"So, how was your first day as a member of the Protectorate?" Taylor asked when they sat down at Fugly Bob's. It was a rather low-rent burger place that the kids all seemed to love, and its tasteless charm was deliberately affected as the management could definitely afford to remodel. And fortunately it was just a block or two off the Boardwalk, an easy walk to the Protectorate HQ. The place was loud enough that he could be confident that nobody outside of their booth was going to hear them talking shop about Protectorate business.
"It was exhausting," he said. "But first, who's your friend?"
"Dad, this is Chris, he's Kid Win. Chris, my father," Taylor said, making the introductions before taking a sip of her Coke.
"A pleasure," the teen hero said, reaching over to shake. "Big fan."
"Likewise," Danny said. "So what's your tinker specialty?"
"Ray guns and anti-gravity, like Hero," the boy said. "So, how bad did Glenn work you over?"
Taylor butted in. "Who's Glenn?"
Kid Win took this question. "Do you remember that fat man that was always close to the Director? That's the head of our image and PR departments. The guy is a menace, I swear. He goes from city to city, team to team, whenever a new hero is inducted, and he works on their image. And some of us get sent back for retraining. If you ever notice that all the Wards have an almost compulsively good posture, that's on Glenn. He's the reason that Dauntless and Triumph both have such garish outfits. And that Revel had to get that tattoo removed from... well, he's a pain in the butt, if you'll pardon me saying so."
"He wanted to change my costume," Danny said. "Some of the sketches looked like mascot costumes. One was clearly inspired by Mouse Protector. It was pretty rough. But instead we're going to try me out with a white mask and some other minor tweaks and see if that helps some. There's more changes in the future, but we'll get to those later. How are you settling in with the Wards?"
There was a break as the waitress brought their order, three baskets of greasy cheeseburgers and French fries. They sorted out which was whose by condiments and seasonings, and arranged the baskets in front of the right people. Then Taylor answered the question. "So far, so good. They helped me move in, they were really impressed that we were able to get accommodations as parent and child since all their families live in their own homes and they only see their families on weekends or special occasions. And we continue our plans to get me accepted as a Ward. Oh, and they taught me how to use the research and dispatch console."
"Everyone has to learn it," Kid Win said, after swallowing his French fries. "But she picked it up faster than most."
Danny patted his daughter's hand proudly, and then turned back to the tinker. "So, what's the deal with the director, Piggot? Nobody wants to say it, but everyone seems to know it."
Kid Win went quiet, darting his eyes around subconsciously as the subject change activated a bubble of paranoia in his psyche. "Okay, so you know Nilbog, right?"
"Crazy villain in Ellisburg, makes monsters, took over a town, now it's walled off and guarded to make sure his monsters don't ever leave," Danny recited.
The teen nodded. "At first, they didn't realize what they were dealing with, and they sent a PRT team of soldiers and a handful of capes to find the guy and bring him to justice. The Director was one of the only survivors of that, and she barely survived. She lost so much muscle tissue from her legs that they weren't sure she would ever walk. Even her organs, some things that were almost vital got... eaten. It was nightmarish. And so when she recovered they bumped her up to a Director's desk. Promoted her over about four levels of management as a reward for her sacrifice and a bribe to keep her from suing the PRT for putting her in that position. She went straight from assault-squad soldier to running a city for the Taskforce and reporting directly to the Chief Director."
Danny whistled. "Damn. Well, I guess we know she doesn't have the capacity to trigger as a parahuman."
Kid Win shuddered. "Like a trigger event but without powers afterwards. No thanks."
The table went quiet in the midst of the bustling, noisy restaurant. Taylor ate a few French fries then said, "Honestly, she seems exactly like the sort of person that could have a power-hungry supervillain working in the office next door and never realize it."
"Let's add that to the long list of things to never say inside the PHQ, okay?" the teenage boy said, wincing dramatically.
Taylor paused. "Why, is the place bugged? Monitored?"
"Constantly," Kid Win said. "Anything there is to see and hear, they see and hear."
Danny chuckled. "They've even installed motion detectors and infrared sensors in the crawlspaces, elevator shafts, air ducts and insulation since the first time I broke in. It's all very 1984."
"What happened in 1984?" Chris asked, his forehead creasing.
The older man was taken aback. "Uh, wow, okay it was a book about-"
"I was kidding," Kid Win said, his face splitting in a sudden smile. "There's something about people your age that makes you assume that people my age don't know anything except texting and Nicktoons. It's a little fun to mess around when I can."
"You fooled me once," Danny said, shaking a finger mock-sternly.
Kid Win turned back to Taylor. "Now, you're going to have to really watch out for Glenn. See, you're a blank slate, and a high-profile opportunity. On the one hand, you've got no powers naturally, though we'll be going to lengths to hide that fact. That means that he can make nearly any arbitrary demands on your costume and there's no real reason to deny them. On the other hand, you're going to be the example of young teens that sign up with the Protectorate as part of their new recruiting drive, so he has to make sure to make a splash with you."
Taylor thought about this. "I'm growing less comfortable with this plan."
"It's not that hard," her father reassured her. "He's the give-an-inch-take-a-mile type, but he's a bulldog for that first inch. Just set the starting line a mile back from where you really want it, guard it hard, and finally begrudgingly let him get his foot in the door. Then watch him bulldoze his way all the way to where you wanted to go in the first place."
The boy Ward blinked a few times, considering. "That's really good advice."
"I wish someone had given me that advice yesterday," Danny said, shrugging. "So, it looks like they're going to be screwing around with my patrol suggestion."
"Good way or bad?" she said, suspiciously.
Danny gestured for her to wait while he bit and chewed his burger. When his mouth was clear, he explained. "They want me out on patrol as a symbol, so they want me out in the open, and they want executive control of what sort of vehicle I drive. They agree that the rest of the Protectorate, and even Wards, are better as a quick-response force with myself as a patroller, but they want to hamper my ability to actually catch crooks, for the purpose of working their PR angle. It's sort of a compromise."
Taylor shook her head. "We worked long and hard on that, you and I. We worked out a patrol pattern that makes it easiest for the QRF to respond immediately and for central to monitor your movements, and mapped it to the city's storm system, with alternate routes for heavy rain days. And they're blowing that off so you can ride around like it's the Rose Bowl parade waving the Protectorate flag as publicly as possible."
Kid Win arched an eyebrow. "You sound more invested in this than he does," the boy noted.
Danny chuckled. "She should, most of the work was hers and the original idea too. Most of the policy memos I've been referring to Piggot come from conversations with Taylor. Including the suggestion that Armsmaster should spend more time in his workshop and less time bruising criminals, and that someone needs to do a quantified study of how much diminishing returns Dauntless is getting."
