Ooh, this one looks like quite the involved naval map. Although, with that said...
I'm not entirely convinced I like that title.
So, the opening of this chapter is going to be spent unpacking the reveals we got at the end of the last, that might have otherwise appeared in a post-battle conversation that didn't happen.
Somewhat odd to not do so. They usually save this cloudy background for post-battle conversations.
Either a clone made from Caulder's genetic material or a donor's. Somebody had to give his clones the genetic material to take on female forms, or even just forms not identical to Caulder.
Morris is going to be spending some time discussing some of the semantics on clones here. Cloning is actually a subject that came up in the Wars World games, but the clones were very much tropey depictions used for reasons that could ignore the science.
Given that IDS is comprised of clones who are all distinct characters, Days of Ruin is interested in explaining how "distinct character" works.
With my look into the science involved, I believe the word Morris was about to use before Will told him to dumb it down was "plasmid". If you want to learn more about recombinant DNA and plasmids, you might need to refer back to a glossary several more times than this conversation has textboxes.
In essence, we return to the "nature vs nurture" debate. A clone is a perfect copy of the nature of a person, but purely by the awareness of being a clone changing the nurture, there is no way to perfectly replicate the ultimate personality of a human.
You can take a new Dr. Morris through the same education pipeline to teach him all the same material the old one knows, but no two classes of any professor are exactly alike. Even if all of his lecturers managed to perfectly replicate them, the different peers in the room would be enough to potentially trigger a butterfly effect and change the outcome.
Our Isabella had an experience unlike any other Caulder could have provided her. She has changed who she is to adapt to us.
To him, maybe. He always did seem like a terrible judge of character.
Lin, because she is particularly good at this sort of thing, invents a scenario in which the nurture is controlled as tightly as possible, to potentially produce identical results.
Most scientists are pretty good at predicting the likely outcome of most experiments. The purpose of conducting them is to see whether there's something hitherto unknown that would change the outcome, or have something to point to to explain why you feel your intuition is valid.
Any real scientist submits any experiments they perform on most animals in general and humans in specific to an ethics board, making sure that what they are doing doesn't break any moral boundaries or compromise the results. While a very good idea all around, this puts a natural cap on what kinds of results you can match to hard paper evidence. We usually justify the matter to ourselves with "well, results taken from unethical research usually concern topics we don't really want to need to know anyway".
That doesn't stop some more unscrupulous characters from trying anyway. Human curiosity will take us a long way, but ethics are a good way to ground us in "are we actually learning something useful here, or are we just writing papers for the sake of satisfying the cat?"
Lin is also responsible for keeping us from spending this entire conversation on the topic.
Namely, the fact that Caulder is going to keep doing what he's doing unless we find out a way to stop him.
Oh, hi, Gage! It's been so long since the two Lazurians had substantive opinions about important events, I almost thought they got consigned to permadeath jail. Of course, it's Advance Wars, permadeath doesn't exist.
No matter who's delivering the news, it's bad news. Last map was a nightmare. Can we really do it a second time?
Lin seems pessimistic, although one observes that it wasn't really the Great Owl's doing that the last map was so hard.
Lin pretty much spells it out for us. The Great Owl can't be confined to bombing one place. And if it does choose to move, well... it becomes a lot harder to avoid that 5 free damage.
Things are about five times worse if they can aim. Pure unpredictability is bad enough. But active malice? Well, we'd need to increase our production significantly.
Tasha has her own turn to comment as well. These two do get some actual character moments this conversation.
Will, of course, is taking the predictable position on the topic. I think we all knew going in this was going to be a conversation of "how do we survive the Great Owl?" rather than "do we risk doing so?"
Gage, of course, is already so certain of the Great Owl's power that he's making plans for what exactly our deaths are going to be like.
Gage has taken Forsythe's last wish to heart, and after we've done so much to save them from Greyfield, it seems wrong that we throw them away for Isabella's sake.
Tasha is taking Will's side, something I can't imagine her to have been in much hurry to do before all this.
Gage is rather quick to point all that out.
