Stopping again, Missy looked hard at the PRT building, using a warp to inspect the windows on the eleventh floor. She thought she'd seen a familiar…

"I did! I did see a Sophia," she snickered in glee.

She'd always wanted to get back at the older girl for some of the nasty things she'd said and done, not to mention some rather cruel practical jokes. But she couldn't really do much under the eye of Miss Militia.

Now, though... She had a really amusing idea.

Bearing in mind that she knew Sophia didn't read PHO, calling it a refuge for the weak minded, it would probably work pretty well. It was a little mean, but considering the things Sophia had done, she didn't feel all that guilty about it.

Rubbing her hands together, she plotted for a few more seconds, before she made her move.

'This is beginning to get very old,' Sophia thought to herself in a disgruntled manner, her hand rotating Armsmaster's little toy on her wrist absently. She'd tried everything she could think of to get it off but had eventually given up, all she had managed to do was get three warning from him, one much nastier one from Piggot, and more shocks than she could count. The last half dozen of which were fucking painful.

The bastard had turned the power up again. She wondered uneasily how close to 11 the dial was currently set. Knowing him, it had a fair way to go.

Grumbling to herself, she sat up on her bed, where she'd been lying thinking dark thoughts about what she'd like do to everyone on her list.

It was quite a long list.

Taylor Hebert was right at the top.

Her father was the next name, but there were a lot of other people as well. People who needed to be taught their place. One day she was going to get out of here, and she was going to have a lot of fun doing the teaching…

Right now, though, she was stuck in a room she'd grown to hate the sight of, her quarters in the PRT facility, on one of her break periods. She was slowly going stir-crazy without the ability to get out and do what she was so good at.

Something that Piggot was probably cackling about, the bitch.

She was on the list too, right near the top.

The only good part about her room was that it was a reasonable size, and had a good view. Not over the bay, the water side of the building was reserved for people in the good graces of the PRT and the Director, but not bad all things considered. She could look out over the city and at least pretend for a while that she wasn't trapped here, waiting to find out what they intended for her when they finally got done with the interminable investigation into her and everyone who had ever had anything to do with her case.

Sometimes she wondered if they'd simply forgotten about her, actually. It sure seemed to be taking a long time.

Or perhaps that was the point… Make her go nuts from boredom.

She growled an obscenity and got off the bed, stomping over to the window and pulling the blind up, looking out at a breezy and quite sunny afternoon. More than a hundred feet down she could see pedestrians and traffic moving around the streets, doing whatever it was they were doing. It didn't matter, the only thing that did was that they weren't stuck in this fucking building!

The special film on the outside of the windows blocked cameras, but also made the scene darker than it would otherwise have been, so the light coming into the room was rather dull, even though it was actually quite sunny. It added to her dislike of the entire situation.

And it was all Hebert's fault.

Sophia leaned on the window frame with her arms folded above her head, her forehead resting on them, looking at the city below her and wondering what Emma was doing.

She hadn't heard a word from her friend ever since that day at Winslow. While she wouldn't admit it to anyone, she was worried. The red-head was about the only person she'd ever called an actual friend rather than a useful minion. But even before she got grabbed by Piggot's little capes, Emma had broken off all contact with her. The one time she'd gone around to her house, her father had said she wasn't available, and never would be again. He hadn't looked pleased to see her either.

At that point, she'd decided it was best not to push, in case it attracted official attention. Now she was wishing she'd kept trying.

Sighing, she raised her eyes from the streets below, then let out a wild yip of shock when she found herself looking right at an empty black cloak, flapping in the wind like it was being worn by… something.

The problem was that it definitely wasn't. The lowering sun was shining into the hood, revealing absolutely nothing.

Whatever it was that was ten feet away on the other side of the glass was staring at her, she could feel the eyes on her face, even though she couldn't see them. Sophia gaped in horrified shock as the invisible hooded head tilted to the side a little, as if whatever was in there was looking curiously at her.

It walked closer, which was damn weird, because she could see from the motions of the cloth that it was actually walking on some invisible surface. Not flying at all.

Taking a step back from the window as the thing stopped right on the other side, she kept her gaze fixed on the creature as the head tipped the other way, then a hand that looked like leather with claws on the fingertips came out of the cloth. The hand rose, two fingers sticking out with the others folded back, then the fucking thing made a gesture to non-existent eyes, followed by pointing them directly at her.

The 'I'm watching you' motion was very clear and unambiguous.

Sophia was hardly breathing at this point, feeling something very close to genuine terror as the hand disappeared once more. The floating cloak kept watching her for a few more seconds, then turned to the right and climbed a flight of stairs based on the motions, rapidly disappearing from sight upwards and to the side.

