“Okay, I sort of expected you to say that. Um, hear me out on this before jumping down my throat, but why don’t we torture her? She’s been begging for it, practically.”
I stared at him.
“Torture doesn’t work,” Grue said.
“Without getting into too much detail, I’d say it does. Sometimes,” Regent replied.
“Not with someone like her,” Tattletale said, sighing. ”Even if she didn’t have a background in that sort of thing, her personality… if anything I think she’d be glad we did it. Not while we were doing it, but it’d validate her view of the world.”
“Which is?” Grue asked.
“That we’re monsters. In her eyes, our trigger events highlight a moment at the worst point of our lives and our powers make it so we can never put that behind us. Good guy or bad, she sees us as walking personifications of whatever issues drove us to get our powers in the first place, inflicting some shadow or abstract representation of those traumas on others with our powers.”
“How can someone educated and professional like her think that way?” Grue asked.
“For one thing, she’s not all that wrong,” Tattletale replied, shrugging.
“Hm?”
“We are. But even people without powers are walking issues. That’s no big surprise. Having powers just… makes it all more noticeable. Piggot’s suffering from some tunnel vision, is all. Happens with any bigot. Anyways, my point was, if we torture her, we’re only reinforcing her worldview. It would almost negate any psychological stress we put her under. No, torture is out for a few reasons.”
“What if we give her treatment?” I asked. ”Not at her house. Off-site.”
“We’d be showing our hand, maybe cluing her in to our connection with Coil, and it would still take time we don’t have,” Grue answered. “Nothing saying we’d get enough in the way of answers to be worth the time spent.”
“I don’t see what was wrong with my suggestion,” Imp said.
“Which was?”
Imp pulled off her boot and then peeled off a knee-high sock, wiggled her toes before jamming her bare foot back in the boot. She stretched out the sock, “Gag the fatty.”
“I need her to answer if I’m going to get the detail we need in any reasonable length of time,” Tattletale said.
“She’s not answering anyways, right? Get what you need from her body language.”
Tattletale frowned. ”Yeah. You’re right. But it’s going to take time.”
“And we’re operating in the dark until then,” Grue said.
“We did okay with the last fight,” Imp said.
“Barely,” I cut in, at the same moment Grue said, “We didn’t-”
“We walked away,” Imp clarified.
“Where are you on the other thing, what you were talking to Coil about?” I asked Tattletale.
“Trying to get info. It’s hard with the way communications are down. We sent some soldiers out in trucks, each going down a different major road in the hopes of getting far enough away to get cell service. Then they gotta get back here to bring me what they got.”
“Time’s our most valuable resource here,” Grue said.
I spoke up, “I don’t think we can afford to wait until we hear from your soldiers or the Director.”
“Heading out?”
I nodded, pointing towards the others. We rejoined Trickster, Sundancer and Brooks. Imp shoved her sock in the Director’s mouth and took the silk cord I offered, tying it in place.
“Careful,” I said. ”Trouble with this sort of gag is that if she pukes, she could choke on her own vomit.”
“How do you know these things?” Regent asked.
“I’ll be careful,” Tattletale assured me.
“Let’s plan, then. Tattletale, any idea if the other suits would be active yet? The ones we had Piggot shut down?”
“Not yet, but soon.”
“Then I’m thinking we should split up into two teams” I said. ”Strike while the other three suits are shut down and waiting for Dragon’s attention. If we can rescue our teammates, we’ll be half-again as strong.”
“We don’t have the firepower to fight those things,” Trickster said.
“We have lots of firepower,” I replied. ”Problem is they have a lot more. So pick your fights, strike at the right time and hit hard. Play dirty, don’t give them a chance if you can help it. Grue, you should go with Sundancer and Trickster, so we’ve got even numbers on both sides.”
“You sure?”
“Your power works well with Sundancer, keeps the enemy unaware until she can get that miniature sun close, and you can keep them off the machine’s radar, thermals or whatever. Hopefully.”
