Chapter 13

-Lisa-

"Well, we're not catching her on foot," I sighed, reviewing the last minute in my mind. Let's just hope she doesn't end up on PHO this time.

"Eh, I wouldn't have chased her anyway," Alec said, plopping down to his usual spot on the couch. My phone rang, with the last name I wanted to see right now on the screen. I picked up anyway.

"Hello, Tattle—" the snake began, but I cut him off.

"If the next words out of your mouth are 'We have a problem', then you will really have a problem," I growled into the phone. What did I ever do to deserve this day?

The bastard actually chuckled. Was in a bad mood; happy to hear you're stressed.

Thank you, power, I would have never guessed that.

"Quite the opposite, in fact," he finally said. "I have a job offer for your team. The standard pay, of course."

I held back a sigh. I wasn't sure if he already knew I told the rest of my team that we were working for him, but getting on his bad side after the last few days' mess could be problematic… until I figured out what unnerved him so much about Taylor, at least. It's too much to hope for that she's gone off to eat him, isn't it?

Heh. Maybe I should let her talk to him on the phone again, give him another scare?

"What's the job?" I asked, forcing my tone to stay level and businesslike. Now wasn't the time to vent, not if me being annoyed or stressed out was cheering him up.

"Nothing outside your usual purview," he chuckled, clearly still amused. "Iron Bastion Security is a Managed IT Services Provider that, among other things, maintains offsite backups for a number of corporate interests both in and outside of the Bay area. Your team will infiltrate the building and steal as much data from their systems as you can - Medhall's data in particular - then delete everything else. Within the week would be preferable, and do inform me once you've settled on a time."

I'd called up the company's website the moment he named them, trying to place them. Reading through what was publicly available, I considered it for a moment. It wouldn't be one of the biggest jobs we've pulled, but depending on their client list it might still make a large enough splash in the corporate scene to bring the wrong kind of attention down on our heads. Brian would want more details before committing, especially particularly now that Aisha would be hanging around.

"...I'll get the team's opinion," I hedged. "Though it would be a bit higher profile than is usual for us - the team will likely want hazard pay. Make it five each?"

"Intimidated by a few computer techs, Tattletale? I'm disappointed."

"I'm not worried about them, I'm worried about the other people their clients employ. And don't tell me they don't work for anybody important."

"Very well," he said with a note of amusement in his voice. I chided myself for losing my cool again.

He hung up. I put the phone down and pressed my hands into my forehead. At least I saved my power…

I didn't need to use my power to figure out this was a test, though of course it was never just a test with the bastard. So the real question was, what else was he hoping to get from the job? I could run my power on that, but I did have a job that would need it soon… of course he's probably counting on that, isn't he? Now, do I risk it..?

Oh... the headache I'll have come Monday is going to suck.

"I return in victory, carrying more dead faces from my enemies!"

The voice that woke me up at dark o' thirty in the morning was far too cheerful for the hour, and as I jolted awake, scattering my notes across the room, I bumped my head into Taylor's chin to add another cause of headaches. My yelp echoed across the loft.

"Don't do that again," I warned her, rubbing my scalp. At least the vampire looked appropriately apologetic. She opened her mouth to say something but, replaying what she'd already said, I held up a hand to stop her.

"No. I'm not going to try figuring you out before I get my morning coffee." Or my afternoon coffee, if I'm lucky. I started getting dressed while Aisha opened the door and poked her head in.

"Interesting sounds you two are making in there," she said with a grin, not quite able to hide the fact she wasn't much of a morning person either, but she was either trying extra hard just to annoy me or just 'benefiting' from having almost a week's head start adapting to our new roommate's… habits. Or simply going to school, I hadn't had to do that in a while. Ungh. Too early to brain right now. I found a shirt to pull on over my nightgown, and checked to make sure it smelled clean. It didn't... Eh, close enough for brewing coffee.

