Tuesday, March 1, 2011
"You seem to be in a good mood this morning, Taylor," Danny said as his daughter sat down at the table. He put a plate in front of her, then at his own place, before also sitting. "Might that to be something to do with an obscure rumor that's been going around since about four this morning that someone spotted a very large flying creature over the city, which some might describe as a dragon?"
He watched her smirk a little, then shook his head, picking his knife and fork up. "I see. And does this new Family member have a name yet?"
"Still working on that," she admitted happily, buttering some toast. "I've gone through all the mythological and fantasy dragon names I could find, as well as other ones that seemed relevant, and the only one I really liked was Nyx. Unfortunately..."
He winced. "Yes, calling this new form the same as a former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine wouldn't be the best possible move, I agree."
"No. So I'm still working on it. I'm going to have to research other mythologies, so far we've mainly been using Japanese and Greek ones. I'm sure there's something out there that would work."
"You could just add to the confusion by calling it something utterly mundane, like… I don't know, Alice? Mary? Jo?"
Taylor stared, then giggled wildly. "I can just see that. A great big dragon lands on the Rig, looks around at the heroes, and says in a firm voice, 'Take me to your leaders, for I am… Jo.'"
"Jo the Dragon?"
"Yes, Jo, the dragon of the Family. She has a brother, he's called... Bob." She was shaking her head with hilarity, grinning like a fool, as was he.
"I suspect you would get some very odd looks," he smiled, putting some pancake with syrup into his mouth. Chewing and swallowing, he shrugged. "More that you're going to already."
"It would almost be worth it," she laughed. "But I probably won't do that. Yet, anyway. Good idea though."
"So what's the reason for a dragon again?"
Taylor stared at him like he was a little simple.
"It's a dragon?" she said slowly and clearly. "It is its own reason. Everyone needs a dragon if they can get one."
"Brockton Bay already has a dragon. Most people here wish it didn't," he commented.
"Lung?" His daughter waved a hand dismissively. "Big salamander, like Varga said. Not a proper dragon at all. Now me, on the other hand..." She grinned with a mouth full of sharp glinting teeth.
Amused, he nodded, still eating. "I see. Please try not to panic the populace, and I definitely don't want to hear that you're demanding a princess in the town square."
Laughing again, Taylor shook her head, starting in on her own breakfast. "I think I can resist."
"When will our new friend debut properly?"
"I'm not sure yet. We got pretty good at flying last night, so probably soon, but I need to work out the right way." She shrugged. "I'll think about it and pick a good moment. Presentation is everything, so I've heard."
"That is the common wisdom," he agreed.
Finishing his breakfast, Danny relaxed in his chair with his coffee, watching her eat. "I was wondering how you were feeling after… what needed to be done, last night," he finally said. "We didn't get a chance to talk about it."
She looked up, meeting his eyes and undoubtedly spotting the concern there. After a second or two she sighed faintly.
"It wasn't much fun. I didn't enjoy pulling the trigger, and what happened next was unpleasant. But… it was necessary, and Varga has shown me a lot of memories from previous Brains, so I knew what to expect. In a weird way, I've probably seen more death than almost anyone in the city, even if secondhand."
Danny felt worried. That wasn't something he'd considered, but he could see what she meant. Catching his expression, she smiled gently at him. "Don't worry, Dad, he didn't just dump it on me. We talked it over for a long time and he eased me in, but he felt, and I agree, that I needed to see that sort of thing. It helped a lot, having him there to explain things, and let me take it step by step. He could also help with the emotional response and stop it overwhelming me." She shrugged a little. "I won't say it was pleasant, because it wasn't, but I do after all have many of the memories of a very dangerous warrior and a very old demon floating around in here." Taylor tapped the side of her head.
"But I also have that demon to help me, which he does so well… And I have you to talk to about it to give me a more human perspective as well. Although it's amazing how well he understands people, better than I do in many ways." She cocked her head for a moment, then added, smiling, "He says it's because he's had a hell of a lot more experience with them than I have. You learn a lot over the millennia."
"I can understand that, even if I have nothing to put it into context," Danny replied. "I still don't know how old he really is."
