Little Hunter

Nanku slipped alongside the estate wall. She looked over the top and pulled herself up into a crouch.

Cameras in the roof overhangs were the most obvious security. Cycling her mask's vision modes revealed an array of lasers sweeping the lawns between the wall and the house. Nothing dangerous. Nanku presumed they functioned like tripwires. Sensors that could detect her cloak.

There had been so much of that Nanku was ready to write the cloak off for anything more than initial advantage.

…

To hell with it then.

Rising to her feet, Nanku dropped from the wall and proceeded across the lawn.

She avoided the lasers and the cameras. When she couldn't, she crossed into the cameras. The bugs within the house were already busy searching and located at least four hidden rooms and a rather well armed basement. Lots of guns with a half dozen women inside cleaning and fitting them.

Bodyguards? Nanku missed them earlier at the ambush. They weren't the right height of scent to be her targets.

No.

Fenja and Menja were in a dining room with another woman. They occupied opposite sides of a long table hissing back and forth. One of the twins paced and pointed at the other while her sister endured whatever tirade was being shouted.

Nanku couldn't make out all the words.

Something about a 'heap' or 'monsters.'

Monsters.

Nanku decided to assume alarms on the doors and windows.

She went around the back, slipped under an array of lasers, and hung from a wall one handed. Stairs descended into the ground to a door leading into the basement. A short hallway on the other side through a heavy looking door led into the room the women were arming themselves in.

That was tricky but they had to go.

Nanku wanted to make her time with the twins count and she'd had enough damned interference for one night.

Alright.
With her free hand, Nanku prepared several pieces of equipment along her belt and in the sleeves of her gauntlet. Dusk and Dawn landed on the roof. They stood vigil while a swarm of stinging and biting insects joined those inside the house.

Every nook. Every cranny. They flooded into the building from the top floors and gathered in the rooms upstairs.

At the back door, Nanku inhaled and popped the cap of her dissolver.

With a splash the door evaporated from the center out. No alarms. No trips. No reactions.

Not until she swung herself through the expanding opening and one of the women raised her head.

Another splash went onto the reinforced door.

The hole opened and heads turned the other way.

A shuriken flew through the gap in the door. The spinning blade cut one of the women in half, beheaded another, and cut the throat of the third on the way back. From her belt, Nanku flicked her knife into the fourth woman's throat. She grabbed a gun on the way to the floor.

The two remaining women yelped and one started moving for a panel on the wall.

With one hand Nanku caught her shuriken and threw it again. The other threw her spear underhand. A sloppy throw, but enough to trip the running woman's legs and send her sprawling over the floor.

A gun pointed at her, and Nanku swung the shuriken's blades across her chest. The weapon fell and the woman's scream was silenced when her head followed.

On the ground, one woman grasped at her spurting throat and lifted the gun in her hand. Nanku kicked the weapon away and threw her shuriken again. The arm was cut off before its hand could reach the panel. A second kick snapped one neck and another thrown knife buried itself in the last woman's skull.

"Six for six," Nanku mused. "Huh."

She collected her weapons while the swarm moved down from the top floor to the second.

The basement was an armory, and had access to the surveillance system with alarm lights and controls. It was more equipment than the PRT had at her mother's apartment.

It looked expensive.

She poured some of the dissolver over it all. If there was any evidence, she'd rather make someone work for it and call in help.

She could follow help.

Until then, the Nazi twins had questions to answer.

Fenja and Menja were still arguing.

Hooking her shuriken to her belt, Nanku pulled a line from her gauntlet and tied a noose. She ascended a set of stairs out of the basement, turned down a hall, and went up a short set of stairs. Dusk and Dawn descended from the other directions with a swarm around them.

She heard the argument as she approached and it was interesting.

"—why do we even give a shit! This whole city is fucking cursed! Let the spicks and blackies have it!"

"It was Max's city."

"They're dead!"

"It was Heith's."

"Aster isn't even hers! Theo was and Theo died because of Aster!"

"Doesn't matter and you know it."

"I know that thing was exactly what killed Heith and no weaseling is going to change that!"

Nanku came around a corner and through the passages into the room.

It was a dining chamber. A single long table between a pair of fireplaces and large tinted windows facing out opposite a staircase. Dusk and Dawn moved toward the banister above with a swarm silently moving through the shadows.

One of the blonde women sat at the table with an annoyed scowl.

The other paced back and forth and kept shouting.

The third was an older woman who looked less annoyed than disappointed. Nanku wondered why she was present, but the twin women were all she needed.

And technically, she only needed the one who had already spilled to talk.

