Run 1-1
Nancy glanced out the window for the third time in under a minute. Still nothing on the street. Still no one in sight, even to her power. This was pointless. She should stop looking outside. At least not so frequently. She was just making things worse. If she kept going back, if someone was nearby, then they would spot her. She needed to calm down. She needed to stop pacing. She needed to not look outside again.
"That van is definitely not from the PRT," Taylor said. Nancy swallowed hard, clenching her hand into a fist to stop it from shaking as she sat down beside the other girl against the wall. She would not look outside, she would not look outside, she would not look outside.
"Six men, the leader is getting word from a headset. The guy on the end is telling them to stand by. Ah…so that's what you sound like, Coil…Good to know."
Nancy's arms tightened around herself. They were too close. Far too close. Three blocks was not enough. Not nearly enough distance. She should have pushed Taylor to go further, not to stop at her neighbors house when they found it empty for winter. They should have kept going. This was too close.
"He just called for them to break off and pull back entirely. Why? How could he know that we're gone without even going inside to…"
Nancy violently shook her head, biting her tongue.
Knows for certain you are gone; went inside the home to verify. Taylor's comments confirm mercenaries did not go inside the home. Implies knowledge of current or future events. Events not experienced by others. Coil is a Thinker.
She'd experienced the dual information enough by now. She knew what Coil could do. She knew exactly what his bullshit save scumming power gave him. There wasn't an easy way to mime that though. She was going to have to write it. She was going to have to get the pen and the paper and force herself to hold her hand steady and she was going to have to write it or Taylor was going to come to wrong conclusion and she was going to get captured because omniscience was only good if you weren't surrounded with no ways out and save scumming left no ways out and -
"He sent people in…only way he could have known sure enough to call his people off…I would have seen that though, we're well within my range…Stranger? No, that doesn't work either, a Stranger shouldn't need a full team to back them up, they could've just knocked us out; and I might even be able to feel them passing with my bugs. Another Master? No, nothing unusual is running around the house. Precog? Almost, but that doesn't quite fit, he wouldn't have needed to send his mooks out, and he'd be way more successful if he had a real precognitive ability. Hrmm...…"
Taylor trailed off and frowned, her eyes narrowed as she stared in the direction of the van, almost seeming to bore through the wall with the weight of her gaze. "He made them withdraw…Why would he tell them to hold off, only to withdraw them five minutes later? Nancy, would five minutes be long enough to search my house?"
Nancy slowly nodded. How far was Taylor going to take this? Was she…
"If they searched for five minutes, found we were gone, and then he told his people to stand down…But I didn't see them search, and his own people didn't know they had searched and hadn't gone to search…" Taylor smiled, snapping her fingers and turning to Nancy. "He has a short term precog of sorts, he has to position his people and he can then make choices, but has to wait for them to finish in real time. Choice A, he searched the house. Choice B, they stayed in the van. When A came up blank, he stayed with B because it was a waste of time and exposed his people for nothing. Now, the real question that we'll have to figure out is if he can do more than just two!"
Nancy laughed, her hands dropped from her sides. She grabbed Taylor and pulled the taller girl to her, crushing her against her in a bear hug as Taylor squeaked. Nancy didn't care. Taylor was badass, and beautiful, and smart - so, so smart.
Nancy wouldn't have to force herself to write.
"Um, I appreciate the sentiment, but what's this for?" Taylor murmured, stiff as a board.
Nancy pulled back, just enough to be able to kiss both of Taylor's cheeks. She finally let the incandescent raven-haired girl go as she leaned back and held up two fingers, grinning from ear to ear.
"I, I don't, I uh, I'm, I can't," Taylor sputtered. Shaking her head, and slapping her cheeks, she blinked and stared at Nancy's hands. "Two. Two what? Wait, Coil two? Coil's stuck at two choices? You knew about - of course you knew. That's why you didn't want me going after him before. If he could have two choices running at once and I messed up just slightly, then he'd get me. Or worse, he'd know about me and I would never have a clue that I'd even screwed up in order to be on guard in the future."
Nancy nodded.
"Okay. Okay, well, we can deal with this. It's actually not that bad."
Nancy's eyebrows rose.
"No, really. Think about it." Taylor held up her hand with fingers extended and started lowering them as she spoke. "There's a few really easy ways to get around a guy limited to binary choices, especially when he doesn't get advanced knowledge. One, we figure out which two choices he's making at the time and make both really, really bad. Either one he makes, we win."
Nancy rolled her eyes, but waved Taylor on.
"Yes, I know, that's probably harder than I'm making it out to be, but the point stands, because realistically, we could force those two bad choices if we were careful about it. Anyway, option two, we find him, we wait for him to reset his choices and when his options are at the same spot, we attack then."
Nancy bit her lip. She shook her head, keeping her eyes on the floor. She didn't look up even when Taylor grabbed her hands.
"Nancy, that's a good plan. I'm guessing you don't like it because it would mean I need to get close to Coil to figure out his mannerisms? To wait long enough to find out when he swaps to a new choice set?"
Her hands shook as she squeezed Taylor's palms.
"I'm not going to get caught. Nancy, we're three blocks away from my home. I'm watching Hookwolf and three Empire idiots squat in the alley behind my house, while Coil's mercenaries are playing poker in their van and the Protectorate are rolling down the road in their van with my dad leading the way in his truck. Not a single one knows anything about me, my power, or where to find us. Not even my father. He knows I'm a cape, he doesn't know what I can do. He never bothered to ask before he left. Judging from what the PRT guys are saying and how they are planning to coax a Thinker 5 into leaving with them without a fuss…I don't think he told them that I'm a cape."
