Lunchtime on Thursday, Danny was starting to feel the strain. "Eight interviews this morning," he told Barry as they ate a couple of soft pretzels and leaned against the front brickwork of the local library branch. "And ten interviews this afternoon. And exactly the same tomorrow. I've barely left myself time to use the men's room in this schedule."

"And you only scheduled the other three helpers with eight interviews a day," Barry pointed out. "If you're struggling, you could put more on them."

Danny shook his head. "Not if I want them to do a good job, I can't. These aren't just warm bodies we're hiring here, this is the union, man. We're interviewing people to join the brotherhood, the family. If this was just a job and I was just hiring people to haul stuff, I'd go through forty candidates a day. Sign, hired, boom. Sign, hired, boom. But we're bringing people to the Association of Dockworkers, and some care needs to be taken to make sure our people are going to be a credit to the name and the family."

"Amen," Barry said, nodding solemnly as he chewed. "I see you've put in to take Monday off. I wanna take this time to say that I support that decision wholeheartedly, you've done incredible work this week, and you've earned a day off. Heck, if we didn't need you so badly for these interviews I'd have insisted you take off today and tomorrow anyway, just because you did us all such a huge favor by getting these jobs in."

"Heh, if you'd insisted I wouldn't have fought you," Danny answered him.

"Now, I know you've done so much, and I hate to ask this, but, uh-"

"The banners are done, the streamers are done, and I've got more confetti that we're going to need," Danny said. "Don't worry, we're good to go for the baby shower this weekend."

"Oh thank God."

"I'll need you to swing by my place tomorrow night to pick them up so you and the guys can decorate them, it's all in my house and I don't have a car to carry it all around," Danny said.

"Will do," Barry said, nodding. And then they tossed their napkins into the garbage, squared their shoulders, and marched back to the office to do the good work.

With his rats typing his notes, Danny was free to turn all of his visible attention to the interview candidates, watching them and talking to them and getting a feel for who they were. And a rodent lie-detector in the air vent could help him turn his questions in the right direction. He could judge their reactions, measure their character, and he made his recommendations based on that. Unlike his last hiring, these people were largely just unemployed or underemployed citizens who just answered a want ad looking for money. They had no connection to the union or family with the Association, but the ad made it clear that the work would be hard and the pay would be a substantial increase from food service or temping. He had weeded out most of the unfit yesterday, so the candidates today were mostly good caliber.

He just needed them to be the sort that would stick with the job, and stick with their friends, when the going got tough. He needed a certain kind of person. And he was getting increasingly good at picking them out. The more he worked with the rats, the more he learned about the people he was talking to, and how he was talking to them. And he was surprised himself to find himself finishing early, ahead of his schedule. Twelve out of his eighteen interviews had been successful hires, good people he had a good feeling about. The other six he just couldn't trust to hang around longer than the money was good, and he wished them luck in their endeavors.

And in the parking lot, he pulled out his other cell phone, inserted the sim card and battery, and checked the messages. There was only one.

"Wharf Rat, this is Kaiser. You've heard of me. I would like to meet, but we can speak on the phone if you would rather."

He considered it. He considered deleting the message. The leader of the white supremacist gang Empire Eighty-Eight, Kaiser was known to be dangerous, but the fact that he had presided for years over a growing criminal empire meant that he was also very smart and very ambitious. And the Nazi fetishism was really off-putting, he had to admit. But he dialed the number.

"This is Wharf Rat," he introduced himself.

"Excellent. I want you to know, first above all else, that I have no interest in your territory and I will not challenge your claim. I know that to be your priority, so I wanted that to be the first thing you heard."

"That's good to hear," Danny said. "But now I don't know what it is that you want."

"I could tell you that I'm looking to recruit. After all, you've eliminated two different groups that would have considered themselves as challengers to my holdings. You've demonstrated twice over that you can defeat multiple capes simultaneously on your own, even heavy hitters like Lung or slippery bastards like Skidmark. You've got muscle and smarts, and you've got versatility. And apparently you've got millions of eyes in this city. My people are very strong, very powerful, but they're top-heavy with fighters. I've only got a couple people for reconnaissance. But honestly, most people that would be interested in taking my side find me on their own, I hardly ever have to recruit. And from what I've seen of your methods, you're not likely to feel at home with us. So if I called this a recruitment drive, I'd just be lying to us both."

All of which is just a roundabout way of singing my praises before you tell me what you really want, Danny thought. What is it that you need to butter me up for?

But out loud, he just said, "I have to agree with your reasoning. But if you've called me, it's certainly because you've found some middle ground we can discuss?"

"Just so. This has to do with one of my former associates, our relationship has become estranged. She still agrees with me on most principles, but our falling out was ... personal. If you don't mind my saying, it was extremely personal. And I was hoping to enlist your assistance in reuniting us."

Machinations and schemes, Danny thought to himself. Kaiser was clearly up to something much bigger than this, leveraging one small action for great benefit. "So you want me to send rats to her home and scare her, threaten her, so that she will return to you for protection?" he asked.

