Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
Should we add physiology to the list of things Wildbow cannot into?
Price of Blood [Worm fanfic] (Complete)
- Thread starter Ack
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm complete trigger warning
- Pronouns
- Yes
Not necessarily.
1)Unlike in this story Calvert wasn't a Strike team leader in canon. He was "a field commander for the PRT strike squads." which might, or might not be a physically demanding job, to me it sounds like the guy sitting in the back of the air conditioned truck telling the Strike team leaders what objectives to take, and providing information and coordination. Not someone who'd need to be in good physical condition.
2)It's quite possible that Taylor's description was overstating things.
3)It's possible the ribs "showing through" the costume were actually part of the costume, making it easier for him to get body doubles since that's what people would focus on.
RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
Another thought strikes: maybe being perma-anorexic!skinny while still being fit and strong is part of his Cauldron Cape physical mutation?
Do I get a No-Prize?
Do I get a No-Prize?
Last edited:
- Location
- Russia
Or maybe he just stopped exercising once he became Coil.
- Location
- New Zealand
The impression I got from canon was that he used his power to indulge in every vice without consequences, including over-eating. While he gorges himself in one reality, his other wouldn't feel as hungry, due to the psychology of feeling his other self stuff themselves. So Calvert probably got a lot skinnier after he got powers. After all, why eat that cake once now when you can eat it every day until it goes off and never have to deal with the calories?
willdelve4beer
easily amused
- Location
- Earth
Here we see the true depths of Coil's unrepentant evil...
Man is just asking to be lynched, walking around with superdiet, as a side-effect of his power.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
A new super diet! Experience an alternate timeline where you can indulge in all the vices without any repercussions!
That fiend.
- Pronouns
- Yes
Good point.
In which case he wouldn't be in good enough condition to lead a strike team.
Part Fifteen: Doubling Down
- Location
- Australia
The Price of Blood
Part Fifteen: Doubling Down
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Christ, what a mess.
Armsmaster skidded the bike to a halt as Glory Girl crashed into the ground nearby. Her keening cry of pain tugged at him, but at least she was alive. "Glory Girl!" he bellowed. "Lie still! Do not move! I will get to you!" Hopefully, she wouldn't bleed out before he did.
Triage was ruthless, but sometimes it was the only way to save someone if you couldn't save everyone. In this case, he intended to do the impossible anyway. His halberd came off of his back and hummed to power as he ran toward where Clockblocker lay under the paw of the frozen dog. Bracing himself, he prepared to swing the halberd. "Dragon, countdown for Clockblocker. Also, monitor Glory Girl's life signs." He shot a side-glance at where Aegis lay writhing on the ground. Hopefully his body would get around whatever had been done to him, but in case it didn't … "And Aegis', too. And connect me through to base."
"Five seconds to minimum time," she told him. "Three. Two. She's alive but not looking good. He's suffering some sort of seizure. Giving you the override channel now."
Well, he'd known that. As he slashed with the halberd, the plasma-edged blade sliced through asphalt and concrete like a hot knife through styrofoam. His only chance in this case—Clockblocker's only chance—was if he destroyed what the boy was lying on and dragged him out before the Ward's power timer ended. "Console, Armsmaster. I'm at Hillside Mall. Clockblocker, Aegis and Glory Girl are down, all needing immediate and urgent medical care. All possible assistance required, ASAP. Armsmaster, out." He swung and sliced, swung and sliced. All the while, he kept one eye on the dog, and another on the heart rate monitors Dragon had set up to project into his HUD. Not his heart, and not Clockblocker's. Glory Girl's and Aegis'.
"Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight." Dragon attempted to keep her voice dispassionate, but Armsmaster heard the desperation underneath. "Colin, Glory Girl's going into shock, and Aegis isn't getting any better."
As her words registered with him, Armsmaster jammed the halberd into the concrete with the haft under the dog's chest, in the hope that it would take the weight in case the massive animal unfroze in the next few seconds. Then he dropped to his knees and took hold of Clockblocker's shoulders. The boy's body armour had saved his life to this point, but it was notably indented; there were almost certainly life-threatening injuries beneath.
Taking one deep breath, he pulled, determined to make the motion as smooth as possible. There was a grating sound, and for a horrible instant he thought it was Clockblocker's ribs. But, no, the pieces of smoking gravel that had once been concrete had begun to grind over one another. Clockblocker's armour caught on something, and the Protectorate leader gritted his teeth and heaved a little harder. If I exacerbate his injuries too far … But it was either that or chance leaving him under the dog until it unfroze, and if he did that the boy was dead.
A moment later, with another tug, Clockblocker moved again. To Colin's relief, the Ward slid freely out from under the massive, gnarled weapon that had once been a dog's paw. Aware that they weren't out of danger yet, Armsmaster continued to drag him across the asphalt as smoothly as he could manage. As soon as they were out from under the creature, he pulled the boy sideways to get out of its projected path. He then dropped to his knees beside the Ward and reached out his hand. Built into the side of Clockblocker's helmet was a life-signs monitor touch panel; the Tinker's gauntlet had the corresponding reader for just such a case as this. Colin's lips thinned as he looked over the data. Some damage had obviously been done, but at least the boy had a heartbeat and was breathing on his own. There was likely some internal bleeding, but he was alive and out of extremely immediate danger.
Just as Armsmaster formed that thought, there was a loud snap and a thunder of motion. He whipped his head around just in time for him to see the gigantic dog-monster as it galloped off down the road. To his chagrin, part of the halberd's haft was still embedded in its chest (though it didn't seem to hinder the monster dog in the slightest). The rest of his halberd stuck forlornly out of the concrete where he'd left it.
There wasn't time to assess the damage to his prized halberd, or even to dwell on it. "Dragon, link to Clockblocker's vitals," he said as he rose to his feet. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have left the the boy's side for an instant until the paramedics arrived on site, but these were the farthest thing from normal circumstances.
"Done." Dragon's voice was terse. Another set of vital signs readouts appeared in his HUD. The tiny clock-face emblem that showed up next to them was obviously intended to denote Clockblocker's identity, just as the miniature starburst and the helmet indicated Glory Girl and Aegis respectively, but he felt it was unduly ominous, as if the boy's life was ticking down.
Five long strides got him to Glory Girl's side, where she lay partly on her stomach. The hilt of the knife protruded from her lower back, not far from the spine. Keening painfully, she writhed in a pool of her own blood as she tried to get a grip on the knife. When she did, she shrieked in pain, let the knife go, and smashed her fist into the ground. High-speed gravel whirred past Armsmaster's helmet.
"Glory Girl!" he said urgently as he dropped to one knee beside her. The first-aid dispenser on his belt cranked out a section of absorbent bandage, perfect for packing around the knife blade so pressure could be put on the wound. He knew that the knife needed to be left in place for the moment, as it may have severed important blood vessels, with the blade as the only plug. "Please lie still! Don't touch the knife! Every time you do, you exacerbate the—"
That was as far as he got, for when he placed his gauntleted hand on her shoulder, she backfisted him hard. Even with the awkward angle and the effects of the injury, she still hit him in the chestplate with enough force enough to dent it. He flew backward several yards, but instincts garnered from long hours of training came to his aid. Twisting as he landed, he rolled to his feet in a practised motion and moved in again. Red warning lights popped up in his HUD. He set them aside to be checked out later. "Glory Girl!" he shouted. "You have to stay still! I can't treat you like this!"
A wave of terror washed over him, and he gasped, barely managing to keep control of his own fear response. This had to be Glory Girl's power. There was no real danger here, except from her iron-hard fists. Which, admittedly, were a real problem Although she was flailing aimlessly, her blows were still strong enough to crack concrete. Were she any normal injured person, he would've been able to restrain her long enough to tranquillise her. The trouble was, her power made this tricky in the extreme.
Footsteps came up behind him and he turned fast. But even as he opened his mouth to warn whoever it was to keep back, he saw it was Panacea and Vista. Farther back, he saw Taylor Hebert at the front of the crowd that had formed near the entrance of the shopping mall.
"Vicky!" Panacea exclaimed. "My God, what have they done to you?" She started forward, but Armsmaster hurriedly moved to block her way.
"Be careful," he warned the two girls. "She's lashing out. She could kill you by accident." He gritted his teeth as another wave of undirected fear washed over them. "And there's that, too."
"Got it," Vista said. "Panacea, I can make it so you can touch her from here. How quickly can you make her unconscious?"
"Very quickly, if I have to." Panacea's voice was grim. "Do it."
Colin's eyes ached as the very fabric of space twisted at the behest of a teenage girl. Panacea reached out, into the centre of the distortion. Her arm did not stretch, nor did Glory Girl get any closer to her, but somehow she placed her hand on her sister's arm. It was only a glancing touch, but it was enough. Glory Girl's movements slowed abruptly, as if she were overcome with tiredness. In the next few seconds, she slumped to the ground and lay still. Panacea hurried over and knelt beside her.
God, I hope that was because of what Panacea did, and not because she just died. A glance at his HUD told him that Glory Girl's heart-rate was still strong, if a little slower than before. Oh, good. "Vista, check on Clockblocker. I'm pretty sure he's got internal injuries. I've got Aegis." Now that the crisis with Glory Girl was over, he was genuinely worried about the Hispanic Ward. Over the last few years, he'd seen the boy more or less ignore a bullet wound in the head, a four-foot length of rebar through the chest and the traumatic removal of his left leg and part of his pelvis. The most he'd done about the latter, once it was stitched back into place, was to complain about walking funny until it all knitted again. Whatever had been done to him this time wasn't visible, which made Armsmaster wonder what the hell had been done, and why wasn't he adapting to get around it?
Not unlike Glory Girl, young Carlos's movements were also involuntary and violent. Fortunately, he wasn't nearly as strong as the ex-New Wave Alexandria package, so Armsmaster found it easy to hold him down. It was impossible to get a read on him through the helmet. Not surprisingly, considering nobody had thought it necessary to equip him with any sort of vital-signs monitoring. Reaching back to one of his less-used pouches, Armsmaster dug out a domino mask, then unclipped Aegis' helmet and laid it to one side. With a practised move, he applied the mask before taking the time to examine the boy.
The first thing he noticed was a foreign object protruding from Aegis' left eye. Reaching out, he took hold of the thing and pulled carefully. The faint sucking sound made him vaguely nauseous, but when the object came free, it revealed itself to be some kind of small dart. Armsmaster frowned in puzzlement. It was unlikely in the extreme that this dart on its own was responsible for Aegis' state. Besides, even if it was Tinkertech, Aegis' life signs hadn't begun to recover now that it was out. This worried him.
"Colin, Clockblocker's vitals are starting to fade." Dragon's voice was urgent.
At the same time, Vista spoke up, her voice high and frightened. "Armsmaster, I can't find his pulse!"
Armsmaster's eyes flicked to the appropriate spot in the HUD. He subvocalised a curse as he saw the line flattening out. Aegis was still in a bad way and getting worse, but at least he had a heartbeat. While Vista's fears about Clockblocker weren't totally realised—there were still life signs, just very weak ones—the boy didn't have long. "Panacea!" he shouted as he jumped to his feet and strode over toward the white-armoured Ward. "We need you now!"
