I vectored more bugs onto the movement in the ducts. None were large enough to draw attention, but as more and more infinitesimal insects agglomerated onto my target, my mental outline of the movement solidified.
"There's moment in the ducts," I said. "Humanoid movement."
"Right on schedule," Shamus said. "Time for us to earn our undoubtedly flimsy paycheck." She set her extinguisher against a nearby chair, and retrieved her stun gun from the recesses of her coat. A quick prod of the activation stud satisfied her that the high-voltage gadget still worked. She stuffed it back into her pocket, and regaled me with her trademark grin. "Ready for Phase Two?"
That grin always heralded trouble.
I nodded. "I'll send her the message as soon as she's out of the vents."
"Great. We've got this one in the bag. Still, keep your extinguisher handy. You know-"
"Just in case," I finished. The presence in the ducts squirmed towards a gap my scouts had identified as an exit vent.
"Hah! Somebody's paying attention. There's a future for you with this organization."
"Thanks, boss." The faint suggestion of a metallic rasp carried itself through the air to our ears. The presence had escaped the ducts. This meant that it now fell to me to execute Phase Two of Shamus's plan.
As the intruder straightened to their feet, a team of flies I'd harnessed together with spider silk and tied to the switch of a lamp in that office strained on their ropes. After a few seconds of pulling, the switch tugged over, and bathed the room in light. Presumably, anyways. I couldn't tell from the other side of the clinic, and if my bugs could pass me that information, I hadn't figured out how yet.
My target paused in mid-step. I took the opportunity to sketch an arrow on the wall with a swarm of earwigs, and hoped Circus wasn't insectophobic. It could be difficult for me to gauge the creep-factor of my powers accurately. I'd never been fond of bugs, exactly, but a few months of living with them in my head round-the-clock had largely desensitized me to the phobia of small things with lots of legs running over your skin.
Circus bit on my lure, and headed in our direction. As she crossed into the hallway, I tugged on the lights there with another spider-silk bobsled team, and reflected that if Rune hadn't already been insectophobic, she definitely was now. I couldn't muster up too much in the way of sympathy, though, seeing as she was a literal neo-Nazi.
Circus was now just around the corner from us, and following another arrow which I'd placed on the walls. Illumination from the light which I had just switched on now spilled around the corner, spreading wan light into the side of the room closest to Circus. Shamus switched off her flashlight, and I did the same for mine. As Circus approached the corner, we retreated into the relative darkness of the mouth of the far hallway. Shamus stationed herself next to the light switch.
Circus rounded the corner, a half-lit figure about fifteen feet away, and Shamus flipped on the switch. I blinked behind my mask as harsh white florescent light scoured away the shadow.
"Hiya," Shamus said. "Got a second to chat?"
For a moment, I had trouble picking out Circus's face from the welter of colors which formed her costume. She wore a one-piece technicolor harlequin suit, with her hair swept back under a peaked cap checkered with garish green-and-red checkered squares, and she looked utterly unamused.
"I'll give you thirty seconds," she said. "Make it worth my while." She ran a stiletto knife across the knuckles of her right hand to emphasize her point. The blade gleamed cold and hard in the stark light.
I swept my bugs closer under cover of the walls, drawing thousands and thousands of them together in a hidden net around Circus. My spiders spooled out as much silk thread as I could wring out of them. I piled the production in coiling heaps. Not that I didn't trust Shamus, of course, but the snags in our recent adventures had taught me that it paid to plan for the worst.
"You're getting paid to burn these rinky-dink places, obviously," Shamus said. "Do you know who's paying you to do it?"
"Sure I do. Someone with a lot of money and very little appetite for questions. What else would I need to know?" The knife continued on its glittering arc.
"Look, I get it. It doesn't pay when you scare off the payday. But, really, have you thought about it? Who benefits from this, what's the angle, what's the fallout. What do you think's going on here?"
Circus narrowed her eyes behind her mask, irked. She gestured at me with the knife.
"Is your friend mute?" she said to Shamus. "Or is she somehow patient enough to listen to you babbling without losing her mind?"
"Talking's not my strong suit," I said. "You should listen to what Shamus has to say." My bugs drew closer. Talking was Shamus's superpower, not mine, so the more of that I could leave to her, the better.
