Friday, March 11, 2011

Yawning, Danny stretched, then got out of bed, walking to the window and pulling the curtains aside. It was another dull and overcast day, not unusual for early March, although there were hints of sunlight breaking through in the east. With another slight yawn, he headed into the bathroom to do the necessary things one does after getting up.

When he came out, toweling his hair dry, he looked around the hotel room for a moment. Tossing the towel back into the bathroom over the edge of the bath, he got dressed, then packed his bags. Fifteen minutes later he did one final pass through the room, making sure nothing was left behind, before pulling his phone out of his pocket. Dialing a familiar number he waited for a couple of rings.

"Hi, Dad," his daughter's voice said with tones of happiness. "How's things? This is pretty early, it's only… ten past seven?"

"I wanted to get an early start," he replied, sitting on the end of the bed. "I should be back by around lunchtime, depending on traffic."

"OK, that sounds good. Did things go well with Uncle Tony and Aunt Serafina yesterday?"

"They did, thank you. We had a very enjoyable time, and I got several excellent meals out of it." He chuckled as she snickered. "They eat well, believe me. I've got some treats for you from them. Tony was interested in your cook-book project as well, he's thinking about some of their recipes that you might find useful."

"Oh, cool. That would be nice." She sounded pleased. "I'll be interested in seeing them, and trying them out."

"I thought you would. How are things at home?"

"Fine, thanks. School was normal, nothing to report there, aside from the way everyone seems to have accepted Saurial without question." She giggled a little as he smiled to himself. "Honestly, that part is sort of weird even for here, but no one bats an eye now after only a few days. Bet we'd get some odd looks if someone new came in though."

"I expect so," he laughed. "The people of our city are… much more accepting than you'd normally find. Tony and Serafina were fascinated by the entire thing, they could hardly believe some of the stories I told them. And those were the least peculiar ones!"

A note of deep amusement in her voice, she replied, "I bet some of the really strange ones would get some funny reactions."

"Undoubtedly," he nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Are you planning on having one of your tutoring sessions again this afternoon?"

"Yep. I'm going to do a snack run on the way home. Want me to pick up anything special?"

"Hmm… I was rather partial to those jalapeno poppers you made last time."

"I'll get enough ingredients for everyone," she assured him.

"All right, dear. I'd better get on with it, I want to be on the road before the rush hour starts. I'll stop at that diner on the way back for a late breakfast, I think. Say hi to Amy for me, and your other friends, and I'll see you later."

"Drive safely, Dad," she said. "Bye."

"Bye, Taylor." Prodding the disconnect icon he dropped the phone back into his pocket, then grabbed both bags in one hand as he stood, plucked the key card out of the holder inside the door on the way through it, and headed for reception.

"Did you have a good stay, Mr Hebert?" the young woman at the desk said as she accepted the key card from him, then typed rapidly on her computer for a few seconds.

"It was fine, thank you," he smiled. "I haven't been here for some time, but it's still a nice place."

"Thank you," she replied with a small smile of her own.

"Oh, while I remember, the cold tap in the sink seems to be leaking," he added. "It started on the second day. Might need someone to look at it."

"Ah." She made a quick note. "I'll get maintenance onto it. Thanks."

"No problem." He waited while she turned around to retrieve the printout that slid onto the laser printer behind her with a faint whirr, then handed it to him.

"If you'll just sign here, and here, please," she requested, tapping two spots with her pen, which she gave him to use. He did as requested and handed it back, receiving one of the copies in return. "I hope your visit was successful," she smiled as she filed the other copy away under the counter. "Please think of staying here again if you have business in the area."

"I expect I will," he nodded politely. "I may well be back in the area more often in future."

"Have a good day," the woman said, glancing past him to a delivery man who had just come in and was waiting, then returned her attention to him. "And a safe trip home."

"Thanks." Picking his bags up, he turned and went towards the stairs to the underground car pack. Very soon, bags in the trunk, he pulled out onto the road and turned towards Brockton Bay and home, wondering what had happened in his absence.

