26

Extraction 2

The first thing I did in the morning, as part of my daily run, was to run to Abyssal's storage area where Lisa was sleeping. My bots and other brains had watched the mercenaries leave the rooftops overnight while my body slept. There wasn't anyone else watching her, or me, as I went to meet her face-to-face.

Secure in our safehouse protected by Abyssal, I woke Lisa up.

"Come on, sleepyhead. I think we have a lot to talk about," I said as I shook her shoulder.

"Wuh-waaah!" Lisa bolted awake faster than I expected, and nearly tumbled off the makeshift bed. "Oh. Right. Good morning, Taylor."

I formed some bots into a chair and sat down. "So. What happened?"

"I think I figured out Coil's power, or something to do with it. It's definitely a Thinker power that allows him to succeed more than he should. But the important thing is, he can't force the impossible or extremely improbable to happen."

"But he wants you dead. And you aren't right now."

"Yeah. The interesting thing was why now. I've always pissed him off a little bit, but my own power usually lets me know when I'll need to back off. Keep myself too useful to get rid of, you know? But lately, I knew I had cost him too much. The Undersiders are disbanded. He's lost an entire team of capes. So I made a vow."

"To who?"

"To myself. That if I was going down, I would take him down with me. Set off all the the traps. Reveal everything I know. Emails and documents to anyone and everyone who would listen. Steal all his money from every account I've managed to hack. Leave you a message with what I knew so that maybe you'd take vengeance on him for me, maybe."

I wasn't completely sure if I would have, but I was kind of inclined to. "I see. And that's what you did?"

"No! That's the crazy part, I haven't done it yet. I was assuming he had monitoring equipment on all the stuff at my apartment, so I was only getting ready to buy a few things. Mercenaries got sent to my apartment to kill me before anything else. For some reason, he made the decision to kill me right then and there. It's not like him."

"You know him well enough for that?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I've used my power on him as often as I can afford. He's the quiet and cautious type; that's why the other gangs barely notice he's there. He likes getting every bit of value out of his... assets. So I find it strange that they were coming to kill me so quickly. His decision seemed to come when I decided to take him down, and I'm pretty certain his power isn't telepathy."

"I see. Did you know that the Empire was trying to kill you, too?"

"Me? They were specifically after me? What the hell did I do to them?"

"So you don't know? They were talking about you revealing the identity of their capes..."

"Fuck. Okay, yes, I know who they all are. Coil asked me to research them. Did he release the info anyway? Wait, no... he's just going to pin it on me, probably. If he can't eliminate me, it would make me such a pariah to all capes, hero and villain, I'd have nowhere to go anyway..." She turned to me. "The Empire isn't going nuts right now, are they?"

A quick check with my bots told me that no, they weren't. The look on my face told Lisa all she needed to know.

"Oh, thank goodness. We still have a bit of time, then. How is your vision of the city?"

"I can see the entire city. The outdoors, anyway."

"Not inside the buildings?"

"I figured it would be a bit of a breach of privacy... not sure if I want to peek inside everyone's homes, you know? And people clean the insides of buildings. They'd start to notice if a weird layer of dust keeps appearing."

"Ugh. Fine, but you need to make enough bots to keep permanent watch on his bases. He's slippery, and we need to keep track of whoever goes in and out. He uses decoys and stuff, too."

"Sure thing. But I just need to extend my range a little more."

"Range? But you have the entire city already. I'm pretty sure all of Coil's bases are somewhere in the city. He might have a retirement home in Hawaii, but that's not important. You planning on expanding to Boston or something?" Lisa asked.

I shrugged. "Eventually, maybe. For now I just want to make it to the landfill. It's about ten miles out of town, and I'm almost there. I'm running out of things to use without making people suspicious."

"Is that why the streets are cleaner these days? You're able to convert trash now?"

"High carbon-content trash, mainly. But nobody really checks the landfill that much, and I can pump out literal tons of bots. Plenty of plastic in there."

"Right. So you can instantly search anywhere in the city... wait, can you see everything simultaneously?"

