Lisa tapped on the door, then opened it when she heard Danny call for her to come in. Entering, she looked at him, then smiled. "That is a nice coat. Taylor was right. Happy Birthday, by the way. I'm afraid I haven't been able to get out and get you anything."

Taking the leather coat off and hanging it up, Danny smiled back. "Don't worry about that, Lisa. We haven't known each other long, there's no reason you should get me presents. And thank you." He looked at the coat, then her, then grinned slyly. "Look at this, Taylor had her tailor add some interesting features." Sticking one hand into the hanging jacket he pulled it back with an impossibly long metal staff in it that very obviously couldn't have fitted.

Lisa gaped.

Three piece telescopic rod made of hollow EDM

74.3 inches long collapsed

148.45 inches long extended

1.42 inches in diameter

Folding hook on end

Removed from pocket of maximum possible depth of nine inches

Blinking, she focused on the coat itself, then reeled a little

Material use exceeds visible quantity by 1432.45 percent

Multiple dimensional violations in structure

Internal storage volume minimum of 23.4 cubic feet

She sighed. "Oh, for god's sake. She figured out how to use that bizarre warping of nature to make what's basically a bag of holding didn't she?" She was actually impressed to a remarkable level, it was a non-obvious use of the weird fractional-dimension construction technique that Taylor and the Varga had come up with that she hadn't initially considered, and she was somewhat irritated with herself that she hadn't seen it.

"The ancient arts of the Family have many otherwise mundane applications in today's world, it seems," he snickered, spinning the staff a couple of times hand over hand. "I should learn quarterstaff use. I wonder if anyone here knows how?"

"I wouldn't be even slightly surprised, even leaving aside the obvious answer of the Family," she giggled, going over and sticking her hand into the pocket the thing had come from, her power having a thrill go through it as her arm went all the way to the shoulder into something her hand should only just have fitted. After the initial shock, she could swear that her ability found the entire thing fascinating. "The people here seem to have all sorts of bizarre and useful skills. I guess that happens when you pull together a group from different backgrounds with a lot of military and other practical experience."

"This is incredibly cool, and more than a little disturbing," she added, putting her hand into the pocket on the other side and pulling out a baseball bat. "How the hell many things do you have in here?"

"Way more than seems reasonable," he laughed, leaning on the staff with one end on the floor and watching her. "Taylor may have got carried away. She seems intent on making sure I'm suitably tooled up for whatever happens."

"Always be prepared," Lisa grinned. "Not a bad philosophy."

"True enough." Coming back over he slid the staff back into its pocket, then watched as she returned the bat. "It's the best present I've ever had, or equal best anyway." She nodded, knowing what he was talking about. "So, what can I do for you, or did you just come in for birthday wishes?"

Leaving the impossible coat alone, while resolving that she wanted one for herself, she moved to one of his chairs, as he sat behind the desk and turned his computer on. "Not just that. I've finished the list of BBFO suggested products that I think we need to look into for the first round of commercialization. I've also got several pages of things that are either more complicated or bigger and should wait for a while. That thing," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, "instantly gives me more ideas, and makes a few of these obsolete before we even start." She handed him the folder she'd come in with.

Opening it he flipped through the pages inside, nodding approvingly as he read.

"Obviously, BBFO will need to file for patents by the handful based on that, we'll need a good patent lawyer, or probably an entire team. Ianthe's biotech gives an entire new area that we need to investigate. Just the drugs that she's used already in public are worth more money than even I can easily think about, and from what I'm told duplicating them in mass production quantities can be easily arranged." Neither one of them was ever going to mention Amy's name in connection with the whole thing, that went without saying. "But it also needs a hell of a lot of money for all the relevant tests. I doubt that BBFO wants to get into the pharma business itself, so we'd need to find one or more companies that we could license all that to."

"That shouldn't be too difficult," he replied.

