^Taylor? Are you awake?^
^Beep boop beee! Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again. This is a recording.^
^… God, you just can't resist an opening, can you?^
^Not really, no.^
^Weird girl. Where are you? Did you go home?^
^We decided to wander around a little first. We found a couple of muggers and grinned at them twenty minutes ago. It was hilarious, they ran like they thought a demon was after them.^
^Funny, that.^
^Yep. Now we're just flying around over the city. It's a nice night and only about two AM. We'll head back in a bit but this is relaxing fun. You need to get Nike out again soon, and we have to get Lisa flying properly too. I think she wanted to do it tonight but that stuff with Vicky got in the way.^
^Can't be helped. It made her a lot happier, she was smiling when she came out of the bathroom a little while ago, in a way that she hasn't for a couple of weeks. I'm still feeling guilty about that. I wish I'd worked it out, or asked her, or something.^
^We had a lot to do and like she said, she doesn't blame any of us for it. She just got herself all worked up over nothing. Or not nothing, really, but nothing like she thought it was. I'm just glad we could help her calm down. I like her.^
^Thanks, Taylor. And you too, Varga.^
^It was my pleasure, Amy, I also like your sister and consider her a close friend. I was most impressed with the courage it took to confront us in such a manner, especially as she believed she might be walking into a situation she might not walk out of. She has matured considerably in the time since we first met, and showed a lot of self-knowledge during our talk.^
^Yeah, that did surprise me a little. In a good way. She's always been… headstrong, I guess. She means well but she gets carried away and sometimes didn't listen to Mom or Aunt Sarah and just dived in. And I'll admit I kind of enabled her in a way. I healed a few people she was overenthusiastic with and didn't tell anyone. I'm feeling guilty about that too, since I should have told Mom at the time, but…^
^Your relationship with your mother wasn't in the right place for that to work properly, I suspect.^
^No. The funny thing is that at least half of Vicky's gung ho was because of Mom's attitude to what she thinks is villainy but I'm pretty sure she'd have ended up blaming me in some way, or at least getting all huffy about it. Like I could actually stop Vicky when she was in one of those moods.^
^You could easily do so now.^
^Of course, but hopefully now I won't need to. She's thinking about what she's doing before she does it at the moment, which is almost a fucking miracle. And something I really hope continues.^
^I think it will, Amy. She's growing up. Like you, and me, and in the exact opposite way to Sophia. She realized that her actions have consequences, which is more than some people ever do.^
^You have an unfair advantage, in some ways you're the oldest person on the planet!^
^Cool, isn't it? But I'm still me, just like I told Vicky. Varga helped more than I can ever repay, but he didn't change what makes me Taylor. He just added to it. And I think whatever's happening to you is doing the same, producing Amy plus. Plus what, we don't really know for sure, but it seems friendly and helpful.^
^Miss Fixey does like what we're doing, that's true.^
^Keep saying that when Lisa's around, it's hilarious to see her face...^
^I know! But we shouldn't be mean to a Family member.^
^I doubt that Lisa actually minds all that much. Her scent didn't show real annoyance after all. But I agree it's rather amusing.^
^I wonder where that will end up going? Her power and mine have definitely changed a hell of a lot in the last couple of months, and I'd be prepared to put money on Kevin, Randall, and Linda saying the same. Maybe even Brian and the others too. Whatever having a demon around actually does to powers seems to be fairly unselective.^
^Dad and I were talking about that the other day, and he had a few ideas. I'm not entirely sure he's right, but then I don't really know if he's wrong either.^
^Your father is a smart guy. I have a feeling his ideas are likely to be close to correct. I need to make him a construct too, sometime soon. I think he'd enjoy it.^
^Me too. He loved the dragon ride. Wouldn't stop laughing the whole time. I bet he'd like doing it himself even more.^
