Making some final adjustments to the software, Taylor compiled it and uploaded it into the device on the bench. When it was done, she checked the diagnostic readout then smiled. Turning her chair around, she said, "It's ready for the first test."
"OK, we've got the watermelon set up on the stand," Kyle, one of the post-grads from BBU who was attached to Gravtec's engineering department said, motioning to a fixture on one of the workbenches on the other side of the room. "Let's see what happens."
"If it wasn't Taylor, I'd put ten bucks on a cooked watermelon," Suzanne, another of the technicians giggled. Taylor grinned as she got up and picked the device off her workstation, then carried it over to the test stand.
"Hey, we still might get that," she laughed. "I'm not perfect."
"Just very, very good," Angus, who was watching closely, chuckled. Next to him her father was smiling. "It'll work, I have little doubt."
"I still want to check before I try it on something I care about," Taylor admitted, putting her prototype portable MRI unit down next to the test article and moving to the computer that would control it for these initial tests. She ran the supervisory software while Kyle busied himself on another machine with the program suite that would take the raw data from her device and convert it into a 3D image.
"Ready here," he said a few seconds later, looking across at her. She nodded and clicked a couple of icons. The micro MRI came to life, little status LEDs on it blinking a few times as it ran an internal calibration, then it emitted a couple of beeps. Satisfied that things were going to plan, she picked it up once more and carefully positioned the semicircle of machinery around the top of the watermelon, before pressing a button on it. When she let go it hung there motionless in space, the internal reference frame unit locking it to the target to sub-micron accuracy.
She sat in front of the control computer and made some adjustments to the software, glancing at the MRI device every now and then as she fine-tuned the positioning of it. When she was sure it was correctly set to follow the shape of the melon, which was a big oval one standing on end in the plastic support frame, she nodded and clicked the RUN control.
Everyone watched in silence as the prototype unit started to orbit the melon, lowering itself in a steady spiral as it scanned the volume of the target. After a couple of rotations she checked the data feed was doing what was expected, seeing to her pleasure that it was, before glancing at Kyle. "Getting good data," he replied to her silent question, watching the various windows on the monitors. "Starting the first imaging sequence… now. Rendering… And there we go. Cool as hell." He smiled as a high resolution false color three dimensional image of the melon's structure started to build up on the main monitor. "You can see the seeds and everything. Wow. Look at the detail! I've never seen an MRI this good."
Several of the other techs came over to watch as well, admiring the results. Taylor checked the progress of the device, seeing it was already nearly half way through the job. "No indications of internal heating at all," she commented, looking at the thermal camera view. "Magnetic field density is fine, low rf field output… Yeah, it's working perfectly." She leaned to the side to check the image and nodded. "I can improve the contrast with some work, but for a first run that's even better than I hoped."
"It's extremely impressive, Taylor," Angus remarked as he watched the progress of the test. "And much, much faster than the existing methods. Not to mention vastly smaller."
"And really cheap too," she smiled. "Cost of a production unit should be under a thousand dollars for one this size. Something large enough to scan an entire human body is still going to be less than ten thousand."
"As opposed to several million, not to mention the ongoing costs of liquid helium and so on," Angus nodded. He was smiling in a pleased manner. "Once again you've revolutionized an entire industry, and opened up a whole series of new ones. Well done indeed."
"Thanks," she replied with a smile. The prototype finished the scan and reset to the original position, then beeped again. Kyle was manipulating the image with a multi axis controller under his fingers, everyone watching as he spun it around, then zoomed in on one of the watermelon seeds to reveal the inner details.
"Holy shit, that's incredible resolution," someone breathed. "You can see the internal structure right down to the cellular level."
"Needs some work on the imaging algorithm to extract all the available detail," Kyle muttered as he leaned closer to the screen and carefully examined it. "It's clipping some of the high frequencies, looks like. I can fix that in an hour or so, I think."
"All right, you do that, I'll get this contrast adjustment done, and Suzanne, can you take that melon apart and check it really carefully for any problems?" Taylor glanced at the older woman who nodded.
"Sure, Taylor, I'll check it thoroughly. And even taste test it to be sure." She grinned when Taylor snickered. "I'll make sure everyone can help with that test..."
"Sounds like a good idea. I love the taste of a good test article." Taylor smiled. "When we're sure it's safe, we can try the rabbit. And if we don't kill the bunny, someone can volunteer to have the first run on a human."
"I like the bunny. Please don't kill the bunny. And we're not eating it after the test," Kyle commented without looking away from where he was delving into the source code of the imaging system. Several people laughed then they got back to work.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant atmosphere of camaraderie and science. Taylor found it very gratifying.
