Taylor Varga

by mp3.1415player

Taylor has a bad day that ends in a locker. Everyone has heard that one. It goes somewhat differently after that, as her call for help is answered by something from a lot further away than one might expect... A story in which Taylor makes a very large friend, the world gets confused, and Danny comes into his own.

410. Coccidioidomycosis and Contemplation

"What's the holdup you cock munching ass licker?"

"You know, I really am getting tired of that sort of language."

"Elephant dongs. I don't give a crap. With what I'm fucking paying you dick wranglers I expect service, not attitude."

"Ah. As long as we're talking about that, I can't help but notice this report from Brockton Bay where it says that the Family cleaned you out, before they went through your entire gang like a mowing machine through a nursery. We don't take credit, you realize. Especially with someone who has your life expectancy."

"Nut tickling frigging biscuit felcher."

"Yes, you might put it like that. Whatever it means. Do you have the rest of our money? Or do we simply collect on the bounty on your head, which I have to admit is becoming somewhat tempting."

"I've got plenty of money, horse raper. That safe was only the petty cash. You have any idea how much scratch we made selling fucking shit?"

"All I'm saying is that it better be enough money. We don't like terminating a contract, but we're not a charity. And if we terminate one, we generally terminate the contractee too, you understand? It makes the paperwork far easier."

"Cunt poker."

"Whatever you say, you're the client. For now."

"Don't you threaten me, asshole. When will this fucking thing be ready?"

"If you'd stop interrupting us and changing what passes for your mind, about two days ago. Right now, a few more days to get the final parts and integrate everything. You're sure you have the people to carry out your plan? You're going to need more than those sorry junkies you have with you. Someone with the right skills to use all this won't come cheap."

"Leave that goddam part to me. I know what I'm doing, fingerlicking puke head."

"In that case, could you go and do it over there where it won't bother me? I have work to do."

"Wank blender lizards I'll fuck their jizz holes right up, taking my cunting territory away. Them and their shitehawk dock workers will get it right in the ballsack..."

"...What an asshole. He's going to end up Kaiju-chow, but not before he pays us. Or I'll feed him to her personally."

---

Standing at the observation window, Emily watched as several medical personnel moved around in the room on the other side of it, setting up a vast array of monitoring equipment she only knew the use of a small amount of. Two of them were also wielding the tricorders Leet had designed and Dragon duplicated, a concept she still found odd. Armsmaster was effusive, for him, in his compliments of the devices and their capabilities and they'd quickly become invaluable throughout the building. Dragon had already started a new batch since there was so much demand even for this current version.

Beside her, Jon was flicking through notes on a large medical tablet. "Three volunteers for this first round of testing. Sergeant Kessler from the motor pool, a broken ankle following a maintenance accident when a jack slipped. Trooper Paulson, four cracked ribs and severely bruised kidneys as the result of a training mishap. Didn't get out of the way of Assault fast enough and paid the price. And Miss Foti, one of the researchers from the intelligence division, diagnosed two days ago with disseminated coccidioidomycosis as a result of a case of valley fever she picked up after a holiday to Arizona before Christmas."

He looked at the three people sitting on examination tables in the other room. "One basic bone fracture injury, albeit a nasty one, a more awkward multiple fracture case with some organ damage, and a particularly unpleasant fungal infection causing neurological complications. A good mix from simple to complex for a first test."

"And they're all aware that this is experimental and the result of Family biotech?" she asked.

"Yes. Each of them signed the releases without any trouble. Miss Foti said that as soon as she heard it came from the Family, all her worries went away." He looked at her with a small smile as she sighed faintly. "People trust those lizards, you know."

"I know they do. I just can't work out why they trust them so quickly… It's bizarre."

"You trust them."

Again, she sighed. "I do. And I still don't know why that's true, either. But I have to admit they haven't let us down yet."

With a slight chuckle, he tapped his tablet a few times, then leaned forward and pressed the intercom button. "How's it going, Doctor Giron?"

One of the doctors looked back at the window. "Almost ready, we're just setting up the portable ultrasound. Two minutes."

Jon nodded, letting go of the button. They watched as the machine was configured, then used on Kessler's ankle as he lay back on the bed and winced. "We're ready," Doctor Giron announced.

Jon pressed the button again. "Proceed," he said.

Emily watched as the doctor picked a small bottle off the tray next to him on a trolley and opened it, shaking one of the Family healing spores into the palm of his gloved hand, then replaced the bottle. Carefully positioning it on the arm of his patient, who was also watching with mixed interest and mild worry, he pressed firmly. In the now silent room, everyone heard the small squeak as the thing activated.

Moments later Sergeant Kessler's face relaxed from the controlled but pained look it had expressed. "The pain stopped completely," he reported.

"Five seconds, bone reconstruction in progress," one of the other researchers called out, looking at the screen of the scanner that was pointed at the man's ankle. "Ten seconds, bone reconstruction complete, vascular repair mostly finished… fifteen seconds, no sign of injury left." His voice expressed shock and amazement.

"The sensation just came back," the sergeant reported, then cautiously tried moving his foot. "Works fine, nothing feels wrong."

Several people used a multitude of instruments to confirm this, while also taking enough samples of blood and skin to make Emily herself wince. The patient bore everything with stoicism although he seemed pleased with the result. She wasn't surprised, a broken ankle would normally take months to heal and could still be problematic and here it had happened in seconds. "That is extremely impressive," Jon murmured, studying the results of the scans on his own tablet. "No signs at all of a break. None of the normal remodeling is apparent following a fracture, it's like the damage never occurred." He shook his head in wonder. "Unbelievable."

"So they work as Saurial said they did?" she asked, not surprised.

"At least on fractures, yes," he nodded. "Let's see how they handle the other problems."

An hour later they had their answer.

"Everything was repaired completely, with no side effects we can detect at all," Jon summed up, looking around at the room full of medical people, Emily listening to the side. "The fungal infection was cleared out in under twenty seconds and all traces of neural damage fixed at the same time. Bone reconstruction is performed almost instantly. The organ damage took under ten seconds to repair. Even all the metabolic byproducts that are normally left over after healing were cleaned out of the bloodstream and lymphatic system. As far as I can tell, those people are now as healthy as it's possible to get."

"Any chronic issues they had, old scars, anything that could be considered a medical problem, they were all fixed at the same time too," Doctor Giron added with an expression that still showed stunned amazement. "We'll need to run more tests, but so far I can't think of anything that's so effective at general healing. It's as good as Panacea herself can do, at a minimum, and faster." He shook his head respectfully. "The Family certainly understand biology to a level that leaves me in awe."

"How many of those spores do we have left?" another research scientist asked.

"Saurial gave us an even hundred, and we've used up..." Jon checked his notes. "...twenty-six in the initial testing with animals and the like. Plus the three just now. So we've got seventy-one left."

"That's enough for at least two more rounds of testing on a larger scale," Doctor Giron commented. "Can we get more? Even based on what we've done today, I'm confident enough in their safety and effectiveness to want to have them available."

"Saurial told me they were happy to provide them to us," Emily replied. "When we need more, I'll request them."

"All right. Thank you, Director."

"I've heard that Brockton General is also evaluating them, do we know where they've gotten to so far?" a different researcher asked.

"I believe they haven't got as far as human testing yet, because they want to have Panacea on hand to monitor the results and it has to fit around her schooling and other responsibilities," Doctor Giron responded. "However I expect they'll be using larger samples and a wider variety of problems when they start, due to the nature of being a hospital."

Jon typed on the screen of his computer for a while, muttering to himself under his breath, before looking up and around at them all. "So no one has any issues with proceeding to the next round of testing?" he asked.

There didn't seem to be any objections. He glanced at Emily who nodded. She couldn't see any reason not to continue either. As advertised, the healers fixed everything they'd so far tried, and the benefits of them being put into use were very obvious. It was possible, likely even, that people higher in the PRT would step in at some point and knowing the way that often went, complicate the process beyond belief, but they might as well get all the information before that happened as possible.

While she was still somewhat nervous about it, there was no denying that the things would save a vast number of lives if brought into general use, which in her view was a goal worth aiming for.

By the time the meeting ended, everyone was in the process of arranging a larger test sequence and seemed to feel the exercise was both important and exciting. Emily herself was wondering what the next world-changing idea those lizards would have was going to be and how it would make her life more complicated.

---

"Having fun?"

Amy snickered when Lucy nodded vigorously, her face alight. At least twenty people had stopped by their table to talk to the girl about her dragon flight, and to admire her magic coat, which she was extremely proud of. The entire experience appeared to have made her about as happy as it was possible to become.

"So much fun," Lucy agreed with a huge smile. "Breksta was so cool, and friendly, and she saved me from that mugger!"

Taylor leaned over and whispered loudly, "Looks like you have more competition for your fan-girl, The Amy."

"I can fan-girl three ways as easily as two," Lucy said with contentment, making Mandy start giggling.

"Never forget The Amy, Lucy! She was your first savior! That must count for something." She grabbed her friend and held her at arm's length, fixing her with a beseeching expression. "You should never forget your first time."

Laughing, Lucy nodded. "I'll always have that alley and mugger, Mandy."

