The rats died at the hands of my bugs, thoroughly poisoned or envenomed, or even eaten alive by the ones that bit repeatedly and didn’t even bother to chew or swallow the flesh.

Are we sure this isn’t the Arc that should go by the title Extermination?

Speaking of Arc titles, I suppose it’s quite fitting that Taylor’s exterminating an infestation of rats in the first chapter of Plague. I highly doubt that’s going to be one of the main reasons for the title, but it’s a fun correlation.

I suppose it is possible that we’re dealing with a literal plague of disease and other issues in this Arc, focusing on Taylor’s efforts to rule her territory rather than on the Slaughterhouse plot. Or, more likely, there’ll be a balance of both things.

It wasn’t a fast job, as there were hundreds of the rodents and they were surprisingly tenacious. I wanted to be thorough.

Of course, now they’ll have hundreds of rat corpses in and around their house, unless Taylor takes measures to remove those. I’m not sure that’s much better.

It took me eight or so minutes to arrive, with the roundabout route I had to take to get from my lair to the beach and then back over toward the Docks.  A heavy cloud of bugs surrounded the house, and a group of eight people of different ages were clustered on the far side of the street, watching the scene like they were watching their house burn down.

“It’s a cleansing fire, okay? Or, uh, swarm.”

Did Sierra and Charlotte move on to the next houses on their round?

Sierra and Charlotte stood apart from the huddle, a short distance away.

Apparently not. Hi!

The compartment of armor at my back buzzed, and I reached back to retrieve my cell phone.  It was Grue:

can I come by?

Oh hey! Sorry, Taylor’s a little busy at the moment.

So is that just a social call or more important stuff?

I quickly replied:

On errand.  Don’t come to my place.  Meet me at Bayview and Clover.  Not too far from our old place.

This seems like a nice compromise.

It was only a moment before I got a reply:

got it. am already otw.  close.

So was he already out and went “hey, why don’t I visit Taylor on the way”, or was he already on his way to Taylor’s when he remembered that he should probably ask first?

So he was already on the way when he called?  I wasn’t sure what to think about that.  It suggested it was a social call with the assumption I would be okay with it, which I didn’t mind, but that didn’t really fit his personality.

Yeah, exactly.

I’m glad to see Taylor too give that some more thought, because it suggests I was onto something.

I suspect that something is Brian wanting to warn her about the Slaughterhouse Nine face to face.

More likely there was something that he wanted to discuss with me in person.

Yeah, sounds about right.

No wonder they wanted to leave.

“Tell them to step outside.  If they hesitate, warn them they might get hurt.  They won’t, but it’ll make them move.”

So what are you going to do? Chase out the rodents with painful bugs?

“Okay.”

I hung up, then hurried to pull on my costume, donning latex rubber socks before pulling on the leggings.  At the same time, I gathered a swarm near the rat house.

Oh, are you going out there yourself?

I began a systematic attack against the rodents there.  Bees, wasps, hornets, fire ants, regular ants, mosquitoes, biting flies and spiders gathered and began attacking the rats furthest from the house and began steadily working their way inward.

…but won’t that cause the rats to flee inward? Isn’t that the opposite of what you want?

Though it’s not like you’d want the rodents to spread to other houses, either.

Some rats fought or ran, but more bugs gathered each second.

I hurried out the door and took my shortcut through the false storm drain to the beach.  Drawing a host of bugs around myself, I headed toward the rat house with long strides.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what Skitter will be able to do in person. Just show herself to establish her responsibility for the rats’ defeat?

“Yes, Charlotte?” I asked.

“Um,” she was taken back a little.

It was Charlotte after all! What a twist!

What’s up?

“There’s this place here with two families, and they’re in the middle of packing up to leave.  I thought you’d want to know, in case they were gone before we came back at noon to eat and tell you about it.”

Ahh. Yeah, that makes sense – Taylor bug-sensing a bunch of people leaving the area right after her minions stopped by might give her the wrong idea.

But then there’s another question: Are they leaving the area because of Skitter’s takeover? Or just joining the droves of people evacuating the city as a whole?

“That’s fine.  What’s the problem?”

“Rats.”

Aw, rats.

Of course.  The trash would offer a steady diet to vermin, and the flooding would deter many of their natural predators.  The rodent population had exploded, and it could easily be getting to the point where it was interfering with people’s daily lives.

It clearly is, if it’s actively driving them out of their homes.

“Their neighbors have the same problem?”

“We haven’t been able to get any of them to answer the door.”

Brockton Bay isn’t in a state that’s conducive to people trusting strangers knocking on their doors, especially ones wearing masks.

…try again in October?

Once those big issues were resolved, a lot of the smaller ones could be attended to.  Too many problems came with large numbers of people spending the majority of their time wading ankle-deep in water that was swimming with warm garbage.

Sounds about right. We’ve seen some of those already, but I’m sure Wildbow has more examples to throw at us.

Time passed quickly, what with my focusing on the costumes, Sierra and Charlotte, arranging the cleaning up of the area, using bugs to sweep for troublemakers in my vicinity and experimenting on a smaller scale with dyes and costume options.  I had a smaller collection of Darwin’s bark spiders that Coil had procured for me in a specialized terrarium to emulate the hot temperatures they were used to, but I couldn’t use them to make anything until they had given birth to at least one new generation.

Why’s that? To make sure you have reserves if they should die? Or are the specimens you have too old to properly use, or something?

When I did, though, I expected that the fabric they created would be as superior to the black widow’s work as the black widow’s silk was to conventional cloth.

Damn, that’s good fabric.

There wasn’t much room for error with the small number Coil had provided, so I was being careful with the breeding process.

I wonder how much research Taylor had to do on Darwin’s bark spider breeding and how much comes naturally to her from her power.

My cell phone rang, and I knew from the bugs I had placed on the two girls that it was Charlotte calling.  That, or someone else had coincidentally phoned me the same instant Charlotte dialed on her phone and raised it to her ear.

Oh yeah, that would be another good way of getting Taylor’s attention without bug signals. Not sure why I didn’t think of that.

When I wasn’t occupied with that, I focused on Sierra and Charlotte.  I checked their surroundings, discreetly screened nearby groups of people for weapons.  I marked each door with symbols to count the people inside, notified the girls if people were armed, and I put a circle on doors that they were to visit, an ‘x’ on doors they should skip.

An x-shaped bug swarm: The poor villain’s lamb blood.

A lot of people were ignoring the knocks.  I let them be.  After a few days, if they were still ignoring my minion’s attempts to talk to them, I’d maybe give them a bit of a nudge or leave them a message using my bugs.

They come downstairs to find ’SUP on their living room wall.

That ought to let them know you don’t just ignore the Skitter.

Apparently overwhelmed with the requests from his various rulers of the Brockton Bay territories, Coil had started delegating some of his people to act as intermediaries.

Hm, realizing you promised a bit too much, Coil? Or are you actually just busy protecting your base against future Slaughterhouse intrusions?

I got in contact with Mrs. Cranston, the intermediary he’d designated to me, and outlined what I needed.  Waste removal was a big priority, as was clearing out the storm drains so the water could drain from the flooded streets.

What, and make an area in Brockton Bay dry?

*grumbles at Interlude 11c for weakening that running joke by introducing a dry spot*

(But hey, at least Labyrinth fixed that.)

I let her know that my services were available if she wanted help identifying where the blockages were, or if the trash removal teams needed protection from interference.

The bug-o-”vision” can be really damn useful.