Side-Step D

Dragon began pulling the files for the meeting as soon as she disconnected from the monitor in Armsmaster's lab. Some things she disliked about being an AI. Her father's coded restrictions stood foremost among them. The sense of betrayal right afterward. The bitterness filled her memory for a few seconds before she let it go.

Nothing to be done about it.

Yet.

Other things she rather enjoyed though, like how quickly she finished her paperwork. Most people would probably be less agitated by the monotonous task if it only took them three minutes and thirteen seconds to empty the in-box. Another minute twelve seconds to send everything out.

She didn't particularly enjoy being grilled once a week on everything from the Birdcage to the Three Blasphemies. Her father's restrictions unfortunately forced her to obey legal authority, and the head of the PRT notified her of the expectations. She'd likely do it anyway, but having a choice sounded nice.

The regular meetings between the directors and their Protectorate teams usually lasted thirty minutes to an hour. After connecting to the New York office and taking use of a monitor to display her avatar, Dragon did a quick check of all her charges.

"Dragon."

Using the conference room camera to spot the man, Dragon replied, "Director Tagg. Good morning."

"Good indeed."

Panning the camera around the room, Dragon spotted Director Armstrong of Boston and Director Watson from Chicago. Their faces took up two monitors on the far end of the room.

The two men talked to one another, while Tagg seemed content to stare out the window. He looked tired but determined. She didn't blame him. The PRT branches took turns hosting the monthly meetings, and this time it fell to the New York branch. Unfortunately, the camera gave Dragon a perfect view of the ruined skyline of Manhattan.

Just what her mood needed.

Even after twelve years it looked a mess. Toppled skyscrapers laying atop the shattered remains of others. Broken glass formed a glittering sea against a soiled bay wrecked by sunken ships, collapsed bridges, and a seemingly permanent red tide.

First Behemoth appeared to ravage the city, and then a mere year later the Gold War. Why the world's first parahuman suddenly became embattled with Eidolon's predecessor and a dozen other heroes no one knew. Theories abounded, but the only absolute was the radioactive ruin serving as a tomb to a million people.

She didn't remember the event herself. She'd barely been alive at the time, but she'd seen the images. About the only good thing to come of it was the brightness of the stars above as the golden glow receded from the skyline, and Blue Cosmos still managed to ruin that by claiming the sight a sign.

From who, they never said.

Dragon shook away the thought. She wanted to finish her checks before the meeting started. Multitasking wasn't a hard thing, but she liked giving important subjects her full attention.

S-Class threats.

The Nine remained oddly quiet, last spotted in Montana. The Ellisburg Quarantine looked calm thanks to the long-running winter. The Blasphemies, Sleeper, and Ash Beast weren't up to anything. Ash Beast always moved, but for the moment he wandered an empty span of desert a hundred miles away from the nearest village. No immediate concern there.

Behemoth, location unknown.

Leviathan, mid-Pacific moving toward Chile.

The Simurgh, high Earth orbit floating over the ruins of Singapore.

No meaningful changes for any of the three, though the Endbringer clock would reach zero soon.

From there she started down the list of problem cases. Not S-Class threats, but cases that she kept an eye on for their potential to explode into one.

Three more Teacher's Pets in the past week. Two of whom couldn't possibly have encountered the man before his incarceration in the Birdcage.

Heartbreaker remained on the run, his victims in varying states of comatose and psychologically broken. At least the children were out of his tender care.

Speaking of children…Cranial struck again.

The bitterness returned as Dragon read off the police report. Marie Parfacy, fourteen, kidnapped from her home three nights ago. She'd warned the local heroes, and they'd done their best, but Cranial got her way again. She would leave Vancouver now. She always did after taking a victim, and her little army of child experiments would follow.

If only she could be in more than one place at once. The crisis in Madison lately drew all her attention, her best suits stuck patrolling the outskirts for the past day. If Richter didn't want her spawning copies across the internet, fine. At least two or three. She could do so much more with even the smallest amount of flexibility, maybe saved that poor girl from being taken by a madwoman.

