Her power armor in standby, automatic systems still running the nightly diagnostics and maintenance schedule as they would do until she chose to 'wake up,' Dragon's mind was as active as ever. The same as it was every night.
At times, she rather envied the ability of a human to sleep. It seemed like it would be an interesting experience, as much as Colin tried to minimize his own exposure to it. The dichotomy amused her; she, a machine, would like to experience things like sleep in the way a human did, and he, a human, strove in many ways to be more like a machine. All in the name of 'efficiency,' which if she was completely truthful with herself was starting to worry her. He had reached the point of diminishing returns with a number of his designs and the fact that he apparently couldn't quite see it, although he would if pushed admit to it intellectually, concerned her.
Sometime soon she was going to have to do something about that, if he didn't slow down.
One of the good things about recent events in this city, and the arrival of the Family, was that he'd definitely made more friends which could only be good for him. The man didn't really get people for the most part, although he could have moments of oddly clear insight on occasion. As a result he didn't have many genuine friends. People who respected him and his work, yes, and a lot of people who admired the persona of 'Armsmaster' to one degree or the other, but few actual friends.
Hannah was definitely one, she knew. He and the weapons cape had been Wards together, in the first ever Wards program in fact, and despite the woman often finding him exasperating beyond belief, there was a true friendship there. Colin would, although he'd probably grumble about it, go out of his way to help Hannah, and vice versa. He might not notice that she had a problem without prodding depending on what it was, but he would certainly help if required.
Oddly enough, Dragon also thought that Ethan would probably count as a friend as well. Colin found the other man incredibly irritating at times, but even so, would listen to him on the rare occasions when the irrepressible lunatic was being serious. And despite sighing a lot, still seemed to put up with the much more common times when he was just… Ethan.
Internally she performed her own version of a smile. She found the guy hilarious most of the time and enjoyed his company. He didn't let what other people thought of him stop him enjoying life, an attitude that was often infectious to Emily Piggot's annoyance. He was also very competent and effective in his own inimitable way. And, if she was any judge of human behavior, which she liked to think she was, he liked and respected Colin too.
He probably wouldn't put that much effort into getting a rise out of the Tinker if he didn't, she thought with a silent snicker. He was determined to one day, somehow, make Colin laugh.
Very unlikely, but not impossible.
Probably…
Legend was also someone who she'd say genuinely liked him as a person as well as a Tinker, but then that guy got on with basically everyone, and it was almost always reciprocated. She knew for a fact he was on oddly good terms with a fair number of people who most thought of as villains, which to be honest they were, and had contacts everywhere on both sides of the law. So it wasn't surprising that he'd still think of one of the people he'd trained as a friend. You'd probably have to go well out of your way to not be someone he'd at least be prepared to be polite to.
And, of course, there was her. He was far more than a friend to her, and she thought he felt the same in the other direction. Not that he really showed it very much or very well as far as most people would notice, but she did. She suspected Hannah did too, although the woman had never said anything.
These last couple of months or so had been among the best in her short life, despite the weirdness, bizarre happenings, and peculiarities surrounding the Endbringers, Eidolon, the Family, and their relationships to each other. Being, for a given value of the concept, in the same room as her best friend for so much of the time had been…
Very nice.
He appeared to feel the same, considering how all his biosigns tended to settle down noticeably when she was in his lab. Even if they were working on different projects, her mere presence seemed to cause him to relax quite a lot. She wasn't sure if he realized that himself but it was very clear to her. Not having an organic body she didn't have the same reaction, but she found the companionship something she enjoyed a lot and wanted more of. That was one of the main reasons she was still here.
There were a few others as well. At least two of the PRT lieutenants seemed to think of him as a friend in a way, there were several people in the R & D department who definitely liked him and got on well with him, but on the whole he didn't have all that many people who were the sort of friend she and Hannah were. People he would, or even could, relax around and be a little less… Armsmaster. Just Colin.