I shook my head. "Depends on how carefully I'm searching. Each of my extra brains covers a two-block radius, roughly, with overlap. Each of my brains really only thinks at normal human speed, so if I'm just scanning quickly through an area, it'll still take me... five minutes or so. If I'm searching in detail it can be up to half an hour per sweep in the really busy areas."

"Damn. That might be more than enough for Coil to sneak away, if he keeps making the 'right' decisions. Is there any way to speed it up?"

"I could build more brains," I said. "Or just focus less on the other areas. Actually I can usually devote the brains in the suburbs to concentrate on downtown somewhat, to speed things up a little."

Tattletale shook her head. "No, we need the entire city covered. I know he has at least one base, or safehouse, somewhere in the residential areas. In addition to his actual home."

So when it came down to actually capturing Coil, I would have to actually scan every part of the city. Man, that sucked.

"How much would it take you to have Abyssal appear anywhere in the city? I feel like, with Coil's power, he'd always be in the right place to avoid us. The only way to catch him is to be everywhere at once and make it impossible for him to evade Abyssal."

"It would take... a lot," I told her. "The amount of bots that make up Abyssal is about enough to cover... maybe twenty-five city blocks. Basically a five-block radius. So if I double the number of bots right now, I could put him anywhere within five blocks within a few minutes..."

"And within two blocks, you'd need over six times that amount."

"Might want to, uh, triple that if I'm checking the insides of all the buildings, too. It actually doesn't take many bots to keep watch over the open streets, but indoors, with all those corners and walls and levels..."

Lisa gave a heavy sigh. "How long?"

"Just let me reach the landfill, and I think I can start ramping up fast. You okay hunkering down here for another day or two?"

"I'll find a way to manage, if you be my bodyguard. I'll try to narrow down the possible locations so you don't have to cover absolutely everything. I want this done sooner rather than later."

Aside from building bots, I was scheduled to actually go to court this week. I hadn't thought about it much, since Mr. Bryson and his firm basically did all the work, aside from taking some statements from me. Today, most of the proceedings had to do with the civilian and school side of things. Mr. Bryson had chosen my outfit for me; he made me look like I was some prim and proper kid who went to Immaculata, the private school. Very stereotypical, nerdy, meek and harmless, and a conservative schoolgirl fashion. I was pretty sure that even the actual Immaculata students weren't like that. He even had spare glasses for me, ones that had thicker rims but were still just plain and dull as my normal ones.

"Image is everything," he told me. "We need the judge and jury to see you as the victim. I know what the school board has said; they claim you're the troublemaker and all your accusations are made-up. We need to make sure that angle looks as ridiculous as possible."

"Even the glasses?" I asked.

"Shows up better in photos, and at a distance. The press will be all over this," he said.

We got there early, but even then we got swarmed at the front steps to the courthouse.

"Eunoia! Eunoia! People have said you stopped going to Winslow, what can you tell us about that?"

"A question from the Daily Sun. There have been rumours that you used your powers at Winslow, is that true?"

"Brockton Bay Herald here. The public school system is already strapped for cash, what do you hope to gain by suing them?"

I kept my head down as we pushed past, just as Mr. Bryson and Mrs. Dallon had coached me. Mr. Bryson threw out some well-practiced non-answers like, "Oh, if you'd like to pay attention to the proceedings, then you'll find your answers."

Inside the courtroom, it looked like Emma and Madison were there already, along with their families. The funny thing was that Dad hadn't come, for two reasons. One, Mr. Bryson was worried about his temper. Even Dad had to admit that the stuff that would be brought up in court would probably get him shouting, and the last thing we wanted was to be held in contempt of court. Second, he was a single parent supporting a child. He couldn't afford to miss work - and Mr. Bryson was going to play up that angle.

For the most part, I sat quietly and let the professionals do their work. To be honest, most of the legal jargon was really boring to me, and I barely understood it. A lot of it vaguely seemed to depend on arguing about pointless things, like whether a texted "ya" constituted conspiracy or not.

