One More Trigger

Part Twelve: She Followed Us Home, Can We Keep Her?

"I want to take him down. And you can help me do it."

Madison and Taylor looked at each other, somewhat startled. Then they looked at Emma.

"I think ..." said Emma, after a moment, "that this is like what Gallant said to Aegis. This is above our pay grade." She looked toward Vista. "I think it's time we called in our liaison."

"Um ... wait a second," said Lisa. "I'm fairly certain he's got the PRT infiltrated –"

But it was too late; Emma had beckoned Vista over.

"What's up?" said Vista. "How can I help?"

Emma held up a hand and looked at Lisa. "You're sure?"

Lisa nodded. "Reasonably."

"The Wards? The Protectorate?" pressed Emma.

Lisa shook her head. "... can't see how," she admitted.

"Okay," said Emma. She turned to Vista. "This is between us, you and the Protectorate, and that's it," she said. "Can we keep it that way?"

Vista frowned. "Any reports I make have to go to Director Piggot," she said. "She'll want to know if anything goes pear-shaped. And this qualifies."

Emma looked again to Lisa. "Director Piggot?"

Lisa took a breath, shook her head. "Can't see it," she said.

"Okay," said Emma. "So this is the deal. Got your liaison hat on?"

Vista nodded. "Ready to liaise ... is that the right word?"

"Something like that," agreed Taylor.

"Tattletale here gave up voluntarily, so she could help us take down the guy who forced her to join the Undersiders, more or less at gunpoint," said Emma quietly.

"No 'more or less' about it," Lisa stated. "I literally had guns pointed at me."

Vista's eyes widened behind her visor. "Christ," she muttered, then seemed to gather herself. "Go on."

"Now, this next bit needs to stay between you, the Protectorate and Director Piggot. No-one else in the PRT," said Emma. "Got it?"

"Got it," said Vista.

"Okay. His name is Coil. He's a supervillain. And Tattletale says that he's a danger to her life while he's alive and free. And," she repeated, "she wants to help us take him down." She paused. Full disclosure if we want her on side. " ... and she wants to join Team Samaritan to do it."

"And why does this need to stay under wraps?" asked Vista. "Except that joining-the-team thing. That's just weird."

"Because," said Madison, "she also says that he's got men in the PRT."

Vista's mouth joined her eyes in opening wide. "You have to be kidding me," she said, staring at Lisa.

"Well, she did give herself up to us," pointed out Taylor. "And while she did say that Coil put her on to us to find out all she could, she's already shown she knows more about us than we're comfortable with."

"There's one other thing," said Lisa unexpectedly. "This bank job was a feint. A front. It's to cover something else up. Draw attention."

Four pairs of eyes swung to stare at her. She shrugged. "Hey, I call them as I see them," she protested. "This job was never gonna get a big score. I doubt we would have pulled a hundred K out of here. Nothing like the casino job."

"So you were ... ordered ... to rob a bank?" said Vista. "This bank, specifically?"

Lisa shook her head. "Just some big, flashy crime in this area of town. But 'big, flashy crime' basically says 'bank robbery' to me. So I made my estimates, figured to hit at the right time and place so the Wards wouldn't be able to get here in enough force to cause us a problem."

She looked at the assembled Wards, as well as Glory Girl standing next to Panacea, and grimaced. "I may have been a little out in my calculations."

"Glory Girl called us in," Vista said unexpectedly. "She saw it going down, went to the roof, made the call."

"To Gallant, I'm guessing," commented Lisa. Vista glanced quickly at her, and she grinned suddenly. "Oh-ho. I see."

"See what?" protested Vista, going pink.

Tattletale just grinned.

"Look," said Emma. "We're getting off track here. You didn't expect the Wards to show up in force, and you didn't expect us here at all. That's fairly obvious."

"Yeah, no, you came totally out of left field," agreed Lisa. "You've trained for unexpected situations, that's clear. You were in the bank on other business, we showed, you masked up, formed a battle plan in pitch darkness without shouting - I'd like to see how you did that, by the way -"

"We could have had earpiece radios," said Taylor.

Lisa grinned and shook her head. "Bullshit. Radios don't work in Grue's field.". She paused, and went on. "- formed your plan, got the hostages out of the way, and took us down, hard.". She looked at the three Samaritans with respect. "Whoever trained you did their job well."

