Sitting at the table and sipping coffee, her third cup in the last forty-five minutes, Lisa watched as Linda walked around experimentally, looking down at herself. "Any good?" Amy asked with interest.
"Hooves are very strange to walk on," the brunette commented, twitching one ear. "But goat works better than horse. Still not right, though. Although it's a big improvement on the giant wasp."
"Four arms would be helpful, I'd have thought," Taylor said with a smile.
"Maybe, but the lower ones were more like legs, and the abdomen was just weird." Linda shrugged while Lisa shook her head in mild disbelief at how quickly something like this ended up seeming perfectly normal around this place.
"OK then, what do we have?" Turning to her list, Taylor made a cross beside 'goat', stepping back and pondering it for a while. "No go on alligator, beaver, black widow, cobra, dog, elephant, goat, hare, horse, hyena, pangolin, raccoon, koala, kangaroo, octopus, ostrich, otter, skunk, squirrel, wasp, weasel..." She made another cross. "...or chicken."
"The chicken was a joke," Amy snickered.
Linda put her hands on her currently furry hips and sighed.
"Not a funny one."
"That's a matter of opinion," the violet lizard grinned, making the Tinker smile a little and Lisa grin.
Taylor watched them for a moment, then turned back to the board with a shake of her head. "Maybes on domestic cat, fox, goanna, cheetah, and leopard. Although goanna is a little too complicated according to Ianthe."
"It would be possible but take too long at the moment," Amy added. "The tail is a large mass change."
"And while I don't particularly mind it, I'd still prefer mammal at this point," Linda put in.
"OK, let's cross that off as well." 'Saurial' did exactly that. "We still have a few left, but looking at them they're even less practical. Walrus? Why did we even put that on the list?"
All of them exchanged glances, then shrugged. She crossed that off as well, and five more. "In that case it seems to be a toss-up between fox and three feline variants. We could try some others, there are quite a few big cats if you're going that route."
"I do like cats," Linda admitted. "I had a kitten when I was a little kid, but the poor thing got run over by my dad when he came home drunk one night." She heaved a sigh, looking sad. "I was really upset for a long time, but I was six, so what would you expect?"
Lisa watched her, then looked at her friends. "I'm thinking cat, then."
"That would seem to be the most likely one," Amy smiled. "It's also one of the easiest to do. And fun, human media seems fond of catgirls."
"Mostly Japanese anime, which is one reason I wasn't sure," Linda muttered, scowling for a moment. "I had enough of being some idiot's sex object slash mechanic, I'm fucked if I'm doing that again any time soon."
"Don't worry, I'm sure we can design something that's not the target of some strange human fetish," Amy said with a grin.
Taylor and Lisa exchanged glances.
"Bet you can't," Lisa remarked wisely, thinking about some of the things she'd seen online with a slight wince. "No matter what form you pick. You should see some of the Family porn fanfic that's popped up in the last few weeks."
"I have," Taylor sighed. "I don't get it. Anyway, that's not really relevant, strange humans on the internet are a thing but nothing we need concern ourselves with. So, Linda? Any favorites here, or do we look up some more animals? Or dump the animal theme completely and just go for something else?"
The Tinker turned around and inspected the list thoughtfully. "I think you're right that it might work better with some animal parts, it's strange enough to really separate Linda from… whatever we pick. Just another human might not be enough. And like I said, I do like cats."
She walked over to the board and inspected it more closely, her furry ears twitching a little. Lisa watched with amusement, wondering if she even noticed. Amy's changes were remarkably thorough.
"I don't think I want fur all over," the woman finally said, looking back at Amy, who nodded. "Something less complete than that. Maybe just ears, tail, and eyes?"
"That's easy. I'd suggest claws as well, they're good defensive weapons, and some tweaks to your skeleton to make you more flexible, like a cat. It fits the theme and should help sell it to the PRT. Your current body is already a lot more flexible than normal, but I can change it a little more easily enough. And if I link the strength boost in right, you'd be noticeably stronger in human form but at full strength in Changer form."
"Put in an override so she can get the benefits without changing," Lisa suggested, "just as a safety factor."
Amy nodded. "Yes, that's a good idea. Not a problem. I can set it up so that she gets about… perhaps three or four times as fast and strong when in that form, but can select that if she needs it even normally. That should work."
