A Waken 17.4
My hand worked quickly to fit the large blade.
00 was crouched and leaning forward, exposing the rear of the Raiser unit. It looked like a jet fuselage, with hardpoints on either side. One was still empty while I worked on the intended weapon. The other was now carrying the new Buster Sword, a variation that could be fitted over a longsword like a bladed holster.
The edge was a sharp and vibrant green, shorter but broader than the previous version.
I doubted I'd need it today, but I was done being caught off-guard. Even if I was surprised, I wanted to be decisive.
"That's heavy," Weld mumbled from behind me.
"Yeah," I replied.
Our surroundings were dark and empty. A Haro set up some 'under construction' tape to keep anyone from parking on this particular floor. That meant it was just us.
"Does it hurt?" Bough asked, his voice leaden.
I grimaced and focused my hands on the final fitting. "Yes."
Bough immediately turned his oversized head toward Weld. "We should move."
Weld nodded. "We'll—"
"No," I affirmed. "You guys stay where you are."
They both stared at me, as did the other nearby Case-53s who'd been quietly listening.
"You just told us your power is screaming at you every time you're near us," Blesk reminded me. He looked mostly normal, save for his yellow skin.
Behind him, the massive and moss-covered Gentle Giant added, "Which is weird but—"
"We don't like putting others out," Weld explained. "We need help from others, and we relied a lot on our friends in the Protectorate and the Wards for that help."
"We don't want to be a burden," Giant said more bluntly. "No more than necessary. We're not invalids."
"It's weird enough that you talk to your power all the time," Blesk continued. "I mean"—he glanced around—"that's weird, right?"
The others nodded.
"Super fucking weird," Mouser commented as she lounged on a concrete barricade. She looked like a cat girl. Because of course there was a Case-53 cat girl. Query? I blamed the internet. "About as weird as finding out powers have minds of their own and ours are Frankstein slurries."
"Frankenstein," Giant corrected.
"That's what I said."
Weld's reaction was one of wide-eyed realization. I felt his brain churning even through Administrator's aggressive proposals that we leave and stop talking to the 'violations.'
"That's what's upsetting her, isn't it?" Weld looked me up and down. "Your power comes from the second one, right? Scion. Cauldron made ours with the corpse of the other one." I nodded confirmation while I kept working. "Your power is reacting to that, isn't it?"
"She'll just have to deal with it," I insisted. Rejection! "You guys aren't going anywhere, and none of this is your fault. Cauldron did this. To you. To the Thinker. To those Shards they cut up and spliced back together."
I stepped back from 00 and surveyed my work.
The Buster Sword was joined by a new set of swords explicitly designed for 00.
A pair of longswords with pistols built-in. Instead of barrels that needed the blades folded back to fire, I made the blades to project a bolt along their length. The blades themselves were part of the barrel now and I had one longsword for each hand.
There were two khatars in holsters on each leg. Three bandoliers of beam sabers. I'd forgone recreating my short sword design. The ability to project a debilitating wave of GN particles was built into the khatars. Same function with less gear. I'd included a full spread of GN Missiles stored in the Raiser's binder wings, along with a few other surprises.
"Sometimes living in the world means living with things that turn your stomach. She's just going to have to learn."
I said it to Administrator as much as my friends.
"If you say so," Mouser mused.
Giant also seemed to accept my statement without a worry.
Bough and Weld looked doubtful, and Blesk seemed more than a little angry. Not at me. Cauldron, maybe.
"We live next door," Bough pointed out. "Doesn't that mean you're dealing with her being upset half the day? And when you sleep?"
"She seems to zone out while I'm asleep," I offered. "Or maybe that's just the part of her connected to me."
"Makes me a bit glad I decided to keep sharing a suite with Theo." Weld folded his metal hands together. "I'd been considering moving out but I think he likes having someone else around, and it's good for me too."
"Getting friends outside our own circle is hard," Bough agreed.
"I feel like we're still skipping over the whole 'Newtype talks to her power' thing," Mouser commented. She looked at her claw-nails and swiped her tail back and forth over the side of the barricade. "Let's talk about that and how surreal that is. Can we talk to our powers?"
"I doubt it." Administrator gave me another angry tirade, but it answered my question. "Your Shards are dead, in a sense."
"Dead?" Bough pondered and that line had gotten the others visibly thinking. "But we have powers."
"Shards aren't human," I reminded them. "They're huge. Vast. Most of them are interconnected to one another to the point I'm not sure we can tell where one ends and the other begins. Administrator is nine Shards bound together, one of them being herself."
"That's just confusing," Mouser complained.
"That's one word for it." Blesk shuddered. "Kind of unnerving."
"Both ways, when you think about it." They all seemed surprised to hear me say it. "My power's alive and talks to me. Yours are dead, but they're still talking."