"Shamus?" Circus said. She laughed, then spat to one side. "Cute name. Sell me on why I should listen to you over a hundred thousand dollars in my bank account. Because, let me tell you, that's a very convincing argument."
"I'll tell you, then," Shamus said, seemingly unfazed. "No charge. You've been hired by the Empire. They're the ones looking to wipe out all of the clinics in Downtown."
Circus rolled her eyes. "You mean to tell me I'm working for villains? Quel horreur. I'll be sure to report it to the PRT, straight away. Somebody's got to do something about this."
Shamus clucked her tongue in irritation.
"You're not seeing the big picture," she said. "Funny. I would've thought a solo operator like yourself would be a lot quicker to put things together."
"Enlighten me with your vast wisdom," Circus said, tapping her foot. I adjusted my grip on my flashlight.
"The Empire's looking to take over all of Brockton, down to the very last miserable garbage-filled alley," Shamus said. "Where in the picture do you think that leaves you? You love what the solo life gives you, the freedom, the ability to go through your day without having to kiss some leader's self-important ass. Once the Empire finally crushes the ABB and pushes back the Protectorate, they're not going to tolerate any independent operators. Best case, they run your technicolor ass out of the city. Worst case, you get press-ganged and they give you a nice swastika brand."
Circus snorted.
"Like I give a damn about any of that," she said. "I make my money now. If the goose-steppers take over, I'll take my generously padded bank account and move somewhere else. Brockton can burn to the ground for all I care."
It did not seem like she was going for it. I tensed myself to spring for cover.
"Well, now, ain't that a shame," Shamus drawled in her best hard-boiled accent, and sprang for cover, flipping over a magazine-laden table and diving behind it.
My bugs boiled up from every available crack, vent, and opening, already in motion as soon as Shamus had used our pre-arranged code phrase to signal that we'd have to jump Circus. A vicious sneer cut across Circus's face as she blurred into motion. Even with advance warning, I barely reached the shelter of the far doorframe before knives began to fly.
A pair of extraordinarily sharp knives thwacked into the wood of the doorjamb, mere inches from my left shoulder. The steel of the blades shone as the knives quivered in the wood. My stomach roiled at the thought of how close they'd come, and I fervently prayed that I hadn't imagined the knife-proof qualities of my costume. Shamus swore, very audibly, as a third knife slammed into her table. The wood cracked apart under the impact.
I blinked. Circus had pirouetted into an elegant somersault jump with effortless grace. She seemed to hang suspended in the air for the shortest of breaths. The additional knives she flicked at Shamus quickly put paid to that illusion, however. Shamus had warned me about Circus's preternatural poise, of course, but it truly had to be seen to be believed.
Circus rolled on landing and came up mere feet from me, following the motion through with a lunge in my direction. She now held a brutal iron sledgehammer in both hands, having plucked it seemingly out of thin air, no doubt with her pocket-dimension power. Shamus had called this kind of cape a 'grab-bag'. I already hated them.
I grabbed my steel brute of a flashlight in both hands and slammed it into the haft of the hammer to parry the blow. My plan failed to account for the hammer vanishing at the last second, leaving me to stumble forward with unexpected momentum while Circus whirled to my side, the hammer already rematerialized.
Circus moved so quickly that the whole clash had only taken about two seconds.
I didn't need much more than two seconds. As she raised her arms for another blow, the air buzzed under the beat of thousands of miniature diaphanous wings, and the flying vanguard of my swarm blasted into her face like the jet of a firehose.
Circus actually lost her balance for half a footfall, which presented me with an opening to duck forward in the direction she'd come from. The skritching, writhing carpet of my ground-bound bugs swirled around and over my feet as they rushed for Circus. The villainess opened her mouth to swear, no doubt reflexively. I capitalized on the opportunity to give her a mouthful of segmented carapace as I scooped up my fire extinguisher. Circus's eyes bulged with fury. She attempted another jump, but stumbled as my bugs wrapped countless cables of spider silk around her ankles.
I took cover behind the far doorframe. Shamus gave me a thumbs-up from behind her table as she groped for her own extinguisher. She was clearly valiantly attempting to suppress at least a mild queasiness from the unrelenting flood of insects.