"And there's not reason to pick just one, either, is there? We can mix and match. So if you're having difficulty choosing, but want feline in general, why don't we make something up? And the color can be different than nature provides as well. In fact that might even be better." Lisa watched Linda think, then glance at Amy, who nodded with a shrug.
"Entirely correct, I can do pretty much anything."
"That… that's an interesting thought," the Tinker said slowly, looking at the board. "OK, why not? Let's build a cat from spare parts."
"Easy enough. All right, let me think for a moment, I need to work out the best way to do it," Amy smiled. Linda clopped back to the table and sat on the edge of it while they waited. A couple of minutes passed, broken only by the sound of Lisa sipping coffee again.
"OK, I know what we need to do," Amy announced firmly. "Lie back and think of Tinkering."
With a chuckle the brunette woman did so, swinging her legs up and lying down. Shortly Amy was laying on hands and concentrating, while the other two watched with interest, making suggestions every now and then for the hybrid they were making.
Reading the report from Hannah on the action downtown caused by some random Merchant absconders, Emily sighed slightly. 'Fucking Heberts again,' she thought. 'Will I ever be able to hear or read that name without getting worried?'
It seemed likely that the answer was probably no. Considering what had happened with the girl, Sophia, that damn school, and one of her own agents who should certainly have known better, not to mention the father's involvement with the Family, that name was probably destined to cross her desk time and time again. At least she hadn't been hurt, or Amy Dallon either. It didn't bear thinking of what the possible response from any of the parties involved could be under the circumstances. New Wave would be the least of it, although she certainly didn't want to have an angry Carol Dallon looking for a chat.
An angry Danny Hebert with an incriminating video, which she was certain he still had, and DWU backup was worse.
An angry Saurial with Family backup was much worse…
Luckily, it seemed that Danny Hebert had thought ahead, probably as a result of what Sophia and her co-conspirators had done, and had Saurial train his daughter to fight. She'd certainly put on a good show, the takedown of the idiot who'd tried to carjack her and Panacea had been expertly dealt with. There was already video on PHO from bystanders, as was pretty much inevitable, even though she'd have preferred otherwise, and it showed how quickly and cleanly the girl had handled the situation.
And how brutally. She was definitely her father's daughter. Fine right up to the point she was pushed that little bit too far, then everything went bad for the idiot who did the pushing without any warning at all. It was obvious to an experienced eye that she could have killed the fool with no more effort than she'd disarmed him, though, so she had clearly been taught, or natively had, a reasonable sense of restraint. Which was a good thing overall.
Even without powers, when she grew up she was going to be someone to reckon with, in Emily's view. Sophia had got off lucky, she suspected.
The investigation into that whole sorry mess had pretty much concluded, and if she'd had her way the girl would be on her way to somewhere much less cozy than the PRT building very soon. Unfortunately, people higher up than her felt she was probably still redeemable, not something she personally agreed with, and didn't want to throw away a potentially useful Parahuman talent. 'No real harm done my ass,' she thought with a scowl. 'That's luck at best. That girl is close to being a psychopath, she's definitely a sociopath, and she's not someone I'd ever turn my back on. I've seen that sort before, it never ends well. Fucking Tagg. Why the Chief Director is going along with him I don't know.'
The other PRT director was one of the ones who had said he thought she might come in handy one day.
Emily didn't like Director Tagg. He was trustworthy enough, at least as far as loyalty to the country went, but his method of working and overall attitude was not good in her view.
And that was her talking, someone who was famously cynical and not fond of Parahumans at all in general…
'One day he's going to do something that's going to blow up in his face,' she thought irritably. 'Thank fuck he's unlikely to ever meet Raptaur or the others. They'd end up having to eat the bastard, and as much as I'd like to see that, I'm worried he'd give them indigestion.'
The thought amused her enough that she actually smiled a little. He was one of the worst of that hawk type of director, and although there were plenty of other people in the PRT who had a similar, if not worse, attitude, his was the first name that always came to mind when she pondered the subject 'People who should never meet the Family.' From what she'd heard rumored, it was likely the Chief Director thought much the same, which was something of a relief.
That diversion aside, Shadow Stalker wasn't going to face the correct punishment for her actions, although she was probably going to be reassigned somewhere else, possibly under a different name, as soon as the upper levels of the PRT could get around to working out what they wanted to do. Emily hoped that would happen sooner rather than later, the girl was a constant reminder of not only how she'd missed something that could have ended extremely badly and that she took as a personal failure, but how fucking irritating broody teenagers could be.
