Scratching the fur on one ear and internally still fascinated by the feelings her currently altered body was producing in several places, Linda thought over the things she'd been told about the game-related minor villains who seemed to have mostly turned over a new leaf. Saurial clearly trusted them, as did Ianthe, and Lisa. She'd have liked to ask Metis her opinion but the second cousin hadn't turned up yet.

However, she trusted Saurial and Ianthe completely. How could she not? Considering all the things they'd done for her, and the immense amount of effort they'd put in, they obviously didn't mean her any harm. And since she trusted them, and they trusted Über and Leet, logically she could also trust the latter.

"You think I should let them in on it?" she asked after a time during which they merely waited for her to consider the idea.

Saurial shrugged slightly. "It's entirely up to you. I'd suggest that the Squealer part of it should be kept secret, at least for now. It's not impossible they'll work it out, but I doubt either would say anything, any more than any of the DWU would. For a number of reasons, only some of which are down to how annoyed I'd be with them." She smiled slightly, as Linda laughed briefly. "Which would be very. Not to mention disappointed. But I don't think that would happen. We've told them some fairly important secrets of our own without any problems or expectations of trouble, and they've done likewise. They may be villains, or have started as villains, but they're good people in my view."

Ianthe nodded her agreement. "Mine too. Don't feel that you have to, but letting someone other than us know about at least the Linda part of it may be useful if only giving you someone human you can talk to, other than Lisa, Danny, and a couple of others. Someone outside the DWU, basically. And of course, despite his own troubles with his talents, Leet is a very gifted Tinker. You might well find that you had a lot in common and might even be able to help each other."

"That's certainly happened with Armsmaster and Dragon, the team of those two, Leet, and Raptaur is pretty remarkable," Lisa put in with a glance at Saurial, who was smiling again. "And Über is a damn good fighter among other talents, not to mention his own ability lets him understand Tinkering a lot more than most non-Tinker people could ever do."

"There is also something you might not have realized yet in play," Saurial mentioned with a glance at Ianthe.

Linda raised her eyebrows curiously. "Very mysterious. What would that be?"

"Remember how I knew Vicky was at the door when she came over yesterday?"

She thought, then her eyes widened. "Scent. Shit. You mean… oh, hell, you can identify people by their scent."

"And so can you with some practice. Your sense of smell isn't quite as good as ours, but it's way better than a normal human's. Now that I've turned on all the boosts, you're going to pretty quickly work out things like secret identities just by smell, if you meet anyone in either identity." Ianthe looked seriously at her. "You need to make sure that no one outside here finds out."

"Because of the Rules." Linda shook her head. "Fuck. That'll worry people."

"Frankly I'm slightly surprised no one has really worked it out yet," Saurial shrugged. "Several people know we have much better than normal senses, but hardly anyone seems to have put it together. There are quite a few capes that can probably do the same thing one way or another, we think, but at the same time none of them want to upset the applecart so they all keep quiet. That's my theory anyway. The Rules only work because everyone wants them to, but the whole secret identity thing is in many cases more or less a sort of willful blindness to the obvious."

"So we need to make sure we keep quiet about it, if nothing else to avoid the humans getting upset," Ianthe finished for her. "But, that means that if you meet Über, Leet, or most other Parahumans in both civilian and cape identities, you'll work it out immediately."

Linda looked hard at her for a little while. "Let me guess," she said slowly. "You've… improved… them. They can do it as well."

Ianthe shrugged, grinning. "Keep it to yourself, but I needed to practice. They weren't fast enough at staying out of range."

She chuckled. "If I know anything about either of them they probably jumped at the chance. But what you mean is, when we bump into each other, we're both going to be able to work out the truth and may as well make it official?"

"Pretty much," Saurial laughed. "Like I said, no one will force you to tell anyone. They're good people, if you don't say anything, neither will they. But considering that we expect to be working with them quite a lot, and you as well, it might be simpler and easier to get it out of the way up front and avoid all the pretense."

