Outsiders 1.6: Rat Racers
⸻1⸻
Mars Newland felt ridiculous.
Rather, she supposed, Sundancer felt ridiculous. It was strange calling herself by her cape name. It sat bulky and foreign on her tongue. For years Mars had idolized parahumans, and now that she was one, she felt more like a fangirl cosplaying than an actual superhero.
Imposter Syndrome, thy name is Newland.
But really—how was anyone supposed to take her seriously in a costume that looked like it came from Party City?
It wasn't much of a costume to begin with. Just her jeans and a black winter coat. The only thing marking her as a cape was a plain white mask. It was cheap plastic and made her face sweat underneath. The pinprick holes for her nostrils and mouth were nowhere near enough ventilation. The thing was strapped to her head by a thread of stretchy cord that bit into her skin. And on the forehead, she had painted a cartoonish red sun.
Who needs a marketing team with branding like that?
Cody wasn't dressed much better. His white face mask had a hilariously amateurish skull painted on it. Mars was certain that he thought it was cool, but in reality it was totally lame. The eye sockets were different sizes and paint dripped down from the crude crooked teeth. It was kind of fitting for a guy who chose the cape name 'Perdition'. Which from Mars's understanding was just a fancy word for Hell.
Jess was lucky. As Genesis, her power circumvented the need for a costume all together. Her current projection was a horse-sized lizard with impossibly gangly limbs and a whip-like tail. The head had a mane of orange hair and a long snout. With extended eyestalks, Genesis could see all around her and in different directions at the same time.
Sundancer knew that Genesis was her friend, but her projection was still creepy to look at.
She and Perdition sat on her back, holding on to the nubs protruding from her spine like handles as Genesis sprinted across the desolate city. The spaghetti limbs made jumping from rooftop to rooftop a breeze. In a matter of minutes after leaving the hotel, they stopped on top of a parking structure across the street from St. Mary's Hospital.
There were plenty of abandoned cars, eternally grid-locked after their owners' mass exodus before the Quarantine. Most of the vehicles had smashed windows and windshields. Scattered on the concrete were a bunch of rocks. Sundancer theorized that somebody had a good time belting the cars with the stones. In this mad city, that was far more likely than someone looking to steal from the parked vehicles.
In her opinion, there probably wasn't anyone sane left in Madison. In the early days when looting was rampant and murder was everybody's favorite pastime, the most normal people were the first to die. Whether by someone else's hand or their own.
Sundancer looked over the edge of the parking garage. There was a conspicuous splatter of dried blood on the sidewalk thirty feet below. She didn't want to speculate on what created it, but she did note that a fall from this height would do the trick. A streak of blood, like something was dragged, led to the hospital—right past the barbed wire fence that encompassed St. Mary's.
"It's… not a very inviting place," she commented.
She didn't remember that fence being there last time they were here. It was a Frankenstein's monster of chain-link fences, each section varying in size and color, that were stitched together by woven white threads. Barbed wire was spiraled along the top.
Perdition shrugged. "It doesn't need to be. It's not exactly the kind of place that people want to break into anyway. From what I heard, it's more like a place people want to break out from."
He and Sundancer hopped onto Genesis's back once more and she carried them down the side of the parking garage to street level. They stood a safe distance away as Sundancer created a miniature sun and melted a hole in the fence. Once everyone was on the other side, carefully avoiding the red hot metal, Perdition looked at the damaged fence and activated his power. The melted pieces of fence leapt off the ground and came back together, solidifying. It was like nothing ever happened.
"Intruders!" a gruff and muffled voice shouted. They glanced around in alarm, but didn't see anyone. The ground swelled beneath their feet and they jumped out of the way as a creature surfaced.
It was a giant of a man, taller than Perdition despite only having his upper half sticking out from the earth. He was covered in root-like growths that flexed and wriggled, leaking streams of dirt. All of his fingers were long and hard; he left gouges in the hospital lawn just by slamming his hands down on it. "Intruders! Why come you intruded?"
The weird tuber-human talked slowly and simply. In fact, the way he spoke reminded Sundancer of a caveman that recently learned English. Spit dyed black from dirt dribbled down the corners of his mouth. And while she knew it was unfair to judge by appearances, there was no way this guy was at all intelligent.