At least she'd been able to deal with Agent Hamill herself. The woman, somehow, hadn't quite managed to do anything that would get her a nice cell somewhere, but she wasn't going to enjoy her new duties, which were going to last for a considerable time. And she was very unlikely to ever get promoted any time in the next decade.
She'd also heard rumors that the Winslow school board was on the verge of canning Principal Blackwell, which didn't make her at all sorry. The woman was clearly completely unsuited for her job at best and someone who should never be allowed near children. If it wasn't for the sensitivity of the entire case Emily herself would have talked to the board and urged that she be let go.
The sad thing was that it was probably only the loss of what had apparently been quite a large amount of money that had provoked the school board into acting. Years of half-assing the job itself wasn't enough.
'Winslow needs a can of gas and a match,' she mused, closing the report having read it thoroughly. 'Frankly I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet bearing in mind the gangs.' Shaking her head in mild disgust she leaned back in her chair, thinking over the report for a moment. It had been handled well by both the two girls and the BBPD, they had all the suspects in custody, and thanks to Panacea there were no injuries. Overall it seemed to be about the best outcome they could hope for. With any luck, neither the Heberts or the Dallons would take it further.
Satisfied that particular problem was dealt with, she opened the other report, the final one on the Merchant raid, and began reading the results of the Squealer autopsy. There were no surprises there, the woman had been shot to death by a gun positively linked to the Merchants themselves. No new evidence had come to light and the coroner had signed off on the death. Unless they got a confession from the perpetrator there was a good chance they'd never find her killer. Annoying, but in the long run, nothing that would be a problem, or could have anything done about it anyway.
The woman's family had been discreetly informed of her death, and the report noted that they seemed surprised that she'd even been alive all this time in the first place. 'Nice people,' she sighed. 'I'm almost sorry for the woman. I can see why she left.'
While she was reading the rest of the report, there was a knock on the door.
"Enter!" she called, looking up and closing the report. The door opened to reveal Legend, who smiled at her.
"Hello, Emily, I hope I'm not interrupting you."
"No, come in, please, Legend," she replied, waving him to a chair. The man closed the door and sat down. "I was just going over the after-action reports on the Family's operation on the Merchants. I have to send the Chief Director my own final report and I need to make sure there aren't any surprises waiting for me."
He nodded. "I understand. The operation was very successful, though, so I wouldn't expect anything amiss."
"It was unbelievably successful, bearing in mind the weapons used," she said with a shake of her head. "I was not happy about those idiots having access to RPGs of all things!"
His smile went away. "No, that was… a little excessive. We'll have to make sure everyone is aware that they're on the street. Those thermobaric warheads are extremely destructive. They certainly shouldn't be in the hands of criminals."
"I've already got the ATF pushing very hard to talk to the captive Merchants, but our people have first dibs on them," she sighed. "I hate dealing with the ATF. They're one of the more annoying agencies, really."
"We're all on the same side, Emily," he noted with a small grin.
"Tell them that," she muttered, which made him look amused for a moment.
"I have. Several times, so I understand your frustration." She nodded a little, still mildly irritated about the conversations she'd had earlier on. "But other than that, only losing one person in such an operation is almost unprecedented. It's a pity about Squealer, though."
"That woman was a menace," she grumbled. "Colin was right. Talented, but no sense of style. And, let's not forget, a criminal."
"And a person, Emily, let's not forget that either," he chided gently. "Someone murdered the poor woman. We must remember that."
"I know, I know," she said a little irritably. "But you know as well as I do that the chances of finding out which one of them it was is close to zero. No evidence, or rather, too much evidence. Every single one of them was covered in gunshot residue, so that's no help, the weapon itself hasn't been found, and none of them are admitting to anything about it. So either the one responsible got away, or is keeping very quiet. We'll probably never know who pulled the trigger. Or why for that matter."
"No," he said with a faint sigh. "You're right. Still, it's a pity. She was only in her twenties, she'd have had most of her life to look forward to if she hadn't fallen in with the wrong people."
Emily shrugged. "That's life. We both know how often it happens."
He nodded, looking mildly depressed for a moment, then leaned forward. "Anyway, that's in the past and can't be changed. I'm thinking about the future. More specifically, our… snake problem."
