Linda nodded to herself as she finished torquing down the last bolt on the hydraulic pump transmission of the excavator she'd just serviced. Quickly checking with the handheld light that everything was back in place, she put her tools away, before scuttling along the inspection pit to the steps at the end, straightening up as she climbed out. Wiping grease off her hands on a rag, she stretched a little, then climbed into the cab. Moments later it was wheezing as it turned over, before the big diesel caught with a roar. Gently working the throttle she let it warm up for a minute.
When the gauges showed normal temperatures and pressures she put the machine through its paces, checking that everything was working correctly. The pump itself had been fine but the worksheet had shown that it was consistently losing pressure after a couple of minutes of operation. She'd traced that fault to a seal in the regulator section of the main distribution valve which leaked internally when hot and pressurized. It was easily replaced, aside from the annoyance of having to take a lot of parts off to get at it, which had added two hours to what would otherwise be a fifteen minute job.
Satisfied that the machine was now functioning correctly, she shut it down, then made a few notes on the clipboard sitting on the dash, ticking the relevant boxes off then writing a short description of the fault and the repair she'd made. The DWU motor pool had a very well organized set of paperwork for damn near everything, she mused as she signed the document.
Climbing out, she checked the hour meter on the engine, then put that figure down as well, and double-checked that the serial number matched the one on the form. Finally finished, she headed over to Kadir's office. "That job's done," she announced when he looked up from his computer. "Five dollars worth of high pressure sealing washer on the regulator, that's all it needed."
"Excellent, Linda. Thank you." He accepted the clipboard, scanning the documents with an expert eye. "All in order as usual. Here's the next one." He gave her a different clipboard. "The DP150 in the corner, the lift mechanism has failed."
She looked the paperwork over, then leaned back slightly to look out the doorway to the relevant machine. The large yellow forklift was parked in the far corner behind several other vehicles being worked on by the other mechanics. "OK. I'm just going to go to the cafeteria for a large coffee first." She yawned a little.
"It was a long day yesterday, wasn't it?" he commented, turning back to his computer. "One full of some interesting machinery."
She looked at the back of his head for a moment, then shook her own a little. "Want a coffee, Kadir?"
"Thank you, Linda," he replied, not looking up. "Black, please."
With a nod she turned to leave.
"I was very impressed, by the way," he added quietly. "I can hardly wait to see what happens next." Looking back she saw he'd turned his head a little to look impassively at her. After a moment, he went back to work, but she could almost swear she'd seen a wink.
Smiling a little, she left the garage, waving to a couple of the other workers and feeling that life was going well right now.
Roy sighed, shaking his head. "All right, Emily, I believe you. No one knew this stuff was so potent because no one really has any data on it. I'll figure out some way around the complaints." He looked up from his desk at the PRT Director, who was sitting on the other side next to Legend. "It would help a lot if we could tell the truth. You stopped a major super-villain, broke up a huge and possibly years-old criminal conspiracy, and prevented what could very easily have turned into a bloody massacre. I mean, that fucking man actually tried to detonate his self-destruct! If we tell the public that, I'm sure we can spin..."
Legend shook his head regretfully, interrupting him mid-word. "I'm sorry, Roy, I don't think that's a good idea. Not yet, anyway. There is still a lot of work to do on rounding up everyone who could be involved. We're fairly sure we got most of them, but we still haven't finished interrogating the prisoners, so there may be others out there we don't know about."
"We've barely started interrogating them," Emily grumbled, picking up a shortbread cookie and biting into it viciously. "Goddam Calvert is still too shaky to talk sense, although he's calming down slowly. He freaks out if we turn the lights off, which is both somewhat amusing and more than a little worrying." She looked pensive for a moment. "Knowing what Saurial did to him, I almost feel sorry for the bastard every now and then, before I remember what a shit he is. He deserved every minute of it, but even so..."
