Dinah swallowed as she heard her name come from the auditorium just on the other side of the door. She glanced at Mr Garson who was standing next to her, the man nodding in a comforting manner. She nodded back and he opened the door, following her out as she headed up the steps to the stage towards where Director Piggot was standing, having just introduced her after a short speech about the Wards program, all the good things it did, and so on. Camera flashes went off all over the room amid shutter sounds and subdued chatter. She kept her eyes on the director for the first few feet as she tried to quell her nervousness, stopping half way to turn and look around at the people attending.
Fixing a small and polite smile on her face, she lifted a hand and waved in the general direction of the couple of hundred people staring at her, many of them through lenses or via screens. There were a couple of large TV cameras at the rear of the room, one on each side, the operators of them slowly tracking her with the things. She recognized a couple of the reporters from the TV news and was a little taken aback that all this was because of her.
At the front, Missy and the other Wards were sitting in a row in full costume, the ones whose faces were at least partially visible all smiling. Missy herself waved back, making Dinah's smile a little more genuine. The blonde girl was becoming a good friend, their shared Ward-hood bringing them closer together. Even Dennis was radiating a sort of pleased air, which made her look a little suspiciously at him. Just over the time she'd known him she'd learned that this often meant something was going to happen. Hopefully he'd restrain himself until he wasn't being recorded for posterity, but there was no absolute guarantee of that.
His own name was proof enough of this…
She noticed a pretty blonde of about seventeen or eighteen sitting next to a black girl of roughly her own age a couple of rows back, both of them watching with interest while nomming some doughnuts. There was something about the blonde that was just a tiny bit familiar although she had no idea why. The younger girl was grinning in a mischievous manner that gave her a remarkable resemblance to Dennis when he was in one of his moods, which made Dinah think she was someone else who liked a good joke. Aside from herself and the other Wards, the girl was the youngest one in the room. Perhaps she just liked press conferences?
It was a weird hobby but whatever.
Her ruminations had taken mere seconds. Deciding that she'd stood there long enough, she turned to the left and carried on, arriving next to the Director who somehow managed to radiate mild approval without changing her fairly neutral expression at all. "I am pleased to introduce the newest member of the ENE Protectorate Wards program, Prospect," she said into the mic that carried her words around the room through the incredibly good sound system. "Prospect is an intelligence focused Parahuman with significant abilities to extrapolate percentage chances of future events. She'll be behind the scenes working with the PRT to prevent small problems turning into big ones, as her powers don't lend themselves to street level operations. As such the public will seldom see her, but rest assured she is helping out in many places to the best of her ability."
Dinah heard the words after the short delay, which showed that Mr Garson had activated the anti-question system. She was rather glad of that, since with this number of people, if they started shouting out questions that she was forced to answer she'd be overwhelmed in seconds. Glancing at him where he was standing to her right and behind she got a tiny nod back, showing he was on the ball.
"Do you mean she is a Thinker, Director?" one of the reporters in the middle of the room called.
"That is correct."
"Can you tell us Prospect's official rating?" another one loudly asked.
"The exact details are restricted for security. Suffice it to say she is highly rated." Director Piggot seemed now mildly amused at how this clearly didn't satisfy the woman who had asked the last question, but the reporter didn't push for more. Dinah suppressed a smile of her own, trying to strive for the same expression of polite neutrality coupled with a 'don't screw with me' aura that the older woman so competently produced, apparently without even trying. Standing with her arms at her sides in a relaxed, open, yet professional stance as the PR people had taught her, she waited patiently for all this to end.
"She looks a little bored," Aisha whispered to Lisa, offering her another doughnut at the same time. Lisa took the pastry and nodded.
"Wouldn't you be? She has to stand there for twenty-five minutes while a load of reporters ask the same questions they ask every time."
Aisha rolled her eyes as she bit into her chocolate glazed snack. "That would drive me nuts. It's bad enough sitting here and I've got something to eat."
"Hey, you're the one who snuck in here, you only have yourself to blame," Lisa snickered. Aisha glared at her.
"And you're the one who nearly pulled my arm off getting me out of that cart."
"The one you'd have been caught in for sure..."
"Um..." Aisha fell silent, making Lisa smirk a little. The girl had noticed how thorough the PRT security check had been and there was no doubt at all that they'd have found her on the spot. She didn't seem to think that would have been exactly what she wanted, based on the muttering as they sat down. Privately, Lisa was surprised that her companion was being as well-behaved as she was. By now, half-way through the short press event, she'd rather expected that Aisha would be looking around for some way to, as she'd probably put it, 'Liven things up.'
It was a phrase she'd heard Brian complain about more than once. It normally preceded something weird enough to have been the result of Taylor having fun happening, normally at the expense of someone else's peace of mind.
Extracting a couple of cans of coke from one of her coat pockets she handed one to Brian's sister, who looked slightly puzzled about where it had come from but happily accepted it nonetheless. Both of them popped the tabs and drank. Lisa was very pleased with her new coat, it was both very stylish and full of surprises. It had taken quite a lot of convincing to get Taylor to make it for her, since she was insistent that Danny's was a one off special creation, but eventually she'd agreed to make something that was close but not identical. Even then she'd claimed that she was reserving this version for specific people.
And had promptly made one for Amy and one for her base form, custom fitted to each. That had amused Lisa quite a lot.
Still, it was a very nice coat.
They'd spent a while coming up with a standard design for a DWU jacket as well, something more industrial than her one, and made a couple of prototypes. Taylor was going to talk to Zephron and a few others about them and get feedback on any modifications they wanted, but her goal was to outfit every member of the union with the things. Her unstated thought was obviously that it was a good way to essentially get everyone to wear the equivalent of nearly inpenetrable body armor without making this apparent. She was definitely worried about Skidmark or some other threat turning up when she wasn't around to protect the group who she obviously cared a lot about and was doing what she could to forestall problems, something Lisa and Amy both completely agreed with.
The press introduction wound on steadily, eventually coming to a close some fifteen minutes later, which seemed to make both the director and Dinah heave a discreet sigh of relief. Lisa found it quite interesting, at least due to what wasn't said as for what was. Emily Piggot was nearly as good as managing the press as Roy was, something that seemed likely to be the result of an awful lot of practice. But where the Mayor steered the reporters in the direction he wanted them to go by avuncular good humor, sly jokes, and slight misdirection, the PRT woman did it with hard looks and the occasional lethal glare, which seemed to work nearly as well. Lisa thought it was instructive and quite funny.
