by John McCrae
“Better safe than sorry,” I said.
“Yes,” he sighed the word. “Yes. Of course. I’m mentally exhausted, I’m being stubborn.”
“We’re all mentally exhausted,” I said. I glanced up at the Simurgh. “Keep that in mind.”
There were nods all around.
“The Pendragon won’t fly until I fix it,” Defiant said, standing. He pulled on his helmet, and there was an audible sound as it locked into place. “I’ll need parts from elsewhere. It also means leaving some people behind. You can’t fit everyone into the Dragonfly.”
“We’ll do something low-risk in the meantime, then,” I said. “Reduced group.”
“Sensible. I’ll go see after the others, then. This would be a good time to eat, stock up on supplies or use the facilities.”
Defiant wasn’t one for goodbyes or formalities. He said he’d leave, and he left, his boots making heavy sounds with each footfall.
“Well, I’m going to go make water,” Tattletale said, jerking a thumb towards one of the outhouses. “I’d be all girl-code and invite you with, but I actually like you guys, and I don’t want to subject you to that atmosphere.”
“Thanks,” I said.
When Tattletale had disappeared, Imp and I sort of meandered over towards the others.
Canary was closest, helmet off, her hair plastered to her head with sweat, making her feathers that much more prominent where they stuck out of her hairline.
“This is crazy,” she said.
“This is a Tuesday for us,” Imp replied, overly casual in a way that was almost forced.
I saw the dawning alarm on Canary’s features. I hurried to reassure her, “It’s really not. Ignore her.”
Canary nodded.
“Holding up okay?” I asked.
“Pretty much. There’s one thing, but it… it’s pretty trivially stupid in the grand scheme of things.”
“We’re killing time while we wait to get organized,” I said. “Go ahead.”
“There were two people I was talking to. Forget their names. One’s really forgettable and the other’s obscure.”
“Foil and Parian,” I said.
“Yes. Right, yeah. I was talking to them, and we had a lot in common, and then they went from warm to ice cold in a flash. Couldn’t understand why.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound like either of them.”
“They didn’t really say anything. They just talked about going somewhere, and I asked if I could come, and they looked at me like I had three heads.”
“They probably wanted to be alone,” I said.
“Yeah. I get that,” Canary said.
“Alone alone,” Imp responded. “End of the world, making every minute count? Nudge, nudge, wink wink?”
Imp held her mask in one hand, using it to nudge Canary twice, then tipping it to the side as she winked, keeping time with the four words.
Canary’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh!”
“Dudette, with all the hugging and reassuring they were doing, how was this even in question?”
“I don’t follow the cape scene. I don’t know how close teammates get. I just figured, shitty situation, life and death, maybe you cling tighter to any buoy in a storm… oh god. I asked if I could come with them.”
Imp nodded sagely. “I can see where you’d get confused. We’re very close, here, after all.”
Canary was blushing, humiliated, the pink of her skin contrasting her yellow hair.
Imp continued, “After all, Skitter… Weaver and I… well…”
She tried to make bedroom eyes at me, holding her hands in front of her, twisting her arms as she drew her shoulders forward, the very picture of a lovestruck schoolgirl.
Canary’s face reddened further as Imp continued to poke fun.
Imp, for her part, gave it up after only two or three seconds. “Fuck. Can’t do it. Weaver here has diddled my brother, and it just feels squick and incestuous.”
“That’s the reason we haven’t ever done the relationship thing,” I said, my voice flat. “It’d be weird in an almost incestuous way.”
Imp cackled. One of very few people I knew who could cackle. She was enjoying herself. This was her medium. One of them. “You’d do better with Tattletale, or Rachel.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I injected a little more sarcasm into my voice, “for the mental pictures that evokes.”
She cackled again.
Eager to change the topic, I glanced at the others. The Wards were sitting a short distance away, Kid Win, Golem, Vista and Cuff, sitting together. Cuff was fixing up Golem’s costume.