Chris glanced sideways at the girl. "Are you the reason that I'm getting more demands that I spend my workshop hours designing power-armor components for my teammates?"
"Depends. Are you pissed about it?"
"A little."
"Then I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it would incriminate me," she said, and took a drink.
"Frickin' knew it," he grumbled, and took a bite of his burger.
Wharf Rat stepped off the elevator and stripped off the mask, pulling it off over his head. He brushed down his wispy hair with one hand while the other handed his mask off to one of the white mice that poked out of his pocket and accepted his glasses from the other. He hung the jacket up while the two white mice scrambled out and headed to the feeding station set up in the corner for them.
"Hell of a day?" Velocity asked him from the Hub console. He was out of costume entirely, lounging in sweatpants and a tanktop.
"Hell of a day," Danny answered. "What's the situation?"
"The team deployed for an armed robbery in progress, but on the way back we diverted to deal with a police chase, and then a bunch of suspicious people that could be Empire 88 thugs scouting out new territory to claim."
"Could be a ploy to distract the heroes and keep them tied up," Wharf Rat said, catching his chin thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger.
"Or it could be a full moon," Velocity said. "Hey, could you watch the station for me? I've been here a while and I need to take a leak."
Danny nodded. "Sure thing. Don't rush," he said as the other man started to blur with motion. Velocity slowed back down to normal speed and walked away. He sat at the console, pulled up five windows for Assault, Battery, Dauntless, Triumph and Miss Militia, and watched them with five mice while he kept an overhead view of their tracking devices laid over a topographical map.
"Wharf Rat filling in for Velocity at the comms," he said into the all-call channel. "Someone brief me."
"Suspicious individuals, public park, night time, possible gang members but can't assume," Miss Militia responded. "Numbers unknown, roughly a dozen, going for an envelopment maneuver."
"Roger. Assault, take about ten steps to your left, Battery take about ten to your right, you guys are super bunched up. The two fastest runners on site should field more of the possible escape routes. Dauntless, move a little closer to Miss Militia, she's one most likely to need your force field, and it leaves you a good position to go aerial for maneuvering. Miss Militia, do you have beanbags, rubber bullets, nonlethal munitions?"
"Not even flashbangs," she said. "Sorry, I've tried before."
"Okay, that means that Triumph is the only one on-site who has a ranged nonlethal power, and it's area-effect too. Your costume's flashy enough to be recognizable, so you're on point to provoke a response. If they attack or run, shout them. If they are non-hostile, stand down and produce a PR moment."
Triumph keyed his mouthpiece. "You've been around Glenn too much this week."
"I guarantee you're right, but I might be right too."
Danny watched the heroes shift position to be ready for a confrontation or an escape, and then Triumph stepped forward to make himself seen and gauge their reactions. It seemed easy enough to him, watching all the cameras at the same time and making the easy calls. It helped significantly that he had researched the team extensively and had a pretty confident handle on what powers they did and did not have. He kept his own two eyes on the overhead map and telemetry readouts, trusting the mice to watch the headcams.
"Stand down team," Triumph murmured. "They're a gang, but not hostile."
"What do you mean?" Danny asked, looking over at Triumph's headcam. Mouse eyes were great for watching an area, but they weren't as great for focusing on fine details of a darkened grainy monitor. "Oh."
The teenagers were wearing Mickey Mouse masks and long coats as they walked the park. They recognized the hero and moved in, some asking questions and others trying to act cooler than the others while the Protectorate moved into PR mode. He heard at least one of them asking Dauntless if he had met the Wharf Rat, what was he like in person. Danny cut off the sound and looked over at the overhead map to distract himself. He found himself embarrassed over the attention and reactions.
"It gets a bit weird," Velocity said as he approached. "I've seen that look before. I recommend holding onto it. When you get comfortable with people hero-worshipping you, you're halfway to being an insufferably arrogant asshole. Try to delay that process."
Danny chuckled. "I think I will. But the way they're pushing me into these public appearances, I'm afraid I'll get jaded to it fast."
The other man dropped into the chair at his side, watching the screens. He hit the playback button to see what had happened, including the redistribution and movements, then nodded. "Not bad. Your way is better than what I had. Though unless they had a cape in their group, it wouldn't make any appreciable difference. And if there is a cape, all bets are off. So, I hear you're killing it with these public appearances. Public speaking, meet-and-greets, the whole shmeer."
"I suppose," Danny said. "But I have to confess that I cheat my way through them every time. I've got my speeches in the notes of my smart phone, and I keep it in my pocket with a mouse. I'm literally reading my notes to a crowd, and they can't see my face. Sometimes I even close my eyes and pretend they're not there. And the meet-and-greets are a bit harder, but if you keep moving and memorize a dozen excuses you can avoid getting sucked into anything past small-talk. And since the mice can tell me whose hands they've already shaken, and keep notes on who I've met, I avoid the really awkward moments."
Velocity nodded. "It gets harder. Wait until you're doing interviews. Or worse yet, 'hard-hitting' interviews where they try to trap you with vaguely-worded questions and accuse you of weaseling when you clarify your answers."
Danny winced. "That sucks. So what do you do about that?"
"In most cases, you try to get someone like Glenn who does this for a living to get you an earpiece so he can feed you answers, or you research the heck out of the questions you're likely to face," the speedster said. "In my case, you accelerate yourself so you've got ten times as much time to think about answers before you speak."
"That does not sound like advice I can profit from."
"Yeah," Velocity nodded, grinning. "it's pretty awesome being me."
"Your request is denied," Piggot said into her handset.
Danny took a long breath. "You said that, but you didn't say why."
"It's denied because I've told you it's denied," she said. "This is the Parahuman Response Taskforce. Your pet projects do not involve parahumans or the response to them, so the PRT and subsidiaries thereof will not get involved, especially in things that involve local politics."
He felt his grip tighten on the receiver, and he counted to three before he replied. "This isn't politics, this is a charity event. Just fundraising for a project. We're not lobbying for candidates or pushing for legislation, just developing a fund for repairs to the ferry. If the council wants to reactivate the ferry, the funds go to defraying their costs, if they do not then the funds sit in trust until such time as the council changes its mind."
"Most charities are to help a poor child get cancer treatments. Or disaster relief. You are attempting to influence and sway policy decisions of the host city, and to use your mask and publicity to back that attempt. Even if you deny it or dress it up with cheap sophistry, you're still influencing public policy. Your request is denied."
"But it will boost the local economy, it will get poor kids out of poor neighborhoods! It will reduce the social factors that cause criminality, at the source!"
