Heaving a couple of tons of old ironmongery into the rail car, Taylor heard it crash down on top of the stuff already in there. She turned as one of the forklifts came out of the workshop, guiding the operator to where she wanted the load. "Thanks, Bill," she called as he dropped it, then expertly spun the machine on its own axis and trundled back into the building, getting a wave in response. She picked up the next pallet of scrap and repeated the exercise.
"That's nearly all of it," Amy reported, coming out of the workshop with an entire engine that looked large enough to have come from a locomotive balanced on her head, her claws dug into it to stabilize it. Taylor inspected it and decided it had probably come out of a very large ship. Her friend pushed it into the rail car, the entire thing tipping under the weight, then shook the car to make it roll down the pile. "Just some smaller crap now, and the things that Linda wants to keep. She's getting the forklifts to move it to one side of the room out of the way."
"OK. Great. Let's collect all the small stuff, then push this back to the train so they can couple it up. The first load is moving out tomorrow."
They went back inside, Taylor making a large cubical bin on wheels for Amy, then another one for herself. They busied themselves wandering around and picking everything left up, dropping it into the bins. When they were finished, they put them in the car as well, then trundled it back to the main area. After a brief word with the crew who proceeded to connect it to the train being assembled in the yard, they headed back.
By now, both forklifts and their operators had left, Linda being the only one in the workshop. She was closing the doors as they arrived.
"Looks a lot larger now it's empty, doesn't it?" she said, looking around the room. "This place is enormous. Much bigger than my old place."
"There's a lot of room around here," Taylor agreed. "Fifty years ago, this entire area was part of one of the largest ports on the East Coast, and might have been the busiest. Well over a thousand people worked just in this facility, probably ten times that in the surrounding area. Now, of course, there's only about three hundred and fifty or so at the moment, so a lot of it is empty."
She smiled as she looked around. "Hopefully that will change soon. OK, then. How do you want this laid out? I was planning on lining the place with EDM like the office, and doing the floor in the same way, but after that, you tell me what you want and I'll make it happen."
The Tinker looked at her, then shook her head in wonder. "Your power is just insane. And so unbelievably useful."
"It comes in handy," Taylor grinned. "So does EDM. Really useful stuff."
"I can imagine," the brunette woman said with a certain level of envy in her voice, although she was also smiling. "Hmm."
She looked around the room, then started pacing off areas, both the others following her. "OK… This part would be the vehicle bay, that needs to be pretty big. Storage of finished stuff over here… Maybe a couple of smaller rooms on the sides, there and there, for small projects, parts, that sort of thing. About a third of the length of the building with a second floor, divided into one large room overlooking the main floor, then… four smaller rooms? Is that possible?"
"Sure." Amy was writing in a notebook she'd produced from a pouch, while Taylor looked around, visualizing what the woman wanted. "Not too hard. We can always change it later. I'll make some furniture and workbenches as well, but let's get the room sorted out first."
Moving to the nearest wall, she put a hand on it, then started generating EDM, which grew under her fingers outwards in all directions, flowing around the power outlets, switches, and fittings, while covering up the wiring conduits. Linda watched with stunned amazement. Amy was nodding, amused at the expression on their new friend's face, and Taylor's matter of fact look.
"Fuck me." Linda shook her head. "Just… Shit. That's unbelievable." She seemed to have run out of words.
Smiling, Taylor walked slowly along the wall, coating the entire inside of the room with unbreakable Varga produced material. She was enjoying herself, and was looking forward to seeing what the woman would invent when the workshop was finished.
Finally free of her mother, who had extracted a promise that she would go back to the place she'd flown into and apologize again, as well as pay more attention in future to what she was doing, Vicky went up to her room. Closing the door, she sighed heavily, then flopped down on her bed face down. After a moment, she lifted up a foot or two, rolled over in mid-air, and dropped back down on her back, staring at the ceiling.
'Gah. That was unpleasant,' she thought to herself, running her hands through her hair with another sigh. She loved her mother dearly, but the woman just didn't shut up sometimes. 'At least she seems to have listened to Aunt Sarah, more or less. She's treating Ames a hell of a lot better these days, which is great. Although sometimes I can literally see her catch herself, then change what she was going to say.' She smiled a little, it was always funny to see her mother look a little uncertain. Amy clearly noticed as well, judging by the tiny smirk her sister got at those times.
