“You assholes.  Least you can do is drop the bullshit and admit you just want to take our stuff.”

Heh, yeah.

“Was thinking about it, sure,” Jay said, “Doesn’t look like Skitter’s coming back.  Two days, situation like this?  But you’re dreaming if you think we’re going to just walk away with some food.  I think we’re going to evict you.”

“Evict us?

Well fuck you too.

“Move out of the way,” Yan ordered Sierra, twitching the gun to her left.

“Why?” Sierra asked.

So they can get to the food, I guess?

“Because I’ll shoot you if you don’t,” Yan said.  “I can’t believe you’re not listening.  You’re either stubborn or stupid.”

“I’m tired,” Sierra replied.  “And what you’re doing here isn’t exactly brilliant.  Think about it. Where did this food come from?  The equipment?”

Skitter, and they think she’s probably dead and thus unable to provide more of it.

Or maybe Sierra’s talking about how there’s got to be some bigger man who’d take issue with their behavior.

“Skitter bought it.”

“From who?  From where?  It’s pretty obvious this place was set up after Leviathan came, but where’d she get it?  She had it delivered.  And the same people who make deliveries like this to a supervillain are going to be pretty ticked off if they find out someone’s messed with one of their customers.”

Pretty solid logic here.

The argument was feeble, and she knew it.

“If these people exist, they won’t show up tonight.  We’ll spend the night.  I figure we’re overdue for a party.”

Hey, Jaw, you busy?

“Skitter gave us permission.”

“We supposed to believe?” Sugita asked, his voice heavily accented.

Oh hey, you’re here too.

Is Yan with you?

“Yeah.”

“No,” Yan spoke.  She reached behind her back and drew a handgun.

Well, fuck.

“Don’t believe you.”

There are kids here, Sierra thought.

They don’t need another corpse on the floor.

“Stupid,” she spoke without thinking.

Yan pointed the gun at her.  “What did you say?”

Oops.

“You know Skitter gave us the go-ahead to use her place.”

“That so?  I overheard someone complaining that Skitter left without announcing anything, after the fires,” Yan said.  Her tone was mocking.

Taylor may have fucked up in that regard.

Sierra whirled around before the man was even finished talking.  Not a man, exactly, but boy didn’t fit.

Hmm.

It was Jay.  The Japanese-American boy glared at her through his mop of hair.

Oh. Hi. What the fuck?

Did Yan say something to him about Sierra?

“Jay.  You weren’t invited here.”

“I can see why.  Electricity, running water, food… you’ve got it made.

Ahhh. So that’s where we’re going.

Was wondering where you were going, tried following you, but you disappeared.  Thought we’d missed our chance until we saw some ankle-biters running down the street with plastic containers of food.  Seems you’re hoarding the good shit.”

I mean, where do you think the ankle-biters (no actual ankle-biting, kids, we’ve had enough cannibalism) were bringing the food?

“We’re not hoarding,” she spoke.  She had to swallow to clear her throat.  She knew she had to sound confident, “This is Skitter’s place.”

I’m not 100% sure saying that was a good idea, but at least it’s a good reason.

“Skitter’s, sure.  If she’s still alive.  But not your space.  Don’t see why you can have this stuff and we can’t.”

You can. They are actively working on distributing it.

Sierra didn’t give it a second thought until she heard the shutter sliding open.

Hm?

Skitter’s back?

“Not the front door!”  Sierra called out, but the kids were already out the front door.  She sighed.

Oh.

Whoops. Kinda wanted to keep this building secret.

“They’re afraid of the storm sewer,” Charlotte pointed out.

Ahh. Sierra’s not one to speak when it comes to that.

“I know.  It’s not that big a deal.  I’m going to go out with the next group, just to keep an eye on the delivery process.”

“Okay.  I’ll prep some for you to carry,” Charlotte said.  “Find more tupperware or pots I can put this in?”

Alright, so if things go as planned, we’re probably going out with Sierra and the kids.

Sierra nodded and turned to do as she’d been asked, but the kids were already hopping to the task.  She let them go ahead.  It seemed they were glad for something to occupy themselves with.

People deal with grief in different ways. This is one of them. Child labor or not, allowing them to help like this is kind as long as it’s allowing them to help rather than making them help.

Maybe they recognized how shitty the overall situation was and they wanted to help fix it.

Some of the older ones, maybe.

She suspected she’d find the necessary tupperware faster than the four kids combined, but it wasn’t a big deal.

“Well, well, well.”

…

That doesn’t sound like anyone present, nor like Skitter.

If anything, it sounds like Jack.

Don’t you fucking dare. Just leave the city and doom the world already.

“Have her cut it out?  I don’t want to sound like I’m giving you orders, but I don’t want my little brother shooting people.”

“It’s fine.  Tattletale told us to do whatever you required as far as the boy is concerned.  I will tell Minor, and he will order the others to keep the boy away from weapons.”

Sounds alright.

“Thank you.”

“I will also decide on a punishment for the boy for being rude and hanging up on his sister.  I think we would all like him to learn some respect for his betters.”

I know, right?

She could imagine him looking at Bryce as he said it.

Hehe.

“Nothing too serious?  As punishment goes?”

“Nothing serious.  It will build character.”

‘Course, who knows what “nothing serious” means to Jaw.

“Thank you.  Any word on what Skitter and Tattletale are doing?”

“No.  All I know is that it will be dangerous, and every squad is on high alert.  We are sleeping in shifts, maintaining combat readiness and doubling patrols.

In case the Undertravelers need backup.

I take it they haven’t requested the Coildier support to the Boat Graveyard yet?

We were informed three hours ago that the downtown area is off-limits.  I know Lieutenant Fish was deployed there when the order came down, and he has ceased all communications.”

Alright, I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been three hours since the miasma struck, so it looks like the chronology is linear here.

“All of downtown?”

“Yes.”

Probably worth staying out of a bit beyond that, too.

She hung up and headed for the bathroom to tend to the damage her hands had accumulated over the day’s work.  Disinfectant, antibiotic ointment, bandages.  Every time she thought she’d found the last small scrape, she found another.

I hope there was an unnarrated goodbye here. Otherwise I’d have to question the entire Kiley family’s phone manners.

“It’s a good thing that you’re not being dragged into a firefight.  Especially one with capes.”

“They’ve been teaching me how to fight with a knife, how to throw one, how to use a gun-”

That doesn’t mean you should seek out situations where you have to do it.

“I don’t want you learning that stuff.”

Also that. I didn’t expect her to take kindly to that.

“I have to, in case we get ambushed or something.  And I’m not bad at it.  We could have fought those guys.”

“Did Tattletale tell you that you should fight them?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“No…”

“Like I said, Tattletale isn’t around and hasn’t been for a while.”

“So the answer is no, she didn’t give you the go-ahead.”

So if Lisa did tell Bryce to fight some capes, how would you take that, Sierra?

“No.”

“That’s a good enough reason to back off, then.  I don’t know exactly who she is or what she does, but she knows what she’s doing.  Trust her in that.”

Most of the time, yeah.