Hostage Situation [Worm AU fanfic]

Hostage Situation


Part Eight: Casualties of War

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



Northern Ferry Terminal (Abandoned)
Panacea

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Amy announced. “Like, right now.”

Saint made an unhappy noise. “Can’t you hold it?”

“Says the guy who’s probably wearing a catheter,” Amy retorted. “And you may not have noticed, but you’ve been squeezing me pretty hard. This is on you, not me.”

More muttered grumbling came out of the speaker. “Fine. But if you try to make a run for it, I will break your leg. Just letting you know.” The suit released her shoulder and gave her a light shove toward a sign that announced the presence of a restroom.

“And if you break my leg, my Uncle Neil will break your everything,” Amy said. “Unless Vicky gets to you first. You better hope she doesn’t get to you first.”

As she moved off toward the restroom, she didn’t have any immediate plans to make a bolt for it. The suit Saint was wearing could very likely locate her wherever she went, and hold its own against any normal humans it might encounter.

Pushing open the restroom door, she watched as the ancient fluorescent lights altogether failed to turn on, but there was a small window that provided enough illumination to do what she needed to do. Just in case he was watching via IR or whatever (the creep) she mimed sitting down on the toilet. Fortunately for her sense of hygiene, she didn’t have to actually do anything, given that there was no water pressure in the building, or even toilet paper.

However, the inner surface of the toilet bowl held a thriving layer of bacteria, which she surreptitiously dabbed her finger into during her mimed wiping and readjustment of clothing. Immediately, she isolated several she could use, and started modifying them for her own ends.

If she had anything to do with it, Saint was going to have a very bad day.



She had no way of knowing it, but he wasn’t the only one.

<><>​

Marquis

It had been a long time since he’d unleashed his power to its fullest. As the saying went, it was a little like riding a bicycle. A bicycle that was on fire, wobbling on a tightrope over a chasm, and had people throwing hand-grenades at it, but a bicycle all the same.

He strode through Cell Block T at the head of his invading forces. This sort of thing never happened in the usual course of events. The situation within the Birdcage usually mandated that the cell block leaders sat down to talk things out because unless the slaughter was total, the losers of any conflict were always around afterward. In addition, the other cell block leaders were understandably wary of a would-be conqueror, which made life difficult in the long term. It was different, this time. He didn’t care about the long term. The welfare of his daughter—little Amelia Claire—was all that mattered.

Because of the lack of warning (apparently, they hadn’t seen the same newscast as he had, which raised a question for the future) Teacher’s minions were caught utterly flat-footed. He’d given orders to his men that they weren’t trying to take territory or kill anyone; their sole objective was the capture of Teacher. Once they had him, they could pull back and let the defenders have their cell block.

Armoured in bone from head to toe, he employed moving shields of the same material to intercept incoming attacks. His orders to employ non-lethal attacks were not merely for humanitarian reasons; the best information he had was that Terrell could sense the powers he had given out, but not the actual state of the subjects. Killing Teacher’s people would serve to provide advance warning of the state of the invasion, which would make his task somewhat harder.

Of course, while Teacher’s tendency to make over his subjects into subservient idiot-savants made the invasion a lot easier, this wasn’t the case with everyone in the cell block. For every ten that didn’t even see them coming, there was one who fought back, with powers that Terrell had made better. Not good enough to overcome Marquis and his forces, but still an irritant that slowed them down.

Terrell himself had made use of his own powers with respect to others; Marquis had heard that he’d made people into experts on various subjects, which they then tutored Terrell on. The idea that he’d thus become a master strategist was not unlikely, though for the moment the invasion had momentum on its side. Teacher was big on plans, but as the saying went, few plans survived contact with the enemy.

The last row of cells came into sight. If Teacher was anywhere in his block, he was here. The urge to push ahead and effect the capture of their target was almost irresistible, but Marquis repressed it. More lives had been lost through rash and unthinking action than battles won by audacious ploys. He stopped, raising his fist in the signal to hold back. This was the most dangerous part of the invasion, where Teacher almost certainly knew what was going on, and had made what preparations he could to hold them off.

On the other hand, holding back too long could enable Terrell to finalise his plans for defending himself, and also endanger his Amelia Claire. He needed to present Saint with a fait accompli, not merely a threat. Forming a ball of bone, he threw it underhand around the corner, then ducked back with his hands over his ears.

The explosion made him wince; he’d long since figured out the fragility of the outer walls of the Birdcage, and he’d been careful about breaching them ever since. But it seemed Terrell’s planning didn’t include a one-way trip into vacuum (or whatever was on the other side of the wall) this time, merely to cause severe injury to whoever had tripped the homemade mine.

He didn’t spend any time wondering where Terrell had gotten the explosive material from. There were sufficient capes within the walls of the Birdcage, and he could bestow the appropriate skills on his subjects, that he wouldn’t have been surprised to be faced with a machine-gun. Though a main battle tank would’ve been pushing the envelope a little.

“Sonovabitch,” muttered Cinderhands, digging his little finger into his ear. “What the fuck was that?”

“Proof that this isn’t going to be a cakewalk anymore,” Marquis replied grimly. The shards of bone were still lying here and there, where they’d been blown by the booby-trap. He took control of them now, growing and expanding them to cover every surface. Two more explosions rocked the corridor as he did this, blowing large holes in his bone coverage, which he simply filled in again. By the time he’d finished, there was a six-inch layer over each wall, the floor and the ceiling. The doorways into each cell were likewise blocked; if anyone was hiding in any of the cells to ambush the attacking party, he preferred to keep them where they were.

Stepping forward, bone shields going before him, he advanced down the last row of cells. Terrell’s room was almost certainly the large one at the end of the row—Marquis himself occupied the corresponding room in his cell block—but there was no guarantee that the man was there right now.

Clearing each cell in turn would take time. Time his Amelia Claire quite possibly didn’t have. If he was right, if extensive battle experience and finely-honed instinct could trump treachery and skill, Terrell had set a trap, and expected him to walk blindly into it.

The quickest way to disarm a trap had always been to set it off. He made his decision and strode forward. Bone shattered to the left and right as the predicted ambushers broke through the barriers he’d put in their way. Raising his hands, he sent bone spears lancing outward, skewering some and delaying the rest. Then he dropped his hands again.

Around him, his men surged to the attack.

<><>​

Airborne, Closing on Brockton Bay

Muttering imprecations under her breath, Mags re-checked her stealth settings. Once she got Geoff back to base, she was inclined to let Mischa kick him around the workshop a few times. Even at this range, she could tell that every emergency-services radio frequency was lighting up across the board. Brockton Bay was a kicked anthill, and some of the ants had really big stingers.

What have you done, you lunatic? she wanted to ask. She loved the man, she really did, and he’d been doing well, but then he had to turn around and pull a boneheaded stunt like this. Whatever ‘this’ was, it must have been impressive, if it was all on account of him kidnapping Panacea. Unless he’d done a strafing run on the city either before or after snatching the teenage girl, she couldn’t understand why the fire and ambulance channels were also clogged with calls.

Throttling back the suit, she opted to swing around on a long arc and drop lower to the ground. Stealth was all well and good, but Brockton Bay was reputed to be lousy with capes, and while Armsmaster wasn’t the only Tinker in town, he was certainly the one she least wanted to run afoul of. If anyone could ping her through the stealth, he could. Coming in over the hills back of the city, so that she could take as much advantage of the terrain clutter, sounded like a workable plan.

Geoff honey, when I get you back home, we’re gonna have a long, long talk.

<><>​

Glory Girl

“H-hurts,” whimpered the man, cradling his left arm. Vicky wasn’t surprised; from the elbow down, it had been turned to glass. She had no idea how he was still alive, much less not screaming with agony. The paramedics had stared at it, as dumbfounded as she was. Fortunately, she had an alternative that they couldn’t call on.

“Just hang on, buddy,” she said soothingly, trying to fly as smoothly as possible. “Panacea’s at Brockton General right now, and she’ll fix your arm right up. She’s the best there is at what she does.”

“P-panacea?” repeated the guy. “She can fix my arm?” A note of hope quavered in his voice.

“That’s right, buddy,” Vicky assured him. She’d seen Amy fix stuff she wouldn’t have believed fixable. “You’re gonna be just fine, I promise. My sister will have you playing the piano again in no time.”

She spotted the imposing building ahead of her and adjusted her flight path to come in on a long gentle swoop. An ambulance was already pulled up in the emergency entrance, but she didn’t care. The guy she had in her arms needed assistance just as much as anyone else in the hospital did.

Not quite touching down, she glided around the end of the ambulance, waiting a touch impatiently for the doors to open. As she did, she noticed that the emergency-exit sign just inside the doors wasn’t there anymore; just a few bits hung down from the fixture. The damage was so fresh that the shards of plastic on the floor had been hastily swept aside but not actually cleaned up. Who did that? she wondered. I know it wasn’t me, this time.

The doors swept aside and she glided in, feet not quite touching the floor. Within was controlled chaos; people in scrubs of all descriptions scurried in every direction. “Hey!” she called out to the nurse behind the desk. “I got one for Ames! For Panacea! His arm’s been turned to glass!”

The nurse’s eyes widened, and she made some sort of signal. In another moment, two orderlies came hurrying out with a gurney. “Put him down here,” one of them said, hefting a clipboard. “Do you know his medical history?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Vicky demanded as she set the man gently on the rolling stretcher. “Panacea doesn’t need to know that sort of crap. She just fixes it.”

The two interns glanced at each other, then back at her. “You—you don’t know?” asked the other one.

