"Any idea what's going on?" Dennis looked over at Carlos, who was peering out the Ward's common room window down at the street with a quizzical expression. The other boy shook his head, still watching something.
"No," he said, shrugging. "But I'm really- happy that horrible stink finally went away."
"You and me both," Dennis fervently agreed. The smell from the chemical leak had been appalling, having woken him far too early that morning. Even in the filtered and protected environment of the PRT building's living quarters, it had been overwhelming. All of them on site had been more than happy to get word that they were stood down for today, except in the case of emergency. He wondered how Missy and Chris had handled it at home, both of the younger Wards having left the PRT quarters at the ends of their shift the previous night.
He, Carlos, and Dean had stayed at the PRT facility in a standby capacity, as it was their turn, but had ended up playing games on the huge TV half the night since nothing happened. In recent weeks, the background crime level had dropped a lot, and the major gang activity had fallen off a cliff, all due to those crazy lizards as far as he could tell. He was pretty happy about it overall, he still got paid but didn't need to do very much other than take his turn on console duty, and when they did go on patrol there wasn't a lot of risk. Most of the low level stuff was being handled by the BBPD, who seemed very satisfied with the current state of affairs, all things considered. He couldn't blame them, they finally had a chance to make a difference without being overwhelmed.
It was amazing how much crime had simply stopped as a direct result of taking a couple of hundred drug addicts off the street. The Merchants had been disproportionately responsible for muggings, armed robberies, and other such street crime, and while there were still a few of them wandering around being annoying, the bulk were either in prison or had fled the city. Just that one action had improved things a hell of a lot. There were still such activities going on, of course, but it was much better overall.
Being a native of the city, he was both cynical and realistic enough to realize this might change at any moment, but he was going to enjoy it as long as he could. It was almost like a paid holiday. It also meant he was able to see his family more often since Miss Militia had juggled the shifts around after a while, due to nothing serious seemed to be happening. Dennis was more than pleased about that, because now that Amy had fixed his father, he was making up for lost time over the last few years.
He really had to think of a nice gift for the Dallon girl. She was a good friend and a decent person, despite having a tongue like a barbed wire whip when she was annoyed.
He grinned to himself as he remembered some of the acid comments she'd made a few days ago about that horrible temporary history teacher. The man had been awful beyond belief, and she hadn't been shy about expressing her dissatisfaction in a very creative way.
Shaking his head a little, he looked over to where Dean was doing some homework at one of the tables to the side of the room. His other friend seemed mildly worried, glancing around every now and then as if he'd heard something, but always went back to the textbook he was studying and making notes on.
"Hey, Dean, what's got your panties in a knot?" the red-head asked brightly.
Dean sighed faintly, looking over at him. "I'm fine," he said.
"No, you keep looking around like you're expecting Saurial to jump out of a closet at you and yell 'Boo!' then grin like a lunatic." He snickered when the taller boy flinched a little. Dean was definitely a little wary of the Family, and for some reason Saurial in particular seemed to confuse him. Dennis had no real idea why but wasn't above using that fact for his own amusement. "So what's the problem?"
After a few seconds of staring at him, Dean shrugged. "There are some very weird emotions coming from people around us," he grumbled.
Putting his textbook down, he leaned his chair back on the rear legs. "The whole emotional background of the building went through some peculiar changes today. People were sort of anticipating something in the morning when that stench started. Then when the power went out, there was anger, worry… um, determination, maybe?" He waved a hand. "Something like that. It got really complicated. People were running around all over the place. By the time they got the power back on, everyone seemed excited, curious, relieved..."
Dennis exchanged a glance with Carlos, who looked fascinated. "You're right, that's kind of weird."
Dean nodded. "The weird thing was more how strong the emotions were. None of those are that unusual but normally I can ignore it, or it's too faint to pick up without trying to. But there were a lot of people who were really intent on doing something big today. I'm pretty sure we've been kept out of the loop while some major operation went down."
He and Dennis looked at Carlos, who looked back, then shrugged. "No point asking me, no one told me anything."
"You're the man in charge, normally you get read into operations as the rep for the Wards," Dennis pointed out.
"Not this time." Carlos looked somewhat irritated by that fact. "I'm as much in the dark as you guys."
"Huh." Dennis scratched his nose, thinking. "I wonder how it all connects? A chemical leak in the city, a massive evacuation, some sort of major PRT operation, a power cut, plus all this new equipment Dragon and most of the technical staff have been running around installing for two days… All one thing, or lots of different things that happened at the same time?"
"Not a clue," Carlos shrugged. He looked out the window again, this time upwards, as something caught his eye. "But you can add to that the fact that New Wave just left the roof."
"Which ones?" Dennis asked curiously, also looking, but not able to see any trace of the independent hero team.
"All of them, I think," the older boy said, peering up. "I didn't see Amy, but there were at least seven people."
"I thought I felt someone familiar upstairs," Dean commented, sounding a little confused again. "It was difficult over all the other people, and Vicky is almost impossible to read unless I'm right next to her, but..." He got up and headed for the kitchen unit, coming back a few seconds later with a can of Coke. "I wonder why she didn't visit?"