"Awww…" Sadly, my pain seemed to amuse Aisha as much as it did Coil, given her smirk. "Don't go getting dressed on my account. You don't have to stop if you two are having… fun." Her smirk slowly morphed into a salacious grin that she was way too young to be wearing as she waggled her eyebrows at me suggestively. "I don't mind watching." Yeah, no. It's way too early to deal with that too, even if I'm pretty sure she's bluffing.

"No," I snapped. "None of that!" I pointed at her as menacingly as I could manage while still having trouble looking directly at the light behind her.

Taylor meanwhile seemed to feel that what this situation required was more nonsense. "She needs to drink the dark hours of false sleep" was followed by a smile and a sagacious nod.

"See what I mean?" I pointed at the crazy girl. "Whatever she has to say can wait until I feel like a human again."

While I waited for the water to boil, I could hear Aisha putter around in what was now apparently going to be both of their room, to Brian's conflicted feelings, as she helped put Taylor to bed - or under it, as the case may be - for the day. By the time she finished, I could hear the beautiful sound of coffee dripping into the pot.

I was pouring myself a cup when she returned, my spare laptop in hand and a near manic look of gleeful anticipation on her face. That look had better not mean what I think it does… no, wait, of course it does.

"Alright…" I said, after finally taking my first long overdue sip of coffee. It was barely a step above instant, too disgusting for words really, but I soldiered on because it was full of caffeinated goodness. "Hit me with it."

"Good news, there's no pictures," she stated, in a nearly sing-song voice.

"Bad news, of course, being that she did end up on PHO," I said, rubbing my forehead. "Because asking for her not to get in trouble for one night was too much."

"Well, technically," Aisha smirked, "You didn't actually ask her that. She ran off before you could."

"That's not - ugh, whatever. Where'd she go and what did she do?" I said, reaching for the laptop.

After flipping through the thread, I handed it back to Aisha who passed me a cup in trade. I blinked at the cup in my hand. Specifically the Ahnenerbe logo on it and the letters indicating my usual order. Most of all I stared at the name scrawled in the morning barista's handwriting: Sarah. Someone else - I didn't need my power's help to pin it on Cassandra - had drawn a bunch of doodles around the name.

It took a few seconds for my brain to reboot from Cassandra's idea of an apology-turned-plea-for-help before I could speak again. "So, it's the DWA building. But why would she care…"

Then it hit me. Oh.

"Right... her dad works there," I sighed. One problem after another. "We'll need to figure out what to do about him, too."

"...so that's everything I've managed to find on the target so far," I finished presenting our latest job offer to the team. The rest of the team was here, while Aisha was out on the Boardwalk. Bitch's dogs kept shooting nervous glances toward the room where Taylor was currently sleeping.

"Seems like a harder target than we usually hit," Brian said. "Hero response time won't be too long downtown."

"The heroes only patrol so many hours," I answered his unvoiced question, trying not to frown and reveal how much of my power I'd had to use to come up with a plan. "Assault and Battery have been doing more patrols than usual during the week - I'm fairly sure they'll be taking the weekend off, which leaves Velocity and Armsmaster as their rapid response options. Armsmaster rarely shows up late Sunday - as far as I can guess, that's prime Tinkering time for him. Least urgent paperwork, perhaps? So we have fairly good odds of the only Protectorate hero available being Velocity, and we've proven Grue's power works well against his last month."

"And once we get in there? We'd have to work fast, anyway. You're good, but…"

"The boss will provide a Tinker virus," I told him. "A little bit of help from me with the passwords, and it should do the job in a few minutes. I can use my power to get more info for a better plan if we decide we're doing it. I say we go - the boss is… insistent."

Brian gave me an understanding, if concerned, look and addressed the team. "What do you guys think?" he asked Alec and Rachel, who'd been as apathetic as usual so far.

"Sure, whatever," Alec said from where he was still slouched on the sofa.

"Fine," Rachel grunted.

"All four 'yes', then?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at Brian. He nodded.