"No. I expect not." She shrugged a little. "I would think that the contacts Raptaur is developing with Armsmaster and Dragon would be the best place to start. Draco-Tech has already signed a contract with BBFO for access to some of Leet's toys, and chemical and biological engineering is one of their specialties. I'd suggest starting there. If Dragon isn't interested, I'm sure she'd know who was. Building a good relationship with the Guild would be worth the effort."

"And it's possible that the PRT would want to license these specific chemicals for security use," he noted, reading one of the pages carefully.

"Probably. They use sedative darts already, but Ianthe's drug is probably better and safer, and it's definitely quicker." Lisa smiled as he looked up. "I've researched the current state of the art, she's so far past that it's ridiculous. Just the stuff she came up with off the cuff is enough to build a large company around. God knows what will turn up later."

"Well, you're right, neither BBFO or the DWU really wants to get into manufacturing pharmaceuticals on a commercial scale. Licensing the rights would be the sensible approach."

"I think so. I'll bring it up with Ianthe and the others and see what they say. It's a good first step and an entry into the biotech sales world that's more publicly acceptable than some of the more… interesting… ideas. Starts the ball rolling."

"OK." He looked approving. They were both smiling about the way they were talking about several people, none of whom really existed, all this ultimately coming down to a pair of teenagers. "What about the rest of this?"

"Various products that the Family can make. Those extensible batons are an obvious one, the market is full of them but these are unbreakable, which is a good selling point. The design itself is generic enough that there's no patent encumbrance, so they could be immediately sold at a good price. As far as I can see one day's work would produce a couple of years worth of stock. It's practically free income. Same goes for a whole series of tools, even just made of ordinary materials, nothing as exotic as EDM. We could probably demolish the market for that sort of thing without even trying."

Danny nodded, looking at her thoughtfully. "I don't want that. It would be as bad as flooding the market with gold bricks. We'd put people out of work by the thousand."

"Yes, that's the problem," she agreed. "If you only wanted to make the maximum income you wouldn't care, that's capitalism after all, but I know you have other ideas. So, from what I can see, you don't do low end crap, you aim at the really high end, craftsman stuff. Start off with very high quality, very expensive things, but not over-priced, just good value for money. People will pay over the odds for something in many cases as long as they feel they're getting a worthwhile deal."

"It sounds sensible," he said. "Do you have any suggestions where to start?"

"Page seven." He turned to the relevant page, a list of several dozen industrial items. "Cutting tools. It's an obvious market for EDM. It's absolutely perfect for making things like milling cutters, tool inserts for lathe work, that sort of thing. We can design and prototype it here in the workshops, work out exactly the right product line up, then approach one of the bigger tooling suppliers to investigate letting them deal with selling the things. A cutting tool that never wears out would be worth a huge amount to heavy industry, if only from the lack of downtime in replacing them."

"You've definitely done your homework," he chuckled, looking very impressed and pleased.

"Thanks. I've come up with dozens of examples like that." Lisa smiled back. "I think we can safely say that BBFO will never lack for income. That's leaving aside big things, like boat hulls, aerospace parts like turbine blades, rocket engines, that sort of thing." Struck by a sudden thought, her power twitching in excitement, she glanced at his coat with her eyes wide. "Fuel tanks that hold far more than they should but weigh almost nothing..." she breathed. "Oh, god, that idiotic thing is the key to so many other things..." She shook her head in wonder. "They do something for fun, and it ends up being something that could change the world."

"So it seems," he noted, staring at his coat as well. "I didn't think of that, but you're right. Christ."

Looking back to her, he smiled widely. "Really good work. I think we need to start slowly, the DWU is going to be busy with the redevelopment anyway for a while, but we should probably start arranging the foundations of this soon. Make some inquiries in legal and see if they have any recommendations for patent and trademark lawyers. I know we hold a couple of small patents for things that some of the guys invented in the past, but that's never been an important part of the work. Perhaps it should be. Once we have the current situation working well, we can look seriously into some of these and pick a couple to start with."