Dinah seemed to have relaxed a little, having been very tense when she came out of the back room, although she hid it quite well considering how young she was. But after a while, when it became clear that the director was managing the questions expertly, she slowly untensed and seemed to be more or less enjoying herself although also visibly wishing it was over.
Lisa's power had helpfully informed her that the girl was wearing some electronics in her ears that could essentially add a delay to everything she heard when it was active, most likely one of Armsmaster's designs. It was a neat solution to the problem of having an always-on power that insisted on answering any question it heard that was correctly asked. The man standing behind and to her left was apparently screening anything asked of her to ensure it didn't trigger her ability. Presumably the long term goal was to have some smart computer system that would remove the need for a human in the loop. In all probability that would ultimately be supplied by Dragon.
Overall it had worked out well for everyone. The press got a number of soundbites, got to see the new Ward and ask some inane questions and the much rarer insightful ones, the girl herself got some exposure to the press under controlled circumstances… Not to bad for only forty minutes.
When the Director asked for any last questions, casting a look around the room that suggested it would be a brave reporter who took her up on it, Lisa stretched a little. Then she nudged Aisha who was half-asleep next to her, having apparently decided that doing something 'Interesting' right in front of the PRT director was probably not the wisest of courses to take. Moments later Emily called an end to the event, Dinah and her minder quickly disappearing into the back room, followed by the rest of the Wards and Miss Militia who had been standing to one side of the room keeping an eye on things with several troopers.
"Huh? What?" Aisha looked around rather blearily, then blinked a few times. "Oh, is it finally over?"
"Yes."
"Thank fuck for that."
Lisa chuckled, as did someone a couple of seats away who had been writing notes on the questions. Her power told her it was a reporter for a Parahuman special interest magazine based out of state.
"These things do tend to drag on," he commented as he closed his notebook and put it away. "But if you want solid data on the heroes you have to come."
"Still boring," Aisha retorted.
He shrugged, getting to his feet. "No argument from me, young lady. Have a nice day." Giving them both a small smile he headed for the exit, joining a number of other spectators. Several of the TV station reporters were doing summations to camera, although almost everyone else seemed to be leaving.
"Can we go now?" Aisha asked plaintively, fidgeting a little.
"I have a meeting with Armsmaster and the Director along with some technical people from the PRT," Lisa explained.
Her companion looked suspiciously at her. "Why? How did you end up having meetings with the fucking Director of the PRT for god's sake? Or Armsmaster for that matter?" She sounded more than a little puzzled.
Lisa smiled evilly. "I have connections, you know."
"Sure you do."
"Honest. I know people. And lizards. Who are also people. And DWU members... most of whom are people."
Aisha looked amused as the older girl smirked. "I've seen some of those guys around, people might be pushing it."
"Even so, I have a meeting. And I'm not comfortable about letting you out of my sight, so you have a meeting too. At which you will sit quietly in the corner and say nothing."
"Oh, my god," Aisha sighed. "I should just have gone to look for Cloak and not tried to see Prospect."
"Cloak?"
"She's a friend," the girl replied, now wearing an evil smile of her own. She was quite good at it. "I know people too."
"A person."
"Well… I'm not really sure she's actually a person, she might be a haunted cloak. But she's really cool too and I like her."
"Fair enough. At some point you need to tell me how you met." Lisa was quite curious. Vista seemed to be enjoying herself by the sounds of it and it was an odd coincidence that she'd bumped into the sister of one of her own best friends. "But right now, as long as we're in here, you're coming with me. Don't worry, it'll be a lot more interesting than this. And afterward, if you don't try to steal Armsmaster's helmet or something, I'll give you a ride on the coolest bike you've ever seen."
"Bike?" Aisha echoed, sounding interested. "What bike? Why do you have a bike? I thought you had a car."
Lisa smiled. "Believe me, it's pretty cool. I'll show you later." She leaned closer to the shorter girl, adding in a low voice, "It's in my pocket."
Aisha stared at her as she got up, then hurried after her when she headed for the door back to the lobby. "In your pocket? What the hell? What are you talking about?"
Grinning, Lisa aimed for the reception desk as the girl dashed after her, feeling more than a little amused. "Hi, I'm Lisa Wilbourn from the DWU, here to see Armsmaster? He's expecting me," she said when she managed to get the attention of one of the staff behind the desk, most of whom were dealing with various news people wanting more information on Prospect. She handed over her DWU ID card, which the man carefully checked, before looking something up on his computer.
He nodded after a moment or two, returning the card to her. "Yes, I've got your appointment here, Miss Wilbourn. Armsmaster is on his way, he'll be here in less than two minutes. If you'd like to wait over there, please?" The man indicated the waiting area seats on the other side of the lobby, next to the small gift shop. Lisa smiled her thanks and turned around, heading in that direction while snagging Aisha on the way. She noticed that there was already some Prospect themed merchandise on the shelves as she went past, next to the various other things representing the rest of the Wards. Interestingly all the Shadow Stalker memorabilia had disappeared since the last time she'd been here as Metis.
By the time the local Protectorate leader came out of the elevator, Aisha was poking around in the shop with an acquisitive air about her, and Lisa was keeping a discreet eye on the girl just in case her fingers became a little too sticky. She got to her feet as the Tinker approached. "Hello, Armsmaster," she said politely.
"Miss Wilbourn," he replied. "Thank you for coming in. If you'll follow me, please?"
"I have a companion," she said, waving Aisha over. The girl inspected Armsmaster carefully as she came and stopped next to Lisa, then stuck out her hand.
"Hi," she said cheerily. "I'm Aisha. Aisha Laborn."
Slightly uncertainly, in Lisa's opinion, he held out his own hand after looking at the younger girl and shook hers. Aisha seemed pleased, while Armsmaster seemed confused. "Sorry, I'm sort of stuck with her for the moment," Lisa explained. "Her brother is a good friend of mine and a co-worker. I bumped into Aisha just before the press conference and didn't think it was a good idea to let her run around with everything going on like this." She glanced at the girl who was now looking at her with a miffed expression. "She's… prone to finding herself in situations that are less than ideal."
"Look who's talking," Aisha muttered in a very low voice, which Lisa could still clearly hear. She didn't react but found it funny, and also sort of true.
"I… see." Armsmaster still sounded a bit puzzled.
