Lung's presence changed everything.
The Protectorate wouldn't start an open fight with Lung on the loose, particularly with whatever Bakuda and Oni Lee had done to disrupt the city. The power outage that had inspired the outpouring of community spirit before me couldn't have been an accident; the sirens I'd heard in the distance wouldn't have been for blackout issues. There would have been bombs, and bomb threats, all over the city — and then Oni Lee would have gotten Lung out of restraints and into the fight, and after that…
The Protectorate might have taken serious casualties tonight already. The PRT surely had. They could both call in reinforcements, and they would be looking to avenge this… but right now, they'd be scattered all over the city, reacting to whatever Bakuda had done, trying to limit the loss of life.
Purity might risk it… but the most she could hope to do is drive Lung off. Hit him hard enough, fast enough, before he became unstoppable… and he'd simply retreat to heal. Pursue him, and unless you got him fast, you just prolonged the fight until he could win it outright. Could I convince Purity to bring in the rest of the E88? It would be elegant — doing extraordinary damage to both gangs with one ploy. But… the white supremacists would have done that on their own, years ago… if they thought they could pull it off. Start a bigger fight against Lung, and he just scaled up faster.
He wasn't invincible — he'd been captured earlier through the use of poison, and luck. A lot of luck. If you got basically every cape in the city together, and kept up indirect pressure and occasional skirmishes… maybe. But how likely was that? The Protectorate, E88, New Wave, Faultline, Coil, the Undersiders, the Merchants… all of them going after Lung at once?
I'd have better luck trying to kill Lung in his sleep with butterflies than putting that coalition together.
They were talking.
"… hope you're pleased with the extraction."
"It served. The vest?" Lung's voice was a low rumble.
"The one you requested for Oni Lee? Here." Bakuda gestured at the vest. Lee silently picked it up and donned it, rearranging some of his knives for better access.
"Lee. Tomorrow, go among the Empire 88, and kill. No less than six places — a threefold price for Purity's insult. If Kaiser or his lieutenants fight you, kill all you can, withdraw, and tell me where they are."
Oni Lee nodded, and departed. I guess he could get away with multiple suicide bombings with his teleportation and short-lived clones, and with a Bakuda-designed vest… the casualties would be horrible. And E88 would respond, would have to respond: this would mean war in the streets. I tagged him automatically — I had no idea how I'd stop him. If I could stop him. Regardless, finding him would be the start of anything I could do.
"The grenades?"
Bakuda clasped her hands, washing them nervously. "Not yet ready — making something the idiot footsoldiers can use has its issues, and…"
"When?"
"I've been implanting bombs into people, giving us new recruits, and working on the big one you asked for, and that's all taken time, that and engineering your escape. But the first batch will be ready tomorrow!" Her voice rose sharply as she pointed at the table, where a few modified grenades nestled next to the unmodified ones.
"Acceptable."
The silence that followed dragged on endlessly, Bakuda fidgeting and Lung still as stone.
Bakuda cracked. "I took care of that bug girl who rotted your crotch off!"
I had done what? Hot tea flowed through my nose, and the next few moments were spent spluttering.
"You did what?" Lung's voice remained perfectly steady, uncaring.
"She was trying out for the Wards, and they used her real name in front of one of our soldiers –"
I couldn't see that Lung had changed expression, but Bakuda cut off.
"… your soldiers. Look, the thing is, I found out where she lived, and I blew her the fuck up."
"I wished to hurt her."
"She didn't deserve you — she wouldn't have put up a fight, she was a coward. That's what she was famous for, among the kids her age: being the kid who was bullied so much her name was a punchline and an urban legend, the story kids used to scare each other with at sleepovers, the one with the locker full of used tampons and the girl who freaked out so bad."
This was a lot more personally insulting than what I'd expected to overhear.
"She was no threat. She won through a trick. I wanted vengeance."