Both of them obviously cared for each other, Vicky knew that, but on the dark-haired girl's side of things there were still years of irritation that she was slowly working through. She was impressed how well her sister had handled everything, in fact, if it had been her, she'd have said something unfortunate much sooner. But then Amy was in many ways a far more private person than Vicky was, something the blonde knew well. And had wildly better control of her own emotions, although it was something that Vicky was doing her utmost to learn.
Overall, she felt she was doing a good job, and was rather embarrassed now, looking back on things. Like her mother, she had changed in the last few months, for the better. Dean had noticed and mentioned it, approvingly, and the praise had made her feel good. The same with Amy, who seemed pleased.
Vicky couldn't help feeling that some sort of very unpleasant problem had been averted with the changes to their family dynamic, although she was hard-pressed to say what or why. However, she liked the new way of doing things and wanted it to continue, so she was damn well going to play her part.
'Aunt Sarah,' she mused with a slight frown. 'I can't believe she rolled over on me to Mom.' It had come out that her aunt was the one who'd pointed her mother at the report on the internet, although it would have come out sooner or later anyway. The older woman had a puckish streak in her which was normally something she found funny, not being above the occasional practical joke, but she was mildly irritated at being the subject of that sense of humor this time. 'I'll have to think of some way to repay the favor,' she giggled.
Deciding that could wait, she lifted her arm and looked at her watch. It was only about four PM. She had a dinner engagement with Dean later, around eight, not really a formal date but just a meal. Their relationship was a lot more stable at the moment, another thing that seemed to have resulted from her getting her temper under control, and another thing she very much liked. Idly she wished that she could have seen the light some time ago. It seemed to make life much easier on the whole.
'Growing up, I guess. Dad always said it would happen sooner or later. Preferably sooner.' She grinned a little at the memory of the dryly sardonic tone she remembered. When Mark was having a good day, he was a very good father. On a bad day it was like he was just turned off, although even then there were hints that he wasn't as far gone as some people thought. Just… disconnected. From life, mostly.
She winced at the memory of some of the things her mother had said during those times. Looking back on them, they seemed unfair. It wasn't like he could actually help it.
'I wish Amy could fix him,' she sighed faintly. 'I miss our dad.' His depression, although sporadic, had been getting worse for years. She knew why her sister refused to work on brains, she'd argued about it with the other girl on a number of occasions over the years, and she could easily see the point. She still felt it was possibly a little over-cautious, but then Amy definitely knew more about it than she did, so was probably right. As annoying as that was.
Folding her hands over her stomach, she thought, 'I wonder if Ianthe could help?' It was a thought she'd had before, but never quite summoned up the courage to ask. But if anyone could, the big violet lizard probably could.
The problem was her worries and theories about the Family. She'd managed to push to one side the fears she'd suddenly found herself with after the somewhat ill-advised library visit, which had lead to much increasingly wide-eyed reading of some of the most terrifying horror stories she'd ever encountered. But now she started thinking about it, no longer distracted by her mother shouting at her, some of her worries came back.
It wasn't so much the material itself, which varied from subtly disturbing to flat-out scary, but the implications when considered against the background of the current situation in the city.
There were some very weird parallels in the stories to what she'd seen with her own eyes. Enough that she wasn't at all convinced that the people on PHO who were claiming that the Lovecraft guy had knowledge of the Family from a hundred years ago were wrong.
The implications were… odd.
Add to that some of the things that both Ianthe and Metis had casually dropped into conversation, without any obvious irony, and other observations she'd made over things like Danny Hebert's coat, that freaky little ornament that Ianthe had given the man at his birthday meal… She could still see it when she closed her eyes and quite wished she couldn't.
No, there was definitely something very strange going on there, that was certain. And while she'd been sitting in the quiet of the library, only the ticking of the radiators warming up and cooling down and occasional sounds from pages being turned breaking the silence, her mind had gone into overdrive, linking what she was reading to what she'd seen.
In retrospect, reading 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' might have been a bad idea.
She shivered a little.
'Either the man knew something, or he was a little nuts,' she thought uneasily. 'Or both.'
Mixing in some of the weird shit she'd come across on the internet as well made the entire thing about as weird as you could ever hope for. There were enough things that matched up with what she knew or suspected to be true that she definitely wondered about some of the rest of it.
She was almost certain that either Taylor was a lizard in disguise, or grew up with a lizard as a sister. There were other possibilities, but those two seemed to fit the circumstances better than anything else she could think of. Not that either theory was anything other than just peculiar, she was well aware of that, but considering how fucked-up powers made life, they seemed plausible.