Weld grimaced. "They are?"
"I'm pretty sure Administrator has no eyes. The Shards see by talking to one another, and the only way she can even know yours are there is because they're saying something."
Bough pursed his lips. "That is…"
"Perfectly understandable?" Mouser asked.
"You said perfectly," Giant quipped.
Mouser sat up in surprise, inhaled a hissing breath, and scowled. "Shut up."
"Taylor." Weld stood up and came close to me. "There's seventy of us living right next door."
Taking a firm hold of my connection to Administrator, I said, "She'll just have to get used to it."
Administrator ruminated on that while I went around to the front of my suit and climbed inside.
The armor closed around me but I didn't start up the GN Drives. 00 couldn't hide itself as easily as my other suits and I didn't want to give us away yet. The HUD started up and I settled. My hands grasped for controls that weren't there anymore and I sighed.
I had a mind to put the controls back in if only because I'd find them comfortable.
Weld came around to the front of the suit, looking up at the faceplate. "It's not like it would be so inconvenient to just move over a building. You asked Veda to buy it right? The way you describe it, you only really hear other powers within sixteen or so meters."
I settled myself, testing the Trace connection by rising up to stand over Weld.
"She should appreciate your similarities," I suggested, watching Administrator in my mind. "Cauldron plucked you guys from who knows where and used you to test methods to make a better cape. Cauldron also killed both Entities and left Administrator without her parents."
"Weren't those things going to blow up the planet?" Blesk asked.
"Turns out crappy parents aren't unique to humanity," I replied. "Point is, she should be appreciating that you're all victims of circumstance trying to rebuild your worlds from nothing rather than constantly being angry about something someone else did."
"Does she always talk about this so openly?" Mouser asked, breaking the silence before it began.
"Basically," Giant answered. "It's kind of refreshing."
"Everyone's going to have to know eventually," I explained. "The Shards aren't going anywhere any more than you all are. Without Scion they're stuck here and as much as I dread that someone will eventually try, I doubt we could wipe them out."
Weld crossed his arms. "Hadn't thought of that."
"Might still be best not to go blabbing about it," Mouser warned. "As an expert on short-sighted decision making, people excel at short-sighted decision making."
"I just wanted you all to know," I defended. Bonus points, one awkward conversation was a good distraction from another more awkward conversation. "I'm sure some of you have already noticed my reaction whenever any of you are around." Weld nodded. "I don't exactly like tasting bile every time Administrator gets disgusted at you."
Mouser groaned. "See, that's the sort of detail that's maybe best kept to yourself."
"You would have a problem with honesty," Blesk grumbled.
Mouser shot him a pointed glare and Weld quickly stepped in to break things up before it became a fight.
I let him do that and focused on calming my stomach. Administrator had withdrawn a bit, her mind distracted and no longer centered on the presence of the Case-53s. It was a welcome relief.
Able to focus a bit better, I started looking at the data-stream on my HUD. Or, as Lafter had taken to calling it, the 'raid' bar. "How are we doing?"
"All teams are almost in position," Veda informed me. "Tattletale and Forecast are collecting the final pieces of data. I'm finalizing the plan of attack with Faultline and Defiant."
I nodded and reviewed what she was putting together. I needed to force myself not to correct every little thing I didn't like. It's just how it was now. Time to accept it.
"One other thing," Veda added.
She projected a window on my HUD and played video from a Haro's eyes.
"Well then," I mused. A smile spread over my face.
I watched on the feed as seven capes emerged from a shimmer in the air. They came through the portal one by one.
"Where is this?" I asked.
"Houston," Veda answered.
She gave me the address.
They weren't far from Azrael's stupid little meeting. A rooftop about two blocks away with cover from above. They weren't capes I knew but they definitely weren't Elite or Protectorate. There was only one person I could think of who would send anyone to watch Azrael in anticipation of anything happening.
"It is sad in a way," Veda lamented. "Lying is a very effective tactic."
"I'm okay with it," I replied. "Teacher wants to play stupid games. Let him win stupid prizes."
I'd said in front of a snake I planned to cut off another snake's head. Of course he assumed that meant I wanted Azrael, so he sent some people to stake out and wait to crash the party. "We have David's attention."
"I do not recognize the teleporting power," Veda informed me. "None of the present capes match the original Eidolon's description."
"Doesn't matter. Jack their phones and see where they go when they realize we did something else tonight."
"Already done."
Teacher might have brought down the PRT, but that's only because he knew where all the holes and skeletons were. The people best equipped to stop him trusted him too much to suspect the traitor was a friend. Time to see how he handled having a real enemy.
Later.
I'd be patient and wait to see how easily David was led around by the nose first.
At the moment, Azrael was doing damage control. I think.
