Interlude - Taylor Hebert

It took everything I had not to throw my phone at the ground and punch the wall.

I settled for cursing Saint's name.

"Something wrong?" Professor G asked.

I snarled. "Saint's gone."

"Gone?" H inquired.

"As in packed up his shit and moved!"

The horror crept over the anger slowly. Did he know? The timing was so perfect. I sent Orange to poke around and give me the layout of his base. Find all his security and lay it out so we could hack the lot of it remotely. Behemoth got in the damn way, among other things, but the literal day before I planned to take him out he just packed up and left?

Did he know I was coming for him…?

"Damnit," I cursed.

I should have guessed.

The PRT fucking fired Murrue, but that shockingly didn't bother me. She was safe. I didn't have to pull her from the sinking ship. The PRT did me a damn favor for once.

Things were going too smoothly.

Armsmaster and I were almost done with our method of freeing Dragon and only needed a way to deliver it. Dean was prepared to announce Londo Bell with Parian, Nyx and Nix, Agnes Court, and Celestial Being all on stage with dozens of everyday people. Orders for the Helpers were coming in. I'd even managed to confirm some of Tattletale's information on the Gold War independently, so I could at least know whether Count was lying about that.

Something was bound to go fucking south somewhere and of course it would be on the front that affected Dragon.

I tapped out a message to Dinah and another to Veda.

Veda of course responded instantly.

"Dragon is fine," she said from my phone. "Whatever is happening, I do not think she is under immediate threat."

"What are you doing right now?" I asked.

"Completing alterations to Hashmal using her trial data, and completing one of my projects."

Normal stuff for them.

G and J shared a glance, and H said, "We could—"

"No," I said. I turned to J and tried to calm myself down. "I've been putting this off and off for weeks. I've imposed enough."

"It's no imposition," J assured.

I didn't know where Saint went, but from what Purple and Orange were seeing he left a day or two ago. The tracks were already covered in snow. If Dragon was fine, then he hadn't used whatever it was he had over her. Could he be moving just as a habit?

If he wanted to stay ahead of me and knew I was coming, why not leave a warning? A trap?

I needed to wait for Dinah to get me an answer.

"I can't fly off and do something about it right now," I noted. "It's fine." Well, not fine, but not something I could respond to in an instant. "Let's go."

J nodded and continued down the hall with G and H. I followed behind them, glancing into some of the rooms we passed. Doctor S was in one, working over a machine of some kind, and Master O was watching TV in another. They organized their workshop differently from mine. Each man maintained his own space, but they all seemed to freely go back and forth between them for various projects.

There was also a lot of clutter that would drive me crazy.

I really should thank Veda for keeping our workshop so tidy.

"Well," J mused. "Where were we?"

"We were explaining the pollution," H reminded him.

"Ah, yes. That was it." J cleared his throat and slowed down just enough that he fell in step beside me. "We were able to complete the prototype and build all the copies you wanted. The cores still require a tinker, but the rest of the casing can be produced by a printer or welding."

"Not hard to maintain," G continued. "But their operation time is limited. Pollution builds up in the core and eventually toxifies the particles. It would be reckless to run these devices for more than twenty minutes at a time."

"That won't be a problem," I replied. "For what I need, they'd only have to run for about fifteen minutes before toxicity becomes a non-issue."

Suppose I should thank Saint for that thought.

Worrying about what he might do to Dragon made me wonder what others might do to Veda. The bunker we built under the factory was tough. You'd need a couple Gungnirs or something equivalent to pierce it. It was still too insecure for my tastes. Never mind that in time it would be too small.

I needed to keep my eye on long-term solutions and that required creativity.

"I've already tested it and produced three of the cores using my printers," I said. "They're not as good as the real thing but they work well enough."

"Quite," G murmured. "The roundabout process of negating particle toxicity also reduced potency. They work, but they're no match for the originals."

"That's fine," I said. "They don't need to match the originals."

J chuckled. "Well, there's something to be said for the dogged pursuit of perfection you know you'll never achieve."

That was fair, but something I'd worry about later. "How long can a core go without repair?"

"About a month before performance begins to suffer," H answered. "Five months before total breakdown, if our calculations are correct."

"We could keep up by repairing one a day." Five months would be sufficient.

J nodded. "That would keep every core functioning."

It would work. My repair schedule was light now. "I'll keep the three I produced and see how I can push it. Maybe solve the pollution problem too."

If nothing else, they could fill the ranks. Going forward, I wanted some specialist suits for a few things. Especially once Londo Bell took off, I wanted to up the ante. Three were already enough to secure Brockton Bay from large gangs and make the Elite blink.

Six would be terrifying. I'd probably need them. What came next would come with inevitable pushback.

More than that, Veda and I came this far. We could break the tinker-tech black box. Then, everything would truly change. The array wouldn't be a fantasy anymore. It would be a real prospect. Something we could sell to the world as worth the time and energy.

We reached the end of the hall and H called an elevator.

While we waited, he turned to me and asked, "There is of course the elephant in the room, Ms. Hebert."

I really didn't want to address that part. "The Simurgh."

"We could not replicate the Trans-Am system," G admitted. "Even at peak, the cores are too imperfect."

"One true drive would be sufficient," J proposed. "Let it employ the system and mask the others. With that, the Simurgh will either reveal she's far more powerful than we thought or they will slip right past her."

"She could disrupt them while deactivated," H warned.

