"Hi, everyone." Amy sat down across from Taylor, giving her a smile, then looking at the rest of the normal crowd. Lucy grinned at her, Mandy nodded while stuffing her face with food, too busy eating to stop, Eric raised a hand in greeting without looking up from the chemistry textbook he was intently studying, and Rich glanced up from suspiciously inspecting inside the burger he'd been eating.

"Hi, Amy," they all chorused, dead-pan, then shared a laugh as the healer snickered.

Swallowing a huge mass of food, Mandy went a slightly funny color, then took a drink to clear her throat. "Thanks for fixing my best friend," she said sincerely to the new arrival. "I'd miss her."

"You're both welcome," Amy chuckled, sprinkling a little pepper on her food then putting the shaker down. She inspected the Chinese girl who seemed in good spirits. "How are you, Lucy? That can't have been a nice experience."

"No, it wasn't, not even slightly," the girl shuddered. "I'm fucking lucky that you and Saurial happened to be passing right then. That bastard nearly killed me."

"I don't know that he was trying to, but he certainly didn't actually care if he did," Amy sighed. "I'm not sorry I got him in the nuts."

Eric and Rich both winced, the former looking up from his textbook. "Really? I didn't know you were a fighter."

"I'm not, yet, but I don't like people hurting my friends," Amy smiled in a slightly evil manner. "Saurial is showing me some things that can let me take someone down quickly if I can't use my power. Or if I just want to hurt them a little." She smiled more widely. "Or a lot."

"Jesus, you have a dark side, don't you," the boy said with a sort of respectful worry.

"Under the right circumstances, yes." She didn't feel at all bad about hitting that idiot.

"Was that all you did?" Rich seemed both interested and impressed.

"No, I got him twice with a collapsible baton on the neck. I may not be a fighter as such but I know the right place to hit to bring someone down safely. The first shot missed the nerve cluster I was aiming at, but I got him in the correct place on the second one. He didn't want to give up, so I kicked him in the balls, which slowed him right down."

Both the young men crossed their legs, making all the girls exchange grins.

"Saurial said that if she tried her claws would remove his nuts completely," Amy continued remorselessly, amused at the reaction. "She offered to show me, which was when he passed out."

They shuddered.

"Please stop talking, Amy," Rich asked in a pained voice.

"I think she was joking, actually," the healer said in a musing tone of voice. "She doesn't normally cause any damage. Anyway, I could have regrown them for him easily enough. Assuming I wanted to."

Her smile was wide and toothy.

"Oh, god, you're scary when you do that," Eric muttered, leaning back.

Relaxing, she grinned happily. "Like I said, I don't like my friends being hurt."

"I really hope we're your friends," he said in a worried voice.

"Of course you are. Make sure that if you get mugged it's when I'm in the area and I'll come and rescue you," she laughed, causing them all to grin. "Did Lucy show you the photos of her and Saurial?"

Mandy started giggling. "Did she? They're on all her social media profiles, she emailed them to practically everyone she ever met, she's been showing them in every class, and I'm not sure but I think she might be trying to work out how to get the best one tattooed on her back."

Everyone looked at Lucy, who had gone bright red. "I like Saurial," she said in an embarrassed tone, staring at her food.

"I'm sure she likes you as well, Lucy," Taylor said comfortingly, patting her on the shoulder. "She seemed happy in the photos."

"That's true," the girl said, looking up and smiling. "Now I need to get one with Raptaur. I want to meet all the Family members."

"Gotta collect them all, eh, Lucy?" Eric snickered. She nodded, grinning widely.

Amy met Taylor's eyes seeing the laughter there. They really were going to have to make sure their friend met Raptaur soon. She started thinking of ways to make it happen without giving the secret away. Perhaps inviting her to the DWU after all the excitement died down?

Resolving to talk to Taylor about it when they had a free moment, she started eating.

