by wildbow
“Hey, Weld. Boss-man. Enough talking?” A boy with red skin asked.
Weld half-turned to look at the crowd. “What’s the problem?”
“This is kinda fucked. You’re talking to her like she’s a buddy.”
“No,” Weld said. When he looked at her, his steel eyes were cold. “Not a buddy.”
“Then what? You’re going to talk her to death?”
“We agreed,” Weld said. “We said we’d get answers.”
“I was thinking answers in the thumbscrew sense,” one of the more villainous-looking deviants said. A man covered in spikes, like a cactus, with bulging yellow eyes.
“Let’s see what she gives us willingly,” Weld said, “before we resort to that sort of thing.”
“Just saying, some of us came here for blood.”
There were rumbles of agreement.
“This isn’t what we talked about,” Weld said. “If you wanted to go this route, you should have brought it up earlier.”
“We did,” the muscle-laden girl with the overbite said. “We talked about making it clear just how badly she hurt us. Then you said a lot of fancy, convincing stuff, and we agreed to shut up.”
“I thought you agreed with me,” Weld said.
“Because a few good arguments are going to change our minds? Convince us that we’ll take a nice, peaceful route, after years, decades of suffering?” the girl asked.
“We can’t become monsters in action, Gully.”
“Some of us already have,” the spike-boy said. “The rest? I imagine they’re working on catching up.”
Weld turned around, his back to Doctor Mother and the others, as if he were shielding them.
“Does everyone disagree with me?” he asked. “You’ve all been plotting this… mutiny?”
“No,” the girl with the tendrils said. “But I won’t be any help to you. If you let me go, I’m pretty sure I’ll strangle her. I’m sorry, Weld.”
“It’s okay, Sveta.”
Slowly, a small group peeled away from the crowd. One particularly tall man pushed his way forward from the back, only for others to grab him, as if to keep him back. He pulled his way free.
He’s collected more than half of the ones we released on Earth Bet. Fifty, easily.
Ten, Weld and Sveta included, stood between the more rabid deviants and the Doctor’s group.
“If you do this,” the Doctor said, “The capes who are fighting Scion won’t be able to mobilize. I won’t be able to put plans into motion. The things you’ve suffered will be pointless in the end.”
“The world ends anyways,” one of the hostile deviants said. “We’re not going to win that fight.”
Another, a girl, piped up, “Did you hear just how badly the first skirmish went?”
“Yeah. Might as well get some justice before it all goes to hell.”
The crowd advanced. Weld and his fellows drew together, shoulder to shoulder.
“Door,” the Doctor said.
There was a tearing sound, a wet crack.
One of the deviants had appeared beside her. Yellow skinned, with bruising in the recesses of his face, arms and hands. He smiled, his teeth narrow like a fish’s.
He withdrew his hand, and Doormaker crumpled to the ground, limp as a rag doll, blood running from his forehead where his head had been smashed against the wall.
Two-six-five touched the deviant, forcing remote-views on him, then withdrew his hand. The deviant collapsed, unconscious.
The crowd advanced further.
The Doctor stood straight, backing up until she was pressed against the wall.
She’d inured herself to hopelessness. She’d expected inevitable death at the hands of Scion, but this would do. Surprising, but hopeless all the same.
“Gentle Giant,” Weld murmured. “Brickstone. We blitz them. Hit them hard. Rest of you make a break for the door. You have a place to run to, Doctor?”
“Yes,” she said.
A chance?
It was hope, and with it, oddly enough, she felt fear. Something to lose.
“Now,” Weld said.
The group charged.
Venom 29.1
Tattletale stirred. I could see the usual confusion that went with waking up in unfamiliar surroundings. She adjusted faster than most. There was no flailing about for a point of reference so everything could start to make sense again. Her power supplied it.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Think the world’s going to end today?” she asked, as she stretched, still lying down.
