We waded through the street, as unhappy as everyone else. The water was knee-high on Vista, and barely better for myself. It was hot, muggy, and reeked of sewage and rot, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the silence.

This had once been a good part of town. Well, relatively speaking, anyway. But now it was eerily quiet, only the sounds of our wading, and distant gunfire from time to time. The few people we saw were still, silent, waiting for us to walk past.

"So what's wrong?" Vista asked, out of the blue. "You've been mopey, mopier than usual."

"Huh?" I blurted out. She repeated herself, verbatim, stopping in the center of the lake formerly known as MLK Boulevard, hands on hips. I sighed. "It's… nothing. I'm fine." I gave her a smile that she couldn't see, and I couldn't feel.

"You're lying."

I shrugged, not sure how to respond to that, so I just started walking again. After a few seconds, there was the sound of splashing footsteps behind me as Vista caught up. "Clock. C'mon, man."

"Maybe I don't want to talk about it right now," I said, not sure what else to do to get her off my case.

If nothing else, it shut her up for a bit, and we continued wading down the street. A few minute's quiet, until… "I miss Kid Win."

"Yeah… Same."

"..." There was a muffled, angry huff. "Is your family doing okay? Still in the—"

"They're fine," I said flaty. "Look. Vista. Thank you, really, but I don't really want to talk right now."

"Sorry." Her voice was sullen. Another few minutes of silence, interrupted only by someone on a rooftop shouting at us to ask when the power was coming back.

My earpiece cracked. It was Weld. "Clock, Vista, we have a situation here."

"Go ahead," I replied, a second sooner than Vista tried to reply as well. She glowered at me, like it was my fault I hadn't known she'd wanted to do the talking.

"PRT squad seven has been stationed at… 5th and Rose. Tattletale just surrendered."

"She what?" I asked, incredulous. What the fuck? Were the Undersiders that desperate that… "It's a trap. It has to be, let them know."

"They're aware, that's why I want you and Vista over there ASAP. They said she's injured. Still waiting on details."

"...Copy that," I said after a pause. The street ahead of us was already warping as Vista worked her magic, the sickening lurch of the terrain compacting still unsettling me after all these years. We ran, as fast as we could in the lake, each step covering a hundred feet. It was a bit bittersweet that she could do so much, I realized, given how her power worked around people.

Five minutes or so later, we came to a stop around the corner from where the PRT had been stationed. It was a bit of a commercial district, the type of place where every building shared a wall with its neighbor, except now half the shop windows were smashed and all the entrances were decorated with the now-ubiquitous search and rescue graffitti.

"Eyes out for the rest of the Undersiders," I warned Vista, scanning the rooftops. Here, the ground was a little higher, and instead of a lake, we only had to contend with an inch or so of water along with the now-typical buckled ground and debris everywhere. We took our time, not wanting to walk into anything. I didn't hear any fighting, which was a plus. Conversely, it was… quiet, too quiet. I was probably overthinking it.

We turned the corner, and I saw the PRT, and I realized it was too good to be true.

"Vista, get backup now!" I shouted, running forward. Blood everywhere. The members of squad seven had been torn apart. Bodies on the ground, one of their vans was on its side, a stream of fresh containment foam next to a dead trooper holding the launcher.

What the fuck.

My eyes went to our surroundings. Nobody on the rooftops, nobody in the windows, nobody in the street except myself and Vista and bodies and—

There was a groan. Someone alive! I spun around, hearing it again, mud-caked boots splashing through warm crimson-tinged water. The other van, the one with the rooftop launcher, coming from the far side. I ran around, hand outstretched in case there was something there…

Tattletale, blood running out of her mouth and down her chest, her fingers missing. Railroad spikes pinning her hands to the van. Her eyes widened when she saw me, she gargled something.

"Vista!" I shouted. "Over here!" Any thoughts of it being the Undersiders trying something faded, they wouldn't do this to one of their own. The Nazis? Unlikely, even for them. Merchants? ...something worse? No, not here. Not in Brockton.

"Nobody's replying," Vista said, coming around the corner. "I even tried the—oh god."

"We've got to get her down. Grab her, I'll pull the… I'll get her loose." Vista grabbed the supervillain, taking the weight off her, I grabbed a spike and pulled and she screamed but it was gone. I tried not to think too much as I yanked the other one out of the sheet metal body of the van.

"Vista, keep trying to get through," I said, grabbing Tattletale from her and letting her down to the ground. The villain tried to say something, but I couldn't decipher the gargling. Then she jabbed a finger-stump into my chest, writing in… in blood on my armor. A number.

"Fifty-nine?" I asked, looking at her. She rolled her eyes (really?) and jabbed her finger again, going over the numeral five again, smoother, making it an…

S9.

Something worse.

"Vista."

"They're not answer—" I cut her off by grabbing her wrist, looking up at her.

"We need to get out of here, now."

"Okay," she replied, maybe sensing something in my voice, whatever it was I was glad she fucking listened for once.

I grabbed Tattletale and pulled her off the ground with something kind of like a fireman's carry. She was a villain, but this was the Nine. We needed all the help we could get.

