Taylor's Saurial aspect settled back into the seat of Linda's mech, pleased that they'd managed to design one that a normal human could use as well as someone, like her, with a less standard body configuration. It was adjustable to allow for tails, and could move around enough that her somewhat differently jointed legs in this form would also fit properly. Although she'd made all the parts, this was the first time she'd sat in it, since the last time she'd seen it the thing was half-assembled on one of the benches in Linda's workshop.
It also fitted her nicely as herself in her base form, or Amy for that matter, but she'd dismissed the other aspect a while ago when she'd heard Kevin and Randall's truck approaching since she wanted to amuse herself with her teleporting multi-aspect ability which they didn't know about yet. Having two of her standing around would have given the game away. That aspect had already had a go in the mech, then begged off further playing for the moment on the basis of having to go to the BBFO office for an errand. As soon as she'd walked through the door of the office she'd let it vanish, both she and the Varga concentrating on the other one.
Nearly half the people present had so far tried the machine, and everyone had managed to drive it pretty well since the onboard processing was actually handling most of the detailed motion control. Several of the heavy machinery operators had turned out to be incredibly good at it after only minutes of experimentation, impressing her and Linda alike. One of them was even better than Linda herself, they'd been pleased to discover. He was practically pleading with them for the chance to try the next one. As soon as possible, please…
Fastening the restraint harness, she looked at Linda, who was hanging onto the side of the mech cabin with one hand watching her closely. "Having fun?" she asked in a low voice.
The currently feline Tinker winked at her. "So fucking much. This thing works way better than I hoped. Thanks for all the help, and when can we start on the next version?"
Taylor chuckled. "Tomorrow, I think. I have some stuff to do later, or I'd happily start making more parts for you today. If you want, we can make up kits of parts for half a dozen or so, your designs are pretty modular as far as the motors and so on go. We could put together several frames with drive systems and you could fit them out with whatever else you want, then we put the outer skins on later."
"That would probably work," Linda nodded, looking thoughtful. "I need to come up with some standardized parts for them, I don't want everything to be a one off. This one let me see where I need to change a lot of things, but I can redraw the plans and add in all the new ideas, that should give us a first production model. Half a dozen is enough to get people using them and working out what needs to be changed. Several of these guys have already shown me better ways to lay out the controls, for instance."
"We'll need a mech hangar next, at this rate," Taylor grinned, prompting a return grin from the other woman.
"There's lots of room here, I bet Danny can find someplace useful. I think the garage shed next to my workshop is empty for a start. Sort of, it's got more crap in it than my unit did at the moment, but it's basically just oily junk."
"It'll get cleaned out soon enough anyway, everyone is loading up the train with any scrap they can find to get rid of it. I'll ask him later if we could use it. We'll have to write a manual for them as well. People need instructions, even if some of them never read them."
"I'll make some notes, but manual writing isn't something I think I'd be good at," Linda shrugged.
"There are people here who can do that, if we make sure they have all the relevant information, and Lisa could certainly help a lot. She's really good with words."
"Where is she, anyway?" Linda looked over her shoulder at the diminished but still quite large crowd, which had been joined just then by Kevin and Randall who were staring at the mech with wide eyes and even wider grins.
"Around somewhere, she'll turn up," Taylor smiled, looking over at 'Metis,' who waved with a small grin. "She'll want to play as well. Everyone does. Especially those two." She pointed at Leet who was almost drooling. Linda turned her head and met his eyes, then burst out laughing.
"God, he looks like a ten year old girl who's seen a pony," she giggled.
"You should make him a robot one, then."
"Don't joke, I could do it," the Tinker snickered. "I seriously considered a line of robotic animals. Just because it's possible."
"You'll definitely have to do that one day."
"I'm going to go talk to the boys," Linda added, shifting her grip preparatory to dropping to the ground. "Have fun. Don't wreck it."
"I'm not sure I could considering it's mostly made of EDM," the lizard-girl laughed. "Aside from this bit, you could practically nuke it." She reached up and tapped the transparent windscreen, then shrugged. "Have to come up with something we can see through that's stronger at some point, but this works for now."
