Price of Blood Pt 17 (Patreon)

Part Seventeen: Field Test

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

Taylor

I stood atop the PRT building, encased in my new armour. My feet planted squarely in the centre of the large H that marked out the helipad, I turned my head slowly from side to side. Glowing lines of data scrawled themselves across my vision, pushing themselves into the foreground as I focused on them. Gradually, I found, I was getting the hang of picking out what I wanted and then letting it go again.

“How’s it going in there?” It was Armsmaster’s voice. Along with Dad and Amy, he stood a few yards away, giving me my space. Unlike the last suit, this wasn’t strictly necessary. Dragon had taken the hardware Armsmaster and Kid Win supplied, and added what Armsmaster called ‘kinetic feedback’ software, making it almost supernaturally intuitive to move around in. While I still stumbled every now and again, I was improving by the minute.

“Getting there,” I replied. “There’s a lot to get used to. Not complaining, but how come the last suit wasn’t this easy to learn how to use?” Picking out the silhouette of my suit lurking off to the side of the HUD, I focused on the lower right arm then linked it to my actual left arm. Raising the real one, with the fake imitating the movement, I waved at Dad and Amy. He looked startled; she burst out laughing.

Dragon’s voice sounded in my ears. The little blinking icon in the top right corner of my vision told me that it was also going out over my speakers. Her tone was amused and (I thought) a little proud. “Because that suit was a last-minute kludge. This one is properly integrated and has thoroughly redundant auto-stabilisation, allowing my software to fully express itself. Attempting to use this software in that suit would be akin to bolting the navigation system from the space shuttle into a World War One biplane. It would look pretty, but it wouldn’t do a damn thing to help you fly better.”

“And would never get off the ground in the first place, got it.” I nodded, and the helmet moved back and forth ponderously with my head. When I’d first put the suit on—it turned out that the extreme modular approach let it open up then fold around me—every movement had felt like I was wading in molasses. Now, I was still aware of the suit, but the resistance to movement was much less. “You’ve done an amazing job. It feels like it’s moving more smoothly all the time.”

“That’s the general idea,” Dragon informed us. “It’s a self-improving algorithm, designed to learn the way you move and react so that when microseconds count, you won’t be slowed down by the suit.” She sounded pleased with herself, and I didn’t blame her. I would’ve been smug too, if I’d come up with that.

I’d already proven I could walk, though my initial steps out of the elevator had been somewhat leaden. Now I moved in a circle, lifting and placing my feet precisely. I didn’t quite feel as though I could pull off a tapdance routine—if I knew how to tapdance, that is—but this was a far cry from the lumbering mess I’d been in the first suit. “Armsmaster, there’s nothing on the outside of the suit that’s breakable, right?”

“There shouldn’t be, no,” he replied, his tone slightly concerned. “Why do you ask?”

“Gonna give the algorithm something to chew on.” I started off at a walk, moving past where the others were watching, then broke into a trot. My legs and arms were initially stiff, but they soon loosened up as the suit figured out what I was trying to do. Curving my path as I neared the edge of the roof, I kept up the pace, letting the suit get used to it.

By the end of the first circuit, I was panting, but the suit was moving more fluidly than ever. From the outside, it must’ve looked weird as hell, a seven-foot set of power armour going for a light jog on the rooftop.

Okay, let’s change things up a gear. I pushed myself into a run, immediately feeling the resistance from the suit increase dramatically. Still, I persevered. If I didn’t show the suit who was boss, I’d never get anywhere. Also, I needed to get fitter; trying to keep up this speed while also fighting the suit was rapidly tiring me out. It crossed my mind that this would be a great way to improve my endurance, once I got some.

I’d originally intended to make another complete circuit of the roof (a victory lap, so to speak) but my legs became limp noodles about a quarter of the way around, and I staggered to a halt. Bending over, I put my metal gauntlets on my knees and tried to catch my breath.

“Are you all right, Taylor?” asked Dragon. The speaker icon wasn’t blinking, which meant she was talking to me privately.

“Huff … yeah … huff … just … huff … winded,” I managed. “This’s … huff … a lot … huff … of work.” Already I could hear the tiny whine of the suit’s climate control fans kicking in. The padding around my head must’ve been wicking away the sweat, because it wasn’t running into my eyes. That was a good design choice; how do you wipe your face inside power armour? Answer: you don’t. Though I knew Armsmaster had tiny windshield wipers for the inside of his visor, for the simple reason that I had them too.

