“If you think of doing anything but admitting your full crime to the police officer right then and there, I’ll try figuring out how many times those ants can bite you before they run out of venom. Now go. Run.”
Two of them ran, stumbling as they twitched and flinched at the continuing pain, while the third crawled. I had an ant bite the mouthiest one when he was only a few paces away, to hurry them along.
I turned to the others. The Japanese-American man was staring at me.
“You should go to the police too,” I said. “Give your side of the story, let them take photos.”
“I will,” he said, his tone curt. He turned to leave, then paused. “I asked you to be lenient.”
How can I even explain? I’ve seen the worst of the worst. I want to protect each and every one of you from it. The system won’t stop them, not all on its own.
But if I explained, they would argue, and every counter-argument would make me look weaker, damage my image and hurt people’s confidence in me. There were people who would be happy with a firm hand being used to deter criminals, there were others who wouldn’t be happy, but they’d accept it as the price that came with everything else I had to offer.
I didn’t like it, but I’d do it.
He was still staring at me, his question lingering. I asked you to be lenient.
“I was,” was all I said.
■
I returned to my lair, and took the time to strip out of my costume. It stuck to my skin as I pulled it off.
I’d need to design something lighter for the warmer months. More porous, while still offering protection, maybe a paler color, if I could manage it and still have it blend into the swarm…
The major tasks were done. I’d called Lisa, and through her I’d gotten caught up on all the other essential details about what was happening around the city. She and Grue had a meeting with an Ambassador – not the leader of the Ambassadors, which I was thankful for. I would have wanted to be present for a meeting that volatile. As it was, I could hope that Grue was in a good enough headspace to keep Tattletale on course.
I’d contacted everyone necessary to clear garbage out of the alley, to order pizzas for lunch and to order more food in to make up for the bad batch of vegetables. I’d shown my face as Skitter and now a swarm-clone lingered on a rooftop, standing in plain view of the people on the street, overlooking a construction in progress. ‘Skitter’ would appear here and there over the course of the day, just to reassure others she was here.
Which she was. I was.
I stripped out of the rest of the costume. I laid out a grungier change of clothes.
I hadn’t been lying to my dad when I said I’d work. I’d put in the hours, work alongside the other members of my territory. It was easier to do my share and be working here on a legitimate basis, even part-time, than to try to sustain the lie.
Before I started, I had only one minor chore. I headed downstairs and I pulled Jessie’s mattress off the bunk bed, dragging it into an open space so I could clean it. The mattresses were thin, and would dry after a day in this heat. The humidity was a problem, but I could put it in direct sunlight.
My phone buzzed, still in the utility compartment upstairs. My bugs brought it to me.
Charlotte:
I met someone in class. I think it could be big Eric?
Big trouble? I contemplated sending a reply, but the next text wasn’t far behind.
Charlotte:
says hes an old classmate of urs. asking where u are. loud insistent intense. wouldnt believe that u werent at school. sounds like he might want to talk to you.
I didn’t miss the distinction. ‘u’ meant Taylor. ‘you’ was Skitter. If this person was careless enough that Charlotte had caught on… Fuck.
20.02
It couldn’t be easy. No. Everything was finally starting to settle down, and then this. Inconvenient timing, inconvenient in every way. It had to be at the high school, of all places.
Tattletale and Grue would be meeting with the Ambassadors soon. That took them out of the running, as far as people I could call. Forrest was just a little too old and a little too attention-grabbing to be seen lurking around the local high school. Regent, Imp or Bitch? I was trying to fix the situation, not make it worse.
I pressed Charlotte for more information:
RT:
You see him?
Charlotte:
no. no bars here. had to leave to make call.
Right. Arcadia was one of the schools that had a Faraday cage, if I was remembering right. Something to stop kids from texting and making calls in class.
RT:
What was he doing?
Charlotte:
asking about u in hallways, checking with ppl to see if u were around.
Charlotte:
i approached him and asked how he knew u. he said he didnt. seemed too intense for that so i called u.
RT:
GJ.
All in all, almost exactly what I might have told her to do if I’d been in direct contact with her at the time.
RT:
This is Eric with blond hair? Blue eyes? Talks like he’s going to run out of breath and pass out?
Charlotte:
Yes.
My suspicions were confirmed. Greg.
Charlotte:
is break btween class atm. have 2 go soon. what shld I do?
No time to think or plan. It was annoying how these codes and protocols that Tattletale and I had come up with were costing us precious seconds.
RT:
Go back inside to see if there’s drama. Tell him I’m not at school, if you can, but that I can meet him later.
Charlotte:
k
While I waited, I patted the mattress dry where the cleaner had soaked into it, then dragged it upstairs. My phone buzzed before I’d dressed to take it out to the balcony.
Charlotte:
he gone. class starting. no drama I can see.
Damn. Not as bad as it could be, but the situation wasn’t resolved.
RT:
What’s your next class?
Charlotte:
Eng.
RT:
Go. I’ll see if I can track him down. Will find you if I need you but don’t worry. Good job.