"Hey, did any of you guys hear about some sort of big thing going on tomorrow in the bay?" Rich asked, half-way through his burger. "It was in the paper yesterday. Apparently BBFO and the DWU are both involved, it sounds like it could be impressive." He looked both ways and leaned in, lowering his voice. "It's entirely possibly I may be too unwell to come to school tomorrow."

Several smiles greeted him. "I was thinking the same thing," Lucy said quietly. "Stress from my mugging, of course. It could affect a girl very badly."

She smirked a little as Amy nodded respectfully, it was a very good excuse. "Is it actually true?" she asked, a little worried. Her friend shook her head quickly, grinning.

"Not really. I was terrified at the time, but I know that guy isn't coming back. The police contacted Dad and told him they'd checked him out, he's done the same thing to six other people in the last year and they were looking for him for attempted murder. After what you and Saurial did to him, even if he got out of jail, he's never coming back to the city." The girl shrugged a little. "I'll probably have nightmares about it for a while, but shit happens."

"You definitely have a core of steel, young one," Eric said approvingly, patting her head patronizingly. She stuck her tongue out at him, making him grin.

It turned out that all of them had a strong feeling that they might not be able to come in on Tuesday, for a number of different reasons. Amy looked around at the cafeteria full of students and hid a grin at the thought that tomorrow it might well be more or less empty. She wondered if the teachers knew. Or were going to join them.

Looking at Taylor's expression, she saw amusement present, knowing her friend was thinking much the same. They shared a small smile and went back to eating.

A few minutes later, Mandy slowly turned to Taylor, her eyes narrowed. Taylor smirked at her. "Wait a minute," she said in a suspicious voice. "DWU? Your dad practically runs the place. You know what's going to happen, don't you."

"Yes," Taylor replied calmly

"Tell me," the girl said, a winning smile on her face. "Please?"

"Can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both."

"Are you going to stick to one word answers?"

"Probably."

"Tell me tell me tell me tell me TELL ME!" Mandy shouted, waving her arms manically. Everyone in the cafeteria looked at her. Amy sighed, looking at the others who were all appearing amused.

"Nope."

"You're mean."

"Yep."

The pair of them exchanged glances, and burst out laughing.

"Idiot. You're a pain in the ass, Hebert."

"I do my best," Taylor giggled.

"TELL MEEE!" Mandy wailed, leaning on the other girl.

Shaking her head, Amy ignored the histrionics and went back to finishing her baked salmon, which was very nice.

Max watched the local news report on the press conference the Mayor had held that morning, shaking his head in reluctant admiration. The man certainly knew how to answer questions without actually answering them. It was an impressive talent.

"What do you think, Victor?" he asked when the broadcast ended, pressing the button which made the large-screen TV retract into what looked otherwise like an ordinary and very high quality bookcase against the wall opposite his desk. He looked over at his subordinate who had been watching from near the window, in one of the several leather chairs he had around the room for visitors.

"I think our good Mayor knows a lot more than he's saying and is very much enjoying all this," the man said reflectively. "It's not going to hurt his reelection chances either, if this mystery project does actually do everything he claims it will. Not that there's any real competition for the job anyway." He smiled briefly. "For some reason most people don't want to run Brockton Bay. Apparently it has a bad gang problem."

Max smirked. "So I have heard." The smirk vanished, being replaced with a thoughtful look. "I am very intrigued about how whatever is going to happen will 'reduce crime' in some vague way. I wonder what he meant by that?"

Victor shrugged. "I don't know. He might simply be working on the basis that bringing money to the city will eventually drag more of the poor up a level so they don't need to commit crimes to live. It happens. Or there might be more to it. The involvement of Saurial and Raptaur concerns me."

Max scowled. He still hadn't forgiven that overgrown wall lizard for scaring him like that. Or whoever was riding her at the time. When he found out who that was he was going to make his displeasure known.

Those shoes had been expensive and his favorite pair.

"What about this new one? Kaiju? Any ideas?"

