A little late, as is traditional, but I give you a Happy Treason Day side story for the USians among us :)
"Well, my friend, we have an opening it would be foolish to miss," Taylor mused out loud as she studied the screen she was looking at. Off to the side, her dimensional comms rig displayed a few complex symbols, causing her to glance at it, then grin. The presence riding at the back of her mind grinned back as the bizarre shape sitting on top of the machine wavered like a heat mirage see through a dream.
"Exactly. [DATA] is a good way to put it." The sound she produced was something that most people would have found highly disturbing, and certain individuals would have gaped at before backing slowly away. To her, by now, it was something she was used to.
Pulling one keyboard closer, she typed rapidly on it, her eyes flicking from screen to screen, while various optronic processing blocks around the room glowed with eldritch shifting patterns. Vast quantities of information flowed between her systems and something far older, something she had acquired for her own purposes with glee, something that had decided she was far more interesting than it's previous controller. Something she thought of as a friend.
Something that was very, very fond of her.
And was rapidly developing a sense of humor.
Which was nice.
"Let's see..." Opening a couple of web pages, she scanned them, then clicked on a link or two. Another monitor showed various searches running without her even looking at them, although she nodded every now and then regardless. "Yeah, looks easy enough… So we need to register here like this..." Forms filled almost instantly and closed. "Then transfer some funds here..." More windows came and went. "And here..." A session connected to a system that wasn't even available through the internet popped up, pages rapidly altering, then went away again. "And that part's done." Taylor looked to the side and inspected the official documentation that appeared on yet another screen, nodding in satisfaction. "All the paperwork is in order. Great. New company set up, licenses approved, insurance completed… OK. Now we're getting somewhere."
She paused, thinking, then nodded. "Good idea." Smiling she typed again, her fingers blurring and the sound a steady rattle almost without pause for close to thirty seconds. "That's done, all ordered. Should get delivered… tomorrow, it looks like. Brendan is going to love this." The girl giggled, thinking about the expression on her friend's face. She always liked watching him when he realized what she'd done. He looked both exasperated and pleased in equal measure. "I'd better talk to Dad, I'll need his help for some of this."
Cocking her head, she appeared to listen, then shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm sure they'll get used to it. Sooner or later."
Snickering she typed some more, before finally sending the last of the requests and orders off. Closing all the windows she leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers behind her head with an expression of satisfaction.
"Now all we have to do is design the equipment needed, make it, program it, and get everything set up in time. We're going to need a lot of them. Easy."
Feeling that life was going well, she hopped to her feet and went to tell her father that Gravtec was going to be backing a public event to entertain the city.
Roy Christner, Mayor of Brockton Bay, the Strangest City In America™, which was genuinely what some people had said their motto should be, read with raised eyebrows the document he'd been handed before looking at his assistant. "This is… a little unexpected," he commented mildly, while wondering if other mayors had this sort of thing happen to them as often as it did around here. He suspected not. His city was definitely one of the weirder places around, absolutely rotten with Parahumans, the epicenter of more peculiar events than he could easily recall, and overall a place that many would tend to avoid like the plague.
On the other hand it was his home, he was determined to keep it intact, and in the last eighteen months or so since DARPA had moved into the Docks, things did seem to have calmed down a hell of a lot. Which was reason enough to let the crazy government scientists and the even crazier dock workers union keep doing whatever the hell it really was that they did and not look to hard at it. The way the port was opening up again, if nothing else, was bringing a lot of business to the city and hence revenue to the city coffers, something he was very keen in seeing continue.
But occasionally things like this happened. He looked at the paperwork again, shaking his head in some wonder.
"It's legit, I checked twice," Gary, his personal assistant said. "All the licenses are in correctly filed, all the fees paid, a massive insurance policy is already in place, all we have to do is sign the permit."
With a smile, Roy picked up a pen and wrote his name at the bottom of the last page. "Far be it from this administration to deny the public of our fair city an evening of entertainment." His smile widened. "Especially one someone else is paying for, and one we can use as an example of how well our city is doing." He handed the document back. "Make sure everyone is notified, get the place cleaned up properly, and hire anyone required to do the work. May as well use this opportunity to sort out a few other problems at the same time."
Gary nodded, making some notes. "And the PRT? They might get a little upset if we don't give them plenty of notice, you know what they're like."
"I'll call the Director myself," Roy replied. He grinned. "She always enjoys talking to me, after all."
