by wildbow
Yan glanced down at her body. In that same instant, the beetle took flight. It crossed the room in the span of a heartbeat and slammed into her. Its blade-like forelimbs caught around Yan and pulled her to the ground.
Sierra turned her attention to the other two, saw Sugita lunging to one side. She practically threw herself between him and the countertop where the knife still lay on top of the cutting board. Jay drew his knife, but dropped it in the same motion. His other hand clutched his forearm as his eyes went wide.
“That’s one bite, Shaggy,” Skitter said. “Giving you two seconds to kick the knife under the stove before I give you another. One—”
Jay kicked the knife across the kitchen floor. It slid out of sight.
“And you, I think you were the one with the bad accent? You can step away from Charlotte now.”
Sugita scowled, but he did as he was asked. He backed away from Charlotte until he stood beside Jay. Charlotte let one sob escape before she hurried across the kitchen and moved to stand behind Skitter.
She’s been through something, Sierra thought. She knew Charlotte was staying in town only because of her family, that she’d been captured by the Merchants and held for at least a short while… and there was some reason she couldn’t explain that to her family and just leave the city.
“I hope the rest of you are okay?” Skitter asked.
“Where were you?” Sierra returned the question with one of her own.
“Dealing with the Nine. They’re not a concern anymore, at least for now.”
It was surreal, hearing the girl talk about dealing with the Slaughterhouse Nine. They weren’t in the same category as your average villain. They were like monsters from horror films, the killer who always got up at the end of the film, the monster who never died.
“You mean they won’t attack anytime soon, or—”
“They’re dealt with. Burnscar’s dead. Crawler’s dead. Mannequin’s probably dead. Cherish and Shatterbird wish they were dead. Found Siberian’s weak point, and it’ll be international news soon, if it isn’t already. She, Jack and Bonesaw ran. Tried to pursue, couldn’t track them. It’ll be a while before they bounce back.”
“You took on the Nine and won?”
Skitter ventured toward Yan, then used one foot to hold the girl’s arm down against the ground. The beetle pinned it there, pressing the point of one forelimb into her palm with enough pressure that a bead of blood appeared. Skitter stepped around the girl so the beetle could do the same. When Yan clenched her fist, Skitter stepped on her fist, crushing it underfoot.
She took her time responding. When she did speak, all she said was, “I didn’t say we won.”
She lifted her foot, Yan unclenched it, and the beetle stabbed down with another pointed forelimb to pin it to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Yan asked, a note of desperation in her voice.
Skitter didn’t respond. “Sierra? Charlotte?”
Charlotte didn’t venture a reply, but Sierra managed one. “Yeah?”
Were it not for the accompanying buzz of the bugs, Sierra suspected she wouldn’t have heard Skitter speak. “You’ve been working hard. Thank you. I didn’t expect to have anything to come back to.”
“It’s okay,” Sierra said. The words were a bit of a non-sequitur, but Skitter seemed to accept them.
“Thought you would have left,” Skitter said.
“Anyone that’s still in the city probably has some reason they can’t go. But things here aren’t good.”
“We can fix that,” Skitter said. It sounded more like she was talking to herself than to anyone in the room. It would have been reassuring if she hadn’t been staring down at Yan.
“What are you going to do?” Yan repeated herself.
“Charlotte, would you take the children into another room?”
Charlotte seemed relieved to have the chance to escape. Every child that was present flocked to her and she hurried into the bedroom.
Yan raised her voice, “You left! You abandoned us!”
They were as insecure as the rest of us, Sierra thought. Not that it excuses their behavior.
“Hand or knee?” Skitter asked.
“Fuck you!” Yan shouted.
Then she convulsed. She thrashed, dragging her hands against the pointed forelimbs with such violence that she opened ragged cuts in her palms. She stopped as quickly as she’d started, her eyes going wide.
She’d been bitten, more than once.
“Shaggy-hair, hand or knee?”
Jay’s eyes went wide, but he very calmly stated, “Hand.”
His eyes went wide as a spider crawled down the length of his arm to the back of his hand. He jumped like he’d been electrocuted.
“And Mr. Accent. Hand or knee?”
Sugita glanced around, then lunged for Sierra. Going for the knife on the counter yet again. She blocked him for the second time, he tried to shove her aside, and she used the distraction to drive her knee into his stomach. He grunted and folded over.
“Both, then,” Skitter said.
Sugita was too busy reeling from the knee to the gut to respond or react.
“Attacking my people? That was dumb. Attacking a little kid? Dumber. Consider my territory to be a very bad place to be from now on. My bugs can see you, they can hear you, and I’ll know if you slow down even a little as you leave, give you a few more bites.”
The beetle climbed off Yan, using its forelimbs to pick up the gun by driving the points through the trigger-guard. It moved to Skitter’s side.
Yan, Sugita and Jay all took that as their leave to climb to their feet and head toward the door. None of them even looked at Skitter, but they stopped when she pushed the door closed.
