Saturday, February 19, 2011
With a glance at the time, Colin yawned. They'd been up the entire night discussing the events at the DWU and how it could be related to the anomalous behavior of the Endbringers. Legend looked ready to drop, and despite his own carefully crafted stimulant mixture, he himself definitely required at least a couple of hours of real sleep or he was risking damage.
Dragon seemed unaffected, but if what he suspected was the amount of life support in her power armor was anywhere near correct, that didn't particularly surprise him. He hoped that one day she'd trust him enough to let him have a look at it and perhaps redesign it to be more efficient, but certain things about the woman were still a mystery. She was in many ways one of the most private individuals he'd ever met, somewhat ironically considering her world-wide fame.
"I'm going to have to go to bed for a while soon," Legend said, also yawning widely. "So what have we decided? There is definitely a connection between Leviathan, the Simurgh, and either Kaiju or Eidolon or both. The evidence suggests it's Eidolon, the timings seem to match up far too closely to his actions than to hers, but we don't have proof either way. Just a lot of unnerving circumstantial evidence. Including the apparent fact that Leviathan is very deliberately staying as far as he can physically get from Kaiju and still be on the same planet. Or possibly the entire Family."
"That's the way I see it," Dragon nodded. "I wish I could give you more information, or less worrying information, but so far on the face of it that's the situation. Of course, it could all be a massive coincidence, or even some bizarre plot by the Simurgh to make us think all this." She shrugged as Legend and Colin exchanged looks. "The damn thing is sneaky. But all things considered I got the definite impression she was more worried than anything else, which is one of the strangest things I've ever thought."
"Which could also be merely part of a plot," Colin pointed out.
She nodded. "True enough. But the problem is that if we start looking for hidden meanings, we'll keep finding them. There's no end to that once you start. Every little clue could simply be a smarter opponent leaving things for you to find on purpose. If that's actually the case we stand no chance anyway, so on balance I'd rather hope it wasn't a plan of ultimate deviousness and was actually a lot closer to what it looks like. Which is that somehow, what happened yesterday afternoon at the DWU facility called Leviathan towards us."
"That is the simplest explanation, which Occam's Razor would suggest is the most likely," Legend sighed. "Much as I don't like to even consider it. I'd prefer a Simurgh master plan. If we're right, one of my oldest friends is somehow involved with the actions of at least two of the Endbringers, even if only accidentally. I have no idea how or why though."
"What do you want to do about it?" Colin asked.
His superior stared at the projected image on the wall, which was displaying a breakdown of the entire timeline to the nearest tenth of a second, for nearly a minute before turning back to him. "I'm not sure," he said. "We don't have enough evidence yet to prove anything, but there's enough to make me very worried indeed. I can't think of any way of getting more data right now either."
"We could probably prove the connection between Kaiju and Leviathan if we could persuade her to go some distance away for a while and see if he moved to stay at the equivalent antipodal position," Colin suggested thoughtfully. "Based on the readings, he meanders around in a random manner about that point. There doesn't appear to be any pattern to his wanderings, aside from the fact that they all seem to be no more than about four miles from the center on average. Getting her to move a couple of hundred miles away and stay there for a few hours might show something useful."
"How would we do that without explaining why, though?" Legend asked. "If she's connected to the Endbringers, I'm not keen on letting her know we know."
"Ah, yes, that's a good point," he replied. "Sorry. I'm very tired and missed the obvious."
"There is that one period where he headed south a considerable distance, then returned after a few hours," Dragon pointed out. She thought for a moment, then turned her head to regard the screen, tipping it a little to the side. "Which, now that I think about it, was during the period we were chasing what turned out to be Umihebi..."
Both the men looked at her. After a couple of seconds, Colin tapped on the tablet he was controlling the projector with now and scrolled through the data, bringing up the trace of Leviathan's movements during the time in question. Sure enough, it showed he moved in a direction that was the mirror image, with a certain random error added, of Umihebi track from the SOSUS data, although oddly scaled down by approximately fifty percent.
"Why didn't I notice that?" he wondered out loud.
"I missed it as well until just now," she replied. "We were concentrating on Kaiju and yesterday, not sometime from a month ago. But it's more data, good data."
"Why did he move only about half as far as she did?" Legend asked curiously.