"Again, no clue," Carlos muttered. "Today is definitely odd. I have a feeling that Dennis is right, it's all part of one major op, but what that is…" He turned his gaze down once more. "Lots of transports coming and going, and most of them look like they're heavily loaded based on how they're handling. They've been going out empty and coming back full."
All three of them exchanged glances, then Dean and Dennis joined him at the window. There were indeed a number of the large transports, based on a military APC with a lot of PRT modifications, rumbling down the road, along with more PRT troopers in full combat gear than normal. "Weird," Dennis remarked.
The other two nodded.
"It's died down a lot, looks like it's over whatever it was, but they were all heading towards or coming back from the direction of the main commercial district," Carlos said, indicating one part of the city center. "Off to the side of where that chemical spill was. I guess it could have been two separate events."
"Pretty convenient, though," Dennis mused out loud. "A chemical incident that evacuates the city center, and a major PRT operation, both at the same time?"
"The spill was a major PRT incident based on what the news says," Dean pointed out.
"Well, true, but you don't need that many armed troopers to clean up some stinky liquid, do you?" he replied, waving at the street. "What are they going to do, shoot it? I'd have thought they'd have used a hazmat team, maybe along with some tech people, and at most one squad for protection. I guess it might have been a terrorist attack or gang action, but even if it was that seems like overkill."
"And why would New Wave be involved either?" Carlos added. "Plus all the other stuff going on, like Dennis said."
Dean sighed a little, and shook his head. "I have no idea." All three stood there and watched the vehicles move around, most of them heading towards the underground garage and disappearing.
"I guess we'll find out sooner or later," Dennis finally said, going back to the couch he'd been sitting on and picking up one of the game controllers. Idly selecting a saved game, he started fiddling with the settings. "The thing I'm really curious about is Sophia."
He happened to glance at Carlos as he said this, and noticed with interest the look that momentarily crossed his friend's face. A second later it was gone, but he added it to the file of oddities he'd picked up on over the last couple of months. Sophia's confinement to the PRT building was something they all knew about, but none of them knew why, the girl herself was entirely silent on the subject in a very hostile manner, and they'd each been warned by Miss Militia not to question or discuss it. Which had, of course, made him extremely curious about it.
"That's definitely worrying," the other boy said, moving away from the window and heading towards one of the computers, where he started poking around on PHO in a casual manner. "I wonder what happened to her?"
"No idea," Dean sighed. "In a way I'm glad she's not here, though. She's always furious, it gives me a headache just being near her."
Dennis looked at both of them for a moment, then went back to his game adjustments. Dean had never been comfortable around Sophia, he was well aware of that, and Missy intensely disliked her for a number of reasons, all of them good in his opinion. The younger Ward was professional enough, though, not to show it very much even in private. But he knew her well enough to be able to tell, not to mention he'd seen and heard some of the things that Sophia had done to her. Carlos had talked to Sophia about it on a number of occasions with little effect, and even Armsmaster or Miss Militia only seemed to be able to affect her behavior for short periods. Dennis himself found her sometimes darkly funny, but definitely didn't count her as a friend. Chris simply stayed out of her way as much as he could.
Now the girl had apparently vanished without a trace. Armsmaster had been stomping around, looking furious, for over an hour a while back, accompanied by an entire squad of troopers, Dragon, and Miss Militia, none of whom looked any more pleased than the Tinker did. They'd searched the entire Wards area twice, spent close to twenty minutes tearing Sophia's quarters apart, then quarantining it having taken everything away. After that, as far as he could work out, they'd moved on to the rest of the building, giving the impression of people who very definitely wanted a serious word with her.
He'd seldom seen Armsmaster look so pissed off, and had decided that it would be a good idea to stay out of the way, since he felt that his normal approach wouldn't go down at all well. There was a serious sense of humor failure in play.
Now, he was sure that Carlos knew something about Sophia that he wasn't saying. Probably not about her disappearance, he'd looked as startled as the rest of them when they got questioned by an angry Tinker, but Dennis was certain his friend was at least aware of why the girl had been stuck in the PRT building for weeks and from what he'd worked out, being carefully monitored. That bracelet she'd always been playing with sure looked like Tinker tech to him…
He studied his team leader out of the corner of his eye while he changed the load-out of his game character, thinking about all the little clues he'd noticed. Miss Militia's interest in Amy's relationship with the Family, Taylor, and so on, Sophia's house arrest, Carlos's apparent awareness of some of that as well… He wasn't sure, and certainly wasn't going to say anything, since he was nobody's fool, but he had a feeling it was somehow connected.
'I don't know how, or why, or what happened, but Sophia is definitely in serious trouble,' he thought, hitting the start button. 'And if it's something to do with the Family… See ya, Sophia. Can't say I enjoyed knowing you.'
Wondering where she was, and whether he'd ever find out, he began moving his character to high ground. When he got instantly sniped by a familiar player, he growled and swore under his breath, giving the game his full attention.
