by wildbow
“My attitude?”
“I don’t know. Something to ask her, when the time comes.”
I sighed.
“Your arms?”
“Hurt,” I said. I extended my arms, prodding at the bandage on my forearms. “Nothing serious. Will probably peel like a motherfucker.”
“Language,” he said, as we entered the hub.
The warden was there, waiting for us.
“You got injured.”
“In the line of duty,” Defiant said. “Permitted duty.”
“I told you to keep her out of trouble.”
“Wasn’t my choice,” Defiant said. “I can give you my superior’s number if you’d like.”
“I would like. Taylor Hebert? On the issue with the bug population of my facility, I feel it would be a very bad idea to provide you with a caustic substance to give your bugs, given what your file says you achieved with capsaicin. I had a bug zapper purchased, and you should be able to access it with each and every one of your tiny soldiers. I expect to see it used, understand?”
I nodded.
“Go change. I’ll have a guard waiting here to escort you to your cell.”
“Okay,” I said.
I changed back into a fresh prison tunic and pants, leaving my shoes behind. It pained me to leave everything behind, but I did. The female guard patted me down when I’d emerged and handed the bundle of clothes to the guard at the hub’s office, then led me to my cell.
I was cognizant of my fellow prisoners, who watched me. Prisoners who, I had little doubt, saw my injury as a sign of weakness, a reason to descend on me like wolves with wounded prey.
Being out among the Wards had shaken me, on a level. I still needed to find out how to fight like a Ward. A more effective Ward than the ones I’d encountered in the past, ideally. I needed to adjust my tactics, the very way I thought. To build a measure of self-confidence that wasn’t borne by fear and intimidation.
I settled down on the bunk with my book.
I shifted restlessly. I still had trace amounts of adrenaline in my system. The rush of a fight. My arms hurt, too, despite the over-the-counter painkillers I’d tossed back. A second degree burn, and like so many other injuries of the hands and arms, they seemed as though they had been strategically placed where they’d be most irritating and debilitating.
Tonight is going to suck, I thought. How was I supposed to get comfortable like this?
My bugs found the bug zapper, and I began systematically eliminating every cockroach, louse, fly and ant in the building.
The spiders, I kept on hand, directing them to the burned corpses. They could breed, in time, and I could put them somewhere where they wouldn’t encounter any people.
Breaking the rules, maybe, but it was something to occupy my thoughts. It made me feel just a little safer, a little more like myself.
Drone 23.2
Every part of the Las Vegas team’s reaction to our arrival screamed dissatisfaction. Folded arms, the way none of them would meet our eyes, the very way they were positioned, so they were just enough in our way to make it clear they didn’t agree with what was going on, but not so close as to be with us.
Except it wasn’t me that was the problem, this time.
Satyrical, Satyr for short, wore a helmet sculpted to look like a goat’s head, the mouth in a perpetual smile. On a good day, I imagined his eyes were bright with mischief, his shaped eyebrows quirked behind the large eye-holes of the helmet. This wasn’t a good day. There were circles under his eyes, and he glowered. With the smile on his helmet, it made him look… I didn’t want to say deranged, but it was the word that sprung to mind.
His bare chest was muscular, waxed hairless, the belt and leggings of his costume slung low enough that I could see the lines of his lower stomach that pointed to his… yeah. It was admittedly distracting. It was meant to be distracting.
Nix, Blowout, Leonid and Floret joined Satyrical in their anger. Heroes in more flamboyant and colorful costumes than normal, their moods a contrast in how dark they were. Spur and Ravine seemed more lost than angry, but the way they retreated into their group as we passed told me that they would side with their team over us.
If there was something to be said, words of encouragement or apology, nobody I was with seemed ready or able to come up with them.
We approached the elevator and made our way down, and none of the local heroes joined us.
“Thoughts?” Vantage asked me.
“For a city like Las Vegas, I’m surprised the building is so…” I trailed off.
“Dull? Like a giant tombstone?”
“No windows,” I said. “Just the front door, walls all around it, no decoration except for the PRT logo on the face of the building, no lights except for spotlights.”
“Stands out,” Vantage said. “There’s contrast.”
“And it’s required. Vegas is one of the worst cities for sheer number of villains,” Rime said. Her entire demeanor was rigid, which maybe fit in a way with her ice powers. “Vegas employs a group of unsponsored thinkers and tinkers to monitor the venues, much like the PRT does with the economy, ensuring that everything is above-board, that everything is being conducted fairly and that the numbers add up. Vegas changed as a result, developed a different cape dynamic. In Los Angeles or New York, it’s the people who can blow down buildings that are seen as true ‘heavy hitters’. Here, they’re trying to game the system, and the heroes are trying to game them. In Vegas, it’s thinkers, tinkers and strangers who rule the underworld.”
“A different sort of cops and robbers,” I said.
“Cops and robbers?” Vantage asked.
“A way my teammate once explained it to me. The, for lack of a better word, healthy way for heroes and villains to be, is for all of this to be a game of sorts. Trading blows, counting coup, but ultimately leaving the other side without any permanent damage.”
