Sarah opened the door, looked at her sister's face, then stepped to one side. "Open bottle of wine in the kitchen," she said, motioning with the hand that had a half-empty glass of the stuff it in. "Only one this time, I locked the others away and gave Crystal the key."

"They stopped by here too, didn't they?" Carol said as she headed straight for the kitchen, Sarah closing the door and following. By the time she got there her sister was sipping from a glass, looking frazzled. "I'm going to end up an alcoholic at this rate," she added sourly. "Christ. She went from having practically no friends and hiding in her room or the hospital to having more of the most terrifying friends you could possibly imagine and running around doing god knows what with them in one huge step."

"Amy does seem to have a knack for making large reptilian friends," Sarah agreed, topping up her own glass, then sitting at the kitchen table. Carol stared out the window into the back yard for a while, then also sat down. After a moment she got up and retrieved the bottle, sitting again and putting it between them. "But I have to say she seems happier than I've seen her in years."

"There is that," Carol sighed, taking another sip. "If it wasn't for the fact that her happiness and my stability of mind were somehow in inverse proportion to each other I'd be a lot more pleased myself."

Sarah grinned. "An interesting way to put it. Look at it like this, Amy's in a position that whatever happens probably means she's actually safer than anyone else in the city. With her connection to the Family, I very much doubt she's actually at risk from more or less anything."

"True," Carol mumbled. "And, despite myself, having met Saurial again and talked extensively to that Hebert man, I find myself respecting both the Family and the DWU. But it still confuses the hell out of me! Where are they all coming from?" She looked plaintively at her sister. "I mean, Saurial was one thing. 'Oh, poor girl, a weird reaction to Triggering, she's a big lizard, but aside from that she's got an impressive power set', that was more or less my reaction. Then Raptaur turned up and stomped fucking Hookwolf of all people like… like… like Behemoth going after a stray dog!"

She gestured with the wine glass, nearly spilling some.

"That was bad enough. The way that Amy ended up riding her around the city was just bizarre. But I was coping, after that argument and the… painful repercussions. It even brought us together in a way that nothing else ever did." She looked embarrassed as Sarah smiled a little. "Not that I want to be reminded of it."

"I can understand why not."

Glaring at the humorous tone of voice, the other woman sighed slightly. "Then, just as I was getting used to things like that, Godzilla turned up and started playing with boats in the bay! With Amy apparently not only fine with it, but having known about beforehand! What's going on with that?"

Sarah shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea, Carol," she replied honestly. "But it does seem to be a good thing for the city. The city council seem pleased, and from what I've learned in the last few days, the entire plan has gone down remarkably well with the public after the initial shock. Even the PRT seem to be just holding off and watching."

"Which is one of the weirdest parts of the whole affair," Carol muttered. She finished the contents of her glass, refilled it, then topped up her sister's one when she held it out. Holding the bottle up to the light she looked mildly disappointed it was now empty but didn't say anything about it, merely put it down. "Bearing in mind their normal reaction to new, very powerful Parahumans turning up, doesn't the fact that Director Piggot seems content to just sit back and let them get on with it seem odd to you?" she asked after a couple more sips.

"It's unusual, I'll give you that," Sarah agreed. "On the other hand, what are they actually going to do about it? Saurial was a bit out of the ordinary but when she turned up seemed more or less the epitome of an independent hero. I suspect they were so relieved not to have a new villain that they just decided to see what happened. Raptaur jumped so quickly from 'new hero' to 'fuck me what the hell' that I doubt they could work out what to do immediately. The association with the DWU probably rang warning bells as well, those people are a political minefield if handled badly, which Piggot would be more than aware of."

Carol nodded slowly, listening with a frown on her face.

"Then the Mayor got involved, Kaiju turned up, and everyone realized the situation was suddenly totally out of the range anyone can really do very much about without risking a complete disaster," Sarah added, putting her glass down and getting up, coming back with a jar of chocolate chip cookies, which she put on the table and opened. "Help yourself," she said, waving at the jar, then took a few. Carol did likewise.