"If it's not too much trouble I was hoping you wouldn't mind her sitting in on the meeting," Lisa added. She could see from his face, what part of it was visible, that he wasn't too keen on the idea. "Trust me it's better than seeing what happens if she wanders around without supervision. And she could learn something."
"I should just go and look for Cloak, and have some fun," Aisha grumbled.
Armsmaster twitched slightly. "You know Cloak?"
"Oh, yeah, she's a friend," Aisha replied brightly. "She even showed me the best doughnut shop in the city! It's really good." Looking at the crumpled box that she took out of her pocket, she went on a little sadly, "Sorry, they're all gone now."
"I have no need for a doughnut at the present moment, thank you," the Tinker replied with a faint sigh. "All right, Miss Wilbourn, if you feel that your companion won't cause any problems I suppose there's no harm in allowing her to attend. It's not a high security meeting, after all. But we would prefer that she didn't talk about it too much even so."
"Got it, Aisha? Keep quiet about things," Lisa instructed. The girl sighed a little but nodded.
"Your bike better be fucking cool," she replied quietly.
"It is."
Armsmaster looked between them, then appeared to suddenly become enlightened. "Ah. You possess one of Vectura's virtual omnivehicles, I assume? She made some more?"
"Yep," Lisa replied, smiling. "A couple so far, and we've ordered the parts we need for more too. She and Leet only had enough of the electronics in stock for a pair to begin with but everyone wanted to see how it worked. Pretty impressive, isn't it?"
"It's an extraordinarily competent piece of design," he agreed, seeming genuinely enthusiastic about it. "Dragon and I have enjoyed examining the prototype. We both want to discuss it further with Vectura when we have time, as there are some very interesting possibilities present that we feel deserve more research..." He visibly restrained himself after Lisa's power informed her he'd checked the time in his helmet display. "However, now is not the time to discuss it. Please follow me, both of you."
"Of course," Lisa nodded, motioning for Aisha to walk beside her. The girl had been watching Armsmaster with her head on one side in an oddly Saurial-like manner, smiling a little. He took both of them back to the reception area, to one side of the normal public-facing part, and spoke quietly to the man behind the desk. This resulted in a pair of ID cards on clips which he handed to each of them. They had the word 'Guest' emblazoned in bright yellow across a complex hologram of the PRT logo along with their names and the time and date.
"Please put these on, and don't leave my presence," he told them. Lisa clipped hers to her jacket collar, Aisha hanging hers from the right pocket of her jeans having inspected it with interest.
"These don't look like the ones I've seen on the internet," Lisa commented.
"We've recently upgraded the entire security system in the building," Armsmaster replied as he swiveled around and headed back towards the elevators. "All previous security tokens were invalidated at that point and we are using much more secure methods now."
"I see." She knew, of course, that this was the aftereffect of the Coil operation and the replacement computer system, but didn't mention that she was aware of it. There was after all no good reason why Lisa would know that fact. He led them into the elevator and pressed a button, the doors immediately sliding silently shut. Aisha was looking around with interest, being surprisingly quiet.
Lisa had been slightly concerned about having more or less ended up accidentally in charge of the girl but based on both her recent activities and stories that Brian had, with great irritation, told her in the past, didn't feel it was a good idea to let her get away until they were at a safe distance from the PRT and anything breakable or thievable. She quite liked his sister but could certainly agree that she was a handful when she was in one of her 'I'm bored' moods, which weren't all that uncommon unfortunately. She was unnervingly reminiscent of a younger and female version of Alec. The usual result was official annoyance and a certain amount of lecturing from teachers, police, or both. How the girl had managed to talk herself out of some of the things she'd dropped herself into in the past was a mystery to everyone. Their father had certainly found himself very nettled by it all, since he didn't seem to know quite how to stop her doing things like that and despite his faults would never hit a girl.
Brian had been thumped more than once when he was a similar age, although he was quick to point out that it was never malicious and he'd normally probably deserved it anyway. Their father was a person who was far more comfortable with physical actions than emotional ones. Her friend had been at pains to say that the man wasn't a bully, but he had been a lot stricter with Brian than he had been with Aisha. That had probably not helped in the long run, although Lisa was well aware that the girl in many ways couldn't help it. She had poor impulse control, definitely had most of the symptoms of ADHD, and was generally prone to doing whatever she felt like at the time. Luckily she was also pretty bright and at least tried not to be sufficiently indiscreet that she got caught too many times, which wasn't to say she never got caught.
If she'd been able to get away with all her non-boring activities it probably wouldn't have caused poor Brian, or their father, quite so much trouble. And Aisha wouldn't be so well known to the local cops.
Interestingly, both her friend and her power told her that the young girl was being a lot more careful recently. In fact, approximately since 'Saurial' had talked to her. Which was very interesting.
Yet again, Taylor was having odd effects on people, without really trying and possibly without even noticing. She did that.
A lot.
Lisa smiled to herself. That demon and his host had certainly changed things much more quickly than anyone could have ever expected and all without doing much more than existing. It was pretty impressive.
Oh well. All she had to do was spend an hour or so going over the same sort of talk she'd given at the mayor's office, then give Aisha a ride on the light-cycle for a while and take her home. Hopefully at that point the girl would be content, and she'd definitely be safely out of range of the PRT which was probably good for the sake of everyone involved. After that she could go back to the DWU and find out what bizarre new trouble Taylor and Amy had caused without her there to supervise.
'Either one of them is capable of almost anything if they're at a loose end,' she thought. 'God help the entire city when they combine forces… A demon, a half demon, and a whatever-the-hell Amy is doing something amusing. It makes Aisha look positively dull by comparison. '
Which was more than a little worrying.
'How did I end up going from a talented yet, let's be honest, minor thief and private spy into someone who's more or less the responsible one?' she mused as the elevator stopped as silently as it had started and the doors slid open. 'Life is very weird sometimes.'
Armsmaster led them to a familiar conference room, being the one she'd met the Director in as Metis when they'd been planning the Merchant raid. He opened the door and stood aside. "Please take a seat. The other people attending will be here momentarily."
"Thanks," she said, going into the room with Aisha following, looking around alertly. She indicated a chair to one side, next to a smaller side table. "Go sit there and please at least try to be quiet, will you? Here, take my phone, it's got some good games on."
"You're going to owe me more than one ride on this magic bike at this rate," Aisha said with a scowl, but accepted the phone and earbuds, which Lisa unlocked with a quickly entered passcode, setting it to a games console mode that should hopefully keep the other girl out of her private data. Moments later Aisha was poking around on the device, earbuds in, looking through the selection of games with a raised eyebrow until she found something she liked.