"Fucking Protomancer," he muttered, prodding buttons as fast as he could.
It didn't help.
'What's she so worried about?' Taylor queried as Miss Militia came out of the elevator at the rear of the PRT building lobby and headed their way. The familiar scent of the woman betrayed a degree of nervousness, which was normal when she was around them, and a certain amount of apprehension, which was less so. They could easily see from the thermal output of the blood vessels in her face that she was somewhat uncomfortable, more so than seemed appropriate all things considered. Taylor had hoped that the military cape was starting to get used to them but on the face of it she was definitely not happy right now.
"I have no idea," the Varga replied as he also watched her approach. He was intrigued, Taylor could sense. "I wonder if it has anything to do with our old friend Sophia?"
They'd both detected the scent of the girl outside when they arrived, more strongly than would be expected considering that she was, as far as Taylor knew, confined to the building.
'You don't think…?' she sighed internally.
He mentally shrugged. "It's possible. One of Coil's little booby-traps, or just bad luck. But it would be very careless of them to misplace her. Perhaps it's something else, they might have moved her to a different facility, after all."
'True.' Taylor used her 'Saurial' aspect to smile at Miss Militia as she stopped in front of both of them. "Hello, I hope we didn't keep you waiting, Miss Militia. We've got a video file for you and we're ready to give you a formal report on what we did. Well, most of it." She smiled a little more widely, causing the woman to wince slightly.
Recovering instantly, she put out her hand and shook Taylor's offered one, then did the same with 'Raptaur.' "No, we're all in the conference room, there's no hurry, Saurial," she replied calmly. "We have a lot to keep us busy for some time, obviously. Please follow me, the Director is looking forward to talking." Waving them to the elevator, she went with them as both aspects moved in that direction, walking next to the smaller one with the much larger Raptaur form bringing up the rear. The various people in the lobby, none of whom were civilians due to the way the cordon around the evacuated area had only just been lifted, watched as they went inside.
Pressing the correct button and tapping an access token on a reader next to the panel, which suggested that where they were going was in a more secure than normal area, Miss Militia waited until the doors closed before she said anything else. "I'd like to thank you both, and your sisters, for all the help you provided today. And before that, of course. We probably couldn't have pulled any of this off without that aid, certainly without something terrible happening, and all of us are very relieved that it went so smoothly." She sounded and smelled sincere, although the underlying worry was still present.
Taylor smiled at her again, careful to keep her teeth out of sight, since it really seemed to bug the older woman. "We were happy to help, Miss Militia," she replied with complete honesty. "Right from the point Tattletale told me about Coil, it was apparent that sooner or later we'd need to do something about him. When we found out how deeply he was involved with a lot of things he shouldn't have been, we didn't really have a choice. The entire city was at risk, and we happen to like this place. And the people, for the most part."
"We'll protect our home," the Varga said through Raptaur, nodding slightly. "And this is as much our home as anywhere. We might have some issues with the approach to Parahumans that the PRT has at times, but we have considerable respect and liking for the local branch." He smiled faintly as Miss Militia glanced at him. "To date, despite some differences early on, we feel that you have treated us and our people fairly and we wish to reciprocate. That's not to say that we will always see eye to eye, but in this matter at least, we're definitely on the same side."
She nodded back, then turned to the doors as they slid silently open. "Good to hear," she muttered, leading the way out. They passed several PRT people, 'Raptaur' having to duck a couple of times to avoid cables hanging out of the ceiling, and once pressing herself against the wall to slide past a ladder that led up to a pair of legs sticking out of an access panel, but they reached the door to the conference room only a few minutes later.
Even from the elevator, of course, they'd been able to hear voices in the rooms surrounding them. With the ease of long practice Taylor was filtering out irrelevant chatter, focusing on the voices she recognized, mostly to try and figure out whether what both of them suspected was true or not.
"I think it would be best to be completely honest with them, Director," Armsmaster was saying, sounding both annoyed and mildly apprehensive. "To do otherwise risks the rapport we have built with the Family over the last few weeks. I personally wouldn't want that for several reasons, and I don't believe it's in the best interests of the PRT or the Protectorate either."
"Or the city, for that matter," Legend put in, himself sounding weary, as if they'd already gone over this matter several times.
"It puts us in a difficult position, though," Director Piggot replied. "They could accuse us of hiding critical information from them, not without a degree of truth. That damn girl very nearly killed someone they obviously value a lot. And if the Hebert man finds out, which I have no doubt he will if they do, he might become very awkward."
"From what you said, Director," Dragon said in calming tones, "it wasn't entirely, or even mostly, you who made the decision to keep her here. Yes, you put her under house arrest in the beginning, but you also wanted to punish her more severely when the investigation completed. You were overruled on that or she would already have been transferred out, probably to somewhere she very much didn't enjoy."
"Fucking girl didn't enjoy it here in the first place and made that very clear to everybody she met," Triumph, or as Taylor couldn't help but think of him since the dinner party, Rory, muttered. He didn't sound at all complimentary about the subject of their conversation. "She was a pain in the ass from day one. I always said she should have been sent somewhere else and probably locked up in the first place."
