by John McCrae
That threw my thoughts off track. I tensed, but he wasn’t apologizing for an imminent attack. “What?”
“In the past, when we’ve crossed paths, I should have made efforts to meet you halfway. I didn’t. I’ve had time to reflect, I’ve had another person to talk to and give me some objectivity, and I’ve come to regret how things played out between us. I could say more, but it would come out like excuses, and I doubt either of us want to hear those.”
“That’s what you came here to say?”
“In large part,” Defiant said.
“We’d hoped to talk to you, one cape to another,” Dragon elaborated, “About the immediate future, with the Undersiders running this city, and your expectations in particular, Skitter. But both Defiant and I thought he needed to say something to you along those lines, and perhaps you needed to hear it. If anything pushed us to come here, it was that.”
I didn’t have a response to that. It was easier when the opposition were assholes. Expressing remorse? How was I supposed to parse that?
Except, they’d done one thing that was assholish. One incongruent element in all of this.
“One last question, then,” I said. “Why? Why out me in front of everyone? It doesn’t fit with the idea of Defiant being remorseful, it flies in the face of the unwritten rules, and I know my team has played fast and loose with those rules, but I wouldn’t expect you to break them like this, Dragon. Not Defiant, either, if he’s reinventing himself.”
Defiant and Dragon exchanged a look.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s better you don’t know,” Dragon said.
“What is? And better for who?”
“Better for everyone involved,” she said.
“Tell me.”
She glanced at Defiant, but he didn’t turn her way. “A precog told us it was our best option for bringing you into custody.”
A precog? The incongruous elements fit together. A plan of action that was riddled with little flaws and contradictions when seen from an outside perspective, that made sense when seen through the lens of someone who’d seen the future and worked out what criteria needed to be met to get the desired end result. This, mobilizing on the school, it was the same kind of setup I might expect from a plan that Coil would have hashed together after a long question and answer session with Dinah, his ‘pet’ precog.
Dinah.
“Who was this precog?” I asked, the question abrupt.
“Skitter-” Dragon started.
“Who?”
“You know who,” Defiant told me.
It knocked the wind out of me in a way that I hadn’t experienced with the revealing of my secret identity. My blood ran cold, and all of my confidence just plummeted, as though it had fallen into a pit so deep I couldn’t even see the bottom.
It was. All of the lengths I’d gone to, the lines I’d crossed, to get Dinah away from Coil, to get her home to her family, and… this?
I was acutely aware of the crowd to my right. They’d backed away from the front tables, and were clustered at the far end of the cafeteria. Still, they’d be hanging on every word they could make out. They were watching my every movement, every facet of this conversation. There were cell phone cameras turned my way, and every second of footage would no doubt wind up on Parahumans Online or some video site.
I barely cared. I felt a little numb as I swung my legs around to the far side of the counter and hopped down. I wasn’t standing as straight, and some of my hair had fallen down around my face, obscuring it.
“Did they force her to give up the information?” I asked. My voice sounded funny. I couldn’t pin down whether I felt angry, sad or any of that. I had only the external clues, the way my voice had the faintest of tremors, and a strange hollow feeling inside.
I stepped away from the counter, away from Dragon and Defiant. My foot had started to fall asleep where I’d been sitting on it, and I felt a touch unsteady anyways.
“You don’t want to hear the answer to that question, either,” Defiant spoke, behind me.
Dragon and Defiant had flown in, apparently to say hi, and so that Defiant could make something resembling an apology as part of his twelve step assholes anonymous process. With the chaos the PRT had been facing as of late, and their own preoccupation with their mission, they hadn’t been notified of the quarantine procedures. They’d been questioned, they’d divulged that I was here, and the bigwigs giving the orders used Dinah to plot out a means of attack that would be likely to get me into custody.
Each idea seemed so much worse than the other, if I considered it for even a moment: either the PRT was using Dinah just like Coil had, or that Dinah had volunteered the information of her own free will.
I was willing to take Defiant at his word. I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“What are the odds?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“I can ask,” Dragon said.
“Please.”
She paused. “Ninety-six point eight percent chance we bring you into custody,” Dragon said. “We have the numbers on general paths you might take to escape. You understand if I don’t give you the chance of success on those numbers, but you should know that violence won’t work. Less than one percent chance of success.”
“Ah.” It was all I could bring myself to say.
It explains why they’re playing it safe. It’s not just that I have a penchant for problem solving. Dinah told them to watch out for it.
I glanced at the crowd. They were still listening. Emma was there, hugging her arms to her body, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
Not even a factor. On the list of things I had to deal with, she wasn’t even in the top ten, not even in the top one-hundred. I felt irrationally offended that she was here, as if she was only doing it out of some kind of self-importance. As if she’d had a choice.
A part of me, bigger than I’d expected it to be, wanted to lash out. To hurt her just because I could, to answer that outrage I was experiencing, in regards to something she had no control over.
It wasn’t like I had much to lose.
