Lisa looked up at the knock on the door, getting up and going over to open it. On the other side was Zephron, who smiled down at her. "Hi. I've got you some clothes that should fit along with a few things that girls need I got from the commissary. Hopefully that's enough to keep you going until tomorrow when we can send someone to buy proper supplies." He handed her a large paper bag which was obviously full of cloth.
Taking it, she smiled back, genuinely. The guy was doing everything he could to help, as in fact all the people they'd met so far had done. No one had asked any questions, he'd simply told them that the four young people were guests of The Family and the DWU for the foreseeable feature and they'd simply been accepted with nods or smiles. It was a little strange, but nice.
"Thanks, Zephron," she said, taking the bag over to one of the beds in the room she'd been shown to and putting it down, then looking through it. She found generic underwear that looked about the right size, jeans, and several t-shirts, all of which were basic but good quality. There were also hygienic supplies, a towel, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few other odds and ends of that nature. It was certainly sufficient to allow her to exist in comfort for now. "This is great. I could really do with a shower."
"I'm not surprised," he chuckled. "You had a long day. You know where everything is. I've dropped off things for your friends as well. We found some food for Rachel's dogs, she seemed happy enough with it." After a moment, he asked slowly, "There's something a little wrong with that poor girl, isn't there?"
"Yes," Lisa sighed, sitting on the bed next to her supplies. "Powers mess with your head. Sometimes only a little, sometimes a lot. In her case, it was a lot. She's very bad with human interaction, but off the scale good with dogs. She thinks more like a dog than a person, actually. Very suspicious at first, tends towards trying to dominate new people, and sometimes you have to slap her down hard to make it stick. But when she decides she trusts you, which takes a lot of effort most of the time, she'd die for you. Complaining the entire time and swearing like a trooper, of course, but even so..."
She shrugged as he nodded. "She's an acquired taste."
"I see. I wondered if it was something like that. Kind of like a form of Autism in a way."
"A little, yes."
He nodded slowly. "I understand. Well, hopefully she'll fit in here. There are a lot of guys, and women, here who are pretty bad with people in general but when they trust you they'll do anything for you. Like Danny said, we have people from all sorts of backgrounds. Some of them a lot worse than you kids. Ex military, criminals going straight, even a couple of lawyers!" He looked appalled, making her laugh.
Grinning, he added, "They're all good people even so. Be straight with them, they'll be straight with you. Fuck them over and you'll regret it. Briefly. And no one will give you guys away if you stick to that. Our own Rules, if you want to think of it that way."
Lisa listened, then nodded her understanding, both of the advice and the warning. "One for All and All for One, right?"
"It's the Union way," he smirked.
"I can live with that," she replied with a smile. "I'm just glad to have survived the day. I really didn't think I was going to."
"You got lucky and you're smart, and you were somewhere where you could get help." He shrugged. "It could easily have gone the other way."
Shuddering in remembrance, she nodded again. "I know. Believe me, I know."
"Well, at least for now all you guys are safe, fed, and warm. I need to go but I'll be around if you need me, and you know where BBFO is, and Danny's office. I'd suggest not bothering him if you don't have to because he's really busy right now, but he's also easy to talk to and always listens. Get some rest."
"Thanks again, Zephron," she said quietly, watching the door to the dormitory room close behind him as he left.
Looking around the room once again, she sighed a little. Then she got up and moved to the chest of drawers beside the bed she'd claimed as hers, one that was next to the window, through which when it was no longer dark and foggy she should have a view past the various buildings to the bay. Looking out for a moment, she could only see lights with halos around them, more dimly further away, and a few people moving around two stories below. There was the occasional hint of movement from vehicles in the middle distance but the fog was still too thick to make out much more than that and had made the winter evening even darker than it would have normally been at this time.
Returning her attention to the drawers, she opened the top one, then sorted out her temporary clothes and supplies into it, before closing it again. In the next one down she put the small amount of equipment she still had from their simultaneously wildly over-successful and disastrous raid on the ABB safe house. 'Should have know it was too good to be true,' she mused as she took her webbing vest off and put it in the drawer, along with her empty pistol, her three phones, and the single gas grenade she had hung onto. A handful of cash followed, along with her keys for the loft, a place she didn't expect to see again. Not much of a loss although she'd have liked to get her computer and camera.
The computer was sufficiently heavily encrypted that it was unlikely anyone could break into it apart from perhaps Dragon, and booby-trapped in such a way that if anyone tried it would erase everything immediately. That had cost her a significant amount but was worth it.
The keys to her apartment followed, another place she didn't dare go to until Coil was dealt with, then she closed the drawer, turning around and leaning on it as she surveyed the room once more.
There were five other beds in it, all unmade, with bedding in a closet to one side, a desk with three chairs next to it, a low table on the other side of the room with two more, and a small refrigerator, currently empty but gently humming to itself. A fairly old but functional TV was on the desk.