My mind was elsewhere during most of the proceedings. I concentrated on various things, keeping myself entertained with my bots while remaining perfectly still and stoic in the courtroom. Manufacturing? Going fine. Checking on Lisa? She was fine, going for food and bathroom break at a McDonald's. Mercenaries? None that I could see. A bit of minor crime here or there? Maybe I would send Abyssal over. Expansion? My range reached the landfill now, so I started building as as quickly as I could. I found that more exciting than the actual case.

As predicted, the Barnes family was playing up the "Taylor is just a troublemaking liar" angle for some instances, while going for "it's just friendly pranking, Taylor is just whiny" on others. It wasn't anything I hadn't already heard them say to the Principal, who took their side.

Of course, thanks to Sophia's home invasion and attempted murder (I couldn't believe I'd said that) and, combined with her previous statements, helped paint the picture that they were far more than mere pranks. Mr. Bryson played up the fact that they were friends with convicted criminals. He even tried to accuse Blackwell as an agent of the gangs, enabling criminals like Sophia. Unfortunately, that line of thought was shot down by the judge, for lack of evidence. I didn't actually believe it myself. I thought she was just incompetent and lazy. But it would have been funny.

I was eventually called up to the stand. I walked up and did the whole official swearing-in thing.

"Miss Hebert, could you recall the events of January 4th, 2011 that occurred at Winslow High?"

"You're talking about my mother's flute being stolen, then being shoved into a toxic dumpster behind the school, right?" I asked.

"Objection! The term 'toxic' is inaccurate and should be redacted," said Emma's lawyer.

"Your honor, I have a copy of the police report here. Analysis indicated that it consisted of food waste that had been rotting for days, since trash pickup is weekly. Medical records show the extent of Miss Hebert's injuries and the resulting infections. It could have killed her. 'Toxic' is a completely appropriate term."

He'd already presented that evidence earlier today. Yippee.

"Objection overruled. Continue, Miss Hebert."

I explained exactly what had happened. Mr. Bryson had told me absolutely not to lie or even exaggerate - he had enough evidence to win, but any inconsistencies would cause a whole lot more thrown out. So I had to rely on what I was sure of, but that, of course, was basically the same thing Principal Blackwell had dismissed anyway.

"Did you see their faces?"

"I certainly saw Emma's," I said.

"Did you see who pushed you in?"

"It was Sophia Hess."

"But did you see her?"

"I didn't need to," I said. I did my best to keep my annoyance down. If only I could find a criminal right now for Abyssal to beat up.

"In short, you couldn't be sure it Miss Hess shoving you into the dumpster."

"I didn't say that," I replied.

"Could you please clarify, Miss Hebert?"

"I heard her talking. And she'd been bullying me and constantly bullying me for almost one and a half years. I know her voice. She was there."

"But you can't be sure..."

"I can be sure. I am sure. Stop trying to put words in my mouth," I shot back at the lawyer. "You want to blindfold me and have me pick her voice out? It'll be easy."

The judge banged on his gavel. "That won't be necessary. It is not unreasonable to believe that someone is capable of recognizing another's voice."

"Very well then. Regarding an incident late February, there were three people who claimed you used a parahuman power against them at Winslow."

Was that the hair-cutting thing? I had to use a few of my minds to check the date. Yeah, nothing much had happened at Winslow except the "scissors incident."

You should bring that up, I suggested to myself.

Make sure to mention Sophia!

"Just to clarify, are you talking about when a convicted criminal held me against my will, and another assaulted me with scissors?"

"Objection! Sophia Hess had yet to be convicted of anything at the time."

"But Shadow Stalker was, of using excessive force and assault. She was on probation at the time. For all intents and purposes, they are the same person. Objection overruled."

The lawyer huffed in frustration and turned back to me. "There's no proof they attacked you with scissors."

"It's my word against the words of a convicted criminal and her friends." I really wanted to play that up as much as I could.

"Regardless of what they claim, we are asking you to testify. Did you assault them with a parahuman power?"

