Sunday, March 6, 2011
Yawning widely, Vicky scrubbed at her eyes as she staggered out of her bedroom, not even floating at the moment. She bounced off something and recoiled, hearing a familiar voice say, "Ow! Watch it, Vicky!"
"Sorry, Amy," she mumbled, blinking furiously. "This is way too early to be up. I need my sleep."
Her sister, who was rubbing her shoulder, smirked at her. "It's nearly half past four, that's not too early."
"It's half past four in the morning, on a Sunday!" Vicky looked appalled. "Of course it's too fucking early. I should be in bed until at least ten. That's five and a half hours of sleep I'm giving up for this."
"In return for making quite a lot of money, a possible chance to earn more, helping the city, and both the PRT and some friends of ours. Tough choice."
Vicky squinted at her sister, whose dead-pan voice seemed far too cheerful for this time of night. And it was definitely night, no matter what any silly clock said. It was still dark outside for god's sake…
"When did you get back, anyway? You were still at the Hebert's when I left."
"Around midnight. I helped Taylor clean up, talked to Danny and Taylor, had some tea, and came home."
Vicky yawned again. "OK. How are you so awake at this hour?"
"Clean living and a spotless soul, of course." Her sister grinned when Vicky snorted. "I don't need that much sleep compared to you. It's one of the many things that makes me better."
"Sure you are," the blonde giggled, patting the shorter girl on the head in a deliberately patronizing manner. "You just keep telling yourself that." Feeling more awake, she lifted into the air, darted around her sister, and dived into the bathroom. "Ha! First!" She closed the door and locked it, smirking when she heard an aggrieved yelp then a thump on the wood. "Too slow!"
"You said you'd stop doing that!"
"I lied!"
She grinned at herself in the mirror as vicious muttering trailed away down the hall and vanished into Amy's bedroom. No doubt she'd pay for that, but it was still funny.
Twenty minutes later she was sitting at the breakfast table pouring herself a bowl of cereal, while her mother made a pot of very strong coffee and her father ate some bacon and eggs, looking oddly happy all things considered. He was definitely more perky and with the moment than he often seemed to be, which pleased her. She smiled at him, receiving a smile back that warmed her inside.
Amy, hair still damp, came into the kitchen and sat down beside her, giving her a mildly annoyed look, to which she responded with a wink. The brunette sighed a little before reaching for the cereal. Carol put the carafe of steaming coffee on the table and sat next to her husband, pouring him a mugful when he pushed the vessel towards her. Amy did the same, so she filled that one too.
"Aunt Sarah is coming here first?" Amy asked, as she pulled her full mug back and added a little milk to it.
"Yes, she and the others will be here in a few minutes," their mother said, glancing at the clock on the microwave oven. "You're going to be at the DWU yard, I take it?"
"I'll be hanging around there in case anything happens," Amy nodded, eating her cereal. "Ianthe and Metis are going to be with the Protectorate, but if they're needed for healing they can help out as well."
"All right. Stay out of trouble, please, I'd prefer to get both daughters back at the end of the day." The older woman fixed them both with a severe look. "That goes for you too, Vicky. Please attempt to pay enough attention that you don't fly through any more buildings."
Vicky blushed a little, and both Amy and their father suddenly grinned, exchanging humorous glances.
"Please let it drop, mom," Vicky sighed, staring at her bowl with an embarrassed feeling.
"Hmph." The elder Dallon woman give her a somewhat disapproving look, but didn't say any more on the subject. The family ate quietly for a little while, both girls having bacon and eggs as well when they'd finished the cereal, and were in the process of clearing the table when the front door opened.
"Carol?" Aunt Sarah's voice called.
"In the kitchen," their mother called back. Moments later, there were four more people coming into the room. Vicky jumped up and hugged her cousins, Amy offering them both some of the fresh pot of coffee she'd put on. Crystal accepted with a sigh and a smile of thanks.
"God, I need so much coffee to stay awake at this time of morning," the young woman commented, before draining half the precious black liquid. She looked around, then back to the other two girls. "You're somehow looking much more awake than you should be, Amy," she added suspiciously. Amy smirked at her.
"That's what she said," the brunette chuckled, nodding to her sister. "I put it down to just being the most highly-evolved person present."
"You would," Eric snickered, making himself a sandwich with the bread left on the counter and some ham from the fridge.
"Do you ever stop eating, Eric?" his own sister grumbled. Mouth full, he shrugged, not looking at all embarrassed.
"Growing boy," he replied when he'd swallowed.
"Going to be growing sideways if you keep that up," Crystal muttered, making the others all laugh. She drank the rest of her coffee, looking around.
"So what's the plan?" she asked when she'd finished the mug.
"We're going to be meeting our contact at the PRT building at quarter past five," Aunt Sarah replied. She checked the time. "Which means we need to change and head out in the next ten minutes. I don't want to be late, it's unprofessional. Not to mention embarrassing." Her sister nodded agreement.
"The reputation of our group will be affected by this operation, good or bad, so let's do our best to make certain it's good, shall we?" Carol added, looking at each of them in turn.
"I think we'll manage, Carol," her husband said calmly. "Come on, everyone, get changed and we can move out."
