"Don't stay up too late, Taylor, it's a school night," Danny commented, looking up from his book as his daughter entered the living room.
She smiled at him. "I'll be back fairly soon. We had a couple of things to finish off today, though. I'm meeting Amy and Lisa at the office at ten." Looking at his watch he nodded.
"You're better run, then, you've got ten minutes."
"Plenty of time."
"I'll be in bed when you get back, some of us aren't demon-powered and need sleep," he chuckled, as she bent down and briefly hugged him.
"I'll be quiet when I come in. Happy Birthday, Dad."
"Thanks, dear," he replied, putting his arm over hers for a moment with a small smile. "It was a very good day, thanks to you. I enjoyed it very much."
"See you in the morning." He watched as she left the room, smiled to himself, then went back to reading, picking up his mug of tea and sipping it. He might be a year older, but the way things had improved over last year made it more than worthwhile in his opinion.
Amy looked at her friends as she closed the door behind her truck, having parked it inside the building. All three of them were wearing similar satisfied smirks. Eventually, Lisa cracked up. "Oh, god, that was so funny," she cackled, leaning back in her chair. "How the hell I managed to keep from laughing I'll never know. Did you see their faces!?"
"Mom was still muttering about things man was not meant to see when I left," Amy giggled. "She seemed impressed." Tapping her chin, she thought. "Wait. Do I mean impressed? Or terrified? Something like that. And Vicky was mumbling something about coats made from pterosaur skin."
"One way or the other I don't think anyone will forget it," Taylor snickered. "What a performance. Dad thinks that we should probably be a little less effective, though, he's getting worried that the entire city will fall into a Lovecraftian nightmare of bizarre architecture and giant lizards making bad jokes."
"I thought that was the whole point?" Lisa grinned. "OK, fair enough, I can see where he's coming from. I just guess that Ianthe and Metis will have to learn human customs sooner rather than later."
"You're going with that name?" Taylor asked, looking pleased.
"Why not? It's not at all bad and I couldn't come up with anything better," Lisa replied. She pointed to the corner of the room inside the main door. "All the onions turned up today, along with the printer and some other stuff. I installed and tested it, seems to work. The rest can wait."
"OK." Taylor turned to Amy. "I think that means she wants her own scaly friend finished."
"You think she's ready for it?" Amy asked dubiously, inspecting the blonde girl. "She might need more training. We could wait until..."
"Stop it," Lisa growled. "Bioconstruct. Now. Gimme."
Smirking with enjoyment, Amy bowed deeply. "As the grumpy one commands."
"Funny, coming from you," Lisa snarked. "Panacea the grumpy healer is a thing around here, you know."
"That was old Panacea," Amy smiled as she straightened up. "New flavor Panacea is much happier. And twice as sarcastic." She posed, wrapping her tail around her legs. "And comes with accessories. Sure you don't want one?"
"Not at the moment," Lisa laughed. "We'll see. Come on, let's get on with it! Less talk, more unnatural creature-making!" She clapped her hands loudly, jumping to her feet. All three of them headed for the workshop, eager to see how it worked out.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"How does it feel?" Amy asked, watching the large reptilian creature experimentally flexing and stretching in the middle of the main room. The Varga had just put his modified perceptual blocking spell on it as he had for the first one, at which point Lisa had eagerly dived inside.
"Fine, although a little different from Ianthe," 'Metis' replied with a thoughtful look. "I can't explain it better, though. My power seems happy, but it was a bit confused at first. Everything's settled down now."
Nodding absently, Amy walked over and put her hand on the new Family member's side, concentrating as Taylor watched with interest. "Looks good," she reported. "Everything's working to spec. Do you like the color?"
"It's wonderful," Lisa said, looking at her arm. The scales were a black so dark it practically sucked in light from the room, edged with a deep scarlet that at the right angle made her body almost look that color all over. As she moved, it caused ripples of red to run across her in a very eye-catching manner. Blinking glowing green eyes, she smiled. "I love it. Thank you so much."
"You're welcome." Amy looked very pleased with the end result as well, nearly as pleased as Lisa was. "We'll have to do some proper depth tests now, in case anything needs tweaking. Before that, let's check all the built in systems. Dart launchers are the same as Ianthe, of course, as is the healing ability more or less. I fiddled with that slightly, hopefully it will interface to your power even more efficiently now. I suspect that with some practice you can learn to understand the data from the healing tendrils nearly as well as I can."