"It does. See you in a minute." Letting go, the cat-woman tucked into a reverse flip and landed neatly on the ground, making Taylor grin, before walking over to meet the two reforming villains. Lisa and Danny joined them, all five quickly involved in a conversation which Taylor didn't bother to listen to.
'All yours,' she said to the Varga, who had been patiently waiting, as she relinquished control.
"Thank you, Brain," he replied with satisfaction, reaching their hand over to the control that closed the cockpit and prodding it. The upper transparency hissed closed and locked with a click, most of the exterior noise abruptly cut off. The sounds of a good hundred people talking and having an interesting time was surprisingly loud.
"This is a most excellent machine," he added approvingly. "I understand why Zephron claimed that a tracked vehicle was more suitable in many cases, but having seen how well it works, and how much power it has, I'm not entirely sure he's correct."
'He did say that it didn't matter anyway because this thing was way cooler than a forklift, though,' she pointed out with amusement. 'Something about the rule of cool. Sounds like a perfectly good rule to me.'
"And to me." Powering up the mech, he put their hands on the controls as it rose into the normal bipedal walking position. "I have no trouble at all declaring this to be extremely cool."
'And better than weapons like she was making for Skidmark,' Taylor agreed, watching as he rapidly accelerated across the yard, the large birdlike feet and legs blurring into action beneath them with a series of faint crunching sounds through the hull. 'Construction equipment is much more helpful for everyone. It'll be cool when it has the flight system installed.'
"Indeed. And able to go to places it couldn't at the moment. Although there are surprisingly few of those." The machine was light enough, mainly due to the EDM construction allowing it to be far more delicately built than conventional materials, that it didn't have much more ground pressure than a human did, at least while unloaded. The hard stone material she'd used to resurface the place was wasn't marked by it at all. Linda claimed that it could even handle quite soft earth or hard mud with the built-in systems that deployed flaps from each toe sideways to spread the load, and it was more than powerful enough to wade through mud up to the hips anyway.
Not a lot was going to stop it, as long as the power systems held out.
"This would make a fearsome weapon, though," he noted as he hurdled the train, pelting across the ground at fifty miles an hour into a gentle curve along the waterfront just inside the fence. "It would allow some impressive urban combat uses, although it wouldn't fit inside a building very well."
'It could get inside a building without any trouble at all,' she snickered. 'The plasma torch or the blades would do the job nicely. Or just punch a hole in the wall. No distance weapons though.'
"It's capable of throwing things at a significant speed, so it's not entirely incapable in that respect even without adding something more dangerous," he pointed out, straightening up, then making the mech crouch mid run, before somersaulting forward with a push from the arms to make sure it landed on the feet again. He grinned. "I wasn't sure that would work. Impressive."
'Everyone else looks a little shocked,' Taylor laughed. 'Even Linda.'
"The more it's been used the better the motion control has gotten," he said approvingly. "It appears to learn rapidly. From the outside one would almost swear that it was alive now. That young woman is very gifted, she's done a superb job on everything. A truly excellent piece of design, and a lot of fun. I feel that if we end up mass-producing them, though, that we're going to have to think quite hard about how to stop them being used for detrimental purposes. We have the example of Saint and his people stealing Dragon's power suits and causing a lot of chaos with them, after all. Some very good security is probably required."
'Good point. We'll need to think about that. I wonder what happened to Saint and his group, anyway? He hasn't been in the news for months.'
"I have no idea. Possibly Dragon finally caught him?" The demon shrugged a little. "I doubt it really matters, he's never come near Brockton Bay as far as we know and probably has no reason to do so."
'Good point. Lots of closer criminals to look out for anyway, we don't need to worry about some weirdo who doesn't like Dragon. Try the quadrupedal mode,' she suggested. He nodded, reaching for the relevant control and toggling it while at the same time slowing down to a walk. The mech smoothly leaned forward, the arms adjusting somewhat to end up working as legs while the hands reconfigured into feet, and the cockpit slid back and tilted so it stayed upright. The end result left them sitting a couple of feet lower, but the machine was even more stable now.