Putting her backpack on the floor next to the main table, Lisa sat down and waited. Armsmaster glanced at her then went back to setting up one of his customary tablets, as well as the sketchbooks he seemed to like for notes. The door opened again a few seconds later to admit Director Piggot, Miss Militia, who seemed over the last few weeks to have practically become the former's aide for some reason, and a couple of men in the standard PRT research division lab coats who were discussing something esoteric on a tablet that one of them was holding. Without really paying attention to anyone else the latter pair walked around the table, the one with short red hair and glasses nearly tripping over Aisha's extended legs as he passed.
She glared at him as he sidestepped, the man looking up for a moment, staring at her, then shrugging and going back to explaining something to his colleague who hadn't even noticed.
Director Piggot approached Lisa, who stood again and held out her hand. "Miss Wilbourn, I believe?"
"Yes, Director. It's a pleasure to meet you. Danny has mentioned you quite a lot," she replied with a smile. The other blonde almost smiled back, her power told her, but most people wouldn't have noticed past the remarkably neutral expression the woman habitually wore. She was a very controlled person.
"Has he," the director said noncommittally.
"Oh, yes, he's told me all sorts of interesting things about the PRT and the history it has with the DWU," Lisa nodded. She noticed that Miss Militia winced very slightly, feeling inwardly somewhat amused. While recent relations with the PRT had massively improved both her own and Danny's opinion of the branch of the organization here in the Bay, largely due to this woman and her oddly pragmatic approach to the problem posed by Taylor's appearance, neither one of them was hugely fond of them in general for a number of reasons. And it was clear that both Miss Militia and Director Piggot knew this.
She mentally amended her thought to add Legend's influence to the reasons she was a lot more tolerant of the PRT, since she found the Protectorate leader to be quite possibly the most genuine and decent person she'd ever met. He'd clearly decided that the Family were a good thing and she could well imagine he'd talked to Director Piggot quite a lot on that matter.
She turned and shook hands with Miss Militia as well. "It's nice to meet you too," she continued. "I'm a fan." Which was pretty much true.
Both women exchanged a glance then moved to sit down. Emily Piggot apparently only then noticed Aisha, who was now thumbing the screen of Lisa's phone with a grimace of concentration, looking well into whatever game she was playing. "Excuse me, Miss Wilbourn, but who is that?" she asked with mild suspicion.
Lisa sighed faintly. "My apologies, Director, she's the sister of one of my best friends," she replied. "We ran into each other downstairs just before the event. Aisha has a… slight… tendency to get into trouble and I didn't feel it was wise to leave her on her own with all the chaos going on with the press right now. Past experience shows that such things can lead to… well, let's say I could do without the headache. Or her brother shouting at me."
Thanks to the earbuds Aisha apparently didn't hear her explanation, merely muttering in a barely audible voice, "Get in there you furry little bastard..." She mashed her thumbs on the screen then smiled triumphantly. "Got you! Stupid squirrel."
The director and Lisa exchanged a look of understanding. "I see. Well, if she's quiet, she can stay."
"Thank you, Director. Once again, I'm sorry for the imposition."
The woman waved this off and sat, Miss Militia doing the same. Lisa did too, looking across the table at Armsmaster, who was tapping on his tablet and making notes with the other hand. Miss Militia cleared her throat meaningfully, causing him to look up, then push the device to the side. Both the scientists were still talking about something to do with, as far as Lisa could work out, how large an explosion one could create by misusing some of the supplies found in the PRT cafeteria kitchen.
She blinked a little, since this was an odd thing to think about. The sandy-haired one was being quite enthusiastic about it while his companion, a shorter man with a beard much like Armsmaster's and a beret on his head, was nodding slowly in a calculating manner.
"Gentlemen?" Piggot's voice was sharp. Both of them twitched and looked up, the red-head smiling unconvincingly. "Put it away. And you are not to attempt to prove your theory. Not after last time. We're still cleaning caramelized coffee creamer out of the roof of the vehicle depot."
"I told you that was too much to start with," the behatted one murmured to his colleague who shrugged a little.
"Go big or go home," he whispered, then folded his hands in front of him and smiled innocently at his boss, who fixed him with a glare for a few moments. Small beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Lisa was impressed.
Apparently satisfied, Director Piggot turned to her. "OK, we've got an hour before I have to get to the next meeting. Please show us what you have."
"Of course, Director," she nodded, picking her pack up and putting it on the table. It had been searched, as had Aisha's, at the security checkpoint at the entry to the press room downstairs. Of course due to the interesting upgrade the Varga had come up with for their weird fractal dimensional technique, if anyone other than herself poked around in it they'd find it was apparently empty. The pockets of her coat benefited from the same technique, which she had an idle thought would have been incredibly useful during her criminal days.
Armsmaster looked interested as she reached into it, pulling out the demonstration helmet. She found it almost hilarious that he was the only one who wasn't surprised as she went on to remove half a van load of other things from the bag, merely nodding in respectful admiration. "Impressive," he commented, curiously inspecting the things she put on the table. Both scientists were gaping, the taller one beginning to grin like an idiot. His friend was stroking his beard again, looking thoughtful. "I really must speak to Saurial about some upgrades to my armor using that ability."
"I'll mention it to her as soon as I see her next," Lisa promised him. "All right, let's start with the fire suppression system sub-components, shall we?" She picked up the water tank and began her talk, the practice of doing the same thing with the Mayor's people only hours before making it easy.
The expressions on the various faces, even Armsmaster's by thirty seconds in, made the entire trip worthwhile in her opinion.
"Looks like your city has another interesting young person," Serafina commented as they watched the news report on the Brockton Bay Ward debut of Prospect. Danny nodded, considering the girl who was looking at the cameras and answering questions after a short but noticeable delay each time. She seemed slightly nervous but was holding up gamely while Emily Piggot looked on with a vaguely approving air.
"A Thinker. I wonder what sort?" Antonio said, swilling a little brandy around in the snifter he was holding. "Ah, some sort of precog. Impressive. Parahumans are pretty young sometimes, aren't they? She can't be more than twelve or thirteen."
"Vista is only a little older yet she's one of the more effective and powerful Wards," Danny pointed out. "Taylor's met her, she thinks highly of the girl, as does Amy Dallon who knows her quite well from what she says."
"Still, no matter how powerful or effective, they're still only children," Serafina noted, pouring herself some more coffee. "It must be hard for the parents, knowing that their kid might be out there on the streets and getting involved in something unpleasant."
