Earning Her Stripes

Part Twelve: Troubles

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal].

Saturday Night
10:55 PM
Near the Boardwalk

Firebird

Emma ran across the top of Fugly Bob's, then leaped onto the telephone cable that ran between the buildings and jogged along it. It was springy under her feet, but she never came close to missing her step; since she'd taken the vial, things like this had gone from nigh-impossible to mundane. Off to the side, well away from the wiring, Sophia was gliding across the gap in her shadow form. She was doing that as much as possible these days, showing off what she could do that Emma couldn't.

It was a little sad, in Emma's opinion, that Sophia still thought she had to exert some kind of superiority over her and Madison. Though she'd stopped trying to give Tinker advice to Madison, which was a relief. The last time she'd done that, Madison had offered her a tiny engraved piece of plate metal, barely a quarter of an inch square.

"What's this?" Sophia had asked incautiously.

"Read it," Madison had said bluntly, and gone back to work on what she called her 'big gun'. Sophia had squinted at it then sworn luridly as she threw it in the trash and stormed out.

About thirty seconds later, when her curiosity had become too much to handle, Emma had retrieved the piece of metal from the trash. On one side, in tiny lettering, was engraved the words, 'Everything Sophia knows about Tinkering.' The other side was blank. Emma still giggled when she thought about it.

Madison's Blockade Mark 2 power armour was too big and heavy to rooftop-run alongside Emma and Sophia, so it was pacing them down at street-level with long, loping strides. Emma had to admit; as effective and capable as the Mark 1 armour was, the upgrade had improved its speed and fluidity of movement considerably.

"Wait," Madison said just before Emma got to the next building. "What was that?"

Their radio link had to be cobbled together by necessity; while Madison had a base station built into her armour, she didn't do the tiny little earpieces that the Tinkers in all the TV dramas supplied. So, Emma had had to buy herself and Sophia a pair of Radio Shack walkie-talkies, and Madison kept the suit radio tuned to that frequency. It worked well enough, but it couldn't be encrypted, so they made sure not to say anything specifically revealing on the channel.

Emma jumped the rest of the way to the next roof, just as Sophia arrived there and solidified. She glanced down at Madison, who had stopped; the battlesuit's glowing red eyes seemed to be looking down the street they'd just crossed over. There didn't seem to be anything of note that Emma could see from her viewpoint, not even a drunk sleeping behind a dumpster.

Reaching up to the hidden switch beside her neck, she pressed the button to transmit. "What was what?" And then she heard it herself; a double rolling boom, distant but still powerful enough to reverberate in her chest. There was about a second or so between them. "Shit. What was that?"

"Bombs," Sophia said authoritatively. "Not something pissy like a hand grenade. That was halfway across town. Something big just got blown up. We might have a gang war on our hands, guys." She sounded pleased at the concept, which Emma personally disagreed with. A gang war, for all that it offered the Real Thing the opportunity to strut their stuff and flash their credentials as heroes, would also mean unavoidable civilian casualties.

"Yeah, but where?" she asked. "People could be hurt. We need to get there and help out, now." It wasn't as though they were catching any muggers where they were; when the Blockade suit came striding down the sidewalk, potential criminals tended to revise their plans for the evening.

"I've got a compass bearing and a rough distance," Madison said. "Cross-referencing with the map … huh. Close proximity to Winslow. Interesting."

"Okay, that's bullshit," complained Sophia, shading her eyes and staring across the cityscape while she pressed the radio button. "I can't see any fires or mushroom clouds or even regular dust clouds. You're down at ground level. How do you know where it is, and how far? Hell, how come you heard it before we did?"

"I've got seismic sensors in my boot soles," Madison explained crisply. "After the first one, I had just enough time to plant both boots, so I got a good solid reading for direction, and a rough cut for distance. The time until you heard it let me firm it up. And I heard it first because sound travels faster through the ground than it does through the air."

Emma saw Sophia's frown through the hockey mask she wore. "That can't be right. Wouldn't it be slower? All that stuff in the way?"

"We can argue physics later," Emma said hastily, not wanting to get caught up in the argument though she knew Madison was correct. Sophia could be a pain to argue with when she thought she was in the right. "Winslow's miles away. How are we gonna get there in time to do any good?"

