Missy looked out the classroom window, somewhat bored. The history teacher was droning on about shipping in the nineteenth century, a subject she found it very hard to become enthused about, although she was still listening with half an ear, while the rest of her concentration was on thinking about going out as Cloak again. She decided that since she wasn't on duty tonight, she'd try her other alter-ego out again and have some fun. 'I need to see if I can figure out how to be Cloak when I'm supposed to be Vista as well,' she thought, idly doodling a little drawing of Saurial that had more depth to it than it really should have done. 'She was right about that, if I can pull it off in front of witnesses no one will think we're the same person.'

It was a potential problem, since 'Cloak' so far only turned up when 'Vista' wasn't around, and sooner or later someone might start to get suspicious. 'Maybe Saurial can think of a way to do it,' she mused, looking around when one of her friends coughed a little, then going back to looking out the window at the trees on the other side of the playing field, which were just starting to bud. 'If anyone can, I bet she can.'

Making up her mind that she'd swing by the BBFO office after school, she turned the page and began taking notes when the teacher started writing on the board. Since the Director had told them that they didn't need to actively avoid the Family any more, she didn't feel at all guilty about visiting her friends. Not that she really did anyway, of course, but if she ever got found out it wouldn't be so bad now as when the older woman was trying to keep them away from the reptiles.

Not that it had actually worked, she snickered silently to herself.

Very quietly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme to herself, as she remembered her first visit to the DWU facility, she wrote down the assignments the teacher was giving them, all the while wanting school to hurry up and end for the day.

"Interesting."

"And worrying, sir."

"Yes, to some extent. Although it also raises some possibilities I hadn't considered."

The man behind the desk perused the report in front of him, turning pages slowly and carefully. "These creatures do seem to be considerably more effective than we expected. Coil was a difficult man to pin down, but from what I can see they made it look easy."

"I have a suspicion that they were deliberately downplaying their abilities," his subordinate commented, which made him look up for a moment.

"It's certainly possible, I suppose," he nodded, going back to the document. "They show a significant level of cunning in their interactions with the PRT. That's both useful and potentially troublesome." Finishing the report, he regarded the last page for a few seconds. "And now they have somehow recruited a high level Tinker as well. I wonder how that was arranged? And why have we never heard of her before? Her… less than human appearance is quite distinctive."

"I've been unable to find any background on a part-cat Tinker female, sir," the other man shrugged. "None of our contacts in Europe or anywhere else have anything either. My assumption is that she's a new trigger, which would fit with the admittedly minimal information on her. I will continue to investigate."

Flipping back a few pages, the first man studied the image on the paper. "This machine is remarkable. Do we have full specifications on it yet?"

"Only what's there. We've extrapolated from the online videos and the comments made on PHO, but that's not going to do more than give fairly vague parameters at best. I'll keep looking for more information."

"Excellent." He closed the report, then dropped the entire thing into the industrial-grade shredder next to his desk. A loud whine mixed with a crunching sound as the paperwork was rendered down into tiny particles in mere seconds. "And what progress on getting an agent into the DWU can you report?"

"Very little as of yet, I'm afraid, sir," his underling sighed. "It's proving hard to find someone we can use who can't be traced back. Kaiser has locked down the E88 as far as the DWU is concerned, and surprisingly enough his people are listening to him. We've attempted to persuade several of the people we've used before, none of whom were interested at all. The ABB are even worse. Lung has apparently issued orders that no ABB member is to go within half a mile of the DWU at any time under any circumstances. I'm not entirely certain why, but he's definitely treating them with the same respect that he seems to have for the Family as a whole, possibly simply by association."

"Where is that lunatic keeping himself at the moment?"

"I'm not sure, I'm afraid. He appears to be simply waiting to see what happens next. Kaiser is still in Aspen, apparently genuinely on a skiing holiday. Victor was left in charge and as far as I can find out is doing a good job of keeping the E88 busy and mostly off the streets. There are some low level gang members still engaged in minor street crime, but the organization as a whole is more or less dormant at the moment. Most people believe this to be due to the Family, which is probably largely true. The crime levels in the city are lower than they've been since the days of Marquis. The reptiles are definitely gaining a lot of acceptance, people are well aware of why crime has plummeted so quickly and seem to like it. With their takedown of the Merchants even people who were on the fence about them seem mostly to have gone over to being in favor of the group."

Leaning his chair back, the man behind the desk nodded slowly. "Understandable. Crime in Brockton Bay was reaching unsustainable levels, and it was only a matter of time before something dramatic happened. I have to say I didn't expect this, though."

"No one did," his agent shrugged, smiling slightly for a moment. "They were a total wild card."

"True. So, to recap, the Merchants aside from Skidmark and a small number of his most trusted people are now entirely out of the picture, Lung appears to have hunkered down and is just watching, Kaiser has left the city in the hands of his underlings and gone to recover in a ski resort, and Director Piggot and her people are actively working with the Family. In the process of which, they entirely dismantled Coil's whole operation in one day, captured him and all his people without any real injuries, and cleared out all the double agents he and others had inside the PRT."

"Essentially, yes, sir. We still don't know where Skidmark is, he's overdue to arrive back in the city from my information although I don't know why. It's possible someone managed to take him out, there's a number of bounties on him from several sources, adding up to a very significant sum. However, I would have thought that if someone did get him we'd have heard about it by now and we haven't."

