Monday, February 21, 2011
"Happy Birthday, Dad," Taylor smiled, pushing a wrapped box across the table to her father. He'd just finished the last of the fairly elaborate breakfast she'd risen early to make for him, including his favorite blueberry pancakes, and seemed content and full.
"Now what could this be?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "I have no idea, I haven't discussed my birthday with you." Giving her a humorous look, he added, "You've been very quiet about it as well. What a surprise."
"Sarcastic, much?" she asked, folding her arms and giving him a hard look. He snickered, pulling the box towards him and starting to remove the wrapping paper.
"Now, would I do that to my only daughter, the young lady in which the Hebert family hopes are resting for the future, the child I have scrimped, saved, and sacrificed so much for lo! these last fifteen years and seven or so months…?" Running down, he chuckled when she started grinning.
"Glorious end result of the Hebert family tree that I am aside, you're being a little over the top there," she commented.
"Possibly. But one has to show appreciation. Now, what do we have here?" He took the last of the dark blue paper off and put it to one side, revealing a flat cardboard box about two feet square and six inches thick. Lifting the lid he folded back the tissue paper under it, then looked at the revealed contents.
"Oh, very nice," he said, feeling the leather of the coat she'd made after much careful thought. It was a very dark blue-black, the same color as her Raptaur scales, appearing completely black in most light but the blue effect coming through when illuminated at the right angle. The leather itself was something the Varga had come up with, it was a copy of something from a long extinct and quite alien rough equivalent of a fairly large flying lizard. She told him this, making him stare at it, then grin slowly.
"You mean it's made of demonically created dragon skin leather?"
"Sort of, if you want to think of it like that, yes," she smiled.
"I do indeed want to think of it like that. Although the thought of wearing something that's a vague relative of the family is a little odd."
She giggled. "It's not real leather, nothing died to make it. I'd never kill a distant cousin to make a coat out of them."
"Unless they were very naughty, I suppose."
"Well, that's perhaps going a bit far." She smiled with many glinting teeth. "But I could peel them without killing them."
It was testament to how used to her abilities he now was that he merely raised an eyebrow, smiled a little, then stood up, lifting the coat out of the box. It was designed in such a way, after much research, that it could be worn either as a very nice leather jacket, or by using internal zips and folding down part of the inside, as a trench-coat in bad weather.
"It's completely waterproof, fireproof, bulletproof, a good shield against radiation, insulated to keep you warm, or cool, depending on conditions, and has about twenty hidden pockets inside it," she said proudly as he tried it on. "There's a fold out hood in the collar as well. Plus some matching gloves in the top outer pockets. We played around with some of the weird effects we came up with for our 'artifacts' last night when I went to bed, Varga had an idea." She smirked as he looked at her, a little worried judging by his expression. "Check the inside pocket on the left side, the lower one."
Putting his hand into it slightly tentatively, he looked surprised, then reached further. "What on earth…," he muttered, looking down at his pocket. "What's this?" Obviously finding something in the pocket, he pulled his hand out, looking stunned when a full size baseball bat made of hollow EDM came out with it. "How the hell?"
He looked at the thing in shock, then down at the pocket it had come from, which was obviously too small to have contained it. Experimentally, he put it back, Taylor watching with satisfaction as the thing disappeared completely into the pocket again. "That's impossible," he spluttered.
"No, that's magic," she laughed. "It's a bit bigger on the inside than it should be."
"Are you playing fast and loose with the rules of time and space again, Taylor?" he asked suspiciously. "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics."
"Nice reference," Taylor grinned. "It's a result of the experiments we did yesterday. Sort of a dimensional fold would be the least wrong way to describe it. The math is really peculiar, it took Varga and me several hours to work it out, but it's stable and permanent. It's mostly his work, actually. The outer pockets are about four times as big as they should be like that, except for the top left one, so you can put your keys in it without having to go in after them with a flashlight to get them back. The lower inner pockets are wider and about a yard deep. The upper left one is a little deeper than that, while the upper right is shallower but wider. Big enough for a couple of bottles of beer, definitely." She smiled as he looked both appalled and deeply impressed. Feeling in the upper left pocket, he withdrew a six foot long staff, which she'd designed to telescope out to twice that length. "You never know when you might need a long stick. The boat-hook folds out from one end, by the way."