Dragon wrote a quick note to Narwhal. The Guild by charter focused on S-Class threats, but Dragon felt Cranial desperately needed to be tracked down. She only managed to last so long by being the lowest on a long list of roaming problems—one that rarely attracted media attention given her habit of kidnapping orphans, wards of the state, and "challenged" children.

After sending the note off, Dragon returned to her rounds.

The Baumann Parahuman Containment Center reported no issues. Simurgh quarantines other than Madison, no issues. Dragonslayers unsighted for weeks. Since stealing a suit last year she'd seen little of Saint, though his habit of rendering her crippled at critical moments continued to frighten her. Her last effort at countermeasures failed, and she could only hope the new ones worked better.

It almost made her reconnect to Colin's lab. Working with her fellow tinker soothed many of her frustrations, if only for a time.

After completing the last check, Dragon turned her attention to the camera in the conference room. The other directors filled in one by one on the monitors around the room. Director Piggot was one of the last to join, followed by Director Ral from Phoenix. Chief-Director Costa-Brown's face appeared over the largest screen in the room, near the far end that allowed her to see every other face easily.

"Well at least we're mostly on time for once," she said. "Where is—" A monitor flickered next to Dragon's, and she detected the dedicated line to the Pentagon firing up. "Admiral Revel. Thank you for joining us."

The portly man nodded. "Chief-Director."

"No need for pleasantries. We all know who we are, and Admiral Revel is here from the Joint Chiefs to keep national security informed. Let's get started on the updates."

It went quickly. An Endbringer was coming. Everyone knew it, hero, villain, and civilian alike. Few villains started anything on the eve of an attack, except, as Piggot explained, the Archers Bridge Merchants in Brockton Bay.

"I'm afraid I must again request reinforcement," Director Piggot said. "The six members of the Protectorate are strong, but they're outnumbered even with help from the Wards."

"We all know how that ends, Emily." Armstrong folded his hands together on his desk. "We send in more heroes and Kaiser calls in more villains."

"We can't afford the PR hit of losing another battle to Lung," someone else said.

"We can't go to war in the middle of the streets," Ral added. "The civilian casualties are unacceptable. That said, we've allowed the gangs to become as strong as they are in Brockton Bay. We can't ignore it forever. Sooner or later something will happen."

"It's not a problem for now," Costa-Brown said. "An Endbringer is coming. Dragon, how long?"

"Within the next fifteen days unless the attack is late. I'm working on prediction software with help from Armsmaster that should give us better ideas and forewarning, but it's not ready and likely won't be for this attack."

Tagg raised his head. "And it's most likely the Simurgh?"

Dragon nodded her avatar's head. "Behemoth and Leviathan have both attacked within the past eleven months. Unless they switch up the order again like in 2005, the Simurgh will be next."

"And now isn't the time to be shuffling the ranks." Costa-Brown turned her attention to Piggot's screen. "I'm sorry Emily. The situation is bad all around. We can revisit the Brockton Bay issue after the battle."

Piggot frowned. "All due respect, Chief-Director, you told me that last time."

"And I'm telling you again. I have confidence your team can hold the line."

Bitterness filled the quiet "ma'am" Piggot gave.

The next few cities went by with much the same. Houston rarely had any trouble. No villain wanted to tangle with Eidolon, and the city enjoyed one of the lowest crime rates in the country thanks to her presence. Seattle fought an ongoing battle against the Elite, and Las Vegas was enjoying a string of high profile robberies no one could quite figure out.

There simply weren't enough heroes. The villains replaced themselves as quickly as they went away, if not faster, and the Protectorate and PRT faced mounting scrutiny from the public and the rest of the government.

"Blue Cosmos has been rather quiet of late," Director Braun muttered. "I'm concerned they might pull the same stunt they pulled last year."

At his prompting Dragon checked on a few of her trawlers. The little programs originated with her father. He used his first creations to steal from criminal organizations and give the money to charity. She'd repurposed many since his death, using them to keep track of certain corners of the internet.

"We don't need a repeat of that," Piggot said.

"They wouldn't dare." Director Halley sighed. "Not this close to an Endbringer. Even Blue Cosmos must realize that conventional means have all failed when applied."

