"That's still a very cool thing to see," Lisa said as she looked past Linda at the mech, which was sitting in the middle of the largest clear space in her workshop, several of the outer panels removed and a surprising amount of test equipment wired into it.

"When I put it back together you can try it if you like," the other woman smiled, closing the door behind Danny who entered last. "Nice to see you both. You missed all the fun yesterday, Lisa."

"I got a good account of it from several people, so I know more or less what happened," the blonde replied. "Sorry, I was otherwise engaged most of the day. But it sounds like you made an impression."

"She certainly did that, Lisa," Danny said, watching both of them. "I've had at least ten people ask about being on the 'Mech Squad,' which is something I wasn't aware we actually had."

Linda started laughing, looking at his expression, which was a mix of amusement and resignation. "Sorry, Danny. I may have underestimated how many people would find these things interesting."

"Practically everyone who saw it, I'd say," he sighed. "Even the PRT troopers were casting envious looks in the direction of your new toy."

"We'll have to come up with a sensible leasing plan, then," Lisa snickered. "I'm sure we can do that. At this rate we'll need an actual marketing department soon."

"You may be right. Can you look into it?"

"I've already started," she grinned. He gave her a look, which caused her shrug. "Just trying to be a good assistant and anticipate your requirements before you know you have them."

"Sometimes you're a little too good," he grumbled in a good-natured way. As she laughed again, he turned back to Linda, who was finding their byplay quite funny. "I talked to Director Piggot this morning, and Miss Militia called back later to confirm an appointment with the PRT Power Categorization Department at 2.35 PM tomorrow. That OK with you?"

Suddenly having a rash of butterflies to the stomach, Linda closed her eyes for a moment, her tail twitching sharply with her feelings, then nodded. When she opened them both the others were regarding her with compassion. "We can put it off if you want," he added quietly.

"No, I need to do this. It's sort of the final bridge to cross to my new life," she said, before swallowing. "Sorry. Sometimes all this comes back and hits me in the face with how much things have changed, and how fucking quick." She looked around her private workshop for a few seconds, then back to them. "It's sort of overwhelming when I think about it."

"Understandable," he nodded sympathetically. "I think I have some idea about what you're going through. For what it's worth, you're doing a really good job handling it. Kadir is most complimentary about your work, and I doubt anyone can say anything bad about your other abilities having seen that thing." He nodded at the mech.

She was silent for a moment, then smiled. "Thank you, Danny. That means a lot."

"I'll be away for a couple of days, I'm leaving early tomorrow morning to drive down to New York, but Metis will accompany you. The Family isn't going to leave you to the mercy of the PRT, she said," he added, looking pleased. "I don't think Saurial or Raptaur will be able to make it, though, they've also got things they need to do."

"I was told about the possible Parahuman threat to you and Taylor," Linda said. "I know Saurial's protecting her at school." She grinned for a second. "PHO is going nuts about it."

"So I gather," he remarked. "I haven't had time to look at the local forum for a few days. Anything particularly good?"

"That guy who thinks they're all demons is warning that having one running around Arcadia risks corrupting other innocents," Lisa put in, appearing very amused. "But said in a more doomsday-like way, of course."

"Oh, god, that guy is nuts," Linda sighed. "Nearly as bad as Void Cowboy. Who is just… Void Cowboy."

All three of them nodded wisely. There was little doubt of that, and no better way to put it. "I find it rather disturbing," Danny said after a reflective moment, "that he is nearly as famous on the internet as Saurial, or Legend. I'm sure it says something very profound about people but I'm not sure what. Or that I want to know."

Again, they shared a common moment of empathy. Eventually, Linda walked back to the workbench next to the dormant mech and picked up a USB stick. She tossed to to Lisa who snagged it out of the air with a remarkably quick motion of her hand, then peered at it. "Saurial suggested we would need a manual for the mech," she explained. "That's got my notes on operation, diagrams of the controls, that sort of thing. She said you could work out the best way to do the rest." With a shrug, she added, "Me no good with words, only Tinkering."

