Mannequin
Mannequin Robert Rugger felt conflicted.
Obviously, he didn’t have a mouth anymore. This body’s previous owner had taken his brain and vital organs and stuffed it in a tinkertech torso, sealing everything off. A perfect closed system. It was supposed to be a metaphor for how Alan Gramme decided to emotionally seal himself off from the world after the Simurgh killed his family, and while that was a compelling way to characterize a great villain, it was an entirely different story when you were the one stuck in the robot suit.
Out of all the people he could have been dropped into, Mannequin was one of the worst. Not the worst, mind you. Crawler Robert had that honor. At least Mannequin had hands instead of… whatever those tentacles were supposed to be. Mannequin doubted they were designed by Crawler’s power for anything except combat, which likely meant typing or using chopsticks was out of the question.
No, being Mannequin wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like he didn’t have options. He was a Tinker, and building an artificial voice box wasn’t that hard with his specialty. Enclosed systems gave him all kinds of ideas. Little balls that could transmit and receive radio signals to imitate vocal ranges, allowing him to literally throw his voice and the voices of others. A complicated engine made up of chains that could wrap around metal and project sound through it at extremely high volumes. Even running a series of crystalline wire constructs around the outside of his shell, converting the entire suit into a speaker. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. The problem was Mannequin had a reputation.
Mannequin never talked.
It was his whole thing. It made him so much more interesting than the thousands of other Tinkers who inevitably had the bright idea to make themselves power armor. Mannequin didn’t wear power armor. He was the power armor. Not only did he have detachable hands, but detachable legs, arms, feet, and head. It was awesome.
But if Mannequin showed up to Brockton Bay with a new voice, it would break his whole theme. Like giving Princess Leia the Force in those crappy Star Wars sequels, or Arya Stark somehow surviving getting shanked and thrown off a bridge in Game of Thrones. Sure, it would confuse the crap out of people, and the PRT would flip out and point their Thinkers at him to figure out what was going on. That would be pretty funny, but it wouldn’t be funny in the right way. Mannequin communicated with exaggerated body language, and he couldn’t bring himself to change that. It just didn’t work.
That didn’t make him miss it any less though.
“Gather round! Gather round! Welcome to the first annual meeting of the Roberthouse Nine. First thing on the agenda today is-”
“I like Bobhouse Nine more, actually.”
Mannequin wondered if putting eight copies of himself in the same room was a bad idea. He was leaning toward yes.
Jack pouted at the Siberian, who was sitting next to him. “You’re just trying to be contradictory for the sake of contradiction.” The Siberian started to speak again and Jack wagged his finger in her face. Personal space was an iffy concept when you were all the same person. “Don’t try to deny it! Our preferences are literally identical.”
The Siberian went to bite his finger off but he’d already pulled it out of the way, then booped her nose. What followed was an intense game of what could only be described as cannibal finger tag, as Jack booped her nose over and over while she did her best to catch him between her teeth. Mannequin thought it was quite interesting. His perception was enhanced as far as his specialty allowed, and he could see the finger already pulling out of the way before the Siberian had even started moving.
“Uh.” Crawler flinched when everyone jumped at his low, resonant tone and turned to look at him, but pushed through his hesitation and continued. “I think Bobhouse Nine is better too. Should we put it to a vote?”
Bonesaw raised her hand and brought out a small chunk of brain to begin integrating it with some pieces of a disassembled robot spider. Thin wires flicked out from the device and wormed their way into torn off parts of their own accord. Mannequin would have raised an eyebrow if he had any. Was she making mini-spiders? “I second that motion!”
The Siberian smirked and Jack threw up his arms in exasperation. “Fine! Bobhouse Nine it is. Slaughter and Robert have two syllables and at least rhyme a little bit, but far be it from me to stop you guys. It’s not like it matters.”
They had assembled in the garage. Crawler couldn’t fit in the house, and nobody was sure whether or not the wall the Siberian had added an extra doorway to was load bearing. By this point the car had completely dissolved, so they had enough room to sit down in a wide circle. Except for Crawler, of course, who took up the rest of the space by himself.
Cherish tapped a finger to her chin in contemplation. “That raises a point we should address before anything else. Who’s going to be in charge? Democracy is fine when nobody’s attacking us, but we need a leader no one’s going to question in combat. Like a pirate captain. Wait. I’m an idiot.” She pointed at Jack. “Thinker power.”
