255 - Phlogiston and Pleroma
They were on the road immediately. Dragon was after them, and Taylor understood, full well, that she couldn't fight her consistently. Armsmaster had upgraded after every single encounter, and she could only guess that Dragon had done much the same. Upgrades would be imminent, weaknesses would be patched. What worked now wouldn't work later. Notably, Taylor hadn't even managed to do more than mildly distract Dragon - a swing would've killed her easily if it had come at the right time. She'd gone from being able to confront Armsmaster head-on and walk away alive, to having to rely on others. Her own tricks were dead and gone, all she had were their tricks. And they were running out too. Sanagi had been conquered, and was still recovering. Vicky had won through an insane plan that might not have worked at all. And it wouldn't work again. Even Ellen's bombs wouldn't be reliable from now on - concussive blasts to force them away, mobility, ability to rapidly lose and regain limbs in order to gain distance and repair damage… they were on the losing side right now. Had to keep moving. The bus had been cleansed of trackers, and they were on the road immediately after - just as tiltrotors started to move. No idea if they were Dragon's or not.
They had food. They had water. They had fuel (plundered). They had everything they needed to survive, and nothing close to what they needed to win.
Best they could manage.
They hit the dusty trail out of town, and made their way carefully to a network of smaller roads connecting the backwoods of… a map told them they were getting closer to their target. The northward journey had ceased, now they powered west. Avoiding towns made everything go by simultaneously faster and slower - their progress was inhibited, but they sure as hell didn't have many distractions. Convenient. They drove without ceasing. Turk did most of it, and Arch took over once his arm felt up to the task of steering safely. They bumped over poorly paved roads, and sometimes came close to a freeway. The smoothness of a properly tarmacked road was enough to make everyone feel jumpy and paranoid. Silence meant thought, silence meant they were close to modernity, and modernity meant the Grid. They barely stopped now. Just twice a day. No more. No less. They stank at this point, and all of them had the perpetual grimy coating of the professionally homeless. Yellow teeth, too. Ellen complained that she was hypersensitive to smell right now, and that everyone was getting on her nerves. Taylor just felt jealous that she couldn't see anything - she had one eye, and wished she had zero.
God, the
grime…
A day or so had passed. The cold increased, and the bus was starting to break down. Air conditioning had failed, and now they had nothing but the gathering chill and shifting landscape to mark their passage, exposed to the elements as the breezes hurtled through half-broken windows. The only reason they kept this damn bus around instead of changing up was that they didn't even dare set foot in a single town for longer than it took to drive through. That, and this thing had guns mounted to it, armour, reinforced wheels… the kind of thing that they might need. Any kind of switch would be a downgrade, or would require extensive work to even equal this thing. Surpassing was out of the question. No, no chance of doing this without the bus. And Taylor had grown just a little attached to the thing, stink and all. They did all they could to stay off the trail of anyone trying to look for them, or to anticipate them. They doubled back randomly, and at one point stayed in one place for a day, creaking off the road into a deserted forest clearing where the bus could linger, cool down, and the rest of them could charge back up.
Turk had taught her to fish that day.
Taylor doubted she'd forget it.
She'd done her dad's physiotherapy, fed him his vitamin pills, his magnesium, made sure nothing was going wrong… Vicky still avoided her. Awkwardness. Some people didn't like having their minds invaded. Most people didn't. But some people
loathed it, and it turned out that someone grappling with a foreign voice in her head
really didn't appreciate having anything altered. And Taylor… was worried. Not sure how many memories of hers had slipped over. She knew about the ice lake, then. About the times when scarring had become a necessity, and Taylor had fully learned how to perform scar cartography. Some of those times… not ones she was proud of. She hoped she hadn't seen Astrid weeping in the snow. Or Frida realising what she had become. Or Taylor's connection to it.
But looking into Vicky's eyes… she knew that all was known.
She'd done her chores. Worked. Felt a pit in her stomach. And then Turk had stumped around the bus, clutching a pair of surprisingly good fishing rods. Most likely stolen from the nameless town they'd destroyed accidentally. He shrugged at her reproachful look, grunted, grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her off. She had a moment of being actively dragged before instincts kicked in and she started walking, a faint flush of embarrassment on her face. He'd strode along, completely silent, and led her to a deep, wide river… before passing her a rod. In silence, he'd added a fly to his hook, and a moment later, was casting.
Taylor stared.
Shrugged.
Started to cast.
He corrected her stance, her movements, helped with a small tangle she accidentally made of her line and some nearby branches. Never said a word. She never said one either. In absolute silence but for the chirping of crickets, they worked away. Cast. Reel. Cast. Reel. Without end. Chorei made no recognisable noise, simply hummed very, very lightly in a way that felt more like a mantra than anything else. Meditating, maybe. Or bored. And Taylor discovered something odd about herself.
