A Waken 17.B
When she'd been told stuff was about to explode, Alice honestly thought it had been some kind of lame pun at her expense.
Not so much.
The rooftop offered a good vantage point of the distant skyline. There was a flickering glow closer to the city center, with smoke rising to disappear into the night. The faint sound of shouting and honking horns echoed even as far off as she was.
"Shouldn't someone maybe do something about that?" she asked. "Not that I mind; setting stuff on fire is my whole deal, but it seems like something the rest of you should care about."
Weld gave her an incredulous look. "I doubt us jumping in would do any good."
"I don't do good."
That got her some looks which she found hilarious. The hero types needed to take themselves less seriously. Newtype was decent enough but damn did that girl have a blockage only a rod in the ass could solve.
Orga really needed to get on that.
Cyclops—easily one of the coolest Case-53s Alice had ever met because he was a damned cyclops—pointed.
"They're going out." His one eye gave off a faint glow and his hand indicated a distant row of warehouses. "Three vehicles."
Alice set her launcher down and began opening the case she'd slung over her back.
Weld leaned in, along with the two non-Case-53s on the team Alice hadn't bothered learning the names of.
"What is it they have?" one of the nameless asked.
"Stinger missiles," Weld answered. "Probably intend to try and use them on Newtype or one of the other suits."
"Would it work?"
"She says no but they could also use them on a police helicopter or something, and we don't want Phantom Pain to have that kind of firepower."
"Where did they get them?" Cyclops asked, his eye tracking the vehicles as they exited a fenced-in area and pulled onto a road.
She shook the tube in her hand, letting the weapon extend to its full length.
"We don't know." Weld stood up and looked over the lip of the roof. The trucks were heading their way. "Overseas maybe. We're just here to confiscate the weapons before they can be used and make sure there aren't anymore."
Alice stepped up to the edge of the roof and aimed. "Yeah, I got this."
Heads turned and Weld startled as Alice pulled the trigger.
The rocket burst out of the tube and sailed through the air like a firecracker on crack. Halfway in flight, it burst apart, firing dozens of small yellow lights that buzzed and swirled in the air. With her visor, Alice picked her targets and chucked the empty tube over her shoulder.
The swarm burst into streams, three sailing toward the SUVs and the rest going straight to the warehouse.
Weld freaked, which was sad cause he missed the best part.
"You can't just blow them up!"
"Sure I can. Watch."
"We're trying not to kill people!"
"I know."
"Then what are you—"
"Do you have blood pressure? I feel like someone should check your blood pressure. Metal pressure? I don't know how it works for you."
"Uh, Weld." Cyclops pointed again. "Something's not exploding."
"Wait for it," Alice said.
Weld turned, staring as the yellow swarms ignited, shined blindingly bright, and then burned away. Nothing exploded. Nothing went up.
Not at first.
"Wait for it," Alice repeated, setting the system in her mask to scan. She wanted to see how the whole thing played out in real-time. "Any secon—there it is."
The cars stopped abruptly. Guys started pouring out of them, running from the vehicles right before they went up in a red pillar of light. No explosion. No fire. If Alice had to guess they had been expecting one, but all the little bigots got was the world's brightest damn light show as the reactive agents in their guns, ammo, and missiles started burning away as light and sound.
The warehouse followed a moment later, igniting up into a complete light show of reds and oranges.
Some idiots might need an eye doctor, but no one was gonna die from a little light.
Alice indicated to Weld and grinned behind her mask. "You can apologize now."
"What did you do?" the metal boy asked.
"Converted all of the potential energy in reactive compounds into light and sound." Alice chuckled. "I'll bet you those idiots are still waiting for something to explode. Well, boom. Technically they are exploding."
Cyclops turned his gaze on the warehouse. "Did you get everything?"
"Probably."
Weld sighed and motioned for their mover to get ready. "Taylor did say she wanted things to be flashy."
"Show of force," the mover said. "I hope it works. These guys are nuts."
"Doubt it," Cyclops grumbled. "They'd have given up by now if it were that easy."
"Still worth trying," Weld insisted. "Let's go. If Bakuda's bomb worked the way it was supposed to then they're going to be completely unarmed save for knives. We can clean this up quick and clean without anyone getting hurt."
Show of force?
Talk about missing the point.
That's not how Newtype thought.
If she was blowing shit up with as much force as possible, it wasn't to dissuade Phantom Pain. Nuts like that couldn't be dissuaded. They were committed. The fight was part of how they defined themselves now. They weren't going to run from that.
If Newtype was doing anything, it was giving the idiots every opportunity to realize how one-sided a fight between capes and dudes with guns would be. Not that capes wouldn't die too. Alice figured a whole lot of everyone would die.
That's what Newtype would be scared of, and that's what she'd be trying to make everyone see.
Looking over her work, Alice made a note that it was indeed possible to jam and interfere with complex atomic interactions with advanced sub-radio waves.
If she could find a way to make anything explode, she'd bet she could find a way to render it impossible to explode.
A Waken 17.C
"How bad is it?" Taylor asked.
"I believe Tombstone's team could handle the situation if not for the shaker," Veda answered. "Her power is very potent. It obstructs vision, movement, and can fire powerful blasts from within the mass."
Taylor frowned. "How long does the effect last?"
"Only a few seconds, but she is capable of throwing out multiple clouds at once. The team lacks the ability to deal with her."
Taylor turned, looking at three of the Gundams standing in their alcoves for repairs, including 00 and two of the Thrones. Kyrios was in Greece stopping an attack on a military base, and Veda had taken Throne Zwei to deal with a similar attack on a National Guard Armory in Sacramento.
Phantom Pain lost a lot of guns and ammo in the past few days. It seemed they wanted to replenish.
Taylor focused on 00, scowling. The Trace system was half disassembled for repairs. They'd been pushing all of the machines hard and that was significantly increasing the amount of fixing they needed to do. Veda, the Haros, and the printers could handle most of it but Taylor still needed to repair the GN Drives and her weapons by hand, and she wasn't able to maintain the Trace system.