"I looked the name up," his compatriot said, suddenly appearing a little worried. "It's Japanese, it more or less means 'Strange Beast', but it's come to refer to a giant monster in a specific type of movie. Those people were into their monsters attacking cities. Ironic, really, considering what happened when Leviathan turned up. There's another variant called 'Daikaiju' which is Giant Kaiju, but it's not used so much outside that culture. What there is left of it. In the rest of the world, 'Kaiju' tends to get used for both. Think Godzilla, or something like that."

Max considered the information, then turned his head to look out at the bay. "That's… more than a little disturbing, considering the source," he commented slowly. "You don't think…?"

Victor looked at him without speaking for a few seconds.

"It's ridiculous," Max added. "Isn't it?"

"I certainly hope so, sir," his colleague said quietly. "But just in case, I would strongly recommend that we watch from a safe distance."

"You may be right," Max noted after a long pause. They shared a glance, then went back to looking out the window.

"Any luck with Brad?" he finally asked, changing the subject with a shudder.

"Ah. Yes, possibly. I have managed to arrange a legal challenge that with some luck should be able to get him released on bail soon. The bail will be a large amount, I'm afraid, and we will need to make a fairly substantial payment to a friendly judge. To keep him friendly."

"Do it. I want that bastard here, I need to find out what happened."

"As you wish." Victor stood up. "In that case I'd better get back to work."

Nodding to his superior, he left the office, closing the door behind him. Max kept staring out at the bay for some time, wondering what was going to happen tomorrow, before he turned back to other work.

Lisa watched as the two large vans drove into the facility, the noise of a significant number of dogs being overexcited coming from them. She turned to Rachel, who was looking both worried and pleased. "There, I told you he'd help you. They got all the dogs from both your shelters, all twenty-six of them. Which is an awful lot of dogs."

"They needed help," the girl said without looking away from the vans.

"Danny has arranged for you to use one of the old storage sheds near the water for them. He's having some people fix it up right now. It'll be ready by this evening and you can get them all in there. I told him the sort of thing you needed and he's having it put in, but if you want to go and check that it's OK, he said you should feel free. Just follow the vans."

Rachel nodded, turning to do exactly that. "Rachel?" She turned back.

"Try to be nice to them, they're helping us a lot."

"They're friends." That was all she said, but the girl seemed sincere. Following the vans at a jog, Angelica and Judas at her heels, she disappeared around the corner after the vehicles full of dogs. Watching her go, Lisa shook her head a little with a small smile, then looked at Brian, who had come up to her and was also peering after their team-mate.

"There might be hope for that girl after all," she noted. "She's accepted the situation much better than I thought she would."

"I think it's some weird dog thing," he replied thoughtfully. "She knows she's accepted here without people either being scared of her, or wanting to use her. You know how she has a sort of pack mentality, and always pushes to find her ranking in the group?"

"Yes," Lisa sighed. "It can be annoying."

"After the Raptaur thing, she's realizes that she's never going to be the Alpha as long as that lizard is around. Oddly enough, that seems to have cheered her up and she's just going along with things. It seems to me that now she knows her place and is accepting it. Or something like that, anyway."

"You may be right," Lisa nodded. "It fits with what my power says, but she's always been a little difficult to read properly. Every time I think I've finally got a handle on her, she does something a bit different than I was expecting." Turning to look at him, she smiled. "How are you getting on?"

"Not bad. I've talked to their security head, Mark, who seems like a decent guy. He did some more tests of my fighting skills which he's happy with. He's damn good himself, I couldn't take him without using my powers, or getting lucky." Brian grinned, rubbing his jaw. "And has a hell of a right cross. Military training for sure. Anyway, he's put me down as backup at the moment. I'm just heading to meet this other guy, Jason, who's in charge of the Carpentry section. I'll probably be working the rest of today, they're doing some refurbishments to several buildings here and they need everyone they can get hold of."

"Good," Lisa replied, pleased with the way things were going. "Where's Alec?"

"Last time I saw him he was heading for the cafeteria again for a second lunch," Brian laughed. "He really likes the food here."

