Once the bone fides of the bugman were established, 42561 explained to Grace in a desperate torrent of words that she had worked a show at the casino last night. 42561 had planned on spending the morning wandering around Needles before she headed out to her next gig, but while she was doing so an SUV pulled up and two guys jumped out. They put hands on her and tried to force her into the back of the vehicle. She started fighting back and they “bugged out” as she described it, and that’s when 42561 broke the neck of one of her attackers and the other ran away.
Grace was horrified/impressed “Jesus Christ, you broke a guy’s neck? How? Did you get him in a guillotine?”
42561 shook her head, still pacing the room nervously “I have a spell.”
“For breaking necks?!”
42561 shook her head again, in confusion “No, a strength spell.”
“Cool, will you teach it to me?”
42561 chopped her hands at the corpse like an air traffic controller “Can we deal with this?”
Grace examined the body again “Why did you bring him back here?”
“Well I couldn’t just leave him on the street, could I?”
“I suppose not. Remind me again why you called and had me come here instead of you getting the fuck out of town.”
“Don’t you think we should deal with this? If there are bug people, shouldn’t we do something?”
“Hmm, and why can’t the cops be the ones doing something about it?”
42561 gestured urgently “Are you not seeing the part where the guy is fucking half ant? What the hell are the cops going to do other than shit their pants? Besides, these guys looked normal at first – the cops might be bugs too.”
Grace thought about that for a moment “Well shit.”
“Exactly.” After a beat. “Also, my mom told me never to tell anyone in the government about my abilities. That sounds kind of childish when I say it out loud.”
Grace blew out another long breath “It’s good advice though probably. So what do you think we should do?”
42561 gestured helplessly “That’s why I called you, you’re the one who knows about this stuff!”
Grace didn’t say anything, but she was thinking that she had no idea about this kind of stuff. Admitting that would have made a bad situation worse though, so she just accepted the blind leading the blind situation in front of her.
“Why do you think they tried to take you?”
42561 turned ashen “Probably to lay eggs in my fucking eye sockets. I saw this show about these wasps that paralyze their prey and then lay eggs inside you while you’re still alive.”
“Why?”
“The eggs hatch and then the little baby worm wasps eat you from the inside.”
“Huh. But why do you think they tried to grab you? It has to be because you’re magic right? If they were just grabbing whoever they could get all the time, they’d be found out pretty quickly.”
“Unless the cops are in on it.”
“Unless the cops are in on it. Maybe they need to feed on magic and it works out because there’s nobody to miss magic people when they eat them. Or maybe those bug guys were just assholes and most of them aren’t a problem.”
42561 scowled “They’re bugs.”
“Don’t be a bug person racist. I can probably find the other guy with a spell if you help me, but I don’t know what good that would do.”
“We could grab him.”
“For what?”
“To get some answers.”
Grace frowned “How? By beating the shit out of him?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah, leave this freak here for the maid and we get the fuck out of town.”
“Bugs are laying eggs in people and we need to stop it! Who the hell else can do anything about it?”
“You’re really hung up on this egg thing.”
