Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Watching his daughter across the table, Danny was somewhat concerned. She seemed a little out of it, obviously communing with the Varga to the point that she was hardly in the room with him. The girl had come in very late the previous night, or more accurately very early that morning, probably nearly at five AM, so she'd only had about three hours of sleep. If he didn't know she needed very little most of the time these days he'd have been more worried.
Even so, this behavior was unusual.
"Is there something wrong, Taylor?" he asked as he got up to clear the table. After a pause, she blinked a couple of times and looked up, then sighed a little with a small shrug.
"Yes. No. Um… sort of."
"How very confident you sound," he joked, piling crockery and utensils in the sink and turning the water on. Glancing back over his shoulder, he smiled at her. She returned the expression, but he could see an undercurrent of confusion there as well.
"We learned something weird last night, about the whole powers thing," she said after another pause, getting up and bringing her glass over to the sink. He took it from her and put it with the rest, both of them watching the water run over the dirty washing and foam with the liquid soap in it.
"Oh?" he asked noncommittally, turning the taps off, then putting his hands in the water. "Something bad?"
"Depends on your viewpoint, I guess," she muttered. "Most people would probably think it was at least fucking bizarre." He handed her the first clean plate, which she started drying absently, while staring out the kitchen window with a faint frown on her face.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not here, not now," she replied, looking at him, then the plate, which was sparkling and dry, before putting it down on the side and taking the next one. "I'm still going over it in my mind, trying to make sense. Varga is very puzzled as well. Later, though."
He studied her profile for a moment, then nodded. "All right. Don't get too worked up, though, I'm sure it's something we can figure out."
"Hopefully," she mumbled, sounding uncertain. "Even though everyone is still trying to get to grips with it." Sighing loudly, she blew a misplaced strand of curly hair out of her face, then visibly pushed whatever it was she was contemplating away and smiled at him, before proceeding to dry the rest of the washing up as he handed it to her.
"Leaving the mystery problem aside for the moment, how did things go last night with Linda?" he asked, pulling the plug out on the end of the chain, then drying his hands on a cloth.
"Very well, in fact," she grinned, her earlier pensive mood at least temporarily resolved. "We came up with both a form and a name. Vectura just needs a good costume now."
"Vectura," he repeated thoughtfully, trying to remember his Latin. "Not bad. Transportation, or carriage, something like that, right?"
"Yep. We must have gone over nearly a hundred and fifty names before we hit that one," Taylor replied. "The woman has definite standards for a name."
He grinned, as he reached for the coffee pot, pouring the last of the still-warm liquid into a cup, then putting the pot under the tap and rinsing it out. Sipping his third cup of coffee, he asked, "What was the form in the end?"
"Sort of a cat-girl, made from different parts from a number of animals, and some stuff we came up with from scratch," she said, looking pleased. "Blue fur as well, which looks good. Ears, tail, claws, eyes, the rest all human, but with some serious strength and speed boosts. Everyone liked it a lot, Linda most of all."
"Impressive," he noted. "I'm looking forward to seeing it. How long does she take to change?"
"Under a minute," his daughter replied with an approving look. "Amy thinks she can probably speed that up eventually but at the moment it'll do well. She looks completely different in that form from her normal one, so it should work effectively. A good costume, which we're still thinking about, and her new cape identity should be solid. In a week or so we can talk to the PRT about her."
"Good, that sounds like excellent progress," he smiled.
"The workshop is done too, we ordered some equipment for it already, and Lisa is getting the rest sorted out today," she added. "By the middle of next week at the latest she'll be fully equipped. We poked around and found some older spare stuff in some of the storage rooms which we'd like to use too, if that's OK?"
"I assume you have a list?" he asked.
"Yep. Lisa was going to get it to you this morning."
"All right. I'll have a look, and talk to the relevant workshops to see how much is spare and how much is redundant. You can have any of the redundant stuff."