“World already ended, if we’re talking about our world. Too much damage done.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Humans are resourceful. Resourceful and stubborn. But you kind of live that, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Guess so.”
Tattletale picked a bit of grit out of the corner of her eye with a fingernail. “You didn’t sleep.”
“Not so much.”
“Idiot.”
“I’ve learned to deal. Pulled enough stakeouts to adapt.”
“Idiot,” Tattletale said again. She raised herself to a sitting position. “You need to be in top fighting shape.”
“I slept for three days after getting cut in half,” I protested.
“Only shows how much you needed the sleep,” she said.
“The Simurgh was being eerie, singing you a lullaby. You really expect me to sleep after that?”
“The lullaby wasn’t for me,” Tattletale said. “And I didn’t sense any hostile intent.”
I turned my head. My expression was hidden, but she read my confusion anyways.
“I mean, I think some of it was for my benefit, but it didn’t fit like that was the be-all and end-all of the singing. She was doing something else.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. But she’s not exactly an easy one to get. Who knows what she sees? Maybe she’s singing for a reason that isn’t apparent yet?”
That was unsettling. I thought of what the Simurgh had said.
It didn’t serve to keep secrets right now. It’d be disastrous in the worst case scenario, and Tattletale was the best person to go to when I needed answers. “She apologized.”
“The Simurgh?” Tattletale asked. She gave me a funny look.
“Believe it or not. She said ‘I’m sorry’.”
“She doesn’t talk,” Tattletale said.
“I know. But I heard it.”
“Anyways, she isn’t sorry,” Tattletale said. “I’d put money on it. I’ve got a lot of money to put on it, if anyone’s willing to take the bet. Couple million in liquid assets.”
I shook my head. “I won’t take that bet. Look, just keep it in mind.”
“Filed away,” Tattletale promised.
“For now though, we should mobilize,” I said, as if I could distract myself. “Get everyone on the same page, start putting heads and powers together.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tattletale responded. She pulled off a glove, then reached into her belt to get a small tin from one pouch. “Two minutes to get myself presentable. Could do with a shower, but I think people are a little past that right now.”
I nodded. Most of the capes I’d seen were just a little rougher around the edges. The shine gone from their costumes, a little dustier, their hair greasier, chins unshaven. Psychologically, it was much the same.
This had hit all of us hard. I liked to think I was rolling with it better than some, if only because I’d had two years to anticipate it. Then again, I was good at self-delusion.
I thought about Clockblocker, his optimism. When I’d been talking about expecting the worst, he’d argued for the opposite. I didn’t want to diminish what I felt about him being dead in the general sense by thinking about something so petty, but a part of me was disappointed I couldn’t talk to him now, after the fact, and see how he was doing. If he was coping better than I had.
It wasn’t that I
was coping, exactly. I wasn’t happy, confident or unafraid. The only thing I could say was that I’d been able to brace myself. I’d bought into Dinah’s prophecy more than just about anyone else. I’d braced myself and I’d nearly broken, regardless. I could tell myself that the point where I’d been floating over the ocean by New Brockton Bay had only been a desire to get away, nothing darker, but I wasn’t sure I was telling myself the truth. I could think back to the point where I’d snapped after being cut in half by Scion and tell myself I was lucid, but I wasn’t sure that was true either.
Hard to say I’d held my own when I wasn’t sure how much of it was me and how much was the adrenaline at work. Or other things.
Any opinion, passenger? I asked. We’re going up against your maker. You going to hold back or are you going to go all-out?
No response, of course.
Tattletale was smearing black greasepaint around her eyes. She’d finished the hardest part, around the eyelashes, and spoke up as she filled the rest in, “You get in touch with everyone you wanted to talk to?”
“Almost everyone.”
“Ah. I can guess who you didn’t actively look for. This denial worries me.”
I shrugged.
“No use dwelling on it. Your decision in the end. Let’s move on to a happier topic. You ever think we’d make it this far?”
