by wildbow
“Quiet,” Armsmaster interrupted her.
“Nobody ever lets me talk!” she spoke, turning on her heel to walk away, flouncing, almost. It was a bit theatrical, overacting. I wondered if someone that didn’t know her would catch it. “Whatever. Grue, let’s go.”
Grue looked at her.
“It’s cool,” she gave him a little smile, then she offered me one, “Hey Skitter, don’t sweat it. We’ll handle this, kay?”
“Kay,” I muttered. In a way, I was relieved at the idea of them leaving. I had no idea what I’d do, but it was a relief anyways.
Miss Militia raised her gun a fraction, waved it toward the others to prod them onward. One by one, they turned. Tattletale led the herd in walking away, followed my Regent and Bitch. Grue was the last to turn away, with Miss Militia following him.
When they were out of earshot, Legend floated over the counter to land in front of me.
“We’ve given you three options. Pick one or I’ll choose for you.”
I opened my mouth, closed it. The only things I could think of to say would only get me in more trouble.
“This working? This on? Good.” The tinny female voice rang out from the armbands of the two heroes.
Armsmaster snapped his head around. I followed his line of sight to where Grue, Regent and Bitch were standing in between Tattletale and Miss Militia.
For those of you who don’t have a front row seat, the very well-armed Miss Militia is currently doing her best to point a Beretta 92fs at my head. If this broadcast ends prematurely, you can all rest assured that the Protectorate is willing to kill and break the truce if it means censoring its dark, dirty little secrets.
Legend grabbed me, hauling me into the air as he crossed the length of the room, Armsmaster hurrying behind as we raced towards the scene.
“Free speech is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” I saw Tattletale’s lips moving as she broadcast the message. She wasn’t holding any buttons down on her armband, but it was going through with no difficulty. Miss Militia held a handgun pointed at Grue’s heart.
Other capes were in the vicinity, some of the Travelers, New Wave, out of towners. Not quite in earshot, maybe, but close enough to see everything unfold.
The heroine looked at Armsmaster as we arrived, “She said something about deep access, offered your name, then the armband asked her for your password. She knew your password.”
“Armband, pause announcement,” Tattletale spoke.
Acknowledged, her armband replied.
With his one arm, Armsmaster reached for his shoulder, but his halberd wasn’t there. Photon Mom had apparently decided not to bring it when she’d carried him here. No EMP burst possible.
“Let’s negotiate,” Tattletale spoke, taking a step to one side, ducking a little to ensure that someone else was always in between herself and Miss Militia. Bitch scowled as the gun moved to point toward her head, with Tattletale roughly on the other side.
“Negotiate?” Legend asked.
“Sure. Let’s turn things around. You gave Skitter your three options. Here’s my three. Number one: shoot us now, and confirm to everyone in this room, civilian and cape alike, hero and villain, that you’ve got something to hide. It doesn’t even have to be lethal, people will still have their concerns if you knock us out rather than let us talk.”
Legend nodded, “Okay.”
“Two: I do my little announcement, and the truce ends. I really don’t want to do that. I recognize how necessary it is. But if you decide that one cape’s identity maybe getting publically revealed is worth the truce, well, that’s on you, not me.”
“And the third option is that we release the girl,” Legend guessed.
“You got it,” Tattletale spoke.
“Except that you could be bluffing,” Legend frowned. “You’re a master manipulator, according to Armsmaster.”
“True enough. You know, Alexandria was giving me a recap on what I missed, in exchange for my intel on the Endbringer. Let’s see… Armband, find me the largest break in casualties from the earlier Leviathan encounter.”
Found.
“Mark this time period.”
Marked.
“The notifications in the minute before the mark?”
Sundancer down, ED-6. Eschutcheon deceased, CD-6. Herald deceased, CD-6.
“What is the point of this?” Legend asked.
“Please replay us the notifications following the mark, until I tell you to stop.”