"Nearly … done," grunted the ex-New Wave healer. "Knife's out, just need to make sure she doesn't bleed out."
"No time!" Armsmaster had once done a time-and-motion study on Panacea's healing techniques, and her average wound treatment procedure tended to run on for at least a minute, especially if there were vital organs involved or she was trying not to leave a scar. With both factors in play, it would be more like ninety seconds. This was time Clockblocker simply didn't have. He slapped the extemporaneous bandage into Vista's palm. "Take this, apply pressure to Glory Girl's wound. Panacea, get here now! That's an order!"
Leaning over Clockblocker, he flicked the hidden catch that released the body armour the boy wore over his chest and upper abdomen. This armour was severely dented and crushed inward, which didn't bode well for the damage to Clockblocker himself. He lifted it off. Despite himself, his breath hissed between his teeth as he saw the sunken sternum and the obvious signs of broken ribs. But it seemed the diaphragm was undamaged, given the way Clockblocker's chest struggled to rise and fall. What, then …?
His train of thought was broken as Panacea dropped down on Clockblocker's other side. He ignored her bloodstained hands and her sullen glare alike; all that mattered was to save the boy's life. "Okay, I'm here," she snapped. "Gonna need some bare skin to work with."
It seemed to him that she was unhappy about not being allowed to heal her sister all the way, but that wasn't really a factor at the moment. Clockblocker's gloves were detachable from the rest of the costume—both for practicality and due to a very real concern that any new gloves might end up too thick for his powers to work through—so Armsmaster grabbed the boy's arm and yanked the glove off in one move. There was a dull pop as he did so, and he thought he might have dislocated the teen's wrist or perhaps one of his fingers. Whatever it was, it would be more fixable than death. "Here," he said as he held out the now-bare hand toward Panacea. She took it and gasped, her eyes taking on a thousand-yard stare.
"Fuck," she said out loud. "He's been poisoned. And you know, trod on by a fucking elephant or something. Okay, fixing this shit."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked. He'd spent literally years training himself to be able to handle any situation any normal human might find themselves in. This might be a powers-only situation, or it might not. He'd never know if he didn't ask.
"No … yeah," she said, visibly changing her mind. "Any injectable stimulants you've got, give 'em to him." She bit her lip as sweat sheened her forehead. All trace of her previous unhappiness had vanished. "I'm spending ninety percent of my time keeping his damn heart and lungs going."
"What sort of poison?" he asked as he took an injector from his belt. He'd designed it to work on himself; at base, if his Tinkertech was removed, he was only human. With this in mind, he intended to take every single advantage he could garner anyway. A burst of energy at the right time could be a life-saver, no matter the cost later on.
"Neurotoxin," she muttered as he pressed the injector to Clockblocker's carotid, under the rim of his helmet. It hissed, then beeped to indicate that its payload had gone through. "Fifty percent chance of killing a healthy adult male. Seventy-five percent chance of putting them in a coma. Oh, nice. That's perfect." Her eyes widened. "Holy shit, you use that on yourself? How does your heart not explode?"
"I've tested it under laboratory conditions," he replied stiffly, then changed the subject. "What would multiple doses of this toxin do to Aegis?"
"Fuck, that's what's happened to him?" She glanced toward the still-shuddering red-clad Ward, but her frown of concentration never wavered.
"It's my best guess," admitted Armsmaster. "I pulled a dart out of his eye. There may be more."
"Clockblocker had a puncture wound behind his left knee," Panacea noted. "The majority of the neurotoxin was situated there. Dart delivery makes sense. Who uses darts?"
"None of the Undersiders," Armsmaster said. "But …"
"Vista said Shadow Stalker was working with them," Panacea filled in his unspoken thought. "She's used crossbows with tranquillisers. Poison darts aren't that much of a stretch."
"Colin, Aegis' heart is giving out."
That didn't make any sense. Armsmaster had seen Aegis' liver take over from his heart once. But Dragon didn't make mistakes like that. In addition, his own HUD had just now updated to show him the same data. "Aegis is in trouble. Panacea, are you good here?"
"I'm on top of it," she said. "Go."
With just a glance at where Vista still had pressure on Glory Girl's wound, Armsmaster rose and dashed over to where Aegis lay. The muscular boy had armour to back up his Brute capabilities, but Armsmaster knew where the releases were. Unlatching the breastplate, he cast it aside. Unlike Clockblocker, Aegis hadn't suffered any chest injuries, so he could safely apply CPR, or at least chest compressions … damn it. "Dragon, what's his respiration like?"
"Also down," she reported.
With his helmet the way it was, it was difficult for him to apply expired air resuscitation. Panacea was still busy with Clockblocker, and Vista couldn't leave Glory Girl. Then he remembered he still had a card up his sleeve. Turning to the crowd—one member in particular—he waved an arm. "Does anyone have first-aid training? I need help with CPR. Anyone?"
For he knew Taylor had taken first-aid classes as a part of her heroic preparations even before the Swarmbringer incident. To his relief, she took the cue and stepped forward. "I know CPR," she said hesitantly. He wasn't sure if it was an act, but it hit just the right note.
"Good," he said. "Come on over. I'm going to need you to breathe for him while I apply compressions."
"Oh, um, okay," she said and trotted over. As he finished a round of compressing Aegis' chest, she knelt beside the boy and took his chin in her hand. Pinching his nostrils closed with her other hand, she began to breathe into his lungs, taking care to time her breaths between Armsmaster's chest compressions.
"You got … here at … just the … right time," he said quietly, between compressions. "When did … they release … you from … the building?"
"They didn't," she said, just as quietly. "We just came."
With some difficulty, he restrained his reaction of surprise. Deal with it later. We have lives to save, here. A glance at his HUD showed that Aegis' heart rate had picked up. Hopefully, his oxygen intake had also improved.
And then Panacea came into his field of view as she knelt beside Taylor. "Excuse me, miss, but I need access to him," she said just loudly enough to be heard by the crowd. "Thank you." As she placed her hand on Aegis' uncovered face, she gasped. "Holy crap, he's got a dart inside his brain!"
"Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster snapped. "It has to be. Nobody else can do that phasing trick." It was something that had been posited and she'd tried a few times with practise dummies, but had apparently given up trying to get right. Except that it seemed she'd been learning how to do it away from official scrutiny, and she'd mastered it. "Clockblocker?"
"Waking up in a few moments. The knife was bonded to Vicky's ribs, which was why she couldn't pull it out," Panacea supplied. "Jesus, he's got neurotoxin in his brain. I'm neutralising it but I can't fix the damage." She sounded stricken as she said it.
Two counts of attempted murder against her name now. Three, counting Clockblocker. But there were higher priorities than counting up Shadow Stalker's charges. "Is he going to be all right?"
She grimaced. "Maybe? His motor functions don't seem to be affected. The failing vitals was all about having neurotoxin right there. But it may have gotten his corona pollentia. There seems to be damage there, anyway."
Which would be why Aegis' powers hadn't kicked in; or rather, hadn't kicked in enough. By a sheer lucky fluke, Shadow Stalker had hit him in the one place he couldn't work around. Though Armsmaster suspected his powers were still working just a little, or he'd be dead already. "Son of a bitch. How about the rest of his brain?"
"Memory, cognition, personality, it all looks basically intact to me," Panacea said briskly. "Fixing Clockblocker gave me a recipe for a counteragent which is working just fine. There won't be any more damage, but I can't fix what's already happened."
"That sounds … really sucky," Taylor said, keeping her voice down. She gave Panacea a sympathetic look.
"Yeah." Panacea hung her head. "It really, really is." She took a deep breath. "Okay, that's the last of the neurotoxin done … now. We're done here."
"Not yet, we're not," Vista put in from where she still knelt next to Glory Girl. "Pretty sure your sister's gonna need some care and attention before you're finished here."
"Shit!" Panacea got up and hurried back to Glory Girl's side. Kneeling next to her sister, she went to work once more.
Taylor got up and dusted her hands off on her jeans. "I, uh, guess I'll go now?" she asked.
Armsmaster nodded. "Yes," he said briefly. "Thank you for your assistance, miss."
She ducked her head and moved back into the crowd, while Vista came over to Colin. "Well, that was a thing," the younger Ward said. "I don't suppose you could put in a good word for us for leaving without permission?"
Armsmaster looked around. Clockblocker was groaning his way to consciousness, and his helmet HUD reported that the other two Wards were still alive and in far better health than they'd been before. That would almost certainly have gone the other way, had Vista not brought Panacea and Taylor to this spot. "Orders are meant to be followed, especially lockdowns," he said sternly. "However, under these circumstance, I'm sure I can prevail on the Director to not be too hard on you."
PRT Building
Taylor
Taylor stood with Amy and Missy alongside the conference table. The Director sat at the head of the table, behind Taylor and to her right. Armsmaster's stolid presence was almost comforting at her back.
In front of them, spilling light into the darkened room, a wall-screen played security footage. It was mercifully without sound, but Taylor could fill in what had come over the speakers from memory. At first, the PRT officers in the security office had been exasperated, but when Vista simply made the doors open by halving the width of each door, they had done their best to lay down the law. Their best had not been good enough.
The image changed to show herself, Vista and Panacea running toward the lift. Before they even got to it, the digital sign above the lift turned to a series of red bars, signifying that it was not in service. That hadn't bothered Vista, who had worked her magic with the lift doors, then with the hatch in the lift roof. Which, incidentally, had been securely locked against anyone trying just this sort of trick. Taylor was pretty sure the hatch wouldn't be usable as anything other than a doorstop after this; Vista had gotten pretty rough with it.
The scene shifted to the top of the lift, which impressed Taylor no end. She wondered who else other than Director Piggot would think to put cameras in an elevator shaft. Visual distortions fuzzed the picture for a moment, then a metal square fell past the view of the camera. One by one, the three girls disappeared upward. The picture distorted again, then returned to normal. Then the screen blanked out, and the lights came up in the room. Along with Missy and Amy, Taylor turned to face the Director.
"After leaving the Wards quarters against direct orders, you entered the lift, gained access to the elevator shaft, then exited via the rooftop hatch," Piggot said. "Is that correct?"
Missy swallowed audibly. "Yes, ma'am," she said almost inaudibly.
"In doing so, you exposed a flaw in our security," the heavy-set woman went on remorselessly. "That will be dealt with. In the meantime … you crossed town to the Hillside Mall, correct?"
"Correct," Armsmaster stated. "Where I was attempting to deal with three injured Wards. All of whom would very likely have died, had Panacea not showed up on site."
"As your report has stated, in rather glowing terms." Piggot managed not to sound impressed. "Vista, I understand that Scarab was out of costume at the time. We've gone to great lengths to protect her secret identity. Why did you even take her with you?"
