Haze Gray 16

Kayden looked at Tammi "What are you going to do?"

Tammi shrugged "Max is full of shit, Brad is worse, James is waiting on Max to fail so he can bring in his buddies and start the fifth reich. Jessica and Nessa aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Cricket is a phsyco and a follower. Othala can't see past Victors penis. None of them recognize that bullshit for what it is, hate that can be turned against them because they are different as well. I might be a little racist but that doesn't keep me from seeing misogynist." She sighed "I'm going to wait and see if something besides my nails decides to spark when I file them, or whatever. If it does I'm joining the fleet. If it doesn't, I may be a Mouseketeer? Did you look at that page?"

Kayden nodded "And Mouse Protector showed up." Rune blinked. Kayden chuckled "If you go to an Endbringer fight and she is there she will tag you or something of yours. Then when you least expect it Bam! There the crazy thing is. At least I hope that's how she does it. Anyway, she is a kanmusu nut besides having the job of talking to independents, or capes of suspected loyalties. They are putting on the full court press. I think she took that as a license to build a all female team. Allegedly Parian and Pelter were there at the dock today. If we aren't going to stay neutral or join the side of the angels, we had better stay out of it because the catch and release has already ended, was the impression I got, or was given.

"If Max decides to try the kanmusu on, and they don't kill him, I expect some seriously heavy hittters are going to show up. Unless of course there is an Endbringer attack and she proves ineffective.

"But she isn't alone anymore is she?"

Tammi nodded "See ya around." The man hole cover she was standing on lifted and she flew away. Kayden Anders, Purity, nodded, stepped back, opened, and closed the sliding door to her balcony after stepping through it.

She turned and looked at her stepson who was holding her daughter "Aster seemed to like the dock."

Theo nodded "Colorful and all that laughing and talking. Happy sounding maybe?"

Kayden grinned at him "And you? Was it happy sounding for you?"

"I have no idea how those people swim in it, it must be freezing. Half of those exhibits I had never seen before. I thought Lignum Vitae was just used to make expensive furniture. Who knew it was for making shaft bearings, pulleys for blocks, and mallets out of. Or what a belaying pin was?"

Purity laughed and shook her head. "And all those girls?" Theo blushed, she smiled and tousled his hair. "Watch your sister, I'll do the dishes." She didnt tell him she had seen him talking to the one girl more than once. She would have to put some effort into finding out who she was. She thought she had seen her a few other times. School probably.

Haze Gray

Taylor ran down Bay View as hard as she could and leapt from the street over the sidewalk past the beach and landed on the water as the sky finished lightening and the sun peeked over the horizon. She giggled at the tremendous dish she made in the water. Then she chased the two boats down and made them fast to their mooring balls again blushing a bit. These needed new mooring lines though. Did the owners not check them? Her radar had the others and they caught up as she finished. Vicky shouted, "Come on! Quick turn then we got to get ready for school!"

Taylor laughed and lit her number four turbine pouring on the fuel. She slalomed through the last of the boats in the ball field and settled in formation. She looked around and smiled at the Hawkeye orbiting "No wonder I can see Miami. The silencer works then?"

Leslie nodded "Shot the Hawkeye and Cap package when I came out my back door. Nobody heard a thing."

Amy smiled "Except you know Hawkeye, and Phttt phttt Tomcat!"

Taylor asked "Where do you guys live, we can meet someplace else in the mornings if its easier?"

Leslie shook her head "Out in the developments past captains Hill. Pretty much a straight shot for us to the boardwalk. Then over here to you."

Tess nodded "I'm staying in the Dock. I'm a noctis cape so I don't sleep. Or I didn't. I do in the dock. Face down, which is still weird. But I wake up feeling like a million bucks American. And meanwhile my self is still beavering away diligently. Oh, I hope no one minds?"

Taylor laughed "Its your dock too. Hmm, You're from BC though. We should see about a dock out there for you."

Tess shook her head "I still run my remotes and servers, I would rather be here. It would be lonely out there. Plus who would I escort? Though there may be some missions I have to go on myself. But I have my suit. Oh! Form factor testing for you all's suits. We got the frame built so need to do range of motion and all of that."

"OK, swim, breakfast, shower, school, or erh, work, whatever." Vicky announced and flew up to the man door on the caisson.