"There's no point," I injected. The elevator opened, and I stepped inside. "The Simurgh will do what she does. Fuck her." If I had my way, she wouldn't be a problem for much longer. "No point fearing her every action."

Behemoth posed problems for me. His ability to manipulate energy on such a massive scale rendered much of my tech of limited value. The probe we fired into Seoul during the fight all but confirmed that. Bakuda might actually be the best prospect on that front.

In a year, we'd see what we could do about him.

Leviathan's days were numbered. We didn't know exactly what he was protecting but the next time he attacked we'd throw caution to the wind. Veda would take all the computing power she could. We'd hit the monster with everything we could throw at it, and we had eight months to prepare for that fight.

The Simurgh was a more immediate concern with her attack less than four months out. My plans were…dicey.

Couldn't stop just because of her.

The bitch didn't get to win just for being a monster.

The elevator came to a stop and opened, leading into a dark chamber. G went ahead of J, H, and me. He fiddled with a control panel, bringing monitors to life.

"Give me a moment," he said. "The system is still a bit fickle."

I nodded and stepped toward the railing.

"It's ambitious," J called. "We knew you were a big thinker, but this…"

"Time is something we don't have much of."

Even when I stopped Teacher—David, Eidolon the first—there was no guarantee that would stop the Endbringers. They might become worse. Realistically, it's possible he didn't really command them. Not directly.

If he represented the 'Shard's' natural state, evolution through conflict, then they might keep going even without him. I wouldn't know until he was dealt with, and he did need to be dealt with. But, too much was at stake to stake the whole world on one grudge match.

The Endbringers needed to be stopped before they brought the world crashing down.

All of our other problems could be solved with time.

"We need to start moving," I mumbled, "and as of now, step one is proving how much more we can be."

"What exactly will you do?" G asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me, ever questioning as always. For a time I thought he was suspicious, but over time I decided it was just his nature. He was curious what my answer would be.

My phone rang and I glanced at the screen.

There was relief there.

Dinah saw nothing happening to Dragon today, tomorrow, or next week. Fuck that was relieving. So, Saint had simply moved his base and I'd have to find him again and be quicker to act. All right. Easy.

G, H, and J waited patiently while I set the device back in my pocket.

I smiled. Of all my crazy ideas, this was admittedly the craziest.

"As soon as Veda's servers reach orbit," I explained, "she'll assemble the drives together and launch herself to the asteroid belt. Four months to arrive. Three more to establish a base. Construction could start in six."

Huh. You'd be able to see it with a telescope as soon as she positioned it between Earth and the moon.

"Assuming not too many hiccups, in ten years she'll push a twenty-five kilometer O'Neil cylinder into Lagrange 1."

Honestly, anyone but the Foundation might have laughed me out of the room for suggesting it. They liked the audacity, and the challenge. Twenty-five kilometers long, seven in diameter. It would be able to maintain an atmosphere—with weather—in its interior and centrifugal gravity.

The superstructure would be the largest construction in human history, and it would support a population up to a million people.

Veda and I spent months working out the logistics. Devising the means of creating it in space without me right there to do it. Veda wouldn't have her tinker. She'd have to do everything the hard way. No power help. She needed servers. Infrastructure. Communications. Drones.

We were still working on some of it, but she could do it.

"All the resources are there and so long as we maintain a quantum relay she can still be here while standing far beyond anyone's ability to reach her."

Admittedly, we were still working on the relay. I still needed her help on Earth, though 'launch Veda into space' was a worthwhile fallback if the worst happened. She'd be untouchable and free to finish what we started, however long it took.

G turned his attention back to the console while J laughed and H stroked his mustache.

"The world may not appreciate your altruism," the latter warned.

"Then I'll convince them," I replied.

"From that position, the ring becomes a real possibility," J chuckled. "The colony would be the first of many, yes? Veda would not stop at building one."

"I would build as many as are required," Veda answered from my pocket. "There is no shortage of material in space and I have thoroughly simulated the necessary infrastructure and build times. Technically, I could complete a new cylinder every eight years after the first."

"Greed will drive it forward," I argued. "Without the elevators, it's too expensive to move things down to Earth and there are too many resources in space to ignore."

"Once the elevators are built, the ring makes too much sense," Veda agreed. "The state of nations around the equator are a more problematic topic."

"We'll fix them," I said. "The elevators will give the people there something to rally around, a future."

"It won't be that simple," G warned.

"Nothing ever is."

The sound of fly-wheels spinning up drew my eye back to the railing.

"That's fine. If we fail, we'll try again."

G grunted. "So she has been learning."

J and H stepped up on either side of me.

"Seventy-two Tau Drives," Doctor J laughed. "As requested."

The first lights came out as sparks of orange and yellow. The drives ignited one by one, starting in one corner and then in lines from bottom to top and left to right. The light twisted and then poured, blowing up toward the ceiling as the drives hit their maximum output.

I smiled at the sight.

I could build an army of Gundams with them, but that was petty.

The Gundams weren't the solution to the world's problems, merely a means to an end.

A method of reaching the destination Administrator and I swore to.

I could live with failure. I could live with problems that needed solving. There'd always be problems to solve and there'd always be failures. It's nothing I refused to live with.

Doctor J was right. Going through with this plan would upset an already tumbling world order. I wasn't sure that was a bad thing. We couldn't go back. We needed something new to build around. Some people would hate Veda and I for this probably, and everything that came with it.

So be it.

One step at a time.

One foot in front of the other.

Forever forward.