Opening the door, Danny smiled at the people outside. "Hello, Angus, Brendan. Nice to see you both. Come in." He moved to the side as his guests entered, then stamped the snow off their shoes on the mat. Once they were out of the way he closed the door, glancing out at the steadily falling snow. "Looks like we're going to get quite a bit tonight," he added as he turned to them.
"I've always enjoyed a white Christmas," Angus chuckled.
"Presumably because you don't have to shovel the driveway," Brendan put in with a grin. "I, on the other hand, am quite pleased to no longer live somewhere where that's a regular occurrence. I don't miss it."
Danny laughed. "It's not too bad, I've never had any troubles myself," he said as he took their coats and hung them up. "We're in the living room, just there on the right."
"You're also twenty years or more younger than we old men," Angus pointed out reasonably as he headed in that direction, the other two following. "You young whippersnapper."
"Yes, very old man of you." Danny shook his head in amusement as the physicist smirked over his shoulder.
"Hi, guys!" Taylor looked up as they all went into the living room, smiling widely. "Merry Christmas."
"And to you, Taylor," Brendan replied, returning the smile. "How are you? I haven't seen you for a few weeks. Designed anything new?"
"Oh, lots of things," she giggled as she stood up from where she'd been fiddling with the back of the TV, which was sitting on a low table near the closed curtains over the front window. "So many things." She gestured to the sofa. "Sit down, I'll get the snacks."
Danny stepped aside as his daughter zipped out of the room and vanished into the kitchen, amused at her energy. The girl was happier these last few months than she'd been since a certain black period they'd both gone through, which in turn boosted his own morale a huge amount. He sat down as did the others. Brendan looked around the room, his gaze stopping on the photos of Danny, Taylor, and Annette that lined one of the shelves on the bookcase near the TV, then moving on.
"That's an awful lot of books," he noted, returning his attention to Danny. "I'm impressed."
Danny looked around for a moment, smiling fondly. "My wife was a voracious reader, and Taylor is if anything more so," he replied softly. "Annette collected a pretty big library. There are more in the study, in my bedroom, in the upstairs hall, and the guest room, and Taylor's bedroom..."
The other two looked amused at his comment. "Books are essential to a well developed mind in my view, so I approve," Angus said.
"She felt the same," Danny agreed, wishing yet again that his wife was still with them. He could see in their eyes that they knew what he was thinking and sympathized. Moments later Taylor reappeared with a tray full of bite-sized snacks which she'd spent most of the afternoon making, having decided that she wanted to do some cooking, along with a carafe of coffee and some mugs. Putting it down on the low table in the middle of the room, she looked around.
"Coffee? Or I can make some tea."
"Coffee is fine for me, thanks, Taylor," Angus commented. Brendan nodded.
"Same for me."
"Sure." She quickly poured out three mugs and handed them over, before jumping up again and vanishing for a moment, returning with a glass of coke. Pointing out what was what, she handed plates of snacks around, everyone shortly ending up with enough to keep them going for a while.
"These are very good, Taylor," Brendan observed having eaten a little savory pastry with enjoyment.
"Thanks," she smiled. "I got the recipe from one of Mom's notebooks, it was one she used to make when I was little. It took me a few goes to get it right, but I think it worked out pretty well." She ate one of them herself and nodded. "Might need a little more cinnamon next time."
Danny looked fondly at her as she made a note in one of the little books she carried everywhere, then put it away.
Angus glanced to the side, then grinned at them both. "I like your tree."
Turning to the far corner and also looking at the same thing, Danny chuckled. Taylor looked at it proudly too. The 'tree' was a construction made of delicately fabricated metal branches, all anodized different colors, with hundreds of tiny LEDs twinkling on them in a cheerful manner. The thing that really stood out, though, was that it was floating in mid air a clear two feet off the floor, suspended from the 'star' on top which was a two inch wide variant of one of Taylor's gravity generators, the device emitting a beautiful golden glow that emulated sunlight almost perfectly. He had no idea how she'd managed to get it to do that.
"I thought it was a bit boring to have a plain old evergreen and why make some poor tree die in our living room just because of the time of year?" Taylor explained happily. "So I made that. Much more interesting."