Perdition gulped and spoke up, "We've come to meet with Rat—"
"Huh? Me see you before," the giant oaf interrupted, scratching his root-infested chin and shedding more clumps of dirt, "But where…"
"Considering that you never go anywhere, Sloth, it must have been here."
The sound of another voice drew their attention upwards. Standing on a cross of threads above the hospital courtyard was a waif of a woman. There was a thick white veil of sticky threads covering her face and head, but somehow Sundancer knew that she was staring directly at them. The woman crouched down, formed another thread from her palms and gently lowered herself to the ground.
The movements were eerily graceful. This person, Sundancer thought, had practiced ballet. Having devoted years of her own life to the art of dancing, she knew the meticulous gait that comes from repetitive motions and mastering the body. She saw the same unwasted movement from the private ballet instructor her mother had hired. Maybe that was why the sight of the woman sent a chill down her spine.
The woman in white turned towards Cody. "Perdition, how wonderful it is to see you again, my dear. And I see you've brought your boss this time. Genesis, was it? Charmed I am to meet you. My chosen name is Spinnerette. You may address me as such, please."
Clearly confused, Genesis slowly nodded and grunted. Frowning, Sundancer watched her friend's eyestalks wobble with each head bob. Jeez, Jess, why do you always dream up the most horrific crap?
"Of course, a promise is a promise," Perdition said, and—as if to say, 'just go along with it,'—patted Genesis on her side, "You'll have to excuse my boss. As I explained before, she lacks the ability to speak. And, um, speaking of promises…"
"Naturally, we'll uphold our end of the bargain as well. Our leader is a firm believer in the motto: a promise made is a promise kept. Rat King has been rather looking forward to meeting another of our kind," Spinnerette said, and waved off her companion, "Be at ease, Sloth, for these folks are our guests."
Sloth, the mountainous man, threw his head back and barked a boisterous laugh. "Ah! I see! I see! Welcome, non intruders. Glad I not kill you then."
"Yes, yes, and we're all very proud of you. Good job."
He sank beneath the earth again, and his laughter could be heard drifting further underground.
"You'll have to excuse him," Spinnerette said with a sigh. "He means well, but… alas. Hmm, let's just say that good help is hard to find. Although, in a fight that man more than earns his keep."
They followed the thin woman into the hospital. What greeted them was the blaring noise of hard rock blasting from the PA system. There were a few bloodstains on the linoleum, along with bloody handprints and scratches. It was like a hospital-themed haunted house.
"Sorry for the mess," Spinnerette said, glancing over her shoulder, "We weren't expecting company quite so soon. You caught us setting up our latest game. Don't worry, I'm sure His Majesty will allow you all to stay and watch. It will be quite the bloody spectacle."
Sundancer hung back and spoke as quietly as she could to Perdition and still be heard over the tinny sounding music, "So, Genesis is our leader?"
"Listen, these, uh… people, they don't trust normal-looking guys like you or me. They only agreed to meet and discuss the vials after I showed them a picture of Genesis off my phone. And I barely escaped with my life," he replied, harshly whispering.
She smacked him over the head. "It would have been nice to know that these people were fucking crazy before we got here. This place looks like the scene of a massacre!"
"Tch! This is why I didn't tell you. I knew you wouldn't want to come if I did!"
Genesis nudged them, and Sundancer had to choke back a startled gasp. The featureless, web-smothered face of Spinnerette was just inches from her own. A second set of appendages, like the black, exoskeleton-clad legs of a spider, had sprouted from her back and hung over Sundancer and Perdition's heads.
Spinnerette tilted her head and innocently asked, "There's not a problem here, right?"
"Not at all!" Perdition blurted out, waving his hands nervously, "We were simply admiring the decor. That's all."
One of the shoulder-appendages suddenly shot up towards the ceiling, puncturing the stucco. A second later, it pulled out a tiny, squirming, naked man. Spinnerette's sharp limb had skewered it. She hunched forward and a mouth unzipped along her spin. The teeth of the open jaws glistened and a long pink tongue swiped across them. The gnome-like creature was dropped inside and the maw snapped shut.
