We’d left Scion on the other side with nobody to tie him up. Dangerous. We couldn’t predict what he’d do.
We hadn’t, as far as I knew, done any harm to him. Nothing suggested he had been affected in the least by their powers. Clockblocker’s time freeze, Grue’s darkness, useless.
“Give me a view,” String Theory said.
“Too dangerous,” Chevalier grunted. He sat down on the floor of the platform.
“A view! Now! Or I’ll make it miss!”
A window opened at the platform’s edge.
A view of the scene, a landscape torn to shreds by Scion’s attacks, grassy fields with steep hills, a fence in the distance, trees on the highest peak. The grass continued to glow, but some of that was from fires that the fighting had started.
Scion’s golden light was distant. He turned, then began advancing towards the portal.
It was more like the zap from a bug zapper than a shot from a gun. There was a distortion, like one saw with a shimmer of heat in the air, and Scion was punched out of the sky, leaving behind a golden streak of light. The path suggested he’d disappeared straight out of the atmosphere.
“Sources corroborating the visual,” Tattletale said. “Direct hit. It worked.”
String Theory pumped her fists in the air.
“What was that?” Vista asked.
“G-driver,” String Theory said. She lowered her fists, then fixed her lab coat and glasses. She turned around and gave us a smug, superior smile.
“Which is?” someone else asked.
“Upgrade of the F-driver.”
“The Firmament Driver,” Defiant explained, over the earbuds. “At the time of her arrest, String Theory was threatening to use her Firmament Driver to knock our moon out of orbit.“
“And we didn’t hear about this because-”
“Morale,” Defiant replied, as if that was explanation enough.
“Would have done a lot for my morale to know we could do that,” Clockblocker said.
“In case anyone was wondering, it’s G-driver for God-driver,” String Theory said. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Clockblocker muttered.
“He’s coming back.” Tattletale reported.
No surprise.
But we could hit him.
“Sixth group, ready,” Defiant ordered.
The sixth group. Thanda, plus Birdcage capes I didn’t know, including one that Galvanate had charged up. Heavy hits.
We didn’t get that far.
“He’s gone,” a voice I didn’t recognize sounded over the earbud.
All had gone quiet, still.
“Checking cameras, monitoring, radio reports… Bastard’s hard to keep track of.”
I felt my bugs stir. Not the wind.
I looked up.
Scion. Here. Directly above us, to the point he was barely a speck.
I’d sensed disgust from him once, when he looked at Eidolon. Nothing measurable, not an expression I could quantify, like a movement of the eyes, brow or lips. But I’d sensed it.
Now I sensed bloodlust. Not anger. Nothing so germane.
Only that sensation I’d had when I was in Lung’s clutches and he was squeezing me to death. The sensation I’d had when Bonesaw was straddling me, carving into my head. A feeling I’d experienced when I was face to face with Cherish.
A feeling that, underneath it all, there was some base, primal urge to carve people apart.
But he was waiting, watching.
Toying with us.
“Tattletale,” I whispered. “He’s here.“
“No. Can’t be.“
“We need an escape, now.”
There was only silence.
I felt a kind of grim despair in the pit of my stomach.
“Tattletale?”
“They’re saying no. Cauldron’s saying no.“
“String Theory hurt him, or at least struck him. We need others in case they can do the same. You can’t tell me they’re going to let us gather some of the strongest capes around and then leave them to die when things take a turn for the worse.”
“You don’t understand. We put you on the opposite side of the planet, on a different earth. He wasn’t supposed to be able to access you.”
“He did.”
She didn’t respond.
One of the Birdcage capes somehow picked up on the same vibe I did. Maybe they sensed the latent hostility that filled the air and followed it to its source.
They let out a muffled gasp. Others noticed.
The golden glow above intensified. Ominous. Like a second sun, on the wrong side of an overcast sky.
If I was Skitter, I might have tried to sacrifice myself.
If I was Weaver, I might have made peace with the fact that I needed to die, so Cauldron could preserve their portals, maintain the fight. For the greater good.
I wasn’t either. Not at my core.
“Cauldron,” I muttered. “You’re listening, with that creepy omniscient cape of yours. You’re watching. If you’re wondering what you should do, sitting on the fence between letting Scion see your portals up close and track you down or letting us die, let me cast a fucking vote. You save us.”
Nothing.
“He knows already, he has to, if he found us this easily. Come on.”
“Oh god,” someone said. “Oh god, oh god.”
With my bugs spread out over the area, I couldn’t feel a single telltale breeze of a portal opening around us.
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Taylor,” Tattletale said. “I wish-“
Her voice shorted out as the energy of Scion’s attack cut out the communications.
27.05
“Run!” I screamed the word. I took my own advice.
The golden light around Scion had solidified, forming a sphere. The light dropped.
Others were already scrambling to get away, but there wasn’t a place to go. No portals, no place to run. The speed and size of the orb made one thing clear. The people in the center wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to make their exit.
I’d been standing in the direct center, to better observe those on the other sides of the portals. I was one of those people.