"I wonder how fast it can run like this?" he commented. "No one has tried it yet."
'Let's find out.'
"Just what I was thinking." With a small smile, he ran it towards the farthest corner of the yard away from the buildings, hitting over sixty mph, then slid into the legged version of a power-slide, chips of stone spraying up from under all four feet.
'Hey! I'm going to have to fix that now!' Taylor laughed as he merely grinned more widely, spun the mech around to point down the fence towards the bay a quarter of a mile or so away, and pressed another control.
"I believe this was the one that Linda said removed the speed limiters," he commented, letting go of the controls for a moment and cracking their knuckles.
'She also said she wasn't sure what would happen,' Taylor pointed out.
"There's no one better to find out, is there? It's not like we can be hurt if it goes wrong. But I doubt it will, so far her work appears to be very reliable," he smirked.
'Fair point. Go for it.'
"As you say." Grasping both sticks again, he slammed them forwards to the limits, the machine grabbing at the ground with its feet and taking off like a scalded cat. They were pressed back into the seat momentarily with the acceleration, the cabin rocking a little for the first time she could recall. Normally the cockpit stabilization system damped out the movement of the legs eerily effectively, producing a ride like it was on rails.
The Varga kept an eye on the instruments, even while he held the sticks in 'go for it' mode. The mech galloped towards the water, its legs moving almost too fast to see. "Sixty miles an hour. Eighty. One hundred… One hundred and twenty two, and we have no room left." Yanking back, then wiggling the controls frantically, he made the machine flip end over end, clearing the ground by a good fifteen feet and spinning it around to point the other way in the process, then slide to a halt only feet inside the fence. "That was very nearly embarrassing," he said after a moment.
'Left it a little late there,' she giggled.
"It can swim, so the only risk was being laughed at," he chuckled as he brought the mech back onto two feet and aimed it back towards where Linda was staring with her mouth open and both Randall and Kevin were almost rolling on the ground. "And replacing the fence, of course."
'It's even faster than she thought it was.'
"Considerably so. Those motors are very effective, I remember the projected output was much higher than the original hydraulics." He nodded a little. "That was fun. Thank you again for letting me play with it."
'Like you're always saying, Varga, no thanks are necessary, but they're appreciated,' she told him quietly, feeling very pleased. Both of them fell silent as they jogged back towards the crowd, more than satisfied with their new friend's work.
"Does anyone know what this meeting is about?" Missy asked as she accompanied her team-mates towards the conference room. "Is it something to do with that horrible smell yesterday?"
"My money is on something Sophia did," Dennis said.
They all looked at Carlos, who looked back, then shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, all I know was what the email said. Meeting with the Director at half past four in conference room six."
"It's got to be connected with this rogue Parahuman threatening the Heberts," Chris commented, looking up from his tablet on which he was flipping through some sort of technical document. Missy had already had to subtly redirect him with her powers to stop him walking into a wall twice now.
"We'll know in a couple of minutes, so why bother speculating?" Dean shook his head as they all now looked at him.
"Because that's what we do, man!" Dennis replied. "We make guesses about things we have no knowledge of, then extrapolate from those guesses into the least plausible outcome and get upset about it. Everyone does that." He was grinning again.
Dean stared at him, sighed faintly, and shook his head a little.
When the elevator door opened silently, they all trooped out and headed towards the conference room, Carlos in the lead. Opening the door he led them inside. "Wards reporting as requested, Director," he stated when they had entered. Missy looked around, seeing that besides Director Piggot, Armsmaster and Miss Militia were present.
"Good. Sit, please, and we can get started." The blonde woman watched as they all took seats on the other side of the large table. She assessed them without saying anything for a few seconds, then looked down at a thick folder in front of her. Flipping through it for a moment, she appeared to be thinking.
Missy inspected her. The woman appeared somewhat tired and stressed, which wasn't particularly unusual, her job was both tiring and very stressful after all. But there was a slightly different air to her than normal, as if she'd had more trouble recently. Missy hoped it wasn't anything too bad, she sort of liked the older woman, even though she could be very shouty sometimes. Normally after Dennis did something particularly aggravating, although she also appeared not to like Sophia at all, which was very much returned.
