“No,” Tattletale shook her head. ”She wouldn’t have used the dust and the darts if that was the big reveal. It doesn’t make sense tactically, because we could have come up with a way to deal, and Skitter’s partially immune anyways. And it doesn’t make sense artistically, either. You have to think of her as less of a scientist or doctor and more of a performer.”
A thirty story skyscraper tipped over and crashed to the ground in the distance. The rumbling crash of the building’s collapse seemed delayed in getting to us. I could see Legend, more through the flashes of his lasers than anything else, but everyone else was out of sight, specks I couldn’t have made out if they weren’t on the ground.
“If we’re lucky, we won’t have to worry about Bonesaw’s plot,” Trickster said.
“Plan for the worst,” Grue replied, staring into the distance, “If you’re right, you’re prepared. If you’re wrong, you’re pleasantly surprised.”
“Heard that one before,” Imp commented.
“Still true,” Grue replied, sounding annoyed.
“Can’t plan for this,” I said. ”I’m growing to hate tinkers. People with enhanced senses and tinkers. And fire manipulators. Sorry, Sundancer.”
She shrugged.
I turned back to the subject at hand, “We can’t guess what she’s come up with because her tinker abilities make her so versatile, and that means we can’t preemptively set up any countermeasures.”
Tattletale tucked her hair behind her ear. ”Fits in a vial, assuming that vial she was showing off was the real weapon, something to do with water, she said… you guys haven’t been drinking anything except bottled water?”
There were head shakes and the occasional muttered “No” from the rest of the group.
“I’ve even been making my tea with it,” I said.
“And we know there’s going to be a strategic purpose behind it, beyond causing terror,” Tattletale went on.
“You’re getting into that headspace again, Tattletale,” Grue said. ”Tunnel vision.”
“Right. I’m done now,” Tattletale replied.
“Is it such a problem?” Trickster leaned forward, “If you can give us answers about this thing, that’s good, right?”
Tattletale shook her head, “If I’m digging deep enough for answers that I’m losing sight of other things, it means I’m probably speculating, and that tends to mean I’m generating false positives, heading down the wrong path to the wrong conclusions. I told Grue to stop me if I’m doing it, and Skitter’s right when she says we can’t anticipate what Bonesaw’s going to do, so it’s pointless anyways.”
“If we did want to take countermeasures,” I said, “We should maybe think about tracking down Amy. Or figuring out where she is.”
“Panacea?” Grue frowned. ”She didn’t exactly leave us on good terms.”
“I know. But she can counteract whatever Bonesaw does.”
“Unless she falls victim to it,” Tattletale said, sighing. ”After two bad incidents downtown, I’d lay odds she’s heading up toward the docks. It gives her the best odds of finding a place that’s empty, where she and Glory Girl can hide out for-”
“Heads up!”
I wasn’t sure who had shouted the warning, but I turned to look in the direction of the fighting, and I instantly knew it was Bonesaw’s work.
The water was turning crimson. Where it was only one or two inches deep above the pavement, it turned a dark red that resembled blood. That alone might have been spooky enough, but it was spreading over hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds, and there was a thin red mist rising in its wake.
“Run!” Grue shouted.
I was on top of Atlas in an instant, and in the air a second later.
“How is it spreading so fast!?” I asked, while the others seated themselves on the two dogs.
“She must have set it up beforehand!” Tattletale called out. ”Just needed the catalyst!”
She checked to make sure Trickster and Sundancer were seated and had Bentley at an all out run a heartbeat later. Sirius followed just two steps behind, carrying Grue, Imp, Bitch and Ballistic. Regent joined me in the air, hanging in a less than dignified way from Shatterbird’s embrace.
I needed only one glance to know they weren’t running fast enough.
“Sundancer!” I shouted. ”Cut it off!”