"Good. It's important to remember where you came from when you're flying high above all us smaller people," Mandy snickered. "Sorry, I can't keep that up, it's getting too silly." She let Lucy's shoulders go and picked up her fork again, resuming eating her dessert. "I'm so glad you're safe, though."

"So am I," Lucy sighed, momentarily a little down. "Fucking stinky Merchant. Nearly made me break Newell's eggs. And I want Dad to get his money back on that bear spray, it didn't work as well as it said it would."

"Maybe because he wasn't a bear?" Eric suggested with a look of amusement. Lucy grinned at him.

"Probably because he was so high he couldn't feel it properly," Amy said. "Even if he hadn't taken anything recently, that much substance abuse could have done weird things to his neural responses, so I'm not completely surprised that it didn't put him down for longer."

"Well, it gave me time to run for it, so I guess it was good for that, anyway," Lucy replied, shrugging. "And any normal person would probably have given up at that point. That idiot was way more persistent than seems sensible. Especially considering what it got him."

"A close up view of the inside of a dragon's mouth?" Taylor commented with a grin, making Lucy nod, also grinning and more cheerful now.

"Yeah. For some reason he didn't seem to appreciate it."

"I wonder why?" Rich asked with heavy sarcasm, making them all laugh again. "Fucking Merchants. Best thing the Family have done so far, taking them out like that. They made a hell of a lot of friends that night."

"Hopefully there aren't too many of them left wandering around." Amy shook her head. "That one that went after us, and your one, Lucy. I'd prefer not to hear about another friend of ours who was mugged by a junkie."

"That guy who went after you didn't enjoy it much," Mandy giggled. "Considering how Taylor kicked his ass."

Taylor bowed slightly in her seat, smiling. "It was my pleasure to aid the forces of good, citizen," she said with a sort of formal attitude, making Mandy chuckle.

"I'm beginning to think we should all ask Saurial for training like she did for you, Taylor," Eric remarked a moment later, making them all look at him. "She's obviously a really good teacher, and in this city, knowing how to look after yourself is probably a good idea." He looked around. "Where is she, anyway?" The other aspect had vanished shortly after lunch started and not yet reappeared.

"Ed the security guy here wanted to ask her for input on some new system they're thinking about installing," Taylor replied, glancing at him. "That PRT lieutenant suggested it, and they were talking it over with the Principal. She should be back any time now." She raised her eyes to the cafeteria door, then added, "Or about now, in fact." Everyone turned to see the Saurial aspect come into the room, wave to them, then grab a tray and make her way to the food line. Shortly she was sitting next to Taylor.

"Sorry about that, guys, Ed wanted a word."

"Taylor said. Did it go well?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Yep, it's basically a new weapon scanner thing the PRT designed to discreetly check people for things like guns and knives without being obvious about it. Dragon came up with the software, it's smart enough to distinguish between phones and innocent stuff like that and something dangerous. And it's anonymous, so it only alerts them if it flags a real weapon and doesn't keep records of everyone. Plus they can program in exceptions for specific people so it won't trigger if, for example, one of the PRT people walks past. Seems like a decent mix between privacy and security."

"What did they need you for?" Eric asked.

"They wanted to test it on as many different hidden weapons as they could think of, so I was making them," the lizard-girl replied, while opening a can of coke. "The demonstration went well, the Principal and Vice-Principal seemed to think it was worth looking at. They still have to get it past the school board but with the current rogue Parahuman threat it'll probably get installed. It's certainly a lot less intrusive than a metal detector on every door, and more useful too."

"Pity we need something like that," Rich grumbled. "Immaculata has metal detectors everywhere, I know that much, some friends of mine who go there are always complaining about them going off all the time." He looked around at them. "I'd have liked to think we didn't need that sort of crap here, this place is supposed to be better than that."

Amy nodded. "It would be nice to believe that, and on the whole I do, but remember what city we're in. The number of weapons out there is insane. If you'd seen some of the stuff I have at the hospital..." She shook her head. "Trust me, knife wounds are not nice. And there are crazies everywhere. I don't think any student here would try anything, but who's to say we couldn't get some rando trying to come in with a machete or something under his coat? It's happened before in other places."

"Yeah," he agreed somewhat sadly. "Valid point. Won't do much against Parahuman powers, though."

"No, that's always a problem," Saurial nodded. "But a Parahuman attack is a lot less likely than some lunatic with a blade, even with the current situation. Lucy's proven that for us." She smiled at the girl in question, who nodded soberly. "So this system is probably a sensible precaution."

"I guess the PRT already uses it?" Mandy asked.

"From what the Lieutenant said they're installing it here in the Bay as part of an upgrade they've done recently," the reptile nodded. "It's mostly the work of Armsmaster and Dragon. I'd assume it'll get rolled out to other places when they're happy with it."

"Well, if those two designed it, I guess I can trust it'll do what they say," Eric said. "They're really good."

"Nice people, too," Saurial smiled.

"Is Armsmaster as weird as people on PHO say he is?" Mandy asked with a small smile.

The lizard chuckled, as did Amy. "He's… different. I can see why people think he's strange, but I honestly like the guy. He's very smart, very driven, and very capable. He genuinely doesn't get people in general, but he means well, and always tries to do the right thing from what I've seen."

"I'd agree with that," Amy nodded, thinking back to her many interactions with the Tinker both as Panacea and Ianthe. "Yeah, he can come across as sort of arrogant and dismissive, but neither is really right. He knows how good he is and just wants to get on with things, not engage in small talk or something like that. Although I think Dragon is a good influence on him. She's really good with people."

"And has the correct sort of name," Taylor's other aspect added.

"You would think that," Amy snickered.

"Of course. Dragons are cool. Some of my own relatives are dragons, after all." Saurial grinned at her.

Lucy leaned forward eagerly. "How many dragons are in your family? Why didn't you ever tell me… I mean, us, that you have dragons?" She looked slightly embarrassed while everyone else smiled. "And how many will be visiting?"

The lizard-girl aspect looked around carefully, then leaned closer, as did Lucy. "We have a number. It was a secret. And I can't say right now," she whispered loudly enough that everyone at the table heard. Lucy looked disappointed, making Saurial add, "But it might be more than one."

"Fantastic," Lucy smiled, immediately brightening up. "I like dragons."

"Of course you do," Mandy sighed. "They're lizards. We all know about you and lizards." She smirked when Lucy stuck out her tongue. "Bet you wish that was forked."

"That would be cool," Lucy admitted, sticking it out again and looking cross-eyed at the end.

"You are very weird, girl," Mandy said, hugging her with one arm, while the others laughed.

"At least I know what I like," Lucy nodded, looking satisfied. "It's important to work out what you like and stick with it."

"Weird. Like I said."

The bell indicating five minutes before the end of the lunch period rang, provoking a hasty finishing of food and packing up by everyone in the cafeteria. Drinking the last of her orange juice, Amy piled everything onto her tray, as did her friends, then all of them got up and joined the rest of the students heading towards the exit.

She noticed Vicky ahead of her next to Dean, her sister glancing back at her with an unreadable expression, then leaving the room. With an inner sigh, she once again wondered what was up with the other girl. Her mood seemed to shift from normal to worried and back again so fast it was starting to make Amy dizzy, and concerned that something really was wrong with her sister. They were definitely going to have to talk, she decided firmly. She'd been on the verge of asking Vicky what the hell was going on the night before but when she'd gotten home, the blonde was all smiles and happiness, still highly entertained by her run in with Taylor's dragon form and Lucy, so she'd put it off again.

That morning, Vicky's reaction to a completely innocent comment had puzzled her, and now looking at her expression and smelling her scent of suppressed worry and confusion, it was obvious that whatever the problem was, it hadn't gone away. Hopefully her sister was at the point where she could be reasoned with and gently questioned, rather than being in a mood where she'd just fly off in a huff and refuse to talk about it…

Oh well. It could wait until she went home tonight. They had a lot of other things to do before then.

---

Walking alongside her boyfriend, Vicky contemplated her thoughts about Amy, the Family, and lizards in general.

Most of those thoughts left her going in circles. Again.

And with a definite low-level headache. That seemed to happen every time she started puzzling over the entire bizarre situation with obstinate possibly-strange clothing, or considering various theories about Taylor or Amy.

She was still tasting pencil, too…

No, that particular idea had to be a product of complete fantasy. She was sure of it.

Mostly.

Although… if her family had unknowingly adopted a member of a different Family, that might…

Vicky shook her head, trying to dislodge the idiocy. The entire idea was nuts.

And, she mused, even if it was true, which it couldn't be, all that would mean is that her sister had always been a hidden lizard. It wouldn't change the fact that she was still Amy, someone she loved. So in a way, even if that turned out to be fact, which it wouldn't, it didn't matter.

Since it obviously wasn't true, why was she wasting time even thinking about it?

Only realizing she'd stopped just outside the door to the next class when Dean prodded her, she twitched, looked at him, then followed him inside, chewing on her lip and trying to stop thinking about it. Without a lot of luck.

But at least she wasn't likely to eat any more pencils.