"Thanks, Dad," she smiled. "We're going to have some very cool toys soon, I think." She frowned for a moment, then said, "That reminds me, I need to finish the wormhole generator parts for Armsmaster. I got them about half done then things went confusing. I'd better do that after the Mayor's dinner tonight."
"Are you looking forward to it?"
"I am, actually," she chuckled. "I like him and it'll be nice to meet him as myself. I can remember seeing him a couple of times when I was a little kid but not for years."
"Roy is a decent person," he nodded, "even at our most argumentative I've always thought that. It should be an interesting evening."
"Vicky was sure stoked about it when she came by," Taylor smiled, shaking her head in amusement. "Even for her she was excited. I hope she can be a little less… hyper… tonight."
"I'm sure she'll behave," he laughed. Glancing at his watch, he finished his coffee. "We both need to make a move, though. I'll see you later today, I expect."
"Yes, I'll be in after school," she confirmed, quickly hugging him. "See you, Dad."
"Have a good day at school," he smiled, watching as she left the kitchen with a wave, the back door opening and closing moments later. Washing out the cup, he dried it, then headed off as well, wondering what oddness she and her friends had discovered this time. He'd find out soon enough, most likely.
"Do you mind if I come in to school with you today?"
Amy looked up from where she was poking her cereal, thinking hard about the revelations Lisa had dropped on them all the night before, to see her sister watching her. As soon as she'd arrived at the table she'd been interrogated about the aborted Merchant carjacking, which to be honest she'd practically forgotten about after what happened later, her mother wanting details and appearing pleased about them. And more than a little impressed with Taylor's take-down of the idiot who'd grabbed her. Now Carol and Mark were in the living room having finished breakfast a little while ago, talking quietly about something she couldn't be bothered to follow.
Slightly taken aback by the unusual, in fact unprecedented, request, she stared at Vicky for a moment, then nodded. "Sure. Why? I mean, you normally fly, so why do you want to drive with the rest of us poor people?" she asked, lifting the corner of her mouth in a small smile.
"I just thought it would be nice for once," Vicky replied, shrugging. "Now that you have the truck we don't go anywhere together and I miss it."
Her smile becoming wider, Amy said, "I do too." She studied the blonde, who seemed a little occupied with her own thoughts, her normally vivacious smile somewhat dimmer than normal. "Are you OK?" she asked.
Vicky twitched a bit, then nodded. "Yeah. Sorry, I've had a lot on my mind recently."
"Join the club," Amy muttered under her breath. "How did your meal with Dean go last night?" she asked more loudly.
"Fine, thanks," Vicky said. "You got back awfully late, though. I was awake until past two and you still weren't back."
"I was talking to Saurial and some other friends at the yard, they came over with pizza, and we lost track of time." Yawning suddenly, Amy put a hand over her mouth. "Which I'm now regretting." She tweaked her symbiote to clean up the left-over fatigue byproducts a little faster, feeling somewhat more alert almost immediately. They'd all spent hours discussing the ramifications of the Simurgh being a frequent poster on PHO, something that led to more questions than she currently could even begin to think of answers to.
Not least of which were how and why, of course.
It had come as a shock to the brunette to realize that she herself had engaged in conversations with an Endbringer on more than one occasion, and had thought the responses both witty and apt.
However, at the moment, there wasn't much any of them could do about it, so in the end they'd agreed to sit back and watch, while trying to work out how to handle the situation. Everyone agreed with Lisa that directly opening conversations with the creature was probably an unwise thing to do at the moment. In effect, the next move was the Simurgh's. She probably had a plan, which was more than they did right now.
Hoping that this wait and see approach wouldn't come back to bite them, Amy sighed gently and tried not to think about it. She had schoolwork to concentrate on.
"What do you think Mayor's dinner party is going to be like?" she asked, finishing her cereal.
"Hopefully fun," Vicky grinned. "It's certainly going to be interesting."
"I suspect so," Amy said as she got up, pulling her jacket off the back of the chair and putting it on. "Come on, then, let's go." Both girls called out to their parents, then Vicky followed her out to her truck, which was soon backing out of the driveway, Amy looking over her shoulder and Vicky already fiddling with the radio.