She quite liked fishing.
Enough activity, but not too much. Just… standing around. Her swarm provided any entertainment, and she enjoyed sending little diving runs of flies to check the surface, examine every inch, maybe lure some fish up… nah. Made it too easy. This was nice.
This was weirdly nice.
Turk whistled sharply, and drew his rod back - Taylor watched with a wide eye as he hauled in a small fish, wriggling desperately. She expected him to slice it open or something - no, he just grabbed it around the body, turned around, and smashed it against a rock. It promptly ceased its movements. The execution rock now became the storage rock… and he cast again with a very light air of satisfaction.
Much later, on the way back to the bus, she leant into Turk, giving him a brief side-hug. Nothing more. More of a bump than anything else. He acknowledged with a simple 'hm', and kept walking. He'd caught three fish in as many hours. Taylor didn't catch a thing.
It was still one of the most innocently happy days she'd had in a while.
* * *
Vicky had slowly come round to actually sitting with her again. Not flinching when Taylor's hands moved.
That was definitely a pleasant development, admittedly.
She was looking increasingly odd these days. Both of them were, but Taylor had some experience with living on the road, back when she was pursuing Bisha's trail across America. She knew how to stay mostly clean. Vicky was still learning. Her shield cheated for her half the time - Taylor had
seen crumbs of food sliding smoothly away from her, not catching on her clothes. Occasional splashes of water, too. But… her hair had been vulnerable. And now it was… odd. Big, mostly. She was realising just how much care she must put into that blonde mop, just to keep it from looking like
this. It was
everywhere - full of split ends, ratty clumps, it had somehow expanded to several times its original size. And now a bandana was all that held it back from overwhelming them all.
Taylor, at least, had the decency to ensure that no lice managed to infiltrate that absolute mass.
Her own hair wasn't holding up much better… but honestly, she'd given into a small experiment. And had allowed her swarm to just… nibble off most of the grime. Shudders were suppressed, Chorei commented idly that her own centipede had
frequently served as a razor for her own scalp when she couldn't find a normal one, and focusing on that thought had been enough to distract her from anything else. Started being more practical with her hair, honestly - tying it up into a ponytail. Problem was, there was so damn much of the stuff that inevitably the
volume couldn't be suppressed - she hadn't had a haircut in a long while - and Vicky had politely compared her to a French aristocrat.
That had been the first genuinely nice thing she'd said in a few days.
After that, things just… resumed. Suddenly. Like they had never left off.
Taylor didn't remotely understand people.
Vicky had taken some of Ellen's scrap and fashioned them into crude chess pieces (damn Brute power), scratched a board on the floor, and the two had spent the days playing that over and over. It was… a little embarrassing, honestly. Taylor was introspective, quiet, and wasn't enormously witty or attractive. As a consequence, by the laws of the universe, being faintly intelligent had become a defining personality trait. It helped legitimise loneliness, explained it satisfactorily, and gave her a hint of self-esteem. Combat proficiency had substituted for it for a while, but that gave way after she lost her leg. Vicky, though, was powerful, attractive, and outgoing. She was
meant to be dumb. Instead, she kept thrashing Taylor at chess - the archetypal Smart Person Pastime. This was wounding. This was very wounding. And Vicky would
not stop challenging her to it. Then she'd give tips, and advice, and lots of nice little bits of encouragement. Chorei was meant to be her backup here. Meant to be. But instead…
I object to chess on a moral level, play something truly sophisticated, like go. Or if you insist on something so trivial as games, play something entertaining. I overheard some of my clients in the Qigong Centre talking of such games - beer pong, perhaps. I imagine that it has beer in it, and beer is pleasant. Or… hm, strip poker. Or 'I spy with my little eye', I'm very good at that. Oh, oh, no, no, play something involving trivia! I have lots of trivia!
Taylor stared dead ahead.
Chorei, in short, was just as bad as Taylor, and was unwilling to admit it. The others refused to join in with their games. Ellen had insisted that chess was for, quote, 'virginoid nerds'. Turk and Arch were either busy or sleeping. Sanagi… had watched. Her bones were healing, that much was good. Those filaments formed a fairly complex repair system, binding up bones like slings, before similar tissue grew from the ends of cracked bones, soldering it all together, allowing it to grow properly. She was, in some ways, still alive. But rarely spoke. Rarely wanted to. And thus, the games remained betwixt Taylor and Vicky.
"...and that's checkmate. I win your chips."
