Thursday, March 3, 2011
Deep in her mind, as she lay in bed early in the morning, Taylor plotted.
Following her merging with the Varga it was almost impossible to keep anything from him. He could read her mind directly, her memories, everything that made her, her. She didn't have the same level of connection to him, at least not yet. As he'd said when they first joined, his mind was vastly larger than hers, containing god knows how many millennia, or possibly thousands of millennia of information, and she was sure he was right when he'd told her than giving her unrestricted access would overwhelm her.
She was only human, after all.
The thought made her smirk to herself. She hadn't been human at all for some time, and was perfectly happy with the situation. There were no downsides that she'd seen in nearly two months, and more upsides than she could count.
As time went on he was giving her more and more access to his own mind, telling her all sorts of things about his past, and she was fairly sure steadily increasing her own brainpower. One example was her mathematical ability, which had always been very good even before the Varga. Now, the combination of the significantly better emotional stability he provided which let her concentrate like nothing she could ever have imagined, serious study of the subject, and she suspected the remaking of her brain, had increased it by a pretty massive amount. And it was getting better by the day as she learned and practiced. All good as far as she was concerned.
No, she was quite content being whatever she actually was. Her demonic companion was the best thing that ever happened to her, probably the city, and possibly the world. And her best friend, one closer to her than anyone else could ever be, forever. Which might actually be forever depending on how things worked out, but was certainly going to be a very long time indeed whatever way you looked at it..
There was nothing she had any issue with at all about the merging with the Varga, except one.
Having him in her head made it really difficult to surprise him with a present.
Ever since the merging, she'd felt guilty that he wasn't able to come out and play. While she understood the backstory, even if she didn't yet fully understand the motives of the 'Greater Power' that had linked them, or even its real nature, it still rankled her that someone she was so fond of was so restricted. That had led to her thoughts, and the eventual experimentation, on letting him drive their shared body, something both she and he were very pleased worked.
Even so, it seemed insufficient in some ways. So, in a little compartment of her mind that a lot of experimentation had shown her was good enough to shield her thoughts from him, at least to a degree, she had been plotting for a couple of weeks now. Running the math, trying to work out the bugs of the new technique she had derived from the experiments with folded space that led to the 'old method of Family construction' which she was quite keen on unleashing on the world in somewhat larger scale than models. Events hadn't permitted it yet, but soon enough, she was hopefully going to be able to have some fun with it…
But right now that wasn't the important part. She was fairly certain that she'd finally figured out the last of the issues, and the fixes needed, to what she had in mind. Meeting Vista and helping her with her own powers had been extremely useful, the different variation on spacial manipulation leading to a number of insights in the whole theory she and her friend had come up with, in turn giving her the final clues to lead her down this path.
She looked at the multi-dimensional lattice of visualized equations in her hidden mind-part, smiling to herself.
It was Beautiful.
It was Elegant.
And, she was completely certain, it would Work.
'Varga?' she asked silently, turning to the immaterial presence that enveloped her with his constant warm reassurance and companionship.
"Yes, Brain?" he replied, the hugely powerful voice rumbling around the inside of her brain.
'I made you something,' she smiled. 'A gift, for my best friend. It's finally ready. This is for our two month anniversary, if you like, which is nearly here.'
She felt his surprise and giggled. "A present is entirely unnecessary," he protested, sounding and feeling startled, somewhat confused, and quite pleased even so. There was a pause, then he added with a sensation of eager curiosity that made her grin inside her head, "What is it?"
'This.' She let the obscuring mental construction dissipate, revealing that hidden section of her mind to him. There was a definite sensation of surprise again.
"Oh, very clever, Brain," he smiled. "What an impressive technique, it's most..."
His voice trailed off as he stopped looking at how she'd hidden something from him and instead looked at what she'd hidden.
"…Oh, my," he breathed very faintly. "Now that… That is a thing of true beauty. How extraordinary. It never even crossed my mind..."
Taylor let him examine the mental construct for a while. 'Do you think it will work?' she finally asked.
"Yes," he said, very respectfully. "This is truly excellent work, Taylor. Thank you, more than I can say." She felt his presence wrap her in a mental hug.
'The body design is going to be a little complex,' she pointed out.