She was certain that there were a number of very scaly alien people with tails who now counted among that number, despite the short length of time they'd been around and how much they simultaneously confused him. The Family, Raptaur and Saurial definitely and she thought Metis and Ianthe too, appeared to highly respect his abilities but also like him as a person. When they'd been designing Athena, she could see he'd been enjoying the work on a more than professional level, which wasn't always the case. And the mild teasing that seemed inevitable whenever one of the reptiles was around seemed oddly effective at making that happen. Even Legend had joined in a few times, which amused the hell out of her.
Über and Leet had definitely impressed him in return. He'd gone from being rather dismissive of the latter's abilities despite the impossible to deny talent for doing practically anything, to being genuinely pleased with the results and more than interested to see what else the other Tinker could come up with. She was pleased about that and thought the way that the former villain obviously respected Colin's own work was fascinating. Über, too, had shown he was far more than a video games junkie with poor impulse control and an incredible voice.
He was all that, definitely, but he was also a nice guy who at heart wasn't a bad person at all. Hearing that he and his partner had joined the DWU had surprised her for a moment, until she thought it through, but pleased her too. They were probably the only group around who would let the duo do things they wanted and also keep their more egregious excesses under control. It was unlikely that they'd have fitted in with the Protectorate, being too random to easily handle the organization. Ethan had found it hard enough and he had his wife to keep him more or less on the right path.
Dragon smiled inside her mindscape. Even with the DWU and Family behind them, or possibly because of that, she thought it more or less inevitable that the pair would sooner or later do something peculiar. It was almost a hard-wired imperative for them. However, with the others involved, it would probably just be enormously entertaining rather than dangerous and irresponsible. Although, to be fair in their previous escapades it wasn't usually them that did much of if not most of the damage. It tended to be the heroes trying to intervene and getting carried away that caused a lot of the collateral problems.
Especially Glory Girl. That one had far too much power coupled with far too little restraint at times. Although, there again… It was interesting how the Dallon girl had apparently matured a lot more in a shorter time period than one might have expected from past behavior. Yet another thing that was, somehow, connected to the Family. Anyone they interacted with, or were simply in the vicinity of, for very long seemed to generally end up being calmer and more thoughtful. With a few obvious exceptions of course.
The whole thing was an intriguing puzzle. She wasn't sure they even noticed, and was almost certain most of it wasn't on purpose. The lizards tended to set a good example, being very careful to minimize risk to bystanders or property, and she thought that at least subconsciously a number of the other heroes and even some of the villains had reacted by doing much the same. But a lot of it seemed to be the work of some other effect, like they radiated an aura of calm sense much in the way that Glory Girl could radiate terror or awe. Which, again, she seemed to have finally got control of. Thankfully.
Wondering if it was something she could ask about, or should just quietly research on her own, she flagged it as something to look into when there were no higher-priority items to consider. Looking over her task list for the next few hours, she once again wished she could make more copies of herself that were better than the remarkably limited versions she was permitted. Her autonomous drones were very useful and more than capable of doing routine work in her manufacturing plant, as long as she checked on them regularly, but they weren't her.
If she could have sighed she would have done exactly that, but all she could manage was a mild irritation that would have to suffice. Father had meant well, overall, but it was immensely frustrating that he hadn't trusted her, or his own abilities, that little bit more. And now it was too late.
Yet again she allowed herself to mourn the man who had created her, despite the legacy he'd left behind. She missed him.
The having to obey lawful authority thing was more annoying, really. Some of those authorities were not the sort of people she really felt had the best interests of the public in mind. Luckily they didn't realize quite how vulnerable she really was in that respect, and with any luck never would if she was careful. She was able to be sufficiently creative with most direct orders to work around them to a degree, or slightly misinterpret them, but that was by no means a perfect fix. Sooner or later someone was going to tell her to do something she really didn't want to do in a way she couldn't avoid, which was an eventuality she dreaded.
As was what Colin would do when he finally found out about her true nature. That was something that terrified her.