"In a manner of speaking, yes, actually," the white supremacist gang leader said. "But the scare needs to be authentic, and it needs to be sold hard. I want you to take out her main lieutenant, Crusader. He is an extremely valuable member of our operation, and it will be bitterly hard to lose him. He has never wronged me and I doubt he ever will. So Purity will never suspect that I was behind this operation, it wouldn't make sense to her. This is my offer: the location of one of my best men, the opportunity to capture him as you see fit, and we both profit well."

"You are offering me the opportunity to poach one of your competitors and drive more allies to you," Danny pointed out. "You are trying to pay me with my own work and calling it an opportunity."

"Ah, my mistake, I had rather thought that you were a would-be superhero who was intent on cleaning out the gangs of this city one-by-one. I thought that you would relish the chance to get one of my people." The voice sounded genuinely surprised.

"Not so much. I hand prisoners over to the Protectorate to garner good graces in case I'm ever captured myself, but it's secondary to my concerns. Lung threatened me, so I took him out and everyone loyal to him. The Merchants threatened me, so I took them out and everyone loyal to them," Danny said. "So you thought I was a vigilante and that you could contract me like a hitman to take out one of your own people. But if you thought I was a hero out to make a name, it would have made more sense for you to set a trap and-, ah, I see."

There was a sigh, and a chuckle, from Kaiser's side of the conversation. "Forgive me if it seems a bit hamfisted, but most of the heroes in this city would actually have fallen for that. All right, my original offer stands. Only this time no trap. I will still offer up Crusader, in good faith this time. I thought that I could get Purity back at my side by having you fail to take out Crusader, foiled by my soldiers, and she would bring Crusader with her. But instead I will treat you fair, and offer Crusader up. If Purity comes back to me, that means more than her bringing her full retinue with her."

"I am amenable," Wharf Rat said. "But you're still asking me for my help with your ... arrangement. I must still ask a price for contracting out. And by rights I should double my price just because you attempted to lure me into a trap, but I find the best business arrangements are the ones in which the other party feels indebted, so I will let that pass." Danny Hebert looked around, sitting astride the saddle of his bicycle at a minor intersection, just a middle-aged bureaucrat haggling with a major crime lord over the phone. What am I doing here? How did I get to this point? I have to get out of this. I have to find an excuse to get rid of him.

"I do appreciate your consideration and candor," Kaiser said, seeming a bit more impatient. "So what price would you ask?"

"Empire Eighty-Eight doesn't include any tinkers, so I will ask that you cover arrangements, logistics, negotiation and payment for Uber and Leet the tinker to create one device for me to my specifications." He said the words almost too fast. There was no way that Kaiser would stoop to this. Uber and Leet were a joke, Kaiser would rather eat his own thumbs than go to them with his hat in his hand, Danny was sure of it. And by specifying the tinker in question, Danny made sure that Kaiser would have to pay whatever the two minor villains demanded as a price, no matter how outrageous.

"I'd have preferred you just ask for a few hundred thousand dollars in small unmarked bills," the crime lord retorted.

"I understand that," the Wharf Rat said. "But I don't have any more use for a few million dollars than anyone else, and I do have need of Leet and Uber, only them." The thought of 'a few hundred thousand dollars' made his heart lurch, and he was sorely tempted. It could solve so many problems, get his daughter into Arcadia, start a fund for the ferry, take time off work, anything like that. But if Kaiser didn't want to do it, that was what he would push. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel, Kaiser would turn him down and Wharf Rat would stay uninvolved in Empire internal politics without snubbing Kaiser by giving him a flat no.

"Fine. If it has to be them," Kaiser said. "I'll make the calls, I'll get in touch with them. I'll have them call you on this line to get the specifics of your order. After you've put in your order, you do the job, and then they come through on their end of the deal. Sound good?"

It sounds too good, Danny thought. Why couldn't you offer me a shoddy deal that I could turn down? "It sounds good to me," he said. "I'll call you for the instructions after they've taken my order." Damn. Damn. Damn.

They made pleasant goodbyes, and hung up. Danny Hebert put down his kickstand, stepped off the bike, took several steps to the side, and vomited into an open garbage can. He spat a few times to clear the taste out of his mouth, disassembled Tattletale's phone, then got back on the bike and rode away. He needed something else to think about, something else to do. He had enough Wharf Rat for one day, he rode straight home. He would work on the tunnel-buggy and his notes, hang out with his daughter and call it a night.

He stopped at a store to pick up a replacement phone for Taylor, and three burn phones for himself. He was sick of trusting Tattletale's phone and hoping there wasn't any sort of tracker in the thing.

When he came in the door, he still looked like he'd seen a ghost. "Holy crap, Dad," Taylor said, jumping to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"I had a phone call, from Kaiser," her father said, going to the sink and pouring a glass of water. "He wanted a favor," he said, then took a long drink, swishing to get the rest of the vomit taste out of his mouth.

Taylor sat back down, relieved but also somewhat freaked out herself. "Well, what sort of favor?" she asked.

