34

Exposure 4

Lisa began to shout in my room. "Taylor? Taylor, you know it wasn't me, right? Shit shit shit how many copies of Abyssal do you have here? Fuck!" She was scrambling, grabbing my laptop and a few other things as she rushed downstairs, looking frantically between the front door, back door, and basement.

Since nobody else was home at the time, I didn't mind talking to her directly through my bots.

"What's the problem?" I asked. Oops, that came out too much like Abyssal's voice. I hadn't bothered practicing mimicking my own voice properly though my bots.

Lisa jumped at my – Abyssal's – voice. "Whaaa! Oh, shit, thank goodness it's you. Haven't you been watching the news?"

"I'm at work, Lisa. I'm too busy to be watching TV. Nothing happening in the streets right now."

"Well there will be," Lisa said. "The Empire got doxxed."

"What does that mean?"

"All their identities, addresses and other info just got released."

"Oh fuck."

"Yeah, I bet it was Coil. And he pinned it on me!"

"Oh fucker."

"That's not even the half of it. Kaiser is the CEO of Medhall. Purity is his ex-wife. Both of them are going to lose custody of their kids, and I bet neither's gonna be happy."

I knew Abyssal was tough and practically endless. My bots could take on and beat almost all of them. Purity, though, was a powerful flying Blaster. I didn't have a way to send my bots that high up, nor did I have a perfect defense against her blaster shots. And when it came to attrition, I didn't know if Purity had limits. My limits were huge, but not infinite.

Fuck.

"Keep hidden. Not many people know where you are right now. I can protect you here."

"Taylor? I'm going to contact Dragon using your laptop and email."

"What? I thought you were trying to avoid her."

"Yeah, well, best of a shitty situation. She's the best digital detective I can call right now."

"Keep me updated… looks like the Empire's actually starting to move."

It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly what had happened. It started as a PHO post from Tattletale's account. Even though the post had been taken down by the moderators quickly, the information had been posted at many other, less legitimate sites as well and forwarded to news agencies. News talking about that information were all the rage on the forums, . Even though the information itself was disallowed, everyone "knew" it had come from Tattletale and where else on the internet they could go searching for it. Just about anyone who had been on the internet in the past hour would have come across it. The news spread like gasoline-enhanced wildfire.

On that note, the online postings were just the tip of the iceberg. Each local news agency had been sent the information directly.

The Empire 88 was taking to the streets. Certainly, the low-level lowlife gangsters weren't affected by the news directly. Instead, they had little to lose and the gang was all they had. To them, an attack on the gang was an attack against them personally. Not that any of them were named personally in those documents – they weren't important enough. But the Empire was important enough to them, and they were ready to lash out.

Then there were other people, the so-called "smart Nazis." The ones who supported the Empire because they were racist assholes, but they did it in secret because they knew they could lose their jobs or livelihoods if they were found out. And yes, there were lots of them listed in the documents.

God damn, my dad was at work, confronting one of the guys at there. It was someone from the union he had brought along when he got a new job with Fortress. A guy dad trusted and had gone out of his way to help was a Nazi. Fuck. Many other worksites across the city had ground to a halt when it was announced that several of their employees – or managers – were racist gang members.

But the big news was, of course the capes. Max Anders, the CEO of Medhall? I don't think there was a richer person in Brockton Bay. Talk about bombshells. There were already conspiracy theories that the chief of police, or the mayor, had been paid off to allow the Empire to keep operating with minimal punishment. Heck, even I was tempted to believe it, given how easily the Empire members regularly flaunted their membership without fear.

But the fact that the CEO of the biggest corporation in the bay was behind the Empire? Many of their upper management were also Empire capes, too. It was hard to see Medhall as nothing but an Empire front, regardless of what medical technology they actually sold legitimately.

The good thing was that, right now, they were too busy trying to solve their un-masked persona problems to come out on the streets to rampage as capes. The others, the street scum, the career criminals – they were out in force. There was someone who had dealt the Empire a blow, and they wanted to fight back. Even though they had no idea who had actually wronged them or where they were, they wanted revenge.

And when hundreds of people wanted violence, and they didn't know where to direct that violence? Lack of a target never stopped anyone who really wanted to smash things.