"New Wave, Assemble!" Eric shouted, sticking a fist in the air. Amy nearly fell over laughing and his sister shook her head in despair.
"We should never have let you go to the movies," Crystal sighed. "You're far too impressionable."
The young man grinned at her, then stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and picked up the bag he, along with the others, had his costume in. "Can I use your room, Amy?" he asked.
"Sure, go ahead," she nodded, still snickering.
Ten minutes later, seven of the eight people were going out the front door. Vicky, who was next to last, with their father bringing up the rear, stopped to smile at her sister. "See you later, Ames," she said.
"Be careful," the other girl said, giving her a quick hug. "Look after the others."
"Will do," Vicky replied, pulling her helmet on and doing up the straps. They grinned at each other then she left, Mark closing the door. Moments later the fliers of the team were air-lifting the others towards the PRT building, the very first hints of dawn starting to break in the east over the sea.
Amy watched her family disappear into the distance, able to see them for a lot further than they'd have believed due to her much improved symbiote-tweaked vision. When they were out of sight, she pulled out her phone.
"Everyone's left," she said when the number she dialed was answered. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
"OK. See you shortly," Lisa replied, sounding very slightly predatory. "This should be fun."
"Ohhh, yes," she chuckled. Disconnecting, the healer left the house and locked up, getting into her truck and driving off through the nearly empty streets.
It looked like it was going to be a good day.
Taylor silently popped into existence inside the BBFO office, having made it there in five jumps directly from her bedroom. Lisa, who happened to be looking in her direction, yelped and jumped back with her arms raising into a combat stance, then relaxed.
"Fuck, please don't do that!" she snapped. "You lunatic. Appearing out of nowhere in front of people like a crazy person."
Taylor grinned. "I'm still getting to grips with this ability and how amazingly easy it makes moving around," she explained. "I wanted to see how fast I could get from home to here."
"So?"
"About four seconds. I can probably do better with practice."
Appearing curious, her friend shook her head in wonder. "Did you teleport to specific places, or what?"
"Jumped into free air, it seemed easiest," Taylor said. "Went about a thousand feet up, cloaked, then three jumps at maximum range, then the last one into here. It's fun, if nothing else."
"Is your range going to expand, do you think?" the blonde asked as she went over to the coffee machine. Taylor switched to Saurial, producing her second aspect as another copy of the lizard-girl and letting the Varga control it. "I know you said it was around a mile and a half to start with."
"It's somewhat more than that now that we've fairly effectively optimized the process, Lisa," the demon said. He walked over to the machine and filled a cup of his own. Taylor watched with amusement, he really liked coffee. "We have it up to approximately two miles at the moment. I feel we can improve on that with time, although I don't know what the maximum will ultimately be. Or indeed if there will be one."
"I still can't believe you managed to do that as a byproduct of another ability," Lisa sighed enviously, sitting down. "You definitely got all the best powers. Amy needs to pull her finger out and figure out some cool ones for the rest of us."
Both Taylor and her twin laughed. "I'm sure she will soon enough, Lisa," Varga smiled.
"I hope so," the blonde replied with a grin.
Taylor moved over to the table and started making a number of items. Lisa picked one up and looked at it. "Gas mask?"
"More or less. Organic vapor and activated charcoal filter. It should keep most of the smell out. I told Dad I'd make enough for all the DWU volunteers. Hopefully the Yard is far enough away not to get it too badly. The wind is blowing a little away from us, anyway." She kept making the things, the Varga moving to help. Shortly they had a pile of about a hundred and fifty masks, which they boxed up in a series of crates. "He'll come and pick them up when he gets in, which should be any time now."
All three looked around at the sound of a familiar engine approaching. Going over to the main door Taylor hit the switch to raise it, letting Amy drive right inside without stopping, then closed it again after a quick look around outside. There was no sign of any of the DWU workers at the moment, although she could hear people moving around in the other buildings and Rachel's dogs grumbling to themselves next door.
Their friend opened the door of the vehicle and jumped out, looking excited and happy. Flicking the door shut with her tail as she turned towards them, she rubbed her hands together. "Ready to really worry a lot of people?" she giggled.
"Damn right I am," Lisa grinned darkly. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time. Coil, we're coming for you..."
"Let's slip into something a lot more dangerous and go find the PRT, then," the healer snickered, unlocking her workroom. She slipped inside, Lisa following, as Taylor and Varga exchanged amused looks, the demon finishing his coffee. Very soon, 'Cousin' Ianthe and 'Cousin' Metis came out again.
{Well, my Family, shall we get on with it?} Taylor asked, as her other aspect became Raptaur. Both her friends armored up, Lisa holding up her hands which were crackling with electricity. Her scales were night-black, the scarlet highlights turned off, and she looked very dangerous and very pleased.
{After you, dear cousin Saurial,} she said politely. {You were the first of us to arrive in this nice city, you should be the one to lead us into battle.}
{Hardly a battle,} 'Ianthe' snickered. {More like pest control. But still fun.} She held up a box. {Some spare one-shots. Just in case.}
{Good idea,} Taylor said, watching as she popped open a compartment in her armor and tucked the box away. {Let's go to work.}
Heading to the rear door she opened it, the others following her out. It closed, there were four splashes, and they began swimming towards the shoreline at the rear of the PRT building where they'd arranged to meet up with the PRT and Protectorate.
