Click. Click.
I killed the flashlights, and shadows swallowed us. A patch of floor was lit by a dribble of moonlight leaking through a hole in the ceiling, but everywhere else the shadows hid lurking monsters. I could barely see, but the darkness was only an obstacle to my human eyes.
Focus.
I let my vision blur, and reached out with my power, drawing in information. Victoria was standing a foot away - through the eyes of a mosquito, she was a vague blob of warmth with an enticing scent. I could sense her breath, heavy and humid. With ants and termites and cockroaches, I could feel the position of every obstacle around us. I could hear every creak of rusty metal, every plink of dripping water through a thousand ears.
Two more warm blobs were positioned across the street from the loading bay that we'd come in through. Discreetly, I landed lacewings on them to feel them out. Heavy fabric, leather, body armour, and masks - definitely parahumans, but not in PSD combat gear. They weren't moving, but were definitely facing this way. Waiting for something?
"Who?" Victoria hissed, under her breath. She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. Right, the darkness was far more disconcerting for her.
"Two paras, across the street," I replied, keeping my voice low, "They know we're here."
I felt her shiver. "Let's get our stuff and go out the back."
I nodded, and then realized she couldn't see me. "Yeah. Just follow me."
Taking her hand, I began leading the way to where we'd stashed our packs. Almost immediately, I felt them react. One of the pair started heading for the entrance. The other disappeared. The feedback from the bugs on their body just cut out, leaving a hole in my awareness.
Fuck.
"They're moving."
I broke into a run, mapping the way ahead with every pace. Victoria followed, stumbling as I dragged her along. How did they know we were moving? I pushed the thought aside, and started assembling a swarm - cockroaches, spiders, ants, centipedes, anything with mandibles or stingers. I sent it towards the entrance, which the other cape was approaching.
We turned a corner into the aisle, and two things happened. First, through my swarm I felt the corrugated iron sheet covering the entrance fall apart under some external force. Second, the missing cape reappeared.
"Boo."
The voice was feminine, I noticed abstractly, as I nearly jumped out of my skin. My power picked up the insects on her popping into existence where seconds ago there had been empty air. I had half a second to react. I twisted awkwardly to one side, flailing to keep my balance. Something whooshed past my shoulder, missing me by inches as I fell backwards. Victoria wasn't as lucky. I heard an impact, and her shield flared.
It lit up the aisle. Victoria was frozen, eyes wide in surprise, her face highlighted in glimmers of gold. A metal rod - maybe a foot and a half long - bounced off her shoulder and clattered to the ground. I looked up to see our attacker at the end of the aisle.
A heavy black cloak obscured her figure. Her face was covered by a silver mask - the visage of a woman, set into a sombre expression. In her hands was what looked like a hunting crossbow, which she was currently reloading. I rolled into a crouch, and Victoria stepped in front of me just as she raised it and fired. Her shield flared again, and I heard the bolt bounce away.
"Crap," the cape muttered under her breath. She seemed surprised. She raised her voice and called out to her companion, "One of them's a brute!"
Victoria glanced down at me. "Go," I said, "I'll take the other one." She nodded, and her feet left the ground. She accelerated towards the other cape, slapping another crossbow bolt out of the air. The stranger didn't move. At the last moment, her body blurred and there was an indistinct mass of shadows in her place. Victoria punched right through, crashing into the shelves beyond.
She solidified, and turned towards Vicky. "Come and get me, bitch," she yelled, before shifting again and slipping sideways through a metal rack.
I cursed under my breath as she disappeared from my awareness yet again. I still had to deal with the her partner. I split my focus, moving towards the bag where the gun was stashed while simultaneously tracking the other cape. She had just stepped in through the loading bay. My swarm was in position. They descended on her in seconds.
I felt the cape start in surprise, writhing as my army began crawling up their legs. I directed them to search for bare flesh, and sting when they found it. I heard a shriek, and I couldn't help but smile with some satisfaction. My power fed me details of my insects biology - including what sort of toxins they could produce. I was acutely aware of the sort of pain I could inflict. Hopefully it would be enough to drive them away so we could make a run for it. I got to my backpack, and pulled out the gun. I flicked the safety off.
Concentrating, I tried to figure out what was happening with Victoria. I could feel the shadow cape shifting in and out of her insubstantial state. She was taking potshots at Victoria, who was bulldozing through shelving units. A crash echoed through the warehouse as something large and heavy toppled over. I was about to head towards Victoria when I felt my swarm explode in disarray.
Out of nowhere, the bugs covering the other cape were being flung away. The feedback I was getting from them made me wince - it was almost as if half of them had drowned in something. The cape was up and headed towards me.
Fuck, I thought, for the second time in as many minutes.
I gathered the remains of the swarm and sent them to attack again. This time they didn't even get close before being flung away. Something was clearing the path ahead of the other cape. I couldn't get a read on the force, or projection, or whatever it was, but it was decimating my swarm.