"Irrelevant for the moment." He waved a hand dismissively. "The main thing is that the four most powerful villain organizations in the city have been effectively neutralized with barely a shot fired." He tapped his fingers on the desk, thinking hard. "As I said. Impressive."

"The minor groups have also undergone a significant change too. The Undersiders, who were remarkably slippery and much more competent than they were generally given credit for, have entirely vanished from public view. Faultline's crew left the city very early in the timeline, shortly after Saurial's debut, and have stayed away from Brockton ever since. I'm not sure if that's a coincidence or not, but the woman is nobody's fool, so it may well be deliberate. Über and Leet have gone very quiet as well, and there's some information that they've visited the DWU facility on a number of occasions. All of it is in some way linked to the Family, even if only circumstantially."

"I wonder if they're doing this on purpose?" he mused out loud. "It's… slightly unsettling if so."

"Based on most of the data I've acquired over the last couple of months, sir," his minion said a little uneasily, "It's either the result of a remarkably odd set of coincidences and near-accidents… or the result of a very clever and intricate series of interlinked plans, carried out with virtually no errors at all. I'm not sure which alternative worries me more."

He sighed faintly, nodding again. "I have to agree, although I think the first option isn't hugely likely. There are too many things that would have to line up to make it work, and even with powers in play, it seems a little infeasible. But that would imply that they have more resources than we expected, even in light of the information we have acquired to date." Falling silent, while the other man waited patiently, he thought hard for a while.

"All right. Continue to attempt to get someone inside the DWU. Carefully. We do not want the attention we would attract if anyone realizes the truth. We might have to call in a professional contractor if you can't find a local that can be utilized successfully. I'd prefer not to, those people are always difficult to work with, but..." He shook his head a little. "Make some discreet inquiries even so, through the usual cutouts."

"Yes, sir."

"And the Shadow Stalker situation? Any progress on that?"

"No, sir. She's disappeared entirely, although there have been tentative sightings of a young woman matching her general appearance across half the eastern US. Most of the ones I investigated are clearly wrong, but there are a couple that look plausible. Based on them, she's driving randomly across several states, probably in an attempt to throw off any prediction of her behavior or final destination. So far it would seem to be successful although that might not last forever. But she's a determined and vicious girl, I have little doubt that she's planning her return to the city and some sort of revenge attack."

The agent shrugged a little. "When she'll do that, who can say? It could be in a week, it might take a year if she's patient and careful. I doubt either of those are true based on past behavior but people change sometimes. With the PRT waiting for her, as well as the Family, she's going to have to be very careful, but I'm not sure she realizes how difficult it will be. Saurial is accompanying the Hebert girl to school and as far as I can find out has no intention of stopping until Stalker is dealt with. Which, incidentally, makes any attempt at putting pressure on the DWU via the Heberts problematic at best. The Family appear to value them, and have made it clear that they'd take a dim view of their friends being threatened."

"We need to work out a way around that," his boss mused. "But there's no hurry." Standing up, the man whose office this was walked across it to look out the window. "This could work out in our favor, I think," he said after a moment. "Those creatures have, one way or another, eliminated or drastically reduced the most annoying elements in the city. When we find a way to safely apply pressure to them…" He smiled a little. "They've done a lot of our work for us, without anything that can be traced back. Rather convenient all things considered."

"I'd have to agree. Although gaining control over them could be difficult. They're definitely dangerous."

"Oh, very much so," he agreed, turning to look at his companion. "Which is why we need to be slow, careful, and methodical. But we have the advantage, we know about them and they have no idea at all about us." He moved to the other side of the room, pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee, to which he added a small amount of expensive whiskey, not offering any to the other person. "We can work with that. It will take time, but sooner or later our goals will be met. Then…" He sipped his drink and smiled. "We'll finally have the upper hand back."

"As you say, sir," the agent nodded, also smiling.

"Keep me informed. Dismissed."

As the door closed quietly behind his man, he went back to the window and looked out, sipping his coffee and thinking.

"That's better," Taylor said with satisfaction, looking back along the road, which now had a perfect surface complete with lane markings rather than the heavily pitted tarmac it had been. She was currently using her Raptaur form in one aspect, while the Varga was controlling the other one. 'Saurial' turned to her and grinned.

"I think it looks very nice," her demon replied. They'd decided to repair the road into the docks on the way and had been experimenting to see how fast they could lay a similar coating to the one she'd used in the DWU yard. With a little practice it proved to be possible to do it at a decent walking pace, and as a result they'd resurfaced over two miles of road in under half an hour and were getting steadily faster at it. "We could spend a few days doing this and fix every road in the docks area."

"We should definitely do that at some point soon," she nodded, smiling. "Not now though, but this will do nicely for the time being. Should make it easier to get in for everyone, those potholes were getting horrible." That was true enough, they'd filled several that were almost large enough to swallow a small car. "We've got that list of other things around the place that need to be fixed too, we'll need to set some time aside for that as well." The guy on the city works team she'd talked to at the point she'd smacked into that bridge support had dropped it into the main office a few days later, having come up with a much larger list of things that required repair than she'd expected. Years, if not decades, of neglect had left a large part of the city in desperate need of maintenance for which there simply weren't the funds available.