As the hobble around Circus's ankles drew tighter, her hammer vanished once more. She swept her arms up to her mouth, produced a pair of some sort of cans, and blew.
A thunderclap of heat roared outwards as a tremendous belch of flame exploded from Circus's mouth. The pinpricks of awareness from every bug I'd stuffed into her mouth or crawled onto her face winked out all at once, crisped by the inferno. "Bugs?" Circus yelled. "Jesus, you're kidding me!" She spun in a circle, spewing fire as she went. The flame swept back and forth in a blistering helix, annihilating my swarm. Even on the other side of the room, I could feel the heat buffeting me through my costume. With all she'd done so far, I half-expected her to shoot laser beams out of her eyes next.
As my swarm disintegrated under the flame, Shamus and I leveled our extinguishers at the inferno, pulled the safety pins, and blasted away. Thick, whitish-blue foam streamed across the room and snuffed out the fire, including the flames now licking their way up the walls. We had been paid to prevent crippling damage to the clinic, after all.
Circus choked on a heaping mouthful of the extinguishing spray as she attempted to summon up more fire. I took the opportunity to constitute my second wave of bugs. Shamus tossed me her stun gun, then resumed spraying down Circus. I snatched the stun gun out of the air, left my extinguisher for Shamus, and charged forward.
While discussing the plan over dinner, we'd both agreed that we would have to take Circus down fast, or not at all. Shamus didn't think Circus would allow much of a window to pry her open mentally, and neither of us could hold our own in close combat with her.
So, that led to me sprinting at a foamy, bug-covered Circus with a compact black stun gun in my right hand, while I vectored my second wing of flying reserves into an unrelenting assault on her eyeballs, forcing her to keep them shut. Foam spattered across my back and into my hair. A small gob splatted onto my mask, and obscured the corner of my right eye lens.
Circus loomed in my vision. Eyes still shut, she flicked another pair of silver stilettos down the direction of the foam stream. One of the knives scraped past my leg, but failed to pierce the fabric. It hurt, but didn't bleed. Behind me, Shamus yelped, and the foam cut off. I didn't have time to think about that. I kicked at Circus's legs, followed her down to the ground, and jabbed the stun gun home into her neck, my thumb depressing the activation stud.
Circus jerked and shuddered. Her hammer, an aerosol can, and several metal trinkets I couldn't place materialized and clattered to the floor around her. She went still, and her head lolled to one side. Foam had so thoroughly covered her costume that I could barely make out her mask. Her suit's messy, vibrant patchwork of colors had disappeared under a caking of white powder, like a tremendous bag of flour had been upended over her head.
Satisfied that Circus was fully unconscious, I set my remaining bugs to trussing her with lengths of spider silk as I hurried back to check on Shamus. A spate of energetic cursing eased my worries as to whether the injury was serious.
Shamus had pulled the dagger from her leg, and sat staring at it. The blade dripped scarlet onto the surrounding tile. A small puddle of blood had formed underneath it.
"That bitch," she said, a snarl on her face. "I'm going to tase her again, for my own fun this time."
I held onto the gun.
"Medically, I can't recommend that. It could damage her nervous system."
Shamus sighed. "Oh, fine," she said. "I don't like it, but I'll live with it." She gestured to a door down the hall. "Be a doll and get the duct tape from that supply closet, would you? We need to gag her mouth so she can't cough fire all over us and make an escape."
I retrieved a roll of thick gray duct tape from the closet, as well as some gauze, disinfectant, and bandages. Shamus had gingerly eased back to her feet, and grinned viciously as she tore off several strips of the tape and layered them over Circus's still-inert form. By now, her wrists and ankles had each been firmly roped together with lengths of spider silk.
I handed back Shamus's stun gun.
"Take a seat over there," I said, pointing to the waiting room. "I'll treat the cut."
Shamus eyed the bottle of disinfectant, winced, then nodded. "I hope I'm not making a habit of needing to be patched up, but thanks," she said.
"When it comes to you getting cut, I may be a bad influence," I said. "Sorry about that."
Shamus waved away my apology. "It's not a good case unless the detective gets beaten to a pulp, right?" she said.