When it had gone, Sophia let out a long breath, moving very slowly towards the window. She looked cautiously out, both ways, up, then down, before sagging a little.

"What the fuck was that?" she asked herself. Turning away from the window she looked around the room, trying to work out what had just happened, before looking out the window once more, very puzzled and worried.

"Gaaah!" she shrieked in shock when she saw the thing had somehow reappeared without her noticing, the empty hood pressed against the glass with both clawed hands on the window to the sides of it as it stared at her. Jumping back in horror she shouted at it, "What the fuck do you want?"

It kept staring for a moment, then faded from view, until there was nothing left.

Pressed against the opposite wall, the girl kept her eyes fixed on the window for nearly five minutes, until she was certain the thing, whatever it was, wasn't going to come back. Very cautiously she moved forward and with a twitch of her hand lowered the blind, before letting out a long breath and dropping into the chair that went with the desk that was beside the window.

The whole experience had been extremely unnerving, and totally unexpected. She had no idea what it had been, what she'd done to attract its attention, and what she could do about it.

Eventually, when her heart rate had dropped to normal, she reached for her PRT-approved tablet, which blocked almost any outbound communications, and started trying to figure out what had decided to pay her a really creepy visit.

And, for that matter, why.

Safely back out of range of the sensors on the PRT building, some two hundred yards in the air, Missy was nearly breathless with laughter. Her little skit had worked even better than she'd hoped. She held her stomach as she bent over, shaking her head with glee. The expression on her fellow Ward's face had been truly remarkable. For once the normally dismissive and supercilious look had vanished, replaced with stark shock and definite worry.

'Beautiful,' she thought, still giggling, as she resumed her movements towards the DWU facility. 'A little long-overdue revenge. I wish I could tell the others, they'd love it. Dennis particularly.'

Unfortunately she couldn't let it slip, really to anyone, because in the case of her fellow Wards it outed her as Cloak, and in the case of Saurial and the others, it might impact on Sophia's identity. She'd just have to keep the memory to herself, to pull out sometimes and snicker about, the same as with Max Anders.

Come to think of it, their expressions had been amazingly similar.

Smiling happily, in a very good mood, she hopped from invisible tile to invisible tile, looking around as she crossed into the area that was definitely Docks, rather than the commercial zoning that separated it from the Downtown area. From this altitude the way the entire place was slowly falling apart was much more apparent than at ground level.

She could see entire buildings that had collapsed, either due to simple decay, or some more catastrophic cause, more often than not cape-related. There were blackened, charred ruins that had burned down, several places where it was obvious significant explosions had occurred, roads with so many craters in they looked like a close up photo of the moon, and even worse things every now and then. Overall it was a mess.

In the distance the DWU complex seemed to have a shiny new fence ringing it, based on the glints of reflected sunlight, which aroused her curiosity. It was clear even from here that a lot of the decay started to reverse itself closer to that particular location, probably due to the way that most of the trouble-makers who caused the more dramatic problems tended to avoid the dock workers. Even so, the sheer decrepitude of the whole several-square-mile area was a little depressing.

There was a lot of money and time going to be needed to fix it all up, she thought a little sadly.

Missy had her own problems with the city, but it was the one she'd been born in and she didn't like seeing it so run down. This new view due to her recently learned talents put a lot of what she'd heard into stark perspective.

Noticing a biggish truck a couple of streets over halted in front of a barrier made from some of the wrecked cars that amply littered the streets around here, she stopped to inspect it, then headed over. The two guys in it looked confused and worried, which didn't surprise her at all if they weren't locals. The area was enough to confuse anyone, and worry was merely a good survival instinct under the circumstances.

"Never fear, good citizens, Cloak is here to help," she rasped to herself, grinning.

Despite everything, right now, life was fun.

"Take a seat," Lisa said, gently urging Sherrel over to the table. The woman was staring at Taylor, currently Saurial, and 'Ianthe' like she couldn't work out whether to run or faint. Her power was telling her that her guest was terrified, extremely unsure of herself, but also massively relieved to be out of what was an intolerable situation. She'd obviously been thinking very hard about a lot of things and come to some unpleasant conclusions.

They were going to need to have a long talk, and Lisa suspected that she was going to need professional help in the long run as well. She could take people to pieces with her ability, and the insights it could give her into their inmost fears and desires, but putting them back together… That needed an expert.

She could probably learn to do it better than any psychiatrist, given some time, but she wasn't going to practice on someone who she'd taken this sort of responsibility for. In a very real sense, Sherrel being here was entirely her fault.