Thinking about it, Linda finally nodded. "All right. I can trust you guys so I guess I can trust them too. When they turn up next we can meet. If they're OK with it, I will be as well."

"And Panacea?" Lisa asked curiously.

Linda shrugged. "Why not? Same deal with her. You obviously trust and respect her, and from what you said I'll run into her sooner or later since she's here a lot. It would be a little awkward otherwise, if she's basically part of your… team or whatever the fuck all this really is. And I've got no problem about Danny's daughter, I owe the man a lot."

The blonde looked pleased, and also amused. "We're not really sure at the moment what this is, but the PRT seem happy to call it a hero group."

"Probably because there isn't a category for 'bizarre reptilian families who confuse people for a living,' Linda joked, making them all smile.

"It's more of a hobby than a living." Saurial looked pleased. "OK, Let's go back to your workshop and make a list of equipment you want and where we're going to put it, then come back and start looking up where to get it."

"Sounds good," she said with great interest. "Should I go like this, or like Linda?"

"Stick with Linda for now, we need to think of a name for your alter-ego, and possibly a suitable costume." The lizard-girl looked thoughtful. "I have some ideas for that. We can talk them over."

"Fine by me."

"I have to get back to work, there are some things I want to finish off," Lisa said with a glance at her watch. "And I want something to eat. I'll see you guys later."

"OK," Saurial replied. "If you see Metis wandering around, tell her where we are, all right?"

"Sure, no trouble," Lisa smiled, before getting up and heading towards the door. "I'll give some thought to a name as well."

"Thanks," Linda called as the girl slipped out and closed the door. She looked down at herself, felt one ear again, flicked her tail, then grinned. "So bizarre." Activating the internal controls she waited as her body changed, just under a minute later looking like her now-normal brunette self. "So fucking bizarre."

"But cool, right?"

"Oh, yes, very cool," she grinned. Adjusting her clothes where her tail had come out, she followed Saurial and Ianthe towards the door as well, eager to start planning her workshop and all the new things she could make with it.

After a short snack in the cafeteria, since she really was a little hungry, Lisa headed back to the office and was soon sitting in front of the computers as Metis, looking up possible new names for Linda. She drew up a list of a couple of dozen good ones, absently flicking through web pages, while the rest of her mind was occupied with thinking about the Simurgh problem.

She needed to talk to Taylor and Amy about it, but not when Linda, or for that matter, anyone else, was around. This needed to be kept between the three of them for now.

By the time the other three came back, her list was over a hundred names long and she was no nearer working out what to do about an Endbringer wanting help to stop being a menace. Or whatever was actually going on.

"Back again?" the guard at the gate said as he looked into the cab of the van. Randall grinned at him through his balaclava.

"We are that," he replied. "Just can't stay away."

The other man sniffed. "And you brought pizza again," he noted. "New career? Not what I'd have expected from you boys, but probably better than getting Armsmaster to chase you all the time."

Snickering, Randall shook his head. "Not a career, no, just some food for some friends." He turned to Kevin, who handed him one of the flat boxes. "Want to be a friend?" he added, passing it out the window.

The guard looked at him, then the pizza, before smirking slightly and taking it from him. "I'm willing to be a non-hostile acquaintance for the moment," he chuckled. "Friend might be pushing it." Lifting the lid, he looked inside. "Pepperoni with extra meat. Nice."

"Enjoy," Randall said.

"We will. If this is poisoned, the girls will take horrible revenge on you, by the way." The man looked amused as he stepped back, waving to his colleague with his free hand.

"I'm extremely well aware of that, thanks. And neither of us would ever poison a pizza, for god's sake! That's sacrilege!" Putting the van into gear, Randall nodded to the by-now familiar man who was grinning, before driving through the open gate and heading towards the BBFO office.