Antonio grinned. "I wasn't much older than that one when I was on the streets being involved in something unpleasant," he pointed out with what was almost pride. "Admittedly, I was the one doing the unpleasant thing at times, but..."
"We hardly need you boasting about how good with a knife you were, dear," his wife said tartly. "Poor Danny doesn't need to hear it."
"From what his father said Danny wasn't a complete angel either at that age." Antonio looked sidelong at the younger man, who sighed faintly and felt embarrassed.
"I admit my childhood wasn't entirely strife-free, Uncle Tony, but I prefer to think I was more reacting to provocation than anything else. Brockton Bay has always had somewhat… enthusiastic… streets."
"I remember," Antonio nodded. "It's something when a super villain actually calms a place down and reduces crime. Marquis was an interesting man."
"You knew him?"
"I met him a couple of times, many years ago, yes," the aging mafioso smiled. "He was, in his own way, a decent man. Not a nice man, and certainly not a good man in common terms, but he was trustworthy. If he said he was going to do something, he did it, whether that was to keep out of somewhere like the docks, or kill someone. And when he did kill someone he took no pleasure in it. It was only business." He sipped his brandy and shrugged slightly. "I can respect that."
"I wonder why?" Danny asked with a small smirk. It was met with a similar one from the other man.
"Can't imagine."
Serafina looked between them and shook her head. "You two are far more alike than either of you realize," she mumbled, before getting up and heading for the kitchen. "The cookies are ready," she called moments later, a waft of warm air redolent of baking coming out into the living room.
"Oh, wonderful!" Antonio said brightly, hopping to his feet with the energy of a man thirty years his junior. "I adore ginger snaps."
Danny watched one of the most feared and respected crime bosses in the US hurry into the kitchen to get fresh cookies, grinned, finished his own coffee, and followed. While he still had, and probably always would have, differences with the man and his lifestyle, he was very glad that he'd agreed to meet up and clear the air. When you came down to it he was basically family, and that counted a lot.
As he bit into a warm cookie he wondered how his daughter and her friends were getting on. Hopefully, no news meant nothing bizarre was happening back at home. Well, he'd be back tomorrow and he'd be able to find out.
Missy stopped for a moment, looking at the people who had just gone into one of the conference rooms at the other end of the corridor, feeling slightly surprised. 'Aisha? What's she doing here?' Her new friend had been accompanied by a pretty blonde girl who looked to be about seventeen or so, a military-style backpack slung over her shoulder. Both of them were following Armsmaster. Resuming walking she looked at Dinah and shrugged slightly.
The two girls were headed back to Dinah's mother, in their respective costumes, after the press event. Dinah had asked Missy to come with her because she wanted to introduce them, while the other Wards had gone back to the common room. Missy was technically off duty now, so after this she was planning on 'Cloaking up' as she was thinking of it and heading over to the DWU to see what was going on there. She'd meant to a couple of days ago but what with one thing and another never quite seemed to have time to do so.
She was a little startled to spot the girl she'd met the other day, and wondered what was going on inside the room they were both currently passing. As they reached the other end of the corridor, the Director, Miss Militia, and those two crazy scientists who were always blowing things up for no obvious reason came out of the elevator and headed past them, the guy with the beard giving them a quick smile. She smiled back and looked over her shoulder to see that they were indeed going into the conference room.
"Wonder what's going on?" she commented as they took the elevator that had just been emptied. She pressed the button for floor nine.
"Dunno, is something going on?" Dinah asked curiously.
"I thought I saw someone I might know," Missy replied, not going into details. "Huh. Never mind, it's probably not important." She thought for a moment, then added, "If you ever get asked to help out those guys in the lab coats, say no!"
"Why?"
"Just trust me, they could make carrots explode. And before you know it you're missing an eyebrow." She rubbed her face thoughtfully. Dinah looked surprised, then grinned mischievously.
"Go on, tell me."
"You wouldn't think that a pound of flour, some duct tape, a desk fan, a cardboard box, and a lighter was that dangerous, would you?" Missy began, shaking her head a little.
By the time they reached Dinah's mother, who appeared very proud of her daughter, both of them were creased up. "Honest, it smelled like a bakery had burned down, everyone's face was covered in soot, the fire alarms were going off, Armsmaster was taking notes, and the Director was furious…" Missy giggled. Dinah could barely speak, she was laughing so hard.
"So don't offer to help them, OK?"
"OK." Dinah managed to say, grinning widely, then turned to her mother. "Hi, Mom. Did you watch it?"
Missy watched as the two hugged, feeling happy for her friend and a little sad that her own parents were like they so often were these days. But that was life.
Emily watched as Colin sat down again, having escorted Miss Wilbourn and her younger friend out of the building and returned. The Laborn girl had spent the entire time playing games, thankfully, although Emily had noticed she'd definitely been watching the demonstrations the young DWU representative had performed, trying to hide her interest. The kid wasn't an idiot, she thought.
"Well?"
She looked around the table. "Any thoughts?"
Colin flipped through his notebook, then dropped it on the table and leaned back in the reinforced chair, which creaked under the weight of his power armor even with the heavy construction. "Every time I think I've finally got a decent grasp on Family talents something proves me wrong," he grunted after a moment. He glanced at the two experimental scientists, both of whom were still looking shocked, yet extremely excited.
"I personally am having a lot of trouble believing Miss Wilbourn's figures," Professor Whitney said, pulling his omnipresent beret off and putting it next to his own notebook. Emily had tried to get the damn man to stop wearing it, but even shouting at him never seemed to help for long. She'd more or less given up by now but even so eyed the thing balefully. He reached out and picked up the flywheel energy storage unit that the girl had, after a request from Colin and a quick phone call to BBFO, left behind for testing purposes. "The implications if she's right are… startling."
"I have no trouble believing them myself," Colin stated, peering at the device. "My experience is that Family tech always does what they claim it does. So far that's been the case and I have no reason to think it will change. However, I agree that the implications are considerable."
"It stores a lot of power, I get that," Hannah said, watching as Whitney handed the thing to his colleague, who took it eagerly and turned it over, studying the electrical contacts on the bottom with interest. "But there are a lot of Tinker tech power storage devices around. What makes this one so impressive?"
Colin slowly turned his head to stare at her, as did Whitney. Professor Franklin, on the other hand, was ignoring everyone in favor of prodding the contacts on one of the multipole connectors protruding from the FamTech flywheel. Emily sighed faintly when he yelped and nearly dropped it as a tiny pop! sounded.