"And they laughed when I built jump-jets into my multi-ton battlesuit," Madison said rhetorically, though Emma knew she hadn't laughed. While Sophia may have made a few snide comments about the concept, Emma hadn't realised Madison had overheard them.

The heavy construct tromped into the side-street and held its arms out to the sides. "CLEAR," it boomed, its voice modulator bouncing gravelly tones off the walls on either side of the street. The people on the Fugly Bobs' balcony were waving and taking photos by now.

When Madison ignited the jump-jets, the sound was deafening. The massive battlesuit thundered into the air, blowing bits of random litter around like a mini-tornado and leaving a wide area of asphalt that had been cleaned down to the original tar. Balanced on four hefty thruster flares, the suit paused as it came level with the rooftop. Then it rotated, hovering with a certain elephantine grace, until it was facing away from the roof's edge.

"Well, come on," Madison said impatiently over the radio. "What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

Emma hadn't actually thought this bit through. She'd known that, theoretically, she might have to ride on the back of Madison's power armour. Also theoretically, she'd known it was technically capable of flight. For some reason, she had never added those two aspects together. Now, she was faced with the reality of the situation. Oh, boy.

Steeling herself, she leaped across the gap—she'd jumped farther than that since getting her powers, but usually to a stable landing point—and grasped the handholds that had popped up behind the powersuit's left shoulder. A moment later, Sophia did the same on the right shoulder. "Ready," reported Emma.

There was no way they'd be able to hear Madison's exterior speakers over the roar of her thrusters, but fortunately the earpieces they wore made that unnecessary. "Hold tight, and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times."

A moment later, the suit accelerated upward, then angled over on a trajectory toward where Emma figured the explosions had originated from. She concentrated on hanging on, angling one of her throwing-discs to deflect the worst of the slipstream around her. It was exhilarating to be flying this high over the city, with the buildings passing by beneath them, but also a little worrying; if something went wrong, even her enhanced reflexes would be hard put to save her unless she came down just right.

The flight lasted far too long (in her opinion) and yet at the same time, not long enough. Her first indication that it was ending came when Madison cut the thrusters, leaving them hurtling through the chilly night air over Brockton Bay. Her ears ringing in the sudden silence, Emma fumbled for the radio switch, but Sophia got to hers first. "The fuck's going on? Are we crashing?"

"We're not crashing," Madison said scornfully over her speakers. "Turnover for landing in five … four … three … two … one …"

Emma latched onto the handholds with redoubled strength; on 'one', thrusters flared and the entire suit flipped and rolled end for end. Then the main thrusters lit off again, this time decelerating the suit as they hurtled down toward the ground. Emma couldn't see their landing point due to darkness, which was both comforting in an ignorance-is-bliss kind of way, and somewhat terrifying, all at the same time. Were they coming in too fast? Had Madison miscalculated something?

And then houses loomed up around them on all sides, and Emma felt the slightest clunk as metal encountered asphalt. Madison cut the thrusters once more; Emma fancied she could hear the ping ping ping as hot metal contracted in the cool air. "See, what did I tell you?" the petite Tinker declared. "Piece of cake."

"Jeeesus fuuck," muttered Sophia, looking somewhat windblown, as she and Emma let go and dropped to the ground. "Fuck that shit. I'm walking back."

"Oh, I don't know," Emma countered. Her heart rate was still elevated, but she could tell it was already returning to normal. "It was fun, in a terrifying sort of way."

"Wusses, the both of you." Madison raised her arm and pointed. "This way."

"I'm going rooftop," Sophia said immediately, and darted into the shadows. A moment later, her shadowy form darted upward into the darkness.

Emma sighed inwardly. She's always got to be one-up. "So, what's this way?" she asked, falling into step alongside Madison and waving at a curious home-owner who was peering out through his front door.

"Winslow," Madison said. "Shadow Stalker was correct about the magnitude of the explosions. From the distance we felt them at, they were big. Something should be on fire, or a crater, or on fire and in a crater. So, unless you've got a better idea, we can start at Winslow and search outward until we find out what … holy shit."

While they were talking, they had rounded a corner onto the street that ran straight past the school. Emma had come down that same street many times, usually on the bus but occasionally in her father's car. She knew the school's blocky profile from this angle. But even though the lighting wasn't the best, her eyes were well-adjusted to the dark by now and she could see Winslow; or rather, what was left of Winslow.

