Chris watched the descending form of Saurial, his eyes so wide they hurt. His mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives. Plus he was envious enough to chew marbles.
"How the hell is she doing that?" he muttered out loud, watching the plume of misty vapor shoot out from under the device the distant lizard-girl was standing on. It was clearly a reaction drive of some form, probably using a liquid as the working mass, but what was the power source? It was far too small to have fuel tanks of any decent size, yet he'd heard the sonic boom a moment ago, which was almost certainly connected to Saurial's flying thing. Even to barely go supersonic would require a lot of power, especially as there was no visible adherence to the laws of aerodynamics. Unless she had some form of force field surrounding her to part the air around her…
"Hmm." He thought hard, still watching through his binoculars, until the dropping form disappeared behind the buildings. "I didn't know she was that much of a Tinker. Aside from the scales and tail she seems to have lucked into every power you could think of." Chris was beginning to think that the aforementioned scales and tail would be a small price to pay for such abilities.
Putting the binoculars down, he moved back to the table and opened his laptop, starting a few searches going. Leaning over to one of the Ward's common room computers he typed one-handed, looking for any information on rockets using water. After a moment, he moved to another one and began looking for any reports on the internal PRT system on the recent reptilian flight.
Finding the relevant flight log had just been filed, he looked around the otherwise empty room, then guiltily typed in a password he wasn't supposed to know, reading the log quickly with his eyes widening again comically, before hastily closing it and erasing any traces of his illicit access. 'Mach six?" he thought in shocked wonder. 'And a round trip of over eight hundred miles, to over seventy-three thousand feet?!'
The figures were utterly absurd. If not entirely impossible. Assuming it wasn't some inherent flight ability she'd never shown before, which wasn't something he was willing to completely rule out bearing in mind who it was, the damn girl had made something that was… definitely more than a little impressive.
His envy level went up to the point he could swallow the marbles and start chewing chrome steel bearings instead.
Reading the results of his almost random searches on the internet, he kept poking around hoping for inspiration. A notebook next to him was quickly filling with drawings and writing that he would, later that night, read over and over, trying to work out what he'd been thinking.
When he finally figured it out, he was going to be quite pleased.
"Was that you?" Amy asked as Taylor came in, looking very pleased indeed with herself.
"Was what me?"
"The fairly distinct sonic boom about a minute or so ago." The healer gave her a look, as did Lisa. Taylor grinned at them.
"It may well have been," she admitted. "I was going pretty quick."
"I hope you didn't break any windows, or people are going to be annoyed," Lisa commented. "Generally supersonic flight is frowned upon around inhabited areas."
"We thought of that, Varga was using a modified version of the cloaking technique to suppress it, but I guess he didn't have it wound up far enough," their friend replied, sitting in a chair and leaning back with a highly satisfied look on her blue-scaled face. "Next time we can get it right."
"Why not cloak entirely?" Amy asked curiously.
"It seemed like a possibly dangerous thing if no one knew we were coming. At that speed it would take us a little while to slow down or dodge so we thought it was a good idea to make sure we didn't disappear from radar entirely. Plus we can reserve that for when we actually need it." Taylor shrugged a bit. "Not to mention it gave the PRT something to do."
"Fair enough, and probably a good idea."
"I stayed a long way away from any other air traffic as well, I didn't want my shock wave to cause them any problems. I guess I'll need to find out the rules on flying capes, assuming there are any. Most of what I could find on the web was meant for people who are a lot slower and lower, like Kid Win. Or your sister."
"She can go supersonic, just," Amy replied with a smirk. "And the first time she found that out she was very low. The Air Force scrambled a jet to investigate since she decided to experiment a bit too close to a military installation. Mom wasn't pleased. Director Piggot and some Colonel from the Air Force came around and yelled at her for a while, them Mom went and yelled at Vicky for longer. I think Aegis got a bit of a talking to once as well, he managed to end up a little too close to a commercial jet. But if you stay away from other aircraft that aren't associated with you, they're not too worried these days. Too many flying capes to deal with. It's probably different around a big airport, but the nearest one of those is Boston. I'd think it was best to stay away from there without a good reason to visit, just in case."
"Huh. Maybe I need to talk to Vicky about it, then. She must know the rules."