"Cool." Lisa held up a hand and extruded the tendrils, which wiggled around a little, then retracted. "Weird looking, but still cool."
"Same organic matrix extruders as well in the hands, and the new thagomizer extruder on the tail. It looks good, give it a try."
Turning her neck around, Lisa looked down her back at the end of her tail, both her friends watching. After a few seconds of poking around to find the mental controls, she smiled when four heavy and extremely sharp blades sprouted sideways nearly eighteen inches from the end of her appendage, taking a slight upwards angle to clear the floor. "Neat," she giggled, waving her tail around a little. "It changes the balance quite a bit, though. I'll need to practice with it."
"It's not too hard," Taylor put in, looking approving. "But let's wait until I've got you both up to speed on on the Family style."
"Fine by me," Lisa replied as she reabsorbed the spikes, turning back to Amy.
The Dallon girl nodded in satisfaction. "Good. All that seems to be working fine. The electrical organs are the big change." Taylor and Lisa both watched as she touched the large reptilian form again for a moment. "OK, I've activated it. Can you feel this here?"
Lisa concentrated, then slowly nodded. "I think so."
"And this?"
"Yes."
"All right, the first one sets the voltage, the second one the current. This one is duration. Last is this, which fires it. You can give a short shock, or basically hold it down until you run out of juice. If you tweak it like this, you get the capacitor-boosted burst, which won't last more than… maybe half a second? But it'll be about fifty times the current." Amy stepped back, grinning.
"You could probably spot-weld with it. The default setting are a non-lethal, disabling shock, about as much energy as a taser shot. You can also route the charge either to your fingers and thumb with either polarity, or to both hands. That lets you zap someone with only one hand or both. It'll hurt like fuck, though, even at those levels, so be careful. Someone with a cardiac issue might shut down, you'll need to monitor them if you use it and fix any damage."
"OK." Their friend looked a little worried now. "I don't want to really hurt anyone unless I have to."
"I know, that's why I set it so low. Don't worry, the risks are pretty minimal. Less than hitting them in the head." Amy smiled. "Try it."
"On who?"
"Me," Taylor said, coming over. "You can't actually damage me with it, but I can tell if it's working."
"Of course electricity doesn't hurt you," Lisa sighed, shaking her massive head. "Demons. OK, hold still." She reached out and put her hands on Taylor's exposed forearms for a moment. There was a faint pop sound.
"Ow. Arrgh. Woe is me, the sheer power of the huge lizard's unholy electrical attack has completely disabled me," Taylor stated in a calm voice, not moving a muscle. Lisa glared at her, while Amy giggled.
"Idiot. Can I try higher levels?"
"Go for it."
The pops got steadily louder and more threatening, until Lisa stepped back. "That seems to work."
"The last few would definitely have killed a normal person on the spot," Taylor reported. "I nearly felt it."
"Now you're just showing off," the large reptile grumbled. Holding her hands about an inch apart, she grinned toothily when a shower of vicious sparks crackled loudly between them, lighting her face from beneath in violet and red light. "I can do that too," she chuckled.
"It sure looks impressive," Amy noted with approval.
"Hey, the organic resin is mostly carbon and metals, right?" Lisa asked, looking thoughtful. Amy nodded. "How electrically conductive is it?"
"I… don't know," the healer replied after a moment. "I didn't think of that at the time. Probably pretty good."
Forming a baton in each hand, the dark gray-black material growing out to about two feet long, Lisa tapped the ends together, then grinned evilly when there was a loud bang and a shower of brilliant sparks. "Look at that," she laughed. "Pretty good is an understatement." Holding them together she watched as they sparked and crackled with a sound like an arc welder. "They're warming up, but not much. My power says the stuff is about as conductive as iron. Not bad."
"Huh. That's an interesting use of it," Amy smiled. "Great idea. High voltage and low current would work pretty well even if you don't complete the circuit, I think. Especially if they're grounded."
"We really need to learn the Family style and add this to it," Lisa said with satisfaction, reabsorbing the batons.
"Let's go and do some quick underwater tests just to check you're a fully functional Family member," Taylor suggested, feeling very pleased about the last couple of hours work. "Then we can have an hour's training to get you two started on the basics. Tomorrow we can do more. And start language lessons." She checked her phone screen. "It's only just after midnight, I want to be home by about three-thirty or so. Should be enough time." Taking on her Raptaur form, she looked at Amy, who smiled and went into her workroom. A few minutes later, three large reptilian forms dived into the water of the bay.
