by wildbow
I felt a rising panic as I struggled to work myself free. I didn’t know the people who were on the rooftop with me: the man who floated in the air, wearing a sturdy hazmat-style firesuit and a blue and silver mask that left only his mouth, chin and wavy brown hair exposed. I couldn’t recognize the girl he was shooting in the back. I saw her fall face first and writhe with pain. He shot her two more times, and she went limp. Out cold.
I couldn’t make the mental connection between the Nine and their appearances or their powers. If I didn’t have the benefit of being able to remember my actions over the past few minutes, it would have been impossible to say whether the two people here were allies or enemies.
Everything suddenly made sense. The infighting, the tactics they were using, the mixture of hostility and paranoia. Legend was attacking with nonlethal blasts because he couldn’t be sure if he was attacking a teammate or one of the Nine, so he was striving to take everyone out of action with as little permanent damage as possible.
Sundancer’s worries about being alone struck me. We were all alone, now. Every single one of us. From teams to individuals, everyone was fending for themselves because they couldn’t afford to trust the others.
And it would ruin us.
It would be impossible to mount any kind of defense against the Nine if we were fighting them as individuals.
The man with the blue and silver mask floated over to where I was, ready to dispatch me, to knock me out, just in case I was a threat.
“Help?” I called out. It was a spur of the moment response. My mind raced as I tried to form a plan. Even a bad one would serve. I lied, “I’m stuck. Break me out?”
I stared up at him. His face was riddled with conflicting emotions, his body language tense. There was a nervousness there that belied simple amnesia.
We’d been warned about drinking the city’s water. It might mean the effects were more pronounced for the people who hadn’t been informed. Or there might be side effects.
“Stay,” he ordered.
He stayed at the level of the rooftop as he floated out above the street, aiming more blasts at the others.
This wasn’t rational for him, it didn’t jibe with my knowledge of him. That could mean there was something about the miasma that was making him irrational.
I waited for long minutes as he continued firing down on the others. He cast me one sidelong glance, then flew off in pursuit of someone I couldn’t see.
Even after I was able to start wiggling myself free, it was slow. I measured my progress in half-inches. My chest, small as it was, proved an issue. Coupled with the armor at my front and the remains of the armor at my back, it made getting free an issue. Several times, I stopped breathing for a good minute before I forced myself back under the concrete sheet to be able to breathe again, then I did it again. As much through the wear and tear on my armor as anything else, I managed to slide my upper body out on the fifth attempt. I took a second to breathe and rest, and then began the slow process of getting my midsection and hips past the mouth of the concrete shelf.
I directed every curse word I knew at the belt and armor panels I’d placed around my hips as I tried to work myself free. My hips and rear end were proving as difficult as my chest had been, and with my upper body being further away, I couldn’t get the same leverage push myself out with my arms. Minutes passed as I grunted and struggled. I could hear inarticulate screams, shouted threats, screamed warnings and the noise of destruction on the street below as paranoia gave way to violence. I brought Atlas to my side, but even with his strength and his horn, he wasn’t strong enough to affect the concrete. I used his help to squeeze myself out, bracing his horn against the lip of the concrete sheet and pulling.
When I was free, I gathered my knife, baton and gun from where they had fallen and fit them into the few remaining elastic loops in my ruined utility compartment. Cell phone was a yes, but I didn’t have a spot for it, so I tucked it in the chest compartment of my armor. Similarly, I stuck the epipens and changepurse through the space between my hip and the belt, wedging them in next to the straps.
I double checked that Atlas hadn’t been hurt by Legend’s lasers and then climbed on top of him.
There was destruction below, and signs of the mad fighting between capes. Sheets of paper frozen in time, a mailbox destroyed, a light-post toppled, all still in the midst of the red water. Everyone had fled or been knocked out of commission. The fighting had migrated to several scattered spots nearby.
I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I focused on helping the wounded, making sure they were okay. I turned an unconscious girl over into the recovery position, and started to drag a wounded man out of the middle of the road. I stopped when he started struggling and fighting with me and just left him there.
I felt lost. Was I helping the enemy when I was propping someone up to make sure they didn’t choke on their own vomit or drown in a puddle? If I used the plastic cuffs I had in the changepurse, would I be tying someone up, leaving them helpless against one of the Nine?
I checked my cell phone. No service.
I was alone here. Everyone in the world was a stranger.
Vibrations rocked the street. I saw the wounded man stir in response.
A monster. Bigger than a car, fangs, teeth, claws, and a thorny exterior. It didn’t act like it had seen me.
One of Bitch’s dogs? Or is it Crawler?
If it was Crawler, and I acted like he was friendly, he’d tear me to shreds. I could draw my gun to threaten him, defend myself… except that wouldn’t do a thing to slow Crawler down.
If it was one of Bitch’s dogs sans rider, then there was little point in staying. I didn’t even know if it was suffering from the miasma’s effect. If it was Crawler…
I drew my bugs around me as a shroud, simultaneously forming decoy swarms. I ran, my footsteps splashing, and called Atlas to me. The second I was out of sight, I climbed on top of him and took to the air once again.
