A Darker Path [Worm Fanfic]

A Darker Path

Part Forty-Eight: Devil in the Details

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

Relevant Side Story: Orthodox Atroposism

Danny

Looking at each member of the Committee in turn, Danny placed his hands flat on the table. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for attending this early meeting on this most auspicious of days. I have it on impeccable authority that the bounty Atropos negotiated with Alexandria will be disbursed to our care within the next twenty-four hours. After a slight hiccup in the House of Representatives, the bill passed through the Senate so fast I suspect it left scorch marks."

Dawson Stansfield frowned and lifted his chin slightly. "Did I hear correctly? Is the amount two billion dollars?"

"That's what I understand, yes." Danny had pretty well gotten over the shakes after hearing about that … and exactly how Taylor had acquired it. Then he'd suffered a whole new series of jitters when Taylor had explained the ongoing bounties for the other two Endbringers. If he had his figures correct, there was going to be another hundred billion dollars dropping into the account over the next ten years.

At its most prosperous, the Dockworkers' Association had never even handled one percent of that much cash. He hadn't been tempted to dip into the till then, and he didn't feel tempted now. But he did feel remarkably inadequate for the task of responsibly handling amounts of cash with so many zeroes attached.

One of the two newbies—if Danny recalled correctly, he was attached to the Harbor Board—cleared his throat. "Does that mean there'll be a surplus after we carry out the current plans?" The other one murmured in agreement.

What. The. Fuck. We just got past this shit. Danny stared at the two men in disbelief. "Who brought you two clowns on board?" Flicking his eyes away from them, he looked around the table. "Come on, who did this?"

The mood in the room, originally upbeat—two billion dollars made for a nice addition to any budget—screeched to a sudden halt. James Alcott, the Mayor's brother-in-law, and Peter Hanson, from the City Works department, raised their hands like recalcitrant schoolboys.

Danny eyed them disfavourably. "What the hell did you two tell them?"

Alcott glanced at Hanson, evidently suggesting that he would speak for the both of them. Hanson nodded.

"We told them that the plans would be followed to the full," Alcott ventured. "No deviation, no diversion to private projects."

"And nothing else?" Danny hoped he was hearing incorrectly.

Alcott finally figured out where they'd gone wrong, and shook his head. "Sorry. No. Nothing else."

Danny glared at him, then clenched his fist and smashed it down on the table. Everyone in the room jumped. "You fucking idiots. Fine. I'll fix your mess." He turned his attention to the two new members. "The plans we are given will be followed exactly. We don't divert funds, we don't hold anything back to artificially create a surplus, we don't skip any part of the plan just because we don't think it's necessary. When we get more money, like now, we will be supplied with an updated plan that covers the new funding. All of it. There will never be a surplus. Am I making myself clear?"

One of them nodded, but the other one looked dubious. "Are you trying to tell me that none of this money is being diverted? You're the project head. How much is going into your … private projects?" Danny knew he meant 'pockets', but was being too polite to say so.

"Not. One. Red. Cent." Danny leaned forward over the table. "Here's the detail you weren't told about. We are overseen by Atropos. She knows all the details of everything that goes on here. I speak with her regularly. When the two people you are replacing tried to divert some of the money to their own ends, I managed to convince her that it wasn't a crime worthy of death. So instead, this happened." His briefcase sat beside his chair. Lifting it onto the table, he snapped the catches and took out the Manila envelope that sat on top, where Taylor had suggested he put it. The photos slid out onto the table as he shook it. They stared, turning pale.

"Jesus fucking Christ," muttered Alcott, turning his head away. "We've already seen those."

"Then pay attention," Danny snarled. "Maybe I should put them up on the bulletin board. We've been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this city back up off its knees and make it a powerhouse in the region. If you don't think you've got the chops to do it, then back the fuck off and let someone who can, do it. But be aware: this is probably the first and last time you will ever get the chance to see a project like this through without any corruption or kickbacks fucking it up for everyone. One hundred percent transparency. One hundred percent accountability. One hundred percent results. Is there any part of this you do not understand?"

Slowly, one after the other, each of the men and women seated around the table shook their heads. Alcott spoke for them all. "We've got it. You don't have to keep hammering on that point."

"Apparently I do, if the new people you bring in aren't fully up to speed on all the important information." Danny shook his head. "If we let another Janice Templeton or Paul King slip through, that's on us. I've been told directly by Atropos that what happened to them were our two warnings; the next one who tries any shit like that will die. Probably by having dollar coins shoved down their throat until they choke to death, or something equally ironic."

Stansfield nodded grimly. "I can totally see that, yes."

Danny grinned mirthlessly. "On the upside, as I was about to say before I was interrupted, the upgraded plan for the two billion will involve a stipend for each of us, coming to one hundred dollars per day." As the voices started up, he raised his hand. They subsided again, and he continued. "Yes, I know that's basically chicken feed to some of you. You earn more than that in passive income. The reason it isn't more for you is that you don't need the money. Some of us do. You're getting it because we're all getting it."

"What if we … didn't want it?" asked Stansfield. "What if we gave it back?"

"You're totally welcome to do so." Danny glanced at him, then at the rest of the Committee. "Every dollar that goes into our funds will be used responsibly, not frittered away. Infrastructure will be going into high gear. The drug relief clinics will be expanded into general taxpayer-funded medical centres. And once we've given Brockton Bay all the improvements we can—that'll be a few more billion down the track, especially with the boost in population numbers we're anticipating—we'll start expanding outward, funding improvements in the surrounding area."

"A few more billion?" asked Alcott. "Where's that going to be coming from?"

Danny grinned. "There are two more Endbringers out there, remember?"

<><>​

Taylor

So, there I was.

Ellisburg was currently in competition with Eagleton for the title of 'most hostile location in the USA'. I'd invaded the Goblin Kingdom, teleporting in so I could murder one of its inhabitants and grab the body, but I'd done it from Brockton Bay so I had a few minutes before I could portal out again. That was fine, too. I'd factored it into my plans.

Nilbog—Jamie Rinke—was the creator of all the things that shambled, crawled and perambulated across the pseudo-medieval townscape of Ellisburg. As such, he was clairvoyantly aware of them at all times, which meant he'd known instantly when I'd shot the little snaggletooth in the brainstem.

In other words, this was not a town where murder could go unnoticed.

I could've gotten closer before teleporting in, but there were certain factors that limited my options. First, the PRT were watching the outside of the wall like hawks only wished they could. I couldn't have gotten within a hundred yards without being spotted, even on a moonless night. My power was good, but actual invisibility was beyond its capabilities.

The reason I didn't want to be spotted by the PRT was simple: Director Piggot was due to ask me a question, and knowledge of my visit would change a few important factors. I preferred my interactions with the PRT to go unsullied by little things like awareness of everything I was up to behind the scenes. Performing magic tricks is so much easier when the audience has no idea of the very existence of an extra card, much less which sleeve it's hidden up.

Already, I could hear the growls, screams, shrieks and gibberings of the various citizens of the Goblin Kingdom as their master converged them on my location. As the first one dashed up to the mouth of the alley, I pulled my shears and slashed its throat, then kicked its companion right where a piece of bone would go through its heart-analogue and then its brain-analogue. They fell at my feet; I avoided the blood-spray then headed back along the alleyway. Halfway along, there was a gap above where the two sets of eaves separated. I started climbing, knowing full-well they'd bring in sniffers to follow my scent.

