His teammate Bonesaw, was standing in the corner of the room just to my right.  I could see the edge of a dress, an apron with tools and vials in the pocket, long blond hair curled into ringlets, and that same shroud of smoke around her, moving out to fill the room.

I wonder if Amy has asked them about the smoke. Maybe she knows Skitter might come.

The rest of her was obscured by the wall to my right and the shelves that stood behind the podium.  It put her in an awkward spot for me to shoot.  If I’d known she was there, I would have crawled over to the door at that end, gunned her down at point-blank.

At least Jack is the primary target, right? Since you need him out of the picture before he gets out of the picture by crossing city limits.

Panacea stood at the far end of the room, at the highest point. She had brown hair that was blowing slightly with the breeze that flowed in through the glassless windows behind her, topped with a flat top cap.  Freckles covered her face, and she was dressed in a tank top and cargo pants.  More than anything else, she wore a look of fear on her face that marked her as the victim, not the threat.

Apart from the expression, this is a good look for her.

And process of elimination meant the thing beside her was her sister.  I would have called it a coffin, but it was clearly made of something living.

Wow. Amy, what the hell did you do?

It resembled a massive growth of flesh that had been shaped into a vague diamond shape, gnarled with horny callous and toenail-like growths that protected it and reinforced it at the edges.  On the side closest to me, a girl’s face was etched into an oversized growth of bone.

What.

Why??

It was unmoving, decorative, with locks of long wavy hair that wrapped around the sides of the diamond.  The ‘sister’ floated a foot over the floor.

I’m beginning to see why Bonesaw was comparing Amy to herself at the start of this section. This much more like her than like Amy.

With the length of time I’d waited for an opportunity, I was going to take what I could get.  My heart pounded, my hands shook even as I gripped the gun as hard as I could, but I let out a slow breath as I drew myself smoothly to a standing position and stepped into the doorway, pointing the gun through the window frame in the door.

Good luck. You can do this.

Let’s hope whoever is coming doesn’t interfere.

They hadn’t heard me move.  It left me a second to take in the scene and make sure I was shooting the right people.

They were in a music room that had been arranged with seats on a series of ascending platforms, backed by windows that had exploded inward, scattering the area with glass shards.  At the bottom ‘floor’, there was a podium waiting for the teacher.  Jack was walking up the steps to approach a girl.

Ah, I guess that might be the footsteps she heard.

I knew he was Jack because he was the only male present.  He was wreathed in thin white smoke, wore a light gray t-shirt marked with blood stains and black jeans tucked into cowboy boots.

Nice outfit. The cowboy boots really make the look.

A thick leather belt had a variety of knives, including a butcher’s cleaver, a stiletto and a serrated blade.

‘Course, can’t forget the blades.

So what’s the difference between different types of knives when Jack uses them? I suppose the extended slice of the knives might be sharper with some, and the serrated ones might continue the serration, making the wounds look accordingly…

“I could, but I won’t.  Do you really have anything to lose by trying?  If I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you regardless of what you say or do.  Three and a half words: ‘I’ll do it’, and we leave the city.”

Oh yeah, I do suppose he does also want to leave. That’s a bit different than surrendering if you ask me, but it does count as a victory of sorts for the city. Maybe not so much for the world if my Theo-ry is wrong, but for the city, sure. As long as they clear up the miasma.

Also, I appreciate that Jack counts ‘ll as half a word.

I almost stood right then, to open fire before she made a decision one way or another.  I had to convince myself to wait, that no matter what they were saying, they wouldn’t leave right this instant.

Of course, Taylor has no reason to know about Theo or believe that Jack talking to him leads to the end of the world.

As far as she knows, she has to kill Jack before he can leave.

Then I heard the sound of glass crunching in time with someone’s footsteps.

Hello. Who have we got here?

Did Battery get back up or something?

Well, whoever it is, at least they might serve as a distraction.

I startled at that.

Wasn’t expecting yourself to come up, huh? :p

“I meant on a long-term basis, but let’s talk about that.  I imagine they were telling you ‘No, you aren’t.  You can be good.‘”

Kind of?

