Thursday morning, the Wharf Rat was calling the PRT while sitting in a park. He looked across the way to a handful of teenagers. They pulled Mickey Mouse masks out of their backpacks and raised them in a salute towards him, and he gave them a wave back. In the past few days, the Docks had gotten more back to normal. Somehow having him fight Purity on the streets reassured them after the depression from the Rock the Docks arrests.
"Hi, this is the Wharf Rat. Hey, is that Julia? We talked a few days ago, I recognize your voice. Okay, I was hoping you could put me through to Armsmaster this time. Thanks Julia, have a great day." He hummed along with the hold music for a minute."
"Armsmaster here," said the other man's voice.
"Hey buddy, it's the rat," Danny said. "So, are you the guy to call if I've found a supervillain lair and I want the Protectorate and the PRT to launch a joint assault and take it down?"
"I'm as good a point of contact as anyone for that," Colin said. "Why, what've you got?"
"I've got an address full of Coil's mercenaries, and an indication of at least one hostage on site, the mayor's niece who was kidnapped on Monday. I can virtually guarantee that Coil isn't on site at this time-" because I just called his office and made sure he's sitting at his desk, "-but because of the nature of this situation I want to make sure that absolutely everything about this is entirely aboveboard and by the book as much as possible. But it has to be small and it has to be fast, with the absolute bare minimum number of people to know anything about this. If you need approval from the Director, call her and nobody else. Don't tell the motor pool, the dispatchers, nobody."
"And that's what you consider by the book and aboveboard?"
"I'm doing the best I can. If the wrong person gets word of this, it all goes bust and the kid dies. And if I explain it to you ahead of time, you won't be a credible witness after the fact and someone will claim that I influenced the decisions."
"You're being even more mysterious than usual, Wharf Rat."
"I know, and I apologize for that. Can you do it?"
"I'd be putting some of my own credibility on the line, and all of yours," Colin pointed out.
"Even if this goes badly, it will still likely be the most important operation you guys have launched this year," Wharf Rat pointed out. "And if it goes well, it'll be the mission that defines this next decade for your team."
The pause drew out. "That's a very, very bold claim, Wharf Rat."
"And I'm not prone to those. Trust me; I'm actually understating the stakes here. I ask again, can you do this?"
Colin sighed into the phone. "I can do it. And I will do it. I'll call the director and speak to nobody but her, and I'll have a team laid out. Is this a small insertion or should we bring the noise?"
"There's about twenty to thirty mercenaries in here. They seem like military professionals, maybe some special operations or SEALs mixed in. They've got body armor and some very exotic-looking assault rifles."
"If it's Coil's people, I know those rifles. They've got energy weapons built into them that let them compete with supers. What's the terrain?"
"Confined spaces."
"That's not good. Okay, disciplined troops in a confined space probably means they'll have response drills for incursion. That's a hard fight, and we need a big team. I'll see about roping in New Wave and the Wards if I can."
"Can you do that without revealing too much to anyone?"
"I've got favors to call in," Colin sighed. "Why do I do this for you?"
Danny chuckled. "Because a good track record is the best PR."
"You're gonna fail sooner or later, man, and then you won't be able to roll that line anymore."
Wharf Rat was sitting on the bench when they arrived. He recognized the craft that dropped off most of the heroes, he had seen the plans for it and he had given them to Armsmaster just days ago. It put his tunnel-buggy to shame, all gleaming polymers and space-age alloys. It flew in with unnerving speed and rocked to a gentle, unhurried stop, before it let out the gangplank and the heroes disembarked. Velocity first, then Manpower of the team New Wave. Manpower looked around. "Wow. This could be a first, I reach a scene before Photon. That's a really nice plane you guys have got." He wore no mask, and his name was public record. New Wave had been an experiment in unmasked capes, an attempt to insert accountability into heroism and drop the veil of secrecy. It had not caught on, but they soldiered on. Manpower was a classic hitter, he had an electromagnetic shield that gave him super-strength and durability. Behind them came Miss Militia of the Protectorate and Clockblocker of the Wards, then Assault and Battery, then Triumph and Shielder, Vista and Flashbang with Panacea before Armsmaster departed last.
"Holy cow," Wharf Rat said. "This is a really good turnout. Thanks so much."
"More on the way," Triumph said, looking back the way they'd come. A bright yellow-white streak in the air was heading their way and quickly resolving itself into Dauntless. Behind him came Laserdream, then Lady Photon with Glory Girl and Aegis.
"We're only a few short," Armsmaster said, "of having every hero in the city right here. This needs to go perfectly, Wharf Rat."
"I am very, very aware of that, Armsmaster," he said. "But this is our best shot, period, and you know I'm telling the truth."
"Full disclosure, it's getting hard to tell with you," Armsmaster said. "Something about you is starting to interfere with my voice-stress analyzer, but it's about 80% sure you're on board, and I'm about 90% sure."
"You wound me," Wharf Rat drawled, and some voice laughed at the banter. "Okay, we're directly above one of the Endbringer shelters. There's a hidden space underneath it, concealed by the foundations of the place. Entry access is through a monitored ramp from a nearby parking garage, or through a monitored tunnel that connects to the storm drains. It'll need to be a two-pronged attack or the enemy will slip away through the unguarded exit."
"Garage," Manpower said, raising his hand like a team captain. The groups split into two groups of nine, with the sewer group looking slightly disgruntled.
"Okay," Wharf Rat said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Time is of the essence, and I'm the only one who can guide you guys in. I'm going with the tunnel group myself and I'll be on the phone with the garage group, guiding you in so we make a simultaneous breach. When we do breach, I recommend invulnerable heroes to the front."
"Changed my mind," Aegis said. "Clock, switch with me."
Clockblocker grumbled as he was ordered to the tunnel group and out of the garage group.
Wharf Rat led the way down the incline to where the runoff outflow emptied into the ocean, and led the way inside while he gave the other group directions to the proper address. Rats watched over both groups so he could keep track of them. In the tunnel, he took lead, weaving through the turns. The tunnels here had been modified specifically to be confusing and lead intruders into a trap, but he moved easily through it. Panacea showed up at his side while the others held back, murmuring to each other. The rats keeping an eye on the garage team noticed a smell they recognized, and he had a jolt as he recognized one of the Protectorate heroes from another setting altogether. But, he tucked that away for later and just spoke to the girl at his side.