"My guess would be that he was keeping to a point halfway between Umihebi and the rest of the Family who happened to be in the city or nearby," Dragon said. "Putting him as far away as he could get from any of them. How is he detecting them, I wonder? There's a delay of a few seconds, but no more than that."
"No idea," Colin muttered, studying the image on the screen. "Either the tracking isn't perfect, or there is some other source of error, since he's still wandering around plus or minus about four miles, but the trend is clear. I'd say that answered the question of whether he's deliberately staying as far away from the Family as possible. Which in turn strongly suggests that it wasn't Kaiju who somehow called or attracted him towards the city yesterday. Especially as the data looks very much like he didn't really want to come this way."
"All of which then implies it's Eidolon who was somehow responsible for Leviathan heading towards us," Legend muttered, putting his hand over his face for a few seconds and sighing. "Oh, hell. What the devil is the connection?"
None of them had an answer.
Eventually he pushed himself to his feet. "I have to get some sleep, I can't think rationally at the moment. Tell no one about any of this. Dragon, I can't command you, but I implore you, please don't let this get out. We could all be wrong and this is some massive coincidence or a subtle attack by the Simurgh. We can't risk Eidolon's reputation on a possibly baseless accusation."
"I won't say anything, I promise," the Canadian woman said quietly. "I happen to agree entirely. We need more data before we can even begin to come to a good hypothesis as to what all this means."
"We could let Eidolon talk to Kaiju again and see if the situation recurred," Colin suggested.
Both the others turned and stared at him. "Is that one of your joke attempts, Colin?" Dragon asked. He shook his head. "Pity. It would actually be a funny joke, but it's a terrible suggestion."
"I would have to agree, in fact," Legend said. "We got very lucky indeed this time. We have no way to know if we would the next time. I'd prefer to keep Eidolon as far away from any Family member as possible until we work out why he reacted the way he did. It was very out of character, even taking into account his rather over-eager attitude to major fights."
"It was merely a suggestion in the spirit of proper scientific experimentation," Colin protested, a little weakly. "Replicate the circumstances. But I take your point."
"Both of you should get some sleep as well," Legend said as he headed tiredly towards the exit. "As worrying as this is it doesn't seem to present an immediate threat, so I think we should mull it over, but get on with more important issues. I still want to talk to you some more about your ridiculously excessive weapon, and you need to contact Raptaur about it and the wormhole generator."
"I'll call her later today," Colin replied.
"All right. Let me know how it goes, please."
"I will. We should also work out a plan of attack on Coil in the next couple of days, I think." Dragon nodded, as did Legend.
"The sooner the better, I agree. We'll get Emily and Hannah involved and discuss it this weekend."
Colin watched with Dragon as the other man left the room, the door sliding shut behind him, then turned to his friend. "Thank you for all the help on this problem," he said.
"Any time, Colin, you know that," she replied with a smile in her voice. "Go and get some sleep. You look ready to drop. I'll meet you back here in about five hours or so, around half past ten."
"OK." He yawned again, unable to stop himself, making her laugh.
"Make it eleven."
Rising with a small smile, he headed for his quarters, his best friend following on the way to her guest room. He was still very worried, but also looking forward to talking shop with Raptaur, and even Leet.
If nothing else, the man was a remarkable Tinker.
He liked that.
"What have you got planned for today, Taylor?" Danny looked over the table at his daughter, who seemed thoughtful. She was staring at her food as she absently ate it, one arm propping the side of her head up, apparently having a conversation with the Varga. A moment later, she looked up.
"I'm going to the yard, the new computers and things will be turning up this morning, and Lisa and I are going to set them up. I need to make more benches and stuff like that as well. We may need some more power outlets fitted."
"Find Harry and ask him to arrange it if I'm not there," he said, pouring some more coffee into his mug. "I'll be in later, I need to run some errands downtown, and I was going to stop in on Alan and see how he is. I haven't heard anything from him for a while."
She looked a little disapproving, but nodded. "OK."
"Is Amy going to be there as well?"
"Yes, she's coming by here a little later, actually, and picking me up. She's really fond of that truck already and wants to use it, I think," Taylor grinned. "Any excuse will do."