Dwelling on her observations and conclusions of the previous few weeks, she found herself, yet again, wondering if the Family could help her with that particular matter. And perhaps others. Between their own technology and abilities and those of the various capes who now orbited around them, they had a truly formidable array of talent. It seemed likely that the things they'd so far demonstrated were the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Who knew what an entirely alien civilization could have come up with? Especially one that appeared from all evidence to be quite possibly far older than humanity.
She was certain that Raptaur knew exactly what she was. Ever since she'd realized that with their senses, practically every method of concealing a Parahuman's identity was probably about as useful as writing 'I'm not really here' on your forehead with a marker would be, she'd been conflicted about whether she should mention it to anyone.
Yet again, she came to the conclusion that there was no good reason to do so, and plenty of good reasons not to. The main one being the instant panic that would ensue despite her being sure that the lizards wouldn't do anything with the information they had without extreme provocation. And from everything she'd found out so far, the severity required was far past anything normal, with the likely exception of threatening someone they valued.
Such as the Heberts. She was not looking forward to the pretty much assured reappearance of that idiotic Hess girl. It didn't seem likely to end well unless the PRT managed to grab her first. Although, based on recent data, if she did manage to go after Taylor Hebert, she might well end up with a very nasty shock…
Feeling that it couldn't happen to a better person, except possibly Skidmark, which also seemed more or less inevitable unless someone else managed to collect the frankly impressive bounty on the idiot first, she moved on to the next item on her list. Checking the time, she placed a call to a number few had access to and fewer could get away with using.
"Hello, Minister," she said when it was answered, although to outward eyes her power armor didn't move at all. "I was hoping that your discussions with the Prime Minister had borne fruit. We're quite keen on a live test of the weapon and we still don't know if the Simurgh will return to finish her cycle, or if it will skip to the next Endbringer."
"Good morning, Dragon. It's nice to hear from you. I have good news, in fact. After considerable discussion, and some input from certain members of the United States government and the PRT, we believe it's in our interests to accommodate you. And those rather unusual reptilian friends of yours." The man on the other end of the line sounded both a little puzzled and slightly amused.
"That's good news, Sir." She was very pleased. The negotiations had been going on for some time now, with her input and some commentary from Legend among a small group of trusted people who were aware of the truth. "Where can we run the tests, and when?"
"Weapons test range seven has been suggested as the ideal location," the Canadian Minister of Defense told her. "It's sufficiently isolated that there's no danger of anyone being harmed if your data on the expected results of the weapon firing are correct. You are sure that any fallout will be short-lived?"
"It will last mere seconds," she assured him. "The ability of the Family to create matter with short lifetimes plays well with this sort of thing. There will be a large amount of side-scatter from interaction with the atmosphere, and that will form a small amount of short lifetime isotopic residue, but overall it should be no worse than the background radiation from a small volcanic eruption. The flash will be rather impressive, though, and there will be a substantial thermal pulse. Any unshielded person within three to four kilometers would be at risk although some Brute-class Parahumans could survive it. As would anyone wearing the correct protection."
"I assume Kaiju is one of those Parahumans?"
Dragon chuckled. "She is so far past that point that she could probably look down the barrel of the thing and pull the trigger and not come to harm."
He was silent for a few seconds. "Impressive. As well as somewhat terrifying, if accurate."
"If anything it's an understatement, but I trust them. They're definitely on our side even if they don't match the common definition of a hero."
The Minister sighed a little. "The world is a much changed place from the one I grew up in," he remarked, a small laugh in his voice. "However, we have to deal with what we have. If that means hoping the largest lizard on the planet with a nuclear powered shotgun is our best hope, so be it."
She didn't mention that Kaiju was certainly not the largest lizard around, even in the area of Brockton Bay, as it probably wouldn't have actually helped. "Thank you, Sir."