The Protectorate was scrambling. The BBPD were scrambling. New Wave was scrambling, too. Brandish was calling people while she was at work at her law firm. Lady Photon and the group who hit Coil were with the Protectorate, and had been sent out immediately as the news hit. The rest of the family was getting pulled in as well. Except for Panacea and me. We were best where we already were.

I needed to bring Abyssal out to stop them. But I didn't have enough bots to do everything. There was too much happening in too many places. For a situation like this, I didn't care if I had to make multiple copies of Abyssal. So I'd have to reveal some more of his abilities, that was a small price to pay to keep my friends and family safe. The problem was that there was so much. My dad was at work, in the Docks. Amy and I were in the hospital. Lisa was at home. One Abyssal alone wouldn't guarantee a win against one of the Empire capes, and I needed massive numbers of support bots hiding in the area to "help" his fight.

Jeez, just calm down and think about it properly, one of my brains said to me.

Thank goodness we don't have hormones, said another.

Okay. Fine. Hospital… probably still under a de-facto truce. The Empire had no beef with the actual hospital, except for that doctor and a few nurses that was named on the list. Even some people who made a career of helping others were racist. Ugh. Anyway, I didn't need a massive number of bots at the hospital. Likewise, my dad looked like he was handling things fine. Most of the other dockworkers were on his side and the one guy that was singled out was playing the denial card. There was no reason for the Empire to specifically target my dad anyway.

That left Lisa. How many of them would want to kill her? I think it ranged somewhere from "most of them" to "all of them."

I would have to send even more bots to keep her safe. I had been prepared to keep her safe from Coil's mercs, maybe a cape or two, but I hadn't expected to have to fight the single biggest team of capes in the city all at once. I still needed enough left in the streets across the entire city so that I could see them coming, but I would need maybe… ten copies of him in my neighbourhood just in case.

I checked in on Lisa.

"I know it was my account, but it must have come from a different IP address!" Lisa exclaimed. "You've got the ability to track that!"

"The address is registered to a home under one Lisa Wilbourn," Dragon answered.

"I abandoned that place two weeks ago!" Lisa exclaimed.

"True, there was a fire. And you were caught on video entering Taylor's home a few days ago," Dragon replied. "The evidence is circumstantial, and the source could be spoofed. And I can prove you were here the whole time, but these things can be automated easily. Someone went through a lot of trouble to pin it on you."

"Of course he did, he wants me dead!" Lisa replied.

As aggravating and difficult it was for Lisa to work with Dragon, at least she wasn't dead. I kept more careful watch of the area around my house, looking for any suspicious vehicles or people.

I saw one person I'd seen before. Black motorcycle leathers and a skull-themed helmet. Grue. What the hell was he doing here?

He was definitely walking towards my house. I'd never seen him in the neighbourhood before, so Lisa was certainly his target. Why was he there? I tried to see who else he was working with. The Undersiders had been disbanded, and I hadn't seen any evidence of Bitch or Regent in the city since. But he didn't seem like the type to be working alone.

Some of my bots in the street had been depressed and shifted like they had been stepped on. Funny, I don't recall anyone walking on them.

Dragon already knew about Abyssal, and the fact that I could extend my range with him, so I had no problem warning Lisa quickly.

"Cape incoming. Looks like Grue. I'll stop him."

Just in case he had backup, I sent an extra-thick layer of bots around Lisa's body to form armour. I also had a few extra enter her bloodstream, just in case there were some more insidious methods like poison or something. I couldn't counter everything, but I would be prepared for everything they could throw at her. After all, the Empire had Fog, who choked people out, right?

"Oh, is that you, Eunoia? So you were listening in. Lisa, what's happening to your face?"

"What? Oh, that's just Eunoia providing me with nanobot armour. Grue's probably the most reasonable member of the Undersiders – he wouldn't be doing this unless there was a bigger payout than just money," Lisa said.

"That is strange, my data has never shown Grue to ally with the Empire. And aside from Bakuda, he has never participated in kidnapping or assassination," Dragon said.

"That's because he's black, and he wants to stay small-time," Tattletale said. "Like I've been telling you, the entire Empire thing is just a distraction. He's probably still working for Coil. Or got re-hired."