Making a mental note to see that this was dealt with, she looked around again, feeling pleased, then both of them started moving again, new surfacing flooding out under their feet as they walked, one on either side of the pitted and damaged road.

Cocking an ear towards the faint knock, Linda glanced up from her whiteboard on which she was making a more detailed set of plans for another useful addition to the mechs. She capped the pen and put it down, then walked over and unlocked it, pulling the door open. On the other side were three familiar reptilian figures. "Hi," she said with a smile, standing aside to let Saurial, Raptaur, and Metis come in. "Nice to see you guys."

"How's it going?" Saurial asked, smiling back, then looking around. She peered at the drawings on the boards with interest. "We need to make some more of those for you, you've filled all these ones up."

Linda grinned. "I do seem to have a lot of ideas and I like writing them down."

"I hope you're making copies," Metis said.

"Oh, these are just draft versions," the Tinker assured her friends as she walked back to the whiteboards, the others trailing along. "I make better copies in my notebooks, but it's quicker and easier to sketch them out like this first." She waved a hand at a large pile of boxes next to one of the workbenches. "I need to set those computers up and then I can scan the stuff I've already done by hand and get it into a nice neat digital file. But I've been working on this and haven't had time yet."

"I can do that for you," Metis assured her. "It's the same sort of equipment we have over at the BBFO office."

"That would help, thanks," she replied, pleased. Metis nodded, then went over to the boxes and started opening them with a quick flick of a claw on the tape, although she was obviously still listening.

Raptaur looked at the newly delivered equipment for a moment. "That includes all the new hardware you needed for the mech systems, I assume?"

"Yes, there should be enough parts to put together half a dozen control systems," Linda replied, following her gaze. "All that stuff on the right side is stock parts for that job. There's some more coming, they apparently ran out of some of the processor boards Lisa ordered for me, those will be available later in the week. But it's enough to get started with."

"So if we make perhaps a dozen sets of the other parts, and some spares as well, that should keep you busy for a while, I guess?" Saurial commented, inspecting the mech that was now back together and powered down at the side of the main workshop.

"That would really help if you could," Linda nodded. "I've got some more designs I'd like to try, too. Parts for a better power supply, I want to make a couple of dozen of them and put them into stock, a new design for a stealth field generator, and the prototype flight system as well. How much time do you have right now?"

Saurial chuckled. "We have some things to do later, but we can put in a couple of hours. That should get you started."

"Great, thanks." Linda shook her head for a moment. "I still can't believe how easy you two make doing some of this. It would take weeks doing it the normal way even for the simple stuff."

"It's really not a problem at all, Linda," the slim lizard assured her, her sister nodding beside her. "We really enjoy making things, even though neither one of us is a Tinker like you. The results are incredible, too, which is a lot of fun."

"I think that as far as the PRT are concerned you'd both be classified as Tinkers to at least some level," she laughed. "And you sure understand a lot more about the stuff I design than most people would. I wish you could come tomorrow for my power test."

The lizard girl smirked at her. "As it happens..." she said, glancing at her sister. "I can make it, at least for a while."

"What about protecting Taylor?" Linda asked curiously.

"We can do that as well," Raptaur assured her calmly. "Taylor will be perfectly safe. But this is important to you, and having Saurial there will let you demonstrate what you're really capable of. Or at least as much of it as you want to let the PRT know about."

With a small sigh of relief Linda smiled. "Thanks. Very much. It's making me nervous, I have to admit, and knowing you'll be there to help is a fucking weight off my mind. We work well together."

"I like to think so," Saurial noted with a small grin. Cracking her knuckles, she spread her hands again. "Forget tomorrow for now, let's concentrate on doing something useful. What do you want to make first?"

Thinking for a moment, Linda picked up a sheaf of papers, spreading them out on one of the clear workbenches. Raptaur and Saurial came to stand on either side of her, inspecting the documents. "This, I think. It's the Mark 2 prototype hull and actuators. I got enough data yesterday to let me redesign the Mark 1 over there to make it simpler to assemble and a fair amount lighter as well. I've eliminated nearly fifty percent of the nuts and bolts and other fixings, and this new design of linear motor should be a little simpler. It should have more power as well, although not by much, but the main thing is that it's less bulky."

"Which means there will be more space inside the mechanism," Raptaur said with a nod.

"Exactly. That leaves room for some other upgrades I'm still working on." Linda tapped part of one drawing. "I keep underestimating how fucking impossibly strong EDM actually is. These parts can be made much thinner than would otherwise be possible, without compromising any strength in a way that we'll ever notice. The whole design is cleaner and easier to work on. Much neater than the first one."

"Which is the entire point of a prototype, of course, letting you see how to make it better," Saurial pointed out.

"Very true. So, if we can make one complete set of these, then see how they fit together, modify it if required..." Linda shrugged a little.

"And when you're happy, make a whole pile of parts?"

"That would do it."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Saurial chuckled. She glanced over Linda's head at her sister. "You make the motor parts, I'll work on these?"

"Fine by me," Raptaur rumbled, moving over to another workbench and taking a couple of the dimensioned drawings with her. Moments later the first parts began appearing in her hands, the huge reptile carefully fitting them together to check the tolerances. Linda watched, still amazed at how quickly her drawings and concepts turned into real hardware with these two around.

Shaking her head in wonder, she left the larger lizard to it and turned to Saurial. "How I could possibly have managed to make anything that worked before without you guys helping I have no fucking idea."