"Is Taylor really OK after that fuckwit tried to jack your truck?" the blonde girl asked when she found a channel she liked, settling back into the seat. She looked mildly puzzled for a moment, reaching under her backside, then frowned.
"She's fine," Amy smiled. "No harm done other than mild bruising, and I think she sort of enjoyed seeing how her training worked. Really well, obviously, the idiot didn't know what hit him."
"Taylor did," Vicky snickered. "Pretty fucking hard, looking at the video. I was impressed."
"So were the cops," she giggled. "Saurial is a good trainer." Which was true, of course, if misleading…
"I'm very glad she's all right," her sister said, sounding relieved. She wriggled in the seat again, then lifted herself a little and peered down. "What the hell is wrong with these seats? Why is there a hole in them?"
"It's for tails," Amy laughed. The other girl stared at her.
"Tails?"
"Saurial was complaining that the only thing wrong with my truck was the seats weren't set up for people with tails." Amy shrugged. "This is true. So she fixed it."
"Oh." Vicky stared at her for a second or two, then down at the seat again, before shrugging. "I guess that's… weird. But sort of understandable." Looking over at the driver's seat, she added after a moment, "Did she do both seats?"
"Yep."
"Why? You don't have a tail." Her sister seemed amused.
Amy suppressed a grin, her hidden tail twitching a little in the fractal space it was currently occupying. "She might need to drive the truck some time, so we did both of them. There are some inserts for the holes in the back but I couldn't be bothered to put them in."
"Fair enough, I suppose." The other girl thought, then frowned. "Hey. You won't let your own sister drive your truck, but you'll let some weird lizard-girl do it?"
Amy glanced at her with an evil smirk.
"I trust Saurial."
"Hey!"
Both of them started laughing at Vicky's slightly hurt tone. Amy was pleased to note that her sister seemed to have cheered up from whatever had been bothering her at breakfast, and the silliness took her own mind off the strange and concerning thoughts she was having, at least for a while. They talked happily for the rest of the trip.
Just as she was sitting down at her desk in home room, Taylor noticed the vice principal enter the room and have a word with the teacher. He scanned the students, then pointed to her. Meeting his eyes, Taylor cocked her head a little in an inquisitive manner. The man made a small 'come here' gesture so, with a glance at Mandy, who was watching looking a little puzzled, she stood again and walked over.
"Taylor, Mrs Howell would like a quick word," he said. She nodded, glancing at the person who pretty much ran the school. The blonde woman waved her to the door, then took her into the next room which was currently empty, closing the door and blocking out the sounds from the various students still milling around outside.
"Have a seat, Miss Hebert," the woman said, waiting until Taylor sat at one of the unoccupied desks. "I was made aware last night that you were involved in an incident yesterday after school with Miss Dallon, and a rather unpleasant man who was once a Merchant gang member."
"Yes, Mrs Howell, that's true," she nodded, wondering what this was really about.
"I see. Firstly, I wished to ensure that you were unharmed?"
"I'm fine, thanks," she smiled. "No real damage and Amy healed anything that might have been a problem."
"Good. I'm glad to hear that. Now, the other matter is regarding the apparent fact that you carry a self-defense weapon. I am assuming that you have it with you at the moment?" The vice-principal's face was somewhat blank, but her scent betrayed a certain amount of both curiosity and mild irritation.
"I do," Taylor admitted after a moment's thought, forming a baton in her pocket and making the statement true.
"May I see it, please?"
"Certainly," she replied, reaching into her pocket and removing the device, then handing it over. Taking it from her, Mrs Howell inspected it closely, weighing it in her hand, then somewhat to her surprise, holding it and flicking it open with a degree of ease that suggested she wasn't unfamiliar with the things. Taylor watched with slightly widened eyes as the older woman struck out with it, then blocked an invisible return strike, showing considerable proficiency. It wasn't at all what she'd expected.
"Very nice," the vice-principal commented idly. "Where did you get it?"