Landing on the helipad on top of the PRT building, the various New Wave members disentangled themselves from their rides. The PRT trooper who had waved them in with a light wand approached. "Good morning," he said politely, with a crisp salute. "Lieutenant Gibson is waiting for you in secure conference room two, if you'll follow me please."
Sarah looked at her family, then turned back to the corporal. "Certainly," she smiled.
Doing an about-face, he headed towards the access door to the building. They went after him, Sarah nodding to the two other troopers stationed at the door itself. The corporal waved an access pass over a reader, then walked through when the two armored doors slid open with a faint hiss.
A couple of minutes later they were all in the conference room. As they'd walked through the corridors, Sarah had noticed bundles of cables strung everywhere, along with a lot of computer and comms equipment piled wherever it would fit, little lights winking away showing it was all working. Technicians were running around all over the place tending to their electronic charges, looking harried but intent.
"Sorry about the mess," Lieutenant Gibson said as he closed the door, waving them to chairs. "The install is done, but we can't move anything until the switchover is complete. It's something of a trip hazard."
"It must have taken you a lot of effort to get all that done so fast," Carol noted. He nodded with a sigh.
"It's been driving the techs nuts since this time yesterday, to be honest. Everyone put in a hell of a lot of overtime and Dragon was working steadily the entire day without a break. The woman is unstoppable." He prodded buttons on the coffee machine in the corner. "Help yourselves if you want coffee or tea," he added, moving to the table when he got a plastic cup full of steaming liquid out of the thing. "It's not as good as the coffee at BBFO, but it's got caffeine in it, so it'll do."
Once everyone had a drink, they all sat down. "OK. Have you briefed the rest of your group on the mission, Lady Photon?" he asked, looking at her.
Sarah shook her head. "I only told them enough to get them here, I didn't want to risk your security, just in case something went wrong."
"Fair enough. Thank you." The dark-haired man looked around the table at the others. "Basically, we're shutting Coil down hard. To cut a very long story short, the bastard infiltrated and compromised the local PRT system, at a minimum, and may have gone further, over a period of at least seven years that we can prove so far. It might be longer. He even managed to subvert the Rig systems too."
"How the fuck did he manage that?" Neil asked in shock.
"He was one of us," Gibson sighed, making everyone other than Sarah and Carol gape at him. "Retired special forces Commander Thomas Calvert."
"Calvert!?" the huge man repeated in stunned amazement. "That skinny guy who makes you want to wash your hand when he shakes it?"
"The very same. You've met, I assume," the lieutenant chuckled, still appearing irritated but not at them.
"We've run into him at a couple of functions over the years," Neil nodded. "Never liked him."
"Very few people do, but his service record was exemplary. He's very smart, in a very specific way that the PRT found valuable. Unfortunately, it now looks like he was working more for himself than us for a long time. He was at Ellisburg with Director Piggot. She personally found him extremely annoying even before all this came to light. They have a… history." The PRT man shrugged. "Not in a good way. Now she hates his guts and would probably pay to see them mounted on her wall. The big problem is that he not only literally designed and wrote a worryingly large amount of our Cape protocols, but his power set appears to have allowed him to work out exploits and bypasses for all of them. He knows the PRT inside out."
"How did all this come to light?" Eric asked.
"Need you ask?" Carol said with a dry look.
"Ah. The Family."
"Of course."
Gibson nodded, looking somewhat amused now. "Those weird reptiles do seem to have a knack for making bizarre things happen on a regular basis. Yes, it was through the Family that we found out, initially from Tattletale of the Undersiders, who seems to have taken refuge with them from Lung. Another long story. Anyway, it turned out that she had been working for Coil under duress and when she ended up making friends with the Family, they made a deal with the Director. She told us everything, Miss Militia and several other people went to a lot of trouble to investigate, and we've found out a lot more since then."
"I assume you also found some double agents as well," Carol commented.
He frowned. "Unfortunately true. More than we expected. We dug out several people that were selling information to the E88, and the ABB as well, fairly quickly when we started seriously looking. Coil had a number of much higher-placed agents. We're fairly sure we've got all of them now, although we left one or two in place to keep feeding him information. Information we let them pass along, of course." His expression turned fairly malicious. "We persuaded them it was in their best interests to play along. With him stuck in his base, where he's been holed up for close on two months now, they didn't have anywhere to turn, so they fell into line. It'll make the sentence a little lighter when all this is over."
"Can you be completely certain they're all accounted for?"
"Pretty much. We have some very good precogs we've been using to help us. There's only a tiny chance that we missed anyone. The compromised computers are being entirely replaced so that part isn't going to be an issue either. Once he's dug out of his hole and his mercs are all locked up, we're going to have one hell of a lot of work to do, but for now we're concentrating on the main goal."
He looked around again. Sarah did as well, seeing that her family were listening intently, apparently fascinated and concerned in equal measure. "The assault on his base, which is in an unfinished Endbringer shelter under the middle of the commercial district, is going to take all our own combat-ready Parahumans and a large number of other personnel. We're going to have to shut down the entire computer system both here and on the Rig at the same time, just before we start the assault, to make sure no booby-traps we might have missed go off. That means we're not only short-handed if anyone tries to take advantage of the situation, but we're running on very limited comms and data capacity."
