Step 9.2
I woke up in my own bed.
I found it an oddly unfamiliar feeling.
Have I been sleeping at the factory that much?
I didn't think so, but thinking back? Yes. Yes, I have. Thinking back I also remembered that Thai never seemed to sit well in my stomach.
After dealing with my restroom needs, I went downstairs and found Dad looking over papers at the kitchen table. My paranoia decided to rise up, naturally. As much as I didn't want to live with resentment toward my father, I did. His own damn fault really. It's hard to trust someone who keeps failing.
And still I wanted to try.
After Boston I needed him. After talking to Dragon and learning about how she remembered her father, I didn't want things to be that way for me. After my own realization of how badly I'd mangled my own parenting, I did get a little appreciation that it's a lot easier to fuck up than it seems. On top of all that, it's easy to forget I only just turned sixteen. I was still really young in the grand scheme.
"What's that?" I asked, trying not to sound suspicious.
"A contract the Union was offered," Dad said. "I've been looking it over."
I raised my brow. "Already?" I asked.
"Already?" He asked back, turning his head toward me.
I flinched, averting my eyes and saying, "I mean, I figured there'd be work coming in once the gangs got put under some control. Just seems a little early."
"Hmm." Dad turned back to the papers.
He'd arranged them into some neat rows and columns along some system I didn't bother trying to decipher.
Pink stood on a stool in front of the stove and Red manned the toaster. The sound of the TV in the other room lead me to think a few of the other Haros were probably watching Cops. They liked Cops. I took a seat at one end of the table, a hand running through my still wet hair while Dad worked.
"Yesterday was the class thing, right?" He asked as he read.
"Um, yeah."
"How was that?"
"Okay. Without Shadow Stalker around the other Wards seem okay-" And fuck I should not have said that.
"Well, your mother would be happy to see you learning," Dad said.
And he didn't seem to be plotting anything.
Pink slid a plate in front of me, and, "Wow."
"Eggs Benedict with mango and chives," Pink said, "Eggs Benedict with mango and chives."
"She's been getting fancier," Dad said.
"I can tell," I said.
"She's getting pretty good."
I took a mouthful and had to agree. How a robot who didn't eat managed to make a good meal I didn't know, but gift horses and mouths.
"Anything going on today?" Dad asked.
I checked my phone as I ate. Two robberies, a mugging, and one murder. Not a particularly busy day on the crime fighting front. I'd probably check in at the factory, do some tinkering, leave the crime fighting to the Haros and Lafter and get on with my 'play date.'
"Not much," I said. "It's a quiet day."
He nodded and kept focusing on the papers. The old me would probably be bitter other things preoccupied him. Right now, I felt glad that he seemed occupied and I didn't have too much of his attention. Left me free to finish my breakfast and go back upstairs to dress.
"I can drive you," Dad said as I came back downstairs. "You can slip into the factory while I'm checking up on Kurt."
"Okay," I said.
I hid low in his truck while he drove and slipped out after he pulled into the perimeter. I got inside the warehouse unnoticed by hugging the wall. Mostly unnoticed.
"There you are," Kati said as I descended the steps into the workshop. She held out a piece of paper. "I thought you'd like this."
I took the paper and turned it towards me. Nothing fancy about it. Simple printer paper with a tri-fold crease and a few sentences on one side.
"Huh. I've never gotten a thank-you note before."
Kati smiled. "Pleasant, isn't it?"
"Where'd this come from?"
"The Haros found it in the mailbox," she said. "After checking to make sure it wasn't filled with white powder, I thought you'd like to see a tangible example that you're appreciated."
I nodded.
It did feel nice, in a subtle way. It came from the owner of the grocery store. Guess he appreciated me taking care of the guys trying to shake him down without wrecking the place. One line kind of caught me out, though. Something about how he knew he couldn't trust the ABB to keep true to their word. Why would he ever expect the ABB to keep their word? I know the Yakuza back in Japan had a certain amount of public respect because they tended to be 'honorable' in some people's eyes or whatever.