When they arrived, both got out as soon as the van was parked, heading towards the door. Kevin knocked, shifting his load of boxes, while Randall stood back with his own. There was a short delay before the door opened, to reveal 'Metis' standing there smiling at them.

"Hi, guys. Hold on a moment." She closed the door again, making them stare at each other.

"What the hell is that about?" Kevin asked with some surprise.

"No idea."

There was a thirty second pause, then the door opened again. Lisa grinned. "Sorry about that, we had to check something. Come on in."

"Thanks," Kevin said, moving past her as she stepped aside, his friend behind him. When the door was closed and locked again, they headed over to the table, putting the fifteen pizzas they still had down. "Hopefully this should be enough food."

Randall was about to add something to it when he spotted someone he'd never seen before talking to 'Ianthe', Amy's reptilian alter-ego nodding every now and then. Taylor, who was currently Saurial, was listening to the conversation by the computers but looked over, then joined them.

"Hi, guys," she said with a smile of her own. "Nice to see you again. I was wondering when you'd turn up next."

"Is this a bad time?" Kevin asked, indicating the slightly non-human appearing woman who was chatting to Amy with his head.

"Not really, no," Taylor assured him. "This is a new friend of ours. A DWU member now, for about a week."

"You have another cape now?" Randall asked curiously, inspecting the woman. She was clearly not a normal person, that was obvious just by looking at her. "Or did you make one?"

"We didn't… actually make her," Lisa said, the pause slight but noticeable. Both girls exchanged a glance, then turned to look at the woman.

She was about five foot seven or so, Randall thought, and pretty attractive, with a nice figure. However, there were some unusual aspects to her appearance that marked her as a Parahuman of some sort. The feline additions were very obvious, but if anything added a certain exotic flair to an already attractive woman and looked completely natural.

"She hasn't decided on a cape name yet," Taylor added. "Come and meet her. Leet, you have something in common."

"A Tinker?" the shorter man asked with interest as he and Randall followed the blue-scaled girl over to the other two, Lisa staying at the table and opening one of the pizza boxes while wearing an intrigued expression.

"Among other talents," the cat woman said, turning around and inspecting them, her inhuman eyes scanning them while her eyebrows went up. "I didn't expect to meet the… famous, or is it infamous? ...Über and Leet today."

Randall laughed faintly. "You've heard of us. Good, it would be embarrassing if you hadn't. We've put in a lot of work over the years."

She looked amused. "Blew up a lot of fucking hardware as well in the process from what I heard."

"Not all of it blew up," Kevin protested. "Some of it simply caught fire. Or disappeared into a freak wormhole in space-time. Or just evaporated. Or… No, better not mention that one, just in case." He shuddered. "Don't want it to happen again."

The others all looked at him, then Randall, who shrugged. "No idea."

"And it's staying that way," Kevin said in a worried voice. "So. Tinker?"

"Slash Changer slash Brute," the woman said after a glance at Amy.

"Changer?" Randall also looked at Amy, whose reptilian face looked just a tiny bit smug. "Ah. I see, I think."

"Have you been warping the very fabric of nature again, Ianthe?" Kevin asked with a small grin.

Amy rocked a hand from side to side. "Little bit," she said. "Keep it quiet."

"Now I'm really curious," the man muttered. "Damn it."

The feline woman looked at him for a little while, then Randall, before turning to Saurial, who shrugged. "Like I said, up to you, but I trust them."

She visibly thought for another handful of seconds, then emitted a small sigh. "OK." Turning back to the two new arrivals, she said, "These guys say you can be trusted. I trust them. So… you show me yours and I'll show you mine. If you want."

Kevin started chuckling as the three reptiles smiled. Randal raised his eyebrows.

"I assume that means names, more than anything else."

The woman grinned as well, exposing a fang. "For now. From what they say, you guys turn up quite a bit, so we'll bump into each other regularly, I guess. Sooner or later you'll work it out, or I will, and it would get fucking awkward pussy-footing around the issue."

