Driving down the side of the DWU complex, Amy looked over to the left side at where she could see Taylor as Raptaur, and Lisa in her Metis body, along with a number of DWU personnel, talking in a cluster near the fence. Checking that there was no one behind her she indicated and turned the wheel, heading over in her truck. Pulling up near them she hopped out and wandered over to see what was going on.
"Hi, Amy," Taylor said, glancing at her.
"What's up?" she asked, smiling at her friends.
"New security system. We're just working out where to install it." Waving a large scaled hand at the fence, Taylor added, "That thing isn't enough. I came up with something that should do the trick nicely, but still allow for us to remove the fence to get vehicles through when needed. It started out as a variant on a commercial security barrier but I… sort of improved it."
"She means she tore the universe a new one and pushed the barrier inside it," 'Metis' chuckled. "It's pretty impressive. And extremely lethal if anyone is fool enough to try climbing over it."
"They might make it. Bits of them, anyway," Taylor grinned, showing teeth. Amy winced a little, wondering what the hell they'd come up with when she wasn't there to supervise.
"I may have got a little carried away," her large friend admitted happily. "I was originally going to bolt it to the ground, but I thought of a better idea. The guys have just been deciding on the best location for it."
"Considering how dangerous it could be, it's probably best to run it along inside the existing fence, then add another one on this side of it," Mark, who had been listening with interest, said. "That way we can keep people from getting accidentally involved in something nasty."
"Yep, I can do that," Taylor nodded. "We can make a load more of the chain link material and a lot of poles. We'll install the security barrier, then make the holes for the poles, you guys can do the inner fence. Is that OK?" She looked around at the crew of workers, who all nodded.
"Sure, Raptaur, no problem," one of the men said with a laugh. "Leave some work for us to do."
"Happily," she grinned. "OK. Mark out the positions for the deployment towers, while I make enough chain link for the entire place. I've been meaning to make some more for stock anyway, we were getting low the last time I looked."
"A dozen extra rolls would be ideal," another worker, Amy thought his name was Aaron, put in. Taylor glanced at him and nodded.
"OK."
She moved to a position fifty feet away and got to work, rolls of shiny metal chain-link appearing under her hands. Amy watched as the crew started measuring out a line two feet inside the existing fence using some sort of aerosol system on a wheeled pole which left bright yellow paint behind, every two hundred feet marking an X. Another group was following them doing the same thing two feet further inside the first line and making more frequent Xs.
"I'm heading over to the office, then," she said.
"Sure. See you later, Amy," 'Metis' smiled. "If you see Ianthe tell her to come and help, will you? She's around somewhere."
Grinning at the request, the Dallon girl nodded, getting back into her truck, waving at Zephron who had been watching them with a small smirk of his own. He waved back, then turned to help the workers. Wondering how much the enormous man knew or suspected, she started the vehicle and drove off to the office, parking inside when she got there. Twenty minutes or so later, she climbed out of the bay in a different spot, shook the water off, and jogged back to the others.
By now the entire zone had been marked out for both the security fence, whatever it was going to be, and the inner chain-link one, a couple of feet further in. Joining the group, she greeted them.
"Amy said you guys were up to something interesting," she said.
"Yep. Glad you turned up." Taylor smirked at her, both of them suppressing a laugh. "Let's see how this works."
"What's the plan?"
"The original idea was to make the system and attach it with really serious EDM ground anchors, but I came up with a better idea. Let's see if it works the way I hope it will." Taylor went to one of the marked Xs and leaned over it, the composite material that covered the entire yard flowing out of the way to leave a two-foot-square gap. Holding out her hand she made a pole of the familiar material and jammed it firmly into the ground, then held on.
Everyone felt a steady rumble from under their feet, along with a loud crunching sound. The entire area vibrated noticeably.
"What the hell are you doing?" Zephron asked, his eyebrows going up.
"Making damn sure this won't get knocked over," Taylor replied. "I'm growing it straight down in a spike into the rock under us, and also branching it out in a series of disks about six feet across every ten feet. To pull it out you'd need to dig a fucking huge hole. Or get my sister irritated. It certainly won't be threatened by anyone driving into it."
"Impressive," he muttered, watching.
After a few more seconds, the sounds stopped. She looked satisfied. "That should be well into bedrock. OK, now to add the useful bits." The pole extended upwards to about twenty feet, then expanded out into a rectangular column two feet wide by about six inches thick, the top three feet tilting out at a twenty-degree angle. When she'd finished with it, the ground covering grew back to fuse to the bottom of the pole seamlessly. Walking around it, she nodded, before putting her hand on it and concentrating for a minute or so. "First one done. Let's get the second one in, then we can test this section."