Swimming along the bottom, glowing a ghostly green color in spots and lines down her sides, Lisa grinned widely. This was even better than being Ianthe, because it was hers alone. The feel of the bioconstruct was definitely different in some slightly ill-defined manner, she'd noticed that immediately. Her power had basically blinked a bit, looked around with great interest, then grinned like a lunatic. Laughing to herself, she wondered what the others would say if they knew she was anthropomorphizing it like that.
The longer tail took a few minutes to get used to, as did the somewhat different balance. Amy had changed the bone structure a fair bit although in subtle ways, this body seemed more flexible and if anything stronger than the Ianthe one. It was definitely a little faster in the water, although nowhere close to what Taylor could manage. On the other hand, the girl had the unfair advantage of not only being ridiculously stronger, but able to dynamically adjust her form for maximum efficiency.
Looking forward to summer and going for a good long swim south to some interesting tropical waters, Lisa was still more than satisfied. The thought that, if she wanted to or ever needed to, she could simply stay like this was interesting as well. Amy said there was no downside and she believed her new friend utterly in such matters. Not that she had any plans for remaining 'Metis' indefinitely, but it did give her an interesting escape route if her past ever came back to haunt her. She certainly never wanted to see her parents again, not after the way they'd treated her. Until she was eighteen and legally able to tell them to fuck off, though, there was the tiniest risk that something could happen.
Lisa had no intention whatsoever of going back to being Sarah Livsey ever again. Or of putting her friends, old and new, or the DWU who had been so good to her, at risk. So if anything like that ever happened, Lisa Wilbourn could simply vanish untraceably for as long as was needed.
Chasing after Taylor and Amy who had gone on ahead as she slowed to idly investigate an old car that had somehow ended up miles from shore and half-buried in sediment, she felt that life was pretty good all things considered. Even if parts of it were a little peculiar at times.
Missy scrolled slowly through the PHO threads, looking for something interesting to read. She couldn't sleep, or as one of the weirder posters she sometimes followed put it, 'had failed to initiate the sleep thing,' a phrase that still made her giggle. It described her problem pretty well, though. Lying in her bed with the lights out, she had the tablet lying beside her, but was reading it via liberal use of her abilities which had made the space around her very strange.
With one hand behind her head and the other one resting on the covers, she flicked the web page with a finger, watching it scroll some more. There were lots of postings about Parahuman activity in the Bay, herself and her friends featuring in many of them as was often the case. Reading one which had Dennis making silly jokes about himself she smiled. He really didn't see the serious side of anything, or if he did, let it bother him. It was both annoying and a bit impressive.
Continuing to read, she paused on one thread about herself, something she found just a tiny bit creepy, mainly due to one or two people who insisted on asking really inappropriate questions. They had to know she was way underage, for god's sake. Reading one post she blushed. Some people on the internet were just assholes, she concluded once again. No matter what you told them they kept pushing for more.
Skipping past that particular post, she read one by Void Cowboy, who for once was actually taking the moral high ground, something that astounded her and by the looks of it most of PHO as well. He even had a good point. Of course, he ruined it only a dozen or so posts later by saying something that got the mods down on him yet again, but she was slightly grateful even so. He was a dick, true enough, but he probably didn't actually mean to be, unlike some people.
Going back to the Brockton Bay local affairs top level section, she spotted a new thread which was linked to 'Family affairs and sightings', so tapped it. She found the lizards who had appeared out of nowhere endlessly fascinating. Saurial had struck her as a nice if scary girl right from the beginning and they'd intermittently emailed each other since she'd given the cape her card that first time they met. Whenever they met on patrol she was invariably friendly and funny, easily able to match anything Dennis could come up with.
The thread seemed to be talking about a party in a restaurant down town, one she'd heard of but never been in. Going back to the beginning, she found out it was apparently that DWU guy Mr Hebert's birthday party. Somewhat confused what the relevance was, she read the postings and looked at the photos, quickly noticing that most of New Wave seemed to be there along with a lot of other people she didn't recognize. There was an absolutely enormous black guy who looked nearly as large as Manpower, several boys and girls that were probably around sixteen or so, and the Hebert man himself next to a tall brunette girl who she worked out was his daughter. She looked a lot like him, in fact. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun and she was momentarily a little jealous of the family dynamic, so unlike her own.