Vista's shoulders were back, her hands clasped behind her. She looked stiff and unhappy as she replied. "Ma'am, she wanted to go. I dropped her off behind the crowd before Panacea and I reached Armsmaster and the Wards. Her knowledge of CPR was useful in keeping Aegis alive."
Piggot made an impatient chopping motion with her hand. "I understand that. Other members of the crowd could have done the same. Miss Hebert, why did you volunteer to go along, despite being out of costume?"
Taylor took a deep breath. "Ma'am, I don't have a costume. But I still wanted to help. We didn't know if whoever hurt Clockblocker and Aegis and Glory Girl were still around, and the perfect time and place to attack would be while Vista and Panacea were involved in helping Armsmaster with them. So I used my bugs to keep a lookout all around. If anyone had attacked, I would've been able to give warning, and to distract the attackers."
Silence fell, then the Director drummed her fingers on the table. "That's … sound reasoning," she admitted. She shifted her attention to Amy. "And the aftermath? Once you had the Wards healed? I understand there were more casualties."
The biokinetic nodded, her expression unhappy. "Two security guards dead. There was another guard, and a woman whom Taylor's bugs located in one of the bathrooms. They were both in comas, but I was able to bring them back." Taylor had quietly informed Panacea of this via her bugs, allowing her to 'find' the woman a few moments later.
"They were lucky," Armsmaster noted. "Panacea reported that the LD-fifty of the neurotoxin was one dose, and that's for a healthy adult. One of the dead guards took a double dose. In three of the four cases, we found the same darts on site. The woman didn't have a dart, but she did have a puncture wound of the same type in her chest."
An expression not unlike pain crossed the Director's face. "And Aegis? What happened there?"
Amy fielded this question as well. "Shadow Stalker shot a dart into his eye, then phased three more into his body. One ended up in his brain. The neurotoxin from all four would've killed anyone else several times over. With him, it came close. Normally, he would've gotten around it, but the one in his brain dispensed its toxin right next to his corona pollentia. His body couldn't adapt around it, any more than I could fly by throwing a rope in the air and climbing up it. He's still unconscious, while his body gets over what happened to it. I neutralised the neurotoxin, but …" She grimaced. "There's brain damage. He should still be him, but I can't guarantee he'll have access to his powers when he wakes up."
"God damn it." Piggot's fist slammed into the table. "Two civilian murders, two attempted murders and the attempted murder of three Wards. One of whom may well be out of the Wards after this. All from one code purple." She leaned back in her chair and took several deep breaths, apparently in an attempt to calm herself. Taylor remained still, unwilling to draw the heavy-set woman's ire.
Several seconds passed, then the Director sat forward again. "All right," she said. "Vista, Panacea; you did break regulations, but in doing so you saved lives. There will be no official punishment. However, you will each be required to find the section of PRT regulations regarding building lockdowns and present to me a five hundred word essay detailing why those regulations are necessary. You have one week. Scarab, you're not a Ward and thus I can't give you direct orders, but I would very much like you to consider doing likewise. Dismissed."
With a silent sigh of relief—as angry as the Director was, it could've been a lot worse—Taylor headed for the door with the others.
"Wait." It was the Director's voice. Taylor stopped, her heart thumping in her chest. She's changed her mind, and she's going to throw the book at us.
They turned to look at Piggot. Missy answered for them. "Yes, ma'am?"
Taylor couldn't quite read the expression on the older woman's face. "Panacea, I understand that Glory Girl is your sister. I also understand that Clockblocker is your teammate and friend, Vista. And it goes without saying that Shadow Stalker is someone against whom you would be excused for holding a substantial grudge, Scarab, but I will say this. Do not, and I mean do not, consider any reckless actions such as going out either alone or with each other to hunt her down. She's armed, she's dangerous, and she's shown absolute willingness to use lethal force against anyone she considers an enemy. We will find her, we will arrest her, and the full force of the law will crash down on the back of her neck in good time. But in the meantime, I don't want to lose more Wards, or affiliated heroes, to any ill-considered actions. Is that perfectly understood?"
Almost without conscious volition, Taylor found herself nodding her head in agreement. "Yes, ma'am," she managed, hearing her words echoed by the other two.
"Good." Piggot waved at the door. "Go. Go home and rest. You've done well, today."
In a mild state of shock from the Director's final words, Taylor exited the room.
Armsmaster
Colin watched the door close behind the three girls. "Permission to leave, ma'am?" he requested. "I need to repair—"
"Your halberd, I know." Piggot made a throwaway gesture. "In a moment. Right now, we need more information. Any word on the Undersiders?"
"None." The Tinker shook his head, fully aware that she wasn't going to like his lack of news. "I've had people put out feelers, but they've gone dark. From what I've gleaned from the security cameras outside the Mall, they didn't part with Shadow Stalker on the best of terms, however."
"That's both good and bad." The Director's voice was thoughtful. "Good, in that she won't have them as backup when and if we do catch up with her. Bad, in that she'll be harder to track down. How definitive was this evidence of bad feeling between them?"
"She indirectly caused Regent to get hurt," Armsmaster noted. "She and Grue seemed to argue, then Grue covered her in his darkness and the Undersiders rode off on their dogs. That was when Glory Girl attacked her and was stabbed."
The Director nodded slowly. "They're still accountable for the deaths, of course." It was a clearly understood aspect of felony murder. "But if we can bring them in and offer a plea deal, we can find out where she got the neurotoxin and the dart launchers from. From the evidence so far, she's been planning this break for some time. And to be honest, I'm far more interested in nailing a treacherous Ward to the wall than in prosecuting a bunch of small-time hit-and-run thieves."
Colin understood perfectly. It was all about setting a precedent—and in this case, making an example. He couldn't be sure how many other disaffected Wards there were around the country, but once word passed around about Shadow Stalker's fate, they'd be less likely to go villain at the drop of a hat. Which reminded him. "So you'll be pushing for the Birdcage then, ma'am?"
"That or a kill order," the Director said, surprising him slightly.
"A kill order's a little strong, don't you think?" he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral. "She's only what, fifteen? And we can't actively prosecute her for the Swarm."
"Because that would contradict Scarab's story, yes," she said. "But I disagree with you. Since her escape from the PRT building, Shadow Stalker's actions have expressed a high degree of what the legal types would call 'depraved indifference', if not flat-out malicious intent. Two murders of civilians and five more who would've been dead without Panacea's intercession, all within fifteen minutes of one another? That's all three strikes for the Birdcage, right there. Plus, attempting to murder three Wards is something I will not tolerate."
And given that the woman had beaten Thomas Calvert to death in her own office (thus necessitating this particular change in venue until the carpet was cleaned of his blood and brains) there were very few people in the PRT building willing to go against Director Piggot's wishes in such a matter. Armsmaster definitely wasn't one of them.
Brian
Pulling the card from the phone, Lisa flicked the lighter and held the piece of delicate electronics in the flame. After a few seconds, she dropped it on the concrete and ground her heel down on it, twisting back and forth to maximise the damage. Finally, she nudged it over to a storm drain, not even bothering to watch as it disappeared into the darkness below. Pulling another from her pocket, she snapped it into place then replaced the back on the phone.
"That's a little extreme, isn't it?" Leaning up against the alley wall with his arms crossed, Brian hadn't budged during the whole procedure. "Why so thorough?"
"The boss is either captured or dead," Lisa said, her tone absolutely certain of her conclusions. "I tried calling five times, cutting the call after ten seconds each time. On the last call, someone picked up but didn't speak. At the same time, they tried to trace the call."
"PRT," Brian agreed with her unspoken conclusion. "Okay, I agree that's not good, but—"
"It's worse than not good," Lisa interrupted. "I've been looking online. People died in the Hillside Mall. The Wards we ran into? Spectre nearly killed them, too. Those darts weren't tranquillisers—they were neurotoxin."
A cold chill ran down Brian's back. And we gave her the damn launchers back. "You didn't tell us this before, why?"
Lisa scrubbed her palms over her face. "Newsflash, Brian. My power's not omniscient. I don't know everything, much as I'd like to. She didn't know they weren't tranquillisers, and I was paying attention to too much other stuff during the robbery, like making sure that she didn't shoot us in the back."
"Fuck." Brian pinched his fingers on the bridge of his nose. "So what happens now that the boss is no longer paying us? What do we do? Keep going the way we are?" How am I going to help Aisha now? he didn't quite ask, though he was pretty sure she'd heard him anyway.
She shook her head. "You're not seeing the bigger picture. This is bigger than your sister, or even what we're going to do for cash flow."
He couldn't see what she was getting at, and then he thought he did. "Wait. You're saying he might give us up?"
To his confusion, she shook her head. "That's a small part of it. Come on; let's get coffee. Lurking in alleyways like this is only going to draw attention."
Sophia
It had taken her several hours, but she was reasonably sure she hadn't been followed. Finally, perched on a rooftop not far from the northern ferry terminal, she took one last look around and dug out the phone Calvert had left for her in the post office box. Pressing the button to power it up, she suffered through the boot-up process, using her hands to physically mask the chime that it played to announce to the world that a phone had just been turned on.
Examining the screen once it was up and running, she frowned when she saw the remaining power. Thirty-nine percent; if she didn't get hold of a charger soon, it was going to die on her. Making a hasty decision, she dashed off a quick text. Hi, it's me. U probably seen what happened. Was all their fault. Time to make my move? Will check phone @ 0000.
Shutting down the phone again, she tucked it away in the rear pouch again, then pulled out the cheap burner Coil had given her. This one was sitting in the low nineties for charge, so she felt safe in actually talking on it. It started up with less fuss and fanfare than the more expensive phone, which she considered to be bullshit. There was only one number on it, which she hit the speed-dial for. Then she put it to her ear and waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, after far too long, there was a click as the call was picked up. "Hey, it's me," she said breathlessly. "Just thought you might want to know, your precious Undersiders just kicked me to the curb for no reason at all …"
Gradually, she became aware that she was talking to dead air. Pausing, she listened carefully. There was just enough ambient noise to convince her that there was an open line. What the fuck is going on here?
Armsmaster
Colin sat, his attention fixated on the two phones on the workbench. Off to the side, under a magnifier, was the one they'd actually taken off of Coil's body. It was one of the newer fancy ones, able to take two SIM cards. He'd discovered this fact while dissecting it for its secrets, and had immediately gone out to acquire two handsets to put the cards in.
On his return, he'd been chagrined to discover that the phone had missed several calls while he'd been out, but he set up the two new phones on the workbench anyway while he got back to work on the original. The one on the left had rung just a little while ago, with the same number as the first four times; he'd answered the call and put it on speaker, but the person on the other end had hung up in just a few seconds without saying a word.
Undeterred, he'd got back to working on Coil's phone until the phone on the right had pinged with a text message. The tone of it puzzled him, even after he worked out the meaning and who had probably sent it. If, and this was a big 'if', the text had originated from Shadow Stalker, it sounded as though she were trying to excuse the aftermath to Coil. What the 'move' was, he had no idea. With the permission to trace the call already pre-approved—the Director could expedite things fast when things like this happened—he'd pinged the tower the text had come in by, but the phone itself didn't register on the network. So either Stalker had moved, or she'd turned the phone off.
