"Right," Claire said as she came walking back out with Orb Weaver and Tattletale. "Done with girl talk."
"What type of girl talk?" Regent asked.
"The kind where Orb Weaver talks about how much she loves her father, and that she has no idea what she'd do if oh, something happened to him because someone talked," Claire said.
Jim noticed that Tattletale's grin looked a little fixed.
"Cool," Regent said. "So, how are we going to 'rescue' the squirt?"
"Grue tell you about Faultline's Crew?" Tattletale asked.
Jim nodded.
"They've got a member named Newter. Case 53, if you touch him you go to bye-bye land, and it's worked on brutes before. We get Dinah in range, get her touching him, and she's out."
"And then what?" Claire asked.
"Okay, Panacea is a big-time biokinetic, or at least the files Coil got us claim it."
Right, he knows everything the PRT knows. Jim growled. That wasn't terrifying, no not in the slightest.
"She's never used her power to change a parahuman," Claire said.
"No, but the Butcher has to be talking to Dinah somehow, and I bet Panacea can cut that off."
That's… "What else do the PRT files say about Amelia?" Jim asked.
"What?"
"You're just assuming she can fix that, and if she can't…"
"Okay, fine. They updated her files. She made… A pig? That means she can affect brains."
Jim was getting bad flashbacks, because the plan sounded about as firm as his 'go into the Darklands and kick Gunmar's ass' plan."
"How do we get to her?" Grue asked. "Tats, she can see the future."
"Not all the futures, at least not according to the boss. She was talking percentages at school and when she was at the hospital. And it probably depends on what she asks…" Tattletale held up one hand. "And we know she gets thinker headaches. That limits how much she can ask, and we're… We're the Undersiders. Not Coil, not the E88, not the Elite…"
"Yeah, but if she asks if Coil is…" Claire blinked. "No way."
"Ding, ding, ding!" Tattletale said. "She gets it. we're not working for Coil, we're working to ultimately screw Coil over, and any questions about Coil would take that into account."
"Still pretty light, but how do we find her?" Claire asked.
"Find the Teeth," Grue said. "And since we have…" He gestured at Claire. "A mover…"
"Right…" Jim frowned. "But we need to let Director Piggot know, so the PRT doesn't jump on us."
"What did I say about how Coil has the PRT infiltrated?" Tattletale asked.
"And right now, you said that he's keeping one timeline safe. I bet he can't play games with torturing people for information, because what if the Butcher walks in the door on his other timeline?" Jim started pacing. "And his entire advantage is that he doesn't have many conventional agents, right? No way for anyone to see him, because he gets his information in the other timeline…"
"So, right now, the only way he could look at what the PRT is doing is through his computer access, unless he wants to risk a timeline…" Claire breathed. "That's genius!"
"And you can contact the PRT without anyone getting wise?" Tattletale asked. "Oh, right, magic."
"Yep." Jim grinned.
"You know," Tattletale said. "Piggot is probably going to trigger with the power to strangle you with her mind."
Jim lost his smile.
"It wouldn't be the worst, Master Jim. Remember whatever her powers, she doesn't wield a broom with the same skill as your mother." Blinky had been silent through their discussion. "And she would be proud. Whatever the legalities, this is not the first child you have saved."
"Yeah," Jim shook his head. "Seems to be a habit."
"There are worse ones," Claire said, leaning into Jim.
"Alright!" Tattletale said, clapping her hands. "Are you coming with us, or keeping the home fires warm?"
Blinky looked at her. "I am not as suited to fighting as I once was, young lady. I will stay here in case I am needed. I have full trust and faith in Master Jim and Fair Claire."
Something flickered across Tattletale's face, too fast for Jim to read, then the smile was back.
"Right!" she said. "First the message and then to Faultline's Crew!"
Emily had just finished her dialysis procedure and was getting ready to finish up some paperwork when a portal opened up above her home desk and a sheet of paper fluttered out. She looked out the window, just in time to see Shadowdancer vanish into another portal.
READ ME! It said.