“Yeah.”

“But you didn’t believe them, did you, Amelia?  You’ve spent years telling yourself the opposite.  You’re a bad person, you’re destined to be bad, by circumstance and blood.  And even though you didn’t believe them, you’ll believe me when I tell you no, you aren’t a good person, but that’s okay.”

This is disturbingly real. I have real friends who struggle with this kind of thing.

“It’s not.”

“You say that, but you believe me when I say it.”

It’s mainly the “but that’s okay” part she’s denying, yeah.

There was another pause where Panacea didn’t venture a response.

“Isn’t it unfair?  Through no fault of your own, the blood in your veins is the blood of a criminal, and that’s affected how your family looks at you.  You’ve been saddled with feelings that aren’t your fault, and doomed to a life without color, enjoyment or pleasure.  Don’t you deserve to follow your passions?  A decade and a half of doing what others want you to do, doing what society wants you to do, haven’t you earned the right to do what you really desire, just this once?”

Yeah.

Amy is a very tragic character because of this exact thing.

But going with the Slaughterhouse Nine isn’t what she really desires. Which is why Jack is trying to convince her that it is.

“That’s not really that convincing,” Panacea spoke, but she didn’t sound assertive.

“I know.  So I’ll offer you a deal.  If you indulge yourself, we’ll surrender.”

Like fuck you will.

Hell, by the time she’s done “indulging herself”, there might not even be many people left to surrender to in Brockton Bay.

“What?”

“I won’t even make you do it now.  Just look me in the eye, and honestly tell me you’ll do it. Drop all of the rules you’ve set yourself.  I don’t care what you do after, you can wipe your sister’s memories, you can kill yourself, you can run away or come with us.  And your side wins.”

Would you cure people of the miasma? Because if you don’t, their side hardly wins, no matter how much you surrender.

“Aren’t we winning anyways?”

Well, until the water turned to blood.

“Up for debate.  I’m really quite thrilled with the current situation.  Very enjoyable, and we’ve certainly made an impact.”

Which of course is what Jack is most concerned with.

“This deal is a trap.  You’ll make me do it and then you’ll kill me.”

I mean, I’m not sure about the killing part. I think he genuinely believes that if you try, you’ll comply.

And just like that, her resistance crumbled.  “I’ve never felt like that.  Never felt carefree.  Not since I could remember.  Not even when I was a kid.”

Amy is pretty much the perfect target for Jack, short of someone who actually wants to be a villain.

“I see.  From your earliest memory, what was that?  In Marquis’s home?  No?  Being taken home by the heroes and heroines that would become your false family?  Ah, I saw that change in expression.  That would be your earliest memory, and you found yourself struggling to adjust to your new home, to school and life without your supervillain daddy.

And later, having her trigger event and beginning to heal people all the time…

By the time you did figure those things out, you had other worries.  I imagine your family was distant.  So you struggled to please them, to be a good girl, not that it ever mattered.  There was only disappointment.”

😦

“You sound like Tattletale.  That’s not a compliment.”

He really does, yeah.

“My ability to read people is learned, not given, I assure you.  Most of the conclusions I’ve come to have been from the cues you’ve given me.  Body language, tone, things you’ve said.  And I know these sorts of things and what to look for because I’ve met others like you.  That’s what I’m offering you.  A chance to be with similar people for the first time in your life, a chance to be yourself, to have everything you want, and to be with me.

Jack is a lot better at sales pitches than Taylor.

I suspect you’ve never been around someone who actually paid attention to you.”

Well, there was one, but she kinda secretly hated that guy due to jealousy.

“Tattletale did.  And Skitter.”

Oh yeah, that too. I’m glad to see her acknowledge that. 🙂

Trust me, Amy, if you’re gonna join a supervillain team offering to genuinely pay attention to you and care for you, the Undersiders are a much better choice.

(And thus my hopes are reinvigorated. Slightly.)

“Not family.”

“Yes, family.”  Bonesaw cut in.

Heh.

They really do have a lot in common, thematically.

“You guys kill each other.  That’s not family.”

