11

Chapter 11

I, Panacea

Part Eleven: Stations of Canon

Wait.

What?

I said wait. There was something else that you needed to do before we go in.

What's that?

Bugs. Lots of bugs.

But Taylor – I mean Skitter – already has a swarm with her.

Remember what I told you on the bus? The sorts of bugs you can make?

I … I've never done that sort of thing before.

Actually, yes, you have. I saw you do it. It just wasn't you, that time.

… that doesn't actually make any sense. Although she knew it did, in a really weird way.

There was a sigh inside Amy's head. So tell me what part of this does.

… you have a good point.

She heard Vicky clearing her throat, and looked up guiltily. "Sorry, what?"

"I was just asking you if you're ready to rock and roll," Vicky told her. "You were a million miles away."

"I, uh, just thought of something I had to do," Amy replied. She looked toward Skitter. "What sort of bugs do you have here?"

'Here' was a shadowed alleyway just across the road from a construction site. Amy wasn't sure why they were here, but this was where Lisa had led them to.

"Uh, hornets, honeybees, wasps, brown recluses, black widows, fire ants -"

Amy cut her off. "I'll need some beetles and hornets."

"How many?"

She pushed her sleeves up. "As many as you can give me. Land them on my arms and hands."

Tattletale suddenly looked very intent. "He's told you something, hasn't he?"

"'He'?" asked Glory Girl. "Wh- oh, right. The guy in your head, right?"

Amy nodded. "Yeah."

"This is still very weird, and not a little creepy," Vicky decided. "What's he told you?"

"Stuff," Amy replied. "Lots of important stuff." Already, beetles of all sizes were descending upon her upturned arms and hands, interspersed with large hornets. She couldn't see them at all well – the alley was ill-lit – but as they touched her skin, she registered each and every one.

What should I make?

Think about what she's going to need them for. That should inform your choice.

Ah, right. She recalled which bugs he'd told her she could make. Visualising them, she could see the steps to making it work. Okay, yeah, I think I've got it.

Good. He paused. Now, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but you are okay with this, right? I get the impression you're still not so sure about helping supervillains.

Sure. I'll make the bugs but I'm taking away their ability to breed or eat, plus their aggressive instincts. I don't want Skitter to have them for too long.

That sounds fine. So long as they work here and now.

She frowned, wary at his easy acquiescence. You aren't going to give me a speech about how I should be more trusting?

Do you not actually trust her, or are you doing this to see how I react?

I – She paused. I guess it's a little bit of both?

How did you expect me to act?

To, I don't know, tell me that we don't have time for this crap, and remind me how well Taylor and I got along on the bus.

Listen, if you still don't trust her, if you don't trust the Undersiders, I can't make you trust them. It's as simple as that. You're still going through with this, and making the bugs. So long as you're comfortable with your motivations in the matter, I'm good with this.

And the bugs?

If you change your mind, you can always make more that can breed and eat – though I'd advise you to put the breeding function solely under Taylor's control. We don't want them escaping into the wild.

His reassurances steadied her. That's a good idea. She took a deep breath. Okay then. She began altering the hornets; it was only a small modification, and she finished with each one in seconds.

"What do they do?" asked Skitter quietly, and Amy jumped; the dark-clad girl had moved up right alongside her.

Amy explained briefly. "You can use them for -"

"Oh, I get it," Skitter told her. "I definitely get it. Thanks – and thank him for me, too."

She stepped back, almost merging with the shadows; the bugs that Amy had finished with were taking wing and flying over to her, landing on her and disappearing.

Are they in her hair?

And a compartment down her back, yeah.

Ew. I don't know if I could stand that.

She was kind of grossed about it at first, but got used to it.

Amy considered that. She takes a lot of this in her stride, doesn't she?

She's got what some would call a low-end power. She thinks a lot about how to leverage her ability. You just gave her some really, really good levers.

Am I going to regret this?

A lot less than you would have regretted certain other choices you're never going to make, now.

Amy let that slide; once she had finished with the hornets, she turned her attention to the beetles. Some of them she took apart with her power and merged together into larger specimens; then she started modifying these as well. It was an interesting modification, one that she wasn't sure she would have thought of on her own.

She was only a few moments into it when Grue cleared his throat; the sound was a hollow echo, the skull-detail of his visor seeming to hover in midair. "Just waiting around like this is a bad idea. If Coil has external security, or even just cameras -"

"He doesn't," interrupted Tattletale. "Leave her be. What she's doing is going to increase our chances of success considerably."

