Apparently it was tradition to arrive to these things early. Tables were already pushed together in the middle of the bar, with Kaiser holding the head of the table, flanked by Fenja and Menja. He was dressed head-to-toe in armor that was made of blades fused together, grown one out of the other, with a crown of swords atop the helmet. The two women at his back were a matched pair of twins, statuesque and blonde, living propaganda for the Aryan race ideal, dressed in Valkyrie armor with one carrying a sword and shield and the other a spear. Seated at Kaiser's right hand was a skinny, hard-edged man with a greasy blonde ponytail and no shirt or shoes, Hookwolf. On the other side, with a space to indicate that he was not allied or aligned, Coil sat casually. His costume was a skintight black suit, seamless and undifferentiated except for a white stylized snake that wrapped around from his head down to his ankle, winding about his body. Next to him at the table was Grue of the Undersiders, a figure of pitch-black with a smoky darkness that swirled all around him, highlighting a stylized skull face where the villain's face should have been. Tattletale stood behind him, leaning on his shoulder casually, her arm disappeared except for the shoulder and hand. Bitch and a foppish young man that had to be Regent sat in a booth behind them. Opposite Grue sat a teenager with a tall top hat and skull-like red mask that mimicked a Baron Samedi look, Danny recognized him from his picture as Trickster, the leader of the Travelers. The rest of his crew was arrayed in behind him, a gang of teenagers in red costumes with a variety of logos and accessories. Beside him was Faultline, leader of a mercenary villain crew in the city. She was a battle-hardened woman whose costume was part dress, part military uniform, and part samurai armor. Arrayed behind her was a wedge of her people. An amphibious-guy with a tail and slick brightly-colored skin, a dour-looking giant with translucent skin and shell-like encrustations, a young woman with a brush-cut of bright red hair, and a cloaked young girl whose eyes fixated on the floor. And the only seat left was at the foot of the table.
Danny walked in, and paused at this display. Eyes widened around the room, various people that couldn't believe he had actually arrived. He saw Tattletale mouthing the word "idiot". People turned in their seats, changing their focus from the center of the table to the foot of the table. Wharf Rat walked to the chair and took a seat, swirling his coat around so it didn't drag on the ground as he sat. The door closed, and the dour-faced waitress locked it and turned around the sign in the window. The whole room was staring at him, a gallery of accusers. "I understand that most of you think I'm behind this latest upheaval," the Wharf Rat said. "But I would like to start by assuring you that I am not."
"And do you have any proof that you had nothing to do with this?" Faultline asked. Her eyes were hard and unflinching.
"I have exactly as much proof as you do," he answered easily.
Tattletale tut-tutted. "Ratman, you and I are the only people in this room that could pull this off. And you're the one currying favor with the PRT."
"I gave Crusader my word specifically that I wouldn't go after Kayden Anders or her children," Danny answered. "If I had done this, her name would have been left off the list. I didn't even know she was Purity until Kaiser pointed me at her. If I had been behind this, Kayden's name would not be on that list, even if all the others were. She was estranged from Kaiser, and had been dormant or semi-retired for longer than I've had powers. It wouldn't have surprised anyone if she was left out, nobody would have thought twice about it. It could easily have gone either way, and yet it went this way. I didn't make that list or send it."
Coil shook his head. "And you are innocent because you made one promise for one woman? That's hardly convincing."
"He's right though," Tattletale said. "He's telling the truth." She seemed more surprised by that than anyone.
Trickster scowled. "I'm going to need more than her word or his word," he said, leaning forward and tapping a cigarette out of his pack. "We're going to need assurances, collateral."
"You need more than the assurances of the two best-informed people in this room," Wharf Rat drawled. "Whose assurances do you need, Trickster? Whose word would be good enough? Or is this just a ploy to demand that I give you leverage just to bribe you to stop making vague threats?"
"Not vague," Trickster said, drawing a knife from his jacket and sweeping it towards Faultline at the same moment as he switched Faultline's and Wharf Rat's places, teleporting them into each other's chairs. Danny had a knife to his throat, and Trickster glaring holes through his mask.
Wharf Rat started at him in silence, not budging. The room went silent, and the silence stretched out. The tension built, and then leveled, and then soured, until Trickster looked like an idiot for holding a knife against a man who was clearly not frightened of him. Trickster snarled and pulled the knife back, switching Faultline and Wharf Rat back to their original positions.
"If we're quite done?" Faultline asked, her eyebrow arched. "My main interest here is to find out exactly who it is that broke the rules and released those names. I'm here specifically because I don't assume it was the Rat, and I don't want to take a chance on blaming him only to let the real culprit run free."
Grue shook his head. "I don't know, I think I support Trickster's call for collateral."
Danny leaned forward, dropping his elbows onto the table. "And while all of you are quibbling, you have failed to ask yourselves the important question right now."
Tattletale smirked. "Why isn't Kaiser saying anything?"
Every eye turned towards the leader of the Empire. The armored man smirked slowly. "Well, there's a complication," Kaiser said. "See, none of you are asking what motive the rat could have for outing the Empire's names. But yesterday, hours before the announcement, the rat called me to ask permission to investigate a kidnapping that happened simultaneously to the bank robbery in downtown."
"I called Tattletale too," Danny said. "I went out of my way to not step on toes."
Kaiser inclined his head. "So, we have to ask whose toes did he step on? Who was working to keep this vigilante from investigating that kidnapping?"
Faultline turned to face him directly. "You think he was set up."
"I think someone tried to play me against the rat," Kaiser said. "I think someone tried to manipulate me into doing their dirty work, and they burned my life down to do it," he said. His voice was calm and level, but metal squealed on metal as his hands shifted in place. "And I think that Tattletale has been two quick to insist that only she and the rat have the capacity to do this. I think we can't dismiss other suspects yet."
Coil shifted in his seat, and Trickster spoke up again. The Traveler took a drag on his cigarette and said, "Here's a thought. Let's kill the rat, like right now. If he didn't do this, he's already busted six villains and he'll go after more. He's a threat and we don't need to put up with him. He's a rogue, not a Protectorate, so this is our best chance. And then, after he's dead, we snoop around and see if he was guilty or innocent. If he's innocent, we got rid of one threat and we start looking for whoever did give up Kaiser's name. It's a question of whether we have two threats or just one, really. We kill him, and we either have one threat or zero."