Tasha hasn't exactly forgotten what Forsythe asked of her, but she's paid more mind to Forsythe himself as the lesson.
Given what has happened to the last two people who surrendered in this story, Tasha has very low hopes that surrendering will do what is best for their side.
And that, of course, is very Tasha. If pointed in different directions, but not necessarily different reasons. It's just a different family she's fighting for.
Will is not going to let Gage sway him. I think he's the only one here who's really going to bat for that position.
He also points that, you know, Greyfield looked this bad before, and we revealed him as a coward and a bully. How much worse could Caulder be? Sure, he has new toys and no morals, but Greyfield had both too.
...Oh hey, I forgot this guy was still with us.
Can we go back to that world? I was happier there.
Lin has the same reaction.
Why do I have the impression that you have not actually polled your community to reach this conclusion?
Lin tells him to shut up and let the grown-ups talk.
Because there are some bigger priorities in order.
Unfortunately for us, having bigger priorities also opens the civilians up to acting behind our backs.
And there is, in fact, at least one civilian who shares the Mayor's opinion. A little worried now that the Mayor might not be talking out of his ass this time.
Although it says a lot about the odds of that that the Mayor has not only come to do this personally, but is also shooing her away rather than explaining his expectations with reasons and logic.
Now admittedly, that could also be because reason and logic are qualities the Mayor doesn't possess in any quantities. That could do it too.
This betrayal, for want of a better word, comes as a bit of a shock to Isabella. Somewhat surprisingly. Although come to think of it, I don't think Isabella was ever in the room when we let this man talk in the past.
As a result, I don't think Isabella is aware that Will, Lin, and Tasha are not to be included when the Mayor says "everybody".
Hopefully that doesn't hurt us too badly there.
That'll become relevant later, but for now, we can escape the fear of bombings.
Will will be taking command today, and our opponent will be Tabitha, no longer piloting the Owl. I wonder who is, though. Do you think we trust Penny?
Our map for today. It's pretty big, but we can still fit it in four shots- that black Anti-tank is the same one in all four. We'll start, of course, with the Tactics Room.
Time to let Tabitha get some more spotlight after mostly disappearing from the plot.
Remember last time Tabitha was in the War Room, and she declared that Will's payment for her advice was that he would be placed under her employ?
Yeah, Will was trying to forget that happened too.
The real surprise is that nobody around Tabitha has done this, with or without her asking for it. Like, ignore Caulder doting on her- you mean no one else in IDS is being inconvenienced by some of these things not getting done? Maybe Tabitha just doesn't do communal spaces.
"Like how you even got into this room in the first place."
The advice wasn't even good!
...Does she even know what a scullery is?
(If you don't, suffice it to say that a scullery maid would be a demotion from what Tabitha currently thinks Will is.)
Will is also currently the commander of an army, and not even a willing one. I don't think he needs to worry about career development.
Advice is difficult to evaluate ahead of time, but somehow I wouldn't be surprised to find out this advice is little better.
She stopped listening before she even arrived.
The interesting thing about this is, I feel like this is another case of me being baited by the advice. You probably want to hold these missiles for after you make your landing on the main shore.
Remember back in Chapter 6, where Lin had advice to deal with a map development that she had no way of knowing was going to happen in the narrative? It happened again. The Great Owl is currently attacking us because we haven't turned over Isabella, and the idea that the Great Owl might stop is more than likely related.
I'm going to be entirely honest... west port? Have you seen what's hanging around there? You want to storm the main beach. So much more room to deploy.
That makes one of us, Will. Tabitha sucks at giving advice.
The alternative is that she'll start attacking. You don't want to be caught napping there.
Do I want to know if you're barefoot right now, or just have two pairs of shoes for when one gets too dirty?
As one more note, all four of our landers start out with two units loaded in each. Nice, expensive units, and you can bet there's a catch to this. We'll be keeping most of them in the landers for the near future, of course- we can't just land them right away anyway.
Well, OK, we can get these Mechs unloaded and prepared to claim the missile silos.