"Which is what we're here for," Sarah added, looking at each of her relatives. Vicky seemed thoughtful, Eric was definitely excited, and Crystal was sipping her coffee with a small frown furrowing her brow. The older members were listening with interest, Neil and Mark exchanging a glance and a slight smile.
"Precisely. The odds are low that anything serious will happen, the precogs agree, but they're not zero. Nowhere close, actually, since this is still Brockton Bay." Gibson smiled as they all laughed for a moment. "The 'shit happens' capital of the country. So, what we're going to do is form up seven squads, eight troopers each with one of you as well. All the people involved are highly trained and very trustworthy. You're along to provide Parahuman backup if required. Two of the teams are technical squads, who will be dealing with the two small off-site data silos we know Coil has. The other five are general combat teams, for anything that happens to kick off during the period the main base assault is going on, up to the point the new system comes online. That is supposed to be some time in the late afternoon."
He inspected them all. "It's going to be a long day, but with any luck a fairly quiet one. However, we can't assume everything will go smoothly, which is why we need your aid."
Carol looked around at her family. All of them indicated they were fine with that. She turned back to him, saying, "We're pleased to help out."
"Thank you, Brandish." Picking up a clipboard, he quickly looked through it. Sarah could see it had dossiers on all of them. "We'd like Glory Girl and Shielder to go with the tech teams. We're working on the basis that there probably isn't going to be any fighting as such at the remote sites, but there may be automated defenses of some sort. A high level Brute and a Shaker/Blaster who can make force-fields are good choices against that sort of thing. Are you both up for that assignment?"
Vicky nodded, while Eric replied, "Sure. Sounds like an interesting job."
"You'll be under the command of your squad leader for the day," Gibson cautioned. "I know neither of you is familiar with military discipline, but it's important that you listen to the leader and only do what you're told to do. Obviously, if for whatever reason your abilities are required, you must act appropriately, but you also need to communicate your actions to the rest of your team or everyone is at risk. Can you work under those conditions?"
Both teenagers nodded, exchanging a look. "I think we can, Lieutenant," Vicky replied calmly, making Sarah smile and Carol nod approvingly. "We'll make sure we listen."
"Thank you. Your squad leader will have a full mission briefing for you downstairs when we deploy. Now, the rest of you will each go with another team, as I said. Two will remain here at the PRT facility as backup, the others will be deployed at strategic positions throughout the city. With any luck, everyone is simply going to be paid to sit there all day, but..." He waved a hand in a gesture indicating how things could change without warning.
Seeing that there were no objections, he picked a large duffel bag off the floor and put it on the table, standing to open it. "These are your communication units, and data tablets, the same thing all our troops are now equipped with." He handed out a number of wrist-mounted computers along with some earpieces. "Armsmaster has modified the earpieces to have an external antenna since we know your costumes are lined with EDM which would block the radio signal. You'll have to feed the wire out from under your helmets, but it's very thin, so I don't think that will be uncomfortable."
He filled them in on the rest of the plan after that, including the deliberate 'accidental' chemical spill, while handing out some respirators that would deal with the smell. Hopefully. They hadn't yet been tested. Gibson spent ten minutes showing them all the basic operations of the comm units and the wrist computers. Eventually they all had them fitted.
"So to recap, channel three for squad comms, two for group comms, one for PRT console. In the event of any action requiring intervention, Dispatch will pass the call along to the nearest team. If there's an emergency broadcast, everyone will hear it. Channel zero is the emergency override. Don't use it unless you mean it, or the Director will yell at everyone involved. A lot. Console will track all the comm units so we know where everyone is. Any questions?"
Crystal raised a hand.
"Yes, Laserdream?"
"I assume that we would normally only talk to our squad, and the leader will talk to the console operator?"
"Yes. You can listen in, but try to avoid any unnecessary chatter even on local comms. With the main system down and only the portable relays in use, bandwidth is limited and we want to reserve as much as possible for serious issues."
"OK. Thank you."
"No problem. Anyone else?"
They exchanged glances, but no one seemed to have anything else to ask. "Great." He looked at his watch. "Just in time. If you'll come with me, I'll introduce you to your squads. The main operation will be starting pretty soon so we need to be ready."
They left the room and headed towards the nearest elevator, carefully stepping over and ducking under the wiring strung all around the place.
"They're here," Hannah said, hearing a faint splash and looking around to see Raptaur climb out of the bay, shaking the water off herself like a huge scaly dog. Saurial, Metis, and Ianthe followed her and did much the same. Still somewhat damp, the four reptiles joined them just outside the parking garage entrance where they'd been waiting.
"Hello, everyone," Saurial said.
"Hello," Colin replied. "Let's go inside and we can begin." They all headed into the underground garage, which was being used as a staging post. Colin had arranged to have several tables set up in one part of the vast, low-ceilinged room. These were covered with large printed plans, along with a number of Draco-Tech high end tablets containing the same data.
"I think everyone is here now," Hannah said as they arrived at the tables. She looked around, counting in her head. The entire Protectorate contingent was there, along with Legend and Dragon, Lieutenants Pratchett and Gaiman with their squads of a dozen troopers each, the Director, and a number of technical experts.