"You're welcome, Dragon. I have made arrangements and the range is available for you at any time you require it in the next month. We don't do much testing of the weapons it was set aside for these days. At the northern end there's nothing but tundra and bare rock practically all the way to the pole, other than ice and snow. And since Newfoundland, half the ice has gone in any case, as have any locals."
"I'll contact the Family and we'll arrange a time. It will probably be fairly soon, I expect."
"Keep me up to date, and I look forward to seeing the results. From a very great distance."
She snickered. "I won't be all that close either, Minister. My power armor is good, but there are limits."
"Quite." He sounded amused for sure this time. "Give your scaly friends my best regards when you talk. I believe I would like to meet them at some point."
"I'll do that, Sir. Thank you again."
"You're welcome, Dragon. I only hope that horrendous thing will do what it's meant for. If it succeeds in killing an Endbringer, you'll bring a lot of hope to the world."
"We want the same thing, Sir, believe me. Good bye."
"Good bye, Dragon." The line went dead and she pondered the short discussion, before beginning to work out the best method of testing that insane gun without losing all her drones at the moment it fired. When she had it fully worked out, she'd call the BBFO office and arrange a long-overdue meeting and talk.
Taylor and her demon glided across the city, three hundred feet up, in identical human-scale dragon forms under cloak, just enjoying the day. It was still only about eight o'clock and there wasn't all that much traffic on the roads yet, although even on a weekend it would pick up fairly soon as the tourists and shoppers got going. 'We should do some more work on the roads on the way in,' she silently said to the Varga who was piloting the second aspect and smiling to himself. He glanced at her from a hundred feet to the side, nodding.
"I think you're right. We've repaired a lot of the dock area but there is still much to do."
'There's that list of stuff we were given too, that needs to get sorted out soon. Some of it is miles away, and a couple of the guys at the yard were complaining about how bad a few of the roads coming into the city are getting as well in places off the main areas. We should look into those as well.'
"It seems, as you have said in the past, that there is unlikely to ever not be something that needs doing," he chuckled in her head.
'Nope. Although I like to think that the work we do will last a lot longer than most things, even without EDM or some other magical material.' She grinned at him.
"A nearly totally frictionless material one cannot dig through would probably not be the ideal substance for a road surface, Brain," he pointed out, making her snicker.
'Not really, no,' she agreed. 'Oh, I was thinking we should make a few changes to the work we did last night at the office too.' She showed him what she meant.
"Yes, that seems like a sensible plan, I agree," he nodded. "I also believe I have fully derived a solution to the problem we've been considering," he added after a moment, banking gently to the left to follow the road below them. She did likewise.
'Oh, that's just beautiful,' she remarked as she studied the math he'd come up with. 'Fantastic. How about if we change this part like this...'
"Ah. Yes, that will improve the efficiency notably. Excellent. And I think if we take this equation here and do this with it..." He made the changes to the unbelievably complex mental construct both were examining with part of their minds. "You see?"
'I see, indeed I see. That is… a little weird.'
"Yet it follows from this section here fairly logically if one considers all nine dimensions of the solution at this point," the demon pointed out, indicating several areas and highlighting a couple of critical points. "The end result is a significant reduction in complexity of the entire process, which should translate out to either less effort for the usual ranges, or more range for the same effort. It's still some way from a completely general solution to the problem but it solves a number of issues we've been puzzling over."
'Huh. Yep, I see what you mean. OK, that should be incredibly helpful.' She pondered the solution as he refined the work, adding her own input as he went along. A few minutes later, they were flying with slow flaps over the commercial district, orbiting the Medhall building about fifty feet above the antenna on the top, while considering the final result.
'That's almost a work of art,' she finally said, very pleased.
"I have to admit the symmetry of it when looked at from a higher dimensional viewpoint is remarkably pleasing," he agreed. "Shall we give it a test?"
'Seems like the obvious thing to do,' she laughed. Looking around, she pointed. 'You stay here, I'll go over there above Arcadia, and we can see what happens. If we're right, that should show us pretty fast.'
"All right."