All in all it wasn't anything spectacular, but it was certainly livable. The temperature was fine, it was clean and dry, and to be honest after the day she'd had she'd have accepted a packing crate in the yard outside.
Each of them had been offered the use of an entire room to themselves as there were more available than people currently using them, but she knew that if the situation changed they'd end up sharing. The room was actually large enough that it wasn't far off the size of their loft base, so it wasn't a massive problem if it happened, but she hoped that some alternative solution could be found by the time that happened.
There were about two dozen similar rooms on three floors in this part of the large building complex, which was an absolute maze of corridors and rooms, clearly having grown organically as the requirements changed over the years. Parts of what she'd seen dated back to before the last world war, while the newer parts were around ten to fifteen years old.
The Union had changed and adapted over the years as the economy shrank, the period since the arrival of Scion, the first parahuman, being a much faster change for a number of reasons. Originally, seventy or eighty years ago, this would have merely been the headquarters of the Dock Worker's Union administration, a fairly small but very powerful group in the city, which acted as an umbrella organization for a number of other related unions to allow their bargaining power to be more effective. She knew from reading up on it that its roots dated back to the mid nineteenth century and the Brockton Bay Stevedore's and Longshoreman's Association, which had eventually changed its name to the one it bore to this day.
This had grown steadily, pulling in over the years a large number of associated guilds and trades, ultimately including electricians, plumbers, gas-fitters, engineers, carpenters, and a slew of others. If it had anything at all to do with shipping, transportation, the sea in general, it was in some way tied into what ended up as the DWU. They had also had close ties with other unions around the city that had little directly to do with the Docks. Brockton Bay had always been closely associated with the sea, and this was one of the oldest and most obvious examples of that association.
This facility had gradually taken on the aspect of a central workshop, admin center, job clearing house, and dock control operation, growing and merging with smaller operations, to eventually become what it was now. At its peak it had directly or indirectly employed or utilized over three and a half thousand workers, and had links to perhaps half to three quarters of the manufacturing and transportation workers in the entire city one way or another, a truly impressive number of people.
For a long time, from between the wars to at least the sixties, the Union was one of the most powerful political organizations in the city, having fingers in everything. It still did even without the bulk of the associated power, in a much more low key way. She had little doubt than even now the Union could cause all sorts of problems if it really wanted to, that sort of influence didn't just evaporate even if it was reduced.
The strike that had ended up essentially creating the Ship's Graveyard, or at least significantly increasing the size of it, and blocking the shipping channel was both a reaction to the reduction of that power for various reasons, and the cause of its acceleration. For a considerable time the DWU had been scraping along keeping the three hundred and fifty or so people still directly connected to it in work, largely due to the efforts of Danny Hebert.
Now, though, from what she could see and deduce, there was a change in the air, somehow connected to what had become known as The Family. Something that she still found extremely funny considering it was actually one young woman behind the entire thing. One that she suspected had no real idea yet how effectively she'd managed to make everyone believe in the concept, without even trying all that hard.
Admittedly that young woman was the most brown-pants terrifying cape she'd ever even heard of, but on balance she seemed to mean well and was probably very close to being a friend by now. Certainly Lisa owed her life to the girl and whatever trick it was that she'd pulled off to so convincingly seem like a completely different individual. Which was something she very much wanted to get to the bottom of.
The Changer ability was insane enough. The thought of that vast, vast creature reaching for Lung, ten feet tall at the time, and simply picking him up like a kid with a GI Joe doll made her pale even now. But the way she'd spoken and acted… Either she was the best actor Lisa had ever heard of, or something else even weirder was going on.
It was annoying to her that her power had such difficulty with the girl, she'd become used to it giving her answers. But even without it she was smart, sneaky, and capable of working things out the hard way. She'd find the answer.
Probably, in fact, by simply asking. It seemed so stupid it might well work.
Snorting with amusement, she turned around and pulled out her towel and a change of clothes, along with soap and shampoo, then pushed the drawer shut with her hip and headed off to the showers to finally get the mud, blood, ash, and smell of smoke off her.
Scrubbing her hair for the second time a little later, she was thinking about the puzzle represented by Saurial, Raptaur, and Kaiju. All one person. One stupidly overpowered grab bag with a weird Changer ability and a very odd sense of humor that she brought out at the drop of a hat. And a protective streak wide enough to run a six lane freeway down. Combined with the power to back it all up, and apparently the will to do so if necessary.
All in all, scary, fascinating, and worrying, although she also thought it could be a lot of fun. There were much worse people to be connected to.
'Coil for one,' she scowled, scrubbing harder. She really wanted the bastard dead.