This wasn't quite what she'd expected when she'd decided to heal her and leave her number behind, and certainly not quite this fast, but now it had happened, she couldn't do anything but help.

She was in the same position that Taylor had been regarding her, and her friends, which had worked out far better than she could ever have hoped for. Now, with luck, she could do the same for someone else.

It made her smile a little. It was, after all, the Family way…

"This is my sister Ianthe, and my cousin Saurial," she told Sherrel, who was trembling faintly under the hand she had on her shoulder. "We're going to help you, but I need to talk to fill them in on the situation, OK?" The blonde nodded a little shakily. "Would you like some tea? It might help calm you down a little."

"That would be nice, thanks," Sherrel replied in a tremulous tone.

The entire walk through the tunnels, she'd been smelling worried, depressed, and scared, Lisa had noticed, the fear part of it going up steadily. The woman was obviously wondering what she had let herself into. At the same time, she was certain she couldn't stay where she was and had decided that almost anything was better. Which didn't make her less scared about taking such a step.

Now, finding two more Family members looking curiously at her, she was terrified. Lisa squeezed her shoulder gently in a comforting manner, then headed for the drinks machine, indicating with a motion of her head for her friends to join her. They'd both gotten up when Lisa had come in, after a surprised look at each other, and were now studying both her and Sherrel. "Do you mind if I tell them your name?"

"No," Sherrel said after a moment.

Lisa made a mug of tea, adding a couple of spoons of sugar, took it back to the table, then rejoined her friends.

{Want to fill us in?} Taylor said, the sound of the alien language making Sherrel nearly drop her mug, until she recovered. The Hebert girl noticed and lowered her voice. {Where did you find her? And who is she?}

{If I said she followed me home, can we keep her, would you get angry?} Lisa replied with a small smirk. Taylor cocked her head a little, then glanced at Amy, who sighed. {OK. That, my dear cousin and sister, is Squealer. Real name Sherrel, apparently.}

{Squealer?} Amy asked in surprise, looking at the blonde, who was drinking her tea and looking at the posters on the wall, appearing lost and tired. {Really? That fast? What the hell happened?}

{I'm not sure yet. She called me when I was in the WCC, checking up on the Endbringer logs and thinking. Which, by the way, has led to some interesting developments, but that can wait. Anyway, long story short, my fixing her seems to have worked much, much better than I expected. She seems to have had a rather unpleasant epiphany, come to the conclusion that her life-span in the Merchants has a very definite end date, and decided that she didn't want to stick around for it.}

Lisa shrugged as all three of them glanced at the woman again. {I don't have the details but she was in a fight before she called, and has definitely been thinking very hard about her life. I'm almost certain that Skidmark has beaten her extremely badly recently, and probably not for the first time. I fixed a lot more than a drug overdose when I went there the first time.}

{What did she say to you when she called?} Taylor inquired.

{That she knew she was dead if she stayed, basically. She asked for help. What else could I do?}

{Nothing. Same as when you guys ran into trouble.} Taylor sighed a little. {I'm not upset, I'm just trying to think what we can do about this. She's a slightly different case than the Undersiders were, aside from Rachel you guys were practically unknown and had almost no serious crimes on record. I'm sure that would have changed if I hadn't come along but at the time you were very minor criminals, by and large. Kevin and Randall are much better known, but nearly everything they've done has involved property damage more than anything else, only minor accidental injuries. For cape villains, that's practically irrelevant as far as the PRT is concerned, I think. No one seems wildly interested in seriously hunting them down, anyway.}

She looked at Sherrel again. {The Merchants, though… They've killed a lot of people. Admittedly, mostly through drug overdoses rather than deliberate actions, but the entire gang has been responsible for a lot of muggings, robberies, god knows what, for years. Fuck knows how many people have died as a result. I don't think the PRT will just wipe that under the carpet.}

{Though, to the best of my knowledge, Squealer hasn't actually been accused of harming anyone herself,} Amy put in thoughtfully. {Traffic violations to a level that's barely believable, and she's certainly been the driver on a number of Merchant operations that caused total chaos, but it's normally Skidmark and Mush that do most of the damage.}

Lisa nodded. {That would have changed with the damn enormous urban tank she was making, but that's not going to happen now. A couple of months down the line, I think she'd have been on the hook for a lot of trouble, stuff we'd have no hope of dealing with aside from making her disappear. But right now, I think it's possible, although it's going to take some very careful thought.}

{And it depends on what she wants to do, of course,} Taylor pointed out. {I'm not going to force anyone into anything without a very good reason. Maybe she just wants to leave the city and never come back. I'm prepared to help her if that's the case, as long as she promises not to get back into drugs and crime. Same as with you and your team.}

