Sitting next to Colin, who was driving the large PRT transport van, Paul watched as the barrier gate to the DWU facility lifted out of the way, the guards waving them through. Dragon was in flight above them, leading the way around the back of the building complex. Colin competently turned the heavy vehicle around in the confines of the annex yard until the rear door was lined up with the main entrance to the BBFO building, then turned the engine off. Opening the door he got out, casting a look at the two other vehicles parked outside the building.
"That's Leet's van," he said, indicating the non-descript vehicle next to them. "I don't know who the blue truck belongs to."
"Über, perhaps?" Paul said as they walked to the door, Colin knocking firmly. The other man shrugged. Dragon landed behind them and joined the two men, also looking at the truck for a moment.
"Perhaps."
A few seconds later the door was unlocked on the inside with a sharp click, then opened. Leet looked at them, smiling through his balaclava. "Armsmaster. Dragon. And Legend. An honor, I've always wanted to meet the leader of the Protectorate and not get arrested, sir," he said, waving them in. "Come in, everyone else is here."
"Thank you, son," Paul replied politely, going inside, his companions behind him. "If you want to stay unarrested, possibly you should commit fewer crimes."
"It's a thought, definitely," the nominal villain remarked with a grin, as he closed the door.
The three new arrivals looked around, then stared at what was going on. They exchanged a glance.
"No, it's spin, kick, grab, twist, not spin, grab, kick, twist," Raptaur said, shaking her head, as she watched Über try a martial arts move they all recognized as part of her Family style. "Like this." She stepped forward, moved in a blur, then smiled as the man yelped. Everyone followed his trajectory with their eyes. "See?"
"I think so," he groaned, rolling over and standing up from the inverted position against the wall he'd ended up in almost too quickly to follow. "Ow."
"It helps if you have a tail, of course," she added, "you then go spin, trip, kick, grab, twist. They normally go about twice that far but the wall got in the way."
"I noticed," the man replied painfully, limping back to her. "Trust me, I noticed. Just like I did the last three times."
"Amy, put him back together again, will you?" Raptaur chuckled.
"Ooh, let me, cousin," the violet-blue lizard none of them had personally met before, but recognized from images online last night, said eagerly, her accent like Saurial's but slightly stronger. "I need to practice on humans."
"Go on, then, Ianthe. But no upgrades, just fix the damage, OK?"
"OK." She jumped up from where she'd apparently been talking to Amy Dallon, the girl looking amused, and dashed over. Stopping next to Über, who seemed slightly apprehensive, the huge reptile bent down and peered at him from close range, her green eyes filled with interest. "Hello, sir, may I heal you?" she said politely. Looking over her shoulder she cocked her head at Amy, who gave her a thumbs-up. "Great, I got it right." She turned back to the villain who was now looking somewhat confused. "OK, now you give me your hand."
Über held out his hand, which she took in hers. He, along with the new arrivals, stared as dozens of small light-blue tendrils shot out of her hand and burrowed through his skin without apparently even slowing down. Paul gaped, while Colin made an odd noise next to him. "Right, torn muscles, slight ligament damage, bruising… easy." Ianthe smiled.
Über flinched, before his eyes flickered a little. She adroitly caught him with her other hand, holding him up for a few seconds. The tendrils pulled back in the blink of an eye and she let go of his hand. "There you go, all fixed. Sure you don't want anything moved around? A tail? Night vision? Humans are easy to modify."
"Um, no, thank you," he said as he opened his eyes and blinked. She seemed mildly disappointed but not offended. "Thanks, I feel fine now."
"Great. Have fun." Letting him go she turned around to go back to Amy, who was folded over herself laughing silently, then caught sight of Paul and his colleagues who were slightly gaping. Trotting over, she stopped a few feet away and studied each in turn. "New humans! Wonderful, you people are so weird, but fun too!" A look of mild puzzlement, as best he could work out, crossed her face, and she leaned forward, reaching out and tapping Colin on his armored chest. Cocking her head quizzically, she seemed to think, then did the same to Dragon, who appeared confused but didn't move.
"Hey, Cousin?"
Raptaur, who was definitely hiding a grin, replied, "Yes, Ianthe?"
"You're sure humans aren't edible?"
"I said we don't eat them," her apparent cousin corrected her gently. "They're edible, but they're also intelligent beings, just like people. We don't eat people, you know that."
"Hmm. But you also said that humans keep food in metal cans, right?" Ianthe cocked her head the other way. Colin took a step back, while Dragon emoted amusement somehow, still without moving.