"You're the one I'm most surprised by," Wharf Rat said. "I thought you hardly ever did field missions."
"I heard there might be a hostage, so I volunteered," she said. "Besides, I need a change of pace every so often. I spend so much time in clinics and hospitals, that sometimes even a sewer seems like a good idea."
"This is a storm sewer, not a sanitary sewer," he said. "Completely different systems, almost completely isolated from each other."
"Don't care. Still a sewer," she said. She wrinkled her nose. "And that is a sewer smell."
"It's rotten leaves," he said. He touched a hand to his earpiece. "Okay, garage group, you're ahead of us, just sit tight until we catch up on our side. Don't move from that spot." He looked back at the girl. "So, I understand you're a healer?"
"Biokinetic, strictly speaking," she said. "I can affect living tissue down to the cellular and genetic level, in nearly anyway I choose. Not my own, nothing dead, and I can't create new mass. Radical changes in chemistry take time, but I can reshape on the spot," she said easily enough. "Which mostly means that I wind up curing cancer over and over every day." That part came out almost bitter, almost resentful.
"Funny," Wharf Rat said. "I'd have thought that if you could do genetic engineering like that, you'd just make a germ that kills cancer and not people, and just let it do its work."
She was gaping at him when he pulled to a halt, mustering the others with him. "Okay, both teams are in place. With a fast entry we can disable most of the guards before they respond. The hostage is on the north side, right from my team left from the garage team. I'll be bringing rats in to support, watch them for changes to guide you through. Watch over each other, and this should be over in just a couple minutes. And then you'll get the big reveal. Okay, we go on three."
"Let's use my three," Armsmaster said, nodding to Clockblocker. The young Ward, in his white skintight full-body costume decorated with animated clocks, reached toward Wharf Rat and touched him on the arm.
And suddenly there was screaming, and gunfire, and everyone was gone, and the tunnel in front of him was open. He moved rats forward to see what was happening, and he saw Clockblocker on a catwalk with a hole burned in his side, Aegis was getting shot so much he was soon to be more lead than flesh. Dauntless was holding a giant force-field shell up around Laserdream and Panacea and Velocity, Shielder was holding a similar force field up over himself and Vista, who was missing four fingers off her right hand. Coil's soldiers had the high ground, alternating bursts of automatic rifle fire with pulses of purple energy. They were moving to evacuate the area, holding their weapons on the heroes. Armsmaster and Lady Photon were still in the thick, fighting against the soldiers, but they were not slowing the soldiers down much.
How long was I out? he thought. What happened? Shit, Clockblocker, he stopped me in time while they moved on without me. He swarmed his rats forward, and they closed in from the two entrances. Soldiers dropped in place, rodent teeth separated the leather of their combat boots and then the tendons in their heels, dropping them in place. Rats and mice stole ammunition from out of pouches, knocked weapons away, and interfered in every part of the enemy actions. A break in the weapons fire let Panacea rush to Aegis's side and heal him up from his wounds until he was back in fighting shape, and at the same time Dauntless lashed out with his spear and its coherent lightning slashed through the catwalk that the enemy soldiers were firing from, knocking their walkway off its rail and dropping it twenty feet to crash on the floor, soldiers spilling around it with broken bones or sprained knees.
Shielder dropped the force field for a second, and Vista ran for Panacea. Miss Militia fired off a rocket launcher that forced the enemy to dodge for cover, and let her teammates advance to better positions. And when the soldiers devoted all their attention to a counterattack, rats snuck up and hamstrung them in a second. The fight was over quickly.
"Holy shit, holy shit," Vista was panting, as her fingers were regrown from stumps right in front of her eyes. Wharf Rat did not look around, he just stalked down the walkways past the heroes with his shoulders tense, his hands curled into fists. He stopped at a particular door just as the rats had removed the barrel-and-pin hinges and he pulled it from its place, toppling the door to the ground.
"Dinah Alcott?" he said. "My name is the Wharf Rat. And you're safe now."
"We had to be sure," Armsmaster was explaining. "Look, it would have been the perfect trap. Get all the heroes in one place for a surprise attack, on your terms. You're on the villains conclave, man, you hold more territory than Coil does. You do favors for Kaiser, you infiltrate PRT headquarters, you nearly kill Shadow Stalker. And then after that, you come to us and say that you have a mystery mission that could not be more important, and we can't tell anyone or verify anything you tell us. And on top of all of that? My lie-detector isn't working on you anymore. For anyone else, it tells me if they're lying or not. For you it gives me percentages. What am I supposed to make of that?!"
Wharf Rat sighed, and crossed his arms. "I would have thought my track record spoke for itself. I'm on your side and I'm competent. I am good at judging risks and consequences. I research my moves before I blunder in. I've arrested more villains than anyone else in this city, and I've been on the job less than a month." He paused, and looked up. "How did you know that I was in the PRT?"
"Motion detectors in the storm drains," Armsmaster said. "I started installing them in key points as soon as I realized it was how you were getting around. You were an unknown factor, and you were either a shady sort of hero that could go bad at a moment's notice, or you were a very tricky villain who could play a long game to get rid of us all." He sighed, and slumped on the bench, his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling between his calves.
Clockblocker poked at the hole in his costume where he had been wounded and nearly killed. "So, what's the big deal with this mission? I mean, recovering a kidnapping victim is one of my favorite things, and taking in two-dozen of Coil's best men is a huge bonus, but this was played up as being the end-all-be-all and I'm not seeing it."
Wharf Rat bit back his first two responses, and tried to moderate his tone. "Well, now that you guys have seen fit to extend me all of your trust," he snapped, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sheaf of papers. "Do you all pretty well agree that the place we just stormed was a Coil lair? Good. Here's the deed for the land we are standing on. It is registered to Presents Enterprises. The construction for the foundation of the shelter was by Two Paths Construction," He handed off pages to Clockblocker that laid out the paper trail as he narrated it. "Two Paths Construction is owned by Skinshed Holdings, Presents Enterprises is held by Skinshed Holdings. Skinshed Holdings also does business as No Buddies Business Associates, here you go. No Buddies Business is registered through East-North-East Registrations, and paid out of Central Bank Account 541667-9985. That bank account is registered to Thomas Calvert, the only employee on record of East-North-east Registrations. He's the president and CEO of the tangled mess of businesses that built that place we just stormed. The mercenaries were paid from the same Central Bank account number. This is a picture of Coil. This is a picture of Thomas Calvert. You will notice the extremely distinct body shape that they share. And also the complete lack of an alibi for Mr. Thomas Calvert. Your assistant director of the PRT is a supervillain, and you're holding the evidence."