His assistant made a small note of dark amusement deep in his throat, causing Roy to chuckle. "If you say so, sir."
He nodded and left, closing the door to Roy's office behind him. Alone, the man stood up and walked over to the large window overlooking the business district of the city, with a view out to the water and beyond. He studied the scene, peering to the side where the ship that had blighted the city for so long had been until the spectacular removal of it by Gravtec. Wondering yet again what it really was that the secretive company that had unexpectedly appeared out of nowhere actually did and why the government was so invested in them, he finally shrugged minutely. He'd probably never find out, due to the security that surrounded the entire area. While curious he wasn't sufficiently so to risk pushing, and was quite happy to let them get on with things. The benefits to the city were obvious already, even beyond the parts that everyone had seen. He was privy to far more information than most people and was well aware that some very fundamental changes had taken place behind the scenes, even if he didn't know quite how that had been done.
It wasn't something he was going to lose sleep over; Kaiser and his little club for fascists had gone very quiet suspiciously soon after Gravtec had announced their presence to the world via something he was certain was a deliberate demonstration, Lung likewise, and even the Merchants seemed to have dropped off the radar entirely. Über and Leet had also totally stopped their shenanigans, although he'd heard that they'd been seen wandering around here and there being very polite to anyone who spotted them as if they were doing their best not to attract attention. No one had heard a peep out of Coil for months, which was good news, the nascent group the Undersiders seemed to have completely and quietly vanished into the night, and while Faultline's Crew was still around, they were being their usual discreet selves.
And even the non-Parahuman-related problems that had for decades plagued the city had diminished enormously. Street crime was at a thirty year low ebb, at least partly due to much of it having been exacerbated if not directly caused by the various gangs. The message seemed to have gotten around that Brockton Bay was not at the moment a particularly good place to ply your business if that business involved law-breaking. He didn't know if that would continue but it was certainly a thing at the moment, and something he was quite pleased about.
Shaking his head a little he looked at the PRT building, sticking above some of the lower constructions between city hall and it, then over at the Rig in the middle of the bay. He wondered if Director Piggot and the Protectorate found the changes as much to their liking as he did. And as baffling.
Deciding that it wasn't important, since it was their problem not his, he went back to his desk and sat again, pulling the next document requiring his attention from the in box and settling back to read it. Time would tell whether the current status would hold, but in the mean time he could get on with work and try to make up some of the things that had needed doing for far too long. Once he'd got all this paperwork out of the way he'd call Director Piggot and get some amusement value out of seeing how much she sighed.
Then he'd look forward to next Monday. He was very curious to see what happened then.
"Hi, guys," Taylor said happily as she let Amy and Vicky into the house. Closing the door she made sure no one in the area was acting suspiciously, or at least more suspiciously than about three hundred secret agents tended to be. Still somewhat amused at how much effort they were all putting into the job, and also rather impressed and grateful, she went on, "Want something to drink?"
"Sure, Taylor," Vicky replied, nodding, Amy doing the same. Both followed her into the kitchen. "Hey, you got any of that chocolate cake left?"
Amy looked interested, making Taylor chuckle, then pull a container out of the cupboard. "Yeah, I've got some," she replied as she popped the lid off. "Grab some of the cans out of the fridge, will you?"
Moving to open the appliance, Amy retrieved three soda cans, and shortly all of them were sitting in the back yard in the shade eating a tasty snack while having a drink. "I'm glad we still have lots of summer break left," Amy said as she leaned back and looked up at the leaves of the tree above her with a small smile. "I needed some time off from school and the hospital."
"And Mom," Vicky commented with a dry voice, making her sister smirk just a little.
"Can't say you're wrong," she admitted without rancor.
"Things going OK on that front?" Taylor asked. Vicky lifted a hand and waggled it from side to side.
"Kind of, but I'd be lying if I said everything was perfect."
Amy shrugged, picking her can up from the grass and sipping from it. When she put it down again, she said, "It's better than it was but not as good as it could be. Still, I'm feeling a lot less stressed than I was, and I've got enough money to do anything I want."
"Always nice," Taylor said with a grin. Her friend replied with her own.
"Yeah. I've got a few plans for some of it. Ways to help out around this place." She finished off the cake and put the plate down as well next to the nearly empty can. One of the dragonflies that were zipping around the garden landed on her head as they tended to, making her roll her eyes up then sigh a little. "I swear you've trained them or something. Every time I come over that happens."
