by John McCrae
I sighed. Nothing we could do but hope the defenders could hold their own. I looked at Lung.
“What?” he asked.
“You wanted to come with us. Odd choice.”
“I tried, I did nothing in the end. I do not like being…”
“Impotent?” Imp offered.
Lung growled his response, “A mere bystander.”
We reached a set of double doors. A foot thick, solid, they overlapped rather than meet, effectively doubling the thickness, allowing for their structure to reinforce one another. They’d been destroyed, pried apart. An impressive feat, considering they looked like they were meant to withstand charging elephants.
Or parahumans.
It’s a prison, the thought struck me, as we passed through, getting a glimpse of the floor below.
Rows and columns of cells, connected in strings of ten or so. Most cells were occupied.
Not case fifty-threes, going by what my bugs told me. The case fifty-threes were the outliers, here. These were people who I might have seen on the street in Brockton Bay, all in matching outfits. Men, women, children. All young, twenty-five or younger. All more or less in good health, if a touch thin. My swarm touched each of them as I tried to take in their total numbers.
“They’re here!” Someone called out.
They can’t see us from this angle, I thought.
Then it dawned on me that everyone here had powers. Some had powers that would sense us.
“Did it work?” the person from before called out, a woman. “Hey! Did it work?”
“They aren’t the same people as before,” a man said.
We needed to move on. The double doors leading down to the next flight had been torn apart as well, and that meant the Irregulars, Revel, Exalt, Vantage and quite possibly the Doctor were all downstairs.
But the noise level increased with every passing second. Cheering, shouts, cries, even threats to urge us to move faster, in a dozen different languages, maybe more. The noise swelled as others took up the cry. People screaming at the tops of their lungs.
And they were threatening to draw attention to us in the process. I drew on my relay bugs, sending the swarm downstairs, trying to figure out if we’d just alerted Weld and the others.
“They think we’re here to rescue them,” Golem said.
“Aren’t we?” Cuff asked. “I mean, it’s not why we came, but we can’t leave without them. We’re not heartless?”
That she made it a question was telling.
That she directed that question at me was… I didn’t even have the words to articulate it.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
“If we rescue them, then it causes trouble. Too many to look after,” Lung said.
“Chaos could help us,” Shadow Stalker observed.
“We are going to rescue them,” I said. “It’s just a question of when. And how.”
I walked forward until I could see the cells and their occupants.
Hundreds of cells, and there wasn’t anything blocking them off. Open doors, with nothing visible that would keep the prisoners inside. Most consisted of only three walls and a white line painted on the floor. Beside each cell was a metal plate, engraved with a number.
“Oh my god,” Cuff’s voice was touched with quiet horror, almost lost in the rising noise. “Look at how pale they are. They’ve been here a long time.”
“These guys haven’t been here for long,” Tattletale said. “Or they’re the newest. Two thousand and fifty cells, I’m thinking, maybe half of them occupied. All the structural reinforcements, the heavy doors, the traps in the ceiling, it’s to keep the prisoners in. But you don’t need to put security doors in for going downstairs if there’s no way out. There’s more cells downstairs, with older patients. Plus, I think, the hub of Cauldron’s operation.“
“This can’t be for humanity’s sake,” Golem said.
“It is,” Tattletale said. “Everything they’ve been doing is for our sake. Producing better formulas to get more soldiers for the biggest, most important fights, weaning out the bad formulas so nobody important gets them…“
“And the case fifty-threes?” I asked. “Dismissed as bad formulas?”
“At first, maybe. But there’s a use to them. As a rule, they’re stronger, tougher. If we’re forced to make a break for it, scatter humanity and survive with the remnants, the case fifty-threes can settle places you or I couldn’t. I think there’s something else, but I don’t see it… lemme keep looking. There’s got to be a hint. Might have to get you to run upstairs to fetch a file or something…“
Tattletale trailed off, going silent but for the occasional mumble.
Was this the army that Cauldron wanted to deploy? Men and women with powers they didn’t ask for, released with stipulations, or simply deposited on a battlefield and left to fight or run?
It felt too thin. Even this many capes, they were untrained, their powers presumably unpracticed. They wouldn’t amount to more than cannon fodder.
I stopped, feeling the scale of it all. Hundreds of cells, hundreds of voices…
“Quiet!” I called out.
My voice was lost in the noise.
“Quiet!“ I used my swarm to transmit my voice.
Some listened, as if waiting for me to say something else.
I wasn’t sure what I could say. I glanced at my teammates, searching for an idea, before something came to me. “Save your energy. Don’t exhaust yourselves shouting.“
They listened, quieting down. At first.
But excitement won over. There was no way to communicate their excitement other than by talking to their cellmates, or the people in cells across from them, but as the general volume rose, they had to raise their voices to be heard. It didn’t help that the entire area was a giant acoustic sounding board.
“I could sing,” Canary said, raising her voice to be heard, “But I think I’d calm you guys down too.”
Rachel whistled, a shrill sound that almost made my bugs wince in pain. Not a soothing song.
