by John McCrae
“There could be.”
“Nah. Why would he give us what we want if it means losing our services? But I don’t really care anymore. I made a deal with Coil and I’ll stick that through until I have a good reason not to. Way I figure it, fuck my team, fuck Coil, but it’s not worth confronting anyone over if it means I’m wasting the remaining two years of my life trying to get another gig this cushy.”
“That seems kind of claustrophobic, setting those restrictions on yourself, letting things with your team drop by the wayside. Being all alone?”
“Won’t be alone. Figure I’ve got enough cash and respect I can get groupies. That’ll do for the next couple of years. Unless you’re going to argue there’s some point to a committed, long term relationship when there’s no long term?”
I sighed. There was no point in continuing this. I could tell that Ballistic wasn’t going to budge, and I didn’t have a ‘good reason’ to convince him to join us.
We crossed several city blocks in silence. When we’d reached the lake Leviathan had created downtown, we began to walk around to the north end to Dolltown.
“So how are we doing this? Attack strategy?” Ballistic asked.
“Any chance you’ll let me make the first move?”
“And take all the credit?” His voice hardened.
“I’ll let you take half the credit if I’m successful. You can take all the credit if I fail.”
“Nope.”
“What?”
“I get what you’re doing. You want to make us Travelers look bad. Get yourself a bigger slice of the pie somewhere down the road. More respect, more power, and you’re doing that by wedging yourself into everything, getting hyperinvolved. Gotta be in first place.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Right. Then explain why you’re going overboard with your territory.”
“I’m getting the job done, taking care of my people.”
“Nah. It’s more than that. There’s something driving you to work that hard. You’re looking to supplant us.”
He’d stopped walking. I paused and turned to face him.
He chuckled lightly, “I don’t blame you for it. I mean, it’s pretty scummy, when we’re supposed to be working together, but I get that you want to be on top.”
“We are working together.”
“I may be taller and in better shape than average, but I’m not dumb. You think I didn’t catch the wedge you were trying to drive into our team? Sounding me out for any hard feelings I might have for the others?”
Shit. This sort of thing was Tattletale’s field, not mine. Now it was going south fast, and I could imagine how this would explode in my face.
I cleared my throat a little and clarified, “I was sounding you out because it was clear you did have hard feelings for the other members of your team, and I wanted to give you a chance to talk about it.”
“Ah, so the creepy bug girl is really a softie in the end,” his voice was laced with sarcasm. ”No ulterior motives at all.”
“Whatever,” I said. ”Nevermind.”
“So fuck you,” he said. ”No, I’m not giving you first dibs on this doll woman. Second I see her, I’m taking her out of action and making it a hundred percent clear it was all my doing. You’ll get what you wanted, which you said was to see the territory, and I get what I want, which is to finish up my territory so I can kick back.”
This wasn’t how I wanted things to go on any level. I could have groaned in frustration. Instead, I sent out a command to my bugs and took a deep breath.
“Okay,” I told him.
“Yeah?”
“But I think I’ll stay out of the line of fire. I get the impression I offended you, so maybe we give each other some breathing room? Avoid getting shot?”
“I wouldn’t jeopardize the setup I’ve got with Coil for that. But maybe it’s best you do stay out of the way.”
I nodded and turned to go.
Okay, so no mole inside the Travelers.
I could still hope to achieve something here.
Using my bugs, I tracked Parian’s movements within Dolltown. She was moving quickly, joined by a small collection of people. Many were shrouded in cloth, leaving me to guess if they were real people or something new she’d done with her creations.
I drew out directions with my bugs, guiding her away from Ballistic. She didn’t listen at first, but that changed when Ballistic fired off his first attack, creating a deafening crash. From the sound of it, he’d done something to send a car flying into a building. A moment later, he did it again. I walked faster. I could call Atlas to me, but I didn’t want to get spotted in the air.
Dolltown was ugly. It had been hit hard by the Nine and the fight between them and Hookwolf’s army. There were scars on the buildings where Hookwolf had struck, holes and marks in the wall where Purity had fired her beams. Menja had done some damage here and there, with some handprints marking various pieces of architecture where her gauntlets had bit into stone and metal.
I pushed open a doorway and stepped into a ruined building. Parian faced me. Her mask had a crack in it, and there was blood staining her worn frock. She was surrounded by a half-dozen of her remaining people, each of whom wore masks and costumes. A life-size doll, a man who was wrapped in fabric to the point that he looked something like a mummy, a little girl in a skintight suit of flannel with holes cut out for the eyes, one blue and one green.
Did Parian have capes working for her? Or-
No.
They were the people Bonesaw had done surgery on. The ones she’d altered to look like members of the Nine. They were covering the faces and bodies Bonesaw had given them.
“What do you want?” Parian asked.
“To negotiate,” I said.
“Your buddy isn’t too interested in negotiating, by the sounds of it,” she said. She flinched as another crash sounded somewhere nearby.