"It's… different… I'll grant you that," Brendan replied with a raised eyebrow and a smile. "And quite pretty, I have to admit."
"Thanks."
The doorbell rang again, Taylor jumping up once more. "I'll get it," she said as she dashed out of the room. Everyone watched her go.
"Oh, to have the energy of the young again," Angus snickered.
"Very few of the young have the energy of the Taylor," Danny remarked wisely, sipping his coffee, which made the other two laugh. Moments later after a certain amount of muffled talking in the hallway, his daughter came back followed by Alan, Zoe, and Anne Barnes. Danny got up and went to meet them.
"Glad you could make it," he said to the new arrivals, giving Zoe a hug, then putting his arm around Anne's shoulders for a moment. The oldest of the Barnes children, currently eighteen, smiled at him.
"We wouldn't miss coming over, Uncle Danny," she said. "Emma… would want us to."
Her voice hitched on the last few words and he held her closer for a moment. "I know," he replied quietly. "I know, my dear. She'll be back, sooner or later, so don't lose hope."
"Thanks," the girl said very softly. Taylor grabbed her in a hug as he released her, then shook Alan's hand, his old friend smiling gratefully with one eye on his own daughter.
"How's it going, Danny?" Alan asked as Danny waved them to seats, Taylor dragging the older girl into the kitchen after a quick whisper.
"Not bad at all, Alan. You remember Angus, of course, and this is Brendan Calhoun, one of our clients." Alan looked at the other two men, Brendan rising to shake his and Zoe's hands.
"Nice to meet you. Hello, Angus."
"Good evening, both of you," Angus replied with a smile. "It's been a little while since we last met."
"About… nine months or so, I think?" Zoe said as she sat, then peered at the half depleted tray. "Ooh. Are those Annette's savory pastries?"
"They are indeed," Danny nodded. "Help yourself." She quickly acquired one and tried it, smiling broadly.
"Very good. Your work?"
"I'm a reasonable cook but not that good," he laughed as he also sat down again. "All that is entirely Taylor."
Zoe raised an eyebrow approvingly. "She's definitely got a knack for cooking, I think," she replied, finishing the snack. Taylor and Anne came back in just in time to hear this, the younger girl looking pleased.
"Thanks, Aunt Zoe," she said as she put another tray down, Anne doing the same with a smaller one containing more mugs, another carafe of coffee, a teapot, and some cans of soda. "Hopefully you'll like the meal, it's one I found in mom's books. Apparently it's based on a really old recipe from the middle ages, chicken and plums in sauce. It sure smells nice."
"Ah, is that what that is?" Zoe sniffed a little. "I was trying to place it. I remember Annette made that, oh… ten years ago? Maybe twelve? It was very good."
Taylor looked pleased. "Hopefully mine will be as good."
Shortly everyone had drinks and snacks. Anne spent a couple of minutes admiring Taylor's 'tree' with a slightly incredulous look, which made both Danny and his daughter smile. "You are weird, Taylor," she finally said, shaking her head.
The younger girl giggled. "It seems perfectly reasonable to me."
"It would. Because you're weird."
They grinned at each other, then Taylor tossed her a controller, turning the TV on at the same time. "Sit down and lose to the master," she ordered, pointing at the floor.
"Master my ass," the Barnes girl replied with a smirk, dropping to the floor next to Taylor. Moments later they were firing turtle shells at each other.
Danny and the others watched for a while. He was pleased to see that Taylor was having fun even though she clearly missed having Emma around too. She'd always gotten on well with the older Barnes sister, although she wasn't as close to her as she was to Emma, and after the attack they'd comforted each other a lot. It was nice to see Taylor also distracting Anne from thinking about her younger sister, which was clearly at least partly deliberate. He looked over at Zoe and Alan, both of them meeting his eyes and nodding a little.
"Business going well, Danny?" Alan asked, leaning back on the sofa and putting his arm around his wife, the other hand holding his coffee.
"Very well, yes," he replied, glancing at Angus who was listening with interest. Brendan was apparently watching the girl's game, but he knew the other man was also listening. "We're still upgrading a lot of the DWU facilities, that'll probably be going on for a year or so at least, but we've managed to reactivate nearly half the place so far. Luckily most of the buildings are fairly intact, and you wouldn't believe how much stuff we have stored away around the place. Now that the ship's out of the mouth of the bay, we're expecting to see quite the surge in general dock work and all the other things that go along with that."