---

"OK, this is an AR-15 variant, and this is an original Soviet AK-47," Mark said, holding up a rifle in each hand. "The M-16 is the fully automatic version of the AR-15, but we don't have any of those right now. Both of these are some of the guns we've recovered from various Merchant, ABB, and E88 actions through the docks in the past. They seem to lose a lot of them." He grinned as several of the people in the large room laughed. "Not a lot of discipline in the gangs. Anyway, we gave most of them to the cops, but kept back half a dozen of the ones in better condition. We've reconditioned all of the things and they're in perfect working order, which is an improvement on most of the crap the Merchants used to use, I can tell you that. If it wasn't for the fact that the AK variants are incredibly tough, most of them wouldn't have worked at all, since those assholes never cleaned anything."

"Even themselves," someone commented, making him nod with a sigh.

"Yeah, based on the stink, I'd have to agree." He put the AR-15 down on the bench in front of him and held up the AK-47. "7.62mm ammunition, decent accuracy, fairly high firing rate, and very tough. Good stopping power. Not a sniper rifle, definitely, but in single shot mode a good marksman can reliably hit a target at a higher range than you'd expect. In full auto mode you're going to have much less accuracy at long range but that's true of almost any weapon. This class of gun isn't designed for long shots in the first place, so that doesn't matter. These things in one variation or another have been around since WWII, and are the single most common assault rifle on the planet. They're simple, reliable, and easy to maintain."

He put it down and picked up the other gun. "This particular AR-15 uses 5.56mm ammunition, although you can get them in a lot of other calibers. It's lighter and far more accurate than the AK on the whole. It's also incredibly modular and you can put one together with almost any configuration you can think of all the way up to something that's a pretty good substitute for a sniper rifle. The M-16 full auto version has been the standard US military weapon for decades, and although the first versions were problematic, the later ones are also very reliable if they're maintained properly. They won't take the abuse the AK will, though."

Putting the second rifle down, he studied his audience. "Danny is very reluctant to have any of these weapons around, and I agree with that for the most part. I'd prefer not to have them either. But we don't have the luxury, since we live in a city that at times has almost been a war zone, of being able to hope nothing will ever go wrong. We've seen that in the past more times than I care to think about. The PRT have historically taken a hell of a long time to turn up even assuming they bothered at all, the cops always tried their best but were often outnumbered and outgunned, and there weren't enough heroic Parahumans around to make a difference."

He waved at the two weapons. "So we have to take care of our own people, which regrettably sometimes might mean we need these. Sure, things have changed a hell of a lot in the last few months, with the Family on our side, the local PRT suddenly upping their game, the gangs at a historically low activity level which has given the BBPD room to regroup and replace their equipment, all that sort of thing. We're much less likely to need to defend ourselves against rampaging junkies or Nazis in a bad mood. And if that does happen, we have giant lizards and they only have Hookwolf. We know what happens in that case…"

Every single person laughed. They did indeed know.

"But even with all that, we can't guarantee that if something does kick off the Family will swoop in and save our asses. They're fucking good, but even they can't be everywhere all the time." He held up the AR-15 again. "So we train to use these. Just in case one day we need them. I hope we don't, you hope we don't, but we do it anyway because we believe in being prepared." With a grin, he added, "Just like the boy scouts."

"What the fuck sort of boy scout group did you belong to, Mark?" someone shouted, making him snicker.

"I can't tell you for reasons of national security," he joked, setting off more laughter. "OK, guys. We only have a few guns, but we have a shitload of ammo, so everyone will get a chance to fire one. And learn how to clean them, service them, and make them safe. Believe me, you will learn that last part. Anyone I train is going to know how to handle a weapon responsibly, or they don't get to. Danny wouldn't approve of it either and you don't want to upset the Boss. Or the Family. So pay attention."

"Sir!" Zephron, who was off to the side listening with a small smile, shouted, making one of his ridiculous salutes, which yet again amused everyone.

Mark sighed slightly. "I begin to see why Danny finds you annoying," he commented, which only made the enormous man grin. "You take Brian, Jeff, Fouad, and Michelle and go over the AK with them, will you? I'll take the rest on the AR. We can swap when we're done."

"OK. Come on over here, people," his friend said, waving to the named individuals. He picked up the AK-47 and half a dozen loaded magazines and headed over to the other side of the room, while Mark turned to the five people left who surrounded him. Very soon they were listening and watching as he field-stripped the weapon and explained in detail what each part did, how to care for it, and how to put it back together.

He hoped, as he'd said, that this information would never be required, but this was Brockton Bay. Best to take precautions.

---

"Taylor, can I have a word?"

Taylor stopped at the voice and turned to see Mr Morgan, one of the math teachers, and the one who dealt with the remedial mathematics class that Chris took. "Of course, Mr Morgan," she replied, "How can I help?"

The Varga paused the Saurial body next to her, while Lucy and Mandy, who had been trailing behind them discussing the possibility of using dragons for aerial photography, also drew to a halt. "If you've got a few moments I wanted to discuss your idea for helping Chris Jacobs," the teacher said.

"Oh. OK, that's fine. Guys, if you see Amy tell her I'll meet her outside a little later, will you?" she asked her other friends, who nodded and moved on. The corridor was heaving with students leaving for the day, the last bell having rung about ten minutes ago. Taylor and the others were heading towards the exits after putting things away in their lockers.

Mr Morgan glanced around, then indicated one of the classrooms next to them, which was now empty. "Mrs Adil won't mind if we use this room," he smiled, opening the door and waving both her aspects inside. He followed and closed the door behind him, then leaned against the teacher's desk while she sat in a free chair, and 'Saurial' stood near her, both curious to know what this was about.

"I was extremely impressed by both the simplicity and effectiveness of the solution you came up with to handle Mr Jacob's disability," the man began. "It was a stroke of genius, and appears to have helped him more in one step than anything we've tried in nearly two years."

She smiled with a slight shrug. "I did some research into dyscalculia and it seemed like a plausible method worth trying," she replied truthfully. "I wasn't sure it would work at all, but we got lucky, I think. I ran a few tests I found online, and some more based on the same ideas I came up with, and everything pointed towards his subconscious mathematical abilities being quite good, and most of the problems being in his conscious use of them." She explained the things she'd tried, including the exercises with the dice and the results of those, while he listened closely, seeming fascinated.

"He grasped the principles of the soroban very quickly and we went over the basic math functions for a few hours, including a lot of practice work. He's come back since then a couple of times for more instruction, and I'm really pleased how well it's helping. I'm happy to keep teaching him as long as he wants me to. I'm doing the same thing with some other friends, although none of them have dyscalculia, and Saurial helps sometimes." She indicated her other aspect. "Math comes easily to me so it's nice to be able to use it to help other people."

"Extraordinary," he smiled. "You are a credit to your family, Taylor. Chris's work has improved so much in the last few weeks I find it hard to believe, but I've watched him work with that little device and he appears to find it invaluable. You have probably saved his scholastic record with your aid, something you should be proud of."

"I'm just pleased to help a friend," she said.

"You certainly did that. And showed me a technique I am intending to apply in a number of other cases where it might help. If I can ask, where did you get the abacus?"

"Saurial made it for me based on one my mother used to have years ago," Taylor told him, nodding to her reptilian alter-ego.

"I can make some for you if it would help," the lizard-girl added. She quickly replicated the one Chris had, holding it up. The teacher's eyes widened slightly.

"That is… impressive," he commented, taking it from her when she held it out and examining it. "I had heard about your family's abilities but seeing it like that is remarkable." Flicking the beads a couple of times, he nodded. "Thank you, a dozen of these would be very useful."

"No problem," 'Saurial' smiled, making them within seconds, then handing him a stack of the constructions. "I hope they help people."

"I believe they will," Mr Morgan nodded, carefully taking them from her and putting them next to him on the desk. "Have you considered going into teaching as a career?" he asked, turning back to Taylor. "You clearly have a gift for it, as well as mathematics, and I could see you going a long way in that field. Which needs as many people doing it as we can arrange."

"I like teaching, and helping other people," Taylor smiled. "And just making things. But I'm not sure I'm at the right point in my life to work out what I want to spend it doing when I finish my schooling. Teaching may well be part of it."

"I would urge you to consider it further," he said. "And if you happen to have any more ideas about how to help others with similar issues to Mr Jacobs, please don't hesitate to talk to me about them. I'd be interested to see if you can replicate your success." The man smiled as she laughed a little. "I, like everyone in the mathematics department, have been following your admittedly short time here with considerable interest. Based on your work you're head and shoulders above most people in that field, so we expect great things from you, whatever you end up doing."

Taylor smiled, feeling touched and pleased. "I'm certainly going to do my best, Mr Morgan," she replied. "I like math a lot, and all the things that derive from it. Which is most subjects one way or the other. Physics is fascinating, so is chemistry. And engineering in general for that matter."

He smiled widely. "Oh, yes, you're going to go a long way. And with your friends by your side, I can't see much that will hold you back." Standing he picked up the stack of sorobans. "We may have to jump you ahead a year, I suspect. In truth, you should probably be studying mathematics at a university level, based on what I've seen, but we'll do what we can to teach you with the resources we have here. Thank you for your time, and I'm serious, if you have any more ideas about helping those who are less gifted than yourself, I'm always receptive to them."

"Thanks, I'll remember that," she assured him, also standing up.

"Saurial, thank you too for these," he added, turning to her other aspect and holding up the abacuses. "They could be very useful with any luck."

"My pleasure, Mr Morgan," the lizard-girl smiled.