"Right."
"These two are humans in cans. You're absolutely certain they're not food?"
"Yes, Ianthe, I am. Totally certain." Raptaur sighed, Amy fell over giggling again, and both the minor villains were grinning. Paul covered his eyes, shaking his head.
"Weird. Canned humans. I wonder if that really preserves them properly," the lizard-creature mumbled. After studying them some more, she shrugged. "Mammals are confusing at times. Cute, but confusing." Holding out her hand, she smiled widely, exposing teeth that made it clear she'd have no trouble opening a canned human. "Hi," she said brightly. "I'm Ianthe. I came to see what all the interest was with this place. It's really cool, even if some of the social rituals are a little strange. I like burgers, I found out."
Looking at his two companions, who were staring in stunned wonder, Paul eventually took the offered hand and got a thorough workout of his arm. "Hello, Ianthe," he replied politely. "You're Raptaur's cousin?"
"Yes, our branch of the family doesn't get up here very often," she replied, letting go of his hand, which he was silently grateful for. She had a grip like a friendly hydraulic press. "But everyone is talking about how much you humans have progressed recently. And when someone told me that you even had people with interesting abilities in my area of expertise, I had to come and see if I could meet them." She turned around and went back to Amy, who was still grinning, patting her on the head. "Amy's powers are different but have some similarities to how I do things. With some practice I bet she could do some neat stuff. We were just discussing some of my projects to see if we could adapt them for humans with her input."
"Projects?" he asked weakly, trying to make sense of the apparently somewhat hyperactive and talkative creature.
"Medical stuff, mainly. Some of it might be useful, you guys are sort of fragile. Oh, is that why you use the cans?" She looked as if she'd suddenly seen the light. "It's not just a personal style thing?"
"The… cans… provide a protective function, correct," Colin said, sounding very bemused. "Although we think of them more as armor than preservative aids."
"It's not an entirely wrong description, though," Dragon commented with a laugh in her voice. "Even if slightly unusual."
"OK. I can see what you mean." Ianthe studied them thoughtfully. "Not the strongest material, though. Only steel and titanium alloys?" She sniffed. "Chromium and copper too. I could grow you something a lot lighter and tougher."
"Grow?" Paul asked curiously.
"That's what I do. Cousin Raptaur's side of the family does inorganics, mainly, my side is more life modification and control. Admittedly, her specialty is really useful and versatile, but for some applications you can't beat a good nano-structured organo-metallic composite matrix produced from a living source." The large creature smiled happily at them.
"I… think I understand," he said, not understanding at all.
"Amy, before this ends up going somewhere that makes them start to look even more worried, why don't you take Ianthe and show her around in daylight?" Raptaur laughed. "You know that if you start talking about biosculpturing techniques, she's going to go on for hours. I need to do some work with Armsmaster and the others and I think they want to keep it confidential for now."
"Sure," the Dallon girl replied, standing up. "Come on, Ianthe, I think you'll fit in my truck in the back. Let's go and find something to eat. Not from a can."
"Burgers?" Ianthe asked hopefully. "They were really nice. I could do with a few more."
"That can easily be arranged." Amy grinned at her, then turned to the new arrivals, who were still standing in the same place. "Good to see you however briefly, guys."
"As always, Panacea," Paul replied with a smile for her.
"Just Amy out of costume, Legend," the girl said easily, heading for the door with Ianthe next to her. "Armsmaster, Dragon, see you again some time."
"I expect so, Amy," Dragon said. They watched as the oddly mismatched duo left the building.
"Sorry about that. She's extremely smart and not actually nearly as scatterbrained as she came across, I assure you," Raptaur chuckled. "But she's really excited to be here, it's the first time she's been allowed near humans and it's a bit overwhelming for her. And she's mostly joking about the whole eating humans thing, it's all the result of a slight misunderstanding last night. Her sense of humor is a little peculiar. She'll calm down when she gets acclimatized to everything. She always was rather excitable."
"Slightly overwhelming for us too, I suspect," Paul commented, massaging his hand as he walked over and sat at the table in the chair the Dallon sister had vacated. Privately he was wondering what the hell had just happened, and really what the hell it was that had left with Amy Dallon. He was fairly certain it wasn't even slightly human.