Everyone else nodded at the same time, and then laughed a little at the same time (except Mannequin), and then started talking at the same time (except Mannequin again, who was starting to feel left out) before Cherish pulsed hesitance at everyone else and took charge. “Crap, that’s going to be a problem. Jack leads the meeting. Otherwise we’ll get stuck trying to do the same thing as each other.”
Jack slumped. Mannequin sympathized. Being the leader always sucked. “Right. Okay. I’m sure you all agree, but I think we need to write everything down before we can start planning how we’re going to derail canon. Mannequin?”
Mannequin tilted his head at a ninety degree angle.
“Do you mind scratching this stuff on the wall for us, me, us, however you want to say it? These people don’t exactly have a whiteboard, and we can destroy the wall later to cover our tracks.” Mannequin twirled his head around back to an upright position, nodded, and flicked out a finger blade. It made sense. He couldn’t participate in the discussion without context, and this would give him something to work with.
He got up to start carving and Jack took the time to narrow his eyes at the Siberian. “Can you put on some clothes? You’re being distracting.”
The Siberian continued to smirk. “I do have clothes on.”
“I meant on the projection and you know it.”
“Hmm.” She stared up at the ceiling and put her fist under her chin in a mocking thinker pose. Then she smiled. “Nope.”
“You can share invincibility with the clothes!”
“Not gonna do it.”
“For the love of-” Mannequin banged on the wall to get their attention and waved his arm at what he wrote.
Bob’s Bucket List
* Scion
Jack frowned. “I wanted the list to be in order of urgency, actually. Can you erase it and start over?”
Mannequin didn’t move. He was in charge of the list. No one else.
Sighing, Jack massaged his forehead. “I didn’t realize I was such a jerk. Whatever. I guess we’ll just randomly throw stuff up there. Off the top of my head… Bakuda’s suicide bombers. Dinah. The Travelers. Leviathan.” The sound of metal slicing wood echoed in the room. “Eidolon’s need to be challenged. Ascalon. Uh… the Gray Boy loops… was that it?”
Mannequin shook his head and tapped the last point he’d just finished writing.
Bob’s Bucket List
* Scion
* Bakuda Head Bombs
* Dinah’s Kidnapping
* Noelle and Trickster
* Leviathan
* Eidolon Needs Therapy
* Ascalon
* Grey Boy Loops
* Shadow Stalker
Everyone seemed confused for a bit before Shatterbird snapped her fingers. “I get it. Sophia tries to kill Taylor at some point and the Undersiders end up kidnapping her. If she finds out Taylor has powers, she’ll go after her out of pure spite because Taylor is ‘supposed to be prey’.” Shatterbird made finger quotes while Mannequin nodded in confirmation. “The only reason she isn’t more violent is because she got press ganged into the Wards. She’s just waiting for an excuse.”
“There’s also all the stuff from the sequel we didn’t read.” The Siberian pointed out, and the rest of them grimaced (except Mannequin). “Too late now, but I remember some stuff from the wiki. Something about March popping bubbles? Or balloons? I only remember that because I looked her up on the wiki after reading that celestial forge fanfiction.”
Jack flipped a knife around in his hand. “She was freaking insane. Sting will get her out of any restraints or prison we put her in, so we might have to kill her, even though she hasn’t done anything yet.”
“No we don’t!” Bonesaw piped up, putting the finishing touches on her creation. She tossed it into the center of the circle, and the contraption unfolded like a Transformer to land on four segmented legs. “I’m way ahead of you guys. Behold! The Parahuman Invading Mind Prison!”
Everyone immediately scrambled away from what looked like a cross between a Metroid and the spider baby toy from Toy Story.
“Holy crap!”
“Holy crap!”
“Holy crap!”
“Holy-” Cherish came to her senses and hit everyone with hesitation again. “Stop! Bonesaw, what the frick is that?!”
“I told you guys. It’s a Parahuman Invading Mind Prison!” Bonesaw shouted gleefully, bouncing in her spot on the floor. “This girl’s power is awesome! The P.I.M.P can burrow in the target’s head and puppet both their body and their power. It might be a little hard to remove once it’s in there though.”
The rest of them sat in silence as they realized Bonesaw had just made herself one of the most powerful Masters in the world in less than thirty minutes. Crawler was the first to speak. “Am I the only one not bothered by this?”
