Taylor didn't pass out for long, she wasn't that lucky. She must have blacked out briefly, because she was suddenly lying on the ground, a burning line of agony across her side and back that radiated pain in waves.

Her mind was blanking, she'd been shot! Shot! Gunshots were lethal and every bit of first aid she'd ever learned had fled her mind. Every thud of her heart sent new waves of agony across her back. It was all she could to lay on the ground, enduring it.

Her mask drones hit her face, the smooth padded surface covering her face with its comforting touch. The camera drones flashed into her vision and she knew where the rest of her swarm was, the multi-tasking her power granted apparently wasn't diminished by panic.

She saw herself laying on the dirty street, half-covered with her glowing white armour drones, the rest arriving in a long tail across the city, all the way over from the lab. She braced herself and rolled over; the pain was bad enough that her vision darkened briefly and everything went far away.

She had a brief glimpse of her back, a long bloody streak on her clothes before the armour drones covered it completely.

This was good. Taylor had poured time, energy and loving attention to detail in Myriad's armour. Nothing had been spared to protect her squishy body, defence in depth was the watchword. The drones on the inside recognized the wound and in reaction, without prompting, they clamped down to put pressure and reduce the bleeding.

Her camera drones, part of the large swarm flying across the city gave her a bit of warning, but not much. None of Myriad's drones were even camouflaged and it had attracted a lot of attention. Dauntless was deviating from his patrol to investigate and he was fast.

There was a flash of white light and a figure crashed down from the sky, a column of white light shining from his boots and shield, with a bolt of lighting in his other hand. Dauntless landed nearly on top of Taylor, pointing his Arclance directly at Hookwolf, who continued laying on the ground.

"Are you all right?" he asked, without taking his eyes from the Empire. The regular thugs were starting to move again, a taser was a very temporary form of paralysis. One starting running, still wobbly on his feet, but one of Taylor's drones swooped in and he collapsed.

"I've been shot," Myriad gasped out. "My back."

Dauntless immediately spoke into the radio inside his helmet, reporting his status and Myriad's injury, but then Taylor saw Dauntless hesitate, in third person from multiple viewpoints. Why was he hesitating, she'd been shot!

"I'm going to have to move you, it's too dangerous to stay. This will hurt." Dauntless tried to place his hands under Taylor's body but failed, her armour drones in their shields refused to budge an inch.

Taylor used her visor to command the drones to allow themselves to be moved and the pain as Dauntless yanked her was so severe she passed out briefly, the next thing she knew she was in the air, flying ludicrously fast.

Her mind was still spinning wildly in panic, but there was some solace to be found in her drones. She sent a camera drone over to watch her dad with orders to ping her if anyone suspicious approached him, another to watch their house. As Dauntless carried her away she watched the PRT finally arrive, alongside Armsmaster and Assault. They cautiously approached the alleyway and Taylor ordered all her remaining visible drones to disperse back to her lab.

The PRT quickly secured the regular gang members, but for some reason Assault was fussing around Hookwolf's neck. He suddenly tore open Hookwolf's shirt and started slamming down on the exposed chest with his full strength, ripping the skin and exposing the naked metal, which rang like a bell but did not yield at all.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no...

Taylor's armour drones were floating in the air in a swarm, outside the PRT building. People walking nearby kept giving them nervous glances. She was still wearing her mask of course. She needed it, not just to protect her identity, but to give her something to focus on outside her situation, a means of control.

"You're very lucky," the doctor at the small PRT hospital was telling Myriad. "The bullet just grazed your back muscle, the latissimus dorsi, and nicked a rib. You've also got a nasty powderburn. We cleaned the wound and gave you a tetanus shot, but there's always a chance of infection. If you notice any discoloration or swelling... "

It wasn't luck, Taylor had felt the gun being pressed sideways. But it turned out having a gun pressed flat against your back and firing wasn't exactly getting off scot-free.

He kept on talking, explaining the many and varied ways in which her future was going to suck. The dressing needed to be changed often, after a while the stitches would need to be removed, she had to take a course of antibiotics. She couldn't do any physical labour for weeks, and yes that included cape fights.

A long treatment regime without a hope of hiding her injury.

Taylor had spent most of the hours at the hospital going to pieces. She had killed Hookwolf and every time she thought back or even looked at her taser drones, she felt her breath getting short and her vision narrow again.