Still not sure how this was relevant to the Family, she finally found the correct image set. The new one Ianthe was shown handing Mr Hebert a metallic box, presumably a present. She spent a moment admiring the colors of the giant lizard's scales, they were very pretty in her opinion.
A few photos further on, she stopped and stared in total disbelief. "Oh my god," she muttered faintly. "What… how does it do that?"
The weird little… thing… that was now sitting on the table next to the box it appeared to have come out of was… indescribable. At least in words. Even as a photo, it was disturbing, or fascinating, or something of a mix between the two. Her power sat up and paid rapt attention, the inner sense of how space and distance related to each other that she could never describe to anyone else somehow giving the impression of gaping in awe.
Picking the tablet up she held it at arm's length, tilting and rotating it, trying to get a good look at the peculiar object. It gave the oddest impression of being in motion even as a still image, something she'd almost have sworn was impossible. The nearest thing she could relate it to was one of the stranger optical illusions that she'd come across, the ones that appeared to show rotating patterns even when printed out. But much, much worse. Those were two dimensional, this… wasn't. It was nothing like that simple.
Rotating the tablet she blinked as the image did impossible things, then slowly smiled. It was almost beautiful, and it was giving her so many ideas…
She really needed to talk to Ianthe, she decided.
Going back to the thread, she read the increasingly odd posts with great amusement, commenting in a few places. Apparently most people didn't find the odd effect the whatchamacallit had on their eyes anything other than extremely disturbing. A number of posters were complaining about hearing strange sounds in the background when they looked at the images, and the video had apparently been much worse. Quickly locating it, she watched it several times, giggling to herself.
When she'd finished the thread, she turned the tablet off and rolled over, finding now that she had no trouble at all initiating the sleep thing.
Her dreams were full of shapes she could never properly describe.
Taylor watched with approval as her two students faced each other. Amy pounced, Lisa ducking, then grabbing her with both hands, flipping her end over end. The other girl landed on both legs and one hand, her tail out behind her, making Taylor clap. "Nice superhero pose," she giggled.
"It seemed appropriate," her friend grinned. "Good throw, Lisa."
"Thank you," the blonde replied grandly, bowing a little. "Much appreciated."
"It's interesting how much of the training seems to have stuck in your human forms," Taylor noted, walking over to them. "You were certainly learning a hell of a lot quicker in the bioconstructs than any normal person could, so I guess your neural amplifiers work pretty well. But I didn't expect so much to transfer this quickly."
"I'm slightly surprised at how fast it works as well," Amy replied as she stood up. "I can tell that there are gaps, but I feel like I've got about three or four weeks of hard training under my belt rather than an hour and a half or so. Mind you, you worked us damn hard, it must have looked insane to normal people."
"None of those around here," Taylor shrugged.
"All too true."
"I think that if we could put in a solid six to eight hours or so, I could probably get you both to a pretty reasonable level in hand to hand combat, and get the basics of sword and baton work in as well. You'll still need to practice a lot, but at this rate with a couple of weeks of lessons you're be up to what Princess Luna would have considered competent journeyman level in the style."
"How long to learn everything you know of it?" Lisa asked with interest, sitting down at the table.
"I'm not sure, I'm still learning new techniques myself," Taylor admitted. "I guess probably six months would get you to around the point I was around three or four weeks after Varga arrived. You might have an advantage, Lisa, your ability definitely seems to let you see how the move is meant to work, but Amy's very quick as well."
"OK. I can live with that."
"We should practice knife throwing as well," Amy said thoughtfully. "Considering we can make the things, we should know how to use them properly."
"Yes, that's easy enough. I also need to do more work on the tailless version of the style and get you to practice that. That's why I haven't showed you most of the tail moves yet, or you'll end up trying to use them in your normal forms. Amy could actually do it, which would possibly look even weirder than Lisa trying it and not making it because she's a poor deformed freak with no tail."
The blonde girl made a face at her, which made both Taylor and Amy giggle.
"Just because I'm a minority you think you can pick on me," she grumbled good-naturedly.
"That's the way it works, haven't you noticed?" Amy snickered. Lisa shrugged, smiling a little.