"Neither does he. He lost count." She grinned. "But it's a lot. Like, really seriously old. Much older than human civilization."
They both thought about that for a little while. It was a sobering concept.
"But going back to the main point…" Taylor shrugged once more. "I've come to terms with it. We talked it out last night, and if I was still upset I'd come to you, honest. He told me to, in fact. I don't feel guilty about it if that's what you're worried about. It was only a simple meat robot, basically. No one in there at all, and there never would be, Amy was very careful to make sure it wasn't capable of supporting consciousness. What I shot was only able to breath, nothing else."
She sipped her orange juice, then put the glass down. "But it was an unpleasant look at what killing someone for real would be, and it makes me all the more determined never to do that unless I have no choice. And if I don't have a choice, to make it quick and clean."
Danny nodded when she finished speaking, feeling both worried and rather proud of the mature attitude of his only child. "I hope you always have a choice, but I'm realistic enough to know that might not be possible. Thank you for telling me. And thank you, Varga, for helping her yet again."
"It is, as always, a pleasure, Danny," the demon replied through her, sounding quietly pleased. "Do not worry, I will take care of her to the limits of my abilities."
"I don't doubt that," he said.
Taylor finished her breakfast, then got up, taking his plate as well and washing up. When she finished, she kissed him on the cheek and smiled at him. "I'll be fine, Dad. See you later."
"Bye, dear," he replied with a smile of his own, watching her leave and hearing the door close moments later.
He sat there and thought for a while, finished what was left of his coffee, then started getting ready for work himself. He wanted to swing by a couple of car dealers on the way in and have a quick look for a new vehicle, something they'd been considering for a while now but never seemed to have the time for.
"Dragon, now," he muttered as he locked the door behind him. "It's getting weirder by the minute."
Staring, motionless, at the computer screen in front of her, Lisa thought very hard indeed. She'd been doing this for quite some time now.
The ramifications of what she'd learned since she'd logged into PHO after the mission last night were… profound. And disturbing.
And very scary.
She'd been sitting there ever since, going over all the information they knew about the Endbringers and powers in general, all the information they'd deduced and guessed, and more suggestions her own ability was steadily feeding her as she thought.
Her ability.
That was another very odd thing.
She had a very definite impression it was watching her as closely as she was watching the screen, waiting to see what she did while being very frustrated that it couldn't short-circuit the entire process in one step. Something was preventing it from laying the whole thing out in front of her, but it was giving her hints, and whenever she managed to link a couple of observations together and come up with a conclusion that seemed valid, it sort of nodded.
Lisa got the very definite feeling that she was playing hot and cold at the moment.
However, all that paled into insignificance when she considered the fact, which seemed to be to her beyond doubt, that she'd spend over an hour and a half very carefully exchanging hidden messages with the fucking Simurgh!
Letting out a long breath, she scrolled back up the thread she'd been in and re-read all the comments, replies, and jokes, filtering out the bits that meant something from the noise. She knew with a high degree of probability the real identities of many of the posters, and a reasonable degree most of the others, her power had always been good at that. Even before The Amy had tweaked her.
It amused her that Legend was posting under the alias of 'Flashlight,' which was quite appropriate. Even through a text only medium the essential decency of the man showed. He was quite sincere in his offer of help made to 'Winged One.'
She smiled faintly at the thought of what he'd say if he realized exactly who he was offering to help…
Poor guy would probably nearly stroke out. Which would be a shame, she liked him a lot.
Lisa herself had nearly had an accident when she put it all together, realizing that the often very funny, but apparently somewhat depressed master troll she'd exchanged quips with for over two years was actually one of the damn Endbringers. She'd definitely felt her heart skip a beat. Her power had metaphorically patted her on the head when the light finally dawned, feeling like it was very proud of her and also sorry it couldn't have told her earlier.
In all truth she was extremely glad it hadn't. If she'd found any of this out back before she'd met Taylor she'd probably have jumped in front of a bus or something. And it made her a little ill to think what Calvert might have done with the information.