Kevin nearly fell over laughing as the woman suddenly put a hand over her eyes. Saurial couldn't stop snickering. "Oh, god, someone shoot me. I swear I didn't mean to say that."

Shaking his head with amusement, Randall glanced at Taylor. "Do you think it's a good idea? Neither one of us minds if she doesn't tell us, believe me. But I swear we won't pass it on, you know we wouldn't."

"I do," the girl said, "and I told her that. Assuming you're both OK with it too. Neither one of you has to tell her either."

He looked at Kevin, who looked back, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "What do you think?"

"She's got a sense of humor, and she's a Tinker. And a cat. I sort of like cats." His friend looked around at the other people. "I'm OK with it, and really curious."

The mystery woman nodded, her green eyes glinting with entertainment still. They watched as her head reverted to something much closer to normal human parameters over a period of about thirty seconds, although her tail remained, twitching around behind her. "That's really cool," Kevin commented with wide eyes.

"Thanks," both Ianthe and the woman said at the same time, shooting each other a grin. Holding out a hand, the new person added, "Linda. Nice to meet you."

Kevin shook her hand, pulling off his balaclava at the same time. "Kevin. This is my best friend Randall." Randall took his own woolen disguise off too with a small sigh of relief.

"Those things itch," he muttered.

"A new era of openness dawns," 'Metis' snickered from behind them.

"For a given value of openness," Randall said, glancing back at her.

"Quite." She smiled at him mischievously. He was certain that the newly introduced Linda didn't know about the actual truth of her, Amy, or Taylor, but understood why. Presumably when they were sure of their new friend she'd be let further into the secrets of the Family, and there was also the probability that they were using her as a control of sorts on whatever experiment they were running on the nature of Parahuman powers. She probably didn't have quite the same modifications that he and Kevin did yet.

The black and scarlet lizard caught his eye, nodding very slightly when Linda wasn't looking, and pretty much confirmed his thoughts with that action. She was scarily good at nearly reading his thoughts, he mused. The faint grin she got for a moment made him roll his eyes.

'This is becoming a very complicated conspiracy,' he thought with an internal smile. 'I hope they're keeping track of who knows what.'

"If you don't mind me asking, what's your specialty, Linda?" Kevin asked as they all headed back to the table full of pizza. Lisa had spread the boxes out and opened them, and was half-way through one chicken and bacon one.

"Transportation," the woman said, sitting down.

He looked at her, then Randall. "That's it?"

"Yes." She looked smug.

"Just… 'transportation'?"

"Yes." The smug look grew more obvious. He gaped a little.

"That's… a very wide area."

"It covers all sorts of interesting things," she nodded, pulling one of the boxes closer and picking up a slice. "I've got some fascinating ideas lurking around in my head that I never thought I'd have a chance to try, but with Saurial's abilities and the resources here… I'm going to have fun."

Sitting down as well, he kept looking at her. "Holy shit."

"We're expecting some very cool things to happen," Taylor put in with a grin. "She's got a good workshop set up a little way over, we've made a list of stuff needed for it, and pretty soon I think Linda is going to make some nice toys."

"Cars, trucks, boats, that sort of thing?" Randall asked curiously.

"Boats might be an interesting thing to play with," Linda remarked. "I'm staying away from cars and trucks right now, I don't want anyone linking me to that Merchant cape Squealer. Her ugly-ass things aren't what I want people to think of."

Kevin nodded, watching her as he ate. "I can understand that. She was talented, but not aesthetically. It's a pity about her being killed, though, especially like that."

"It wasn't very pretty," Amy sighed. "Poor woman."

"Your operation on the Merchants was amazing," Randall smiled. "I watched the video half a dozen times. Really impressive. Were the PRT happy?"

"They seemed to be," Taylor replied. "And so is everyone else."

"I'm not surprised, the Merchants were a fucking nuisance," Kevin muttered. "Can't say I miss them." He looked up at her. "What about Skidmark?"