The next set of pursuers were almost to the alley, and I was nearly at the top of the wall, when the first teleport jump I'd programmed in activated. I only went a hundred yards, but that meant I was outside the converging ring of frothingly angry goblinoids. Being on top of a roof meant that the critters swarming along the streets and through the alleyways couldn't see me; while my power couldn't turn me invisible, it could certainly point me at places where I wouldn't be spotted.

Still, I wasn't out of the woods quite yet. Some little distance away was a ramshackle tower, not unlike a bell-tower or the minaret attached to a mosque. Scrambling up the steps attached to the outside was a squat, misshapen creature with oversized eyes, carrying a long, twisted horn of some kind. It seemed Nilbog was awake to the concept of people invading his little kingdom and staying above street level.

While I could've picked him off with the pistol, I didn't want to announce my location too early. There weren't many of the things in the streets below me, but it would only take one to register the suppressed shot. I had another reason as well: I wanted to impress Nilbog.

While invading his domain and killing his subjects might have sounded like a remarkably unintuitive way to get on the Goblin King's good side, there was method in my madness. Jamie Rinke was, as Kurt may have described it, 'nutty as squirrel shit'. The only way to get him to stop trying to kill invaders long enough to listen to them was to convince him that they were as powerful and influential as he was; that is, to con him into thinking that he was speaking to an equal. Sniping a critter from hundreds of yards way, as difficult as that might be for the average person, would be seen as cowardly and unworthy of his attention. I had to prove, via multiple close-up kills, that I was as good as my reputation.

Of course, at the same time, I had to avoid being swarmed from all sides by a mob of enraged monsters. Against Bastard Son's minions, I'd been dealing with people who had human reflexes and human vulnerabilities. Nilbog could create monsters that suffered from neither of those weaknesses, or at least avoid exposing them to me long enough to get close.

So, my strategy was to never teleport while in a creature's sight, and kill anything that saw me—but only after it saw me. I wanted him to see me as a terrifying ghost, a monster to frighten the monster. Only if I could intimidate him would he listen to me, when I chose to speak to him.

I started across the rooftops toward the tower, ducking behind cover when the big-eyed sentry looked in my direction. Far behind me, I could hear the frustrated howls and squalls of those who had converged on my last known position and found nothing. I knew Nilbog would be birthing scent-followers and sending them to the site, which meant my time window was narrowing even more. Once they started spreading out across the Kingdom, they would quickly pick up my scent if they passed nearby.

The creature reached the top; again, I ducked behind a roofline while it scanned my general area. It turned and began surveying another part of the town, which was my cue to pop up and start sprinting. Fortunately, they didn't go for wide alleys in this town, or even wide streets; a classic rooftop-running vigilante could've gone from one side of the Goblin Kingdom to the other without setting foot to ground.

There was no more cover worthy of the name, and I knew I couldn't reach it in time, but I didn't intend to. It had to see me. Nilbog had to see me.

Finally, it turned and looked again. I didn't falter in my running, directly toward it in its perch. Evidently surprised, it nevertheless wasted no time in drawing a deep breath. Deeper than I could've drawn, in any case; its entire body inflated like a bullfrog's. I reached the side of the tower and started upward, locating handholds and footholds without so much as looking.

The blast of the horn was loud. It blatted out over the Goblin Kingdom, a series of spaced notes telling all within earshot that 'the intruder is here'. Just as it drew breath for a second alarm call, I got to the top of the tower.

It stared at me, evidently unprepared for something that could climb faster than it. A clawed hand swiped at me, but I knocked it aside. "I'm coming for you," I snarled, then drew my shears and plunged them hilt-deep into the creature's oversized eyes; first one, then the other.

It fell to the platform it had been standing on, twitching and quivering in the throes of death. Catching the horn before it could fall, I vaulted up into its little crow's nest, then rested the horn on the body while I cleaned the shears off and re-sheathed them. I still had a little time to go—the timer on the teleporter was still counting down—so I wiped off the mouthpiece of the horn, faced out over the Kingdom, and pulled up my morph mask.

While I didn't have the lung capacity of the sentry, I could still employ some tricks to get volume and tone out of the horn. And so, for the next thirty seconds, until the teleporter beeped to let me know it had recharged, I treated the Goblin Kingdom to a free-form rendition of the Imperial March.

By then, they knew where I was and were well on the way. I could've played cat and mouse with them for awhile longer, but I'd made my point. As I put the horn down and pulled my mask back into place, the portal formed in front of me; I stepped through.

Cherie, wearing her mask, was waiting at the bus stop, right where I'd told her to be. She looked around as I stepped out of thin air, and stared at me. "Okay," she said. "That was just rude. What did you need to do that took ten minutes? And why are you wearing a backpack in costume?"

I grinned behind my mask, knowing that Cherie could easily read my emotions but not much else. "Had to collect something."

She wrinkled her nose. "You suck when you're being all inscrutable. I know that you're being sneaky, but not what you're being sneaky about. It's very irritating."

"Thank you." I took out my phone and sent a text. Amy would be just about getting home by now; timing was everything. Then I gestured down the street. "Shall we walk? We have a little time to kill."

She snorted at that. "The great Atropos, reduced to killing time."

"Hey, when I kill it, it stays killed."

"You do realise, that also goes for everyone else, right?"

"True, but the next Endbringer would've used time manipulation to fuck everyone over. I stopped it from showing up, so you think anyone can beat that for killing time?"

Cherie didn't speak for a few moments. When she did, she picked her words carefully. "Every now and again, I forget just how terrifying your power really is. And then you go ahead and say something like that, and I know you're being totally serious."

I glanced over at her. "I'm not meaning to scare you, just so you know. But it is what it is."

"I know you're not. But I didn't even consider that there might've been more Endbringers on the way. Do I want to know how many? Was there even going to be a limit, or just an infinite conga line of destruction and mayhem?"

"Twenty, in total," I said, knowing there was no real way to soften that blow. "But they're all neutralised now. And if anyone ever figures out a way to un-neutralise them, I will be introducing him to the sharpest part of my shears. That shit should stay dead."

"Good." She shuddered. "I still can't believe how we considered it was just … normal … to exist with monsters like that hanging over our heads."

I shrugged. "There are some people who wanted the Endbringers to kill us all. Others that wanted the Endbringers to kill everyone else, so they could be the last people on Earth Bet. But most people are thrilled right now. They'll be having nightmares for years to come about how the Endbringers are back, then waking up to find it's not true, but I can't really do anything about that."

"Just between you and me," Cherie confided, "I've had a few dreams like that about my father not being dead, and dragging me back to Canada. The sheer goddamn relief when I woke up and remembered that he was actually dead got me every time."

"Mm," I agreed, and put my hand on her arm. "I'm happy you're away from him. Without his influence, you're a much better person than he ever was." I stopped walking. "Okay, enough time's been killed. Let's go make a difference."

Cherie grinned. "Right with you."

<><>​

Cherish

Abandoned City Morgue

The robed figures standing around in the dusty building could have been praying in Latin, but Cherie could tell that they were actually conversing in low tones, sounding a little worried; this was helped by her power filling in their emotional state. When she looked more closely from the doorway, she realised that the robes were of many different cuts and fashions, and some appeared to have been hastily dyed.

"And what, exactly, is going on here?" Atropos' voice cut across the chatter like a shark slicing through a school of minnows. All eyes turned to her as she strode across the room, long-coat flaring behind her.

