*No, no, no…* Taylor despairingly moaned inside her head from where she was pressed up against the diner's rear wall after ducking back there, not daring to make the slightest physical sounds of distress. Especially given who might hear this.

The quick peek she'd just risked around the building corner had now confirmed all of the dreadful nightmare out in the parking lot in every horrific detail: what appeared to be the entire population of the upstate New York hamlet fearfully huddled together while their captors casually bickered among themselves who'd get to murder those hapless victims today.

Taylor, like the rest of America, needed only a second or so to identify such parahuman serial killers as Mannequin, Bonesaw, Hatchet Face, and Crawler out there before realizing with growing horror that the remainder of the bloodthirsty group were probably in the diner on the other side of the wall…no more than a few yards away from her.

Jack Slash.

The Siberian.

Burnscar.

Shatterbird.

Otherwise known as the Slaughterhouse Nine, a name guaranteed to make anyone sane instantly flee screaming at the merest possibility they might be heading their way.

The day had started so well…


Earlier that week, Danny Hebert came home from work and happily told his daughter the Dockworker's Union had just won a major city contract to renovate most of the Trainyards. It was the best news Danny's employer had received in years, but it required him to spend the upcoming Saturday and Sunday in the office holding various conferences and meetings with the other Union heads so that they'd all hit the ground running when it came to actually beginning repair work on Monday morning.

An apologetic Danny gave Taylor three options for the weekend. She could stay home on her own, go out to the safer parts of Brockton Bay, or come to the office with him and hang around there. Maybe visit the Dockworker's Union unused warehouse where she could experiment some more in privacy as usual with her military animal avatars?

Taylor was a little reluctant to pick the latter option, considering what'd happened last time. Oh, it hadn't hurt really, but she'd definitely needed to lie down for a while to recover from changing on a sudden whim after remembering with a stifled giggle one of the more hilarious beasts created by Taylor's favorite fantasy author.

Instead, Taylor proposed to her father something else she'd been thinking about lately, testing her pigeon-avatar Cher Ami's endurance with a long-range flight of at least several hundred miles each way to and from somewhere. At a pigeon's normal speed of 60 mph, a whole flying day could cover at least five hundred miles or more. Taylor already felt she could handily accomplish this but she still wanted to prove it for real. The young woman in her avatar form could obviously perform multiple aerial circuits of the whole city of Brockton Bay to do the same thing, but Taylor correctly figured that'd get tedious pretty fast.

After thinking it over, Danny gave his permission as long as Taylor made sure not to overexert herself or otherwise get hurt. Speaking of that, no, she wasn't going anywhere near New York City, even if she'd already declared a previously unrealized dream to fly around the Empire State Building from bottom to top and then mark her achievement on the landmark with a really good bowel movement.

Sticking out her tongue at a chuckling father, Taylor then heard him suggest she head northeast along the coast for however far she felt able to go, maybe even up to the Maine/Canada border. That should be both safe and scenic enough, right?

It must've been the spur of flying somewhere along the water, but Taylor had an inspiration she immediately announced to her father, "Niagara Falls!"

"What?" Danny blinked.

"Why not go there? It's supposed to be really impressive, right?"

"So I've heard," Danny shrugged. "Never been to the place, not even on our honeymoon."

He looked a bit sad. "I think we both decided it was kind of tacky, from what I remember."

Taylor impulsively reached across the kitchen table to hug her dad, who returned this embrace with equal affection. They soon broke apart, with Danny clearing his throat.

"Niagara Falls, right. That's…east from here, I figure. Let's find a map or atlas."

Soon enough, the Heberts found out that Danny had been correct.

Taylor measured the distance on the New England road map from Danny's truck. She declared, "About three hundred miles each way. That works."

Danny glanced with puzzlement at her from his own study of the map. "How's that? It looks to be over five hundred miles by the freeways— Oh, yeah. You can fly there in a straight line."

"Yup," replied a smug Taylor. She then excitedly asked him, "Does this mean I can go?"

Gathering Taylor up in another hug, he murmured into her hair, "Yes, but there'll be some conditions."