Saurial snickered. "You did a pretty good job considering. For certain values of 'good,' of course. Which didn't include 'pretty' I'm afraid."

Linda laughed. "No, not at all. But those days are behind all of us. Now we make..." She looked at the mech on the other side of the room. "...incredible things," she finished after a few seconds.

"And this is just the beginning," Metis put in, from where she was quickly building an elaborate desktop computer system from a large pile of components and boxes. "I can hardly wait to see something really impressive."

"That's not good enough for you?" Saurial remarked, waving at the mech with an inquiring expression.

Metis shrugged. "It's not bad I guess. But..."

Raptaur made a sort of amused grunt, glancing at her. "You have too much imagination sometimes, cousin. It's a very good first attempt for our friend here, and everyone knows it. Let her work at her own pace."

"OK, OK, I'm just saying I think there will be some interesting future developments." Metis grinned at Raptaur, who merely looked back at her with a smile, before both of them got on with their respective jobs.

Saurial, who was also looking amused at their comments, turned to Linda, while indicating one drawing. "This one first?"

"Yes, please, that's a good starting point."

"OK." The lizard-girl inspecting the drawing closely, checking a couple of points, then started manifesting the part, which changed shape slightly as she frowned at it. Comparing it to the drawing, she made more tweaks. "Hey, while I think about it, I had an idea for a transportation-related project if you find yourself at a loose end..." she said after a moment, trailing off suggestively.

"Oh?" Linda looked at her, as did the other two, Metis with an expression of curiosity and Raptaur with a slightly knowing look.

"It's sort of more along Kevin's lines, being from a movie, but it would be really cool if you could do it." Saurial inspected the part in her hands very carefully, then made a couple more changes. "Really cool indeed. And I bet it would make Armsmaster sort of jealous."

Linda looked hard at her. "You have my attention," she finally replied.

"Ever seen 'Tron'?" Saurial's sidelong glance was mischievous.

After a moment or two, Linda started a small smirk of her own, her mind suddenly giving her design after design.

"Oooh, I like the way you think," she murmured, reaching for a whiteboard pen.

"Good thing someone does," Metis said under her breath, snickering when her cousin looked at her with a small frown.

"Hey!" the lizard-girl complained.

Linda ignored both of them, and the bass chuckle from Raptaur, since she was now concentrating on drawing yet another design on the only whiteboard that wasn't covered in multicolored sketches.

Amy pulled up to the office, then turned the truck off and got out. Going inside the building, she looked around, wondering where everyone was. It was nearly six, since she'd stopped off at Brockton General after school to see if they needed any Parahuman healing done, finding several cases she spent some time on. Three cancer patients, two heart attacks, and a pair of victims of a particularly nasty car accident. She'd also put in an appearance in the trauma ward repairing a number of broken limbs and other less life-threatening issues, just because she was there and it seemed worth doing for herself and more importantly the people involved.

'Probably over at Linda's workshop, I guess,' she thought, while unlocking the door to her workroom. A minute later 'Ianthe' left the room, then the office, heading over to the Tinker's building to see what was going on. Knocking, she waited for Linda to answer the door.

"Hi," she said when this happened, the feline woman smiling when she saw who it was.

"Hello, Ianthe. Come in, the rest of your family are here as well."

"I expected that was the case when I couldn't find anyone," she chuckled as she went inside. Linda locked the door again then moved to stand beside her when she stopped dead and stared at the contents of the room. "Wow. You guys have been busy."

"It's pretty good isn't it?" Taylor's 'Saurial' aspect called as she put a half-completed mech cabin on a stand that hadn't been there the day before. There were several more laid out across the room, each with a nearly finished cabin on, while down one side there were six sets of legs and a number of disassembled arms and tails next to them. "We've got a nice little production line going here. You're just in time, you can help put them together."

"There's quite a bit of wiring and fine detail work to do before I can get them finished, plus I need to put some more power units together, but this is coming along really well," Linda remarked as she went over to a workbench. Indicating a couple of dozen piles of intricate parts, some of which were very delicate looking and oddly pretty, she added, "Saurial made all the things I need, though. These ones will have about forty percent more output than the ones I normally make, and they're half the size. I always had to improvise around not having the stuff I needed to do it right."

"I can imagine that it's a lot easier now that you don't have to," Amy said.

"God, you wouldn't believe how much easier it is," Linda replied, picking a component up and turning it over in her hand. "This thing would have taken me a week of machining to make something barely equivalent out of the crap I had access to, and it would have burned out in a few hours of use. The units I brought with me took me two months each to make, were the best ones I ever managed to do, and they look like crap compared to what these ones will be like."

"They still work very well even so," the Varga, who was running 'Raptaur' over on the other side of the workshop, said as he picked up a completed leg mechanism and moved it to a pile of similar ones laid out on the floor. "The first prototype appeared to have more than enough power for anything anyone asked of it."

"Yes, but I don't think the power supply would last as long as I'd like," Linda noted, looking at him. "These ones will work for decades with a little luck. It's annoying that they only seem to work if I put them together and tune them, though."

"There's something very odd going on with that," Taylor said, looking at the parts and frowning a little. "I can't quite work out what yet. I'll need to sit down and think about the math for a while at some point."