It took her three or four seconds to pull an orb together, no larger than a basketball. It grew to twice the size as it flew, raking across the street to turn the pooled water into clouds of steam. I rose higher in the air to avoid being caught by the plumes of hot water. The steam turned from a clean white to pink and eventually red as the effect reached it.
Sundancer’s miniature sun had slowed the progression down our flooded street, but it wasn’t enough. From my perspective, I could see the water on adjacent streets undergoing the same transformation, moving forward until it was adjacent to the others, then extending forward. It was a matter of time before it reached far enough forward that it passed through the side alleys and cut them off.
“Get to high ground!” I shouted.
Bentley leaped for the side of a building in an alleyway, scrabbled for a hold, then leaped to the building face behind him, attempting the zig-zag movement that the dogs had done so many times before.
Except he wasn’t as agile as the other dogs, and I suspected he wasn’t as practiced at it as Brutus, Judas and Angelica had been. Added to that, he was carrying a heavy burden. One of his paws went through a window, he slipped, dug his claws into the wall and shifted to climbing the wall instead.
It was too slow. The water turned crimson beneath him, and then the vapor began to rise, faster than Bentley was climbing.
“Tattletale,” I breathed.
I massed thick clusters of bugs between them and the vapor, while Regent and Shatterbird followed Sirius and the others.
It was enough to buy them time, but that meant precious little. No matter how much I pressed the bugs together into an airborne barrier, the vapor made its way through. Worse, the mist was rising to either side of them, approaching the top of the building.
They reached the rooftop and Bentley heaved himself over the edge. They hopped off his back as they reached solid ground, and Tattletale stepped over to the corner of the roof to watch the rise of the red vapor. It was only a floor beneath them.
Trickster pointed at the top of a building nearby, then looked up at me.
I gathered my bugs there, again, pressing them together. Trickster looked increasingly impatient as the bugs massed, and the vapor reached the edges of the roof.
I hurried over to the building, instead, then hopped off, sending Atlas over to the other rooftop. Trickster swapped me with Tattletale, and I hopped over to ferry myself to the roof again.
Didn’t trust my ability to use Atlas to carry someone else, when I had to struggle to process his sensory inputs. Add someone else’s shifting weight and movements, and I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t drop them.
I was on the building again when Trickster swapped me for Sundancer. It left him, myself and Bentley standing on the rooftop.
I was on top of Atlas a second later, flying. The red mist crept in from the outside edges of the rooftop. He got on top of Bentley, looking less than comfortable holding the reins, and Tattletale whistled. It wasn’t as good as Bitch’s whistles, but Bentley perked up and ran, leaping for the side of a nearby building.
He and Trickster reached the second rooftop quickly enough. The mist was still rising, not just below us, but up around buildings nearly as far as the eye could see.
“Shit,” Tattletale said. ”Not good.”
“There’s a taller building over there,” I pointed. ”We should head there before the mist gets up here.”
“I’d call it miasma,” Tattletale said. ”And is there really any point?”
“It might stop rising,” I protested.
“It won’t.”
“Is that an educated guess or-”
“It’s not.”
I found myself at a loss for words.
“What does it do?” I asked. ”Poison? Something else?”
“Probably something else. Or it’s poison, but it’s designed to do something besides kill us. How are the others doing?”
I looked for Grue and Regent using my swarm sense. Grue, Bitch, Ballistic and Sirius were on a rooftop lower than us, Regent directly above them. Cursory exploration with my bugs revealed a glass dome extending around the rooftop. My bugs could fit through gaps in the glass, which meant the miasma would as well. I did what I could to block up the holes, and I knew it was useless.
Brian. Rachel.
“I think they’re caught,” I said. ”I-I don’t know what to do.”
“You have a gun. You have your bugs. If the Nine are going to let their guards down, it’s going to be now. All the ones who are still left are priority targets. Finish off Siberian and taking Jack and Bonesaw out of action will be doable.”
“You’re saying I should leave you.”
“Yeah.” She looked down at the rising mist.