He'd arranged a big meeting. All the remaining Blue Cosmos bigwigs were there and they were what I expected. A mix of fanatics and opportunists. Azrael sat at the head of the table, talking back and forth with those gathered in the room.
Occasionally they threw out a code phrase or two, but that didn't matter anymore. Between all the thinkers and Veda, we'd finally cracked their code. Turns out the phrases only really meant a few general things with multiple ones sharing the same meanings. Since any one phrase could mean one of a half-dozen different things it was near impossible to understand their conversations with zero context on where to start.
Watching them basically agree to do Operation British immediately, whether Djibril was ready or not, was disappointing. Part of me had been optimistic they might fracture and start turning on Azrael as his star fell. That they'd see reason and reverse course.
Turns out if you're rich, you can just 'pay' the justice system to leave you be for as long as your lawyers can blabber.
And, if no one cares about anything but their own anger and fueling it, they don't care what you do.
Azrael had been publicly admonished and the organization distanced itself from him. But only in public. Behind the scenes, he was still directing things from his suite in Houston. We'd ravaged Phantom Pain in France without a casualty or even major injury.
They still talked like the moment they started, the 'silent majority' would rise up.
Abstination? I think if the silent majority really existed and were really going to do that, it would have happened already. Condemnation. We both had the same general opinion about people sitting on their butts and not doing anything. Well, that whole idea was kind of anathema to the Shards, though I don't think Administrator was fully appreciating the network's situation.
Rejection.
Later.
For now, I began spinning up the GN Drives. "Veda, patch everyone together. Time to make this work."
Veda began connecting all the teams together.
"This thing working?" Lisa asked.
"We hear you," Colin answered. "All teams call in."
"Transit team," Claire said. It was admittedly just her, Doormaker, Stargazer and Strider because I'd hired him for the night. "Ready, I guess? Tango?"
"New York one," Nyx said.
"New York two."
"New York three," Colin said.
"Boston one," Weld said at my side.
"Boston two," Nix said from the other side of town.
"Chicago one."
On and on it went. About twenty teams of five to six, spread across the US with three teams in France, the UK, and Italy. We might be too numerous for the Protectorate to contain, but we weren't infinite.
Let Teacher's cronies sit waiting for me in Houston.
Even Blue Cosmos wasn't insane enough to pick a fight in Eidolon's—the second one—city.
"All teams accounted for," Colin announced.
I took a breath, reminding myself that trust was important and that I still found it an uncomfortable necessity. That's just how it was.
"Veda. Take command."
"Understood. All teams prepare to assault your initial targets. I am now contacting the Protectorate, PRT, Internationals, Kingsmen, and corporate teams to inform them of the situation."
"The moment we go," Lisa interjected, "the cells will go all in. They're already set to attack. The only reason they haven't is to move some things around after we tore their French cousins apart."
Veda reprised, continuing, "If you reach a target and it is not present, inform me and move on. Thinkers will identify where the target has gone and a quicker team will intercept them if they are a threat. Smarter cells are likely to go to ground to avoid us."
"I wouldn't count on there being many of those," Lisa explained. "A lot of the cells are distractions meant to draw heroes and law enforcement out. They're mostly flunkies no one trusts to do anything important. The real shooters are gonna be ex-military, SWAT, cops—the kind of type-A assholes who are too aggressive and too unrestrained for shrinking budgets to keep around and who will never admit they're assholes."
"Focus," Colin added. "Keep one eye on your objectives and one on your teams."
"Stay alive," I concluded. "Phantom Pain is what Phantom Pain is. They've made their choice. If it comes down to them or you, or them or innocent people... Make the choice you can live with."
Query.
I turned my attention to Administrator as the GN Drives ignited. Our connection strengthened, pulling me closer to her. We stood in our void, looking over an imaginary city. Not any real city. There were famous buildings from New York, Chicago, Paris, and Boston present. Golden Gate Bridge too.
Destination.
And then the imagined city was on fire.
Justification?
So she had been thinking about what I'd said.
She cocked her head to the side, waiting.
Veda gave the word.
"Go."
I burst forward. 00 raced down the length of the parking garage and slammed through the wall. Bricks shattered and spiraled, blasting like shrapnel into the apartment. An apartment with a coffee table full of routers, modems, and laptops.
My entrance threw the occupants back. One managed to land flat on his back and draw a pistol from his belt. The flat of my blade knocked the weapon aside and a stream of light burst down the length of the blade into his chest. My other sword swung out and flipped the coffee table. It slammed into two more men and a woman.
The electronics flew too and I ignored them.
Around the room, other figures scrambled. Mostly for doors. Blesk blocked the main exit, teleporting into the hall on the other side with Giant. Weld came up behind me, arms formed in the shape of tower shields. He blocked my exit but raised one arm.
Mouser ducked under the limb, arms up and hands folded behind her head.