Amy rolled her eyes "Sorry, she's always been a bit bossy."

They walked in and down onto the surface of the dock and all stretched out watching Vicky and Lisa swim past and Aisha swim across.

A few minutes later they sat up and the water dog pack showed up with Rachel. They ate while Vicky showered.

Taylor nodded "So school, suit test thing, anything else? Should we like patrol? The Empire is supposed to go ape crackers today right?" The girls all giggled. Leslie had told them about that.

Tess supplied "The PRT and Military are coordinating operations. Shouldn't need you ladies unless it gets out of hand. A patrol after school maybe. A run to the hospital? You didn't go over the weekend Amy."

Leslie nodded "Plus, you know everyone will end up here."

Lisa added "The researchers want some time, and we have to review more pieces for the AV and marketing folks. They are doing so good I don't even have to tell them anything."

Taylor nodded "And these additions to our bunkerage Tess?"

"Being made. A couple days."

"And you are going to tell us what they do sometime?"

Lisa and Tess smiled. Amy scowled "Uh oh."

Tess laughed "It will be fine, we just haven't quite got it all together yet. It could change so lets wait on the briefing and see if all the pieces drop into place like we think they will."

Now Taylor scowled "Uh oh." All the girls laughed. They got up and moving. Amy asked "Picking up Lucy and Amanda in the staff car?" Taylor nodded.

Aisha spoke up from the top of the dock "Drop me at the middle school?"

Taylor nodded "Sure."

Haze Gray

Missy looked at Aisha after she got out of the staff car. Aisha shrugged "Staying right there. Swam this morning."

Missy though about that a minute "Put me on the roster?"

Aisha smiled "Sure." Then they got buried in curious kids. Word had gotten around they were at the dock over the weekend. Their stories might be different from the twenty other kids who were there and had already told all their friends everything.

Haze Gray

"Let me trap my Hawkeye and CAP. You got us right Taylor?" Leslie asked.

Taylor nodded "Your guys can pull my aegis and radar feeds, really the schools I guess, my guys installed all my spares up there. Amy you too."

"Pan Pakka Pan!" Leslie announced after she trapped the E2C and it disappeared.

"Poi!"

Taylor sighed "Really? You had to didn't you." They got girl piled.

Taylor had to run filters on all the conversations going on. "Wait, what?"

Shelly nodded "They repainted the lines on that parking lot and have it all marked with signs for Alaska, Haven, Kitty Hawk, and Athabasca class parking, Like stork parking you know?"

"We should charge them." The girls all looked at Vicky. "What? That gets people coming by and since they are there might as well go in the mall right? Just because they are too cheap to fix the pavement doesn't mean they get a free lunch."

Taylor grumbled as they all trundled off to home rooms.

Haze Gray

She walked in the lunchroom and blinked at the full tables with the one seat saved for her. She opened the magic lunch box and lunch was served. "You guys know that's a buck seventy five apiece now right?"

Lucy nodded "Still cheap. I got headcount so pony up suckers."

Vicky asked "Anything?"

Taylor shrugged "Not on my systems, I thought you were checking the news and PHO?"

Vicky nodded "Nothing." She had already cornered Dean and ask him about the PRT.

Haze Gray

Lisa hung up the phone "Got it. The lawyers are putting the contracts together. Those people think they are getting out of doing cleanup."

Tess shrugged "They are? We need that stuff."

Lisa nodded "And the chromium from the tannery and all kinds of other stuff. How does Leet's thing swim in dirt like that? Hmmm, let me work on this, got to be a way to get people to pay us to clean up industrial sites. Which we are going to do anyway. Cheaper than getting it from South Africa, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, any of those. Which at the rate we use it we may have to do anyway.

"Though some of these brown scape sites look pretty promising from what the EPA says is in them. Plus just normal soil has a lot of stuff in it and the worms get through a bunch of normal soil moving.

"Titanium same deal, not toxic though, pretty much inert really, as we are going to be cleaning the sites up anyway, might as well get everything right? Though we can get ore, its a real pain to turn into metal though. Thank god we don't use near as much of it.

"Does Taylor have to have all this tungsten? Same deal with it, people have been using it a long time. Light bulbs can you believe? Landfills here we come."