The process was repeated two hundred feet further on down the paint line. Only a few minutes later the second pole was installed. Everyone in the yard was watching with interest by this point, the rumbling and vibration having attracted quite a few observers from the various workshops.
Taylor walked along the line between the two poles, the ground cover separating to leave an inch-wide slot that ran dead straight from one to the other. Looking along it when she reached the other pole, she nodded, appearing pleased.
"That's good. OK, everyone stand back out of the way. DO NOT stand between the poles."
She stepped back and looked around, everyone in the area moving rapidly back to a safe distance. When she was sure there was no one in the danger area, she reached out and touched the one she was standing next to.
The clacking sound that followed was quite loud, sharp metallic snaps coming one after the other in rapid sequence. In under half a second a barrier as tall as the poles appeared from the one she was touching and grew in jumps of about ten feet towards the second one, stopping when it merged with it. The suddenness of the entire thing was shocking. It looked like stop-motion animation in real life, surprising even Amy. Lisa was the only one other than Taylor who seemed to expect it.
Each ten foot section of barrier had a two foot square, brilliant yellow warning sign in the center of it, about four feet up, the black icon showing a stylized human figure split down the center-line, one half tipping over, with under it a helpful warning legend.
FamTech™ ImpregnaBarrier
DANGER!
Subatomic Edge
Do Not Climb or Obstruct Deployment
Extreme Hazard of Gruesome Death
Designed and installed by BBFO, LLC for the DWU, Brockton Bay
"Fuck me!" Mark yelped, taking another step back unconsciously. "How the fuck…?"
"Fractal dimensional storage in the poles," Taylor explained. "The panels are about ten thousandths of an inch thick, with the top and leading edges subatomically sharp. It will cut anything, except EDM itself. Even at that thickness, it would take a small nuke to even begin to damage it. A depleted uranium tank penetrator would just bounce. I doubt you'd feel it on this side aside from the heat from the kinetic energy. They also go down into the bedrock the same distance as they're tall. I'll close the slot up to touch them, they extrude with enough force to cut through anything that gets in the way, which is why we need the inside fence."
"You said it was dangerous, but..." He looked shocked. "That's horrific."
"It wouldn't be a good idea to be standing right there," she agreed with a happily bloodthirsty grin. "In anything. Even a tank would get sliced in half. The interlocks will prevent any of our people being harmed, I'll program it with their unique biosignatures over the next few days as people come in. We need to link the control system into the admin building, Danny's office, the security office, and alarm points around the site, but that's easy enough."
Holding out her hand she produced a steel grappling hook with three prongs and a coil of rope, which she handed to the security chief. "Here, try it."
Taking it from her, he examined it, then looked up at the barrier with an evaluating eye. Letting out a yard or so of rope he spun the hook expertly, making Amy think he'd done it before, probably quite a few times, then tossed it upwards. The hook arced through the air to land neatly atop the wall, one prong going over the edge. As it came down it didn't even slow, the prong that went over simply separating from the rest like it was made of air. The remains slid down the angled section and dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Everyone in the area stared at it, then the wall, then Taylor, who was looking pleased.
"Jesus," Zephron muttered. "If someone tries to climb that..."
"They leave fingers, hands, arms, whatever, on the other side." Lisa nodded. "On the plus side, the blood will just run off."
"Oh, that makes it so much better," he said with a slightly disgusted expression.
Walking over to the barrier, Mark knocked it with his knuckles, then felt it. "No one is even going to go up that with suction cups," he said. "It's way too slick to let them work."
"It's also full of tiny little holes," Taylor replied. "I thought of that. They're almost invisible, but they'll let air through, so even a really good suction cup wouldn't stick. No glue will either, or magnets, or welding, or anything else I could think of. I can't guarantee that some clever Tinker couldn't work out a way to stick to it, but they'd have to think about it a lot. Going over the top would be incredibly dangerous, no one is going to come through it, and going under would be even more difficult. It's not really totally impregnable of course, but it's mainly intended to stop Merchants or other gangers simply ramming their way through."
"If they try, well..." Lisa shrugged. "We'll find the wreckage on the other side. And we'll need to replace the chain link again."