Funny, we had spent the earlier part of the day trying to define what a prank was. And they had gotten away with it, mostly. Apparently throwing juice in my hair qualified as "just a prank." I honestly didn't feel that way, even now. Looking back on what I did to them, I was pretty sure it counted as assault, even if it had been slow and long term. But if they could get away with defining these things as pranks, so would I.

"No." I just had to convince myself that was merely pranking with a parahuman power and maybe it wouldn't be perjury.

The rest of the day at court was basically the same thing over and over - I'd tell them something, and Emma's lawyer tried his best to discredit me. This was a pretty long case; we barely even got through the evidence relating to the bullying itself, and hadn't even gotten to addressing the staff's mismanagement.

Because it had been revealed that Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess, on the next court date, the PRT would be involved.

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Lisa asked with an amused smirk.

"Young lady, you stop that or I'm kicking you out," I said to her in my best mock-parental voice.

She laughed. "Okay, seriously, though, it's time to nail that bastard. How fast are you sending bots into the city?"

"I'm churning out about five tons a day... but if I leave them in there, I can up it to twenty tons a day by tomorrow. Would you prefer I just shore up the defenses around this building instead of deep-searching the city?" I asked. "Then we can afford to wait longer."

Lisa pinched her nose. "No, we need them in the city. I'm certain prolonging this gives Coil more of an advantage than us. If things get too bad he might just pick up and leave the city, or hire a cape with just the right power to kill me. Maybe both. We hit him tomorrow, at the latest."

"Alright then, where should I start looking?"

Lisa pulled a map from the bag she had from her apartment. "Just make sure you scout these places out without him noticing."

"No problem," I said. "As long as he doesn't have extreme HEPA filters covering everything."

"He almost certainly does."

I shrugged. "Then my bots can still cut through it and move through, as long as he doesn't have sensors or something that detect the damage."

"He might have those."

"Well if all else fails I can wait until he opens a door or something and let bots in through there. It won't be many, because I'm sure he'll notice a giant clump of dust getting inside."

"Well, something's better than nothing." Lisa unfolded the map and pointed at a few spots she had already marked. "I need you to investigate a few buildings. Like, right now. I've narrowed the number of possible bases down to eight likely locations..."

"Eight is narrowing it down?" I interjected.

"He has at least three. Took me a while to figure that one out. He changes it up, and every one of them has some kind of legitimate front," she said. "I had almost no data to work from at all. Believe me when I say he's paranoid and cautious. I got the whole black-bag treatment every time he needed to see me in person, and I'm pretty sure I've never actually been taken to his main base. From the banking records, though, I think I know what construction companies and properties he's using. Any one of them could hide a base of his."

"So, as long as we know where his bases are, you're okay if Abyssal doesn't have complete coverage of the city. I just need to make sure he's ready to deploy at any of those sites."

"As long as you have enough for three copies of him by tomorrow," Lisa reminded me. "No later, I'm sure he'll have a counter-strategy by then, or already skipped town. His power probably lets him do that."

I nodded. "Okay, which ones do I need to check first?"

"You can't do it all at once?" she asked.

"Sort-of-technically no?" I said. "It's like... yes, I have extra brains, and each one is semi-independent, and I can sense all their thoughts. But if I need to know something, I still have to, um, focus and pay attention to, what another brain is sensing or thinking."

"So you can think a million thoughts at once but only pay attention to one at a time, basically."

"More or less. I'm getting better at swapping back and forth between viewpoints, though."

"Are your other brains smart enough actually do the search independently?" Lisa asked.

Of course we are, came a thousand indignant replies in unison.

"Yes," I said. I think Lisa noticed my own embarrassment.

"Then I think you need to learn to delegate better. Put some more trust in your... subordinates. Tell them to search all the spots at once. They'll let you know if they find something suspicious," she advised.

"Alright, then. Can you give me some more specifics?" I asked.

Lisa pointed to the first red X. "There's a parking complex here. I'm guessing a hidden entrance that's either in a service closet or a disguised parking space. The next one's an abandoned shipping facility here by the Docks, and a shop with a back alley entrance somewhere on this block," she added, moving on to the next X's. "Those are the most likely candidates for his main base. The other five are less likely; a construction site here, a business complex here, one of these apartment complexes, and one of these two houses," she said, pointing at each of the subsequent marks on the map.