She shrugged. "Still in the wind. No one seems to know where the guy is, even though a lot of people are looking pretty hard. I'm hoping that he'll take the hint and never come back, but I wouldn't put money on it."

"No," he frowned. "Neither would I. But with hardly any gang left, and no money, how dangerous can he be?"

Taylor sighed faintly before reaching for some pizza of her own. "I hate to think. He's just too unpredictable. But we'll be as ready as we can be for him. With a bit of luck, nothing will happen for a while. I'd like to be able to get on with work rather than worry about a drugged up aggressive weirdo, personally."

"Fair enough," Kevin smiled. Turning back to Linda, who was listening quietly, he added, "We have something in the van you might like." He glanced at the others. "All of you."

"A new toy?" Lisa asked curiously. She inspected him closely, then her eyes widened very slightly.

"Sort of," he grinned.

"Bring the van inside," Taylor said, getting up and moving over to the door, past the large EDM box which Randall knew contained Amy's own vehicle. "There's just enough room for it." She flipped the door switch and waited as it rattled up to the ceiling. Kevin had pulled his balaclava back on while it was moving, and now went outside, got in and started the vehicle, then turned it around and backed it in through the open door. When he parked it she closed the door again. Everyone got up and came over to watch as Randall opened the rear doors of the van.

"Wow," Amy breathed at the sight of the power armor strapped down to the floor of the vehicle, between racks of parts. "That's impressive."

"Wait until you see it in action," Kevin said with satisfaction. "It works really, really well."

Linda was studying it with great interest, her eyes wide. "Oh, boys, I can see we're going to have to talk," she said softly, reaching out to stroke the armor. "A lot."

Randall met Taylor's yellow gaze over the brunette's back as she leaned down, inspecting the suit. The blue-scaled girl winked at him, making him smile internally.

"Let's pull it out and set it up," Kevin chuckled as he started unstrapping the armor, Linda eagerly helping.

"Transporter?"

"No, that's terrible, and way too obvious."

Taylor looked at Randall, then back at Lisa, who was going through a list of names. Kevin and Linda were next to each other, half-inside the suit of power armor, while he showed her something she seemed fascinated about. She was listening, vetoing names as they went, but most of her attention seemed to be on the armor.

Presumably something like that came into the heading 'transportation', the girl thought with a small smile. Interesting things were definitely going to happen soon.

"Conveyance?"

"No." Linda sounded sure even though she didn't look up.

"Transit?"

"No."

"Hmm. Monkey Wrench?"

"Do I look like a monkey?"

"You have a tail," Randall pointed out.

"A cat's tail, not a monkey's tail," Linda grinned, glancing at him, then going back to poking the sub-assembly she was examining with the probes of a multimeter.

"Fair point."

"Void Cowgirl?" Amy asked with a wide smirk. Everyone stared at her in horror.

"Not only no, but fucking no," Linda snarled. "I am not, under any circumstances, going to be even slightly associated with that idiot!"

Amy held up her hands, grinning. "Joke."

"Like the chicken?"

"Yep."

Randall and Kevin exchanged a glance, then shrugged.

"Streamline?" Taylor suggested. Linda, who calmed down almost instantly, looked curiously at her.

"Why?"

"It's a term that brings to mind some of the really neat looking trains and cars back in the thirties," she explained. "And it's sort of transportation related."

"Huh." The woman thought for a while. "Not bad, but not quite what I'm looking for."

"Just a suggestion." Taylor didn't mind the rejection, they'd gone through over eighty names so far.

"You didn't like any of the cat related ones," Lisa said, flipping through her notebook.

"I can just see the pussy jokes on PHO now," the Tinker woman sighed. "No thanks, we don't need to give them any more ammunition than we have to."

"Probably for the best." Lisa smiled a little. "And you don't want the obvious car related ones either."

"I can do a lot more than cars, so why get stuck with that association?" Linda shrugged, looking up again. "And it's something else that brings to mind Squealer, which I don't want."

