We only slowed when we got to Coil’s underground base.  We parked the dogs and then headed for the series of barred and locked doors.

Wait, aren’t the dogs the main things moving Genesis and the two members of the Nine in her stomach?

Also, I like the idea of them actually parking the dogs in parking lots.

I glanced at Shatterbird and Cherish where they knelt in Genesis’ rotund body.  We weren’t really giving away information here. Crawler had apparently come this way, not so long ago.

I can imagine his tracks would be quite visible.

It was a fifty-fifty chance whether Siberian and the other Nine would come this way.  Cherish wasn’t around to give them information, but she might have provided details at an earlier point that Jack or one of the others could use to connect the dots.

Hm. Certainly possible.

We’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

Or when the Nine get to it.

“Get her!”

Bitch rode just to Cherish’s left, Regent rode just to the right, and Genesis rolled right over the girl.  Cherish caught like glue, suffered an unfortunate few seconds of being dragged over the road’s surface, and was then drawn into Genesis’ bubble of a body.

Shatterbird: “Ugh, I have to be in here with her?”

My bugs gave me a sense of the Nine’s locations, and my decoys gave them pause once or twice.  We could track them more easily than they could do the reverse, and we were soon far enough away that I couldn’t sense them.

Excellent!

■

Well, that was a success!

Drawing my bugs together, I covered us as best as I was able, creating other decoys, vague chariot-shaped lumps here and there, huddles of figures.

Nice. Just covering them up in bugs while still being oddly shaped, without making the decoys oddly-shaped, would make them way too obviously the real one.

It would all be for nothing if they returned to Cherish, revived the girl and tracked us down.

Hmm. Maybe only if they revived her properly, rather than leaving her a husk like Hack Job. Hack Job can use his powers because they’re fairly physical, but Cherish’s power probably requires a functional mind.

“Left!” I ordered.

Bitch steered left.  Regent hadn’t heard, but as the tension on the chains pulled Sirius to one side, he caught on and turned as well.

Time to get out of here!

My bugs served as a navigation system, feeling out the shapes of our surroundings so I could work out a suitable path.

Arthropod Positioning System (APS), for when GPS is too mundane.

We charged onward, with me giving occasional directions, until we found Cherish lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Hi there!

So are they going to pick her up so she can’t be revived?

“Hurry,” Regent said.  He was winding the chain around the jello-like yellow hand.  Fingerless hands gripped the chain for further traction.

So, uh. How does this help? I mean, restraining Genesis?

Is Genesis going to pull the chains into her body to tie them around Shatterbird?

Shatterbird noticed the spiders.  Her eyes widened as the volume of deadly spiders trapped in the bubble with her increased.  I raked my finger beneath the message I’d drawn with the bugs, as if to underline it.  ‘Stop’.

That ought to drive the point home.

She did.  Glass shards fell into a pool around her feet.

Good girl.

“Go!”  I shouted.

We ran, the two dogs side by side, pulling Genesis behind us like a chariot.

Ahh, I guess she didn’t put much effort into making the form mobile on its own.

Using my bugs, I formed words against the surface of Genesis’s belly.  ‘Stop’.

Not gonna lie, this is not how I pictured “stopping her” going. At least it’s more pleasant for Genesis than the alternative.

Shatterbird only intensified her attempts.

Of course.

I gathered some black widow spiders and pressed them gently against the shiny, translucent skin.  They were absorbed, drifting inside, and were soon crawling around the inside surface.

Oh yeah, I suppose there’s no need to go through the mouth, if Genesis’ form even has one. It would actually be smarter for it not to.

Genesis obliged me by opening her mouth, giving me a direct route for the bugs to travel.

Well, never mind.

Genesis looked like a cartoon caricature of a sumo wrestler, grotesquely obese and yellow skinned with eyes like black buttons.

That’s a bit racist, Genesis.

She was hairless, unclothed and sexless, and her skin was translucent and oily.

She sounds like a mixture of a gorilla and Gregor.

Through the skin, I could make out the vague figure of Shatterbird, pounding on the walls of the stomach, her mouth opening in a scream that didn’t reach us.

Pfft! That’s certainly one way to capture her!

Glass shards were stirring around her, a blender whir cutting at the insides of Genesis’s belly.