A bad feeling sent a chill down her back. “Know what?” she asked.

“Panacea was kidnapped by Saint of the Dragonslayers, just after she got here.”

She stared at the young man. “Say that again.” Under her hands, the metal frame of the gurney began to creak and deform.

Each of the interns gulped and took a step back. “Saint,” said the one on the left. “He came in and kidnapped her. We notified the authorities …”

Who had not bothered informing New Wave, for whatever reason. She didn’t care what it was; by the time Brandish finished with whoever’d had that fucking bright idea, they’d be scrubbing rocks in the Bay at low tide. “How?” she asked, low and deadly. She knew Ames could put someone out with a touch, so the asshole couldn’t have just walked in and bodily dragged her out.

“He was wearing flying power armour,” explained the one on the right. “About ten feet tall, or so. It had a gun on it that shot rubber bullets. The security guard’s pretty badly hurt.”

Well, that put a different complexion on matters. All the will in the world couldn’t make Amy’s power work through a solid barrier, or even thick clothing. Also, it seemed the hospital staff hadn’t just stood there and let a supervillain kidnap her sister. Holy fuck, a supervillain actually kidnapped my sister! A cold feeling spread through her gut at the number of times she and Amy had joked about the concept. No villain in Brockton Bay would’ve dared; that much she knew.

“Right, thanks.” She nodded at the guy on the gurney. “He needs medical attention, I guess. You might get more like him, later.” She wasn’t sure about that; one of the victims she’d seen had been glass from half the chest down, and from the look on his face he’d lived just long enough to understand exactly how screwed he was. That expression was going to feature in her nightmares for quite some time.

Turning, she stomped out of the hospital, then took to the air. When she was a few hundred feet up, she pulled out her phone and hit a number on speed-dial.

“Where are you, Victoria?” Her mother’s voice came across sharply. “There’s another collapsed building on West and Main. We need to get the casualties out as quickly as we can.”

“Mom, we’ve got bigger problems.” Vicky gripped the phone tightly as she tried not to imagine what might be happening to her sister right at that moment. The plastic creaked in her hand, and she did her best not to crush it.

“What bigger problems? There are people here who might die if you don’t come and help!”

Vicky did her best to not feel guilty at the desperate note in her mother’s voice. “Mom, Amy’s been kidnapped from the hospital by Saint, of the Dragonslayers.”

“What?” Brandish’s voice became a viper hiss. “The man’s gone too far! Do they say if he set the bombs as well?”

“I don’t know,” Vicky admitted. “I only found out about Ames. It’d make sense, though. If they know anything about her, they’d know she would come to Brockton General to help out while we went and dealt with the casualties in the field. It’s the perfect way to separate her from us.”

“So help me, I will see that man Birdcaged.” Carol Dallon seemed to have temporarily forgotten the animus she held toward Amy regarding the Marquis situation. “What happened? How did he get around her power? Which way did he go?”

“He’s wearing a suit of flying power armour,” Vicky reported. “He shot a security guard with rubber bullets, then grabbed Ames and flew off with her.” At least, that was how she reconstructed what the interns had told her. “They didn’t see which way he went with her. They said they told the authorities.”

“I see.” Brandish audibly drew a deep breath, and seemed to calm down a little. “Run a search pattern, but if you see him, don’t engage until we get there to back you up. I’m going to call Director Piggot and find out exactly why she didn’t contact us immediately over this.”

Despite her mother not being able to see her, Vicky nodded. “Got it. Give her hell, Mom.” She ended the call and tucked the phone away, then rose a little higher into the air. Eyes searching the rooftops and streets below, she began quartering the city, searching for the armoured asswipe who’d dared kidnap her sister.

When I find you, I’m gonna feed your suit through a car crusher with you inside it. Feet first.

<><>​

Director Piggot

Emily had three phones on her desk, and despite handing off as much as she could to her subordinates, they were still ringing non-stop. She had PRT teams attending as many explosion reports as they could manage (not nearly enough) and the images coming back would’ve been heartbreaking if she’d allowed them to be. The reason she didn’t just pull the troops back and let the regular cops handle it was twofold; first, the regular joes would’ve been overwhelmed in minutes, and second, the bombs were definitely Tinker-created, which meant the PRT had jurisdiction. Her guys were the ones with the training in how not to die around unknown Tinkertech, after all.

These weren’t the only plates she was juggling, of course. If it was only that, she would’ve judged it to be the equivalent of an average Friday evening and gone home, leaving Renick to mind the store. But there was also the kidnap of Panacea—by Saint, of all people—apparently to force Dragon into releasing Teacher from the Birdcage. Funny, I never pegged him as the suicidal type before.

And then, on top of all that, she had the strong suspicion that Saint wasn’t behind the bombings. If he had been, it would actually make her life easier, because then she wouldn’t have had to worry about boosting security on the holding cell that contained Lung. But she had a report on her desk about Bakuda, the newest member of the ABB, whose powerset held two words that Piggot personally considered should never share the same sentence. Those two words were ‘bomb’ and ‘Tinker’.

When this was over, Bakuda would be sharing a cell with Lung in the Birdcage if she had anything to say about it. If the woman killed too many people and got away, and kept bombing the city, she would push for a kill order. Unconfirmed reports had come in about citizens spontaneously exploding, killing those around them or exhibiting the same bizarre effects as the other bombs.

The third phone, which had remained silent for all of thirty seconds, rang. She put the other two on hold, then picked up the receiver. “PRT. Director Piggot’s office. This better be important.”

“Oh, it is.” She recognised Brandish’s voice right off the bat. “Panacea’s been kidnapped and you don’t even bother informing us?”

Emily frowned. What the fuck? “Brandish, I gave orders for someone to fill you in. Fifteen minutes ago. I don’t know what happened—”

Carol Dallon cut her off. “You gave orders? You couldn’t be bothered calling us yourself?”

“Brandish!” Emily let a little of the strain she was under leak through into her voice. “I’m up to my ass in alligators right now. I did not, and do not, have the time to go over every tiny detail of the situation with you right now! We have a line on where she is, and I have people investigating that! Now get off the line and stop wasting my time!”

She went to put the phone down, but even with the receiver away from her ear, she heard Brandish shout, “Where is she?”

For a long moment she hesitated. As dearly as she wanted to put the phone down, she knew Brandish would just keep calling her back. Reluctantly she put the phone to her ear. “I’ll tell you, but you cannot get in the way of the troops in the area. Saint’s already threatened to harm her if anything goes sideways. Do I have your assurance in that matter?”

It was Brandish’s turn to hesitate. As a lawyer, she no doubt knew how to follow direction. As a superhero, she’d worked alongside the PRT many times. As a mother … Emily didn’t know.

“… you have it,” gritted the superhero. “Now, where is she?”

“We believe he’s holding her at the northern ferry terminal.” Piggot knew damn well she shouldn’t be giving out information like this, but keeping New Wave on side when the Empire outnumbered them both was more essential than sticking to the letter of ‘need to know’. “Now, remember—”

But she was talking to dead air. The call was over. Slowly, she hung up the phone. Let’s hope that doesn’t blow up in my face. If it didn’t, it would be one of the few things that hadn’t, tonight.

<><>​

Saint

Geoff checked again that the Dallon girl hadn’t decided to try running off on him. His infrared sensory systems were powerful enough that he could track her through the wall; perhaps even two or three walls, if they were thin enough. She wasn’t moving hastily, and was in fact coming back toward him. But … what was that in her hand? She was holding something, trying to conceal it from him, jabbing at it with her finger.

Fuck, I forgot to get her phone off her! It normally wouldn’t have mattered, given that his suit incorporated a high-end signals acquisition and jamming package, but whatever she was doing wasn’t registering with his signal gathering at all. And yet, she seemed to be satisfied with the results of her efforts … oh, for fuck’s sake. She’s got a Tinkertech phone. Because of course the world’s greatest healer would’ve been given one. It probably sent signals via pulsed gravity waves or fourth-dimensional monkey farts or something like that. His top-of-the-line signals interception hardware might as well be two sticks waving in the air, for all the good it would do in jamming Tinkertech equipment.

With three long strides, he was looming over the top of her. “Give me that!” he shouted, reaching down for the phone.

“Like hell!” she shouted back, actually holding it behind her back. “You can’t have my phone!” The in-helmet speakers relayed her voice almost perfectly, even after it had been flushed of anything that could contain a Master’s overtones.

“You will give it to me,” he said menacingly, “or I will break your left arm. You have three seconds to comply.” He really didn’t want to do it—she wasn’t the enemy, after all—but she would survive a broken arm, and he was so close to success.

“Fine.” She turned her head away and handed the phone over to him. He would’ve tossed it into the bay, but he had no idea how watertight it was, and whether water itself would impede whatever it used for a signal. So he employed the single best technique he knew for jamming an unjammable signal; he broke the emitter. Such was the power of his metallic grip, it almost squished in his hand. Then he dropped it to the floor and stamped on it, grinding his foot back and forth to make sure not one single component remained intact.

“Very smart,” he sneered. “Too smart for your own good. Did you get through to anyone?” He figured there were many places he could hide in a cesspit like Brockton Bay, but a large flying powersuit would be more than a little conspicuous, especially with the current state of alertness that was going around. Belatedly, he activated some little-used software he’d ported over from the original Dragon suit he’d retro-engineered.

“Yeah,” she said defiantly. “I got on to Vicky, and Mom, and Dad, and Uncle Neil. They’re all on the way here right now, and they’re gonna cut your stupid suit into little tiny bits, then Vicky’s gonna punch your stupid face to the other side of your head. So you better get lost right now, or my family’s gonna put you in such a world of hurt you won’t even believe it.”