One huge question she had was how the fuck the Simurgh was even able to get internet access in the first place. It seemed… unlikely. But, there were still so many things they didn't know about the things. Another big question was why.
Why was one of the three greatest threats to humanity posting funny cat videos and sarcastic comments about public figures on the internet, when it wasn't getting all depressed and angsty? It boggled the mind that this was in any way useful. If there was some cunning plan behind it, some way that the Endbringer hoped to cause chaos through trolling, she certainly couldn't see it. Of course, they already knew that trying to think your way around the twists and turns of a Simurgh plot was a good way to end up babbling with your underwear on your head, but even so…
It was just… bizarre.
The third of the big questions she had about her revelation was simple.
What the hell did she do about it?
Lisa knew it was the Simurgh. The Endbringer knew she knew. She knew it knew she knew, and so on. She was also sure it was genuinely scared, didn't like doing what it was doing, although whether it was the actions or the coercion it had trouble with she wasn't sure, and it wanted out.
They'd inferred a lot of this already, of course, but she'd suddenly found herself in a position where she was directly communicating with the thing, in a way which went a lot further than ambiguous small smiles through a telescope. She could literally send it a private message and simply ask it what it wanted, and all the evidence was that it might well tell her.
She'd found herself reaching for the keyboard at least a dozen times to do exactly that, and had pulled her hands back each time. All she'd been able to bring herself to do was exchange a series of messages that hid the real meaning from people who weren't aware of the situation. The Simurgh had definitely received the subtext, based on the answers, and had passed back indications that it was open to talking.
Lisa knew, though, that she couldn't risk it. In part because she still didn't know what the motivation behind all this was. It was still possible that she was being played, very possible, but… she just didn't feel that was true. Neither did her power, as far as she could work out. But at the same time, she was damn sure that putting messages into a public communications system to talk to a genuine enemy of mankind, whether coerced or not, wasn't a bright idea. Even a PM was only as private as whoever it was that ran the servers, in other words, not at all.
It wasn't worth the risk. If anyone ever found out and traced it back to her, she and her friends, the Family, all that they were working for would be in serious trouble, and she did not want that to happen. She was very happy where she was doing what she was and certainly wasn't going to put that in jeopardy.
Leaning back in the chair and running her hands through her hair, she looked to the side where her bioconstruct was sitting watching her, as it had been since she'd climbed out of it around five in the morning. She'd left it active mostly to see what it would do, which had turned out to be to lie down on the floor and simply follow her with its eyes like a loyal dog.
"What the hell do I do?" she asked it. The artificial life form cocked its head at the sound of her voice, but didn't reply.
That was a good thing, she thought with a nervous smile. She couldn't handle too many more revelations out of the blue today, and the thing spontaneously developing sapience would be a little much.
She still had a suspicion that it was getting smarter, though. Like Amy's 'Ianthe' one, both of them tended to practically anticipate what their users intended, hardly needing the hand signals to control them any more. It was a little eerie, but not something she was actually too worried about at the moment. At some point she'd look into it, but right now she had bigger problems.
Eventually, she scrubbed at her tired eyes, then reached out and turned the machine off. "I need a couple of hours sleep and something to eat," she said to her bioconstruct, which just looked at her calmly and placidly. "I can't deal with any more of this right now."
Getting up she opened the door to the storage room, waving it in, then followed the creature into the back room and deactivated it. Stroking its head affectionately, she smiled a little, before heading off to bed.
She had a lot to think about, but she needed a clear head to do it with.
On the way to her room, she was also wondering if the other two Endbringers spent their down time browsing the web and trolling people. It was a weird thought, but she certainly couldn't dismiss it, all things considered. She decided that she'd have to keep her eyes open to see if she could find out.
Vicky watched Taylor jog towards the school, raising a hand in greeting to Amy and her other friends, who were waiting for her outside. She was standing next to Dean, the boy talking to one of the other students he knew about basketball, which she had no interest in.
She was feeling very odd at the moment, both suffering from sleep deprivation, and having read some really strange and disturbing things on the web. Half of it was obviously the ravings of someone who made that idiot Void Cowboy look positively sane, but the rest… In light of things she'd seen and experienced over the last couple of months, she wouldn't want to swear that it was totally impossible.