"Excuse me," Spinnerette said, sounding almost embarrassed, "I try not to eat in front of people, but these tiny things have been skulking around a little too much lately. And all this excitement has been riling up my appetite. Rat King had made it abundantly clear that we are not to allow them to get away. I don't know why, but I'm not one to question my king's orders."
Genesis, Sundancer, and Perdition all shared a look and instantly came to an agreement. As soon as they finished talking with Rat King, they were going to leave this nightmarish hellhole as quickly as possible. It was nice being on the same page for once.
The group reached the room where Rat King was without any further incident. Sundancer found herself on the balcony of some kind of operation room. Glancing over the edge, she saw a group of people restrained in white straightjackets. Most of them were asleep, and a few staggered around as if groggy.
While she wondered what they were doing there, Sundancer knew it would be best not to think about it too much.
Above the balcony was a string of televisions. They had been clumsily wired together and fastened to a metal frame. On one of the screens, Sundancer could see the back of her head. The televisions were probably patched into the security camera footage.
She redirected her attention to Rat King. She wasn't sure what to expect from someone with that name—Perdition was unhelpfully tight lipped about it—but somehow the mental image she had conjured still paled in comparison. He looked like a rat, obviously, but way more rat-like than she thought he would.
If she were to guess, Sundancer would say that he was seventy-five percent rat and twenty-five percent man. Rat King lounged in one of the operating room's theater seats with his hairy legs crossed and propped up on the seat in front of him. His thick, pink worm tail stuck out through a gap between the seat and backrest, wriggling eagerly on the linoleum. On his head, was a crown of antlers like an elk.
Sundancer supposed she ought to be grateful that the strange rodent man wasn't naked. A frayed drab gray jumpsuit covered his body. A set of numbers were sewn onto a patch on Rat King's shoulder, like a prisoner's designation.
He wasn't alone. The human rodent was flanked on both sides by monsters. One of them had rough, patchy skin that oozed a vibrant pink puss from scabby sores. At first, Sundancer thought the man had a cone-shaped protrusion lodged beneath his torso. But no, jutting from his stomach was a second head with a long snout and a pair of fangs. It looked a bit like a bear that was suffering from radiation poisoning and was rotting alive.
"Hu-Hungry," it said in an incredibly deep and warped voice. A yellow tongue dropped from the muzzle, wide and flat like a dog's. The head panted and drooled onto the man's clothes; beady little eyes staring directly at Sundancer. Clicking his tongue, the man swatted the head growing from his belly on the nose.
"Knock that off," he commanded, annoyed.
The person on Rat King's other side looked considerably more human. He had blue skin and webbed fingers. Gills flexed on his neck, opening and closing as they tasted the air. His mouth housed several rows of needle-like teeth. And his eyes were glittering orange, compounded like those of a dragonfly.
Actually, he reminded Sundancer of a Zora from the Legend of Zelda. Seeing someone like that in a videogame was one thing, but in reality it was quite disturbing. Though, unlike a Zora, there were dark green clumps of moss growing across his shoulders and down his arms.
"Ah! There she is! The number one, bestest secretary in the whole wide world. Spinnerette coming in clutch with the save. I thought Sloth was gonna crush our honored guest for sure. Lucky for you, Zombear, eh? Looks like you won our little bet," Rat King said, his voice surprisingly handsome and suave, not at all like his appearance would suggest.
The stomach head on Zombear, the puss-covered guy, growled, "Meat. Bring Meat."
Zombear forced the head's mouth closed with both hands. "Shut up, you damn freeloader! I want women, not meat! An entire harem."
"Gross," Spinnerette said bluntly.
Rat King laughed. "We'll see. I could probably hook you up with one girl… but a harem—well, I guess it's good to have dreams. Wouldn't you agree, Muskellunge?"
The Zora look-a-like turned and said, "Huh? Sorry, love, I wasn't really listening. I think I've got a bit of moss in my ears, mate. Damn buggers."