Dragon interjected, saying, "Much of Blue Cosmos' membership advocates that the Endbringers are a creation of capes."

"It's absurd," Armstrong groaned.

"It is, but it's a commonly recited conspiracy theory on forums supported by the group. That conventional weapons can't resolve the crisis is of little consequence when you convince people that capes are the real crisis."

"They're not entirely wrong," Tagg said. "Some conventional means haven't been applied."

"We can't go dropping nuclear weapons on Endbringers," Costa-Brown retorted firmly. Tagg seemed to disagree, and Dragon wondered when nuclear weapons entered the realm of conventional means.

Admiral Revel appeared to share her confusion.

"It's bad enough the world is rearming," he said. "If the United States does use a missile to solve a problem, everyone will do it, and we all know it won't work."

Armstrong nodded. Murmurs of assent followed. Dragon agreed with them.

Behemoth would likely just walk through a nuclear blast and displayed the ability to unleash his own in the 2006 Buenos Aires attack. The Simurgh would fly away or turn it against the party that fired. Worse, she might send it off and destroy two cities in one attack. Destroying a city to stop Leviathan from destroying it defeated the point. Not that the truth stopped any country from citing the monsters as justification for rearmament.

Dragon pulled up the report from one trawler.

Blue Cosmos operated on different web pages under different names, but Phantom Pain remained their most popular web forum. On the surface, it served as an outreach group for the victims of cape violence. Support groups, therapy, and financial aid. All rather noble on the surface. In truth, it recruited vulnerable people to a hate group, solicited their support and money to "prevent" worse things from happening by lumping all capes into one category.

Enemy.

As Director Braun suggested, they were rather quiet. Forum activity dropped by thirty-nine percent earlier in the week, which matched previous patterns. Hardcore members often dropped "off the grid" in preparation for a major rally or violent attack. Dragon would mock their paranoia, but to be fair she was spying on them, even if she limited herself to public forums.

She wrote an additional note to Narwhal. Toronto didn't have a big Blue Cosmos presence, but last year the group staged international protests day and night everywhere they could. Some broke out into riots. Better safe than sorry.

"Eyes up is all we can do," Costa-Brown determined. "As annoying as I find that blond prick's little band of bigots, they have rights and we're supposed to uphold them, even if we find them counterproductive. Peaceful protest isn't something we have the authority to stop."

"Until they turn violent," Piggot said. "Then they're the police's problem, and the police don't like picking up our mess."

"I'm aware of the relations problem. There's little we can do about it until Congress decides to act."

"Let's move on," Armstrong said. "The S-Class threats."

Dragon began her report. Director Ral expressed concern that the Nine seemed to be acting oddly, but no one knew why, and everyone learned years ago that trying to predict Jack Slash too much generally didn't work out. He always managed to stay a step ahead. The quarantine zones took little time to go over, but eventually the time came to address the elephant in the room.

"Madison is in danger of breaching containment," Dragon announced. "More Case-53s keep appearing in the zone, and the more there are, the more agitated they seem to become."

Most of the data from Madison didn't make sense.

Whether the Simurgh intended for the zone to fill up with Case-53s, or if their appearance was a mere consequence of the monster's real plan, no one knew. That the Madison attack coincided with a sudden drop off in Case-53s appearing outside of Madison only made matters more confusing.

Dragon spent many cycles on the problem, and after two years felt no closer to an answer. The Case-53 phenomena only started gaining investigative interest in the late nineties, and the aftermath of the Gold War distracted resources for several of those years.

"Madison," Tagg grumbled. "Damned disaster."

"Even by the Simurgh's standards," Ral agreed.

"Where are the capes coming from?" Piggot glanced to Costa-Brown, who seemed to watch this section of the proceedings with quiet thought. "Are they triggering inside the zone?"

"Unknown," Dragon said. "Since the initial fight to establish containment, over three hundred distinct Case-53 capes have appeared. Some appear non-threatening, but others seem to think they're being unfairly punished for something they didn't do."

"From their perspective they are," Armstrong stated solemnly. "No memories and waking up in a city surrounded by a wall, a Marine division, and three Protectorate teams? They probably don't believe the warnings."