I’d spent years running on schedule, interrupted only by injuries here and there, more hectic weeks and a spell in prison. Years of pushing my limits, pushing myself to move faster, strengthen my legs, build my stamina. I used it all, pushed myself as hard as I ever had. The wings on my flight pack extended, and I used the thrusters to give myself some additional speed.
Lab Rat, who had apparently realized the futility of trying to move, wasn’t running at all, but was rearing back, a device the size of a baseball in his hand. He threw it, aiming to put it over the water.
Not enough. Lab Rat wasn’t one of those prisoners who’d packed on muscle in prison. The ball fell short, then started rolling slightly back towards him.
He swore in a language I didn’t know, started to run towards the object. Too slow. If he wasn’t going to make it over the edge and get to safety, he wasn’t going to reach the object.
My bugs hit the object as a mass, rolling it. It tipped over the edge. Lab Rat stopped.
The bugs around him caught one word. “Angel.”
Lustrum used her power. It was like walking into a wall, but it wasn’t physical. My brain went blank for an instant, the heat and energy in my body seemed to disappear like someone had flicked a switch. My power, too, faded, the range zooming to a point close to me, my control momentarily going haywire. An instant later, it was back. I staggered, compensated with the antigravity, managed to not fall too far behind.
The sphere above us shrunk a fraction. Maybe. Hard to make out, considering the size of it, and the speed with which it fell. Lustrum, for her part, grew.
I didn’t get to see how big she grew. The orb made contact with the platform, shearing through everything it touched. My bugs died as the orb touched them, and I could sense the de
vastation spread as more and more of it came in contact with the structure.
The outermost edges of the orb were still directly overhead, plunging towards me, towards us.
I stepped off the rig, pushing myself off, letting myself fall as I continued moving out, moving away. Falling was good, because it put me further away from the orb. I’d sooner hit the water than let that thing touch me.
Bugs that couldn’t fall as well as I could died as the orb made contact. Bugs that were close to me. Bugs to my left and right, bugs beneath me.
I felt a momentary disconnect between what I was seeing and what I was feeling. I felt like I was plunging into the water, everything going numb, pain, my thoughts fragmenting. Yet I was still fifty or so feet above the water’s surface, my view shifting as I veered to one side, despite my instructions to the flight pack.
Lustrum? No.
I felt increasingly disoriented with every heartbeat. Couldn’t fly. Spiraling.
Unbalanced.
Blood.
Injury.
I tried to take in breath. Couldn’t. I felt pain instead. Right ribs, back, stomach, left buttock, left thigh.
I was falling. I spread my arms out, trying to slow the descent, failed.
Right hand gone. Blood, fragments of golden light eating away at stump, making the bleeding worse.
Falling faster, spiraling more. Thoughts weren’t flowing. I jerked to one side with wind catching wing, spinning abruptly, felt something wrench, pulling from the center of my body.
Fragment of a memory: Legend speaking. Talking about Leviathan. Hit water moving fast enough, worse than hitting concrete.
Had to slow my fall. Most important thing.
There were bugs on me. I moved them, to get a sense of where I was. Compare to surroundings.
One wing on pack.
No legs. Half of stomach left.
The pulling feeling was organs sliding out of body.
Thoughts blurring.
Help, passenger. A plea, an order.
Move arms of flight pack that aren’t broken. Brace against injury.
Wing retracting, propulsion canceled.
Focus on bugs, on antigravity.
Time activation to break spin. Left, right, match to speed.
Disorientation getting worse. Two, three seconds where I can’t remember where I am.
Focus on bugs. Only bugs.
Flight pack pulsing. Rely on intuition. Starting to feel more pain. Burning sensations. Pulling in middle of body. I start timing flight pack to heartbeat, waves of pain, instead of where I am, direction I’m facing.
Focus. Focus.
Fix position, facing sky, see Scion hovering. Great smoky shimmering figure stands on water, holding ten or twelve people against arm, tall as oil rig was.
Oil rig collapsing. Only two legs remain, slumping into water.
Focus.
Facing sky. What was I doing?
Flight pack.
Gravity, push against direction of fall, slow my descent.
Not enough. Falling too fast. Need to slow fall just a bit more.
I extended the wing. Propulsion.
Started spinning again, feel wrenching get worse, spreading through entire upper body.
Hit water while spinning.
No breath left in lungs for impact to take. Wing breaks, flopping over and over across water’s surface.
Stopped.
Sinking. Use antigrav to try and stay afloat, but system isn’t meant to be used underwater. Can’t float because no air in lungs. Slowly sinking.
I opened my mouth to draw in a breath, had to struggle to manage it, felt intense pain, a crushing in one side.
But I managed to get some air.
Small bubbles spilled out of my side, from beneath the water.
The water around me was murky with blood.
No chance I’d live like this. Nobody nearby. Scion was attacking the giant, cutting her to pieces. Capes she was holding fell.
The rig was collapsing, two pillars slowly falling in opposite directions, one left, one right. The platform itself was twisting, splitting apart.