Giving the information to Armsmaster and Miss Militia was somewhat irritating, she'd have liked to look the fucker in the eyes as she pulled the trigger, but she'd realized as quickly as Raptaur had it was necessary to give them something as a bonus in exchange for them listening to Rachel's story. As long as he stopped threatening her and her friends, she could live with letting the Protectorate deal with him. Assuming they could. 'If not, plan B,' she smirked to herself. 'Raptaur chow. I'd pay money to see that.'
It all depended on the girl tracking him down but she had no doubt that would happen. Unless he got on a plane right now and ran, he was fucked. Anywhere in Brockton Bay or the general area and she'd find him. Probably pretty quickly.
The girl.
That was the other problem.
Lisa was certain she knew who it was now. She'd had suspicions for some time but had deliberately tried not to think about it, as the likely results of having let something accidentally slip to her could have been very bad indeed depending on context. But now… Now she thought it was safe. In all probability her new friend already knew she knew, the girl was very sharp.
Taylor Hebert. Danny Hebert's daughter. She'd immediately picked up on the way he behaved around Raptaur, although he was very casual and non-obvious about it. It would fool most people, they'd simply think she was a cape he knew and trusted, and the way they acted was clearly designed to reinforce that appearance.
But her power couldn't be fooled that easily. Oh, true enough, it couldn't read her at all in almost every respect, only picking up hints here and there around the edges.
Even so, it worked fine on him. And it told her immediately that the two of them were related. Only a little probing showed that she was his daughter, he only had one daughter, therefore…
Taylor Hebert, also the subject of a severe bullying campaign by three little shits, one of those shits being a Ward. Sophia Hess. Shadow Stalker.
Lisa shook her head, rinsing her hair. That was a hell of a potential time bomb for the PRT. Played right to the press with the evidence she'd seen, which Danny definitely still had a copy of if she was reading the man even vaguely correctly, it would bring so much shit down on the heads of the PRT, locally and nationally, that heads would roll up to a fairly high level.
The Hess girl would get crucified, of course, but everyone else who was even peripherally connected to the case would have a very bad day. Director Piggot obviously was extremely well aware of this and was going out of her way to avoid it at all costs. Her higher-ups, assuming they even knew about it yet, would probably do the same. The PRT was nothing if not keenly aware of public relations, and this could be one of the worst messes in that area that they'd had to deal with for years. And that was without them even knowing that Taylor had Triggered as a result of the event, which they clearly didn't have a clue about.
She wondered if Taylor knew that the PRT was sitting on Sophia Hess. And what she'd do if she found out both that she was a Ward and that she was still in Brockton Bay.
After a moment, her eyes widened. "Oh, fuck me, of course she knows," she mumbled as she got out of the shower. "With her sense of smell… She could smell Hess all over the other Wards from half a mile away even if they'd only walked past each other. Why didn't she do something about it?"
It was a good question. In her place, Lisa would have made the girl quietly disappear after a long talk. She couldn't see any way that Taylor didn't both know who Sophia was, and all the other Wards as well. She went to school with them after all, she'd have picked up on that instantly.
Drying her hair in front of the mirror in the locker room, she pondered the whole thing. A lot of aspects of the situation didn't make any sense at all even now, especially compared to normal cape reactions. But the girl wasn't a normal cape, that was very obvious. Lisa wasn't sure what she actually was for that matter.
It was also obvious that Panacea, Amy Dallon, knew all of this and had in fact done so for a while. There were some odd things that her power had told her about the New Wave healer, one of them being that she was a fuck sight more dangerous than she appeared. To a level only slightly below Taylor, in fact, although in a completely different way. Taylor was definitely Endbringer-class, which was terrifying to think about, but Amy read as being way up into S-class at a minimum. Even there she found some confusing things, as her ability told her that the Dallon girl was actually a lot stronger and faster than she looked, which didn't make any sense. She wasn't known to have any Brute abilities, but Lisa definitely got indications that she was more than she appeared.
She was also very smart, very clever, and very loyal to her own family and the Heberts. Like with Taylor, threatening someone she cared about would be a quick way to end up dead. Lisa wasn't entirely certain how she'd pull it off, in Taylor's case it was obvious, you'd just be a nice snack or a bloody smear in a footprint, but in Amy's case it would be more subtle. But she could think of a number of fairly unpleasant possibilities from a Bio-Striker, which she was certain was only the tip of Panacea's real abilities. How she'd kept that from everyone was something of an intriguing puzzle.
Getting dressed after drying herself off, she went back to her room and hung her towel over the old radiator to dry, then headed to the cafeteria for something more to eat. She was still hungry, and also very tired.
Deciding that talking to Taylor could wait, she ate a couple of portions of stew which was very nice, talked to a few of the people in the cafeteria for a little while, then headed to bed. Fourteen hours of sleep or so sounded about right.
Stopping outside the rooms each of her team-mates had been given, she smiled a little to hear deep steady breathing and faint snores coming from them. The others had obviously simply decided to go straight for the sleep option.
