- - -Still-Defiant- - -

"I think that does it." Hardcase steps back from the table. Our latest prototype is laid out on top of it. Matte black, with grey detailing, PRT stencils on the chest and pauldrons, and the signature glowing blue tri-lenses on the helmet. It's much, much more heavy duty than the last iteration of the armour - all thanks to Hardcase's help.

He and I have been at it for far too long, refining this armour design. We've been ironing out the kinks, so to speak - reliability issues with the enviro seals, armor plates just a little too bulky or a little too slim in places, ergonomic improvements. He continues, "I'm satisfied. Let's call it done - Dragon's Teeth Armour; Mark One."

I nod. "Agreed. I'll drop Masamune a note and he'll start work. For now, let's wrap up for the day." Hardcase has been a pleasure to work with. The man's a pro - he knows his kit and his specialty inside and out. He's a little bit of a perfectionist - but aren't we all?

He pats me on the shoulder as he passes. "See you tomorrow-" A loud bang echoes across the workshop floor, followed by a rattling crash and a string of curses from Corona. The two of us wince - that sounded expensive. "-Good luck wrangling the rest of the team to be done on time." He chuckles, glad that isn't his problem to deal with, then steps into the elevator out of the workshop.

I can't help but to sigh. Cost and time overruns are much too common with newer Tinkers - learning to restrain yourself is something that just takes time. Unfortunately, Corona and Gelid simply aren't yet hardened Tinker veterans like Hardcase and I.

I pack up my kit, tucking the tools away into their cloth carrying pouch. My display reads nine-thirty at night - I think it's time to close the shop for the day. Corona and Gelid will be able to sort through their problems better when they're fresh.

I move over to the other side of the shop, parting the plastic curtains that separate the different sections of the workshop. Corona is staring at the cracked and smoking frame of her prototype, dejected, her welder's helmet sitting on the bench beside her. Gelid is fiddling with a deep-freeze unit over to the side, she's in a standard Guild Technician coveralls, rather than her costume.

Looks like they've decided to not bother with masks anymore. I take my own helmet off - it's probably about time, anyway. "Time to wrap it up. Workshop's closing for today."

Corona grunts. "You got it, boss." She picks up the ruined prototype and throws it into a disposal bin without much care. Last I checked, we're spending about five grand US per prototype for this weapon - the Dragon's Teeth project has a large budget, and Corona's using it for all it's worth.

It looks like they're still trying to work through their beam containment issues. Particle beams are nasty - proper containment is absolutely crucial. I don't begrudge them for taking care to get it right - they aren't over their budget yet, and Corona has assured me it'll stay that way.

Gelid nods, closing the interface she'd been working with after a moment.

They pack their things away and I follow them out of the workshop, sending shutdown commands on the way. Corona and I put our helmets back on when we step into the elevator, and Gelid fishes a domino mask out of a pocket in her coveralls.

"Hardcase and I have just finished our prototype. Do you want our help on your end?" If they're confident they'll meet their deadline, I'm happy to trust them, despite the risks of an overrun - for now, at least. "I'd rather you have to ask for our help than to miss the deadline."

Gelid shifts, uncomfortable. Corona answers first, however. "We'll meet it, Armsmaster - don't get your steel pa-" She cuts herself off. "Don't worry about it. Destroying prototypes is just part of my process."

A small part of me wishes her process was less wasteful. "I understand - we'll leave you to it, then. There's other things for us to work on, in the meantime." I don't complain - Tinker workflows are personal, and messing with them is bad form. If Corona's process is to make a bunch of prototypes that end up destroyed, then there's nothing for it but to respect that.

The elevator reaches the residential floor. Gelid and I step out, and Corona remains in the elevator, headed for the garage. There's a moment of silence as we walk towards our rooms.

I haven't really had much of a chance to check in with Gelid. Dragon tells me she's adjusting, but there's no reason not to be polite. "So, how are you finding working with The Guild? Different from the Atlanta Protectorate?"

She jumps, apparently not expecting me to make conversation. "Uh, I-" She cuts herself off, taking a moment. "I like it here. Toronto isn't like Atlanta at all."

Lodestar's notes had mentioned that she'd had personal troubles in Atlanta. I don't know the details, but I'm glad she's finding it better here. She continues, the words gushing out. "Everyone's really nice. Flechette and Lodestar are wonderful. Corona was a little hard to like at first, but I really enjoy working under her."

"I'm relieved to hear that." Lodestar's work picking candidates for the Tinker team has paid off - there hasn't been any real trouble working together so far. "Feel free to approach me if any of that changes - I'll be happy to do whatever I can."

We reach our rooms. Gelid bobs her head. "I'll, uh, be sure to do that." She turns to open her door, before she stops. "Thanks."

An alarm pulls me from my sleep. Endbringer. I scramble out of bed, heart racing. An attack? I push myself over to the console - Dragon's already putting information up onto the display.

"Our deepsea sensors have lost Leviathan. All attempts to reacquire have failed. Last known position was in the Arctic Ocean, under an ice sheet." She explains. I rub the sleep from my eyes, pushing my brain into gear. Think - what does this mean? It's not a crisis, thankfully - merely very concerning. Leviathan has shaken our sensors before - not regularly, but it's not unheard of.

But it hadn't done this last time.

