Titanfall 21

"Yellow diamonds in the light!" Taylor twisted through the steps as Rhianna sang. The lyrics weren't much, but she was only interested in the beat. For this exercise it was that, or one of the other popular, some would say earworm, tunes of the last year or so.

The other girls had paused, or glided to a stop, watching as they came in the large studio/gym at the penthouse. "We fell in love in a hopeless place" blasted out across the studio and the girls slowly turned their heads to Amy and then looked at the boys who were frozen watching. Even the out gay boys.

Taylor was glowing, like some etiquette writer of a bygone era's dream, horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow. Taylor proved the adage. She was in a white sports bra, a comparatively tiny one, and a pair of yoga shorts, thin, low cut, and tiny but totally obscuring. Neither article of clothing really needed to be sheer, as they appeared to be body paint they were so form fitting. She was stunning, for even the straight girls. She was also lost in the song and her routine. A routine which was stunning itself, it just needed a pole between all the drops, dives, slides, splits, twice, and what looked like twerking but was her apparently repeating getting her rear just below the edge of an imaginary window or wall as she worked her way around a square or rectangle only she could see.

Vicky looked at Amy with the widest grin she had ever worn. Amy put her flaming face in her hands. The girls closed ranks around her giggling.

Taylor finished in the splits on the floor with her upper body bowed back, like she was ducking under a low sword swing, nearly parallel with her left leg and her shoulder blades nearly touching it. No part of her was left to the imagination at that point. She came to herself and blushed after looking at the others, then she popped to her feet in some kind of impossibly athletic move of pulling her feet into a wide V then together. The girls looked at Amy with arched brows. Amy blushed again. Which drew head shakes.

Missy broke the spell "Holy fuck! We just won. Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Won what?" Taylor asked.

"Everything." Missy replied, slightly breathless. She looked at Taylor's flaming blush getting deeper. "Oh fuck me, you're body shy like Amy aren't you, you didn't even realize we were here. You have no idea that you are maybe the hottest girl in town, maybe on the east coast. Amy has never been anything but cute as a button and has always had a great figure as well. Fuck, my life. This would be easier if you were an exhibitionist, then I could just make you wear clothes that hid you. Fine, we can deal, I'll book some places and we will put on a lot of shows."

Taylor frowned "How is that going to help?"

"It will get you to realize those people aren't going to touch you. Not unless they want to go through Amy." Everyone turned and looked at Amy. Taylor squawked as she caught Amy and got her face inhaled. Vicky and Crystal wiped imaginary tears, well, they might have been imaginary. Vicky looked suspiciously over joyed though. The team mobbed the pair.

Missy sighed "Except your teammates apparently. OK break it up, everyone stretch, Taylor come here, she held out a set of pointe shoes. Taylor took the shoes and felt things moving around in them. "Toe spacers. Amy thinks your bones are good so we are going to start, and then go quick."

BT told her "I have reviewed the relevant materials. I think we can use some of these techniques, this will be interesting." Using the neural net.

Taylor snorted and replied to both of them "Fine, but I am not doing only this, no matter if I look like a bird in flight or whatever. And no tutus."

Missy grinned "Dennis told you about those shows on Netflix didn't he? Have you seen any of us running around in tutus in school? We might wear one for a performance but they actually help, keep your butt covered and further the illusion. Or can be used to tease a bit. The history of them is really, sort of, sordid. In the underwear was crotchless back in the day way. Plus, you are going to need something Babe. If you dance in that, like that, the shows will be R rated at least. We put someone else in the choreo and you are going to get an X. Shells and skirts are bad enough for spirit days, freeze your butt off. Now sit down and let's get you in these. It will take a while to break them in and the easy ways are some techniques that will help get you ready for pointe work."

Taylor frowned "Spirit days? I have to wear one of those cheerleader suits? Wait today is a spirit day!"

"Those abs and boobs? Dat ass? Dem stems?" Missy grinned at her "Probably not a crop body suit, the teachers would lose their minds with the kids not able to pay attention. Maybe when you are a little more adventurous, for the spring sports, and Disney of course."