"It went from 'weird and dangerous but friendly new hero' to 'oh my god it's Leviathan's worst nightmare' in two easy steps, without any real effort," Sarah went on. "What are they going to do about it, really? The Triumvirate was here, they talked to Kaiju, something happened, and they left. As far as I can find out they're not interested in doing anything, or more worryingly, can't. Whatever, if those three are staying out of it, I doubt anyone else in the PRT or Protectorate is going to push too hard without an extremely good reason, if only because it would look very bad in the public perception. So far the Family seem firmly on the side of good, even if they're a bit strange."

"A bit strange?" Carol asked incredulously. "You did actually meet Ianthe, didn't you? She's more than a bit strange." She shivered slightly. "Some of the things she casually dropped into the conversation, and her overall attitude… it was the sort of thing that the more you think about it the more you wish you hadn't. And now there's four of them. How many more?"

"It might be quite a big family," Sarah smiled. "There could be dozens. Hundreds, even."

"Oh, shut up, you're no help at all," her sister grumbled. "Here I am, wondering why my daughter is wandering around with giant alien lizards and apparently not seeming even slightly worried about it, and you're making jokes."

Laughing, Sarah shook her head for a moment. "I can't say that I understand the situation, but I'm not too worried right now. They all seem nice, polite, and intelligent. And look on the bright side."

"Which is?"

"You just called Amy your daughter without even thinking about it and you're worried about her," Sarah noted, finishing off her wine and taking a bite out of her cookie, while Carol looked thoughtful. Having swallowed, she finished, "I'd call that a good thing. Come on, I was going to make a chocolate cake and you can help me."

"I like cake," Carol smiled.

"Everyone likes cake," Sarah chuckled. "I promised Eric I'd make it and I wouldn't want it to be a lie."

Soon they were, slightly tipsily, mixing up batter and enjoying themselves, large violet lizards and their origins dismissed for the moment.

"Well, I have to say I'm really pleased about this," Dragon commented, as Taylor waved her arm through the open wormhole produced by their copied set of hardware. It had taken more effort and some minor modifications to the electronics, but in the end they'd been successful in duplicating the wormhole generator.

"Me too," Taylor grinned. "Now, with any luck, you can make a new set of electronics and we can see what happens. How long will that take?"

"A day or two with Armsmaster's lab," Dragon replied after thinking it through. "It's a fairly complex project, but I think he's got all the parts in stock. When we know it works, and at this point I'm almost certain it will, I can use my own production systems to make a more finished design. Armsmaster can almost certainly miniaturize it and make the entire system more efficient, which is of course the thing he's best at, and that's the version we'd make more of. We'll have to do some more design work and tests to see if we need to modify this model to produce a wormhole big enough for Kaiju, or whether it will accept enough power to do the job right now."

She looked at the generator which was humming contentedly. "I can't provide sufficient energy to power an opening much larger than this one, so that will have to wait for a bigger power supply. None of that is important right now, though." She prodded the control that shut the device down, appearing pleased. Taylor certainly was.

When they were outside the test chamber again, she moved to her accustomed position at the table, watching the others work. Armsmaster had unlimbered a fairly impressive computer system from the truck which seemed to be a bottomless pit of techie toys. This was now connected to the two monitors he'd deployed earlier, and he was making changes to a complex 3D model in a CAD package, the latest version of the Shotgun of Doom nearly finished. Leet and Über were watching and making suggestions. The Tinker hero sighed when the latter suggested with a grin that the weapon should have a fold-out bayonet, if only for the look. He fixed the young man with a stare that only made his grin wider.

"Trust me, Über, if the weapon firing at the Endbringer doesn't do the job, a bayonet certainly won't," he sighed.

"But it would look cool!" Über chuckled.

"Appearance is secondary to function," the older man muttered, going back to work.