"People are like that with their first vehicle," he smiled. "I remember my first car. I spent more time in it than in bed for the first few months. Nearly got busted for speeding at least four times."
"Dad! You?! Breaking the law?" She gaped at him, her eyes round.
Fixing her with a hard look, he said, "Less of the sarcasm, daughter. You know full well I'm not a completely lily-white person, but I don't go out of my way to break rules."
Reverting to a sly smile, she nodded. "I remember. What was it you told me? Find out what the rules are and memorize them, that way you know what you can get away with."
"Exactly." Now he was grinning. "That's the nice thing about rules. They tell you exactly what those making them are looking for, so you don't have to waste time working it out. Find a way around them instead. We're very good at that in the DWU, believe me. Anyone who has to deal with politicians is. So are the politicians, of course, who do you think writes the rules?"
"You old cynic."
"Realist, dear, realist. Pragmatic variant."
They shared a grin. "Most of the people in this city are like that, it's the sort of place that you really have to be. Pure idealism is a nice idea, of course, but it falls down when it runs up against real life a lot of the time. If you can't adapt to circumstances you'll spend a lot of your time very unhappy and frustrated."
"I know that all too well," she sighed. "If I'd learned that a year or so earlier, my life would have been a lot less bad in many ways. If only because I'd have talked to you sooner."
He put his hand on hers across the table. "Possibly true, possibly not. The sort of people who you were dealing with are the type who would have kept pushing one way or the other, I think. It might have made it better if you'd come to me earlier, it might have made it worse. Neither one of us was in a place that we could have acted sensibly, I suspect. I regret the pain you went through more than I can say, and my own part in it, but it's behind us and what came out the other side is something I wouldn't trade for anything."
She squeezed his hand. "Neither would I. Except Mom back."
He was silent for a long moment, then nodded sadly. "Except that. Although she'd probably kick us both in the ass and tell us to stop being idiots and get on with life."
Taylor looked reflective, then amused as she nodded. "Probably. I still miss her every day, though."
"You always will, dear. I still miss my parents and think of them a lot. But the pain gets easier to live with in time. Annette will be in my thoughts to the day I die, but I'm learning to cope with it and so will you. Death is part of life, no matter how much we wish it wasn't." He released her and picked up his coffee cup. "Even with Amy's remarkable work, I doubt that will ever cease to be the case. But I suspect she'll do everything she can to try to prove me wrong."
"She's stubborn," Taylor smiled.
"That's the impression I get," he agreed. "Much like you. She reminds me a lot of you in many ways. I like her very much."
"So do I," she admitted. "Lisa, too. Having talked to her a lot over the last few days, I think she's going to be a very good friend as well. I seem to have made a lot of them since everything changed."
"I'm glad to hear it. Very glad. Young people need friends, and you're all helping each other. Hold onto them."
"I intend to." She looked around, then smiled. "Amy just turned onto our street," she added.
"That's still one of the more impressive things I've seen you do in many ways," he noted. "The amount of other sounds you must have to filter out to pick up one specific car engine half a mile away is unbelievable."
"It takes some practice," she admitted. "I'm still getting better at it, but Varga helps a lot."
A couple of minutes later he heard the Dallon girl pull up onto the driveway in her new vehicle, while Taylor got up and went to the door, her tail tip twitching with apparent glee. He followed, carrying his coffee with him, standing in the front doorway and finishing it while he inspected the truck parked outside in the daylight. "It's a very nice color, Amy," he said to the brunette girl who was standing next to it, talking to his daughter and smiling.
"Thanks, Danny," she replied, turning to admire it. "I really like it. I need to get some polish and washing stuff. Mom says I can't use hers, I can afford to buy my own."
"Get some spare bulbs, oil, filters, spark plugs, and drive belts as well," he advised. "And a maintenance manual. You may not want to learn everything about car mechanics and maintenance, but everyone who drives should know enough to fix a simple problem. They often happen in the middle of nowhere and if you know how to diagnose and repair something trivial, not only will it probably save you a lot of money, it could save you. There are places and times you really don't want to break down."
"Dad said the same thing, more or less." The girl looked back to him. "You're both right. I need to know how to care for my toys, after all."