"How do you want to start this off?" the lizard-girl asked, looking around, then moving to inspect the plans of the underground base, which were the original blueprints that had been updated with as much information as they'd been able to deduce in the last few days. She ran a clawed fingertip down the presumed route of one of the escape tunnels, looking thoughtful.
Raptaur stepped up beside her, while Metis and Ianthe went over to the next table and began studying the plans there, although they were obviously listening as well.
Colin moved over from where he'd been watching one of the techs do something complicated on a portable terminal, standing on Saurial's other side. Everyone listened as he said, "We will have the last elements in place in approximately five minutes. New Wave are being briefed on their assignments now, and will be deployed shortly. The nitrogen levels in the bunker exhaust dropped back to normal values at just after midnight, as Ianthe suggested would happen, so we are sure that the self-destruct charges have been rendered harmless. There's been no signs that the inhabitants have changed their behavior so we're virtually certain that Coil and his people are unaware of what's happening."
"We've also got trusted people watching the three remaining known double-agents very carefully," Hannah added. "As soon as the assault starts they'll be taken to be detained, just in case one of them tries to be clever. We also have surveillance on all critical infrastructure and communications areas on the assumption that we may have missed someone. I'm almost certain we haven't, and our precogs agree, but there's no sense taking any chances."
"Sounds like a sensible precaution," Ianthe noted, turning around to watch them. Her sister did the same thing.
"We have people standing by to cut all the comms lines to the bunker on demand," Lieutenant Pratchett said. "We can turn off the power at any time as well, although it will mean blacking out about three blocks around the facility since we can't get close enough to just cut the main feed without alerting them."
"Although that's only going to let them know something is going on, since they have internal backup power that will come online immediately," Colin put in. "It's possibly a short distraction but it's not particularly useful unless we, or rather, you, can disable the internal power generation systems."
"That's not too hard," Raptaur remarked, glancing at her sister. "We were planning on turning out the lights anyway. Only problem is that you guys won't be able to see anything."
"We have these," Battery said, holding up a pair of Dragon-supplied night vision googles, with ultraviolet illuminators on the sides. They were less than a third the bulk of the best standard military-issue ones the PRT normally used, looking like somewhat thick sunglasses with oddly colored lenses. "We should be able to see in total darkness with them on."
"OK, that problem isn't a problem, then," the lizard nodded. "What about the thioacetone?"
"That's here," Dragon said, opening a small and heavily padded case then carefully removing a small vial. "Two hundred milligrams. Not much, but it will make half the city feel ill." She looked at the vial in her hand, then at Saurial, who had started grinning for no obvious reason. "Oh, for god's… Why didn't you say anything?"
Hannah, along with half the room, looked between the lizard-girl and the armored Tinker, who was emoting good-humored irritation somehow.
"You didn't ask," Saurial said. She held out her hand, in which an identical vial appeared. Hannah looked at it with her eyebrows up, thought for a moment, then sighed.
"You can make it go away after a specific amount of time so we don't need to decontaminate the city," she groaned. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"I managed not to see the obvious either," Colin pointed out. "Even though I'm well aware of their matter-creation ability." He looked severely at Saurial, who didn't seem affected by it. "And their unusual sense of humor."
"Sorry. I was curious to see how long it would take you," the reptilian cape chuckled. Handing the vial to Dragon, she added, "It'll last about four hours, which should be more than enough."
"I'd think so," the Tinker replied, putting her original container back into the case, then marking the new one with a pen she picked off the table before placing that into the case as well. "I'd better not mix them up. That would be embarrassing."
"How are you going to make sure the smell doesn't affect the troops?" Metis asked.
"With these," Colin responded, showing her a small low profile filter mask. "We modified the respirator filter cartridge to contain some of the neutralizing agent. It will filter out the thioacetone almost completely, although I suspect enough will get through to make it obvious even so. The literature on it is sparse as no one really wants to experiment, so we don't have any really good data on what the minimum detectable concentration actually is."
"How will it affect you four?" Rory asked.
"It pretty much won't," Raptaur replied, glancing at him. "We can choose to ignore specific scents."
"Useful."
"It can be," she smiled. "All right, it sounds like everything is ready."
"You'll need these," Colin said, handing each of them an earpiece. "Although they're designed for a more… human… head."
Saurial inspected the one she was holding, then nodded. "Easy enough," she said, holding it to the place Hannah assumed her hearing organ was, on the side of her head. The discreet harness that was holding her camera in place on the other side changed slightly, creating a mount that fixed the earpiece in position. Raptaur did much the same, then turned to Ianthe and Metis and modified the armor they were wearing to do the same job.
"Thanks, cousin," Ianthe said approvingly.
Colin showed them how to use the earpieces, which only took a minute or so.
Director Piggot, who had been watching and listening with a faintly irritated expression, now stepped forward. "Assuming there aren't any more issues, we should get started. Saurial, Raptaur, you do whatever it is that you're going to do to infiltrate the base. We'll create our inconvenient incident, and we should be ready to evacuate the affected area by half past six. I'm about to call Danny Hebert and his people and tell them where to go and when."