Bakuda was gesticulating wildly by now. "Even if you had sought her out, she'd just skitter away from a confrontation like the insects she used. Like the insect she was! I didn't think you'd want to fight her!"
Skitter? Insect?
"I squished her, and then broke you out of jail! I thought you'd be grateful! What she did to you…"
"I will heal. Could you?"
"What?" Bakuda's expression of bewilderment lasted all of five seconds before a backhand knocked her to the ground.
"She was mine." His voice, which had up to this point never varied its pace or tone, warmed slightly as a hint of eagerness crept in. "That is reason enough." Technically, his bared teeth could have been called a smile.
The look of mixed hatred and terror on Bakuda's face, as she lay on the ground... I was starting to see what she'd meant when she told her victim that Lung had taught her all about how to rule through fear. She was in her workshop. From what I knew about her, she had to have explosives there that could cause extreme damage to Lung, or lock him down for a time, or both. A Tinker with her specialization, in a position of trust, on ground she'd prepared… she might be one of the few capes living who really could kill him.
And she wanted to do just that, wanted badly to lash out in response. Instead, she took this abuse. Because he scared her that much.
Honestly, I could see where she was coming from there.
Lung's face relaxed back into its usual distant contempt, and he laid himself out on the only bed there. Either he thought threatening to kill a woman was foreplay, or he just didn't care if Bakuda had to sleep on the floor tonight. Bakuda went back to the tray of normal grenades, and began painstakingly modifying one in order to add it to the tray of finished product.
The good news was that they thought I was dead. The bad news was that if he learned I was alive, Lung would consider it a matter of personal honor to fix that. That would make him determined. That would make him relentless.
That would make him… predictable.
I could use that, or try to use that, at least. Better than crossing my fingers and hoping he doesn't find out on its own: Lung with the drop on me was a fight that could only end one way.
First things first, though — tomorrow was shaping up to be a slaughter. Was there anything I could do about it? Oni Lee was beyond my range already, and I somehow doubted the busses were running normally. Hell, given the crisis, and chaos, and emergency response issues, it would be hard to search the city even if I'd had my own car. I wouldn't be tracking him down before tomorrow.
Fine — focus on what I could do. Eavesdrop on Lung and Bakuda, I guess. Not as useful as you might think, at least so far. Nothing convenient about their forwarding address, or secret weakness, or anything like that: just a masterclass in how to rule through fear. Not exactly helpful unless I wanted to run my very own criminal organization.
What did that leave me? I could walk away for tonight — I'd literally have to, to make it back to my room at that hotel. The ABB thought I was dead right now (and I silently blessed whomever at the Protectorate had had that bright idea). So: I could continue to provide recon support to Purity. I could probably even bring most of the Brockton Bay Protectorate down on a target… once. After that, foster care and Ward time. With Sophia.
That was the safe play.
Problem was, I didn't want to do it.
While I'd been tracking Bakuda, she'd been breaking Lung out. I hadn't been fast enough, and everything I'd prepared for dealing with Bakuda wouldn't work against Lung. Even if they split up, the only way to guarantee he wouldn't pull her out of the fire… would be to find someone who could beat him or stall him, and if I could do that I could just go after them together.
The two thugs watching the lobby came down, and carried Mr. Park upstairs.
Letting Bakuda keep at it meant letting her continue to implant people with these bombs, use them to ensnare their friends and family… giving her a wholly disposable army to use the bombs she was modifying. The Protectorate could fight the capes. No one was prepared for widespread civilian suicide attacks. Sure, the Triumvirate could come in, and Dragon, and probably Myrddin and Exalt and Chevalier while we're talking about it. But the casualties would still be staggering.
Best case, Brockton Bay would become a war zone.
Worst case... she was apparently working on a 'big one'. I thought back to pre-cape history. Bakuda was a genius with explosives. With a big enough bomb, she could hold the city hostage. She could hold other cities hostage. Mutually Assured Destruction. With enough hostages, could the ABB take the city, stand off the Protectorate?