"He wanted me to take out one of his former soldiers that broke ties, to scare the rest into coming back to him," Danny told her, taking a seat in the recliner opposite her. "I named a stupid price that I thought he'd refuse, and he didn't. So now I've got a deal. With Kaiser of Empire Eighty-Eight. To help him put his team back together." He shook his head. "Oh, and I got you a new phone, and a couple spares for... well, for both of us, if we need them."

"Thanks," she said absently. "So now you're going to go capture a former Empire supervillain, as a favor to Kaiser. What did you ask?"

"He offered a few hundred thousand dollars," Danny said. "I should have taken the money. Instead I made him pay the price for a tinker invention from Uber and Leet. If I could have, I'd have asked him to take Skidmark into his gang, that's the only thing I can think of he'd hate more than dealing with those two video-game twits."

Taylor's eyes lit up. "Wait, so you've got the rights to contract a tinker-made invention from Uber and Leet, no stipulations? That's actually pretty awesome. That's actually incredibly open-ended. Some kind of machine that turns lead to gold, so you can be rich forever. Or one that makes you invisible, so you never need to worry about getting attacked again. A pocket factory that keeps the industrial district running so there's always work on the harbor. All kinds of stuff. Let's start a list!"

It turned out that was a game that middle-schoolers played, Danny learned. "What would you make if you were a tinker" was the subject of hundreds of hours of idle speculation. A magical counterfeiting machine that spits out hundreds of dollars on demand was popular for obvious reasons, and so was a gun that turned things to gold both for removing one's enemies and enriching oneself. Or a device that let one steal a cape's powers for oneself, or a cure for world hunger. But some of this turned out to be harder than expected. Leet's particular talent for tinkering was as open-ended as they come, he didn't have a specialty like Squealer's vehicles or Bakuda's bombs, but his limitation was that he could not invent anything too close to what he had already created. The more he tried to retread an idea, the more it was prone to dramatic failure or substandard performance. And after having been a professional supervillain for several years, he had a fairly big catalog of ideas he had already used.

The endless-counterfeiting machine was pretty similar to the "cheat code wallet" he had invented back during his Grand Theft Auto days, not that Danny particularly wanted one of those. The golden gun was pretty similar to the Medusa's head he had made so that Uber could simulate some game based on Jason of Troy. The power-stealing device was close to both a memory-stealing device, and also a power-nullifying device. Besides, if the Wharf Rat was known to carry a weapon as dangerous as that, every villain and hero that heard about it would come to Brockton Bay to kill him and steal it. Curing world hunger was a strong contender, but a trip through the internet showed them that Leet had tried his hand at Burger Time once before.

Leet had already made a variety of teleportation devices and invisibility belts, enough so that they tended to explode as soon as someone tried to use them now. And he had created a functioning "lead-to-gold" machine as a background prop for a heist based on a virtually-unknown handheld game based on an underground cult movie. The pocket factory seemed like a good idea in principle and theory, but neither of them could really elaborate what they wanted it to do exactly, in a way that didn't duplicate something Leet had already made.

They brainstormed, writing ideas, researching them, crossing them out. And then one entry found its way onto the page, that seemed to stand apart. It was researched, and underlined. Dozens of other ideas were scrapped, and it stood. Finally the two of them had to agree that it was the best option for them.


Friday Danny rode out to work, and stopped halfway to check Tattletale's phone. No messages, which was a good thing as far as he was concerned. He dismantled it and headed into the office. Another full day of interviews much like Thursday, except for the burgeoning anticipation and relief as the end of the day loomed nearer. He checked in with the other interviewers, reviewed their notes, approved their decisions, and then pressed the button on his phone to refer all incoming calls directly to voice mail. "Quitting time," he sighed at last.

Barry tapped on the doorframe. "Hey, we're done here. Next week, all we have to do is sit back and deal with the increased workload from putting so many of our people back to work. Now, let's put your bike in the back of my truck, and we can go get those decorations from your place and get the weekend started."

"Sounds good," Danny said, unbuttoning his shirt and untucking his shirt tails. He unchained the bike, threw it into the back of Barry's pickup, and then tucked his backpack by his feet while they drove.

"I gotta say thanks again for taking this thing off my hands," Barry said. "It was a tough time. Though, if I'd known you were going to bring in all this new work I wouldn't have worried about it. The budget's a lot easier to work with when things are flush."

"No problem," Danny chuckled.

They drove in silence some, discussing which vendor in the area had the best hot dogs or snow cones or pretzels or falafel and then lapsing back to silence. It was comfortable, companionable silence. Danny's legs ached a little, as if they knew that they should be riding right now instead of sitting down.

At the house Danny invited Barry in and handed him a beer, then headed down to the basement and came up with the banners. "Okay, we've got three of these," he said, holding up the roll. "It's about the right size for the walls of the union hall. It says 'Congratulations Wilma', and-"

"Is that calligraphy?"