"If you can work out how to make one of these yourself, that would be impressive," Linda smiled, putting the part down. "But even if you can't, I can easily build them now that you've made all the components. These should keep me going for a while."

"If you need more, just ask," 'Saurial' replied. "Ianthe, grab this for a moment, will you, while I attach the top half?"

Amy walked over and steadied the heavy assembly, watching as her friend retrieved the crystalline cockpit window, which already had the hinges, lift mechanism, and locking system installed. In fact, as she examined it, they appeared to be part of the thing. Taylor and Linda had apparently optimized the design to reduce the part count a lot. Holding the lower section in place with one hand, she let go with the other and guided the protruding spigots of the rear hinges into the relevant sockets in the cockpit lower half as Taylor maneuvered it into place. There was a solid sounding clunk and it locked firmly into the bottom section.

"Good, that's that done," the lizard girl said with satisfaction. "You can put it down again."

"OK," she replied, carefully moving the completed cockpit unit into its cradle. "How many are we making?"

"Six completed units, and six more as subassemblies for now," Lisa, who was standing next to a pair of elaborate computers set up on a purpose-made table on wheels, said in response to her question. She was typing away on one of the keyboards at high speed, apparently installing new software.

"What she said," Taylor nodded. "Linda thinks that's enough to be getting on with. We can have all six running by the weekend then we're thinking about picking a few people to test them on the job. There are sure enough volunteers."

"There are so many volunteers we'll be busy for the next month making these things if everyone ends up with one," the Varga snickered. "At this rate no one will be driving cars around here, they'll be taking mechs home."

"Less easy to steal, I guess," Linda said with a grin. "The security system is a little more… enthusiastic… than anything Ford puts into their vehicles."

"Danny might have things to say about building a few hundred mechs," Amy grinned. "Like 'where are we going to put them' and 'oh, god, why me?' Or words to that effect."

They all exchanged looks, then laughed. "That sounds quite likely," the demon commented, looking like he was enjoying himself. "We should probably not go too overboard just yet. Although we can certainly make space, some careful fractional dimensional work on one of the spare warehouses would make a decent mech hangar."

"Six is enough for now," Linda said firmly. "It'll do to test them properly and let me work out the best control system for them, with feedback from the guys running them. When we have a final design, we can make more and modify the first ones to the same specification."

"Fair enough," Taylor nodded, moving one of the leg assemblies over to the cradle with the completed cabin. "Raptaur and I need to go and sort out Kevin and Randall's new place soon, before doing a few other things tonight. Let's get the mechanical parts all put together. Ianthe, if you and Metis can help, we can do that pretty fast."

"I'm nearly finished over here," Lisa said, typing some more, then clicking the mouse, which looked absurdly small in her talons. "Five minutes."

"All right." The lizard-girl aspect looked over at her other one.

"This is the last of the leg units," the demon replied without looking up as he finished snapping it together. Examining his work, he nodded in satisfaction. "All the arms are assembled as well, and the tails."

"Great work, everyone," Linda said, looking around with her hands on her hips and the end of her tail moving lazily back and forth. "Still can't believe how fucking fast all this comes together, but I'm not going to question it."

"It's not a problem, Linda," he assured her, turning around and smiling as he put the finished unit down. "It's enjoyable work, the results are very impressive, and as my sister said earlier, we like making things and helping our friends."

Shortly all five of them were busily building mech hulls from stacks of parts, each section slotting together nicely. Amy was impressed yet again how precisely Taylor and her demon could repeatedly fabricate things out of thin air. There was little doubt that all this was happening far more rapidly than could be done by normal techniques.

She and 'Saurial' were assembling the lower sections with the legs and tail, while the Varga-controlled Raptaur aspect and Lisa were attaching arms and the relevant sections to the bottoms of the completed cabin units. Linda was putting the controls together on the bench ready to be installed into the finished hulls when they were ready. In under an hour and a half they'd completed five units.

Picking up the most recently completed one, Amy and Lisa moved it over to the row of four more, while the other two reptilian figures got the final one ready for connecting the top and bottom halves together. Linda watched, having finished making the control systems moments before. "Not bad," she said, looking at the time display on one of her new computers. "About five and a half hours to get to this point."

"We're definitely getting faster," Amy chuckled, as they put the penultimate mech hull down, then went back to help with the last one. "I'm not sure it's a job I'd want to do all day every day, but it's interesting."

Shortly the last one was assembled. Linda climbed up it and opened the cockpit, while Lisa handed her the seat sub-unit. Both cat-woman and seat disappeared into the mech, sounds of a ratchet driver coming to them moments later. "Hand me one of the dashboard sections, will you, please?" she said, reappearing over the side of the mech. The Varga retrieved the requested part and handed it up. "Thanks."

A few more tool sounds came to them, then Linda stood up in the cabin and stretched. "Done. The others can wait. I'll wire this one up and install the power systems, and when I'm sure it all works we can do the rest. Thanks again, all of you."

"No problem, Linda," Taylor smiled, looking up at her as she clambered over the side and dropped lightly to the floor. Stroking the new machine, the Tinker looked pleased. "What color do you want it?" All of the mech hulls were currently the normal dull gray of EDM.

"I haven't decided yet," Linda replied, turning away from the completed unit. "It's not that important, I'll leave it for now."

"OK." Taylor leaned on one of the other mechs, studying the part feline woman. "Have you thought about what you want to take to the PRT tomorrow?"