At Lisa's laugh she smiled. "I'll have some more data once I've finished typing up my notes from yesterday and the feedback from everyone who tried it. The controls are going to change quite a lot but most of the rest should be fairly stable now."

"OK. I'll have a look at it, sort it into some sort of order, and find a couple of guys from the technical drawings and documentation department who can help," the blonde girl said, putting the stick into her pocket. "That OK, Danny?"

"Of course, go ahead," he replied. "Will you do a technical servicing manual as well?" He looked between them. "Can you even do that for a piece of Tinker-tech?"

Lisa studied the mech for a moment, then glanced at Linda, who shrugged slightly. "To a point, yes, I think," she said after a few seconds of thought. "I'm thinking that only parts of that thing are genuinely Tinker-tech in the normal sense, right, Linda?"

"Pretty much. The power source, definitely, and the computers started out as off the shelf equipment but Saurial and I made quite a few modifications to them. That might be a problem, I'm probably the only one who can service them right now, unless Dragon can work them out. We need to talk to her about that at some point." She felt a little nervous about meeting the famous Guild Tinker, but at the same time was looking forward to it. "On the other hand, Saurial made a lot of the other parts, admittedly to my design, but she understands how they work. The linear motors are pretty simple, it's the superconductor that makes them so unusual, the mechanical parts aren't particularly difficult except for the stuff they're made of… She could easily make as many of that sort of thing as we'll ever need."

Looking at the mech as he nodded his understanding, she went on, "Parts of it are something we'll need to treat as a black-box system, but most of it is something that could be understood and maintained by a good mechanic. Even if they couldn't make some of the parts, but those parts aren't going to break in the first place."

"How reliable will a production one be?" he asked. "I've heard that Armsmaster needs to spend an awful lot of time working on his own equipment, for example, and that it's not all that unusual with some Tinker made stuff."

Linda snorted. "Armsmaster is so obsessed with miniaturization and efficiency that he packs far too fucking much stuff into most of his gear, so of course it breaks down. A lot of it is pretty fragile, although I'll admit it's really impressive even so. And he's a perfectionist, always fiddling with things to make them better. My stuff is much tougher. Not to mention I deliberately designed this thing to be as simple as possible and very robust, because I don't want to spend all my time fixing them. I want to design new stuff."

"That's simple?" he exclaimed, pointing at the mech, looking shocked. She nodded with a smile.

"Oh, compared to some of the designs I've been thinking about, it's very simple indeed," she chuckled. "Trust me on that. But it'll do for now, there's lots of things I can add."

"Hmm." Danny studied her, while Lisa looked like she had some idea about what she was talking about and couldn't wait. "I'm not sure to whether to be impressed, worried, or both."

"Pity Saurial can't come with me," she said after a moment. "It would help if they want me to make anything on demand. I have to admit that she makes me a much better Tinker in some pretty important ways, since I can just tell her what I want and it appears out of nowhere. That's a much easier method than making it the hard way, especially when it's something you can't actually make in the first place."

"Like that superconductor material," Lisa commented.

"Exactly. I was amazed that she could do it, and I still am. It'll be interesting to see if Dragon could reverse-engineer it, so it could be made by someone else. It's a complicated material." Linda smiled slightly. "On the other hand, if only the Family can make it, it's going to be a real moneyspinner for a long time." She waved at her whiteboards, then walked closer to them, the others trailing after her. "I've got half a dozen designs here that rely on high temp superconductors in one way or another. A better antigrav unit..." She pointed at one complex, half finished drawing. "A new, improved power supply, and then there's that thing."

They both looked at the workbench she was indicating. On it was a nine-foot-long piece of machinery, with an opening about four inches in diameter showing at one end. Danny bent down and peered into the thing, then straightened up again and inspected the exposed and complex workings, which included several pieces made of the superconductor.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's a rail gun," she smiled.