And then the left-hand phone rang again. Turning on the recorder once more, he carefully answered the call and put it on speaker. When he heard the voice, he almost fist-pumped the air in victory. To confirm what he already knew, he glanced at the voice stress analyser he'd adapted for the task. A moment later, it pinged with a ninety-eight point nine percent chance that this was Shadow Stalker's voice. Once again, he activated the phone trace. Almost immediately, it came up with the same tower. So either Stalker has two phones, or she's got a switchable one, like Coil's. Interesting that she's calling two numbers with two phones.
Activating a phone link within his helmet, he typed out a text by eye: Shadow Stalker has just called the phone. Permission to try to get her to give herself up? He sent it off to the Director's phone, hoping that Stalker would stay on the line long enough.
Piggot texted back within thirty seconds. Open a dialogue but don't push. On my way down. However, just as he glanced back toward the phone, the call ended.
She hung up, he texted back. Got the tower though.
Wait, was her only reply.
A few minutes later, she entered his workshop. "What do you have?" she asked. Or rather, demanded.
He didn't take offence. The Director, he knew, was taking this one personally. "I have a text message and a phone message. Sent from two different phones, to each of the two SIM cards in Calvert's phone." As he spoke, he called up the text message on one of the workshop screens.
Piggot scrutinised it with a frown. "You're sure 'me' is Shadow Stalker?"
"I had a hunch," Armsmaster said. "And then she called from the same cell tower. So he's got two people up near the Docks area, or she's got two phones and she's used one for each message."
"I see." She rubbed her chin. "Can you ping that phone?"
He shook his head. "No. It's off the network right now."
"Hm." She looked over the text message again. "Typical self-serving child," she observed. "It looks like she's talking about the Hillside debacle, and trying to lay blame elsewhere. Any idea regarding the 'move' she's talking about?"
"Nothing solid," he confessed. "If you want, I can send back a text for her to get at midnight."
"Put a hold on that for the moment." She indicated the screen. "Let's hear the voice recording."
"Yes, ma'am." He typed on a keyboard for a moment to set up the playback. As a bonus, he threw in the voice analysis results.
She listened without comment. When it finished, she raised her finger and gestured in a circle for him to replay it. This time, she leaned close to the speaker with her eyes closed. She stayed this way as the voice played out, until there was nothing but the hiss of the speakers.
"Well," she said out loud, once it was done. "There's two things to take away from this. One, that call is absolute proof that Shadow Stalker has been in Coil's pay all this time, and that the Undersiders were also under his control. But it looks like they were in two different branches of his operations until now. Especially given that they had a disagreement over the methods used in the robbery, strong enough for her to be booted from the team."
Armsmaster nodded in agreement. "I'm also interested in the phrasing she used there. 'Your precious Undersiders'. I'm thinking she didn't know she was going to be placed with them until after she broke away from the Wards."
"Which means that it wasn't a planned break," Piggot concurred. "Or rather, given how slick it was, it was planned as an exit strategy but not as an actual part of their ongoing operations. Having a Ward feeding Coil information from within, or even committing sabotage, has to be more useful than one more body on the streets."
"Yes." Colin stared up at the screen without really seeing it. "I'm still concerned about what she may have done for him already that we thought was just bad luck. Even the arrests she's made could've been done with his purposes in mind."
"We are definitely going to have to check that over with a fine-toothed comb. But that's what data analysts are paid for." The Director winced, possibly thinking of all the overtime that was going to accrue. "As for the other mystery. Why two different phones calling two different numbers?"
"Operational security?" Armsmaster posited. "If one SIM is for his Coil persona and the other for his Calvert persona, it keeps his messages and call logs separate. She sends innocuous calls and texts to his Calvert number, and villain ones to his Coil persona. And she uses two phones so that if someone looks up the call logs, we don't have the same number calling both of his numbers."
Piggot rubbed her chin. "That makes a certain amount of sense. We'll go with that for the moment. In any case, we have two separate numbers for her, and we know she'll be turning one of her phones back on at midnight. The question is, how do we approach it from here?"
"Call her and tell her to give herself up before she accrues even worse charges," Colin said bluntly. "She obviously doesn't know that her boss is dead. If we hit her with that as well, we may just shock her into surrendering."
"Or she may choose to go for broke and offer her services to the highest bidder, with all the knowledge she may have acquired about our procedures," the Director countered. "Teenagers aren't known for their logical consistency. Push her into a corner, and she just may decide she's got nothing to lose." Which, Colin had to admit, was actually true.
Armsmaster tilted his head. "Do you have a different strategy in mind?"
Her smile had a few more teeth in it than the norm. "Why, yes. I do."
Hebert Household
Amy
Amy shook her head. "I should've just kept my mouth shut."
"You couldn't have known." Taylor put her hand on her friend's shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. "We all blurt things out by accident all the time."
"Yeah, but …" Amy grimaced. "I mean, restoring his powers wouldn't be the same as messing with the rest of his brain, right? But I had to just say out loud that his corona pollentia was screwed up. So I couldn't take that back." She stared at her hands, flat on the table.
"Hey." Taylor shuffled her chair closer and put her arm around Amy's shoulders. "His powers were acting up even before you got to him. I'm pretty sure Armsmaster had his suspicions. And you definitely saved his life."
Amy sighed unhappily. "Yeah, I did, but … that stuff Shadow Stalker was using was nasty. It nearly killed Clockblocker. It did kill a couple guys in the mall. And thanks for finding that woman for me. About one more minute and she would've been out of reach."
"To be honest, I thought she was already dead," Taylor confessed. "I was just showing you where she was."
That got her a smile from Amy. "Well, she wasn't. And she's with her family tonight because you helped me save her life." The biokinetic put her arms around Taylor and hugged her. "So that was a win, right there."
"It was." Amy felt Taylor lean into the hug. It was nice. "So how about we make a deal?"
"A deal?" Amy tilted her head curiously. "What sort of deal?"
Taylor took a deep breath. "Any time we think we might've screwed up with our powers, we check with each other. Do you trust me to tell you if you've screwed up?"
Amy considered that. "Yeah, I do. Do you trust me?"
There wasn't even a hesitation as Taylor nodded. "Definitely." The bug controller offered her hand. "Shake?"
With a grin, Amy took the hand. "Done." Solemnly, they shook hands.
Brian
"Okay, then, here's the skinny." Lisa stretched out in her chair, her feet on another chair. Her coffee was half-empty beside her. Street-lights were beginning to come on, up and down the street. "We were working for Coil."
Brian blinked. "Coil? Holy shit. Really?" That was actually kind of a big revelation. He'd heard of the guy, but they'd never met. There'd just been voices on the phone.
"Really." Lisa's voice was flat. "But here's the kicker. Shadow Stalker didn't know she was working for him."
"That doesn't make sense." Brian gestured, trying to frame his thoughts. "She came to us from him."
Lisa's ever-present grin grew into a smirk. "She was behind the Swarmbringer event. Not sure how, exactly, but she definitely instigated it. The PRT was about to come down on her when Coil—who was also working for the PRT, mind you—approached her in his non-villain identity and offered her a chance to work a sting operation. On us."
Slumping back in his chair, Brian took a large gulp of his coffee. "Please tell me you're shitting me," he almost begged. "This is a joke, right?" The look on her face informed him otherwise. "It's not a joke. Fuck. We had the Swarmbringer in our fucking base?"
"She's not the Swarmbringer, exactly." Lisa took another sip of her weird-ass latte. "She just made it happen. Anyway, she busted out of the PRT building just ahead of the forces of law and order, but she thought it was all a show put on for Coil's benefit."
Brian's head fell back as many things began to make sense all of a sudden. "So that's why you couldn't stop laughing. She was screwed no matter what she did."
"Elementary, my dear Watson." Lisa grinned at him over her cup. "I'm pretty sure Coil wanted to have Shadow Stalker's crimes hanging over our heads if he ever wanted to pressure us into something nastier than normal. But he left a string hanging somewhere and sometime today, they pulled on that string and got him."
"So where's that leave us?" asked Brian practically. "If he's dead, he can't turn us in, but if he's alive …"
"If he's alive, he knows chapter and verse about us. And if he's dead, they might still find information he's got stored." Lisa's tone was suddenly businesslike. "And there's the people Spectre killed in the Hillside Mall. We're linked with that, no matter what."
"So … what?" Brian tried to figure out where she was going with this. "Do we leave town? Is that even a viable option?" He couldn't see the Undersiders sticking together as a team if they did. And he couldn't just leave Aisha behind.
She looked at him sympathetically. "Not for everyone, no," she agreed. "I've got a better idea. More dangerous, but if it works we might be able to avoid a felony murder charge."
He couldn't figure out what she meant, until suddenly it dawned on him. "Wait, you're not saying …"
Her grin returned in full force. "Yeah. I'm saying we hand Shadow Stalker over to the PRT." Picking up her cup, she drained it. "But first, I have some bank accounts to empty."
End of Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen
Part Fifteen: Doubling Down
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Christ, what a mess.
Armsmaster skidded the bike to a halt as Glory Girl crashed into the ground nearby. Her keening cry of pain tugged at him, but at least she was alive. "Glory Girl!" he bellowed. "Lie still! Do not move! I will get to you!" Hopefully, she wouldn't bleed out before he did.
Triage was ruthless, but sometimes it was the only way to save someone if you couldn't save everyone. In this case, he intended to do the impossible anyway. His halberd came off of his back and hummed to power as he ran toward where Clockblocker lay under the paw of the frozen dog. Bracing himself, he prepared to swing the halberd. "Dragon, countdown for Clockblocker. Also, monitor Glory Girl's life signs." He shot a side-glance at where Aegis lay writhing on the ground. Hopefully his body would get around whatever had been done to him, but in case it didn't … "And Aegis', too. And connect me through to base."
"Five seconds to minimum time," she told him. "Three. Two. She's alive but not looking good. He's suffering some sort of seizure. Giving you the override channel now."
Well, he'd known that. As he slashed with the halberd, the plasma-edged blade sliced through asphalt and concrete like a hot knife through styrofoam. His only chance in this case—Clockblocker's only chance—was if he destroyed what the boy was lying on and dragged him out before the Ward's power timer ended. "Console, Armsmaster. I'm at Hillside Mall. Clockblocker, Aegis and Glory Girl are down, all needing immediate and urgent medical care. All possible assistance required, ASAP. Armsmaster, out." He swung and sliced, swung and sliced. All the while, he kept one eye on the dog, and another on the heart rate monitors Dragon had set up to project into his HUD. Not his heart, and not Clockblocker's. Glory Girl's and Aegis'.
"Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight." Dragon attempted to keep her voice dispassionate, but Armsmaster heard the desperation underneath. "Colin, Glory Girl's going into shock, and Aegis isn't getting any better."