"I'd like to take that," Linda replied, waving at the prototype mech and grinning. "Obviously. But I'm not sure walking down the road in it is a wildly good idea, people are going to run into each other staring at it. Or panic and run away."

"We could easily get someone to drive it over on a truck," Lisa said.

"I have a better idea." Taylor's Saurial face formed into an evil grin. "One that's much more fun."

"Do I want to know?" Linda asked warily, looking askance at her.

"You'll like it," Taylor assured her, walking over to the original mech and inspecting it. The Varga joined her, both of them exchanging a glance and a smirk.

"You're going to do something odd, aren't you?" The feline Tinker sighed faintly.

"A little unusual, fair enough, but not actually odd. It's quite normal where we come from." Taylor winked at her. Lisa and Amy looked at each other, the former appearing to be trying not to laugh. "Right..." Taylor tapped her muzzle with a finger, thinking. "How to do this without killing everyone within a mile..."

Linda stepped back.

"Joking," the lizard-girl snickered. "Probably."

"That makes it so much less worrying..."

Amy was fairly sure that both the demon and his host were silently discussing things that would make an unsuspecting physicist have a minor coronary. They walked around the mech a couple of times, then 'Raptaur' turned to her other aspect and nodded.

"That should work."

"I think so too. Let's see what happens." Taylor's smaller aspect stepped forward and put her hand on the mech, appearing to concentrate hard, while the larger one watched carefully. "Hmm, don't want to warp the power supply, it's doing something a little odd to space around it, so we need to wrap it in it's own fractal pattern..." Taylor mumbled under her breath for a few seconds, most of what she said leaving Amy none the wiser. Lisa seemed to be listening with interest and some understanding, she noticed.

"Ah. That's got it."

Taylor stepped back a pace, then studied the machine, which didn't appear to have had anything happen to it. 'Raptaur' nodded slowly, smiling a little. "Yes, I agree. Very nicely done."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Will you two stop being all smug and tell us what you did?" Lisa asked with a sigh. Taylor looked over her shoulder, then turned around, grinning widely. She looked very pleased with herself indeed.

"Did?"

"You did something to it. What was it?"

Both aspects walked towards them. "This," the smaller one said with a smirk, stopping ten feet from the mech and raising a hand.

She snapped her fingers.

There was a weird sound, followed by dead silence.

"Holy fucking hell in a handbasket," Linda said in a tone of flat disbelief. Amy shook her head, while Lisa looked quite surprised, then extremely interested and curious.

Both of Taylor's aspects turned around to inspect the place the mech had been. It was gone, at first glance. Only when one looked closer, or had been watching as Amy and the other two had done, would you spot the small two inch diameter ball that had apparently taken the place of the formerly hulking machine.

Linda wandered over and looked down at it, then bent down and reached out. Gingerly touching the sphere, she then experimentally picked it up, looking surprised that she actually could.

"How...?" She sounded completely stunned. "I mean… where did it go?"

"You're holding it," the Varga said in tones of satisfaction.

Raising the metallic sphere to her eyes, Linda studied it, then looked at him plaintively. "This… is my mech?"

"Yep," Taylor's other aspect said, sounding very pleased with herself. "Fractally folded in on itself. Like the fence, or these guy's armor. Almost all of it is sort of somewhere else right now, that's the part that's in the normal three dimensions. Tricky little problem but we've had a lot of practice with doing weird shit to space recently." She exchanged a look of amusement with her other aspect, while Amy and Lisa chuckled. "Comes in handy more often than you'd think."

"How do you get it back, though?" Linda finally said in a wondering voice, turning the sphere over in her fingers.

"Throw it at the ground and shout 'Mech, I choose you!'" Lisa suggested with a snicker. Linda looked hard at her and sighed loudly.

"Very helpful, Metis. Thank you for that."

"You're welcome, of course," the black reptile said with a bow and a grin.

Taylor, who was laughing at Lisa's comment, took pity on the bewildered Tinker and walked over to her. "Look, you do this," she said, gently taking the sphere from her. "Squeeze on both sides here, and push here with your thumb." She did the relevant actions, evoking a distinct click sound. "Then put it down and step back."

Placing the sphere on the floor she took Linda's arm and moved her out of the way. A few seconds later the sphere warped in a disturbing manner and expanded back into the familiar blue and orange machine in moments with a weird noise. The cat-woman gaped, before she began slowly smiling like a lunatic.

"Fuck me, that's incredible. How do you make it into that little ball?"

"See that sort of handprint shape on the side of the leg?" All of them looked at the indicated place, Amy able to see there was a subtle change in color there forming the outline of a hand. "Put your hand on it and press, then let go. It won't work for anyone else but you if I did it right, it's keyed to your biosignature"

Linda looked at her, then the mech, before walking closer and reaching out. Putting her hand inside the outline, she pushed hard, then jumped out of the way. A couple of seconds later the mech folded into itself with the now familiar sound of the universe sobbing gently.

"Fucking unbelievable."

"It worked even better than I thought it would," Taylor said with a happy smile. Lisa was staring at the sphere that Linda bent down and picked up again with wide eyes. Amy glanced at her and recognized the look of her power telling her many new things with inner amusement.

"What happens if someone is inside it when that happens?" Linda asked cautiously, sounding a little worried.

