by wildbow
“That’s not as much as you might think it is, when you’re talking about this much territory.”
“No, but it’s something. Look, Coil’s a proud guy. He said it himself. He’d be upset if he took over the city and it wasn’t better than it was before. I’ve got the old Boardwalk here. I can help set that going again. I’ve also got the Docks, here. A part of it. If I can improve things here, if I can take this place and make it better than it’s been in decades, wouldn’t that be a feather in his cap?”
“Even if things went smoothly, that’s not going to happen fast, and it’s not going to be easy.”
Not fast. Grue had been pretty merciless in trying to poke holes in my approach, but the realization that he was right on that score was like a punch in the gut. “If I can show Coil I’m making headway…”
Even I wasn’t convincing myself. Coil wouldn’t give Dinah up for something as minor as a good start. I think Grue noticed my dejection.
“I’m sorry if I’m being hard on you,” Grue settled one hand on the armor of my shoulder.
“No. You’re right. I’ve been thinking too short-term.”
“I really did want to come by and talk about less serious things. It’s a shame we can’t.”
“We have time to do that, don’t we? We could go back to my lair, hang. I can show you what I’ve got done on your new costume, and we could talk about the mask,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “No. What I meant was that I’d hoped to spend today talking about that stuff. But we’re not going to get the chance. Something more serious has come up.”
“Oh hell.” My initial suspicions had been right. This wasn’t a social call.
“Regent got a visit from one of the Slaughterhouse Nine last night. So did Coil, though the man is quiet on details. Coil’s also reporting that Hookwolf got a visit on Tuesday, and one of Coil’s undercover operatives died in the ensuing carnage. The PRT office downtown also got hit, according to Tattletale…”
“They’re active.”
“Yeah. More to the point, they’re recruiting. Looking for a ninth to round out their group. Regent was one candidate.”
“Who was the other, at Coil’s?”
“Coil isn’t saying. We think, with Tattletale’s educated guess helping us out, that Hookwolf might have been another possible recruit.”
“And at the PRT offices? Shadow Stalker?”
“As good a guess as any. We’re not sure where she wound up.”
“So what does this mean?”
“It means Hookwolf is calling together a meeting of the local powers that be. Crook, criminal, mercenary and warlord. We have to decide if we want to go.”
“He was one of the people they visited.”
“He was. Which means this could be a trap. Some kind of grand slaughter to commemorate his joining the group. Taking out the other prospective members in the process, like Regent.”
“Or it could be a target for the Slaughterhouse Nine to attack. Create chaos, maximum bloodshed, the kind of stuff that gets attention. They’d be killing some of their possible recruits, but that’d suit them, being unpredictable, never letting you think you’re safe.”
Grue nodded.
“At the same time, if we don’t go, it’s crucial info that we’re missing out on.” I thought aloud. “What does Dinah say?”
“Her power is out of commission after the attack on Coil’s base, apparently.”
“So we’re flying blind, with only Coil’s power to back us up.”
“Whatever it is.”
“Whatever it is.” I echoed him, feeling bad for the dishonesty and my lack of disclosure. “What do Coil and Tattletale have to say about the meeting?”
“Coil wants everyone present. Tattletale thinks Hookwolf is on the up and up, but he’s only one of the potential problems that could come up.”
I thought of the others who would be at the meeting. “Like the fact that Skidmark is one of the local powers. Or he is if he’s managed to recuperate rep-wise from the ass kicking that Faultline gave him. He’s not exactly the type to keep to the truce at the meeting. An unpredictable element.”
“Yeah.”
“But if Tattletale is right, and Hookwolf isn’t on the side of the Slaughterhouse Nine, if we can trust Skidmark to have the basic common sense to back the rest of us up if they attack—”
Brian turned toward me, and I could imagine him giving me an ‘are you serious?’ look behind his visor.
“—or at least not get in our way,” I corrected myself. “We could fight back, if it wound up being most of the villain groups against the Nine. Our group’s powersets lend themselves to slipping away if that went sour, and Tattletale might be able to sense trouble before it hit us.”