"Extremely impressive, ladies," Mark whistled appreciatively. "I can think of half a dozen of my old employers who'd bite your arm off to have something like this. There are a number of pretty serious military installations that aren't nearly as hard to get into. Speaking from personal experience that I can't say anything more about, you understand."
"We may want a list of these people at some point, Mark," Lisa smiled. "BBFO might be interesting in selling security installations."
"I'll put out a few feelers," he replied. "OK, I guess we do the rest, then install the inner fence."
"Yep. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to finish this," Taylor said with an air of pleasure. "Then it's off to do other things."
She turned back to the barrier, heading down the length of it to the second pole, Lisa and Amy following, while behind her the construction crew started laying out the poles and chain link material.
Danny slowed as he neared the gate, looking both ways down the fence, which seemed to now be two fences, one four feet inside the other. The inner one was shiny and new, and certainly hadn't been there the day before. Between them were tall gray towers at intervals. "She's been busy," he muttered to himself, moving the car forward to the barrier, which Mike was already raising.
"Impressive new security system those lizards installed, Danny," the guard greeted him, looking pleased. "They're nearly finished with the wiring, I heard, and the inner fence is mostly done."
"It's not quite what I expected," he said, looking towards where he could see a group of workers installing another section of chain-link in the distance.
"It's better," Mike grinned. "Than anything else I've ever seen. No way those idiot Merchants are getting through it."
Inspecting the towers which ringed the main entrance, Danny could see that they formed a square around the area of the guard hut and the barrier. "What's this part supposed to do?"
"It gives us an inner and outer gate when the barrier is deployed," Mike explained. "Like an airlock. We can open them independently to pass people through. There's enough room in the zone for a decent sized truck so it won't cause us any trouble to normal operations."
"OK." Danny nodded, looking around again. "Not bad. I think I need to go and see Raptaur. This is… somewhat surprising."
"Wait until you see it working," Mike snickered. "You think you've seen it all then you run across some new lizard toy and you realize you've barely seen anything."
"Tell me about it," Danny sighed. Grinning, the man waved him through, then went back to his companion.
Parking his car, Danny got out and started walking over to where his daughter, her currently-reptilian friends, and several DWU workers were gathered around a table on which he could see some large printouts flapping in the light breeze. Several members of the electrical department were among them, taking notes.
"Hi, Danny," Lisa said to him, her sharp teeth glinting in a friendly smile. "What do you think?"
He looked at the fence. "I think I don't quite get it. This isn't anything like the commercial stuff we were talking about."
"Oh, that was far too fiddly to deal with," Taylor snorted, waving her hands dismissively. "We came up with something way better."
"We'll have the wiring done in five minutes, Raptaur," one of the electricians commented, looking up from the plans. "They're just fitting the last alarm klaxon now, and the final activation switch."
"The inner fence is about eighty percent complete," someone else reported, holding up a radio. "It'll need another forty minutes."
"OK. We'll test it when the wiring is done. Tell everyone to stop work on the inner fence for the moment, and all crew foremen to check their zone is clear." Taylor sounded excited as she gave clear orders to several people, all of whom nodded and performed the desired action with alacrity and respect. Danny watched and listened with a sense of amused pride, his daughter was definitely in her element when she was making things. Everyone around her seemed to enjoy the entire thing as well, obviously feeling she was handling it well.
He caught Amy's glowing green eye, the expression in it also showing amusement, as she listened quietly from the sidelines. He smiled at her, getting one back.
Shortly they had radio confirmation that all the wiring was finished and everyone was clear. Taylor asked for a double check, got the same result, then waved to Zephron, who was standing beside the admin building two hundred yards away, his hand on a bright orange box that was also brand new. He waved back, opened the box, and hit a switch inside it.
Loud alarms went off around the site, echoes bouncing off the surrounding buildings, the sound distinctive and entirely unlike any of the normal fire or emergency alert noises.
The alarms went for about fifteen seconds, then stopped. Immediately there was a metallic clatter that came and went in under a second from all around the entire site.
Danny gaped at the twenty-foot gray barrier that had sprouted sideways out of the poles between the inner and outer fences almost too fast to see, forming a seamless wall around the whole DWU complex, even across the waterfront. He turned on the spot, looking around in amazement. "Holy shit," he mumbled. "That's… very impressive indeed."
Reading one of the warning signs, he smiled a little. "FamTech™?" he asked, glancing at Lisa.
"Put the paperwork in for the trademark a week ago," she grinned. "And a few other useful or amusing ones. If we're going to sell Family technology, we need a brand."
"Fair enough."