It annoyed me that I could hardly run any distance in the armour, whereas when the boys had been chasing me, I’d made it nearly four blocks. I knew this because the radius of my Swarm had been four blocks and only the outer edge had reached Winslow, thus avoiding a few thousand more potential casualties. Of course, running under the impetus of adrenaline-fuelled terror was one thing. Running because I just wanted to run was quite another. “I’m going to have to start exercising, aren’t I?” I panted, having gotten my breathing a little more under control.

“It’s always a good idea, Taylor.” Dragon sounded amused. “Perhaps you could have Armsmaster mentor you in an exercise program. He’s a perfectionist when it comes to personal fitness, after all.”

A vision popped into my head of me running for my life down an exercise track, pursued by Armsmaster waving his halberd menacingly. That would certainly bring out the adrenaline (even though I knew he was just a big teddy-bear under that gruff exterior). But the sad fact remained that Armsmaster was almost certainly a faster runner in his armour than I was out of mine. Also, if I was to become an effective hero, it was basically my duty to get fit. Ugh. “I’ll think about it,” I muttered reluctantly.

Straightening up (the suit actually helped, here) I walked back to the little group. “Okay,” I said. “I think I’m done running for the day. What other suit systems should I be checking?” I’d been considering the idea of performing shoulder-rolls and handstands in the suit, but I shelved those for another day.

Armsmaster rubbed his chin carefully with finger and thumb, smoothing down his beard. “Well, we do need to test the flight system. What do you think, Dragon?”

“There’s no time like the present,” she agreed. “Taylor, would you prefer I take the front seat or the back seat for this?”

I knew what she meant; did I want her to take control of the system and show me how it worked, or let me figure it out for myself but be ready to take over if necessary? After the blow to my pride from running out of steam so quickly, there was only one real answer. “I’ll take front seat,” I said quickly. I might be unfit, but by God I was going to learn how to fly my own powersuit.

“Good,” she said warmly, and I heard the smile in her voice. “It’s a steeper learning curve this way, but you’ll get there more quickly. Activating pre-flight checklist.”

A moment later, the list showed up in front of me. And here I’d thought only pilots in actual aircraft did that sort of thing. “Am I going to have to do this every time?”

“Yes and no,” she explained. Well, that cleared things up. “It won’t be long before you get the hang of knowing which items in the checklist have already been cleared. And of course, skipping it altogether in a rush situation is usually okay. It’s the equivalent of checking your car over before turning the key.”

As I’d never owned or even driven a car before—not many options for a fifteen year old to do either one, to be honest—I couldn’t really relate. But I got the gist anyway. “Okay, got it.” Concentrating on the first item on the list, I brought it to the foreground and mentally checked it off, then the next, then the next. Check power level, check suit integrity, check wing lifters … one thing after another. Power level was still good, suit integrity was nominal … hmm. Calling up the suit silhouette on my HUD, I activated the ‘wings’ option. A moment later, I felt the vibration as they emerged from the pods on my back and unfolded into position. A quick command put the wings through a self-test cycle, and they reported back as being in perfect working order. Oh, good.

Once the last item was checked off, the list disappeared. I turned the helmet to the left and right, looking my wings over. They weren’t as big as a butterfly’s wings would’ve been at this size (that is, the size of a large awning), but they were pretty big anyway. “Okay, how do I do this?”

“There are two ways to activate flight option. The first is to manually select it on your HUD.” As she spoke, Dragon made a particular icon flash in front of my eyes. “The second is to jump off the building. The suit will determine that flight is needed, and activate the mode autonomously. I suggest manual selection for now.”

I concurred heartily with that selection. Concentrating on the icon—it looked like a standing man—I made it change into a winged form. A new series of options popped up on my HUD, and I stared at them. I wasn’t sure how they managed to make the wireframe globe with the red line running through it look so 3-dimensional, but it was pretty cool. Next to it was a virtual model of the suit with an arrow pointing out of it, and the last one was basically a slider switch.

