“Can you fill in the blanks?” Coil asked him.

I have a feeling this guy might be a parahuman with computer powers, but he might just be a regular computer wizard.

“Probably.  Will take some time.  There’s encryption.  Good encryption.  Maybe a few days, with the full team working on it?”

Never mind, sounds mundane. Though maybe Tattletale can help them figure out the encryption keys.

“Most likely it is Dragon’s work,” Coil spoke. “Let’s assume it’ll take a week, minimum.  Perhaps Tattletale will be able to assist.”

Coil and I are on the same page about that, it seems.

“Yes, sir.”

“Priority number one, I want the data on the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

Hm, interesting. I guess that makes sense – now that they’ve shown up in Brockton Bay, he’d want to know as much as possible about them.

Besides, it’s possible the Slaughterhouse are going up against Coil rather than vice versa. We don’t know who the corpses were; they could be Coil’s people. That might also explain why the Travelers were at one of the corpsehouses – they may have had something planned with Coil’s people at that location and then arrived to find them hanging on the walls.

I felt a chill, but didn’t say anything.  Was he intending to hire them?  It would be a huge mistake in my book, if he was.

I doubt it, though he does have a precedent for hiring nomadic heavy hitters.

Regent looked at us, shrugged.  “Good enough?”

“She might be mad enough to come after someone else in our group, but yeah.  Good,” Grue said.  “Let’s go deliver the stuff.”

Yeah, but she can’t be sure Regent won’t be near the other members.

■

We didn’t meet Coil in the underground base, and the people surrounding him weren’t all the same uniformed mercenaries that had made up his entourage in our prior meetings.

Hm, alright. So where are we now?

The meeting place was at the south end of the Docks, near the border to the downtown area, and it was closer in appearance to the refurbished, ramshackle building where I’d reunited with the Undersiders than anything else.

Fair enough. I guess the base might still be under repairs after the damage Leviathan did?

By the way, I wonder what Coil thinks of the whole Taylor situation? It seems to be common knowledge in the PRT, so it’s probably just a question of time before he finds out about it if he doesn’t already know.

Wait, of course he knows, he’s the one who told Tattle there was a hero there in Gestation, duh. Never mind.

The building was an old quadruplex, and it had been reinforced with metal panels, sandbags and plastic sheeting to keep the interior crisp and dry, much as the other building had.  Small rooms with bunk beds filled half of the lower level, with a bathroom, kitchen and living room taking up the rest.

Looks like a decent enough place. Not fancy by any means, but better than many of the other buildings around here are these days.

Finding the lower level empty, we headed to the second floor and found an open space supported by two metal pillars.  There were a half-dozen mercenaries with Coil, as well as a collection of people who looked like they had come from every walk of life.

Hiya!

Teenagers, professionals, and two guys that might have been capes – one thin, short guy with brown skin and a tattoo around his mouth, depicting a mess of sharp teeth penetrating the skin of his cheeks and lips.

Sounds like a pretty badass tattoo, honestly.

The other was burlier, shirtless, and wore a rusty, old fashioned looking mechanical rigging around his hands, with a bear-trap jaw plate.  The frame seemed set up to hold metal claws around his fingertips while allowing his hands the full range of motion.   He had a spiked collar of much the same style.

Huh, interesting.

So I highly doubt we’re not seeing these guys again down the road in some capacity or other.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention that if Shadow Stalker does move, and she gets a say in where, she’s probably going to Portland.

She nodded, slowly.  The movement was jerky, which was peculiar.  Was he giving her limited control of her own movements?

Maybe just enough to move her head and nothing else?

“Now let’s walk you off to the other end of the city before I release you.

That’s more like it. I guess the only reason he released her here in the first place was so that he could illustrate this little speech.

I don’t think you’re quite stupid enough to try and follow us, but I think my teammates would be more comfortable if they were sure.”

Yeah, sounds about right.

Shadow Stalker turned and walked through the door.

Bye bye!

He had her raise her crossbow and point it at her temple.  It was a tranquilizer dart, but the meaning seemed pretty damn clear.

Oh shit, yeah, that’s one way to make sure someone doesn’t try anything.