Reality started to warp in front of us, Vista aiming for the PRTHQ based on the direction. I followed after her, Tattletale making a gargling sound and—

Something grabbed my free hand. I glanced down. A white, inhuman hand, connected via a chain… Mannequin. The hand started to clench, and without even thinking I instinctively pulsed my power.

He froze, the Clockblocking traveling up the chain, my eyes going up to a frozen, segmented figure on the roof above us. He was stuck, but with the hand around my wrist so was I.

"Clock, let's—oh." Vista glanced at the hand, looked up at me. Her voice was shaky. "Clock…"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Ever since I'd gotten my power, the scenario had been in my mind. Stuck, having to make a hard choice. Mannequin was there, it wasn't a hard choice.

"There's a knife on my belt," I said, feeling hollow.

"De—Clock, I'm not sure I can—"

"Vista!" I shouted at her. "Please. Before he unfreezes. Just… can you use your power to make it extra-sharp or something?" I was pretty sure that wasn't how her power worked, from what I knew, but hey, no harm in asking.

"...I'll try." She said as she grabbed the knife, more than a little of her humoring you voice in her tone. The blade was standard PRT issue, with the grip-bit redone in white at Image's insistence. I'd seldom used it. I had to balance Tattletale on my shoulders as best I could so I could free my other hand up to pull at the armor panels on my wrist, exposing the tight-fitting layer underneath and then skin.

The villain gargled at me again, poking at one of her belt pouches. A grabbed at it… a gun. Tattletale gargled a single syllable I couldn't understand. I handed it to Vista. Maybe she could shoot through the bone or some shit. Fuck, I didn't want to think about that. I just wished I knew how long we had… "If he comes back, just go. Don't wait, get out, let the team know."

"I'm not leaving you behind."

"Vista! I'm not fucking around, if—"

"Look away." She grabbed my forearm, interrupting me. I looked away. I could feel the knife, resting right above where Mannequin's hand was.

The first swipe stopped dead as it hit bone, making me flinch. I felt wetness a second before I felt the sting. It was bad, but not as bad as I was—

Vista started cutting again, and I was screaming and my eyes were squeezed shut and Tattletale was pressing my free hand against my chest to stop me from grabbing my wrist and jesus christ it fucking hurt and she was sawing at flesh, peeling bits of me off to expose bone.

I'd had people fire guns near me before, part of the job. It wasn't the bang that made my ears ring, it wasn't the sound of bone splintering, it was the feel of force echoing up my arm that hurt the worst, like someone was hammering inch-thick needles into my skeleton.

A second bang, more bone-splintering agony, and I was on the ground, looking up. Vista was saying something but I didn't hear her. For a moment I forgot Mannequin was there, so focused was I on the hand I could still feel for some reason.

And then Tattletale slapped me—well, my helmet—and brought me back to reality. I looked over at my… where my hand had been. Vista had used some of my Clockblocking cord to tie a tourniquet, but it was still leaking a lot of red.

She helped me to my feet, helped me grab Tattletale and sling her over my shoulders, and I started stumbling forward,

Out of the corner of my vision I could see the street compressing, but I was focused on keeping my eyes down, wading through the deep-again water, looking for debris that might trip me up. Carrying Tattletale, and with the throbbing agony in my wrist, falling was a bad idea. Even after just a moment of stumbling, I felt tired. Blood loss. Maybe shock? I wished I remembered what they said shock was supposed to feel like.

I put that out of mind, it wasn't important right now. I had to make it back, get us all back, warn the PRT. My hand didn't matter, not when the Nine were around. There was crackling in my ears from the comms though, compared to the nothingness before. I heard bits and pieces of Weld's voice, but with Vista more concentrated on getting us home rather than fixing her power's tendency to fuck with comms, he sounded like a fax machine. I would have tried to say something back, but the controls to navigate my helmet's basic HUD and comms system were down the road inside my gauntlet.

I barely noticed when Vista grabbed my side, holding me up, helping push me forward. I'd slowed down, wavering, my head spinning and the pain almost unbearable. Tattletale hadn't gargled at us for a bit, or I hadn't noticed it. Either unconscious or dead, she didn't seem the type to willingly shut up for that long. It felt like I was about to join her.

"Dennis, come on," Vista said, pushing me faster. "We're almost there."

She used my name in front of the villain. Great. I opened my mouth to say something but it felt like too much effort.

It didn't matter. We were close, now, reality becoming less and less compressed as we neared the PRTHQ and the staff within, Vista's power becoming less effective. I just had to keep stumbling, keep focused, ten more steps… twenty more steps… thirty steps, and it stopped entirely, and we were stumbling up the stairs, Vista pushing me, shouting for help, screaming with a tone I hadn't heard since Leviathan.

We pushed through the doors, trailing red. PRT running towards us, more shouting. Safety. I was too busy trying to make dropping Tattletale a bit less like dropping her. A guard grabbed her from me, but I froze her in their hands to buy time for the medics.

Someone grabbed me, and I was in no condition to resist. In fact, I wasn't in a condition to do anything. The medics would be on the way, but I wasn't sure I'd be conscious for much longer.

Vista could be the one to break the news.

I froze myself.