I was using my bugs to track the positions of the Nine, where Siberian and Crawler were in the thick of the enemy.  Mannequin apparently wasn’t aware of my presence, so I had my first real opportunity of tracking his movements as he scaled walls and disappeared into manholes to emerge half a street away.

Nice.

Burnscar used her fire to bombard the enemy and divide them.

Going for the heads-on approach, huh?

Another reason why Bonesaw staying matters: It might mean the others will try to circle back after drawing the enemy away.

Jack was more pragmatic, striking from hiding, threatening his decoys to get them to run out of cover and draw enemy fire, and using every hiding space that was available.  He was quick, smart, and devastating in how he operated.

That’s Jack in a nutshell, yeah. Quick, smart and devastating.

No movement was wasted, and every time he emerged from cover and swiped his knife, someone suffered for it.  As far as I could tell, he was evading Night and Fog.

Those ought to be some of the worst enemies to be up against with this tactic, though. Fog cares not if you’re hiding around the corner.

I suppose Night’s not exactly in a good position to use her power in this battle.

My bugs could detect some noise from him that I was parsing as a mocking laughter.  Maybe my imagination.  Probably my imagination.

I could see it being the case.

I looked at the others.  Sundancer was on the other side of the kitchen, hands on the edge of the sink.  Ballistic had his arms folded.  Trickster leaned against one counter, silent, not looking at the scene.

I really can’t blame any of them. Sunny’s probably halfway to puking, and I can totally understand Trickster not wanting to look at this mess.

“Every second you make him go on like this is cruel,” she said, her voice hard.

What does Grue himself think?

“So is every second you spend arguing with me.  I’m not negotiating, here.  I’m willing for him to suffer if it means there’s a chance we can help him.”

I’m on Taylor’s side in theory, but in practice I don’t think there’s much of a chance. At least if we don’t take Grue’s protagonist armor into account.

She met my eyes, looking like she wanted to slap me, yell at me, or both.  “Fine.  Then let’s hurry.”

I gave Brian one last look over my shoulder before I hurried off, leaving him behind.  The others followed.

See you later, Mr. Freeze…r Room.

Brian moved his lips, but no sound came out.  He tried to raise his head, as much as the ceiling allowed, his eyes raised towards the sky.  There was a cauterised scar just above his collarbone.

Ahh. They removed his vocal cords.

“I could make it quick,” Ballistic said.

“No,” I told him.

Look, Taylor, I understand, but in this situation euthanasia is probably justified. I don’t think even Panacea could help him here, due to the technological stuff involved.

But time to say goodbyes might be nice, at least.

“It’d be a mercy.”

“No,” I shook my head.  “No.  We have options.  Panacea-”

I considered that several paragraphs before I actually managed to work it into my commentary, yet I still ended up talking about it right before Taylor did.

“Is nowhere to be found,” Tattletale told me, “And given what happened with Mannequin, she’s going to be as far as she can get from downtown.”

That is also true.

“Then Bonesaw,” I said, clenching my fists.  “Bonesaw can fix him.”

How do you intend to get her to do that?

Does Regent’s control work with tinker powers?

“She’s not going to fix him.  I doubt she’d do it on pain of death,” Tattletale told me.  “Skitter-”

“We’ll try,” I told her.  “At least try.”

Fair enough.

His head was untouched.  He looked up at us, and he looked harrowed.  The look in his eyes was more animal than person, his pupils mere pinpoints in his brown eyes.

Oh boy, they may have driven him to insanity, at least somewhat.

Tiny beads of sweat dotted the skin of his face, no doubt due to the warmth of the room, but he was shivering.

“Oh.”  My voice was a croak.  “Brian.”

Ribbit.

I took a step forward, and he seized up, his entire body twisting, his hands clenching, eyes wrenching shut.

“Get back!” Tattletale gripped me by the shoulder and forced me out of the freezer.

I’m sorry, Taylor.

This is no longer the Brian you once knew.

“I- what?”  I was having trouble processing.  “Trap?”

Tattletale had a dark look in her eyes.  “No.  Look closer at the walls and floor.”

…bits of brain?

Numbly, I did as she’d asked.  They looked like hairline cracks, spiderwebbing across everything from the walls to the shelving and even the ceramic cases that Mannequin had set up.  Except they were raised, over the surfaces.  “Veins?”

…he is one with the room.

The room is Brian.

“Exposed nerves.  Artificially grown, connecting from him to the rest of the room.”

I wonder, if Regent hadn’t been preoccupied with controlling Shatterbird, would he have been able to sense this?

I stared up at Brian, and he stared back at me.

There was no way to help him.  I couldn’t even get inside the room to try to comfort him in the smallest ways, not without causing him unbearable pain in the process.

Well, this is quite the fate.

I headed around the long counter and into the kitchen.  Crates of supplies had been opened, the contents sorted into piles.  There were also other supplies that didn’t look regulation.

…interesting. How did the– are these the special supplies Flechette arranged?

Several 5-gallon jugs of water that were designed to fit into water coolers were stacked in one corner, and neither I nor my bugs had seen any water coolers in here.

Sounds like it.

I stopped outside the walk-in freezer and stared at the handle.

Oh, did you realize they might’ve stored Grue in here?

“Skitter?”  Tattletale asked.

“There’s only three places left where Grue could be.  The other two places are the regular fridge over there and a closet in the basement that I think is too small to hold him and still let him breathe.”

Sounds like this is a good chance.

So is she hesitating because she’s not ready to see whatever the Nine have done to him?

“So if he’s not in here…”

“Right,” I said.  “Trap free?”

Oh yeah, that’s another good reason to hesitate.

“As far as I can tell,” she replied.  “No, if they were going to trap it, they’d lock it first, chain it shut.”

Make it more obvious, “go here, here’s what you’re looking for and also death but mostly what you’re looking for”.

Swallowing, I gripped the handle and hauled the door open.  It took me a second to process what I was seeing.

Hi, Grue. How are you?

We checked a small sauna.  No luck.  No less than three storage rooms, sealed tight to keep vermin out, turned up empty.

The place I’d mentally labeled the dining hall turned out to be something of a restaurant.

Ahh.

More notices about food rationing covered menus and signs advertising healthy eating.

Naturally.

…hey, it just occurred to me that Bonesaw being in the building might matter because she might be going to Grue right around when they find him, in order to do some of her thing?

Alternatively, it’s possible (though unlikely) that Grue was among the decoys.

“Makes sense that they’d improvise a cell to contain him,” Tattletale said.

Especially knowing that Skitter was on the other side and that she can detect things via her bugs.

I nodded, swallowing.

Worn and damaged posters and fliers referred to yoga and pilates classes.

Ah, there we go. That makes sense with the layout of this place.

Makeshift signs and notices had been raised since this building had been used for the rich-person exercise classes.  These were more pragmatic, detailing chore schedules, contact information and watch rotations.

Heh, “rich-person exercise classes”.

It sounds like this place has had a couple different functions in its time.

These people had been getting by, maybe in the same way I’d been trying to get my own people organized.  I felt a growing outrage at what had happened here, what had happened to my people.

I really want to know whether or not Parian’s alright.

Why?  What purpose did this chaos serve?

Entertainment? A sense of vindication for their pasts? Stimulation?

“Right.”  Okay.  Made sense.

I led the way, as I had the best sense of the layout.  Bonesaw was excitedly pacing back and forth.  The rest of the place was quiet.

Excitedly… because she’s seeing her handiwork in action?

“There’s only a few places Grue could be.  Confined spaces my bugs couldn’t get to.”

Oh, right. That’s what they’re trying to accomplish, duh.

I actually forgot.