"My father thought I should have some way to defend myself, considering where he works," she said after a couple of seconds consideration. "Saurial made it for me, when she trained me." Again, this was more or less true, depending on your viewpoint, she thought. If somewhat misleading.
"I see." Closing the thing, Mrs Howell held it in her hand and studied it for a little while, then returned it. "Normal school policy would have me confiscate it, as weapons are generally not allowed on school property." Taylor nodded as she put it away. "However, considering that your father is a high-profile individual with a reputation for vigorously protecting his family, the areas you go through to visit the DWU, and your known good character, I feel that you are responsible enough that I can make an exception in this case. You clearly know how to use it and when, and more importantly, how and when not to use it. The video I've seen is quite instructive. Your tutor is more than competent."
"She is," Taylor grinned.
"I would be quite interested in meeting Miss Saurial at some point," Vice-principal Howell mused out loud. She fell silent for a second, then looked sharply at Taylor. "We shall say no more about it. However, you are not to bring a bladed or projectile weapon to school under any circumstances, even should your tutor instruct you in their use, which I suspect may happen. Additionally, you are not to show off or use that baton on school property, except under genuinely life-threatening circumstances. If you do, there will be severe consequences. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Mrs Howell, crystal clear," Taylor replied quietly.
"I am extending you a good deal of trust, young lady. Please do not disappoint me. Your behavior and character up until this point have been exemplary and I would very much like to see that continue."
"I'll do my best not to cause any problems, Mrs Howell. I like it here and I wouldn't want to put that in jeopardy."
"Excellent. I'm very glad to hear that." The blonde woman looked up at the clock on the wall over the door. "I must return to work, and you need to get to class. Thank you for the brief chat."
"It wasn't any problem," Taylor smiled, getting up and following her companion to the door.
"Well done, by the way," Vice-principal Howell commented as she started to walk away. "You are a credit to this school and your family."
"Thank you." Taylor watched the other woman walk off, smiled a little to herself, then went back into her home room to get ready for the day's learning.
Carlos watched from his position in the lunch queue as a ripple of comments went through the room, almost everyone in it looking over at the three girls who'd just entered the cafeteria as they became aware of them. Taylor, with her friends Mandy and Lucy, all stopped, looking around at the large number of people regarding them, then exchanged glances. After a couple of seconds they resumed moving, picking up trays and joining the end of the line. Quite a few people came over and talked to the tall girl, saying a few words then smiling before going back to what they were doing.
During this, Taylor looked mildly surprised, while her friends were definitely amused. Amy joined them shortly afterwards, the girls letting her into the line in front of them, while the two boys they often hung around with turned up a little later. From what Carlos could overhear, people were congratulating the Hebert girl on her actions the day before, and checking that she was all right. She looked somewhat startled by the number of people that were apparently genuinely concerned about her, and proud of how she'd handled herself.
Turning to Dean, who was also watching what was going on as he selected his food, he asked in a quiet voice, "Is she really that calm under pressure, do you think?"
The other boy looked at him, then over at Taylor, who was smiling at something Amy had said. Returning his attention to the server, he asked for some more fries then accepted the plate he was handed, putting it on his tray.
"She's got very good control of her emotions," he finally answered. "Icy calm, actually. And a protective streak a mile wide." His voice was kept low so no one else could overhead in the chatter surrounding them, but sounded to Carlos just a tiny bit worried. "It's not an act, she's more than capable of handling herself."
"If Saurial trained her, I'm not surprised," Carlos replied, also keeping his voice down. "I was fucking impressed with what she did and how she did it. So were… other people."
Dean glanced at Taylor again, who had looked over at them. The girl smiled a little in their direction, nodding as they met her eyes, before turning to answer a question that Mandy asked. For some reason, Carlos noticed, Dean seemed mildly worried for a moment. The slight change of expression smoothed out almost instantly, leaving him wondering if he'd imagined it.
"Not someone to underestimate," the other boy muttered, moving down to let his friend get served.
