Exhibition 4
"You sure that this is safe?" Shielder asked.
"Yeah, my bots will get inside with just a needle poke," I said. Most of my bots were floating around in a standard bag of saline, sterilized hours ahead of time. Technically I didn't need them to do all that, but the doctors preferred it this way. It saved them from liabilities and lawsuits, and gave them a bit more control over the process.
"I hate needles," he said with a little shudder.
"Oh, don't be such a big baby," Glory Girl said.
"You're one to talk," her cousin shot back. "You don't have to deal with needles because you're invincible."
Vicky just laughed as the nurse poked Shielder.
"Okay, Shielder and Eunoia - are you ready?" Dr. Akagi asked.
I formed the model of Shielder's brain as the injected bots circulated to his brain.
"Okay, Shielder, could you use your power to make the strongest shield you can?" Dr. Akagi asked him.
Even before activating his power, I was already noticing changes to his brain. The two regions of the brain that were already known to be associated with capes - the Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma - lit up like fireworks. I think the anticipation, or preparation to use powers, already made people use those parts of the brain.
Shielder used his namesake ability and produced a massive, powerful glowing energy barrier in front of him. As he actually produced the shield, other parts of his brain lit up, most obviously his motor control areas, since he tended to use his arms to direct his shields. Most of this was identical to what I had seen from the rest of his family.
Dr. Akagi recorded the data. As I expected, and much like the rest of his family, several parts of his brain lit up, but most importantly, the Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma. After a minute, we had Shielder relax again and we kept recording until his brain activity returned to baseline.
It only took another minute for my bots to all leave his body and return to me.
"And that's it. Amazing," Dr. Akagi said. "That only took a little more than two hours to do most of New Wave. It would normally take that long for one normal patient with the MRI. You're a godsend, Eunoia. I have a week's worth of data to analyze."
"Thanks," I said sheepishly, scratching my head. Though I hadn't done anything to any of my subjects, some... issues hadn't gone unnoticed. I now knew that Mark Dallon had signs of depression. Amy was really stressed out. But I couldn't actually do anything; I didn't have a way to reliably fix brain chemistry and all that.
And even if I did, I didn't even know how to bring the subject up with them before beginning treatment.
Still, I didn't get to scan everyone. Mrs. Dallon opted out; I don't know if she was just generally paranoid or if she didn't trust me in particular. Or maybe she didn't trust the doctors and the information about her brain being published (despite the assurance that the data would be anonymized).
I just had trouble pushing bots into Victoria; her defenses and invulnerability kept disrupting things. I wasn't sure if I could properly control my bots even after I managed to get them inside her. Nearly everyone else was game, though. Six members, plus myself; that was a good start for the study.
"Go ahead, take the rest of the day off with your friends," Dr. Akagi said. "I had no idea we'd be done this fast. I'll have to look for more Capes to recruit for this study."
"Sure! Thanks, Doc!" Glory Girl said.
"You kids go on ahead. We've got more things to do," Lady Photon said. "Just be home before dark, I want to have a meeting before tonight's patrol."
"Thanks, Mom!" Laserdream told her. As we left the hospital's parking lot, everyone took off their masks. and put on their jackets. I retracted my bots and shaped them into something resembling a hoodie and jeans. "This is great! We rarely have an excuse for all of us to just hang out. Thanks, Eunoia."
"I'm not sure what I really did," I said.
"You gave us an excuse and got tons of spare time," Crystal clarified.
"So, where to? Fugly Bob's?" suggested Vicky.
"You always go to Fugly Bob's," Amy pointed out.
"What, you don't want a greasy burger?"
"No. Anything but greasy. Ugh. I don't know, maybe some sushi? I heard a new place opened up on the Boardwalk," Crystal suggested.
"Ugh, I don't know if I can handle raw fish..." Vicky said, sticking her tongue out.
Crystal rolled her eyes. "It's not like that's the only thing they serve. Get something with chicken if you want."
Eric laughed. "You really should try it. I don't want fish in any form but sashimi now. The stuff's delicious!"
Bellies full and horizons broadened, we sat in the restaurant and chatted while trying to decide if we were full enough or if we wanted to order something more.
"Green tea ice cream? That sounds interesting..." I said, looking at the dessert menu.
"Oh, that stuff's good, you have to try that too," Crystal told me.
"You say that about literally everything on the menu," Vicky countered.
"But I'm not wrong," Crystal answered with a grin.
