"All right, Armsmaster, what do you have to report?" Director Piggot asked with a faint scowl on her face, not looking particularly well. She, along with Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Velocity, and Aegis as the leader of the wards were sitting around the main conference table in the PRT building, as she'd decided to hear his report at the main morning briefing which had just finished. The remaining Protectorate members, Dauntless and Triumph, were out on patrol. All the capes were in costume, although Assault had his mask off and was juggling three pens and a pencil, which eventually got him a slap from Battery who looked irritated, making him drop everything with a series of clattering sounds. Amused, he merely grinned at her then picked up the pencil and began walking it through his fingers with the skill of much practice.
Battery sighed, but did nothing, giving off an air of long suffering wife very convincingly.
Somewhat annoyed that the Director had not agreed to a private meeting but resigned to it, as she had been in a fouler mood than usual the last week or so, Colin glanced sideways at Dragon who was sitting beside him. The woman made a tiny sign of encouragement. He distributed a set of printouts of the report he'd spent the best part of two hours writing to everyone present. They all opened it and looked at the summary page, Assault still flipping the pencil absently through his right hand, although his eyes widened after a moment.
After some discussion, Colin and Dragon had decided not to put the 'encounter' with the huge aquatic reptile in the main report. He would deliver that verbally at the end when he, or more accurately, Dragon, had had time to gauge the mood of the room and work out the best method to mention it. He was glad to have someone so human on his side, who could understand other people so well. It was something of a mystery to him why people often reacted the way they did, the lack of logical thought was annoying.
"You finally got Saint and his people?" Battery asked, sounding pleased, as she scanned the first page quickly. She looked at Dragon, who nodded, the metallic reptilian head of her power suit somehow giving off the impression of a smile.
"Yes, we did. I'm still not entirely sure how, though, although I'm not looking a gift terrorist in the mouth," the Canadian cape quipped, making the other woman grin.
Director Piggot was reading the report carefully, making small changes to her expression that Colin knew from experience denoted a certain amount of concern, although he was somewhat at a loss to explain exactly how much. The squat blonde was a fast reader, finishing the report before anyone else. She looked up at him and Dragon a couple of times as she read, opened her mouth, then shook her head and went back to reading. Finally finishing it, she turned the pages back and looked at the front page again.
"You have no idea who is behind all this, either of you?"
"No, Director, we don't," Dragon replied respectfully before he could.
"The conclusions your drew are more than a little worrying," Piggot said after a pause. "Knowledge of both PRT and Guild capabilities and assets to that level? Not something I like hearing. It implies we have a serious information leak." She appeared very irritated by the idea, as far as Colin could see, something he agreed with.
"We already know we have at least two moles in the organization, Director," Miss Militia put in, making the older woman look at her, then begrudgingly nod.
"Unfortunately true," she grated. "But I think this suggests we're probably missing more than that. Or someone inside the PRT or Protectorate is actually responsible for all this in the first place, not just leaking information to whoever is."
"That's… very concerning," Battery said, looking troubled. Several people nodded.
"I know of no-one associated with the Protectorate who is a Tinker of the level needed to build a weapon like the one required to leave the evidence we found, Director," Armsmaster remarked, "except for perhaps myself or Dragon. I can assure you that neither of us are behind this."
"Leet, possibly?" Assault suggested, smiling a little at his own words.
Colin shook his head. "No, Leet isn't likely to be behind something of this nature, although I suspect that he could in fact do it if he wanted to. But I don't believe he is particularly interested in designing very large weapons."
"You sound pretty sure of that, Colin," Assault replied with an interested look. The Tinker nodded.
"I have… a certain amount of respect for Leet due to new information I received recently under the Endbringer Truce protocols," he said carefully, not wanting to go into the whole 'nuclear-powered shotgun' concept before he and Dragon could finalize the design and properly simulate it. Assault looked curious, as did most of the others present, but no one pushed as they all recognized the expression he was wearing as one that meant he wasn't going to say any more.
"We have gone over all the possible Tinkers who could be responsible for the damage we encountered, Director, and no one we have any information on in either Guild or PRT records matches," Dragon put in quickly, making everyone look at her instead. "Nor can we come up with a combination of technologies from several different Tinkers working together, such as in the case of Toybox, that would do it."
"So, a new one. Or more than one," Piggot sighed, sounding put-upon. "As if we didn't have enough to do." She looked at them for a moment. "Estimated threat level?"
"Extremely high, A class at the minimum," Armsmaster promptly replied, making her look even less happy. "Assuming hostile intent. However, that said, we have reason to believe that whoever is behind this is not actively hostile, or villainous. We're not convinced they're heroic either, but a well-meaning rogue of significant ability might fit the evidence. Someone who is more or less neutral at present but with a bias toward law and order rather than law-breaking."
"That's… slightly less worrying," she admitted sourly. "Only slightly, though. The description of this… 'Beam Weapon'?" She looked enquiringly at him. Armsmaster nodded. "… That you wrote about makes it sound fairly terrifying. Not to mention the other one."