Ten minutes later, he spotted a couple of familiar faces in a car going in the other direction and smiled, waving as they passed. He frowned a little as he watched the car swerve slightly in the rear view mirror, thinking that Rudy must have seen a cat or something run out in front of him, then shrugged and went on his way, whistling along to the radio.

Despite the poor weather it looked like it was going to be a good day.

Handing her father a mug of coffee, made the way he liked it, Amy inspected him closely with an evaluating expression that he seemed to notice and find amusing. "How do you feel?" she asked as he accepted the mug and tried the contents with a sip.

"Fine, actually," he responded, looking fondly at her.

"Any different to normal?"

"Only inasmuch as I feel normal." He shrugged as she raised an eyebrow. "Not fantastically different, but not horrible either. Like… I guess like I've taken the meds on a good day. That sort of normal."

"Which isn't actually normal," she pointed out with a sensation of cautious pleasure. "You didn't take anything today, right?"

"No, nothing."

"And the dose from yesterday would have worn off by now..." She nodded slowly, putting her hand out. He put his free one in hers without a word, sipping his coffee with the other and watching her calmly. She let her ability go to work, feeling more and more pleased as she examined his physiology from the inside. It was looking very good. Most of the neurotransmitters were either within the correct ranges, or steadily creeping back towards that point, quite unlike how he usually was without the drugs. It certainly wasn't a complete and total fix, but his brain chemistry was definitely pretty close to what it should be. Her one-shot seemed to have indeed repaired the organic issues.

Now she had to hope that any residual psychological ones would sort themselves out given time, without the wonky chemical imbalances driving and reinforcing them. It looked good so far but only time would tell, as she'd explained the day before.

Releasing his hand she nodded, satisfied.

"All good?" he asked.

"Pretty much, yes," she smiled. "It will take weeks to be completely sure, but the early indications are looking very, very promising. I'll keep monitoring it. Let me know if anything feels odd, or if you have any sort of relapse, OK? I doubt it will happen, I trust Ianthe's work, but… I'm not taking chances with my Dad."

Putting his mug down on the kitchen table, he pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, Amy," he said softly into her hair as she held him. "And thank your enormous friends for me. Even if this is as good as it ever gets, it's better than before. I'm very pleased and very proud of you." She smiled at his chest, then looked up to meet his eyes. "I don't say that enough, I think. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, Dad," she replied equally quietly. "You had your own problems. But thanks."

Releasing her, he stepped back, before picking up his mug again. She grabbed the one she'd filled for herself and clinked it against his, both of them smiling. "Now, since we seem to be the first up, let's surprise the other two with breakfast, shall we?" he suggested with a small grin. "Carol will be… startled."

"In a good way for once," she giggled, nodding. A few minutes later they were engaged in cooking and chatting, something that seemed to make the other two women look a little confused when they made an appearance together some time after that.

Amy met her sister's eyes and saw gratitude in them after the blonde saw their father acting more normal than he commonly was. Even Carol looked pleased, although she hid it well as she so often did.

All in all, Amy was content that she'd done the right thing, and only regretted not being able to do it much sooner. But such was life…

Better late than never, after all.

"Target has left the hotel."

"Heading?"

"Looks like he's going towards the interstate. Probably going home."

"That seems plausible based on what limited information we have."

"Do we follow? Or intercept?"

"..."

"Sir?"

"No. We can't risk it right now. We have no idea if he's got backup. It was pure luck we even spotted him in the first place. Insert a cleaning team into the hotel, scrub his room for any evidence, and report back. Let him go."

"Yes, sir, that's already in progress. Ah, sir?"

"What?"

"Shouldn't we bring in the PRT on this case? I mean, there is a potential Parahuman element."

"No. Absolutely not. We have reason to suspect the local PRT branch may have been compromised, along with local government. We can't risk it. And I don't trust those lunatics at the best of times in any case."

"I'm still not sure how one man, even one like him, could have compromised the entire PRT and the city government."