Manpower deceased, CD-6. Aegis deceased, CD-6. Fenja down, CC-6. Fenja deceased, CC-6. Kid Win down, CC-6. Skitter deceased, CC-6. Kaiser deceased, CC-6.
“Stop.”
“What is the point of this?” Legend folded his arms.
“Skitter’s right here, she’s not dead.”
“My armband broke,” I replied.
“Did it? Or did someone break it?” Tattletale’s gaze went to Armsmaster, her voice dropping in volume to ensure that our ‘audience’ didn’t hear.
“What are you implying?” Armsmaster growled.
“I’m implying that you set things up to guarantee yourself a one-on-one fight with Leviathan. Who cares, after all, if some villains get murdered in the process, if it means stopping an Endbringer?”
Armsmaster raised his voice, “This is exactly the sort of manipulation—”
“Elaborate,” the one spoken word from Legend was sufficient to cut Armsmaster off.
“Armsmaster has a fancy computer system in his suit, set it up to predict Leviathan’s movements and actions. Clockblocker tagged the Endbringer, put him on pause long enough for Armsmaster to set up the playing field the way he wanted it, with that predictive program. Leviathan’s going after the people who can make forcefields, and Armsmaster uses this, dangles Kaiser like bait, puts more villains—Fenja and Menja—in the way to Kaiser. Sure enough, Leviathan marks Kaiser as a target, charges through the conveniently arranged villains, and goes straight to the spot where Skitter is.”
“Oh no,” I heard Miss Militia mutter under her breath.
“This is nonsense,” Armsmaster spoke, stabbing his index finger towards her. “Heroes died too.”
Tattletale didn’t hesitate a second in replying, “To your credit, if any credit is due, that was an accident. Your program can’t account for that many variables, probably, in the chaos of a bunch of capes trying to keep Leviathan pinned down. Either way, Leviathan did as you wanted, followed the path you plotted. You used a directed EMP blast to nuke Skitter’s armband, ensuring that she couldn’t report Leviathan’s position and call in reinforcements, buying you time to take on Leviathan one on one. Who cares if she dies, after all? She’s a villain, and you’re positive you’ll win, that it’ll be worth the body count you just allowed Leviathan to rack up. Except you lost.”
Armsmaster scowled at her.
“This is a serious set of accusations,” Legend spoke.
“Sure.”
“But it’s speculation.”
Tattletale shrugged, “Take Skitter’s armband. It’ll have damage from the EMP hit.”
“You bitch,” Armsmaster snarled. “This is a lie.”
“Check the armband,” Tattletale repeated. “And you’ll see the truth.”
“Convenient that this would take days or weeks to check,” Armsmaster spoke.
“True, so how about I just do another announcement? Tell everyone that’s still wearing an armband an abbreviated version of the same story I just told you? How do you think they’d react? If you’re really innocent, I’m sure your name would be cleared eventually, after the test results came back from the armband. If it’s wrong, we get in everyone’s bad books for fucking around with an Endbringer situation. Hell, I’ll even submit to being detained while you get things checked out. You can take me from there to jail if I’m wrong. Either way, you get some jerk in custody.”
Legend frowned.
Armsmaster lunged forward, swatting Grue aside with his armored hand. He shoved Regent as
ide, reached for Tattletale.
A laser to the right shoulder spun him around, sent him sprawling to the ground. His armor smoked where the laser had made contact.
“Who!? Why!?” Armsmaster flopped over, saw Legend with one open hand aimed at him. “Legend?”
Miss Militia pointed her handgun at his lower face.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t want this getting out,” Tattletale spoke, looking at the heroine. “Let us walk away, I keep my lips sealed.”
“I know you were tired, that you hadn’t slept all last night,” Miss Militia told Armsmaster, ignoring Tattletale. “Frustrated, your dream taken from you. But to go this far?”
“It was for the greater good,” Armsmaster replied, without a trace of shame or humility. “If it had worked, Leviathan would be dead, the man holding Empire Eighty-Eight together dead. All of us survivors would have been legends, and this city could have risen from the ashes, become something truly great.”