She looked sharply at him, then around the room in a suspicious manner. "Not here," she said after a moment, getting up. He followed as she lead him to the secure conference room. It was the only room in the building they were pretty much sure was free of any possible interference from Coil.
When they were sitting down, she turned to him. "OK, we should be decently secure now. What's on your mind, Legend?"
"I want to deal with Coil as soon as possible," he replied. "I was thinking about it before the aborted Simurgh attack, but at the time I didn't want to start something that might get interrupted. Now, though, while we don't actually know what's really going on with that, we probably have a gap before the other shoe drops. I think we should take advantage of it."
Regarding him thoughtfully, Emily slowly nodded. "I see. And the longer we leave him holed up down there, the more likely it is that he might sneak out."
"Assuming he hasn't already done so," the man sighed.
"I doubt he has, I think the Family are probably keeping an eye on him and if he'd shown his face anywhere outside his base, we'd have heard about it by now." She steepled her fingers and tapped them together, thinking. "I agree, we need to do it as soon as we can. It's gone on long enough. Calvert is a slippery little shit and I want that bastard dealt with at least as much as you do."
"You have history with him."
"I do. And it makes this all extremely irritating, even above the level it would already be." She scowled blackly at nothing. "But on the upside, when we get him, he's fucked." Looking up at the man from glaring at the table, she asked, "Do you have a plan in mind?"
"Nothing fixed in stone yet, just some ideas. We need to be sure to deal with the explosives Raptaur said she smelled down there somehow, and I think we'll have no choice but to evacuate the entire area just in case we can't deal with them in time. We can't risk civilians being killed, but with them there he's effectively holding thousands of hostages over our heads." Legend looked frustrated as he spoke. "We also need to deal with the compromised security systems as well. I think we need to assume that there may well still be people on his payroll we've missed, even Hannah isn't perfect, and there may be traps left in the system that Dragon and Colin have missed."
"They're both almost certain of that. Which is why the entire system needs to be shut down completely and cleaned offline, they say." She looked peeved. "To be safe Colin wants to duplicate the critical infrastructure with new hardware and software, take the entire thing down in one shot, then bring up the new system as fast as possible to get us running again. It will be a massive pain in the ass until the rest of it can be checked out, but it's the most likely method to get total control back. Dragon agrees and is in the process of manufacturing new equipment at the moment. The Guild will provide it to us at cost as a favor, but it's still going to be a big hit to the budget."
"I see. That's good of them. But at least we'll have the most up to date equipment in place, which is a small positive." Legend nodded slowly. "How long until the equipment is ready?"
"Approximately a week, she said. Her factory is using all the spare capacity available at the moment."
"All right, so we can't do anything until at least next Wednesday. Depending on how long it takes to install it, possibly a couple of days longer. Well, that at least gives time to come up with a solid plan of attack."
"One of the big problems is that we'll be vulnerable for the time things are down," she pointed out. "We can offload a lot of routine work to known good handheld systems, so simple operations aren't going to be affected too badly, but if anything major kicks off we're going to be running practically blind."
"We can call in people from other PRT branches, of course," he said.
"I'd much prefer to avoid that if possible," she grumbled. "Partly because I don't want to air our dirty laundry until we've got a solution, but mostly because until we root the bastard out, we don't know who we can actually trust. There's a non-zero chance that he's got agents salted throughout the PRT, and without knowing who they are, they might take this as a perfect opportunity to help him get away."
"That is… an irritatingly valid point." The man looked annoyed, which was an unusual expression for him as he was normally pretty cheerful. "Damn. All right, we'll have to leave that as a last resort, I agree. I assume you feel the same about capes from other Protectorate sections?"
"Not the trust issue, but I'd prefer to do this with Brockton Bay people, or the PR hit will be even worse than it's inevitably going to be." She shrugged a little. "We're going to get bad press no matter what, but I'd like it to be as little as possible. The public are a pain at the best of times. Not to mention the Chief Director is going to be pissed again, and we only just got past the whole Family thing. More or less."
"I doubt Rebecca actually blames you for a family of alien reptiles," he grinned.
She stared at him. "I wouldn't put money on it. On the other hand, she seems happy enough to leave it as my problem, which is marginally better than being fired."
He looked amused, but conceded the point. "I suppose, then, that if this is to be a local problem for local heroes, we can only make use of all the assets we have. The Family are a given, without them we wouldn't even know about this in the first place, but we do have other people we can call on."