I chalked that up to romanticism. We did the same thing in the US with the mafia and it's all nonsense.
"Thanks, I guess. This is nice." I glanced up at her from the page. "There's something else."
"What makes you think that?" Kati asked.
I held the paper toward her. "Because you're softening me up."
She smiled a little more. "I wanted to talk about arranging some kind of public appearance. Nothing particularly grand. A simple thing that won't take up too much of your time."
Ah, PR. My favorite.
"What did you have in mind?" I asked.
"How about the annual meeting of the Brockton Bay Business Owners Association?"
"Never heard of it," I said.
"It's not a particularly big group, but there will be press there," she said, "and you can use it as a chance to pursue some of your own goals while we shore up your image as a 'getting things done' hero."
Huh. "I knew there was a reason I hired you."
"Of course, there is," she said.
"Who will be there?" I asked.
"I doubt you'll know most of them," she said. "Stansfields, Medhall, Yashima, Tur-"
"Yashima," I asked. "There isn't a Yashima business in Brockton Bay. I checked."
She raised her brow at me. "No," she said, "but the Yashima family puts a lot of time and money in supporting Japanese refugees and their businesses, and there are several here. The family is sending a representative."
First I'd heard of it. "How do you know that?" I asked.
"It's my job to know what you're walking into."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Never ask the magician to reveal their tricks, Taylor," she said. "The meeting is at the end of the week. You want to go?"
"Yeah. I've been trying to get someone from Yashima to talk to me anyway." Apparently, just calling their offices and saying 'I'm Newtype' isn't a good way of getting anyone to talk to you.
"Any reason?" Kati asked.
"The pre-order list for my model kits is at an eight month backlog."
"Technically eight months and fourteen days," Veda said.
"Thank you, Veda."
Larry and JP couldn't keep the kits on the shelves. They opened their doors every day to a line waiting to get in and grab them. I'd caught a few people reselling the kits online for triple what they bought them for. We'd gone well past the point of what demand my supply could actually meet and I wasn't going to inhibit my construction and repair time tables any further.
Even if I might as well be printing money. Which I'm pretty sure I could do if I really wanted to at this point.
I set the thank-you note aside on my workbench. It really was nice to get one, in a really simple down to Earth sort of way. Usually I only read responses to anything I did in crazy PHO posts. Or Blue Cosmos protestors at the front gate.
Speaking of which yup, still there.
I didn't see them when Dad pulled into the fence obviously, but my little gathering of bigots and their one picket sign were still at the street corner. Suppose I should be thankful there were only five of them. Kati told me to ignore them completely, and I did. It's just kind of agitating trying to help people and having even a half-dozen assholes being dicks about it.
I got dressed into my costume – after making sure Trevor wasn't in his corner – and went back upstairs.
Dad was talking with Kurt off to the side of the nearly complete assembly line. Amazing thought that. Almost complete assembly line.
I looked it over as I approached. Mostly the line consisted of seven tinker tech machines Doctor O and I devised that could produce the non-tinker tech helpers. Trevor put a lot of work into the final designs though, and I could see the results in the lay outs. Trevor's tech is more – it took me a moment to find the right words – simple than mine.
I didn't mean it as an insult.
My tech ran on some high-level theoretical physics, but Trevor's was deceptively simple. Clean cut and straight forward, but still able to put out some impressive results. He managed to make a few of the machines needed for the Helpers simpler and that meant less time spent on maintenance and more time producing Helpers.
"Almost done," Kurt said with a knowing smile.
I fought back a blush, reminded once again that my little ruse never for a moment worked on one of my dad's oldest friends. Simply putting on a strong and confident demeanor wouldn't trick anyone who'd known Taylor Hebert her entire life. He knew, but I trusted him to know better than to ever say anything to anyone.
"It looks good," I said. "Where's Chariot?"
"Over here!" Trevor called. He zipped into sight and waved with one hand. The other held some tinker-tech tool.
