Zephron checked over the new equipment with interest, pulling one of the over the top paintball markers out of the crate and inspected it closely. Mark was on the other side of the new armory reading some documentation on one of the thermal sights his contact had somehow liberated from the military, making small satisfied sounds under his breath. "Cute toy," he grunted, cocking the device, then dry-firing it. "Accurate?"

Mark looked up. "Not bad. Not as good as a real gun, the balls are too light and too slow, but it's pretty effective to about a hundred and thirty yards or so. They'll go a lot further than that, of course, but you probably won't hit what you were aiming at. Of course, we can up the gas pressure and extend that if we don't mind punching holes in people who are too close."

Putting it to his shoulder, Zephron looked through the sight, putting the red dot on the other side of the room, then panning it around. "Should be good enough for Merchants," he stated. "Assuming we don't want to kill them."

"One of these in the face and they'll wish you had," his companion snorted, pushing a box of the special enhanced capsaicin balls towards him on the shelf. "Make pepper spray look like Tabasco sauce."

He smiled in a nasty fashion. "I'm almost looking forward to it."

"What are those other ones?" Zephron asked, putting the gas-powered gun back into the box with the rest.

"These are ordinary paint-balls, in the blue cases, I got them from a local sport shop. For practice. These, on the other hand, are one of the gifts Antonio sent along. Just in case we need something more serious."

Mark held up a smaller box, colored a virulent red. "Tinker nerve agent. Not lethal, if you get the antidote quick enough. Probably. That's in the yellow box there, a couple of dozen multi-use autojectors. It'll put a man down in about five seconds from skin contact. They were working on it when I left service, one of the less-lethal crowd control devices the Pentagon was into at the time. Turned out to be slightly less than less-lethal enough, from what I heard. God knows where he got it from."

"Not exactly legal," Zephron commented, taking the box from him and looking at the warnings on it with curiosity.

"Not as such. But if it comes to a point we need to use it, we can deal with the fallout afterward. I'd rather use it and live than not and die. Or see my friends die."

"Fair point." Putting the box back down, the large man picked up one of the thermal sights instead. "These are good."

"They're fucking insane. Higher resolution than anything we had, real time frame rate, no active cooling needed… Completely classified stuff. Special forces grade. Some guys I know who are still in active service don't have them yet." Mark looked both impressed and slightly horrified. And somewhat excited. "The fact that he could lay hands on them is… I'm not sure, but there are people who should get fired. Or shot. Or both."

"As long as it's not us."

"They're clean, that I'm sure of. The guy is extremely careful and seriously connected."

Holding the scope to his eye after a little examination, Zephron flicked the power switch, the device making a very faint whine for a second or two before the eyepiece lit up. He panned it around, seeing his colleague showing up in bright shades of white and gray against an evenly dark gray background. Fiddling with the controls on the side he made the image go through a kaleidoscope of different color schemes, and zoom in a surprisingly long way. "Cool. How many do we have?"

"Supposed to be twenty, but there's an even two dozen here."

"Generous guy."

"Not normally." Mark sounded slightly puzzled. "I mean, he's as trustworthy as it gets, in the sense that when he gives you his word he sticks absolutely to it, but it's unusual for him to give stuff away without expecting favors in return. He seems to respect the boss a lot more than I'd have expected."

Lowering the thermal imager and turning it off, Zephron carefully put it back in the case it had come from and closed it, flipping the latches.

He looked at Mark for a moment. The blond man was a good, sensible, and loyal guy, and a friend, but he himself had been with the DWU much longer than the other man had. After considering it for a while, he replied, "How much do you know about the boss? His background, I mean?"

"I know he's second generation Brockton Bay, his father moved here in the mid fifties or so? Something like that. Originally from Europe, somewhere in the south. His wife had a similar background, I think, but I only knew her for two, three years before she was killed and never really talked that much to her."

"Poor woman. Annette was amazing. Hilariously funny, weird sense of humor, incredibly stubborn, and smart as a whip." Zephron shook his head sorrowfully. "Real shame she died like that. Broke Danny completely for years. Nearly tore him and his daughter apart, I think. Whatever fixed him, I'm damn glad about it. It wasn't fun watching him slowly slip away."

"He's certainly back to his old self and then some," Mark smiled as he stacked the special paint-balls on the shelves, unloading some of the crates the two nervous guys from New Jersey had delivered yesterday.

"Thank god for that. Without that man we'd be fucked about now. It's only the fact that's he's a stubborn bastard as well that's kept the place going all these years. Even when he was on autopilot he still managed to somehow keep the lights on."