"That is an understatement, Director," Dragon commented. Connecting a cable from her suit to the control unit sitting on the table, she made a set of three high resolution screens descend from the ceiling at the end of the table, one large one with a smaller one either side of it. Images began appearing in a slow slide show on the main screen with tables of data on the subsidiary ones relating to them. "The kinetic energy weapon, whatever it really is, is the easiest one to understand. We found two definite impact sites, one much larger than the other. The smaller of the two suggests an energy release equivalent of approximately one ton of TNT, already at a level that would kill many Brutes and any unprotected human instantly. It is a sufficiently large explosion to, for example, destroy this building fairly convincingly."
"That was the smaller one?" Aegis sounded horrified.
Dragon glanced at him and nodded. "Yes. The larger one was much larger." The image changed to show the remains of the small rocky island that had been almost entirely destroyed. "This one was approximately thirty-four times more energetic, enough force to devastate most of the commercial district of Brockton Bay. It would remove the PRT building completely leaving only a crater. Windows would be broken for miles from the epicenter of the blast. And that is, as far as we can determine, entirely from a kinetic energy strike. No explosives, energy weapons, parahuman powers, or anything exotic. Just something hitting something else very, very hard indeed."
The young man had paled while even Assault was now paying strict attention, the pencil in his hand forgotten.
"We have no reason to assume that this was the maximum output of whatever weapon created the damage," Colin added after a moment or two of silence. "I suspect that the weapon user learned enough from those two tests to make it unnecessary to continue to larger ones."
"What form do you think this weapon takes?" Velocity asked with interest. "Would it be portable? Or something like a tank gun?"
"Our current hypothesis is that it is something along the lines of a railgun, using electromagnetic force to accelerate a heavy projectile to extremely high velocities," Dragon replied. "The only problem with that idea is that I could detect no foreign contaminants that could be remains of the projectile, which is puzzling, but so far that's the best we can come up with. Possibly it's something similar to a railgun but using a different mechanism, with a slug of rock as the projectile, or something along those lines. It would be quite large, though, whatever it was, and the power requirements are… very significant." She shrugged. "Not hand held scale, no. Something much bigger."
"OK, thanks," the high speed cape nodded, making a note on a pad next to him.
"How much more output do you think such a weapon could produce?" Miss Militia asked, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the table. Colin turned to her.
"In theory, with enough power available, there probably isn't an upper limit, but in practice it would definitely be limited. We simply don't have enough data to do more than speculate but based on a feasible railgun design of the sort one could fit to a large ship such as a destroyer, perhaps three to four times the energy release we detected."
"That's still a devastating weapon, even with only four times that output as a maximum," Assault put in, pointing at the screen which was still showing the remains of the islet. "It wouldn't leave very much standing if someone fired it at us. Would the Rig force-field even handle that sort of impact?"
Armsmaster thought for a moment, then nodded a little. "It would, but probably no more than twice in a row without a significant recharge time on the order of several hours, and it would damage the generator in the process."
"So we don't want to get shot by it," the other man noted.
"Not really, no," Dragon replied. "Although it does need to be said that there's no current reason to assume that whoever is behind this intends to shoot at you, or me, or anyone else."
"Is it a sufficiently powerful weapon to damage an Endbringer?" Aegis asked with a thoughtful expression, making everyone look at him, then each other. Dragon paused, appearing to think, then shrugged slightly.
"To be honest I'm not sure. It depends on a number of factors. I suspect it would damage one, but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't damage one enough. I'm certain it wouldn't kill one." She sighed. "They're very, very tough. The energy release of this weapon is very high, but some of the effects Eidolon has generated in the past are higher and so far he's never done more than turn an Endbringer back, eventually. But I think it would probably do a number on almost any cape I can think of in one shot, except probably Alexandria or the Siberian. Even Alexandria would feel it, though."
"OK," the young man said after a moment, seeming interested and worried at the same time.
"What about the other weapon?" Director Piggot asked, after a short silence as everyone digested what they'd learned.
"Ah, now that is where it gets really interesting," Dragon commented, putting another image on the main screen, this one a satellite picture of the Quebec coastal area before the whatever-it-was had wandered through. "Note these islands here, here, this group over here, and these ones in a line up to here. Plus this big one at the end. That's where Saint had his base." She waited for everyone to look back to her when they'd examined the picture. "That image was taken a month ago as part of a standard mapping survey. The scene was like that up until sometime after two AM Eastern Standard Time this morning."
Moving it to one of the smaller monitors, she put up the 'after' shot she'd shown Colin some hours before on the central large one. "However, now it looks like this."
There was dead silence in the room for nearly thirty seconds.
It was broken by Assault letting out a low whistle. "Holy shit. How many are missing?"
"Over a track of seventy-eight miles, at least fifteen islands are completely gone. Seven are severely damaged, crushed or blown to rubble by something other than the kinetic weapon. So far we have no idea what. And the large one has a rather significant piece missing right through the middle."
"How big is that trench?" Miss Militia choked out, staring in horror.
"Slightly more than three hundred and twenty feet wide, and over a mile long, through solid granite for the most part." Dragon's voice was somber. "The vast majority of the material removed is simply gone as far as either of us can determine. Quite possibly all of it. That's something like eighteen million tons of rock disappearing into thin air without leaving any residue, blast effects, radiation, or anything else we could measure. Some seismic traces mainly due to the sudden removal of all that mass from the surroundings making them recoil, but that's about it."