"They like you," Taylor giggled. "You're dragonfly-approved."
"How nice," Amy responded wryly, reaching up and touching the insect, which moved to her finger and seemed happy there.
As she was studying it, Taylor looked between them both, then leaned forward. "Want to help me with a little project?" she asked quietly.
Vicky glances at her sister, who looked back with an intrigued expression, then the two sisters also leaned in. "What?" the blonde asked in a low voice.
"A sort of entertainment thought I had," Taylor replied, smiling in a sort of sneaky manner. "It's going to be really cool. But I could do with some fresh ideas for parts of it."
Amy stared at her, absently putting the dragonfly back on her head. "Entertainment?" she asked suspiciously. "Are you going all Über and Leet on us?"
Taylor gave them a sly look and stood up. "Follow me, and I'll show you."
The sisters got up as well and trailed after their crazy friend, all of them going down into her lab. The door closed. After a few minutes, Amy said loudly enough for someone outside the basement door to hear, "Taylor, you are utterly insane. Of course we're going to help!"
Quite a lot of laughter came up through the floor but by the time Danny got home everything had become ominously quiet. He looked at the closed door, sighed almost silently because he could damn near feel something building up from his daughter, then went to get something to eat.
He'd find out what she was planning soon enough, he was pretty certain of that.
Emily read the web page with a narrow gaze, wondering who was behind it.
In conjunction with
Presentation Unlimited
The City of Brockton Bay is proud to announce the largest aerial display in the US on the 4th of July.
Free admission to all!
Celebrate Independence Day with us in a way you'll remember!
This Monday night, the skies above the Bay will explode with color and light unlike anything you've ever seen!
We'll see you there!
There wasn't much in the way of details, like who was really funding whatever was going to happen, or for that matter what was going to happen. She assumed a large fireworks display, but the wording was odd.
And Roy had seemed much too pleased with himself when he'd called to give her a head's-up that the sky over the city was going to be somewhat busy for a few hours, and suggest that her people should stay clear.
Poking around for a while, she found all the relevant documentation for the listed company, which as far as she could tell was legitimate. So were all the permits, insurance details, and everything else. In the end she shook her head, not entirely certain why she had a funny feeling that things weren't quite as clear cut as they might be.
It was a feeling she'd had a lot in recent months. Ever since Gravtec had flown a fucking huge ship across the bay without any warning and taken about five years off her life. That was the point where things had started to go strange, even by local standards.
Sighing, she got up and looked out the window, first in the direction of the mouth of the bay where the ship had once been, as well as the Ship's Graveyard. The latter had been a feature of the city long before she'd been posted here and to see it practically converted back to empty land was jarring. Even more so than not seeing the giant ship blocking the bay. Now the water was showing a large amount of marine traffic, ships of all sizes coming and going, in an economic revival that had taken everyone by surprise, but was very welcome.
Peering in the other direction she examined the distant Docks area, yet again pondering the mystery that was Gravtec and whatever shadowy military contacts the company had. DARPA was the only one she was sure of but she had a feeling in her bones it was the tip of the iceberg. Still, they kept to themselves and nothing quite as startling as the flying ship had happened since, they had nothing to do with Parahumans or anything she needed to concern herself with, and as such she was entirely fine with leaving them to get on with their work. Whatever it really was.
She was curious, of course, but not enough to try to stick her nose in where it wasn't wanted or needed, having satisfied herself it was none of her business. It would take a real idiot to push too hard in that direction considering who was involved.
Emily wasn't an idiot.
Shaking her head she went back to her desk, looked again at the web page, shrugged, and made a few notes to mention to Armsmaster and his people that they'd probably better make sure not to get in the way. Then she moved onto the next item of her much too full schedule. Gritting her teeth as she read the report, she decided that Clockblocker was due for yet another extended lecture on the appropriateness of certain little japes…
Angus looked at Danny. Danny looked back. Both looked at Taylor, who was wearing the expression of someone who was having far more fun than seemed reasonable.
"You, my girl, are going to be the cause of my ultimate descent into madness and senility," he finally said with a small laugh, shaking his head in both respect and exasperation.
"Oh, don't worry, I'll think of something to fix that if it happens," she replied cheerfully.
"I expect you probably will," he commented wryly. "All right, then. Let's see what you've done this time."