So was I. Half of me gone, the remains slowly leaking out into the water around me. Blood, fluids, intestine.
I didn’t want to die. Not like this.
Not at all.
I thought about my tools, as if there was an answer there. My pepper spray?
Delirious, I almost thought about using it on my wounded lower body, some broken connection between burning sensation and burning and cauterizing.
My taser was gone, obliterated by the damage to my side.
My gun?
I couldn’t manage a laugh, but I would have if I could have. Thoughts of amusement crossed my mind. Shooting myself would be one answer, but it wasn’t one I wanted to make.
I wasn’t ready to die. Even hovering over Gimel’s version of Brockton Bay, I’d tested the limits, stayed out too long.
But now, like this, I knew I wouldn’t have let it happen. I would have fought to swim back, would have called or signaled for help, pride be damned.
Damn it all, I wanted to fight.
Ironic, that I’d be so idiotic when the fight had been taken out of me, but I’d feel so compelled to fight when there was little option besides making peace with the end.
I managed a little breath.
Just let yourself sink. Tell the antigravity to cut out, take in one mouthful of water. That’d be the end of it.
I couldn’t. I didn’t.
But the pain was getting twice as bad with every heartbeat.
Wristband. Dark.
I didn’t have a right hand to press the button with anyways.
Lab Rat’s device?
I thought about it, and in that same thought, I recognized a sensation that had been drowned out by the pain. A repeated pressure. A poke, a pause, another poke.
I raised my arm over the water, shifted my orientation with a use of one of the antigrav panels, and I briefly heard a beeping in the moment the device was raised above the water level.
A part of the platform fell. The resulting waves rolled towards me.
I didn’t have it in me to hold my breath, so I closed my mouth, prayed water wouldn’t flow up my nose.
I was drowned, swamped by the water, rolled. I felt a dull, indistinct pain in a place that felt disconnected from my real body, something tearing. The body parts that were spooling out in the water beneath around around me.
I found the surface again.
My lungs were burning for air as I opened my mouth to try and draw air into my lungs. My lung, considering the other might have collapsed.
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, my thoughts simultaneously chaotic and focused. I had nothing left but adrenaline.
Water flowed into my mouth. I shut it, moved my tongue to help force that same water out between my lips. Needed to get higher.
Everything was going dark.
The prodding in my arm continued.
Lab Rat’s device. Whatever it was trying to do, my costume was getting in the way.
I couldn’t reach up to move it because I was missing a hand, couldn’t twist my left hand to move it, because of the limitations of my body. The attempt at even moving my left arm made me acutely aware of the damage to my hand. I might have fractured or broken it as I hit the water.
I took in a small breath, forced myself to take in another. I could hear the wheeze of my lungs and throat straining to work.
And then I used the flight pack to rotate myself, turning myself so my face was in the water.
I floated there, arms extended out to either side, rocking as the waves continued to shift me.
My bugs descended from the air above, landing on me.
The strap that attached the device to my arm wasn’t spider silk. Cockroaches began to chew it.
My lungs burned. Every moment, even the smallest movement, it redoubled the pain.
I’ve dealt with wors
e, I told myself.
I couldn’t quite believe that, couldn’t think back to that, compare, and convince myself.
The water rolled over me. My cockroaches were washed away.
Again. More. Hornets, more cockroaches.
They hovered for the ten or twelve seconds it took me to raise my arm up above the water again. I let bubbles of air leak out between my lips, as if I could convince my brain that I was breathing, convince my body to hold on just a bit longer, forestall that involuntary gasp.
The device came free. Strands of silk helped to hold it as the swarm descended, hurried to carry it.
Shoulder. Back.
Nape of the neck.
Over the hill that was my hood.
They reached the point where my mask stopped, my hairline began.
Vanity. I’d held on to my long hair, wore a costume that let my hair free.
When I’d been filled with self loathing, when I was so focused on the individual imperfections and the overall ugliness of my features, in the midst of the bullying campaign that had defined my early teen years, I’d still liked my hair.
The skin was exposed there. No costume to get in the way.
Please be healing, I thought, lowering the device until it was against my back.
Pause… and then a prod.
A needle, piercing the skin.
A pressure, as something pumped into my body.
Heal me.
It wasn’t healing.
Flesh knit together, but it wasn’t healing.
The pain faded as quickly and dramatically as it had taken hold, but, still, I wasn’t healing.
Not exactly.
My thoughts became clearer.
Water churned where it came in contact with my blood. Where my flesh closed together and trapped water inside me, the effect intensified. It was soon the only pain I felt.
We’re eighty percent water, or whatever the number is, I thought. Resources have to come from somewhere.
Water was seeping into my throat, despite my efforts to keep my mouth clamped shut.
I turned myself over. I breathed, and it wasn’t as hard as it had been before. My mouth opened, but it wasn’t just the lips parting, or the jaw moving up and down. Things separated and stretched open on a horizontal plane as well. The soaked cloth of my mask stretched.
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