"OK." She took the folder back from him once he'd closed it and handed it over. "I have to admit I'm having a hell of a lot of fun doing this sort of thing. It plays nicely to my strengths."

"Good. How are your friends getting on?"

"Brian is happily working his ass off and enjoying every minute of it. Rachel is content with her dogs. She's approved two people so far for the honor of being allowed to adopt a couple, which is really amazing," Lisa grinned. "Alec is working very hard on doing as little as possible other than eat and play games most of the time, but for him that's work, and he's happy as well. When things settle down some more, I'll start prodding them to see if any of them want to do something more useful."

She sighed a little. "Rachel is… damaged. I doubt she could ever hold down a real job, unless it has dogs or hitting people in it."

"We can use both talents here, I suspect, once we start to expand," Danny noted. "Security is inevitably going to have to become larger, dog patrols are very effective and fairly cheap compared to electronics, if they're properly trained."

"She can train them better than anyone I've ever heard of, so that's not a problem. The problem is that she's going to be touchy about the idea of dogs getting hurt. I'll have to think about that, there must be a way around it. But if we can arrange it, providing security-trained dogs would be a pretty lucrative thing as well. And, of course, if anyone breaks in here, they'll be lucky if the Family or the DWU security team gets to them first. Rachel has definitely decided that she likes it here and trusts the people. Once she does that, she'll defend them to the death."

"I'd prefer that not happen, to be honest," he said after a moment. "I rather like the poor girl."

"So do I, she's one of my first real friends, after everything that happened to both of us, despite how and why we met." Lisa shrugged a little helplessly. "I don't want to see her hurt."

"And Alec?" Danny asked, having visibly considered her comment for a few seconds. "I know you like Brian as well, so do I, he's a good young man, especially considering recent events. Everyone I've talked to has a good word for him, they think he's a hard worker and a decent guy."

"Alec is… also a bit broken," she answered eventually. "He's the annoying little brother that's too smart for his own good and won't stop with the sarcastic humor at your expense, the lazy layabout, but when it matters, he pulls through. He drives me nuts sometimes. But like I told you when we all first came, he's sort of family to me. I'd like to kick his ass on occasion but then, some people have told me I can be a little irritating as well." She grinned as Danny nodded wisely.

"I can see why that might be said," he replied gravely, although his eyes were twinkling. "For what it's worth, in my opinion you've matured a great deal in a short time. You wouldn't be where you are now if it wasn't for the fact that you're a trusted member of the team."

"Thanks," she said, after a pause. She could tell he meant it and it touched a part of her that she'd once almost given up on. "It means a lot. But going back to Alec… I'm not sure what he could do as an actual job. He's good with computers, physically very fit despite not being as strong and tough as Brian is… He could certainly hold his own in a bar fight even without his, um, particular skill set. But he's not really a fighter, he's not big enough and strong enough to properly do serious manual labor, and he's emotionally stunted to the level that he tends to say things that annoy people even when he honestly doesn't mean to do so. I'm still not sure why. Call him an acquired taste."

"I've gathered as much from Zephron and a few of the guys," Danny admitted, not surprising her that he'd checked up on the boy. He was probably getting reports on all of them regularly, which was characteristically thorough of the man. "However, Zephron appears to genuinely like him, and I haven't heard of anyone actively disliking him. We have a real mix of people here and there are inevitable personality clashes, but they always get worked out. Sometimes by a bit of a supervised punch up for the more aggressive people, not always the men either, more often by a talking-to by someone they look up to. It's chaotic but it works. I know he's been more than happy to let people play with his toys, although so far no one can beat him on those games."

"That doesn't surprise me," she laughed. "He's got what must be months if not years of practice on the damn things. We should get him, Über, and Leet on some online tournament, they'd clear the board."

"An idea, definitely," he smiled, "although I'm not sure it's a good idea. Oh, well, as long as he's happy. He has everything he needs right now, he's not bothering anyone, and if anything happens it's always good to have other useful skills on the premises."