Her eyes settled on the man who'd tried to reach for a weapon. "You seem like the kind of competent guy someone in charge would trust with valuable information."
Mouser let herself drop onto the man's chest. He jerked up with a wide and sloppy swing from the right. She deflected his punch and planted a hand on his throat. She leaned her weight onto her arm, threatening to choke him while she smiled widely.
He looked different than the others. His face was more intense and his body more muscled. He also responded quickly to my entrance, while the others had scrambled or needed a moment to respond.
"Let's chitchat," Mouser implored. "Got anything to drink around here?"
"Mouser," Weld chided.
"What?"
"You're supposed to be thinking," Blesk noted. "Not creepy flirting."
Mouser gave him a stare. "What's the difference?"
Weld and Giant started binding wrists with zip-ties while sighing. Bough climbed in behind me and started going through the electronics.
In my ear, callouts echoed.
"Chicago one—cell disabled. We have a terminal here."
"Seattle. Same, and a room of explosives. We need a tinker to dispose of it."
"San Diego. Our target is empty. They've already moved."
"Switch to your alternate," Veda ordered. "Hunch can check on the targets we've identified. Newtype."
Administrator pressed.
The fires weren't real. That was clear from how nothing in the imagined landscape burned up. It simply remained on fire.
Reason.
I knew what she meant. If our goal was to end the fighting, then why were we fighting? It wasn't admonishment or criticism. She was curious. Conflict was something she knew and she'd picked up that I didn't like it. Or at least, she'd picked up that I didn't want to like it.
I was past the point of denying the thrill that came with power. It wasn't the point.
Can my mother be returned to me?
Administrator stared like I'd asked a stupid question.
Not what I was going for. She can't. She's gone and there's nothing I can do about it now. Looking out over the city, I said, Inevitable.
I burned the city down for her but halted the flames as an image of 00 flew through the city. Even now, this battle was unavoidable. The pain that came with it would come no matter what we did. We could stop it from burning down everything, like firefighters who got to the flames before they could truly burn it all away.
Suffering, Administrator noted. Pain.
Inevitable.
In this world, there would always be pain. Until it changed.
Possibility, she concluded, growing a colony city out of the landscape.
This made sense to her. She knew why Shards accepted conflict, even why they sought it out. She knew I wanted an end to conflict. Looking out at that future place, she wanted to know why I was acting like a Shard.
Destination, I replied, acknowledging the city. Someday.
I raised my head and rolled the image back to the world on fire.
Not today.
"Door, please."
Weld gave me a friendly nod as I swung the GN Drives forward and shot myself backward. The portal opened in the hole I'd made.
Veda: diverting traffic now
On the other side, I dropped down, flying toward downtown San Diego. Veda identified the vehicle. My longswords swung forward and the GN Drives gave a sudden surge of particles as I dove.
I raced toward the ground, reaching it just at the moment the lights switched and the SUV entered the intersection alone.
00's knee slammed into the hood, cracking the air and flipping the back of the vehicle up into the air. I swung my sword overhead, cutting into the vehicle and shearing it down the middle. The GN Drives shifted forward and up.
A wave of green glittering force blew the SUV open, peeling it back like a clam and slamming the passengers into their seats. Inside, I found four men and a woman. Their hearts were still beating. They'd live.
The woman and three of the men looked young and like they'd just walked off the street. One of the men looked like he lived in the army surplus store. The front passenger was the only one who knew what he was doing. The other four were just scapegoats to spread responders thin.
"Fools," I whispered.
Communication was still rattling off but I couldn't track all of it. Veda was managing the big picture with a little help from Lisa. Coordinating so many teams in so many cities? I couldn't possibly do it.
Veda could, and that left me feeling awkward again as I found myself outside my traditional place.
I stood in the intersection, waiting. My head looked straight as people leaned out of the windows or got fully out of their cars. They stared. They pointed. They shouted. They took pictures with their phones. I normally let that roll off me. It was something that people did in a world with superpowers. They gawked.
Tonight it agitated me a lot more than usual.
There were three figures in the distance. Fliers. I recognized Rime's costume among them. She'd lost her position and a lot of her respect, but she was still in the Protectorate. She was well regarded enough that her fuck up in Toronto didn't completely tank her. It just dead-ended her.
The other two capes that were with her were less familiar to me.
Avadar, a fantasy-themed cape who projected light into shapes. Wings, at present. The other was Dark Wing, a cape with a minor wind-altering power. If I had to guess, Avadar was in charge.
My prediction was confirmed when the trio landed in the intersection and she waved Rime back while stepping forward herself.
"Newtype," she greeted.
Rime was glaring at me, though not with pure anger. Her Shard was the pure angry one, and not like Seahawk. Her anger was raw and personal, not an outside force. Rime I'd say was more frustrated than angry. Supremely disappointed.
