The GPS showed only a few more miles to my destination. I hit the gas, overtaking a particularly slow semi-truck. The truck's trailer held a few sluggish flies and a couple of cockroaches, but was otherwise empty. It was strange, but sometimes on the highway, I'd encounter vehicles that were "invisible" to my powers—completely devoid of insects. If it weren't for that, I could have driven with my eyes almost closed, my scan of the surroundings was that good. However, not all insects could keep up with a car speeding down the freeway, nor could they always warn me about a turn or a pothole, so it was probably better to watch where I was going.
In the glove compartment, I had a driver's license in the name of one "Ann McAllister," complete with my photo taken just a couple of hours ago. In the bed of my pickup truck was a small army of my ant queens and wasps, along with a contingent of regular, all-purpose ants. What if there weren't any useful insects at the target location? Unlikely. This wasn't a secret lab, but a factory. The production chambers themselves were sterile and hermetically sealed, sure, but not the entire facility. Still, I'd brought the insect army just in case. To escape pursuit or fight off an attack, if it came to that.
According to Tattletale's plan, however, nothing of the sort should happen. This mission was partly a test of her own abilities; even if I'd agreed to help her, it would have been foolish to do so without arming myself and securing an advantage first.
And if you have the opportunity to acquire or create the most terrifying weapon on the list, you do it. As someone once said, it's always better to have a weapon and not need it than to need it and not have it. Right now, the ant queens with their enhanced neurotoxin were the most formidable weapon in my arsenal. They were dangerous, venomous, and hard to crush, and they could attack from any direction. The weapon's drawbacks were obvious—the simplest defense was clothing. Lots of clothing and duct tape. Or, ultimately, a beekeeper suit, the ultimate protection against insects.
I needed something more convincing, more threatening. Like, for example, growing ants the size of a dog. The largest insect to ever exist on the planet was the Arthropleura, which could reach over eight feet in length. Ants, scorpions, or wasps of that size would be the ultimate weapon. However, science dictated that insect size was limited by their respiratory system; giant insects existed in ancient times when the atmosphere contained much more oxygen. Did that mean the end of my dog-sized ant dreams?
Of course not. From a physics perspective, it might be absurd, but from a physics perspective, Eidolon was also absurd. In fact, all capes and their powers were one absurdity piled on another. So, I continued my accelerated, directed breeding program, making my insects bigger, stronger, and more dangerous. Even if they never reached eight feet, the largest stick insect today can grow to be nearly two feet long. That was already enough to send anyone with insectophobia into shock, and, say, bite a finger off anyone who dared to get into close combat. And it was certainly enough to make a beekeeper suit or tightly wrapped layers of clothing and duct tape an insufficient defense.
Besides… in a worst-case scenario, I could supply my large insects with oxygen artificially. Of course, strapping an oxygen tank to each one would be inconvenient, but if I approached it from a biological design standpoint, I could, for example, breed a species of insect-oxygen-tanks. Or insects that could filter oxygen from the atmosphere or even produce it within their own bodies and inject it directly into the giant insects.
Suck it, Mother Nature. I will have my dog-sized ants. Not today, but someday. For now, the largest specimens of my fighter-queens didn't exceed a foot in length, which was already intimidating enough. Their mandibles could easily tear through any fabric and could even handle a tin can, piercing it and peeling it back. Even these queens would be a huge help if my opponents were protected by clothing. Their job would be to tear the fabric in a hard-to-reach place, like on the back or legs, and the rest of my swarm would finish the job. No, not even that. My Swarm.
"Kssht!" a radio on the passenger seat hissed. I grabbed it with my right hand, keeping my left on the wheel.
"You're here," the radio said in Tattletale's voice. Not asking, not clarifying. Just stating a fact.
"There's a checkpoint to your left. Show them the documents and drive through to the finished goods warehouse. Park in the far-right lane for loading. The door to the production floor is just past the row of crates. The uniform and pass are in your bag," she said. "Once you're inside, follow the instructions. The container is also in the bag. Over."
"Got it," I said, keying the mic. "Talk later."
"Kssht." The radio went silent.
I drove up to the checkpoint, gradually slowing to a complete stop. A chubby guy in a blue shirt and pants, with the logo of a private security firm on his chest, met me at the gate. A holstered pistol was on his black belt, with a collapsible baton and a taser on the other side. A radio was clipped to his shoulder.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said, leaning toward my open window. "You got a loading order?"
"Of course." I reached over to the passenger seat and grabbed a clipboard with papers clipped to it. The papers were genuine, or so Lisa had told me. She had actually arranged for some company in Brockton Bay to order medical supplies from this specific place. I wasn't worried about the quality of the paperwork. I handed the clipboard through the window, and the guard studied the order form carefully. He glanced at me.