“Skitter,” Dragon said. She made it a warning, almost like she had with Defiant. I couldn’t be sure what she was warning me about. Was my line of thinking that obvious?
“I never liked that name,” I said. “Skitter. Never quite fit.”
“If there’s something else you’d like us to call you…” she trailed off, inviting an answer. Her voice was gentle, as if she were talking to someone on a ledge. I noticed Clockblocker was standing beside her, his glove pointed at me, fingers outstretched.
Was I on a ledge, in a matter of speaking? I could hardly tell.
“No idea,” I said, as I walked around a table to put students between myself and Clockblocker. “Felt like commenting on the subject.”
“You know how capable the precog is,” Defiant said. “Come quietly, and we can all talk to the authorities together. If it would help, I can admit some culpability in your current circumstance. All of us together might be able to get you a more lenient sentence.”
I was aware of the eyes of the other students. There was the cluster at the back of the room, the ones who were backing away from me, cringing, cowering. Others hadn’t left their seats, and were arrayed around me, their heads turning to watch me as I walked down the aisle. The ones who’d stayed, less afraid, or more willing to face their fear.
He was admitting it, loud enough for everyone to hear. He was partially to blame for me being… this. A crime lord. A villain. Partially. Much of the fault was mine.
Strange, to be confronted with the realization here, at school. Not the place where it all started, but close enough.
“Okay,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
“Yes?” he asked, taking a step forward.
“No,” I told him. He stopped in his tracks. “That was more of an okay, I’ve decided what I’m doing.”
I could see him tense.
“Students!” I called out, raising my vo
ice.
“She’s taking hostages,” Dragon said, her jetpack kicking to life.
“…a clear shot,” Clockblocker said. He was walking briskly to his left, his glove still trained on me.
“I’m not taking you hostage,” I said. “It’s really your choice how this plays out. I’m not sure if you heard me say it before, but I described you as a jury. Now it’s time for you to vote.”
“That’s not how it works, Skitter!” Defiant shouted. He stepped forward, then whipped around to kill the swarm that was flowing in through the doorway behind him. I could divert some to the air ducts, but it didn’t amount to much. He was stuck near the door, unless he wanted to let the bugs stream in.
“Stand if you side with me,” I called out. “I won’t make any big speeches here. That’s not who I am. I won’t feed you lies or guilt you into this. It’s your call.”
What had I expected? A handful of people, Charlotte included? A slow, gathering buildup?
Of the three hundred or so students in the auditorium, nearly a third stood from the benches where they’d sat. As a mass, they migrated my way, gathering behind me. Charlotte stood just to my left, staring forward without making eye contact with me.
Since I’d entered the school, I’d been acutely aware of the distinctions, the difference between then and now. The sense of the Undersider’s presence in the school had followed me, nagging at me.
What use were followers if we couldn’t use them?
I heard movement, and glanced over my shoulder to see Charlotte’s friend, Fern, breaking away from the mass of students at the very back of the room. Nineteen out of twenty of them were the clean, pristine, bright-eyed kids who’d left the city when the trouble started. As Fern advanced, eyes to the ground, others broke away from the crowd to join my group. Not many. Ten or twelve. It was still something.
A hundred students and change, a small handful of bugs. I could see Emma, standing on the sidelines, her fists clenched. She was saying something, repeating it over and over, under her breath. I couldn’t spare the bugs to listen in. I wasn’t sure I cared.
“This is reckless,” Defiant said. His voice had a strange tone to it, and it wasn’t just the digital twang that I was hearing at the edges of the words.
“Probably,” I replied, raising my voice enough that it could carry across the room. “But not as much as you’d think. We’re not fighting. I stress, we’re not engaging you.”
“What are you doing, if you’re not fighting us?” Clockblocker asked.
“Defiant and Dragon wanted to use the hostages against me, putting me in a lose-lose situation where I was caught between them and having to hurt people to try to escape. I think I’m turning the tables, now. We’re going to walk out of this school as a group. If you want to stop us, you’re going to have to hurt us, and you aren’t capable of doing that to people any more than I am.”
“Skitter!” Dragon raised her voice.
“Taylor,” I answered her. “I’m just Taylor, for just a little while longer. I suppose I’ll be retiring my civilian name, one way or another, by the end of the night. Fuck you for that, by the way. I won’t forget it.”
“… wasn’t me,” she said, and I doubted even Clockblocker heard her, from where he stood beside her.
“It wasn’t your choice,” I said, “But as long as you choose to follow them, you’re as culpable as they are.”
I hadn’t even finished my sentence when I raised a hand and pointed. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the group advanced. I waited a few seconds, and then joined them, falling in step.
Clockblocker used his glove, and the fingertips shot out with explosive force, with what looked like gleaming white fishing line stretching between the digits and the glove. The tips punched into a wall. A fence of thin lines, not much different from my spider silk.
Dragon put her hand on the glove, and the tips retracted just as fast. My bugs could hear her speaking. “…’ll hurt … civilians.”
A few members of the group broke away before getting too close to the capes. Others joined in. The group marched forward, reaching the front of the room.