"Just... houses? Can't you be a bit more specific?" I asked. "That'll take a lot of time to search through all of it."

Lisa shook her head. "Sorry, that's all I got. I had to piece these together from trying to estimate how far we drove and when the car turned while he put a hood over my head. And trying to trace his phone calls without him noticing, or trying to link together suspicious transactions from the bank records I stole that day... Coil's very paranoid."

I had all my swarm all the areas at once. That meant large patches of the city started receding from my view as I started to see the interiors.

The parking garage It looked pretty simple, about three levels up and two levels underground. It was the fastest to check, since it was mostly open, flat area. I did look for air vents, storage closets, plumbing, and other possibly hidden entrances.

As for the shipping facility, the entire building was pretty bare, but large, with a lot of junk and debris to sort through. When looking for trapdoors and hidden switches, I still had to scour every square inch. And the entrances might have even been in the building, but hidden outside or something.

The construction site was a mess, and it took more of my attention. It was hard to determine what was out of place, and what was merely unfinished construction.

The business complex was quite a lot harder. It was closer to a strip mall than business complex, but the businesses didn't seem to be doing so well. Two of them had been boarded up, while the others didn't look like they got much traffic. It seemed perfect to hide a base in or under, but it was big.

The same couldn't be said for the two residential areas. Her information had been vague, and I needed to search about ten homes in each area. I was pretty sure I wouldn't finish scouting those within half an hour.

As for the apartment complex, I assumed a secret base would be underneath it, not above ground. Again, it was a big building, and I wouldn't have discounted the hidden entrance being on an upper floor or something, but I started searching from the parking lot.

As for the shop near the Old Quarter, I gathered as many bots as I could in the general area and had them move inside several buildings in the area. Lisa couldn't be specific and it was quite a few different places to search through. Since I highly doubt anyone had a secret base that required walking through the front door of a barbershop, I focused on the back alley for possible entrances.

I got lucky early on, and found a consistent crack that my bots could crawl into in the back alley. It was more than just a hidden door disguised into the brickwork. There was an airtight seal just behind the bricks. Which just made it look even more suspicious. I checked some distances using some other bots entering from the front of the building. One thing I did notice was that the shop was "shorter" than the others around it. The back room was tiny, which wasn't a huge problem for massage parlour, but the wall was sealed off. There was a large gap between the back wall and the alley behind it.

It would take time to get through the hidden door, and I didn't know what sensors were behind it. I tried the plumbing instead. I sent some bots into the massage parlour's toilets while other bots in the alley dropped in through the sewer grates. I had even more swarm around the walls and enter any air vents I could find.

"I think I might have found something," I told Lisa.

"What's it look like?"

"Uh, so far I've only found a garage with a hidden entrance," I said as my bots started giving me a view. "But there's definitely a base under here. Some of these cars look like... PRT armoured trucks."

"Not stolen. He has access to their exact specifications," Lisa muttered.

The bots in the garage searched for a way to get deeper into the base, but the doors were airtight, and the other air vents had a much more complex filtration system. My bots got to work slicing through that one, too.

Meanwhile, the bots exploring through the plumbing and sewage had found a way in. "God, the bathroom's filthy." The seat was up and urine stains were sprinkled liberally around the rim and the floor of the toilet. Clearly this was a very male-dominated facility. Yuck. I guess it was to my advantage that they didn't have a meticulous janitor. It made it easier for my bots to pretend to be dust when there was already dust on the ground.

My bots continued through and into some hallways. I noticed some heavily armed men inside the doors to the garage, and another patrolling the hallway. "I see mercenaries," I told Lisa. "This base is pretty huge."

"Can you find an office? Coil tends to work alone, keep secrets to himself. He'd have a room just for himself where he can direct all his plans where nobody else can overhear."