"Did you kidnap the child?" Wharf Rat interrupted. "Do you need me to stop my investigation? Did you release the names to take me off the case?"
"Of course not, I..." Trickster saw in his peripheral vision the way that everyone was staring at him, and he turned to address them. "It wasn't me, and I'd think that was obvious."
"You're working hard to keep the rat from having a chance to prove himself innocent," Faultline pointed out. "We've heard from you. We know that you think he's guilty. We know you want assurances or hostages. But if we demand collateral and he's not the one, then we would all owe him the same collateral in return. Do you want that? Are you so sure that it's him that you'd give him leverage if you're wrong?"
Hookwolf narrowed his eyes as he glared down the table. "And if Trickster is that sure, I'd want to know why. I want to know what makes him so sure it was the rat. And why nobody's even looking at Tattletale, this is exactly the sort of thing she does."
"Because Tattle would have signed her name to it," Grue said immediately. "An anonymous tip would mean that she can't show off how smart she is, and Tattle needs that sort of thing like she needs air."
The various villains looked at each other across the table, and there was an acclaim of nods. "Okay, that's a good enough point," Kaiser said. "But she could have assembled the information and someone else could have gotten it and distributed it. But, one more wrinkle complicates this. Wharf Rat, be so good as to describe the attackers that kidnapped the child."
"Black balaclavas, long-barreled guns, heavy boots, fast entry, lots of shouting, about six of them plus the driver. The swept the house for threats and grabbed the girl, then drove away in an unmarked van that performed extensive evasive maneuvers thereafter," Danny spoke. Faultline turned to stare at Coil. Kaiser turned to stare at Coil. Grue seemed to turn with them, it was hard to tell. Lastly, Trickster turned to face the man in black with the snake motif.
The thin man spread his hands. "I did capture the girl. She is important to me. But I didn't release the names of the Empire. It is convenient to me that this has distracted the Wharf Rat, but it was also convenient to me that the Undersiders distracted every cop in the city at the same time as I was making my move. Things often happen that are convenient for me, but that doesn't mean that I gave up Kaiser's people to the newspapers."
The room descended into a silent funk, as everyone processed this. Kaiser broke the silence. "So, it sounds like we have four suspects. Coil because of the convenience of this and his expansive but mysterious resources. Wharf Rat as the known quantity, a snoop and a wannabe hero. Tattletale because we need more than her ego to rule her out as a suspect. And the Travelers, simply because of how sketchy they've acted during this conference."
"Hey now!" Trickster blurted, rocking forward.
"Sounds about right to me," Faultline said, shrugging.
Wharf Rat nodded. "I still say I shouldn't be on that list, but I imagine everyone else on the list would say the same thing. And the fact is that none of us are a perfectly clean fit for this crime, but a lot of us do sort-of fit it."
"Looks good for you," Trickster sneered. "You were the shoo-in candidate before you walked in, and now you've got three other suspects."
"We've got more suspects because Kaiser revealed relevant information," Faultline reminded him. "And these defensive outbursts of yours are exactly why you're on the list."
"I don't suppose anyone has an alibi?" Wharf Rat tossed out, leaning back in his chair. "I was hanging out with my daughter, but clearly I can't verify that in front of all of you."
"I was counting a whole lot of money," Tattletale said, shrugging. "But I've only got my teammates for witnesses and nobody here would trust their word."
"I have no alibi either," Coil said.
"I was with my team," Trickster said. "And so it looks like none of us can take ourselves off the list."
Kaiser sighed. "This is not productive. I have contact information for all of you, I move that we reconvene soon, after we have more information. I trust that each of us will investigate to the best of our abilities. If any of you do get proof or evidence in the interim, I trust you will contact me immediately and let me know who ruined my life entirely. I will reward handsomely for the privilege of meting out punishment myself."
Coil raised a hand to interject a point. "I support this notion of all of us working to find the answer. Can I propose a moratorium on all outside activities, or any hostilities or territorial conflicts that might distract us from this endeavor?"
Kaiser snorted a half a laugh. "You mean that you want the rat to stop sniffing around your kidnapping, and you want this conclave to enforce your demands," Kaiser said. "If you weren't on the list yourself, I'd back your proposal. As it is, this is one suspect asking for preferential treatment over another suspect."
Trickster sighed and stood, and the rest of the Travelers stood up behind him. "We'll see what we can learn, but I reiterate that letting the rat leave her alive is a mistake."
Danny turned his head towards the boy fast enough that the fabric of his mask made a snapping noise. "You have taken absolutely every opportunity to provoke me during this conference," he said. "You started this meeting by threatening my life on neutral ground, which already makes you no better than the actual guilty party we're investigating. If anyone here should not wake away alive, it's you." He stood, and the room was suddenly full of rats. They burst out from under booths and tables, around the bar, every dark corner and empty drain and falling from the air vents and the windows. He stood, and the rats swirled up and around him like an inverted tornado, spiraling up his body from the floor. The rats perched on his shoulders, clung to his jacket, writhed down his right arm, and concealed his lower body entirely. The rats glared at Traveler, teeth bared. "You like a show of power, Trickster. Here it is. And I hope you appreciate it more than you appreciate the fact that I had two rats under your chair next to your Achilles tendons as soon as you teleported me. Had you made the wrong move, an inch, you would have lost your feet. I bet that even a teleporter wants to be able to walk."
Kaiser stood, his chair falling over behind him, and the rats whisked away as fast as they appeared, leaving only the couple dozen that clung to Wharf Rat's jacket and sleeve. The leader of Empire Eighty-Eight pointed a newly-minted sword across the table. "Rat, do not break the neutrality of this ground again. Trickster, mind your words and mind your ankles. We have clearly been in this room too long, any further and I'll have to watch you all squabble each other to death. Leave here, and find out what you can. I will call you again when there is something to share."