I’d let her return to business as normal: I didn’t want her too caught up in this.
There was something to be said for having good help. I felt more than a little guilty. Much like Sierra had during the worst periods, Charlotte was picking up my slack. In managing my territory while I was going home to sleep at my dad’s house, she was earning her wage twice over. I would have increased her pay but she didn’t want me to, claiming it would arouse suspicion.
Maybe I could get Tattletale to arrange some kind of scholarship for her. We had funds. Tattletale had acquired everything Coil had owned, and it had been easy enough to assume his false identities and take over the dummy corporations. Now that the city was starting to pick up and people were talking about the potential the portal in the downtown area had, the land was skyrocketing in value.
Not to mention that the Ambassadors had given us a healthy lump of cash when they’d arrived in Brockton Bay, and were paying rent in the thousands of dollars so we’d be copacetic with them just being around.
Apparently that was villain protocol, in a way, doing jobs or giving gifts when intruding on another’s territory. I could see why: it let one ask for permission and show respect while still giving evidence to a measure of power. If these guys were willing to hand over tens of thousands in the same way other people gave gift baskets, it showed they had that kind of money to spare, and they were confident. The side benefit for us specifically was that it kept Tattletale from complaining too loudly.
With luck, there would be others like them. Which wasn’t to say I trusted them.
I dressed, pulling on my running shoes, a tank top and the lightweight cargo pants I’d worn to run. I left the grungier cl
othes laid out on the bed, and made doubly sure I had my cell phone, identification and my knife. I doubted I could have it in plain sight, so I stuck it in my sock and pulled my pants leg down around it.
It was nine fifty in the morning, and I figured I had an hour and forty-five minutes before the second class of the day ended and the lunch hour began.
I had to find a way to drag Greg out of class and talk to him without alerting others. That, or I’d have to wait until lunch started and postpone plans with my dad. Inconvenient.
The bus was running on a reduced schedule. There were fewer intact vehicles, fewer drivers in the area, and routes were longer with the detours that they had to take. It wasn’t as bad as it might otherwise be: a twenty-minute wait.
I stewed in my own frustration. There had been occasions in the past where I’d had to leave my territory to handle greater threats. It irritated me more than it should have, to be forced to leave for this. Such a minor thing, but prickly enough that it had the potential to become something major if ignored, and awkward overall to handle. How did I even approach the conversation?
I’ve faced down a handful of the scariest sons of bitches in the world, I’ve been intentionally trapped in a burning house, blinded, had my back broken, I’ve been paralyzed and at the mercy of no less than two lunatic tinkers, and I’ve killed a man, I thought. And going back to school stirs up old feelings of anxiety.
I could feel the building tension and a shift back to old ways of thinking, and the ridiculousness of it made me smile. It was the middle of the morning, the bus was almost empty, and I stretched as though I were just waking up. One or two people glanced my way, and I allowed myself to not give a fuck.
It helped, as though I were physically shrugging off the old burdens that were settling on me.
The wind from the open windows of the bus stirred my hair, and I exhaled slowly, turning my face into the sun, letting it warm me even as the breeze cooled me off. I couldn’t do anything about the time it took to get there, so I might as well take the opportunity to get a breather.
Arcadia High. I’d seen it in the midst of some of Brockton Bay’s worst days, but effort had been expended to fix it up and get everything sorted out. New windows, that caught the light in a way that made them look almost like compound eyes. Some kind of sub-layer or something worked into them that made for a number of quarter-sized hexagons. The front gate had been rebuilt, cracks paved over, and vandalism cleaned up. It was pristine, with panels of white tile and glass that almost glowed in the morning light.
The thing that caught me off guard was the people. Classes had started, but there were forty or so students gathered around outside, sitting and talking, texting or simply enjoying the sun. A half-dozen adults in outfits that were uncomfortably similar to the enforcers of the old Boardwalk were stationed at the gates and at points around the school grounds that let them keep an eye on things. Security? Volunteers?
That wasn’t the entirety of it. The students fell into two groups. One was very much what I might have expected, kids in new clothes or casual summer wear, smiling and talking. Months ago, I might have felt like the smiles and periodic laughs were directed at me, and not in a flattering way. I’d always rationally understood that they weren’t, but not to the point that I could convince myself. Now I reveled in my anonymity. I knew what it was to have every set of eyes on me, people covertly trying to gauge who I was and what I was doing every time I moved a finger. This wasn’t it.
The other, larger group of students, adding up to maybe thirty-five of the forty kids present, was something else. They were the Sierras, the Charlottes, the Ferns and the Forrests. They were the Jessies and Bryces, the Taylor and Danny Heberts. The people who had stayed.
I just had to look at them, and I knew it. Some had dressed in new clothes, but others wore the clothes that had weathered the last few weeks and months, worn and frayed at the edges. Physically, some were frayed. They had lines in their face that spoke to weeks with a bare minimum of sleep, and both skin and hair bore the coloration that resulted from days spent outdoors.