The immediate duty is to make these seas safe for my ships.
One Battleship dedicates its time to smashing this meteor in particular for the Mech. Not that things would change if I smashed the one generating two plasma walls, but I think that one on the right could potentially make a shield if necessary.
These rockets aren't really covering that much ocean for now.
But I still do have to be careful to stay just out of range.
I was a bit confused about what to do with these guys. Hilariously, I wound up changing my mind on which side of the island I was going to bundle them, so these infantry had to hoof it a little further.
Tabitha comes reasonably close to actually earning her moniker of Cruel Rose. Still a bit too much on the oblivious side, though.
There is some moving around of her forces, but not enough of it to really press her advantages.
This movement also exposes a key weakness in her forces that becomes very inviting to exploit- notice how that river cuts her bases off from the main body of land here. As long as we discourage those Mechs from capturing that neutral base, we can easily turn this peninsula into our main assault direction and eschew the water routes entirely!
And, by "minutes", she means "the Great Owl will drop a bomb at the beginning of our next day". Time continues to be malleable in this narrative.
OK, these rockets are going to be the main issue.
But that's why we've got these silos. We'll time our offensive for when these fire off and the rockets scatter.
The lander that had that Mech takes on a War Tank, once the War Tank has loaded Will. Ideally, I remember which lander Will's in.
Being careful to stay out of Rocket range in making this shot.
And doing my best to make sure the ships don't hang out too close together.
We'll get a missile shot next turn.
..."Keeping the ships separate", hm?
Lander also rests on shore, although the units here are more bunched up. This is by design.
And I'll want another battleship for this front.
This ought to be a good position to keep the landers in the meantime.
The landers, ultimately, are the main bait. I don't really need them intact for their job.
One thing that I think starts happening around now is that I hear the sounds of water being pushed around. Tabitha has built a pre-dived Submarine to keep on your toes for.
It is time for the Great Owl's first shot. This map reflects something that happens in the Wars World games in the final maps- both Sturm and Von Bolt, the final bosses of each game, have a CO Power where they drop a large, heavily debilitating missile on your "most expensive" assets. If you're familiar with those fights, you should be able to handle the Great Owl from a general perspective. But the Great Owl has one major difference from Meteor Strike and Ex Machina.
(It's worth mentioning that the Great Owl image from last map does turn up again this time, and it's currently being displayed when this screenshot happened.)
The Great Owl's bombs land in a diamond of radius 3. Meteor Strike and Ex Machina use the "normal" diamond of radius 2. You've got to bear that in mind- I think this positioning would've made sense if I was trying to avoid Meteor Strike, and I let my intuition do more thinking.
At least this side is unharmed. For now.
Tabitha's landed a tank over here, but I take the time to capture that city. Could come in handy.
Coming back over here, and yeah, uh, that Battleship was not in range of a Meteor. Now granted, it could just have easily struck the other battleship (and probably would've been smarter to), but still.
At least I launch my own Missile with this mech in retaliation.
Cruisers join up. I won't need many of these anyway.
Now is the time to get these rockets shut down.
Might need a unit to keep this mech safe, though.
This is another one of those positions I look at and go "you thought this was good with radius 2 meteors, didn't you?" I'm trying to have units on the mainland bait the owl.
This is going pretty well on this front.
OK, this is just the worst of both worlds. My bait is in range of the units I want to keep healthy.
Well, we really need to keep these mechs and rockets under control.
Fortunately, our battleships are still in decent enough condition for the job.
Wish this could be cleaner, but I need to focus on the main space.
And this tank's job is going to be keeping this Mech in good condition to fire those silos.
I unload some more to make this place bait, and realise too late that I accidentally used Will's lander as the bait and not the other one. This is recoverable, but man it stinks.
Oh well, the time has come to start having some ground units mop up the last few units and establish our beachhead.
Gonna need some more, and repaired, landers. I think.
Well... I think I can let her have that. I have bigger prizes.
Bye bye, tank. You served us well.
Well, this is rather fortunate. I think we should be able to make something of this.