Several days later, early in the morning after a good breakfast for them both, Danny and Taylor went to their home's backyard where nobody else would see them. Dressed in sneakers, jeans, and a hoodie over a Miss Militia t-shirt, Taylor accepted from her dad and put in her wallet an envelope filled with a couple of hundred-dollar bills just in case something went wrong with Taylor's avatar abilities.

This was emergency money for a bus ticket home which might include a necessary night at a motel in addition to buying meals and a spare change of clothes. Danny handed the cash over much more readily than what came next, a new cell phone reluctantly produced from his pants pocket.

Also giving Taylor the phone, Danny sternly told her, "Repeat what we worked out before."

Knowing very well why he was being such a hardass about it considering what'd happened to their family involving another cell phone, Taylor obediently responded, "I text you every hour on the hour as near as I can, after landing and changing back while checking the map to see where I am."

"Good," Danny nodded, tapping the lump of the other cell phone remaining in his pocket. "You've got all the emergency numbers I put on yours, and I'll keep mine on vibrate all the time." He dialed back the intensity a bit, fondly eyeing his daughter.

"You still can't bring more stuff with you?"

"Nope," Taylor sighed with intense frustration. "Tried one more time last night, but Cher Ami won't show up at all if I'm wearing more than I have on now or cram too much into my pockets. It's weird and totally not fair. I mean, Hathi the elephant can bring with him a whole cannon that weighs more than your truck, but pigeon-me is stuck to just my wallet, the phone, and a map!"

Smiling, Danny leaned forward to kiss Taylor on her forehead. "Powers are strange anyway, even if you're not actually a parahuman. Okay, honey, ready to go?"

Giving her father one last hug, Taylor nodded, and took a step back. An instant later, the girl's human body vanished to now reveal a small pigeon sitting on the grass. The bird looked up with bright eyes at the man gazing down at her and then took off with fluttering wings. Doing a few circles around Danny in her ascent, Taylor did a final rollover stunt as a goodbye gesture before determinedly heading off towards the western horizon.

Danny continued gazing after the pigeon until the bird was finally out of his sight. He then walked back to the house, ready to go to the Dockworker's Union building, muttering under his breath along the way to somebody who'd gone from their lives much too soon.

"God, Annette, I really miss you. You sure would've been a big help to us both, dealing with all this."

Opening the backyard door to go inside, Danny paused in the kitchen to admit wryly, "The good thing is, at least our Little Owl's not thinking yet about getting a boyfriend!"

Remembering his wife's former involvement with the Lustrum movement, Danny hastily amended, "Fine, I'd be just as unenthusiastic if it was a girlfriend, okay?"

For some reason, Danny was now daydreaming ghostly laughter which sounded very familiar… Taylor's father ran through his mind what he'd just said, to next perform a very sincere facepalm.

The imaginary spectral laughter had now turned into loud guffaws, leading Danny to huff at thin air, "Ha, ha! Boy, how much more bizarre can my life get?"

There was one last amused snicker from the afterlife before peace and quiet descended inside the Hebert kitchen. Shaking his head dolefully, Danny went towards the garage, glancing at the wall clock to see when he should be getting Taylor's first text on her trip to Niagara Falls.


8:35 a.m.:

HI DAD AT BRATTLEBORO PRETTY PLACE SAW A WHITE CHURCH CLOCK TOWER SPIRE GIVING TIME TO CALL RUDYARD KIPLING LIVED AND WROTE JUNGLE BOOK HERE WONDER WHAT HE'D THINK ABOUT HATHI-ME FEEL FINE FLYING SO FAR WANT TO SEE HOW FASTER I CAN GO TO NEXT STOP CALL YOU THEN

9:32 a.m.:

AT ROME NOT IN ITALY HEE HEE DOING 100 MPH SPEED WITH NO PROBLEMS ANOTHER CHURCH CLOCK BUT BLACK SPIRE CALLING FROM FORT STANWIX REBUILT REV WAR FORT YOU'D LIKE IT TAKING OFF NOW GOING TO KEEP UP SPEED

10:25 a.m.:

BATAVIA BOOOORRRRRRING STILL FEELING GOOD CAN SEE LAKE ONTARIO ON RIGHT WHEN HIGH ENOUGH HEADING TO LAKE ERIE AND THEN FOLLOW NIAGARA RIVER SHOULD BE MAYBE HALF-HOUR TO FALLS WILL CALL RIGHT AWAY WHEN THERE


"WHHHEEEEE!"