"It's not bad," she admitted. "Basic, but well made and tasty."

"How did your meeting with Mr Hebert go?" Brian asked curiously as the pair slowly walked along, watching the activity around the site.

"Pretty well," Lisa replied with a smile, which was an understatement of considerable size. "We talked about all sorts of things. He's already got the legal department looking into sorting out a lawyer for Rachel, and also looking into your situation. He said that we couldn't actually contact Child Services until after our old boss is dealt with, because it would give away where we were. He's got a point. It's the same reason that we can't have anyone go to the loft and clear it out, the bastard is sure to have someone watching it. And my apartment. Hopefully no one will strip either place before we take the fucker down, but..."

She shrugged slightly. "We have enough money to replace everything easily."

"I guess." Brian sounded resigned.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a roll of cash, handing it to him. "Two grand for any expenses. I took ten from the stash, which is, by the way, seven hundred and ninety-eight thousand and change."

"Fuck me," Brian said in a low voice, looking amazed. "That's even more than I thought."

"It should be enough for now," she grinned. "I've given Rachel the same, and I'll give another two to Alec. The rest I'll hang onto for the moment. If we need more we can go and get it, but it's safe where it is for now. In the longer term we need to work out what to do with that much money. I'll look into a good solution."

"At least we can pay for anything we need."

"Oh, that's not going to be a problem," she noted wisely. "Not for a while. But we still need to be careful, we may need a lot of cash in a hurry, so we shouldn't waste it. I'm hoping that I can find some paying work here as well. Should be easy enough, I have useful skills."

Brian snorted with mirth. "Many of them in doing highly illegal things."

"Well, obviously, but that's not all I can do, you know," she retorted. "I'm not sure about Alec or Rachel, although she's certainly strong and fit enough to work as a laborer without any trouble. She might even enjoy it. But she's also going to have a lot of her time taken up with all those dogs, so we may as well let her get on with it. It keeps her out of trouble if nothing else."

"Sounds good so far." He looked at his watch. "I'd better get on with this, I don't want to be late. See you later."

"OK. Think about things we need and we can make a list, Danny said he's happy to send someone to get it all for us."

"Got it." Brian waved then walked away, quite fast, as she stopped and watched for a moment before turning around. She needed to find Alec, prevent him from eating everything in the place, then see if she could figure out what to do to keep herself busy.

And think about what she was going to ask Taylor, who would be coming over after school. She wanted to be prepared for anything.

Although, based on the last few interactions, she wasn't sure that 'anything' was a wide enough concept…

As the final bell rang, Taylor gathered her notes and books together and slipped them into her bag, feeling the day had gone very well. She picked up her pen and clicked it, then dropped it in after the books, zipping the bag shut. Glancing at Mandy, which whom she shared the Geography class, she smiled. "Another day done. Hurrah."

"You know you like school, silly girl," her first friend at Arcadia giggled. "Here, anyway."

"True. But it's still nice reaching the end of another hard day, nose to the grindstone, writing until my wrist hurts, my poor brain filling with facts and figures..."

Mandy poked her in the shoulder, grinning. "Idiot. Stop laying it on so thick. And another thing, when are you going to start helping me with the math problems?"

"Soon, very soon," Taylor laughed, putting her pack strap over one shoulder. "Maybe sometime next week? I'm still helping Amy and learning the best way to do it. Possibly we should all get together at my house some time."

"I'd like that, and I know the others would as well," the other girl smiled as they made their way to the door. When they were outside, she looked around, then leaned closer. "Think anyone here will actually turn up tomorrow? Or is everyone going to sneak off after lunch instead?"

"I have no idea," Taylor replied innocently. "I, myself, have permission not to attend tomorrow, for personal reasons. My dad called the school and everything. Look." She pulled an envelope with the school logo and address on the corner. "Official papers releasing me from this vile place."

"That's cheating," Mandy grumped. "Why don't you do it properly and come up with a good excuse at the last moment like the rest of us."