^Maybe we should make a whole pile of those tiny dragons we were thinking of, so everyone has one just for fun. What we did with Ianthe shows it's possible to integrate the fractional dimensional techniques and the biology really well, so...^
^That's a neat idea. Let's ask the others about it. We could end up with a whole flock of them. Um… what's a group of dragons called again?^
^I think Lisa being involved, along with you, would mean we'd have to call it a Smug. A Smug of Dragons.^
^Smug the Magic Dragon… That might be a good cape name.^
^Oh, god, are you trying to make PHO just break down and chew the carpet?^
^Well…^
^That's what I thought. Stop giggling, it's annoying.^
^Sorry.^
^No you're not. Where are you now?^
^Out over the bay. We were just watching an aircraft take off from the Rig. I'm just wondering if it wants to race...^
^Probably not a good idea to ask a PRT survey aircraft for a race with a fucking enormous dragon. They're going to be confused enough right now about there being a dragon… Wait until people are more used to it. And I don't know yet how we'll explain big dragons and little ones at the same time.^
^Family dragons come in many sizes. Everyone already knows the Family starts small and gets bigger as they get older. We don't need to explain it to anyone, it just is. They'll have to live with it.^
^Huh. OK, that's… more or less a valid point. The more of 'our people' who turn up, especially if we can try to make sure we have several of them seen at once, I guess the more confused the situation gets and the less likely anyone is to work it out. As long as we don't overwhelm the poor humans with too many lizards...^
^Is there any such thing as 'too many lizards?' This is a concept I have never considered before.^
^Not if Lucy has any say in it, no.^
^I wish we could give her something nice from the Family.^
^Give it time, I'm sure we can work something out...^
^She sure was happy about me giving her a ride.^
^It was a nice thing to do.^
^Poor Max...^
^So you don't want Nike to meet him then?^
^I didn't say that, did I?^
^No. No, you didn't. Oh, while I think about it, that horrible thing you did to the universe to connect your front door to your dad's office? Can you do it to my closet door and make it come out in my workroom? It could be useful.^
^Sure, no problem. Now?^
^It can wait until tomorrow.^
^Your parents will be confused if they see you go into the closet and never come out...^
^Cloaking spell should sort that out, right?^
^Yep. Don't forget you have a big blue truck and just end up walking to work, though. It'll get all sad.^
^I like my big blue truck, don't worry about that. I'll keep using it. Just thought being able to get back and forth in a hurry could be a good idea. Not all of us can fake teleportation, you know. Although I really wish I could, you're complete fucking bullshit with all your hellish demonic magical powers.^
^Envy is a terrible thing.^
^So fucking envious.^
^I would be unsurprised to see you ultimately discover how powers work enough to allow you a similar ability, Amy. You may well already know more about them than possibly anyone. Perhaps even Cauldron, based on the conclusions we've drawn so far.^
^That whole thing worries me a lot. I still can't figure out what the hell they're playing at, but either they're idiots, or there's something nasty hiding behind it somewhere.^
^Or both. Those are not mutually exclusive.^
^Unfortunately true. Nasty and inept is a scary combo.^
^We'll keep thinking about it and watch out for other clues. Faultline could well come up with new information too. The woman is more than a little furious about it and seems committed to discovering the truth.^
^I hope it's something we can handle when we do find that out.^
^Hey, we're The Amy and Math Girl. We can handle most things.^
^She said right before it all went to shit...^
^Hopefully not. But all we can do is keep watch and move on with life. We don't yet know enough to even be sure what the problem is never mind derive a solution. Time will tell.^
^True. Anyway, I'm tired and I'm going to sleep now. See you guys tomorrow.^
^Night, Amy.^
^Good night, Amy.^
Amy rolled over in bed and looked at her bedside table, smiled a little, and closed her eyes. A couple of feet from her head, the faint blue glow of her small plant cast dim shadows around the room.
High above, against the three quarter moon two winged shapes were briefly visible to the very small number of people allowed to see them.
Then they were gone again.