"I won't keep you any longer, then." Opening the door with his free hand he stood to the side to let them out into the now-empty corridor, followed them out, and pulled it shut again. "Enjoy the rest of your day."

"We will," she nodded, before heading to the exit. Behind them he went the other way looking thoughtful.

"Seems like a nice man," the Varga commented silently. "Intelligent and concerned for his students. I find that admirable."

'Me too,' she agreed. 'I hope those things do help other people. I'm still amazed how well it worked with Chris.'

"As you said, we got lucky. Perhaps the same thing will happen again."

She nodded as they left the school to find Amy, Mandy, and Eric standing outside watching as Lucy was again surrounded by other students who were asking her questions, Rich next to her helping fend off the over-excited ones. "Wow. Is she still being mobbed?" she asked with a grin.

The others turned to look at her. "Yeah, apparently being the first person in the city to meet a new Family member, and go for a fly on her back, is something of a big deal," Amy laughed. "I'm half-expecting the reporters to turn up or something."

Mandy giggled, shaking her head. "That could still happen. The local news places aren't allowed to bother students at the school, by order of the school admin. Or you and Vicky would never get any peace, aside from possible Wards problems and all that sort of thing. The Principal made that very clear to them the last time they tried it about two years back."

"So she might find someone at home waiting for her," Eric added.

"Maybe. I wouldn't be completely surprised," the girl nodded. "Hopefully not, though, it'll give her a complex or something."

"Lucy is far too level-headed to let some minor transient fame cause her issues," 'Saurial' commented. "I think she's just so pleased about meeting Breksta that she wants everyone to know about it. She does appear to like our family."

"Just a little," Amy agreed with a smirk. They all looked over at their friend, who was laughing as she signed another notebook and talking rapidly. "She sure seems to be having fun."

"If it gets too much, we might have to have Breksta come and tell everyone to keep calm," Taylor's reptilian aspect snickered. Everyone looked at her then each other.

"I can really see that working," Amy replied with a shake of her head and a wry grin.

Saurial shrugged. "Maybe it would. If nothing else it would take the pressure off her."

They looked again. "She seems to be handling the pressure pretty well," Eric said a little dubiously, but with some pride too. The others nodded.

"Let me know if something needs to be done, even so," the reptilian girl remarked. "I don't mind telling people to back off. Lucy is a friend."

"Thanks." He looked at Taylor. "What did Mr Morgan want with you?"

"He wanted to talk about that abacus idea I came up with to help Chris," she replied, then explained the conversation. "So he seemed happy and went away with a dozen of the sorobans. Maybe it'll help some other people. I'd like that."

"It would be a nice thing," Mandy nodded, putting her arm over Taylor's shoulders and giving her a quick hug. "You're a good person, Taylor." Releasing her she looked at Lucy again and sighed slightly. "Now I have to go and rescue my friend from the crowd of admirers, since Mom is coming down the street." She shook her head, then waved to the others, before heading with determination towards the smaller but still chattering crowd. "Go on, you parasites, leave her alone!" she called, waving her hands madly as she pushed through them towards Lucy. "Rich, quick, grab her and run! Save my friend from her popularity before it dooms us all!"

Laughing, the boy shepherded Lucy, who was also giggling, towards the car that had pulled up, then opened the door for her and bowed. "Your vehicle awaits, O Dragon Rider of Brockton Bay."

"Thank you, my good man," the girl replied in an upper-crust voice, before getting in. He saluted and closed the door.

"Hey, what about me?" Mandy demanded with her hands on her hips.

He looked her up and down. "I'm sorry, are you someone important?"

After a moment, Mandy started laughing like an idiot and put her arms around him for a hug. "You're as crazy as the rest of us. Thanks for helping Lucy."

"My pleasure," he smiled, hugging her back. "I need to go now, though, I've got stuff to do on the way home. See you guys tomorrow." When she released him he looked over at Taylor and the others fifty feet away who were all laughing and waved. "See you tomorrow," he called, then headed away from them as they all waved back. Mandy got into the car after also waving to them, then it pulled away.

"We do have some strange friends," 'Saurial' said in a reflective tone, making Amy laugh once more.

"We do," Eric agreed. "Later, everyone." He also left, still smiling.

When it was only Taylor's two aspects and Amy, they looked at each other. "I'm very glad I ended up here," Taylor said quietly as they turned toward the car park and Amy's truck. "You have no idea how nice it is to see people enjoying life like that. Compared to Winslow..." She shook her head.

Amy nodded silently, nudging her friend with a shoulder, while Saurial put a hand on her back for a moment. A minute later they were driving towards the DWU and another afternoon of oddities, all three feeling happy.

---

Brian removed the magazine of the AR-15 and checked it, worked the bolt of the gun then checked inside the receiver too, then called "Clear."

"Good. Nice shooting, very good grouping for a beginner," Mark said from a few feet away, while taking his ear protection off. He accepted the gun when Brian handed it to him, repeated the check, then put it on the bench. "Great. That concludes the rifle familiarization aspect of today. We'll break for lunch, then put in some time on the range for handgun work." Brian watched as the security chief produced a cleaning kit from a case and handed it to him. "As you're the last one to use this, though, you get to clean it."

With a smile Brian accepted the tools and cleaning fluid, then began to repeat the process he'd been shown earlier. "That was fun," he commented as he worked.

"It can be a lot of fun," Mark agreed, observing his progress approvingly. "Although when the targets shoot back most of the fun goes away very fast. Hopefully we won't need to ever put any of this into practice, but better to be ready if shit does hit the fan."

"Yeah." He couldn't argue with that. Quickly finishing the cleaning process, he reassembled the weapon, then screwed the lid back onto the bottle of cleaning solvent. "That written test was easy enough."

"It's not hard and you got a very good score, so that's no problem. Like I said, we should have all the documentation back in two weeks or less." Collecting the cleaning supplies Mark returned them to the case, then put the AR-15 in as well and closed it. Picking it up he waved Brian towards the door where Zephron and a couple of the other dock workers were talking. "Let's get some food."

Following the older man out of the room, Brian reflected on how his life had changed since he'd come to this place and decided it was all good. Even the new training was interesting and could well be needed one day.

Hopefully not soon, though.

---

The sound of a car horn from behind him made Danny look over his shoulder to see Amy's truck approaching from the direction of the gate. As she drove up beside him she slowed to a walking pace and rolled down the window. "Hi, Danny," the girl smiled.

"Hello, Amy," he replied. "And Taylor and Saurial. Did school go well?"

He kept walking as the truck rolled slowly along beside him. His daughter, both of her, smiled as well, seeming generally pleased with life. "It was fine, thanks, Dad," the more human one replied. "Lucy was in a very good mood..."

Chuckling, he nodded. "I can imagine. That girl is somewhat fond of reptiles after all. I imagine a dragon ride is quite exciting." All of them exchanged a look of suppressed amusement.

"Probably." Taylor snickered. "I'll have to ask for one myself."

"Is Breksta going to be visiting us now that she's arrived in the city, Saurial?" he asked the other aspect with inner glee.

She looked pleased. "I wouldn't think it was unlikely, Danny," she replied, grinning. "She said humans were fun."

"Try not to let her cause too much chaos."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll mention it to her."

They shared a look, then he turned to Amy who was also grinning. "Keep them under control if you can."

"I'll do my best, Danny, but you know lizards. And Taylor."

"Oh, that I do, yes," he sighed, making Taylor's two aspects look at each other then giggle. "I have trouble working out which of them is worse. Anyway, this is my stop, I'll see you girls later." He waved at the vehicle depot that they'd reached, coming to a halt.

"OK, Dad, see you!" Taylor called, waving back. Amy sped up a little and he watched as the truck moved away, then turned into the side yard. Wondering what oddity of nature they were going to perpetrate this time, he went into the building to talk to Kadir.

---

Serafina studied her husband when she walked through the living room, seeing the small smile he was wearing as he read something on the secure tablet he favored for certain jobs. Old both of them might be, but they were very well aware of modern technology and accomplished with its use. Antonio was making faint sounds of laughter under his breath, which generally meant he was up to something, and she was pretty sure what it was. On the whole she approved, but he was taking far too much enjoyment in it.

The next time she passed, she paused to peer over his shoulder, then sighed faintly, shaking her head but saying nothing.

A knock at the door made her divert her course from watering the plants to head that way, reaching it just as Luigi opened it with a polite nod to her. She knew that anyone who had got past him and the people downstairs was either no threat, or one so severe a locked door wouldn't help, so she wasn't concerned.

In the second case, the threat would find rather abruptly that, again, old they might be, but defenseless they most certainly were not. Especially after Danny's visit and his little gift from his remarkable friends…

"Ma'am," Gino said respectfully as he entered, nodding his thanks to Luigi, who returned the gesture then withdrew.

"Gino, you need to eat more, you're wasting away," she scolded, assessing the younger man. "Skin and bones you are."

"I'll bear that in mind, Ma'am," he replied with a smile. Both of them knew he wouldn't pay any attention, in the same way she didn't really believe what she'd said, but appearances were important.

"See that you do. He's over there on the sofa." She indicated her husband with her head, smiled back at him, and headed to the next plant. Gino walked over and handed Antonio an envelope, which the older man accepted, putting his tablet down in the process. Slipping a finger under the flap he popped it open, then pulled out the contents and read it with interest.

