“Can I ride along?” I asked one, the second they were done.

That would be a good way to soothe the paranoia.

And also to take us, the readers, to the hospital to see more consequences of the Shattering.

He looked at me, then grabbed something large, black and irregularly shaped from a pocket beneath the stretcher.  Holding it in one hand, he put one hand on my shoulder and led me a short distance away.  My heart rate tripled.

Um.

Ummm.

My gut was telling me they weren’t normal paramedics, and this was the moment I found out just how.

“Here,” he pressed a bundle into my hands.  It was large, bulky, and there were hard bits beneath the cloth.  “You don’t want to leave this behind.”

…Is it her mask?

Where did she put that again… she didn’t say, but it seems she might’ve dropped it outside the back door, or right inside it.

I peeked at the contents of the bundle, then swallowed hard.  It was my mask and the back sheath of my armor with the stuff inside.

Yep.

I like the implication that the paramedic is totally cool with this and helping to keep her secret. They’re probably trained as such, since this sort of situation probably happens from time to time.

In my haste, I’d torn them off and left them where they fell.

“You’re with Coil?” I asked.  I felt a quiet horror at the realization that Coil would now know who my dad was, and who I was by proxy.

It might be the case, but I think what I just said works too.

Of course, if I’m onto something, there might be differences in how they’re supposed to treat heroes and villains, but no one can be expected to recognize every mask or armor piece and identify whether or not the wearer is a villain. That’s not the paramedic’s job.

I felt like a machine, clumsy, almost emotionless, as I led them out of the house.  There were two other ambulances parked in places I could see.  None had windshields, mirrors or headlights.

As in they’ve been shattered or they’ve been removed in advance?

The explosion had blown out the flashing lights and whatever system had handled the sirens.

Maybe some circuitry in there?

It didn’t fit.  The timing of this, their preparedness.

Except it does. Thanks to you.

But if you don’t think that through, it is possible to land on the conclusion that they’re disguised Slaughterhouse subordinates come to kidnap Danny, or something.

But they didn’t look like any members of the Nine I knew.  I could see one of the paramedics down the street – she was black.  So it wasn’t the Chosen, either.  Merchants wouldn’t be this organized or devious.

Yeah, the Merchants are just a mess in general.

Coil’s actually worth considering if you’re going down this route. It wouldn’t be the first time his soldiers used paramedic vehicles as a form of disguise.

I reminded myself of where my knife was, in case I needed to draw it at a moment’s notice.

The two paramedics began loading my dad into the back.

I can’t blame Taylor for paranoia right now. She’s been through a lot of stress in the last 45 minutes, and at first glance, the convenient timing of the paramedics does seem suspicious.

Quietly, aiming each footstep to avoid the worst patches of broken glass, I stepped from my bedroom, my knife held low and ready.

Two paramedics were working together to shift my dad onto a stretcher.  I hurried to put the knife away.

Nice 🙂

One noticed me.  “Miss?  You’re alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Miss Alright lives two doors down the street.”

“This your dad?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to take him to the hospital.  Mind making sure our way out is clear?  Maybe open the front door for us?”

“Okay.”

Sounds good.

As long as they’re real paramedics, of course, but Occam’s razor is in full effect right here. There’s no reason for them not to be real paramedics, I’m just infected by Taylor’s justified paranoia.

…I was going to comment on how the only suspicious thing was how fast they got here after the Shattering, but thinking through it a bit, I think it’s actually thanks to Taylor. Taylor asked Sierra to warn the hospital. The hospital took it seriously enough to not just do what they could for the existing patients, but preemptively send out paramedic teams to get an early start on helping the victims, and prepare the emergency rooms for the mass arrivals. Many lives may be getting saved even outside the hospital by the early warning they got because Sierra happened to be there when Taylor called.

Floorboards creaked as they ascended the stairs.

Rude.

“Hello?” one of them called out.  I tensed.  I didn’t recognize the voice.  They were right by my dad’s bedroom.  I heard my dad respond and swore under my breath.

I guess they’re not going for stealth, at least. Good sign.

My knife was still strapped in against the back of my costume, which dangled around my knees.  I bent down and drew it from beneath my sweatshirt.

Hopefully she won’t need it, but who knows.

Voices.  One of them murmured something, and my dad replied.  I couldn’t make out anything in terms of the words or the tone of what they were saying.

“lorem ipsum dolor sit amet”

“uhuh”

“Okay,” he said.  “I’ll need my sandals, downstairs.”