"You're thinking of New Wave, I assume?" she queried.
"Why not? They were quite happy to help during the tanker move and undoubtedly helped keep things quiet just by their presence. I would suggest that we get in contact, probably via the Family, and sound them out on performing a similar function again. I expect they'd help, they're good people, and no more likely to want outsiders coming in than you are."
Emily sighed slightly, but nodded after a few seconds. "Agreed. Irregular in the extreme, but agreed."
"We could assign each member a PRT squad with an experienced officer we can trust in charge, and have them patrol while we and the Family deal with Calvert," he mused. "Along with the Wards, that should be enough to make it obvious that the city isn't unprotected by Parahumans to anyone who thinks to seize the opportunity to cause trouble. Considering that the Merchants are gone, and both the other main gangs are being very quiet, it may be the best chance we get."
"All right. I have to admit I don't like it, but… Oddly enough, I trust the Family more than I normally trust any cape." She looked at him. "With a few exceptions, of course."
"You really should try to get over your problem with capes, Emily," he smiled. "Very few are as bad as you seem to think they are."
"You weren't at Ellisburg," she muttered. "Not like I was. If you were, you might think differently."
"I can't deny that," he admitted. "Even so, that was an extremely unusual case which hopefully will never be repeated."
"I sure as hell hope it won't," she said heavily. "I couldn't go through that again."
They were both silent for a little while. Eventually she stirred, looking at him seriously. "We need to get Hannah, Dragon, and Colin together, then work on a preliminary plan, I think. Once we have something that seems viable we should probably arrange to talk to Raptaur and her relatives and get their input on the problem. Not to mention we need to come up with a plausible reason to evacuate a large section of the center of the city without inciting panic or alerting Calvert, since we need to assume he's monitoring the news even if nothing else."
"I'd suggest we move this discussion over to the Rig, in that case," he said, nodding. "Colin's lab is still the most secure place, other than the BBFO office, we have access to."
She looked at her watch, grimacing a little. "Another late night, I guess. I really need a holiday after this."
"You deserve one, Emily," he chuckled. "I'll meet you over there."
"All right." Getting up she headed for the door with the Protectorate leader following, both of them knowing they had a lot of work to do. At least this time they had some warning and could take their time to do it properly.
"Have you heard the rumors about a dragon being sighted over the city, by the way?" he asked as she opened the door.
Emily stopped dead, then bowed her head. "Oh, for fuck's… It's them, isn't it? It's always them. Fucking Family..."
Chuckling, he moved past her. "It's still only a rumor, though. But if there is a dragon flying around, you're probably right. I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later."
"That's what I'm worried about," she muttered darkly, closing the door then walking beside him down the corridor, wondering what would happen next.
Practically anything seemed possible these days.
That bonus pay really didn't seem enough...
"How's that?" Amy asked, looking at Linda, who was inspecting herself in the mirror Taylor had made. Lisa was studying the modified woman with interest, as was Taylor herself.
"Really fucking incredible," Linda said softly. "Amazing." Running her hands over her head, she shook it a little. "And I don't look anything like me, either old or new, either."
This was true. The changes were for the most part fairly small, at least compared to the sort of thing Taylor could do without even thinking about it, but summed up they produced a unique individual who was completely different visually from Linda or Squealer.
They'd mixed and matched a number of components from different feline species, then added a few purely Amy-designed modifications as well. The end result was someone who was a little taller than Linda's base form, which was achieved by changing the spine to allow the vertebrae to space themselves out slightly as a result of expanding the cartilage between them. It was something she was quite proud of as it was surprisingly difficult to do, but it worked really well. And allowed a remarkable level of flexibility too.
Linda's face was distinctly different, the underlying structure altered by adding new bones to the skull and arranging it so they could be slightly moved again by expanding and shrinking the connective tissue. It didn't move very much in total but the overall effect was much greater than they'd initially expected. They'd gone for a rather triangular face which fitted the feline pattern nicely.
She'd also worked out a way to allow some of the teeth to change by a very rapid cellular regeneration and mineralization, based on the symbiote's healing ability, the result being that Linda's Changer form had definite fangs. Not large by comparison to a real cat but a lot more prominent than any human would have. Additionally her entire lower face was just a tiny bit pushed out towards a feline muzzle, not enough to affect her speech but enough to notice. They'd considered something much more prominent but decided after some experiments that in this case less was more.