"What are you doing with that huge ship?" Zoe asked with interest. "Surely it's too much of a wreck to be salvageable?"
"Oh, definitely, the thing's a write off," Danny nodded. "The engines have been under water since it was scuttled for a start, there's so many holes in the hull it looks like a colander, and almost anything usable was ripped out over the years. We'll cut it up as scrap to get rid of it, it's worth a fair bit for the metal since there's so much of it, but we moved it mostly to get it out of the way."
"And to make a certain point in a controlled manner," Alan commented wryly, causing Brendan to look at him for a moment then go back to watching the girls.
"There's an aspect of that, I'll admit," Danny replied with equanimity, making Angus snort with humor. "Various parties were inevitably going to find out about Gravtec sooner or later, and doing it like that let us control the narrative more than sneaking around would have done." He shrugged. "Or so our advisers said." He noticed Brendan smirk very slightly out of the corner of his eye. "Seems to have worked."
"No trouble from the PRT?"
"Not since that first visit," Danny said, shaking his head. "Armsmaster was impressed and went off pretty happy, and from what Angus says he's fascinated by our research. Director Piggot wasn't even slightly in a good mood for a while, which is hardly unusual from what I'm told, but our information is that the local PRT finally decided that it wasn't their problem and washed their hands of the whole thing. Which was the point, of course."
Alan nodded, smiling a little. "I wonder what the higher ups are thinking?"
"No idea. Don't really care as long as they stay out of our hair," Danny replied with a grin. "They can handle the Parahuman problems and leave superscience to the legitimate businessmen and women."
"And scientists," Angus put in.
"Yes. And scientists." Danny nodded. "That goes without saying."
Brendan chuckled, not looking away from the TV.
"Are you going to be employing more people at the DWU, do you think?" Zoe asked with interest.
Danny looked at her. "In the long run, definitely, but of course these days the security checks are the main problem," he replied. "It's going to take a while to get everything set up for that. But yeah, we're certainly going to need more people sooner or later at this rate."
"Good, it's nice to see things starting to improve," she smiled.
"Finally," he agreed.
They talked and grazed on the snacks for the next hour or so, Taylor getting up every now and then to check on the progress of the main meal she was making. Eventually she came back into the living room and said, "Dinner is to be served in the dining room in five minutes," in a very posh accent, before disappearing again. He could hear Anne laughing from the kitchen.
Looking around the room, he said with a small smile, "I think in that case we should adjourn to the dining room. We don't want to make the chef angry."
"That would most likely not end well," Brendan agreed with a nod, standing up and recovering his coffee mug from the floor, which he put in the tray on the way past. A few minutes later all of them were in the next room, which didn't get used much these days, the old dining table pulled out to full size with the extra section fitted in the middle. All the places had been set earlier, so they seated themselves just as Taylor and Anne came in bearing dishes of food.
Very soon they were eating what turned out to be a remarkably good meal, and talking happily. Danny looked around at his guests and his daughter, feeling that while he wished certain things about life now were different, he couldn't really complain about how things had turned out.
"Merry Christmas, Taylor," Zoe said, handing her a small wrapped package. Taylor accepted it with a smile.
"Thanks, Aunt Zoe," she replied. "Here, I got this one for you." She gave the older woman a slightly larger package with iridescent wrapping paper, which she'd taken a liking to when she found it in the shop. It reminded her of a diffraction grating, which of course it essentially was, and the play of colors as you moved it around was fascinating.
"Very pretty, dear," Zoe said after examining it. "Thank you."
"Don't open it until Christmas," Taylor added, causing Zoe to smile and nod.
"Of course I won't. But that's only two days, so I think I can manage to hold my curiosity until then."
They shared a giggle. "Your father seems happier than I've seen him for quite a while," Zoe said after a few seconds, looking around to where Taylor's dad was talking to Brendan and Alan, with Anne in the background explaining something about the video game they'd been playing earlier to Angus. "For that matter, so do you."