“Would you like me to—”

“No, don’t tell me. Let me figure this out.” I pondered the globe and the suit image. While the slider switch was kind of obvious—the more I slid it across, the faster I went—I wasn’t sure what the two different controls meant. Focusing on the suit, I found I could adjust the position of the arrow relative to the suit, but the base of the arrow was always to be found in the middle of ‘my’ torso.

Hmm. Fixing my attention on the globe, I found without much surprise that yes, I could swivel the red line to point in any direction, and that there was a section of the line that protruded from the globe at one end only. Time to try something basic.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s see if this works.” I angled the arrow so it pointed straight upward, through the suit’s head. Then I did the same with the red line, setting it to a vertical alignment through the globe. Finally, I nudged the slider switch across until I saw the rooftop beginning to drop away below me. Immediately, I pushed it back to zero, and looked around.

I was twenty feet above the rooftop—the movement had been faster than I’d anticipated—and holding steady. Dad, Amy and Armsmaster were looking up at me. My father was staring in stunned surprise, while Amy was grinning broadly. And if I wasn’t much mistaken, even Armsmaster had a faint smile of pride on his face.

“Okay, I can fly.” My grin challenged Amy’s. “Let’s see now …” I wanted to see if I could turn. Selecting the arrow, I pointed it straight forward then did the same with the red line. Then I tried swivelling the line around to the side.

Nothing happened.

Making sure the external speakers were off, I huffed a sigh. “What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re trying to turn on the spot?” A secondary icon, one I hadn’t paid attention to, blinked a couple of times. “This links those two controls.”

“Ahh.” I activated the icon, then tried my swivel trick again. Smoothly, I rotated in mid-air. “Okay, that works. But …”

“But?” Anyone else would’ve been defensive. Dragon merely sounded interested in what I had to say.

“But this is too … clunky,” I said, searching for a better word and not finding one. “I’ll be too busy working the HUD controls to watch where I’m going, especially when it comes to steering. And if I have to manually adjust my facing every time go around a corner …” There wasn’t much more to say. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I just don’t know if I can superhero in this.” Just for a moment, a nasty suspicion crossed my mind that Armsmaster had set matters up this way so I’d have to join the Wards to get a working suit. Then I dismissed it. Armsmaster just wasn’t like that. Neither was Dragon.

“Oh, those aren’t the standard controls,” Dragon assured me. “Those are the backup controls. As you’ve noted, they’re clunky but usable in an emergency. They also allow you to perform manoeuvres that your standard controls aren’t designed for, such as flying upside down or backward.”

“ … Oh. So, uh, when do I get to use the real controls?” I wasn’t exactly irritated with her for not revealing this immediately. It wasn’t like I was an expert pilot. Even my paper planes tended to crash horribly.

“In just a moment. Watch carefully.” My HUD blanked, and was overridden to show an image of the suit I was wearing. A red line started level with my heels, traced up through my spine, and went out through my head. The arms of the suit went forward, and the wings flared to a new configuration. “The suit will follow the line of your body. Your hands will lead. If you curve your body, the suit will turn in that direction. If you bring your hands in close to your body, you will hover. If you’re upright and you bring your hands downward, you will land. Is that understood?”

As she explained, the suit followed her instructions; flying, turning, hovering and finally landing. It actually looked kind of cool. I hoped I’d look nearly as cool as she made it seem.

“Uh, yeah, I’m pretty sure I got it.” It sounded kind of intuitive. Did natural flyers have trouble making their powers work?

“Good. I’ve activated the icon for you to use this mode of flight. There are pressure switches under your big toes, or you can use the slider switch. Either one works.”

I spotted the icon and activated it. Immediately, the suit felt … different. Before, it had been simply responding to my commands. Now, it felt alive, quivering, ready for action. I was pretty sure this was because my body was going to be supplying the commands, but I liked the feeling anyway.

Slowly, I brought my arms up and forward, then pushed down gingerly with my big toes. Something went click and I found myself moving forward and upward at an angle. In the HUD, the slider switch eased across of its own accord. I was pleased for that, as it would give me a gauge on how much power I was using.

I was still flying across the roof of the building, but the edge was coming up quickly. That didn’t matter; the wings were supporting me, not the roof. Still, I sucked in a gasp as I passed over the parapet and saw how much empty air was below me now. It was a long way down.