The two valkyries at his side moved from behind him to the front as he turned, guarding his back from the roomful of villains. Hookwolf slunk along after, glaring at everyone. Trickster and the Travelers left without a word or ceremony, sparing not a look for Wharf Rat. Faultline stood slowly, and her team fell in alongside her. She looked around the room, and sighed. "We should do this less often," she said, and walked to the door.
Coil stood and left, and only Wharf Rat and the Undersiders were left. He looked at them, they looked at him. "I really didn't do it," he repeated, shrugging.
"And you're still not lying," Tattletale said. "But, neither did I."
"And you're not lying either," Danny said with a nod. "Could you have?"
"With resources and assistance, yes," she said. "Could you?"
"With time," he said. "And a couple of lucky leads. Hey Grue, could you answer me a question?"
The swirling black silhouette looked up at the other man. "What question?"
"Are you getting what you want?" Danny asked him. "I don't need to know what you really want, what makes you do what you're doing. I just want to know if you are getting whatever it is that you want."
"Some kind of mind game?" Grue asked, looking over his shoulder towards Tattletale.
"Something like that," she said. Her face was tucked down towards her leader but her eyes were glued to the Wharf Rat like he would disappear if she looked away.
Grue shrugged. "Right now, I am. Steady progress."
Danny watched him, but there was no body language to read and nothing to smell or hear from him. He nodded, slowly. "Okay, that's good. Lots of people put themselves on a path and never ask themselves if it's time to try a different path. Thank you for answering." He paused, and turned his head slightly to look at Bitch. She glared back at him, challenging, her lip peeling back from her teeth. He turned and walked away before another fight could erupt.
Down the storm drains, he climbed into the tunnel buggy and assembled the Tattletale phone, to find it had dozens of messages waiting for him. "Shit," he grunted, and sped off towards the Docks while a small mouse started the first message.
"Armsmaster here," the phone said.
"Armsmaster, it's Wharf Rat, Purity's gone nuts and has started leveling Docks," Danny blurted out.
There was a sigh. "Yeah. And we're under orders to stand down. Officially it's for our own safety; Purity has a posse with her: Night and Fog, Viktor and Othala, and Rune. There are four villains out there right now that can kill half my team in one shot, and even with my armor I can't take more than a few hits from Purity or Night, and none at all from Rune. Even if we got the Wards in, we're just giving Purity more victims. But Purity has limited stamina, she rarely stays in a fight more than a few hours, especially when she's using as much power as she's using now. Unofficially, I think the Director is looking at this more as urban renewal than a bloodthirsty rampage. And even more unofficially, I think it's a message to you that you crossed the line when you attacked Shadow Stalker."
"People are dying, man. You can't be on board with standing by."
"There's been a few injuries, but nothing indicates anyone's dying yet," Armsmaster countered. "Velocity, Battery and Assault are out there now, evacuating people from the path of the battle, keeping casualties down."
"We won't know about deaths until the buildings have been inspected," Danny retorted. "And besides, people are losing their homes and you're letting it happen so you can wait for Purity to wear herself out."
"Wharf, hear me when I say this: Purity can paste my team. Night and Fog can kill us horribly. Rune will drop a building on us and then there's no Protectorate. We have to stand down."
Danny sighed. "Okay, I hear you. I just... I just want you to keep helping people evacuate, and keep the casualties down. I'll take on the Empire my way."
"By yourself? Wharf, you're even more vulnerable that the rest of my team. You're a fish in a barrel to these guys."
"I'm not saying I'll be alone. What can you tell me that would help?"
"She wants her child back. The PRT snatched the kid about an hour ago; wanted criminals with body counts are not fit mothers. She has demanded the return of the child, and she holds you responsible. She's trashing the Docks to draw you out."
"Then she'll be easy to bait," Wharf Rat replied. "Most problems in this world can be solved by finding out what people want, and giving it to them."
The rampage against the Docks was taking place on multiple fronts. In the air, Purity and Rune held sway. The advancing line on the ground was Night and Fog. Working the back line and hard targets was Viktor, with Othala's assistance.
Purity was floating, a glowing figure with her hair lifting up as if suspended in a breeze or blown by the sheer volume of light she was pouring out. She pointed her hands, and a spear of radiance lashed out that slashed through the brickwork of a tenement, severing the studs and supports and bringing down half the structure. She was a slim woman; every other feature about her was lost to the impenetrable glare that streamed out of her skin and skintight outfit. Meanwhile, Rune was riding a huge chunk of rubble that she manipulated telekinetically, with other slabs of masonry orbiting around her. She was a younger woman, barely more than a girl, and her costume was covered in Norse runes layered over each other. One of the chunks of concrete orbiting her dipped down to smash the other half of the building down, reducing it to rubble. She looked for intact pieces big enough to bother adding to her collection, and moved on.
A sickly-looking grey mist moved along the ground, and any residents fleeing the aerial villains avoided this mist. Not only because it was wildly toxic, but because of what was hidden inside it. Night and Fog had a great synergy, powers that complemented each other's almost perfectly. Anything that went into that mist was probably not coming back out. In their human forms, they were a pair of matching cloaked figures, grey and black, male and female. But now they were a sentient cloud of dangerous chemicals and a fast-moving horror that could never be seen.
Viktor and Othala were another pair that worked with synergy. He could absorb the skills from anyone in his vicinity. He had used this capacity to become expert in virtually every weapon and fighting style there was, everything from infiltration to bomb defusal to strategic planning, dozens of languages, obscure vehicles, and anything of that sort. He wore a red bodysuit with dozens of pouches for weapons. Othala wore a white suit and cloak, printed with the single rune "odal", from which she took her name. Her power was to give powers to others, anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes. With her help, Viktor was super-fast, or invulnerable, and with his skills he hardly needed that advantage.
Othala was the first to be attacked. She was walking down the street, keeping herself between the fog and Viktor, when rats shot out of the storm drain faster than she would have thought possible, striking so fast she thought they had pierced her like big sleek-furred bullets. But they had bitten her and then scattered, and the pain hit her fast. "Viktor!" she called out, and then her legs went out from under her. He flashed to her side with superspeed, and saw how three deep bites had cut into three different arteries, spurting a lot of blood that stained her white costume. He cursed, and drew a knife to cut her cloak into wide straps, wider than in the movies, and used his medical skills to apply the pressure dressings and staunch the bleeding as best he could. The bandages soaked through too quickly, even as he cut new lengths to strap on top, to increase the pressure. He checked his pouches, there were no sutures or needles. "Hey, O," he said, patting her cheek until she opened her eyes. "With some pyrokinesis, I can cauterize these wounds."