Tipping his chair back on the rear legs, Paul put his feet up on the railing surrounding the roof of the New York Protectorate building and looked out at the slowly lowering sun over Central Park, while sipping on a large glass of coke. Ice cubes clinked in it as he tilted the vessel, while condensation dripped onto his chest. He looked down and flicked the water droplets away with one finger, then went back to watching the world go by a long way down.
It had been a very nice day in a whole string of them, with a surprisingly low number of problems to deal with. In fact, when he thought about it, there had been far less of the sort of issues he and his people normally faced for months. Everyone had been somewhat confused by the drop in crime and general Parahuman chaos, but no one was going to complain too much. They merely took the opportunity to get some training in, fix up some of the problems that had gone far too long unfixed, and overall enjoy the respite. In all probability things would pick up again, such lulls seldom lasted, but he was going to enjoy it while it did.
Overall, Legend was feeling very mellow indeed.
Even David seemed to have lost some of the tension he so often showed, deep down. It was a good thing in Paul's opinion. The man was rather tightly wound a lot of the time and far too keen on 'proving himself' against any threat available. Right at the moment that attitude seemed to have diminished quite a lot, which was something of a relief for everyone who had to work with him. He was even relaxed enough to play the occasional practical joke, which had led to some very amusing places.
He snorted with humor at the thought of Contessa wandering around giving entirely unhelpful answers to Rebecca's waspish questions and very obviously finding it hilarious in a deadpan sort of way. Again, this was out of character in a sense, but it made the woman far more human.
Becky wasn't enjoying it, of course. And that was the funniest thing of all. She was still banging on about the whole DARPA aspect and how the US government wouldn't respect her authority, which Paul found both tiresome and just the tiniest bit amusing. That woman, despite being a friend and colleague, drove him up the wall sometimes with her micromanaging and controlling outlook on pretty much everything. She really did not like being told 'no.' Probably because very few people had ever done that and managed to make it stick, either in her guise as Alexandria or as the Chief Director of the PRT.
'It'll do her good,' he thought with a small smile, taking another sip, then reaching for an oreo. 'Woman needs to relax a little. Before she drives the rest of us nuts.'
He chuckled to himself. Gravtec and all its manifold peculiarities got on her tits something fierce even though there was more than enough evidence to show it was entirely out of their wheelhouse. He didn't know how they were doing what they were doing, or who was responsible, but every bit of information he'd found showed they were definitely not making Tinker tech or using Parahuman abilities, just as they claimed. In his view the sensible approach was to sit back and watch, since if nothing else it seemed likely that their little group could in the long run make use of some of the things that were coming from that direction.
Paul had said exactly that to Rebecca, and even Doctor Mother had agreed although she was clearly very curious as to what was actually going on, but the younger woman still wouldn't shut up about it. She was determined to 'get to the bottom of it' one way or another, and he had a pretty strong feeling that sooner or later someone in the government was going to make it extremely clear that she was poking something that she really shouldn't. He didn't know quite how that would turn out but it was likely to be quite entertaining from a sufficient distance…
Shaking his head, he wondered how he could persuade her to let it drop. They had far more important things to be doing than worrying about one smallish city that was an edge case in almost any metric you wanted to use. Right now it was mostly keeping to itself and in his view they should just let it be while dealing with all the other things that would invariably crop up. Yes, there were any number of oddities surrounding the whole thing but then oddities were par for the course in today's world. They didn't have the resources to spare to keep prodding something that didn't seem inclined to divulge anything useful, and wasn't on the face of it actually causing any problems. Quite the reverse if anything.
Nibbling another oreo, he watched a small flock of pigeons fly past, then finished his coke and put the glass down next to his chair. Picking up the book that was lying there he found his place and started reading again, letting the issue of his colleague fade away for now. He had an hour of break left and he wasn't going to waste it trying to second guess Rebecca and her control freakery.
Life was too short.
"What's wrong with Amy?" Vicky looked at Carlos, who'd asked the question in a low voice with a tinge of concern, then followed his eyes to where her sister was slouching into school radiating a black cloud of depression. She sighed faintly.
"Mom's being a bigger pain in the ass than usual right now. I don't know why. Everything's actually going well for once, there's hardly any crimes happening, nothing seems to be causing problems, but she's wandering around pretty much looking for a reason to have arguments. With me, with Dad, and with Ames. Even with Aunt Sarah," she confided, keeping her voice low too. "I think one of the things that's worrying her is that the next Endbringer attack is overdue. It freaks her out."