"Your description of the events are looking more and more likely. Unfortunately, I don't have authorization to deploy my combat drones to assist. I can only give you some digital support, and provide evidence in your defense if it comes to it."

"That's all I expect anyway," Lisa said. "You're recording this video, right?"

"Correct."

Meanwhile, several blocks away, I formed up a copy of Abyssal to stand in Grue's way.

He stopped.

"Look, buddy, I don't want to fight. But I gotta do this, you understand? Nobody needs to get hurt," Grue said. "My beef ain't with you. Just… let me get Tattletale."

Yeah, I didn't believe him. Abyssal drew both his swords. I made it clear to Grue that I was letting him run, but he wasn't getting past. He'd saved my life before and helped against Bakuda, so I didn't really want to kill him or anything. But if he was going to invade my home and kill my friend, I wouldn't hold back.

Grue tried anyway. He spread out his smoke, hoping to blind Abyssal like he would with anyone else. Shame he didn't understand how Abyssal actually worked. He disappeared into the smoke, but I could feel his footsteps. He tried to dodge around by going into the middle of the street and scampering behind some parked cars, but Abyssal was quicker. He nearly ran into the massive sword that Abyssal slammed down in front of him, and then fell into a roll when the rest of Abyssal charged at him.

Speaking of footsteps, some more near my home – when had that happened? I checked again, but didn't notice anyone. I checked a wider radius, just in case there was a teleporter or something. The only one I knew of for certain in town was Oni Lee, but he didn't leave his characteristic clones and ash. And there was the fact that I could see him fighting at the Medhall building.

Yep, the ABB had mounted a full-on assault on Medhall. When the CEO of a corporation was outed as the leader of a white-supremacist group, the board of directors probably would have tried to deny any involvement. Claim it was something he did on his personal time, not to be associated with the company, and leave him to fend for himself.

But when multiple members of the Empire 88 were also on the board of directors, as well as many in cushy management positions throughout the company… well, then it became harder to deny. Medhall was now looking like a full-on white-supremacist corporation. I didn't check how it was doing on the stock market but "nosedive" would be a pretty good guess.

Lung decided to treat this like any other gang war. After all, when you found a massive, vulnerable cache of resources from a rival gang, why not attack it and destroy it? Especially when they were in no position to fight back?

With so many members of the Empire 88, including the CEO, as part of this corporation, it wasn't unreasonable to call Medhall nothing more than a front for gang activity. With annual revenue in the hundreds of millions, one could even say it was the most lucrative Empire resource.

Of course, Medhall did legitimate work as well. And it formed a significant part of Brockton Bay's economy. And thus, the majority of both the PRT and police were sent here as opposed to elsewhere. The ABB's two core capes were enough of a threat, and it looked like they had recruited another recently. Another teleporter, or at least, a semi-teleporter. Almost the opposite of Oni Lee, I saw this cape create a translucent clone first, and then teleported to the clone afterwards. I'd have to do more research later, but they didn't seem to be any more deadly than Oni Lee.

The question was, should I help them? It would suck up even more of my bots, and I knew that Lung could reach temperatures that could still incinerate my bots. The police were already evacuating the building. Throwing Abyssal into the mix would only cause confusion and slow things down. What was more… I honestly didn't know if I would end up helping an Empire member or not. The kind of paranoia and distrust that the information had caused was getting to me, too.

I decided not to. There were enough heroes in the area already. I would have to concentrate on the other parts of town, where major clashes were happening that the authorities were ignoring for now. Places like my neighbourhood.

Back with Grue, he was now trying to outrun Abyssal. To his credit, he must have trained pretty hard because he was quick. But not quick enough for Abyssal. Again, his smoke couldn't help him evade Abyssal because I was tracking him by his footsteps. Abyssal, with massive stride length and non-human musculature, caught up easily. I grabbed him so he couldn't escape, to make things clear. I lifted him out of his own smoke and threw him away from my house. He tumbled harshly on the pavement, but I don't think he broke any bones. A combination of his training, general fitness, and motorcycle gear, I guess. Still, it wasn't comfortable for him, and I didn't mean it to be. He needed to get the message. He wasn't getting past.

Then a giant monstrous animal charged at Abyssal out of nowhere.