Taylor did this gleeful whoop of joy while skimming a few feet above the rushing surge of water towards where this plummeted over the upcoming rocky lip. Zipping past the edge of Horseshoe Falls, Taylor tucked in her wings and dove through the billowing spray. Unfurling her wings just in time to pull out of this dive, Taylor burst from the cloud of spray into bright sunlight and kept on gliding ahead over the river, passing by Bridal Veil Falls and American Falls.

She started flapping her wings to rise up and take another lap that'd do it one more time, only to have this feel harder than mere minutes before. Frowning with concern, Taylor swerved in mid-air past the Observation Tower on the United States side and descended into a clump of tall bushes above the shoreline trail. Making sure she couldn't be seen through the bushes, Taylor transformed back into her human form…only to feel that her hoodie was nearly soaked through to the t-shirt beneath.

Ruefully realizing that her pigeon feathers had collected water from all the times she'd just flown through the waterfall mists, Taylor pulled off her hoodie. Wrapping this in a ball to squeeze it dry as much as she could, she shook it open and snapped the hoodie a few times to let it air out. Rubbing the fabric with her fingertips felt like it needed a couple more minutes to get less damp, so Taylor tied the hoodie around her skinny waist and strolled out from the bushes.

Skidding down the hillside to the trail, Taylor was ignored by the other tourists strolling by. She got onto the trail and went over to the river's edge fence. Pulling out her phone to find the time, Taylor saw it was another ten minutes to check in with her father. So, she'd been at this for nearly an hour. No wonder her hoodie was so wet.

Maybe it was time to call it a day. She still had to travel home, after all, and even with her avian homing ability that'd allow Taylor to unerringly find their house in Brockton Bay, that was another couple of hours despite not allowing the slightest divergence in her return flight.

Taylor's stomach then announced its emptiness with a low growl. Yeah, that settled it. Walk up the trail toward American Falls to the visitor center with its gift shop and food services, do some shopping for souvenirs and get a quick bite to eat, then leave.

Shortly thereafter, a pigeon's stomach protested much louder this time its continued state of hungriness. Well, the food prices back there had been just insane, far more than Taylor wanted to pay. She'd already spent too much of her own money for a Niagara Falls refrigerator magnet and a t-shirt for Dad, approaching the limits of what she could bring with her while transforming into her animal avatar. That meant flying home until she found somewhere much cheaper along the way.

Or…judging from all the marshland down there, she could fly lower and eat her fill of bugs. Hah! Get real—

Hel-lo. 'Sarah's Family Diner'? That sounded promising. Just it and a combined gas station/convenience store with a large propane gas cylinder surrounded by protective bollards set at the north end of the station, all on a rural side road. There were some homes close by and the diner's parking lot was half-full with not a single tourist license plate to be seen on any of the cars. If the locals went there for lunch, it must have good food.

Ten minutes later, Taylor gladly tucked into one of the best cheeseburgers she'd had in her whole life. When she was done, the girl used the last of her money for a tip. So far, she hadn't touched a penny of the emergency fund Dad had given her this morning. That was sure to impress him about her being responsible and easier to talk Danny Hebert into later on allowing more future long-distance flights, given how much fun she'd had on this one.

Leaving the restaurant, Taylor went around the building and wandered down the gravel trail she'd seen from above earlier which led a few hundred yards away to a tree-encircled pond with picnic tables and barbecue grills. Probably the local park, but it was a good place as any for Taylor to stretch her legs, let the cheeseburger settle, and call Dad again.

Just at the time Taylor was sending her latest text in the park, a battered RV pulled into the gas station…


From where she stood trembling behind the diner, Taylor was about to change into a pigeon and get the hell out of there as fast as she could fly away from those parahuman monsters. Once she felt a fraction safer several miles distant, the girl would land back on the ground, change into a person again, and call for help.

