A Waken 11.T

It wasn't right.

Lisa twisted the wires and pushed them back into place. The panel seemed right. It followed the exact schematic she had. A tightly packed bundle of circuits, wires, and boards. Some parts didn't make any sense, but they were tinker-tech so why would they?

Dragon-Tech XS-31. Expensive. Hard to manipulate. The exact kind of thing the PRT would put on a super heavy door leading to their prisoners.

How did the Dragonslayers get their hands on the schematic?

They stole tech from Dragon and resold her stuff all the time, but an obscure security panel? Breaking into a PRT building to free prisoners was the worst way to do it. Who would want that schematic?

She forced her power down. Her head already hurt. She didn't have time for tertiary questions. The answer probably made about as much sense as breaking into the fucking PRT building!

"And I was really starting to pat myself on the back."

March swung her sword. The tip only cut a small tear into the man's jacket, but it exploded all the same. He fell back and groaned, and she kicked him in the head. At least she wasn't outright killing people.

She checked her flanks and sighed, "Now Bitch isn't answering either. Your team really needs to work on its communication skills, S."

Was told to call you that. Plan in place to out you if you don't cooperate.

She knew Coil—the real Coil—was a control freak, but this took it to a new level.

"We should leave," Lisa suggested. In vain. "If Sovereign is out, and Bitch too, we're not going to be able to keep the building distracted."

"Hmm."

March pointed her sword into the ground and looked at her phone. Lisa watched through some of the more reflective pieces of the panel. She didn't expect much but when you're on a one way trip to the damn guillotine, what can you do but try to escape?

That line would work on Grue. Probably why Brian was even less in charge now than ever. He might have issues with commitment, but he knew madness when he saw it.

On the basic 'will it work level' the plan was a great one.

Distraction out front.

Grue's mist could linger for a long time if wind didn't blow it away. They just needed to fill a truck up and then vent the stuff. That would get a bunch of PRT into one place and Cherie could just use her power to fuck with them. Turn up the anger.

If she got Prism with it, the white hats would all be too busy fighting themselves. If they tried to disengage Cherie could change targets. Bitch brings a bunch of her dogs and sets them loose in the building. Grue fills the building with his power. Cherie neutralizes the Wards.

Easy.

With most of the Protectorate gone transporting the Empire, getting in and out without a huge fight looked easy on paper. Especially when you knew ahead of time the moves of other players. Like that the Dragonslayers were going to steal Dragon's new suit, or that the Patriots planned to make a move.

The problem with the plan was the heat that came after it.

Did Calvert seriously think he'd be able to just slip away? As soon as Newtype got wise to what was going on she'd zip back to the city and hunt them all down. And with nothing in the city to really occupy her anymore simply leaving wouldn't save them.

Even if they slipped away from Newtype the PRT would never let something like this slide. They be hounded. Unleashing two masters on the Wards? That got people kill orders! They'd never escape. The PRT would be humiliated beyond humiliation if they didn't answer that with force.

The plan defeated its own purpose.

It's not about freeing Calvert.

The mercenaries were still there. Not any of the one's Lisa knew. New hires, or specially brought in for this? They weren't doing much. Mostly standing around and looking scary.

Not mercenaries. Just goons in good looking armor. Expendable.

Join the club, Lisa thought.

Except for one. The woman who kept shadowing Lisa and March closely. She was trained, and she was watching Lisa constantly. The other three watched her too, to the point Lisa was certain they were really here to guard her, not help March.

March seemed to be dealing with any fighting all on her own.

But if not to free Calvert, then what was the point?

Make the PRT look inept.

Fuck.

That would be his plan wouldn't it? Success or failure didn't matter. Their escape didn't matter. If Newtype came in and saved the day, it would just make the PRT look even more pathetic.

Teacher won either way.

Damn Xanatos gambits.

Where the hell was the Boss? Count promised to bail her out if things went south. They were well fucking past south now.

"Grue isn't having any trouble," March said. "There's some PRT putting up a good fight. Sovereign is definitely out somehow. Bitch is fighting the Wards."

Lisa stiffened as the girl turned towards her.

"Keep going. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can go say hi to Flechette!"

Fuck.

Lisa put the panel back together and deciphered the override. The emergency one hardwired into the tech only the PRT was supposed to know. A hacker could probably work it out. Or a thinker with access to the schematic.

The door opened and the guards inside the elevator raised their guns.

March did a one handed cartwheel and swung her sword in a wide arc.

Showing off. Thinks it's all a game.

And Lisa thought Cherie was psycho.

March swung her sword through one guy's leg, stabbed another, cut another's gun and then punched the fourth. Explosions followed her blows. Bursts of air and light cracked in Lisa's pounding head. When a fifth guard took aim, March moved only slightly to the side and the bullet missed.

Damn grab-bags.

How was she such an unknown? Lisa had never heard of her before, but her powerset was absurd. Heightened reflexes, super timing to the point of a thinker power, and everything she cut exploded. And to top it all off, Lisa couldn't get a good read on her.

