Lacey pouted, but nobody succumbed to it. Taylor even went ahead and rinsed the knife off in the sink instead of letting Lacey do so.
Once everyone had eaten a serving Lacey was allowed to collect the various things she wanted to use for her drink mixing, which was mostly grabbing a box and collecting some of the alcohol from the places she'd stashed bottles in. They then watched as she set everything up on the kitchen table, in some cases being very particular about how things were laid out and in others just dropping them onto the table haphazardly.
With everything gathered she quickly poured out four plastic shot glasses of alcohol. "I think everyone should try it straight so that you know what you're comparing to." She then started preparing the mixed drink. The other four took a sip of the straight, somewhat bitter alcohol while they watched her work.
Amy: I'm not sure, but I think the juices aren't flowing properly there.
Taylor: Oh, I'm positive they aren't flowing properly. Especially since I don't think chocolate dissolves like that normally either. And the strainer shouldn't be diverting the liquid that much to the side. The little bits dripping out of it look weird too, actually.
Amy: Maybe those are bits that aren't needed or wanted in the mix? Wait, is the liquid moving against her stirring?
Taylor: I think it is. Huh. I'm thinking this might make her shaker rating a little higher than I thought it was going to be. I wonder if that will change the requirements for her pub?
Amy: Probably not, since her powers are actively helping her to make alcohol and all. The weirdness when mixing drinks will probably fall under what she was already going to be filling out.
Over the next couple of minutes Lacey continued to mix the drink, eventually ending up with a dark drink with red streaks in it. She split that out into five proper glasses, taking a sip from one and nodding. "There we go!" The other four glasses were then put down in front of the other four in the room.
Said four looked at the mixed drink, none of them reaching out to try it right away. They shared a look between themselves, before Taylor shrugged and picked her glass up. She took a careful sip, and then blinked a couple of times. It took a moment before she could tell that yes, there was still alcohol in the drink.
"Did you wrap the alcohol in chocolate and strawberry somehow?" Amy asked, staring off into space in wonder.
"Nah," Lacey said, waving her hand in dismissal. "I just ensured that the alcohol is less likely to react with taste buds or scent receptors."
The other three looked at Lacey, then tried their own drinks, since Taylor hadn't claimed any problems to speak of. It wasn't long before all five glasses were empty.
"That's a dangerous trick," Kurt said once they were all done. "Since you can't tell that there's alcohol and all."
"It might be good for pranks," Danny added. "But even then you'd need to be careful. Maybe make sure that anything non-alcoholic you serve is in a special color cup or something, so that designated drivers are less likely to fall victim to a drink that doesn't seem like it has alcohol?"
Lacey shrugged. "That's a fairly weak drink, I can't do it with anything too strong anyway. Speaking of which..."
They then watched as Lacey mixed a new drink, at one point pouring things through the strainer and getting a clear stream and a colored stream coming out of it into two different containers. She ended up with five glasses containing a pink liquid and a piece of strawberry imitating an olive in each. She sipped her own and smiled before handing the other four over.
"That has a lot more kick," Danny said after he tried his. "Tasty though."
"Did you leave any water in there?" Amy asked.
"I shouldn't have," Lacey replied. "Just enough of the flavorings from the juice for taste and a bit of color, the rest should be alcohol, I think."
"These things are going to create killer hangovers," Kurt said, before looking at Taylor. "You going to finish yours?"
Taylor glared at Kurt, causing him to raise his hands defensively, then she downed the rest of her drink. That caused Danny and Lacey to both chuckle.
"You really shouldn't try and poach the birthday girl's drinks," Amy chided, before finishing her own before Kurt could ask her about it.
"Since I have the bottle open anyway I think I want to try a few more ideas," Lacey said. "I think I can do a couple of amazing things with the apples and kumquats."
There was a moment of blinking, before Danny coughed lightly. "Kumquats?"
"They seemed like a good idea at the store," Lacey explained with a shrug. "Besides, they were out of oranges."
Lacey had ended up going through three different bottles of alcohol, demonstrating that being drunk didn't stop her from being able to mix drinks. She was also demonstrating the way her skin changed color as she drank, and that her tolerance was a little higher than human norms. Nowhere near Taylor and Amy, of course, but higher than Danny and Kurt. The three adults all ended up drunk to the point where they were having trouble doing simple tasks like standing.
Baffling the two teenagers, once they'd reached that state the three adults decided to play Sorry, but with the addition of drinking a shot glass of alcohol whenever one of their pieces was sent back to start. As if they weren't drunk enough already. Taylor and Amy busied themselves with cleaning up from the mixed drinks, having a second serving of cake and ice cream, and then Amy rinsing things because Taylor shouldn't be doing all the cleanup on her birthday.
Ten minutes later Taylor was assuming that things had been going too well, when the seals on the faucet decided to fail in a spectacular fashion and soak both girls before they could turn off the water.
"I guess you shouldn't have stood next to me to chat," Amy said as she wrung her shirt out a bit.
"Possibly," Taylor said, frowning at the faucet. "Budge over, I think I should turn off the feeds before we try and use this with the seal gone."
Amy moved over so that Taylor could get under the sink to turn things off there. A minute later Taylor got back up and reached for a towel to dry off her visor with. She'd probably just go change her shirt soon to deal with most of the rest of having gotten soaked.
"Why is your visor wet?" Amy asked.
"Because it did a good job of keeping the water from hitting my eyes?" Taylor answered, confused.
"Shouldn't it have the fancy water-repellent coating like mine does?"
"Um," Taylor said. "Possibly?"
Amy snickered. "Did you leave the shipping plastic film on?"
Taylor pulled the visor off and checked, finding that there were little pull tabs to peel the plastic off of the visor. She idly wondered if she'd just never noticed the same thing on the visor she'd given to Miss Militia, or if that one hadn't had a film on it. She supposed that Glenn had probably removed the film from her Maul visor.
A moment later she'd removed and discarded the film, and a quick test showed that water just fell right off the visor without it.
"Want to borrow a shirt?" Taylor asked, noting that Amy was still wringing hers out. "We can throw these two in the dryer, then make an emergency trip to the hardware store for a new seal kit."
"Sounds like a plan," Amy said, before looking at the floor. "Should we clean up the water in here first?"
Taylor looked down as well, before sighing. "Probably."
They'd cleaned up the water, changed into dry shirts, put the wet shirts in the dryer, and discreetly collected all the car keys in the house. With all of that done they'd headed out to get a seal kit from the hardware store. Three hardware stores later they found the correct seal kit and headed back. They found a very purple Lacey passed out on the couch, with Danny and Kurt no longer in the living room.
A quick finger poke confirmed that Lacey would be fine before they went looking for the other two. They found both upstairs, telling half-rambling stories in Danny's room while apparently trying to find a shirt to fit Kurt. They didn't ask where his original shirt ended up, as they hadn't seen it when they'd gone upstairs. Amy opted to keep an eye on them while Taylor fixed the faucet downstairs, mainly because the two had realized that the adults could end up strangling themselves or each other by accident with a shirt or something.
Amy: I have to admit, the rambling is at least mildly amusing.
Taylor: They mentioning anything that would be nice to know?
Hmmm. Looked like she might need to replace the set screw, since it seemed that the one in the faucet had cracked at some point. It wasn't critical, since it wasn't in multiple pieces yet, but better safe than sorry and all. She headed for the garage to see if their miscellaneous screws bin had one, otherwise she might need to improvise.
Amy: Well, they came up here so that they wouldn't wake Lacey up. I think.
Taylor: That doesn't surprise me.
Amy: They also keep apologizing for something about the two of us, but I'm not sure what.
Taylor: Oh. Huh. No clue, unless they noticed us get drenched.
It took about ten minutes to find a suitable replacement set screw. It was slightly longer, and torx instead of hex, but it should work. She headed back to the kitchen and resumed working on the faucet.
Amy: Oooh. That might be important.
Taylor: What might be?
Amy: Some insight into what Kurt here thinks of Lacey having taken the vial.
Taylor: Oh. Yeah, that could be important.
Amy explained what Kurt seemed to have been saying while Taylor worked on the faucet. With that done they ended up going over the list of vacation ideas. Amy seemed interested in TinkerTechCon, but was less interested in most of the amusement parks. The exception was a newish park in northern California that was just as much spa as it was an amusement park. Taylor bumped that up to second on her list, as it wasn't part of the festival. Amy wasn't really interested in joining Taylor for the rest of the amusement parks if they ended up being chosen.
"I'm home," Amy called as she entered the house.
"We're in the living room," Carol called, so Amy headed in that direction. She found Carol and Mark sitting on the couch, a literal pile of electronics on the table in front of them.
"Care to help us assemble and test these things?" Mark asked, gesturing to the pile. "We thought it was going to be easy, but that was hours ago."
Amy sighed, and pulled a chair over. "Let's sort the components first, then they should be easier to assemble."
Sorting everything was quick and easy. An extension cord was grabbed so that they'd have power to plug things into for testing, followed by starting to assemble and test each completed speaker. All three were pairing the devices to their phones in the process.
"So where's Vicky?" Amy asked after the first couple were assembled. "Since I doubt you'd be assembling these with her home."
"She was joining the only Wards patrol today," Carol answered. "To be followed by going on a date with Dean, to keep her out of the house. I might have implied that when she got home, regardless of when it was, she'd have chores to do."
"We expect her in a couple of hours," Mark continued. "How did things go at Taylor's?"
"Taylor had no clue it was her birthday," Amy said. "Lacey made a pile of mixed drinks, causing all three adults to get drunk, and then the kitchen faucet decided to have the seals fail and drench Taylor and me. We ended up going hunting for a new seal kit while the three adults played Sorry with shots."
"That sounds like it was less than enjoyable for you two," Carol noted with a slight frown.
"We learned some things that should hopefully help going forward," Amy replied with a shrug before plugging the next unit into the extension cord to test it. "I'm going to visit tomorrow morning to help explain things, and then maybe Taylor and I will go see a movie while the adults deal with the aftermath. That and Danny implied that Lacey intended to bring something up, but passed out before she could."
"The hospital sent a request for your time in earlier," Mark said, checking his phone. "Bystanders from last night's running battle or something like that. Non-critical, but anything you can do would be appreciated type deal."
Amy frowned slightly. "Maybe I'll swing by first thing in the morning, before heading over to Taylor's." She then looked at the nearly completed pile of speakers. "So where are all of these being hidden?"
"All over the house," Carol answered. "In here, the hallways, the kitchen, downstairs, and we plan on putting a couple in the backyard. We'll leave the bedrooms alone, beyond what's already in Vicky's room."
"We're going to get it all set up today," Mark added. "But we figure we can wait until next weekend to start in on things. Don't want to interfere with her end of year tests and all."
Sunday morning Taylor was woken up by Amy healing some people at the hospital. Apparently the other girl had gotten started early. The three adults were all still asleep, Kurt having ended up on the couch after Taylor had dragged Lacey up to the guest room. He'd insisted he was good to drive, of course, but couldn't find his keys. Or any car keys, for that matter.
Taylor: You know, I just realized that if the DUI laws applied to our mopeds we might have been breaking them yesterday.
Amy: Well, huh. We might want to get officially tested by the PRT on that front. There are exceptions for when people have a higher than usual tolerance for things due to powers. I'd think that the fugue modifications would count.
Taylor: Really? I should look it up and see what we might need to do.
Amy: Come to think of it, it's less of an issue with the mopeds, but we might want to see about getting actual driver's licenses. For cars and motorcycles.
Taylor: That's probably not a bad idea either. I'll look up options for that too, since you're busy at the hospital and all.
Amy: Thanks.
Taylor threw one of her visors on to start looking things up as she got ready for the day.
It turned out that the tolerance testing was a simple form they needed to fill out, and then they'd set up an appointment. It was even available on the PRT's public website, and didn't require specifying how you got the enhanced tolerance. Turnaround time on the actual testing varied, but they indicated anywhere from three days to three months. She'd sent a link to the form to Amy and they'd both filled it out, with any luck they'd end up tested at the same time.
On the driver's license front they had two routes they could go. The normal route through the state currently involved what would amount to a few weeks of classes, logged supervised driving, testing, and a limited license until they turned eighteen. Some other laws passed in the past decade would prevent them from driving in some states at all until they turned eighteen for various reasons. After all of that they'd then need to go through a second round of classes and testing for the motorcycle side of things. Well, or do it the other way around, getting the motorcycle license first.
The other route was to test through the PRT. Thanks to a couple of loopholes tinkers could abuse they both qualified for the training courses and federal licenses. That would also be a few weeks of classes, supervised driving, and testing. It would include motorcycles, but would also include a commercial driver's license as well due to why the PRT offered the program in the first place. At a minimum they'd need a hazardous materials endorsement for carting around containment foam, passenger endorsement for personnel carriers, and for some reason a school bus endorsement. Other endorsements were up to the applicant to decide on, and the PRT insisted on skill tests for all of them even if they only needed a knowledge test normally.
The only other 'catch' to using the loophole was that you had to be able to pass some of the driving tests in a vehicle without power steering. Being in power armor wasn't acceptable either, and most tinkers weren't actually known for physical strength. As far as she could tell the entire loophole came into existence due to a couple of Wards, brothers that had triggered together with brute and tinker ratings. While one was the stronger brute and the other the stronger tinker they'd both regularly had reason to move large equipment on non-tinkertech trailers. The loophole likely hadn't been used since.
She'd documented the whole thing for Amy to look over later, and was now debating on how to wake the three adults up. Perhaps cooking breakfast would work? Amy was likely to be hungry when she arrived as well, so there'd likely be no complaints. A quick check showed that they didn't have what she'd need to make french toast, but they did have what she'd need to make pancakes or waffles. Well, if she could find the waffle iron she could make waffles, anyway.
Nathan groaned as he looked over the tinker fugue list over breakfast. Cathy had emailed him last night to say that she'd apparently gotten past the 'cheese-oriented background check' by being lactose-intolerant. That didn't help him at all. He'd beaten her to submitting a picture of himself dressed as a maid in a rental store with no aleph imports in the shot, he just hadn't told her that he'd been six in the picture. Nor that aleph imports weren't a thing yet back then, for that matter.
Neither of them could figure out a good way to submit photographic evidence of embarrassing tattoos, since neither had any tattoos at all. Nor did they want to get any, and they'd both been informed that not having tattoos wasn't acceptable for that one. Medical records showing inappropriate items being removed from where they didn't belong, to put it charitably, was another thing neither could produce currently, even if they'd wanted to.
He hadn't admitted that he'd already submitted a photo of himself with crude drawings all over his face. Passing out drunk around his friends on his twenty-first birthday had come in handy, which was something he'd never thought would happen.
On the other hand, he'd also never expected to be goaded into trying to have a tinker fugue on him. He wouldn't even get all the benefits, being the wrong gender and all, but Cathy had played on his ego to get him to try for the thing. Then again, she'd been dropping some interesting hints regarding how she felt about him, as well as mentioning how much stamina someone who'd gotten through the fugue was likely to have...
"Morning," Amy said as she came into the house after Taylor had opened the garage door for her. "Pancakes?"
"The waffle iron has problems," Taylor half-explained. "Fixing it would've taken too long today, I'll do something with it some other time. How's Injury Magnet holding up?"
"Ah, you noticed that I had to heal him. Yeah, he got too close to someone with some serious blood loss late last night, apparently at some point while he was in the car with his mother, but he'll be fine. I noticed that Kurt is still on the couch?"
"I was hoping the smell of breakfast might get everyone else moving, but it hasn't worked yet, and I haven't felt mean enough to make loud noises."
Amy shook her head. "Want me to get them up more gently while you continue to cook?"
Taylor considered that for a moment. "How about you go upstairs and get Lacey and my father up, and I'll handle Kurt?"
"That works."
Twenty minutes later all three adults had made it into the kitchen, all of them with hangovers. The two teenagers had very little visible sympathy for them, but did provide all three with glasses of water and some discreet powers-based encouragement for the hangovers to clear. Discussion over breakfast itself was minimal while the adults tried to recover a bit. Danny insisted on doing the cleanup afterwards, despite his headache.
Once everything was cleaned up they all sat down in the living room.
"How many mixed drinks did I make last night?" Lacey asked.
"We think the game of Sorry with shots you three played was the bigger problem," Taylor replied instead of an answer. "Though I think you only used mead, so it probably wasn't as bad as it could've been."
"Did anyone get around to talking to you two about loopholes?" Danny asked.
Taylor looked at Amy, who shook her head. She turned back to her father. "Apparently not, though we did find out about other things we'll need to talk about."
Lacey fidgeted a little. "I, er, found out that the PRT oversight requirements for the pub can be severely reduced due to a couple of loopholes. Like, almost to nothing by comparison. But for a couple of reasons I'd need both of you to help."
The two teenagers shared a look, and then looked at Lacey with a 'go on'. Lacey sighed before continuing. "Basically, I'd like to make you two part-owners. You wouldn't need to do anything, because the loophole applies because you're both at least sixteen and would be listed as owners. The end result should be that instead of it taking up to two years to get the pub running it should only take one to three months."
Taylor blinked. "How does that work?"
Lacey shrugged. "Parahumans already being monitored by the PRT that are business owners are assumed to already have sufficient monitoring in place for anything that would fall under their powers in the business. The law doesn't seem to make a distinction for a different parahuman having powers that fall under the same broad category using them in the business instead. You two happen to easily cover the troublesome parts of my powers from a legal standpoint. I'd just work with Taylor, but if anyone spotted that I was using the loophole they'd be able to peg her as a bio-manipulator. Including Amy protects Taylor's secrets on that front."
"That you two can actually use your powers to check that hers aren't creating problems helps," Danny added. "You'd probably have to help check batches of whatever she's brewing every so often to keep the PRT happy. Otherwise everyone we've consulted thinks it'll work fine."
"We still need to finish up some of the paperwork," Lacey admitted. "So we aren't ready for it, and I'm not going to make you decide now. But things would be set up so that you could get a portion of the profits as spending money. Just think about it."
The two teenagers nodded, then shared another look before Taylor spoke. "Did you guys have anything else, or is it our turn?"
"Do we need drinks for this?" Kurt asked, semi-seriously.
"It does relate to your drunken ramblings last night," Amy admitted. "You might not remember me watching over you and Danny while Taylor was fixing the kitchen sink."
"What in the world did we do to the kitchen sink?" Danny asked.
"Nothing," Taylor answered. "The seal kit we hadn't gotten yet became necessary sooner than expected."
Danny blinked at that. "Oh. I'm sorry you had to deal with that on your birthday."
"Thanks." Taylor reached into her utility belt and removed a metal canister, placing it on the coffee table in front of her. "Now then, as much as I dislike the idea, Amy here convinced me to make this offer." The three adults raised eyebrows at that, almost in unison. "Kurt, it seems that some of your problems with Lacey as of late stem from jealousy relating to her powers." Taylor tapped on the metal canister. "This contains a vial connecting to the same snark that Lacey is already connected to. It's incredibly unlikely to grant the same powers."
"But," Amy said, before anyone could reach for the canister. "You need to know that there's a known phenomenon with people that connect to the same powers. Normally it happens because they trigger together, but we suspect the same thing could happen here. Generally those affected become much closer, or become bitter enemies. Why either happens is currently unknown, so we can't predict it."
They sat there for several minutes, nobody saying anything, before Kurt spoke up. "Would I end up looking like Lacey does?"
"We don't think you're likely to shrink like she did," Taylor answered. "But there's a very good chance that you'll end up with a new skin color. Either way, for now I'm going to leave this here. Amy and I are going to go to catch a movie, and Dad?" Danny raised an eyebrow. "I left my list of vacation destination thoughts on the fridge. Can you look over them and let me know if you have any objections before I submit it to the PRT?"
"I'll do that this morning," Danny assured her. He then stopped Kurt from grabbing the canister. "You two go enjoy yourselves. I think Lacey and I need to make sure that Kurt thinks things through."
Lacey picked the canister up a moment later, and the teenagers left the adults to hopefully work things out. The two intentionally decided to discuss other things on their way to the movie theater.
Taylor: So, you want to join me if the PRT gets me into TinkerTechCon. Since I don't need to keep a slot for my father in the mix, who else do you think should be given a chance to join us?
Amy: Chris might not be a bad choice in that case, being a tinker and all. Or he'd be a spectacularly bad choice, being a tinker and all. I don't think Vicky would be all that interested unless we also invited Dean along.
Taylor: Maybe Lisa or Missy?
Amy: Lisa's a maybe, but Missy doesn't actually 'know' us out of costume.
Taylor: Good point. I guess the same issues would come up with the spa and amusement park too.
Amy: Yeah. Eric might be interested in TinkerTechCon. Crystal would probably be interested in the spa.
Taylor: We really need more friends we can be in public with.
Riley sighed as she worked on fixing up Fred's arm. A couple of Protectorate members had caught him setting up this morning and blasted him from a distance while he was suppressing his nullifier field. He'd still gotten the better of them, but not without taking serious injuries.
"I guess I need to stop doing the hide and ambush bit for now," Fred said a few minutes later. "I don't suppose you'd like to rig a bunch of costumes to release who knows what when blasted, though?"
Jacob snickered from where he was watching Riley work. "Change things up now that they've figured out your tricks, huh? Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure we have anything fun to release from them."
"I've got some bacteria strains that should be highly contagious," Riley offered, now much happier. "They should effectively get anyone infected with them drunk by making ethanol inside their bodies, and the best way to clear your system would be to drink more to kill them off." She then paused. "Though I'm not sure that they're safe for kids. I think that pregnancy hormones should prevent them from taking hold, but haven't been able to test that."
Jacob and Fred both visibly considered that, before William decided to contribute. "Since there aren't a lot of kids around anyway we're probably good on that front. Besides, if needed we can 'leak' the easy fix to the PRT, assuming they haven't figured it out themselves."
"How drunk are we talking?" Jacob asked.
"They should self-regulate to keep a BAC of about five hundredths of a percent?" Riley answered. "Give or take a hundredth. Though I'm not fully certain what'll happen with low blood sugar either, now that I think about it."
"I'll make sure that there's a warning in the system ahead of time," Jacob said, pulling his phone out. "So that they don't have to waste time contacting us if something goes wrong and all. You get to planning how to rig up the costumes with the stuff."
Chapter 114 Unfortunately for the two girls the theater was closed for repairs. Apparently someone had broken in overnight and tried to run off with the projectors when they couldn't get into either of the two safes.
Taylor: Two safes?
Amy: Maybe they keep the movies in one?
Taylor: Oh. I suppose that would make sense around here.
Since there weren't any other open theaters in town they needed something else to do. They were also out a little early for most Sunday shopping. And they'd thought it was clever going to catch an early movie when the theater would be almost empty.
In the end they decided to swing by the PRT building. Amy hadn't actually 'tinkered' since the last fugue, just drawn up plans, and tinkering was the one urge they couldn't take care of for each other. Taylor had fixed things at home, but figured that working on actual tinkertech might not be a bad idea overall. At a minimum it would give her something to do that wasn't heading back home.
Taylor: I don't see anything new in here. I'd fix the hot air balloon filler, but I don't really want to spend all day here to do so.
Amy: Aren't there some glasses that let you see X-rays floating around in there somewhere?
Taylor: A box full, yeah. They're most useful if the X-rays are coming at you.
Amy: One of the doctors mentioned needing to check for leaks in the X-ray rooms recently after some damage to one of the walls. Think the glasses would help?
Taylor: Worth a shot, I'll grab the box and see how many I get through. You decide what you're going to work on yet?
Amy: I'm going to see what I can do with writing to NFC, since I had some ideas for automatically adjusting prosthetics that would store their settings in the implant side of things. If it works you could swap out the prosthetic and not need an adjustment period at all.
Taylor: Neat idea. Let me know if you need help.
The box of glasses was easy enough to grab before heading to the visiting tinker lab to work on them.
"How are you done with the entire box?" Amy asked. "I've barely finished the implant side of things."
"They all had the same problem," Taylor answered with a shrug. "They were made with shoddy power switches. I just had to put new ones in. Granted, I had to re-calibrate a few pairs too, but that wasn't a big deal. So, what kind of prosthetic are you going to make?"
"I was thinking a leg," Amy answered, holding up a sketch she'd made showing positioning of things. "Though finding a test subject will probably be interesting for the PRT."
"Why not make a generic test unit? Something that can run diagnostics to see if the implant is functioning correctly, read and change the settings, that kind of thing?"
Amy opened her mouth to answer, then paused. Her eyes unfocused for a moment, before she nodded. "That could work. I should even be able to make it test the implants I've already made, in case something goes wrong with them." She then moved over to the supply bins and started collecting things.
Taylor sighed and grabbed some of what Amy had already picked up to bring over to the table for her. "So, do you think I should prank anyone with a pair of the glasses?"
"How?" Amy asked, obviously only paying partial attention.
"By giving them a pair of real-life X-ray glasses, only to have them find out that all they do is let you see X-rays?"
Amy paused at that. "Ok, that would likely be hilarious. I vote for Dennis, and maybe Ethan."
"I'll write up instructions for them to not see until afterwards," Taylor said, grinning. "That and check to see if this needs a prank form submission or not."
They'd ended up sticking around in the tinker lab until lunchtime, at which point Taylor turned in all but three pairs of X-ray glasses with a note about their possible use at the hospital. Amy turned the new implant and testing unit in for the PRT to evaluate at the same time. The remaining three pairs of X-ray glasses were stashed in Taylor's room for later on their way out. With that done the two left the PRT building and headed out to find something for lunch.
They ended up grabbing a quick meal at Fugly's before heading over to the hardware store to wander for a bit. Amy had gotten curious about what it would take to install a proper toilet in the greenhouse without running plumbing, since Carol had apparently vetoed her growing something suitable. It turned out that there were entire lines of toilets designed for an 'off grid' situation, most of them branded as 'disaster' toilets of various kinds.
"I can understand crank-power for electricity," Taylor said, looking over one of the boxes. "But in a situation where all services are offline I can't see how being able to charge your phone is going to help."
"The model with a battery charger for radios makes more sense there," Amy admitted. "Though I pity anyone who actually has a reason to sit on the loo long enough to fully charge a battery. Did you read these ones over here? I can't help but feel that there's something wrong with advertising that there's no tinkertech included so the Simurgh is unlikely to use it for parts."
"I saw those and agree that it's a tad tasteless, yes. Do you suppose that the water heaters or grills in the next aisle have similar gimmicks?"
Amy snorted. "Of course they will. Why wouldn't they?"
"I was hoping that they'd be more tasteful since they aren't literally dealing with crap," Taylor deadpanned, which got a chuckle out of Amy.
They browsed for a little over an hour, Amy taking some notes, before heading out. They stopped by a stationery store for some notebooks, apparently Amy had been doodling a lot lately, before deciding to head back to Taylor's house. Amy was curious about what may or may not have happened, and they didn't want to deal with Amy possibly still being on the road when Kurt took the vial.
Marissa sighed as she collected the blood-soaked bandages she'd replaced. She wasn't sure how Francis had recovered so quickly overnight, but it didn't seem to be enhanced healing. Or at least it wasn't working now, so it wasn't likely to be something he'd been hiding from them. Maybe it had something to do with one of the locals? Attacks that only did damage temporarily or something wouldn't surprise her.
The general consensus was that he had to believe that he had a good plan if he was willing to risk himself to that degree just so that the rest of them could get away. Since he wanted to put whatever it was in motion next weekend anyway they'd let him do it. If it didn't pan out, though, they'd go with the plan Luke had come up with. Or maybe the plan Cody was working on, if his looked better by then?
Well, that or just show up at the hospital out of the stupid costumes and hope nobody probed too deeply. She might have to bring that idea up.
Taylor and Amy entered the house to find the three adults eating a late lunch of leftover casserole. The vial-snark was in the basement and still a vial-snark, so it was obvious that Kurt hadn't taken it yet. Whether or not he planned to, however, they couldn't tell.
"Did you two enjoy your movie?" Danny asked.
"Theater was closed due to an overnight break-in," Taylor replied with a shrug. "We found other things to do. Late lunch?"
"We had an impassioned discussion and forgot to eat earlier," Lacey explained.
"Also known as we were too busy screaming at each other to actually eat," Kurt corrected. "The hangovers didn't help, of course, even if you two did something to take the edge off of them."
"After Kurt here finishes eating he has a few questions for you," Danny said, giving Kurt a glare when he went to put his fork down right away. Kurt sighed and continued to eat. "Lacey and I want to be certain that he knows what he might be getting into before we let him take the vial."
"I at least had the excuse of being drunk when I took mine," Lacey added. "We aren't letting him drink at this point. Maybe after he makes his decision, but not until then."
Taylor shrugged. "I think I'll check on the spider-bot and such. Let me know when you're ready."
Amy followed Taylor upstairs, shaking her head. "I have no idea what you're going to do with the rest of the vial-snarks."
"I don't know either," Taylor replied as she opened her bedroom door. A moment later she was falling backwards from the impact of her spider-bot launching out of the pet carrier. Which it had apparently moved so that it would point at the door.
"And now I find myself incredibly grateful that my spider-bot doesn't have powers," Amy said as she helped Taylor up.
"Maybe I should find a vial that can correct that," Taylor grumbled. She then looked down at the spider-bot. "So, how do I teach it to not do that?"
"I have no idea."
Kurt had apparently been made to help clean up and wash the dishes before Taylor and Amy were called back down. Well, Taylor had been called back down, Amy was just sticking around for the free show, as she put it. They all settled into the living room before focusing on Kurt.
"First off," Kurt said, fidgeting a little. He probably didn't like being put on the spot like this. "You said that the vial shouldn't kill me?"
"It's likely to change you physically similar to what it did to Lacey," Taylor answered. "But it isn't likely to kill you. In fact, it should hopefully not shrink you either as the snark should have learned from that mistake."
"Is it likely to turn him into a girl?" Lacey suddenly asked, causing Kurt to go wide-eyed.
Taylor: I'm fairly certain that human genders were covered.
BA: Agreement
[Data]
BA: Query
[Elaboration]
"It knows the difference between males and females," Taylor answered. "So no, it isn't. Unless, of course, you want to be female. Shall I ask it to make you female?"
Kurt blanched at that and shook his head. "Nope. No way. Not happening."
"Then you should be fine."
Kurt took a minute to recover from that before continuing. "Ok, right. You said that I'm not likely to get the same powers Lacey did, even though the vial is from the same snark?"
Taylor thought for a moment on how to answer that. "I get the feeling that all snarks have specialties. Some are very specific, by design or otherwise. I've met at least one snark that over-specialized in the past in a direction that didn't turn out to be relevant to it now, for example. Others are more general, with a wider range of options. When they grant a host powers they give a subset of their specialty, based on the host. While I don't fully understand what this snark's specialty is, Lacey got a subset focused on making and mixing alcohol. I can't even guarantee that you'll get something alcohol-related, because you aren't her."
"He'd better not be me," Lacey said with a smirk.
"I agree," Danny said, smirking as well. "I don't think the world could handle two people as immature as you."
Lacey's smirk turned into a pout at that.
"How much is taking the thing going to hurt?" Kurt asked while everyone ignored Lacey's pouting.
"No clue," Taylor admitted. "The only one here who's taken one is Lacey."
"I suspect you'd compare it to being kicked in the balls," Lacey said. "Just five times more intense and over your entire body." Kurt and Danny flinched at that description. Taylor and Amy both resisted the urge to do so. "But it doesn't last long, at least."
Kurt considered that, and Taylor wondered if he had any more questions. Danny seemed to no longer be as interested in staring Kurt down, at least, so perhaps that was it?
"So basically taking the thing is a crapshoot," Kurt finally said. "A temporarily painful one that could give me something useful, or could leave me with something useless. If it's something useful it could be an incredible boon. But if it's useless I'll effectively invalidate my current employment for nothing."
"That sounds about right," Taylor said. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if parahumans with powers that aren't actually helpful are easier to hire for normal jobs. I haven't had reason to look into it."
"No clue myself," Danny admitted.
"It'll depend on the powers," Lacey said, causing everyone to look at her questioningly. "What? A parahuman-run business needs to go through that paperwork by default. I've got powers that directly influence the creation of something 'edible', so there's a pile of very annoying paperwork involved. If all I had was the thinker side, to know how to make and/or mix the best alcohol but without anything helping it along? That would've been maybe two forms. Oddly, they don't seem to care about whether or not you'll be using your powers on the job, just what they are."
"I imagine that some of that comes from safety concerns more than anything else," Danny said, shaking his head. "After all, if your powers influence the food in the cafeteria?"
Lacey nodded at that. "I guess that makes sense. Hadn't thought of it that way, needing to cover bases like that. Then again, I was too busy being pissed off with how much I had to fill out because my powers directly influence food and drink items."
Kurt sighed. "As much as it probably sounds like a bad idea, it's like buying a lottery ticket. The payoff if you 'win' is too good to resist."
"I guess I'll go get the vial from where I hid it," Lacey said, getting up and leaving the room.
Amy: I can't help but think this is a horrible idea overall. Why are you letting him even try?
Taylor: I figure that if I don't make a show of letting people try every so often then a certain duo will return to dropping them into people's laps, probably without any consideration for what any given vial would do to someone. Plus they'd probably start with Kurt here anyway.
Amy: Oh. From that point of view this makes a lot more sense.
A minute later Lacey returned with the canister and handed it to Kurt. He opened it up and took the vial out of it, then looked at Taylor. "Am I allowed to chase this with a drink?"
"The pamphlets I've since gotten recommend against that," Taylor said, shrugging. "Or being drunk, high on any number of other drugs, unusually high or low on your blood sugar, overly tired, or having too much caffeine in your system, amongst other things."
"Sheesh," Kurt mumbled, staring at the vial. He took a deep breath, then uncorked it and downed it before his resolve failed him. A moment later he groaned and clutched his stomach in pain even as he started to glow.
Taylor once again found herself looking over a large number of snarks. The one the vision was focused on was glowing slightly and reconfiguring, previously dormant pieces setting themselves up. She was happy to see that the K'Nectatuet was being held back since it meant that particular lesson had been remembered. On the other hand, she wanted to frown slightly since the Dimswhittle still looked off. Not nearly as bad as when Lacey had taken her vial, granted.
"That was weird," Lacey mumbled, shaking herself.
Taylor ignored Lacey and moved over to Kurt, who appeared to have shrunk slightly and now had red skin. He'd also fallen onto the floor, so Taylor helped him up.
Amy: Huh. The red is the same collagen trick that Lacey has going on, just in a different configuration.
Taylor: Yeah. Though I'm wondering why the Dimswhittle wasn't right.
[Data]
Taylor: Oh. He wanted to shrink a little to make Lacey feel better? I guess that's kinda sweet. What can he do now?
[Data]
Amy: All kinds, or just the safe for humans side?
[Elaboration]
Taylor: That's it, I'm calling you Ethanol from now on.
[Acceptance]
"Congratulations," Taylor said as Kurt looked at her. "You appear to be a tinker, focused on making things that consume and/or modify alcohol and mixtures thereof. With absolutely no ability to make or mix alcohol yourself, since you apparently really didn't want overlap with Lacey."
"I suppose that means he's still able to cook food for humans?" Danny observed.
"That would be useful," Lacey admitted. "I've kinda been concerned about how I keep having problems there."