The tail was the most complex to work out, but she'd managed it, even though it took nearly sixty seconds to fully develop or disappear. About three feet long, it was a very cat-like tail based on a cheetah's one.
Linda's ears were straight from a house cat, since she'd come to the conclusion she preferred the triangular look rather than the more rounded and proportionally smaller ones that either the cheetah or leopard they'd had on the shortlist had. They were twitching around on her head in an interesting manner. Her eyes were also very obviously cat's ones, a brilliant green. Not glowing like the bioconstructs or Taylor's forms had, but similar with a slitted pupil that was currently expanded in interest.
On top of her head, her hair was shorter, and patterned like a leopard's fur, as was the fur on her tail, but colored a rather unusual dark blue with black rosettes. They'd experimented with quite a number of colors, from the biologically-correct gold-yellow through the entire spectrum, including some domestic cat patterns, and Linda had decided that she liked the blue best. It was something that amused Taylor quite a lot as it was a shade about half-way between her Raptaur scales and Saurial scales in color, and sort of fitted the theme.
Making the hair able to be altered in length had been a very interesting problem but in the end not too hard, Amy mused, as she watched their new friend pose in front of the mirror.
"I really like this," Linda said in the end, turning around and grinning at them, her over-sized incisors glinting in the light. "It's fucking cool, and looks pretty good. Not freaky at all, just different. And not like some Anime fetish either, which is impressive. You have a real gift for this sort of thing."
Amy grinned back. "Thanks. It's something I take pride in, and it's a lot of fun. I like a good challenge."
"The effect is remarkable, Ianthe," Lisa commented, walking around Linda and gazing at her closely. "Aside from the tail, there are hardly any really major structural changes, but she looks entirely different. Add a mask or something and I doubt anyone would associate Linda with… whoever this is. We really need to come up with a name, actually."
"Not enough scales for a really good hybrid," Taylor chuckled, making Linda smile at her, "but I like it. Cats are very interesting."
Holding up a hand, Linda made the retractile claws Amy had managed to give her come out of the ends of her fingers. Retracted they looked like sharp fingernails, but fully extended they protruded a good half inch and were razor sharp and incredibly strong. She was quite proud of that change. "These are a little scary, but might come in handy."
"You'll always have some sort of weapon with you," Amy nodded. "Never know when you might need something sharp."
"If nothing else I can always use them to open boxes," Linda snickered.
"Do you want anything else, or is that it?"
The feline woman shrugged after thinking for a while. "I can't think of anything right now. You can always change it, right?"
"Sure. But once we introduce you to the PRT, we'll have to be careful about changing things too much or they might get suspicious. Although, I can always just tell them I upgraded you, I guess. They know I can do that, I've never hidden it."
"We don't really want them thinking about that too hard, certainly not soon," Lisa put in. "Or they might jump to the wrong conclusion. Which in this case would actually be the right conclusion, of course."
"True." Amy nodded. "Very true. So, if you want mods, probably best before that, unless they're internal. We're certain they'll end up with a DNA sample, but your DNA isn't quite normal right now anyway. As long as I don't change it too much it won't show, since I can encode the changes in parts that aren't tested for. I've added several chromosomes to it for future expansion."
"Show me again how to change back and forth," Linda requested after looking at herself again.
"OK." Putting her hand on Linda's, Amy connected to the woman's biology. "Feel this?"
"Yes. Woah, that was weird."
"These parts here toggle the change, feel them? With some practice you should be able to turn aspects of it on and off separately."
"I think I've got it."
"And this here is the override for the boosted abilities. This way is your new normal, this is the Changer form normal. And these parts here regulate the strength and speed between base human and whatever upper limit is selected. The more you turn it up, the more energy you'll use, so don't leave it up all the way when you don't need it unless you want to be hungry all the time." She walked the woman through all the internal modifications in the same way she'd done with Kevin and Randall a few days earlier. Eventually, after a few changes back and forth, Linda was fully acclimated with her new abilities.
"I can't believe how well this works," she said as she finished changing back to her feline alter-ego. "Just fucking amazing. The enhanced senses are almost overwhelming. I've never realized how many scents there were even indoors. I can smell everything, and see and hear all sorts of things I've never noticed before."
"Pity it takes so long, but it's still really impressive, cousin," Taylor said, making Amy give her a hard look.