They presumably thought of that and made sure she could make a glass-proof stomach.

“She’s going to cut through,” I said.  “Bitch, Regent, get the chains.  I’ll try to stop her.”

Or, maybe not?

And Grue?  I cast a glance backward.  He’d dropped out of the air where Shatterbird had been flying, landing on a rooftop a distance below.  I could see him struggling to his feet.

Ow.

“Go, go!”  Trickster screamed the words.

Hang on, just gotta wake someone up first.

So are they just leaving Grue behind? Is Genesis supposed to come pick him up?

Our mounts leaped down into the same gap where Shatterbird had fallen.  We made the usual zig-zagging descent down, leaping from wall to wall, and landed on either side of Shatterbird and Genesis.

Oh hey, there you are.

So is Shatterbird getting captured so Regent can do his thing and take control of her?

If so, that’s a good choice of a shogi piece.

“Your call,” Trickster said.  “Three, two, one!”

Grue leaped from the edge of the roof.  In that same instant, Trickster swapped him with Shatterbird.

Hm, I suppose that might at least cause Shatters to hit the wall. Or get turned around, depending on how this works.

Wait, what if Trickster were to teleport her out of her costume? The costume is how she’s flying, so that would result in her falling towards the ground.

Also Grue would end up in a pretty glass dress on top of his regular costume (Trickster can’t teleport Grue out of his costume because he doesn’t have line of sight to Grue’s skin, making it an uneven swap where Grue would have both outfits), so that’s neat. It might be upside down, too.

She tumbled for a second, got a grip with her flight, and then steadied.

Aw.

So why did plan A require her to be ahead of the other two?

Then Regent hit her with his power.

Oh! Range considerations!

Shatterbird flew into the corner of the roof, was thrown off-balance and tipped into the gap between buildings.

Hell yes.

Wait, how is moving her body involuntarily affecting her flight, considering she’s using her brain to do that? Did Regent mess with the nerves in her brain? Can he do that?

“You up for this, Grue?” I asked, “I could do it.  My plan, and I was first to volunteer.”

So whatever it is, it’s something both of them could do. Something to do with the decoys, I guess?

“No, you can’t run fast enough with those burns.” Grue replied, as he hurried to the side of the rooftop furthest from the Nine.  He glanced down. “Trickster, I’m ready!”

Ah, alright.

“Just need an opportunity,” Trickster said, watching the incoming members of the Slaughterhouse Nine.  They were closing a little too fast for comfort.  Sirius had arrived, and we were all getting saddled.

Is Trickster going to replace Grue with someone? I don’t see a benefit to that, though.

Bitch, Sundancer and I on Bentley, and Regent, Trickster and Ballistic on Sirius.  At Regent’s orders, Sirius moved to Grue’s side.

Hmmm. Is it going to be something to compensate for the lack of enough dogs?

“Sooner than later!” Grue said.

“Do you want to die?” Trickster asked.

He’s just a little impatient at times. Though I guess there might be an advantage to going sooner here?

“No, but I’m willing to break something!”

So are they switching Grue and Shatterbird, resulting in Grue falling from the sky?

Again, I don’t see the benefit to that, but it sounded like Plan A relied on Shatterbird being ahead of the other two, so maybe this is their way of setting that up?

I crossed my fingers, watching intently.

I think Genesis is about to return and cut them off with some awesome form.

Two ways this could go for the final phase of our plan.

Well, three ways.  But I was hoping the third possibility -my team getting caught and slaughtered- wouldn’t happen.

Yeah, let’s try to avoid that one. So is one way that Genesis returns in time, and the other that they’re forced to run?

The first way this could play out was that Shatterbird’s flight over the buildings would make her faster than Crawler or Siberian, who had to climb or circumvent the obstacles.

That sounds unfortunate.

When I’d brought this up during the meeting, assuming it would happen, it had been Tattletale who pointed out that I was maybe underestimating how fast Crawler and Siberian could be.  She was right.  Despite her ability to fly, Shatterbird was falling behind.

Yeah, Siberian’s pretty quick and can burst through the obstacles, and Crawler’s no slouch for his size.

Which meant we went with plan B.

Maybe the B stands for Badass?

We’ll see.