by John McCrae
“It’s a hassle,” Rachel said. “I’d rather have a steak, some veg, and a good hunk of bread to soak up the juices. That bread the other night was good.”
“Yeah?” Cassie asked. She smiled wide. “You liked that?”
“Didn’t I say that?”
“You’re telling me you’d turn down pizza?” Biter asked, with a hint of incredulity. “You’d turn down a nice shawarma?”
Rachel shrugged. “All food is pretty much fast food when someone else does the cooking.”
“You’re spoiling her,” Biter told Cassie.
Cassie smirked, scratching the ear of the dog that walked to her left.
Bastard sniffed as they had to walk around an area where an overhang had been erected to protect people on the sidewalk. A truck blared its horn as Bastard stepped onto the edge of the road.
Biter glared over his shoulder. “Cocky motherfuckers. You’d think they would have more appreciation for just how scary the wrong asshole with powers could be.”
“They feel safe,” Rachel said. She looked up and around, searching buildings for telltale signs. “Superheroes set up near here, probably.”
“You worried?”
“No. Not worried.”
“Because you’re confident you can deal, or because-” He threw up his hands as Rachel leveled a stare at him. “Right. Too many questions.”
“Doon, Colbie,” Rachel addressed the dogs that accompanied Biter. “Nose.”
The Foxhound continued sniffing with his nose to the ground, but the bloodhound raised his head and barked. It was a good bark, the sort that could carry over acres.
“Good dogs,” she said. “Go.”
Biter held the leashes, and followed as the dogs moved down the side of the road.
Rachel kept Bastard moving at a slower pace as they followed, letting the gap grow.
“I feel underdressed.”
Rachel glanced down. It was Cassie who had spoken. She was warily looking at the people they were passing, drawing closer to Rachel and Bastard. Her dog was a golden retriever, a little out of place alongside Bastard and the more imposing scent dogs they’d brought. Well groomed to the point of shining, though its hair was long.
Rachel looked down at the girl. Dressed in a dark brown to Rachel’s gray-white, Cassie had grown her hair long, tying it back into a ponytail, fuzzy earmuffs in place with the half-circle of metal beneath her hair. The elbows and sleeves of her jacket and pants had been patched with a heavier material. Her only nod to fashion was a spiked collar she wore, and a badge on her arm, which had a series of letters.
She’d asked once, and she’d gotten an answer. Wag the dog. It was supposed to be a joke, but Rachel didn’t get it, and the explanations had only confused her more.
Rachel took her eyes off the girl, spotting Biter in the crowd. He, too, wore more spikes, but it was somewhat more blatant. With the weather getting colder, he’d donned a hood, held in place by spikes that ran along the top and back of his head, puncturing the material. The bear-trap jaw plate had been replaced with a more stylized version. He was tall and imposing, but she tracked him more by the way the crowd seemed to move and shift to avoid him and the two dogs that zig-zagged in front of him, searching for the scent.
“I’m not the person to talk to if you’re worried about that,” Rachel finally said.
“I know. I’m only saying it. I can say, right?”
“Yeah. You can say,” Rachel answered.
But when she looked down at Cassie, the girl had her hands jammed in her pockets, her shoulders drawn in, half of her attention on Sunny.
“The clothes… they’re warm enough?”
“Yeah. I’m snug.”
“Tough enough?”
“Yeah. I’m seeing where you’re going with this.”
“Comfortable?”
“Yeah,” Cassie said. She glanced up at Rachel. “I hear what you’re saying. But there’s more to it than that. The clothes can be all of those things, but I can still feel dumb because I put one of the dog’s old collars on for a joke and now I’ve got people looking at me funny.”
“I like the collar.”
Cassie smiled as she lowered her eyes to the ground. One of her gloved hands went up to the collar, tugging a bit.
Rachel wasn’t sure what the smile or touching the collar were supposed to mean. “I said it before. I’m not the kind of person who give you any good answers.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Cassie said. “Really.”
You were talking about it, so it’s some kind of deal, Rachel thought, but she couldn’t think of a good way to say it.
And, apparently, Cassie wasn’t willing to let the subject drop, now that they were talking about it. “Going from our neighborhood to here, the people, the buildings…”
“They’d look out of place if they came to our neighborhood, just like we look out of place in theirs.”
“That’s not what I mean. You don’t feel like they’d be looking funny at you, even if Bastard wasn’t here?”
Rachel shrugged. “I never feel like I belong anywhere. This isn’t any different.”
“Except when you’re with us, right? When you’re home?”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t feel as out of place when I’m with you guys.”
Cassie smiled. “Good.”
They stopped at a corner. People backed away to give them a wider berth as Bastard stopped walking, as if they were anticipating trouble at any moment.
Biter was on the other side of the street, trying to keep up as the dogs started walking in one direction, then stopped, reversing to move the opposite way.
“We’re close,” Rachel said.
“Yeah?”
Rachel leaned over in her seat, kicking Cassie lightly in the shoulder.
“Sorry,” Cassie said. The little smile didn’t leave her face.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Rachel said. She looked around, her eyes searching building faces for icons she could recognize, looking for people standing in strange places. Nothing stood out.