"Excellent," he said in the end. "Thank you, Gino. See that Benny and Rudy get a small bonus, will you, please? They're coming along very well."

"Of course, sir."

"I'll leave it up to you, but make sure it's worth it."

Gino nodded. "I will." He glanced to the side as the tablet pinged, making Antonio pick it up again and check the new email, which provoked a muted snicker. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking… Why don't we just stop that girl? Or let the PRT know, or for that matter any of the other people looking for her?"

"Ah, Gino," Antonio smiled, as Serafina turned to listen from beside the bookcase, "Yes, we could do that. I've considered it. If only to have a few words with her. But… she hurt famiglia, you understand? It's not my place to deal permanently with her. Or that of the authorities or anyone else. That honor belongs to Taylor. What she does with the little vacca afterwards is up to her. All I'm doing is..." He smirked, waving a finger in the air, "...softening her up a little?"

"You're enjoying mentally torturing the girl, that's what you're doing, you old idiot," Serafina said acerbically.

"Me?" Antonio beamed innocently. "Torture someone? Never. I've merely got some friends keeping an eye on her."

His wife snorted while Gino suppressed a smile.

"Which reminds me, I really do need to arrange a case of the good whiskey," he murmured, quickly making a note on the tablet. "Mind like a sieve sometimes, it really is..." Task done, he looked up at his subordinate again. "Sooner or later that girl will either go back to Brockton Bay, or stop running and do something else. Probably something very stupid. If she stays away from Brockton, I'll let the PRT know where she is. They'll owe us a favor in that case. On the other hand, if she is foolish enough to return to where this all started..." He shrugged. "I suspect the problem will solve itself. One way or another."

"You're sure that Miss Hebert can deal with a Parahuman like Shadow Stalker?" Gino asked calmly. "The girl is noted for being violent and I doubt she will hold back."

"Young Taylor can handle herself, of that I have no doubt," Antonio said after a moment's thought, with a somewhat evil little smile. "She's Danny's daughter after all. Heberts do tend to hold back for longer than most, but when you finally manage to rouse the sleeping dragon..." He snickered. "Well, we know what happens then. And she has some very interesting friends who I am sure take family as importantly as we do. Including, if the latest PHO threads are to be believed, a literal dragon..."

He looked down at the tablet, then tapped an icon, before putting it to the side. "No, I'm not worried about Taylor. Not at all."

"I understand, sir." Gino nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting times we live in."

"Truer words were never spoken, my boy." He sniffed, then brightened up. "Ah, I think the cookies are done!" Hopping spryly to his feet he headed towards the kitchen.

With a shake of her head, Serafina went after him. "Hands off, you old reprobate," she called loudly. "They need to cool down first."

Gino watched them both disappear into the kitchen, smiled faintly, then discreetly withdrew.

With any luck there would be cookies in the near future, assuming his boss didn't eat them all again.

---

Leaning his chair back, Mark flipped through the various documents he had in his hand, quickly inspecting them all one after another. Satisfied everything was in order, he shuffled them into a neat stack and put them into a folder on his desk, then looked over at Zephron who was sipping a disposable cup of coffee while reading some other paperwork. "Everything went well today."

"Yeah. Some good shots in that lot. Brian is pretty good with a rifle, although I expect his friend would be better. He learns fast too, and treats the equipment well."

"He'd have made a good recruit back in the day," Mark agreed, sitting up properly and letting the chair come forward. "Hard working, dedicated… I could see him going places."

"Good kid, in my view. Pity about the circumstances that brought him here, but that's in the past. He's settled in well." Zephron reached out one huge hand and closed the door, then added, "His abilities may come in handy if things go to shit. We'll need to work out the best way to make use of them. And his friend's special skills too."

Mark smirked a little. "Danny's already beat us to it with Lisa. I doubt we can pry her away from him and the Family. But we could certainly find ways to use Alec, Brian, and definitely Rachel, if they want to help out like that."

"Wonder if that bizarre smoke stuff could be piped around the place?" Zephron mused. "That could be interesting if it's possible."

"Bet Saurial could work out a way," Mark suggested. They exchanged a look, then smiled at each other, knowing what they did.

"Probably. Girl's good with weird crap like that. Seems able to work out innovative uses for all sorts of things you weren't expecting." He laughed for a moment. "Have you seen Danny's office door yet?"

Mark raised an eyebrow inquisitively, so his friend explained, making him stare, then whistle appreciatively. "Holy shit."

"That's more or less what I said," Zephron chuckled. "Only a lot louder. Fuck me, it was a shock. I can see so many different uses for that it boggles the mind."

"Jesus, you're not kidding," Mark muttered, already coming up with a number himself. "I need to sit down with them and go over some of the tactical implications of all this fractal dimensional stuff. If they can do it that easily…" He thought, and shook his head in wonder. "Amazing."

"They've got some interesting toys to show us, Metis said," Zephron added. "Knowing them it could be almost anything."

"I've got a few ideas, and it'll be impressive, whatever it is," Mark agreed. "Just that clothing is already a game changer. Sneaking armor onto everyone in the entire place like that was inspired."

Zephron looked at his coat, feeling one sleeve appreciatively. "It's really comfortable as well," he noted. "Warm and waterproof. The fact that you could put a fifty cal round into it and barely notice is a nice bonus." He grinned as Mark nodded.

"If things go bad, that alone will save lives," the blond man responded. About to say something else, he looked at his phone when it rang. "Sorry, let me get this." He picked it up and answered, "Mark Poulsen, DWU security office."

"Hello, Chief Warrant Officer Poulsen, it's been a long time since we've spoken," a voice from his past said, surprising him rather a lot.

"Lieutenant Colonel Tedeschi," he replied, startled. "It's been a very long time."

"Colonel, now, Mr Poulsen," the man he'd ultimately worked under for several years said, "Ten years, I think?"

"Nine and a half, sir. Almost exactly. How are you?"

"I'm very well, thank you. I hope you are as well?"

"As it happens, yes, I am," Mark smiled. "I have a lot of good friends relying on me and enjoy my work very much."

"From what I've heard about Brockton Bay, you probably see more combat than you did in the service," the other man chuckled. "It does sound like an interesting place, for a given value of interesting."

"It can be, yes," Mark smiled.

"And now you have lizards too. How's that working out?"

"A lot better than you'd think in fact. They're good people."

"Excellent. I'm glad things went well for you. We lost so many people when the various services were downsized, and your team was one of the ones I missed the most."

"Nice to hear it, sir. Although I have to say I'm happy where I am now."

"Don't worry, I'm not calling to try to persuade you to rejoin," his former superior assured him. "In fact, I'm hoping that you can help me. We've heard through a couple of discreet sources that your reptilian colleagues may have some products that would be of considerable interest to us."

"Oh?" He wondered who had said what to whom.

"Yes, indeed. One particularly interesting thing mentioned was a fence that was invulnerable and stowable. That piqued my interest quite a lot."

"Ah. Yes, that was an invention of Raptaur's in response to the threat the former gang the Archer's Bridge Merchants posed at the time. The main threat has diminished considerably with the eradication of the gang recently, but the fence is staying, just in case we need it. I admit that when they installed it, I did wonder if some of my former employers might be interested, and specifically thought of you, but I've been so busy since then I haven't managed to track you down." He was reassured, since the fence was more or less public knowledge now and it was likely that someone other than a DWU member had talked about it.

"Is it really as tough as I've been informed?" Colonel Tedeschi sounded intrigued.

"Well, we haven't actually fired an RPG at it, but Raptaur is sure it wouldn't even notice that," Mark replied. "In fact, she said it would take a tactical nuke at point blank range and shrug it off, which I for one don't actually want to see tested, but I have no reason to doubt her. Generally speaking, when the Family say their tech will do something, it does it."

"I see." The other man fell silent for a moment, while Mark looked at Zephron who was studying him curiously and shrugged. "This is made of the electron degenerate matter that's a hallmark of Family construction, I assume?"

"Yes. Everything I've been told about it, and seen, suggests it's about as close to indestructible as you can get. Impressive stuff."

"Interesting. I can see a number of places that we could make good use of that. Are they open to commissioned work?"

"I can ask, sir, but I doubt they'd have too much trouble with it," he replied slowly. "They seem quite happy to provide safety equipment, which that would probably count as to them. I don't think they'd be prepared to provide weapons, at least ones that were primarily lethal, although self defense appears to be something they're OK with. But equipment that's aimed at repairing problems or saving lives, that they do."

"Yes, I've heard that the city administration is in negotiation with them for some useful hardware we may also be interested in," the Colonel commented, sounding thoughtful. "That is also on my list. I may well have to arrange a visit and a talk with their marketing people."

"Easy enough, I think," Mark told him. "I'll ask Saurial, she's really the one in charge of this part of the Family, the next time I see her, which will probably be later today."

"Thank you, Mr Poulsen. Now, the other thing we're very interested in is something I've heard described as a healing spore, or one shot healer. If my information is correct, this could be extremely significant for battlefield as well as civilian use. I believe they're undergoing clinical trials with both the ENE PRT and Brockton Bay General Hospital?"