“Counting coup?” Leister asked. He was the sole subordinate that Vantage had brought along. Rime, by contrast, had brought Usher and Arbiter from her team. Prefab from San Diego had shown up as well.
I explained, “The term came from the Native Americans’ style of warfare. In a fight, one person makes a risky, successful play against the other side showing their prowess. They gain reputation, the other side loses some. All it is, though, is a game. A way to train and make sure you’re up to snuff against the real threats without losing anything.”
“Except,” Rime said, “things escalate. One side loses too many times in a row, they push things too far. And there’s always collateral damage. I notice civilians don’t factor into that explanation.”
“I’m not saying I agree with it a hundred percent,” I said. “I didn’t, even from the beginning. But it sounds like what you’re describing.”
Rime shook her head. “No. The strip is dying. Every successful job the villains pull causes catastrophic damage, sees venues shutting down. More villains arrive, hearing of the last group’s success, or because there’s room for them, and they settle in the more desolate areas. The problem feeds itself, gets worse. This building is a fortress and a prison because that’s what the city needs, that’s how bad things have gotten.”
“And the heroes?”
“Flamboyant, as brilliant and attention-grabbing in the open as the villains are discreet and hidden in plain sight. The Vegas team is largely made up of strategists, charlatans and borderline scoundrels. Individuals who can foil cheats and frauds, or throw a wrench in the works of the local masterminds, who think like they do. Which is why this is such a problem.”
The last sentence had a note of finality to it. I decided not to push my luck with further questions.
We made our way out into the corridor with the cells. It was deeper, more developed than Brockton Bay’s. There were two tiers, with one set of cells above the other.
Rime moved her phone next to a television screen, then tapped it. There was a pause as a row of black squares with white outlines
gradually lit up. She leaned forward a little, her hand resting against the wall beside the television.
The screen came alive. I saw a man in a cape uniform within, without a mask. He had albinism, to the point that the velvet purple of his costume overwhelmed the little of his skin that was showing. The irises of his eyes were a dark pink.
“Pretender,” Rime said. Her voice had a harder note than before. “What have you done?”
“Don’t place all of the blame on me. You forced my hand.”
“No,” she said. “There had to be another way. You could have admitted—”
“A death sentence,” he said. “You’re an upper-echelon cape now, and you have the clearance. You know about her. The bogeyman that comes after anyone who tries to release information they want to keep secret.”
I glanced at Vantage, who only shrugged.
“We could have protected you,” Rime said.
Pretender only chuckled. “No. No you couldn’t. I’m dead anyways, one way or another. I surrender, it’s the end of my career, and that’s all I have. I talk, I die. This was the best option.”
The hand that Rime was using to lean against the wall clenched into a fist. Her voice was tight as she asked, “Killing a government thinker was the best option?”
“Yes.”
Rime straightened, but it was more of a defeated gesture than anything, her hand dropping from the wall. “You were one of the good ones, Pretender.”
“Still am,” he said. He crossed the length of his cell, sitting on the corner of the bed. “I’d explain, but it would only get us all killed.”
“We’re going to have to take you to a more secure facility,” Rime said.
“Well, I didn’t expect you’d let me go. Do what you have to. I made a deal with the devil, you caught me, for better or worse,” Pretender said. In a quieter voice, he said, “About time I pay the price.”
Rime turned off the television. She looked at Arbiter.
“My riot sense was going off like crazy as he talked,” Arbiter said. “There’s something at work here.”
“Describe it.”
Arbiter touched her middle fingers and thumbs together, forming a circle, “Orange.”
She moved her hands further apart, “Red.”
Then further apart again, until the implied ‘circle’ was as big as a large pizza. “Yellow.”
“That bad?” Rime asked.
“Bad.”
“Then we move now,” Rime said. She raised her hand to her ear. “Dragon? Cancel your errands. We’re in for some trouble, almost guaranteed, and I’m thinking we want to clear out before it descends.”
There was a short pause.
The digital voice of Dragon’s A.I., the same one I’d heard through her drones and the armbands, informed us, “Kulshedra model en route to Las Vegas Protectorate Headquarters. ETA two minutes. Tiamat to join in t-minus eight minutes.”
“Okay,” Rime said. “It’ll be here before we’re on the roof. Let’s get Pretender packed up. Standard stranger protocols in effect. Usher and Arbiter, you handle it. Everyone else with me.”
Once we were all in the elevator, I figured I was clear to ask without sounding too much like a newbie. “What was Arbiter talking about? Riot sense?”
Rime explained. “She’s a social thinker, in addition to her minor blaster and shaker powers. Her danger sense is mild at best, not something she can react to immediately, but it makes her aware of associated individuals and the threat they pose. She wouldn’t be able to see much from Pretender alone, but she knows that there’s a moderate to high danger posed by those closest to him—”
“His team, probably,” Prefab said.
“She’s predicting a massive risk from people who have an intimate but less immediate association or those who have a recent but less familiar association with him…”
“Old teammates or family that he doesn’t see regularly,” Prefab said. “Or people he’s hired for help that he isn’t as familiar with.”
Rime finished, “…And a moderate risk from people or things on the periphery of his real-life social network.”