Creeping up behind the seated woman, Nanku drew a spear and pressed the tip to the back of the chair.

The older woman saw something and started to speak but Nanku no longer needed stealth.

In a still thrust, Nanku let her spear expand through the chair and into the woman's stomach. The weapon burst, blood exposing it and splattering across the table. Her scream never made it to her mouth. The noose dropped over her head and Nanku pulled the line taught and pulled more until it began cutting into her throat.

She went rigid, completely still and wide-eyed.

"Ness!" the other woman snapped, hand reaching as she grew several inches in a blink.

"No," Nanku warned.

She thumbed the control and let her cloak drop.

The other twin paled.

"Me," Nanku confirmed. "And you'll talk, or she"—She pushed her spear out and let blood run the length of the haft—"dies."

'Ness' choked blood pooled in her seat. She tested Nanku's grip. It was subtle. Clever.

Not clever enough.

"This line will sever your throat before it breaks," Nanku warned. "Try if you like."

"Jess—"

Jess reached for a fork of all things. "Let her go or I'll—"

"Or I'll kill her."

Nanku had no patience for games.

"You've seen my kind before. Tell me. Now."

The woman found some resolve. "Or you'll what? Kill my sister and—"

"And I'll find a way to live with not knowing." With a push, Nanku twisted the spear impaling 'Ness' and drew a pained cough from the woman. "I can count backwards."

She twisted harder and Ness screamed.

The old woman was oddly conformed about it.

Jess snapped. "Fuck! What do you want?!"

"Tell me," Nanku growled. She'd already said that.

"Tell you what?" Jess went back and forth. One foot to the other. "We didn't do shit! We weren't even in costume!"

That would explain why Pe'dte never mentioned it. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Why did she hunt you?"

Jess' eyes blinked in bewilderment.

"Where were you?" Nanku's patience ran low. "Why were you there?"

"Wh—Boston. The port and I don't know! It was just some warehouse thing!"

"Medhall?"

"I don't kno—No. Some subgroup. Quality Care or something like that!"

Quality Care?

QC.

Nanku's eyes narrowed behind her mask. "Tell me where Iron Rain is."

"I don't know! We don't group up!"

Nanku supposed that made sense. No matter. Someone would come along for the bodies at some point or another. She'd simply follow them… Or she'd bait herself a trap.

That would would do.

"What is your thinker's power?" Nanku asked, just to see.

"No thinker worth their ass brags about—"

Worth a try. "Thank you."

Jess shook her head as the will to fight started entering her face. "Let my—"

Nanku pulled on the cord and ripped her spear out. She spun the weapon in hand and drew it back. Jess reacted, moving directly in Dusk's attack line as he dropped from above. His talons pierced into her collars and he wrenched her back to bite into her throat. Nanku shoved Ness' body off the chair and stabbed her spear into the woman's skull.

The old woman was unfazed. She looked back and forth like she was disappointed.

And tired.

Nanku watched her.

Something didn't feel right, but she couldn't—

The woman's eyes were her only warning.

A sudden focus knit her brow and her arm stretched. The limb reached across the entire room, grasping for Nanku's throat. The woman's fingers tightened. Pressed with surprising strength into Nanku's skin. For a moment.

Dawn forced her down, biting into the back of her neck and ripping the flesh and bone.

Nanku knocked the limb to the side and rolled her neck and shoulders.

Another parahuman with weird body powers.

Figured.

Quality Care.
That was the connection, and it was all Nanku needed.

Dusk started to chew and Nanku waved him off.

"We need that body. Eat the old woman if you're hungry."

The Twins were and while they got to work Nanku drew a second line and noosed both corpses by the ankle.

She'd see how badly the Pure wanted them back.

Nanku bound the bodies and left Dusk and Dawn to drag them out the back door. After they'd snacked a bit. Nanku used the break to rest her muscles.

She used bugs to sweep the building one last time. It wouldn't do to kill anyone by accident. Fortunately, only bodies remained. Unfortunately, nothing indicated Iron Rain's location, but the equipment in the basement came from boxes and the boxes bore an address.

That was something she could pursue.

Especially if she made it seem like some of her kills were still alive.

Nanku found phones and selected three to set as bait. Jess and Ness had theirs in their pockets. They would stay where they were. The house was overly large for so few occupants. A family home, Nanku presumed. Many of the pictures on the walls and tables bore familial resemblances to Fenja and Menja.

The Pure weren't the only ones who could set traps, and Nanku could do it without debasing herself entirely.

Most of the work was ultimately moving about the house and waiting. Automatic and completed with little thought.