“It didn’t work,” Tattletale spoke. “Couldn’t.”
“Shut up. You’ve said enough,” Armsmaster spat the words, looked away from her, breathing hard.
“The way the Endbringer’s physiology works? You could detonate a small atom bomb in his face, he’d probably survive. Take him two or three years to recover, but he’d survive.”
“Shut up!” Armsmaster raised his head to shout at her. He stopped, eyes flickering to me. When he spoke again, his voice was almost calm. “You don’t know everything.”
No.
“Her,” he pointed a hand at me, “she’s not who you think she is.”
I spoke quickly, “Grue, shut him up.”
Grue raised his hand. But he didn’t blanket Armsmaster in his darkness.
“She’s a wannabe hero. Has been from the start, since the night Lung was first brought into custody.”
Grue’s hand dropped to his side.
“I met her that night. She said she was a hero, that you Undersiders mistook her for a villain. I didn’t think twice about it until she arranged a meeting with me, the night before the bank robbery. Told me she had joined your group as an undercover agent, getting the dirt on you so she could hand that group over to us. Talked to me again the night you raided the fundraiser, out there on the balcony. Told me if I let her go, she’d get the details on your boss to me. Guess she hasn’t gotten around to figuring that little detail out, yet.”
I tried to speak, to say something, even ‘I changed my mind’. My throat was too dry to form the words.
Armsmaster turned, shouted at the capes who stood watching, “You want to look down on me!? I tried to save this city, I got closer to killing the fucking Endbringer than Scion! That girl is the person you should be mocking, spitting on! A wannabe hero without the balls to do anything heroic! Planning from the start to betray teammates for fame!”
I stepped back, swallowed hard.
“Is this true?”
I turned to look at Grue, but he wasn’t asking me. The question was for Tattletale.
“Yeah,” Tattletale confirmed, sighing.
Bitch stared at me wide eyed, teeth bared, as if all basic human expression had left her as she regarded me. Regent looked me up and down, turned away, as if in disgust, one fist clenched hard enough to make the area around the long stitched up cut on his arm stand out in white.
I couldn’t see Grue’s face, could barely make out his body language, but I knew that it would have stung ten times worse than anything else if I could see his expression in that moment.
Tattletale was the only one who didn’t look surprised.
I backed away a step, and nobody moved to stop me. The heroes were preoccupied with Armsmaster, the Undersiders couldn’t or wouldn’t go around the gathered heroes to follow me.
Some of the capes that were in the vicinity were staring at me. Murmuring. Panacea was among them, looking at me as though I were from another planet.
I turned and ran out of the hospital, out the door and into the street, kept running.
Except I had no place to run to.
Extermination 8.8
How was a city like Brockton Bay supposed to pay its respects to all the heroes, villains and miscellaneous others that died to protect it? Until about five years ago, the answer had been a funeral.
It really hadn’t worked out.
On the surface, it was a great idea, had made for an amazing scene. Grand speeches about great moments of true selflessness from even despicable villains, good guys doing the most heroic of sacrifices.
Except problems started to stack up. Could the people in charge of the event really let someone stand up and give a eulogy for someone like Kaiser? If they did, you earned the wrath of the dozens or hundreds of people who’d had their lives changed for the worse by Empire Eighty-Eight.
The uneasy solution had been to avoid saying anything about the local villains, beyond the fact that they had participated, but problems had stemmed from that, too. Subordinates or teammates of the fallen villains had made a scene over these omissions, sometimes during the funerals, and villain participation in Endbringer situations started to decline.
More issues came up, rooted in the reality that people who went out in costume were more theatrical or dramatic as a rule. Too many vying to take the spotlight, hero and villain alike, even some of the fallen, with measures or requests placed in advance. It didn’t happen every time, but enough events became sideshows and media circuses that the whole purpose of the events was defeated. The media was banned from recording the event, but the capes who’d sought to stand out only tried harder. Fights had erupted.
So the funeral services became less frequent. Then they stopped altogether.