"Didn't even know you had ears, dude," Rat King replied. He then turned to Genesis and beckoned her with a hand. "Don't be shy! Have a seat. We're all freaks here. You guys came at the perfect time. You'll get to watch human nature as it gives birth to true carnage. There's literally nothing more entertaining in the world. Cathartic."
Genesis glanced at Perdition, subtly flicking her head in Rat King's direction.
He took a tentative step forward, glancing over his shoulder at Sundancer. Perhaps he was looking for reassurance or maybe an excuse to leave having gotten cold feet at the last second—However, Sundancer interpreted it as him needing an extra push. She shoved him forward with a firm palm to his lower back.
Perdition stumbled and grabbed the balcony railing for support. Rat King and his friends laughed at him. Cody's face was flushed under his cheap plastic mask, both from embarrassment and seething anger. Sundancer was going to regret that. He'll make sure of it.
"Um, actually, Rat King…sir," Perdition said, after several calming breaths. "We were kinda hoping to get down to business."
"Straight to the point, eh? I can dig it. I don't remember your name, but I remember what you were interested in. You want to know all about these," Rat King replied, and took out a steel briefcase from under his seat. There was a horseshoe logo painted on the side and a six-digit combination lock on the top. In seconds, Rat King rolled his hairy fingers along the number wheel and flicked open the case. Entombed in black packing foam was a half-dozen vials.
Sundancer recognized them. The vials looked the same as the ones that Trickster found back when they first arrived on this version of Earth. She had been too enthralled by the idea of gaining superpowers the first time to notice. Now, however, the innocuous tubes of clear liquid seemed much more sinister. She shuddered.
Just one sip would be enough to completely fuck up their bodies. She couldn't help but think that she had gotten lucky. There were worse things than creating miniature suns. Noelle, Sundancer thought, I will make this right.
"Oh, yeah. I know all about these things. Unlike the rest of us factory rejects, I remember everything," Rat King said, tapping his claws against the case. He took out one of the vials and swished around the liquid inside. He watched it in almost a dream-like trance. "So much pain and suffering goes into making this little vial of liquid. Is it all worth it? The people that made them seem to think so. Just a means to an end, that's all we are to them."
Rat King then slammed the case shut and slid it back under his seat, keeping the one vial in his grasp. "But there'll be plenty of time to talk about that after the game."
"Game?" Sundancer questioned angrily. "Listen here, you damn rodent, one of our friends is suffering because of those vials. We don't have time to play games. If you know anything about the vials and who created them then tell us! Or else things might get a little heated."
A sun the size of a marble blazed to life, hovering above her palm. The temperature in the room climbed and several of Rat King's minions—Muskellunge and Zombear—squirmed nervously in their seats. Perdition scrambled to get out of the way and ran into Spinnerette.
With her veil of webs shrouding her face, the tall woman showed no emotion. She simply grabbed Perdition and held him out towards Sundancer like a meat shield.
"Hey! Let go of me, dammit! Wait! Seriously," he said. "Sundancer, careful. You're going to roast us too. This isn't funny!"
Rat King snorted in amusement. "Actually, I find it hysterical. There's no need to take a hostage, Spinny. This little girl's only bluffing. She doesn't have the stomach for it. Boiling someone alive. Toasting them until their skin peels off and their eyeballs pop. Melting their insides into a visceral slurry."
He stood up from his chair and walked towards Sundancer. The heat coming off the tiny sun was incredible and he could feel his whiskers singe, but he kept moving closer. "What will you do next, I wonder? I'm not afraid of a little fire."
Sundancer gritted her teeth and snuffed out the flame. "We won't get anywhere with you dead."
"Of course." Rat King smiled and shrugged. "That much was obvious."
He gently closed her hand and nudged her backwards. Sundancer tumbled into one of the chairs on the observation balcony. Rat King's tail draped itself across Perdition's shoulders and he led him to a seat next to her. Rat King told them to "Just sit back and relax. Enjoy the show. You too, Genesis. We don't have to be enemies. But if you try anything I'll force a horde of rats up your anus and have them gnaw their way back out. M'kay?"
Sundancer nodded and kept her mouth shut. She didn't trust her voice. Was it because of fear or anger? She couldn't tell. All she knew for sure was that she very much would like to blast that condescending smirk off that rat bastard's long face.
