Tag: 11.8p2

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“The soldiers there can keep him in line.  I’ll keep him away from Senegal and Brooks.  Minor, Pritt and Jaw could watch him and instill some discipline in him, and they’re uniquely equipped to track him down if he tries to slip away.

Okay, that’s fair.

I’d keep him out of trouble, and have him gather information and act as a pair of eyes on the street.  He’ll hate it at first, with the soldiers giving him a hard time, on top of the missing hand, but I think he’ll take to it once he’s actually doing something concrete.  What kid doesn’t want to be a secret agent?”

Bryce, wearing sunglasses: “Mesa. Bryce Mesa. Lemon Coke Zero, shaken, not stirred.”

Cashier: “…you want me to shake this soda bottle for you, kid? Are you sure–”

Bryce: “It’s okay. I’ve got a license to spill.”

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She broke away from her conversation with Minor and Fish to join us.  “‘Sup?”

“We’re worried the kid will run.  You have any ideas on what would work?”

She shrugged. “What if you give him what he wants?”

Letting him run, stealthily supervised? Crazy enough that it just might work.

Or wait, do you mean the things he felt were missing before running? I guess that makes sense. Feels a little like rewarding him for running the first time, but I guess it’s more being better parents. He’s gotten his punishment. Now it’s time to address the root cause.

“Which is?”

“He wants excitement, he wants to feel like a grown up, he wants respect, and maybe a bit of power at a time in his life he maybe feels pretty powerless, what with losing his house, his family, his safety, all that.”

And yeah, these aren’t unreasonable desires, either.

…allowing him to work with a cape like Taylor could provide some of these.

“Okay.  And we do this by?”

“With your okay, I’d recruit him.”

Oh! Or with Lisa. That works too!

I would like Sierra to stick around, but I don’t care much for Bryce, so I’m totally fine with him being elsewhere but in touch.

“That sounds like a monumentally bad idea,” I admitted.

…but to be fair, Lisa is working with some really sketchy people. Working under Lisa, Bryce could be exposed to people like Senegal, for example.

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“In small part because of that, yes,” I admitted, leaving it vague.

Yes, this is a good way to answer that. I approve.

Her forehead creased in a frown.

“Look,” I admitted, “I need to get back to my territory.  If you need a place to stay, you’re welcome to come with, but we do need to decide what to do with Bryce.”

Yes, do come with, Sierra 😀

Bryce is indeed a bit of an issue. I wonder what he’ll have to say when he wakes up.

“Can you keep him prisoner?  Until he comes to his senses?’

An interesting request, but it makes sense.

“I would if I thought it would do any good.  He’s only going to get angry and resentful at being locked up, and he’ll be all the more eager to run.”

Hm, good point.

“But he’s going to run anyways.”

Yes, probably, but if/when he does, we don’t want him to be even more eager to escape.

“Probably.  He won’t believe me if I tell him about his buddies.”  It doesn’t help that Lisa lied to him about Sierra.

Hm, yeah, you aren’t exactly the most trustworthy people from Bryce’s perspective.

“So what do we do?”

I was at a loss for an answer.  I turned and called across the room, “Lisa!”

When all else fails… 🙂

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“But that girl said my brother was with the people from the Church, he could find them, or they could find him.”

Yeeeah, don’t think you need to worry about them anymore.

“They’re not a consideration any more,” I told her.

Her eyes widened.  “Because of what I asked you to do?”

Poor Sierra has so little of the context here and that leaves her quite confused. Maybe you should tell her the full story later, Taylor. 😛

What was the proper response, here?  I felt like anything I told her might offend her.  If I said yes, would she be horrified?  If I said no, would she see it as a failure on my part?

The best part of this is both things are true. Yes, Sierra asking Skitter to make them hurt did have an impact on Skitter’s decision about Thomas, but no, that’s not the main reason they’re out of the picture. Skitter didn’t make them hurt, but she did let them hurt.

But yeah, should probably go for a middle option here.

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So when we left off, Charlotte and Sierra were about to meet. I think.

That sounds like a nice scene, as Charlotte presumably learns more about why Taylor was there in the first place, and Sierra learns that Skitter saved an actual Merchant victim along the way without being asked to.

“Can you keep him?” she asked, as we stopped.

What? Keep Bryce around, in the Hive? Let Skitter make personally sure he doesn’t go back to the Merchants?

I guess that would be a good way to get this to the conclusion I’ve been thinking of for a couple chapters now, with Charlotte, Sierra and Bryce all staying with Skitter.

“Can I offer him a bed?  Theoretically.  But he’s just going to run.  Not that there’s anywhere for him to run to, but-”

Oh yeah, it was heavily implied that Faultline’s attack on the Merchants might cause the group to fall apart, at least a bit. Go Faultline’s Crew!

I stopped as I saw a confused expression on her face.

Oh yeah, she wouldn’t know that.

“The Merchants may be done for.”

“Because of you?”

Not quite. Taylor was just there for the ride.

I shook my head, “Someone else.  The leaders got pretty badly embarassed, they may have trouble getting their followers to respect them after getting their asses kicked like they did.  The actual criminals would still be on the streets, probably, but they won’t be as organized.  Add infighting, rival groups, greed… they won’t be as focused.”

GO FAULTLINE’S CREW