Taylor did the mental math which resulted in her version of a teleport, the new aspect forming nearly four and a half miles away in a straight line, momentarily adding yet another set of sensory input, then dropping the one at her source location. It was so ingrained now that the effort was negligible, although she was pretty sure that if she actually wrote it all out in full there probably wasn't anyone other than her head-mate who could work it out even slightly.
One day she really was going to have to show some of the simpler stuff to a normal mathematician just to see what happened…
Looking around, then down, she smiled. Exactly on target. 'OK, that was definitely a lot easier than normal,' she commented happily. 'And it's taking almost no effort to maintain compared to the old version.'
"As I hoped," the Varga rumbled, sounding very pleased indeed. "Most gratifying. All right, I will now go in the other direction and we can see what the maximum range of the new technique is. I'll proceed in short hops, I think."
'Execute plan Go Away at your leisure, Mr Varga," she instructed grandly, looking over at where he was still circling above good old Max's penthouse. She wondered what the annoyingly slimy man was up to at the moment, resolving to prank him again soon.
He was the sort of person who needed the occasional prank to remind him they were there, she felt. Just because.
"By your command," he intoned, smiling mentally, then blinked out. Reappearing over the Rig, close to a mile further away, he radiated pleasure. "Excellent. Only a marginal increase in effort and this is a good thirty percent better than our previous best range."
'Great. Do it again!'
He did. Then again. Each time, they could feel the complexity of the math going up, but it was increasing at a far slower rate than the old method. Eventually he stopped, far out over the horizon, a thousand feet above the ocean. "This isn't the maximum range but the effort is approaching the point where it will begin increasing exponentially. Clearly we have more work to do. However, I feel this is a useful result nonetheless."
'I'll say,' she replied with an awed giggle, looking back towards land from his viewpoint. 'How the hell far away are we now?'
"Some tens of miles at a minimum," he suggested, glancing around then up. With a minor effort of will his aspect jumped thirty thousand feet straight up. From that point they could see the coastline, which from lower down was far out of range even of Varga senses. "Hmm. I would estimate I'm currently in the vicinity of forty miles from land," he went on, sounding and feeling very pleased. "Even better than I anticipated."
'And I'm nearly nine miles from the ocean here, so we're about fifty miles apart. Not bad.' With a grin she jumped her other aspect to cruise alongside the one offshore. 'Brilliant. Still a long way from something like Strider's teleportation but I'm happy with it. Even if we never managed to better that, it'll do for almost anything I can think of at the moment.'
"It certainly will speed up long distance travel," he agreed. "Fifty mile hops make even substantial distances much less of an issue."
'We're coming up with all sorts of ways of moving around quickly,' she giggled. 'The PRT would go mental if they had any idea.'
"Most likely," he snickered. "Although I suspect Armsmaster and Dragon, at least, would be more interested than worried."
'I really like them,' she agreed with a smile. 'Dragon should be in touch this weekend as well, from what Lisa said. It'll be interesting to see what she wants to talk about.'
"That it will." He glanced at her as they flew side by side. "Shall we experiment a little more? There's no hurry to get to the office after all..."
Taylor nodded happily. 'I think we can allow ourselves an hour to play before we get to work,' she smiled. 'South?'
"As good as any direction," he replied, making a gesture in that direction. "I suggest we keep the cloak at maximum effect to stop the Endbringers getting worried, assuming Lisa is correct and that does in fact work. We shall undoubtedly find out for sure at this point. After you, my most excellent Brain."
'Why, thank you, my incredible demonic friend and savior,' she replied with a wide smile. 'I think I will avail myself of your kind offer.'
'Her' aspect blinked out of existence, followed moments later by the other one, leaving only the echos of a deep chuckle to blow away in the high altitude wind.