At first I thought it had been Bitch, even though I knew she had left the city with the dogs she had. She'd gone completely out of my range and into the wilderness. To be frank, I didn't think she would ever come back either, since city life and people just weren't her thing.

I had to take a closer look at the actual monster before I realized it wasn't a dog. Or an enhanced demon-dog. It was dark, spiky, four-legged, and huge, certainly. But that was where the similarities to Bitch's dogs ended. This thing looked more like a were-cat-monkey than anything. With longer claws and more flexible fingers, it was trying to grapple with Abyssal and hold him down while Grue tried to get up. Where it had come from, I couldn't figure out.

I scanned the streets for anything I could find. There were a crowd of Nazis marching towards my house now; apparently Lisa's location had been leaked to the Empire somehow. Along the way it looked like they had found someone to beat up – a black guy, maybe a teen or early twenties, pushing a white girl in her wheelchair. The girl probably had some kind of condition; despite the commotion she was fast asleep or unconscious.

I knew that racists not only hated other races, but also people of their same race for even associating with someone of another race. They had some dumb name for it, but the important thing was that the disabled white girl was probably at as much risk, if not more so, than the black guy pushing her wheelchair.

Good thing that I had saved more bots for the job.

While one copy of Abyssal wrestled with the massive were-cat, a second continued to deal with Grue, a third popped up to deal with the neo-nazis bearing down upon my home.

"C'mon, the bitch is this way! I saw it on the news, she's hiding out here!"

"Yeah! Who the fuck does she think she is?"

"She's making Brockton worse! Outing the fucking CEO? It's just proof that we're the only ones doing honest work here while the chinks just fuck things up!"

I was rather bemused by the fact that these thugs were calling themselves honest workers while they marched around the street looking to beat up a teenage girl. It wouldn't be hard to deal with them. I had too much on my plate to take them down carefully. If I just wanted to drop them unconscious, each person would take quite a bit of concentration and monitoring to prevent permanent brain damage.

It was easier to just break their arms and legs.

I made Abyssal's swords blunt, then smashed away at the group before they could come close. They scattered, but there were still more coming to join their ranks.

My neighbourhood wasn't the only place that had Empire members marching, of course. Many of them were advancing on other neighbourhoods, like the little Mexican quarter or "Currytown" where most of the Indian restaurants were clustered (yeah, Brocktonintes weren't above basic stereotypes). There were less people marching into true ABB territory though – Lung was known to be rampaging, and without actual Capes marching with them, Empire members were too cowardly to engage.

They only attacked the places where they didn't expect any resistance.

I had a copy of Abyssal pop up where I could afford to. And not all places were truly undefended; there were some people willing to defend their homes. I saw Aegis at least, flying around all by himself. He was shouting at the Nazis, trying to get their attention. But he didn't have backup – almost all of the Protectorate was still taking on the escalating fight at Medhall. I think he must have been defending his actual home or family.

Or maybe Aegis was being deliberately targeted. His costume did show a tiny amount of skin, and it was obvious he was darker-skinned. Enough for the Empire to discriminate against him.

I decided to give him a bit of backup. After all, most of the PRT and Protectorate were fighting Lung at the Medhall building. While they were trying to stop a dragon from tearing down a tower, it left everyone else to fend for themselves.

Well, not if I could help it. Aegis may have been an idiot who tried to be friendly to Shadow Stalker while she attempted to murder me and Lisa, but the only ones with a case of terminal stupidity were the gangsters. These Nazis were going to get the same treatment as the ones the ones who tried to head to my house.

In the opposite corner, though, were the Asians. They took this opportunity to lash out at just about everyone who was white. Many of them had trouble trusting the police, and they suspected that the racism against them wasn't just from the Empire, but systemic. And now, when the richest company in town and the biggest donor to the Mayor's campaign as well as police and hospitals turned out to be full of Nazis… well, some of those life frustrations suddenly felt very justified, whether they were true or not. The entire city had been built to oppress them, and the only way to fix it was to tear it all down. Or at least, that was what they were shouting while throwing bricks.

I needed another few copies of Abyssal to scare them off, hopefully. I felt like I would have to fight the entire town at this point. I would definitely be running out of bots if I tried to take on everyone.