There were a number of very pale faces in the room. Director Piggot looked like a banana from a complexion standpoint and seemed to be having difficulty breathing.
"It is also a very precise weapon," Colin added helpfully. "The shot that bisected the island was carefully calculated to eliminate over half of the underground base that Saint was using, the half with the weapons and stolen dragon suits, as well as most of the life support facilities, but leave everything else untouched. Less than a yard from the edge of the trench nothing was damaged at all. Admittedly it's overkill for the job but it was also efficient at doing the task required with no unwanted side effects. Quite impressive, really."
For some odd reason he noticed that his words didn't seem to have made anyone look any happier. He covertly glanced at Dragon who just looked back at him for a moment then turned away. 'People are very difficult to understand,' he sighed mentally, resolving to ask later what he'd done wrong this time.
Miss Militia was staring at the image on the monitor with her hands holding the edge of the table nearly hard enough to leave marks, a look of horror in her eyes. "Eighteen million tons of rock?" she whispered.
Dragon nodded. "Yes. I am also more than a little horrified."
"And those other islands?"
"Mostly destroyed by the same thing," she replied. "The damage started out very high and got steadily more accurate and more focused until by the end of the test series it was precisely destroying only small areas, less than fifty yards square. There was remarkably little collateral damage from the last half dozen strikes from what we could measure. I assume that by then the operators had dialed in the parameters of the device very accurately."
"We think that they fired several shots at each island, then when they had finished with it, destroyed the remains to remove as much evidence of their test program as possible," Colin continued for his friend.
"Is… Is that the maximum damage the damn thing can produce?" Piggot finally recovered enough to ask.
"No, Director, I'm afraid it isn't." Dragon looked at her, then Armsmaster, before slightly reluctantly switching to the next image, the one that showed the initial gouge out of the sea bed which had entirely removed an island down to its roots. "This was the first shot. The trench this one left is over six miles long, several times the amount of damage the last one produced." Piggot stared in horror, making small sounds of distress, her face a very unhealthy color. "We have no particular reason to believe that this is at full power either."
Several seconds passed more or less in silence.
"Medical team to Conference Room Two, Stat!" The call over the PRT internal public announcement system provoked an instant response, the infirmary that was on the second floor and was second only to Brockton General in ability and resources disgorging three paramedics, a doctor, and two carts full of equipment and supplies in under twenty seconds.
They raced for the elevator, which was being held open for them by a PRT trooper. As soon as they were on board he waved his ID card over the reader which immediately locked out all the other elevators in that bank to avoid anyone getting in the way, then slammed the doors shut and headed at three times the normal speed to the relevant floor, the doors zipping open again when it halted. The team and their equipment were in the room less than a minute after Battery's hasty call. She pointed at Director Piggot who was gray and breathing with difficulty, Armsmaster and Dragon waving some diagnostic equipment over her.
The pair stepped out of the way, passing on the information they'd gathered to the doctor who listened for a moment, then nodded. He directed the paramedics in a quick diagnostic of their own, before administering a series of injections while the director was given oxygen.
Five minutes later the blonde woman was weakly pushing them away. "I'm fine, go away," she grumbled, slowly recovering her color. The doctor glared at her.
"You are not fine, Director, you had a minor cardiac event which you need further treatment for, and your dialysis is clearly not working as well as it should be. You need hospitalization and to be honest at least two weeks of bed rest in my opinion. Or an appointment with Panacea, which I have recommended on more than one occasion."
"Not an option," she snapped. "We've had this conversation before, Doctor Torres. I'll be fine for now, I'm due for dialysis later after the meeting so you can poke and prod me then, but right now I'm busy. Thank you for your help, you can go."
"Director, I must point out that I feel you are..." He was cut off by a glare of her own. Sighing, he shrugged, motioning to the other medical personnel who packed away everything and followed him out of the room. He stuck his head back in a moment later. "Don't leave it too long, Director. That wasn't quite a heart attack, but the next one will be. Stay calm and don't get worked up. I'm serious, you need further treatment as soon as possible."
"Out!"
He sighed again and disappeared.
Walking down the corridor much more slowly than he'd arrived, he turned his head to the lead paramedic. "Make sure we have the crash cart on standby, please, Ellen."
The woman nodded without replying.
"God, that woman is stubborn to a level that's self-destructive," the doctor muttered as they all got back into the elevator which descended at a far more sedate pace than it had arrived at. Low sounds of agreement came from his team.
"Director, are you sure you should be continuing the meeting?" Dragon asked carefully, inspecting the woman closely. She was somewhat worried. "You really don't look well."
"I'll be fine, Dragon, thanks for your concern, but I need to hear the rest of it." Director Piggot took a deep drink from the glass of water that Miss Militia handed her, then closed her eyes for a moment. "Continue with your report, please, both of you."
The AI glanced at Armsmaster, who seemed resigned to it. "All right. Well, as I said, we have no evidence to suggest that the first shot from this mystery weapon is actually the highest output possible, I'm afraid. We know nothing at all about its operating parameters, recycle time, energy requirements, even physical size and appearance. I suspect it is mounted on something of considerable size but beyond that we're at a loss."
"But it can remove large chunks of the landscape without any real effort," Velocity noted in a low voice. She looked over at him, then nodded.