"I have to cheer?" Missy rolled her eyes.

Amy meanwhile was going down a line of dancers who had flopped on the floor and put their feet in the air looking at her expectantly. She snorted and grabbed the first ankle she came to. She looked at the guys "Well get down there as well, Girls aren't the only ones who do pointe work."

Vicky and Crystal jumped to the floor and stuck their feet up at the end of the line of boys. Amy gave them each a slap on the calf. She had already done enhancements to them. Their diets showed it if nothing else. Crystal had gotten her wish, she could, and did, eat anything. Amy was using the same carbon reinforcing thing on the dancers. The freshmen girls were just getting old enough to start point work, only a couple had been judged to have hard enough bones to start by their doctors before now.

Amy went through the rest of the work out with everyone else, an easy one for this first get together, aside from Taylor and Vicky who were working pretty hard, Taylor to learn, Vicky to get back in the groove. Vicky wanted her principle dancer slot back. Co-captain with Missy if she could arrange it. Amy was humming and occasionally singing 'we fell in love in a hopeless place. The girls were grinning at her.

Titanfall

Danny stuck his head in the studio and blinked "Uh, BT?"

"I have two drones on the way to the store Danny as well as two more joining the normal staff. The baths of both VIP suites are prepared.

"There is apparently a Cheer and Dance parents group that shares cost. They get deals on both food and clothing. I have taken the liberty of contacting them using your name via email."

Danny nodded "And when we aren't here anymore? I mean Taylor could use the gym here but the rooms are booked right?"

"I have made some changes to the design of the basement and house. It will be fine. Taking it all the way to the lot line was beneficial. The young people are apparently used to communal shower facilities and changing areas, Locker rooms. I have put in two."

"And under the street, Jorgensen's house, the street on his side. I've stepped it off, and unless you are like Vista you aren't fooling anyone. And if they are gay?"

"They are going to have to work it out on their own, as they have in the past Danny. Most of this group has been together for years now. I do not think it will be a problem."

"Okay. We'll see. I'll go supervise breakfast."

"The coffee is brewing and the flat screens tuned to Channel five."

Titanfall

Amy glared at Song Kim. Taylor huffed and pulled her chair at the island where they were eating closer with a foot. "What?" She asked across the neural net.

Amy growled then answered in the same way "Little Hussy was sticking her face in your hoo hoo, or as close as she could get, back when you said she was. The only reason she went out is because of you! I thought she was going to eat you alive when you were in that towel dealing with your hair! I'm not even going to talk about her squeezing the shower gel bottle so hard shower gel hit the ceiling when you stepped out of that shower stall!"

"So she went out for the team for a girl who wasn't on the team, or even in the school, at the time, her tiger mom putting her in ballet when she was two had nothing to do with it." Taylor snarked a bit in the net.

"I know!"

Taylor waited patiently. She got no glimmer of Amy even acknowledging the sarcasm. She smiled hugely. Amy was on fire with jealousy. Then she sobered, Amy was on fire with jealousy and had the ability to make Song a human torch. The plan was right there in her head, on the neural net, something. Plus, there was some choreography that had Song being the younger sister as they danced out something like the little match girl. It would be a tear jerker. Of course as the older dead sister, or mom, maybe aunt, fairy godmother? Anyway Taylor was supposed to do several lifts and get used like a climbing frame by the hyper excited to see her again protagonist of the piece, Song Kim. The Operator fan club president, or dictator, of Arcadia. Who apparently had a huge crush and looked at the internet way too much. She was probably the illustrator? Author? Anyway she probably did most of the risqué outfits on the dress up app. She at least knew where they were. She had already done every possible cheer and dance uniform on the app. Taylor sighed.

BT said "With great power comes great responsibility."

"Spider-Man? At breakfast? Really? And the power to hypnotize a girl in puberty is your fault, you gave Amy the blueprints for Operator. You turn your psyops programming on and give me a plan to deal with this without Song Kim becoming a torch, or a frog, or Amy going to the Birdcage!" Everyone perked up when Gangnam Style started playing from phones and thin solid surfaces. Taylor mentally arched a brow.