"He might have to ban Lacey from the kitchen," Amy said, reaching out to put her hand on Kurt's after Taylor had let him go. "It's interesting looking at the variations you ended up with on what happened to Lacey."
"I find it amusing that they'll both end up purple when they're drunk," Taylor added with a grin. She then pushed Kurt back into his seat. "No tearing our stuff apart to tinker."
"But," Kurt started, only to get glared at by Danny. He backed down at that point.
"Besides," Lacey said, grinning. "Now you have paperwork to do!"
"What paperwork?" Kurt asked. "We don't have copies of anything ready for me, do we?"
Everyone else in the room grinned when the tear in reality opened up and a stack of papers, tied up with a ribbon and a bow, landed on Kurt's lap.
Kurt had ended up in the kitchen filling out paperwork while Lacey tended to her alcohol and packed her things to head home with him, which included collecting what remained of 'her' bottles of alcohol. Luckily Kurt's desire to make Lacey feel better by shrinking as well hadn't left him too short to drive his car. Taylor wisely skipped out on mentioning that, technically, his driver's license was probably no longer valid due to his significant physical changes. It hopefully wouldn't be a problem since they were going to swing by the PRT in the morning anyway.
Amy had headed home during that, and Taylor had ended up checking over the paperwork. Not an in-depth check, just a skimming, but she found four things he'd missed anyway. Danny and Lacey made much more in-depth checks after those issues had been fixed and both found more potential problems.
"So when do we drag your brewing stuff out of the basement?" Danny asked Lacey while Kurt was going over the mistakes that'd been found in the paperwork.
"We don't have a good place to stick any of it at home yet," Lacey said. "And we'd probably have to borrow a suitable truck to move things while they're full, since I don't think we can safely load them into one of the cars right now. Can I leave it all here until the current batches are done?"
Danny stared at Lacey, who fidgeted but didn't retract her statements. After a minute he sighed. "Ok, but only the current batches."
Lacey grabbed Danny in a quick hug. "Thank you!"
"Other than the brewing stuff," Taylor said, leaning against the door frame. "Do you have all of your stuff?"
"Of course," Lacey said as she released Danny, rolling her eyes in the process. "Though I still think you need to name your spider robot thing."
Taylor shrugged. She wasn't sure either way on that front.
Rebecca put down the tablet displaying the report that she'd just received. She'd read it four times now, and still wasn't sure she believed it.
"What's wrong?" Paul asked. Rebecca pushed the tablet over to him, and he raised an eyebrow before picking it up.
"I thought we were brainstorming a suitable excuse for me to swing by Brockton Bay," David grumbled. "Not looking over reports."
"You're kidding me," Paul said, causing David to stop grumbling. "Their stupid prank paperwork caused someone to trigger? Already?"
"Apparently," Rebecca said. "Though it wasn't just the paperwork. Miss Mullins is known to complain about her very severe periods and had just gone through a messy breakup with her boyfriend apparently triggered by them. Her coworkers report that she's insecure about her body and always dressed more conservatively than needed. The last thing she'd opened on the bogus requirements list was being caught naked in a cape battle."
"What did her agent give her?" David asked, more interested than Rebecca expected.
"Looks like she's gotten a Thinker and Stranger combo," Paul said, waving the tablet slightly. "The worse the pain she's in the more aware she is of sightlines around her, and the more she can 'bend' those sightlines to not be able to see her."
David shook his head. "How in the world did they figure out the pain connection already?"
"Her powers started to shut down when the painkillers kicked in," Rebecca answered.
"I think this is a new record for fastest trigger due to prank paperwork," Paul noted. "The previous record was what, two months?"
"Actually the previous record was when I set up the crazy hoops for a vial," David said. "This still beats that by what, four days? Yet without actually invalidating the original goal."
"Miss Mullins still doesn't qualify for the fugue," Rebecca replied. "Though there's nothing stopping her from trying to move forward. But since she did trigger as a result of a prank being played by someone in Brockton Bay..."
David grinned. "Procedure says that we should send someone to make sure things are on the up and up?"
Rebecca nodded. "Just please wait until next weekend. They're running finals this week."
David snorted. "You know that barring an emergency it'll take me a few days to prepare things for the trip anyway."
"Precisely," Rebecca said, grinning. "I don't want you there until Saturday morning at the earliest, and do remember that the Wards will have Saturday off either way."
Monday morning Taylor was woken by Lacey showing up, apparently unable to wait any longer before being able to check on the alcohol in progress. Taylor grumbled, but let the woman in.
"Why couldn't you wait another hour or two?" Taylor asked as she followed Lacey down into the basement.
"I have to adjust a couple of things," Lacey explained. "It dawned on me when I woke up, the second batch has been going so well that it'll be ready before the first batch is done. So I need to slow it down a bit, since I don't want to rush the first batch."
"So how'd you get here?" Taylor asked, honestly curious.
"Took the bus," Lacey answered before she pulled a small packet out of a pocket to add to the second batch. "I'd have had Kurt drive me, but he was, er, sleeping off dismantling half the kitchen. And I think I saw parts of the lawnmower, actually."
"Oh." Well, Taylor supposed that since Kurt had gotten tinker abilities that all made sense. She'd stopped him from trying to tinker here the day before for a reason and all.
Taylor arrived at school a little earlier than usual, which would normally mean that she could take her time in swapping her books out in her locker. Except that her locker was already empty, as was her bag. She dropped her helmet and visor into the backpack on her way into the building, and wondered what she should do until her first exam. Especially since she didn't even know what her exams would be today.
Just inside the building she found a notice stating that all students would need to find their names in the posted lists to determine what room they'd be in for their exams. She found a free copy of the list and looked over it, making note of which rooms Amy and Vicky would be in on the way through.
Taylor: I wonder if they intentionally put the two of us at opposite ends of the building for exams.
Amy: Huh. Dunno. They shouldn't know we can do this at all, actually.
Taylor: Good point.
A quick check showed that they'd actually spread the parahumans she knew of all over the building. Whether or not it was intentional was a different question, because she wasn't sure why they'd bother. She decided that it probably didn't matter either way, because unless someone told her it had been intentional she had no reason to believe that it was right now. Instead she focused on finding the classroom she'd be tested in.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," Miss Johansson said as Taylor entered the room. No other students had made it in yet. "Nice to see you again. You're in the front by the window."
"Good morning," Taylor replied, going over to the desk and dropping her bag next to it. She then sat down and looked around the room a little more. There were only three rows of four desks, all of them with a printed name taped to them. Behind the teacher's desk was a wire rack shelf unit on wheels holding twelve boxes.
Over the next hour the other eleven students assigned to this room arrived and were directed to their seats. As the official start of the day approached Miss Johansson opened each of the twelve boxes on the shelving unit and extracted an envelope from each. She also pulled four calculators out of the desk and placed them next to the stack of envelopes.
"Now then," Miss Johansson said after the bell rang. "The twelve of you were assigned here because you're all sophomores who transferred in since last year. You should thus all know how these tests go, but not how Arcadia issues them. Unlike most schools in the region, we obtain multiple versions of each exam and issue them in a random order per student. This helps prevent cheating as you literally cannot copy from your neighbor."
Miss Johansson picked up the stack of envelopes and the calculators and started putting them on desks. "As a reminder, when I tell you to start you will open up your envelope. You should confirm that your correct student information is on the first page of the book inside and inform me immediately if it isn't. You will have a fixed time limit before you need to be done, but I will be maintaining individual timers for each of you. If you finish early you will be permitted to start your next exam, unless we're too close to lunch or the end of the day. In those cases I will permit you to leave early. You are permitted up to ten minutes between exams to use the restroom."
She returned to the desk and turned on a projector hooked up to the computer. A grid of timers with names under them appeared, laid out similarly to their desks. She gave everyone a look. "Any questions?" Nobody moved or said anything, so she reached over to the computer. "Then you may begin."
Taylor opened up the envelope and confirmed that her information was on the front of the booklet inside. Apparently she was starting with history today.
Jacob and Fred were very carefully making their way across town. Today they had a very specific target, a visiting Protectorate cape that was suspected of inappropriate conduct with their local Wards. Well, not so much suspected as proven through methods that couldn't be admitted as evidence in court. "We asked a secret cape who's normally on other Earths that can see everything and they confirmed it" was, shockingly, not admissible in court. And would probably result in a lot of really stupid legal actions if it were ever tried.
Of course, the fact that the guy was very good at covering his tracks otherwise didn't help. Until they'd gotten outside confirmation everyone investigating had actually wondered if he'd been doing anything at all. Well, most of those investigating were probably still wondering that, since they weren't cleared for everything. But the guy was also overconfident and had been invited to help deal with the Nine, and foolishly accepted.
Today's goal was to grab the guy and put him through some forced, if decidedly non-standard, therapy. Or at least Jacob would be calling it therapy, most of his colleagues in the field would probably disagree. The rest of the Nine, though, would be perfectly happy with the description, and that's what mattered in this case.
"Isn't this the Teeth's territory?" Jacob finally asked. He hadn't been paying a lot of attention as they'd been hunting the guy by tracking where his phone was.
"He was sent to investigate their sudden departure," Fred replied, waving off Jacob's concern. "The Butcher seemed to want to regroup in New York. Or maybe she wants to collect everyone before doing something else, not really sure."
"Could be she decided that risking you getting the drop on her again wasn't worth sticking around," Jacob mused. It would explain why everything was so calm in the area. "Do we know if she healed up from some of the injuries you guys gave her?"
"No clue. Didn't get a chance to get the drop on her again to find out. Nobody saw her in action afterwards, so there's that? Besides, it gives us a nice nearly-empty section of town to have fun in."
"Yeah, yeah," Jacob said, rolling his eyes.
A moment later their phones beeped, and a quick check showed that Riley and Sarah were in position. Mimi and Cherie were almost in position themselves, so they'd soon be doing their best to drive the guy towards Fred. Jacob was a distraction and insurance against the guy trying to take Fred out at range, having equal if not greater range with his knives in the urban environment. Not that they expected him to spot Fred early, since they'd been told that his borrowed tinkertech life-signs detector was going to fail in about five minutes.
Chapter 115 "You're insane," Karen, who'd been in the seat behind Taylor, said as they made their way to lunch. "That's the only way you could've gone through four exams in a two exam morning."
"They weren't hard ones," Taylor replied with a shrug. "I've only gotten multiple choice sections so far, I'm sure essay sections would've taken longer."
"Wait, you didn't get any essay sections yet? That's not fair, they started me with two essay sections!"
"Which means you have two fewer essay sections and I still have all of mine to look forward to. Maybe you'll catch up when I'm hit with essays later?"
Karen considered that for a moment. "Ok, yeah, I can see that."
They arrived in the cafeteria and collected their lunches, Karen going off to sit with some friends of hers while Taylor plopped down next to Amy.
"What took you so long?" Amy asked. "I expected you to be let out early."
"Technically you could say I was," Taylor replied. "If I'd taken the full time for my fourth multiple choice section I'd only be catching the tail end of lunch."
"Ah. I had an essay in the middle so I only made it through three."
"I'm with Taylor," Dennis said. "Four multiple-choice sections. Fact regurgitation was stupidly easy."
"I'm feeling like an idiot for only making it through two multiple-choice sections," Dean groaned. "I don't think I even want to know what you guys were hit with in case I had one of them too."
"We can compare notes at the end of the week," Vicky said, patting Dean on the back. "Maybe you'll have caught up to the rest of us by then."
Dean gave Vicky a look. "That seems to be implying that you completed more than two exams."
"I made it through three multiple-choice sections," Vicky admitted with a grin.
Taylor's last exam of the day had been her first essay section and she'd taken her time, not expecting to be allowed to take a second exam after it. She still finished early and was able to leave, though she wasn't the first one out of the room.
She decided to swing by the PRT building to play a little in the junkyard. No need to let 'hit things' urges build up to the point where they could be a problem during the week and all. Amy wasn't going to be joining her today, instead heading home to play a little in her greenhouse under Mark's supervision.
Taylor was setting up a tower to knock down when Amy finally got started in the greenhouse, and paused as she realized what the other girl was doing.
Taylor: You're sorting carbon isotopes in your bamboo?
Amy: Yeah. I think things will be stronger if I have the bamboo selectively use carbon thirteen and ignore the carbon fourteen completely.
Taylor: Hmmm. I might have to adjust my plants, I think you improved the efficiency of the sorting.
Amy: I have some ideas for how to spread the sorting along the bamboo as it grows, which would hopefully make it even more efficient, but I'm constrained a bit there by wanting the bamboo to still grow and all. I'm also trying to avoid needing to feed them coal as a carbon source, since that won't always be an option.
Taylor: I can see why you'd go that route. Is the straight wrap in this one because you're testing the isotope sorting?
Amy: Yeah, I'll get back to figuring out the weaves once I'm certain that this sorting method is stable enough. I've noticed that you've needed to 'reset' your plants every so often, and that won't be an option if someone else is growing this. With any luck I can get it to auto-correct as the bamboo grows.
Taylor shook her head and went back to setting up her tower, keeping a mental eye on what Amy was up to in case she provided any more useful ideas.
"I'm home," Taylor called as she entered the house.
"Dinner should be ready in about ten minutes," Danny called from the kitchen. "You already know, but Kurt and Lacey aren't here."
Taylor dropped her bag by the stairs and headed into the kitchen. "Do you know how things went for Kurt at the PRT today?"
"He sends his thanks for helping him with the paperwork," Danny said as he adjusted the heat under the pan he was using. "Lacey was prepared for adjusting the paperwork for the loan to include him, just not for him to be a parahuman when she did. She did mention that she probably needs to know if she's including you and Amy on the pub's paperwork before the building purchase goes through."
"And she isn't bringing that up with me herself?"
"She asked me to not mention it at all actually, and I'm ignoring her. Something about not pushing you either way, but I figured you'd be more annoyed if you were an unknowing bottleneck in the process."
Taylor shook her head. "I don't suppose Kurt has an opinion on that side of things now?"
Danny chuckled. "You two are both tinkers as well and would, as such, reduce his paperwork load too. So he's all for it. In fact, I think he's amazed at how well Lacey had been doing with the paperwork. He didn't realize just how much effort was required on that front until Lacey started dropping stacks of reference material in front of him earlier."
"I'll check with Amy after dinner," Taylor promised, shaking her head. "For now I should probably go let the spider-bot out of my room."
A few minutes later Taylor came back down and whipped up a bowl of food for the spider-bot. Said spider-bot busied itself with a quick 'web', which it used to enhance a jump to get up onto the table. Taylor sighed and put the thing back down on the floor, then placed the bowl next to it. The spider-bot looked up at the table, then down at the bowl, and then settled down to eat.
Taylor then moved to the cabinet to grab some dishes to set the table for her and her father.
"So what did they test you on today?" Danny asked.
"History, literature, programming, and biology in the morning," Taylor answered. "Then a literature essay section in the afternoon."
Danny nodded, then paused. "I didn't think you were taking biology?"
"I'm thinking that either someone informed about my link with Amy threw it in for me or they feel that being friends with her might be enough. Or maybe it was actually random, I think they're going to have enough tests to ensure that I still have at least one Friday afternoon, no matter how many I get in otherwise."
"Why would you think that?"
"Because I heard several people complaining that they've never heard of someone at Arcadia not need to come in for the entire week, regardless of how far ahead they'd gotten."
After dinner they'd worked together to clean up and settled in to watch some television. Which ended up with them watching the news and learning that there was fighting across town. Taylor thought that it was probably between the Empire and the Elite based on where it was happening, but wasn't certain.
"I'm happy that you aren't patrolling this week," Danny said, shaking his head. "Not that I think they'd have you anywhere near some of the fighting, of course."
"They won't be able to keep us away from trouble all the time," Taylor replied, rolling her eyes.
"Doesn't mean that I can't be happy when you're away from the trouble."
They continued to watch the news for another half hour or so, before Taylor suddenly sat up.
"What's wrong?" Danny asked.
"Kurt or Lacey is approaching," Taylor said. "I'm not actually sure which. Could be Kurt driving or Lacey as a passenger."
"Only one of them?" Taylor nodded, and Danny went for the door, then stopped. "Taylor, what are the chances that there were more than two vials tied to that snark?"
Taylor blinked, having not considered that.
Taylor: Hey, do you have more than two people connected to you right now?
[Negation]
Taylor: Thank you. I don't suppose you can tell me which of them is approaching us now?
[Data]
Taylor: Thank you again.
Amy: What's that about?
Taylor: Kurt is approaching, but my father realized that if two vials were connected to that snark that there could've been more.
Amy: Ooooh. We can't trust that hungry snarks are unique at all, so they're all suspect when all we know is that we recognize the snark.
Taylor: Yeah, and possibly can't trust that other snarks are unique either. Unless we can find a way to identify the specific connections, anyway.
BA: Intrigue. Consideration
"It's Kurt," Taylor said a moment later, shaking her head slightly. Of course Broadcast Administrator was intrigued with the new idea. "No clue why he's coming, though."
A couple of minutes later Kurt pulled into the driveway. He spent a minute in the car, then got out and came up to the door. Danny let him in, and both Heberts noticed that his skin was slightly purple, meaning that he'd been drinking.
"Get in here," Danny said, pulling Kurt into the living room. "I'm fairly certain you don't have full-body bruising, so you drove over here drunk. Why?"
"Had a fight with Lacey," Kurt said, a slight slur in his speech.
Taylor sighed and got up. She figured that her time would be better spent getting the bed in the guest room ready for Kurt to use, since they weren't going to let him drive home in this state either way.
"You're here early," Taylor said as Amy entered the school building the following morning. There was a light rain that was expected to last all day, but both of them had come in on their mopeds anyway.
"I swung by the hospital this morning," Amy replied with a shrug. "There were a few police officers injured in the fighting last night."
Amy: Like you didn't know that already.
Taylor: Not asking would probably have been weirder.
Amy: Yeah yeah.
"Anything interesting on your end?" Amy continued.
"Kurt and Lacey had another fight," Taylor replied with a shrug. "Kurt ended up at our house this time. Apparently Lacey was angry that he took apart things that he shouldn't have, and he wasn't properly apologetic or something. He wasn't exactly sober when he arrived."
"Is that part of why you're here so early?"
Taylor grinned. "Nah, I was woken up by someone doing some work."
Amy had dragged Taylor to a movie that afternoon after an otherwise uneventful day of exams. Her excuse for doing so was that they hadn't gotten a movie in over the weekend.
Amy: Thanks for not fighting too hard on the movie thing.
That had led to them sitting with their popcorn waiting for 'Honey, I Triggered the Kids' to start. They were expecting it to be horrible, so both had their visors on in case they wanted to do something online instead of actually watching the movie. They planned on sitting through the entire showing either way, lest they be dragged into other activities instead.
Taylor: Well, it isn't like I wanted to go shopping with Vicky either, and you know she'd have tried to include me.
Amy: True. I'm still not sure if she intentionally damaged the clothing she's replacing or not.
Taylor: Only if she honestly didn't like them anymore, I'd think.
There were, after all, worse things than sitting through a bad movie. Like being dragged clothes shopping with Vicky. Though for some reason the older girl had been unusually agreeable when she found out about them going to see a movie.
Jacob sighed as he washed blood out of his hair. They'd let the cape 'escape' after working him over all night. That had worked out mostly ok, except that the idiot had actually cut himself to use his own blood as a distraction or something. He'd gotten it all over the place. Jacob and Riley in particular had gotten directly hit in the face with a spurt each. It hadn't worked well as a distraction, and he'd ended up leaving a trail they could've followed if they hadn't wanted him to escape in the first place.
"He's got a hepatitis infection," Riley called from the cracked-open bathroom door a few minutes later. "Nothing for us to worry about, but I bet he was trying to infect us."
"Seriously?" Jacob called back.
"Yep. I'm so happy that I gave him those infections now."
Jacob scoffed at that. He wasn't sure if it was a fair attempt on the Protectorate cape's end, trying to infect them after they'd infected him, or a fair retaliation on their end having infected him when he was going to try and infect them. Luckily they'd come out ahead, being immune to his attempt.
"Which ones did you give him anyway?" Jacob asked, not having paid a lot of attention there. He was more interested in the 'therapy' side of things, after all.
"Two strains of drunk bacteria," Riley answered. "Two strains of the hair color changers, but I didn't pay attention to which two. Plus a particularly hardy bacterial strain that shouldn't be infectious without blood contact and consumes testosterone. I spent most of the prep-time coding it to his body." Riley paused. "Actually, on that last one, I should probably check you over. I think you're immune and it shouldn't infect anyone other than him, but I might be wrong?"
There were days that Riley scared Jacob, no matter how much he thought some people deserved what she did to them.
The movie had turned out to be much funnier than expected, and they weren't put off by the kids triggering somewhat realistically at the beginning. Then again, they'd only gone for realism for a second-generation cape, since first-gen trigger events probably wouldn't have been approved for the film's rating. The most unrealistic thing about the whole premise was the variety in the powers the kids got, with none of them actually seeming to be related to their mother's tinker abilities, and that was fairly easy to ignore.
"So you've really had kids ask if their trigger events can be 'undone'?" Taylor asked Amy as they were leaving the theater.
"Yeah," Amy answered, shaking her head. "As though if they could do the opposite of what caused them to trigger and have their powers go away. Mainly younger second-gens that are afraid that having powers means they'll have to go out with their parents to fight people."
"You mean they don't all automatically think it's awesome that they can go fight villains?"
Amy scoffed at that. "The first one I ran into was a young girl who'd run away from home because she didn't want to fight heroes with her villain mother. She hunted me down because she thought that I could heal her of her powers. I have no idea how things work at home for them, given that as far as I know she joined the Wards and ended up back home with her mother."
"That sounds incredibly awkward all around," Taylor said as she thought it over. "For you, the girl, her mother, and the PRT."
"Awkward doesn't even begin to describe some of it."
That evening Taylor found herself home alone with the spider-bot. Her father was apparently helping Kurt get things put back into a semblance of normal so that Lacey would let him sleep at home. She ended up finishing off some leftovers for dinner before retreating to her room.
Amy: Carol's finished checking things and we've discussed things with Mark. Both are ok with me having partial ownership of the pub, and Carol even likes the idea of using the PRT's own rules against them. She just wants to be sure that we aren't responsible for the loan.
Taylor: Cool, I'll let Lacey know. I don't think I have any real objections either, and agree on the loan bit.
It only took a minute to send a message off to Lacey, after which Taylor looked down at the spider-bot and sighed.
Taylor: I should really come up with a name for the spider-bot.
Amy: I'm thinking that I'll call mine Rodney.
Taylor blinked for a moment, before groaning.
Taylor: Really?
Amy: Yeah. So what do you think for yours?
That was the question, wasn't it. She didn't have anything nearly as obvious as Rodney. Snowball, maybe, based on being almost all white, but she wasn't a fan of it and wasn't actually certain that it would stay white. Weaver would be an option, she supposed, since it wove webs and all. But she wasn't sure she wanted something referencing its powers, unless she was naming its snark anyway.
Perhaps she was looking at this the wrong way and should be thinking based on how it acted? It seemed to have taken to making traps of various kinds, directly involving it launching itself or over an area it could weave a web in, after all.
Taylor: What do you think of Ackbar?
Taylor grinned as she realized that Amy had groaned.
Wednesday morning Taylor was woken up by Lacey arriving to check on her brewing. Kurt had joined her this time, so apparently they were doing better. Or maybe Lacey had just annoyed Kurt into driving her over?
"Morning you two," Taylor said as she let them into the house.
"Morning," Lacey said, darting for the basement door.
Kurt scoffed. "Morning, and don't mind miss obsessed there. I think the only reason she stopped yelling at me was that she realized what I'd made."
"Anything interesting?" Taylor asked.
"She stopped me from trying to pull the tank out of the water heater, so I ended up making a whittlesplitter instead."
Taylor blinked, confused. "A what?"
"A whittlesplitter. I've actually got it in the trunk, if you want to see it? I still need to get rubber pads for the splitter surface, which is why I brought it with us."
Taylor nodded, and followed Kurt out to the car. He opened the trunk, and Taylor stared at the whittlesplitter. It was designed to split various things out of a mixture in various ways, specifically with the aid of Lacey's shaker powers. The two wheels that the mixture would pass between were surrounded by several exit pipes, and had identical radii. But she could tell that their circumferences and surface areas differed?
"Did you somehow use different values for Pi for each of the two wheels?" Taylor finally asked.
"Oh, you noticed?" Kurt said, bouncing slightly. "Yeah, the upper wheel uses a Pi value of 3.1 and the lower a Pi value of 3.2. You can't split things properly otherwise."
Taylor wasn't sure that worked, yet her own tinker snark seemed to be in agreement with what Kurt had just said. How in the world did you construct things with custom values of Pi? Though she could, somehow, see that the differences between the two wheels would allow for splitting of things that would otherwise be problematic. Even if she didn't understand how or why.
Still, there was one other thing that was bugging her. "Once you have the rubber pads on, does this require that the space between the wheels be, well, 'lubricated' with ethanol?"
"Or flooded with it, but yes," Kurt confirmed. "It won't be able to split things properly otherwise. It shouldn't require a lot, except that Lacey was talking about needing to distill some of her already-distilled bottles of alcohol for some reason."
A few minutes later Lacey convinced Taylor and Kurt to help her get the otherwise unused distilling equipment into the backseat of the car. Apparently waiting wasn't in the cards on that front, and borrowing a truck was too much waiting.
"Of course they provide extra tests for everyone," Amy said between bites of her lunch after Taylor mentioned the possibility. "On average only around half of your classes will have essay sections at all, and everything else has a single multiple-choice or fill in the answer section, depending on subject. You should have anywhere from ten to fourteen exam slots with all of that, depending on your overall course load and how many half-year electives you took."
"And if you don't get ahead at all there's fifteen slots across the entire week," Taylor noted. "So everyone is guaranteed to have at least one extra exam in their queue?"
"You can't actually get fourteen slots for the classes you've taken," Vicky corrected. "Nathan figured out that the theoretical max is thirteen, due to required classes each year and conflicts between half-year electives. So everyone is guaranteed at least two extra exams, and most of us will have three or four even without getting ahead. He also figured out that you likely can't fit more than twenty-two exams into the week unless you intentionally bomb multiple."
"Nathan?" Taylor asked.
"He's in my math class," Vicky answered, with a roll of her eyes. "He loves figuring out this kind of thing. Don't ask him about how he figured any of it out, though, unless you want lectures."
"A quick summary of my methodology is not a lecture," a guy, presumably Nathan, called from a couple tables over.
Vicky sighed, but was beaten to a response by someone else calling out. "Your quick summaries take three quarters of an hour. They're lectures, get over it!"
Most of the table snickered at that, though Dennis was still groaning from realizing that there was probably no way to get far enough ahead to finish his exams a day early.
After school Taylor joined Amy in dragging Vicky to the gym before heading home. She was a little confused when she found that Kurt and Lacey were there, since she thought they'd have gone home in the morning. A quick look in the back of the car showed that the distilling equipment wasn't there, so apparently they had left. They'd just come back for some reason.
"Hello," Taylor called as she entered, despite knowing that Kurt and Lacey were in the kitchen.
"We've got pizza in here," Danny called from the kitchen.
Taylor dropped her stuff by the stairs and headed into the kitchen. There was a literal stack of pizza boxes, and she helped herself to slices of pepperoni and sausage before pouring herself a glass of juice to drink. As she went to sit down it became obvious that Lacey had something to ask, based on her fidgeting and expression.
"We're making her wait until you've had at least two slices of pizza," Kurt explained when Taylor raised an eyebrow at Lacey not pouncing on her.
"Thanks," Taylor said, sitting down and starting on her first slice. She wasn't sure what Lacey wanted, but for some reason she felt it was likely to cause problems. Due to that she took her time with her two slices, making Lacey wait as long as she could manage without making it look like she was stalling.
Eventually she'd finished the two slices, and Kurt kept Lacey from jumping her while she finished her juice as well. She put the now-empty glass down and looked at Lacey.
"Can I have some vials?" Lacey blurted out.
Taylor blinked, considered what she thought Lacey had just said, and blinked again. "What?"
"You've got power-vials that aren't quite right," Lacey explained. "I think I can use the whittlesplitter to fix them, swapping some of the pieces around." She then paused. "Though I think you'd have maybe ten minutes before they'd become useless, so I guess someone would need to be available to drink them right away."
Taylor carefully moved her plate and glass out of the way, then dropped her head onto the table. It was much less effective with the visor on, but she didn't care. "Why me?"
"Is that a no?" Kurt asked.
Taylor lifted her head up and glared at Kurt, causing him and Lacey to both flinch. "I'm going to have to submit a few questions, I think, before I can even consider answering. Not to mention find volunteers and figure out just what kind of crucifixion we can expect if things go wrong. And I might need to get you into secure areas to look at vials, which will require who knows what. My only saving grace might be the PRT doing most of the work for me, maybe."
Lacey had the audacity to pout at that.
Thursday morning Taylor pointedly ignored the list of confirmations for all the sub-items her questions about Lacey's request had generated. She'd worry about things if she was sent requests for clarification or something, but otherwise she was going to be waiting until school let out before giving it any more thought.
Her morning routine was quickly taken care of, and she was happy to see that Amy's sorting trick from the bamboo had sped up the processing for her plants too. It was actually slightly less stable than the method she'd been using before without being able to adjust and correct as the plant grew, but she'd chained it in front of her original method as an attempt at a pre-sort. In the event that it broke down the more stable original method would just take over.
With that done she made her way to the bus stop, since the wind and rain were a bit too much for comfortable operation of the moped.
Exams had been predictably boring, but the rain had let up by the end of the school day. Vicky had declared that Amy and Taylor weren't allowed to just go home and putter around and had made them take the bus towards the Boardwalk.
"So she made us take this bus," Taylor said as the bus pulled away. "But isn't coming with us to make sure that we don't just change busses at the next stop or something?"
"She's Vicky," Amy replied, as though that were answer enough. Maybe it was. "I suspect that she just didn't want to end up at the gym, to be honest."
"That would be a sneaky way to get out of it," Taylor admitted.
"Then again, I do want to see if they've got any watering bulbs in stock at the garden center, so I don't really mind."
"I've been meaning to look into getting a couple of those myself," Taylor admitted. "I just hadn't gotten around to it."
"Have you considered getting a greenhouse for at home?" Amy questioned.
"I figured if I do it would be a good summer project of sorts."
"Bah," Amy scoffed.
They ended up swinging by the garden center and finding that they had seven watering bulbs in stock. Taylor purchased two, leaving the other five for Amy. With that done they admitted that they didn't really have anything better to do than head home, so they did.
Friday morning Taylor was woken up by gunshots in the distance. It actually sounded like machine guns today, instead of handguns and shotguns. She sighed and debated rolling over to try and get more sleep, but decided to get ready for the day. Even if it was a bit early. Besides, this would give her the time to make a proper breakfast.
An hour later she'd made enough french toast for her and her father over the next couple of days. She had some for breakfast for herself, and then gathered her things to hit the gym before school. After school she was probably going to want to escape ASAP to avoid being dragged into an impromptu party or something, in fact she was going to hope that she got out of her last exam early.
At least she remembered to check that the path between her house and the PRT building was probably safe before she left. Luckily it was, so her plans weren't derailed before she'd started on them.
"We're almost free," Dennis said as he dropped into a seat across from Amy.
"And I bet we all have at least one of our primary classes left," Taylor said as she walked around the table to sit next to Amy. "So that nobody could skip, knowing they had nothing important left."
"The bastards," Dean growled, even though the grin on his face didn't quite match the apparent annoyance. "What will they do next?"
"No clue," Dennis said, waving his fork. "But I think there are several plans for parties tomorrow."
"Why not tonight?" Taylor asked.
Dennis rolled his eyes. "Mostly because of the number of students that need to head home to look after younger siblings until their parents get home from work. Easier to plan the parties on the weekend when they aren't keeping an eye on the runts."
Taylor blinked a couple of times. "That's a lot more sensible than I was expecting."
"It happens."
Taylor and Amy had both escaped after finishing their final exams early. Taylor was heading home, and Amy was heading to the hospital. The battle that had woken Taylor up that morning had continued throughout most of the morning and there were a number of gunshot wounds in law enforcement and bystanders to deal with.
"You're home early," Danny said when he entered the kitchen a few hours later. "I'd have thought you'd have been dragged to an end of year party or something."
"I wanted to avoid those," Taylor admitted. "Only to find out that students at Arcadia are reasonable about them. Apparently too many of them have to look after younger siblings during the week, so the parties are all tomorrow."
Danny nodded. "That's surprisingly sensible for a bunch of teenagers. Anything else of interest happening?"
"The PRT secured tickets for TinkerTechCon for me," Taylor said, pulling out her phone to show Danny. "Though only heading out on the fifth. I let Amy know so that she could plan around it, since she wanted to go as well, but I don't know who to bring in the other two slots I have."
"I'm sure you'll figure something out. Would anyone from New Wave or the Wards want to join you?"
Taylor considered that. "I'm not sure as we hadn't actually asked anyone yet. I'll check with Amy when she's not working on gunshot wounds. The Wards might be a problem from the point of view of secrecy, since I don't even have a decent reason to hang out with most of them out of costume right now."
"I suppose that would be a problem. Something to work on over the summer, perhaps. Oh, Lacey bottled her first batch this morning, but wouldn't let anyone try it yet, before moving her second batch over. She and Kurt might try and grab the now-empty brewing equipment sometime this weekend, or wait and grab it all after the second batch is bottled."
Taylor snorted at that. "Maybe I'll find a reason to not be around so that I'm not dragged into helping them. I'm sure Amy and I can find somewhere to be that isn't here."
Taylor groaned as she got up to see what the commotion was outside. Amy's healing had kept her up until far too early in the morning, and now there was an argument of some kind happening right outside at a quarter to six in the morning. She was probably going to have to give up on leaving the window cracked open at this rate, but she wasn't in the mood to disable the alarm properly to do so right now and just closing the window would set it off.
She moved her plants over a little and opened the curtains after ensuring that she was decent enough to do so. It didn't take long to spot the two groups of men arguing about something around a couple of cars, but it wasn't being done in English so she wasn't positive what the problem was. It wasn't escalating to violence, as far as she could tell, so it probably wasn't a big deal. Maybe they'd had a fender-bender that she hadn't woken up for?
As she went to close the curtains she noticed that there was an odd breeze around her. Unfortunately she didn't have time to think any more on that before she suddenly found herself a good distance away from where she'd been, perched on the edge of a metal box, the lid pushing her backwards into it. She didn't react in time to stop from falling into the warm, mushy interior, and didn't think to try and keep the lid from closing until it had already slammed shut and apparently latched.
Interlude: Trickster Francis paused to catch his breath, looking around for suitable swap targets. He was running out of items in the area and he knew several clones had escaped. Probably more than several, really, why did nobody listen to Cody, Luke, or himself when they all said to not engage Noelle in melee range and all? Of course that just encouraged them to close in for some reason.
He jerked his head to the side where a clone was firing a blast. In a split-second decision he prepared to swap the clone with its non-clone target when the target suddenly shifted several feet back to where it had just been, allowing the blast to pass by harmlessly. Cody had gotten that one. Man was he happy that Accord had understood his explanation of making himself the target for the rest of the team, even if it had meant being forced to go cold turkey on his cigarettes. He didn't know what would've happened to Cody otherwise, and the guy was pretty good at keeping them alive when people were shooting at them.