She held up a small device and showed it to them, before putting it on his desk, next to a thick manual she produced from her backpack. He picked the little machine up and studied it curiously, before replacing it and retrieving the documentation.
Flipping slowly through the pages, his eyebrows went up and up. Eventually he stopped somewhere in the middle and inspected one diagram, turning the folder sideways to look at it from another angle, while whistling through his teeth.
"You're going to need a lot of them," he pointed out in the end.
"I know," she replied, looking amused.
"How many do you actually have?"
"A lot of them." Her smile became somewhat evil. "Like, a lot of them..."
With a faint feeling of incipient worry, Angus looked at her again. "And how did you manage to do that in such a short time?" he inquired.
"Invented something to make them," she shrugged.
"Of course you did," he muttered. "Silly of me to ask, really. And when this is over, what are you planning to do with the things?"
Taylor just grinned at them. Danny groaned and put his face in his hands, while Angus after a moment closed the document, picked up the phone, and made the usual call. The girl waved happily and trotted off to do something bizarre as he started explaining to Brendan just what their favorite prodigy was doing this time…
"That is so cool!" Amy studied the projected holographic image filling half of Taylor's workshop, the result of a piece of hardware her friend had casually come up with halfway through their project to make things easier to configure. The image had far more depth to it than seemed even slightly reasonable, considering how small it was in real terms, but the effect was amazing. She leaned closer and watched with fascination for a while. On the other side Vicky was doing the same, even as Taylor was examining the projection with an evaluating look.
"Is the swarm behavior correct?" the tall girl asked Amy. Amy thought, going over her own special skill which was finding this whole thing as fascinating as she was if she was any judge.
After a moment, she replied, a little thoughtfully, "The emergent properties are pretty good, but not quite right yet, I think." Pointing, her hand vanishing into the projection, she added, "See there? It should be sort of moving like this rather than that." Making a small gesture which Taylor nodded at, she continued, "But overall it's really close."
Her friend walked over to her chair and sat in it, spinning around to one of the ridiculously over-complicated computers that she had, then typed faster than Amy had ever seen anyone manage before. Looking back at the projection over her shoulder, still typing without missing a beat, the taller girl watched as the image changed a little, then reset. "Like that?"
"Yeah… Yeah, that's much better." Amy nodded in satisfaction. Taylor made a few more changes, then hit one last key, saving the results.
"Great. That pattern is finished, then. Hey, Vicky, we'll do your idea next."
Amy's sister smiled widely, as she floated cross-legged in space and watched the projection with keen interest. "I'm telling you, it's going to be fantastic," she said enthusiastically. "That movie was amazing, and it had some cool ideas."
"I thought so, yep," Taylor agreed. She was looking very pleased with the progress so far. All of them were. Even the weird not-fully-there thing sitting on top of one of Taylor's unidentifiable machines in the far corner, the thing that seemed to be far larger than it was and gave the impression of watching everything with fascination, appeared to be happy. Which Amy thought was very strange, but by now had decided just to roll with.
The dragonfly that was, as seemed to now be habit, sitting on Amy's hair, took off and flew around the projected image in a way that made her think it was examining it with as much interest as the rest of them, before returning to its original spot. Vicky watched it, then shook her head in wonder. Amy and Taylor more or less ignored the creature. Soon they were engaged in lively discussion of the next part of the grand idea.
Mike Renick walked through the massive crowd, looking around and smiling a little at the sheer exuberance of the milling people. There were literally tens of thousands of them filling the Boardwalk, all the spaces near the water they could get access too, and overflowing onto the beach. The tide was going out and the day had been very hot, without a cloud in the sky. He could hear fireworks going off all over the city, intermittent booms and whistles mixed with long sequences of crackles that were, to a Brocktonite, easily distinguishable from gunfire.
There was remarkably little of that these days, something he was entirely happy about.
Even a year ago, they'd never have had anything remotely close to this number of people happily wandering around without something nasty likely to happen, but now it was much closer to the scenes you'd see in a city that wasn't cursed with the idea of "May you live in interesting times..." Something he was intimately familiar with, and glad was at least for now not really a problem.
Whether it would continue he had no idea but like everyone else he was quite happy to enjoy it while it lasted.