It took him a few seconds to decipher the scrolling graphs and multicoloured readouts that the software gave him, then he smiled. “Nice try, kid. You’re not bad at bullshitting, but my software says you’re lying through your teeth.”

“Hey, who are you gonna believe?” she demanded. “Some stupid software, or your own ears?”

“I’m going to go with the software for now,” he said smugly.

<><>​

Glory Girl

Vicky flew as high as she dared, while still being able to keep an eye on what was going on below. She wanted to get back to helping people, but Amy took precedence; all day and every day. Even with her newfound independent streak, Vicky only wanted the best for her. And there was no way in hell Vicky was going to let some power-suited assdouche kidnap her and get away with it.

She thought for a moment she’d seen something, but when she swooped closer it turned out to be a mailbox that someone had decorated with Christmas lights. In April. Shaking her head at the idiocy of some people—only in Brockton Bay—she gained altitude once more. Ames, where are you?

Her phone rang, and she snatched it out. If that was Amy, she was going to get such a talking-to, for scaring Vicky so much. After she’d rescued her sister and turned the assclown who’d taken her into a living testament regarding how many bone fractures a person could survive at one time. I figure two hundred six. One per bone. For starters.

“It’s me.” Carol Dallon’s steely tones came across strongly, cutting Vicky’s questions off before she could properly voice them. “I know where she is.”

Vicky skidded to a halt in midair. “What? Where? Is she okay?”

“The Director made me promise not to go off half-cocked, so you need to make me the same promise before I tell you.” Brandish’s voice was uncompromising. “She says she has people in the area, and they’re working on a rescue plan. No matter what our differences are, we can’t risk dashing in willy-nilly and endangering Panacea’s life.”

“Definitely.” Vicky nodded her head rapidly. “Totally. Team player, that’s me. Where is she?”

“Our latest information says Saint is holding her at the northern ferry terminal. Sarah and the other two are heading that way, but they’re coming from the south side of the city, so they may be a few minutes.”

“I can’t wait. I’ll meet them there.” Shutting the call down, Vicky stuffed the phone into a pouch, then turned to get her bearings. Northern ferry terminal … that way. Seconds later, she was slicing through the air on the way to her destination.

If he’s hurt her, I’m gonna feed him his own power armour, one piece at a time.

<><>​

Purity

Kayden just had Aster settled when the phone rang in the living room. Tiptoeing from the bedroom, she closed the door just as the receiver was picked up. When she headed through into the living room, Theo was holding out the phone. Max, he mouthed silently.

Taking the phone from him, she held it to her ear. “Hello, Max.”

The firm, commanding voice was one she knew very well indeed. “You’re home, I take it?”

“Given that you called my landline, yes.” Kayden had found that a certain percentage of her customer base preferred landlines, so she kept hers paid up. “Why?”

“It might be a good idea to stay in tonight. Just a heads-up.”

She sighed. Even when he was trying to do her a favour, Max still came across as a controlling asshole. “And why might that be? I don’t do bombs. Everyone knows that.”

“That’s part of it, certainly, but the other part is that Panacea was abducted from Brockton General Hospital earlier tonight. Right now, every Protectorate and New Wave cape out there will be even more trigger-happy than normal. Any villain showing their face will be a target.”

Kayden gritted her teeth. “I keep telling you, I’m trying to be a hero. If I keep working at it, they’ll figure it out sooner or later.” Then what Max said caught up with her. “Wait, what? Abducted? By who?”

He sounded amused. “Not if they choose not to figure it out. If they want to see you as a villain, a villain is what they’ll see you as.” And of course he’d ignored the question.

“Max.” Her hand squeezed the receiver tightly, and light leaked from between her fingers. “Who. Abducted. Panacea?”

“Well, it wasn’t any member of the Empire Eighty-Eight, of that you can be sure.” The amusement was still in his voice. “We aren’t that stupid. All the Undersiders did was rob a bank while she was present, and my moles in the PRT report that there’s a lot more attention being focused in that direction than before.”

Getting information out of Max when he didn’t feel like giving it had always felt like pulling teeth. “Do your moles also know who took her, and where they went?”

“That hero complex of yours is certainly getting some exercise,” Kaiser said with a light chuckle. “You never worried this much before about the good guys.”

“Yes or no, Max. Just answer the damn question.” He was absolutely infuriating when he had something she wanted, dangling the information just out of her reach. And he had to know how much it pissed her off. Everything was a power play with him, she reminded herself. Everything.

“Well, to be honest, one of them did hear a whisper that it was Saint, of the Dragonslayers. And that he’s holed up with her in the northern ferry terminal.” Max’s voice turned serious. “You aren’t about to do something stupid, are you?”

She didn’t bother answering him as she dropped the receiver back onto the cradle. Turning to where her stepson had gone back to the sofa, she said, “I’m going out. Watch Aster for me.” Without waiting for a reply, she powered up and went out the window at full speed. The rest of New Wave she couldn’t care less about, but the afternoon and evening she’d spent talking with Amy Dallon had awakened her maternal instincts.

If you’ve hurt that sweet girl, Saint, they won’t find enough of you to bury.

<><>​

Panacea

The PRT were good. They were trained for this sort of thing, Amy could tell. But there was only so much sneaking that could be done against someone who had high-powered sensors built into the mech he was piloting around.

The first she became aware of them was when Saint grabbed her and pulled her close to him, then pointed at an otherwise unassuming patch of shadow. “You there!” he bellowed. “Show yourselves!”

Even when the trooper stepped into plain view, he was almost invisible; the urban-camouflage pattern on his armour broke up his silhouette to an impressive degree. He held a containment-foam sprayer in his hands, and there was a rifle slung on his back. “You’re surrounded, and the capes are on the way!” he called out. “Give up now before things get too complicated.”

Saint seemed to ignore his words. “And the rest of you!” he shouted. “I want you all in plain sight!”

“He’s right, you know.” Amy felt a slight loosening of the tension in her chest. So they got my message. Awesome. “There’s sixty or so capes in the city. I’ve healed maybe half of them. How do you think they’re going to react if you threaten to hurt me?”

“They won’t do a damn thing that’ll risk you getting hurt,” Saint retorted. “There’s nothing they’ve got that’ll get through this armour fast enough to stop me from snapping your neck, and they know it. And the first one that tries something and gets you hurt will be in a world of shit from everyone else. So nobody’s gonna do anything to help you.”

A chill went down her back. Even through the electronic filtering, his voice sounded absolutely implacable and set on his path. She’d seen racists, killers and junkies before now, but she’d never met a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic. Even the Nazis had their limits.

“We’ve never met before, yeah?” she asked. “I mean, you’ve never fought New Wave that I remember, and I’ve never actually run into you before.”

“No,” he said curtly. “You’ve never healed me either, so don’t get any hopes up that way. Pulling a thorn out of a lion’s paw belongs in kids’ stories.”

She sighed, as best she could within his grip. “I wasn’t going there. I just wanted to make the point that we’ve never met. I’ve never personally done anything to you. So why are you willing to maim or kill me, just to get Teacher out of the Birdcage? What’s so important about him? What do you really want him for?”

“He’s more important than you’ll ever understand,” Saint replied bluntly. “He’s the key to saving the world, and those blind fools locked him away like a common criminal.”

“Well, not like a common criminal, surely.” Amy had no idea where this was going, but she tried to keep her voice reasonable. “Common criminals don’t go in the Birdcage. How’s he going to save the world?”

“I could tell you, but then the PRT would have to kill you,” he said. “They’ve been keeping the secret for years now, but they don’t see the danger. Only I can see it. It’s better for your own good that you don’t know.”

This was definitely starting to get into tinfoil-hat territory. Amy tried to think of something to say to the scary guy holding her hostage, but was distracted by a sun-bright glow sweeping in over the rooftops. “Wait,” she said. “That almost looks like—”

“Purity!” It was Vicky’s voice, coming from another angle. Amy’s sister flashed in over the two of them, then came to a hover in front of the Empire Eighty-Eight cape, blocking her way forward. “If you’re working with Saint, you can go crawl back under your rock.”

“What? No!” Purity sounded confused and annoyed. “I’m not working with him. I came to help you get your sister back unhurt.”

“What the fuck?” Saint didn’t sound happy at this. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Purity’s a villain, right?”

“Technically speaking.” Amy spoke absently as a great many connections clicked together in her mind. Kayden Russel was a cape; that was for certain. She and Amy had spent hours talking, and despite her efforts to sound even a little different, the intonations were unmistakable. “We actually know each other fairly well. And think about it. The heroes will only arrest you. You think she’ll stop there?”

“Fuck. She’s not one of those capes you said you healed, is she?”

“I’ve helped her in the past,” Amy retorted smugly, and entirely misleadingly. Assisting with a purse snatching wasn’t the same as healing, but it was still ‘helping’.

“Fucking Brockton Bay.” The head of the armour suit shook ponderously. “You’re all fucking insane here. America’s biggest open-air asylum.”

Amy didn’t even bother trying to point out Saint’s particular brand of crazy. This was a man who was convinced that a Birdcage inmate was the only way to save the world. “Nobody asked you to come here.”

“Shut up. I’m trying to think.”

<><>​

Glory Girl

“You can’t be serious.” Vicky shaded her eyes from the glare as she confronted the Empire cape. “What do you really want with my sister?”

“Just to help.” Purity wasn’t shouting, or even raising her voice too much. She was simply talking. “Panacea is one of the few purely good things in this city. Out-of-town capes don’t get to just come to our city and threaten her. You may not know this, but I’ve split from Kaiser and the rest. I’m trying to be a hero. Let me help, please.”

