RWD: 3.x (Interlude)(Skitter[c.])

3.x (Interlude)(Skitter[c.])

We met the convoy on a major thoroughfare, just past the 42nd bypass. I found it first—through my swarm, sorting through a kaleidoscope of fragmented perspectives—compound eyes catching glimpses of asphalt, metal, and movement. It took a few frustrating false starts, a couple buses and an ice cream truck, but I got there. Three vehicles in tight formation. 

"I found them," I reported before giving a description.

"Positive identification on the primary target?" Greg asked.

I sent a cluster of wasps to get a closer look at the armoured truck. The license plate was partially obscured by road dust, and the image was fuzzy still, but the numbers were clear enough. "Confirmed. License plate, erm… Sierra-Seven-Seven-Niner."

"Attach your assets to the primary target. Maintain redundancy—if we lose part of your swarm, we still need operational capability."

I guided my insects toward the truck, fighting the urge to cluster them all in the same location. Half went to the rear bumper, half to the roof mounting brackets. They settled into place just as our van pulled onto a parallel road, falling back to a discrete following distance.

"It’s done," I reported.

"Good. Control, Alpha team has established contact with the primary target. Beginning Phase Two."

The van slowed, peeling off onto a side street. We fell back, the knot of tension in my chest easing slightly. From a safe distance, we followed. The next hour passed in relative quiet. The convoy maintained steady speed on the highway, making a few unpredicted turns at unexpected intervals. I tracked their progress through my insects, reporting course changes and speed variations to Greg, who cross-referenced them against the map before issuing new orders. The mercenaries settled into a watchful calm, weapons ready but not quite pointed at anything.

A sense of routine was beginning to set in, and I was beginning to think the operation might end without incident. The convoy was making good time toward the airfield, and there had been no sign of the interference Greg had been worried about. Maybe his precautions had been unnecessary. Maybe this would be it. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe—

Through my bugs, through the tiny pieces of perception clinging to the convoy, the world suddenly turned to tar. The smooth vibration of the highway ceased. The forward momentum of the convoy didn’t just slow; it bled away, as if the vehicles had plunged into a wall of invisible molasses.

My flyers, caught in the same effect, struggled, their wings beating uselessly against air that had become as thick as water. I pushed a wasp higher, fighting for altitude, for a view.

"Boss," I said, the word coming out before I could stop it. I'd agonised over what to call him, and settled on the most neutral option I could think of. "Something's wrong."

Greg's attention sharpened. "Report."

"The convoy just... stopped. Like they hit a wall of honey. I can see two people on the highway. Women. Capes."

“Describe them.” I did.

The first was dressed in a flowing, goldenrod-yellow evening gown, a ridiculously ornate masquerade mask hiding the top half of her face. The second wore a deep blue-green dress, with a pink and blue conch shell mask. As PRT troopers sluggishly began to emerge from their vehicles, the woman in blue simply gestured. A portal of swirling darkness tore open in the empty air in front of her, and a geyser of water erupted from it, a high-pressure blast that sent the troopers tumbling.

"Citrine and Ligeia," Greg said immediately. His voice had gone cold and professional. "Control, we have hostile contact at the convoy's position. Citrine is altering local physics—likely increasing friction to immobilise the vehicles. Ligeia is providing water-based crowd control."

He switched to the general channel. "All teams, listen up. Citrine is a cape with reality-altering powers; she can manipulate localised physics within a small area. Friction, gravity, electromagnetic fields—she can tune them like a radio dial. Her area of effect will have a yellow tint, and electronics may be unreliable. She can also disrupt parahuman abilities on a temporary basis. Ligeia controls water from an alternate dimension—she can create geysers from nothing and suck things back into her reality. Both are extremely dangerous."

The cape in the blue dress—Ligeia—turned her attention on the convey itself, opening a portal directly in front of the lead vehicle. Another geyser erupted from it, and my lead wasp was hit by the spray, its vision spinning, and then the connection winked out. Within moments, the rest of the convoy received a complete wash.

"My insects are gone," I reported. "The water flushed them away."