"Oh, if it came to that, he'd join in, trust me," she told him. "We all would. We know who's side we're on these days and like it that way."

"Fair enough, and thanks." Danny looked towards the door, then back at her, lowering his voice a little. "I hope you haven't had any untoward comments about… your other issues?"

She knew even without her power what he meant, and shook her head. "No. I can tell that there are a surprisingly large number of people who have worked it out, or possibly not surprisingly all things considered, but no one has said a thing, or really seems to care. You were right."

"I thought I was, but I'm glad to hear it. Let me know if the situation changes but I don't think it will."

His computer pinged as an email arrived, making him look at the screen. "I'd better deal with this. Good work, Lisa, thanks."

Rising, she nodded. "It's fun thinking this through. I'll keep at it. See you later."

He raised a hand in acknowledgment, smiling at her, then turned to the computer again, typing fast and steadily. Leaving the room, she pulled the door closed then headed for her own office, pleased with the way things were working out for everyone. It wasn't the way she'd envisaged her life going even a month ago but she couldn't honestly say she wanted to change it.

"It checks out, this board is functional," Colin reported, looking up from the diagnostic rig he and Dragon had quickly cobbled together overnight. "That's nearly sixty percent of them done so far."

"It's coming along faster than I expected," Dragon replied, looking over at him from the table, where she was assembling the finished circuit boards into a sub-assembly, the first of eight that the wormhole generator used. "We should have it ready to test by this evening."

"Good," he said with feeling. "I'm very nervous about how close we're getting to the next attack. It could happen at any time and while I'm not entirely enthused about that damn gun being fired, it may well be the least of two bad options."

"If it's Behemoth we can't risk using it, of course," she pointed out.

"No, unfortunately I think that would be a terrible idea. I'm not sure how well it would work on Leviathan, he's so fast that actually hitting him might be an issue, but the predictive models suggest that the Simurgh is by far the most likely one. I am reasonably sure that it will discourage her rather suddenly, which with some luck will make the attack very short even if it doesn't kill her."

"Killing her may well be too much to hope for, but you never know," his friend said, her head on its side as she peered into the collection of complex electronics. "We might get lucky, or they might not be quite as tough we fear. Or, possibly, weak against very sharp EDM applied to the face and body at more than ten times escape velocity."

He almost smiled at that. The humor in her voice always cheered him up.

"Hopefully," he nodded. "On another note, the simulations of my current understanding of this device suggest that the original version will, barely, produce a wormhole large enough for Kaiju to pass through, although she'll have to do it on all fours and duck. We should be able to achieve approximately sixty feet in diameter. Any more than that and I'm almost certain the singularity flux injector will vaporize. We'll have to scale it up if we want something larger."

"It remains to be seen if this copy will be fully functional, but if it is, I can do that," she assured him. "I have a fairly good breakdown of the basic functionality but it will take considerable study to fully understand the principles behind it. It's rewriting quite a lot of my understanding of physics."

"Leet's ability is truly impressive." Colin agreed. "It's a shame that he's of a less than law-abiding outlook. I was rather satisfied with his performance yesterday, he has it in him to be a very effective young man, despite his odd inability to reproduce his work."

"Über is remarkably effective as well," she said, putting the block of electronics down, apparently pleased with it. "Between them I'm surprised that they've only committed crimes that are, in all reality, fairly petty. If they tried they could be very serious threats."

"I doubt, having met them both several times now, that they really want to," he commented after thinking it through some more. "They seem to simply disregard the way a lot of what they want to do is against the law. There seems to be little if any malice behind it, merely poor judgment and a lack of restraint."

"Recoverable, do you think?" she asked curiously. "The Protectorate has taken people with far more serious records in the past if they genuinely changed their ways. At least one of whom is in this building right now."

"Ethan is a pain, but he's also very clever and an effective force for good," Colin nodded, a little reluctantly. "I suppose it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that the same could happen for both young men. Probably more easily for Über, his abilities could easily make him a fearsome warrior."

