It Gets Worse Pt 12 (Patreon)

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

January 9, 2011

Uber and L33t's Base

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

The high-pitched whine cut through the sounds of electronic combat, startling Uber so badly that he flubbed the perfect sniper shot he'd been about to pull off. “Crap!” he yelled over the noise, throwing down his controller. “Dude, what the hell is that racket? I was one headshot away from a medal!”

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

“Don't look at me,” L33t protested, though his eyes shifted to the side. “I don't think I built anything that was supposed to make that sort of noise.” He grimaced. “It kind of drills into your head, doesn't it?”

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

Uber fixed him with a steady glare. “Well, it's coming from your workshop, so why don't you go back there and stop whatever it is, before I drill something into your head?” He picked up the controller and discovered that his character was dead, so he shot another glare at L33t, just in case he hadn't gotten the point before.

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

“Fine,” sighed L33t, dropping his own controller and getting up from the couch. “But I don't understand why you always blame me for shit going wrong.” He shuffled around the end of the couch and headed for the section of the current base they'd decided would be his workshop.

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

Uber rolled his eyes, even though he knew L33t wouldn't see it. “Maybe because it's usually your fault?” he retorted. “Remember the exploding teleporter? Or the power armour that electrified your nuts? Face it, you're my bro, but sometimes what you build is shit.”

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

Even if L33t heard him, Uber didn't catch any reply, so he did his best to ignore the continued high-pitched whine. He expected for it to cut off at any moment; while L33t sometimes built stuff that blew up for no reason, he rarely forgot to include an off-switch. What Uber didn't expect was for the sound to get louder, almost as if it were getting closer. A lot closer.

—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

Turning his head in annoyance, he saw that the conclusion his ears had reached was actually true; staring at a PKE meter they'd acquired for a disastrous Ghostbusters show, L33t was heading for the couch. The sound was coming from the meter, of course, and it was even more skull-splitting at close range.  The little arms were fully extended, and lights were running up and down them.

—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

“What the actual fuck?” Uber yelled. “I said turn it off, not bring it out here so I can admire it!” He dropped his controller on the couch again and got up, fully intent on taking the noisy device away from L33t and switching it off permanently. He had a sledgehammer somewhere that would be perfect for the job.

—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

“No, dude, it's my weird-shit-o-meter!” L33t shouted back. “It's registering something! Look at it!” Pulling the thing away from Uber's reach, he held it up to reveal a round dial on its face. There was a needle on the dial that kept jumping off the stop and flicking part of the way around its face in sync with the lights.

—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

“Weird-shit-o-meter?” Uber shook his head disbelievingly. “Okay, you've built some pretty weird crap, but that takes the cake. Seriously, the whole idea of a weird-shit-o-meter is a joke.” But despite himself, he leaned closer. Instead of numbers, there were words arrayed around the dial, carefully inscribed in L33t's scratchy handwriting. The progression went like this:

ODD

STRANGE

WEIRD

BIZARRE

LAUGHABLE

IMPROBABLE

BULLSHIT

RIDICULOUS

INSANE

JUST NOPE

—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE—

L33t flipped a switch, cutting off the noise and letting the needle fall back to the stop with a tiny ping. “It's not a joke,” he insisted, while Uber wondered if the ringing in his ears would ever go away. “I started working on it a few days ago, when I was wondering why so many of my inventions screw up so badly. Trying to measure if there was some kind of probability effect influencing my power. Call it a luck detector.”

Uber snorted and rolled his eyes. “Sounds better than weird-shit-o-meter, but only just. I can't believe you really built something to try to detect luck. Did it work?” Only L33t, he thought. Only L33t.

“Well, not at first,” L33t admitted. “I finished it a few hours ago, and it's been calibrating ever since. To be honest, I had no idea if it'd even pick up anything.” He waved it in the air. “But it works! It really works!”

Uber took the device and turned it over in his hands. “And what's this bit?” On the back side of the device, there was another dial. The needle wasn't moving on this one, but it wasn't resting on the stop either. Instead, it was situated about one-tenth the way around the dial. There were percentage markings on this one.