"We should go," she said, her breath coming fast. "I'm hit bad, and-" Another rat shot out of the shadows and grazed her, drawing another long wound across her arm, and she winced and bit her lip.
"Shit," he said, shaking his head. He picked her up and looked around for their leader. "Purity!" he yelled up into the air. He projected hard, casting his voice out as far as he could, and at the third shout the leader of their band turned back and noticed him. She waved to him, and he pointed at his bleeding wife. "She needs help! Surgery! I've gotta get her out of here!"
"Dammit," Purity snarled. "I'm gonna kill that rat man." She pitched her voice to carry. "Go! Take care of her!" Then she turned to the rest of her ground forces. "Night! Fog! Kill the rats! Get into the tunnels, the vents, all those hiding places. Kill his rats and look for him!"
The fog started to flatten itself, seeping down into storm drains and sewers, reaching deeper into alleys and dumpsters. And rats began streaming away, all of them fleeing away from the fog as if with one single mind. The fog was lethal but it moved only as fast as a man's walking pace, and the rats could run a good bit faster than that when they were motivated. He flowed after them, but only fell behind. The rats congregated in the road, a few feet between them, and ran all in one direction. Fog condensed himself back into a man, and his partner Night was forced back to her human form, and the two of them ran after the rats to bring them back into their lethal range. Purity flew overhead, tracking the center of the mass and then pulsing out two bolts of light that hit like a car crash, leaving craters in the road way and killing three or four rats with each attack. Rune floated after, looking for a good opportunity to help. And ten rats leaped from a nearby building onto the concrete slab she rode, scuttling closer. The girl screamed as the rats slashed her open. It took a second to hamstring her, blind her in one eye, and leave a dozen deep bleeding gashes on her body. Her concentration wobbled, and the stone nearly dropped her off the side to fall a hundred feet onto the ground.
Purity shrieked with rage and looked for something to shoot, but the rats were disappearing again. She gritted her teeth to master her frustration, closed her eyes. And with her eyes closed, all she could see was Aster, her infant girl. The PRT had stolen Aster out of her crib because the rat man had skulked around and spied on them until he could sell out the whole Empire at once. Yesterday he had captured her staunchest ally Crusader, and today he had told the PRT how to steal her baby. She opened her eyes, and looked at the bleeding Rune. "Follow Viktor and Othala, catch up with them. She can regenerate you," Purity said.
Rune nodded, and the flying island of concrete flew itself away, after the other two members of their strike force. In a minute, the rat man had whittled her cadre of powerhouses in half. She lashed out in every direction, smashing buildings on every side. Walls came down, roofs slumped downward, light poles and telephone poles were severed and fell in place, long trenches were carved in the streets. From the air, she could see a flurry of rodents on a low rooftop, and she zoomed in closer to blast at them and see if her enemy was close by. She was looking away from Night and Fog when the next development hit.
Two trucks, a dozen burly men and women, a dozen Mickey Mouse plastic party-store masks with elastic bands, and a dozen generic beige canvas coveralls, and a forty-foot cargo net with strands three inches thick. The trucks drove fast, close together. The drivers kept their hands steady and their eyes peeled, while the passengers were counting seconds aloud from synchronized watches. In the truck beds were four men or women in each, with two hold tightly to the rolled mass of netting, and the other two standing by to help if necessary. They drove straight towards the fog, and the drivers hit their horns at the same time, signaling everyone to take a deep breath and hold it. And then the drivers veered away from each other, sweeping to opposite sides of the street, each of them nearly outside of Fog's range. And the net was stretched tight between them, gripped tightly in eight hands while the dockworkers braced their feet against the inside of the truck bed for leverage. There was an impact on the net, something huge and heavy that nearly yanked free of their hands. And then they drove out the other side, with Night bundled in their net. The two trucks closed the gap again, and the net folded around her, wrapping tight.
"How often do you see white supremacists dragged behind pickup trucks?" Barry chortled. "Okay, D- Wharf Rat, we've got her, and we'll keep an eye on her. You take care of the others," he said to the small white mouse in the small cage on the dashboard. The mouse gave a nod and a salute. The twelve dockworkers kept a close eye on Night, blinking in shifts, before one of them managed to find the angle for a sleeper hold and knock her unconscious. And then the mouse-masked men and women drove their prisoner to where Battery and Assault were evacuating residents, handing off their prisoner to the heroes.
Fog condensed himself back to human form. "Purity! Hey!" he called out. "The rat has allies, they have taken Night!"
Purity flew up, frustrated anew at her fruitless search for the source of her harassment. "Dammit!" she hissed. "Stay here, try to find him, kill his rats, I'll get Night," she said. "Which way?" she followed his gesture down the street and around the corner, to where the Protectorate was taking custody of Night from a dozen masked figures with mockingly-cheerful mouse masks on. She took aim, but Assault whirled around as if he had somehow seen her from a block away, and held up Night as a living shield between himself and Purity. The others all stepped in behind him. She could not blast him without taking out her own ally first. She was very short of allies, and if she hurt Night then Fog might abandon her too. The thought made her chest tight.
And almost directly below her, a door opened, and a figure in a brown mask with a long tan trenchcoat burst out a door onto the street, and stopped, staring straight up at her. Purity whirled to aim at the rat man, who was already throwing himself back in the door of the building. She blasted hard, pouring her reserves into it. Her hardest blasts hammered at the structure, caving it in. She brought it down, smashing it flat, blast after blast of hard light lancing from her hands into the masonry, pulverizing it until the air was filled with choking dust. She paused, wobbling in the air, and wiped sweat from her forehead. And then, down the street, a door opened and the brown mask and trenchcoat peeked out into the open. "Dammit," Purity growled. "He got into the tunnels or something." She flew over, blasting away, chasing him back indoors. This building she flattened fast, throwing her most powerful blasts into it one after another to make sure everything inside was dead and gone. She kept blasting until not one brick was whole, and then she sagged. Her hair started to fall, fading to brown, as her glow dissipated. She was ten feet off the ground when it evaporated, and she dropped hard to the ground, twisting her ankle badly.