She could feel the vibration as her power reached Cassie’s dog, giving it strength, size, making it change. While the dog changed, she put four fingers in her mouth and whistled.
Heads on the other side of the street turned.
She only cared about one head. Biter had looked, and she gestured for him to come back.
He made his way across the street. He held Doon and Colby’s chains with one hand, his other hand growing until it was almost as large as he was, fending off one car that was late in braking.
It was easier to use her power on the dogs when they were close. The shudders as her power reached and enhanced them got more pronounced as Biter approached. As the size of the dogs increased, the people around them became more hesitant. Four mutant dogs and two obvious capes were a threat. It was easier to stand strong against a single threat, to believe they could work together and overcome it.
Stupid, when that single threat was Bastard and they were just people, but people were dumb.
They’d picked up the basics of what had happened and how Scion had been stopped. There was a message there, an unspoken understanding. Maybe it was a part of the reason their body language had been so strange as she entered the city. There was something happening, related to that, something complicated. Not the kind of thing she was good at wrapping her head around. She’d have to ask Tattletale.
She waited as the animals grew. Again, she looked, searching for anyone that might be objecting to her presence here. Heroes, villains, whatever-elses.
Cassie climbed onto Sunny’s back. Biter mounted Doon.
Rachel gestured, then whistled.
The animals leaped onto the side of a building. Claws bit into the outside of the building face, into window ledges and windows, scraping stone. One limb at a time, muscles shifting and rippling as they adjusted their weight, set each in place before moving with the next.
They reached the rooftop, and Cassie rolle
d off Sunny’s back, landing on her back.
“I’m never getting used to that,” she said. Sunny nudged Cassie with a gnarled snout, and Cassie laughed, rolling over onto her front and then hurrying to get to her feet. “Don’t step on me, Sun. Good girl.”
Rachel searched their surroundings again.
“You’re looking for someone?”
“Trying to figure out how to do this,” Rachel answered.
“We find him, we find her, we drag ‘em back,” Biter said. “Maybe we fish in their wallets, grab some cash, and we have Cass run in some place and grab some french fries.”
Rachel sighed.
“I could make french fries.”
“It’s not the same if it isn’t distilled in the ambient misery of pimply faced teenagers in ugly uniforms. Gotta have them limp with oil, loaded with preservatives, and coated in salt.”
“I refuse to believe those’re better fries than I could make.”
Rachel shifted impatiently. “Are you two done?”
“No,” Biter said. “I can’t let this go, because bad fast food is important. It’s a staple of society, and having ridiculous coffee shops and mass-produced food is a badge, a way of showing that we’ve gone past the industrial age and into modern society. Seeing those glowing signs down there, it’s a sign that humanity is actually recovering. It’d be an insult if we didn’t partake.”
“I don’t get it,” Rachel said.
“You’re not the only one,” Cassie added.
“Let me put it simply,” Biter said. “You two, you’re happy where you’re at? You’d be content if you never had to set foot in a city like this?”
“Yeah,” Cassie said.
Rachel shrugged.
“Yeah. Me? I’m okay where we’re at. For now. But I’m still sort of keeping an eye on the calendar. No disrespect intended, boss, but I’m thinking I leave one day. Maybe in a year, maybe in five. I figure I’ve got to get back to the trappings of tried-and-true civilization at some point, or I’ll go-”
A rumble shook the area. A plume of mist rose into the sky a few blocks away.
“-Batshit fucking nuts,” he finished.
“Cape fight,” Rachel observed.
“Are you going to help?” Cassie asked.
Rachel frowned. They had the scent dogs. They had the trail. It would be easy enough to find their quarry and get out of here.
“The heroes are going to be on it,” Biter said. “Whatever’s going on, we get in the thick of it, things get more complicated.”
“I know,” Rachel responded. “I’m not dumb.”
“But we’re still standing here, which means-”
“We’re standing here because I’m trying to think,” Rachel retorted. “That looks big.”
“And? You don’t care about people. You hate people. I quote, ‘people are stupid’.”
“They are stupid,” she answered. “And I… don’t like most people. Not the issue.”
“What is the issue, then?”
She stared. It had been a while since she’d stretched her legs, getting into the thick of things. That wasn’t it, though. She’d spent her entire life being restless, and now the restlessness was largely gone.
Taylor, then? She thought of Taylor, and she couldn’t help but think of the way people had stood together, as if bracing to fight back if she caused trouble. Uniting against the bigger threat.
She wasn’t dumb. These days, she felt better about herself and who she was than she ever had. But she admitted her failings.
I’m not articulated.
She couldn’t put that idea into words like the others could. Tattletale could, obviously. Taylor… well, Taylor would have been able to. Imp could put her thoughts into words, but she’d probably be more confusing than helpful.
It was frustrating, but it was a frustration she had come to peace with.
“That many people in trouble, bound to be some dogs and dog owners in there,” Rachel lied.
“That’s your reason? If you’re going to talk like that, you might as well be a fucking superhero,” Biter said.
She ignored him. “You don’t have to come. Bastard, go!”