"I know that the PRT have some sort of handbook on flying Parahumans and common sense, but I've never read it. All I know is what I picked up from talking to Vicky. I can see if I can borrow her copy. Assuming that they don't stick one in the post, of course. I doubt anyone around here doesn't know now that the Family have an airborne contingent these days."
Taylor grinned widely. "It was fucking fun, I can tell you that much. Even better than I hoped."
"So how far did you go, how fast, and how high?" Lisa asked with an interested look.
"Not completely sure on any of those points," the other girl said with a small frown. "I need some proper flight instrumentation. Maybe I should talk to Dragon. We think it was probably about four hundred miles or so off the coast, and maybe something over ten miles up? A lot higher than commercial aircraft, anyway, we saw a few contrails at least as far under us as they are normally over us on the ground. And several times the speed of sound just from the amount of time it took to go out and back."
"Did you get video?"
"Yep. Camera still seems intact. Here." Taylor removed the thing from her head, the straps vanishing, and handed it to her friend, who plugged it into the USB lead coming out of the nearest PC. Shortly they were watching the video of her flight and laughing like lunatics.
"Oh, my god, did you see the expression on poor Assault's face when you zipped past him?" Amy giggled.
"He looked a little shocked," Taylor grinned. "Armsmaster seemed more fascinated than anything."
"That's because you were doing something he'd consider Tinkering. He'd forgive almost anything as long as you did it properly and efficiently." Amy shook her head in amusement. "Although you nearly got both of them. And you did get that bridge. And the road. And the bank. And that store."
"I know, I need to go back and fix everything," Taylor mumbled. "I didn't think that part through properly and Varga was laughing too hard to say anything."
"Next test of something that over the top should probably be somewhere safer, like as far away from people as possible," Lisa pointed out. "It's not like we don't have transportation to anywhere on the planet only a few hundred yards from here."
"Good point. I'll be more careful next time. But I'm incredibly happy it worked so well. Varga wanted to go for orbit, but I thought we should try it slowly."
Both the others stared at her, then each other. "Orbit?" they echoed, looking more than a little surprised.
Taylor grinned. Amy gazed at her, then sighed a little. "Only you. You really think you could do it?"
"Sure. I don't actually need to breathe, you know. When I'm Umihebi, I couldn't possibly extract enough oxygen from the water to run a metabolism that energy-intensive. Demon physiology works on entirely different principles. Varga says I could handle a vacuum as easily as the bottom of the ocean. The temperature is no problem either. If it wasn't for the Simurgh running around out there I'd be tempted to go and have a look at the moon but I don't know how she'd react."
"By dropping an enormous load then fucking off to Mars, probably," Lisa snickered, making both Taylor and Amy laugh. "Screaming the entire way."
"I'm still not convinced. Maybe we should check the tracking system to see if she reacted," the blue-scaled girl remarked.
"I'll do that, later." They watched the rest of the video, until Lisa announced, "According to my power, which thinks this is the best toy ever by the way, and probably is wishing that I could do it, you peaked at something like seventy-three thousand feet, a little over Mach six, at four hundred and twenty-three miles from the bay. Not bad for a proof of concept test flight." She looked impressed. "Although the stability of that thing is a little lacking."
"I think it needs more nozzles," Taylor commented. "Two seemed plausible but balancing it is tricky, even with splitting the output from each one into two jets. Next time I'll add a couple and space them pointing away from each other."
"Why didn't you do that this time?" Amy asked.
"I didn't think of it," Taylor sighed, making her friends grin. "Hey, I can't think of everything. Neither Varga or I have ever flown before, this is all making it up as I go. I was just happy I managed to get the water rockets working so well. It's more than just firing high pressure water out of a hole, you know, the flow dynamics are very important and very complex. There isn't much published data for this sort of flight system."
"Wonder why?" Amy smiled.
"No idea. It's so obvious when you have demonic matter creation powers," Taylor shrugged, then returned the smile. "The water worked beautifully, though, I didn't need to use any of the exotic fuels I was thinking about. Probably a good thing, overall. Some of them are a little toxic." She pondered the matter. "And explosive. And corrosive."
Glancing at Lisa, Amy whispered loudly, "We may have escaped disaster by about that much." She held finger and thumb with the claw-tips about a quarter of an inch apart.