I was about to make small talk because it was polite, but a portal opened.
Rime had become guarded, as had Dark Wing.
I skated 00 over the ground toward the portal. "Another time."
"Wai—"
I shot back through the portal as Avadar reached out.
Through the portal, I shot down a street. Flashes of gunfire and blue light went back and forth through a parking garage to my right. The battle was already drawing a crowd—a crowd parting as an armed man stumbled down a ramp with a gun in his hands.
He started pointing it at people, shouting at them while they started to move.
Warning.
I know.
Before any of the bystanders made it far, the wind blew their hair and clothes back. I crushed the running gunman's weapon and hands with my sword. He screamed, and I threw him back toward the parking garage with a hard shove.
It was rougher than it needed to be, but that was the message that had to be sent.
Because, "This isn't a plan to win. It's just a threat to slaughter."
Give me what I want, or I blow it up. All while they pointed fingers and called everyone else the problem. I'd probably be less bothered by that insanity if I were in a better position to have stopped it earlier. I wondered if I could have. I'd spent a lot of time waiting, biding my time while others made their moves so I could hit them at the moment they were least prepared.
I found myself standing and waiting again, though people were much closer to me. The apparent dearth of distance seemed to be taken as permission to approach.
Gliding down the alley as I exited, I barreled through the line of six men and two capes with them. The capes wore suits rather than costumes and no masks. I swung my legs forward and rotated the GN Drives straight back. The particles blew down the alley like a tsunami, rolling the gunmen and some trash cans away.
One of the capes began to change, shimmering into a man-shaped mist that got thrown all the way out into the street. He reformed into a solid shape right after a car drove through him. A horn blared and I fired a second missile that went high and exploded above him. He dropped to the ground and Strider appeared over him. When the mover left he took the stranger straight to a cell that would hold him.
The rest of those in the alley were being handled by a Haro and I was already flying through another portal.
The water kicked up behind me as I approached. The warehouse ahead exploded out, and Lafter pile-drove a suited man into the ground. A stream of fire rolled over Kyrios and I unleashed a volley of beams from both swords as I swung around and came through the other side of the building.
Guns immediately turned on me, and one of the two fire-spewing blasters spun around and unleashed their power. The fire was hot. I instantly felt it despite the GN field and the armor.
It didn't stop me. I cut through the side and caught the blaster in the side. He shot across the warehouse, bouncing off the ground and colliding with an overturned black van. Firing to my right, I shot two men in the chest and broke the collar of a third with an elbow.
The second blaster turned on me.
Her power was the same as the other's. Intense flames and heat rippled out of the ground at her feet. Twins, like Fenja and Menja or Nix and Nyx?
Difference?
Huh. The Shards couldn't tell the difference between twins? That would explain why three sets of them featured the same powers. I'd never seen capes with such similar powers otherwise.
I also had to wonder if Cauldron had done it on purpose. Both of their Shards came from vials and Administrator was a bit too eager to hit first and talk later.
I ignored her, firing beams through the warehouse to disable the rest of the gunmen. Kyrios projected a shield and used it to bludgeon the cape into the ground, then smacked her with the third cape like he was a club.
"Still feels kind of mean," Lafter mumbled.
We pulled everyone out of the warehouse and I shot a missile inside. The ammo and the explosives the cell had gathered exploded, blowing the warehouse apart and giving Maimi a nice light show.
Kyrios' head turned. "So... how you doing?"
"Coping," I answered.
Honestly, part of me hoped that they'd change their minds. That a display of raw force would cow them into submission. Most of them, at least.
That even after everything, it still didn't need to come to this.
A portal opened.
"We should watch a movie later," Lafter suggested. "Just chill."
I inhaled. "Yeah. Let's do that."
Kyrios spun about and flew into the portal. Another opened as soon as that one closed.
Emerging into the construction site, I took quick note of the disabled men along the ground.
Identifying a target, I threw my sword forward. It cut into the hand of the brute trying to hammer Defiant with a slab of concrete, costing the woman her balance and sending her weapon down atop her own head.
She started to turn to face me, her free hand grasping the sword to pull it free.
I charged, my newly-freed hand reaching over 00's shoulder and pulling the buster sword aloft.
The blade slammed down on her shoulder. The bone snapped and the woman screamed. The butt of Defiant's weapon shot out as she fell. It coiled around her thigh and one good pull plus the firing of his suit's thrusters brought the woman down.
Despite the broken shoulder, she grabbed Defiant's line and tried to pull herself free. I brought my foot down on her arm and snapped that too.
"Surrender," Defiant ordered. With a quick burst of energy, he launched himself off the ground and landed in a standing position. His extra arm shot out and fired a wave of energy that threw another cape into the air. "You're outnumbered."