Armsmaster took the pages from Clockblocker, and flipped through them. "You can prove all this?"
"I just fucking did prove it," Danny snapped again. "Look, go do your own investigations here, verify every step of what I've shown you."
"How did you work this out?" Lady Photon asked, leaning against the Protectorate's new jet.
Danny shrugged. "My rats smelled him. They smell the same. I can tell who someone is, whether they're in costume or not, whether I'm deliberately trying or not."
Miss Militia walked up to his side and patted his arm. "She wants to talk to you," the woman said, and Danny took the opportunity to walk away from this scene, turning his back on the heroes that had betrayed him right at the most crucial moment.
Dinah was sitting on a bench in the open air, with Aegis standing close by in case he was needed, and Panacea on the other side. The girl was clean and healthy-looking, already looking better than when he'd found her an hour ago. "How did you do it?" Dinah asked. "I only saw a forty-two-point-seven-three percent chance I'd get rescued in the first week, falling off each week after that. But I could never see the specifics, how you pulled it off. How?"
Danny sighed and sat down next to her. "I got lucky, mostly. There were lots of opportunities for things to go wrong. I was chasing an unlikely lead on an unrelated case when I found your house, and promised your dad I'd help. I got lucky that the bad guys driving away were trying to lose other kinds of followers, not like me. Coil nearly turned every villain in the city against me, framed me for selling out all of Empire Eighty-Eight, and I nearly died a few times because of that, but I was able to get a little help when I needed it most. One of the heroes in the city was doing some really bad stuff to people and I wanted to catch her at it, and that almost got me killed and it almost cost me the little help I did have, but it got me to investigate the right place at the right time to figure out who Coil was. Then I took all the little things I learned, put them all in one place, and figured out the rest."
"Most of that doesn't sound like luck," Dinah said. "Trust me, I know a bit about luck, and probabilities."
"What's your theory then?" he asked.
"Two things," she said. "First of all, you're a lot better than anyone realizes."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," she said primly, the conditioned response of a young girl. "And second, you've got something about you that is screwing up my thinker powers. There are powers that do that, mostly clairvoyants or precognitives that form so many paradoxes or closed-loop reactions that they effectively cancel each other out. My power is strong, it is mostly immune to that, but I think you've got something that's fudging my results, giving you a bit more than a forty-two percent chance." The polysyllables rolled easily off her tongue, a precocious girl immersed in deep subjects.
"Sort of like how something is fudging the results of Armsmaster's lie detector when I speak," Wharf Rat said.
"I can't calculate the odds that it's related," she said. "Sorry, too abstract." She was a very serious young girl, very earnest. He found himself warming to her.
"I called your parents, they're on their way," he said. "I'm glad we could help you. I'm glad I could help your parents. I'm glad we could get the guy that took you. And if you'll forgive me saying so, I'm glad that helping you also took down the guy that has caused so many problems for me."
"If it helps you any," Dinah said, "even if you didn't provoke him by looking for me, there was a ninety-three-point-three-two percent chance that Coil would have released the information and things would have played out mostly the same. You affected timing, not outcomes." She leaned back on her bench, and stared up at the sky. "I'm going to be doing a lot of work with the Protectorate, high probabilities. But, also high probabilities that I'll be working with you a lot, both in and out of the Protectorate. So when you need me, don't hesitate to give me a call, okay?"
"I'd rather give you the chance to have a normal life and a normal childhood," Wharf Rat told her, his hands folded over his knees.
"My parents would like that too," she said, a bit sadly. "They work so hard to have the normal life and the normal daughter. But the toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube. I'm a phone call away, okay?" She reached over and patted his hand, then hopped down off the bench and walked past Aegis, straight towards the spot that a car was just pulling up. Mr. and Mrs. Alcott rushed out to hug her, hold her, cry their tears of joy. The girl embraced them back, cried her own tears, but Danny felt like it rang a little hollow.
Aegis and Panacea hung awkwardly just out of earshot and he approached them both on the way to the rest of the heroes gathered at the VTOL craft. "I have a question for you both," he said, as he approached. "It's my signature question, just bear with me. Are you getting what you want?"
"What I want?" Aegis echoed.
"Whatever you want. The thing you want that makes you do what you do. Are you getting what you want? Are you finding what you look for?"
"Absolutely," Aegis said without hesitation. "I'm in the best place for me, and I have to think it's the best place for anyone like me. My life is awesome and everything is going better all the time."
Danny turned his head towards Panacea, who shrugged. "I'm getting as much of it as I can. There's no way I can have what I really want, but I'm at least close enough to appreciate it."
Her face was immensely sad as she said that, and Danny wanted to hug her. But superheroes don't hug each other, he was pretty sure. "If that's good enough for you, then you stand by that answer," he said. "But if you need a new path, pick it carefully. And never underestimate how much people are willing to help you." He clapped Aegis on the shoulder as he walked past, and got about four steps before he was interrupted by a ring from his phone.
"Hey rat man. It's Tattletale," the phone said as soon as he answered. "Coil just called me, wanted me to use my powers to find him a way out of trouble and out of the city. I told him to fuck himself upside down," she said that part with relish. "But now he's going to have the Travelers help him. He ran them from the time they came to Brockton, the same way he ran us from the beginning. They're not sneaky like Undersiders; they're heavy hitters, big guns, direct approach. People will get hurt. I thought you should know."
"Do you think I'm better off getting the heroes to help, or getting Kaiser to throw his hitters against the Travelers?" Wharf Rat asked. He figured that if a thinker was available, it couldn't hurt to get advice.
"If you can get both, get them," Tattletale said. "That's only common sense. Peace out, rat man," and she hung up.
Danny sighed as he stalked down the path towards the assembled forces of the Protectorate and New Wave. "Got a new situation. Coil's on the move, he's got the Travelers with him."