In a world where people could fly just by willing it, or stop time by touching something, who was to say what was impossible?
The idea that the entire Hebert family was actually a reptilian infiltration unit was just an extension of that idea, less plausible but not something she'd be prepared to swear couldn't happen. After all, there were at least five members of the Family currently known to be running around the place, and they often seemed to completely vanish without trace.
Perhaps they were pulling on their human costumes and going shopping or something?
She snorted with laughter at the thought of Metis putting a rubber mask on and pretending to be human. It seemed unlikely.
On the other hand, where did they go? Into the water? Definitely possible, it was well known they spent a lot of time in the bay, but was it the only place they went?
Vicky shook her head. It was nuts. She kept going over the evidence and her conjectures, talking herself into the idea that they were everywhere, then out of the idea again. She was getting to be as bad as Void Cowboy in that respect.
Which was the most horrifying thought of all. She shuddered for a moment.
'I have to stop reading conspiracy theories on the internet,' she told herself firmly. 'That's the problem with the damn things. They get into your head. Then you start seeing evidence everywhere. What do that call that… right, confirmation bias. Must reject it, work only on evidence of eyes.' She smiled to herself. 'It's crazy. I'm just blowing this all up into a much bigger thing than it could actually be. Sure, they're weird, and where they come from is an interesting question, but I doubt that the entire DWU is made up of disguised lizards. I got carried away. And they're friends anyway, they're good people. Amy says so and I trust her, not to mention I've met them and like them.'
She shook her head. 'Just calm down. Don't let the paranoia get to you, that's what they want.' Snickering, she reached over to her bedside table and picked up her tablet, poking the power button. She'd check her email, have a quick scan through PHO for anything interesting, then get ready for her meal with Dean following a browse through some more clothing shops. Some new shoes were still required.
And she'd push her thoughts and speculations on Taylor Hebert away. One day, she'd probably learn the truth, after all. And even if Taylor actually was a six and a half foot lizard with mad combat skills under the generally contented human teenager math wizard appearance, did it really matter in the long term? Either way, both of them were friends and good people.
A break from thinking about it was probably the healthiest thing to do. There was dinner at the Mayor's house tomorrow to think about, which was going to be both interesting and fun.
Vicky answered a few emails, giggled at a joke Dennis had sent her, which was genuinely very funny even if a little off-color, sent a couple of replies, then watched the online broadcast of the Mayor's earlier press conference, pleased at the mention of her family being in line for some sort of award, which seemed nice. The man looked to be in a good mood the entire time he was answering questions, which contrasted amusingly with the expression Director Piggot was wearing most of the time.
The woman didn't seem to particularly enjoy herself.
When one of the reporters, from a TV station in New York, asked a question that was stupid enough that Vicky herself rolled her eyes, Piggot very calmly and evenly ripped him to shreds with absolutely vicious sarcasm disguised as a polite response. It was hilarious, although not so much for the man himself, who looked annoyed.
Shaking her head with amusement, the blonde girl closed the playback, going back to the thread on PHO that had linked the video. A couple of pages later, there was a link to a TV series from the early eighties, in a comment from someone she recognized as a local Brocktonite.
Or was it Brocktonian?
Anyway, some guy who lived in the city. She clicked it, curious as to why he thought it might be relevant to a thread on the Family.
She'd never heard of 'V' before, not being particularly into science fiction. Amy had probably come across it, the girl was a keen reader of the genre. She clicked play on the episode the poster had linked to the thread, quickly finding herself amused at the hairstyles the female actors were wearing. Very eighties, she thought to herself with a smirk.
Half an hour later, she put the tablet on the bed, then lay staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.
She was shivering again.
"How's that?" Saurial asked, folding her arms and looking around with a satisfied expression. Linda followed her eyes, shaking her head in wonder.
"It's fucking incredible," she said, smiling widely. "Thank you."
"No problem," the lizard-girl replied with a small grin. "It was fun. Sure everything's where you want it? Like I said, I can easily modify anything you want."
Walking across the now completely smooth floor, covered with something resilient in the same manner as the BBFO office, Linda peered into one of the inspection pits, then studied the nearest vehicle lift. On the other side of the workshop, Ianthe was putting the various engines and parts onto a set of racking that Saurial had made.
She shook her head. "I can't think of anything at the moment. But I'm damn sure going to want your help making parts, believe me."