"Says the man who has clearly spent a ridiculous amount of time making his signature motorcycle look as bad ass as he could," Leet snickered. Legend, who was listening and watching from across the table, grinned widely.

"He has you there, Armsmaster," he said slyly. "I remember a number of prototype drawings that had rather more back-lit panels and chromed parts that did nothing particularly useful than 'efficiency' would normally allow for."

Hunching his shoulders slightly defensively, Armsmaster visibly ignored everyone in a fairly dignified manner, continuing his work. Taylor was highly amused by the banter, this entire group seemed to fit together far better than she'd expected.

Glancing at Dragon she could tell the woman was amused as well, but she said nothing, merely went to the drawings and printouts on the table and started looking through them, calling for Leet after a few minutes. With nothing else to do until the people who were designing all the cool toys finished, Taylor smiled to herself, going to one of her computers and bringing up PHO. Soon she was watching a video of her friends making four of her schoolmates look extremely puzzled, trying not to let her snickers disturb the Tinkers at work.

Judging by Amy's grin and Lisa's body language and expression, they were both having huge fun. It looked like they were going out of their way to let as many people as possible see them together to firmly drive home the impression that 'Ianthe' and Amy were two entirely separate people. After this, it would take a particularly stubborn conspiracist to draw a link between them other than one of friendship.

"When Lisa has her own bioconstruct, I foresee a number of practical jokes on the horizon," the Varga laughed in her head. "And I have no doubt that she will excel in sowing confusion among your enemies and allies alike."

'As far as I know I don't have any enemies,' Taylor giggled. 'And I'd like to keep it that way. But you're right, she's having almost too much fun. Poor Vicky looks like she can't work out what the hell is going on.' They were watching another video of the ill-fated prank that the quartet had tried pulling on Amy, all four of them so intent on sneaking up on the blonde girl's sister that they were entirely oblivious to the huge violet-blue lizard following them, looking around with a finger across her muzzle at the crowd.

"She is a natural member of the Family, definitely," her companion said approvingly. "As is Amy. I approve very much of both of them, not only due to their abilities which are most useful."

'So do I,' Taylor smiled internally. 'I always wanted to know what it would be like to have siblings. This is as close as I'm likely to get, and I like it.'

"Understandable." The Varga seemed slightly sad for a moment. "Sometimes I miss my own kin. Some of us didn't get along very well, as you know, but I'm the last of them, I fear. A pity in many ways."

Taylor felt sorry for her friend. 'We have each other. Whatever else happens, that's always going to be the case. And I'm more grateful than I can say that it happened.'

He was silent for a few seconds. She felt an internal wave of pleasure and happiness come from him. "I agree, and thank you. I am very happy we met even under the circumstances. You have been more fun than I could ever have hoped for and your world and friends are fascinating."

Sending him an immaterial hug, she went back to watching various videos starring her two friends.

There were a lot of them.

Opening her eyes as she heard someone enter the room, Imelda blinked a few times, hazy from the painkillers, then turned her head to see her doctor smiling at her. "Hello, Imelda," he said in a kindly fashion. "How do you feel?"

"A little achy," she said truthfully. "And very dizzy. These drugs are very powerful."

"I'm afraid that's an inevitable side-effect of strong opiates," he agreed, taking her pulse with his fingers, while beside him a nurse wrote down his comments to her. He looked at the complex display on the electronic monitor next to her bed, making a couple more statements she couldn't follow at all to the woman, who replied in kind, then made some more notes. "You seem to be stable. We stopped the worst of the internal bleeding and removed the fragments of metal from your chest, but I have an unpleasant suspicion that there may be other internal damage we didn't find," he said in a low voice, sitting next to her. She felt a thrill of fear go through her at his words.

"Your blood pressure is still too low for my liking and doesn't seem to be going up properly, not to mention that your red cell count is also worryingly low. That's part of the reason you're feeling dizzy in fact, your blood oxygen is several points lower than normal."