“You’re talking like you want to do this.”
“I do. Kind of. If all the top villains of the city attend and we don’t, are we really doing ourselves any favors? Our rep will take a nosedive, we’ll be out of the loop, and there’s nothing saying we wouldn’t be targeted by the Nine all the same if we sit it out.”
“Why do I get the feeling your decision here is motivated by your rushed attempts to get more control, more rep and finish this phase of our territory grab as soon as possible?”
“Because it is.”
He sighed, and the sound was eerie, altered by his darkness. “To think I used to like that you were hardcore serious about the supervillain thing.”
That touched on that sensitive subject again. My original motivations, my act, such as it was back then. I turned the subject of our debate back to the meeting. “What do you think? If it was up to you and you alone, would you want us to go?”
“No. But it isn’t up to me and me alone. When I weigh everything in my head, including the risk of our groups spending time fighting and arguing on the subject when we could be organizing and putting measures in place to protect our territory in our absence? I think it makes more sense to accept it and go with the flow.”
“When is the meeting?”
“With a situation this critical? There’s no time to waste. Tonight.”
Plague 12.2
I’d spent nearly sixteen years in Brockton Bay, living a half-hour’s walk away from the ocean and I couldn’t remember ever being on a boat. How sad was that?
I mean, I was sure I’d been on a boat before. My parents had to have taken me on the ferry when I was a baby or toddler. I just didn’t remember any of it. My parents were introverts, by and large, and their idea of an outing had been more along the lines of a trip down the Boardwalk, a visit to the Market or going to an art gallery or museum. Maybe once in a while we’d go to something more thrilling like a fair or baseball game, but no… this was the first time I could remember being out on the water.
It was exhilarating, the boat ride. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I loved the feeling of the wind in my hair, the slight turbulence as the boat bounced on the short waves. It wasn’t that different from how I had enjoyed riding Bitch’s dogs, and there was none of that primal, deep-seated worry that the hulking monster I was riding would turn around and snap my face off. I’d almost think I had been destined to fly, based on how thoroughly I enjoyed myself, and that it was only bad luck that I’d gotten other powers instead… except I remembered flying with Laserdream as the Endbringer attacked, and that hadn’t been the most enjoyable experience. That might have been a special circumstance; I’d been dealing with the fact that I’d had a broken arm, I’d recently puked my guts out, I’d been soaking wet, and an Endbringer had been working on wiping my hometown and everyone I cared about from the face of the planet.
That day would almost feel like something that had happened in a dream, if I hadn’t spent every hour of every day since living in the aftermath.
Coil’s people had dropped us off along with two sleek motorboats, depositing them at the water’s edge. Grue was in one boat with Bitch, her three dogs and a puppy she had on a long chain.
I wasn’t sure if the
puppy conveyed the image we wanted, but with her attitude towards me lately, I wasn’t willing to comment and risk her going off on me. She’d remained angry after I’d called her out on her screwing me over and setting me up for Dragon to arrest, but she’d left me more or less alone.
The puppy was cute. It was skittish, especially around people, which seemed a little odd. It wasn’t the kind of dog I’d expect Bitch to favor. Too young, not vicious or intimidating in appearance. On the other hand, skittish as it was, it had an aggressive streak. It constantly hounded Bentley, nipping at his flanks, then spooking and running away the second the bulldog looked at him. It had made for a fair amount of noise when we’d been getting the boats into the water. One for Bitch, her dogs and Grue, one for the rest of our group.
Our boats weren’t out on the ocean. We traveled through the area downtown where Leviathan had collapsed a section of the city. It was now more or less an artificial lake. The water was fairly still, lapping gently against the ruined roads and collapsed buildings that surrounded the crater, but with the speed these boats were capable of going, even waves a half-foot high made us ramp slightly off one and then crash down onto the next with a sudden spray.