Rat King leapt up onto the railing overlooking the operating room and glanced at Sundancer over his shoulder. "Alrighty, kids. Let's have some fun. Allow me to show you the true face of human nature."
⸻2⸻
Throbbing. Throbbing. Throbbing.
Her head was such a mess of hot, throbbing pain. Carmen squinted at the bright lights. It felt like her brain had been fried. She tried sitting up off the cold tile floor, but her arms were restrained. More awake now, Carmen thrashed and scooted backward until she hit a wall. She was trapped in a straightjacket and she glanced around the room with wide terrified eyes.
She was in an operating room. The smell of antiseptic hung heavy in the air, and several surgical tools were laying on the ground. Someone had accidentally kicked over a stainless steel prep table, and the metal cart was left uselessly on its side, black wheels spinning. Carmen stepped on a discarded scalpel and raked it closer, pawing at the bladed instrument through the thick fabric of the straightjacket.
Her actions were subtle, for she wasn't alone in the room. There were nine others in the same predicament as her. A few were still unconscious, the same as she was only moments before, while others paced the room or were slamming their shoulders against the locked door—which was, as far as Carmen could tell, the only exit.
And these weren't just random strangers either. Carmen recognized them all, by face if not by name. They were all members of St. Mary's Hospital staff. There were orderlies, other nurses, and even a doctor.
In fact, Dr. Zack Smith was the one trying to break the door down. In another situation the sight would have been comical, seeing the middle aged doctor throw himself at unyielding steel before resorting to kicking at the locked door. His comb over hair flipped upward with each attempt, flashing his bald spot in the harsh light.
Carmen let out a shrill laugh that startled even herself. She supposed that if she wasn't laughing, she'd be crying. And sometimes, all you really could do was laugh.
Dr. Smith turned and looked at her. His weathered, watery eyes held concern for her wellbeing. However, underneath that gaze, Carmen spotted something a little more untoward. The doctor had always given her the creeps. Even back before the Endbringer's arrival, she would feel his eyes linger a tad too long on her as she made her rounds. As the man approached, Carmen slipped the scalpel into her pants pocket, mindful not to accidentally stab herself with it.
"Are you alright?" Dr. Smith asked.
Carmen laughed again. "What? Am I alright? I'm wearing a straightjacket and locked in a room—after I'd been kidnapped in front of my children. Children that I don't know what happened too, if they are okay or not. So, yes, Doctor. Why wouldn't I be alright, huh? Actually, things are just fucking peachy!" The last statement was punctuated by some spittle that flung from her mouth.
Dr. Smith frowned. "I was just concerned, that's all. There's no need to take out your aggression on me. Since we are all in this situation together, it would be best if we got along. Our survival may depend on it."
"Oh, it'll depend on it, alright." A voice rang out and the restrained hospital staff looked up at the balcony. There was a horrific rat man crouched on the railing. In his hand was a glass vial of mysterious liquid. "Though you're more likely to survive by working together, there can be only one winner. And just so you know, the penalty for losing is death. So can you really risk working together? You'd be helping your competition, you know?"
That giant rat wasn't the only horrendous monster. The entire balcony was full of otherworldly beings and people in masks. Carmen felt like she had been abducted by aliens, strange creatures studying her with callous curiosity, as if they couldn't wait to cut her open and see what made her tick.
"Who are you?" Dr. Smith shouted up at the rat monster. "Why have you trapped us here? What is it you want from us?"
"I'm Rat King, the leader of the Dregs. And we're gonna play a little game—The Rat Race. The rules are simple: Race through the halls of the hospital and reach the finish line. The first one that does will be declared the winner and allowed to leave. You'll also receive this." Rat King held up the vial so that everyone could see it. "Whoever drinks the liquid in this tube will gain superpowers. No strings attached. Just my way of saying thanks for being a good sport."
"Test tube superpowers? Sounds like bullshit to me," Dr. Smith said.
Rat King shrugged. "Then don't believe me. I don't really care. Though, one of your competitors might think differently. I'd watch my back if I were you. There's no rule against killing your fellow contestants. Well, enough preamble. Let the game begin."
