by John McCrae
“But you’re risking your lives.”
“Yeah.” I got settled and wrapped my arms around Grue’s body. He didn’t react or protest. My head just inches from his back, I turned to look down at Amy, “See, it helps that we’re pissed.”
“I’m pissed too,” Amy said.
I offered my hand to her, in case she wanted to climb up behind me and join us, but she stepped away.
“But you’re more scared than pissed,” I said. She looked away.
“We should get going,” Trickster said, as Sundancer got in position behind him. We were all seated and ready to head to the rescue.
“One second,” I told him. ”Amy. Listen. It’s okay. I’ve thought of another way you can help, and it doesn’t put you in any danger.”
“What is it?” She still didn’t meet my eyes.
“You’re going to cut loose with your power. I can feed you the raw materials, you do what you can. You know how my power works?”
“Pretty much.”
“Send the bugs my way when you’re done with them, then.”
“You’re a villain, you know. You’re asking me to betray the family I grew up with if I’m helping you.”
I stared at her. We were so similar in such different ways, but I couldn’t even begin to comprehend her train of thought.
Why were the people who clung so fiercely to the notions of right and wrong the very same individuals that had the worst grasp of what they meant?
Maybe I wasn’t one to talk.
“I don’t think you’re one to talk about betraying family,” Tattletale spoke.
I could see all the color drain out of Amy’s face.
“Hey, Tattle,” I started.
“No. Sorry, Skitter, but it’s my turn to talk now. We’re short on time, and we really should leave now, but if we leave it like this, you’re going to be distracted.”
I shut my mouth.
“Amy? I know what you did.”
“Don’t you dare-” Amy started.
“You fucked up. You crossed one of the lines that’s reserved for the real monsters. You know it, I know it.”
Amy’s face crumpled. I didn’t have a better way of describing it, the way her expression twisted, going from plain to almost inhuman from emotion alone.
I almost spoke up. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t.
“You think you’re the lowest of the low, that you’re scum. You despise yourself.”
Amy couldn’t even mount a response.
“You’re wrong. You’re not there. Not yet.”
Amy looked up at Tattletale, wide-eyed. The look was utterly defenseless. I was put in mind, for just an instant, of just who Tattletale could have been. I had a mental image of her as a cult leader, tearing people down with an almost surgical precision, then molding them into who she wanted them to be when they were emotionally and mentally unable to mount a defense.
“Not yet?” Amy asked.
“Not yet. You shouldn’t hate yourself for what you did in a moment of desperation. Hate yourself for what you do after. Hate yourself for your cowardice, your refusal to step up and help at this moment, right now, your refusal to participate in this world that you never even tried to understand. That’s a conscious call you’re making, and you know it’s the wrong one.”
Amy hugged her arms to her chest. She shook her head a little, as if she was denying what Tattletale was saying.
Tattletale went on. ”You need to make the right calls, and you need to start now, because you’re approaching the point of no return. You start making amends, you start doing your part, and you undo what you did, and you do it ASAP, because if you don’t, you’re going to hit the hard ground at the bottom of that slippery slope.”
“But-”
Tattletale didn’t give Amy a chance to finish. She kicked her heels and Bentley charged off.
Grue moved to follow, and I turned to Amy, “If I send my bugs to you, will you-”
“I’ll- I’ll come.”
I blinked.
She stuck her hand in my direction, and I caught it, helping her up to a seat behind me. Sirius shook slightly, as if he could shake us off. Were we too heavy?
Apparently not. He bolted after Bentley, and we were off, Amy clinging to me like her life depended on it. I suspected that had little to do with the fact that we were riding on one of Bitch’s dogs.
The clawed feet of the dogs pounded pavement as we made our way towards central downtown.
I could feel the sensation of Amy doing something to interfere with my powers. It began to get worse, reaching a peak, and then getting worse. Just when it had reached the point where I was going to tear her hands from around me and let her fall off Sirius’s back, it began to clear up.
I could feel the bugs, but they weren’t anything like what I’d seen in Brockton Bay. Superficially like dragonflies, with fatter bodies. I couldn’t grasp every process in their body, making them feel strangely hollow and artificial. What I could feel was a kind of echo in my power. It made control harder.
She had to have a reason for doing what she was doing. I tried directing them to move, and they took off. No problem on that front.
I couldn’t ask what she’d done, because we were moving fast enough that the wind in our ears would drown out my voice, and the run was jarring enough that I worried I would bite my tongue if I tried talking.
Instead, I experimented. I tried operating their bodies, engaged in the usual practices for injecting venom, nothing. They weren’t weaponized, I was almost sure. I even placed some aphids on them to get a feel for their exteriors.
It was only when I moved them out to either side of me that it dawned on me what the echo was. Experimenting, I sent them to the limits of my range to confirm my suspicions.
Whatever signal my power sent to my bugs, these bugs were there to intercept it and transmit it to their immediate area. Each extended my range by three hundred or so feet around them.
Letting go of Grue with one hand, I patted Amy’s hand and then reached back to give her a thumbs up. I set more dragonflies and other various bugs down on the backs of her hand.