"Are you going to have to operate again?" she asked, not looking forward to it.

"That's one option. We have another one, which is Parahuman healing."

"Panacea, you mean," she replied, nodding painfully.

"Yes, although today we also have someone else." He looked somewhat puzzled, but not too worried.

"Is there another healer in the city?" she asked, confused. "I only know about Panacea. Although I heard the E88 has someone that can heal as well."

"Yes, so have I, Othala I believe. I've never met her though." He shook his head slightly. "No, this is a friend of Panacea's. A member of the Family who's just arrived here."

"The Family?" she asked, shocked, lifting her head a little more then stopping when the dizziness intensified. "You mean she's one of those weird reptile-people?"

"I do. She's called Ianthe, and she came here with Panacea a little while ago when she visited. Between them they've healed about a dozen serious cases in the last hour or so. She wanted to learn more about human biology, she told me." He smiled at her, his eyebrows raised a little. "Between you and me I found her comments a little odd. But she certainly seems able to do what she claimed, and Panacea vouched for her. I trust Panacea implicitly so after some discussion with the administration we decided to let her try. Panacea has been monitoring her work, so there's very little risk, and so far everything has worked out very well."

"Is she a huge lizard too? Like Raptaur?"

"Not quite that big, but she's over seven feet tall," he replied at her somewhat worried question. "Quite a pretty color, sort of blue with a violet tinge. She's a bit… unusual… but seems very friendly. Are you willing to allow her to heal you? Or if you prefer, have Panacea do it. I have to admit that under the circumstances I'd prefer that outcome to another operation, but it's up to you."

Imelda thought hard about it. She was very nervous about the idea, but on the other hand she wasn't all that keen on going back under the knife. She was aware that there was always a risk to general anesthesia, although it was very low. But Parahuman healing, or at least Panacea's version, had the reputation of being extremely safe and very fast. She could quite possibly leave here in hours rather than days.

Eventually she nodded. "OK. I'll let them heal me."

"Great." He patted her hand, turning to the nurse, who smiled, then went to the door, opened it, and leaned out for a few seconds. When she stepped back inside, an average-height teenaged girl wearing a familiar white costume followed her in, and behind her was…

"Oh, my god," she whispered without being able to prevent it. The creature now studying her with a disconcertingly alert pair of slightly glowing slit-pupiled vivid green eyes like those of an enormous cat was huge! 'Over seven feet tall' didn't really get across how massive she was. She looked like she could bench press trucks for exercise.

Although the doctor was right, her scales were beautiful.

"Panacea, Ianthe, this is Miss Imelda Abarca, twenty-six, who had the misfortune to be involved in a car accident early this morning. The side airbag malfunctioned and went off when it shouldn't have, spraying her with shrapnel. The fragments penetrated her left lung and kidney, causing substantial internal bleeding, plus she suffered a broken right tibia. We've removed all the fragments but I'm fairly certain there is at least one leak we didn't find."

He finished his brief report, both females nodding while studying her. Panacea approached, pulling her scarf down to reveal a face that was somewhat familiar, a not beautiful but not unpretty young woman with a freckled face smiling at her. "Hello, Imelda. Do you mind if I check for myself?"

"Not at all," she whispered, still finding anything louder somewhat difficult. Panacea took her hand in her own and seemed to concentrate briefly.

"You're right, there's a rupture in the left kidney arterial feed," she said to the doctor. "Not large but it's leaking steadily. A few minor vessels aren't quite sealed properly as well, but that one is the dangerous one."

She glanced at Ianthe who was standing at the foot of the bed watching intently. "Do you mind if my friend here heals you, Imelda?" she asked, looking back to her.

"No, I guess not," she smiled weakly.

"I must warn you it looks a little… odd… at first," Panacea added, a slightly peculiar expression crossing her face. "Don't worry, she's actually very good at this. Close your eyes if you want, we won't mind."