Raptaur, Saurial, and even Kaiju all came across as surprisingly normal once you got over the obvious differences, although he had his suspicions about their origin. Ianthe was clearly trying but it was like she'd read a book called 'How To Talk To Humans Like A Native,' but had only looked at the pictures. Having met her, his feeling about where the Family actually came from in the beginning seemed much more plausible. He wondered if he was going to have to talk to Rebecca about it after all.
Raptaur was watching him in a somewhat knowing manner, making him think she probably understood the directions of his thoughts more than a little. She glanced at Über, who was standing with Leet next to the table, making a slight motion of her head. Both of them nodded and sat as well. She joined them, as did Dragon and Colin.
Pushing his confusion over recent event to the back of his mind to be thought about later, Paul turned to Colin. "I suppose it's your show, now."
"Thank you," the Tinker said. He started to say something else, then stopped, before sighing. "My apologies, I have to ask. What does Ianthe do?"
Raptaur smiled affectionately, clearly amused by her cousin's antics. "Her branch of the family has many interesting talents that would probably group together under the heading of bioengineering in human terms. It's rather more complicated than that, but it's a good starting point. They can do all sorts of useful things with life, healing is only the simplest part of it. I guess in PRT terminology she'd be considered a Biotinker of sorts, but that's not entirely accurate, although it mostly covers the basics."
"I see." Colin looked at her, then his colleagues. Paul could see he was troubled. "You understand that Biotinkering is considered one of the most dangerous and controlled areas of Parahuman powers?"
"I do, and so does Ianthe. I showed her all the reports on that Nilbog creature you had trouble with a while ago. She was very annoyed about it, it breaks so many of her own guild's rules she was horrified. As you know we don't look for trouble, but if you need him sorted out permanently, let us know." Raptaur smiled in a worrying way. "I'd help her, and I expect we could find others as well."
"Um..."
"Anyway, you don't need to worry about her doing something bizarre by accident. Or probably on purpose. She's really gifted in her field and knows what she's doing. It'll be interesting to see what Amy and she can come up with when they put their heads together. Amy's abilities seem to mesh pretty well with Ianthe's."
"Um..."
"BBFO are looking into marketing possibilities for some Family biotech at some point. Amy thinks if nothing else there are a lot of interesting patent ideas just in some of the drugs Ianthe came up with as a way of taking down criminals," Raptaur continued, seeming pleased. "Leet suggested a few other things as well earlier. She's going to have to work out the best way to produce them, and I expect that they'd need to be tested to make everyone happy, but when we have something a little closer to a usable state I'll let you know. You guys probably know the right procedure for that sort of thing."
Dragon jumped into the conversation while Colin was in the process of looking like he was about to say 'um' again, the poor man appearing unsettled. "If you don't mind me asking, if her branch of the family is… biotech development, I suppose… what is yours? And how many different branches are there?"
Raptaur folded her arms on the table and smiled at the Tinker. "I can't go into details about internal Family operations beyond what I've already said, sorry. But my side of the family is… it's a little complex but let's call it human relations and interaction, engineering, security, and heavy construction. That covers most of it one way or the other."
"Not combat?" Paul couldn't help the question.
She turned to him, the expression in her glowing eyes making him abruptly very uncomfortable. "Not really. You haven't met the combat branch yet. Hopefully you won't need to."
Having managed to kill the conversation dead in its tracks, she looked around at them all. "Well, my friends, let's talk about something more useful. How can the Family be of service today?"
After a very uncomfortable pause, Colin started explaining about the modifications to the ridiculously over the top weapon. Paul sat back in his chair and listened as he and Dragon talked, wondering with a certain amount of horror what an actual combat-ready Family member was like if Kaiju with a forty foot nuclear-powered shotgun didn't meet that description.
It was more than a little worrying.
Amy managed to drive about a mile into the docks before she had to pull into a side alley, one she knew had no surveillance from Taylor, and lie back howling with laughter. Behind her in the cargo bay of the truck Lisa was doing much the same. She stuck her head on its long neck through the open rear window, managing to reach as far as between the front seats, then met Amy's eyes.
"Did I lay it on a little thickly?" she asked, heaving with hilarity.
"A little thickly?" Amy chortled. "Canned humans? God, that was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Did you see their faces?"
They kept laughing for some time. "Humans are just like people," Lisa said in an imitation of Taylor's Raptaur voice, giggling. "That was brilliant."
"I think I can fairly truthfully say that none of those three are going to think of Amy Dallon when they see Ianthe, except like 'Oh, god, poor Amy, that thing is nuts and she has to deal with it'," Amy finally said. "Mission very fucking definitely accomplished."