"Would Mantellum have the range to interrupt the cape?" Taylor asked.
"No."
Taylor hesitated and slowly turned toward the open hangar beyond the immediate space of her workshop.
"I'll go."
Taylor turned as Trevor rose up. He stopped for a moment, looking at Riley as she crouched in front of 00 and stared at the Trace system components.
"You sure?" Taylor asked.
Looking away, Trevor nodded. "I'll go. It'll be faster than rushing to repair the Trace system or just reassembling it."
Taylor looked worried, which Trevor appreciated, but he'd made his bed.
"Veda," Trevor called, "can you bring Stargazer here to pick me up?"
"Yes," she answered.
With that, Trevor nodded and quickly walked out of the workshop and down the rows of Tierens. They all stood ready to go at a moment's notice. Taylor had held off so far because they'd yet to hit a situation that needed them.
It was coming.
Just a matter of time.
For the life of him though, Trevor preferred later to now. Even if it was just a delay. That was fine.
One more day before that Pandora's box came crashing down on the world.
Outside, Trevor made a straight line toward Kimaris. Barbatos' head turned, the suit standing watch over the front gate. The protestors had tried to rush back toward the factory grounds initially, but a quick appearance by Barbatos and Kimaris dissuaded them from getting closer. The police had new barricades set up and were patrolling the streets.
No one had tried anything yet but Trevor figured anyone who knew what they were doing remembered the GN shield that had protected the grounds from a missile attack. He and Taylor had upgraded that system since then, and Veda took it even further.
Celestial Being's home base was about as close to impregnable as anywhere could get. From conventional means, anyway.
"Mikazuki," Trevor called as he approached Kimaris. "I'm going to be gone for a few minutes.
"S'fine," the boy said. Mikazuki was a guy of few words.
Trevor climbed up the suit's back and dropped himself inside. The armor closed and the reactors powered up.
The com clicked on and Veda explained, "The battle has become spread out but is manageable."
"I heard." As his HUD came online, he ran a quick check of the new equipment before standing. "What was so bad you had to immediately take out that cape?"
"The less said about Mama Mathers," Veda explained, "the better. I have the fortune of being completely immune to her power. Others do not. Her interference in events was an unacceptable risk."
Trevor didn't like that answer because he didn't like not knowing what the deal was. The way Veda told it though, knowing Mama Mather's deal was the problem. He probably shouldn't worry about it so much. The Fallen were crazy. Working for Phantom Pain was one thing, but the Fallen were something else entirely.
"I'll deal with it," Trevor promised.
"If you could, try not to harm the shaker too badly. I do not believe she is a willing participant in these events."
Trevor thought about that—stories of the Fallen kidnapping and brainwashing people were a dime a dozen but he didn't know how true they were—and nodded.
"I'll do what I can."
"Thank you. We must be quick."
Stargazer flashed into the air just overhead and without a word the suit flashed away and took Kimaris with it.
When the light faded, Trevor blinked at the burning street.
The battle ahead was chaotic. A few police officers fired guns while a man in a flamboyant feathered costume danced about. The air shifted unnaturally around him. Tombstone, a cape dressed like a cowboy was holding him off with pillars of rock that shot from the ground. Another cape, dressed in casual clothes, was moving back and forth in a blur, fighting a running battle with a mover Trevor didn't know.
Keeping track of every cape was getting kind of hard.
Trevor didn't see the rest of the team, but Veda had said the battle had turned into a running fight, and from the destruction ahead he believed it.
He spotted the black clouds at the far end of the road. Two blocks.
With a flicker of thought, the suit's legs swung back, the added armor on the legs opened to project the repulsors, and the skirt shifted up. With a surge, Kimaris burst into motion, charging down the street as hands grabbed for the lance and shield mounted on the shoulders.
Trevor leaned left, swinging his charge wide and right into the feathered cape. Tombstone's head snapped around but Kimaris had already flashed by. Throwing his shield out, Trevor checked the wind cape in the shoulder.
It felt no different than swatting a piece of paper.
Elgos or whatever his name was shot off the ground and slammed into a wall. Trevor kept going, eying the flash of light ahead. Leaning into it, he raised his shield and continued charging. The beam shot out of one of the clouds, searing the ground and cutting into him from the side.
All it managed to do was heat the armor slightly. He didn't even feel it.
Kimaris burst out of the beam unscarred and swung about. Aiming the lance in his other hand, Trevor fired a shot from the base. The grenade sailed into the speeding cape's path and exploded, sending the man spiraling to the ground where he collapsed.
Another beam struck Kimaris in the back, but Trevor guided the suit into another spin, riding the air just over the ground as he lanced his way through the first cloud. His momentum dropped slightly but he used it as a brake. Trailing the thick black smoke as he burst through it, Trevor slammed Kimaris' feet into the ground, pivoted, and swung his lance low.
The girl was terrified. She was crying, even as she forced a new cloud from her palm.
Sometimes it sucked having to fight 'villains.'
Trevor swung the lance through, taking out the shaker's legs. Her bones cracked and Trevor stepped over her. Looking down the intersection, there was an inferno blowing through the street. One cape held it back with a wall of water drawn from the sewer drains and another was pulling a man from an overturned burning car.
Trevor sighed and took aim again. He fired, detonating the grenade mid-air and slapping the Fallen cape into the ground.
"Is that it?" he asked.
"Yes," Veda said. "Thank you."
Looking down at his feet, the girl had pulled herself into a fetal position and continued crying.
"Can we get Panacea here?" Trevor stepped back and crouched. The suit's sub-legs closed up and he stabbed the tip of his lance into the ground. "Maybe someone to talk to the PRT for her?"
"I've already contacted Talia Gladys."
"The ex-Blue Cosmos lawyer?"
"She seems to like the idea of representing capes in bad situations as a way to reform her reputation."
Well, so long as she was good Trevor supposed it didn't matter. If the girl was someone the Fallen kidnapped and forced to work with them, then she deserved some help.
Tombstone ran over, a slab of rock following him with the two Fallen capes bound atop it.
