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.

Trickster hurried to my side, binoculars in hand.  I pointed, and I could feel a pressure building around me.  It was slower than his other teleports, more jarring.  It didn’t matter.  Our group was soon indoors.

Slower… is that because he was teleporting more people at once?

Me, Tattletale, Trickster, Sundancer and Ballistic.

So who or what did he replace them with?

The interior was rank.  They were smells I’d gotten to know since Leviathan’s attack.  Blood, death, and the dank smell of sweat.

Hard to escape those, these days.

Trickster had replaced all of the kids and the three adults that had been accompanying them.

Ohh, that’s why it was a good thing she found people!

And I guess it was slower because he knew where they were but couldn’t see them?

He hadn’t brought Regent, because Regent was focused on Shatterbird.

The teleport would probably be quite distracting, and they don’t need him inside.

That was part of the plan.  Leaving Bitch behind wasn’t.  I could understand it if it was because of a lack of mass to swap with, but my doubts about the Travelers and about Trickster specifically led me to ask, “You figure Bitch will cover our retreat?”

Hmm.

“And if one of the Nine is here,” Trickster said, his voice low, “We don’t need her dogs making noise.”

…that is a fair point, though it’s a bit different if they intend to get into a fight. But so far, it seems stealth is the goal.

If they’ve driven the Nine out of here and it doesn’t matter that Bonesaw remained, what exactly are they trying to accomplish?

“Decoys,” the word was hollow as it left my lips.

“And the Nine are moving out,” Tattletale reported.  “Leaving the front of the building.  Get ready!”

Better keep really solid track of where everyone is. Especially Burnscar.

I used my bugs to draw a message for the people still hiding in another part of the building.

Crawler was the first to leave the building, charging out the front door, plowing through one or two of the Nine, and barreling towards Hookwolf’s army.

Presumably none of the decoys look like him and Mannequin, at least. Well, at least not him.

The other members of the Nine headed out.  A real Burnscar, Jack, Siberian and Mannequin at the tail end of their mass of fleeing decoys.

Sticking together, huh?

“Bonesaw’s not leaving,” I said.

Oh yeah, hm. Gonna do one last operation for the road?

“Doesn’t matter!  Now!”  Tattletale shouted.

Probably does matter, but do as you wish.

Tattletale looked at me, “Track their movements.  The Nine!  Don’t lose sight of the Nine!”

Ohhh. They’re a diversion. A crowd for the Nine to blend into, to the extent they can, or to distract as the Nine slip away through another exit.

The hostages scattered in every direction, and some invariably headed towards us.  I saw what had concerned Tattletale.  Even though I knew where the Nine were, I was still caught off guard.

…wait, did Bonesaw do something to the hostages, too?

Bonesaw’s talents apparently included crude plastic surgery.  If ‘crude’ was even the right word.

Why wouldn’t they.

So what did she do? Cover their eyes so they’re all running blind? Nah, anyone in the Nine could blind them, that’s too easy.

Every hostage wore the appearance of one of the Nine.

Oh fuck

Ahahaha!

That is genius!

Well fucking played, Nine. Well fucking played.

The group that headed towards us had three Jacks, a Siberian and a Bonesaw.  Their expressions were frozen, their eyes wide with terror.  None of them were perfect, one was too heavy in physique to be Jack, and the Bonesaw had apparently been a short-statured woman who’d had her shins and forearms sawed to a shorter length and reattached.

Yeah, I kind of figured they wouldn’t have the exact physique of the Nine, since that’s part of what Taylor used to recognize them with her bugs.

The resemblance was close enough that someone could mistake them for the wrong person at a glance, and that was all the Nine needed.

Yeah, damn.

This is glorious. Horrible, but glorious.

“Draw some fire towards the Nine’s location, if you can,” I said.

Half the point of the ruse was to keep that from happening, but it ought to put a spring in the Nine’s step.

“I said don’t distract me!”

But he listened.  Shatterbird interposed herself between Hookwolf’s advancing group and the building holding the Nine and their hostages.  Purity fired, and again, Shatterbird’s glass couldn’t absorb the full brunt of the hit.

It being accidental on Purity’s part helps.

She was hammered down into the ground again, and what didn’t hit her struck the building, not far from where the Nine were peering through the window.

“Make a move, you fuckers.”

“Come on, come on,” I whispered.

The Nine reacted.  It just wasn’t what we’d hoped for.

Well, fuck.

So which thing were you hoping for, exactly? That they’d fight back?

Crawler stood and rumbled some words my bugs couldn’t make out, and the hostages fled.  The Nine made no move to try to stop them.  Just the opposite.  They revealed why they’d kept them on hand.

This sounds very bad.

Is this very bad?

I think this is very bad.

The hostages made their way out the doors and into the streets surrounding the building.  Purity was so distracted by Genesis and Shatterbird that she didn’t seem to notice what was happening at first.

Fuck, are they going to make Purity kill the civilians by accident?

Tattletale watched with her binoculars.  “Oh no.”

“Oh no?”  Trickster asked.

Oh no.