I continued moving more bots into the base through the routes I had created. Although it was quite secure with many guards and security cameras, I made sure to keep the bots spread out and remain basically unnoticed as I got into each room. Sometimes I had to wait patiently for a guard to open a door, sometimes I managed to find my way in through an air vent or following the electrical wiring.

I managed to find some kind of armoury filled with Tinkertech weapons, the barracks and kitchen for the mercenaries, and a training room. No drugs or cash, and the people occupying it were definitely not gang members. There was an area that I couldn't access - deep into the base, there was an energy barrier that damaged my bots as they tried to cross. Even when I forced a few through, I lost contact with them. Tinkertech shields, probably. Something that could disrupt powers in general, or just a weird interaction with mine?

"Can't find his personal office. There's Tinkertech blocking my bots," I told her. "Shielding technology of some kind. I don't know."

Lisa sighed in disappointment. "You can at least keep the bots in there to keep an eye on other parts of the base, right?"

"Of course. I have to go soon, New Wave meeting and legal stuff. I'll keep scouting the other areas as I get more bots into the city," I told her. The only issue was losing sight over large patches of the city as my bots swarmed and focused on specific buildings, but that was temporary. "I'll either text you or tell you through my bots what I find. We can meet again tonight; I should have everything scouted out by then."

"Sounds good," Lisa told me. "See you tonight."

I made sure to check that nobody was watching in a multi-block radius before I walked out to the street. There was a Wards patrol nearby, but they didn't have a sight line. As I got a few blocks away, I just noticed a shadowy figure pop through a wall, from a building I hadn't covered the insides. She flew through the air at sprinting speed from the third floor, falling as she crossed the alley, and went through the wall of the safehouse Lisa was hiding in. I barely had time to react. My bots started swarming over Lisa for protection, but the cape fired some kind of Tinkertech laser gun, which burned straight through the bots I used for protection and seared into her shoulder.

Lisa fell with a scream. My bots swarmed at the attacker as a massive wave before even forming Abyssal. She turned intangible again and ran through the wall.

I only knew about one cape from around here who could do that. And she was supposed to be in jail. And where the hell did she get that gun? The answer was probably Coil.

I didn't even have time to form my Eunoia costume, I ran back to my warehouse to try to grab Lisa. My wave of bots from around the area all started to converge on Abyssal's base for better protection. No matter which direction she came from, I would be ready to strike back. I spared a few additional bots to tend to Lisa's wounds.

When I got to her, Shadow Stalker popped through another wall. I had been expecting her, but my bots couldn't stop her intangibility. Lisa seemed to be able to anticipate her though. She quickly shoved me aside, and laser cut through where I was standing. The beam caught her in the forearm this time, but I had also managed to armour her better, so the new wound was only superficial.

I was shocked but not surprised. If Lisa hadn't shoved us apart, that beam would have hit me. Shadow Stalker – Sophia Hess – wasn't just trying to kill Lisa, she wanted both of us.

Abyssal took a swing at her, but she popped out again and into another building on the other side of the alley.

"Shadow Stalker?" A young male voice called out from outside. I looked with my bots to see someone flying above, in bright red. Aegis; he must have noticed the noise. Sophia emerged on the roof of the building.

"That's a villain! She's the one who set me up and ruined my life!" Sophia yelled.

I wanted to call her out on her bullshit, but I had to tend to Lisa. Of course Sophia was completely incapable of taking responsibility for her own dumb decisions. Tattletale may have humiliated her during the bank robbery, but she didn't force her to trespass into my house in the middle of the night.

I didn't let her get any closer. Abyssal appeared outside and used all his strength to jump up the fire escapes, and threw one of his massive swords at her. She shifted into her Breaker state and phased straight through it, but Aegis wasn't so lucky. He got smacked by the full weight of the sword. Whoops. I needed to improve my aim. He just got knocked back, since I made sure it was blunt before impact. I let that sword dissolve into a cloud of individual bots, letting them spread through the air and across the roof.

Abyssal readied his other sword and took a second and third leap up, launching off the fire escapes back and forth across the alley to reach the roof quickly. I was hoping to smack her down with a massive swing, but the Wards interfered.