"She and her sister are horrifically good at psychological warfare," Legend shrugged. "We could rewrite the entire manual based just on what they did on this operation. God knows what they could do with more time, or against someone they had a real grudge against." He smiled briefly. "Luckily they don't seem to hold grudges, and are generally fairly disinclined to go after people. I admit it would bother me more too if I hadn't seen the inside of that torture chamber."
"A genuine torture chamber?" Roy asked, feeling ill. The other man nodded soberly.
"Very much so. Let's just say that the DNA evidence so far is compelling, suggesting more people than I care to consider went in there. It also tells us that some of them at least didn't come out alive."
"Christ." Roy stared at them both. "Well, on behalf of the city, thank you and your people for shutting the bastard down. And the Family, of course."
"They made it possible, if only by alerting us to the problem in the first place. And without their help I have little doubt that the casualties would have been immense." Emily looked angry again. "How that man could have been that deep into our systems for so long… He had to have had high-ranked help, at least one other person at his level or above. I'm almost sure of it, but so far we can't find any real evidence."
"There may be no evidence, Emily," Legend pointed out. "It's possible it was entirely his work. He's very smart, skilled, and persistent. And has been working on this for at least a decade."
"Yes, Yes, I know all that, but it still smells wrong."
Both of the others looked at her, then each other. She put a hand on her face for a moment, then sighed deeply. "Sorry. That was unintentional."
Roy grinned. "Maybe Saurial is rubbing off on you?"
She glared at him. "Don't even joke about that, Roy. I know you like the lizards, and he thinks they're hilarious..." She jerked a thumb at Legend, who was abruptly smirking, the expression quite unlike the normal one he wore in public and one that made him look a lot more normal in a way. "But while I'm slowly coming to grips with them being here, it's still a lot to take in. Let me deal with it at my own pace, please."
"As you wish." He let the grin lapse, although he was still amused. Her reactions to the Family were always worth watching, even though she did genuinely seem to be trying to learn to deal with it. "OK, so we can't come clean for now. Annoying, but we'll have to work around it. But it's also leaving the University in an awkward place, people are blaming their lab practices for this and I've heard there is already a call for boycotting them, or protesting, or some such foolishness. Which would inevitably get the students out on the street, probably on both sides of the argument, and you remember what happened the last time..."
She groaned. "Oh, god. Why can't we lock young people up until they're twenty-five and have learned some common sense," she said, looking irritated. "I swear they're getting worse."
"We were just as passionate about things in our youth, Emily," Legend gently chided her. "I know I was. And I'm sure you were. They mean well."
The woman didn't look any less irritated.
"It's something we have to deal with, though," Roy went on. "We need a convincing story, some cover for now that doesn't put the blame on a completely innocent research lab whose name we have publicly dragged through the mud. And one we can walk back on without too much trouble later, when this eventually does come out, which I guarantee it will." He shrugged. "There are already rumors on the internet. Aliens, of course, that's the usual first one, then some Parahuman villain, which is oddly close to the truth, the Russians, the Canadians, the city itself doing something nefarious, the government in general… Oddly enough the only people not being blamed are the PRT and the Protectorate. Which is quite funny, considering."
Director Piggot sighed loudly. "I hate politics," she groused. "And I hate you. And everyone else in this benighted place."
"I know you don't really mean that, Emily," he chuckled, exchanging a glance with Legend who was smiling.
"Don't bet on it," she muttered, but there was no heat in it. "God, I'm not paid enough to deal with this shit. I have actual work to do."
"Look, leave it with me for the moment," he suggested. "We'll come up with some plausible cover stories and you can run them past your own PR people. Check them over to make sure they stand up for now. We can't keep it bottled up indefinitely, there are way too many leaks in this city, but we should be able to keep a lid on it for long enough. My own people are very experienced at minimizing the impact of things on the public."
She gave him a narrow-eyed look. He grinned, shrugging once again.
