"

"I’m busy with another errand. I’m sorry for the trouble you’ve caused."

"I’m not sorry," he said, sincerely, "It’s just-"

"It’s fine," I firmly shook my head.

"You’re a bad guy, Taylor. All of this happened because someone else was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m working on being a little better." His tone had shifted. I knew he’d been upset. Was it his release from custody, or the readjustment? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I felt better knowing it was possible.

Is he? I wondered. Was he Taylor when I was growing up? Katherine at school? Emma at Echidna?

No, I kept my mouth shut.

"I got in a fight," he said, smiling gently at me.

"I got in a fight," I agreed. "It’s part of learning to be a hero."

He studied me a moment, then nodded agreement. "Yeah. I went to a pretty safe place, enough time to figure shit out, but some stuff you’re really good at reading, because it’s complicated."

"Okay," I said. "Thank you."

He held my hands, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how thankful I was. Instead, I thanked him with a small nod.

"I want you to know I’m sorry for the trouble you found me," he said.

"It wasn’t my fault," I said, louder. I let my hand drop. "I know. I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize it was you."

He nodded, then reached down to hold my chin, which made me smile in turn. He pulled my head a little away from my collarbone. "It’s fine. It’s not crucial."

It still hurt as much as the others did. That fact was finally coming to me, I think. I flipped over, and I used my hands to help smooth the pain into another floatation. I felt a kind of release.

I saw him looking at me, and I understood what he was thinking. "It’s not important."

He wants me to be happy. This is his war, and he’s winning.

"I… want you to know that I’m sorry I didn’t

======== SAMPLE 6 ========
 check the outside. The inside was even dirtier, sturdier, and it took me a minute to explore it.

The third floor was busy as well. If I zoomed in too fast, I could sometimes see the outside world as a haze, indistinct from the escalating carnage on the inside. Grue was helping to make the stairs unlit, and I could see how they were connected to the main hallways by flimsy, dimming lights. I wasn’t sure if it was to keep the fire from being starting and to keep people from setting flaming cars on fire, but everyone was busy working to extinguish the blaze.

I entered the hallway and fell into step with Tattletale, Rachel and Imp as we made our way up the spiral staircase. Rachel had dismounted and was riding Bentley while Imp held a bloody towel up to her face, looking over the scene.

I couldn’t make out anything except the approximate location of the fighting, but I was fairly certain the enemy was in the building’s floor. It seemed like the building’s commanding officer, a man I didn’t recognize, was trying to take the elevator shaft to the roof, but was stopped when the guys behind him did what the butcher was doing and shoved him aside. One or two punches? I wasn’t seeing the details.

We made our way up to the rooftop, where the fighting was heaviest. I used my bugs to get a sense of the battlefield.

A pair of girls I didn’t recognize were trying to hold a huge cat as it writhed in an elaborate, agonizing death throes. I had bugs on five of the enemy members, and they were all men. No color, but certainly no blacks. They were participating in a fight they’d started against an innocent girl, to stop her from harassing Levi. Their target: the organization.

"Blue and Gold," Tattletale said. She had to pause to make sure that her voice wasn’t being heard as she spoke the name. When there was a sound of a notebook on the rooftop, she handed one to me.

"The Cyrillic One and the Kislevic One," I said.

"The one on the roof is Krampus," Tattletale confirmed. "Both skins are real scary people, and you need to understand why he’s scary. He’s a sad, unfortunate mess of powers that has resulted in one truly despicable man. A freak, according to the docs. But what sets him apart from the other lunatics and psychopaths is his incredibly long lifespan. According to the guy that’s trying to get the video footage, he’s been around since the nineties, and that longevity comes with something of a catch-all immunity. He can take any abuse – even high intensity fights – and keep coming out of it, apparently unhurt. A quick glimpse into the other universe reveals he’s even unmolested by Scion, immune to all but the potentially fatal blows. When the other face of ours was summoned, he was in almost every physically durable frame of reference point, including the durable ones, and was landing mortal combatant after mortal combatant, according to the video."

I could hear a groan from Tattletale.

"oligarchs," I said.

"Known to roam free when things are quiet," Tattletale said.

"Square away," Trickster said, in his characteristic way, uncharacteristic of him.

"One of them is with us," I said. "Looking after the wounded, helping them access resources and leave the fighting behind. The other is with one of the other groups. Hookwolf."

"Two here," I said.

"Three people thereabouts. Self explanatory. Where are the major players?"

"Checking houses," I said. "With the mayor and Hookwolf’s house being the main haunts of the wounded and the dead. Nothing vital to report, as far as the general situation with the city goings-up. We should get our season tickets and start getting our season tickets renewed, especially since the big charities and the fans are going to be wanting a seat."

"Thank you," I said. I couldn’t help but note how quiet the meeting was getting, with so many people in the room with such a wide berth.

"Now I’m going to go watch the new Face/Caroline’s baby, and if everyone is feeling charitable, I’m going to recommend one TV show or another to watch there," Trickster said.

"Face/Caroline," I said.

"You know it?" Trickster asked, already under his breath.

I crossed the room and stood behind the moms

======== SAMPLE 7 ========
 check it and see that it wasn’t a bomb. He’d been convinced it was."

"It wasn’t?"

"Yes. She’d asked me if I was willing to risk my life to check it for bombs before I set down. A devilish smile spread across her face as she twisted the handle to unlock the door to her apartment, stretching out the keys to unlock it as well. Even with that, she was more scared of us than of her. She was genuinely interested in going home to her family, but she was also scared."

I felt a hand pat my cheek. I nodded.

"She made it out okay?"

I nodded. Sundancer made a face at that.

"They’ll want to see you photos or video. It’s fucked up that we have to put up with you, but hey, most families don’t leave town until this is over with."

I shrugged. She’d worked with Brian and the others as their counselor, and I couldn’t blame her for trying to look after them in our absence. "Okay. Thanks. Shit’s not over yet."

"Sure," she said. She gave me a hard look.

Something moved across the kitchen floor, and Lisa stepped over to investigate. There was a pant leg and a bit of material lying on the floor, leaning against a shelf.

"Judging by the way she’s acting, Tattletale might be underestimating your ability to take it easy," Lisa observed.

"We’re only a few days from now. Let’s focus on preparations. Next Wednesday, Pausing on the show, we’re going to do a podcast. I’ll come with, joined by one of the girls from the school. We’ll do another one in a few weeks, if everything goes okay. It’ll be fun. And by that time, we’ll have an idea of where the city’s at. Things will be posted on the website as we move forward. For now, we’ll just have to borrow some computers. The capes with you guys will be inured to the elements, so take care of yourself."

"You should..."

My eyes moved over to Tattletale. Grue was in a very different situation, he was being more aggressive than I’d been with his request for help, and he was demanding answers. Was this the way you operated?

There was an excess of tension in the air. I almost thought of using my power on him, of course I was feeding him info, building a rapport. I was pretty damn good at ignoring people if I ever got in a situation where I had to act on my emotions. It would be disastrous if I tried to act on my emotions. –Grue, New Delhi

"You’re so still," I said. "It’s like you don’t even care you’re doing it. Like you don’t care about the people you’re leaving behind."

"I care about this city enough to make an effort," he said, "Suffer the consequences. Don’t want to do this, but there’s no other way to get where we’re at."

If only he cared about his team more, if he minded this role he played playing the salesman and the salesman courted by the powerful, there’s no way to operate in the same way. There’s no way to sell the right things, to stir the pot, stir the beast.

For now, he was willing to deal, because the odds were against him. He felt a touch more powerful, up until the very end, when he found himself back at my command, under my control. And he had an inkling of what we were doing to the world beyond this base, in the name of the universe.

"We owed him one."

"I know."

"And… it’s… it’s not fair," he said. "The… there’s too many… too many reasons."

"There are always reasons," I said, late adding the last word.

"But?"

"We’re… we’re carrying on as if there were no possibility of changing things. The terms we agreed to are the terms we want to operate under, as long as we’re partners in a group agreeing to them."

"I get the… you’re not going to do something to help…"

"We’re operating with the assumption that anyone can make it in the big scary supervillain-created world. We have freedom as

======== SAMPLE 8 ========
 check that the thing isn’t doing that. That’s probably what she set it off to do, set it off. That’s what the Simurgh wants, and I’m perfectly content to just walk up to it and shoot it."

"It’s okay. This stuff doesn’t faze her. In fact, I expect she’s going to want to put herself in extreme danger simply for the opportunity to do what she’s doing. It’s brilliant and lucrative. It’s not her, but it’s a lot of work to put her out of business. And if the stuff spills that out into the wider public, well, I don’t see how she’s doing as a spokesperson."

"Well, you can’t blame her for saying what she does."

"I’m not sure this is her. Maybe she is the spokesperson people handed her?"

"Maybe. But it doesn’t really feel like she’s trying to convey a message with her words. That seems a little flip."

"I’m not saying she wasn’t trying during the audition. I’m just saying… why? Why is this so devastating?"

"She tried to convey a message. A pretty damn blatant one, relative to what’s going on out there, relative to what’s going on in the inside."

"I know the inside’s dirty, but OK. The message. It doesn’t feel so good."

Coil rattled his tongue. "Where did you get that information, this information?"

"From within. Pretty basic, given the circumstances, given what happened with Armsmaster. Nothing too fancy, not explosive, not too dangerous. And it was supplied raw, with distractions like video feeds and cell phones to confuse the opposition…"

"Rawr?"

"Rawr."

Marquis turned to me, his lips pressed together in a line, as if he wanted to be read as being sarcastic, or angrily snarling. "I could learn to tolerate your sarcasm."

Sarcasm. I didn’t detect it in his tone. No attempt at humor there.

Personnel was, he explained, one of the most valuable resources that the PRT had. Because of this, and the knowledge Dragon had gleaned from studying the Undersiders, the team was kept together, costing the PRT time it could use developing its own in-house fighting forces.

"But the real message here, kay?" Marquis asked. "What does this have to do with what happened at the fundraiser?"

"It’s supposed to be about character, and it’s trouble that the Marquis of Merryweather’s taking a backseat role. The other teams are too numerous to deal with in good conscience, so any delegate that’s willing to overlook this and focus on other things are invited to skip this meeting and attend the next one."

"This was the idea," Miss Militia said.

"And the delegates that decided to skip this meeting and attend the fundraiser are… problematic," I said. "Maybe they knew she’d be as conflicted as she was, or maybe they’re petrified they’d have to face her on the same day, or maybe they’re playing into her hands by running this. I don’t know. But I’m going to stick with the idea she’s using them."