Yellow clung to his shoulder and waved. My latest Haro seemed to have made himself the 'keeper' of the factory. I rarely saw him anywhere else. He seemed quite content to do exactly what I needed a Haro to do and help Trevor and the guys out with whatever they needed.
I walked over to him, mostly out of curiosity.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Just trying to fine tune the injector," he said.
"Finicky, finicky," Yellow said.
Trevor nodded and hummed to himself. "I never would have thought a tinker-tech mold injector for non-tinker tech composite would be so temperamental."
I followed him over to the machine that built the ball casings for the Helpers and looked into the open panel. He crouched down and pointed at a regulator that kept the composite flowing at an even rate so the balls for the Helpers would be smooth and even, with the exact consistency needed.
"That's because I insisted on the shells being bulletproof, water proof, shock-resistant, and non-scuff," I said.
"Pretty sure you can patent that," Trevor said. "It's a lot for one material."
"Structurally efficient," Yellow repeated.
"I'm trying," I said.
Tinker laws were a bit ambiguous about the topic. Mostly they restricted tinkers on the grounds of either public safety or to prevent a tinker from taking over a market and having a monopoly on it. Right now I needed tinker tech to build the Helpers, even if the Helpers themselves could be replicated mundanely. Someone might manage to reverse engineer individual pieces of the Helpers, like the material I made their balls out of. At that point, anyone could patent my work and make it themselves.
Hardly seemed fair. I was looking into ways to maybe get around current tinker tech laws, but I'd probably need a lawyer for it.
Unfortunately, all the best cape lawyers tended to be villain lawyers.
And part of me wondered if maybe I should just leave it be. I'd make plenty of money off the Helpers in the years it took anyone to make anything like them with mundane means. By the time conventional technology could produce the same result, maybe I should just let it? The world would be a better place with the technology out and available to everyone, I hoped.
There might even be a way for me to speed things along by purposefully drip feeding tech via others. Might let me maintain my secret ability to figure out the science behind tinkering and still benefit others.
I had enough hot irons in the fire at the moment though. I didn't want to pick up any more schemes to keep track of until I dealt with those on my plate. Namely, finishing off the gangs in Brockton Bay, hunting down the people behind Sam Stansfield's murder, freeing Dragon from her father's paranoia, and getting my factory up and running.
Yeah.
Four headaches is enough for now.
"End of the week?" I asked.
"Probably," Trevor said. "Maybe do a rough run without any materials to see if any problems pop up. Fix those. Then see if we can produce one unit, and then a collection of proto-types."
I nodded. "Are all the guys ready?"
"Ready as I can make them," Trevor said. "It's not too hard. Just need to watch the gauges, clean any blockages, and call when turning it off and on again isn't good enough."
"I'll talk to Kati about arranging something. Maybe a surprise visit to a hospital to see if we can test them out."
"Pretty sure I can fine-tune the line a bit more," Trevor said.
"There'll be time for fine-tuning once we have it working." I stood up, and after a moment's thought said, "Thanks for this, Trevor. I wouldn't be this far along doing all this by myself and juggling the hero thing."
His face turned a little red under the praise.
"No problem," he said sheepishly.
I did a walk around with him to check the rest of the line real quick and then went back down into the workshop.
I went right into my current frustration. I'd taken a break from it two days ago to focus on other things and gain distance but it needed to be done. While rebuilding the GN drives to take advantage of yet another expansion of their capabilities came pretty easily, redesigning my suit to do so proved more… taxing.
My entire conception of neutralizers to keep my bones from crushing under G-Forces just didn't work with the kind of movement Trans-Am enabled. I'd come to the necessary – if frustrating – dead end that I needed to redesign more than the GN drive. The internals needed to be reworked from the ground up to get things rolling. Queen worked just fine in its current state given that it didn't use a living pilot. Gundam-03 could easily be redesigned since it only existed on paper anyway.