Uh. Each other?

Pretty sure Jack’s been doing his best to prevent that.

“You’re derailing our conversation, Bonesaw,” Jack chided the girl.  “Amelia, when I say you could have everything you ever wanted, I’m telling you that you could live free of guilt, of shame, you could have your sister by your side, no more doubts plaguing you, no more feeling down.

And if she refuses, Bonesaw can make it so she’ll really always have her sister by her side.

Haven’t you laid in bed at night, wondering, praying for a world where you could have something like that?  I’m telling you that you can have those things, and I promise you that the transition from being who you are now to being who you could be would be much quicker than you suspect.”

He’s probably talking from experience with other formerly heroic newbies, if he’s not just lying.

“No.”  The defiance was half-hearted.

He’s slowly winning her over.

Better end this before he pits Amy against you, Taylor.

“Amelia, you could let yourself cut loose and love life for the first time since you were young.”

Fuck, that one hits hard.

Again, one of those pauses that suggested something was going on that was visual and out of sight, rather than something I could overhear.

Hm. How would he illustrate this speech?

I suppose this is a school. Maybe the room he’s in is a classroom and he’s using the blackboard/whiteboard. But I suppose then Taylor should be hearing the telltale scritches of chalk or marker on the board.

Jack offered a dry chuckle.  “Did that hit home?”

Probably. “I’m a monster” is something Amy has been telling herself for some time now, even if she denied it earlier.

“I’m… not that kind of person.  Not a monster.  I’d kill myself before I became like that.”

Or at least, “I might become a monster”.

“But you see how you could be like us.  It wouldn’t even be very hard.  Just… let go of those rules of yours.  You’d get everything you ever wanted.”

Taylor would fit in better personality-wise, but Amy’s got a really good power and issues Jack can exploit to pull her in.

I visualized it, the steps I’d take to open fire, and I realized that the shards of glass on the ground between me and the door could provide them with a half-second of warning.

Ooh, good catch.

Slowly, carefully, I began brushing the shards aside, keeping my ears peeled for some clue about a key distraction.

“Survival of the fittest, it sounds so tidy, but it’s really hundreds of thousands of years of brutish, messy, violent incidents, billions of events that you’d want to avert your eyes from if you were to see them in person.

But not just that.

In spite of how the phrase often gets translated, fittest does not mean strongest. It means the most adapted. That includes those who survive because they cooperate and play an honest, productive part in their society. Hell, judging by the fact that we’ve evolved into a social species, it seems that’s what’s been working best for us. Survival of the fittest, for humans, seems to have favored those who get along with others.

And that’s a large part of what’s shaped us into what we are.  But we wear masks, we pretend to be good, we extend a helping hand to others for reasons that are ultimately self-serving, and all the while, we’re just crude, pleasure-seeking, conniving, selfish apes.  We’re all monsters, deep down inside.”

I’ll give him the self-serving part. Even empathy-fueled actions are to some extent self-serving, to relieve ourself of the negative feelings associated with not helping. But that’s because these feelings and instincts are the way our biology asks us to comply with what it believes is the best course of action for survival and propagation.

We’ve evolved empathy because it works.

“No,” Panacea’s voice was quiet.  “Um.  You’re not going to kill me if I argue, are you?”

Probably depends on what you’re arguing about, I suppose.

“I’m liable to kill you if you don’t.”

Right, because then she’d be boring.

“It’s not that you see too clearly.  I think your view is warped.”

“Over the course of millions of generations that led to your birth, how many of your ancestors were successful because they were cruel to others, because they lied, cheated, stole from their kin, betrayed their brothers and sisters, warred with their neighbors, killed?

How many of those were happy?

We know about Marquis, so that’s one.”

Ouch.

How many were successful because they cooperated?  I wondered.

Probably quite a lot more.

Jack probably had a rebuttal to my question, but I wasn’t about to speak up to hear it, and Panacea didn’t ask.  She fell silent.

I was tensed, ready to move and shoot the second an opportunity arose.  Anything would suffice.  Anything would do.

Careful. Don’t get too trigger happy.