"Go." Nanku waved the twins out and they hauled their cargo away.

The corpses left a blood trail that would be obvious.

Fortunately, she'd learned a few things about burning houses to the ground.

As soon as they were clear, Nanku concluded her work. Every knob in the kitchen was turned. The fireplaces—gas fed—were turned on. Nanku tossed various linens about the halls where they could catch fire and tossed something called 'plastique' in a few rooms.

It was marked explosive and packaged with the guns.

She assumed it would help cover her tracks well enough. The Pure wouldn't know for sure what became of anyone, especially with bodies missing.

Nanku left the same way she'd entered. Through the basement and the door and out into the woods. Dusk and Dawn hauled the bodies deeper in and Nanku turned. She retraced her steps, waving through the woods, past where she started and around.

What was Tattletale up to?

Both of her vehicles were still parked on the back road of the neighborhood. Four men were on watch with rifles. Two more guarded the back of one van, and Tattletale sat inside with two others. They were monitoring the machines inside.

The guards wore odd goggles.

Imp said something about thermals. Heat based vision devices. The Yautja naturally saw that way, but biomasks expanded their vision range. Why couldn't humans do the same?

Nanku kept herself far from sight and used her swarm to get closer and listen. The words were broken and unclear. Nanku would use Dusk and Dawn but they might be noticed. Smaller insects would have to do.

Listening through their senses took a bit of guess work.

"—thing?" Tattletale asked.

The man at her side shook his head. "No… boss."

Tattletale's response didn't sound happy. Then she kept talking. Nanku needed a few lines to realize she was talking to herself.

"She had to destroy the security system," Tattletale grouched. "What I get for letting her run loose to see what would happen."

"There a reason we're not taking that thing down?" the man beside her asked. "Not that I'm complaining. Paycheck's a paycheck and you're the boss."

"Above your pay grade, Teddy. Sorry."
"Heard, boss."

"Just believe me when I say we're boxed in where she's concerned. Extenuating circumstances."

"Can't get rid of her, might as well use her?"
"More or less. She's going after the Pure no matter what. Time to move on. But nothing? What are they doing? Did they think Fenja and Menja were that free and clear?"

"They did get pretty evasive. Absent the tinker-tech stuff, they'd have found or lost us easily."

"Doesn't add up. This thinker's been careful so far. Subtle pressure. Slow and building. If not Nanku would have been something forcing my hand to respond. Especially with Victor and Alabaster gone, you think the Pure would be more careful than that."

"Precog? Knows we're waiting to see what they do?"
"Why launch the ambush at all? Maybe they'd sacrifice a cape or two in some insane gambit, but this is more than they can lose. In a month Nanku's killed fifty members of the Pure and now she's taken out four capes."

"Put it like that, and I retract any question about why we're not stopping her."

"Yeah. That's Slaughterhouse Nine levels of killing." Tattletale sighed. "Moment the PRT catches on that girl is going to have a kill order on her head. The big white hats don't play games with anyone who goes no-holds barred start to finish."

Well.

At least Tattletale wasn't plotting betrayal. Nanku didn't like her, but she'd take the girl's indifferent bystanding over active interference.

Good enough for now.

Nanku had a trap to bait and she'd see how the pure—

She tilted her head and began cycling vision modes. Rapid changes. Partially automated and searching for anything out of place or specific.

She rarely used the acoustic setting. It did little other modes didn't do better. It was also dizzying. Mildly, headache inducing.

Mildly was maybe too subtle.

The radiating waves of vibration and sound her mask was picking out of the air were pure nausea. That it displayed in an array of colors to indicate intensity and wavelength didn't help. Nanku put a hand against the nearest tree to steady herself.

The discomfort was worth the trouble.

She only noticed the oddity because of the bugs in the air. The smallest especially. An odd 'breeze' forcing them aside out of their natural paths.

And her mask displayed the disruption clearly. Swapping to clear vision, she saw nothing. Even the EM and thermal spectrums were clear. Nothing but air. Nanku could only see it because of the two—three—rotor engines keeping the machine aloft.

It was cloaked.

It was cloaked better than the standard Yautja shroud! Only the highest grade tech the clan kept in the vaults could do better and no hunter ever used that stuff. Not that Nanku knew it.

It made the hunt too easy. Took all the challenge out of it.

"We'll give it another thirty minutes," Tattletale announced. "Then we split up. Keep a team here to watch and the rest of us will head back into town."

"Worried?"

"Weaver's not answering my calls and that's always bad."

Weird being on the other side of knowing things for once.

Tattletale was being watched and didn't know.