The girl chuckled. "That I can easily do, and happily too. I'm really curious to know what you'll come up with. We need to make sure it's nothing like anything a particular villainous Tinker might have produced, though."
"I've got some ideas, actually," Linda smirked. "Transportation, like Metis said, is a very wide category. I need to work out the best project to start with but I was thinking about a few things to help out around here."
Saurial studied her, one eyebrow-ridge raised, then she smiled widely. "Oh, yes, I can see this being fun."
They shared a grin for a moment. Linda definitely felt she was in the presence of a kindred spirit in many ways. Ianthe joined them, looking between them.
"Oh, hell, why do I have a feeling that things are going to get strange?" she asked rhetorically, although she was also smiling. After a moment, she laughed. "Great. I love this place."
"I need to get my stuff from your office and track down some more tools," Linda said.
"Easy enough. We can order anything you want online. Dear old Skidmark is paying," Saurial snickered. "Best use for the money right now. We'll also arrange to get an internet hookup in here, and another comms relay system like we have in the other building. Let's go back and talk about that, and also get you set up with your new talent."
Linda nodded, feeling somewhat nervous, but took a deep breath and calmed down. Ianthe put a hand on her shoulder for a moment in a comforting gesture. "Don't worry about it. We'll figure out something you like, and compared to the earlier work this is nothing."
That was true enough. She couldn't think of anything much more complicated than moving a functioning brain from one body to another…
"All right." They headed towards the currently closed door. Saurial gave her a ring of keys as they reached it.
"Here, these are for all the locks in the place. I finally worked out how to copy the high security lock we got for the BBFO office, it was remarkably complicated. I think I improved it a bit too, I'll have to contact the company and see if they want the changes in return for letting me make them for us. But this place is about as secure as it gets now. Danny will get a copy of the main door key, and I've got one as well, both for emergencies, but neither one of us will come in without a good excuse."
Taking the keys, Linda nodded her thanks. "That's fair."
They walked around to the BBFO courtyard. "I'm just going to jump in the bay to wash off the crap I've got all over me," Ianthe said as they reached the entrance, gesturing to the oily grease she was covered with in places. "Back in a minute."
"OK," Saurial replied. She herself had made a pair of suitable overalls, which had vanished when she didn't need them any more, but her cousin had already been covered in crud by the time she offered her the same.
Linda watched as the large reptile ran towards the water and dived in, barely making a splash. She shivered a little, knowing how damn cold the bay was at this time of year. "You guys aren't actually reptiles, are you?" she commented as she followed Saurial to the main entrance to the office. "Considering you seem to have no problems with temperature at all."
"No, we're not," Saurial agreed, opening the door. She looked amused. "Not even close in some ways, but very close in others. It's kind of complicated. I'll probably tell you one day." Waving Linda inside, she closed the door again and carefully locked it. They went to the table and sat down. "So, have you had any ideas?"
The Tinker put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fists, thinking. "A few. We need to make sure that it doesn't look like me. Or, the new me. But at the same time Ianthe said to keep it fairly simple, which I guess makes sense. I have no idea how a Changer ability could even work, personally. I guess that the more complicated the differences between two forms the longer it'll take to change, or something."
"That's basically right," Saurial nodded.
"We could just do something easy, then, like a completely normal human form, but a different completely human form, right?"
"Yes. Although that's pretty boring." The reptilian girl grinned, making Linda smile for a moment. "We don't do boring if we can avoid it."
"I'm getting that idea," she commented. "And I can see where it would be a good idea to put in some non-human touches anyway, it makes it more convincing in some ways. I'm just a bit stuck on what sort of thing to choose."
"Do you have a favorite animal?" Saurial queried. "You know, cat, dog, elephant, sea otter… Lizards are good." She looked very amused. Linda chuckled again.
"I have nothing at all against lizards, actually. Especially since all the ones I've met recently have been really nice. But… it's not quite me." She frowned, shrugging. "If we can't think of anything else I could live with it."
"OK, we'll put that down as the fallback option, then," Saurial nodded. They looked around as the rear door opened, revealing a slightly damp Ianthe, who came in and locked it behind her. "We're just discussing what animal to use to create a hideous freak of nature from."
"Oh, good, I like creating hideous freaks of nature," Ianthe grinned, joining them. "Some of my best work falls into that category."
"You people are really peculiar," Linda sighed.
"That we are. It takes hard work and skill to do that, you know." The violet lizard grinned more widely. "We need to come up with a good name, as well. Although that should probably wait until we figure out what you're going to be."