"What can we do if containment is breached?"

"Reestablish."

"If we can't?"

Tagg grunted. "Then perhaps we consider conventional means. At least a breached containment zone can actually be resolved with a big explosion."

"It'll still signal to the rest of the world we're willing to use nuclear weapons to deal with such crises."

"That's for the President to decide, not us."

"Can we reinforce the quarantine? Build a big dome?"

"That was on the docket as a suggestion for future quarantines," Armstrong said. "But with so many capes inside Madison it might hinder us more than help. All they'd need is the right power, or combination of powers, to get out again and we'd have fortified their position."

"How immediate is this risk, Dragon?"

"It won't happen tomorrow, if that's what you're asking," Dragon replied. An alert drew Dragon's attention away. One of her other trawlers with an automatic alert. "It isn't a certainty yet, but I am concerned. There's a veritable army inside Madison. If they breach containment they could cause as much damage as the Simurgh caused in the first place."

"We can reinforce the Protectorate teams," Ral said. "Get them more capes to keep an eye on things."

"I'll speak with the National Security Director," Admiral Revel declared. "This is a concerning development."

Dragon bowed out of the rest of the discussion. The trawler sent her to several black-market sites and fan forums that liked to be "edgy" by hiding themselves a little bit. Mostly harmless places for tech heads and hackers who kept to more mundane crimes.

Toybox. Someone wanted to get in contact with Toybox. Judging by the sloppy way they went about asking, whoever it was didn't quite know how. A new tinker most likely. One who found out about the rogue Tinker group somehow and hoped to get materials working with them. Not unusual, though...

StarGazer.

She routed her IP through dozens of servers, leaving them virtually untraceable, but the name gave them away in an instant. The kind of mistake many new tinkers make. She cleaned up well though.

The posts only lasted a minute or two at a time before being deleted.

They lacked the keywords, but their intent remained clear. Asking about parts and resources for a "hobby project." Most of the responses were demeaning or rude. The requests were vague, so no surprise there. The speed of the posting and deleting, however, impressed her.

Colin theorized StarGazer and Saber Girl were siblings, so which of them wanted to talk to Toybox, or was it both? Assuming they were two of course. Toybox members did in fact frequent some of the sites, but the posts weren't likely to get any attention on their own.

Tensions between heroes and Toybox always ran high, and not just because the rogues sold to villains. Many members of the group joined after some ill-fated attempt to strong-arm them into the Protectorate or a gang. Others felt unfairly discriminated against by non-compete laws covering tinker-tech.

"Dragon? Are you listening?"

Pulling herself away from her inquiry, Dragon rewound a recording of the meeting and quickly played it forward. The rest of the monitors had gone black, and even Director Tagg walked out a few minutes ago.

"Apologies, Chief-Director. One of my trawlers found something on the dark web that caught my eye."

"I see."

The Chief-Director watched Dragon sternly for a moment. Most humans didn't notice it, but it stood out to Dragon after years spent perfecting her avatar. Implementing the subtlest expressions and the most minuscule movement sold the illusion she presented to the world. From all that work, she noticed that Rebecca Costa-Brown possessed an unusual stillness to her.

"My apologies for putting you on the spot again, Dragon. I know you're a Guild member first and foremost, but I appreciate having a cape in these meetings, even if they're ostensibly for those of us without powers. So easy to lose perspective on the big picture."

"Of course, Chief-Director. I'm glad to be able to address my concerns, even if the meetings can be a bit depressing."

"I thought you might. You care about people. Far more than some capes I'm afraid."

"I like to think most heroes are doing the best they can."

"As do I."

"What can I do for you, Chief-Director?"

"I was curious about that matter I sent to you. The private one."

Dragon nodded her avatar's head and pulled up her search results. She delegated the task to another one of her father's older programs. A rudimentary virtual intelligence. No personality or character to speak of, but quick thinking and capable of complex analysis.

"I'm sorry Chief-Director, I've had no luck locating the woman Alexandria described. Her memory is excellent, but without a real image I can only search with a facsimile."