I shouldered my backpack, and set off at a jog down the aisle. I felt the cape change course immediately. They're tracking me, I thought, cursing internally. The other cape was moving faster than I was, and Vicky was at the other end of the building. There was nothing to do but stand and fight. Dropping the backpack, I took cover behind a stack of pallets. I gripped the gun tight, with two hands.
The cape rounded the corner, and I got my first good luck at her. She stood a few feet away - conveniently illuminated by a patch of moonlight - staring right at me. Her face was covered by a Venetian mask painted gold, with decorative horns curling from the brow. She wore a deep red biking jacket with a utility belt slung across her torso, and tight fitting black pants. She struck an intimidating figure.
The blood only made it more disconcerting. It hung in rings around her, and reminded me of diagrams of electron orbitals around atoms. Except electron orbitals didn't drip blood. As I sent insects at her, the rings stretched into undulating sheets, sweeping away my swarms.
I stepped out, levelling the gun at her.
"Look," I started, "if you just-"
A tendril of blood lashed out at me, flowing over my arms. Binding them. I pulled the trigger, and the gun jerked in my hands like a living thing. I dropped it. I didn't see where the shot went. The blood kept coming. I tried to run. Something tangled my feet and I slammed face first into the concrete floor. I could feel my jeans getting soaked, then my shirt, as the blood streamed over me. Wet, alive, it flowed over my skin, up my neck, onto my face. I struggled, more out of panic than with any coherent plan.
I felt it touch the corner of my lips. I pressed them together. It covered my nose, suffocating me. I gasped, and my mouth was filled with iron and salt. It was cold, like ice water, but thick. I gagged. I couldn't stop the flow. A red film covered my eyes. My heart stopped.
The first thing I noticed as I woke up was that we were still in the warehouse. Someone had moved me out into the open space where Vicky had been practicing flying earlier. My head was throbbing, and when I reached out for my power, it felt fuzzy. A flashlight was shining painfully in my face.
"Whuh," I said incoherently, struggling to sit up. There was a throbbing pain in my left cheek. I touched my face, and it came away wet.
"Bug bitch is awake," I head someone say.
Blinking, I put a hand up to block the light, and looked around in a daze. Victoria was sitting on the floor a little way from me, cross legged.
"Taylor! Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said, swallowing dryly. My mouth tasted like blood. I shuddered, recalling the feeling of drowning in it. "I think so. What happened?"
Before she could reply something moved behind me and she turned sharply, her face grim. I turned as well, to see our attackers emerging from the shadows, carrying our bags. I scrambled backwards, trying to gather a swarm. Immediately, pain lanced through me. All I could do was curl into a fetal position until it passed.
"Don't try anything." It was the golden masked cape. "Either of you. Or I give bug girl an aneurysm." She stepped out of the shadows, and I noticed that the rings of blood were gone.
"What happened was you got your asses kicked, newbies," said the one in the silver mask, not attempting to keep the glee out of her voice. Dropping my backpack with a thump, she crouched down and unzipped it to examine the contents.
"Who are you?" I asked hoarsely. I shook my head, trying to clear it. It only made the throwing worse. "Why'd you attack us?"
The gold masked cape tilted her head, examining us in silence. She was holding my gun.
"You were just unlucky, I suppose," she said mildly. "We've got some business to attend to nearby. We were scouting the area when we spotted you sneaking around, and Spectre was getting antsy."
I shot her an incredulous look. "You attacked us because you were bored?"
"Oh no, not just because we were bored," silver mask - Spectre - interjected. "We also wanted to steal your shit. Speaking of which, you don't have a whole lot of shit to steal." She had upended my bag, shaking it empty. I winced as my laptop slid out, clattering hard against the ground. Spectre turned to her partner. "They're fuckin' broke," she said in disgust. "No tinkertech, hardly any cash. Let's knock them out and leave."
"That's it? You're just going to take our stuff?" Vicky was hovering off the ground, literally vibrating with rage. "We're trying to survive. We're rogues, like you!"
"Sit the fuck down blondie, or your girlfriend gets it." Spectre raised her crossbow in my direction, although given her partners power over me it seemed unnecessary. "What're you going to do, call the cops? I recognize you, y'know. Victoria Dallon. Did Little Orphan Annie think she was running away to join the glorious revolution? We're supposed to be comrades in arms? You fucking imbecile. It's a dog eat dog world, and tonight you were dinner. I suggest you internalize this experience as a life lesson and get the fuck off our turf by tomorrow. C'mon Crimson, we've got shit to do."
My eyes were on the other cape - Crimson. While her partner was gloating over us and mocking Vicky, she was just stood there. I couldn't see her face, but her body language seemed almost pensive. No dick swinging bravado like her partner; she was just watching us quietly, sizing us up. I had to admit, the mask combined with the creepy head-tilt made her appear pretty unsettling.
"Hold up," she said slowly. "I've got a question for bug girl. What's your range?"
"Why should I tell you anything?"
"I can always give you another heart attack."
"One block," I said sullenly. It might be useful to have her underestimate me.
"You're lying. I can see your pulse. Lie again and I'll make it hurt."
"Fine! It's around three blocks, sometimes farther. What's it to you?"