As her words registered with him, Armsmaster jammed the halberd into the concrete with the haft under the dog's chest, in the hope that it would take the weight in case the massive animal unfroze in the next few seconds. Then he dropped to his knees and took hold of Clockblocker's shoulders. The boy's body armour had saved his life to this point, but it was notably indented; there were almost certainly life-threatening injuries beneath.
Taking one deep breath, he pulled, determined to make the motion as smooth as possible. There was a grating sound, and for a horrible instant he thought it was Clockblocker's ribs. But, no, the pieces of smoking gravel that had once been concrete had begun to grind over one another. Clockblocker's armour caught on something, and the Protectorate leader gritted his teeth and heaved a little harder. If I exacerbate his injuries too far … But it was either that or chance leaving him under the dog until it unfroze, and if he did that the boy was dead.
A moment later, with another tug, Clockblocker moved again. To Colin's relief, the Ward slid freely out from under the massive, gnarled weapon that had once been a dog's paw. Aware that they weren't out of danger yet, Armsmaster continued to drag him across the asphalt as smoothly as he could manage. As soon as they were out from under the creature, he pulled the boy sideways to get out of its projected path. He then dropped to his knees beside the Ward and reached out his hand. Built into the side of Clockblocker's helmet was a life-signs monitor touch panel; the Tinker's gauntlet had the corresponding reader for just such a case as this. Colin's lips thinned as he looked over the data. Some damage had obviously been done, but at least the boy had a heartbeat and was breathing on his own. There was likely some internal bleeding, but he was alive and out of extremely immediate danger.
Just as Armsmaster formed that thought, there was a loud snap and a thunder of motion. He whipped his head around just in time for him to see the gigantic dog-monster as it galloped off down the road. To his chagrin, part of the halberd's haft was still embedded in its chest (though it didn't seem to hinder the monster dog in the slightest). The rest of his halberd stuck forlornly out of the concrete where he'd left it.
There wasn't time to assess the damage to his prized halberd, or even to dwell on it. "Dragon, link to Clockblocker's vitals," he said as he rose to his feet. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have left the the boy's side for an instant until the paramedics arrived on site, but these were the farthest thing from normal circumstances.
"Done." Dragon's voice was terse. Another set of vital signs readouts appeared in his HUD. The tiny clock-face emblem that showed up next to them was obviously intended to denote Clockblocker's identity, just as the miniature starburst and the helmet indicated Glory Girl and Aegis respectively, but he felt it was unduly ominous, as if the boy's life was ticking down.
Five long strides got him to Glory Girl's side, where she lay partly on her stomach. The hilt of the knife protruded from her lower back, not far from the spine. Keening painfully, she writhed in a pool of her own blood as she tried to get a grip on the knife. When she did, she shrieked in pain, let the knife go, and smashed her fist into the ground. High-speed gravel whirred past Armsmaster's helmet.
"Glory Girl!" he said urgently as he dropped to one knee beside her. The first-aid dispenser on his belt cranked out a section of absorbent bandage, perfect for packing around the knife blade so pressure could be put on the wound. He knew that the knife needed to be left in place for the moment, as it may have severed important blood vessels, with the blade as the only plug. "Please lie still! Don't touch the knife! Every time you do, you exacerbate the—"
That was as far as he got, for when he placed his gauntleted hand on her shoulder, she backfisted him hard. Even with the awkward angle and the effects of the injury, she still hit him in the chestplate with enough force enough to dent it. He flew backward several yards, but instincts garnered from long hours of training came to his aid. Twisting as he landed, he rolled to his feet in a practised motion and moved in again. Red warning lights popped up in his HUD. He set them aside to be checked out later. "Glory Girl!" he shouted. "You have to stay still! I can't treat you like this!"
A wave of terror washed over him, and he gasped, barely managing to keep control of his own fear response. This had to be Glory Girl's power. There was no real danger here, except from her iron-hard fists. Which, admittedly, were a real problem Although she was flailing aimlessly, her blows were still strong enough to crack concrete. Were she any normal injured person, he would've been able to restrain her long enough to tranquillise her. The trouble was, her power made this tricky in the extreme.
Footsteps came up behind him and he turned fast. But even as he opened his mouth to warn whoever it was to keep back, he saw it was Panacea and Vista. Farther back, he saw Taylor Hebert at the front of the crowd that had formed near the entrance of the shopping mall.
"Vicky!" Panacea exclaimed. "My God, what have they done to you?" She started forward, but Armsmaster hurriedly moved to block her way.
"Be careful," he warned the two girls. "She's lashing out. She could kill you by accident." He gritted his teeth as another wave of undirected fear washed over them. "And there's that, too."
"Got it," Vista said. "Panacea, I can make it so you can touch her from here. How quickly can you make her unconscious?"
"Very quickly, if I have to." Panacea's voice was grim. "Do it."
Colin's eyes ached as the very fabric of space twisted at the behest of a teenage girl. Panacea reached out, into the centre of the distortion. Her arm did not stretch, nor did Glory Girl get any closer to her, but somehow she placed her hand on her sister's arm. It was only a glancing touch, but it was enough. Glory Girl's movements slowed abruptly, as if she were overcome with tiredness. In the next few seconds, she slumped to the ground and lay still. Panacea hurried over and knelt beside her.
God, I hope that was because of what Panacea did, and not because she just died. A glance at his HUD told him that Glory Girl's heart-rate was still strong, if a little slower than before. Oh, good. "Vista, check on Clockblocker. I'm pretty sure he's got internal injuries. I've got Aegis." Now that the crisis with Glory Girl was over, he was genuinely worried about the Hispanic Ward. Over the last few years, he'd seen the boy more or less ignore a bullet wound in the head, a four-foot length of rebar through the chest and the traumatic removal of his left leg and part of his pelvis. The most he'd done about the latter, once it was stitched back into place, was to complain about walking funny until it all knitted again. Whatever had been done to him this time wasn't visible, which made Armsmaster wonder what the hell had been done, and why wasn't he adapting to get around it?
Not unlike Glory Girl, young Carlos's movements were also involuntary and violent. Fortunately, he wasn't nearly as strong as the ex-New Wave Alexandria package, so Armsmaster found it easy to hold him down. It was impossible to get a read on him through the helmet. Not surprisingly, considering nobody had thought it necessary to equip him with any sort of vital-signs monitoring. Reaching back to one of his less-used pouches, Armsmaster dug out a domino mask, then unclipped Aegis' helmet and laid it to one side. With a practised move, he applied the mask before taking the time to examine the boy.
The first thing he noticed was a foreign object protruding from Aegis' left eye. Reaching out, he took hold of the thing and pulled carefully. The faint sucking sound made him vaguely nauseous, but when the object came free, it revealed itself to be some kind of small dart. Armsmaster frowned in puzzlement. It was unlikely in the extreme that this dart on its own was responsible for Aegis' state. Besides, even if it was Tinkertech, Aegis' life signs hadn't begun to recover now that it was out. This worried him.
"Colin, Clockblocker's vitals are starting to fade." Dragon's voice was urgent.
At the same time, Vista spoke up, her voice high and frightened. "Armsmaster, I can't find his pulse!"
Armsmaster's eyes flicked to the appropriate spot in the HUD. He subvocalised a curse as he saw the line flattening out. Aegis was still in a bad way and getting worse, but at least he had a heartbeat. While Vista's fears about Clockblocker weren't totally realised—there were still life signs, just very weak ones—the boy didn't have long. "Panacea!" he shouted as he jumped to his feet and strode over toward the white-armoured Ward. "We need you now!"
"Nearly … done," grunted the ex-New Wave healer. "Knife's out, just need to make sure she doesn't bleed out."
"No time!" Armsmaster had once done a time-and-motion study on Panacea's healing techniques, and her average wound treatment procedure tended to run on for at least a minute, especially if there were vital organs involved or she was trying not to leave a scar. With both factors in play, it would be more like ninety seconds. This was time Clockblocker simply didn't have. He slapped the extemporaneous bandage into Vista's palm. "Take this, apply pressure to Glory Girl's wound. Panacea, get here now! That's an order!"
Leaning over Clockblocker, he flicked the hidden catch that released the body armour the boy wore over his chest and upper abdomen. This armour was severely dented and crushed inward, which didn't bode well for the damage to Clockblocker himself. He lifted it off. Despite himself, his breath hissed between his teeth as he saw the sunken sternum and the obvious signs of broken ribs. But it seemed the diaphragm was undamaged, given the way Clockblocker's chest struggled to rise and fall. What, then …?
His train of thought was broken as Panacea dropped down on Clockblocker's other side. He ignored her bloodstained hands and her sullen glare alike; all that mattered was to save the boy's life. "Okay, I'm here," she snapped. "Gonna need some bare skin to work with."
It seemed to him that she was unhappy about not being allowed to heal her sister all the way, but that wasn't really a factor at the moment. Clockblocker's gloves were detachable from the rest of the costume—both for practicality and due to a very real concern that any new gloves might end up too thick for his powers to work through—so Armsmaster grabbed the boy's arm and yanked the glove off in one move. There was a dull pop as he did so, and he thought he might have dislocated the teen's wrist or perhaps one of his fingers. Whatever it was, it would be more fixable than death. "Here," he said as he held out the now-bare hand toward Panacea. She took it and gasped, her eyes taking on a thousand-yard stare.
"Fuck," she said out loud. "He's been poisoned. And you know, trod on by a fucking elephant or something. Okay, fixing this shit."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked. He'd spent literally years training himself to be able to handle any situation any normal human might find themselves in. This might be a powers-only situation, or it might not. He'd never know if he didn't ask.
"No … yeah," she said, visibly changing her mind. "Any injectable stimulants you've got, give 'em to him." She bit her lip as sweat sheened her forehead. All trace of her previous unhappiness had vanished. "I'm spending ninety percent of my time keeping his damn heart and lungs going."
"What sort of poison?" he asked as he took an injector from his belt. He'd designed it to work on himself; at base, if his Tinkertech was removed, he was only human. With this in mind, he intended to take every single advantage he could garner anyway. A burst of energy at the right time could be a life-saver, no matter the cost later on.
"Neurotoxin," she muttered as he pressed the injector to Clockblocker's carotid, under the rim of his helmet. It hissed, then beeped to indicate that its payload had gone through. "Fifty percent chance of killing a healthy adult male. Seventy-five percent chance of putting them in a coma. Oh, nice. That's perfect." Her eyes widened. "Holy shit, you use that on yourself? How does your heart not explode?"
"I've tested it under laboratory conditions," he replied stiffly, then changed the subject. "What would multiple doses of this toxin do to Aegis?"
"Fuck, that's what's happened to him?" She glanced toward the still-shuddering red-clad Ward, but her frown of concentration never wavered.
"It's my best guess," admitted Armsmaster. "I pulled a dart out of his eye. There may be more."
"Clockblocker had a puncture wound behind his left knee," Panacea noted. "The majority of the neurotoxin was situated there. Dart delivery makes sense. Who uses darts?"
"None of the Undersiders," Armsmaster said. "But …"
"Vista said Shadow Stalker was working with them," Panacea filled in his unspoken thought. "She's used crossbows with tranquillisers. Poison darts aren't that much of a stretch."