The pleading tone in her voice was the weirdest thing of all. Empire capes were good at being arrogant and angry, occasionally both at the same time. Sometimes they were smug and superior. But they didn’t beg. It was so far outside Vicky’s experience that she couldn’t parse it.

“Well … just hold back, all right?” Vicky lowered her voice and looked down at where Saint had her sister by the arm. “She can’t heal herself, so we’ve got to get her away from him before we take him down.”

“I think you can fly faster than me, and you’re definitely stronger.” Purity sounded tense. “If you get the chance, you scoop her up on a flyby, and I’ll make a crater out of him.”

Vicky raised her eyebrows. “I like the way you think.” The Empire villain—ex-Empire, if she was telling the truth—might be a racist bitch, but her heart was in the right place when it came to protecting Amy. “All we need is some kind of distraction.”

“Yeah. I don’t suppose you arranged something with the PRT guys first?” From the tone of Purity’s voice, she didn’t expect the answer to be in the affirmative.

The irritating part was, she was right.

<><>​

Saint

Events were rapidly escalating out of control. The PRT troopers had moved out of cover once he’d challenged them, and they weren’t close enough to foam him down—even if containment foam would be strong enough to immobilise the suit, which he doubted—but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Glory Girl was on site, along with Purity. The New Wave hero had a reputation for recklessness and headstrong action, and the Empire villain had a reputation for being able to wreck buildings. Worst of all, they were working together, against him. What’s the world coming to?

If he waited any longer, he suspected that one or the other would try something stupid, or more capes would show up and pull off something that he couldn’t counteract. How they’d found him so quickly he had no idea, but he had to do something. With an eye-flick, he redialled the call to the Chief Director. As before, the call was answered within two rings.

“Saint.” Her voice was steady and uninflected. “It’s only been an hour. The arrangements are still being made.”

“I’m changing the deal,” he said. “Teacher gets out now, or Panacea gets hurt.” As before, he didn’t want to do it, but he had to weigh the fate of the world against the life of one teenage girl.

“Let me consult with someone for a moment.” She cut the call, leaving him listening to dead air.

He blinked. “What the hell?” he murmured. “Does she even care that she holds your life in her hands?”

For the first time, Panacea tried to struggle from his grasp, but he held her tightly. “You said twelve hours!” she protested. “You said!”

“Hey!” shouted Glory Girl. “What the hell is this?”

He prepared to fire up his flight systems. “This is you learning why you don’t mess me around!” he shouted. “I gave you every chance to—”

“Stand down, Saint.”

The new voice came from above all of them. He looked up, along with Panacea and Glory Girl, to see Alexandria descending like an angel of doom, a large rectangular object tucked under her arm. Involuntarily, he swallowed; he’d never encountered any members of the Triumvirate before, which was one of the main reasons that he was still a free man.

“Keep back!” he called out. “Even you can’t move fast enough to stop me from killing her if I wanted to do it.”

“Oh, I’m not here for that.” Her tone was grimly amused. Taking the object from under her arm, she spun it around and flicked a switch. It lit up, revealing itself to be a lightweight flatscreen, about three feet by two. “I’ve got someone here who has a message for you.”

He cut in the magnification and stared at the screen; two faces looked back at him. Teacher and Marquis. They were both dishevelled and looked a little the worse for wear, but Marquis still wore his bony armour and had a distinctly sharp-looking spike of the same material tucked up under Teacher’s chin. His hand was planted firmly over Teacher’s mouth. It was clear who was the victor and who was the prisoner.

“Saint.” Marquis’ voice was clear and sharp. “Release my daughter immediately, or Teacher dies.”

“You’ve got it backwards!” Geoff tried to keep his desperation out of his voice. “Let Teacher go now, or Panacea dies!”

“If you harm my daughter in the slightest, Teacher will be dead and you will never get access to his power again.” Marquis’ voice was implacable. “Let her go and surrender, and there’s a good chance you’ll end up in here with him.”

Under normal circumstances, he might even have considered that, but it would put him in a place where he wouldn’t be able to stop Dragon if she decided to go rogue and destroy mankind. “No!” he shouted. “Let Teacher go now!” He flexed his fingers, preparing to break Panacea’s arm. They’d take him seriously once she started screaming.

The suit’s arm refused to work. He stared at the HUD as malfunction warnings began to pop up, one after the other. “No,” he muttered. “No.” Reaching around with his right arm, he bashed the offending appendage on the shoulder joint …

<><>​

Glory Girl

… and Vicky watched with disbelieving glee as the suit’s entire left arm fell clean off, just missing Amy as she skipped aside. Saint reached for her, but she backed away. When he took a step forward, the left leg crumpled under him, the metal bending and shredding like papier mâché.

“Go!” shouted Purity, slapping Vicky on the back. She didn’t need another reminder; lunging forward as fast as she could, she intercepted Amy’s retreat and hoisted her into the air.

As soon as they were safely out of the way, Purity unleashed a spiralling blast that punched into Saint, driving him into the ground. After a few seconds, she let up on the attack, leaving a smoking crater behind, slowly filling with seawater. Of the suit, there were only a few forlorn metal scraps to be found.

“Nicely done.” Carefully, Vicky approached her, making sure not to startle the powerful Blaster. “And thanks for your help.”

Purity may have nodded. “You’re welcome. Your allies will be here soon, so I’d better be going.” Flying straight up into the air, she arced over and rocketed west across the city.

<><>​

Panacea

Watching the glowing form recede into the night sky, Amy shook her head. “This has been one shitty night,” she said. Gesturing downward, she asked, “Think he survived?”

Vicky snorted and shook her head. “Not a hope in hell. What’d you do to his suit, anyway? I’ve never seen a powersuit’s arm just fall off like that.”

Amy took a deep breath. “I, uh, got hold of some bacteria and re-engineered it to eat metal. Then I infected my phone with it and tricked him into spreading it all over his hand and his foot. Don’t worry, I made sure it’ll die off in an hour or so.”

As Lady Photon flew into view, along with Crystal and Eric, Vicky raised her eyebrows and stared at Amy. “How come you never told me you could do this?”

This was something Amy had been wondering as well. “I guess because it didn’t really seem the right time or place. Like, ever.”

They gradually drifted down to where the PRT troopers were investigating the crater. Vicky let Amy down on to her feet as the officer in charge approached them.

“Glory Girl,” he said. “Panacea. You both okay?”

“We’re both fine,” Amy said, a moment before Vicky could. “Where’s Alexandria? I wanted to thank her.”

The trooper shrugged. “By the time Purity finished making Saint into a hole in the ground, she was gone. Guess she had better things to do.” He paused. “That really was Purity, right? I thought she was a bad guy.”

“What’s this about Purity?” Sarah Pelham landed beside them, while Laserdream and Shielder circled overhead. “Where’s Saint? Amy, are you all right? What happened?”

Vicky grinned and shook her head. “Aunt Sarah, trust me when I say it’s a long story.”

<><>​

Mags

Unseen by everyone, she turned her suit and slowly flew away. Out of Brockton Bay. Away from the man she loved. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do now, but Geoff had been wrong. Dragon hadn’t been the danger. It had been his own obsessions, all along.

<><>​

Marquis

“Alright, we’re done here.”

Marquis took hold of Teacher’s shoulder and walked him out of the common area, in the direction of Cell Block T. Teacher didn’t struggle or resist; he’d learned that much, at least.

“So, where do we go from here?” asked the fat man.

“Back to your cell block,” Marquis said easily. “I let you go, you forget this, and I don’t have to kill you. Alternatively, you send someone to take revenge, and the next time I kill you. Your choice.”

“You killed three of my men.” It wasn’t so much a complaint as a comment. Testing the waters.

“You nearly got my daughter killed.” Don’t even try it.

“That wasn’t my doing.” Teacher’s tone was certain. “If we leave things as they are, there’s an imbalance. Other cell blocks will see me as weak. There’ll be probing attacks. Or they may see you as a threat, try to cut you down. Either way, peace is out the window. And it’s your fault.”

Marquis snorted and shook his head. “If they come for me, they won’t walk away. If your men come for me, you won’t walk away.”

“You’re not understanding me.” Teacher’s tone was lecturing, almost patronising. “Unless there’s a visible concession from your side, there’s no chance of peace. You have to redress the imbalance, once and for all.”

Marquis tilted his head thoughtfully. “I suppose you have a point. If I don’t make some sort of gesture, things will never settle down.”

“Exactly,” Teacher said eagerly. “I’m glad you can see—”

That was as far as he got before the bone spike punched into his throat, then expanded into a blade to slash his carotid arteries. He fell to his knees, hands going to his ruined throat as redness spread down his chest. Choking and gurgling on his lifeblood, eyes wide, he tried to ask a question.

“Gesture made,” murmured Marquis, disintegrating the bone weapon. He turned and started back the way he had come. As he went, he hummed a tune that had been popular fifteen years previously.

Behind him, Teacher slowly fell over.



End of Part Eight

 

Hostage Situation

Part Nine: Sweet Release

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



Director Emily Piggot

PRT ENE

The three-way video call was conducted under the highest of security protocols. Emily locked her office doors, blanked the polarisation of her windows, and activated the white-noise jammer to prevent the opportunistic gathering of data by bouncing a laser off those same windows. Finally, she sat down at her desk, muted her phones and logged into the secure call.

The split-screen that came up showed the Chief Director on one side and Dragon’s avatar on the other. This gave her a hint as to which way this was going to go, but it didn’t ease the production of butterflies in her stomach any. Talking with one’s boss about highly sensitive matters was never a situation that led to happy thoughts.