Lisa nodded wisely. "Probably. Good thing we're lucky."
"Now all we need is to work out how to let us fly as well. No matter generation means no on-demand thrust generation," the healer continued after a moment, sounding disappointed.
"EDM tanks could hold more or less infinite pressure, and combined with fractal folding, I could come up with something interesting," Taylor mused. "I've been thinking about it, actually. Hardly seems fair to be the only one who can do that trick. But even so, there will eventually be a limit which I don't have." She tapped her finger on her muzzle, thinking hard. "I'll keep at it," she finally said. "There must be a way."
"Wings would seem one possibility," Lisa said.
"Oh, sure, I've got a few forms we've been thinking about that might work," Taylor replied brightly, coming back from wherever she'd been. "It took a while but Varga came up with a design that seems viable, and based on that there are some others I thought of. One or two would scale up nicely, to a pretty silly size. But… if we do that, no one is going to be in any doubt that something weird is going on. If proper dragons start roaming the skies we'll have a lot of people looking at us with peculiar expressions. Especially if they're big enough to eat Boston."
"How large were you actually thinking of making one?" Amy asked with shock.
"Well, as it happens, make it large enough and low density enough, combined with Varga strength and construction..." Taylor moved to the next computer and pulled up an image after a short search, stepping back and waving mutely at it. Both girls stared, then turned around and fixed her with incredulous expressions.
"You are fucking kidding me," Lisa breathed in stunned amazement.
"Nope. It's doable. Considering how much mass we have available in full Varga form right now, and changing the structure to have hollow bones like a bird, it ends up pretty substantial."
"Substantial?" Amy shrieked. She pointed, her 'Ianthe' face showing total shock. "That thing is fucking insane! The wingspan must be over a mile!"
"Oh, at least." Taylor smiled a toothy smile. "We're both quite interested to see if it's possible, but the figures are plausible. Bit obvious, though. I think people might notice."
Lisa just gaped at her, then the image, a nicely painted rendering of a fantasy dragon. "That damn thing is sitting on a mountain and leaning on another one," she finally said, sounding faint. "You think you can turn into something that size?"
Taylor just shrugged. "Let's leave it for another day. And like you said, somewhere a long way away from people. A giant dragon in the middle of the bay would cause a certain amount of worry."
"Even more than a four hundred foot plus version of Godzilla waving at everyone," Amy replied weakly. "I thought I had a good idea of your capabilities but you've managed to prove me wrong yet again."
"It's actually more viable to make it bigger than smaller, assuming the material strength is high enough," Taylor pointed out mildly. "Although a little one would be fun."
"Actually, I have a few ideas for that myself, but I'm still working out the details," Amy said, recovering from her surprise. "I'll let you know when I figure it out. But in the meantime, have a look at what I made."
She headed for the workroom, Taylor, after a curious glance at Lisa, following.
"Oh, cool!" she said a moment later.
"What do you think?"
"Really good work, Amy," she replied with satisfaction. "I can see a few improvements, though."
"It's only a prototype, I know it needs work. But between us we can make it very effective, I think."
"Me too. OK. I'll go and fix up all the things I damaged, then come back, and we can make another one and fiddle with it. If you move that over here, like this, then adjust this bit, it might be better."
"Hey… yes, brilliant, I didn't see that. Good job."
"Thanks. See you in about forty minutes to an hour or so. I need to make sure I didn't damage that damn bridge support. I'll never hear the end of it if anything falls over."
"See you soon."
Taylor left the building, Amy locking the door behind her, then turning to Lisa, who was grinning. They started laughing, before going back to watch the video again.
"That is so funny, the way she was cartwheeling over and over," Amy giggled. "I need to show this to Vicky, it makes her first flight look competent. And it really wasn't."
"I still want to be able to do the same thing, though," Lisa commented. Both of them sighed, Amy nodding. She was going to have to put more work in on her own flight ideas.
Rumbling down rutted roads, the ten ton truck was making its way through the Brockton Bay Docks, the two occupants looking around with a mix of curiosity, nervousness, and anticipation. They'd been driving for hours, coming up the east coast from a location in New Jersey that was something of a hub for goods such as the ones they had in the back. Ones that were buried in the middle of a shipment of bottled water, with all the paperwork showing that the liquid load was the only thing in the vehicle. Even the weighbridge data and state line goods inspection papers matched perfectly.