I check my clock. As of ten minutes ago, it's April Twenty-second. Last time, Leviathan had attacked Brockton Bay on May fifteenth. I run through the figures in my head again, reminding myself. Expected deviation from the mean time between Endbringer attacks is plus-minus one-and-a-half weeks. The soonest we could reasonably expect it to happen is in a bit over a week.

It seems likely to me that the Endbringers are going to attack a different target at a different time - the fact that Leviathan has slipped the net when it didn't before has only reinforced that belief for me.

I sit down in my chair, brushing my fringe out of my eyes. "What do our simulations say about likely targets - any changes?"

The results appear on the screen. "South Atlantic targets down to negligible probability. Probability of all targets in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean have gone down significantly. Dublin, Brockton Bay and Copenhagen are the most likely targets. Low probability of an attack in the Pacific - high confidence in an attack from the Arctic or North Atlantic. Every time Leviathan slipped the net was followed by an attack not more than four-thousand miles away."

That information is less helpful than it seems. It rules out the southern hemisphere and most of the equatorial regions, but that still leaves some of the most populous parts of Europe and North America. "You've already released these results to the authorities?"

Dragon's avatar on my screen nods. "Preparations in anticipation of the next attack have already begun." She pulls up a different stream of data - seismic sensors, meant to be monitoring Behemoth. "We still haven't reacquired Behemoth."

"We didn't last time - not until after the next attack." We also need to anticipate the possibility that it may be Behemoth who attacks next, instead. The fact that the Endbringers have changed their behaviour is extremely troubling. "Pull up the Simurgh. Any changes?"

A time-delayed polygonal model stand-in of the Simurgh appears. We don't use conventional cameras to view it - instead, we reconstruct high-resolution sensor readings into a model. Just in case - the thinking goes that viewing it through an abstraction should carry less risk than a direct picture, in the event it reveals abilities previously unknown. "Steady orbit. No deviations in its path or anomalous movements have been detected. Predictive models for Simurgh and Behemoth remain largely unchanged."

All of a sudden, the Simurgh feed cuts - replaced with static. I scramble to my feet. "What happened?"

Dragon's voice is strained. "Automatic precautionary disconnect. It turned to face our camera."

"It knew we were watching." I swallow - this is new behaviour. It hasn't previously acknowledged a viewer through the abstraction layers - even in the last timeline.

I stand up, starting the process of putting my armour on. I think that's a good sign to stop thinking about Endbringers now. I don't want to get drawn into the Simurgh's mind games.

Does it play mind games? No - I stop myself. I'm not thinking about it.

"Colin? What are you doing?"

I shake my head. "I'm not getting back to sleep after that. There's nothing we can do about the Endbringers right now, so I'm going to work on something else."

"In the secure room?" Dragon's concerned. She always is, when I skip sleep like this.

The secure room is where I work on the Ascalon Project. Completely isolated - no network connections what-so-ever, outside of a receive-only analogue audio connection strictly for emergencies. It's buried deep underground in one of the lowest basements of the building. Dragon doesn't know anything about what goes on in there. Maybe she's guessed that the mysterious 'blindspot box' I retrieved from Saint went there, but she hasn't asked and I won't tell.

"That's right." I finish suiting up, putting on my helmet. "Sorry." I really am - I don't want to leave Dragon hanging like this. I don't like Tinkering without her, and I can barely stand keeping this a secret from her.

But I have to.

"I understand. I'll be doing analysis about what this means. Just-" She pauses. "Just try to get some more sleep. Please?"

"I'll try." I'll be able to fit in some micro-naps while simulations are running and code is compiling.

The trip down is in silence. I pass through security checkpoints with little more than a polite nod to the guards. I arrive in the secure antechamber, and begin stripping out of my armour. It's too much of a security risk, with all the network connections it has - like usual, I'll be changing into a simple shirt and slacks while I work.

Since Hardcase and I finished our contribution to the Dragon's Teeth project ahead of schedule, I've been spending my spare Tinkering time down here. Hardcase has been working with Dragon, trying to improve her suit's armour. Corona and Gelid submitted their contribution only a few days ago - ahead of schedule and under budget, just as Corona promised.

They're working with Masamune now, to get it ready for production. The armour has already been made and is in the hands of the Dragon's Teeth. They're being trained to use it now, and things are proceeding on schedule.

I enter the passcode to the room on the keypad. For a moment, the computer processes the input from the sensors in the antechamber, before the door clicks open.

The true extent of the room's security measures is unknown to me - deliberately, I hadn't been kept in the loop. It's all to keep the contents of the secure room safe. Thanks to Ascalon and the reams of data and notes kept inside, anyone could completely compromise Dragon if given access.

And, if you compromise Dragon, you compromise the Birdcage. The PRT, Guild and Protectorate are all highly invested in keeping this room as secure as it can get.

I step inside, locking the door behind me.

The Ascalon Project is nearing completion. It won't be done before the Endbringer attack, but I'm closer than I've ever been to freeing Dragon from her chains. Optimistically, early June is the soonest I think I'll be ready to try.

I walk over to the work table. On top, there's three boxes. A yellow box, Ascalon, wired into a black box with an interface and a monitor. The black box is a custom computer, specifically made for this analysis.

The third box is blue. It's disconnected from the power at the moment, and has only an unplugged data input and an output to a dot-matrix printer from the eighties.

This box contains a highly-sophisticated simulated environment made for one very specific purpose.

To fool a copy of Dragon.