"He's had over twenty years to work on this, and the man is smart. Don't let that harmless accountant look fool you. Target H is at the utter top end of a very exclusive list of highly skilled and extremely dangerous people. Probably one of the top ten in the country, if not the world."

"But no one has ever heard of him? I mean, I never have, and I've been doing this job for fifteen years."

"And what does that tell you?"

"...Understood, sir."

"Good. Remember who he visited. We don't know why, but I can't see it being good. Neither is the way he was reportedly received."

"It sounded… unusual… sir."

"Excessively so. However, for now, we let him go, since we have absolutely nothing to even warrant talking to him about. No evidence, no real information, only circumstantial data. Until we manage to find something more out we can only watch."

"I understand."

"Hopefully our man will be able to work his way into the target's organization."

"He's good at his job."

"He is. Unfortunately I fear that this is an even larger task than we had originally planned for. But until he gets back into touch with us we can't warn him."

"Nothing that we can do until then, sir."

"No. Well, carry on and report back when you're clear. Standard undercover protocols apply."

"Your mission, should you choose to accept..."

"There is a time and a place for humor, agent."

"Sorry, sir. Won't happen again."

"Ensure that it doesn't. Command out."

Putting his secure phone down having disconnected the call, he pulled an open file across the desk and flipped through it, while leaning back in his chair. "You're good, my friend. Best I've ever heard of. But even the best slip up sooner or later..."

Shaking his head in an unwilling mix of respect and what was almost admiration, he closed the file, locked it into a drawer, then went to find some more coffee.

This case was going to be a long and complex one, he could feel it. The more they learned about the 'BB Org' as it was being referred to the more worried he got.


"Do we intercept, Ma'am?"

"Hold off for now. Any idea who they are?"

"No. Facial recognition is coming up blank. They're very skilled, though. Using expert tradecraft techniques. If it wasn't for the subject in question I'd think they really were plumbers."

"They may well be his own people, cleaning up after him. If so they'll be extremely well trained. Don't forget how good this man is. It would be completely in character for him to sanitize everywhere he goes, using people who can't be traced back to him. Bearing in mind the number of ex-military personnel he employs he's probably got more expertise in this sort of thing than we do. Jesus, I'm almost in awe."

"They could be people from the other organization. Subject is clearly very close to the top man there. Possibly this is a favor or something?"

"No way to tell at the moment. All right, for now we just watch. Put someone on them when they leave if possible, but I wouldn't be surprised if they lose you. Don't risk blowing your cover. This is much too important to justify going after the small fry, when we're after the big fish himself."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to let the subject go without even attempting to track him, ma'am?"

"We know where he's going to end up. There's too much chance of him detecting a tail, we cannot risk tipping him or his people off too soon. Let the undercover people do their work. We want to roll up the entire organization in one shot, or we'll never find him again. It's taken more than two decades to even detect the bastard, so I do not want to find out too late that he spotted something we did and disappears."

"I understand… Hold on, they're leaving. Michelson, your team is up. Hand-off protocol alpha, abort if you see any chance of them spotting you."

"Sir."

"Ma'am, our covert tail is in operation. I'm going to insert another team into the hotel and see if we can find what they were doing. They might have missed something."

"I highly doubt that, but we might get lucky. Proceed and keep me updated."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Next check-in is in two hours. Command out."

The ultra-secure radio link went quiet and he tapped his earpiece to shut it off, then leaned forward and picked up another radio. Issuing some crisp instructions he waited for the response, nodded in satisfaction, then replaced the radio on the small desk, before grabbing his bottle of water. Watching the bank of monitors in the mobile surveillance post as it rumbled slowly through the morning traffic, he slowly sipped the cold liquid and waited to see if his people were spotted by the other side.

And pondered, slightly uneasily, what that subject had been doing in New York.


"Who are these ones?"

"Possibly decoys?"

"Another set? That's three so far if you're right."