“Oh, shit.” L33t grabbed it back from him and stared at it. “Fuck, I totally forgot about this bit. It's storing luck energy. When it reaches one hundred percent, I'll be able to discharge it.”

“Discharge it.” To Uber, that sounded kind of … ominous. “In a bad way or a good way? And what will discharging, umm … luck energy do?”

L33t shrugged. “I have no fuckin' idea. I guess we'll find out when it happens.”

For some reason, that didn't make Uber feel any better at all.

<><>

January 11, 2011

10:35 PM

Winslow High School

Two and a half days later, Uber still wasn't feeling fantastic about the whole thing. It didn't help that he'd just helped L33t break into a high school in the middle of the night; high school hadn't been his favourite place back when he'd been a teenage gaming nerd, and it didn't look any better now that he was an adult. The echoing corridors and flickering shadows brought back long-buried memories of dodge-ball, wedgies and having his lunch flushed down the toilet. "This is a really bad idea,” he hissed.

"Well, it wasn't my first choice either," retorted L33t. "When they had the false alarm with the Endbringer siren, I knew something weird was going on." He gave Uber a dirty look. "But you wouldn't let me investigate the first lot of weird shit I found."

"That's because it was at the top of the goddamn PRT building!" snapped Uber. "It's not like they're going to let you wander around the most tightly guarded building in town with your stupid gadget."

“Yeah, well, they might have. We'll never know now, will we?" L33t replied grumpily, and turned his attention back to the device he held. He hadn't been able to mute the insistent wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee of the weird-shit-o-meter, but plugging a set of headphones in had redirected the sound, to Uber's relief. “We're getting closer. Something weird happened here."

Yeah, two grown men just broke into a high school and now we're investigating a row of lockers. That's pretty fuckin' weird. But Uber didn't voice his doubts. L33t was his buddy. They had each others' backs. “Like what?”

“Not sure.” L33t was waving the WSoM (as Uber was now privately calling it) around like a divining rod, or how Uber assumed a divining rod would be used. Zeroing in on one particular locker, L33t ran the device over every inch of it, or near enough, while Uber helped by aiming the flashlight at the worn and dented metal.

Random damage aside, it struck Uber that this was the cleanest locker he'd seen in his life. There wasn't any graffiti. In some places, it even looked like some of the paint had been scrubbed off. Leaning close, he sniffed. “Can you smell bleach?”

“Bleach?” L33t sniffed. “I guess. But bleach isn't very weird. And the meter isn't registering much any more. We must've picked up all the residual luck energy that was hanging around here.” Turning the WSoM over, he eyed the storage meter. “Not much. Another couple of percent. We'll be forever at this rate.”

“So can we go home now?” asked Uber hopefully. “This place gives me the fucking creeps.” Why would the school go to the trouble of scrubbing a locker out with bleach? More to the point, did he really want to know the answer to that question?

“Ooh, just picked up a new focus.” L33t headed off down the corridor, waving the WSoM in front of him. “This one's upstairs. Come on!”

So that's a no for leaving. Just great. Heaving an aggravated sigh, Uber followed his buddy down the hallway. “What's upstairs, anyway? Classrooms?” He hoped it was only classrooms. If it turned out to be a science lab of some sort, things could get dicey if there was any kind of adjusted probability going on in the storage cupboard.

“Dunno. Could be anyth—whoa!” L33t stopped, aiming the WSoM at the base of the stairs. “There's another spot, right there. Holy crap, they're all over the place.” Jerking into motion again, he hurried over to the base of the stairs. Even from where he was, Uber could see the needle jumping halfway around the dial and back again.

“What the hell would happen on the stairs?” demanded Uber. “Did someone fall up them or something?” He stared at the steps, trying to discern what L33t's device could make of them. They looked perfectly normal, if he discounted the fact that the torchlight flashing back and forth made them look extra creepy.