It was an accident, a quirk of her drone's programming. They hadn't even been wrong. If they hadn't taken Hookwolf down, he would have killed Taylor, without a doubt. The justifications made themselves but they did nothing, nothing at all, to make her feel better.

The temptation to keep doing that, spin around in circles like her drones, was very very tempting.

But no.

Lord Doom was always a step ahead of everybody, always had a plan. Taylor had failed in this case, obviously, terribly so. Failed to the point where she was forced to kill. She needed to be stronger, better. This needed to never happen again. She gathered her thoughts and opened the relevant programs in her mask.

She had about half an hour before Miss Militia arrived, judging by what she heard on the radio of the PRT officer outside her room. And then she needed a strategy going forward.

"I'm sorry this happened," Miss Militia said. "The city can be a very cruel place. You will have to come down to our office to make a statement about what happened, but don't worry about that right now. There's plenty of time and you can rest and get home first. I have some questions though that can't wait. Are you feeling strong enough for that?"

"Yes," Taylor said.

"It looks like you were attacked out of costume. Is that right? Do you know how they found you?"

They weren't telling her Hookwolf was dead yet. Was it some kind of police trick to get her to slip up? "Yeah, I was waiting for the bus I take to my lab. Hookwolf said their people in the area noticed me coming to my lab."

"That's good news. It means they probably don't know your name and address, just your face. It's probably okay to go back home, but we'd like to put an unmarked police car near your house, just to be safe. You'd have to give us your address, but I would really recommend it. The Empire is a violent group of people with very few scruples."

"That's fine. I want to join the Wards, so you'll know my identity anyway, right?"

Miss Militia actually looked surprised, but she recovered admirably. "I definitely think that's a good choice, especially for staying safe, but I just want to make sure you're not commiting to something you'll regret later. I'll give you the standard contract and guidebook to take home and discuss with your guardian. Nothing is set in stone until you and your guardian both agree."

"OK," Taylor said. "But can I already set up an appointment to come in and sign? I'm not going to feel safe again until I'm a full Wards member, I want to get it done as soon as possible. I'm sure my dad will agree."

The guilt of lying to Miss Militia, who had honestly been nothing but helpful from the start, stabbed at Taylor, but she had no alternative. The next few days were going to be rough and full of improvisation, but she had a plan and it needed to be carried out.

Well, so be it. Some of her best work as Lord Doom had been the result of improvisation.

"You still need to make a statement and normally joining the Wards is a process involving a few meetings, especially because you're a Tinker, but I can call in a few favours and we can schedule them back to back on Saturday afternoon. Does that work for you?"

It fit with Taylor's schedule. Tight, but manageable. "Yes. Thank you so much."

That gave her just above 50 hours. Her problem wasn't staying safe or even protecting her dad, between her many camera drones she felt certain she could manage to notice an attack by the Empire before it came to pass. At least in the short-term. She wouldn't be surprised again like that.

No, her real problem was the four E88 skinheads currently in PRT holding cells. Her camera drones had obligingly followed them all the way from the alleyway into a PRT vehicle, into the processing center, where they endured what looked like a remarkably uncomfortable search process, and finally into their individual windowless concrete cells.

In what surprised Taylor, the PRT people interrogating them honestly had her safety as their main concern. They kept on trying to figure out how the thugs identified Myriad and planned the ambush. But to say they weren't cooperating with the PRT would be an understatement. Three of them were sullenly refusing to say anything. The fourth had tried to spit on the officers before being taken back to his cell with more force than was probably justified.

The Empire thugs took their wall of silence thing seriously, which was working out remarkably well for Taylor right now.

But in a maximum of 48 hours they'd be charged with a crime, they'd see their lawyers. Maybe the lawyers would blab to the E88, maybe the thugs get bail, or maybe they'd get visitors. But it was certain they would do their best to tell what happened to the Empire and that would be a disaster for Taylor.

Right now the Empire didn't even know Hookwolf was dead, all they could reasonably know was that their ambush had failed due to the Protectorate interfering, and perhaps they could guess that there was a new Ward in the making.

And the Empire certainly did not yet know the fact Taylor had revealed out of desperation, that Myriad and Lord Doom were one and the same.

The solution was simple. By the time those thugs were out of isolation there must not be an Empire for them to report back to.