If this is a joke I'm going to… Emily shook her head. Claire Nunez didn't do jokes. She had a sense of humor but it was, thank God, far more developed than Clockblocker's. And then she forgot about anything else as the letter started talking about Coil, twin timelines, and why they had never been able to find any moles.
I will send that son of a bitch to the Birdcage myself. No wonder things had been so fucked up in the Bay.
Then she got to the part that had her furiously cursing.
We think we can work through a blind spot in Dinah's power to get to her and use Newter and Panacea to render her safe. At least that's what Tattletale thinks, and the rest of the Undersiders will be working with us. Coil thinks they're working for him, and he's running scared. He's keeping one timeline safe, according to Tattletale.
More lines, theories on why Coil would be vulnerable. If it wasn't so insanely risky, Emily would have been proud at their planning.
We may need Protectorate help, but remember, Coil probably has the codes to your computers.
Thanks, Claire.
"I'm not completely senile, Ms. Nunez," Emily said. If they couldn't use the computers…
She picked up her phone. PRT directors had hardcoded commands, that couldn't be changed short of physically going into the base computer. And she knew exactly which one to use.
"Delta, Five, Seven. Piggot. Firebreak. Firebreak. Firebreak." It would take at least a week to undo what she had done, sending the command to trigger a hard shutdown, to be used only in the case of penetration by a technological Tinker or Master, that made the computers hopelessly compromised.
And now they were useless bricks of silicon, tiny physical fuses having actually blown within the servers that would have to be manually replaced before the computers would be usable again.
And if Claire was right, Coil had just lost his window into the PRT. But that was okay, because as much as Emily hated it, it looked like the lion's share of the work was going to be handled by Jim, Claire and their allies.
So she would just have to make certain Coil was looking in the wrong direction. After all, who cared about some Wards if the entire PRT had just gone dark?
Her phone rang, an automated message reminding everyone that only PRT phones that had had the new randomly chosen code entered manually at the PRT building would be able to access the new network.
Good luck on getting that, Coil.
Not that Emily was going to use the phones for anything Coil related. No, that was going to be something she'd tell Armsmaster face to face.
She didn't want to ruin the surprise, after all. And with a smile that wouldn't have been out of place on a great white, Emily Piggot headed in to work.
Dinah worked on the gun, her fingers moving quickly. One of the past Butchers, Forgemaster had been a low level tinker and thinker focusing on mundane tech. The inertial compensator's were tinkertech, the rest just incredibly well built conventional technology.
Looking good, Kid. You know, you're one of the first people to actually think about stuff like this.
Forgemaster had a kid and was once of the nicer minds. Some of them were like that, with Dinah triggering memories of…
Times when they hadn't been voices in her head. Others were enraged by that, and did their best to make her life miserable. Then the others jumped up in her defense and things got Loud. They couldn't hear her thoughts, not her inside thoughts, but anything she said or did, they saw. And they could tell if she was using her power, and got angry if she didn't let them ask their questions.
"Boss!" Spree said, with a smirk on his face. "Wanna find Coil?" he lost his smile as Dinah pulled the big gatling gun around, looking really out of place with her small form, and pointed it him, as she winced from the response to his question.
"I told you I can't," She said. "He's… both inside and outside the city."
Bet it's related to his power.
No, shit, Sherlock. Maybe he has a clone body? Can share his mind?
Dinah stopped and stared at the map. They'd come up with a really good way to use her power. Divide the city in half. Ask a question: The chance that this side will be more important in a day. It wasn't exact, but it had allowed them to focus down on parts of the city where they could attack with the best chances of success. None of the Butchers had seen a power just like hers, but they had seen close examples.
If Dinah didn't feel like she was going crazy, in addition to wanting to go home, it would have been interesting.
But she had a secret. A secret she didn't breathe aloud or even think too loud.
Everyone thought that when she asked a question about how beneficial something would be, she had the Teeth in mind. But Dinah wasn't part of the Teeth. She hated the Teeth.
She was asking for herself.