Some things were obvious, like her complete insanity.

Others weren't, like if she was even really working for Coil.

March was a minor cape from New York. The PRT would never expect her, but why her? How did Coil even find her, let alone give her the job of 'breaking him out'.

March didn't fit.

"If Sovereign is down," Lisa pointed out, "no one is containing the Wards."

She pointedly didn't look at the men as March hummed to herself and dragged them out of the elevator. They weren't troopers. They looked more like staff officers. They wore basic uniforms and no armor. Their only guns were sidearms.

"We'll be on the way out by the time that becomes a problem," March replied. "Just stick to the plan Tits."

"We can't fight the entire Wards team, Prism, and Stratos. The moment he cuts loose and starts taking out Bitch's dogs—"

March sighed. "You have no sense of fun do you?"

Not your sense of fun, Lisa thought.

"Time to go down, S." She tapped her sword against the elevator floor. "A job is a job. Have some professional integrity!"

Lisa stepped into the elevator and started pulling the next panel open.

The PRT didn't joke around with security.

Unless you were someone like Lung, simply getting out of your cell was the least of your problems.

The prisoners were stashed away in a quarantined block at the bottom of an elevator shaft. It didn't go anywhere else. Getting past that required getting a blast door open, and then moving the elevator. And The PRT built the elevator car as a dead weight.

They could cut the cables to it whenever they wanted and use it to block up the shaft.

Lisa disconnected that first.

Then she started working at the rest of the panel.

Except…

"Something wrong, S?"

"This isn't the right panel," Lisa answered.

"Is that a problem?"

Well, she could still probably mess with it. It was Dragon's hardware. Just a different model. A cheaper one. Far less complex and lacking the tamper-proofs.

Did someone fuck up on the parts?

Lisa reached out and started pulling at the wires. There was something tied around one of them. A strip of tape rolled around the base of the cord. Lisa pulled it off.

Sorry, it said.

The word was written in crayons, different colors for different lines. Green. Red. Orange. Blue. Pink. Purple. Black. Yellow. The Y was missing an arm. White.

But how—

Aisha.

She could do it. If Aisha got in early, waited for guards to rotate in and out. She could pull the component without anyone watching and replace it with another. Someone would need the schematics for that, but it wasn't complicated.

But she'd show up on the security cameras.

Lisa thought back to the note she wrote herself.

It was a bit fuzzy. She asked Grue if Aisha was around. He gave her a hazy response. Which meant Aisha was around. Lisa wrote herself a note to check the room but she didn't see anyone on her phone.

Aisha showed up on video…unless someone was hacking the video in real time.

Only one person in Brockton Bay would be doing that.

Lisa's smile cracked and she started laughing.

"Oh, finally getting into the mood, S?" March chuckled. "About time. You were really bringing down the mood."

"We're fucked!" Lisa declared between chuckles.

Newtype's little robots did that.

They did it all the time. They hacked the cameras in her apartment so they didn't appear, or rerouted the feeds. She got a lecture about it the first two times, until Coil figured out it wasn't her. Probably figured he could use it against Newtype at some point.

Calvert and Krouse. They both had their own intentions, aside from Teacher's.

Aisha wasn't joining in to mess with her, she was working with Newtype.

Those two only had one possible reason to work together.

"Define fucked," March said.

Lisa waved a hand at the air. "Shit creek without paddles!"

Aisha was there the entire time. She heard the entire plan. If she heard the entire plan, and Newtype let it happen anyway…

Newtype is going after Teacher.

There was a small irony in going after him this way, but Newtype did have a vicious streak. She'd deny it, try to play nice, make some pithy comment about doing what was right. But push the right buttons and there was no one scarier. The only line between Taylor Hebert and murder was conscience, not capacity or desire.

Lisa crouched down again and started looking over the panel.

Faulty. There were fused circuits in a few places, but well hidden. Sabotaged. If Lisa tried to override the system, the elevator would drop and trap them on the detention level.

And it would look like faulty equipment.

Newtype was going after Teacher. This plan wasn't about Calvert. It was about the same thing Teacher was always about. Humiliate the PRT. Make them look weak and incapable.

She's not trying to stop us.

Lisa laughed again.

The pieces fell together. She couldn't be sure of the details, but she could guess. Newtype knew their plan. She sabotaged the elevator, and if she were smart she'd send Aisha to then take out Cherie. Without her the Wards would start picking off Bitch's dogs and retaking the building from the handful of discount mercs they brought.

She's trying to stop Teacher.

They lost before they even started.

Newtype was playing ahead.

All the credit would go to Aisha Laborn looking out for her brother and a faulty panel someone installed by accident! Which no one would care about. Serendipity never got credit for anything. Even the whole Russian Winter invasion bit didn't give credit to weather so much as human stupidity. People never wanted to face the reality of how little control they really had.

So the credit would really go to the Wards, the Protectorate, and the PRT. Newtype might get some. She wouldn't be sitting idle during all of this, but everyone expected great things from her by now.