"Aggressiveness?" Miss Militia asked. "Fine. That’s aggressive. If the Simurgh wants to go this route, great. If not, well, we’ve got a balance here. Either you enlist, you keep the dog outside in a soundproof cage, and we secure this city for future use, or you don’t go through with the plan."

"You’re not listening to me," I said. My voice sounded so far away. "This is about people. What they’re experiencing with their families, the friendships being torn apart, and the fears and aspirations being dashed."

"I hear you."

My voice was barely above a whisper as I wrote the final page, "They aren’t telling me the truth."

The page turned in mid-air, and a pair of floating wings appeared from the ground, surmounted by a structure almost as flimsy as the damsel’s knees.

In the next moment, the winged thing crashed into the ruined wall. For a moment, I thought it would be an awkward bounce of air, a drip, drip, barely any fluid. When it stopped, I realized the shattered tile had

======== SAMPLE 9 ========
 check or whatever this new system is. I mean, as long as you’re out of prison and out of harm’s way, you can do a lot."

"Guys. Hold positions."

"Protect the Base? Stop them? Stop Scion?"

"Either or."

"Noelle’s going to thank you. She’ll thank you in kind."

"Tattletale’s going to say-"

"Be quiet," Glenn said, raising his voice to be sure of Carly’s attention. "I don’t want this to be an intense, private backchannel. You’ve got jobs to do, you’ve got stuff to do, and you’re five thousand faces in a very public room. Show her how much I care."

Carly didn’t respond. Her head was hung, her shoulders slumped, much as she’d been extended a hand towards the door.

He continued, "I want to work with you no matter what happens. I’m not asking you to kill me, or to leave you to die. The differences between us are minor at best, and that’s only gotten me this far."

Carly’s hands clenched her shoulders. She met his eyes, and he didn’t respond.

"You need me, and I need you. You’re waffling, still. Doubly-burdened, terrified you’ll do too much harm and you won’t be able to do anything to stop it, or to see to it that you’re not accidentally doing. But if you change, we need you in a combat sense. You need the ability to dish out the pain."

"We need a little girl with a will of her own," Charlotte said.

"And if I turn shit around? I need a therapist with balls on her side, a fucking good reason to fucking take me home. Stage motherfucking it! Because that’s how I’m going to be when I’m done with this fucking town. Later, in another town, I could show up, hurt my fucking face off, and then I’d be done with town, sorry, but I’d be reinstated, happy and quiet."

Carly sighed. "All those years, saving people from drowning, ducking gunfire from helicopters, ducking attacks by capes… I could pull it off if I had one hand, if I had my strength, if I had my friends around me… but I don’t."

"You never had friends?" Glenn asked.

"My dad was a good influence on me," she said. "He believed in my abilities, gave me the little tools he had moulded into me. The little insults, the little backstabbing, being rudderless, trusting of others when I felt I needed it, so I wasn’t rudderless or afraid. And my mom… too many things have come to light since I turned eighteen. Enough that it feels like the times I was with my dad, I didn’t have a roof over my head. I didn’t have roommates. I didn’t have houses. I didn’t have money. So when Glory Girl came to me, saying she’d seen something that happened in my elementary school, it made me feel… bad?"

Glenn sighed. "It does, doesn’t it?"

"The feelings are still the same," she said.

He nodded.

She’d developed as a person, in the here and now, and she hadn’t necessarily trusted in her ability to act on it. Hadn’t. She’d developed her confidence as a leader, as a person. Now, more than ever, she needed to maintain the order. The status quo. So many felt the rejection, the sharp criticism, the inevitable derision, the one-note villain or rival. So hard to find the good in them.

She’d gone from an average girl to a leader in her own way, she’d achieved some respect and enjoyed it, but it had come at a cost to her family.

And though it might hurt in the long run, it would cost her father what he had longed for desperately: peace. Sure, he would have reasons, reasons to avoid his daughter’s company, reasons for reasons expressed plain enough to all but the most observant of his people, but for now…

Autumn was three months away, and with its wild colors, fresh air and the smell of pine trees in the fall, she hoped the new year would bring some peace and quiet to the year

======== SAMPLE 10 ========
 check what can be done to assist, we take the most immediate reward and minimize the damage."

"Which accomplishes nothing, of course," Defiant said. "I mean, the Protectorate was formed on the back of a campaign promising a one-in-four chance of victory, and the rumors regarding the Triumvirate and Armsmaster are rife with irregularities. None of this is even touching on the more dire scenarios that potentially lie ahead, but, well, it’s not feasible."

"The rumors," Miss Militia said.

"Please," I said. "Let’s put this to rest."

"You’re vouching for the Undersiders," Miss Militia said, pointing at Tattletale.

"I’m saying there’s no way they’d collude," Tattletale said. She glanced at me. "And there’s no way they’d cooperate."

"If the Undersiders decided immediately to cooperate with us and get along with the Travelers?" Legend asked.

"I think any one decision would have sufficed," Tattletale said.

"Good then," Miss Militia said. She glanced at the other heroes, "But I’m not sure you’re up to the job. Parian, could you stop holding back while we speak? We might need to use lethal force."

"I’m not sure I can hold back," Parian said. "Don’t really know how to respond. I’m relying on you guys to know my name."

"Alexandria," Miss Militia said, referring to the heroine of legend and punk rocker, Greek Goddess, and the superhero princess from a young age. In American English, that would be Alexandria.

"Yeah," Parian said. "I’m with her."

"That’s good to know," Miss Militia said. "I’ll make sure we hear from you as soon as we’re free."

"You’re not American?" Legend asked.

In an accented voice, Miss Militia asked, "What are you doing, Original?"

"I’m an adopted family, Missy," Parian said. It took me a second to realize she was addressing Flechette as Original. That to them, my adoption was the stuff of nightmares.

"And you’re not happy I’m a hero?" Miss Militia asked.

"We can function. I suspect there will be more cooperation, with the public having what they need to know concerning our internal politics and lower-level traumas."

"People will have the facts if you say so," Miss Militia said, "And I won’t be able to touch your Alexandria without knowing Dragon and Defiant’s technology."

"Why?" I asked, recalling the event in my mind’s eye. "You’ve gone without saying anything for some time, and now you’re saying something? Hasn’t Esoteric said anything meaningful for nearly a year?"

"He said I was a liar, went so far as to say I was a tinker," Miss Militia said.

"He’s hurt and hurt," I retorted. My bugs caught a bang against the side of her helmet. It might as well have been a steel drum against my skull.

"This is where we sorely need your help," she said.

"And you’re the only person that can help," I responded. "If you want to hear the answer, then here it is. You’ve already read the documents, you’ve seen the surveillance footage. I can’t speak on Dragon’s reasoning, on her methods, but I can speak out of turn so long as I belong to the same species as the Doctor. I become a slave, sell this ability I already have."

"A claim against the world."

I coughed, hard. "I’m not selling it."

"It remains deeply unsettling," Ms. Yamada said, "At times like this, when the world is at stake, it is reassuring to know that we have your support."

Can we still afford to wait for after-endbringer fights? Letting the next Endbringer fight play out? It was a hard decision, but it was still possible.

I heard a mutter from behind me.

An expletive?

I turned and found a crowbar on the kitchen counter. I began disassembling the components of the suit.

"A way I make my hair look great," I said. "Way I make my Black Hat speeches more interesting than they

======== SAMPLE 11 ========
 check me in the eyes so I could see why they were so pissed, and get the full picture of what was going on, even if I couldn’t see their faces.

I’d had brief encounters with the local supersoldiers, back when I was with Coil. In the end, I decided to play along. I got more than I bargained for. Dominated the girls. Taken turns fucking. In retrospect, yeah, a lot of it was fucked up, but I think I accepted it as a rule than I thought I would.

Which was why I’d bothered to look for out. It was a rule I followed, and it probably plays a role in why I’d be spending this kind of trouble finding you.

Trickster leaned against a wall and fumbled in one pocket for a cigarette. "There’s a problem. My powers are slowly taking over my power’s range, but it’s not flowing in the right directions. It’s going east to west, which doesn’t match up with the usual. Is it radioactively hazardous to have these guns pointed at me?"

"I don’t know. Your mileage may vary."

"It could be. I wish I knew," he shrugged. This wasn’t the time to listen to advice or warnings. He looked at the nearest street view, where a large multi-tool was tucked away in a wrecked car on the road ahead. Trickster pulled a sniper rifle from the side of the car and trained it on the dashboard.

The other bandages, the ones he wouldn’t be able to fit through the car window, he wrapped each arm and leg around, leaning against the window to keep warm. Fasting. Keeping himself awake.

"Look at everything from a different angle," he told himself.

He looked east, instead. The sun was rising, and the cityscape of neon and orange was unfolding. He stared at the cityscape he’d always known was gone. Dinah, the two people who’d listened to the caustic rumors about the Chosen, the evil engineers who’d transformed the city’s infrastructure. Killing the raccoon-rats from the previous night’s trash and turning the area into a living laboratory for the Wards, which might have been his primary concern, the fact that the city was already so fragile, and the fact that it would be further aggravated by the explosion that followed the first detonation, the one that killed one of his teammates, Egesa.

There were other scenes unfolding, scenes that had nothing to do with their situation. A family, two adults and two children, gathered in the shadow of a giant statue of a woman with a crescent moon slice passing through the air. Menja, red-headed, two-toothed, riding a monster of a mannequin.

The kid, Aisha, five-foot-nine, her hair in two braids, was just appearing. She was kind enough to settle into a book, putting one inside his lap. Dan, with his short haircut, served as his own personal DJ, conducting the mix. Aisha was good looking enough that he imagined himself, maybe, marrying her. He paid a girl from the crowd, and she undid her changes with a flick of a pen.

Aisha put a rubber band on her wrist, then promptly began bawling.

"Here she is," he said. "You remember, yes?"

"I do. It was so horrible for my birthday. I only have one other memory from that day."

"Yes. At one point, I was so scared you would say I was a second generation member."

"What did you say, during that long dinner party? Two generations, instead of the usual one?"

"It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here."

"You’re not the best when it comes to getting along with others. I imagine you struggle with your own team, as well."

"I do, yeah," she said, by way of reply. When he didn’t reply, she asked, "Given your background, and the degree at which you’ve integrated yourself into the Scooby Snatcher situation, can you tell me a little about your teammate?"

He hesitated. "Ursa Major. Books say she’s a genius, but she’s busted her genius bubble."

"Ah."

There was a pause. "Do you know her as far as her powers and her background? I know she floats. She could probably fly, too, if she wanted to."