Putting the envelope away, Taylor snickered. "Now who's laying it a little thick?"

Her friend grinned. "Worth a try. Anyway, see you on Wednesday. Or, just maybe, we might accidentally bump into each other somewhere out there..."

She waved her hand to indicate the great outside, nearly catching another student in the ear. He stared at her for a moment, while she flushed with embarrassment and Taylor nearly laughed herself sick.

"Sorry, Jim," she said quietly.

"You really have to stop waving your hands around like that, Mandy," the boy sighed, before hurrying off. Mandy watched him, then glared sidelong at Taylor, who was still giggling.

"Wasn't that funny," she muttered.

"Afraid you're wrong there, Mandy," Taylor grinned. "See you later."

She waved as they reached the front entrance, her friend waving back then heading towards Lucy and Eric, who were talking near the road. Taylor looked around then up at the sky, before smiling.

"Hope it's like this tomorrow," a familiar voice said from behind her, the scent having given Amy away long before she approached.

"It's supposed to be," Taylor said without turning.

Coming to stand next to her, Amy watched as Mandy, Lucy, and Eric all went off together, laughing about some joke the boy had made. "I'm really glad I met you, then all of them," the healer said in a low voice, making Taylor glance at her for a moment. "My life seems to have changed a hell of a lot in the last few weeks."

"Tell me about it," Taylor chuckled. "You're off to the hospital now?"

"Yes, Vicky's giving me a lift, then going to the Yard to talk to Danny about tomorrow. She said that you'd asked on his behalf if New Wave would help out if needed."

"Think your mother will be OK with that?"

Taylor looked at her friend again, the girl appearing thoughtful. Eventually Amy nodded slowly. "I think she might be, actually. This weekend has been a weird one, in a lot of ways, but she seems to have learned something. Not sure what, yet."

"Are you getting a car?"

Amy grinned. "Yes, looks like I am, actually. We're going to look for one on Wednesday, there are several second-hand dealers fairly close to here that have some nice ones. She said she didn't think my first vehicle should be a brand new one, just in case I drive it into something and wreck it."

"Very nice of her," Taylor giggled.

"Hey, she's better, not perfect," Amy pointed out with a smirk. "But she may have a point anyway. As long as it runs and is fairly comfortable, I'm happy. I don't need the fancy red sports-car that some of us might go for."

This last sentence was spoken loudly enough that Vicky, who was approaching with Dean, could easily hear it, and accompanied with a meaningful look. Taylor snickered while Vicky stared at her sister with an arched eyebrow.

"As I told you, dear sister, I do not need such plebeian things as cars. I can fly."

"Into things, based on yesterday," Amy snarked, making Taylor giggle again and Dean look confused. "Not to mention the rain, bugs in your face, snow..."

"Thanks, Sis," Vicky laughed. "The last points aren't a problem, not with that wonderful costume Raptaur made me. You know how warm they are."

"I do, yes," her sister smiled. "Hello, Dean."

"Hi, Amy," the boy replied. "Hi, Taylor. Any idea about what's happening tomorrow?"

"She won't tell you," the blonde Dallon sister sighed. "I've already tried."

Taylor grinned at Dean, who looked uncomfortable, both Amy and herself exchanging a quick glance and finding him amusing. Wondering if she should perhaps talk to him at some point about the importance of keeping quiet, she met his eyes with hers and watched him recoil a little.

No, perhaps he already got the idea.

"Sorry, I can't say anything," she said. "But I think you'll find it… interesting."

"I'm sure I will," he sighed.

"Got to go, guys, see you soon," she smiled, before turning and jogging off, hearing three voices call goodbye to her, one of them slightly reluctantly to her ears. As soon as she found a suitable spot she cloaked and changed to Saurial, accelerating to forty or so miles an hour and heading towards the Docks by going west through the residential areas of the city to avoid the traffic the more direct route had at this time of day. It was a mile or so longer but took less time.

Half-way there she slowed rapidly, looking around in surprise.