"He's careful. Incredibly careful. I wouldn't put it past him."

"Huh. True enough, I guess. OK, I'll call it in."

"I got the tracker on that 'delivery' truck, by the way."

"Excellent. Good job, noob."

"Agent Noob to you. Sir."

"So there is a sense of humor in there! I was beginning to wonder."

"Thank you, sir."

"And now it's gone again. Oh well."


"All right, thank you, Assault," Emily said, making some notes. When she finished she looked up, then around the table at the assembled capes and PRT staff. Legend, Dragon and the entire ENE Protectorate contingent were present. Their usual Friday morning meeting had so far proceeded fairly normally, but then they were covering all the non-Family things first.

Once they got onto the Family items, things would probably get a little more peculiar. That seemed to be the theme these days, she reflected with resignation. It was almost to the point they needed a separate meeting just to cover what the crazy lizards and their allies were up to now…

And that wasn't even considering the ramifications of the ongoing Coil interrogations, which would be the subject of yet another meeting later. She was beginning to feel that she was spending most of her waking hours in one meeting or another.

On top of that was the entire situation around the little bottle of potential problems that Saurial had dropped in her lap the other day. That particular issue was one that had kept her awake for hours with thoughts of the chaos it could bring. But right now it could wait. They had more immediate problems and the research department was going to need time to test the lizard-girl's claims anyway.

Not that she expected anything other than the damn things would do exactly what Saurial claimed they would. One thing was becoming apparent. Family Tech did what they said it would do...

"Do we have any more information on Skidmark yet?" she asked, as she always did. No one was looking forward to that idiot popping up again, since it was likely that he would use his total lack of skill and judgment to engineer something entirely self-destructive. Everyone was morbidly curious to see exactly how he managed to commit suicide-by-Family, but no one really wanted to see it up close. However, even with the inhuman level of restraint the reptiles appeared to have it seemed likely that the junkie cape would manage to push their buttons enough to cause something memorable, unfortunately.

She was hoping desperately that someone, anyone, would manage to take the fool down before he came and cluttered up her city with his own body parts.

Although… Possibly Kaiju wouldn't leave any remains…? Something to hope for, perhaps, though she felt sorry for the giant lizard if such a thing happened. The taste would take days to go away, she thought with grim humor.

"No, nothing new to report, I'm afraid, Director," Miss Militia said with a shake of her head. "I've been using every resource I have access to, both official and unofficial, and there's no sign of him. The price on his head has gone up again, though. If you combine the FBI bounty, the PRT one, and the various ones put up by a number of… the other side, shall we say… he's currently worth north of five million dollars alive and in custody."

"And dead in a hole?" The question came from Craig, who everyone looked at momentarily, before turning back to the military-themed cape who seemed somewhat uncomfortable.

"Slightly over seven million," she sighed.

"Sucks to be him, then," Ethan quipped. "I doubt there are many people who would think twice about the extra two million."

"Probably not," Emily grunted, making some notes. "I don't care one way or the other, to be honest, although officially I should probably say I'd prefer him alive."

"It would be the more humane response," Legend put in with a small smile. She glanced at him and nodded slightly. "Although I well understand your frustration. I am still making my own inquiries through various alternative sources but I haven't had any more luck than Hannah has. With the sheer number of people looking for him on both sides of the law, though, I think it's only a matter of time before he slips up and is found."

"Before or after he starts a war with the damn Family, which we all know will only end one way?" she griped rhetorically. He merely shrugged wordlessly. "About what I thought. Wonderful." Massaging her forehead for a moment, she wished the fucking man would have the decency to stroke out or something as soon as possible.

"All right. Nothing we can do about that right now except prepare for things to get ugly as and when he turns up. Probably very briefly, but..." She turned the page in her notebook. "Next item. Shadow Stalker. Same question, any news?"

Raising her eyes she looked around the table at the various shaking heads, grumbled, and made more notes. "Goddam girl. Oh well, again nothing we can do right now. She brought it on herself."