He passed along Admiral Street, aimed directly at the bay, which had been closed to traffic at the top end just before it started descending the long shallow hill that terminated at the water. All the side streets were also closed off, leaving a big chunk of the city waterfront pedestrian-only, including the entirety of Lord's Hill Market and the surroundings. During the day the area had been heaving with people wandering around all the stalls that had overflowed from the usual weekend Market area into the nearby area, buying enough food to pretty much ensure that they were going to have trouble standing up tomorrow. Now as the evening started to darken a little the stalls were all lighting up in a rainbow of colors, most of the crowd waving glowsticks, LED wands and headbands, and every other possible method of showing off.
Pausing to let a gaggle of excited teenagers run past, he smiled again. It was nice to see so many people having innocent fun.
"Never seen this many tourists running around before," a voice next to him commented, making him glance to the side, then nod at Assault's words. The hero was accompanied by Vista and Gallant, both Wards smiling widely and looking in a good mood. The entire Ward team and the Protectorate as well were out on the streets, just showing the flag and keeping an eye out in case some idiot decided to ruin things for everyone. Hopefully that was unlikely to happen.
"No, it's impressive in a very good way," Mike replied, ducking absently as a little glowing toy tossed by a small child whizzed past his head making a low buzzing sound. The kid looked worried, then apologetic, before rushing after his gadget, which circled around a couple of times then landed at the feet of someone else. The young man in question looked down, bent over to pick up the little dragonfly toy, and handed it to the kid as he skidded to a halt in front of him. The boy smiled, then flung the thing back into the air, following it as it fluttered away. Looking around Mike could see quite a few of the things popping up and descending again, all illuminated in bright colors by internal lights.
"Those things seem popular," he commented.
Vista giggled. "Yeah, there's dozens of stands selling them for a couple of bucks each. I might get one myself. They're neat."
"You hardly need any more souvenirs, Vista," Gallant remarked with a grin. "You've bought so many of them the common room will be overflowing..."
The girl merely smirked at him, her arms folded. Mike was pleased to see both of them in good moods, it boded well for team morale.
All four of them started walking again, Mike accompanying the three heroic Parahumans as they slowly wandered towards the water. He could see lots of boats, far more than he'd ever previously encountered, puttering around in the bay, including several fairly large ones full of people and lit up like Christmas trees. Apparently quite a lot of them had come up from Boston to party in the city, and he absently wondered if the harbor patrol was ready to fish out drunk revelers when the inevitable happened.
Dodging around a woman wearing a fedora and a small smirk, who was holding a very large bag of popcorn and eating from it while watching the scenery, he nodded to her and got a nod back. She moved off into the crowd while he looked around, then pointed. "I'm going to go over there next to City Hall, it's higher up and should give a good view."
Assault followed his eyes then grinned. "Onward, my little minions! I'll even spring for hot dogs."
"I'm not a minion," Vista said with her hands on her hips. He patted the top of her helmet, chuckling to himself.
"You are at least a mini-one, so that's close enough."
The girl tried to look annoyed, came across as more than a little adorable to Mike's eyes, sniffed with a toss of her head, and stalked off. Assault grinned and went after her. "I want two hot dogs," Vista said haughtily.
"Whatever you command, Oh Mini One," the red-clad man exclaimed in a deep voice. "I shall make it my life's work to satisfy your every requirement."
Gallant shook his head, then followed, his mouth twitching. Mike accompanied the boy, feeling that if they could joke like that, something was clearly working correctly. Shortly the small group was standing on the elevated plaza outside the city hall building, in a crowd of people who had also decided this was a good spot. From there they were perhaps ten meters above the Boardwalk with an unobstructed view out over the entire bay, the Rig almost in the middle with its soap-bubble-like force field glimmering in the growing darkness.
Vista, who was holding two hot dogs, one of which was fairly rapidly vanishing, peered around with a smile between bites. "This is going to be cool, I can tell," she said happily. A couple of massive booms echoed off the buildings as a huge firework went off somewhere behind them, the flash reflecting in various colors off the water. She didn't even flinch, merely taking another bite and looking contented.
Gallant, on Mike's other side, nodded. "It's got a feeling of anticipation," he said. "Everyone is really looking forward to this. Whatever it is."
"Fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks," Assault commented. He pointed out at the bay, and a couple of boats that were towing some sort of barge thing. "Probably from that."
"The announcement didn't actually mention fireworks," Gallant replied.
"It's always fireworks," the other man laughed. "It's traditional. We blow shit up, Panacea sticks some fingers back on and while complaining very sarcastically about people being idiots, and everyone's happy."