Although she really wished she could.
Watching the brunette girl, who today was wearing her long hair in a braid down her back, which Mandy was commenting on, smile and laugh with her friends, she couldn't quite reconcile the image with her suspicions.
Taylor just looked too normal.
But… She had a sneaking suspicion that 'normal' and 'Taylor Hebert' were, at best, nodding acquaintances. Vicky hadn't worked out which, if any, of her own theories held water, but she couldn't currently dismiss any of them outright. In light of the disturbing conspiracy ideas she'd accidentally found, some of the more insane ones seemed less impossible than she liked.
She needed to do more research, observation, and thinking.
And keep very quiet about it.
The lizards could probably smell fear.
Taylor glanced over at her at that moment and smiled, making Vicky twitch a little, then smile back, in what even she knew was probably a slightly odd manner. The other girl seemed mildly puzzled but turned back to her friends, then followed them all inside as the first bell rang. Vicky walked with Dean as he began to do the same, Dennis and Chris running up at that point and joining them.
No, research, that was the key. She had a sudden bright idea, which made her smile.
There was a free period before lunch, she'd go to the library and look up this 'Cthuvian' language that the Family seemed to like using, to see if it shed any light on the whole thing. That Lovecraft guy had apparently written quite a few stories and books around it and other things, which people on PHO were saying might be because he'd actually met Family members nearly a hundred years back. Apparently he'd lived quite close to Brockton Bay so it seemed possible. There might be some clues in those stories that would either confirm some of her ideas, or show they were silly.
She nodded to herself as she walked arm in arm with her boyfriend into the school. With any luck, she could find and read the old author's stuff, get enough information to work things out, and put her fears to rest.
It was worth a try, anyway…
Dragon looked through the Endbringer tracking log with interest, noting the sudden excursions Leviathan had taken during the night and pondering the meaning. He'd suddenly shot off at high speed, not as fast as he did when one of the Family went through the wormhole, but pretty rapidly, only to stop dead, then zoom off in a different direction. This had repeated a couple of times, leaving him stationary some distance from his now-normal holding pattern. She'd calculated that the point that presumably a Family member was currently in was somewhere off the coast north of Brockton Bay by about thirty-five miles, based on his behavior.
What puzzled her was the way he'd ended up meandering around in circles at this point, only to abruptly go haring off back towards his original position nearly as quickly as he did when Raptaur suddenly arrived too close to him. She'd checked, none of them had used the wormhole facility last night at all. But, based on observed data, he'd acted like a Family member had covered a large distance in one step, panicking him into running again.
Now he was back in his circling around the normal point, which would appear to indicate whichever one of the reptiles it was had come back to the vicinity of the city. It was curious.
Deciding it wasn't something she was going to solve without further information, she closed the log and went back to work on Leet's tricorder. She'd cracked some of the more difficult parts of the design and was very close to being able to produce a prototype duplicate. While she oversaw the remote operation of her lab back home, she thought about the Family and things she wanted to talk to them about soon.
Amy looked over at her sister, who was sitting at her usual table staring at her plate with one of the weirdest expressions on her face she could recall seeing on the girl. Taylor followed her eyes, then turned to her. "What's wrong with Vicky?" she asked curiously in a soft voice.
"No idea," she admitted. "She's been a little weird since the weekend. Did you know she flew right through a window in a building downtown on Sunday?" She smiled, but frowned as well. "Mom doesn't know yet, but when she finds out she's going to be very unhappy."
"Why did she do that?"
"She said she got distracted by something she thought of, but she wouldn't tell me what," Amy said with a sigh. "Probably saw something shiny in a shop window and is embarrassed to say."
Taylor grinned a little. "Poor Vicky. But she looks really worried."
They could both smell the blonde was stressed. "I know. I hope nothing serious is wrong. I thought it might be another fight with Dean, but they've been getting on really well recently. She actually listens when he tells her something, which is a nice change."
"Weird. Oh, well, I guess she'll probably mention it sooner or later."
