by wildbow
I buried them in every kind of insect I had that could eat, cut or pierce meat. The bugs didn’t eat their fill: they simply bit, chewed, let the food fall from their mouths, then bit again.
Bonesaw’s hands were smooth as glass as she reached for her belt. She was cool and collected, even as the bugs slowly flayed her.
She was stopped short as the silk strands tangled her ceramic fingers.
My bugs could hear her speak. Though I could barely make out the words, I thought maybe the first one was ‘Jack’. She held out her hands.
I tried to bind him, but tying his arm to his side was harder than using silk cords to lash fingers together. At least partially blinded by the capsaicin, he swiped his knife a few times in Bonesaw’s direction. He cut her several times, and my bugs could feel her flesh part around her collarbone and face. Some of the cuts were on target, however, and the threads around her fingers were severed. An instant later, she was free to put together her anti-bug smoke, working her hands to break the threads as I tried to tangle her fingers again.
Okay. Not the end of the world. The bugs were still devouring the three, and I still had a plan in mind. An idle hope.
I withdrew the tissues I’d wadded in the changepurse to keep the contents from jingling or rattling around. My bugs took hold of them and carried them into the air, two or three dozen in all.
I tested the lighter, then held it out to ignite the first tissue.
It was a slow burn, taking fifteen or twenty seconds to consume the paper. The flies that carried it died as the flame reached them, consuming them.
By the time the first was burned, my bugs were positioning the second, allowing it to ignite. In this manner, I chained them one after the other. A slow-moving relay of flame.
Bonesaw had her smoke going, despite my efforts to rebind her fingers, and I could feel it murdering my bugs en-masse. I pulled them away and out of the shelter, leaving only a few to track the movements of the Nine.
The trail of burning tissues made their way inside the shelter. I ignited the last few tissues and sent them to Bonesaw. I could feel the bugs die as they hit the smoke.
Nothing. I swore.
It had been too much to hope for, that the smoke was flammable. Even if the smoke had exploded in the mildest possible way, it would have at least given me a countermeasure.
I turned away from the area. I’d told the others I would play safe. I’d tried what I could, I’d maybe even done a little damage to them, now I’d back off. I’d earned Siberian’s attention by attacking her creator, but she was preoccupied with Legend, so that was one threat I didn’t have to worry about. The rest of the Nine were still inside.
Legend, for his part, was keeping up the measured, carefully paced assault. I saw him raise one hand to his ear.
A communication from his team? Had something happened with the rest of the Protectorate? Or the other members of the Nine?
He dove straight for the shelter. Siberian gave chase, and without slowing in the slightest, he raked a laser across the street to render her footing less stable. It couldn’t have bought him more than a fraction of a second, if it even made a difference at all; I could see her placing one foot on a shattered piece of road that wouldn’t have held a squirrel without collapsing. She used it to kick herself forward, soaring after Legend, hands curled into claws. He was ahead of her by only ten or fifteen feet.
The scattered bugs I had at the fringes of the extermination smoke gave me only a half-completed picture. Legend inside, blasting a laser in the direction of the cloud where Jack, Bonesaw and Siberian’s creator were. He grabbed one of the civilians that were standing dumbly in the shelter, only to get mobbed. She latched onto him, and the others did the same, trying to drag him down. My bugs felt a flash of heat as he used his laser to blast at them and free himself. Another laser speared out of the top of the Library, followed soon after by Legend, spearing up toward the sky. He directed another laser straight down at the library, continuing to fly straight up.
That was reason for me to do the same. I rose with one hand on Atlas’s horn, and I drew my phone with the other. I speed dialed Tattletale. Trusting to her penchant for picking up the phone on the first ring, I started shouting before I heard any response, “Something’s up! Take cover and get back!”
The stealth bomber streaked across the sky, just as it had before. Its payload this time was smaller, barely visible.
The devastation wasn’t so easy to miss.
The only word for it was chaos. I could hardly pick out the individual effects as they mingled. A cloud of yellow-green smoke being pulled into a spiral around a vortex, which was causing the section of the library that had turned to glass to shatter and implode. There was a flare of brilliant mixed colors I could barely look at, frying a scattered assortment of boneless, faceless, fleshy monsters. One monster made it four steps before being turned to dust. Where the dust touched, more dust was created, until the vortex expanded enough to start pulling it all in, stopping what might have been an endless chain reaction.
I could see time slowing in one spot, I could see pavement heating into a liquid in another. I could see one area that was serene, untouched, a bubble where a newspaper that had been scattered on the ground was flapping violently with the movement of air. Half a building was annihilated by the flash of an explosion, and it toppled into the midst of the bomb site. In seconds, it was obliterated and chewed up.
The effects spread and expanded all down the street, a stripe of this madness three blocks wide, extending into the midst of the blaze from the previous bombing run.
I drifted toward Legend, raising my hands over my head to show I meant no harm.
“Thank you for the assistance,” he spoke, when I was in earshot. “Some was misguided or off target, but it did make a difference.”
I could only nod.
He put one hand to his ear, then paused for several long seconds. When he spoke, it was vague. “Acknowledged.”
I waited, staring down at the disaster area below.