Armsmaster nodded and straightened. "We've flushed him out of hiding and now he's making a break for it. Given the chance, he'll change his identity and set up shop somewhere else. I'll understand if the rest of you don't want in on this, but the Protectorate has to stop him for the sake of our pride, he made fools of us."
Manpower looked over his family, surveying them for opinions, but it was Lady Photon that spoke. "We've already had a hard day. But we'd rather see this finished than back out now."
Her husband chuckled. "This time ride in the jet, don't fall behind just because you got stubborn."
She swatted him on the arm. "You guys have that thing packed like sardines as it is, you don't need us taking space too."
"No kidding," Velocity grumbled. "I'll run this one if that's fine with all of you." Shielder moved to stand with the other flyers, even though he was the slowest flyer in the group.
The ship was loaded and lifted off, heading back towards PRT headquarters where Calvert would have left from. Wharf Rat climbed down into the tunnels to find his buggy while the other heroes took off. His earpiece was tuned to a PRT dispatcher that tried to coordinate him with the others. She did an extraordinarily clumsy job of it, and he tried not to show his aggravation with her while he rode along. It turned out to not be too far, the VTOL had overshot the mark when it went to PRT HQ, and had to loop back around to catch up to the Travelers and Coil. Wharf Rat was only a few minutes behind the rest of the action.
The first thing he found was that Tattletale should have mentioned Circus and Trainwreck as well, those were two dangerous villains to overlook. Circus was a lean, athletic woman with a clown motif to her costume that changed every time she pulled a job. She never spoke, and her mask always smiled, but she was a dangerous assassin and burglar. She could manipulate existing fires, pull items into a dimensional space or put them back, and she had a superhuman agility and dexterity that made her an unpredictable opponent. Trainwreck was a power-armor tinker whose ever-changing suit was made of repurposed junk but seemed far stronger than one would expect. He had greasy hair and a greasy face, rounded cheeks and piggy eyes, and rarely spoke. They were both independent operators, acting as hired muscle between their own criminal acts. The Travelers on the other hand were a full-time team, led by Trickster with his Baron Samedi mask and his power to teleport people or objects by switching their position with another of roughly equal mass. Also on his team were Ballistic, a bigger brawny young man with armor-padded costume and the power to launch nearly anything he touched at the speed of a bullet. Sundancer was a pyrokinetic in the loosest sense of the word, she could create a miniature sun that floated about at her direction and could produce unbelievable heat. Genesis was a projector, she could fabricate bodies any way she wanted for whatever purpose she had, but they usually wound up being rather fanciful.
Today's offering was a giant four-legged beast like an organic tank, combining elements of a triceratops, an ankylosaurus, and a tortoise the size of a garbage truck. The shell over its back was transparent, and Coil sat inside, shouting orders to his minions as they fought back against the heroes. Circus was flinging knives with one hand while deflecting incoming blasts with swats from a giant mallet that had colorful ribbons tied to it that tinkled with jingle bells on every movement. Trainwreck was engaging Manpower and Armsmaster at the same time and doing a reasonable job of keeping a fighting retreat going. Coil's instructions to him seemed to help a lot, keeping the enemy from tagging him with a direct hit. Clockblocker tried to sneak around to disable him, but Trainwreck swatted a car at him and forced him back. Ballistic was yanking rearview mirrors off of cars and shooting them at the flying enemies to keep them back, while Sundancer swept her pet fusion reaction back and forth across the road, chasing back any of the heroes that wanted to get too close.
Genesis the living tank was making surprisingly good time, and she had a very real chance of getting them out of town fairly quickly, especially with her team helping out. Trickster swapped Manpower for Laserdream, forcing the heroes to rescue him from a long fall, then teleported Genesis a block ahead when he got line of sight on an eighteen-wheeler. He traded Circus for a bystander at a safe distance so she could get the chance to throw her knives at Aegis's unprotected back. Heroes were pushed into each other's line of fire, forcing them to be unusually cautious and hesitant, slowing them down instead of taking the offensive.
Wharf Rat was taking all this in, trying to figure out how to help, when Trickster traded himself for a bystander not far away. He was startled a second, then he recovered. "Hey, hey Trickster," he said. He kept his hands in his pockets, no sign of rats anywhere. "I said hey, Trickster," he repeated.
The Traveler leader turned to see who called him, and did a double-take. Wharf Rat stood close by, unthreatening. "What the fuck?"
"I've got a question for you, Trickster. Is this getting you what you want?"
"What I want," Trickster repeated, looking around. "Fuck. It's not. Not even close." He shook his head, and teleported away, leaving behind a chunk of rubble. He began trading out his teammates for others, and in a minute they were gone, Genesis dissipating and dropping Coil onto the ground unceremoniously. With the retreat of the Travelers, Trainwreck and Circus both took off. She vaulted gracefully up onto the rooftops, and he charged towards an alleyway. It looked like he wouldn't make it, but his suit shed its arms at the last second and made it narrow enough to pass through. Assault took off in pursuit, but the arms were radiating an incredible amount of heat where they lay, bursting rivets and sparking with electricity. The hero backed off of the hazards, and had to let the small-time villain go. And the hologram of the Wharf Rat flickered and faded out, the bomb disarming. A half-dozen rats picked up Bakuda's bait-bomb and carried it back to the storm drains, while Wharf Rat disengaged Leet's hologram override. Now he could be close to the fight, talking to people, safely. And anyone that thought to try to kill him would trigger an anti-personnel mine. He wasn t sure Trickster would have been okay if the bomb had gone off, he had to admit that he still had a lot of bad blood towards the leader of the Travelers.
Miss Militia held Coil at gunpoint while Armsmaster strapped zip-ties onto the man's wrists. And Wharf Rat slipped away, into shadows and tunnels, pausing only to leave a message on Armsmaster's landline back at his lab. "Hey Armsmaster, it's the rat. This message is for later. I just want to point out, digging out a high-level villain mole in your organization is a great opportunity to clean house, someone can take the blame for the fact that you've kept a sadistic bully on your payroll despite multiple violations of her probation. Just saying. Have a good one, Rat out."
He was still smiling broadly, enormously proud of himself, when the door opened and his daughter walked in. "So," Taylor said. "You got number ten today, didn't you? I heard about Coil. Ten villains down, thanks to you."