"Well, I can't blame your mom for that," the boy replied. She shrugged, shaking her head as they followed the rest of the students inside, the morning rush before the first bell carrying them along. "Everyone is kind of freaked out about that. The news is coming up with some really stupid ideas why it's so late."
"Not as stupid as PHO has managed," Chris said from behind them, having overheard. "Or that weird site, the new one..."
Carlos looked back at him. "SpiceBottles?"
"That's the one. Crazy people, they make PHO look normal," Chris chuckled. "Half the time they're trying to weaponize cinnamon or something, the other half they're screaming about politics."
Despite herself Vicky giggled. "I heard a rumor that site is run by the government who set it up so people would brainstorm new military ideas without realizing it," she commented with a small grin.
"Yeah, that sounds… unlikely," Chris replied, returning her look. "Where did you hear that?"
"That rumor site. Insufficient Veracity. They're full of that sort of thing. PHO has an entire section dedicated to trashing their paranoid delusions."
The small group shared a laugh. After a moment, Vicky looked back at Amy who was sullenly opening her locker at the other end of the corridor, her shoulders hunched, and sighed faintly. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. "I love Mom, and I love Amy. And Mom is being a total bitch right now. Amy goes to the hospital, she gets told she's overworking herself. She doesn't go to the hospital and she gets a lecture about duty. She can't win. And I've ended up arguing with both of them about the whole stupid thing several times. I mean, I managed to get her to take the day off a few weeks ago, and Taylor's cheered her up any number of times, but as soon as we get home, it starts right up again."
"With all due respect, Vicky, your mom is kind of a bitch at times," Carlos said quietly.
"Yeah, I know," she grumbled. "Trust me, I know. I wish I could figure out how to get her to lay off Amy. It's like she's scared that if she takes her eye off Ames, she'll go crazy or something. Which is just nuts."
The two boys looked at each other, then back at her. "Maybe ask your aunt for help?"
"I'm probably gonna have to," Vicky muttered. "Or something's going to break. Maybe Amy." She turned to them. "And it's not like there's something I can just point at and say 'That's the problem.' It's a constant background issue most of the time. And I have no idea how to stop it."
They all looked back at Amy, who was collecting books from her locker and viciously throwing them into her backpack. As they watched, Taylor appeared from somewhere and stopped next to the shorter brunette, saying something to her which made the other girl pause, then shake her head. They had a short discussion before Amy closed her locker and twisted the dial a couple of time, looking somewhat less irritated, then both walked off as the five minute warning bell sounded.
"That girl is incredibly good at what she does," Vicky remarked with a shake of her head. "I don't know how she does it but she manages to calm Amy down every time."
"She's pretty smart," Chris nodded. "I like her, but I don't know her as well as you do."
"I think she's a pretty good friend, actually," Vicky smiled. "I wish I'd met her years back. And Amy too. It would probably have helped." She looked at a nearby clock. "Whoops, better hurry. See you guys later." With a quick wave she headed for her own locker, rapidly retrieving the relevant textbooks and slamming it closed then following the rest of the students filing into home room. The two boys headed off to their own class as the final bell rang.
Feeling her latest phone vibrate, Taylor slipped it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. Amy, sitting next to her, glanced over at the motion and watched as she quickly tapped a few icons, then used her finger to scribble a number of complex symbols on the program that popped up. Looking at the results she smiled before closing the app and putting the phone away again.
"What the hell are you doing with that thing now?" Amy whispered, while the chemistry teacher was discussing the results of their current practical lesson with a couple of students who seemed to be having difficulty with valency calculations. "And how are you getting a signal in here?"
"Just answering a question from a friend," Taylor replied equally quietly. "The phone blocking isn't perfect if you sit in the right place."
"You and your phone collection," her friend sighed, although she was smiling a little. "Everyone else wants the thinnest ones on the market, and you're walking around with something you could beat Hookwolf to death with..."
"Hey, the battery life is amazing," Taylor grinned, picking up her notebook and looking at the equations they'd written down at the start of this lesson. Amy as her lab partner was tending the three bunsen burners that were heating sections of the synthesis apparatus. "And we need to turn that one down a little, it's supposed to be at two hundred and six degrees centigrade." She pointed. Amy adjusted the gas flow very slightly and both watched as the thermometer sticking out of the top of the reflux condenser dropped a couple of degrees. The boiling solution inside the flask underneath it was slowly changing color to a bright yellow.
"Looks like it's getting there," Amy commented, peering at the output of the condenser as the hot liquid intermediate product of their project very gradually dripped into the next stage. "Good, I don't want to have to start all over again."
She made some notes, checking all the temperatures, then Taylor double-checked the results. "Hopefully no one blows anything up this time..."