“You're asking me?” complained L33t. “I just designed it to detect weird shit. I didn't think to put in an instant playback.” He took a step up, waving the WSoM around. “Shit, something funky went down here.”

“Nah, I really don't think so,” Uber told him, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You've got 'weird', 'bullshit' and 'insane' on that thing of yours, but not 'funky'.” He spread his hands as L33t turned toward him with a betrayed expression. “What? It's true.” If he had to come along anyway, he decided, he might as well make a joke of it.

“Fuckin' word games.” L33t shook his head. “I swear to God, if I built a bullshit detector and pointed it at you, it'd go off the scale.” He waved the WSoM around again. “Okay, I've got it all. Let's go.” He started up the stairs again, looking almost as if the device were dragging him behind it. Stifling a snicker, Uber followed along behind.

They went up two flights of stairs with no more exclamations from L33t, though the skinny guy was panting a bit by the time they got there. Smugly, Uber surveyed his partner. “You know, you really need to get fit,” he observed. “Tinkering isn't going to save your ass every time. Sometimes you've just got to be able to run away.”

“Says the guy who can automatically figure out the best fitness plan and adjust it day by day as part of his power,” retorted L33t. He waved the WSoM around again. “Okay, it's over this way.” Turning his whole body like the WSoM was a compass needle, he started toward one particular door.

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” protested Uber, staring at the door in question; more specifically, at the symbol emblazoned upon it. There was a 'cleaners inside' sign, but that was easily stepped around. “The girls' bathrooms? We're going in there?”

L33t, already at the door, turned to look at him. “You're shitting me, right? You have to be shitting me. You're scared of going in the girls' bathrooms?” He held up the WSoM. “Look at this thing, dude. It's going all the way over to 'bullshit'. I'm going in there.”

“I'm not scared,” Uber said. “It's just … it's wrong. We're grown men, and that's a bathroom for teenage girls. I feel like enough of a creepazoid already, just breaking into the school.” He folded his arms. “It's wrong, and you should feel wrong about it too.”

“Geez.” L33t rolled his eyes. “You want I should protect you from the cooties? We're villains, bro. We already steal shit. Besides, in case you hadn't noticed, the school's currently closed. Our chances of encountering a teenage girl in there is exactly zero. In fact, if you're as good as you keep telling me you are, nobody's ever gonna know we were here.” He paused and shook his head. “Never thought I'd have to say this to you of all people, but I think maybe you should grow a pair.”

Uber stared at him. “Oh, you did not just say that.” He was the brawn in their team. The tough guy. L33t did the Tinkering and worked out the impossible gadgets, and Uber provided the muscle and skills necessary to make them work in their schemes. Telling him to 'grow a pair' was not in L33t's job description.

“Bro, I totally did.” L33t gave him a shrug and a sheepish grin. “Sorry, but a guy who can't make himself go into a girls' bathroom really ought to hand in his man card.” Holding up the WSoM, he pushed the door open. “Gimme the flashlight.”

“No.” Uber took a deep breath. Memories were flooding back; unpleasant memories. “I can do it.” It wasn't the same school, or even a girls' locker room, but he recalled being forcefully shoved through such a set of doors, once upon a time, wearing nothing but his underwear. Everything else from his high-school years had merged together into one long unpleasant blur, but that had stayed with him, razor-sharp. The stares, the scathing words, the laughter, the sheer embarrassment; they had scarred him for life. Trigger events, he'd learned, did that.

People were more than their accumulated experiences. He had to believe that. Taking one step forward, then another, he pointed the flashlight at the door. He stepped past L33t and pushed open the inner door, trying to see the bathroom as it was in reality, not as his memory insisted it should be. First one step, then another, focusing his attention on the beam as it splashed over the floor and wall rather than on the shadows surrounding it.

There's nobody here. Nobody here. He drew a deep breath, prepared to let it out—then nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand slapped on his shoulder. “Shit!” he yelped, spinning around and nearly falling over in his haste.

