Why couldn’t he stop talking so we could take Tattletale somewhere where she could get the help she needed?

I get where you’re coming from, Taylor, and you’re right. But think of it this way – if he’s getting to the point now, he’ll be done here soon-ish.

Maybe not soon-ish enough for Tattle, but soon-ish.

My hands were already cramping from trying to maintain pressure and the awkward angle that resulted from  the way I had her head tilted.

“Two of the candidates we chose are heroes, for lack of a better word, and Cherish reported that we may have trouble bringing them in close enough to introduce them to the tests.

Ah, yeah… one is protected by the PRT, the other is running away from home. What does this have to do with Regent and Bitch? Is it just a warning that they shouldn’t try to avoid the tests?

Our dear Bonesaw has devised an incentive to encourage their cooperation.”

Oh cod, what did she do now.

Bonesaw reached into her pocket and withdrew a small vial.

It keeps coming back to vials, huh?

Though it’s almost certainly not the same contents.

I felt Tattletale tense and looked down.  She was staring at the vial.

Her power seems to have identified it.

What is it, Tattle? Did Timmy fall down a vial?

“Biological warfare?” Grue asked.

“Naturally.”

“What does it do?”

“Just in case all of our candidates fail to play along, I would strongly advise you to stick to bottled water.

See, this is the sort of thing I was talking about earlier with the parasite. Let it spread through the water supplies and the entire city will be depowered soon enough.

But I doubt this is that harmless.

No filtered water, no rainwater, none of that.  Not unless you’re feeling brave.  Just to be on the safe side, avoid getting your injuries wet as well.”

Jeez.

In this city?

Regent handed me more cloth, and I wadded it into place.  Tattletale wasn’t really moving, and I couldn’t be sure if it was because of the amount of blood she had already lost or just because it hurt too much.

She’s probably not having a good time right now.

I saw a flicker of light as Jack flicked his knife out, tossed it into the air and then caught the blade tip between his middle finger and the nail of his index finger.  He snapped it around so he gripped the handle.  “I suppose I should get around to the purpose of our meeting you here, Regent and Bitch.

Alright, I will admit that’s pretty neat.

And yeah, might be time for that now that one of their teammates is bleeding out on the ground, sure.

I guess it’s not Jack wanting to tell them what his test is, since he said he usually goes at the end.

Unless you want to pose your test to them, Bonesaw?”

Did she decide yet?

“No.  Let me think about it for a little while.”

Alright.

“Alright.

Hey!

Well, it wouldn’t do if our candidates died before we even got around to the tests, so I came to offer you two a warning.  Two warnings, as it happens, for each of you.”

…that’s ominous. Is there another threat separate from the S9? Between the Nine and Hookwolf’s alliance, it seems the Undertravelers have got enough on their plates.

Jack was getting heated, talking mostly to himself.  “That was the whole point!  To see how long we could go without tipping her off.  Bonesaw helped with some surgery, even some artificial neural connections that Cherish wouldn’t be able to see.  So much work and preparation ruined.”

You should’ve had an ask screener.

“I-” Cherish started, then stopped before she could finish the sentence.  Trying again, she asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

What, for trying to betray him? I don’t think he cares.

The others might, though. Shatterbird, for instance.

“Not a pressing concern,” Jack said, as if realizing she was there.

My power crackled at the edge of my consciousness.  I had to suppress it, before I gave them another excuse to attack us.  The majority of my attention was on Tattletale, on Lisa. I used my fingers to scrape as much of the blood out of her mouth and throat as possible, then adjusted the angle of her head so any further blood would flow down the side of her face or out of her mouth.

It’s a good thing Jack doesn’t seem to see this as Skitter “doing anything”. That is if he’s even noticed.

The fabric of my gloves afforded more traction than fingertips would have, but the amount of blood made everything slick to the point that I couldn’t be sure of what I was holding.  I had one hand inside her mouth, her teeth hard against my knuckles, my other hand pressing down from above to sandwich it and press everything as closed as I could get it.

Today in professions I don’t envy: Dentists. Though apparently they get handsomely paid for their work, which I think is entirely fair.

She roused herself enough to pull away, no doubt because I was pulling the tear at the corner of her mouth open.

I thought you were trying to do the opposite, but fair enough.

“Clearly.”

“But my power – I didn’t sense anything as far as your planning, your emotional networking or-”

He’s probably very sneaky about it.

I dropped onto my knees so fast it hurt, and immediately began trying to help Tattletale, and Regent gave me the space, allowing me to take over.  Jack had cut her from her mouth to the edge of her jaw.  It had parted the skin at the corner of her mouth.

Ouch.

I must’ve been directly in the line of fire for the resulting blood spray.  How was I supposed to put pressure on a wound like this?