"I can see what you’re saying. So she’s floaty

======== SAMPLE 12 ========
 check the area and see where new members are moving from, then I’ll find them."

"We need people willing to fight," Tattletale said.

"If we don’t, then we’re like the Yàngbǎn, we’re like the Empire Eighty-Eight, and we’re only going to get worse. What’s your idea of what to do?"

"The deputy director needs help. I’m filling in the gap."

"It’s not a new position. You didn’t create it."

"Can you give us as thorough a reappraisal as you give the other two?"

"You’re in charge until I get back."

"Good. But we’ll save that for another time. For now, we should think of it as a good night’s work. Not full-time, but a waste of time. We should also think of it as a good night’s rest, and not a wasted afternoon or evening. All we really need to pay our respects to the fallen is a statue, and a nameplate to read over it so the people who heard our eulogy and watched our funerals can’t erase our memory."

I was well aware that this was Clockblocker speaking. His subsonic noise made it sound as though he were speaking from inside a box. As though he were a technological gatherer living in a box of sealed containers.

"My number, our prime directive, it’s inside a woman; a very special kind of lock, designed to lock her away if it were ever opened. A counter-agent." He tapped his foot a few times on the treadmill. "Dose one percent at a time. Then I’ll have her pegged with a tranquilizer. I’ll find the counter agent inside her, then I’ll shock her. It won’t matter how many times I do it. I just need to shock her once."

"How do you shock her?"

"With anesthetic," he said. "Then we just need a strong enough shock. I guess she’s helpless against some tranquilizers, huh?"

I glanced down at Charlotte. She was out of her chair, her feet planted on the ground. She made it look easy. One hand on his knee, and he posed no threat.

More than that, I almost thought he should make it a priority. I appreciated the idea behind the shock, but that wasn’t what I’d needed. What I needed was for someone to surprise me; someone to bar my way.

I turned, decided not to look back. I was well aware that Clockblocker was recording me, regardless of how slowly. I made my way into the cafeteria, and I was careful to keep a cautious eye on anybody and everyone I passed. Be careful with drones.

Confidence was a bitch of a road to travel.

I stopped at the cafeteriaette and ate with one foot on the vault door and the other on the door of the storage locker I’d created. It was a place I maintained a sense of relative calm, always a heartbeat away from anyone and everyone present. I’d memorized the layout, and positioned the key to the room closest to the door. I stepped up to the counter and made myself a cup of tea.

The second I was out of sight of the door, I sent Hannah a text:

CANADA/BAYERN MUNICH.



Guess my dad had a storage locker where my clothes are. I put a lock in with the cotton swabs.



I stayed clear of the conversation that followed, and notwithstanding of the tea, I didn’t say a word.

As the others began to get their lunches, I made my way to the kitchen, just to double check they were on time.

"The clothes are ready," Emma said, from the doorway, as I made my way to the stove to prepare the tea.

I looked around the room, trying to take in the ensemble. Shoes, a sweater, jeans, boots. Nothing that would stand out.

"They’re cold," my dad spoke, as he made his way to the hob and pulled off his sweater.

"I’m so sorry," I replied.

"You know how bad the weather gets?"

I didn’t respond, but I helped myself to a cup of the tea. My voice was quiet, but my eyes were on the butterflies. My eyelids, covering my eyes, stared at a spot just below my lashes, where the liquid in my eyelid became white.

The

======== SAMPLE 13 ========
 check for the fact that my bugs had seen her.

She was picking her way through the available options. A box, a couch, a television, an amp, a freezer…

"I have the key."

She pulled a string from a belt to open the box. Figured as much as we could to get out of the way.

"I’ve got the key to this door. Go, go!"

She moved toward the door, and the insects I’d set on her began to fall into sequence. For several long heartbeats, she was able to break away from the bug Armageddon had struck, instead of sliding free. She started to climb free.

"What are you doing?" Kayden demanded. She pushed her attacker away and stepped in front of her. "I want the key."

Miss Militia turned around, "How did she get the car!"

"Took time to get to the house," Rachel said.

"But you have the car! We walked from our neighborhood to get to the house!"

"The car–"

One word. Car.

Her attacker ducked as well. Rachel used the rest of the bugs to pull herself forward and to her left, but her backward movement bought herself still more time. She reached the front doorframe and lifted the door on her brother’s death.

The bugs went on the offensive as they made their way toward us. We could do something, could finally catch Kayden off guard.

Carol dove for the bin, but felt more bugs at work there than on the ground. She succeeded in taking down two Florists, one of whom was posing as a tanuki, then leveled the same door Kayden had been lurking in at the rear end of the house.

"Go!"

She knew our shapeshifter was controlling the beetle in the nearby woods–he didn’t want to go in her general direction, so he was distracted for the time being. That left him to fend for himself on his own. If he went in the right direction, maybe he could occasionally pounce on a Baby Ursa or a Australopithecus, but something was obviously wrong.

If he went in the wrong direction, or if the path was too difficult to navigate, it could mean only a longer wait for the beetle to find us.

In the end, I decided to give him a few more pounces as he ran forward, trying to injure and wound the shapeshifter who had switched him from an ally to a hostile character. He succeeded in a pinch, and decided to side with me rather than try to take on the rest of the villain groups.

The rest of Friday, my burly minions managed to push their way through the perimeter of the Yàngbǎn, killing the yàngbǎn recruiter they’d been battling and killing two of the yàngbǎn members before they could join, and killing two more before I could dispatch them. That left them to fend for themselves as the rest of the Yàngbǎn tried to push them back.

The objective here wasn’t to get them to the battlefield. We were focusing on minimizing the damage they could do.

"Less bad injuries for the cost of the trip," Tecton said. "If they get injured, it doesn’t matter how many they get before we come after them, do we Persecutor, do we kill them."

"It doesn’t matter to them," the yàngbǎnsta said.

They were evil, merciless. Even some of the people we’d rescued, even people we’d helped, it was only going to be a few that came after us with vengeance. After that, no assistance was coming our way.

There was no escaping the fact that we were trapped in a fiefdom. No way to connect the dots, no way to guess what was going on.

Lesser enemies weren’t so fortunate.

"Lumination," Weld said. "With your mask off, you’re… essentially naked."

"Face off," one of the yàngbǎn said. It was a male, not a nun, but he had a striking appearance. A beard trimmed to trace the corners of his jaw, his black costume had been trimmed to match. He had a different length beard than Weld, but it was shorter, and the hair was longer, allowing him to have more of a Roman face but still retain his Aramaic accent. "Amber and coal. You and your teams are cleaning up the territory the great Hengst wrote down. Convenient, being able to do what you want, while we’re in a position

======== SAMPLE 14 ========
 check them. He’s got one set of answers, and if you can get him to say it, maybe we can get that one set of answers."

"I can manage," Defiant said. "Not hearing that much from her."

"Defiant," I said. "Please give us something to talk about and see in the evening."

"What do you want to discuss?"

"The deal Coil made."

"What? Why?"

"He said he had a partner, that he was trusting us to handle the business of the underworld, and that partner needs to be protected. He also said that he expects To Mure and Kourend will ask for alliances, aid and comfort in exchange for silence on the issues. By saying this, he leaves options open for us. We each get what we want, or we each get nothing at all. If you settle on the same terms as the others, if you strike a deal, then that’s also something we can consider. That’s how he wants it."

"But he’s blunt-spoken," Defiant said. "I’m not sure this is what he wants."

"I’ll argue for it," Miss Militia said. "Anything else, or you dismiss it, it doesn’t matter. I’ll bring it up when the time comes."

"We’ll discuss it then," Defiant said.

Miss Militia nodded. "Understood. Your choice."

She departed, heading to her office. I stayed behind to consider the idea, and found myself contemplating that as I spoke with Dragon, one finger on my earpiece.

‐A few hours ago, we hadn’t been able to keep secrets. It was frustrating, and I appreciated Dragon for at least trying. Now, however, we were limited to only talking as a group, and she was indicating that she knew I was listening in.

"I’m not so sure this is a good thing," I said.

"You’re a new member, after all. It’s your chance to prove yourself. It’s your chance to talk to someone face to face, and find out why they want to work with you."

I was halfway through putting the finishing touches on my patch when I heard the sounds of conversation. "That… sounds good."

"I hope so," Defiant said.

"I’ll be keeping a close eye on that," I said. Then, as if I were trying to convince myself, I added, "It’s a problem if they dig through my stuff."

Defiant nodded.

"If it’s a double-blind test, I’m worried the experimenters will find something."

"Open if you want to talk," Defiant said. "But don’t forget to check on Birdcage inmate Noelle, who’s in the care of Doctor Mother."

"She’s talking to you?"

Defiant nodded, glancing at his Shielder. "Ready?"

My bugs had reached Noelle. She was curled up on the couch, a blanket around her.

"I’ll be in touch," I said. Then, since I couldn’t or wouldn’t volunteer my identity, I added, "I forgot I was even on the same team."

"You’re new?"

"And not just any old girl. The olympic silver medalist from the local team, from the fencing team. And the defending champion in foil, too. And the defending champion in saber, too."

"I don’t really…"

"You get voted first, you get to compete, and you get to write the paper, after which you compete against other athletes from nearby cities to see who can name three things that made a difference in their city. You’re up against Mannequin, who grew his hair long to look like the mask you wear, and who can guess what you’re up against?"

Crap. My bugs couldn’t find much. I was surprised to learn some were too old, and some were a little sparse.

"I’m pretty good at avoiding them," I said, as I realized what I was saying.

"Still good when you do get close," Tattletale added, glancing at Crichton.

"Can you tell me two stories with the same impact? Just this once?"

Tattletale paused. I thought she was glancing at me, but she was looking at Brooke. "Or do you want to combine the two?"

"Either way," I said.



======== SAMPLE 15 ========
 check it, but the plan wasn’t to use them."

"But you know that Dragon’s going to join the battle and help. If our side isn’t willing to fight, if Skitter’s refusing to cooperate, then our side just wastes time and resources fighting those monsters," Grue said.

"Time and resources are wasted, Headstone," I said. I paused while Tattletale rummaged in her kit and then ripped out a image of a key lock on the wall and entered a password in the keyboard. "Tattletale, try the laptop. No humans were admitted to the facility by Dragon, and we can check it after they’ve departed."

"There are doors, then," Tattletale said. "There’s a lot of open space in the middle of nowhere. It’s basically a blank."

"In the middle of nowhere?" Grue asked.