Zephron moved to help his companion as they unloaded, checked, and repacked everything, going down the manifest that Mark had brought. "Danny's dad was a good guy too. My own dad knew him pretty well. I met him a couple of times when I was a kid. He… let's say he was the go-to guy for when things got difficult around here. Say you were a captain who was having trouble with people vandalizing your equipment, or stealing from you, something like that. It happened, old grudges, commercial issues, that sort of thing. Way I heard it, someone would call Danny's old man, he'd come along and talk to people, problems went away."

"Just like that?" Mark looked at him with an eyebrow up.

"Pretty much. Of course, sometimes they didn't. Then an example was made. Nothing too serious, not out of order for around these parts, but people remembered. It was all legit, more or less. At least the cops never came around, or if they did it was just for the look of it. Even then there weren't enough of them to cover this area. They were just happy that someone was keeping the peace and not too fussed about how, as long as no bodies turned up."

"Huh." Mark unpacked a crate of smoke grenades, counting them carefully. "All by himself?"

"No, he had a crew, my dad was one of them. They looked out for each other. People who could take care of themselves and didn't want the docks turning into anarchy." Zephron smiled in reminiscence. "Tough crowd. They had a reputation. Even back then, the gangs stayed out. Or got kicked out. Even after the capes came on the scene. Of course, Marquis was enough of a gentleman that he'd have stayed out anyway, or come to some arrangement. Danny's dad was gone by then, but the idea stuck. The docks look after their own. Those fucking Merchants are the only ones who are too stupid to get the idea. Or Hookwolf, but we know what happened to him."

They shared a smirk. "God, that was fucking funny," Mark chuckled. "I'll never forget the expression on that bastard's face when he saw Raptaur loom at him in the dark."

"Bet he sleeps with a nightlight now," Zephron grinned. "Anyway, like I said, Danny's dad was sort of the main troubleshooter around these parts for years. And sometimes trouble did indeed get shot."

"So where does the link to Antonio come in?"

"That goes back further. Danny's father's father, now he was a proper bastard. Back in Corsica, he was well known in the war. Real hero, from what I know, fought the Nazis all over the place. Went to France and fucked them up there as well. But his family was an old one, ties to half the rest of the old families of Europe. Not the aristocrats, the other ones, if you get my meaning."

Mark glanced at him, looking thoughtful. "I get the idea."

"After the war, he went back to the family trade. Was very good at it. Didn't take shit from anyone. Not a nice man, but a loyal friend and very respected. That part of the world, those guys were important, still are, really. And they all know each other. Way I heard it, the old man was a bit of a ladies man as well, and made a mistake. That was where the boss' father came from. When it came out, Danny's dad was around… maybe nineteen or so? Moved to the US, started a family eventually, and in his own way carried on some of the family tradition. Mostly the protection side, in a different way. People around here respected him a lot."

"OK. I can see it."

"Now, I'm not certain about this next bit, but from what I worked out, Danny's grandfather and old Antonio were… business colleagues, maybe? Something like that. Antonio was the younger guy, Danny's gramps was the mentor. Taught him everything he knew, before Antonio moved to the states back around nineteen sixty or so. The old man died back in the late eighties, a stroke. He'd survived an assassination attempt in Paris in the early eighties, he was a tough old bastard, but high blood pressure got him in the end. But I know he was tight with Antonio, the guy trusted him like an older brother. That's where the link is. I'm pretty sure that he was asked to look out for Danny's father, and his family."

"That… would explain quite a few things," Mark remarked thoughtfully.

"I think there was some sort of falling out between Antonio and Danny's family years back, though. No idea what it was. I know Danny's always put a lot of effort into being legit, his father insisted on it. But blood tells, you know? There's something in him that takes the idea of loyalty to your family and friends a lot further than some people can understand. Same thing that made the old man himself someone that people looked up to even though he wasn't exactly a law-abiding person on a good day. But he looked out for his own. Even now, his name carries a lot of weight in places you wouldn't believe."

Zephron smiled a little, remembering his own father. "Dad would have died for Charles. Nearly did more than once. Those Heberts… They're like that. Fantastic friends, fucking terrible enemies. They just don't give up. Even when Annette died, he kept fighting for the Union, although his heart wasn't in it for a long time. Fucking glad Taylor was around to give him something else to focus on, we might have lost the poor bastard otherwise."

By now they'd unpacked nearly everything and inventoried it, putting it in place on the various shelves around the room. It was an impressive amount of equipment.

