Not only did I have to drag myself to school tomorrow, but all my plans for buying a laptop and phone, renting an apartment, and setting up a secret lair had just gone up in smoke. That was the general theme of my thoughts as I sat at home, staring at the phone Lisa—Tattletale—had given me.
To an outside observer, it would have just looked like I was sitting and staring at a phone. But a more attentive observer would have noticed that every light in my room was on—the ceiling fixture, the desk lamp, even the nightlight. Books were spread out under the lights, with insects crawling over the pages.
But what even the most attentive observer would never see was the thrumming hub of activity beneath my house, deep under the basement. Slowly but surely, the anthill under our home was transforming into a massive transport hub, an experimental laboratory, a precious metals mine, and a strategic base for millions of insects. Any entomologist who peeked inside would have gone completely insane. The expanded underground tunnels swarmed not only with ants, but also with spiders, cockroaches, crickets, beetles, and even wasps and bees. The latter proved very useful for preserving and preparing stores of glucose, which supplied all my subjects with energy.
The ants remained the foundation of my army. The ant queens, with their ability to fly, reinforced chitinous carapaces, and neurotoxin, would have been the stuff of nightmares for any exterminator. The chitin armor of my latest "Medici" and "Kunoichi" models was so strong that a simple slap of the hand wouldn't kill them anymore. You'd have to apply real pressure, crush them in your hand, or smash them with a fist against a hard surface. They were tough nuts to crack. And, of course, I wouldn't actually recommend anyone try to crush my combat queens with their bare hands. After all, each one had a venomous stinger and powerful mandibles.
Lately, I had learned a new trick: secreting the neurotoxin in tiny droplets at the tip of the stinger. What for? First, to coat the jaws of my warriors, since limiting their attacks to just the stinger was inefficient. Second, I needed to test the possibility of transporting and delivering the neurotoxin via fruit flies and other insects. Mosquitoes, for example—those huge, red bloodsuckers that no one ever pays attention to. They inject their proboscises directly into the bloodstream. Just coat the proboscis and… if only I could figure out the right dose for paralysis or sleep. But that would require experiments, and the results would vary greatly from person to person. Differences in body mass, metabolism, allergies, and chronic illnesses all played a part.
Besides the constant selective breeding of ant queens and increasing the population of the deadliest ones, my ants were tirelessly expanding the colony, building an underground city. Already, I could easily fit into the central chamber, and a dedicated team of builder ants was digging a tunnel to ensure I always had an escape route through the basement. And even though I didn't need the money right now, a portion of the ants were busy mining a gold vein in the bed of a former underground stream. A glass flask was already half-full of gold dust.
Sitting at my desk, looking at the phone from Tattletale, I realized with startling clarity that my greatest strength wasn't controlling insects. My main power was multitasking. The ability to track, control, and manage many processes simultaneously.
When I command my insects, I don't just shout "Attack!" and point at a target. No, I control each insect individually. I give each one commands: where to fly, where to walk, where to sting, what to tear. Right now, sitting at my desk, I was simultaneously mining gold, culling a batch of newly hatched queens, marching a column of cockroaches deep into the colony for slaughter—the new queens needed a lot of chitin—while spiders wove tripwire webs around and on the house. A pair of moths in a neighboring house were watching a young couple have sex on their kitchen counter, while two houses down, a kid was playing video games and loudly lying to his mother that he was doing his homework.
And not just that. I knew everything that was happening in my immediate vicinity. Every house has insects; we just don't notice them. And it was… a very mixed blessing. On one hand, so what? Multitasking. It just means one person can do the work of several. One for ten, for example. But there are two huge arguments why that's wrong.
First, I could do the work not of ten, but of millions. Literally, millions. In theory, I could control a swarm of military drones, acting in perfect synchronization with each and every one.
And second… last in order, but not in importance. The second reason was the most crucial. When a person does the work of ten, they don't just do the work. They gain experience. I gain information. All those smells, sounds, images, physical sensations, and spatial movements—it was all, first and foremost, information. And any information processed by the brain turns into experience. People can't learn faster because they're limited by their focus. You can't, for example, simultaneously multiply three-digit numbers, read War and Peace, and learn to play the guitar, even though it's technically possible—you multiply in your head, read with your eyes, and play with your hands. But no, a person can only track one important, focus-intensive, complex operation at a time. That's why people can't learn physics and French simultaneously.
