16. Tracker
A few miles?
That couldn't be good.
Had they found her?
It didn't make sense. If they knew where she was, they would have attacked Burlington, not some nearby village. They wouldn't have squandered the element of surprise if favor of cheap spectacle.
Unless it was a trap, to lure her where they had the advantage.
She wasn't sure what look was on her face, but Cataldo offered one of those flat smiles people made when the occasion did not lend itself to actual smiles.
Liminal finished speaking into her earpiece, and turned to Riley.
"Listen, kid, you did good. Really, I don't say that lightly. But I have to go, right now. Stay in touch, alright? Don't do anything stupid. In the meantime, I'll forward your info to that Asylum I mentioned.
Riley nodded numbly.
The pair escorted her back to the entrance of the hospital, then Liminal left on her motorcycle, Cataldo following in his car.
Alone, Riley walked back to the truck, in the parking lot of a grocery store a safe distance away.
The dead raven greeted her, oblivious to the matter at hand. One of the spider boxes whacked it behind the head.
"It's alright," she told them. "I knew it would happen eventually."
She hadn't expected it to be so soon and so close, though.
First, she needed more information.
She removed her costume, then grabbed the face mask and gloves of the little old lady and put them on. Searching through the clothes she had packed and/or stolen, she changed into jeans too big for her and and a flannel shirt she tucked in her belt.
Ready, she headed out and walked until she found a coffee shop that had hastily reinvented itself as an internet-café following the demise of every computer in the city. She waited twenty minutes for a computer to free itself, then got to work.
First, she checked the new thread on Parahumans Online titled "Slaughterhouse Nine attack Shelburne (masterpost)," made twenty-four minutes ago.
Most of the comments were from people speculating about the divergence from their usual MO. Normally, after losing half of the team, the Nine would look to replenish their numbers, hitting smaller cities to target their parahuman population, and going easier on recruits.
Shelburne, population seven thousand and change, had no known parahumans.
Usually, the Nine would flee reinforcements and lay low for a while before popping up elsewhere, but seven miles from their previous target was unheard of.
Shatterbird's song could carry much further than it had, almost enough to hit Burlington again, but hadn't reached its full potential.
Was she interrupted? She wasn't usually the type to restrain herself.
Riley searched for livefeeds, webcams, weather cameras and traffic cameras from Shelburne. They all displayed a card saying "this image is temporarily unavailable." A bit of fiddling gave her access to the precise time they went offline.
She took a screenshot of a map of Shelburne, and marked the location of the different feeds she had found. The few seconds of delay between some of the cameras going out of service allowed her to triangulate the epicenter of the disaster.
That gave her the location where Shatterbird had been, half an hour ago.
She tried to dig through the archive of the cameras for an actual sighting of Shatterbird, but found none.
Was she still with Cherish and Burnscar? Cherish was a dummy, but Riley couldn't imagine her making this kind of play. How far did her range extend again? Riley's safeguards prevented her from being mastered, but not from being tracked. She couldn't amend them now, because performing brain surgery on herself would make her too vulnerable at a time where she needed her full attention on a possible attack.
She dug deeper on the internet, to sites made by fans of serial killers and the like, the kind of sites that rejoiced in uncensored pictures of victims and liked tracking the Nine's accomplishments in every details.
Like PHO, they speculated about the cause of the Nine's explosive infighting. Unlike PHO, they actually missed the fallen members.
She found very little of importance, and what she found nearly made her consider Jack's idea to visit their "fans." Some people really needed a life.
No hint to the whereabouts of the other members of the Nine. She probably wouldn't find more without going there herself, but going to Shelburne was completely out of question.
No, it would be better to send her minions instead.
She printed out her map, then erased her internet history and freed the computer for the next person.
As she walked back to the truck, she began making a plan.
The raven flew high above Shelburne, circling the spot where Shatterbird had sung.
As it drew closer, the camera picked up the scene of multiple car accidents, those who had been on the road at full speed when it happened. Most people, including the car crash survivors, appeared to be hiding indoors, leaving the streets deserted.
Scorch marks on the side of some buildings and smoke in the air hinted to Burnscar's power, but very little was actively on fire.
The spider-boxes were nearly there, having hitched a ride on the back of a truck headed South.
The truck stopped where the road was blocked by crashed cars, and the spiders hopped off. She hadn't seen fit to disguise their appearance, since Bonesaw was supposed to be there anyways.
Like bloodhounds, they would pick up Shatterbird's trail and follow it, all from the trace amounts of DNA left on her scrapbook of potential recruits. Then, they could release a targeted plague tailored to Shatterbird's DNA.
Shatterbird only had herself to blame for her gross habit of licking her finger before flipping the pages.
A shame she couldn't find DNA samples from Cherish and Burnscar, but the spiders were resourceful enough to deal with them too.
Meanwhile, the raven scanned the sky for any unusual birds flying.
Riley looked up from her phone. She could hear laughter somewhere behind her in the parking lot, but the mirrors were broken, so she had to lean against the plastic covering her window to look back.
A gang of eight or so teenagers or young adults were sitting around the concrete blocks delimiting the parking lot, the glowing end of a cigarette or joint moving like it was being passed around. Puffs of smoke punctuated their indistinct words and laughter. A few lighters were lit, the small flames casting a dim light on their faces.
Riley went back to the feed.