"He seems to have escaped from you enough times without too much difficulty," she said with a smile in her voice, starting the assembly of the next subsystem. He sighed a little, but couldn't truthfully dispute the point.

"And, watching the videos, both of them appear to have gone to some trouble to minimize damage to bystanders even when they were committing crimes," she added. "In the last major incident, Glory Girl was responsible for more collateral damage than they were."

"Her nicknames are honestly earned," he muttered, which made her laugh for a moment. "Although, to be fair to the girl, she does seem to have grown up a lot recently, there seems to be much less of that sort of thing happening now. Which I for one am grateful for, the paperwork was becoming irritating."

"The paperwork which you managed to get poor Hannah to do more often than not," she pointed out.

"I didn't say it was me that was being irritated." This caused her to laugh again, which he noticed, then made a note about.

"Well, if you want those two for the Protectorate, you'll probably have to work fast, before the Family gets them," she snickered. "It may be too late anyway."

His head came up as he stared at her.

"How do you mean?" he asked, a little worried.

"Just that they all seem to get on very well, both with Raptaur and Ianthe, and Amy Dallon, who is also clearly closely associated with the Family these days. I'm beginning to wonder whether she's more of a Family cape than a New Wave one in some ways. Or possibly they time-share her." She seemed amused. "The girl has definitely cheered up a lot in the last few weeks, the last time I met her in action she looked extremely depressed."

"I noticed," he replied after a moment. "It was concerning. We need all the healers we can get and Miss Dallon was, in my view, heading for a bad case of burnout. Her relationship with Raptaur and Saurial does seem to have reversed that, which is good. The odd sense of humor they share is perhaps less so."

Dragon shook her head, laughing slightly. "They're decent people, if odd, and I suspect it will do all of them good. Amy due to making friends outside her family and having less stress, the Family by having someone they relate to who can possibly teach them to be just a little more human. Ianthe particularly could do with the practice, I think. Anyway, at the moment, it's none of our business, and for all intents and purposes they're allies, so I can't see we have any input into it."

"It's a somewhat unsettling thought that there is, rather abruptly, a new Parahuman group in the city who definitely outguns almost anyone, and nearly outnumbers them as well," he remarked as he pulled the stereo microscope head towards him and put his face into it, inspecting the next board. "Five Family members we know about, four of whom are currently public, the former Undersiders, at least partly Panacea, and now possibly Über and Leet. An even dozen capes who could well be quite loyal to the DWU. I'm not entirely certain how we ended up here so rapidly, three months ago I'd have been completely incredulous if you told me that the Dock Workers Union of all people would become a Parahuman force to be reckoned with! Yet here we are. At least their alignment is more towards our end of the spectrum, thank god."

"Quite. Interesting times, hmm, Colin?"

"Apparently so. This board is good as well."

He put it on the pile of tested units and picked up the next one, wondering what weird thing would happen next. It seemed only a matter of time. Despite the currently remarkably quiet and stable situation, this was still Brockton Bay...

Paul looked out at the dull sunlight glinting off the wind-ruffled water far below, with the city visible three or so miles further on. From where he was in the Rig cafeteria, he could make out the PRT building, and further inland and to the left, the taller Medhall building, then all the other ones that made up the Downtown area. Somewhere below that, Coil was lurking, doing god knows what, but at least he and his men seemed to have climbed into their hole and pulled the hole in afterwards. All in all it was probably better than them sneaking around causing trouble.

He was still wondering about the best way to deal with the super-villain, without either triggering a disaster in the middle of the city, a public relations mess the size of a mountain being an inevitable follow-on from that, or allowing the bastard to escape. Of course, if it came to one or the other he had no choice, but he'd prefer to avert the disaster and grab the bad guy.

Hopefully with the aid of the Family, and the very competent people here in Brockton, he could arrange that. Once they had the man securely locked up they could do a damage control exercise and see how far his tendrils had wormed through the PRT systems. He had a nasty feeling that he wasn't going to like what turned up.