"Understood. We're moving to the engagement range. Team Bravo, deploy Genesis. I want a form that can operate in a high-friction environment. Team Charlie, close the distance and prepare to enter combat upon arrival."

The van accelerated, and I felt my stomach drop. This wasn't surveillance anymore. This was a fight.

"Alpha Actual, this is Control," Tattletale’s voice came over the comms, “Comms are down between the convoy and PRT-ENE. The protectorate can’t get a signal through Citrine’s interference. They’re blind and are routing a drone in the area to investigate. We have twenty, maybe thirty minutes before we need to leave.”

Greg nodded. "We'd better wrap this up fast, then."

The van came to a stop, and the rear doors swung open. Greg was on his feet before the vehicle had fully settled, his weapon ready. The mercenaries followed, their movements coordinated.

I hesitated for a moment, paralysed by the weight of the rifle and the implications of what we were about to do. Then I scrambled after them, my gear clanking awkwardly as I tried to keep up.

The battle was visible in the distance—a section of highway with a sickly yellow tint, like looking at the world through amber-colored glasses. Even from here, I could see the battle clearly. Ligeia was suppressing the PRT troopers with relentless blasts of water, keeping them pinned behind their vehicles. On the highway, alarms and sirens blared from the few civilian cars that had crashed or pulled over, their occupants either fleeing or recording the scene with their phones. Some of them turned to point their cameras at us, but the SWAT uniforms seemed to satisfy their curiosity.

Greg and his team took cover behind some abandoned vehicles, using the scope-mounted rifles to assess the situation. I crouched next to a minivan and tried to rebuild my swarm from the insects in the surrounding area.

I managed to get my fresh swarm close enough to see what was happening on the far side of the battle. Two men with some kind of cutting tool were working on the side of one of the armoured trucks, while Ligeia continued to suppress the PRT officers with sustained water pressure.

"They're cutting into one of the boxes," I reported. "I can't tell if it's the right one or the decoy."

“Acknowledged,” Greg said. He glanced at his men. “We’re not waiting for B. Follow me. We’re buying time. Suppressing fire. Don’t go for kills, just keep their heads down until Genesis arrives. Skitter," he turned back to me, "stay low and out of the line of fire.”

He led his team in a flanking manoeuvre, using the scattered civilian vehicles as cover. I stayed put as ordered, my heart pounding, but I snuck a few insects onto Greg's vest as he jogged away.

From their new position, Greg's team had a clear view of the cutting operation. The two men had already breached the first truck and were moving to the second one.

"Fire at will," Greg ordered.

The mercenaries opened fire, their weapons chattering in controlled bursts. The shots were carefully aimed—quite obviously not to kill, but to force the attackers to take cover. It worked. The men with the cutting tool dove for cover, their work interrupted.

Ligeia noticed the new threat immediately. She opened and aimed a fresh geyser at Greg's position, but the distance reduced its effectiveness. The water pressure was still enough to knock one of the mercenaries off balance, but it wasn't the debilitating attack she'd used against the PRT officers. Its effects were more like a water cannon now, rather than a literal flood.

"Spread out," Greg barked in response. "Maintain suppressing fire."

The mercenaries dispersed, forcing Ligeia to split her attention between multiple targets. Citrine, who had been standing idle while her partner handled crowd control, was now forced to engage the remaining PRT officers in hand-to-hand combat to prevent them from interfering.

For a moment, it looked like the attackers might succeed anyway. They'd managed to cut through the armour on the second truck and were climbing inside. But then something new entered the battlefield.

It was a creature unlike anything I'd ever seen—part snake, part woman, covered in a slick membrane that gleamed in the sunlight. It moved with inhuman speed, slithering low to the ground across the highway toward Citrine.

The creature slowed as it entered Citrine's area of effect—the slime peeling off its skin to leave a visible wake suspended in the air behind it—but not enough to matter. Citrine tried to react, but the creature was already on her. A single, brutal backhand sent her crumpling to the pavement, and the yellow field winked out of existence like a switched-off light.