It was like being in prison, but instead of cigarettes (all smoked) or razor blades (pointless (but not edgeless, hah)), they just bet the remainder of their snack food. Taylor shuffled over a tiny stack of stale chips, which Vicky immediately ate in a single enormous bite. Savage. She grumbled, and sat back against the wall.
"No more. I'm done."
"...aw, but you have the bag of almonds, I need more of those in my diet."
"It's mine. I'm not betting it."
"But you did much better in that last game, maybe next time you'd-"
"I said I'm
done. Anyone else can play you if they want to, but I'm out."
Ellen laughed slightly from her corner - once there had been a wreck. Now there was a neat pyramid of spherical bombs that she stroked far too often for comfort, between demanding help and demanding a hand. The two were not, in this case, synonymous. No demands now, though. Just an idle comment.
"Yeah, that's what you get when a jock plays chess with a nerd. The nerd gets chips."
Both girls stared at Ellen. The weight of their gazes penetrated even the veil of blindness, and she shifted uneasily. Her voice was harsher as she barked into the silence.
"What?"
"...say that again."
"That's what you get when a jock plays chess with a nerd. The nerd-"
Vicky tilted her head to one side.
"Am I… am I the nerd in this scenario?"
"You win at chess, you know a surprising amount about Dragon, you have a weird level of knowledge of fun facts about capes. Plus, chatterbox. Yeah, you're the nerd in this scenario."
Taylor grimaced.
"And I'm-"
"The jock. You barely speak, your response to all problems is to punch it - and based on what I know about your power, that is
not the method you should be taking - you don't seem very introspective, and I've felt your face. You're muscled. Plus, you
fish."
I have no idea of these terms. Should I feel insulted?
Taylor didn't know. She wasn't a jock. Sophia was a jock. Jocks were jocks. She wasn't. She read books, she drank tea, she was literate, liked her computer… and Vicky was blonde. Blonde! And had a social life! This wasn't how - Ellen interrupted once more.
"Look, you want a test? Blondie, what do you do in your free time? Any other time from now, of course."
"...I study, mostly. I do some college courses, so… I guess I do some editing on the PHO wiki, you'd be surprised how many errors crop up. Plus, paperwork. I kinda like it, and my parents are usually too busy to handle half of the stuff. Video games sometimes. I do train, but I have other hobbies."
"Taylor?"
"I work out or I read or one of these people drags me out for something."
Ellen cackled.
"Jock! Total jock! And that one edits
wiki articles. I want to give her a swirlie already."
Both of them blinked in unison.
…they looked at one another.
Taylor reached out, and poked the statuesque celebrity blonde with multiple merchandising deals and a formerly wide social circle in her perfectly symmetrical boyfriend-having face.
"Nerd."
Vicky reached out and poked the gangly black-haired introspective loner who hung out in a tea shop and read obscure novels as decreed by her English literature-teaching mother, while never entering into a romantic relationship at any stage.
"Jock."
Sanagi poked herself in the skull and rumbled.
"Sanagi."
* * *
The engine gurgled ominously a few hours later. Taylor stared downwards into the belly of the bus, and resisted the urge to furrow her brow in worry. The others shifted uncomfortably. The bus was cold - they were all wrapped up in at least a few layers of whatever clothing they could find (or, more accurately, that they had brought or Taylor could steal from areas they passed through). No heating. Been gone for a while. Lights were nonexistent beyond the perpetually flickering candles… and their stock was running lower than she'd like. If they were lucky, they could get to Flint. Assuming no catastrophes - that was the luck-based part of the equation. She assumed
something would happen. Had to. Wouldn't be right otherwise. Food was fine, but they were down to all the nonperishables - the last loaf of bread had collapsed into spores. Tins were gathered in a massive pile, cleaned out in any river they could find, then sent to Ellen so she could try and make primitive bombs out of them. She was the only one of them who was properly content with her work.
Inertia. That was it. Taylor loathed the inertia. Pilots, spies, her… same pattern. Long periods of inertia, brief periods of catastrophe.
And she felt distinctly like they were edging towards the latter.
The bus wheezed to a stop, barely inching its way off the road as smoke billowed from the undercarriage. Carefully, Taylor sent her insects below to check anything they could. She felt hot metal, she felt a myriad of tiny spurs… nothing else. Nothing she could work with. Ellen barked at Arch - he'd become used to her over their time together, and had evidently achieved the rank of 'seeing eye Englishman'. Coveted position, that. She listened in as they discussed the state of the bus. Not good news.
The engine was nearly dead. The tinkertech was rapidly breaking down. They were approaching the limits of their capabilities. Time to ditch this thing.
Or…
Ellen lunged back into the bus, twitching erratically.
"I have an idea."
Oh dear.