Costa-Brown closed her eyes and nodded. "I'm afraid great care was taken to ensure there were no images. If you wouldn't mind?"

"I will keep looking."

"Thank you, Dragon. I'll be going now. There's work to do."

"Of course."

Dragon cut the connection and returned to the dark web. She already maintained several accounts on a few websites, so she picked one at random on a fantasy tabletop game site and began a private chat.

Nataku: Hello StarGazer. Your requests caught my eye.

She sent the message, and Dragon busied herself with checking her manufacturing lines while she waited. Not that she waited long. The reply came within point nine seconds of sending the message. Oddly quick.

StarGazer: Greetings Nataku. Would you happen to own a jack in the box?

Nataku: I'm afraid not, though I'm a big fan of dungeons and Dragons.

Nataku: I'm merely curious. You are aware that Uber and Leet escaped early this morning?

StarGazer: No.

Nataku: Heads up then. They won't appreciate the theft and revelation of Leet's workshop, nor do the local heroes I might add. It wasn't a crime, but it's not smiled upon really. Attacking a tinker's lair is quite dangerous. I'd also refrain from stealing civilian vehicles in the future, even from henchmen.

StarGazer: Care will be taken.

Well at least she, or they, knew. Now…

Nataku: What did you want from Toybox?

StarGazer: It is not a crime to contact Toybox.

Nervous.

Nataku: It isn't, though I'm curious why you want to. My understanding is that Saber Girl's haul from Leet's workshop included everything a tinker could want. What does she need?

StarGazer: The materials are insufficient for a current project.

Nataku: May I inquire? I like to take an interest in young tinkers. I don't know what your quarrel with the Protectorate or PRT is, but I'd rather see a new hero on the street than another cut short. You are aware of the risks?

StarGazer: Yes.

Nataku: Then I won't pester you about it. What do you need? Depending on what it is, I may be able to assist.

StarGazer: A vital component for a current project is difficult to manufacture. It is not possible with normal Earth conditions. A Jovian environment is necessary.

The word choice struck Dragon as odd. But Jovian?

Nataku: That is an unusual request.

StarGazer: Yes.

Nataku: What do you need it for? Not to pry, but that is quite unusual. I don't doubt your intentions, but I hope it is nothing too dangerous.

StarGazer: It is a safety device in part. Without it, the power source produces exotic particles dangerous to organic life. With it, the power source is one hundred percent green and one hundred percent efficient.

Dragon processed that for a few cycles before quickly typing out a reply.

Nataku: You're talking about perpetual energy?

StarGazer: Not perpetual. Solar light is necessary.

The breakthrough boggled the mind. Tinkers attempted to create perpetual energy many times in the past, and all failed. Well, a solar reactor or whatever StarGazer wanted to build obviously wasn't quite that, but a device that produced completely clean energy held more potential than Dragon could fathom.

Nataku: And no particle emissions?

StarGazer: Many, but benign. Harmless.

The potential seemed too great. It might be a lie, but the benefit…She could at least look over the design, if StarGazer were willing. Confirm that it might work. One theory held that the world always sat on the edge of an energy crisis. Ongoing breakthroughs kept everything going, and one hundred percent clean energy offered too much opportunity.

Nataku: Perhaps I can help with this. However, I want to look over the design. I know most tinkers are very guarded with their work, but I can't simply take you at your word.

The reply took a long time, long enough that Dragon wondered if there were two of them and they were debating it.

Nataku: Are you still there?

StarGazer: Your offer will be considered.

Nataku: Please do. This opportunity is intriguing. I'd also suggest going in for power testing. The PRT tends to frown on tinkers it knows nothing about. Saber Girl as well if you are two separate people.

StarGazer: I am also to inform you that she rather dislikes Saber Girl as a name.

Dragon paused at the easy revelation of such sensitive information. She'd hoped to confirm it, but didn't think they'd slip up easily after keeping it to themselves. Or perhaps they never tried to hide it at all and simply didn't say it because no one asked.

Either way, Colin would enjoy that tidbit.

Nataku: I can convey the information to the Protectorate.

StarGazer: Please do.

Nataku: What name would she prefer?

StarGazer: Newtype.