"Yes, thank you, Triumph, we're aware of your opinion of Miss Hess." Director Piggot sighed. "I happen to share it, in fact. She was an accident waiting to happen, but we never expected this level of… fucking stupidity, to be frank."
"The young woman has a number of severe psychological issues," Armsmaster said, still sounding very irritated. "And nothing anyone has managed to do to date has changed or improved that. She simply doesn't want to change her behavior. I have felt she wasn't really suitable Wards material for some time."
"Yet her powers were very effective and when she listened to orders, so was she," Assault commented. "Which is probably why people further up the chain insisted on keeping her even though she's a nightmare from a personal interaction viewpoint." His normal cheerfulness was entirely absent right now. "But then none of them had to put up with her, did they?"
"No," the director grumbled. "They did not. Damn it. Yes, fine, thank you for your input. Now shut up, everyone, they'll be here any moment and they can probably hear us right through the soundproofing."
'Yep,' Taylor sighed inwardly. 'They've lost Sophia.'
"So it would appear," her companion admitted, a note of anger in his voice. "I expect she's going to attempt to seek some form of revenge, that would fit her personality. This is annoying."
'Tell me about it,' she muttered. 'I was perfectly happy to leave her alone if she left me alone, I don't even want to waste time thinking about her. But if she's running around the city, she might go after Dad, or Amy, or any of my other friends, just to get at me.'
"We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen, then," he rumbled, producing a mental smile that was very, very dangerous. "Permanently if necessary."
'Damn right,' she told him, waiting as Miss Militia tapped on a code on the keypad next to the door, entirely unaware of their silent conversation or that they already now knew pretty much the entire story which was probably the cause of her worried scent. Which, if she did know, would undoubtedly have worried her a lot more.
'We'll need to call Amy and let her and the others know, just in case the idiot tries anything tonight. But I bet she doesn't. I know that girl, she's cunning. She'll probably go and find something she thinks will help her against me, lay low for a while until she's sure she's got away, then try to sneak back and have a go at us.' Taylor rolled her eyes in the privacy of her mind, making her friend snicker. 'Not like that's going to work out for her. Think her little trick with phasing through matter will work on EDM?'
"If I understand the mechanism correctly, which I think I do, I doubt it. At least on solid constructions of it. There is no space between the electrons for her own atoms to pass through. Any gaps could change that, of course, but from what I recall she doesn't go through holes as such, but through the matter itself. So that might not be a problem. And I have a few ideas on how to interfere with her abilities beyond that." He chuckled darkly. "You personally are at no real risk from her, trust me. Even one of her immaterial crossbow bolts will only be inconvenient at best. And possibly quite funny, at least from our point of view. I think she might find it less so."
'It's not me I'm worried about,' she grumbled.
"Amy and Lisa's bioconstructs will be very resistant to it as well considering the amount of EDM in their scales and bones. From what Lisa worked out, her power is disrupted by electricity, and I'm sure Amy can add a suitable electrical defense system to them without much work. Danny and other people are most at risk, but we can deal with that too. Don't worry, Brain, this young woman is not going to harm any of our friends. She may try, but she will, ultimately, fail. And then we will deal with her."
'She'd better fail because if she actually manages to hurt Dad or anyone else I love, she's a snack.' Taylor suppressed a spike of rage, feeling her constant companion smile at her and reassure her wordlessly. She trusted him beyond question, but at the same time she couldn't help but worry.
Still, he hadn't been wrong yet, and the ancient demon knew more tricks than every Parahuman on the planet put together.
Their conversation had taken mere seconds, so they both went through the door as their guide opened it without really breaking step. Stopping inside, they waited for her to re-lock it, then take her seat, before moving to stand next to the table at a space that had clearly been left open for them.
Taylor looked around the various faces, mostly masked, and smiled. "I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you here today."
Assault promptly snickered, a wide grin on his face, while Director Piggot sighed and Battery put a hand on her face.
"I know," he cried, leaping to his feet. "One of us… is the murderer!" He inspected each of them in turn, visibly and suspiciously, until the woman next to him yanked him back into his seat. Taylor was grinning, as was Legend for some reason. Armsmaster looked slightly puzzled and seemed to make some notes on a pad, and the rest of them were watching with odd expressions.
"Oh for..." Director Piggot mumbled under her breath, but both Taylor and the Varga heard it. They shared a look of amusement, sat on their tails, and looked at her expectantly, waiting.
Emily watched the two Family sisters make themselves comfortable, both of them looking distinctly entertained by Saurial's joke. 'Goddam alien lizards,' she sighed, slight despair mixed with a feeling that this thought alone should be proof that her life was way too peculiar for any normal person to deal with. She glanced at Hannah, who was also looking a little weirdly at the pair. Thinking back to her first meeting with Raptaur weeks ago, she remembered the comment the other woman had made, along the lines of 'Cross that line and the humor stops and you die instantly. And you'd probably never see it coming.'
It was a worrying thought, considering the information she had to give them.