Nancy's head snapped up and her eyes narrowed. She mouthed a silent '5'?
"Yeah," Taylor said. "That's what the guy in the back of the van just said. They said that you are unstable and orchestrated the downfall of a Ward so they should be careful, but that you are probably not actively hostile so everyone is supposed to be very nice and cordial if possible. Assault is leading them. None have said a damn thing about me. Granted they only just stopped in my driveway, but still…you'd think they'd mention going to talk to two capes instead of just one."
Nancy bit her lip, but before she could do anything Taylor sighed.
"Dad found my note. Damn, now I feel guilty. Maybe I should've…No. He didn't want to give me a chance to explain things so he can deal with getting a fucking note."
Nancy moved around Taylor's back and hugged her. Taylor held the blonde's arm, laying her head back.
"Thanks. I'll try to work things out with him once we're done."
Nancy sucked in a breath, squeezing her arms around Taylor hard.
"You can't talk me out of this, Nancy. You're never going to stop being terrified unless Coil is dealt with and…" she trailed off into silence. Nancy let it lie until the quiet grew too much. Finally, she tapped Taylor's hand. The brunette stirred, tightening Nancy's arms around her as she whispered, "He hurt you. He's still hurting you. I'm not letting him get away with it."
\/\/\/\/
It was nearly noon before Nancy poked Taylor in the side again. Taylor flinched, groaned, cracked her neck and glanced to the side. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize it was getting close to lunch. Got…distracted."
Nancy just rubbed at her temples. That was not why she had prodded the girl at all.
"So, funny story, apparently Assault thought of Sophia like his protege or something. He was uh, not very amused by my journals. If she didn't have a raw deal from before with what you did, she really will now, from what he's going to bring down on her head. Also, I think Assault is convinced that I'm a parahuman. He seems cool though, he's talking to my dad about it and not telling anyone else."
Nancy nodded. Then she held out her phone to Taylor.
Taylor stared. "I'm not calling them. We're only three blocks away. I've seen enough movies to know that they can trace a call and - oh. That's Vicky's number. Okay…that might be a good idea."
Taylor took out her own phone and called up Vicky's number. Nancy settled in beside her, smiling. That was better. Taylor needed backup, and if she was going to cringe at everything, who better to call than PHO's own collateral damage queen?
"Taylor? Hi, it's good to hear from you. Have you reconsidered going out for a, err, walk?"
Nancy snorted at the verbal backstep. Taylor also cracked a small smile. "Possibly. But first I could use your help with something else."
"Sure. What's up?"
"Do you happen to know somewhere I could stay for a few days? Maybe a week or two?"
"Somewhere you could - Hang on." Muffled shouting and yells came through the phone and the rush of wind, then Vicky was back. "Okay, I'm on the roof, what's going on? Are you okay? Is Nancy?"
"We're fine. Mostly at least. We just, kinda ran away. My dad tried to get the PRT involved and…"
"…Are you sure it's not a good idea to talk to them? She still can't talk right, Taylor? I know people who work with the PRT, they're good people. Some of them can be a bit mean, but overall, they're good people. They could help."
Nancy swallowed hard, shaking her head. Taylor reached over and squeezed her hand.
"I've considered it, but they have problems with moles. I can tell you more later if you're actually interested. I can't stay on the call for long though. I didn't buy many minutes for this phone."
"…Mom would kill me if she found out I was doing this," Vicky muttered. "Okay look, I have a small apartment, nothing fancy, but it's furnished and the utilities should be on. It's technically in my cousin's name at the moment, but she's transferring it to me when I turn 18. I'm planning to use it for me and my sister. I will be very unhappy if you mess the place up or manage to get a supervillain to destroy it by accident while they are chasing you."
"Completely understandable. I promise to take care of it better than my own house. You'll never know we were ever there and I'll even get rid of any infestations you may have before I go."
Vicky chuckled. "Yeah that's right you will!"
The two lapsed into silence for a few moments. It was broken when Vicky murmured, "Taylor, I know we're not exactly friends, but I think we could be. You're not planning to do anything dangerous…are you?"
"…Just don't tell anyone about me or what I can do. I'll be perfectly safe as long as no one knows that I have powers, or what those powers are if they do know."
"Taylor…"
"I'll be fine. There's a lot of ways around this problem, Vicky. And honestly, I haven't even discussed the easiest option with my partner yet. We got this. I got this."
"Please call me if you need backup. Promise me that at least? There's not enough heroes in this city as it is."
"I promise."
"Okay. I'll text you the address."
The call ended and Taylor smiled at Nancy. She held two thumbs up. "Got us a place to stay further away from here. Less spying opportunities, but this should be much safer now."
Nancy frowned, then held up three fingers ticking down the first two before pointing at the third.
Taylor just smirked. "Option 3 for bringing down Coil? Attack, attack, attack. More specifically, attack at a specific time of day. No. Matter. What. He's in a meeting? Bullet ants. He's at home? Spiders and Wasps. He's in his lair? All the bees. No quarter, no alternatives, just attack. With my range…I can start following him two days back just to make sure he's used his choices, and then I can attack at a specified time. We win. Easy option. Last resort, but easy option."
Nancy held a finger up before slowly lowering it. She tapped her chin, frowned, held another finger up, and lowered it again.
Simultaneous attack would prevent any possible beneficial option. Coil would fall. Should Coil be in any location, but the PRT, results can be concealed with minimal effort. Should Coil be attacked in the PRT, results can be twisted to appear beneficial to Taylor by taking out a well placed Supervillain.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Nancy's vulpine grin spread. Perhaps there was something decent to be said about the prospects of 'Attack, attack, attack'.