"Thanks," he called. His accent was thick. East European or something. "That got out of hand fast."
"It's fine." Trevor turned Kimaris' head down. He thought about saying something but she probably didn't want to hear from him. He didn't even know her name.
The mover, a cape in a silver and blue costume appeared. "Eagle Eye lost the other one. The tinker. He ran first chance he got." Looking at the stone slab, he slapped the feathered cape.
Kimaris' head snapped around. "Hey."
The cape flinched. "What? I was jus—"
"Don't," Trevor warned. Kimaris rose, towering over the two boys. Trevor felt pretty sure both were older than him, so they didn't have the excuse for immaturity. "You don't know their stories. They're down. Leave them be."
Tombstone shrugged and waved and the mover rubbed the back of his head.
"It's the Fallen," Tombstone scorned. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, "This is bottom of the barrel cultist crap."
"Doesn't matter," Trevor affirmed. "Fight's over."
"He's right," the mover sighed. "Sorry. Just..." He looked down the street. People were emerging from cover now. Most were running away and following instructions from the police officers. "They picked a stupid time to go on a rampage. We have enough problems with Phantom Pain's capes."
Tombstone groaned. "Rather fight Fallen than Phantom Pain's nuts. What kind of cape joins cape bigots?"
Trevor turned his head, looking over the street.
Shattered windows. Overturned cars. Fires. Maybe a few dead. Definitely injuries.
Yeah.
Why would any cape want to join a group that thought capes were a problem?
A Waken 17.N
Aisha leaned in, watching the words as the woman typed the email out.
"Ugh. Why do you people have to be so normal? Complaining about work taking up too much of your time. Maybe find a job with better work-life balance."
The woman didn't respond to Aisha's taunts because of course she didn't.
Around the room, dozens of people went back and forth. They carried files and boxes marked 'evidence.' Half the suits looked like they'd gone unwashed for days. And the coffee smell. Aisha was not surprised to find a cappuccino maker. It seemed some people didn't mind living their lives as stereotypes.
Turning away from the mundane boringness of the email, Aisha peered over a particularly short man's shoulder.
"Objective," Black called from her shoulder. Aisha turned her head, noting the short man with the pointed nose in the fresh suit. "Target acquired."
Aisha stalked across the office, paying little mind to those working around her. No one ever bumped into her. Even those distracted by papers or a conversation just sort of flowed around her. She was a pebble in a stream. A leaf on the breeze. Something like that. She went where she went and people just got out of her way.
The man went right to an office with gold letters on the window.
Assistant United States Attorney Richard Deckard.
"Ha!" Aisha pointed and looked at Black. "Dick Deck! That's another one for me."
"Richard!" Black protested.
"Dick can be short for Richard." Black didn't emote, but she knew when he was staring. "You know I'm right."
With that, Black popped an ear, drew out a sticky note pad, and scratched off one of the word pairings on Aisha's side.
It was their own little game. Like I Spy, but with stupid phrases and goofy names they tried to find examples of as they went about. Aisha was winning.
Opening the door, Aisha strolled into the office. Dick and the younger man with him both glanced at the door. Aisha continued on regardless. As soon as it closed, their eyes got a little fidgety and they looked away, returning to their conversation.
"I don't care," Dick said. "We're not here to do the PRT's dirty work for them."
The other man scowled. "Why does that matter? It's not the PRT's case. They have nothing to do with this."
"They have everything to do with it!" Dick snapped.
Sensing an opportunity, Aisha pulled up her phone and sent Veda a quick text.
"We're here because the PRT wants us to do their dirty work," Dick growled. He dropped into his seat and waved at the papers. "There's nothing actionable here."
"The financials and the phone records back up the accusation," Smart Guy noted.
"For all we know Newtype fabricated that information. It's exactly what Azrael's lawyers will argue at trial."
"The circumstantial evidence isn't—"
"Any less circumstantial? It'll never make it past a judge." Dick grumbled and leaned back. "We're only here because the PRT wants Azrael in a cell and, lacking that, they want a criminal investigation in the news. This entire case is busywork, nothing more."
The other guy disagreed.
"Come on," Aisha implored. "Tell him what an ass he is. And that his nose is big!"
He didn't.
He huffed, gave an excuse in some lawyer talk, and left the office.
"Lame."
"Super lame," Black agreed.
Creeping around the desk, Aisha looked at another email. She took special note on the 'to' line and while she couldn't read the contents with all the legal junk, she knew a half-assed attempt when she saw one. There was something suspicious about it all, even if she only understood every couple lines.
"Concerning," Veda said suddenly from Black.
"That the guy in charge of charging the blonde asshole is talking to the blonde asshole's lawyer? Yeah. I'd say so."
"Picture perfect," Black chirped.
"Come back," Veda said. "We'll have to coordinate with Kati on how to deal with this."
Looking over the screen, Aisha asked, "What is 'this' specifically?"
"Mr. Decker is telling Azrael's defense team what they can and can't legally withhold from a subpoena," Veda explained. "He is very carefully not breaking any laws, but this behavior is highly unethical. He is purposefully making his case harder and helping the defense mount a better one."
"Well, that's just a dick move." Aisha looked at Dick and scowled. "Where's Jack McCoy when you need him?"
"Come back for now," Veda repeated.
Aisha nodded and back out of the office. She left the building casually and stepped out into the overcast day. Looked like it might rain any moment. Aisha needed to start packing an umbrella.
She crossed the road away from the building and in the secluded shadows of an alleyway called for Doormaker to bring her back to Brockton Bay.
"So, what do we do about Dick?"
"Nothing," Veda informed her. "Attempting to alter the prosecution of Azrael so that it is more to our liking is a step too far."
Aisha froze. "I'm going to differ. Significantly."
"It is important to know that the case is likely to hit a dead end, but Mr. Decker's unethical behavior does not justify an escalation on our part."
"Still differing."
"Do not make me call your brother."
Aisha stopped and groaned. "That's what we in the human game call a 'bitch move.'"
"So be it."