"Not exceptionally so, I think," he said. "It's still just a variation on the normal approach, one well within our abilities. This is merely a novel modification of that mixed with some very clever extra techniques."
'Want to give it a try?'
"Very much." He sounded as eager as she'd ever heard, making her audibly snort with laughter.
'I can see that there are some limitations, but I can't figure out a way around them yet. I'll keep trying, I'm sure that between us we can solve that part. But this should be enough to start with.'
"More than enough. There's no rush, this will do nicely for now." He was very pleased indeed, which made her the same. "All right. Let me think this through and work out the best way to apply it."
While he thought, Taylor flipped the covers back, got out of bed, and stretched widely, before relaxing with a smile. Moving to the window she looked out at the dawn, still dark an hour before sunrise. Even so there was evidence of the sun to the east where the sky was visibly lighter to her eyesight, although she could still see innumerable stars through the gaps in the clouds above.
It looked like it was going to be a reasonably nice day. Spring was definitely heading this way, even though it was only early March at the moment. There were long range forecasts of possible late snow next week but for the next few days everything was supposed to be warm for the time of year, all the remaining ice on puddles having melted recently. She was looking forward to warmer weather, summer vacations, and the time to really experiment with all the things she and her friends could do.
And she still wanted to swim down to the Caribbean and poke around in warm water for a while. Not to mention her idea from some time ago of going and looking for the Titanic, wherever it had eventually ended up.
Closer to home, they had the issue of what to do about Dinah, which depended heavily on what the girl had actually worked out, how she'd done it, and what she intended to do with the information. It was something that worried Taylor quite a lot, although not as much as it might have done since she'd spent enough time with the younger girl the night before to allow her to come to the conclusion that she was both smart and discreet. In many ways Dinah reminded her of herself at that age, oddly enough. The Varga agreed, and had told her not to get too worked up until they had more information, which should hopefully be within the next day or two.
All in all it was still a surprise to her that so few people had figured out any of it. She still couldn't decide whether this was caused by a lack of critical thinking, an over-reliance on rumor, or simply because they were so far out of the normal expectations of people. Probably a combination, all in all. Whatever the case, it had worked out well for her and her friends and she was in no hurry to educate the public or the PRT on the truth of the matter for reasons she'd explained to her father and the others long ago. For everyone's safety, the illusion of the Family seemed to be important.
Not to mention that she found it screamingly funny whenever she considered the legends that were growing up around the entire thing...
Turning back from the window she returned to the bed and quickly made it, neatly folding back the covers at the top in the way her mother had always done and feeling the usual faint pang of loss. It was something she expected she'd never lose, but these days it was more a slight regret rather than the grief-filled abyss she'd felt for so long. From what she could tell, her father was beginning to heal from that as well, yet another thing she could thank the Varga for.
She owed him so much.
"Ah. I have a working solution, I believe," her friend stated as she put the second pillow back on the bed.
'Wonderful.' She was being quiet to avoid waking her father, who she could hear breathing regularly in his bedroom, since it was still some time before his normal waking hour. 'Let's see how it works.'
"Let's see, indeed," the demon chuckled. "All right, I do this..." She felt the odd version of a spacial fold open. "And this..." Another one opened a few feet away.
"And finally… this."
Taylor grinned in absolute glee at the result, even through the disorientation she felt for a few seconds.
"Brilliant," she crowed quietly, her face alight with joy and mischief.
Whistling softly under his breath, Danny headed down the stairs, adjusting his shirt collar as he did so, dropped his briefcase off next to the door, and went into the kitchen. He'd been able to smell cooking food from upstairs when he woke, betraying the fact that Taylor was up before him this time and was preparing breakfast. Yawning a little, still slightly asleep, he moved past his daughter at the stove, aiming for the coffee which was freshly made and gently steaming at him.
"Morning, Taylor," he said, ruffling her hair as he passed her, causing her to smile at him.
"Hi, Dad," she said in a happy manner, "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, thanks, not bad at all. You're up early."
She shrugged, flipping the pancake she was making. "You know I don't need that much sleep these days, and I thought I'd make you breakfast. You've done it every day this week and you deserved a break."