"I think I'll talk to Dad about starting some formal classes in combat for anyone who wants to learn," Taylor mused, propping her chin on her hands. "I can teach the modified family style, and some forms of weapons use that are suitable. Zephron might be willing to teach Karate, and Mark knows a lot about baton use and firearms. I'm completely sure there are other people around here who know all sorts of useful skills like that as well. Like Brian. I'd like to learn as many of them as I can and add them to the style if possible."
"Building an army, are we?" Amy asked with a look of amusement.
Taylor shook her head slowly. "No, I just think it's a good idea to know how to take care of yourself, and other people who don't know. Considering where we live, and all the things that are changing around here… We have to assume that sooner or later something bad will happen. Look at Hookwolf and his guys. That would have been really bad if I hadn't got Dad's call. Our guys were more than a match for his idiots, but he was way past anything they could deal with." She shivered a little. "We can't be everywhere. There are only three of us, I don't know if there will be any more, but if there are it probably won't happen quickly. The Family only takes people it trusts completely. How many of those are there?"
Both girls thought, then nodded. "Not to mention, if we do add other people, we have to be careful. If some Parahuman vanishes and a new Family member with similar powers turns up out of the blue, sooner or later someone will put it together, even with the cloaking spell," Lisa suggested, frowning a little. "No one really knows my abilities other than the Undersiders, who won't say anything even if they work it out, and a few people here like your dad. Who also won't say. The healing abilities that both Metis and Ianthe have should confuse the issue with Amy like crazy, not to mention the fact that both she and Ianthe have been seen in the same place lots of times now."
Both the others nodded.
"But if we gave your sister one of those," she added, waving at the two bioconstructs, which were dormant on the other side of the room next to each other, "It would be kind of obvious. Her aura alone would blow the game immediately unless you could figure out how to turn it off."
"If I could do that I'd have done it ages ago," Amy sighed. "Although I have to admit in the last few weeks she's managed to bring it under control way better than I'd have ever believed. I can't think of the last time she accidentally made someone terrified or practically fall in love with her. It's a good change, Mom was very pleased about it. I think Vicky is as well."
"But the point is, she's got a very obvious power set," Lisa said. "The glow when she flies, the aura, the flying itself… I don't think we could fool anyone. You and I are one thing, someone like her is totally different. Same goes for Brian, his smoke is way too characteristic. I don't think Rachel would be interested, unless you made her a canine bioconstruct, which breaks the theme horribly. Alec… He might actually go for it, to be honest. He'd probably think it was hilarious." She smiled as her friends laughed. "His sense of humor would fit right in."
"Are you going to tell your friends about any of this?" Taylor asked curiously.
Lisa inspected her. "Would you let me?"
"If you thought you could trust them, yes," she shrugged. "Because I trust you. Obviously I don't really want the truth about me coming out, and I guess Amy is the same." The healer nodded vigorously, looking troubled.
"Which makes it almost impossible to properly explain anyway," Lisa sighed, dropping her head back over the rear of the chair with her hair dangling down the back as she stared at the ceiling. "I can't think of a good way to tell them about Metis that avoids everything else."
"Neither can I," Taylor said honestly. "But if you do, I have no real objections, I guess."
Eventually, Lisa shook her head. "No, not for now. Maybe never. This is between us. And your father. And Über and Leet." She frowned. "Fuck. Not much of a secret with all those people knowing," she muttered, making Amy look at Taylor with a grin.
"Don't forget there's also a non-zero chance that several people here have worked out the truth, or some of it, about me," Taylor put in. "Like Zephron, and maybe Mark. If they have, sooner or later they might come to some not entirely wrong conclusions about you two."
"Oh, god. Conspiracies are so much work," the blonde sighed. "Why can't we just have fun making people go 'Um, WTF?'"
All three of them shook their heads sadly, reflecting on the appalling state of the world when a half-demon, a Bio-whatever, and a high level formerly criminal Thinker couldn't just enjoy themselves without consequences. It was very annoying.
"Well, I'm too tired now to think anymore about anything much," Amy finally declared, standing up. "I'm going home. I'll see you in school tomorrow, Taylor."
"OK. I'd better get back as well. I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow on the tanker as well, now it's pumped out and they're starting the decontamination. You guys can help if you want."
"I'm up for that," Lisa smiled. "It could be fun." Amy nodded as well.
The pair activated the two bioconstructs, which looked at their users, then each other, touching noses like friendly cats, before obediently being guided back into storage. Once they were safely shut down, Amy locked the workroom, then picked her coat off the table and shrugged it on. "Later, Lisa. It was fun, dinner and afterwards. I'll see you tomorrow. I have that idiotic detention after school, but I'll come over after that."