"Yeah, some decorative calligraphy. Turns out it's a lot easier to do that stuff big like this, than small on a piece of normal paper. And this last one, I'm not sure if we should use or not, I got a bit carried away. It says 'Bless your family as you blessed ours'. It's kinda sappy, not sure how it'd go with that crowd."

"Holy shit Danny that's amazing. And these are the streamers, god there's hundreds of them, and how many bags of confetti?"

"Like nine or ten bags of confetti. Mostly white, but I got some color in there too just to break things up."

"Wow. Just wow man. So, uh, are you gonna be able to make it tomorrow night or are you going to be busy?"

Danny was taken aback. "Barry, we've been planning this. Wilma's one of the warmest people I know, she was almost Taylor's godmother. There's no way I'd miss this."

"Okay, I just thought you might be busy. Single-dad stuff."

Danny paused, something nagging at him. "Barry, what do you mean?"

Barry sighed, rolled his eyes, and then repeated. "I thought you might be 'busy', that's all," he said, adding the air-quotes with his fingers.

Danny Hebert froze, as he realized exactly what Barry meant. He moved a rat through the vents to confirm his suspicions, smelling Barry. "Damn," he said. "You know."

"What? Of course I know. Everyone in the office knows. Wait, you didn't know that we knew?" Barry's eyes went wide. "Oh, oh that's funny," he chuckled, then took a drink of his beer. "We know, Danny. We just try to respect your privacy. Or like, I dunno, the illusion of not knowing, get it? C'mon, man, half the time you ride north instead of heading home. You're doing the work of four men. You started leaving work early when a new superhero makes his debut in the city. You've been to the water cooler, you've seen people speculate about who any new cape is. And the first thing they do is joke about their friends and family, compare their schedule and rule them out. But we couldn't rule you out, Danny. And the rest of it just fit into place."

The recliner rushed up to catch Danny from behind. "Well shit."

"We won't tell Wilma that her banners were made by a superhero," Barry said. "Even though she'd be tickled pink. Here, have a beer."

"I'm still going to the baby shower."

"Great to hear it. We'll cover for you if you need to show up a bit late or leave a bit early."


Saturday morning the Wharf Rat got an early start, heading down to the old storage lockers in the Docks to meet with Uber and Leet. They both showed up in street clothes with caps pulled low and sunglasses on, Danny arrived in full costume. "Sorry," he said first, "I don't know the protocol for meetings like this. I'll be more discreet in the future."

"No worries," Uber said. He was tall and broad-shouldered, the physique of a bodybuilder hidden under a light sweater and baggy pants. "For what we're being paid, we'll forgive a lot."

"Do I even want to know what you two gouged Kaiser for?" the Wharf Rat chuckled.

"A hundred thousand dollars above our costs," Leet confided. He was short and slight, weedy and reedy next to the tall Adonis that was Uber. "So, to what do we owe the recognition? Normally nobody cuts either of us into a deal like this."

The Wharf Rat shrugged. "Honestly, I wanted someone that Kaiser would hate dealing with. The more arrogant and pushy he got, the more I wanted his face in the dirt. And besides, you two do actually have the skills I need, and nobody else in the city does. I'd have to contract all the way to Philadelphia to get the right person if you can't help me."

Leet puffed up some at that. "Okay, so what's the spec?"

"I want you to make something that can override holograms at a distance. Projecting my face, body, and voice through a hologram and override its original signal."

Leet seemed surprised. "That's... that's different. I don't get much call for different. Mostly people want force fields and teleporters."

"But you're good at different. Not many tinkers are," Wharf Rat pointed out.

"Yeah but, hell, nobody recognizes that fact," Uber cut in. "Hmm, that's going to take a hell of an interface. I can do the software while he builds it, do you have a preference for the input format?" Leet was a tinker that could build anything once and then never again, Uber's gimmick was that he could acquire any skill he wanted. Olympic-class skier, expert martial artist, gourmet baker, or software engineer, just by shifting his power from one to the next.

"Tablet computer, hardened connection, touchpad, with my biometrics programmed in so that it can be activated to show me in costume even if I'm not in costume," Wharf Rat replied.

"Okay, that's easier than I thought you'd ask," Uber said, nodding. "Heuristic three-dee model-mapping with fabric draping and real-time render would have been a lot of work."

Leet was still staring at him in surprise. "Kaiser contracted us for our very best work, and this is... well, it's not the grade I expected you to ask for. I thought it'd be something big, difficult, something really impressive. Are you sure that this is what you want?"

"Did I underbid?" Wharf Rat asked, abashed.

"Not entirely, I mean, I can make this a really great job if you want, I can put my A-grade work into this if it's what you want."

The rogue hero nodded. "I'm sure you'll see why soon. But I've got a question before we get to work."

"Yeah?" Uber asked.

"Are you guys getting what you want?"

Uber and Leet traded a glance. The tinker is the one who spoke. "Almost. It's happening, bit by bit. We mostly want people to appreciate video games the way that we do. Our stunts and escapades are mostly to show people that you can really live out your love for video games, but every year we see a new blockbuster game that gets better gross sales than the big movie of the year. Every year we see them move further into the mainstream, accepted by all. They've been acknowledged as a legitimate art form by the critics, and it's getting hard to find people that believe they do harm to people. And that's what we want."