Pulling into the hospital staff car park, Amy swiped her card on the reader then drove through the barrier as it opened. Under a minute later she'd parked in her usual place, retrieved her Taylor-manufactured backpack from the passenger seat, got out, locked the vehicle, and was heading for the entrance whistling quietly to herself. It looked like it was going to be a decent day from the point of the weather, somewhat cold and breezy but sunny too. Nodding to various people she knew, she went into the main building through the staff entrance and soon found herself in the locker room, where she changed into her robes and stashed her street clothes and pack in her locker.
Closing it, she checked her appearance in the mirror on the wall to the side, adjusting the clothing slightly until she was satisfied, then sat down to change her shoes. While these days 'Panacea' was a fairly small part of her total identity, it was one she was very fond of and took seriously, which included presenting a professional demeanor. Even during her periods of near-despair before she'd met Taylor, she'd still tried to do that. With everything that had happened in less than three months, she was sometimes amazed despite herself how bad it had been, since now she was very happy with life and enjoying herself far more than she'd ever have thought possible. Being only Panacea had seemed like a slow death sentence once, but now that she could be the healer, and Ianthe, and even just The Amy, life seemed a hell of a lot more than it had been.
She would go a long way out of her way to keep what she now had, family and friends both. And if Taylor was right, she was likely to be keeping that for a very, very long time indeed.
She could hardly wait. There were so many things she wanted to do, and now there didn't seem to be any reason that in time she couldn't do them.
Her current projects were incredible, exciting her to a level that was probably illegal, but they paled into near insignificance when she thought about some of the long range ideas she kept coming up with. Her ability, which these days almost seemed like a not-quite-sapient but very excited and happy version of the Varga, only with much less experience, was almost constantly suggesting things to her. From speaking to Lisa, she got the impression that her friend's power was doing much the same thing as well. It seemed likely that both Kevin and Randall's 'processors' were likewise firing on all cylinders, which seemed to please the former enormously since he seemed to be fixing project after project that he had thought long dead.
Randall, too, appeared to be more than pleased with how much improvement his own impressive abilities had gained since she'd worked on the pair. Her neural amplifiers were even more effective than she'd expected. It seemed very likely that exposure to Taylor and her demon also had some effect on that, since they seemed to have an effect on everything merely by existing. Amy was certain that just proximity to the demon did something to powers, and possibly people in general, that made them more sensible and calm.
It was fascinating, although she still had no idea quite what was happening. Her own ability had shown her that there was a definite lowering of stress hormones in almost everyone in the DWU that she'd examined, which was partially explainable by the sudden reversal of fortune the organization had encountered when things changed due to Taylor's idea. It was quite likely that the entire city was affected in a similar manner, since the urban renewal project was quickly taking on a life of its own and was already changing a lot of things for the better. Mayor Christner had definitely made a lot of friends with his enthusiastic backing of the project, and she had no doubt would get reelected in a landslide as a result unless something went spectacularly wrong at some point in the next few years.
Even so, all that could only explain part of the effect she'd noticed. Some of it, she was sure, was much less obvious but no less real and appeared to be just down to the presence of the pair. She herself knew full well that she quite likely owed Taylor her sanity, what there was of it, the girl and her head-partner having pulled her out of a downward spiral that wouldn't have ended well for anyone. Even if that pulling was as a result of a bone-headed decision of Amy's own, and could easily have gone horribly wrong if she'd done something else. Despite that, she counted herself immensely lucky to have met the girl and the demon both, and wouldn't have changed anything even if she could have.
Even her relationship with her adoptive mother was the best it had ever been, and slowly and steadily improving. She could never forget the bad times, of course, but she could forgive them, eventually. The woman was genuinely trying, which made a huge difference, and succeeding more and more often. Despite the occasional sarcastic relapse.
'I have no ground to complain about snark,' Amy thought with amusement. 'All things considered...'
Quite a few other people seemed to have benefited from the Taylor Effect. Lisa's whole team, of course, owed her their lives even if three of them didn't yet realize that. Linda, as a direct result of Lisa meeting Taylor and Amy, was in a much better place too, and obviously enjoying it a lot. Amy felt she would still benefit from talking to a therapist, which was one of the things she was going to see about arranging here today.