Taylor, who was grinning happily, explained the entire system to him, at the end of which she waved to Zephron again. He did something inside the box and closed it. The fence rattled away into the poles just as fast as it had deployed, like something out of a particularly good CGI scene. Giving the all clear over the radio, she put the handset back into her harness and turned to him as the various workers resumed installing the interior fence. "So? What do you think?"
"I think that you're the type of person who, when asked for a better mousetrap, designs one that then requires a better mouse as well, which you also design," he chuckled, making her grin. "This is slightly over the top."
"It's so far over the top we need a different word for it," Mark, who had approached them from another group of workers, said. "But it's also extremely good work. It should do unless Skidmark has air support. None of Squealers little creations are going to stand a chance against that barrier."
"Hopefully we won't put that to the test," Danny replied with a quick glance at Lisa, who shrugged minutely.
"Hopefully. But you can never tell with that bunch of lunatics." The security chief sighed a little. "On a less irritating note, I'm expecting a delivery later today with some interesting toys in. There may be more coming, some free gifts were thrown in by my contact. He thought they might be helpful, but wasn't sure when they'd arrive."
"What sort of things?"
"Stun grenades, smoke grenades, some beanbag guns, mostly stuff like that. Plus two dozen mil-spec thermal sights that we don't have, never heard of, and definitely don't have the manuals and other documentation on. And we have no idea where they came from."
Danny raised his eyebrows, while Lisa snickered. "I see. I'm shocked. Although, knowing the contact in question, and you, perhaps not as much as I should be. Make sure they get locked up safely."
"Raptaur is going to convert shed Six-A into an armory in a minute," Mark smiled. "The stuff will be safe."
"Good." Danny looked around at the ongoing work. "Annoying that we have to go to these lengths, but better this and a little quiet bending of the rules than being surprised and attacked by rampaging drug addicts. Hookwolf and his fuckwits was one time too many."
"At least that guy was prepared to listen when I insisted he stayed away," Taylor frowned. "He's an idiot but he's not a fool. From what I hear that's a massive improvement on Skidmark."
"He's gotten worse over the years, he's taken so much shit it fried what little brains he started with," the blond man noted. "And he was always a few sticks short of a bundle. We can't really predict what the man is likely to do aside from something stupid when it would be least appreciated. Unless someone is good enough to shoot him in the head for us, which is always a possibility I suppose, sooner or later he's probably going to try something."
"That fits with my information," Lisa grumbled. "Annoyingly. Everything I've heard points to that. He's not being particularly subtle, apparently quite a few people have heard what he's up to."
"Skidmark doesn't do subtle," Mark agreed. "He probably can't even spell it." He shrugged. "Nothing we can do but wait." Looking around, he turned to Danny. "I'll get back to my office and work out a good plan for training with the new gear, and a new patrol schedule."
"OK, Mark. See you later."
"Bye, girls," the man called as he walked off, waving to Taylor and her friends, who waved back.
When it was just the four of them in a group, Danny looked around the site again, then gazed at his daughter. "You really don't know the meaning of overkill, do you?"
"No such thing," she smirked, while Amy and Lisa sighed and grinned respectively. "I'm pretty happy with the end result. Everyone's put in a morning of very hard work."
"It's an impressive amount of change for about five hours, even considering your abilities," he said. "All right. You'd better do that shed upgrade so we have somewhere to put all Mark's new stuff we don't actually have. Make keys for the security office, me, and some spares for you lot."
"All right. Then it's time for fun."
"Don't try to hide it, this was fun for you," Amy laughed.
Taylor nodded, an amused expression crossing her scaly face. "Sure it was. But this was fun I had to do. The next bit is fun I want to do. There's a difference."
"Why do I have the horrible feeling that this is going to be in the papers tomorrow?" Danny sighed.
"Experience and a keen sense of impending doom?" Lisa suggested helpfully.
He looked hard at her, shook his head when she merely smiled, and headed off in search of a cup of coffee. He had work to do and people to coordinate.
Hanging the spare keys up in the key box, Lisa turned to Taylor, who was back in her base form, studying a book and making notes, whistling under her breath. "OK. All the important things are done. Spill. What's got you so excited?"
"Excited, dear cousin?" Taylor asked without looking up, although she was smiling.
{Yes, excited,} Lisa replied, using Famtalk to point out she really wanted to know. Sometimes her power's inability to read her friend was extremely annoying. Although, that said, she got the impression her power was currently staring at Taylor with bated breath, wagging its tail excitedly like a small dog looking at a stick. The comparison made her smile to herself.