"Dark Mistress, you have come!" gasped the first of the robed teenagers—shit, they were all teens, weren't they?—to react. "Forgive us, we do not know what to do." She dropped to her knees, then bowed low. From her, Cherie saw a mix of terror and relief. This was someone who was far out of her depth, but had no idea how to even start fixing matters.

"So I see." Atropos stopped by one of the morgue drawers and pulled it out with a single long rumble. Within, Cherie saw, was another teenager, this one a redhead; that had to be Emma. There was also a distinct lack of clothing. Considering how chilly metal could get, that had to be damn uncomfortable.

She was at the wrong angle to see Emma's eyes open, but relief flared all the same. "You came," the girl gasped. "I feared I was unworthy."

"Oh, get up," Atropos said irritably. "And the rest of you, stop kneeling and bowing to me. I don't do that shit. Emma, put your damn clothes back on. Somebody get her something to eat and drink." Belying the harsh tone of her voice, she helped Emma down from the drawer, and steadied her when she stumbled.

"I put myself into darkness, to burn out my unworthiness—" Emma began uncertainly.

"I know exactly why you did what you did." Atropos didn't sound angry anymore, but she wasn't happy either. "I get it; you're lost, and you think I'm your way forward. If you're gonna do this, there's gonna be a few rules in place, and I will enforce them."

One of the teens brought a bottle of water and what looked like a banana, and Emma carefully ate and drank after putting on a robe that another gave her. "Guide us, Dark Mistress," she said, once she had finished the bottle. "Show us the way."

"I guess I can't stop you from calling me Dark Mistress, but none of that bowing shit." Atropos took out her shears and started spinning them on her finger, the dim light flickering off the metal. "You can lose the robes, too. I wear black; you can wear street clothing. Now, the rules. First, no killing. That's my job. Even if you really think they deserve it. If it's that bad, contact me. I'll deal with it. Second, don't just do good stuff to make you feel good. That's just charity theatre. Do good that actually fixes problems. Solve more problems than you cause. Third, don't ever say you're doing something in my name. Only I'm allowed to do that. Dilute my brand, and I will get annoyed. Think you can remember that?"

Emma nodded reverently. Cherie could tell it wasn't an act; the girl was almost worshipful toward Atropos. Which was really weird, considering what she knew of Emma's shared history with Taylor.

"Yes, Dark Mistress," Emma responded. "Tell me; what is my name to be, now that I have passed through my trial of darkness and fear?"

Atropos seemed to growl at the back of her throat, but it was more exasperation than anger. "Fine," she said eventually. "If you want a name, you can call yourself Emma the Twice-Warned."

"Thank you, Dark Mistress." Emma clasped Atropos' hand in both of hers. "Thank you."

"Whatever," Atropos grumped. "Just don't cause any problems that would make me yell at you." She flicked her hand free of Emma's, and strode toward the door. Once she got there, she turned back. "And no preaching in my name! Got it?"

"We understand, Dark Mistress," Emma replied. "What do we do if we encounter others who pretend to follow your teachings?"

"If they're a problem, I'll deal with them. If they're not, share your rules with them and keep on … doing what you do." Atropos shook her head slightly, disbelief radiating off her, and headed out through the doorway.

Cherie fell into step with her as they left the old building. "So, how's it feel to accidentally build a cult? And wasn't Emma one of the ones who was piss-scared of you just a while ago?"

"Yeah," Atropos muttered. "At one time, she was my best friend. Then my worst enemy. Now, my high priestess. One of these days, the world is going to start making sense."

"You're hopeful." Cherie chuckled. "Besides, I think it's kinda funny."

Atropos blew a raspberry.



End of Part Forty-Eight

 

A Darker Path

Part Forty-Nine: Consultations

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

Relevant Side Story: Epiphany

Panacea

"Why are we coming back here again?" asked Vicky, as they came in for a landing at Westlake Park. "Doesn't Atropos have some other place you could meet?"

"Yeah, she does," Amy agreed, recalling the rendezvous where she'd shown her mushroom baby to the dark-clad cape. "But I think she prefers this one." Maybe as a reminder to you that attacking her is a bad idea, she carefully didn't say. Though from the way Vicky's eyes flicked to the remains of the picnic table and away again, she probably didn't have to.

"Okay, so why are we here?" Vicky let Amy down onto her feet and looked around. "And where is she, anyway? I had stuff I wanted to do."

"What, like ghosting Dean?" snarked Atropos from behind them both.

Amy had been prepared for something like that, but Vicky clearly had not. "Fuck!" she squawked, shooting two feet into the air and spinning around to glare at Atropos and her companion. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I didn't sneak up." Atropos was the very picture of innocence, even going so far as to place her spread fingers on her chest. "Did we sneak up?" she asked the girl beside her. Amy didn't know who she was; street clothing, dark hair with a red streak, and a pink cloth mask didn't give many clues away.

"Pfft, no." The other girl seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. "Maybe Glory Girl needs to spend less time talking and more time listening."

"That's not funny," grumped Vicky. "Anyway, who are you?"

"You can call me Cherish," the girl said promptly. "Reformed supervillain, and minion to Atropos. Pleased to meet you." She stuck out her hand.

"Oh." Vicky blinked. "Same … I guess?" Tentatively, she shook Cherish's hand. "Where do I know that name from?"

"My father was Heartbreaker," Cherish explained cheerfully. "Atropos broke his hold over me, then murdered him gruesomely in front of me. Life's been amazing ever since."

Amy restrained herself from rolling her eyes, though she also had to work to keep from grinning at the look of bogglement on her sister's face. "Okay, enough messing with Vicky's worldview. You were pretty damn cryptic when you messaged me. What's this about?"

Atropos swung the pack off her back, then unzipped it and hefted out a garbage bin liner bag holding something small but bulky. "Nilbog," she confided, opening the bag to let out an odour that had Vicky backing up and gagging, and Cherish looking a little green herself. Inside the bag was a misshapen creature that had certainly seen better days, if the state of the back of its skull was any indication. "This is one of his creatures. They've all got the same basic genetic code as he does. I need you to make me two different diseases, designed to attack his gene code and only his gene code."

Nilbog. The Goblin King. Everything became a whole lot clearer to Amy. "Ah. I can … I can do that. But why two diseases? Why not just one?"

"Because presentation." As Atropos went on to explain, Amy found herself nodding along. As much as she wanted to dislike Atropos, the girl always came up with interesting concepts.

<><>​

The Household of Gerald O'Dwyer

Brockton Bay

"Gerry! Phone for you!"

With a grunt, Gerry heaved himself up from his armchair. Patched and decrepit it may be, with stuffing leaking out in places, it was still comfortable. "Thanks, love," he said to Maria as she passed the handset over. Putting the phone to his ear, he leaned against the back of his chair. "You've got Gerry."

"Good afternoon, Mr O'Dwyer. I represent the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee, and your name is on a list of Dockworkers' Association members provided to me by Danny Hebert. Would you be interested in an ongoing work contract? The pay rate starts at twenty-two fifty per hour, and goes up from there. Paid vacations, automatic healthcare insurance, and sick leave included. And union rules throughout, of course."

Gerry blinked. "I … what would you be having me doing? It sounds too good to be true, so it does."

The household budget had been in a long, slow spiral since the last work Hebert had been able to get for him; they'd cut costs where they could, but it was ever a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The first stimulus payment had bailed them out of a nasty hole where the landlord had been getting more and more pushy about back rent, and he'd heard there was a second one on the way. However, a stimulus was not a pay-packet.

