There was a pause.  Sierra thought of how she would excuse herself, go tend to the soup and check on Charlotte, but Skitter spoke first. “But no.  Not an ally.  At least half of them might get involved, and that could get pretty ugly, fast, but I’m thinking the biggest issue right now is the man at the top.”

She continues to open up. This is stuff it took Taylor a while to come clean about to some of her Undersider friends, and she hasn’t done that to all of them.

Hell, I’m not sure she’s even told Sierra there was a man at the top before, for that matter.

So is that where we’re going next? Dealing with Coil?

…end of chapter. Well, that sounds very close to a confirmation to me.

Skitter let herself drop into a chair.  “Anything serious?  Ongoing attacks?”

“Just occupying the territory, I think.  Maybe making trouble for minorities nearby, but nothing so serious that I’ve hard about it.”

(I assume that’s supposed to be “heard”. Maybe Sierra developed an interesting accent just for that one word…)

“Then I’ll deal with them after an afternoon’s rest.  Maybe open a discussion before I try anything more serious.”

So that’s two things she intends to “deal with” tonight.

Jeez, she needs and deserves at least a couple days of rest.

Skitter’s voice buzzed as she spoke.  She pulled off the mask that covered the lower half of her face.

“Your voice.  You’re still doing the thing where your bugs talk with you.”

Oh yeah, I suppose she forgot to stop.

“Sorry,” Skitter said, the swarm suddenly quiet.  “I don’t even think about it anymore.”

Taylor automates bug maneuvers like this remarkably quickly.

“Your gang’s a lot smaller.  A lot of people died.”

These are things Taylor probably doesn’t need to hear about right now, maybe.

Skitter put her elbows on her knees, removed her glasses and buried her face in her hands.

Crying?

There’s been this ongoing progression with Skitter, the drones and showing her humanity, and I love it. For all her badassery just now, this is one of the most vulnerable states Sierra has seen Taylor in, and Taylor is letting it show, even if she isn’t actively reaching out to Sierra for comfort. They’re not quite there yet.

She hurried to obey, stepping into the open doorframe and reaching up to bring it down to the ground.  It latched at the door’s base.  She shut the door after it.  “There’re kids still on an errand, I think.”

After that display, Sierra doesn’t want to waste a moment in doing what Skitter wants.

“I’ll let you know when to open the shutter again.”

“Okay.”

Right, she’ll sense the kids.

Skitter scattered the bugs around her face and ran her gloved fingers through her hair to straighten it.  “I’m sorry.”

“That was a touch dramatic.”

But which thing is she apologizing for here? Not coming back sooner? Letting Sierra see her go a bit heavy on the intimidation there?

Moments like this are part of why Skitter would fit into the Nine.

“It’s okay,” Sierra replied, not quite sure what the apology was for.

You and me both, Sierra.

“Couldn’t focus on this place and the Nine at the same time, and I thought this place was a lost cause.”

Ah. The former, then.

That stung, but Sierra didn’t voice the thought.  “Might be.  We’ve got bodies to get rid of-”

Yeah, I can see why she would be a little bit hurt by Skitter admitting to have pretty much given up on them.

I think Skitter is a little too exhausted to worry about the bodies right at the moment.

“I’ll handle that tonight.”

What time even is it right now?

“The Chosen have been moving into the edges of your area, here and elsewhere, according to Tattletale’s soldier.”

I guess they might be our next antagonists? Maybe? Seems like a step down from the Nine, but most local antagonists do right now and I doubt we’ll be seeing Nilbog right after the Nine left. So what else might be next? The Simurgh?

“So you’re condemning us to die?”  Any bravado Yan might have had before had been excised and replaced by wide-eyed fear.

“No.  Leave the city as fast as you can, and you can get help somewhere else.

“This way, if you die from this, it’ll be on you for not getting out of my way quickly enough.”

I don’t really care, so long as you’re out of my city.  You’ll have some ugly scars if you don’t hurry.”

My city. Not even our city.

Though it could be in the sense of “my home city”, I kinda doubt that’s the full extent of it.

Skitter gestured to the door, and the three were quick to leave.  “Sierra, the shutter.”

Bye bye!

Sugita was too busy reeling from the knee to the gut to respond or react.