"One way of putting it." Vicky flew over an overpass and hauled a flying cape with a snapped leg behind her. She raised her arm, wincing as a stray beam of energy rolled over her. Cecil brought the car down on the blaster, trapping him under the vehicle. "I'd say the quality is a problem too."
I turned the speakers all the way up. "Enough."
Around me, everyone froze.
Cecil rose up straight, his body changed into that of a hunched lizard-like form. Vicky held her prisoner firm and Colin approached the brute cautiously. To my right, Jinx and Trono, a pair of capes from Sante Fe who'd joined up with Londo Bell, helped pull the third member of the Phantom Pain cape team out of a car door.
The brute looked back and forth and started to speak.
"Be quiet," I told her. "You can talk plenty when it's over."
"Three for isolation," Colin said.
A door opened and the team herded the captured capes inside. Cells in Toronto would hold them for now.
A flash of light and a crack signaled the arrival of Stargazer. The Thrones followed after the suit, setting down around the construction site as Cecil and Trono got the last prisoner to walk through the portal.
Vicky flew over, glaring at the portal until it closed. "I don't get it."
"They know the world is broken," I told her. "And they know capes are the reason why."
"But—"
"It is a position not without merit," Colin interrupted. He'd managed to get his armor into decent shape. His halberd looked worn but serviceable, and there was a second slung over his back. "We can debate the merits of it another time."
"Are we winning?" Jinx asked. Her costume was an eclectic mix of pink, green, and purple. I think Lafter would enjoy it. "And if so, by how much?"
"We have disabled the majority of the distraction cells before they could deploy," Veda answered. "Phantom Pain's coordination has been crippled. Blue Cosmos' bank accounts have been stripped. Lafter and Mantellum's teams have disabled the other two cells with capes we identified."
"So what now?" Cecil asked. He came over with Trono, his body contorted into a giant lizard form. His power reminded me of Lung's but a lot quicker and without fire. It was kind of surreal actually. "That doesn't sound like all the capes."
"It is not," Veda confirmed. "These groups were those that would have tried to sow chaos or disrupt response while strike teams carried out targeted attacks."
"Those teams are a lot more competent," I explained. "They haven't exposed themselves as much and they won't jump without a plan or..."
I glanced toward Stargazer.
"Or they will do something very extreme and regrettable," Veda finished.
"It'll depend on how Teacher wants to play this out," I surmised. "He's got Pets in Phantom Pain just like Blue Cosmos. He's going to push these events in the direction that suits his ends."
Negation.
I tilted my head.
Her?
Confirmation.
"And"—I hesitated—"that's not accounting for other players who might try to take advantage of the situation."
Either way, we couldn't just find them. They had cover from precogs and David using his own thinker network to cover for them. Number Man gave us a lot, but he wasn't magic. Irrelevance. Science doesn't become magic even if it is sufficiently advanced. That's just perspective. Irrelevance.
That the Simurgh might be running her own little scheme inside Teacher's plan had worried me for a long time, and as much as Administrator felt like a traitor for ratting, she'd confirmed that suspicion. I just wished she could give me more detail. From what I'd gathered, the Simurgh didn't have a direct connection to the network that Administrator could hone in on.
"We've gotten about three quarters of their flunkie teams," Lisa said. "The ones we knew about anyway. We've got seventeen capes down. About seventy thugs, and forty support staff. Not bad."
"But not enough," I warned. "Phantom Pain has more than that."
"We're still clearing in LA," Badmouth informed us.
"Are you behaving yourself?" Colin asked.
"I said I would." The viginate groaned. "First Avadar and now you. This is what I get for pitching in."
"What about New York one and two?" I inquired.
"We're still going," Nyx replied.
"I figure we'll get most of the idiot brigade," Lisa postulated. "That'll give the non-idiots pause. They'll know the networks they're using are compromised but not how badly compromised."
"I'm guessing there's a reason we didn't wait till they showed themselves?" Cecil asked, looking at me.
"If we'd waited any longer there would be bombings and fires in major cities on two continents," I told him. His eyes widened. "This was as long as we could put it off."
I turned toward StarGazer, waiting.
She shook the suit's head. I grimaced.
Veda: the cell was dead
I blinked.
Veda: I suspect Ali al-Saachez saw the writing on the wall, killed his fellows, and fled
Coward... With a deep breath, I pushed it from my mind. If Ali wanted to crawl off into some hole because his free pass to kill was going up in smoke, let him. I had bigger problems.
"Got a note from the PR lady by the way," Lisa continued. "Apparently we're even getting calls from the State Department."
"The King's Men are very unhappy," Baskerville said in a thick accent. Most of the London team were locals who signed up with Londo Bell. "I think Lord Waltson is still chasing us."
"Is that bad?"