"Around Brockton Bay, you learn you have to be… careful… with the truth. Or people tend to get upset. On the other hand, the citizens of the city are a remarkably pragmatic lot in general. They have to be considering our history. They'll calm down quick enough, if we're as open with them as we can be. Which isn't enough, I admit, but we just have to deal with that as we can."
"Your silver tongue is going to get you in trouble one day, Roy," she sighed.
"It's in a good cause, though," he snickered. "We've all done things we regret, I'm sure, but in my case at least I like to tell myself it was with the best intentions. And yes, I know the saying."
"I've dealt with a lot of politicians over the years, Roy," Legend said with a good-natured smile, "but you are one of the very few I genuinely believe is doing his job to the best of his abilities, rather than purely for personal gain."
"Thank you, Legend," Roy grinned. "That means a lot, considering the source."
Emily looked between them. "For god's sake, don't encourage him," she snapped. "He's hard enough to deal with at the best of times. And is far too close to those lizards."
Legend laughed for a moment, then helped himself to one of the shortbreads. "I feel the city is in good hands, overall, Emily," he replied with composure. "I wish the New York city authorities were so… helpful."
"It's a much bigger place," Roy pointed out. "And there are a lot more people. And a hell of lot more money. That makes a difference."
"It does," the other man nodded.
"All right. That's that issue out of the way." Roy made a few notes on a pad. Emily appeared to relax slightly. Putting his pen down again, he leaned back in his chair, regarding them both. "Now… Tell me why the PRT is setting up shop in Arcadia, and all about this rogue Parahuman threat, please." He reached out and pulled a printout of the PRT security bulletin out of a partly open drawer in his desk, dropping it in front of them. His smile sprouted a certain amount of teeth, in a manner he liked to think would make Saurial proud.
Emily suddenly wasn't looking at all relaxed.
Danny put the phone down and looked at the note he'd jotted down, before getting up. Very shortly afterward he was tapping on the door of Lisa's office, next to his. "Come in," she called, at which he opened the door and entered. "Hi, Danny," she smiled as he closed it again. Looking at the paper in his hand, then his face, she added, "Quiet, and the Incredible Lisa will guess your secret."
He closed his mouth, having been about to say something, and folded his arms, raising his eyebrows.
"Thank you," she said, the smile gaining the slightly smug look it tended to when her power was at work. After a moment, she snickered. "I was right. Tomorrow afternoon, around half past two."
He handed her the slip of paper, which read 'PRT building, main entrance, 2:35 PM.'
"The Incredible Lisa is pretty good," he chuckled. "Although her act needs work. Not enough build up."
"I'll think about it," she replied, grinning. "OK. Want me to go tell her?"
"She'll still be working in the garage," he said, shaking his head. "After lunch, I think. I'll come with you."
"All right."
He looked at the computer screen in front of her, on which was a complex spreadsheet, along with a number of open pages from the employment and payroll records system. "I've added our new hires to the relevant places, Randall joined us two days ago and Kevin a week before that," she said, following his eyes. "All the timestamps and other data prove that beyond doubt."
"The Incredible Lisa is nearly as good as she thinks she is," he commented, making her smile again for a moment. "Good work."
"I thought it was best that they're not directly associated with each other in the records, just in case. It's a fairly weak cover, no one in the DWU will get taken in by it, but it should help against outsiders if anyone comes sniffing."
"OK, that's reasonable," he nodded, pulling a spare chair over and sitting. He glanced at the door, checking it for any signs of eavesdroppers.
"There's no one close enough to hear anything," she smiled, tapping her ear, then her nose. "'Ianthe' does excellent work."
"How good are your senses now?" he asked curiously.
"Not as good as Saurial's, say, but way, way better than practically anything below that. It was a bit overwhelming at first," Lisa admitted. "Took me a while to get used to it, but my power was ecstatic. It seems to thrive on new information and this lets it get far more than it could. It loves the Family."
He looked at her for a moment. She flushed a little. "Yes, I know how that sounds. They get the same look. But it's true."