They turned back to listen to Eric and Rich, who were arguing about the raid on the Merchants the night before.
"I think it was the E88 framing the Merchants for killing Squealer," Eric said. "It's the sort of thing they'd do."
"If they had her, they'd keep her, not kill her," Rich riposted. "Tinkers are really valuable to a gang. Why would they shoot her?"
"Because she wouldn't work for them?"
"When has that ever stopped one of the gangs?" Rich raised an eyebrow.
"Um… OK, that's a good point." Eric thought for a moment. "She was so addicted to drugs they couldn't trust her even if they forced her, maybe? So they took her out to deny her abilities to the Merchants."
"But," Rich said triumphantly, "you're forgetting one important thing."
"Which is?"
"There are no Merchants."
Mandy laughed, making him look at her and grin. Eric sighed a little.
"Well, there were. I admit that there aren't any more, but maybe they shot her right before the Family went in."
"I think it's probably exactly what it looks like, and like the PRT said, the Merchants killed her themselves. That fits the evidence, fits the fact that they were fuckwits, and is the simplest explanation. Therefore it's most likely to be the true one."
"Maybe the Family did it," Mandy suggested with a smirk, playing devil's advocate.
"Why on earth would the Family shoot Squealer?" Lucy asked with surprise. "Aside from anything else, I can't see them even bothering with a gun. It's not like they need one. Anyway, they're friends, and good people, so I really don't think it's something they'd do."
"Neither do I," Rich said. Eric nodded, as did Mandy.
"OK, I don't either, but it was just a thought."
"Still, it's sort of a shame," Eric went on. "She was a weird woman but she had a way with cars."
"Not a good way."
"Aesthetically, that's sure true," the boy laughed. "But she could make something functional out of random crap, which is impressive."
"It looked like it, too," Rich snickered. "Ugliest vehicles I've ever seen."
"I'm more interested in that weird language they were speaking," Mandy remarked. "I didn't know they had their own language. No one seems to know anything about it."
"It sounded really strange," Lucy agreed. "But it fits them, it's just the sort of thing reptiles would speak."
"It's pretty creepy to listen to," Rich said. "There were a lot of people on PHO trying to analyze it and work out what they were saying."
"I read one comment from someone that said it would be nearly impossible, since as far as he could tell it had nothing in common with any human language, and we didn't even know if it expressed concepts that actually could be represented by something like English. He was some sort of linguist, he seemed absolutely fascinated by it."
"More proof they're aliens, then." Eric looked amused.
"That's what Void Cowboy said," Lucy giggled.
"Does he think they're aliens or demons at the moment?"
"It was demons for a while, then aliens, then demons again, then alien demons, then back to aliens." Lucy shrugged. "I got bored and went to sleep at that point. God knows what he thinks at the moment. Demonic aliens, probably. Or something even less sane."
"The guy does seem to change his mind a lot," Mandy laughed. "If you can call it a mind."
"Did you hear about the dragon?"
Everyone looked at Rich. "Dragon?" Lucy queried, her eyes wide.
"That's what some guy on PHO claimed, around four in the morning. He said he'd seen it fly overhead, then disappear behind one of the buildings. Apparently it had red and green lights on its wingtips, but he couldn't make out many details because it was black."
"A black dragon."
"Yes."
"At night, against a black sky."
"That's what he said."
"With navigation lights on its wings?" Lucy sounded incredulous.
Rich was smiling at her. "So he claimed. Personally, I think he either saw a light aircraft, or had too much to drink. No one else said they saw anything and they were tearing his story to shreds this morning. He was getting really annoyed about it."
Amy glanced at Taylor, who was listening with a small smile on her face. The Dallon girl hid a smirk. Apparently her friend had been trolling the city again.
"Well, if it was real, which it probably wasn't, it'll presumably turn up again eventually," she suggested mildly. Finishing her lunch, she put her knife and fork on her plate, then started packing away the book and notebook she'd been working with while she ate.
Glancing over at her sister, she saw the other girl was now staring at Taylor with a fixed expression, like a mouse that saw a cat peering into its hole. It was a little weird. Spotting her watching her, Vicky twitched, then looked away, very obviously pretending that nothing had happened.