Someone pushed a piece of clothing into my hands. A sweatshirt. I pulled it on and flipped the hood up. I took my glasses off, sliding them into a pocket.
Clockblocker was pressing through the group. He’d used his power, but the press of bodies was actually causing some damage, as people unwittingly pushed others into the frozen individuals. He was fighting to reach me.
“Link elbows,” I said, my voice low, “Surround him. He’s only about as strong as you are.”
It took a second for people to get organized. He passed perilously close to me, but his eyes moved straight past me. A few heartbeats later, the members of the group who had managed to get themselves linked together had him surrounded.
“Everyone to my right, head for the front door. Everyone to my left, to the kitchen. Straight past Defiant.”
The man barred the door. We were only a dozen feet away when he slammed the butt of his spear into the ground. Electricity and hot air ripped through the serving area of the cafeteria, with visible arcs dancing along the edges of sinks and the metal rails meant for the trays at the front.
“Steady forward,” I said. “First ones to reach him, grab him. You don’t need to do anything except hold on. Dogpile him, and he won’t be able to move for fear of hurting you.”
I saw some people hesitating. The group almost lost its forward momentum.
“He might not be a good guy,” I murmured. “But he’s a hero. Trust in that.”
Or is it the other way around? That apology sat oddly with me.
He held his spear out horizontally, barring our path. It was Charlotte that quickened her step, reaching out to fold her arms around the spear and his left hand.
Others soon did the same. He stood tall in his armor, nearly seven feet, and people almost had to climb on top of him to find a place to hold on.
I almost wondered if I’d had a second trigger event, if I was controlling them, the image was so bizarre.
Then I took a better look at them, at how some weren’t listening to me at all, retreating. Others were being far less consistent, showing a wide variety of emotions. Sheila, the girl with the side of her head shaved, was among them. Her face was etched in anger, of all things, as she clung to Defiant.
A hundred students had joined me, and a hundred students had their individual stories. Their sleepless nights, their individual tragedies and moments of terror. That was all this was.
I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or if it was scarier.
Dragon flew over us, her jetpack carrying her into the air, over the crowd. Students were following beneath her, running. One or two leaped onto tables and jumped to try to catch ahold of Dragon’s foot, but she veered easily to one side.
With Defiant occupied, I was free to bring bugs in through the back door, not having to worry about them being bug-zapped to oblivion. I directed them straight into the vents on the jetpack that were sucking in huge quantities of air. One second it was like a vacuum, drawing in air, the next it was clogged. She lost lift, floating to the ground, and deftly batted aside the reaching hands of the students who were getting in her way.
Her jetpack expanded with an almost explosive motion, fanning out to have four times the number of intake vents, four times the number of output charges, and two laser turrets that curved over her shoulders.
There was no way she could pack that much machinery in that much space. Either it was all crammed into her torso, which was impossible, or Armsmaster-Defiant had tweaked it.
She had liftoff, and she was faster.
And I’d already slipped past Defiant, stepping into the kitchen, and into the narrow hallway. She didn’t have room to navigate, with the other students who were crammed into the entryway.
She turned herself around a hundred-and-eighty degrees and flew out the entrance of the cafeteria, heading outside.
/> Only twenty or so students were with me, now. Dragon was stopping beside Adamant and Sere. Adamant took her hand, and she lifted off, carrying the pair of them.
Still had to deal with three heroes…
And the massive armored suits that the two had ridden in to arrive. Two.
“No,” Defiant said.
“You were supposed to protect us!” a girl shouted. Sheila, the one who’d been angry, who’d brought a weapon to school and had left the school rather than relinquish it.
“I won’t,” he said.
He was talking to someone else. The vents on his mask were open, hot air flowing out. Was he trying to disperse heat so he wouldn’t burn any students?
“It’s still crude,” he said, “… do more harm than good.”
There was a pause.
“…r freedom isn’t worth possibly losing you.”
Defiant, still at the serving area of the cafeteria, moved. With nine students clinging to him, he was glacially slow, careful to a degree that I might have called agonizing, if it weren’t so much to my benefit.
He needed two hands on his spear to remove the panel in the middle of the shaft. I filled it with my bugs, and he shook it, to try to get them loose. When that failed, he disconnected his glove, letting it strike a student that clung to his leg, before falling to the floor.
I tried to use my bugs to bite his hand, but I found it was a smooth texture, not flesh. Metal or plastic, or something combining the two. He found three buttons in the mechanisms inside the spear and typed in a sequence.
Dragon veered toward the ground, depositing the two capes there before staggering forward in four or five rapid footsteps, dispersing the rest of her forward momentum. She fell into a crouching position.
We made our way outside. The armored suit that Defiant had piloted to the school loomed before us, a four legged mechanical dragon perched on the athletics field, replete with panels of knightly armor. This thing… this wasn’t a fight I could win. Simple A.I. or no, Dragon would have shored up any weakness in logic.
It didn’t move.
We walked between its legs on our way to the parking lot. There wasn’t really another route.