{Or she might be open to joining the PRT,} Amy suggested. {I bet they'd take her like a shot, crimes or no crimes. It's happened before, believe me, and with people who have done much more serious things than she has. If the Parahuman has skills they want, they can make an awful lot of things just go away.}

{Nicely proving how broken the entire system is,} Taylor sighed. {Which is why I don't trust them all that far even now, and Dad doesn't either. Same for almost everyone in the DWU.}

{I feel the same,} Lisa replied. {And I agree, although the local branch under Piggot is a damn sight more reasonable and practical than you'd expect, all things considered. I don't particularly like the woman but I can't help but respect her. I think that we could probably talk sensibly to her about this. Our friend here is an exceptionally good Tinker, with the right resources the things she could do are unbelievable. The PRT would probably be delighted to get her.}

{Again, though, only if it's what she wants, I hope} Taylor tapped her chin thoughtfully with one claw. {We need to ask her. And we need to tell Dad. We're technically harboring a wanted criminal right now.}

{Like that bothers you,} Amy giggled.

{Oh, sure, I personally don't give a crap as long as they don't cause trouble,} Taylor shrugged, smiling, {Some of my best friends are criminals.} Both the others looked at each other then smirked. {Although for some weird reason that state seems to become less prominent after a while.}

{But you don't want to cause issues for the DWU,} Amy said.

{No. Dad would be very disappointed if we attract the wrong sort of attention. We have to tell him. He might have some other ideas as well. From what he's said, this isn't the first time someone with a dodgy past has disappeared into the DWU. It's happened more than once. Like he told you, as long as the past stays in the past, no one cares. But we need to make sure that can be arranged. Someone turning up in six months with a warrant and some irritating questions would be a pain in the ass, and there's a limit to how many people I want to eat before it gets tedious.}

Taylor grinned as they gave her a hard look. {I can never tell if you're joking about that or not,} Lisa finally sighed. {Stop it.}

{I have a few ideas that would make her vanish permanently, if she wanted it, without requiring Taylor to pick bits of Tinker out of her teeth,} Amy commented after a moment. {Or, more worryingly, bits of PRT agent. That would make people look even more oddly at us than they do right now.}

{Turn her into something scaly?} Taylor looked interested. {Possible, I guess. Problem is we don't know her at all. I've had a good track record with people being trustworthy despite their background, but there's always a first time for it to go bad. I'd prefer to avoid that. We'd have to tell her more about us than I feel comfortable with, right now.}

{Well, we could give her some story or other, knock her out, and do it then,} Amy mused. {It wouldn't even have to be a bioconstruct. I could rebuild her entirely without too much trouble, which would solve a few other problems. As the Family life sculptor, it wouldn't even be out of character for Ianthe. But it's a big step. And I certainly wouldn't do it without her express, informed consent. That's one option. Another is to keep her human and just change her enough that 'Sherrel' disappears for good. Also easy. I have another one that's a little more radical in some ways, but I'm still working on the details. Let me think about it for a while.}

{More radical than turning her into a Family member permanently?} Lisa asked in surprise. {Now I'm getting worried.}

Amy gave her a toothy grin, making her chuckle.

{OK, she's really starting to look scared now,} Taylor remarked, {let's talk to her and find out what she actually wants. When we know, we can figure out how practical it is. She also smells hungry, and she's awfully skinny. Well, most of her is.} All three of them looked at the blonde, who had finished her tea and seemed ready to fall over from worry. {Definitely a mammal,} she added, making both the others grin.

{She probably cleans up well, but she's extremely malnourished, I can tell you that from here,} Amy said, frowning a little. {She needs to eat some decent food. For several days, I'd say.}

{That part is easy.} Taylor looked at Lisa. {Are you going to do this a lot? If so, we should probably come up with a standard procedure.}

{It was kind of a spur of the moment thing,} she replied with a shrug. {Can't say I regret it. Let's talk to the poor woman, make her look less like she's going to pass out, then get your Dad and see what the options are.}

{OK.} They turned to face Sherrel, who swallowed.

"Hello," Taylor said with a gentle smile. "I'm sorry about that, my cousin was just filling me in on the background to this whole thing." She walked over and held out her hand. "My name is Saurial, from the Family. How can we help you, Sherrel?"

"I'm… not sure," the woman admitted. "Metis has already saved my life, probably twice now. I nearly killed myself with meth, and I'm fucking sure I'd be dead soon one way or the other if I'd stayed where I was. But I can't figure out what to do next. Or what I'm allowed to do."