"Colin, Aegis' heart is giving out."
That didn't make any sense. Armsmaster had seen Aegis' liver take over from his heart once. But Dragon didn't make mistakes like that. In addition, his own HUD had just now updated to show him the same data. "Aegis is in trouble. Panacea, are you good here?"
"I'm on top of it," she said. "Go."
With just a glance at where Vista still had pressure on Glory Girl's wound, Armsmaster rose and dashed over to where Aegis lay. The muscular boy had armour to back up his Brute capabilities, but Armsmaster knew where the releases were. Unlatching the breastplate, he cast it aside. Unlike Clockblocker, Aegis hadn't suffered any chest injuries, so he could safely apply CPR, or at least chest compressions … damn it. "Dragon, what's his respiration like?"
"Also down," she reported.
With his helmet the way it was, it was difficult for him to apply expired air resuscitation. Panacea was still busy with Clockblocker, and Vista couldn't leave Glory Girl. Then he remembered he still had a card up his sleeve. Turning to the crowd—one member in particular—he waved an arm. "Does anyone have first-aid training? I need help with CPR. Anyone?"
For he knew Taylor had taken first-aid classes as a part of her heroic preparations even before the Swarmbringer incident. To his relief, she took the cue and stepped forward. "I know CPR," she said hesitantly. He wasn't sure if it was an act, but it hit just the right note.
"Good," he said. "Come on over. I'm going to need you to breathe for him while I apply compressions."
"Oh, um, okay," she said and trotted over. As he finished a round of compressing Aegis' chest, she knelt beside the boy and took his chin in her hand. Pinching his nostrils closed with her other hand, she began to breathe into his lungs, taking care to time her breaths between Armsmaster's chest compressions.
"You got … here at … just the … right time," he said quietly, between compressions. "When did … they release … you from … the building?"
"They didn't," she said, just as quietly. "We just came."
With some difficulty, he restrained his reaction of surprise. Deal with it later. We have lives to save, here. A glance at his HUD showed that Aegis' heart rate had picked up. Hopefully, his oxygen intake had also improved.
And then Panacea came into his field of view as she knelt beside Taylor. "Excuse me, miss, but I need access to him," she said just loudly enough to be heard by the crowd. "Thank you." As she placed her hand on Aegis' uncovered face, she gasped. "Holy crap, he's got a dart inside his brain!"
"Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster snapped. "It has to be. Nobody else can do that phasing trick." It was something that had been posited and she'd tried a few times with practise dummies, but had apparently given up trying to get right. Except that it seemed she'd been learning how to do it away from official scrutiny, and she'd mastered it. "Clockblocker?"
"Waking up in a few moments. The knife was bonded to Vicky's ribs, which was why she couldn't pull it out," Panacea supplied. "Jesus, he's got neurotoxin in his brain. I'm neutralising it but I can't fix the damage." She sounded stricken as she said it.
Two counts of attempted murder against her name now. Three, counting Clockblocker. But there were higher priorities than counting up Shadow Stalker's charges. "Is he going to be all right?"
She grimaced. "Maybe? His motor functions don't seem to be affected. The failing vitals was all about having neurotoxin right there. But it may have gotten his corona pollentia. There seems to be damage there, anyway."
Which would be why Aegis' powers hadn't kicked in; or rather, hadn't kicked in enough. By a sheer lucky fluke, Shadow Stalker had hit him in the one place he couldn't work around. Though Armsmaster suspected his powers were still working just a little, or he'd be dead already. "Son of a bitch. How about the rest of his brain?"
"Memory, cognition, personality, it all looks basically intact to me," Panacea said briskly. "Fixing Clockblocker gave me a recipe for a counteragent which is working just fine. There won't be any more damage, but I can't fix what's already happened."
"That sounds … really sucky," Taylor said, keeping her voice down. She gave Panacea a sympathetic look.
"Yeah." Panacea hung her head. "It really, really is." She took a deep breath. "Okay, that's the last of the neurotoxin done … now. We're done here."
"Not yet, we're not," Vista put in from where she still knelt next to Glory Girl. "Pretty sure your sister's gonna need some care and attention before you're finished here."
"Shit!" Panacea got up and hurried back to Glory Girl's side. Kneeling next to her sister, she went to work once more.
Taylor got up and dusted her hands off on her jeans. "I, uh, guess I'll go now?" she asked.
Armsmaster nodded. "Yes," he said briefly. "Thank you for your assistance, miss."
She ducked her head and moved back into the crowd, while Vista came over to Colin. "Well, that was a thing," the younger Ward said. "I don't suppose you could put in a good word for us for leaving without permission?"
Armsmaster looked around. Clockblocker was groaning his way to consciousness, and his helmet HUD reported that the other two Wards were still alive and in far better health than they'd been before. That would almost certainly have gone the other way, had Vista not brought Panacea and Taylor to this spot. "Orders are meant to be followed, especially lockdowns," he said sternly. "However, under these circumstance, I'm sure I can prevail on the Director to not be too hard on you."
<><>
PRT Building
Taylor
Taylor stood with Amy and Missy alongside the conference table. The Director sat at the head of the table, behind Taylor and to her right. Armsmaster's stolid presence was almost comforting at her back.
In front of them, spilling light into the darkened room, a wall-screen played security footage. It was mercifully without sound, but Taylor could fill in what had come over the speakers from memory. At first, the PRT officers in the security office had been exasperated, but when Vista simply made the doors open by halving the width of each door, they had done their best to lay down the law. Their best had not been good enough.
The image changed to show herself, Vista and Panacea running toward the lift. Before they even got to it, the digital sign above the lift turned to a series of red bars, signifying that it was not in service. That hadn't bothered Vista, who had worked her magic with the lift doors, then with the hatch in the lift roof. Which, incidentally, had been securely locked against anyone trying just this sort of trick. Taylor was pretty sure the hatch wouldn't be usable as anything other than a doorstop after this; Vista had gotten pretty rough with it.
The scene shifted to the top of the lift, which impressed Taylor no end. She wondered who else other than Director Piggot would think to put cameras in an elevator shaft. Visual distortions fuzzed the picture for a moment, then a metal square fell past the view of the camera. One by one, the three girls disappeared upward. The picture distorted again, then returned to normal. Then the screen blanked out, and the lights came up in the room. Along with Missy and Amy, Taylor turned to face the Director.
"After leaving the Wards quarters against direct orders, you entered the lift, gained access to the elevator shaft, then exited via the rooftop hatch," Piggot said. "Is that correct?"
Missy swallowed audibly. "Yes, ma'am," she said almost inaudibly.
"In doing so, you exposed a flaw in our security," the heavy-set woman went on remorselessly. "That will be dealt with. In the meantime … you crossed town to the Hillside Mall, correct?"
"Correct," Armsmaster stated. "Where I was attempting to deal with three injured Wards. All of whom would very likely have died, had Panacea not showed up on site."
"As your report has stated, in rather glowing terms." Piggot managed not to sound impressed. "Vista, I understand that Scarab was out of costume at the time. We've gone to great lengths to protect her secret identity. Why did you even take her with you?"
Vista's shoulders were back, her hands clasped behind her. She looked stiff and unhappy as she replied. "Ma'am, she wanted to go. I dropped her off behind the crowd before Panacea and I reached Armsmaster and the Wards. Her knowledge of CPR was useful in keeping Aegis alive."
Piggot made an impatient chopping motion with her hand. "I understand that. Other members of the crowd could have done the same. Miss Hebert, why did you volunteer to go along, despite being out of costume?"
Taylor took a deep breath. "Ma'am, I don't have a costume. But I still wanted to help. We didn't know if whoever hurt Clockblocker and Aegis and Glory Girl were still around, and the perfect time and place to attack would be while Vista and Panacea were involved in helping Armsmaster with them. So I used my bugs to keep a lookout all around. If anyone had attacked, I would've been able to give warning, and to distract the attackers."
Silence fell, then the Director drummed her fingers on the table. "That's … sound reasoning," she admitted. She shifted her attention to Amy. "And the aftermath? Once you had the Wards healed? I understand there were more casualties."
The biokinetic nodded, her expression unhappy. "Two security guards dead. There was another guard, and a woman whom Taylor's bugs located in one of the bathrooms. They were both in comas, but I was able to bring them back." Taylor had quietly informed Panacea of this via her bugs, allowing her to 'find' the woman a few moments later.
"They were lucky," Armsmaster noted. "Panacea reported that the LD-fifty of the neurotoxin was one dose, and that's for a healthy adult. One of the dead guards took a double dose. In three of the four cases, we found the same darts on site. The woman didn't have a dart, but she did have a puncture wound of the same type in her chest."
An expression not unlike pain crossed the Director's face. "And Aegis? What happened there?"
Amy fielded this question as well. "Shadow Stalker shot a dart into his eye, then phased three more into his body. One ended up in his brain. The neurotoxin from all four would've killed anyone else several times over. With him, it came close. Normally, he would've gotten around it, but the one in his brain dispensed its toxin right next to his corona pollentia. His body couldn't adapt around it, any more than I could fly by throwing a rope in the air and climbing up it. He's still unconscious, while his body gets over what happened to it. I neutralised the neurotoxin, but …" She grimaced. "There's brain damage. He should still be him, but I can't guarantee he'll have access to his powers when he wakes up."
"God damn it." Piggot's fist slammed into the table. "Two civilian murders, two attempted murders and the attempted murder of three Wards. One of whom may well be out of the Wards after this. All from one code purple." She leaned back in her chair and took several deep breaths, apparently in an attempt to calm herself. Taylor remained still, unwilling to draw the heavy-set woman's ire.
Several seconds passed, then the Director sat forward again. "All right," she said. "Vista, Panacea; you did break regulations, but in doing so you saved lives. There will be no official punishment. However, you will each be required to find the section of PRT regulations regarding building lockdowns and present to me a five hundred word essay detailing why those regulations are necessary. You have one week. Scarab, you're not a Ward and thus I can't give you direct orders, but I would very much like you to consider doing likewise. Dismissed."
With a silent sigh of relief—as angry as the Director was, it could've been a lot worse—Taylor headed for the door with the others.
"Wait." It was the Director's voice. Taylor stopped, her heart thumping in her chest. She's changed her mind, and she's going to throw the book at us.
They turned to look at Piggot. Missy answered for them. "Yes, ma'am?"
Taylor couldn't quite read the expression on the older woman's face. "Panacea, I understand that Glory Girl is your sister. I also understand that Clockblocker is your teammate and friend, Vista. And it goes without saying that Shadow Stalker is someone against whom you would be excused for holding a substantial grudge, Scarab, but I will say this. Do not, and I mean do not, consider any reckless actions such as going out either alone or with each other to hunt her down. She's armed, she's dangerous, and she's shown absolute willingness to use lethal force against anyone she considers an enemy. We will find her, we will arrest her, and the full force of the law will crash down on the back of her neck in good time. But in the meantime, I don't want to lose more Wards, or affiliated heroes, to any ill-considered actions. Is that perfectly understood?"