She ignored my question. "You were using them to track us. Can you see with them? Hear?"
I frowned. What was she driving at? "If I focus, I get some feedback. It's… unclear. Kaleidoscopic, weird pitches. It seems to improve with practice."
She nodded. "Last question. How many can you control at a time?"
Despite the situation, I smiled. "All of them."
She seemed to mull over my answers. She gestured to Spectre, and they walked a little way away to confer in whispers. I noticed that she kept me in her eye-line. The whispering was getting more heated - they were arguing about something. I tried to land a few flies on them discreetly, but they turned and walked back to us before I picked up anything. She seemed to have come to a decision.
"I think," she began, "the potential exists for a mutually beneficial relationship here."
I blinked in confusion. What?
"Introductions. That's Spectre," she gestured to the other cape, "and I'm Crimson. What are your names? I recognize the Dallon girl, but in this business aliases are traditional."
"I, uhh, I haven't actually thought about it." I flushed with embarrassment, and then felt stupid for feeling embarrassed.
Victoria answered with more confidence. "You can call me Nike." I looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. "I've been thinking about this stuff since I was a kid. Picked a name, sketched a costume and everything."
Spectre snorted in amusement. "Nike like the running shoes?"
She sighed. "No, Nike as in the charioteer of the Olympians, the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Her Roman counterpart was the goddess Victoria."
Spectre laughed so hard, she dropped her crossbow. "You want to name yourself after a Greek god? You pretentious fucking hero." She said the word in a tone of voice that suggested it was equivalent to 'vermin' or 'dog shit'.
"Hey, I like mythology okay," she said, bristling with indignation.
"Okay, back to the point," said Crimson, cutting off any further bickering, "the two of you are in some desperate straits. You're homeless, broke-"
"Yeah, we're real damsels in distress," I muttered under my breath.
Crimson continued unfazed, "- and obviously have no idea what you're doing. Now, we were just going to take your money and walk away, but there's an alternative here. Lucky for you, you're useful. I'm prepared to offer you a job."
I stared. "You threaten to kill me, and now you want us to join your gang?"
"We're not a gang," she replied testily. "Think of yourselves as subcontractors."
Before I could reply, Victoria cut in. "What's the job?"
"Forgive me if I withhold specifics for the moment. A client needs something acquired discreetly, and Bug Girl here has a power that could be quite useful."
"You want us to help you steal something," I said, thinking hard. Who were these people? Did it matter? Even if we hadn't just been robbed, we didn't have the cash or resources to survive very long. We need to weigh the risks here. I looked over at Victoria, and noticed that her brow was furrowed in thought as well. We exchanged a glance, her lips quirking slightly, before she turned to Crimson.
"How much?"
"Ten thousand apiece."
My eyes widened in surprise.
"Twenty." Victoria was wearing what she probably thought was a crafty expression. She looked like a puppy trying to be cunning.
She laughed. "Sorry, no. You have zero leverage here. We're not haggling."
"Fine," Victoria said, annoyed, "but are we just supposed to trust you to pay up?"
"We have a reputation to uphold."
"I've never heard of you."
I got the feeling that Crimson was rolling her eyes behind the mask. "We're not in the habit of putting up billboards advertising our services. We're known well enough in certain circles. But okay, fifty percent up front. If you try to run with it, we will hunt you down. Satisfied?"
"Hold on," I said, frowning. "We have no idea who you are, or how dangerous this is going to be. And you just attacked us."
Crimson walked over to a dusty crate and sat down, crossing her feet casually. "It wasn't personal, you know. We're rogues. Criminals for fun and profit. It's how we make a living. It's what you are too, now. I'm not going to lie, it might be dangerous. But that's the world you live in now, so you either shape up or you lose."
"Lose?"
"Get beaten, get arrested, die, or worse. You lost tonight." She shrugged. "I'm giving you an opportunity to make some money, to pull yourself out of the dirt. I'll tell you what, you can even keep your stuff-" Spectre made a noise of protest, which was ignored, "-as a gesture of good faith," she finished, firmly. "But I need an answer now."
I looked at Victoria, who looked right back at me. She shrugged, giving me a small smile. Fuck it, I thought.
"We're in."
Crimson stood up, and even though I couldn't see her face, she walked with an air of satisfaction. She held out an arm - which I took after a moment's hesitation - and helped me up. She handed me my gun. I noticed that the safety was still off. I looked up at her, and saw very normal looking brown eyes staring back at me through the eyeholes of the mask. I clicked the safety on.
"Great," Spectre growled, sounding less than enthused. "Can we go now? We're going to be late."
Crimson pulled out a cheap cell phone and slapped it into my hand. "We'll be in touch tomorrow." She glanced at the rusty and collapsed shelves around us. "There's a block of apartments like ten minutes to the north. I suggest you find an empty one and spend the night there."
With that, they turned and headed for the exit, leaving Vicky and me standing side by side in the middle of the silent warehouse. Crimson stopped just before stepping out, and turned back to us.
"Hey bug girl," she yelled, "you gotta pick a name!"