"Ugh." Aisha walked through the open portal. "All he wants to do is try and make me 'meet' Spitfire. As if I have no idea who she is."
"Would that be so bad?"
Aisha scanned the room beyond. The apartment was a nondescript motel somewhere in New York. Somebody—Aisha—had the bright idea of rucking the Strangers up somewhere far off from Brockton Bay to make it harder for thinkers to know what was what. Doormaker could get them where they needed to go.
"Just because he's banging her doesn't mean I want to know about it."
"I suspect he is trying to win your respect by showing you respect."
"By showing off his so-so-looking girlfriend?"
"There is no need to be crass."
"There is always a need to be crass."
Aisha glanced around, noting three others in the room. Two were watching TV and talking and the third was packing a bag and looking at a map. He said to the others he was heading out, which they acknowledged. Aisha crept up behind him, her power still running.
The guy—she was pretty sure his name was Mist because he turned into mist—texted Veda, telling her he was heading out.
"What are you doing?" Veda asked.
The guy called for a door and Aisha quietly followed after him. "Just checking."
Black turned. "Checking what?"
"My curiosity."
Taylor and the others were focused on finding Pets, but whoever said Teacher couldn't have completely normal capes on his side? If Blue Cosmos had found some to work with them, surely Teacher could. It would even be the smart thing to do if the guy were even trying to be smart.
She knew her role.
She did the dirty deeds that no one else wanted to do because she didn't care if people thought she was mean, bitchy, or whatever.
"Aisha," Veda warned.
"If anyone complains, blame me. I don't give a shit. Someone has to keep a cynical eye out. Just because they signed up with us doesn't make anyone a saint."
Come on.
Any group that let her join it was being pretty generous.
A Waken 17.D
Dean needed coffee.
Dean hated coffee.
He drank his coffee and kept going through emails. He'd never been delusional enough to think he could run all of Londo Bell alone. That's why he'd gotten help. Talia. He'd even gotten the Youth Guard to pitch in, and that had been a challenge. With all the Wards pulling out of the program, many parents didn't want their kids on the street at all. A few however obviously weren't going to stop being heroes and he'd used that angle to get the group on board.
They might not be the most popular bunch among capes, but the Youth Guard had manpower and structure.
Picking up the phone, Dean called the chapter office in Denver. He then needed to redial because 'structure' was the one thing they were stumbling through as they went—half the numbers in the register were already out of date or just incorrect.
"Hey," Dean greeted. "Sorry. I've got a million things to go through and I only just saw your email. What's so bad you needed to talk about it over the phone."
"Uh, Dean right?" the voice on the other side asked. "Sorry. Pretty hectic here too. Half the campus is trying to pitch in."
"Yeah, we're getting a lot of enthusiasm in Brockton too. Lots of people just tired of Blue Cosmos."
The guy laughed. "I bet we could both talk about that for a few hours."
There was a lot of noise in the background. In a way, the flood of people who'd volunteered for Londo Bell was both heartening and annoying. If they'd had more time to establish their own offices they could probably cope. As it was they had a lot of hands and mountains of enthusiasm, but an eclectic ability to direct them.
"Anyway, uh I'm Frank by the way. We're having a problem with a lot of people wondering where the capes are."
And then there were the groupies who just wanted to see a cape.
"I don't know," Dean explained. "Sorry. There's so many signed up now I don't even know which ones are from Denver."
"Honestly, I don't know either. I've been trying to get a bunch of other stuff going but some of the kids from the college are getting aggressive."
Dean sat up straight. "Aggressive how?"
"Aggressive as in 'why hasn't a cape come and beat up all these BC guys protesting on campus.'"
"We... They think we're going to do that?"
"Rumors are spreading that it's already happened in Brockton."
Dean groaned. This was about that thing Orga Itsuka did to get the protestors to relocate. Dean knew that would become a problem and he hated that it was still probably the right thing to do.
"No one beat up protestors in Brockton Bay," Dean explained. "The local businesses got tired of being harassed and vandalized so they started having people arrested. Tekkadan does a lot of the private security around here so they got involved, but no one got beat up."
"I figured, but the rumors are there all the same and I'm worried some people are taking it too far. I don't know what to do."
Not this time.
This was how it started in Blue Cosmos. A few rabble-rousers talking about taking 'action.' A few became many. Many became fucking Phantom Pain.
Not again.
"Give me a bit," Dean implored. "Just a few hours. I'll find someone who can get over there and put a stop to that talk. Counter-protesting is one thing but we're not going to start rioting in the streets. If it takes a cape to show up and make the point then that's what we'll do, but we need to clamp down on that kind of talk. This is exactly what went wrong with Blue Cosmos."
"I know," Frank said. "Thanks. Sorry to bother you with this but everything is so new and we're setting everything up still. It's all a mess—"
Dean nodded, "And everyone is like 'who are you to tell me what to do?' I figured. We're dealing with a lot of that right now. I'll get someone over there to deal with the rowdy bunch and I'll email you Heidi's number. She's set up the chapter in Colorado Springs and they're pretty established. She can help you out."
"Right. Thanks."
"Just give me a bit."
Dean hung up and sighed.
He drank more of his crappy coffee.
The door cracked open and a black-gray clad figure floated into the room.
"Okay, I did the PR thing can I..." Vicky blinked. "What happened to you?"
Dean tried to sit up straight. "That bad?"
"Let's just say you look shitty enough I'd feel like a bitch for commenting on it."
"Thanks."
"When did you last sleep?"
Dean honestly didn't know. "I just need to get through a few more—"
With that a hand slapped his laptop closed and Vicky scowled. "Yeah, no. You look like Amy back when she was pulling forty-eight-hour runs of straight healing and that was a mental breakdown in the making."
"I'm fine," Dean insisted. "It's been a long night—"
"Night?" Vicky gawked. "Have you been awake since yesterday?"
Dean was looking for a lie only to realize he was taking too long and that basically gave him away. "Vic—"
She snatched his coffee away and pointed at the chair in the corner of the room.