"Raw fish is still gross."
"I thought it was pretty good," Amy said.
Vicky looked at her sister with fake shock and horror. "Ames! You've been taken in by the dark side!"
I laughed.
People screamed.
Our eyes were suddenly drawn to the entrance, where Hookwolf and Stormtiger were barring the way. Fuck, Hookwolf only just got broken out of jail and he was already back on the street, ready to just mess up some more innocent lives? Did he have some violence quota he failed to meet while in jail?
Behind them was a crowd of non-powered skinheads, sporting baseball bats, crowbars, and knives. "So you fucking slants thought the Empire was going down? You think you could dirty our boardwalk with your dogshit food? Looks like you need a reminder that..."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I muttered. I hadn't been paying attention. Stupid me, I could have seen them from blocks away, but I had been too tired from hours of intense brain scanning, and too engrossed with chatting with my teammates and friends. Then again, maybe they hadn't actually put on their masks until they were close by, because I certainly didn't remember a metal wolf walking towards us.
"I got this," Vicky said. "Ames, Tay-tay, stay back."
"Correction. We got this," Crystal added, getting out of her seat along with her brother.
Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Shielder burst forward from the back of the restaurant to the entrance, bowling over the two white supremacists who were busy posturing to the crowd. Glory Girl, being the fastest, struck first and smashed straight into Hookwolf, completely ignoring the sharp metal spikes protruding from his body. Her tackle hit with the power of a freight train. It was one of the few times that she could honestly go all-out and not risk killing her target, and she relished the opportunity. She sent him flying straight out the door and into the Boardwalk. His barbed body did far more damage to his own subordinates than it did to Glory Girl. Several Empire members were already on the ground in a bloody heap before Hookwolf stopped skidding across the Boardwalk.
Stormtiger could fly, and he immediately shot up into the air when he saw Glory Girl rocketing towards them. Laserdream was an easy match for him, though. His control of air wasn't limited to wind; he could compress air and cause invisible explosions, or block physical objects and even slightly deflect bullets.
Unfortunately for him, none of that helped against Laserdream. His air compression abilities did nothing to block, deflect, or slow down her lasers. It was such an unfortunate matchup that, in under a minute, he was falling out of the sky.
Shielder, on the other hand, simply stayed at the entrance at the store to prevent any of the gang members from entering.
I guessed the gang members had expected to come in, rough up some people, and be gone before the Protectorate heroes could arrive. They probably didn't count on being blindsided by most of New Wave already being inside.
I felt a little useless. I had Abyssal ready to go again, but he was too far away. I had wanted to use him to do some crimefighting, but I was too tired and distracted from all the hospital work. But seeing the rest of New Wave take down those villains, I was itching to do some heroing more than ever.
"Shouldn't we be doing something?" I asked Amy. She held up a finger. I saw that she was already on the phone, presumably with her parents.
The only bots I had on me were the ones I used at the hospital, which was just enough to reshape into a protective layer under my clothes. I didn't have enough to even protect Panacea. The most I could do was, I dunno, send a few bots into the villains' brains.
Then again, that would actually do a lot, if I wasn't careful. Probably lethal. I didn't want to go there right now. Although, as I watched the others fight, I wondered if the villain mind worked the same way as the heroes. We'd only tested New Wave so far, who were mostly from the same family. Maybe it was different for others.
Stormtiger was lying in a heap on the ground along with a few other Empire gangsters. Most of the others had fled. I heard a splash, and Glory Girl came flying back towards us. It looked like the situation was mostly contained, and some people were calm enough to take out their phones and snap pictures.
I let some of my bots creep towards Stormtiger invisibly. He was still lying on the ground, bruised and dazed. He was conveniently bleeding from a few open wounds, which meant my bots had an easy way into his bloodstream. I swear it was just for research. I monitored his brain for a while, to make sure he wasn't actively using his powers, before I decided he was better off unconscious.
"Hey Vicky, where's Hookwolf? You didn't let him escape, did you?"
"Uh, sorta? I dropped him in the water."
Eric glanced over. "Uh, does Hookwolf actually know how to swim?" he asked. I wasn't sure about his baseline human form, but I would wager that a guy with hundreds of pounds of metal sticking out of his body wouldn't have much talent in the water.
"Vicky, go back and check on him. You're not letting a villain drown," Amy said.
"Aww, can't I let him drown a little bit, at least?" Vicky whined. "He can learn to appreciate other skin colours. Like blue."