“I took a gamble here, warning you about him. He wanted to hurt you, make you into an example. I don’t operate that way.”
“Don’t think I can trust you on that.”
“You’ll have to. Because I’ve gone around Ballistic’s back, I’m kind of counting on you hearing me out, because if I fail here, it’s going to fuck up things with this alliance my team has with the Travelers.” And with Coil.
She glanced around. I could sense someone moving nearby. One of her people, sneaking up behind me. No gun, a light search with my bugs told me, and more of the same cloth costume the other Dolltown residents were wearing. I ignored my potential assailant. I could handle an attack from a knife. I’d just need to be on guard in case they aimed to club me over the head.
“I know about the person that’s circling around to ambush me,” I said. ”Can we just talk, without someone trying to hurt me?”
“What are you wanting to talk about, then?”
“You got dealt a raw hand. The Nine targeted you, like they targeted some people I care about. People I love. That’s not fair. So I was thinking, I’ve got a lot of money. I have access to resources. I know it’s not much, it’s not really enough, but maybe we could get doctors for your friends and family. Fix what’s been done to them.”
“And what would you want in exchange?”
“Join my team,” I said. ”I-”
“No.”
“Listen,” I hissed the word, “It’s the best way to guarantee safety for everyone here. It gets Ballistic off your back. Even if you avoid him today, he’s going to level half of Dolltown, and he’ll come back tomorrow to level the other half. Everything else would stay the same, you’d have the same freedoms, only we’d supply you with everything you need. Not just rice and fresh water, but good food. Medical care. Proper shelter. All you need to offer is lip service and we can fix so many of the things that have gone wrong here.”
The person behind me stepped closer. I turned to keep an eye on her and she lunged in that same instant.
Three spikes of metal were stickin
g out from between her fingers, like improvised brass knuckles. When she punched them into my shoulder, they went straight through my costume, piercing through the bone as though they were hot knives and I were nothing but soft butter. She swept my feet from under me and pushed me to the ground.
“The lady said no,” Flechette told me, one hand holding me down, the other hand raised to strike me again.
15.06
Not my brightest move, I had to admit. The problem with acting like I was tough enough to shrug off an attack from a knife wielder was that the illusion failed pretty damn hard when I actually got stabbed.
I’d been relying too much on my costume.
“If I see a single bug, I’ll be forced to use this,” Flechette said, angling the spike of metal in her hand so I could see it better.
“Isn’t that going too far?” Parian asked, her voice small.
“No,” Flechette said. Her hand was still poised to strike the second I moved.
“She was just talking.”
“She just talked to Panacea, if you remember. And I told you before, the last time Glory Girl was seen was in her company. I’ve explained what happened after that.”
“You think she did it?”
Did what?
“I think the thinker-seven on her team might have. Running theory is that Tattletale has a clairvoyance that lets her see weak points. Finds the points to attack in people, security systems, patrol routes, reverse-engineers the results to get general information.”
Okay, she’d hit the key points, but sort of got it backwards.
“That was Jack,” I said. ”Jack was the one who got to Amy.”
“Occam’s razor. Most likely answer is often the correct one. Or something like that,” Flechette said, ”Is it going to be Jack, who has powers we already know? Or is it going to be Tattletale, who has set down more than enough precedent for that kind of behavior and a still-unknown power? It fits what your group’s trying to do, taking over the city for yourselves. And I should point out that records do seem to point to people being left devastated or ruined wherever you go. Panacea, Armsmaster, the Slaughterhouse Nine-”
“You’re complaining about us taking out the Nine? And that wasn’t all us. It wasn’t even mostly us. That was everything going to hell and people with issues getting pushed past their limits. We were only involved because we’ve tried to help every step of the way.”
“You think she was going to do to me what she did to Glory Girl and Panacea?” Parian asked.
“I’d say the possibility exists,” Flechette said. “And that’s reason enough to be very careful.”
Damn this. ”I’m not trying to fucking corrupt or psychologically traumatize Parian. Or anyone else! Yes, we’re trying to take over the city. Yes, we’re currently working on eliminating the competition-”
“Mm,” Flechette murmured, her expression hard.
“But that’s not why I’m here, not exactly. It serves our goals just as well if I recruit Parian. It’s one person out of the way, and it gives us a way to help people who need it.”
“So you say.”
“Fuck, I hate it when people do that. ’Everything you say is a lie, including any protests or arguments over the fact that you’re a liar.’”
There was a crash, further away than the last. Ballistic had headed in a different direction. For the moment, at least, we were out of harm’s way.
“You’re sort of well-known in the community for being deceptive and underhanded.”
“Because of what Armsmaster said at the hospital?”
“In part.”
“Is nobody paying attention to the fact that he was seriously bent in the head? To the point that the Slaughterhouse Nine thought he was a good candidate for their group?”
“Mannequin targeted Armsmaster to mess with him. It’s his M.O.. He goes out of his way to attack and ruin tinkers and other individuals who could do something for society.”