"I kind of got that impression," he chuckled. Shortly he was heading to their table, Dean following, to join Dennis and Chris who were laughing about something. Vicky turned up a little later, surrounded by a number of her female friends who were all asking questions about how she'd ended up being invited to the Mayor's house, most of them looking both impressed and envious.
Eventually drawn into the conversation, he stopped thinking about Taylor and her Merchant smackdown in favor of listening to Dennis make a whole series of jokes that had Vicky alternately glaring at him and giggling.
Sitting in class, Dinah listened to the biology teacher with half her attention, making notes occasionally, while the rest of her thoughts were on mathematics.
Percentages, to be accurate.
She'd checked again that morning, as was habit, and the percentage chance of her meeting a Family member had been steadily rising, little by little, to over 92% at some point in the next two weeks. That was her standard timescale, long enough that the odd uncertainty surrounding the lizards was at an acceptably low level, but short enough to be something her patience found acceptable.
She'd found that shortening the timescale tended to produce less accurate results, to the point that checking on a time of hours or days often gave either no result, or an obviously erroneous one. So two weeks it was.
That said, the rate of increase and some lateral thought had made her pretty sure that the actual time of running across one of them was very close. She wasn't sure quite why she was so sure about this, but she was. Her ability, on the other hand, was definitely having a hard time of it and if she had to put words to the feelings she got, she'd have said it was a little freaked out.
A faint smile crossed the girl's face as she wrote down some more notes on cell division, while thinking that the people at the PRT would look at her very oddly if she'd told them that. Dinah had given up trying to explain about her thoughts on the nature of her power, since the scientists merely told her she was imagining things at best and completely ignored her in a somewhat patronizing fashion at worst. That wasn't to say they were bad people, because they weren't, she quite liked most of them, but they had their own ideas and hers didn't factor into them.
She wasn't sure if that was because she was a girl, or because she was twelve, but either way it was mildly annoying.
Uncle Roy, on the other hand, was more than prepared to both listen and discuss her experiments, when she had a chance to mention them to him. He was fascinated by the entire thing, and interested in the Family as well. She got the impression that he really wanted to know more about them, liked and trusted them, and was basically extremely curious about their origins. She was as well and was looking forward to talking to one of them, ideally Saurial, since she thought that they could quite possibly tell her a lot of interesting things.
Plus they were just cool. She liked lizards. Ones that talked back were amazing and fun.
Propping her head on her hand, she quickly sketched the diagram the teacher had put on the board, looking between her notebook and the front of the room until she was certain she had it down, then put her pencil down and flexed her hand a little. She'd been doing a lot of writing today.
So, assuming she was right, she'd meet someone scaly pretty soon. Today or tomorrow, perhaps, although she wasn't sure how that would happen. The day was half over, and she didn't think it wildly likely that Saurial or her sisters would turn up at school. Although they did turn up in the oddest places sometimes…
The Merchants had found that out the other day, she smiled to herself. That had been pretty funny, and also explained the probabilities she'd worked out the previous week of a major activity in the city. They'd gone back to normal after that, normal being down around 20% or so, which was about the best it seemed to ever get around these parts. The odds of something serious happening in Brockton Bay were never as low as single digits, which probably said something, although she wasn't sure what.
Picking her pencil up again, she wrote a few more lines, did a quick sketch of a lizard smiling at a little girl in the margin of the page, grinned at it, then closed the book as the bell rang.
On the whole she was in a very good mood and looking forward to what happened next. And seeing Uncle Roy again tonight at his dinner thing he'd invited her and her parents to. She was curious to see what Mr Hebert and his daughter were like for herself, she'd heard a lot about them recently.
Putting her things into her backpack, she joined the exodus of students heading for the door, smiling at Missy when she saw her in the corridor on her way to the next class. The blonde girl, who she'd met for the first time at the PRT building, smiled back and waved, then hurried off. So far they hadn't had a lot of chance to talk, since Missy seemed to be busy with the Wards a lot of the time and Dinah had been with the PRT scientists during the bulk of her own time since joining the organization, but she was looking forward to having a chance to sit down and talk for longer eventually.