Tattletale was at the back, steering the thing. It seemed counter-intuitive, with the boat going the opposite direction she pushed or pulled the stick. Still, she seemed competent at it. Better than Grue, which I found slightly amusing.
From time to time, I was finding myself in a strange emotional state. As I stayed alert for it, I was able to catch those moments, try to pick them apart for what they were. The high-end motor whirred and the boat bounced over the waves, the wind and water getting in my hair, all while we headed into the most ridiculously dangerous and unpredictable situation we’d been in for weeks. It was one of those moments; I felt almost calm.
For a year and a half, I’d spent almost all of my time in a state of constant anxiety. Anxiety about schoolwork, my teachers, my peers, my dad, my mom’s death, my body, my clothes, trying to hold conversations without embarrassing myself, and about the bullies and what they would do next. Everything had been tainted by the constant worries and the fact that I’d constantly been preparing for the worst case scenarios and maybe even setting up self-fulfilling prophecies in the process. I’d spent every waking moment immersed in it. Either I was stressing over something I’d done or something that had happened, I was concerned with the now, or I was anxious over what came in the future: distant or near. There was always something.
And that was before I’d ever put on a costume and found myself caught up in my double-crossing plan against the Undersiders and everything that had stemmed from that. Before Dinah and running away from home, before I’d decided to go villain. Stuff that made some of what I’d been worried over before seem trivial.
So why could I feel calm now?
I think it was that realization that there were moments where I was helpless to act, oddly enough. This boat? Speeding across the Endbringer-made lake? I had to be here. There was no other option, really. As I clutched the metal rim of the boat with one hand while we soared forward, the wind in my hair, I could accept the fact that I couldn’t do anything in this time and place to get Dinah out of captivity sooner.
With that in mind, I surrendered myself of that responsibility for the present. Much in that same way, I cast off all the other worries, great and small.
A light flashed ahead of us. Three blinks, then two.
“Regent!” Tattletale called out.
Regent raised a flashlight and flashed it twice, paused, then flashed it twice again.
There was one flash in response.
Grue slowed his boat as we reached our destination. Our meeting place was in the center of the lake, one of the buildings that still partially stood above water, leaning to one side so a corner of the roof was submerged, the opposite corner peaking high. Tattletale didn’t slow our boat like Grue had his, and instead steered the boat in a wide ‘u’ to ride it up onto the corner of the roof. Regent and I hopped out to grab the front of the boat and help pull it up. When Grue rode his boat aground as well, a little more carefully, we helped him too. Bitch hopped out and spent a moment using gestures and tugs on the puppy’s leash to get her dogs arranged and settled.
Hookwolf and his Chosen had situated themselves at the corner of the roof that stood highest from the surrounding water. Hookwolf stood with his arms folded, densely covered in bristling spikes, barbs, blades and hooks, only his face untouched by the treatment, covered by his metal wolf mask instead. Othala, Victor and Cricket were sitting on the raised edge of the roof behind him. Stormtiger floated in the air just beside Cricket, and Rune had levitated three chunks of pavement into the air behind the group, each the size of a fire truck, like weapons poised at the ready. She sat on the edge of one of the chunks, her feet dangling over Victor’s head. Menja stood just behind Rune on the floating piece of shattered road, twelve feet tall, fully garbed in her valkyrie armor, a shield in one hand and a long spear in the other.
I almost missed it in the gloom, but when I did spot it, it was almost impossible to ignore. On every patch of skin I could see in the Chosen’s group, scars and scratches had just barely healed over. There were still faint indents and lines of pale skin that marked where the deep lacerations had been. The little scars made patterns across their skin, some spraying out from a single point, others running parallel to one another, going in the same direction like a snapshot of rainfall imprinted on their skin. With that many scratches and scars, they must have been hit hard.