The lack of Sophia at the moment was refreshing, in her opinion.
"Carlos knows some of this already," the director said after perusing the page she'd stopped on for a few seconds and looking back to them. "But not all of it. We have something of a situation, a very unusual and potentially both embarrassing and dangerous one. While I'm not entirely pleased about having to do so, I have no choice but to read you all into it and request your aid."
They exchanged glances, confused.
"I believe that four of you know, or at least know of, Taylor Hebert? The daughter of Danny Hebert, from the DWU? She attends Arcadia High School as do you four."
She was looking at Carlos, Dean, Dennis, and Chris. Missy watched them with curiosity, wondering at their various reactions. Carlos had suddenly looked thoughtful, which quickly turned to worry. Dean had stiffened, his face remarkably blank, and then in her opinion, forced himself to relax. She knew him well enough to think that this was an act. Miss Militia was looking at him a little oddly as well.
Dennis, strangely enough, had turned his head a little and was watching Carlos out of the corner of his eye, his expression to her eye suggesting he was thinking very hard. The boy came across as a happy-go-lucky sort of practical joker, which he definitely was, but she was well aware that he was also very intelligent and capable of some impressive leaps of logic. He reminded her a lot of Assault who was very much the same. Both of them tended to get underestimated since people got fooled by the surface act and often missed the quick wit below that.
Chris merely looked somewhat confused. He stared at the director, then looked around. "Taylor? Yes, I know her, she's really nice, and incredibly smart too. She's been helping me with my disability."
The three adults immediately focused on him, Director Piggot with an intensity that made him lean back a little. "Is that a fact, Mr Jacobs? How did that come about?"
"Vicky suggested it," he replied, a little uncertainly, since her expression was… odd.
"Victoria Dallon?"
"Yes. She, her sister, and four of Taylor's friends all go to Taylor's house once a week for math tutoring. Taylor's unbelievably good at math and has been helping them, so Vicky suggested that maybe she could figure out a way to help me with my dyscalculia." He smiled widely. "She did."
"Did she now..." The director was still staring at him. Miss Militia appeared, as best Missy could make out over her scarf, somewhat surprised, and Armsmaster was…
She looked again.
He was smiling a little? That was… different.
"How did she manage to help you, Chris?" the older Tinker asked with what looked like significant interest.
"She came up with all sorts of tests, thought about things for a while, then gave me a Japanese abacus and showed me how to use it. We practiced for a while and it's a hell of a thing, I actually get it. That's never happened before with any of the methods the school tried." Chris seemed excited, which Missy couldn't blame him for. He was smiling a lot and expressively moving his hands around as he spoke. "I can do long division with it! Slowly, that's true, it's not easy yet, but it's way better than anything else I've ever tried. She lent me a book on how to use them and I'm going back on Friday so we can see how it's coming along. My tutor in school was amazed, he's started looking into whether the same method would help other people, and said he was going to have to talk to Taylor about it. Mom and Dad are so happy too, we're going out tomorrow night to celebrate."
Chris was definitely pretty pleased, Missy thought with amusement. Director Piggot looked somewhat startled, on the other hand, although Armsmaster was emoting a definite sensation of satisfaction. "Saurial showed me some tricks with it too. Her math ability is just insane. You wouldn't believe some of the things she showed us. They both think that I might eventually learn to do the same thing the abacus does in my head, which would be incredible. Apparently people in Japan have been taught with this method for centuries. I looked it up when I got home and it's really interesting. I've already managed to pass a test at school using it, they're completely happy with me using it in class."
His enthusiastic commentary died away, the boy looking slightly embarrassed when he saw how everyone was looking at him. After a moment or two he shrugged. "Sorry. But you can't possibly know how much it meant to me unless you have the experience. She's the first person to really help me for that problem ever."
"Understood," Armsmaster nodded. "And impressive. It is not something I would have thought of. Miss Hebert appears to be good at lateral thought."