"You mean we didn't have a good chance of success before?" asked Regent sharply.

"It was good," Tattletale told him. "Just not fantastic." Her phone rang; she answered it, turning away down the alley for a little privacy.

Amy paid little attention, working on creating more useful bugs out of the ones that Taylor was landing on her arms. Michael said little; she got the impression that he was watching the process in sheer aesthetic fascination.

Tattletale returned. "We don't have much time," she informed the group. "Coil's expecting me soon."

Amy's head came up. "What? Why?"

"He wants to ask me about Glory Girl's attack on his house, and subtly question me to find out if I know anything about it," was the candid reply. "After all," she added, apparently addressing the next statement to Vicky, "you and I did have a conversation of sorts in the bank, and I have been known to be persuasive, from time to time."

Vicky snorted. "Yeah, that'd happen."

"How much time do we have?" That was Skitter, standing motionless, almost invisible in the dimness. The greys and blacks of her costume blended with the shadows, almost as well as Grue's did; the only thing that spoiled it was the yellow lenses of her mask, which tended to catch the light. In a way, they were even creepier than Grue's skull visor.

"Couple minutes," Tattletale told her. "I didn't tell anyone because time wasn't of the essence. We were heading here, after all. But now it is. So I'm telling you."

Amy concentrated, working on converting bugs while she spoke. "So the plan's still roughly the same?"

"Roughly, yes," agreed Tattletale. "But now we've got a Glory Girl to hit things till they fall down." From the tone of her voice, Amy just knew she was grinning that irritating grin.

"Yeah, well, right now I'm considering getting some practice in." Vicky was already on edge; it didn't seem like it would take much to push her over the edge.

May I?

Feel free.

"Tattletale. Do us all a favour and don't irritate the Alexandria Junior." Amy heard her own voice, with much more of a snap than she usually put into it. Tattletale paused and looked around; she obviously knew that Amy wasn't the one speaking. "And Glory Girl, don't let her get up your nose. You agreed to do this. You're a hero; act like it. There's a twelve year old girl to rescue, after all."

Both girls looked at Amy, and shut up; Vicky stepped away from her aggressive stance and came to stand next to Amy.

"You're not normally like this, Ames," she murmured. "Was that you, or -"

"Amy's busy," Amy's mouth replied, just as quietly. "We do not need this distraction. Do your sister and yourself a favour and don't let Tattletale needle you. She does it for fun, you know."

"Do we really need to work with these people?" demanded Vicky in a low tone. "They're villains!"

"Yes, they are, and yes, we do, unless we want Coil to become nigh untouchable, with a drug-addicted schoolgirl at his mercy," Amy heard herself say. "Endbringer truce, remember?"

Vicky gave an aggravated sigh. "I wish you weren't so right."

"I'm in," announced Skitter suddenly.

"What?" asked Grue.

"I've found my way through the air vents. I'm getting my bugs inside right now." To Amy's ear, Skitter sounded very pleased with herself.

"Firearms are priority," Tattletale told her. "Security, how many men does he have?"

"About fifty," Amy's voice replied. "Grue, you're going to need to use your fog once we're in there. They've got powerful laser mounts on their rifles. Skitter, once the attack starts, kill Coil's computer. Shut it down totally. We can extract the hard drive and access it later."

"What – oh, self-destruct, right," Tattletale noted.

"Found his barracks. Found his men. Found him. Found his computer." Skitter paused. "Found the girl."

"What sort of shape is she in?" asked Vicky sharply.

Skitter paused again. "I don't think she's conscious."

"But alive?"

"Yeah, she's breathing."

"Where is Coil, and what's he doing?" asked Tattletale.

"At his computer," Skitter replied. "Looking at stuff. Talking on the phone. Don't know who, don't know what he's looking at. Bug senses are crap."

"Let's go," decided Tattletale.

Amy spoke up. "I haven't done all the bugs I need to do."

"Make 'em on the move," the blonde villain replied. "Much more of this and he's likely to try to get out of the base."

I'll walk you. You concentrate on bugs.

Okay.

Gives a whole new meaning to walking on autopilot, doesn't it?

Oh, ha ha.

Moving quickly and quietly, they crossed the road and entered the construction site. At an almost soundless whistle from Bitch, the dogs – gradually reducing in size, now that she wasn't exerting her power on them – followed along behind. Still converting bugs, with more arriving every second, and the finished ones flying off again, Amy found that she didn't have to pay any attention to walking at all; true to his word, Michael was handling that side of things.