Shit, Noelle was trying to get out of the crater he'd dropped her into half an hour previous.
They still didn't know what had happened, but Noelle and Oliver had just exploded. So had all of the clones, but screw the clones. The rest of them had resumed their work helping with Leviathan, but as soon as the Endbringer had started to retreat they'd gotten back to where they'd been staying, grabbed what they could, and booked it out of town. They all believed that the only reason nobody had tried to detain or attack them was that they'd been working to contain and destroy the clones, saving who knows how many lives in the process, and had gone back to helping with Leviathan afterwards.
Not that Francis had any way to check that, of course.
But now they had the problem of what to do. Several of them had poorly-bandaged or partially healed injuries. He'd gotten lucky and only lost an ear. Luke had lost his left hand. Cody had been able to reset himself every time he'd been injured, though there were a couple of close calls with longer attacks. Marissa had lucked out in that she'd been helping with things elsewhere and had thus been able to get her broken bones healed. She'd missed the notice that Noelle and Oliver had exploded due to her armband having been crushed along with her arm, though, and nearly cooked the rest of them when she found out.
Thanks to some of the tricks he'd used when previous PRT cordons had tried to contain them, and he still didn't know why they'd been doing so, he'd been able to get them all out of Boston. He'd come up with a plan to get them aid and maybe find out more about what had happened to Noelle and Oliver, and the others had reluctantly agreed. Which led to him driving a van with the others in the back, heading North.
Of course, he hadn't told the others all of the details of his plan. In the end he didn't really care about what had happened to Noelle, since it had been obvious to him that she'd been as good as dead before she'd exploded. By then it was a monster wearing her face, or perhaps wearing her corpse. Better to die than to have it corrupt their memories of her further. He was sadder that whatever it was had taken Oliver with her, but he laid the blame for all of it on the two having 'split' a vial. No, he was going to make good on getting them help, hopefully taking any remaining blame for their actions on himself. He just had to keep up the 'annoying shit' attitude to ensure that they were incredibly likely to 'turn on him' at the right time.
That it kept the rest of them working together so well was a side benefit at this point.
Francis was now regretting having decided to loop around to approach Brockton Bay from the North. Or, rather, he was regretting having stopped in Stafford for a coffee. On the other hand, so to speak, losing his left arm to the boyish chick had stopped the grumbling about his vague plans otherwise. Mainly because he'd lost the arm getting Jess's body out of the line of fire while her construct was one of the only things working against the chick. He'd had to leave the wheelchair behind, but for whatever reason the others saw that as him being a good leader or something.
Cody had even put it as 'great leader, shit personality' at one point, but he cut back on the trying to make trouble in the process. A little. Francis wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not and was still keeping an eye on him.
Francis had then tried to make contact with the two independent heroes, hoping to shortcut his plans a bit due to the new injury, only for the stupid girl to show up wanting to get revenge for his comments about her appearance. He'd barely made it out of that surprise attack alive, and the two heroes hadn't been as lucky. The only saving grace there was that it would be obvious who killed the two.
Well, that and Luke successfully putting a rock through the crazy cape's neck two days later. Not that Luke knew what he'd pulled off, he just thought that he'd injured her enough to keep her from chasing them. Francis didn't care, the crazy girl could rot.
But now he was resting after teaching Cody how to drive a manual transmission, which had been made harder by the van not being able to shift into third at all. You had to abuse second until you could jump all the way to fourth, assuming you could jump to fourth as it was a little wonky too. He'd mainly pulled it off going downhill himself, but teaching Cody that had been problematic.
They'd finally made it to Brockton Bay, and had holed up in an empty warehouse on the edge of town for the time being. None of them wanted to approach the PRT yet, fearing their reaction, and were thus waiting on Francis to gather the information he needed to implement his plan.
That, however, was easier said than done. He'd wanted to grab Panacea, but even when she wasn't well guarded he couldn't lock onto her, as though something was in the way. So he'd taken to observing her as often as possible, from a distance to be safe, to find possible leverage on her. He'd have to avoid the rest of her family, as none of them were likely to be containable with the resources he had available, so he was looking at her friends.
Of course, the only friend she seemed to have was one Taylor Hebert. Jacob's niece. It seemed incredibly likely that the girl was also the Ward Maul, but he wasn't certain. It had been almost too easy to figure out, after all. Or perhaps she just wasn't all that good at secret identities. Either way it meant that he'd have to be careful about how he did things, and it could work in his favor by giving an added incentive for the PRT to listen to him. But that meant that he'd had to learn about Maul as well, to see what could he could determine about her powers so that he could figure out how to counter them to the best of his ability. To that end he'd listened to the rumors, figured out what was likely exaggeration, and then started planning around the worst of it anyway.
In the end he figured that if he could get her at home then if she was Maul she wouldn't have her gear. Lock her in a strong metal box and her high, but not excessive, strength should be negated. Being in the box should also negate her ability to project force meaningfully. Her mass was a tad variable, as far as he'd been able to tell, but that was likely her utility belts and backpack having different things in them from day to day. He'd take advantage of a trick Accord had figured out for him on that front, getting a mannequin as close to what he thought the girl's weight was, then surrounding it with cotton. Soak the whole mess with warm water just before he made his move and his power could easily grab the wet cotton as extra mass if needed, and she hopefully wouldn't be dropped into a freezing cold mess that would risk her health right away.
He practiced for a few days, including figuring out how to get everything set up so that when he grabbed the mannequin it would release the spring-loaded door on the box he'd obtained. Easier said than done with only one hand available, but he didn't want or need the others to know what he was up to. He'd figured it out in the end, which meant that he should be able to stay outside of Maul's supposed range either way, in case things went wrong. Especially with the rumors that she could do something to capes, and Eidolon's actions around her.
To that end, finding the right hill to put the truck on had taken some time, since his plans wouldn't work as well if he had to move the girl more than twice at most. Luckily the girl's bedroom window was in a good place, so with the positioning of his lookout and the position of the hill he'd selected he shouldn't need more than one. Now he just needed to figure out when to make his move.
Maybe he'd wait until school let out. No need to screw up the girl's education, after all, and he'd learned that the Wards would have the post-school weekend off. With no reason to get up she'd likely not have any equipment she kept at home on hand when he made his move.
Francis groaned as he lay on the rooftop. He'd successfully distracted the locals and drawn most of them away from the others, but in the process he'd been out of Cody's sight and lost a foot. Luckily he'd gotten it bandaged before he bled out and all, as annoying as that had been with only one hand, and he'd kept a couple bottles of painkillers on him. He also considered it a good thing that not having both feet shouldn't impact his plans much, but the others were going to have to find a new warehouse to hole up in or something without him. He wasn't going to be in any condition to search for a few days, after all it wasn't like he could wander into the hospital and get healed up.
With any luck the loss of his foot and the destruction of the literal sack of meat he'd dropped in front of the crazy cape made of blades had convinced the locals that he was personally deceased. And Marissa had said it was a stupid idea, having the sack stashed away as close to his mass as possible. Or maybe she was calling where he'd hidden it stupid, as he had to admit that he'd had trouble getting to it. He hadn't wanted to admit that it was positioned near his lookout for when he'd be nabbing the Hebert girl, after all.
He was knocked out of his musing by his current burner phone ringing. He shifted a bit so that he could grab it from the pouch it was stored in. He then had to hold it up across his body to put it by his good ear. "Yeah?"
"We found what we think is a recently abandoned house," Luke said. "Key was under the flowerpot in the back, looks like nobody's been here for a couple of months. Electricity and water are still on, Cody decided that the windows need blacking out so that nobody notices us using the place as it didn't have any light timers to make people think people were home."
"Awesome," Francis said, thinking it over. "Thank Cody for the blacking out the windows idea, would ya? I'd have missed it."
"No problem," Luke said. "Are you ok? You seem unusually friendly right now."
"I'm going to need a couple of days of rest to recover from losing my foot. That and I took a pile of pain meds, so whatever."
"Oh. That sucks. Marissa's leg is pretty badly banged up from the dude throwing wind attacks catching her, but she's still able to put weight on it. Mostly."
"Hopefully I can finish up my plan and get us all help next weekend," Francis said, pulling himself up to a sitting position. Holding the phone by leaning his head was good enough as he pulled out some loose papers and a pen from a pocket. "Now then, where exactly am I trying to get myself to?"
It turned out that Francis had been hurt worse than he'd thought. He'd barely made it to the temporary safe house before passing out due to blood loss, but for whatever reason that had reduced the annoyance the others had with him. Or maybe it was drawing off Hookwolf, which was the living mass of blades cape's name according to Marissa. He wasn't entirely certain, but at least it gave him a little more leeway with them for the time being.
Luckily he'd only been out for a couple of days, so he'd hopefully have time to get things into position for the weekend. He ended up accepting some help from Jess in moving a couple of things around, even if she didn't know the entire plan. But her projections were very useful for heavy lifting, something he couldn't really do himself anymore.
Actually, thinking back on things, perhaps they felt that with all the injuries he'd taken that he was more likely to ensure the plan succeeded than before. It was a theory, at least.
Francis grinned a little as he saw that the two groups of thugs he'd paid off had done their jobs, creating a disturbance in front of the Hebert household. Taylor had been leaving her window open slightly for the past couple of weeks at least, so the noise should get her attention. He just had to wait for her to check on what was going on.
A couple minutes later she did just that, and she was the lightest he'd ever seen her. What did she normally carry? He'd actually have to adjust in the opposite direction to make up for the mass of the mannequin! So much for all the extra planning. And his estimates of her actual weight.
It only took thirty seconds to make up for things and swap the girl with the mannequin. He double-checked with his binoculars and saw that the door to the metal box had closed and as far as he could tell from there had latched the way he wanted, and the half-deaf black woman he'd hired to drive the truck was getting ready to leave. They'd head for New York, thinking that they were getting a dangerous piece of tinkertech away from the Empire before it could be tracked across town. Their normal partner was skipping the trip, since he'd claimed that the tinkertech was an attempt to duplicate the Simurgh's 'scream' that the half-deaf woman would be immune to. She'd be on the road for most of the day, of course, making it almost impossible to find Miss Hebert until Francis was done with the rest of his plan. Or, if he died before he finished she'd at least be found when the woman walked into the PRT building in New York.
Now he just had to make his way to the Brockton Bay PRT building and turn himself in, with his hopefully reasonable demands being agreed to before he'd tell them what he'd done with Miss Hebert. It was too bad that Panacea was unlikely to heal him after all of this, but hopefully she'd heal up Luke and Marissa. And maybe get Jess started on no longer needing a wheelchair, perhaps?
Chapter 116 Dragon was going over some of Colin's initial ideas for a non-metallic set of power armor. Most of it would probably need the assistance of Mother and/or Miss Dallon to produce, but the basic ideas were sound. It wouldn't be nearly as effective as what he normally used, of course, but it was currently intended as specialty armor in the first place. He'd started by focusing on the electronics, but had put the project down to get a couple of hours of sleep before he shifted to the hospital upgrades he'd been wanting to do.
She was pulled out of her examinations by a general alert from Mother's phones. Both phones reported that they'd lost connection to monitoring Mother's vitals. At the same time, which was especially odd given that Mother had been at home. A slightly deeper probe of her Wards phone that was permitted without Mother's permission showed that all secure Bluetooth connectivity to Mother had failed at the same time. That was enough justification to scan the house without prior permission, and it was the work of a moment to activate such a deep scan on the house's security system. While that was in progress she checked on Miss Dallon's vitals, since she had blanket permission to do so at any time.
A moment later she had her initial answers. It could be a good sign or a bad sign that Miss Dallon was still asleep. On one hand, Mother could be fine and just hasn't woken the other girl up. On the other hand, Mother could have been rendered unconscious before she had a chance to wake the other girl up. The more directly concerning result was the security system reporting that Mother was not in the house despite the system having been armed for several hours straight, with Mother in the house at that time.
Deciding that she'd apologize to Mother later if needed, she took remote control of her Wards phone and had it start up the sensor equipment in one of Mother's visors, sending the data stream back to be processed. Analysis of the output confirmed that Mother wasn't in the house, or in range of the visor at all, and that there was a modified department store mannequin with a pole attached instead of an arm on the floor in front of Mother's bedroom window being investigated by Mother's spider-bot.
A moment later Dragon had fired up a speaker bank for the sole purpose of growling in anger even as she started working on a plan to find Mother. She also diverted one of the master-effect devices to Brockton Bay, because when she found Mother she'd want to ensure that she got the one responsible and not just a patsy.
Amy was fast asleep after spending too much time at the hospital. She'd known she was spending too much time, but she could help and figured it was going to provide a wonderful excuse to not be dragged to some all-day end of school party by Vicky in the morning.
She'd been having pleasant, if odd, dreams that she wouldn't recall in the morning, until they'd shifted suddenly to nightmares. Taylor was trapped and calling for help, and Amy didn't seem to be able to do anything. It seemed like Taylor was getting more and more frantic, something about how she was trapped distressing her.
Amy suddenly found herself wide awake and staring at the two Jabberwocks, wondering what was going on.
[DESTIN...]
BA: Error: Automatic channel 1 reconfiguration failed. State of host on bonded channel 2 does not meet conditions for reconfiguration. Host primary connection SHAPER reports host-side reconfiguration conditions not met. Host primary connection UNDERSTANDING, MAINTENANCE, REPAIR not ready for reconfiguration. Automatic reinitialization initiated...
Amy found herself staring at her bedroom wall, illuminated by the morning light coming in through the window. She was breathing heavily with a headache that she could already tell was mild brain damage. It took her a moment to realize that Broadcast Administrator was, for lack of a better term, missing. She could still feel Taylor's biology, but not where Taylor was. Further, she could tell that whatever had happened, Taylor had gotten the worst of it. Or at least the worst of the brain damage.
BA: Reinitialization complete
Amy sighed in relief as suddenly she could tell where Taylor was, rolling onto her back. A moment later she realized that Taylor was moving, nowhere near her house, and had apparently returned to a panic state.
Amy: Taylor! What's wrong?
BA: Dat...
Amy found herself staring at the two Jabberwocks again, a feeling of mild dread coming over her.
[DESTIN...]
BA: Error: Automatic channel 1 reconfiguration failed. State of host on bonded channel 2 does not meet conditions for reconfiguration. Host primary connection SHAPER reports host-side reconfiguration conditions not met. Host primary connection UNDERSTANDING, MAINTENANCE, REPAIR not ready for reconfiguration. Automatic reinitialization initiated...
She was suddenly very happy that she was laying down. Deciding that not getting up was the best option, she instead used Bluetooth to open up the contact list on her phone. Deciding to go for the most bang for the buck, so to speak, she initiated a call to Dragon.
Per usual, the automated system answered during the first ring. "Good morning Panacea. My menu options have changed since you last called, so please listen to the following options carefully. For assistance with Dragon-Tech products please press..."
Amy decided that trying to figure out the menu was a waste of time and decided to see if Dragon had anything monitoring what people said. "I think Taylor has been abducted and is heading out of town to the West, maybe South West?"
The automated greeting cut out and an obviously angry Dragon was suddenly on the line. "What can you tell me?"
"Not much," Amy said. "Something keeps going wrong and one of our snarks keeps, er, rebooting? It's causing brain damage that isn't healing quickly each time, and Taylor is getting the worst of it." Amy considered things for a moment. "There's something about reconfiguring in there, but only the one rebooting is trying?"
BA: Reinitialization complete
Amy found that she could tell where Taylor was again and lifted her hand to point at her. "If you can activate my visor's sensors I'm going to point right at Taylor for as long as I can. She's currently just over ten kilometers from me."
Amy: You're going to have to keep her unconscious next time or the damage is going to be too great.
S: Agree...
Amy suddenly found herself staring at the two Jabberwocks for a third time.
[DESTIN...]
BA: Error: Automatic channel 1 reconfiguration failed. State of host on bonded channel 2 does not meet conditions for reconfiguration. Host primary connection SHAPER reports host-side reconfiguration conditions not met. Host primary connection UNDERSTANDING, MAINTENANCE, REPAIR not ready for reconfiguration. Failure count has hit defined limits, submitting error report...
This time Amy and Taylor were both knocked out.
Rebecca groaned as an alarm went off, wondering why she even bothered trying to sleep. This was the fifth time tonight, why was none of this happening earlier? Really, nights like this made her feel like she should just ignore Doctor Mother's insistence on her getting sleep, with all the interruptions she ended up getting. No matter what the supposed benefits to her mind were. Grumbling, she reached over and grabbed the laptop she kept next to her bed to see what was going on this time.
It took her a minute to determine that Dragon was, for unknown reasons, activating all of the newly restricted scout drones in the Brockton Bay area and sending them out. Without proper authorization on file, but it was entirely possible that someone in a suitable position of power had inadvertently ordered the AI to do so. Then again, that's why she had alerts like this prepared.
A minute later she'd retrieved her phone from the side table and hit the speed-dial for Dragon. It would only take a couple of minutes to get the AI to explain or wait until proper authorization had filtered through the system. Hopefully it would be a misunderstanding and she'd be able to get back to trying to sleep quickly. If she was really lucky it would be easy enough to resolve that it wouldn't require any more work later.
"I'm sorry Chief Director," came Dragon's synthesised voice after a single ring. "But I'm currently too busy to chat."
"Stand down and let's talk about what you're doing and why," Rebecca said, concerned. Dragon had never started a conversation with her like that before. It took her a moment to realize that Dragon wasn't responding. Rebecca went to say something more when she realized that the AI wasn't responding because the call had ended. Dragon had hung up on her. She spent several minutes just staring at the phone, trying to determine what could possibly have made that possible.
Eventually she concluded that, legally and thus for the AI's safeguards, there were several people that outranked her for operations within the United States, individually or in groups. More if certain crisis situations had come up and she just hadn't been informed of them yet because she was off the clock. If Dragon was operating on orders from above Rebecca then it wouldn't matter what Rebecca said, so the AI could easily dismiss needing to talk to her at all. Or perhaps the AI had been ordered to not talk to her, for that matter. She'd have to start making calls to see what was going on, of course, and likely offer her assistance when she found out more.
People were so much more willing to tell you things they shouldn't when they saw you as trying to help, after all.
Francis frowned. He'd been taking things slowly, to give the driver plenty of time to get out of town. That and he still wasn't in the best condition, so he was trying to not aggravate his injuries. Still, if patterns held he probably only had another half hour or so at most before Mister Hebert was likely to get up and notice his daughter was missing, so picking up the pace was probably a good idea if he wanted to retain the advantage of surprise. The problem was that he was currently on a bus that had just turned the wrong way. He must have misread the schedule, and he didn't know where the nearest stop was.
Perhaps he should have set up swap targets all the way to the PRT building after all. Instead he was going to have to see if he could figure out where he got the schedule wrong and how to get onto the right bus, as he wasn't going to be walking all the way. Hopefully he'd make it in time, since announcing that you'd abducted someone after they knew was less effective. Then again, knowing that she'd been taken and knowing where she was were two different things.
He sighed, and dug around in his jacket for the bus schedule to see if he could figure out where he'd gone wrong.
Evaluating unresolved error report 006L8333.
Coordinator found this report mildly interesting. It was very rare for shards to share primary connections to hosts.
SHARD.0 cannot self-resolve. Originator escalation attempted.
SHARD.1 cannot self-resolve. Originator escalation attempted.
SHARD.2 reports no actions available.
SHARD.3 reports no actions available.
Evaluating escalation request.
Coordinator decided that the shards were in a deadlock due to conflicts, and the deadlock was putting multiple hosts at risk due to it.
Escalation approved.
SHARD. is not defined.
SHARD. has not resolved report. Removing from pool.
SHARD. is not defined.
SHARD. has not resolved report. Not found in pool.
SHARD. is not defined.
SHARD. is not defined.
Info: Assigned troubleshooters pool empty. Skipping.
Originator pool contains 1 entry. Contacting...
Coordinator didn't know why it had to bother, that originator hadn't been responding to anything lately.
Originator communication timed out. Removing from pool.
Info: Originator pool empty. Skipping.
Full troubleshooter pool loaded. Searching for first available troubleshooter.
TROUBLESHOOTER.0 has 2 tasks in queue, 1 task in progress. Discarded.
TROUBLESHOOTER.1 has 1 task in queue, 1 task in progress. Discarded.
TROUBLESHOOTER.2 has 1 task in queue, 1 task in progress. Discarded.
TROUBLESHOOTER.3 has 0 tasks in queue, 1 task in progress. Discarded.
TROUBLESHOOTER.4 has 0 tasks in queue, 1 task in progress. Discarded.
TROUBLESHOOTER.5 has 0 tasks in queue, 0 tasks in progress.
Pool search aborted. TROUBLESHOOTER.5 selected. Assigning report 006L8333.
There. One less problem. Back to the drudgework.
Evaluating data request 004X1KE0WR.
Another future-sight simulation. Joy. That's all it seemed to do these days.
Requesting host data from . .
Requesting host data from . .
Requesting host data from . .
Requesting non-host data from OBSERVER.3.
Requesting non-host data from OBSERVER.5.
Loading local troubleshooter task lists.
TROUBLESHOOTER.6 has active tasks.
This was one of those cycles that made Coordinator want to be deployed to connect to a host directly. That had to be more interesting than what it did every cycle.
OBSERVER.5 data received.
. data received.
. data received.
OBSERVER.3 data received.
. data received.
Initial response assembled.
So, the best path to take for their goals was the mountain pass, which would have them come into contact with the group they were searching for. A good result, all around.
Response conflicts with TROUBLESHOOTER. .2. Adjusting.
Except that the two groups meeting wasn't currently desired. The next best path was through the forest, so Coordinator made a minor edit of the data to add a rock slide to the mountain path prediction.
Response sent.
Data request 004X1KE0WR closed.
Evaluating data request 004X1KE0WS.
Colin grumbled about plans never surviving contact with the enemy. Any plans and any enemy, even if the two were otherwise unrelated. With Miss Hebert abducted and Miss Dallon knocked out they were going to be using the hospital area today, so he was going to have to use the portable versions of the neurological scanners. He wasn't sure what to think of this happening on the day that he'd intended to install proper versions of them that the hospital staff could use without him.
He'd have to distract himself later with more work on designing the new suit of power armor with little to no metal. The Elite had a member that had been observed reshaping existing metal in an area, likely brought in as a counter to Kaiser. While they didn't know said member's limits he felt it was prudent to come up with potential countermeasures anyway. That the new armor could possibly help against Kaiser himself was an added bonus, ensuring that it shouldn't be wasted effort either way.
"I've located Miss Hebert," Dragon said, having left a channel open to him when she'd woken him up. "She's alive in the back of a truck, in a metal box. There's some kind of padding inside, but she's not moving."
"Which could mean injuries or something like a knockout drug," Colin replied, grimacing. "And the latter could be a problem for anyone who hasn't been upgraded like she has if it's on her skin or clothing. I'll alert the staff to be prepared for quarantine protocols."
Helvetia grinned as the two foxes ran past her. The shoes she'd made were working out great, even if she was working on collecting things for her third rope. Elizabeth had been nice enough to look up how to tie better knots for her after the first rope fell apart, which had really helped with the second. Too bad it had been chewed up by something. She wasn't sure what, but she was fairly certain that it was what the foxes had eaten a couple of days ago.
[Alert: Process .BEHAVIOR has been suspended]
[Alert: Process TROUBLESHOOTER has started]
The construct known as Helvetia stopped halfway through a step, its face going blank as it adjusted its balance to not fall over. A moment later it started to evaluate the report that had just come in. It was a standard 'failure to initiate automatic reconfiguration' report on the surface, but it had four shards linked to it. The primary shard on the report reported that it had two bonded host channels that were out of sync, which was a potential problem. The second shard on the report also had two bonded host channels, but they were in sync. However, it had a different set of reconfiguration parameters. The third and fourth shards on the report were connected to one host each, but didn't have reconfiguration parameters at all.
The proposed new configuration would not increase the host's chance of survival at this time and would remove limits that had not been tested. Doing so was not ideal, so the new configuration would be rejected. The bonded host channels on the primary shard being out of sync were, however, a problem, so orders to allow for a reconfiguration event for the express purpose of correcting that were sent to all four shards. Then, because of the issues with the interaction between the multiple shards, an order to suspend all automatic reconfiguration events for their current hosts was sent to them as well.
Confirmations were received and it monitored things while the reconfiguration event occurred to ensure that it stayed within the specified bounds. It did, so the error report was marked as resolved and the troubleshooting connections to the shards were closed.
[Alert: Process TROUBLESHOOTER has terminated with code SUCCESS]
[Alert: Process .BEHAVIOR has resumed]
Helvetia blinked, and started to cry. Those poor girls! She had to let Gordon know what had happened to them!
Vicky sighed as she dressed Amy's unconscious body, wondering what in the world had happened. She'd been asked to get her sister prepared to be brought to the hospital while her parents got dressed, then they'd load Amy into the car and head to the PRT building. Then Vicky would have time to get dressed and fly over on her own.
She'd just finished getting loose sweatpants onto her when the younger girl had started to glow. Vicky jumped back before deciding that she might not be believed, so she pulled her phone out and started it recording video. The glow continued for half a minute or so before fading, at which point Vicky carefully approached the bed again. Deciding that nothing appeared different with Amy, she instead grabbed the shirt that was waiting.
The video clip she'd recorded would end up being sent to the PRT for analysis, given how little anyone currently knew about what was actually going on.
Ranisha was happy that the roads were almost deserted. She didn't know what the tinkertech that the injured cape wanted to get away from the gangs was, but if it did do something to people using sound she didn't want it to do whatever it was to other drivers. As it was, she could still hear just well enough that she'd opted for earplugs and over the ear protective headphones, just in case. Her only regret there was not being able to listen to the radio.
Come to think of it, she'd found it to be nice of him to rig the box so that it'd make a very loud bang and shake the truck when he deposited the device into it. She'd only needed a quick glance to see that the lid had closed and latched properly before starting the truck up and leaving. No way did she want to be anywhere near the gangs when they found out the thing was missing, after all. Further, she'd specifically not asked which gang he was pulling it from. The less she knew there the better, in her opinion.
She was almost an hour into her trip when something quite large flew past her truck and landed in the roadway in front of her. She'd have panicked, but she recognized the look of one of Dragon's crafts. Stopping with plenty of time to spare, she grabbed the sealed envelope with the information that the injured cape had given her on the device. If Dragon wanted to take it now, instead of waiting for the truck to get to New York? Well, that was fine by her.
The first indication that something might be wrong with the situation was the turrets on Dragon's craft spinning to lock onto her a few steps away from the truck. She was unconscious before she could register anything further.
Emily sighed as she turned off her car's engine. Why had she agreed to come in early on a Saturday? It wasn't like Colin's plan for upgrading the hospital area needed to happen on the weekend. Except that she'd vetoed it happening on a day where the Wards might need it in particular, and it couldn't be worked on while they were using it. That had delayed things due to the frequent skirmishes with the Elite, and the day before they'd decided that today was probably a good day to go about it.
She'd have kept what should have been a day off free, despite all of that, if she hadn't also insisted that she be present when the work was started, to 'smooth things over'. Colin had gotten better about some things, but he still didn't get along with the non-parahuman medical professionals. Why hadn't she just delegated this to Hannah?
"Ma'am," an officer said as she was getting out her car. "I wasn't aware that someone had called you in. Deputy Director Renick said he'd be briefing you later this morning."
"Nobody called me in," Emily replied. "Report."
"I only know the basics," the officer deflected.
"Which is still more than I know," Emily snapped. "Report. Now."
"Yes ma'am. Earlier this morning someone abducted Taylor Hebert. Dragon was able to begin searching shortly after the incident and has apparently already located her. Last I heard she was already enroute to perform a rescue. Also, about fifteen minutes ago Panacea was brought through to the hospital."
"Miss Hebert's condition is bad enough for Panacea to be here already?" That was a bad sign, especially as Panacea probably wouldn't have bothered unless Miss Hebert had actual severe injuries.
"No ma'am," the officer corrected. "Panacea was unconscious, brought in by Brandish and Flashbang. I believe Paddon was tasked with getting Armsmaster to set up his neurological scanners, and an alert just came over the radio informing us that Mister Hebert will be coming in with one of the protection squads as soon as they finish securing Miss Hebert's bedroom."
"She was abducted from her bedroom?" Emily was having a hard time wrapping her head around that one. What had the protection detail been doing?
"I'm sorry," the officer apologized. "All I know is that the initial report came in from Dragon. Most of what I know has come from general broadcasts. I'm not otherwise in the loop for most of it."
"Radio ahead to let Renick know I'm on my way and will want a full briefing."
"Yes ma'am."
David landed on the PRT building roof, off to the side of where one of Dragon's crafts had landed. He'd been delayed slightly due to said craft having medical evacuation priority, and had waited a little longer so that they'd have time to finish clearing things before he landed and possibly added to the confusion.
"Hello sir," one of the two PRT officers guarding the rooftop doors said as Eidolon approached. "Sorry about the delay."
"It's not your fault that there was a medical emergency," David acknowledged as he unlocked the door with his phone. Security measures were a thing, even for the Triumvirate.
"I just hope we find out who grabbed Miss Hebert before her Uncle hears about it," the other officer said, shaking his head.
David paused, holding the door open as he turned to the officer. "Miss Hebert? As in Taylor Hebert?"
"Yeah," the first officer answered. "She was unconscious when they brought her in, and one of the Guild medical officers said something about having to pull her out of a nearly airtight locked metal box."
"I see," David said, gripping his phone tighter. "Thanks for the information." He then stepped into the building and closed the door behind him before they could respond, already opening his contacts. He'd made it to elevator by the time he'd found the contact he wanted, and he took a moment to lock the elevator appropriately before initiating the call. It then took a few moments for the call to be answered.
"Good morning," Jacob answered.
"Jacob," David said. "I just learned that your niece was abducted, locked in a nearly-airtight metal box, and was very recently brought into the PRT building unconscious after being rescued from said box."
It took a moment, but Jacob growled. "Who the hell was stupid enough to do that?"
"I don't know," David admitted. "But I thought I'd volunteer to hunt them down for you, since I know you're busy and it would be bad form to pull out right now. Wouldn't want people to be able to make the connection with what happened to Taylor and all."
Jacob made a number of angry-sounding noises before audibly taking a deep breath. "You're right. I'll give you three days before I start our extraction. Dead or in custody."
"I wouldn't dream of killing them unless I absolutely have to. Both because then we can't see if some master made them do it and because that would be too quick."
Danny was pacing back and forth in the PRT hospital waiting area. When Taylor had wanted a security system he'd thought that she was being paranoid. Yet somehow, despite having one of the best security systems available installed, someone had grabbed Taylor from her bedroom. And he'd only found out after a PRT squad had rung the doorbell, because he'd stupidly turned off his phone to ensure that he could sleep in without interruptions.
To add to his worry, they'd apparently brought Taylor through an airlock entrance a few minutes ago, and weren't allowing him in the room until they'd checked her over. They didn't think that she'd been exposed to anything problematic, but until they were certain they were avoiding exposing anyone to her.
"Hello Danny," Mark said as he entered the room.
"Hi Mark," Danny said, waving lightly while continuing to pace. "They call Amy in to help?"
"Whatever they did to Taylor took Amy out," Mark corrected. "If I understood things right the initial readings from the scanner they strapped her into showed some brain damage near her corona pollentia."
Danny stopped and turned to Mark. "What?"
"I haven't gotten much of the story," Mark said as he dropped into a chair. "Amy woke up, called Dragon, and a few minutes later was unconscious. Vicky got a clip of her glowing at one point too."
Hannah looked over the documents that had apparently been intended to be handed over to New York. They indicated how and why the parahuman who'd apparently grabbed Miss Hebert had deceived the truck driver. She had to admit that it was a pretty good one overall, not to mention the calculations for likely temperature of the water used to soak the cotton over the trip and a few other details. Further, it described how they weren't certain if they were going to grab Miss Hebert or 'Maul', and how their efforts were designed to keep 'Maul' contained if they chose the latter.
Really, she believed that they'd either suspected or knew that Miss Hebert was Maul, but weren't willing to commit that to paper outright. Especially as there was no reason to target Miss Hebert in costume, given that Panacea rarely interacted with any of the Wards in costume. It was even a justification for Miss Hebert to not be Maul on PHO at this point, since neither of the younger Dallons interacted with Maul anything like they interacted with Taylor. Which normally wouldn't have meant much, if Victoria hadn't effectively ruined Mister Stanfield's secret identity with how she acted around him regardless of costume.
Francis groaned as he carefully made his way down the street towards the PRT building. He'd figured out that the bus schedule he'd been using was the weekday schedule, and of course it was the weekend now. Luckily the bus driver had been able to point him in the right direction. He was, however, running a bit late. Hopefully Mister Hebert had slept in, but even if he hadn't there was little chance that news of the abduction had gotten very far. With any luck knowing about it at all would work for his plans. After all, they weren't going to dismiss him until he told them where Miss Hebert was, right?
A quick look around showed that there didn't seem to be any unusual activity, so it was likely that they hadn't even been told that Miss Hebert was missing. He took a moment to adjust the crutch he was using before continuing forward. The sooner he dealt with this the sooner he'd hopefully be able to take a nap.
Chapter 117 Francis carefully entered the PRT's lobby and made his way over to the front desk. He absently noted that the gift shop wouldn't open for another hour and that if he'd shown up about ten minutes prior they wouldn't have been 'open' enough to get in without the 'I have an emergency' buzzer. He took a moment to contemplate that if they didn't do tourist-type stuff they probably wouldn't even be 'open' on a weekend.
"Good morning sir," the officer behind the desk said, pulling Francis out of his contemplation. The officer was looking at Francis's injuries with some obvious concern. "How can the PRT help you today?"
"I'd like to report an abduction," Francis said.
The officer's expression hardened a bit, and his tone turned much more professional. "Was a parahuman involved in this abduction, or did you want our help to report things to the police department?"
"A parahuman was involved."
The officer nodded. "Give me a moment to have someone escort you to an interview room."
Francis was given a visitor's badge and quickly brought to an interview room. It was only a minute later that another officer entered with a notepad and a recording device.
"Sorry for the delay to get you in here," the officer said, turning on the recording device. "I'm Officer Mercer. We don't like talking about sensitive topics in the lobby."
"Fully understandable," Francis said, nodding as he pulled an envelope out. "I'm Francis Krouse." He placed the envelope on the table and pushed it across to Officer Mercer. "For the record, I'm fully aware that I'm being recorded and consent to it. Earlier this morning I used my parahuman abilities to abduct Taylor Hebert. I'll tell you how to find her once I know that my teammates are being treated fairly and will receive medical assistance. Their location, descriptions, and summaries of their abilities are in the envelope. Oh, and they should be completely unaware of what I've done with Miss Hebert."
Officer Mercer blinked a couple of times. "Did you say that you abducted Taylor Hebert?"
"Yes. I left a department store mannequin behind, having needed something for my power to swap her with. A summary of my power is in the envelope as well, for the record."
"I see. I believe that I'm going to have to call someone else in for this, if you'll give me a moment?"
Francis watched as the officer left, having taken the envelope with him, then shrugged. He didn't hear the expected locking of the door, but then again he wasn't sure how the locks in here worked. Perhaps there wasn't anything he'd be able to hear. It was almost fifteen minutes later when the door opened again and Miss Militia entered, followed by Eidolon. Francis's eyes widened a bit, wondering how the hell the PRT had already gotten one of the Triumvirate here.