BT sighed "Fine." Gangnam style finished and Call Me Maybe came up. Taylor started mentally tapping her foot with her fist on her hips.

BT was dealing with Dragon snickering in the background and not paying attention. Dragon outright laughed when Taylor lit into him.

Danny watched knowing something was happening but he waited patiently. The kids left in a swirling herd and he looked at the drone that normally accompanied him "So?"

"The Advocate is jealous of one of the potential partners for Operators dances."

"Wow, formal titles, your life sucks my friend."

"As Dragon has gleefully informed me."

"Teased her about Armsmaster didn't you?"

"Unfortunately."

"Well come on then, we'll talk on the way to work. It will probably work out, maybe start looking for a group of healers that can turn whichever girl back from a frog, or is it a toad. I can never tell the difference. Henni is afraid of Amy too. No idea why, she wouldn't do that. Hey did you ever investigate Bonesaw? If you found her, maybe she could do it? Of course you would have to reprogram her." Danny grinned.

"I will have her localized soon. I have Heartbreaker localized."

The grin slid off Danny's face "No distracting." He got a determined look "So how long a road trip is it? I mean overnight or what? No wait, you deal with the Advocate first. Barbara and Lacey might have some advice, we will have to propose it as a hypothetical though. Maybe get Kurt to do it."

Titanfall

"Emily, is there something you want to tell us?"

Emily blinked at the camera on the 1300 daily conference call "Uh, no?"

The Director from Jasper snorted "Let me show you a picture." A image came on the screen of what was obviously Bonesaw strapped on the back of a Clark Bot like it was a pack mule, Its centaur like portion was upright with a cowboy hat and vest on. It was also wearing a gun belt with a pair of tied down wingman elites in holsters and a familiar looking rifle across its back, a wildly outsize rifle. It had obviously just come from an altercation, it was fairly scuffed up. "This Clark bot wandered through town this morning. Just after dawn, right past the coffee shop. Please note the spurs. The videos have sound, you can hear them jingling. Nice boots."

Emily sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose "I have no idea."

Jasper nodded "Just wondering where to send the bounty actually. We back trailed it and found the Nine, or five of them, scattered over a hundred miles of back road. Along with Doctor Manton. He might have been the target of their attack actually, the Clark Bot apparently interrupted them. Crawler couldn't survive a maser, or several, evidence points to several of the ball drones, we think, and some kind of ball drone we haven't seen before, it's a plasma bomb it looks like. Somewhere around ten kilotons yield. Bit over kill, but hey, it got the job done and didn't leave radiation traces, just glass. Some of it is really pretty. Probably got a tourist attraction between the glass patches and the shadow things, like Hiroshima, on vertical surfaces. It's a county road so the government is happy. We thought it was a thunderstorm out in the badlands. He was the last of them, the first we got to. About thirty miles from town.

"Wendigo got her medicine men, and women, and forted up on the reservation and we can't get them to come out. They want assurances the Horse Spirit won't turn the sun on them."

"We lost the trail of the Clark Bot as well, thought you should know."

'Rebecca' Meredith nodded "That accounts for the known living members of the Nine, Burnscar, Shatter Bird, Jack, Hatchet Face, and Mannequin. The Siberian is the only one unaccounted for."

Emily chuckled ruefully "Aside from Bonesaw. Who is in the hands of a psychological warfare specialist?"

Director Armstrong cleared his throat "Who already has contact with Panacea. Perhaps he sees some synergy. Besides, if he isn't successful I can't think of anywhere better for Bonesaw to be. Or anything better to happen to her. If she makes a move on Panacea, or Operator, I suspect we will never see her again. Someone else will get a new tourist attraction."

Emily gaped at him "You are proposing leaving a twelve year old in the hands of a killing machine."

"Alleged killing machine, looking back over the records BT has not killed anyone, neither has Operator."