He was still staring at the staff he was holding like he couldn't believe it.
"The other pockets are done in a similar way but less so. Mainly because then there are no bulges when you put things in them, rather than for the storage space. Not to mention that because a lot of the space is sort of… folded away, I guess… it doesn't seem to allow very much weight through. Neither one of us are sure why, but it's really useful."
"Are there any other accessories?" he asked with a mild sigh, experimentally putting the thing back and pulling it out a couple of times.
"Have a look," she laughed. He did. By the time he'd finished fishing in all the pockets, on the table was the extending staff, a pair of gloves which were made of the same material and in the same way as the coat, two folding knives, one of which was from a pocket inside the left sleeve, the bat, a very powerful LED flashlight, another telescoping baton like the one she'd originally given him from a pocket in the right sleeve, an umbrella, a brand new model of the same series of radio that the DWU used with a spare battery, a wallet that matched the coat, a hundred feet of thin cable with a hook on either end, a dozen bottles of water, a first aid kit, and several screw-top containers about two inches in diameter and three high.
And a large bright green towel, which made him chuckle when he pulled it out of one of the pockets.
"The containers are for keeping odds and ends in," she smiled. All of the tools she'd produced were made of wafer-thin EDM with suitably grippy coverings where required, even the knife-blades being hollow, so they all weighed much less than they would otherwise have. She'd spent some time trying to get the weights of things like the bat and staff to what seemed reasonable for someone not as strong as she was to use.
"It should be nearly as indestructible as Amy's costume, it works in a similar way, but it's thinner to make it lighter and also look like an ordinary if high end coat. If anyone asks, I commissioned it from Saurial. I even paid her for it. She gave me a good price as a friend of the Family. I got a receipt too." Taylor smirked at him as he stared at the pile of stuff on the table.
"I'm not sure if I should thank you or run screaming from the building, terrified about the horrible things you've done to the fabric of reality," he finally said.
"It's more terrible things done to the reality of fabric."
He sighed, looking at her, making her smile a little. "Anyway, it's nowhere near as bad as Vista's power," she protested. "We think it probably does something a little like what she does but by completely different methods, and it's stable once it's set up. If you took the coat apart you'd find the right amount of material for the size of the pockets and everything, but most of it is just sort of… somewhere else. Not that you can take it apart with the EDM micro chain mail lining. I'm the only one who can do that, and Lisa is pretty sure that's not going to change. She's certain that normal Parahuman powers are completely incompatible with it, for some reason, at least as far as manipulating, making or damaging it goes."
"Which is why you couldn't make Brandish a costume out of it, I remember."
"Right. Lisa said her power would just ignore it." Taylor shrugged. "Magic and Parahuman powers don't seem to agree with each other, at least in the case of Varga magic. Except for Amy, who seems to love the stuff, her power is constantly coming up with new ways to use it in a biological organism. It helps a lot that it's completely inert, the biggest problem we had was working out how to make cells attach to it. It needs to be made as a foam or mesh to let them grow through, then it works really well."
He stared at her, then slowly shook his head in wonder. "You constantly amaze and impress me. Your mother would have been as proud as I am." She smiled quietly to herself as he looked down at his new coat, spreading his arms to get a good look. "And she'd have laughed herself sick about the idea that I have an alien dragon leather coat with Non-Euclidean pockets. Then wanted one for herself."
"Enjoy it, Dad," she said as she got up and hugged him. "It took me days to work it all out, but I loved doing it, and the expanded pockets were a wonderful last minute addition." Looking at the things on the table, she added, "Hopefully I haven't missed anything useful, but let me know if you need more accessories. Do you want a sword?"
"I don't think I need a sword, dear, leaving aside the fact that I have no idea how to use one anyway. You seem to be under the impression that I'm going into some sort of battle, rather than the office." He started putting everything back into the various pockets, while she watched. "I'm not sure when I'll ever need a baseball bat, for instance, unless I'm playing baseball. Which I don't do."
"You never know. Things can come in handy at the weirdest times, then you wish you had a whatever. Better to have it, I think."
"And the coil of cable?"
"Might get the car stuck. You could tow an aircraft carrier with that."