"Poor The Amy," Lisa commiserated. Taylor snickered, very amused, as the healer looked narrowly at both of them.
"Some friends," she said with a sniff, turning on her heel and stomping towards the door. She was giggling before she'd gone half-way. As soon as the roller door was open, she hopped in her truck and backed it out into the yard.
Switching to Raptaur, Taylor waited for Lisa to follow the healer out, then turned the lights off and locked up, soon running home under cloak, feeling that the day had been well spent one way or another.
Checking the final connection, Colin nodded with satisfaction. "Everything checks out. The preliminary tests are ready to go. I'll prepare the shielded enclosure."
"OK," Dragon replied, beginning to close up the second wormhole generator, locking panels into place with a power screwdriver. It was their entirely new set of electronics attached to the first complete set of mechanical parts that Raptaur had made based on Leet's original, having none of his equipment inside. If this worked, it was proof the design could be fully duplicated. She was fairly certain it would work as intended, having a good feeling about the entire design, although she still didn't fully understand it.
Half an hour later the finished machine, still mildly radioactive from the initial run at the BBFO workshop, was sitting in a heavily shielded cabinet at the far side of the room. Without any EDM in the way they knew it would easily project the far end of the wormhole outside the Rig, having intended to put it far enough away so as to not present a radiation hazard to anyone outside, but still inside the force-field. Neither one was sure what would happen if they tried to make it go past that point at the moment.
Looking up from the computer which was connected to the device, onto which she had copied her version of Leet's control code, Dragon turned to her friend. Colin was sitting at another machine that was monitoring the entire test with dozens of sensors.
"I'm ready," she announced.
"So am I. All right, initiate the power sequence."
Tapping a key, she nodded. "Done."
"It's drawing the correct amount of power. Good." He checked the results again and smiled slightly. They proceeded through a careful set of start up tests, eventually getting the by-now familiar screech of the successfully produced singularity spinning up to operating speed, the sound making the entire room vibrate for a couple of seconds.
"Wormhole initiated… and successfully opened two hundred yards north-east." If Dragon could have smiled she would have been producing a huge one. As it was, her satisfaction subroutine was definitely being utilized to the fullest. "Fantastic. It works perfectly. The readings are identical to the other one."
"Excellent," Colin replied with a definite smile of pleasure. "I'm a little surprised at how easily that went together, but extremely pleased about it. We'll need to run more tests and stress-test this unit, but that can wait until morning."
She nodded, he sounded and looked tired, even with the stimulants that in her private opinion he made too heavy a use of. It was nearly half past four in the morning now and she knew he'd been going for over twenty-four hours. "Get some sleep, Colin. We can pick this up again in a few hours. Even this is enough to let us deploy it."
"Agreed." He yawned widely. "As much as it annoys me, I still have human requirements. Some sleep would be a good idea."
Smiling on the inside, she shut the generator down, the deep hum from it stopping abruptly. "We can modify the first one for the weapon in an hour or so, then deliver it to Raptaur. It's probably best if it's stored in the BBFO office, that way it's not only secure, but the Family has immediate access to it if we need to deploy in a hurry."
He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Also a good idea, I think. We'll need to work out where and how to use the other one as a transport mechanism for Kaiju, though."
"There are dozens of old warehouses in the Docks that have been abandoned for years," she pointed out. "Some of them are huge. Maybe we can find one that would do as a staging point. If the Family can line it with a thin EDM layer, like the BBFO building, we can install it there. That would shield the radiation and also keep it safe."
"Yes… That sounds like a very plausible plan. We should discuss it with them, but at the moment I can't think of any better idea." He yawned again. "Apologies, I really am very tired."
"Go to bed, Colin," she chuckled. "I'll see you again in the morning." Standing, she put her hand affectionately on his shoulder for a moment, which he didn't seem to mind, then left his workshop, hearing him start to shut everything down.
Feeling pleased with the day's work, she headed for the rooms she was assigned, already connecting back to her facility in Vancouver to begin production of spare parts for the wormhole generators. She could see a need for more than two of the things.
Not to mention that she was going to have to talk to Leet and Raptaur again about another contract for the device. Even with the radiation problem there were some significant commercial prospects for it and she could see a number of ways around that issue already.