"A combustion engine is just a very, very slow bomb, isn't it?"
Taylor narrowed her eye.
"...please, not this again. I'm not comfortable with-"
"Shut up. Maps say we're a good distance from the nearest town. We'll need to cannibalise another vehicle if we want to keep going. Or, we strap a very, very slow bomb to the bottom of this thing. One or the other, unless one of you has a tinker power I've never heard about - hey, new Butcher, you have something like that?"
"No."
"Then I guess it's just two options - cannibalise a vehicle, or strap a bomb. What's it to be?"
"Would the latter actually work? Without killing us"
"Probably. Maybe. Definitely, actually. I mean, no idea how the bus itself will hold up, half of this stuff is based on someone else's tinkertech, and
whoo, you don't want to mess around with that stuff. The volatility alone… anyway. I can work around it. But the work will be poor, short-lived. It'd help us limp onwards, and it might destroy the bus around us, but… best I can do. Better than any of
you turdburglars, before you think about judging me."
"...and the cannibalisation option?"
"We need another car. Ideally a bus, but I can settle for anything which has an internal combustion engine and a chassis. What we do is we grab it, tear it apart, and I start bolting shit on like there's no tomorrow."
"Pros?"
"We get moving."
"Cons?"
"We'd need to find a car in working condition, and I'd need to be a very clever lady - oh, wait, no, already clever, so that's not a problem. In fact, only problem is on your end. We'd need to get it for ourselves
without arousing attention from the Grid or that draconic maple-syrup slurping maple-flag saluting snow-fucking glorified-fucking-sexbot cow. So, nothing from the Grid, nothing from Dragon. Now, if you think you can do that…"
She shrugged.
"I'd prefer the bomb idea. I
feel like I can do it. I've got an
itch to build a car-bomb. Did you know my grandmother was actually Irish? My eyes used to be the bonniest shade of blue, and yet now I'm eyeless and the only trace of my heritage is my desire for car bombs and my hatred of the English."
Arch grumbled good-naturedly.
"I'm
Northern, I'm probably more Irish than you."
Ellen spat in his general direction with an exaggerated 'ptooey' before returning to Taylor like nothing had happened - rejecting reality when it inconvenienced her.
"So yeah. Hankering for a car bomb."
Taylor was certain she did. But nonetheless, the car-bomb-engine idea was to be kept as Plan Z - last resort only. If Ellen was unsure of what it would do to the bus, Taylor assumed the possibilities ran the gamut from 'mild shocks' to 'molecular disintegration' to 'perpetual agony in a vortex of swirling pain from which there is no escape for not even death may overcome Ellen's villainous genius'. Or, again, mild shocks. Catastrophe was a spectrum. Cannibalisation was the most readily available option, then.
And Taylor had
something of an idea on that front.
Which was good. Because otherwise, they were up shit creek without a paddle. This was a quiet road. No real guarantee of someone coming along. But Vicky was capable of flight, the candles were capable of concealment… they could get somewhere busier if they needed to. Her swarm spread out, checking for vehicles, settlements… just forest, as far as the swarm could feel. Once more, she was reminded of her old road trip. Appreciating the scale of America. Likelihood was, no-one had been here for quite some time, and certainly hadn't emerged from their car. Arch had idly commented that the state they were going to, Michigan, was legitimately larger than his entire country. The whole damn thing - England, Scotland, and Wales. Ireland was excluded since its independence. And sticking to the back roads, it almost felt like they were completely alone in a vast, untamed wilderness. Only small fragments of humanity really drove them back to reality, that they were being stalked at all times, that danger waited in every town they passed… and tiltrotors were ready to go, battlesuits primed, and likely adapted to hunt them down with perfect efficiency. Fighting those things had quickly ceased to be a sustainable option. Hiding and running was their best method. Hide, run, and try to find a weapon to turn the tide. As she monitored her surroundings for any likely sources of spare parts, Turk called out from inside the bus, his voice subdued.
"Taylor. You'll want to see this."
She stumped back inside, her wooden leg clicking a harsh rhythm on the metal floor. A moment later found her hunched over a map with Turk, calculating where to head next. He looked grim, and a sense of foreboding washed over her.
"What's the problem?"
"We've been driving fast. Maybe too fast. You remember that road a mile back?"
"...yeah, broken down according to the signs. Swarm checked - it goes over a small ravine, and the bridge collapsed a while back. No way through."
"Exactly. That was the last."
"Last what?"
"The last change in our route that could've meant something. I was hoping to take it."