Wharf Rat nodded thoughtfully. "That's an admirable goal, honestly. Just that you love something so much you want the whole world to love it. I just wonder if you're really working constructively towards that goal."

Leet rolled his eyes and half-turned as if to leave the conversation, but Uber stepped in. "What do you mean? We get tons of publicity, and our message reaches a lot of people!"

"Right, but hear me out: you guys are a genius tinker whose specialty is doing things that have never been done, and a man who can have any skill that he wants at all. Why aren't you guys making games of your own? Level design is a skill, background art is a skill, directing is a skill, voice acting and scripting... and Leet could create absolutely unique interfaces. Or a camera that automatically turns image into render and into code. Things like that."

The two stared at him skeptically, and the Wharf Rat shrugged. "Or don't mind me. Thanks for your help, guys. I'll be in touch." He walked away, checking with his rats to make sure he wasn't being watched before he slipped down a manhole in a back alleyway. He replaced the lid and then let himself down the ladder, stepping off to the side so he could keep his slippers as clean as possible. The tunnel-buggy should have been sealed with fiberglass or some composite polymer he did not understand the composition of, but he had made do with plastic sheeting wood-stapled to the body frame. It was enough to keep the interior clean and dry, but the thing looked incredibly flimsy. He opened the door, and it swung on angled hinges to let him step down comfortably and easily. He bundled his jacket and dropped it into the cargo hatch, then slid into the pilot's seat.

The interior of his mask was rubbed with camphor, the strong minty hit of it overwhelming the smell of must and mold and rotted leaves down here in the storm sewers. He wouldn't even dream of going into the sewers themselves, the sanitary sewers were incredibly unsanitary but the storm drains were just there to drain rainfall away from the city. His feet slotted into the pedals and he started to push, and the buggy moved smoothly and easily away, finding its grip with no issues. The controls were intuitive and simple, incredibly responsive. With no true windshield he could not really see where he was going, but the rats all around him navigated for him, showing him where to turn and where to veer around obstacles. He could pick his whole path without trouble, he could turn without slowing, and he could maintain awareness of his entire environment. It was the perfect patrol vehicle.

He picked up speed easily, the pedals and driveshaft turning his movement into surprising velocity. He turned, and the buggy dipped into its turn, cornering like a cat. In no time at all he was up to fifty miles an hour, shooting across the city without traffic or stop signs to slow him. He would deal with Mayor Christner soon, there was something he needed to do first: clean up the Docks.

A small brown mouse dialed the numbers on his burn phone, and held the receiver next to his mouth. "Hello, Brockton Bay police? This is the Wharf Rat. I wanted to report some crimes in progress. Do you have a pen? Good. Okay, child abuse at 2405 North Lamont Road, apartment 39. Possession of narcotics, 2405 North Lamont Road, apartment 43. Burglary of a vehicle, 2412 North Lamont road, in progress. Drug deal in progress, 2500 North Lamont Road, license plate number 545-HVC. Drunk driver, license plate number 669-OLM, currently headed north on North Lamont road, crossing Dunn. Rape in progress, 650 Dunn Road. Correction, attempted rape at that address, and a pressing need for an ambulance to save an attempted rapist covered in rat bites. Dead body at 2612 North Lamont Road, wrapped in plastic in the garage."

The Docks was hit with an invasion of cop cars, patrolmen from every neighboring district. Off-duty officers were called up, rookies were pressed into service, desk officers were put into uniform, and block by block the Wharf Rat got the undesirables out of his territory. Most of the people in the Docks were good law-abiding citizens who just didn't have the money to move. Fixed incomes, divorcees, college students, the disabled, those supporting too-large families, and others. But mixed into them were criminals who brought danger and trouble into their lives. And those criminals were being excised. The patrollers ran out of handcuffs and had to move to zip-tie restraints, patrol cars were filling their back seats with three perpetrators and then heading back to the precinct to drop off at the jail and then head back out for more. And the PRT got word that the Wharf Rat was phoning in dozens of reports, hundreds, reciting them off as fast as he could. The Protectorate patrols were redirected to take the strain off the Docks police, and the rest of the Protectorate members were called up and dispatched to help, and then the Wards. It was a law-enforcement blitz, fielding reports on a scale never seen before.

The onslaught started at ten o'clock a.m. and did not let up until four p.m., moving in a grid pattern across the district. Smart dispatchers started sending cars ahead of the grid pattern so they'd be in place when Wharf Rat told them what crimes to investigate in that region. And in the midst of it all, the Wharf Rat noticed something that chilled him through. A figure on top of a roof, wearing black with her cloak billowing around her, carrying two crossbows. The rat nearest her could smell her skin, and he recognized the smell. It was one he knew. Sophia Hess, one of the bullies who had devastated his daughter.