Five minutes later she'd joined them.
"That's about all I can do without more supplies and I'm tired anyway," Amy said, stepping back from the bench and turning to Taylor. "But it's nearly ready for testing. The support system will keep everything happy for a few days until we have time for it."
"Sound good," Taylor smiled, inspecting their work. It was mostly Amy's, of course, but she and the Varga had made suggestions, fabricated some parts for it that were better off inorganic, things of that nature. Nothing like as much work as the partly completed thing in the other room, of course, but still it was fair to say it was a joint project. She reached out and touched it, running her hand down it again. "It feels exactly right."
"I think it is," Amy smiled. "I'm looking forward to trying it out. But right now I need something to eat and it's half past six or so." She checked her watch, then amended her statement. "Quarter to seven, actually. Let's go and find your dad."
"OK," Taylor replied, as they left the workshop and locked it behind them. She changed to Saurial, looked around the large room for a moment to make sure nothing was amiss, set the alarm, then both of them left, locking the premises on the way out.
Heading towards the Admin building, they looked around, waving to various workers who waved back. The fog was thick enough now that visibility was down to only a hundred feet or so, but as they got further from the water it started to thin out quite quickly. Amy shivered a little. "It's even damper now than it was earlier, and colder. I'll be glad when all this clears away."
"The rest of the week is supposed to be a lot warmer," Taylor noted. "Spring will be here soon."
"Good. This winter has just been nasty. I like a nice crisp snowy day, but most of what we've had has been damp and horrible, with a few nice bits. Before Christmas it was terrible."
"I haven't had too much trouble recently," Taylor snickered. Amy gave her a look.
"Of course you haven't, you could probably swim in liquid nitrogen and just think it was bracingly cold. But you're weird."
"And proud of it, Miss Dallon," she laughed.
Her friend giggled. "Obviously." They fell silent for a few seconds. "I hope Lisa and her friends are settled in OK," Amy said after a moment.
"I think Zephron will have got them sorted out pretty well. He's a good guy and seemed to like them."
"I have to admit I like him," she replied, smiling a little.
Shortly they arrived in the main Admin building, going through the office area to her father's office and entering after knocking. He was typing on the computer fairly fast, looking up at the pair of them and smiling as he paused for a moment.
"Hi, girls. Come in, I've nearly finished, only another couple of paragraphs. Did your work go well?"
"Yes, I think it did," Taylor grinned, glancing at Amy who had a private little smile of her own. "Amy has a present for you as well."
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I heard your birthday was next week and thought I'd make you something for it," Amy said slyly. "But you'll have to wait until you get home."
"Ah. Poor me." He grinned, then resumed typing. Taylor checked to make sure no one was able to hear or see them, while Amy leaned on the door to prevent anyone walking in on them.
Moving over to stand beside her father, she said in a low voice, "We'll meet you at the place you dropped us off in a few minutes."
"OK, 'Saurial' he said, emphasizing the name with a smirk of his own. She winked, then looked over at Amy who was smiling more widely, shaking her head.
"You see the sort of thing I have to put up with?"
"Poor girl." Her friend seemed unsympathetic.
"See you soon," she laughed, as Amy pulled the door open and stepped out. He waved without looking up from his screen although he was still smirking. Nodding to the two office workers who were still present and getting a couple of nods back, they left.
Standing next to Colin, Hannah watched the Rig grow larger and closer. She turned to her companion and friend, who seemed pensive. "Do you want to tell the Director, or shall I?"
"I think I need to do it," he replied after a moment. "As you have pointed out in the past, it is my job as the local Protectorate leader." He glanced at her, a very small smile coming and going. "Although I am more than happy to leave dealing with other people to you in most cases."
"Something I'm all too aware of," she sighed, internally slightly amused. He was definitely getting, very slowly, better at conversation that wasn't entirely about technical subjects. Perhaps Dragon was helping him somehow, or his social interaction programming attempts were paying off. She doubted very much he'd ever be someone that could be described as the life of the party, though. Momentarily trying to suppress a smile at the mere thought, she nodded.
"I'll write up my report immediately and collate it with Assault's and those of the PRT troopers involved, so we can present everything at one time."
"Thank you. I will begin my own report as soon as I'm back in my lab." He sighed minutely. "Where I should be doing something useful instead."
"This is useful, I think." She looked around carefully, seeing none of the other people on the boat were close enough to hear, but even so kept her voice very low. "The chance to capture someone who has been a thorn in our side for a considerable time and from what we learned might well be the most serious threat of all the villains in the city isn't something we should let slip through our fingers. Even considering the source of the information."
"You feel that our informant was untrustworthy?" he asked, somewhat curiously. Neither of them were mentioning names even under the current circumstances, Tattletale's insistence that Coil had ears and eyes everywhere having made them more than usually paranoid.