Since that meeting, she'd seen Raptaur visibly learn slightly more human mannerisms, and had herself had enough contact with all of them that she no longer felt the instinctive fear that they all, even Saurial, tended to produce in most people. The lizard-girl was definitely far more human in both body language and overall attitude than any of the others, which now that she thought about it was somewhat peculiar, but even there, she could come across as remarkably alien. Not surprisingly, after all.
Briefly she wondered yet again, now that they were basically certain that the origins of the Family were somewhere a lot further away than the bottom of the Atlantic, just where and how Saurial had learned so much about human, specifically US, culture and colloquial language. It was a little odd really. Presumably she'd taught the others, which would be consistent with various things they'd all said at one time or another, but where had she first come into contact with normal people? And when?
That possible Lovecraft connection kept coming back, which was one of the most worrying things of all. Mainly due to the possible implications…
'Not important right now, but I bet is has something to do with Danny Fucking Hebert,' she thought with resignation. 'It always is these days. One way or another. And now we have to admit that the girl who nearly killed his daughter and might be about to have another try at it is in the wind. Fuck. This is worse than Skidmark, this is basically our fault.'
Opening her mouth and hoping that nothing horrendous was about to happen, she said, "Thank you both for coming in. Before we get to the main point of this meeting, though… during the operation something somewhat annoying happened, I'm afraid. Something that potentially directly impacts some friends of yours."
Saurial raised one eye ridge, but said nothing. Raptaur fixed her with a look of interest. She swallowed slightly, then continued.
"I'm not sure how much of the situation surrounding Taylor Hebert's problems at Winslow, and what that led to, you're aware of..."
Saurial reached up and removed her odd sunglasses, flipping them casually over her shoulder and not looking as they simply disappeared. Slit-pupiled eyes regarded Emily evenly. "We're aware that Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements, three peers of Taylor, bullied and tortured her for nearly two years for reasons best known to them."
"We are also aware that this campaign ended in an attack that at a minimum should be considered attempted manslaughter, if not premeditated murder, and that the school authorities were complicit due to them knowing these actions were going on and doing nothing at all to stop it, despite being repeatedly informed by Taylor," Raptaur added in a quiet but firm voice. In the dead silence of the room, it almost made things vibrate faintly.
"And," Saurial said, not looking away from Emily, "We are aware that Sophia Hess is also Shadow Stalker, a Ward of the ENE PRT, and that she has been under some form of house arrest since the date that Taylor and Danny managed to trap her and her co-conspirators into confessing on camera to their actions." Her voice was soft and dangerous. "We know all about it, Director. We have known about it from the beginning. Taylor has no secrets from us, and we have none from her. She is our friend, as is Danny. We tend to be very fond of our friends, and will protect them to the best of our ability."
Emily distinctly heard at least two other people swallow hard.
"We were content to take no action, as you were dealing with it to Taylor's satisfaction. She wants nothing to do with any of them ever again, if at all possible, and decided after discussing the situation with us and her father that this was best achieved by forgetting her experiences at Winslow, making the most of her new school and friends, and moving on with her life." The suddenly extremely predatory creature that was very definitely not human at all stared at her, making her feel like a mouse being looked at by a tiger. "We agree with her in this."
"As George Herbert put it some three hundred and sixty years ago, 'Living well is the best revenge,' Raptaur said after a couple of seconds pause, sounding just like her sister. "However, there are other options available if required."
There was a long and uncomfortable pause as both reptilian females kept looking at her. Emily tried to think what to say next. By the sound of it, the Heberts were a damn sight closer to the Family than she'd realized, and she'd assumed they were pretty close. She wondered how they'd found out about Sophia's Parahuman status, and for that matter about her being confined to the PRT building.
'But then, we still don't know who was responsible for Saint, those weapons tests up north, and a number of other things,' she realized with a chill. 'They know a lot of things they shouldn't, and it's not impossible that they're connected to things we don't know about yet. Almost certain, in fact. Christ, this could go very bad very fast.'
"I assume from your hesitance that you have managed to lose the girl somehow," Saurial finally said. She glanced at Colin, who was watching with a sort of wary interest, not moving. "I'm rather surprised as I would have assumed you had a method to restrict her powers and track her, considering the people involved."
He was about to speak, Emily could tell, so she held up a hand with a small shake of her head, making him subside again. "We did. Unfortunately, due to a series of unplanned events caused by that power surge this morning from Coil's trap, there was an unavoidable and unpredictable error that resulted in those precautions becoming ineffective for a period of time."
"During which Sophia escaped," Raptaur said in a way that wasn't a question.
She nodded with a sigh. "During which Sophia escaped. Yes. We're at least as angry about it as you are."
Saurial tilted her head a little, but didn't respond otherwise.
"We felt we had an ethical obligation to inform you about it," Legend put in at this point, speaking for the first time. No one else apparently dared say anything. "We value the working relationship between the Family, the DWU, and us, and we don't want to put it at risk by hiding something this serious. There is a possibility that Sophia Hess may attempt to attack you, the Heberts, or known associates of yours. We all feel you should know that immediately."