At least, she thought sourly, the hostage had been rescued and the bad guy had not gotten away. Virtually nothing else had gone to plan, though.

“Director Piggot, Dragon.” Costa-Brown seemed almost chipper, a state of affairs that indicated someone was due a very bad day. “I understand you both have news for me.”

“You first, Director Piggot,” Dragon said formally. “Mine isn’t about to change anytime soon.”

So that was the way it was. Emily cleared her throat and resisted the temptation to check her appearance in the tiny image of her in the top-right corner of her screen. As she’d been advised long ago, she focused her attention on the camera while she was speaking, letting her peripheral vision cover the faces of her interlocutors. It wasn’t as though she was going to get any important information from their expressions; Dragon used the same computer-generated image she used everywhere, and the Chief Director never gave anything away that she didn’t intend to.

“Panacea has been rescued, alive and well,” she said bluntly, putting the best news right out in front. “Saint, who was holding her captive, was killed when he refused to release her and then threatened to harm her. His body was unrecoverable, but DNA testing of the fragments found after the fact point toward him genuinely being dead.”

She knew damn well Costa-Brown would’ve been filled in on exactly who had obliterated Saint so very thoroughly, but the woman sat expressionless, neither asking a question nor filling in the blanks.

Dragon, on the other hand, showed interest. “Not that I’m debating your methods, Emily, but reducing him to fragments while he was already wearing a powersuit seems to indicate that a certain level of overkill was involved. Which of your heroes pulled that one off?”

“It wasn’t one of our heroes, exactly.” This was the part she hadn’t been looking forward to, not in the slightest. “Her name’s Purity. She’s a known member of the Empire Eighty-Eight. What she was doing there, and why she took Panacea’s side, we’re still trying to figure out. As far as we know, there’s been zero connection between the two before tonight. Panacea has certainly never espoused white-supremacist leanings.”

Dragon’s avatar looked pensive. “Perhaps she didn’t want to see the healer get hurt? Some villains aren’t as dedicated toward hurting people as others.”

Sourness twisted in Emily’s guts. “I’ll grant you that she isn’t as much of a mad dog as Hookwolf, but she’s been Kaiser’s big hitter for years now. The Empire doesn’t do ‘nice’.”

“Hmm.” The Chief Director looked thoughtful. “I believe I read a report recently that said Purity was trying to rebrand as a hero, and that she was focusing her ire on the ABB. Do you perhaps think this was her way of trying to reinforce that image?”

Where Costa-Brown had gotten that report, Emily would never know. She was damn sure she’d never issued one like it. “I’d take any report like that with a grain of salt, Chief Director. Unless and until Purity is ready to give herself up and face justice, she remains a criminal at large, and the PRT will treat her as such. She doesn’t just get to walk away from all of that.”

“And yet she stepped up anyway, when she had every reason to stay away,” Dragon pointed out. “I’m not trying to pre-empt you on how you do your job, Director Piggot, but perhaps that rates some level of consideration?”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Emily said, though she didn’t mean a word of it. Dragon didn’t live in her city, and didn’t have to deal with the ration of shit that she had to wade through on a daily basis. Purity was a villain; trying to evade justice for her documented crimes by attacking the people she normally would’ve been fighting anyway did not rate a free ride to becoming a hero. Yes, Panacea was safe, but from the way that suit had been collapsing at the end, Glory Girl probably would’ve gotten her clear no matter what.

Still, the death of Saint only solved half the problem. “What do we do about Teacher? He has to have left other disciples here and there. Saint was only the first. How long before the next one shows up and tries this same stunt again?”

Dragon cleared her throat. “Uh … that won’t be a problem. Teacher’s dead. Marquis executed him about fifteen minutes after the standoff was resolved.”

“You mean ‘murdered’.” Emily’s tone was harsh, even in her own ears.

“Executed.” Dragon’s voice was firm. “Director Piggot, they’re in the Birdcage. Their human rights were legislated away so that they could be locked in a box where we have consistently denied them virtually every convenience of modern civilisation, including the benefit of law enforcement. We cannot then complain when they make and enforce their own rules, or even arrange for their own conveniences. In there, might makes right. Teacher thought his words held more sway than Marquis’ bone blades, even after his ‘student’ had threatened Marquis’ daughter. He could not have been more wrong.”

The Chief Director nodded thoughtfully. “I can see where that could be a problem. It sounds like he couldn’t see past his own arrogance. Not an uncommon failing among Thinkers.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Emily said dryly. “We don’t have any dedicated Thinkers on the team here.” She glanced at the notes she’d made to herself. “Not to change the topic, but did either of you happen to see from the footage at the scene how drastically Saint’s powersuit failed at the end there?”

“I did.” Dragon’s tone was thoughtful. “It seemed as though the metal and plastic had simply rotted away. I thought you might know the reason for that happening.”

“Somehow I doubt he used substandard materials in his suits,” Costa-Brown mused. “Could it be something Panacea herself did? After all, there are organisms in nature that attack metals and plastics. Could she have created some, just for this purpose?”

For some reason, that particular chain of reasoning hadn’t occurred to Emily. Panacea was the nice safe fluffy healer who everyone seemed to forget about, even when she was known to be able to cure cancer at will. She wasn’t edgy, she wasn’t dark; even her name sounded like the sort of medicine that tasted unpleasant but you took it anyway because it did you good. Everyone knew who she was, kind of, but the only ones who really cared belonged to the infinitesimal fraction of the population who had an illness or an injury that only she could fix. Name recognition wise, she sucked.

Now Bonesaw, everyone knew that name. It was evocative. Whenever the Nine attacked somewhere, it was easy to see what Bonesaw had been doing. Her picture was everywhere, usually with the words “Kill Order” attached. It was getting so that girls with curly blonde hair were getting dye jobs before going to school, and nobody wore that cutesy style of dress anymore. Her name recognition may have been entirely negative but it was out there, in spades.

The idea that a nonentity cape (and wasn’t that a contradiction in terms) such as Panacea could create and disseminate bugs at will that were able to eat plastic and metal, and hadn’t informed the PRT that she could do it, was fundamentally terrifying. A mental image of Brockton Bay crumbling into dusty ruins, the PRT building falling apart beneath her, rose implacably in her mind. It was only by an effort of will that she didn’t start planning the evacuation of the building, starting immediately.

“If … if she could really do that, why wouldn’t we already know about it?” she asked, trying to sound mildly curious rather than severely rattled.

“Perhaps she never really bothered before,” Dragon ventured. “Or maybe she didn’t know she could until she tried. She only really heals people, doesn’t she? Cures diseases, fixes injuries.”

“Well, that’s all she’s done up until now,” Emily confirmed. Though she was damn sure going to be keeping a much closer eye on the wallflower of New Wave from here on in. “Maybe it was a reflexive action?”

“That doesn’t actually make me feel any better about it,” the Chief Director said dryly. “What if she does that every time she feels threatened?”

Emily didn’t like that idea in the slightest. A moment later, her memory was jogged and she shook her head. “No. She was caught in a bank robbery just a day or so ago. Somehow she got into a physical scuffle with one of the robbers and was hit on the head. We would’ve been informed if there was any signs of plastic or metal deterioration in the bank. Which means it’s deliberate. It has to be. She can create them at will.” All of a sudden, she realised she liked that idea even less. “Oh, god. Her father.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too.” Dragon’s voice had a tinge of concern, which Emily thought was a little overwrought. It wasn’t as though the Tinker had to live in the same city as Panacea. “She’s already expressed concern that we might be stonewalling her. If she decides that this is the case, knowing that we could return her father to her and are simply choosing not to … we may be facing a somewhat worse case than a simple end to quick and easy healing.”

The mental image of Brockton Bay crumbling around her returned. It wasn’t a pleasant one. “Chief Director, any suggestions?”

The Chief Director didn’t look any happier than Emily felt. “On the one hand, she’s an exemplary hero who’s helped many people and has never had even the slightest scandal against her name. However, on the other, she now wants something from us that we’re reluctant to give her for several very good reasons. Worse, this new revelation means she has us somewhat over a barrel. Instead of just losing the option of convenient healing for our respective Wards and Protectorate heroes, a continued refusal of her request means we face the potential threat of sending North America straight back to the Stone Age as our technology crumbles around us.” Costa-Brown steepled her fingertips before her. “Of course, we could simply checkmate her by incarcerating her in a facility where she can’t use her powers to escape without killing herself in the process. We still lose the healing, but we also get to keep our society intact.”

“You’re talking about Birdcaging an innocent girl for a crime she hasn’t even threatened us with yet, much less committed,” Dragon said tensely. “Without so much as a trial or any kind of representation? The outcry and backlash would be catastrophic.”

One perfect eyebrow rose. “If it becomes necessary, the rest of the world needs never know what actually happened. The PRT’s public facing records say what we want them to, and no more.”

Dragon shook her head, her lips tight. “You misunderstand me. Such a thing would be illegal in so many ways I’m not bothering to count them. There would be outcry and backlash, and it would. Be. Catastrophic.”

The message was clear. Dragon would scuttle any such attempt to Birdcage Panacea. Emily wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or unhappy that the option had been taken away.

From the twitch of Rebecca Costa-Brown’s eyelid, she may have been irritated. However, she covered it up well. “Understood,” she murmured, her voice only barely being picked up by the microphone. “I’m not even going to bother positing a Kill Order, then.”

