Taylor Varga

by mp3.1415player

Taylor has a bad day that ends in a locker. Everyone has heard that one. It goes somewhat differently after that, as her call for help is answered by something from a lot further away than one might expect... A story in which Taylor makes a very large friend, the world gets confused, and Danny comes into his own.

351. Brother and Sister

"OK, a naga is cool, I admit, but it's not very practical for most purposes," Kevin said somewhat doubtfully, watching Taylor slither around the room. He reflected on how she could make some of the movies he'd seen in recent years terrifyingly realistic if she wanted to. And decided, yet again, that they absolutely had to come up with a good prank leveraging her and Amy's abilities to mock the natural order of things.

The currently half-snake version of the teenager shrugged, coiling up next to the table. "Yep, you're probably right to be honest. But I still want to come up with a good reason to use it one day."

"When you finally meet Sophia again you could probably traumatize her for life with that," Amy said with a dark smirk. Taylor looked thoughtfully at her then grinned in a manner that made Kevin's blood run cold. The girls had informed both him and Randall just after the former Ward had disappeared exactly what had happened, both filling in the details they didn't know from her Winslow days, and the aftermath of the anti-Coil operation last weekend. If he was honest what he'd heard didn't particularly surprise him. There had been rumors about a lot of pretty unpleasant things connected with Shadow Stalker over the last couple of years.

She wasn't a nice person at all.

The only part of it that did surprise him was that Armsmaster's tech had failed enough to let her get away. He wouldn't have expected it, the Tinker hero was very competent. But then, anyone could have a bad day, and by the sound of it fucking Calvert had booby-trapped so many different PRT systems it was a miracle that nothing more serious had happened.

"It's a thought," Taylor remarked after a few more seconds of grinning to herself in a manner he suspected would have made the missing girl keep running indefinitely if she'd seen it. Then she shook her head, becoming much less worrying as the smile turned less predatory. "Probably not a good one, though. Anyway, we have no idea when or even if she'll come back."

"She'll come back sooner or later, Brain," the Varga said, sounding sure of himself. He was, yet again, in the tiny dragon form, draped around Taylor's shoulders. The demon seemed to really enjoy that form, having told Kevin when he'd asked that it was a very interesting contrast to being so much larger than almost everything normally. "That type is hard to dissuade from anything without physically stopping them. But we can usefully do little until she reappears except take sensible precautions, which we've mostly done."

"That's a good point, actually," Amy said, turning to look at both men in an evaluating manner. "You guys need the latest upgrades. Linda too, although she's not so critical since she's already got a lot of them. And is probably less of a potential target since Sophia probably doesn't even know she exists yet."

"Upgrades?" Randall asked curiously. "New toys?"

"And some extra protection, what I hope is a counter to Shadow Stalker's power, things like that." Amy held up a hand and put thumb and forefinger an inch apart. Both of them flinched in shock as a thick electrical arc jumped between the digits with a vicious crackle. "A few other useful talents too."

"Fuck," Randall breathed. "You gave yourself Metis's electrical power too?"

"I did indeed. It was Lisa's request. I added a subcutaneous energized layer to break her power if she tried firing one of those crossbow bolts into us. That was mostly for Danny since he's a priority target. I'm less of one, and Lisa even less, but why not just do everyone to the same level? Lisa asked for the ability to discharge it through the hands which was easy enough to arrange." Amy smiled. "I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It makes you a lot stronger and tougher than the last upgrade."

"I'm in," Kevin said when she finished explaining. "I've learned to trust your fucked up powers."

"Thanks very much," she snickered, making him wave grandly with the hand not holding the last slice of pizza from the box he'd worked his way through.

"Think nothing of it my dear."

"OK." She smiled as he snickered.

Randall shook his head with amusement and dug out some of the remaining garlic bread, leaning back and grazing on it. "So what do we do? Back on the table with Igor helping?"

"No, for this I need to stuff you into Metis or Ianthe, that's the easiest method, and the mod package is already set up in them." Amy studied him, then Kevin. "Kevin is easy enough, he's smaller than Danny and he went in reasonably well, but you're going to be a challenge."

"Might be time to try that idea you had earlier," Taylor put in. Amy looked at her, then back to Randall.

"Yes, you're right. Wonderful! Another experimental subject." She cackled a little, rubbing her hands together. "I love it when I get one of those."

Randall stared at her a little uneasily. "Your insanity is showing, Amy," he said slowly, looking like he wanted to back away.

Kevin slapped him on the shoulder then stole his garlic bread. "You'll survive. Probably."

"Oh, I guarantee it," Amy grinned, showing teeth.

"For some weird reason that doesn't make it any better," his friend mumbled.

"Lisa's back," Taylor announced, looking towards the door. Moments later the rest of them could hear the distinctive albeit faint sound of one of Linda's virtual vehicles, something Kevin was seriously impressed with. They'd had a lot of fun building a couple of them the previous night, and even more fun playing with them in the yard. They were nearly as good as her mech and probably more practical for day to day use.

The blonde came in seconds later, locking the door again and joining them at the table. Randall pushed one of the pizzas they'd saved for her across to where she sat down, causing her to nod her thanks then open the box.

"How did it go?" Taylor asked.

"Very well indeed," Lisa smiled, pulling out a slice of still barely warm pizza and trying it. She made a face and got up, taking the box over to the microwave and digging a plate out of the cupboard underneath it. When half a dozen slices were heating up again, she turned to them all. "The city is very interested in all the law enforcement and fire fighting stuff we came up with. I promised them some evaluation systems for next week sometime. Assuming they're happy with the results, and let's face it, they will be, they're definitely going to want to purchase quite a lot of it."

"Great. That's easy enough, we'll make a load more over the weekend. You ordered the rest of the electronic parts we need, right?" Taylor replied.

Lisa nodded. "Yes, in the same order for the stuff Linda wanted. We've got enough stock on order to make dozens of omnivehicles and probably a hundred of the flywheel packs, which should do for now."

"By the time we use those up, we'll most likely have a good grasp on manufacturing them ourselves," the Varga commented. "We're already self sufficient in the analog control electronics for the mechs. The power systems for the flywheels are simpler but much more heavy duty. They won't pose an issue shortly."

"It's the computing hardware that's a pain to make," Taylor added. "We'll get there in the end but it's really complicated."

"I'm amazed you can even make the power control gear," Kevin said with respect. "It's pretty impressive. And damned useful." She smiled at him, pleased.

"What about the PRT?" Amy asked.

"That went well too. I went to the new Ward press conference where they introduced Prospect first. It was the usual sort of thing, very managed, but the reporters seemed happy. Prospect made a good impression too, she acted a lot older than she is and they liked it."

"She's a precog of some sort, right?" Randall asked curiously. The three girls exchanged a glance, making Kevin sure they knew a lot more about the new Ward than they were saying, which he could respect even though he was curious.

"Yep," Taylor confirmed. "A pretty powerful one too."

"Anyway, after that I met with Armsmaster, Director Piggot, Miss Militia, and a couple of scientists from the PRT research department. They seemed impressed. The flywheel unit was the thing that Armsmaster and the two scientists fixated on as soon as I told them what it was."

"That's what we expected," Randall nodded. "It's the really important part of the system. I wouldn't be surprised if Armsmaster was already designing new hardware around it, and typing up an order for a crapload of them."

"Well, he did ask me to leave it with him to test, so you're probably right," Lisa smiled.

"I couldn't see any reason not to," Taylor confirmed. "I like him, and I trust him. And it's not like I can't make as many as we want. All he can do with it is test it, charge it up, or run it down, too. There's no problem with him keeping it."

"He smelled completely shocked for a moment, then really interested when he realized I was serious," Lisa chuckled. "I don't think either Director Piggot or Miss Militia knew why. The two scientists did, though, their eyes went very round when I gave them the specifications."

"Sounds like it was worth the effort," Taylor remarked. "And it's got some useful equipment out there, things that will help a lot, and slowly get people used to Family technology."

"Yeah." Lisa carried her now-hot pizza back and dropped into a chair, hungrily eating a slice. "And I can practically guarantee that the city is going to work out that they can order some really big flywheel storage systems and upgrade the grid sooner rather than later. I can guarantee that Armsmaster thought of that on the spot."

"We'll have to come up with a good pricing structure for all this stuff," Amy put in. "It's pretty much entirely profit, so we can sell it a lot cheaper than anyone else could, but if it's too cheap people probably won't take it seriously."

"That's definitely a thing." Kevin shook his head a little. "Value-based pricing, I think it's called."

"Something like that," Lisa confirmed. "Anyway, there's no real hurry, that can wait for now. We'll have our hands full, or rather, those two will have their hands full, just filling the orders we're going to get for Tac-Smaks and other things."

Taylor grinned. "We'll spend a few hours every other day or so making stock," she said. "It won't take too long to make it all. We've finished the design for the body armor, I think, although I want you to check it over and see if we missed anything. The helmets are easy, and the inserts, batons, and that sort of thing are trivial. We can make a room full of it all in a week or so without any effort at all."

"Good, we want to establish a reputation for reliability more than anything else." Lisa looked very satisfied.

"Anything else interesting happen?"

Lisa glanced at Amy, then smirked. "You might say that. Guess who I found trying to infiltrate the PRT building? More successfully than should have been possible, too."