"Son of a bitch …" she murmured. "Someone did it. They actually blew Winslow up."

Sophia appeared out of the darkness, gliding down as shadow and then reforming next to them in what Emma had to admit was a pretty dramatic entrance. "Told you," she said with considerable satisfaction. "Bombs." She paused. "Fuck. Bombs. Someone blew up Winslow?"

Emma blinked at the shift in tone. Sophia sounded a lot less self-assured now. "Yeah. Looks like it. No craters or mushroom clouds, or even fire, but that sure as hell looks blown up to me." She tilted her head as sirens became audible. "And here come the cops and PRT."

"No," Sophia said urgently, starting toward the demolished school. "We're not waiting for the cops or the PRT. We need to get in there now."

"Why?" asked Madison, keeping her speaker volume to a minimum as she and Emma followed along. "It's not on fire. I doubt there's anyone inside. Nobody to save. And I'm good, but I'm not good enough to rebuild it."

"No, you don't get it!" snapped Sophia. "I had a stash behind my locker! Spare costume, spare crossbow, spare arrows!" She glanced from side to side, then lowered her voice. "Used arrows. Evidence."

Emma frowned. "I'm not totally sure we're on the same page here. Evidence for what? The PRT already knows you were a vigilante before we formed the Real Thing."

"We're going to have to scrap the other plan, too," Madison said. "You know, the one involving an attack on a school? School's not there anymore." She didn't sound broken up over it, which Emma could agree with. The plan to push Taylor into villainy was sounding less and less heroic to her all the time.

"We're not scrapping the plan!" Sophia snarled—actually snarled. "I don't know what power Hebert got from the vial, but she's going down."

"Back burner, back burner." Emma focused on Sophia. "Evidence?"

Sophia took a deep breath. "Couple times I was out and about, I might've … screwed up. Shot one guy, meant to hit him in the knee, got him in that … what's that big artery in the leg? Lots of blood?"

"Femoral," Emma said at once.

"Yeah, that." Sophia showed no emotion as she recited the facts. "He was bleeding a whole heap after I pulled the arrow out so I put a bandage on it and put a tourniquet on, and called the cops anonymously, but I'm pretty sure he didn't make it. There were a couple like that. There was way too much blood on the arrows to properly clean off at home, so I brought them into school. I was gonna steal some of that industrial grade bleach they use here, but shit happened and I never got around to it."

Emma wished she felt more surprise at the matter of fact confession, but she found it all too easy to believe. "You killed people. Murdered them."

They were running by now, as the sirens got closer. "Is that why you wanted me to kill those Merchants?" asked Madison, still keeping her speakers quiet. "So we'd be the same?"

"Oh, please," Sophia said, her tone dismissive. "People like that, they're not the same as us. They're rapists, druggies, murderers. Animals. Every single one of them I had to put down like that, totally deserved it. I didn't just attack them out of the blue. They were hurting people. So a few of them died? No big deal. Not like anyone's gonna miss them."

Her words sounded … not convincing, but like she'd managed to talk herself into believing that they were true. It was her own personal self-affirmation. Emma could understand it, even though she disagreed with it. The police and PRT would also have a problem with it, she suspected. And if they matched the blood on the arrows to the dead gang members, they could use them to metaphorically nail Sophia to the wall.

"Okay," Emma said as they arrived at the outer perimeter of the debris. A few forlorn sections of wall stood up here and there out of the rubble, and part of the front wall had broken off to lie haphazardly in front of the pile. Tarnished brass letters attached to the chunk of concrete read LOW HIGH. Sounds about right. "Get in there and find your stuff. We'll cover for you as long as we can. But we will be having a talk about this later."

Sophia was already into the rubble before Emma finished talking. Madison stepped up alongside her. "Good luck talking to her about that. She only hears what she wants to hear."

That was about what Emma thought, too, but she knew she had to make the effort. "She needs to hear it from us. If we don't make her face up to what she's done and where she's going wrong, who will?"

"Armsmaster." When Madison said the name, Emma thought for a moment that her teammate was positing the Protectorate Tinker as a potential mentor for Sophia. But then she heard the familiar rumble of the highly modified motorcycle. Turning, she shaded her eyes from the glare of the headlight as the Protectorate ENE leader pulled to a halt and got off his bike.

"Firebird," he called out. "Did you see what happened here?" As he spoke, his helmet turned from side to side, scanning over the heap of debris.

