That, apparently, was enough to get Legend’s attention.  He rose from the street level and surveyed the scene.  He’d taken off the hazmat-style mask and filter, and what little I could see of his expression was drawn.

Shit.

By the way, I concluded that he was affected when it became clear that one explanation could cover both him and his targets.

His eyes were narrowed, a vein stood out on his forehead, and he furtively looked from Vista to me and back again.

“Legend,” I started.  How was I supposed to address him when he was like this?  When I didn’t even know what was going on with them?

He probably thinks the two of them are conspiring or something.

Not that it mattered.  He raised one hand in my direction, and I veered away, taking evasive maneuvers.  It missed me by a foot, circled around and struck me off of Atlas before I could cancel out his momentum and change direction.

Yeeah, Taylor, this is not the best of situations.

“I just want to help.”

“Leave!”

Leaving is probably the best thing you can do for her right now.

She used her power, extending the pillar she had used to ascend to the rooftop.  It missed me by a wide margin, but the threat was clear enough.

“at least she wasn’t someone who could kill me”

I regretted it the instant I did it, but I moved forward to avoid any further movements from the shaft of asphalt.

Oh boy.

If I was going to fall, I wanted to land on the roof, instead of the alleyway a dozen stories below.

Fair enough, but then you’d be stuck on the roof with a paranoid Vista.

“No!”  The word was as much a scream as anything else.  She extended the shaft well over my head and then pinched it off so the top part fell.

Time to get the fuck out of the way!

I’d seen her fight Leviathan, and she’d done the same thing then, if on a somewhat bigger scale.  I had Atlas carry me out of the way and watched the teardrop shaped piece of asphalt crash to the floor of the alley.

Seriously. Do not underestimate her.

She whirled on the spot to look at me, then swiftly began backing away.

Yeah, I was under no impression that Vista would trust Taylor.

I raised my hands to show her I meant no harm, “Hold on!  I’m safe!”

Not gonna work.

“That’s just what they would say!”  She retorted.

They?

Bet you’re even among those who work to keep up the illusion that Bielefeld exists!

So does this paranoia instill the idea that everyone is some enemy in disguise, rather than that the person they actually are has turned on you?

“Who?  The Nine?  In what universe would I be a member of the Nine?”

Oh, I think there are some of those. The only reason you weren’t a nominee was that none of the people picking the nominees related specifically to you.

“Shut up!  Don’t try to convince me!  Just… just back off!  Leave me alone until all this stops!”

Assuming it will stop on its own.

She was breathing so hard I could see her shoulders rising and falling through the protective suit she wore.

A thought struck me.  It was working through the suit?  The mask had to have filters for smoke, why hadn’t it worked against this miasma?

Hm. I was going to argue, but I suppose that assumption makes sense considering they’re in suits meant to be used in a battle involving fire.

I could sense the ground bulge, spearing up in a pillar.

The ground, or the space containing it?

As the ground beneath them stretched in the pillar’s vicinity, others staggered or got disoriented.  At the pillar’s top, a roughed-up Vista bent the growth she’d created to place herself close to the rooftop and hopped down onto solid ground.  She coughed.

I’ll give you this, Bonesaw: You certainly made things interesting around here!

Seriously, out of all the ways to mess with a group of characters’ heads, paranoia is among the very best ones.

And Taylor’s teammates and friends are affected, too. If this is the extent of it, we might have quite an interesting Arc or so ahead of us of the Undertravelers being unable to cooperate properly.

Sunny’s gonna be an interesting case given her aversion to being alone mixing with an aversion to trusting others.

Okay, at least she wasn’t someone who could kill me if this went the wrong way.  I called out, “Vista!”

Are you sure about that, Taylor? She may not be able to squeeze you directly, but I wouldn’t underestimate her. Especially when she’s like this.

Paranoia?

Oh man, yes, that’s a good one! Everyone’s afraid of the rest attacking them, and either hiding so they can’t, or making sure to attack first. And this way, people won’t be able to cooperate well, which has been one of the biggest problems the Nine have faced in this city.

Weld, who I identified by his lack of a costume and the metal growths on his shoulders, was standing with his back to a wall.  His hands were blunt weapons, and he was swinging them through the air to threaten anyone who approached.

“Don’t you dare!”

“No, don’t you dare!”

A small figure who could only be Vista was backing away from two adults.  She got too close to Legend, and he fired a spray of laser blasts at her.

Hm. Can she do much to stop those with her power?

I suppose she could make space do a little twist and redirect the lasers, but this is Legend. He can just twist them right back.

None hurt her or penetrated her costume, but she staggered and fell.

Also lasers are fast. If fictional lasers were as fast as they physically should be, you wouldn’t be able to see them before they hit you.

A series of bright flashes caught my attention.  Between the distance and the cloud of red vapor, I could only barely make him out, but the staccato lasers let me identify him as Legend.  He was fighting.

Oh hey, guess we know where to go. Legend is such a good beacon.

I wonder how he’s gonna take Taylor coming back after he told her to scram.