"I'd say so," Lisa agreed, grinning. "Let's go and worry the tourists for a while just to rub it in that you and Ianthe are different people. I genuinely could go for a burger too."
"So could I," Amy replied. "Move your head, you're on the shifter."
Lisa pulled back and the healer put the truck in reverse, backing out onto the road, then headed into the city center. A couple of minutes later she heard the rear side window go down, looked in the mirror, and nearly hit a telephone pole. "Must you?" she snickered.
"Yeth," Lisa said, sounding very pleased with herself.
Heading for the tavern and a nice cold glass of Pat's best bitter, Erwin waited for the blue truck coming towards him to pass. He stared as it did so, the enormous violet-blue lizard which was hanging its head out the side window like a dog, a long forked tongue flapping in the breeze, smiling at him and waving. "Hi!" she called.
Turning on the spot, he watched until the vehicle disappeared around the corner a couple of blocks further on.
"Haven't seen that one before," he muttered, looking both ways and hurrying across the road. "Nice color."
Walking towards his own personal oasis of warmth and what passed for sanity, he reflected on the oddity that was recent life in Brockton Bay. At least the reptiles were happy, so that was something.
Walking down the middle of the boardwalk with a large number of people staring at her, Lisa was actually surprised to find out she didn't feel self-conscious. As Ianthe no one knew who she really was, she was basically at no risk from that fucker Coil now even if he wasn't locked away inside his damn bunker, and there were few threats around she really had to worry about. She could just enjoy the day, even as damp as it was.
Pondering the odd fact that she was actually currently freer in many ways than she'd been since she Triggered, and also more anonymous, despite being a better than seven foot tall scaled lizard-woman, she smiled and waved to tourists who were talking photos and gaping. It was almost a holiday, and she was also happy to be away from the DWU, as friendly as everyone was, for at least a little while.
Amy appeared in a very good mood as well, both from looking at her and by her scent. Lisa was becoming quite adept at recognizing things by smell, her power meshing with the wildly better senses completely seamlessly, and apparently grabbing the ability and running with it. She was still finding that it seemed to be possible to use her power without the headaches she'd normally get by now, which was one of the best things about this whole situation.
Lisa didn't know if she'd suddenly run up against a new limit, or whether there wasn't one any more, so she was being careful, experimenting with what she could get away with. And also wondering why things were working like this. Her best guess was that some interaction of the construct's secondary brain and her Parahuman ability had somehow altered the way it worked, but she wasn't certain about this, or how to go about proving it.
That aside, she was also musing on the oddity she'd noticed in the BBFO office when doing the slightly deranged alien act, which she was very proud of. The expressions on the faces of Legend and Armsmaster had been truly remarkable, and even Dragon had seemed very confused. She kept grinning internally when she remembered.
The oddity wasn't Dragon's reaction, it was her scent. Or rather, the lack of it. She'd sniffed very carefully while she was playing her canned human joke and was totally certain that the cape didn't smell of anything remotely approaching a person, or in fact anything living. She could easily detect metallic scents, various plastics, characteristics smells of live electronics in quite remarkable quantities, all of which Armsmaster also smelled of. However, in his case, there was the scent of a healthy male human under it all, which was entirely reasonable.
In Dragon's case, there was nothing but those scents. Which wasn't reasonable at all, to her mind. The instant possibility that she'd thought of was that the Dragon power armor was actually a remote unit, being operated by the real Dragon from somewhere else. It was a reasonable consideration and would fit with the Tinker's specialty.
The problem was that at that point, they were all inside an EDM coated building which both her power and her experience told her was an amazingly good blocker of any form of electromagnetic radiation, which would seem to eliminate the possibility of any normal form of remote control system. Any radio linked one would have failed as soon as the door was shut, she was certain. Even with the very slight gap in the shielding that the computer and power feeds into the place produced, the amount of information that would need to be transferred to run something that complex seemed extremely unlikely under the circumstances. Not to mention that Dragon had visited before the computer feed had been put in as well.
Her ability was pretty sure it was impossible. So either it was a remote unit being controlled via something that could penetrate the EDM layer, which put it entirely out of her experience, or it was… what?
The only other thing she could think of that would fit the evidence of her eyes, nose, and power was somewhat disturbing on a number of levels, although she couldn't dismiss it. Just because there was no example of that sort of thing she was aware of, didn't mean it couldn't exist, especially when you brought Parahuman abilities into the equation. But it still shocked her, even so.