Saurial looked at her sister. They had a short and quiet conversation in that strange language, before they both turned back to the others. "Thank you for letting us know. We're wondering what you intend to do about the situation."
"We're going to try to find her," Emily said, relaxing just a little at the way no instant death seemed imminent. "Which is, unfortunately, not easy. Her powers make her very difficult to track or hold. She was gone for several hours before we discovered her missing, and she could already have left the city. In a way we're hoping that's the case, but no one who knows her is very happy that it is. Sophia Hess is… vengeful."
"That fits what we know about her," Saurial replied, somehow looking a lot less dangerous without doing anything obvious to make it happen. "Taylor passed on a lot of background information on her and the other two. Emma Barnes and Madison Clements are more or less irrelevant, Sophia is the truly dangerous one. It seems almost inevitable that sooner or later she's going to try something stupid."
"We think the same thing," Colin said. "I would prefer that she kept running but I doubt that will be the case." He looked down at his tablet, then met her eyes, before looking at Raptaur. "I must apologize. It was my design that failed, my oversight that allowed this to happen."
Raptaur asked, "Could you have predicted this exact sequence of events and the outcome of them?"
After a moment, he shook his head. "No. I am still unsure exactly what happened. On paper it was impossible, but clearly I made a mistake somewhere."
"If you couldn't have predicted it, we can hardly blame you for it either," Raptaur responded. She smiled a little. "We don't hold it against you, Armsmaster. No one is perfect, not us, or you. Not even Legend is." She glanced at the Protectorate leader with a small smile for a moment. "Although he's closer than most. You are also a friend, and neither of us think this was something you could have prevented without knowledge you didn't have. Accidents happen, after all. The main thing is to deal with the result."
Emily was definitely feeling relieved at this point, and could see everyone else was too. Apparently there wasn't going to be the sort of response she'd been fearing. 'Thank god these crazy lizards are so fucking difficult to upset,' she thought. 'If it was me, I'd be shooting people about now.'
"We can offer the Heberts an undercover protection detail," she said, thinking it through.
"Can you protect everyone Taylor and Danny knows?" Raptaur asked, looking at her. "Miss Hess might well decide to get at them through their friends. She may not yet know about Taylor's relationships with people from Arcadia, but I doubt she's missed the fact that Amy Dallon is a close friend, her sister is becoming such, and then of course we have the people who Danny is regularly associated with. If she considers him a target, in fact, it's quite likely that she'd go after him first, partly to leave Taylor until last, and partly to try to scare Taylor."
"Which is unlikely to work," Saurial said with a small smirk. "Taylor doesn't scare easily, believe me. And if Sophia did manage to hurt Danny, the girl would be lucky if we got to her first. If either Taylor or Amy did..." She shrugged, while everyone stared at her.
"Taylor has a lot of suppressed anger about how she was treated for so long. She's been doing her utmost to let go of it, but if something happens, it might come to the surface again. And Amy likes Danny very much indeed, nearly as much as she does Taylor. She would be unlikely to hold back."
"And of course you've been training her as well," Emily said, suddenly realizing the truth with a heavy sigh. Saurial grinned at her.
"Of course. She's coming along very well. Not quite up to Taylor, but then I've been training her for a lot longer. We want to make sure our friends can look after themselves, since we can't be there all the time."
"Does Carol Dallon know?" Battery asked.
The lizard-girl looked at her, then shrugged. "We haven't told her. If Amy wants to it's her business, but I can't see any good reason why someone as high profile and valuable as Panacea, the world's best healer, shouldn't learn how to defend herself. Can you?"
"Um… no, not when you put it like that," the blonde admitted. "That's why you made that new costume for her, right?"
"Yep. Seemed the right thing to do. But we're going off topic." Looking at her sister, the smaller reptile said something. Raptaur replied after a little thought. Eventually, they turned back to the others.
"Thank you for the offer of protection, but I don't think the Heberts would really benefit from it. We can protect them quite effectively. I would suggest, though, that it might pay to arrange with Arcadia to have a suitable detail stationed there, just in case Sophia decides go after Taylor or her friends at school. There are enough people there that backup would be helpful, since we can't be everywhere. And it might also be worth thinking about arranging similar protection for a number of people that are known close friends of Taylor. We can provide a list of names," Raptaur said, looking at Emily, then Hannah. "You're probably also going to have to talk to New Wave about this since it affects at least one of them, probably two."
"I know," Emily grumbled. "I'm not looking forward to that. Carol Dallon can be difficult. On the other hand, we've got the best relationship with them at the moment that we've ever had, so with a little luck she'll listen long enough to hear me out before she throws me out."
"I'm sure your winning personality will handle the discussion perfectly well, Director," the huge lizard said without a flicker of a smile. Assault made a grunt as his wife poked him, hard, in the ribs, right before he was going to say something. Legend clearly muffled a snicker, making Emily glare at him.
"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Raptaur," she said, still looking at the man at the other end of the table, who was smiling just that little bit too much to make her happy.
"You're welcome," Raptaur replied, a note of humor coming through now.