A memorial was simpler. All who had joined the fight could be treated equally. There could be no snubs, really, nor could there be insults, dramatic oaths, taunts or speaking ill of dead rivals and nemeses before cameras or audiences of capes. It was simply a dedication to the dead, a list of names, sometimes with a statue, if the groups involved could decide on something that didn’t too closely resemble a particular hero or villain. Ever a difficult, delicate balancing act.
Brockton Bay’s memorial had no statue. It seemed to be black marble with stainless steel in the core of the monument, so that the etched letters stood out in a metal gleam, even reflecting the sun’s light if the time and viewer’s position was right. The overall shape formed an obelisk, with the corners and base unpolished and rough, only the four sides smoothed and polished. It was out of the way, placed atop Captain’s Hill, at the base of the mountains to the west of the city. I wasn’t sure if it was put there to stay or if they intended to move it after reconstruction and city revival efforts.
Even with the memorial being out of the way, set down in place five days after the attack, it had taken a full week before the worst of the crowds were gone. Four times, I’d felt compelled to come see it and pay my respects, only to see the press of people and turn back.
Now I was here, along with a little less than a hundred people, only a small fraction of whom were actually viewing the obelisk. Others sat on the hill or picnicked. As strange and vaguely inappropriate as it seemed, I couldn’t really blame them. The memorial had been put here, specifically, because the rest of the city had been devastated.
In any given area of Brockton Bay, there was flooding, shattered streets, collapsed buildings, septic conditions or ongoing reconstruction. Often three or four of those things at once. More than half of the city was without power, two thirds had no running water, and even with the rest of the country and the world pitching in, uneven food distribution, health concerns, lack of facilities and rampant looting and crime made for dangerous living. Buses were leaving every hour with evacuees, but the city was still thick with crowds of people just struggling to get by. Too many were people who had no relatives or friends to go to, who wouldn’t leave their remaining possessions behind to be taken by unscrupulous thieves. Captain’s Hill, for now, was a place that was safe, d
ry and clean.
I walked around the monument, noting the names.
Escutcheon / Tyrone Venson
Erudite / Mavis Shoff
Fenja / Jessica Biermann
Fierceling /
Frenetic /
Furrow /
Gallant / Dean Stansfield
Geomancer / Tim Mars
Good Neighbor / Roberto Peets
Hallow /
Herald / Gordon Eckhart
Humble /
Gallant was dead. Unsettling to think that I’d met him and fought him. Or, rather, I’d fought against his team in the same skirmish, even if we hadn’t actually paid attention to one another in the fight. Now he was gone.
I could guess that the ones without names either hadn’t given permission for their names to be released, hadn’t written any will or had reason to keep their names private, protecting teammates. I circled the monument, walking around to the right.
Impel / Corey Steffons
Iron Falcon / Brent Woodrow
Jotun /
Kaiser / Max Anders
Manpower / Neil Pelham
Mister Eminent /
Oaf / Wesley Scheaffer
Pelter / Stefanie Lamana
Penitent /
Quark / Caroline Ranson
Resolute / Georgia Woo
Saurian / Darlene Beckman
I noted Iron Falcon on the list. A few nights ago, trying and failing to fall asleep, managing a half-sleep where my thoughts drifted, I’d made the connection between the boy I’d helped and the ‘Iron Falcon down’ report I’d heard from the armband. The name had maybe stuck with me because I could remember reading about how it was becoming a trend for heroes to go the easy route and stick ‘hawk’ or some other bird of prey on the end of their names. Laserhawk, Flame Falcon, Steel Eagle, and so on. It had become unfashionable, but apparently Iron Falcon had stuck with it.
If his name was here, it meant he hadn’t made it. Hadn’t it been a problem with his leg? How did that kill someone? It was hard to figure out how I felt about it. Disappointed? Sad for him?
It was hard to figure out how I felt, period. Not just about the dead.
I shivered, and rubbed my arms to warm up. It was sunny out, but cool air rolled down from the nearby mountains, and the amount of moisture in the air made for a damp cold.