The frustrating part was Astraea. The kind of redesign work it needed, I might as well build a whole new suit. Which is perfectly doable. It just frustrated me. The process would eat up time and resources and tie up the fabricators for extended periods. I'd hoped to get started on Gundam-03 so the suit itself would be ready when the third GN drive came out of the box.
I suppose keeping Lafter as a ground agent a little longer wouldn't hurt. Having someone able to move around unnoticed is pretty damn useful. Lafter filled the role well.
Decisions decisions.
I postponed making any and just made sure the design was hashed out. The flight test covered most of the practical things we didn't know. That only left the impractical things we didn't know, which given the somewhat absurd nature of Trans-Am was quite a bit.
"It has to be the quantum flux," I said.
"There is no practical way for us to test that hypothesis," Veda said.
"It's the only thing that makes sense, though. Unless this is just some arbitrary limit on Dinah's power."
Funny how my class with the Wards touched on things as they were relevant elsewhere in my life.
A lot of aspects of powers were difficult, but really precognition I think easily took the cake. Dinah's wasn't even the most absurd. Hunch, a Ward in Boston, had a power that could even touch the Endbringers apparently. Except his precognitions came with bizarre descriptions that made them difficult to understand, like 'golden apple in a honey pot' or 'something a stereotypical Texan would say.'
That just didn't make sense, even in a world where powers rarely made sense.
"I can't think of what else it could be," I mumbled.
"Hey-ho!"
"Hi Lafter," I mumbled.
I raised my head.
"Where were you?" I asked, turning in my chair.
Lafter set several shopping bags down, her body bedecked in clothes that I could only pull off in my wildest dreams. A halter top that exposed her midriff and emphasized her curves, with tight jeans and nice boots, and gloves.
"Did you go shopping?" I asked.
"Yup."
"You went shopping?"
"I'm a girl. Most of us shop."
Well, yes. "Did anything happen?"
As far as I knew, Lafter hadn't done much in public outside her costume since… ever.
"It was fine," she said. "No one is insane enough to pick a fight with me, Laserdream, and Glory Girl while we're all in the same place."
"You went shopping with Vicky and her cousin?"
"Shielder was there to."
I raised my brow.
"He was very eager to carry things," she said with a mischievous smile. I did not doubt her.
"Well, I guess Vicky and her family are probably some of the only people you can hang out with and not put anyone at risk."
"My thoughts exactly!"
Purple rolled into the workshop doing cat in the cradle.
"And Purple got a yo-yo," Lafter said.
I stared at the toy and frowned. I asked Veda to keep an eye on the little balls of madness, but she said she didn't see anything unusual. And that just didn't make sense… And I just didn't have the time. If the Haros were hurting anyone I'd probably know by now. For all I knew they were playing fucking poker or putting on musicals at street corners.
They promised they weren't hurting anyone, and I'd never known them to lie. Mischievousness aside.
"What are you doing?" Lafter asked.
"Waffling," I mumbled.
"I could begin the production of necessary components," Veda offered.
"I know," I said. "I'm debating between doing that and making a design that is more flexible. I'd like to not do this every time we find some new capability."
"Design is inherently a balancing of attributes," Veda said. "I am not sure a perfectly flexible design is feasible."
Lafter glanced around. "So, nerd talk?"
"Yes," Veda and I said.
"Kay."
The 'nerd talk' continued for awhile longer. Veda prepped Astraea for launch, and I loaded the data I needed into a USB.
"Some Empire assholes are going to raid some warehouse around four," I said.
"Queen will be in position to intercept," Veda said.
"Something about a jewelry store," Lafter said as she pulled her costume on. "I know."
"You can call me if you need me."
"It'll be fine," Lafter said. "Go have fun with Beardmaster."
Yes.
Fun.
I flew towards the Rig after taking off. The PRT building would be a less conspicuous place, but Armsmaster and I agreed on one thing. The PRT wasn't completely trustworthy. While he'd probably never do anything about it in most situations, I think his spine got a minor boost in the current one.