"Brian's sister Aisha," Taylor and the Varga chorused. "We can smell her on you," Taylor added, grinning a little.

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Of course you can. The question is why do you think she was there?"

Everyone leaned forward curiously.

Taylor looked puzzled, then looked at Amy, who shrugged. "Why?"

"Bored and wanted to see the new Ward, she said." Lisa related the whole story, which had them all laughing by the end. "That girl is a handful," she finished up. "She'd probably fit right in around here. Although Brian wouldn't be pleased at all, I suspect."

"You should have brought her back with you," Kevin grinned. "She sounds like nearly as much fun as Vista."

"Oh, the best bit? She knows Cloak. As far as I can work out she bumped into our animated clothing friend when she was taking down a mugger and they got to talking." Lisa looked amused. "I have a feeling that there was a lot of running around a few hundred feet up involved."

"This is starting to get ridiculous," Kevin said, shaking his head. "We're going to need a manual to keep track of who knows what about who at this rate."

"It's easy, look," Taylor said, jumping to her feet and materializing a glass board and a pen. She started writing rapidly. "Amy knows everything. So does Lisa. Obviously Varga does too. We go up here at the top. Now, you guys and Dad are here, you know everything as well except for a couple of minor details about other Parahumans that are covered by the rules." She drew some boxes and connected them with lines, writing names in them. Everyone else exchanged glances while she kept working.

"Linda knows about you and Randall, as far as the non-Family things go, and you know all about her, except for some personal things. All of us here know about Cloak, and Vista knows some of the Family tricks like the cloaking technique. Gallant knows about me, sort of, but not about Amy, which is confusing the poor guy. Vicky doesn't know any of this, but knows Taylor and Saurial are old friends, as are the Heberts in general and the rest of the Family. So do Lucy, Mandy, Rich, Eric… Well, most people at school probably. Zephron knows about Linda, and Kadir most likely does too." She filled in some more boxes, studying the result. "Oh, yeah, Mark probably knows that as well. Then we have Rachel over here, along with Brian and Alec, they don't know anything as far as I know, but everyone knows about them."

Running out of room, she moved sideways and kept going. "Now over here, the Protectorate and the PRT knows about the Family and the DWU, they know that you two are here now as well, and Linda too, not to mention the Undersiders, but they don't know the truth about Cloak. Nor do they know about the cloaking technique, aside from Umihebi being very sneaky. They probably suspect by now that the rest of us can do it too but they don't have proof. None of them have a clue about me teleporting either. They also know that we confuse the hell out of Thinkers in general, of course. Legend knows some more things I don't think he's told the rest of them, and I'm pretty sure suspected things about the Family that he didn't tell Alexandria or Eidolon at the time. We know some things about Dragon, and she knows some stuff about Kevin's inventions that she may or may not have told Armsmaster, and I'm pretty sure has also worked out some things about the Family."

She was now making smaller and smaller boxes at the bottom, connecting them all with differently colored lines. "Roy knew about Kaiju for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised if he at least suspects some closer connection to the Heberts than he's been told. He's a very smart guy. Everyone knows about Sophia now too, and I'm sure he does as well. We know about Calvert, as does the PRT and Roy. The DWU also knows. The PRT knows about Umihebi and so does Erwin and a friend of his." Randall raised a finger but she ignored him, causing him to drop it again and sigh. "Down here, the Simurgh probably knows about all of this, or most of it, and we know about her posting to PHO. And finally, PHO, like any internet forum, doesn't know anything about anything but guesses a lot."

She stepped back, spinning the marker in her fingers, and proudly examined her work. Lisa sighed, massaging her forehead, while Amy and the Varga were leaning on each other laughing. "Easy, see?"

"One question?" Randall asked politely.

"Yes?"

"Who the hell is Erwin?"

"Oh, he's cool. Old fisherman guy I met as Kaiju right back at the beginning. He goes to Pat's pub."

Randall sighed faintly. "Who's Pat?"

"Irish guy, runs the 'Captain's Table' over down by the fishing docks?" Taylor cocked her head, peering at Randall, who was looking confused. "I'll introduce you sometime. He's nice too. Lung likes him, I think."

She turned back to the board and made another note. "Right, Lung knows about Kaiju, and the Undersiders, and a little about the Family. Nearly forgot that."

Folding his arms on the table, Randall rested his head on them and groaned. "Oh, god. You are nuts." Kevin stared at the board with his head on one side, following some of the lines with a finger and feeling bewildered. Randall raised his head and gazed at her. "Anything else?"

She looked at the board, then shook her head. "Nope, I think that about covers it for now."

"I'm glad you can keep track of it all and I'm even more glad that I don't have to," Kevin finally said. "You have a very complicated life."

Taylor dropped into a chair and put her feet up, smiling. "It does seem to have gained a certain level of complexity recently, I have to admit."

"Your gift for understatement is still very obvious," Randall mumbled. She grinned at him.

"OK, with food out of the way, where were we?"

"Designing new Family members," the Varga said. "And Amy was going to do something odd to Kevin and Randall."

"How far did you get with the design stage?" Lisa asked curiously. Randall handed her a pad on which they'd written down quite a few ideas. She flipped through it, nodding to herself. "Huh. Not bad. There are quite a few good ones here."

"The problem is we can't really decide yet," Kevin said. "There are all sorts of possibilities, and of course we need to make sure that we don't make it obvious that these new Family visitors are in any way connected with a couple of guys who may or may not have recently joined the DWU."

"We need to be careful about that," Amy agreed readily. "I think we should probably introduce them one at a time for a start, and do something similar to 'Operation: Ianthe Confuses The Issue' with them. That's easy enough to do after all. If we make sure that new relative A and new relative B are seen at the same time as both Über and Leet, and Kevin and Randall, in various combinations..." She shrugged slightly. "It sure worked for Ianthe and me. And as far as I know nobody has associated Metis and Lisa either."

"Sounds good," Lisa nodded, flipping back to the first page and handing the pad back. "Are we going to have new sisters or new brothers?" She grinned as Kevin glanced at his friend, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"I… would prefer not to be a Family girl," he said cautiously. Then he raised his hands as the three females, and the Varga, all looked at him. "Nothing against girls, most of the ones I know can kick anyone's ass without breaking a sweat. But I don't see myself as female."

Taylor started giggling, making him smile back. "You really looked worried for a moment there," she commented.

"I have reason to be worried. Between you, him…," the Varga smirked at him, "Lisa, and Amy, you four can wipe the floor with anyone I can think of. I don't want to upset any of you." He looked around at them, adding, "Not just from self-preservation. You're friends, and I don't have enough of those to want to annoy the ones I do have."

"Fair enough, Kevin," Amy said, "but don't worry, you're not upsetting any of us. I don't mind one way or the other, although another female Family member would certainly divert suspicion. Even though, technically, the constructs are genderless anyway." She paused, then asked, "But do we make them brothers of Taylor's side of the Family, brothers of our side of the Family, or an entirely new branch?"

They all looked at each other, thinking. Eventually Randall said, sounding thoughtful, "It's probably best not to make them Taylor's side, I think. She has abilities you can't duplicate due to Varga bullshit, and sooner or later someone would notice."

"That is a valid point," the demon nodded. "I have been thinking about it and I suspect that with time I probably can teach some of the magic I know to others, but I am very unsure if I could pass on the matter creation abilities. It's highly unlikely, in fact, it relies on my own nature, and Taylor's now, so I doubt it's possible. Other aspects of magic, on the other hand..." He shrugged, from his current position sitting on Taylor's left shoulder.

"I believe it's something that could work. Certainly there are purely human magical methods I have learned over the years that should be usable, although I will have to translate them into a form that will work in this universe. Demon magic works anywhere, it's a very… call it low level form of magic. Many human forms are far more tightly tied to specific worlds, since they often draw on energies that are unique to their origin due to the way human magic-users simply don't have access to the amount of power something like myself can bring to bear."

"That would be seriously cool," Kevin said after an awe-struck moment of consideration. "Put me down for lessons when you work out how."

"Gladly, although I warn you it won't be soon, and will be a lot of work in any case," the Varga nodded.

"So it's not something that will make much difference in the short term," Lisa noted. "As a result we can probably ignore it for this current discussion. Although put me down as well, I would love to learn to do some of the things you guys can."

"When I work out the details, I expect I will be teaching the entire Family," he replied with a chuckle. "But you're right, it is only of academic importance at this point."

"I think they should probably be cousins," Amy put in, having been deep in thought. "Brothers of Ianthe and Metis, or even cousins of theirs too. That side of the family anyway. It encompasses the right sort of talents that mean Randall will fit right in, and I expect Kevin will as well. Especially once they have the other abilities too. Kevin's Tinker power is almost the least important part. He's a good mechanic and knows a lot about engineering things even with that left out of it, so if he sticks mainly to that side of things, it probably won't be obvious he even is a Tinker. Randall can learn anything we need him to, which I have some ideas about as well. It could come in handy..."

She went quiet, looking even more thoughtful, as they exchanged glances. Eventually, she added very softly with a slight laugh, "Oh, yes. Very handy indeed."

Everyone watched her think, until Lisa cleared her throat. "Anyway… Amy's disturbing giggle aside, we'll need to pick a final form, come up with names, and work out some minor backstory details. I assume that the new guys will have all the standard abilities of our side of the Family? Healing and that sort of thing?"