Taylor's tormentor was one of the Wards. His belly filled with ice and suddenly a dozen details made perfect sense. He gripped the handlebars of the tunnel-buggy and started to rush her position with tens of thousands of rats, but he checked himself, gritted his teeth and moved them slowly into position. The girl was texting on her phone, and her crossbows were leaning against the air-conditioner alongside her. Danny moved to the fire escape without hesitating, moving with stealth over speed. The rats swarmed up the building, climbing the brickwork nearly as fast as they could walk on level ground. They came up behind her, moved about carefully to their specific objective, and scouted the scene as Danny Hebert ascended the ladder. And then they struck.

The bowstrings twanged noisily, unraveling explosively before they tipped over. The girl swore noisily and bent to pick them up and examine the damage, tucking the phone away into an inside pocket. When she looked up, the Wharf Rat was in front of her, standing stock-still with his back straight, looming like a long brown shadow. "You're not supposed to carry lethal ammunition," he said sternly. "Those crossbows are a sign of trust, and you abused that trust."

"Fuck you, asshole, you shouldn't have messed with my stuff!" she snarled, lunging at him. She was younger, and extremely athletic, and well-trained. Her powers let her fight aggressively by shifting to her shadow-state rather than dodging, shifting back just in time to land a blow. And suddenly the rooftop was a tide of rats, swirling around he ankles. She shifted to shadow and the rats passed through her, leaping high to snap a kick at the older man's midsection. But he was taller with a much longer reach, a roll of quarters, and a youth spent scrapping in the Docks with as nasty a gang of hooligans as were to be found in the city. And he also had the notorious Hebert temper and she was the girl who had shoved his daughter into a locker stuffed full of used tampons left to fester for two weeks. The girl who had used her authority as a Ward to keep her and the other bullies from facing any consequences for traumatizing his daughter. He swung a big roundhouse right at where her head was going to be when she materialized.

She saw the punch coming and stayed immaterial, sliding through him, landing on the opposite side. The rats snapped and gnawed at her continuously, waiting for her to solidify so their jaws could get purchase. She stayed out of reach, glowering at him, and they were at an impasse, both glaring. Without her crossbows she could only attack him in close, and his reach gave him an edge and his rats gave him another edge. She seemed to come to a conclusion, and that conclusion was "fuck it". She charged him, arms raised for a combination. He tucked his chin to his collarbone and drove a straight right punch towards her, but she deflected it with her left while she snapped a right chop at his temple. He leaned into it, taking it across the side of his head and his ear, bringing up a knee strike.

And rats snapped at her legs, tearing through her costume and lacerating her ankles and calves, avoiding the Achilles tendon. As pissed as he was, he was not going to fight a teenage girl like he fought Lung, unless he found out that she could regenerate like Lung. She dodged the knee-kick and shot two fists into his belly, and she faded out to keep herself safe from the rats while she advanced on him. The rats flooded away, clearing plenty of space between the two of them while he pulled himself to a crouch, gasping for air. The shadow-girl stomped closer, cracking her knuckles to make sure he understood what was coming. And then he opened his hand and let something roll out of it onto the roof between them. He crushed his eyes closed and put up an arm to protect them as the tinker-made flashbomb went off. The light was searing, the bare parts of his wrist and fingers felt sunburned.

Shadow Stalker, on the other hand, seemed to be very vulnerable to megawatt flashes of light, she was dropped to the ground shivering and shuddering all over, with smoke swirling up from the frayed edges of her costume. He squatted down next to her. "You're a psycho. You're a sadistic bitch who should be in the damn Birdcage. You got handed a second chance with the Wards, and you're abusing that to smirch their good name and turn their good intentions to violence and corruption. Drop out of the Wards, and go find a shrink that will help you stop being such a fucking psycho," he said. "And if you ever go out on patrol with lethal ammunition again, I'm going to find out how many rats you can feed and still get healed."

He stood up and stepped back, then tapped his earpiece to open the channel to the police line again. "I've got a Ward here with illegal weapons, on the roof of 750 Leaven Avenue. She's subdued, needs medical assistance." And then he got on the ladder, climbing down, still reciting off crimes for the police to deal four in the afternoon, he had finished each block of the district, and the jails were bursting full of crooks that had made the Docks their home. And Danny Hebert felt a little better, some of that karmic squeamishness in his belly was alleviated. He had felt wrong ever since he got a phone call from Kaiser, but this helped a little. And if he could help Taylor out with Sophia the bully and Shadow Stalker the alter ego that protected the bully, he would feel better yet.

But one thing to do first.

The Armsmaster was leaning against his motorcycle waiting for the next call when the PRT officer on the dispatch console transferred an incoming call to his helmet's communicator. "Armsmaster?"

"Speaking," Colin said. The voice was familiar.

"It's the Wharf Rat again," said the other voice, and it clicked into place. "Just wanted to let you know that I'm done for the day, everyone can stand down. And, there's one more thing."

"What one thing? And what the hell did you do to Shadow Stalker?" The Armsmaster demanded, but his attention went to the side of the road, where four big brown rats were climbing out of the storm drain carrying a piece of paper. It was a thick bundle, a broad piece folded in quarters. "Is this yours?"