Just for a moment, I felt a surge of vertigo, raising my heart rate and making me hyperventilate. I wasn’t a flyer. Hell, I wasn’t even a Tinker! What was I doing, blindly flying around in a device I had no business wearing, throwing myself out over empty air? Instinctively, I pushed downward with my hands, trying to ward off the yawning drop beneath me.

The suit of course responded, swinging me downward in what turned into a tumble. I felt a scream rising in my throat, along with the beginnings of panic, and clenched my eyes shut. Then I heard Dragon in my ears, cool and calm.

“If you bring your hands in close to your body, you will hover.”

I brought my hands in close to my body, wrapping them around me. The tumble ceased. All movement came to a halt. I opened my eyes.

I was hovering, just as she had said. I breathed again.

“Taylor?” It was Armsmaster, this time. “Are you all right?” The concern was strong in his voice. I could only imagine what Amy and Dad were thinking. Looking up at the edge of the PRT building where all three were leaning over and watching me—I’d dropped a good forty feet before regaining control—I raised one hand in a tentative wave. The suit responded, easing itself upward slightly.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I moved the wrong way, and the suit thought it was a command. I know better, now.” And I knew damn well I was going to have to learn the suit’s tolerances; what would it consider to be a command, and what could I get away with doing without spiralling out of control?

“Good.” The relief was palpable in his tone. “Did you want to stop now?”

“No.” I took a deep breath. I’d nearly fallen, but the suit had caught me. It was my stupid fault, not the suit’s. My heart was still thumping away in my chest, but I was safe. The suit would keep me safe. “I’m gonna see what this thing can do.”

Bringing both hands up over my head, I jammed both big toes on the switches. In the corner of my eye, the slider switch whipped all the way over to the far end, but I wasn’t paying attention. With a surge of acceleration, I shot up past the three onlookers, then toggled the external speakers and let out a whoop as I pulled a loop over the top of the building. Halfway through the loop, I figured out how to do a roll, then plunged over the other side of the building, this time under full control.

Easing off on the power, I angled sideways and pulled into level flight along the side of the PRT building, then grunted as I came around the corner. The G-forces weren’t quite so bad as they would’ve been if I’d been standing up, but they were still pretty strenuous. The grin was back on my face as I turned upward and angled around so that I was shooting upward with my back to the building. Just to make sure I didn’t hit it, I cheated slightly with the HUD to ensure that the red line in the globe was perfectly vertical.

As I came up over the edge again, I angled backward, then pulled off power altogether and drew my arms in to my sides, letting my legs come over the top in a backward somersault. With my hands down, I came in for a landing. The suit took over for the last couple of yards so I didn’t crack the asphalt of the helipad, and I landed as gently as a feather, then activated the ‘ground mode’ icon.

The suit’s wings were already retracting as the others came over. Dad and Amy looked like they wanted to run, but they made themselves stick to Armsmaster’s measured pace. I went to meet them.

“Wow, holy crap,” Amy said. “I’ve seen Vicky do stuff like that, but she’s been flying for years!”

“It was easy, really,” I said. “Once I got the hang of it, that is. The suit did ninety-five percent of the work.”

“And a hundred percent of the flying.” Dad gave me a wry grin that hid worry. “Are you all right? What happened out there? Did the suit malfunction?”

“No, no, it was nothing like that.” I shook my head for extra emphasis. “It was me. I, uh, saw all that empty air down there and kinda freaked for a second. But Dragon got me through it. And I realised that the suit will never let me fall.”

“Well, of course not.” Armsmaster almost managed to sound offended. This close, he was talking to me directly instead of using his radio. “It’s designed to keep you as safe as possible. There are many safeguards you would have to deliberately override before you could hurt yourself in that suit.”

“Good to hear.” I nodded toward the roof entrance. “But I think I might take a break. Is it okay if we get a bite to eat?”

“Certainly,” said Armsmaster, and led the way. I followed, finding that the suit felt entirely natural to walk in now.

Toggling off my outside speakers, I spoke softly. “Dragon?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for reminding me, before. Instead of, you know, taking over and making me feel totally helpless.”

There was a smile in her voice as she replied. “You’re entirely welcome, Taylor. And you did very well, for a first-time flyer.”

As I went in through the roof entrance, there was a smile on my face that just wouldn’t go away.