The spiders had found some burnt glass and were following the trail to a building on fire, hopefully all the way to the source. The raven had spotted seven birds, but not the one she was looking for.
The laughter turned to cheers, getting closer.
Riley raised her eyes from the phone
A screeching sound came from the side of the truck, like someone was digging their keys into the metal.
No, both sides at the same times. They came into view, surrounding the truck's doors. The hooligans from earlier. They cheered on the one closest to the driver's door, urging him to do it.
He opened the door, and promptly fell to the ground, unconscious.
It helped that the inside of the truck was filled with an invisible, odorless knockout gas only she was immune to.
The others backed away, too far for the gas to affect them.
"The fuck did you do to Carl?"
The one who spoke, a twenty-something with an unfortunate overbite she was itching to correct, was waving a knife in her direction.
Riley sighed.
"First of all, I can tell that you don't know how to use that knife. Trust me, I've got a lot of experience there. Segundo, boy oh boy did you pick the wrong person to mug."
"Oh yeah? Grandma thinks she's tough?"
"Why don't you ask Carl?"
"Get out of the truck, now."
In one swift motion, she threw a vial at the ground between them and jumped in the passenger seat to open the other door.
The four hooligans on the other side of the truck were surprised, but quickly recovered. Tall and ugly in a red shirt aimed a gun at her, but she didn't mind.
"Like I said, you picked the wrong person to mug."
A gunshot was fired at her kneecap, but she didn't flinch, advancing implacably toward the retreating group.
"Cape!" Yelled out one of the boys.
Another vial took care of three out of four, the last one running away as soon as her hand went to her pocket.
She ran after him. Letting him get away would only draw undue attention, especially since he'd seen the truck up close. She could change her face in a pinch, but changing the appearance of the truck would be more complicated, and she didn't want word of this going back to Liminal.
Her telescoping humerus shot out to grab his shirt, but came short. He was almost at the edge of the parking lot, the distance between them growing with every step.
The weapon that had the most range amongst her arsenal was the poison needles she could fire from her fingertips, but they were, well, poison.
She'd thought about changing the charge for a sedative, but had gotten distracted by something else before actually doing it. She didn't have much of a choice; he was about to get away. The apprehension she swallowed tasted like bile.
The image of a dying Jack flashed in her mind's eye as she aimed a finger gun at the boy and fired.
Her aim was true, and the poison needle caught him in the leg. He managed a few more steps before crumpling down.
She ran to his side, already mixing the antidote.
"I'm so sorry," she told him. "Had to stop you somehow."
He gurgled, which was probably an effect of the poison rather than a genuine commentary on the situation.
She hurried to administer the antidote as he sputtered, foaming at the mouth, then began screaming.
Shit.
She pressed her hand to the side of his head, sending a tiny electrical pulse aimed at the claustrum, and it was like a switch went off. He fell like a bag of bricks.
In the sudden quiet, she strained her ear to see if the screaming had drawn attention, but found no answering sounds.
Taking him under the armpits, she dragged his body across the parking lot, dropping it next to the others. Then, she rolled up his pant's leg to inspect the damage, removing the dart at the same time.
Around the injection site, the skin was black and pulsing, bruises painting their way outward to the rest of the leg. Normally, it would be a case for amputation, but she wasn't one to waste a perfectly good leg.
Four local injections of antidote took care of it, returning the leg to its normal appearance. She then reached into the truck for her most recent creations, and applied some cream over the injection sites to heal them.
There. Nothing to see.
She rolled the pant's leg back down, then mixed another vial to erase the boys' short term memory, using a dropper to administer it into each mouth.
Then, she climbed in the truck and started it.
She went North, until she had put enough distance not to be tracked, and found another parking lot. There, she checked in with the spider boxes and the raven, but the trail had gone cold. Shatterbird had most likely taken to the air long before her minions got there, and the changing wind had squandered what trail there was to follow.
She called them back.
Was the boys' short-term memory properly wiped? Would someone investigate the crime scene? Had someone been witness to her subduing the group?
The boys should be up and about within an hour, but a lot could happen in the meantime, and even with their memories wiped, their situation would raise questions.
Maybe it would be safer to skip town sooner than later.
By morning, her minions had returned.
"Don't look so down," she told them. "There will be other opportunities." It did little to cheer them up.
She switched her flesh mask for the teenage girl, and swapped her jeans for pants with no bullet hole in them before grabbing her backpack and heading out.
She went back to the internet-café to see what news had popped up during the night.
Once a computer became available, she hurried to sit down in front of it, and opened PHO, searching for "Shelburne."
She quickly found the masterpost, and browsed to see the new messages.
More speculation about the Nine's split, some people noting that Shatterbird's song was shorter than usual, and quite a few off-topic remarks. Nothing of real importance, until she reached page ten.
My friend who fled Shelburne said that Burnscar and Shatterbird were duking it out in the streets.
After that, the discussion devolved into debates pitting the different members of the Nine against each other and speculating who would win.
Burnscar and Shatterbird fighting? That would explain the burnt glass the spiders had found, but why? Weren't they both under Cherish's influence?
"It was an accident," said a voice behind her. "My control slipped."
Riley whirled around, poised to attack.
Cherish raised her hands in surrender, two bandaged stumps on her left hand where Siberian had bitten fingers off. Fresh cuts and scraps marred her face.
"Not looking for a fight. I just want to talk."