“Geez. Dude.” L33t stepped back, hands up in surrender. “You were in the way. I asked you to move, but you were zoned the hell out. You all right? Getting enough sleep?” His expression, as well as his voice, showed genuine concern.

“Yeah.” Uber let out a gusty sigh. “Bad memories. Long time ago and all that. Let's just get this done.” He pointed the flashlight at the cubicles. “Huh. Looks like they were renovating or something. That's been taken apart and put back together.” Most people wouldn't have noticed, but Uber was an expert at spotting small hints like that. It wasn't just due to his power; he'd developed it as a matter of self-preservation when L33t began cannibalising household items to build his gadgets. Having a microwave nearly go critical because someone removed certain 'non-essential' components was something he never wanted to go through again.

“Well, it's where the weird shit happened, all right.” L33t moved closer, waving the WSoM at the toilet cubicles. Uber considered commenting about how a toilet was one place where it was entirely too possible to find genuine 'weird shit', but decided to refrain. Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms, shining the flashlight at the ceiling to give L33t the illumination he needed.

“Okay, done here.” L33t emerged from the cubicle he'd gone into, checking the dial on the back of the WSoM. “Damn, up to nearly thirty percent. Whatever happened here, it had to be pretty mind-boggling.”

“Yeah, yeah, let's get out of here. Unless you want to break into the gym or something too?” Uber had his creepy feelings more or less under control, but he still didn't like this in the slightest. He didn't mind wandering around a junkyard or even the Boat Graveyard late at night, but a girls' bathroom just jumped up and down on his last nerve.

“Nah, let's go.” L33t looked at the dial on the back of the device again, putting Uber in mind of a kid with a new toy. “Wow. Nearly thirty percent.”

Uber led the way out of the bathroom, feeling his anxiety levels drop just from that simple action. As they got to the bottom of the stairs, L33t said, “Wait. I think the needle just moved a bit more than normal.” He pointed the WSoM farther into the school.

“No. Hell, no. Fuck, no.” Uber pointed in the direction of the front doors of the school. “We are leaving this creepy-ass place. Right the fuck now. I don't care if there's a dozen other weirdness hot-spots. I don't care if there's a bunch of Fallen summoning Behemoth in the goddamn basement. We're leaving.” He strode toward the exit, determined that nothing would hinder his exit. Except maybe L33t. The little guy could be unreasonably stubborn sometimes. And they were bro's. But he really, really wanted out of this damn school …

“Okay, you win.” To Uber's immense relief, L33t came running up behind him. “They're not real strong, anyway. Probably nothing much.” He waved the device at the side wall of the corridor. “But if I'm right, there's something in that direction. A bit of a distance away. The bearing isn't changing much, anyway.”

“Good. I'll personally drive you there.” Uber grinned at his partner, glad they were getting the hell out of Dodge. Though he was starting to wonder exactly why the oddities were showing up in the school. If they were the result of a parahuman in the school, that meant there could be more … oh, god. What if we have to come back?

“Well, duh.” L33t rolled his eyes. “You've got the car keys. And you never let me drive anyway.” Turning off the WSoM, he shoved it in his backpack. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he looked around at the school, seemingly for the first time. “Y'know, for a place with a reputation of being a total shithole like this one, it doesn't look too bad.”

“You don't get to drive because every time you get behind the wheel, you act like you're playing Mario Kart or GTA,” Uber countered, feeling more comfortable by the second. “And I'm guessing you didn't see the tags in the side hallways. I suspect this place sees more gang activity than some areas of the Docks.” As they exited the school, he paused to re-secure the locks. After all, the place had to be protected from the criminal element. At least, until it showed up for class in the morning.

<><>

“Wow, your hot-spot must be pretty strong,” Uber commented. Casually, he checked the mirrors; nobody else was on the road yet. “We're nearly two blocks away from the school. I—”

“Pull over!” L33t was already scrabbling with his seat belt. “It's right here!” He popped the buckle and yanked the door open, barely waiting for Uber to bring the car to a halt. Even before the car had stopped rocking back and forth, he jumped out and ran back down the road a little way.