Tess shrugged "Depends on how much AP she shoots. The nickel, some of the chrome, steel, most of those metals in her super heavy AP. Leslie, well now all of us, nickel alloys for turbine blades. We aren't cheap dates."

Lisa smirked "Speaking of dates?"

Tess pinked a bit. "How about we talk current estimate instead."

"Ahhh." Lisa pouted for a minute "Fine. Coil went and got financial backing and a plan from Accord and brought in the Travelers by promising them healing for one or two of their members. He isn't going to be able to keep control of them. Plus your boyfriend was right, without his organization, which he spent years building, he is much easier to thwart."

Tess blinked "But Panacea would heal her, them, anyway? Also you are having entirely to much fun poking that snake."

"Not sure she can in ones case, plus it would be dangerous as fuck. Well, would have been. Not sure her power will work on a Ship? The dangerous one. Not sure the other one wants healing? I think she's been disabled for a while.

"You know how Piggot called the dock the fountain of youth? She isn't wrong, especially when Taylor and Amy are in it and the yard has it fully saturated. This weekend took tons of stuff with all those swimmers. real space tons of some of them, in shipspace? hundreds of tons, maybe thousands. Its no wonder you all can walk on it, normal people nearly can. Amy's power is using it as a medium and Taylor's helps."

Tess sat forward "Is anybody, well, like Leslie."

Lisa nodded "More than one, well if you count the dogs."

Tess suddenly grinned "You and who else?"

Lisa gaped at her "How?"

"Lots of processors and lots of memory, tons of sensing, you know that. I didn't lose anything, I gained a human body. Reverse ship girled sort of, though I didn't have a hull before. That seems to be a quirk of the interaction. The shard host combination ends up with a ship form. Which is much better than some power interactions on record. Now who else, wait, the dogs?"

Lisa nodded "The ones that swim, this new subpack. And Rachel."

"Oh! What are the going to be? Dog boats, Oh! MTBs!"

Lisa blinked "That bunch of live wires with torpedo's?"

"The world of guns too. Well up to 40 mm. Depth charges. Surface search radar. Gasoline engines in the American versions and the lend lease boats, but we could change them to turbines and save weight and space, aside from making them not bombs waiting to explode, add it back in equipment, fuel, and ammunition. Plus then we can feed them navy special instead of avgas."

She got a far away look for a minute "Wow, lots of turbines in this power range. This is going to take some research. Plus you know Taylor loves cogeneration. Though in this case the generators would be heavy. Hmmm micro turbines?

"Those hulls were good, tough too. Can they be better? Yes, composites, radar transparent, non magnetic, Kevlar as a base weave. Some stronger fibers but not much heat resistance. Let me get a design group going on this and we can have a direct swap for the puppies."

Lisa blinked "If you show Taylor and Amy the plans they will build that way? What? Come on Captain Obvious what the hell?" She shook her head. "My power, first it hates Taylor, or is scared of her, then Amy, then her and Amy together and now its joined the Navy or something.

"No crew on the PTs by the way, well just the dog? Crew but tiny? Something, they don't actually need crew spaces much so your boyfriend could work on the design too.

After a moment of silence she asked "Did you drop commando teams of crew off in the PRT Headquarters and the Rig using cawthorns as transportation to work on the data taps and software traps?"

Tess nodded grinning "We would still be working on it in a month otherwise, and Vista would have to help. She will still have to help with three on the rig and five at the PRT building, but we will be through today and Coil will be cut out of the local network. The PRT data and electronic security teams are finding things in the national network though. Chief Director Costa Brown may send the Triumvirate after him." Lisa laughed until she fell out of her chair gasping.

Tess chuckled as she recovered "And you are a submarine."

"What?"

"You're sitting there in a wet suit. The store doesn't sell them and neither do any shops in the mall."

"What?"

"Did you blow a data bus?"

"Hey!"

Tess smiled "All that swimming too. Type?"

Lisa pouted "No idea but I only have torpedoes and VLS cells. I'm diesel with a snorkel and a Stirling type air independent propulsion system. All kinds of electronics and sonar though."

"Well you were a thief and like staying out of sight, and you are nosy?" Tess grinned at the poked out tongue.

