I struggled, wiggling to try and free myself from the hump of solid concrete.  I could inch myself out.

Oh nice, so she’s not entirely stuck until this wears off or Vista undoes it.

I’m guessing Vista has run off by now? But Legend is probably still a threat.

What would my mom think to see me now?

“Does my daughter wrapped in concrete count as a sandwich?”

I tried to picture her expression.

Again, that gap, the chasm.  Nothing.

Hm. Can she not remember their faces? Or is it specifically the idea of how her mom would act, designed to make her not know if she could trust her mom not to take advantage of the situation in some way?

I could have been hit by five more of those laser blasts on ‘stun’ and it wouldn’t have hit me as hard as the realization that I couldn’t remember my mother.  Couldn’t remember her face, the details, her mannerisms.  Even the happy memories we’d shared, the little moments I’d clung to over the past two years, they were gone.

All she has is the name.

And even that might slip soon.

There was only an empty void where they should have been.

I couldn’t remember my dad, either.

This is a really heavy chapter and I love it.

The other Undersiders, their faces, their costumes, their personalities and mannerisms, all gone.  I could remember what we’d done: the bank robbery, fighting Purity’s group, lazing around in the old loft, even the general progression of events from the moment I’d met them.  But the people were blanks waiting to be filled in, and I couldn’t go from thinking about one name to thinking about the events that were related to it.

In other words, she has no idea who anyone is. And by the sound of it, she’d know there are enemies in town, but not who any of them are. The way this all leads to the reaction of “that’s what they would say!” is becoming clear.

I felt a rising panic as I struggled to work myself free.  I didn’t know the people who were on the rooftop with me: the man who floated in the air, wearing a sturdy hazmat-style firesuit and a blue and silver mask that left only his mouth, chin and wavy brown hair exposed.  I couldn’t recognize the girl he was shooting in the back.

Ah, shit, he did it. I guess it’s time for Legend vs Vista, full power.

I saw her fall face first and writhe with pain.  He shot her two more times, and she went limp.  Out cold.

…or that can happen.

Hey, at least this way we get a solid answer to something I questioned back in Agitation: Does knocking out Vista immediately undo her changes?

Was I suffering from brain damage?  Another concussion?

And there goes the knowledge that Bonesaw is behind this.

Maybe the space girl did it! Or the pew pew guy! 😮

I did a series of multiplication, addition and subtraction in my head and found no problems on that front.  Not general brain damage, apparently.

Amnesia?

Sort of, yeah. Very specific amnesia, targeted to make you feel a certain way about everyone around you.

My name is Skitter, I thought, Taylor Anne Hebert.  Sixteen.  Born in Brockton Bay.

Oh hey, got some new information here. Taylor got a middle name after, presumably, her mom (Annette to Anne is not a big leap), and apparently she’s sixteen rather than fifteen like I’ve been thinking. I suppose it makes sense she would be, considering this started in the later half of the school year and the school year how I worked out the age. My mistake on that part.

Also, I like how she’s putting her cape name before her civilian name now. It fits with the way her cape life has taken over.

Student at Winslow High.  Ex-student.  Member of the Undersiders.

Yeeah, I don’t think you can really call yourself a student there anymore. It’s been at least a month or two since you were last there, and you don’t seem to have any intentions of going back.

No problems on that front.

My line of thought continued absently, as if I wanted to reassure myself that I was mentally intact.  My parents are Dan Hebert and Annette Rose Hebert.

I’m gonna go ahead and headcanon that Taylor’s maternal grandmother’s name was Roseanne and giving daughters a shortened version of their mother’s first name as a middle name is a tradition from that side of the family.

There was anger in the threat that caught me off guard.  Was it this miasma that had pushed her to that level of anger?

Y’know, when she put the word “paranoia” on it, I really thought she’d figured it out, but she hasn’t been acting like it.

I wasn’t feeling anything like that.  Had something about the way he had talked provoked her?  Or was that the norm for her?

Hmm. Y’know, I was assuming it just takes a little time to set in, but what if Taylor’s power makes her immune or resistant to toxins because of her affinity to bugs? Granted, she was still affected by the paralysis dust and partially affected by the anti-power elements in that…

I tried to think back to my prior experiences with her and found nothing.

As in, you don’t remember her acting anything like this, or you don’t remember your prior experiences at all?

The latter would be a result of the miasma trying to suppress anything in your memories that would tell you to trust people. This would also explain why Legend called her “little girl” rather than her name, if that’s not just an indication of disrespect.

(We do know Taylor remembered Vista from the Leviathan fight, at least before she ended up in the miasma.)

What was her name?

Yep, there we go, it’s setting in and removing all reason for Taylor to trust anyone.

That, apparently, was enough to get Legend’s attention.  He rose from the street level and surveyed the scene.  He’d taken off the hazmat-style mask and filter, and what little I could see of his expression was drawn.

Shit.

By the way, I concluded that he was affected when it became clear that one explanation could cover both him and his targets.

His eyes were narrowed, a vein stood out on his forehead, and he furtively looked from Vista to me and back again.

“Legend,” I started.  How was I supposed to address him when he was like this?  When I didn’t even know what was going on with them?

He probably thinks the two of them are conspiring or something.

Not that it mattered.  He raised one hand in my direction, and I veered away, taking evasive maneuvers.  It missed me by a foot, circled around and struck me off of Atlas before I could cancel out his momentum and change direction.

Yeeah, Taylor, this is not the best of situations.

“I just want to help.”

“Leave!”

Leaving is probably the best thing you can do for her right now.

She used her power, extending the pillar she had used to ascend to the rooftop.  It missed me by a wide margin, but the threat was clear enough.

“at least she wasn’t someone who could kill me”

I regretted it the instant I did it, but I moved forward to avoid any further movements from the shaft of asphalt.

Oh boy.

If I was going to fall, I wanted to land on the roof, instead of the alleyway a dozen stories below.

Fair enough, but then you’d be stuck on the roof with a paranoid Vista.

“No!”  The word was as much a scream as anything else.  She extended the shaft well over my head and then pinched it off so the top part fell.

Time to get the fuck out of the way!

I’d seen her fight Leviathan, and she’d done the same thing then, if on a somewhat bigger scale.  I had Atlas carry me out of the way and watched the teardrop shaped piece of asphalt crash to the floor of the alley.

Seriously. Do not underestimate her.

She whirled on the spot to look at me, then swiftly began backing away.

Yeah, I was under no impression that Vista would trust Taylor.

I raised my hands to show her I meant no harm, “Hold on!  I’m safe!”

Not gonna work.

“That’s just what they would say!”  She retorted.

They?

Bet you’re even among those who work to keep up the illusion that Bielefeld exists!

So does this paranoia instill the idea that everyone is some enemy in disguise, rather than that the person they actually are has turned on you?

“Who?  The Nine?  In what universe would I be a member of the Nine?”

Oh, I think there are some of those. The only reason you weren’t a nominee was that none of the people picking the nominees related specifically to you.

“Shut up!  Don’t try to convince me!  Just… just back off!  Leave me alone until all this stops!”

Assuming it will stop on its own.

She was breathing so hard I could see her shoulders rising and falling through the protective suit she wore.

A thought struck me.  It was working through the suit?  The mask had to have filters for smoke, why hadn’t it worked against this miasma?

Hm. I was going to argue, but I suppose that assumption makes sense considering they’re in suits meant to be used in a battle involving fire.