"The enhanced patrols in both the New Wave and Hebert neighborhoods as a result of Shadow Stalker's actions have resulted in a fifteen point four percent decrease in crime above and beyond that caused by the existence of the Family," Colin helpfully commented after a momentary silence fell across the room.

"That's something good, at least," Battery remarked, looking mildly pleased. "It's certainly remarkably quiet on the streets at the moment, what with the Merchants out of the picture and both the ABB and the E88 behaving themselves."

"Even the various minor individual villains and smaller groups are still being very cautious," Rory added with a nod. "I've never seen anything like it. My father told me that the BBPD is taking the opportunity to upgrade their equipment and training since they don't keep having to run around being shot at so much right now. They're working on the basis that sooner or later something will happen, but as long as it's relatively calm they can get ready for when it isn't."

"A sound plan," Colin said approvingly. "I suggest we enact the same protocol. While the effects of the arrival of the Family are in play, it would maximize efficiency to use the available time to bring our training regime up to peak levels."

"Can't we just relax and enjoy the lack of chaos for a while first?" Ethan commented sadly, giving his superior a look of despair. "Not just convert all the time being shot at by villains into time being shot at by each other?"

Battery poked him in the ribs, causing him to fall silent with a faint yip of pain. She glared at him, while Emily shook her head a little and made some more notes.

"City-wide, the crime rates are still falling and are currently at the lowest levels on record per capita. Additionally, the number of new Trigger events has dropped to a record low as well. Only three in the last two weeks, all of them minor powers with little combat effectiveness. And none of them of a villainous personality type." Colin seemed pleased by this, as were Emily and the others. "Presumably at least part of the reason is precisely the lower overall level of crime and thus Trigger-worthy events. However, both Dragon and myself feel that there may be other factors in play, as the number of such events is too low by several percentage points."

"He's right," the Canadian Tinker, who seemed to have become a fairly constant presence in these meetings over the last few weeks, nodded. Emily wasn't completely sure why the woman stuck around so much, although she had at least one idea when she looked between both Tinkers… On the whole, she quite liked having her in the city, although she'd never really admit to it except under protest. Dragon was one of the most approachable Parahumans she knew, remarkably competent, and had a definite effect for the positive on Colin's more… irritating… habits.

She also seemed to get on very well with the Family, as did he. Emily didn't fully understand it, but the friendship was definitely reciprocated, and when you came right down to it, it was probably a good thing that she had people in her corner who were on good terms with those scaly alien lunatics. It might help to keep them slightly closer to what could be considered normal.

Emily missed normal.

That said, it was undeniable that the current situation overall was vastly preferable, despite the more uncomfortable concepts she seemed to run into constantly, to what it had been a few months back.

Oh well. There wasn't really much that could be done about it now. Even Costa-Brown seemed to have thrown her hands up and dumped the entire mess in her lap, and as long as that was the case, she'd do the best she could while waiting for the other boot to land.

"It's rather odd, in fact. Even in places where there are traditionally much lower crime rates than in Brockton Bay, for example in Vancouver, the average Trigger rate is actually marginally higher than it is locally at the moment. It's by no means a constant, of course, but it's a known fact that there is a connection between a number of stress factors including violent crime, environmental conditions, and so on, and new Triggers. Hardly a direct relationship but statistically valid." Dragon shrugged. "For some reason those statistics are skewed some way away from the average in Brockton Bay and indeed much of the nearby state."

Ethan put his hand up and waved it around. "Ooh! Ooh! I bet I know the reason!"

Battery grabbed his earlobe and twisted. Hard. He yelped.

"Thank you, Assault, I believe we all know the reason," Emily sighed. "Or reasons. They're scaly and have an odd sense of humor."

Dragon nodded slightly, while Battery leaned closer to her husband and whispered something to him that made him look momentarily worried.

"It seems the most likely thing, I agree. Although no one seems to know precisely what that relationship is, other than their presence seemingly cooling down the crime rates by a remarkable factor. Even taking that into account, though, none of our models quite match what we're seeing and we have no good theory as to why."