“To the end of the world?” That’s a happier topic?
“To the top of the heap. As far up there as we could hope to be.”
“We’re not big leaguers, Tattletale. Not the most powerful capes out there.”
“But we’re talked about around the world. We’re on speaking terms with some of the biggest and scariest motherfuckers out there.” Tattletale gestured towards the window. Towards the Simurgh. “We’d be front page news, if the news still existed.”
“I’m not sure being news would be a good thing,” I said. “Which isn’t to say word isn’t getting around, you know. Charlotte knew.”
“Charlotte’s connected to Sierra and the rest of our infrastructure in Gimel. That doesn’t really surprise me,” Tattletale said. She pulled her hair out of the loose ponytail she’d had it in, then combed her fingers through it to get it more or less straight. It still had kinks and waves where it had been braided. Something she would have fixed before going out in costume in more ordinary circumstances, for caution’s sake.
“Mm,” I acknowledged her. Maybe I was tired. My thoughts were wandering some.
“I tried to set things up so we’d have some way of maintaining communications and getting some information in, getting information out. Like, I told people about what you said about Scion hating duplication powers. Anyways, only the very high tech and very low tech have really survived. Satellites and hard copies.” She lifted one of the files I’d stacked on the floor, as if to give evidence to the point. “Reading up?”
I picked up a file as well, leafing through it. “I wasn’t sleeping, so while you were out, I got in touch with Defiant and one of your minions, arranged for only the most essential status updates to come in on paper. I figured I could update you after you got up. The deliveries stopped a good bit ago, but one of the last status updates was about Dragon, so I guess she’s handling her old duties while Defiant recuperates from the last few days.”
“Guess so,” Tattletale said. I turned my head to see what she was doing, but she was already crossing the room.
“Doormaker is napping as well, I guess,” I said. “He just decided to leave one open, and he hasn’t been responding. I double checked the portal, making sure he wasn’t trying to tip us off to anything important, but it opens to a pretty remote area of Earth Bet.”
Tattletale went still, “Doormaker doesn’t sleep.”
I raised my eyebrows, realized Tattletale couldn’t see them, and cocked my head quizzically instead.
“There’re lots of capes who don’t sleep. About a year ago, I started digging into the PRT files. Hired the Red Hands to steal a more up to date set, even. I was looking into clues for understanding this whole thing, y’know? Best leads at the time were memories and dreams. Clues popping up here and there, relating to people’s dreams, or gaps in memories. Dreaming differently, seeing things instead of dreaming, case fifty-threes suffering from their amnesia… Well, there are a number of ‘Noctis’ cases. Named after a vigilante hero that was up at all hours. The opposite of what I was looking for, but a good data point anyways: capes who don’t dream because they don’t sleep. PRT confirmed a few members of their own, Miss Militia included, as examples. Others have only been marked down as guesses. Doormaker and Contessa were among them, they said, going by the times the ‘bogeyman’ was showing up.”
“So if he doesn’t sleep, why leave a door open and ignore us?” Tattletale asked.
I shook my head a little.
“Doorway,” Tattletale tried.
There was no response. No portal, no door.
“Door? Portal? Open sesame?” I tried.
“That’s worrisome,” Tattletale said, keeping her voice low. She clipped on her belt, tapping each of the pockets, as if to check the contents were still there. She drew her gun and checked it for bullets.
“We should go,” I said.
“We’re definitely going,” Tattletale said, but she didn’t budge as she double-checked her gun, pulling the slide back. I resisted the urge to comment on just how useless a gun was, considering what we were up against; I could remember how she’d fared when the assassin targeted her, Accord and Chevalier.
There were other threats.
“Right,” Tattletale said, finally finishing, grabbing her laptop and tucking it under one arm.
That was our go signal. We broke into stride.
We passed a soldier, and Tattletale signaled him, raising a finger. He stopped and wheeled around, following.
