Krixwell Liveblogs

People in this area formed closely knit packs.  They would step up to defend the people they cared about far more quickly and easily than they had with my appeal to help strangers just minutes ago.  I didn’t trust them to remain peaceful if this kept up.

Yikes. That sounds like a recipe for street brawls, and on a larger scale, gang wars or riots.

What the hell was I supposed to do with them?

As lost as I felt in that moment, I managed to look calm.  My bugs gave me an awareness of the situation, and my eyes swept over the scene to get a sense of the mood and what people were doing.

Looking calm is important. It contributes to her air of authority and order and makes people more likely to listen to her.

I spotted a mother picking at one of her son’s wounds, and I realized what she was doing.  I hurried to stop her.  “What are you doing?”

Yeeah, that doesn’t sound good.

Riding the highs and the lows of emotion from the past hour or two, I might have come across sounding angrier than I was.  She quailed just a bit.

Oops.

“He has glass in his arm.”

And if you take it out, it’ll leave room for the blood to come spilling out.

He did.  There were slivers of glass no longer than the nub of lead in an old-fashioned pencil, sticking out of his cuts.

It just occurred to me that on top of all the wounds themselves and the property destruction that’s going to make it hard to find warm places to sleep, there’s probably a high risk of infections from these wounds too. Eesh.

There were more people to pick out of the crowd, more orders to give.  It was all about setting them up so that refusal made them look bad, both to themselves and to others.  Social pressure.

That does sound quite effective.

By the time I’d sent two more groups, some of the others were coming back to be directed to the next few injured.  I gave them their orders.

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Just… not the Bonesaw way. :p

Which only raised the greater problem.  How were we supposed to handle these people who were hurt and waiting their turn?  They were scared and restless.

Handling things after a disaster like this isn’t easy, and for this area, a lot of that burden has fallen on Skitter.

I would probably not know what to do in the slightest.

That unease bled over into their friends, families and maybe their neighbors, who were scared for themselves and the people they cared about.  Already, they were gathering around the ambulances, pleading for help from too small a group of people, who had their hands full saving others’ lives.

Maybe calling in extra help from Coil might work? Even with how much Taylor has already relied on him and how we’ve been talking about there possibly being a limit to how much he’ll accept, this ought to be a special case. In this case she actually needs the help far more than in for example the rat incident.

Some were simply asking the paramedics for advice while keeping a respectful distance, others were demanding assistance because they felt their loved ones were more important than whoever was getting care or attention at that moment.

Of course.

The paramedics couldn’t answer everyone.

They need to be able to focus. Maybe distracting the crowd somehow could help?

Anyway, let’s get back to the chapter!

By the way, before I go:

Happy Norwegian Constitution Day!

Worse, I couldn’t help but feel like he was seeing through the image I was trying to portray.  Seeing the girl behind the mask, who was just trying to pretend she knew what she was doing.

He’d probably like to think he does, at least.

I turned to the next person, a solidly built woman with scratches and the sandburns I was quickly coming to recognize all over her face.  She had even taped half of a sanitary pad over one eye.  It wasn’t my brightest move, but I asked her, “Are you going to whine like a little girl, too, if I ask you to help someone?”

Uh oh.

Dial back the salt a little. You abandoned the bully tactic, thanks to Charlotte. Don’t let the patriarch mess with that.

She smiled a little and shook her head.

…hah! I think she shares Taylor’s opinions on the patriarch. “Heh, ‘like a little girl’! Serves that old grump right.”

“Good.  Go.  Left side of the building.  He’s blind, and there’s nobody else there to help.  I think he might have inhaled sand, he’s coughing pretty violently.  Don’t push him to move too fast or too much.  Take your time walking him back, if the bleeding isn’t too severe.”

A bit of useful information. That helps.

She obeyed, moving off with a powerful stride.  When I looked, R.J.’s dad was gone.

He was stomping off toward the ambulances, keeping the crowd between us, dragging his wife at his side with R.J. hurrying to keep up.

…well. Be that way, see if Skitter ever helps you with your pests again.

Knowing how angry he was, I had to hope he wasn’t the type to take out his anger on his family.

Oh cod. No thanks.

I could absolutely see that being the case, though. I hope R.J.’s going to be okay.

I didn’t want to be indirectly responsible for their pain.

And I just don’t want them to be in pain, regardless of who’s responsible.

Sometimes it seems like who’s responsible is what Taylor focuses on, rather than the pain itself, and given how she treats her various points of guilt, I’m don’t think that’s reading into things too much.

I turned to the next person and stopped.  He was one of the few people with actual bandages on his wounds, and he stood near his family.  Even with the gauze pads strapped to his face, I recognized him from earlier.  Or, to be specific, I recognized the little boy R.J., and I knew this man as his father, patriarch of the rat infested house from early in the day.

Ooh! Hello!

Now, the patriarch was rather critical of Skitter even as she helped out. Maybe he’ll be the first to go down into the scapegoat territory I’ve been talking about? On another hand, he might’ve had some time to think and properly appreciate what Skitter did for his family. But then again, talking in Skitter’s favor might be R.J.’s role, going against his father’s cynicism with youthful optimism.

“There’s a blinded man in the brick building over there,” I told him, facing him squarely.  “Go help him.”

“Why?” he challenged me, his voice gruff, his gaze hard.  “I’m hurt.  If I go, I’m going to miss my turn with the ambulances.”

I get it, but you’re also one of the few people who’ve actually gotten some sort of treatment. If you looked particularly wounded, Skitter wouldn’t send you, even if she wanted to test your willingness to obey. Bottom line, the blinded man needs more help than you do right now.

Asshole.  There wasn’t even a shred of gratitude for what I’d done to help him and his family, and he didn’t even seem to need his turn at the ambulance that badly either.  I had to resist the urge to hit him or set my bugs on him.

You did promise him a fistfight if he wanted one. It’s technically still “after the countdown”.

Or maybe it’s now before the countdown, since the countdown was a count-up and thus went backwards?

That’s how time works, right?