The Secret Diary of Taylor Hebert! - May 23

Oh God. Today was a rollercoaster. My hands are shaking as I write this. I don't know whether to be overjoyed or appalled.

We finally did our mission to take down Coil. Grace came up with an infiltration plan. She'd contact Coil and tell him that she had a 'solution' for the Travelers, one that would help his secret plans too. I'd use my bugs to make sure he wasn't setting up an ambush for us. Then when Coil let us into his base, we'd set off a bomb and knock them all out.

That should have been my first clue something was up. There was no way Coil would fall for a simple trick like that, not with Dinah's precog power and his own secret power to back him up. But Grace was completely confident it would work. She refused to tell me the intricacies of her plan for 'operational security' reasons, but she told me "just play along and get ready to grab Dinah."

I hate it when Grace tries her crazy plans without telling me. Grace is smart, and her plans work, but she gets a little...overambitious, sometimes.

Anyway, we got to Coil's base. My bugs gave us the all clear. The Travelers were in a big open room, with their monstrous teammate Noelle sitting in the middle. Coil was on a metal walkway above us, with Dinah at his side.

Then came the first surprise. Coil said "A pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Phillips. I trust my supply shipments were satisfactory for your bomb-making ventures?"

I couldn't believe it! Grace had gotten the supplies to build her superbomb from Coil? She never told me!

Then Coil asked Dinah to tell him the numbers for Grace's plan. Dinah said "93.749284% chance the Travelers will be transported to a time and place where Noelle's power is inactive and they're within fifty miles of a portal to Earth Aleph. 91.478482% chance Coil will become the unopposed Dictator for Life of Brockton Bay."

I was shocked! Was Grace really helping Coil? Had she been on his side all along?

Then it happened. Grace winked at me, threw a bomb at the Travelers, and set off a second bomb in her hands.

Nothing seemed to happen at first, but then I realized what her bomb was doing. Everything around us was slowing down. Grace and I were protected by a shield effect, but the Travelers and Coil were being trapped in a bubble of frozen time!

At the last second, Dinah broke away from Coil and jumped off the metal walkway. She fell through the air in slow motion, like an angel descending from heaven, and I ran and caught her in my arms! It was amazing!

(Coil tried to jump too, but he was too slow and got frozen in mid-air. When he unfreezes he'll get a pair of broken ankles. Serves him right, the creep!)

Dinah was so glad to be safe. I swear it was a hundred and fifty baby kittens worth of heartwarming. She was hugging us and babbling about how happy she was that she'd get to go home again! Then Dinah and Grace high-fived to celebrate pulling off their secret plan to stop Coil and his pet S-class threat.

I asked Dinah how she'd lied to Coil about the numbers, but Dinah said she'd been telling the truth.

Grace explained everything. She said the source of parahuman powers will run out of energy in 3600 years and rip random holes between dimensions as it dies (how the hell does Grace know this stuff?). So Grace froze Noelle for 3666 years, so that she'd wake up cured of her power and next to a portal to Aleph.

Wow. Frozen in time for thousands of years. I wasn't sure the villains deserved that, but Grace insists that her bomb was a masterful ingenious nonviolent pacifist solution. I have to admit she's technically right...

I asked Dinah why her numbers said Coil would become the ruler of Brockton Bay. Dinah pointed to a hand-written placard she'd left on the metal walkway before she jumped, frozen in time with Coil. It said:

CITY OF BROCKTON BAY
DICTATOR FOR LIFE: COIL THE CANDY KING
FOUNDED IN THE YEAR 5677
POPULATION: 112

Grace read the placard and bust a gut. I seriously thought she was going to die, rolling around on the floor and cackling like a maniac. Then she high-fived Dinah and hugged her. She said "I'll have to remember that one, squirt."

I was smiling, too. Grace and I had taken down the last villains in Brockton Bay. My city was now a city of heroes! The ultimate triumph of heroism over evil! It was my greatest dream come true. And...

That was when I noticed the problem.

"Dinah." I said. "Why did you write 'population: 112'?"

"Oh, the bomb froze the whole base. There are 112 people frozen in there, Coil's guys."

My blood went cold. "Grace, did you just freeze a hundred people in time?"

Grace cursed. "Fuck! I screwed up the blast radius. I only wanted to get the capes."

"We...we have to tell someone. You can get them out, right? All those people...they're not trapped in there forever, are they?"

Grace looked guilty for a second, and then she grabbed me by the shoulders. "Taylor, I'm your friend, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"You trust me, right?"

I nodded.

"And I'm a fucking genius, right?"

I nodded.

"Then believe me, Taylor. I promise I'll find a way to unfreeze them and bring them to justice properly. Someday. Okay? Now let's get the hell out of here and take the squirt home."

I nodded, a little uncertainly. I took Dinah's hand and started for the exit.

That was when I noticed the other problem.

"Grace." I said. "Let me get this straight. You trapped Coil's entire base in a bubble of frozen time."

"Yeah."

"Except for us. We're safe inside this smaller bubble of normal time."

"Yeah."

"So how do we get out?"

Grace got real quiet for a minute. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs. "FUUUUUUCK!"

That was two hours ago.

We're still trapped in the time bubble. I will continue to make diary entries to document our attempts to escape. If we fail, then Coil and the Travelers will find my diary in the year 5677 and have a good laugh at our expense. Bastards.

Grace says that she is very very very sorry. She says that she won't use secret plans anymore. She says that she'll run all her plans by me from now on. Not that it'll do us much good, now.

FUUUUUUCK, indeed.

Grace. You're my best friend. You're a hero. You're super smart, and you're an inspiration to me. But sometimes...you're kind of a DUMBASS!