I cleaned and dressed the cut. While I was no expert on lacerations, the wound didn't look serious to me. The cut was shallow, and the bleeding relatively minimal.
"How does that feel now?" I asked.
"I'll feel that alcohol swab for a week, but otherwise, just dandy," Shamus said. "You're a pro." She cast a rueful look at the drooping gash in her apparently very expensive silk trousers. "Maybe it's time for me to think about going knifeproof too. I don't suppose I could hire you to make me a suit?"
"Happily," I said. "I don't know if my tailoring skills are up to the challenge, though. That's a really nice suit."
"I have faith in your sartorial ability," Shamus said as she rummaged about in her pockets. "Y'know, I should connect you with Parian. She'd probably trip over herself to have access to spider silk as a design material. Could be a nice second income for you."
"Parian?" I asked. She had to be a local cape, but the name didn't ring a bell.
"She's a local rogue. Limited telekinesis that lets her manipulate cloth and needles. Keeps to herself, mostly, but you're bound to run into her sooner or later. She's planning on unmasking and using the publicity to go pro as a big-time fashion designer. Oh, she hasn't told anyone that, so don't bring it up."
"Does she know she's planning that?" I said.
Shamus snorted. "Flattering, but even I'll admit I'm not that good." She retrieved her phone from a pocket, took one look at its shattered screen, and groaned. "I knew that knife didn't cut as deep as it should've."
"You didn't know until just now? Are you slipping?"
"I was forcing myself not to use my power. Call it willful denial. Well, that's another trip to the convenience store for a burner. Do me a favor and call New Wave, would you? I put their number in your phone. Let them know we just did their job for them."
"Not the Protectorate?"
"And take the chance that they send Shadow Stalker over here for the pickup? Circus is B-list, and that's local B-list, at best. That's exactly the kind of milk run you'd send the JV team on, and it's just you, me and no witnesses out here. I've been perforated enough for one night."
"Point," I said. With the whirlwind my life had been in the past month or so, I'd almost forgotten that one of the heroes had very nearly used me for target practice. I flipped out my prepaid burner, which I kept in the drawer of my desk between costumed outings, and scrolled to my contacts. Finding the contact labeled "New Wave" proved easy, since the only other contact listed was Shamus. I dialed the number.
They answered on the first ring, of course. "Brandish." Carol's voice was cool, clipped, and confident. I still couldn't believe I'd met her.
"Um, hi," I said. "This is Shamus's partner, the bug girl?" Identifying myself as that felt childish, but what else could I say? I still didn't have a name.
"Of course," Carol said. "What can I do for you?"
"Shamus and I were hired to halt the string of clinic arsons downtown. We just caught Circus in the act and apprehended her. She's unconscious and restrained, no serious injuries. We were hoping you could arrange pickup."
"My pleasure. Good work taking her out. The PRT will be relieved to hear that they've got one less villain to deal with. Is your location secure? I can have Glory Girl and Laserdream there in fifteen minutes."
"Yes, I think so," I said. "Shamus is confident Circus was acting alone, and we've tied her up pretty thoroughly." I gave Carol the address. "We'll wait for your team here. Thank you for the help."
"Getting somebody like that off the streets is never an inconvenience. If you can, head to the roof, and sit tight. Call me if your situation changes." With that, she ended the call.
"Nice and professional," Shamus said. "Maybe you should be our receptionist, too." She looked at the still-prone form of Circus. "Looks like she's more sensitive to a suddenly-applied electrical shock than average. She'll be out for at least another thirty minutes, so Glory Girl and Laserdream should have plenty of time. Now, how are we going to get her up to the roof?"
Sometimes I had to remind myself that Shamus wasn't actually eavesdropping on my calls.
A quick look back in the supply closet revealed a janitor's cart. We unloaded the heaps of cleaning products, and wheeled it into the hallway, where we each grabbed hold of one end of Circus and together heaved her atop the dark gray plastic cart. Shamus snickered as Circus's masked face thwacked onto the rim of the cart. She'd undoubtedly tossed her end of Circus there on purpose.
Following Shamus's directions, I wheeled the cart down the hallway, which now resembled the aftermath of a PRT police action more than the interior of a health clinic. White extinguisher residue crusted over walls, their surfaces scored with deep black scorches. Knives jutted out of the overturned table. Thousands of deep-fried bugs littered the floor, like they'd been washed up on a tide of foam. The cart crunched as it rolled over my fallen soldiers.