"The city is going to have a rather unpleasant wake-up call," Metis pointed out.
"We'll deal with the complaints later," Emily sighed. She looked around at the several dozen people there. "Any last minute issues?"
No one seemed to have anything further to add.
"Good. Let's get to work." She left, heading back into the PRT building itself.
Saurial and Raptaur huddled with Metis and Ianthe for a moment, discussing something in their language, then separated. The first two nodded to the assembled PRT people, left the large basement, and vanished into the dark.
"They'll be in position in a few minutes, you may as well drop your little stink bomb as soon as you can get to the right place," Metis told Dragon.
"I think I'll do it from the air, I don't want my armor smelling that bad even for a few hours," the Canadian said wryly. "I think you'll know when I've done it. The wind is blowing in this direction..."
She also left, her jets deploying and lifting her into the air moments later. Hannah had followed her to the door and watched the light from the exhausts disappear into the sky, before rejoining the others.
"We just have to wait for the horrible smell now," Ethan said with a grin.
He stopped grinning very abruptly about ten minutes later. Then he threw up.
So did several other people.
"I think she dropped it," Hannah said weakly, grabbing for one of the masks and pulling it on over her scarf with haste. The overpowering and near-indescribable stink rolled through the entire garage like a wave of olfactory napalm. "Fuck me, that's unbelievable." She was relieved to find out that the mask dealt with the smell to a large extent, although she could still detect it even so.
"Medic!" Ethan gasped from the floor, grabbing at the table with little twitches of a hand. Metis chuckled and hauled him to his feet, handing him one of the filter masks.
"It's pretty unpleasant," she noted. Everyone turned to gape at her.
"Unpleasant?!" Battery looked appalled. "Just… unpleasant?"
The reptile shrugged. "It must affect humans more."
The blonde woman stared over her respirator, then shook her head, muttering to herself in disbelieving tones that were too faint to make out.
Hannah decided there and then that if they needed proof that the Family weren't human, that would do it. She could almost see the smell, even with the mask on.
Hopefully it would do the job. If not, she didn't know what would…
{We're in place,} Taylor said via her Saurial aspect.
{OK. Dragon dropped her load,} Lisa snickered.
{We noticed,} she replied dryly. {That's a good way to describe it.}
{You should have seen what happened here,} her friend said, the grin coming through the earpiece clearly. {It definitely causes a lot more problems to a human olfactory system than to us. Assault went green. Then he exploded.}
{Figuratively, I hope,} the Varga said from 'Raptaur', using their Taylor filter to make it sound like her.
{Not as much as you'd want,} the other girl laughed. {Battery is still wiping vomit off his costume. And she doesn't look pleased about it.}
{Poor guy.} She looked at her other aspect and her closest friend controlling it. 'Ready to have some fun?'
"Always" he smiled.
'Cameras on, then.'
Both of then switched the head mounted cameras on. They were cloaked in the storm drain right on the other side of one of the doors they'd sealed the night before.
With a look at each other, they disappeared. Some careful surveillance lay ahead of them, a little computer sabotage, some other preparations, then they could start the main work.
Coil and his people were about to have a very strange morning.
Colin listened to the incomprehensible talk in the Family language on their private channel, wondering if the recordings would ever be able to be translated. Metis looked over at him. "They're inside. Comms seem unaffected so far."
"Good. I hoped that would be the case, but we weren't sure if he'd shielded the base."
"Apparently not. Saurial says she can smell the RDX is definitely neutralized. They're mapping the base now, it should take about an hour to get a good idea of where everything is. When they've done that, they'll deal with the computers, then signal us. You can cut the comms any time after that."
"Excellent. Coil and his men will realize they're under attack at that point, no question, if they haven't up until then. Hopefully your relatives can sow enough chaos to keep them occupied and disorganized long enough for us to get inside and help."
"Oh, I doubt that will be too much trouble," Ianthe snickered. "Chaos is something of a hobby with us."
"We've noticed," Craig mumbled, causing her to grin.
"The Mayor just called, sir," one of the technicians said, turning around from his terminal. "He's liaising with the Director. He doesn't sound happy."
"I'm not surprised," Colin replied. "The smell is considerably worse than I expected." He made some notes. "This is useful data, I must arrange to update the records with it when we finish the operation," he added in an undertone. When he looked up again, everyone was staring at him. Metis looked amused for some reason, while Hannah seemed resigned.
"We're getting data from the scanners you gave the infiltration team," another tech commented before he could ask why they were looking at him like that. Moving over to the woman, he watched as the three-dimensional projection in front of her began to slowly change, updating itself with new information. Pleased, he made sure to copy it into his armor's systems. "It's already definitely larger than the blueprints show."
"As we expected," he said, nodding. "Excellent. Now all we have to do is wait for the press release, then begin the evacuation. As soon as we know the area is clear, we can begin the assault itself."
They all watched the display gradually extend itself, as two reptilian capes explored an underground facility some miles away, somehow not being noticed by any of the people inside. He briefly wondered how they'd managed to get inside, and how they were arranging to be ignored, thinking absently it was probably proof of the same sort of ability that Umihebi had demonstrated months ago. He should have expected it ran in the family.
That was something to be looked at later. Now, though, he had more immediate things to concentrate on.