There was a fence surrounding the main area, composed of conjoined panels bolted together; a chain, held together with a padlock, secured two panels, one of which was obviously intended to act as a gate.

Well, that's helpful.

Lisa's got a key.

Without much surprise, Amy saw that this was true; in the stillness, even over the sound of their feet crunching on gravel, she heard the click as the lock opened, then the rattle of the chain being pulled through the opening in the 'gate' panel. Of course she does. She eyed the skeletal building above, what she could see of it against the night sky. I'm guessing that Coil owns this construction site.

Pretty sure you're right. Don't forget, he owns Fortress Constructions.

But they … they build Endbringer shelters.

Indeed they do.

They save lives!

And make him squillions of dollars in the process, let's not forget.

Oh. Yeah. There is that.

Nothing wrong with a bad guy doing something good if he can also pull in an obscene profit in the process. Anyway, how do you think he managed to pull off a Bond-villain base under Brockton Bay?

… he had his own construction company build it.

Bingo.

And used his powers to choose the right timeline to ensure that no-one knew about it.

Handy, yeah?

I'll bet.

They were all inside the construction site by now. Lisa draped the chain back through the 'gate', then led the way to where Amy was waiting alongside a hatch cover; it had some sort of warning label on it, that wasn't really readable in the dim light.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" asked Lisa.

Amy's shoulders shrugged. "Once. But that time I had a bulletproof vest on, and I was being escorted by a PRT guy. Plus, we had Canary, as well as Protectorate and Wards with us." She felt her head turn, as she looked at each of them. "We kicked the crap out of them that time, and hopefully the Travellers won't be in residence." She paused. "Just remember, once we've got Dinah and dealt with Coil, we pull out as fast as we can, and we call in the PRT. And while we're in there, we don't make any noise we absolutely don't have to."

"Because of the Case Fifty-Three in the vault, right?" Lisa's voice was chirpy. "You only gave us a few details before. Got any more?"

"Vault? Case Fifty-Three?" Vicky's voice was startled. "First I've heard of this."

Oh crap, we didn't fill her in, did we?

Nope.

Amy found herself switching her gaze between Tattletale and Vicky. "Like I said, her name is Noelle Meinhardt. She's roughly the size of an elephant or two, and she eats anything that comes near her. Literally; she can absorb anything organic into her body, and once you're touching her, you lose control of your body. You don't come loose unless someone really strong is pulling hard. If it comes to a contest between Amy's powers and hers, Noelle wins. Worse; if she eats something living – anything living – she can spit out a twisted clone of it, one with all its memories and a total hatred of everything it loved. Cloned parahumans also get a twisted version of their powers. So long as she has the parahuman inside her, she can keep spitting them out. If she gets loose, it's pretty damn close to an Endbringer attack. She's also highly regenerative. She survives being literally cut in half at one point."

"What kills her?" It was Tattletale. "Something does kill her, right?"

Amy felt her head nod. "Sundancer's mobile sun. Which is a problem, this time around."

"Why?" asked Regent lightly. "Travellers are villains, they probably need the cash. We pay her, she does it."

"Because she's one of them." Amy heard the grimness in her own voice. "Trickster is in love with her; he will violently oppose any plan to kill her. Even if she's running rampant at the time."

"Good to know." Grue's voice was an almost silent rumble. "Although you might have told us those other details before roping us into this little rescue mission."

He has a really good point there. Amy was somewhat shaken at the description that Michael had given. I don't want to go up against that. Especially as you say that my power is trumped by hers.

Given that our current plan to deal with her is 'let the PRT handle it' … yeah. Good idea. Though I still think the 'make Coil a good guy' concept has merit.

Ew. No. She paused. How do we know that her power beats mine, anyway?

Coil tried, in a timeline he dropped. Apparently it turned out badly.

… how do you know about that?

Same way I know about a lot of other things.

She waited, but he didn't enlighten her. Okay, fine. Be that way.

Thanks, I will.

I think Grue is waiting for an answer.

Oh, right.

She looked up at the tall teenage villain and felt her throat being cleared. "Because they don't really change matters … and because I wanted them to be fresh in your mind when we go in. Just in case." A glance at Skitter. "Have you got everyone marked yet?"

"Just about. I hope the bugs work as well as you say they do."

Amy felt a smile stretch her lips. "Heh. Yeah. They surely do." Her gaze turned to Vicky. "Having heard that … are you still sure you want to come with?"