"Not… untrustworthy, precisely. I think that there was a certain amount of ulterior motive present though."
"Undoubtedly," he responded immediately. "Self-preservation is a strong motivator. But there was also a considerably loyalty to team members there as well, which was the main driving force behind giving us the information. Otherwise I expect we would not have heard anything about it until after the fact. If it's any help, none of the people involved were being untruthful with what they said, as far as my equipment could tell. Which doesn't mean they told us the complete truth of course. Merely that what they did say was not a lie."
"Even Raptaur?"
He was silent for a few seconds. Eventually he said, "My equipment can't read her. Her physiological and psychological indicators are too far at variance from human norm for it to work at all. However, based on previous encounters I have no reason to doubt her veracity."
"I see." Hannah studied him for a while. He seemed oddly certain of himself, and she could tell that for whatever reason he actually respected the other cape to a higher level than he did most people. Which was somewhat peculiar. But then, so was he.
"Do you want to call a meeting with Director Piggot tonight?" she asked, not saying anything more about their information.
Again, he thought for a moment. Eventually he shook his head slowly. "No, I think not. She will have gone home by now in any case and I doubt bringing her back in would improve her outlook. There is of course the risk that she will feel annoyed anyway that we did not immediately tell her, but considering the security issues, it will take time to set something up that is sufficiently effective to prevent information leaks. I will pass on a report covering the death of Oni Lee and a brief description of the circumstances, which should be enough for now. Once I have finished a full report we can approach her and pass the full information on. Sometime tomorrow, I would think."
"OK. I'll back you up, but don't leave it too long, or she'll just get furious about being left out of the loop."
"A delicate equation to balance," he noted.
"Are you thinking about taking up Raptaur's offer of using the BBFO premises?" she asked curiously. "I think the Director would be somewhat unwilling to go for that."
"It seems a good suggestion in most respects." They were nearly at the Rig now, the ferry slowing and turning to dock. Both of them braced themselves as the boat rolled a little, without thinking much about it as it was a familiar thing. "I understand her reluctance, I think, but that building is probably one of the most unlikely to be surveilled of any in Brockton Bay, and most likely one of the most secure on the planet. Lined with what appeared to be at least several millimeters of EDM, even a nuclear weapon wouldn't destroy it."
He smiled a little at her. "Of course, the thermal pulse would cook anything inside it, but the building itself would still be standing."
"Hopefully we're not going to get nuked any time soon," Hannah commented with a smile of her own. He was positively chatty at the moment. She wanted to encourage that if possible.
"It seems unlikely." The boat stopped, people on the dock tying it up. She watched, slightly amused as always that even with the level of technology in the Rig, which was stuffed with Tinker tech, ultimately this particular task was done the same way it had been for millennia, with a rope. Both of them got back on their bikes as the front loading ramp came down, riding them the short distance to the garage, where they were parked.
"I will await your report. Do not put any of the security sensitive information on the internal computer system, please," he requested as they headed for the elevator. "I would also suggest disconnecting any security cameras present. My lab system is completely isolated from the main Rig system. If you wish, you can use a computer there to write up your report."
"Thanks, I'll do that after I've had a chance to shower and eat something," she smiled.
"Of course." As they arrived at the relevant floor he got out, nodded to her, and walked away. She watched him with a fond look until the doors closed, then went on her own way.
A shower and food sounded very good to her right now.
Once they'd entered the house, Danny looked at the two girls, who were sharing almost identically smug looks. Taking his coat off he hung it up, then headed into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, as it had been a very long day and he needed caffeine right now. He heard a set of footsteps behind him, which would be Amy, as these days Taylor walked so quietly you could hardly hear it even when she wasn't actually trying to avoid notice.
Filling the kettle he plugged it in, then prepared the rest of the things he needed, before turning around to look at them. Both were at the table now, Taylor propped on her tail as usual while Amy was sitting next to her. The smug looks were still present.
"OK, talk," he said, taking a seat on the other side of the table and raising an eyebrow. "Those looks make me nervous."
They exchanged a glance, then Amy pulled a small box, about half the size of a box of kitchen matches, out of her pocket, pushing it over the table towards him. It appeared to be made of aluminum, perfectly square and smooth. "Happy Birthday in advance," she said with a smirk of someone who was enjoying a joke.
"Hmm." Picking it up he studied it, finding it was a two part affair with an inner lower part and an upper part that dropped down over it. Lifting the top off, he put it to one side and inspected the contents. The lower part was half full of a viscous yellow goo that looked a little like corn syrup, with no smell that he could detect. Floating in it was a small chip of bone-white material which seemed familiar.
"How nice. A pot of goop with an abomination of nature in it," he smiled, while inside his heart jumped a little.
"A Mark Seventeen abomination of nature, now with extra godlessness at no extra charge," Amy laughed.
"What happened with Marks One to Sixteen?" he asked.