"And math. Even Family math, which is weird," the boy smiled. "Saurial showed us this odd little widget that she said was a children's toy, for teaching how to look at the world. It did… really peculiar things… to gravity. No idea how. But if you threw it across the room it didn't fly right, it took a strange path and made your eyes hurt. Taylor seemed able to throw it perfectly fine, which was bizarre to watch."
Director Piggot held up a finger, making him stop again. "Question?"
"Yes, Director?"
"Saurial was present at the Hebert's house?"
"Yes." Chris smiled. "It was a surprise to me too, but I think she must have spent a lot of time there, she seemed to know her way around as well as Taylor did. Mr Hebert didn't look surprised to see her when he came home. Amy was fine with it too, I guess that's obvious since they know each other and are really good friends."
"I see." The woman fixed him with a hard look. "And the reason I am only hearing about this now? After, as I remember, a ruling was put in place that all Wards were to minimize contact with the Family except for meetings on patrol, and to report all encounters?"
"Um..." Chris was now looking nervous. "She doesn't know I'm a Ward, I didn't know she was there until I arrived, and it was only a social visit?"
She kept looking at him. Missy watched, as did the others.
"I didn't think it was important, really," Chris stumbled on. "I mean, I was excited about learning something new that could help me, Saurial was just there as a friend of Taylor's, no one else seemed to think it was odd… She made sandwiches! Good ones!"
Missy felt sorry for him, the poor guy was almost babbling under that stare. She thought it just reinforced her feelings that they must never find out about her Cloak-time. Which she was overdue for, actually…
"I see." Director Piggot repeated herself. She glanced at Miss Militia, who was watching without a word, and Armsmaster on her other side, who seemed if anything interested rather than worried. "All right. We'll drop it this time. Considering the current issue, you'll have plenty of contact with her anyway, and I suppose we have no choice to accept that the Family are here to stay and on balance are a net benefit to the city. However, in future, should you find yourself in a situation that I have said I want to be notified about, make sure that you notify me about it, please, regardless of your personal leanings. Clear?"
"Yes, Director," he said with a slight quaver in his voice. "Does that mean that we need to tell you every time we meet Saurial or her relatives?"
It was her turn to stop and think. Eventually, she emitted a tiny sigh and shook her head. "I believe we've probably moved past that point. They seem to turn up in the oddest places anyway, and we know enough about them to know they're not hostile."
"And are remarkably non-violent and very hard to provoke," Armsmaster noted.
"Luckily, yes," she nodded. "Just… if you learn anything particularly noteworthy about them, report it. If nothing else so that we have some idea of what those crazy lizards are likely to do next." She seemed oddly resigned. "Not that we can probably do anything about it anyway."
"Does that mean we can visit them at the DWU yard?" Dennis asked with a grin, sounding quite interested in doing that exact thing. Probably immediately.
"I would prefer that you still keep your distance officially," she replied, a slight expression of annoyance crossing her face. Missy suppressed a giggle at the thought that this was more or less due to who it was, not the subject, as she tended to look like that whenever she talked to him. "Although if you happen to bump into them in a social context I can see no reason not act normally. Actively seeking them out, at the moment, isn't something I'm wildly keen on. We'll see how events proceed."
Shaking her head a bit she made a few notes, then closed her notebook and folded her hands on it. "No doubt you are all aware of the situation at Arcadia by now?"
"Rogue parahuman threat targeting Taylor Hebert, probably her father, and maybe some of her friends like the Dallons? PRT squad assigned to protect the school and cooperating with Arcadia security? The Family present for the foreseeable future, personally protecting Taylor? Saurial an officially unofficial member of staff for the duration?" Dennis rattled all this off in a professional monotone, then grinned. "No idea."
Director Piggot glared at him. "Thank you. You seem to have covered the highlights. And what do you mean about Saurial?"
"There was a lot of chatter in the cafeteria at lunchtime, Director," Carlos explained, having discreetly poked Dennis in the ribs. "Saurial and Taylor explained most of it, then one of the teachers made an announcement. Saurial spent half an hour answering questions. No one seems too worried at the moment, between her and the school staff everyone thinks they have it in hand, but there's a lot of rumors about who this Parahuman is. It's all over the PHO local affairs thread as well. People are coming up with the weirdest ideas of who it could be, and why they'd be after Taylor."