Gallant shot him from below with his blaster-thing. It had a mild effect at best, but it did knock him off balance. Aegis followed up with a flying body check, just enough to knock Abyssal over the edge and send him tumbling to the ground.

I couldn't believe they were actually helping Sophia! She was a convicted criminal! What the hell!

When Abyssal hit the ground, I let him shatter into his constituent pieces, kicking up a big cloud of dark, smokey nanobots that completely enveloped the alley with Gallant in it.

"Shadow Stalker! Why are you even here? Whatever it is, you're only going to make things worse for yourself!" Aegis shouted as he flew after her.

"Stop getting in my way, you fucking boy scout!" Shadow Stalker turned to her beaker state again and dropped through the ceiling and into the building below. Aegis stopped, circling the sides in an attempt to peer through the windows and see where she went.

I, on the other hand, was drawing up all the bots I could dedicate to fixing up Lisa. That laser rifle thing was nasty. It wasn't just heat, apparently, it had some kind of physical force behind it. I didn't find a bullet in the wound, but it wasn't entirely heat damage – there would have been more cauterization otherwise. She was bleeding out, and had broken bones to boot. It had narrowly nicked Lisa's aorta and punctured a lung, and the bone fragments weren't helping either.

I sent my nanobots in and swarmed the wound. The bots remained inside to provide some blood clotting. Some of them wrapped around her aorta to reinforce it while others sealed up her lungs. It was only a temporary solution though; she still needed treatment at the hospital. I phoned for an ambulance, hoping they'd get here while Abyssal was still keeping Shadow Stalker at bay.

Lisa was already falling unconscious from shock and blood loss. I sealed up the wound on her arm to prevent any more bleeding. I also reinforced the bone; I think it might have been damaged and at risk for a fracture.

Gallant showed up at the doorway, his hand raised and ready to fire his blaster.

"What are you doing?" I shouted at him. "She's the victim here!"

He paused. I couldn't figure out what he was thinking through his damn face mask. Maybe the sight of a blood-covered girl on the ground either surprised him, or he was just squeamish. Either way, he didn't lower his arms.

I was drawing all the nanobots in the alley back in through the door so Abyssal could reform in front of me to shield us. The rush of darkness and the mass of bots probably threw Gallant off balance as well, increasing his fear and confusion. Simultaneously, I was still trying to keep Lisa's condition stable. I also had my awareness spread across a two-block radius, looking in every single room in all the buildings, trying to find out where Sophia had gone. I was straining my neurobots to their maximum as I tried to handle so many things at once.

Right at that moment, Sophia came through the wall of the building beside mine. She already had her weapon readied, and was aiming it at us. I saw her put a hand on Gallant's shoulder as she fired another shot at us. I leaped in front of Lisa to shield her; I still had plenty of nanobot armour covering my body. I hoped it would be enough to stop that beam weapon.

Gallant fired a shot off his own beam right at the same time. The two different Tinker beams hit me at the same time. The combination of the two of them smashed my armour and knocked me to the floor, away from Lisa.

And I was trapped. Hopeless. It was just like the dumpster again. I was trapped, I couldn't get out. Nobody could come help me. I was going to die, and Sophia would laugh. Sophia had shot me with a fucking laser rifle thing. I was going to die. Lisa was going to die. Gallant had shot me. They were working together. He was going to laugh at me. He was another bully, come to step all over me. I was going to die, Lisa was going to die, and we were trapped. They were going to kill us. It was hopeless, nobody was coming to save us.

We are here.

An attack on you is an attack on all of us.

My other brains? They knew if I died, we all died. They/I lashed out with my nanobots. The entire cloud swarmed Gallant and Sophia. I/we had to get them out of here, I/we had to stop them. They were going to kill me/us. I/we could escape this time. I/we couldn't be trapped in the dumpster again. Never again. I/we could save myself. Sophia couldn't bully me/us. Gallant couldn't bully me/us. I wouldn't let them. We wouldn't let them. The nanobots swarmed. They wouldn't reach Lisa. They wouldn't reach me. Us.