He elaborated a second latter.,
They had two choices at this point for getting to Flint - first, going through a land bridge ending with Detroit, sticking to the outskirts and driving onwards. The other was to go a longer route which would take them by Cleveland. But as they broke the route down, looked for quiet back roads instead of major highways… they found their options were limited. No way to navigate down to Cleveland, not without crossing over their own path repeatedly, back into areas where the Grid most certainly had watchers posted, where systems had probably been set up - their options were even more limited on returning, it would be easy to ambush them.
So, had to go around Detroit.
And to get there, though, they'd be crossing through Canada.
Two borders. Two places where they'd be fixed in place, closely examined, and surrounded by forces conceivably working for the Grid.
She realised the trap that had been laid.
The Grid had narrowed down their locations through sightings - they'd been lucky in seeing an agent watching them so obviously a few days ago, no idea how many had observed them from out of sight, or had tracked them with other means, or… really, anything. No idea how effective they were. And they'd worked to cut them off. Funnel them. No going back around, no going through Cleveland, no real diversion from their course possible - just a single passage onwards. It might split into different roads, cavort around a bit, but the route was
fixed, the destination set in stone. No matter what, they had to go down this road, no going back, and no deviation. This was… not particularly good. She tried to come up with some more audacious plans - hitching a ride on a boat, maybe, crossing over Lake Erie… come to think of it. That might actually be their best option. Going through a border would fuck them completely - no chance of doing that without the Grid stopping them. They'd need to cross Lake Erie, use their candles to escape any border checks, and flit directly to Michigan proper, where they could push onwards to Flint.
Taylor bit her lip.
It wasn't good. She'd hoped for a little more peace… and the worst part was, she hadn't noticed being cut off until it was too late. The sheer range of backroads had seemed so… deliriously intricate, but now that she looked much, much closer, with the benefit of hindsight, she realised how they'd been selectively cut off, one by one. Some were obviously cut off - that bridge collapse was likely unnatural. Some inevitably crossed through towns that she had to cross off as options - too big, they'd be observed, and some of them had PRT bases where tiltrotors would be stationed. Not a chance of surviving there. She'd thought a combat encounter would be viable, but their encounter a few days ago had shifted her opinion, highlighting how vulnerable they were. And once those nodes of connection were gone, whole segments of the road network abruptly vanished. Cascading failure. Expanding catastrophe. And options declined into nonexistence. One by one.
They
had to go this route, or they could double back and pray that the Grid hadn't been herding them inwards by making sure retreat was impossible. Tracking them was difficult - but if they knew where they were going, it hardly mattered. They could just record sightings, station people in the places where those sightings had occurred, block up alternate routes, and without fighting any of her friends they could hem them in.
Doom them via logistics.
And if it knew they were coming… the bus suddenly seemed the least of their worries. Still pertinent. But not quite as pertinent as 'trying to cross an enormous lake while being hunted by something which knew they were going to try and cross it'. Not even really a lake, more of an inland sea than anything else. She could feel a low, warning pulse of panic in her stomach. A tiny alarm flashing in the corner of her nervous system. Turk's mouth was a long, tense line, and he'd chewed a cigarette to tatters.
"We're cut off."
"So we are. We'll need to get on the water at some point to cross over into Michigan. Lots of points for us, I suppose."
"Wide, flat area… large wake… easy to track, especially if they know we're going to try."
Turk sounded defeated. Damn it. Felt like playing chess with Vicky - that awful moment of realisation, where options one never considered before showed themselves to be dead in the water, a whole tapestry of alternate decisions cut off without one's knowledge. The Grid had fought them
once outside Brockton Bay.
Once. A single strike, and it had cut their options down to
nil. Highlighted how vulnerable they were, forced them to stay outside of any form of refuge. No need for constant warfare and attrition, gradually teasing out their dearest emotions and most well-hidden powers. No chance for steady escalation upwards, acquiring powers, investigating leads, gradually building an arsenal necessary to challenge them. If it hadn't been for Frida and Astrid, Taylor wouldn't have developed her scar cartography or her grafting - if Bisha had herded them past Vandeerleuwe without a second glance, those skills would be nonexistent or underdeveloped. Same with Voodoo Child, the Khans, Maximum Leader, the New Canyon… all of that involved stopping, smelling the roses, looking around. Opportunities now denied. Options now stifled. Choices smothered in their crib.
No war of attrition. Just a surgical attack and then a little herding to make sure they walked right into the belly of the beast. The final attack would be equally as precise. And far more deadly. She imagined being surrounded on all sides, fired on without remorse or warning. She was good - but she couldn't imagine dealing with a hail of gunfire coming from beyond her range, with no cover, and no time to prepare a countermeasure. A few sinking through her skull, and she'd be gone. Lights out. A battlesuit plummeting downwards, a depth charge going off…
Life was fragile, as Dragon had said.