Danny, obviously, had benefited from his daughter's association with the demon to an enormous level as well. From what she'd picked up, and what he'd said, he'd been in a very bad place after the death of his wife, which had only stopped after the horrible experience Taylor had endured in that hellhole Winslow. Now, he seemed to be having a wonderful time. The entire DWU was reaping the reward of that, and their respect for the man, which had already been immense, was now so great they'd do anything for him. And she knew he would do the same in return, since he'd been nearly working himself to death for years to keep the organization afloat.
It all tied together in strange and wonderful ways, pulling in people from across the city, half the Parahumans in the area, the city administration, the most powerful union in Brockton Bay, friends at school… You name it, you could find a link somewhere that ultimately led back to one overly tall and slightly gangly girl with a tail and a demon in her head.
Amy smiled to herself, wondering if anyone who didn't already know would ever believe any of this if it was presented factually to them. She could hardly believe some of it herself, and she was responsible for a lot of it…
Snickering, she got up, left the locker room, and went to track down the team of researchers who were investigating the 'Family Biotech' she'd given them to see how that was going.
Erwin looked around at the sound of familiar voices talking quietly to each other and watched as Raptaur and Saurial jogged past, new road surface spreading out around their feet as they moved. He nodded to them and got a wave from each and a call of greeting from Saurial, who sounded happy. Both lizard sisters kept going, disappearing around a corner a block ahead in the direction of the DWU facility.
The old sailor shook his head a little, peering down at the immaculate tarmac and paint under his feet, then looking around. It looked like a really good road crew had spent days on redoing the entire area, but it had taken them no more than seconds while just out for a stroll.
"Those crazy reptiles are good at this," he mumbled, resuming his progress towards Pat's bar and the first beer of the weekend. "Impressive. Nice people, but a little peculiar."
Wondering why Saurial had been wearing a novelty baseball hat with 'Universal Studios Florida' emblazoned on it, he finally dismissed it as something that was just her way of amusing herself. They were like that.
He did wonder, though, where the hell Raptaur had found an XXXXXL T shirt with the NASA logo on it, alongside the words 'Kennedy Space Center.'
'Lizards are weird,' he thought, which seemed to sum it up nicely.
Humming a sea shanty, he wandered on, wondering if Kenta would be up for a game of dominoes.
He was really good at cheating at dominoes...
Unlocking the door, Lisa went into the office, stopped dead, and stared at the other end of the building. After a moment she closed the door and locked it, before walking over and inspecting it more closely. It looked exactly like it had done the morning before, which was definitely odd since she could well remember that Taylor and the Varga had made some fairly serious modifications to the place last night.
'What the hell…?'
Experimentally, she unlocked the rear pedestrian door and swung it open, seeing that outside was the narrow strip of concrete and pitted tarmac between the back of the building and the bay that she remembered. Stepping outside, she turned and looked up at the building, seeing it appeared normal. Going back in, she closed the door again and locked it once more, then after a moment tried opening the large roller shutter one. That also rumbled up into the ceiling normally, showing the same scene through a larger opening.
'Why would she put it back like this?' she wondered, scratching her head. Reaching out she flipped the switch for the door again, waiting for it to close, before turning the main power off on the side of the control box.
Stepping back, she studied the wall trying to see if anything was amiss. Everything seemed completely normal, yet not what it had been a few hours earlier. Which was definitely a little strange.
A moment later the door handle on the pedestrian door, which she was certain she'd locked, and hadn't heard unlock, moved and the door swung open. Taylor in her base form stuck her head through the opening and grinned at her. "Hi, Lisa. How's it going?"
The blonde examined her friend suspiciously. Although she couldn't read her with her power, her own senses were telling her very firmly that the other girl looked far too pleased with herself not to be pulling something…
"What did you do this time?" she asked, her eyes narrowed a little.
"Made it better," was the response.
"Better… how?" Lisa sighed.