He stared at her, then the machine. "A rail gun?" he echoed, a little weakly. "You mean, something to fire hypersonic projectiles? That sort of rail gun?"

"Well..." Linda also looked at it. "If you turn the power up, it'll sure make the thing you put in one end come out the other really fucking fast. But that might be dangerous. It's meant to fire metal pins into the ground to hold down railway track. Like a really big nail gun, only electromagnetic."

"A… rail gun," Lisa said slowly, then started giggling. "Oh, for gods sake."

"I'm not really ready to make weapons," Linda grinned. "I'm making tools. All related, at least loosely, to transportation. This transports six inch long sharpened spikes of steel into rail ties. Very quickly." She picked up an example spike, which was roughly the same as a standard one, but with a more symmetrical head. "Obviously, if you override the safeties, it would be possible to aim the device at a remote target. And increase the firing velocity to definitely unsafe speeds. The manual will recommend against that."

Danny put a hand over his eyes for a few seconds. "Promise me you won't let Alec anywhere near this thing, please," he said in a pained voice.

"Don't worry, this is going on my personal experimental unit," Linda assured him with a glance at Lisa who was still quietly laughing. "It's mostly to see if it will actually work, but it might come in handy. And it does genuinely work to spike track down. If you make sure the power is around 0.05% or so, of course. Any more and you'll probably only get a hole in the tie."

"Yes, you certainly fit in here," he sighed. She snickered, as did Lisa, who seemed oddly proud.

"Hey, want to see something cool?" she asked.

"Will it be able to kill people ten miles away with a single shot?" he asked warily. "Or engrave your name on the moon?"

"No, I haven't finished the moon-engraver plans yet," she assured him with a twitch of her lips. "This is entirely non-lethal. Old tech of mine, actually, although I made a better one last night." She pulled a remote control out of her pocket. "Watch."

Pressing a couple of buttons, she nodded at the mech, both the others turning to regard it. "I just do this..." Linda hit the last button in the activation sequence.

"Fuck me," Danny squeaked as the towering machine wavered slightly and faded from view in under a second, the effect looking like it had abruptly gone transparent, before even the outline disappeared. The various cables plugged into ports in the mech now seemed to hang in thin air with nothing holding them up.

"Not bad, is it?" she asked, satisfied with the result.

"That's… amazing," he managed to reply. Lisa was staring with great interest, moving her head from side to side and waving a hand in front of her eyes.

"It's a really good stealth field," the blonde finally said. Danny was now walking around where the machine was, before he cautiously reached out and felt for it. Finding the surface, he ran his hand over the invisible hull, appearing fascinated by the way his fingers blurred a little in the process. "It extends slightly past the surface, correct?"

"Yes. It's got about a quarter of an inch of the distortion field past the hull," she nodded. "Should work across the entire visible spectrum, and for most radar systems too. It also handles thermal radiation, and goes into the ultraviolet a ways. Most of the detection systems I could think of. Kevin's snitch camera might see it, sort of, because it uses some bizarre imager only he could have come up with, and I'm pretty sure Armsmaster has some way to see through it as well. He was getting annoyed about the old vehicles sneaking up on him." She studied it with a certain amount of amused mild pride. "Took him about a year to crack it, though. I think I can get around that with some work."

"Why do we need invisible walking forklifts, Linda?" Danny eventually asked.

"Invisible flying walking forklifts," Lisa corrected. "With very big nail guns on." She looked like she was trying not to burst out laughing again.

"It blocks sound too, so it's a method to avoid disturbing people during construction operations," Linda replied in reasonable tones. He gave her a flat look, making her smile. "That's perfectly sensible, isn't it?"

The man shook his head, then sighed. "I can tell this is going to be a theme. 'Perfectly sensible' ideas taken to ridiculous extremes."

She shrugged, still smiling. "It's what I do."

"So I see," he replied in long-suffering tones. "Oh, they're going to crap themselves tomorrow, aren't they?"