"Exactly." Finishing his coffee, he tossed the dregs into the skeletal bushes beside the front steps and turned to go back inside. "Have fun, both of you. I'll probably see you later." Half-inside the door, he thought of something and turned back. "I have a thought you may want to consider. It might be possible to get you permission from the city to register your truck as an emergency medical assistance vehicle. Like a private ambulance. That would let you fit emergency lights to it, and give you a certain amount of leeway for speeding and ignoring traffic signals in an emergency."
The girl looked at him with a surprised expression, that slowly turned into an interested one.
"Really?" she asked thoughtfully.
"I think so. I can make some inquiries if you want, I know some people in the BBPD who would be able to say for sure, and let you know what the requirements and responsibilities were. It wouldn't mean you could just drive like a lunatic all the time with the lights on, that would get a lot of people very pissed off with you very fast, but in a genuine emergency it might help a lot." He thought for a moment, then added, "You'd probably have to go on an advanced driving course as part of it, I know ambulance drivers do to get the relevant license."
"Sounds fun, actually," she smiled. "Thanks, Danny, I'd be interested in knowing more about that."
"I'll find out what I can," he promised. "It might take a few days but I'll let you know when I do."
"Great." She looked at Taylor. "Ready to go?"
"Just let me get my laptop," Taylor said, running back into the house. He stepped back out of the way, hearing her zip up to her room, then come down again almost immediately. "See you later, Dad," she said as she whizzed past, somehow managing to kiss his cheek on the way. Watching her dive into the passenger seat of the already running truck, he smiled fondly as the vehicle reversed onto the road, then turned and pulled away. Amy seemed to be driving very well in his opinion.
Closing the door he went into the kitchen to tidy up before he left as well.
Sitting on his bed and looking out into the early morning light, under an overcast but dry sky, Dean tapped his index finger on the cheap disposable phone he'd bought the day before on the way home, thinking. He was off the duty roster for the weekend and no one would be expecting him anywhere until tonight, when he had a date with Vicky.
After nearly ten minutes of wondering if he was doing the right thing, he grabbed the phone and tapped in the number he'd got from the PRT database. It rang a few times, then the other end picked up. He listened to the greeting.
"This is Dean Stansfield," he said, still somewhat worried and feeling his heart beating faster than normal. "I was hoping you'd have time to talk later today."
"I think that can be arranged, Dean," the voice of Saurial said, sounding very thoughtful and interested, after a delay of a few seconds. "Is it urgent?"
"No. Not as such. But I have to ask some questions that are driving me slowly nuts."
After another short pause, the lizard-girl alter-ego of Taylor Hebert replied, a slight degree of amusement in her voice, "I understand. Come to the DWU yard in an hour, tell the gate guards you're looking for me. I'll leave word that you're coming. You won't need to give them your name and no one will remember you coming. I assume this is a burner phone?"
"Yes."
"Get rid of it, and leave any other devices that might track you behind, if you want to be sure this is private. Just in case."
He paused for a moment, then sighed. "OK. You're probably right."
"Don't sound so worried, Dean, I won't eat you. Promise." She sounded rather more amused now.
"I'd taste awful anyway, I eat too much junk food. I'll be there."
"See you." The line went dead in his ear.
Lowering the phone he stared at it, wondering if he was being an idiot, before he shrugged, reset the phone to factory defaults, then pulled the battery out. He got up to take the device downstairs to find a hammer, just to make sure.
He didn't want any of this getting back to Director Piggot, but he had to know what was going on.
He'd just have to trust that Amy's best friend wouldn't find him to her taste if he accidentally said anything wrong.
Amy glanced at Taylor, now in the form of Saurial. They'd pulled into well hidden alley that her friend said was free of cameras and witnesses as they'd entered the docks area, to allow her to change without anyone seeing it. Shortly after that her Saurial phone had rung.
"What does he want?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think he's managed to work himself into a level of worry that's eating away at him a bit too much. I wondered why he looked so confused the other day when I said hi. I may have managed to make it worse, although that wasn't the intent." Taylor looked at her for a moment. "Can he be trusted?"
"He hasn't said a thing yet, has he?"
"Not that I know of, no. And he's known for longer than you did."
