Cockroach

The desert hummed with life. Countless tiny insects burrowed into the sand. Scorpions sheltered from the sun’s inferno under flat rocks. Buried in their hidey-holes, tarantulas lay in wait, sensitive pedipalps waiting for even the slightest quiver of the silken strands that they touched. Flying insects clung to the sparse shade provided by the even sparser plants, dormant in the midday heat.

I saw the desert through the fragmented rainbow of a hundred thousand alien eyes before I even opened my own.

I expected pain. The last thing I remembered was the deafening percussion of two gunshots, and the apocalyptic shockwave of the corresponding bullets entering my skull. I should have been dead. Failing that, I should have been a drooling idiot seconds away from death.

I should not have been in a desert.

Sitting up, I squinted against the sun’s glare, hoping that my own eyes would tell me something that the insect eyes couldn’t. None of the new information was useful to me. The sun was blinding, so bright that it made the blue of the sky look bleached. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Wait, no, there was a low, dark gathering along one edge of the horizon. It was either clouds or mountains. I couldn’t tell which, and it was well beyond the range of my power.

My power. My breath hitched for a moment as I came to terms with another impossibility. My range was back, as far as I could tell. There weren’t any city blocks here by which to measure, of course, but I could feel insects a hell of a lot further than sixteen feet out. My mind was her own again, the Queen Administrator nothing more than an invisible presence somewhere in my subconscious. I had no doubt that my shard was still there – my power would have been gone if it wasn’t – but it had been once again relegated to something that wasn’t much more than a passenger. I hoped.

Everything I had sacrificed, everything I had thought gone… somehow, I had gotten it back. My humanity. My life. My self.

I wasn’t one for tears, but there, under the desert sun, I wrapped my arms around my knees and cried.

It didn’t last long. Even as I wept, my power was working, scanning the area through the senses of the myriad insects and bugs, mapping out the flat, barren land and telling me everything I needed to know.

I was alone. I was very alone. There was no water. There was no shelter, at least none anything larger than a scorpion could make use of. Food was less of a concern, if I was willing to eat bugs, and I knew that by the time my hunger got bad enough, I would be.

No, water was the more immediate concern, and close on its heels was shelter. I was not a naturally tan person, and I could already feel the start of a sunburn on my face and arms. How long had I been laying there? There was no way to tell.

I took inventory of myself next. A pair of jeans, well-fitted but unfamiliar. A lose, pale grey cotton t-shirt. Undergarments; nothing special, but disturbing since I didn’t remember putting them on myself. Tennis shoes. A hair tie, already holding my hair back from my face.

That was it.

My tears dried quickly in the heat, leaving behind a salty residue and feeling of self-disparagement. I had wasted precious resources by crying those tears. Water was my number one need, and here I was, letting it fall out of my face and vanish into the air. I was alive, and I needed to be focused on staying that way.

I rose to my feet, surprised by how spry I felt. For someone who should have been dead, I certainly felt brand new. It was comparable to how my legs and arm had felt after Panacea had regrown them.

Shit.

Panacea.

My hands clenched into fists and the desert began to move as thousands of insects reacted to the complex emotions that flowed through me. Taking a deep breath, I willed them away, willed myself calm.

If Panacea was involved, that would explain most of it. And fucking Contessa. Of course; I hadn’t been shooting to kill. If I had, I would have only needed one shot. Contessa never needed a second try.

So, the Bogeyman had incapacitated me and had taken me to Amy, who had fixed the damage that I had done, had fixed the bullet wounds, and had once again fucked around with my mind. The thought made me feel physically ill, and I had to take several deep, calming breaths to keep from vomiting. There was no telling what Amy – what Panacea – had done to me. The only thing worse than the thought of Panacea poking around in my brain was the thought of Bonesaw doing it – or was it? I shivered, not sure which implication was worse, and pushed the thought from my head. Whatever they had done to me was done. I would have to deal with it when – if – it came up. Right now, I needed water, shelter, and to figure out where the hell I was. Once I found civilization, I could reach out to Tattletale, or Dragon – would Dragon ever forgive me? I shoved the crushing wave of guilt to the side, to be examined later – or anyone who wasn’t likely to shoot me on sight.

Then I would lock Tattletale, Bonesaw, and Panacea in a room together until the former could tell me what the latter two had done to my head.

I began moving toward the low, dark line on the horizon, gathering a swarm with barely a thought. The insects were comforting, familiar, and made me feel just a bit less exposed in the barren wasteland I had found myself in. They settled on my clothes, my skin, my hair, a weight as familiar as any of my costumes had been.

Skitter. Weaver. Khepri. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

For now, I would just have to be Taylor.