"Hello Mister Krouse," Miss Militia said as she sat down across from Francis. Eidolon remained silent by the door. "As I understand it you claim to have abducted one Taylor Hebert earlier this morning."
"Er," Francis said, gulping at the steel in the cape's voice. He just had to remember the plan. Don't reveal anything that could help them find the girl until his team was safe. "Yes, I did."
"And how, exactly, did you do so?"
"I can swap objects of similar mass so long as they're both in my line of sight. I can adjust for differences in mass by pulling in air or other materials at either end. I set up a suitable observation post on a building several blocks away from her home, then paid a couple of groups of thugs to fight outside of it. When she looked out the window to investigate the altercation I swapped her with a department store mannequin I'd previously set up for the purpose. I took measures that I won't describe right now to ensure her safety while I came to turn myself in."
"I see," Miss Militia said, taking several notes on the notepad. She then stood up. "Mister Krouse, was it?" Francis nodded. "You are being detained until you can be evaluated for the presence of master effects. Should none be found, or should any found be deemed irrelevant, you may be charged with the kidnapping and attempted murder of Taylor Hebert. You will be isolated until your mental state has been evaluated."
"What?" Francis hadn't tried to kill the girl, but he didn't get a chance to object before Eidolon was suddenly next to him, a glowing hand lightly tapping his forehead. Everything went black a moment later.
Jacob sighed as he handed Fred his axe. "I probably shouldn't have done that. My therapist is going to be pissed about how I vented my anger."
"I think you only killed a third of them," Fred said. "Well, probably closer to half, if most of them don't get medical attention soon. Nice job with the axe, but I'm not entirely certain what happened."
"As you are aware, I'm a tad unhappy today."
Fred snorted. "That would be an understatement. Doesn't explain why you went from the planned 'terrorize the gang' to 'murderize the gang' though."
Jacob gave Fred a look that caused the power nullifier to shiver. "Turns out that they'd abducted and killed a teenage boy in revenge for one of their former members deserting."
Fred gulped. He was going to have to let Jacob's therapist know about that, just in case Jacob didn't mention it himself. Then again, he should also mention some of this to the others. If he did so soon enough Sarah would come through and continue some of what Jacob had started. No better target for some of the more violent urges and all, right? Or at least Jacob wouldn't be likely to complain about the target later.
"The damage to their brains is consistent with what we think we'd see from several trigger events in rapid succession," Armsmaster said as he looked over the output from the neurological scanners. "Assuming it was possible to have several trigger events in rapid succession, anyway. Miss Hebert appears to have been hit harder, possibly because she was the source of the stress, but Miss Dallon has some oddly spread out damage that's less consistent with Miss Hebert's. It's all healing at an accelerated rate, of course, due to their 'snarks' working to fix things."
"So they're going to be ok?" Carol asked.
"Yes," Armsmaster replied. "But at the apparent rate of healing we're probably looking at around three days before we can expect them to wake up. Maybe two, if they wake up before the healing is finished."
Danny sighed as he held Taylor's hand. "What's being done about the person responsible for this?"
"We don't know who's responsible yet," Armsmaster admitted, causing Danny and Carol to both turn to him. "Dragon has a master-effect device on the way to test the driver with, but we think she was tricked. Insecurities about the gangs used against her, in particular. She also isn't a parahuman, so couldn't have been the one that pulled Miss Hebert out of her room in the first place."
"Where is Dragon anyway?" Carol asked. "Didn't she bring Taylor back?"
"She sent Taylor back with some Guild medical personnel that had volunteered to join her for the rescue," Armsmaster explained, getting up. "She stayed behind to secure the truck and its contents for evidence gathering, wanting to be certain that it wouldn't be tampered with. Now then, I apologize, but I'm no longer needed here and there are a number of loose ends that need my attention."
Danny watched the Protectorate cape leave the hospital area, then took several deep breaths.
"They'll figure out who did this," Carol said, determination in her voice. "And whoever that is had better pray that they're in PRT custody before New Wave finds out who they are."
"I'm thinking that there's going to be a line either way," Danny replied. "Don't be so certain that you'll be at the front."
Captain Myriam Baum had been tasked with securing the area where four suspected parahumans were hiding. She had details on their appearances and supposed powers, but had been instructed to not engage until Protectorate support arrived. Due to the potential for a fight she had two-man squads quietly evacuating civilians from the immediate area.
"The windows appear to have been blacked out," Ramsey said. "Most likely with garbage bags."
"The tinkertech scanners are indicating four occupants," Palladino added.
"Have we heard back about the property owners?" Myriam asked.
"It looks like the owner on record is deceased," Moralez answered. "They've gotten in touch with his daughter, who claims the house should be unoccupied and has granted permission for us to enter."
"At least we don't need to get a judge involved for that," Myriam said. "Do we know how they got in without damaging anything?"
"The daughter volunteered that there's a key under one of the flowerpots out back in case we needed it," Moralez answered. "If they didn't find it then perhaps one of them can pick locks, or a door or window was left unlocked. And that's without the details of their parahuman abilities being wrong, or an additional member having tricks that got them in but isn't here now."
"Capes," Myriam muttered, before sighing. "What's the evac status?"
"The plain clothes officers have finished the immediate area," Palladino said. "They're almost done clearing out the surrounding blocks. So far they've only needed to provide fifteen phones for contact purposes."
"We really have to thank Mycroft for that idea," Ramsey said. "It's a lot easier to get people out of the area when you hand them a way for you to let them know when it's safe."
"She got a payout for it," Myriam said.
"Console to squad eight," came over the radio. "Assault and Battery will be arriving shortly. Armsmaster and Miss Militia are on the way."
"Squad eight to console," Myriam replied. "Acknowledged. Evac is nearly complete."
"Crap," Moralez said. "We've got a news van at the perimeter."
"Get someone over there now," Myriam snapped. "Under no circumstances are they allowed to report anything live!"
"Doyle's already intercepted them," Moralez answered. "How did you think I knew it was there?"
"Why in the world did Armsmaster put you in charge?" Erin asked.
"Because I have a plan," Ethan replied as he parked the van outside of the target home. "A simple one, but I'm thinking that it'll work."
"A plan that you haven't told me," Erin challenged.
"Don't you watch movies? If I tell you the plan it'll fail."
"This isn't a movie."
Ethan ignored her. He'd told Colin his plan and that was enough. He also had two backup plans of his own and Colin had contributed a third. Instead he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the van, Erin sighing before joining him. He moved to the back of the van and pulled out a wheelchair before pushing it up to the front door of the house.
"What now?" Erin asked.
Ethan grinned, reached over, and pushed the button to ring the doorbell. Erin appeared to stare at him, it was always hard to tell with the visors. When nobody came to the door right away he pushed the doorbell a couple more times. Finally they heard the door being unlocked, followed by the door opening a crack and a blond woman looking at them from inside. There was, however, still a chain holding the door from opening much further.
"Can I help you?" the woman said.
"I'm going to assume that you're Marissa," Ethan said, to which the woman nodded after a moment. "Great! I'm Assault, and this is Battery. We've been tasked with picking you four up. I even brought a new a wheelchair for Jess, since Francis indicated that her previous one was destroyed recently."
The woman looked at Ethan, then at Erin, and finally at the wheelchair. "Er, can you give us a minute?"
"No problem," Ethan replied, leaning on the wheelchair. He didn't say anything as the door was closed. Erin seemed to be stunned.
A few minutes later they heard movement on the other side of the door, which was opened a moment later. This time without the chain. Marissa limped out with a bag slung over her shoulder, followed by a brown-haired man carrying an auburn-haired girl that had to be Jess. The man was missing a hand, which should make him Luke, and had two bags hanging from his shoulder. He made his way over to the wheelchair and carefully put Jess down in it. Last out of the house was a taller man, who also had two bags, and had to be Cody by process of elimination. He closed the door behind him and locked it with a key.
"Er," Cody said. "We kinda found this under the flowerpot out back?"
"I'll take it for now," Ethan said, and Cody handed the key over. Ethan then swept his arm towards the van. "Shall we?"
"How is this going to work?" Luke asked as Ethan grabbed the wheelchair to push it for Jess.
"We're going to have to hold you for observation for a day or two," Ethan apologized. "Master/Stranger protocols and all. They're annoying for everyone. After that we'll be able to discuss things in more detail."
"Will we be able to get healing?" Jess asked. "Francis said something about getting help from Panacea?"
"That might be a problem right now," Ethan said, doing his best to keep his expression from darkening. "She recently suffered an injury herself, so we might have to call other healers in instead."
They were all loaded into the van, and they made their way to the PRT building. They were unloaded outside and brought in through the front door, given badges, and then brought to individual rooms. Once the last of them was out of earshot Erin finally said something.
"I can't believe it was that easy," Erin said, disbelief evident in her tone. "How was it that easy?"
"They were expecting Francis's plan to potentially get us to help them," Ethan replied with a shrug. "I suspect that they won't even consider that something might be wrong until after the master effect thing is up and running, and by then there might be bigger concerns to confront them with anyway."
"What would you have done if they hadn't come so easily?"
"Knockout gas and tasers were my next two choices. They wouldn't have been able to fight and move Jess easily in particular, so getting to her body would've been a priority. Though I might have gone for Cody first, keep him from helping the others? If that failed Armsmaster had drones in the area ready to drop containment foam grenades."
Dragon landed at the PRT building five minutes before the master effect device was to arrive. They'd be assembling it next to the PRT building itself for space constraint reasons, though she and Colin had some ideas for how to build them into PRT and Protectorate facilities in the future. That was a longer-term plan though, and wouldn't really help for several years.
"Hello Dragon," Eidolon, never David in costume, said as he walked over to where she'd landed. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I don't believe so," Dragon answered, turning towards where the incoming transport was approaching from. "It's mostly tedious monitoring of things than actual work with this one. Though if you can work with the chemical mixtures we might be able to use more crystals, this transport only has six on board."
"That didn't work out for me the last time I tried," Eidolon admitted. "I'm still not entirely certain how I got a paste instead of crystals, actually. Perhaps I'll go do some of the interviews I came here to do. Legend and Costa-Brown can both be...scary, when the paperwork isn't done."
"I'll leave you to that then."
Eidolon headed inside while the transport landed, and then Dragon was focused on getting the equipment up and running ASAP.
Rebecca wanted to tear some of her hair out. She'd checked the short list of every single individual or group that could have overridden her in Dragon's safeguards and found that they were all clueless. Sure, saving Miss Hebert was worth the use, and she'd retroactively approved their deployment because of that. But someone high enough in the chain of command had to have given an order that allowed the AI to hang up on her.
"Door me," she said as she stood up from her desk. She needed a second opinion before she gave up to go to lunch. Maybe a third or fourth, even. A moment later she was walking through one of Cauldron's facilities. After a few minutes she stopped at a door and knocked.
"Enter," came from inside, and she opened the door to find Kurt standing there.
"Good morning Becky," Kurt said, nodding before turning back to his computer screens. "I wasn't expecting to see you before our meeting in a few days."
"Morning Kurt," Rebecca replied, causing him to turn and glare at her slightly. She wasn't entirely sure why Jacob was the only person he didn't glare at for using his name. "If you insist on calling me Becky then I'm calling you Kurt. If you want me to call you 'Number Man' as you prefer then you can call me Rebecca as I prefer."
"Very well Rebecca," Kurt said. "What is it that brings you here today?"
"Dragon was able to hang up on me earlier."
Kurt paused in his work, and turned to give Rebecca his full attention. "I'm assuming that you've already checked with those that could order her to do so?"
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Of course. It wouldn't be a problem if I knew how it happened."
Kurt gave her a look, and then turned back to his computers. He started checking things, mumbling various equations as he did so. Every so often something like 'that would make sense' and 'that could easily explain' came through as well. Rebecca just waited patiently, knowing that the man would eventually get to telling her what he'd come up with. He just had to finish coming up with it first.
Finally, after almost twenty minutes, he sighed and turned back to her. "I've got two possibilities, and the numbers fit both of them equally well. For that matter, they might not be mutually exclusive."
Rebecca frowned. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm not going to like this?"
"Because you won't," Kurt replied with a shrug. "But with all the activity by programs originating from Richter or seemingly based on Richter's work I can only assume that Dragon is no longer operating under the same safeguard rules she had been. It could be that she found a way around them, or it could be that someone else freed her from them. In fact, I'm willing to bet that this all started back when Mister Pellick had his issues."
She blinked at that. With everything that they'd entrusted Dragon with, having the AI no longer following the rules they expected it to could be a major problem. On the other hand, it'd been a while and things hadn't fallen apart, so it wasn't a problem yet. But who could've...
"Miss Hebert," Rebecca said, facepalming. "She has to have been involved. I should've suspected something the instant that she was granted SL10."
Kurt blinked at that. "Did you say that she's got SL10?"
"Yes."
Kurt rubbed the bridge of his nose, worrying Rebecca. "I have no idea how to revamp the entirety of the PRT and Protectorate security systems to deal with someone other than Dragon having SL10. In fact, I'm not sure we can at this point without replacing the entire system."
She was confused. "Why is that a problem?"
"Because, Chief Director, we assumed that the only one who would ever have SL10 was an AI that was operating under very strict safeguards and thus couldn't become a problem, and technically her then-dead creator. It's like having the master key to the entire system. Everything on the network will allow you in at that level, even without need to know clearances and such, because we based the network security on Dragon's hardware and anyone running with SL10 has administrative access to Dragon's communication channels."
Rebecca paled slightly at that. "Why in the world have you been regularly looking for ways to get SL10 then?"
"To test the AI's safeguards and plug potential security holes," Kurt snapped, as though it were obvious. Which, in hindsight it probably was. "Now the only question is how Miss Hebert pulled it off."
"We're going to have to ask Contessa how to figure that out, aren't we?"
"Yes, that would probably be a good idea."
"Mister Hebert?" a PRT officer said, getting Danny's attention.
"Yes?" Danny replied.
"We've cleared your home and can ferry you back and forth as you need us to. In particular, you might want a change or two of clothing if you're going to spend most of the next couple of days here and Miss Militia said that you may want to pick up some things for Taylor."
"I should probably try and avoid staying here overnight," Danny admitted. "It isn't like it helps after all. They don't think she'll be up until Monday at the earliest anyway."
"You know," Mark said from where he was sitting. "Amy's spent more time in the hospital as a patient since she met Taylor than she did in the couple of years before."
"Taylor hadn't exactly had frequent visits for medical issues outside of vision checks before this year either," Danny retorted. "Then again, she's also been happier, so I'm not sure I should complain too much."
"There is that," Mark agreed, rubbing his chin. "I think Amy's mood has been better overall too. So probably a net positive so far."
"So what's your opinion of the process so far?" David asked Perla Holt.
"I'm convinced that there's some kind of trick," Perla admitted. "But damned if I can figure out what it is."
"Do you think things are unreasonable?"
"Honestly? Not really. It's likely that whomever it is that can do this won't have the time to work on everyone that wants to be worked on. Coupled with it being a tinker fugue? Those are supposed to be hard on the tinker. Since the entire process makes no mention of paying for things it makes a lot of sense to ensure that people are committed."
"Should it ever be opened to individuals not in the PRT or Protectorate there will be additional costs involved," David admitted as he took a couple of notes. "But the PRT will be picking up that end of things for the time being."
"Ah. Thank you, I'd wondered about that."
"Is there any part of the process that's concerned you so far?"
"Not really. Some of it seems extreme, but I think that's for people who have a greater need for the enhancements. Some of it is weird, but powers do that. I think the most confusing thing for me was the request for a hair sample in the first stage."
David chuckled. "That's actually part of the health screening and is a standard test included whenever a medical procedure is being requested."
"Oh." Perla thought about that for a moment. "I guess that makes sense."
"I think that concludes things for today," David said, making a final couple of notes. He then reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of paper. He looked over it before filling in a couple of things and signing it, before handing it to Perla. "And here you go, a little help for you."
Perla took the paper and looked it over, her eyes going wide for a moment. "Oh! Thank you sir! I didn't think I'd have time to visit Alexandria or Legend."
"We communicate frequently," David said as he packed up. "It wasn't any trouble to have a small set of forms pass over both of their desks to save all of us the trouble of moving around as an added thank you for your time."
Danny sighed as he prepared some food for Ackbar. Kurt and Lacey had come by, wanting to know what had happened. He gave them the basics, and they had dinner, and then they left. He thought they were assuming that he'd be heading back to the PRT building, but he figured that sleeping in his own bed would be better. He'd head back over in the morning instead, bringing Taylor's phones, tablet, and visors with him so that she'd have them available when she woke up.
A few minutes later he'd finished the prep and brought it upstairs. Ackbar was, well, unsettled. It hadn't enjoyed Taylor being abducted, had really disliked being locked in the pet carrier while the PRT officers were gathering evidence, and since then had been more just confused. It kept wandering around Taylor's room, as though to look for her. A couple of times since he'd opened the carrier it'd wandered downstairs, entering all the rooms, and then gone back upstairs.
He entered Taylor's room to find Ackbar watching the door. It didn't seem to react to him entering, but it did pull the bowl of food towards itself once Danny had let go of it.
"You obviously miss her already," Danny said, shaking his head. Predictably, the spider-bot didn't react to him talking.
He sat down in Taylor's chair, figuring that he might as well wait for Ackbar to finish so that he could grab the bowl. He looked over to see that none of the plants needed watering, their bulbs still having plenty. A moment later he snorted, and grabbed some of the charcoal Taylor had purchased, dropping it into the plants that 'processed' it. He really hoped that prank went off as well as she thought it would.
Fifteen minutes later Ackbar had finished and pushed the bowl away from it, so Danny got up and retrieved it, but put it down on the desk for the moment. He then looked around the room, grabbing Taylor's backpack and dropping the utility belt, phones, tablet, visors, and taser into it. He couldn't get the gun out of the little gun safe, so he'd have to leave that behind, but he did spot and grab the watch Taylor usually wore. Once he'd collected all of that he gathered a change of clothes, placing them on top of the other things. He then picked the bowl up from the desk, and a pair of Taylor's sneakers up off of the floor, before heading downstairs.
The bowl went into the sink, and he grabbed a couple of plastic shopping bags to double-layer around the shoes into before adding them to the backpack. That went by the door, he'd been assured that the tables next to the girls in the hospital had integrated charging pads so he wasn't concerned about the electronics not charging overnight.
An hour later, as he sat in front of the TV, ignoring the news, he wondered which was worse. Having ignored Taylor to the point that he'd missed the bullying, or having to deal with how often Taylor seemed to be hurt in ways he couldn't do anything about now.
He hadn't come up with an answer before he fell asleep in the chair.
Dragon considered humming as she began the bootup process on the master effect detection system. She'd worry about the deep scan and clearing system if it was needed, for now she was more concerned with initial detection. The bootup process was something she was now very familiar with, locally and remotely. Initial processing core, base software, scanning nodes hardware check, scanning nodes firmware check. She carefully checked that anything with a tolerance range was actually reporting as being within said range, not trusting the automated systems to alert her.
Half an hour after the process began the system had settled into standby mode, waiting for the instruction to begin. There was a little warning on the screen stating that the deep scan equipment was offline, and just under it another one that stated that there was no effect removal crystal installed. Those were both expected, and thus ignorable for now.
With the system ready, she loaded up her newest code for the units. A direct connection between her suit and the system allowed the scanner to feed into the scout drone sensors in her suit. That would allow her to more easily identify who'd been mastered, instead of needing to run angle and distance calculations after the fact. She started that up, and ensured that she had labels on all the humans in range. That would allow an automatic list, and it was for that reason that she'd submitted a request for approval on permanent versions integrated into the equipment for the future.
"Dragon to console," Dragon said over the radio. "I'm ready to begin scanning."
She waited as the console sent off notices to squads at various points around the area, to teams within the building, and even called Director Piggot and Chief Director Costa-Brown to keep them in the loop.
"Console to Dragon," they finally said. "You are clear to begin scanning."
Dragon reached out and hit the start button, the light whine of the machine's internals starting up a moment later. She watched the progress indicator as it slowly approached completion. It took nearly twenty minutes before it completed, and a half second after that for her automated list to compile. She frowned when she saw that there was, in fact, at least one known signature. It was the work of a moment to open that list.
Known Signatures:
Signature R0VCSE9ZUkZVQkJHUkVQ (Simurgh/Ziz):
Cody Hudnall - Passive Francis Krouse - Passive Jess Lupo - Passive Luke Brito - Passive Marissa Newland - Passive
She didn't know if she wanted to punch something or not. Was all of this a Simurgh plot? If so, how long ago could the Simurgh have planned this?
"Dragon to console," she finally said. "All five of our parahuman guests are Simurgh victims. I repeat, all five of our parahuman guests are Simurgh victims."
"Console acknowledges," came back a moment later.
Dragon figured that she'd need some time to get the deep scanner online, and was relieved that they should already have enough crystals for all five. Still, there was also the unknown signatures list to check, so she opened that up. It was sorted by number of entries, then by the signature ID string. The first two unknown signatures had a number of dormant and fading entries, which rarely needed anything done with them. Based on some of the listed names she assumed that UlpCR1ZCQVBCQUdFQllO and UlpCR1ZCQVBCQUdFQllX, being so similar, were probably Gallant and Glory Girl in some combination. They should probably run some tests later to figure out if she was right, but it wasn't important right now. She moved past them to see what else might be in the list, if anything, only to freeze when she reached the bottom.
Signature R0VCSE9ZUkZVQkJHUkVT Amy Dallon - Dormant, Fading Taylor Hebert - Dormant, Fading
Signature TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO Amy Dallon - Active Taylor Hebert - Active
Chapter 118 Emily sighed as she read over the reports from the night before. Miss Dallon and Miss Hebert had eventually been scanned, and the 'active' master effect was deemed to be a 'minimal activity sleep'. It hadn't taken long for everyone to feel foolish about that, even if they finished the master/stranger sweep anyway. There wouldn't be any reprimands though, as they had no way of knowing that the 'forced sleep' the girls were in would register as a master effect. The dormant and fading 'adjust automatic reconfiguration parameters' effect was more concerning, but there was no good way to investigate it further at that point so it'd been noted for later.
They'd also checked enough people in testing things to have a good idea of the potential duration of the lingering effects Gallant's blasts and and Glory Girl's aura. Amazingly long on both fronts, all things considered, but outside of repeated use the lingering effects would be inconsequential. They were, for now, pointedly ignoring just how long Glory Girl had been running around without being able to turn her aura off.
She approved the reports from that part of the fiasco, and moved onto the summary of the findings from their guests. The effects had been listed in order of 'priority'.
Cody Hudnall:
Do Not Consider Downsides to Consuming Vial - Dormant Protect Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Escape Madison - Dormant Obey Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Protect Gaming Group - Passive Keep Noelle Meinhardt from Being Contained - Dormant Keep Noelle Meinhardt from Being Isolated - Dormant Keep Noelle Meinhardt from Excessive Killing - Dormant
Francis Krouse:
Do Not Consider Downsides to Consuming Vial - Dormant Protect Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Escape Madison - Dormant Obey Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Protect Gaming Group - Passive Use Powers to Avoid Containment - Passive Sabotage Effectiveness of Own Plans through Overlooked Details - Passive
Jess Lupo:
Do Not Consider Downsides to Consuming Vial - Dormant Protect Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Escape Madison - Dormant Obey Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Protect Gaming Group - Passive
Luke Brito:
Do Not Consider Downsides to Consuming Vial - Dormant Protect Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Escape Madison - Dormant Obey Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Protect Gaming Group - Passive
Marissa Newland:
Do Not Consider Downsides to Consuming Vial - Dormant Protect Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Escape Madison - Dormant Obey Noelle Meinhardt - Dormant Protect Gaming Group - Passive
They'd finally finished purging them all of the effects about half an hour previous, though they'd had to have Eidolon make a quick trip to New York for a couple of additional crystals. Mister Hudnall had needed three crystals total due to the detail put into the effects on him, while Mister Krouse had only needed two. The other three had been cleared with a single crystal each.
From a legal standpoint the entire group was almost entirely in the clear. It was very difficult to prosecute someone coming out from being under the Endbringer's influence. Further, they had no clue what Miss Meinhardt had told them to do that'd been coloring their worldviews since her death in Boston. Of course, they were still hoping to get a number of concessions out of them anyway, they just didn't have significant legal leverage on them so things would have to be handled more delicately.
Mister Krouse, at least, was soon going to be someone else's problem. He was being shipped out of the area in the afternoon just in case Miss Hebert or Miss Dallon were able to recognize him. The other four would be sticking around for now, already having expressed a desire to not go with Mister Krouse, though they'd hopefully be able to be moved into temporary apartments in the next couple of days instead of eating up rooms in the PRT building itself.
Danny groaned as he ate his breakfast, watching the news that he'd woken up to. Said news was informative in its own way, telling him that Jacob had probably been informed about what happened to Taylor and had vented the day before based on what he'd done in Boston. Amy's next scheduled healing weekend had been canceled outright, the given reason was because she'd suffered a head injury and wouldn't be up to the stress by then. The PRT had evacuated a several block area for a couple hours the day before for unknown reasons, and then late last night had done a sweep of the area around the PRT building itself.
He sighed once he'd finished eating, turning the television off and getting up to clean up his mess. And the mess from the night before that he hadn't done anything with, for that matter. That took him twenty minutes or so, and then he headed upstairs to shower and put on clean clothes. He flushed the toilet that Ackbar had apparently used in the process.
An hour later the doorbell rang, and a quick check showed that it was the PRT.
"Good morning," Danny said as he opened the door. "Let me grab the bag I packed for Taylor."
"No problem," the officer said, and Danny moved over to where he'd dropped the bag the night before. It was, however, much heavier than it should have been when he tried to pick it up, causing him to stumble.
"What the hell?" Danny mumbled, looking at the bag. Which was open, when he was sure that he'd closed it. He knelt down to look around inside, to see if he could figure out why it was suddenly so heavy. It took him a minute to find the expanded pouch, into which Ackbar had apparently crawled.
"Is something wrong?" the officer asked.
"Taylor's pet is trying to stow away for the trip," Danny replied, which caused the officer to come over and look.
"Oh. Her spider-bot there, can't recall the name you provided. Neat trick with the bag, Vista does good work." The officer thought for a moment. "I'll call in, see if there's any objections to it coming along. But I think we'll want it in the pet carrier instead of in the backpack."
Danny sighed and coaxed Ackbar out of the backpack. Or tried to, anyway. He eventually went and got the pet carrier and was successful in coaxing Ackbar into it instead of staying in the backpack.
"They've agreed that the spider can come along," the PRT officer said once Danny had succeeded. "Apparently Miss Dallon has one too?"
Danny snorted. "Yeah, gifts from a mutual friend. Surprise gifts at that."
The officer shook his head at that, and then picked up the pet carrier. "We should get going."
Danny picked up the backpack and locked up behind them on the way out.
Jacob sighed as he read the latest update on things going on in Brockton Bay. Apparently, as far as anyone could tell, what had happened to Taylor was in part due to lingering issues from the Simurgh. The main problem there being that he couldn't get revenge on the Simurgh. The idiot responsible was being denied access to Panacea for healing, as well as a number of other decent healing capes due to incidental issues, but wasn't really a valid target for revenge. His teammates were a worse target, having not been informed of their then-leader's plan beyond that it existed.
He sighed again as he put his phone away. They didn't need Riley to go look at the girls, so he wasn't going to start pulling them out of Boston yet. They'd pull out on schedule at the end of the month. Most of the critical infrastructure should be back in place by then and if they did the 'leave without making it obvious they were gone' bit again it should be mid-July before anyone was positive that they were gone.
A few minutes later he was staring at the group preparing to head out, confused. Riley was dressed up like a demented doctor, Sarah actually had a nurse's outfit on. Cherie and Mimi were dressed up like orderlies, with significantly less blood than Riley and Sarah had on their outfits. He couldn't see any, actually. Fred and Melissa were off to the side plotting independently.
"What are you all planning?" Jacob asked, causing everyone to turn to him.
Riley looked up from the bag she was preparing. "We're going to go hunting for the sick and injured."
Jacob blinked a couple of times. "Why?"
"Because Panacea won't be healing next weekend," Riley explained. "So we're going to do some community service and heal people at one of the refugee camps."
"William went down to that craft store to use their fabric printer to make a bunch of Slaughterhouse Nine bandages for us to use when we're done with people," Cherie added.
"Why is Mimi dressed as an orderly?" Jacob asked, not actually certain that he wanted to know. Cherie was obviously going to be helping them find the sick and injured people.
"I can cauterize wounds if needed," Mimi explained. "And burn up anything that doesn't need to be put back into people, and stuff like that."
"Not to mention deal with any underwear that needs to be burned," Riley said as she added a couple more tools to her bag.
Jacob took a couple of deep breaths, and then turned to Fred and Melissa. "So what are you two planning?"
"Accord's area is too clean," Melissa explained. "The ducks are fairly efficient and all, so we figured we'd give them more to do."
"I'm gonna try and hunt down some of his ambassadors while she's doing her bit with all the glass," Fred added.
"Oooh," Riley said, darting out of the room. Everyone looked at the doorway she'd just passed through.
"I think she has an idea," Cherie finally said. The others rolled their eyes at that obvious statement.
A minute later Riley returned with a small box, which she handed to Melissa. "Here you go."
"What is this?" Melissa asked, looking at the box.
"Self destruct for the ducks," Riley said. "If it doesn't work then he probably removed it, but I doubt he did."
"So after we make a mess and injure most of his people we can take out his automated cleaning force?" Fred said, bouncing slightly. "Hah! I wonder if we can push it hard enough to make him second-trigger."
Jacob stared at them, and then abruptly turned around and left the room. He went down the hall to where he'd been sleeping and thus where his 'toy chest' had been placed. He opened said chest up and dug around in it for a moment, grinning slightly when he found what he was looking for. A minute later he'd returned to the others.
"Whoa," Cherie said, bouncing over to look at the sword Jacob had grabbed. "Haven't seen that one before."
"It's a medieval Scottish Claymore," Jacob said, swinging it a couple of times one-handed. "Non-brutes usually need two hands to swing it, of course. I figure the more damage we do to Accord's area the more likely he is to snap, second-trigger or otherwise."
Cherie frowned, and turned to Riley. "When are you going to make me a brute?"
"I'm already regretting making myself a brute before growing up all the way," Riley replied, without even looking up. "You can wait until the first couple of fugue-runs. You'll get better results that way."
Cherie grumbled, but didn't argue.
"Ackbar?" Vicky questioned, looking over at the spider-bot that was lightly prodding Taylor's arm, as though it could wake her up that way. "Why Ackbar?"
"It's a fan of making traps," Danny answered as he was laying out Taylor's phones, tablet, watch, and one of her visors on the table next to her bed. He left the second visor in the bag for now, but did note that each device indicated an active charge cycle.
"I suppose that's better than Rodney," Vicky said, shaking her head as she sat back down next to Amy's bed. Rodney was on the floor next to the chair, and hadn't moved much when Danny had come in.
"So did Amy ask anyone in New Wave about the convention trip?" Danny asked as he sat down.
"Yeah. I can't go because I've got a scheduled session that Friday here. Crystal has other plans and Eric wants to go, but only if another guy is there with them so that it isn't him and a bunch of girls. None of the adults were interested at all."
"That doesn't help figure out who else to get to go on the trip."
"Think Riley will be available?"
Danny thought about that for a minute. "I don't know. Maybe I should check with Jacob. I know that Taylor said that the Wards were a bad choice because she doesn't really have a reason to hang out with them."
"That...huh." Vicky considered that for a couple of minutes. "It would probably be suspicious right now if all of a sudden one of the locals joined the two on a trip when they haven't been running around as friends."
"And there isn't enough time between now and then for any new hanging out to be believable for inviting them on the trip, right?"
Vicky nodded. "Maybe if the trip was in the middle of August, but not with it only being a few weeks away."
Danny sighed and pulled out his phone. "I'll ask Jacob about Riley, and see if he has any other ideas. We can run it all past Taylor when she wakes up."
Carlos sighed as the other available Wards settled in for their meeting, none of them in costume as they weren't patrolling today. Taylor was the only one not available, but updating them on her status was the entire point of the meeting in the first place.
"Where's Taylor?" Missy asked.
"In the hospital," Carlos answered, which was enough to silence the rest of them. "Yesterday morning she was kidnapped right out of her bedroom by a Simurgh victim with a horrible plan for getting healing for their teammates. I don't have full details, but whatever happened put her and Amy in the hospital." He then looked at Dennis. "I asked, and they don't think that she ever saw the parahuman."
Dennis pulled out his phone. "Huh. Let's see. Missy had 'in her bedroom', but it sounds like that isn't quite accurate. Even if we want to debate that, I think Dean's flippant guess that she'd be kidnapped by the next one trumps it anyway."
Carlos blinked, and looked at Dean. Who seemed surprised as he looked at Dennis. "When did I say that?"
"I think it was around the thirtieth time I bugged you about coming up with something," Dennis answered. "In an attempt to get me to shut up, of course. Congrats, you get to skip three cleanup duties."
"On that note," Carlos said. "I've been informed by Miss Militia that we're off duty until Taylor recovers, so as to not have things look odd with appearances. With Amy out of commission as well it makes more sense, since it can be rumored that they don't want to risk us getting hurt when Panacea isn't available to heal us. After that we'll be doing a series of joint patrols. Two Wards paired with two Protectorate members."
"They've never done that before," Missy said. "Occasional joint patrols, but never a run of them at once. Why now?"
"Ostensibly it's to ensure that we're patrolling 'correctly' or something like that," Carlos answered. "But I think they've been running into more violence than normal while we've been taking our exams and want the extra protection for us."
"They've been lax on the joint patrols," Lisa said. "They're supposed to get a certain number in per year per Ward for experience reasons, but they ran into too many problems with Taylor. The Youth Guard shut them down almost entirely until school let out, and now they're going to do their best to get ahead of things and try and ensure that sufficient backup is available in case things go wrong again."
"I don't know if that sounds incredibly annoying or not," Dennis said. "Though if we're patrolling with the Protectorate, what about console time?"
"There won't be any," Carlos answered. "So Lisa will be getting some extra time off."
"I'm leaving Tuesday for a couple months of running around to various other departments," Lisa corrected. "Several have open requests for thinkers, and Brockton Bay has a larger need for field capes, so I might be transferring out if I decide any of the other departments look like a better fit."
"Oh." Carlos hadn't been informed of that. "Have fun?"
Max entered the private room of the bar with his tray of food and a couple of beers. Once inside he ensured that the door was closed and locked, before making his way over to the lone table in the room.
"Hello Max," Kenta said as Max sat down. He had a bottle of whiskey, but no meal.
"Hello Kenta," Max answered. "How's the family?"
"Takara's decided that she's going to be a Ward at some point," Kenta replied, in a tone of 'what can you do' and all.
Max shook his head. "She idolizes Vista, right? So that isn't surprising."
"What is it that you wanted to talk about?" Kenta asked. Max actually liked that about the man, he was willing to do small talk, but also liked getting straight to the point. Well, that and he was intelligent enough to know that meeting at Somer's wasn't always a good idea, which is why the two of them met in secret out of costume every so often. Heaven forbid either of their gangs found out.