Taylor closed her eyes in despair. There wasn't anything else she could do for the other people caught in the parking lot facing their imminent deaths. Maybe Hathi might be able to effectively use his cannon against some of the Slaughterhouse Nine such as Jack Slash, Shatterbird and Burnscar who despite their powers had the usual human bodily weakness. Though, Taylor didn't know about Bonesaw's surgical alterations which made these same villains much more durable than before.

Even so, that left the other parahumans who were immune to any weapon Taylor had. The Siberian easily defeated Alexandria in hand-to-hand combat, for heaven's sake! No, all Taylor could do was to take off—

Wait. If firepower wouldn't work, how about…brainpower?

Taylor opened her eyes with an expression of grim determination then flashing over the girl's face, until this part of her body abruptly changed into something a lot more hairier than before.


Jack Slash grabbed another handful of fries from their plate and munched happily upon these perfectly-prepared potato strips. Still chewing, he sent an idle gaze at the cook sitting behind the counter, face slack and staring into the distance. Really, what fun was there in killing somebody who'd already lost all hope?

Two women came into the diner from the rear entrance, both of them grinning fit to bust. The female in front then gaily called out, "Jack, you've got to see what's out back! You're not going to believe it!"

Jack lifted a quizzical eyebrow at hearing such a cheerful mood from Burnscar when she didn't actively use her flames. He wasn't picking up at the moment any sense of betrayal from either her or Shatterbird following behind, but Jack Slash hadn't led this bunch of murderhobos for years without always maintaining a highly-developed level of paranoia.

Letting his right hand casually drift to his pants belt holding several holstered daggers and other blades, Jack drew and palmed a small knife from there, using part of his shard-given power to put a projection of ultimate keenness onto the knife's edge.

Getting up from the diner table, Jack shrugged, "Fine, show me what you found that's so interesting. I'll be right behind you, ladies."

That unspoken threat had absolutely no effect upon the wide grins of the two villainesses, making Jack become even warier even when Shatterbird and Burnscar turned around and strode off to the diner's rear door, leaving their backs totally exposed. Now even more convinced they were up to something, Jack nonetheless followed after the pair.

He didn't bother paying any attention to the cook still sitting there unmoving. What was he going to do, try a break for it? All that'd happen was to make things even worse when one of the Nine caught him and then got to work in their own merrily homicidal way.

Keeping his knife ready for what Jack thought to be anything, he was soon proven totally wrong. Coming to a dead stop just beyond the diner's rear doorway with Burnscar and Shatterbird now on his right side, Jack gaped at the truly peculiar sight now shown to him in the paved delivery space behind the eatery.

"Where the fuck did that thing come from?!"

An extremely large adult camel placidly standing there on all four padded feet turned its long neck to aim a supreme sneer directly at Jack, meanwhile maintaining a slow chew of the beast's regurgitated cud in its mouth.

Chortling at their leader's astonished expression, Burnscar explained, "Hell if I know. Me and Shatterbird didn't see it on our first sweep that cleared out this dump. It was only when we came back to check for any hiders that we found that stupid animal right here."

Jack eyed with sudden suspicion the beast disdainfully staring back at him. He reached out with a particular ability of his shard just in case…but no, it wasn't some cape before them with a really weird Changer/Breaker talent. For whatever reason, this was an honest-to-Sahara-Desert, Lawrence-of-Arabia-riding, humped-cliché-from-a-thousand-New-Yorker-cartoons camel.

Relaxing slightly, Jack started seeing the actual humor in this. Still holding the small knife with its deadly edge in his right hand, Jack thoughtfully scratched his chin with the other hand.

He mused out loud, "You know, I'm getting a bit curious at what our dear little Bonesaw could do with that."

As if it'd in fact understood what Jack Slash had just ghastly proposed, the camel ambled forward a few steps then to come to a stop in front of that villain, leaving a mere arm's-length space between the two.