"Which I'm sure may be useful at some point," he smiled. "OK. Thank you very much indeed for the ridiculously excessive birthday present. And all the toys that go with it." Feeling the sleeve of the coat, he nodded in satisfaction. "It's very nice indeed. You should think of selling them, perhaps, I expect they'd be worth a lot of money on the open market."
"I'm still thinking about products for sale," she admitted. "That particular one is a one off, no one else is getting one just like it, yours is unique. But some of the ideas we came up with for it could be really useful later."
"I still can't believe that even the Varga could make pockets that were bigger on the inside," he marveled, taking the coat off and holding it up. "That's just incredible."
"Some Parahumans have abilities a little like that," she pointed out. "That one Circus, who no one seems to know whether they're male or female, is supposed to have some sort of dimensional pocket straight out of a Japanese Manga or something. I've heard about other ones as well. We just came up with something that anyone can use."
"Still, even in powers terms, it's fairly impressive, Taylor."
"I thought so," she grinned. "And it makes really weird looking paperweights. And… other things."
"Other things?" He looked suspiciously at her. "What sort of other things?"
"Ah. Terrible eldritch architecture that has never known the hand of humankind, from a distant past when even the ancestors of the upright plains ape was huddled in caves, fearing the sounds from the dark, without even fire to warm and light it," she said in a deep rolling voice, hissing her S's in an eerie way. "Long since sunk beneath the waves, abandoned for millennia, the Family is set to reclaim its ancient home. And maybe get internet hooked up."
"Oh, god," he sighed, sitting down with a thump. She smirked as he stared, then he put out his hands and took hers. "Dear, I have to ask, you're not going to be… excessive… are you? It's just that sometimes I worry, you see. If you tear open a hole in the universe deep under the sea and invite the Varga's long-lost relatives through for a meal, I fear it may impact on property prices. And we're just on the verge of making the city better now, so if Dagon moves in it could be slightly awkward."
Laughing pretty hard, mostly at the way he'd tried desperately to keep a straight face during that little speech, she squeezed his hands. "Don't worry, Dad, we won't go over the top. Well, too over the top." After a moment, she added, "Well.. probably not, anyway."
Releasing her and leaning back, he shook his head and watched her. "I have a horrible feeling that anyone who follows up of rumors of where the Family comes from is going to find weird artifacts that suggest some very uncomfortable ideas," he sighed, but he was smiling very slightly. "Let me guess, if they test them they'll be absolutely ancient?"
"Oh, yes, appallingly old." She gave him a satisfied look. "It's pretty easy to make the right mix of isotopes to make something look any age you want, really. Carefully cut out a hole in the sediment with a micron-thick box of EDM, lift it out, insert artifact at the relevant depth for the age, put it back, and remove the box. Smooth it all over and there you go. We just have to work out the best place to do it where we won't mess up real archaeology."
"Crap. You can probably actually pull it off." He looked impressed but mildly appalled. "Are you sure you want to? Do you actually need to?"
Taylor looked at him with a small shrug. "Absolutely need to? None of us are sure. Lisa's power suggested to her that it's important that no one knows the truth yet, and some of it ever, ideally. Amy alone would make them excrete masonry if they had any idea at all what she was truly capable of, never mind what she's already doing. They threatened Blasto with a kill order, and he's nothing compared to her. If nothing else, the PRT would fuck with New Wave like you wouldn't believe. The fact that she's Marquis's daughter, combined with that powerset… She'd never be able to convince anyone in power that she was safe at all. Even if she stopped doing anything with her abilities she'd be hounded forever, and her family would get tarred with the same brush. That's what both of us think, anyway, and Lisa came to the same conclusion."
He listened, nodding thoughtfully, with a tired expression. Amy had told him about her parentage a while ago, which he hadn't seemed particularly surprised or shocked by. "You make a very good point."
"Add to that my own abilities… Dad, I'm potentially a world killer. So is Amy, of course, she could wipe out all life on the planet without too much trouble, except probably for me and her. I could do it as well. I've thought of at least half a dozen ways to more or less sterilize the planet down to the bedrock, and a couple to destroy it completely." She felt tears in her eyes, as he watched her impassively. "It fucking terrifies me and I know I'd never do it. Neither would Varga. He's a demon, I'm at least half demon, but we're not killers. We defend people, we don't destroy them, unless there's no other choice." She wiped her eyes, as he got up and came around to put his arm around her shoulder. The Varga sent her a wave of reassuring immaterial hug but stayed silent, just listening as well.