“The bogeyman?” I asked.
Rime didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at the digital display above the door of the elevator. “Prefab, look after our Wards. I’m going to have words with Satyr. See if we can’t work out what the angle is. Wait on the roof for our ride.”
“Stranger protocols mean you don’t go anywhere alone,” Prefab said.
“Of course. I’m thinking… Vantage,” she said, beckoning.
Vantage nodded, stepping forward.
The elevator doors opened for Rime to exit, then shut. The three of us continued up to the roof. Prefab was large, and his armor made him look larger, with shoulderpads that looked like the tower-tops of a castle, each probably weighing twice as much as my entire outfit, equipment included. He carried a heavy cannon, obviously tinker made.
Leister was a teenager in lightweight silver armor with the edges molded into wave-like forms. Beneath the armor was blue cloth with a similar wave-like design embroidered on it. He held a trident, as ornate as his armor. As lightweight and sprightly as Prefab was a veritable tank.
“This bogeyman—” Leister started.
“Based on what we know,” Prefab said, “Arbiter giving us a yellow that possibly includes her is more worrying than a red alert involving just about anyone else.”
“You don’t know anything about her?”
“We mainly see her censoring information,” Prefab said. “Silencing and disappearing people who are talking about sensitive stuff, and doing the same with everyone they talked to. Only details are slipping through the net, now. About Cauldron, about Alexandria, the formulas.”
“Too much for one person to handle?” I suggested.
“Speculation from the top is they’ve probably stopped caring,” Prefab said. “Thinkers believe she’s letting things leak, because it doesn’t make sense that they’d keep things this tight and then slip up like they have been.”
“What’s her classification?”
“Thinker. Don’t worry about the number. Just run.”
I frowned.
“Exactly how many capes are like that?” Leister asked.
“A handful. Enough.”
“I’m beginning to feel like I’m out of my depth,” Leister said.
“You get used to that,” I said. “With the sheer luck involved in powers and the crap we wind up facing on a daily or weekly basis, it’s only a matter of time before you wind up going up against someone you don’t have a chance against.”
“Yeah, but Fab’s talking—”
“Prefab,” Prefab growled.
“Sorry. I mean, Prefab was talking about opponents we couldn’t hope to fight, and I’ve only had two real fights so far. One of them wasn’t even a real fight.”
“You’re new?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“I’ve only been a Ward for a month.”
Only two fights in a month. I felt a pang of envy.
“Let’s hope there isn’t a fight today,” Prefab said. “But let’s be ready if there is one.”
We ascended to the rooftop. Dragon’s suit had already landed. A bulky craft, twice the size of a helicopter, with what looked to be a cargo bay. Letters stenciled on the edge of the wing read ‘Kulshedra v0.895’.
Inside, in boxes, there were butterflies. Innumerable varieties. Sadly, quite a few had died due to a lack of food or being crushed under the weight of the others. The idea was clear. The PRT wanted me to change how I operated. Dragon, at least, was willing to give me the means.
It was still stupid. Ridiculous.
The back of the craft opened, giving me access to the hatches. I stepped up onto the ramp and found the buttons to open the boxes.
“Go, my pretties,” I said, monotone. “Go, seek out my enemies and smother them.”
They took off, moving in colorful formations, organized by type, drawing fractal s
hapes in the air as they spread out.
I stepped down off the ramp to see Leister staring at me.
“I know you were joking,” Prefab said. “But no smothering.”
“No smothering,” I said, sighing. I looked up. The sky was darkening. “If there’s a fight, it’s going to be at night. It’d be pretty stupid to use butterflies at night, when half of my tricks are subtle.”
“You’d have to ask Rime.”
Was I supposed to use non-butterflies to scout for trouble?
I considered asking, but I was suspicious I already knew the answer.
Best not to ask, and beg for forgiveness later.
Insects and flies moved out over the surrounding cityscape. There were too many buildings here, too many that were sealed off, but I could check rooftops and balconies, and I could investigate the ground. Tens of thousands of people, all in all.
“Sniper rifle,” I said, in the same instant the thought came together.
“Wha?” Leister asked, incoherent and confused.
Prefab’s head snapped my way. “You sure?”
“I’d point,” I said, “but he’d notice. Our masks and helmets cover our faces, or I’d be worried about lip-reading.”
“Don’t panic, don’t give away that you’re afraid. Into the craft. Go,” Prefab said.
I nodded, wishing I had my real costume, though I knew it might not be tough enough to withstand a bullet from a sniper rifle.
Prefab was the last to step inside, slowing down as he approached the ramp. I could see light glittering around the edges of the roof, growing more intense over the course of seconds. Ten, fifteen seconds passed, until there was more of the light than there were spaces in between. The light was most intense near the edges.
In a clap of thunder, a rush of wind and a flare of… anti-sparks, crenellated walls appeared, extending fifteen feet up from the lip of the roof’s edge. The sparks, such as they were, were black at their core, surrounded by shadow. They spun in the air before drifting to the ground, where they flickered out of existence.
“Does that block his line of sight? I can make them taller,” Prefab said.
“I don’t think he has the right angle to shoot over the wall,” I said.