Emily spoke before Dragon could. “Even if you did, I’d never sign off on it. No matter the sins of her father, she’s innocent of all his wrongdoing. No more heroes are getting murdered on my watch, if I can help it.” Fleur had been bad enough. If the PRT simply decided to execute capes because they were too scarily powerful, when would it end? And what if the capes decided to strike back?

“Which leaves us with the sole option of releasing Marquis,” Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown said. “With all the attendant fallout that entails. You do realise that once we open this can of worms, it will never be closed again, yes?”

Emily took a deep breath. “Chief Director, when I took this job, I knew damn well that hard choices would be part of it, and sometimes there’d be no good option. So I’m taking the least bad choice. Yes, I know there’ll be fallout from people learning that it’s possible to get out of the Birdcage. But if Panacea’s life or freedom is the cost of keeping that secret under wraps, it’s not one I’m willing to pay. We’re just going to have to put on our big-girl pants and deal with it.” She paused for effect. “Ma’am.”

“What she said,” Dragon added unexpectedly. “This will change little, really. There have been conspiracy theories for years that people could be released, but nobody can simply use force to compel me to do the deed. And if anyone does try …”

The Chief Director nodded. “We can Birdcage them instead.” She raised her eyebrow again. “Unless you have a problem with that, Emily?”

“Not in the slightest.” Emily snorted, happy to be back on comfortable ground. “If they want to ask for trouble like that, they deserve everything they get.”

“In that, we’re agreed,” Dragon stated. “I’m just glad we don’t have any other prisoners related to potentially problematic heroes. One is far more than enough to deal with.”

Emily snorted. “Just be glad you don’t live in the same zip code as her. Now I’ve got one more reason to go to bed every night wondering if the damn city will still be there in the morning.”

“Well, we’ve exhausted all the other alternatives,” Costa-Brown said. “We’re just going to have to make the best of this one.”

By ‘we’, Emily knew, the Chief Director meant ‘you’.

Because that was the way the world worked.

<><>​

Purity

“Well, I wasn’t sure what I expected, but that sure as hell wasn’t it,” Max said. Bending low over the golf club, he tapped the ball and sent it rolling along the expensive carpet toward the waiting coffee mug. “What were you thinking? That maybe she’d see the light and join the Empire Eighty-Eight?”

Though his tone was mostly sarcastic, Kayden knew better than to treat it as a joke. “No,” she said, just as the ball clinked into the cup. “We met on the Boardwalk, out of costume. She’s a nice kid. Aster likes her.” She decided not to mention Amy’s issues with Kaiser, in case he decided to try and take advantage of them. Because of course he’d go there. Taking advantage of perceived weaknesses in others was his ground state of being.

“Well you saved her, so there’s that.” He tapped the cup with his foot, causing the ball to roll out again. Using the putter, he sent the small white sphere trundling away across the office floor, then nudged the cup so it was lined up again. “Now New Wave owes us a favour. Nicely done.”

“I didn’t do it for that!” she snapped, her temper starting to rise. “I see her as a friend. You don’t hold things like that over the heads of friends.”

“Well, I don’t consider her a friend,” he said flatly. “And like it or not, your name’s still linked to ours. As far as everyone knows, the Empire Eighty-Eight just saved Panacea’s life. I’d be a fool not to capitalise on that.”

“You’ll be a fool if you try,” she retorted. “Panacea’s not stupid. She’ll be fully aware that it wasn’t at your behest that I saved her.”

He took his attention off the golf ball and raised his eyebrows. “Wait, are you saying you unmasked to her?” Before, he’d been playing with her. Now, she had his full attention. “Do you have any idea what damage you could’ve done to the rest of us?”

“No, I didn’t unmask, you idiot.” She shook her head. “But we talked for hours, and I helped her up after she stopped a guy from stealing my bag. If she can see what’s wrong with someone, she can see my corona pollentia. It wouldn’t be a huge leap of logic from there. Especially after I went and helped Glory Girl save her from Saint, afterward. But at the same time, that makes her far less likely to rat me out. Because she’s a decent human being. Unlike some people I could name.” She glared at him, daring him to refute her.

He grimaced, utterly ignoring her insinuation. “Damn it. Still too much of a danger. What if she’s as smart as you think, and she adds two plus two and gets ‘Max Anders is Kaiser’? She doesn’t owe me her life …” He paused, frowning.

Oh, shit. What’s he got in mind now? “Max, whatever scheme—”

Suddenly, he brightened. “Actually, you know what? She really does owe me her life. If she’s as honourable as you think she is, we can hold that over her.”

Kayden shook her head; his thought processes were too twisty for her to follow. “What the hell are you talking about? She owes you nothing. But if you’ll just listen to me—”

“Oh, no, she owes me everything.” He grinned, showing his teeth, and pointed at her. “You need to speak to her. Let her know that if I hadn’t told you about the standoff, you wouldn’t have known to go there. I saved her life.”

“So, just because you accidentally acted like a decent human being for once in your life—” she began acidly.

“Do we really want to go there?” he interrupted. “If she outs me, then there will be backsplash on you, no matter whether she puts the finger on you or someone else does the same math as I just did. You just know the first thing they’d do is take Aster away. So, while this is all up in the air, it might be better if I take her for awhile. I’ve got family she can go and stay with out of the line of fire, after all.”

She glowered at him helplessly. He always knew how to set his verbal traps, and she always walked into them with her eyes wide open. “Okay, fine,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll talk to Panacea.”

“Good.” He beamed at her. “I’m glad we could come to this arrangement without any kind of unpleasantness.”

I’d like to show you ‘unpleasantness’. Just for a moment, she fantasised about powering up and blasting him across the room, but he no doubt had a precaution set up against that as well. So, like she always had, she nodded in agreement with him. “You promise to leave Aster out of it, and I’ll make sure Panacea doesn’t spread anything around about you or the Empire.”

“That should be perfectly acceptable,” he said, and bent over to address the golf ball again. “Close the window on the way out, will you?”

One of these days … But today wasn’t to be that day. “Sure, I can do that.”

By the time she was out on the window ledge, he was fully engaged with the putt. Closing the window harder than was absolutely necessary in the vain hope of putting him off his shot, she powered up and stepped off the ledge. Normally, she would’ve been looking forward to getting in touch with the teen healer again, but Max’s demand had made even that feel just a little grubby.

It was, she mused as she flew off, typical of the man.

<><>​

Coil

Something dramatic had taken place in Brockton Bay the night before, and Thomas Calvert didn’t know exactly what it was. He wasn’t referring to the Tinker bomb spree perpetrated by Bakuda; that was something he had a depressingly large amount of information about. His Undersiders had fought Bakuda the day before, and Skitter (as the PRT had dubbed her) had been injured by one of her Tinker tech devices. Tattletale had called it a 'pain bomb'.

With their leader behind bars, the ABB should by rights have backed off and quieted down. They didn’t have access to the sheer weight of manpower the Empire Eighty-Eight could call on, and Bakuda (despite her unnervingly widespread bombing campaign) could not project the same power and menace that Lung could. But they weren’t, and he suspected he knew why. Bakuda was planning to spring Lung from captivity before he could be sent to the Birdcage, and the ongoing unrest was cover for that.

After all, that was how he would’ve done it.

As a serving officer in the PRT, Calvert knew his duty lay in reporting these suspicions to a superior officer, so that adequate precautions could be implemented. Of course, he was going to do nothing of the sort. His personal ambitions overruled any duty he technically owed to the PRT. So the ABB wanted to cause havoc across the city? Let them. Even if Lung was broken free, it still served his purpose of making the PRT ENE office under Emily Piggot look weak and ineffectual.

But all of this still did not explain why Saint of all people had made a solo trip from wherever he normally laired in Canada, just to abduct Panacea for several hours. Or why none other than Purity had shown up to assist with the rescue, which the after-action reports had described with dry language that translated to “turned him into a crater”. Or why some of the troopers on site had mentioned Alexandria showing up while others hadn’t. Or what she’d done when she did turn up, if it wasn’t to help rescue Panacea.

None of it made any sense, not even the bit where a couple of troopers had reported Saint was apparently trying to hold Panacea hostage with the aim of having Teacher released from the Birdcage. Where Saint had gotten the idea this was possible (or that it was even a good idea) or why he’d picked this night to do it, Calvert didn’t know. The most irritating aspect was that he knew there was information that had been redacted from the after-action report he was cleared to see, but he couldn’t make out the shape of it from what was still there. Someone had done far too good a job at sanitising the information for his liking.

Still, that was why he’d spent good money assembling his Undersiders as a team. Tattletale could be excessively irritating at times, but her Thinker talent had proven invaluable to him time after time. She just had to be managed properly.

Bundling up the after-action reports, including the few photos that had made it in—stills from trooper bodycams—he sent the whole file to her, with a concisely worded instruction to find the missing pieces of the puzzle. He could’ve tried to hack his way into a higher clearance bracket, but he wasn’t actually a hacker. As a final resort, he could abduct and interrogate someone who was in the know, then discard that timeline—he'd done it before, more than once—but that was time-consuming, and torture for actual information was less fun than it sounded. Having Tattletale dig up the information for him was both a good way to keep that agile mind busy, and freed him up to do other things.

In the other timeline, he saved the information to a thumb drive, stored it in his pocket and carefully deleted it from his computer, then contacted Tattletale and set her to finding out the same information but without the datapacket getting involved. If her queries drew official attention, he was better off not being in the line of fire. He hadn’t gotten this far without cultivating a certain amount of paranoia as a survival trait.

Tattletale would get back to him when she had something. He set himself to other tasks. A PRT strike squad didn’t run itself, after all.