Amy came back from wherever she'd been, blinking a couple of times, then nodded. "Oh, sure, that's easy. I've got enough information now from both Ianthe and Metis that I can upgrade the healing ability quite a bit. Your power is a remarkably good fit to it anyway, it didn't take long to adapt, and I expect Randall's will probably be even more effective. Learning new things practically instantly is his thing, after all. Kevin will likely need more practice but I doubt it will be too hard. And we have the one-shots as well, of course."

"We're certainly adding a lot of healers to the city," Kevin laughed.

"Which is good," Taylor said firmly. "There are too many people who can destroy things and hurt people running around already, it's about time we tilted the balance a little back towards fixing things and helping."

"Oh, I don't disagree," he smiled. "Believe me, I don't. And I doubt anyone else will either."

"Unless they don't like reptiles," Lisa added.

Taylor looked horrified. "Don't… like reptiles?" she echoed in a faint voice. "What… Why would you say that?" She put the back of her hand on her brow and dramatically swooned, collapsing into the mass of coils her current form was supporting her upper torso on. "Someone who didn't like reptiles… The mere thought… Oh, hold me, Varga!"

The demon-run aspect took on the form of Saurial and gently held her shoulders, massaging them. "There, There, Brain. She didn't mean it." He gave Lisa a hard look, then went back to consoling his host.

Lisa watched them with a raised eyebrow, then shook her head. "Six out of ten at best. Far too overdone."

Straightening up Taylor's demeanor changed entirely, the girl grinning at them. "I'll do better next time," she snickered.

Amy, Kevin, and Randall were all laughing at the silliness. When they ran down, Amy turned to the two men. "OK. Taylor's bad acting aside, let's start with upgrading you guys. That's going to take a while to do and it's a prerequisite for everything else. It'll take a couple of days at least to build your constructs and we need more resources anyway, so you can think about what you want them to look like and get back to me. There's no huge hurry after all. And we need to teach both of you Famtalk as well, of course."

"Fine by me," Randall nodded. "So what do we do?"

"Well, like I was saying before Lisa came back, Kevin is going to be the easiest one." She looked at the Tinker in an evaluating manner for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, he'll fit inside Ianthe OK. I'll have to make some changes to Metis with Taylor's help before we can do you, though. I'm beginning to think we need to build a dedicated upgrade unit for doing this, it'll make life easier and we can use it on people who aren't in on the secret." She stared into the air for a moment, then looked back at him. "I'll have to give that some thought. Yet another idea for the list."

"This list of yours must be quite the thing," Kevin chuckled.

"Oh, it's terrifying in its implications," she agreed with a smirk. "Igor!"

"Yeth, Mithtress?" Taylor replied unctuously, snapping to attention.

"Make me… a screen!"

"A screen, Mithtress?"

"You know, something to let our friend here disrobe in privacy." Amy waved at Kevin.

"Ah! Igor underthandth, Mithtress! At oneth, Mithtress!" The girl slithered off to the middle of the room while the rest of them laughed at the dialog. Shortly there was a free-standing cubicle there, with curtains that could be moved aside.

"Right, Kevin, you get in there and strip to your underwear. I'll get Ianthe." Amy rubbed her hands together with a look of anticipation, then hopped off her chair and headed for her workroom.

Kevin looked at Randall. His friend reached out and grasped his shoulder. "It was nice knowing you, dude. Die well."

"Oh, thanks," Kevin sighed. But even so, he got up and headed for the screen, Taylor bowing obsequiously to him as he passed. "Stop that."

"As the Mathter commandth," she lisped, smirking, then turned into a small dragon and flapped over to land on her other aspect's Saurial head. He watched, shook his head in amused wonder, and went through the curtain, pulling his shirt over his head.

"Completely barking mad," he muttered, although he was more than a little envious even so.

Shortly afterwards, Amy guided the Ianthe construct through the curtain to join him. It peered at him with what he could almost swear was interest, then looked at its creator. He swallowed, wondering what the next part would feel like.

Amy grinned at him.

He swallowed again, harder. That grin…

---

"There's one," Aisha whispered, pointing downwards. Missy peered in that direction, then smirked inside her cloak. Her friend was right, that guy was definitely up to no good.

The skinny man was sneaking, there was no better word for it, down an alley towards a side street with a number of bars on it. A fair number of people were wandering around, going in and out of the various establishments, even though it was very early in the evening yet. As they watched from a couple of hundred feet directly overhead, unseen due both to the now-dark skies and Missy warping the light around them, their target crouched behind a dumpster and peered around it at a couple who were heading for the nearest bar, chatting and laughing. The woman was rummaging through her purse for something and they could easily see his attention was fixed on it.

"He's going to grab it," Aisha added. "Get ready."

"I'm ready, don't worry," Missy hissed, still grinning to herself. This was fun. Having a spotter and working from above made trapping criminals much easier than it probably should have been. She still had to wait for them to actually commit, or try to commit, a crime of course, since intervening before they did something was wrong, but that didn't normally take very long. Not in Brockton Bay, even these days.

There were a lot of petty crooks.

"Any second now… wait for it… There he goes!" Aisha hopped up and down with excitement, pointing at the man who had pulled out a switchblade, snapped it open, and charged out at the couple as they came close enough. His knife was outstretched ready to slice the strap when he suddenly found himself running directly back into the alley he'd just emerged from.

Before he could stop he smashed pretty hard into the dumpster he'd been using as cover, then slid down to a crumpled heap next to it, the knife dropping from his hand. Both his intended victims, who'd frozen in shock when he'd jumped out at them, exchanged a glance.

Missy had used a small spatial warp to bring the sounds from down there up to them, so they could clearly hear both the would-be snatch and grab man moan in shocked pain, and the couple starting to snicker. "Why did he do that, Ryan?" the woman, who was about mid twenties, asked.

"I'm more interested in how he did that," Ryan replied with a smirk. He peered around, even looking up, but not seeing either of the two girls watching and trying not to howl with laughter. "Bet it's a cape."

"Which one?"

The mugger climbed to his feet, looked around for his knife, picked it up, and turned back to his intended victims. He staggered three steps then found he was half way back down the alley, still facing them.

"Cloak. It's got to be Cloak," Ryan stated with a knowing nod. "I've seen this on line. She's around somewhere."

"What's going on?" the mugger wailed, turning to run away, then discovering to his horror that he couldn't go more than five feet in any direction without ending up going the other way instead. After a couple of cycles of this he threw his knife away and collapsed to his knees, looking distraught.

"I'm almost sorry for him now," Ryan's female friend said.

"I'm not, he had a knife and tried to attack us," the man muttered. He looked around again. "Thanks, wherever you are."

"You're welcome, citizen," Missy said in his ear, which made him yelp and jump. She was having trouble speaking without giggling. Aisha was rolling around on the invisible surface underfoot heaving with laughter at the sight of the mugger feeling around to see if he could figure out how to escape. It wasn't doing much good.

"Er… OK. We'll be going, then..." Ryan looked a little unnerved himself now, although still grateful. Both of them hurried off, looking back at the trapped criminal for a moment before they disappeared into the bar.

"That never gets old," Aisha chortled. "Six in a row. Let's do a dozen then go see Saurial."

"OK, but we should get some more doughnuts on the way," Missy agreed happily. She looked down at her current captive, frowning slightly. He was pretty pathetic now, and she was beginning to feel sorry for him. On the other hand he had just attempted armed robbery. Eventually she sighed and called the BBPD to come pick him up, giving a quick precis of what had happened to the dispatcher. Once the woman on the other end of the line was satisfied, she tucked her phone away in her hood again, then hauled a still snickering Aisha to her feet.

A thought opened a sound-carrying channel to the distraught man. "Just stay there, the cops are on the way. Please don't commit any more crimes, someone could get hurt."

He looked frantically around, then slumped. They could hear a siren approaching and looked to see a BBPD car heading towards the alley. "Think this really does any good?" Aisha asked as they began invisibly skating through the sky, Missy forming walls as well as a floor so her friend didn't risk falling. Aisha trusted her so much now she didn't even question the whole thing, merely followed the other girl. "He'll be back on the street pretty quick, I know that much."

"Probably, there are too many people like him to stop them all, but we have to try, I think," Missy sighed, the sound coming out as a faint hiss like steam escaping a kettle. "He wasn't very good anyway. Maybe he'll try to find something better to do to get money."

"Not always easy even if you want to," Aisha pointed out with a sigh of her own. "My dad told me that. Sometimes people end up doing things they don't want to do because there's nothing else for them."

"I know," Missy nodded. "But I can't stand by and watch someone rob another person at knife-point. If this plan of the Mayor's works, maybe people like him will be able to get a job." She shrugged. "With the Family and the DWU helping him, it'll probably work out."

"I sure hope so," Aisha replied. "They've made a big difference already. Hey, there's another one, that guy is stealing that car."

Missy paused, looking down. There was a very shiny new SUV parked on a driveway next to a small apartment building, the thief bent over the lock on the driver's door and fiddling with it using some small tool. He was out of sight from the road, but clearly visible from above. "BOO!" she loudly projected right into his ear. The young man shrieked in horror, jumping back and spinning around with his fists raised and dropping the tool in the process. It rolled under the car and vanished.