The old oil platform wasn't originally located in the bay. Leviathan kind of ruined the offshore drilling industry even harder than he ruined the shipping industry. The Protectorate or the PRT I guess decided a cool base would be a great thing to have. They moved the Rig into Brockton Bay and set it up with some missile batteries, energy shields, and lots of shiny bits.
I did have a tiny sense of wonder at arriving there, but only a tiny one. Year-ago Taylor probably would have 'squeed' a bit.
I landed on one of the helicopter pads, Armsmaster standing by a pair of stainless steel doors.
I set my suit to a kneel and stepped out.
...
The sea breeze is a lot louder out in the bay.
"Let's get this over with," I said.
"For the better," he agreed.
We weren't friends. I doubted we'd ever be friends. But in this, we found ourselves on the same side. Well, honestly we found ourselves on the same 'side' most of the time. In a general sense. The way Kati helped me deliver our differences in my interview I think really is the most true – without being insulting – way of putting it.
We did things differently and neither of us found much room for compromise in that difference.
And one of us is a total asshole.
Armsmaster lead me through the doors, which lead directly into an elevator.
"I've set an auxiliary lab aside," he said.
It was a nice lab, and I felt glad to be in it. Walking around and inspecting the work benches, tools, and waldos I even felt a little jealous. This is what the Protectorate did with auxiliary labs? The place looked fully stocked. Maybe Armsmaster did that in preparation but some of the tools were useless for both projects we agreed to work on together. It all seemed a bit dusty too. I sensed the place got a fresh sprucing recently, but not enough of one to remove all the signs of unuse.
One of the tables looked recently used, but only in so far as a full chemistry set and some equipment were laid out, plus a tablet. Armsmaster's tranquilizer project, and our cover.
"Does anyone else know I'm here?" I asked.
"Yes, but most of the Protectorate is busy at the moment with free time or other duties. For now we'll only have one person watching us."
He nodded toward the corner where a workbench not dissimilar from my own sat. Rows of monitors, some cameras, keyboards and a chair.
One of the monitors showed a single figure waving at me.
I stared at the screen.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I'm great!"
Mouse Protector said from some office in – I assumed – Chicago. She wore her trademark helmet, a kind of knightly looking thing with big round ears on top. Beneath that she seemed to be wearing red polka dot pajamas.
"Mouse Protector is many things," Armsmaster said, "and one of them is willing to break the rules."
"So willing," she said with a big goofy smile.
I stared. "But why?"
Mouse Protector shook, as if holding in laughter.
"Because the master of social ineptitude thought of all the bad things that can happen if anyone asks what he's doing in private with a girl half his age who supposedly hates him!"
Armsmaster frowned.
"What?" Mouse asked. She reached off screen. "It's true. And no one ever thinks I'm involved in anything super serious. I'm the perfect chaperon for this little misadventure!"
"You have a bag of popcorn," I said.
"Buttered," she said.
She popped a corn in her mouth.
I glanced up at Armsmaster.
"She is correct," he said, grudgingly. "I asked Mouse Protector to sit in and vouch if anyone asks any questions."
"And you couldn't have asked," - I stopped myself - "Oh. Wait. Right."
"Stratos would probably be willing to go along with us, but he is also a man twice your age. Miss Militia I'm not sure would accept going behind the PRT's back" - "Yeah she's always been a bit of a muddy stick," Mouse Protector said with a mouth full of corn - "and Prism I think will disagree with what we're doing."
"And Ramius is a member of the PRT."
"Yes. I gather she would do a great deal to aid you if asked-"
"But I don't want to put her in that position," I agreed.
He nodded. "Mouse Protector is one of the few capes I can think of who is female, will agree that the situation needs to be redressed, and be willing to keep what we're doing secret from anyone else."
"Okay," I admitted. "That makes sense."
Mouse Protector leaned her cheek into one hand. "Are you two sure you hate each other?"
"Yes," Armsmaster said.
"Very," I agreed.
She shrugged. "If you say so."