Assault came bounding up as he took the space in twenty-foot leaps, ricocheting off the walls to avoid obstacles. "Okay, Purity, you're under arrest," he said, crouching over her. Battery appeared on the other side, her suit still glowing from the accumulated charge of super-speed and strength she had built up. And then Velocity, wearing the Wharf Rat's spare mask and trench coat, came racing up. His superspeed came at a price, the faster he went the less he could affect the physical world, he lost strength and toughness proportional to his speed. But for dodging blasts and leading enemies on a wild-goose-chase to expend their energy, he was as good as they came.
And only then did the manhole cover lift away and the Wharf Rat rejoined the party. "Holy shit," he gasped, "I can't believe all that worked."
"Would have been nice if she'd been as close to empty as you said," Velocity said, handing over the trenchcoat. "She nearly got me a couple times. You would have had a hard time explaining what happened to the Protectorate if I got killed in your vendettas."
"And now you've got Purity and Night in custody," the rogue said. "And Fog will turn himself in just to be close to her, so that's three captures today." He clapped Assault on the shoulder, and headed over to the others, the twelve in masks. "Hey guys, thanks for your help, I'm sorry I had to ask you to drive through a super-battle."
"Honestly, I was happy to help," Barry said. "Once. Dude, next time you need my help, you better be asking me to do some accounts."
The other masked figures laughed, but many of them were nodding. Wharf Rat nodded with them. "Okay, from now on I'll find a way to do these things that doesn't bring any of you this close. But really, thank you all so much. These guys would have killed so many people, would have leveled so many homes. You guys, you know what a home is worth. You build a home for years, fill your family in under the roof. And to have someone just come along, knocking them down wholesale just to punish me... it needed to be stopped. You guys stepped up. I asked, and you helped, and I want to thank you all so much."
"Ah, shaddap," Kurt said, and leaned in to give his buddy a big bear hug. Danny's ribs creaked, and he had to hold his breath to keep from groaning and instead embraced the larger man back, slapping his back in masculine camaraderie.
The mouse-masked men and women got back in their trucks and drove away, while the three heroes loaded the three villains into the Protectorate vans. "Friends of yours?" Battery asked, arching an eyebrow. "I saw that hug."
"Actually, yeah, friends of mine," the Wharf Rat said. "I have friends, most people do."
"Yeah but, yours came out to help you with this," she said, gesturing down the street to the abundant wreckage and desolation. A tree was on fire down the block.
Danny scoffed aloud. "This? This is nothing. I've got friends that would help me move."
She stared for a second before she laughed. It was a nice sound.
Taylor had come in the door in a flying hug, grasping him tightly. She cried and he rocked her, and he set her down at the kitchen table while she told him what had happened. She sniffled and dabbed her eyes while she recited it off in curiously dispassionate tones.
She had been walking from history to world affairs when Sophia had body-slammed her down the stairs. Not a trip but a body-check and sent her hurtling down. Taylor showed off the bruise that covered half of her arm and shoulder. And then two other girls had tipped a garbage can full of used tampons and sanitary pads over onto her, and they stood there holding her down and screaming whenever she screamed, mocking her. Danny was seeing red by the end of the story, and he held her close against him.
"Taylor, there's something you should know about Sophia," he said, his voice tight. "Rats are even better than dogs are at identifying people by scent. I can recognize anyone even if they've changed clothes, or costumes. She's Shadow Stalker, of the Wards. There's a reason that the administration of your school hasn't done anything about her, it's because having a superhero in their school is a feather in their cap, makes them feel a bit more like Arcadia high school. And Emma and Madison get protected along with her. She's killed people before, and I caught her the other day with her crossbow loaded with lethal ammunition instead of the tranquilizers she is supposed to carry."
Taylor pulled back from him, her face wide open with shock. "Bu- wh- seriously?"
"Seriously. She's a cape, and that's why she's always seemed to be above the law and out of reach, she was being protected from on high," Danny said, sighing tiredly. "But don't worry, baby, I'm gonna take care of it. Now, let's order some pizza, sit on the couch, and veg out."
His daughter smiled a pale and exhausted smile. "That sounds good. I'll get the coupons, you pick your order."
They ordered pizza, they grabbed a soda and a beer from the fridge, and then they sat on the couch and turned on the television.
Today's top story, Empire Eighty-Eight is gutted! The notorious supervillain team, crime lords of Brockton Bay, were handed another big defeat today by the combined efforts of the Protectorate and the Wharf Rat, local rogue hero. Captured today were Purity, Night, and Fog, three of the deadliest members of the gang. This follows on the heels of yesterday's capture of Crusader, and last night's reveal of the identities of the Empire's members to the public. Sources now reveal that member Krieg has fled the country, and Othala was hospitalized in this morning's battle. Her husband, fellow Empire soldier Viktor, is likely to be out of commission until she recovers. For those keeping count, that is five supervillains removed from their roster, with two more out temporarily. Only four or five members remain, and they are underground and on the run. Surely this is a crippling blow. This footage from today shows the roundup and the villains being led into custody-
Danny stared at the overhead angled shot of himself and the three Protectorate heroes securing Purity, Night and Fog in the back of the Parahuman Response Team van. "Bullshit," he blurted. "There is no way someone had a camera, those buildings were supposed to be abandoned."
"The footage looks too smooth to be hand cam," Taylor said. "Maybe a drone or a security camera?"
"Maybe."
"Hang on, who are those people in the Mickey Mouse masks?"
"Just some guys from work. They wanted to help."
"You know what? Today, I'm not going to say anything about that. I'll freak out tomorrow about the fact that your 'guys from work' are now doing henchman work."
"They're not henchmen."
"You've been cleaning out villains, securing territory, now you've got henchmen. You've refused to join the Protectorate. If you take out villains, you're either a hero or getting rid of competition, and you are not acting like a hero. Pretty soon they'll declare you to be a villain just because you do everything you can to look like a villain."
He snorted. "Whatever."
