Between Bentley and Atlas, we can keep at a distance.”

I shook my head.  “Bentley’s tired, and I don’t know how long Atlas is going to be able to keep flying.”

Right, that’s an issue.

“They’ll manage.”

I have a bad feeling about this, if they do in fact try to push their mounts’ limits.

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

A very bad feeling.

Pretty sure.  So she wasn’t positive.

“There’s another possibility,” she ventured.

What’cha got?

“Do tell.”

“Cherish might not be saying anything because she wants us to attack the others.”

It’s a tactic she’s employed before, though it backfired on her.

“Or,” I pointed out, “The Nine are giving us that impression because they want us to think that so they can turn the tables.”

…also possible. Fuck.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve found them, I think.  I think Siberian’s there.  There’s a lot of people, anyways.  Seven.”

Jack, Cherish, Siberian, Bonesaw, Hookwolf and, optionally, another Siberian account for six.

Who else did they get? Armsmaster?

“How much damage do you think you can do?”

“Not enough.”

Damn. And you forgot to tell Rachel where to head after she’d cured the Undertravelers. Sundancer would make this a lot easier, if they didn’t mind killing Hookwolf and whoever the seventh person – who I just realized must be female, so not Armsmaster – is.

We paused.

“Cherish should be alerting them,” Tattletale spoke.  “I’m surprised they aren’t mounting a counterattack.”

…interesting. Are they not giving her the treatment she wanted?

Is she still plotting some form of revenge?

“Maybe they can’t?  If they split up, Siberian won’t be able to protect everyone,” I said.

Good point.

I was going to bring up that the Nine can’t be sure Sundancer isn’t with them, but they totally can.

“Well, getting closer is a pretty bad idea.”

True.

“Do we have a choice?”

“We hang back, we follow them, we strike if we spot an opportunity.

You do have a choice. Getting closer is very likely gonna lead to death with nothing accomplished, so that’s not the better option here.

My swarm sense alerted me to life in the hold of a ship.

Well, either that’s them, or there are more people exploring the various ships of Brockton Bay to their heart’s content.

So odds are even on whether Taylor just found the Slaughterhouse Nine or the Parahumans fandom.

The space was half-filled with sand, and water had leaked in through a hole in the side of the ship.  If supplies were delivered by way of remote control, that was a likely route.

Makes sense.

Seven people.  Three male, four females, one of whom was young.

Oh, looks like it’s the fandom after all. Which ship are you guys on?

Jokes aside, either the Nine managed to bring in a couple more nominees and/or hostages, or this is an unrelated family who have decided the hold of a ship is a pretty decent hideout from the Nine.

A child, long-haired.  That would be Bonesaw.

Yeah, most likely.

“There?”  I pointed at the location.  It was barely visible from where we stood; two ships had been slammed against one another, nose to nose, and they formed a precarious arch over the ship in question.

That’s a pretty cool look.

We paused at the top of a hill overlooking the scene: forty or fifty derelict ships, some bigger in sheer mass than the skyscrapers downtown.

Woah.

Leviathan’s waves had slammed them all into the coastline, smashing them against one another and turning more than a few into something unrecognizable.

Oh look, they found a way to move the ships!

Even with Tattletale’s hint, I wasn’t sure I could have found where Cherish was lurking.

Which beached ship?

“How do we find her before she finds us?” I asked.

Oh, I’m sure she knows you’re coming already. But you need to stay out of her power’s range.

“We don’t.  She knows where we are.”

I scanned the wreckage with my eyes.  Would Siberian pop out?  Hookwolf?

“They aren’t attacking.”

Hm.

Did they leave already? I mean, Siberian is fast, and Cherish would be able to know where they are, like Lisa says, from the other side of town.

Tattletale shook her head, but she didn’t speak.

My bugs began searching for signs of life.

Maybe Cherish killed Siberian and/or Hookwolf, having planted the info about her whereabouts in order to draw them into her power’s range now that there weren’t too many of them to handle?

“You outrange her,” Tattletale spoke.  “You detect them, you attack before she can whammy us.”

Makes sense.

“Yeah.”  Fat lot of good it’ll do with Siberian there.

I was getting a sense of why there wasn’t any foot traffic here.  Even on land, the force of Leviathan’s tidal wave had sent age-worn sheets of metal flying over the landscape.  Ragged edges of rusty sheet metal waited under every step I took, scraping and stabbing against the soles of my costumed feet.

“16… female… seeking any gender… like long walks on the beach with painful metal everywhere…”

Tattletale was relying on Bentley’s weight and durability to handle anything that waited underfoot.  He was still panting hard from the run.

Looks like Atlas isn’t alone in needing rest.

When the local industry had collapsed, the Boat Graveyard had been something of a staging ground for the irate dock workers.  Shipping companies based in Brockton Bay saw the signs of what was coming and trapped other boats in the harbor as a form of protest, to ensure they weren’t walking away empty-handed.

Huh.

I like these bits of local history. 

Police had made arrests, but actually moving the ships out of the way required sailors, and the move had mobilized enough of them that clearing the upper areas of the docks of the ships became all but impossible.  Things capped off with fights, gunfire and a deliberate sinking of a container ship by one of the protesters.

Damn!

Opinions varied on whether the incident had been a symptom or a cause of the collapse.  Either way, the result was the Boat Graveyard- an entire section of the coastline where boats had sat for so long that they’d rusted or taken on water.

I kinda love it now.

Either way, I decided to trust her and took off.

I’d done my part, and I’d have to trust Bitch to complete the task.

Good luck, Rachel.

I was making more forward progress than Tattletale, though I could feel Atlas fatiguing.  It wasn’t the same as the fatigue I experienced, but he was slowing down fractionally in his wingbeats per second.

Ah, yeah, he’s been through quite a bit today.

It stood to reason.  He was big, and he hadn’t eaten since he was created.  That was compounded by the fact that he’d been going full-bore with minimal chance to rest.

Still, we had the advantage of being able to fly over obstacles, which was something I was gaining a greater appreciation of since I’d gotten the hang of flying him.

Man, where was Atlas in 12.5?

With Atlas being tired, not wanting to lose track of Tattletale, I kept our flight close to the ground.

“Where is she?” I called out, as I met her pace.

Any clues?

“Boat Graveyard.  Beached ship, she’s in the hold.”

Oh wait, they’re talking about Cherish, not Siberian.

“Coil told you this?”

“No, but he’ll forgive me for figuring it out, given circumstances.”

I’m pretty sure I knew this already (though I misremembered it as the Trainyard rather than the nearby Boat Graveyard), but if Taylor didn’t, I can’t recall why we do.

Maybe she just forgot.

“If you’re sure.”

It wasn’t a short trip.  Our destination was north of the market, and the market was a distance from my house.  We were making our way from downtown to the Boat Graveyard.

Yeah, that’s pretty far.

Oh hey, I forgot the Market was one of the waypoints that got erased on this version of Ridprime’s map. I suppose we’ll likely be traveling through the remains of that on the way to the Boat Graveyard.