“Crawler and Mannequin observed to be in the blast site.”
“How did they disengage while keeping them there? They—they did disengage?”
“Clockblocker managed to tether Mannequin in place. Crawler freed himself from the same trap by tearing himself in two against the immovable object. It was Piggot who managed to keep Crawler in the blast area.”
“How?”
“She had Weld pass on a message, telling Crawler what we had planned. He was so tickled at the idea that we would be able to hurt him that he stayed where he was while the teams made their retreat.”
“Just like that?”
“Apparently so.”
“If he survives—”
“He didn’t.”
There was a series of smaller explosions below. I could see a section of ruined building glowing red, then detonating in a blast of light that sent a nearby glacier spinning into a patch of burning ground.
“And the other three?”
“Remains to be seen. The civilians are dead, but it’s something of a mercy. Bonesaw’s mechanical spiders were welded to their skeletons, allowing her to remotely control them. Like zombies, only they were aware and in incredible pain. I expect she had measures to inflict agonizing deaths on them if we attempted to disconnect them from her spider-frames. Maybe I could have saved them, can’t say. From the glimpses I saw of them, I don’t know if they would have thanked me.”
We spent a minute staring down at the devastation.
I ventured to ask him a question, “Can Brockton Bay take this? It feels like it was on the verge of collapse already. Add this mess, the firebombing… can we really come back from it?”
“You know this city better than I do, I’m sure. I like to think people are stronger than they appear at first glance. Perhaps the same goes for cities as well?”
“I’d like to think so. But if I’m being realistic—”
I stopped mid-sentence.
“No fucking way.” I pointed.
Siberian flickered violently as she crouched beside Jack and Bonesaw, one hand on each. In between the three of them was a man, hunched over.
Legend raised one hand, but he didn’t shoot.
“Legend?”
“They haven’t seen us. I would like to take out Jack or Bonesaw while they’re distracted and unguarded, I just need Siberian to step away or let go of them.”
The group shifted positions, so the man had an arm around Jack’s chest and an arm around Bonesaw’s shoulders, Siberian behind him.
“See that?” Legend asked.
“What?” I could barely make them out from our vantage point. “I can’t.”
“My eyes are better than most. A minor benefit of my powers. The backs of his hands, perhaps you can make out the tattoos? A cauldron on the left hand, a swan on the right.”
“I—I don’t follow.”
“No,” he sighed a little. “I suppose you wouldn’t. It does mean we know who he is.”
“Someone I’d know? An old costume?”
He shook his head. “A scholar.”
Jack glanced up, and Legend fired in the same instant. With Siberian’s strength, the group of the Nine lunged to one side, disappearing behind cover. I sent bugs after them.
My swarm sensed other arrivals. The Undersiders and Travelers came from the west, taking a circuitous route around the top end of the bomb site. Legend fired a series of blasts after Siberian and gave chase, but she was keeping a building between her group and Legend. He stopped where he was, one hand outstretched, and touched his ear.
“My teams are on their way,” he said.
“That’s good,” I said. “The Undersiders and Travelers are too. I’m going to go fill them—”
“We need them to back off,” he interrupted.
“Another bombing?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. It seems we’re facing the worst case scenario.”
“We’re winning,” I said, incredulous. “You guys took out two of them, we’ve got them on the defensive—”
“Exactly,” he interrupted me. “We’re winning. And we’ve broken enough of Jack’s rules for his ‘game’. Now I fear we’re about to see whatever ‘punishment’ it was that Bonesaw prepared for us.”
Prey 14.8
“How did it go!?” Tattletale called out to me before I’d even landed.
I set Atlas down on the ground and hopped off. “Whatever the fuck they just dropped on the city, it apparently took out Crawler and Mannequin.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Tattletale said. “I think that was Bakuda’s stuff they just used. What about the other members of the Nine?”
“They’re on the run. Last I saw, Siberian’s creator looked pretty rough. Not sure if the spider bites and stings will kill him or if Bonesaw will manage to counteract it. Depends on whether Legend and the other heroes can keep up the assault long enough to keep Bonesaw from getting to work.”
I could see Bitch react to the mention of Siberian’s creator. She looked startled, then scowled.
“You found them?” Tattletale asked. “Siberian and Legend?”
“Yeah. Legend told me to scram, in case Bonesaw deploys the threat she’s been holding over our heads, and so I don’t get in the way. I would have fought to stay, but he’s an intimidating guy to argue with.”
Grue nodded. “I wouldn’t feel bad about it. It means we can serve as backup if the heroes lose.”
“And this threat? Do we know what it is? Some zombie apocalypse?” Regent asked.
“No.” Tattletale shook her head. “She sees herself as an artist. She’s going to want to do something that catches us off guard, something that scares us in a way that simple horror movie monsters don’t.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Sundancer spoke up, “But monsters scare me enough.”
“Says the girl who can vaporize buildings and give Leviathan pause for thought,” Regent said, giving her a sidelong glance.
“Leviathan broke half the bones in my body. The only reason I’m standing here is Panacea,” Sundancer said, a little defensively.