Faultline’s group was gathered to one side. Faultline, Newter, and the new member Shamrock wore more concealing costumes than their usual. Faultline’s face was covered in a tinted visor, and her arms and legs were covered in opaque gloves and leggings. Labyrinth and Spitfire were fully decked out in their usual concealing robe and fire-retardant suits, respectively. Only Gregor showed skin. The barnacle-like growths of spiral shells that covered his skin had multiplied on one side of his body, until there was more shell than skin. The skin around it was crimson enough that it stood out in the gloom. It looked tender.
I saw a flash of light above us, and spotted Purity in the air high above the rooftop, using her power to create a flare of light, extinguish it, then create it again. There was an answering series of flashes from across the water. It was a different set of signals than the ones she’d set up with us. It made sense for the light signals to be different from group to group, so Purity could keep track of who was coming and where from. The main reason we’d agreed on this meeting place were the seclusion it offered, and the fact that it was just hard enough to access that the Nine wouldn’t be able to approach without us knowing. Hopefully.
All at once, an incoming boat made its presence known. As though a switch was flipped, there was the sound of something that sounded like the combined noise of radio static coming from a bank of speakers, an eighteen wheeler with the muffler off and an onrushing train. It wasn’t just noise—the vehicle flickered with flashes of electricity and lights that people could probably see from anywhere downtown.
Seeing it approach, I had no doubt it was a tinker contraption. It was the size of a small yacht, but it looked outfitted for war, with what looked like tesla coils crossed with old school TV antennae fueling its forward momentum and sending arcs of electricity dancing over the waves in its wake, as though it was riding on a current of lightning. Various guns had been placed haphazardly around the upper deck, each manned by a Merchant. Skidmark stood at the highest deck with Squealer, the driver.
Squealer had apparently never grasped the concept of elegance in design. From what I’d read and heard, she went for size, augmentations and additions when she built her vehicles. She was kind of the polar opposite of Armsmaster in that regard.
The hull of their boat scraped against the edge of the building, nearly running over the boat that Grue and Bitch had come in on. All of the lights shut off, and the Merchants descended onto the ro
of. Skidmark, Squealer, Mush, Scrub, Trainwreck, the telekinetic whirlwind lady with the long hair and one other.
Another reason for this meeting place had been subtlety, keeping out of sight and off the radar. The Merchants apparently hadn’t gotten the message.
“Hey!” Hookwolf growled, “What part of keep a low profile don’t you fucking understand?”
Skidmark smirked, raising his chin to give it an arrogant tilt, “We did. My Squealer built a box that cancels out light and noise at a certain distance. Nice and in your face up close, almost invisible and silent when far away. Isn’t that right, baby?”
Squealer just smiled. It probably wasn’t as sexy or cute as she thought it was. Aisha, when left to her own devices, was a pretty girl who dressed trashy. Squealer, I felt, was more of a trashy woman who dressed trashy.
“Hey, Faultline,” Skidmark’s smirk dropped off his face as he realized who else was present. “What the motherfuck were you doing, fucking with my party!?”
“You had something we needed.” Faultline’s response was as measured and calm as Skidmark’s question wasn’t.
“Who hired you, bitch? Tell me and my Merchants won’t come after you in revenge. All you’ll have to do is return that shit you stole or pay me back for it. Maybe you can spit-polish my knob for a little goodwill.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Then forget sucking my cock. Pay me back and tell me who hired you and we’ll call it even.”
She shook her head. It was more the kind of head shake that accompanied an eye roll.
Skidmark went on, “You’re mercenaries. Don’t tell me you don’t have the cash. I’ll only ask for five mil. One for each vial you took.”
Fautline didn’t answer him. Instead she looked at Hookwolf and asked him, “Did we really need to invite him? Does he contribute anything to this discussion?”
“He has nine powers on his team,” Hookwolf responded. “Ideology isn’t important.”
“He doesn’t have an ideology. He’s just an idiot.”
“Enough of that,” Hookwolf snarled, his voice hard with a sudden anger. “We don’t fight amongst ourselves. Not on neutral ground. Both of you shut the fuck up.”