Krixwell Liveblogs

My legs burned, my feet throbbed, and I could feel sweat soaking the fabric of my costume where the water I was running through didn’t.  On one block, the water would be only a half-inch deep, but the next might prove to be nearly a foot in depth, adding extra resistance to each movement of my already complaining legs.

Oof.

Really wish you could fly on an insect cloud right about now, don’tcha?

The block after that, it could just as easily be a split-second decision between trying to make my way past the piles of rubble and parked cars and detouring to the next block over.  Which would cost me more time?

In short: Brockton Bay sucks for running these days, especially when you’re actually trying to get somewhere.

If only Bitch and I were on better terms, maybe she could have explained about the Nine approaching her.  If I could only trust her, if she could only trust me, I could have borrowed one of her dogs, and this wouldn’t seem as impossible as it did now.

It really is a shame Taylor’s efforts to bond with Rachel didn’t get the chance to work out before Leviathan happened and the truth about Taylor came out.

But Rachel never seemed to put in any effort to meet Taylor halfway. She does have the whole dog-brain thing going to explain her behavior, but it doesn’t necessarily excuse it.

At this point, it’s getting kind of difficult to sympathize with Rachel much.

“The Slaughterhouse Nine are here?”

“They’ve been here a little while.  Go!”

“Sorry, it’s just, that’s a bit of a bombshell to drop on me like this–”

“The time to deal with bombshells was eight Arcs ago. Shut up and go warn people!”

“I don’t… how?  How do I tell everyone?”

“Tell as many people as you can, tell them to tell as many people as they can.  Now go!”  I hung up, to force her to move sooner and because I couldn’t spare the breath.

The best and worst part of word of mouth: Exponential growth.

My range and fine control were extending.  This not only kept the people behind me in my range for a precious few extra seconds, but it extended my range forward and to either side, adding one hundred people to the total who fell within my range.

Oh hey, range boost time.

I’m not sure Taylor has correctly identified what state of mind relating to her trigger event is causing this. She doesn’t seem to be feeling “trapped” right now, although she does want to be somewhere else (wherever Danny is), but she is in a frantic, worried rush to help people, much like in Extermination. Not so much like Hive, though.

Come to think of it, here’s the main thing Hive, Extermination and this situation do have in common: Large portions of the city were being threatened.

However, I don’t think that’s it, at least if Tattle was right. It doesn’t relate to her trigger event, and in Hive, she was motivated more by escapism than by fighting the ABB’s threat to the city, suggesting it wasn’t really that prominent a part of her mindset right then.

Soon that became two, three and four hundred more.

Niiice.

I was short on breath from the running.  “Emergency.  Shatterbird’s about to hit the city.  Twenty-seven minutes.  Warn the hospital, now.  Convince them.”

On one hand, that might be a difficult task because they have to be a bit skeptical of a random teen giving them a warning most people shouldn’t be able to give, but on the other hand? They can’t afford to be skeptical, especially in this world of capes.

It’s like a bomb threat. They have to treat it as if it’s real, even if they’re skeptical, because losses if it’s fake are much lower than losses if it’s real.

“I’ll try,” she said.  I hung up and dialed Charlotte.

“Skitter?”

“Twenty-seven minutes and change before Shatterbird hits the city with her power.  Spread the word, fast.  Avoid glass, take cover from a potential sandstorm.”

Damn, I didn’t even think of that potential use of it.

Hookwolf was right: Shatterbird’s power is versatile as fuck.

And even this, helping people here, striving to help my dad, wasn’t the extent of my responsibility.  I selected Sierra from my contact list and called her, trusting my bugs to give me a sense of anything I might run into or trip over while my eyes were on the screen.

Probably good to warn them too, yeah.

“Yes?”

“Where are you?”

“Hospital with my parents and Bryce.  You said I could have the night off, that you’d be busy.”

Ah shit.

Hospitals.

Full of people who can’t easily move to cover. Even more importantly, full of glass, in windows and otherwise, a lot of it in devices people need to live and in monitors right next to their beds.

And if Shatterbird’s power really does work on all silicon, then integrated circuits – essential to a lot of modern technology – likely won’t fare well either, breaking many of the devices that could survive glass exploding.

There is a good chance Sierra’s parents won’t make it, among countless others.

But what could I write?  I looked at my cell phone to see how much time I had left. For some, where I had enough bugs and space to write, I told the bugs to spell out ‘Glass explosion 28 min’.

I suppose that works. Tells what needs to be said in a way that doesn’t leave out those who don’t know about Shatterbird and her power.

For the places I didn’t, I spelled out ‘take cover’ or ‘hide under bed’.

Nice.

Thousands of people, a thousand warnings.  I couldn’t be sure that everyone saw or listened and I couldn’t hang back to make things clearer or pass on more detailed information.

This is very much a “do what you can and hope for the best” sort of situation.

It was stupid and selfish, but I had to reach my dad.  Not for any greater plan or for the greater good, but for me.

I don’t blame you, Taylor. Go find your dad.

Because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t.

Aw 😦

I didn’t slow my pace as I worked.  Bugs swept over the surfaces of rooms for any smooth surfaces that indicated glass or mirrors.  I checked bedside tables for eyeglasses and alarm clocks.  If I found glass, a bed positioned too close to a window or mirror, something potentially dangerous on the bedside table or if there were enough attack bugs around, I attacked the residents.

Going for the chase tactic, I see.

Better some mosquito bites than glass shards.

The bugs bit, stung, or momentarily smothered them, covering their noses and mouths, waking them.

Taylor.

Taylor we’ve talked about this.

Orifices are not for bugs.

There were others, too, I was sure.  A part of me was horrified that I couldn’t even keep track of it all.

Hmm…

Park Jihoo might count, but he could be considered to fall under the Bakuda umbrella from the previous paragraph even though he and people like him went unmentioned.

At the very same time, another part of me was just as horrified at the idea that I might not have the ability to pull the trigger, to deliver the venomous payload or drive the knife home.

So much could hinge on that.

Pull the trigger, Piglet.

Yeah, this would be the part that… well, the same part that keeps me from swatting flies, except applied to a human in this case.

I don’t swat humans either.

The inch deep water splashed as I ran, my feet already sore from the impacts against the pavement.  The soft soles of my costumed feet made me quieter when I walked, but it wasn’t fit for running. 

Huh. I suppose she didn’t anticipate how much she would be skittering around while out in costume, due to her power letting her fight from a hidden location, like she started her career by doing against Lung.

How much of my decision just now had been because I didn’t want to kill a man?

Before she went into detail, I figured that would be her primary reason, so this is a question I’m interested in.

To what extent was she justifying not killing to herself?

I was indirectly responsible for the deaths of others.  I’d looked at the information on the capes who’d died during Leviathan’s attack and found Chubster, the fat man I’d failed to save.  Innumerable others had died because we hadn’t been able to stop Bakuda, giving her the chance to attack the city, killing forty-three people and inflicting horrific injuries on dozens more in the process.

Hell, if you allow more layers of indirectness, it can be argued that Taylor may have been a cause of Leviathan’s attack in the first place, unless there’s something to Coil’s hypothesis that he was attracted to Noelle for some reason.

But I don’t think these are cases for Taylor to beat herself up over. She did what she could. She failed, but she tried.

When Thomas, the man from the Merchants, had been bleeding to death, I’d given the order to leave him there to die.

This one, on the other hand…

I don’t think it quite counts as her killing him, but it’s the closest we’ve seen by far, and she was actively responsible for it.