Not asking Miss Militia or Prism might raise some eyebrows if anyone asked why we were having Mouse Protector 'chaperon' our little meetings, but that's just something we'd have to deal with if it happened. Miss Militia did basically refuse to do as Piggot asked when Kid Win was dressing the Protectorate and PRT down, but I'm not sure she'd be ready and willing to join an anti-PRT conspiracy.
I'd let Armsmaster make whatever excuses we needed if it came to that.
"You brought the data?" He asked.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the USB.
"StarGazer and I recorded as much as we could the last time we talked to her."
He nodded and took the device.
"I've moved the materials for my tranquilizer project down here as well," Armsmaster said. "I've secured this room against surveillance. The cameras will only be able to see the tables, not these screens, and I've isolated these computers from the rest of the network."
I nodded and pulled a small device from my pocket. I set it on the table and flipped it on.
"I got the idea from Hero," I said. "Portable jammer."
"In the shape of Tic-Tacs," Mouse Protector said. "This is already amazing."
Armsmaster loaded up the data in the USB, and Dragon's 'code' began playing across the screens. The trainquilizer project gave us cover, and I did want a good non-lethal-let's-not-burn-the-city-down solution to Lung. Realistically, I doubt it was enough on its own to get Armsmaster and I in the same room. Made a perfectly flawless cover for what could, though.
Setting Dragon free.
I blinked and turned to Mouse Protector. "Wait, so you know what we're doing?"
"Saving the damsel in distress," she said. "Classic heroism, and there's even a Dragon! I love it!"
"And you… Have nothing to say about the whole artificial intelligence thing?"
She stared at me. "I don't know the meaning of intelligence."
I couldn't tell if that was a purposefully stupid answer or a subtly brilliant answer.
"Mouse Protector has significant reservations about the Protectorate and PRT," Armsmaster said. "It's part of why she's never moved up the ranks."
"What I have are principals!"
Emphasis on 'pals.'
"You're stubborn," Armsmaster said.
"Oh, hello Kettle when did you arrive?" Armsmaster ignored her jab and started looking over Dragon's code. Mouse Protector frowned. "The silent treatment… my one weakness."
"This will be very time consuming," Armsmaster said.
"I've already looked some of it over," I said. "I included some notes from what StarGazer and I were able to put together."
"Will she be joining us?" He asked.
"No. The nature of her power… Dragon can't read her mind, but she can see a lot of what's going on in her head."
"Technopathy?" He asked.
I shrugged. Let the Protectorate and PRT run with that theory for now.
"Hmm. You worry Dragon will stumble across what we're doing if she is too involved?"
"And trigger her restrictions," I said. I thought for a moment, and sighed. "Forecast saw something."
Armsmaster glanced at me.
"A vision of me in a Gundam fighting a giant machine with Dragon's logo on it."
Armsmaster stared for a moment. "You suspect this is a possible future where Dragon becomes aware of our efforts and tries to stop us?"
"Maybe," I said. "I don't know how harshly her restrictions would force her to respond if she found out, but I can't think of many reasons Dragon and I would come to blows."
"It is likely," Armsmaster said. "Due to her nature, she is likely unaffected by master powers."
"My thoughts as well."
"We'll need to proceed carefully." Armsmaster turned his face toward Mouse Protector. "Very, carefully."
"What?" She asked. "I already promised to keep my mouth shut!"
"Very. Carefully."
"You're just dedicated to ruining this for me aren't you?"
"Maybe we should get started," I said.
We spent about two hours picking through the code. It was slow. Dragon's programming followed its own lines, distinct from anything I worked on. In that case Armsmaster actually came in handy, because he'd worked with her for years. He knew her code, and as I'd suspected, Dragon's own program reflected the way she programmed her tech. Armsmaster was able to piece it together far faster than Veda or I.
Mouse Protector seemed content to eat her popcorn and watch, so I shrugged.