"What the fuck!" he screamed. "Who said that?"

"I did." She lowered her voice and added menace to it. "Run away before I get mad, human criminal."

"Cloak?" he muttered in shock.

"That's me," she said in his other ear, apparently from mere inches away. He violently jerked sideways and spun the other way, not seeing anyone.

"Fuck this," the guy said, sounding terrified, and began rapidly walking away.

"Faster," she urged, projecting from behind him. He broke into a run, quickly disappearing down the street. A number of pedestrians were watching with peculiar expressions since none of them could hear her side of the conversation as it was far too focused. From their point of view he'd abruptly jumped up from behind the car, acted like a lunatic, then run for it.

Aisha was hanging over the invisible barrier and laughing, watching the process. "That was way too easy. But impressive, all you did was scare him and he ran like Saurial was after him."

"Sometimes that's all it takes," Missy laughed. "Not everyone needs me to get serious at them." She looked around, then pointed. "Let's go towards the mall, there are often a lot of muggers and that sort hanging around there."

"OK," Aisha agreed equitably, following as her friend resumed traveling. "Thanks for turning up, by the way. I had a weird day and this is a lot more fun than homework."

"No problem," Missy smiled. "It's nice to have company."

They glanced at each other, even though Aisha couldn't see Missy's face. Then the other girl pointed down at an angle. "There are a lot of them around tonight. Look."

"You're good at this," Missy noted admiringly. They studied the two guys with handguns ready who were walking meaningfully towards a convenience store, while discussing which way of stopping them would be effective, safe, and funny.

On the whole, the two girls were having a good evening, even if most of the people they encountered were not...

---

Dragon finished scanning the small device on Colin's workbench, then closed the tricorder having saved the results. "Fascinating," she said.

Her friend nodded soberly. "The implications are extraordinary as well," he replied, looking at the monitor which was displaying the results of the ongoing tests he was running on it. The flywheel unit he'd received from the DWU girl was connected with heavy cables to a series of power supplies and programmable loads, which were alternately pulling power from it, then putting it back. "As I expected, it performs exactly as described. I have little doubt it will continue to do so essentially indefinitely. It would be very interesting to examine the power control electronics, as it's entirely possible that they could be optimized further, but since it's a sealed unit we can't get at them."

"We should talk to Saurial and her sister about that," Dragon agreed. "I can immediately see some extremely interesting uses for this sort of power storage device merely in my own equipment, but I would need higher output. As would you. And it would be worth finding out whether they could be made physically smaller as far as the real-world dimensions go. I'm sure the internal dimensions can be increased significantly as so far there doesn't seem to be an upper limit for the Family fractal dimensional techniques."

"My suspicion is that there effectively isn't one," he noted absently, flipping through a series of graphs. "It's probably mostly the complexity of the mathematics involved and the amount of effort they wish to put into it more than any limitation of the ability itself that sets the size and ratio between internal and external volumes." She watched as he ran some more calculations, then leaned back, nodding in satisfaction. "Excellent. The input to output efficiency is remarkably high already. I believe that can probably be improved, but even as is, it will revolutionize power storage systems. The energy density even of this model far exceeds anything other than some Tinker power systems. Assuming larger ones can be made, which I have no doubt at all is the case, they could indeed run an entire city from one. Professor Whitney was correct."

"He generally is," she replied with a smile in her voice. "He's a strange man but a very smart one. Even his colleague Professor Franklin is as well, although his obsession with explosions is somewhat disturbing."

Colin unconsciously felt his beard, making her humor subroutine produce a grin-equivalent. She knew why. "Indeed," he said darkly. "Unfortunately this is true."

Suppressing laughter, she patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. "It grew back perfectly, Colin. Don't worry."

Looking back at the flywheel unit, she added, "I assume that you have also worked out some of the other interesting things about these devices?"

"If you mean how they can almost certainly create such a flywheel with as much rotational energy already present as they wish, yes," he responded, following her gaze. "Saurial's experiments in flight with the water rocket proved that she can manipulate other aspects of matter than its mere creation from apparently nothing. It's logical to assume that they have control over any properties of matter they desire, which also, of course, means the same thing about energy as well. I suspect that they have been deliberately downplaying quite how… broken… that ability is. Even though the presence of stable EDM showed much of this very early on."

"It's more than a little terrifying when you consider the implications of what they could do if they really wanted to," she said quietly. "I think you're right. And I think we have only seen a small fraction of what the Family is truly capable of. I'm more glad than I can say that they're friendly and very hard to upset."

"As am I." He nodded at her words. "I must hasten to say, though, that I think it unlikely in the extreme that they would present a threat to us. I consider them friends and allies, and I believe they reciprocate."

Dragon chuckled. "I'm sure they do," she said. "Raptaur definitely likes you, I could tell when we were working on Athena. She's got a lot of respect for your abilities."

"You think so?" he asked, sounding pleased.

"I do." Amused at his faint smile, she looked at the flywheel unit again. "I need to visit them very soon anyway, probably over the weekend, so I'll mention that we'd like to discuss this thing in more detail as soon as possible."

"Good. I would certainly like to obtain more with higher output," he replied, turning back to the monitors and bringing up another window. It showed a detailed exploded diagram of his motorcycle. "I've been working on an upgrade for my bike and Miss Wilbourn's visit came at a very convenient time. It wouldn't take long to redesign the power train to incorporate a flywheel storage unit, it would fit perfectly right here."

"You'll need to upgrade the wheel motors if you want to take full advantage of it," she pointed out, leaning over his chair to inspect the diagram. "And in that case these power linkages will need to be replaced."

"The Family superconductor would allow them to carry massively more power and still be made a small percentage of the current size," he remarked, spinning the 3D diagram around and highlighting a section. "Which in turn would allow for further expansion of storage space under the seat, you see? In fact..." He thought for a moment. "Yes, I believe I will have to talk to the Family and request their aid in a number of places. Fractal dimensional storage here, here, and here would increase the utility of the design massively. And I've been meaning to ask about commissioning some EDM upgrades for my armor too."

"Let's design what you need, and I'll take it over when I visit and ask about it, shall we, Colin?" she said, pulling her chair over next to his and sitting down. He was already opening a new design document, his expression intent but also oddly content, something she enjoyed seeing.

She was grateful to the Family. Every time they showed him something new, he started thinking about how to use it for all sorts of applications. It gave him enjoyment in a way that most things didn't, and he seemed pleased to have her help, which gave her enjoyment too. The last couple of months had brought them closer together, something she intended to see continue.

---

"Trippy," 'Ianthe' said, looking around the room. "I still can't get used to how ridiculously effective these senses are. I can see everything."

Randall watched the large violet lizard peer at the computers, then shake her… his… its head. He was having trouble remembering it was his best friend in there, since the bioconstruct's own neural filters made it sound exactly like it normally would with Amy driving. Even most of the, fairly alien but very recognizable, body language was identical. He was impressed all over again at how incredibly good the Dallon girl was at this. How the hell she'd managed to persuade the entire world for years she was only a superb healer was beyond him.

It was also very obvious that meeting Taylor had saved her sanity, since suppressing this part of her powers would have inevitably ended badly sooner or later. He felt a little faint when he considered what an evil The Amy could do, or merely one who decided that she didn't care any more. The girl had rigid self control to a level he was pretty sure he didn't to have avoided that fate for as long as she had.

That crazy demon might have saved all of them merely by turning up from wherever it really was that he came from, not just Taylor. And, of course, it had made his own life a lot more interesting as well.

Weird, but interesting. And he was enjoying every moment of it.

"What's it like, dude?" he asked. The scaled head turned to him, cocking to the side a little in a mannerism he recognized and which made him smile slightly.

"I can't really explain it," 'Ianthe' said after a few seconds of thought. "I mean, I can say things like I can literally hear your heartbeat from here, and see it in the blood flow in your face from the thermal emissions, but that's not the same as being able to experience it. I've been in here for less than an hour and it already feels completely natural, as bizarre as that sounds."

"That's mostly down to the neural amplifier working in concert with Ianthe's own brain," Amy said from where she was kneeling on the floor next to the Metis construct, Taylor next to her and Lisa watching with curiosity and a certain level of mild concern for her alter-ego. "The whole design was made to make it work that way. Remember that when you're in the construct, you are the construct in almost every way that matters. Kevin's brain is practically dormant right now, you're running on Ianthe's one, and in every way that matters other than memories and personality, you are Ianthe."

Both the violet reptile and Randall nodded. They understood the principle, but it was still surprising to see it happen, he thought. Watching his friend move his tail around while looking back at it, he grinned. It was apparently even more surprising to have it happen to you.

"I still think that's one of the most incredible things I've ever come across, Amy," he said.

She smiled up at him, then went back to concentrating on what she was doing. "Thanks, Randall," she replied. "OK, nearly there," she added to Taylor. "A little more… stop. OK, hold on for a second, I need to make a few changes."

"Please don't hurt her," Lisa said quietly.

Amy looked at her friend and smiled. "She's fine, honest. She won't feel anything."

Taylor stroked the scaled skin of the black construct, which was lying on its side, currently deactivated and with her eyes shut. "We would never hurt Metis, Lisa. She's family."