I can.
Right now, my insects were "reading" textbooks and reference manuals for me—dozens of books at once. It was an experiment. If I learned something new from it, it meant it was working. And it had to be working. I was receiving the information from them, so everything should be fine. There might be problems transferring it from short-term to long-term memory, which would be a shame. But I already knew my working memory and multitasking ability were at an unbelievable level.
Simply put, in theory, I could learn… no, not learn. Learning implies skill. Reading a book on kung fu doesn't teach you how to fight. But you become a theorist. So, not learn, but rather acquire information. A pity I couldn't acquire the skills, but theoretical knowledge was important, too. At least this way I could get all available information. And if I kept several tablets with internet access running constantly, I could not only gather information in real-time but also provide informational support for my own operations. For example, call the police or fire department, or post on the Parahumans Online forums from five or ten accounts at once. Hmm. Now there was something to learn: programming and hacking. Especially since I already had "bugs" in the most literal sense. Getting a password or accessing a secure connection would be no problem with my power. And forewarned is forearmed.
It was decided. I needed to create a command center with constant network access, at least in my base. I'd have to set it up so the insects there, just like in my other major projects, would go into hibernation as soon as I lost control of them due to distance. That, by the way, was another thing that pissed me off. The fact that as soon as I stepped away from my house, all my super-duper assassins and scouts would immediately start eating each other if I didn't put them into hibernation. And that, in turn, seriously slowed the progress of all my endeavors. I wondered if there was a way to increase the range of my power. Or would I just go insane? With every meter of added range, the load on my power's multitasking processor would increase…
I glanced at the phone again. Sigh. It was easy to get carried away with my Napoleonic plans, mentally drawing arrows on a map and stroking the field marshal's baton in my backpack, and then remember that I wasn't the only smart one here. That there were, in fact, entire categories of them. Thinkers.
What was Taylor Hebert right now? A Master, probably, for the bug control. A Thinker? Not yet. But once I studied up, I would be.
But that wasn't the point right now. The point was that the one Thinker I'd met had figured me out in a heartbeat and had already managed to set her traps for me. Manipulator. And I had been forced to turn to her, to ask her to get me out of that station. So now I was in her debt… and a debt must be paid. No, of course, I could just say "thank you" and be done with it, especially since Mr. McAllister said we were even, but… something inside me resisted that.
Fine. I pressed the power button on the phone. A short jingle, a bright logo on the splash screen. A new model. Lisa-Tattletale hadn't skimped. Only the best. Such a show-off.
I turned the phone over in my hand, figuring out how to make calls, what to press, and where the contacts were hidden. I'd eat my hat if Tattletale hadn't saved her own contact in big, bold letters and…
Ping!
A notification sound, and a text message popped up on the screen. "Hey! Decided to turn it on, did you? ;)" A winking smiley face.
"Tsk!" I almost dropped the phone in surprise, catching it just before it hit the floor. My heart hammered with fright. Calm down, Taylor, I thought. What are you so worked up about? It's just a phone. You caught it. Dad's been asleep for hours. You're a cold-blooded killer with venomous insects in your hair, and a little 'ping!' makes your heart leap into your throat? Shame on you.
I picked up the phone. My glasses had fogged up, and it took a moment to read the new message.
"Sorry! Didn't mean to scare you!" Tattletale had written. I shook my head. Show-off. She could have just kept quiet, but no, the Thinker in her just had to burst out. That was the right classification, a Thinker, not a Sage or something. She could, would, and did act like a know-it-all, annoying everyone around her.
"Hey," I typed back. "Thanks for the help with the station."
"No prob. That's what friends are for! :)" the cheerful reply pinged, followed by another smiley—just a simple parenthesis, a smile. I looked at her response. That was it, right? I said thanks, she said no problem. We were done? Did I need to maintain contact with her?