Almost without conscious volition, Taylor found herself nodding her head in agreement. "Yes, ma'am," she managed, hearing her words echoed by the other two.
"Good." Piggot waved at the door. "Go. Go home and rest. You've done well, today."
In a mild state of shock from the Director's final words, Taylor exited the room.
<><>
Armsmaster
Colin watched the door close behind the three girls. "Permission to leave, ma'am?" he requested. "I need to repair—"
"Your halberd, I know." Piggot made a throwaway gesture. "In a moment. Right now, we need more information. Any word on the Undersiders?"
"None." The Tinker shook his head, fully aware that she wasn't going to like his lack of news. "I've had people put out feelers, but they've gone dark. From what I've gleaned from the security cameras outside the Mall, they didn't part with Shadow Stalker on the best of terms, however."
"That's both good and bad." The Director's voice was thoughtful. "Good, in that she won't have them as backup when and if we do catch up with her. Bad, in that she'll be harder to track down. How definitive was this evidence of bad feeling between them?"
"She indirectly caused Regent to get hurt," Armsmaster noted. "She and Grue seemed to argue, then Grue covered her in his darkness and the Undersiders rode off on their dogs. That was when Glory Girl attacked her and was stabbed."
The Director nodded slowly. "They're still accountable for the deaths, of course." It was a clearly understood aspect of felony murder. "But if we can bring them in and offer a plea deal, we can find out where she got the neurotoxin and the dart launchers from. From the evidence so far, she's been planning this break for some time. And to be honest, I'm far more interested in nailing a treacherous Ward to the wall than in prosecuting a bunch of small-time hit-and-run thieves."
Colin understood perfectly. It was all about setting a precedent—and in this case, making an example. He couldn't be sure how many other disaffected Wards there were around the country, but once word passed around about Shadow Stalker's fate, they'd be less likely to go villain at the drop of a hat. Which reminded him. "So you'll be pushing for the Birdcage then, ma'am?"
"That or a kill order," the Director said, surprising him slightly.
"A kill order's a little strong, don't you think?" he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral. "She's only what, fifteen? And we can't actively prosecute her for the Swarm."
"Because that would contradict Scarab's story, yes," she said. "But I disagree with you. Since her escape from the PRT building, Shadow Stalker's actions have expressed a high degree of what the legal types would call 'depraved indifference', if not flat-out malicious intent. Two murders of civilians and five more who would've been dead without Panacea's intercession, all within fifteen minutes of one another? That's all three strikes for the Birdcage, right there. Plus, attempting to murder three Wards is something I will not tolerate."
And given that the woman had beaten Thomas Calvert to death in her own office (thus necessitating this particular change in venue until the carpet was cleaned of his blood and brains) there were very few people in the PRT building willing to go against Director Piggot's wishes in such a matter. Armsmaster definitely wasn't one of them.
<><>
Brian
Pulling the card from the phone, Lisa flicked the lighter and held the piece of delicate electronics in the flame. After a few seconds, she dropped it on the concrete and ground her heel down on it, twisting back and forth to maximise the damage. Finally, she nudged it over to a storm drain, not even bothering to watch as it disappeared into the darkness below. Pulling another from her pocket, she snapped it into place then replaced the back on the phone.
"That's a little extreme, isn't it?" Leaning up against the alley wall with his arms crossed, Brian hadn't budged during the whole procedure. "Why so thorough?"
"The boss is either captured or dead," Lisa said, her tone absolutely certain of her conclusions. "I tried calling five times, cutting the call after ten seconds each time. On the last call, someone picked up but didn't speak. At the same time, they tried to trace the call."
"PRT," Brian agreed with her unspoken conclusion. "Okay, I agree that's not good, but—"
"It's worse than not good," Lisa interrupted. "I've been looking online. People died in the Hillside Mall. The Wards we ran into? Spectre nearly killed them, too. Those darts weren't tranquillisers—they were neurotoxin."
A cold chill ran down Brian's back. And we gave her the damn launchers back. "You didn't tell us this before, why?"
Lisa scrubbed her palms over her face. "Newsflash, Brian. My power's not omniscient. I don't know everything, much as I'd like to. She didn't know they weren't tranquillisers, and I was paying attention to too much other stuff during the robbery, like making sure that she didn't shoot us in the back."
"Fuck." Brian pinched his fingers on the bridge of his nose. "So what happens now that the boss is no longer paying us? What do we do? Keep going the way we are?" How am I going to help Aisha now? he didn't quite ask, though he was pretty sure she'd heard him anyway.
She shook her head. "You're not seeing the bigger picture. This is bigger than your sister, or even what we're going to do for cash flow."
He couldn't see what she was getting at, and then he thought he did. "Wait. You're saying he might give us up?"
To his confusion, she shook her head. "That's a small part of it. Come on; let's get coffee. Lurking in alleyways like this is only going to draw attention."
<><>
Sophia
It had taken her several hours, but she was reasonably sure she hadn't been followed. Finally, perched on a rooftop not far from the northern ferry terminal, she took one last look around and dug out the phone Calvert had left for her in the post office box. Pressing the button to power it up, she suffered through the boot-up process, using her hands to physically mask the chime that it played to announce to the world that a phone had just been turned on.
Examining the screen once it was up and running, she frowned when she saw the remaining power. Thirty-nine percent; if she didn't get hold of a charger soon, it was going to die on her. Making a hasty decision, she dashed off a quick text. Hi, it's me. U probably seen what happened. Was all their fault. Time to make my move? Will check phone @ 0000.
Shutting down the phone again, she tucked it away in the rear pouch again, then pulled out the cheap burner Coil had given her. This one was sitting in the low nineties for charge, so she felt safe in actually talking on it. It started up with less fuss and fanfare than the more expensive phone, which she considered to be bullshit. There was only one number on it, which she hit the speed-dial for. Then she put it to her ear and waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, after far too long, there was a click as the call was picked up. "Hey, it's me," she said breathlessly. "Just thought you might want to know, your precious Undersiders just kicked me to the curb for no reason at all …"
Gradually, she became aware that she was talking to dead air. Pausing, she listened carefully. There was just enough ambient noise to convince her that there was an open line. What the fuck is going on here?
<><>
Armsmaster
Colin sat, his attention fixated on the two phones on the workbench. Off to the side, under a magnifier, was the one they'd actually taken off of Coil's body. It was one of the newer fancy ones, able to take two SIM cards. He'd discovered this fact while dissecting it for its secrets, and had immediately gone out to acquire two handsets to put the cards in.
On his return, he'd been chagrined to discover that the phone had missed several calls while he'd been out, but he set up the two new phones on the workbench anyway while he got back to work on the original. The one on the left had rung just a little while ago, with the same number as the first four times; he'd answered the call and put it on speaker, but the person on the other end had hung up in just a few seconds without saying a word.
Undeterred, he'd got back to working on Coil's phone until the phone on the right had pinged with a text message. The tone of it puzzled him, even after he worked out the meaning and who had probably sent it. If, and this was a big 'if', the text had originated from Shadow Stalker, it sounded as though she were trying to excuse the aftermath to Coil. What the 'move' was, he had no idea. With the permission to trace the call already pre-approved—the Director could expedite things fast when things like this happened—he'd pinged the tower the text had come in by, but the phone itself didn't register on the network. So either Stalker had moved, or she'd turned the phone off.
And then the left-hand phone rang again. Turning on the recorder once more, he carefully answered the call and put it on speaker. When he heard the voice, he almost fist-pumped the air in victory. To confirm what he already knew, he glanced at the voice stress analyser he'd adapted for the task. A moment later, it pinged with a ninety-eight point nine percent chance that this was Shadow Stalker's voice. Once again, he activated the phone trace. Almost immediately, it came up with the same tower. So either Stalker has two phones, or she's got a switchable one, like Coil's. Interesting that she's calling two numbers with two phones.
Activating a phone link within his helmet, he typed out a text by eye: Shadow Stalker has just called the phone. Permission to try to get her to give herself up? He sent it off to the Director's phone, hoping that Stalker would stay on the line long enough.
Piggot texted back within thirty seconds. Open a dialogue but don't push. On my way down. However, just as he glanced back toward the phone, the call ended.
She hung up, he texted back. Got the tower though.
Wait, was her only reply.
A few minutes later, she entered his workshop. "What do you have?" she asked. Or rather, demanded.
He didn't take offence. The Director, he knew, was taking this one personally. "I have a text message and a phone message. Sent from two different phones, to each of the two SIM cards in Calvert's phone." As he spoke, he called up the text message on one of the workshop screens.
Piggot scrutinised it with a frown. "You're sure 'me' is Shadow Stalker?"
"I had a hunch," Armsmaster said. "And then she called from the same cell tower. So he's got two people up near the Docks area, or she's got two phones and she's used one for each message."
"I see." She rubbed her chin. "Can you ping that phone?"
He shook his head. "No. It's off the network right now."
"Hm." She looked over the text message again. "Typical self-serving child," she observed. "It looks like she's talking about the Hillside debacle, and trying to lay blame elsewhere. Any idea regarding the 'move' she's talking about?"
"Nothing solid," he confessed. "If you want, I can send back a text for her to get at midnight."
"Put a hold on that for the moment." She indicated the screen. "Let's hear the voice recording."
"Yes, ma'am." He typed on a keyboard for a moment to set up the playback. As a bonus, he threw in the voice analysis results.
She listened without comment. When it finished, she raised her finger and gestured in a circle for him to replay it. This time, she leaned close to the speaker with her eyes closed. She stayed this way as the voice played out, until there was nothing but the hiss of the speakers.
"Well," she said out loud, once it was done. "There's two things to take away from this. One, that call is absolute proof that Shadow Stalker has been in Coil's pay all this time, and that the Undersiders were also under his control. But it looks like they were in two different branches of his operations until now. Especially given that they had a disagreement over the methods used in the robbery, strong enough for her to be booted from the team."
Armsmaster nodded in agreement. "I'm also interested in the phrasing she used there. 'Your precious Undersiders'. I'm thinking she didn't know she was going to be placed with them until after she broke away from the Wards."
"Which means that it wasn't a planned break," Piggot concurred. "Or rather, given how slick it was, it was planned as an exit strategy but not as an actual part of their ongoing operations. Having a Ward feeding Coil information from within, or even committing sabotage, has to be more useful than one more body on the streets."
"Yes." Colin stared up at the screen without really seeing it. "I'm still concerned about what she may have done for him already that we thought was just bad luck. Even the arrests she's made could've been done with his purposes in mind."
"We are definitely going to have to check that over with a fine-toothed comb. But that's what data analysts are paid for." The Director winced, possibly thinking of all the overtime that was going to accrue. "As for the other mystery. Why two different phones calling two different numbers?"
"Operational security?" Armsmaster posited. "If one SIM is for his Coil persona and the other for his Calvert persona, it keeps his messages and call logs separate. She sends innocuous calls and texts to his Calvert number, and villain ones to his Coil persona. And she uses two phones so that if someone looks up the call logs, we don't have the same number calling both of his numbers."