“Yeah. Besides wanting to keep it from infecting me, I don’t really care about it either.” Jack rubbed his goatee in contemplation. “Personality bleed-through from the originals I think. Nothing we can do about it. I’m more concerned with the name. Pimp? Really?”
Bonesaw shrugged. “It’s a joke the real Bonesaw would never make, so I figure it will screw with any Thinkers who hear it. Also, it’s funny and descriptive of what it does. I couldn’t help it. Don’t know why past-Bonesaw never thought about this before. I mean, she was twelve years old, but it’s pretty obvious. She already had the power-negating prions.”
Mannequin thought this had gone on for long enough and banged on the wall again to get their attention. There were a few things they had been too distracted to remember, and one in particular was something they could fix right now.
Bob’s Bucket List
* Scion
* Bakuda Head Bombs
* Dinah’s Kidnapping
* Noelle and Trickster
* Leviathan
* Eidolon Needs Therapy
* Ascalon
* Shadow Stalker
* March popping bubblewrap
* Bonesaw doing something stupid
* The Fallen
* Nilbog starving
* Whatever the other S-Class threats are doing
* That atmosphere cannon thing
* Old people torsos
Jack looked confused. “I don’t recall old people's torsos being in the story.”
“No, you idiot.” The Siberian tried to hit him and he absentmindedly dodged it. “The owners of the house we’re squatting in.”
Shatterbird glanced back towards the house. “Oh. I forgot about those. Why are there two geezers with no limbs or vocal cords in my room again? I wasn’t paying attention when it happened.”
“That’s my fault. I ate them.” The Siberian said, licking her lips. “Bonesaw wanted to test the difference in taste between cooking arms raw and cooking them alive as a family bonding exercise.” She shrugged. “It was about the same. Then their screaming annoyed Cherish because she could hear it over her music, so… Yeah.”
“Wow.” Burnscar remarked, talking for the first time since the meeting started. “My power’s constantly drugging me, and I still think that’s messed up. Welcome to the Slaughterhouse Nine I guess.”
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They all took a moment to go through their body’s previous owner’s memories, and at around the same time realized that was a mistake. Apparently Mannequin had been a regular serial killer long before he’d join the Nine, and had done some pretty gruesome stuff. Mannequin didn’t really want to know just how many pieces he’d cut up Epiphany Girl into before stringing her across her roof like Christmas lights, but he did now.
“Okay.” Jack took a deep breath. “Okay okay okay. Bonesaw, can you regenerate their limbs or something?”
“Hmmmmmmm. Technically yes.” Bonesaw replied, glancing away in thought. “It would take a while though, and we’d need to constantly cram food down their throats. Also, if I did that it might attract attention. Showing mercy isn’t exactly what the Slaughterhouse does. Once we let them go they’ll call the PRT and say we were here. We put a Siberian-shaped hole in their wall and melted a car, so the cops will believe them. Can’t exactly hide that.”
“Then give them weird cyborg limbs. Say it’s a gift for being great hosts or something suitably ironic like that.” Jack reread the list and raised an eyebrow. “Also, I don’t remember anything about an atmosphere cannon. What’s he talking about?”
“I remember.” Nobody flinched this time when Crawler spoke. He shifted to a more comfortable position, his armor plates rubbing against each other with a quiet grinding sound. “A shard took over someone’s body and is going to make him build a tower that shoots the earth’s atmosphere into space. That starts two years from now though. He’s still in the planning stage.”
Cherish raised her hand. “I could maybe find him.”
Jack thought about it and shook his head. “That probably won’t be necessary. Something that big will attract a lot of attention once it gets high enough. Searching the planet sounds like a waste of time if it’ll be that obvious eventually. Anything else we need to worry about?”
The Bobhouse Nine glanced around at each other, and Shatterbird spoke up. “Speaking of stuff that happens in Ward, isn’t there a girl named Kenzie something who should have triggered by now in the timeline? The surveillance Tinker.”
Jack nodded. “That’s a good idea, but we don’t know what her last name is or where she’s at. Unless someone else remembers?”
“It was B something, but it wasn’t Brockton.” Bonesaw straightened up her posture. “Boston? Brooklyn? I dunno.”
“Then we’ll come back to that later. Anything else?” Nobody said anything. “Cool. Now we can plan. Cherish, you’ve got a phone right? What’s the date?”