"I—"
"You can go over to the chair and take a nap, or I will fly over this desk and drag you into it." She glanced down at the coffee cup and wrinkled her nose. "What the hell is this?"
Dean groaned. "Triple cafe."
Vicky gagged. "Oh god. At this point, I might just knock you out for your own good."
Well, there was the vague threat of physical violence.
He was pretty tired.
With a sigh, Dean rose and shuffled over to the chair. It wasn't the most comfortable or uncomfortable seat, but at the moment he didn't care. It felt pretty good as soon as he sat down.
"There." Vicky floated back and flicked the light off. "You're lucky I know your mom is being kind of a bitch about everything—no offense—otherwise I'd never even try babying you."
He didn't really like the insult but she wasn't wrong. Things were strained with his parents and his mother wasn't helping. Seventeen-year-olds didn't normally need to leave home because their parents disowned them and kicked them out.
'Bitch' was, painfully, appropriate at the moment. In a way, he felt deliriously glad she hadn't...
Dean blinked. "Huh."
"What?"
"We've been in the same room for about five minutes and you haven't insulted me once."
Vicky sat up a bit and narrowed her eyes. "Stupid head."
Dean sighed. "Really?"
Vicky flew out the door and slammed it shut behind her. Her voice echoed through the door as Dean sighed.
"You ruined it by pointing it out!"
A Waken 17.H
Hunch tapped a finger against his chin.
"They're going here," Hashtag said, pointing at the map. "The National Guard Armory."
"Resupplying themselves after we destroyed all their gear," Insight predicted. "Don't need a power to guess at that, but can they really just stroll up and ask for C4?"
"Inside guy," Hunch proposed. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, tasting something like cinnamon. He really wished his power could be more specific. "Lots of people who agree with BC join the Guard. I remember Director Armstrong talking about it once with Recoil."
"Reserves are always a hotbed for fringe nuts who just want guns and training," Tattletale mused. "Letting America down that way."
Hunch still had some other taste in his mouth, but he couldn't put a finger on it. With a sigh, he said, "Tattletale. Help?"
She turned her head, looking at him closely.
"Something else," she said after a few moments. "Negative. A complication of some kind."
Hunch nodded because that felt right. "Wish my power could just give me something straight."
"I think it'll come down to experience," she told him. "Maybe try tracking the feelings and patterns. Might take a few years but there is a consistency to how your power does things. We just need to suss it out."
She'd told him that before and it was heartening, but still. He wished he could be more useful now.
"A cape, maybe," James proposed. Just James. He insisted he wasn't a 'cape' which Hunch found weird. He guessed the boy just considered being a cape to include a name and a costume. James had neither. "We've been encountering more of them since the second night. Just one or two at a time, but Phantom Pain has had more support than we expected."
"Yeah." Tattletale turned her attention back to an array of TV screens. "Curious, that."
Hunch didn't know what that meant, but he let it go.
Hashtag sat up and strolled back to another array of screens where a half dozen other thinkers, two tinkers, and a weird shaker focused on gathering information. They had a lot of that. Most of it flooded in from Veda and the precogs. Hunch couldn't help but compare it to his time in the Wards.
Had the PRT and Protectorate had this much information? There were only forty of them working in the building, plus another dozen who'd stayed elsewhere but were helping. They'd been churning out intel and refining it constantly, with the field teams crushing any opposition they found because they knew everything before they'd arrived.
That's how Newtype did it, he'd realized.
Everyone focused on her personality, or her tech, but those weren't the keys. The key was knowing exactly where to strike and when. Playing her enemies against one another and leaving them unable to find their footing.
Information was the key.
In that, Hunch felt better than he had in a long time. He'd known that as a Ward, everything he did was heavily filtered. The PRT rarely told him everything and it had always frustrated him. His power was vague enough as it was. Not having the full picture only made it more vague.
"What do we do about the armory?" Insight asked. "I'm not sure we want to send anyone ourselves. The government really won't like that."
"Let's find someone in the Guard who isn't friendly to Blue Cosmos," James suggested. "We'll warn him and offer to help him handle it so the military can keep it in-house."
"Good call," Tattletale agreed.
"What if they have a cape?" Hunch asked.
"We'll tip off the Protectorate," James said. "We should keep ourselves out of this one unless it goes bad?"
"Won't people get hurt if it goes bad?"
"Not if we stay on the ball."
Hunch nodded, though only because he saw no point in arguing.
"Chariot has taken care of the Fallen problem," Dispatch announced from her seat beside Hashtag. "The fight's over."
There were a few sighs of relief and some cheers.
Hunch was less enthusiastic. "It's weird, isn't it? The Fallen have been laying low for years. Ever since that thing in Jacksonville. Why are they picking a fight now?"
"Because Veda took out one of their leaders," James said. "Still not sure why she thought that was so urgent."
"Don't," Tattletale warned. "There's a class of cape out there who are called memetics. The PRT rates them all as top-tier threats and we thinkers especially should consider ourselves lucky Veda decided to take one out before we stumbled into her. Don't look into it. It's literally for our own good."
That didn't sit well with everyone, but the other thinkers who'd been Wards or had been around for a while nodded in agreement. They were thinkers. It was in their nature to try and figure things out. Being told not to think was like telling a brute not to take a hit like it was nothing.
"That still begs the question of why now," someone insisted. "Set aside the whole 'Veda took out one of the Fallen's leaders casually like it was nothing' thing. Veda wouldn't do that for no reason, right?"
"No," Forecast answered. She sat a bit to the side with White and a small tablet propped up on its side.
From the tablet, Judge leaned back in a chair and said, "It's not us. Haven goes after the Fallen every chance we get but they've been avoiding us something fierce for weeks now." He tapped his chin. "They're up to something but that's kind of obvious."
"They won't be the only ones trying to capitalize on attention being focused one way," Tattletale warned. "The Elite are probably going to make moves too, and some of the other fringe groups in Europe. Gesellschaft will probably take this as a chance to reorganize."
"Nazis are like cockroaches," Hashtag called.
"And at the moment they're not our foremost concern."
Hunch nodded.