I’d feel weird about approaching them. Technically, I was still a Ward, though my eighteenth birthday had come and gone. I should have moved up to the Protectorate, but I’d never been sworn in, had never filled in the paperwork.
The Slaughterhouse Nine, Scion and the mass-evacuation from Earth Bet sort of gave me an excuse, but I still didn’t want to face the questions.
I glanced at Saint, who was sitting between Narwhal and Miss Militia. They were pretty clearly talking guns.
Lung stood alone. He was holding a skewer with meat all along the length. A glance around didn’t show any possible source.
A check with my swarm did. A few hundred feet away, there was a cooking fire that had gone out in the aftermath of the Yàngbǎn attack. Lung had apparently claimed some food as a matter of course.
“Lung,” I said, almost absently.
“You know him?” Canary asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“He was kind of notorious in the Birdcage. A lot of people, they come in, and they do something to make a statement. Kill someone, pick someone suitable and claim them, challenge someone suitably impressive to a fight, that sort of thing.”
“What did Lung do?” I asked.
“He marched into the women’s side of the prison, killed his underling, and then killed and maimed a bunch of others before the cell block leaders ordered people to pull back. I got called into a meeting, too, where a bunch of people in charge of cell blocks asked me to come and tell them what I knew about him, since we arrived at the same time.”
I nodded. “But you didn’t know anything.”
“No. I think some of them were really worried, too. I thought they were going to hurt me, until Lustrum, uh, my cell block leader, backed me up, gave me her protection.”
“Geez,” Imp said. “That’s messed up.”
Canary shrugged. “How did you put it? A Tuesday? A Tuesday in the Birdcage.”
“No, I’m not talking about that,” Imp said. “I’m talking about the fact that Lustrum the feminazi was in charge of your cell block and you still didn’t pick up on the thing between Parian and Foil. Isn’t that, like, Sappho central?”
Sappho?
Canary blushed again. “I… uh.”
“I mean, seriously,” Imp said.
“Ease up,” I warned her.
“I… I live and let live,” Canary said. “I just didn’t want to step on toes.”
“And you never got any?”
“I had somebody, but like I said…”
They were still going as I focused on my swarm. I gave some commands to the Dragonfly, which I had landed a mile and a half out of town, and brought it our way.
With the relay bugs, I could sense most of the settlement, the surrounding landscape, everything above and below. That was only using half of them.
The remainder were fertilized, bearing eggs.
I’d flipped the switches, shifted them into breeding mode, and I was working on keeping them warm and well fed. I’d have to wait until the eggs hatched before I found out whether the young had any range extension ability. If I had to wait until they were adult, well, the world might end before I got that far.
Defiant was returning. I stepped away from Canary and Imp to greet him.
“Let’s go,” he said.
■
Smaller team, while the Pendragon was out
of action, smaller job.
The ones who were grounded would be looking after the settlement, ensuring the survivors were able to make it through the next few nights.
Tattletale was with me. Imp and Rachel had come with for much the same reason Lung had. They were restless personalities, unwilling to relax when there was a possibility of a conflict. I wanted to think that Rachel’s intentions were a little kinder in nature than Lung’s, that she wanted to protect her friends, but I wasn’t going to ask, nor was I going to set any hopes on it.
A pleasant idea, nothing more.
Lung was eerily quiet. He’d acted to stop Shadow Stalker from attacking me, but he hadn’t shown a glimmer of his power.
After we’d decided who went where, before we’d left, Canary had found a moment to talk to me. To finish what she’d been about to say when Imp had interrupted to poke fun at her.
Information about Lung.
He coasted on reputation for some time. Didn’t use his power, didn’t fight, just intimidated. Nobody was willing to start something because nobody really knew what he was about. Until this guy from Brockton Bay came in. Had some info. Except, by then, Lung was entrenched in Marquis’ cell block, and even if someone wanted to go after him, they didn’t want to deal with Marquis in the process.
