Amelia tried not to gulp as she stared at the vat of yeast. Merlin and Armsmaster were watching her.
From the observation room.
Merlin had been contemptuous.
"If she is as powerful as you believe, she could have killed the entire nation by now," Merlin had said.
"Procedure," Armsmaster had said. "Testing procedure 13. We have finished with the development of advanced bacteria, plant organisms, and will now be attempting the creation of complex animals. Ms. Lavere, you may start when ready."
Amelia took a deep breath. It was strange how easy it was to slip into a name she'd never used… at least not since she could remember, but it felt right.
She touched the living material and felt her power flow through it. Something new… She closed her eyes and felt the complex chains of DNA and RNA form, surrounded by other components, first cells then larger structures. She kept working on it, changing the form, creating bones and other organs…
"Time is 45 minutes," Armsmaster said. Amelia blinked. Had it been that long? She'd been lost in the process.
In the vat, looking up at her, the pig snuffled and started looking for something to eat.
"Excellent." Armsmaster said. "Now we will move on to modifying organisms."
Maybe give it some kind of… echolocation? No, maybe poison fangs? No, that was too simple…
Wait a minute, pigs eat garbage, how about a way to process toxic waste and excrete it as nodules that could be disposed of.
That'd take a lot of engineering, especially if you wanted to keep the pig alive, but… It'd be hard.
It'd be interesting.
"Ms. Lavere?"
"Oh, yeah, right, right!" Amelia said. "I have exactly the idea."
In fact, she had so many ideas that it was hard to focus, so she buckled down and got to work.
"Bastard Son will be sending some enhanced minions to talk to Parian," Taylor said. Claire looked up at her. As part of the operation to not make it seem unusual if they visited with her, Taylor and Claire had met at a diner by the boardwalk, you know, to do girl talk and that sort of thing. Jim was off with Dean, Carlos, and Chris, mainly to keep Dean from freaking.
Evidently, reading emotions didn't really help when your girlfriend was whipping between "Oh God, this was all my fault" and "Merlin destroyed my family and I'm going to kill him!"
I guess Taylor doesn't do girl talk. Claire couldn't get a read on her. She wasn't Mary, but she did pride herself on being able to figure what someone was thinking. But Taylor…
She was like a closed book, most of the time. Controlled.
Do you blame her? Claire hadn't just been read in on what had happened to Taylor, after they started communicating with her more closely, Director Piggot had decided to bend the rules and let them see the transcripts and evidence during Madison Clements' and Emma Barnes' trials.
Claire had been very tempted to drop on them and show them just what kind of lessons Morganna had taught her. Only the fact that Emma seemed to be well, legitimately nuts and Madison just wasn't worth it had stayed her hand.
"Can you help stop him?" Claire asked.
"Not…" Taylor frowned. "The more I act, the bigger the chance people focus on methods to destroy insects. The Elite have access to tinkers. There's at least one Elite thinker in the Bay and maybe two or three other parahumans."
"It's a bit late for that, or have you seen PHO?" Claire smiled. "The top ten list of things you don't want to have Orb Weaver say to you?"
Taylor cracked a tiny smile. "Number 3. You're only afraid of black widows because you don't know enough of them."
Claire smiled. "Yeah. But how badly do you think they're going to lean on her?"
"Enough to let her know the PRT can't protect her." Taylor nodded. "The Elite don't work like the other gangs. So long as they stay out of their way, they'd ignore the E88—they just want economic control."
"I'd prefer that over the Teeth," Claire said, wincing as she rubbed one shoulder. Working with the Protectorate under the mentor program got them on the front lines more than they had been and Claire was very unhappy with Spree.
"I can't help you with the Teeth, but I did find out another thing about the Elite—Valefor and Eligos are both dead. Bastard Son had them killed, and their bodies were sunk in the Bay."
"Wha-really?" Claire glanced around. "Even for them that's…"
"Valefor tried to master some of Bastard Son's minions. It didn't go over well."
Well. If they could confirm that, it'd make Director Piggot happy. Valefor wasn't a major master, but nobody really liked masters, period.
And I wonder what Mom would say about me eating lunch, casually talking about how two teens had just been murdered… The Claire that had sat in school with Jim, thinking about Romeo and Juliet was long gone…
But by removing one faction, Bastard Son had given them more room to deal with him.
"But I was wondering," Taylor said. "I have an idea, but I can't do it myself."
"Oh?" Claire leaned forward, looking around. "What's that?" Did someone discover a giant mutant bug that you want?
"This," Taylor said, showing her some sketches. Robots. "I can't see with my insects, not well enough for detail work, but I can use them to control things—I practiced by typing on a dozen computers." She gestured at the sketch. "If I could find a tinker who could make me a drone, I could increase my range, and confuse people as to what my capabilities really were."
Claire blinked, staring at the drone designs. She'd never even thought of that. "I'd have to ask Armsmaster or maybe Kid Win…" She said. "Director Piggot would probably want something in return."
"More than this intel?"
"Maybe. She's still not real happy over the blow up with New Wave." Claire nodded. "But maybe." She looked back up at Taylor. "By the way, are you free on Friday?"
"Why?"
"Homework and film party at our house, with some friends from school."
"What?"
"You want to go to Arcadia next year, right?"
"Yes."
"What better way to get ready than to start seeing people. Besides, Jim said you'd love the movie he picked."
Taylor tilted her head. "What movie?"
"Them."
Evidently, Taylor liked the idea of giant ants because she nodded. "I'll be there."