"Yes, it would appear so."
"I'll bet that would hurt an Endbringer," Assault snickered. "Tough or not."
"I suspect you're right, Assault," she agreed. "It might even be enough to kill one. But the collateral damage could be… somewhat large. Not to mention we have no idea who invented it, who used it, where they are, or whether they'd actually agree to either use it themselves or allow someone else to in the event of an Endbringer attack."
"Way too many unknowns in all of this," Battery sighed.
"To put it mildly, yes." Dragon shrugged. "The entire thing is very peculiar by any standards."
Massaging her forehead, color slowly coming back into her cheeks, Director Piggot sighed heavily. "This is insane," she muttered. "OK. Talk us through it again, from the beginning. I want to try to understand this mess, before I have to explain it to anyone higher up."
"All right, Director." Dragon went back to the initial acoustic trace data and displayed it. "At approximately twelve forty seven EST last night, I detected via the SOSUS underwater monitoring network a mystery object moving at speeds in excess of two hundred and fifty miles an hour roughly northwards, apparently originating here, about fifty miles north of Brockton Bay..." She brought up the same map she'd shown Colin very early that morning, talking them through the entire sequence of events.
There were quite a few questions from almost everyone present. Eventually, she had covered everything up to the capture of Saint and his people. "At that point, we detected the underwater bogey, or what seemed to be the same trace as far as I could determine, heading south and east at even higher speed, already nearly halfway to the edge of the continental shelf. We went after it, thinking that with the use of my underwater drone, we might be at least able to identify it if nothing else."
"I notice your report is more than a little blank about the results of that exercise," Director Piggot said, looking at Armsmaster, who nodded slightly. Dragon could tell he was reluctant to speak, so she did instead.
"There were some… anomalies… with our attempts at interception," she began carefully, "that we didn't want to put into the report until we discussed it with you. Armsmaster felt it would be better if you had time to consider the matter before it went on record."
"He did, did he?" Piggot asked slightly suspiciously, glancing between them, then fixing Colin with her gaze. "Why?"
"We're not entirely sure that what we found is actually connected to the covert weapons tests," the Tinker replied. "The probability is that it is, but we have no direct evidence."
"What did you find?" she asked.
"I'm… not entirely sure," he admitted. Turning to Dragon he gave her what she felt was a slightly hopeful look, which made her smile internally. She picked up the story again.
"The first attempt at interception was… partially successful," she said. Everyone turned to her. "Armsmaster piloted my probe to the calculated depth and orientation, we were hoping to catch a glimpse of the underwater contact as whatever was causing it passed by, since the probe was far to slow to catch up. We were working on the basis of a stealthed supercavitating submarine of some form, which fitted the limited data we had."
"Was it that?" Aegis asked curiously.
She shook her head. "Not as such, no." Bringing up another graph on one of the screens, she indicated it with a finger. "The bogey apparently detected the probe at a considerable distance and engaged some form of detection countermeasures which were extremely effective. I lost contact with it completely. Shortly after the point in time it should have passed by, a pressure wave approached from behind the probe, at still high but much lower speed. There were two more from different directions in quick succession then the trace vanished, with only circumstantial evidence suggesting it resumed a similar heading to its original one, a few degrees more east in an apparent attempt to lose us."
"It was checking you out, you mean," Assault suggested, causing her to glance at him.
"Yes, I believe so. I think it circled the probe at least twice, probably to inspect it, then left the scene. There was no obvious hostile intent, merely curiosity."
"What happened next?" Miss Militia asked.
"I calculated the most likely spot for a second attempt at an interception, although with less than a seventy percent chance of being close enough to see anything, then we deployed the probe again. As it happens I was either close enough from the beginning or it altered course to intercept us." She paused, exchanging a look with her friend, who seemed just the tiniest bit unsure, based on what she could read of his expression. It was unlikely that anyone else would notice.
"Don't stop there, spit it out," Piggot sighed. "What happened? Did you identify the submarine?"
"Not… exactly." Dragon sighed a little. "As I said, even though we went dark, it still detected us, and basically jumped the probe from underneath."
"And?"
"And it ate it."
There was dead silence for a moment.
"Excuse me?" Director Piggot looked as confused as everyone else, which was very. "Did you just say that a submarine ate your probe?"
"It wasn't a submarine, but yes, it ate my probe. In one bite."
Dragon watched with some curiosity as Miss Militia and Director Piggot exchanged a quick look with each other, both of them paling slightly. 'Odd,' she thought. 'I wonder what that's about?'
"One bite?" Battery sounded shocked. "What was it, a shark or something?"
"No."
Dragon looked around the table, then flipped the image on the screen to the best frame of the last second or so of video they'd recorded. "It was this."
A series of curses and expressions of shock sounded, Aegis went white, Assault froze with his pencil, which he'd been playing with again, falling from his hand, and Miss Militia gaped, a totally horrified expression playing across her face which had gone a faint green color. Dragon watched her, becoming more interested by the moment.
Moments later there was a thump on the floor, making everyone look.
"Medical team to Conference Room Two, Stat! Code Blue. I repeat, Code Blue."