"Funny thing is that Annette's family had a similar background. Sicilian, not Corsican, but their grandparents knew each other pretty well as far as I know. Not that they knew that when they met. That lady was dangerous as well, and some of her friends… Not good people." He smiled. "Danny met her, fell in love on the spot, and spent a year wooing the girl. When they decided to get married, her friends were… unhappy. They tried to force him to break it off."

"What happened?"

"Don't know for sure. But Danny and Annette got married, and those friends never came near them again. Heard there were broken bones involved, and possibly a certain amount of threats involving a lighter and a can of gas. Sort of a personal demonstration, you understand. Seemed to work."

"Shit." Mark shook his head respectfully. "I knew about that fuckwit who pulled a bat on his daughter, but nothing about that."

"That idiot nearly got himself killed," Zephron muttered, slightly adjusting a case on the shelf. "Never threaten Danny's daughter. Especially when he's standing right there. He doesn't react well."

"Man's got a temper."

"That he has. Hard to ignite, really fucking hard, but even harder to put out if you manage it. His dad was the same, his gramps was worse. Bodies tended to pile up when he got riled."

"Wonder if Danny could be pushed that far?"

Zephron met his companions eyes evenly. "Don't doubt it. Hope we'll never see it, though. If he gets that pissed..." He shrugged. "Not good. Luckily, the only person I know could push his buttons like that is in the Birdcage so we'll probably never find out what would happen."

"I can see why he gets on so well with the Family," Mark said after a moment of silence.

Zephron looked at him again, then checked that the door was shut and locked.

"You know the real reason?"

Mark studied him. "Do you?"

"I'm pretty damn sure I do."

"Me too."

They kept staring at each other. "Going to say it?"

"That the Family is family? No. I'm not an idiot."

"Good to know."

Both men nodded to each other with a small smile of understanding.

Turning back to finishing off the inventory, Zephron chuckled. "Glad the girl turned out so well, though. Her mother would have been very proud. Then asked for whatever it is that the Dallon girl did. God help us then. Three of them is bad enough."

Mark started laughing under his breath as he picked up the manual for the thermal sights and began reading it again. "Doubt it will stay only three."

"Me either. Fun times."

They glanced at each other, smirked, and kept working.

"What the hell is that?" Lisa asked with fascination, as Taylor finished making a… thing.

The brunette girl picked up the small spherical device, which was very obviously a sphere, yet still had sides and edges as well. Lisa's power was gaping at it in awe, trying to fit it into the mathematical system she was slowly coming to grips with. It had far more than the normal number of dimensions, she could see that, but the intricacies of it were giving her a headache.

Taylor looked at it a little sadly. "A very non-nonlethal weapon," she sighed. "I seem to keep coming up with things like this. Every time I think about how I could do something weird, half the applications are incredibly dangerous to practically everyone. It's sort of depressing how fragile people are."

"What does it do?" Amy asked curiously.

"This," their friend said, flipping the thing across the room so it landed about eighty feet from them. There was a weird crinkling sound and the sphere… changed. Opening up like a flower in a manner that made the eyes twist, something about the space around it suddenly looking odd, to a radius of about six feet. Lisa stared, trying to work out what had happened.

There was nothing instantly obvious, but there definitely was something there above the now not at all spherical thing Taylor had produced. "What the hell?" she mumbled, her power trying to get to grips with it. "Fractal dimensional structure, EDM fibers… some sort of constantly changing spacial fold?"

"More or less," Taylor remarked, making a steel bar about six feet long and half an inch in diameter, which she carried over to the vicinity of the device on the floor. She waved the end of it through that very slightly hazy zone surrounding the thing, both the others gaping as the end six inches of it suddenly vanished without apparently slowing the swing at all, producing a brilliant flash of white light that left them blinking wildly along with a very loud thumping explosion that made things rattle around the room.

"Holy… What the hell did that?" Amy gasped in shock.

"A very large number of very fine EDM filaments that are cycling through about fifteen thousand different spacial arrangements every second," Taylor replied, waving the bar back through the space, another foot vanishing in the same manner. "They're about the same diameter as a water molecule and maybe six feet long. Totally rigid and sticking out like porcupine quills in a zig-zag pattern, but the space around the thing is cycling through thousands of different combinations over and over again, which means they basically fill the entire zone and move really fast. Like hundreds of thousands of razor blades sharp enough to cut things up on an atomic scale. The flash and the bang is all the ultra-fine metal powder combining with oxygen in the air and burning."

"Fucking hell," Lisa whispered as what she was looking at suddenly made sense. "The haze in the air and that weird smell is the air itself getting chopped up."

"Yep." Taylor made the remnants of the bar go away. The thing on the floor evaporated soundlessly as she turned around and came back to them. "I had the idea when we were designing the wall. It's a variation on the method I used to nest all the panels inside each other."