Now that the issue with the tanker had ended and the city had settled down a little from the somewhat hyperactive state of shock that had ensued, it would be a good time to look into the matter. Unfortunately, with the next Endbringer attack likely to happen at almost any moment, they couldn't spare the time, they had to be ready to spring into action at practically no notice. The worst case scenario would be to start an attack on Coil and have to abandon it half-way through just because the thrice-damned Simurgh picked that exact moment to cause a major incident.

Which was, of course, precisely the sort of thing she'd do. He was convinced that she had a warped sense of humor on top of the vicious attack abilities, but no one else believed him when he mentioned it, so he'd given up. The damn thing was very intelligent, he was certain of that much. Evil, powerful beyond belief, supremely dangerous, but very, very smart. Which made it all worse.

Another currently minor issue, but one that caused him some concern nonetheless, was that his contacts in New York were passing on some information about that damn fool Skidmark. The drug addled cape was apparently still shooting off his mouth about wanting to take the Family down a peg or two, having apparently decided that the DWU expansion in the docks was a threat to his business. To be totally fair it was, from his point of view, but Paul was fairly certain that if he actually tried anything the world would very quickly note an absence of Merchants, possibly in a somewhat spectacular manner.

Kaiser was still keeping his head down too, as were Lung and the ABB, according to the same source, who while somewhat… characterful… was very reliable and generally a lot more helpful towards the forces of law than might be expected for a man in his position. On the other hand, he hadn't got to that position, and more importantly, remained there, by picking battles he knew he couldn't win.

It was somewhat amusing to him that an old-school mafioso like that was actually someone he respected. As long as he didn't see him do anything illegal, the relationship worked well for both parties. He was pretty sure the man had similar working accords with a lot of people around the place on both sides of the law, considering how much information he managed to scrape up and how quickly. It was always good as well.

Weirdly, as soon as he'd mentioned Daniel Hebert's name to him, the information had flowed even more freely, although there was no reason given aside from an impression of respect. It was a little odd, but useful under the circumstances. As far as he knew Hebert didn't move in those circles, he seemed generally very careful and law-abiding from what he'd found out in his own discreet background check, although he certainly wasn't above getting his hands dirty where there was no choice. It went a long way towards explaining the respect the DWU members had for the man, and the loyalty.

But he didn't ask, and he knew Tony wouldn't tell him anyway. That was the deal. You didn't mention where the information came from and everyone got along fine. It was enough to know that the source was reliable. He could live with that.

If you were stuck with crime, organized was better than random, after all. Even if he'd have preferred none. But that was a pipe dream and he was rational enough to realize it.

Sighing, he turned away from the window, heading towards the now-shortened line for food, his stomach growling. The last shift had descended towards the cafeteria for lunch just as he'd arrived and he'd politely moved out of the way to wait for all the hungry staff to do their starving wolves impression. It was a fairly convincing one.

"You look pensive, sir," a familiar voice said from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and smiled a little. Miss Militia smiled back, while behind her Assault was being unmercifully beaten around the head and neck by an irate Battery for some reason, grinning like an imbecile even as he shielded his head.

"Somewhat," he replied, moving forward as the line shifted and picking up a tray. "Just reflecting on the oddity that is life in Brockton Bay. Which seems to have become significantly more odd recently."

"True, that," Assault said brightly. "It's never boring around here."

"Shut up, he wasn't talking to you," Battery hissed. Paul grinned.

"He's right, Battery. Considering how much smaller than New York this city is, it's remarkable how much more Parahuman activity there is. And the type is somewhat unusual as well."

"No huge lizards in the Big Apple, then?" the red-clad cape behind Miss Militia asked with a grin of his own.

"No, thankfully, and I'd prefer to keep it that way, despite how friendly they are. It would be… much easier all around." He shrugged as Assault chuckled. "People in New York are famously world-weary, but there are limits. Kaiju probably exceeds them."

"I can see that."