"And it will put us out of a job," Piggot pointed out. "Moreover, it will bring poor people into wealthy neighborhoods looking for handouts, and it will offend the major power players in the city, the financial backers and politicians that we depend on for support. And it will be a visible incident of the Protectorate meddling in non-parahuman affairs. Do you know why the PRT is given authority over the Protectorate and not the other way around? It's because parahuman power must be tempered and restrained and monitored, and human power must not. This is checks and balances, Mister Hebert."
"This isn't checks and balances," he pointed out. "Balances means that the two organizations have mutual restrictions over one another."
"Just checks then," she retorted. "When you triggered and got powers, you lost your authority and participation in human affairs and politics. Stay in your world, leave us in ours."
He sputtered. "It's the same world! I look out the same windows as you, and I hear the same news broadcasts! Those people on the street need help from someone, and we're just sitting here in ivory towers, denying them help, and you act like this neutrality makes us moral! Like the boundaries between justice and subjugation would melt down if we acknowledge that people should have opportunities!"
"You're asking us to meddle," she said. "There's a zero-tolerance policy on meddling. If we start, we begin a path that leads to us dictating policy to governments. If we never start, we never reach that point."
He paced around, the phone cord dragging on the ground. "It's not a strong-arm maneuver! It's a public appearance for a charity to help poor kids in a long-term, sustained way! If helping the desperate is a slippery slope, then maybe we need to be on that slope!"
"You have stopped being rational, Mister Hebert," Director Piggot said sharply. "I will disconnect this call."
"Wait! What about my other request?"
"I feel I should deny it as well, in light of the conversation we've just had. A man who would argue irrationally against our neutrality policies is likely not a good candidate for that visit. But I won't be petty by shutting it down, I will pass your request to the appropriate parties. His doctors can accept or deny your request at their discretion, and you can put scheduling requests through my office." She hung up first, and Danny slammed the handset down on the receiver with a snarl of rage.
Battery looked up from her book, surprised by the slamming noise. Assault turned her way. "He was talking to the Director," he said, and she nodded and looked back down at her book.
Dauntless stepped close and offered a wry smile. "I know, she can be trying. But she's not entirely unreasonable."
"Of course she's unreasonable," Danny blurted. "And I think I'm a little closer to diagnosing what's wrong around here."
"Diagnosing?" Triumph asked, looking up from the console.
Danny sighed. "Look, the Director and the PRT have unchecked authority over your lives. Our lives, now. She can write out a policy memo that dictates when you wake up, what you eat, what you wear. She receives requests for time off and travel in or out of the city, which she approves or denies as she sees fit. She tells you what you can do or say, with whom, and in what way. There is a massive power imbalance at play here. She has authority, we have obligations. This is not checks and balances; this is a knife at your throat. And it's so easy to defend her. You remember that sometimes she approves requests that suit her purposes, and sometimes she doesn't deny you privileges just out of spite, sometimes she exerts less authoritarian power over your lives than she possibly could. That is Stockholm Syndrome."
"Heck of a diagnosis," Assault said. "You've been here twelve days now and you've diagnosed us all with mass Stockholm syndrome."
"Are you a prisoner?" Danny asked.
"No, of course not."
"Can you prove that you re not a prisoner?" Danny asked.
Assault and Battery traded a look, and he picked up a book rather than answer.
Triumph frowned. "Honestly, sounds more like a regular abusive relationship than Stockholm."
"You may be right," Danny said, considering it. "One of those 'baby why do you make me beat you' kind of relationships."
"So she's in charge," Velocity said. "Someone's always in charge. Everyone else deals with it without accusing their boss of imprisoning them or being an abusive partner."
Miss Militia shook her head. "Not necessarily. I don't take Wharf Rat's side in this, I think he is speaking out of his anger, but what the Director is to us, is not just a boss to an employee. Much closer to a commanding officer to soldiers. We are conscripts in a war, after all."
"Which means he's treading between insubordination and mutiny," Velocity pointed out.
Dauntless frowned. "I think this discussion needs to be tabled. Not necessarily permanently, but for the time being it seems important that everyone calm down and consider their words, and consider their position. Look, Danny, you clearly don't cope well being cooped up in the Hub. You've had a tough adjustment, and admittedly Piggot has taken no pains to make it easier on you. Why don't you hit a patrol, clear your head?"
"I'm not scheduled for a patrol," he said. "And in the mood I'm in, taking impromptu interviews on the street could be a disaster. I can't handle a PR moment right now."
"Use your old patrol routes," Dauntless said. "It'll put your back on your balance, I'm sure. And it's a minor reprimand for taking an unscheduled patrol on your team leader's orders, nothing that goes into either of our records."
Danny paused, and nodded. "Thanks Tom."
The bigger, younger man clapped him on the shoulder. "Come back when you're calm, I'll see what I can do about helping you mesh with the group."
Mice scrambled up the jacket as he took it down off the coat rack. Danny knew that Dauntless was sending him on patrol so that the other Protectorate heroes could talk about him in privacy, but it was still a good idea. He stepped onto the elevator and took it down to the motor pool. He had his mask on by the time the doors opened, and he stepped out into the hangar.
The VTOL was set at once side and his tunnel-buggy was parked alongside the three motorcycles for Armsmaster, Miss Militia and Triumph. It wasn't the same buggy, his original was parked in a side corridor off a disused storm drain a few miles away. This one was made for him by Armsmaster in his workshop, assembled the right way. Rather than gnawed wood, it was made of machined alloys and die-cast polymers, lightweight and flexible and nearly unbreakable. It was just as well-shaped, and had the fixtures that Danny had gone without before. Headlights, radio, door locks, windshield, air conditioning. He opened it with the remote key fob, and slid himself down into it. But rather than out the hangar door and onto the streets, he turned it back to the freight elevator and rode down to the basement.
And from the basement, the tunnels. Riding like this didn't have the thrill that it used to; the new buggy had a motor and not a bicycle pedal to power it. It was more like driving a car than he really liked, he had lost his wife in a car accident and he preferred safer vehicles like bicycles. Still, he could tune that out and concentrate on the navigation, the rats, and he felt better about it. He paused a few blocks from PHQ to muster up a swarm of rats and load them into the cargo hatch of the buggy, which was more like the trunk of a car that ran the complete length of the undercarriage.