Absently accepting the huge burger Amy handed her, as they'd arrived at Fugly's and the healer had ducked into the place and come back with a large bag of food, she considered the idea. Was it really possible that Dragon, the world's best known Tinker, and someone generally thought to be a very good person, was in fact an artificial intelligence of some sort?
After a little more thought, she decided she needed to make careful inquiries of Taylor to see if she'd noticed anything odd. Deliberately pushing the thoughts away for the time being, she dropped the first burger into her mouth and chewed, amused at the reaction from the watching crowd.
Lucy stopped dead, then urgently poked Mandy in the ribs. "Look," she hissed, pointing discreetly. "It's her!"
Her friend looked up from the dress she was holding, then out the window of the shop they were in. "Her who?" she asked, before spotting the person in question. "Shit. That's Ianthe, the new Family member!"
"I know! And look who's standing next to her!"
"Amy," Mandy giggled. "Why am I not surprised? That girl knows them all."
"I want to meet her," Lucy said eagerly. "Come on, you know you're never going to buy that thing. It's hideous."
"It's also on sale, fifty percent off," Mandy protested.
"Because no one wants it, because it's hideous," Lucy snapped. "Put it back and come on, before they leave."
"Doesn't look like they're going anywhere," the taller girl replied, but put the dress back on the rack as she spoke. Her friend was right, it was pretty ugly.
Almost dragging her out of the shop, Lucy towed Mandy across the boardwalk to where Amy was standing next to the enormous reptile, both of them talking to one of the shopkeepers. "Hi, Amy," Lucy chirped. "How's things?"
The Dallon sister turned around, then grinned. "Hi, guys. What are you doing here?"
"Looking at ugly dresses," Mandy smiled. "But they're on sale."
"Enough sale to be worth the ugly?" Amy asked.
"No, not really," she giggled. "Then Lucy saw your friend and wanted to say hi."
Amy nodded, smiling. "I can understand that." She indicated the reptilian female standing next to her looking down at them with what looked like amusement. "Meet Ianthe. She's new."
"Very new," the creature said, chuckling. "Sometimes I feel like I was born yesterday. But I'm having a lot of fun here. It's nice to meet you both."
"Ianthe, this is Lucy, and Mandy, friends of mine from school," Amy said, pointing to each of the girls in turn. "Lucy is particularly fond of reptiles."
"A mammal with good taste," Ianthe laughed, making Lucy snicker. "I'm pleased to meet you, Lucy." She held out her hand, Lucy's comically smaller one disappearing into her grasp.
"I'm so pleased to meet you to, Ianthe," Lucy said breathlessly. "I've met Saurial, and seen Kaiju, but I haven't met Raptaur yet."
"I think you'd like Cousin Raptaur," Ianthe smiled. "I'll mention your name to her when I go back."
Lucy smiled broadly, feeling that the day had suddenly become much better.
Watching Lisa talk to Lucy and Mandy, Amy felt pleased. Everything had worked beautifully so far and she was even able to make her friends happy with her invention, although they didn't realize it and probably never would. Lisa was obviously having a lot of fun as well. She was already designing the next bioconstruct in her head for the blonde, thinking about all the upgrades she could add.
Seeing Lucy's smile, she had the thought that if she ever got to the point of making lizard tails as a fashion statement, like the comment Lisa had made the day before, she had a pretty shrewd idea who would be first in line. The thought made her nearly laugh, although she was able to suppress it with an effort of will.
Even so, she was going to have a mental image of half the students of Arcadia proudly walking around with tails in her head for some time, as absurd as it was...
David listened to Rebecca, then turned to stare at Doctor Mother.
"Aliens?"
"Yes."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
He stared some more.
"Aliens?" he asked plaintively.
Both women sighed.
"Yes."
It went on in this vein for some time.
"What do we do about it?"
Rebecca fixed him with a very hard look. "We keep you a very long way from any of them, that's the main thing. And Tagg. Between you, I don't even want to think what might happen. For now, it's entirely hands off as far as the Family is concerned, understand me? We have enough trouble with the aliens we know are trying to kill us, we don't want to borrow trouble with the ones that are so far mainly content to do civil engineering projects. Especially without knowing why you went off on Kaiju like that. So stay away from Brockton Bay."
"Words to live by," the Number Man commented, then flinched when both women glared at him. "Sorry."
Off to the side, not really listening to them beyond the basics of the conversation, Contessa was lost in her own thoughts.