He shrugged. "No one seems to have any real idea, though."
"It's Sophia, isn't it?" Dennis said suddenly, having got that calculating expression again, which had attracted Missy's attention. Everyone turned to look at him, the adults with neutral expressions. "There have been rumors for months that something nasty happened at Winslow, and a couple of people said it had a Parahuman link. Sophia got taken off active duty around the same time, she's been locked up in here ever since. Half the staff, including the principal, of Winslow have either resigned or been fired and the board of governors is going nuts. Taylor transferred in to Arcadia half-way through January, and I've heard she came from Winslow after something unpleasant happened to her. And now Sophia has vanished without a trace, the PRT is all over Arcadia, the Family is all over Arcadia, a rogue Parahuman is threatening Taylor… It's Sophia."
He leaned back and folded his arms as the room fell silent. Missy stared at him, thinking about the things he'd said, and what she'd read on PHO and the news. As far as she could see it hung together, although she didn't know this Taylor girl.
"Excellent analysis, Dennis," Armsmaster said approvingly. "You are correct, of course."
"Play the video," the director sighed. He reached out and poked the relevant control on the table console, which made a screen fold down from the ceiling. "None of this is to be talked about outside this room. It is both confidential PRT information, and a private matter of the Heberts. I leave it to you to work out who you would least like to upset, me or the Family. Neither would be a good idea, trust me."
They watched the playback. When it ended, there was silence, until Dennis chuckled. "Note to self, don't piss off a Hebert. That was epic. Serves the bitch right."
"Why was Sophia being so mean to that girl Taylor?" Missy asked, more than a little puzzled. It was clearly something that had been going on for a long time, but even for Sophia it seemed a little excessive. And what was that about a locker?
Director Piggot pulled a few copies of a three page report out of her folder and slid them across to the Wards. "This is a somewhat redacted background briefing on what led up to what you just saw. As I said, this is confidential information. I'm showing you only because you require some context."
They all started reading. Missy felt ill half-way through the first page, and by the time she finished was furious. "How could even Sophia do that?" she sputtered. "And why? What did Taylor do to her?" She had a definite sensation of indignation on behalf of someone she'd never even met, especially as she could relate to a degree based on the way Sophia had treated her.
"As far as we know, there's no real reason," Miss Militia said with an expression of anger in her eyes. "She's… not entirely sane, I suspect. She's definitely a lot more aggressive than we realized, and seems to have taken a lot of that out on Miss Hebert. Her liaison officer and the former principal of Winslow actively covered up most of it, right up to the locker incident. For whatever reason, Mr Hebert appears not to have known about it until then, but when he found out, he took immediate and remarkably effective action. We suspect that he also had Family help."
"I'm surprised that Saurial let Sophia live," Dennis said, dropping his copy onto the table with a flick of his hand. "Guess she wanted to let Mr Hebert handle it. But I can understand why she probably wouldn't like Sophia very much. Hell, I don't like Sophia very much, for that matter."
"I doubt anyone does," Dean muttered, shaking his head and looking appalled. "God. That's nasty."
"And you knew all along, didn't you?" Dennis said, turning to Carlos, who immediately appeared slightly guilty.
"I was ordered not to say anything, it was a sensitive matter," he replied a little defensively.
"Carlos did nothing wrong, he was doing what I told him to do," Director Piggot snapped. "Forget about that for now. The main thing is that you understand that Sophia is out there, on the run, armed, dangerous, and almost certainly sooner or later going to make an attempt at some misguided form of revenge on the Heberts. Most likely other people as well, she had grievances with almost everyone she ever met, but they are the presumed priority targets."
"Armed?" Carlos queried.
"An audit showed a handgun and a quantity of ammunition missing from the armory, along with some other items," Miss Militia responded. "This happened immediately subsequent to Sophia absconding, so we're assuming she's responsible. It's more than likely that she also had a weapons cache somewhere and stopped to collect it on the way out of the city. That's on top of whatever else she finds."
"Is there a real risk to Arcadia?" Chris asked.