"Vicky, now. Or else you're just making more work for me," Amy said, crossing her arms.
"Fine." Vicky flew back out, over the handrails and looked down at the water. We heard a painful groan, and a splash.
A few minutes later Vicky dumped a limp, coughing Hookwolf on the Boardwalk. Both of them were dripping wet. "You owe me a new dress, you hear?" She angrily kicked the man, causing him to spurt a mouthful of water out. "Stupid Nazi, you make me fight you and then I have to save your stupid life? And now this thing's filthy!" She gave him another kick before Crystal restrained her.
I was feeling particularly frustrated after an annoying day at the hospital. It turned out that I had to heal some of the gangsters that had just roughed us up at the restaurant. At least they didn't get Panacea; they didn't deserve perfect healing. Still, I was obligated to treat them. Hippocratic oath and all. On top of that, a healer really only maintained the informal truce and protection by all gangs if they maintained some neutrality and willingness to heal rivals.
I wanted to take my frustrations out on more criminals. Sure, I would probably be creating more work for myself, but I think having an outlet for my stress was worth it. And as long as Panacea wasn't the one healing them, they would be off the streets for a short while. A small win, and this town could use whatever it could get.
All this time while I had been busy helping at the hospital with both the clinic and research, I was building more bots. Not just the high-quality ones hidden in the sewer, funded in part by Lisa. I had plenty of low-quality ones in the streets surrounding the hospital and my home, slowly converting the trash into something useful. I spread the bots around during my morning runs and while I travelled to and from the hospital.
In my hidden workshop/storeroom near the Market, I had a literally half a ton of my most advanced, high-quality microbots all ready to be used. And after that attack on the restaurant, I was itching to "clean up" the streets myself. Unable to sleep, I chose that night to sneak outside and go for a jog.
There were enough of my low-quality bots spread around, though I didn't spend a lot of time near the worst neighbourhoods. I had a bit of a choice, then – I could stick to the areas I had already spread my bots, and have very clear senses all around me, or I could wander towards the seedier sections and work on spreading my bots there, but I wouldn't be able to see as much.
I started by jogging towards my workshop to retrieve the bulk of bots that would form Abyssal. After that, I moved mostly through the shadows, keeping myself hidden, several blocks behind Abyssal as I got him to patrol the streets.
I was certain very few people had noticed my low-quality robots, or the fact that the streets were a little bit cleaner. While I didn't have enough to sneak inside every building to find all the gang's safehouses and bases, I did have enough coverage of the streets themselves that I noticed when there were villains gathering.
I was looking for something simple. A mugging, a drug deal, something simple like that. A lot of my bots near my workshop had crossed over into ABB territory, so I had some vision of that area, but I didn't want to go in there. Lung may have been captured, but Oni Lee was still around. If I had one weakness despite the extended senses of my bots, it would be teleporters.
So I chose to head towards Empire territory instead. Hookwolf and Stormtiger were already down as of this afternoon. And with Lung out of the picture, they were actively attemping to take back control of territory they had lost. So I wanted to make sure they didn't manage to claw themselves back into power.
The funny thing was that I did find capes. Just not Empire capes.
I made my bots form Abyssal in all his dark, fearsome glory to face three demonic dogs and their riders.
Tattletale jumped off with her hands held up. "Wait!" she cried out. "We're not hitting anyone innocent, promise!"
Obviously she recognized the hero that she helped design. But I did say that if I had caught her doing some villainy, I'd be a hero and take her down.
"Uh, Tats? You know this guy?"
"Yeah, he's a hero, but..."
"You call that a hero!?" Grue shouted.
Bitch said nothing, but the dogs were growling. The dogs may have been the size of minivans, but Abyssal was tall enough to look her in the eye even while she sat on top of them.
"Yeah, yeah. Nobody move, just let me explain okay?" Tattletale tried to shush the rest of her team. She turned towards Abyssal. "Look, we heard Hookwolf got caught today. He runs dogfighting rings. Lots of innocent dogs forced to fight to the death. Bitch wants to rescue them. That's not villainy, right? You wanna help us?"
I was sure they were going to take whatever money happened to be in those places, but I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to stop them from stealing from other villains. Abyssal nodded. I was fine rescuing some puppies and hurting the Empire 88 some more.
Tattletale breathed a sigh of relief and hopped on to her dog. "Okay, just follow us."