"Don't worry, they can't complain about the damage," Shamus said. "Well, too much, anyways. Thanks to us, they'll be complaining from inside four sturdy walls and a nice roof, instead of a heap of smoldering embers."
"I'm sure you're right," I said as we arrived at the door to the rooftop, located in the back of the clinic.
"Hon, I'm always right," Shamus said, the familiar twinkle in her eyes. "And if they stubbornly refuse to recognize that, I'll win them over with my trademark charm."
Once again, I counted myself very lucky to not be on the receiving end of that 'charm'. Shamus unlocked the door with her Tinkertech skeleton key, and we dragged Circus off the cart and into the stairway. After a few minutes of muscling her up several flights of stairs, we arrived at the landing, pushed upon the rooftop door, and hauled our still-unconscious captive out onto the gravel surface. I'd heard in my first aid class about the difficulty of shifting an unconscious person, but hauling a body as inert as a sack of potatoes up a staircase drove that lesson home in a way a class never could.
Shamus sprawled onto the concrete to take pressure off her leg. I set my bugs to securing Circus's bonds with an additional layer of silk. Beyond us, the glass and metal of Downtown's heart stretched towards the sky. Skyscrapers shone like beacons in the inky darkness of the night sky.
My thoughts leaped back to my flight above nighttime Brockton with New Wave. Having seen the city from the air thoroughly reframed my perspective of my home. Moments like these made it easier to see Brockton for what it could be-something bigger, something more. Not than the crime-ridden sinkhole we all currently waded through.
I shook my head. Fantasizing about some brighter future would only waste time in the here and now.
"I have to admit, it's a pretty sight," Shamus said quietly. "You can't see the grime nearly as easily from up here."
"But it's still there," I said.
"Hey, we're superhuman, not miracle workers," she said. "We've got our own problems to deal with, right?" She checked her expensive-looking wristwatch. Like everything else in her outfit, it looked like it'd fallen through a rift from 1947. "Our genetically blessed cavalry should be arriving momentarily."
As if on cue, Glory Girl and Laserdream dropped out of the sky in front of us. They plummeted in a synchronized vertical plunge, which braked at the last possible moment into a feather-light touchdown about fifteen feet away.
Sure, they were showing off, but I was still impressed. I saw Shamus roll her eyes.
With Laserdream following, Glory Girl crossed the distance to us in a few confident strides. Her cape billowed out behind her in the cool nighttime breeze, and her tiara glowed a burnished reddish-gold in the light of a nearby rooftop light. Even with a costume woven from spider silk, I couldn't help but feel shabby around her. Maybe I needed less gray.
"You rang?" Laserdream said.
"Evening, ladies," Shamus said. She jostled Circus with a foot. "Package for you. No need to handle her delicately." She rubbed her wounded leg, then sneered. "In fact, I'd take it as a favor if you made sure to bang her up a little."
"I'm impressed you took her out without worse injuries," Glory Girl said. "Circus is no joke, even if she dresses like one. Do you need a doctor? We might be able to arrange for you to see Panacea."
"Thanks, but no thanks," Shamus said. She thumbed at me. "My accomplice already patched me up. I'd get up and dance right now if it wasn't so comfortable here on the gravel."
Glory Girl looked at me. "You still haven't picked a name, have you? You'll be lucky to escape from this whole escapade without some reporter deciding to get his fifteen minutes of fame by saddling you with an awful one. My mom had to step in to stop the paper from running one they wanted, and believe me, you wouldn't have liked it."
"She's right, you know," Laserdream chimed in. "You really don't want to end up like my mom."
"It's silly, but I just can't think of one," I said. "Most bug-themed names make me sound like some deranged villain who makes a living off raiding drug dealers."
Glory Girl laughed.
"I guess it's easy for me to say," she said. "But still, now's the time. You don't want to pick up a paper tomorrow and see a headline about 'Centipede Woman'."
No, I most certainly did not.
Glory Girl beamed. "Hey, what about Ladybug, or Flutter? You know, like butterfly? I'm pretty sure neither of those are taken."
