There were two hallways and three classrooms my bugs couldn’t enter without dying on the spot. That marked out a relatively small area that the Nine could be.

I take it they’ve still got the anti-bug vials.

The biggest issue was that I couldn’t find Panacea.  Did that mean she was in close confines with the enemy?  It wasn’t a good thought.

Hrm.

I suppose that means she can’t find anyone, considering she’d have to question if every female in the building except for Bonesaw could be Amy. She knows Panacea is the healer, but she doesn’t know what she looks like.

There’s also the issue that Amy might resist help this time, affected by the miasma or otherwise.

As I laid silk lines across possible entryways to alert myself about enemy movements, I was careful to check each area before I advanced further into the building.  My eyes searched for details while my swarm scanned the walls and the ground.

Gotta watch out for traps and security measures and such. This is a school, but it’s one that’s a likely target for some villains due to the superhero population, so they need to be especially secure, and they’ve got the PRT on their side.

Then again, we just saw how the roof door was secured.

Just past the door was a set of stairs that led down into the top floor of the building.  It looked like a janitorial closet.

I suppose that’s a reasonable place to stick the roof access.

I sent Atlas down to check before venturing down myself, and I began distributing my swarm through the school.  I prepared silk lines across doorways and hallways to inform me of others passing through, placed ants, earwigs, centipedes and pill bugs on the walls to give me a sense of the layout, and sent flies to scan the interiors of each room to see if I couldn’t find anyone.

The swarm has taken the building.

Again, I repeated the refrain in my head, reminding myself about who was in the building.  I wasn’t sure it was helping, but I didn’t want to get tricked again.

Neither do I. :p

Panacea is the healer, she’s on the top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl is the chemist-tinker.

I tenderly touched the cut on my face.  Jack must have pulled back as I used the tinker as a shield, because the cut was fairly shallow.

Do not mistake that for him caring if she gets hurt, though.

It was long, though, and my fingertips were wet with blood after I touched my hand to it.  I couldn’t distinguish the blood from the black fabric of my gloves, so I couldn’t tell how much it actually was.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Perhaps not.

At least it didn’t spray all over Lisa’s face.

There was a door on the rooftop, and I used my knife to pry the doorknob partially off, then gave it a firm kick to remove it.

Nice work!

The lock was built into the handle, and it didn’t take long to figure out how to open it when I could see the internal mechanisms.  It wasn’t exactly high security, more intended to keep kids from getting onto the roof than keeping people on the roof from getting in.

That would make a lot more sense if this world didn’t have a bunch of villains who could fly and this school didn’t have several students who would benefit from roof access for reasons the school is supposed to support.

Jack and the tinker would have gone in through the ground floor.  I decided to land on the roof.

Oh right, flight is a thing. I gotta get used to that.

This is a good idea. She avoids direct confrontation and gets closer to Amy, probably faster than Jack and Bonesaw do in spite of their head start.

The second I was on terra firma, I reached for my phone to check.  No signal.

I suspect Jack is jamming the signal with some sort of jamming device (possibly of Bonesaw’s making – as the real Lisa pointed out, she’s a tinker in general, after all). In 14.9, he was the one to ask Taylor if there was signal when there was. I’m thinking he had just turned off the jammer then.

I needed to signal someone about what was going on.  I was woefully underequipped, and I doubted my ability to win this alone, especially when my opponents weren’t as disadvantaged as I was.

Bug beacon?

I could use something like a giant nine crafted out of bugs floating over the school to signal that the pair was here…

That might work, but it might also make people think you’re one of the Nine, putting the 9 up there like the Dark Mark above a magic murder scene.

but there was no guarantee that someone would come.  There was also the possibility that it would lead to the good guys dropping another bomb on us.

Oh yeah, good point.

That would get the healer and maybe even me killed.  Panacea had to survive, or everyone in the city would die in the aftermath of Bonesaw’s miasma.

Unless Taylor ends up coming up with some other solution (Othala? but Taylor can’t find her easily with Jack jamming her ability to ask Cherish, and that’s if she even remembers what Othala’s power is), I’m considering Amy’s survival a foregone conclusion. Because what Taylor says here is true – if Amy dies, Wildbow’s gonna be nearly out of characters.

The school was on a hill, meaning the water that was producing the miasma was far enough away that only traces of it reached this far.

Huh, that’s helpful.

The little vapor that got to the school was held at bay by the stone wall that ringed the school.  The design suggested it had been intended more for aesthetics than for utility, but it was serving a purpose nonetheless.

Let’s hope as many people as possible out of the ones who are inside have stayed inside and are therefore unaffected, then. 

On the other hand, lets hope there are few people inside, because Jack is definitely going to slash at everyone he sees on his way to Amy. It’d be stupid of him not to.

Panacea’s the healer, top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl the chemist-tinker.  Panacea is the healer, top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl is the chemist-tinker.

Good, “tinker” is back.

It seemed like the mechanical spiders had lost track of me.  They would probably give up the chase and return to their master, but it was one less thing to worry about for the time being.

I mean, aren’t you following their master anyway?

I had little doubt I was in the right place.

Panacea’s the healer, top floor.  Jack is the slasher, the blond girl the chemist-tinker.

Yeah. And Glory Girl is the one who’s in no shape to fight, though she’ll still punch pretty damn hard if she gets the chance.

Panacea’s the healer on the top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl is the chemist.

Yeah, keep telling yourself this. Just be wary of the small changes – for instance, this re-telling leaves out “tinker”. If she forgets that part down the line, she might think Bonesaw is just a regular chemist.

I recited the words as a refrain, as if I could hold the names and identities of the major players in my short-term memory by constantly reminding myself of who they were. 

Good luck.

Arcadia high was the school every kid in Brockton Bay wanted to attend.  A big part of that was the fact that everyone knew that the Wards attended Arcadia, and attending meant that any one of your classmates could be a superhero or superheroine.

Not that great if it turns out that classmate is your bully.

Sophia was a bit of an exception here, though. I suppose it was probably because of her background that they didn’t enroll her to Arcadia. Or maybe Winslow was just a lot more practical choice for her.

To anyone else, you could just as easily be one, too.  It wasn’t a rich kid’s school like Immaculata, but it was a good school.

Certainly better than Winslow, I should hope.

Every classmate treated other classmates with the utmost respect.

…

I don’t believe that and I don’t think you do either, Taylor, as much as your daydreams of going to a different school may have caused you to convince yourself of this.

Both the students and the school itself maintained a certain status and pride as a consequence.

Much to the pleasure of its principal, Abacus Cinch.

I’m sure Piggot has pulled some strings to improve this school’s PR, too. After all, it’s where the Wards go, and if the PRT is giving the Wards education at a reputable establishment, the Wards in turn seem more reputable themselves.