Seeing them gave me pause.

Are you thinking about the rules, worrying that they might break them?

As Miss Militia stepped outside, I pulled on the headphones, and Trickster did the same.

“Skitter?” Miss Militia asked.

Yep, that is totally her standing there in the lobby. All mammalian and everything.

“Something like that,” I replied using my swarm.  “I wanted to talk.“

“Given what happened the last time you were here, I’m not sure we’re on speaking terms.”

Oh yeah, they did kinda break in and steal important data, as well as take over the body of one of their members and scare her out of town by making it almost kill her. That’s a thing that happened.

“We have two of the Slaughterhouse Nine in custody.  We are prepared to turn one over into your custody.”

Now that ought to cause some raised eyebrows.

“What?  I didn’t hear that.”

Damn.  It sounded natural in my head, as I got them to make the noise, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

Well, when Taylor gets the point through, anyway.

Maybe it would have been better to just pass a phone to her.  I’d gone this route for the dramatic touch, and because I hadn’t wanted them to trace us.

But the dramatic touch is awesome.

It would have to do.

I ensured the rigging around the camera was more or less steady and then sent the swarm out the window.  I relied on my power to keep track of it while I opened the laptop Coil had provided and turned on the video feed.  When it had arrived outside the PHQ headquarters, I drew it together into a densely packed human form.

I love it. This way she’s safe if they attack, but she can communicate with them, and as long as she can keep the equipment out of the way of the attacks (and continue to have a large enough swarm), she can maintain contact. And hey, this’ll reinforce rumors that she has the power to turn into a swarm, if the PRT has heard of that.

Also: Ah yes, the Protectorate/Parahuman HeadQuarters headquarters.

It took six and a half minutes for the Protectorate to react to the figure.  That bothered me, on a level.

You’d think they’d be a little more alert, especially with the Nine in town and after one of their own.

Were they disorganized?  Or was it difficulty in communicating and marshaling their forces when they didn’t have phones or other means of passing on alerts?  They gathered in the lobby.

I suppose that’s fair, but if Coil can get new phones that work, why not the Protectorate? Although they do pose a risk if Shatterbird realizes they have them.

I adjusted the camera the insects were carrying and made out Weld, Kid Win, Clockblocker, Miss Militia, Battery and Legend.

This is a very good assortment of characters to find! I very much like all of them.

There were three more capes I didn’t recognize.  Members of Legend’s team?

Hmm. I would’ve suggested that Chariot was one of them (as the only current Ward that Taylor hasn’t seen), but I think he’s too young for Taylor to think he’d be a member of “Legend’s team”, which sounds like it refers to the Protectorate rather than the Wards. But hey, maybe he’s not visibly that young.

More likely, new characters!

(They may not be allowed to help out here by Jack’s rules.)

“Done this before?” he asked.

I shook my head.

Done what?

I guess this wasn’t the destination so much as a convenient way to go there?

I was gathering my bugs, the stronger fliers, and drawing out lines of silk.  Trickster handed me the individual components.  A small spy camera, no larger than a tube of lipstick, and a similar microphone.

The camera also shoots lasers that can be amplified, divided and directed using make-up mirrors.

The microphone turns into a chainsaw.

And they can both be used as actual lipstick.

My bugs bound them together with silk and then stretched out more to distribute the lifting among the dragonflies, bumblebees and wasps.

So right now it seems the plan is to spy on someone by having the bugs carry the spying equipment. Fair enough, but why?

One outside-the-box possibility would be to establish safe communication. Taylor could write things using bugs and have the recipients respond using the microphone, while they wouldn’t be able to attack.

But if the recipients actually are the Crew, I don’t see why that would be needed. The Protectorate, on the other hand, it could be worth doing with.

“Okay, let’s see,” I muttered.

“Testing, testing, one, two, three…“  My swarm managed some semblance of the words I wanted, a mix of buzzing, chirps and clicks to form the right pitch.

Oh hell yes, that’s so much cooler than the writing idea. But it looks like I was barking up the right tree!

So if they keep the microphone out of sight, it’ll come across as talking to the swarm. That’s awesome.

Some sounds were hard or impossible to make.  The ‘puh’, ‘buh’ and ‘muh’ sounds didn’t form, and I struggled to form something that sounded like a ‘t’ in the middle of a word.

Ah, yeah, the swarm doesn’t exactly have lips.

It was intelligible, but only barely.

I say embrace the alienness of it.

Whatever the case, I think we might be in for some answers here.

Fuck.  I kept imagining uglier and uglier possibilities.

You need to keep that imagination in check.

“They’re going to be waiting and ready.  We’ll need help, I think,” I said.

But how? Most of the help you could find are in an alliance that’s only not against you by a technicality. Although… the Protectorate might be persuaded to help, I suppose, and the Crew are being paid by Coil anyway.

…please bring in the Crew.

“Help?” Trickster turned my way.  “You’re forgetting that the rest of the factions in the city have made a pact against us.”

“Not everybody there agreed,” I said.  “There was one group at the meeting that didn’t agree to the pact.”

It’s the Crew, right? They just agreed to follow the money, which appeared to be on the pact’s side.

Please be the Crew.

“Am I remembering wrong?”  Trickster asked.  “Coil, Merchants, Chosen, Faultline’s group…”

“That’s right,” I said.

If you hadn’t noticed, I am very on board with bringing Faultline’s Crew in on this.

Y’know, if I was being too subtle about it.

“What are you thinking, then?”  Sundancer asked.

“Coil,” I said, “You got some surveillance gear for Tattletale, right?  Can I see it?”

…hm?

■

Dammit.

Now where were we…