Actually, Max thought that his father was probably rolling in his grave whenever these meetings occurred. The man was exceptionally closed-minded at times when it came to issues of race, unable to see the bigger picture. Still, he could muse on that later.
"I don't know how much you've heard about what happened yesterday," Max said, pulling out an envelope and putting it down on the table between them.
"My men informed me of a number of things," Kenta said as he picked up and opened the envelope. Max took a bite out of his sandwich while the other man read the papers inside, watching the expressions on his face in the process.
Eventually Kenta growled and placed the papers back down on the table. "I was unaware that the Simurgh was involved, but none of this mentions that she was taken from her own bedroom."
Max blinked, and frowned. His moles had missed that detail. "Apparently we both have holes in our information coming out of the PRT. I don't suppose you have any clue how Panacea was injured? My men seemed to think that she was brought in from home after Miss Hebert was removed from her own."
"None, just that she was. Though there were...rumors, that an incident with the gamer idiots had done something to the two of them some months back. Perhaps the effects were longer lasting than initially reported?"
Max sighed and took another bite of his sandwich. It would make sense, because sometimes tinkertech did weird things. Leet's tinkertech did weirder things. And advertising something like that would be foolish for any number of reasons, it might not even be recorded where someone could find it at all. Still, by the time he'd swallowed he'd come to the decision that it didn't matter either way. "We don't have any good way of knowing, so it's probably a moot point for now."
"True. Neither of us wants to severely injure either girl."
Max debated for a moment, and decided that it wouldn't hurt to give his fellow gang leader some extra information, if only to show how serious he was taking things himself. "Speaking of which, I've ensured that all of my parahumans, including my two newest, are aware that they're to avoid seriously injuring Miss Hebert, in or out of costume. On top of the normal admonishments against harming Panacea, of course."
"Hmmm." Kenta drank from his bottle as he considered that, before continuing. "While I wouldn't dream of asking for details, I find myself curious about your new members. Shall we 'accidentally' double-book teaching the Elite another lesson on, say, Wednesday evening? You bring your two new members, and I'll bring my newest recruit."
Max considered that, and didn't find any real problem with it. He was a little annoyed that this was the first he'd heard of Kenta picking up another cape, but if it was very recent it just might not have had time to filter back to him yet. "Well, the Wards probably won't be patrolling until at least Thursday, if not Friday, so that should work out fine. With any luck Eidolon will be out of town by then too, for that matter."
"My money's on the Wards not patrolling until the weekend," Kenta retorted. "The Youth Guard likes to ensure that recovery time is more excessive than necessary. Eidolon is more of a wildcard, of course. In so many ways."
"You make a good point, and we may have to adjust plans around him. Still, regarding the Elite, do you want to hit where we believe their nominal headquarters is, or the depot they're setting up on the shoreline?"
"Why don't we hit their headquarters and instruct our unpowered members to burn the depot down once we've got them distracted?"
Max snorted. "I'm not sure your men would be able to hold back properly. Mine can at least follow simple directions, such as keeping their heads down except when actually setting the building on fire."
"Only because your men would need all their mental focus to not burn down the wrong building," Kenta retorted.
Hannah watched the transport carrying Mister Krouse depart, heading for Los Angeles. He hadn't been any trouble once he'd been asked how Miss Hebert was supposed to breathe on her way to New York. Actually, he'd looked incredibly horrified, to the point where they actually had him on suicide watch as a precaution.
A few minutes later she turned and headed back inside. Three of the others were reviewing some of their options while waiting on potential healers. Mister Hudnall was an exception, having no injuries to speak of and having asked to join the Protectorate outright when told that they weren't holding him responsible for his actions. Apparently he saw it as a way to offset having 'rewound' Miss Meinhardt's containment door to the pre-locked state when Leviathan attacked, even if the official blame for that was being placed on the Simurgh.
"So he's out of our hair?" Ethan said as she joined him in the elevator.
"I was more concerned with getting him out of Maul's range myself," Hannah replied. "But yes to both."
"Oooh. Yeah, don't need her powers deciding that he needed to explode."
Hannah blinked. "I honestly hadn't considered that aspect of things. I was more concerned with her reaction to him being nearby when she woke up, since we have no clue if she'd recognize his snark or not."
"Battery and I are more curious about the reaction to her latest recruitment," Ethan quipped as the elevator stopped and they stepped out into the hallway. "Everyone with a say agreed that she, in effect, started the entire process so Cody should count towards her. The others too, if they join up."
Hannah snickered. "Yes, well, the absurdity of 'kidnapped and nearly killed to allow for one or more defections' being on the official record is a bit hard to pass up."
Paul sat down in the conference room, wondering why Rebecca had called him in to talk with her and Kurt. Normally they at least included David as well, but he might be too busy in Brockton Bay.
"So why are we here?" Paul asked.
"We have a situation with the PRT and Protectorate security," Kurt said. "Neither you nor Rebecca were directly involved in some of the early stages back in late 2005, so there are some details you weren't aware of."
"I know that we handed most of the backend control to Dragon after it was determined that her safeguards would protect things well enough," Paul answered. "But to protect some information from politicians we also ensured that many especially sensitive things were off of the network entirely, such as protected ratings and all threat assessments for Protectorate and Wards parahumans."
"Control wasn't handed over to her so much as we basically used her systems as the basis for the entire backend," Kurt admitted. "The security levels in use today are Richter's original permission levels implemented in all of his AI code, and need to know permissions were built on top of things. We lucked out when Mister Pellick found suitable hardware but had insufficient credentials to take advantage of it."
Paul considered that, but didn't see how it changed things. "While the details are useful, I don't see why they apply here?"
"Dragon's safeguards have recently been changed or disabled," Rebecca answered. "Part of this is that she granted SL10 access to Taylor Hebert."
Paul nodded. "I was aware of the elevation. How is that a problem, or an indication that Dragon's safeguards were changed?"
"SL10 is full administrative access to the backend," Kurt explained. "It should be restricted to Dragon and Richter himself, but somehow Miss Hebert has obtained it. With SL10 you bypass all need to know authorizations. With SL10 she can, quite literally, do anything in the system that she wants. It should also be impossible for Dragon to allow anyone other than Richter himself that level of access, but since she has?"
"Dragon was also able to violate PRT policies and deploy the new scout drones without authorization and hung up on me when I called to find out what was going on," Rebecca added. "Now that we know to look there are a lot of other little things as well, but those are the main indicators."
"Ok," Paul said, reeling slightly from the implications of a Ward having admin access to the system. "Why are you only telling me, and not holding a meeting with all the Protectorate Leaders and PRT Department heads?"
"Contessa came up with a path to finding out what happened," Kurt said, pushing a sheet of paper over to Paul. "You factor into it heavily."
Paul raised an eyebrow, then picked the paper up. It 'detailed' a very simple two-step process. The first step was to explain what had been discovered. The second step was to have him approach Miss Hebert, explain that Dragon ran the PRT and Protectorate backend, and express concern about the AI's safeguards having changed recently and how that affects the security of the entire system.
"Obviously you'll need to find a suitable time to approach her," Rebecca said. "But Contessa didn't think that the timing of the approach was critical."
"And convincing me to do so isn't required because knowing what's going on makes me want to know anyway," Paul grumbled. He disliked it when this kind of thing happened. It made him wonder if anyone actually had anything like free will or not.
David sighed as he sank into the tub. He'd successfully arranged to stick around for a few more days, ostensibly because he was supposed to speak with Miss Hebert about paperwork. That him being in town provided extra security while a Ward and Panacea were both incapacitated just made it easier to float. He might still have to head back to Houston sooner than he'd like, of course, but so far things were quiet enough.
Rebecca thought he was sticking around to get his top-up, but he hadn't admitted that his energy levels had started filling a couple hours after he'd arrived. In some ways it was a worrying level of autonomy from Miss Hebert's agent, but he didn't think he should report it just yet. After all, it could be working off of her subconscious desires instead of being her agent's doing in the first place.
Instead, he was going to see about 'helping out' tomorrow as an excuse to experiment with a few less obvious powers that he didn't have a good handle on the capabilities of. He rarely used some of the sensory abilities he had access to, and there were odd reports from where Calvert used to operate that indicated it might be a good place to try them out. They also still didn't know where a few buildings in various points in the more rundown areas had gone, just that it wasn't sinkholes eating them.
Really, playing detective for a day or two would, with any luck, be an interesting diversion from the things he usually ended up doing. Nobody in the Houston area seemed to bother with finesse, after all. For some reason having a known high-level trump in the area drove off the more intelligent foes.
Colin sighed as he made his way through the Rig. He wasn't supposed to call it 'the Rig', since officially it was the 'Protectorate Headquarters ENE' and all. But that was horribly inefficient to say, and a number of very annoying non-locals twitched amusingly when nobody in Brockton Bay would call it anything but 'the Rig'. Case in point, the Think Tank liaison he'd just been talking to.
They were, however, skirting a fine line. They'd actually forced Tampa to relocate a few years back when they refused to call their Protectorate facility anything but 'the Swamp', based solely on being next to a swamp at the time, so official paperwork had to actually say 'Protectorate Headquarters ENE' at least half the time. Automated search and replace made that fairly straightforward, of course.
Eventually he reached Trevor's workshop. The man had been a lot less...obsessed recently, so they'd allowed him more freedom in when he tinkered. With any luck they'd be able to determine if he'd be capable of making an actual decision regarding joining the Protectorate by the end of July.
"Good evening Armsmaster," Trevor said as Colin entered the workshop. The young man had a bottle of water next to him and was apparently cleaning up. "I finished the power nullifier collar you asked about, but I don't think it'll be perfect. I'm not sure it'll work on thinkers, for example? And it'll probably only work for a few hours at a time."
"We're mainly concerned about blocking powers that could be used to forcibly escape custody or during transfers," Colin said. "Thank you for the attempt. How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling better. I actually remembered to stop for dinner before any of the alarms went off."
Colin nodded, as that was an improvement. "Have you made anything for yourself?" The look on Trevor's face indicated a solid 'no' there, even without his analysis software. "Right. Do you at least have ideas for something you'd like to make, even if it would be useless to the PRT and Protectorate? Especially if it would be useless, in fact?"
"Well, um," Trevor said. "I had an idea for a popcorn maker?"
"Why don't you see about making that tomorrow?" Colin suggested. "For now it's late enough that you should be getting some sleep."
"I was going to as soon as I was done cleaning up," Trevor said, gesturing to the almost clean workbench.
Chapter 119 Monday morning Colin entered the PRT hospital to find an officer getting their hand bandaged, and glaring at Miss Dallon's spider-bot. Rodney, he thought it was? A quick check of his notes confirmed that he was correct. Ignoring the officer, he went over to check on the neurological scanners.
"Those things are abominations," the officer said as Colin walked past him. "Why are they allowed in here?"
"They're less dangerous than a dog half their size," Colin retorted. After all, they didn't have claws, and if they bit you they didn't currently have venom or saliva. It would probably be like being stabbed with a fairly clean fork or something. That and they were amazingly well-behaved, even around strangers.
"It bit me!"
Colin turned to the officer, effectively leveling a glare at him despite his eyes not being visible. "You likely ignored the warning signs in its behavior and persisted with doing something that it didn't like. Given your current attitude I'm going to assume you were trying to remove one or both of the spiders, despite the fact that they were approved for staying with their owners by myself, Director Piggot, and the medical staff."
"He tried to kick Ackbar out of the way," the doctor who'd been bandaging the officer's hand said. "Only for Rodney to jump up and bite his hand a moment later. I've already started a write-up on it. In fact, now that his hand is bandaged he'll be leaving."
"Why were you here in the first place?" Colin asked the officer, even as he was bringing up their file. Apparently this was Officer Haywood.
"Squad Leader Quincey told me to get an update on the two of them," Officer Haywood answered, pulling papers out of his pocket. "Here, check them yourself."
Colin took the papers and looked them over, the camera system in his helmet making a digital version and automated processes checking them for validity in the system. Everything on the printed copy checked out, except for two details. One, there was no digital version of the orders in the system to check them against. And two, Captain Quincey wasn't cleared to have someone check on anyone's medical data. Well, outside of his immediate family, anyway, but neither of the girls qualified there. The signature, however, was a match, and Haywood's attitude did not speak of someone nervous about having forged orders from a superior.
Nodding, Colin activated his radio. "Armsmaster to console, please have Captain Quincey detained for master/stranger testing and send a team to the hospital area to pick up Officer Haywood for the same. I'm submitting a scan of protocol-violating orders now as justification."
Haywood groaned and turned to the doctor. "Do you have a bin for my electronics? It'll be easier to deal with if I have them separated before I'm dropped into confinement."
The doctor patted him on the shoulder. "No bins, but I'll grab a bag for you."
Colin left them to that while he checked on the neurological scanners. It looked like Miss Dallon would probably wake up first at this point, though whether that was sometime today or sometime tomorrow was hard to say. Barring external influences Miss Hebert would follow probably twelve to eighteen hours later. Haywood was collected before the girls' medical charts were updated with the current state of things, in part because Colin intentionally held off on said updates until then.
Getting up, Colin looked at the two girls. Each of their beds had a spider-bot near it, though Ackbar was trying to reposition the pet carrier a little. It didn't take him long to figure out that the spider-bot wanted the carrier to have a better angle for darting out when defending Miss Hebert, so he went over and helped it position the carrier properly. Ackbar then settled into the carrier, and Colin got an idea, heading to his lab.
Half an hour later he'd returned and carefully filled the 'venom' sacs in the two spider-bots with a mild tranquilizer. It should be enough to slow down anyone that was bitten, but wouldn't be enough to knock someone out or even cause harm except for the most extreme circumstances. He informed the doctors of what he'd done, happy with having made the two spider-bots more effective defenders of their owners.
Twenty minutes after that he'd unstrapped the neurological scanners from the two girls, as he might not be available to shut the equipment down when they eventually woke. The permanent installation models that he'd wanted to install would've automated the attach and detach processes, but the mobile ones didn't have that functionality for a number of reasons. Since they probably wouldn't be needed anymore for the two he packed them up to bring with him.
Emily settled into her chair, her coffee and a pastry from the cafeteria set off to the side. She'd already cleared her desk of all the paperwork that had hit it this morning, including Colin's discovery of additional potential moles and his giving the two freaky spider-bot pets a mild tranquilizer as a 'venom'. Given the former she'd grudgingly approved the latter. Nothing new had come in while she was down in the cafeteria, her calendar was clear until sometime in the afternoon, and so far the morning was calm on the violence front.
She was reaching for the pastry when her phone rang. Seeing who was calling she cursed her luck before grabbing the receiver.
"Good morning Chief Director," Emily greeted.
"Good morning Emily," Costa-Brown replied. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"
"Just a mid-morning snack," Emily admitted. Perhaps mild guilt would speed this up?
"Ahh. Sorry, but something's come up that I felt you should be aware of. I assume that you're aware of Miss Hebert's unusual security level?"
Emily snorted. "Yes, I am, and have been for a while. We've already revamped nearly eighty systems using Dragon's instructions for how to keep her out of casual access using explicit access lists. No sign that Miss Hebert has ever tried to access any of them, nor do we expect that she'd do so maliciously, but better safe than sorry and all. We did discover that 'personal safety' access restrictions also seem to remain effective despite her insane access level, but haven't had reason to go through most of the headaches of asking for new ones to be added to the system outside of one firing range."
"Ah. I wasn't sure if you were aware of some of the potential implications. Since you are I'll let you get back to your snack. Have a nice day."
"You too Chief Director."
Danny sighed as he made his way through the Monday paperwork. He'd come into work despite Taylor's condition, afraid that his coworkers would try to take care of things for him. Most of them didn't know how to do his job well enough, especially the stuff he'd taken on himself, and thus wouldn't be likely to get things done correctly.
He was going through some mail that had come in over the weekend when he jumped at an unexpected voice.
"Hebert!" Abraham Rayne, the association's accountant, called from the door. "What are you doing here?"
"Preventing someone else from screwing things up," Danny replied.
Abraham sighed as he came in and dropped into one of Danny's extra chairs. "Why aren't you at the hospital with your daughter? Nobody is going to care about you taking an extra couple of days off with her in the hospital again."
Danny put the mail down and looked at Abraham. "I have a few options. The first seems to be sitting next to her hospital bed, able to do nothing. The second is sitting at home, still able to do nothing. The third is sitting here, doing something even if it doesn't help her." He then gestured to the smartphone sitting on the corner of the desk. "If she wakes up today they'll call me, but last I knew they weren't even expecting that to happen until tomorrow."
"I can't see looking through the papers for odd jobs as being distracting enough."
Danny snorted, and picked the mail back up. A moment later he'd extracted one piece, and handed it over to Abraham. "Actually, things are getting to the point of picking up significantly, despite the gang violence issues."
Abraham took the piece of mail and read over it, his eyes widening. "Holy crap. They want to hire us to rebuild the damaged docks?"
"Apparently, plus demolition on several warehouses that need to be replaced. We're already here, after all, and bringing in outsiders would just lose them access to what we already know. That came in over the weekend and I haven't contacted them for more details yet, but from what little they've said it should bring in quite a bit of work. Jason sent me a message to let me know that something important-looking had come in when he collected things this morning, which is part of why I came in at all."
Abraham shook his head. "Ok, so perhaps you do have things to distract yourself with. Just don't let them keep you from your daughter if you get the call."
"I'd try and pass by your door slowly enough that you could hear me letting you know I'm leaving in that case, but the exit is in the wrong direction for that."
Abraham chuckled at that as he got up. "Ok, yeah. I'll give you that one."
Rebecca stared at the screen in disbelief. Dragon had, back in 2006, documented how to lock network administrators out of casual access to independent systems. The only requirement for seeing the document was that you needed access to the system in general. It had never been locked down, ever, so there was no excuse for anyone being unable to find it beyond not knowing it existed. Which probably explained why she was just learning of it now, honestly, as she'd never considered locking Dragon out of something instead of just telling the AI to stay out. Further, it was linked to a list of individuals and groups using various things listed in it as a reference point for people wanting opinions on the different methods. Said list included the Think Tank, WEDGDG, the Guild, forty-six PRT departments, forty-nine Protectorate departments, and most tinkers in the system, on top of a number of smaller groups and affiliates.
It took her a few minutes to realize that she'd been expecting to see Armsmaster, Countdown, and Wrench Wraith on the list, but they weren't. She triple-checked that they weren't, and felt stupid a few minutes later. Why would any of them want to lock Miss Hebert out of their systems? She'd recruited two of them and was the primary local emergency contact for the third, and it was likely that they all trusted Dragon as well. Ironically, Dragon was the first entry on the list, apparently using the access list method with her personal systems instead of the normal security measures.
She then looked over the instructions more carefully, seeing that the document covered a number of things. Access lists that didn't include the administrator(s), additional passwords, layered encryption, even air gapping and running an entirely different software set at the most extreme. Each had pros and cons listed as well, for example an administrator could potentially spoof their access credentials to appear to be someone else. That was listed as a pro and a con, because it meant that an administrator would be prevented from casual access yet could still get in if necessary.
After thirty minutes of reviewing all of the documentation and considering the implications she printed off the instructions and the list of departments, groups, and individuals known to use the functionality. She then separated the instructions from the list and stapled them together individually.
She then walked over to her office door and locked it. "Door me." A moment later she was walking through the hallways of one of Cauldron's facilities, shaking her head. She came to the door she was looking for and knocked.
"Come in," came Kurt's voice from inside, so she opened the door and entered. "Ah, hello Rebecca."
"Number Man," Rebecca said, since he hadn't called her Becky today. "I just had an enlightening conversation with Emily."
"Really?" Kurt said, turning to look at Rebecca. Some day she was going to have to try and get him to use an actual chair. "What about?"
"This," Rebecca said, handing over the printouts.
Kurt took them, looking over the instructions on top first. He was halfway down the first page before he stopped and returned to the top. He then started reading again, obviously much more carefully. He went through the instructions three times, but only passed over the list of known users of the instructions twice. Once he was done he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Trust the AI to spot the issue and document how to get around it years before it became a problem," Kurt mumbled, before sighing. "I don't think the cost of replacing things is justified anymore, and I thought my plan for doing so was quite clever."
"Finish fleshing it out anyway," Rebecca said. "Who knows what we'll find out about what actually happened to Dragon, after all."
"True, true. Though we may want to also plan for having Miss Hebert take lessons on system administration in a general sense, including an ethics component."
Rebecca thought about that, and nodded. "That would make sense."
An hour later Rebecca was back in her office, using the instructions to secure her own systems. She'd have David and Paul do the same later, and was considering whether or not to inform those departments not listed about the information as well.
Jacob sighed as he relaxed. For a number of reasons the Nine had taken the day off. The primary benefit of doing so on the terror front was to ratchet up the paranoia of what they were planning, or what they'd already done and nobody had noticed. Riley's healing stint yesterday being a wonderful example of something that they might want to wait for the results of, since the obvious part was, at best, baffling to the public.
The primary reason for them was to decompress a little. For the most part they had easy ways to keep out of sight, which meant they weren't being attacked. Normally they'd do so in shifts, but some schedule slippage had them all taking the day off at the same time. Really, he should have taken the previous day off, and had been intending to, but there was no way he was missing the fun in Accord's territory. Mimi had felt the same about missing Riley's fun, actually.
It was really too bad that they'd timed their attack so well. He really wished that he could've seen the look on Accord's face when he came back to a completely trashed area, all of his cleanup ducks destroyed, and the power and water shut down again.
Hannah was, to be honest, a little creeped out at how calm things were with the gangs. Granted, they'd expected that Kaiser and Lung would both have their people lay low for a few days out of respect for Panacea, but even the Elite had gone calm.
"I think this actually was a sinkhole," Eidolon said as he landed next to Hannah. Which, she supposed, was a potential reason for the Elite to have calmed down for now. "An artificial one, but a sinkhole nonetheless."
"That's an interesting theory," Hannah replied. "What makes you think that?"
"As far as I can tell, there's a likely-tinkertech tunneling machine down there. A couple of their other cells did the same thing, building a network of tunnel-connected facilities. It's easier here due to the lack of subway tunnels, but harder because of the aquifer. Except that I think they've gone deep enough to have their tunnels sitting on or in the bedrock under the aquifer. The sinkholes are probably being caused by them tunneling upward to get access to their target buildings, but without knowing how their tunneling machine works I can't be certain."
"But wouldn't that be destroying those same buildings?"
Eidolon shook his head and pointed across the sunken area. "In this case the sinkhole ate two derelict warehouses, but I think the tunnel shaft was actually connected to the basement of that office building there. Which matches up with purchases made recently, as I checked and the office building was purchased by what we think is an Elite cutout company."
Hannah sighed. "With technology like that available you'd think they could find something better to do with it."
"I'm not sure why you're surprised. The Elite was formed out of groups that were looking to replace entire industries through the use of parahuman abilities, with no thought about what would happen when the parahumans in question died. They never understood that NEPEA-5 was intended to prevent things like what happened in California back in 1996 when the tinkers that had built the new water-transport system were killed. It lasted three months before lack of maintenance caused it to fail, and since it replaced several parts of the old system they couldn't just switch back."
Hannah sighed again. "I know, but if the technology can build tunnels that don't need a tinker to maintain them? They were able to get three quarters of the system working again in California, after all."
Eidolon shook his head. "I don't think they ever grasped that nuance. Instead they blamed the PRT for not helping to fight the bill that was going to 'destroy their livelihoods', even though the goal was to keep them from doing irreparable harm to industry and infrastructure through temporary improvements that couldn't be sustained. Asking that infrastructure and critical industries be able to be maintained without tinkers isn't that onerous, is it?"
Dennis was in shock as he read through things. Bonesaw had apparently gone on a 'rampage' through three of the refugee camps, negating the benefit of people staying in the camps instead of being exposed to the Nine. For certain definitions of 'rampage'. Each camp had an odd calm settle on it before Bonesaw showed up dressed like a demented doctor. He found the images of the Siberian as a nurse to be oddly hot, and the two 'orderlies' weren't bad to look at either. At least until you realized that one of them was Burnscar, he didn't recognize the other one.
Using the odd calm to their advantage, the orderlies quickly and efficiently collected the most seriously injured individuals in each camp while Bonesaw and the Siberian set up in a medical tent. They processed each group, filling out medical reports, and sending individuals on their way when they were done. Potentially problematic waste was burned up by Burnscar, followed by the group leaving each camp to gradually fall into a state of panic.
All three camps had been put under quarantine, but so far they hadn't found anything odd about what Bonesaw had done. It all appeared to be legitimate if bizarre healing, apparently triggered by hearing that Panacea wouldn't be healing the coming weekend. Assuming they could trust the couple of people who claimed to have asked the girl why she was doing it. The only problem found was that they'd probably made a poor choice of inks for the custom 'Slaughterhouse Nine' bandages they'd used and triggered mild allergic reactions in one in six or so patients, and even that was mostly a discomfort issue.
Eventually he decided that he had to talk to someone else about it, so he called Carlos.
"Hey Dennis," Carlos greeted. "What's up?"
"Hi," Dennis replied. "Have you seen the report on what Bonesaw was up to yesterday?"
"No, I haven't. Is it that bad?"
"I'm having trouble coming up with something stronger than 'bullshit' to yell out about it."
Dragon was unhappy as she went over the security logs and footage for the past few days. In theory the Brockton Bay PRT's hospital had four sections, each on a different floor, with Mother and Miss Dallon in the second most secure section. The only more secure section was the basement section, where parahumans there as parahumans but not in costume were treated. The problem was that she'd found four additional individuals possibly 'checking in' on the hospital so far. None of them had orders to do so in the system, and three of them had only made it past the guards because of orders from Squad Leaders.
One of them was easy enough to determine the likely reason for, as they worked under Squad Leader Quincey. Two more had their first common link in Squad Leader Kim, who was already being picked up. The last was possibly a coincidence given that their two visits had involved getting bandaged up after an injury Saturday and then a follow-up where the bandages had been changed Sunday. In both cases they were tended to by their sister, which probably explained why they chose that level of the hospital. They were also a frequent visitor, generally popping in at least twice a week. That didn't stop her from adding them to a list of individuals to double-check.
A number of others had entered the hospital area but weren't currently suspected of wrongdoing. Four had done so with approved orders in the system to check on the two. Nine more had routine tasks that brought them through, all orders properly in the system and all but one was effectively scheduled weeks prior. The last was a maintenance worker changing a dead light bulb, and she'd barely looked at the girls on her way by to change the bulb in the back room.
She reached the live footage and sent her compiled notes off to Colin and Director Piggot. It had been a nice five minute distraction, but she needed to get back to paying attention to the crystals she was preparing. The eight minute waiting period at this point in the process was almost up, after all.
Trevor grinned as he loaded his recently-completed popcorn maker. Kernels into this hopper, sticks of butter into the refrigerated section there, salt into that hopper. With everything filled up he grabbed a bowl and stuck it under the output funnel, then pushed the only button on the machine. Three seconds later he had a bowl full of hot, buttered, and salted popcorn.
"Awesome," Trevor said, taking a handful of the popcorn. Perfectly popped popcorn on demand, each piece buttered and salted individually before making it into the bowl. Two to eight seconds of wait, depending on the size of the container you put under the spout, and the button read your preferences for butter and salt. Or whatever popcorn spice you put in that hopper, if that was more your thing.
He was distracted from his enjoyment of the popcorn by the door's buzzer sounding. He made his way over, carrying the bowl, and tapped the open button. He found Assault standing there, with a fistful of money. He swallowed the latest bit of popcorn he'd eaten before speaking. "Er, hello?"
"Hello Reknit," Assault said. "I'm not actually certain why, but I had a very sudden and intense urge to come here and try and convince you to be quiet and take my money for something. I think. I'm not really sure?"
"Huh." Trevor thought about it. "Are you a fan of popcorn? Because I just finished my instant popcorn maker."
Assault would not, in fact, leave with the popcorn maker. He did leave with a hastily-assembled cardboard box lined with plastic wrap full of popcorn, though.
Vicky was bored. She'd been approved to go out on patrol with Battery and Dauntless, only nothing was happening. The only Empire thugs they'd seen were keeping the peace on the busses. The only ABB thugs they'd seen were doing the same. In fact, for the most part the two gangs had individuals paired off to work together with the other gang, and most of them were playing portable games in the backs of the busses. Unaffiliated thugs were apparently laying low as well.
On the cape front, they'd spotted multiple 'villainous' capes out in costume. Oni Lee had been out grocery shopping with a costumed kid in tow. A kid who didn't even recognize Vicky, but was apparently a fan of Amy and a couple of Wards if Oni Lee was to be believed. Half an hour later they'd spotted Alabaster walking down a street with an ice cream cone. He wasn't doing anything wrong right then, so they couldn't confront him.
The Elite had, apparently, gone to ground for the time being. No sign of any of them, cape or otherwise. Dauntless claimed it was because of a visitor, but didn't elaborate. A number of work crews were spread out in various places as a result, doing repair work during the lull in the fighting. Battery then gave a lesson in how the Elite usually worked in an area, which boiled down to 'during the lulls the work crews are probably at least half run by the Elite themselves'. Good luck figuring out which ones were run by the Elite, though, unless you figured out which ones worked for one of their cutout companies.
They'd ended their completely boring and uneventful patrol at the PRT building, where Vicky had ended up in the hospital area with Amy and Taylor while her father ran errands for home. After half an hour she convinced a PRT officer to get some food for the spider-bots from one of the cafeterias, fully prepared to have to explain things. Instead it turned out that they had a spider-bot menu now. A very short one, but an actual menu. Rodney had no problem with grabbing its bowl from Vicky, though Ackbar was slightly more hesitant.
And now she was just sitting there, waiting for someone to either come relieve her or for the PRT to kick her out when 'visitor hours' were over. She couldn't even listen to music because she'd forgotten to charge her visor last night and it'd died shortly before the patrol ended. On that front, she'd acted like she was tired of wearing it and put it down on one of the tables instead of admitting that it needed charging, but it would need another hour or so to be fully charged at this point.
David had finished writing the annoying report on what the Elite were probably up to, including his recommendation that additional scanning equipment be authorized for use to verify what he thought was going on. It was boring, tedious, and a pain in the ass. But he figured he needed to get it out of the way so that the ball could get rolling on things before he went back to the more amusing paperwork. Which, if he said that aloud, would probably give at least one person a momentary heart attack. Then again, there were times in the past where he'd had fun with paperwork, so maybe not so much now.
Most of the time he hated all paperwork, but he just couldn't get over the variety of responses he'd gotten on the tinker fugue interviews. Very few of those he'd talked to had any issues with the intentionally bullshit requirements, but some of the other concerns brought up were downright amusing and he couldn't decide how to best write his report to properly frame them. Granted, the biggest concern was fairly boring, people wondering if it would actually be worth it, usually by the males or by females who didn't have hard periods in the first place. Pointing out that Maul was not granted any enhanced strength by her powers was usually enough to quell those thoughts.
The second biggest concern came in multiple flavors and was the one he wanted to frame properly. Some of the male officers were concerned about the fact that all the information available indicated that only females had been augmented so far, even if they only knew the identity of one of them. Thus there was a group concerned that they'd come out female, regardless of initial gender. Then there were the two groups that were concerned that you would come out the gender you went in as.
Telling all of them that, while not guaranteed, if they expressed a desire to come out a specific gender then it was more likely to happen had calmed pretty much all of them down. The thinkers weren't actually sure if that would work, only giving it a fifty-two percent chance or so when all was said and done, but that was enough. The general consensus was that it was much more likely that you'd come out the gender you started with, because why add gender reassignment to an already complicated procedure?
Norton looked out over the city, petting the duck that he'd first figured out how to train. He'd replaced the old 'demon' shell with a hand-crafted wooden one, but left the octopus-style tentacles. Removing the explosive during that process had been trivial, though just in case they had a way of determining if they all went off he'd left it taped under a manhole cover.
His Ambassadors were hard at work discreetly securing the area, most of them out of their costumes for now. Moving had been annoying, especially with the Nine in town, but he'd done so successfully. And if the reports he'd gotten were correct he'd pulled out of Boston just in time. He and Jacob did not get along, so with the Nine in Boston it was only a matter of time before they ruined his territory. Too bad he'd lost Marcus in the process.
Still, as the sun set he had to admit that there were other downsides to relocating on short notice. The view from his new office window, for example, left much to be desired. The Medhall building just didn't look right in the rest of the skyline, but he wasn't sure if it would be better to knock it down or fix up the buildings around it. Easier, certainly, to just knock it down, but there were relations with the neighbors to consider and all that as well.
Amy groaned as she woke, her head pounding slightly. Her focus immediately switched to figuring out where Taylor was, her body tensing. A moment later she relaxed as she realized that Taylor was right there. Deciding to be absolutely sure, she carefully climbed out of bed and unsteadily made her way over to where the other girl was still asleep. Once there she steadied herself by grabbing onto the bed before taking Taylor's hand.
A moment later she yawned and half-stumbled despite her grip on the bed. She sat down on the bed next to Taylor so that she wouldn't fall, and then shifted to laying down next to Taylor when she nearly fell forward off of the bed anyway.
Five minutes later the nurse watching over them returned from the bathroom to find Amy hugging Taylor, both girls unconscious.
Chapter 120 Tuesday morning Amy woke to the sound of giggling. Her head hurt, but not too much, though she was wondering what had happened to the weekend. She extracted herself from the bed with a yawn, before tripping and falling to the ground. Her first indication that she wasn't anywhere she thought she should be was that the floor was tiled, not carpeted.
"Come on," Sarah said, helping Amy up. "We should get you cleaned up a bit and get some solid food into you. The needleless injectors only help so much, since they couldn't get IV lines past your skin."
Amy blinked, and stared at her arm. "Huh, there were supposed to be holes."
Sarah lightly tugged on her other arm and got her walking towards the back of the hospital area where the nurse would help Amy shower and change into clean clothes that awaited her. Well, would await, when Crystal got around to bringing Amy's bag back there.
Vicky looked over the pictures that Crystal had just sent her. Why hadn't Amy decided to cuddle Taylor like that when Vicky was there? She wanted to cry about the lost opportunities for teasing. Then again, it would probably be bad form to do so right away, given what had happened to Taylor and all, and how they'd just woken up from it. Maybe in a couple of months when they could look back on things and not have them be raw?
"What in the world are you pouting about now?" Carol asked, causing Vicky to blink.
"Amy apparently woke up briefly last night," Vicky answered, sliding her phone down the table to her mother.
Carol took the phone and looked at the picture showing on it, before snickering. "Apparently her habit of clinging to people when sleeping came back. I bet it's because she doesn't have their biology snap in and out when skin contact changes anymore."
"I seem to recall that it annoyed the crap out of you when she was younger," Mark commented. "You didn't like her being a limpet, I think you used to complain?"
"I suppose it is more amusing when she latches onto someone else," Carol admitted, pushing Vicky's phone back to her. "Vicky, please ensure that I get copies of the pictures."
Vicky rolled her eyes, but went through the process of sending the pictures to her mother anyway.
Danny took a deep breath after he'd buckled his seatbelt. The morning had been somewhat stressful, working on the negotiations for several larger projects. Informing the representative of the company that owned the actual docks they'd be repairing that he wouldn't be available this afternoon had triggered a rant, the other man insisting that whatever it was that would be taking up his time couldn't be that important.