"I don't think you'll have any trouble impressing them," Lisa added.

"Please try not to traumatize the PRT any more than you have to, Linda," he finally said. "The Family are bad enough from their point of view. What with you as well, and Kevin and Randall when they finally find out about them, they're going to become… puzzled. Very, very puzzled."

"That's one way to put it, Danny," Lisa grinned.

"I almost feel sorry for them," he mumbled, tapping the invisible machine once more. Linda deactivated the stealth generator and they watched it fade back into view. "Armsmaster is going to have a lot of questions for you."

With a deep breath, Linda nodded firmly. "And I'll answer all the ones I think he needs to know about," she replied. "The PRT will be happy, or as happy as they're going to get, I'll be finally completely rid of the parts of my past I've left behind, and we can get on with fixing this place up properly."

Walking back over to her, he looked her in the eyes. "You'll make us all proud, Linda. That much I'm sure of." While she felt very pleased, he checked the time. "Sorry, I need to go, I have some phone calls to make and a few things to tie up before tomorrow. I'll see you later, I expect."

"See you, Danny," she replied. "And thanks. It means a lot."

"You're welcome."

Lisa smiled at her, glanced at the mech, gave her a quick thumb's up, and hastened after him. Seconds later she was alone in the workshop.

Almost collapsing onto a stool, she ran her hands over her head, smoothing her ears down, then sighed heavily. "God, I hope it goes well," she mumbled to herself, abruptly nervous again. In some ways she was looking forward to it, and in others she was terrified. What if they worked out she had been Squealer?

Looking at one hand, she flexed the claws in and out a couple of times, then flicked her tail. 'That's pretty fucking unlikely,' she finally thought. 'Ianthe and the others went to an insane amount of effort to make sure it wouldn't happen. And I'm going to do everything I can to help them all, and the other guys, and make sure things work out for everyone.'

Standing up, she moved to the bench that held the half-completed electromagnetic accelerator cannon. Running a hand over it, she mused, 'And if Adam does turn up again, trying to start something…'

After a moment she shrugged, briefly mourned the man she knew she'd lost for good a long time ago, and went back to work on the mech, humming to herself and content.

"Try to keep a lid on this place while I'm away, will you?" Danny said as he signed a few work orders. Glancing up at Kurt, he grinned. "I know it's not easy but I have faith in you. And listen to Lisa, that girl is very perceptive."

His old friend nodded agreement. "She does seem to be much better at the job than I'd have thought considering her age. Everyone likes her as well which helps."

"I trust her to do the right thing," Danny said, finishing the paperwork and pushing it to one side. "Listen to Saurial and her relatives as well, they're very smart and have an interesting viewpoint on things. On the other hand, try not to let them get too carried away. Or Vectura either."

"And running around the yard at a hundred miles an hour in a machine out of a sci-fi book isn't getting carried away?" Kurt asked with a smirk.

Danny sighed faintly, shrugging. "Not these days. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain what would be too far for that lot. Especially considering how everyone else here is perfectly happy to egg them on."

Sitting down, Kurt leaned back and regarded the man behind the desk for a few seconds. "Things have sure changed around this place. And the city itself."

"That they have," he agreed readily. Looking at the email on his computer for a second, he closed it. "That they have. More than I would have thought possible."

"Everyone seems to think it's a good thing," Kurt noted.

"Do you? Still?"

"Yes, actually," the other man smiled. "If only because it got me my oldest friend back the way he was. It's great to see you enjoying life so much these days, Danny. And Taylor is looking amazingly happy."

He smiled back. "You wouldn't believe how happy. She's made a lot of friends in the last few months and completely turned her life around, dragging me with her. Which is good." Both of the looked over at the door when someone knocked, opening it a moment later. Zephron stuck his head inside.

"A shipment of parts for Vectura turned up at the gate, Padrone," his deep voice rumbled, causing Danny to give him a hard look, which only provoked a smile. "Should I take it to her workshop? She hasn't got a phone installed yet so I can't call her, same problem with the radio."