'How ever did you learn about that, Colonel?' Mark wondered curiously. Someone had clearly said something to someone. Director Piggot would be irritated to hear that. "That is correct, sir, yes," is what he said out loud. "We've had access to them for some weeks here, and they work incredibly well. Panacea vouches for their safety too."

"Does she now… That's reassuring." The Colonel sounded pleased. "It would be a definite help if I could acquire samples of these spores. Is that likely to be possible?"

Mark thought for a moment, looking at Zephron again, who seemed to be trying to work out what the other end of the phone call was talking about. "I don't see any reason it wouldn't be, Colonel," he finally replied. "I know Ianthe, the one who designed them, is determined to get them into wide-spread use. She considers us humans too fragile and is worried we break easily."

Colonel Tedeschi laughed. "She may have a point."

"Yeah, that's what we think. I'll ask about those too."

"Thank you, Mr Poulsen, that would be very helpful. I'll give you my current contact details to pass on to your friends. If they want to discuss any of what we talked about, they can call any weekday during office hours." Mark grabbed a pen and wrote down the phone number and extension the other man recited. "Thanks for your time, and I'm pleased to hear you found a career that suited you after leaving the Army."

"It was a pleasure to talk again, Colonel. Please give my best wishes to anyone from the old days who's still around."

"I'll do that." The older man hung up, and Mark put his phone down gently, then looked at the name and number on the pad in front of him.

"Huh," he finally said.

"Good news?" Zephron asked curiously. Mark held the pad up so he could read what was on it, which made his friend's eyebrows raise. "Huh indeed. Army wants FamTech stuff?"

"Looks like it. It doesn't surprise me, in fact, like I said when Raptaur put the fence in, it's something that I could see the military being interested in. They'd probably be fascinated by the flywheel stuff, firefighting gear, all the other things that Lisa demoed for the BBPD and the PRT the other day. The armored clothing too for that matter… In fact, most of what they'd made so far. But I think he was mostly after the healers. He's right, they'd be the best thing for battlefield medicine ever invented."

"Yeah, I can see that." Zephron nodded. "Think the girls would want to sell to the military?"

"I can't see a reason not to. They're all about saving lives, and that would certainly count." Mark carefully tore off the sheet of paper and folded it up, then put it in his desk. "I'll find Saurial and tell her, see what she thinks. After we've finished all this work."

"OK." Zephron finished off his coffee and tossed the cup into the garbage, then both of them resumed doing what they'd been doing before the phone call.

---

"How did it go?" Lisa asked Brian as when she sat next to him in the cafeteria. He'd been reading the same manual that Mark had given him but was now most of the way through it. Looking up, he smiled.

"Fine, thanks. The written test was fairly easy, the practical stuff wasn't too hard, and it was fun too. Learned a lot about guns. Mark sure knows his stuff."

"That sort of thing is exactly what he did in the Army as far as I know and he was very good at it," she told him. "He's got some very impressive skills in military matters. Zephron was never in the military, but he's also really good at that sort of thing for some reason."

"He says it was a misspent childhood," Brian commented, making her grin.

"A lot of that going around," the blonde replied with amusement. "Half the people here would say the same thing."

"At least," her friend agreed. "Anyway, he wants us all to train on the gun range at least twice a month, but he seems satisfied we won't shoot ourselves in the foot now. Or anyone else, hopefully."

"Unless they deserve it."

"Well, sure, but I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Me too," she sighed. "God knows what Skidmark will do, though. With any luck someone will collect on the bounty and he'll be out of our hair."

"That would be convenient, but what are the chances that will happen?" he asked with a shrug.

"Not as high as I'd like, I have to admit," she replied. "He's a cunning little fucker or he wouldn't still be alive after pissing off so many people. Pretty much all of them, as far as I can tell. He'll probably pop up at the most irritating time and make a fool of himself, then get wiped out by the Family. Or the PRT. Or even the BBPD."

"Man doesn't have a lot of friends these days," Brian said wisely.

"Nope. But then, did he ever?" Lisa shook her head. "Fucking asshole. Waiting for whatever he's planning is a pain. Oh well, can't be helped. Same with Shadow Stalker, she's almost bound to stick her oar in at some point too."

"She's going to find things don't go well in that case, I expect," her friend pointed out.

"Yeah, definitely. But I'm not sure she's smart enough to work that out before its too late."

Both of them turned to look at the sound of a familiar voice, seeing Linda and Alec come into the room, apparently discussing his latest game. Lisa glanced at her watch, then stood. "I've got to get back to work, so I'll see you later. Good work on the security thing."

"Thanks," Brian smiled. Leaving the room Lisa waved to her other friends, who waved back, before heading for the food. On the way back to her office and working out how many demo units of the various things Taylor had made over the weekend to distribute to various places, she mulled over the entire Skidmark and Shadow Stalker issue. It was one that worried her, but she couldn't see an easy solution other than waiting to see what happened. There were already so many different people looking for both of them that their own input wasn't really useful.

She had a nasty feeling that neither idiot would be found before they could cause problems, though. Her power, seeming somewhat annoyed also, agreed with her.

---

The wind moaned through the antenna above her, as Vicky floated half an inch off the roof of the Medhall building, staring at the sky and thinking.

It was a place she sometimes came when she was in a funk, being the tallest building in the area. Other times she headed for the outskirts of the city, knowing a few nice places in the woods where she could be alone, but in March that wasn't nearly as interesting as it was in July. Too cold and windy. Here, she was up high, but the low parapet around the roof area kept most of the wind off and where she was had some shelter from any rain if the weather was bad.

Ever since Triggering, she'd found high places conducive to pondering life in general, not least because they were normally far enough away from other people that she could avoid affecting them with her aura if it got away from her. She knew full well she hadn't always had good control of it, and had also been told enough times by Dean, her mother, her aunt, and practically everyone else as well that she needed to keep it bottled up better.

It hadn't been easy, and she admitted to herself at times that she hadn't always bothered precisely because of that. In many ways it was the least favorite part of her powers. She absolutely loved the flight, and the rest of the Alexandria package was certainly nice, but the aura was most of the time more trouble than it was worth. Sure, in some fights, it came in handy, but it also affected a lot more of her life than she was pleased about and looking back on it, she had a sneaky suspicion that it might have accounted for more of her popularity at school than was truly deserved.

That made her a little uncomfortable these days.

Ever since meeting Saurial, then Raptaur, she'd found herself trying to do better as a person. It was weird, neither of them had said anything about it, but for some reason they seemed to make her want to improve herself. Possibly by example, since both of them were amazingly calm and sensible, even though they also had lively senses of humor and at least in the case of Saurial were a hell of a lot of fun to be around. Somehow, she ended up wanting to emulate the example they provided of how to hero responsibly, as they'd probably put it.

She smiled a little at the thought. It was a very Family concept.

So she'd deliberately decided to do better at keeping her aura contained, and to think before she acted. It wasn't easy, but it seemed to work with some effort, and the results had certainly been desirable. Her relationship with Dean had improved to the point that she hadn't had a fight, or even much of an argument, with him for close on two months, she'd caused far less of the collateral damage that even she would admit, if only in private, tended to follow her around… overall it seemed to work surprisingly well.

Although she'd be living that accidental flight into the office building down for a long, long time…

It was noticeable on PHO that there were less people saying unkind things about her too, which was nice. She did her best, she really did, but there had been times in the past where she'd definitely been overenthusiastic and if it hadn't been for Amy she could have ended up in real trouble. And when she considered how things could have gone if she'd carried on that way, it made her feel somewhat ill.

Her initial interaction with Saurial, as an example, could have ended up remarkably badly if the lizard-girl wasn't so hard to upset. She had no one but herself to blame for that too, which is something she'd realized with a horrible certainty some hours later. That single event was the moment she could point to where she started to think hard about how she wanted to be seen.

The point, she suspected, where she'd decided to grow up.

Not many people could narrow it down that precisely, she thought. Luckily she'd got that wake-up call before something horrible happened, another thing she could thank the Family for, even if it was entirely coincidental on their part.

Now, though, she was thinking about the strange reptiles from a different angle. The obsession that had taken over much of her waking hours for weeks now had gone far past the point of being sensible. She'd wasted more time than she liked to think about researching some of the strangest and most disturbing things she'd ever heard of on the internet and in the school library and all it had got her was innumerable headaches, a lot of nightmares, and a distinct sensation that there were a lot of very peculiar individuals writing total crap about things they knew very little of.

Lying here and going over it yet again, she could dismiss at least ninety percent of it as fiction at best and delusional at worst. The remaining ten percent was a mix of bizarre coincidences and some odd conclusions, none of which she had any proof for or against.

The trouble was that every time she went through this mental exercise, adding in any new observations and ideas, she ended up with a different ten percent. Which was irritating. And worrying.

There was no doubt in her mind that something weird was going on with the Family, the Heberts, and her own sister. What that was, she had no real idea, but many strange thoughts. Taylor and Saurial were just too similar in some specific ways, even though she admitted to herself that she'd have a hard time explaining any of it to anyone else and getting them to believe her.

The totally different species thing was the real sticking point, since she was absolutely certain that Saurial really was a reptile person, possibly from some alien source. She definitely was not a Parahuman, that much Vicky was sure of. It didn't make her any less of a friend, of course, but it was weird, no doubt about it.