Taylor smiled gently, nodding. "I think we are, Aunt Zoe," she replied quietly. "It was bad for some time. But..." She sighed deeply. "Mom wouldn't have wanted us to mope around. It's hard not to sometimes, I admit. Getting Gravtec going, though, and the stuff happening with the DWU and all that… it's really helped with Dad, he's got something he can actually do to help now. And he's loving it. Me too, I've got all the toys and people want me to make things, which is a lot of fun."
Zoe glanced at the floating tree-like construct, then met Taylor's eyes. She looked both proud and highly amused. "I can see that," she said with a giggle. "You really are remarkable, Taylor."
Taylor buffed her fingernails on her shirt then examined them with a supercilious expression. "I am, yes." They both broke down laughing after a second or two. "Thanks. I really am having fun though."
"Annette would have been very pleased about that," Zoe told her. "She always wanted the best for both of you. I'm so glad it's working out." She looked at the tree-thing again. "Although I have no idea how..."
"It's SCIENCE!" Taylor said, thrusting her arm skywards and putting the other one on her hip.
Anne looked at her, then Angus, before nearly falling over laughing. Taylor grinned.
Zoe simply shook her head.
"Changing the subject, are you going to Arcadia, did you decide?" she asked curiously.
Taylor dropped to the sofa from where she'd jumped up, then pulled her knee up and put both hands on it. "Yeah. The home schooling thing is great, I've done about three years worth this year, since it's a lot easier when people aren't bothering me, but Dad thinks I need 'socialization' or something like that. Silly, I know, I'm nice and social already, but I need to keep him happy." She grinned as her father looked at her with a raised eyebrow, waved at him, and laughed when he sighed and went back to discussing something with the others. Who seemed to find this funny too.
Zoe was giggling once more. "You're a very friendly girl, Taylor, I'm sure you'll get on fine."
"I hope so," she admitted, a little nervously and dropping the act. "I think I dodged a bullet not going to Winslow, after… well, after. I've heard some weird things about it. But Arcadia is supposed to be pretty good, and after all my work they agreed to jump me up a year. I'm not sure if that's good or not. I'll be doing something that's closer to what I'm up to, yeah, but I'll also be the youngest person in the class, probably. So..." She chewed her lip for a moment, then shrugged. "I can't honestly say I'm not a little worried, but Dad might have a point. I hardly see anyone my own age at the moment."
The older woman patted her knee. "You'll do fine, dear. You're a friendly and happy girl, and ferociously smart. I've got no doubt you'll succeed at anything you want to. Just look around!" She waved at the floating construction in the corner. "You're doing some amazing things. And even if you can't tell most people about that, it's going to end up helping all sorts of things, I'm sure about that."
"I guess so," Taylor nodded. "It's a little annoying that I can't tell anyone who doesn't have clearance, but I understand why, and I even agree with it. But it's going to make things a little awkward."
"I doubt you'll have any trouble making some new friends even so, Taylor," Zoe remarked with a small smile. "After all, everyone has their own secrets."
Taylor looked at the tree, then back at Zoe, her lips twitching. "Admittedly most people's secrets aren't a matter of national security," the older woman allowed with a snicker.
"Yeah. Oh well. We'll see after Christmas, I guess."
They shared a smile, then Zoe went over to join the conversation around the coffee table, while Taylor pulled out a notebook and started sketching a preliminary design for a hand-held MRI scanner that she'd been thinking about for a few weeks now. Every now and then she looked around at her dad and friends, feeling that she was definitely in a good place.
"Who's that?"
Vicky looked at her friend Jackie, then in the direction the other girl indicated. A somewhat younger girl, probably about a year their junior although pretty tall for her age, with lustrous curly black hair halfway down her back, was standing in the line at the serving area in the cafeteria. She looked vaguely familiar but Vicky couldn't place her immediately.
"Not sure," she replied, trying to think where she'd seen the girl. She nudged Amy with her elbow, causing her sister to mutter something rude under her breath as she nearly dropped the book she was reading. "Hey, Ames, any idea who the new girl is?"
Amy looked over, then shook her head, stopping halfway through the gesture. "Oh… hang on, didn't I see her… Right. I remember. Saw her at the hospital a couple of times, I think. Dunno who she is though, other than a friend of one of the long term coma patients there."