Her face instantly went blank.
"We don't speak of the Mark Sixteen," she replied in a stiff voice. "Ever."
He stared in shock, then looked at Taylor as she began laughing. Amy relaxed, grinning like an idiot. "Oh, thanks," he sighed. "You're contagious," he added, fixing Taylor with a dark look which made her shrug, still laughing.
"Between you and Varga how could I have ended up anything but?" she asked, fairly reasonably.
"God, I wish your mother was here as well," he chuckled, shaking his head slightly regretfully. "She'd have loved your friends. Both of them." He nodded to Amy, who smiled again. "Although, now that I think about it, the four of you together in one room would have signified the end times."
Looking at the box in his hand again he tipped it slightly, watching the thing in it drift around in the goo. It was slightly smaller than the one Amy had originally made, and thinner, but overall looked more or less the same. "So this is one of your healing symbiotes?"
"It is," she agreed happily. "This is pretty much as far as I can take this version without redesigning it completely from scratch, which I'm doing. But even so, it's very effective. This is the first one that I could let people other than me use. I've tested and retested it over and over again and it's safe."
"What does it heal?"
"Everything."
He stared at her. "Everything?"
"Pretty much. If someone shot you in the head at close range with a shotgun, that would be bad, but if they got you in the heart with a pistol, you'd probably make it. It'll fix everything needed to keep the user alive as fast as possible, prioritizing life over everything else, then when you're stable, go back and repair things properly. You'd be incredibly hungry, of course, because it needs nutrients, but you'd live."
"What happens if you can't get the nutrients in time?"
"It puts you into a state like hibernation, the metabolism turned down as far as it can go, almost to death. You could last for weeks like that, even underwater. I'm not sure what the limit actually is yet, it's complicated to work out and obviously actually testing that part is difficult." She shrugged. "Not likely to get a volunteer to be shot then drowned for a couple of weeks."
"No, I suppose not," he agreed readily. "What about disease? And genetic defects, like… I don't know, MS or something like that."
"Diseases are easy enough. It pushes your immune system to absolutely stupid levels of activity while taking care of all the other problems that would normally cause. It will deal with any viral, bacterial, or prion disease I can think of without any problems. I could probably design a disease that it wouldn't stop, but I'd have to work at it, and even so it would keep you alive to the bitter end. Things like cancer are easily recognized and fixed as well, along with most other issues of a similar nature. It'll regenerate basically everything given a little time and resources."
She smiled a little. "I could cut my arm off and eat it and it would regrow inside five minutes, but I'm not going to demonstrate that."
"Please don't," he said with a grimace.
"Genetic defects are more problematic, but it should handle most of them. It reads your genetic code, applies a number of error checking methods that were inspired by Taylor's Varga biology, and should be able to work out most of the things that are wrong rather than different. So it won't 'cure' you of having brown hair rather than blond, for example, because that's something that is correct in the genetics, but it would fix something like Huntington's. If it's not certain, it does nothing. I'm sure there are things I haven't thought of but it won't ever cause damage, only fix it. Like I said, it's safe. Much safer than any traditional method, certainly."
She hesitated a little, looking at Taylor, who made a motion to her to carry on. "It also fixes the worst disease of all, if you get one early enough in life."
"Which is?"
"Old age."
Danny gaped at her. "Holy shit."
"Oh, it's not immortality, not really and not yet, but it should stop practically all the normal aging processes dead and repair most of the damage already caused," she added quickly. "And you could still die from the right sort of accident. But my estimate is that it probably increases human lifespan by around three to four hundred percent while making at least ninety-five percent of that in peak health. I'm sure I can improve that with more work, sooner or later. But it should be enough to get on with for now."
There was dead silence for nearly a minute as he stared at her, then the innocent little thing in the box in his hand.
Eventually he opened his mouth. "You realize that if anyone finds out about this the reactions are going to be absolutely fucking off the wall insane, I hope?"
"I do, which is why I'm not telling anyone else about that part and I'll deny it flat if anyone asks," she sighed. "As far as anyone is concerned, it simply fixes diseases and injuries. More than that I need to think about the best way to bring up, eventually. Even so the PRT will be difficult. It still needs work, the shelf life isn't as good as I want it yet, and there are a few peculiar and very rare issues it might have trouble with, but it's good enough that I'd feel happy about letting people in general use one. Assuming that we can figure out how, which may take a while."
"But Amy thought that you deserved one first," Taylor put in with a faint smile on her face. "Until we can work out how to go any further it's difficult to let other people in on the secret, but you already know she can do much more than anyone else realizes. Plus, of course, she needs a guinea pig."
"Oh, thanks very much, dear," he said with a frown, making her grin. "I love you too."
"I know," she replied with a contented look. Amy snickered.
"How early is early enough?" he asked after a moment, looking at the thing in the box.