"Seriously? He's helping? How do you know this guy?" Grue refused to take his eyes off Abyssal, who stood as tall as he was sitting on top of the demon dog. He continued to glance back every few seconds while we ran through the alleys until we reached a warehouse. Given the speed that the dogs could run, I was practically sprinting behind them to keep up, while staying a few blocks behind and out of sight. I really needed to find a way to extend my range.
Tattletale just gave a smug smirk at her teammate instead of answering.
"In there," Bitch said, pointing at the building. She sniffed the air and looked impatient, ready to charge straight into the building and tear apart everything inside. Her demon-dogs did the same.
I decided to move the surrounding bots from the streets to the inside, just to scout. The building had plenty of holes in the walls and poorly-maintained weather stripping, leaving plenty of entrances for my tiny machines.
Abyssal held up a hand to stop Bitch from rushing in. He, too, dissolved into smoke and seeped into the building.
There were plenty of gangsters, alright. And dogs. And guns. I knew Tattletale was, well, squishy. So I decided to form Abyssal at the opposite side of the building to attract their attention. I made sure to do it in a dark, unattended corner.
"We're waiting for his signal," Tattletale said to the rest of her team.
"What's his signal?" Grue asked.
The gangsters were certainly surprised when a nine-foot-tall monster started smacking them around with a pair of eight-foot-long swords. I did my best to make sure the strikes were nonlethal, though they would certainly be feeling bruised. Lots of shouting and gunfire followed, none of which was harmful to Abyssal - they punched holes through him, sure, but all that did was knock the bots off his body. They could just move back towards the main body and reform.
The sound of gunfire and shouting was easily heard outside.
"That's the signal," Tattletale said. The Undersiders charged in. Darkness flooded the other end of the building as three massive dogs charged through the doors, knocking down as if they were made of paper. Chaos and confusion erupted once more, just as they had all begun to rally against Abyssal.
Despite the extremely brutal appearance of the dogs, they were surprisingly well-trained, not killing any of the people (though they did maim some of them).
It had only taken a few minutes, but between the group of us, there were at least twenty Empire members down on the ground, groaning in pain or unconscious. None of them were capes, though. Oh, and five dogs rescued. Bitch was more worried about them than any of the people, while Grue was raiding the cash reserves that the bookies were keeping. The two dogs in the ring, on the other hand, suffered too many injuries and had to be put down, which angered Bitch even more.
"There's another one," she said.
"Uh, Bitch, maybe we should save that for another night. I'm sure the Empire's aware of the hit now. We might be facing capes if we keep going. I'm not sure if we can carry all the kennels."
"No. Save them all tonight." Bitch was hugging one of the dying dogs with a look of absolute determination on her face. Yeah, I was certain she would keep going whether her team was with her or not.
"Fine! Fine. One more. But if any of the major Empire capes come, we're bailing," Grue said. "Big guy, are you in for another? We're splitting the loot evenly."
What the heck, I'd barely lost any nanobots. Small as they were, only a few were damaged by the bullets and most of them had only been knocked out of place. Abyssal had more durability than I had initially estimated. I gave them a thumbs up through him.
Bitch just grunted and hopped on, carrying all the dogs she could.
Abyssal quietly followed.
I was getting pretty winded running across town at night, but thankfully I was also able to hide in the shadows to rest. The next dogfighting ring wasn't far, but I hoped it was the last one. We started off doing the same thing; with me scouting ahead inside the building.
This time, the group seemed to be prepared. It seemed like someone from the first warehouse had managed to raise an alarm; this group was already fully armed and hunkering down. There were no fighting dogs; they were fully prepared to fight some capes.
And there were definitely capes already present. Cricket was carrying a pair of chained sickles in her hands, definitely unusual weapons. Along with her cage-helmet as a mask, her costume seemed rather cobbled together without any particular theme, but it was recognizable. The other cape was more obvious; he wore medival-style armour with a long lance. But that wasn't really the obvious part; he had ghosts flying around him. That made him easy to spot and identify.
I wondered if I could get some of my bots into their brains. Like what I had done with Krieg.
For research. I swear.
I tried to infiltrate with Abyssal again, but apparently Cricket had superhuman senses. Maybe my bots weren't as quiet as I thought, maybe she could sense how they changed the way sound echoed off surfaces. She definitely heard something before Abyssal was ready. She pointed to where he was beginning to form, and before he was ready to move, he was already getting peppered with bullets.
Although the bullets didn't do any permanent damage to my bots, the massive volume of firepower did make it difficult for my bots to get into the right place fast enough.