"I'm more proud of number eleven," Danny said, his eyes glinting. "Tell me about your day."
"I woke up, I had breakfast, I went to school, and my father was being all mysterious. What's up with number eleven?"
"No no, let's get some details, what happened with your day?" Danny said, almost smug as he patted the couch beside him for her to sit.
"Breakfast, school. Um, homeroom was kind of a bummer, had a substitute that patrolled around to make sure everyone was working on assigned homework at all times. Anyone that told him that they'd already done their homework, he'd just say that there was always more homework. Lunch was a pain in the ass, someone flung a spoonful of pudding onto my back and when I turned around Emma and Madison and Sophia and the rest of the girls at their table were all doing that 'innocent whistle' thing from the cartoons, so I had to go clean up in the bathroom. Sophia tried to pin me down in the bathrooms, but someone spotted us and I used that opportunity to get loose. I got to World Affairs, we had our last test on the segment on capes and I think I knocked it out of the park, it felt good. I've got a ton of math homework, but it's all rote busywork that won't challenge me much, an easy grade but time-consuming. And... oh. And Sophia was pulled out of class in seventh period by one of the assistant principals. Did you have something to do with that?"
"I asked the Protectorate to re-evaluate her probation in light of concrete evidence that she is violating the terms, and then I texted them a link to the video that Sophia took of them throwing you down the stairs and dumping tampons on you," he said. "Then I texted the same thing to the PTA and the principal. She shouldn't have taken that video. She shouldn't be watching it for laughs while she was on patrol. So I stole it off her when I saw her on patrol last night, and I did the right thing. Now the PTA is asking why this is going on in their school, while the Protectorate is asking how she let things get this bad. The principal has nobody on her side right now, and only one way to keep her job."
Taylor hugged him very, very tightly, and started weeping. He hugged his daughter and smiled through eyefuls of tears.
Friday morning, the Wharf Rat went for a walk.
He strolled through the Docks. He wore his jacket open as the day was warm, and he moved with a slow even stride. Rats came and went around him, not a great tide but enough to be noticeable. He waved to people and they waved back, some saluted him with the mouse mask. People slowed as they drove past and gave him a friendly honk. He smiled under his mask and enjoyed the day.
And then a motorcycle pulled up alongside him, all in urban camouflage. It was a bulky machine with lots of raw power evident, casually guided expertly by the lean athletic woman on top of it. Miss Militia wore a helmet printed with an American flag along with her camouflage costume. Her weapon was currently a bayonet in a sheath on her hip. She flipped up her visor as she put down the kickstand. "I heard that you were out on the streets," she said, still carrying some of the accent of her homeland. "And I thought there must be trouble. The Wharf Rat only shows up when things go straight to hell."
"Not today," he said. "So, is Shadow Stalker suspended?"
"She is being brought up on charges of violating her parole. She is going to be sent to a facility, not the Birdcage. It has the means to restrain her, and they will be counseling her for her rage issues and sadistic impulses."
He nodded. "I can retire happy now. Or I could join your team. Do you think they'd go for that?"
Miss Militia lifted off the helmet without losing the bandana that covered her mouth. "I don't think they have much of a choice at this point. I follow the trades, the media, the business rumors. At this point the feeling in the community is that if you don't join us, we'll have to join you."
He laughed at that, shaking his head. "It's not really all that. There's still, what, twenty-five villains in the city? Still plenty of work to do."
"Twenty-nine," she said. "You should keep up with the rumors more."
"I'd like to be one of your team, on the Protectorate, but I'd have some conditions."
Her eyes held his as she replied, "After having spoken to Armsmaster about you, I would expect nothing less."
"Funny. First of all, I want my daughter transferred to Arcadia high."
She blinked in surprise. "You have a daughter?"
"I do. And she was bullied so cruelly by Shadow Stalker that it put me through my trigger event," he said. "I will take care of her. And there are still bullies in her school that would torment her. Transferring her to Arcadia would help her."
"Nobody else on the team has children," Miss Militia said, her eyes shifting away and then back. "There aren't really accommodations for it. Every member of the team maintains residence in the tower, at least half the time. We sign out passes to go out in our civilian identities. Especially now that we're making the transition from patrol patterns to quick-response readiness. The residences, they're single-occupant, everything is built to stage up for action. We might put your daughter in a safe house nearby, but you would hardly ever see her. I don't know how we would accommodate you bringing a child with you..."
"Aren't their accommodations for kids there on site?" he said. "I thought the Wards stayed in the tower same as the rest of you."
"Sure," she said, "but those residences are only for Wards, and we... hang on," she said, raising a hand to her ear as she listened to someone on the other side of the earpiece. "Okay, yeah, okay." She straightened and turned back to him. "Okay, we can do this. I think Armsmaster is up to something, but he tells me we can certainly move your daughter into the tower and transfer her to Arcadia, no question."
"Second condition: If I join I'm a full member. Not a junior member, associate member, probationary member, none of that."
She didn't blink, just nodded. "Done. We don't have junior members officially, it's mostly a matter of informal respect and personal dynamics until someone has proven themself. Nobody is going to doubt for a second that you have proven yourself. And we're all still very, very sorry for how we did doubt you yesterday."
"Great. Third condition: We help the city. Like really help the city, not just chasing after rogue capes and villains. Clearing the Boat Graveyard, getting the ferry service started again, political corruption, helping people when we can."
She paused. "That is going to be harder than you think, Wharf Rat. There are a lot of jurisdiction issues there. We're handled through the PRT, which is technically a private peacekeeping force for North America, contracted and given broad powers to pursue and detain parahumans. But we're not actually law enforcement, when it comes to non-cape crime we basically just make citizen's arrests. We have as much power in other matters as local law enforcement and politics gives us, which is tied to public support and popular opinion. We normally have great latitude, like here in Brockton Bay, but we do not have the authority to dictate policy to local governance, and if we start acting against sitting politicians our support will get pulled in a hurry."
He sighed, and leaned back against the wall behind him. It still had marks from where the Merchants had tagged it. "That is.. unfortunate. You see, my interest has never been in fighting villains for the sake of fighting villains. I think it's counterproductive, and it was never more than a means to an end for me."