And she was keenly aware of that as she saw her options dwindle.
…was it worth going on? The Grid had outplayed them and she hadn't even
realised. It'd been dismissive, there was no-one to declare it loudly to her…
shit. She was good at short-term planning, improvisation, random ideas in the heat of the moment… long-term was
not her forte, she knew that. Anything longer than an immediate encounter or short series of encounters, and she was basically a normal person. Nothing special to give her any sort of advantage.
No.
Had to keep going. No choice. No going back.
Committed.
For the moment, peace. She yanked open one resistant window, and yelled out to Ellen.
"Hey! What kind of spare parts do you need?"
Ellen's head poked up, streaked in engine oil. She tapped her chin thoughtfully…
"I'll need a car. Like, a whole car. Bigger the better. If it has an internal combustion engine, I'll have what I need to get this thing moving until we have a better solution."
Idea.
She nodded at Vicky, who hesitated for a second before coming over.
"Yeah?"
"We need to move. And quickly. They know where we're going."
"...oh."
"Yeah. We've been funnelled. Herding us to Detroit, to the borer with Canada, to Lake Erie. No deviation possible at this point. Only realised it now, honestly. Embarrassing."
"Embarrassing is a word for it. Horrifying is another. How far ahead of us are they?"
"Far enough. No way down to Cleveland, we'll need to go around Detroit - and that means bypassing the Canadian border if we don't want to get surrounded and caught. Assuming that they haven't set up any ambushes before then."
"...and if they've narrowed down our options like that…"
"Then they're waiting in Lake Erie, at the border, probably in Detroit or Toronto."
"...guess so. So, what's the plan?"
Taylor paused.
"You're fine going along with this? Even knowing what you do now?"
Vicky stared at her flatly.
"The Grid has, with no hyperbole, ruined my life. Crystal thinks I'm a monster, as do my parents. I attacked my mom because I thought I'd have a chance to explain everything, make things right. Instead, I'm likely never going to see them again unless a miracle happens in Flint, my boyfriend exploded in front of me, I have an amoral criminal in my head, I'm wearing human skin, and half my intestines don't work anymore. Plus, my eyes are fucked."
She leant close, her voice dropping.
"I have literally nothing else besides this."
Taylor hesitated. A flash of unease.
"...me too. But if things get hairy, I'll send some of the others away. Turk and Arch, maybe. Get them to get my dad to a healthy distance. Can you… tell them about the hoard?"
"Patience seems to think so, yeah. Can give them coordinates to it - buried down south, shouldn't be too hard to find if they know the precise spot."
A tiny weight removed itself from her back. And a strange… humour replaced it. After all this, and she just found out about the hoard by asking.
Good things come to those who ask politely, Taylor.
Hah.
"Then we're settled. Sanagi won't leave, I know that much. Ellen… I get the feeling she just wants to blow something up and be feared for it. So. If they know where we're going, if they know we
have to go there…"
"...yeah?"
"That opens up some options we wouldn't have if we were always trying to hide."
"Like?"
Taylor smiled very slightly, and explained her plan. Vicky nodded along, her own smile growing wider and more vicious with each passing moment. They had a plan. They had quite a plan indeed.
Candles were withdrawn for safety.
And a watch was borrowed.
Sanagi was to accompany them. They had bombs. They had a swarm.
They had a plan.
If they were tracked, if they were known…
That meant they had, paradoxically, quite a bit more freedom in some very, very specific aspects. Classic case, really. They were surrounded on all sides by their enemies…
So they got to attack in whichever direction they pleased.
* * *
Taylor and Vicky stood alone in a patch of forest. There was a long, barren strip of tarmac near them - a winding road going off into nowhere. A road they might've taken if they chose to go a different route. As it was, the bus wouldn't have a chance of reaching this place through the miles of forest separating this road from it. But flight was a hell of a drug. Sanagi was some distance away, watching carefully. The swarm was primed. Bombs were assembled, being planted carefully by her swarm using little spidersilk slings - a whole range of spheres, cans, cuboids, irregular shapes, and one strangely shiny metal thing about the size of a flute case which made her feel oddly nervous. And Vicky coughed politely.
"Would you like a watch?"
Taylor blinked, and smiled graciously.
"Yes. I would like a watch. How much?"
"I'd like a hug in exchange for this watch."
Taylor hesitated. Not part of the plan,
"Of course. I accept this transaction of a watch for a hug."
The watch changed hands. And Vicky gave Taylor a quick squeeze. Then she yelled, loudly:
"I was very satisfied with this transaction! How about you?"
"Very satisfied!"
Vicky slapped her on the back with a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.
Taylor hesitated, and slapped her on her back. Her hand damn near bruised itself on her shield.