-surprising twist, Mickey Mouse masks like this one in my hand have been selling off the shelves around the city. It seems the new sign of solidarity is to wear the mouse. No word yet on the Protectorate's views on this development.
"Shit," Danny grunted. "I've got henchmen. I've got my own gang."
"Yup."
"Kaiser's gonna be pissed. We were on neutral ground at noon, and a half-hour later I'm arresting half of his people on camera. He is going to see this just like the ABB and the Merchants, he's gonna think I'm out to take down the whole Empire."
"Aren't you?"
"Remember what we said about power vacuums? Empire Eighty-Eight leaves a big one. I don't want to take over half of downtown just to keep Coil, the Undersiders and the Travelers from going to war over the remnants. Faultline doesn't count, they're mercenaries."
"The Undersiders and Travelers don't count either, they aren't really into territory," she reminded him. "They're both just old-fashioned supervillain teams. They do crimes. They fight heroes. They escape with loot. Of them, Coil's the only one that really wants to have and hold."
"Yeah," Danny said, slowly. The doorbell rang, he got up to go get the pizza. He tipped the driver, took the boxes, and brought them over to the couch with napkins. He opened his box with peppers and olives, she opened her box with mushrooms and stuffed crust, both with pepperoni and sausage. "You know," Danny mentioned as he waited for the pizza to stop billowing steam so he could take a slice. "Coil mentioned today that things tend to go his way. Conveniently, he said. I think the insinuation is that's his power, he can affect probabilities or something. And I've been taking out his competition. I've taken out two and a half factions in the city, leaving himself and three groups that won't challenge him." He froze up, holding his breath.
In the basement, mice scrambled along the pegboards that held the data sheets on the different villains of the city, secured with thumbtacks. And one mouse climbed up and pulled a thumbtack out, letting a sheet of paper drop. That sheet of paper held a giant question mark, and "Fagin" below it. It was hung above Grue, who was slightly above Tattletale, and above both Bitch and Regent. A mouse moved Coil's sheet up into that slot and posted the thumbtack in place. Now it showed Coil as being the mysterious patron that guided the Undersiders, the patron that Bitch resented.
"Oh shit," Danny said. "I think Coil is Fagin."
"Who's Fagin?"
"From Oliver Twist," he said absently. When she didn't seem to understand, he elaborated. "He's the old man that teaches the little boys how to pick pockets. He takes the majority of what they take and gives them just enough for treats. He's their taskmaster who never takes the risks himself," he said. "I think Coil is secretly running the Undersiders, giving him two votes at the conclave table while acting like these things are unrelated. That's how he pulled off the kidnapping with the Undersiders as a distraction. He makes his own luck."
"Does that mean that he gave up the Empire information?" Taylor asked.
"Probably? I'm not certain. Shit," he said, shaking his head. "You know what? This stuff can wait a little bit. I need to deal with Sophia Hess first. She's a psychopath and she's taking out her aggressions on you at school and random thugs on patrol. She needs to be stopped."
She craned her head around to face him. "Dad? Seriously? You're not going to let a gang war play out for a couple of days for the sake of settling my high school drama."
"It's hardly high school drama," he protested, leaning against her. "This is violence, assault. This is them systematically torturing you while nobody helps. And she's getting away with it because the moral authorities are turning a blind eye because she's one of their own." He paused. "Besides, the only reason I got any cooperation today was because I had already busted six villains on my own, and I'm pretty sure that those heroes got some disciplinary actions when they got home because they helped me out. They weren't supposed to do that, I had to talk them into it. A thousand arrests, six good villain captures behind me, the promise of three more, and with all of that balanced against a confrontation against Shadow Stalker they almost tried to arrest me instead of the Empire. If I can prove that she's not Protectorate material, I'll be in their good books in a major way, because then it's a thousand arrests, nine villain captures, and one psychotic Ward exiled, with no demerits at all."
"Sounds convincing," Taylor said, chewing. "Most things you talk yourself into sound convincing."
"Shut up," he said, nudging her with his shoulder and taking a bite of pizza.
Eleven o'clock on Tuesday night, Wharf Rat called the Alcott residence on his new burner phone. He had transferred the messages and incoming calls from Tattletale's number to this phone, so he could finally stop worrying about traces on it, and didn't need to disassemble and reassemble it.
"Mister Alcott, this is the Wharf Rat. We spoke yesterday," the hero said. "Uh huh. Uh huh. No. No. I want you to know that I've narrowed the search down. I've got a region of town she's being held in, and I've got a positive identification of the person who arranged the kidnapping. No, no history of violence that I'm aware of, but I don't know anything about the men he hires. I'm sorry, really sorry, but I can't lie to you sir. Yes. Uh huh. I'm running down more leads, and I'm making good progress. I know you miss your daughter terribly, sir, but I am doing what I have to do. Oh, this morning? Actually, no sir that was not a distraction from finding your daughter, in a weird way it was actually an important step towards finding her. Yes sir. No, can't reveal my methods, sorry. But I can tell you this: even right now, as I'm speaking to you, I'm sweeping over a hundred buildings simultaneously for traces of your daughter's scent. Noses like bloodhounds, sir, I was surprised myself at how much they can smell. Look, you go to bed. You kiss your wife. And I'll do my part, like I promised you."
He drove on, steering with his hands and pedaling with his feet, navigating with the weird combination of senses that was all his own. The small white mouse dialed another saved number, and it rang until he got the voice mail.
"Kaiser, it's the Wharf Rat again. I'm about seventy-five percent sure that our culprit is Coil. I think he's got some powers to manipulate probability or the future itself. And I think he's the one who has arranged for me to fight against your people this morning. I understand if you don't want to hear from me, if you're angry with me, but consider: all that's left in this city is Coil, the Empire, and three factions that have no interest in territory or controlling the city. So recent events turn out very, very well for Coil. I'll be in touch when I've got something more concrete, but I've got a lead and I know how to check it out."
He only had a couple seconds before the phone beeped and cut him off. He hung up and drove on, sweeping doorways and chokepoints, elevators and bottlenecks, anywhere that Dinah would have to have been taken through. He couldn't check every room of every building, but he could check the entrances and any place that a captive would have to be taken, to rule out one building after another. He swept the west side of downtown back and forth until he hit the trainyards. He rolled to a stop, breathing hard, and shook his head.