"That's terrifying," Amy said quietly.

"Tell me about it. I could make them as landmines, or grenades, you name it. No explosives needed. Anything other than EDM that goes into there comes out as a practically mono-atomic powder."

"What about you?" Lisa asked curiously.

"It stings a lot," Taylor smiled. "It's not lethal to me, but it hurts. Anyone else, though… They wouldn't even have time to scream."

"Shit."

"I came up with all sorts of ideas along the same lines. Rounds for Athena Lite that open up into rotating mesh nets of different sizes, then go back to full mass, for example. Basically huge rotating knives that would slice up anything they hit. Never mind all the chemical loads, or simple kinetic kill projectiles. I also worked out the energy release of the actual Athena load if I made it go full mass as it was fired."

Lisa looked at her, then did some quick mental arithmetic. Then wished she hadn't.

"Promise me you'll never do that," she said faintly.

"I have no more wish to kill the entire planet than you do," her friend mumbled.

"How much?" Amy asked, not as quick on the mental calculations.

"About forty-three teratons of TNT equivalent," Lisa said, trying not to fall over. "Roughly the same as a good-sized asteroid impact. A dino-killer sized one."

"Oh, god," the healer squeaked. "No, let's never do that."

"I'm not planning on it," Taylor noted. "Believe me. I like this planet. It's the only one we have."

"We should do something about that at some point," Lisa said, staring at Taylor as if she'd never seen her before. "Just in case."

"Put it on the list," the other girl smiled.

"It's getting pretty long."

"We'll never lack for things to do, though."

"All too true."

All three of them were silent for a while, thinking about the events of the last little while. Eventually Taylor smiled more brightly. "Really?" she said, not to any of them. A moment passed, then her smile grew into a definite grin of enjoyment. "Great, that's fantastic!" She was obviously talking to the Varga. Focusing on the two other people actually physically present, she said, "Hey, want to see one of the flying forms Varga and I have been working on? He's just worked out the first really solid design, he told me."

"Sure," Lisa smiled, leaning forward eagerly. "Show us."

"All right. This one is cool, you might recognize where we got the idea. It's still a work in progress, there are some optimizations we need to do, but he's pretty sure it will work. He's been thinking about it all day."

"And I believe it will be quite amusing," the Varga put in. "Not to mention somewhat less worrying than the larger end of the possible variants, such as the image she showed you."

"That one was a bit big," Amy allowed with a laugh. "I still can't believe you could actually do it."

"I'll prove it one day, but not now. This one, though, should be fun."

Taylor walked to the middle of the room, smirked at them smugly, then changed.

"Wow!" both the other girls said simultaneously. The large, absolutely and totally, light-absorbingly, black dragon in the center of the floor grinned at them with a mouthful of gleaming teeth.

"Good, isn't it?" she said, craning her neck around to inspect herself. "First time I've seen it. Nice job, Varga."

"Thank you, Brain," he replied, sounding pleased. "The wing structure needs fine tuning as we were discussing, but the internals are mostly done. I'm not sure it would fly properly yet. I think the tail needs some work too."

"Lisa, check us out and see if your power can give us anything," Taylor suggested.

Getting up, the blonde girl walked around the latest form her friend had produced, marveling at the fantasy brought to life in front of her. Amy was simply staring, entranced, her chin in her hands and a smile on her face.

"You know you give me a headache," she pointed out. "My power just goes blibble and blows bubbles when I try to analyze you."

"Don't try to analyze me, try to analyze the form," Taylor suggested. "Maybe that will tell you something."

Lisa tried her friend's suggestion, feeling that her power was fascinated yet again by the whole thing. As far as she could tell it had entirely stopped trying to deeply probe the Varga itself, mostly out of self-preservation, but it seemed happy to have a stab at doing what Taylor had mentioned. Even so, it wasn't having all that much luck, although that wasn't dissuading it.

"Well, it's viable, if that helps. I'm mostly sure about that. Assuming the structural strength is high enough and the power to weight ratio is as well. But I think we can assume the answer is yes to both, knowing you." She pointed at Taylor's tail. "I think you need to adjust the shape and position of those fins quite a bit if you intend them to work as a rudder. That movie was surprisingly close but not perfect."

Looking back over her shoulder, Taylor lifted her tail. "OK. What sort of change?"

"Ah… make them about forty percent larger, move the leading edge forward by the same amount..." She watched as the tail flowed into a different shape. "OK. Slightly thinner at the root, then stiffen the ribs… Yes, perfect. Make the vertical one on the tail go the whole length and twice as tall, too. That's it."