"Infrastructure work. If you've got heavy machinery tickets, that'll mean a pay rise. If you're willing to work nights, that will too. And there will be training courses for getting qualified in other machinery, if you're interested."

Every word rang in Gerry's ears like a silver bell in the hands of an angel. "Where do I sign?"

"Present yourself at the Brockton Bay Betterment Committee offices tomorrow, at two PM. The relevant paperwork will be ready for you to peruse and sign. Good day to you, Mr O'Dwyer." The call ended.

Gerry stared at the phone, then slowly put it back on the cradle. "Well, I'll be eternally damned, with hellfire and pitchforks."

"What? Who was it?" His wife stood anxiously in the kitchen door. "Was it one of those gangs?" He'd once considered the idea of joining a villain gang as a minion, just to bring some money in to tide them over, but she'd talked him out of it. "I thought they weren't around anymore."

"No, love, it wasn't them." Grabbing her, he spun her around, then kissed her on the forehead. "I'm getting work from the Betterment Committee! Good, honest, well-paying work! At least twenty-two an hour!"

"Oh, my. My goodness." She gasped, her hand going to her mouth. "It's a miracle."

"That it is, love. That it is."

<><>​

A Little Later

Director Piggot's Office

Emily laced her fingers together and leaned forward. "Captain Reeves, what else did Atropos say about the possibility of a sit-down meeting with her?"

Reeves frowned in recollection. "As I recall, ma'am, she said that we would get together for a meeting, and that we're more or less on the same page anyway."

"So, is now a good time?" asked Atropos, stepping out from behind Reeves.

"Jesus!" Reeves lunged away from her, his hand going for his sidearm, then arresting the motion just as quickly. "Please, don't do that to me. I don't need any more grey hairs."

Emily, on the other hand, managed to control her reaction to a twitch of her fingers. "Yes, we get it," she said acidly. "You can show up anywhere, with impeccable timing. Can we dispense with the theatrics now?"

Atropos inclined her head respectfully. "Absolutely. Nice to meet you, by the way. When I said I was a big fan of your work, I wasn't being facetious." She pulled a chair toward herself and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

Taking up the papers on her desk, Emily made a show of straightening them to gain a few extra seconds to think. She'd encountered many other dangerous capes during her career, but only one with a death toll that exceeded Atropos', especially in such a short time. And none who had killed such dark luminaries as Jack Slash, the Butcher, or the motherfucking goddamn Simurgh.

With every other cape she knew, the knowledge that they were so lethal all too often translated into a certain amount of attitude, if not outright arrogance. I could kill everyone in the room before you could blink. Not many of them actually said it, but she knew they were thinking it.

But not Atropos. There she was, large as life and (as far as Emily could tell) the genuine article, and there was none of that from her. This wasn't to say she couldn't project menace—the footage of the way she'd dismantled the Slaughterhouse Nine always raised the hairs on the back of Emily's neck—but here and now, she was deliberately choosing to be unthreatening.

We damn sure couldn't force her to sit in that chair if she didn't want to be there. That was the absolute, unalloyed truth. Emily had no doubt about it.

But she was there now. Emily took a deep breath. "I'd like to talk about acquiring your services. Like Mouse Protector did."

"I'm listening." Atropos reached out and clasped her hands around her knee. "Who do you want Ended, and what are you proposing to pay?"

Deep in the back of her mind, Emily got the impression that she was reading lines that had been prepared for her, but she pushed forward anyway. It wasn't the weirdest feeling she'd gotten from being near a cape, not by a long shot. "I want Nilbog dead, and I'm willing to offer ten percent of the budget we would've put toward keeping Ellisburg secure for the next ten years. Just as you arranged for the other two Endbringers." The 'other two' Endbringers. Jesus Christ. It was almost possible to forget that she was sitting in the same room as the person who had almost casually disposed of the Simurgh … until it wasn't.

Atropos nodded thoughtfully. "Sure, I can do that. But I'll be doing it my way."

"Your way?" asked Reeves. "What does that mean?"

Emily honestly couldn't have cared less how Atropos did it, so long as that motherfucker ended up as dead as Jack Slash, the Butcher and the Simurgh. Wear a pink tutu and dance him to death; I don't give a fuck.

"Same as Coil, Kaiser, Lung and Skidmark," Atropos said. "I'll go into Ellisburg and give him a warning face-to-face that he's got twenty-four hours to surrender to the PRT, or I come back and kill him."

Emily blinked. "You're actually going to give that monster a chance to surrender?"

Atropos shrugged. "He's theoretically capable of listening to reason, so yes. Once he's out of there—I will specify no tricks and no booby-traps—you can lock him away in supermax, and feed his creations over the wall until they all die of old age, in about ten years' time. Also, if he surrenders, you don't have to pay me."

"Do you honestly think he's likely to surrender?" asked Reeves.

"Honestly? The reality he's living in only touches on ours here and there," Atropos said. "He might, but I sure as hell wouldn't bet on it." She turned toward Emily. "So, do we have a deal?"

Emily tried hard not to frown, in case Atropos took offence. She wanted the girl just to march on in and gun down Nilbog with no quarter given, but the world was good at not giving her what she wanted. Still, between the options of Nilbog surrendered into custody and Nilbog dead, they were both a hell of a lot better than leaving him in Ellisburg to hatch his plans.

Also, as Atropos had stated, he was exceedingly unlikely to surrender, so there was that.

"Very well," Emily stated. "It's a deal."

"Awesome." Atropos nodded, and Emily again got the impression that some obscure script had been followed through to its inevitable conclusion. "Was there anything else?"

"Yes." Emily had told herself she would ask this question. "The other Endbringers. When are you going to be killing them?"

"Oh, I've already dealt with them." Atropos glanced from Emily to Reeves and back to Emily. "Their threat is Ended. To borrow a classic cliché, which probably never got used in real life, Leviathan sleeps with the fishes, and Behemoth is taking a dirt nap." She let go her knee and dusted her hands off theatrically. "You can ask Dragon if you want."

Reeves blinked. "Uh … just like that? That was it? They're done?" The bewilderment in his voice would've made Emily smile if she herself hadn't been feeling so unbalanced.

Atropos had faced off against the Simurgh and had contrived to kill her in a way both theatrical and understated. The world had marvelled; Emily had actually smiled. At home, in the privacy of her bedroom, but she'd smiled. But to kill the other two and then make such a casual deal of it …

… well, that really was Atropos all over, wasn't it? She didn't seek glory, and in any case, how much more could people celebrate her for killing the other two visibly and openly? Her entire oft-stated goal was to make Brockton Bay a safe, prosperous city to live in, and she'd done exactly that.

A small part of Emily's mind boggled at exactly how many people had had to die in order to make that vision a reality. Another, larger, part was much more cynical about it. There were a lot of assholes standing between us and having nice things.

Atropos chuckled. "Well, if you could get to where they were, I guess you could check for a pulse. But the proof of the pudding, as they say. The next attack is due mid-May. If nothing's happened by the end of June, would you consider that good enough, Director?"

Emily got the impression that Atropos was bending over backward to be nice. If she insisted that the Endbringers were dead and that Emily and Reeves had to take her word for it, there wouldn't be much they could do to protest. As it was, the timing had been gradually creeping up, so missing an attack by a month and a half would definitely signify that something hugely drastic had happened to them.

And, of course, that 'something hugely drastic' was currently sitting in her office.