Uber got out a little more circumspectly and strolled back to join him. L33t was waving the WSoM around with little giggles of glee, which Uber considered almost as creepy as having to go into the girls' bathroom in the first place. He caught a glimpse of the needle, which was swinging even farther over into the reams of impossibility.

“Wow, holy shit.” Finally calming down, L33t eyed the readout on the back of the WSoM. “That was a good twenty-seven percent all on its own. I'm over fifty percent and counting. Whatever happened here must've been epic.”

Uber looked around, a memory tickling at his brain. This area looked almost familiar … but why? Closing his eyes for a moment, he ran through a memory-enhancement exercise he'd just come up with. It rose to the surface, waiting to be understood. Then he opened his eyes and looked around again. The memory clicked into place, and he let out a sharp “Hah!”

“What?” L33t looked at him. “What've you got? Do you know something I don't?”

With a devious grin, Uber just dug out his phone. He took his time opening the right page and flicking to the photo he remembered; the look of irritation and frustration on L33t's face was a little bit of sweet payback. “Check it out,” he offered, showing L33t the phone. It was the duct tape picture, the one which had gone viral just that afternoon. One girl and four guys, who'd somehow managed to get themselves tied up in duct tape while running down the road.

“What … the … fuck?” L33t stared at the picture, then flicked through the other ones that had been taken at the same time. “Fuck, no wonder the meter started going off like it did. How improbable would it have to be for them to tie themselves up like that?”

“I dunno.” Uber stared at the picture, then moved along the pavement and turned so the image on the phone matched with the background. “Okay, the way they've fallen … I'm gonna take a wild guess and say they were running away from Winslow.” He checked the timestamp. “And it was just after school let out … and they were running with duct tape.” Looking over at L33t, he snapped his fingers. “There's only one reason for a bunch of jocks to run with duct tape. They were chasing someone.”

“Who made them have bad luck.” L33t could fill in gaps too, it seemed. “So the shit that happened in the school, like the bathroom cubicle that needed to be taken apart, that was more of it.” He stared at Uber. “Holy fuck. My weird-shit-o-meter detects the after-effects of this girl's power.”

“Girl? Who says it's a girl?” Then Uber's brain caught up with his mouth. “Duh. Girl's bathroom. And if it was a guy, it would be all guys, not four guys and a girl.” He paused. “Waiiit a minute.” Taking a moment, he checked the tags on the pics, until he found one that had named the reluctant participants. Then he picked out the one girl's name—Sophia Hess—and searched for more pics with her name tagged to them.

What he found made him laugh so hard he had to sit down on the edge of the sidewalk. He couldn't spare the breath to talk, so he just handed off the phone to L33t and lay back on the cool concrete, holding his stomach. L33t joined him a moment later, cackling loudly. The image of the redheaded girl stuck upside down beside the toilet was amazing, along with the look of baffled fury on her face.

“So … so that's why … they had to … pull it apart,” Uber finally said as he managed to bring his hilarity under control. “Holy fuck, that's amazing. Whoever that is plays dirty as fuck. I'm in awe.” L33t didn't say anything in reply, as he was still chortling madly to himself. Uber helped him up and they staggered back to the car.

They were halfway home before L33t finally got his shit together. “Oh, man,” he said happily. “That was so worth it. Whoever's doing this, they've got one hell of a sense of humour. If that Hess girl's some kind of bully … wow, did you see where the tape was right over her mouth, and over her hair too? Boy, she looked pissed. That's what I call payback.”

“Yeah.” But Uber had been doing some thinking. “Just remember, before we start hanging around where whoever this cape is … remember, she's a teenage girl. A bullied teenage girl. Who got powers specifically designed for fucking over bullies.” He gave L33t a sober look. “We can't afford to get on her radar. If she decides we're a threat, it could get really bad for us. So we've gotta be careful. Really careful.”

“We don't even know who she is!” protested L33t. “And I don't want to hurt her. All I want to do is harvest the luck she leaves behind.” He paused. “Which is something I'm pretty sure I've never said before in my life.”