Probably not forever: Protectorate Thinkers, Tinkers, and Strangers could disarm her bombs, and the precogs could probably see it coming before she finished it. But… she was crazy enough to try it. And I couldn't let that happen.
Oni Lee, on his own, was a vicious killer.
Lung, on his own, was a two-bit gangster… unless you fought him. Then, he was as strong as he needed to be.
Bakuda was the problem — she was the one who could make the ABB more than a street gang. Tinkers: the weakest capes without resources. With them, they could do damn near anything within their theme, and many things outside it.
She was the one who had to go first, and her devices with her… and insects don't eat metal.
I left cash for my meal — and a substantial tip — and stood up, shrugging my backpack on. Those were good reasons for what I was about to do. Heroic reasons. And they mattered. They just weren't the only reasons. Deep in my gut, where I'd been numb, there was a coal of anger.
She thought I wasn't worthy to face Lung? That I'd just skitter away from a fight? That she just had to bully me hard enough, and I'd fold? She'd killed my father because she thought I was a punchline?
She didn't get to win, not tonight.
Not ever.
I made my way through the celebrating crowd outside the restaurant, head down, anonymous beneath my hood. The guy with the three stringed banjo was still going strong, and an audience had gathered around him. The rest of the crowd swirled with conversation and movement, small children running to emptying vats of ice cream for more, older people exchanging greetings and gossip. With all the insects I'd been gathering, with everyone I'd tagged, it was easy to read the flow of the crowd and weave through it without breaking stride. I approached the apartment building…
… and passed on. With what I had planned, I wouldn't need my physical body there.
I felt through the swarms, gathered others from the area, sorted through for which kinds of bugs I wanted to use… and acted. Swarms filtered in through the air vents, as quietly as I could manage. Lung was trying to take a nap, and Bakuda was bent over a table, fiddling with another grenade. Neither reacted for a very long minute. I had a pretty constant flow of insects coming in from the outside, through the vent system. Another major swarm was waiting outside the door, clinging to the ceiling and waiting to drop.
This was as good a chance as I'd get.
I moved for Bakuda first. She didn't notice until the column of insects was halfway up her calves, at which point she shrieked, throwing up her hands and stumbling deeper into the workshop toward Lung, trying to brush them off. I had the flying insects lift off and spread out in a buzzing, humming cloud that ruined visibility. Lung was on his feet, flames dancing around his fingertips — I'd held off on attacking him to try and delay the point where he'd just win outright. Bakuda ran to him, and hid behind him. I kept the insect cloud in the air, and the creeping carpet on the ground, following her… but slowly enough for her to reach him before being engulfed.
"You failed." He cleaned her face with his flame, and it blistered as the insects fell away, stunned or dead. The survivors crawled away to join the curtain of insects that formed a cylinder around Lung — just over arm's reach from him. Bakuda just glared out at my swarms from behind him, but stayed as far away as she could.
This wouldn't hold Lung up for long, and I'd blown my best chance at swarming Bakuda under by letting her reach him. I'd been delaying attacking him, trying to slow his power from taking effect, because we both knew that after he got going, there was nothing I could do to hurt him. Hell, just getting in this fight was probably helping his regeneration along, so he'd probably be healthier after it than before. This kind of slow start was apparently A-OK with him.
It was fine with me too — keeping both of them trapped in the back of the workshop for just a little bit longer was all I'd been aiming for anyway.
Trying to use a Tinker device was normally an exercise in frustration: they were designed by and for people who didn't respect the laws of physics, let alone common sense. But, every so often, a Tinker designed something for the unwashed masses, and then they had to make it usable by mere normals. Bakuda's modified grenades should clear the room, and in a workshop just filled with explosives, well… it would ruin whatever she'd been working on, even if they probably weren't volatile enough to chain-detonate. Might kill her too.
If she hadn't killed Dad, I might even have cared.
Wouldn't be long now: another of my swarms had just engulfed the tray. A little effort and…
Huh.