The city was mostly quiet these days. With the ABB gone, the 5th Street Merchants gone, Coil and his soldiers gone, and the remnants of Empire Eighty-Eight having left the city, all that was really left were the Undersiders, the Travelers, and Faultline's mercenary crew. He wondered how long the mercenaries would hang around, without mastermind villains around to hire them. The Wharf Rat could either pursue leads on the Undersiders or the Travelers, or go on a long ride and put in a few hundred phone calls reporting mundane crimes. But if he tried anything that started to look like the Brockton Bay Bust, someone would call Piggot and she'd get involved. It was just easier to look into the Travelers. After all, he'd promised Tattletale he wouldn't snoop into their business. And he was still nursing a significant grudge against Trickster. He could take his frustrations with the Director and take them out on a professional villain who had threatened to cut his throat and bleed him out onto the stained table of a run-down dive bar.
And that would mean following the only trail that they had left.
Since Coil's arrest, the Travelers had gone underground in the most literal way. The lair that they had assaulted to rescue Dinah had included a massive vault that had reeked of fear and hate and raw meat and massive animals. That vault was one of the most disquieting things that Danny had seen since he started superheroics. And there had been a hole burned out of the back of it, a perfectly round tunnel with the edges melted like candle wax, slagged through down to the sanitary sewers below, with massive oddly-shaped footprints pressed into the melted concrete, like something titanic had walked out of there before the ground had finished cooling and hardening. The best assumption from all involved was that this was one of Genesis' forms, as she and the rest of the Travelers had worked for Coil. And Sundancer's projected power was a perfectly-round ball of unfathomable heat that could easily melt through stone. But when the various heroes had seen that, they had held a conference to decide what to do.
On the one hand, leaving the tunnel open would let the heroes follow the trail when they were ready. But it could also allow whatever was down there to attack whenever it was ready and they were not. If they filled the tunnel, they lost that trail and would have to find the Travelers some other way, but the Travelers would be cut off from Coil's base and whatever hidden resources there might be. So they had sealed the tunnel with a mixture of containment foam and poured concrete. The Travelers had made several raids since then, still clearly in the city. They had stolen money wherever they could, or just food. They had pulled off a rash of convenience-store robberies just to get the easy cash instead of trying for a bank job or a shot at one of the city's underground casinos.
Danny drove over to that region, and began assembling hordes of rats. He infiltrated them down into the sewers anywhere he could, finding cracks where he could or just finding public toilets and having the rats swim down through the pipes until they came out in the sewers. He wished he could cover his nose, but it wasn't his nose that was picking up this endless scent of waste and rot. It was hundreds of noses that were hundreds of times more powerful than his. He felt like he should be puking, but his eyes didn't even water. Different physiological reactions for sensations carried by his power, similar to how he did not really feel the pain that his rats felt when they were hurt. He began canvassing the area, gridding it out and searching for clues.
He spent over an hour sending his rats back and forth before he realized what an idiot he was being. A clue that would have been obvious to a human in the sewer but escaped his rats' notice for an hour. Well, if a human had a rat's nightvision, or if a rat had a human's height. There was a trail carved in the ceiling, right down the middle. A combination of slightly melted concrete and smoke-singe that was easily spotted once he was looking in the right place instead of trying to get his rats to smell anything except sewage in a sewer. It followed the path from the slagged out tunnel from Coil's hideout, and then started following tunnels. It didn't seem entirely purposeful, it doubled back by accident more than once, and it was inconsistent as if the heat source that created it had stopped a few times for several minutes before moving on. It tended towards larger tunnels, and seemed to prefer downstream to upstream, as if trying to find a way out. None of the maintenance hatches were opened or tampered with, the trail just went right by them without hesitation. Danny had to scratch his head at that. Why would the Travelers stay down there deliberately? Something wasn't connecting.
Danny used the buggy's onboard computer to look up the city's sewer map to try to predict where the path would go. He had little luck, sanitary sewers followed the city's layout from its founding and were only amended or appended at need, whereas the storm drains followed the current street layout and were more consistently plotted. And his rats were traveling slower than he was used to, swimming or wading in the murky muck was slow going, and the walls of the place were one of the few surfaces that rats could not climb easily. And besides that, the level was getting higher. Something had the tunnel blocked off and wasn't letting the sewage drain like it was supposed to.
"Damn," he swore. Odds were that the Travelers had covered their tracks by sealing a passage behind them. Probably with no consideration for how this was going to screw up the city's waste systems. Maybe they were dumb enough to leave an obvious trail in the ceiling, but they were smart enough to block the passage to keep anyone from following them. He took a long look at his maps while he pulled his rats back, and tried to figure out where the blockage was and where the other side of it would be. Some of these tunnels fed into the tunnel and as he checked them to see if they were backed up it helped him narrow down where the problem was. And this outflow tunnel that was empty showed him where the other side of the blockage was. He sent his minions forth experimentally, watching closely, and as they converged on the empty space he narrowed it down.
There, under the processing station. A large round chamber, with one massive intake pipe that was fed by dozens of others, and dozens of outflow pipes that led to the dozens of pumps that filtered out the waste from the water. He started typing again. He searched "Brockton Bay" "sewer substation 115" under the "news" tab. He read, he stared, he read more, and he moved his rats in on the chamber. He could see it on his map but he wanted to get rodent eyes on it.
"Console, this is Wharf Rat," he said into his comms.
"Go for console," Miss Militia said in return.
"Console, do you have anything there on the substation 115 incident from about three weeks ago?"
"What incident?"
"Sewage reclamation plant, substation 115. The news reports that three men who worked here went berserk and started killing all the other workers with their bare hands or hand tools, and one more went home and killed his whole family before he was shot dead by police like the other three."
"Oh right, that," Miss Militia said. "None of the men had history of mental illness or violence. They were badly mutilated, the authorities hypothesized it was exposure to toxic waste that left them deformed and insane. They were also naked, if that means anything."
"It might," he said. Funny, the Travelers escape into the sewers, and two days later some sewer workers turn into berserk monsters, and nobody draws the connection, he thought to himself.
"Wharf Rat, what do you have?" she asked, recognizing his tone.
"I might have found the Travelers' new hideout," he replied. "I think they're directly underneath the substation, or inside it."
"Wharf Rat, stand by at your location. Do not advance, do not engage. You're on a team now, dammit, act like it!"
The rats smelled something new, something other than sewage. They smelled the death of rats. They smelled the pheromones laced in the urine of a rodent at the moment of its death, a warning to others to avoid the area. First one tunnel then another, he smelled it on every path in or out of the chamber. Whatever was down there, it was uniquely well-equipped to deal with what he could send after it.
"Okay, Miss Militia, I'm not advancing," he said. "Standing by for instructions."
Things were quiet for several minutes, and he doodled around on the onboard computer, looking for more information on substation incident. Finally his earpiece clicked again to open the connection. "Wharf Rat, this is console, your orders are to pull back to PHQ at this time," Miss Militia's voice came in.