"He's certain that the greater power that sent him to me and unlocked all his abilities like it did would never have done it if there was the slightest risk that such a thing would happen, and he suspects it's still watching to see what happens. But it still terrifies me. What would it do to people who didn't know me, or trust me? Or even believe that Varga is in here with me? I can't really prove it, I don't think. It's possible that I couldn't even prove to the PRT that I really was Taylor Hebert! I mean, I'm not at all human in a very fundamental way now. No DNA test will work. I feel the same, pretty much, my fingerprints, iris patterns, appearance, all that are the same, but if they decided that I was some freaky imposter who'd taken over from Taylor, how could I actually prove who I was?"
"I'd vouch for you."
"Why would they believe you? You'd be compromised in their eyes as well. Everyone I know would be." She looked up at him. "It's vital that no one knows any of this, other than people I trust completely, too soon. I'd prefer that they never knew, but I doubt we can hide all of it forever. That's why all the elaborate plans, the whole Family thing, all that. I didn't plan on setting out to have it get this far, but to be honest PHO did a way better job than I could have of spreading the ideas of the Family, and now they're saying it's aliens, of course. It's always aliens." He smiled a little at this, but said nothing, just letting her get her fears out into the open. "The funny thing is that those paranoid conspiracy weirdos are finally sort of right. In many ways I actually am an alien, or half alien, the Varga came from an entirely different universe for god's sake. So, when Amy worked out what she could do, we thought, fuck it, go with what everyone already thinks and give them real aliens. By the time any real part of the truth comes out no one will believe it anyway, I suspect."
Her father nodded a little, looking very thoughtful.
"So, yes, I'm going to do my best to give them all the proof they need that there are ancient aliens living on the bottom of the ocean, because that's safer than telling them that three girls ranging from fifteen to eighteen have between them the abilities, knowledge, and skills to take on the entire country's military complete with Parahumans and probably win. Certainly fight to a draw at least. This way, with any luck, people will hesitate to start anything because they don't know what would happen. If they know it's a girl in high school, obviously they can win, so they'll try it. I've read about history and I've seen the news, I've got a pretty good idea what that sort of person thinks. It only takes one of them to jump the gun and we're up to our asses in troopers. Someone would get hurt then, and if it was you, or Amy, or Lisa, or any of the people at the DWU, they all die. I don't want either of those things to happen."
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Neither do I, my dear girl. And it won't. You have wonderfully crazy and talented friends, a greater demon in your head, hundreds of people who believe in you even if they don't really know who you are, and me. I can't say I'm entirely happy with your plan, but I also can't say that it's a bad one. Probably a lot better than any of the alternatives I could think of. It's almost a comedy of errors that led us here but I can't honestly see how it could have been avoided. Powers bring trouble. You managed to avoid most of the common ones, by ending up with some very uncommon ones. But I believe you can handle it and anything I can do to help, I will."
"Thanks, Dad," she muttered, sniffing, then generating a tissue and blowing her nose in it. "Sorry to bring down your birthday breakfast."
"Don't worry about that, you didn't." He pulled one of the chairs out and sat in it, still with his arm over her shoulder. "You can always talk to me about this sort of thing, or anything else, and I'll always listen. You're the only daughter I have. I quite like you, actually."
She snickered a bit at that, making him smile. "You've obviously been bottling that up for a while," he added. "You've mentioned some of it before but I didn't realize quite how worried you were."
"Talking to Amy and Lisa let me put more of it together," she said quietly. "I've talked it over with Varga for hours and hours as well. None of us can really see any other way that won't end up causing even more trouble down the road. There's going to be a lot of very strange conversations sooner or later about all of this, I'm pretty sure, but that's a hell of a lot better than a lot of shooting."
"You're trying to end up being able to negotiate from a position of strength," he nodded. "And more importantly, from a position where everyone knows you have a good hand, they don't just make assumptions. Ones that turn out far too late to be wildly and catastrophically wrong."