"And I am very surprised to hear that," she said, her eyes wide. "You have quite a knack for something you're not interested in."
He shrugged. "Be that as it may. I thought that Vista could use her powers to shrink the ships in the Boat Graveyard and then Manpower and Browbeat could lift them up out of the way and set them up for recycling or disposal. I thought that you could muster the funds to have the ferry put back in service. Help with local schools, things like that. Our society has a problem, people are trapped in patterns of poverty and they can only turn to crime to get themselves out of that pattern, because the law is what's keeping them poor. And so they are raised knowing that they must either suffer with denial and neglect, or they must become the enemy of the law. We have to change that, we have to give them a way out that isn't crime."
She considered. "The Protectorate does do a significant amount of charity work. We raise awareness for issues, publicity for good causes. Book drives, blood drives, clothing donations, things like that. Most people think we do it to raise our own image, by associating ourselves with good works. But it can work the other way, where good works can gain much by being associated with us. You can campaign for what you want, and have the blessing and authority of the Protectorate behind it, as well as your own personal following and the respect you've earned in this city."
The Wharf Rat paused, and considered this carefully. The offer was not entirely convincing. Her best offer there could be boiled down to if you want to do these things on your own, we won't actively hinder you. And it sounded like members of the Protectorate lost a lot of personal privacy and autonomy, their movements restricted and their living space arranged for the convenience of others. And transferring his daughter to Arcadia was a lot less of a priority than it had been before; without Sophia Hess and her protection as Shadow Stalker, the girls that bullied Taylor would be subject to normal discipline and consequences, and the harassment should stop. And, he would have to quit his job, he did a lot of good working for the Dockworker's association. Though, it didn't make a lot of money.
"What's the job pay?" he asked.
She told him, and he whistled with disbelief. That certainly did a lot to steer him back to that side of his mixed feelings.
She paused, glanced down at her gloves then back up. "Look, if it makes a difference, and if you don't mind my saying so, I hope you join. I know the Armsmaster does to. You've become an extremely influential figure. You currently poll as the number-one hero in Brockton Bay, above Dauntless and Armsmaster. You're a role model, Wharf Rat. And if you join us, it would reflect well on us. If you don't, then we could lose a generation. Any new parahumans in Brockton Bay would go rogue like you, and our ranks would dwindle to nothing. The Protectorate is not just superheroes fighting supervillains, it's also an issue of respect. It keeps people assured that we will be there to help them. It's a major force for recruiting for Endbringer resistance forces. A lot of our budget and fundraising goes to mitigating the damage from Endbringer attacks. Those things will be lost if people stop enlisting, if they decide that they're better off as rogues and vigilantes."
He paused, and considered. "If I join, and wind up leaving later, how would that affect your recruitment?"
"Honestly? Still better than nothing. We've already run the projections. The longer you're with us, the more the positive bump in ratings. The worst-case is that you never publicly give us the time of day and stay your own path."
"And I leave at my discretion?"
"Barring occasions of immediate emergency, yes," she said, and she seemed to smile under her bandana.
He sighed, and stepped forward to shake her hand. "I'll be by to sign in, in two weeks. I need some time to put the rest of my life in order before I join. Two weeks and three weekends."
She shook his hand. "Looking forward to it," she said. Definitely smiling.
"You know what's great about this mask?" Wharf Rat was saying as the doors shut. "Literally nobody can see if I'm smiling or not. It makes posing for pictures so much easier."
"We're going to have to talk about that, among many other things," Glenn Chambers said, bustling in to the elevator alongside the newly-minted hero.
Armsmaster nudged the garishly-dressed fat man. "He's been a Protector for about fifteen seconds. Give him a chance to sit down, at least."
"Good speech," Wharf Rat said to the armored tinker.
"It was the right time," Armsmaster said, shrugging. "And this way I'm still considered the unofficial leader of the team even if Dauntless does surpass me, and even if the Director likes his charisma better than mine." He nodded towards Emily Piggot, who acted as if she did not hear him at all.
Wharf Rat nodded. "It makes a world of difference to step down on your own terms, rather than to have the change pushed on you. I had my going-away party at work last Friday, so I've been thinking about this a bit."
The elevator doors whisked open and they stepped off onto the Hub, the muster point for the team. The elevator whisked back down to pick up more of the team and administrators, while Armsmaster took off his helmet. "Ah, that's better," he said. "No matter how I design the thing, there's a certain degree of comfort you just have to give up if it's going to be functional." He looked over at the new hero, and gave a nod. "Go ahead, nobody is allowed on this level unless they've got the clearance for your secret identity."
The Wharf Rat shrugged, and a dozen rats swarmed up out of his jacket and past the collar, streaming up across his head. Tiny teeth snipped threads, working in concert they were able to open the seams in short order. Danny took the chinpiece and pulled the fabric away, tucking it into his pocket.
"I knew he was sewed into that thing!" Assault crowed as they stepped off the elevator. "Pay up!"
Battery sighed and dug her wallet out while Velocity and Dauntless and Triumph removed their helmets, hoods and masks. Glenn Chambers stared, mortified, at the thin man. "First things first, we need to revamp your entire image. I don't mind the brown per se, but hiding rats in your jacket and sewing yourself into your mask has got to go. Is there any chance that you don't need rats at all? I've drawn up some preliminary sketches, and it turns out that rodents are pretty versatile. Hamsters, moles, squirrels-"
"Rats and mice," Danny said, shaking his head. "And only certain species of shrew. I've tried to get through to other forms of rodent, but my connection is pretty specific. No squirrels, no voles, nothing like that."
Glenn sighed. "Maybe a half-mask then. Something less creepy and bondage-y."
Danny looked around at the rest of the room, as Battery took off her eyemask and Miss Militia tugged down her bandana. "Holy crap, I'm the only person on this team old enough to remember a world before capes."
"We'll have to keep that to ourselves," Glenn said. "That bald spot is not going to play well to the audience."
Danny snorted. "You're passing judgment on my hair?"
Assault dropped onto a couch at the side, and nodded towards Battery. "I like him."
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. "Unzip me." Her husband reached up to untab the hidden catch and started the zipper down until she could get it for herself. With her arms crossed she walked away towards her room.