It was Boost's voice. I looked at Veda again and she told me he was fine.
"We have an entire team of lawyers lined up to handle it," I assured him. I'd been worried about him because of his age, but he'd adamantly refused to sit out the night. Something about running away when Leviathan came to Boston, which I could appreciate. "Let them do their job. We'll do ours."
"Forecast," I called. "We need a survey."
"We're already on it," Hunch revealed. "Sorry. She's using her power right now. I still have a taste in my mouth. Something like sour grapes again."
"Even non-idiots make stupid choices," Faultine announced. "Don't count them out based on this. This was the easy part."
"She's right," I agreed. "We'll start regrouping—"
"They're beginning their broadcast," Veda interrupted..
She opened the window on my HUD. The one showing Azrael was still there and I'd noticed when those in the room began scrambling and shouting. They'd gotten word something was going wrong. Azrael wasn't very good at hiding his panic without a TV audience watching. His assistant was whispering and Azrael's knuckles were going white against the table.
On the new window, there was a man with a black box over his face.
"We are Phantom Pain," he said in a cold and monotone voice. "We represent those left to burn in a world gone mad."
"Where are they?" I asked.
"Got them," Lisa told me.
"All teams," Veda called. "Complete attacks against initial targets and prepare to counter terrorist cells."
"Watch for capes," Hunch warned. "We didn't get all of them."
I grit my teeth. "Tell me where."
The door opened.
"Our governments and so-called heroes have failed us," the Phantom Pain spokesman declared. "So we will—"
I tore through the portal and the wall behind it. On the screen, 00 ripped into the room and swung a sword through the podium. I grabbed the spokesman—a man in his forties—and threw him across the room into a wall.
Looking over the room, I scowled.
There were about thirty people inside of what looked like a makeshift command center. Men and women who all looked hard and serious even in the face of my sudden entrance. 00 stood in full view of their cameras, many of them huddled behind desks and computers. Those not eyeing the door were raising guns, as if that would do them any damn good in this situation.
And despite that, my anger faded.
I didn't have the energy to be angry anymore.
Query?
I see it in their eyes.
Anger. Hate. Fear. I understood those things. Probably not in the way they felt them, but all the same.
I understood.
There was a nudging in the back of my head, one I'd only noticed since Administrator and I achieved whatever we now were. Faultline and Tattletale had both insinuated I had a thinker power. I'd kind of accepted that, but whatever it was I couldn't exactly point at it.
I could now.
It was this tug in the back of my head, urging me some way or another. It didn't come with words or instructions. Just a feeling, one that came from Administrator but wasn't her. Cluster mechanics were confusing.
Agreement.
And?
Restriction.
Of course.
Parting my lips, I started to speak. That's what I was supposed to do? Really? Like what though.
"Is this all you dream?"
It was the first thing that came to my mind and I honestly felt like it was my mind. I think.
The guns fired and my swords raised. I charged into the room, throwing a table to one side as a makeshift battering ram. The blades remained dull as I swung them, snapping arms, bones, and hands. I threw one shooter over my shoulder. The cameras probably caught him as he crashed into the ground.
A rifle unleashed a stream of bullets and I had to protect the idiots from the ricochets. The binders swung around and I moved 00s arms awkwardly to reflect any bouncing bullets away from the injured and the fleeing. The shooter pulled a fucking grenade from his back at that.
Releasing one sword, I grabbed his hand and closed the fingers tight.
"Idiot," I cursed.
The grenade exploded, shaking 00's arm and tearing his apart. The shrapnel fell from my hand as I opened it. The damned idiot lay screaming at my feet when the dust settled. Everything my hand didn't catch went right into his palm and up his arm.
A small portal opened again and Red jumped through. He started tending to the arm and when the moron tried to compound his stupidity by batting the robot away, I slammed a foot down beside his other arm.
In a calm voice I ordered, "Take your medicine."
A bullet pinged off my helmet. With a thought, a port on one of the Raiser's binders opened. A small missile the size of my fist shot out and exploded. Screams followed as those still in the room and standing dropped to the floor in pain.
The camera feed flickered but it must have been hardwired if the explosion of particles didn't knock it out. The groans around me were echoed in the feed. It showed only a hole in the wall but that was fine.
They only needed to hear me.
"As Phantom Pain has chosen not to disband itself," I announced, "they will be disbanded. By force."
My suit floated up into the air and I backed it toward my makeshift door. I guided 00's hand to take up my longsword again.
"As Blue Cosmos at large has chosen to continue funding Phantom Pain," I continued, "they will be relieved of their ability to fund further violence."
With that, Veda took over the streams. Bank accounts and totals appeared. Close to four billion dollars across all of Blue Cosmos' official and unofficial accounts.
The numbers began dropping.