"What the hell for?" he demanded. "I'm on site; you guys are the response force to bring the firepower and the decisive win. You come to me, I don't pull back. This is the Travelers, they worked for Coil, they escaped several times, if we miss them we might never catch them again." He started moving his rats up, trying to smell past the twin smells of sewage and death. Maybe he could make out enough of the chamber to make a tactical decision-
"Because two weeks ago Dinah Alcott said that there was a 96% chance that joining the Protectorate would get you killed," Miss Militia said. "And after a lot of questions, they narrowed down the day to today. This morning she predicted a 50% you'd die today, and this afternoon it's shot back up to 96%."
"Oh," he said. "Damn. I'm hundreds of feet away, I'm in a different tunnel system altogether. There's nothing to connect me directly even if I do attack. I should be safe as houses."
"And yet, 96% chance you die today," Miss Militia said.
"Maybe coming back is what gets me killed," he mused.
"That seems less likely," Miss Militia said. "For one thing, right now it sounds like there's a 96% chance you're going to ignore me, rather than a 96% chance you're going to listen to me. So that makes it more likely that ignoring me gets you killed."
Danny opened his mouth to object, but her reasoning was pretty sound. "Damn. Well, I've made her predictions go fuzzy before. I beat longer odds than that when I rescued her."
The woman's voice sounded tired. "Are you really trying to claim that the four-percent chance is more likely than the ninety-six-percent chance because of 'fuzzy'? And that it's worth your life to try it?"
"I suppose not," he sighed. "All right, I'm coming in."
He spent some time moving the rats out of the sewer, evacuating all of them to safer grounds, even the ones that were down in the sewers when he got there. He cleared the area just to be sure and safe, and then he turned the engine on and headed back to the PHQ.
When he walked back into the Hub, the rest of the team was lined up; even Armsmaster was present, out of uniform. Miss Militia was still sitting at the console, and she looked up to give him a thumbs-up. "Your odds dropped to a few hundredths of a percent by the time you were halfway home," she said.
"Right," Dauntless said. "So, we decided that we need to do something to help you feel at home. We thought about training exercises, but then this whole Traveler thing came up. Look, you were out there in the tunnels, but back here it was madness. We had calls going back and forth from the Director's office to Dinah Alcott and back, and it looked like I was going to get a lot more than a mild reprimand for sending you away. Anyway, we thought about training exercises, we thought about going for a tour around the city in the VTOL, we brainstormed a lot of ideas. And then Assault mentioned that we should ask your daughter. And your daughter told us the best way for us to bond with you as friends, was with these," he said, and the team stepped in two directions, splitting down the middle to reveal a trio of kegs, already iced and tapped, and a table full of finger-foods and crudit s.
Danny stared for a minute, considering, then nodded. "Taylor's a good kid," he said, and took off his mask and stepped forward.
Triumph was icing his arm, his face still green. "I can't believe I tried to go hit-for-hit with Assault," he groaned.
"I can't believe you insisted that your boosted physiology meant you could match all the rest of us drink-for-drink," Battery pointed out. "And you never realized that every time your back was turned Velocity was in super-speed burning off the alcohol."
"I'm an idiot," Triumph groaned, moving the icepack from his bruised arm to his pounding head.
"I can't believe I forgot that I have an a.m. public appearance today," Dauntless said, tugging on his armor. "I may want to borrow Wharf's full-face mask so nobody knows how crappy I feel."
Assault walked past and paused. "Talk to Glenn, he's got makeup artists that can make you look like you're not hung over." He made his way back to the bathroom without looking back.
"I can't believe I'm on consoles again today," Miss Militia groused. "No patrols scheduled, no battles scheduled, just overwatch. I can't spend any more time on Facebook, I just can't."
Danny sat down next to Triumph. "Morning. Breakfast?"
"I'm gonna need the cafeteria to bring it up, I can't go anywhere today," the youngest member of the Protectorates said. Triumph had the look of a fresh-faced All-American college athlete, but today that college athlete was at the tail end of an ugly, ugly bender.
"I'll call," Danny said, and got up to go dial for toast and coffee for the younger man, sausage and sunny-side eggs for himself with orange juice. He went back to the wraparound couch and sat down, moving carefully so as not to upset the young man. "So, Rory- is it okay if I call you Rory? I feel like once I've helped a man do a kegstand he and I are on a first-name basis."
"Rory's good," Triumph said, his face drawn. His superhuman strength was well-sapped by his hangover.
"Rory, I actually got to chat with your father a few times," Danny said. "Though, truthfully he and I didn't agree on that many things."
Rory shrugged. "Meh. He can be hard to agree with."
Danny nodded noncommittally. "So anyway, that's how I found out about the one-point-nine million dollars."
Rory groaned. "Man, he's not supposed to talk about that! He knows that, dammit." He looked around to make sure none of the other members were listening in, and lowered his voice just in case.
"Actually, I just had one question he wouldn't answer for me," Danny said. "I asked him if it was worth it, and he just wouldn't tell me."
Rory chuckled. "Well, present circumstances aside, I'd say it was totally worth it. I mean, sure there were a few weeks that I was really pissed, felt like everything had been taken from me. Things weren't going the way I wanted, and all my plans for my life were kaput. Lemme back up: I always wanted to be an athlete. I trained hard, a wide variety of sports. I practiced in off-seasons, working on coordination and stamina, strength and speed. I tried out for every team, and I dominated in junior high, in high school. I did well in college, but it was getting obvious that I wasn't going to get drafted, wasn't going to go pro. And that was all I wanted, you know? I couldn't think of anything else I would ever want. I threw a fit, and I it was just ugly. I look back on those times with embarrassment; it was really immature of me. So my dad cut a deal, and I got the formula. Just like I wanted, superhuman physical attributes. Coordination and stamina, strength and speed. And on top of it, a sonic shout. I was elated, I was going to make the pro leagues and be famous. And then like three weeks later, all the pro leagues start adding clauses that parahumans can't play. My hopes, dashed, my career, vanished. Snatched away just as I was sure I had it all in my grasp. I was a mess, but I recovered. I grew out of it. I realized that my dreams were what was wrong, I could do so much more than throw a ball now. I could be a hero, I could help people, I could save lives. And now I'm here."
Danny was almost paralyzed with shock. That was Mayor Christner's secret: he had bought his son superpowers. That was the secret that was more important than his life, his career, his freedom.
Two points of shock came with that: first, it was possible to buy superpowers if you knew the right people. That alone made Danny's head swim. Second, what kind of people were selling these superpowers if they put that kind of fear into the man? What threats had they made that he would sooner go to prison and lose everything than discuss them?
"That's pretty amazing," Danny said after a few seconds. Rory didn't notice anything odd in his reaction.