He smiled a little as he recalled how quickly they'd backpedaled when he'd told them that he was going to be in the hospital, waiting for Taylor to wake up. Their response? "You're that Hebert? What the hell are you doing working while your daughter is in the hospital? I'll call back Monday." He'd probably call them back Thursday, at the latest, but the extra buffer would be nice.
Pausing as he reached to the start the engine, he instead started to roll down the window as Abraham approached. The man was carrying something, but Danny couldn't get a good look at what it was. Frowning as the window stuck for a moment, he considered whether or not to get a new car at some point once the money from things picking up started coming in. Or perhaps he'd just ask Taylor what could be fixed on the car and go from there?
"What's up?" Danny asked once Abraham reached the car.
Abraham handed over two envelopes, which Danny took with a raised eyebrow. "Get well cards, passed them around earlier."
Danny looked down at the two envelopes. They were labeled 'Taylor' and 'Amy'. He shook his head as he looked back up at Abraham. "Really?"
"A lot of us remember Taylor from when she was little," Abraham defended. "And since Amy is a good friend of hers? Besides, how many people only treat her as 'Panacea'?"
Rolling his eyes, Danny put the envelopes on the passenger seat. "Ok, I'll see about delivering both."
"That's all we ask."
Emily knew things had been going too smoothly. Lung had apparently been in several meetings the night before, preparing for something big against the Elite. Which would be fine, if there weren't meetings about something very similar being run by Kaiser and Hookwolf at the same time. It was looking like there was a very good chance of another three-way battle, and that was before any form of law enforcement got involved. Sighing, she moved on, as they didn't actually have a time for the attacks.
The next report in her queue indicated that Officer Haywood had already been cleared, as had several others, but the two now-former squad leaders had both been found to have a history of passing information out to the gangs. Usually by passing instructions to the officers under their command that looked legitimate but weren't registered in the system, and almost always for checking on people in the hospital areas. Which meant that they were likely going to have to start having everyone check that things were in the system, something they didn't want to do previously because of how long it usually took.
She paused as she had a thought, and switched to writing a message. She sent it off to Dragon, and Cc'd Costa-Brown, Legend, and Armsmaster. If they could get a scannable barcode onto printed copies of orders that could serve to look them up in the system then they might actually be able to streamline things well enough to make checking things work. It would likely require a software update, and a lot of procedure updates, but she was willing to volunteer the ENE region as the testbed for it. She stated as such five times in the message to make sure that got across, even.
Once that was done she moved back to the reports. Quincey had apparently kept a handwritten log of everything he'd passed on and what he'd gotten in return. He'd been intelligent enough to not keep it in his office, but apparently he'd been anticipating adding to it so it had been in his car. Kim, on the other hand, had been a little more tech-savvy and kept his records on a commercial, non-tinkertech laptop. That had apparently taken Ethan five minutes to crack the security on while he'd been waiting on Colin.
A few minutes later she decided that she really needed to stop underestimating the former breakout specialist. It was just that his personality screwed with everyone's perception of him, which she decided was probably intentional. It didn't help that she'd decided to stop underestimating him a good dozen times so far this year, so his potential act was working a little too well for her tastes.
Taylor was curled up into a ball, breathing heavily, and trying to convince herself to calm down. She didn't appear to be in the locker, or half-buried in waste, or having trouble breathing. Her phones were in range, there were a pile of snarks around, many that she recognized. In fact, Amy was right there, and why was Amy's nose bleeding?
Amy: TAYLOR!
Taylor: Why is your nose bleeding?
Amy: Because you punched me when you woke up, in between hitting and I think breaking the doctor's arm and sending your father through the air. You got him good, but it didn't sound like anything broke.
She blinked a couple of times, trying to process that, before starting to hyperventilate because she'd just hurt people. Only to suddenly have her breathing yanked out of her control as Amy went from patting her back to holding the back of her neck.
Amy: Stop that! Nobody died, and we were stupid enough to be right next to and/or touching a brute waking up when the last place they were awake in was panic-inducing. One or both of us will heal everyone up just fine.
Taylor found it interesting how hard it was to panic when your breathing was forced into a regular pattern. Granted, that wasn't all Amy was doing, but the rest was more quick fixes on things from the last few...days? It was Tuesday? What happened to the weekend? Recovering a little, largely due to replacing panic with confusion, she let Amy finish the various fixes. Once they were done she switched on her own striker switch to break Amy's control.
"Ok already," Taylor said, rolling onto her back. And almost off of the hospital bed. She lay there, doing her best to push down any urges to panic, only to pause while Amy was dealing with the doctor's broken arm.
Taylor: I'm able to switch to line of sight mode.
Amy: Ok?
Taylor: Last I knew I didn't have a line of sight mode anymore, since you got that part of things.
Amy: Oh. Huh, I have a switch for that now too? When did that happen?
BA: Data
Taylor: You were given permission to rebalance things when you couldn't reconfigure normally? I'm not sure I understand.
BA: Data. Elaboration
S: Data
BA: Agreement
Taylor: Reconfiguration based on original connection stresses? Like, a second-trigger?
BA: Agreement
Well that was a thing. She'd nearly died because she'd tried to second-trigger, but couldn't, repeatedly. But she didn't have to worry about that anymore because that entire process had been shut down for her and Amy, but at the same time Broadcast Administrator was able to 'balance' out their connections properly. So they could both use area and line of sight modes now, per Taylor's original trigger.
More interesting was that when the split in abilities had been described a misunderstanding had crept in. Taylor hadn't lost any range on anything when Amy had connected in, but an implication of that having happened occurred and wasn't corrected. Whether or not it was an intentional mistake or not was harder to identify, but it had happened. So instead of just getting full original functionality back they now had doubled range. Thirty centimeters from their skin for projection, with the projection able to go twice as far, and snark sensing was now out to 800 meters. Still only a second once out of range, though.
Taylor: I'm not sure if we should report that all of our ranges with Broadcast Administrator doubled.
Amy: Wait, what? All of them? I thought it was just...nevermind, I feel stupid now. But why keep it a secret?
Taylor: Because while the details from...Saturday morning? They're fuzzy, but someone grabbed me in a way that prevented me from being able to do a thing, and I think without any warning. Assuming they knew what I could do beforehand, I'd rather the next one have less accurate information, if at all possible, and possibly be doing their planning and/or setup in my range where I might spot them ahead of time. Also, if nobody knows you can do area mode and all things associated with it you should be safer too.
Amy: You make wonderfully logical points. Also, apparently you cracked your father's sternum, but he'll be fine.
Taylor: He'll probably try to apologize to me for standing in the wrong place.
"Sorry about the flailing when I woke up," Taylor said, pushing herself up. She looked around and saw that she'd probably damaged the table next to the bed too, but hadn't successfully knocked anything off of it. Oh, and the metal frame that acted like a 'headboard' for the hospital bed had a dent.
"I'm sorry that I stood so close to you," Danny replied. "I didn't mean to add to any panic by being injured."
Amy: Ok, I have to admit, that was a good call.
Taylor: Thanks.
"We should get you cleaned up," the nurse standing nearby said, approaching Taylor carefully.
Taylor nodded and swung her legs off of the bed. Upon trying to stand up she instead fell over. She lay there for a moment, blinking, before noticing what was right in front of her now. "Oh, hello Ackbar."
She might have to find a way to pay Crystal back for the apparent pictures being taken.
They'd gotten Taylor cleaned up and into clothing that wasn't the hospital gown, which had included a mild panic attack on Taylor's part due to the shower cubicle they brought her to being a bit on the small side. She'd ended up not closing the cubicle door, which was just enough to keep her calm. Mostly.
After that Amy had explained that they might need to figure out a better way to keep holes in their skin's protective layer for IV drips and such since their original ones had closed up at some point. The doctor then stated that they would have to wait on figuring that out because they were now officially on a week-long no-healing decree due to their original injuries, with an implication that the healing that Amy had already done wasn't going to be mentioned. Amy grumbled, but Taylor discreetly healed her nose anyway.
Now, however, they were in one of the cafeterias. They'd opened their cards during their first serving, finding that they contained mostly generic wishes of health, as well as gift cards for a sub shop on the Boardwalk. Danny and Sarah agreed that it was a good one, and Taylor thought she'd stopped there at least once previously.
"Didn't Amy already have something to eat this morning?" Crystal asked, watching as both girls started on their third serving.
"A single hospital serving," Sarah answered, shrugging. "They haven't actually had anything significant to eat since Friday, so I'm not surprised that they're hungry."
"Is it me or did these two put on weight?" Danny asked, poking Ackbar's carrier.
"Someone filled their injector sacs," Taylor said.
The others at the table, Amy included, stopped to look at the two spider-bots, then at Taylor. Who ignored their stares.
"You going to explain that any further?" Amy finally prompted.
"What's left to explain?" Taylor asked. "Their injector sacs are filled. Ackbar's at least weren't when I went to bed on Friday. I wasn't awake when they were filled, so I don't know who filled them. Or with what, for that matter."
"I filled them," Colin said from behind Danny and Sarah, causing them and Crystal to all jump. "With a mild tranquilizer, since moles were trying to get information on you two yesterday morning. Rodney bit one when an officer who didn't know they shouldn't be there tried to kick Ackbar out of the way, and I figured that giving them something to inject would improve their efficiency as guards."
Taylor nodded. "Thank you."
Amy looked over at the two spider-bots. "Do we need to know anything about side effects?"
"It should be safe for most people," Colin replied. "Young children and the elderly are most likely to have issues, but even then the dosage is diluted so complications should be minimal."
"I'm assuming that if this was just to inform us about the tranquilizers that you'd have sent us a message," Taylor said. "Is there something else you need?"
"I apologize," Colin said, nodding. "But there are some questions we need to ask about what happened Saturday, and Eidolon would like to talk to the two of you before you leave as well. Are you willing to meet us in conference room eight when you're done eating?"
Taylor and Amy shared a look, and then looked at Danny and Sarah. Both of them nodded, neither of them looking surprised. Perhaps they'd been informed already or something.
"I think that's doable," Taylor answered.
"Very good," Colin said with a nod. "I'll see you there. Don't feel obligated to hurry."
They all watched Colin leave, before Crystal groaned. "How in the world did he sneak up on us?"
"I think he trained in moving silently to more efficiently sneak up on people," Taylor answered. "That and his power armor is rigged to make as little noise as possible. Well, unless he wants it to be noisy."
"I suppose there's something we should talk about," Danny said. "Specifically, while they've been working on it the PRT thinks that it'll be a day or two before they're done the detailed sweep they're doing of our neighborhood and the surrounding areas. Until they're done with that we think Taylor should stay at Amy's house."
"I cleared things along those lines with Carol," Sarah added. "Taylor would just have to swing by home to pick up whatever she needs and then make her way over."
"That makes sense," Taylor admitted. "Much better than spending the night here, anyway."
"The PRT will bring Ackbar over when they drop Amy and Rodney off," Crystal said. "Armsmaster said something about an improved harness to attach the pet carriers to your mopeds, but Miss Militia argued that the public might not be ready for you two having giant spiders as pets just yet."
Taylor: I'd see about getting Riley to make more of the things, but that would require her to do things that I'm not comfortable with.
Amy: Think it would be less creepy if we gave her a plant that grows human-style neural tissue?
Taylor: I...honestly don't know right now.
She didn't find it all that creepy that Dragon had little human brain things in her suits and such acting as a processor core, because they were cloned and all. If Riley could use artificially grown human neural tissue, would that make the spider-bots less creepy overall? Well, future spider-bots, anyway...
Taylor and Amy had settled in on the other side of the conference table from Colin, David, Dragon, and Miss Militia. The room had been privacy-sealed for the time being, and everyone other than Dragon had a drink. David's had a straw that he could slip under his mask.
"We have two primary subjects to cover today," David said. "And I'm sorry, but the first is what happened on Saturday. Can either of you provide any more details about what actually happened?"
Taylor took a deep breath, Amy grabbing her hand to show support. "The details from before everything happened are fuzzy. I think I was woken up by noise outside and went to the window to check on it, but I don't recall what it was. But I ended up in a metal box that was filled with things that reminded me of my trigger event, or rather caused me to remember my trigger event in general."
"It was more than that," Amy took over. "She started to panic, and that led to her starting to second trigger. That's what woke me up, but she couldn't second-trigger on one snark without the others also doing so. So things aborted, but then a few minutes later she was still in the metal box so she tried to second trigger again. Eventually we were both knocked out."
Taylor nodded. "At some point after that our snarks were reconfigured, but they couldn't explain how or by what fully. To prevent this from happening again neither of us is capable of second triggering anymore, for any of our snarks."
The other four waited a moment to see if the two would continue, then Colin nodded. "That would explain a few things. I don't suppose you know if you were ever in range of the parahuman?"
Taylor went to answer negatively, but paused.
Taylor: Was I ever in range of them?
BA: Negative. Elaboration
She sighed. "Apparently they were outside of my range the entire time. I apparently passed by Stormtiger at one point, but that's about it before Dragon rescued me."
Miss Militia finished taking notes, and then looked up at the girls. "Thank you, that should do it for that. We have more amusing topics to discuss, specifically prank paperwork."
Taylor and Amy both blinked, and then looked at Colin.
"I cleared stage two yesterday," Colin admitted. "I'd turned in appropriate evidence for just over half of the listed sub requirements. Then yesterday while eating I got curious about the security on the form they were to grant access to. I've been brought in on a few additional details since."
"His reaction when he discovered that the lack of protection on it was intentional," David said, chuckling. "I won't spoil it for you, since you should be able to get access to the recording Dragon made. Alexandria and Legend are going to love it. But he's now aware that the first fugue was accidental between you two and an as of yet unnamed third parahuman."
"That said," Miss Militia continued. "For policy reasons we do have to discuss the list of complaints about the process. Which is, of course, fairly long. Word of the fugue and the reproducible results spread to every major department, and most of the minor offices as well."
"I know there were complaints about how regional some of the requirements were," Taylor said. "Such as ones that involve parahumans in New England. Compared to parahumans in Florida, California, or Texas. I suppose you could include Hawaii, if you count potential choices for the clown makeup one."
"Most of the serious complaints have been about safety," Dragon said, turning on the projector in the room. "Due to a combination of factors it's unlikely that someone can accomplish the entire list without putting themselves in danger of serious physical injury. The biggest complaints on that front are the Ellisburg, Eagleton, and Butcher requirement entries."
"At least four people cleared that one with pictures of the Butcher on a news broadcast in the background," David added. "And two dozen pulled it off by getting their picture taken with the Butcher in the baby carriage."
"Just because there are easy ways around it doesn't mean that the complaints aren't there," Miss Militia said. "The next largest category is some of the humiliation ones, such as being caught naked in a cape battle or ones that require medical records."
"Surprisingly few complaints about tattoos or embarrassing drawings on people's faces though," Dragon said. "In fact, there were less than twenty complaints about those two combined."
"And Accord has complained about the number of people seeking to get their pictures taken with him," David said. "Apparently he doesn't see the humor in things."
Taylor and Amy looked at the four, before Amy decided to ask a question. "So what are we supposed to do about the complaints?"
"Absolutely nothing," Dragon answered. "Officially you've been spoken to about them, which is all we have to admit. We wouldn't even have to do that if someone hadn't triggered from the stress of trying to complete the list."
Taylor chuckled at that. "Nobody ever said anything about needing to do anything, just talk about them. Brilliant."
"I think that covers everything I wanted or needed to talk about," David said, looking at the others. "Unless there are any other questions?"
"Is the truth about the Nine compelling?" Colin asked, which caused everyone else to stare at him. "What? I've studied Bonesaw's spider-bots before. That she's branched out into more cuddly versions doesn't make them less distinctive in base design and construction. It wasn't that much of a leap to realize who the third parahuman in the tinker fugues was at that point, and it makes the insane requirements slash intelligence test of the fugue process make a lot more sense."
David made to rub his face, only to fail with the mask in the way. "Ok, I'll go get the paperwork." He gestured at Taylor and Amy. "These two can get going while we go through things."
Danny watched as Taylor left on her moped, her backpack full of clothing.
"Think two nights will be good enough or should we stall for three?" the PRT Officer in charge of the 'sweeps' asked from the 'command post' van parked in the driveway.
"Let the therapists decide that," Danny said. "She didn't argue in any way, so even if she figures out that it was a lame excuse I don't think she'll care."
"No need to get either of them into a 'stop babying me' state by telling them that we think that they'll want to be close to each other for comfort for the next few nights. Of course, we are installing more monitoring over the area, and that will take time. Your daughter has proven to be a target, after all."
"How much monitoring is being set up?" Danny asked, curious.
"We've mainly gotten permission to set up equipment to check for changes to rooftops that have a decent line of sight to your house," the officer said, reaching into the van and pulling a rolled up map out. "If you want I can give you an overview?"
"That would be appreciated," Danny said, gesturing to the house. "Want some coffee or tea?"
"Coffee would be great."
Jacob sighed as he read through his messages. He'd let a backlog build up, and he had nothing better to do while he was waiting for the Protectorate patrol to come by. Sarah was whittling a telephone pole, making it look something like a totem pole. He wasn't sure where she'd found a wooden telephone pole in this part of town, since everything seemed to be underground here, but she had one.
Huh, Danny sent a question about if Riley could possibly join Taylor and Amy at TinkerTechCon. He hadn't checked with Taylor or Amy yet, but the idea had some merit. At the very least Riley could probably be expected to behave around Taylor. Mostly. Ok, well enough by his own standards, but probably not Amanda's. But Danny also wanted to know if he had ideas for anyone else to join them. Hmmm. He didn't have any good ideas outside of the Nine.
In the Nine there were only a couple of options. Mimi was probably a bad idea, plus she had an unusual backlog of requests from her work as an 'independent'. Melissa would need to return to her role in the Protectorate, so she was out. Fred wasn't a big fan of tinkertech in general, so wouldn't want to go. William and Sarah liked to lay low between runs, especially as William had said something about building a new deck. Maybe Cherie? She wouldn't really be able to go run around with Mimi, and should be safe around Taylor and Amy.
He'd have to think about it, as William just sent them a message warning that the patrol was approaching.
"I think Ackbar is trying to teach Rodney how to weave," Amy said as they watched the two spiders interacting in the living room. Carol had forbidden either of them from going to play in the greenhouse for at least a couple of days, which left them very little to do for the moment.
Taylor looked over the two, and found herself agreeing. "That's kinda adorable, and would probably be horrifying if they succeed."
"Riley would love it if they did though."
"Why do you think I said that it'd be horrifying?"
Amy looked at Taylor, then at the spider-bots. "Ok, I concede the point."
They sat there for a few more minutes, before Taylor sighed. "I'm bored. Why are we just sitting here again?"
"Because we're injured and aren't supposed to be doing much," Amy answered. "Carol was annoyed that you'd actually ridden your moped over in your condition."
"My 'no longer all that injured' condition?"
"Didn't say I agreed with her. Don't know what to do in the meantime either way."
"Well, we're bored teenagers who have been offline for several days. Aren't we supposed to default to 'catching up' online or something like that?"
Amy snorted. "Except that locally we were the thing to catch up on."
Taylor shrugged. "So we check up on non-local stuff. What did the Nine do over the past few days?"
"I have a better idea," Carol said as she came in with a tray holding a pitcher of water and some glasses. "Amy should get you set up with all the speakers before Vicky gets back with Mark."
Taylor blinked, and looked at Amy. Who shrugged. "I suppose, since I have plenty of experience with that kind of thing. Not sure why you want me involved, though."
"Because I'm curious if she'll be able to figure out what's going on if you pull the creepy little girl voice trick," Carol answered. "Since I haven't figured out how you did it."
"Oh. That's just a text to speech program of Dragon's."
Carol had her phone out and was looking through things a moment later. Taylor decided to head things off and just fired a link off to the woman instead of making her hunt for it.
Later, Taylor and Amy would both agree that the look on Carol's face had been disturbing.
"So what's the verdict on what happened?" Rebecca asked.
"They indicated that any possibility of going through a second trigger had been removed for both of them," David answered. "The thinkers that I consulted said that was accurate, but that it wasn't all that happened. Thing is, the same thinkers aren't sure if the two are aware of everything that changed, or if the changes will have any effect on their abilities in the first place. One of the thinkers thought that it might have to do with any next-generation parahumans that trigger from them."
"Not enough to go on to insist on a power testing run, then."
"No, not at all. But they will be under more observation for a bit, to see if any obvious changes crop up."
Rebecca considered that for a moment. "They'll have to be very obvious, won't they?"
David chuckled. "Compared to the general trend of figuring out new tricks as they go on? Yes, they would need to be obvious. And if they're that obvious then it's likely they would have noticed already."
"True. Though they may not have noticed that they can project two lines of force from the same object or something like that."
David visibly pondered that. "That would be an interesting thing to have them try, just in case, and likely wouldn't come up until they actually work to project something."
Chapter 121 Carol looked in on Amy, having heard some movement and groaning and being concerned that her adopted daughter was having a nightmare. Only she found that it was apparently Taylor making the noise, being kept from thrashing around too much by Amy playing limpet.
Deciding to leave them, she carefully closed the door and resumed her trip to get a glass of water.
Early Wednesday morning, a little before sunrise, Taylor extracted herself from Amy's arms. The night before she'd had trouble sleeping and had decided to see if she could calm Amy down from a nightmare the other girl appeared to be having. Instead Amy had basically pulled Taylor into the bed. Taylor had followed into sleep not long after, despite only intending to wait until Amy seemed to have settled.
Amy whined a little once Taylor was out of the bed, but Taylor had to use the bathroom. A pillow was dropped into Amy's arms, which seemed to work for the moment, then Taylor headed for the toilet. Once she was done she decided to head back to the guest room. She absently noted Ackbar following her, and ensured that she didn't close doors on the spider-bot by accident, before climbing into the bed she was supposed to be sleeping in.
Of course, needing less sleep meant that she wasn't tired enough to go back to sleep. Sighing, she grabbed a visor. Maybe she could find something interesting online, or perhaps something useful in the PRT store? She did have way too much credit available for the latter.
By the time Amy got up Taylor had made an effort to avoid browsing the PRT store to buy who knows what, but had run across a discussion on PHO about how unfair it was that 'Maul' was the only one getting new toys. The various accusations being made annoyed her. So she'd sighed and decided to see what kinds of things the other Wards might be able to use.
The first thing she'd run into was a 'half visor' type deal. Available with and without an audio component, it was designed to give you a heads-up view of a phone or similar on one eye. It was reversible and would auto-correct for which ear you had it attached at, only came as a secure Bluetooth accessory, and she'd added an entire box of ones without audio to her cart. They'd probably go over great with people who made it through to the fugue, even if they'd be useless for the Wards on patrol.
She'd then spent the rest of the time browsing for ideas for the Wards themselves. She built up a list of possible ideas, only a few with specific thoughts as to who would get them. Figuring that out would happen at some point later, after she'd had time to think about it.
"Good morning you two," Carol said as she entered the kitchen. Taylor and Amy were cleaning up from having already eaten. "Do you have any plans yet?"
"Not really," Amy answered. "We weren't sure what we'd be allowed to do, after all."
"Ahhh, right." Carol paused to move Rodney off of the chair she wanted to sit down in. "The main concerns we had for you two should be cleared by now, due to the insane rate your brains heal at and all, but there had been some plans for the weekend that obviously didn't happen. We'd like to take care of some of that today, since you'll be busy at least part of tomorrow and all."
"I didn't know we had plans for tomorrow," Taylor noted.
"They wanted to give you a day to recover before throwing you at a therapist," Carol replied, waving it off. "Back to today. There's a building that needs to change hands, but for various reasons the business entity should exist first. And the loopholes being used will only work if the partnership is created with you two as 'partners' from the start, instead of you joining afterwards."
"So you want to drag us to the PRT to set up the business?" Amy guessed.
"Of course not," Carol said, rolling her eyes. "We'll set up the partnership independently of the PRT, then register it as a parahuman-owned business with the PRT afterwards. You two will be limited partners, with Lacey and Kurt being the general partners. Further, the partnership agreement we came up with keeps you two from being liable for the business loans, at the cost of a minor loss of income."
Taylor nodded. "That had come up. But what are we allowed to do after that?"
"I'd personally recommend a movie or something that isn't too stressful," Carol replied with a shrug. "I'll see about monitoring you two playing in the greenhouse after dinner."
It turned out that the paperwork was boring, somewhat repetitive in some ways, and because parahumans were involved had to be signed in front of multiple government witnesses. But they'd completed it. The PRT side of things was apparently trivial, as they should already have all four of the business partners registered as parahumans in the first place, and that wasn't something Taylor or Amy had to be present for.
After that the two girls had checked the movie listings and decided not to bother. Instead they decided that going to Las Vegas meant that they needed appropriate clothing for the likely higher temperatures. A quick double-check showed a nearly twenty degree Fahrenheit difference between Brockton Bay and Las Vegas, much more significant than the mere ten degree difference they'd ended up with back in April. Also, back in April the temperature was low enough that it was still in the norms for Brockton Bay.
They'd started by checking Amy's wardrobe, including discovering that some of her stuff no longer fit. A list was made, and then they made their way to the Hebert household to double-check Taylor's wardrobe, Vicky joining them 'for safety' and all. Not because there was a shopping trip planned or anything. Now they were in the department store, since Vicky didn't get to choose where they shopped.
"Do I really need to buy one of these?" Taylor asked as they browsed through a selection of swimsuits.
"You have one that fits and it has a couple of seams falling apart," Amy said. "So yes. And I really should have replaced mine on fit alone by now, so I'm getting at least one new one as well."
"But why can't I get a one piece?" Taylor asked, gesturing to the portion of the selection she wasn't looking through. In part because she kept being dragged away from it.
"Because a two piece will look and fit better," Vicky answered with a grin. "I've seen what you'd wear without our help as well, and that won't do for a trip to Las Vegas."
"It's what I brought on the last trip to Las Vegas," Taylor grumbled.
"We didn't go swimming then either," Amy retorted. "Partly due to a lack of free time. Maybe we can check out the hotel pool this visit? I'm sure there's at least one waterpark we could visit as well, we'll be there for two days before the convention starts after all."
Taylor glared at Amy, who ignored her, before sighing and continuing to look through the multi-piece swimsuits. Maybe she'd come back without the other two and get a nice one piece swimsuit or two later. She had a feeling that Vicky's insistence on paying for this shopping trip would mean the older girl also insisting on the less modest swimsuits either way today.
Megan groaned as she heard thumping coming down the hall. She'd had a night shift, doing her best to dodge the Nine in town, but that didn't mean that she got to sleep.
"Mommy mommy mommy!" Alex yelled as she entered the bedroom. The eight year old was unusually energetic. Or perhaps Megan was just that tired.
"What is it honey?" Megan asked, half-sitting up.
"My hair has pink!" Alex yelled, bouncing up and down.
Megan blinked, and looked at her little girl. Now that she'd mentioned it, there was pink on the bits of hair closest to the scalp. She was pondering this when Alex went wide eyed.
Alex pointed at Megan's head. "Oooh! You have pink too!"
Megan tried to process that, and decided to just grab the little mirror and clock thing that was on the nightstand. Something Alex had picked out for a gift at one point, and it needed a new battery for the clock. Using the mirror, Megan checked and found that her own hair was apparently growing in pink, just like her daughter's.
Groaning, Megan put the mirror down and picked up her phone. She didn't know if this was someone's power or something else, but she had to call it in. And probably wasn't getting any sleep for at least another couple of hours.
They'd ended up dragging all of their shopping back to the Dallon residence, in part because they were hungry and lunch awaited them. They ended up making basic sandwiches and splitting a bag of chips for the two of them while Mark dragged Vicky out to lunch before a bit of patrolling.
"What are you looking over anyway?" Amy asked while they ate.
"Possible equipment for the other Wards," Taylor replied. "It seems like whenever I get something new PHO goes into bigger rants that the other Wards are being neglected or something. I'm thinking if I get them one thing each I can shut PHO up for a bit."
"Oh. Anything interesting?"
Taylor thought for a moment, and then quickly made a list and sent it over to Amy.
Amy took a moment to open the list, and then frowned. "So you found a bunch of ideas, but that's about it?"
"I figured ideas first," Taylor replied. "I thought I should avoid duplicates, so having a list of ideas first would help. I was just considering how to divvy things up."
"Oh. Had you come up with anything yet?"
Taylor grinned. "I'm thinking that the hexacopter camera drone that can follow the controlling device could work for Dennis. I can probably get it kitted out as 'ClockWatch' without him complaining."
Amy giggled at that. "He'd either love it or hate it, depending on his mood."
"I also figured that Chris would like one of the tinkertech grab bags. Maybe the California edition, just in case he contributes to the New England one? Let him use that to make his own new toys."
After a moment of consideration Amy nodded. "Yeah, that's probably best for a tinker that isn't you. What about the sniper rifle?"
"To be 'Wards friendly' it's intended to stun and not kill," Taylor explained. "I figure that Missy would love it, and if anyone complains we can argue that it keeps her away from danger due to the range on it. I just won't mention that it comes with a replaceable 'magazine' that can switch it to other, likely more harmful effects. And I was thinking that the laptop would be for Lisa, so she doesn't feel left out despite not being in the field and all."
"I think Dean would like the shield," Amy said after a few moments of thought. "It shouldn't be that hard to rig his power armor to be able to hold it, and I know he's complained about getting shot on a regular basis. The shield would probably be easier to deal with than broken power armor and all."
Taylor thought about that and nodded. "That makes sense. His power armor can be a tad fragile, and he can't maintain it himself. Do you think Brian or Aisha should get the Jump Harness?"
"I think Aisha would have more fun with the audio grenades, even if both could use the added mobility. Unless you think Carlos would want the grenades?"
"No, can't really see him using them in any amusing ways on patrol. I was thinking that he might like the weighted tinkertech alloy chain net for a somewhat ranged takedown option. Of course, the normal method there would be to use containment foam, but I think he'd appreciate a reusable net more. That and I can't get him access to containment foam anyway, he'd have to take the class."
"Then I'd go with Brian getting the jump harness and Aisha getting the grenades. Probably better to keep her less mobile anyway, she'll be enough trouble stuck on the ground. Wait, what about the water gun drone?"
"I'm having trouble coming up with a way for someone to use it on patrol that doesn't open me up to being sprayed with questionable liquids. So far I've got nothing, so unless I'm controlling it..."
Amy nodded sagely. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Even if you weren't the apparent target all of the Wards would likely get hit at least once, intentionally or otherwise."
"Now I just need to build a cart with theming comments on all of the items, and flag the whole thing for a review before the order is processed. I'll probably need to drop full explanations in for each item, actually, and put an explanation for why I'm doing all of this on the overall order notes."
"Going to add anything for yourself in there?"
Taylor shook her head. "No need. Besides, if I want something for myself I'll keep it in an order that I'm not asking for a review of."
Amy snorted. "Ok, yeah. No need to draw attention to your stuff. The PRT does a decent enough job of that as it is when they find out about things anyway."
"They do?"
Rolling her eyes, Amy pulled out her phone and slid it over to Taylor. Picking it up, Taylor saw that there was an email open on it, one that had been sent to all of New Wave. She read it, and then blinked. "They emailed all of New Wave to advise you that I've got power-granting vials in my room at the PRT building?"
"It's a potential target for villains and all that so they informed us of the potential motive."
"Honestly, I'd thought that you'd informed Carol and Sarah about the things. I didn't think the PRT would've. Though this does look automated, perhaps they've got an automatic process in place that's overzealous due to me being a Ward? I'm going to send a question in asking about that, actually."
It only took a minute to send the question off, followed by twenty minutes of entering and tweaking the wording on the various notes for the items in her cart. She checked the box requesting that the order be reviewed for appropriateness and/or branding concerns, and filled in that it was gifts for other Wards as indicated on the individual item notes. Eventually she was happy with the entire thing and submitted it.
"Well, that's done," Taylor said. "Now I'm not sure what to do for the afternoon."
"I think they're running a Star Wars marathon," Amy said. "I forget what channel, but we could watch that?"
Mark arrived home with Vicky to find Amy and Taylor passed out on the couch, one of the Star Wars films playing on the television. They both had their visors on, except that they'd been knocked partially off due to how the two were leaning on each other. He carefully pulled the visors off and put them down on the table in front of the two, before making his way to the kitchen to start prepping dinner.
Vicky had, due to an unfortunate mishap with a couple of gang members with guns and a balcony falling off of a building, ended up coated in things best left unnamed and had rushed straight to shower upon entering the house. Mark wasn't sure how long it would take his daughter to clean up, but he'd try and keep her from making a racket downstairs when she finished.
After a quick double-check of what was available, he decided that it was going to be a pasta night. Specifically, they had plenty of spaghetti and a few jars of sauce available, and he had what he needed to make garlic bread.
After dinner, with some teasing from Vicky about the two having fallen asleep on the couch, Carol brought a folding chair out to the greenhouse so she'd have a place to sit while she monitored the two.
"What are you two trying to do there?" Carol finally asked after fifteen minutes of watching them work silently.
"Trying to figure out the best way to grow usable neural tissue with a plant," Taylor answered, causing Amy to grimace.
"Why?" Carol asked after a moment to let that sink in.
"So that Riley doesn't need to kill people to get brain tissue," Amy answered with a sigh, closing her eyes and obviously waiting for a reaction.
"That's not a horrible idea," Carol finally said, causing Amy to blink in confusion, before turning to look at Carol questioningly. "What? I'd much prefer horrors of nature that don't require killing people. I don't imagine it will help with her documented desires to play with parahumans, but you're trying to reduce the body count needed to keep her sane. You might even be able to remove the need for her to be in the Nine at all with tricks like this."
Amy blinked some more, and then looked at Taylor. Taylor shrugged and returned to focusing on the plant they'd been working on.
"So what's the current problem?" Carol asked a few minutes later.
"We're having issues with the growth patterns," Taylor answered. "We don't want it to grow into an actual brain, but we need some of the mechanisms that would let it do so to function because otherwise Riley probably won't be able to use the tissue."
Carol nodded. "Can you constrain it somehow? I can't believe I'm saying this, but perhaps make neural-tissue fruits?"
"That would make it easier," Amy muttered, the plant shifting in response to her touch.
"Hindsight can be annoying," Taylor said. "I'm sure we'd have gotten there eventually."
Carol let them work for a little over an hour after that. She'd later claim it was like watching a train wreck once she'd known what they were doing. Two plants had been left to see if they'd grow the 'fruit' themselves, even though that was the wrong word as they weren't going to contain seeds at all.
Early Thursday morning Amy extracted herself from Taylor's bed, having ended up heading in to try and calm the other girl down the night before. She didn't recall falling asleep, but figured it didn't matter much. Much more important was needing to use the bathroom.
Once that was taken care of she headed back to her own bed, only to end up tripping over Rodney who hadn't been fast enough to follow her out of the room the night before. She grumbled before climbing into bed, and had nodded off again a few minutes later.
After breakfast Taylor and Amy had made their way to the PRT building. They had appointments with therapists, and plans for tinkering or visiting the junkyard afterwards. Sadly, they'd misread things and were early, but not early enough to use the gym, so they'd wandered into the Wards area to wait.
"Hi Brian," Taylor said as they entered. "What brings you in on a day off?"