By the way, the Undersiders are rapidly becoming Sophia’s worst nightmares in general. Grue has her pride. Skitter has her identity. Regent has her body.

“Next time I get control?  I’m keeping you for a full day.  Maybe two, if I feel like pulling an all-nighter.  And here’s the funny part,” there was no humor in his voice, “I’m going to do it even if I’m in civilian clothes, if my power tells me you’re in range.  You won’t even know when it’s coming.

Oh boy.

You’re now a liability to the Wards, and you won’t ever know when or where I’m going to get control again…

And there’s a good chance Piggot knows this.

“Unless you leave.  Skip town.  Join another team.”

…huh. Is this going to work?

And just when the Undersiders and Wards had been equalized in terms of member count, too… also, if Shadow Stalker does leave, does that mean Flechette gets to stay here with her needle girlfriend?

And then he did.  She dropped to all fours on the ground, grunting.  A second later, she was loading her bolt, spinning to point her crossbow at him.  She stopped before firing.

I guess he still has some control over her that he can access at will. I wonder if that is a permanent part of her now.

Also, I wonder if there’s a range to it. If he now has permanent access to controlling Shadow Stalker remotely, he’s basically got free access to the Wards HQ until SS alerts Piggot that she was taken control of again.

“There’s a catch,” he spoke. “My power?  Once I’ve figured someone out?  It’s a lot easier to control them, after.  Any time you come near me, I can do this.

Okay, so there is a range to it.

I can use my power and retake control in the blink of an eye.”

Nice. Also, “figured someone out” is interesting wording. It seems kind of like the torture amounts to Regent essentially practicing moving someone’s body parts until he can take full control.

Also, I guess “torture” might not be the right term? For most intents and purposes, though, it seems to have been enough like torture to justify still using the word.

“Sure,” he shrugged.  “Whatever.  I don’t know why you’re arguing with me.  I agree, we should get rid of her.”

Yeah… but how?

“What did you do, back in the old days?” Tattletale asked.

Oh jeez. I have some ideas and they don’t work out well for the victims, even if Regent wasn’t the one to do the deed.

“Kept three people I used regularly, with my sister’s help.  But this is fine.  Look, watch.”

Sister, huh. I guess one with a similar power? Or maybe one that kept the victims from doing stuff while Regent was asleep.

Also, did he cycle through these people according to need, or does this mean he can control multiple people at the same time? He also said “anyone I’m controlling”, which is sort of ambiguous but could include a plural.

Shadow Stalker stood, lowering her hands and arms from around her head, and walked over to the door.  She faced Regent.

“I’m letting you go,” he spoke.

“That’s my third wish.”

So, uh, does that release her? Probably not a good idea to release her right here.

I guess it makes more sense that he’d tell her that so that the real Shadow Stalker will know that when he does lift the control. Before that, though, he should make her walk far away.

“We could keep her,” Imp spoke.

“We kept Amethyst.”

Regent shook his head, “Nope.  There are drawbacks to this, and one of them is that I lose control of anyone I’m controlling while I sleep.

Called it!

Better to get rid of her on my terms than have her trying to shoot me in the throat while I take a nap.”

The electrical cage idea has its problems too.

“And it’s kind of fucked up,” I spoke.

“I thought you were all-in,” Regent said.

Oh yeah, someone mentioned Taylor being uncomfortable with what Regent was doing as one of the pieces of evidence for him being the one controlling Shadow Stalker – back then, I thought she was just referring to the torture, not the intended result of it.

“I am.  But that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” I retorted.  “This kind of mind control-”

“Body control,” Regent interrupted, his tone bored, “Her mind still belongs to her.”

Which only makes it more fucked up, given the “I have a mouth and I still can’t fucking scream” aspect of it.

“Semantics.  This kind of mind control is pretty high up there on the scale of fucked upness.  People are going to respond to that.  It might be the nudge they need to start responding to us with lethal force.

Eesh, I suppose so. That’s not something we want.

Think of how different tonight would have played out if Dragon and Miss Militia hadn’t held back.”

Dragon would’ve been able to pulverize them all with a few shots of the bigger stuff.