"Vic, you are such a geek," Laserdream drawled. She bent to check on Circus.
"No offense, but aren't those a little silly?" I said.
"Honestly, you probably want a little silly," she said. "You've got a really cool power, but it'll ick some people out a bit. That's not your fault, but you'll still have to deal with it. A lighter name makes you seem less scary, more approachable."
I mulled it over for a moment. Names were important, but to be honest, I'd never found the idea of what to name myself particularly engrossing. I wasn't doing this to see myself in the headlines, and I certainly didn't expect to see my mask on any merchandise.
"You can tell your mom that I'm called Flutter," I said. "Thanks for the help."
Glory Girl smiled. "Good choice! You won't regret it. If you ever need any advice on cape PR, reach out to me, okay? It's more important than most people think."
"In case you hadn't noticed, she's way too obsessed with this stuff," Laserdream said. She gave Glory Girl an affectionate nudge. "The whole point of having superpowers is that you don't have to live vicariously through reading about them."
"You know I just helped you do your hair before patrol, right? You've got Mom and I managing your image. Of course you don't have to worry about it."
Shamus wagged a finger, a disapproving scowl on her face.
"No poaching my partner! She's already got an agent."
"I appreciate the advice, Glory Girl," I said. "Thank you for agreeing to pick up Circus."
Glory Girl scooped Circus up into a fireman's carry as easily as though she were made of feathers, not flesh and bone. She flashed me a smile.
"We're always happy to help take out the trash," she said.
Shamus hefted herself to her feet, clearly favoring her injured leg, and flicked Circus in the center of her colorful mask. Unsurprisingly, she didn't stir.
"You've got about ten minutes before our friendly sack of potatoes here wakes up," Shamus said. "Probably best to get moving. Even tied up like this, she could do some damage if she wakes up midair."
Glory Girl grinned.
"Yeah, I know about the pyrokinesis. Won't be a problem. Threatening to drop someone from two hundred feet up usually does wonders to quiet them down," she said. "Don't be a stranger if you see us around, okay? In costume or out. Good luck out there, Flutter." She stepped off the ledge and rose into the air. Laserdream waved and followed.
Once they were out of earshot, Shamus chuckled.
"God, I hate it whenever they fly around like it's nothing," she said. "After all, there's nobody who just flies, right? It's always 'My power is such-and-such, and oh, I guess I can fly, too.' What's up with that?"
"It does seem unfair, but I don't think there's a complaints desk for superpowers," I said.
"More's the pity," Shamus said. "Oh, I'd have a field day with it if there were."
"I'm sure you would," I said. "Can we consider this case closed?"
Shamus rubbed her chin.
"I'd say so. Circus works alone, and the Empire doesn't want to go after these clinics in the open, at least for now. I'll let the director know that he can expect this place to remain comfortably unburnt for the immediate future. Tomorrow works for dinner, by the way."
I blinked, momentarily taken aback.
"Huh?"
"For dinner," she repeated. "Your dad wanted me to come over for dinner, right? I'm free tomorrow." She winked. "You know I hate to beg."
"It's still a little creepy when you do that," I said. She'd explained exactly how her power worked to me, with particular emphasis that it wasn't mind-reading, but it certainly still felt like mind-reading sometimes.
"Sorry. Even when I'm trying to keep it in check, stuff filters in sometimes. You don't cook, huh? That makes two of us."
"But you've got that whole high-end kitchen. You don't use it at all?"
"Appearances are everything! Why stay cooped up in my place and cook when I can hit the streets, get some conversation, and avoid doing any work? And yes, I like Chinese."
I hauled myself back to mental balance. "It's a date, then," I said. "I'll let my dad know. He's been trying to get you over for at least a week, but you probably already know that, don't you?"
"I wouldn't dream of saying," Shamus said. "Good, honest all-American working man. He sounds like a good dad."
I smiled to hear him described in those larger-than-life terms.
"He is," I said. "It was tough for a while, with the bullying, but things are better now. Thank you."
Shamus waved a hand.
"You're the one who zapped Shadow Stalker, hon," she said. "I haven't seen my organs, but I imagine they look a lot better on the inside, where you kept them."
We made our way down off the roof.