"Yeah, if you say so. What's amazing is how much of an asshole I was before I came here."
"I think it speaks well to your character that you got past it," Danny said, as if by rote. "Hang on, breakfast is here."
He brought Rory his coffee and toast, and took his own food to a quiet corner to eat alone and consider what he'd learned. He turned over his thoughts, coming to his conclusions, for almost a half-hour before a noise jolted him. His cell phone rang, and he checked it to see the Director's office calling him. "Hello?"
"Mister Hebert, this is about your request to visit the asylum," Director Piggot said. "It seems the doctors have been very eager for your to call, and they have asked me to expedite this meeting. So with that understanding, you are expected to be ready for transport at 1400 hours today."
"Understood," he said, and she hung up.
Transport was not the PHQ VTOL, but rather a large vehicle that seemed a combination of a high-tech supersonic transport and a gleaming metallic dragon. He recognized the general design, variations on this theme had been seen for over a decade, the creations of the world's greatest tinker: Dragon.
"Afternoon, Dragon," Danny said, stepping out onto the tarmac as the gleaming machine touched down. Its wings were an array of jet propulsions, nozzles that controlled velocity and thrust as the wings extended and fanned.
"Good afternoon, Wharf Rat," the dragon boomed. Its mouth did not move, the voice came from speakers in its hull. "This model is not designed for troop transport, it was built for prisoner detention. I'm afraid you will be riding in a cell."
Danny laughed aloud. "I am positive that my director knew that when she requisitioned it."
"This was the model that was flying over this exact route, it's only a few miles out of my way to stop by and take a passenger," Dragon said. The voice was mechanical and digitized, but there was a vague burr of an accent he couldn't place.
Danny waved negligently. "Whatever. Let's go, don't let me hold you up."
The dragon reared upright, and its chest cracked open with a pneumatic hiss. A crevice two feet deep separated, and folded out, revealing a cavity that looked less like a cell and more like a padded coffin. The forelimbs helped him up in position, more gently than they were designed to do, and once he was pressed into place the carapace hissed shut and sealed around him. He was supported well enough that he barely felt the jolt of liftoff.
"Can you hear me?" he asked.
"Certainly," she replied. The voice was still digitized but the sound quality was higher in here than through the external speakers.
"Good. I just wanted to say it's a pleasure to meet you. You're a legend."
"Legend is a legend. I'm a tinker."
He scoffed. "False modesty, you know you're the best there is. But I've got a question for you, Miss Dragon."
"By all means."
"Why do you call these creations of yours 'suits'?"
"That's your question?"
"Yeah. I mean, you're not in here with me. It's been recorded that these machines of yours have been destroyed before, and yet you live, so they're automated or remote-piloted. Very expertly, obviously, and they're impressive as hell. But if you're not wearing it like a suit, why call it a suit?"
"There's been a long tradition of heroes in suits, and not much of a tradition for remote-operated vehicles," she replied.
"You're frickin' Dragon. You have the influence and recognition to start your own traditions and conventions," he pointed out. "But I guess my question is really a segue into another question altogether: why don't you actually make suits?"
"I beg your pardon?" she said, notably surprised.
"Sorry if that sounded impertinent, but it's been bugging me since my daughter pointed it out," he said. "It just seems like a more effective use of time and materials. For one thing, your technology can save a dozens of heroes every year. With an edge on survivability, that's more heroes to detain villains, more heroes for Endbringer defense, more heroes for fundraising or public relations. But also, your tech, as good as it is, is not really automated. As famous as you are, lots of people pay attention to you, and patterns do emerge. It's pretty public knowledge that your suits are either under your direct remote control, or operating on automated piloting. Genius work, yes, decades ahead of human technology, yes, but it's not as good as it could be, and it's not as good as if there was a living pilot, with powers of their own, operating the technology. You could remove the need for refining the programming and direct your attention to offensive and defensive capabilities, production, what have you. Narrow focus, greater results."
"You think programming AIs is a waste of my time?" she sounded amused.
"Again, sorry if that sounds impertinent, but the world is teeming with natural intelligences, building AI just seems like reinventing the wheel. Maybe along the way we'll find a tinker that can improve human intelligence, that would be something."
"Armsmaster was right, you do like to tell people how to do their job. And you do seem borderline obsessed with powered armor."
He chuckled. "Maybe I come across that way. But I assure you I'll drop the issue when people start taking it seriously."
"And I understand that your own daughter is getting powered armor."
He tried to shrug but the restraint padding hampered him. "Hopefully she doesn't need to wear it often, I'd like to get her inducted as a thinker that just sits at the headquarters with the analysts and stays out of the line of fire. But if she's going into trouble, I want as much technology and plate metal between her and trouble as possible."
"And yet you express no urge to wear the armor yourself."
"I've seen Armsmaster climbing out of it. It looks uncomfortable. And my powerset keeps me separated from danger by a couple hundred yards. High tech armor is a low priority for me personally, but my teammates are all much more directly involved."
"If you say so. Well, we're landing now, so it's time for us to part ways."
"Already? Dang, you're fast."
"I'm really a very good tinker."
"I know that. Just... think about what I said, okay?"
"Sure thing Druid."
"What?"
"Nothing," she said, and the suit cracked open, the glare of sunlight making him flinch as he was dropped out onto the helipad of the mental hospital. By the time he was upright, she was flying away again.
He stared after the retreating form. "Well that was cryptic," he murmured.
"Are you the Wharf Rat?" called a voice from his right.
"Yeah," Danny said, turning. "I am."
The brown-haired man stepped forward. "Splendid. We've been trying to locate you for a while, this is just such an unusual case. At first you weren't with the Protectorate, so there were security reasons you couldn't visit, and after that you'd been so busy. But now you're here and we can move forward. This way, please, watch your head. Goodness you're tall. Anyway, most of what we run across here is pretty basic. Traumatic stress disorders, dissociative fugue, antisocial personality disorders, an astounding amount of amnesiacs. Intermittent Explosive Disorder, schizotypals, ODD, stuff like that. And the main consideration is the people that have these disorders. The danger they pose, the difficulty of restraining the more unpredictable ones, safety precautions, things like that. But the fascinating cases, the ones we all talk about over the water cooler, are the cases where we have a condition that is itself as unusual as the patient. Where the grounds of parahuman psychology bring us new frontiers as psychologists."
"And he's one of them?" Danny asked.
"He certainly is. Though, he's recovered to a degree. We've got some really cool MRIs to show you if you like."
"Maybe later," Danny said. "Ah, there he is. Shall I just walk right in?"
"We, uh, thought it might be more effective if you don't, actually. Try to recreate the original conditions."