Tagg of all people spoke up next "Those psyops people are monsters. You can't leave a child in his care. Alleged care."

Director Heathrow shrugged "We left her in the care of the Nine for six years. I think we can wait until Emily can make the appropriate enquiries?"

Emily tapped her ear "BT?"

Everyone heard "Director Piggot? How may I help you?"

"Did you take Bonesaw and eliminate the Nine?"

"I require Bonesaw, or Riley, as an instrument to a backup plan of some urgency. An individual, female, black and white stripes, naked, ninety eight percent match to the Siberian, objected. I was forced to kill her master. The remainder of the group he was following, the Slaughter House Nine, though there were only seven of them total, objected to both. They unsuccessfully pressed their objection."

Director Tagg asked sharply "So you executed them?"

"All of the persons I engaged were subject to kill orders. Though in the case of the Siberian it will possibly require further adjudication as she was a projection of Dr. Manton's master ability."

Emily had her head in her hands "And you have video no doubt?"

"Full evidentiary procedures were followed Director, I am sending the unedited footage to the Liaison now."

Emily typed rapidly on a separate laptop while asking "And Bonesaw?"

"Will be reeducated."

"Programmed to be a BT bomb you mean!" Tagg sprayed spittle at the screen.

"I still require her as the backup."

Meredith muted everyone else "Backup to what BT?"

Twenty minutes later, with Tagg confined to M/S procedures and his deputy sitting in, Meredith summarized "So Panacea is dating Taylor Hebert. They have both joined a dance team, there is a girl on the team that is infatuated with Operator and is using Taylor Hebert as a stand in for her, as are most of the people on the internet. You judged that Panacea would take steps if the girl was to press her case too far. You went off and got the only bio tinker your research told you might be able to restore the girl, Bonesaw. In order to mitigate the damage and keep Panacea out of the Birdcage."

"Correct Chief Director."

It was Meredith's turn to pinch the bridge of her nose "And it never occurred to you to talk to Operator about any of this? In fact she is at pract- erh, the range."

The answer came slowly "Correct Chief Director. However Lacey and Barbara both said they would turn whoever tried to get their romantic partner to betray them inside out. Or some other things that would be impossible to correct without parahuman intervention. Panacea has the ability and Bonesaw could undo it. Panacea is required for the health and stability of Operator. I could retrieve her from the Birdcage should she decide to allow herself to be put there, however it would be impolitic."

"Lacey Chabet, the former Lustrum enforcer?" Rebecca, Alexandria, arched a brow.

Director Armstrong snorted "I think we can skip the dissimulation, we are the leadership of the PRT and Protectorate, I think everyone has figured out Taylor Hebert is Operator. This is the downside of Become One, I think. The issue is how do we deal with this? Glenn is going to have a hell of press release to write.

"Next Bonesaw needs to be evaluated, your prognosis and treatment plan discussed with experts we know, before you just deprogram, then reprogram, the child. If in fact she can be considered a child in the expert's opinion. Not that we don't trust you after Yamada's endorsement, but this is Bonesaw we are talking about. Next if she is going to stay under your control, Emily will have to come up with some kind of way to get her in the Wards.

"Finally, the award on the Nine is in the middle nine digit range, that won't stay unknown. You are going to have a press problem."

"I'll resign first. BT has her, she is Operators problem, with supervision of course." Emily announced firmly. The meeting took off again with sixty eight directors or their deputies along with the associated Protectorate leadership, all trying to be heard.

Titanfall

Carol and Sarah looked at Legend, Alexandria and Rebecca Costa Brown. Danny still had his face in his hands and his shoulders were still shaking. Carol snapped "This is the farthest thing from funny! Her father is Marquis!"

Danny lifted his head "So you raising her doesn't win out over her genes? What rock have you been hiding under? You all have that Master Stranger thing Taylor told me about too. They haven't suddenly demanded her incarceration, which, I am given to understand, they have done a few times in other cases. They are PRT associates after all. I don't think Amy is going to act on any of those ideas, plus Taylor would stop her, she is already going to stop her when she gets over being thrilled about it anyway, since they can see into each other's heads, probably. Nobody wants an insanely jealous partner right? How Amy thinks she is hiding it I don't know. They are good kids. They are growing up. It happens."