"Pretty much, yes," Taylor sighed. "So, we make alien artifacts. We make aliens. We come up with an alien language. If we have to we build fucking R'lyeh from scratch. Lovecraft was the victim of a practical joke and Derleth is his prophet."
The man beside her started chuckling, shaking his head in amusement. "You definitely have a way with words."
"So Amy tells me."
"Go and clean yourself up, then forget all this and go to school, Taylor," he advised, squeezing her shoulders reassuringly then releasing her. "I understand, I agree, and I love my present. Presents."
"I'm glad," she said, feeling much better. A lot of that had been eating away at her and even with the friendship she'd developed with Amy and Lisa, and the Varga, she still wanted him to know and ideally approve. "Of course, it helps a lot that it's still hilarious, picturing people's faces. Wait until they find the first ancient Family artifact..."
She left him laughing in the kitchen as she went up to the bathroom to wash her face, smiling to herself.
"Hi, Taylor," Amy said as she hopped on one foot, holding the phone to her ear with one hand and trying to put her shoe on with the other. In the end she braced herself with her tail and managed to do it without falling over, resolving to practice more with the appendage. "What's up? I'm about to leave for school."
"I was calling to invite you and your family to dinner tonight at that Thai place for Dad's birthday," her friend said. "You remember I mentioned it last night? I asked him and he'd like that. It's my treat."
"I'm certainly up for it and I'm sure Vicky is," she replied, transferring the phone between hands and ears, then grabbing the other shoe. "Does that include Aunt Sarah's lot?"
"Yes, of course. Bring them all along. Around half past six to seven. I'd invite Lisa but..."
"I understand."
"Anyway, I have something else for her to do," Taylor giggled.
"What?" Amy asked curiously.
"That would ruin the surprise. You'll see. OK, I'm just leaving myself, so I'll see you at school."
"All right. I'll ask Mom, and ask her to pass it on, she can leave me a message while I'm in school. See you later."
"Bye."
The phone went dead, so she put it on her bed, then sat on the edge to tie her shoelaces, before brushing her teeth again, grabbing her backpack, and going downstairs. Twenty minutes later she was half-way to Arcadia wondering what Taylor's surprise was going to be.
"Probably something against nature," she said to herself. "I like that."
Giggling, she overtook the old lady in the Oldsmobile, thinking it was well named, and kept driving towards school and her friends.
"Hi, Dean," Vicky smiled, as she approached her boyfriend at his locker. She kissed him on the cheek then poked him in the shoulder with a well-manicured nail. "You look worried."
"Just thinking about things," he said, closing the locker and spinning the dial, ten hefting his backpack over one arm. He put the other one over her shoulder.
"You shouldn't do that, things can worry you," she giggled.
He sighed a little. "Yes, that's true."
"Still confused about what Ianthe said, aren't you?" she asked perceptively. His slight change of expression made her sure she was correct. "She was joking, I'm sure. There's no way she's that old. Nothing lives that long."
"You're probably right," he replied after a few seconds as they walked towards home room. "She's definitely got a weird sense of humor."
"They all do, remember that thing Saurial did to Clockblocker?" She giggled as he nodded, smiling faintly. "That was amazing. I wish I could have seen his face, I bet it was a real treat."
"Probably," he smiled more widely.
"Hi, Taylor," she said, looking over her shoulder at the Hebert girl who she'd just noticed coming out of the washroom. "Thanks for the invitation to your Dad's birthday meal, Mom told me to thank you as well. We're all coming, so is Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil, and Eric. Crystal is away, unfortunately."
"No problem," Taylor smiled. "Dean is welcome to come if he wants." Both girls looked at the young man, who shook his head with a smile of his own, which seemed weirdly strained.
"Sorry, I can't make it, I have other plans. Thanks for the invitation, though."
"OK. That's fine. Vicky, I'll see you later." The girl looked at the clock on the wall near them. "Got to run, final bell's in under a minute. Bye." She turned and hurried off with a long-legged graceful stride. Vicky watched her go, smiled, then turned back to her boyfriend. Leaning on him she ran a finger down his jawline.
"Sure you can't make it?"
"I am, I'm afraid. Other things I have to do. We can go out for Thai sometime during the week if you want, though."