"Thank you, dear," he chuckled, filling his mug then adding a little sugar and milk. Moving to the table he sat down, picking up the paper which she'd put in his place and looking at the headlines. Glancing up at Taylor who was eating a stack of pancakes, he smiled again, then turned as Taylor put a plate in front of him…
It took at least five seconds before he worked out that something was definitely amiss, and another five seconds of looking blankly between Taylor, who was now putting a bottle of maple syrup on the table, and Taylor, who was sitting opposite him smirking at him.
Eventually his mind rebooted enough for him to open his mouth. A faint, inchoate sound came out, then he snapped it closed once more. Both versions of Taylor looked at each other, identical raised eyebrows expressing amusement.
"Is there something wrong, Dad?" the one standing next to him asked, looking at him with solicitous worry. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, as he continued to emulate someone watching a fast game of tennis.
"I think he might be somewhat confused," the other Taylor said calmly, before picking up the forkful of pancake and putting it into her mouth. Once she'd swallowed it, she added, "These are excellent pancakes by the way."
"Thanks, the batter mix is a new one we haven't tried before."
"It's good, I like it."
"Thanks."
"Ah..." Danny raised a finger, causing them to look at him. He pointed. "Taylor?"
The standing one nodded, grinning.
"And… Taylor?" His voice was a little shaky as he pointed at the redundant daughter, who also grinned.
"Not quite," this one said, her voice suddenly sounding different, yet familiar, at the same time that the way she held her body changed slightly.
He gaped, then fixed both of them with a gimlet eye. "Varga." The duplicate nodded, still looking extremely amused. "How the…?" With a heavy sigh of put-upon fatherly concern, he demanded, "All right, explain, you two. How on earth did you pull this off?" He stared hard at them both. The original Taylor brought her own plate of food over from the counter and sat at the end of the table, reaching out for the syrup.
"Good, isn't it?" she asked, sounding pleased. "I've been working on an idea I had a little while ago, and improved when Vista came over to play. You know how I was upset that Varga was stuck inside my head, and how happy we both were when we figured out how to let him assume direct control?"
Danny nodded, remembering vividly how shocked he'd been when he'd suddenly realized that his daughter's body language was all wrong that time. Finding that it was her demonic companion in control had, perversely, come as something of a relief compared to some of the alternative scenarios that had shot through his mind, fed by horror stories of Masters on the news. He trusted the demon, much more than he trusted many people, and although he knew to an outsider that would appear very weird, he had good reason to believe the creature would keep Taylor safe from anything.
"Well, that started me thinking that it would be nice if Varga could actually have some sort of independence from me. Now, the problem is that the Greater Power, whoever or whatever that really is, made sure that we can't be separated. It's all part of the original bargain between the Varga and it, via Princess Luna's ancestors."
"But..." Danny looked between the two.
The one across from him shrugged, still with a definitely air of amusement. "I know what you're going to say, but this isn't quite what it looks like. Your daughter is very clever, she found a… not a loophole, as such, but a way of… creatively… reinterpreting the entire thing. I suspect that the Power is probably rolling around laughing at this situation, if it's not in fact something they predicted."
"See, the critical thing here is that we're not actually two different people," Taylor explained, still wearing a shit-eating grin that reminded him very strongly of Lisa. "This me, and that me over there, we're still one body. Just in two different places at the moment."
Danny stared at them both, before leaning back and massaging his forehead. "Oh, god, you two just don't know the meaning of 'don't break reality' do you?"
"It's really cool, Dad," both Taylors said in perfect sync. "What I came up with was a version of Vista's spacial folding, along with some modifications from my fractal dimensional techniques. Basically, we set up a fold that links me here…" The one at the end of the table tapped herself. "With me here." The alternate did the same. "Still one body in a technical, and very real, sense. Just distributed on either side of a congruent piece of space via a neat little spacial warp. Both of us are basically in both places at the same time, although that's not actually wildly accurate."
He looked from one to the other as they spoke in stereo, then shook his head. "Please don't do that, it's even worse than there being two of you in the first place."
"OK, Dad," the one across from him said, smiling. The other one nodded.
"As you wish, Danny," she said.
He gaped again. "You switched places."
"Nope. Like I said, both of us are in both places at the same time." Taylor B laughed as he stared, feeling a sense of disorientation creep across him. "OK. Look at it like this. The original Varga and Luna thing was her growing out his forehead, basically. The unlocking of his abilities and all the cool things we learned since allows much more flexibility, so we have Kaiju, Umihebi, and so on, right?"