Couldn’t settle down, couldn’t stop. I had to treat everyone I met as an enemy.
I was beginning to see where the paranoia came in.
“Skitter!” a voice called out.
I stopped.
A blond girl, waving at me.
I drew my gun and leveled it at her.
The smile dropped from her face. She brought both hands to her mouth as she shouted, “It’s me! Tattletale!”
I hesitated.
How tragic would it be if I shot my friend, so soon after I’d wanted to scream at the heroes for fighting among one another?
“How did you get here?”
“On the dog. I don’t remember its name, but it wasn’t as affected as we were. This effect is tailored for people.”
I looked in the direction of the creature I’d seen. Had that been the dog they’d come on?
I drew closer, but I kept the gun aimed at her. I glanced around. “Where are the others?”
“Most are hiding,” she said. “My powers kind of let me work around this gas, I think. I brought Grue, too.”
I looked around. What she was saying felt right, even if I couldn’t remember her powers, specifically. “What is this? Amnesia?”
“Agnosia. We haven’t forgotten. Just… can’t use the knowledge we have. Looking at the others, I think they’re hallucinating. If it’s prions, like Bonesaw used with the power nullification darts, it fits. Hallucinations would match with heavy prion exposure.”
“Prions?”
“They’re small enough to pass through water filtration and gas masks. Badly folded proteins that force other proteins into identical shapes, perpetuating the problem. If she found a way to guide them, or specifically target the parts of the brain she wanted, she might get results like we’re experiencing. In a really bad case, it’d cause lesions in the brain and give you hallucinations.”
I looked around. “How long does it last?”
“Forever. It’s incurable and it’s terminal.”
I sw
allowed. “But Panacea could fix it.”
She nodded, then smiled wide. “There’s hope, right?”
“Right.”
She jerked her head to one side, then used one hand to brush the hair back out of her face. “Let’s grab Grue and formulate a plan.”
She turned to leave, but I stayed where I was. After three steps, she turned around. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t lower the gun. “Sorry, a little paranoid.”
She frowned. “That’s fair, but we’re short on time. If others are getting lesions on their brain, then that means they could die soon. Seizures, violent mood swings, loss of motor control… Creutzfeldt-Jakob was a prion disease, but the progression here’s faster.”
I shook my head. “Crews-what?”
“Neurological disorder caused by eating the meat of a cow infected with mad cow disease. You get the prions in your head, and you slowly die while suffering personality changes, memory loss and vivid hallucinations.”
“And it’s faster here.”
She nodded. Her expression was solemn. “Hours instead of weeks. And as people experience mood shifts with anger and fear, or if the hallucinations get worse—”
“The fighting among teammates will, too,” I finished. “It could get ugly.”
“If we’re going to save everyone, we need Amy. For that, we need to ask Cherish.”
I shook my head. “Who?”
“Um. You remember capturing a member of the Nine?”
Did I? We’d ambushed them, walked away with captives, yes. But we’d lost someone too.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“And we confined one?”
I nodded. This was working. I could piece together the information. We’d called that person on a phone, hadn’t we? “Cell phones aren’t working consistently.”
“Is it safe?” a male voice asked.
“Sure.”
I stayed silent.
He stepped out from around the corner to stand by the blond girl. “This is Skitter?”
She nodded. “Skitter, this is Grue.”
I didn’t recognize him any more than he recognized me. I kept the gun trained on them.
“This is slowing us down. What’s it going to take to get you to trust me?” she asked.
What would it take?
“The fight with Empire Eighty-Eight’s mooks. When I made the human-shaped tower of bugs for the first time, and they shot into it while I crouched inside…”
She shook her head “I don’t remember that.”
How many people had I been with, then? I would have said one, but I felt like someone else was involved. Had they arrived late? I could remember hurrying off.
She spread her arms wide. “I’m sorry. I might not look like it, but it’s affecting me too. I’m just using my power to uncover the answers we need.”
I nodded. That would have been reassuring if I could remember what her powers were, or if I could think of something about her I could quiz her on. It was like two blind people playing hide and seek.
“Look, come here,” she offered.
I hesitated.
“You can keep the gun. I’ll keep my hands above my head. Grue, stand back.”
He stepped away and leaned against a wall, his arms folded.
I landed Atlas and stepped forward.
She got on her knees, and with her hands above her head, she walked through the flooded street on her knees until her forehead was pressed against the barrel of the gun.
“I trust you. I know I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, I know we’ve had our ups and downs. I know I’ve kept way too many secrets for someone who calls herself Tattletale…” She smiled. “But I trust you. Now, even if you don’t recognize me consciously, what’s your heart telling you?”
In truth? It wasn’t telling me much. If I didn’t think on it, if I just went with the vague impression I associated with the name Tattletale, the smile, the fountain of information…
I backed away a step. “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to trust you.”