Emma kept her expression bland, hoped the others would do the same. Lisa suddenly chuckled. "Relax, I'm not prying for information; just putting my cards on the table."

"If this is a card game," asked Madison, "why does it feel like you've already peeked at our hands?"

"Hey," grinned Lisa. "It's what I do."

The buzz sounded in his earpiece, and he hit the chin-switch in his helmet. "You've got Armsmaster.". Almost on autopilot, he leaned his massive motorbike around a corner, then powered into the straightaway.

"This is Aegis,".The leader of the Wards sounded ... rattled. Not under combat stress, but something was giving him a problem.

Armsmaster frowned. "What is it? Reinforcements will be with you shortly."

"Oh, we don't need reinforcements."Aegis assured him."The bank situation's been resolved. We've got a problem with the aftermath.'

"You were given specific orders not to go in!" snapped Armsmaster.

"We didn't,"protested Aegis. "There were other capes on site inside the bank. Team Samaritan. They dealt with it. No civilian casualties. One perp captured; Tattletale, of the Undersiders."

He felt the tension ease inside his chest. Team Samaritan was a group of relative newcomers, but they knew what they were doing; the Weymouth Mall was proof of that. It could have been a lot worse.

And they captured one of the Undersiders. That's more than we've managed to do, so far.

"So, I'm waiting for the problem," he prompted.

"They don't want to turn her over to us."

He applied brakes, slowed the bike to a stop. This was a conversation that would require his full attention. " ... say that again?" he said carefully.

"Sir, Team Samaritan broke up the bank robbery and captured Tattletale, but they don't want to hand her over."

He sighed. I don't need this. The Mayor's niece has been kidnapped, and they need me on site there."Explain to them," he said with as much patience as he could muster, "that as Wards, you are duly appointed officers of the law and -"

"Sir, we tried,"Aegis interrupted, "but the redhead, Sparx, seems to know a bit about cape law, and she's contesting our claim. Plus, Vista says she's been appointed as a liaison to the team by the Director, and she's siding with them."

"I presume you have considered the option of simply taking her by force," he said next.

"Considered and rejected, sir,"Aegis responded. "They took down the Undersiders without breaking a sweat, and I really don't want to find out who can win in a straight brawl between us. In addition, they just rescued a couple dozen hostages, plus Panacea of New Wave, so Glory Girl might just take their side. No matter how it turns out, sir, it would be astonishingly bad PR for us."

"Noted," replied Armsmaster. The boy had apparently been paying attention in Glenn's lectures. At least this meant that he wasn't exacerbating the situation. Coming to a decision, he began to turn the bike around. "I'll be at your location in five minutes. Do not allow them to leave, or to release Tattletale."

"Roger that, sir," replied Aegis, sounding grateful to have some level of guidance in what was admittedly a rather unusual situation. "They don't leave, and nor does she."

His reading on the subject suggested that now was the time to inject a little morale booster. "You did the right thing by calling me in. Armsmaster, out."

As he powered his bike up to speed again, he called up the meagre files on Team Samaritan, or the Samaritans, whichever they were calling themselves. He had written most of them, and no-one had added much of substance.

I'll call in Hannah to respond to the kidnapping, he decided. She's better with people than I am, anyway,

Aegis walked over to the huddle that had formed with Team Samaritan, Tattletale and Vista. He cleared his throat to make sure they all knew he was there, then moved closer.

"Armsmaster is on the way," he stated. "He'll get this sorted out. In the meantime, we have orders to not allow Team Samaritan to either leave with Tattletale or release her. Is that understood?"

Sparx nodded. "We'll wait for him," she said. "There's stuff we need to talk to him about."

"Good," said Aegis, a little relieved. It was as he had said to Armsmaster; Team Samaritan seemed to be quite efficient, even if only Sparx was wearing her full costume, and he did not want to take the Wards into a fight against them unprepared. Bad things had happened to others trying the same thing.

"Do we have time to, uh, costume up?" asked Ladybug. "I feel a little … underdressed … for the occasion."

"He'll be here in a few minutes," said Aegis. "After that, I imagine he'll be wanting to talk."

Ladybug nodded, and stepped away from the others until she had a few yards clear in all directions. The swarm came in from all directions, streaming in to swirl around her, a solid wall of chitin and wings, blocking off all vision.

Moments later, it dissipated, and she was in full costume, just in the process of tucking her shirt into her backpack.