She could feel the shifting of Bastard’s muscles, the little spot where one plate of calcified flesh dug into her knee riding up to mid-thigh. He jumped with an explosive kind of strength, crossing the street and landing on another rooftop.
Even with Bastard absorbing the impact, it was a hard one. She grunted. The bruises and aches would be felt the next morning.
It was easier to maneuver here. Probably had to do with the way the buildings were going up, everything following some plan or another. There was order, in this Boston. It made the city feel less like a city, on some levels, with too much uniformity in areas, but she could appreciate how it made it easier to move around.
Another series of leaps. Shorter distances, with no big drops. Any pain she felt was from the first big jump.
She could see the capes fighting, down below. A man was at the center of it. He’d swelled in size until he was twice the height he should be, almost breaking apart, like a statue that had been dropped, only the biggest chunks preserved, hanging in mid-air in a vague human shape, high above the street. Black ooze gushed from foot-wide cracks and divides in his body. His flesh was dark brown, the edges of the cracks raw and bloody.
Even from her vantage point on the rooftop, she could hear his screams. It was muffled, despite the volume, as though he were screaming while underwater, the effect amplified.
The capes were occupied – a very small few seemed to be trying to attack him. The rest were working to keep the black ooze from spreading.
Rachel paused, watching.
Miss Militia was down there. She had a containment foam gun, and was forming a short wall.
The screaming got worse, and the man in the center broke in half, a crack widening in his torso until it separated completely. More ooze, faster. His lower body was almost impossible to see.
His hands went to his head-
Faces. Mockeries. Variations on a theme. Reaching hands, supplicating.
-The image was brief, but acutely familiar. Rachel felt mentally disoriented in the same way she might be physically disoriented if she stepped forward and found the ground wasn’t there. Others in the area had staggered. Miss Militia had dropped the hose for the foam gun.
Rachel gripped the chain that looped Bastard’s neck. When he was small, the same chain doubled as a leash.
Familiar, comfortable. Reassuring, in the midst of this situation.
She’d had visions before, she’d even remembered one, after the fight on the beach. They hadn’t been like that. It had been brief, and somehow broken up.
Something was wrong.
Someone shot the black ooze man, and his collarbone splintered, cracks spiderwebbing up to an oozing fissure in his neck and the stump of one shoulder. Rachel could see how more ooze was starting to bleed out from the site of the injury.
He reacted, looking down at the injury, then looking up.
He reached out, and the ooze below him shifted, moving in a singular direction as if it were flowing downhill.
The cape who’d shot him hurried to run-
A moment of uncertainty. The population of this world wasn’t reacting any further. He attacked, they moved. Again and again, they created the images. They weren’t afraid, and he was.
-but stumbled as the mental image shook him. He managed to get his footing, but the ooze moved faster with each passing second, and the delay had cost him. It slopped around his ankles on its way past him.
The black ooze man moved his hand, and the ooze that was pouring from him became black fire, spreading to alter all of the ooze it touched with a sound like the gas lanterns made, but a thousand times louder. Things touching the fire burned, and the dark sea was briefly highlighted in oranges, yellows and reds.
The gunman who had attacked the ooze man dropped before he could react, his feet an
d lower legs burned away. When he touched the black fire, there was a brief flare of orange flame before he was obliterated.
She had a sense of what she was up against, now. She surveyed the battlefield. The ground was rising into a crude bowl, containing the ooze, but a veritable waterfall flowed from the man’s ruined midsection, and the rate at which the bowl filled was outpacing the rate at which the bowl grew.
There was a crash. Sunny and Cassie had arrived.
“Biter?”
“Not coming.”
Rachel scowled, but left it at that.
“What’s going on?”
“Trigger. Something’s wrong.”
“Trigger events can be plenty bad on their own.”
“Mm,” Rachel grunted.
“Oh. Yeah. You know.”
“Mm. You stay out of the way. Black stuff is bad.”
She didn’t wait for a response, ordering Bastard to head down towards the ground. Why? Hard to say, just like it was hard to explain the solidarity, or why she’d come in the first place. There were people out there who functioned best with their brains. Putting ideas together, analyzing the situation, rationalizing. She wasn’t one of them. She functioned best on instinct.
Gut feeling? If this fight continued like this, it would turn out ugly.
Miss Militia had shucked off the foam dispenser, and was backing up, shouting orders. She pulled the trigger on a small gun, sending a flare skyward.
Rallying the troops. Made sense.
The ooze man rose higher into the air, as she made her way down. There were people on the fringes, cornered or caught where they couldn’t freely maneuver.
Bastard’s claws scraped against the side of the building on the way down, his front claws getting more traction than the rear ones. He wound up swinging, his hind end descending while his front end maintained a grip. Rachel was nearly flung off, but her hold on the chain kept her in place. Bastard elected to drop the remainder of the way to the ground.
Another heavy impact. The imminent bruising went from ‘I’ll feel it in the morning’ to ‘I’ll be feeling this all next week’.
He was out of practice. Chasing buffalo and bringing them down was different from leaping around a city.
But she was on the ground, free to run.