Piggot rubbed her chin. "That makes a certain amount of sense. We'll go with that for the moment. In any case, we have two separate numbers for her, and we know she'll be turning one of her phones back on at midnight. The question is, how do we approach it from here?"
"Call her and tell her to give herself up before she accrues even worse charges," Colin said bluntly. "She obviously doesn't know that her boss is dead. If we hit her with that as well, we may just shock her into surrendering."
"Or she may choose to go for broke and offer her services to the highest bidder, with all the knowledge she may have acquired about our procedures," the Director countered. "Teenagers aren't known for their logical consistency. Push her into a corner, and she just may decide she's got nothing to lose." Which, Colin had to admit, was actually true.
Armsmaster tilted his head. "Do you have a different strategy in mind?"
Her smile had a few more teeth in it than the norm. "Why, yes. I do."
<><>
Hebert Household
Amy
Amy shook her head. "I should've just kept my mouth shut."
"You couldn't have known." Taylor put her hand on her friend's shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. "We all blurt things out by accident all the time."
"Yeah, but …" Amy grimaced. "I mean, restoring his powers wouldn't be the same as messing with the rest of his brain, right? But I had to just say out loud that his corona pollentia was screwed up. So I couldn't take that back." She stared at her hands, flat on the table.
"Hey." Taylor shuffled her chair closer and put her arm around Amy's shoulders. "His powers were acting up even before you got to him. I'm pretty sure Armsmaster had his suspicions. And you definitely saved his life."
Amy sighed unhappily. "Yeah, I did, but … that stuff Shadow Stalker was using was nasty. It nearly killed Clockblocker. It did kill a couple guys in the mall. And thanks for finding that woman for me. About one more minute and she would've been out of reach."
"To be honest, I thought she was already dead," Taylor confessed. "I was just showing you where she was."
That got her a smile from Amy. "Well, she wasn't. And she's with her family tonight because you helped me save her life." The biokinetic put her arms around Taylor and hugged her. "So that was a win, right there."
"It was." Amy felt Taylor lean into the hug. It was nice. "So how about we make a deal?"
"A deal?" Amy tilted her head curiously. "What sort of deal?"
Taylor took a deep breath. "Any time we think we might've screwed up with our powers, we check with each other. Do you trust me to tell you if you've screwed up?"
Amy considered that. "Yeah, I do. Do you trust me?"
There wasn't even a hesitation as Taylor nodded. "Definitely." The bug controller offered her hand. "Shake?"
With a grin, Amy took the hand. "Done." Solemnly, they shook hands.
<><>
Brian
"Okay, then, here's the skinny." Lisa stretched out in her chair, her feet on another chair. Her coffee was half-empty beside her. Street-lights were beginning to come on, up and down the street. "We were working for Coil."
Brian blinked. "Coil? Holy shit. Really?" That was actually kind of a big revelation. He'd heard of the guy, but they'd never met. There'd just been voices on the phone.
"Really." Lisa's voice was flat. "But here's the kicker. Shadow Stalker didn't know she was working for him."
"That doesn't make sense." Brian gestured, trying to frame his thoughts. "She came to us from him."
Lisa's ever-present grin grew into a smirk. "She was behind the Swarmbringer event. Not sure how, exactly, but she definitely instigated it. The PRT was about to come down on her when Coil—who was also working for the PRT, mind you—approached her in his non-villain identity and offered her a chance to work a sting operation. On us."
Slumping back in his chair, Brian took a large gulp of his coffee. "Please tell me you're shitting me," he almost begged. "This is a joke, right?" The look on her face informed him otherwise. "It's not a joke. Fuck. We had the Swarmbringer in our fucking base?"
"She's not the Swarmbringer, exactly." Lisa took another sip of her weird-ass latte. "She just made it happen. Anyway, she busted out of the PRT building just ahead of the forces of law and order, but she thought it was all a show put on for Coil's benefit."
Brian's head fell back as many things began to make sense all of a sudden. "So that's why you couldn't stop laughing. She was screwed no matter what she did."
"Elementary, my dear Watson." Lisa grinned at him over her cup. "I'm pretty sure Coil wanted to have Shadow Stalker's crimes hanging over our heads if he ever wanted to pressure us into something nastier than normal. But he left a string hanging somewhere and sometime today, they pulled on that string and got him."
"So where's that leave us?" asked Brian practically. "If he's dead, he can't turn us in, but if he's alive …"
"If he's alive, he knows chapter and verse about us. And if he's dead, they might still find information he's got stored." Lisa's tone was suddenly businesslike. "And there's the people Spectre killed in the Hillside Mall. We're linked with that, no matter what."
"So … what?" Brian tried to figure out where she was going with this. "Do we leave town? Is that even a viable option?" He couldn't see the Undersiders sticking together as a team if they did. And he couldn't just leave Aisha behind.
She looked at him sympathetically. "Not for everyone, no," she agreed. "I've got a better idea. More dangerous, but if it works we might be able to avoid a felony murder charge."
He couldn't figure out what she meant, until suddenly it dawned on him. "Wait, you're not saying …"
Her grin returned in full force. "Yeah. I'm saying we hand Shadow Stalker over to the PRT." Picking up her cup, she drained it. "But first, I have some bank accounts to empty."
End of Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen
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Ooh, I like how it all is twisting about. Things are going to get interesting as everybody tries to get out of the hole Calvert dumped them in. I just hope it doesn't go lock stock and two smoking barrels on us. It would be a tragedy if the Undersiders trying to turn in Specter accidentally foil the PRT's capture attempt and dig things deeper because of it.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
-What? No constant exclamations of 'Tis merely a flesh wound!'?-
Impartial Panic
unbiased hysteria
- Location
- Padded cell
At this Rate a former ward is about to be the recipient of a shiny new kill order.
and nothing of value was lost.
and nothing of value was lost.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Well, all these twists and turns are going to make quite the soup.
Batman Armsmaster, that's how.
I'm
That doesn't sound good. Aegis, the proto-Khepri?
Sophia,
More teeth than the Osmond family.
Timerider
That guy who really should get out more.
- Location
- The End of the World.
Now this is gold.
I love it.
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
Sophia seems to have a talent for burning bridges (and avoiding building them), no?
Genon
Baron Awesomesauce the Magnificent
- Location
- Neptune
While I love this story and this chapter in particular, I think there are some issues.
As much as Coil deserved it, this really wasn't clear last chapter, to the point where I'm honestly wondering if Coil's death was due to a memory lapse on your part. In fact, what you wrote was this:
Granted, she was wearing brass knuckles, so I could absolutely see him dying, but you didn't write that. You wrote that he was unconscious. Now, Piggot could have continued beating him to the point of death to vent some steam, or he might have actually died by the fifth punch (after all, it's from his perspective, and he wouldn't be around to know that he was dead), but again, that wasn't actually written. I honestly believed he was knocked out until this point.
Also, this whole bit just confuses me. I know that Panacea can work with brains and only tells everyone that she can't, but she shouldn't be able to glean from Armsmaster that he used it on himself with the information presented. Unless she already knew he worked with stimulants of some kind (which I admittedly don't know because I haven't read canon Worm), how did she find out that he injected that stuff into himself just from observing its effects on Clockblocker? For all she knows, he literally keeps it only for situations like this. I could see her inferring that Armsmaster might have tried it once (since Armsmaster is infamous for abusing his body and mind for productivity's sake), but as written, Panacea just read Armsmaster's mind despite not actually touching him.*
*While I'm pretty sure her power works based on physical contact with bare skin, it's not really clear from checking the Worm wiki. If she can just scan people's brains without the need for contact, then disregard this.
As much as Coil deserved it, this really wasn't clear last chapter, to the point where I'm honestly wondering if Coil's death was due to a memory lapse on your part. In fact, what you wrote was this:
Granted, she was wearing brass knuckles, so I could absolutely see him dying, but you didn't write that. You wrote that he was unconscious. Now, Piggot could have continued beating him to the point of death to vent some steam, or he might have actually died by the fifth punch (after all, it's from his perspective, and he wouldn't be around to know that he was dead), but again, that wasn't actually written. I honestly believed he was knocked out until this point.
Also, this whole bit just confuses me. I know that Panacea can work with brains and only tells everyone that she can't, but she shouldn't be able to glean from Armsmaster that he used it on himself with the information presented. Unless she already knew he worked with stimulants of some kind (which I admittedly don't know because I haven't read canon Worm), how did she find out that he injected that stuff into himself just from observing its effects on Clockblocker? For all she knows, he literally keeps it only for situations like this. I could see her inferring that Armsmaster might have tried it once (since Armsmaster is infamous for abusing his body and mind for productivity's sake), but as written, Panacea just read Armsmaster's mind despite not actually touching him.*
*While I'm pretty sure her power works based on physical contact with bare skin, it's not really clear from checking the Worm wiki. If she can just scan people's brains without the need for contact, then disregard this.
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PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
I think that's meant to be Pan-Pan inferring that Armsmaster uses that stim on himself.
Also, she could reasonably explain this away as being able to distinguish gross structures in brains (being able to tell if certain regions are damaged or not) without being able to heal the complex networks that comprise a working brain.
Rogue Gemini
Wanderer without a Twin
- Location
- Here
Was it fanon that the brain problem was a moral issue and not a technical one?
- Location
- Sitting
For Panacea? She categorically refused to do brains, but told everyone she couldn't.
See the S9 arc, Bonesaw's whole deal was trying to force her to heal Flashbang, and the whole "Mindfuck her sister" plot point.
- Location
- Australia
1) He was unconscious by that point. She just didn't stop hitting him. (I had always intended for her to beat him to death, so no, it's not a memory lapse).
2) Armsy is notorious for pushing himself beyond his limits. This is why she asked him in the first place.
When she injected it into CB, she was at first pleased by the strength of the effect, then mildly horrified when she realised just how strong it really was.
Amy's problem with doing brains is that it's too easy, and too tempting to adjust people to the way she wants them to be. So, quite likely without getting any feedback, she set herself a blanket rule.
Rogue Gemini
Wanderer without a Twin
- Location
- Here
Okay, I had it backwards then. I figured it was a moral issue and thanks for the clarification.
Shooting him in "self defense" would have been one thing. Something like beating him to death is someting else and either needs to be covered up internally, which doesn't seem to be the case, or come back and cause official trouble for her. Not doing so would give the Wards, PRT agents and maybe Protectorate members the idea that rules and regulations doesn't apply if you're powerful enough.
- Location
- Earth Prime
And that's an especially dangerous lesson in Worm, where it's actually true.
On the other hand she can argue that he was a parahuman and thus she didn't dare let up. That she beat him to death in self defense, and unless they can show he was unconscious at the time its really a she said, he's dead situation which with law enforcement is almost always overlooked.
- Location
- Australia
Besides, he was armed with two firearms and a knife (and was trained to use all three). Unless and until he was disarmed of all of these, she was perfectly within her rights to keep hitting him.