"I'd like that, that restaurant is really good," she replied, leaning on him. "You'd better make reservations today, though, it gets booked up days in advance now. Saurial really put it on the map. Although Amy sure helped as well."
The boy nodded, looking amused, glanced in the direction Taylor had headed, then as the bell went, twitched and looked worried. "Oh, shit, now we're late."
"Only about five seconds, the classroom is right there," she snickered, pushing him in the right direction.
Sighing, he let her, both of them entering only moments after the bell stopped, although they still got a nasty look from the teacher, who tapped his watch.
Arriving at her table with a tray full of food, Taylor smiled at her friends while she sat, Amy and Mandy shuffling apart to make room. "Hi, guys," she said happily, moving her plates around, then unlimbering her fork. "I heard you and Lucy had an interesting meeting, Mandy," she added, glancing sideways at her friend, who nodded with a grin.
"Yep," she replied. Lucy looked very happy. "We ran into the new one Ianthe on the Boardwalk. She's weird, but very friendly. Right, Amy?"
"I don't consider her all that weird," the Dallon girl replied mildly, before putting the straw coming out of her apple juice in her mouth and sucking. Swallowing, she released it, then added, "Friendly, that's true. And fond of practical jokes."
"Oh, god, that thing with Vicky and the others was hilarious," Eric snickered, looking over at the table where the people in question were discussing something that seemed to have Dennis in stitches, which wasn't actually very hard to achieve. "The way everyone on the street was watching and grinning, but no one said anything. How could they miss a nearly eight foot tall purple and blue lizard tiptoeing after them like something out of a cartoon?"
"Some people just aren't very observant, I guess," Rich laughed. "It probably was less obvious at the time. But she was right, they really should look behind themselves more."
"Especially on a hunt," Lucy smirked. "She has an odd turn of phrase sometimes but seems very nice. I like her."
"You like anything with scales," Mandy commented.
"Well, if it's reptilian, I suppose so," her friend said. "Fish, I can take them or leave them. But they taste nice."
"Hey, do any of you want to come to the Thai place tonight?" Taylor asked, looking around at the others. "It's my Dad's birthday today, and we've invited Amy's family. They're all coming except for Crystal, so that's nine of us, plus I invited some people from the DWU. Dad doesn't know. The table seats twenty, so there's room for everyone. I'm sorry, I should have thought of you all and asked first thing this morning."
"I like your Dad, Taylor, and I like Thai," Mandy smiled. "I'm up for it, definitely. Lucy?"
"Sure, why not. When?"
"Half past six to seven, I'd think it would finish around nine."
"OK. I'll call my mom and let her know after lunch, but I can't see a problem."
Eric and Rich had looked at each other, then both nodded. "Count us in as well," Eric said.
"Great. OK, I'll call the restaurant before the next class and confirm how many are coming."
"How did you get the booking? Twenty people is about three tablefuls, if I remember the place, you must have booked days ago." Mandy looked curious.
Taylor smiled secretively at her. "I asked a friend to call for me. They seem to like her."
Lucy peered at her, then nodded. "You got Saurial to call," she stated.
"I did. I don't see her very often, she's so busy, but we get on pretty well. She really likes Dad and was happy to help."
"Has she come around to your house?" the girl asked.
"She's there every now and then, yes," Taylor replied. Amy smiled at her behind her burger, making her snicker internally. "Raptaur turns up sometimes as well. She's really good at arriving without the neighbors noticing, somehow. Mostly in the dark, I guess she blends in."
"Cool. I still want to meet her," her friend said eagerly.
"I'll ask Dad if it would be alright for you to come to the Yard sometime and meet her, if you want," Taylor remarked after a moment's thought. "I don't get down there very much right now, I've been studying too hard, but Amy could take you."
Lucy smiled brilliantly. "I'd love that," she gushed. "Thanks so much."
"You're welcome. We can ask him tonight. We need to arrange another get together at my house as well for sometime later in the week, I need to check if you guys remember anything I showed you."
There was a general nodding around the table, after which the conversation moved on to other things. Taylor met Amy's eyes, the two sharing a look of amusement, then went back to eating and listening, enjoying the company of her friends. She felt a lot better than she had for a while that morning.