Speaking of which, I still needed more backup at home. So I pulled another large pile of bots out of reserve and had him join against the were-cat monster. Whatever it was, it was a determined fighter. If it was a Changer, they must have been confident in their healing abilities. If it really was an animal, then whoever created probably didn't care if it died. It had more than enough opportunities to run, so I didn't need to go easy on it any more.

The Abyssal fighting the monster was legitimately getting torn apart. But the tearing didn't matter. I had managed to get a few good hits in, and the thing was bleeding. As they said, if it could bleed, it could die. Abyssal was re-forming over and over, and while the monster looked tough, its injuries were permanent and adding up. But I didn't have time to waste. The Abyssal getting ripped to shreds started simply gripping the monster, binding its limbs together and locking it in place. I needed to reinforce the bindings with almost all the bots I had; the thing was way stronger than a normal animal its size should have been. The additional Abyssal came running from behind, though, and with the monster tied down, I managed a full-force stab with the blade as sharp as I could make it.

I bisected the monster and it was still fighting, clawing and biting at anything it could reach. It seemed like it didn't even feel pain or have any sense of self-preservation. Despite its disregard to pain, though, it at least seemed to follow biological laws. It got weaker as it bled out. It wouldn't last much longer. That was another problem taken care of for now.

I hoped there weren't any more capes or reinforcements arriving. For now, though, the Nazis were probably more worried about retreating than reinforcing. With the injuries I had given them, they would probably want to get to the hospital soon. There wouldn't be any ambulances to help them, though. I could see where all of them were.

Outside the emergency room, ambulance after ambulance was unloading injured people into the ER. Some had fallen on broken glass, some had been hit with a baseball bat, some had just been beat up, and there were a few gunshot wound victims. I knew, given the growing riot across the city, that it was only going to get more crowded as the day went on.

Panacea was definitely being pushed, but I did my best to try to back her up. In fact, I could actually handle most of the cases, since people were showing up with mostly scrapes, scratches, and bruises. I could clean, sterilize, and stitch up most of those issues with the bots – if I had enough of them. I now had to summon even more bots into the hospital because my usual number wasn't enough to handle the workload.

Even worse, the real problem wasn't exactly the injuries people came to the hospital with. It was the injuries they could get while they were here. As Brockton General was the most central hospital and closest to the chaos, most people ended up here. Including the Nazis. And Asians. And the black, brown, yellow, pink, or whatever colour you could think of. People who had just been beating each other up a short while ago found themselves sitting across from each other in the triage area.

Yes, the hospital was supposed to be a neutral zone. But that didn't stop people who were too dumb, too reckless, or too angry to care. There were a few fights that started to break out inside the hospital itself. Hospital security had managed to break up the first few flare-ups, but I was afraid they would be overwhelmed soon, too. After all, they weren't exactly trained fighters. They weren't police or PRT. They were basically minimum-wage hired hands who helped handle the occasional drunk or psychotic patient. They worked in teams, normally with the nurses and outnumbering problematic patients four to one. Not the other way around.

I wondered if I needed to bring Abyssal into the hospital now, too. Ugh. Maybe it would make more sense to phone the rest of New Wave? Maybe it could be our team mission to protect the hospital for now. After all, with two of our capes already here, it would make sense for the rest of the team to be here during the time of crisis. Lady Photon had already rallied most of the family and they were patrolling the downtown area outside the hospital. Maybe they needed to be indoors instead of patrolling through the air…

Speaking of flying high, I could see a police helicopter in the skies above my home, but no police cars. At least there were no flying enemy capes – Purity was nowhere to be seen, thank goodness. Stormtiger was fighting against Lung. Lisa was basically on her own along with my bots, which was not the worst thing that could be happening right now. I was pretty sure I had enough left over to still protect her, especially now that I had Grue taken care of. I grabbed him again, intending to drag him out of the neighbourhood to make my stance clear. His mission was not going to be successful.

Moreover, as the interracial couple fled from the Nazis, they were unfortunately approaching my fight with Grue, and that monster thing. I needed to shut down all three fights quickly.

Suddenly, he disappeared from Abyssal's hand, replaced by my neighbour's scooter.

Grue was suddenly down the street, in my neighbour's driveway. Fuck, he allied with a teleporter? He was already vaulting over the fence, and heading to the open back door.