"Talk to Lisa, ask her to chase up the phone company and the radio repeater equipment, then run it around to her workshop," Danny replied. "Actually, thinking about it, ask her to order half a dozen sets of equipment for the repeaters, if she hasn't already done it. We're sure to need them sooner or later."

"Got it." The man nodded to both of them and withdrew.

"Listen to Zephron as well," Danny advised when he was gone. "The man's a menace, he's got some funny ideas about this place, but he knows how to get things done."

Kurt snorted with laughter. "Zephron is as crazy as those lizards are, you mean. He's convinced he's either in the Mafia, the military, or both."

"Have you seen his latest 'DWU salute' yet?" Danny asked with a shake of his head. "You might be right about him, actually. Even so, he gives good advice. Same with Mark. I'm not expecting any trouble, but we do have that rogue Parahuman out there somewhere, and of course Skidmark. Hopefully he's either seen sense and abandoned his plans, or someone else got him first, considering that he hasn't turned up yet. But we can't assume that, so make sure people are alert for anything out of the ordinary."

As Kurt opened his mouth, he raised a hand, frowning. "And before you ask what 'out of the ordinary' means around here, just use some common sense."

His friend closed his mouth and grinned. "OK. Have a good trip, Danny." He stood up, his smile disappearing. "And give my best to Antonio. It's about time you two got over whatever it was that is between you. Your Dad wouldn't have liked you falling out."

Danny regarded him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "You're right. There were good reasons, though, but… I regret the way it went down if nothing else." He sighed a little. "Oh, well. That's the past. We'll see what happens."

Kurt nodded once, then turned and left. Alone, Danny leaned back in his chair, wondering how it would actually go, before deciding that was a waste of time and all he could do was wait to see. Sitting more upright he reached for his keyboard and started replying to the next email.

There were a lot of emails these days.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Sophia slewed the car around the corner, floored it, spun the wheel hard to the left to counteract the power slide, then hung on as the back end nearly went out on her. Sweating, she briefly considered abandoning the vehicle with her power, but as it rocked back onto all four wheels she decided to keep going. Watching the speedometer edge up to eighty, she glanced in the rear view mirror then swore again when a horribly familiar truck came into view behind her. It negotiated the sharp bend much more sensibly, not showing any signs that it was pursuing her, but she knew better.

"Fuck, who is that guy?" she screamed in frustration, hammering the wheel for a moment. "Every time I think I've lost the fucker he turns up half an hour later. How is he doing that?!"

It was true. She'd been playing follow the leader with that exact same truck for hours, with her in the role of the leader. After losing him, or her, possibly, for the sixth time, she'd gone to extreme lengths to circle back on herself, flip coins at every junction she came to, and do everything she could think of to randomize her path. Hiding between two other trucks for twenty miles, lurking under a bridge for half an hour, and even cutting across a field, none of those seemed to work either. Within a short period, that damn green truck would come into view, following her at a respectful distance that was just close enough to make her absolutely certain it was deliberate.

If it was a precog, it was a better one than any she'd heard of before, and if it wasn't, she had no idea how the trick was being done. But it was driving her nuts.

She'd zigzagged across three states so far and was ready to kill someone. Looking at the gun in the passenger seat, a .45 caliber hand cannon she'd stolen from under the till in a shop she'd burgled over night, she considered ambushing the bastard and just shooting him in the head. But that would risk too much heat, so she wasn't yet at that point.

Another possibility would be to somehow stop the truck and beat the answer of who he was and who he was working for out of the driver. That was easier, but if he was reporting back on her location, his handlers would know she was onto them. She snorted with irritation, it wasn't like they couldn't possibly realize that by now anyway. Maybe it was worth the risk?

A sudden light on the dash attracted her attention. The low fuel indicator was blinking at her now. "Christ, what next?" she growled in fury. She was going to have to steal a new vehicle.