"Like I said before, Ames," Vicky told her steadily, "if you're in this, I'm in this." She paused. "Quick question."

Amy's head nodded. "Shoot."

"This Noelle person. What happens if I hit her with something else? Like a piece of rebar, or something?"

Amy's shoulders shrugged. "You hit her. But she's got serious Brute ratings."

Vicky's teeth gleamed in a brief smile. "So do I. Thanks. I'm good."

"Good to hear," Tattletale remarked, "because it's time we moved in. Coil expects me in the next few minutes." Lifting the hatch cover with a grunt, she descended a set of steps. One by one they followed her; Grue, the last in, lowered the hatch to the 'closed' position once more.

Within the access tunnel, it was absolutely, utterly pitch black. She heard someone fumbling with something, and then there was a click and a beam of light splashed across the ceiling. Tattletale held a small flashlight; it wasn't that bright, but with her eyes adapted to the darkness, Amy felt that it was bright as daylight. Looking at each of them in turn, Tattletale gestured for quiet, then led the way down the tunnel.

What was it like, the last time you were here?

A lot darker. We were using night vision, and I didn't have a set of goggles.

I suppose this time we're expected. Or at least Lisa is.

Yup. Hoping that makes a difference.

You don't know?

Hey, making this up as I go along.

Yay.

I need to find out what's going on.

With his current project still undergoing the process of addiction, Coil had to fall back on Tattletale. He currently had the timelines split; in one, he stayed in his base, while in the other, he left it and travelled to a safe-house. In both timelines, he called upon Tattletale to attend him.

His rule was to not indulge himself on his powered minions; they were hard to replace. However, in this particular circumstance, he really, desperately needed to get the truth; he was aware of Tattletale's attempted machinations against him, and so he had to find out if she was the one engineering this. If it was, he could find out the full plot and deal with it. If not … well, she was still very intuitive. Give her enough details of the encounter, and the chances were that she could work out the plot, and perhaps even point him toward the perpetrators.

And so, in his base, she would be treated with courtesy and respect. In the safe house, she would be treated … roughly. The answers would be compared, and used on both timelines to elicit farther answers from her. It was a technique that he had polished over time. Afterward, he would drop the safe-house line, so that she would never have been there.

Of course, it helped to have both questioning sessions going on at the same time, so he had timed his orders to Tattletale so that she arrived at both locations at the same time.

He leaned back in his computer chair and waited. It wouldn't be long before he got his answers.

One way or the other.

Tell everyone, small room coming up. Everyone should hang back, so Tattletale can do her thing.

Okay. Amy cleared her throat as quietly as she could. "Small room coming up. Everyone stay back. Tattletale goes in."

Lisa's head turned toward her. "I was just about to say that. You have been here before."

"That's what he says," Amy replied, flushing slightly.

"Okay then. Grue?"

As Tattletale stepped into the room, Grue moved to the front of the group, billowing his darkness around them. Amy understood the idea; it was to prevent the camera seeing them via a chance movement of the flashlight. She just didn't enjoy being in the almost suffocating lack of light.

It's weird stuff. Generated by his power, it acts like gas. Breathable, but absorbs all EM radiation with perfect efficiency. Dulls sound, and old scents as well. And he can see through it, of course.

How do you know so much about it?

Not my first rodeo, remember?

Hmm. She wanted to push the issue further; there was something he was holding back, she was sure. But at that moment, she felt a movement as someone pushed past her. What was that?

That was Skitter. I'd say Grue and her are dealing with the mercenaries on base.

This part of the plan had been detailed already; as Grue could see through his own darkness, and Skitter could use her bugs to navigate, they would move through the base in a cloud of darkness and take down the mercenaries as they came to them. Mired in Grue's darkness, the mercenaries would be out of touch with one another and with Coil; they would neither see nor hear Grue and Skitter coming.

I suppose it's a little bit unfair.

It's a whole lot unfair. But do you know what they call someone who offers his opponent a fair fight when he doesn't have to?

A sportsman?

An idiot. His tone was hard. Coil doesn't deserve a fair fight. He never gave anyone else one. He shot his commanding officer in the back, once upon a time.

Wow, really?

Yeah.

How did that happen?

Well, this was back in two thousand one. Ellisburg. Remember that?

I read about it in school.

Okay then. Calvert was a junior officer in one of the squads that went into Ellisburg …

At first, Coil wasn't sure what was happening. In both his base and the safe house, contact was lost with the guards manning the entrance. And then a swirl of blackness swept in, blotting out everything. He knew, then. There was only one person who could do that, and that person was nominally in his pay.