Punk.
A large bird watched them blankly. Silence reigned, only disrupted by the occasional chirp of a cricket. They waited quietly… and then ducked off to the side of the road. The watch was dropped to the ground. A good little retreat, a few bugs suspending bombs on long, silk ropes… everything they needed. The plan was simple - the Grid had managed to track them from Brockton Bay. But, they had limits. Evidently, they couldn't track them perfectly, or they'd have attacked them on the road, in positions of genuine vulnerability - needed to do it piecemeal, then. And either they'd scattered agents in literally every town in a certain radius, or they figured out how to narrow things down a bit. Taylor had racked her brains for any solution… and then she remembered. A single purchase with a golden watch. A pile of groceries they needed to survive. If they had that, they'd have a point to track them with. The number of towns and villages to monitor would decline by a huge quantity. Enough that they could station watchers in each one of them, and have backup to assist in any tailing measures.
She'd suspected the Grid could track transactions. Made sense for something so orderly and systemic. But… clearly it had a greater range than she realised.
Any transactions, not just using money, would count.
And thus, they waited.
The swarm felt nothing.
More waiting.
More nothing.
Sanagi rumbled disconsolately - she liked rumbling these days, seemed to prefer it to speaking half the time. Quietly, Vicky handed over one of her spoils of war - a twinkie, this time. Taylor wolfed it down eagerly, but her eye remained unblinking and focused. Hm. Maybe she'd been wrong - there could be other things that might be tracked. A nod to Vicky, and they both returned to the road. The watch was held aloft once more, this time by Taylor. Her voice was flat, and Vicky's was too - both were tense.
"Do you want a watch."
"Yes. I do. How much."
"25 cents."
"Here you go."
A single coin buried in the depths of Vicky's clothes was extricated and handed over, still soft with a pocket lint coating. The watch changed hands. Both were set down. And once more, they retreated.
This time, they only had to wait a little while. Interesting. Taylor had to assume that money was a clearer signal - actual numbers involved, something the Grid could work with. Better than bartering. So bartering
would work, but exchanging money in any form could be damaging. Hm. Silence dominated for only another ten minutes. And then they came. A dark car, speeding quietly along the smooth road, no headlights, no sirens, nothing. Could be ordinary as anything. But Taylor had planted bugs along it at every available point - and she could feel an uncanny smoothness to the thing. God, ten minutes and they were here… how damn fast were they? Wait, no, add on the half an hour… so a combination of the watch and money yielded 40 minute response time. Nothing for it, best figure they could get - she doubted further experimentation would be very fruitful if the Grid cottoned on to their strategy.
The dark car approached.
It stopped right where they'd made the transaction.
And two agents stepped out in unison, the engine behind them ceasing immediately.
One man, one woman. Both were immediately recognisable. One was a driver - the one Taylor had interacted with back when she joined the Teeth. The other was… Vicky hissed quietly, telling her that this one resembled the trooper who'd shot Dean. Or, what was left of Dean. Whatever the case, Taylor knew her only from the tunnels underneath Brockton Bay, and that was enough to disturb her slightly. Maybe they resurrected, maybe they were just similar-looking bodies walking around… no idea where they came from or how their existence worked, all that she knew was that they didn't seem likely to betray the Grid, and were happy to do its dirty work. They were dark suits, the woman wore white sneakers and the man wore long, comfortable-looking loafers. Not too good for combat, though. Would slip off at the first opportunity. They glanced around, hands in pockets, and looked at one another. Eerie how human they looked - they had all the tics and twitches down, all the natural responses. Programmed? Natural? Hard to say. The driver spoke first.
"...well, Llull. You see anything?"
Llull shrugged.
"Nothing. But there was definitely a signature detected, one bearing their particular mark. Might be nothing to consider."
A slight pause, and the driver hummed.
"...lunch, then?"
"Lunch would be wonderful. But we ought to be thorough."
"Of course, of course."
Llull tilted her head to one side.
"...hm. Thoughts?"
"...maybe they drove through here, made a transaction by accident, but the vehicle has continued onwards to their next stop…"
Llull crouched down, examining the road.
"There's no tire tracks, Quevedo."
"Doesn't mean much, it's smooth tarmac."
"No, but… worth noting. No traces I can feel. Map?"
Quevedo hummed for a moment, fingers twitching like he was turning the pages of an invisible book.
"...this road leads to a small town, it's a one-way street. Odd, I thought they were on another. I'll get Eccles to keep an eye on it. Can you run a trace of the transaction?"
Llull shook her head quickly.
"Doubtful. The best I can do is… hm. Two transactions. One monetary, one barter. Former is stronger."