"Aerodyne?" she said.

Aerodyne looked to Sparx. "Changing room?" she requested.

Sparx's hair grew and formed an upright oblong box; it opened on one side for Aerodyne to walk in. Aegis imagined a smoky saxophone solo playing as underwear and stockings came flying out or were draped over the wall of the cubicle. But all that happened was that the 'door' opened once more, and Aerodyne, fully costumed, rejoined the group.

Aegis shook his head. "Do you guys practise that?" he asked.

Sparx nodded earnestly. "We practise everything," she told him. "Anything that we think might work in a fight. Anything we can think of. Counters against anything we think might be able to stop us."

"How about someone walking up and hitting you?" retorted Aegis.

Ladybug stepped forward. "Walk up and hit me," she invited.

He stepped forward and threw a jab into her gut. He only pulled it a little, but still expected it to hurt.

She didn't even blink. And now that he looked more closely, she was bulkier, curvier, than out of costume.

"Armor," he realised.

"Mainly padding," she corrected him. "But yes, armour."

"And the other two?" he asked.

"Sparx has two layers; her costume is one, but there's a thicker layer in her coat," Ladybug told him. "And every layer of Aerodyne's costume is good against low-caliber firearms."

"There's a lot of layers there," he noted.

"There are indeed," she confirmed.

"So you're not as unprotected as you appear," he realised.

"Not hardly," she snorted. "We'd never have come out without some level of protection."

He grinned. "Should you be even telling me this stuff?"

She opened her eyes wide, innocent, behind her helmet visor. There were goggles back there too, he realised. Clear. Eye protection or something else? He didn't have enough data.

"Why?" she asked. "Are you planning to fight us?"

"I don't want to fight you," he said truthfully.

"And we don't want to fight you," she replied promptly. "Which would never work in one of those old comics with the fictional superheroes. Two teams meet, the first thing they do is start a fight."

"They actually had comics about superheroes?" asked Aegis with interest.

She nodded. "My dad used to collect them."

"That's actually kind of cool," he said.

"Fun to read, too," she grinned. "You wouldn't believe the weird powers they thought were good enough for going out crimefighting with."

"Really?" he asked, amused. "Like what?"

"Like, ah, being blind but being able to sense all around you anyway," she said. "Sort of like Cricket, but not as good."

"So, blind but not blind, then," he said, confused.

"Ah, no," she said. "It's described as a sort of radar. So he can't tell colours, or read the newspaper, except that he can, by feeling the newsprint with his fingertips."

"Wow, that's sensitive," agreed Aegis. "Must be painful for him to do anything else."

"Funny," she grinned. "That never came up. And then there were the ways they got their powers. You can tell they had never heard of trigger events. Bitten by radioactive spiders, finding a magic ring from space – I'm being serious here, that's exactly what the guy did – being bombarded by electrified chemicals, being from another world ..."

"What, like Earth Aleph?" he said.

She shook her head. "No, like Mars."

He chuckled. "Most of the rest of them sound like valid trigger events – except the magic ring from space one – but being from Mars? Really?"

She shrugged. "That's what the comic said. Oh, and by the way, Armsmaster's nearly here."

He gave her an impressed look. "Your bugs, I presume?"

She nodded and grinned. "So very handy."

Nodding in return, he walked back toward the Wards, as Armsmaster's cycle rumbled up to the curb and stopped.

A few moments later, the armoured hero himself entered the bank.

Armsmaster strode steadily across the bank lobby until he was standing foursquare before the Samaritans, Vista and Tattletale.

"Sparx, Ladybug, Aerodyne," he said. "You have proven yourselves to be responsible heroes, so I am going to presume you have good and logical reasons for refusing to hand Tattletale over to the authorities. I would like to hear them. Now."

Emma cleared her throat. "Tattletale voluntarily gave herself up in exchange for the other Undersiders leaving, empty-handed," she began. "She could have made the fight a lot harder, but she chose not to do so." She nodded to Tattletale.

Smoothly, Tattletale took up the explanation. "I never wanted to be in the Undersiders; I was literally forced to join, by Coil, at gunpoint. I want to leave them, make a clean break. But before I can do that, something has to be done about Coil. He's really good at what he does, and if he finds that I voluntarily quit the villain game, I will die at an unexpected moment."