"Before about sixty right now. After that there is enough accumulated genetic damage that it becomes complicated to work out a fix for. I'll figure that out sooner or later but right now that's about the only limitation. Even then it would keep someone healthy and fix injuries. But it wouldn't extend life that much, probably only about fifty percent or something around that amount."
"Even so, people would kill for that," he noted soberly. "You are going to have to be extremely careful how you proceed with this and who you let know. Wars have started over a hell of a lot less."
"That's one of the problems." Amy sighed. "But I can't just not do it. It could save a lot of lives."
"Agreed," he finally said. "We'll think about this and come up with something that will work. In the meantime, how do you use it?" She looked up at him, smiling suddenly.
"You'll use it?"
"I trust you. So does Taylor and Varga. Yes."
The Dallon girl smiled brilliantly, the expression making her face light up. She hopped up and came around to his side of the table. "It's designed to be very simple and foolproof. Basically, you just press the concave side to the skin somewhere and hold it there. You'll feel a spot go numb, then you can let go. It'll make you a little dizzy as it integrates with your system but this version is invisible when it's joined. Just pick a spot of bare skin, like your arm or something."
After a look at her, he shrugged, then pushed up his left sleeve to expose his forearm. Putting it on the table palm up he fished the slippery thing out of its yellow glop, waited for most of the goo to drip off it, then put it as instructed half-way between his wrist and elbow after taking a deep breath. Amy put her fingers on his neck. "I'll monitor it, I need to check everything is going right, and I can stop it if anything happens, but I don't expect it to."
He nodded as he pressed down. The thing squeaked at him just like her first one had done. A couple of seconds passed then the area surrounding it went dead, so he let go.
Taylor was watching him closely, as was Amy. "Still the same color," she reported. "No extra limbs, no monsterism..." His daughter grinned as he sighed.
"I'm glad you feel it necessary to be so helpful, Taylor," he said dryly.
"You know me, always ready to help," she giggled.
Amy muffled a snort of laughter, then said, "It's working fine. You'll feel dizzy right… about… now." Right on cue he felt like the world was spinning for a moment, as if he'd had too much to drink, but the feeling passed quickly.
"Whoa. That was… weird," he mumbled.
"There we go. It's linked in… checking you over… Ah, it's decided that your eyes are not working quite right." She smiled as he looked at her. Suddenly her face went blurry. Reaching up he removed his glasses, blinking, and finding the room was abruptly sharply focused, much better than his eyesight had been before with glasses.
"Good god. That's absolutely amazing," Danny muttered, looking around wide-eyed. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. "Unbelievable."
"Want to try this?" Taylor asked, holding out a glittering small but sharp knife.
He stared at her, debating with himself, but finally reached out for it. Without hesitation he stabbed the tip into his finger, suppressing the wince of pain as the implausibly sharp blade cut deeply. Removing the blade he watched open-mouthed as the wound healed in seconds, much faster than Amy's first attempt had managed.
"And that is just freaky," he added slowly, handing the knife back.
Satisfied, Amy went back to her seat. "That worked perfectly."
He lifted his arm and inspected the spot the symbiote had attached to. It was already almost invisible and as he watched was slowly smoothing out into the exact texture and shade of his skin. "Can they be removed?"
"Yes, I have designed a removal system for it, and of course I can undo it easily, or upgrade it for that matter without removing it, but so far I haven't made one. Hopefully there won't be a need to remove one but the option is there."
He turned back to look at both of them. "Thank you very much indeed, Amy. It's a wonderful present."
"I hope you enjoy it for a very long time, Danny," she replied, then looked sideways at Taylor. "And you were just going to give him a coat."
"Hey! It's a very nice coat!" His daughter grinned at her friend, who laughed a little.
"There will be some more upgrades available in time, but that should do for the moment," Amy said. Glancing at her watch, she added, "I'm going to have to get home soon, it's nearly half past seven. I still have some stuff to do for school tomorrow."
"I'll give you a lift home, Amy," he offered. "Do you two want something to eat first, though? I was thinking about getting a pizza."
"That would be great, Dad," Taylor smiled. He reached into his pocket for his phone, dialing the number from memory, then ordering. Soon they were waiting for the delivery while discussing the events of a rather memorable day.
"Did you have a good day, Amy?"
Amy stared at her mother, then her father who was watching TV as was his normal activity a lot of the time. Mark looked over at her and smiled a little.
"Actually, yes I did, Mom." She was slightly weirded out by the look on her mother's face. It took a little thought to identify it as an apologetic smile.
"I wanted to say that I realize that I was very unreasonable yesterday," Carol continued, sighing a little, then getting up from her chair and approaching her adoptive daughter. With no hesitation she embraced her for a moment. "I do love you and I know I haven't said that nearly enough. I also know that I've let my resentment and hatred of your father color the way I've treated you for far too long. That was wrong." Stepping back as Amy stared in shock, she went on, "I can't promise that I can change my habits overnight, but I can promise that I'll at least try to. Will you forgive me?"