He had planned for this, of course. It was only sensible to make plans for the possibility of any of his parahuman minions turning against him. Unfortunately, those plans required that he be free and clear in the other timeline.

Drawing his pistol, he fired blindly into the fog, in the general direction of the entrance; his men, as well trained as they were, would also be firing into the darkness, hoping to catch the interlopers in a crossfire.

But his pistol refused to fire at all; investigating, he found that the hammer was frozen solid. No amount of force would allow it to travel back. He tried to work the slide; that, also, was locked solid.

Tossing the useless weapon aside, he turned back to the keyboard. He might not be able to see it, but he could certainly enter the destruct code for the base. There was a secret back way out of the safe house …

In the safe-house, he felt his way along the wall, pushed aside a panel, and stepped into a secret way out. The panel slid back into place; he found his sight clearing, and moved more quickly now. He would have to destroy the base; there was far too much in the way of incriminating evidence there. Pulling out his phone, he sent the destruct signal; as he paused beside the outer panel, he got the return signal that it had been carried out. He pushed aside the outer panel, and found himself face to face with a very large dog.

Something was wrong; the base should have been destroyed by now. That timeline was still active and running. He tried to re-enter the destruct code on the keyboard, but his arms and hands were heavy, floppy, unresponsive. As his other-timeline self was seized and shaken like a rag doll between merciless jaws, he realised with horror that this timeline might be the only viable one left.

Why hadn't the base blown up yet?

As his spinal vertebrae were crunched like so much popcorn between the jaws of the monstrous dog, he shut down the safe-house timeline and reverted to the base timeline. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, save perhaps that they were still dealing with his mercenaries. How they had fixed his pistol not to fire, he wasn't sure. Or disabled his arms, for that matter.

And then his arms wouldn't move at all; they felt almost glued to the arms of the computer chair. He tried to make them obey him, but there was no response, no matter how he strained. But then, ever so slowly, the darkness began to fade away.

His wrists, he saw, were fastened to the arms of the chair with zip-ties. With whatever had been done to him, he hadn't even felt it.

And then the darkness faded farther, and he saw them. The Undersiders; standing in a semi-circle, observing him dispassionately. With them … he wasn't sure. Teenage girls, definitely, wearing dark clothes. One shorter than the other. The shorter one holding Dinah by the hand.

And then he recognised the taller one as having smashed into his house, and everything clicked together.

"Well done," he stated in as congratulatory tone as he could manage. "I'm proud of you, Tattletale. How did you ever talk these two young heroes into helping you?"

"I didn't," Tattletale told him cheerfully. "They came to me. Told us about Dinah."

Skitter stepped forward. "How could you?" she asked bitterly. "You used us."

Coil shrugged, as best he could. Apparently, his best wasn't great. "Villain, remember?" he pointed out. "I needed a diversion."

This was the truth, Amy judged. Tattletale would be calling him on it, otherwise.

"And talking about that," Coil went on, "did you delay the self-destruct or halt it, because if the former, we're all in danger here."

"Self-destruct?" asked Tattletale mockingly. "What self-destruct?"

Amy saw Coil turn his head; the cords leading to and from his computer had been severed. As he did so, several large bugs of what Michael called the 'cutter' type scuttled from under his desk and up Skitter's legs. Although she had to be aware of the creatures, she ignored them. At Michael's suggestion, she had built them with acid glands to better cut through whatever they were gnawing on.

Where did you get that idea from?

Well, last time around, it was your idea.

Oh. She felt oddly pleased.

"Well, then," Coil stated. "How did you disable my firearm? And what did you do to my arms?"

Grue stepped up to him then. "We're the ones asking questions," he rumbled. "And I've got a really simple one."

"So ask." Coil leaned back in the chair, apparently at ease.

Damn, he's a cool one.

Hell yes.

Grue leaned close. "We were told that you bought your powers. Who did you buy them from?"

Amy felt her eyes open wide. Oh shit -

Is it so bad?

Fucking yes.

Before either she or Michael could speak, however, another voice broke in.

"That is a question that you do not need to have answered." The voice was feminine, assured, and held no particular accent.

The group before Coil turned; a woman was standing there, where seconds before there had been nobody. Behind her, as a hint as to where she had come from, a portal in midair was just closing. She wore an immaculate business suit; her dark hair contrasted with her pale skin.

Despite being outnumbered six to one, she seemed not at all concerned by the odds stacked against her.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

End of Part Eleven