"...both in the same spot?"
"That's what the trace says. Minor variation, possibly - but not by any significant distance."
They paused, looking at one another. Quevedo quietly drew a long cigarillo out of his pocket, and lit up. The flame illuminated his face briefly, showing a man in the twilight of youth and the dawn of middle age, with large sideburns coming down from pomade-slicked hair. Looked a little out of date, just a little. Llull was simply bland. Painfully bland. Impossible to say much about her as a consequence. Quevedo's voice rose up, loud enough to be heard without the swarm's assistance.
"...oh, get it over with."
The swarm descended. In a fit of spite, Taylor had a cluster of hornets barrel into the cigarillo, knocking it to the ground where an expanding carpet of ants could smother it with their bodies. Before eating it. As she gave part of her swarm a tobacco habit, the rest was focused on suppressing the agents. She knew what they'd try and do - and so did Vicky. Suicide to prevent capture, just like in that town way back. Quevedo was fast - too fast. His gun was ripped out of his holster, and Taylor's swarm suddenly understood how his inky-black brains tasted. Awful, as it turned out. But, surprisingly, not poisonous. How considerate of the Grid - its agents weren't harmful to the environment. One agent dead, not good. But Vicky had moved - and her spears had descended. Llull didn't even react as a spear ripped through her palm, paralysing it, sending her gun to the ground before it could go off. The three raced into the road. Sanagi incinerated the gun easily with a pulse of starlight. Llull was isolated, partner dead, and surrounded by hostile capes. The victory had been insultingly swift, but Taylor had no mind for celebrations. Other business.
It took very little time for the tiltrotor to find us last time - I recall it being perhaps… four or five minutes between the blonde being tracked, and the attack. There's a possibility of some delay being in place due to them waiting for her to stop, to confirm where we were hiding… and a chance that Dragon was slower than usual, adapting to hunting us for the first time by herself.
I doubt there will be such delays now.
Hurry. I imagine we have maybe a few minutes before our enemies arrive. I suggest hiding.
Once more, the two of them were in absolute agreement.
Time was of the essence.
Priority one - Sanagi pinned Llull to the ground, snarling in her face. Not just animalistic - her bones slid into the right places, forming a proper hold, the kind which prevented any kind of movement. Good move. The bland woman simply stared up at her, expression unchanging. Not a scrap of pain. Vicky raced for the car, cracked her knuckles, and… picked it up. With both hands. God, a proper Brute rating was… something. Sure was
something. A moment later, she was gone. Hard for her to sustain the proper distribution of mass - but Ellen was waiting for her not too far away, in a clearing with some tools alongside Arch. Their job was to clear the car up, and rip off the parts they needed with Vicky's help - she was basically a walking power tool, and Sanagi actually
was a power tool, specifically the kind that used lasers. Ellen said she'd need an engine. The rest could be torn up and stacked in the back until they needed it again. The car would likely be riddled with trackers, but Taylor assumed Ellen could take care of most of them. EMP, maybe. Or Sanagi's starlight to burn components down. Whatever the case, some tracking meant little - they were already being tracked in an indirect fashion, and the alternative was being stuck in one place for a long period on a route they were already known to be taking. Which felt like a guaranteed death sentence.
Sanagi snapped at Llull.
Taylor signalled sharply.
And the ex-cop hesitantly left, bounding off in Vicky's general direction. Terrifyingly fast when she wanted to be - those new bones were seemingly designed for springing in ambush. Anyway. They had parts to fix the bus, one problem solved. The other problem - being tracked by the Grid, anticipated at their next location, outplanned without being aware of it. Taylor was playing a game where she only knew the name of her opponent, and only saw its pieces when they showed up on the board right in front of her face. And thus far, the Grid had preserved excellent control of its information - when she went into battle against her other enemies, she usually understood them to some degree. But the Grid… all she had was a gun pointing in her face, and the propaganda the Grid produced to convince others to join it. She had no objective views, no definite figures,
nothing she could actually pinpoint, nothing she could exploit. Well, almost nothing. Doubted this trick would work again. But for now…
Taylor had an agent to talk to.
Llull stared up at her, black blood dripping from her hand. Vicky had been brutal - a spear had been thrust through both palms, linking them together. Gun confiscated. Taylor's swarm checked the rest of her suit. Nothing - a small knife, likewise confiscated, but no other weapons, not even any fancy devices. Spidersilk was slowly draped around her, wrapping tighter and tighter - pre-prepared ropes. No resistance to being bound up.
Not prepped for combat.
Taylor clicked over on her wooden leg, crouched…
And smiled.
"Hello, Llull."
"
Agent Llull."
Her smile widened.
"Hello, Agent Llull."