“And you?”
“My bugs will give us early warning if a suit’s nearby, and they might alert me if there’s radar or anything subsonic. If Regent and Imp come with me, we’ll have some firepower from Shatterbird.”
“Okay.”
“My team will go see if we can find Bitch, rescue her from whatever they sent after her. You guys do what you can to rescue Ballistic, then hunker down. If you succeed, stay put, wait for us. If we don’t arrive before dark, assume we lost, mount a rescue. If you aren’t there, we’ll assume the same.”
“Sounds good,” Grue said.
“Either way, we’ll figure out where we’re going from there.”
The Director raised her head, staring up at the sky.
“You have something you want to say?” Tattletale asked.
The Director shrugged.
Tattletale removed the gag. ”What?”
“I’m looking forward to this.”
“Which part?” Tattletale asked. ”The interrogation? The rescue mission?”
“The fight. Seven suits in this city right now. The Melusine-six, Cawthorne M.K. Three, the Glaurung Zero, the Ladon-two, the Astaroth-Nidhug, the Pythios-two. That’s six ships right there, that Dragon explained were old models. Previous versions of her suits that were cannibalized for parts, abandoned after taking severe damage and recently repaired or simply outdated.”
“And the seventh?”
“The Azazel. Note that there’s no version number. It’s a fresh design, crafted to go up against the Nine and put up a serious fight. The first truly original suit she’s made in four years, and I assure you that Dragon has advanced her skills in that timeframe. If that isn’t enough of a pedigree, the Azazel was created by Dragon working in tandem with her new partner, a fellow tinker.”
Armsmaster.
She saw the reaction from us, smiled a little.
“Yes. A new partner. It was his suggestion that we park the suits here when they aren’t needed. And even though I know he’s a new cape, nobody you’d know, certainly nobody who’d have a grudge,” she smirked a little, “I think it’s a safe bet to say he had you in mind when he was building it.”
Tattletale jammed the sock into Piggot’s mouth and turned to us. ”Which ones did you fight?”
“Foam sprayer, drone deployer, forcefield generator and a wheel-dragon with electricity and some electromagnet,” I said.
“Cawthorne, Glaurung, Ladon, Pythios, I’d guess, with only the names and what little I’ve seen of Dragon to go by. That leaves the Astaroth-Nidhug, Melusine and the Azazel. One went after Ballistic, another after Genesis, and a third went after Bitch.”
“Meaning that with the way we’re splitting up and taking on whatever machines attacked our missing teammates, each of our groups has a one-in-three chance of going up against this Azazel,” I concluded.
“Better cross your fingers,” Tattletale suggested.
16.04
I was turning to leave when I was struck with a thought. ”Did Bitch move to her new territory yet? I know we planned for her to relocate to the city outskirts.”
“Not yet,” Tattletale answered. She was tying the gag back in place. Piggot was screwing her eyes closed in disgust.
“So she’s somewhere near the Trainyard.”
<
br /> “Yeah,” Tattletale replied.
“We’re going to need transportation if we’re going to get there without losing too much time.”
“Brooks can hotwire a car for you, show you how to start it up again when you’re ready to head back,” Tattletale suggested.
“No. I’m not sure it’ll be able to navigate all the fenced off areas and debris that’ll be in the Trainyard. Bitch hasn’t been clearing the mess, as far as I know, and it wasn’t easy to navigate to begin with.”
“If we use the car to get there…” Grue started.
I finished his sentence for him, “We run the risk that it’ll break down, run out of gas or get wrecked somewhere, stranding us and forcing us to hike across half the city to get to Ballistic’s territory. Let’s minimize the opportunities for stuff to go wrong.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Tattletale said.
I glanced at Piggot. ”We’re capes, not beggars. I was thinking about Sundancer and something like a hot air balloon, but I’m not sure how much forward acceleration you could pick up that way. But something like that. A lot of our powers operate off virtually limitless power sources. I’ve used my power all day, every day and I haven’t been any worse for wear. Can we use that for some extra mobility while we don’t have Bitch on the team?”