"Farid’s homeland," Tattletale said. "It’s beautiful, but pretty much the only place in the world where you can have a nice open area and a busy road leading beside it. You’d have to go through Iran, and even then, there’s a traffic mess."

"Interesting," Coil said. "Figured that out, but you’re a smart girl. You found it out, and you found out a little about my technology."

I made a mental note of that.

Coil went on, "You should know that I have access to all of the records and writings related to Cauldron, both past and future. I am also the creator, administrator and maintainant of the Dragon A.I. and its extensions. I can therefore vouch for their abilities and knowledge."

"And you can’t vouch for them," I said.

"I can tell you that the current Cauldron is woefully lacking in both aspects. While I cannot give you the answer you desire, I can give you an answer that is achievable, consistent and readily achievable."

"You could be approaching disasterous amounts of money," I said. "Perceptions are hard to untangle, and even for me, being a fairly wealthy man, I see things being just a little distorted."

"That’s a common complaint," Coil said, "And there are good reasons for it. Perceptions, funding, regulations, the presence of the… what’s the word?"

Nostalgic, I thought. He was almost like David Pakman, the mega-rich creator of the heroes who were against the world.

"Cauldron," I said. Number Man could easily be beside me here.

"Yes," Coil said. Number Man tapped his keyboard, then hit a button. The word died like a hot potato.

"Cauldron," I said. Nostalgic.

"Yes."

"Third largest source of funding for the Brockton Bay PRT," I said.

"Possibly," he said.

"Which fits," I said. The fact that he was casting a wide net, that he was maybe looking for more money, gave me some hope. It was too late in the day.

"No response from the Undersiders," Trickster said.

"Their hierarchy is still reeling from the loss of Alexandria," Coil said, "I cannot but make a guess. They would rather lose someone to us than the Undersiders."

He reached for his name. He didn’t get two more. "Coil."

"Michael W.," Tattletale said.

"No. Just no."

"Michael."

"Okay."

"We won’t say you dropped out of prom," I said. "Or anything like that. Please."

"I have women in my entourage. Some women."

"It’s not that simple."

"Your argument doesn’t cut it."

"It does, but I like the other arguments easier. Take my mom. I mentioned her to her. She’d be offended. She’d say your mom was an alcoholic. She liked you even when you were trying to hurt her."

Tattletale paused. "Or at least, she thought she did. I don’t buy that either."

Coil nodded. "I don’t either. But her wounds are more pernicious now. They were more wounds than poison. An attack by wind or smoke or whatever and the smoke doesn’t do nearly as much damage."

Brian turned toothy when he heard that. It struck me. He was from out of town, and he hadn’t

======== SAMPLE 16 ========
 check the area around us.

I did a gut assessment, then started tying ropes across the rooftop.

I didn’t have a better way of expressing what I was thinking than words.

The gravity isn’t what it once was. I’m not heavy, but…

I can’t explain it. Words are too weak a means.

I think of Brockton Bay as a city without residents. It’s not an exaggeration to say that everyone knows everyone, every stranger knows everyone, and even the friends of the residents are rarely ever among the friends you’d run into again.

Weavers and Doormakers both. I’d crossed paths with residents on my last errand, explaining what I needed to hear. I had an in, but I hadn’t had the chance to really talk to anyone before joining the group.

Cameras showed a patch of grass with a small family sitting on a dilapidated building. The man and his family stood on the second floor, and a pair of girls were on the first. A group of men were occupying the fourth floor.

If the grass was ever going to be greener, this place was going to need tending.

I heard the tapping, and hopped down from the fourth floor to the ground floor to peek at the backyard.

My swarm could sense some motion, as a group. A dog headed for the dilapidated building on the property level, and a man in a dog suit was directing a bunch of dogs at it.

What I didn’t sense was any movement, as far as I could tell, from the man in the dog suit.

"Man in the suit," I said.

"You’re telling the truth," Rachel said.

"Yeah," the man said. "Watch your step."

I raised my own.

Some distance away, Biter addressed his company, "We had a little talk with Scrub. He’s here, he’s practicing his power. Don’t you see it? He’s getting a greater strength out of the new dog, and he’s ready to go-"

Dog and man both turned to face the approaching Batgirl.

"Optimistic, optimistic hypotheticals," Biter finished.

"Maybe," I said. "I’m not optimistic. I’m practical. If it comes down to it, we focus on taking out Dragon, taking out the Custodian, getting to Dragon and back down to the beginning. Or we try something else, and we get a chance to show we can defeat her. Growl off her behalf, maybe, or we ignore her entirely."

"Just be careful," Tagg said. "Whatever Scapegoat does, we can’t afford to lose another fight."

"Okay," I said. "Anyone want to run?"

Rachel refused a wager. She charged off.

Glenn was caught up in the scene, between the rows of plastic wrapping paper and the man in the full-body suit. He’d reached the end of the row, and was now backing up. While charging, he asked, "Who wants to get the most out of Scapegoat? Because as far as I’m concerned, the power does what we need it to."

Rachel was already a distance away, looking with interest as the suit navigated the branching path I’d sketched out, between the two districts.

The woman in the suit raised Scapegoat in its hand, and I could see the looks split across the other two members of the Green Rage team. Tearful nods. Others included Hoots, who had her head bowed a little, her chin pressed against the side of her head, looked as uncomfortable as ever. Her hair was a little out of sorts, clumped together and out of sync with her face. She looked down at Scapegoat, who had his arms folded.

"Thank you," Hoots said. "Um. I think I’m in the clear."

The suit parted the two ways, allowing Scapegoat to exit. The two heroes stepped out into the rain, while the replicas of Scapegoat and Rachel took a seat beside Rachel.

"You’re safe," Charlotte said. "We’re not that far from you."

"Mm," Rachel grunted, behind her. She didn’t look happy.

They shared a look, then turned their attention to the toddler that had been delivered by the nurse, with a third person to take care of. Madison, Chevalier and Foil were each bundled up in the arms of the woman, who was, overall, a

======== SAMPLE 17 ========
 check the area. I had them ride with me as I checked each property separately. I went with the gut, going as far as I could without interfering with an existing property. The bugs helped me see that properties bordering on the fenced off were intact.

When I was sure all my checks were in order, I called a local cape. He was sort of new, had no costume, looked rough around the eyes, but he seemed really nice. Cape shit went really well here, so I owed him three trips to his territory for one of his dogs.

I owed him three trips to his territory.

I owed him three trips, then, to go by his assessment of what his territory had been like, and by the amount of cash in his safe.

So nice, that he’d contribute something in kind. I offered to help him out, to drop that balance, bring the safehouse up.

He took my request for some time to consider. I guess he’d already realized I was coming after his territory, and was trying to spare my losses in case I turned on him, or if I got control of someone else’s territory. But he seemed sincere in his apology, and the idea of helping me by giving me some relief then didn’t make me feel much better.

Either way, we strolled out of his territory, which was unlit, and out of the city.

With hindsight two years and a little less being two, three, four and five weeks, I could see what people were doing. Overdramatic situations where there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop them, where I couldn’t get to them or report it. It was easy to forget those kinds of things were possible when we were living in a society where nearly everyone had a phone, where the fastest and easiest means of communicating was a hand-written email or a message on the social network.

And when people DID use violence, it was often just to get the other party’s attention, get retribution for some slight or another. Here, it was just me, April, and the fact that I’d gone ahead with what some would deem a very obvious secret.

April went ahead of her cousin, Sarah, in running away from the market. She succeeded, somewhat improbably, despite the fact that Sarah hadn’t yet seen me. April lived in the area with her mom and younger brother. Her mom had passed away when I was in middle school, but her brother had followed soon after. They had tried to get into foster care, but it had been a problem that was hard to solve. There had been talk of banning the children from any kind of extracurricular activity until the matter was fully investigated, and there had been promises that maybe, just maybe, I could succeed in an adult capacity as well.

Maybe I could have succeeded like my dad had, if I’d been willing to take the time.

Now I was attention-targetted. The whole dynamic was shit, and I wasn’t getting enough of a share. I was getting less and less of it, all put together.

That disconnection between what people wanted and what I was willing to do for the sake of getting what people wanted was why I was so unpopular in the circles where I was commonly resident. I worked for the people, and when I tried to move forward in my own direction, I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle.

It was a lot of time spent being endlessly paced, between sessions with the Protectorate and the meetings and the stakeouts. Each time I thought I had a direction, I moved forward in time a little further. It wasn’t many sessions, only about a month, but it was a lot of time spent absolutely nothing. Every time I thought I had a direction, I moved forward a little further.

We had our battle. I struck while the other Nine were busy fighting Vent, and they struck back. My team was on the defensive, our side backline was the wrong composition, and we were perpetually on the offensive.

While we backline members were on the defensive, I began organizing my bugs. Most of the bugs I needed were in the areas where the enemy would be least engaged, gaps I could permeate, and I began laying down sticky notes, each unique and useful in their own. Commands for particular bugs were included as they became available. For this reason, I began keeping a running log of my observations.

Note: audio only.

Date: Monday, April 19th, 2013

Tecton and Foil attacked. Assault and Illya then moved in. Assault found the remote and briefly used it to leave early, targeting Rachel.

Nilbog then arrived.

Ambush as usual? Comment? Dispatch multiple mind controlled?

======== SAMPLE 18 ========
 check. It takes time to prepare. They’d had a chance to negotiate the bounty on the back of one of their victims, but they ignored that advice, and now their next major issue is that they’d recruited some of the local villains. With luck, they’ll get the Protectorate running again soon, the villains will be on board, and they can focus on other, bigger issues."

"What are you doing?" Dean Winters asked, "This isn’t working."

"I’m adapting," Chevalier said. "We spent the last hour and a half changing only a little. If you asked me to guess, I think I’d have to say I’m adjusting my tactics, tactics I’ve said for weeks or months, and probably more. But I’m adjusting. It’s working. Scion’s getting too close, now. Too easy, sometimes, for the defenders to make that easy. And there’s always the problem that the world ending could be coming, and it’s going to suck."

"Except," Tattletale said, "We got our start on a long series of grand plans. Maybe not so long ago, we thought we were doing it for the greater good. There’s some upsides to that, and we’ve been making headway. But our intentions were good. I like to think we made a lot of good enemies, and we did a lot of good in the long haul."

Dean Winters looked at his wife. "In the grand scheme of things, though, it feels a little selfish, doesn’t it?"

"Sensible," Heather said. "A lot of us here don’t intend to make a difference, and yet we keep needing to make a difference. There’s a noble quality to the whole idea of a noble drive, making a positive difference in the world. It’s a lens we use to look at ourselves, a lens to evaluate others, and we use to justify laying down the law in the first place."