He hit a button on a remote and the door swung open. The latches on the straightjackets also came undone. The sleeves must have been tied together by a mechanical lock, Carmen theorized, studying the zipper-like teeth at the ends of the long jacket sleeves. She hadn't noticed earlier, but then again, there was a lot on her mind.
A few of the other nurses and orderlies wasted no time and sprinted through the open door. Carmen hung back and looked up at Rat King and his freak show. A string of monitors hung from the ceiling, each displaying a different room of the hospital. A security camera mounted in the corner had a blinking red light and she realized that the sick bastards were recording them.
Rat King met Carmen's gaze and gave her an infuriatingly smug look that said 'Well? We're waiting. Make sure to put on a good show.'
Gritting her teeth, Carmen raced after the others.
⸻3⸻
The hospital located on the UW campus was chaotic. Patients sat on the floor, bandages loosely wrapped or dangling off lacerated limbs. Nurses and doctors and volunteers in street clothes, trudged from the overbooked rooms with the vigor of insomniatic bumblebees tending to a field of dying flowers.
Their eyes lacked light and black bags tugged at their puffy eyes. If not for the lab coats they wore, Whitney would have thought they were patients themselves. From what he could tell, it was probably only a matter of time before they were. Several of the medical staff had a red cross band across their bicep with the letters PRT. However, they were few and far between.
"Doctors, even quacks and med school dropouts, have been hard to find," Wolfgang explained as she led Whitney and Maddie down the clustered halls of the University Hospital. A chubby, three foot tall crony waddled after them like a toddler, thankfully dressed in a hospital gown to hide his shame. "The good ones were evaced almost immediately, practically during the Endbringer fight, and the rest not long after. Nowadays, even the ones that stuck around have gone missing."
"It's the work of the Dregs, a superpowered gang composed of monster capes like myself," the downsized version of Cronenberg added, his voice an octave higher than the original's. "For whatever reason, they almost exclusively target medical professionals, kidnapping them. Unfortunately, we don't know for certain where or why. But I have my suspicions."
"Carmen's a nurse. She might have been taken." Maddie muttered. Her body shuttered and rippled into ribbons, revealing the aspect of Abby Anderson. "However, she's resourceful. She probably avoided capture."
Wolfgang glanced at Maddie's new form. "That's an interesting body you have there."
"What? Oh." Acting like she only just noticed the change, Maddie shifted back into her usual striped and lined body. She turned away from the Protectorate leader and self consciously draped one arm across her body, holding her elbow.
"It's not that interesting. My body is way weirder than Maddie's," Whitney commented, yawning. His gold and diamond rings glittered conspicuously in the fluorescent lighting as he covered his mouth. Hardly paying any attention to his surroundings, he casually walked through a young nurse and her blood-speckled patient, startling them both. His white, fluffy pimp coat remained spotless. "I can make partially digested food fall out of my stomach just by thinking about it. Wanna see?"
"No. We're good," Wolfgang replied.
Little Crony piped up, waving his pudgy hands, "Speak for yourself! I wanna see! Show me!" and received a swift kick in the behind from the wolf-masked hero. He stifled a bit. "Erm, nevermind. I guess."
"You can show off later. We're here." Wolfgang opened the door to an inconspicuous hospital room at the very end of the hall located in a small offshoot between a water cooler and a stairwell. Crouching between a pair of hospital beds as if in prayer was Badger. Spotting them entering, he stood up and curtly nodded.
"Hey, Boss," he said, before turning back to the two children occupying the beds. "They're asleep right now. Sedated. Physically they're fine, but mentally… It's been a trying few weeks for them, I'd say."
"That's an understatement," Wolfgang said.
Unable to control her powers, Maddie forcibly shifted into Abby once more and pushed both Wolfgang and Badger aside. "John! Jane! You're alive!" Tears of relief filled her eyes and she whirled around, wrapping Badger up into a ferocious hug. "You saved them! Thank you."
"No, I was just doing my job. I, um, no thanks necessary," Badger said, stilted. He had his arms frozen in a half-cocked position, unsure whether to return the hug or push the girl off of his chest. Thankfully, Abby-Maddie let him go after a few seconds.