“Attacking my people?  That was dumb.  Attacking a little kid?  Dumber.  Consider my territory to be a very bad place to be from now on.

She’s making it incredibly clear how unwanted they are here now.

I mean, if the spider bites weren’t enough of an indication.

My bugs can see you, they can hear you, and I’ll know if you slow down even a little as you leave, give you a few more bites.”

“RUN.”

The beetle climbed off Yan, using its forelimbs to pick up the gun by driving the points through the trigger-guard.  It moved to Skitter’s side.

Y’know, I never thought I’d be reading about a beetle with a gun, but now that I am, it does not disappoint.

Yan, Sugita and Jay all took that as their leave to climb to their feet and head toward the door.  None of them even looked at Skitter, but they stopped when she pushed the door closed.

Not go-time yet?

Oh! Is she gonna use the gun as a starting signal for them to race out the door?

“There’s no safe haven for you in Brockton Bay.  My allies have control of every district, every territory.  No shelter will host you, and our individual forces will be searching every other place you might want to sleep.  Before you get far enough to find a doctor and get those bites treated, my contacts will have spread the word. 

“Get the fuck out of our city.”

The doctors may have to treat you, but we can have our people sitting in the waiting rooms, or working as assistants to the doctors.  If you show your face, you’ll get attacked.  Maybe it’ll be a direct attack, maybe it won’t.  Trust me when I say you won’t be in any shape to defend yourselves.”

Damn.

She seems to be exaggerating slightly, but Coil could genuinely have his Coildiers in such roles, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility for her. Just outside of the amount of effort she’d want to go to to deal with just these three thugs.

The suggestion is enough. The fear it’ll put in them.

The paranoia that anyone around them might be out to get them. That sounds familiar for some reason.

They were as insecure as the rest of us, Sierra thought.  Not that it excuses their behavior.

It really doesn’t.

“Hand or knee?” Skitter asked.

Ohhh.

Going for karmic retribution.

I like it!

“Fuck you!”  Yan shouted.

Then she convulsed.  She thrashed, dragging her hands against the pointed forelimbs with such violence that she opened ragged cuts in her palms.

Oh wow. What just bit her?

She stopped as quickly as she’d started, her eyes going wide.

She’d been bitten, more than once.

Was it the brown recluses?

Also, did Taylor go for “both” when Yan refused to choose?

“Shaggy-hair, hand or knee?”

Looks like that’s what happened, yeah.

Your turn, Jay.

Jay’s eyes went wide, but he very calmly stated, “Hand.”

Not bad, managing to stay calm after seeing what just happened to Yan. Does he think Skitter is bluffing, that the convulsions were just for show?

His eyes went wide as a spider crawled down the length of his arm to the back of his hand.  He jumped like he’d been electrocuted.

Yeah, looks like he didn’t expect that to actually happen.

Y’know, I kinda hope Taylor takes the time at some point to mention that she did this to Lung’s dick, but even if she doesn’t, I like the parallels. The progression from that revelation horrifying her, to her doing this casually to three people who didn’t get anywhere near Lung’s supposed level of shittiness.

I say “supposed” because the only things we’ve really been shown of it are that his operation dealt in drugs and that he was willing to kill powered kids.

“Anyone that’s still in the city probably has some reason they can’t go.  But things here aren’t good.”

…fair point.

“We can fix that,” Skitter said.  It sounded more like she was talking to herself than to anyone in the room.

I think she is.

It would have been reassuring if she hadn’t been staring down at Yan.

Oh, yikes.

“What are you going to do?” Yan repeated herself.

“Charlotte, would you take the children into another room?”

Second time asked, second time ignored.

And yeeeah, that’s not gonna be a reassuring sentiment for Yan.

Charlotte seemed relieved to have the chance to escape.  Every child that was present flocked to her and she hurried into the bedroom.

Charlotte has always been the more skittish of the two original drones, so I can imagine she doesn’t want to see what’s going to happen either.

That’s on top of wanting to get away from Sugita, of course. I’m sure that’s her main concern.

Yan raised her voice, “You left!  You abandoned us!”

Trying to play on her guilt? I’m not entirely sure that’s going to work right now. Later, sure, but right now she might be too exhausted to acknowledge the guilt below extinction-level.

…then again, she just did.