What with it being at least seven feet tall at the shoulder and reaching even higher for the head and a single hump, Jack looked straight up into the massive beast's nostrils when it tilted forward their head to peer down at the parahuman male. He hadn't known camels had two sets of eyelashes.

Everything was mathematics.

All the information received through You Bitch's ears, nose, and skin was processed and run through multiple numerical scenarios of what she remembered and deducted to fit in the ultimate plan.

She heard the scrape of Crawler's claws and the other noises the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine produced when standing in the parking lot, fixing their positions to the last hundredth of an inch.

You Bitch smelled the crowd's fear and felt the vibrations running upwards her legs of the mass of humanity huddled together. They were thankfully in their own safe area from what was about to occur.

Going over one last time all that she'd memorized, You Bitch concluded the percentages of success had statistically reached the maximum level to solve the equation for destroying the Slaughterhouse Nine today.

Without even a warning rumble from their stomach, the camel vomited straight into Jack's face.

Reeling back to claw with his left hand at the disgusting blob of gluey whitish biological substance presently blinding him, Jack's temper now snapped. It didn't help either that he heard Shatterbird and Burnscar off to the side abruptly laughing at him.

Reaching such an enraged state that it boosted his shard to make the knife's edge even more sharper and extensive enough to reach further, Jack now also possessed the additional power to cut through almost anything as long as he used sufficient force.

Still trying to wipe off his face of the stubbornly-clinging substance filling his nose with its reeking smell, Jack did a maddened diagonal backhand swipe of his knife, sending the blade upwards to cleave apart that tall animal. He missed completely, not even severing a single hair on the camel's hump.

That was because You Bitch promptly dropped to the ground onto her chest once she'd done what people seeing a camel do this called 'spitting'. Ducking her head also allowed Jack's knife in its stroke to pass entirely by without doing any harm, but You Bitch wasn't finished yet.

Using every muscle in her neck, You Bitch thrust forward her lowered head, the top of her iron-hard skull smashing against the precise point of Jack Slash's hip to make him helplessly spin in a quarter-circle on his feet. Attempting to get back his balance as the pods implanted inside his body by Bonesaw injected substantial amounts of Tinker chemicals to promote andrenalized strength and speed far beyond that of an ordinary human, Jack wildly waved both arms…including the one still holding his power-enhanced knife.

Without the slightest bit of resistance, the stretched-out knife edge horizontally hewed apart the torsos of Burnscar and Shatterbird standing next to Jack. Already dying even before their various bodily pieces hit the ground, the women never knew they were joined in their demises by Mannequin, Bonesaw, Hatchet Face, and Crawler.

Extending itself for a hundred yards, the edge managed to slit with amazing accuracy through the center part of Mannequin's torso where he kept his brain, Bonesaw's head, Hatchet Face's heart, and the corona pollentia of Crawler in his case to temporarily disable that serial killer's regeneration.

Of all those, only Hatchet Face was immediately dead with no hope of resuscitation. The other three members of the Nine might've actually survived their horrendous injuries…except for what else Jack's knife cut through.

To be specific, the large propane cylinder set horizontally by the gas station. Sparks caused by the edge continuing to carve apart the RV parked there promptly ignited the propane in a massive explosion that engulfed the three villains.

Instinctively fleeing from the flames, the crowd of hostages rushed off down the road without looking behind at where the bodies of Bonesaw and the others were burning to ashes as the fiery propane continued to spew onto their corpses.

(The subsequent investigation by PRT and federal authorities found out that any pathogens contained within Bonesaw's charred body had been thoroughly destroyed by the protracted heat. The whole hamlet was still declared an off-limits quarantine zone just to be on the safe side and the former inhabitants were never allowed back. On the other hand since nobody had a stronger claim, the bounties for the Slaughterhouse Nine were divided among all the survivors who became very rich as a consequence.

Sadly, this omitted the unknown individual in the ruins of the RV who was deemed the only victim of collateral damage. Since they never found out who he was, it took quite a long time to stop wondering if the Siberian would ever show up again in a new version of the Nine.)