"Anything else?"

"Open your wings again?"

The enormous things unfurled, covering half the distance between the walls. "Um. They need to be about… maybe fifteen… no, eighteen percent longer, and four percent deeper front to back."

"Chord, that's called. Like this?"

"Yes. Great. That's probably about the best I can do, but my power is certain it will be stable now. The rest you'll have to figure out for yourself."

Taylor smiled widely. "Wonderful. Thanks, Lisa. And Lisa's power. You should give it a name."

"I..." Lisa stared at her reptilian friend. "A name?"

"Why not?"

After a long pause, Lisa shook her head. "I'm worried by the way I can't immediately come up with what should be an obvious answer to that question."

Amy started giggling, making Lisa look at her, then sigh heavily. "Thanks."

"Your face was really funny, you looked like a dog trying to work out how to get a biscuit from the other side of a window," Amy laughed. "Very confused, but sure there was a way."

"Really, thanks a bunch," the blonde mumbled. "Remind me why I think of you two as friends again?"

"Because we're so cool?"

"Nooo… That's not it." Lisa grinned as Amy mock-glared at her. "Oh, I remember, you make cool toys. So, can you make one of those for me?" she asked brightly, waving at Taylor, who was standing with her wings out, looking pleased with herself.

Amy studied their friend's draconic form. Taylor posed for her, curling her long neck up and staring down her nose at them in a suitably supercilious fashion, her tail curled around her feet like a huge cat.

"I… really don't know yet," she finally said. "The power needed to make something that size fly… it's not trivial. But on the other hand, she's about the size of a light aircraft, and they don't have enormous engines. Huh." She thought some more, an intrigued expression on her face as she communed with her power. "Possible. Not trivial, but possible. I need to figure out a better bio-compatible power source, that's the main problem. Let me think about it."

She fell silent, looking at Taylor with a speculative expression while biting her lower lip a little. "Maybe smaller… Dimensional folds..." she mumbled under her breath. "More wings? No, that would look silly. Hmm..."

"She only weighs about as much as Ianthe like this, if that's any use," Lisa pointed out, her power helpfully supplying the information. "Hollow bones?"

"Exactly," Taylor replied. "We shaved as much mass off as seemed sensible. Luckily Varga biology is ridiculously strong and tough, so it's easy. We could make it a lot lighter, down to about my base form mass, but why bother? This should work, like you said."

She grinned, adding, "Hey, hit the lights, will you?"

"Why?" Amy said, even as she got up and went over to the switches, flipping them off.

"So I can do this," Taylor chuckled.

They stared at the blue glow that outlined their friend, as she opened her wings again and posed once more. "Neat, isn't it?"

"It's beautiful," Amy breathed. "Absolutely amazing."

"I can do this too," Taylor added, the tips of her wings suddenly lighting up red on the left and green on the right. "Navigation lights, look!"

"You are weird, really and truly," Lisa stated, sitting down again at the table and just watching. "But I have to admit that looks amazing. I'm getting envious all over again."

"I'll work on it, I promise," Amy laughed, turning the lights back on and joining her. "But we have other things to do first."

"That's unfortunately true," Taylor sighed, resuming her base form and wandering back to them, slumping at the table. "I'd prefer to play with dragon forms, but… we need to get ready to deal with the Merchants."

"I still believe we would be best served by preemptively attacking and rounding up the enemy, then handing them over to the PRT and the police, Brain," the Varga said reflectively. "Combined with the demoralizing effects of your raid last night, and Lisa's psychological operations on the internet, there are probably far less of them to deal with right now."

"I'm pretty sure he's correct," Lisa said. "As far as I can tell they're probably losing members steadily. I need to go back and have another look, I'll do that later, but I'd be amazed if they weren't down twenty percent or more by now. And there's a decent chance that we've fucked up Skidmark's plans by stealing his money anyway, since he can't pay anyone for anything now. So unless he found an arms dealer with a credit plan or something he might not have anything."

"Unless he'd already found what he wanted," Amy pointed out. "Sure, he might not be able to pay for whatever it is, but if he's got possession of it..."

"Um… valid point, I admit," she replied reluctantly. "Which makes taking out his backup even more important. From what… Linda… said, he only took about half a dozen or so people with him."

Taylor looked at both of them in turn. "Damn it all. Why the hell did that idiot have to go and get involved?" she complained, folding her arms and appearing annoyed. "We didn't do anything to him."

"Aside from threaten his entire lifestyle by potentially bringing hope to the exact people he sucks dry and feeds poison to," Amy suggested.