"I am definitely out of the loop on some things," he muttered.
"Your enhancements haven't been turned on yet, you'll understand more when they are," she assured him. "Even without powers, it's going to be interesting. Make sure you get that done before you go away."
"Why?" he asked, looking at her expression.
She shrugged. "I can't say for sure. It's not even really my power, although it agrees. More a gut feeling. Let's call it a precautionary measure."
"Hmm. Now I'm feeling worried," Danny commented wryly. "Thanks."
"All part of what you pay me for," she snickered, turning back to her computer. "I've also been going through the new applications Kurt and a few others passed on to me. Most of them look good. This guy here, he's E88, but I'm about ninety-five percent sure Kaiser doesn't know about him applying for the job, considering he's ordered his people to stay as far away from us as possible. I'm not completely certain if he's trying something of his own, or whether someone put him up to it."
He looked at the photo she'd brought up on screen, that of a shortish, strongly built young man with very short hair and scar on the side of his chin, blonde and blue-eyed. Of course. He was smiling cockily in the photo.
"Recommendation?"
"Let Metis interview him," she said with a dark grin. "It should prove useful. And if it turns out Kaiser does know about it, we need to have words with him. If not, we might get helpful data anyway."
After some thought, Danny nodded. "OK. Try not to traumatize the poor bastard too much. It's not impossible he wants to get out of the E88 and into something more legal."
"You'd take someone like that?" she asked, not sounding particularly surprised.
"We've had worse, even before the recent influx of actual super-villains," he grinned. "Believe me, the backstory for some of the guys, and at least two of the women, is pretty bad. But they sincerely wanted to make amends for it, have successfully done so one way or the other, and are valued members of the Union. If that guy genuinely does want out, and is willing to leave his baggage behind..." He shrugged. "All that really matters is that the past stays in the past, like I said before."
"And if he turns out to be a multiple murderer trying to hide?"
"Well, in that case I guess we deal with it." He glanced at her, seeing she was watching him with interest. "It's not like that can't be done easily enough."
"Very true." She nodded, making a note in the file with a rattle of the keyboard, then flicked through a few more photos. "What about this one?"
"Another gang member?" he asked, studying the older man, probably in his thirties, who looked like he'd gained a lot of experience in things the hard way, somehow.
She laughed for a moment. "Sort of. Undercover cop."
He stared at her, then at the photo. "You sure about that?"
"One hundred percent. But not BBPD. State cop."
"What does he want?"
"I don't know yet, but it's not the first one we've had apply. Two more have tried it, none of them came through Kurt, Mark, or any of the other personal recommendations. Those are mostly either ex-military, ex-sailors, or guys from various industrial jobs. I haven't found anything unusual about them so far, or rather, not unusual for the sort of people we have around here." She looked amused. "In some places they might raise eyebrows. We do seem to have a hell of a lot of people who were trained by various militaries."
"They tend to be very good workers, know all about teamwork, and look out for their friends," he nodded. "Even if they were technically on opposite sides at one point. Sometimes especially then. There's a couple of guys who were missile operators, for example, one of ours and one of the Russians. Spent years underground during the worst parts of the cold war ready to kill each other's countries. Best friends now, they'd die for each other."
"I know them," she replied. "In the scrappage crew."
"Yes." He inspected the face on the screen. "What should we do about this one, and the other two?"
"I think we let me interview them, and ask a lot of polite and innocent questions," Lisa said, also looking at the monitor. "With… I think Kurt as well. Between us I suspect we can find out what they're after."
"It's weird, we're not doing anything illegal at all, or anything that would even look suspicious as far as I know," he remarked, puzzled. "Weird, fair enough, but this entire city is that. What would the state cops want here?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. Possibly they think that someone here is a person of interest, possibly they're just fishing. Not enough data yet, but I'll find it."
Getting up, he put a hand on her shoulder for a second. "That, I have no doubt of, Lisa. Thank you."