“No. That’s ridiculous. Let’s get you to higher ground.”
“It’s futile. You’d be buying us a little time, but this is looking pretty inevitable. Your time is better spent going after the Nine. If you can’t find them, or if it’s too dangerous, find Panacea.”
“This isn’t negotiable. I- I can’t do anything for Grue and Rachel and Ballistic, Regent tried and he failed. Let me do this for you.”
Tattletale frowned. ”Fine. But you’ll have to hurry. That’s a lot of distance to cover, and the miasma’s nearly here.”
Trickster cut in, “Gather bugs together like you were doing, remember that they’re not as dense as our bodies are, so we need more than you’d think if I’m going to swap them for one of us.”
I nodded and flew for the tallest building in the area. I turned around and waited for Trickster to swap me.
He didn’t. They stood at the roof’s edge, looking my way, and the dark red miasma climbed up the sides of the building around them.
It felt like my heart dropped out of my chest. Brian, Rachel, now Lisa?
I couldn’t afford to turn around and confront them -time was too short- so I focused on gathering my bugs. I clustered them together, pressing them into a largish human shape. How many was enough?
I felt a jarring sensation as Trickster swapped my bugs to his location. Sundancer appeared beside me.
“Why?” I asked.
She shook her head, “They didn’t say anything. They were both really quiet while you flew off, and then Tattletale said ‘It doesn’t look like her plan will work out. Tell her I’m sorry.’ Trickster teleported me here before I could say anything or ask what she meant.”
“Why isn’t he telporting Tattletale out? Or himself? There’s still time for…” I looked at the cloud. Not enough time to save both, now. ”He could save one of them, and I could probably get Atlas there and get out of harm’s way before the miasma reached me.”
“His power gets slower with distance and difference in mass,” Sundancer hugged herself, “Maybe it’s too slow, and he doesn’t think you’d have time to run. Or-”
“Or.” I said. The sentence didn’t deserve to be finished. There was the other reason. The notion that he was deliberately avoiding using his power, because he knew I didn’t have the time to get back to them before the miasma reached them. ”Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. When you’ve left, I’ll use my power, and I guess I’ll wait here until-” she stopped.
Until when? There was nothing saying this miasma of Bonesaw’s would disappear or settle anytime soon.
“I hate being alone,” Sundancer said. She settled into a sitting position. “It’s like, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually been on my own. When I was little, I was always with my mom, or always in school, always in afterschool activities. Ballet, violin, lyrical dance, voice lessons, acting lessons… never a moment to think for myself. Even after I stopped all that, I was with my friends. Always in a group.”
I stared at Tattletale and Trickster. I couldn’t make out their faces, but my bugs could make out the shapes of sounds that had to be words. They were having a conversation, just like we were.
“I remember you said it was lonely, being in the Travelers.”
“It was. It is. But I was still with them. Part of the group. The time I’ve spent in my territory is the longest I’ve spent on my own. Actually managing the territory, scaring off Hookwolf’s people, that was easy. Being all on my own was unfamiliar ground. Soul crushing. I wound up going back to Coil’s base and spending time with Noelle and Oliver. I didn’t even really like them, before all this began. But being alone, agonizing over everything that’s been going on, no distractions…”
The miasma had reached the rooftop where Tattletale and Trickster stood. Trickster was pacing, while Tattletale stood with her back to me, her hand rubbing Bentley’s blunted snout.
It took only a few seconds for the mist to close in around them. There was no immediate reaction. The two teenagers and the dog simply stood, silhouettes in a stirring cloud of vapor that ranged from ruby-red to crimson in shade.
I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat.
“And now I’m alone,” Sundancer said. “You’re going to go after the Nine, and I’ll wait here, all on my own, going crazy as I wait and watch and see just what happens to them.”