And that's exactly where I wanted that Great Owl missile to land, if not who I wanted to get hit.
Oh well, rejoining up War Tanks to get Will back to full health.
This is the unit I think is the biggest issue right now- I need that Mech in good condition.
These two aren't any problem.
And sure, I can get rid of this one.
More rockets have appeared, but I think now was the time to start conserving my missiles for my real push. These aren't going to accomplish much by the time I'm ready.
This feels a little overkill, but I don't really have the option of leaving units alive too close by.
These guys can also do some damage to my anti-tank, and that is to be avoided.
As an artillery, it has some utility.
Oh, we are running out of bait here.
Ah well, we can reinforce this.
And hope for the best, really.
Remember that submarine I heard? I've been looking for it. And it seems I found it. This might suck...
What else do I do but build some rockets? I'll need them to reinforce the war tanks.
The Mech is a little scared. The boat, less so.
Surprisingly, the submarine was the less scary thing here.
At the beginning of Day 6, just before you would be shot by the Great Owl, Isabella leaps in to save us from the next volley.
Caulder... does have a bit of a paternal streak with her, too, but it doesn't quite stretch as far as it does with Penny and Tabitha. It's a lot more clear he's infantilising her directly.
Isabella talks with Caulder on his level, rather than the one he chooses her to have.
And, despite the fact that her belief as to why she was chased away may not have reflected well on the top brass, she still chooses to protect them. Given what Caulder was planning on doing to her, she was well within her rights to deny herself to both sides here.
Caulder, I think this has a lot more to do with nurture than nature. Isabella is more merciful because her father isn't giving her guns and telling her to have a fun time shooting them.
There's a lot to be said about this being her response. A person trying to reject their environment often falls back on "I'm not like them" as justification, when oftentimes, the distinguishing factor was the nurture (the black/white sheep of the family found a reason to reject it) rather than nature, and those same opportunities could have been offered to anyone else.
Humans just seem prone to rejecting the idea that luck and happenstance have just as much of a role in their formative development than qualities they personally control. Which is saying a lot, given that your nature is just as much luck, if not more.
I still don't see what's so weird about Isabella. Catleia, maybe, I'll give you.
Those two lines contradict one another, Caulder. Why bring her on board if you have no idea what she'll be doing.
She's not alone!
Isabella's particular objection is that Caulder did, in fact, claim he had a specific purpose in mind when he requested her, and he's walking back on that. While it's definitely a good thing that Caulder's lost interest in that purpose, it does, you know... raise questions.
Caulder confesses to lying, flat out, and really makes picking out what he is and isn't interested in a pain in the rear.
I mean, this one developed a conscience that you've never seen before? Surely that's still scientifically interesting.
Caulder has other science that fascinates him more.
The ancient and scientific art of trolling.
We're just bugs in a jar to him, aren't we?
If only this was a conflict between father and daughter, and not war criminal against normal human.
"Caulder lies" goes to the extreme of Caulder admitting his lies are accurate. It makes it real hard to nail him down, you know?
Those are words to use for Isabella.
From the sounds of it, though, Cyrus might not be the person Caulder ought to trust with the job.
In retrospect, there may in fact be something chilling about the fact that Cyrus managed to grow a conscience. In spite of Caulder's everything, humanity can exist here. What does that say about Caulder, who continues to lack it?
The man is so bereft of humanity he doesn't even possess shame.
If nothing else, I think that got passed to all four of his known children, in their own ways.
I think the same could be said of you, Caulder. Do you have a double standard between Cyrus and Isabella? The more I try to make sense of you, the less it works, and I have to wonder if that's me reading into the eyes of insanity or you just having a different response to every stimulus you're given.
This one's one for the dramatic irony books. Wait until Will finds out exactly why and who is responsible for that one.
Anyway, back to firing off some missiles.
Mostly because I don't think this mech has another one in him.
Finally neutralising this sub.
And reshaping the fleet now that there's no fear of a bomb being dropped on my units. Not that I was worried last turn- look how close the spearhead formation is!