I was using my power to find them by the time I was standing again.  I found something else.  There were people in our kitchen.

…

Now what is this. PRT? Or did some S9 member(s) decide to follow Skitter for some reason?

The Slaughterhouse Nine?  Had they followed me here?

My dad was unable to see, thanks to the blood.  I drew my bugs together into a cluster, hid them in the folds of my costume, which I had tied around my waist.  I crossed the hall to my room and found a pair of loose-fitting cargo pants from when I’d had a bit of a belly and a wider waistband.

I suppose slimming down a little might’ve been a result of the hero training. Maybe.

I zipped up the pants and tied a sweatshirt around my waist to hide the rest of my costume.  I could sense them approach.  One of them waved at a fly that flew too close to their head.  Both were men.

So it’s not two of the S9 members from the encounter earlier, then. Jack was the only man among them.

I think PRT or medics is much more likely than S9, but I don’t fully trust it. Who else could it be? Chosen or something? I don’t see why the Chosen would care about entering this house immediately after the Shattering, though, and not everyone was aware that it was coming, so most people wouldn’t enter to seek shelter in-between Skitter running in there.

…Skitter running in there. If they’re PRT, they might be after her, having been following her since she heard the sirens.

“Can you move your toes?”

There was a pause.  “Yes.”

Ah, good. 🙂 Let’s hope it extends to the rest of the legs. I don’t know if the reverse of what I just described can happen, but it wouldn’t surprise me all that much.

I breathed a sigh of relief.  “Then the next biggest issue is possible internal bleeding.  We need to get you to a hospital.”

Ah, yes, the hospitals. They’re in for a busy night, that’s for sure.

Especially since a lot of their equipment – both for management and for actual medical procedures – is going to be broken now.

“They hit the entire city?”

“I think so,” I told him.  No use letting on exactly how much I knew.  It would only cause the both of us more distress in the long run.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Alright, fine, it’s pretty likely. It’s distress I wouldn’t mind reading about though.

“The hospitals will be overcrowded.”

“Yeah.  But not going isn’t an option.”

Not a good one. But if you go, Danny will probably be low priority.

I didn’t add the question about toes for no reason. It’s very much possible to have a spinal injury that causes you to lose feeling in and fine control of some or all of your toes but not the legs/feet they’re attached to. That is the case for my dad.

His hands fumbled blindly for my wrists, seized them.

DANNY! 😀

Hiya, man, how you doing?

He couldn’t see me with the blood in his eyes.  That fact didn’t make me happy or relieved in the slightest, however it might have kept him from discovering my costumed identity.

…maybe.

“Taylor?”

“I’m here.  Don’t move too much.  I’m going to see what I can do.”

“I might have to call in help from this one guy I know who’s really good at burning people’s faces off. He should be done burning off Lisa’s by now.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not even scratched.”

“How?”

“I was protected by some widows down the street.”

I could see him sagging with relief.

“You were right,” he said.  He tried to stand, and I pushed him back down.

That she was – somehow…

“Stay still,” I said.  “At least until we can be sure there’s nothing more serious.”

“Right,” he mumbled.  “You took that first aid class.”

You have no idea how handy that’s been these last few months, Danny!

So much blood.  Two thirds of his face was covered in blood that looked more black than red in the gloom.  Darker lines marked where the blood was welling from.  Cuts across the side of his head, the edge of his forehead, his temple and cheek.  His ear had been almost cut in half.

Hm. Looks like we need Greenfire again. Dude’s taking regular trips to Brockton Bay these days. Tells his teammates he’s going to “practice medicine”, to their confusion.

So we’ve established that things are looking bad. But is he breathing?

There was a rattling from the window.  I looked and saw strips of shredded duct tape.  It looked like the tape had been taped around the edges, then taped in an asterisk-like pattern.

Yes! Good man, Danny, taking his daughter’s warning seriously and doing his best – if perhaps not enough, as foreshadowed in 11.1 (Taylor commenting on Danny’s glasses not being that much safer in his pocket) – to make things safer.

He’d taken my warning seriously.

I investigated further.  More blood at the back of his head.  Had the glass penetrated into his brain?  No, I could feel the edges of the glass.  It had stopped at his skull, maybe splintered under the surface of his skin.  I had no way of telling.

It doesn’t sound like he might be alive from the way Taylor is acting. But this is also not how I expected her to behave if she found him dead, so??