Dinah didn't have a lot of friends her own age and she got the impression the other girl was in the same boat, more or less. But she seemed interesting, and Dinah was very impressed by her powers, which were amazing.
That said, the girl was perfectly happy with her own abilities. They were fun, although she could have done without the headaches. She'd worked out ways to minimize them when doing her experiments, but they still put a hard upper limit on how many odds she could calculate before she had to stop for some time. It was annoying, but what could you do? Everything had a price.
At least she'd got a cool hat out of the deal. Pity that excitable Chambers man didn't want her to wear it when she was in school, she really liked it.
Ah well. Even at twelve, she was aware that you couldn't have everything you wanted in life. She'd be content with what she had, and wait to see what happened next.
She had so many questions to ask the Family…
Wiping her face with a scrap of rag, Linda straightened up and inspected her work, then nodded in satisfaction. The old dozer was pretty close to finished, while the dead one was almost entirely stripped of useful parts already. She'd pulled the stuff she needed to fix the first one from it that morning, then left a couple of other people to remove the remaining parts that she'd marked while she worked on her repairs. Now, apart from a new muffler and some paint, along with a top-up on the hydraulic fluid, it was just about ready for use.
Putting the adjustable wrench with which she'd been tightening the last hydraulic union down on the wheeled toolbox next to her, she went across the garage and retrieved an oil-drum full of hydraulic fluid on a wheeled cart, pushing it back to the bulldozer. Freeing the hose connected to the hand-pump screwed into the top of the barrel she put the end into the reservoir on the dozer, then started carefully working the handle while peering past the hose. A dozen or so pumps had brought the level up to the line, a last one giving a little reserve for bleeding the system.
Leaving the hose in place, she proceeded to do exactly that, moving around the huge machine and opening bleed points one at a time, until the fluid escaping no longer had air bubbles in it. She had to add more fluid twice, but in the end everything was ready. Removing the hose she coiled it up, then wiped up spilled fluid and put the cap back onto the dozer reservoir, screwing it down tightly.
She returned the barrel to the consumables section of the garage, went back to the old machine, and climbed up the side of it, quickly bringing it to life again. The engine ran smoothly now, rumbling loudly in the enclosed space. She tested each of the hydraulic circuits one after the other until she was sure everything worked, nodded happily, shut it down, and jumped to the floor.
Kadir was watching her from the other side of the workshop, so she walked over and smiled at him. "It's done," she said. "Needs some paint, a new muffler, and one of the hoses on the blade lift cylinder will need to be replaced in the next year or so, but other than that it's ready for use."
"Excellent work, Linda," the man said with a small nod, his face almost showing a smile. "I'm impressed, you finished considerably faster than I expected."
"It wasn't as bad as it could have been," she replied with a shrug.
"And the other one?" he asked, turning to look at the remains of the second machine.
"Everything useful has been removed, the rest of it is scrap," she said, following his eyes.
"All right. Good work. We'll get that hauled away and I'll order the new muffler and a spare. You have a part number for it?"
"Yes, I put a note on your desk. I found a Caterpillar part that will fit with a little work, it's off the shelf."
"Very good. All right, I'm going for lunch now. Take a break, I'll work out what the next job will be this afternoon."
He turned away, then turned back and put his hand on her shoulder for a moment. "You are a good worker and fit in very well here, Linda. I'm pleased you arrived."
"Thanks, Kadir," she smiled. He nodded again, then walked off. Feeling very good about things, she watched him go, smiled slightly, then headed for the washroom to clean the dirt and grease from her face and hands before she went to the cafeteria. She was starving.
Things definitely seemed to be good at the moment. Meeting Metis had changed her life for the better, definitely, even if the circumstances had been pretty bad.
She was looking forward to seeing what 'Vectura' could do, but even leaving that aside, her life right now was about as good as it had ever been. People actually said thank you and complimented her on her work!
No one had ever done that before.