He aimed and shot again. No reaction, no blood spray from hitting an invisible target.

“Cathound! Locate them! Cameras are compromised!”

Cathound pulled off his ear protection, donned whenever there was gunfire. He craned his head around, then snapped around to face one direction, gun raised.

The room Horn had entered.

Dripfeed had apparently seen as well. Their melee specialist darted from the room to the left of the hallway, crossed the hall, and into Horn’s room. Others shifted position to provide fire as necessary, and the Wasp Commander joined their line, gun raised.

Dripfeed was fighting a young woman who was dissolving into bands of flesh. The bands cut the soldier.

But he fought back. He slipped past reaching bands, ducking low, then stepped in close. Fingers stabbed at flesh, targeting specific areas. Where the flesh wasn’t yet dissolved with her power, Dripfeed’s death touch did its work. Each hit used a thinker power to figure out ways to convince the body to produce its own poisons or work counter to its own interests.

She coughed loudly, then expelled a mouthful of vomit with a third cough.

One hit could be enough, without medical care to reverse its effects. Heart arrhythmia that cascaded into heart failure. Carbon dioxide bubbles manifesting in the bloodstream as the result of very specific wavelengths. Clots were forced to form by impacted sites of damage, that would immediately float free and lead to stroke. Dripfeed could be sadistic, too, leaving people brain damaged and drooling, or paralyzed and aware.

All at once, her entire body shrank into itself, then unfurled, becoming a mess of tendrils larger than a bear, with only the face visible. She threw Dripfeed aside with explosive strength.

“Fire!” the Wasp Commander ordered.

It was Tricks who shot. Tricks was in their ninety-ninth percentile for accuracy. Part of that was Teacher’s gift of coordination. He didn’t miss.

One shot, clean through the forehead. The grasping, flailing tendrils drooped, then collapsed, flat on the floor. She went from being a bear in stature to being a piece of clothing dropped on the floor.

“Cathound! Find the others!” The Wasp Commander called out. There were similarities between this one and two other capes he had seen in research he’d done. Tress and Strung Out. But there were no exact matches.

Tress was very similar to this, however. A mask, tendrils. But she didn’t have a human form. The tendrils were closer to being piano wire than these flat strips.

The Wasp Commander looked for details, and saw the organs he was looking for. Same as in Tress’s notes. Unidentifiable, pulsing, struggling for life—

She was alive.

“Tricks! The organs!” he shouted, as he aimed his own weapon.

Tress reached across the room and pulled away. Tricks’s shot landed, catching the tail end of the organs that dragged along the floor.

There was noise behind and below. A sound like nails on a chalkboard.