Doctor Torres sighed, glancing at his colleague. Ellen looked at her watch, then held out her hand, even as she was nearly running past him. He slapped a ten dollar bill into it with an annoyed expression, then grabbed the other end of the crash cart and helped her push it down the corridor to the elevator, which was yet again on standby with a trooper waiting for them.
When they arrived in the conference room, Director Piggot was lying on the floor, not breathing, with Velocity giving her mouth to mouth while Battery did chest compressions. Armsmaster was monitoring her, and Dragon was tending to Miss Militia, who looked like she'd nearly had something similar happen to her, being so pale he judged her blood pressure was dangerously low. Snapping quick orders he had one of the paramedics take over for the Canadian cape who stepped aside, while he and the other two pounced on the unmoving body of the Director, Velocity and Battery scrambling to get out of the way.
"Stupid woman," he growled. "I warned her about this. I've been trying to get her to go to Panacea for two years. Or get a kidney transplant. Or just slow down, for god's sake." He kept muttering as he worked. Ellen handed him the defibrillator paddles, having coated them with conductive gel and charged the device.
"Clear!" Everyone let go of the woman, he applied the paddles with the confidence of long practice, and pressed the button. With a thump the capacitors discharged and the body on the floor convulsed.
"Sinus rhythm present, Doctor," Ellen reported, looking at the ECG output. A second later the machine let out a squeal. "And now it's gone again."
"Oh, for god's sake you damn woman, just do something sensible for once will you?" he mumbled, trying again. Once more the charging whine was followed by a thump.
"Sinus rhythm again, looks good."
"Great. Now all we have to do is keep her alive for the next twenty minutes, and she might make it." He rocked back on his heels as everyone else remained silent, the room full of superheroes watching. "For a while, anyway. This woman is not in good health."
The ECG beeped a couple of times, making him check the display, then frown. "That's not good. There's a lot of damage to her heart."
"Can you do anything, Doctor?" Battery asked with concern evident in her voice.
After a moment's thought, he nodded. "The thing I should have done months ago." Pulling a cell phone from his pocket having taken off one of his bright purple sterile gloves, he looked up a number then hit connect. "She can yell at me later."
Everyone exchanged glances as he waited for the phone to be answered, which it was moments later. "Hello, Panacea? This is Doctor Torres, from the PRT. We met a couple of months ago at Brockton General, I was helping with the multiple trauma case from that nasty bus crash, if you remember? I'm sorry to bother you on a Sunday but I have a patient here that is in urgent need of parahuman healing." He listened for a moment. "Director Piggot. End stage kidney failure, serious cardiac damage, just arrested twice but currently stable. A number of other things but those are the main ones right now."
Everyone listened, several people looking worried. Director Piggot's objections to parahuman healing were well known.
"No, I know what you mean, but she has never actually filed either a DNR or a no parahuman healing order. I'll take responsibility if you're worried."
A short pause, then he nodded. "Thank you. There will be a trooper waiting at the main entrance." He disconnected then put the phone away, looking up to see everyone staring at him. "What?"
"Director Piggot has been vehemently against engaging Panacea for her medical problems, Doctor," Velocity said carefully. "I think she might be… upset… with you about all this."
"Tough. Her records don't have either a do not resuscitate order, or a no parahuman healing one. As senior medical officer here, my duty and legal obligation is to save her life, and in the absence of either of those, I'm free to engage the aid of Panacea. Director Piggot can bitch about it afterwards, but at least she'll be alive to bitch. She…" He was cut off by the ECG suddenly becoming very upset again and swore. "...is having another cardiac arrest. Christ."
They all watched as the medical team got back to work.
Amy looked at her phone, with her eyebrows raised and a certain amount of worry warring with curiosity in her mind. "Who was it, Sis?"
"Doctor Torres, the lead doctor at the BB PRT," she replied to Vicky, who was looking at her with an expression of interest. "Director Piggot is in serious trouble and he asked me to come and help."
"She hates parahumans," the blonde exclaimed, looking surprised. "Everyone knows that."
Amy shrugged. "I know, but she's in no state to complain, and Doctor Torres is making a medical decision." She sighed. "I don't like the woman much but everyone says she's damn competent, so I guess it would be a bad thing if she died."
"Cold, Ames, very cold," her sister commented, making her produce a small dark smile.
"You have any idea how many people I've healed in the last month, Vicky?" she asked. "Trust me, after a while, you get used to seeing it, it's just a job by now." Amy frowned a little. "Sorry, but I can't really get all that enthusiastic about fixing yet another heart attack. Especially for someone who looks at me like she thinks I'm about to rob a bank. You know what she's like."
Her sister nodded with a small sigh. The woman in question wasn't precisely subtle about her disapproval of Parahumans in general, and certainly ones who weren't under Protectorate direction. "I do. She's not the nicest person I know."
"Not really, no," Amy agreed. She looked around. Both of them were in the middle of Brockton Bay, Vicky having wanted to go shopping had dragged her sister with her, telling her she needed to get out more. As a result they were only about a mile from the PRT building.
"Come on, you can give me a lift. The sooner we get there the better, by the sound of it."
Smiling, Vicky picked her shorter sister up and lifted off, rapidly heading over the buildings towards the one in question, while behind them, various pedestrians took photos before going about their business.