The blonde girl smiled back. "I know, and my power says it's going to plan, but… She's part of me now, you know?"

"We understand, Lisa," the Varga assured her softly, his current mini-dragon form across her shoulders from where he was watching too. "I suspect it's not vastly different in some key ways from how Taylor and I are. Metis will be fine. Trust The Amy."

"Everyone must trust The Amy," Kevin intoned, waving taloned hands in mystical patterns. "The Amy is all powerful. Worship The Amy."

"The Amy needs to concentrate, so shut up a second," Amy snickered. She rolled up her sleeve and pushed her arm into the access slit in the construct's belly, an expression of intense thought on her face. "Got it. OK, tie it off, Taylor, and we're done. It worked perfectly." She pulled her arm out and waited for the faint sheen of dampness to evaporate before adjusting her shirt.

Standing up, she turned to the observers. "We've used the fractional dimensional technique to enlarge the size of the internal storage pouch quite a lot. It'll take someone bigger than Zephron now no problem. We could go larger, but right now there isn't any need, and it's a little fiddly making it connect properly to all the living parts, so it seemed a good idea to take it slowly. I'll think about how this went and see if I can improve it. My power loves it, though, it opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities. We've been considering some of them for a while now so this is a useful test."

Bending down, she activated the construct, which opened its eyes, blinked, then gracefully rolled to its feet with ease. It looked down at her, before lowering its head to rest on hers. She reached up and stroked it, smiling, as Lisa grinned. "Hi, Metis," the brunette said. "Sorry about all that, we had to improve you."

Randall got the distinct impression that the construct seemed content, and even happy. It lifted its head and looked around at the others, meeting his eyes for a moment. He wondered at the way he was momentarily sure there was more intelligence in that green gaze than he expected, then was distracted by Lisa making a gesture. Metis padded over to her and stopped next to her. She reached out and stroked the side of the huge reptilian figure, which squatted down beside her and waited quietly.

Amy and Taylor watched as well, exchanging a smile, then the former turned to Randall. "You know the drill. Behind the screen, clothes off. Hop to it."

"At once, your healership," he said, lifting a hand to his brow. "I live to obey."

"Don't you start," she warned him, although she was grinning. Snickering, he headed towards the screened enclosure, hearing her follow. Very soon he was staring at the now-open entrance to the dormant form of the Metis bioconstruct. Looking at Amy a little plaintively, he asked in a weak voice, "You're sure this is required?"

She smiled at him. "I am. You'll be fine. I know it looks weird, but it's easy and painless. I think you'll enjoy it, everyone else sure seems to."

"Oh, god," he sighed, kneeling down in only his boxers. "I must be crazy. This is so wrong on so many levels."

"That's what they all say," she giggled. "Now get in there."

"Ick." He tentatively felt the opening, which was slick and warm, shuddered a little, then sucked it up and went for it. The next couple of minutes were very weird but he finally blinked, looking around and lifting his head.

Much further than he should have been able to.

Reaching up he felt his head, then a tooth, before raising his hands in front of his eyes. "Oh my fucking god, that's unbelievable," he said in wondering tones.

"How do you feel," Amy asked, studying him closely. "Metis..."

"I… just don't have the words. Amy, you're a genuine miracle worker," he breathed, experimentally rolling over, then cautiously rising to his feet. The sensation of a long muscular tail behind him aiding his balance made him look back at it in amazement, then try moving it deliberately. It was peculiarly easy. "This is just nuts."

"Raise your hands over your head and touch your middle fingers together, please?" she asked. He did as requested. "Excellent. Now close your eyes, turn in a circle, and open them again." He did that too, feeling her hand on his skin. Or scales. "Working perfectly. All the neural linkages are properly connected, the Randall body is shut down except for maintenance functions, and the neural amplifier is relaying your consciousness to and from the bioconstruct's brain." She stepped back, looking pleased. "And as I half-expected, your own power is obviously having a wonderful time with this."

He looked curiously at her. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"You're at the point where Lisa and Kevin needed about an hour to acclimate to in less than two minutes," she replied. "It feels completely natural already doesn't it?"

Thinking about her question, he nodded after a moment. "Yeah. Weird. I didn't really notice, but you're right. This just feels… normal. Like I've always been like this."

"I thought that might happen." Amy walked around his form, examining it carefully, then stopped in front of him. "I also suspect that you'll learn Famtalk very quickly indeed. In fact..." She paused, then said something in a strange voice, before coughing. "Ow. Human vocal cords aren't meant to do that. I'll have to do something about it."

He stared at her. {Understood that…} he tried, fumbling for the words. "What the hell?"

"Not bad, though your accent is weird," she laughed. "OK, I'm genuinely impressed."

"How did even I learn a language that alien in only minutes?" he asked, shocked.

"Technically, I don't think you did. Metis knows it, or the bioconstruct's brain does, if you want to think of it like that. That's what I designed it to do. The language centers of her brain are huge, much larger than a human's or anything else that lives on this planet. And it's vastly more densely packed with my own version of neural cells which are a hell of a lot more efficient than human ones too. So is your neural amplifier, for that matter, which is why it works so well considering how small it is compared to your brain. When Varga taught Lisa and me Famtalk, we were in the constructs, and their brains were what allowed us to learn it much, much faster than it should have taken. The low level linkage to our human bodies let the information get transferred in and permanently retained over time."

She looked justifiably proud of her work, as he gaped at her. "It should work with any language, although so far we haven't tried much proper testing. I have experimented with Spanish and I've improved, but it was only some idle playing around rather than a serious attempt. In any case, the point is that her brain has all that information still in there. It's got a fuck of a lot more storage than a human one does, so there's no point not retaining everything that might come in handy. And since it has a very low level and direct access to your own brain via the neural amplifier, and your ability is also wired directly into your brain..."

"My power can access Metis's brain and use it like it was my own," he finished when she trailed off meaningfully. "And it's basically downloading Famtalk and learning it."

"Yep. Probably already done it, actually. My upgrades improve powers a lot as far as we can tell so far, like the way upgrading Lisa fixed her Thinker headaches. When she's connected to Metis her ability gets even more effective, because as far as I can work out it's using the bioconstruct brain as well as hers, however the processors actually connect to a brain in the first place. I've noticed the same thing when I'm in Ianthe. My ability absolutely loves her, it gets even more helpful and imaginative then."

"Which is why you do a lot of your work when you're Ianthe?" he guessed. She nodded with a smile.

"Right. It's easier, it just sort of… flows." She gestured at herself. "Like this, a plain boring human..." He snickered, making her grin. "...With a lot of upgrades, true enough, but more or less standard brain still, I'm pretty damn good if I say so myself. But when I'm in Ianthe, it's just…" She shook her head with a wondering expression. "Incredible."

"Unbelievable," he said in low tones. Lifting a black-scaled hand he stared at it, turning it over and flexing the taloned digits. Without any effort he made the scarlet highlights disappear, leaving total blackness behind, then turned them back on. "Just fucking unbelievable. How the fuck do I know how to do that? I wonder how much of the various users is being retained by her?" He looked up at Amy, who was watching with interest. "I mean, Lisa's been in her for literally weeks of accumulated time, you've been in her a couple of times that I know of, and now me. And you, Lisa, and Danny have all been in Ianthe as well."

Amy shrugged. "To be honest I can't answer that yet. I'm becoming more and more convinced that they're learning a lot faster than I expected, but I still can't say how intelligent the construct brain can become in the end, or how quickly. I've noticed that they're definitely more..." She made gesture indicating uncertainty. "More alive, I guess? Taylor's noticed it too, and so has Lisa. Both Metis and Ianthe are more aware in a way, I think. That's one of the reasons I leave Ianthe active a lot of the time when I'm not in her, it almost seems cruel to force her asleep."

The girl sighed faintly. "Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing too much. They weren't designed to be able to become truly sapient, but on the other hand they have an awful lot of brainpower, at least in theory."

Randall studied her for a few seconds, then shook his head with impressed respect. "Only you, Amy, could possibly accidentally create another intelligent species."

"Hey, I'm a proper mad scientist, I'll have you know," she retorted with her hands on her hips. "I can accidentally do all sorts of bizarre things!"

"And even more bizarre things on purpose, right?"

"Oh, definitely," she grinned. "Anyway, enough metaphysics and pondering the meaning of life for now."

"It's forty-two. Everyone knows that."

"Quite." She pulled the curtain away and waved to the others, who were talking quietly around the table, although he noticed that Taylor was looking over at them having certainly heard everything. For that matter, considering the people present, they all probably had. "You'll need to be in there for a few hours to cook so let's go do something else."

"I would suggest that this would be an opportune moment for some more training in Family combat techniques," the Varga said, taking on the Raptaur aspect next to them with no warning. Randall suppressed a twitch, which he was mildly amused to note would have ended up with him lashing out with the tail he'd only had for under a quarter of an hour. By the look in the glowing eyes watching him, the demon had noticed and found it funny. "As long as you and Kevin are in there, we might as well take advantage of the enhanced learning abilities to get in some practice. I'm also very intrigued to see how it interacts with your Parahuman ability as well, since we can assume Amy is most likely correct."

Taylor appeared on his other side, as Saurial, then handed him a pair of batons she pulled out of nowhere. The Varga was, when he looked back, holding an identical pair and grinning, appropriately enough, like a demon.