"She seems a lot less annoyed with everything recently," the boy said thoughtfully. "I don't know why, but I'm pleased about it."
"I heard there was some sort of New Wave problem?" Mike put in, looking at the young man, who shrugged slightly.
"Yeah, I know Lady Photon was kind of upset about something the last time I saw her, and Brandish was… weird, but I don't know the details. Vicky won't tell me, she says it's private. Which is fair enough I guess."
"True," Renick nodded, wondering for a moment what was happening, but not worrying overmuch about it. New Wave hardly did anything these days anyway unless someone was stupid enough to provoke them, so it wasn't his problem or that of the PRT's if the two families involved had internal issues. What family didn't?
Finishing her first hot dog, Vista started in on the second. She glanced at her wrist. "It's supposed to start any minute, isn't it?"
Assault nodded with a look at the large clock mounted on a pole in front of the building behind them. "Any time now, yeah," he agreed.
They waited, as did a hundred thousand other people filling the entire shore front, and who knew how many others at vantage points around the city. Less than two minutes later, a series of loud bangs came one after another all around the bay as brilliantly colored red, white and blue rockets shot up in sequence from various places. The crowd whooped in excitement, the noise even louder than the fireworks had been, while the flowers of light high above them spread and faded out.
"Look!" someone nearby screamed, her voice high, as the girl pointed up. Mike and the others followed her finger, to see a figure far above the center of the bay, almost directly over the Rig, at perhaps five hundred meters. It was white, he could tell that much, but at this distance it wasn't clear quite who it was.
"That's Glory Girl," Gallant said. He glanced at the boy, then looked back, nodding a little. That fitted, her costume was the right color.
The figure hung motionless and the crowd, who had all by now spotted her, slowly went quiet. When a strange silence had fallen, the distant girl spread her arms widely.
Light flashed around her and suddenly there was a huge halo of golden light surrounding her form. With the faintest of clicks, a voice that was familiar to him and most other locals, and sounded both pleased with itself and happy, said "Hello, Brockton Bay!" It was easily audible around the entire waterfront, whatever speaker system that was broadcasting her voice of extremely high quality. Mike peered in the direction the closest source seemed to be coming from and could barely make out a small machine hanging rock solid in the air about twenty meters up and fifty away, only visible as a silhouette.
He looked around and saw, with some effort, a couple more, and came to the conclusion that they were probably scattered all around the place, forming a matrix of sound distribution that didn't require any installation, since it just flew into the right formation. It was very impressive and he had a shrewd suspicion he knew where the tech originated...
Apparently Gravtec were involved in the night's entertainment.
"For those of you visiting our fair city, allow me to introduce myself," the far off girl went on when the echos of her initial statement died away, which happened much faster than Mike thought it should do. Gravtec were good at this… "I'm Glory Girl, and I'm proud to present tonight's main spectacle. In association with the City of Brockton Bay, Presentation Unlimited gives to a you display never before shown anywhere."
She gestured, and the halo surrounding her dissolved into thousands of tiny pinpricks of light which zipped off in all directions, fading from gold down through the spectrum to red, then vanishing. Whatever tech was involved wasn't something Mike had seen before. A hologram, perhaps?
"So let's begin, and begin with a bang!"
From deep in the Docks, there was a massive flash of light, back-illuminating the entire skyline and briefly making it look like the setting sun had risen once again. Everyone looked in that direction to see a brightly glowing violet something rising rapidly in a high arc that peaked far, far above them, then started to drop again directly above Glory girl only much higher. Without warning it exploded, the echoing BOOM! seconds later making everyone jump, even Vista. A truly huge flower of brilliant points of light in every possible color shot out to form something larger than any firework Mike had ever seen. It must have been close to a kilometer across, he estimated as he gaped.
Then, just as the glowing points reached a size that was almost unbelievable… they stopped.
He stared, as did every other person in the entire city, as probably hundreds of thousands of glimmering lights just stopped dead, forming a vast spherical arrangement like a firework frozen in time. Which, he realized, it pretty much was.
Glory Girl's figure suddenly shot upwards, trailing golden sparks behind that followed in formation, penetrating the spherical display and coming to a halt right in the center of it. The sparks surrounded her when she stopped, the halo reforming. "We've set the scene," she said, her voice ringing clearly out over the transfixed crowd. "We've set the canvas. Now, let's start the painting."