“So what do you want to do with all that luck, anyway?” Uber glanced over at him from where he was driving the car. “Win the lottery? Convince the PRT to participate in one of our shows?” He grinned, knowing what he was about to say was mean, but deciding it was too funny not to. “Finally make something that doesn't blow up in your face?”

“Oh, ha ha.” L33t gave him the finger. “Look, if you get any more of those weird-as-fuck pictures, let me know. They'll probably be exactly what we're looking for.” He stared at the readout again. “Forty-four point seven percent to go. We can do this shit.”

“Just so long as you don't go hanging around teenage girls like a creeper, I'm good with that,” Uber told him firmly. “The last thing I want is for one of your gadgets to go off wrong because she decides you're a danger to her, and launch us both in the general direction of Seattle.”

L33t didn't look any more thrilled by the prospect than Uber was. “Yeah, no. I'll be careful.” Then he ruined it by positively caressing the WSoM and crooning in a high-pitched cracked voice, “Won't we, my precious? Yes, we will …”

L33t, Uber decided as they drove on through the night, didn't need a weird-shit-o-meter. The weirdness was right out there in plain view.

<><>

Friday, January 14, 2011

West Virginia

Merv's Second-Hand Cars & Trucks

Merv Lambert lifted his eyes from his computer screen as the beat-up motor-home turned off the highway and rumbled into the lot. It bore an odd-looking scorch mark on the edge of the roof, and what looked like a half-melted TV dish on top. Frowning, he abandoned his game of Minesweeper and got up from his desk.

By the time he pushed the door open and exited the building, the motor-home had squealed to a halt—sounded like the brakes needed work, along with everything else—in the main parking area. Being a motorhome, it took up three car spaces. The door opened and a cheerful-looking blond guy swung down out of it. “Hey, boss,” he called out. “This is the one from out Huntington way. Little bit of a fixer-upper, but at least she runs.”

Ken might've been twenty-something to Merv's fifty-plus, but he was far and away Merv's best mechanic. Still, he was sometimes a little enthusiastic about how he judged the worth of a clunker. On the other hand, he'd coaxed the battered old beast back to the lot, so there might be something in what he said. Merv shaded his eyes and squinted at the motor-home. He couldn't recall anything about Huntington … or maybe he did. There'd been something in the news about a lightning storm over that city. Then he recalled a phone call that had come in yesterday. “Is that the one that got struck by lightning?” It wasn't much of a guess; the melted dish and big-ass scorch-mark kind of gave it away.

“That's the one.” Ken laughed out loud. “Radio's fucked, climate control only works on 'arctic' or 'sahara', and the the electronic locking doesn't. Oh, yeah, and the GPS talks like Tweety Bird on crack and thinks north is south and east is west. But it's got a full tank of fuel, the motor runs and the gearbox works. I figure the rest is just details.” He reached up and patted the side of the vehicle, and the wing mirror fell off with a clatter. “Uh, I can bolt that back on.”

Merv rolled his eyes. “Put it back in the 'maybe' lot.” He stumped over and picked up the mirror by its bracket. The glass hadn't broken, which he considered to be a sign of good luck. “Throw this on the seat, and put it back on when we start fixing it up. Right now, I got some other cars that need a bit of work.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Ken took the mirror and climbed back up into the oversized vehicle. Merv watched him, not without a little paternal pride. Ken might not be his real son, but the boy was coming along real good. In another ten or fifteen years, when Merv was ready to retire, he knew who he was gonna turn the business over to.

<><>

Later That Night

Jack Slash

The procession that trooped through the dimness would have scared the life out of any sane person seeing them in daylight. Of course, very shortly afterward, that person wouldn't be caring about anything at all, but that was to be expected from the Slaughterhouse Nine. A more careful observer, hiding and listening to what they were saying, would've have had a most educational experience.