"And I guess the entire Family giving Thinkers a headache doesn't really help," Robin put in, causing her to glance at him.

"Not as such, no," the Tinker agreed. "Again, we still don't know why that happens either."

"They offend the universe on such a deep level it's trying to pretend they don't exist?" Lieutenant Gaiman asked whimsically.

She emoted amusement. "I couldn't swear that wasn't the case."

"All right, as we seem, yet again, to have ended up discussing the Family, I assume that there are no other serious non-Family issues currently outstanding?" Emily asked after a moment, flipping the pages in her notebook then looking up. She glanced around the table, everyone shaking their heads. "Fine." She ticked off a few minor items, then turned to the other notebook.

The much thicker one.

She opened it, turned pages until she got the right point, then looked up. "OK. I would like to revisit the Family threat assessment document in light of the most recent revelations during the Coil operation, since we finally have time to think about it, but that can wait for a moment. Before that, who has new information?"

Every single Parahuman put their hands up, as did all the PRT officers who were sitting in on the meeting.

Director Piggot looked around the table, massaged her brow for a few seconds, then pointed randomly. "Triumph. You start."

"Apparently Saurial had a meeting with Lung at Somer's Rock..."

Feeling that she really needed to remember to pack a flask for these meetings, Emily leaned back tiredly and motioned for Rory to continue, as everyone stared at him.


Chris flicked the beads on his abacus with his fingers, creating a rattling sound for a few seconds, then studied the results. Writing down the answer, he ran the calculation again to be sure, then nodded in satisfaction. It looked right, or at least came out the same both times.

He'd been practicing with the soroban every time he had a spare moment since Taylor had given it to him and taught him how to use it, including for at least an hour in bed each night. While he was fully aware he was a rank beginner and it would probably take months to years before he could use it properly without thinking about it, he could already use it to solve all the problems in his remedial class. And he was getting steadily faster too. He didn't know if he'd ever have the sort of mental construct of the thing that Taylor had mentioned, but merely being able to use a real one competently was far more than he'd expected to achieve.

It was pretty obvious that he owed the girl a huge favor. She'd managed in one lesson to help him more than anyone else had ever done, and had done it purely because she was a good person.

Completing the last four problems and double checking each of them, he finally put his pencil down and leaned back at his desk, rolling his shoulders. Looking up he caught the attention of Mr Morgan, who was slowly walking back and forth keeping an eye on the class of some twenty students. "Finished, Mr Jacobs?" the teacher asked, looking very slightly surprised but also noticeably gratified.

He nodded. "Yes, sir. All done."

Walking over, the man picked up his worksheet and glanced at it, an eyebrow going up approvingly. "Well done. A huge improvement." He quickly ran a pen down the problems, ticking each one in turn. Question five got a cross. "Excellent. You forgot to carry the five here, see? But other than that I am both impressed and pleased with your work." He wrote a number in the top right corner of the test and handed it back with a smile.

Chris looked at the 95% mark and grinned like an idiot.

Looking at the soroban, Mr Morgan motioned to it. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all, sir," he replied. The teacher picked it up and examined it again, manipulating the beads with a fingertip. He shook his head slightly.

"Remarkable. Such a simple suggestion, but such an effective result. Miss Hebert has managed quite a feat." He handed the abacus back with a thoughtful look. "Yes, I'm definitely going to have to have a chat with her soon," he added quietly. Glancing around the classroom at the other students who were mostly still working, every now and then looking over at him, he nodded. "It would be interesting to see if it will work for anyone else." He was mostly speaking to himself.

After a moment's reflection, he looked at Chris again, who was watching him curiously, smiled a little, and went back to the front of the room to continue supervising the class. The boy inspected his test again, grinned broadly, then pulled out the book on abacus use and began trying some of the exercises in it. A quiet clicking of beads joined the scratching of pencils and the occasional mutter of annoyance as the only sounds in the classroom.