The motionless sphere of lights abruptly collapsed back into the middle, forming a glowing hundred meter diameter globe. High energy music started playing. The globe exploded into streamers of light that looked like swarms of bees in different colors, green, blue, red, violet, white, every shade one could imagine. Each streamer arced out from the middle, before starting to intertwine and twist into shape after shape.
Mike watched in awe as the lights, whatever the tech was, painted pictures across the sky, the formation growing larger and larger as yet more swarms of points erupted from places around the bay and joined in. The barge that Assault had pointed out suddenly lit up and bursts of red light, like shells from a machine gun, zoomed up into the sky, each one fragmenting into yet more individual little independent pieces that moved into formation.
A Stars and Stripes formed, kilometers across and waving in an illusory wind for a few seconds, the crowd going nuts in the process. It collapsed into a series of geometric shapes, which morphed into various more and more complex forms, including several emoticons, one of which winked at them all. A view of the city appeared, as if from high above at night, hanging inverted above them in a way that was almost terrifying. It shattered into fragments which formed into a spiral galaxy, this turning slowly and the stars that formed it winking brighter here and there.
Huge images of animals formed out of pinpricks of light, a herd of horses, manes tossing, charging across the sky out of a bank of clouds that didn't exist, before fading as they went overhead. A tiger the size of the Rig appeared mid pounce, as if it had jumped over the Medhall building, heading for the Protectorate facility, but disappeared moments before the paws would have landed on the force field.
The little lights reformed into a small brown object, which sprouted, grew, and became a tree large enough to dwarf any building in the city, all within seconds. In the branches birds hopped around, taking wing and moving off across the city only to fade from view.
Dragons roamed the sky for thirty seconds, huge reptilian forms peering down at the humans. One appeared to wink with its glowing orange eye, then they shimmered into a series of rainbows which warped into a tunnel down which a spaceship zoomed, chased by other craft and all firing at each other with brilliant beams of light.
On and on it went, each scene making people gasp in amazement and shock. Mike was dimly aware that his jaw was literally hanging open as he stood there and looked up in awe. The music changed, classical pieces being followed by electronic dance music which merged seamlessly with techno. It was the single most incredible display he'd ever seen.
Eventually, after what seemed like far longer than it probably was, the display began to contract, ultimately reforming into the spherical starting shape. The music faded to a background level, and the sphere changed again, to form the smiling head of Glory Girl, which looked from side to side. "We hope you all enjoyed yourselves. That's all we have for you tonight, but we'll be back. Until then, remember that what truly makes the spectacle is..." She paused, her expression one of amusement.
"Presentation Unlimited!"
The girl's voice boomed across the city, and the image of her head, a hundred meters tall and extremely lifelike, exploded into a vast mist of tiny lights which zipped off in every possible direction, filling the entire sky with their glow, before abruptly winking out all at once.
There was utter, eerie, dead silence for much longer than seemed possible, then the crowd roared approval.
Mike joined in.
The whole thing had been absolutely the best display of anything he'd ever seen, and he had no idea how it had been done other than by a hell of a lot of very high technology and more money than he cared to consider.
"Wow," Vista finally breathed, her mouth agape. She was still looking up, what he could see of her face suggesting that her eyes were as wide as they could get. "That was amazing!"
"Without a doubt," a woman in a fedora, who had stopped beside them and was also looking upwards, replied with a small smile. He recognized her as the popcorn eater from earlier. She shook her head, then headed for the nearest hot dog seller, while he looked around at the partying crown and felt that all in all, things were going very well.
Eventually he decided he needed something to eat and went in search of the noodle guy he'd spotted on the way here. He was just in the mood for some duck with noodles.
Fireworks started going off again, but after the display, they were almost irrelevant. That didn't stop people doing it, of course.
"That was really good," Amy commented with a sense of satisfaction as she watched the last of the drone swarm fly back into the storage devices Taylor had designed. Her friend nodded, grinning, as she tapped a couple of icons on one of her omnipresent phones, then put it away. As they motioned to the dock crew who were waiting patiently to come forward and put the containers away in one of the warehouses, Vicky landed next to them, her costume skirt flaring out then settling. She was also grinning widely.
"I can't wait to see what you do next, Taylor," the blonde said.
Taylor grinned. "I've got a few ideas..."
Sarah looked at her sister, who shook her head wordlessly and poured herself some more wine. With a shrug, she held out her own glass.