"No, we were at the Boardwalk when we heard the bombs go off," Emma replied, feeling a secret thrill at being addressed as an equal by a hero of such stature and reputation. "Blockade got a distance and direction and jumped us over here. We've only just arrived."

"I'm impressed," he said, looking Madison's armour up and down. "Jump jets? I don't think you had those in your last iteration."

"I didn't," agreed Madison. "They seem to work okay so far." Which in Madison-speak meant they were functioning perfectly.

"Good, good," he replied absently, then looked around. "Didn't you have a third member? Shadow Stalker?"

"Uh, yeah," Emma replied. "She went into the rubble to see if there was anyone trapped inside who needed rescuing."

"It's doubtful that there would be any," he said. "I've been mapping the area with IR, and the only footprints in the last hour are from myself and you three. This also means that whoever did this was a flyer, or they did it from a distance. Or perhaps a device was left in the school from earlier today and triggered remotely or via a timer."

Emma tried to fault his logic, but couldn't. "You're probably right, yeah. I'll tell you what, though. Whoever did this absolutely wanted Winslow demolished if they used two bombs."

He chuckled. "I can't argue with that, but Shadow Stalker needs to get out of there. Can you call her back?"

Madison shook the battlesuit's 'head' ponderously. "No. When she's in shadow state, her radio doesn't receive."

"Ah. Can she hear sound?" Armsmaster took a miniaturised bullhorn from his belt.

"Sure," Emma agreed. Let's hope she's got what we came here for. Even though I am gonna kick her ass for blindsiding us like that.

"Good." He put the device to his mouth. Emma could tell the sound was very directional, and extremely loud. "Shadow Stalker, this is Armsmaster. Please exit the rubble at once and return to your team. You are only endangering yourself."

Long moments passed, then Sophia popped out of the debris before them. "Oh, hi," she snarked.

"Good, there you are," Emma said. "Did you find anyone at all in there?" Take the hint, take the hint …

"Nah." Sophia made a show of brushing herself off. "Checked Blackwell's office and a few other places. We got lucky. Place was empty."

"It still reflects well on you that you went in there and made the effort," Armsmaster declared. "We need more young heroes like you."

"Damn right we do," agreed Sophia, not at all to Emma's surprise. "Any idea who might've done this?"

"Not yet, but there will undoubtedly be clues to be found." Armsmaster began unpacking equipment from one of his bike panniers. "Could you do me a favour and keep away the rubberneckers until the PRT and police arrive? We don't need any idiots climbing in the rubble and getting hurt. Or worse, destroying evidence."

"We can absolutely do that," agreed Emma. "Come on, guys."

She led the other two away until they were standing at the far end of the pile to Armsmaster. With the entirety of the destroyed school between him and them, she felt safe enough to converse in low tones. Looking at Sophia, she raised an eyebrow. "How'd it go?"

"Sucky." Sophia grimaced. "My locker was smashed, the stuff behind it scattered. I found some of the arrows, but not all."

"Hm," Emma mused. "Maybe we can come back once the cops and PRT have combed the place over and figured out who did it."

"Yeah, that'll be a case of explosive residue and stuff," Madison put in helpfully. "The quicker they figure that out, the sooner you can dig up your dirty little secret and hide it again."

Sophia gave her the finger. "Yeah, fuck you too … ooh. I just got the best idea. Two birds with one stone, even."

Emma felt she shouldn't be getting such a feeling of foreboding every time someone said they had a great idea, but there it was. "I'm listening."

"Hebert." Sophia's tone was full of gleeful satisfaction. "We know she's got some kind of weak destruction power, but it knocks her out when she uses it, right? So, we tell the PRT that we're pretty sure that she did this, they check her out, and whaddaya know, she's got powers. They stop guarding this heap of shit, I get my stuff, win-win."

"Wait, how are they going to know that?" Madison asked. "All she has to do is say she doesn't have powers. You can't prove it if she doesn't use them."

"Yeah, you can." Sophia tapped the side of her head. "There's a little part of the brain that only shows up in capes. I've got one, you've got one, and for sure Hebert's got one. They can test for 'em with MRIs. It's why I can't go pro in track and field; before you can sign up for a paycheck, they test you for that part of the brain. She'll have it, and that means we've got her."