Those rockets are going to be a pain. Perhaps missiles are well-placed shutting this one down.
One I get rid of these forces, though, I should be more or less clear to focus on the mainland.
And this is going to be a huge help.
I think everything's out of range...
Although I'm sure there were better uses of the war tank's shot.
I don't actually load this lander yet. I'm worried that naval presence can destroy it.
And I might need some more of these.
That's probably the unit I'm most scared of, and this looks like a nice opportunity to finish it.
This unit heads back, since all the enemy naval units seem to be over here.
This Mech'll be going to capture properties now that it's own missiles are exhausted.
Might worry about that latter fact later, but it looks like we made good enough use not to regret it.
These will be my way of playing around that.
Oh. The AA. That war tank probably should've taken the rocket to block for this.
...Well, as long as the mech is still above 5 HP.
Little hard for my boats to be sunk when they're attacking the full health one in port.
Well, we got our revenge, but oof, 4 HP. At least it's still a relatively quick capture.
Huh, that tank went for the battleship. Let's see if this Mech can be so lucky.
War Tank deciding to finish off a boat like this is normal.
This Mech can capture unhindered, on the other hand.
And this lander is ready to start shipping.
Submarine has gone and hid up here.
Well, that saves the Mech.
...Huh. Well, that's a problem that needs solving.
That's one way to do it, I suppose.
Now then, to remove the presence of black units on this side of the land entirely.
Nothing is really happening on Tabitha's, although that rocket has found an entirely unpleasant position.
And she has tried another landing here. Well, best to cut that off at the source.
Almost there. And there shouldn't be any problem getting there.
That should basically make this side ours.
Now for the rockets.
...OK, that 3 HP tank is moderately scary, but it has a surplus of options.
At some point, I'm going to catch up to this sub.
Some of my landers are planning on an assault in this direction. Honestly, given the rockets, it's not really that good an idea.
Given the ships running out of ammo, this is probably a unit I want handy.
Oh gods these Rockets only get worse.
But they can't shoot me as I claim this! This will help immensely to swing the tides towards my favour.
Although this will probably be a more useful tool for that purpose.
No idea what's going on here, honestly. That tank has hung around for quite a long time.
Crippling that gunboat before it shoots at me. I'd rather repair my battleship over finishing it, though.
Right now, we need to smash that meteor and do something about those rockets.
Given their positioning, this might be easier said than done.
The ships are going to try and get some pressure on the coast. No Battleships in range, I don't think.
Some more Rockets ought to help keep up the pressure.
And a Battleship. Although hopefully I won't need it when it finally arrives.
Given this tank is still ankle-biting, I might.
Of course it's still finding all the annoying spaces. Although I'm sure I can start pushing soon.
...You know, just abandon the Mech and let these battleships shoot at the real units up north.
I did at least capture this city in the end.
Loading some units up in a new lander.
Right, that's enough out of you.
And that's some stats siphoned from Tabitha and given to me.
The time for hanging back is past. I need to break through this meteor now.
And more Rockets are going to be quite the ticket to doing that.
I take the chance to get rid of this sub, making a landing with Will. A little risky? Yeah. But next turn...
Things do not exactly go well for Tabitha. She does do a good job of blocking me, though.
And whatever this is.
Right. This is what this front is looking like. All I need is to hit those rockets somehow.
A little easier said than done, mostly because of these wastelands in front of the meteor. That's the biggest issue with trying to push through this chokepoint.
One rocket down. That War Tank is going to be a problem, though.
I pull Will back, joining him. I'm going to want to not lose him at all costs.
So I set up a bit of bait for anyone that tries damaging him.
More properties for me, less properties for her. Both are pretty good to have at hand.
Some more War Tanks, because I think the ones in the brink are going to see some dents.
This lander is going to have some issues with the ferry. I think most of our units are going to be built on the island.
Hey, the Lander is there. Might as well.
Mech also knocks this one off, because I'm not wasting a Battleship salvo on it.
Landers are in a bit of a mess right now.