Lung hadn’t been using his power. Why? Was there a reason?
A deep seated concern about his passenger, maybe? No. What would excuse that?
I needed to ask Tattletale, now that I knew, but there hadn’t been a moment where we’d both been alone.
We had Shadow Stalker, who had no interest in rebuilding and resettling. Defiant was with us as well, relying on remote monitoring to perform the occasional check-in on Saint. Narwhal would manage the rest.
Miss Militia had come along, and nobody had said anything to mark it as fact, but I got the distinct impression it was for Defiant‘s sake.
And, of course, we had the Simurgh. Following. She’d finished building what she’d been working on as she hovered over the aftermath of the fight at the Tav settlement.
A shortsword, four feet long, without any guard to protect the hand from an enemy’s weapon, both sides of the blade serrated. Black.
Defiant had called it a Gladius.
Defiant had the cockpit and Miss Militia’s company, and so I was left to hang out in the cabin, with Rachel sleeping beside me, Bastard and Huntress sleeping at her feet.
I admired her ability to rest in such stressful situations. I glanced at Shadow Stalker, who seemed to be filled with nervous energy. When we’d kidnapped her for Regent to control, Rachel had been able to sleep then, too.
I felt like I had to be responsible, somehow. I’d taken on three very dangerous individuals, with reputations ranging from bloodthirsty vigilante to Endbringer, and I knew I’d blame myself if something went wrong on any count. I couldn’t sleep when there was information to take in, when there were people to watch, people to watch over, and personalities to keep in check.
Threats and conflicts, within and without.
Many of the monitors were focused on Bohu, the towering Endbringer, tall enough that her heads reached the cloud cover. Five miles tall, give or take. Gaunt, expressionless, without legs to walk with. No, she moved like a block of stone that someone was pushing, not with lurching movements, but a steady, grinding progression that left bulldozed terrain in her wake. Overlapping rings marked the area she traveled as well, as she continued switching between her typical combat-mode cycles, altering the terrain, raising walls, creating traps and deadfalls, generating architecture.
The monitors abruptly changed. One shaky image, from one cameraman at just the right vantage point.
A golden streak crossing the evening sky, appearing out of nowhere.
Just about everyone in the Dragonfly tensed. I felt myself draw in a breath, my meager chest swelling as if I could draw in confidence as well as air, preparing to give orders, to provide the call to arms.
But the golden light disappeared as soon as it had appeared. Like the jet stream of an aircraft passing overhead, except it was light, not smoke, and it only marked a brief period where he’d passed through our world on his way to other things.
We relaxed.
Rachel hadn’t even woken up. She was exhausted, though we’d barely participated in any fighting.
The Dragonfly moved closer to the ground as we approached the next portal. It was squatter, broader, allowing for more ground traffic at a moment’s notice, though it made the passage of flying vehicles more difficult.
Like Scion, exiting one world, passing through Bet on our way to the next. It reminded me of my discussion with Panacea. People who build and people who destroy. We were trying to do the former, Scion the latter.
The Dragonfly passed through the portal.
Heavy rain showered down around us. The Dragonfly faltered for an instant as it changed settings, very nearly nosediving into the ground beneath us.
Defiant pulled the craft up.
Agnes Court, I thought. I’d studied all of the major players in anticipation of the end of the world, I knew who the Elite were, and I knew who had built this.
She fit somewhere between Labyrinth and the Yàngbǎn’s Ziggurat. Organically grown structures. Seeds that swelled into pillars, stairs, houses and bigger things, given enough time in proximity to their master. The wood-like substance hardened to stone of varying colors after she terminated the growth.
In the span of two and a half days, she’d grown a walled city, one with an elaborate castle at the northmost end, with shelters and what looked like a sewer system, if I was judging the perfectly round hole in the cliff face below right. It was gushing water.
Two days to make this.
Leviathan had taken less than an hour to demolish it.