"All right. Well, that's most of the ones in English. I have a lot here that are in other languages, related to human mythology. That's the sort of thing we've often chosen for names to use with your people since you can't speak our language. We could try some of those."

"Let's hear some."

Lisa began reading out the names of minor goddesses and female spirits that were vaguely related to transportation, while the others listened and discussed the better ones. They stopped on one after a while.

"Vahana sounds interesting," Amy remarked with interest.

"It's very relevant in some ways," Lisa noted. "And fits the theme."

"But..." Randall looked at them, his face showing amusement and mild embarrassment. "It's also a little close to a word in Spanish that you probably don't want to be associated with."

Lisa snickered, while Linda scowled. Taylor looked at Amy, who shrugged. Kevin suddenly appeared to have worked it out and also laughed. "No, that wouldn't be good, especially on PHO," he chuckled.

"What word?" Amy asked curiously.

"Change one letter and it's sort of slang for… well, let's just say something only a woman has and leave it at that," Randall grinned.

"Oh," she said, both she and Taylor understanding suddenly. "I see, that would definitely give those odd people on the forums a little too much leeway," she chuckled.

"Pity, it's a good name otherwise," Taylor sighed. They resumed going through the list, Linda or one of the others ultimately rejecting all of them. When she'd finished, Lisa put the notebook down and picked up a slice of now-cold pizza.

"That's all the ones I've come up with so far," she said after eating it. "I suppose we'll have to do more research."

"What about just translating some of the more obvious words into different languages and seeing if any of them come out sounding good?" Kevin asked.

"Worth a try, I guess," Linda nodded, turning the meter off and handing the part back to him. He started reinstalling it. "What language, though?"

"Japanese, possibly, or ancient Greek, both of those tend to produce names that sound good in English," Taylor commented thoughtfully. "Or perhaps Latin."

Moving over to the computers, Amy started entering words into an online translator as the others made suggestions. Eventually they stopped on one, exchanging glances. "That's not bad," Linda mused, getting up and walking over to read the screen. "I could live with that."

"It even means transportation as one definition," Taylor said, joining her and reading over Amy's shoulder. "Vectura. Has a nice ring to it, it's relevant, and it's easy to say." She looked at the woman next to her, who had changed back to her feline form to get used to it. "Want to use it?"

"Why not?" she asked. "We could spend all night trying to find a better one, we've been at it for two hours already. I need to get some sleep sooner or later."

"Well, then, I think I speak for all of us here when I say, welcome to the DWU, Vectura," Taylor smiled, holding out her hand, which the newly christened Tinker took with a grin.

"I'm sure I'll find it as bizarre as anyone could wish for," 'Vectura' chuckled.

"That goes without saying," Kevin said, shaking his head. He was nearly finished reassembling the power armor. "But it's fun."

"Definitely," she replied. Looking at the time on the screen, she yawned widely, showing small fangs. "God, I'm fucking tired. This has been a long day. But interesting too."

"You should probably go to bed," Amy suggested as she got up from the computer. "After all the changing around we did, you need the sleep. Have a big breakfast as well just to top off your nutrient levels."

Linda yawned again. "Sorry. Thanks, I'll do that." She went back to the table, smiling at both Kevin and Randall. "It was good to meet both of you. I guess we'll probably see each other quite a bit."

"I suspect so," Randall replied with a nod. "See you around."

"Thanks for showing me your armor, Kevin," she added, turning to the other Tinker, who grinned at her. "It's really good work."

"Thanks," he said with a pleased expression.

"Give some thought to a costume," Taylor suggested. "I have a few ideas of my own, but we can make anything you want. When we introduce you to the PRT you'll probably want something to show off, just for the PR side of things if nothing else."

"I'll think about it," the woman said, slowly reverting back to her normal human form. "This still feels weird, but it's really amazing as well," she noted. Feeling her rear, she shook her head. "I never thought I'd have a tail."