He nodded slowly.
"Great. That's two minds in one body, which can be turned into practically anything that fits the Varga specifications. The infinitely variable dinosaur bit." She pointed at her duplicate with her fork, then herself. "Still two minds in one body. Just one body that has a gap between one part of it and the other. Because it's one body, which mouth we speak out of, or which part either of us drives, is entirely optional. It's easier for me to only work one aspect at a time, but I can do both, and with practice I think it'll be quite easy. Varga can already handle the sensory input from both sides perfectly happily, but he's still a little hazy on controlling both sides too."
"We will both require practice in dual operation, Danny," the Varga put in, half-way through the new stack of pancakes and visibly enjoying the food and the conversation equally. "We decided that it was probably best for the moment to each stick to one side as it were and gain proficiency with it, then expand our repertoire as time goes on. But this does already allow some interesting possibilities, and quite likely gives a solution to the biggest problem we have with the entire Family concept."
Danny looked at each of them, then sighed again. "Oh, god, two of you. As if one wasn't more than enough."
Both of them chuckled. The Varga said, "There are definite limitations, one is range, it becomes quite difficult to maintain this the further we separate from each other. Again that's probably something we can improve on with time and practice, but currently I estimate we can manage about… perhaps a mile and a half or so? Possibly a little more. So it's not sufficient to allow Taylor to attend school and still let me manifest at the DWU, unfortunately, but it would be more than enough to let us both be at either place. Of course, it's more complicated than that as strictly speaking we're both in both locations simultaneously, but..." He shrugged. "Close enough for the description to work."
"We also can't hold it indefinitely at the moment. The spacial fold is stable, but there's other things in play that we have to work on constantly, and until we figure out how to automate that part, we probably can't leave it running for more than a couple of hours, before we need to rest for a while," Taylor said. "It's sort of tiring, not physically but mentally. We're going to build up our stamina over time. But the thing is it allows Varga to have a little more fun than always being stuck with me does, and it lets me as Taylor be seen in the company of me as any of the others at the same time, something that sooner or later was going to be a problem. I'm still amazed that hardly anyone has worked it out, but eventually someone will who we can't talk to."
The Varga changed to Saurial, grinning at Danny, who twitched a bit. "This, of course, tends to prove that Taylor Hebert is merely a friend of Saurial's."
Taylor giggled at his expression. "Yes, we can both change either part into any of the other forms. The total mass limit is the same, but which part gets which body is completely arbitrary." She looked thoughtful. "It'll allow for some really good training possibilities, if nothing else."
"And some entertaining practical jokes," the Varga added with an evil grin. She nodded, smirking at him.
"Oh, good lord," Danny sighed. "I desperately hope that two is your limit. As much as I like Saurial and her friends, seeing the entire city overrun with copies of them would be… disturbing. Amy making new ones is bad enough."
Both laughed, exchanging glances. He could see that they were enjoying the hell out of his confusion and the situation as a whole. A moment's thought made it obvious why, the Varga had a greater degree of freedom now than he'd probably had in longer than Danny cared to imagine, and was reveling in it. His daughter was happy for her best friend. Picking up his coffee, he slowly drank it, watching both of them eat.
"I have to say this is one of the strangest things I've seen you guys pull off yet, and that's saying something," he commented after a while.
Taylor looked pleased. "We do our best."
"You realize that if the PRT ever figures this out, this is yet another power you've managed to pull out of your ass that's going to worry them," he muttered. "They'd think of it as some projection power combined with a strong Master ability or something like that, I think."
"Probably," she nodded. "I know that there are capes out there who could duplicate this in some ways, possibly better than we can. We can only do this, not make as many as we like. But it's not a projection, although… I guess in a way it sort of is. Hmm." She thought, then shrugged. "Not that it really matters. It was mainly just an idle thought that turned into a way to let my best friend have more of a life."
"And you're not worried that this Greater Power would be annoyed that you found a loophole?" he asked, somewhat concerned.
"No, I doubt very much that's the case, Danny," the Varga told him. "While even I don't fully comprehend their motives or abilities, the one who is behind this has a sense of humor that would definitely appreciate the entire situation. As I said, I would be unsurprised to find that this was actually predicted and possibly desired, if only for the humorous aspect." He smiled a little. "Eternity can be somewhat boring at times and I suspect that they do odd things occasionally merely to liven it up. Helping out the lower intelligences, which all of us here qualify as, is a useful byproduct."