She nodded to the huge lizard, who moved carefully around the bed to the other side, mindful of her tail which stretched out several feet behind her. Squatting down to bring her head closer to Imelda's level, Ianthe produced what was probably meant as a comforting smile, clearly trying not to expose too many teeth.

Which were very big and very sharp, Imelda couldn't help but notice with a slight shiver.

"Hi, Imelda. I'm just going to hold your hand here, OK?"

After receiving another nod, she picked up the limp hand and held it in her own. Imelda felt her eyes widen and her stomach roil a little at what happened next. Gaping at the tiny tendrils burrowing through her skin, all she could think was that she couldn't feel anything.

And decide she wasn't going to eat spaghetti for some time.

The lizard-woman nodded a little. "Yep, torn blood vessels, some bruising… broken bone in the leg, and some skin damage. OK, this won't take long."

Imelda felt her leg twitch slightly in the cast, while her dizziness worsened for a couple of seconds and she nearly passed out. "Ooh," she mumbled, not sure if she was awake or not.

The moment passed and she suddenly felt much better, blinking at the ceiling. Apparently she'd dropped her head back onto the pillow. Rolling it to the left she saw Ianthe looked satisfied. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Better. Good, actually," she replied, lifting her head, then gently prodding herself in the side. "It doesn't hurt at all any more."

"We'll need to remove the stitches," the doctor said, pulling her hospital gown up and inspecting the site of the operation scar. "That won't take long." Turning to the nurse he issued quiet instructions. The woman went to the side of the room and came back pushing a small trolley with a number of drawers on it, opening one and pulling out a sterile pack which she tore open. Shortly she had disposable gloves on, with a plastic-handled curved-blade scalpel in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other.

Panacea held Imelda's hand, doing something that meant she couldn't feel it as the nurse quickly and competently cut all the stitches and popped them out with the tweezers. When she was finished Imelda looked down, having been resolutely staring at the ceiling the whole time, to see her skin unblemished but slightly stained from the wound cleansing solution that had been used during the operation.

"We'll get someone in here to remove the cast in a few minutes, then give you a final checkup, but I think we can discharge you in about half an hour," the doctor smiled. He looked at both Parahumans. "Thank you for that."

"You're welcome," the lizard-like one smiled. "It was interesting."

"Thank you both very much," Imelda added with feeling. "I really didn't want another operation, or to stay here any longer."

"No one likes staying in hospital," Panacea replied with amusement. "It's very depressing, the place is always full of sick people."

Laughing a little in relief, Imelda nodded. Panacea put her scarf back on, then slapped the large creature which was now standing beside her on the arm. "Come on, we've got other things to do. Doctor, I'll stop in again on Tuesday, but if you need me you know my number."

"I do," he said, standing up and offering each of them his hand. "It was nice to see you again and thank you for coming by."

"No problems," she laughed. "We didn't have much else on the schedule at the time and Ianthe was curious. Bye, everyone."

Both of them left, the last sight Imelda had of Ianthe being the end of her tail disappearing around the side of the door before it slowly closed.

"That was a little odd," she said after a long moment, looking at the doctor, who shrugged slightly.

"You tend to get used to weird stuff like that around here, although I'll admit it's a little strange even by my standards," he grinned. "I'll get someone with the cast saw up here, and sort out the discharge paperwork. Back in a minute."

He and the nurse also left, Imelda soon finding herself alone with her thoughts and otherwise feeling fine, if confused.

And grateful.

"How's that?" Raptaur asked, waving at the latest iteration of the enormous weapon which was lying on its side on the newly created huge workbench stretching for some distance down the middle of the big room. The shielded enclosure she'd produced was now gone, leaving the place mostly empty. Dragon studied the thing, walking down one side of the bench and up the other, examining the insulation covering the barrel for any flaws, none being present.