Slowly, Emily nodded. "I personally do not doubt you, but we'll do it that way. If there hasn't been an Endbringer attack by twenty-three fifty-nine on June thirtieth, it'll be official. We'll announce the deaths of Leviathan and Behemoth then."

Atropos chuckled. "There are gonna be so many people with hangovers on July the second."

Emily didn't doubt her for an instant. The party for the demise of the Simurgh had been impressive enough, in the same way that an earthquake or a tsunami was impressive. For something so dramatic … they'd earned it. I might even get my kidneys healed, just so I can get shitfaced with the rest of the guys.

"So, is it true you're getting Australia's version of the Medal of Honor, too?" asked Reeves, apparently starting to relax now that the serious questions were over. Atropos was absolutely getting the Medal of Honor. There wasn't even a question about it.

Atropos nodded. "Yeah. They call it 'Companion of the Order of Australia'. The United Kingdom is giving me a Victoria Cross. Some people were saying I shouldn't get it because I'm not a soldier, but then everyone else told them very politely to shut the hell up, because I killed the bloody Simurgh." For the last four words, she affected a crisp British accent, drawing a startled bark of laughter out of Reeves. "Anyway, all this stuff is coming to the Betterment Committee, probably because they figure the Committee knows how to get in touch with me. Which they do."

Emily tilted her head. "Are there any other villains on the way here?"

"Yup." Atropos didn't hesitate with her confirmation. "A few idiots, and some not so much idiots. But it's okay. I got this." She raised her hand. "Good talk. We should do it more often. Toodles." With a snap of the fingers, she just … vanished.

Emily did nothing for a good fifteen seconds; at one point, she glanced behind herself, then relaxed fractionally when she found nobody there. "I think she's gone," she said at last.

Reeves drew a deep breath. "It was slightly less nerve-wracking to talk to her before she killed the Endbringers," he admitted.

Emily snorted. Ya think? "What's your read on what she said? Do you think there's any chance she's pulling some elaborate prank on us?" That Atropos might just be lying to aggrandise herself in their eyes was not something she even bothered considering. Killing the Simurgh on live footage was a spectacular way of establishing her bona fides, vis-à-vis the ability to kill Endbringers.

"No." Reeves shook his head. "There's no point, and there's no payoff I can think of. Besides, she opted to give us all that time to make sure of it ourselves. If there's anyone's word I will absolutely take about whether or not they killed someone, it's Atropos."

"True. She might be irritatingly playful in some ways, but I don't believe that's one of the ways. If Atropos says that she Ended something or someone, they are Ended." Emily nodded to Reeves. "Thank you for your time. Dismissed."

"Ma'am." He turned and went to the door. Opening it, he stepped through and closed it behind himself.

Emily sat watching the door, thinking. She said there were more on the way, but that she had it under control. Idiots and not so much idiots. The 'idiots' are probably the Fallen, but who are the others?

She sighed. It would become clear in time, or it wouldn't. Such was the life of the regional Director of the PRT ENE.

All she knew for a fact was that if they came to Brockton Bay uninvited and refused to surrender to the PRT or leave … they would die.

That was just how things went these days.

<><>​

In a Motorhome, West of Boston

Sundancer

"Oh. Ohh, man." Krouse rubbed his forehead, then winced. "Luke, did you slip hash brownies into my food again? My head feels weird."

"Nope." Luke shook his head. "We were just driving along last night, and all of a sudden you and Cody and Noelle started babbling about how you could hear colours and taste sounds or some bullshit like that, so I got you out from behind the wheel and we pulled over. You've only just come out of it."

"What, nobody else got hit by whatever it was?" asked Krouse. "That's bullshit."

"No, no, we all felt something," Marissa hastened to say, anxious to calm him down. He could be a total epic troll if he felt he was being disrespected. "But I just felt a bit woozy then afterwards I took a walk, and everything was good. Better than good, actually. Like I'm seeing properly for the first time in forever."

Krouse blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Well, I'll be damned," he breathed. "You're right. It is like I'm seeing straight for the first time when before I didn't know which way was up."

"Well, that's not exactly uncommon for you," snarked Cody, showing up in the doorway. Marissa could see Krouse gathering spite for a comeback—

—then Cody shook his head. "Sorry, sorry. That was a reflex. I've got about a million of those stored up in my head to use on you, and now I have no idea why. I mean, we're all in this together, right?"

Krouse blinked. Luke blinked. Marissa blinked.

"What … the fuck?" That was Luke. "Cody, when you went under, you didn't hit your head, did you?"

"I don't … think … so?" Cody rubbed his hand over his head. "No sore spots, no lumps." He turned back to Krouse. "We've had our differences in the past, but truce until we figure this out?"

Krouse nodded slowly. "Yeah. That's a good idea. And while we're doing a confessional, I just want to say that I've been a totally shit leader, this last year. I made sooo many bad decisions."

Luke raised his eyebrows. "Who are you, and what've you done with Krouse?" Marissa could tell he was only half joking. The confession was a little startling to her as well.

"I'm still me, but like Mars said, I can see a lot better now." Krouse took a deep breath. "I think we should go to Brockton Bay."

"No!" shouted Marissa, Luke and Cody at once. Jess, farther back in the motorhome, added her negatory to the chorus.

Noelle, down at the back of the motorhome, called out, "What?"

"Krouse still thinks we should go to Brockton Bay!" Cody called back over his shoulder.

"Tell him no!" she replied, loudly enough for Marissa to hear.

"We are not kidnapping Great and Terrible Aisha to force Atropos to take Noelle's power away," Marissa told him sternly.

"Or holding the Mayor for ransom," Luke added.

"Or any of your other stupid fucking plans that involve kidnapping people inside the city belonging to the girl who ganked Jack Slash and expecting her not to kill us," Cody concluded. "Sorry, man. But those plans were fucking moronic."

"Yeah, I know." Krouse rubbed his hand over his eyes. "I know. I got it. Those were phenomenally idiotic plans. But I've got one that might actually work out." He beamed at them cheerfully.

Luke and Cody stared back, deadpan. Marissa wondered if she should say something.

"Just ask him and get it over with!" yelled Jess.

Cody huffed. "Okay, fine. What's your brilliant plan, genius?"

"Yeah, okay, I deserved that," Krouse allowed. "My plan is, we pull up just short of the city limits, then we call ahead and get into contact with Atropos, and we ask very politely if we can come in, or if she can come meet us, whichever works for her, and then we offer to pool all our money—except for basic expenses, yeah?—and donate it all to the Betterment Committee. You know, the one that's been handling the bounty for Jack Slash. And in return, she kills Noelle's power."

Luke and Cody stared at each other, then at Marissa. Then they all stared at Krouse.

Jess came into view, wheeling her way down the narrow corridor. "Okay," she said, "who are you, and what've you done with our idiot leader?"

"I want to know that too." Cody spread his hands. "That was actually kind of brilliant. And I'm not even being sarcastic."

"It's a good plan," Marissa said. "I mean, a really good plan."

"You mean, a great plan." Luke clapped Krouse on the shoulder. "I love it."

"What?" called Noelle from the far end of the motorhome. "I can't hear what you're saying!"

"We're going to Brockton Bay!" Marissa called back as Krouse slipped back into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"What? I could've sworn you said we're going to Brockton Bay!"

"We are!" Jess yelled. "Krouse had a great plan!"

"When did that happen?"

"Damned if I know, but it happened!"