"How… odd," Danny said after thinking it over. Neither of them responded, they just kept eating, so he resumed doing the same.
When breakfast was over, he washed the dishes, the other 'two', which is really all he could think of them as, drying and putting them away. Having finished, he drained the sink, then turned to the pair. "I'm off to work."
"Have a nice day, Dad," Taylor said. She looked out the window at the day, then at her other half. "Personally, I think I want to ride to school today."
He looked at them, sighed, shook his head, and headed towards the front door and his briefcase. "I don't want to know. Just don't get carried away too much."
"I have no idea what you mean," they chorused as he left the house. By the time he was half-way to the yard he was laughing, thinking about the step up in total chaos that was likely to result from all this.
Amy turned as she heard something odd behind her, stopping half-way up the steps to the school. She gaped, then blinked hard, before looking again.
Nope.
It was still there.
'It' being Taylor, who had just ridden Raptaur into the car park…
She stood next to her sister and her boyfriend watching, along with half the student body of Arcadia, as Taylor slid down off the back of her alter-ego, talked to her for a moment, grinned, then waved as the huge lizard trotted off and disappeared around the corner down the street. Turning towards the school she headed their way, looking extremely pleased with herself.
Amy stared at her, then glanced at Dean, who was watching with an open mouth. He caught her eye, closed his mouth, opened it again to say something, then shook his head and shut it with a click. Turning he just walked off, mumbling under his breath too quietly for even Amy to make out the words. Vicky, who had been watching Taylor with a somewhat weird expression herself, followed him with her eyes, looked at her sister, then hurried off in his wake.
Waiting for Taylor to arrive, Amy tried desperately to work out how the fuck they'd pulled this one off. All she could think was either some weird form of magical illusion, or a mass delusion. Her friend stopped in front of her and peered at her.
"You OK, Amy?" she asked, sounding mildly concerned. "You look weird."
Amy sighed heavily, recognizing the hidden glee deep in her friend's eyes. "You utter bitch," she whispered under her breath. "You did that on purpose, I know it." Taylor winked at her before she turned to Lucy and Mandy, who were rapidly coming their way having witnessed the arrival of the tall girl.
"That was different," Mandy laughed as she arrived. "Most people take the bus or walk."
Taylor shrugged. "She offered a ride and I said yes. You both know how much fun it is. And how fast."
Lucy nodded, her eyes sparkling. "God, yes, I'd do that again any day. I've never had so much fun."
"It's way better than the bus is," Taylor agreed. "And faster than running in which is what I normally do."
"I'm still surprised that you don't try out for the track and field club, you know," Mandy said. "You're really athletic. If you can run all the way from your house to here and only be slightly winded, you'd leave a lot of the others in the dust."
The brunette shrugged with a tiny frown. "Let's say that I have bad memories of a certain track star at Winslow which sort of tainted the entire sport for me," she grumbled, falling in beside the others as they headed into the school. "I'm not really interested in organized sports."
"Not even clubbing Merchants?" Lucy teased. Taylor grinned at her.
"That's not a sport, it's a civic duty," she laughed. "Like her and muggers." She nodded in Amy's direction. The healer sighed as her friends looked at her with varying levels of smile.
"One mugger, one time," she said with resigned good humor.
"The Amy and Math Girl," Mandy chuckled. "What a team up that would be."
Amy glanced at Taylor, both of them trying not to laugh. If only their friends knew the real truth.
"Are you going to be taking the Raptaur Express to school regularly, then?" Mandy asked with amusement, stopping at her locker. The others grouped around her as she opened it and rummaged inside for a moment.
"I doubt it, she was just there to talk to Dad," Taylor replied. "But it was a lot of fun. Now that I'm finally starting to catch up I might be able to spend some time at the Yard, though, seeing the others. That would be fun."
Amy studied her closely, still totally befuddled as to how her friend had done whatever the fuck it was that she'd done. Taylor gave her an amused look which made it abundantly clear she knew exactly what Amy was thinking and considered it an amazingly funny joke. Scowling internally, the shorter girl fixed her friend with a hard glare and tried to project the idea that she was going to want a very good explanation as soon as possible.