"This is going to hurt, isn't it?" he asked with a sigh, looking back at Taylor who was holding a third set with an almost identically predatory grin on her muzzle.

"Don't worry, you can take it," Amy chuckled, stepping back. Behind them, the screened enclosure disappeared as both aspects moved apart to put him between them.

"Ten bucks on Taylor," Kevin called.

"Oh, thanks, buddy," he growled, taking up an appropriate stance and bracing himself. His best friend merely laughed, until Taylor smirked at him.

"When we're done with Randall, you're next," she said happily.

The smirk vanished rather rapidly.

---

Brian sat down at the cafeteria table with a feeling of relief and anticipation of a good meal, putting his tray in front of him. He'd had a solid day's work, achieved all his tasks, and now he could eat and relax. He still needed to decide what the next step was as far as his sister went, and for that matter whether he kept living at the DWU or found an apartment somewhere.

Aisha was the more important thing, of course. But that also influenced whether he stayed here or not. While he found the place very enjoyable, fitting in far better here than he really had practically anywhere else so far, it wasn't exactly the place for a thirteen year old girl. Especially one as inquisitive as Aisha was. She'd be into everything in minutes, he was sure of that.

He was still thinking over the previous night at their father's apartment. The guy genuinely tried, he knew that, and in his own way had clearly been relieved to see that his son was all right having gone incommunicado for weeks. Saurial's visit had, he'd eventually mentioned, made him both very curious about what Brian had got mixed up in, and much less worried that whatever it was would kill him.

Brian hadn't told him about the Undersiders, or that nightmarish run from Lung. Or, for that matter, about Lung at all. Lung was definitely not someone he intended to think about, talk about, or ideally, ever even hear about again.

How Saurial had managed to convince the lunatic rage-dragon to leave them alone was beyond his ability to understand, but he sure wasn't going to question it. And if nothing else it proved that the Family was even more dangerous than he'd assumed, and he'd assumed they were hideously dangerous in the first place.

"Pass the salt, please, Brian."

He picked up the salt shaker and handed it across the table, still deep in thought.

What to do about Aisha?

With Danny's backing and help, Lisa and he had completed an update of the relevant documents that would let him hopefully gain guardianship of his sister. His father was cooperating, and now that he had a stable job and people to vouch for him, the papers would probably go through without too much trouble. No longer having to hide would help a hell of a lot.

"Pepper, please."

He handed it over.

So there didn't seem to be anything standing in the way of sending the documentation in to update his case, now. He resolved to arrange that tomorrow, even though it probably wouldn't get anywhere for at least a few weeks. This sort of bureaucracy ran slowly at the best of times. And there would undoubtedly be yet another visit from some annoying official who would ask a lot of stupid questions, tut at his living accommodations, make irritating remarks about his parents, and all the other crap that always seemed to come along with this sort of thing.

On the upside, though, Coil was gone, he was no longer a criminal, he was being actively supported by people he looked up to, and for whatever reason Aisha seemed to be on what for her counted as her best behavior.

"Are you done with the ketchup?"

"Yeah, here you go," he replied, pushing the bottle forward. He took a forkful of his roast chicken and chewed slowly, savoring the taste. The food here was, if anything, getting better. It was definitely at least as good as some diners he'd visited, and a few of the dishes were remarkable.

Going back to his thoughts, eventually he shrugged to himself. He'd have to wait and see how the application changes affected his case. Probably it would help, and Danny had told him that he was more than happy to put in a good word. Aisha was better off where she was until everything was finalized and at that point he could, if he hadn't already, work out where the pair of them would live.

He looked up as Alec sat next to him. "Hi," he said, then went back to eating and pondering his life issues. Dimly he registered Rachel sitting on the other side and plonking her tray down with a grunt.

"Hey, Brian, how's it hanging?" the younger boy said, popping open a can of soda. He sipped slowly, then put it down.

"Not bad. I'm exhausted, though, I've been worked off my ass all day."

"Ah, the life of the working stiff," his friend laughed. "Me, I finally managed to take out fucking Protomancer twice in one game."

"Happy days," Brian responded dryly.

"You know it, brother." Alec snickered, then looked around. "Where's the ketchup?"

"Here."

"Oh, thanks, Aisha."

"No sweat."

Brian ate half a dozen more mouthfuls of his dinner before he froze with his fork in front of his face. He replayed the last few minutes in his head, then clenched his eyes shut with a feeling of dread. Opening them after a second or two he lifted his head.

"Hi, Brian!" his sister chirped, grinning at him as she leaned back in her chair, nibbling on a fry.

"Oh, Jesus," he moaned, dropping his fork and burying his head in his hands. "Aisha. How the hell did you get in here?"

"Cloak brought me," she replied happily. He moved his fingers apart to allow him to gaze at her. She seemed sincere, which was worrying in several ways.

"Cloak?"

"Cloak."

The voice from behind him made him yelp in shock and whip his head around so fast he nearly got a crick in his neck. Aisha snickered, as did Alec, and even Rachel made a sound that was very close to a laugh.

"Hi. Brian, right?" the floating garment that was… standing…? behind him said politely. He noticed absently that she? It? the cloak, anyway… was holding a tray of her own. He could also clearly see there was no one inside the hood at all.

"Er… yes." He watched with wide eyes as the thing walked over the table to the other side using motions that suggested it was climbing then descending an invisible flight of stairs. He'd heard about that, and even seen video on PHO, but it was a lot creepier in real life. And weirdly a lot more disturbing than someone simply flying. Glory Girl floating around without a care in the world was one thing, but this was… wrong. Although he couldn't for the life of him work out why he felt like that.

Cloak put her tray down next to Aisha's, then sat beside his sister. More or less. There wasn't a chair there, but whatever. Picking up a fry, the thing pushed it into the hood to where a face should have been, half of it disappearing in an invisible bite.

'Where does it go?' he wondered in a bemused way. 'If she's actually invisible shouldn't I see it through her? Is there actually anyone in there or not?' The rest of the fry went after the first part, leaving him none the wiser.

"These are really good," Cloak hissed in tones of enjoyment.

"Yeah, I can see why you like it here, if you get to eat like this all the time," his sister said with a nod, picking up another one of her own and dipping it in ketchup before eating it. "So. How's things?"

The expression on her face was one he recognized and dreaded. It boded ill for his state of mind. The way that Alec was looking between them with a definite smirk of amusement didn't help.

"Things were going pretty well," he finally replied with a deep sigh. "Somehow, though, I can't help feeling that's going to change now."

She merely grinned at him, with Cloak making odd little hissing sounds that seemed to be her version of laughter. How the two of them had met and how she'd ended up here in the company of the very disturbing cape was merely one of many, many questions he rather suspected he wasn't going to find comforting answers for.

Alec going and somehow finding a large bowl of popcorn which he was shortly sharing with Rachel as they observed didn't help, either.

And the way everyone else in the entire cafeteria simply glanced at them and went on with their business was just weird.

---

Linda looked up from her workbench, then went over and unlocked the door, swinging it open. "Hello, everyone," she said with a smile. "Anything wrong?"

"No," Lisa replied, entering at the head of the procession as she stepped aside. All four of the usual members of the Family came in behind her, Amy bringing up the rear. "We just thought we'd visit and I could let you know how things went with the Mayor and the PRT. And I wanted to thank you for the omnivehicle. That thing is amazing."

Linda closed the door behind them, chuckling at the enthusiasm in her friend's voice. "Thanks. I'm glad you like it."

"Like it?" Lisa grinned widely. "It's my favorite machine in the world right now. And you should see the reactions of people who see it. I'm telling you, if we could sell those things just in this city, practically everyone I've met would buy one. Oh, Armsmaster asked me to tell you he and Dragon are having a lot of fun examining the prototype and they'll get it back to you when they've finished playing with it." She snickered. "He didn't put it quite like that, of course. More formal, but you've met the guy."

"I have." Linda laughed. "Despite my worries, I kind of like him. And I sure respect his Tinkering abilities, even though I think he gets carried away with trying to put far too much shit into one device." She put a hand on her chest, her tail flicking from side to side with her humor. "Someone like Vectura builds things to last, you realize. My stuff isn't all delicate and prone to failure."

"Speaking in the third person is the first sign of something weird going wrong with your mind," Saurial smirked. "Saurial knows this."

"Lisa agrees," Lisa said. They shared an amused look.

"So it went well, I assume?" Linda asked after a moment.

"Very well. Pretty much as well as it could go, in fact." Lisa looked very pleased. "We're definitely going to get a lot of orders soon."

"Wonderful." Linda felt happy for her friends. "That's really good, both for all of us and the city."

"It's an excellent beginning," Raptaur agreed.

"Hey, have you seen Kevin and Randall this evening?" Linda asked, looking around at the others. "I was half expecting them to drop by."

"They're probably not too far away," Metis replied with a smile. "You know those two, though. They get completely absorbed in their projects sometimes."

Linda laughed. "Oh, god, yes. Even when those projects blow up in their faces." She shook her head in mild wonder. "How they're still alive is a bit of a mystery sometimes."

Ianthe snickered, then motioned to one of the mechs. "That looks like you've been doing some work on it."

