Amy Dallon

Finder had the look of being permanently disheveled, having asked around I found that it was something that frustrated the PRT. He could put on an expensive tux and in a few moments it would get wrinkeled and disheveled. His hair would insist on poking out and he had a permanent case of bedhead. Even with the mask he had the form of someone who just wanted to go back to bed. He yawned at us and I reminded myself that he was quite possibly one of the most dangerous Thinkers in the world.

Finders powers were simple, give him a photo and a map and he would find it, his entire powerset was a violation of the unwritten rules so he was normally given the task of finding missing people. You had to fuck up bad to get the PRT to get Finder on your case, or have him owe you a favor.

"Yo."

He leaned against the wall.

"Ok I owe you one Glory girl, what do you want?"

"The Undersiders."

He frowned.

"No dice."

I took in a breath of air.

"Why?"

He pulled out a cigarette his hand froze as if he remembered that we we minors, he struggled to put it back into the box, his hand shook a little.

"Because I'm only allowed to track people when they have truely fucked up. We might have the organization, the money and the guns but the villains out number us 2 to 1."

"Pluto's a-"

"Pluto is a short term solution to a long term problem, and it doesn't take a Thinker to figure that out. It's not a question on if it will blow up in our face, but when."

I sighed.

"The Birdcage was planned by some of the best Thinkers and Tinkers on the planet."

"And now it houses a bunch of Tinker and Thinkers who are also damned good and have nothing better to do then look for a way to escape. Also there's a lot more to it kid, you have to capture the villain then you have to successfully get them to Seattle, then you have to get them to the World tree and then you have get them to Pluto. Along the way you have point of failure after point of failure."

He stopped.

"There's a reason why its a last resort kid, all of these get tough on crime politicians don't get it, the world's changed, we don't have a monopoly on force, and parahumans can't be cowed like a normal can. We got a little voice in our heads constantly saying, I can take 'em, I can take 'em. I mean hell look at what happened to North Korea."

He stopped himself from reaching for a cigarette.

"Or the Russians, notice how the Soviet Union's gone kaput? The Soviets had the bomb, they had the guns, they had the organization and they lost."

He leaned against the wall.

"You can't win a permanent victory forever, all you can do is manage things, get them functional, take out the crazies, get the ambitious types into some legit business making their money all legal like and slap down the bad guys that get to crazy."

"You mean just allowing organized crime to exist?"

Victoria seemed mad.

"Better organized crime then disorganized crime, you can work with that keep them in the shadows limit the damage."

"And let the cancer get worse."

I spoke and Finder rolled his eyes.

"Ok I'm a cynical old man, I admit that but going after them like this isn't something I'm willing to do for you kid, ask for something else."

I took in a breath, had to keep it to some thing that was above board.

"I want their base."

Finder chuckeled.

"Yeah kid...yeah that I can do, that would be fair game, you got yourself a map and a photo?"

I passed them over and he sat down and crossed his legs he looked at the photo and then at the map. He stared at it going into some fugue state. Then he circled some thing, and gave me the map.

"This is one of their bases, the main one, all of them have some hidy holes they consider important, the Thinker's got a couple back ups just in case, but if you want to put the screws to the Undersiders this is where you hit em."

He stopped.

"I looked over their reports, they hit a couple of medical supply buildings, Medhall's been a favorite target."

I shrugged.

"Isn't that?"

"No, right now Medhall is being overseen by the Stars and Stripes, the former board is gone kiddo, either they're in jail or dead, and the remaining workers have been cleared. Right now you steal from Medhall you're not stealing from Kaiser you're stealing from Uncle Sam. They either didn't get the memo or they don't care."

I smiled.

"So that means their pardon's gone?"

"Yeah kid, you're clear to take 'em down."

He yawned.

"Sorry kids got to go, officially I'm on loan to New York again, someone important went missing."

"Thanks Finder."

He froze.

"We're even now, ok? You need this again then it's either a trade or you save my bacon."

"Fair enough."

With that we went our seperate ways. I felt a smile on my face, Vicky cracked her knuckles.

"Lets get them."

Vicky moved with restless energy.

"We're getting the others."

"We can handle this alone Amy."

"Skitter can control entire blocks worth of bugs, we're getting back up."

We stopped at a faded sign with a giant Eye on it.

"Meh I can take her."

I shrugged, a little confidence never hurt.