"It should concern us all," the Doctor said, "When a greater good says a greater number words, with a greater force, than the speaking."

"Sensible," Lung agreed. "A lot of us are doing just that. A lot of us make do, make good, and sometimes make even greater. Things we’ve been working on, sacrificing ourselves for the greater good. We’re improving, and we’re at the point where we could make history, being remembered as being good people, patriots. It’s not pretty, it’s not relaxing, but it’s doing what’s best for our species."

"But," Grue cut in, "It’s slow. If everything goes according to plan, it could be months before we’re back to what we were. We’ll be helping save the world, and you’re only alive for a short time."

"That’s not what I want," Dean said. "I want to help, to accomplish something, and the chances of that are pretty slim at best. I’m going to sleep now, and I’ll dream of home one way or another, when the nightmares are gone and the days are full."

Dean turned to go and sit on the edge of the sofa, then sat down on the opposite end of the sofa so he was facing out the door.

Hesitant, he stayed by the window, watching the heroes and heroine’s speeches, following them with his eyes.

Tattletale leaned against the corner of the screen, the scroll Wheel rotating slowly around her fingers. She said, "A way to put this simply. You’re more flexible now. A better way of putting it is that you’re still changing what you’re responsible for, but you’re allowing for better and worse."

"Better," Parian said.

"You say that as someone who genuinely believes you’re better. I can respect that."

She didn’t respond to that.

"Hmm. I’m inclined to agree," Imp said. "Sorry to jump in, but a lot going on these days."

"No, it’s all good. Thank you for the opportunity. I’m going to go look over some of the others, then I’ll be back to check in on you in a bit."

"You’ll be protected in the meantime," Tattletale said. "There’s precious few capes left who can really impact the battlefield, and they’re spooked, so to speak

======== SAMPLE 19 ========
 check to see if he was okay. I couldn’t ask for more, because he wasn’t being asked for anything.

The ground rumbled as a massive shadow descended from above. It was like a pillar of light, descending from the sky like a pillar of smoke, left unfriendly but not hostile.

We passed over a mess of flower petals, with only a few small ones that had fallen down around us. I pointed at a flower, with pink petals falling free and spaghetti-like strands of pink growing in its place. The petals were limp, now, falling to the ground. There were seeds inside, but they weren’t robust enough to fly. I had a guess: some had been frozen by the force of the winds.

The area was being called in by two different tinker-made structures. The other was a simple prism: a piece of plywood or piece of hard plastic that could be high above the people in a structure, or just hang off walls. It was rated to 10 on the Richter scale, but each individual floor seemed to be getting half a rating and half up on it, to 13 or so° North, .5° West, .25° East. The level of protection afforded each individual floor was getting somewhat better as we approached the next set.

Killington stood at the entrance to the street, wearing all of the costume requirements but the cape: all-around protected surface, face no different from Kane, but without eyes, and a right hand with a number of knives, one with an exposed claw.

Except his head was completely transparent, and there were hidden motors running on his chest and arms, with individual switches for different functions. There were even air bags filling the gaps in the fabric at his shoulders and waist.

He was looking around for someone he could converse with, someone who might tell him more about Dinah. So many secrets! So many questions!

A series of lasers tore through the crowd. Some detonated on contact with the animated billboard or the fallen building: either the background noise of the lasers or the people themselves were enough to shock the onlookers.

Kane stood at the apex of the pile of corpses just in front of Crowley. In a heartbeat, Kane’s mask had been shattered, the crowd killed or blinded by the lasers. In his place was a mangled, a ruined Knight, surrounded by enemies half his size.

Away on the far side of the platform, a woman emerged, surrounded by the same enemies. The lunatic shape-shifter with the ugly, prismatic horned mask.

Behind her, the crowd disintegrated further. People started to drop like hotcakes, and only a few stood their ground.

Alexandria landed beside Crowley, severing the cord that bound him to the hero. I felt a moment’s despair. We’dbushed a cord out, and it’d connected to a cord that was attached to the sky. I could sense it approach, a gentle pull.

We stepped out onto the narrow, light-foot ground. The area was in view: a acres of flat land, the right to explore was at your doorstep. The only real restrictions were the gates that were taped up at the sides, and one dog. Ligeia, the black lab that was tagged to keep her from attacking anyone on the street.

Potentially free of any restrictions, if not quite so restrictive.

I hesitated a moment as I approached. Alexandria was there, standing astride Ligeia’s back. In the last analysis, her power and Alexandria’s own strength, I gathered, made for a rather impressive combo. Though I hesitated to call it impressive, the final theorem I came to was that Ligeia had an easier time of it, in terms of raw strength. Another cape would have to take a whole different weight distribution, a whole different strategy to keep themselves balanced. A good counterpoint to any�s strength.

Alexandria was focusing on acquiring territory. In the process, she’d made some enemies on the fringes, which would be one obstacle in the way of her ultimate goal. Rime, for her part, had started toying with the mad synthetic telepath.

Which left me in the unpleasant position of waiting for Cairo’s group to decide I was too dangerous, and they wanted to take my guesswork easy.

I was spending too much time in the company of familiar people. Even if they were my friends, my teammates, their employers and more. Adding new people to the provisional labour force made me think of college, of clubs and groups of people with the same goals and backgrounds. Adding others to that complex web of interlocking people made me think of… acquaintances. Facts were still inconsistencies within me, less a

======== SAMPLE 20 ========
 check her hair.

"I did. Did you sleep well?" He asked.

"You like my locks," she smiled, bending down to put his hand against one of her long hair to comb it. "Come here, Charlotte."

He took her offered arm and pulled her in the direction of the living room, until she was standing behind him. She felt at ease, free to let go of the arm and lean towards him.

"You’re going to school together?"

"Yeah." She glanced nervously at the woman who was standing straighter. "I’m still figuring out the math. I meant, I’m not officially a student, but-"

"Not a student, but you’re both a student and a teacher at the same time."

Charlotte nestled in her arm again. "Okay, no big deal."

"Years ago, I was her. You were a little boy, and I was her. We had a good time."

That was the hardest thing for her to say. She’d been indoctrinated, she’d spent some time feeling like she belonged somewhere, somewhere, and she wasn’t anymore. It was embarrassing to have to explain. She’d had to put the pieces back together, but she’d never been able to say why.

"I meant, I had a girlfriend at the time. I was distracted and insecure. I got this really good look at you. And because I could, I told myself I should take you back, that we needed you back, in a way. I didn’t tell myself that you’d understand me, but I did try, and you opened my eyes to the fact that maybe I hadn’t been honest about what I wanted."

"That didn’t work either," Vegas piped in, smiling. "Did you explain that much?"

"Too messy. A few things never worked out."

Vegas pouted, but she didn’t say anything.

It was a while before Vegas spoke, "I can understand where you’d be frustrated. You’re a late bloomer, you’re still kind of lost among your peers. A lot of kids don’t come to terms with what happened. It’s… difficult."

Vegas shrugged. "I can deal."

"And you find yourself doing the same thing, only more?"

"Prefab believes in it enough tona."

"Um. I’d hoped you’d tell me more about what happened. How it happened? You’re better now?"

Prefab frowned. "I’m not equipped to talk about shit that doesn’t exist."

Vegas leaned towards the other duo, "We were going to go into hiding, conceal ourselves, but Prefab needs a bit of time to sort us out, and for you to recuperate. I think he’s hoping to hold onto this city as something long-term, instead of just the year TwoView."

"That’s not the direction he’s going, anyways," Charlotte said.

"He’s being restrained by the Simurgh," Foil raised her voice, "And he’s not happy about it."

"We’re not locked into anything for two reasons," Emily said. "One, she did nothing to deserve going into this, and she deserves to go to jail for what she did. Two, he’s trying to think of ways to use this. Figure out if he can use it to his advantage, and avoid drawing attention. Figure out ways to get more control, if that makes sense, and avoid putting more restrictions on us."

"I’m not so sure he’s done this for less than he’s gotten."

"It’s not impossible," Charlotte said. "It’s just… what else?"

Vegas was taking over in the distance, with a group the size of a small town. I could see the outline of a building they were loading up. A hospital, now called something- how much remained a secret? Years?

There was an outpost of Yàngbǎn within walking distance of them. Another world, perhaps. The buildings were similar, masks nonetheless copied with different designs constantly in place, giving the Chevaliers close scrutiny.

"I’d vow a fealty if I was asked," Charlotte said, quiet.

"I’ll be more specific," I said. "I’ll swear an allegiance to the Yàngbǎn, to the New York-cent

======== SAMPLE 21 ========
 check it, but there is no chance it could mean anything. If she knew, then someone else would have had to break the news, and they would have clued into the fact that I was lying. They would have been gleeful in how brutally she evicted one brainwashed minion from the henchman’s camp from the main building, and they would have been right to. They wouldn’t have noticed the double standards.

She gave up when a minion was moved to look after the wounded in the cellar, offering medical care instead. It was a shorter trip down to the basement, and she took the time to load up the first truck and unload it on top of the wounded. Then, as she finished its journey, she slipped a handcart into the back of the truck with the other supplies.

When she was done, she tapped one foot against the ground, planted it on the point where the truck bumper met the ground. A detour was assured, with minimal effort.

She got in her truck, then parked herself at the side of the building opposite the counter so she could watch the drivers.

Noelle could drive, but not as fast as he was capable of it. She had limited training, but she had the driving ability. If it came down to it, her costume and her petite, dark-haired ‘daughter’ were capable of handling the job, and Bradford was happy to oblige in a way.

It was a long time before the Phantoms returned. A warehouse with dozens of injured and dead bugs were stacked in the trunk of the truck, and a wretched, dying Night CRAWLER sat in the passenger seat. A body the size of a large dog, her lips curved into a predatory snarl as she slept, morbidly obese even in the midst of her undead body.

The back door of the truck opened, and the truck was unloaded, the Phantoms filing inside.

Defiant sat in the passenger seat, kneeling with his arms folded.

Parian and Gallant were in the center of the group. The pair of them seemed to recognize who they were, somehow.

"What is it, bird boy?" Asked Parian.

"Eidolon…" Asked Gallant.

"Retired. Will be directing capes in for possible sabotage. Investigations suggest he is suffering from old powers, age-"

"Age?" I asked.

"After years of use," the man replied, "Ruptured health, in need of a major overhaul."

I felt a bit of a chill at that. Tears were welling out, appearing, running, spilling down my cheeks. My newly repaired mask let them happen without drawing attention.

"I’m not crying cancer," Parian said, "But I can see the signs."