Linda followed the violet lizard's gaze, nodding. "Yeah. I've been working on a new control interface, partly inspired by Kevin's Halo armor system. It should work a lot more intuitively than the current one, it's a neural induction linkage. More or less. I came up with some improvements."

"Ooh." Amy peered at the mech, looking very interested. "How does it work?"

Pleased at the interest, Linda went over to the machine and climbed up it, the girl following with surprising ease. Shortly she was engaged in a discussion with the healer who was remarkably competent at understanding it, thoroughly enjoying herself, while the rest of her visitors listened and asked questions from the floor.

---

Looking at his watch, Danny said, "I'll have to go soon. I want to get an early start tomorrow, so I can be home by about lunch time."

Antonio poured the last of the wine in the current bottle into his guest's glass, then held it up to the light. "That was a good year," he murmured. "I must see about getting some more." Putting it down on the table, he smiled. "I understand, my boy. It's been truly wonderful having you visit after so long."

Serafina finished clearing up the remnants of the after-dinner dessert they'd enjoyed in the living room then sat on his other side, taking his free hand in both of hers. "Don't leave it so long, Danny," she said with a smile of her own. "We missed you. And I want to see Taylor all grown up. Watching her beat up a mugger was inspirational, but nothing can replace seeing someone face to face."

"I've come to appreciate that," he replied with a chuckle, putting his arm over her shoulders and hugging her briefly. "Thank you both for the hospitality, Aunt Serafina. Uncle Tony."

"You're more than welcome, Danny," the old man laughed. "Make sure you send our love to that girl of yours. And tell that lunatic Zephron that the job offer is still open."

"Hands off Zephron, he's my lunatic," Danny warned with a grin. The ancient mobster spread his hands with an innocent look.

"You can't blame a man for trying."

"Want to bet?"

They shared another chuckle. "Thank you, Tony," Danny said again in a low voice. "I didn't realize how much I'd missed this. Again, I'm sorry."

Antonio waved his comment away dismissively. "Pah. All in the past, forget it. Just remember what we talked about and keep an eye on the lad and we're fine, OK?"

"Of course."

"And if you see Benny and Rudy, tell them I said hi," the other man said with an evil smirk. Danny gave him a hard look. "Just to keep them on their toes!" he added with amusement.

"Sure. Not like you'd ever try to scare anyone, right?"

"Oh, I never try to scare anyone, Danny."

Unable to help himself, Danny snickered. "Understood."

"I made some more cookies for you to take with you, I'll go get them," Serafina said, standing up. She winced and massaged her back for a moment.

"Something wrong?" Danny asked, mildly concerned.

"Only age, Danny," she sighed. "It catches up with everyone in the end. Even those who have led good and pure lives, like the two of us." She gave him a mischievous look over her shoulder, one that belonged on the face of a woman fifty years younger, then disappeared into the kitchen. He watched her go, thinking again about something that had occurred to him some time ago, before finishing his wine and putting his glass on the coffee table.

"I've got a couple of jars of my best sauce to take back with you too," Antonio said, watching him. "Along with Sera's recipe for her risotto. I think Taylor will probably like it."

"She definitely will," Danny agreed, looking back at his companion. "Did I tell you she's writing a cook-book?"

Raising an eyebrow, Antonio looked impressed. "No, you didn't. Her own recipes?"

"Some of hers, some of her mothers, and a few that a good friend taught her," he said proudly. "She's got about forty or so now. Annette had quite a few more but some of them she doesn't want to let out of the family. I'm not sure when she's going to finish it, it's sort of a slow work in progress, but I'll make sure to get you two a copy when she's done."

"I'd like that very much," the old man replied with a nod of thanks. "We'll have to think if we have some she might like too."

"I'll tell her you offered." They looked around as Serafina came back carrying a cardboard box about a foot cubed which both clinked a little and smelled delicious.

"Don't eat them all on the way home, leave some for little Taylor," the woman warned him with a severe look as he accepted it.

"I'll be good," he promised with a grin.

"See that you are. My recipe is in there too, along with the old fool's precious sauce." She winked at him as Antonio put an outraged expression on his face and sat bolt upright.

"Old fool? Old fool? You forget your place, woman!"

"Hush."

"Yes, dear." He settled back radiating amusement, although his face was fixed in a scowl.

"And don't look like that, your face will freeze in that expression."

"It might help with discipline," Antonio said thoughtfully, then yelped when she flicked him on the forehead. "Ow!"

"Old fool. As I suspected."

Danny was snickering under his breath, the byplay between them was always funny. It was even funnier thinking about the dichotomy between how they acted in private and their more than slightly terrifying reputations.

As he watched them bicker with clear affection, he came to a decision. Putting the box next to him on the sofa, he retrieved his jacket from where he'd draped it over the arm and reached into the pocket, removing a small box. Both of them watched as he put the jacket down, then weighed the box in his hand.

"What's that?" Antonio finally asked.

Danny popped the lid open and held it out. The elderly man peered into it, then raised his eyes to his guest's, looking puzzled. "Still none the wiser, my boy."

Picking one of the one-shot healing units up in his other hand, Danny inspected it for a moment, then began explaining. He found their expressions rather gratifying.

---

Aisha looked at her brother, who was rubbing his forehead again with a pained look, then glanced at Cloak with a tiny grin. It was always funny pushing his buttons like this. "Well, can't stay here all night, we have lizards to talk to," she said brightly, hopping down from her chair. He looked up, alarm on his features, while Alec laughed. Rachel watched them both with a look that was nearly amusement then went back to her third helping of dessert.

"Lizards…? Oh, hell. Aisha! Get back here."

She turned around halfway to the door of the cafeteria and waved, grinning. Beside her Cloak was snickering. "See you later, brother dear," she called, before darting after her weird friend.

"Bye, Brian," Cloak called. "Nice to meet you."

By the time he ran after them they were invisible and giggling, heading over to the BBFO office to see who was around.

"It won't take him long to follow, you know," Cloak suggested as they exited the building, one of the DWU workers looked around at the door that opened and closed with no one to do it, then shrugged and kept going.

"Sure I know. Doesn't matter. I want to see Saurial again," Aisha replied. "That crazy lizard sort of grows on you."

"She's a lot of fun," Cloak agreed readily. "Let's see if we can find them."

It took them a few minutes, and there didn't seem to be anyone in the BBFO office, but in the end they spotted Saurial, Raptaur, and the other lizards, along with a couple of perfectly normal humans. They were standing outside a building a few hundred yards away and watching that cat-woman Tinker the DWU had got the other day putting one of her mechs through its paces in a clear area. "Oh, cool," Aisha said with great interest, peering down at the machine. She found Saurial and Raptaur both looking directly at her. "Hey, I thought we were invisible," she added in a quiet voice, pointing.

"We are," Cloak said with a grin in her voice. "Doesn't help with them. Come on, let's go see what's going on."

They quickly descended the invisible spiral staircase to the ground, Cloak dropping her invisibility on the way down. Saurial grinned at them. "Hello, Aisha. This is a little late for someone your age to be running around."

"Bite me," the girl said tartly, which only made the lizard grin much more widely and open her mouth to say something. Aisha looked at the teeth and added hastily, "But not really."

"Aww. Humans are no fun." The lizard-girl chuckled. "Does Brian know you're here?"

"He does. For some reason he seemed to be a little… confused?"

She grinned back as all four lizards laughed. "Poor Brian," Lisa said, walking over. "I thought you were going home."

"Got bored."

"How long did that take? About five seconds?"

"Hey, I sat through your entire scam without saying anything," Aisha retorted. "Cut me some slack."

Lisa merely shook her head, then went back to watching the mech. Aisha and Cloak did as well. Vectura, or whatever the Tinker was called, finished doing her tests and walked the thing over to them, making it squat down in front of them. Aisha watched with great interest as the top of the canopy raised and the cat-woman lightly jumped out, landing on the ground next to it. "Works perfectly," she announced. "Thank you, Amy, that was a good idea about the brain interface modifications."

"No problem," the brunette girl who Aisha realized was Amy Dallon, or Panacea, replied. "Can I try?"

"Sure, go ahead." Vectura watched as the girl climbed up into the cockpit and strapped herself into the seat in a way that made it obvious she'd done it before. She pulled a sort of partial helmet down over her head, then did something that made the canopy close and the mech stand up. Aisha stared as she then made it run around like it was alive, hop on one leg, wave the armored tail thing around, and a whole series of other maneuvers.

"Holy shit, that's nearly as cool as those light vehicles," she said in amazement.

"You like the omnivehicle?" She looked to the side to see Vectura looking at her with interest. Up close it was obvious that the woman really was part cat, it wasn't a costume.

"Yep. Lisa took me for a ride in one. It's fantastic." She frowned a little. "But she said it would go up a building then didn't do it. That wasn't much fun."

"People get annoyed if you drive up the front of their buildings, Aisha," Lisa said patiently.

"Except the Medhall one, of course," Metis added with a grin. The blonde looked at her for a moment, returning the grin.

"I expect old Max is just as annoyed, but we don't actually care in his case."

"Good point."

Aisha laughed. Then, looking slyly at the people-people and lizard-people standing around, asked, "Hey, can I have a go in that thing?"

Saurial inspected her, glancing at Lisa who was looking worried, and Vectura who was looking thoughtful. "That's… probably not a brilliant idea. Sorry."