Sighing a little, Amy got up as the bell went, thinking that her sister could definitely be a little strange at times. When she got home she was going to have to talk to her before someone got the wrong idea.
"Are you all right, Vicky?" Dean looked at his girlfriend with concern. She was staring into space again, her face going through a number of different expressions like she was arguing with herself.
And losing.
With a slight jerk she focused on him, then smiled weakly. "Oh, yes, fine, thank you. How are you?"
He inspected her closely.
"Also fine. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yep. Fine. No problems. Nothing wrong at all." The blonde smiled again. It was somewhat creepy, if he was honest.
"Have you ever read any Lovecraft?" she asked suddenly.
"The horror writer?" he said, to which she nodded. "No, not really. I know a little about him, but horror stories aren't my favorite genre. Although I believe he's supposed to be pretty good, if you like that sort of thing. Why?"
"No reason," she said. "I was just curious. You know he lived in Providence? Pretty close to here. Close to the sea too. Like here." She turned her head to watch Taylor and Amy leave the cafeteria, talking together. Her expression was still somewhat peculiar.
Following her eyes, he wondered why she was acting like this. It was quite out of character. She seemed nervous and distracted for some reason.
As the final bell rang, she jumped up, then heaved him out of his chair. "Come on, we have to get to class," she said brightly, standing very close to him. Not sure what was going on, but also not certain that probing would be a good idea with the mood she was in, he let her drape his arm over her shoulder and walk next to him. Not that he could really have stopped her, of course.
Oddly, she seemed to be shivering a little. He thought she should probably have worn a thicker coat, it was a fairly chilly day after all.
Typing up some more thoughts on the Lindt case, Carol opened another of the files that had been sent over by Danny Hebert the day before, in folders that were labeled as originating from the PRT Parahuman crime investigative division. She raised an eyebrow at one sentence in the report, flipping back a couple of pages to double check, then made another note.
It was definitely looking like the girl had been completely railroaded by someone, or more likely several someones, in the PRT and local law enforcement in her home town when she Triggered. She was pretty sure that it was going to be fairly easy to get the case thrown out of court, and even if that didn't work, the girl acquitted.
And, with any luck, one or more people who had abused their authority in an unpleasant manner in severe trouble.
It was obvious to her that Director Piggot agreed, since the level of cooperation she was getting was unusually high. Normally they'd be very begrudging of information without court orders galore but in this case it was literally being handed over without any trouble. Either Danny had some serious pull, or serious dirt on them, or they wanted the whole thing dealt with quickly. Quite possibly it was a combination.
She was still going to have to talk to the girl to get her side of the story directly, get some holes in the account filled in, and go over what would happen if it went to court, but that was something for next week, or perhaps the week after, depending on when she got the other information she'd requested from the police in Rachel's former town. It was possible, based on the reluctance with which they seemed to be responding, that she'd have to ask Piggot to lean on them.
Even so, she was feeling quite hopeful that this would be a reasonably straight-forward case, which would make a nice change from the usual when a Parahuman was involved.
The phone rang, causing her to reach out and pick up the handset without looking away from her paperwork. "This is Carol," she said.
"Hello, sister," Sarah's voice said. "How are you?"
"Fine, thanks, Sarah, just rather busy. Did you need something?"
"Oh, nothing major," her sister said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh. "I just wondered if you'd seen a particular item that got posted to PHO recently."
"The Merchants versus the Family?" Carol asked, smiling slightly. "I heard about that. Very impressive, and about damn time."
"No, although I agree. It was something a little closer to home."
Carol looked suspiciously at the receiver then put it back to her ear. "You're up to something, I can hear it in your voice. What are you talking about?"
"Just go on PHO and do a search for Glory Girl and office building," her sister giggled. "The photos are amazing."
"Oh, hell," Carol growled. "What's she done now?" Reaching for her mouse, she opened a web browser and typed quickly.
Moments later she stared, then shouted, "Vicky! What the hell!?"
Her damn sister was laughing her head off by this point.