{She does seem more happy than normal, and she's usually pretty happy,} Amy commented from over by the computers where she was also doing some sort of research. She turned her head to look behind her. {Tell us. You're going to do something weird, aren't you?}
Taylor changed her head into her Saurial one, as it made speaking that language much easier, and snickered. {Depends on your definition of weird, I suppose. I prefer to think of it as something I've wanted to do all my life, and especially since Varga and I merged. We've been working on a way to do it. Came up with several, but this one looks like it could be the most fun.}
{Stop beating about the bush,} Lisa sighed. {What are you going to do?}
{I'm going to fly,} Taylor grinned.
Both her friends looked at her for a long few seconds, then each other. {Um…,} Lisa began.
{Fly?} Amy asked, looking very interested. {Have you two come up with a viable flying form now?}
{Several, actually, but that's for later. We need a good reason to introduce a cousin with wings, and some of the details are still a work in progress. No, this is much easier in a way, although only for me, because of my own abilities other than the shape-shifting.}
Taylor jumped to her feet and went over to a spare computer, quickly finding a video which she played, her friends watching it curiously. {A much better version of that, with some Family modifications.}
{Wow.} Amy stared at her, then the screen. {Really?}
{Yep. Worked out the design over the last couple of weeks, I'm about ninety percent sure it'll work. Well, eighty percent.} Taylor thought for a moment. {Seventy five.}
Both the others exchanged another look. {I'm glad you're basically indestructible,} Lisa commented with a snarky look. {I think you might need it.}
{Have faith in your beloved cousin, Metis,} Taylor giggled. {The ancient Family arts are capable of miracles.}
{I know, but… Make sure you have your camera on. This could be fucking hysterical, no matter what happens.}
All three girls laughed. Then Taylor started making parts, Lisa examining them as she went and suggesting changes based on what her power was whispering to her subconscious. It was definitely having as much fun as they were.
"You sure about this?" Amy studied her friend.
Taylor, currently Saurial, nodded firmly. "I'm fine. Are you recording?"
"We both are. Make it look good, the reputation of giant lizards everywhere hangs in the balance."
"It's a little cloudy, are you sure you don't want to wait until it clears up?" Lisa asked, looking at the sky. After a clear start the day had clouded over and warmed up, rain having fallen while they were inside, but it was passing now. Even so, the clouds weren't up all that far and there were only intermittent patches of sunlight.
"No. I've been waiting for this for ages. No longer will I be restricted to mere ground level like some primitive!" Taylor announced grandly. Pointing at the sky, she grinned like an idiot. "Up and away."
Stepping back to a safe distance, Amy and Lisa looked at each other and shrugged. Their friend was insane, but then they'd always known that. Neither of them were in a position to cast stones.
"OK, then. Clear to take off when ready, you weird little cousin."
"I thank you," Taylor replied with a bow, before bending down and checking the straps that bound her clawed feet to the top of her newly created device. It was standing on four short legs that kept the pair of nozzles protruding from the underside clear of the ground.
With a last look around, she smiled happily. A number of workers were watching her, some of them with camera-phones ready, all of them looking fascinated.
"Here we go," she laughed. Straightening up, she braced herself. There was a hiss from the nozzles, which almost instantly turned into an ear-splitting high-pitched roar as water under enormous pressure came out of the two nozzles. The recoil instantly pushed the surfboard-like device into the air with enough acceleration that she was three hundred feet up in the time it took Amy to blink, shielding her eyes from the splatter of water and debris blown from the surface of the yard.
"Holy shit," Lisa gasped, shading her eyes as she followed the path their friend was taking.
"Wheeeeeeeeee!"
The fading cry of joy made them exchange a look then start laughing.
"She has absolutely no idea how to control that thing does she?" Amy asked rhetorically as she watched the flailing figure flip end over end, her tail waving around frantically as Taylor tried to correct her course.
"Nope."
"Think she'll work it out before she hits something?"
There was a distant crash.
"Nope."
The roar restarted, the tiny dot followed by a plume of mist disappearing into a gap between two buildings in the distance.
"Think everyone is going to think she's entirely nuts?"
"Yep."
Amy grinned. "I bet the PRT is going to shit a brick."
Lisa snickered. "I bet she's going to buzz the Rig when she figures out how to fly that crazy invention."
They looked at each other again, then started giggling. "She may be a while. Come and look at this idea I had. I could do with your insight."