Pushing the lever and pulling the pin apparently took more force than my insects could muster. That… might be a problem.
I reversed my steps and broke into a jog. Some of the reinforcements were directed to cling to the lintel above the door above the manager's office, in case those two thugs made trouble. And in the workshop… I'd need to buy time.
I formed a swarm-clone a good ten feet from them, where it would be only vaguely visible through the buzzing cloud of insects, and spoke through it.
"She did better than you managed, Lung. Still sitting down to pee?"
He snarled. His face was animated, his eyes alive, and his voice caressed the word "Motherfucker" when he spoke. The flames flickering around his hands were getting more intense, and his nails were visibly longer and more metallic.
I pushed my body into a sprint, shouldering the door to the lobby open and breaking directly for the stairs, taking them two at a time. I was in the stairwell before the two thugs watching the lobby were on their feet, and by the time I'd reached the basement they were thoroughly occupied with trying to wrestle with the twelve pounds of bugs apiece that had dropped on their heads.
The bugs were winning.
I tried to open the door — deadbolt!
The swarm clone turned its 'head' to Bakuda. "You thought I'd skitter away? I'll show you skitter."
So witty dialogue wasn't my superpower — I was trying to get them talking, buy some time. Something.
Anything.
Lung, unfortunately, had his own ideas about clever ripostes, and they involved screaming and lunging with fire trailing from his claws. The swarm clone dissolved under his assault and a lot of the flying insects died. I reformed my decoy in another part of the workshop, with the operating table between it and Lung. He promptly ripped the table in half on his way to my clone, which he also promptly ripped in half.
Bakuda had opened a desk drawer by the bed, and pulled something the size of a breath mint out which she promptly threw into the flying mass of bugs closing on her. A deafening WHUMP later, everything within five feet of where it had been was gone, and I felt a strong, brief, suction from there through the rest of the bugs. She moved through the gap to one of her worktables at a sprint, and started grabbing things off of it; I had bugs crawling on her in an effort to distract her.
The plan hadn't called for stinging or biting — just distraction — and I hadn't brought the more vicious types along in any real quantity. I swore I'd have some seriously venomous bugs along next time, even if I shouldn't need them.
Just in case.
Fun fact: deadbolts take a lot less effort to shift than grenades, and one of my swarms came through. I opened the door, and reached down. The carpet of insects met my hands with the first two of the grenades they were ferrying my way, the rings tied to each other with silk. I squeezed the spoons and pulled them apart. One ring popped out; the other jerked but stayed in.
Lung's head snapped around, eyes focusing on me despite the screen of bugs blocking any normal sight between us. I underhanded a grenade forward, pulled the other's pin and launched it in too. I barely slammed the door on the fireblast he'd launched my way. I formed swarm clones around each grenade and tried to re-bolt the door with a third grouping, while yet another group climbed all over Bakuda and a fifth tried to keep the sightlines blurry and buzzing. I ran for the stairs; my second clone shambled for Bakuda who was readying something that looked like a can of beans; the first clone moved toward Lung and got eviscerated for its trouble.
That just left him holding the grenade when it went off.
The rumbling knocked me off my feet as I hit the ground floor, and I had to crawl-scramble back to my feet before exiting the lobby. Whatever had happened down there, I'd lost a lot of bugs, including all the ones I'd had on Bakuda. I swept them through, and found wreckage and pieces, but it was hard to form a complete picture since they kept registering intense heat and then dying.
I hadn't really thought I'd get Lung anyway.
I'd made it outside, and kept to a steady jog. The moon was brighter for the blackout, and my feet beat a steady tattoo on the pavement to the erratic accompaniment of further explosions in the distance behind me. For so many months, my runs had always led me back to Dad. That wasn't going to happen, not ever again.
But, for the first time since I'd woken up on that hospital bed, I could think of him, see him in my mind's eye, that weary smile and the way he'd look at me over his glasses... and not flinch away.
It really was a wonderful night.