"Sorry," he said, "but could I see your driver's license? The order form says Ann McAllister…"
"Sure." I opened the glove compartment and pulled out a worn leather wallet. Behind the plastic window was a card with Ann's name and my photo. Ann McAllister, I thought. Same last name as Henry. A coincidence? Or is Henry just on Tattletale's payroll?
"Sorry, ma'am." The guard handed my ID back. "You just look awfully young."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I smiled back. "Thanks to you guys, actually. Your products work wonders."
"Uh… right. I guess. Thanks for your cooperation. The finished goods warehouse is over there." He pointed. "Follow the signs and the road markings, you can't get lost. I have to warn you, movement on the factory grounds is restricted without a special pass, so you can only load your goods at the warehouse. Have a good day!" He stepped back from the car and waved. The gate arm lifted. I put the truck in drive and entered the factory grounds.
What did I need here? My new weapon.
Giant insects weren't enough. A neurotoxin that only paralyzed or killed when injected wasn't enough. What if I couldn't get a chance to sting? That led me to the idea of insect-containers for the neurotoxin. Ant-bombs, like big grapes, that would accumulate the toxin and then explode, spraying it everywhere. However, it turned out that my ant neurotoxin was only effective when injected under the skin, into the bloodstream. Contact with skin or inhalation wasn't nearly as deadly. Rats eventually died, but only at a concentration that was excessive and completely unattainable in open spaces.
And then I had an idea… an insect doesn't have to produce the poison it sprays. The toxic agent could be produced separately. Humanity has come up with countless ways to poison itself—sarin, mustard gas, phosgene… but all those gases were produced chemically, requiring a factory. As for an organic poison… there was one that was produced on an industrial scale, and the factory that made it was right near our city.
Botox. A substance that paralyzes facial muscles to smooth out wrinkles… but in reality, it was capable of so much more. Carefully measured and thousand-fold diluted microdoses were what stopped facial muscles from moving. But a slight overdose, or if the toxin got into the digestive system, blood, or lungs, it caused paralysis of the entire nervous system, failure of all muscles, spasms, and, as a result, hypoxia. The muscles that pump air into the lungs fail, the smooth muscles of the intestines fail, the heart muscle fails, the pupils stop working, the eyes can't turn… and all of this is caused by a tiny amount of aerosolized botulinum toxin powder in the air.
If you packed an ant-bomb the size of a grape with this powder and crushed it in front of someone's face, you could poison a dozen people standing nearby at once. And if I lowered the dose of the powder carried, just enough to reliably incapacitate a single person, I would have chemical grenade ants in my arsenal. There was no need to cover large areas with a poison cloud; the eternal drawback of chemical weapons was their lack of selectivity. But I had the power to create chemical grenades carried by my ant queens and activate them right in front of my enemies… and even people standing right next to them wouldn't receive a life-threatening dose. At worst, they'd have some facial paralysis and crossed eyes for a couple of hours.
But the most beautiful part was that this toxin wasn't produced chemically. It was secreted by Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that loves blood sausage and hates oxygen. At first, it was even called "sausage poison"—or rather, the toxin it produced was. It was only later that people found a way to inject microdoses of this toxin into facial muscles so that fading beauties could prolong their youth. And where there was demand, supply followed.
I parked my pickup in the far-right corner of the loading bay and looked around. No one had paid me any attention yet. A huge tractor-trailer was being loaded in the far corner, but something had gone wrong, and people were bustling around it, waving their arms. I grabbed the bag from the passenger seat and opened it. A white lab coat, a hairnet, glasses, and an ID badge on a blue lanyard. The badge had my photo and the words, "Karina Jones, Production Department Specialist. Access Level IV-A."
I put on the coat and hairnet and swapped my glasses. I noted without surprise that although the new glasses were a completely different style, the prescription was identical to mine. Well… this was Tattletale, after all. I tucked the flat container under my clothes, got out of the truck, and immediately slipped behind a row of crates. I put the lanyard with the badge around my neck and went through the nearby door.
I walked down a corridor lit by fluorescent lights, one of which was flickering, signaling it was about to burn out. I walked, recalling the map Tattletale had drawn and sensing all the insects in the factory. There were an unusual number of them; I had worried for nothing. Though… I didn't really need them. Thanks to Tattletale, everything was supposed to go off without a hitch, in the style of master infiltrators: it's like we were never even here.
I turned a corner, went up a flight of stairs, and nodded in greeting to a man in an identical white coat coming toward me.
