“Skitter!  I don’t care if I die,” Panacea called out, “I’d rather live, if only to turn Victoria back to normal, but… just don’t worry about the hostage part.

Sorry, Amy, Taylor really needs you alive.

If I have to die so you can kill this fucker, I will.”

It’s very noble of you, though. And a bit disturbing due to the low desire to live

(that’s another thing Amy and Taylor have in common sometimes), but noble.

It isn’t that simple.  Killing a monster like Jack or Bonesaw?  That was one thing.  I could push myself to do it.  Killing a bystander in the process?  That was something else entirely.

Let alone a bystander who is the key to saving everyone you hold dear including yourself.

Man, though, healing thousands of people who are paranoid that the girl who wants to touch them might be a member of the Nine might be a hassle. Maybe microbes could be the solution, just as it is the problem?

Jack seemed to be able to interpret my pause.  “I suspect, Amelia, that she is worried about the hostage.  The monster that dwells in Skitter’s heart is very similar one to yours.  It’s a lonely thing, desperate for a place to belong, and the only thing it wants to be brutish to is her.”

He’s not wrong.

“Don’t pretend you know me, Jack,” I called out.  “You already tried to fuck with my head, you guessed wrong.”

True. Like he himself admitted, he didn’t know her quite right enough to pull it off.

I stood with my back to the wall, gun in hand.  Ten bullets in here, four spent, if I’d counted right.  I’d always sort of rolled my eyes at how movies treated guns and counting bullets, but it was harder than I’d thought.

You’d think counting the shots fired wouldn’t be difficult, but then everything happens so quickly.

The shock and disorientation that came with firing a gun tended to disrupt even basic arithmetic.

That too.

I couldn’t remember how many times I’d fired during the fight in the parking lot.

“I’ve been turning every microbe that touches my skin into an airborne plague, Jack,” Panacea spoke, her voice low.  “You should be dead now.”

I take it that’s what the heavy air was about.

But unfortunately Bonesaw has helped protect him against that kind of thing too.

“And me?” I called out, feeling a pang of alarm.

I think you’ve managed to dodge it? Maybe?

“I didn’t know you were there.  You should be dead too.  Sorry.”

I mean, clearly neither of them are dead yet, so something’s not quite right here.

But hey, I have previously speculated on Taylor being resistant to these sorts of things due to her bug affinity.

“A benefit of little Bonesaw’s smoke,” Jack answered.  “If I recall correctly, it’s something of a safeguard in case she accidentally deploys a concoction she hasn’t immunized herself or the rest of our team against.  The fact that it works against bugs and small rodents is a side benefit, rather than the intent. 

Oh, huh.

Bonesaw’s work has made us members of the Nine more or less immune to disease anyways.”

“And the gunshot?”

That too.

“Subdermal mesh.  There’s more protection around the spine and organs, and you landed that shot pretty close to my spine.  It hurts quite a bit.”

Hurts, but ain’t gonna kill him.

He did just tell her where she should be shooting, though. And that shooting isn’t entirely pointless. Pain can incapacitate.

If the sister had come after me, I wouldn’t have been able to fight back.  Like a deer in the headlights, I stood there, unable to think or compel my body to move.

Some people get more stubborn with the fear aura, but Taylor is apparently among those who get paralyzed.

How about Jack?

She rotated in mid-air slowly, as if getting her bearings.  As ponderously as she had moved one moment, she went tearing after Bonesaw in the next, slamming through walls as momentum carried her too far and as she turned a corner too tight and sheared through the drywall, tile and window frames.

Well, at least this school was already in disrepair.

I could hear Bonesaw laughing with childlike glee as she fled.

I love her so much.

“Not smart, not smart, either of you,” Jack chastised us.  “See, with Victoria gone, you’ve left me here with a hostage.”

Oh great.

I ducked back through the door, the knife delivering a glancing blow to my back.  It failed to penetrate my costume.

The consistent fact that knives aren’t good against Skitter’s costume is neat.

Oddly enough, moving into the hallway and putting my back to the wall made me feel like I’d committed to fighting Jack, even if I might have been in a better position to go after Bonesaw.

Huh.

“Wake,” I heard Panacea speak.  She said something else that I missed.

I felt a jolt, but it wasn’t physical.  It shook me on an emotional level.

I suppose what Amy’s done was meant to speed Victoria’s recovery?

As for the jolt… they’re not close enough to Cherish’s location for Bonesaw to have gone and fetched her this quickly, surely. That’s just not believable.

They didn’t have time to do it before coming here, either.

My voice abandoned me, not that I wanted to speak.  I felt as if I stood on the very edge of the grand canyon and any movement, even one to step back onto solid ground, was guaranteed to send me falling to certain death.

So what is this? Is this the effect of that colorless gas from earlier?

The levitating construct of flesh slammed through the door and the door-frame that Bonesaw had used to make her exit.  The mask of bone drew upward like an opened lid, to reveal a clear sphere, containing vitreous fluid and a teenage girl with blond hair.

…

Is this inspired by Bentley? Did Amy recreate whatever biological mechanisms are responsible for creating a living copy of the original dog inside the hellhounds?

And apparently Bonesaw did “something similar” to this for Siberian.

Her eyes were open, but she looked half asleep, her hair fanned out around her, floating in fluid that seemed thicker than water.  Her arms were outstretched, but her hands and lower body were hidden by the meat that surrounded her.  The edges of the shell that were unfolding around her were curved forward like the horns of a bull.

Whatever the case is, this has just the right balance of disturbing and glorious and oh I just realized what’s happening with Taylor. It’s Victoria’s fear aura.

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.