They shared a look then smiled a little. The previous week had been somewhat exciting for a couple of minutes until the shouting stopped. But then that was high school chemistry sometimes.
As they waited for the reaction to complete, Taylor made notes and mulled over other projects that waited for her outside school. And occasionally she glanced at her friend, who still seemed somewhat depressed although she was cheering up slowly as the day progressed.
Yeah, something was going to have to be done about that...
Brendan watched as the man from the NSA read the document, looking paler by the second. By the time he finished he was literally sweating slightly. Raising his eyes to meet Brendan's, Doctor Raines rather weakly said, "It's certainly an interesting theoretical approach to quantum computing and a number of related fields. The solutions to some of the more intractable programming problems suggested are… truly brilliant. And very much from a direction that I've never seen before. If this could actually be realized it would utterly upend information theory, and incidentally break every security method known to man in one shot. But creating a practical implementation of the hardware described would be decades of work and tens of billions of dollars at a minimum."
He swallowed a little. "I'm not even certain it could be done, although I have to admit that the thought that someone might be able to do it worries me. Especially if it's not us..." After a moment while Brendan regarded him curiously, he seemed to recover somewhat. "Luckily I suspect that the resources and time required to create anything beyond theory won't leave us out of work any time soon." He chuckled a little nervously. "Can you imagine the end result of every known encryption method suddenly being rendered obsolete?" Shaking his head, he put the document in his hand back on Brendan's desk. "I must congratulate your theorists, though. It's a masterful piece of work that will undoubtedly extend computer science enormously in the end. I expect our own people will be very interested to see how far it can actually be taken under real world conditions, although as I said I wouldn't expect to see anything concrete for fifteen to twenty years even under the best possible scenario."
Opening his desk drawer without looking away from Doctor Raines, Brendan reached inside and removed a six inch cubed box, which he carefully placed in the middle of the desk, then rotated to face the other man. Still not looking away, he used both hands to open the lid.
Raines appeared curious as he watched this, as if he wasn't sure what was going on. When Brendan tilted the lid of the metal box towards himself, revealing the contents, the doctor looked down and his eyes widened comically.
Neither said a thing for nearly thirty seconds.
"How many would you like?" Brendan asked gravely. "Obviously this isn't the largest one that can be made, but at a few thousand yottaflops, it should still be useful, don't you agree?"
Doctor Raines gaped at the small bluish crystalline block nestled in the padded interior of the box, the internal fractal construction glinting under the room lighting in a way that caused very strange reflections to spray across the walls. After a while he closed his eyes and slumped back into his chair, apparently unable to do much else.
Brendan smiled to himself. It was fun when he got to do that to someone else rather than having it happen to him.
"Right, then, let's see if this is going to work," Taylor muttered to herself and the aliens. She glanced over at the screen showing the latest installment of the educational broadcast, as the main tutor lifted a device to show it to the camera while his assistants stood by next to him.
"Subspace power tap (dimensional warp) (negative feedback loop) theory requires (electrogravitic interaction) (quark-gluon plasma) ..." She listened curiously, now able to get the bulk of the meaning of the language if not the full translation of the words behind what she was hearing. She'd replayed this particular segment about a dozen times now, gaining more understanding each time, and was fascinated to see how her own derivation of the same basic idea had somehow branched out in a way that so far the aliens hadn't covered. It seemed plausible that she genuinely had managed to extend the concepts in a somewhat different manner than they'd done.
"I have got to build some way of talking to you guys," she said quietly, returning to her current project. "We could learn so much by comparing notes..."
Smiling a little, she put her face back into the microscope hood and switched to the highest magnification, then very gently manipulated the minute waldos to make almost invisible changes to the circuitry of the device she'd built . Tiny threads of wire, small even at this magnification, and far thinner than a hair, led from the almost solid block of circuits out to an interface system that ultimately allowed her to connect more human-scale instrumentation. A few pinpoints of eldritch light glowed, scattered around the tiny device, and in some cases deep inside. Right in the middle a tiny section was weirdly out of focus, looking somehow almost like an infinitely deep hole combined with a fun house mirror and seen through a lens that wasn't set up properly.
An hour or so of careful work comparing measurements to the calculated signals passed with few problems. Taylor corrected a couple of tiny issues and reran the tests several times. Finally she smiled, looking at the various monitors and readouts of the mass of test gear and computers linked into the little widget. "That's got it," she exclaimed in satisfaction, sitting back in her chair and letting go of the manipulator controls with a flexing of her hands. "Subspace tap working perfectly, link to the main unit up, no errors showing, storage online and ready, local processor core running… Yeah, fantastic. All the self tests pass with flying colors."