“I love how the so-called ‘good’ guys get to revise events to make stuff more convenient for them.”
“It’s a perk. People tend to trust your version of events when you’re doing what’s right,” Flechette said. The spike she gripped between two fingers tapped against my throat, but didn’t pierce the fabric. She wasn’t using her power or she could have killed me.
“You’re implying that you guys are doing what’s ‘right’ that much more often than we are.”
“That should be obvious.”
“And you really believe that?”
“Have to.”
“Do you know why Armsmaster was arrested?”
“He wasn’t.”
“Unofficially arrested, then. Do you know why he was cooped up in the local PRT headquarters, with no official title or role?”
“He was in therapy for his injury. He lost an arm.”
“I know. I was there when Leviathan tore it out of the socket. I applied pressure to the wound to try to stop the blood loss. But that’s not why they locked him up. They could have given him an administrative position if it was just an injury, and they didn’t.”
“Maybe they did. It’s not like either of us were there when the decisions were made.”
“With no job title? They didn’t list one for him, and with the state of the city, they could have leveraged his reputation alone to boost morale, just by saying Armsmaster was in charge of the local task-forces.”
“There’s emotional stress with permanent injuries, too.”
“Plenty of people under just as much stress, if not more, after the Endbringer hit. But I’ll admit your perspective’s better than mine,” I said, looking up at her. ”You joined the Wards just in time to see the aftermath of Gallant and Aegis dying. How did they handle that? If the PRT was that accommodating with Armsmaster, I’m sure they arranged for therapy and time off for all the Wards.”
“Yes to therapy,” she said. ”No to the time off. Too much to take care of.”
“Oh?” I asked. I hadn’t honestly expected them to enforce and allow for therapy. It threw me off my stride.
“Why are you so surprised? And where is this coming from? Tattletale feed you this information?”
“Only some of the general details, like what Armsmaster was up to. The bit about the PRT dropping the ball in taking care of you guys was mainly drawn from past experience.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Flechette,” Parian spoke up, “Weren’t you saying it was Weld who pushed for the therapy?”
Flechette shot her a look, as if she were thinking, Whose side are you on?
“Wards taking care of Wards,” I said. ”Okay, I think my argument stands. No reason to suggest that Armsmaster was being coddled to that degree for any emotional or mental distress he went through.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m saying he was arrested. Off the books. And there aren’t really any reasonable explanations to the contrary. People are still taking his word on events, taking his word on me, but he was as fucked up as any of us.”
“Given the choice, I’m going to take his word over yours, sorry.”
“That’s what I’m saying is screwed up!” I hissed the last two words. ”Why? Because of the label he chose to identify by? He calls himself a hero and he gets more credit?”
“Because he put in a good fifteen years of hard work to improve this city, and because I think your perspective’s warped.”
“Everyone has a screwed up perspective! Especially here, especially now, with the way this city is. My perspective’s fucked up because everyone I was supposed to rely on dropped the ball, and the only people I could count on were crooks! Panacea got warped because her parents let her down, because nobody ever sat down and talked to her about who her dad was. So she convinced herself that she was doomed to follow in his footsteps.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there! I, we, tried to help. But she’s never had someone talk to her, so she didn’t know ho
w to listen to us. Which is probably a blessing in disguise, because she didn’t listen to Jack or Bonesaw either.”
Flechette gave me a funny look. Her eyes were vague shadows behind her visor, but I could see one distort in size as she raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I asked. Something about Panacea and Glory Girl? She’d said something earlier too.
She spoke, interrupting my thoughts before I could frame them into a question. ”Nothing. I guess you’re going to tell me you tried to help Armsmaster too?”
“No. I turned to him for help, and he tried to screw me over. I joined the Undersiders to give him the details he wanted on their powers and methods and he not only hung me out to dry, but he tried to kill me. He did kill Kaiser and Fenja, nearly killed Kid Win by accident, and there were others there too. All for his own personal glory. Because he had some kind of crazy tunnel-vision when it came to his personal ambition and successes.”
Flechette frowned.
I took the chance to hammer my point home. ”He knew I was just an undercover agent, but he thought my death and the casual sacrifices of the others who had chosen to risk their lives to stop Leviathan were worth getting a personal shot at killing Leviathan one on one.”
“What?” Parian asked. ”Seriously? Doesn’t that violate the deal with-”
“Yes,” Flechette cut her off. ”Yes it would.”
I shrugged, looking at Flechette, Parian and the Dolltown residents. ”Probably going to get in trouble for revealing that, but I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do with that information. I’m already a priority target anyways, pretty much, what with our intended takeover of the city.”
“You seem to be missing the point that you’re under arrest right now,” Flechette spoke.
I sighed. ”And nothing I say is getting through.”
“It’s exactly what I was talking about before, you’re just using information Tattletale fed you to try to screw with my head, fill me with doubts and paranoia.”