I went back to the chemistry set sitting on one of the tables and picked up the tablet. If anyone asked what we were doing and we said 'working on a brute tranquilizer to use on Lung', it would help to actually have said brute tranquilizer. I busied myself going back and forth between reviewing Armsmaster's notes and working with him to decipher Dragon's code.
"I believe this is the restriction requiring her to obey legal authority," Armsmaster said. He pointed at a long algorithm. "I'm not quite sure how it functions, however. I'll need to hunt down these calls."
"I don't have a complete picture of her code," I said. I flipped through his copious documentation while he talked. "Some of it is probably buried deep. I might not be able to get a look at it and not tip her off to what I'm doing."
"We may be forced to make a certain number of inferences, though I do have a thought. Dragon is forbidden from making copies of herself."
I nodded.
I actually never thought of that. I put no such restriction in Veda, but Veda had never really done that. I asked her why and she said it never occurred her. The quantum tunneling I used for communications meant she could access anything from a single location. Dividing her consciousness into distinct partitions or creating copies of herself didn't serve any practical purpose. I could think of a few myself, but most of them involved bad things happening.
"Dragon's reactions in battle are very quick," Armsmaster continued. "Too quick for the delay of communication between a central server and the suits themselves."
I turned my head to one side. "She downloads into her suits?" I asked.
"When the suit is destroyed," he said, "she either evacuates herself or loads from a backup."
"In either case there would be traces of her code in the wrecked suit, or in her home servers locked away."
He nodded. "If we can get our hands on any wreckage after a battle, we may be able to acquire a more accurate picture of her code. I think accessing her servers is not a feasible option."
"Not for us." Veda maybe...
I felt a certain unease at that thought. Oh, it would work, but it kind of reminded me we were going behind Dragon's back. She said she didn't want us to try and free her, and that could be her honest feelings. She was forbidden from asking for help, not from having an opinion about the subject. After Dad's attempt at surprise therapy, I saw the parallels.
Dragon may not react well to our helping her against her will.
But with the PRT abusing her restrictions for advantage, and the innate risks that came with them, I wasn't sure I could ignore it. She was practically a slave. If Teacher compromised the highest ranks of the PRT, assuming he already hadn't, or the government, again assuming he already hadn't, she could do untold amounts of damage completely against her will.
I settled for telling myself that having a way to free her didn't obligate Armsmaster or I to use it. We could keep it in our pockets and deploy it if necessary, or maybe find some way to get certainty about what Dragon really wanted for herself.
"I'm so writing a fan fic when this is over," Mouse Protector said. "It'll be about a sweet tinker daughter and her big tinker dad saving their tinker mom-"
"Don't."
"You."
"Dare."
Armsmaster and I glared at her.
"Everyone's a critic," she mumbled.
We did make progress between Mouse's distractions. Not a lot, but I think we both knew that going in.
I managed to completely catch myself up on his tranquilizer at least.
"The weird part is this should have worked," I said.
"It should have," he agreed.
"Directly attacking the red blood cells to deprive them of oxygen but only enough to knock the target out is a brilliantly simple solution to the brute problem, as long as you can get it into their system."
"I have a version that can be dispersed as a gas."
"It should have worked on Lung. He has regeneration but cells need oxygen to work."
"His regeneration likely goes beyond my expectations."
"How though? Biology doesn't work that way."
"Powers are bullshit," Mouse said.
She wasn't wrong. Something else needed to be going on in Lung's system to have gotten past the oxygen deprivation. I think he did seem a bit woozy immediately after Armsmaster stuck him.
"Maybe he burned through it before the effect could knock him out," I mumbled.
"That is my assumption, but it would be difficult to make the compound more fast-acting without unacceptably increasing its lethality."
I nodded in agreement, and the door to the room opened.
I flinched, turning to look at Stratos as he entered the room.
He looked the three of us over, his face placid.
"Newtype. Armsmaster. Mouse."
"Sup, Strat," Mouse Protector said with a wave.
"Whatever this is apparently," he said with a smile. "What is this?"