...Meep. Tabitha has boarded that War Tank. Also my war tanks are much more crippled than I had intended.
Well, we're going to need to unload as much as we can here.
This Mech is also planning on making himself useful somehow.
Whether this one is doing the same is its own question.
These Rockets have a really nice position.
This inf will go and hide a bit of a ways back.
Well, best to minimise the number of opponents.
This is the part where that patch of Wasteland gets absolutely nightmarish. I couldn't get Will any further back than this.
Good luck finishing that.
Help is here!
...Nah, not happening.
This poor Mech is getting so bullied.
At least it's helping itself.
Rocket went for the cruiser. That's much better than the alternatives!
Mech's done for.
Fortunately, Will lived. But that's Tabitha in the range shadow...
At least these rockets can hit it.
...This extra radius might come in handy.
Cleaning up and pulling back.
...
Excellent.
I also merge the cruisers for cash.
And that's enough out of you.
Now things can get more aggressive.
This battleship is even squeezing in with a pincer attack!
Bye bye, buddy.
...Not sure where that Battleship is going. East was probably faster, wasn't it?
Now is the time to build more War Tanks, when the push is on this side.
Bye bye, you poor mech. You served well.
The advance is going to be a bit slow, but I think we have the foothold.
Particularly when we can get some good licks in on anything in range.
I've also got a rocket trained on that base, so we should be able to take it.
Here's something to make sure Tabitha doesn't throw up any surprises.
This is where I want the Temp Port. Might be a bit late for that, though.
Well, that's mildly irritating. Not much to be done there, we'll live.
I decide this is the time to fire Rally Cry. It's another of those cases where the movement bonus is as important, if not moreso, than the firepower.
What I'm doing is having the rear infantry start capturing the Factory, rather than the injured one.
Now that there's nothing in its way, we'll be able to win in pretty short order.
These units feel somewhat superfluous.
That War Tank got distance. Thank you, Rally Cry.
Having +2 move Infantry is so hilarious, and honestly more entertaining to me when using Sami than the capture buff. Will might just have been the CO to swallow Sami's role as well as Max's.
That lander is going to be annoying, though.
Sure, why not, more money.
That is basically the most annoying move left to Tabitha. Standing on the HQ and hitting my most vulnerable unit. She only knocks off four HP.
And it is quickly and handily resolved.
Hm... you know, I spot an opportunity here.
Let's just win this next turn.
Can't block this, but there is nothing with any sort of firepower capable of interrupting that capture, let alone able to reach the infantry.
Mech and damaged inf decide to get started on these, just in case.
Oh hey, there's also a gunboat down there. I'm sure someone will care.
...Huh. Lander had an actual payload, too. So much for that.
And some more overkill for the road.
Credit where credit is due, I think that is a pretty accurate assessment of how things went. Then again, the AI just really isn't equipped to make a decent naval landing.
You even had reinforcements Caulder called off. I can only imagine completing this map with the Owl going off the whole time.
Still, a win is a win. Until we tell Will what happened to allow it.
Well, those are some nice scores. The speed kinda stings, though, I thought I did pretty well on that front.
That's one way of putting it. Although I'm sure having units get damaged by the Owl induced enough casualties, given that units are supposed to be groups and not just singulars.
That is a lot of War Tanks I built there. Unit diversity is good, but sometimes there is a problem solver.
So yeah, "costly victory"? We lost four units.
Well, that didn't take long. Will went right to her.
That makes one of us, it seems. I'm just saying, Dr. Morris, but the most insecure part of camp was wherever Isabella happened to be.
With the evidence that stands, this is a reasonable conclusion. And it's almost true- Isabella chose to leave based on the faulty information she had to work with, and we don't know she was given said information.
The conclusion we draw about why is way off, though, and that's going to shape what exactly we do about it.
Or rather, what Will does about it.
Oh look, it's our resident antagonist throwing around stones as usual. Can't even stick to the one story about whose fault this is, can you?