Emma rubbed her chin. There were several things wrong with the concept as stated. Primary among them was the idea that it was wrong to frame Taylor for this level of destruction. Unless … "What if she really did this? I mean, if anyone's got motive to hate Winslow, it's her. And destruction is destruction."

"What? Fuck, no!" Sophia kept her voice down, but it was a near thing. "Hebert's a wimp. There's no way in hell she gets to be strong enough to do this." She gestured at the heap of rubble that had once been a school. "That sad little queef doesn't deserve this sort of power."

One of the glowing eyes on Madison's powersuit dimmed briefly, out of Sophia's line of sight. "Yeah, but what if it was her?" If it hadn't been for the electronic 'wink', Emma may have even taken her ingenuous question at face value. "I mean, that's all kinds of badass, right there. Someone that powerful, there'd be no question of whether she's worth bringing into the Real Thing. She'd be a real asset to the team."

"We are not bringing Hebert onto the team!" To her credit, Sophia kept her voice down, but with that level of intensity, Emma had to wonder about her blood pressure. "It's not going to happen! It goes against the whole plan! She needs to get fucked up so hard she never recovers! So when we tell Armsmaster we're pretty sure it's her—"

"We can't." Emma had been thinking about this, and a few other things. If Sophia wasn't her friend, Emma would be wondering about her mental balance right now. But the other thing she'd been considering was whether the plan Sophia had hijacked from Madison could still be carried through, or if she even wanted to.

Sophia swung toward her. "What do you mean, we can't? We just tell them she's got powers—"

"We don't officially know that," Emma interrupted. "We told Blackwell we tore the lockers open. We can't even say we saw her using powers elsewhere in school, because we're not supposed to be attending there." She raised a finger. "Worse, you made us—the Real Thing—look stupid when you took the padlock off her door."

"It was a joke," Sophia muttered sullenly, evidently unused to being called to account for her actions. "That way, people see her like a hysterical idiot and don't listen to her. Like what happened with Blackwell."

"And it makes me look like a trigger-happy idiot who doesn't look before destroying property," Madison observed sarcastically. "Well done."

As Sophia was about to retort, Madison held up her hand for silence. Sophia looked less than thrilled, but she complied. A moment later, Velocity zipped around the corner of the rubble and came to a halt in front of them. "The Real Thing, right? Armsmaster sent me to get you. BBPD and PRT are on site."

Emma nodded. "That's us. Does he need us any more? Because we had some patrolling to do if he didn't."

"One second." Velocity put his hand to his ear and had a brief murmured conversation, then looked up. "No, you should be good to leave. He said to commend you again for responding so promptly."

"Tell him the Protectorate gives us a good example to follow. And that I still think his halberd is too fragile." Madison paused as Velocity looked confused. "Don't worry, he'll get it."

"... right." Velocity shook his head and chuckled. "Tinker humour." He stood and watched as they trooped away.

Once they were at the far perimeter of the sports field, Emma turned to look at the others. "I'm heading home to bed, but we're going to need to have a talk sometime about the padlock thing, and the arrows."

"Geez," Sophia groaned. "Can't you just let done be done?"

"Blindsiding the rest of us is not cool. Teams don't do that." Emma put all the authority into the words that she could, and was rewarded with a blink of surprise. "Also, we're going to be stepping back on the Taylor stuff, at least until we know where we are with it."

"Wait, what?" Predictably, Sophia was the one who protested. "No. We do not go easy on her. Now that Winslow's trashed, she gets to transfer to Arcadia, and she does not deserve to go there! It's up to us to make sure she knows her place."

"Sophia." Emma shook her head. "Let it go. She's not worth getting so worked up over. We're stepping back, getting some focus in the matter. This isn't an argument, this is me telling you."

Sophia glared at her. "I'm team leader! You don't give me orders!"

Emma spoke softly. "I challenge for leadership. Name your contest."

She'd been willing to let Sophia bluster, but this was getting out of hand. Even if she never intended to be Taylor's friend again (unfortunately, she'd instigated far too many bad interactions for that to be likely) she'd lost sight of why she was expending so much effort to 'get' Taylor, once and for all. Madison was showing signs of thinking the same way, but Sophia was fixated as ever. Emma had tried making a firm request, but Sophia just dug her heels in.

So now it had come to this.