"I was out of warnings to give three days ago. Now it ends."
I passed through the portal and came to a stop in the factory. Lafter was already out of Kyrios and drinking some water while Riley looked up at her. The Haros were running back and forth with parts, and Kati was sitting in a chair waiting for me.
Still on the line, I ordered, "Begin hitting secondary targets. Ammo and cash dumps. Safe houses. Tattletale, run down all the data we've collected and don't stop until there's nothing left to find."
"Don't need to tell me," she replied. A light flashed, signaling a private line. "It's just us now. You can lower the intensity to a level you're more comfortable with."
I blinked. Despite no longer having controls in my suit, my fists were tight. If not for the gloves, I'd probably be burying my nails in my own skin.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"You really hate this, don't you?"
Hate wasn't a strong enough word. "It's kicking dogs who can't accept they're down."
"They're rabid."
"They're just stupid."
"That's not your fault. The world's problems don't rest on your shoulders. Seriously. You don't need me to tell you to get over yourself on this one."
I smirked as 00 opened. "Bitch."
Sardonically, she quipped, "That cape name is taken. Not my style anyway. I'm nowhere near that self-aware."
I climbed out of 00 and took a bottle of water when Pink offered it.
"The press conference is ready," Kati informed me, her eyes locked on Riley. "I think you should make an appearance on PHO too. Nothing fancy. Just don't talk back to any overly abrasive critics. Ignore them."
I nodded and went to my desk.
Checking the monitors, the area around the factory was clear for the first time in months. After Londo Bell's counter-protest and Orga's citizen arrests, the Mayor wisely decided the situation was too volatile. Blue Cosmos was respectfully asked to move to the park a few blocks away and Londo Bell was asked to take the opposite side of the venue.
Both protests were still going, but the BC side was getting rowdy.
Fortunately, Orga had pushed Tekkadan out. He'd set up barricades a block away from the factory in all directions and both Barbatos and Kimaris were present to enforce it.
That was a relief, kinda. At least Tekkadan knew what they were getting into.
"Veda, prepare the Tierens."
"Can't we declare victory for a few minutes?" Lafter called from Kyrios.
We both turned our heads at the sound of thunder outside. Elevators began descending from the ceiling. One by one, the Tierens powered on. Their eyes flashed, a single red orb in each visor.
I switched the monitors to the news and settled myself. Kati rose from her seat, coming over to stand behind me.
"It's like what we used to do, isn't it?"
We both turned our heads, acknowledging Riley.
She looked at me with a face harder than what I'd grown used to from her.
"Like when Jacob had us do something bad to let everyone know we were there," she explained. "That was never the worst part, but he always wanted us to be creative because the badder that first appearance was, then the worse everyone knew the second would be."
She wasn't wrong.
"Yeah," I told her.
On the news, the reports started coming in. Video of the appearances we'd made, nearly all of them one-sided battles that were over quickly. Dozens of arrests across the US, Canada, and Europe. A few fires. Some injuries. Three deaths. Two in a car that went into a building, and a third from a stray bullet in an apartment building.
"It's not your fault," Kati told me.
"I know." That was a light cost for taking out so much.
Phantom Pain's prearranged plans were now worthless. They'd lost their coordinated distractions and communications. Blue Cosmos was scrambling, a spokesman was already releasing a statement while Azrael tried to verbally browbeat his meeting into order.
If only it were so easy.
It took ten minutes for the first story to come in.
A mob was gathering in Seattle. Blue Cosmos protestors. They were marching toward the town hall where the PRT and Protectorate buildings were. Social media was exploding. News was picking up the story. It would spread from there from city to city.
Phantom Pain may have lost their prearranged distractions and many of their resources, but they still had the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal.
A mass of frightened people, desperate to make a difference in a world that terrified them and left them feeling helpless.
People who wouldn't listen to me, and would make the perfect delivery system for the attacks Phantom Pain and Teacher wanted.
"This is where the chaos starts," I lamented.
Kati put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. Lafter and Veda took my other side, watching the screens. Riley settled herself into a chair, watching with a focused curiosity.
I inhaled deeply and forced myself to relax as much as I could. It didn't work. Turns out that when you try and make yourself relax, you just tense up more.
"Now we fight the war, and wait for David to come into the open."
On my visor, his little party in Houston had recognized something was off. Two of the capes were on the phone and one… One kept turning her head. Like she was listening to someone. She'd nod to herself, pursing her lips. Moved them slightly as if to speak but none of her fellows seemed to notice.
I leaned in, watching as she turned to the others suddenly. They listened to a few words and then that shimmering field opened in the air again and they all went through it.
"Did you get them?" I asked.
"Yes," Veda replied. "I'm tracking them now."
Good.
David might be able to hide from precogs, but no one can hide from Veda when she gets her foot in the door.