And whose fault do you think that is, man who rendered this entire fight all for nothing without telling anyone? Tensions are high enough with men like Greyfield and Caulder throwing gasoline on the fire as it is, we don't need anyone stoking the forge.
At some point, Brenner needed to put his foot down and do something about this asshole. Because he didn't, this is where we've wound up. And now Will is the one who needs to figure out how to fix that.
Which of these troops are yours? You only brought civilians.
...The worst part is, it's not exactly like this is without precedent, at least from an outsider's perspective. Will may look like an untrained kid, but he did attend a military academy before the meteors and has at least a pre-existing grasp of the basics. Even without the fact that Mayor openly carries about a selfish agenda, I'd trust Will, who knows what a good commander should look like, over a man who only knows "good leadership" by what serves him best.
When was the last time you touched base with your electorate, anyway? It's getting real hard to be sure of that when the voices of those people are silent.
While the Mayor has been left to bluster on his own, Will has decided to take matters into his own hands and... quit.
Lin acknowledges that she's been on both sides of the argument here. In both cases, the person advocating for leaving has been driven by their emotions and pushing for the safety of someone else. Although whether Lin recognises that her attempts to keep Will out of harm's way are more or less the same feelings that drive Will to bring Isabella back are running on similar instincts is its own matter.
Lin tells him that she will swallow her pride and take the "hypocritical" approach if it means giving the Mayor a win. He doesn't deserve to even pretend.
Don't worry about that part. Will knows not to give that particular opinion any weight.
What he has taken from this was that his instincts don't direct him the way his people need.
His decision to protect Isabella was selfish, not just denying Caulder something he wanted. And he knows that, next time, it might not end the same way.
And Lin acknowledges Will is taking a very uncharacteristic approach by thinking of this sort of thing.
Will's reaction is, more or less, to point out that he's at least noticed that approaching the problem with "what would Brenner do" has not turned out the way he wanted.
What he's missed was that Brenner's decisions turned out badly when Brenner made them, too.
Remember how Lin wanted you in command to prevent her from abandoning everybody? You're putting a lot of faith in Lin's "good sense".
I wonder who Lin's second choice in patsy is, given Isabella is also gone.
I don't think there was any question of that.
Lin already writing him off as dead from that alone. Although I don't think Will's going to do much to a tank, let alone a bomber.
Well, that's a worrying sign in a kid. The fact he's willing to put his life on the line for Isabella is something that's going to be at least heartening for her, but we should sit him down and talk about the "life on the line" bit once she gets back.
Lin reckons that, all other things being equal, this is something the kid's gotta do, and it's best if she stepped back and let him get on with it.
Anyway, speaking of, how's Isabella doing now that she's in Caulder's custody?
I don't think it's up to you what she thinks of you, Caulder.
Well, glad to know that much, at least, is to your liking.
...Gesundheit? Caulder's had like three reasons for making and/or coveting Isabella in the course of this chapter, it's getting way too hard to determine what he is and isn't lying about.
Arguably, this might be more ethical than experimenting on rats. But still, when you can hear the screams of pain from what you're experimenting on, you should probably ask yourself what exactly it is you're doing here a second time.
Isabella, having just been told "you're not wanted [with the Wolves]", promptly gets told she's not wanted here, either. I can imagine no greater recipe for depression of the worst kind.
Now back to Will, promptly proving that Lin was wrong to let him go off on his own unattended.
Fortunately, Will is saved from himself by the arrival of someone who may be able to point him in a more productive direction.
Cyrus's response to Will's question is this complete non-answer that proves, while Cyrus does have a mite more intelligence about the Wolves than I'd like, it's hardly up-to-date knowledge. At least they don't have a bug on us.
Now, once again, the question Will actually asked- who are you, and why should Will trust you?
...Not the most encouraging of answers. Perhaps that explains why he tried to be more reassuring the first time around.
Didn't help him any, but it was worth a try.
Cyrus, please answer the questions asked. Just say you actually figured out a moral compass and don't try to act like this is anything different. It's not like Will understands Caulder's brain.
Next time: We'll see about that, boy.
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