"The boy is, or at least tries hard to be, a very good person," Amy said after a few more seconds. "I sort of like him, even though I have… issues… with him. Not important right now. But he's probably very torn between doing what he feels is the right thing from the point of view of the Wards, the right thing under the Rules, and the right thing that won't get him swallowed by Kaiju." She shrugged, smiling a bit. "A difficult balancing act. Or at least, to him it probably is. I can see him tensing every time he looks at you in school."
"I can practically hear him tensing, actually," Taylor chuckled. "It was sort of funny at first and I admit I may have been a little mean giving him significant glances every now and then, but I was terrified about him knowing. For Dad's sake, mainly. I'm less worried now, especially after your gift, but I still don't want anyone we can't trust to find out. He's the only one, weirdly enough considering he's a hero, that I'm still not sure about. Lisa, Über, Leet, all of them I trust to keep quiet for a number of reasons. I'm fairly sure that at least a couple of people at the DWU probably suspect as well, but I'm certain they'd never say anything even if they knew for sure. Dean is a wild card."
"He was extremely worried about it when he found out," Amy said, remembering the conversation they'd had in the car over a month and a half ago. "He actually asked my advice what to do if he'd accidentally found out the civilian ID of a cape. He didn't give any clues about who it was at all, but he was still acting really weird. I told him to just keep quiet and never mention it to anyone. As far as I know, he never has, and probably never will. But it's obviously causing him issues even so."
She looked at her friend. "Mainly because of who it is. He's not sure he's doing the right thing by keeping it quiet."
"He is, in my opinion."
"Mine too. Not just because you're my friend. Giving away someone's ID without an extremely sound reason is a very big deal as far as I'm concerned, even if I have some problems with the Rules in other ways. Talk to him, reassure him, find out what's worrying him. He's one of the genuinely good guys."
Taylor nodded, putting her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes. "I'll do what I can to make him less worried. I never wanted to upset him as such, just keep Dad safe."
"I know." Amy grinned. "You only deliberately terrify criminals. Everyone else is collateral damage."
"Exactly right." Taylor smiled without opening her eyes. "You know, these seats are really comfortable, but they really need tail holes."
Snickering, Amy indicated right and turned onto the road leading to the DWU yard. "We'll have to see if we can work something out, then," she replied.
Stopping at the gate, they waited for the guard to come over. "Hi, Mike," Taylor said happily. "Do you ever get off gate duty?"
"Sometimes," the man replied with a grin, leaning on Amy's open window. "Hello, Amy." He waved to the other guard, who waved back and opened the barrier.
"Mike, in about an hour a tallish young man about seventeen years old is not going to arrive here looking for me. He won't be driving a green muscle car. You're not going to let him in and direct him to the BBFO office, then forget you ever saw him, without inquiring as to his identity. You won't let him out again when he leaves and forget that either. OK?" Amy watched the man's face as Taylor spoke. He raised an eyebrow.
"Sorry, I didn't catch a word of that. Have fun, ladies." Stepping back he flipped them a lazy salute, then headed back to the guard hut next to the entrance. Amy put the truck in drive and moved off, looking sideways at her friend, who seemed amused.
"You have a way with words. Not a good way, in some respects, but a way."
"Thanks."
Both of them giggling, they headed for the other end of the yard.
"Great, you're here," Lisa smiled, looking up from a clipboard on which she was checking off things on a list, in the middle of a large pile of cardboard boxes. "Lots of toys turned up about twenty minutes ago." She'd collected the spare keys to Taylor's building from Danny before he left the day before, knowing he was trusting her with something that few people would be. "I got them to unload everything into here, but we'll need to open all the boxes and unpack them, then set things up. Where are you going to put the computers?"
Taylor looked around thoughtfully, rubbing her scaled chin, while behind her Amy locked the door. When she heard it click the figure of Saurial changed to that of Taylor Hebert, tail twitching back and forth with her thoughts. "Over there, I think," she finally said, pointing at the wall on the other side of the room from the table. "Book cases along the wall by the table, so they're closer. Maybe a sofa as well. We're going to get some more power outlets put in, we need to track down Harry and get one of his guys to come over, but let's get this part done first."
"OK." Lisa looked around, then nodded, running a line through the final item on her list. "There you are. One twenty-four port ethernet switch. That gives room for expansion. All right, we'll need to plug this router into the modem on the wall, then run a cable to the switch. I'd think the best place for the server and the other equipment is up there on top of Amy's workroom, so it's out of the way."