Having gained a couple of miles on the truck, she slowed so she could check the map. At the moment she was climbing slowly, the landscape having become much more hilly, and the road was winding around the hills and often obscuring the view behind her. Ignoring the other vehicles that occasionally passed in the other direction, she manipulated the map, looking for a small town close to her where she could find a replacement vehicle.

"That'll do," she finally grunted, noticing that there was a tiny town off to the left about four miles further. The map indicated it was some distance lower than the road she was on, by about five hundred feet it looked like. Following the road with her eyes, glancing up every now and then to make sure she stayed in her lane, she saw that she'd have to go past the town, take a turning to the left a couple of miles later, then double back on herself. By the looks of it the main road ran along a ridge above the edge of the town itself.

That gave her an idea.

Glancing in the mirror, she checked the truck was barely visible in the distance. He was still following. Good. That suddenly worked in her favor.

Sophia folded the map and reached into the back seat, slowing to forty to allow her to take her attention off the road for a moment. Slipping the map into her main pack, she then heaved it across into the front, sticking the pistol and a few other things in as well. She zipped up that pocket and reached back again, grabbing her other stuff, which she'd compacted into another pack about the size of the first one so she only had to carry two. The second one had the big crossbow strapped to it, the bow itself removed and stowed separately.

There was some food, a few more stolen weapons, and a couple of changes of clothes in the trunk, which was a nuisance, but she couldn't spare the time to stop and dig them out. They were all stolen anyway and she could easily replace them. The things she actually wanted were in the two packs.

Making sure both were firmly secured, she returned her attention to the road, speeding up again. As she came around a corner and went over the top of the ridge, she could see down on the left the town she was aiming for. To her relief the road did indeed go past some distance up the side of the hill, which was a sheer drop of a couple of hundred feet before it started to level off.

Perfect.

She reached out to the nearest pack, unzipping a side pocket and removing the only item in it, which she hefted. It had been a lucky find in one of the places she'd raided on her road trip. It was very unlikely that the previous owner would report it missing either.

She wedged the fragmentation grenade down between the seats, then rummaged through the top of the pack for a length of strong cord and a carabiner, which she had half a dozen of. Holding the latter between her teeth she tied one end of the forty foot line to it, then clipped it through the ring on the grenade. The other end she wrapped around her fingers, holding on firmly.

Preparations complete and hoping it would actually work, she returned her attention to the road, looking for the best spot. Eventually she found it, a sharp bend on a steep descent. Aiming at the guard barrier took off her seat belt and floored the accelerator, checking that the truck was still back there.

It was.

Gritting her teeth, she held on, until the car was doing over a hundred. At the last moment she dived sideways, grabbing both packs and the coil of cord, taking them all along with herself into the shadow form that her power provided. She and her payload ghosted through the car as it slammed into the barrier square on at nearly a hundred and ten miles an hour, flipping right over it into the air then plummeting over the edge of the cliff. By the time it did so she was flying through the air as a shadow, paying the line out behind her.

As she'd hoped, the line she'd been holding was still in shadow form, with only the last foot or so which had been out of range of her ability still corporeal. The car went past her as she slowed rapidly, then the line jerked itself out of her hands. She let it go, watching it return to normal a moment later.

Sophia fell slowly through the air, buoyed by her power, while the stolen vehicle arced downward trailing broken glass from the windshield. Just before it disappeared into the trees there was a sharp explosion as the grenade detonated, her improvised trap working as planned.

'That should slow them down,' she thought, sinking towards the ground. She was still moving quite fast, since not only was this the highest leap in shadow form she'd ever tried, but she'd never been moving so quickly before either. Even so it was slow enough that it wasn't going to be a problem. 'Hopefully they'll think I'm dead.'

Glancing up she could see the bent barrier for a moment before it vanished behind the lip of the cliff. A few seconds later she landed, reverting to normal just above the ground and rolling as she let go of her packs.