"Do you intend to provide protection for Taylor at school?" Hannah asked. "It sounded like that was what you were thinking of."
"We may have to," Saurial replied, turning to her. She smiled a little. "Taylor told me that her vice-principal expressed an interest in meeting me one day. Possibly that day will be sooner than she expected."
"I can talk to the Arcadia board of governors and make sure they know the PRT is fine with it," Emily said, making some notes and relieved that the pair were being so reasonable about the whole sorry affair. "We'll also arrange to have a couple of undercover operatives in the school, with a backup squad nearby, just in case. Hopefully nothing will happen and the damn girl will pop up somewhere across the country in a year or two, but I really doubt it."
"It doesn't seem to fit what we know about her," Raptaur agreed. Colin nodded, as did several others.
No one expected anything other than some ill-considered action from Sophia. Sooner or later.
"The DWU security teams aren't as well armed as your people, but they are very well trained and alert, so I don't think we'd need any PRT people on site," Saurial went on, thinking out loud. "If Sophia decides to try attacking there, I doubt it will work out for her. We have a few surprises we put in place for Skidmark that would probably ruin her day, and we have a number of Parahumans other than Family members who would be very effective against her. And I doubt that she realizes it."
Emily glanced at Hannah, then Legend. "We could, bearing in mind the massive aid you have provided us over the Calvert operation, see our way clear to loaning the DWU security department some containment foam projectors and grenades, if you think that would help." Legend nodded thoughtfully but said nothing to contradict her.
Saurial looked mildly surprised. "That would probably go down pretty well, Director. Thank you. Yes, I think that would be something both Danny and Mark would agree to."
"All right, I'll arrange it, we'll deliver them tomorrow morning and provide some training on them and enough foam canisters and release agent to go with them."
"You're not going to get in trouble for that, I hope?" Raptaur asked.
"No, considering who it is, that it's the PRTs fault that Hess was even still in the city, never mind escaped, and that this is Brockton Bay, I can make a good case for it," Emily replied. 'And if the Chief Director doesn't like it, she can come here and personally explain to Raptaur why there's a rogue Ward gunning for someone she seems to almost consider family. I'd almost pay to see that…,' she added in the privacy of her own mind.
With the relaxing of the tension that had happened when the two Family members had first come in, the others loosened up and made a few more suggestions. Twenty minutes later, they'd hashed out the details of how to keep a number of people as safe as possible while the Hess girl was on the run.
"If she does make an attempt on the Heberts while you're around, what are you going to do to her?" Craig asked at the end. Everyone stopped and looked at him, then heads swiveled to regard the two reptiles.
Saurial shrugged. "Assuming she's unsuccessful, capture her, restrain her, have a very serious talk with her, and hand her over. At which point we fully expect never to see or hear from her again."
There was a pause.
"And if she was, somehow, successful?" Legend asked slowly. "Not that I think that's likely, but I have to ask."
"If she managed to seriously harm or even kill someone we are protecting..." Saurial looked evenly at him. "No one will hear or see from her again."
This time the room was dead silent for nearly ten seconds.
"I give second chances," the slender scaled girl said in the end, her voice soft. "I also make sure that I never need to give third chances."
"Understood," he replied. He didn't look happy, but at the same time he did look like he couldn't come up with any arguments to her implied point.
Eventually, Saurial smiled, her mood changing back to the normal cheerful one. "Enough about that. We've got a plan and we're all on the same page. All we can do is go ahead with it and see what happens. Let's get back to the reason we came here in the first place."
Emily blinked a couple of times, yet again taken aback by how quickly the blasted lizard could go from insanely scary to ridiculously content with life, then looked down at her notes. Flipping back through them she found the right place. "Hmm. Yes. Good idea."
Saurial slid a USB stick over the table towards Colin. "This is the video we took, with all the boring bits and a few things we're keeping confidential edited out. Metis put it together for you."
"Thank you, Saurial," he replied, picking it up and inserting it into the small console in front of him on the table. The hidden screens slid out of the ceiling as he operated the correct controls, then there was a brief pause as he cued up the video and started it.
"We should have brought popcorn," Ethan said brightly. His wife looked at him and shook her head in despair, although both lizards snickered.
"I'll remember for next time," Saurial grinned.
Family™ Productions
Presents
A Family™ Film
Starring
Coil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Calvert
Demonic Alien Tormentor #1 . . . Saurial
Demonic Alien Tormentor #2 . . .Raptaur
Emily stared at the screen, then rubbed her face with a hand as the list of credits scrolled up for a few seconds to a catchy beat. She noticed she was on it as 'Badass PRT Director.'
Couldn't these fucking lizards do anything the normal way?
Although… she sort of liked that title.
Assault was laughing his ass off, and there were smiles on the faces of most of the others. Legend was grinning widely and Dragon snickered. Hannah looked nearly as confused as Colin did, but in the end he merely made yet more notes and watched with interest, while the woman sighed and leaned back in her chair, emoting a definite 'why me' vibe. Rory kept chuckling, shaking his head in amusement.