Roy gagged, breathing through his mouth, as the wind direction changed a little outside his office. Even with the window shut and the air conditioning running flat out, which was making the place almost arctic in temperature, the smell was unbearable. He'd been able to smell it from his house, and that was at least five miles away upwind. The entire city could probably smell that hellish stuff.
"Jesus, Emily, you said it smelled bad. This isn't bad, this is Satan's asshole after a rotten skunk curry. I'm going to get lynched over this."
"It's a lot worse here, Roy, we're directly downwind of the fucking release point, so suck it up and live with it," the woman snapped. "Have you got your press releases ready?"
"Yes, we're already putting out the website changes, and we're expecting a local reporter any minute now. Assuming she doesn't drop dead from the smell on the way here. You're sure this will go away? If not, someone's going to nuke the place to make it stop." He had to swallow hard a couple of times to stop himself having a sudden attack of puking.
He'd already heard other people lose that battle somewhere else in the building.
"Saurial made the chemical, it'll dissipate in about three and a half hours, she said," Director Piggot assured him. "Thank god. All right, thank you, I'd better get back to the operation."
"And I have a meeting with the chief of the BBPD, who is in a very bad mood right now," Roy sighed. "Something I can't blame him for. This is a little excessive."
"Can't be helped. I've contacted the DWU, you'll have a bit over a hundred volunteers shortly to help out."
"OK. Thanks for that. And you owe me a serious favor."
"I know, Roy, and I doubt you'll ever let me forget it." Emily sounded resigned. "I'll talk later, I have work to do."
"As do I. Good luck."
"You too." She hung up, so he did as well. Swallowing again, he looked at the cup of coffee on his desk, then went a funny color.
No, he didn't think putting anything else into his stomach at this point was a good idea…
Sighing, he got up and headed towards the door, for an interview with the local TV station, then a talk with the Chief of police that he wasn't looking forward to.
The man's house was only a mile from the place the 'spill' had occurred in, and apparently his children had delicate stomachs.
Sergeant Owens sniffed, then slapped a hand over his face. "Mother of God!" he growled. "What the fuck is that stench?"
It was the worst thing he'd ever smelled in his life, and he'd uncovered mass graves in the deserts of Africa, huge quantities of literally fermenting corpses under the ground. He'd never thought he'd come across anything to even match that particular experience, never mind exceed it, but he sure as hell had now.
And it was getting worse.
"No idea, sir," Nielsen said, gagging at the stink. He was trying to cover his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm, which made his speech almost unintelligible. "Nothing showing on the sensors. Whatever it is, it's at too low a concentration to register." He was looking through watering eyes at the remote tablet in his other hand. Owens grabbed it and flicked rapidly through the various graphs, seeing he was correct.
"Fuck, it's still getting stronger," he gasped. Shouts of alarm and anger were echoing around the entire base, the smell so bad it had obviously woken everyone up, including the day shift. The Captain was going to be on the warpath any moment now, as was Coil, no doubt. "An attack?"
"Nothing showing on the external cameras or sensors, sir," another technical specialist said from the security console, removing his hand for a moment from over his nose, then slamming it back. He was pale and sweating, looking like he wanted to puke. Judging by the sounds Owens could hear coming in through the door a number of people hadn't been able to suppress it.
He sympathized, he was nearly at that point himself. Nielsen was almost a pale green color. "Actually, the street is practically empty," the man added, switching between various cameras. "No, the entire city center is empty. Where the hell is everyone?"
"If it smells this bad out there, running like fuck," Nielsen said, swaying a little on his feet. "Or jumping into the bay. Or maybe shooting themselves just to get away from it."
"Check the news feed, Morales," Owens ordered. "I'm switching us over to internal support. Nielsen, ramp the fans up to maximum override, I want to blow whatever it is out of the fucking place before we all pass out."
"A complete air exchange will use up nearly twenty percent of our stored air," the other man commented, his voice strained, even as he moved to follow the order.
"Can't avoid it, it's that or we choke to death," Owens gasped, trying not to breath too much as he flicked switches, then typed in a password on the environmental console. A series of distant thuds sounded as vents closed all through the base, followed by a hissing sound. Seconds later the huge fans that pumped air through the facility ran up to a deep bass roar, making the floor tremble faintly. A distinct wind rose in the room, blowing papers around, which was more than a little unsettling in an underground base.
If anything, the smell actually got worse for a couple of minutes, but slowly began to die back. Sure his sense of scent was probably damaged for life, Owens waited for another couple of minutes, then slowly removed his hand from over his mouth and nose, cautiously sniffing.
It still stank, but it was at the level of 'bad drains' rather than 'inner circle of hell on a hot day when the sewers had exploded' now. He could deal with that.
"Got a news flash, Sergeant," Morales said, looking slightly less ill. Tapping a control he redirected the cable channel to the main monitor and turned the volume up. It showed Mayor Christner, along with a number of his people, talking to a local reporter that Owens vaguely recognized. All of them seemed to be having trouble breathing.