Armsmaster frowned. "Then why don't you –"

"Seek PRT protection?" finished Tattletale. "Because Coil's got tentacles everywhere. He's got men inside PRT; that I am certain of. All it takes is for one security camera to go down at just the right moment, someone slips in the side door, my cell door opens for just a second, and I'm wearing a bullet."

"You truly believe what you are saying," said Armsmaster slowly. "But surely, the proper precautions ..."

"Listen," said Tattletale. "I sat at a table and watched him flip a coin ten times in a row, and ten times it came up heads. Each time, I examined the coin to make sure it wasn't a double-header. Ten times.In a row. And he knew it was going to do that. He's got some sort of probability manipulation power, is my best guess. If he really wants something to succeed ... I guess it'll succeed."

Armsmaster's lips compressed. "So what are your plans, once you help us take him down once and for all?" he asked bluntly. "Because we're not in the habit of doing one-off favours for villains."

"Well," said Tattletale, "I was sort of thinking of joining the Samaritans." She grinned at him. "Change my evil ways, and all that."

Armsmaster looked at her for a long, long moment.

"Let us, for a moment, assume that you are being sincere with this," he stated. "It still does not excuse the fact that you were committing a crime, here, today, when the Samaritans interrupted you."

"Coil ordered the robbery," Tattletale explained. "I think he wanted some sort of distraction." She looked at him perceptively. "From something else that happened, elsewhere, that you were on your way to, before you came here."

He went very still. "I can't confirm or deny that," he said flatly.

She grinned, fox-like. "Of course you can't," she said. "It's bad. You're going to get a lot of pressure on you before this is over. But you've got two choices. One, I can play twenty questions until I get it out of you. Or two, you can spill, and I can help fix this before the shit gets more than ankle-deep."

"Or three," he snapped, "I can knock you unconscious and question you once in custody." His halberd began to crackle ominously.

"Ah, no," said Sparx. "Our prisoner. I'm not going to allow you to attack her unprovoked." Her hair flowed and moved slightly.

"With witnesses," added Tattletale.

Armsmaster ground his teeth together. "You're a criminal," he snapped.

"And so's Coil," retorted Lisa. "And what he's done is worse than what I've done here – worse than anything I've ever done as Tattletale. Right now, you have a unique opportunity here – I'm willing to help you bring him down, hard, given that I don't go down with him." She spread her hands. "Cops do it all the time, with ordinary criminals. What's so hard about doing it with me?"

"Because I cannot get rid of a nagging feeling that you've set this whole situation up for your own benefit," he said grudgingly. The halberd stopped crackling.

"Well, of course I have," she declared. "Did you not get the part about being forced to join at gunpoint? I never wanted to be a big-league supervillain. He forced me into this position. So Coil goes down hard, I get out from under, I'm not a villain any more, I join the Samaritans, bad girl is redeemed, big PR triumph all round. Win-win-win-win-win."

Armsmaster stared at her for a long moment, then turned to Vista. "You're prepared to watch her, take her down if she steps out of line?" he said bluntly.

Vista nodded. "Sure," she said, and paused. "This means I get to stay on as liaison?" she ventured.

He nodded curtly. "You stepped up, took the initiative. I can't fault that."

"Thank you," she said. "I won't let you down."

"Don't thank me yet," he responded. "This may still all end badly." He turned back to the Samaritans and Tattletale. "You stay right here. I'm calling the Director in on this."

"Just make damn sure that it's only the Director you speak to, and no-one else," Tattletale said tensely. "Because the longer we go without Coil learning about me, the better."

He ignored her comment, turned away from the group.

"Piggot."

"Director, this is Armsmaster."

"Armsmaster. I thought you were taking lead on the Alcott case. What happened?"

"Another matter took my attention. One that turned out to be quite important."

She paused. "I'm listening," she said cautiously.

"Short version. I have hard information as to who was behind another matter we're dealing with. A minion, wanting immunity for assistance."

The Director sat upright in her chair. "You do? Who?"

"Not over an unsecured line, Director,"he told her. "There are factors that have come to light that you need to know about. Disturbing factors."

"Understood," she said crisply. "A face to face meeting, then."

"I concur," he replied. "The Protectorate base is probably the easiest to secure."

"I'll meet you there," she said.

"Armsmaster, out."

She put down the phone and looked at it for a long moment.

What does Armsmaster count as 'disturbing'?

She guessed that she would be finding out.

End of Part Twelve