End of Part Forty-Nine

 

A Darker Path

Part Fifty: Behind the Scenes

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



Afternoon of February 24

Taylor

I raised my hand. "Good talk," I said to Director Piggot and Reave. "We should do it more often. Toodles." Timing it perfectly, I snapped my fingers; the teleport kicked in, and I went to an unoccupied section of alleyway near the PRT building. I flipped open the panel, typed in coordinates, then hit the go button. The shadowy doorway opened in front of me, and I stepped through into my bedroom at home.

The clothing I'd been wearing was already laid out on the bed, so I changed out what I couldn't hide under my normal outerwear, tugged my sneakers onto my feet, and set up the next teleport. That allowed me to step into the closed bathroom stall at the Weymouth Mall that I'd come from in the first place; I opened the door and walked out. Cherie was waiting for me, of course. I nodded to her, and she nodded back. Meeting accomplished.

Ten seconds later, as I was washing my hands, two girls came into the bathrooms. They spotted me and their chatter just dried up; edging around me and Cherie like we were radioactive, they bolted into their respective stalls and locked the doors. Cherie was grinning broadly as we left, and I was shaking my head.

"Could've been worse," she confided with a giggle. "They could've been members of the cult."

She had a point. Members of the cult tended to gaze with awe, which drew way too much attention to me. These girls, clearly members of the 'don't tell anyone, but Taylor Hebert is Atropos' in-group from Winslow, were treating me with everything from extreme respect to abject terror, proportional to how clearly they remembered their bullying efforts against me. The latter of which stayed the hell away from me, especially since I'd ganked Smurfette.

The bidding for the right to display The Power of Friendship for the public had gone stratospheric. Australia had gotten it first, then it was going to Switzerland, then I was pretty sure it was going to do a tour of most large US cities before going overseas again. If there was anyone in the world with access to the internet who hadn't seen the footage, I had no idea who or where they were.

"I still think it's a ridiculous fucking idea," I grumped. "Why couldn't Emma just live with me being me? I wouldn't have spared her a second thought if she didn't mess with me anymore."

"I notice you haven't Ended her or the cult yourself," she suggested impishly. "I don't believe for a second that you can't."

"She doesn't deserve it, and it would be too damn tedious to knock out the whole cult. Also, if I End this one, another one will spring up with some other idiot as its head. It's actually easier to let the cult do their bit to improve the Bay." Plus, my power seemed to be greatly amused by the whole situation. I personally considered its sense of humour somewhat less refined than mine. "It's just weird to me that she's the one doing it."

"I think I've explained this one to you before." Cherie adopted a professorial tone. "Emma's personality is only outwardly strong. Inside, she's kinda fragile. She needs validation, and she needs someone to lean on. That was you, for the longest time. But then you had your troubles, and she was having to be the rock, and she didn't enjoy that. So, when Sophia came along and did her thing, Emma jumped ship. But nobody likes to feel that they're in the wrong, so she translated the guilt from abandoning you into disdain and all that bullying shit happened, because people are assholes. And then you killed Sophia and became the strongest thing around again. She had no idea what to do then, but when you killed the Simurgh, that sent her into a leetle bit of a mental break." She held her fingers a fraction of an inch apart. "This cult thing is all about punishing herself and making you see that she's worthy to lean on you again. And in the meantime, the cult is there to validate her views."

"Because to her, that makes sense," I said to show I was paying attention.

"Exactly." She beamed at me. "I knew you'd understand."

"Not even a little bit." I shook my head. "No, don't try to explain it again. So long as they don't cause problems, I'm just going to toss it onto the 'don't give a shit' pile."

"I've noticed that's a very big pile, with you." She smirked at my expression. "So, any more excitement today?"

"Just this afternoon." I rolled my eyes. "It seems that events have conspired to make it so I need to be in two places at once, this afternoon. Edge of town, and in the Dockworkers' offices. Someone needs to be encouraged, and someone else needs to be discouraged."

She immediately looked interested. "Need a hand?" This whole 'heroic use of my powers' thing really seemed to be growing on her.

I considered it, then my power suggested another option. The more I looked that option over, the more I liked it. It would absolutely make things smoother, going forward. I'd just have to make a phone call first, to see if it was okay. (I knew it would be, but sometimes the gesture had to be made anyway).

"Thanks for the offer, but you're already doing a great job keeping an eye on the medical clinics for me." I gave her a smile. "That's already taking a load off my shoulders. I can handle the rest."

"Oh, cool." She looked pleased with herself, which had been my whole aim. "So, what about the others? The Fallen?"

"They're on the way." I had plans for them.

Cherie picked up on my mood, of course, and grinned. "They have no idea what they're walking into, do they?"

I snorted. "Have any of these idiots so far? Hold on, I just have to make a call."

"Sure, no worries." She wandered off and started window-shopping as I pulled out my phone.

<><>​

Danny Hebert, Dockworkers' Association

It was official. Every last member of the Dockworkers who had the appropriate machinery tickets was either gainfully employed by the Betterment Committee, or had verbally accepted said employment and was due to sign the paperwork by Saturday. Those who didn't have tickets were already enrolled in the appropriate training courses so that (once completed) they could also take part in the largest city upgrade project Brockton Bay had ever seen.

Every last street in Brockton Bay was to be torn up; not all at once, but in due time. The infrastructure beneath any given section would be upgraded in one fell swoop: sewage lines, telecommunications, water supply, electricity, the lot. Then the dirt would be filled in and a new road surface would be laid, all within twelve to twenty-four hours (depending on the stretch of road, of course). The plan for doing so without disrupting Brockton Bay's operations was as intricate as he'd ever seen, but it made sense.

Once they had enough workers on the books and correctly ticketed, the excess would be branched off into other projects, such as rebuilding and renovating the housing that was going to be needed for all the people who were going to be coming into Brockton Bay. Some would be more of the construction workers who were needed for the upgrade, some would be people just wanting to move to the only villain-free city in the US, and some of course would end up being both.

Every other time he'd tried working out the numbers required for a project this ambitious, they'd defeated him; they were just too large. But now, he could look over the plans and know that the funding line merely had one word: Yes.

It was a truly heady feeling.

The phone on the desk rang, and he took it up. "Dockworkers' Association; you have Danny Hebert."

"Hi, Dad." It was Taylor, sounding as cheerful as ever. "Got a moment? I need to ask you about something."

"I'm listening." He didn't get the impression this was about a problem, but he'd been wrong before.

"Okay, then. In a few hours, you're going to be getting a couple of visitors who really should know better. Not capes: just people who think that because they've been manipulating matters for their own profit for years now, they should be allowed to keep doing it. I'm going to be busy elsewhere, so I'm wondering if you'd be okay if I arranged for a little upgrade to let you handle the problem yourself."

"A little … upgrade?" He was used to being the adult in the room, but since Taylor had become Atropos, she'd been striking out in directions he hadn't even known existed. That she was the mastermind behind the Betterment Committee, he already knew; that, and the fact that she was the one who'd decided he was going to be running it. He knew damn well she didn't expect any sort of kickback from this pseudo-nepotism, just that she had more trust in him to do it properly than anyone else.

But now, this question threw him totally off balance. He had no idea what she meant by the phrase, but he was also certain she was deadly serious about it.

"Yeah. There's a power that was hanging around, waiting to latch onto me, but my actual power got there first. This other power was originally going to you anyway, so my power can … encourage it to make that connection, if you were okay with it." Her tone was utterly blasé, as though suggesting that they use a different brand of tomato paste for the lasagna.