In the silence that followed, Bastard shook his head a little, then snapped at open air. Too sharp for his wolf senses?
“Good,” Lung said. Rachel only scowled at his approval. He added, “You have to follow this with something that drives the point home.”
“Make them fear us?” I asked. I remembered Bakuda’s commentary on her lessons from Lung.
“Fear? Respect,” Lung said.
“Same thing,” Shadow Stalker said.
Lung shrugged.
I didn’t feel like arguing the point, and the crowd was very patiently waiting. They were barely making a sound now.
Which was good, but was there any guarantee they wouldn’t get riled up as we made our way down to the next floor?
Bastard shook his head again. Rachel and I both looked at the same time, then made eye contact.
I spread my bugs out through the area. Felt the Custodian flowing through the air, a little faster than before.
She flew towards me, and I flinched, taking a step back.
She repeated the process, looping back, then charging me.
This time, when I took a step back, it was on purpose. She’d done it a second time because she wanted me to take a second step. And a third, a fourth…
“Go,” I said. “This way. Move.“
We ran. I focused on my swarm, spreading the bugs out as much as I could behind us and in front of us.
Different cells sat at the end of the hallway. Bigger cells, arranged so that they faced the opposite direction, with paths leading in, then to the right, then back into the room.
Two-nine-three. An empty, unlabeled cell. Two-six-five. Two more empty, unlabeled cells.
Bastard shook his head again, opened his mouth in an almost yawning, lazy bite. I could sense the Custodian there, brushing by the side of his face.
I moved the swarm to block the other inmate’s view of us.
“Head-” I started, bu
t Rachel was already making her way inside one of the empty cells. She’d put the pieces together. “…right.”
I hung back, looking over my shoulder as the others filed into the cells. I hurried down the hallway, then kicked the door. I saw a glimpse of a stairwell, identical to the one we’d used at the far end of the room.
I reversed direction, then ducked into the same corridor the others had entered. Let the people nearby think we’d left.
I wasn’t sure it was the brightest thing, taking the dead end over the open-ended exit. But the Custodian had suggested this.
I felt a moment’s trepidation. Why?
“You’re being followed,” Tattletale said.
I shook my head a little. I could sense my bugs. Nothing.
Was it a trap? Would the Custodian shut some kind of door on us, locking us within?
No. She had no reason to. As hard to define as she was.
I pulled the camera free from my mask, then pressed it against the side of the mount on the cell exterior that would have held a number plate. I ducked inside.
“Tattletale?”
“I get it, I get it. Might need to ask for help on this one. Sit tight.“
The cell was empty, but it featured a double bed, a television, a computer, a small bookshelf of cases with stuff to watch or play, and an odd little double-layered glass window that looked out onto a wall of gravel.
I joined the others, drawing my phone from my pocket. It took a moment for Tattletale to manage the link-up.
“And you’ve got video. I’m brilliant. Admit it.“
“You’re brilliant,” I said.
If I’d had the idea earlier, I would have wound up with a better vantage point. As it was, we viewed the scene from a distance. I held the phone flat, so our group could circle around to observe from different angles.
The noise of the crowd became a roar, muffled to near-silence by the cell’s walls. The occupants wouldn’t have heard the other prisoners, except in the most extreme cases. I could see the Irregulars as they entered from the same direction we had. I could see the crowd that followed the Irregulars.
Case fifty-threes. Kind of?
No. Different. The way they spread out, their haggard appearances, they made for the best clues when these individuals were just silhouettes seen from three hundred feet away. But they got closer, and I could see how they differed. They didn’t take on the traits of animals, nor simple mutations or exaggerations in features. There was a man that burned, who staggered forward, like it hurt, but he wasn’t consumed. A woman who floated, every part of her body a distinct piece, separated by open space. It made her look twice as tall. A… something that inched forward, occasionally running to keep up with the crowd. Hands and feet like flippers, but the face was an orifice, and thin worms were spilling out, swarming over the surface of his body in numbers so thick that the flesh underneath was impossible to see.
Case fifty-threes that Cauldron had kept in reserve, it seemed. I could see the anger in them, the tension, the wariness that came with what had to have been… how long? With the hair, the beards, maybe years of confinement. Maybe even solitary confinement.
On camera, I could see this.
I couldn’t feel them with my bugs. Couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them. A revised image, an edited image, as if the whole crowd had erased with some careful photo editing. Sound editing. Touch editing?
“Oh, hey,” Tattletale said. “Anyone else having trouble getting a read on those guys?“
“I am telling myself we may fight soon,” Lung rumbled, “But my power is not responding as well as it should. Looking at them, seeing what look to be worthy opponents with little to lose, I should be feeling it build faster, a pressure inside me.”
“I can’t see or hear them with my bugs, let alone touch them,” I told Tattletale.
“Over an entire area. Mantellum,” Tattletale said. “The guy with the built-in cloak, dead center.“
I looked, but the crowd moved.
They were talking. We didn’t have audio. There was only the rise and fall of the crowd’s shouts, letting us know when people were talking and when they were reacting to statements.