"Not much, it won't hurt them. Everything should keep working like it always does, the space inside the mech will remain normal, but it's folded away from normal space until it's opened out again. The life support would keep them alive." Taylor shrugged. "It can't happen accidentally so you won't get trapped. And I don't see you putting someone else in there either unless you really have to."

Linda examined the sphere in her hand, shaking her head in wonder. "You just keep coming up with impossible things, don't you?" she asked rhetorically. Taylor grinned at her. "You have no idea how many new ideas seeing that gave me."

'I've got more than a few myself,' Amy thought to herself, thinking about some interesting possibilities. Taylor and Varga did seem to be making the most of that bizarre excuse for mathematics they'd come up with…

"We need to come up with a costume for you before you meet the PRT," Taylor said, looking her up and down. "The overalls are a theme, certainly, but it doesn't really say 'Fear me for I am the Feline Tinker of Doom and Cool Vehicles,' does it?"

"What do you think the FTODACV should actually wear?" Lisa asked, tilting her head a little and apparently coming back from wherever her powers had taken her. "And that's a horrible name by the way, Vectura is much better."

"I have a few ideas, and Metis suggested a couple of things too," Linda replied, chuckling a little at the comment. "Nothing too fancy. Basically a helmet with a visor that can be closed, something I can put a decent visual interface into, along with some armored clothing. A little like what you made for New Wave. Dark blue with deep red trim, possibly?" She looked at 'Metis' who grinned when she added, "As a tribute to the person who saved me." Lisa looked down at her arms, moving one so the scarlet highlights rippled over the scales.

"That sounds reasonable," Taylor nodded. "OK..." She spun her finger vertically in a circle. "Turn around."

Linda did so.

"All right. Let's try this." Moving to a clear spot on a table, she began making a new set of clothing very much like the one she'd made Amy the first time. Glancing at the older woman every now and then, she finally held up the result. "Like this?"

"Looks pretty good," Linda replied, inspecting it with interest. "Even a sleeve for my tail."

"It's lined with EDM mesh, insulated, and all the usual stuff," Taylor explained. "The pockets are much larger on the inside too. There are some inside ones as well." She opened the top part with the zip, folding back the lapels. "Two on either side. You can put any electronics you want in there, I can make them larger or smaller as you need. The collar here will lock onto the helmet, so it can be made air-tight. I was thinking you can probably build in the same sort of life support system as you used in the mech?"

"That's a good idea," Linda said with appreciation. Putting her hand into one of the inner pockets she felt around curiously, getting up to the shoulder inside it. "Amazing. That'll sure help."

"Around the waist here is a sort of built in utility belt, lots of storage for tools and so on. And a big one down the back so you can put something large in it." Taylor showed her how to get at it. "Want a sword?"

"I don't think that's required," Linda snickered. "I have no idea how to use one anyway."

"I could teach you, but there's no hurry." She examined her work, then looked at Linda again in an evaluating manner. "I can probably make this work like those guys armor with a little thought. It would be easier if it was rigid armor, but..." She rubbed the scales on her chin, thinking. "I'll work on it. It would probably be useful to have it available whenever you wanted it."

"Give her a storage bracelet," the Varga suggested quietly. "That will do for now." Amy remembered the device her friend had come up with for Vista and nodded to herself.

"Yep, that's a decent plan." Taylor spend a few seconds making a slender silver bracelet then handed it to Linda, who took it and inspected it with interest. "Put it on," she suggested. When Linda had it around her wrist, the lizard-girl pointed at part of the delicate design. "Press there, and slide it sideways."

Slightly nervously the cat-woman did as instructed, twitching slightly when a fuzzy distortion appeared a foot from the bracelet in front of her hand. "Ah… What's that?"

"A trick I learned from a friend," Taylor replied with a smile. "It's linked to the inside of the bracelet, which is about a cubic yard or so. Look." She rolled the costume up and poked it through the distorted section of space, then let go. It vanished inside without a trace. Linda's eyes widened.

"Not bad," she managed after a few seconds.

"Just reach in and grab it." Linda looked at Taylor, then carefully inserted her hand into the distortion, feeling around for a moment, before pulling her new costume out again. "If you slide that back, it closes," 'Saurial' added, indicating the bracelet again.

Performing the relevant action, Linda shook her head a little. "For some reason that's even weirder than pockets that are larger on the inside. The laws of physics are just guidelines to you guys, aren't they?"

"More or less. Now, let's see about a helmet." Taylor thought again, before making a helmet that was rather different than anything Amy had seen her produce before. "This is based on a design I saw online for a really neat motorcycle one, but I improved it. The back opens up like this, then you stick your face into it." She hinged it open and handed it to Linda, who looked curiously at it for a moment.

"That is neat," she noted, before carefully putting it on the front of her face and closing the back half. There were places for her feline ears to fit into, which gave it a very distinctive profile that made Amy and Lisa exchange a glance and a small smile. "How's the fit?"

"A little tight," the Tinker replied, her voice slightly muffled. Reaching out and feeling the helmet, Taylor made some adjustments while the others watched with interest. "That's better."

"The faceplate will open as well." Linda reached up and felt for the catch, moving it with a faint click and opening her faceplate. "I can make it mirrored if you want."

"Just the top half, I think. That should look pretty good and also obscure my face enough so it looks like a mask."