"No problem. I'll come find you later and we can go and talk to Vectura. And I'll contact the boys and arrange transport for all their crap, once Saurial and Raptaur finish setting up the new workshop. That'll probably be tomorrow night."
"Great. Talk to Zephron and round up half a dozen drivers. Knowing those two, there will be a lot of stuff to move."
"Got it, Boss," she said, mock saluting him. He pointed a stern finger at her, shaking his head, then left to the sound of her laughter. Smiling to himself, he headed back to his office, pleased that the girl was enjoying herself so much. She was rapidly becoming indispensable to both him and the DWU, leaving aside the fact that he liked her a lot.
'You really do bring the most interesting people home, Taylor,' he thought. 'Wonder who the next one will be?' Thoughts of that and why someone was trying to sneak a cop into the place kept him busy for a while, but eventually he got back to work. Time would tell, after all.
Heaving the crate off the ground, Randall carried it over to the side of the warehouse, putting it down on top of the previous one. It was big enough that without his Amy-boosted strength, he'd have needed either the power armor or a forklift to move it, but now he could pick it up with fairly minimal effort. While still bulky, it wasn't hard.
Kevin was carefully packing up the next one, while around him a couple of dozen more lay around, the lids mostly propped next to them, and a few with various items in. They'd been sorting through the vast amount of equipment, tools, props, and random items they'd collected over the years and trying to put it into some sort of logical order.
Looking at the row of six identical four foot cubes, each with 'miscellaneous' written on them in large black letters, he grinned wryly. Not always with any great success, it had to be said.
Picking up a partly disassembled and blackened piece of machinery, he turned it over in his hands, trying to remember what it had done. "Hey, does this go into 'anti-gravity' or 'invisibility'?" he asked, tentatively identifying it. Possibly. He thought.
Kevin looked over, cocked his head a little, then shook it. "Garbage. That's the innards of the old food processor."
Randall inspected the thing more closely. "You sure? It's sort of complicated."
"It was a very expensive food processor."
"I remember, I bought it. Then you took it to pieces and did something horrible to half of it."
"Still don't need that crap. Toss it."
Randall did, scoring a direct hit into one of the large garbage cans on the other side of the room. "Goal."
"Idiot." His friend grinned at him, then went back to his task. Looking around, Randall sighed gently. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, really, it's just… this has been our home for three and a half years. I'll sort of miss it now that we're going."
"I won't," Kevin snorted, scooping a final handful of packing peanuts into the crate from the large bag of the stuff at his elbow, then quickly nailing the lid on. He wrote 'Things man was not meant to tamper with, box #3' on the side, then turned to his friend. "It's too far from the takeout places, too close to Lung's territory, leaks, when the wind gets up it blows right through in half a dozen places no matter how often we fix it, and it smells funny."
"I think that's you. Did you shower last night?"
Kevin sniffed, then made a face. "Only half of it's me. God alone knows what the other half is, but it died a long time ago."
"OK, you have a point. Still, it's a change that came pretty quickly. Yesterday at this time we were independent entertainers, and now we're going to be actual working stiffs." He shuddered, very obviously, which made Kevin snicker.
"We'll still be independent. We'll just be independent with a lot of other people who are also independent."
"I'm not sure that word means what..."
"I know the quote. Everyone knows the quote. Stop quoting it all the time."
Unable to help himself, Randall started laughing. Shortly Kevin joined in. When they ran down, they got back to work, slowly building a large pile of crates full of weird inventions, most of which they'd never thought would be anything other than scrap again. But now?
Things were going to change, and it was going to be very interesting.
Randall paused after a while as a thought struck him. "Hey, think we can talk Amy into making us lizard suits?"
Snickering, Kevin shook his head. "I doubt we could actually stop her at this point..."
They shared a look, grinned at each other, and resumed work.
Yes. Very interesting.
Pat looked up at the sound of the door opening, seeing a familiar person enter. The large Japanese man walked over to the bar, nodding to a few of the other patrons as he passed and waving briefly to Erwin, who was inflicting some of his friends with yet another story of the sea, and slapped a ten dollar bill on the top.