Sarah nodded "Danny is right Carol. Hopefully Amy gets the message when Taylor gives it the first time or two, Remember how hard it was to deal with jealous boyfriends? I'm hoping jealous girlfriends are, smarter, maybe?"

Legend frowned "Not that I ever noticed, at least not in the community in my lifetime."

Alexandria sighed "So we are spending millions of dollars and hours of time on teen drama."

Emily shrugged "Wards, not the first time parahumans have had personal issues. They will survive. I would be willing to bet they would survive without our, or your, intervention BT.

"That's all water under the bridge, spilt milk, whatever you want to call it. Thankfully that Operator drone was on the video, albeit in the background on a rooftop, and Taylor was in front of a whole school of witnesses. Who can only talk about her making the Cheer and Dance squad, some quite snidely. According to the Wards, how did she get a cheer shell and skirt that fast? Never mind, it's probably level four and the sequins shoot masers. Do not make the pom poms wingmen. We need to discuss you bomb drones as well.

"How did you pull that video off, the technical people tell me that is real unedited footage? Can they fly? Or do you have more than one? If anything this solidifies her identity. Now, who is Bone- erh, Riley going to live with?"

All the parents spluttered and waved their hands palm out. Danny got a look and stopped. "BT can you, uh, fix her? I mean this is a little girl who has been traumatized for years?"

"I would prefer not discussing operational details Director. I can reprogram her Danny. It could be as simple as downloading her and wiping Bonesaw during the process." BT announced.

Dragon blinked in the monitor she was appearing in "You actually could couldn't you?"

"The wipe would be a bit imprecise, it might take some of her memories from just before her encounter with the Nine. Say from three to six months before."

Legend nodded "And a story could be crafted that she was a survivor who triggered in a joint trigger with Bonesaw but was in a coma until Bonesaw met her demise at the hands of BT, then it could go anywhere Glenn's imagination takes it."

Danny shook his head "Taylor isn't going to let you make BT a child killer."

The group looked at BT who did his rolling nod in the ball drone "Correct, Operator is at some pains to avoid killing at all."

Sarah chimed in "Thank you God."

Alexandria shrugged "Sham trial, fake Birdcaging, or real trial and remanding her to Operators custody so she can work off her debt, the Othala model."

Jessica Yamada spoke up from her monitor "As a last resort that plan works, with refinements, or as the base of a refined plan. First we need to try more traditional methods. We should know fairly quickly if they work or not. She is in the room next to Svetas. The same people who paid for that hermetically sealed, armored, environment, paid for a backup. I will work with Riley. BT you are welcome to assist as you have a growing presence at the sanitarium."

Meredith nodded "I'll assign a strike team, three maybe, to the sanatorium. It has needed more attention for a while. I'm not worried about her escaping so much as people's reactions should it become known who Riley is. They can patrol the edges of the grounds and not appear inside the property except in emergencies."

Dragon nodded "BT and I can fake a coma victim story. It works either way really as this is not going to be instantaneous and she was unconscious when last seen."

BT sighed, they all blinked "The Advocate will need to prepare Bonesaw to be Riley, she has made several modifications to herself. Some of them are, dangerous to others, failsafe's and things of that nature. She also has genetic material other than her own stored in her person."

Danny shook his head "It never rains but it pours."

"I fail to understand what table salt has to, oh."

Dragon blinked "Is your cooling functioning properly BT?"

"Yes, plus, I am bringing another server online now."

Titanfall

Sveta looked at the monitor, which contained a lost looking young girl's face. "So, Riley."

Bonesaw nodded "You are fascinating. Case 53?"

Sveta actually blushed. She looked at the pink ball drone floating in the corner of her space draped in tentacles. She huffed when it simply looked back.