Danny shrugged out of his trenchcoat and tossed it onto a nearby seat, and his rat minions began folding and sorting it while he shrugged out of the chains that crossed his chest. Glenn made a face at those and opened his notebook again, underlining the words 'less bondage-y'. The man reached into a pocket and pulled out a flat case and took his glasses out of it, setting them on his face. After he had tucked his fingerless gloves into his cargo pockets alongside the mask, Danny Hebert looked like nobody's vision of a superhero, just a middle-aged man wearing athletic all-weather gear. "So, I'm Danny," he said, offering Armsmaster a hand to shake.
"Colin," the team leader said. "Guys, introduce yourselves to Danny."
"Tom," Dauntless said, taking the next handshake.
"Hannah," Miss Militia said next.
"I'm Ethan," Assault said, giving a wave without standing from his couch. "Battery's name is Jenny."
"Troy," Velocity said, giving a handshake as he cruised by with a clipboard in hand. "Hey, Tom, you're doing appearance assignment now, right? Can I talk to you about this mall thing?"
"Rory," Triumph said, giving a shake and an upnod.
"Ah," Danny said. "Hey, Rory, there was something I was going to talk to you about when I get time."
"It'll be a while," Rory said, looking over at Glenn who lurked like an obese vulture biding his time impatiently. "The first couple days are a whirlwind."
Danny nodded. "It can wait a little bit."
Emily Piggot stepped forward, and the rest of the Protectorate found someplace else to be. Maybe they respected her or not, but clearly nobody had warm friendly feelings towards her. "Mister Hebert, I wanted you to know that we have your daughter moved in on the Wards floor, though we will not be announcing her as a new Ward for two weeks. We don't want to introduce you two together or someone will connect that you are related, and if she joins after it looks like she joined because of you and may prompt others to do the same. Also, if she transfers to Arcadia the same day as a new Ward is announced, it will be entirely too obvious."
"I appreciate it," Danny said. "And I appreciate how welcome everyone has made me feel."
"Indeed," she said drily. "Now, we've got you scheduled for eight public appearances this month, which is a little high for a new member, but your recognition is an asset we won't squander. If you're going to be doing any public appearances or endorsements, my office will make the arrangements. We're going to send you with Glenn for costume and image, and once he's satisfied we'll be setting up an appointment with a photographer to get you some promotional shots and a designer for figurines or action figures. I don't think your motif would play well on lunchboxes, but backpacks could be a good start and we'll focus-test from there. And we can debut your new costume at the new zoo exhibit on Thursday. After that there's a charity event-"
"I was hoping to talk to you about a patrol schedule," he said. He had sent up the idea of placing the rest of the Protectorate on quick-response duties, which would let them spend more time relaxing and training, more time engaging criminals, and less time traveling for the sake of traveling. But he would take the patrol duties himself, scouring the city for action that they would respond to.
She nodded brusquely. "I saw your proposal and I think it's a great idea, with a couple of amendments. First of all, your patrol routes need to be above ground. It sends the wrong message that you hide underground, and we want you visible as a symbol. Second, the choice of vehicles, we don't want you on a bicycle or anything pedal-driven, audiences find things like that to be snobbish and elitist, a sign of leisure and not duty."
"If I'm visible I can't observe and gather evidence on my own," he pointed out. "And I could become a target, I've got a significant amount of enemies in the city."
"We're not looking for another Brockton Bay Bust," she said. "It's about maintaining a presence in the city. You're the big issue du jour, so we need to keep you out where people can see you. Now then, I'm going to have to hand you off to my Assistant Director Tagg and Mister Chambers, I've got a teleconference in five minutes." She stepped towards the elevator, swiped her card and headed up to the administrative level.
"Now then," Glenn said, rubbing his hands together. Danny felt like he was now in the clutches of a secret villain. "Normally we'd be doing this next step in my office, but your mask is an issue and my assistants aren't cleared for your identity. Let's head over to the secondary console, I've got my sketches and measurements loaded onto the internal server, we can pull them up on this display."
"That's a map table," Tagg pointed out. "It's used for tactical displays and unit coordination."
"Super," Glenn said without listening. He started typing, and alternate costumes started appearing. "Now, the first thing is to soften your image. I was thinking that white mice could be a good direction to go, rather that big nasty brown rats."
"Kind of a pet-store vibe," Danny said. "The kind that are fed to snakes."
Glenn adjusted his square-framed glasses. "As opposed to the creatures that spread the Black Death. Look, this Wharf Rat persona is just one day of bad press away from Sewer Rat, or Plague Rat. I won't soft-pedal this, Danny, you're going to need a top-to-bottom rework, everything is on the drawing board. Name, costume, methods, equipment, everything."
Danny took the other set of controls, and started scrolling through the sketches that Glenn had laid out. "This looks like a mascot costume. This one reminds me of Hello Kitty. This is a spandex version of what I'm already wearing with a domino mask. This looks like a mascot costume with a cape. This looks like Mouse Protector's costume."
Colin poked his head in to see. "You might want to try that 'street druid' look you were going for the first time we met."
"Tell me about that," Glenn said, retaking the controls and ready to sketch in.
"Cloak, wooden mask and body armor. Wide grain, like oak or something. Lots of green and brown in the look, but kind of had a street-smart vibe." Colin grinned at Danny, and the older man realized that Colin was deliberately egging Glenn on to annoy him, to make up for the annoyances that Wharf Rat had visited on Armsmaster.
"The wooden armor didn't work out," Danny said. "I lost too much flexibility and I never needed the protection because I don't go near trouble."
"You don't need that much flexibility and some armor would bulk you out a bit," Glenn said.
"How much armor are you wearing?" Danny asked with wide guileless eyes and a perfect poker face.
Triumph stifled a guffaw of laughter. Assault didn't stifle his. Glenn glared, and everyone went back to their own issues. He turned his glare on Danny. "Mister Hebert, Wharf Rat, believe it or not I'm trying to help. For you this is about the Protectorate against the villains. You're fighting one battle, one enemy at a time. You think that if you just beat enough bad guys, there'll be a happy ending. The Director and I are fighting a different battle. It's been thirty years since capes appeared in our world. And in that time, villains have killed people and heroes have tried to stop them. Endbringers have attacked and capes have fought them back. We have organizations of heroes and gangs of villains. Capes and masks, secret identities, codenames. The number of parahumans is growing, escalating. But they're not integrating. It's all warlords and celebrities. And it's a matter of time before some high-level Master makes a play for national politics or some Brute just starts smashing and never stops. And when that happens, Mister Hebert? The humans will fight against the parahumans. Millions will die. Civil wars, us against them, you against me. It will be a war for survival, no quarter given. Unless we can get the populace to accept the capes on their own terms. Unless the PR war is won."