<><>

Sophia

“Right.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The salt stung the cuts in her knuckles, but she didn’t care. The asshole was finally down, slumped face-down in the middle of the motel room floor. It had taken a bit of doing—without her gear, even with her powers, she was still a teenager and he was a large and bulky adult—but she’d kicked his ass in no uncertain terms.

The question was, where was her gear now? And what was she supposed to do about this moron? He’d seen her face. So had the maid. She couldn’t call on the PRT to put the frighteners on them, because as far as most of the PRT was concerned, she was a rogue agent. Instead of listening to her, they’d probably try to put her in a cell. The operative word was ‘try’, but even that would probably be enough to fuck up her mission once and for all. Son of a bitch.

The maid was nowhere to be seen, but the room-service cart stood just outside the door. She recalled how the asshole had glanced at it, just before she jumped him. The look on his face had been classic.

She hustled over to the cart and started searching it. Within seconds, her hunch had borne fruit; her clothes, boots and other gear had been shoved into the trash compartment of the cart. They hadn’t even bothered trying to hide it, no doubt assuming that without her equipment she was helpless. Helpless, my ass.

The manager and the maid had to die. That was the only way out of this. Of course, she couldn’t be seen to have killed them, though Calvert would probably understand. The impression she got of the man was that he comprehended the need for people to die on occasion. However, the rest of the PRT, including the pig-bitch herself, would clutch their pearls and swoon over the idea of a Ward who knew when someone needed to die.

But if she were to go on to a successful career as a superhero after this, there was no way she could allow anyone to go about blabbing that they’d seen her face when she was on a secret mission. In fact, Calvert would probably have pre-approved this sort of thing if he’d thought about it ahead of time. Secret missions needed to stay secret after all.

Moving with swift, economical movements, she began to don her costume. With any luck, the maid would be stupid enough to come back, and Sophia could deal with her and her boss at the same time. If she didn’t, Sophia would be forced to go and find her. If that happened, she’d make sure it hurt.

The bodysuit was on and she was buckling the belt around her waist when she heard the first sirens. Motherfucking cocksuckers! She kept costuming up, listening intently to see if they were going past. The absolute fucking nerve of that fucking cow of a maid to call the goddamn cops on her! Rage boiled up inside her, and she nearly shot a tranq dart into the asshole’s neck. Only the fact that she was low on them stopped her from wasting one.

When I’m done with this shit, I’m gonna come back here and fuck their shit up once and for all, she silently promised. They’d asked for it, after all. They’d fucked with her, and they’d fucked her shit up. Which added up to them wanting to die in her book, especially since they’d seen her face and then called the cops on her.

Pulling the helmet on over her head, she strapped it into place and reached for her boots. At that moment, the asshole on the floor groaned and stirred. Of course she hadn’t secured him, because she hadn’t had her zip-ties at that point. Fuck it. As he raised his head, she nailed him with a tranq dart just behind the ear. He slumped to the floor again, and she leaned down and plucked the dart out. Five left.

The sirens were getting really close now. She couldn’t even pretend to herself that they were going anywhere but this motel. And it sounded like more than one car, which meant they knew how dangerous she was, so they were planning to surround the motel. The one good thing was that she didn’t hear any PRT sirens. But they could be running silent behind the cop cars. It was a tactic she’d seen them pull from time to time, when they didn’t want to alert a cape that they were in the vicinity.

She grimaced; backing down to normals felt like running away, no matter how many there were. Though it wasn’t the numbers, it was the visibility. And the more she hung around here, the more chance some PRT asshole would connect the dots between Shadow Stalker and Spectre. Leaving really was in her best interest. I need to check my phones and see if Calvert or Coil’s tried to contact me. Calvert, at least, was due to respond with a meeting place. She had no idea what was going on with Coil. Has he made me for a plant? Does he think I’ve been captured? With no feedback, she had no idea where his mind was.

But there was no time to check her messages now. She heard footsteps thundering along the walkway. Grabbing the backpack, she shrugged it on and dived out through the wall. Below her, on some sort of driveway, a cop looked up and shouted. There was the sound of a shot—weirdly echoey in her shadow state—and she felt the familiar twitch as a bullet flicked through her insubstantial mass. Fuck, he shot at me.