Behind Sophia's hockey mask, Emma could see her eyes flicking back and forth, trying to come up with a contest she could win. Emma was smarter, with better grades, and (thanks to her powers) had outmatched Sophia every time they'd gone against each other physically.

Madison broke the deadlock. "Voice vote, here and now. Sophia, your vote is for you. Emma, are you voting for yourself?"

"I am," Emma acknowledged.

"I've got the tie-breaker, then." Madison barely paused. "I vote for Emma. She's the team leader."

"You can't do that!" Sophia's voice was an outraged squawk.

"We just did." Emma felt tired. It was an emotional weariness, knowing a friendship was likely coming to an end. But friends were also supposed to support one another's decisions, weren't they? "We're leaving Taylor alone until we can sort this out. Got it?"

Sophia didn't answer, but neither did she argue. Emma decided that was the best she'd get.

"Good. I'll see you in the morning."

Turning, she picked a direction and set out across the city in the general direction of her home. It would take her about half an hour to get there, but that was okay. She needed the time to think.

Sunday Morning
PRT Building ENE
Deputy Director's Office

Armsmaster

Deputy Director Renick leaned his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. "The Winslow incident. Give me the highlights."

"Yes, sir." Colin settled into his reinforced chair, and paused to collect his thoughts. "At just before eleven PM last night, the PRT building and Protectorate HQ both registered a seismic event and an audible sonic pulse, sounding very much like two bombs had gone off in quick succession. When I arrived on the scene, the only other heroes on site were the Real Thing. I've encountered them before. For younger heroes, they're quite professional. Shadow Stalker was searching for anyone caught in the rubble, but I advised her to withdraw as there was no indication of anyone within. I then had them watch the perimeter while I set up my analysis equipment."

Renick nodded. "What was the result of your analysis?"

"Bear with me on this one, sir." Colin took a deep breath. "The entire school building, however many thousands of tons of brick and concrete, was torn bodily off its foundations, lifted to a height of maybe ten to fifteen feet, then allowed to fall straight back down again."

"Good God." Renick stared at him. "The entire school was lifted? It wasn't a bomb?"

"Our initial thoughts were that it was a bombing incident, but all the evidence says otherwise." Colin felt secure in saying that. Dragon had been happy to check his conclusions, and had backed them up all the way.

Renick took his glasses off and polished them with his tie, then replaced them. "I'll take your word for it, then. Next question: who? Who could do something like that, and why do it to a third-rate high school?"

"We're still working on narrowing down the culprit, sir." Colin grimaced. There was a huge suspect pool. "As for the why, I suspect it's quite simple. The culprit is likely to be a present or past student of Winslow itself . We've dug down to the principal's office, and we have the student roster to draw on, as well as the staff. Unfortunately, as with all high schools, there were students getting into trouble for doing almost anything you can imagine, and a few things I wish I hadn't. I'm even trying to cross-reference previous attendance with capes possessing powers capable of doing that. No luck so far."

"Understood." Renick rubbed his lower lip. "How many capes out there can do something like this? Maybe there's a lead there."

"We're looking into that too, sir." Colin spoke respectfully. "There's rumoured to be a cape in India who can teleport mountains into the stratosphere. I doubt he's involved. Closer to home, we have Shuffle and Annex in Chicago, who could theoretically do this. But as far as I know, neither one has ever set foot in Brockton Bay. In the city itself ... well, I'm aiming toward Tinkers. Straight Brutes can't lift buildings, because they break. But if someone could construct a powerful enough tractor beam ..."

Renick nodded. "I see where you're headed with this. Do you have one in mind?"

"One or two." Colin grimaced. "Maybe Leet. If I can find a computer game that involves stealing buildings wholesale, I'll see about asking him some questions. As for the other one ... well, Blockade of the Real Thing is a new cape on the scene, and he builds extremely over-engineered tech. If anyone could construct a tractor beam like that, he could." He paused as a memory triggered. "And as I recall, there was a report of the Real Thing being involved in some sort of incident within Winslow itself, just a few days ago. Rescuing a bullying victim. And they were first on the scene, last night."

Renick's eyebrows rose. "That sounds like a connection to me."

"It does, doesn't it, sir?" Colin stood. "I'd be very interested in finding out if he is—or was—a student there."

"Keep me posted." Renick gave Colin a vague sort of wave as he headed for the door.

"Will do, sir."

End of Part Twelve