Wait, when did my back door open? Who opened it?

In the basement, Lisa was still talking with Dragon.

"Grue's here. Get ready," I warned her.

"You couldn't stop him?" Lisa hissed. Yeah, I know, I was disappointed in myself too. But it wasn't as if we had lost or anything. I collected more bots together and formed Abyssal inside the house. Grue's smoke was pouring through, filling the entire main floor. He found his way into the basement easily enough, where I immediately grabbed him. By the neck this time.

"Brian. I thought we had a deal," Lisa said, staring straight at the motorcycle helmet. I forced him to face her. "You weren't supposed to work with Coil again."

Grue struggled with his feet kicking uselessly in the air. "Can't… he's got…"

We both waited for him to finish but he didn't. I wasn't choking him that hard.

"Got what?"

"I needed… job… lawyers," he said.

"You have, like half a mill in cash! I gave you a bonus for leaving! Don't fucking bullshit me about needing more money."

"Not about the cash… proving income," Grue said.

"Why?" Lisa asked, clearly confused.

"Prove… I can raise… a kid?" Grue repeated, sounding confused. Did he not know either?

Lisa stared at him strangely. "You never said you wanted to become a daddy. Kinda young, aren't you? No, wait… that's not right…" I had to admit, the answer seemed strange to me, too.

Suddenly, I felt a knife jab into Lisa's back. My bots responded quickly enough, hardening into plate armor quickly enough that it barely penetrated Lisa's skin. My bots even applied pressure and stopped the bleeding before it started. She jerked from pain, though and whirled around to see a young girl, in a mask, holding a knife.

"Oops," the girl said.

"Aisha! The fuck?" Grue shouted.

"I'm saving your life, you fucking idiot!"

"Go… home!" he grunted out.

"How the hell did YOU manage to trigger?" Lisa snarled at the girl. "Fucking hell, Aisha, you should listen to your brother for once. This isn't cops and robbers any more."

I dropped Grue and lunged at the girl with Abyssal. I aimed to grab her by the torso, but she ducked and scrambled out of the way.

Hey, how did a knife suddenly appear on the ground? It wasn't one of mine. Wait, and why was Grue suddenly free? Why did I drop him again? I just had him completely under control.

Lisa turned around from where she was standing.

"Grue, the only reason I'm not killing you is that you used to be my teammate," Lisa said while advancing on him. The nanobot armour certainly helped her confidence. Abyssal held his position right behind her while Grue backed away. When he hit the far wall, I grabbed him by the leg, dangling him upside-down in front of Lisa.

"Lisa, you're under attack," Dragon said through my laptop. Their conversation was still ongoing over video chat.

"That's pretty obvious, Dragon. But I think we have it under control for now," Lisa replied while staring at Grue hanging uselessly.

"No, what I mean is that there is a Stranger in the room with you. African-American, early teens, holding a knife. You interacted with her fourteen seconds ago," Dragon informed us.

Knife? I checked the knife on the ground that I noticed earlier. It was gone.

I hardened Lisa's body armour even more at Dragon's warning, and once again felt a sharp knife edge against her neck. It rubbed harmlessly across my bots this time.

"Fuck, what the hell does it take to kill this bitch?" the girl exclaimed, suddenly jumping away from Lisa.

"Aisha! You're not supposed to be here! I left you the fucking bank account, now get the hell out of town!"

"And leave you? No fucking way. In case ya didn't notice, you ain't doing so hot, Brian!" she shouted back.

Lisa looked at the girl. She looked back at Grue.

"Riiight. I remember now. Brian, I gave you instructions on how to set up a shell company to pay yourself and look like you had a legit job," Lisa said.

"Well apparently Coil doesn't work that way," Grue said. "It's pretty simple. You dead, or me and Aisha both dead. No amount of money is gonna change that deal. Ain't a hard choice. And that's why you SHOULDN'T BE HERE, AISHA!"

"Bullshit! If he's gonna kill me, I got every fucking right to do my part!" Aisha shouted back. She looked at her effectively-useless knife, then at Lisa, then to Grue.