Danny sighed. "Fine." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of walkie-talkies. Four rats came trotting down the hallway towards them, and a nurse screamed and flinched back. He sighed again. "Relax, they're tame, they're responding to my orders," he called out to her.
The doctor shrugged. "You can't really blame her. We've had an infestation for years, can't seem to get rid of them. Hey, do you think you could take them all with you when you leave?"
"Depends on my accommodations," Danny said, bending down to hand off the radio to the rats, and the four of them carried it away. "Get me a helicopter or something that can hold about an extra seven-hundred pounds of rodents, and I'll take them with me. If I can't, I guess I'll just drown them or something, but that seems a huge waste and really inhumane."
"We really appreciate all of this," the doctor said.
"No problem," Danny said, pressing the button on his handset. "Oni Lee, pick up the radio."
The rats watched as the sharp-faced Asian man reached forward and took the walkie-talkie they had set on the shelf at his side.
"You recognize my voice, Oni Lee?"
The man glanced sideways, a sharp single movement of his eyes. And then a small nod.
The doctor could barely restrain his glee. "He does respond to you! It's just like I thought, you transferred Lung's authority to yourself when you took away the phone that had been used to control him before."
"It's about authority," Danny mused, his eyes narrowing as he considered. "He responds to authority." His thumb keyed the radio again. "Oni Lee, these men here work for me. They have their instructions. Your instructions are to cooperate with them. Understood?"
Again the short, tentative nod.
"That should hold him for a while," Danny said. "Would it help you if I came back regularly just to check in?"
"It really would," the doctor said. "Do you mind if I pester you about this case a bit? I want you to have some background if you're going to be helping us treat him. See here? That's his MRIs from when he first arrived. And now that he's been with us a few weeks, here are the slides from each successive week. You see how here he was almost vegetative? And now he's recovering, at a rate so steady it's almost linear. See, the way the brain works is that electrical signals spark and they trigger chemical pathways that carry the signal to other neurons, and so forth. But without input, his mind would sit at rest. Without orders, he has no volition and no executive function at all. But he's recovering, and it's almost like watching a comatose brain waking up in slow degrees, or like an undeveloped brain that is developing sentience and awareness."
"So he's not going to stay like this?"
"He's probably about a third to a fourth cured already, just from sitting around here while we ran our tests. He may speed up now that he'll be cooperating with us. But if my theory holds, he has to not use his powers. The teleportation, it delivers his body intact and his brain is duplicated with all the chemical pathways in place but without the electrical sparks that would make him a whole person. And it takes time to restore those. If he teleported, he would arrive a blank slate like before."
Danny shook his head. "Shit. Still, there's a good chance he could be rehabilitated, and returned to a fairly normal life, right? Maybe something supervised. I've seen him fight; he could be a trainer for the Protectorate."
"Take that up with your director," the doctor said. "For now, we're just trying to turn him into a sentient person again."
The crowd was moderate, not much more than the usual tour groups for the Protectorate Headquarters plus the local press turnout. But by setting the action on a raised dais in a particular corner, it would look like a bursting wall-to-wall crowd on camera. Tricks like that were particularly important with a live broadcast like this. Dauntless and Armsmaster were the first to speak, using lots of words like "duty" and "responsibility", "safety" and "public service". Wharf Rat stood at the back, where he would be visible to all the cameras and framed in every shot to remind the audience that he was a member in good standing, posed right next to Director Piggot so that the partnership between the Protectorate and the Parahuman Response Taskforce was constantly reinforced.
Under her breath, the Director murmured the words, "Just look at all this Stockholm Syndrome."
Danny froze, and his spine turned to ice. His brain spun through all the implications and insinuations that were tied to those few words. After a few seconds he trusted his voice again, and said, "You've got the Hub bugged."
"We maintain internal security in case of perimeter breaches or medical emergencies," she replied quietly. "But now I know that I need to institute a policy of monitoring communications, because there is a security threat on our team."
"I'm not trying to cause trouble," he murmured back. "I'm only pointing out existing trouble."
"You went behind my back," she hissed.
"I did not," he replied. "I spoke to you first and you didn't listen."
"Later," she swore, stepping forward to the microphone as the two heroes stepped back to bracket the stage. Armsmaster crossed his arms over his chest, Dauntless placed his fists on his hips, both took powerful wide-footed stances like Glenn taught them. Piggot took the microphone to thank everyone for attending, and announced that she was proud to reveal the newest member of the Wards, a warm-hearted young woman who was certain to make them all proud of her: Benthic.
Taylor stepped up, her gleaming armor a deep blue with a visor that was clear on the bottom half of her face and faded to fully reflective at the top. The armor was streamlined and round-edged, with flexible joints and sculpted pods that arched over her shoulders, forearms, thighs, back and collar. She posed for a few seconds with the Director for the cameras, then they traded places so that Benthic could address the public for the first time. "I've been inspired by this city, and by the Protectorate," she said, reading the words that were displayed on the heads-up display on the inside of her visor. "I've always wanted to be a hero, like many other people, but recent events have inspired me to make the step and join now, and do my part with the Wards."
And on that line, the Wards filed in from offstage where they had been waiting behind a curtain. The Director stepped back while the other six teenagers filed in, taking their places. She shook hands with Aegis, the current leader of the Wards team, and paused for camera flashes, and then the team rearranged themselves to stand by order of age. Aegis on one end, then Clockblocker, then Gallant, and Browbeat, and Benthic, and Kid Win, then Vista. Shadow Stalker would have fit between Browbeat and Benthic if she had not been shipped off to a juvenile detention facility with an electrified collar around her throat to keep her from shifting into a shadow to escape. The order of age roughly determined the leadership of the Wards, the eldest was the leader. But that created a system where the leader was always the nearest to graduating out of the Wards and into the Protectorate. It made sure that all of them had some leadership experience by the time they reached the Protectorate, but it meant that the Wards did not have stable command structures.
The Director stepped forward for a couple more shots with the Wards, and she was giving her brief speech to announce that the PRT would be handing out information packets on their new arrival in the next couple of days, and that she would be available for Q&A at future engagements. And that's when the air poofed softly and the Mouse Protector appeared on stage.
"Greetings, Brockton Bay!" she declaimed, planting her feet in a dramatic pose and sweeping her sword out to point to the heavens. She was not hooked into the microphone system but she made that up with volume and drama and projection. "The Mouse Protector has arrived, to begin her epic team-up with your very own Wharf Rat! Truly a partnership for the ages! Villains of Brockton Bay would do well to flee the city now, before the-"
"No questions," Armsmaster said, sweeping her up around the middle and tossing her over his shoulder, carrying her offstage towards the elevators. Director Piggot buried her face in her hands, as if to hide herself from the fact that this just happened. Dauntless gestured with his head and the rest of the heroes piled after the armored tinker and his squirming cargo, heading for the elevators. Four doors opened for them and they packed in while the reporters snapped as many pictures as they could manage.