On camera, people began to leave cells.
“It’s a power with layers. Each successive layer enhances the level of protection. Except everything on record says the range it blocks powers only extends about fifteen feet. Get within five feet, no senses work. It’s not supposed to be a hundred feet like this.“
“Six times the range,” Cuff said.
“Somehow.“
I pursed my lips. “The Doctor?”
“Probably downstairs. Look at the way the group at the rear is set up. They’re watching to make sure nobody comes upstairs. I think they have the Doctor trapped down there.“
They have us trapped here too.
I didn’t say it out loud. Canary looked scared, and both Lung and Rachel looked restless.
“There’s this guy that looks like he’s in charge. You see him?”
It was a voice over the earbuds, but it wasn’t Tattletale.
“You’re an idiot,” Tattletale said. “I love you for this, but you’re an idiot.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Imp,” Tattletale said.
Imp? It took me a second.
Imp. Damn it. Grue would kill me. She was close enough to overhear, and this many parahumans… so many ways she could be detected.
“Mister beautiful,” Imp said. “He’s saying they’re free… oh, whoop. Here we go.”
The cells emptied. It was almost like the order being given was a stone dropped on the water’s surface, the movement of the cell’s occupants the ripple, the ones who didn’t hear the man speak reacted to the others’ movement, and the chain reaction continued. Hundreds of people.
Hundreds of victims.
The roar of the crowd increased in volume. I could feel the floor vibrating. No power at work. Just a lot of people, stomping and cheering.
The Custodian moved a little, then stopped. I could sense her more than before, a disturbance, agitated.
She was the one that had been enforcing the peace, keeping people contained in cells without doors. Now… either Mantellum or the strange case fifty-threes were keeping her at bay, preventing her from seeing to her duties.
The lights flickered, a little worse than before.
“They’re going to come here,” Shadow Stalker said. “I spent time in juvie, if someone had a nice toothbrush, cookies from mom, there was jealousy, retaliation.”
I nodded a little.
And a cushy cell like this…
“They will come,” Lung said. The irises of his eyes were orange, and hive-like lumps were standing out on his skin, where scales threatened to push forth. “I can win, but you will all most likely die in the time I require.”
“I need all the people who can bore through solid steel, he says,” Imp spoke over the comms.
“Lung’s plan can be plan A. Let’s hear plan B,” I said.
“We run,” Shadow Stalker said. “Door’s right there.”
“I could make barriers,” Golem said.
The roaring dimmed. The man was speaking. The cupboard door beneath the large television seemed to rattle with more intensity.
“Custodian says… door?”
She stopped.
“Barriers,” Tattletale said. “We’d have to get past more security doors, ones the Irregulars haven’t dealt with. Quite probably other security measures.“
Imp spoke up, “Pretty guy’s saying… traitors to our kind. See they get the justice they deserve. Oh… hey.“
I looked at the phone.
Weld, mangled to the point that he looked more like scrap metal than a person, was heaved forward, thrown to the ground.
A sphere rolled forward. Something coiled within, behind the colored transparent pane. Someone in the crowd grabbed it, then made their hands glow. Fire? Heating the material? I couldn’t tell from thi
s distance, but I could see the movement within accelerate in fits and starts.
Weld reached out for the sphere, but his arm was so badly damaged it couldn’t hold his weight. It bent the wrong way, breaking off. When he rolled over onto his back, the forearm was stuck to his upper arm, hand to his shoulder and neck.
If he’d been a human, if half that much damage had been done, there would be no way he’d be alive.
“Doesn’t get much worse than a crowd this mad,” Shadow Stalker said, her voice low. “I can probably make a break for it and get away. Not usually my thing to be nice, but… you want me to pass on any messages? Last words? My memory is shit, but I can try.”
The crowd was reacting, the contents of the room shaking with the sound. Out there, it would be deafening.
Then they moved. People were parting the way. Opening a path to our end of the hallway.
The camera gave us a view of the central gang. A spiky boy with yellow skin. A man with exaggerated masculine and feminine features, a caricature, burdened with muscle. There was Gully, the muscular girl with the shovel, braids and severe overbite who’d helped out against Echidna, looking ill at ease. A boy with red skin. Sanguine.
As they got closer, I could feel my power changing, to tell a lie. No people in the area. A conspicuous clearing in the gap. There were enough people to push my insects around, wherever they were, but my brain was revising it to make sense of the scene. It was unusual enough to grab my attention, though, but not accurate enough for me to use it.
“Feel up to singing?” I asked Canary.
“They’d hurt me before I got anywhere,” she said. “Probably. I’ll try.”
I closed my eyes. I could feel my swarm out there, both inside and outside of Mantellum’s power, but I couldn’t do anything meaningful to the crowd with it.
“Satyrical’s out there,” I said. “His people…”
Tattletale spoke. “Probably happen to be the ones who stayed behind to dig for the Doctor. Nobody there, in Satyrical’s group who’re going to be able to deal with this mob. Probably nobody in the Doctor’s group, either.“