She kept coming back to remembering how Saurial acted in Taylor's house, and how Taylor's father and Taylor herself acted around Saurial. She could easily believe that the lizard really had grown up with the Heberts, and was considered part of the family. And that they in turn were considered part of The Family.

How that happened, she had no clue.

Everything else, that was also up in the air right now. Lots of strange similarities to fiction and various legends, but there were any number of possible causes for that. She simply didn't have enough information to work out how it all linked together, and had decided that trying to gather that information was going to drive her around the bend if she kept at it. So she was trying to ignore that part for now.

What it all came back to, right at this moment, was Amy.

How did that fucking pair of fucking jeans with the fucking disappearing tail sleeve fit into it all?

Was it real? Or had she genuinely imagined it?

No test she'd been able to come up with had revealed anything amiss with the clothing. Since that one time in the school locker room, where she could swear she'd really seen the unusual modification, there had been no sign of it. But she couldn't bring herself to believe she'd hallucinated such a detailed and bizarre thing. Why would she? Why suddenly see a modification required by someone with a tail out of the blue? It was more of a stretch of her imagination to have come up with that particular idea from nowhere than to have actually seen it then have it vanish into nothing.

So, right now and right here, she was minded to believe the evidence of her eyes, and think that there had been something odd there, and now there wasn't. Either it had literally vanished, or someone or something had managed to replace the modified jeans with normal ones in the bottom of her bag while it was in her possession, or for some reason she simply wasn't seeing what was still there. All three possibilities were within the realms of something that could be achieved by a Parahuman power, although in none of them could she see what the point would be.

The way she got a vicious headache every time she looked at the clothing was, now that she considered it calmly and carefully, possibly another clue. Maybe it was linked to some sort of powers-related shenanigans and not just her thinking too hard about weird shit? If so, who was behind it? And again, why?

The blonde sighed heavily. This was getting her nowhere. She wasn't stupid, and knew it, but it would take someone smarter than her to work it out from first principles with the evidence or lack of it she currently had.

'Taylor probably could,' she thought with slight amusement.

"Damn it," she finally whispered, sitting up in mid air and putting her hands behind her head, then stretching. "No choice really. Either I forget it all, or I go and talk to Amy." She sighed again. "Fuck. Well, what's the worst that can happen? I find out my sister is a hidden giant lizard and she eats me."

Suddenly wishing she hadn't said it out loud, she floated off the roof, straightened up in mid air, then headed for the nearest source of a snack. After eating that to get her blood sugar up, she decided that she'd track her sister down and get to the bottom of things once and for all.

It was that, or quietly go crazy.

---

Entering the workroom, Lisa peered curiously at the small widget Amy was fiddling with, Taylor as Saurial and the Varga also as Saurial watching closely, while apparently making their own changes to it at the same time. "Is that the same thing we tried last night?" she asked.

"Yeah, these two came up with some modifications to it so we're making new ones," Amy muttered, concentrating on her work. "Hang on, this bit is… Ah. How's that?"

"It linked in correctly, so it should be fine," the demon replied, bending over the thing which was supported by a small stand on the bench, several of 'Ianthe's' healing tendrils connected to it. "As far as I can tell it's working properly. We need to make another one and double-check, but assuming they're functional, I believe we're ready for another test."

"OK." Amy retracted the tendrils, the tiny thing, which was only about the size of a pea, remaining in place on the stand. Taylor quickly produced another identical holder, then the inorganic parts of the small device, which Lisa knew was actually a hell of a lot more complex than it looked. And possibly even weirder, which was worrying considering how bizarre it appeared as it was.

"Ready," the girl reported a few seconds later.

"Great." Sticking her hand into an open bag of onions, Amy pulled one out, then cupped her other hand around the thing, half a dozen tendrils reappearing and going to work. Glistening organic matter flowed from the tendrils while the onion shrank to nothing, all of it somehow fitting inside the small object. "All right, that's the main structure done and functional," Amy commented absently, concentrating hard. "Just the neural interlink… there. It's finished."

"Cool. That was a lot quicker than the first one," Taylor smiled.

"It's hellishly complex but practicing does seem to help even with this sort of thing," Amy smiled. "I can probably optimize it some more, but this is already much better and neater than the original prototype. And it should look on an X-ray or an MRI scan just like a small bone overgrowth, if anyone bothered to look hard enough. Which would have to be very hard, actually."

"All the inorganic aspects are inside a fractal pocket, so there isn't very much to see," the Varga noted. "We can quite likely improve on that aspect as well. But I agree, this is fine for now and should suffice for our immediate needs."

"Well, let's see if it works, shall we?" Taylor said brightly, turning to Lisa with an expectant look. "What does Mr Thinky say?"

Lisa stared at her. "Mr Thinky?" she echoed in puzzlement.

"Your power." Taylor tapped her head with a claw-tip, grinning deviously. "It needs a name, you know that. So I gave it one."

Fixing her quite possibly mildly mad friend with a hard look, Lisa grated, "We are not calling my power 'Mr Thinky' you absolute loon." She turned her head to look at 'Ianthe' who was convulsed with silent laughter next to her. "And you can stop laughing too. Next thing you know she'll call your power 'Miss Fixey' or something equally inane."

Amy stared at her, then fell over laughing her ass off. "Miss Fixey..." she giggled.

The demon patted Lisa on the shoulder in a comforting manner. "I apologize for my Brain, while she has many very admirable qualities and talents, naming things is sadly not one of them."

"You got that right," Lisa grumbled under her breath. She poked Amy with her foot. "Stop giggling and get up, you mad woman. We have things to do."

Climbing to her feet, still snickering, Amy looked at Lisa, who was frowning, Taylor, who was grinning, and the demon, who was not very well hiding a grin of his own. "Mr Thinky," she said to herself with a smirk, then shook her head as Lisa sighed. "Fine, fine, let's see if these things work. Get into Metis and put your head on the bench, I need to remove the first one and stick this one in."

Feeling that she was surrounded by crazy people, not for the first time, while being fully aware that she was one of them, Lisa went into the storage area to switch into her own reptilian form. When she came out half a minutes later as a large black lizard, she leaned forward with her tail out behind her for balance and rested her 'Metis' head on the workbench. She felt Amy's hands on the top of it near her neck, then it went numb. "My power, which is to my annoyance also grinning, says it'll work fine, by the way," she said as the healer worked behind her. Even though it wasn't her human body being directly fiddled with, it still made her just the tiniest bit nervous despite herself. Even so, she trusted Amy implicitly and so did her power, which was telling her almost soothingly everything was proceeding to plan.

"Oh, cool, I can see her brain," Taylor said with interest, leaning forward in her peripheral vision which was much greater than her human body had. "What happens if I poke here?"

"Don't poke anywhere!" Lisa instructed firmly.

"Aww. No one ever lets me poke their brain," Taylor sighed over Amy's laugh. "Anyway, this is Metis's brain, not Lisa's."

"I don't care, I'm in there right now, and I don't want anyone poking anything, thanks very much," Lisa complained. "And even when I'm not in there, I don't want anyone poking Metis in the brain either. She's a friend."

"I know, Lisa, don't worry," Taylor replied comfortingly. "Metis is Family. We look after our Family and would never hurt them."

"All done," Amy announced. Taylor had successfully distracted Lisa long enough to let their friend finish her task, which the black lizard suspected was the entire point of the odd conversation. Sensation came back to the rear of her head and she straightened up, reaching up to rub the spot. "It's installed and the first version is removed. I can see a way to make the bioconstructs able to install them into the human user too, which will speed things up. Although I really do need to make a proper upgrade unit so we don't need to keep sticking people into Metis or Ianthe."

Lisa looked at her, then Taylor and her demon. "How difficult is that to do? I know you mentioned the idea a while ago."

"Not hard, actually," Amy replied with a thoughtful look on her face. "I've got most of the design worked out but it wasn't a priority, so I didn't finish it. I'll do that now that we have most of the other main projects we had in mind at least in prototype. Maybe tomorrow?" She looked around the room for a moment. "Possibly make more than one, thinking about it. I can see them coming in handy."

After a moment, she shrugged. "Yet another thing for the list. OK, I'm going to install the other one in myself, then we can see how they work." Picking the second unit up very carefully between two claw-tips, she reached up behind her head for a few seconds, then closed her eyes, visibly concentrating. Lisa let her power contemplate the procedure as they all watched with interest. It was fascinated, and confident that everything was proceeding to plan.

Thirty seconds later, 'Ianthe' opened her eyes and nodded. "Installed and working, I think," she announced, lowering her hand which now had a different and rather larger yet still weird-appearing thing in it, which she put on the bench next to the one from Metis. Scratching her head for a moment, she shook it a couple of times, then nodded again. "Yep, passes all the tests." Putting her hand on Lisa's forearm she checked once more. "That one is definitely good too. We're ready."

"Great," Taylor smiled. "We'll activate them. Hold on..."

Lisa felt something weird happen inside her head, the feeling familiar from the initial tests the night before, but still novel.

"They're connected. Everything looks fine from this end," Taylor told her.

Turning to look at Amy, Lisa performed the internal operation they'd designed into the upgrade, newly installed neural nodes switching on at her demand. Selecting the correct mode, she carefully thought at the little device in her brain.