I sent my bugs down into the miasma, drawing them together into a swarm and placing them strategically, painting a mental picture of the area, the layout, and the positions of the combatants.

Yes, good.

Just to be safe, I drew closer to a rooftop.  It wasn’t safe to land, but I had hopes the building would offer me some cover against Jack.

Smart.

I held the bulk of my swarm at bay, waiting for the moment I could assist Legend in fighting the Nine.

He wasn’t fighting the Nine.

Ah, shit. Hookwolf’s contingent? Someone brainwashed by the miasma?

Legend was shooting at teammates.  He shouted something, but neither my ears nor my bugs were able to pick out the words.

So here’s the question: Is this self-defense, or has Legend himself been caught by the miasma and is the one to watch out for? The former is more likely considering he flies.

Also, does the miasma make the affected people attack each other, or just those unaffected?

Really wished I could use my bugs to hear.

That would be so handy.

Had they gone berserk?  Rage?

No.  I could sense others hiding.  In fact, it seemed to be the primary concern of the people in the miasma.

…huh.

Hiding, staying out of trouble, putting distance between themselves and the others.  Even Legend was pulling his punches.  His lasers were nonlethal, as far as I could see.

Miasma of fear? Of disturbing peacefulness? Both?

I just realized something: Last chapter, I made note of the fact that Siberian had prioritized using his power to protect Bonesaw and Jack over his real body. I was forgetting the fact that the real body is immune to Siberian’s protection.

I rose higher as I approached the epicenter of the miasma.  It had continued to rise, and the place she’d used the catalyst was the place where the vapor had spread the most.

Makes sense, since it has had more time to rise.

I could see how it was threaded through the streets like veins, surrounding buildings in a crimson embrace, spilling out into the ocean.

Looks like blood, spreading in veins through the city… those are the artistic sensibilities of a biology tinker at work, for sure.

The water of the bay, I noticed, hadn’t changed.  Was the salt killing whatever organisms she’d designed to spread this effect?

Oooh!

Now where can we find tons upon tons of salt and a way to make that rain down over the entire city…

There were areas of high ground where the effect was diminished or gone.  There were hills here and there where the area hadn’t flooded and miasma wasn’t reaching so far into those spots.

You keep claiming there are dry spots, but I’m not sure I believe you.

Hopefully that meant the civilians wouldn’t be so affected; the high ground where flooding wasn’t an issue would also be the place where people congregated for shelter.

Makes sense.

However, these are also likely places the Nine might be hiding out, unless Bonesaw has made them immune to the effect.

And even if she has done that for herself and Jack, we still don’t know if she knew about Siberian’s real body.

“If I’ve picked up on anything over the last few months of wearing a costume, it’s that humans are stronger than you’d expect,” I said.

Legend, with finger guns: “eyyy”

It was as much to myself as to Sundancer.  “We can endure a hell of a lot of punishment before we break, and even after we’re broken, we tend to keep on going.  Could be physical punishment: getting stabbed, getting scarred, broken bones.  Could be mental: losing a loved one, being tortured, even the way I feel like breaking down and crying over the fact that just about every other member of my team is probably fucked, but I’m holding myself together?  Humans can put up with a hell of a lot.”

Yeah, true. If there’s anything that sets humans apart from many other animals, it’s endurance, mental and physical. We just won’t stop.

Of course, we’ve got nothing on certain microbes, but still.

“I don’t think this is the right time for optimism,” Sundancer said, bitter.

“Optimism?”  I shook my head.  “No.  It’s a double-edged sword.  If we weren’t so resilient, so tenacious as a species, I don’t think we’d be having this much trouble with Jack.

…also true.

I don’t think Mannequin or Siberian would even exist like they do now.  I’d almost call it pessimistic.  Almost.”

They would qualify as broken people that kept on going. Down a dark path, but they kept on going.

She didn’t reply.

“Speaking of Jack and Siberian-” I started.

You should probably get going?

“Go.”

I left, taking off and heading for the spot I’d left Legend.  Looking over my shoulder, I could see Sundancer creating her orb and bringing it down on top of herself.  As it had done back during our fight with Lung, it didn’t burn the area directly around her.

Ohh, nice. It’s like a little bubble the power doesn’t affect.

And Tattletale and Trickster… were still standing in the midst of the miasma.  They weren’t reacting or doing anything, but they weren’t signalling for me to come back, either, and they weren’t hopping on top of Bentley to rejoin the action.

Maybe that’s its basic effect. No zombie apocalypse, just… unmoving people. Just standing there, eerie in their unresponsiveness. Quite possibly awake and physically unable to do anything, even use their powers.

Something was up, I just had no idea what.

I consoled myself with the bittersweet idea that Bonesaw would want to draw this out.  It wouldn’t be as simple as murdering my teammates.

And simply paralyzing them doesn’t sound like the full effect, as eerie as it’d be when applied to a whole city.

It wasn’t exactly reassuring, especially when I thought back to what had happened to Brian, but it gave me hope that this wasn’t the last time I’d see my teammates.  My friends.

I appreciate that the word is actually brought in here, emphasized like this. It helps to drive the point home.