"We don't know, but we have to assume so," Miss Militia replied. "It's most likely that she would try to attack their home, but it's certainly not impossible that she might go for her at school, or threaten one of her friends for some reason. That's why the PRT patrol is there, and why Saurial is accompanying Taylor there. Until we catch Sophia, the Heberts and a number of other people are at risk."
"Which is why you will be carrying these with you from now on," Director Piggot added, leaning sideways and retrieving a box from the chair next to her. She put it on the table on top of the folder, opened it, and swiveled it around so they could see into it. Missy inspected the PRT type three taser, the small one that was used for undercover work, then looked at her teammates with raised eyebrows.
"Even at school?" Carlos asked, looking very surprised.
"Especially at school," she said. "They are aware of this. There are a number of restrictions. You will not show these to anyone under any circumstances, unless a clear threat to life is present. Even then, you are to attempt to contact the on-site PRT staff first, ideally Lieutenant Pratchett. We don't want you exposing your Parahuman status unless there is no choice at all. Got me?"
"Yes, Director," everyone chorused.
"You will be responsible for keeping these weapons out of sight, safe, and ready for use, until further notice. Not even your parents are to know you have them, and if they find out, you will notify me personally and immediately. As I've said, this entire matter is very sensitive, and we do not want the press, PHO, or any other uncontrolled actor obtaining any of this information. The embarrassment to the PRT would be… difficult to deal with, politically, and there's also the Family and the DWU to consider. If I had a choice, I wouldn't do this, but under the circumstances..." She looked annoyed.
"Why isn't Sophia in jail?" Dean asked. "I mean, from that report what she did was nearly murder. Or manslaughter at least. Taylor could have died in that locker. Or if nothing else been badly injured, mentally if not physically."
"Miss Hebert appears to be remarkably resilient," the director said. "Having met her, she seems to have suffered no ill effects. And I agree, Sophia should have been arrested and charged with assault immediately. Unfortunately, for reasons that are far too complex to go into now, politics demanded that she be kept accessible." She didn't look even slightly happy about that. "A mistake in my opinion. One that seems to have been borne out by subsequent events. When we catch her, I will be doing my best to make sure that situation is rectified as quickly as possible."
"If Saurial catches her, you probably won't need to do anything except arrange a tombstone," Dennis snickered.
"I would much prefer not having to do that," Director Piggot muttered. It didn't look like she disagreed with his comment, though.
The five Wards were brought up to speed on a number of related issues over the next twenty minutes. When the director was finally satisfied that they understood the situation and all the ramifications, she passed out four tasers to everyone except Missy, who felt a little left out until she thought about how she could be a lot more dangerous than some little electric gun.
'If I see Sophia, she's going to wonder what the hell happened for months,' she thought with an internal grin. 'I might even let her out one day.'
She didn't like the older girl before learning about her hobbies, and now she liked her even less.
"You've all been trained on these, but you'll take a refresher course with Miss Militia this evening before going on patrol," the director finished up as she gave, rather reluctantly, Dennis the final taser. "Don't mess it up. I will be very upset if you do."
"We'll be very careful, Director," Carlos assured her. "Won't we, guys?" he added, turning and fixing Dennis with a hard look.
"Of course, Captain Carlos," the red-head chuckled, saluting his friend snappily. "Totally professional. You can trust us, Director."
She gave him a hard look, which made him smile back.
"For some reason I'm not entirely convinced about that… However, I have no choice. Remember, this is all highly confidential. Dismissed."
"Ma'am," Carlos said with respect, getting to his feet. The others did the same.
"I'll meet you in the firing range in fifteen minutes," Miss Militia said to them.
With a nod, their senior member led the rest of them out, then back to the elevator, with the boys carrying their new toys very carefully. When the door slid shut, he sighed heavily. "Fuck, Dennis, do you have to do that right to her face? One day..."
Dennis merely snickered and resumed reading the small manual that came with the stun weapon, his face expressing interest. Missy watched him, smiled a little, and leaned on the rear wall of the elevator as they descended silently.
"Interesting that Dennis worked it out," Hannah commented a few seconds after the door shut behind the Wards.