“You two do raise a point, though,” Tattletale cut in. “Capes are powerful. If she wanted to scare the locals, she’s done that. I’d be willing to bet the ace she has up her sleeve is going to be more aimed at scaring people like us, like Legend. She wants to terrorize the strongest, target people who everyone looks up to and fears.”
“Just us?” I asked.
“She’s shown she knows how to disable powers,” Trickster said. “If she did that on a larger scale, then—”
“No,” Tattletale shook her head. “She wouldn’t have used the dust and the darts if that was the big reveal. It doesn’t make sense tactically, because we could have come up with a way to deal, and Skitter’s partially immune anyways. And it doesn’t make sense artistically, either. You have to think of her as less of a scientist or doctor and more of a performer.”
A thirty story skyscraper tipped over and crashed to the ground in the distance. The rumbling crash of the building’s collapse seemed delayed in getting to us. I could see Legend, more through the flashes of his lasers than anything else, but everyone else was out of sight, specks I couldn’t have made out if they weren’t on the ground.
“If we’re lucky, we won’t have to worry about Bonesaw’s plot,” Trickster said.
“Plan for the worst,” Grue replied, staring into the distance, “If you’re right, you’re prepared. If you’re wrong, you’re pleasantly surprised.”
“Heard that one before,” Imp commented.
“Still true,” Grue replied, sounding annoyed.
“Can’t plan for this,” I said. “I’m growing to hate tinkers. People with enhanced senses and tinkers. And fire manipulators. Sorry, Sundancer.”
She shrugged.
I turned back to the subject at hand, “We can’t guess what she’s come up with because her tinker abilities make her so versatile, and that means we can’t preemptively set up any countermeasures.”
Tattletale tucked her hair behind her ear. “Fits in a vial, assuming that vial she was showing off was the real weapon, something to do with water, she said… you guys haven’t been drinking anything except bottled water?”
There were head shakes and the occasional muttered “No” from the rest of the group.
“I’ve even been making my tea with it,” I said.
“And we know there’s going to be a strategic purpose behind it, beyond causing terror,” Tattletale went on.
“You’re getting into that headspace again, Tattletale,” Grue said. “Tunnel vision.”
“Right. I’m done now,” Tattletale replied.
“Is it such a problem?” Trickster leaned forward, “If you can give us answers about this thing, that’s good, right?”
Tattletale shook her head, “If I’m digging deep enough for answers that I’m losing sight of other things, it means I’m probably speculating, and that tends to mean I’m generating false positives, heading down the wrong path to the wrong conclusions. I told Grue to stop me if I’m doing it, and Skitter’s right when she says we can’t anticipate what Bonesaw’s going to do, so it’s pointless anyways.”
“If we did want to take countermeasures,” I said, “we should maybe think about tracking down Amy. Or figuring out where she is.”
“Panacea?” Grue frowned. “She didn’t exactly leave us on good terms.”
“I know. But she can counteract whatever Bonesaw does.”
“Unless she falls victim to it,” Tattletale said, sighing. “After two bad incidents downtown, I’d lay odds she’s heading up toward the docks. It gives her the best odds of finding a place that’s empty, where she and Glory Girl can hide out for—”
“Heads up!”
I wasn’t sure who had shouted the warning, but I turned to
look in the direction of the fighting, and I instantly knew it was Bonesaw’s work.
The water was turning crimson. Where it was only one or two inches deep above the pavement, it turned a dark red that resembled blood. That alone might have been spooky enough, but it was spreading over hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds, and there was a thin red mist rising in its wake.
“Run!” Grue shouted.
I was on top of Atlas in an instant, and in the air a second later.
“How is it spreading so fast!?” I asked, while the others seated themselves on the two dogs.
“She must have set it up beforehand!” Tattletale called out. “Just needed the catalyst!”
She checked to make sure Trickster and Sundancer were seated and had Bentley at an all out run a heartbeat later. Sirius followed just two steps behind, carrying Grue, Imp, Bitch and Ballistic. Regent joined me in the air, hanging in a less than dignified way from Shatterbird’s embrace.
I needed only one glance to know they weren’t running fast enough.
“Sundancer!” I shouted. “Cut it off!”
It took her three or four seconds to pull an orb together, no larger than a basketball. It grew to twice the size as it flew, raking across the street to turn the pooled water into clouds of steam. I rose higher in the air to avoid being caught by the plumes of hot water. The steam turned from a clean white to pink and eventually red as the effect reached it.
Sundancer’s miniature sun had slowed the progression down our flooded street, but it wasn’t enough. From my perspective, I could see the water on adjacent streets undergoing the same transformation, moving forward until it was adjacent to the others, then extending forward. It was a matter of time before it reached far enough forward that it passed through the side alleys and cut them off.
“Get to high ground!” I shouted.
Bentley leaped for the side of a building in an alleyway, scrabbled for a hold, then leaped to the building face behind him, attempting the zig-zag movement that the dogs had done so many times before.
Except he wasn’t as agile as the other dogs, and I suspected he wasn’t as practiced at it as Brutus, Judas and Angelica had been. Added to that, he was carrying a heavy burden. One of his paws went through a window, he slipped, dug his claws into the wall and shifted to climbing the wall instead.