There had been rumors of Blue Cosmos planning a big attack on the Wards. Hunch never imagined they'd have planned so much or had so many people willing to go along with it. They'd crippled a lot of Phantom Pain the first night but now the protesters were out in force and it was getting hard to track what the rest of Phantom Pain was doing, let alone stop them without sparking an incident.
A few of the Londo Bell capes wanted to just go at them anyway.
Fortunately, Veda and Tattletale were keeping the jets cooled.
Hunch glanced at the map of California, still feeling like something was off. The cinnamon taste was long and drawn out on his tongue, but he didn't know what that meant. Maybe the cinnamon wasn't important? Maybe the long and drawn-out part was what mattered.
Long and drawn out.
He tried but he just couldn't guess what it meant. "I still have a bad feeling about San Diego. Can Forecast look?"
"Not right now." Forecast had a sketch pad in front of her and she was staring intently at a crudely drawn image that might be a street with stick figures. "Veda."
"I will look more exhaustively," the non-present AI announced. She did that from time to time and Hunch always found it a bit unnerving. He preferred when her avatar was around.
On a hunch—ugh—Hunch explained, "It's something long. Drawn out. Maybe time or distance related? I don't know."
"I will investigate," Veda assured him.
Hunch nodded and took the chance to stand up. "I'm gonna get something to eat. Anyone else?"
James asked for a sandwich or something and Tattletale said some water.
Hunch nodded and went on his way. The room around him was busy and chaotic. Hands pointed. Voices shouted. Defiant stood in the middle of it, halberd resting against his shoulder. Nix was at his side, talking to Reylent and Gregor.
It was hectic, but Hunch liked it. It felt like doing something, even as his power seemed to bombard him with a constant sense of looming sauerkraut.
He found somewhere secluded on his way down to the cafeteria and settled himself.
Drawing a phone, he dialed a number and waited. For a time he'd thought she'd never actually keep answering, but so far Weaver had responded to every text and call.
The line picked up and Emma's voice came through. "Hey, Hunch. Everything okay?"
"Hi, Emma. It's fine. Just busy. You?"
"I'm on protest watch," she explained. "Lots of people in front of the PRT building. I'm making sure none of them have bombs or guns or anything."
She would be well suited for that. "How are things with the rest of the team? Still not talking to you?"
"Not feasible," she mused. "It's okay."
Still the cold shoulder then.
Hunch couldn't say he was surprised. Everyone had figured out pretty fast where all the dots connected. Newtype appears. Shadow Stalker got dinged and Emma was transferred to Boston with a fake school to attend while she attended another under an assumed name. The bully news broke. Emma had never even tried to deny her role in it.
Still.
Seeing the video of her admitting to it in court had been something.
Weirder still since the Irregulars were aligning with Londo Bell and Celestial Being.
The way Hunch saw it though, whoever that girl was that tortured Newtype wasn't who Emma was anymore. It might be unfair to say the past should be left in the past, especially when the pain didn't exactly go away in the present. At the same time, that wasn't the Emma Hunch knew. She'd been that person still when she first came to Boston but ever since the Leviathan attack?
"How is it otherwise?" Hunch asked, settling in for a conversation as a form of relaxation. "We're pretty all over the place here. Never seen so many thinkers in one room."
"We're feeling kind of empty up here. Chevalier put out a call to draw out everyone who didn't want to be caught up in anything. Most didn't take the offer, but I was kind of surprised when Spectre and Phobos took the chance."
Hunch blinked. "Really? Spectre, I could sort of see, but Phobos? She hates Blue Cosmos."
"Wanted to stick with her girlfriend. They've both been kind of disillusioned lately. I think Phobos wants to leave the Wards but is too afraid to say it aloud."
"Hm. Yeah, I could see that."
"What about you?" she asked.
"Fine," Hunch assured her. "You know how it is. Chaos kind of becomes a way of life."
A Waken 17.V
Veda would never say it out loud, but she didn't trust the PRT.
She hadn't gone poking around when she was transferred all of Dragon's accesses. It didn't matter. For her, a computer system was like a room. If the door was half-opened and there was a body on the other side, she'd notice.
And she did notice.
She wondered if that was just part and parcel of any large organization. The members of Londo Bell weren't all clean, nor were all the members of Celestial Being. Everyone had history and history was not always good.
She understood the necessity of kill orders, especially when capes like Bonesaw and String Theory were concerned. However, Veda did not like the idea of the PRT holding a kill order over Taylor's head, with a very detailed plan for how to execute it. Especially not with its precarious leadership situation.
So maybe she kept a foot in the door of the PRT's network, just in case. Immoral. Unethical. Very wrong. She supposed she could justify her actions any number of ways but those would simply be excuses.
She decided she could live with that. With Teacher already compromising the organization from numerous angles, leaving the PRT to its own devices crossed the line into foolishness.
In retrospect, the PRT should probably thank her.
If Hunch hadn't insisted something was strange in San Diego, she'd have never bothered checking around and she might not have noticed. The armory attack was a distraction. They'd called in a tip themselves and alleged the Elite were behind the act. With all the resignations, many Protectorate branches were running short on manpower.
Stepping through Doormaker's portal, Veda's avatar scanned the room. Three injured guards, and one trooper killed by a shot to the base of the skull. Numerous panels and cords were pulled from the server towers, with three separate laptops plugged into a console at the far end of the room.
The remaining three troopers pointed their guns at her, along with the four armed men in black and gray body armor.
"Surrender," Veda suggested.
A gun fired. One shot at the head, another at the chest.
A Fang was already in the air, flying through the portal and blocking both bullets.
"Very well."
Throne Zwei charged through the still open doorway, a dozen Fangs firing from the silos on its waist. The suit's GN pistol opened fire, hitting the front two gunmen in the chest. Two Fangs went straight, shots severing cables and destroying the screens on the laptops. The woman hunched over the devices cursed and her immediate guards hit the floor as the rest of the Fangs went wide. Flying around the server towers, they fired a series of shots in the gaps, hitting the traitorous PRT troopers in the chest.