Yeeah, I have no idea.

Guess all we can do is call in Greenfire to burn her face off, make it symmetrical.

By the way, Bitch might be immune to Cherish’s power.

Siberian is immune, according to Jack. That doesn’t seem to tie in with her power’s abilities (except maybe in the sense that you can’t force her to assume any pose she doesn’t want to assume, physically or mentally), but it does make some sense that it could tie in with its side effects. It’s heavily implied that Siberian has a similar condition to Bitch’s, making her mind feral. If this condition, this different brain functionality from mundanes, is what makes Siberian immune to Cherish’s power, that might apply to Bitch too.

“You know,” Cherish said, shell-shocked.

Apparently so!

This kind of behavior is part of what makes Jack dangerous. You might think he’ll turn on his teammate for plotting against him, but no, he’s aware of it and just waiting for an interesting payoff. You never know what to do because he doesn’t give a shit about whether you live or die or whether someone’s trying to betray him – he just wants entertainment, and good luck to you if you spoil that for him.

And good luck to you if you have no idea which of your actions might do that.

I hurried to wipe it from the lens of my mask.  Everything I saw was obscured by the streaks that remained, almost black in the light.

Ah. Right, masks.

Don’t you know, though, Taylor? Those lenses are sort of like glasses, and it’s a fact of life that glasses cannot be cleaned. A law of nature. You gotta be a Breaker to clean ‘em.

Tattletale lay on the ground a little in front of me, both Regent and Sundancer crouched at her side.

Alright, now don’t go dying on me, Tattle.

So much blood, covering her face and Regent and Sundancer’s hands.

Jack toyed with the knife in his hands, while Siberian stood between him and the rest of our group, her eyes primarily on Ballistic.

Makes sense to watch out for him in particular, being the only one with an offensive power who is still standing and not rubbing blood out of their face.

Jack paced back and forth, two or three steps at a time, gesticulating with his knife.  “I was looking forward to Cherish’s attempt.  Bonesaw and I even had a plan in mind.  I wanted to see what she did, how she worked around Siberian’s immunity to her power… then the safeguards Bonesaw implanted in us would have kicked in and released us from her thrall, and oh, the look on her face.  

“Spoiler warnings, Tattletale, ever heard of them? Come on.”

To have seen that would have been so very worth all the trouble.  And that girl just spoiled it all.”

Wait. Where’s Cherish now? Just standing where she was?

“You fucking bastard!” Grue shouted, his voice distorted by his power.

…oh. No sound, no vision. Then distorted sound (heard through bugs on top of the usual distortion). Of course that would be Grue’s darkness. But what about the wet metallic thing? Did someone just attack Taylor?

Probably not Jack – for all my jokes about nothing in this city being dry, I doubt the extended cutting edge of his blades can be “wet”, or have a taste.

It’s a bit too abrupt to be Cherish unless Cherish’s power made Taylor unaware of the moments it was actively messing with her emotions. In that case, the metallic thing could be Skitter’s knife. This would also imply that the darkness can shield against Cherish’s power.

Bonesaw?

Blood.

…oh. Right, forgot about the metallic taste of that.

So… did Jack swipe her face or something? Maybe even across her eyes, making her actually blind, considering she can hear Grue? (Normally the darkness would prevent that, which is why I suggested she was hearing him via bugs that were on him.)

If that’s the case, Taylor’s going to need to either find Amy and convince her to help, or learn to look through her swarm at all times. Either way, not particularly fun for her.

I could see Cherish’s expression change from anger and irritation to wide-eyed horror.

Welcome to Brockton Bay, Cherish. Your secrets are not safe here.

And now three of your intended victims have heard one of them.

Better play up their disbelief, if you can do that without them noticing.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, looking down, and I could just barely hear him mutter the word, “Disappointing.”

“Ugh… Seriously, that’s all you had?”

“It was probably her plan from the start,” Tattletale said.  “She-”

All at once, Tattletale stopped talking, and I was blind.

Uh

What’s happening

There’s no one in the immediate vicinity who could have just triggered, so it’s probably not another Dandelion vision.

Is it Trickster, coming up the stairs and teleporting Skitter to safety? Except that would be unsafe for everyone else if Trickster didn’t act very quickly.

In that same instant, something slapped against the fabric of my mask.  Wet.

Oh, alright, so she was wearing the mask. Good.

Wet, you say? Hmm…

That could be literally anything in Brockton Bay. :p

I could taste it against the fabric of my mask.  Salty-sweet, with a faint metallic taste.

That doesn’t sound very good.

Could Taylor have passed out or something, and is now getting slapped awake with a wet, metallic glove? I don’t know, this seems a bit too abrupt for that, both in passing out and in waking up.