"That girl who got mugged?" Vicky asked, suddenly remembering one case about a year back that she'd rushed her sister in to deal with. It had been pretty fucking nasty, she recalled, Amy having come out looking furious and sad at the same time.
"Yeah." She knew she wasn't going to get anything more about it and didn't bother asking. Her sister took medical privacy seriously.
One of Vicky's other friends came over, having noticed the direction they were all looking. "New transfer in," Melissa, a short blonde, said as she stopped next to their table. "Taylor Hebert, she's in Mandy's home room. She was home schooling for the last year, after her mother got killed, I hear. Traffic accident. She's crazy smart from what Mandy said. Get this, she did three years worth of schooling in one year. They bumped her up a year, she's not even sixteen yet."
"Holy crap. Really? Three years all by herself?" Vicky stared at her friend as did the others, horrified. "Doesn't the poor girl go out? She must have spent every minute slaving over a book!"
Melissa shrugged. "No idea. But Mandy said she was nice, friendly you know? Oh, yeah, she also said we've got a new science teacher, and there are a couple of new people in the administration. Seems to be a lot of new staff around these days."
"I don't care about new teachers, I want to know about new students," Vicky laughed. "You know me, I'm curious."
"You're pushy, you mean," Amy grumbled, going back to her book. "Leave the poor girl alone."
"She's coming this way!"
Everyone, including Amy, looked. Sure enough, the new girl was wandering in their direction, apparently looking for a free seat.
Vicky shoved Jackie along the table. "Move over," she said.
"Hey!"
"I want to meet the new girl. She looks interesting."
"Oh, fine." Sighing, her friend slid her chair sideways, while Melissa helpfully grabbed one from the table behind them and spun it around. As the tall brunette approached, Vicky waved.
"Hey, want a seat?" she called.
The other girl paused and looked at her, then at the others. One hand was holding her tray and the other her phone. After a glance at the screen, she prodded the thing with her thumb and put it in her pocket, then smiled at them. "Sure. Thanks." Sliding her tray onto the table she sat down. "Hi. I'm Taylor."
"Vicky, this is Amy, my sister, this is Jackie, and this is Melissa," Vicky quickly said. "So you're new here, I guess?"
"Yeah." Taylor nodded as she picked up a fork. "Just started today. It seems like a nice place so far."
She looked around, pausing for a moment on a table a couple of rows away at which Vicky's on and off boyfriend Dean was talking intently to a couple of other boys, Carlos and Dennis, about sometime or other. Right now Vicky wasn't talking to him, and he knew exactly why. Taylor's eyes moved on, then she smiled at Vicky. "It'll be interesting to see what I learn here."
"You like learning?" Vicky asked curiously.
"Oh, yeah, I'm interested in all sorts of things," Taylor replied earnestly. Her pocket made a ping sound, making her mutter something under her breath and pull the phone out, quickly check it, then put it away. "Sorry, left an app running."
"That's a pretty big phone," Jackie commented.
"It's an unusual model, but I like the battery life," Taylor smiled as she started eating her mac and cheese. "Lasts nearly a week."
"It looks like it'd break your foot if you dropped it," Amy remarked with a small grin, looking up from her book. Taylor laughed.
"It pretty much bounces." She glanced at Dean's table for a moment, then went back to eating. Vicky looked over as well, seeing the boy was now gesticulating vigorously, apparently acting out some football play or something, and sighed faintly.
"So what hobbies do you have?" she asked.
Taylor looked at her for a moment.
"I like electronics," she said thoughtfully. "And reading. And learning things like I said." She smiled faintly. "I've been doing a lot of distance learning this last year."
"That's… nice." Vicky shook her head in despair. "We need to get you interested in normal things."
"We do?" Amy looked up again, then at Taylor, who seemed amused. "For god's sake, Vicky, she's been here about ten minutes. Give her a chance!"
Jackie started laughing, while Vicky smiled. "I told you, I like meeting new people. Taylor's new. So there we go."
Her sister merely sighed and shook her head.
Turning back to the new girl, Vicky leaned in. "OK. Here's some of the important things you need to know about Arcadia..."
Taylor listened with interest as the girls took turns, even Amy after a while, explaining the various aspects of life in the best school in Brockton Bay.