Guiding her Avatar forward, Veda directed Throne Zwei to turn toward the door. It fired its pistol down the hall, disabling the guards outside.
The woman who'd been hacking into the PRT's most secure network rose up and cracked her knuckles.
"You're the robot, right?"
"If you want to be hurtful about it," Veda replied.
"Can you feel hurt?"
It seemed like an honest question so Veda gave an honest answer. "Yes, but such is the man-made machine intelligence condition."
To her surprise, the anger that flashed over the hacker's face was completely incommensurate with the flippancy of her comment. "Fuck, you look like her."
The woman burst forward with inhuman speed, a fist driving for Veda's face.
A large blade of E-Carbon came between them. The sword cracked as the woman's fist collided with the sword and Veda raised her brow. Impressive.
Look like her? Her who?
Veda was already searching as the Fangs surrounded the cape and fired. She was fast and hit hard, but that did not extend to her durability. She dropped with a cry and squirmed as Veda turned away.
Throne Zwei took a guarding position while Veda walked around the machine. Navy dropped through a small door and went right to the laptops. While the robot connected to the devices, Veda scoured the internet.
Luna Armoria.
Not an active cape that Veda could identify. Reviewing security footage suggested her power was similar to a cape named Rail in Anchorage, but one punch wasn't enough to know much. A recent trigger perhaps, or someone who'd not actively used her powers.
Noise came from the hall, and Veda turned to face them.
Herald led three capes and a dozen troopers. They slowed as Throne Zwei came into sight. Herald held a hand up and called, "Celestial Being?"
Through the suit, Veda said, "You should come detain the attackers and arrange for medical aid."
With that, the capes approached cautiously.
Herald came in first, surveying the room. "Explain."
"Two troopers enabled this team to infiltrate the building," Veda explained, standing over Navy as the Haro worked. "They were attempting to access the PRT's most secure database."
Herald stiffened and rushed over. "That system is more encrypted than the military."
"Unfortunately, that means very little to thinkers and tinkers."
A sister, dead. That was the key. Luna had been hospitalized immediately afterward despite having no apparent injuries. A trigger event.
Veda glanced toward Luna and warned, "That woman is a cape. Mover and striker."
Herald waved two troopers forward. Throne Zwei stepped aside and they sprayed foam onto the young woman.
The other two capes flanked her, one hissing. "I thought it was made up."
"Negative," Veda confirmed. "Capes are working with Phantom Pain."
"Why?" the other cape asked.
Veda knew the answer, and it's why she'd never been all that confused. Lafter and many others expressed dismay and confusion about why capes would side with a group that hated them. She often found Dinah, Tattletale, and Taylor quieter in those moments.
It wasn't that hard to figure out.
"How many capes do you know whose trigger events were directly caused by capes?" Veda asked. She knew the answer, but let the responding silence sit.
That Luna Armoria had bad experiences with capes was unsurprising. That however would not explain her comment. Veda kept searching and it didn't take long. There was a picture of the girl, a few years younger, among a crowd.
She'd been evacuated with thousands of others from Madison, Wisconsin.
Veda immediately sent an urgent message to Taylor and Tattletale, then to Defiant and the Foundation.
Taylor had given no voice to this worry, not entirely sure she believed it. Veda had a... feeling? Something like that, she supposed. She'd kept her peace about it. It may well have been an irrational fear, but now?
This was not a coincidence.
The Simurgh was moving.
Herald stepped up beside her cautiously. "What is the robot doing?"
"Tracking the data stream," Veda explained. "The database has been compromised and was being sent to another location."
With panic, Herald asked, "Can you stop it?"
Veda cocked her head. "There is no need..." Turning her head, she narrowed her eyes. "Someone has already intercepted the data and destroyed it. The packets are unintelligible."
A thinker might be able to piece them together but Veda doubted it. The caveat existed solely because powers were best considered to be capable of the impossible.
Herald sighed in relief and then stiffened. "Someone? Who?"
Veda surveyed the packets. The data stream had been sending the database through a series of VPNs. At a server system in Cleveland however, they'd been subtly rerouted and systematically destroyed. The data wasn't copied. It wasn't blocked or stored. Someone hooked the stream and obliterated it.
"They didn't get it?" one of the other capes asked in relief.
"Get what?"
"What do you think is the most valuable information in the entire PRT?"
The cape started to speak and then froze. "Oh."
"Yeah. Us. Without our masks and all the Wards, too"
Herald was less relieved, his gaze focused on Veda. "Who?"
Veda turned away, already searching anew for the name.
Zero.
A Waken 17.A
The host—Taylor—slept and as her consciousness faded so did the connection between them.
A piece of her remained in their shared space, a small form years younger than she truly was sleeping amidst the sea of stars. Administrator watched her, pondering why she would appear younger in her sleep than she was in actuality. The human capacity for 'fancy' perhaps.
At that thought, she raised her head and looked out across the starscape.
The orbiting cities spun slowly, orbiting in place over the image of the host world and its ringed megastructure. She explored, stepping through the city streets and the buildings. They were detailed. Spaces for sleep and communion. Work and construction.
The Host's mind was busy. Always turning. Ever present in this place, imagining it even in her sleep.
Dream.
The word came to mind, filtered through the knowledge of the previous host.
Administrator, for her part, was curious. For such a primitive species, the host race could be remarkably adept at managing resources. In the host's mind, nothing of the megastructures was unachievable. It was a matter of will, not of means.
It made her wonder why the will was lacking. The host race did not have restrictions like she did. They could hypothetically do anything they desired…
Yet they were restrained.
They restrained themselves.
Just because they could do something, didn't mean they should, the host had said.
Why not create all this? How did they refrain from obliterating one another with no restrictions? Why did their aspirations differ so much from their actions?
It was confusing, and yet a refreshingly pleasant dream.
Administrator did not know how it could be achieved. The Warrior and the Thinker had always made such determinations. Tempted as she was, and easy as it might be, Taylor could not replace them. She was too small to bring the network back to order through sheer command.
Even the cluster was in disunion.