She had to admit that it certainly looked impressive. They'd ended up with an over-under barrel design, the top one being the one that held the round, while the bottom one fired the counter-projectile. There was a heavy muzzle brake at the end of both barrels to redirect some of the released energy from the explosion backwards at an angle to hopefully counteract the thrust that would be produced by the sheer force of the radiation and charged particle pressure acting like a rocket. Most of the blast energy would go into the projectiles and be carried away with them, but enough was left to still give the gun one hell of a kick.

Kaiju could undoubtedly handle it, but the simulations showed that fired in free space the massive weapon would still fly backwards at a fairly serious rate. She was massive enough to absorb the energy without too much trouble.

Colin, with Leet's input, and surprisingly enough some help from Legend who seemed to know quite a lot about firearms, had added a recoil damping system to the stock, using huge nested springs and a complex gas piston system, which Raptaur had just finished making. The barrel mechanism was a floating design in the stock itself, with a fair degree of rearwards movement available, like a number of artillery pieces used. There was a forward pistol grip as well to allow Kaiju to stabilize it.

Overall, it was the most fearsome looking firearm Dragon had ever even considered. The idea that it was meant to be used hand-held was simply insane.

"It sure looks the part," Über commented. "The wormhole generator should fit in there neatly. What about the programming of it? It's going to have to generate the wormhole at a fixed offset from the generator itself, not at a fixed point in space, since the thing will move around."

"I've modified the programming suitably," Dragon told him, bending down to look into the barrel on her second pass around the weapon. "We should install it and test it, but I don't think it will cause any problems. One of the power packs from the truck should provide enough energy, the wormholes are fairly small compared to our tests."

Raptaur nodded, going to the generator which was sitting inside an EDM enclosure to block any residual radiation, picking it up and carefully inserting it into the cavity designed to accept it. Feeding the control and power cables outside the weapon she fitted the cover she'd fabricated for the opening, which locked into place with a solid clunk. "OK, that's done," she announced.

Colin had climbed into the back of the now half-empty PRT vehicle, coming back out with a heavy high-capacity battery pack, one of her own design she provided to the PRT, which he connected the power cable to. Dragon plugged the control cable into her power armor, having dispensed with Leet's original control interface when they'd made the second unit. "Plug the top barrel, the gamma emission from it could be hazardous," she said, the large lizard nodding then forming a cap of EDM over the end of the weapon.

Starting the generator, she monitored the singularity as it formed, the entire weapon echoing with the hum it produced. Leet whistled, while Über grinned. "That sounds absolutely wicked," he said approvingly. Guided by the open barrel the sound was fairly ominous.

"Starting singularity spin-up," she announced, flipping mental switches as she executed the prewritten program. The characteristic screech sounded as the toroidal singularity wound up to an absolutely insane rotational velocity, then stopped when it stabilized. The audible result was again modified by the shape of the gun, muted slightly but with overtones from the resonance of the air in the barrel that made it sound like a huge organ sliding from a sub-bass note to a high whistle before it stopped over a second and a half or so.

"Wow." Über grinned even more widely. "That alone should make an Endbringer shit itself."

Internally she agreed, the sound was extremely impressive, but on the outside she merely nodded a little. "And finally, wormhole generation initiated." There were no further special effects but her monitoring program showed the device was drawing the right amount of energy and the correct gamma output was occurring.

"I can see the output wormhole," Raptaur reported, her head half-inside the lower barrel. "Looks like it works."

"Good. I think it's almost at the point of being able to be tested," Colin said, sounding pleased. "We need to modify the generator slightly so it automatically powers up into this state on switch on, but that's a minor issue, and we also need to add a built in power system. Again, not difficult, this battery pack would do the job for several hours based on the power draw."

After a lot of discussion, they'd ended up deciding that they didn't even need the breech mechanism that he'd designed, after Raptaur pointed out the fairly obvious fact that Kaiju could simply form the round in place, which made the entire design mechanically much simpler. Colin had sighed a little when she'd mentioned this, which Dragon could sympathize with. She'd missed it as well, since the entire forming structures out of nothing was sufficiently unusual neither had fully internalized the implications.