All three of them sat on their tails near her. "Let's get one thing clear. You're not a prisoner. If you want to leave, I'm happy to let you, or even escort you anywhere you want to go. But that's only one option. There may be others available." Taylor studied Sherrel for a moment, then glanced at Lisa. "Why don't you fill us in on the whole thing and we can see if we can work them out between us? We have a lot more resources than you might expect, there's a good chance we can help you."

Sherrel stared at her, then Lisa, before looking at Amy. Sounding totally bewildered, she finally asked, "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? Why did Metis save my life in the first place? I've been trying to figure that out ever since, and I just can't get my head around it."

Taylor was silent for a moment, then replied, in thoughtful tones, "I suppose you could say it's what we do. We see problems all over the place. A lot of them can't be fixed easily, or at all in some cases, and quite often the people involved don't actually want to be helped anyway. But, if someone comes to us and asks for help… we'll see what we can do. You need help. My cousin saw that, and she did the right thing offering it. Now, if you'll let us, we can try to help you some more. Or if you don't want it, you can leave. It's up to you."

The blonde Tinker looked at her for nearly a minute, before sagging a little in her chair. "God, I could do with some help," she mumbled. "I have no idea what I really want, aside from not going back… there."

"You're certain you don't want anything to do with the Merchants again?" Amy asked.

"Yes. Totally. I never want to see that place or any of those people again," Sherrel said. "Most of them, I don't have any particular grudge against, although there are some I'd pay money to see fucked up good and hard, but they remind me of what I've realized was slow motion suicide."

"Even your boyfriend?"

"Especially that fucker. The only reason I was alive for Metis to save my life in the first place is that he was so high he missed me half the time," Sherrel said viciously, her hands clenched into fists. "And I was so fucking high I didn't do what I should have done and cracked his goddam head open when he was asleep. I loved that bastard once, but the man I fell for is long gone. I've been fooling myself for way too long that he might come back."

"I see."

They shared a look. Lisa's power was telling her that the woman meant every word, although even now she didn't genuinely want to see Skidmark dead. But she wasn't going to go back to him no matter what he did. It had taken two near death experiences and some healing-induced clarity of thought but she'd made up her mind.

"All right." Taylor motioned to her mug. "Would you like another cup of tea?"

"Yes, thanks, that was pretty good."

Lisa picked up the mug and went to refill it. "Tell us the story, Sherrel," she said as she handed it over once more. The woman took a sip, put it down, then started talking, in a low, angry voice.

It went on for quite a while.

Danny looked up at the tap on his door, which opened to reveal his daughter's scaled Saurial face. Her expression, which he could read easily these days, was somewhat uncertain, an unusual look for the girl since she'd merged with the Varga and become much more confident in herself. "Do you have a moment, Danny?" she said quietly, coming inside and closing the door. "Something a little… awkward… has come up."

"Of course," he smiled. "What's the problem?"

"Metis has been collecting strays," she said with a faint sigh. "I may be responsible for that, actually, thinking about it. But we have a guest we need to talk about."

He looked at her for a little while, without saying anything. Eventually he got up and reached for his coat. "I presume I need to meet this guest?"

"It would make things easier," she admitted. "It's a little sensitive, especially with recent events."

"And is it, perhaps, to do with the actions Metis took yesterday when she was prowling around underground?"

"They're not entirely unconnected," Taylor grinned.

"That was quick."

"Circumstances sort of forced it," she said. Putting his coat on, he followed her out of the office, telling the staff in the outer room he was going to be a while. "How is the shipment of new equipment, by the way?" she asked on the way through the building. "I was going to come and have a look at it but I got tied up."

"It's pretty good," he replied. "Lots of interesting things to look at. Mark and Zephron are working out who to train on it first. Brian and Alec's names came up."

"Hmm. Good choice, I think," she said after a moment of thought. "We may have some interesting toys of our own to add to the collection, we were working on some neat things when this current issue came up." They both fell silent, walking through the connected buildings in a companionable manner, nodding to various people they both knew. He was amused and proud to see how many people she was on good terms with, knowing nearly as many of the workers in the place as he did, all of whom seemed to like her.

Glancing at the tall reptilian figure walking along beside him, he smiled to himself. That demon, from wherever it had ultimately come, was the best thing that had ever happened to his family, his organization, and he suspected to his city. One day he needed to find out what was responsible and thank it sincerely, assuming that was possible.

Now, though, he needed to work out how to deal with a criminal Tinker apparently seeking asylum.

Things around the place were definitely a lot more interesting recently, he noted with a wry smile. He couldn't honestly say he didn't like it, despite the weirdness.