“If I’ve picked up on anything over the last few months of wearing a costume, it’s that humans are stronger than you’d expect,” I said. It was as much to myself as to Sundancer. “We can endure a hell of a lot of punishment before we break, and even after we’re broken, we tend to keep on going. Could be physical punishment: getting stabbed, getting scarred, broken bones. Could be mental: losing a loved one, being tortured, even the way I feel like breaking down and crying over the fact that just about every other member of my team is probably fucked, but I’m holding myself together? Humans can put up with a hell of a lot.”
“I don’t think this is the right time for optimism,” Sundancer said, bitter.
“Optimism?” I shook my head. “No. It’s a double-edged sword. If we weren’t so resilient, so tenacious as a species, I don’t think we’d be having this much trouble with Jack. I don’t think Mannequin or Siberian would even exist like they do now. I’d almost call it pessimistic. Almost.”
She didn’t reply.
“Speaking of Jack and Siberian-” I started.
“Go.”
I left, taking off and heading for the spot I’d left Legend. Looking over my shoulder, I could see Sundancer creating her orb and bringing it down on top of herself. As it had done back during our fight with Lung, it didn’t burn the area directly around her.
And Tattletale and Trickster… were still standing in the midst of the miasma. They weren’t reacting or doing anything, but they weren’t signalling for me to come back, either, and they weren’t hopping on top of Bentley to rejoin the action.
Something was up, I just had no idea what.
I consoled myself with the bittersweet idea that Bonesaw would want to draw this out. It wouldn’t be as simple as murdering my teammates. It wasn’t exactly reassuring, especially when I thought back to what had happened to Brian, but it gave me hope that this wasn’t the last time I’d see my teammates. My friends.
I rose higher as I approached the epicenter of the miasma. It had continued to rise, and the place she’d used the catalyst was the place where the vapor had spread the most. I could see how it was threaded through the streets like veins, surrounding buildings in a crimson embrace, spilling out into the ocean.
The water of the bay, I noticed, hadn’t changed. Was the salt killing whatever organisms she’d designed to spread this effect?
There were areas of high ground where the effect was diminished or gone. There were hills here and there where the area h
adn’t flooded and miasma wasn’t reaching so far into those spots. Hopefully that meant the civilians wouldn’t be so affected; the high ground where flooding wasn’t an issue would also be the place where people congregated for shelter.
A series of bright flashes caught my attention. Between the distance and the cloud of red vapor, I could only barely make him out, but the staccato lasers let me identify him as Legend. He was fighting.
I sent my bugs down into the miasma, drawing them together into a swarm and placing them strategically, painting a mental picture of the area, the layout, and the positions of the combatants.
Just to be safe, I drew closer to a rooftop. It wasn’t safe to land, but I had hopes the building would offer me some cover against Jack. I held the bulk of my swarm at bay, waiting for the moment I could assist Legend in fighting the Nine.
He wasn’t fighting the Nine.
Legend was shooting at teammates. He shouted something, but neither my ears nor my bugs were able to pick out the words.
Really wished I could use my bugs to hear.
Had they gone berserk? Rage?
No. I could sense others hiding. In fact, it seemed to be the primary concern of the people in the miasma. Hiding, staying out of trouble, putting distance between themselves and the others. Even Legend was pulling his punches. His lasers were nonlethal, as far as I could see.
Paranoia?
Weld, who I identified by his lack of a costume and the metal growths on his shoulders, was standing with his back to a wall. His hands were blunt weapons, and he was swinging them through the air to threaten anyone who approached. A small figure who could only be Vista was backing away from two adults. She got too close to Legend, and he fired a spray of laser blasts at her. None hurt her or penetrated her costume, but she staggered and fell.
I could sense the ground bulge, spearing up in a pillar. As the ground beneath them stretched in the pillar’s vicinity, others staggered or got disoriented. At the pillar’s top, a roughed-up Vista bent the growth she’d created to place herself close to the rooftop and hopped down onto solid ground. She coughed.
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