On one hand, absolutely not. The Undersiders were a small-time gang of local supervillains who survived by not drawing too much attention to themselves, and Grue's power was just too convenient—a blanket of darkness. No, literally, he could spread darkness around him that blocked all senses—sight, hearing, even spatial orientation. Yes, I had done my homework. I had read everything I could find about the Undersiders, and especially about Tattletale. There wasn't much publicly available information about her. Villain, Thinker… and that was it. But even that was enough to stay away—if I wanted to live my life with my eyes shut.
But as experience had shown, living without sticking my neck out was going to be difficult. To ensure my own safety and the safety of those I cared about, I needed information. I needed connections. I needed power. I already had power. Now I needed to build up information and connections. And Tattletale was the best choice for that. Her cape name alone was worth a fortune. Tattletale. It meant she knew a lot and wasn't afraid to share. So, first, I needed to gather information about her, and then make a decision. Which meant…
"How's it going?" I typed. A neutral message, an invitation to talk. If she wanted to, she'd take the bait.
"Interesting things are happening in our city. Haven't you been on the PHO forums? You should check it out. I left a tab open for you on the phone, and the unlimited data plan is all paid up." The phone pinged the very second I sent my message. There was no way she could have read it and typed a reply that fast. She must have been typing at the same time I was. Show-off.
"So what does it say? You're the smart one, give me the rundown. A short analysis, so to speak," I wrote. The phone immediately pinged back.
"Already using your position to your advantage, huh? Not one of the shy girls. I like it, though. Want me to call you?" the message read. I thought about her offer for a moment, then shrugged. Really, what was there to be shy about? She had seen me without a mask (I didn't even have one), and I had seen her. Why play spy games over nothing? The main thing was to speak quietly. Dad was asleep, tired from work, and I'd already caused him enough stress. I lifted my finger to type a short "Call me," but then I froze. I thought. I moved my fingers away from the screen.
"You're the smart one, right?" I said into the empty room. "So you call me…"
Ring-ring-ring!
The phone rang. I smirked, pressed the answer button, and put it to my ear.
"Yeah, I'm a show-off!" Tattletale's smug voice came through. "I can't help myself!"
"In your case, it's probably too late," I said. "That kind of behavior could be hazardous to your health."
"It's saved me so far," she replied. "But with you, I should probably hold my horses. For the record, I have no intention of provoking you, and I carefully moved your little 'bugs' into matchboxes lined with cotton. They're not moving. But if you really want to know where our lair is, I'll just send you the address. No need to bother with the bugs. Come visit."
"Is this you trying to recruit me?" I asked dryly. "Because I have zero desire to join your little gang of thugs."
"Nah, not at all. You're a lone wolf. Or should I say, a she-wolf? A lone she-wolf? In any case, I'm the one who'd like to work for you… but I can't right now. Standing in the way of my desire to offer you all my help is… well, a lot of things. But you'd be bored hearing about it, and it's not your problem, right?" Her voice took on a sad, almost mournful tone. Like a dog on a chain.
I clenched my teeth. This has nothing to do with me, I thought. Tattletale was a big girl. She got herself into this mess, she could get herself out. The last thing I needed was to start rescuing "damsels in distress." What was I, a knight in shining armor? No, absolutely not. I wouldn't fall for such primitive manipulation. She was playing with her voice, pretending to be a wounded little girl…
"Fine," I sighed. "Tell me what your problem is. If I can help, I will."
"Well… it's actually pretty dangerous. And we'd basically be going up against one of this city's cape bosses. I wouldn't want to drag you into trouble," Tattletale said, her voice sounding surprisingly sincere.
"You know what, dear Lisa? You can save your 'please don't throw me in that briar patch' games for the schoolkids. Don't insult your own intelligence, and don't make me beg you." I rolled my eyes, knowing she couldn't see me… but she probably knew I did it anyway.
"But it worked!" Tattletale said cheerfully. "Now it's your own idea. And… it really isn't an easy job. If anyone can handle Coil, it's you." Her voice turned serious. "I'm afraid if you can't, it's the end of the Undersiders. Especially me. And… thank you."
"For what? I haven't agreed to help you yet, just to listen."
"I know. Thanks anyway, for agreeing," her voice said through the phone.
"Show-off."