"OK." Lisa followed her friend back inside, closing the door behind her.
Four hundred feet up, Taylor giggled wildly to herself. This was fun. Although it was also not quite going as easily as those guys on YouTube made it look.
Fiddling with the chamber pressure and life of the generated water, she was able to change the thrust that the water jets produced, which in turn affected the flight characteristics considerably. She and the Varga kept making tiny changes to the nozzles as well to optimize them for this application. Her research into water nozzles made for maximum jet coherency had mainly found applications for fire hoses and similar systems, which were generally not designed for maximum thrust. More the opposite, in fact.
She made another change, then frantically lashed her tail in an attempt to regain the precarious stability she'd enjoyed for close to three seconds. A cry of joy came from her, making her head companion laugh, as she tipped over into horizontal flight, moving at well over a hundred miles an hour.
"The stability leaves something to be desired but there's no lack of power," he commented dryly, watching the world blur past.
"Wheee!" she replied. He laughed more loudly.
"You keep saying that. I'm not entirely certain you're using it correctly."
"Hey, I've wanted to do this my whole life, so shut up," she snickered. "Oops." Bouncing off the road surface hard enough to leave a dent in the tarmac, she cartwheeled a couple of times then rose into the air again, moving her body weight around in an attempt to learn how to stabilize herself. Her tail was key to the entire thing, she'd found. As was the jet size, shape, aim, pressure, flow rate, and several other variables which between the pair of them they were gradually learning about.
"This is harder than it looks," she added, once she was more or less stable once more.
"I suspect that the devices that are shown on the internet benefit from the drag of the hoses from the pumps. We have no such benefit, and much more power available."
That was true enough, the thrust of the water rockets they'd designed was ridiculous. Being able to make water at any desired pressure turned out to be a very effective and scarily powerful technique. She'd originally been a little dubious about the idea, thinking that more exotic methods might be required, but simple water was more than enough, and much safer to bystanders.
"Wooohooooo!" she yodeled happily, feeling stable enough to increase speed, rocketing down the road towards the commercial district, away from the docks. This area was practically unpopulated so no one seemed to be around.
"Don't get carried away too soon, we still have the stability issue," he warned, sounding amused.
"It's fine, I've nearly got it," she replied.
A twitch of one foot made her veer off course before she could correct.
"Aaaaaahhhh!" she screamed as the rig dived sideways unexpectedly, aiming at the ground.
"Sure you have."
Frantically moving everything she possessed, she managed to level off again, missing a building and going down a street she didn't mean to, only to find herself heading at about two hundred miles an hour straight at the freeway overpass ahead of her. She just had time to recognize Armsmaster and Assault looking at her with surprise when she was past them and slamming into the concrete with a solid crunch she nearly felt. Cutting the water flow, she dropped to the ground, laughing.
"It's OK," she said to the Varga. "I meant to do that."
"Of course you did," he commented with a mental grin. "Anyone would have taken the opportunity to fly headfirst into a bridge if it was presented to them."
Snickering, she rolled to her feet, hopped a little to get the board under her, and fired it up again, crouching a little. The jets roared into life once more and she ascended like a missile from its pad, the ground dropping away from her at a startling rate. This time she kept going, right into the clouds, finding after only a few seconds of damp blankness she broke out into brilliant sunlight. "Wow!"
Grinning like an idiot, she kept rising, finding that she nearly had the hang of it now. Reducing thrust she slowed, looking around, until she was nearly hovering, at what she estimated was probably about three thousand feet up. "This is incredible," she shouted, spreading her arms widely at the scene.
Two seconds later she was upside down and heading straight back at the ground.
"Perhaps a good rule of thumb is don't make sudden motions until you know how to fly it, hmm, Brain?" the Varga said cheerfully as they re-entered the clouds, picking up speed rapidly.
"Oh SHHHIIIITTT!" she screamed, hearing the sounds on the ground get louder, her cry nearly drowned out by his laughter. Dropping out the bottom of the misty layer she found herself far too close to the city, frantically tucking into a ball then getting her lift platform and feet under her, before straightening up again and applying loads of power. They slowed to a halt fractions of a second before impact, lost stability again, then tipped forward, the thrust instantly accelerating them forward.
She shot past Armsmaster and Assault once more, calling out a cheery greeting in the middle of another yodel of happy excitement, bounced off a building with a thud, recoiled from it across the street into another one, then wobbled erratically around for another fifteen seconds of wild maneuvers. Abruptly, as the last few variables slotted into place in her mental model of the thrust system, she finally worked out how to fly it properly, finding all at once it became simple.