When they arrived at the PRT facility a trooper standing beside the entrance jogged over. "This way, Ma'am," he said politely, indicating the door. He glanced a little uncertainly at Vicky, who grinned at him.
"I'll wait out here for her."
"Thank you, miss," he replied gratefully, guiding Amy inside the building and to the elevator which another trooper was holding for them.
Shortly they were jogging down a corridor several floors up. Opening the door, he motioned her through, to see a room full of familiar faces looking at her. She flushed just a little at the attention, before glancing around, to find Doctor Torres kneeling next to the comatose form of the PRT Director, who was a nasty gray color and barely breathing, an oxygen mask over her face. The man looked over his shoulder, relief in his eyes.
"Thank god. Hurry, I don't think she's got long."
Rushing across the room Amy dropped to her knees next to the woman, putting her hands on the exposed skin of her face and concentrating. The news wasn't good. "Her dialysis isn't working very well," she said absently, "And her heart is shot. I'm amazed she's been functioning at all." Luckily the woman was overweight, as it gave her lots of mass to cannibalize for materials, she thought as she began working. Quickly making sure her patient wouldn't wake, as she wanted to be completely finished before the woman realized what was happening, she rebuilt her kidneys, heart, liver, and spleen, all of which were on the verge of failing completely, cured the diabetes, fixed half a dozen more problems that she found, then gave her an overall tune up to make sure this sort of thing wouldn't happen again.
The ECG which was still connected had settled down to a contented faint beeping in a slow rhythm, making the paramedic monitoring it look pleased. "Blood pressure is back to normal, Doctor," she reported as well.
"I think that's all I can do," Amy reported, sitting back and letting go of the woman. "She's going to need bed rest and a lot of food for a couple of days but other than that she's in good condition now. She's just asleep, you can wake her up easily. I should probably not be here when you do, I don't want to get shouted at." She smirked at the doctor who grinned at her. "She's going to be pretty mad, though."
"That's my problem, not yours, Panacea. Thank you very much for coming on such short notice. I'm sorry I interrupted your Sunday."
"It's OK, Doctor, I was just down the road anyway," she assured him. For some reason she'd actually almost enjoyed this medical emergency despite her earlier words to her sister, it was sufficiently different from the normal boring hospital work that it was a nice diversion. Standing up she smiled at the other people and turned to leave, suddenly spotting the large monitor hanging from the ceiling and what was displayed on it.
Amy stared at the huge sea monster set against a backdrop of black, tiny flecks of white like stars speckling the background, a gaping mouth lined with more teeth than seemed reasonable approaching the camera. It was a remarkably clear shot, although it was obviously taken underwater. Armsmaster noticed the direction of her gaze and quickly poked a control on the table, making the monitor go blank.
"That looked… very large," she said after a moment or two, glancing at him. He looked back without replying, his mouth in a line, although she noticed that he'd flicked a look at Dragon who was also watching her. "And hungry."
Checking her watch, she smiled. "Which reminds me. I need something to eat. Goodbye, Doctor, everyone." Leaving the room in the company of the same trooper who had brought her up, she walked down the corridor, thinking hard.
One thing about the image had instantly stood out to her.
'Taylor, I recognize those eyes. What the hell are you doing? And what the hell can you do? That thing must have been huge!'
Colin watched the door close behind Panacea, then turned to Dragon, who seemed thoughtful. She looked at him, then at the Director, who was groaning a little as Doctor Torres woke her.
"Christ, what the hell happened?" the woman, who looked vastly healthier and somewhat less overweight, said as she sat up on the floor.
"You had a major heart attack, Emily," the doctor told her, helping her to her feet. "We restarted you three times but the damage was severe. You very nearly died."
"I feel fine now although very hungry," she noted, massaging her temples for a moment. "What did you do? I..." She froze, then turned a basilisk glare on him. To his credit he didn't react. "Panacea. You called Panacea."
"Yes. Without her you'd be dead now." He fixed her with his own look which was nearly as fierce. "I've been telling you for a long time that this was inevitable. You don't look after yourself, you're the worst patient I've ever had, and your stubbornness damn near killed you just now. You took the choice out of my hands."
"You know my feelings about parahuman healing, Doctor," she hissed. Unmoved, he shrugged a little.
"If you genuinely didn't want it you should have had a no parahuman involvement order on file. No order, nearly dead patient, I did what I had to."
"The PRT can't afford to owe Panacea a favor," she exploded. "The politics are..."
"Utterly irrelevant to me," he snarled. "I am the one who owes Panacea a favor, if you want to look at it like that. I don't and I don't think she does either, but it's on me, not you or the PRT. I did my duty, which was to keep you alive and healthy. If you really want to you can file an official complaint but nothing I did was outside my remit. I took a medical decision that I think you'll find was completely justified under the circumstances, and in fact what I was legally obliged to."
The director glared at him, while he glared back, and everyone else present kept very quiet. Eventually she shook her head. "We'll talk later about this."
"Fine. I'll let you finish this, but I want to see you no later than three hours from now. Get something to eat first. After your oh so important meeting I'm putting you on medical leave for two days." He raised a hand as she opened her mouth. "No, this is a decision you can't overrule. You need sleep, food, and some rest. There are a lot of competent people here who can make sure the world doesn't end while you take it easy for a little while. For god's sake, Emily, just listen for once in your life. I know more about this that you do, pay attention. You can go right back to terrifying everyone on Wednesday."