It took the brunette girl nearly twenty seconds to be able to think clearly, but she eventually smiled and nodded. "I think I will. Thank you, Mom. I didn't expect that at all."
"I still find your friendship with Raptaur and her sister something of concern, but as you rightly said, you're old enough and mature enough to make your own decisions," Carol said, sitting down again. "Hopefully you'll make the right ones. And Sarah is also right, those two are… odd… but not as far as anyone can tell, bad people. Or lizards. Or whatever the hell they are. Just promise me you'll be careful."
"I will, definitely," Amy grinned. She sat down opposite her parents. "They're good people, trust me. And all their relatives."
"There really are more of them?" Carol asked doubtfully. Amy nodded, her grin widening.
"Yep. You'll see soon enough."
Her mother sighed faintly. "Why do I somehow feel that things around here are only going to get weirder, dear?" she said to Mark, who grinned, then went back to the TV.
"It fits the genre, I think," he snickered. "A family of weird lizard-people living in the bay or wherever it is? Definitely Lovecraft."
"Oh, I really wish you hadn't said that," Carol muttered. "I've read Lovecraft."
"I know," he grinned, glancing at Amy, who was suppressing a laugh of her own. Flipping channels he proceeded to ignore them both. Carol watched him with fond but mildly irritated amusement, then shook her head, looking back to the girl.
"I believe a car was also mentioned?" she said with a sigh.
Amy grinned widely.
The Day before Tuesday, February 14, 2011
Taylor smiled, her Saurial mouth showing teeth. 'Aha. Got you.'
She started following the scent trail, cloaked and invisible to everyone. She'd been searching for nearly four hours in the vicinity that Lisa had said she was pretty sure led to the base that Coil had somewhere in the Downtown area, although she didn't know the exact location as she was always brought in by his mercenaries via a route circuitous enough to give even her power trouble, blindfolded to boot. But she'd narrowed it down to a ten block square area. Now, roughly in the middle of that zone, Taylor had caught a scent on the breeze.
She'd detected hints of the same scent in a number of places, showing that the man bought coffee from a particular shop, seemed to like another one's donuts, and occasionally stopped at a newspaper shop, but not recently. None of the scent trails had led anywhere useful, normally only the edge of the nearest road where he'd obviously gotten into and out of a car. He'd used one specific payphone, dropped a cup on the ground within the last twelve hours or so, touched a bench, things like that, but none of the traces were immediately useful other than to show that Lisa was correct about his general location.
This time the scent proved to be coming from a vent in the wall of a building, the pipework leading not up as she expected but down. She inspected it carefully. Sniffing, she was certain that it was fresh. Wherever this led, Coil was in there. 'Underground,' she thought. 'No wonder it's difficult to find. How can he afford that, and all those mercenaries? Lisa says he must have at least thirty of them and the base is huge.'
"It's an interesting problem," the Varga agreed. "I wonder if the people in this building know about him being under them?"
'No idea,' she replied, looking around carefully. Following the cables she could see in the walls, radiating enough power to show that whatever they were connected to was much larger than just a few lights, she went around the side of the building to the rear. The cables went into an access tunnel under a manhole and as far as she could determine connected to the main electrical grid.
'Other direction, I guess,' she commented. 'This is where they're coming from.'
Turning around she followed the electrical glow in the opposite direction, finding the point that they abruptly turned downwards and disappeared into the ground, behind an access panel that was actually marked as containing a gas shutoff valve. 'Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to hide all this,' she added.
"A secret base anyone can easily find isn't much of a secret," her friend chuckled.
'No, I guess not.'
It took her half an hour to find the main entrance, which was very well hidden in a parking garage a block away, and another forty minutes to track down two more smaller entrances, which were probably emergency escape routes. One went into a storm drain, the other one ended as a perfectly ordinary looking door next to an accountancy company fire exit. It was, under the facade of normality, six inches of steel, she found out when she inspected it. She cataloged a large number of individual people's scents at all three entrances, Lisa's being among those at the main one. Her newest friend had certainly been through that hidden door on a number of occasions.
'Well, he's definitely in there,' she noted. 'I could go in after him, but that could be a problem. I think that weird chemical smell is explosives, a lot of them. He's probably the sort of idiot who's fitted his secret underground base with a self-destruct system. I'll bet it even has a big count down timer. This guy has seen way too many Bond films.'
"It does seem a little over-elaborate, Brain," the Varga chuckled. "But it fits the personality type."
'I guess. Now all we need to find out is who he actually is.' She sighed a little, then settled in to wait in a dark spot in the parking garage, near the ceiling, wishing that she'd brought some eggs to snack on.
And hoping that Coil went home soon. She had school in only about six hours.