'Well, well, well,' she thought to the Varga. 'Now that's convenient.'

"So it is," he commented with interest. "Some distance away, but in this general area."

Sniffing carefully, she backtracked a few hundred yards, then headed in a different direction. It took several passes to localize the scent exactly due to it being fairly well distributed around the area, indicating the person in question had resided here for some time, but eventually she was standing on the sidewalk looking at a fairly large house set back from the road in one of the nicer areas of the city. Taylor studied it curiously, before carefully looking around for any indications of traps she might trigger.

Not detecting any, she walked up the driveway, being careful not to step on anything that might take a mark from her foot claws, until she was close enough to look in one of the side windows. It showed a perfectly normal looking house, very tidy but definitely one that someone lived in, at least some of the time. There were no living heat sources visible inside, although she could see something giving off heat that was probably a water heater, and a number of smaller ones that would be electronic devices of various sorts.

Inspection of the entire place took her about twenty minutes, because she was being very careful not to leave traces, but finally she went back down the driveway, satisfied that the house was empty but not abandoned. A car was parked in the car port, cold and obviously not having been driven for a while. The front and back garden were tidy and based on the truck she could see some distance down the road with the name of a local yard maintenance company that she'd seen advertise on TV, it was probably not the work of the homeowner.

The critical thing was that Coil's scent was everywhere. The property was definitely his, or at a minimum one where he spent a lot of time and had done for years. The scent was so deeply ingrained it would never come out. The way it was distributed around the neighborhood also pointed to her conclusion.

This was his house.

Stopping at the mailbox, she read the name on it with interest.

'Hmm. I think we're going to have to look you up, Mr T Calvert,' she mused, before breaking into a sprint to make up for lost time.

"That was a lucky break," the Varga remarked.

'It sure was. I was going to sweep this area eventually but it wasn't the first place I intended to try. It saved some time if nothing else. I wonder who Mr Calvert is?'

"I don't know, but between us, Lisa, and your father, I doubt we'll be in the dark for long. It will be interesting to see what the young lady can produce with a name to work from."

'Won't it?' she smirked. 'With a little luck by this time tomorrow our friend T Calvert may not have anything but the clothes he's standing in. Lisa is pretty good with computers.'

Both of them shared a laugh as she ran, feeling that things were definitely looking up

Lisa twitched violently as she turned around and found Saurial smirking at her only a yard away. "Fuck! Don't do that you scaly weirdo!"

"It's funny watching you jump like that," the alter-ego of Taylor chuckled. "How are you and your friends today?"

"All things considered, a lot better than we should be, I think," she replied. "I was just going to look for you, Danny said you'd be around about now."

"Here I am." Saurial spread her arms widely. "I just need to see him for a minute then we can go and talk. I've got some information for you." Lisa fell into step beside the lizard-girl, looking at her every now and then with interest as she walked. Saurial nodded to a number of the people they passed, most of who seemed to either know her or just know of her, in either case being pleased to see her.

Lisa also greeted some of the people she'd met over the last twenty-four hours, feeling surprisingly relaxed about everything. Reaching Danny's office, Saurial tapped on the door and opened it, sticking her head in. "Hi. I made it here. Found something on the way that caused me a bit of a delay. Has Glory Girl stopped in yet?"

Danny waved them both in, turning away from his computer to smile at them. Lisa closed the door behind herself, moving away from it to study the map on the wall for a few seconds, before turning around to listen.

"No, not yet. You have a delivery waiting for you at the office, those onions you asked for turned up. I went over and had some of the guys unload them into the place, around the back of your workshop. What on earth do you two want a ton and a half of onions for anyway?" He looked mystified. "That's an awful lot, you know. There's about sixty bags of them stacked up in there."

"Reasons," Saurial smirked. "Good ones, but it's a secret right now."

"Hmm. OK. I guess. Oh, the other thing is these just got dropped off a few minutes ago." He tossed a ring of keys to her, the girl snatching them out of the air with a motion of a scaled hand too fast to follow with the eyes. Lisa blinked a couple of times.