“There’s no safe haven for you in Brockton Bay. My allies have control of every district, every territory. No shelter will host you, and our individual forces will be searching every other place you might want to sleep. Before you get far enough to find a doctor and get those bites treated, my contacts will have spread the word. The doctors may have to treat you, but we can have our people sitting in the waiting rooms, or working as assistants to the doctors. If you show your face, you’ll get attacked. Maybe it’ll be a direct attack, maybe it won’t. Trust me when I say you won’t be in any shape to defend yourselves.”
“So you’re condemning us to die?” Any bravado Yan might have had before had been excised and replaced by wide-eyed fear.
“No. Leave the city as fast as you can, and you can get help somewhere else. I don’t really care, so long as you’re out of my city. You’ll have some ugly scars if you don’t hurry.”
Skitter gestured to the door, and the three were quick to leave. “Sierra, the shutter.”
She hurried to obey, stepping into the open doorframe and reaching up to bring it down to the ground. It latched at the door’s base. She shut the door after it. “There’re kids still on an errand, I think.”
“I’ll let you know when to open the shutter again.”
“Okay.”
Skitter scattered the bugs around her face and ran her gloved fingers through her hair to straighten it. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Sierra replied, not quite sure what the apology was for.
“Couldn’t focus on this place and the Nine at the same time, and I thought this place was a lost cause.”
That stung, but Sierra didn’t voice the thought. “Might be. We’ve got bodies to get rid of—”
“I’ll handle that tonight.”
“The Chosen have been moving into the edges of your area, here and elsewhere, according to Tattletale’s soldier.”
Skitter let herself drop into a chair. “Anything serious? Ongoing attacks?”
“Just occupying the territory, I think. Maybe making trouble for minorities nearby, but nothing so serious that I’ve hard about it.”
“Then I’ll deal with them after an afternoon’s rest. Maybe open a discussion before I try anything more serious.�
� Skitter’s voice buzzed as she spoke. She pulled off the mask that covered the lower half of her face.
“Your voice. You’re still doing the thing where your bugs talk with you.”
“Sorry,” Skitter said, the swarm suddenly quiet. “I don’t even think about it anymore.”
“Your gang’s a lot smaller. A lot of people died.”
Skitter put her elbows on her knees, removed her glasses and buried her face in her hands.
Crying?
Sierra hesitated. What was she supposed to do here?
She ventured forward and reached out to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. She stopped when she saw the carpet of ants, cockroaches and wasps.
“I’m okay,” Skitter said, without looking up. She removed her hands from her face and leaned back. There was no sign of tears—her eyes were dry. Just tired. “Could I bother you to make me a cup of tea? Milk, drop of honey.”
Sierra nodded, “I remember.”
Silence reigned as she filled the kettle and set it down on the stove. Still have to deliver the soup. Sierra tried to surreptitiously examine Skitter. The girl was removing all of the bugs from the surface of her costume and the gaps in the armor. The swarm flowed up the stairs as a single mass.
“Those three… are they going to die?”
“No. The bites weren’t from a brown recluse. They’ll hurt, they’ll swell, and the three will probably leave the city to find a doctor. Even if they realize I conned them, I think I scared them enough that they won’t be coming back to challenge me.”
“Ah.”
They say we fear the unknown, Sierra thought to herself. So why does she freak me out more as I get to know her?
She brought her employer tea in the largest cup she’d been able to find.
“Things are going to get better now?” she asked. “You’re not worried about the Chosen?”
“No. I think their leader is gone, and after facing down the Nine, somehow I’m not worried about dealing with them.”
Facing down the Nine. Sierra shivered a bit.
“No,” Skitter thought aloud. “I think the biggest challenge I face comes from within our organization.”
That gave Sierra pause. Had Skitter intended to include her with that ‘our’, or was it just vaguely phrased?
“An ally? One of the other people with their own territories?”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Skitter said.
There was a pause. Sierra thought of how she would excuse herself, go tend to the soup and check on Charlotte, but Skitter spoke first. “But no. Not an ally. At least half of them might get involved, and that could get pretty ugly, fast, but I’m thinking the biggest issue right now is the man at the top.”
Interlude 14.5 (Bonus Interlude)
“It’s just going to be another minute or two. The data has to compile and upload. It’s not my work, so I played it safe and went for the slowest, heaviest compression method that I could. It’s going to take a bit.”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
Kid Win shifted position uncomfortably, falling silent.
You don’t have to be intimidated. I’m just a man.
Legend stared out the window. He wouldn’t miss this city. There weren’t happy memories here, and there was little he was proud about. Most of the time, he was able to feel that he’d made an impact, that the world was a better place for his being there. That wasn’t the case here.
“How long have you been in the Wards?” he asked, to make conversation.
“Two years.”
“I’ve seen your records.”
Kid Win cringed.
“No, don’t act like I’m going to say something bad. The Deputy Director in charge of the Wards, I can’t quite remember his name, he had some glowing praise for your ability to engage with the public.”
“Engage with the public? I don’t remember doing much of that.”
“Something about speeches to other youths at school?”
“Oh. That wasn’t a big deal.”
“The guy who’s rating your performance seems to think it was. Can’t quite place his name, the suits sort of start to blur in with one another—”
“Deputy Director Renick,” Kid Win supplied.