They were very good at their job.
"So who is this Hebert guy anyway?" the passenger asked his companion. "Boss wasn't very open about the whole job."
"Favor from old Antonio is the way I heard it," his colleague grunted, wrestling the wheel as the vehicle dropped into a pothole. "Some sort of family tie in from the old days. Guy must be seriously connected, but I've never heard of him."
"Which means he's really connected. Antonio doesn't do favors for many people, and none for people who aren't important. Important and anonymous… that's high level."
"Guess so. Better not ask too many questions. Apparently the guy's organization comes off as legit. Dock workers, that sort of stuff."
They shared a look. "Good cover. Impressive. I wonder what business he's into?"
"Don't ask. Seriously, don't ask. Boss might not mind too much but other people get funny about questions like that." The driver glanced warningly at his colleague. "Your cousin won't help if you piss off a friend of Antonio's, believe me."
"No fear of that, I look terrible in concrete boots," the passenger snorted, almost laughing. "I know when to keep my mouth shut."
"These roads are terrible," the driver grumbled. "Bet this keeps the cops away."
"Deliberate?"
"What do you think? Look around you." The man gestured with his free hand, then shifted down to make a turn. "Whole area looks like a war zone. I've heard Brockton Bay has a lot of cape fights, but come on… This much damage? No, it's all carefully arranged. I've seen it before in Chicago and Philly. Takes serious time, effort, and money, but it works."
"The junkies are a nice touch," the passenger said, looking at a pair of ragged men slumped in a doorway as they passed. "Look real."
"And have probably already called ahead. Bet we've been watched since we turned off the freeway. People like Hebert are careful, or they pay the price."
The passenger looked more carefully at the next addict they passed. "You sure?" he asked doubtfully. "That's a little paranoid even in our business."
"Pretty sure," his friend replied. "Too many of them otherwise. And they're all in really good positions to see everything without being too obvious about it. But I can tell."
"Huh."
There was silence in the truck cab for another half mile, the passenger opening a bag of chips and grazing on them while trying to spot the observers without being obvious about it.
"Did you see that thing that flew over a while ago?" he asked after a while. "Some sort of cape, I think. It was going fucking quick in this direction."
"Brockton is rotten with them," the driver chuckled. "I've been through here a couple of times on the way up to Canada, there's a good truck stop on the freeway a few miles away and a really good burger place in the middle of the city. Capes all over the damn place. And gangs. That Nazi lot, Empire Eighty Eight, then the Asians with Lung, and some other smaller ones. Plus that Skidmark fucker who's pissing everyone off at the moment."
"Wonder why they have so many?"
"No idea. New York has more, but there are a hell of a lot more people there. This place has a higher proportion, I heard. Higher than anywhere, I think. And some really powerful ones as well. That Glory Girl chick is apparently nearly as tough as Alexandria."
"I saw her on the web," his companion smiled. "Quite a looker."
"Only about eighteen, though. Too young for me, no experience." The driver smirked at his friend.
"Fair enough. I wonder which one that was I saw?"
"Heading this way… One of those lizards who hang around, probably. You know, 'The Family?' You must have seen that fucking insanely big thing pulling the ship a couple of weeks ago, it was on the news for hours."
"Fuck, they're here?" the man said, paling. "I thought they stayed underwater most of the time."
"Boss told me they have an office at this DWU place now. Said there might be some of them wandering around, and to be very respectful if we met them. Antonio told him that if we pissed them off, we pissed him off, and I don't know which one scared him more."
"Christ. Boss Hebert is more connected than I thought. Antonio and the old families, and The Family?" The passenger looked worried now. He ran his hands through his hair, straightening it, and adjusted his tie. "I wonder how they got that name?"
"I have a couple of ideas," the driver muttered, turning left towards the bay. "None of them are ones I'm going to tell anyone about. Especially if I'm right. Way too much trouble. Better to keep my mouth shut." He glanced sideways. "You too, Benny. Sometimes you talk too much."