She pouted.

"However..." The slender lizard pulled a familiar looking long cylinder out of a pouch on her belt. "We can probably let you have a little fun with this."

She beamed.

Lisa put her hand over her eyes and groaned. "Ignore her, she gets all responsible sometimes," Saurial advised, snapping the omnivehicle projector open.

Aisha exchanged a look with Cloak. This evening was getting better and better all the time.

---

Brian rounded the corner into the BBFO yard, then jumped back as a glowing blur shot past.

"Wheeeeee!"

Two voices dopplered into the distance.

He looked after them, then sagged. The light-cycle was now zipping in huge circles in the middle of the yard, his sister's voice whooping with glee. He could see she was driving it, with Saurial on the rear seat apparently enjoying the experience.

"Asking that insane lizard to talk to them was apparently a mistake," he sighed, before deciding he might as well go back and let Alec beat him at some game or other. He could see that these two would be busy for a while…

Wondering whether perhaps he was making some grievous error in attempting to become her guardian, he headed back to the dormitory block, hearing a whine grow louder then fade away again.

"Wheeeeeeeeee!"

---

Antonio embraced Danny, then stepped back to let his wife do the same. The younger man smiled, before picking up his box and stepping into the elevator. "I'll see you around," he said in contented tones, much happier than he had appeared when he'd arrived the previous day.

"Make sure you do, Danny," Antonio replied, his arm around his wife. "Fourteen years is too long. Take care, and take care of your family and friends."

"Always, Uncle Tony," Danny smiled. "Family is everything."

"Your father would have been very proud of you," Antonio told him with utter honesty.

"Thanks." Danny glanced at Luigi, who nodded and swiped his access card through the reader. The doors slid silently shut, the last they saw of their visitor being a smile and a raised hand. After a moment, they turned and went back into their apartment while Luigi returned to his duties.

"I am so glad he came," Serafina said, wiping a tear from her eye. "And so sorry he left."

"He'll be back," Antonio told her with a quick hug, before following her into the kitchen. He sniffed. "Are there any of those wonderful cookies of yours left?"

"A few," she laughed, retrieving a plate from a cupboard. He eagerly took one of the baked pieces of heaven and bit into it. "Leave the rest for tomorrow."

Putting it away again having taken one for herself, she stretched, smiling widely. "My god, that feels so good. Our boy's friends are amazing."

"They're certainly changing the world," Antonio agreed, watching her with pleasure. "Although I didn't expect this. It was nice of him."

"It was beyond nice," she responded, shaking her head. Quickly making them each a cup of their favorite tea, she went back into the living room and relaxed on the sofa. He sat next to her, putting his arm over her shoulders and just resting. "This was such fun."

He nodded, watching the distant lights of the city through the bullet-proof windows of the apartment. They sat there in silence for some time.

"You didn't tell him."

"No."

"Any reason? Or are you just being secretive for your own amusement?" Her voice was soft and content as she leaned on him.

"That little cagna hurt family," he replied after a few seconds. "I want to have my fun first. Just to show her what it's like."

He looked at her face, which was showing mild exasperation and amusement at the same time, shrugging a little guiltily. "Forgive an old man his small pleasures."

"You are evil," she giggled, poking him in the side. "It reminds me why I love you so much."

Laughing, they went back to just thinking about their visitor and everything he'd told them. Antonio made a mental note that he owed Sean McLoughlin a case of the good whiskey. Emerald Isle Trucking Company was, yet again, being very useful indeed.

---

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

Sophia hit the steering wheel with her undamaged hand, staring at the rear view mirror in absolute rage.

That fucking truck was back again.

"How!? How is he doing this?"

She'd thought for nearly an entire day she'd managed to finally lose the bastard, having been engaged in a manic series of vehicle thefts, license place swaps, random directional changes, and even hiding in an old mine entrance she'd found on a map she'd stolen at the last place she'd raided. Her current vehicle, a completely non-descript dark blue sedan, should have been completely anonymous. It was also loaded down with enough food and water to last a week or more, and enough weapons to assault a decent sized SWAT team and win.

Yet now, she was watching the same fucking green semi come around the corner a mile back, passing under the streetlights of the small town she'd just blown through in seconds due to it being so insignificant. At the moment she wasn't even sure herself where she was other than somewhere in the middle of Iowa, surrounded by fields in every direction. So how had the fucker tracked her?

There was no way there was any actual tracking device on her, or in the vehicle, she was certain of that. She'd looked enough times, and gone through so many different vehicles it just wasn't possible. The only thing she still had from Brockton Bay was her crossbow and some bolts, she'd dumped everything else over time as paranoia got the better of her. Even the PRT-issue handgun was at the bottom of a river she'd crossed the night before. And she couldn't see any way the crossbow itself could contain a tracker since no one other than her even knew about it, or could have got at it without her abilities. It had never been within two miles of the PRT building.

'Precog? Maybe, but if some cape is doing this, why are they only following me? Why not attack?' She shook her head in frustration. It didn't make any sense. That damn truck just popped out of the background and then followed her far enough back that if she didn't know it was following her, she'd probably have ignored at it.

And it Just. Didn't. Stop!

'It's like the fucking Terminator,' she thought with momentary black humor. 'Only on wheels.'

What could she do about it, though? Having it chase her all the way to the Pacific, or Canada, or even Mexico, was out of the question. Even if she actually knew at this point where she wanted to end up anyway, which she didn't. Not having time to stop and plan for a while had definitely screwed up her last few days, although on the other hand it was probably playing merry hell with the ability of most Thinkers to predict her movements too based on her training.

Which, again, led right back to how was he doing it? And why?

Fuming, she kept driving while plotting her next move in the bizarre game of chess she'd found herself in. It was unbelievably annoying, since she'd rather have been planning her return to deal with her foes back in Brockton.

When she checked the mirror again, the semi wasn't visible, but she wasn't fooled. It was out there. Somewhere.

---

Aisha climbed over her bedroom windowsill, then turned to grin at her friend. "See you around," she whispered.

"You sure will," Cloak whispered back, her eerie voice even stranger like that. "It was a lot of fun. Thanks for the help with all those crooks."

"Any time, it was hilarious. So was Brian's face."

They both giggled. Cloak raised a leathery hand in a wave, then started walking away and faded out of sight. Aisha gently slid the window shut, closed the curtains, and got undressed, soon sliding under the covers. As she fell asleep, she mused on how well the day had gone. At times it felt like it had lasted about a month, and at other times it had gone past all too fast, but on the whole it was one of the better ones she'd had.

She'd met Vectura, played with one of those ultra-cool light cycles, met the rest of the lizards, annoyed her brother, and helped catch fourteen different minor criminals. All in all she couldn't complain.

She even got a nice pen out of it.

Contented, she fell asleep, a smile on her face. And didn't even stir when her father quietly opened the door, looked at her, nodded, and went back to bed himself.

---

"You'll need a good night sleep and a big breakfast, but everything went fine," Amy said with satisfaction, removing her hand from Randall's neck.

He nodded, looking at his friend, who was amusing himself by making a torrent of sparks arc between his fingers. "Thanks, Amy. It's been… weird."

"That's what we do," she grinned, making him chuckle. "Let me know when you work out exactly what option you guys want to go for."

"We'll think about it and get back to you soon," Kevin promised. Randall got up, clapped his friend on the back, then headed for the door, the other man trailing after him.

"See you, girls. Don't break the universe too badly," he called back as he opened the door, then left. She was right. He needed some sleep.

When the door clicked shut, Amy turned to Lisa who was stroking her Metis construct, the creature lying on its chest next to her and looking like it was enjoying it. "She's fine, trust me," the healer said reassuringly.

"I know, but I just wanted to check," Lisa replied.

"Fair enough." Amy looked at Taylor, who was standing as Saurial watching them both. The other aspect had been dismissed since they'd had it out for quite a while that evening, on and off. "Should we show her?"

"If you want," Taylor said with a shrug. Lisa looked at her, then Amy, her eyes narrowing.

"Show me what?" she asked slowly.

"Something cool."

"Is it something I should be worried about?"

"Oh, no, definitely not," Amy responded instantly. "Probably not. I don't think so… No, it should be fine."

Lisa stood up from where she'd been kneeling next to Metis, putting her hand on her forehead and sighing. "Oh, crap."

"It's good! Really!" Amy grinned as the hand was lowered and their friend's gaze met her eyes a little skeptically.

"Forgive me, but when you get that look in your eyes," Lisa began, "Yes, that one right there, all unholy and gleeful, any normal person starts to back away slowly."

"Normal?" Amy walked over and unlocked the door to her workroom, Taylor and Lisa following. She waved the green-eyed girl inside. "I don't do normal."

She exchanged a smirk with Taylor as Lisa's retort died half-formed.

There was a long pause.

"No, you don't do normal," Lisa finally said in a slightly strangled voice. "Sorry I said it. I should realize by now that none of us do normal. One question?" Her head came back out the doorway, a grin stretching across it to a point it probably impressed even Taylor. "Where's mine?"

"Hands off, this one is for me. You get the next one."

Lisa's grin got even wider, then all three of them, followed by the two bioconstructs who exchanged a look and trotted after their owners, disappeared into the workroom.