"Stop making sense, it's irritating," Taylor grumped.

"Cheer up, once we've dealt with the fuckwit, we can get on with more useful stuff. Like giving dear old Mr Calvert the worst day of his life." Lisa grinned widely. "I'm looking forward to that so much."

They all laughed at that. The tone of her voice boded ill for the villain.

"All right, next topic." The blonde girl looked worried all over again. "Endbringers. I have some… weird conclusions... I need to run past you guys. If I'm right, the situation is even stranger than we thought."

Taylor and Amy exchanged gazes, then leaned forward. "Go on," Taylor said, sounding very interested and somewhat apprehensive.

"I was checking the tracking logs…" Lisa began the story, watching her friends look more and more shocked as she spoke.

Blinking sleep-encrusted eyes, the woman formerly known as Sherrel stretched, feeling unusually comfortable. She'd slept far better than normal, there were no aches and pains, and the normal craving for something narcotic to both wake her up and take the edge off life was entirely absent. All in all she hadn't felt this good in half a decade or more.

Yawning, she sat up, looking around the room she was in, the light of day showing it in more detail. The number of beds showed it was a dorm room, five empty ones plus the one she was in, but while it was basic it was still a vast improvement on her former quarters. The complete lack of anyone trying to kill her was a significant improvement, aside from anything else.

Wondering what time it was, she got out of bed, flipping the blankets back and standing up. Going over to the window, wearing only a t-shirt and underwear, she pulled the blind up and peered out. Several stories below her the yard was full of people moving around, the area where they were scrapping that enormous ship Kaiju had moved alive with activity. Cutting torches and thermal lances were throwing sparks everywhere, gangs of people, both men and women, moving large chunks of former vessel around with heavy machinery.

A line of rail cars was being filled with scrap and as she watched, a small switch engine chugged into life, hauling the first set of six away while another one came into view pulling six more empty ones, which were pushed into position. Cranes immediately swung into activity, dumping yet more steel into the cars. Some of it was still smoking slightly from being cut.

Pushing the window up, she leaned on the sill and watched, the sounds of over a hundred people and lots of machinery coming to her on the light breeze. The effect was one of hard work and cooperation, something she found she admired more than she'd expected.

If nothing else, these people were good at what they did and seemed friendly.

Sighing lightly, she watched the work for some time, her power suggesting all the things she could make from the machines below her, and the scrap being steadily loaded into the rail cars. Thousands of tons of it was heading for a smelter somewhere, she presumed. By the looks of it, they'd already whittled the tanker down by at least a quarter.

Assuming what she'd heard was accurate, the plan was to keep going with the rest of the Ship's Graveyard, ultimately clearing it completely. That would probably take several years and a lot more people, but the difference it would make to the city would be significant. Linda tried to imagine what it would be like without hundreds of wrecked ships cluttering the landscape, and all these warehouses and buildings full of life and activity like they had been fifty years before.

It was difficult. She'd lived in this area for years, but had only ever seen it in a state of decay and ruin. The idea that all that could change, and so quickly, was… strange.

But something she found herself interested to see, she decided.

Closing the window, since she was getting cold, she moved over to the nearest radiator and sat on the floor next to it, warming up again on the old cast iron, while she tried to put her feelings and thoughts into some sort of order. She had some decisions to make.

There was no going back to what life had been before, that went without saying. Not that she wanted to. Adam was… not the man he had been, definitely, and she was beginning to wonder if he ever really had been. Looking back on the last few years, what she could clearly remember of it at least, which was much less than was probably healthy, she could now pick out the signs that the man had been unstable right from the beginning of their relationship.

The quick wits and sense of humor had long become submerged under a level of paranoia and suspicion that was worrying at best, while the seeds of violence and acting without considering the consequences had been there all along. Years of narcotic abuse had only made everything much more pronounced, she could see that now.

Sighing, she put her head in her hands, squeezing it lightly and massaging her scalp with her fingertips. She had no great claim to having been better, she thought, she'd gone along with him all this time after all. People had undoubtedly been injured or killed as a result of some of the things she'd built, even if only incidentally. Linda was pretty sure she'd never personally killed anyone directly, or seriously injured them except in self defense, but…

It wasn't what she'd intended to do with her life.

Only chance, and a fucking enormous alien lizard, had pulled her out of what she was certain would have been a fairly short and unpleasant life. She still couldn't wrap her mind around the way things had so suddenly changed, and the people who had changed it. Even with her long talk with Saurial, who she had discovered she really liked. Metis and Ianthe too, they all seemed like good people, even with the tails and scales.