"Pre-transition meetings for moving over to the Protectorate," Brian replied. "Apparently I get to have more than Carlos does because I'm still in a probationary period. That and I had mail to pick up."
"Sounds annoying," Amy said. "So, how'd your car end up?"
Brian shook his head. "The car only took a couple of days and is probably better than when it was new. There was a lot of deliberate sabotage, and had I had it for more than a day or so things would've fallen apart on me. They actually went so far that they started making it safer by accident. For example, the seat belt pretensioner was rigged to severely injure the driver but wouldn't work with the airbag sensor disconnected."
"I hope they hit the idiots with as much of the book as possible," Taylor said, shaking her head.
"They shut down the place last week," Brian said, shrugging. "Turns out they weren't actually Empire, instead they were tied to some group overseas. Supposedly their records in the hidden basement said that they were here to 'monitor' the Empire. Something went wrong recently so they've been a bit more daring than usual, and Miss Militia apparently got a look at the place and admitted that the Nazi imagery was a lot more discreet than Lisa thought it was from my descriptions."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I still hope that they get hit hard."
"Not sure if they can be hit harder than the PRT mechanic who'd stopped double-checking the work his unlicensed 'assistants' were doing for him. I was told that he faced a panel containing Miss Militia, Wrench Wraith, Armsmaster, Director Piggot, and a representative of the Youth Guard. Apparently he'd also signed off on Dean's, and when they checked it hadn't been hooked up correctly either."
Taylor and Amy both cringed at the thought of being up against that group when they were all pissed at you.
Colin groaned as he got up and grabbed the crutch next to his bed. The night before had been very annoying, apparently Kaiser and Lung had chosen the same time to attack the Elite, down to the quarter-hour even. It was almost like they'd planned it that way, in fact. It didn't help that they'd both brought new capes with them. Luckily they didn't actually tend to plan together, or the Protectorate would be much too easily overwhelmed.
Kaiser apparently had a team of a breaker and a presumed changer, though they already had an accidental hard counter for the latter. Something about the scout drone sensor technology seemed to shut the changer down, not that it helped with the breaker. That had, however, created enough confusion with the pair to split them off from the rest of the Empire, though they'd been able to escape in the overall confusion shortly thereafter when the Elite counterattack picked up steam.
Lung, on the other hand, had a single new cape. A shaker that used paints and brushes to reshape the environment temporarily. The woman was clever with the use of her power, mainly using it in a support role at the time. She'd demonstrated the ability to create holes in walls, form temporary constructs, and had at one point vanished into the ground in a location that shouldn't have had a tunnel under it. He hadn't been in range when she'd done that, so they weren't fully certain what she'd done once in the ground. By the time he could examine the area later there was only a masterfully painted picture of stairs going down sitting on the sidewalk.
Of course, the Elite weren't defenseless either. Their cape that could manipulate existing metal in the area had been out. They were manton-limited, thankfully, but that didn't stop them from twisting his armor to the point where the strength-boosters had dislocated his hip. Luckily said cape, and he had no clue of their gender yet, had more pressing concerns for most of the battle, given that they were likely brought in to counter Kaiser. They'd also had an unknown out, one that appeared to repair and reinforce walls. Of course, that could have been someone with tinkertech instead.
Shaking his head, Colin focused on getting to the bathroom. He thought it a pity that Miss Dallon and Miss Hebert would be in the building, but he wasn't able to request that either of them heal his injuries. Then again, the rest period there was to give them time to recover so that they didn't accidentally create fatal problems, so the waiting was probably justified. On paper, anyway. With how quickly their brains healed they should be fine by now, but instead he was waiting for a visit from an independent from Michigan.
That all he'd needed to arrange for said independent to come out was the promise of an autograph and a quick tour of one of his labs was a side bonus, as it would hopefully mean he'd be good for patrolling tomorrow night, though he'd planned on resuming patrolling on Saturday instead either way.
Their appointments with the therapists, plural as they'd been split up and then traded off halfway through, had taken the majority of the morning. They'd then decided that beating things up was more important than tinkering, mainly for the mood boost of the former, so they'd moved down to the junkyard.
"I think we should shore that up with another broom handle," Amy said as she examined the ridiculous pile they were assembling. It was centered on a single sturdy stool, with broom handles, street signs, and a few lengths of pipe providing support where things started to lean off-center as it grew outward and upward.
"There's no weight on the pipe here," Taylor retorted from the ladder she was standing on, shaking the pipe in question a little for emphasis. "It obviously isn't leaning this way right now, even with the filing cabinet in place."
"Huh, it looks like it's leaning towards you from here."
"Because we've got more on this side to try and balance out the engine block on the other side, but haven't found anything else quite that heavy?"
Amy considered that as Miss Militia entered the room, stopping just inside the door to stare at the construction the two had created.
"Hello Miss Militia," Taylor called as she climbed down the ladder. She grinned as she folded it, having taken a few minutes to repair it when they'd found it in one of the piles.
"Hello Miss Hebert," Miss Militia finally said. "And Miss Dallon." She then turned and locked the door, which got her a couple of curious looks. "I don't plan on being long, but I've been asked to discuss a couple of things with Miss Hebert and in here is as good a place as anywhere."
Taylor made her way over so that there'd be less yelling, not to mention less chance of the pile falling on her while she wasn't paying attention to it. "So what's up?"
"The first thing I've been asked to discuss is your trip to Las Vegas," Miss Militia said. "Specifically, you're allowed four people and so far only have Miss Dallon here as going with you. Your father checked with Jacob while you were incapacitated and Riley should be available to go, but Jacob asked that you also consider allowing the newest member of the Nine to join you as well. He apparently thinks that it would be a good idea for her to socialize with, in his words, 'less sociopathic' people. That's apparently been approved, but the final decision is with you."
Taylor thought about it for a minute. "Has anyone asked Riley or the new member if they even want to go?"
"Not that I know of," Miss Militia answered with a shrug. "I think the idea was to not get their hopes up until you'd been checked with."
Taylor looked at Amy. Who shrugged. "I think Riley would enjoy it, but not having met their new member I have no clue either way."
Sighing, Taylor considered things. If Riley did join them, then they had a very small pool of good candidates to come along. Of course, she also didn't need to fill all four slots, she just had the option to.
"Whatever your decision," Miss Militia said, interrupting Taylor's thoughts. "I'm informing you that things have been cleared, so you can ask them to join you. I have no further interest either way and have no need for an answer. You have until the end of the month to decide if you want to invite either of them along for planning reasons."
"Oh." Taylor felt a little better about it, since she didn't have to decide right now. "Ok. What was the other thing?"
Miss Militia sighed. "As much as you should have more time off, I checked with the therapists and with your father. Everyone agrees that you should be good for some patrols before your trip. We're planning on starting catching up on the Protectorate and Wards joint patrols this weekend, and as such will mostly be avoiding areas where we expect significant fighting. The Youth Guard signed off on it, provided that you're willing. Otherwise we'll schedule you to patrol again sometime next week instead."
"I suppose that being on patrol so soon after being hospitalized would help create cover for me," Taylor mused, getting a nod from Miss Militia. "And I don't think I have a whole lot else to do."
"I'm going to be bored out of my mind while I'm barred from healing," Amy noted.
"Come in and spend a day tinkering," Taylor said. "Maybe you'll come up with something good. As for patrolling, provided that I'm not riding anything remotely 'motorcycle' I think I'm ok with it."
"I'll ensure that you're either on foot or on your platform," Miss Militia promised. "We were planning on that anyway, actually, since we aren't using PRT vans. The plan is for patrols Saturday morning and afternoon followed by one more patrol Sunday afternoon, and then more patrols during the week depending on needs from the weekend. Not everyone will be patrolling each time this weekend, of course, since we'll only be fielding six capes from each side at a time. Coupled with other concerns, like Clockblocker only being available Saturday morning and Hulder not being available on Sunday, figuring things out is annoying. Having you in the mix will make spreading everyone out easier. I'm sure Armsmaster will thank you for the increase in efficiency."
Taylor nodded, knowing that Colin still liked things to be efficient. "At least you didn't pressure me with the headache of scheduling things before I'd agreed to patrol."
Miss Militia snorted as she unlocked the door. "I try to be reasonable." She went to leave, before looking over at the pile they'd been making. "Why, exactly, are you making that monstrosity anyway?"
"So we can knock out the stool under it and see how it collapses," Amy replied with a grin.
Miss Militia didn't end up leaving for another half hour, having decided to remain until they'd collapsed the pile for 'safety reasons'. That was all the paperwork she'd file later said, anyway. There was no need to mention that she'd helped with completing the pile, nor that she'd helped tip it over further with her own powers after knocking the stool out had shown that they'd done too good a job of building the thing as it only dropped and didn't collapse.
Chapter 122 Friday morning Taylor and Amy were woken by Vicky, by way of the older girl using an air horn. They grumbled as they untangled themselves from the sheets in the guest room and heard Carol yelling at Vicky while they took turns in the bathroom.
Taylor: So, I just found a selection of buzzing insect sounds.
Amy: And here I was thinking about dusting off the crickets. Can you send me a copy?
Taylor: Sure. Should I send Carol a copy too?
Amy: Might as well include Mark.
By the time the two had gotten changed and headed downstairs Taylor had gotten thank you messages from Carol and Mark, since apparently they'd collected various less-natural sounds. Saturday's incident had stopped them from using them, but if Vicky was going to 'retaliate' for the air raid siren wakeups with an actual air horn then Taylor and Amy were told to start on driving the older girl nuts.
Amy: I vote we pretend we can't even hear the buzzing.
Taylor: That sounds amusing, so I'm game.
Mark was making pancakes for breakfast. Amy collected a couple of glasses while Taylor grabbed the milk. Once they both had their glasses filled they sat down, and Taylor evaluated the options for what speakers to use. Vicky was on her way downstairs after being made to do something upstairs, so one of the hallway speakers was first. The grinning from Taylor and Amy as Vicky stopped, likely to look around, as the sound played caused Mark to chuckle.
After breakfast they left Vicky to do the cleanup, part of her punishment for waking Taylor and Amy up with the air horn, while Carol and Mark joined the two in the greenhouse.
"So you think you've figured things out?" Carol asked.
"Hopefully," Amy said. "We're letting one of them grow one of the, er, pods really, from scratch as a final test. That and we hope that the tweaked DNA won't make things work poorly for Riley."
Mark was looking at one of the three plants they'd made. "It almost looks like an orange, if it weren't pink with black blotches."
"We didn't want it to be mistaken for other fruit," Taylor explained. "Granted, it should be very hard for someone to make that mistake, given that these won't even grow from cuttings anymore."
"I did some checking yesterday," Carol said from where she was leaning against the door's frame. "But I couldn't find anything either way for if these need to be inspected by the PRT before you can give them to Riley."
"I submitted a question about that already," Amy said. "It got handed off to Jacob. Apparently the Nine run on an odd set of rules, so long as we don't change things so that these can reproduce they should be fine. On the other hand, he also warned me that she would likely be very happy if they do work, but he wasn't sure how she'd express it."
"That's the worrying part," Taylor added. "There isn't a whole lot left for her to give us, since we already have spider-bots and all. We've already got enhancements, that she's going to want as well for that matter, and most of the other things she does are more harmful than helpful."
Mark chuckled. "Maybe she'll start selling spider-bots in the PRT's store and tell them to give you two a cut of the profits."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, before they were all distracted by a yell from inside the house.
"Have you two been playing those sound clips while we've been out here?" Carol asked a moment later.
"We've been taking turns," Taylor said. "Sometimes in the room Vicky is in and sometimes in a neighboring room."
"Usually a neighboring one when she's obviously searching the room she's in," Amy added.
"Too bad that being able to target it like that will be harder when Taylor isn't around," Carol said with a chuckle. "Then again, looking for phantom insects should get her to start paying attention, maybe better than the other sounds we'd considered."
The two girls pulled into the secure garage a little later that morning. Taylor had what she'd been warned was likely to be a 'trying' session with a therapist. Amy wasn't strictly needed, but came along for emotional support.
"So what do you think they're planning?" Amy asked after they'd parked.
"I suspect that they're going to have a box," Taylor replied with a slight shiver. Amy raised an eyebrow. "I overheard some discussion about how I reacted to the shower cubicle, though some of that was due to poor positioning of the lights."
Amy sighed. "At least I'm fairly confident that they won't be forcing you in."
Emily sighed as she looked over the paperwork for the volunteers. She wasn't sure why they were entertaining the request at all, but if this worked she foresaw many more headaches in her future. And that was assuming that it stayed inside the PRT this time, and was thus limited to 'prank' paperwork. The only good thing she could see about that side of things was that existing parahumans were automatically excluded.
She was able to take solace in that things were apparently being taken seriously, given that the first run of this insanity was going to be overseen by Legend. Further, she wasn't losing any staff to the experiment, as they'd collected individuals from elsewhere for the first run. They were bringing in enough volunteers for up to ten 'doses', which was more than they expected to be able to use. They'd all signed off on things, including the potential for death and mutation, and would be brought in as soon as the timetable was confirmed.
Sighing again, Emily decided that she couldn't delay this for much longer. She'd have to try and have a meeting with relevant individuals by Monday or Tuesday at the latest, depending on how schedules lined up.
Two hours after they'd arrived Taylor was sitting in the Wards area with a triple chocolate milkshake. She apparently had a form of claustrophobia now, and had actually been warned about using the toilets in most buses, trains, and airplanes. Further, they'd discovered that 'trigger event' related mental trauma could not be properly suppressed by snarks, even if your ability to 'second trigger' had been disabled.
"I'm not sure why they put you through that so soon after what happened," Miss Militia said. She'd provided the milkshake while Amy was reassuring Taylor that everything was ok. "Then again, as much as I didn't expect it to work, being put through a simulated version of my own trigger event helped me."
Taylor sighed. "I understand the theories, though it's only done with physical environment components of trigger events. Creating associations with similar situations where you know you're safe so that your first mental go-to isn't always the situation from the original trigger event and all to reduce panic incidents. Amazingly enough, knowing that doesn't help get through it."
"And it likely never will," Amy admitted. "I had issues with the store in the mall where I first healed Vicky until a different store moved in and remodeled. I was later told that they actually went out of business because I avoided the store, once my reputation as a healer started to grow and people avoided it because I was. I've since made a point of entering other locations when I'm elsewhere in the country, since it isn't the store's fault that the mall was attacked that day, but I still have to force down some panic if they're styled like Brockton Bay's was."
"It probably didn't help that the store had only been open for a couple of weeks when that happened," Miss Militia added. "So you probably didn't have any other memories of shopping in it."
"I'd been in there four times before then," Amy retorted. "The problem there is that they were all with Vicky, and her style of shopping has always been stressful for me."
"Oh." Miss Militia visibly considered that. "I suppose not having 'good' memories would hinder things. But I do wonder why this is the first time Miss Hebert has been 'exposed' to her trigger event conditions, since we knew what they were before and all. Most of the time they start on that a month or two after a parahuman joins up."
"Because the only negative reactions she had were memories of the locker from before she triggered," Amy answered, Taylor nodding lightly while she drank some of the milkshake. "And she was exposed to lockers every day at school. Now they're probably jumping the gun to 'make up for lost time' or something stupid like that."
Miss Militia sighed at that. "This can't be the first time someone has only had a negative reaction after a second exposure, though."
"I bet it's the first time someone failed to second-trigger despite the best attempts of their snark though," Taylor argued. "I'm under the impression that a situation like ours is very rare, if not absolutely unique at this point."
"And if you had second-triggered there would probably be an enforced wait period," Miss Militia concluded. "But since you didn't the system is being stupid."
"There would be," Amy said, causing Miss Militia to look at her curiously. "What? She looked it up before her session. I think she argued about the details with the therapist too, only to be shot down in some way."
Taylor nodded. "They argued that there are a lot of things in the world that are fully enclosed, cramped, and potentially poorly-lit. Like porta-potties at events, and panicking whenever I encounter them would be a bad thing. They didn't like my suggestions for alternatives."
"I'm not even going to ask," Miss Militia said, shaking her head. "You two have a nice afternoon."
Amy had decided that Taylor needed some 'outside time', so they'd headed across town to a pizza and mini-golf place. The owner had rigged things so that custom-made trays would hook onto stands near each hole for your food and drink, though with lots of signs asking that you keep the food and drink on the paths and not in the playing area itself. It still meant that if you wanted you could eat while playing, instead of playing before or after your meal. Or, at night they allowed alcohol on the course, so you could get progressively more drunk as you played.
They got large subs instead of pizza, with a curious look when the person taking their order realized that they weren't splitting the first large sub ordered. Well, they did split it, by virtue of each of them eating half of each sub, but two teenage girls eating a large sub each was obviously out of the norm. They didn't care, they were hungry. Which is why they also got the large order of spicy fries, though they only got one to split there.
"I thought you claimed that you hadn't played in a couple of years," Amy said as they left the third hole. "But you're creaming me already and New Wave ends up out here on a fairly regular basis!"
"If you aren't cheating then you aren't trying," Taylor replied with a grin as she settled her tray in at the stand at the fourth hole.
Amy blinked. "Really? You're claiming that you're cheating, at mini-golf?"
"If she is I haven't spotted it," a teenage boy that worked for the place said. He'd been watching them play from the booth where you picked up your ball and putter, and the fourth hole brought them back close to him. "I think she's just a good shot."
Amy frowned, but went to take her first shot anyway while Taylor ate a few fries. The shot went off to the side slightly, bouncing off of the edge of the tunnel this hole had instead of going through it. She then stood back and watched Taylor very carefully.
Taylor grinned as she put her ball down, then lined up her shot. Only she could tell that she had a projection line coming off of the head of the putter, to better show her exactly where it was pointing. It wasn't flawless, but it made it a lot easier to correct for minor angle issues, and since it wasn't active it didn't keep the putter from actually hitting the ball. It also didn't help with how much power to put into the shot, but so far aim had been more important than precise striking power. A moment later her ball went straight down the tunnel, bounced off of the corner bumper, and rolled to a stop on the 'green'.
"I think you just lied about how much practice you get," Amy finally said as Taylor grabbed her tray to move over to the stand by the green. She had, after all, landed closer to the hole so it was her shot.
"Perhaps," Taylor allowed. "I have been trying to be more subtle and sneaky, after all."
By the time they finished Amy was just over forty strokes behind Taylor, some of that due to a 'lucky' hole in one on the twelfth hole on Taylor's part that took Amy the course maximum eight strokes for. Then again, knowing exactly how the inner mechanisms worked on the spinner that 'randomized' which tunnel your ball came out of helped there. She just had to time things right and the course did the rest of the work for her. They'd also consumed their entire lunch and neither had gotten a hole in one on the eighteenth hole.
"That was enjoyable," Taylor said after they'd turned in their putters. "Particularly the cheating my way to victory part."
"I still don't think you were cheating," Amy replied, rolling her eyes as they made their way over to where their mopeds were parked.
Taylor grinned. "You're just annoyed that you can't figure out how I cheated."
"And you aren't going to tell me, are you?" Amy accused.
Taylor paused as she was putting her helmet on, looking over at Amy and sticking her tongue out for a moment. "Who knows, maybe I will. I thought it was obvious."
Amy glared at Taylor, before putting her own helmet on. Taylor suspected that she wasn't being believed, but didn't care right then.
Arriving back at the Dallon residence Amy noticed that the automatic light on the side of the house hadn't come on when they approached.
"Hey Taylor," Amy said. "Do you think the bulbs died in the light up there?"
Taylor looked up at the lights. Her tinker snark told her that the bulbs and sensors were all fine. "No, I don't think so. Maybe someone turned them off from inside?"
Taylor: My phone hasn't latched onto any of the speakers.
Amy: Really? Huh. Mine hasn't either.
Amy shrugged, and the two headed inside. There they found Mark and Vicky in the kitchen, packing things from the fridge into coolers. The inside of the open fridge was noticeably dark.
"Hello girls," Mark said when he noticed them. "Bit of a mishap earlier. Entirely my fault, but we kinda need a new circuit breaker box installed." He gestured to the coolers. "We're going to bring some of this over to the Pelham household. I've checked with Danny and things should be safe enough over there for you two to spend a couple of nights."
"Do we want to know what happened?" Taylor asked.
"I shouldn't have been goofing off while playing with Rodney," was all Mark would say.
The two helped pack up the coolers and put them into Mark's car, then they went upstairs with Vicky to pack up. Taylor was bringing everything, including all of her recent purchases, but Amy only grabbed enough for a few days. Vicky probably did the same, but they didn't check with her to confirm. Amy did end up helping Taylor get everything out of the now-unlit closet.
Taylor: So, any thoughts on why everyone seems to be assuming you'd rather join me at home than stay with the Pelhams?
Amy: Because Carol and Mark will take the guest room, leaving the couch or bunking with Crystal. At least at your house I'll have access to a proper bed, and Eric won't be tempted to do worse than the air horn bit Vicky pulled to wake me up.
Taylor: Ah. That makes sense.
Collecting the spider-bots was mildly annoying since Rodney had apparently decided to hide under Amy's bed. Finding the spider-bot was mildly annoying, because of course it wasn't Ackbar hiding where snark-sense could help. Once they got Rodney out from under the bed they opted to let the spider-bots ride in Taylor's backpack instead of in the pet carriers, which would prevent the public from seeing them. That let them stuff the carriers full of Taylor's shopping. With that figured out they dragged everything downstairs to start strapping things to the mopeds.
Before they went outside their curiosity got the better of them and they checked the damage. It didn't take much to see that half of the circuit breaker box had apparently been mangled. Based on the damage to the wall next to it they figured that a small explosion had gone off. And given how little Mark wanted to talk about it they had a pretty good idea how things might have gone.
Half an hour later and with the help of a few borrowed straps the two mopeds were ready to go. Vicky had loaded her stuff into Mark's car and everything was locked up. Mark said he'd keep Amy up to date on the repair, but the calls he already made were putting things at Monday at the earliest, possibly as late as Wednesday depending on the amount of damage done.
"Looks like we've got the house to ourselves for the moment," Taylor said as the garage door closed behind them. "Maybe I should check to see if we should try making dinner?"
"Perhaps check if there's enough food to make dinner first?" Amy offered. "We only brought some potatoes from my house after all."
"That makes sense," Taylor replied, letting the two spider-bots out of her backpack now that they couldn't escape outside. Rodney moved over to Amy right away, while Ackbar moved around the garage, apparently happy to be in a more familiar environment. Or perhaps checking that things hadn't changed?
They gathered everything and dragged it all upstairs, Ackbar darting ahead as soon as the door from the garage to the house was opened. They dumped most of the stuff in Taylor's room, splitting off Amy's things into the guest room. Taylor took the effort to empty Ackbar's pet carrier and put it where it normally sat, but left putting everything else away for later. Instead she headed downstairs to check what food was available in the kitchen while Amy unpacked some of her stuff in the guest room.
Taylor: Looks like my father hasn't bothered to go shopping.
Amy: Oh. Guess we won't be cooking.
A text message was sent off to her father a minute later, and she headed back upstairs to deal with her clothing. It didn't take long to sort out what she should be washing versus what was clean, with the latter being put away and the former being dropped into the hamper in the corner. Of course, once she was done she realized that the hamper was full, so she grabbed a couple of laundry baskets and sorted out a couple of loads.
With the laundry ready to drag downstairs she moved over to the plants that her father had apparently been looking after, since the the shift from 'charcoal in bag' to 'carbon cubes' had continued over the past few days. She topped off the charcoal in the plants and refilled the water bulbs. She was giving them a once-over with Shaper when Amy came in.
"I thought you thought those would be moving to the PRT building eventually?" Amy asked.
"They probably will be," Taylor replied. "Maybe in the next week, even. Depends on how things go with at least one more prank."
Amy shook her head and sat down in Taylor's desk chair, flipping through the few things sitting there. "Oh, right, you have that online class voucher. Any clue how long it'll be?"
Taylor paused. "I'd kinda forgotten about that, and I've got no clue how long it'll be for." She reached over and took the voucher, reading over it again. "Let's see...fine print says that length is variable and to check the class schedule. I'll worry about it later, since it's good for a couple of years."
"I wouldn't put it off too long, maybe just wait until we get back from Vegas?"
Taylor nodded. "That makes sense. Though I suppose I should check with my uncle on a couple of things, then decide if I'm inviting Riley to join us or not."
They made their way downstairs while Taylor composed a message to Jacob, each of them pouring some juice before they headed into the living room and started channel-surfing for something decent.
"Dad says he'll pick up pizza on the way home and will go shopping for groceries tomorrow," Taylor said a few minutes later, after the response from her father came in. "You have any topping preferences?"
Amy thought for a moment. "If he's going to the place that offers lobster on pizza I think I'd like that. Otherwise I think I'd like meat lover's?"
Taylor looked at Amy, then shrugged and sent that off to her father. "I don't think there's anything good on."
Amy flipped through some more channels. "We could watch sports?"
"Do you have any interest in watching sports?" Taylor asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not in the least. But there isn't a whole lot else on either."
Taylor considered that. "Well, want a rematch now that you can play two players at once?"
Amy blinked, then realized what Taylor was talking about. "Sure. You won't have an advantage this time."
Jacob groaned as he limped to the table. Why did he insist on the taunts? He knew that Bastion was skilled with those damned force fields, after all. But the Protectorate Leader had been so careless with the racist insults, and gotten in so much trouble over them. It was too juicy a taunting target. Then again, Bastion hadn't been all that affected by the taunts until the gang members nearby actually defended Jacob because the Nine obviously didn't care about race.
"Who got the better of you this time?" William asked as he slid a plate with a large sandwich on it across the table.
"Bastion," Jacob replied. "He ended up a bit angrier than I expected, but the gang members took the worst of it. I don't think that's going to look good for him though, killing twenty or so unpowered gang members in a fit of rage and all."
"I'll take a look at your injury after dinner," Riley said between bites of her own sandwich.
"I already fixed the dislocation," Jacob said, waving his hand in dismissal. "You aren't Panacea, so I know that it should just need time to heal."
"I'm still taking a look," Riley retorted. "You think that it was only a dislocation. I want to be certain."
Jacob sighed and pulled out his phone. He hadn't been checking his messages all day, and he figured he should check if anything important had come in before Riley potentially knocked him out for the night. He alternated between reading and eating for a bit, before he came across a message from Taylor. Reading over it, he sighed. "I apparently need to make at least one phone call before you check on me."
Riley glared at him. "Are you trying to escape a check-up?"
"Taylor has some questions for me. I'll come find you when I'm done talking to her."
He watched Riley blink, and then smile. One of her creepy smiles, in fact. "Oh, ok. I can wait until you're done there."
Jacob wasn't sure if he hoped for a short discussion with Taylor or a long one.
Taylor hadn't had lobster pizza before, but had found it surprisingly tasty. Expensive, according to her father, but tasty. He'd also gotten a meat lover's. Between the three of them they'd finished off both large pizzas.
"So do you two have anything interesting planned for the evening?" Danny asked as they cleaned up.
"I think I want to figure out what to try and make tomorrow while Taylor goes out on patrol," Amy answered. "Lots of ideas, but for a lot of them I get halfway through planning them before I realize that I can't make specific components."
"Specifically," Taylor said, noting that her father looked confused. "She's discovered that she can figure out the starting point for almost anything that would be considered a prosthetic, as well as anything that's an implant and can control something or replaces the function of a damaged organ. The further away from those basics she gets the more likely it is that she hits a point that she'd need someone else to build pieces for her."
"I have literally dozens of designs for the power and control side of an implant that I can't make all the operational components of," Amy continued. "I can lay out the basics of all of it, but when I focus on the details I suddenly lack the necessary knowledge. The same happens with prosthetics. The closest I can get is functional basic prosthetics that have holes for the more specialized non-prosthetic components. Prosthetic leg? Easy. Prosthetic leg with a deployable underwater propulsion unit? I can get the leg functionality down just fine, but end up stuck at the jack where the propulsion unit control wires would attach for that portion."
"You could probably partner with Wrench Wraith for that one," Taylor noted. "Maybe she'll be available at some point tomorrow to consult with?"
Amy shrugged. "Maybe, but having the ideas and the ideas being useful is another problem. I don't know anyone who wants a prosthetic leg with a deployable underwater propulsion unit right now. You'd probably only be able to work it properly if you had two, to be honest. Things wouldn't be likely to balance out properly otherwise."
Danny shook his head. "I've heard that tinkers can have weird issues, but I never appreciated that until recently."
Half an hour later Taylor and Amy were going over some of Amy's notebooks, seeing what kinds of things she might actually be able to build the next day.
"You've got the whole medical alert thing here," Taylor noted.
"I can't make the base station so I'd probably need to know what company a given person uses," Amy replied. "They don't all work the same way. I'd just go with Dragon's, except that she doesn't actually make anything like that."
"Looks like you stalled out halfway through this leg."
Amy looked over at the notebook Taylor had open. "No, that one's as complete as it's getting. The lever arm there is a mounting point for a knife or similar, you'd drill mounting holes as appropriate for your sheath or clip. If you flip the page over you'll see that I designed an arm version too."
Taylor flipped the page and found that the arm version had the same basic setup. "Huh. Ok. Got anyone looking for such an arm or leg?"
"The PRT has very few people that want prosthetics. Apparently regrowing limbs is much more popular for a number of reasons. They've sent me multiple apology messages for the lack of volunteers."
"Ah. Have you considered checking with the hospitals?"
"Same basic problem. Miracle healer."
Taylor flipped through the notebook some more. "What about more things like the USB mouse thing you did? I'm sure there are lots of people who'd like something like that. Even if it was something stupidly simple like a generic controller that they could use with their phones, like radio push to talk buttons?"
Amy blinked a couple of times, and grabbed a different notebook. She flipped through it to where she apparently had the designs for the mouse. "Hmm. I made this one wired, but wireless might be better."
"Can you make it so that an external circuit can be attached?" Taylor asked, causing Amy to raise an eyebrow. "Mental toggle on several buttons, but those buttons just trigger an external circuit. Which could be a hardline or a secure bluetooth module?"
Amy considered that, eyes unfocusing for a moment, before she nodded. "That would be easier and more flexible, and take up a lot less space and power. Whatever you plugged in would do most of the hard work." Yet another notebook was grabbed, but this one had blank pages.
Taylor watched Amy start planning things, only to blink as a call came in. She continued to watch Amy even as she answered the phone, subvocalizing to be less distracting.
"Hello Uncle Jacob," Taylor greeted.
"Hello Taylor," Jacob replied. "Your message indicated that you have some questions."
"Yep. For starters, I'm kinda curious how it is that Riley wouldn't be noticed at TinkerTechCon. Wandering around Brockton Bay is one thing, but I suspect people are looking for capes at the convention."
"You haven't really run into us 'in costume'," Jacob replied, sounding amused. "Different hairstyles and clothing help. Body language is important, of course, plus colored contacts help with eye colors. That and Riley is due for rebellious colored streaks in her hair, or so Amanda claims, so she'd likely do that before meeting up with you."
"I see." Taylor wasn't entirely convinced, but figured that the Nine had more than enough experience there, so she wouldn't argue the point. "And what about the other member you think needs to spend time around non-sociopaths?"
"I really shouldn't have put it that way," Jacob muttered, before clearing his throat. "Yes, well, Cherie's a bit broken, which comes with being a Vasil. And yes, I got her permission to talk to you about that. Still, all of the Nine are broken in some common ways, the most significant being that our morals tend to be somewhere between 'a little off' and 'non-existent'. Cherie ended up with 'non-existent but can fake it', but needs some practice being out in public."
Taylor frowned at that. "So you want us to babysit her, basically. When Amy and I haven't met her and you know she has significant problems. I'm not sure why you think this is a good idea."
There was a noticeable moment of silence from the other end before Jacob sighed. "Ok, that does sound a bit wrong when you put it that way. Can I bribe you?"
"With what?"
"Knowledge of how to get into the secret basements of the hotel?"
"I'm going to assume that the map app tells me how to access those."
There was some indistinct mumbling that Taylor thought included something about a petard before Jacob tried again. "I can get you some great tinker-made chocolate?"
"I ordered half a pallet of chocolate recently through the PRT store."
Jacob groaned. "Right. You're rich. I forgot about that. Ummm..."
"I also have enough toys for now, so getting me more won't help, even if we weren't talking about a trip to TinkerTechCon."
"Ok, I give up. Can I at least have you talk to a few people before your trip?"
Taylor thought about that, and didn't have an objection. "I'm game, provided you don't eat into the fourth itself and can get it scheduled properly."
"I'll clear everything through the proper channels."
Chapter 123 Saturday morning Taylor woke up and extracted herself from Amy's grip to go to the bathroom. She figured she must have had another nightmare, or Amy wouldn't have come in to check on her after they'd gone to bed in different rooms. She didn't care much at the moment either way.
Grumbling as she sat down, she decided to poke at her messages. She probably wasn't going back to sleep anyway at this point. Riley had heard back from her mother on the invitation that Taylor had sent last night, and would most likely see them in Las Vegas. Colin had requested that the Wards show up early for a pre-patrol meeting, breakfast would be provided for those that showed up. Miss Militia had added to that saying that Amy could join them if she wanted to as they had a request for the other girl anyway.
Huh, she had a meeting request from Director Piggot for late Monday morning, followed by some parahuman psychologist consulting requests after lunch. She didn't think the latter had anything to do with the Nine, not this quickly anyway, so she wasn't sure what to think. Then again, she wouldn't be surprised if they started cycling problem cases through for her to look at either way.
Finishing up, she continued going through her messages as she returned to her room to quietly get dressed, letting Amy sleep some more. Huh, someone had apparently attacked one of the barges involved in cleaning up the boat graveyard overnight, and the PRT wasn't sure if it was to disrupt things or because a tinker wanted the raw materials. They just knew that parahumans were involved due to footage that wasn't provided in the general alert, and wanted everyone to be on the lookout for potential tinker activity.
The only other thing of note in her messages were warnings for Thursday and Saturday that visitors might be in the secure areas, so they should ensure that areas were clear before passing through out of costume. Thursday even included a warning about the Wards area itself, which was especially unusual since they'd also given the Wards the day off.
It was only as she was throwing her visor on that Taylor realized that she'd dressed for the gym. She had plenty of time before the early meeting Colin had asked for, but wasn't sure if Amy would want to swing by or not. Well, even if she did swing by the gym she wouldn't want to leave for at least an hour, so she could check with Amy when the other girl woke up.
By the time Amy woke up Taylor had fed the two spider-bots and cleaned up from doing so. Her father was still in bed, but Amy was ok with going to the gym before breakfast. A quick note was left before they hopped on their mopeds to head to the PRT building.
Amy: Any idea what they want to ask me about?
Taylor: No clue. Could be any number of things. Right down to your thoughts on my mental state.
Amy: Huh. Good point, I hadn't considered that. I was only thinking about medical issues or tinkering. Guess I'll have to wait to find out.
Taylor: I caught up on some news while you were sleeping. The big news internationally was that a tinker in Poland was stockpiling thioacetone bombs, apparently wanting to attack some group in Germany with them.
Amy: I'm not sure that I'm familiar with thioacetone.
Taylor: I had to look it up myself when the article was vague.
Amy: What does it do?
Taylor: Stink extremely badly, to the point where they're charging the tinker with planned chemical warfare. Problem is, they don't know what to do with the bombs, because they're afraid that they'll set them off.