"Fucking fantastic!" Taylor smiled, straightening up and hovering, looking around her, then down at all the people watching. "Not quite how I meant to show it off, but… No real damage."
"That bank you hit might want the dent in the front patched," her demonic companion pointed out with a snicker.
"Meh, I'll do that on the way back." With a slight mental effort she increased power, while bending a leg to make it climb in a spiral, which spun her around half a dozen times on the way up. At a thousand feet in the now-clear skies, a hole in the clouds having appeared and spread bright sunlight across the scenery, she flipped over and over, tucking her tail against her legs, then using it to quickly regain a standing position.
Cutting the thrust made her fall vertically, until she reapplied power, slamming to a halt more or less where she'd been. "Not bad," the Varga chuckled. "Show-off."
With a grin she nodded, then looked around. Waving to the two capes who were gaping up at her, along with the entire crowd of people who had stopped to watch as well, she turned towards the bay, leaned forward, and powered up. Seconds later she was approaching the Medhall tower at something like a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Pulling up just before she hit it, she zoomed up the side spraying short-lived water over the windows, waved at Max as he gaped at her out his office window, apparently in the middle of packing a suitcase, then cleared the roof line.
Once more she tipped forward, to a much steeper angle, nearly going flat, and wound the power up. A scream of joy left her mouth as she accelerated at a massive rate, wondering how fast she was going. Pulling her tail into line with her legs she arched her body a little, experimenting with aerodynamic lift, her arms held flat to her sides and her head forward, her neck flexible enough to allow her to put it into a position a normal human would have found uncomfortable if even possible. Her sunglasses were enough to keep the wind out of her eyes, although she could feel the air flowing over her scales almost like water.
'This is way faster than I can do underwater as Umihebi,' she remarked to her friend.
"Much less resistance and a lot more thrust proportionally," he replied. "Although I have to admit, I now wonder how well this would scale up."
'Oh, now there's an interesting idea,' she snickered. 'Not right now, though. I want to see how well this works before we scare the world with a flying sea serpent.'
"Fair enough." His amusement was apparent to her, as was his enjoyment of the experience.
They'd left the bay behind and were now heading out over the ocean, so she wound the power up some more, feeling the push on her legs increase as their speed went ever higher. A moment later she had to correct her attitude as she felt the turbulence abruptly increase, wobbling a little, then noticing to her astonishment a short-lived vapor cloud form over her muzzle and shoulders. It quickly disappeared and the flight became smooth once more.
'Holy crap, I think we just went supersonic!' she said with surprise.
"It appears so, that looked like a shock cloud to me, from seeing the videos on the internet. Impressive. And we're nowhere near maximum thrust."
'Let's see what this thing can do,' she grinned, making some changes to the upper surface of the thrust platform to make it more aerodynamic, then pouring on the power and climbing.
By the time she leveled off, the clouds were a flat surface far below, the ocean a blue and gray sheet, and the sky above was darkening. 'Unbelievable,' she cackled inside her head. 'We must be at, oh, ten or eleven miles up? More? And god knows how fast, but it's nice and warm.'
"Air resistance does seem to provide a pleasant heating effect," he remarked. "Do you want to try for orbit? We could go and worry the Simurgh if we can find her."
'I'm still not completely convinced they're scared of us,' she replied with a grin. 'Probably best to take this in stages. But I bet we could do it.'
"Easily, we don't have any fuel restrictions, we could keep accelerating more or less indefinitely, or at least until you get bored." He actually sounded like he was disappointed that she was staying in the atmosphere.
'Next time, we'll see about a proper height test,' she promised her friend. 'We need some instrumentation first, I think, and some sort of comms system back home. If I pull my phone out at whatever ridiculous speed we're going I'll lose it, and it probably won't work here anyway. There's hardly any air pressure to carry the sound.'
They'd changed her armor as the flight test progressed, making it more streamlined, and replacing the normal skirt with a formfitting pair of leggings made in a similar manner to Amy's riding suit, with a sleeve for her tail. The pressure of the air on her exposed scales was noticeable, as was the heat from shoving it violently out of the way, but nothing very interesting, considering she could put her hand in molten iron and only feel it as quite warm. Overall it was a pleasant sensation.
"If we made the armor into more of an aircraft shape, we could reduce the power required considerably," he pointed out after a moment. "This is ridiculously inefficient."