"How complete a change can you do?" Saurial asked, looking at her cousin, who studied Linda clinically.
"With a little hands-on manipulation, as complete as you want," she replied after a moment. "Pretty much anything is possible. The trick is adding it as a practical self-contained talent. Keeping the mass more or less the same is simplest, although some judicious use of the fractional dimensional technique could probably deal with that easily enough. I left hooks in the body design to add all sorts of upgrades later, that was one of them. But for now it might be best to start with something not too complicated." Walking around Linda, she examined her closely.
"There's also the matter of speed. Major bone and structural modifications take energy, and time. I can speed it up far more than nature would allow, but even so the more complex the change the longer it will take. I can see a few ways around that but I'm going to have to experiment, so it's another thing to leave for another day."
"How major can you do that still fits into something that would take… let's say, under a minute?" The smaller lizard looked at her relative enquiringly. "That seems like a practical upper limit."
"It's more than enough. OK…" Ianthe thought for some seconds, studying Linda some more. "Skin, hair, that's simple and quick. Cartilage is a little slower, but not much. So something like completely different ears, for example, is straightforward. Even non-human ones, like from a cat or a horse. Simple modifications to the skull are also pretty easy, from a cosmetic point of view. So, a small muzzle, not hard, different teeth, possible. Changing the eyes is a little more difficult but I've already upgraded them to a much higher specification already, so it would again mainly be cosmetic."
"I haven't really noticed any changes to my vision," Linda put in, a little puzzled.
"No, I haven't turned most of the mods on yet, remember? I'll do that in a minute. But I could give you cat's eyes with no trouble at all, as one option." Ianthe looked her up and down. "Tail is easy enough, although the bigger it is, the longer it will take, unless we add dimensional storage and just leave it in place. I'd need to think some more about the best way to do that."
"And changing her voice, scent, subdermal thermal patterns, all that is fairly simple, I would assume?" Saurial mused.
"Yes, that part is easy. Again, since it's switching between two patterns, rather than a completely uncommitted shape-shifting talent, it's much simpler," Ianthe confirmed. "I'm trying to work out how to do that, actually, but it's really complicated."
Linda looked between them, marveling at the entirely matter of fact way they were casually discussing things that most people would think were damn near impossible. Even for a Biotinker.
"Why don't we try a few things and see how they work out?" the blue lizard-girl finally said. "Come up with some interesting forms, you change her, then we can experiment and see if any aspects are worth keeping. We can mix and match with no trouble so you're not limited to being any one thing."
Taking a breath, Linda nodded. "I'm up for it."
"Great," Ianthe smiled, rubbing her hands together happily. "A challenge. This should be fun."
"Oh, god," she muttered, looking at the wide toothy grin. "Is it too late to change my mind?"
"Far, far too late, my friend," Ianthe cackled, reaching for her, as Saurial snickered.
Randall moved his arms, then his legs, before jumping up and down on the spot, the entire workshop vibrating from the mass of the power armor. "Damn fine job, my man," he said with approval. "I can hardly feel it. You improved the motion control a lot."
"It's taking advantage of the bio mods Amy made," Kevin said with a thoughtful tone to his voice. "Before, one of the problems was that the damn thing was too good. It responds so fucking fast that it could practically pulp a normal person. Don't forget, in the game, the users were heavily modified to be able to use it. But Amy's work is even better than the game allowed for, so I could turn up the speed a lot. Once you get used to it I can probably turn the limiters off completely."
"Cool." Randall dropped onto his hands, leaving marks on the concrete floor, did have a dozen push ups at a blurring speed, then went into a forward roll and stood up again. "Really nice job. I wonder how it compares to Armsmaster's armor, or Gallant's? Or Dragon's, even?"
"My best estimate is that it's probably about four to five times as tough as Armsmaster's suit, and at least five times the speed, mainly due to you being seriously upgraded. And it boosts your strength by a similar factor as well. You should be able to dead-lift about six or seven tons at least. The power system is good for about a week at maximum output before it needs refueling, but it'll maintain life support for months if you're not exerting yourself too much. Although you'll probably get tired of recycled urine pretty fast."
Grimacing a little, Randall nodded emphatically. "I have to say that I think I'd be tired of recycled urine before the first drop passed my lips," he said with distaste, causing his friend to laugh.