Amused, Paul nodded, then requested a plate of beef stroganoff from the man behind the counter, along with a large coffee and some apple pie. Shortly he was sitting at a table eating slowly while looking out at the city and pondering the last few days and all the revelations that had come out of it.

He wondered what Kaiju was doing, and where. The way the huge lizard disappeared so thoroughly when she wasn't around was weird, making him wonder if the tentative Stranger rating they'd assigned to Umihebi was something that not only existed, but was another shared talent.

Stopping with his fork halfway to his mouth, he shivered involuntarily at the thought. Kaiju was friendly, and personable, and certainly very reasonable even in the face of provocation. However, the thought of something like that being able to wander around invisibly…

He looked around nervously, half-stood to peer out at the water below, then shook his head, retaking his seat and popping the fork in his mouth.

'No. That's just a little too ridiculous. They have to have some limits, after all. A half scale Godzilla is bad enough. An invisible one? No way.'

Smiling to himself, Paul kept eating, going back to working out the best plan of attack for dealing with Coil.

"Ow, fucking cocksucker Tinker," Sophia yelped, glaring at the damn bracelet, which had just shocked her good and hard. All she'd done was scratch an itch under it. Fucking Armsmaster had obviously turned the anti-tamper measures up a little too high.

"Probably did it just to piss me off, the armored idiot," she grumbled under her breath.

Muttering dire obscenities to herself, she lay on her bed and dreamed dark thoughts of who'd pay when she finally worked out how to escape. Both Heberts were at the top of the list, of course, but Armsmaster was working his way steadily up it…

"OW!"

She swore violently, having reflexively scratched again.

He moved another place closer to the top.

"Your five o'clock appointment is here, sir."

He looked up from his paperwork, nodding to his secretary.

"Thank you, Ann, please send him in." The mousy blonde woman disappeared, and he could hear her voice coming through the half open door telling the visitor to go in.

When the door closed behind the new arrival, he tapped the switch on his desk that locked it and activated an anti-eavesdropping system that would block all electronic signals going in and out of the office, just in case. He trusted the man who had sat in his visitor chair, but only as far as he trusted anyone.

Which wasn't, in real terms, all that far.

"No sign of Williamson?" he asked curiously.

"No. I've checked everywhere I could think of, tried every contact he had, nothing. No hits on his cards or bank accounts, phone, email, the works. He's either dead, or he's pulled a very convincing disappearing act. My guess is Raptaur killed him. Probably ate the body."

"Possible," he mused. "We know she caught him that night, and no one's heard from him since. Oh, well, no real loss. Irritating, but that's life." He stood up and walked to the window, looking out into the late afternoon light. "Any luck with getting someone into the DWU?"

"Not yet, but I'm still trying. One of my guys thought he was smart, tried bribing some of the gate guards. We found him a few hours later, he got the shit kicked out of him, and a very strongly worded warning to stay the hell away from the DWU. As far as I can tell he's not planning on trying again."

"No risk we were compromised?"

"No. I can have him eliminated if you're worried."

"No need. Pay him to keep quiet and reassign him."

"As you wish."

Turning back, he paced around behind his desk. "This situation is becoming more complex than I anticipated. Saurial was one thing, Raptaur is something else entirely. I have no idea at all what to do about Kaiju. It will require more information, and considerable thought."

"You can walk away from it. No one knows about your involvement."

"I could, yes. But, on the other hand… if we can manage to bring those animals under control, think of the possibilities."

There was a silence for a while. "Significant, I agree. But in my opinion, very risky."

"Who dares, wins. A truth even in our world."

"As you wish. I will continue trying to get someone in. Access to the BBFO office may be difficult even if I succeed, it is most likely heavily secured and defended."

"I'd expect so, but there must be a way. Find it."

"Sir." The man stood up, nodded to him, then left as he unlocked the door. Looking out the window again, he thought about his ambitions for a while, then went to find something to eat. He was in the mood for a good curry, he thought with a small smile.