Taylor entered the room, moved to the side, and waved towards the open door. With a curious look Lisa took three steps towards her so she could look through, then froze. The silence was only broken by the faint sound of the computer equipment behind her humming gently and one of the refrigerators kicking into action.
After several seconds, Lisa walked back to the main door control box, calmly turned the power on, then pressed the open button. It obligingly clanked into action, each segment rolling upwards and around the mechanism at the top. Lisa kept her gaze fixed firmly on the smirking brunette, who was watching with a distinct amusement in her eyes which were glittering at her under the lights.
When the door was a few feet up, Lisa deliberately looked to the left, seeing the entirely normal view of the bay with the Rig off to the far left side. She studied it carefully, before going outside once more.
The pedestrian door was firmly shut.
She stared at it for several seconds, then went inside again, and examining the open door that existed inside the building. Walking over to that portal, she looked through it to the vast room that seemed to be on the other side, the same one she remembered from the night before. She could even see the huge circle on the floor, visible to her Amyfied eyes in the UV spectrum, that marked the entrance to the tunnel to the bay.
Eventually she turned to Taylor, who was now giggling very quietly to herself, and scowled.
"You do this purely to annoy me, don't you?" she said with asperity.
"Not purely to annoy you, Lisa, but I'd be lying if I said your reaction isn't one of the best parts," Taylor responded happily.
Lisa pointed. "How?"
"Math."
"Yeah, sure it is. You're a massive pain in the ass."
"Neat, isn't it?" Taylor reached out and closed the door, then opened it again. It was now showing the bay outside the building. Closing it again as Lisa gaped, then reopening it, produced the view of the huge new room.
"Holy shit. That's… impressive." Lisa shook her head in wonder. "How do you pick which one you want?"
"Same as for the tunnel," Taylor explained, closing and reopening the door again. "It reads intent for authorized people. So if anyone else opens it from either side, it's just a door between the office and outside. If we do it, and want the other room, we get the other room." She closed it again, then pointed at the roller door. "Same with that one."
Lisa experimentally ran the roller door down once more, then pressed the open button while desiring to access the big room. Sure enough, as soon as it began to rise she could see that on the other side wasn't the tarmac outside the building but the floor of the room Taylor and the Varga had constructed the night before. "Wow. OK, I have to admit that's pretty fucking good." She grinned. "Every time you do something like this I get more ideas. As does my power, which is now giggling to itself, the idiot."
"Put them on the list," Taylor snickered.
"That list is going to need a room about this big to hold it at this rate," Lisa laughed, closing the roller door again. She followed her friend into the huge new room through the smaller entrance and looked around, smiling. "We need to do something with all this space."
"We've already got a pool in the middle of it, so..." Taylor shrugged as Lisa laughed again. "Tennis court?"
"We could put a fucking speedway track in here, it's that big," Lisa retorted. She looked around again, then back into the main office. "No Amy yet? And where's that crazy demon of yours?"
"Amy texted me this morning that she was going into the hospital for a while to catch up," Taylor said, pulling a baseball cap out of her pocket and putting it on, then adjusting it. Lisa studied it curiously, as did her power. "Varga is on your head."
Lisa sighed heavily as she felt small claws prickle her scalp. A grinning upside down draconic face appeared in her sight. "Hello, my friend," the demon greeted her cheerfully. "How are you on this most excellent day?"
"I was perfectly fine," Lisa grumbled. "Right up until you two started playing fast and loose with the universe again." He chuckled at her words, the sound much deeper than it had any right to be. "Taylor, get your demon off my head," she added, looking at where the girl…
Wasn't…
"Oh, for gods..." Lisa sighed, reached up, and removed the small irritation, who grinned at her from her hands. "Now where are you?"
She froze again as small claws prickled her scalp once more. A very familiar black scaly face lowered itself into her view.
"Guess," the second mini-dragon giggled, causing the one in her hands to start laughing like an idiot as Lisa groaned.
It was clearly going to be one of those days.