Just for a moment, she wanted to go solid and kick the crap out of the cop, but cooler instincts prevailed. She couldn’t afford to get caught up in this sort of thing. If she did, the PRT might arrive before she knew it. And while they couldn’t catch her even if she gave them a head start, the Protectorate would probably show next, and they knew how to catch her. Armsmaster, at the very least, knew her weaknesses. If anyone could bring her in, it would be the Halbeard.

As soon as she was out of sight of the trigger-happy cop, she turned solid, dropped to the ground and bolted. Her cloak flaring out behind her, she ducked down some twisting alleyways, then used her shadow form to leap higher and higher until she was running over the rooftops. This was how things had been before the PRT got their claws into her; free to do what she wanted, how she wanted. No obligations, no rules.

Her grumbling stomach finally forced her to slow down. She couldn’t remember offhand when she’d last eaten, but it had been the better part of a day ago. The hunger she felt had been present more or less since she’d woken up, but other events had overridden her hunger pangs until now. I need to get something to eat. Do I have cash? A quick check of her pouches—and the pockets of the clothes in the backpack—revealed nothing but the jewellery that she’d taken as part of the heist. Not exactly legal tender.

She holed up on the roof of a bowling alley, in the shade of an air-conditioning unit. Coil’s phone, when started up, showed eighty-nine percent charge and no messages. Not even a missed call.  However, it did inform her that the time was ten AM, which went a long way to explaining why she'd been found by the maid. Fuck, I can't believe I slept in that long.  Calvert’s phone, on the other hand, was on twenty-eight percent charge and had a message waiting for her. Meet at 1900 tonight, northern ferry terminal. C.

She had to admit, that was definitely out of the way. Any farther and they’d be meeting outside of Brockton Bay proper. If she was being honest with herself, she’d expected him to specify the Central Library or maybe the Forsberg Gallery to hold their meet. Seven was a weird time too. The sun would be down, but there was still the chance of a passer-by. Of course, once they were up inside the terminal, nobody would be able to see them.

Shit, I wonder if they’re getting ready to move on Coil and the Undersiders. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of another reason for a face to face briefing. Which was a problem for her; while she’d need help to deal with that snaky asshole and his mercs, she didn’t want Grue and the Underbitches to go into custody. Mainly because that would mean she couldn’t kill them, and they’d all made her list over the last day or three. No matter how sneaky she was, stabbing oneself to death was not high on the list of normal methods of committing suicide in custody. Someone would ask questions.

Which means I’ve gotta get to them before the meeting. Once they’re dead, we can focus on Coil. It’s a win-win; I’ll be helping to streamline the operation. Though only Calvert was likely to see things her way. Everyone else would have to be kept in the dark. Sophia was good at keeping things in the dark.

Making her decision, she nodded once. The Undersiders would have to die before she got to that meeting. But for right now, she needed to eat. Bowling alleys had food concession stands, didn’t they? The problem was that she had no money. Which meant she’d have to steal the food … or the money needed to buy the food.

She smiled slowly, behind her visor. Money, I can handle. And the best bit is, this is an official PRT operation, so I won’t even get in trouble for it.

<><>

Miss Militia

“They’re just in there!” The cleaning maid, obviously distressed, pointed at one of the doors on the upper floor of the motel. “Hurry!”

Hannah nodded to her on the way past, a heavy taser forming in her hand. She didn’t know it was Shadow Stalker in the motel room, but the descriptions she’d gotten so far pointed that way. Black teenager, extremely violent, wearing a greyish costume, pockets full of jewellery … it all added up. And even if it wasn’t her, a taser was still a good fallback weapon for many capes.

She took the stairs two at a time, noting that the cops were following along in good order. She wasn’t sure how much good their body armour would be against someone who could phase their shots, but she personally intended to shoot first. Her boots pounded along the walkway to the door in question. A shot sounded from the far side of the building, but she didn’t pause.

She also didn’t bother with testing to see if the door was unlocked; her weapon shimmered and became a shotgun loaded with door-breachers. The first shot shattered the lock, and the second blew a chunk out of the door where the chain would’ve been. As the racketing explosions echoed across the courtyards, she hit the door with her shoulder and rolled into the room. Coming up on one knee, she reformed her weapon into a taser once more, covering the room with an arc that ended up on the closed bathroom door. Officers piled into the room behind her, going left and right.