"How did your dinner at the Mayor's house go last night?" Lucy asked, stepping back when Mandy slammed her locker shut to give her room.
"Really well, thanks," Taylor replied, while Amy nodded, pushing the mystery of the duplicate reptilian alter ego to one side for the moment. "The Mayor is nice, his wife is too, and his sister and her husband. Their son Rory is funny and pretty talkative, then there's Dinah, his niece. She's a proper little chatterbox when she gets going." Taylor laughed at the memory of the previous night. "Once she got over being shy she was a lot of fun."
"The girl certainly had a lot of questions about the Family," Amy nodded, grinning. "She so wanted to meet any of them. Especially Saurial. Danny offered to show her and her parents around the DWU and let them meet Saurial and the others some time, they're going to arrange a time to go there. She looked absolutely ecstatic at idea."
"How old is she?" Mandy asked curiously.
"Twelve or so, I think," Amy replied, glancing at Taylor who nodded.
"Around that. Cute little girl. I like her."
"So do I. I think everyone does, she seems friendly and it's sort of funny the way she was obviously trying to seem as grown up as possible." Amy smiled at the memory. Dinah was a nice girl and definitely seemed to want to taken seriously. She wondered what her power was, and how she'd worked out there was something odd about Taylor. Hopefully it would all end up being something they could contain.
The only way to find out, though, was to talk to her privately, which should happen soon. She was fairly certain that the girl was going to push her parents to call Danny as quickly as possible.
"Well, I'll see you girls later, I need to get to class," she said with a look at her watch. "Later."
"See you, Amy," Taylor called as she hurried off, the other three heading into their home room. As she walked, Amy tried to work out how Taylor could have arranged to be in two places at the same time.
'Goddam bullshit Varga magic, it's going to be,' she thought. 'I'll bet that demon was laughing his ass off the entire time. The PRT would shit bricks if they had even the slightest idea of what those two are really capable of...'
Even through her mild irritation at being the victim of a practical joke, Amy was amused. It was a damn good one, and the thought that yet another ability had been added to the Varga palette without anyone outside their group realizing was more than a little funny.
'Poor Dean,' she snickered to herself. 'I'll bet that boy is seriously confused now, even compared to before. We're going to have to tell him something sooner or later before he has some sort of breakdown...'
Despite her feelings towards the lad, she didn't want that to happen to him. He was a genuinely good person and probably didn't deserve the sheer insanity of the phenomenon that was Taylor Hebert.
Picking the phone handset up when it made the double tone that indicated an internal call, Colin put it to his ear, not looking away from the monitor as he manipulated the input device in his other hand, moving some parts around on the 3D model he was working on. "Armsmaster," he said, clicking the select icon as he did.
"This is Sergeant Wills in the dock, Armsmaster, someone has just arrived with a delivery for you," a slightly strained voice said.
"Ah." He smiled. "I assume it's Metis?" The black and scarlet lizard had called him half an hour earlier to tell him that Raptaur had finished several sets of wormhole generator parts, pass on her cousin's apologies for the delay, and to arrange to come over to deliver them.
"Yes, Sir. She just swam up beside the ferry and climbed out, asking for you."
"Excellent." He smiled a bit. "Please tell her I'll be down momentarily."
"Yes, sir," the other man said, sounding relieved. The line went dead. Picking up his helmet and putting it on, Colin rose and left the lab, heading for the elevator. Under a minute later he was exiting on the boat dock level. Looking around he spotted Metis standing next to the ferry talking to Ethan who was about to go on patrol. He went in that direction.
"Hello, Metis," he said, pleased to see her. "Assault."
"Hi, Armsmaster," the reptile replied with a small smile. His colleague saluted him smartly, making Colin sigh faintly, since the man never did that in any way other than sarcastically. Metis glanced between them, the smile widening.
"It was interesting talking, Metis," Ethan said, dropping his hand with a wide grin. "See you around."
"OK, Assault," she replied. Looking past him she added, "Battery seems to be glaring at you."
"She does that all the time," the irrepressible man said with a snort of amusement, looking over his shoulder. "You get used to it."
He turned around and left, waving casually at both of them. Colin watched him go for a second, shook his head slightly, then turned back to the reptile who was still grinning.