"Wait, you know these kids?" Wolfgang asked, "This can't be a coincidence."
"Of course not!" Badger replied, tapping his head and twice across his bare chest. "It was obviously the Lord's work. The Almighty led me to these children so that they may be saved."
"I don't believe in God, but I sure as hell don't believe in convenient coincidences."
Abby-Maddie butted into the argument. "I don't care if it was an act of God or a coincidence or any of that. The mother—Where is Carmen Anderson?"
"The mother? Unfortunately, she was taken by EMPunk. I only managed to rescue the children," Badger said.
"There's that name again. That kinda lame, geeky name. Why are you after this guy anyway?" Whitney asked.
Badger, Crony, and Wolfgang all shared a look. Wolfgang nodded and Crony made sure the door was closed, propping a chair under the knob.
"EMPunk is a necessary evil if we want Project Eye Inside to succeed," Wolfgang said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She looked out the window wistfully at the drab, concrete wall sealing the city. "To put it bluntly, Eye Inside is our plan for ending the quarantine and the first step towards saving this city."
Digging around in his malleable body, the stout Crony pulled out a camcorder and looked through the viewfinder, pretending to film the others. "Basically, we'll create a documentary on the current status of Madison to keep our situation in the public eye. Right now we're being swept under the rug and willfully ignored. We can't allow that to continue."
"The PRT and Protectorate as a whole is content to maintain the status quo. Sure, they'll send a few soldiers and spare heroes to at least pretend like they care, but that's only a facade. In truth, they are here to make sure people don't try and escape," Wolfgang explained, "They made the entire city into a prison."
"People are just scared. Scared of these so called "Ziz-Bombs", scared of the Case-53s, and of course, they are scared of the unknown. The Simurgh is the newest Endbringer and the long term effects of her psionic attacks is poorly understood. The recordings that we make within the Quarantine Zone could very well become cornerstones in Simurgh research and possibly end the quarantine policy for good in the future," Crony said.
"And we could also use them to leverage the PRT and sway public opinion, forcing them to continue the extractions," Badger added, then tacked on. "God willing. There are a lot of good people suffering. If we can get them out, I'm all for it."
"Personally, I think your plan is full of holes and probably won't work. But documenting all the crazy shit that's going on in town does seem like a lot of fun!" Whitney said. "Although, I still don't get where EMPunk comes into play."
"That wall surrounding the city," Wolfgang rasped her knuckles on the window pane. "It's more than just a physical barrier. It also acts as a Faraday cage. Meaning, electrical signals can't get through it either. The Protectorate obviously doesn't want the people in quarantine to be able to influence the outside world in any way. We've essentially been ordered to just sit here quietly until further notice."
"So, EMPunk has a way of getting around the Faraday cage?" Abby-Maddie guessed.
"Exactly. That squirt wasn't good for much, but he has a good parahuman power. He's a tinker like myself, only he specializes in electromagnetism instead of robotic animals. He could build a transmitter that can reach the rest of the world. This plan hinges on it."
A walkie-talkie tucked into the folds of Crony's midsection crackled to life, and the voice of the main body—Cronenberg—came through. The way he spoke was quick, either nervous or excited, and there was a slight tremor to it. "Calling Crony! Calling Crony! You hear me, right? This is big! Huge! Turn on the tv. Doesn't matter what channel."
While the downsized clone acknowledged the message with a curt reply, Wolfgang plucked a remote off the swiveling bedside table and clicked on the television mounted on the ceiling of the hospital room. The appliance hummed and some horror movie about people running around a decrepit hospital was shown on the screen.
Wolfgang scoffed. "What is this? I know you like movies, Cronenberg, but—"
"It's not a movie!" Cronenberg's reply came swift, bursting from the walkie-talkie in a bomb of static and high-pitched feedback. He calmed himself and continued. "It's being broadcasted live from St. Mary's Hospital. It's some kind of death game being hosted by Rat King and the Dregs!"
"Those fiends!" Badger exclaimed, punching the palm of his hand. "We need to get over there right away!"