"I don't know how you people can live without one," Taylor said with a sly grin, making Randall give her a look of resigned amusement which Linda didn't see.

Linda shrugged, smiling a little. "We manage, somehow," she replied dryly. "See you guys tomorrow."

"Sleep well," Lisa said as the brunette headed for the door. Taylor followed and let her out, locking the door behind her and returning to the table.

Reverting to her base form and dropping into a chair, she put her feet up and grinned at Randall and Kevin. "What do you think?" she asked.

Randall shook his head, obviously trying not to laugh. "I think you're nuts, but that's already been established," he said slowly. "How many more Parahumans are you going to collect?"

"All of them," she hissed, narrowing her eyes and rubbing her hands together. "Then I shall rule the world."

He started snickering as she relaxed again. "Oddly enough, I wouldn't put it past you, you very odd girl. I like your new friend, though. She seems decent, if a little sweary."

"She's a lot less like that than she was when she got here," Lisa remarked. "But she's a good person at heart. Just had a bad life up until now, so she's really relieved to be here. Everyone who's met her likes her, and she's a fucking good mechanic leaving aside the Tinker things."

"Does anyone here know she's a Parahuman?" he asked curiously.

"Almost everyone, probably," Taylor smiled. "I know for a fact of a dozen or so who worked it out immediately, and I'd think that most of the others will soon if they haven't already. But no one cares. Same as with the Undersiders. Everyone knows who they are, Rachel is sort of a giveaway there, no one thinks twice about it or mentions it. The only important thing is that they're DWU."

"Weird place, the DWU," Kevin put in with a small smile. "Very weird."

"We like it though," Lisa giggled. She inspected both of them closely. "You guys have found out some interesting things, haven't you?"

The two young men exchanged glances. Both of them sat down, then leaned forward. "Our powers are far more effective all of a sudden," Kevin replied slowly. "I still can't make anything new, but… I've fixed several things that I definitely couldn't even dare touch until recently. Like that armor, a holoprojector, a couple of other small things. And it's still improving too. Randall is learning martial arts just by watching YouTube for god's sake! What the hell did you do to us? And how?"

Taylor looked at Amy, then Lisa. "What do you think? Enough data from this part of the experiment?"

"It looks like we've shown that the neural upgrades are definitely causing the results we've noticed," Amy said quietly. "We'll have to monitor Linda to see if mere proximity does anything, but I think we've learned what we set out to."

Lisa added, "I agree, we should probably let them in on the rest now. Once they're up to speed, I have some other news I really need some advice on, too."

Everyone looked curiously at her.

"Afterwards," she said firmly.

"OK," Taylor replied, puzzled. She turned to the two men. "Network fragmentation," she said, smiling a little. "It seems to revolve around that phrase. Remember it."

They looked confused, so the three girls started filling them in on the rest of the things they'd deduced and observed. The confusion turned to shock, mild horror, and great interest very quickly. Then, when she decided with his advice that they had to know about the Varga to make sense of any of it, shock and horror again...

"Demon?"

Kevin's voice was plaintive.

"Yes, my young friend. Demon."

The Varga's voice was amused.

"Oh."

"How big?"

Randall's voice was a very weird mix of horrified and eager.

Taylor grinned.

Amy studied the two young men as they came to grips with the entire story. They'd taken it surprisingly well, although Taylor's reveal of her demonic inheritance had definitely shaken both of them. Randall looked like he wanted to see a full-scale Varga and was trying to work out the best way to arrange it, while Kevin was still gaping slightly at Taylor.

Taylor herself was looking deeply amused, or rather, the Varga was, as she'd let him join the conversation and he was currently doing the driving while she just listened.

"You seem worried, Kevin," the demon said.

"More very, very confused," Kevin replied after a long pause. "I mean, really very fucking confused indeed. Demons, Endbringers, powers being alien computers… it's a lot to take in, you know? Especially at two in the morning."