"Ow."
If there was a way to hurt yourself with something, the damn man would find it every time. How he was still alive baffled her.
"You may be suffering from a misapprehension, Hannah," Colin said quietly. "That device is not Tinker tech. Lisa stated as much. It's Family tech. Certainly that means that it's unlikely that anyone other than the Family could manufacture such a thing, but what it also means is that it suffers from few to none of the drawbacks of Tinker tech. Based on our experience so far, I have little doubt it will work indefinitely with no maintenance at all required. The electronics for the power conversion are the sole weak point and assuming she was correct about the specifications, they are massively over-engineered to the point that the expected working life can be measured in decades."
"It's not even that specific unit that's the really interesting thing," Professor Whitney added, pushing his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose as he nodded at the flywheel unit. "The power storage is impressive considering the size, but the output is, probably deliberately, fairly low." He didn't flinch when there was a bright flash and a louder pop! from next to him, although everyone else did. Professor Franklin looked pleased, inspecting the end of the small screwdriver he'd used to poke the connector which was now rather melted. Emily sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"The interesting part is the scaling factor," Franklin muttered, putting both screwdriver and flywheel unit down then rummaging through the pockets of his lab coat, pulling out several test meters, one of which he connected to the device and started playing with.
"Exactly." Whitney turned away from his colleague to look at Hannah. "Bearing in mind the sheer strength of stabilized EDM, the upper working limit of the construction of this flywheel is… almost implausibly high. As kinetic energy storage in a flywheel goes up with the square of the rotational velocity, obviously this means that by running it at much higher speeds it could store huge amounts of energy. And there's no reason at all that I can see to prevent a vastly larger version being manufactured. Depending on the ratio of internal to real world space the Family fractal dimensional technique provides, it's possible that a much higher capacity one might well be no larger on the outside than this one is."
"I still don't see the real problem," Hannah said after a few seconds thought, frowning slightly. "How much energy could it hold?"
Armsmaster scribbled some figures on a page of his notebook, then stared at them. He was a little pale.
"We don't know the ultimate upper size, mass, or speed of this method, but at a conservative estimate using the physical data I know about EDM and some logical extrapolation, it quickly ends up requiring comparison with measurable fractions of the output of the sun. The entire output."
They all looked at each other. Except for Franklin, who was muttering to himself as he connected another meter to the rat's-nest of cables he was building.
"OK, I have to admit that's more than a little terrifying," Hannah admitted. "Although they still have to produce that energy, and get it back again, I suppose."
Emily noticed Colin was looking pensive, but he didn't say why. Whitney nodded slowly. "This is true. But the point I wish to make is that this one device has more commercial possibility than anything else we saw today, and possibly than I have ever seen in my entire career. Forget making small ones for firefighting equipment, as important and useful as that is. If they merely concentrated on making ones large enough to use as grid-tied energy stores on a city-wide scale, every city on the planet would be knocking on their door. A clean, efficient, quiet method of storing gigawatt-hours of power which is, and I have trouble believing I'm even saying this, small enough to put in a backpack is the biggest game changer I have ever encountered."
"They're sure not going to be short of income," Franklin agreed absently, then swore as one of his wires went up in a cloud of smoke.
Emily glared at him, the man shrinking back, then quickly unhooking all the cables and putting them away in his pockets. "Stop that," she snapped.
"Sorry."
After a couple more seconds of glaring, she looked back to Colin. "Thank you for the explanation, both of you. I assume you will be recommending that we go ahead with ordering this equipment?"
"Subject to the satisfactory results from testing the units Lisa promised to deliver, yes, definitely," Colin replied. "It's a formality, of course, as I have no doubt it will all perform to specification, but the protocols must be observed. I recommend that we discuss having the Family supply as many flywheel units as they are willing to as soon as possible after the testing phase. The list of places we can use them is very long. And I will definitely be talking to Dragon about the requirements we would have for some customized versions with higher output."
He thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. "I suspect that she will probably be interested in entering into a commercial relationship with BBFO over a number of the things we've seen this afternoon, as she has done with Leet's tricorder and audio device."
Checking the time, Emily picked up her folder and pen, putting the latter into her pocket, then stood up. "All right. I have another meeting to get to, and some reports on Coil's latest interrogation to read. Keep me in the loop on the tests on the BBFO hardware, please. I agree that it sounds like something we need to equip ourselves with as soon as possible. When we have hard figures, bring them to me and we'll discuss an initial order."
"Director," Colin nodded politely. Emily headed for the door, Hannah going with her, after bending over and looking on the floor.
"Lost something?" Emily asked.
"I can't find my good pen," Hannah complained. Eventually she shrugged. "It'll turn up."
As they left, Emily heard a quite loud Pop! and sighed.
"I told you that wouldn't work!" Whitney commented with a certain level of mildly malicious schadenfreude apparent in his voice.
"Ow."
"OK, I sat quietly in a corner and played games for an hour, despite wanting to scream by the end," Aisha complained as they reached the street and started walking away from the much-reduced number of people coming and going from the PRT building. "Let's see the payoff."
Lisa looked at her, inspecting the pen the girl was twirling through her fingers with a raised eyebrow. Aisha flushed a little and made it disappear. "All right. I agree, you were surprisingly restrained. Good job. If you can do that more often you'll make Brian a happy man, and probably your Dad too."
The girl stuck her tongue out at Lisa, who grinned.
"Very mature."
"I'm twelve. Learn to live with it."
"Good point." Lisa reached into her pocket and removed the collapsed form of the omnivehicle, showing it to her companion.
"That's it? Doesn't look like much," Aisha said in an unimpressed tone after inspecting the thing. She put her hands on her hips as they stopped next to the curb at a point where there were no cars. "Prove it."
"OK." Lisa twisted the grips and pulled, then pressed the activation switch as she flipped the device to the side. Aisha gaped in awe as it produced the glowing light-cycle from nowhere in moments.
"Holy shit!" the girl muttered, a massive smile forming.
"I know, right?"
"That's the coolest thing I've ever seen," Aisha nearly squealed, hopping up and down with excitement. "Come on, let's try it. Quick, quick, I need some speed."