Benny frowned, but couldn't deny the accusation. He liked meeting people. Although he was beginning to wonder if being volunteered for this particular job was actually worth it. Swallowing, he resolved to nod politely, say as little as possible, and take his money.
Sometimes specialty delivery was a risky business for reasons other than the authorities.
"There it is." They saw the fence at the end of the road, with a complex of buildings inside it. A guardhouse was inside a fairly simple barrier where the road turned sharp right, with two men visible watching the truck approach. No weapons were visible which made both of them tense, it merely meant that they were being covered from somewhere they couldn't see.
"Best behavior, Benny," the driver said quietly.
"Got it."
They slowed down and stopped at the barrier. One of the men came over to the driver's side as he wound the window down, while the other one watched from a safe distance, a radio in his hand and his eyes alert, darting around but always coming back to them.
"Delivery for DWU Security? Trans Continental Supplies."
"ID?"
The driver passed over an ID card with his photo on it, his trucking permit which also had a photo, and the shipping manifest. The guard checked them all, walked around the truck, compared the license plate number to the manifest, then came back to the window.
"Drive through the gate, turn left, then right down the side of the buildings. You're looking for a door labeled 6-A. Park there. Mr Hebert and Mark, our security head, will join you. Please stay in the vehicle until they arrive. Don't go over ten miles an hour, and don't go anywhere else."
"Yes, sir," the driver said. He reclaimed his documents, rolled the window up, then waited for the barrier to be removed. Moving slowly through it he followed the directions precisely.
Both of them were sweating just the tiniest bit.
"I wonder what those towers around the place between the two fences are for?" Benny said after a moment.
"No idea. Probably something we don't need to know about."
The driver looked hard at his colleague, who flushed.
"No future for the overly curious, Benny."
"I know that, Rudy. I can't help it."
"Try. Really hard."
Shortly they spotted the right place, pulling up with a hiss of air brakes, then turning the engine off and waiting quietly.
Benny opened another bag of chips and offered Rudy some, his friend taking a handful. They were both in the process of eating them when a bright blue apparently female reptilian creature with a long tail, wearing armor, jogged past them in the direction of the gate, waving in a friendly manner and giving them a smile full of teeth.
Both men froze, watching her as she went past, then looked at each other.
"Seriously connected."
"Yeah. Don't ask questions. I get it."
They resumed waiting, looking around for anything else unusual and wondering how many guns were pointed at them right now.
"Well, I think we need to upgrade Saurial's ratings," Hannah said resignedly, looking around the table at the hastily assembled meeting. "Again."
"Definitely a Tinker rating now," Colin nodded, looking remarkably pleased. "Fairly high. I'd say at least a 5, maybe a 6. The device itself was fairly simple but the implied ability to make a number of derivative systems is extraordinary. Raptaur I feel should also receive a similar rating for similar reasons, if not a higher one. Her work on the..." He trailed off, what in anyone else would have been an excited monologue stopping abruptly.
Everyone looked at him. Legend and Dragon shared a glance, the former appearing amused.
Director Piggot cleared her throat. "Yes. Thank you, Colin. I believe that a suitable Tinker rating should indeed be put in their file."
"A Mover rating as well, in Saurial's case," Dauntless, known to his friends as Craig, put in. He'd been away on family business for much of the prior six weeks or so, his father having died unexpectedly, which had left him helping his mother pick up the pieces in Providence. The current activity in the city had been something he'd followed but not experienced until now, as he'd only returned two days ago.
Apparently, reading the Family file had left him swearing under his breath for nearly half an hour, Ethan had told Hannah, making her feel distinct sympathy for the guy.
"Yes, a high one," Robin agreed. "She went hypersonic for god's sake! There are damn few capes who can fly that fast." He glanced at Legend, who nodded.
"It's not common. Faster than sound isn't wildly unusual, twice the speed of sound is getting well above average, but six times the speed of sound puts her into a class with very few other individuals. And we have no real reason to think that was top speed."
"I believe it is very unlikely that it was anywhere near the theoretical maximum speed that she could achieve," Colin commented, looking thoughtful. "There is significant evidence to suggest that Family members are tolerant to a level of heat that is simply absurd, thousands of degrees at least. She can obviously take extremely severe impacts, we saw her hit a concrete bridge abutment hard enough to leave cracks in it, laugh, and try again. We knew she was a high Brute rating but we may have underestimated it."