"I understand," the Varga commented, still smiling faintly. "To be utterly truthful, parts of it are somewhat surprising even to me. Bear in mind that so far we don't have absolute proof of the truth of most of this, although it holds together remarkably well and Lisa's power has more or less confirmed aspects of it. The root cause of the entire thing is still a mystery, as is the ultimate goal, though."

"I doubt it's something we're going to like, all things considered," Randall said quietly, staring at the table as he thought. "Not if it's something that the damn Simurgh is worried about. Nothing involving the Endbringers can be good, I think."

"No, I suspect you're right," the demon agreed soberly. "It doesn't appear that whatever is behind this has the best interests of humanity at heart. It is… worrying."

"And right now, only us here really know all of this?" Kevin asked.

"Dad knows some of it, but we haven't filled him in on everything yet," Taylor said, taking back control for the moment. "I will do, he needs to know, and he might have some ideas we haven't thought of. But the results of our tests on you guys seems to show that a lot of what we suspected holds up, as does Lisa's ability. We don't dare talk to anyone else about it yet, god knows what would happen if anyone found out." She sighed slightly. "It's dangerous knowledge, if only because of the way people would freak out. And, of course, we might still be wrong, but I don't think we are."

"Not to mention we don't know what we can actually do about it," Amy remarked. "If anything."

"Just getting the fucking Endbringers to stop would be a massive help," Kevin said.

"Yes. That would definitely be the ideal outcome," she agreed. "Figuring out who the controller is and stopping them is something I really want to do."

"Tell them about your dream, man," Randall urged his friend. Kevin looked puzzled for a moment, then his face cleared.

"Oh. Right, I'd nearly forgotten about that."

"Dream?" Lisa queried curiously.

"Yeah, it was bizarre." He quickly recounted what he could remember of the first night after Amy had modified them. When he finished, they all looked at each other.

"That is… very strange," Amy said after a while.

"But it sort of makes sense in some weird ways," Lisa commented, thinking hard. Everyone turned to her. "If you take it as a sort of symbolic representation of something that actually happened, rather than just something that was made up like most dreams… it's very interesting."

"The angry computer is his power, isn't it?" Taylor asked.

"Probably. Why it would be angry, I have no idea, though," the black reptile said, glancing at Kevin. "Did you upset your power somehow?" she asked with a smirk.

"I have no idea," he shrugged. "If anyone should be annoyed it should be me, I've had a power that's apparently been trying to kill me for years. Everyone else can make things that don't explode when you poke them, and can make more than one. I got a defective power, I think." He was smiling, but seemed mildly irritated as well.

She studied him closely. "I don't think it's defective, but… you might be closer than you think about it in some ways. I'll have to think about that. Anyway, moving on, I'll bet anything that the giant smiling thing is somehow connected to the Varga. Or actually is the Varga."

"I'm not entirely certain how, Lisa," the demon said. "Although I agree in principle."

She shrugged a little. "I'm not sure how either, but it makes a certain amount of sense in context. Or, I suppose it's not entirely impossible it might be your greater power."

"Unlikely, they seldom interfere directly like that," he replied. "Sending me to Taylor was unusual in the extreme, although I have no regrets whatsoever."

"Neither do I," Taylor said.

"The three crystal balls..." Lisa looked mildly confused. "Those have to be the Endbringers, although why crystal balls I have no idea. But it reinforces the idea that they're not doing what they do because they want to."

"And the fox-lizard?" Amy asked curiously.

"That one I don't know," Lisa admitted.

The Varga looked at her, smiling faintly, but said nothing.

"This really is a very fucked up situation," Randall muttered in aggrieved tones.

Lisa sighed. "It's worse than you might think," she said. Everyone stared at her. She produced a small worried grin which looked odd on her currently reptilian face. "Did you know that the Simurgh is on PHO?"

There was a long silence, which one could probably describe as appalled, before the questions started.

None of them got to bed early.