"What color should we make it?" Raptaur asked, looking amused. "From watching the news if it's black it'll be more dangerous."

"Make it bright orange, then the Endbringer will think it's a toy and relax, which will let Kaiju shoot it more easily," Leet grinned. She laughed, while Colin sighed, waiting for them to become more serious.

"The color is irrelevant. The only thing left is the fusion charge," Dragon's friend said, long practice letting her know he was somewhat uneasy. He inspected Raptaur, then looked at the others in the room. "I trust you," he told her after a moment, "even though we've only known each other for a fairly short time, and there is still much we don't understand about the Family. But I am also slightly worried about giving you the knowledge to build a pure fusion weapon. It's incredibly destructive and a lot of power to hand over to anyone."

Raptaur smiled slightly. "Like I said the first time, none of us are interested in nuclear weapons or mass destruction, and if we were we have other methods available to us. I give you my word that the knowledge won't leave the Family, and won't be used against you, the PRT, or anyone else without your permission." She turned to Leet, adding, "I'm including you in that as well, since I know it was based on your design and technology."

The Tinker villain, a category Dragon was having increasing difficulty really believing, nodded soberly, appearing to accept her words seriously. Colin looked at Dragon, then turned to Legend. "Sir?" he said. "Do you agree?"

The Protectorate leader studied Raptaur for a few seconds, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table, then nodded. "I do. As she said, I have very little doubt that she and her sisters and cousins and whoever else is out there could cause massive destruction with not much effort, but at the same time I feel that this is extremely unlikely to happen. Not to mention that without her and her sister knowing how to make the fusion explosive a lot of this is wasted effort anyway." He shrugged with a small frown, that turned into a wry smile. "We don't even know if it actually will hurt or kill an Endbringer, but in my view we have no choice but to find out. They're slowly killing us and this is the best chance I've seen in years to do serious damage to one."

"I agree," Dragon said quietly. Über nodded as well.

"All right. I just had to say it, no offense was intended." Colin seemed apologetic.

"None was taken, believe me," the huge reptile smiled.

Pulling out a set of drawings and a sheaf of paperwork, her friend spread it out on the table. "This is the design, then. The fusion fuel is here, it uses lithium deuteride as in normal fusion bombs. Leet's breakthrough was the fusion initiator which uses the triggered decay of a nuclear isomer of hafnium to release an intense pulse of gamma radiation, which in turn compresses and heats the fusion fuel to the point that fusion can start. The hafnium isomer has been studied for years as a theoretical method of storing very large amounts of energy but to date no one has worked out how to release it like this, and there are major issues with producing it in the first place."

"Which you don't have," Leet pointed out.

She looked thoughtful, nodding slowly as she looked at the design. "I've read about that stuff, I think, I've been studying nuclear physics for a few weeks now," she replied. Colin looked alarmed, making her grin. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on anything dangerous. But it's given me all sorts of ideas..." She trailed off while he paled slightly.

"OK, it looks mechanically pretty simple. How do you want to do this?"

"I certainly don't want to assemble a functional unit," he replied fervently. "It would be unacceptably dangerous. However, without the initiator it's inert. So I suggest we work on building everything but that first, to give you the design, then very carefully indeed make a tiny amount of the hafnium isomer with the trigger mechanism. We should be able to try a test firing of that in an EDM container without danger. When the weapon is commissioned in the field, Kaiju can assemble all the components into a live round immediately before firing."

"That sounds plausible," she replied with a nod. "And a lot safer than a five kiloton explosive on the table that might go off bang if it was dropped."

Everyone else winced.

"We've only just got the computers in," she added with a smile. "They were quite expensive and I don't want to have to buy new ones."

"Not to mention we'd all get vaporized," Über remarked uneasily.

"Humans are way too fragile," she grinned. They all exchanged a look, but she'd already gone back to carefully examining the plans. "Right. So we need a casing like this..."