"Interesting man," she said.
"That's certainly one way to put it," he commented wryly. "You have the parts?" He couldn't see any sign of cargo with her.
"I do. Do you want them here, or somewhere else?"
After a moment's consideration, he replied, "Actually, as long as you're already here, please come with me. I wanted to mention something to you in confidence if you have a little time to spare."
"Certainly," she said, looking curious. He turned around and headed back towards the elevator, hearing her claws tapping faintly on the concrete as she followed. Since it often carried cargo the elevator was both large enough and sufficiently rated to not be fazed by half a ton of alien lizard, it ascended quickly and silently to the appropriate floor. He led the way to his lab and keyed the door open, waving her inside before following and locking the portal again.
"Wow," she said, looking around with great interest. "Very impressive indeed. You have some extremely high tech stuff here."
"Thank you," he replied, rather pleased at the compliment. Considering who it was coming from he felt it was genuine. Once again he was mildly surprised at how much he trusted these bizarre reptilian creatures, and how much respect he had for them. It was clearly returned, which explained quite a lot of it, but even so if anyone had told him a couple of months ago how things would work out he'd have suspected they were in need of professional help.
Funny how things worked out.
"Where do you want the parts?" Metis asked.
"On that table, please," he said, pointing.
"OK." There was the same rapid clicking sound he'd heard at the Merchant raid and moments later she was wearing her armor. He studied the process with enormous interest.
"How does that work?" he asked.
"It's dimensionally nested into itself," she told him, tapping her chest around the base of her neck. "It folds away into the necklace when it's not required, but deploys very quickly when it is. It's got several modes, like this." Holding out a hand she showed him how the gauntlet could fold away leaving her hands bare, or only the palm. The helmet-like construction over her head could also be removed. "Saurial designed it based on the Family arts," she added.
He gaped a little as a large cavity opened in her chest-plate, obviously much larger than the armor could possible hold in normal conditions. Reaching inside, she pulled out a box and put it on the table, then two more, before the opening vanished. Spotting his expression she smiled. "Again, fractal space techniques. There are cargo and weapons storage points all over it. When it's folded away they all go with it. Very cool."
"Definitely," he managed. "And the mass?"
"Stays pretty much constant," she said. "Anything in folded space isn't really connected to the normal universe in some fundamental ways, so the perceived mass is only that of the deployed material." The armor folded back into the necklace form as she spoke. "Like this, perhaps twenty pounds?"
"Good god." He was extremely envious, he discovered.
"Saurial is thinking about making and selling body armor and better costumes to the PRT and Protectorate, as well as selected independents," she said after watching his face for a little while, clearly picking up on his feelings. "She feels that the Wards if no one else are seriously under-protected. When she found out that Amy was running around in what was basically a cotton robe, she was extremely annoyed. That started the whole thing off with her new costume design which New Wave all got."
The lizard woman shrugged. "She feels that it's only ethical to provide similar protection to others who are putting their lives on the line. She's not above making a sensible profit from it, but none of us are desperate for human funds so she's not going to rip you off. I expect that if you'd like to talk to her she'd be more than happy to make some new parts for your armor, for example. Or Raptaur would too. They like you."
"That would be both generous and exceptionally helpful," he said after several seconds of mild wonder. "I will definitely be in touch soon."
"I'll let her know."
"I would agree that the Ward's costumes are inefficient and under-performing as well," he noted. "I've raised the point with Director Piggot on more than one occasion. There are financial and political issues at play, but if the performance was sufficient and the price acceptable, I have little doubt that I could push a deal through." He considered the issue, nodding slowly. "Yes, I think I will have to look into that. I agree, if suitable upgrades are available it's ethically dubious not to take advantage of the offer."
"Great." Metis nodded happily. "OK, there are three sets of wormhole generator parts here," she continued, turning to the table and opening one of the boxes. "All identical to Leet's original unit. She said that if you want to scale it up or down, to let her know since it would probably take some experimentation to get it exactly right, but these should work properly. Each set is serial numbered so we can keep track of what goes where, and independently boxed."
"Very good work," he commented, pulling the inner singularity guide rail housing out of the box and inspecting it closely. "As I expected. Please pass on my thanks to your cousin."