Both the other girls looked up, then nodded. "Sounds good. I'll make a cupboard for it," Taylor replied, quickly climbing the stairs.
"Make sure you leave holes in it for ventilation, or it'll overheat," Lisa called.
"Got it," the call came back from the now hidden figure of her new friend. "How big should it be?"
Lisa looked around and let her power have a crack at the question. "About three feet square and four high, with a shelf halfway up, will do the job," she replied. "Put a two inch hole in the back of the shelf."
"OK. Hold on for a few seconds." A little later, Taylor reappeared, looking down at them over the railing. "All done. Now what?"
"Help me unpack everything and we can carry it up," Lisa replied. Amy was already opening boxes using her car keys to tear the tape. Jumping over the railing and dropping to the floor, Taylor walked over and handed them each a knife she formed from nowhere, based on a folding pocketknife design but with an EDM blade.
"Here, these will work better than keys," she smiled. "Careful, they'll probably cut practically anything."
Lisa unfolded the two-inch blade and inspected it, nodding with respect. "Very nice. You could sell these and make a fortune."
"Add it to the list," the girl snickered, slitting the tape on a box with a taloned finger. They fell to the task with a will, the sound of tape and cardboard being cut echoing through the room for a while. Eventually there were several stacks of equipment neatly arranged around them, and a huge pile of packaging material.
"Push all that off to the side and let's see what goes where," Taylor said, suiting action to words and shoving some of the boxes into the corner.
When the floor was clear, Lisa began laying out the complete systems. "OK, four computers, that's the fileserver, switch, router on top, redundant backup system… Hmm, phone system needs to connect to that as well..." She moved among the computer equipment pointing at things as the other two moved it around. "That's it. Let's take all this stuff up there, Amy, while Taylor makes the bench along the wall."
Taylor got behind the mysterious large box on the floor at the rear of Amy's rooms and shoved the ton-plus thing out of the way with ease, then got to work. Lisa still had no idea what was in it, but figured she'd find out sooner or later.
Twenty minutes later they had all four computers in place on a three-foot-deep bench the same distance from the floor that ran for thirty feet along the wall, some more chairs like the ones around the table at each station. Holes along the back of the bench allowed the cables to go through into a tray running under it, which terminated at the workroom in a vertical conduit up to the server cabinet.
"Very professional looking," Amy smiled, stepping back and inspecting it. "Those monitors are enormous! Much bigger than the ones at school."
"They're thirty-eight inch CAD monitors, the highest resolution ones I could find at a sensible price," Lisa smiled. "I got a good deal on them with some fast talking. Overkill, at the moment, but it future-proofs it for a few years. The computers are pretty decent specification as well. Let's cable everything up and test it. I got some extension cords so we can plug it all in."
Half-way through that job, there was a knock on the door. Taylor turned to her, not looking surprised, which was most likely due to her having heard whoever it was approaching. "I need to talk to this guy for a while, Lisa," she said apologetically as she changed back into Saurial. "Sorry, it's a little private. Do you mind leaving for now?"
"That's OK, Taylor," Lisa replied, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I'll go and get some coffee and see what the other guys are up to. Call me when you're done." She glanced at the workroom, then smiled slyly. "I want to see what happens."
"So do I," Amy called from the other end of the bench where she was plugging cables into sockets, a grin on her face. "So much."
"Thanks," Taylor told her, as they headed to the door. "See you in a bit."
"OK." Lisa unlocked the door, opening it to reveal a fairly tall and well-muscled blond-haired young man who was in the process of raising his hand to knock again. He looked taken aback to see her. She looked him up and down, then grinned. "You've got good taste, Saurial!" she called over her shoulder.
The young man looked embarrassed and a little worried, while Taylor shouted back, "It's not like that, Lisa! Go away." She sounded amused.
Stepping out, Lisa waved to the inside of the building. "Enter freely, and all that. Good luck."
The boy paled, to her interest, nodded once, then slightly tentatively went inside. The door closed behind him. Wondering what it was all about but having deliberately not using her power as she didn't really want to know, Lisa wandered off, grinning about the expression the kid had produced at her little joke.