Colour flooded back into the world, and I felt the few insects I had within the field immediately regain their normal mobility.

Ligeia spun around, abandoning her suppression of Greg's team to face the new threat. She opened a portal directly in front of the creature, and water erupted with tremendous force. The creature was knocked backwards several dozen meters. But as soon as the pressure began to weaken due to distance, it began attempting to evade the current, forcing Ligeia to continually make adjustments to keep it at bay.

Distracted, Ligeia didn’t see Greg and his men moving in. They closed the distance quickly, weapons trained on the attackers. Greg himself approached Ligeia, his rifle aimed at her head.

“Stand down!” Greg’s voice was like a whip crack. “Or the next thing through your head will be a bullet.”

Ligeia's jaw clenched, but she closed the portal. The water stopped flowing, and the snake-creature slithered into position to watch her.

Greg didn't lower his weapon. He stared at Ligeia for a long moment, then walked toward the two men who had been caught in the act of extracting their target from the armoured truck.

Thomas Calvert lay on the ground between them—still gagged, still sedated, still restrained. He looked smaller than I'd expected, somehow diminished without his costume and the power it represented.

I hadn't had time to wonder what Greg intended to do with him when the rifle barked. Once. Clean and final.

Coil's head snapped back, and he was still.

I stared at the body, my mind struggling to process what I'd just witnessed. Greg had executed him. Not in the heat of battle, not in self-defence, but calmly and deliberately. The way you might put down a rabid dog.

Greg peered into the hole in the truck that Coil had been kept in, then walked back to Ligeia. His manner was businesslike, but vaguely annoyed.

"Your target is dead," he said. "Mission's over. You and your partner can leave now, while you still can."

Ligeia's teeth were still clenched. "Do you have any idea who you're making an enemy of? Accord will not forget this.”

"I couldn't care less," Greg said, his flat, voice devoid of any emotion. "He should have thought better of intervening in matters within my city. You have ten seconds to decide. Leave, or I decide for you."

 He flicked a switch on his rifle, the sound sharp and final. The threat was implicit but unmistakable.

Ligeia clenched her fist for a long moment before hissing out an agreement. Seeing Greg lower his weapon, she barked an order to her men. Hesitantly, they scurried over to grab the unconscious Citrine and began to retreat, leaving Ligeia behind as she glared at Greg beside her.

Ignoring her, Greg turned to one of his mercenaries. "Extract the other prisoner and prepare for immediate exfiltration. Genesis,” he said to the snake creature, “keep an eye on Ligeia until we're clear."

He raised his radio. "Control, primary objective is complete. Team Charlie, abort and exfil. We're oscar mike in thirty seconds."

The two groups began to disengage with professional efficiency. Ligeia's people transferred the unconscious Citrine to a vehicle parked ahead, while Greg's team extracted a bound woman with feathers in her hair from the second truck. I used the opportunity to retreat to the van, but I couldn't shake the image of Greg calmly putting a bullet in Coil's head.

By the time Greg and his team reached the van with the other prisoner, I was already in my seat, staring at my hands. The rifle felt heavier than ever, a weight that had nothing to do with metal and plastic.

The doors slammed shut, and we were moving again. Greg and Lisa were already discussing exit routes and contingencies, but their voices seemed to come from very far away.

Greg had killed a man. Not in a fight, not in self-defence, but as a matter of policy. Cold, calculated, efficient. The kind of thing that separated the heroes from the villains.

I wanted to argue. I really did. But what argument was there to make? That the man who’d kidnapped children didn’t deserve it? That the man who’d orchestrated a city’s worth of misery should be allowed to gamble his way to freedom?

I didn’t like it. But I didn’t have a better idea either.

Coil was dead, and the world was probably better for it.

I didn't know what that made me.

The van turned onto the highway, just another civilian truck in the flow of traffic. Behind us, the scene of the battle slowly faded into the horizon, and the sirens and car alarms were already growing fainter.

We were ghosts again, invisible in plain sight.

I looked down at my gloves. They were still clean. I hadn’t fired a shot

But I was complicit.

And somehow, that felt worse.