When the actual action started, everyone sat up and watched very intently. And, after a while, with a considerable amount of confused disquiet.
It was… enlightening. And deeply, deeply disturbing on more levels than Emily could easily put into words.
She was suddenly very glad that they hadn't turned the lights off to watch it. She didn't think she would have liked that. But it certainly explained why Calvert was whimpering in his cell whenever the sedatives wore off.
When the video recording finished, with a small note that 'Very few Mercenaries were harmed during the filming of this feature no matter how much they deserved it, and we fixed them afterwards so it doesn't matter anyway' coming up as the last part, they all looked at each other in silence for a while, before turning to Saurial and Raptaur.
"Questions?" the former said brightly.
"Oh, so many questions," Ethan muttered, gaping at them. "But do I want to know the answers?"
Emily thought, for once, that the annoying man was definitely correct. Even so, they had to ask them.
So they did.
'I think that went well,' Taylor said as they left the PRT building. As soon as they were out of sight of any cameras, she dismissed the other aspect, remaining in the Saurial one, since they'd pushed the time she could hold two of them to the limit at just over three hours. Her mind was not quite aching, but very relieved for the rest.
"They seemed impressed, at any rate," the Varga chuckled as she teleported to the roof of the Medhall building under cloak, then leaned on the low parapet surrounding it and looked around. "I was amused at how you managed to stick almost entirely to the truth yet still make them believe a number of things that weren't all that accurate."
'It's a gift,' she giggled. 'We don't want them knowing a lot of what we can do, after all, but it was easy enough to give them acceptable answers for some of the weirder things. Leaving that squeaky shoggoth for them was a wonderful idea, they're convinced the entire thing with Calvert was a massive gaslighting exercise.'
"Which, to be honest, it more or less was, but not in the way they think it was," he snickered. "Very well done, Brain. Very well done indeed."
'I bet their threat assessment reports are going to be hilarious after this,' she grinned. 'Especially with Umihebi brought into it.'
"They'll definitely decide she has a high Stranger rating after that meeting," he pointed out.
'They already knew that from the underwater thing, though,' Taylor replied. 'All we did is confirm it. No real loss to us. They might well decide that the rest of the Family also have something like it, but they have no proof of it. We can probably keep that uncertainty going for a long time if we're careful. Which is funny if nothing else.'
"True." He mentally shrugged. "I would think that sooner or later they'll realize something closer to the truth, but better that we slowly release this sort of information than dump it all at once. I think the likelihood of them panicking is too high in the latter case, as we've decided in the past."
'I still can't believe how successful the entire Family thing was in the first place!' she commented, shaking her head in wonder. 'And we didn't even do it on purpose. People are very weird.'
"It's a useful subterfuge," he agreed with good humor. "And, yet again, very funny. Now what are we going to do about your old friend Sophia?"
'Fucking idiot girl,' Taylor sighed. 'I was so close to just letting it go, you know?'
"I do." He gave her a mental hug. "You have been much more mature about the entire thing than most people your age would be. Or most people in general. But look on the bright side, she may simply never come back."
'We both know that's not going to happen,' she muttered.
"I'm afraid I can't disagree."
She stood there in silence for a little while, the Varga leaving her to her thoughts. Eventually, she sighed again, feeling annoyed. It has been such a good day right up to the point she found out about Hess…
'Let's see if we can track her,' she said. 'I bet she found a vehicle, but we might get lucky.'
"It's worth a try, certainly," he said. "If we could catch her immediately it would make life much simpler in future."
Nodding, she looked down, then teleported to the ground. Shortly she was circling the PRT building, sniffing out the movements of the missing Ward on her flight from custody.
Hannah let herself back into the conference room having guided both Family members out of the building, sitting down and looking around at her friends and colleagues. No one seemed to have said anything since she left, they were still busy absorbing the information Saurial and Raptaur had given them. Emily was reading the report form that each of them had filled in.
Eventually she put the paperwork down and looked up, casting her eyes around the table.
"Thoughts?"
"Do not fuck with the Family," Ethan said quietly. "They are weird and scary and will fuck you right up, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it."
Hannah couldn't help agreeing. It seemed an accurate summation in her opinion.
"While concise and pithy, I can't put that in a threat assessment," the director sighed. "No matter how true it is."
"That was a remarkably competently performed operation," Colin stated, for some reason not looking as worried as almost everyone else was. "The use of their matter creation ability is even more versatile than I expected under such conditions. It explains a lot of the stories the mercenaries have given us. I find the fractional dimensional techniques fascinating, I can see a number of uses for them other than causing psychological issues to criminals." He looked thoughtfully at the pad he'd been making a lot of notes on, while everyone else stared at him. "Although they are very efficient at that task."
Emily rubbed her eyes. Lowering her hand, she gave the apparently oblivious Tinker, who was writing something else down now, a hard look, then turned to Hannah. "We should break for some coffee and a snack. This is going to be another long meeting, I think."
Hannah nodded, as everyone got up and headed for the door. She was very glad right now that she didn't need to sleep.
It would have been quite difficult to do after seeing that recording.