I didn't really care, though. Abyssal charged at them anyway, his body half-formed and full of holes. It didn't matter. The rest of the bots that kept getting blown away, I just let them spread out instead of trying to group them back with the main body.
Of course, the Undersiders had taken all the shooting as the signal to charge in again.
This time, they covered for me, as Bitch's power-enhanced dogs soaked up some of the attention and firepower. Cricket ran towards them even as Grue held back, taking cover while attempting to spread his darkness. It barely slowed down Cricket's attack. In fact, she seemed to be screeching with a high pitch that looked painful for the dogs to listen to. She managed to engage all of them with remarkable agility, bouncing back and forth between multiple opponents. Grue was only just barely able to dodge her razor-sharp sickles before sinking deeper into the cover of his smoke cloud.
Crusader's ghosts floated around, looking for an angle to strike.
I knew Tattletale and Grue were vulnerable to the ghosts, having no real counter against the Empire cape. Which meant I had to target him first if I didn't want them to die. As strong as Cricket was, she did have her hands full against Bitch's dogs.
I decided to make Abyssal an even greater threat to regain their attention. My bots flooded the floor around the unpowered gangsters, mostly solidifying - congealing - around their feet. I yanked at them and caused men to trip and fall en masse. I swarmed over their bodies, forcibly digging through their skin as I entered their bloodstream with my bots. I wasn't going to kill them or give them permanent brain damage, but a little hypoxia would put them out of the fight.
Crusader turned his attention to Abyssal, and sent his ghosts flying at him. To his surprise, I had Abyssal jump straight at him. With his reduced weight, he actually managed to soar higher than even I expected. It certainly took both of us by surprise when the ghosts went straight through Abyssal. I thought they were selective; I saw them hurt PRT troops before. A thousand-pound tackle sent the flying cape crashing to the ground.
I did my best not to crush him to death. His armour helped him survive, but as his medieval armour could protect him from impact and weapons, the gaps between panels may as well have been canyons for my bots.
I didn't need to send many bots into their bloodstream. A few key blood vessels would do it. A partial restriction to the pulmonary arteries would make them short of breath. The coronary vessels would give them a short heart attack. But the fastest way with the fewest bots was to plug up their carotid and vertebral arteries. The brain tended to drop unconscious after only a few seconds lacking oxygen. After they collapsed, I made the bots return to normal blood flow. They would be groggy, but I wouldn't be causing any brain damage. At least, not any more than they inherently had.
Crusader fell to that trick just like any other normal human. I took him out first. The others fell unconscious one by one, as I had difficulty concentrating on the delicate procedure with each of them. Sure, if I was doing something simple like yanking their feet, taking down fifteen at once was easy. Navigating their bloodstream? Now that could only do one at a time if I didn't want to simply turn their brains to mush. Still, they were going down one at a time. They each only had a few seconds to panic as they watched each other collapse.
Crusader's ghosts disappeared as he collapsed as well. I left more bots inside of him, both in case he woke up again and, you know, for research purposes. I needed to be able to tell what was going on in his brain when he used his powers. Not like he would volunteer for Dr. Akagi's experiment.
Without all the bullets pelting the area, I was able to re-form Abyssal quickly. The Undersiders were doing fairly well holding their own, but Cricket was amazingly agile. Even in Grue's pitch-black darkness, she had actually been able to injure him, though not critically. On top of that, she was still dodging between Bitch's dogs, who were snapping at her as well.
Tattletale had taken cover along with Bitch, who had prioritized rescuing the remaining dogs from this warehouse.
I had Abyssal jump in to finish the fight before more Empire capes arrived as reinforcements. I knew for a fact that I was an extremely poor fighter at best, and with the additional chaos of Grue's darkness and three giant dogs, I was more likely to hurt the Undersiders instead of Cricket.
So I had Abyssal half-dissolve again and spread across the floor, hoping to catch Cricket once she stepped on the ground, while trying to tackle her with the main body.
It actually took longer than I had expected. She actually spent very little time touching the ground for someone without flight powers. That girl was leaping from the back of one dog to the other, slicing away at their armoured bodies from on top. Each time they snapped at her or tried to shake her off, she simply jumped and flipped to the next one, hacking at their bodies with her two sickles, occasionally going for an opportunistic long-range strike by swinging them out on their chains. Grue tried to keep her in the dark by following close, but he had grown cautious, suffering some light cuts that had gotten through his motorcycle gear, as well as some deep cuts to his helmet. Adding Abyssal to the mix didn't really slow her down all that much.