“You could try a James and the Giant Peach thing with us,” Imp said, “Only it’d be backwards: bugs on strings and the ‘bird along for the ride.”
I shook my head. ”My bugs would get tired. That leaves Shatterbird.”
“I can only fly with one person, maybe two,” Regent and Shatterbird spoke in unison.
“What if you aren’t flying?” I asked.
■
Maybe not my best idea in retrospect.
We were putting our lives in Shatterbird’s hands. Or in Regent’s hands, depending on how I interpreted it. Which wasn’t to say we weren’t getting where we needed to be in record time.
Shatterbird had pressed and embedded glass into the wood of a door we’d taken off the hinges, and Regent, Imp and I were standing on the surface while Shatterbird flew above us, using her power to pull on the glass. With our weight resting more towards the back than the front, the door was angled upward, skimming on the surface of the road or through the shallow water of streets that were still flooded.
We had to be pushing forty or fifty miles an hour, and any time we were forced to make a turn, we inevitably went wide, sometimes bouncing off of a wall. That was without getting into the cars and debris that still covered the roads or our total lack of solid hand-holds, seats, seatbelts or brakes. I’d parceled out silk cord to grip, but they also served to emphasize how momentum swung us out to one side or another when we turned. It was easy to underestimate how fast even a lower cruising speed was when safe inside the interior of a vehicle, removed from the road by two to four feet of solid material..
Either way, we headed into the thick of the Docks. Our makeshift vehicle sped towards a chain link fence.
“Regent, fence,” I warned, leaning forward to speak into his ear and make sure he could hear me.
We continued forward without slowing. Half a block away, seventy feet away…
“Fence!” I raised my voice.
Thirty feet away…
Shatterbird hit the fence with a wave of glass, knocking it down to a forty-five degree angle. Our makeshift craft lifted up fractionally and we hit the makeshift ramp, remaining airborne for only a second or two before hitting the ground and continuing forward.
“You dick,” I swore.
Regent and Imp laughed and cackled.
What had I been thinking, inflicting this pair on myself?
We made our way into the Trainyard, and the ride became much bumpier as we navigated areas with overgrown grass, train tracks and piles of trash. A crash and howl informed us of our destination before my bugs did. I signaled Regent when we were close enough so he could bring the craft to a stop.
Bitch and the dogs were fighting, and there were signs the fighting had been going on for a while.
There were six dogs in the area, including Bastard, Bentley and Sirius, but only Bastard and Bentley were still fighting. Bitch, Barker and Biter had stepped up to fight, as well, with Bitch’s civilian henchpersons were hiding nearby. The vet-girl was taking care of a smaller dog.
Looking at the situation, I couldn’t figure out why they’d be having trouble with their opponent. Dragon’s suit wasn’t that large, didn’t seem to have that much in the way of weapons or gear. She stood maybe eight feet tall, eight feet wide, with each arm forming roughly a third of its mass, ending in disproportionately large, squat claws.
Barker screamed, then slammed his teeth together with a clack my bugs could hear. His power turned the noise into a concussive force, erupting around the armored suit. The suit reeled, staggering back from where it stood on top of a derelict train, nearly falling. One of the dogs charged and tackled it, tearing into it with claws and teeth.
The suit hauled the dog off it, climbing to its feet in an instant. It leaped forward to close the distance to its human opponents, and Biter stepped forward to meet it, his fist swelling to five times the normal size, along with the spikes and blades he’d worked into the fabric of his glove. The suit went flying, gathering itself into a rough ball shape as it careened backwards into the side of a train.
Had we stepped in just as the fight was wrapping up?
The suit stood. That didn’t surprise me. It brought its claws to either side and clawed at the side of the train, crumpling metal in its massive claws. My bugs gave me a sense of what was going on as the suit drew the metal into itself with crushing mechanisms and gears. Its torso expanded slightly as it made room for the new material, armor plates reshaped by internal mechanisms and shifted into place to patch up the worst of the damage.