Deactivating the armor, he disconnected the helmet, then lifted it off, handing it to Kevin. Shortly he was out of the video-game themed power-suit, watching as the other man connected a tablet to a port on the inside and ran some diagnostics. "Everything's solidly in the green, no errors at all," he reported happily. "Fantastic."
"Pity you don't have one as well," Randall commented with a grin.
Kevin waved at the large bipedal mech on the other side of the room, without looking. "I have that. It could eat this for breakfast."
Chuckling, the larger man wiped a little sweat from his forehead, then picked up a bottle of water and drank half of it. "Even so, you do amazing work. I wonder if Dragon would be interested in it?"
"Probably. I'm not sure about her armor, it's incredibly good by anyone's standards, and might even be better than this. It's easily on a par in most respects as far as I can tell. But this still has some interesting advantages that I doubt anyone else has." Kevin closed the access panel on the back of the suit's torso, coiling the cable up and stepping back. "We should probably talk to her, and Taylor. If we could replace the outer skin of this thing with EDM plates, and some of the structure as well… god, that would be an amazingly tough system."
"Worth a lot of money."
"Damn straight." Kevin looked pleased. "Even just selling them to the PRT would make us all set for life. Although to get the full effect they'd need one of Amy's symbiotes, and I'm not at all sure she wants to arrange that yet. Or possible at all, considering. Although… if it's Family tech, that might work, assuming that they're willing to let it outside the DWU."
"Even without the Family boosts, though, this is still better than anything on the market, right?"
"Oh, sure, way better. I can turn it down to make a normal human able to survive it, obviously, and it would make a dandy combat suit even like that. Or a search and rescue one, for example. It needs better insulation against heat, that stuff Dragon came up with is fantastic."
"I wonder if she'd be interested in the computer system as well?" Randall mused. "That's her real strong point, and the computer in this thing is damn near sentient, the way it anticipates everything so smoothly."
"It's not quite a real AI, but it's not far off," Kevin agreed. "She might be able to see how to improve it. Woman is the best around on computers, definitely." He smiled at his colleague. "I'm definitely very pleased, I never thought I'd get this working again. There were a few other systems I never got around to finishing for it, I improved what the game had. That one needed implants for the neural linkage, my system doesn't, but I can still see a few tweaks. Not that I could do much when it went pop. Now, though..." He shrugged. "Bet I can finish it."
"Great. Want to bring it over to the DWU to show the girls?"
"May as well. Taylor can probably think of some improvements as well, she's got the knack even if she isn't a Tinker in the normal way."
Between them, they picked the entire suit up and loaded it into the van, which made the heavily upgraded suspension sag even more. Once the helmet and support equipment was in as well, Kevin closed the doors and locked them. "Pizza run?"
"Pizza run. We'll get more this time, those people eat like crazy," Randall chuckled, getting into the cab. "I wonder if the kid will turn up again?"
"Probably not, she said she was on duty this week," his friend said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Pity. I like her."
"Me too." Shortly, they were rumbling through the city towards their favorite pizza place, which accepted cash and didn't care who placed the order as long as they kept the fighting outside.
Even Lung was known to be polite to them, in case they stopped serving him.
Lisa unlocked the door, yawning widely, stepped inside the BBFO office, relocked it, turned around, and stared.
"OK, kangaroo, not really practical," Taylor, currently in the form of Saurial, said, making a mark on one of her glass writing boards next to the name of the animal. There were at least twenty other names with crosses and other symbols adjacent to them, and a dozen more so far un-annotated.
"The pouch would be useful for tools, but the hopping is annoying," Linda commented, bounding to a stop next to Amy, who was watching with a small smile. "And the tail is in the way."
"OK. Back on the table, let's try the next one," Amy said, waving at the familiar 'Igor' accessory. Linda managed to climb up, stretching out on it, then waved at Lisa.
"Hi, Lisa," she said, grinning. "Your friends are completely insane, but this is sort of fun in the freakiest way I've ever heard of."
"I..." Lisa shook her head slowly, still gaping. Her power was basically rolling on the floor laughing its immaterial ass off, which didn't help.
"Can someone catch me up?" she finally managed. "I had a very late night and I'm feeling a little slow. Why is Linda half-kangaroo?"
"Seemed like a good idea at the time?" Amy shrugged. Lisa fixed the large violet reptile with a hard look.
"Right." She headed for the coffee machine. Even for her, this was a little strange, and she needed more caffeine before she could deal with it.
At least it took her mind off the entire 'Oh, God, the Simurgh wants me to help her' part of recent history, which was a relief.