He swerved sharply to try to throw the bugs off, but there wasn’t enough in the way of momentum or wind.  My other flying insects began to ferry larger black carpenter ants onto the windscreen, to use their sharp bites to penetrate the plastic sheeting.

Niice.

We were making holes, but the attempts of my swarm to worm their way through the holes and open them enough for the more dangerous bugs to get inside were stymied by the wind and the flapping of the plastic.

Not enough wind to throw them off, but enough to make things difficult.

Every movement, however small, threw off my ability to track where the existing holes were.

We had a bead on him, and the dogs were better suited for rough terrain than the moving vehicle.  It was only a minute before we caught up.

So. Can he control the Monochrome and the car at the same time?

As I’d guessed, a white moving van with a giant icon of a hand on the back with the words ‘Haul It!’

Hah, nice.

I might have found it amusing if the circumstances were slightly different.

Fortunately, for me the circumstances are quite different, so I’m free to be amused. 😛

I had them in place for less than ten seconds before I found a moving vehicle.

Alright, so it looks like she does have two-way access to the relayed bugs. Sweet.

It was a truck with plastic sheeting over the windows, four-wheeled, with a compact rear.  A small moving truck?  It was moving faster than was safe, veering wildly as it to get through the water and over the damaged streets, and it was heading straight for central downtown.  Straight for the others.

Siberian is super motivated, clearly.

“Found him!”  I hollered, at the top of my lungs.  Tattletale looked over at me, and I signaled, extending my arm to the ten o’clock position.

Maybe we’ll actually be able to catch up before Siberian makes too much of a mess over there!

I felt strangely calm as I shifted my focus to the attack.

Let’s do this thing. Fuck ‘em up, Taylor.

If it came down to it, I’d have to kill the man.

What do you mean if it came down to it? Isn’t that your main objective?

My bugs clustered on the ‘windshield’ of flapping plastic, gathering in heavy numbers.  The faster moving dragonflies and hornets began to pelt the plastic, attempting to drive themselves through it.  Most died in the process.

Subtle.

Letting go of Grue with one hand, I patted Amy’s hand and then reached back to give her a thumbs up.  I set more dragonflies and other various bugs down on the backs of her hand.

I appreciate that Taylor is visibly validating Amy for her help here. Amy needs that.

In another minute, I had four more relay bugs.  I paired them up and sent them forward, so one relay could transmit to the next.

Relay works as a term for them too, sure.

(I called them repeaters because of radio repeaters. My dad has ham radio as a hobby, so that’s what came to mind when I realized what the echo was.)

Two extra city blocks of range.  I started gathering a swarm with the bugs in question.

Also, it seems they can indeed be daisy chained! That ought to come in handy.

Amy had balked at the idea of outfitting me with altered bugs.  Had she maybe settled on these, because she thought they wouldn’t give me as much offensive potential?

Perhaps. On top of that, they do still give you one of the things you requested, though in a way that a) doesn’t require her to mess with brains, b) isn’t quite as powerful, and c) isn’t permanent unless you make sure the relay bugs she made stick around or you keep Amy around to make them.

I could feel the sensation of Amy doing something to interfere with my powers.  It began to get worse, reaching a peak, and then getting worse.

Amy, what are you doing? You’re not betraying them already, are you?

Are you actually trying to do the corona thing Taylor asked you for in spite of your reluctance to do stuff with brains?

Just when it had reached the point where I was going to tear her hands from around me and let her fall off Sirius’s back, it began to clear up.

Alright, if that is what she’s doing, she seems to either have given up or succeeded.

I could feel the bugs, but they weren’t anything like what I’d seen in Brockton Bay.  Superficially like dragonflies, with fatter bodies.

Oh, alright, she was doing the other thing Taylor asked for. Fair enough! That makes more sense to introduce narratively, anyway. If they got Amy boosting Taylor’s power, they could have her boost all of their powers, and at some point it’s just too much too quickly. Especially this soon after Grue’s second trigger.

I couldn’t grasp every process in their body, making them feel strangely hollow and artificial.  What I could feel was a kind of echo in my power.  It made control harder.

Interesting. It seems like Amy’s manipulation makes them different enough that Taylor’s power barely considers them valid arthropods for control anymore.

So, who’s ready to go see how the rest of the Undertravelers are holding up against the Nine? I am!