More than a little impressed by the sheer courage the doctor exhibited, Armsmaster watched the face of the director, which had gone through several color changes and expressions, but finally settle on what he tentatively marked down as 'resigned'.
"You're a hard man to like, Jon," she sighed.
"Ironic, isn't it," he smirked, motioning to his team, who had been quietly clearing up the equipment and supplies they'd used. The paramedics began wheeling the crash cart to the door. "Three hours. Then you're off duty for two days. If you complain I'll make it three."
She scowled, but just waved a hand at him then the door. He headed that way. "Don't be too upset, Director," he laughed. "Remember, no more dialysis, that's got to be worth it if nothing else."
As he and the others left, she looked thoughtful, and Colin would almost be prepared to swear, pleased. After a moment she noticed everyone staring at her. "Stop that," she snapped, sitting down again. "We still have a lot to discuss. What was that thing?"
The abrupt change of topic made them blink although Dragon reacted with admirable speed and aplomb, quickly turning the monitors which he'd turned off back on. Everyone slowly retook their seats.
"We're not sure," she admitted as they all looked at the image of the probe-eating sea serpent. Showing the computer interpolation of the creature, with a scale to indicate how large it really was, seemed to make everyone somewhat nervous. That he had no trouble understanding. Hannah particularly seemed to be staring fixedly at the screen, pale faced. "It's a good two hundred feet long and far larger than anything that has ever lived. I would also suggest it's not an animal, it's most likely very intelligent."
"You can tell that from the eyes," Aegis remarked, staring nearly as intently as Miss Militia was. "It looks smart and alert."
"And familiar," Battery said slowly, looking at the image, then around the table. "Is it my imagination or do those eyes look just like Raptaur's?"
"We noticed the similarity," Dragon told her. "There's no proof of a linkage, of course, but..." She shrugged. "I personally suspect that they are related somehow."
Aegis seemed troubled. "You mean that there really are huge reptiles living in the bay?"
"I don't know," Dragon replied, switching her attention to him. "Again, the evidence is circumstantial at best. Don't forget, this encounter was nearly a thousand miles away from here."
"At the speed this thing swims that's only three hours travel time, though," Assault noted, making her nod a little.
"True enough."
Colin was watching Director Piggot, who was currently exchanging an unreadable look with Hannah, both of them rather pale. "Should we ask Raptaur or Saurial in to discuss this?" he suggested, at least partly to see what happened. The director twitched, staring at him for a moment, before shaking her head.
"No. Leave both of them alone for now. I don't want any word of this getting out." She seemed worried now. "We don't have any proof of a connection as Dragon has said, so it's premature to jump to conclusions. Thank you both for bringing this to my attention." She abruptly seemed quite eager to bring the meeting to a close. "Don't talk about this to anyone. Aegis, the Wards are not to hear about this, do you understand?"
Looking somewhat confused the young man nodded. "Yes, Director."
"Keep me informed if anything else similar happens, but for now, we're going to wait," she added, looking around the table. "There's no indication of an immediate threat, if that changes we'll rethink it, however at the moment we seem to have a number of quite possibly unrelated although admittedly very peculiar observations. I'm going to have to consider what, if any, response we develop to them."
Turning to Dragon, she went on, "Thank you very much for the information, Dragon, and congratulations on the capture of Saint and his people. If you have any more insight on the weapons tests, I would appreciate hearing about them."
"Certainly, Director," the woman replied politely. "I'll keep you updated."
"Armsmaster, I'll re-read your report very carefully, and I may want clarification on a number of points." Director Piggot looked at him. "I'm going to need to work out the best way to pass this on to the Chief Director." He also nodded. Hopefully that meant he could soon get back to something more useful.
"Remember, people, not a word of this gets out of this room," she added, before reaching out and closing the report she'd been reading. "Leave all copies of this behind. I think that's all for today. Dismissed."
Everyone looked at each other then stood up. "Miss Militia, if you could stay for a moment, I'd like to have a word," the director said. With a nod the military cape sat down again. Colin followed Dragon out of the room, both of them heading to the elevator silently, the others going about their business. When the doors slid shut, isolating them both in the small area, she looked at him.
"That was a rather odd meeting," she said.
He grunted his agreement, deep in thought. "Was it my imagination or did Hannah react a little strangely to the image of that thing?" he asked as they descended.
"No, it wasn't your imagination," his friend replied thoughtfully. "Both she and Director Piggot reacted more than I expected to the news. I wonder why?"
"No idea," he sighed. "Oh, well, now I can get back to work, I suppose."
The towering figure next to him emitted a small laugh as the doors open. "Yes, let's do that," she said in a tone of voice he had trouble deciphering, but thought suggested amusement mixed with something else.
When the door closed behind the last of the people who had attended the meeting, Hannah looked at Director Piggot, who flicked her eyes at the security camera above the door. Getting up she disconnected it, then removed a piece of equipment from her belt and turned it on, walking around the room while studying it. "We're clean," she finally announced, sitting down again.
"Good."