Danny found himself on an elevator with Dauntless, Aegis and Clockblocker, as they'd been the three he stood closest to on the stage. "So, that was a thing," Clockblocker said, his tone betraying his amusement.
"Mouse Protector isn't necessarily a PR disaster," Dauntless said. "She does keep things interesting. But I'm sure the Director would have liked to have some time to prepare her spin. Which of course is exactly why MP did it this way."
"I'm just glad she didn't fixate on me," Aegis said, glancing at Wharf Rat. "My condolences, sir."
Danny shrugged. "I bet Glenn's pissed. He had big expectations for Benthic's debut, this whole scheme of how it would affect public perception, and now the only thing they'll remember is this."
The doors opened, and they took in the scene. Mouse Protector was on her feet again, talking to Armsmaster as if he didn't loom over her by a foot. "- the grandest tradition of superheroics! Although, I think if we're going to play the tropes straight I'm required to fight him in a ridiculous misunderstanding before we actually team up." She whipped her head around as the elevator doors opened, and her face split in a huge grin. "Hey, partner!" she chirped and bounded over. She bounded well, as if she was on moon-gravity, crossing the space in a blink. She clasped an arm around Danny's back, cupping his shoulder and pulling him into a one-armed side-to-side hug. Her free hand tapped his chest, crossing over his heart in a X shape. "We're gonna have so much fun working together!"
"I thought you worked in Wisconsin," Danny said. The woman's outfit was mostly a suit of armor, with chainmail and some plate pieces at the shoulders and torso that mostly seemed to be for show. Her helmet had large disc-shaped "mouse ears" on the sides, cupped slightly and shaped to make it clear. The face was half-open, with a metal nasal guard that dipped down between her eyes and ended in a steel nose and buck teeth. Her eyes were lively and bright, twinkling with eternal mischief.
"Wisconsin is slow," she said. "I bounce out whenever I need excitement, and I bounce back whenever they miss me there. And when I saw a live broadcast with you, I had to jump on that, you know? I've been doing this hero thing for twenty years. And do you know how long I've been waiting for another rodent-themed hero I could team up with?"
"Twenty years?" he hazarded as a guess.
"Twenty years!" she replied, whirling away dramatically with her arms thrown up in the air. "And I - oh, hey, this is a nice place."
"Thanks," Aegis said. "I don't think most Wards get such a nice arrangement."
She scoffed. "There's a ton of Protectorate offices that aren't this nice. Heck, this is snazzier than what the New York Wards get, but then they seem to take pride in that dump. It's like they've been there since this was just a little project, and they've been so busy they never had time to remodel. Which is bullshit, because I know that their headquarters has been rebuilt from the ground up, twice. You'd think they-"
"So how long are you planning on staying?" Dauntless asked. The rest of the heroes were formed up in a semicircle around her, like an audience at a show.
She considered. "I think a few days should suffice. Maybe less, even. I just need to take down a couple local villains with my new main man here. And of course to have some wacky hijinx. The most interesting relationships are the complicated ones, right? You know? So, like, I'm gonna be all quirky and clingy, and you need to act like you don't even want me around while secretly adoring me."
"I don't think he does want you around," Clockblocker piped up. Danny could hear the smile in the teenager's voice.
"Well, see how perfectly he's suited for the part?" Mouse Protector said, grinning wildly. "We're already in the perfect dynamic!"
Danny spoke up now. "I've got a question for you, if I may. I'm just curious to know, why did you go with Mouse Protector instead of Mouse Guard?"
Her eyes opened hugely, her jaw dropping. "It sounds like 'mouthguard', but it... OMG that's perfect!" she blurted out. "Where were you twenty years ago when I was registering for this outfit?"
"You just said OMG," Danny pointed out. "In real life."
"It's like you get me," she said, teleporting to his side with her arm over his shoulders, draping herself against his side.
"I'm confident in saying that I'm sure nobody gets you," Assault chuckled. His wife whapped him on the shoulder.
"There's a problem with just beating up a couple villains," Miss Militia said. "We've already take care of all the easy ones, and some of the hardest ones. We used to have a bunch of white supremacists, but half of them got arrested and the other half ran to Boston-"
"Could we go to Boston?" the mouse-themed heroine interrupted breathlessly. "I love beating up white supremacists!"
Assault came to the rescue. "I think the whole team-up dynamic is difficult enough without moving into entirely new cities. At least one of you should have their own local fans."
"Right, right, sorry I got carried away just now," Mouse Protector said.
"Just now?" Armsmaster repeated.
Miss Militia ignored the byplay. "And then there was the ABB, but they were the first ones that Wharf Rat took out. The Merchants, ditto. It's pretty slim pickings now."
"Travelers are out," Dauntless pointed out. "Last time Wharf Rat went near them, a precog predicted that he was almost guaranteed to die."
"Undersiders are out," Wharf Rat added. "I promised them I wouldn't go after them. It was part of the deal that took the Merchants out."
Mouse Protector nodded. "I respect that."
"Maybe Faultline and her crew?" Velocity suggested. "But they're mostly quiet these days. And they're mercenaries, so any crimes they do commit are usually someone else's idea anyway. And they've got a Shaker 12, so chasing them into their own lair sounds like an incredibly bad idea."
"And all that's left is the independent villains," Vista said, ticking them off on her hands. "Trainwreck, Circus, ber, and Leet."
"Those last two sound fun," the newcomer said hopefully.
Wharf Rat shrugged. "They kind of are, actually. Video-game themes. But I'm trying to talk them into retiring and going straight, and punching them in the mouth would be counterproductive."
"You're killing my buzz, partner," she said, with a chiding warning tone in her voice. "Okay, that leaves us with only two."
"Circus and Trainwreck," Vista repeated helpfully.
"Right," Mouse Protector nodded towards the girl. "Or is there some family curse that will strike you down if you fight those two?"
"Nah, they're just hard to find and low priorities," Wharf Rat answered.
The out-of-town hero clapped her hands together and rubbed them as if eager for excitement. "Well, if that's what you've got, that's what you've got. Honestly I expected this city to have a higher grade of villain."
"We used to," Dauntless said. "But Wharf Rat here steamrolled them before he even joined the Protectorate."
"Hogging all the fun for yourself," she said, swatting him on the arm playfully.
Benthic just stared, and finally spoke. "You all have to be kidding me."