Unzipping her pack Lisa pulled her own helmet out and donned it, then dug around to find the demo helmet from the fire suit and handed it to the other girl. "Put this on," she said. Aisha grabbed it and yanked it down over her head, nearly twitching with glee. Getting onto the projected vehicle, Lisa fiddled with the controls, then checked over her shoulder as the back of the machine altered to have a rear seat. "Hop on," she smiled. Her companion was moving before she'd finished speaking.
Once they were both in place, Lisa rolled open the throttle and pulled away, indicating as she merged with the traffic. As seemed to happen every time, quite a few people were staring and pointing, as well as taking photos. With Aisha grinning so widely Lisa was almost certain she could feel it on the back of her head, she sped up and headed for the freeway.
All in all it had been a very good afternoon, even with the unexpected appearance of Aisha.
"This is coming along better than I thought it would," Amy remarked as she leaned into the new creation, carefully adjusting some of the neural connections. Taylor watched with interest, amused at how her friend could work on living tissue as if she was Linda with an engine in pieces. She was fairly sure that most people would have found the sight of all the glistening and gently pulsating protoplasm rather off-putting at best, but to both her and her demon it was fascinating more than anything else. "Hand me another ten feet of superconductor, please."
"Here you go."
"Thanks." The purple lizard accepted the long strand, quickly weaving it into the rest of the structure that was growing like magic inside the foam EDM skeleton. "Great, that part is done. Now, I think the power supply wants to go right here, so we'll need some supports for it here and here."
"Sure." Taylor leaned in beside her friend and started making changes, the Varga in his favorite mini-dragon form sitting on her head and peering down which gave a useful second perspective. "Like that?"
"Add another… eighth of an inch, maybe? Yeah, perfect. OK, let's have the power unit and we'll hook it up and see what happens."
"How does the rest of it check out?" Taylor glanced at the temporary umbilical connection Amy had produced that ran between the chest of 'Ianthe' and a point deep inside the new construction.
"Perfect so far," the other girl reported. "Everything's working exactly as my power wants it to. It's very pleased. Lisa can probably help fine tune things, but so far so good. It won't take long to finish it off when we have more onions tomorrow."
"Good, this is going to be fun," Taylor chuckled.
"Oh, so much fun," Amy smiled. A moment later both of them looked up at the knock on the door.
Taylor sniffed. "Kevin and Randall," she announced. "And some pizza."
"I could eat." Amy straightened up and also sniffed. "I could definitely eat."
"Is it safe to stop right now?"
"Sure, I'll just cap it off and it'll be fine in standby, we've finished all the really critical stuff. Go let them in. And close the door, I don't want them seeing this until it's done."
Taylor nodded, heading for the main entrance and pulling the workroom door shut as she passed through it. The Varga disappeared from her head and reappeared next to the coffee machine in the Raptaur aspect, turning it on and getting some mugs ready.
"Hi, guys," she said as she opened the door. "Come on in."
"Busy?" Kevin asked as he came inside followed by Randall, who was carrying a dozen large pizzas.
"I've been helping Amy with a new project," she replied, closing the door again.
"What is it?" Randall asked curiously, heading for the table with his load.
"A secret," Amy laughed as she slipped out of the workroom in her human form and quickly closed the door before either of the new arrivals could see inside. "Don't worry, you'll like it."
"Now I'm really curious," Kevin said, staring at the shut door with a small frown. She ostentatiously locked it and grinned.
"Not ready yet. Come back tomorrow."
"Let me guess, you need more onions," Randall said in knowing tones. She winked at him, causing him to smile. "You two should just start a farm and grow the damn things. You've probably increased the total number sold in the Bay by a noticeable amount by now."
"It's easier to buy them," Amy told him, walking over to the table and beginning to investigate the pizzas. She found one she liked and picked up a slice, biting into it with relish. "So far I'm not using enough to make all that effort worth it, but we might need to work out something sooner or later. Speaking of onions, we need to talk."
"About what?"
"Potential new Family members," Taylor said, lying back in one of the chairs in her base form, her feet up and a pizza box on her lap. The Varga came back with a tray of coffee mugs, handing them around, then sat beside her, switching to the Saurial aspect in the process. He looked at Randall's expression, smirked, and was suddenly another copy of Taylor. Both identical twins looked at each other, raised their mugs, and clinked them together.
"You two are weird," Kevin snickered, also sitting down. "OK. Family members. We thought this might come up and have been working on it as well."
"Excellent," Amy said with glee. "Let me get my notebook. We need to write this down." Glancing at Taylor, she added, "I told you last time we need a form."
"We'll work on it," Taylor replied, waving a hand airily. "That's not important right now, though. So, guys, what are your opinions on tentacles?"
She turned her left arm into one and reached past Kevin for another pizza box. Then grinned toothily as he recoiled a little.
There was a long pause.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Kev?" Randall asked in a low voice, leaning close to his friend. Both of them looked at Taylor, who waved with a tentacle-tip. Amy had her hand over her eyes, and the duplicate Varga-Taylor was rolling around laughing in his chair. "We may be in a very weird place."
"Meh, how bad can it be?" Kevin asked, watching with an amused look.
"Aha," Taylor said with a broad grin, "a challenge..."
"Gaaahhh!"
Leaving the PRT building through one of the secret exits that came out across the street in the city hall parking garage, Missy took the stairs at a rapid pace. When she reached ground level she went out the door next to the bus stop, looked around, then headed away from the bay towards a place she knew was nice and private with no cameras in the area.
It was once again time for Cloak to cast fear into the hearts of evil men.
And go see what the Family was doing.
Before that, though, there was a distinct possibility that some form of sweet pastry was in her future, and she needed to make a couple of other stops too.
"Cloak rides again, Brockton Bay," an eerie voice hissed from above moments later, making a couple of people on the street look around with slightly worried expressions. They didn't see anything, which didn't actually make them less worried.
"So fucking cool!" Aisha sounded excited to a nearly implausible level as the glowing bike rocketed along at just over the speed limit, the girl holding onto Lisa's waist with a grip of steel. It was easy to hear her as the force-fields that made up the structure of the thing suppressed almost all of the noise that a normal motorcycle would have suffered from, and the drive system was practically silent in any case. It was no louder in the riding position than a good car was.
"It'll go right up the side of a building too," Lisa called back.
"DO IT!" Aisha screamed in her ear.
"Sorry, nowhere good to try it right now. Maybe next time." Lisa checked the rear view mirror then indicated and changed lane, taking an exit ramp towards the general area her passenger's apartment was. Once they were in a largely empty street, she pulled over. "OK, jump off for a moment, I'll show you something even cooler."