'Aliens,' she pondered, her eyes shut and her mind whirling. 'Fucking unbelievable. But I actually believe it. How the hell did that happen?'

There was no good answer to that question.

Pushing herself to her feet, she retrieved a change of clothes, the towel the Hebert man had given her, and the washing supplies, then headed off for a shower. Locking the cubicle door behind her, she took her current attire off and examined her appearance clinically in the full-length mirror that formed one side of the small room. It was beyond weird to think that the stranger in the glass was actually her.

The woman she was looking at wasn't the one she was used to seeing, although the differences weren't enormous. But all together, they added up to an entirely separate person, one no one who had known her would ever associate with Sherrel. Running her hand through her new brown hair, she shook her head in wonder. Ianthe's work was incredible.

"Hello, Linda," she said softly, the altered pitch of her voice sounding weird to her. "Nice to meet you, I guess. What do you think I should do?"

There was no answer, of course.

Eventually she turned the water on, soaking under the hot flow for some time. The feeling of the water running over her helped her think, as she went over all the options she had, including a couple of new ones she came up with. By the time she turned the water off, she'd come to a decision.

"Looks like both of us are going to ask if we can stay, hey, Linda?" she asked her reflection, toweling her hair dry. "We can see if the DWU wants a Tinker. If nothing else, I want to find out how Saurial kept making things from nowhere."

She could see some very interesting possibilities from that talent and was curious to see if the lizard-girl was interested in some project ideas she had...

Brian looked up from his conversation with Rachel, which actually was a conversation, even if it was mostly grunts on her part as she ate, to see a new face come into the cafeteria. The woman, who looked to be about four or five years older than he was, seemed uncertain and a little worried as she looked around.

"Wonder who that is?" he asked. Rachel, who was currently half-way through her second helping of either late lunch or early dinner, followed his eyes for a moment.

"Dunno. Saw her with the boss last night. Looked fucked up and tired. Better now." She went back to eating, the two dogs at her feet peering up hopefully at her.

Glancing at his companion with inner amusement, since this was for her quite a long speech, he went back to watching the brunette. She was hovering around the end of the queue for the hot food like she wasn't sure if she should join it or not. After a moment, he got up and walked over. "You look a little lost," he remarked with a smile, knowing the feeling all too well. "I'm Brian."

"I'm… Linda," she replied, the pause almost unnoticeable, but making him think she'd almost said another name. "Hello, Brian."

"New around here? You look sort of worried."

"I got here last night. It's a long story that isn't over yet," she sighed. "I was hungry and followed my nose." She scanned the cafeteria, which was quite busy. "Do I have to do anything special to get something to eat?"

"Nope. Just grab a tray, pick what you want, and find a table," he said, waving his hand at the pile of trays near the end of the line. "Food's good, nothing wildly exotic, but lots of it. Help yourself."

The woman seemed relieved, and a little shocked at the informality of the whole place. "Um, thanks, Brian," she said as she headed for the trays.

"Free space at my table over there if you want it," he called after her, pointing when she looked back, then returned to sit across from Rachel, who had ignored the entire thing. Shortly, Alec turned up, having been in the line for some time for thirds. Sitting down next to the girl, the black-haired boy picked up his fork.

"You're going to get fat if all you do is eat and play games all day," Brian pointed out with a grin. Alec shrugged, grinning back.

"Fast metabolism. And those games are intense, burn a lot of calories."

"Sure they do."

"I'm telling you, it's true! By the time I've finished shooting everyone I'm sweating."

Chuckling, Brian went back to his own food. They ate in silence for a few minutes, before Mark came in, catching Brian's eye, then headed over. Squatting down next to the table, he looked at both boys. "Got a moment, guys?" he asked in a low voice.

"Sure," Brian nodded. Alec merely raised an eyebrow in an inquisitive way.

"Got a training opportunity for you both, if you're up for it. DWU defense forces."

"What the hell is that?" Alec asked.

"A whole new job category," Mark replied with a small smile. "Auxiliary force for the security team. Brian, I know we talked about security work a while back, but you've been busy with Jason. With this new possible threat from the Merchants, we're putting together a group of people who can help defend the place if it all kicks off. Got some cool new toys to help with that, aside from anything else you might bring to the table." He looked at both of them, in a meaningful manner. "But there's some training involved. Zephron suggested both of you might be a good fit." He glanced at Alec with a smirk. "Put some of the wasted time on the consoles to good use."

"It's not wasted time, it keeps me busy. No one wants me wandering around bored, trust me," Alec snickered.

Rachel, who wasn't obviously paying attention, nodded. "Pain in the ass when he's happy," she muttered. "Worse when he's bored."