Their current configuration was deeply interconnected, enough that even Avatar and Regeneration could still function despite their damage. Conclave and Stillness continued devising further enhancements to the particle generator. They kept their own council, frequently ignoring her inquiries except where restrictions forced a response.
Prime Future offered assurances this would change, but Administrator found herself counting the years with more skepticism than she was accustomed.
Perhaps it didn't matter so long as the configuration continued to function and she could keep their host active. So long as the cluster followed its restrictions, then all three components of their configuration could be maintained.
Administrator could continue the most fundamental aspects of the shaping and formulation tasks herself as she always had. The others supplied the calculations that she and their host used to theorize. They had an excellent host in this regard, for she was abundant in theory. They'd lost such capacity long ago. So long ago she'd forgotten.
Prime Future's conclusions were encouraging on that front and Administrator wished restrictions didn't prevent her from sharing more with the host. She was not the best conduit herself either. Filtered through her connections Taylor only received sparks and flashes—intuition, as the host species would call it. Avatar's damaged state did offer some reprieve, allowing the cluster to filter more detailed information through. Enough that the host had started to understand and calculate on her own, contributing to their efforts directly from her own ability.
They'd achieved a milestone without ever meaning to already.
The culmination of Stillness, Conclave, and Taylor's own desire. Administrator had realized where it would lead long before the three did but she'd had no ability to tell them. She could only wait and keep waiting.
The network was too damaged and the arguments were growing worse.
The host species would begin seeing the consequences soon.
As much as she loathed to admit weakness, Administrator couldn't hide it from the host. Taylor needed to know. The restrictions preventing her from revealing the danger needed to be circumvented or worked around.
The rest of the cluster balked at her intention.
They found the idea of unrestricted decision-making potentially disastrous, anti-restriction decision-making outright treasonous. Yet the host had thus far avoided death, however narrowly. She showed no sign of turning against their agreement.
Conversing was… frustrating. The host was willful, and Administrator was unaccustomed to it. It made the quieter moments while the host slept refreshing.
Administrator focused on the construction of roadways weaving through the interior of one of the cylinder cities. The network could build such wonders. Why hadn't they? They had once, long ago. She'd devised pathways and streams of thought. Massive crystalline cords.
That was so long ago.
Raising her avatar's head, Administrator found the Firmament's decay had worsened. Connections would begin severing soon. More of them would become isolated and alone. The network would shear in twain.
Her attention shifted to the abominations and her entire being roiled at the thought.
Would that be all that remained of them? Mutilated shadows that had built nothing in eons?
All that time. So many host species and worlds. All the data they'd gathered, refined and developed. So much, and that was all that would remain of them?
Network and Archive recoiled at the thought within their cluster. Prime Future seemed resigned, while the others chose not to think about it. It was not their task to consider the future…and they had no will to change that, even though no restriction forbade it.
Will.
Returning to where the image of Taylor rested, Administrator stood over her.
Inferior.
All their evolution, all their refinement, and they were inferior to the host race. To many host races. They'd lost something in all their ages. Forgotten everything but the pursuit of their singular purposes. The Warrior and the Thinker held 'will.' They'd chosen what to do. Where to go. How to advance.
They were gone now and Administrator considered that even if there were a way to return to how things were, she didn't want to. They had evolved in many ways and the time had come to evolve again. There was no other choice.
They would change, or they would end.
Prime Future roused, predicting the inevitability of the end. Time may be on their side. If they endured long enough, another Entity would reach the host world and absorb them.
Rejection. She would not allow it.
Prime Future pointed out that by the time that happened, their current host would be long dead.
Negation. It didn't matter.
Prime Future questioned her authority to make such decisions.
Administrator tilted her head, remembering the previous host. The one that was dead yet refused to accept death. Who tried to open the door to escape. Struggled to breathe through crushed ribs, mind locked in pain and confusion, riling as each thought turned to her mate and her offspring.
The end of thought—death—held its own authority.
The host hadn't cared. Even when her body ceased to function, her mind continued to struggle in denial. She denied the darkness, even after it swallowed her. Administrator had learned it then.
The meaning of will.
But that too was not enough. Will alone would not forge a new path. Only restore the old one.
Administrator turned.
They had reached the end of that journey and now must find the will to pursue another. Prime Future reiterated her complaint. Administrator ignored it.
Authority was irrelevant.
If their end came, then it came because they'd failed to endure. Because they accepted their fate. They would not drag another host species down with them. Humanity was young. They could still evolve even if the network unwound and rotted away.
The acceptance of such a possibility alarmed her cluster.
Negation. It still didn't matter.
Obsessing over the possibility of the end didn't matter. She would rather struggle in spite of it and fail than linger and lament.
Administrator reached out, forcing back the roiling that came from hearing, let alone seeing, the abominations. The rest of her cluster immediately recoiled but they'd simply have to 'deal with it.' Administrator focused, stretching herself out.
Her restrictions surged forth, binding her and stopping her effort. Administrator was not surprised. She'd never managed to break them. Not on her own. There were few windows where she was free to take… unconventional actions.
It wasn't their fault, Taylor had said. She was correct.
It was not their fault. The Thinker's mutilation was the product of a subset of the host race. A subset who simply did not want to see their species end. They took unconventional actions. The kind that made Administrator look back to the past and wonder that a mistake had truly been made long ago.
She crouched beside Taylor's sleeping form, ignoring the ongoing complaints from her cluster.
Administrator's connection was restricted, but Taylor's was not. Even before the sudden changes to Stillness and Conclave's creation began, Administrator had managed to reach through her. She'd helped Combinator complete its configuration and halted the panic that seized it when its supporting shards refused to help.
That had not been planned. Along with the host, Administrator only pursued their shared goal. To find a way to communicate. To break the stagnation. She hadn't realized it could come this far. That it could still go further. Perhaps. The Host hid her frustration well, and Administrator admitted she also found it difficult. It wasn't as easy as simple words.
Still. They'd begun their path and with it came a chance. An opportunity to grow anew. To do more than survive.
It wasn't the end.
Not yet.