Even when Cricket landed on the ground, she didn't stay there long, bouncing up quickly and continuing the fight without pause. I hadn't managed to get enough bots attached to her to trip her up, and she definitely wasn't slowing down. Even though she must have known she was the last one standing, she wasn't giving up. She had the stamina of a bull and the nimbleness of a monkey. I quickly realized she wasn't even on the defensive - she had been attempting to kill Bitch and Tattletale, and her dogs had merely been trying their best to defend their master. One cape, capable of holding back almost all of the Undersiders on her own? I was glad my actual self was hiding several blocks away.
So, I had to present a bigger target with Abyssal. Let her take a swing at him, keep the bots held more loosely so that her weapons would dig deep into his body, then trap them. I made Abyssal leap in front of Grue to take a hit with the sickle on her next attack, then yanked her close.
To her credit, she noticed that the weapon was stuck immediately and let go. She leaped back and reassessed Abyssal, who was standing strong with a huge blade stuck right through the middle of his chest.
But while Abyssal wasn't moving, my other bots were. And a few bots were all I needed. As the two stared each other down, the worked their way up from the floor over her boots, crawling around and through her socks to enter her bloodstream through her ankles. With the amount she was moving, her heart rate was very high, and my bots were quickly pumped through her body.
Just like Crusader, she wasn't immune to having her brain starved of oxygen for a few seconds. She suddenly collapsed. And just in time, too. My bots in the streets noticed more Empire members coming. Abyssal re-formed. It was time to stop and evacuate.
"GGGOOOOO. BAAAAAACCKKKKKUUUUP," I had him say.
"We have to go! Empire reinforcements are on the way!" Tattletale translated for her team.
The Undersiders, to their credit, absolutely did not try to question the deep, booming voice. All of them quickly left the building holding as many dogs, kennels, and cash as they could carry. I had Abyssal dissolve before returning to me, although I left the bots inside the Empire capes' bloodstream, hanging out harmlessly in the spleen. Never knew when it would come in handy.
On one hand, the Empire wasn't chasing me specifically.
On the other, there were a lot of Empire goons wandering around. Even being able to see several blocks around and ahead of me didn't help if I had no place to run.
Word spread quickly. Hookwolf was known to be captured, and a few Empire bases were hit tonight. Empire reinforcements were wandering the area, while the ABB smelled blood in the water. That meant fighting. And I needed to get away.
I decided not to head towards my workshop much until things cooled down. Just in case someone managed to follow me. However, I wanted the bulk of my high-quality bots nearby, just in case, enough to keep Abyssal nearby and ready to form anywhere, ready to protect me, yet not visible so hopefully nobody associated me with him.
I needed to get home quick, and I tried my best to use my extended senses to navigate through the streets while remaining hidden. I heard gunshots, often from outside my vision range, and it scared me. I reinforced the layers of bots directly covering me just to be sure, because stray bullets could certainly travel further than my own range.
What was worse than not being able to see the firefights? Being able to see the firefights. Some of my bots were getting a close-up view of the action, which meant the fighting was getting closer and closer to me.
Kaiser was out in the streets, fighting Oni Lee, perilously close to where I was. Kaiser didn't seem to care about the teleporter's attempts at knifing him, and even mostly ignored the grenades with the help of impromptu steel shields.
If I hung out here any longer, me and my bots were merely one of many collateral casualties. The Undersiders were long gone. I wished I had the speed and endurance of Bitch's demon dogs, but I would have to hoof it by my own strength. Augumented slightly with my bots.
The fighting, the explosions, and the collateral damage were starting some fires. If I left my bots in the area, they would burn. Such was one of the dangers of building them primarily out of carbon. I could clump them together, either as Abyssal or another shape, to evacuate them quickly. But that might have attracted someone's attention, leading them back to me. Or I could sacrifice a large portion of my bots as the town burned, but nobody would be the wiser.
I had to chose the latter. I was part of New Wave, after all. My public persona was more important; Abyssal could be rebuilt. I took as many bots as I could and evacuated them from the neighbourhood while I ran, hopefully without attracting attention. Even though I was certain nobody was aiming for me, I still ducked reflexively each time I heard another gunshot, crash, or roar. Abyssal would be "sleeping" at home with me tonight like a giant invisible teddy bear.