'Shit. She's even faster than I realized,' she thought in amazement. 'I wonder how much of that carries through to her human form?'

"There's two sets there, one for Amy and a spare set. That should keep you going."

"Thanks," Saurial said with a smile, inspecting the keys then tucking them into a belt pouch. Lisa noticed the end of her tail was gently twitching back and forth in a contented sort of way.

"No trouble. So, what did you find on the way?"

He leaned his chair back and put his hands on his desk, studying her. "I can tell you found something good."

She smiled slowly. "Oh, it's good all right. I was just on my way here and I smelled something familiar, so I went to look for it. I was right, the residential areas were the key."

"You found him?!" Danny and Lisa said it at the same time, making Saurial grin widely.

"Yep. House and car, definitely a place he lives. I'd say from the scents that he's been out of it for maybe three or four days at the most, but no less than two. No signs of any surveillance that I could see, no traps or anything like that. Just a normal if quite expensive house."

"Fantastic. That will let us find out a name..." Lisa stopped talking, seeing the amusement on the reptilian girl's face. "Which you already did," she finished.

"Of course, it was written right there on his mailbox. One T Calvert."

Lisa felt an internal jolt of shock, which must have come out in her expression despite herself. "You know who that is."

"I do," she sighed, moving to sit down. "I have to admit I never expected that. Director Piggot is going to go fucking mad when she hears."

"Does she know him?"

"You might say that, yes," Lisa said, looking over at Danny and answering his question. "I found out quite a lot about her and most of the important PRT people in the last few months. Thomas Calvert is ex-PRT special forces. He's one of the only two survivors of the Ellisburg operation."

"Oh, shit," Danny breathed. "Let me guess. Emily Piggot was the other one."

"She was. It was why her health was so bad, she nearly died during the whole fiasco. I think Calvert probably helped her get out or something, but the records I could find didn't go into much detail. It's probably also why she hates parahumans so much." Lisa shrugged. "She's not going to be happy about this."

"From what I've heard about her, she's not actually happy about most things. That said, she's in a very stressful job so you can sort of understand why." Danny looked thoughtful. "Does our Mr Calvert still work for the PRT?"

"No, he's retired, but he acts as an official consultant to them. That's why he's been able to compromise their systems so much. I bet he put lots of backdoors in before he retired, and he knows the inner workings of the PRT inside out. He literally wrote some of their policy documentation aside from anything else. He probably also has at least a dozen people still there he has something on that he could call on to do things for him. Piggot is going to have a hell of a job rooting that all out."

"God. This is pretty serious."

"That's putting it mildly. We need to tell her, he's way too dangerous to let do whatever it is he's trying to do, leaving my personal feelings out of it."

"Have you heard anything from the PRT yet?" Saurial asked Danny. "No one has called me or Raptaur."

"No, I haven't, sorry," he replied, while Lisa smiled a little about the pretense of there being more than one of her.

The phone rang.

Everyone looked at it. Peering at the caller ID, Danny grinned. "Let me rephrase that..."

Picking up the handset, he said, "DWU, Danny Hebert speaking."

There was a short pause, during which Saurial was clearly listening, her head cocked to the side. She seemed mildly amused.

"Ah, yes, hello, Director Piggot. I was expecting this call. How can I help you?"

Danny looked amused now as well. Lisa sat back to enjoy the show.

"Damn it all to hell," Emily growled, when she'd finally finished extracting every bit of information from Colin's and Hannah's reports. "This is about as bad as it gets. We can't trust anything at the PRT building, and possibly nothing here outside your lab. Which I don't want to spend all my time in, no offense intended, Colin."

The Tinker didn't seem worried. "To be honest I'd prefer it otherwise as well, Director."

"Do you think he's compromised my home? Any of our homes?"

"I don't think so," Hannah replied. "I've been carrying counter-surveillance equipment with me for the last several weeks and sweeping everywhere I go. The PRT building was something I missed as far as the compromised systems go because it wasn't actually bugged. But I'm sure my apartment is clean, as is yours."