Jack Slash didn't care about people seeing them or even listening in on them. He was too angry. Carrying on an argument that had lasted for the previous few miles, he glared at Burnscar, who was trudging along in a resigned fashion. “You asked if you could drive,” he snapped. “I trusted you to drive. But I only just managed to get to sleep, and what did you do?”

Burnscar sighed in a defeated fashion. “I crashed the bus,” she muttered. “It wasn't my fault.” On the palm of her hand, two figures formed out of flame. One was bulky, but still recognisably human, while the other was massively deformed.

“Hey, don't look at us,” Hatchet Face grunted, stepping closer so that the image winked out. “You had the wheel. We didn't make you do nothing.”

“Yeah,” Crawler put in, muting his voice so that it only came out of a few of his mouths. “You didn't have to drive off the road to hit that cat.”

“You were both yelling at me!” Burnscar threw up her hands in frustration. “I'm not good at dealing with that kind of thing!” She turned to Jack. “Tell them! They shouldn't distract me while I'm driving!”

Jack wanted to facepalm, but restrained the impulse. “I've already agreed with you on that subject, dear Burnscar, but what possessed you to drive directly into a drainage ditch?” The cat in question had apparently jumped the flooded ditch. The bus … hadn't.

“It was the water!” protested Burnscar. “There was stuff floating on it and it looked solid!”

The argument looked set to escalate some more, but fortunately Shatterbird picked that moment to land near the group. Loftily ignoring the argument, she turned to Jack. “I've found a motor-home,” she said. “It's in a used-car lot, not far away. Not even locked.”

“There's no way we'll be that lucky,” grumbled Hatchet Face. “Fuckin' thing probably won't even run.”

“Language!” snapped Bonesaw from her perch atop the Siberian's shoulders. “I'm a little girl. I shouldn't have to hear words like that.” The Siberian glared at Hatchet Face.

“ … yeah, okay,” grunted the brutish man. He'd been wary of the tiger-striped woman ever since he'd tried to get pushy with her, and she'd pushed right back. Jack wasn't entirely sure how she managed to no-sell the power-nullifier's ability, but he had a few ideas.

“We'll go and check it out,” Jack said firmly. He looked to the south, where thunder was starting to roll again, and rain could be heard in the distance. “I don't care who drives, but we don't drive off the road to try to hit any kind of household pet. And we're going south-west. No other direction but south-west. Got it?”

Bonesaw raised her hand, like a child in class. “Uh, not arguing, but why south-west specifically? I thought we were heading back up to the northeast. You said a couple of weeks ago that you wanted to go and see old friends.”

Jack gave her a stern glare. “I changed my mind. Now let's go.”

As they started off, he wondered about his own change of heart, but couldn't pin it down to anything more than simply not wanting to get back to Brockton Bay right then.

<><>

The Same Night

Brockton Bay

L33t

The weird-shit-o-meter shrilled its high-pitched whine into L33t's ear via the earpiece as he stared at the circle of anvils embedded in the concrete. The needle was moving farther and farther over toward the high end of the scale; from time to time it touched on 'Insane'. He'd never seen readings so high, not even on the collapsed building where Kaiser had been buried under frozen shit.

Uber stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at the frontage of the Forsberg Gallery. “When you say weird shit, you don't fuck around,” he murmured. “I mean, holy fuck, how precise was—”

There was a beep in L33t's earpiece and he stared as the dial went all the way back to zero. “What the hell?” Had it broken already? What was going on? “Dude, I think …”

Then there was another beep. This one was more urgent. L33t suddenly realised what was going on, and he turned the weird-shit-o-meter over. On the back, the accumulator needle was resting against the stop, all the way to the right.

“What? What's the matter?” Uber took a step toward him. “What's going on, bro?”

In L33t's hand, the meter started to vibrate, and the whine in his earpiece took on an entirely different tone. “Uh … I think … I think it's gonna …” Fuck, it's going to blow up in my face. I am so—

Bright pink lightning surged out of the weird-shit-o-meter, crawling all over L33t's body. He felt his hair standing on end, but his nerves weren't jumping like they would be if this was actual electricity. Still, it was a fairly unpleasant experience, something like feeling ants run all over his body and shoving his hand into a bowl of warm lumpy jello.