Laser dots danced around the room as they noisily cleared it. The bathroom door was kicked open and a tear-gas grenade thrown in; nobody wanted to go into a confined space after a cape. Gas mask on and taser at the ready, Hannah ventured in first. As she’d half-suspected from the sound of the shot, the bathroom was empty. Except for the manager, slumped on the floor beside the bed, there was nobody there at all. One of the officers checked for a pulse, then breathing, and shook his head.

“No.” Hannah wasn’t going to let Shadow Stalker claim yet another victim. Pulling off her gas mask and yanking her scarf off of her face, she heaved the guy on to his back and started administering CPR. “Get the paramedics up here!” she ordered. “He’s a big guy. We might be able to pull him through this.”

“Right, right.” One of the cops made the call, then directed another officer to take over the assisted breathing. Hannah gratefully pulled her scarf back up over her face. Hopefully, not too many of the cops had seen her unmasked.

As a third officer took over the chest compressions for her, she was able to stand up and take a breath. “Any word?” she asked of the sergeant who’d followed her in through the door. “There was that shot …”

“Yeah.” He nodded, his expression grim. “That was her, all right. Went out through the wall. She’s in the wind.”

She grimaced and looked down at the motel manager. “God damn it. How many more before we catch her?”

The sergeant just shook his head.

<><>

Taylor

“So, I had an idea about the armour.” I looked brightly over at Armsmaster, who was stolidly eating. He looked at me, as did Dad and Amy, with varying degrees of curiosity.

“I’m listening,” he said. The pause told me he’d probably activated a voice recorder as well. If there was one thing I was learning about Armsmaster—something I actually quite liked about him, to be honest—it was that he never did things by halves. When he set out to do something, he did it.

“Two things, actually,” I clarified. We were in the PRT commissary, but the other personnel were giving us our privacy. Which meant that nobody was listening in on our conversation. Or rather, anyone who was listening in probably had the clearance to do so. “One, a compartment in the armour to hold bugs, that I can release them from when I need to.”

He nodded at once. “I can definitely modify the armour for that. How much volume do you think you’d need?” The tone of his voice stated that he’d give me as much volume as I wanted, or make a darn good try at it.

“Bugs can pack in fairly tightly,” I assured him. “We can work that out. The other idea was that instead of running the secondary arms from the HUD, we could have really tiny controls in the joints and have bugs working them for me.” The idea had come to me halfway through the meal, and I’d been momentarily dumbstruck by how neatly it would work. If we could make it work, of course.

“Which would tie back to keeping bugs in the armour,” he noted at once, raising my estimation of him yet again. “We’d have to define a certain range of bug size to do the work, but I can’t see why not.” His expression came across as intrigued, which was a good trick when I could only see his mouth behind his helmet. “Do you think you can run them all at once and not be distracted?”

I nodded earnestly. “I’m pretty sure of it. I’ve got millions of bugs in range right now, and I can sense where they all are in relation to me and what each and every one of them is doing. It’s like where it comes to bugs, I don’t have an upper limit to the amount of multitasking I can do. Or at least, I haven’t hit it yet.”

Dad shook his head. “Millions …” he muttered. “Have I mentioned recently that cape powers are bullshit?” But the expression on his face as he looked at me was exasperated pride.

“Not in the last five minutes,” Amy noted with a grin on her face. “Hey, Taylor, you connect with the brains of the bugs you’re controlling, right?”

I shrugged. “I … guess?” Given that I was tapping into their senses, it seemed to be about right. “Why? I doubt they’re making me any smarter.”

“No, but they could give you a Thinker rating,” she retorted, her grin widening. “I’m wondering if each bug you tap into hands over a little tiny bit of its brainspace to handle the overall multitasking. One bug: no big deal. A million bugs? That adds up to a lot of brainpower.”

“ … Huh.” I thought about that. “I suppose that could work, right, Armsmaster? I mean, it makes as much sense as anything else, and a lot more sense than me trying to handle all that work with one human brain.”

Armsmaster gave Amy an appraising nod. “To be honest, I don’t have the expertise in parahuman studies to judge something like that. But if it did work like that, it would certainly explain why your power use is so efficient. If your power links all the bug brains together like the elements of a supercomputer, it means that every time you add bugs to your swarm, your available processing power increases.”