“Darn it. Um. Let me think…”
“Do you want to go ahead without her?” the guy asked.
I turned to look at him. The idea of being left alone here—
“Go somewhere safe,” he suggested.
I frowned.
“If the Slaughterhouse Nine find Panacea first, or if things get much worse—”
“I want to help, really,” I said. “But it’s just that…”
I trailed off.
“You want to help, but you’re suspicious. And you feel bad for being suspicious, because of everything we’ve been through, our close calls?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I was double checking everything he said against my own awareness. Was he saying anything that indicated he knew something I couldn’t?
“I know how scared and suspicious you feel because I feel the same way. Except I trust Tattletale.”
“I do too,” I said. “And I’d trust her if I could be sure she was Tattletale.”
“Trust your heart.”
I wanted so desperately for it to be like in the movies, where people could trust your heart. Where you were holding the gun and you had to choose between shooting the evil clone and shooting your friend, and you just knew.
He gestured around us with one hand. “This doesn’t work. This is going to lose us the fight, and all the danger we’ve been through in our fight against the Nine will be for nothing if they win here.”
I shook my head. “I don’t disagree, but that line of thinking isn’t going to make me drop the gun.”
“Then can I try acting from my heart?” he asked.
Before I could respond, he started approaching me. I backed away a step, kept the gun leveled, but I couldn’t bring myself to shoot as he advanced.
He stepped in close, ignoring the gun, and wrapped his arms around me. My forehead pressed against his shoulder. It wasn’t the most comfortable hug I’d had, not that I’d had many. It felt awkward, stiff, clumsy. But somehow that made it feel more right, like a real hug would have felt off somehow.
He was warm.
Grue?
Then, without waiting for me to give an answer, Grue stepped back, taking hold of my left hand and pulling. I followed without complaint. I couldn’t complain. If I doubted him now, after this—I’d be ten times as angry at myself as he was with me.
“Priority number one, we get in contact with Cherish,” Tattletale said, grinning. “From there, we can decide whether we want to track down Panacea or go after the Slaughterhouse Nine.”
“Right,” I said.
“Keep checking your cell phone. The second we have service, call Coil.”
“Coil is?”
“Our boss, and since he’s hidden away, he won’t be affected, so he’ll be able to place the name and fill us in on the details the agnosia has blocked from us.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not the end of the world after all,” Tattletale smiled.
I nodded. I was acutely aware of the gun in my right hand. I felt like I should put it away, but with the way we were moving and my general sense of unease, I couldn’t stop and do it. Hated this. It reminded me of school.
The reminder made me angry, and it somehow made all of this seem worse. I muttered, “Sooner we’re fucking cured of this miasma, the better.”
“Hey!” Tattletale paused, pointing at me with a stern expression on her face. “Don’t swear!”
Prey 14.9
“Your powers are working alright?” Tattletale asked.
I nodded.
“Bug powers, was it? Don’t want to get it wrong. Control them, see through their eyes—”
“No. I can’t see through their eyes or hear what they do. It’s mainly touch.”
“Just wanted to check.” She paused. “If I asked you what my power was?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. And if I said I was born in Mexico, could you tell m
e where I was born?”
“Didn’t you just say?”
“Yeah. Repeat it back to me?”
“You were born in Mexico?”
“Your short-term recollection is still good, at least. That would be why you can retain the information Grue and I have shared over the past few minutes. That big beetle of yours, you named it?”
I glanced at Atlas, who was crawling a short distance away. “Atlas.”
Tattletale nodded. “That would be the short-term memory, again. Your power probably gives you enough contact with it that you don’t lose track of who and what it is.”
“Right.”
“So long as that keeps working, we don’t need to worry about you and Grue forgetting who we are in the middle of a conversation. But for us, we might lose track of each other if we split up, so let’s stay close, okay?”
“Okay.”
She reached out and took my hand.
“Can you use the bugs to scout our surroundings? This will go more smoothly if we don’t need to worry about running into people.”
It made sense. I sent my bugs out to cover the surrounding area.
The red mist was everywhere. Color was strained out, leaving everything a monochrome red. I could still make out the surroundings, but just enough light was filtered out that the area had settled into an oppressive gloom, with many existing shadows made nearly opaque as a result. The drifting movements of the mist and the subtle shifts in color and shadow made me feel like things were prowling in every corner and in the edges of my field of vision.
That deep, primal prey-animal part of my psyche kept telling me something was wrong, that I was in danger. I tried to tell myself that it was just my fear working itself up, my brain playing tricks on me. There was nothing out there.
The weight of the gun in my hand was both a reassurance and a burden. It would be so easy to do something I would regret for the rest of my life.
“Hate this,” I muttered.
“Me too,” Grue answered. He put his hand on my shoulder to offer some reassurance. “But we manage, we cope because we’re a team. We belong together.”
My awareness snagged on someone who was walking a distance behind us, measuring their pace with ours.