The wall, taller than some skyscrapers, was shattered in three places, damaged enough to serve little purpose in others. A shallow river flowed through the spots where the damage to the wall reached the ground.
Leviathan had perched himself atop the castle’s highest tower, though the tower wasn’t broad enough for him to put anything more than two clawed hands and two feet on the very top. His tail wound around the structure, in one window and out another.
Even through the rain, his five eyes glowed.
“Oh no,” I said. “The civilians. The refugees.”
“Relatively few,” Tattletale said. “That’s… yeah. I don’t think we offed people in any substantial numbers.”
In any substantial numbers, I thought.
“I didn’t think they’d get this kind of structure up in time,” I said.
“Court grows things exponentially, given time,” Tattletale said.
She frowned.
“Grew things exponentially.”
If that was the case, then we’d lost a possible asset. Fuck this, fuck the Elite for bringing things to this point.
“There were a thousand people here,” Defiant said. “Many who were managing supplies and resources for the rebuilding and resettlement efforts.”
“I’d explain,” Tattletale said, “But I’d rather not explain twice.”
“Twice?” Miss Militia asked.
Tattletale pointed.
The Azazel had parked on top of a tower at the wall’s edge, almost opposite to where Leviathan was. A crowd had gathered around it.
Too many to be just the Dragon’s Teeth. Far too many.
I swallowed.
Cameras zoomed in on the individuals. Hard to make out through the rain, but I could draw the appropriate conclusions.
The Dragonfly landed, far gentler in the process than I would have managed on my own.
“Time to face the music,” Tattletale said.
I took the time to restructure my costume, raising my hood to protect my head before I stepped out into the pouring rain. Defiant was in step to my right, Tattletale to my left.
No, not pouring. Pounding. As heavy a rainfall as I’d ever experienced.
>
The other major players had arrived. The Thanda, Faultline, the Irregulars, the Meisters, the remnants of the Suits… Cauldron.
It took time for everyone from the Dragonfly to make their way outside. We looked so small in comparison to the group arrayed before us. People had disappeared here and there. Dead or gone in the wake of the disaster on the oil rig, or the fighting that had followed.
Even after we’d arrived, after the ramp had closed, the group before us remained utterly silent. There was only the sound of the rain, so deafening I might have been unable to hear people if they’d shouted. I clenched my fists, tried not to shiver. If I started, I wouldn’t stop. Staying calm, staying confident, my attention on my bugs as a way of escaping the stresses here… it made for an almost zen moment.
It was in that same moment that the Simurgh descended.
Descended was the wrong word. She fell. It was as though she’d stopped lifting herself into the air, and let herself drop. Her wings moved to control her descent, keep her facing towards the ground as she plummeted. In the gloom of the rain and the heavy stormclouds above, her silver-white body was the easiest thing to make out. If the assembled capes hadn’t already been keeping a wary eye on her, the movement would have turned heads anyways.
A white streak, plummeting from the sky, striking Leviathan.
The shockwave that accompanied the impact tore through the tower. Superficial features broke away first, followed by the internal structures that had provided structural integrity. The end result was a gradual, almost slow-motion collapse, a lingering view of the Simurgh and Leviathan as they’d been at the moment of impact.
They tilted as the tower did, but neither Endbringer moved. The Simurgh had both feet pressed against Leviathan’s stomach, one hand reaching up to grip his face, the other hand holding the gladius she’d made, buried so deep in Leviathan’s sternum that only a little bit of the handle stuck out.
Pieces of her halo began to fall, including her fabricated guns and the other debris she’d arranged to form the ring itself. It rained down like a localized meteor shower, striking the castle, the base of the tower, the wall, and Leviathan.
The Simurgh managed to avoid being struck, even with her vast wingspan. She leaped up, kicking herself off of Leviathan, and found a perch on the wall, folding her wings around herself and the top of the wall, as if to ward off the worst of the rain.