"Hmm," Wolfgang hummed and touched her chin in thought. "But why would they broadcast this? All they're doing is advertising their position. It's as if they're goading us into attacking."
"There's no sense in trying to understand those monsters. They probably want to spread fear and disappear. Some people simply enjoy watching others suffer. As heroes, we have to put a stop to it," Badger replied.
"I'm not saying that we ignore them, but rushing headlong into this is a mistake."
"Do whatever you like. I'm not one of your Protectorate heroes anyway. I'm going regardless."
Abby-Maddie recognized one of the women on the screen and let out a short cry. She ran up to the television, as close as she could get and looked up at it. Pointing, she exclaimed, "It's Carmen! That's her!"
"So that's Carmen? Whoa, she's beautiful!" Whitney said, "Ah, wait a second. If Carmen was kidnapped by this dorky EMPunk guy and now she's participating in this Dreg's killing game, does that mean EMPunk is working together with the Dregs?"
"It's certainly possible," Wolfgang admitted.
Badger prompted her, "Meaning?"
"We're going."
⸻4⸻
A tall man in a bloodstained suit casually leaned against a motorcycle. A pile of dismembered humans in leather jackets was next to him. Blood drained down the cracks in the pavement like a viscus red river in a shallow canyon. Chunks were missing from the corpses as if a wild animal had gnawed on them.
A phone rang. The man briefly routed around in his suit pocket and pulled out a cellphone. Unlike the flat smartphones, or even flip phones, this cellphone closely resembled the old brick phones of the 1980s—granted, one that was obviously modified. The number pad lit up and several names scrolled across the display screen.
The man answered the call with the press of a button and held the cumbersome phone up to his head. His lion skull mask was in the way a little bit, but he could still hear fine. "I'm listening."
"...They took the bait," the voice on the phone informed him. "Shall we proceed with the Operation Trojan Horse?"
"Yes," he replied. "I want Snake to handle Rat King. And Goat will take Cronenberg. Remember, these are priority targets; under no circumstances are they to be killed. If you rough them up that's fine. I don't expect them to come quietly."
"And the third target, Chimera?"
The man in the lion mask, Chimera, smiled. "Leave Oppenheimer to me."
At the bottom of the corpse pile, an injured man wriggled out. He was a member of the Horsemen, one of the very few members left alive. Noticing Chimera preoccupied with his phone call, the biker got to his feet and quickly hobbled towards the warehouse at the edge of the lake where Black Death was having a meeting with someone.
He had to warn her! This Chimera guy was a total monster! A creature unlike anything he had ever seen before. He drew a deep breath and shouted, "Black De—"
The cry was silenced almost immediately by a barbed tentacle that speared the biker through his neck and out his throat. His vertebrae severed, he dangled uselessly off the end as he died. The tentacle then whipped his fresh corpse off and it flew in a wide arc, smacking off a building a hundred feet down the road. And like a fleshy, crimson snake, the tentacle slithered back up Chimera's pant leg.
"...What was that?" the voice on the phone asked.
"Nothing. I just killed a cockroach."
With that, Chimera hung up the phone and sheathed it in his suit pocket. Readjusting his clothes and smoothing out any wrinkles, he approached the warehouse. It was time for a reunion, dear Oppenheimer.
End of Chapter
⸻Author's Note⸻
Things are about to get really complicated in the coming chapters I think. This is the first story I have ever written that has so many different intersecting storylines and characters: Whitney, Maddie, Oppenheimer, Black Death and the Horsemen, Chimera and DVARG, Wolfgang and the Protectorate, Cronenberg and the Neighborhood Watch, Rat King and the Dregs, the Travelers, Carmen and the other Rat Racers, etc. And they all want different things. Makes my own head spin sometimes.
I have to keep reminding myself that this is only a first draft (not that I'm planning on subsequent editions) or else I get too hung up on the details and end up paralysing myself, or worse—putting off writing all together.
I'm trying to have better writing discipline, but it hasn't worked out so far.
Astutely Yours,
A Horseshoe Crab
Chapter Word Count: 6403
Arc Word Count: 36,517
Story Word Count: 36,517