"She's not here," he murmured. "She had to be there somewhere. Something's wrong."
Danny went back to Somer's Rock early Wednesday. If he could trace Coil's movements, the man would take him to Dinah. But instead he found that Coil had left the bar and gotten into a van, then went straight to the nearest car wash. Danny cursed, and punched the tunnel-buggy's dashboard with his fist. No trail to follow, no scent to trace. He did another drive-by of the mayor's house, but found everything there to be much more business as usual. And no sign at all of unusual goings-on or anything that might reflect on the mayor's secrets.
His phone rang, and he picked it up. "Wharf Rat."
"Yes, Mister Rat, it is Kaiser. I received your message. While your evidence is hardly compelling, your suspicions are similar to my own. I could resent you for what you have done to my organization, but it is far too easy to imagine you the pawn of another. Someone sly and patient and calculating."
"I choose to be flattered by your belief in my innocence."
"Indeed. This casts a new light on events. Nothing to call another conclave for, not yet, but perhaps to extend our truce. There are those in my employ, with less foresight than myself, who want to even the score for yesterday's events. Hookwolf in particular is eager to prove he can succeed where Purity failed, and Rune is extremely out of sorts with you, she may seek to level the entirety of the Docks. Rather than taking them off the leash and letting them follow their urges, I will be sending them to engage the PRT. If they strike by surprise, they may do enormous damage and loss of life. If you were to phone in a warning, it would be an exhausting battle to quell their youthful spirits and take their minds off of their vendetta against you. Take this opportunity to endear yourself to your law-abiding allies again, and use this time to find the evidence you need. They have less than ten minutes before Rune and Hookwolf arrive."
"Understood," Wharf Rat said, and Kaiser hung up. He immediately dialed the PRT number. "Hello, this is the Wharf Rat. No, don't transfer me. Listen, I've gotten advance notice that Hookwolf and Rune of the Empire Eighty-Eight are going to be targeting your organization. Not the Protectorate, the PRT specifically. They're on their way right now, you need to have an armed response ready and go in loaded for bear or your people will get torn apart. Tell everyone, do it fast, do it now."
Another number to dial, Tattletale's. He punched in the numbers. "Hey, it's the Wharf Rat."
"I know," Tattletale sounded tired. "But no, I won't meet you."
"I didn't even ask."
"You were going to ask," she said. "And no, I won't do it. You've got one question to ask me, and you want me in person so you can smell a lie on me. It's not going to happen, you're going to get me and my friends killed."
"You already know what I suspect," he said.
"You don't suspect, you know," she said. "You just need proof. That's different. And I won't give it to you."
"He already knows that I know?"
"Yes he does. He told me, for god's sake. You're not going to get anything out of me, I won't meet you, and he's already onto you. Just run, Mister Rat, run away and don't get in his way."
Danny Hebert sighed. "I can't. I promised a man I'd bring back his daughter. And Faultline, Kaiser and the Travelers will kill me and my family if I can't bring them a culprit."
"You could just stop patrolling. Go back to work, stop using your powers. Nobody knows who you are yet, Mr. H." Tattletale still sounded tired, but also rather pleased with herself.
"I've got something to try first," he said, and hung up. He turned his wheels towards the PRT headquarters. Coil wasn't the only one who could use a distraction to get what he needed. Whatever he needed to discredit Shadow Stalker and reveal her actions, he would likely find it there. The buggy cruised through the tunnels, almost noiselessly, weight distributed evenly across eight wheels, banking into turns and running up the walls to make the tight corners. And everywhere he went, the rats were directed towards the most plentiful food, the safest hiding places. For a few minutes they had human comprehension and perfect coordination, performing tasks that none of them could ever have done alone or at all. And where there was enough food and safety, he would prompt the females into early heat. He had to wonder how many juveniles were adapted to his power because of that, around the city.
Above him, he became aware of a battle raging. PRT soldiers trying to encase Hookwolf in containment foam without exposing themselves to his whirling gnash of blades and barbs, and others trying to reach Rune without presenting a target for her to crush under half a house or a train car. The force field surrounding the headquarters was still intact, but if she was allowed to concentrate her efforts there she was bound to overwhelm it, the soldiers were there to distract her enough that she could not destroy the building and everyone in it. One PRT trooper on a rooftop nailed Hookwolf with a tazer that looked like a shoulder-fired bazooka, long wires trailing back that unloaded a tinker-designed capacitor like a bolt of lightning. Hookwolf paused, not so much stunned as surprised, and then turned and bore down on the man, chasing him back into the covering fire of his comrades. Against a fight like this, there was nothing that the Wharf Rat could do, he would be worse than useless if he tried to get involved. So it was with a clear conscience that he cruised right past this fracas and moved underneath the PRT offices. The force field surrounding the building covered many approaches, but it was not a perfect seal, and that was enough for his rats to invade in force.
The building was in disarray, he could tell immediately. There was no business as usual, everyone was either flocking to the windows to see the battle to decide their fates, or they were on the phone shouting for backup and assistance. He had to wonder what that was about, there were seven members of the local Protectorate, seven Wards for the city, and New Wave had seven members as well, plus himself. With twenty-two heroes in the city, someone besides him should be on this scene. Agents inside the PRT building were unlocking gun safes and the armory, passing out riot gear and body armor. But they were not sitting in their offices. He moved to the top, sending his rats up atop the elevator cars to speed up the process while others moved through the walls and ceilings to spread through the building. And at the top floor, he moved straight to the south side of the building, the office with the best light and best view. As he expected, he ran straight to the Director's office, a jowly plump woman with a severe haircut and a sharp voice who was yelling into her phone. The rats were starting to pull back to look for another access point when they smelled it.