"...cording to our experts, the unpleasant smell is the result of a small accidental chemical release at the BBU research facility on Bay Road. I must stress that there is no danger to citizens, despite the overwhelming stench," the Mayor was saying. "I have ordered an emergency shut down and evacuation of the entire area, which encompasses approximately eighty percent of the commercial district. BBPD is in the process of closing the affected streets, backed up by a large number of people from the DWU who have stepped forward to help. They will be acting as crowd control and aid for the police and any citizens who require help to evacuate. Both Endbringer shelters have been opened for people affected to go to, if they wish. We have also asked the PRT for help in containing and decontaminating the spill."
"And you are certain that lives are not at risk, sir?" the reporter asked. She was definitely looking unwell. "It's hard to believe considering how appalling the smell is."
"Yes, Andrea, my experts tell me that the chemical involved is called thioacetone and is widely regarded as having the worst smell on record," Mayor Christner replied. "I think we can probably confirm that for ourselves." He tried to smile, but didn't manage to pull it off very convincingly. "The PRT technical teams have told us that the quantities involved are actually very small, but a little goes a long way. They believe they can contain and fully decontaminate the facility by mid-morning, and say that based on the prevailing wind direction and speed they think the air will have cleared by late afternoon worst case. Normal operation of the commercial district will resume before Monday morning business opening, thankfully. I'm just relieved that this accident was good enough to happen early on Sunday, rather than at lunch time on a work day."
"That would have been much worse, I agree, sir," the reporter commented. "Do we know what happened to cause the spill?"
"Not in detail, so far, but preliminary reports suggest it was a failure in an automated chemical mixing unit, possibly due to some software error. The chemical causing this current problem was most likely produced accidentally in the process of the failure. Apparently such things have happened before, although not in the US. Rest assured that there will be a full investigation and reparations will be available for anyone seriously affected."
The Mayor looked directly at the camera. "The city administration wishes to apologize to all residents of the city for the inconvenience and chaos. A map of the affected area is already up on our website. Please follow the orders of the police, evacuate the area, and let the PRT get on with their job so we can return to normal as fast as possible. I will be holding an official press conference about this sorry matter this evening, when we know more about what happened."
"Thank you, Mayor Christner," the reporter said when he finished talking. "This is Andrea Whitby at city hall, reporting live for..." Morales muted the broadcast, turning his head to look at his superior.
"Looks like that explains it, sir," he said. "Fucking geeks dropped a test tube or something."
"Someone's going to get it in the balls," Owens nodded. "Even with the district nearly empty on a Sunday, there's going to be a lot of very pissed off people shouting at the Mayor." He shrugged, smiling grimly. "Not our problem."
"What the hell is going on?" a voice yelled behind them, making all three mercenaries turn to see their commanding officer, a tall and very solidly build ex-Marine, stomp into the room. "What in god's name is that smell? Who authorized the environmental switch-over?"
"I did, sir, and the smell is apparently something called thioacetone," Owens replied as calmly as he could. Captain Smith was the sort of person who, when he was having a bad day, made sure everyone else around him did as well. He was a very experienced military man, had led them both into and back out of a number of odd jobs over the years, and overall his men were loyal to him and he to them, but he did have one hell of a temper.
And really didn't like jokes about his name, which genuinely was John Smith.
"Never heard of it," Smith growled.
"Neither have I, Captain," Owens said with a shrug. "We just saw a press briefing from the Mayor's office explaining it. Some sort of spill in a lab down town, they've shut the middle of the city down and evacuated it so it can be handled. Even got those Union guys running crowd control again like they did with Kaiju."
"Dangerous?"
"Apparently not, just stinks worse than anything I've ever heard of. The PRT is handling decontamination. That's all we know."
"Fuck." Their superior went over to the control console, Morales moving to the side to allow him to check for himself. After a couple of minutes, the captain grunted reluctant approval. "OK. I'll tell Coil. Double the patrols, just in case this is some sort of trick. Get Jefferson in here to man the secondary security console, then check the tunnel exits, I don't want to find out the hard way someone's using this as a cover for sneaking in through the sewers or something."
"Sir." Owens nodded. "Seems a bit excessive for a decoy, though."
"Still don't like it. It's a change, I don't like changes I can't explain," Smith grumbled. "And Coil is even more paranoid than I am, so I have to go and calm him down again before he starts chewing the walls or something. Fucking capes, they're all mad as rabid dogs at the best of times."
"The man does seem to be a little tense recently," Owens smirked.
"Like all of us, holed up down here for nearly two months," Nielsen muttered under his breath.
"Shut up, Nielsen, at least you're earning combat pay the entire time," the captain snapped.
"Not like we can spend it on anything down here. We don't even have any computer access, or cable other than one news channel." Nielsen was about to add to his complaint, but spotted the dangerous glint in his boss's eye and wisely shut up.
Smith glared at him for a few seconds more just to make sure he knew his place, then looked back to Owens. "Make sure the day shift is up and helping while I go and talk to our lord and master, Sergeant."
"Sir," Owens said again, saluting him this time. Smith returned it and spun about, stomping off while radiating irritation.
"He's in a good mood," Morales commented quietly when he was certain the older man was well out of earshot. All three exchanged glances, then went off to follow the new orders.
Privately, Owens was just glad for something a little more interesting to do than re-read the same book for the third time. Coil's library was annoyingly sparse.
He could have done without the hellish reek, though.