Emily noticed that Colin seemed mildly surprised at the implication that Hannah had been to her home, but he didn't appear to think it important enough to mention.

"OK. That's something."

She shook her head tiredly. "As if things weren't bad enough already. Ideas? How do we deal with this?"

"We need to work out a pretext to shut the entire PRT system down for long enough to allow myself and Dragon to clean out all the taps in it and do a backtrace on them. But we also need to locate Coil and his agents and catch them at the same time. As soon as we shut down, he'll realize that we know what's going on and that may well mean we never get him. He must have multiple escape plans ready to go." Colin's response was immediate and thoughtful, showing he'd put time in on thinking it over.

"We should probably also lock down the Rig at the same time, then sweep it thoroughly," Hannah added as Emily nodded slowly. "It will be tricky doing both at once and it will unavoidably take out a lot of our ability to respond to threats for several hours, but I can't see an alternative. I think we're going to need to call in help to back us up while we do this."

"I really don't want to do that, but you're right," Emily sighed. "I'm going to have a hell of a job explaining to the Chief Director how I let this happen on my watch."

The other two exchanged a glance. "I suspect that this predates your installation as Director, Director," Colin said. "The level of compromise is significant and deep, it wasn't done recently. Blaming yourself for it is an inefficient use of time."

It was a curious attempt at sympathy but oddly she felt it was well-meant. "Thank you, Colin. I think."

"My suggestion is the same as the one I initially made some time ago. I believe it would be in our best interests to allow Saurial, Raptaur, and Tattletale to track Coil by whatever means they have and pass that information on to us. Additionally I suggest you need to talk to Tattletale immediately, you may well think of other things to ask than we did. Accepting the deal we tentatively agreed on would seem to be key to that cooperation."

"I'm not entirely pleased about that deal, but I don't think we have very much choice," Emily sighed. "Assuming that Bitch is indeed innocent of the murder charges, of course. If she's guilty I don't have the authority to simply wipe it from her record."

"Understood, Director." He handed her a phone. "This is secure and Mr Hebert's number is already programmed in."

She stared narrowly at him. "You were pretty sure of yourself."

"It seemed best to be prepared."

Emily could almost swear there was just a flicker of smile for a moment. Giving him a hard look she took the phone and hit the connect button.

"DWU, Danny Hebert speaking." The voice was unfamiliar, but seemed both confident and very slightly amused. She sighed faintly.

"Good afternoon, Mr Hebert. This is Emily Piggot, Director of the PRT ENE." She tried to keep her irritation with the entire situation out of her voice but wasn't entirely certain she succeeded.

"Ah, yes, hello, Director Piggot. I was expecting this call. How can I help you?"

"I believe I need to talk to various people you have at the DWU, as soon as possible. My people have verified a certain amount of the information that was received yesterday and is has raised a number of further questions, and significant concerns."

"I understand. We have more information for you, as it happens. Tattletale is here with me right now, and Raptaur is on site. If you would like to use the BBFO facility for the security I have been told it's fine."

"Reluctantly, I find myself forced to agree it seems the best choice. I will be there in..." She checked the time and thought for a second. "One and a half hours. Six o'clock."

"We'll be waiting for you. Will anyone else be coming?"

"Miss Militia will be with me."

"Of course. If you could ask her not to over-react this time, it would be appreciated."

Looking at Hannah, wondering what that little gem meant and determined to find out, Emily replied, "I will make sure. Thank you."

"Thank you, Director. See you soon." He hung up, as did she, handing the phone back to Colin.

"Why would I have been asked to make sure you didn't over-react 'this time', Hannah?" she asked sweetly.

The other woman went mildly pink. "Ah. I can explain."

"Please do. I don't want any more surprises."

Hannah began talking, looking embarrassed, while Colin turned away and began fiddling with something on his bench, obviously no longer concerned with the issue for the moment.