Sophia shifted to her Breaker state. She was going to get behind me/us. She was going to shoot me/us in the back. She was going to kill me/us. She was going to kill Lisa. They were trying to pincer us in? We were going to be shot, and we would die. No, I had to stop her. WE could stop her. WE remembered how Sophia went down the first time. WE sent all the nanobots I had to stop her. OUR nanobots swarmed her smoky body, trying to push her away. OUR nanobots discharged everything they had in their microscopic batteries, setting off sparks and fires in the cloud.

Sophia screamed. WE remembered that scream. She was going to hit US, pour soda in OUR hair, or trip US down the stairs. She always retaliated. Ignoring her never worked. NO. This time, WE could hurt her. WE wouldn't let her retaliate. No more soda, no more stolen flute, no more shoving US in the hallways. Sophia was going to kill US, and WE needed to stop her. She shifted back into her normal body. My bots were all around her, some inside her. WE could stop her. WE could see her blood vessels, her nerves, her organs. Either WE killed her or she was going to kill US. WE were trapped. But she was trapped with US this time.

WE shredded her from the inside out. Every robot cut everything they could, slicing through every blood vessel, every nerve, every tissue and organ. Those that were trapped, detonated themselves, discharged their batteries, lit themselves on fire. Her scream died. Her movements died. She died. The thud as she hit the ground somehow brought me back to my senses.

I stopped the nanobots, but it was too late. I stopped scrambling away from Gallant.

"Shadow Stalker! Stop! You don't have to do this..." Aegis flew in and his voice died out. He saw Sophia's body on the ground, her skin shredded and bodily fluids leaking out through every orifice. Her body was slightly smoking from burns all over.

Gallant got to his feet. "Aegis, I..."

"What did you do?" Aegis shouted. "Did you... kill her?" He glared at me. Was he turning on me too?

"What did you do to me?" I shouted at Gallant. I scrambled back to Lisa in a protective position. I didn't really know what I did, or why I did it. I just knew I felt an incredibly intense fear. Irrational fear. I didn't know where the feeling came from, but I did know it had happened right after Gallant hit me with his beam weapon. I didn't sense any drugs enter my system, but maybe his blasters packed some kind of direct shock to my brain? I put that thought aside for later. I was thinking clearly now. Or, far more clearly than five seconds ago.

I focused on my bots, spreading my consciousness out.

Sophia tried to kill you. We couldn't let that happen.

You had some really weird brain activity happening.

Yeah, I've never seen anything like that before. A Master power? You reacted badly.

We tried to help take control again, but you reacted oddly to that too.

Whatever, danger's over. We took care of Sophia.

Focus on Lisa.

That was right. I was fine, it was just Lisa who was in danger. I was going to get her help, and the Wards in the way. Abyssal started to reform at the doorway.

"We're going to need to take you in for a statement."

"No," I said. "We need to get her to the hospital."

"The Rig has medical -"

"No way in hell I'm going to let you touch her! You people tried to kill her!" I shouted back. As I gathered up Lisa in my arms, I pointed at Sophia's body. "You were working with her! You just tried to kill me!"

"We weren't -" Gallant began to raise his hands, but I didn't let him. I don't know what he had hit me with last time, but I didn't want him to shoot me with it again, in case it made me go crazy.

"Abyssal! Help me!" I shouted. He was already behind the two Wards, holding one of his swords like a baseball bat. He swung it, hitting both of them with the wide, flat side, smashing both of them to the wall. He pinned them down by the neck with his full weight - I think I may have unconsciously made him even larger than usual.

I took the opening to run out the door, dragging Lisa with me.

The two Wards may have been tough, especially Aegis, but neither of them had extreme strength. Abyssal managed to keep them back. I ran towards the sirens, using my bots to help carry Lisa on my back.

Author's Note:

Honestly I don't really have a thing for courtroom scenes. The closest thing I've had extensive experience with legal cases is Phoenix Wright, and everyone knows how realistic that is. Not the biggest fan of crime dramas either, though I hear real life is much more boring than TV (as it usually tends to be).