The sudden and exceptional performance of the local heroes though?

She's handing the white hats the best kind of PR victory.

The exact opposite of what Teacher wanted. The Empire. Dragonslayers. Patriots. Undersiders. Just holding out against that onslaught from all sides was huge. If the heroes managed to capture a half dozen villains in the process it would be on the news for weeks.

She took Teacher's plan and fucked it and he'd never even know it was her.

Lisa felt very aware of the pager in her pocket suddenly. She slipped it into her pocket before leaving. It hadn't gone off once. The damn woman showed up to screw Calvert over but couldn't be bothered to pull Lisa out of the fire?

Fuck I'm fucked.

Could she cut a deal? No. The PRT wouldn't be cutting deals after this. They'd all go down and they'd go down hard.

No.

Aisha wouldn't stand for that. She bitched, yeah, but she cared about her brother. No plan that utterly screwed Brian would be acceptable to her. So what was the—

"Something to share with the class?" March asked.

"I'm thinking."

March tapped the chin of her mask. "So, we're fucked are we?"

"Royally."

Lisa rose to her feet, glad the PRT liked reflective surfaces so much. She could see March standing behind her.

Will kill you. Has orders. Warned that you might sabotage the plan.

Well, thanks power. She hadn't figured that out yet.

"And I wonder who did the fucking," March mused.

Taylor Hebert.

She fucked them before they'd really gotten started. Kind of beautiful in a way. Lisa would be impressed if it wasn't about to get her stabbed. She could rat little miss trailblazer out, but then what?

March might kill her anyway and then who would go after the real asshole? Lisa wasn't particularly inclined to hand a win over to Teacher, the jackass to end all jackasses. Stabbing didn't sound very good either.

Lisa crumpled the tape between her fingers.

Why leave me a note from the little devils?

Because Newtype knew she'd find it and stop.

Right. Taylor Hebert hated her guts, but she wouldn't want her dead. If Lisa pulled that plug and they all got trapped at the bottom of the shaft. March might just kill her, then.

So the note was her one lifeline.

Yes. Forecast might have limits, but she could figure out a few things, couldn't she? Taylor Hebert could find some way to keep things from totally shit. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too.

That girl has a thinker power. No tinker is this clever.

If she guessed Newtype's plan right though, she wouldn't send Aisha in a way that could be traced back to her. She'd be too cautious for that. The PRT would ask questions if they found out Newtype was playing them as much as anyone. No, Aisha would be used to get rid of Cherie and then to provide her brother a way out.

Count could probably figure the scheme out. If she did, she'd want to go along with it. Let the PRT and Protectorate arrest everyone.

So Lisa merely needed to stay alive and wait for things to play out.

March swung her sword up and pointed the tip at her.

Easier said than done.

"You're starting to look very suspicious, S."

"About as suspicious as you?" Lisa asked.

"Moi?"

Which was she? A pet or a pawn? Depending on which, one route might be a better way of staying alive than another.

"Coil didn't hire you," Lisa said.

March tilted her head. She glanced to one of the mercenaries, and asked, "How do I respond to that?"

The woman turned her head and shrugged. She had a hand on her gun, and Lisa tried to maintain a smile through gritted teeth.

"Yes, I'm rather at a loss too." March leaned in. "Wondering if maybe this whole thing was tits up from the start, and if so"—the sword moved—"how?"

The blade arced away from Lisa and swung toward the mercenary. The woman bent back, barely avoiding the tip. She pulled a gun from her belt and started shooting. March danced out of the way. The Mercenary fired, and the bullets hit one of the other mercs.

Then she grabbed Lisa's wrist and pulled her.

Lisa started, half expecting to find the next bullet going into her head. Would be Coil's style. Set up a situation where she'd burn through her power too quickly. Get her looking one place when she should be looking the other.

Lisa ignored the throbbing in her head, hoping beyond hope for something.

Is here to save you.

She blinked.

The Mercenary spoke up for the first time, saying, "Door, please."

The ground fell out from under her, and Lisa fell back onto a hardwood floor.

"Hi!" A blonde leaned over her. "Welcome to Sanc!"

Lisa raised her head. The room was ornate and decorated. The blonde looked down at her from a couch, and beside her an older man sat in a wheelchair. He smiled and waved.

She wasn't in the PRT building. The blonde said Sanc. As in the Sanc Kingdom? She'd feel relieved, but instead of relief she felt empty. Bitch and Grue were still in Brockton Bay, and they didn't realize they didn't stand a chance.

Brian might be okay, but Rachel…Lisa didn't dislike them. She didn't want them to get hurt. There is a certain romance in going down with the ship.

"Are you alright, Sarah?"

Count pulled the helmet on her head off and tossed it aside.

Slipped in to keep an eye on you. Keep her promise.

Lisa glared at her all the same.

"My apologies," Count offered. "I'm not sure what I did to tip March off."

Lisa scowled.

Teacher will continue thinking his rival screwed him. Teacher will know you're in her employ.

"Worst. Job. Ever."