“Yes. Thank you. He seemed to think you connected with the crowd, and you did it better than any of your teammates. You were frank, open, honest, and you stood out because of how you handled yourself when the students started getting rambunctious and heckling you.”
“Director Piggot yelled at me for drawing the gun.”
“It was something that could have backfired very easily, but you struck the right tone and you defused the situation with humor. I think that’s a good thing, and so did the staff at the school. The teachers sent emails a few days after the event, commenting on the overall positive impact you had on the students, the hecklers included. And when I say you, I mean you specifically.”
Kid Win shrugged, tapping a few keys on the laptop to rotate through a series of progress bars and graphs. “Nobody told me about that.”
“That’s a shame,” Legend said, turning his gaze to the window to relieve some of the pressure his very presence seemed to put on Kid Win. “The ability to manage yourself with the public is crucial if you intend to go on to make a career out of working with the Protectorate.”
“It’s kind of weird, that someone as important as you are is making such a big deal out of an event I barely remember.”
“I study the records of everyone I intend to work with, and I studied yours. I try to make a note of individual strengths. That event stuck in my mind when I was reading through your files. It was a very easy mental picture to put together, especially the part with the gun.”
Kid Win smiled a little.
“You remind me of Hero.”
The smile fell from Kid Win’s face. He looked startled. “Really?”
“I imagine he was very much like you when he was younger.”
Kid Win looked uncomfortable.
“You can talk about it,” Legend assured him. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago that he passed.”
“I sort of modeled myself after him.”
Legend studied the boy. Red and gold body armor and a red-tinted visor. There were additions that seemed to be more recent, judging by the lack of wear and tear, but if he looked past those, if he imagined the boy with a helmet covering that brown wavy hair, replaced the red with blue chain mesh, he could see the resemblance.
“I can see that.”
“I didn’t mean to copy him, or to ride off his fame or anything. I was younger when I started, I totally meant it to be respectful—” Kid Win stopped as Legend raised a hand.
“It’s okay. I think he would be flattered.”
Kid Win nodded, a little too quickly.
“He was the first real tinker, you know.”
“Before we knew tinkers have specializations,” Kid Win added.
“I’ve thought about it. The disintegration gun, the jetpack, the sonic weapons, the power sources and explosives that were surprisingly effective for their size. I suspect his specialty tied into manipulating and enhancing wavelengths and frequencies.”
Kid Win’s eyes went wide. He glanced at the laptop.
“I know enough other tinkers to know that look. You just had a stroke of inspiration?”
“Sort of. More like a bunch of half-assed ideas all at once.”
“Don’t let me distract you. If you want to take a minute to make some notes on whatever came to mind, I won’t be offended in the slightest.”
“It’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I—” Kid Win paused. “I guess I’d rather keep talking to you than write down ideas that probably won’t work out.”
“Thank you. I’d say you shouldn’t worry too much about trying to emulate Hero. It’s heartening, if I had to put a word to the feeling, that you look up to him and carry on his legacy. But you have your own special
ization and your own strengths.”
Kid Win nodded. “I’m figuring that out. I spent a long time trying to be like other tinkers and struggling. Ninety percent of my projects just stopped before I finished it. The stuff I finished, I finished it because it was simple. Guns, the floating hoverboard… well, I used to have a floating hoverboard. I sort of copied Hero’s approach. ‘Board instead of jetpack, but I made the guns, tried a few disintegration rays. Maybe part of the reason I finished that stuff was because I felt like I’d be insulting Hero by trying to copy his style and making a mess of it.”
“Makes sense,” Legend spoke, primarily to show he was listening.
“But lately I’ve started to relax about that. Maybe it helps that we’ve been working as hard as we have. I’ve been too tired to keep to the rules I thought I was supposed to follow. Still have to spend time in the workshop, I think I’d go crazy if I didn’t, but I’m winging it more. I’m trusting my instincts and spending less time using the computers to get the exact numbers and measurements.”
“To help compensate for your dyscalculia?”
“I didn’t know you knew about that. I didn’t know the PRT knew about that.”
“Dragon’s talents make for very comprehensive records, sorry.”
Kid Win frowned, his expression changing fractionally as he stared down at the keyboard in front of him. He seemed to come to terms with the idea, because he moved on. “Anyways, I think it’s working for me. I’m getting the feeling that I do have a specialization, but it’s more of an approach than a particular field. Equipment with multiple settings and uses, modular weapons, gear that’s adaptable to different situations, I guess?”
“That’s fantastic. The fact that you’ve struggled and then found your strengths the hard way could be an asset.”
“An asset?”
“If you wind up leading the Wards or a team in the Protectorate, it means you’ll be better equipped to help out teammates who are having their own problems.”
“I’d be horrible in a leadership position.”
“Hero said the same thing, and I think we’ll both agree that he was wrong.”
That seemed to give Kid Win pause.
“Think about it.”
“Okay,” Kid Win replied. “Not that I’m not majorly grateful that you’re giving me the pep talk, but you said you were in a bit of a hurry and I think we’re done here.”