Acrid smoke stung his nostrils, and he looked down to see that the weird-shit-o-meter had given up the ghost. It had measured its last milli-Odd. But that didn't matter; he felt energised. Ideas were sparking through his mind, making his fingers itch for tools and materials.

“Um, you okay?” Uber reached out gingerly. “It's just that your eyes are glowing a bit.” He paused for a moment. “Say something.”

“I'm fine.” L33t knew that he'd never been better. More specifically, he'd never been luckier. “I need to get home. I need to rebuild this. No, I need to improve it. I'm gonna build a better accumulator, with a more efficient dial, and I'm gonna make it so I can shoot bad luck at people! Let them suffer the shit for once!” He laughed out loud, and thunder rolled overhead. Pausing, he blinked. “Whoa. That was cool.”

“Fuck, yeah.” Uber stared up at the sky. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“I have no idea. Let me try that again.” Facing the sky, he clenched his fists. “I will call it—my Luck Gun!” As he raised his voice, lightning crackled across the sky and thunder boomed in counterpoint.

“Fuck, if you can do that on command, our next video's gonna be epic.” Uber stared at him. “Can you do that on command?”

Regretfully, L33t shook his head. “I don't think so. I do need to get back to the workshop right now. I need to build the Luck Gun before my luck runs out.” He could feel it tingling through his limbs and fizzing in his brain.

“Uh, you can't build stuff that's the same as before. Right?” Uber didn't seem to have figured out what was going on.

“Tonight,” declared L33t, “I can.” Raising his finger, he gestured toward the car. “Onward!” he proclaimed, just for shits and giggles. On cue, thunder rolled.

He knew it wasn't likely to last, but holy shit, that was a cool effect.

<><>

The Next Morning

Jack rolled over in bed and lay there, enjoying the comfort of the mattress. He had to admit that Shatterbird had really come through for them this time; the motor-home was just what the doctor had ordered. He'd managed to sleep right through the night and well into the morning, which was good.

On the downside, they'd stopped somewhere. He knew this because he couldn't hear the engine or feel any motion. Getting up, he stretched elaborately and pulled his shirt on. The bathroom was tiny, but it suited his needs. Someone had courteously laid out his cut-throat razor, so he washed his face, lathered up, and had a shave as well. A shower could wait till later, he decided, especially if he had to kill someone first.

After tucking various blades into their hiding places on his person, he wandered down the length of the motor-home and opened the door, to the sound of a low-voiced argument. The motor-home was pulled over into a park, with a city skyline in the background. The humanoid members of the team were sitting around a picnic table, staring at a map. They looked around as he stepped down from the motor-home.

“What's going on?” he asked. “Where are we, and why have we stopped?”

“That's what we're trying to figure out,” Shatterbird answered with some asperity. “We're out of fuel, and there's no landmarks on our map that match the local geography.”

“Ah.” Jack turned to look at the skyline. A sense of foreboding that had been creeping up on him revealed itself all at once, and he knew where he was. It had been years, there were a few new buildings, but he knew beyond a doubt. “Tell me, from which direction did the sun rise this morning?”

“We couldn't see.” Burnscar sounded defensive. “It was overcast and raining pretty heavily. I couldn't even see the signposts properly.”

Closing his eyes, Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course you couldn't. So how did you find your way?”

“We followed the GPS,” said Shatterbird. “It sounded funny, but at least it's working.”

“No,” sighed Jack. “No, it's not. I'll tell you how I know.” He pointed at the city. His sense of near-dread was stronger than ever, but he forced it down. He was Jack Slash, and he did what he wanted, when he wanted. “See that city over there? More capes per capita live there than in ninety percent of the continental United States.”

Turning to the group, he spread his arms. I didn't want to be here, but now that I am, may as well make the best of it. “Welcome to Brockton Bay.”

[A/N: Yes, evil cliffhanger is evil.]

Part 13