She pushed the microscope to one side and looked at the tiny piece of hardware with pleased eyes. Turning her head to smile at the comms rig and the little point of silver light, she added, "Shall we see if it does what it's designed to?"
A new display she'd added to the constantly growing collection of esoteric hardware, something that although it was fully documented probably no one on the planet other than her had a chance of understanding without twenty year's worth of study, blinked a few complex symbols. She laughed a little. "Yeah, me too. Nice one, you're really learning. OK, then..."
Positioning the microscope over the test fixture once more, she spent another half hour disconnecting all the instrumentation and putting the tiny unit, something smaller than a dime and less than half a millimeter thick, back together. When she was finished, she released the clamps delicately holding it in place, moved the microscope out of the way again, and picked the thing up between finger and thumb.
Checking all the parameters on the screen in front of her twice more, and referring to her notes one final time, she nodded, then with a twinge of anticipation, lifted the hair on the right side of her head and gingerly pressed the device against her skull behind her ear. It stayed there when she lowered her hand. She felt it carefully, probing it with a fingernail, finally nodding in satisfaction. Picking up a mirror she angled it so she could see the thing and smiled. "Great, adhesion field's working, and if I do this..."
Taylor tapped one of the icons on her latest phone which was sitting on the bench next to the keyboard. When she checked with the mirror there was no visible trace of the device stuck to her head. She chortled in happiness. "Optical diversion field works too. Wonderful."
Putting the mirror down and adjusting her hair so it hung normally, she pulled the keyboard in front of her and typed for a moment. Her finger poised over the final key, she looked at her comms rig and smiled widely. "This should be… interesting," she commented brightly, before leaning her head back in the chair and closing her eyes. "To infinity and beyond!"
Her finger dropped, the key depressing with a click.
After several seconds of silence, Taylor said in a faint, awed voice, "Oh, my god, it's full of data..."
The look on her face would have made a lot of people somewhat worried.
And her father sigh faintly and brace for whatever happened next.
Slamming the front door behind her hard enough to crack the glass in the half-moon window at the top, Amy stormed off down the front walkway to the road. "Amelia Dallon, you come back here right now!" a furious voice shouted as the door opened once more almost as hard.
"No!" she yelled back. "I can't take it any more! You just won't shut up! Leave me alone for once!"
She noticed that a couple of the neighbors were looking over the hedge at her and glared at them so viciously both paled and ducked out of sight again. Footsteps behind her made her whirl in her tracks with her hands up, balled into fists. "Just fuck off, Carol!" she snarled at the older woman who stopped dead a couple of meters out of reach, her face red with anger. "I get it, you don't trust me. You've never trusted me! I know that, I'm not stupid. Well, guess what? I don't trust you! Going through my room, poking in my business, screaming at me for not working hard enough, or working too hard, or whatever the fuck it is that's got you wound up this time!" She breathed heavily as Carol glared at her. "So I wanted to take a break for a couple of days? So what? The hospital is fine with it, they actually told me to do it! Stop pushing!"
"Listen here, young lady," Carol snapped, her hands on her hips and a look in her eyes of absolute determination. "You will get back in that house right now and do what you're told. Or..."
"Or what, mother?" Amy interrupted with sarcasm so heavy that it had it's own gravitational field. "You'll ground me? Like I was five? Send me to my room without my supper? Been there, done that. I'm sixteen years old and you've been on my case ever since I Triggered and I've fucking had enough!"
She turned and resumed her stomping down the sidewalk.
"Where do you think you're going?" Carol demanded. Amy threw her hands in the air in disgust.
"Away. I don't know, just… away. I need some space or..."
"Or what, Amelia?"
"You don't want to find out, trust me," she hissed, speeding up and not sure if the elder Dallon heard her. And not actually caring.
There was no response for several seconds, until finally Carol let out an inarticulate shout of impotent fury and went back inside, slamming the door even harder than Amy had managed. She heard glass tinkle to the ground and smiled blackly.
Not actually caring where she was going, but heading more or less in the direction of the Pelham house a couple of blocks away, Amy stormed down the sidewalk radiating dark irritation and feeling like she wanted to hit something really, really hard indeed. She wasn't a violent person at all, she left that up to her sister, but right now she'd have loved to have a Brute power so she could smash something into little tiny pieces.
"Fucking Carol and fucking New Wave and fucking assholes all over the fucking place and what the fuck are you gaping at you idiot?" She glared at another neighbor, making poor Mr Wilson stop dead, swallow, and turn around. Watching him beat a hasty retreat into his house she felt a mix of shame and strange amusement. She was going to have to apologize to the poor guy when she calmed down but right now she was in no mood to be nice to people. Even less so than she usually was.