"Sure, I'll do that," she replied. "Sorry it took longer than we expected."
"That's not important, I understand you all had other urgent issues to deal with," he replied, waving the concern aside and replacing the part in the box. "We'll assemble and test these next week since we don't have an immediate requirement for them."
Moving to the chair, he sat down, motioning her to the one Dragon normally used. His friend was currently visiting a colleague in New York and was expected back shortly. Metis looked at the chair, then pushed it to the side and sat on her tail instead. "This is more comfortable," she told him.
"Of course." He picked up a sheaf of papers and quickly leafed through them, then looked up at her. "We are very close to arranging to raid Coil's base," he said. "Both Legend and the Director are keen to do so as quickly as possible, and apprehend him before he has a chance to escape. It was felt that in the build up to the Endbringer attack it was unwise to start an operation that might be interrupted, but since the aborted Simurgh attack..." Shrugging a little, he paused, then went on, "We still don't understand that, but it would appear to give us a window of opportunity we wish to utilize fully."
"I understand," she replied thoughtfully. "Sometime soon… Over the weekend, I assume?"
"Yes."
"After you've replaced the computer and security systems?"
"Exactly." He wasn't entirely surprised she'd worked it out, she was obviously the Family equivalent of a very effective Thinker. Idly wondering what her specialty was, assuming their species actually worked that way, he went on, "Dragon is manufacturing new equipment at the moment. It will be ready either Friday night or Saturday morning. We intend to bring down the entire local network in one shot as soon as we have the new equipment installed, transfer functionality across to it, then reboot everything. That's the only way we can be sure not to leave any compromised systems in place."
"Brutal, but I expect it will work," she replied, tapping her claws on the table in thought. "I would assume that you will be using hand-held terminals during the changeover?"
"Precisely."
"That will leave you under-performing during that phase," she pointed out. "You'll need backup… Ah. Us, and New Wave."
"Yes." He was impressed all over again.
"How are you going to clear out the civilians from the area surrounding Coil's base?"
He explained the chemical spill idea, which seemed to amuse her. "Oh, dear, that's going to make that lab rather unpopular for a while," she remarked.
"An unfortunate aspect of collateral damage, but unavoidable," he said. "We can't think of a better way to arrange the same result that we can set up quickly enough, without causing at least the same degree of damage. With care it should cause minimal impact on the city."
"I understand. So you're going to want to discuss this fully with us, quite soon, I would think," she nodded.
"We're still working out the details of the operation and picking the people who will be involved in it. Obviously we need to be absolutely certain that none of the PRT personnel are compromised by Calvert. Hence the security surrounding the entire thing." He waved around his lab. "Aside from the BBFO office, this is the only place in the city I trust completely."
"All right. Well, on behalf of the Family, I can say we'll be more than happy to help in any way we can. I will talk to my sister and cousins about it and we'll think of various methods to aid you, such as dealing with the explosives." She looked thoughtful again. "That's the big unknown and the main risk factor as far as I can see. But I'm pretty sure that Ianthe and Saurial between them can work out how to disable them without danger."
"How?" he asked curiously.
She smiled at him. "Trust that the Family bio-sculptors have a very good understanding of chemistry and can do some interesting things with it," she chuckled. "I'll have to discuss it with her, but I doubt it will present much of an issue."
"Hmm." He pondered her words, wondering quite how to take them. Certainly, if one really was able to modify biological systems on a whim, he could understand that mere industrial chemistry was probably trivial by comparison. "I see. I'll be interested to see what she comes up with."
"OK." She glanced at the clock on the wall, then stood up. "I'd better get back. I will talk to the others about it, and when I see Amy ask her to discreetly check with her own family about providing support services again. I doubt they'd have any problems with it, especially to help take down a villain of Coil's magnitude."
"Thank you." Standing, he went over to the door. "I'll talk to the Director and Legend and we'll work out the best time to come to the BBFO office and discuss the plans, which will be after we've fully explored all our own requirements. I appreciate the talk, and the delivery."
"No problem," she smiled. Looking around again, she added, "I've been curious about your lab for some time. It was very interesting seeing it."
Opening the door, he let her out, then they walked back to the elevator and went back to the dock. With a wave, she jumped into the water and vanished from sight. Watching the ripples for a little while, he shook his head in wonder, then went back to work.