"Rest assured, I can see the signs," the man replied. " IMS is as well."

The tall man in the back seat noted them. "We have no reason to hide."

"We have a reason to hide," Defiant replied, his voice hard. "The greater good."

"Is it less good," Teacher asked, from behind the wheel of the truck? "A failing of humanity, an outcome of our own depraved moral fabric, an ugly fact of our age?"

"Yes," Defiant answered, his voice firm. "It’s a fact."

"Then," Teacher said, "It’s more than that. I’d say it’s a fact that our greatest enemy is within our grasp, but that’s a given. We see the enemy everywhere. It’s inevitable. There’s no getting around it."

"So let’s terrorize the remainder of humanity until we find some cause for our destruction," Teacher said.

"Yes," Defiant answered.

The group pulled into the driveway of a remote location. It was a small place, containing three living cells, a small kitchen and one room for storing equipment. The driveway joined to the gravel lot where the trucks had parked.

All around them, hidden cameras sat, many handheld. Weapons? There would be bullets and other weapons in any world where depraved villains walked the streets.

"You have a routine?" Teacher asked.

"It’s eight thirty in the morning. I’m going to take a nap. Will you be with me, Mrs. Yamada?"

Mrs. Yamada stepped out of the driver’s seat, made her way to the seat between the rear seats and the front seats, and reached out to put a hand on the glass of the door leading to the nursery. It was cut with a small saw, but the sound of her steps was faintly audible in the dark.



======== SAMPLE 22 ========
 check me. Not about my dad. That’s fine. I understand if that makes you feel a little less comfortable, but I urge you to come back and discuss these things as a group."

"Good."

"I’d like to talk to you alone," Grue said.

"Oh," Regent bowed. "Mmm."

That was it. No more secrets, no more revealed identities. This was the one room where we all gathered as a group.

Each person in the café seemed to be playing a different role. Some were working, others protecting the group, others focused on their own businesses.

As the group filed into the room, one of Grue’s underlings slipped by unnoticed into the midst of the group, grabbed a table with the waists pulled together, then started putting documents away.

Two of Flechette’s underlings went by the name of Paper, and they too disappeared into the crowd. The man barely gave any serious thought to his own papers, focusing on keeping to the group and keeping the discussion flowing.

"Anyone need a hand?" Paper asked.

"I brought my old arm, but if you need a new one… no, don’t say that," I said, "I’m good with carrying that part of the bag."

"Okay," he said, before anyone could ask him to move.

"We’re in order," Grue said, as the door closed behind him.

Hookwolf and his underlings made their way to the tables where there were still tables. As they arrived, however, the benches had either been swept away by the larger machines or piled with people, who had found seats behind the counters. The largest group of people to mine, at least.

I found myself sitting at one table with some of the tourists, alongside GstringGirl and Aisha. Theo sat between two of my people, while Mockshow sat with his arm around me, letting her legs rest against his arm.

A dozen people were gathered around me, collectively asking: "Who is Scapegoat?"

"I don’t know who that is," I said.

They looked at me, and I swallowed a chuckle by way of reply.

"Who is he? Where are they getting their powers?"

"I could investigate that, but the Travelers would be a good source. Could be Trickster cooked up something good for them, with the right ingredients, and Scapegoat’s power doesn’t hold back."

"Where did he get his powers?"

"We don’t know that for sure. But he did say he was versatile, and that was in relation to his previous abilities. I’m not sure how that applies to Scapegoat."

"The powers have a focus, and that’s consistent with what happened before. Why would he have powers after being in Scapegoat’s group?"

"I don’t know. Maybe there’s a cue in there, or the scariest person in the world might pick a power."

There was genuine curiosity at that.

"The powers don’t have any real application?," I asked.

"Not if he’s meeting people who could be his enemies," Theo said.

"The Chosen might be a clue, but I’m not seeing anything in the details. Even his own underlings say he’s not a problem, but…"

"The Organization is fine," Hookwolf said. "Most of them."

Purity?

"Cauldron might be fine where they are," Romp said. "They won’t be a problem."

"There’s one small problem," I said. "Scapegoat might be a kook, but he’s not above making rookie mistakes. I’m wondering if he’s done this for Aisha. If he was making the calls on canon, this…"

"I’m aware," Romp said. "I’m why he’s here. I’m the ops guy, that’s why."

"Hey," Theo said, "This isn’t really about you being a villain, it’s about the balance the group needs to maintain if we’re going to achieve anything lasting."

Purity, Hookwolf and Skinslip looked up, meeting my eyes.

"Too many mistakes by the same people," Purity said.

"Where’s the canon?" I asked.

"There should be more," Skinslip said. He wasn’t reading as well as he

======== SAMPLE 23 ========
 check out your team, you’re going to want something to eat. And don’t forget about the kids."

"Okay," I said, standing from my seat. As much to annoy Victoria, I thought. I’m the parent, you’re the child.

"Leaving only the unfortunate attendees to congratulate Taylor and herself, I present you, the Undersiders!" They chanted, dropping their hands to their foreheads in the same moment that Pretender stepped back from the camera and started shaking his head.

I hunched over, my head hurting yet again. I must have looked at my gloved hands, saw the stray chain link bars under my hair, the white fabric of my gloves that stuck almost to the skin, ribbons that I had folded around the fingers, looped around my neck and hand, and the scraps of torn-off jacket and around my ankle. The two girls who’d been hugging were turning red in the face of the bright lights and innumerable pieces of equipment ranging from consoles in warehouses to computers to cut diamond-shaped slices into the plastic sheets that lined the track and visual detectors the team wore.

"Who’s new," Lisa said, turning off the television, "Only two of us have been here a few days."

"I’m Brian, by the way," I said. My eyes stopped on Victoria, and I felt a flicker of confusion. Victoria, in turn, looked at me.

"No, Lisa," I answered her, raising my voice. Strands of my blond hair fell across her face. A glance confirmed it – she didn’t really look that old. She was twenty five, if I ignored her habit of digging her fingernails into her pillow at bedtime.

"Sorry," she said, calm. She shouldn’t have to apologize, I thought. One of her henchmen, Coil, was paying a visit.

"We can’t let Jack leave with Brian," Lisa stressed. "His intentions are good, but our focus right now is North America."

"Yeah," I said. "We’re all focussed on the disaster area. No point telling him what we’re doing in there."

"He’ll figure it out," Lisa assured me. "His thing is evacuating, not going to follow."

"Okay," I said. After a moment’s thought, I homered home on 1/3, building all at once. The crowd cheered or whistled if I stepped out of the way. I felt pretty damn confident I could have gotten away if push came to shove, so I let my landing knock more people off guard. "How’s that?"

"It’s the same for me." Someone immediately jumped to mind, as if they knew the answer. I promptly answered it, "Brian."

"You said he doesn’t need a power and you’re basing that on the idea that his creator died."

"Yep," I confirmed. That would be right. I hadn’t been thinking about it that far ahead of time, but having changed circumstances, having lived in a different city, I had been able to stretch that credulity a little further. Probably.

"You’re okay?"

I shook my head, "Not while surrounded by people like that."

"Oh?"

"You’re not okay, you’re in the midst of a mug of coffee, someone handsome is staring at you, and you’ve just arrived at the loft you’re sharing with Brian."

Ouch.

I was wearing a black-painted ankh brooch and a pale gray silk bathrobe, complete with a long, narrow band of metal dangling from each finger. An ornate mask with holes cut out so the eyes were out of reach was on display behind it, as well as a light gray sweatshirt and leather business pants.

"I’m not sure I believe this impending doom is so inevitable. We had what it took for certain. Jack left, Weaver helped, and it all went according to plan. Chaos, good guys took out any threats that posed the biggest threat, sirens help with the others."

"I remember that our first encounter with Weaver was a bit messy. You and I, we were pretty equal across the board. I think we might have been too hard on you at the time, too stubborn to let her go."

I shook my head, "It ended pretty much the same way, annoying the worst."

"Which is why it’s so refreshing to see you guys having a good day. You’re really evolving as a team. Is there a lesson you guys have learned?"

======== SAMPLE 24 ========
 check her out," he said. "It’s been a crazy few weeks, I’m afraid."

"Your hands!" Dragon raised her finger, pointing at my face.

I took her hint. Squeezing both fists even tighter, I pushed against the plywood and tugged.

Both fists clenched, I glared at Dragon.

"Do you have a peaceful solution to our problems?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I do. But I don’t think we can afford to wait until then."

She sighed. "Follow me."

Bentley had a slower reaction, but I could see him following her lead. He gave me a thumbs up.

Dragon turned to take us all in the same direction. "Mockshow. Where are the rest of the heroes?"

"I don’t know," I said.

"Menja, Hookwolf, Bitch," Dragon said, reciting the names in passing.

Mockshow nodded, then began advancing towards the Overlord.

She pointed straight at me. "You, you little coward!"

My swarm reacted as I moved my swarm out of the way, coming to a stop.

"Cunning bastard," Grue muttered. My bugs commented. He still had some darkness remaining in his body, from the many treatments I’d applied to him. He didn’t have many healing powers, but he certainly felt alive, like he was one of the party.

I didn’t have many bugs in place to track her movements, so I started searching with my eyes. My ability to read was something I slot into a combination of taste and feeling. I had a mental map of the Overlord, a picture of his internal states, his habits and priorities. I could respond by attacking, by spending bugs to detect his alarm, his fear or displeasure. Plymouth couldn’t or wouldn’t let my bugs into the manhole cover. Hookwolf didn’t.

That took me a bit of time to process. What was the most important thing, above all else? I tried to pay attention to what was going on with my bugs, deciding if there was anything else I could do to assist my people. Bugs had lived off of human drivers, off of fallen comrades, but this was a whole other category. I could deal with them being on the offensive, making enemies, dealing damage. I could deal with a lack of cover, the dangers of the storms and the danger of being too close to the ground or facing the risks of being too far away. By far the biggest issue for me was the threat of EMP attacks. Electromagnetically charged attacks that could turn the ground to dynamite if directed at the right time, even if they didn’t reach the intended target.

I was counting twenty-three bugs in my immediate vicinity. That was the Overlord’s entire army, from the ones who’d been on call for the ambush to the last three who had been sent against our last known position.

We were taking too long to get our full offensive under way. It wasn’t just the wounded and civilians who were out of action. It was also limiting us by having to move in shifts, keeping our defensive lines and the heavy hitters out of action. Even with the defensive lineivences and the fact that we were hemorrhaging leftovers, we weren’t operating at our optimal efficiency. Every second we were losing was a second we were fighting battles we shouldn’t be fighting, leaving us more or less at the mercy of enemy forces.