It was an unfortunate aspect of her recent life that she saw a lot of people at the worst times of theirs and one of the things that rankled was so often, having pulled off a miracle and returning hope to them, they pretty much just seemed to expect this. The number of people who genuinely thanked her was much lower than a more innocent person would expect.
Amy, she knew, had long since lost that innocence. People were a pain in the ass with few exceptions.
She'd gone half a block when she heard footsteps next to her. Knowing who it was, she glanced to the side to see Vicky looking at her with concern in her eyes, and an expression of sadness.
They walked in silence for the next block.
"Sorry, Ames," Vicky finally said as they turned the corner.
"Not your fault, Vicky. She's just being a bigger bitch than usual," Amy sighed, still feeling angry but with the emotion slowly fading to depression. "You know what she's like right now. I shouldn't have lost it like that, but..."
Her sister put her arm around the shorter girl's shoulder and hugged her. Amy wiped a couple of angry tears from her eyes and kept her gaze fixed on the path ahead. "I don't blame you, Amy," Vicky said in a low voice. "I was right at the point of pretty much doing the same thing. She's being completely unreasonable. You deserve a break, hell, you deserve a proper holiday or something. Mom has no call to keep acting like that towards you. You've helped more people than all of us put together, for god's sake."
"You don't hate me for yelling at her?" Amy asked quietly.
"Of course I don't, you're my sister and I love you, you idiot," Vicky replied affectionately. "And while I love mom too sometimes I really don't like her. Neither of us asked for this, no one's ever asked if we want to be part of New Wave, and I know how much she's pushed you into all the healing stuff. And I've seen how you were that time when you practically passed out. I don't want that to happen again and I'm glad you're listening to me and the people at the hospital about being a little more… sane… about all the healing."
Amy couldn't help it, she almost laughed, managing to convert it into a snort of humor. "Sane. Yeah. Name me a Parahuman that counts as that. I sure can't think of one..."
"Hey!"
"Present company included, of course."
"Hey!"
They looked at each other and grinned. Amy was still deeply angry at her mother, but it was very hard indeed to ever get angry at her sister. Vicky had always been supportive of her and in the last few months had been much more vocal about it to Carol, which took some considerable inner fortitude as the elder Dallon woman was a very forceful person.
"Think she'll calm down, or is she in the process of disowning me for disrespecting her?" she glumly asked after a few more meters.
"If she kicks you out I'm going with you," Vicky said lightly. Amy looked at her with both surprise and gratitude. "But that's not going to happen. Yeah, she's really being a bitch right now, but deep down she loves you."
"You think? I'm not so sure," Amy grumbled.
Vicky hugged her again. "She's not that bad. She's just..."
"An opinionated shouty control freak?"
"Well… I wouldn't have put it quite like that." Vicky giggled, but nodded too. "She doesn't like things that she doesn't understand, you know that, and hates things that she can't control, so yeah, control freak isn't entirely wrong I guess."
"I'm tired of being one of the things she doesn't understand and wants to control," Amy muttered almost inaudibly.
"Don't blame you," Vicky sighed. "She's bad with me sometimes, but some of the things she's said to you…" They shared another look. "Are we going to Aunt Sarah's or something? Or did you just want to walk around for a while? Maybe get a burger? I can fly us to the Boardwalk."
"I want to get away from New Wave for a while," Amy said after a few seconds. "Just… do something that doesn't remind me of..."
Vicky nodded as she trailed off. "I get it."
They kept wandering along, Amy's furious charge having slowed to a more normal walk, with no real destination in mind. She looked around at the bright sunny day, all the trees in full leaf and the air full of the smells of the sea, the city, and the nearby park. This part of the city was reasonably untouched by the gang violence that was so prevalent in much of the rest of it, the bulk of this happening closer to the commercial district and in some of the more run down areas on the other side of the docks. On a whim, she turned into the park as they passed it, heading across the large open space towards the opposite corner. Vicky followed, both girls slowing even more and just mooching along through the grass.
The park wasn't kept up nearly as well as it used to be, but it was still mowed fairly regularly, and a few people were lounging around in the nice weather, with a couple of cyclists passing them on one of the paths that criss-crossed the place. In the distance Amy could hear some young kids shouting gleefully as they played football, and she could see a kite being flown off to the right. It all took her back to her younger days and she sighed again, wishing that she could just ignore all the Parahuman stuff and simply enjoy the day like everyone else seemed to be doing.