“It’s not mine. Cherish stole it.” She turned it on. “April eighth, two thousand eleven. As expected. Seven ten pm. Also, since we are obviously not in Brockton Bay…”
The screen lit up her face as she opened up an app. “Do-do-dodo. Let’s see. Let’s see... Oh. Ha! Damn it. That’s hilarious.” She grinned and turned the phone around so everyone could see. “We’re in Taylorsville California. A bit less than a two day drive from Brockton Bay.”
The entire room cracked up in laughter. Except for Mannequin.
—
Dinah
At first it had been headaches. She’d be feeling fine. No fever. No cough. No symptoms at all. Then a teacher would ask a question and a kaleidoscope of images and experiences would explode in her brain. Dinah had thought she might be like Valerie, the girl in the wheelchair that was pushed around by that nice nurse with the ponytail. Valerie was normal for most of the day, but sometimes she would just stare off into space with a vacant expression, or even worse start shaking in the middle of class, and the nurse would wheel her away so she could help with Valerie’s ‘special needs’.
Some of the boys called her retarded, but Mrs. Wickersham said that wasn’t very nice.
Dinah didn’t need a wheelchair, so it couldn’t be that. Her friends didn’t know what it was either. Ciara guessed it was pencilepsy, which was Dinah seeing bright lights because she was looking at pencils too long. Emily said that was stupid and flicked a piece of pepperoni at her. Ciara called her stupid back and threw a grape in retaliation. The lunch table quickly got distracted and everyone got detention for starting a food fight again.
Her parents didn’t understand what her problem was. They sent her to doctors, and Dinah complained about the headaches to them. She described the lights and images she kept seeing, but the doctors didn’t understand. They gave her something called ass-prin, which Dinah was pretty sure was a swear word, and she was supposed to eat a pill whenever her head hurt. It wasn’t enough. Her head hurt all the time.
She began to ignore the teacher's questions when she could, quickly focusing on the Mouse Protector theme song whenever they asked the class something. It helped. Dinah thought she was dumb for taking too long to try that. Of course that would work. Mouse Protector protected the small, and she was small.
It wasn’t until this morning, watching Mouse Protector and Detective Eyespy vs Professor Chill before going to school, that she’d figured it out.
Detective Eyespy was a superhero that teamed up with Mouse Protector. He had all of these cool gadgets his Tinker friend gave him which he used to run faster and swing around on grappling hooks, but he also had his own powers. When he touched the empty display case at the museum, he saw pictures of the past. That was how they knew Professor Chill was behind the robbery, because Detective Eyespy could see the bad guy freeze and shatter the glass to steal the diamond. Then by seeing which way he ran, they could track him down to his base and beat him up. It was so cool.
Dinah thought she might be like Detective Eyespy.
She got off the bus and ran back to her room. Her mom called out to her. “Hi Dinah, how was school?”
“Good!” Dinah barely paid attention to her response. She was going to become a superhero!
She slammed the door behind her and grabbed the first thing she could think of, her tiger stuffed animal. Sitting down on her bed to get comfortable, Dinah focused. Come on. Come on. Please! I want to be a superhero!
Mr. Stripe stared back.
…
Nothing.
Dinah flopped back onto her bed, still clutching him. What am I supposed to do? Detective Eyespy just touched where the diamond was and it worked. I’m touching it! Why isn’t it working?
She glared at him some more.
Mr. Stripe's expression didn't change.
Nothing.
Dinah laid there for what seemed like forever. She tried everything. Shaking him. Abracadabra. Kissing him. Thinking about when she won him at the fourth of July fair. Throwing him up in the air. Holding him up like Simba in the Lion King. Everything. Mr. Stripe's beady eyes looked almost disappointed in her as she began to lose hope. It wasn’t working.
She threw him off the bed and started to cry. I’m so stupid. I’m a seventh grader, not Detective Eyespy. I’m never going to be a superhero. I wouldn’t even be good enough if I did have powers, would I?
That was the wrong question to ask.
She sat at a computer, yelling advice through a microphone as the Siberian tore through flesh and bone.
She ran through the streets, cutting into an alleyway only to see men in black suits point their guns at her.
She shivered in the cold, flinching away from the needle in her arm as a man in a snake costume watched.