But that was for later. Right now, an incandescent Jack paying no attention to the very familiar sounds of explosions and screams nearby scrubbed his left palm hard across his face with some success at finally dislodging some of the sticky crap there—

Still down onto her chest, You Bitch swung her neck sideways hitting his ankles to sweep Jack entirely off his feet. He landed hard flat on his back, and the camel surged upwards onto all fours.

Experience in numerous cape fights made Jack still hold onto his knife even when his upper arms smashed against the ground, clenched fists brought up over his chest. Now furious beyond belief, Jack pried loose a stray glob from his left eyelid to witness a camel rearing high above him on her back legs and then coming down with both front feet to stomp with bone-breaking force onto their target.

Which was Jack's right forearm and he wouldn't have minded all that much that specific hurt when this attack also accomplished something far more serious. Mainly, the impact pressing his hand and the enhanced knife clenched in there directly against his neck…

Jack Slash decapitated himself.

Taylor lurched backwards, trying not to be sick again at seeing the head rolling free and a thick spurt of blood coming from the body's neck stump.

Avoiding the horrible sight to make her way sideways past the diner corner, Taylor winced at all the destruction out there as the propane continued to burn. Inside her head, You Bitch calmly ran down the list of recent successful actions the result of pure mathematics by the foremost authority of this discipline currently existing on Earth, even if she also smelled like a Rugby team's unwashed Y-fronts collection bag.

Behind her, Jack Slash's left eyelid blinked.

Well, this was definitely a pretty pickle and no mistake. Good thing he gave in last month to Bonesaw's endless nagging for Mister Jack to try out her latest surgical procedure. It'd taken her several dozen test subjects to prove she could keep him alive even if some party-pooper ever lopped off his head.

The subdermal collar fitted directly under his lower jaw had just demonstrated its usefulness in this situation, spreading out from the bottom edge to seal off the neck gash. Tiny impellers set in the collar were also maintaining his blood circulation and bringing in oxygen. Jack wiggled his tongue in the proper manner and could feel the dozen folded-claw protrusions attached around to the collar twitch slightly.

Just let that damn animal leave and he'd operate those claws like walking legs to find Bonesaw and have her stitch his head back onto his body lying over there. Wouldn't take long, and then it'd be camel-fricasseeing time!

Unaware that it was Bonesaw who was busily burning instead, Jack froze his features at the first sign of the camel coming back to where his head rested. Not daring to shift his gaze at all, Jack could only see at the edge of his vision the camel lowering its own head to closely scrutinize him for several moments.

Seemingly satisfied, the camel snorted softly and then brought up their head. Glad that he couldn't heave a sigh of relief, Jack grumpily waited for the big bastard to take off as he saw paired sets of padded feet switch places to indicate their owner was turning around.

Wait a second…? Why were those rear feet shuffling backwards so they were nearly touching his nose?

SPLAT!

From under an abruptly-landing massive mound of dromedary ordure, Jack opened his mouth in an unsuccessful scream of genuine outrage. He promptly regretted this when his taste buds demonstrated they were still working fine.

Frantic attempts to spit it all out were interrupted by Jack becoming aware his thoughts were becoming hazier by the second. To his growing horror, the parahuman realized the subdermal collar's oxygen inlets had just become thoroughly clogged and he wasn't getting any more air.

Now even more desperate than before, Jack tried the tongue thing again despite what else was now obstructing his mouth. The walking legs managed to protrude through his neck skin as planned, but once they hit the foul sludge covering him, this tacky substance slowed the legs too much for these to move his head at all.

Darkness began to envelope Jack's mind. He fought to the last, but to no avail. His final thoughts had him raging, *This can't be happening to me! I'm Jack Slash! Greatest killer of them all! A camel can't do…do…"


Several minutes later, a pigeon flew over a small crowd of people still doggedly fleeing along the New York country road. They didn't appear to be slowing down, no matter how old or young they were.

Sighing, Taylor continued to head home. *First Lung, now the Slaughterhouse Nine. Dad's going to lock me in my bedroom until I'm eighty.*

*Fifteen years to eighty years is 2,049,840,000 seconds.*

*SHUT UP!*