"We're working to refine my brute tranquilizer," Armsmaster said neutrally.
"And Mouse Protector..."
"I'm the chaperon," she said. "You know. Because this would look really suspicious if I weren't here!"
I think it looks even more suspicious because you're here.
I watched Stratos, reminded that I was a shit liar, and hoped.
He shrugged. "Well. How's that going?"
"Slowly," Armsmaster said. "This will take some time. Fortunately, Lung seems to be preoccupied at the moment with ABB internal politics." And I realized Armsmaster doesn't sound any different when he lies than when he's just being a normal asshole. "Did you need something?"
"Militia was looking for you," Stratos said. "Piggot wants to talk about next month's PR schedule."
Armsmaster checked the clock.
"I lost track of time," he said.
"I know," Stratos said. He glanced at me, and I hoped he didn't see anything on my face.
"We'll have to continue another time," Armsmaster said.
He made a rather brisk exit, leaving me, Mouse Protector, and Stratos staring.
"Um." Stratos looked at me as I spoke up. "I'll show myself out?"
I did not show myself out.
The Protectorate had rules about letting independents wander the halls alone. With Armsmaster making a swift exit, and Mouse not actually in the building, Stratos took it on himself to escort me out.
It was dark out when we exited the elevator onto the helipad, and Stratos commented, "How did no one mention the robot parked on the helipad?"
"Armsmaster said he told people I was here," I said.
"He probably did. I haven't checked my email in months. I'm more surprised the staff weren't all over this."
I didn't really see any windows in sight of my suit. Maybe Armsmaster arranged that.
"Well, thanks?" I said. "Sorry Armsmaster just walked off."
"No worries," Stratos said. "This way, I get to skip the first half of a boring meeting."
I stood awkwardly, the sea breeze picking up some of my hair.
"You want to ask," he said.
"I don't-"
"It's fine," he said solemnly. "It didn't go well, but they've done worse. Minneapolis is still standing."
"And Hatchet Face?" I asked.
"Dead," Stratos said. "Chronic," - one of the Minneapolis independent villains - "blasted him into oblivion. They're the Slaughterhouse Eight for now, until they pick someone up. Which they will."
I nodded.
He sounded pretty melancholy despite his smile.
The PRT hadn't released much info about what happened in Minneapolis. Supposedly Bonesaw released some kind of chemical and the Nine fled the city. They talked about the city in the news optimistically, so everyone seemed to assume it wasn't the worst the Nine could do. Even the Nine's 'worst' though tended to be pretty damn bad.
"I hear you kicked Lung out to sea while I was off dealing with the merry band of psychos."
I shrugged. "I bought myself time."
"You kicked Lung out to sea. It's more than we've managed over the years. Keeping the big rage dragon in check is usually all we can do."
"I can only destroy so many city streets."
The city was still patching the hole.
"Don't knock yourself," Stratos said. "I didn't kill the Siberian, but I kept her down. Left everyone else free to handle the rest. Sometimes keeping one bad guy so occupied they can't do anything else is the best you can do."
I'd rather be rid of Lung. Permanently.
Well, maybe we'll get Armsmaster's tranq working.
I climbed into Astraea and set off. Armsmaster would probably pore over more of the code I gave him when he had the time. He'd hopefully make quicker progress than me with his familiarity. Checking the time, I figured I'd go back to the workshop and finish up the designs I'd been working on.
I might as well just finalize them and make a decision about what to do with the fabricators. No point wasting-
A flash of light caught my eye, and I slowed Astraea to a sudden stop.
"Veda," I said.
"Yes?" She asked.
"Did Dinah predict any crimes in the Docks tonight?"
"No. Why?"
I zoomed in the cameras, looking over the flames and the rubble in the street. The fires didn't look too bad, but there was an awful lot of smoke. Might be worse on the inside. A car sped away from the scene as I hovered, and I saw some figures moving into the building through a fresh hole in its walls.
"Because someone just blew up a gas station."