She tried to escape, but a spider leapt from the ceiling and pinned her to a wall, “Yeah. You saw me coming. Sorry Dinah, this is for your own good.”
She looked up at the receptionist, who raised an eyebrow at the kid who’d walked into her building.
She yelped as the wall exploded, the Siberian emerging from the dust and rushing towards her.
She ducked under the cover of the swarm, but a beast of eyes and teeth leapt through without flinching to capture her with a tentacle.
She huddled in Glory Girl’s arms, glass flying through the air and cutting off their escape, “Nice try budget Supergirl, but I know you aren’t really invincible.”
She curled up underneath the covers, not daring to answer the knock at the door.
She pleaded with her, but the lady in the welding mask shook her head, “Newter. We’re leaving.”
She jumped up onto-
She hid inside-
She knelt before-
She aimed-
She fell-
She-
She-
She-
The mosaic of images and smells and sounds and worlds flew around in her head, bringing her focus away from the individual scenes and to the whole. They organized themselves. A few flew to one side while the rest crammed together on the opposite side, all of them different but meaning the same thing. The query was vague, even by its standards, but it did its best to satisfy the spirit of the question.
7.20330885055178090206% chance of being good enough to use your power’s information when you next need it the most.
Dinah whimpered. She could feel the blood rushing to her head as it throbbed in the worst headache she’d had yet, and she curled up in a fetal position on her blanket. She understood now. She wasn’t Detective Eyespy, but she was close. He could see what happened. Dinah could see what might happen, and her power beat her up whenever she asked. The possibilities, each one a pixel in the grand display of what might happen, stretched out in her mind and she could see it all. It looked amazing, but what it meant was scary.
She didn’t know who the snake guy was, but she’d recognize the zebra lady anywhere. Everyone knew the face of Hero’s murderer. Dread welled up and she sobbed into her pillow. This can’t be real. Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming. Dinah pinched herself. Hard.
A jolt of pain went up her leg, but she didn’t wake up. She was awake.
The Slaughterhouse Nine were after her.
What can I do? What can anyone do? I just got my powers! It was almost funny how quickly the situation had changed. Before, she just wanted her headaches to go away, or at least be a superhero with them. Now she was going to die. Can the heroes save me?
Mouse Protector stood in front of her with her sword at the ready as Jack Slash chuckled, “Well this is unexpected.”
Armsmaster swung his halberd and Mannequin fluidly twisted around it, white gas spilling out into the air.
A girl in a torn up red dress flicked a fireball at Kid Win and vanished into the flames, reappearing behind Vista with her arms wrapped around her neck in a chokehold.
Alexandria floated above them, but Jack just grinned triumphantly, “Seven words. I know how to kill him, Rebecca.”
She tried to shout a warning but was too late, the first shard of glass shattered on Glory Girl’s skin and the second drew blood, hovering under her throat.
Men in black suits burst into the room and grabbed her, pulling her towards a van before they froze and started shaking, “Kill yourselves you pedophile fuckwads.”
The mosaic swirled and shifted before settling on an answer. 4.66089321103472347032% chance of the heroes protecting you from the Slaughterhouse Nine.
Dinah took deep breaths through the pain and pressed her hands on her head in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure. She was doomed. It didn’t matter what she did. She laid there for a while, waiting for the headache to subside. It hurt. It really hurt. But she had to know. Shuddering, she asked her last question. Will they hurt me?
A girl brushed away the red streak in her hair and smiled at the question, “I don’t think you’re old enough for tattoos.”
Jack Slash set the plate of mac and cheese in front of her.
Bonesaw snapped her fingers and horrifying metal brains with legs unfolded from her backpack, her grin stretching wider than Dinah thought was possible, “You sure? Last chance to back out.”
The Siberian put a hand on her shoulder and pointed at the rock, “Here. You try.”
Panacea’s eyes widened in surprise, “You’re still alive?!”
The girl in the dress shrugged, “As long as you don’t leave the house.”
Glass and sand rearranged itself into a statue of Mouse Protector.
The beast settled down as low as it could go, “Watch the spines.”
The Siberian jumped, and Dinah laughed in delight as they soared through the sky.
Mannequin towered over her, not moving from his position by the door, and pointed to the refrigerator.
9.4436077344460629019% chance the Slaughterhouse Nine will hurt you.
…What?
Then she leaned over and vomited all over the carpet.