“We’re going,” Tattletale said. “Ship up, move out. If we come back and settle in here, then so be it, but let’s not plan on it.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Get someone to collect my things. All the files, the computers, the food. Everything. Get it all to the far side of the little doorway…” Tattletale looked at me. “Where’s the doorway?”
“A bit outside the front doors,” I said.
“What she said,” Tattletale told her mercenary. “If we’re gone, just hold position. If we’re still gone after twenty four hours, assume we’re dead. Get my data and the backups of my notes to someone who matters, then consider the job done, collect your payment, go on your merry way.”
“I’ll make sure everyone’s informed.”
“Do,” she said. Then, as if to offset the curt command, she added, “Thanks, Tug.”
He gave us a sloppy salute as he broke away, turning down a different corridor.
I had my phone out before I was outside. My bugs let me navigate the stairs without taking my eyes from the screen, as I input commands. It was cold out, almost cold enough it would impair my bugs, and a heavy fog hung in the open clearing. The stout military building stood in an open, overgrown grassland, encircled by evergreen trees.
No reception. Not a surprise, but inconvenient. I watched as we got closer to the portal Doormaker had left open.
Tattletale, for her part, turned around, walking backwards as we reached the bottom of the steps. With the phone still dark, I took a moment to look in the same direction. I was treated to the intimidating image of the Simurgh passing over the building. She moved as if she were as light as a feather, but I knew that wasn’t true. She was heavier than she looked, by a considerable margin. Had she set her full weight on the roof, she would plunge through.
Like someone playing hopscotch on the moon, the Simurgh set one foot down on the roof, hopping forward, set another foot on the very edge and pushed herself off. She floated down to the space beside the portal, then unfolded her wings, drawing the halo out to its full breadth. The movements sent swirls of dust and fog rippling across the edges of the clearing, st
opping only as they crashed into the line of trees.
“She changed the guns?” I observed.
“She did,” Tattletale observed. “Cosmetic changes.”
Each of the Simurgh’s guns had been streamlined, the outer casings, barrels and handles reworked into wings. Three concentric circles of interconnected guns, all redesigned to appear like an extension of her own wings, behind her.
“Why cosmetic?”
“Way I understand it, she needs to have a tinker in her sphere of influence to borrow their schematics, or a specific device, if she wants to copy it. Thinkers, too, I think she borrows their perception powers as long as she’s tapped into them. Might be why she’s attached to me. Either way, she didn’t have schematics or anything she’d need to modify the guns.”
“Or she can modify them, and it’s a card she’s been keeping up her sleeve for the last while. I mean, it was only three years ago or whatever that she really showed off her ability to copy a tinker’s work wholesale.”
Tattletale nodded. She frowned. “I don’t like being in the dark. But that’s the gist of it. She made cosmetic changes because she couldn’t make concrete ones.”
“Well, it’s unnerving to think about, but anything about the Simurgh is,” I commented. “When I asked about the aesthetics, though, I wasn’t asking about the why so much as the…”
“So much as the why?” Tattletale asked, emphasizing the word.
“Yeah,” I said, lamely. “Why does she care?”
“Why does she have feathers and wings? For all intents and purposes, she could be a crystal that floats here and there. The end result is pretty much the same. A few less weapons. Behemoth? I mean, you saw what he was, when we reduced him to a bare skeleton. All the extra flesh, it’s decorative. He doesn’t really need any particular parts, except legs to move around.”
“It’s there to dress them up so they make better terror weapons,” I said.
“Basically,” Tattletale said.
“That’s not a good omen,” I said. “Because Scion doesn’t feel fear. I’m pretty sure.”
“Maybe he doesn’t, and this is a little embellishment for our sake, for when she turns on us,” Tattletale said.
“Can you not spell that out when she’s standing twenty feet away?” I asked. My pulse picked up a little at the idea, my heart kicking a little in my chest as it switched to a different gear.