The personal scent of Director Piggot was the most common in this room, obviously, and there were three or four others that permeated as well. Two of them were generally mixed with cleaning products, the janitors. And another one was someone he had found just yesterday, and made him startle at the implications of this. "Why the hell is everything Coil lately?" he muttered to himself. The rats traced him, Coil's scent was found in high concentrations going down the hall to a specific office. An empty office that smelled of Coil more than anyone else, more than the janitors or anyone else. A ceiling tile was pulled out of place and rats streamed down to investigate the whole room, taking it all in. Assistant Director Thomas Calvert, the number-two man in Brockton Bay's Parahuman Response Team office, was also one of its most influential crime lords. He found a picture of the man, with his long head and boney frame even thinner than Danny Hebert's own.
Was he connected to Shadow Stalker? In his position he had to be at least tangentially connected to her. Had he released the Empire information? The answers weren't in his desk or cabinets. One mouse scooted the other mouse around to bring it out of power-safe mode, and it brought up a password prompt, and a warning that three incorrect attempts would lock the computer.
Three guesses on the password. His rats smelled around, and on the keyboard they noticed something odd. Certain keys smelled more like Coil's body oils than other keys. These would be the keys that he hit the most often with his skin oils intact, the keys that likely made up the password for this lock screen. From top left to bottom right, it wa N. He arranged the words like an anagram, ENPRST. Maybe a brother's name, Presten? He snorted as he realized what the obvious answer there was, and had the rat type SERPENT.
Wrong. The screen flashed red, and the timer ticked down to two attempts.
With a sigh, he typed SERPENTS instead.
Wrong again. One try left. If he got this wrong, he had tipped his hand and gotten nothing for it.
Other words that used the same letters as SERPENT or SERPENTS. Maybe he drew out the double letters? SSERPENTSS? SERPENTSSSSS? That seemed far too cartoony for him; it would hurt his pride to insult his own symbol like that. Maybe another word entirely, made of the same letters specifically to throw off tricks like his? Or more likely to be close enough to his logo for him to always remember, but not so obvious that it could be held against him. Coil liked schemes, matches of wits, he fancied himself a chessmaster. Could that reflect an interest in brainteasers and puzzles like anagrams? Possibly. At this point, probably. It would almost certainly need a double-letter in it, two E's, because a man that used this much whiteout and made this many drafts of a simple memo to post was too perfectionist to have an egregious misspelling in his password. It would be a proper word, an anagram of SERPENT.
PRESENT. That had to be it. He typed it, and almost hit enter. With these letters, with what he knew about the man, PRESENT was the third-most likely choice for a password entry. The password screen had three attempts allowed. One last trap? One attempt to use his own logic to shut him out? He added an S at the end. PRESENTS. He hit enter.
It worked, he was in. Rats pulled flash drives out of the man's desk drawer and plugged them in, started copying files wholesale. He hit an encrypted partition and skipped past that, it was way past his knowledge of computer technology. He was doing well if he could get what he wanted from Excel; encryption was magic as far as he was concerned. The rats grabbed their flash drives and climbed the walls, dove back into the ceiling tiles and made their way back to the elevator shaft. The last one out hit the button to engage sleep mode, and scampered up, helping the others push the ceiling tile back into place to hide their entry. And at the drain at the bottom, he was waiting, filling his pockets with all the evidence he could, and then stealthily rode away.
A block away an office building was evacuated and empty, and Danny moved the rats into the offices with their flash drives, and started reading everything he had pulled up. He loaded the information into dozens of computers and read each file separately and simultaneously. All he got from that was a detailed and comprehensive understand of PRT policies and operations, nothing incriminating. No or or anything like that. It was either encrypted, or more likely was not on his work computer. He closed the files as he finished them, and brought the flash drives back down to his position. Instead he started a search on Thomas Calvert, unearthing all publicly-available information. Fortunately, as a public servant that gave more information than most civilians.
Thomas Calvert, one of two survivors from the PRT's first assault on Nilbog. He went to prison for a few years following that, then rejoined as an analyst and began a track record of rapid promotion and managing his own retirement fund on the stock market. He had managed good returns, beating market averages by a moderate amount, very consistently. The good trades had begun to snowball, one good investment after another until he was quietly managing fairly large amounts of money. Then the retirement fund left the stock market and began financing expansion projects for local businesses. Finance and construction, security companies and headhunting agencies. He had quietly assumed ownership of a dozen companies that began making fairly large profits that were turned around into more ownership. He started insulating himself from those businesses, forming holding companies and trading companies that existed only on paper, doing-business-as documents that let him conceal his influence. It would take a detective years to unravel these secrets, but the Wharf Rat could work these angles simultaneously and maintain a view of the forest and the trees.
In an hour, he had a document listing off every property and address that Coil owned or had access to. It was an extensive list, but it was far better than "the west side of downtown." The list was printed and carried to him. He wanted to follow up on it, he wanted to see this through, but Taylor was almost home already. He rode fast and rode hard, and only barely made it home before her.
As soon as Taylor was asleep, Danny was out the door with his backpack, and headed for the buggy. He had stopped parking it near manhole covers and was instead using an access grate with an elevator. Rats operated the controls from below, and let him down. It would take him hours to search the different addresses that he had written down, but he was certain this time that one of them would lead him to Dinah Alcott. He first laid out the ones that were most directly on the route that the getaway driver had taken towards the west side of downtown.
It turned out that he didn't need to search for hours; the fourth address he checked gave him a scent of the stormtroopers and the girl. By the light from his cell phone, he used a stub of a pencil to circle that address with a shaky hand. Rats moved in slowly, carefully, utmost care not to be seen. His rats peeked in through an outfall that had been diverted and covered with a mesh. He could clearly see Coil's black-clad soldiers in the facility owned by Thomas Calvert. This should be damning enough evidence to mobilize the troops, and start someone investigating Calvert's movements more thoroughly than Danny could do. He had no idea if the man himself was on-site, but there was no point in finding out tonight. If he rushed them, disabled the guards, and Coil was not here, it would prove nothing. But if the authorities moved their own troops in, it would prove the connection whether they could catch him red-handed or not. The rats pulled back, silently, except for one juvenile of his generation that was left to keep an eye on the place.
Back in his buggy, Danny dialed the cell phone. "Mister Alcott, this is the Wharf Rat. I've found your daughter's scent again. I'm close now, and this is going to happen. But there are complications, and this has to be done the right way. Otherwise I'd be bringing her to you right now. Be patient and be calm, sir, everything will be fine."