"It's not easy, you know," she retorted to the grin aimed at her. "I could do a lot more if we weren't sticking to something human-compatible to this level. I can still probably improve on it with some more work, but I think this will do for now."
Lisa was now laughing a little, as was Linda. "Calm down, Ianthe, I don't think Saurial was trying to cast aspersions on your work," Lisa remarked. "Which is, as usual, absolutely first rate."
"Thank you. Someone appreciates the thought that goes into this sort of thing, at least," Amy said with an expansive gesture, looking at Taylor with narrowed eyes. Taylor merely grinned back. Linda creased up, sitting down on the edge of the 'Igor' table and watching them both as she giggled.
"Are they always like this?" she asked Lisa, who nodded, also smiling.
"Pretty much."
Shaking her head, Linda stood up, then headed for the coffee machine, her tail flicking around. Looking over her shoulder she watched it for a moment, before poking buttons and putting a cup in the right place. "I can't believe how quickly this feels normal," she commented, turning around as she waited for the machine to get on with it. "I'd have expected having a fucking tail would feel really bizarre for weeks at least, but while it's odd, it doesn't seem wrong. Does that make sense?" She reached up and felt one furry ear with a finger, looking bemused.
"I think so," Taylor replied, glancing at her friends. "I think a tail is entirely normal, of course, but I think a lot of it is that humans are just very adaptable, and some are much more adaptable than others. Plus you know you can pick either form without any real effort, which probably makes it more acceptable to your subconscious. I'd expect that someone, like a Case 53, if they could actually remember, might have a lot more trouble because they were stuck like that and hadn't got any warning or had any choice in the matter."
"You did, after all, pretty much design this form with our help," Lisa added. "I'm not really surprised that you don't have too many problems. Stay like that long enough and it'll probably be entirely normal to you."
Turning back to retrieve her now-full cup, Linda sipped from it, then nodded reflectively. "I guess. It sounds believable, anyway." Rejoining them, she sighed slightly. "Only problem I can really see is how do we stop people around here working out that the new part-cat Tinker is the same person as the new vehicle mechanic."
"We probably can't," Taylor admitted. "Not really. Your private workshop shows something unusual is going on, and as soon as they see you coming and going in either form, people will work it out. They're not stupid. But, the critical thing is that no one will care, or say anything. They don't know about your former life and unless you tell them, won't. Oh, sure, there are at least a few I can think of that may well work it out, but I can be absolutely certain none of them would ever tell anyone outside the DWU and probably not even inside the DWU. As far as the world is concerned, Squealer is dead and gone and it'll stay like that."
She spread her hands a little. "The internal issues of the DWU stay the internal issues of the DWU, and a Tinker/Changer/Brute Parahuman who is also a DWU member is someone everyone will keep to themselves, while at the same time being pretty pleased about. Who you tell is up to you, we won't confirm or deny anything to anyone without your permission. It's your business and under your control. Although, that said, there is a small number of people we know who I think you should probably meet at some point."
"Like who?" Linda asked curiously.
"Über and Leet, for a start," Amy said.
"Amy Dallon, as well. Panacea." Taylor glanced at 'Ianthe', who hid a smile. "She's one of our most trusted friends. Also Taylor Hebert, Danny's daughter, who can keep a secret, but she's not around here very much right now."
"Über and Leet?" Linda sounded surprised. "Danny mentioned those two idiots when I got here, but I didn't know you guys knew them too. It was before your time as far as I know."
Taylor grinned while Lisa snickered. "We know them. They're both actually pretty smart guys, and decent people. We count them as friends."
"But everything Leet makes blows up!" Linda looked very puzzled and a little offended. "He's a fucking weird Tinker. At least my stuff keeps working until Armsmaster wrecks it."
"Not everything he makes blows up, some of it works fine. And it always works at least once," Taylor explained patiently. "And to be entirely fair to him, he has invented some truly incredible stuff. If it helps, Dragon, Armsmaster, and Legend all think his work is impressive."
Staring at 'Saurial' in mild shock, Linda finally shook her head. "That is going to be one hell of a story, I think," she commented, drinking some more coffee.
"I can tell you some of it, but some is still confidential, and some isn't my story to tell," Taylor explained, before she began going over some of their recent history. Linda listened with great interest, asking a lot of questions, and visibly considering what she was told, while Amy and Lisa sat down and occasionally joined in the discussion.