In another minute, I had four more relay bugs. I paired them up and sent them forward, so one relay could transmit to the next. Two extra city blocks of range. I started gathering a swarm with the bugs in question.
Amy had balked at the idea of outfitting me with altered bugs. Had she maybe settled on these, because she thought they wouldn’t give me as much offensive potential?
I had them in place for less than ten seconds before I found a moving vehicle. It was a truck with plastic sheeting over the windows, four-wheeled, with a compact rear. A small moving truck? It was moving faster than was safe, veering wildly as it to get through the water and over the damaged streets, and it was heading straight for central downtown. Straight for the others.
“Found him!” I hollered, at the top of my lungs. Tattletale looked over at me, and I signaled, extending my arm to the ten o’clock position.
I felt strangely calm as I shifted my focus to the attack.
If it came down to it, I’d have to kill the man.
My bugs clustered on the ‘windshield’ of flapping plastic, gathering in heavy numbers. The faster moving dragonflies and hornets began to pelt the plastic, attempting to drive themselves through it. Most died in the process.
He swerved sharply to try to throw the bugs off, but there wasn’t enough in the way of momentum or wind. My other flying insects began to ferry larger black carpenter ants onto the windscreen, to use their sharp bites to penetrate the plastic sheeting. We were making holes, but the attempts of my swarm to worm their way through the holes and open them enough for the more dangerous bugs to get inside were stymied by the wind and the flapping of the plastic. Every movement, however small, threw off my ability to track where the existing holes were.
We had a bead on him, and the dogs were better suited for rough terrain than the moving vehicle. It was only a minute befo
re we caught up. As I’d guessed, a white moving van with a giant icon of a hand on the back with the words ‘Haul It!’
I might have found it amusing if the circumstances were slightly different.
He noticed us shortly after we noticed him. Siberian flickered into existence on top of the vehicle, standing, her legs shifting to adjust her balance as it hit a crack in the pavement and rocked slightly to one side. I heard Amy shriek as she saw Siberian.
Tattletale veered left, hard, and Grue turned us right. We each cut into side streets, running parallel with the truck. Bentley was lagging slightly behind, but I caught a glimpse of the other group as we made our way past a major intersection. Two blocks away, slightly behind us.
I heard an explosion, and Amy clutched me tighter in reaction. Glancing down, I could see her arms around my ribcage, the hand with the maimed fingers held slightly off and away so it wouldn’t get bumped or jostled.
Trickster was handling the opening salvo. The objects he was swapping for grenades weren’t even close in size -signs and traffic cones- so the timing was horribly off. Siberian didn’t move from her perch.
Grue steered Sirius into a sharp left, and the dog’s claws skidded for a grip on the flooded street before we turned. We got one block and then turned right, putting us directly behind them.
I could see Siberian tense, as if intending to jump, but another explosion from Trickster kept her in place. She was protecting the truck, surrounding it with her forcefield. I wasn’t sure how it was able to interact with the road, but a grenade going off under the front of the truck failed to achieve anything.
I felt something bump my hands. Grue was holding the chains that led to Sirius’s muzzle. He bumped my hands agan, and I took hold of them.
With his own hands free, leaning hard against me for support, he reached out and buried Siberian and the truck in a carpet of darkness. Following, we soon plunged into the wake.
The second we were out of sight, I shifted our position so we were running in the left hand lane, rather than the center of the road. Didn’t want Siberian guessing our position and pouncing on us.
I could sense the surroundings with my bugs, but my power was diminished. I was aware of Grue, Amy and Bentley, of Tattletale, Trickster and Sundancer a short distance away, keeping pace. I could see Siberian and the truck.
I couldn’t detect any sign that Grue was projecting anything with Siberian’s power. Whatever she was doing to the truck, it was protecting her from him.
The upside was that the driver was blind.
I could tell because he drifted. It was gradual at best, but he veered slightly to the left. With no point of reference, he didn’t know he needed to correct. A moment later, he smashed into the face of a tall building. Siberian’s power meant the truck took no damage, and the driver corrected course, but soon enough, he began to veer again.
This wasn’t getting us anywhere, and we were running the risk that he’d hit someone, crash into or through an inhabited area.
Through my swarm, I could feel Tattletale waving. Grue hadn’t swamped her in darkness, so there was nothing hampering her progress. What did she want?
More to the point, how the hell were we supposed to communicate? I reached a block ahead of her and formed my bugs into a word. ‘WHAT?’
She tapped her hand to her eye, then to the top of her head.
Again, I formed my bugs into a word. ‘WHAT?’
She tapped her head a few more times.
I was disappointed that a girl with superpowered intuition couldn’t come up with a better signal. What did she want? Eyes could mean see, head could be about thinking? Her power?
She reached back over Trickster’s shoulder with one hand while holding the reins with the other. My bugs had to settle on her finger to follow her gesture. Pointing? She was pointing behind him. At Sundancer.
Eyes, brain, Sundancer.
She wanted to see, to use her power, to use Sundancer?
Tattletale was waving now. The opposite of a beckoning gesture. A scooping motion, as if to push us away.