"Ow," she muttered, climbing to her feet rubbing her elbow, which had found a hard piece of ground or a root or something. Having retrieved and put on the larger pack, she picked the other one up, looked around, and headed down the slope away from where she could see smoke starting to blow around from the wreck.

With any luck that would throw her pursuer off the track for good. Now all she had to do was sneak into town, find a suitable vehicle, steal it, and head off in a random direction until she could locate a suitable place to hole up.

And change the bandages on her wrist, which was throbbing nastily, the sudden action apparently having torn the scar tissue that was forming.

Swearing under her breath about the perfidies of Tinkers and their stupid tech, she stomped as quietly as she could manage through the woods towards the town, while also wondering who that fucking trucker had been.

A couple of hundred feet above her, a green semi ground to a halt next to a badly dented section of guard rail, the occupant looking at it for a few seconds. He got out, checking both ways for traffic, then walked over to the other side of the road, peering down the drop. Raising the binoculars he was carrying to his eyes, he scanned the woods below, inspecting the place where smoke was rising, then looking around it for a while.

Eventually, he lowered them, walked back to his truck and climbed inside. Moments later it hissed as the airbrakes came off and started moving again, while he reached for his phone and hit a speed-dial number. It was time to report.

"Hi, Amy," Taylor said as she entered the bathroom between classes, seeing her friend standing in front of the mirror frowning at her reflection. "Problem?"

"Just wondering if I'd look better a little taller," the other brunette smiled.

"You're fine the way you are," Taylor assured her, amused.

"Says Miss nearly-six-foot-tall Hebert."

"Sorry, you'll have to shout, I can't hear you all the way down there," Taylor giggled. Amy shook her head, trying to look annoyed and failing. "Oh, I've got a math study period as the last thing today, so I'm going to leave early, since I don't really need it. The teacher doesn't mind. I'll meet you at the yard later."

"OK." Amy washed her hands, then dried them. "I'll see you later," she added, as the bell rang to give them a one minute warning. With a wave she left, Taylor hurriedly finishing her own business and doing likewise.

'We can make Linda's spare parts as soon as we get there, that shouldn't take too long, and we'll have enough time for the other things we need to do tonight,' she thought at the Varga.

"Hopefully, yes," he agreed. Right then they didn't have the second aspect out, having used it quite a bit so far today. Their 'run-time' was steadily rising with practice but she still needed a break between uses. "I wonder if the PRT has been contacted about Linda yet?"

'We'll find out when we get there,' she replied. 'But I think probably yes. Dad said he was going to call Director Piggot.'

"How far away do you think the PRT building is from Arcadia?" he asked as she went into the next classroom moments before the bell rang for the last time.

'I've never checked,' she admitted. 'A little less than three miles or… Ah. I see your point.'

Sitting down she pulled out the relevant biology textbook, and her notepad. "It would undoubtedly help Linda to have Saurial available. Shall we test it?"

'I think so.' Manifesting her other aspect as the small dragon outside on the roof, she looked around, splitting her attention between listening to the teacher and the other aspect. Getting her bearings she launched into the air, gaining height for a few seconds, before teleporting a couple of times. Moments later she was flying around the PRT building, cloaked and smiling to herself. 'Great. That's useful.'

"Indeed it is." Her companion sounded pleased. "Pity we can't yet manage the DWU from the school, but it's only a matter of time. I suspect that when we have enough practice, our range will go up quite substantially at a rapid rate."

'It's increased quite a lot already,' she noted. 'We couldn't do this at first.'

"Practice generally improves most skills," he told her with a mental smile. "This is no different. Now, I believe your teacher asked a question about mitosis."

'Oops,' she thought, having put a little too much attention into flying around three miles away from the classroom. Quickly reviewing her memory, she answered the question, causing the teacher to nod and write it on the board.

Leaving her friend to the second aspect, she withdrew to the Taylor one and gave the class her full attention. She would have time for fun after school.