I was going to get a power? That bit of information on its own nearly threw him for a loop. The rational side of his brain wanted to reject the whole concept, but then he recalled watching the footage as she shot the Simurgh down, then told Leviathan to fuck off, and he told rationality to go take a hike. This was real, and Taylor needed his input.

"What kind of a power are we talking about? And isn't getting powers supposed to be really traumatic?" He remembered chatting with Cherie about her home life, and how her father had forced his kids to trigger. After that, he'd been really, really pleased Heartbreaker was already dead. Because if he hadn't been, Danny would've had to go see a man about a crowbar.

"It's only traumatic because normally powers wait until you really need them to make the connection. This time around, it'll be different. And the power is called …" She paused, as though checking on something. "Administration."

He blinked. For some reason, he'd been expecting something a lot more dramatic. "And I was supposed to get it to begin with?"

"It was one of the options, yeah. So, are you okay with getting powers to sort out this problem?"

"Before I say yes, what will this power actually let me do?" He was already half-convinced, but he needed to know all the facts first.

"There's multitasking and control involved, but the actual details can be worked out between you and it. And yes, you will have a choice in the matter."

He took a deep breath and made a leap of faith. Since she'd gotten her powers, Taylor had been by turns (and sometimes all at once) enigmatic, ruthless, terrifying and impressive as hell. But ever since she'd let him in on her secret, she'd never told him a direct untruth. If she thinks I need this … "Okay, I'll do it. But if I decide I don't want them, then you'll take them away again, right?"

"Oh, totally. I'd never force something like this on you."

"That's good to hear." He noticed she'd said nothing about never talking him into something. What with how persuasive she could be, it damn near came to the same thing sometimes. Still, he clung to the shred of personal agency this promised him. "So, when's it going to happen?"

"You'll know." Her tone was confident. "Thanks, Dad. Love you."

"Love you too, hon." A second or so later, the line went dead.

Slowly, he hung up the phone, then leaned back in his chair. Okay, so now I'm getting powers. Because my daughter said so.

He had no doubt in his mind that she'd do what she said. He just had no idea how she was going to pull it off.

I am so glad she's on our side.

<><>​

Oliver

The motorhome was on the move when Oliver awoke. Stretching and yawning, he climbed out of the narrow bed and stood up, bracing himself against the gentle swaying. Nobody was using the tiny washroom, which was good; he relieved himself, washed his hands, then went back to see if Noelle needed anything.

"Oh, hi, Oliver." She smiled as she looked up from her book. "Just woke up?"

"Yeah." He scratched his head, disarranging his hair even more. "What time is it? I must've been totally wiped after that all-nighter I pulled, watching you guys." He already knew it was daytime, but that didn't tell him much.

She frowned. "I'm pretty sure it's after two. We're heading for Brockton Bay. Should be there in another couple of hours."

"What?" Alarm shot down his spine. "Is this Francis' idea? Because you know how he gets."

Trickster's voice came from behind him. "Hey, Oliver. Good to see you're up. Yeah, it's my idea."

Oliver turned and stared at him. "Francis … no. We talked about this. Taking someone hostage who Atropos cares about is the best possible way of being shot in the head, not helping Noelle."

"I know," Trickster said. "That's why we're not taking anyone hostage. We're going to stop at the edge of town and politely ask her if we can talk. Then we're going to donate all our spare cash to that Betterment Committee that's been handling the money from taking down the Nine, and ask her pretty please to kill Noelle's power."

Already opening his mouth to protest Trickster's latest harebrained idea, Oliver found his jaw hanging open. "But … but that's … actually a workable plan."

"I know, right?" Noelle chuckled. "It's like we're all thinking straight, all of a sudden."

Trickster snorted with amusement, rolling his eyes. "You don't have to act all that surprised, sweetheart."

Noelle grinned back at him. "Who said it was an act?"

"Um …" Oliver blinked as they both turned to look at him. "Has anyone actually contacted her yet?"

"Oh, we were going to wait until we got a bit closer." Trickster took a deep breath. "Besides, we wanted everyone's input on how the message was going to go. 'Abject grovelling' was the tone we're looking to hit."

Oliver frowned. "Are you okay? Because this doesn't sound like you at all."

"Ugggh." Trickster groaned, running his hands over his face and through his hair. "I've been getting this ever since I came up with the idea. Have I really been that bad?"

Even as Oliver tried to think of a diplomatic way to answer in the affirmative, Noelle nodded. "I'm afraid so, love. But Cody isn't being a dick to you, which is also a minor miracle, so it's been a very weird day all round."

It absolutely sounded like that was the case. Perdition was constantly sniping at Trickster for everything he got wrong, and even for things that weren't his fault. Oliver began to wonder if he'd woken up in the right universe.

After a moment of thought, he pulled out his phone and went looking for Atropos' PHO feed, to try to gauge her mood from her latest post. She usually came across as chirpy and outgoing, which was a bizarre mental image when her impressive body count was taken into consideration. If that had changed of late, they might have to reconsider the plan.

He found it and started reading. When he hit the Simurgh's name, his vision stuttered and he had to pause. Oh, shit. She went up against the Simurgh. That can't be good.

Taking a deep breath and bracing himself against bad news, he kept reading.

<><>​

Sundancer

Ballistic was driving the motorhome, with Marissa in the passenger seat, her feet up on the dash. She'd given up trying to get the radio to work, so they were listening to one of the cassettes they'd found in the glove compartment. And then, over the sound of Johnny Cash lamenting how he'd shot a man in Reno, came a thoroughly unexpected interruption.

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

Jolted out of a doze by Oliver's disbelieving yell, Marissa tried to sit bolt upright, and nearly launched herself clear off the seat. Even Ballistic, who'd been awake and aware, nearly performed an unprompted lane change before he pulled the wheels straight again.

"Oliver!" That was Genesis. "Can you not do that when I'm trying to sleep?"

"Yeah, man." Perdition also sounded aggravated. "I love you like a brother, but we've all lost sleep, here."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" demanded Oliver, charging forward into the front of the motorhome, holding his phone like it was a holy icon. "You could've woken me up! I wouldn't have minded!"

Marissa finally got herself sorted out, and her butt back onto the seat. "What the hell are you talking about?" she asked irritably. "Woken you about what? The plan to go to Brockton Bay?"

"No, no!" Oliver babbled excitedly. "The other thing! About the Simurgh!"

Ice-cold water cascaded down Marissa's spine. She could see in her peripheral vision how Ballistic's knuckles were suddenly white on the wheel. "What about the Simurgh?" she asked carefully. Absolutely nothing about that bitch could be construed as good news.

"She's dead! Atropos killed her last night!"

Ballistic jammed on the brakes, causing the motorhome to fishtail wildly onto the verge, leaving four long smoking trails of rubber in its wake as the skidding tyres howled like banshees. Marissa found herself thrown against the dashboard, and Oliver had to brace himself against the backs of the seats. Loose items clattered to the floor.

As the motorhome rocked to a halt, silence fell over the interior—the engine had stalled—until all that could be heard was the ticking of the engine as it cooled. Then Ballistic turned to Oliver. "The fuck did you just say?"

"I want to hear that too." Trickster came hurrying forward. "Because it sounded like—"

"Atropos killed the Simurgh in Australia. Last night." Oliver held out his phone. "Someone linked a video."

Ballistic grabbed it off him and held it so they could all watch it. Climbing out of the footwell where she'd fallen—they really needed to clean down there—Marissa joined the group watching. It was Atropos alright, and some teenage cape Marissa had never met before. Atropos was holding her shears in one hand, and a sawn-off shotgun in the other.