A lull appeared, just long enough for one final defensive line to form, the overworld transitioning from being filled with water and trees to being filled with dust and clouds. A defensive line extended from every continent except Antarctica, dots that met halfway across the map, as though a rose was rising across the map from each of the three distinct ends. The vertical axis measured the change in the distance the rose extended from the starting point to the halfway point; the other two points were the expected locations of the rises.

The general location of the rose was apparent enough; it was the intersection of three separate lines, with expected distances of fifteen, twenty, and fifty miles respectively. Nothing unusual appeared in the distance, so Jack retreated, setting up his pet formula to take maximum advantage of the opportunity.

Each of the individual rose could scale up to three forms, with heights reaching to forty-five feet in some cases, though they were shorter here in the humid heat of summer. Jack, for his part, advanced through the distance he thought he shouldered with slowness, dragging the world beneath his hooves. Each and every rose on the three-dimensional map folded in on itself like a primordial, nebulous seed, ger

======== SAMPLE 25 ========
 check your privilege as I walked past everyone who had headphones on. All but a few of my teammates were already seated.

As I made my way to my seat, the few bugs I’d allowed myself to gather on my seat pulled into the aisle and entered one end of the cafeteria.

My bugs swept into the room, using the holes in the boards and the slats where they fit into the locker. I found two boysquads, and put them to work at helping round out my swarm. They had been strategically positioned so that there was plenty of room, and they were both in the right places at the right moments.

I felt my heart rate pick up as I heard the guard outside, a man I recognized but hadn’t named. He shouted at the man who was trying to take my cell phone, "You! Son of a bitch!"

I was only steps away when the guard heard my response and turned his weapon on me.

It was another human being on a ledge, trying to take a step for freedom. I’d anticipated this much. My heart pounded in my throat as I recalled my rights under the laws of the various governments, the peculiarities of my government over my lifespan, and the fact that the last time I’d been in a cell like this, L.A. Noire, where I’d been held in immigration detention, almost certainly leading to my being killed.

"Irritating," the voice had a slight British accent. Had he come here from somewhere else? I looked up at the man who was trying to revive me with the makeshift rescuer. We’d met on an alien culture and he’d seemed to be getting more European as he got closer to me. I made him give me a thumbs up a few times.

"Excuse me, could I help you? I’d offer you a hand, but-"

"Stop," the English-accented man who was trying to revive me said. He had the power to move large bodies of water, but… I couldn’t think of a better way to describe him. "If you help me, I’ll give you first aid experience. That’ll be my second offer. We don’t have to do anything else. You can go."

"You may not be an expert in anything, but I trust that when it comes to—"

"Empire Eighty-Eight, Seduction and Mistress of Clubs, Alpha," he said, stopping to cough and lose breath on the steps between us. He shook the fragments of his power from his airway before speaking to me, "I won’t generalize and say you’re all bad people. You’ve done things that were noble, places that are worthy of reverence. But is it really better to help those who can fight than to offer ourselves up for sacrifice like this? I’d make my second offer, but I’m skipping ahead a little while."

I could see the guard fidgeting.

"And third, I could use this power, have you use your power, have you looted this place from the core member?"

"Fuck you," the English-accented man finished. He kicked a metal table with his boot on the wooden door that led into the outdoor patio.

The guard let himself in. He didn’t share the guard’s impatience. The door opened a crack.

"Wow," was all the guard could say.

There were other ED-6 guards on the other side, talking behind our fellow guard. They weren’t all foreign, only a handful in suits. A handful more were stationed at the alert and alarm tones, and in rooms over that apparently couldn’t be transferred to other guards.

"Do you have a ticket for me?" the man asked.

"Weaver," the guard said.

"For Honor," the word was taken, and then ED-6.

The guard exchanged words with ED-6, then responded with a cast of three English words: ‘Do you have a ticket?]

For Honorant. The title slipped from the guard’s lips. He met his counterpart’s eyes, and then gestured for the English speaker to enter.

The guard was a third generation guard, once upon a time. His English was low. He offered the words with a casual ease, as if he were checking if we were able to speak in other languages.

For Honorante. It was the second most common name among the English-speaking guards.

The guard exited his room and the doors banged open. Three elders, two women. One attractive.

"You two said you wanted a room," Kovan said.

======== SAMPLE 26 ========
 check a bit more of my bugs into the area, to see if I could feel anything. Nothing.

I couldn’t believe it. Our neighborhood, the place we’d gone to for shelter after the Endbringer attack, the people we’d needed for support, all gone.

Alexandria, in her human form, was picking us off. The two dogs she’d picked up from the burned house had turned on her.

In the same moment, though, Legend fired a beam outstretched beam – rod, I thought. Unfortunately for us, the distant snarl of rotor blades on the flying beast’s back screamed for help, much as Rachel’s rotor had screamed a moment before. It moved too slowly to help, but it signaled for Archangel to get going.

The onboard systems kept trying to pick us up. The one Dragon was using to maintain the ship upright didn’t quite have the power to keep herself above the ground. Or to keep herself from sliding beneath the massive wheels and rails that rose and fell beneath her.

I was trying to help them, to identify which power could become that reliable, and which wasn’t useful but expensive. I saw a bit of white falling within Jefferson’s range, in Arcadia’s direction. That power was proving to be pretty reliable, to a degree. Other times, however, I struggled to identify which it was, because it tended to be a range-limited thing. On the plus side, those times were few and far between. On the occasional occasion I struggled, the individual members of the group were unfamiliar to me, and I had little to no idea how to apply the power.

In the end, I decided to focus on my swarm-clone. I used that power to connect to the others, to better tailor their movements and the direction they moved. Sometimes that meant identifying key members of the group, other times it was on par with being in the thick of the fighting, trying to identify the enemy through the many faces of my bugs and the dozens of faces I could already see from the tens of thousands of eyes that were staring at me.

When I was done, I broke the connection, moved the others back to where they were on the roof, and retrieved Atlas.

I hadn’t slept that much when I flew down – I wasn’t sure if I’d ever had after waking up in Brockton Bay. Lying on the rooftop, trying to keep awake, was Edmund and Panacea. We’d been discussing ending the Endbringer event, and I’d convinced the others to agree. I knew it would probably be a long time before Panacea was up to speed, but I had a good number of bugs now, and had recently gotten a good number of bugs from the people in my territory, to make the most of the limited storage I had.

And I could already tell that they were losing. They were out of sorts. Normally I might be able to take a level in almost anyone during their first year, give them credit, but I couldn’t do anything on a level where they completely loathed me. That wasn’t the case here, and neither could the people who’d grown up around me, who I was attempting to integrate into my swarm. I couldn’t hope to significantly change their habits if I was trying to keep them from using my products.

I began getting a feel for how their daily lives had changed since I’d left their lives behind. The woman was on her knees in the water now, her arms around her legs. She has one leg raised, pointing the second she starts to walk. The other leg is bent the other way.

I knew the Tinkers who made the Scrolls. They’d captured one of Char’s pet’s, and I knew one of the Scrub’s. The Scrub classically worked with raw materials to create constructs that could assume various forms. He would have been motivated to do it because he was motivated to create something superior to what he’d normally made, selling it online. The other was an aspiring Tinker, kind of. I couldn’t be sure if he was in the actual business or not.

I began laying down the components. The bugs began connecting with it, see-through chitinizing the construction as the material took form. Slowly, but steadily, I was adding chitin on to the top and bottom, the side and back, while the one near the front pulled the unfinished product from the mold and began rubbing it together.

I turned my attention to my bugs. I had so many that I couldn’t precisely control them. There was a high concentration of fairly innocuous bugs in this neighborhood, yet there were a surprising number of relatively harmful

======== SAMPLE 27 ========
 check out how they got this far. I feel bad for giving you the update on what you missed, but a lot of people were left out, and I can’t pinpointed all of the issues, so there’s that."

"A secondary issue," Tattletale said, "Is that our side thinks they can push the ABB far enough in terms of influence, resources, resources from personal will and control, and the media and other resources can be helped to moderate and control such, and they’re angry enough that they might legitimately attack us, should they feel they’ve been treated fairly. Your bet as a new member is that you’re going to be helpful, and that includes moderation of the media. It’s why I’m calling you here."

The attitudes and the mentality were fundamentally different, here. The people in charge were young, and so were the capes. But more than anything, it was the attitude. This was a group that had zero tolerance for any semblance of corruption, anything connected to Night or the gang. Tyrants with pre-ordained dynasties.

This place had never been great when it came to handling things respectfully. Even Lesson one, having everyone walk away satisfied, had never been great. This was a step forward.

"And new members are tested, tested, and then trained so they are up to date on current affairs, well before they take the jump into the great wide open spaces of Brockton Bay. This ensures that the group stays together, because any deviation from the group will be promptly dealt with, after which point they will patrol and be ready to act at a moment’s notice.

"The Brockton Bay Bulletin serves as our communication source and leads to the official news, entertainment and communication channels for the surrounding cities. It is spearheaded by Cho Chang, a.k.a. Vantage, and is the first contact anyone makes with the Hookwolf’s captive population. It is also the conduit for information and communications for all other sub-groups and commissions throughout Brockton Bay."

I glanced over in one department, where a black screen greeted me with a white box. The booklets that came with the posters and magazines were buried under too many books and stacks of paper to be legible. A woman sat at the end of the long table, and her feet were close to the center of the table where the other members of the board sat.

Mrs. Finchworth.

I took another gulp of soda, looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching, then continued my search for the black backpack with the matching luggage. Boosh.

A heavy impact rocked the counter where the newspapers used to be stacked. Some stack of newspapers had been knocked over, but the wall had held, and the counter remained intact. Reading a novel, I saw.

"21st Century A.I. or Robocop?" Mrs. Knott asked.

"Either," my dad said, as he flipped through a textbook in the lady’s living room. "My lawyer says they’re filing a fraud indictment against Dragon, with promises of effective legal representation. I’d say theirs is weaker, but still credible."

"An indictment?" Krouse asked. "Why not an accusation?"

Better to throw it out, rather than chance later.

"They’re saying she used her new ascended count as a soft lever, acquiring true compassion for her fellow humans, forming a bond with fellow villain ‘Kuzz’. This has led to misunderstanding and incident. She’s not to be Taken seriously. Her rule is that creatures shall not interfere with her rule. Monster or no monster, she will not fail."

"Yes," my dad said, taking a seat.