Both girls jumped when Mr. Carmichael said "Barble. Built the name ship here. Bonefish had a fire aboard and was hulked, then given to Northrup Grumman for them to play with. They put that stirling in her trying to keep up with the boats from Kockums, or make them better and win Navy contracts. Then Thyssen Krupp pissed the Swedes off and they really tried to make sales. Swedes still haven't got that sorted out. Makes you a sub class of Barble, or a upgrade?

"Last I knew she was down at Electric Boat in Groton and General Dynamics was doing that VLS stuff. All the death merchants getting in on it. Cheaper than nuke boats so the Navy could have more of them. Plus foreign military sales. Can't sell Nuke boats. Let me call some folks.

"When you going to finish your build? I know some folks who will be interested in you. Diesel boats scare our attack boats. Damn things are invisible apparently. At least the Swedish ones.

"Say, if you got VLS are you a missile boat?" Lisa shrugged helplessly. "Don't worry, I'll talk to the task force commander. Get you all in the dock and finish your build. Hull looks good.

"Now Rachel? Tender you think? All them PTs. Hmm let me go get Raul, he worked for ELCO when he first started in boats. he probably knows some guys. Higgins has a museum and a complete set of plans.

"PT crews put so many extra weapons on its a wonder they didn't sink. We'll have to standardize." He wandered off. Tess and Lisa looked at each other.

Haze Gray

'Hey'

"Vista will be out of school soon and can help. I've sent her a message." Armsmaster looked at the commando on his work bench.

"Hey hey hey."

"Rats and mice?"

Haze Gray

Missy looked at her phone "I have to go to work."

"Cool. I got some stuff to check." Aisha said.

"Nothing illegal." Missy gave her a look.

"Nah. My Bro's old villain boss. Lisa wants me to check a few places. Then the Empire. Apparently they are too quiet. Locate them is all I'm doing."

"Don't get caught."

"Shoot, I'm good. Take a couple hours. Phones on silent, no vibrate. Love you too girl." Aisha made a kissy face and vanished. Missy rolled her eyes.

Haze Gray

"Team two I shut that cableway down. We have them trapped at the junction of J22 and N7." Vista spoke and her earpiece picked it up.

Emily watched and nodded "Good work Vista. That's the last of them." She turned to the other ops console "And these are confirmed locations?"

Lisa nodded in the screen "Eyes on and now sensors planted. You can get with the other people and make a plan now."

Emily nodded "Bond villain's, both of them Kaiser and Coil. OK. Good work. Thank your people for me. We will coordinate if we need support."

Lisa frowned "The big gun is going to be committed elsewhere overnight."

"Interesting, I'll stop by later." Emily nodded and cut the connection.

Haze Gray

Missy went through the gate and into the dock and drifted to a halt "The place is packed!"

"I know right?" Aisha appeared. "Get a suit on and lets swim."

Missy nodded "Who are all these."

Aisha pointed "Navy guys from the submarine factory there talking to Tess, Civilian contractors with them, those ones dancing around like they have to pee. Something about a submarine we are building tonight?

"Research geeks there.

"New hires th-"

"Mom and Dad?"

"Small world?"

Missy trotted over to her father "Dad?"

"Oh, hey Missy, come to swim? I hear it's great, I'll have to try it."

"Why are you here?"

"I got hired by the yard. Human factors engineering. You know my job? Government work so steady? Better for us I think. Your mom is over there in the boatwrights, production engineer, they got a lot of orders for boats for the store. Did you know they build them tiny but once they sell them to someone they make then normal sized somehow? Less expensive too, about half the price of a civilian boat. Anyway, she has steady work now too ramping up production on a lot of stuff. They make everything, from like raw material, really slow production rates and old school methods though. She should have work for the rest of her life."

"Bu, wut?"

Her dad laughed "We got to work honey. Go swim with your friend. We can eat in the cafeteria here later; I'll text your mom."

Haze Gray

"Lisa!"

"Just got to check one more thing Taylor."

They all listened to the whistle and then the yelp followed by the barking as Rachel had the dogs herd Lisa in the dock. Danny chuckled then looked around at all the researchers with every kind of probe and camera. He laughed. "Night girls, see you for breakfast." Rachel plopped down on the last dry step with her legs in the water. One O Three got her pack arranged sitting on the first wet step and they waited. Their plans were still being worked.