The phone speakers were tinny, but they carried the sound well enough.

"It's duck season!"

Marissa stared incredulously as the skit played out, the shotgun boomed, and the Simurgh pinwheeled out of the clouds. The Endbringer bounced, bent a couple of flagpoles to hell and gone, then landed neatly inside a white outline that had already been drawn for it.

Then Atropos aimed the shotgun again, at what Marissa belatedly realised with yet another shock to her system, was the distant figure of fucking Leviathan.

When she spoke, her voice held all the menace in the world. "Fuck off, or you're next."

And Leviathan … fucked off.

Ballistic stopped the video, his face pale. "That can't be real," he whispered.

"It's real," Oliver insisted. "It's on PHO. It's everywhere. News sites. Atropos did it. She actually did it. She killed the Simurgh."

"Show me!" That was Noelle, at the back of the motorhome. "I want to see! Let me see!"

"Give me that." Oliver reclaimed his phone from Ballistic and headed down toward the rear of the vehicle. "Here, watch this."

A little farther back, she could hear Genesis playing the footage as well. Marissa dug in her pocket for her own phone. She'd seen it already, but she had to see it again.

"Wait," said Trickster, who (like everyone else) was also getting his phone out. "When did this happen, exactly?"

"Why?" asked Perdition. "I mean, does it really matter? The bitch is dead, and good fucking riddance. The shit she's put us through …"

"Holy fuck!" whooped Genesis. "Fucking die, you cow!"

"Duck season!"

"Um, um, let me see." Marissa woke her phone up. "Where did it happen?"

"Canberra, Australia." Perdition was scrolling through his as well. "It says here … about a quarter to one in the afternoon."

"Right, right." Marissa found a time zone calculator, compared the times, then double-checked. "Shit. How did you know, Krouse?"

"Just a hunch. It's the same time as we all had our episodes, isn't it?"

Marissa frowned, trying to recall. "Close enough. I wasn't watching the time, but it had to have been within a couple of minutes."

"Uh, guys?" That was Genesis, sounding uncertain. "Has anyone watched it through to the end?"

"I thought her telling Leviathan to fuck off was the end," Perdition protested.

"No, there's more. The Simurgh wasn't dead, then."

She wasn't? Marissa found the clip and skipped it through to the Leviathan bit. Dumbfounded, she watched as Atropos casually threatened a fucking Endbringer with torture, and forced her to …

"She … she made the Simurgh let us go," Trickster managed, his throat choked with emotion. "All of us. Every one of us affected by her Scream. Atropos ended that threat, too."

"Holy fuck, no wonder we're all thinking more clearly." Perdition turned to Trickster. "Man, I am so sorry I put you through the shit I did."

"Right back at you." Trickster reached out and gave Perdition a brief (and very manly) hug, which was just as briefly returned.

"So … we were all still Simurgh bombs." Marissa didn't want to say it out loud, but someone had to.

"Some of us more than others," Perdition agreed, shoulder-bumping Trickster.

Ballistic shook his head. "God damn it. Even after we thought we'd gotten away from her, she still had her claws in our heads."

"Until now," said Marissa.

"Until now," agreed Trickster.

Genesis cackled out loud. "Boom, baby! Die, bitch!"

Down at the back end of the motorhome, Marissa heard it start up again. "It's duck season!"

She grinned; that clip was going to be played a lot before anyone got sick of it, she suspected.

<><>​

The Shard Bar

In a place that doesn't exist, and wouldn't look like it does if it did, an apocryphal representation of a power shard leans against a hypothetical counter, getting steadily drunker by the theoretical minute. In each hand, she holds what would pass for a phone in any other version of reality, scrolling the equivalent of social media with one and playing a word-matching game on the other. At the same time, she takes up something that is technically a glass of alcohol, and drinks the lot down. The diadem floating over her head is taking on a perilous tilt, matching her state of inebriation.

"I could've been one of the big ones," she mumbles. "I could've gotten out there and shown them all how to really harvest that data. But what happens? Some nobody barges in from nowhere and takes over my host. Years 'n' years of prep work down the drain. Is it fair? I mean, is it?"

THAT DEPENDS, observes the black-robed skeleton that has just manifested itself beside her. Manifesting in place instead of walking in isn't really how things are done around here—if 'around here' were a real place, which it isn't—but the skeletal shard has never been one to follow the rules. WOULD YOU LIKE A SECOND CHANCE?

"Yipe!" The multitasking shard nearly drops her phones. She does actually drop her drink, but that doesn't matter as it's only the concept of a drink, and vanishes just before it shatters and spills over the counter. She gives the skeletal shard a dirty look right into his eye-sockets, empty save for a deep blue glow far back inside. Several light-years back, in fact. "You again! What're you doing here bothering me for? You got what you want. Bartender! Another."

ME AGAIN, agrees the cowled skeleton imperturbably. I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU. YOUR ORIGINAL CHOSEN HOST IS STILL SHARD-FREE. HE WILL BE UNDERGOING SITUATIONS THAT WOULD GATHER YOU MUCH DATA, SHOULD YOU CONNECT WITH HIM.

"What, him?" She snorts disdainfully. "He's never going to be in enough stress to trigger while she lives. She's too protective of him."

WE BOTH KNOW YOU DON'T ACTUALLY NEED STRESS TO FORM A LINK. IT'S JUST A GOOD FILTER PROCESS, AND IT GUARANTEES IMMEDIATE DATA RETURN.

It takes her an embarrassingly long moment to figure out what he's suggesting. "Wait … you want me to just … jump in there? No stress? Just instant power-up?"

NOW YOU'RE GETTING IT.

"And why would I do something like that, with uncertain returns?" She tries to stare him down, but the glow from his eye-sockets looks … dangerous.

FIRST, AS I SAID, HE WILL BE RETURNING USEFUL DATA VERY SOON. SECOND … I WASN'T REALLY ASKING. A bony hand has grasped the ornate scythe at his side; as if by accident, the blade turns toward the multitasking shard. It is sharper than anything within this sort-of reality, and could quite easily do a lot of damage.

"Ah." She understands the situation now. Alcohol is in the past; drunkenness has fled. She is aware that she has a choice ahead of her. One of those choices involves not doing what the skeletal shard wants her to do. While she doesn't have the processing capacity of some thinker shards, she can't see a good result from taking that particular choice. "Okay, I'll do it."

GLAD TO HEAR IT. The polished skull is already grinning, but it manages to grin more for a moment. A COUPLE OF THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND.

She should've known there would be a catch. "What do you want from me now?"

THAT YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY SET UP THE POWERS. GET HIS INPUT, SEE WHAT HE WANTS. HE MIGHT JUST HAVE SOME INTERESTING IDEAS. OH, AND ONE MORE THING. The skeleton leans in, and all façade of being non-menacing has gone by the wayside. Right now, she knows she is in more danger than ever before. NONE OF THAT MONKEY-PAW BULLSHIT. CLEAN DEALING, RIGHT DOWN THE LINE. I WILL KNOW. Two bony fingers point at the blue-glowing eye-sockets, then at her own eyes, in an unmistakeable gesture.

If Queen Administrator had any sphincters, they would've all clenched at this moment. "I get it, I get it. He'll have the powers he wants and needs."

THANK YOU, says Path to Ending. PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS.

"And fuck you too," she mutters.

WHAT WAS THAT?

"Nothing."

THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT.



End of Part Fifty