They found themselves walking along one of the paths that wound through some fairly large trees, mostly oaks, that occupied about a quarter of the park itself, the sunlight coming through the greenery overhead casting dappled light across them. It was surprisingly quiet, the sounds of the city damped out by the trees to a considerable level, and she found it oddly peaceful. A few people passed them, a couple of runners going by in one direction, and someone walking a dog going in the other. A red-headed woman with sharp features nodded to the two girls as she moved slightly out of the way, jogging along in a manner that showed she was pretty fit. Amy nodded back then looked up at the trees above them.
"I haven't been here for about two years," Vicky said. She was also looking around. "It looks different from the ground. Normally I just fly over it."
"Lucky girl, some of us have to walk everywhere," Amy commented with a wry grin. Vicky nudged her in the ribs and she laughed for a moment.
"You can fix people, all I can do is break them," Vicky pointed out in a good natured way. "That's pretty impressive."
"I can break them too, you know," Amy said slyly.
"Not into as many pieces."
"Wanna bet?"
Her sister raised an eyebrow at her, making her smirk. "I can bench press a truck. You're a spindly-armed healer."
"Oh, thanks," Amy remarked with a scowl, feeling amused. "I could learn kung fu or something, you know."
"Sure, but you still wouldn't be able to bench press a truck."
"How often would I need to do that? For that matter, how often do you need to do that?" She raised an eyebrow right back. "I thought smashing up buildings was more your thing."
"I haven't done that for months," Vicky retorted.
"Funnily enough I've never smashed up a building," Amy giggled. Her mood had improved a lot with the company of her sister, although she was still harboring a deep anger at their mother right at the moment.
"Maybe you're not trying hard enough?" Vicky suggested, both of them laughing at her words. "Where are we going, anyway?"
They'd come out the far side of the park and were nearly at the road. Amy looked around, then shrugged. "Let's go see if Taylor wants to do something. We're half-way there now."
"We seem to keep doing that," Vicky pointed out as they descended the slight hill to rejoin the road, then turned right.
"She's a friend and she's good at cheering me up," Amy replied.
"True. Fair enough, lead on, sister! To the Hebert Zone!"
Shaking her head in amusement as Vicky raised a hand and pointed dramatically, Amy kept walking. The two girls talked as they moved, avoiding the subject of Carol and all that entailed. Eventually they were walking along Taylor's street.
Vicky looked around. "There's something just a little weird about this neighborhood," she commented, peering at one of the houses. The owner was mowing his lawn, leaving neat patterns in the grass, and waved to them as they passed. Amy followed her gaze then looked quizzically at her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
The blonde waved a hand a little uncertainly. "I can't put my finger on it, but… It's just slightly off somehow." She looked around once more then shrugged. "Maybe it's me."
"Taylor did say that quite a few people had moved in recently, it's probably that," Amy suggested. "It's nice and quiet, if nothing else."
"Too quiet," Vicky hissed. "You know what that means."
Amy stared at her, then noticed her sister's mouth twitching slightly and sighed. "It means you've been watching too much TV," she said acerbically. "Stop it."
Vicky was still snickering as they arrived at Taylor's house, then walked up the short driveway to the front porch. As Amy was about to ascend the steps, the door opened and Taylor appeared, wearing a wide smile.
"Aha! I knew it! Parahumans on the Porch! It never fails!"
Both sisters looked at each other, then as one turned back to Taylor. "What never fails?" Amy asked curiously.
"It. You know, life. It brings all the Parahumans to my porch. Or you guys, anyway. What's wrong this time, Amy? Your mom being difficult again?" Taylor's expression of amusement at them transitioned seamlessly into sympathy.
"You're doing that thing again," Vicky commented with a laugh.
"I am Observant Girl!" Taylor replied proudly, posing with one hand above her head. "Nothing escapes my keen gaze! Well, almost nothing. Not much, anyway." She lowered the hand and peered at Amy as both girls joined her on the porch. Her eyes, as always, seemed to see far more than most people would be able to. Amy sighed a little and her friend stepped forward and hugged her. "And what doesn't escape me right now is that you're not happy. Come on, dad made some lemonade and we can sit in the back garden and relax. There are dragonflies and everything."
"Dragonflies?" Amy echoed as Taylor almost pushed her inside the house, somewhere she'd never been before to this point. Vicky followed with a bemused look. Glancing back Amy noticed one of the neighbors on the other side of the street watching from where he was trimming the tree in the front yard. Taylor waved to him, getting a wave back, then closed the door.
"Yeah, they're pretty cool," Taylor agreed happily. She ushered them through the house and out the back door, pointing at three garden chairs under a wide and leafy tree. "Sit down, I'll be right back," she added, disappearing back inside. Vicky and Amy exchanged looks, then simultaneously shrugged and walked over to the chairs. Dropping into one, Amy leaned back and closed her eyes. She was a lot calmer now, both her sister and the walk had made the white-hot anger dull to something more like a disappointed ache deep inside, and Taylor had yet again managed to improve her mood just with a few words and her own implacable cheeriness.