<><>​

Panacea

Sitting at the kitchen table, Amy carefully prised open the cell-phone packaging and extracted the handset from within. They usually had half a dozen of these stocked in the house, given that superhero work could be hard on phones. Carol had worked out a discount deal with the supplier, allowing them to use New Wave’s name in their advertising.

Using her fingernail, she teased out the tiny drawer that held the SIM cards, then picked up one of the two cards from the table beside her. She’d extracted them from her phone before she sabotaged it to screw Saint over, because all her numbers and most of her phone data were on them. The metal and plastic eating bugs had worked better than she’d expected in the end, and she’d spent a couple of anxious hours watching and listening for news that the ferry terminal was collapsing into the ocean, but it seemed the killswitch she’d built into the bacteria had worked just fine.

One at a time, the SIM cards slotted into the drawer then she closed it again, sticking her tongue out just a little with her concentration. The almost inaudible ‘click’ when it slid into place was music to her ears. Then she plugged the phone in to charge and pressed the startup button.

The phone lit up, indicating that it had over sixty percent charge, which worked for her. Smoothly, she navigated through the menus, making sure to designate different ringtones for the two SIM cards. One was her private number that she only gave out to people she trusted, and the other was her public number for charities and the like. She was always careful when answering the second number, because there seemed to be an endless supply of whackos out there. Even when she gave the phone to Vicky or Carol so they could scream at the person on the other end, there was always a new creepy stalker in a week or two.

Finally, she was done. With a sigh, she got up from the table to make herself a snack. The phone stayed where it was, still plugged in and charging. She’d just got the bread out of the fridge when the phone rang.

Amy paused, frowning. That was kind of odd. It was her ‘friends and family’ number, and everyone in her family knew she was home at the moment, recuperating from last night’s kidnapping ordeal. While there were still people in the hospital who’d been hurt by the bombs, she didn’t think it was them calling her. Once she’d prioritised the ones that the doctors had no way of helping and the basic medical cases were all that was left—shrapnel, burns, crush injuries, broken bones—she’d gone home. While she could help them, so could the doctors, and they were usually pretty good at respecting her space.

Putting the bread away again, she went back to the kitchen table where the phone was still ringing away merrily. One glance at the screen cleared matters up somewhat, but not totally.

Why is Ms Russel calling me now?

Several answers came to mind; she’d been hurt in the bombings, she knew someone who’d been hurt, she wanted to make sure Amy was okay …

The phone rang again. Amy picked it up and swiped the green icon across. “Hello?”

“Hello, Amy.” She recognised the voice. “It’s Kayden, from yesterday. How are you feeling?”

Kayden was being cagey, Amy realised belatedly. While Amy had made the leap of logic to connect Kayden to Purity with relative ease, the older woman had to suspect but couldn’t know for certain. She doesn’t want to accidentally unmask herself if I hadn’t already figured it out.

“Oh, I’m fine now,” she said, then paused deliberately. “Thank you.” Yes, I know. No, I’m not going to do anything about it.

The pause that came across the line told her that the message had been received loud and clear. “Oh, that’s good.” Kayden was clearly a past master at disguising gratitude as enthusiasm. “Listen, I wanted to have a chat in person about something. If that’s okay, I mean. Are you busy? I should have asked that first.”

“Sure, I’d love to. No, I’m not busy.” Amy thought for a moment. “Where do you want to meet? There’s Challenger Park near my place. I can be there in ten minutes.”

“That sounds perfect,” Kayden says. “I’ll bring Aster. I know she’ll love seeing you again.”

Amy smiled. “The feeling’s mutual. See you there.”

She ended the call and scribbled a note to leave on the fridge.

Just gone down to Challenger Park to meet a friend. Back later.

– Amy.

That essential chore taken care of, she filled a plastic water-bottle and picked out a light jacket because the weather was warming up, put her sneakers on, and headed out the door. The stroll to the park was pleasant, a gentle breeze countering the warmth of the sun. She took the time to wonder what Kayden wanted from her but decided that she wouldn’t judge until she’d heard the older woman out. While she was certain Kayden Russel was Purity, she also knew the older woman was a loving mother and had put herself in danger of capture to save Amy.

I’ll just wait and see what she says.

When she got to the park, there was another family there already, but Amy quickly dismissed them as being anything to do with Kayden. There was a father and mother with three small children who seemed to be fascinated with the plastic slide, scrambling up and zipping down with shrieks of glee. Glancing around, she went and sat on one of the swings, idling pushing herself backward and forward a little as she pulled out her phone and checked for new messages. Nothing as yet, which was good.

Kayden didn’t arrive as a blaze of light from the sky as Amy had been half-expecting, but in a very suburban-mom style station wagon. So mundane was the vehicle that Kayden had gotten out and was lifting Aster’s carrier from the back seat before Amy recognised her.

Amy got up and went to meet her, smiling at the sight of Aster’s gurgling face. “Hey,” she said, then bent down to greet the infant. “And hello to you, gorgeous.” With the side of her index finger, she wiped drool from Aster’s lip, a gesture she knew full well was futile at best. At the same time, she checked the baby over. As expected, Aster was in good health; not overly hungry, and she wouldn’t need her diaper changed for awhile. “Have you been good for your mommy?”

“She’s my little angel,” Kayden said with a smile. “She slept well last night. Being down at the Boardwalk must have tired her out.” She started over toward a picnic table, and Amy followed her.

Glancing at the other family, Amy saw that the children had moved onto the now-unoccupied swings. They were definitely too far away to be able to overhear anything if she and Kayden kept their voices down. She picked a bench and slid into it; Kayden put Aster’s carrier on the table and sat opposite Amy.

“I guess now is the time where you say, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here’.” Amy gave Kayden a grin. “Because I’m not gonna lie, I am kinda curious.”

Kayden smirked at the reference, but Amy saw there were stress lines around her eyes. “I came here to ask you a huge favour.” She paused, then facepalmed. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that you must have about a thousand people a day, asking you to do them the favour of healing their hangnails or something like that.”

Amy nodded. “It’s not quite that bad, but I have gotten so many of those in the past that I’ve had to cut them all off. ‘Nothing personal, but nothing personal’, as Carol puts it.” She wasn’t quite sure why Kayden’s eyebrows went up at that, but suspected it was because she referred to her mother by name instead of ‘mom’. That was fine; so long as Kayden didn’t ask, she didn’t have to answer.

“I can totally understand.” Kayden sighed. “People think capes have got it made, and they just don’t understand the pressures on us, do they?”

This, too, was a test. If Amy hadn’t yet figured matters out, she would’ve said something like, what do you mean, us? But instead she nodded. “All they see is the power, and not the person behind it. Do you ever feel that way?”

“Oh god, do I ever.” Kayden rolled her eyes expressively, then took a deep breath. “So. You’ve figured out who I am.” It wasn’t a question.

Amy met her gaze squarely. “Unless I’ve totally missed my guess, you’re Purity.”

Kayden nodded. “Yeah.” The word came out in a gusty sigh. “So. The favour.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Amy admitted. “Who in the Empire Eighty-Eight is so injured that Othala can’t fix, that you think I’ll agree to help out?”

“Nobody.” Kayden leaned over the carrier and brushed some of Aster’s hair away from her eyes. “I’m not affiliated with the Empire anymore. I’m trying to cut ties with them. Turn hero.”

Amy’s jaw dropped. “So that’s why you teamed up with Vicky to take on Saint last night!”

Kayden shook her head. “No. That’s not why I did it.” She reached out to boop Amy playfully on the nose. “I did it for you. Because you’re conflicted and you still try to be a good person anyway. I really enjoyed our chat down on the Boardwalk, and I don’t have many friends outside the Empire.”

“Oh.” Amy blinked a couple of times. “Well, truth be told, I don’t have many friends outside New Wave, so I guess we’re square on that regard.”

“We are a pair, aren’t we?” Kayden chuckled sadly. “Both of us pushed into a niche, and trying to force our way out of it.” Aster started to fuss, so she retrieved a bottle from a pouch and gave it to the infant. “There you are, sweetie. That’s right. Better?”

Amy took a deep breath. “Okay, if healing someone isn’t the favour you wanted to ask, what is?”

After taking another moment to ensure Aster was okay with the bottle, Kayden looked up at Amy seriously. “I want you to do nothing. Specifically, with my identity.”

“What?” Amy shook her head. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone anyway. I think you’re a great mom, and Aster’s a beautiful baby. There’s no way I was going to call the PRT on you.”

“But would you call them on Kaiser?” Kayden raised her eyebrows. “You don’t owe him anything.”

“Well, no, but … oh. Oh.” Amy finally got it. “You and him … you two were actually together while you were second in command of the Empire Eighty-Eight? If I looked into it, I could figure out his identity from yours?”

“We were married, yes.” Kayden nodded. “I’m not telling you anything you wouldn’t have figured out for yourself. I’m just asking … don’t follow it up. Or if you do find yourself with that information, don’t tell anyone. Please?”

Amy nodded. “Right about now, I’d say something about the unwritten rules, if I thought Kaiser cared about them for half a second.”

That scored a wince from Kayden. “I’m sorry about your aunt. That should never have happened.”

“No.” Amy had been too young when Fleur died to know her all that well, but the memory still raised a pang. “It shouldn’t have.” She wondered if the punk who’d done it—they’d tried him as a fucking minor, for fuck’s sake—was still strutting his stuff in the Empire Eighty-Eight. Making himself out to be a big man, when all he’d done was kill an unmasked cape by surprise. Or had he spoken out of turn to the wrong guy, and ended up in a shallow grave? She guessed she’d never know.