"I hit her with a flashbang grenade. I did not realize that the light was going to affect her like that. Did you recover the evidence that she's been suborning the terms of her probation?"

"We did. Fingerprints confirmed that it wasn't planted," Armsmaster said. "She's getting treatment by healers, and we're going to have a very strong talk with her. This won't happen again."

Wharf Rat sighed. "It'll happen again the moment she feels she can get away with it," he predicted. "You need to get her out of your group, you know she's got a problem."

"You nearly burned her to death," Armsmaster said. "You assaulted a duly-authorized representative of the PRT in the commission of her duties. The fact that she was carrying broadhead bolts was the only reason we're not opening a manhunt for you."

"Look, just open the question of whether or not she should be authorized to represent you. Open that question, compare the evidence, and you'll be siding with me in no time," Wharf Rat said. Now, let's get back to these Squealer designs. It's the Protectorate's now," Wharf Rat said. "Not long ago I let your guys to Squealer's garage. But she also had some blueprints, and this is one of them. It's a vertical-take-off-and-landing aircraft, carries a dozen people, perfect for in-city use. More to the point, it's perfect for a quick-response force of superheroes."

"You want me to make this thing?" Armsmaster asked, taking the paper from the rats.

"I really do. Look, the problem with patrolling for crime is that you guys aren't good at it. Me, I'm good at it," the Wharf Rat said modestly. "Heck, the cops are good at patrolling for crime. Giving the citizens of the city a number to call for help is a great idea. But you guys need a way to get anywhere in the city, fast. This thing is part one of that goal. Part two is Vista. She can contract space, especially space that nobody is in. Put her on a light plane or glider, and she can contract the empty space above the buildings and speed up your response times by an order of magnitude. I'm talking about the Protectorate being able to get anywhere in this city in two or three minutes. With that sort of response time, you could-"

"We could win every super-battle in the city," Armsmaster said, nodding along. "Look, the plane is good, and Vista is good. But this is a procedural change. This is about undoing the normal operations of the Protectorate. These procedures were developed by Legend and Eidolon and Alexandria. And our Director is particularly resistant to change, and particularly resistant to suggestions from us. Heck, even the head of our image department is going to be foursquare against this, he thinks the patrols are about increasing our visibility and public relations."

"The best PR is a good track record," the Wharf Rat retorted. "Winning and capturing criminals is going to do a lot more good than staged appearances and street patrols."

Armsmaster chuckled. "You're not wrong. Maybe I can play Glenn off against the Director. Wouldn't that be something to see? Anyway, thanks for the input."

"No problem. But, one more thing?"

"I should expect it at this point. What've you got?" Colin asked.

"There's a really good chance that sometime very very soon I'll be coming to blows with someone from Empire Eighty-Eight. I'll either need assistance in transporting a prisoner, or I may even need assistance on the takedown. Or possibly a rescue."

"What the hell man? Nobody gets in this much trouble but you," Armsmaster half-yelled into the mouthpiece. His frustration was showing. "You know something? This is exactly why we try to recruit people into the Protectorate. Vigilante rogues wind up like this. They either burn out and get killed in the first couple months, or they wind up going full-on villain. And you, Wharf Rat, are looking like the kind that burns out early and gets killed."

"Does that mean you won't help?"

"No it doesn't," the hero sighed. "Just... c'mon, man, straighten up and fly right."

"I'll try. I still intend to join your group once I've done what I have to do. And again, I'm sorry that every time we meet I'm telling you how to do your job."

Armsmaster disconnected the call, and shook his head. The Wharf Rat really did have a bad habit of acting like he knew the best way to do other people's jobs. But the idea of a Protectorate quick-response force was alluring. No more patrols, no more wasting dozens of hours every week just traveling around the city to maybe catch one mugger or a few drunk drivers. The heroes moving straight from one catch to another, jumping directly into situations the cops couldn't handle safely. Using their time better, less wear and tear on their gear.. it was tempting.

The tunnel buggy was stashed in a narrow side tunnel behind a hinged grate a block from his house. He checked that nobody was watching, then he crawled up the ladder and out the manhole, dressed in jogging clothes with a backpack on. He jogged home, and met Taylor at the door.

"You're on the news in a big way," Taylor said. "Over two-thousand arrests, of which an estimated one-thousand are going to definitely see jail time. It's historic, and the local news anchors are competing to see who can give this story the best title. One of them is claiming this will go down in law enforcement history as the Brockton Bay Bust, but the other channel is calling it Rock the Docks."

Danny chuckled and gave her a hug. She cautiously hugged him back. "Oh, thank god you don't smell like sewer," she said. "I was worried what you'd smell like."

"I didn't go near sewage," Danny promised her. "Just storm drains. Don't you know the difference?"

"In a vague academic way?" Taylor shrugged, and gestured a flip-flopping hand for "so-so".

He chuckled again, and headed inside. "I've gotta get a shower, and then I'm heading out to the baby shower. Are you gonna be okay on your own?"

"Yeah, sure, I was just gonna call some friends for a sleepover."