The most interesting thing was that the heart of the operation, the autoclaves with their precisely set temperatures, weren't heavily guarded, and for good reason. The toxin was secreted in liquid form and was diluted almost immediately. Even if the liquid spilled, it wasn't a big deal; the danger was in the aerosol or vapor. The bacteria themselves were extremely sensitive to oxygen and refused to multiply or even survive in open air. Convenient, wasn't it? No danger. To poison someone at the factory, you wouldn't just have to isolate the toxin, but also evaporate it, turn it into crystals, grind it up, and make someone inhale the powder. Or drink the liquid. And that was a bit… much for an accident. And even if the autoclaves with Clostridium botulinum were breached, the bacteria would just die in the open air.
I approached a door labeled "AUTOCLAVES. Access Level IV-B" and swiped the ID card over the electronic lock. It clicked, a green light flashed, and the door opened. Excellent. Everything was working as it should.
I went inside. No one was there. The autoclaves were running on an automated cycle—thank God for automation and labor optimization. I walked over to the nearest one. Inside, in special containers, the bacteria I so desperately needed were multiplying. I pressed a button, and the containers automatically sealed with a hiss. I opened the transparent door of the autoclave and replaced one of the containers with the one I had brought. What was in my container? The same agar-agar mixture, but with common staphylococci, or whatever you could pick up in a roadside diner. In any case, there was some culture in there. They'd reject it as a bad batch, and I would have my own personal supply of Clostridium botulinum. My precious.
I closed the autoclave, pressed the button, and heard a hum as the air was pumped out. Well then. I walked out the door. The sealed container was hidden against my chest.
"Hey! Stop!" a voice shouted from behind me.
I froze. The ant queens in my hair tensed, preparing to attack. I mentally calculated the entire path from here to my truck. It was far. This was very bad. If I attacked now, I'd have to expose myself. Expose my powers and possibly my real name; there were cameras everywhere. Even if I just knocked him out and dragged him aside, they would find him eventually and review the security footage. Damn it, Tattletale, I thought, though I understood that even she couldn't foresee everything. Otherwise, she wouldn't have needed my help.
I turned around slowly. Ready to attack. Or should I just pretend I was lost? But the lab coat, the badge… no, that was useless.
"I thought you were ignoring me!" A scrawny guy in the same white coat and a dangling badge caught up to me, his hair sticking out in all directions. "Which department? Oh… production. You new? I haven't seen you before. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Old Man Max from testing and control is retiring, you hear?"
"I…" I began, realizing that he wasn't suspicious yet, and I needed to say something unsuspicious, fast. 'I don't know'? What if everyone knows? Who the hell is 'Old Man Max'? Or 'Yeah, of course, Old Man Max, we've been great friends since that party two years ago, ha-ha, who doesn't know Old Man Max'?
"Anyway, you owe me a twenty," he interrupted. "We're collecting for his retirement party. He's worked here for almost twenty years! Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Uh… one second." I reached into the pocket of my jeans under the lab coat, praying there was some money left. Aha, two crumpled tens. Perfect.
"Here." I handed them to the skinny guy. He snatched them and quickly stuffed them into his pocket.
"But it's a secret!" he said, raising a finger. "Got it? Not a word to Max himself. And don't tell anyone how much you gave. The other guys are pitching in more, but you're new… so you get off with just a twenty."
"Of course," I nodded, thinking that this guy had just scammed the new girl out of twenty bucks. Whatever. I just needed to get out of here.
"But you can give more, of course. For Max's gift. He'd appreciate it…" He looked at me expectantly.
"I don't have any more money," I said flatly. "Leave me alone."
"You're rude… Karina Jones," the skinny guy said, reading my name tag. "And here I was going to show you around. Want me to?"
"Thanks, I'll pass," I said, wondering what this guy wanted from me. Maybe I should just sting him. Let him lie down for a bit. I was almost certain I could calculate a non-lethal dose now… he couldn't weigh more than a hundred and fifty pounds, tops. Adjusting for metabolism…
"So, Karina, what are you doing tonight? You're kinda cute," the skinny guy said, and I almost facepalmed. Seriously?
"I already have a boyfriend. And a girlfriend. And even a pet," I said with a stone-cold expression. "Out of my way, Casanova."
"Fine, whatever!" he shouted after me. "But you should still come to the party! Tomorrow night at our usual bar! You can even dress up!"
God. I hurried down the stairs, ran out onto the loading dock, hid behind the crates, and stripped off the lab coat and badge. I opened the pickup door and threw everything inside.
"Sorry for the delay, we had a forklift tip over on the next bay," a tired worker in blue overalls said, approaching my truck and scratching the back of his head. "What's on your order form?"
"Here you go." I handed him the clipboard. He took it, glanced at it, and sighed.
"Just five crates, huh? One minute." He walked away, and I finally let out a breath of relief.