Aisha, rather reluctantly, got off the omnivehicle. Pulling her helmet off she showed she was grinning manically. "Watch this," Lisa said, hitting the correct switch. The vehicle flowed into a new configuration, ending up as a futuristic dune-buggy-like car. Aisha's eyes widened, then her grin did too.
"Oh… my… God..." she breathed. "That's amazing! How many different things can it be?"
"It's got about a dozen programmed in right now and Vectura, the Tinker who made it, says this one will hold a couple of hundred at least." Lisa patted the dash of the virtual vehicle in a proprietary manner. "I love this thing."
"So do I. Where can I get one?" The girl walked around the vehicle staring at it. "I want one so much!"
"You're a little young to drive, Aisha," Lisa chuckled. "Sorry. But I don't mind giving you a ride now and then. Especially if you keep trying not to be so much of a pain in the ass to Brian."
Her companion jumped back into the vehicle, sliding into the passenger seat and looking around with glee. "I try," she said without looking at Lisa, in a sort of embarrassed way. "I don't really want to upset him or Dad, but sometimes I just..." She shrugged with a sigh, her mercurial mood swinging from happy to slightly depressed again. "You know."
"Yes, I think I do," Lisa acknowledged as she pulled away again, driving more slowly on the narrower roads and heading towards the Laborn apartment. "To be honest I'm impressed how well you've behaved today. I'll let Brian know."
"Please don't tell him about that cart," Aisha requested, glancing at her, then going back to watching the scenery pass. Lisa looked sideways for a moment before nodding.
"OK. Nothing happened in the end so I don't see the point in mentioning it."
"...Thanks." Aisha seemed embarrassed but pleased.
They drove along in silence for a few minutes, until the younger girl looked up. "So why are you selling Family crap to the PRT? How did you end up working for the DWU? What happened to your gang?"
"How do you even know about that?" Lisa asked, looking at her for a moment.
She got a long-suffering look back. "I'm not an idiot, you know," Aisha sighed. "I've known my brother was a Parahuman for a while now. That dog girl is one too, I've seen her on TV. So it wasn't very hard to work out that you must be too, considering how you were always hanging around with Brian. And that other guy, what's his name, Alec?"
Mildly impressed, Lisa nodded after a moment. "You realize that you really can't talk about that, right? I'm serious, you could get a lot of people very upset if you mention it to anyone."
"I know, I know. The 'Rules', or something. I've read about it on PHO." Aisha made finger quotes in a sarcastic manner. "Seems pretty stupid, it can't be that hard to work out who Parahumans really are." She grinned at Lisa. "I worked out four of them in under two months."
Lisa shook her head. "It's not hard, if you want to know the truth. At least for some of them. But if you do bad things happen. I mean, really bad things. Yes, it's sort of silly, but it protects a lot of people from getting hurt, including me and Brian, even if it only works because most people want it to work. So, I'd suggest you don't try to work out any more people's IDs, and if you do manage to by accident, keep quiet about it. For all our sakes."
She looked seriously at her passenger for a second or two, then went back to watching the road. "You don't want Lung coming after you because you blabbed, trust me."
Aisha stared at her, then cocked her head, thinking. "OMG," she finally breathed. "You got Lung after you guys! That's what the ABB went mental about weeks ago in the docks! It was your ga..."
Without looking, guided by her power, Lisa reached out her left hand and pinched Aisha's lips together. "Shh!" she hissed. "We do not talk about things like that. Got me?"
Aisha nodded frantically. Lisa released her and put both hands back on the wheel. "Sorry," the other girl said after a few seconds, sounding abashed.
"No problem, just don't talk about it. Like I said, bad things could happen."
Aisha didn't say anything else before they arrived near her home. Pulling over, Lisa stopped and turned to her. "I have other things to do, so this is where you get out. Please, as a favor to me, don't try to sneak into the PRT building again? It might not end like it did this time next time. They're not in a good mood right now and I can guarantee they won't see the funny side."
The girl looked slightly disgruntled, but nodded. "Oh, fine. I'll just do boring things instead."
"Probably for the best," Lisa grinned. Aisha got out, adjusting her backpack, then stepped back.
"Thanks for the ride," she said, looking at the omnivehicle again. "I still want one."
"Of course you do, who wouldn't?" Lisa laughed. "See you around. Try not to get into trouble."
"Funny, coming from you!" Aisha yelled as she pulled away, making her snicker. Glancing in the mirror she saw Brian's sister disappear down the alley next to her apartment building. Pleased that she'd prevented possible disaster from striking a relative of someone she liked, she headed for the DWU and a discussion with the others about a number of orders that were headed their way.
'I still want to know the real reason you and Brian ended up at the DWU,' Aisha thought as she watched that weird glowing car thing Lisa was driving head down the street. It was getting pretty dark now, and the machine stood out like a special effect from a movie. 'I'll figure it out sooner or later.'
The older girl had seemed very insistent that it was a bad idea to try to work out Parahuman IDs. Aisha could, after pondering the issue for a while, see why. She wouldn't want Kaiser or some other E88 idiot coming after her parents or brother if she was a Parahuman, not that this seemed likely to happen. And that probably went double for a villain, she doubted they'd be amused if someone told the world who they were. An awful lot of them seemed to take these Rules pretty seriously, even if they weren't official. Even the PRT, from what she'd heard, was very cautious about breaking them without an extremely good reason.
She shrugged. Not really something she needed to worry about as long as she kept quiet about Brian and the others. She didn't know any other Parahumans except for Cloak and she still wasn't certain that there was actually a human in there at all. From the information she'd seen online, neither was anyone else…
'Oh well. Guess the excitement's over,' she thought as she resumed walking towards the entrance to the apartment. 'I was hoping I'd see Brian and maybe that crazy lizard, but I'm not walking all the way to the Docks if I can avoid it. Too far and too dangerous. Next time, maybe.'
It had been a mostly entertaining way to spend the time since school, though, even if she could have done without sitting for over an hour listening to Lisa scam the PRT into buying a lot of weird equipment. Although her phone had some nice games on.
She resolved to see about getting a better phone. Hers was cheap crap.
'Got a nice pen out of it, though,' she snickered, pulling out the implement and inspecting it under a streetlight. 'PRT logo and everything.'
Tucking it away once more she kept walking, then jumped with a yell of shock when something poked her in the back. She spun around even as she jumped away, stared, then grinned slowly.
"Hi. Want to go have fun?"
Very soon after that the street was entirely empty.