They stared at each other for some seconds. "This is getting worse," Piggot finally sighed. "Now we have not only probably a ridiculously powerful Biotinker, but quite possibly another Tinker who can make insanely powerful weapons, combined with one or more Thinkers? And possibly a Shaker as well, depending on how you interpret the evidence. An entire team of parahumans we never knew existed."
"I have to admit it does look that way, Director," she admitted. "That thing is… horrifying. Over two hundred feet long? It makes the rumors of what might be in the bay look a little silly but also more plausible."
"What rumors?" Piggot asked, looking suspicious. With an internal wince, Hannah explained.
"Oh, for god's sake, that's just terrifying," the other woman growled. "That's four of them now! This thing clearly doesn't walk on two legs, so that fisherman didn't meet it, it must have been yet another one. How many of these things is our Biotinker going to make? And why? And where?"
Hannah shrugged helplessly. "Your guess is as good as mine. But it certainly looks like it's all connected to Brockton Bay somehow. Even this latest one, they detected it first fifty miles north of here, but that might only be because that's where it started moving fast enough for Dragon's instruments to detect it. When they lost it on the return trip, we have no idea where it actually went. It might have come back here."
"What the hell does he want a sea serpent for?" her companion sputtered. "I mean that's just ridiculous! I can almost understand Raptaur and Saurial, and even a huge version of one of them barely makes sense, but a two hundred foot swimming reptile? And how does it all tie into mystery tests of weird and incredibly destructive weapons in Canada?"
"I have no idea, Director," Hannah sighed. "None at all. And I don't know how these people could know so much about our capabilities and procedures either."
"They obviously have inside help of some form," the blonde woman replied, calming down but looking very annoyed. "We need to find out who and how. I want you to draw up a short list of possible moles, then investigate them. If that doesn't show up anything, we'll expand the search. Coil is one thing, I know the bastard is getting inside information, but so far he's only a low level threat. This, though, has the possibility of being extremely dangerous. We need to find who's responsible."
"Perhaps it actually is Coil?"
The director looked thoughtful for a few seconds, but eventually shook her head a little. "I'm… less than convinced about that. I suppose it's possible but it would be a break from his previous behavior. But look into it anyway."
"Yes, Director."
"The Chief Director is going to want to know about a possible anti-Endbringer weapon as well, so we need to find this Tinker sooner or later." The short woman sighed heavily.
"Christ. Life just seems to get stranger, doesn't it?" Director Piggot shook her head in disgust. Looking down at herself, she prodded her side, then looked slightly less irritated. "Although I'll admit it's nice not hurting so much. Damn doctors, thinking they know best." Hannah suppressed a smile, thinking it wouldn't go down particularly well at the moment, but was impressed how much better the other woman looked, like twenty years had dropped from her. She still needed to exercise to get into proper shape, but the Dallon girl had obviously given her a new lease on life.
"What do you want to do about Saurial or Raptaur, if anything?" she asked when the Director looked back to her.
"As I said, at the moment, nothing. As long as they're prepared to go out and stop crime without damaging anything, we may as well let them get on with it. People actually like Saurial, and while they seem terrified of Raptaur, they're getting used to her and she's sure having an effect on crime statistics merely by existing. The Docks are calmer than they've been for years since she took out Hookwolf. I doubt it will last but it's a nice reprieve."
Piggot sighed slightly. "It would be nice to think that things would just stay more or less sane, at least for Brockton Bay, but I doubt we'll be that lucky."
Hannah shrugged, accepting the point. It was Brockton Bay after all.
"Just keep an eye on that side of things as you've been doing and concentrate on finding our mole or moles, for now. And if you meet either of them, it's probably a good idea to be polite, bearing in mind their possible relatives."
This, she could agree with. She had no wish to see what might crawl out of the bay if help was called for. Hannah shuddered a little at the thought, unable to help it.
"Do you think we should ask either of them to register with us? I doubt we'll get them to come in for power testing."
"I don't particularly want either one of them anywhere near me, actually," the blonde commented. "If you do run into them, you could mention registration, very politely, but don't push it. Raptaur doesn't strike me as someone who would respond well to being pressured."
"No, probably not," Hannah agreed. When the Director stood, she did as well.
"Destroy all these reports, please. Keep me informed and good luck with your search," the other woman said, heading for the door. "Right now I have a doctor to yell at." She opened the door and left, walking off with confident strides that were quite unlike her normal walk, radiating good health and a certain degree of irritation.
Hannah watched her go, before picking up all the copies of the report that Colin had produced, then reconnecting the security camera on her way out the door, a troubled expression on her face.
Idly wondering what the two women were discussing having disconnected the camera, Lisa closed her laptop with a violent shudder. Normally she found watching the hacked security feed of the internal PRT meetings both good entertainment and useful information. Right now, the only thing she could see in her mind's eye was a mouth large enough to swallow a pickup, full of foot long gleaming teeth, with a pair of horribly familiar yellow-orange eyes behind it looking amused.
'I'm never going swimming again,' she thought, shaking and staring at the laptop, which she nudged down the bed with her foot until it was a safe distance away.
Her power had given up completely, producing nothing but a horrific headache, which proved to her that this was all connected, but she still couldn't work out what that connection was. At the moment, she really didn't want to.
All she wanted to do was to forget those teeth.