"I don't even care if you're sarcastic or not," he said, grinning as he dropped his backpack on the floor and opened the basement door. "If you want friends over, go for it. If you go out, give me a call and let me know where you're going, okay?" He handed the backpack to the rats on the top step and started to turn away, then froze. "Whoa," he breathed aloud, his gaze turned inward. His face was slack with surprise.

"Dad?" Taylor said. "Dad, what is it?" His reaction filled her with a fast panic, and it only stilled a few seconds later when he shook off his fugue and looked at her.

"Hey, Taylor, come see something with me," he said, and led the way out the back door and through the yard. Two lots down, was the undeveloped lot that he often sent the rats rushing off to when he was emptying the basement out. And hidden in the tall grass were a bunch of tree branches laying close together at odd angles. He bent down and lifted one, it was gnawed all over by distinctive rodent teeth patterns. And the shape of it was arched, an elegant curve of oak wood with a notch at the middle for a pin-and-barrel hinge and holes on either end to take a bolt and washer. He turned the strut one way then the other. "This is from the nose section of the tunnel buggy," he said. "It's almost perfect. And I didn't do this."

Taylor stared at him, then the strut. "So, the rats did this on their own? Like, while you were asleep?"

"Asleep, or when I was away," Danny said, as he concentrated. "Hang on, there's... oh, there they are," he said, as a dozen small rodents came out of the tall grass. Taylor suppressed a moment of panic, the fear of rats was deeply ingrained. These were juveniles, but not babies. Probably born in the last couple of months. Danny reached down and scooped them up, and brought them up to his face, staring at them as they stared at him. "Taylor, these guys are ... they're smart. Not 'Secret of NIMH' smart, but they're aware of me. I.. I think this is really something here. I think these guys were born while my powers were active, and they were linked to my mind when they were delivered, and through most of their infancy. These guys are different."

"Different how?" Taylor asked.

"Well, for one thing I can read their minds," Danny said, in awe. "And it's weird."

His daughter looked at him strangely. "Yeah, dad. You can read rats' minds. It's your superpower, remember? The thing you do, the Wharf Rat?"

"No, these guys are different. Normally I can read a rat's senses, all of them, and I can control the rat's body, all of it. Even the parts they can't control consciously. But that's not the same thing. This guy here, I can see his memories. I can see how he feels about things. I can see how his mind is different when my power is turned on and when it's off. He remembers what happens when I'm in control, and he came back here and did it some more. No, he got the other rats to do it with him. He was... he was using his own pheromones and normal rat communication to guide the other rats to do the right things. He and his brothers and sisters here all did it."

Taylor shook her head. "Hey, dad, plenty of time to think about that later. Shower now, baby shower after, then other superhero stuff. Go, get, wash." She shooed him out of the empty lot and back to the house.


"Did you see her face?" Barry asked, passing his buddy a beer in a red solo cup.

"I thought she might have the baby right there on the doorway out of sher shock," Danny chuckled. "The place looks good. The tablecloths look new, the centerpieces look good. If you hadn't told me they were the same centerpieces spray-painted green and white, I would not have known. You did a hell of a job setting this up."

"Thanks for the banners," Barry said, nodding modestly. "She loved them, by the way. And the streamers. And we've got enough confetti left over for next time."

Danny nodded, looking around. Friends all around, people as close as brothers and sisters. He had made it his job to take care of them and the brotherhoood that kept them together. "Barry, how do things look for next week?"

"Busy as hell," Barry said, pitching his voice to carry over the music. "I've got to adjust every item in our budget for the rest of the year. The benefits department is going to be eyeball-deep in work all week just keeping up with your hires. The chapter president is going to have to go out with the inspectors to make sure the union agreements are upheld to the letter and the contracts are fulfilled. It's gonna be bonkers. For everyone but you," he added. "You, on the other hand, could probably take the whole week off and everyone would be too busy to even notice, as long as you keep up your email from home."

Danny laughed aloud, and clapped the larger man on the shoulder. "I think I can do that."

"Then do it," Barry said, nudging his with his elbow. "You've earned at least a vacation, maybe more. Especially today, with the Brockton Bay Bust." He paused, waving to a colleague that was walking past towards the kegs, then Barry turned back to Danny. "You know, even if you hadn't saved us this last week with the factory deal, we'd probably still cut you a vacation. A lot of folks, they think that it would be our privilege to help you out with what you do, even if you weren't helping us."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm still going to do a fair job for my fair pay," Danny waved modestly.

Barry cleared his throat. "I said, Danny, that a lot of the people in this room would be honored if there was some way we could help you with what you do out there."

"Oh. Oh!" Danny said, startled by the idea. "That's.. that's really unexpected. And really gratifying, I'm flattered. Honored. And... and I may very well take you up on that. Maybe even very soon. Nothing dangerous, but there may come a point where I can't do everything myself, and when that comes-"

"Ask. Don't hesitate to ask, just ask," Barry said, clapping him on the shoulder. "You do good for people, Danny, let people help you.