One or two, I noted, carried weapons. One had a knife displayed visibly at his hip. A girl with a burly frame very similar to Rachel’s was sitting beneath a tree, eyes closed, her hands on a stick with an electrical tape grip. There wasn’t anything definable, only little clues that added up, and a general atmosphere about them.
I didn’t miss the division between the two groups. The five or so fresh-faced teenagers weren’t hanging out with the ones who had stayed.
“You just arriving?” one of the enforcers at the gate asked me.
“Yeah,” I said.
He studied me just long enough that I felt acutely aware of my bare shoulders and arms, and how my top clung to my stomach. I glared at him, and he met my eyes with an ease that suggested he didn’t care I’d caught him looking. Creepy.
“Got a weapon?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Can’t keep it if you want to go inside.”
I was only keeping myself armed as a matter of practice, and I was aware I wasn’t alone on that front, or I wouldn’t be doing it so casually. I reached into my sock and withdrew the sheathed knife. It says something that we can even take this conversation in stride.
I handed it to him. It wasn’t worth the time it would take to argue. “What’s with these people outside, here?”
He shrugged. ”Easing into it. We asked if we should round ‘em up and take them inside, but the principal said we should give them a few days to depressurize if they wanted it.”
“Depressurize,” I said.
He glanced at the knife, “All I know is we’re not enforcing a lot of rules yet. Sometimes a few take a break and come outside, smoke, talk, get some fresh air and sun. Those ones don’t tend to stay long.”
He was looking at one group by the front door, three of the ones who didn’t have that weary, worn, and wary sense about them. The ones who’d no doubt fled the city when things turned ugly.
I’m not the only one who sees the distinction, I mused.
“I think they’re intimidated. Or you and I see it as a nice sunny day and they see it as being outside in a shithole of a city.” When I didn’t keep the conversation going, he shrugged, “If you’re going in, you’ll want to go to the office. They’ll sort out where your classes are.”
“Okay,” I said. There was no need to explain that I wasn’t here for classes.
By the time I’d reached the front door, a trio of teenagers younger than me had already approached the same guard. It would be another litany of questions.
It did something to explain why the guards were there. The two kids who hadn’t been willing to part with their weapons were no doubt another part of that. The whole dynamic was skewed, now, and they were mediating the worst of it.
I’d been in Arcadia High once, and it had been more of a life or death situation, one where I had been able to tentatively use my bugs. In this unfamiliar territory, with a thousand or more students throughout the building, I had to actively work to suppress the powers I’d been using on an almost automatic level. I couldn’t be sure that a small cloud of flies would go unnoticed as they traced the contours of a hallway.
Much like I’d seen outside, there were a handful of students who hadn’t yet made their way to class, or had stepped out for a breather, congregating in pairs and trios, or standing alone.
I knew I could have asked them for directions, but I wasn’t keen on approaching people who were in the process of avoiding socializing. The men and women in uniforms that were stationed at the intersections where the halls met? More of a possibility, but there was no need. Directions were posted on the wall.
I glanced at a note on the wall. One sentence, with no punctuation, and a big black arrow pointing one way.
New sudents go to front office
If I’d had a little bit of hope that things were working out here, they faltered some when I saw the typo.
I noticed another set of papers that were arranged on the wall, not because of what it said or the title, but the cartoon etched on the wall in permanent marker.
The heading of each of the sheets read ‘Know where you are’. The paper with the graffiti was Rachel’s; a crude drawing of a dog was violating one corner, which had been torn slightly to accommodate the dog. A speech balloon over the smiling dog’s head read ‘you don’t know shit’.
Fitting, if it was one of Rachel’s followers.
I headed in the direction of the office, feeling strangely out of place. This entire thing was surreal. There were the hallways with gleaming floors smudged by the passage of hundreds of feet, the bright primary colors in trophy cabinets and on bulletin boards, all contrasted with the security guards that were set up and standing to attention as though they expected a fight to break out any moment, and the innumerable teenagers who were being allowed to roam the grounds, some hanging around with weapons at hand.
But more than anything else, it was the notion of where I fit in the grand scheme of things. Growing up, attending school, there had always been this general sense of the local gangs and powers and their influence. It was the little things. The gang tags scrawled on walls, the posters informing Asian students of who they could contact if the ABB started pushing them to join or pay tribute. There had always been the rougher kids who wore certain colors and symbols of their affiliation. It had meant something when a teenager wore yellow, or when an adult had an eight-ball tattooed on them.
I was aware that Arcadia High had been scrubbed clean, and that things wouldn’t become fully apparent until people had gotten more settled and more comfortable. Even with that, though, it was unsettling to notice that for the first time since I was eleven, I couldn’t see anything relating to the hostile gangs in the area.
There were no real gangs except for ours. Grue, Tattletale, Bitch, Regent, Imp, Parian and I were the vague, intimidating forces that people worried about crossing. We weren’t as bad as some of the ones that had come before us, sure, but people still saw us as something to warn others about.
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