Danny sighed. "Look, I'll admit I've never thought about that. And it sounds pretty good. But two things: first of all, it sounds like what you need is a relatable hero in the Protectorate, an everyman with powers who's doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someone that people can empathize with instead of idealizing. And second, you guys are trying to use my publicity and name recognition, but you're trying to get me to change my name and my methods. I've got a proven winning formula, why are you trying to change it now?"
Glenn sighed and rocked back. "Have you been in the lobby of this building? Have you seen a poster from our PR department? The splash screen on the evening news? We're going to be shooting new pictures of the team. It will have Dauntless in the front, with Armsmaster and Miss Militia behind his shoulders. Behind Armsmaster, Assault and Battery and then you. Behind Miss Militia, Velocity and Triumph. Can you picture that in your head? What does it look like with all these shining avatars of justice and you skulking in the back with a trenchcoat and a gimp mask? Or, do we try to make you actually look like part of the team?"
"I'm coming back to this druid look," Colin said, tapping the screen. "I've got some superhard lightweight materials that can be molded and painted to look like wood. If we got with overlapping plates on the torso it won't cost you too much flexibility."
"But a druid that controls rats?" Glenn made a face of disgust.
"Rats and pigeons," Colin said. "I can rig something up. Probably not real pigeons, but realistic-looking drones that we can use to deploy payloads or just distract the villains. And maybe that thing about controlling urban elements like on that first night."
Glenn's fingers kept working on the Street Druid sketch, but he half-turned to the taller thinner man. "Tell me about that, urban elements?"
"When I first ran across our man Danny Hebert, after he had kicked five kinds of shit out of Lung, he was dressed in this wooden armor with a cloak. He was surrounded by rats, and the place was a huge damn mess. Trees had fallen on Lung, downed power lines, burst water pipes, a slick of burning gasoline, it looked like nature itself had been beating Lung down. Fire, water, lightning, trees, animals, everything. I know now that this was just the Wharf Rat going all-out and doing major collateral damage, but that's not what it looked like at the time."
"Let's stay clear of major property damage," Tagg said, speaking for the first time.
Glenn nodded. "Absolutely. No knocking trees down or power lines, but there may be something we can work with there. Pigeons and rats, we could fake up some special effects for other powers, like gas canisters to look like ground fog or something. A little sleight of hand, that's all. Can you help with that, Armsmaster?"
"Are you kidding?" Colin said, grinning wolfishly. "It's been a month since I've worked on anything except powered armor for my teammates and the Wards. I'd love the change of pace."
Danny saw the pieces fall into place. He had submitted a suggestion to the director that more of the Protectorate should wear armor with enhancements. There was a young girl on the Wards, Vista, who had enough power that she got called in for Endbringer attacks, but she was so vulnerable that a mugger with a switchblade could kill her before she became a teenager. Assault moved fast and hit harder, but he could move faster and hit harder. Velocity was very easy to hurt while his powers were active, and that could be helped. And so now apparently that was moved to the top of Armsmaster's priorities, kitting out the team and the Wards. And that was why Colin was just a bit annoyed with him lately.
Glenn tapped his round pink cheek as he looked over the sketch. "Hmm. Can't call it a 'street druid' though, it sounds condescending."
"Because it is condescending," Danny pointed out.
"Right. Hmm, not 'urban', that gets reminiscent of racial issues. Maybe something simple like The Druid of Brockton Bay. People hear that a couple times, they start calling you the Druid for short, but they always remember that you're a fixture of the city, the Druid of Brockton Bay."
Danny turned his head to face the man. "You're actually pretty good at this, aren't you?"
"I am," Glenn said with no visible modesty or arrogance. "But I will admit, you raised a good point earlier about the relatable everyman hero, and keeping you recognizable for the time being. Also, we can sell successive lines of merchandise if we rebrand you a couple times as we go. That's why my last sketch was this," he said, flitting through the pictures that Danny had rejected, settling on one that showed a small variation of the Wharf Rat costume. "I'm not happy with it, because it's not my best work, but it's not my work really," he said.
The mask was white instead of brown, there was no bandolier-chain or gloves, and the jacket had a small fur collar and trim on it that could either hint at the presence of rats or give them a place to hide in the open. The notes on the mask showed it to be spandex to get the superhero look instead of the gimp-mask look that Glenn insisted his current mask had. He had already notated that the mask would include a built-up cup around the mouth and nose like Danny's current mask. The illustration showed Wharf Rat surrounded by a flood of indistinct brown bodies shot through with white rats to give some contrast, and his jacket included a breast pocket that two white mice peeked out of.
"Just enough change to bring you out of the sewers and into the Protectorate," Glenn said, tapping his finger to the map table. "And we've got the Druid in reserve if we need a more extreme change."
"I'll be working on pigeon drones," Colin said, still grinning.
Danny considered. "If you just set robot pigeons loose, it'll look weird. My rats are coordinated, I can multitask with them. These twelve guys here," he said, gesturing towards the chair with his jacket, where a dozen rats still sat patiently, "can solve twelve different mazes at the same time. Give them some pencils and I can write out twelve letters to twelve people about twelve different subjects. They can move independently but synchronized. And that's a huge source of my strength, the way I can control them with such a fine touch. Whatever drones you give me won't have that, unless you make them remote-controlled in a way that I can operate with rats."
"A hundred pigeons with a hundred joysticks," Colin mused. "And each of them just as coordinated as your rats. There could be something there. Distractions, spies, but also a payload of their own. Gas pellets, throw cameras, small charges, things like that. Maybe even one that trails an invisible wire to conduct a charge, and burns itself out in a lightning bolt. This is doable."
Danny chuckled, and despite himself he was picking up a little excitement of his own at this new plan. Colin left the Hub for his workshop, off-handedly promising some prototypes by the close of the week.
