Once I did, I wasn’t sure I’d catch him again.  He could apparently see my bugs and since our last confrontation he’d gained the ability to see the spider silk I was placing on him or in his vicinity.

I suspect the details of how exactly Mannequin’s senses work is going to be important to his eventual defeat, if it happens.

It was remarkably high-resolution vision for someone who hadn’t been able to notice that I didn’t have a pool of blood spreading out beneath me during our last fight.

Or someone with no apparent eyes, for that matter. He does have a way, or ways, to sense things like the letters on Scrabble pieces, but I don’t think it’s vision per se.

Or was his inability to see that because he was calibrated to see the small things?

Can’t see the forest for the trees? I guess that’s not unreasonable, though you’d think he’d see the movements of breath, then.

She wanted to press on, and I wasn’t about to try and change her mind.  I wouldn’t be able to stop her, for one thing, and I did want to help my people.

For once, Bitch’s unstoppable rage and Skitter’s desire to protect are working in the same direction.

Mannequin moved in a straight line, onto rooftops, down to the ground, or halfway down and through windows that had been stripped of glass, emerging from the far side.

That can’t be the most effective route, even with his mobility.

My bugs swarmed him where I could get them to, trying to snag him with lines and threads of silk and hamper his movements, but I could only get him with a small few at a time.

Yeeah, that doesn’t sound particularly effective.

He was approaching the edge of my effect’s reach, and I knew I’d lose track of him shortly.

Well. At least you have a decent idea of where he’s going?

It might be seen as a waste of precious time in a crucial moment, but I doubted we would have had Bitch in our corner otherwise, and without her, we wouldn’t have a ride, so to speak.

That is a fair point. Besides, their ride is also their strongest offense against Mannequin in terms of raw power. If anything they have can crack his casing, it’s the hellhounds. Although Genesis might be able to come up with something.

I’d consoled myself with the fact that we had a pair of massive, muscular steeds that could outpace any car you’d see on the street, and Mannequin was limited to his two legs.

Yeah, but those are some incredibly long legs aided by Mannequin’s body being able to contort and move in ways a regular human body shouldn’t.

The thing was, somewhere around the point where he stopped trying to evade my tripwires and my bugs and picked up speed, when he really started moving, I realized he was actually faster than the dogs.

This is still impressive, though.

Mannequin covered a lot of ground with his long legs and seemingly endless energy, and he didn’t have any injuries.  The dogs, Bitch and Grue did.

Ah, yeah, that would slow them down a bit.

Mannequin had been aiming at the animals more than he’d aimed at Grue or Bitch, so the damage to my teammates was more or less limited to a few flecks embedded in the legs, buttock and feet.

And he may have done that on purpose, leaving them slowed down so he could get to Taylor’s territory before them but still let them catch up in time for Taylor to see him at work turning her gang into a pile of corpses.

The injuries were small, but one in Bitch’s stomach worried me.  There were way too many vitals that could be hit with that location, and it was bleeding worse than any of the others.

Ouch. And there’s no way she’s going to admit to any massive pain in it if you ask.

Hmm. Jack would’ve succeeded if he tried… Maybe the key to defeating the squishies is to encourage friendly fire, either through accidents, through disturbing Jack’s carefully orchestrated team balance, or through shogi.