“Wow,” I murmured. I couldn’t feel anything like that happening at all. As far as I was concerned, I just did it. “That’s … kind of handy. Because there’s a lot of bugs around, and I’d hate to be overwhelmed all of a sudden.”

Amy put her hand on my shoulder. “Well, that’s not going to happen, especially on my watch,” she assured me. “And just between you and me, even when you’re processing all those signals, your brain doesn’t seem to be overworking itself at all. I mean,” she added for the benefit of Dad and Armsmaster, “I can’t affect brains, but I can definitely observe them.”

“And I can speak for Taylor and me both when I say that I’m glad you’re helping us out,” Dad said. “I honestly don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

Armsmaster didn’t say a word. Amy and I shared a glance. She didn’t need to say a thing; we both had an idea how bad it could’ve gone at its worst. Reaching across the table, she squeezed Dad’s hand. “Hey, you took me in and made me welcome. It’s the least I can do.”

“Which reminds me, I’ve still got some training to do in the suit,” I noted, standing up from the table. “I mean, I can’t exactly be a PRT-affiliated hero without having a way to go out and be a superhero, after all.”

“That’s true,” said Dad. “I can’t even imagine you going out without serious protection, even without all the stuff that’s happened. Bug control is useful, but it doesn’t make you bulletproof.”

I tried not to look uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah.” He still didn’t know about the partially-completed costume in the cellar. Nobody did, except me. I meant to tell Amy about it sometime, but I wasn’t exactly sure when that would be.

Amy snickered as we made our way from the commissary. I looked at her suspiciously, wondering if she’d found the costume anyway. “What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” But she smirked anyway. “Just be glad that you’re not joining the Wards proper. Joining as an affiliate means you don’t have to go through Image to get your costume approved. I’ve heard that can be a nightmare, sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, I can imagine.” I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the level of NOPE that would come out of their Image division if I presented as a bug controller, so soon after the Swarm. (It was a measure of Amy’s stabilising influence that I was able to even think about the Swarm without suffering cold sweats). “They’d probably try to make me so cute and fluffy that I wouldn’t be able to do anything meaningful.”

Amy gave me a raised eyebrow. “You think you’re joking.” There wasn’t even the hint of a smile on her face, now.

“It’s not that bad, is it?” I stared at her. She looked at me deadpan, not answering. I turned to Armsmaster. “Is it?”

He shrugged very slightly. “It’s been years since I had to face them, but I’ve heard stories.”

Oh, boy. All of a sudden, I was very glad I didn’t have to go through Image.

<><>

Grue

“Okay,” said Lisa, altogether too cheerfully for the situation at hand. “If we’re gonna be doing this, we need to do it properly. Shadow Stalker’s not the type to make a mistake, or at least make the same mistake twice. We’ll be lucky if she even makes it once. So we need to force her errors on her, so she doesn’t realise where she’s going wrong until it’s way too late.”

“Nice battle plan,” drawled Alec. “Got any actual details, or was that it?” Brian knew he had to be in pain from his broken arm, but the sling was the only indication of injury that he was showing. The snark didn’t count; that was pure Alec.

Lisa didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, Alec, I have details. Plan A is to tie you to the sofa as bait for Shadow Stalker.”

With just as little hesitation, he flipped her the bird. “If we’d kept those damn dart launchers from her like Rachel and me wanted, the PRT wouldn’t be looking at us for felony murder. Not to mention attempted murder of Wards.”

“Okay, hold it up right there,” Brian stated firmly. “If we’d done that, Coil would’ve come down on us like a ton of bricks. He wanted Shadow Stalker to kill people with those darts.”

“So we shouldn’t have done it.” Rachel looked as though she couldn’t believe she was agreeing with Alec. “Fuck Coil and fuck Shadow Stalker.” She looked at Lisa almost accusingly. “You talk like you know everything all the time. How come you didn’t know that shit was so dangerous?”

“Because there were no hints or warning signs,” Lisa said tiredly. Brian got the impression she was about to throw something. “My power doesn’t pull facts out of nowhere. I can only work with what I’ve got.”

“Okay, enough.” Brian was getting tired of the bickering. “Lisa, you said you had a plan to trap Shadow Stalker. I don’t know about everyone else here, but I’m interested in hearing it.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Lisa smirked. “The first thing we need to do is …”

Part 18