"LET'S SIMPLIFY," I said with Abyssal's voice. This time, I made sure to have extra brains concentrate on the girl's existence. Not the ones nearby. Whatever her Stranger power was, it practically erased her existence from all the brains in my normal control range. I wasn't sure how far her range worked, but at least I knew it didn't work through cameras, on Dragon, who was a few thousand miles away. But just in case, I fully encased her in bots very quickly, and remembered one thing: keep it airtight.

For some reason I had a human-sized cocoon in my basement beside Lisa. I couldn't remember why, but at least two hundred of my brains across the city agreed: keep it sealed, keep it airtight. What was I holding on to? Some kind of weapon? A mega-plague? Weird, but… no reason to start doubting myself now.

"Looks like this isn't going to work out, Brian," Lisa said.

"Grue, this is a clear case of break-and-enter, and you have just admitted to attempted homicide. There is now no chance for you to ever live a normal life with your sister. Your best bet is to turn yourself in, and possibly give yourself a chance at a plea deal if you have information on your employer," Dragon said. "By the time you get out of jail, your sister would be a legal adult anyway."

"My sister? I have a sister?" Grue said, confused.

And that was when I felt, and heard, the thumping from inside the cocoon I had made.

Keep it sealed, I reminded myself. Right. Now I could remember the murderous teenager inside there.

Grue lunged at Lisa. "Let Aisha go!" He expertly caught her in a headlock, but I reinforced Lisa's neck again, so that his arm wasn't able to cut off her breathing at all. She was fine. Lisa jabbed her elbow into Grue's stomach, and I enhanced it with the bots' power. He grunted in pain.

I ignored using Abyssal to deal with him, since Lisa had him under control. Instead I moved Abyssal to the cocoon containing the girl, and made a show of crushing the container down. Inside, the girl screamed louder and thrashed helplessly against the sides of the walls.

"NOOO!" Grue screamed. "No! Let her go! Let her go!"

And all of a sudden, my vision in the area went blank. My control faltered. Abyssal fell apart, the cocoon fell apart. Lisa collapsed, as did Grue.

I was trying to make sense of what was happening, but it was like all my brains in the general area were having a seizure. Massive amounts of sensations and data seemed to be flowing through them, more than I could process. More than even the thousands of my brains across the city could handle. It was hard to ignore, but at least I was able to stay conscious. The brains closer to my home were overwhelmed.

I had visions – hallucinations? Memories? Dreams? Of some kind of a monster, fragmented, of sorrow and pain, and listlessness…

And it all snapped back to reality when I regained control. I recovered just long enough to see the girl had also awakened. She was crawling for her brother, who was still unconscious. So was Lisa.

"Lisa? Abyssal? What happened? Are you there? Can you hear me?" Dragon shouted. Her voice sounded fuzzy over the cheap, weak speakers of my laptop. "Is the Stranger still there? Watch out! There's a Stranger trying to kill Lisa!"

Stranger trying to kill Lisa. Right. Fuck. I quickly covered her from head to toe in tough, nanobot armour. And none too soon, because I felt something else almost pierce Lisa's chest. I formed Abyssal, attempting to snatch or swing wildly at something I couldn't see and was just barely aware of. Dragon had to keep shouting and reminding me what I was doing.

"Left! No, she's behind the box!" Dragon could only guide me when the girl was in sight of the laptop's camera, which unfortunately had a narrow field of view. I continued to feel more stabs, slashes, and spikes on Lisa, but none of them managed to penetrate.

Lisa started to stir. I still couldn't stop the Stranger, but I could at least make things even more difficult for her. Abyssal was basically useless, as he was just swinging blindly and probably doing more damage to my basement than to the Cape. I dissolved him and spread long spikes around, basically turning Lisa into a human porcupine. To add even more, I had more spikes start to spread across the floor and walls around her, repelling any attempts to get into melee range of Lisa.

Grue took stock of what was happening. He saw all the spikes growing. Another Abyssal started to form at the top of the basement stairs as I brought more bots from outside the house inside. He wasn't getting out of this one.

And that was when Lisa got shot in the head.

Author's Note: In my head, I always thought of Aisha's power as a self-contained Fidelius Charm from Harry Potter. Which also makes thinking of how the fidelius charm works really weird besides just shrugging and saying "magic." It basically has to actively scrub everyone's memories of a specific thing.