Kayden didn’t say anything. She just watched Amy’s eyes, probably trying to figure out which way Amy was going to jump on this.

Before she replied, Amy glanced around. The family was still playing on the swings, the kids calling to their father to push them higher.

“I should be cutting Kaiser no slack at all,” Amy finally said. “Yeah, I know he wasn’t the one who actually murdered Aunt Jess. But if Kaiser had half an ounce of the honour he pretends to have as leader of the glorious Empire Eighty-Eight ...” She paused to catch her breath. This had been a sore point with her family for a long time.

Kayden nodded sympathetically. “I understand. Someone who does something like that should have no place in the ranks of the Empire. But just between you and me, Kaiser is a big believer in lip service over the real thing. He’s all about the big speeches, but there’s remarkably little substance when you take a closer look.” She grimaced. “And I would agree; to hell with him. But he’s got leverage on me. And if I step too far out of line, he’ll use it.”

“Leverage?” Amy frowned, puzzled for a moment, then caught Kayden's glance down at Aster. “Ah. He's able to take Aster away from you? Can he do that? Legally, I mean?”

“He’s her father, and he’s got a dozen lawyers on retainer who could paint me as the second coming of Elizabeth Bathory.” Kayden shook her head. “And that’s just if I told him to go to hell without outing him. If he’s outed and I’ve got anything to do with it, Aster either gets taken away by the authorities or by Kaiser himself. He’s got people he can place her with, where he’ll be able to raise her according to his own twisted standards.”

Amy looked down at Aster who was now peacefully dozing, the bottle discarded to the side. She imagined the baby’s distress if she were to be suddenly separated from her mother, never to see her again. It was a scenario that cut a little close to home for her. Purity was known as a supervillain, but she was trying to become better than that. Dad’s a supervillain too, and he's willing to walk away from that life for my sake.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Kayden. “Okay, I won’t look into him. But if I ever get a chance to get to him in any other way, I won’t hold back.”

Kayden smiled. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

<><>​

Tattletale

“Oh, he’s got to be kidding.” Looking over the images in the data packet, Lisa shook her head. There was information to be gleaned there, but whoever had done the sanitising had been very, very thorough. This meant the information she was trying to pry loose had been deemed secret at the very highest echelons in the PRT ENE building.

This was the very worst possible time for Coil to send a puzzle her way. With the ABB causing problems on the streets, they couldn’t go out and so she didn’t have anything to distract her from going down some problematic rabbit holes. Worse, everyone on the team was walking wounded; Rachel was suffering from fractured ribs at the very least after being used as a punching bag, and Taylor was laid up at home with the concussion and the aftermath of the pain bomb. Alec and Brian had also suffered their share of battlefield injuries. She herself had a lingering headache due to overuse of her powers.

In addition, if she tried to follow up on any leads by tapping into PRT databases, there was a better than even chance that they would have enhanced computer security looking for just such an intrusion. She’d have to rely on her native skill, not her power, for a lot of it if she didn’t want to risk a crippling migraine. And with the traceback software that Dragon could no doubt supply, Armsmaster would be kicking in the door before she was halfway finished the hack.

Long story short, she was going to have to slow-walk this if she was to a) gather anything resembling actionable Intel, and b) not end up in a cell. All of this with Coil breathing down her neck, looking for results.

Yay.

Heaving a sigh of resignation, she started going through the after-action reports.

<><>​

Marquis

“Explain it to me like I’m an idiot,” Cinderhands said quietly. His tone was respectful, but he was being more persistent about it than Marquis was comfortable with. “You beat Teacher fair and square, for … whatever reason you had for kicking his front door in. We all thought things would go back to the status quo, with maybe Teacher paying you tribute to not do it again. But then you murdered him.”

“I had my reasons.” Marquis didn’t look up from his book. There was a certain greyness to the page that intrigued him, and he didn’t want to miss whatever was coming next.

“Yes, we get that.” From the tone of his voice, Cinderhands was starting to lose a little of his patience. “But then you just … walked out of there. Left them leaderless. We could’ve kept Cell Block T if we’d known you were going to do that. Gotten in on the ground floor. Now everyone else is pushing and shoving to establish a foothold in that block, and we could’ve been there first. I just want to know why. Why did you do that, just so you could throw it all away?”

The greyness was moving now, forming words. Spelling out the plan. It wasn’t a plan he was in love with, but at a certain point one had to make a leap of faith. Carefully closing the book, he stood up and stretched. “Perhaps I have come to a realisation,” he said quietly.

“A realisation? What sort of realisation?” asked Cinderhands.

“We’re rats in a cage,” Marquis stated, gesturing at the room around him, and by inference the Birdcage as a while. “Very intelligent rats in a very complex cage, but rats in a cage all the same. Have you read about Calhoun’s work on rat populations, putting them in a closed system and watching their societies evolve? It’s quite chilling.”

“We’re smarter than rats,” Cinderhands said; in Marquis’ opinion, a reflexive statement.

“Are you certain about that?” Again, Marquis indicated the prison around them. “We all knew this place existed … well, most of us did. And yet, a good number of us still committed crimes that got us placed in here. So much for vaunted human intelligence.” He shook his head. “No. When it comes to reacting socially to others, we’re no smarter. Calhoun placed his rats in a closed system with ample food and water, and room to expand. Seven generations later, the colony went into an inevitable decline as they drove themselves to extinction with self-destructive social behaviours.”

Cinderhands spread his hands. “Okay, so what does this have to do with you killing Teacher and then letting everyone else grab the scraps?”

“Maybe I’m tired of every day being like the last one,” Marquis said. “Maybe I don’t want to be part of the inevitable decline. Maybe this was the beginning of my inevitable decline. I decided that Teacher had to go down, then I decided he had to go all the way down. And do you know what I learned from this?”

“Tell me.” Cinderhands watched him carefully.

“That nothing I do in here matters. Certainly, we could’ve kept Block T. We’d be staving off others from attempting a run on W as well as T, and we’d be watching the survivors of T in case they tried to sabotage us from the inside. In the end, it would solve nothing. There are no prizes. We would still get our supplies.” He shook his head. “I’m so very tired of the endless treadmill.”

“Listen, maybe you need to step back and take a breath. Go and get a woman, get laid.” Cinderhands was trying to speak casually, but Marquis could tell he was concerned. “Sleep on it. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“Yes. In the morning.” Marquis could hear the sarcasm in his own voice. “I don’t even know if morning is actually ‘morning’ anymore. Hell, I’m not entirely sure what year it is.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to my cell. Pass the word. Nobody is to disturb me.”

“Boss—” Cinderhands stepped toward him, concern on his face and in his voice.

Marquis hardened his tone. “I said, I am going to my cell. Did I stutter?” He hated doing this to his old friend and subordinate but there was only one ticket out of the Birdcage, and he was riding it all the way to the end of the line.

Cinderhands flinched. “Okay. You got it, boss. See you later.”

Marquis nodded once, curtly. “Yes.”

He turned and left the common room, striding along the corridor toward his cell. People peeked out, but his air and attitude were sufficient to ensure that nobody bothered him. As he stepped into the space he called his own, he ran his hand up the doorframe, feeling the smoothness of the metal doors embedded in the concrete frame.

There were doors in the Birdcage, but none that could be operated by the inmates. All doorways were open by definition. The only way for a door to be triggered was if the exterior of the Birdcage was breached—which it could be, with almost ridiculous ease—and exposed that area to the vacuum outside. Or at least, that was the running theory.

He’d heard stories of people trying to break out through the cell wall; these had invariably ended with the steel doors sealing off that cell. When the doors retracted once more (usually within twelve hours) the cell was once more pristine, and there was no sign of the inmate.

Some had proposed hopeful theories that the inmates had actually escaped, but very few put stock in those.

And yet …

Stepping into his cell, he surveyed the sum total of his worldly belongings. A few bone sculptures he’d liked enough to not destroy (and which would be useful if anyone attacked him in his sanctum), a couple of pen and ink drawings of Brockton Bay, and a bookcase he’d fashioned from one of the crates. Nothing he’d miss, when it came down to it.

There was a line of bone across the floor, just inside the doorway. He exerted his power over it, and formed a latticework across the doorway that would give people the illusion that he’d sought privacy. Then he opened the book again, holding it so that nobody outside the cell could see what he was doing.

The words had changed again.

IT’S TIME.

Closing the book, he placed it on the bookcase. Then he took a deep breath, held it for a moment then let it all out. As he generated bone plugs within his ear canals, he inhaled again and again. Continuing to hyperventilate, he held out his hands. Bone spikes grew out from his fingers and intertwined into a haft which then formed a large head on one end.

Curling his fingers around the haft of the warhammer, he swung it against the outer wall of the cell. The tremendous booming thud was muffled by the earplugs, but cracks spread anyway. Still, the wall held. He took another deep breath as distant yells rose from outside the cell, then swung again. Another thud, then a deep cracking sound. The yells grew louder, even past the earplugs.

On the third swing, the wall shattered altogether. Chunks of concrete spun out into the void, pushed by the irresistible wind whistling through his latticework. He broke the bone away from his hands and discarded the hammer and closed his eyes, feeling himself picked up and tossed, spinning over and over. At some point he lost the outward-going blast of air, and he assumed that the steel doors had shut behind him.

His lungs had been almost empty but he kept his mouth open anyway, allowing the gas in his gut to escape in a long belch. There was also pressure down below but before it could become unbearable, something grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him sideways.

<><>​

“… and in other news, following an incident in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Centre, the supervillain Marquis has been confirmed dead …”



End of Part Nine