"OK." Moments later the last of the changes were done. "Try the rest of the costume and see how it all fits." Taylor handed her a pair of boots and some gloves. "These should finish it off."

"All right, I'll be back in a minute," the Tinker replied, taking the items and heading for the small shower room at the back of the workshop. She came back a few minutes later, tugging on a sleeve. "This is pretty fucking nice. You have a gift for this sort of thing."

Reaching them, she turned around with her arms out, then stopped facing them again. "How does it look?"

"Very good," Lisa said approvingly. "A little dangerous, very professional, and pretty cool. I like the color scheme as well." The suit had deep red pinstripes down the sleeves and legs, and on the back forming a stylized cat's head that was vaguely reminiscent of the Varga logo that Taylor had on her armor. "It's also sort of similar to a racing driver's suit."

"Which is oddly appropriate," the Varga smiled.

"I like it." Linda flipped up her visor and grinned. "Very much. Thanks, again. I owe you something cool considering how many things you've made for me today."

"Forget it, this is what we do," Taylor laughed, waving a hand. "Want your name on it?"

"I doubt people will forget who I am." Looking down at herself, Linda flicked her tail a couple of times in the armored sleeve it currently occupied. "I have a feeling there aren't a lot of people who could be mistaken for me after all."

"Probably not."

"I believe with that, we should go and deal with the new workshop for our most recent recruits," the Varga rumbled, looking at the other aspect, who nodded.

"Yep. Better get that done. It shouldn't take too long. Then tomorrow we can get the electrical department to wire it all up and it'll be ready for them to move in tomorrow evening."

"New neighbors," Linda smiled, picking up the tiny storage form of her prototype mech from the bench next to her, flipping it in her hand a couple of times, then slipping it into the appropriate pocket. "I hope they're not too noisy, I have work to do."

"I'm sure you'll come to an arrangement," Amy said. "Probably one that involves copying ideas from each other."

"Probably," the female Tinker nodded. "Kevin's got some really good ideas, and I can see some possibilities for using a few of them. From what he said he's got something like ten years worth of crap to sort through. I might help." She grinned briefly.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what happens," Taylor said. With a final look around at the partly completed set of mechs and all the other parts and components, she seemed contented. "A good evening's work, I think. Well, we'll be a couple of doors down if anyone needs us, for an hour or so. Then we've got to leave."

"I need to talk to Danny so I'll see you later as well," Amy added.

"And I have some work to do too," Lisa put in. "So it looks like you're on your own for now."

"That's fine, I have plenty of things to do," Linda replied, taking her helmet off again and putting it on the bench. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll meet you at the PRT building," Taylor assured her. With a wave, she and her other aspect headed towards the door, the Varga unlocking it and letting his host out, then following her with a final smile back at them. Amy and Lisa followed them out, the Tinker closing the door behind them with a quiet 'good night,' sounding thoughtful and pleased.

{That went well,} Lisa said softly, speaking Famtalk even so. {She's a lot more confident recently.}

{That mech and all the nice things people said about her really boosted her confidence,} Amy agreed. {Especially when even those PRT guys looked so impressed.}

{She's very nervous about the power testing, you know, even though she's hiding it,} her friend commented with a look at her. {When that's all sorted out I want to see about getting her to talk to a therapist. While she's doing a lot better than I expected, I can't help thinking that her earlier life is still sort of haunting her. Which isn't surprising at all, it was pretty fucking horrible.}

{I can ask a couple of people I know through the hospital for some advice on that,} Amy mused, going over a list of possible candidates in her mind. {It shouldn't be too difficult to find someone who can help. It's not like we can't afford the best now.}

{Thomas is going to be paying for a lot of things,} Lisa snickered. {He'd probably be really pissed if he ever found out.}

{How much did you… confiscate… from him?}

The other lizard glanced at her, grinning evilly. {A fuck of a lot. I'm still going through it, but he was, at one point, a very wealthy guy. Half of it is probably stolen from what I can find out. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get it back to the people it belongs to. The rest is legitimate spoils of war, even legally, considering we're authorized good guys now. Confiscated from a villain in the process of capturing him.} She chuckled as they stopped outside the BBFO office, Amy unlocking the door. {Technically BBFO owns that Endbringer shelter too. On paper, at least.}

{What the hell are we going to do with an underground bunker?} Amy asked, closing the door when they were both inside. Lisa shrugged.

"No idea," she said in English, grinning. "But it's there if we want it. Paintball arena, maybe? We'll have to think of something to do with it when the PRT have finished going over it with tweezers and microscopes. Maybe donate it to the city or something."

Shaking her head in amusement, Amy picked up the phone and dialed the code for Danny's office. "Roy could probably think of a use for it," she said, cutting herself short when the other end was picked up. "Hi, Danny. I'm glad you're still here. Can you come over to the office?"

"I was about to come and look for you, Ianthe, so that's good timing. I'll be there in a few minutes," Taylor's father replied. In the background she could hear Mark and Kurt talking about something to do with the gate security. "I just need to finish with this meeting."

"OK, no hurry, I'm not going anywhere," she assured him. "See you soon." Putting the phone down, she headed towards the coffee machine, which Lisa was already fiddling with. Once he turned up, she intended to activate all his boosts and test them thoroughly. With him being away for a few days, and Sophia still wandering around somewhere out there, she intended to do everything she could to make sure that if anything went wrong he had all the advantages she could arrange.