"She's in a good mood," Vicky remarked, taking her own seat.
"She normally is," Amy replied without opening her eyes. "Not as offensively cheerful as you are but I've never seen her upset."
"I'm not offensively cheerful," Vicky protested. "I merely have a sunny disposition."
"You're the most outgoing person I've ever known," Amy pointed out with a small smile. "To a level that sometimes worries me."
"Sunny, that's all."
Hearing footsteps coming towards them, Amy opened her eyes and turned her head. Taylor stopped next to her with a tray containing three large glasses full of lemonade, along with a plate of sandwiches. Amy blinked at this, then accepted a glass and a tuna sandwich, wondering how her friend had known they were a favorite of hers. Moments later Taylor was sitting in the third chair facing both of them, sipping her own lemonade and observing Amy with interest.
"So," the tall girl said after they'd consumed a sandwich each. "Let's hear it, and work out how to fix the problem."
"I'm not sure it can be fixed," Amy mumbled.
"Almost any problem can be fixed if you have enough data and think hard," Taylor assured her with a wide smile. "And I'm really good at thinking hard. So… please state the nature of the current problem." She grinned as Amy giggled, feeling unaccountably happier for some bizarre reason.
"You are very weird, Taylor." Her friend nodded as if this was entirely reasonable. Sighing a little, her momentary mood lift fading, she thought for a while then started talking. Taylor listened without saying a thing and with an intensity that was a little worrying.
When she finally stopped nearly an hour later, Vicky had moved her chair closer to her and had an arm over her shoulders, and Taylor had a blank expression that was peculiarly unnerving. No one said anything for a while.
"Yeah, that's a pain," Taylor finally remarked quietly. "Not good at all."
"How are you going to fix that?" Amy asked, slumped in the chair and finishing off the last sandwich.
Her friend looked at her for some time, then smiled a little. "I think I need to phone a friend," she replied calmly, pulling one of her apparently endless collection of old phones out of her pocket. Amy and Vicky exchanged glances as she tapped a couple of icons then appeared to enter a long string of digits, far too many for a normal phone call. Putting the device to her ear, she waited.
About to ask a question, Amy stopped when Taylor held up a finger. "Hi. It's me. Code Xray Tango Alpha Four. Yes. Thanks."
She lowered the phone and tapped the screen before putting it away.
Amy and Vicky stared at her, then each other. "Um… what was that?" the latter asked in befuddlement.
Taylor smiled slyly at them. "Stage one," she replied mysteriously. Then she stood up. "More lemonade?"
Still furious with how her adoptive daughter had acted out earlier that afternoon, Carol Dallon was sitting at her desk staring at the computer and not really seeing the words on the screen. She was trying to work out where she'd gone wrong in raising the ungrateful girl. Clearly something wasn't right with her. How she was going to handle it when Amy finally came back she wasn't sure, and she was half-tempted to call her sister to ask her advice. The other half didn't want to admit that she'd lost her temper so much that she'd ended up shouting at the damn girl in the middle of the street like a fool.
The doorbell rang, making her jump, then sigh in frustration. Standing up she almost called for her husband to answer it, then growled under her breath as he'd probably ignore her, and went to do it herself.
When she opened the door rather more angrily than ideal, the piece of cardboard that was covering the broken window in it fluttering in the breeze of the motion, she was startled to find a pair of people in suits standing outside. One man and one woman, both looked like either officials of some sort, or religious annoyances. Neither was welcome.
"Carol Dallon?" the man asked.
"Yes," she replied a little sharply. "And you are?"
He held out a wallet, open to show an ID badge. "Special Agent Able, FBI. This is Special Agent Baker. We would like to discuss a few things with you." As she was gaping at him, he added, "Inside, I think."
After pulling herself together, she examined the ID very closely. It was definitely real, she was certain of that, having seen enough of them over the years. "What's this about?" she asked suspiciously.
"I cannot divulge that information except in private, ma'am," he replied without changing expression. Behind him, the woman, a red-head with intelligent eyes who was watching Carol silently, glanced to either side, then went back to watching her.
"Do you have a warrant?" she demanded.
"This is not a matter that requires a warrant, ma'am. May we come in? I can explain once we're not standing on your doorstep."
Carol stared at the pair, then eventually sighed and stepped to the side. Both entered and she closed the door behind them, wondering what the hell was going on and not pleased about the interruption.