He looked surprised when Pat picked it up and handed it back, before pulling him a pint of his favorite beer and giving that to him as well. "Already paid for," the barman said.
"Who?" The voice was rough, but not hostile, more curious that anything.
"Saurial."
He'd timed it perfectly, the cough his patron made into the mug sent beer everywhere. More amused than he should have been, he tossed a towel to the customer, poured him another beer, and then held out the envelope the lizard-girl had left. "She left this for you."
When he'd finished wiping his face and glaring at Pat, who was suppressing a smile, the Japanese man grabbed the letter and flipped the towel back in the same move. He inspected the writing on the front, his face expressing momentary surprise, then opened it. Pulling out an oddly folded sheet of the same sort of high quality paper he smoothed it out on the bar surface and stared at it. Pat could see it was more Japanese writing, the calligraphy looking very elegantly done.
Scanning it, the other man's face changed through a number of odd expressions, before settling into one of neutral interest.
"Pen."
"Here you go," Pat replied, handing him one of the ball-points he kept next to the till in a glass. Taking it without comment, his customer turned the letter over, thought for a moment, then quickly wrote some more ideographs. He refolded the letter, put it back into the envelope, handed both envelope and pen back to Pat, picked up his replacement beer, and walked off without another word.
The barman watched him go, shook his head, smiled a little, then put the pen back where it had come from and the letter back into the till under the cash drawer. He had a reply for Saurial when she stopped by next time, although he had no idea at all what it was about.
'Odd fellow, Kenta,' he thought as he watched the man sit near Erwin and roll his eyes at the tall tale the old bastard was spinning. 'Very odd. But he's a good customer, and they're all nuts in here anyway, so there's that.'
Sitting down on the stool behind the bar he picked up the novel he was working his way through and flipped through it to the place he'd left off, resuming reading while waiting for someone to order some more drink.
Taylor felt someone staring at her. Casually turning her head she saw that in fact the entire table of Wards was looking at her. As soon as she moved, all them went back to their food as one, smelling guilty, concerned, and a little embarrassed. Vicky was looking at all of them with a slightly befuddled expression, turning to glance at Taylor, who shrugged with a small smile. The blonde smiled back, then prodded Dean and asked him what he thought he was doing. The boy mumbled something inconsequential then changed the subject.
"I would assume that they were informed about you and the Trio," the Varga said in her head from the other side of the table, where 'Saurial' was sitting, eating some fried fish. Her other aspect looked at her for a moment, carefully not looking at the Wards.
'Guess so,' she replied silently. 'It's pretty much what we expected. I have a feeling that Carlos knew about some of it, based on the way they're looking at him.'
"That would make sense as he's their leader. I expect that he's informed about a number of things his team-mates are not."
'Might explain why he's been a little stand-offish, both as Carlos and as Aegis,' she commented. There was a sensation of agreement from her demonic comrade. 'It doesn't matter, I told Vicky and Amy about it some time ago, and I don't think I really care any more. Emma is basically gone, Madison is irrelevant, and if Sophia turns up, we grab her and hand her over to them. Assuming they don't get her first. Which they may well do, they're serious about it."
"I'm not surprised about that, not only does Director Piggot have the embarrassment about losing someone she was responsible for, but they desperately don't want to have an incident on their hands involving either us, or the DWU." He glanced at her again. "They're going to do everything they can to avoid that."
'Fine by me,' she smiled internally. 'I wonder where she is?'
"A long way away, plotting and planning, I suspect," he said. "We'll probably see her again sooner or later. Unfortunately."
'Well, if she comes, she comes. We'll be ready. I'm more interested right now whether Lung will agree to meet.'
"He'll agree," her friend assured her. "If nothing else, from curiosity."
'I'm looking forward to it.' Both of them turned to the others and resumed their interrupted conversations.