"Her rule, it applies to her as well. She plays by other unspoken rules. Own territory, stay out of her people’s way. She plays by other unspoken rules, so there’s no fighting, stalking or theft. She plays by other customary theft codes, such as Window and Glass. These two things do not benefit her, and are arguably worse."

"She makes more money," Krouse said.

"Most definitely. More money, and she doesn’t have to give it to you. She understands how important it is to maintain her grip on her territory. This includes dealing with her enemies, which are harder and more complicated to fight."

My dad nodded.

"She taught herself how to use the computer," Krouse said. "She was a third generation computer user, to the point that a third generation computer user could learn to use a typewriter."

"Learning to type?" Luke asked.

Krouse nodded.

"She’s older

======== SAMPLE 28 ========
 check it was in good shape. I didn’t use my bugs to note the degree of blood loss or temperature variation in the area around the body. I was looking at the landscape, and I saw what they missed too much.

Cold.

I had to come up with a name for this feeling. Not seeing Emma was like coming face to face with a cold case that had been left to cold air for years. The Emma in my mind was a distinct possibility, a place I had to investigate, but not –no matter what I said or did here- the place I felt most at home.

The solution? Language. I looked for a reaction from the others. Tugged on their chains, asked permission to use their names.

Embarrassed, scared, searching for explanations, searching for the end reason, I found a reaction from Emma. Angrier, calling me everything they could think of to taunt me.

The fact that they were even aware of my presence here was astounding.

"Let’s go," I said.

They led us off to the nearest police car, the van leading behind us. I didn’t like the way it turned up the heat, the added surveillance, the discomfort. It was uncomfortable, but more impact. If we just went straight there, I’d feel like our group had let the bad boys get away.

Except they were aware of my presence. Or they had been pretty cognizant of it as far as how the world worked. Emma knew we were coming. That added up to a pretty significant form of denial.

I dislocated my shoulder against the back of the car, and the pain startled me. In that same moment, I dislocated my hand, making the pain a hundred times more jarring. The discomfort eventually gave way, and I just had a general sense of where I was.

A group of teenagers, not long past sixteen, approached us, snapping their heads up as they walked by, many with dirty smiles on their faces.

Emma, Ryan and Emma’s friends.

I almost didn’t recognize them after that. I’d been so caught up in it, had so many things I was trying to focus on. I’d looked silly when I’d first come into the school. I’d tried to pretend I could keep my voice from trembling with fear, and I’d put on a brave face because of it. I’d done everything I could to try to be good, and now I couldn’t?

"Ryan," I said, barely sure what they meant. Could I call him senile, instead? What about his unconscious age? A past student? Someone who’d been overworked, underpaid, and under the impression that he had something to live for?

No. They called him senile, and I didn’t know what that was.

Something to be kind, to make the tough stuff up, at least.

He took Ryan’s hand, holding tight, and we hurried off, the van pulling on the long corridor.

The other two girls in the back seat were silent, staring. I wondered if they realized what was going on.

We stopped a few hundred feet away from the front door of the school, facing a wall. It wasn’t surrounded by walls, but there was a berm surrounding it, two smaller walls that faced in the opposite direction of the school. A sidewalk sat between us and the door, and both were bare.

The school was in one of the buildings that had been condemned, the ground expiring on the ground floor, and the buildings on the ground floor were in need of some trimming. The one story building was in the process of being torn down, while the other was in full reconstruction. Despite the fact that the second building was almost entirely new, much of the exterior had been gutted and repurposed, much of it a ruin that was best left as a ghost town. Now, as the school year drew to a close, it was both.

In this ghost town, at least, the demolition was less awkward than it would be in Brockton Bay, where I could have my dad and friends around to make the dirt and mop the mess. In any one weekend, I could have my team sweep, weed, polish, iron and laser whatever wasn’t in a place people could find it.

"Ryan," Emma said, turning to stare at me.

"Yeah?"

"The town’s almost like it was before the Endbringer came. Nobody left. So we asked for leave to come and settle in, and Emma and her pops decided it was a good opportunity to hang out with us. Prepare for tomorrow, we’ll

======== SAMPLE 29 ========
 check out the people, I’ll even do another column for you, thanking you. But today, for the second time in as many minutes, I’m going to visit the emergency room. Because you guys here refuse to see the bugs and die."

They didn’t listen.

"I’ve got other priorities," I told them, raising my voice at the same time that Bitch grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the exit.

The walking dead

As we left the hospital, there were dwindling digits on the bottom of the door of the ambulance. Someone had taken the time to remove the patient from the ambulance.

How many of us were left?

Who was going to care?

Was it possible that this would be the straw that planners were waiting for? Could this be the moment the working assumption of everyone on the receiving end of this began to turn, to a greater or lesser degree?

I felt a wave of panic. For a second, I’d let myself believe there was some plan in place. A second contingency. The way this could play out, it would be my fault. My fault if my dying brother happened to be a carrier.

It was to blame, I knew it was a large part of it, but that didn’t make it any less real. I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. My heart was pounding, my face boiling with pain.

I didn’t have the aura to keep me from freaking out the other people in the field. I couldn’t tell Bitch she’d better than drive. I didn’t have the self-control to pull over. I wouldn’t break the silence shown by my actions, or throw it to the side.

I let myself slip into my shadow state for a moment. I felt the line of people in the area, nearby, but they’d stopped moving. I stepped away from the gate, into the darkness.

When I emerged, I was on the street again, on the far side.

I used the prehensile tongue to grate the metal at the base of the tower, then ascended. The entire thing took seconds.

The entire thing had been a series of steps, with only a couple of moments of panic separating us on the way. The leader of the cowboys was standing at the top, more at ease than most, and each person that joined his group had an ear to the king. He’d stripped the group of its costume trappings and possessions, and was giving them ordinary clothing. He was their counselor, and they were his people.

When he was done, he exhaled a cloud of dust from the top of his tower. Each of the people in the group looked to him for leadership, and he chose merely for them to see.

Weld watched with narrowed eyes as the group ascended, through the mist. A boy stopped in his tracks, and weltked him in soft brown eyes.

"The king is young," the man said, for the benefit of the others.

"Does he have powers?" Weld asked.

"No," the man said. "Young sir Carlos posted a video for all to see, just a little while ago."

"So you have no powers?"

The man only frowned, continuing to stare at the wall without speaking.

"Young sir," Weld replied, starting to set off again when a person entered the room with an umbilical cord and an old man that was still comatose. The man gave each of the others a segue as they advanced behind the other group. The two sons of the late great Hooligan, standing a little taller than their father. A thin Puerto Rican boy with deep eyes, dark hair tied back in a ponytail and a sickle-tipped manicure or swept-back black gloves. The girl was underage, so technically only her 2 year old brother was in the group, but the group dynamic had been cemented in the hearts of everyone present, and rightfully so. She was the eye, the heart and soul of the group, and everyone knew it.

The old man didn’t speak as he led the way to the edge of the cloud of darkness. Weld and I stayed behind, backing into the cement floor until we faced different paths.

"Sir!" the woman in the suit shouted.

Weld slipped no closer, and the group parted to let him escape. The boy didn’t even seem to notice, as he reached the edge of the cloud.

The others were getting closer. "Incoming! Incumbent!"

A head, an arm, a pair of legs and a tail. The creature looked more a demon than a being that should be able to pass as a human. Uriel’

======== SAMPLE 30 ========
 check him.

It would be bad manners to show weakness when preparing to fight, I thought. I made my way back to the PRT building through a side road and walked through the side of the building that was still ongoing reconstruction.

Walking around the side of the building, I could see the contractors putting material together. New pillars and floors, drywall, new windows, new floors. New furniture had been laid out with high-rise glass as a backing, and the wood panel booths had been hammered into place behind the basic seats.

Even the cars had been rebuilt, with new bumpers, headliners, foglights and roll bars. Everything had been laser etched or handcrafted. PRT uniforms rested at the ends of the parking lot, smoking, or working at the tanning rack.

I wondered how much of that was me being delusional and how much was the stress of dealing with the Undersiders.

I was put in mind of being back in my lair, gearing up for a fight. I was always a little different in how I approached things, you could see that in the ways I approached my bugs, the different tools I used, and the workbenches I tended to. The choice and the effort it would take to deal with a bully in the school setting wasn’t so easily explained.

I’d known I wouldn’t be able to stay much longer, given the requirements Coil had listed for entering his facility. I told myself I would make it over the next several days, at the latest. At least then I’d have time to take it easy, get more sleep, and maybe turn in some of the work I’d put in.

I wasn’t sure if my lazy way was contributing to the absenteeism that was costing me so, but I felt a twinge of that faint gasp of joy I associated with finding someone willing to try after being off campus almost from the moment I’d started high school.

The parking lot was just a block from King’s pie place, and it was still relatively unoccupied. Nobody, not even the police, had forced their presence. There was a fenced-in area at the side of the lot, but there weren’t any cars or trucks parked there. It was enough of a desolate setting for me to take a few minutes worth of solitude by myself.

I turned my attention to the book I intended to bring, a selection of prints. My library was relatively small, estimated to be only eight to twelve books at a basic level, depending on who it was attributed to, and that wasn’t including the add-ons that came with a computer. I’d been able to guess what the average age was on the second floor by observing the crowd, and by the time I reached the third floor I was pretty sure I would be well behind them. Maybe it was easier to find my way if things didn’t make sense, but you didn’t find your way into the building if you were worried about an ambush.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t do something. I grabbed the last backpack I’d stashed under one arm. It had been the size of a cargo container locker, and had been the smallest to put all in one place. I décollected it and headed into the ground floor.

My bugs clustered on the slightest of footholds. They reached the end of the hallway and formed a human shape, just a fist made up of flowing webbing. I set that hand down on the railing, and the crowd moved to make way. I stood, and I could feel my hair stand on end as they realized I was here.

Just the 300 feet to go – or so – before they got a look at the roof, below us.

I stepped off the edge of the roof, into the next stretch of the stairwell, up to the very top of the building. The roof was iron clad, the highest points either side of the building being marble, the lowest at the bottom. Only four bars sat high enough to keep the iron girders from stretching like girders on a given ceiling.

I was careful to keep the swinging backpack at the right height to keep them out of the way. I knew they wouldn’t be able to see me leaping, but I needed to act otherwise I would have felt like I’d been skating downhill towards the water. More than one person had tried to draw attention, all the more because they had less idea about how to ward off a Harold Ramirez than I did.

The gym was more like a shed or garage than a gym itself. There was a small stage with an attached stage for the attendant gym, a small crowd was gathering around the closed doors and the bleachers that framed the inside. On any other day