He looked around the table, a few people nodding, and Director Piggot looking a little worried as well as thoughtful. "In any case, she's well suited to extremely high-energy maneuvers, the tracking system showed her pulling a supersonic turn that my calculations show exceeded 19.3 g at peak. That is far past the point any human pilot would have passed out, and possibly died. As far as we know there was no inertial compensation used so she must be able to handle the stresses involved. She also spent over half an hour at an altitude high enough that there is essentially no oxygen available, which means that either she can do without, or has means of taking it with her. Presumably through the same ability that lets her make the water."
Stopping, he looked at the director again, the woman asking the obvious question he was waiting for. "How fast, how high?"
"I can't prove it beyond doubt but I would be unsurprised if she could achieve orbit."
"On a water-powered surfboard?" Ethan choked out following the appalled silence that fell over the table.
Colin nodded. "Correct."
"Fuck me."
"We need an entirely new classification for Family activities," Battery sighed. "Or just give up, put it down to something only another lizard can understand, and say it doesn't happen."
"I vote for that," Ethan muttered. "It would make life a lot simpler."
"Unfortunately, while it is tempting to look the other way and pretend that there aren't hypersonic lizards zipping overhead, we can't really do that," the director sighed. "But as long as they're not doing any actual harm we can't really stop them either. It would be nice to have them file flight plans, but the rules on Parahuman flight don't require it presuming they stay out of normal airspace. She went supersonic well off the coast, and came back so high she was far above civilian traffic. So far, all of that is legal even for a random cape, never mind a group with their current status."
"Might be a good idea to arrange an IFF transponder for her, though, along with a copy of the PRT flight handbook. Just to prevent any misunderstandings." Legend seemed more amused by the entire thing than anything else, Hannah noticed.
"I'll make sure they're sent the relevant package," Emily replied.
"What do we do if other Family members start experimenting?" Carlos asked quietly.
"Raptaur is one thing," the director said, glancing at him. "If I wake up one morning and see Kaiju go overhead, I may retire. Or shoot myself. Or both."
"Surely Kaiju couldn't actually fly?" Hannah asked, appalled at the mere suggestion. Everyone looked at her, then at Colin.
The Tinker shrugged. "The technology would scale nicely, I suspect. I had the same thought myself when I witnessed Saurial's flight test. It is… somewhat discomfiting."
"It's fucking terrifying is what it is," Ethan grumbled, flipping a pencil end over end and catching it while he thought. "The first time you mentioned it worried me. Every time someone brings it up again, it worries me some more. Stop bringing it up."
"Seconded," Battery remarked, looking perturbed.
"I personally have no wish to even think of that concept until or unless it happens, so I'm more than happy to change the subject," Director Piggot added. "So. Update Saurial's rating to Mover… 8?" She looked around, everyone nodding one after the other. "Subject to more data. Tinker 6 for both her and Raptaur, with the same note. Is there anything else about today's Family shenanigans that needs to be dealt with right now?"
"A Blaster rating should also be noted," Colin suggested.
"Why?"
"The water jets would qualify as a ranged weapon, aside from anything else she can produce if she thinks about it. It's entirely plausible to redesign the nozzle to project a coherent stream of high-pressure water over a significant distance, rather than maximize thrust. In fact, it's more difficult to make an efficient rocket than such a water jet. With the pressure she can generate and the materials involved, something like a water jet cutter on a large scale could easily be made."
"Oh, for god's sake." The director looked at him for several seconds, then made some notes. "Blaster, hmm, 6 for now, then. Is she going for a 'yes' rating in every category deliberately, do you think, or is that just a happy coincidence?"
"Collect the entire set and win a prize," Ethan snickered, more or less back to his normal ebullient self. Giving him a severe look the blonde woman sighed heavily, which had no visible effect on his grin.
No one seemed to have anything further to add. "OK. In that case, I'm going to go back to my office and look longingly at holiday brochures until I can legitimately go home. If anyone bothers me, it had better be important. Dismissed." She stood up, picked up the file she'd brought into the secure Rig conference room, and left, muttering to herself under her breath.
Everyone else got up and left as well, heading off to their own destinations, while wondering about what might happen next from the Family direction.