I arrived on the scene, Imp and Regent only a short distance behind me. A glance showed me that Bitch, her underlings and her dogs were injured, beaten to the point that they were dirty, bruised and scraped. Her eyes widened as I approached.
“It won’t,” she growled the words between pants for breath, “Fucking die!”
I wouldn’t have picked a brute-type machine to go up against Bitch, if I’d been in Dragon’s shoes, but she’d apparently decided this would be a good matchup. Or was this Armsmaster’s idea? I was put in mind of the fight at the fundraiser, him trying to not just defeat Bitch, but to beat her into submission.
Not that he was really fighting for a crowd, here.
Or was it something else? The suit could absorb metal, what would give Bitch that much trouble?
“It’s drawing scrap metal into itself,” I said. ”Self repairing.”
“I know.”
“So stop it from getting the scrap metal.”
“You want to fucking try?”
This wasn’t good. From the moment we arrived on the scene, this suit would probably be signalling others. We couldn’t be sure that Piggot’s order to stand down would still be in effect for the other suits, so we had to anticipate reinforcements. Except this suit seemed to be made to be durable, to stall and wear us down. It wouldn’t be easy to take this down in the limited time we had.
Which was it? The Melusine? The whatchamacallit-Nidhug hybrid? Or was it the Azazel, presumably designed to take on the Nine, with defeating the Undersiders as a secondary design goal?
“We’ll try together,” I said. ”Regent, we need Shatterbird in here. Imp, you’re backing us up. Drag the injured to safety. Did you ever take that first aid class?”
“Grue told me to, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
I swore under my breath.
“Not totally my fault. Things have been kind of a mess since I joined the team. Not like there’re classes or anything.”
“There probably are.” I watched the suit step away from the train, adjusting its shape to sort out the additional material it had absorbed into its body.
“Not
like it’s easy to find classes,” she clarified.
“Just take care of anyone that gets hurt. I don’t know how much you can do here. I think one of Bitch’s henchmen is over there,” I said, pointing.
“Okay,” Imp retreated.
“I’m telling you,” Bitch growled the words, “Can’t fight it. It doesn’t die.”
“We’ll try. There’s got to be a way. Barker, Biter, you two okay?”
“Hurt,” Biter said.
Barker nodded, “Throat’s sore. Keep knocking it down, it keeps getting back up.”
“One or two more tries,” I said. ”We hit it with everything we’ve got. Bitch, which dogs are least hurt?”
“Bentley and Bastard. Had a few more I was sending in, but they’re hard enough to order around when something isn’t hurting them.”
“We’ll need their help, then.”
“Bastard’s not trained enough.”
I glanced at the wolf cub. He was five or six times his usual size. He’d grown rapidly in the past few weeks, but it still meant he was small. His mutation seemed different from the other dogs. Was there a whole other department of changes with various subcategories of the wolf breed?
The suit raised one hand, and a chain fired out, a grappling hook on the end. We threw ourselves out of the way before it could catch any of us.
“Keeps doing that,” Barker muttered. His voice was gravelly. ”Trying to tire us out. Wear us down.”
“Let’s avoid giving it another chance. Longer range powers first, everyone else close in.”
I hadn’t even finished talking before Shatterbird was hurling the glass-coated door into the suit. She followed up with a veritable tide of glass shards, pulling them from debris and the edges of the street. The suit staggered back, putting it closer to the train she had just harvested scrap metal from.
“Keep it away from anything metal!” I reminded them.
Easier said than done. The area was a fenced in yard with railroad tracks, rusted train cars and trash that ranged from sign posts to disused trash cans. There was metal to spare.
I was limited in my options. Bugs wouldn’t hurt this thing’s metal body. That left me the less stellar option of fighting it like I had Mannequin.
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