'True, but it's not like we actually care about the inefficiency, is it?' she responded lightly. 'No penalties for needing more power than the minimum possible. This is more fun.'
They were high enough that she could clearly see the horizon starting to curve. She was a little worried about her camera, which she'd encased in a block of Dragon's insulation, with a small transparent window, made of multiple layers of pure silica separated by vacuum, over the lens. Hopefully that would be enough to stop the heat caused by her flight velocity from damaging it. If not, it was easily replaceable, but she liked it and didn't want to break it if possible.
Looking around, she couldn't even see land any more. 'I wonder where we are?' she commented.
"At least four hundred miles out, I think," he replied.
'Probably time to go back. I think I've got the hang of this.'
Smiling, she reduced the power, finding that she very rapidly slowed down. Playing with the thrust for a while, Taylor curved her body a little and described a huge semicircle in the sky, until she was pointing back the way she'd come, then sped up once more to about the same rate as before, which she thought was probably over four thousand miles an hour based on distance and time. Certainly deep into hypersonic speeds, which was far better than she'd hoped for.
And all with a pair of water rockets.
Admittedly, Varga-magic powered ones with unlimited reaction mass and any exhaust velocity she cared to apply, but even so…
'I think we can put this down as a successful test,' she giggled.
"Indeed. It worked in a very gratifying manner." He sounded extremely pleased.
'Want a go?'
"I would love it, thank you," he laughed. She carefully transferred control over to her companion then settled back to enjoy the ride.
"Tracking Saurial at flight level six three five, speed Mach four, on a bearing straight back towards Brockton Bay," the console operator stated, the entire PRT flight control room listening quietly. "She reached flight level seven eight zero and Mach six, four hundred and sixty-two miles out, then slowed to Mach two and turned around. Must have pulled about eighteen G in the turn, it was extremely sharp. Whatever the hell is letting her fly is highly maneuverable."
"Oh, god, the Family have air support now," Director Piggot muttered. "Just what we needed."
"I'm waiting to see Kaiju do it," the operator chuckled, then flinched at the look she gave him.
"I am not," she growled.
"No, Ma'am. Sorry, Ma'am."
His colleague, sitting next to him, watching the tracking screen, suppressed a chuckle, then announced, "Passing over Brockton Bay in five seconds. Three, two, one… she's heading inland and slowing again."
A few seconds later a muted thump shook the entire building very slightly as the sonic boom caused by a flying reptile doing horrible things to reality caught up with them. "Huh. Somehow she's suppressing most of the shock wave, that was remarkably mild," the tech commented. "No damage, although everyone in the city probably heard it."
"The Air Force is on the line for you, Director," another operator said, holding out a headset. "Colonel Nellis from Cape Cod AFS tracking." The director sighed, then took it and put it on.
"Hello, Colonel. It's been a while."
She listened, while everyone else tried not to. Or at least, to not be seen doing so.
"Yes, I remember. Glory Girl was a little over-excited that time. She'd only just Triggered."
"Yes. The Family."
There was a longer pause.
"No, I didn't know they could fly either. But we've learned to never assume they can't do anything they want to. I suppose it just never came up until now."
"Water, apparently, according to Armsmaster. Twin water rockets."
She actually smiled at the response. The staff in the flight operations room exchanged a glance. Apparently she found the idea that for once, someone else was having the headache rather amusing. "Yes, I said water. Some sort of lift platform she was standing on, with a pair of nozzles coming out the bottom. No, I doubt very much that it is something anyone outside the Family could either duplicate or use. You're welcome to ask, but I think you'll be disappointed."
Her grin widened for a moment, then went away. "Yes, probably best to put it down as Parahuman activities and forget it. I'll copy you on the report. All right. Good-bye, Colonel." She tapped the disconnect button, then handed the headset back.
"Thank you, Jennifer," she said to the operator.
"Saurial now subsonic, heading for a landing at the DWU facility," the tracking operator who had a sense of humor said. "She's disappeared into the ground clutter, we've lost her."
"All right." The director sighed a little. "Write it up and send it to me. I need some coffee." She turned and headed for the door. Everyone could swear they heard her mumble, "And some aspirin. Again. Damn lizards."
When she was safely gone, the first tracking operator turned to the other one. "I still want to see Kaiju do that."
"Me too. But not when she's standing behind me. Remember she carries a side-arm."
"Good point."
"I know."
They looked at each other, grinned, and began filing the flight data in the every-growing 'Family' sightings folder.
If you had a sense of the absurd, Brockton Bay was an interesting posting.