She wanted us to go away? To get back? She wanted to deploy Sundancer’s power. That made sense. And she wanted to be sure we were out of the line of fire? She could only do that if she saw us, and she could only use her power if she could follow what was going on.
From my seat behind Grue, I steered Sirius around another corner, then brought us up behind Tattletale’s group. We gradually caught up.
“Do it!” I shouted as we began to pull alongside them. Siberian would be out of range of Grue’s darkness in moments if Grue wasn’t behind her, replenishing and extending his power.
“Where is she!?” Tattletale shouted. Sundancer was leaning back, her hand out to one side. The orb she was creating was small.
I pointed.
The orb was getting larger. The size of a baseball, a beachball, an armchair. As it grew, it drifted farther away, higher.
By the time it was directly overhead, it was large enough to swallow up my bedroom whole.
“Gotta stop them!” Tattletale called out, “We blindside them!”
“Civilians!?” Sundancer cried out.
“Some!”
“Let me know-” She grunted as Bentley stumbled over a pothole. ”Let-”
“Got it!” I replied.
I tracked the people in nearby buildings, and kept my arm extended to point at Siberian.
“Got to use my power again!” Grue shouted.
“Signal us!” Tattletale called out.
We pulled right, plunging into the darkness. It was thinning out, and faint shafts of light were piercing through.We crossed the road behind Siberian, and Grue blasted them with darkness, replenishing the effect. We continued across the street, moving behind cover.
Only a few people in the upcoming area. We had to be close to Regent’s group. Time was short.
I drew images with my bugs to point her in the right direction, and then formed the word with my bugs as the other group continued forward. ’NOW’.
We passed out of the darkness just in time for me to catch sight of the orb. It was larger now. Large enough that when it fell, it had to be touching both of the sidewalks on the four lane road. Even with a building between us and the impact zone, I could feel the wave of heated air, and I saw the billowing steam. Grue took the reins and guided Sirius away before it could reach us.
Sundancer hadn’t hit Siberian. She’d dropped the orb straight into the road a hundred feet ahead of them, and she’d plunged it down, hard.
My bugs died as Siberian approached the impact site, burned up by the heated air. I could imagine what had happened. The miniature sun would have burned a hole into the ground, melted or even vaporized pavement.
Affected by Siberian’s power or not, they were still affected by gravity.
I couldn’t say what would have happened in the long run. Had they hit the wall or floor of the pit and used Siberian’s power to make it as invulnerable as they were? Or had they plunged through it, burying themselves some distance underground.
A nearby building was burning. I saw Sundancer forming another orb near the site, I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but the flames on the building were shrinking and dying out.
This wasn’t a victory. It was a stall. We couldn’t stop Siberian so long as she was able to grant invulnerability to her other self, but we could keep her from reaching her teammates in any meaningful amount of time.
It was interesting, I had to note, that she was affecting the truck and not her maker.
A limitation? A drawback? Could she not use her power on her real body?
Clouds of white steam intermingled with the black tendrils of Grue’s darkness. We stopped running, but we didn’t approach. I focused my power on the bugs in the ground. Ants, earthworms. Was she tunneling? No. As far as I could tell, the ground was intact. She wasn’t moving.
“What did you do?” Amy whispered from behind me.
I didn’t have the br
eath to explain.
“Drop the darkness?” I asked.
Grue nodded. The darkness cleared, but the steam didn’t make it any easier to see. I saw the shadowy silhouette of Tattletale, a distance away. I practically had to peel Amy off of me to get to my cell phone.
“Tattletale?” I asked, the second she picked up.
“She’s still down there.” Tattletale replied.
“Why? Hurt?”
“Don’t know. Planning her next move? Don’t get the impression she’s tunneling.”
“My bugs don’t either. Hey, I’m wondering if Siberian can affect her real self? Why doesn’t she just grab him and run?”
“Good question. But that’s not our real concern.”
“What is?”
“Them.”
It took three or four seconds before I saw them arrive, stepping through the mist to stop a distance from the hole. Identical costumes, all-concealing, with gas mask filters on the front and tinted panes for the upper faces. Each was color coded. Four flew, one using a jetpack. One was on the ground, a style of super-speed I recognized as Battery’s. Rounding out their group was the ghostly image of a bear. Ursa something, from Legend’s squad. She had three forms, or she duplicated herself into three states, or something. I wasn’t sure about the naming convention. One for the big bear, one for the small, and one for the woman.
“Legend, Battery, Cache,” Tattletale rattled off names through the phone, “Chariot, Glory Girl.”
Amy squeaked, barely audible, a failed attempt to speak.
The flying man in the lead pointed his hand towards Tattletale. If that was Legend, one laser blast could take all of them out. I wasn’t sure if he’d spotted us through the mist and smoke.
“Want me to use my power?” Grue asked.
“No,” Tattletale’s voice came from my phone. ”Skitter? Inform them.”
I drew words out with the flying insects, big and bold, with an arrow pointing down at the crater. ’SIBERIAN + HER CREATOR’
Legend snapped his head from the words to us.