"The boy is annoying at the best of times, but he is hardly stupid," Colin said. "I'm not particularly surprised myself. All the data was there. I'm more interested in the fact that Miss Hebert appears to have devised a method to aid Chris with his dyscalculia. A successful method. I would never have considered an abacus." He seemed thoughtful, she thought. "Perhaps I should have. The girl is clearly very smart with a gift for problem-solving. If he can truly overcome his disability it will make his Tinkering considerably more effective."
"Saurial is teaching her Family mathematics," Director Piggot remarked. "Why does that sound… slightly worrying?"
"Having encountered Family math, I find myself very impressed. It speaks to Miss Hebert's abilities if she can understand it, what I saw was remarkably advanced. Probably past the level that most professional mathematicians could handle," he replied, looking at her. "That matches what you were told by the staff at Arcadia. The young woman would seem to have a number of talents."
"Do you think that it's evidence that she actually did Trigger in that locker?" Hannah said slowly, looking at them both. "Maybe she got some sort of math-based Thinker ability."
Emily looked back, then shook her head. "I suppose it's not impossible, but I looked up her transcripts from before she joined Winslow as a junior. She was definitely gifted before all that mess started, her grades in mathematics and related disciplines were very high. If, as we suspect, the Heberts have been in contact with the Family for possibly years, it's not all that unlikely that she's been tutored in their own version of mathematics for some time. Possibly other things as well. Whether that's good or bad I can't decide right now."
"Interestingly, if she does have a good working understanding of that form of mathematics, she might well qualify for a low Thinker rating anyway," Colin said after a moment. "From what Chris said, she can understand at least enough to utilize a Family training aid, which may well mean she knows a significant amount about their dimensional manipulation techniques. If he was reporting accurately, the device must be doing something unusual to gravity, probably through fractal dimensional modifications as in the case of Ianthe's and Metis's armor. But Miss Hebert appears to be able to handle that."
Emily and Hannah exchanged glances.
"It implies some interesting things, actually," he went on with a thoughtful expression. "One is that it can be taught to and understood by normal humans. Another is that the Family may well have been in contact with the Heberts for longer than we thought. Possibly since the girl was born. I have no idea how, or why, though."
"It implies to me that the Family trusts, likes and will definitely go out of their way to protect both Danny and Taylor Hebert," Emily sighed. "Not that I really had any doubt."
Her phone made a low sound, causing her to retrieve it and check the screen. "Sergeant Foxton is still at the DWU?" she exclaimed with a slightly surprised expression. "Why? He should have finished training them by now and be on the way back."
It beeped again, so she prodded it, then stared.
"Oh, for god's sake..." she finally said, handing it to Hannah. Colin looked over her shoulder at the screen. Inspecting the photo of the large blue-with-orange-highlights bipedal mech that was displayed on it, Hannah felt her eyebrows go up and a slight sinking sensation fill her stomach.
"What the hell is going on in this damn city?" Emily grumbled. "Lizards all over the fucking place, Wards threatening civilians, and now the fucking DOCK WORKERS UNION is making fucking robots straight out of a science fiction novel. With a cat-woman Tinker on top of that! Where are all these people coming from?"
Once again the phone beeped, this time with a short video segment. Glancing at Emily, Hannah played it when the woman made a resigned gesture. They all watched the screen show the feline Tinker close the cockpit of her machine, start it up, then proceed to run around at high speed with a remarkable fluidity of motion. Far, far more convincingly than any similar device Hannah had seen before.
The feeling in her stomach got a little worse.
"Very impressive," Colin said approvingly. "I wonder what the drive system is? It appears far too fast for hydraulic actuators, unless they're running at extreme pressures, and that would require a large heat radiator. I can't see anything of that nature. Possibly some form of electric motor..." He trailed off, pulling out one of his notepads and sketching something. "Can you replay that, please, Hannah?" he added absently, still sketching, and working a calculation in the margin.
Hannah dropped the phone on the table in front of him and tapped play, looking sympathetically at Emily, who had a hand over her face under which faint muttering was happening.
It was that sort of day…