"Thanks, Rach, I love you too," Alec laughed, reaching out to ruffle her hair. She growled at him in a manner remarkably like one of her dogs and he aborted the motion half-way, turning it into a scratch of his own head and making Brian and Mark both smirk.

"Anyway, if you're up for it, come see me in the security office around five this afternoon, OK? I've got other people to talk to, so I can't go into details now, but you'll probably find it interesting."

Looking at Alec, who shrugged one shoulder but appeared intrigued, Brian turned back to the older man and nodded. "All right, sir, we'll be there."

"Great." Mark stood again. "We need to get you some more hand to hand training as well. Saurial is interested in teaching some Family techniques if you're up for that too. Girl is fucking lethal, I want to see how much of that she can pass on. Danny thinks it's a good idea."

"That could be… fascinating," he admitted, feeling some excitement. He'd seen the lizard-girl training with Ianthe at one point and she was definitely the best martial artist he'd ever come across, with or without a tail.

"See you guys later." The blond security head turned and headed for the coffee machine, quickly filling a cup and leaving the room.

A couple of minutes later, Brian noticed Linda heading their way, glancing about for a free space. He raised a hand and waved it, catching her eye. The brunette looked at him, then came over. As she approached, he said in a low voice, "Try not to be too… Alec, Alec."

His friend and team-mate looked offended, while Rachel snorted into her glass of water, the grunt sounding amused.

"I don't know what the hell you mean, Brian," Alec said.

"Sure you don't. Just keep it down for now, she's new and will need time to get used to you."

There was no response other than a small smirk, but he thought his friend would probably be good. For a while.

Hopefully.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Linda said, reaching them and seeming a little overwhelmed by the controlled chaos in the large room. Brian nodded at the chair next to him, across from Alec.

"Not at all, help yourself."

She put the tray she had down on the table, then sat. "This is my friend Alec, and next to him is Rachel."

Linda inspected them both, her eyes narrowing a little when she met Rachel's, then widening. The other girl looked back in a challenging manner. After a moment, just as he was about to warn his friend not to do what she often tended to, Rachel nodded a little and went back to eating.

'She really has changed,' he thought in mild wonder.

Linda was still looking at Rachel, but quickly looked away when he cleared his throat. "So, are you just visiting, or…?" he asked tentatively.

"Or, I think," she said after a couple of second's reflection. "So far everything I've seen here is… interesting." She arranged her fish and chips, added some pepper, then started eating.

"A local? Or from out of town?"

She glanced at him. "You ask a lot of questions," she smiled.

"Only basic ones," he smiled back. "Around here we leave people's pasts alone. And like it that way."

"So I'm told," she commented with a slight sigh. "Probably for the best."

He got the impression that she had a past she'd rather forget. He could definitely sympathize with that, too.

"Born a long way south of here," she added after a couple of mouthfuls. "But I've lived in the Bay for years. Circumstances… sort of changed… recently. Still trying to work out why. I ended up here." She shrugged. "I've decided that it's as good a place as any and better than most. I'm going to see if I can get a job here."

"What do you do?" he asked, finishing his meal, then putting his knife and fork down and picking up his coffee.

"Mechanical engineering, more or less," she replied, having apparently thought about it for a moment. "Make it, fix it, design it, I'm pretty good, I think. If it's got wheels I can make it work. And probably even if it doesn't."

"Sounds like the motor pool would love you," he grinned. "They're always complaining we don't have enough good mechanics. Some of the machinery around here is ancient, hardly anyone seems to know how to fix it, even though it's really solidly made. Too old, no manuals, and no spare parts."

The woman looked amused. "That's not normally a problem," she replied, then drank some water. "I've fixed all sorts of crap no one had any more use for."

"Rachel said she saw you with Mr Hebert last night," he commented after she'd eaten some more, already appearing less nervous. "Have you talked to him about staying?"

"We talked," she nodded. "For some time, actually. I met Saurial and her cousins as well. That was… different."

He laughed out loud. "Oddly enough I'm not surprised you'd think that. They're a shock the first time. And the second, and sometimes the third," he snickered. "Good people, though, no matter what they look like. Always ready to help out if you need it, too. They're trusted DWU members and friends."

She studied him, then went back to eating. "Odd place," she muttered.

"Definitely. Still, it's never boring."

The woman actually grinned at that remark. Having fetched a refill, he ended up talking to her for the rest of his lunch break, even after Rachel and Alec left, answering a lot of questions about how things worked around the DWU. She seemed like an interesting and probably very talented person.

He thought she wouldn't have any trouble getting a job here, no matter what her background really was.