^Breaker, breaker, good buddies^ she 'said', essentially sub-vocalizing via the node hooked into her speech and hearing centers. ^Anyone got their ears on?^

^This isn't a CB radio, and we're not in the seventies, you know^ Amy's 'Ianthe' voice immediately replied.

Both of them grinned at each other, neither having spoken with their mouths.

^This is fucking cool,^ Lisa chortled. ^Totally unjammable, secure communications, and no electronics at all. Only your bizarre excuse for biotechnology and her weird fractal spatial fuckery.^ She pointed at Taylor, who was looking amused.

^It's very good spatial fuckery,^ 'Saurial' said, joining into the conversation. ^And extremely interesting math. I wish I'd thought of it earlier, it's kind of obvious when you start thinking about linking two sections of space together like we did with the doorways.^

^It's not at all obvious and would take someone as crazy as you to come up with,^ Lisa replied.

^It is a logical outgrowth of the entire field we're developing, Lisa,^ the Varga put in. ^Although I agree it's still a significant step, and solves a number of issues we've been considering for a while now.^

^The idea just came to me last night,^ Taylor said with a smile. ^For some reason I thought about that old saying, 'A little voice at the back of my mind,' and then I thought, 'Hey, what about a permanent nano-scale spatial connection between two implants in two different brains...' After that it was just a lot of math and some of Amy's best work. And here we are.^

^Although we're achieving the same result via a somewhat different path,^ the demon added thoughtfully. ^It wasn't hard once the basic idea was in place to design a similar method in our body that's compatible with the ones you two have. The practice we got with connecting various doorways together was invaluable, it would have been much harder without that. The main challenge with this variation was modifying the math to allow any of the nodes to move relative to each other. I am almost certain we've cracked that, using some of the methods we came up with to improve our teleportation technique. It certainly seems to work over the fairly short ranges we've tried so far.^

^Instant telepathy,^ Amy grinned, looking inordinately pleased. ^Kind of. It's 'telepathy' in the same way you guys 'teleport,' so not really, but close enough to fool most people.^

^It's incredibly cool, whatever the truth of it,^ Lisa remarked, very pleased indeed. ^Voice only is really good as it is, but you think you can do other senses?^

^Yep,^ Amy nodded. ^Voice is easier, but vision and scent shouldn't be too hard with some more work. I'm not sure I can do it with Taylor or the Varga, the bandwidth requirements get really complex, but between brains I designed? Or human ones, for that matter, at least via the neural amplifiers. It'll start getting a little fiddly if we add more people, since we need a method to let any two of them connect only to each other, or to specific groups, that sort of thing. Like a phone system, I guess. I can see a couple of ways to do it, even if we end up using lots of dedicated nano-portals or whatever the proper description for their universe-bending math is.^

^We could certainly set it up to have one link per person,^ the demon nodded. ^It's not the most efficient method, as we'd need to update every unit each time we added someone to the network, but I agree it's the easiest one. A tunable connection is probably the ideal solution but that will take some more thought. But this will suffice for the moment.^

^Well, I'm impressed even if this is all we can do for now,^ Lisa stated firmly. ^As long as I can turn it off so I don't need to listen when I'm trying to get to sleep...^

Amy chuckled. ^I thought of that, you can set it to off, alarm mode so you'll know if someone is trying to contact you, and on. Once we work out the rest of it, we can set things up a little more usefully.^

^We can test the range now, and assuming that works properly, it's easy to modify these ones to have more link paths for the time being,^ Taylor agreed. ^One each for us, you, Lisa, Metis, Ianthe, Nike, and Lisa's dragon. Plus this party line. Maybe add the guys in too? And Dad?^

^Eleven pathways… Yeah, that's easy,^ Amy nodded. ^But Varga's right, it'll start getting stupidly complex if we keep doing it that way. Sure, it's possible, but it just feels inefficient.^

^Armsmaster would be irritated,^ Lisa grinned.

^He would, and we don't want to disappoint Armsmaster, do we?^ Taylor asked with a snicker. ^I like him.^

^I think we all do,^ Amy nodded. ^Hey, can we make an external unit using this technique, do you think? Like a radio? That might be useful to talk to other people if we want to let them in on our 'Family communications system...'^

Taylor and her demon exchanged a glance. ^Shouldn't be too hard,^ the girl said after a moment of thought. ^Interfacing it to an actual radio might be worth trying too. But we can make some FamTech walkie-talkie equivalents, I guess. I'm not sure I want to tell anyone other than us for now, though. We'll see how it goes.^

^OK. I've got some ideas for that, thinking about it,^ Amy replied. ^Anyway, let's see if the range is as good as you think it will be.^

^Easily done,^ the Varga smiled. ^We'll move away and check things continue to work. I'm not expecting any issues, I think we have the math correct, but it's best to be certain.^

^Go for it. And make sure you're cloaked, we don't want Leviathan going nuts.^ Lisa watched as both copies of Saurial smiled and disappeared.

"This really is one of the coolest things ever," she said out loud.

"I know, right?" Amy grinned. "It's fucking amazing. And it went together so neatly too. My own power thinks it's amazing, it absolutely loves Taylor and her bizarre ideas, and seems to enjoy working with them like nothing you can believe."

^Station Saurial mobile one checking in, are you receiving, over?^ Taylor's voice came to both of them over their new comms system, making them exchange a look.

^Knock off the radio talk, you scaly nuisance,^ Lisa laughed. ^It's working perfectly. Where are you?^

^Kansas City,^ their friend said.

^That's a pretty big first step,^ Amy commented with a raised eyebrow.

^We're sure it'll work so there was no point messing around with little hops,^ Taylor replied with a note of satisfaction apparent.

^We'll go further,^ the Varga added. They fell silent for ten seconds or so. ^How is this?^

^Still fine,^ Amy replied.

^We're in LA now.^ Taylor sounded pleased. ^We're aiming for Hawaii next.^

Not long afterwards, they checked in again. There was no difference in the internal voice than when they were standing next to the other two, Lisa noticed, which when she thought about it made sense. It wasn't a radio, there was no reason for the 'signal' to degrade, since the effective distance between the little communication devices internally was essentially nil.

The remote pair kept going, and by the time they reappeared half an hour later everyone was looking very pleased. "Perfect," Taylor said, smiling broadly. "Anywhere on the planet by the looks of it. In theory it should work over any arbitrary distance you care to name, but that's certainly more than enough for now."

"It exceeds my own expectations nicely," the Varga nodded. "I believe we have indeed solved that particular problem. It's helped by the connections being so small, of course, but it leads to some interesting future applications. We're a long way towards Lisa's idea for a city wide general purpose transportation network for instance, although that will still require more work to be fully realizable."

"I'll bet Vista would love to see the math behind it," Taylor mused. "We really do need to get to know her better at some point. But I'm happy with what we've managed to do."

^It is one of your better ideas,^ Amy agreed silently, grinning like an idiot.

^Yeah, I'm impressed as hell,^ Lisa agreed.

^Let's add the extra pathways, make some more, and get them in the dragons and both our human bodies,^ 'Ianthe' went on with a look at Taylor's Saurial aspect, the Varga currently manifesting as the small dragon sitting on her shoulder as was common. ^That should do it for right now. We can talk to Randall and Kevin and see if they're interested, and you can mention it to your dad tonight as well.^

^Sounds good,^ Taylor agreed. ^You know, if we end up just talking without using our voices like this around other people, they're going to get very confused...^

^Like that doesn't already happen,^ Lisa snickered, making all of them laugh. Soon Taylor was making more comms unit skeletons while Amy was adding the organic parts, with Lisa using her power to check their progress. All of them were pleased with their results so far.

---

Hanging in the sky above the water a hundred feet offshore of the DWU facility and three hundred feet up, Vicky slurped the dregs of her milkshake, while trying to think if there was any other approach she'd missed. Eventually she decided, somewhat nervously, that there wasn't. Putting the empty cup into the bag the rest of her food had come in, she crumpled the whole thing into a small ball, then tucked that into her backpack over her shoulder, breathed heavily a couple of times to settle her nerves, then headed down towards the entrance of the BBFO office where she could hopefully find some answers and not a sudden and messy end…

---

Taylor looked around, sniffing. Moments later Amy and Lisa did the same. A couple of seconds after that there was a knock on the door.

"I wonder why Vicky is here? She smells weird." Taylor asked as she headed towards the entrance. Amy, who was in her human form at the moment having just finished installing a comms unit in her normal body as well, shrugged.

"One easy way to find out," her friend suggested, smiling.

"True." Taylor in her human aspect unlocked the door, while the Varga switched from the small dragon to Saurial. Pulling it open, she found a familiar blonde girl on the other side, dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing at school, and wearing a distinctly nervous expression that was quite unlike her normal one. She also smelled mildly terrified.

"Hi," Vicky said. She looked past Taylor to see her sister regarding her curiously. Taking a deep breath, the girl went on, "Can I come in? I've got a problem I hope you have the answers to."

Taylor looked at her, wondering what that meant, while hoping it wasn't anything serious, then stepped aside and waved her friend in. "Sure. Come on inside."

Vicky came in, looking more nervous by the moment, and Taylor closed the door behind her.