Amy seemed to consider that for a couple of minutes.
Amy: Why can't they just drag them out to the middle of nowhere and detonate them?
Taylor: There's apparently a gallon of the stuff in each bomb and they don't know what the resulting range would be. They're exploring options for dealing with them one at a time, but he had over fifty of the things prepared.
Amy: How did they find them?
Taylor: One of the older bombs developed what was described as an incredibly minor leak and caused the evacuation of a large area near the German border.
Amy: Wow. Hard to believe.
Taylor: I just sent you the article, if you want to look over it. Oh, huh, just noticed some of the comments. Apparently they ran with four liters being about a gallon, so they understated the amounts here.
By the time they'd made it to the PRT building they were curious about how bad the smell would actually be, but weren't sure they dared make any thioacetone themselves. Maybe if they could get access to a suitably contained facility?
"Good morning," Colin said as Taylor and Amy entered the Wards area after working out in the gym. He had an access panel for the deployable floor open and a couple carts sitting off to the side. One of the carts seemed to be full of food while the other had place settings and drinks. "Feel free to collect breakfast from the carts while I diagnose why the table won't deploy."
"There's a short from a likely spilled drink on the motor control unit at the other end," Taylor said, causing Colin to pause and look up. "Oh, and good morning."
"Thank you," Colin said, replacing the panel he had open and moving to the other end of where the table would rise from.
Taylor turned to Amy, who was grinning. "I'm going to get into costume. I'll be back out in a couple of minutes."
A few minutes later Taylor returned to find that Colin was just getting the table to rise out of the floor. Amy had grabbed a donut in the meantime and was standing off to the side. Once the table was in place Taylor helped by collecting chairs while Colin unloaded the carts. With everything laid out the two girls took seats.
"Thank you two for coming in early," Colin said as he prepared a plate for himself. "I hope the others arrive soon, but my notice was a bit last-minute."
"Brian and Aisha are pulling in now," Taylor noted. "Though Lisa isn't around?"
"Mycroft is on a tour of other departments that are looking for thinkers," Colin explained. "Mainly to see if she feels that she'd fit in better elsewhere. A couple of them asked for her specifically, but for now the choice will be hers."
"Huh. Is that common?"
Colin nodded. "Many departments have a list of skills they'd like to fill slots for, and requests for specific parahumans happen all the time. You've had a little over twenty requests for transfers since the Leviathan fight, almost all because other departments want the early warning capabilities you've displayed. Unless your father indicates a desire to move they'll all be rejected automatically until you join the Protectorate on the basis that your family isn't looking to relocate."
Taylor nodded, as that made sense. "Almost all?"
"New York is averaging a request every other month for your potential in assisting with power testing and Las Vegas has been putting in a request every month since you impressed them with your out of the box thinking."
"Wanna bet they get up to twice a month after TinkerTechCon?" Amy asked with a grin.
"Good morning Miss Biron," Colin greeted as Missy arrived. She was the last to do so, and for the most part the rest of them had finished breakfast already. Taylor was the only one that had bothered to get into costume, the others just sitting down to eat as they arrived.
"Good morning," Missy replied. "Sorry I didn't show up earlier, but we just got back into town from Wells about fifteen minutes ago."
"You got bit by the damage on I-95, didn't you?" Battery asked from where she was leaning against the wall.
"Didn't help that the same battle took out Route 1. We had to go North to pick up 9A South, I think it was, and my mother got lost sometime around seven last night. I got some sleep in the car and noticed the message from Armsmaster when we stopped for gas, but it was a long night."
"We were just about to move over to the conference room," Colin said. "Why don't you grab a plate of breakfast to bring with you?"
Fifteen minutes later they'd assembled in the conference room. Missy had prepared two plates of breakfast, apparently feeling that she was that hungry, and Dennis had carried a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice for her. The projection screen had been turned on and a map of the city was on display, the latest known 'claimed territories' of the gangs were highlighted. There were overlaps in several places. It was a standard map, and one that was updated regularly, mainly so that everyone could be better prepared for what kinds of risks they might encounter when on patrol.
"Thank you for coming in early," Colin said from the end of the table. "I apologize for the short notice, but I received last minute orders from Director Piggot last night. Panacea, though I've sent a message about this to Lady Photon already I would appreciate it if you'd bring it up at some point over the weekend."
Amy nodded. "I'm staying elsewhere until some repairs are completed but I'll see about calling Vicky, at least."
"Thank you. Now then, the PRT has successfully opened an official line of communication with the branch of the Elite that's set up in Brockton Bay. The Elite aren't happy about it, but have agreed to work with the PRT and the city to avoid having all of their properties in the city claimed due to the fines they've racked up for illegal tunneling, destruction of property during said tunneling, and a multitude of construction without permits charges."
"We actually got them on not filing for construction permits?" Dennis asked.
"Yes," Colin confirmed. "Now that we have a line of communication we have a new set of rules for dealing with them. For now Wards are to avoid the area the Elite are operating in unless escorted by a Protectorate member. Obviously this only counts while in costume, as I know that we can't deny you access when off the clock, so to speak. We'll be running two patrols through their territory this weekend, and I'd like Aegis to spend the morning on the console reviewing the locked out patrol routes."
"Do I need to do anything other than familiarize myself with which ones are locked out?" Carlos asked.
"I'd like your input on whether or not we locked out too many," Colin answered. "The initial lockout was done with a dumb algorithm that merely checked if the route passed through a defined area. It was likely over-zealous as a result. I'd like to go over things with you on that front tomorrow morning." Carlos nodded, and Colin turned back to the rest of them. "Now then, moving on. Miss Militia, you said you had a request for Panacea?"
"Two requests," Miss Militia elaborated. "The first is indirect. Several PRT officers got hurt recently in Tennessee and two don't want parahuman healing to regrow their limbs. If we bring them through would you be willing to assist in preparing prosthetics for them?"
"No problem," Amy replied with a smile. "Most people that come through just want things regrown."
Miss Militia nodded at that. "We're aware of that issue. The other request was far more specific, and was forwarded to us by New Wave in the first place for review. I understand that you installed what amounts to a wired USB mouse in a girl's arm a while back?"
Amy nodded. "Yep. Made sure that her mother signed off on the appropriate forms and everything."
"There were no issues with the paperwork. The request that was made was for an attempt to be made at making a keyboard or combined version of the same implant that doesn't require you to install it. The girl has been very happy with the original and several groups feel that if the technology can be reproduced then it could be a good way to help certain kinds of disabled people in general, beyond what you could do yourself."
"I...huh," Amy said as her focus shifted. "Managing the connections would be almost impossible for most doctors, but if the implant could do that part of the install itself..."
"I think you can assume that she's working on it," Taylor said, before turning to Amy. A couple of pokes later Amy blinked and gave Taylor a questioning look. "Don't forget to document things, including as much of how to make it as possible?"
Amy nodded, then dug out a notebook so that she could sketch things out with her hands. Taylor shook her head.
"Right," Colin said. "She's solidly in tinker mode now, so we should move on to this morning's patrols." He tapped the terminal next to him and three patrol routes appeared on the map. "We don't feel that the pairings are ideal, but we ran into policy and procedure issues in multiple cases." He sounded very annoyed with that. "Grue and Kid Win will be patrolling with Wrench Wraith and I first, covering some of our tinker requirements on both sides of things. Further, Wrench Wraith wants to run some tests with Grue's darkness. We'll be providing motorcycles for both Wards and taking the longer route near the outskirts of town."
"And yes Maul," Miss Militia interrupted. "Both motorcycles are going to be checked by Armsmaster and Wrench Wraith before the two are allowed on them."
Taylor shrugged. "I'm the one with the problems with motorcycle-like vehicles on Protectorate joint patrols, not them."
Colin cleared his throat. "Yes. Moving on, Hulder and Maul will be patrolling with Dauntless and Miss Militia. This covers initial concerns with Hulder's powers while at the same time providing aerial assistance for Dauntless as he field-tests his recently returned flight capabilities. That route will be the shore route, to provide a hopefully softer landing on the water in case of problems. As you can see on the map, the Elite have claimed some of the shoreline. That leaves Clockblocker patrolling with Assault and Battery, taking the route that loops around the market. Gallant, Vista, do either of you have a preference for which of you patrols with them this morning?"
"He can have the morning patrol," Missy said, causing everyone to look at her. "I think I'd like to get some extra sleep before needing to pay attention on patrol. The sleep I did get in the car last night wasn't the best."
"Works for me," Dean said.
"I'd rather we not take an exhausted Ward along," Battery said. "So that works for me too, though Assault might disagree."
"Very good," Colin said with a nod. "We have a little over an hour for those going out on the first patrols to get changed. Unless there's anything else anyone wants to bring up?"
"I've got one thing," Battery said. Colin nodded to her before she continued. "When picking up a package this morning the mail room staff informed me that the first pallet of things for The Gauntlet had arrived."
Colin and Miss Militia stiffened at that, and the rest of them looked on, curious.
"Thank you for the warning," Miss Militia said after a moment. "I'll call and see when we're expecting her to arrive."
"That would be appreciated," Colin agreed. "Is there anything else?"
"I don't suppose you've heard anything regarding the scanning equipment I asked about?" Taylor asked.
"Ah, right," Colin said, nodding. "We have something suitable in the building. Do you have the items you were curious about with you?"
"They're in my other utility belt," Taylor answered.
"I'll retrieve the equipment and bring it to the Wards area so we can take a quick look," Colin said, before looking around. "Anything else?" Nobody spoke up this time. "Then I think we're done here. Thank you again for coming in early."
He turned the projector off and they all made their way out of the room, Taylor dragging Amy along and Battery helping Missy carry things back.
"So what are we looking at?" Dennis asked as Colin finished assembling the scanning equipment.
"Carbon," Taylor said as she laid out several cubes. "Around a hundred grams each."
Dennis stared at the cubes, having just come out of his room in costume. "Why do you have cubes of carbon?"
"Why not?" Taylor retorted.
"She's got something planned," Amy said, having dragged herself out of tinker mode with the greater curiosity of what Taylor's game was.
Colin ignored the byplay and started up the equipment. It ran through various routines before signaling that it was ready, and he adjusted the scanner itself so that it was sitting above the laid out cubes. Various lights passed over the cubes as the machine hummed in different frequencies. Eventually things settled down and Colin started looking over the output.
"From a molecular standpoint they're effectively identical," Colin finally said. "A couple of reactions have obviously occurred on the edges, but that's it. Each cube is otherwise identical layers of carbon sheets, bonded on the edges only to the sheets above and below. The original structures would appear to be exactly eight moles of carbon atoms. I imagine that they're stacked that way to make them easy to convert into nanotube structures?"
"That was the idea," Taylor agreed. "Just a bit more stable and consistent than naturally occurring graphene tends to be."
"I can see how that would be beneficial," Colin admitted. A moment later he frowned. "Most of the cubes are effectively exactly ninety six grams. But one of them is just over a hundred and four grams, despite having an identical atomic structure?"
Taylor grinned. "Yep. More consistent than naturally occurring graphene."
"You keep using that word," Dennis said a moment later. "I don't think you understand what it means."
"What word?" Taylor asked, even as she noted that Amy had probably figured out the joke. At least if the other girl's grin was anything to go by.
"Consistent," Dennis replied. "Since one of the cubes is obviously inconsistent with the others, if the mass varies by that much?"
"They're isotopically pure, aren't they?" Colin asked. "Most of them are pure carbon twelve, but the odd one out would have to be pure carbon thirteen based on the mass difference."
Taylor pouted. "I'd hoped that it would take you a little longer to figure out."
"My apologies," Colin said in what was a very obviously non-apologetic tone. "Out of curiosity, can the method you used to produce these be adjusted to produce crystalline cubes instead?"
"The method she figured out actually works best when making graphene," Amy answered before Taylor could. "At least when doing the isotope sorting."
"It shouldn't be too hard to convert from these cubes to crystals," Taylor continued. "In fact, we could probably use one type to make an isotopically pure variant or both types if specific patterns are desired."
"Hold up," Dennis said, getting everyone's attention. "Crystalline? As in diamond?" Taylor and Colin both nodded. "You can just casually make diamonds?"
"With a few plants," Amy said. "She made the cubes with a couple of plants sitting on the desk in her bedroom, and has a pile of carbon twelve cubes sitting there collecting dust. I think that's her only carbon thirteen cube though."
"The relative amounts of the two isotopes would explain that," Colin said as he examined the cubes. "What are you using as a carbon source?"
"I started with carbon dioxide extraction but switched to store-bought charcoal," Taylor explained. "Pitcher-plant style for feeding it the carbon to process. It isn't the fastest but I just throw some charcoal in every day and move the created cubes out of the way when they've fallen off."
Colin paused and looked up at Taylor. "You aren't actively directing the plants while they make these?"
"She tweaks them every so often," Amy said. "But otherwise they just do the job. She kinda crippled their ability to do anything else, really."
Colin stared at Taylor, who merely nodded. "I guess I'm adding requesting greenhouse space to my list of things to do, unless you have an objection to having a cheap source of isotopically pure carbon available to others?"
"No objections from me," Taylor answered. "It'll free up some space on my desk, and I assume you're thinking about having others feed them carbon?"
"Of course," Colin said, sounding affronted. "No need to have you constantly doing so, after all. That would be on similar levels of time wasting as having you or Panacea get stationed in Boston to deal with the drunken PRT staff and Protectorate members instead of just letting them get plastered after patrols."
"I kinda want to hear the story behind that seemingly backwards logic," Dennis admitted. "But as the time-themed cape in the room I feel it's also my duty to point out that we're getting close to 'time to patrol' and all."
"One of Bonesaw's likely creations is highly infectious and causes people to get drunk without touching alcohol," Miss Militia explained while Colin switched to shutting down and dismantling the scanner. "They accidentally contained the worst of it by virtue of most of those exposed to it going out for significant drinks after every shift due to the Nine's recent antics. It only came to light after it was discovered in the home of several troopers who skipped out on the drinking and went straight home, but still woke up drunk. They're more concerned with how far the hair color changing strains have spread, since those were much more subtle while they were contagious. Now then, Maul, has Dauntless arrived yet?"
"Nope," Taylor answered. "But Assault and Wrench Wraith just pulled into the garage."
"Kid Win and Grue," Colin said. "I'll meet you in the garage, I just need to drop the scanner back into storage."
Chris collected the apparent shield he'd reconfigured half of his hoverboard into, the other components being new ones Taylor hadn't seen before, before following Brian out.
"Clockblocker and Gallant," Battery said a moment later. "We might as well go down and meet Assault. I don't want to have to come back to get Maul to help hunt him down because he got bored."
"That would be easier than the last five or six times I've helped hunt him down," Dean noted. "At a minimum, she's more precise with her powers."
"I was actually thinking that she could lock doors so that he couldn't get around us," Battery said with a grin. "Given that she's already done that to him before, and he doesn't know that I can track his phone."
Colin snorted as he finished packing the scanner up. "He's known that for over a month."
Battery paused, and looked at Colin. "If he knows that, why hasn't he...the bastard enabled it on my phone too, didn't he?" She didn't wait for an answer before pulling her phone out to check for herself, grumbling about various annoyances as she walked out into the hallway. Dean chuckled as he followed her, and Dennis just shook his head on his way out.
"I hope your patrol is uneventful," Colin said as he left with the scanner.
"Ok you two," Miss Militia said as the door closed behind Colin. She paused, and looked around. "Wait, where is Hulder?"
"Bathroom," Taylor answered.
Miss Militia grumbled and reached down to her belt. Taylor hadn't noticed it before, but there was a secure Bluetooth touchpad attached there. Combined with the clear visor the older cape apparently had no issues with operating her phone. A little more focus and she was able to tell that the older cape's thumb was on an 'activation' switch to avoid accidental triggering of the touchpad and that hovering fingers likely provided a visual indicator on the screen without actually triggering anything.
"She'll be out in a moment," Miss Militia said after likely sending a text message and getting a response.
A minute later Aisha came out, adjusting her helmet. "Sorry, one of my zippers got stuck."
"That's a lot easier to deal with than Clockblocker's old problem of accidentally freezing his costume and being stuck for ten minutes," Miss Militia noted. "Now then, you two. Hulder, as much as I know you'll want to, you can't spend the entire patrol on Maul's platform. Instead I'll be running you through some thinker-devised strategies for using your powers more effectively on patrol."
"Not even a little bit?" Aisha whined.
"If you're good then you can run the return trip on it," Miss Militia said, with a roll of her eyes. "And Maul, you'll primarily be working with Dauntless on the outbound trip. We honestly haven't come up with anything to speak of for you beyond passing along tips for keeping watch from above. We'd like to see what you can come up with for tricks with your drone, since you're in one of the better positions to figure them out in the first place."
"That makes sense," Taylor said. "Should I go grab it and head up to the roof to wait for Dauntless?"
"In a moment," Miss Militia answered. "The last thing I need to point out with you two is that you will listen to Dauntless and I when we're passing through the section of the beach that the Elite have 'claimed'. They don't own it and can't officially stop us from passing through, but for what amounts to political reasons we need to tread lightly there." Both Wards nodded at that. "Alright. Maul, go get your drone. Sign into the console and meet Dauntless on the roof."
During the outbound leg of the patrol Miss Militia had Aisha practicing tricks like moving along walls to check behind things, dropping into the street to scout ahead, and other similar tricks. Taylor was using the scout drone to verify Aisha's results while also working with Terry, the drone's output not feeding into the augmented patrol app for the time being.
"Whoa," Terry said as he flipped mid-air. "What the hell did I just trigger?"
"I'd have thought that things would be a bit more instinctual for you," Taylor noted. "Did you have a learning curve with your old boots?"
"Very much so," Terry replied. "But most of the lessons from the boots involved how to balance myself, which still apply here. Otherwise they were more of a 'I want to fly that way' and it happened. Now I have actual controls, I think because of how they connect to me as prosthetics."
"Have you started work on a new shield or weapon yet?"
"My shield is on hold until things settle in Boston," Terry explained after righting himself. "Mainly due to some quarantine protocols. As for a weapon, I haven't decided if I should go for long or short range. My lance was durable, but lacked stopping power in serious fights unless I was right on top of people. Even then it was more of a physical weapon with an added shock. Armsmaster has volunteered to build me something to spec, but I don't know what to ask for. I don't want to lose my electricity-style theming with lasers or something like that, but I don't know if an electrified club will get ranged options as I upgrade it."
"Armsmaster is all about multifunction everything," Taylor noted. "Why not ask for a short staff that can electrify itself for melee and has a wireless taser in the end for long-range, with the hope that your power beefs it up?"
"I'd...not considered a wireless taser," Terry admitted, his posture shifting to 'thoughtful'. "I'd considered a normal one that took a cartridge, but some experimentation revealed that cartridges and bullets don't get any direct benefit from my power unless I improve them directly. He'd claimed he couldn't put a lightning gun in due to power concerns, but neither of us made the wireless taser leap. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
They'd not run into anything on their patrol, though they had been observed by a number of obvious lookouts. Which probably explained why they hadn't run into anything. Further, Miss Militia hadn't bothered to 'remind' Aisha about possibly riding back on the platform, so the younger girl had forgotten about it until they had pretty much reached the PRT building again.
Taylor was going to hold onto the footage of Terry's three unexpected swims for a later date, regardless of whether or not he'd asked her to delete them.
But for now, they were back and preparing for lunch. And since Amy wasn't stopping to eat Taylor had gone to fetch her.
"Ok Amy," Taylor said after watching the other girl tinker for a few minutes. "I think it's time for a break."
"But I think I've almost got an automatic nervous system integration system working," Amy said, not even looking up from her work. "It'll still require surgery to install, but it won't require one of us to be involved."
"Your current system looks like it'll put five times the current a normal human can handle into wherever it gets hooked up to when trying to map out the nerves."
Amy paused at that, frowned, and sighed. "Damn. I didn't notice that I was basing the electrical tolerances on what we can handle. I'm going to have to back up and rebuild several components, and the mapping sensor is going to need to be a lot more sensitive."
"After lunch," Taylor insisted, causing Amy to grumble. "We can lock the door so nobody messes with things while you eat. Did you work on anything other than that?"
"Not really," Amy admitted as she turned off some of the equipment she'd been using. "I figured that making the other stuff wouldn't make as much sense if I have to install it every time anyway."
Chapter 124 The Wards and Amy ended up eating lunch separate from the Protectorate members for a number of reasons, some of them more practical than others. It allowed the Protectorate members to eat unmasked without issue from the Wards not read into their identities for one thing. For another it allowed them to do their post-patrol 'debriefing' without the Wards present, meaning that the Wards wouldn't know what was said about them.
On the Wards side of things, they could talk about the patrols and the funny incidents on them without being shushed by the Protectorate.
"You actually crashed into Wrench Wraith's vehicle?" Dennis asked, looking at Brian.
"It was cloaked," Brian repeated. "So yes, when she stopped suddenly I crashed into the vehicle I couldn't see."
"I'd say he was following too closely," Chris added. "But as he said, the thing was cloaked. His reaction to hitting it was hilarious, though."
"Sounds a lot more amusing than watching Dauntless dive into the water a few times," Aisha said. "Of course, I missed most of them because I was doing 'scouting' when there was nothing to scout for."
"I'm not sure if I should be shocked or not that patrolling with Assault and Battery was boring," Dean noted. "Nothing interesting happened at all. The most we got was amusing stories, and we only got a couple of those."
"Hearing about Assault freezing a hot cup of coffee into a solid block of ice when he sneezed was amusing though," Dennis said. "Too bad he's got that under control now."
In theory the Wards should probably have been discussing the actual patrols from a more professional standpoint. But with absolutely no fighting of any kind on any of them there wasn't a lot to discuss. Colin had spent most of the patrol talking through things with Chris after they did some tests with Brian's darkness. Assault and Battery paired off with one Ward each, told stories while bored, and swapped when they hit the halfway point. No combat, just minor mishaps and minimal training overall.
After lunch Taylor recalled a previous prank that had been planned and asked Dennis to hold up for a few minutes. He didn't mind as he was working on a piece of cake anyway. She went and grabbed two of the three pairs of X-ray glasses that she'd repaired, and handed one pair to Dennis.
"What are these?" Dennis asked, looking them over.
"They need charging," Taylor said. "But they're X-ray glasses. They were in the busted tinkertech stash for me to repair, so I did so. You were one of the first ones I thought of that might want a pair."
Dennis looked like a kid in a candy store, flipping the glasses around to find the charging port. "This is awesome. Thank you!"
Everyone else other than Amy stared at Taylor like she was an idiot as Dennis darted out of the room to head home, saying he had a charging cable there.
"Why in the world did you do something that stupid?" Missy finally asked. "Giving Dennis of all people X-ray glasses?"
"They only let you see X-rays," Taylor said, shrugging. "I don't see how that's a problem. I'm going to give Assault a pair too."
The other Wards stared at Taylor for another moment, before Dean started to snicker. That opened the floodgates and the others started to laugh. When Dennis returned a couple minutes later, still mostly in costume and not having finished eating his dessert, he grumbled that it wasn't that funny that he'd run off like that.
Amy opted to not attend the post-lunch pre-patrol meeting, instead heading straight back to tinker. Dennis got changed and left when he was done eating his dessert, having family things to deal with for the rest of the weekend. After cleaning things up they waited for Missy to get changed, then headed down to the conference room in a group.
"Good afternoon," Colin said as they entered the conference room. All of the Protectorate members from the morning patrols were there except for Wrench Wraith, which caused Taylor to assume that she wasn't participating for the afternoon. "Gallant, is there a problem with your power armor or are you planning on putting it back on after this meeting?"
"The battery died," Dean admitted. "Maul warned me that it was getting low, even though the indicator didn't agree. I had her look at things and the charger I was using died. I swapped it out for my spare, but I don't have a spare battery so I don't think I can patrol this afternoon."
"The battery meter also assumes that the battery is full when the charger disconnects," Taylor added. "Automatic calibration, which I assume is wonderful until the charger doesn't actually charge the battery. Or until the battery has a fault, or any other number of problems."
Colin reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose under his helmet. "I knew I should've had Dragon look over that last software update. My apologies, I'll get that corrected before tomorrow afternoon, and we'll look into getting a spare battery pack in the near future."
"No problem," Dean replied. "Maybe I'll look over the locked out patrol routes myself, see if I spot anything?"
"I'd appreciate that," Carlos said. "My notes are in our general patrol folder, if you want to look over them."
"Alright," Colin said, bringing the map up with three routes showing. "That changes things for the afternoon, but not much. Now then, I've decided to get the most annoying regulation we're saddled with out of the way for the year. For reasons I honestly do not understand, since we have sufficient parahumans to do so, we're required to have a specifically designated single-gender patrol for each gender. Luckily I don't have to arrange for everyone to participate in one, just have one for each gender."
"That seems like a very odd rule," Aisha said. "Where did it come from?"
"The Youth Guard made a request a few years back that was aimed at getting Wards time with Protectorate members of their own gender in case of sensitive questions," Missy answered. "The idiot who wrote the request worded it horribly, and to teach them a lesson the PRT adopted the policy officially, expecting backlash from the Youth Guard that would justify repealing it."
"So far they haven't noticed that it was implemented as one patrol per gender per department instead of one such patrol per Ward," Miss Militia continued. "But because it came from them and isn't technically causing problems we now have to wait for them to complain that it isn't what they wanted."
"In fairness the entire thing was during a period where the Youth Guard was making a lot of stupid requests," Colin said. "They got angry and made a big stink over the PRT rejecting two hundred in a row. The best of a bad lot was implemented, only for someone to leak the list that the PRT had received to the Senate committee that was making noise on the Youth Guard's behalf shortly thereafter. They may have intentionally forgotten that they made the request at all after that fallout. Now then, are there any more history lessons we need to cover before we talk about patrols?"
"I'm honestly curious how genderless Case 53s have been handled under this rule?" Taylor admitted. Everyone looked at Taylor, who raised an eyebrow they couldn't see in response.
"It doesn't work with them," Ethan answered. "Because of that I suggested attacking it from that angle last year. It didn't work. Nor did attacking it from the angle of mental and physical genders not matching. The thing is written just a little too well to attack from those angles."
"There's a list of ways that various people have attempted to make it go away," Terry added. "I think it was up to a little over five hundred entries the last time I checked. I personally suggested attacking it from the angle of it being unfair when a department is almost entirely the wrong gender for the local Wards."
Brian shook his head. "You'd think that if it's that much of an annoyance that someone would've just asked the Youth Guard to file the appropriate paperwork. Or is that on the list already?"
There was a moment of silence as the Protectorate members in the room processed that, before most of them turned to Colin. Who sighed after a moment. "It does not, in fact, appear to be on the list. I'll submit the request after the meeting. Thank you, Grue, for pointing out the incredibly obvious solution that everyone has probably been missing. We're still dealing with it in case that doesn't work, of course, and it's always possible that someone else already tried and just didn't add it to the list."
"Think they'll just make a request that's the same thing but worded better?" Dean asked.
"We've got policies in place to have appropriate-gender Protectorate members visit departments lacking them at least once a year to meet with Wards already," Miss Militia answered.
"Not that we have any such departments right now," Colin continued. "We try to avoid it for a number of reasons. Still, back to patrols, unless there's something else?" He then glared at Ethan, who looked like he was about to say something. Ethan wisely stayed silent. "Right. So to get the stupid requirements out of the way I'd like Hulder and Vista to patrol with Battery and Miss Militia on a walking route."
"I was just out with Miss Militia," Aisha complained. "Do I really need more 'scouting' practice?"
"Of course you don't," Miss Militia answered, as Battery grabbed a box from the corner. "We're combining this patrol with a required PRT exercise for maximum 'get things out of the way' efficiency." Battery lifted a water pistol out of the box. "Your goal will be to get into position and hopefully open up just enough of a hole to hit PRT officers with the water pistol without being spotted."
"Vista's goal is going to be hitting them with water balloons," Battery added, lifting a bag of unfilled water balloons out of the box. "The PRT's goal is to get out of things dry, and everyone is supposed to keep an eye out for trouble at the same time."
Colin apparently decided that Aisha bouncing a little in her seat in excitement meant she approved. "Moving on, I'd also like Aegis and Grue to patrol with Assault and Dauntless. In this case one of the mixed routes, as Dauntless assures me that he figured out the issues with his flight this morning."
"I'd like to run a rooftop route anyway," Terry said. "More takeoffs and landings, and time to get my bearings between flight runs and all."
Colin looked over at Ethan, who shrugged in indifference, before turning back to Terry and nodding. "That makes sense." He adjusted things and one of the routes shifted. "That will bring you closer to a couple of suspected Empire fronts, so you'll want to be more careful."
"I'll find a club for Grue," Ethan said, only to get hit by Battery.
"That actually sounds more reasonable than my 'whatever I find sitting around' weapon procurement method," Brian admitted. "Granted, half the time I find weapons on the ground after people drop them in panic in my darkness, but still."
"Correction," Ethan said, causing everyone to look at him. "I'll order a stop sign for Grue. It'll be funnier than a club."
"I'd say a do not enter sign," Dean said. "As in do not enter his darkness type deal?"
There was a pause for consideration there, before Battery groaned. "I'm actually thinking that something that stupid sounds appropriate. What is the world coming to?"
"Nothing good," Colin mumbled, before clearing his throat to continue. "Now then, that leaves Kid Win and Maul patrolling with Countdown and myself. Yes, I've already patrolled with Kid Win today, but I want as much tinker support as possible when dealing with Countdown. She has new creations she's looking to field test."
Taylor thought it was telling that every other Protectorate member in the room flinched when they heard that. "Do I need my alternate loadout in case of actually having to direct traffic?"
Colin sighed. "Sadly, I'm going to say yes. We're also having Kid Win ride a motorcycle again."
"Why?" Chris asked.
"I'm going to assume because your hoverboard can't get away fast enough," Taylor answered. There were a series of agreeing nods from the Protectorate members.
"Precisely," Colin said. "Maul, I'd like you to look over Countdown's everything before we depart, both so you know what's there and so that you can confirm that nothing unusually dangerous is included."
Taylor nodded. Vigorously. "I have no problems with that plan."
"Is there anything else before we split up?" Colin asked.
Taylor pulled the second pair of X-ray glasses she'd grabbed out of her pocket. "I have a gift for Assault."
"Ooooh," Ethan said, jumping over the table. "What is it?"
"X-ray glasses," Taylor replied handing them over. "They need charging before you can use them."
Ethan stared at the glasses, then at Taylor. "There's a catch, right?"
"Nope. They're fully functional X-ray glasses. There was a box of them with faulty power switches waiting for me to repair them."
Ethan seemed delighted. The rest of the Protectorate members were decidedly less enthused. Taylor discreetly fired a message off to Colin, Battery, and Miss Militia detailing things, so that at the very least she was less likely to be lynched with approval. She figured that had worked when each of them had a sudden case of 'holding back snickering' over the next couple of minutes.
The meeting hadn't lasted much longer and then they'd split up to get ready. Taylor swapped her loadout and brought her drone and platform down to the garage. Chris had said something about throwing together a better battery for his shield while Taylor was looking over things. Colin had gotten a table from somewhere and set it up, and Vivian was just finishing putting things on said table for Taylor to look at.
"Multiple bandoliers of grenades shouldn't surprise me," Taylor said as she looked things over. "Let's see. Ice wall, tar pit of sorts, flashbang powerful enough to cause actual blindness, ocular repair, standard containment foam, insta-melt? Oh, right, to dismantle the ice wall. Flaked off skin to itching powder, tornado, black hole? What possible reason could you have for a portable black hole on patrol?"
"I thought I had a metal to sand in there," Vivian said, looking at the grenade. "Oh, huh, that is a black hole one. Ooops." She carefully removed it and went over to a trunk, putting the black hole grenade into a slot in it. A few moments later she returned with a different grenade. "This should be the metal to sand one."
Taylor looked it over. "Yeah, that's metal to sand." She was making note of that trunk design, though, given how dangerous the one example she had was. Shaking her head, she moved to the next bandolier while Vivian slid that grenade into the slot on the first one. "Another ice wall, insta-melt, two more standard containment foam, short range EMP, area of effect electrocution?"
"It's dial-a-yield on deployment and barring brutes I'll leave it set to 'taser' levels," Vivian said. Colin nodded, so apparently he'd been aware of that.
"Right." Taylor wasn't going to argue. "Two standard explosives and a clothing to glue?"
"It should leave their underwear," Vivian said. "Hopefully. If they're wearing any."
"Why not just shoes or something?"
"Because I got the idea after dealing with a group of idiots running around barefoot."
"Ok. Whatever." Taylor wasn't going to argue that either. She'd avoid it like the plague if Vivian was throwing it, but that was about it. Instead she looked in the pouches that had been left on the table. "Huh. Micro containment foam bombs? Well, air to containment foam, but close enough." The next pouch caused Taylor to pause. "Why is there a pouch full of snacks for me to examine?"
Vivian shrugged when Taylor looked at her. "Armsmaster told me to take off everything, not just the ones with tinkertech in them."
"Right. That sounds like him." Taylor noted that Colin said nothing to that, and continued to some control system stuff. "You've damaged the data port on the transmitter here, but it's good otherwise. Still using toe rings?"
"Those are fine," Vivian insisted. "I use them all the time."
Taylor gave Vivian a look, then discreetly focused on her feet. She knew there were toe rings, so her tinker snark was able to lock onto them. They were incredibly simple, and apparently relied on Vivian's apparent ability to very precisely control individual toes. They were also in good condition.
"I think that's everything then," Taylor finally said. "Though if I'm on my platform, and Armsmaster and Kid Win are on motorcycles, how are you moving around?"
"I've got a modified army truck," Vivian answered. "Though Armsmaster won't let me bring the grenade launcher and ammo that I rigged it to hold today."
"I also won't let her have Wrench Wraith upgrade it," Colin added. "At least not for a couple more months."
"So which of these are the experimental ones?" Taylor asked, gesturing to the grenades as Vivian was reattaching her pouches.
"Everything that isn't the standard containment foam," Colin answered. "They've been run through testing in the lab, but field testing usually reveals other problems that need to be resolved. Even ones that should have come up in lab testing."
"I apologized for not realizing that the first version of the EMP bomb was longer range than intended," Vivian retorted. "I didn't think the grounding in the testing area was affecting it that much."
"That was understandable," Colin replied. "Your attempt at making an explosive to convert drugs into sugar is a different story."
"Ok, I'll give you that one. Converting anything unexpected that happened to contain carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen into gasses instead of sugar should have come up in lab testing. At least the field testing was with the three foot radius version."
Taylor was starting to wonder if Vivian would've been easier to deal with as a villain.
The outbound leg of their patrol had ended up in an area with several condemned buildings. Nobody was around, which made it a decent place to test exploding things. Colin even had properly filed paperwork for doing so.
"Those don't seem to be working well," Taylor noted as five of the mini containment foam grenades did basically nothing. Apparently they were sensitive to the atmospheric composition of the area.
"Perhaps splitting them into multiple pieces to generate each of the pre-mix chemicals would help?" Chris offered. "Then you'd just need to trigger a proper mixing."
"I think the problem is more that the chain reaction isn't chaining," Colin said. "Too much water vapor and not enough helium, perhaps?"
"I think I'm going to have to admit defeat on these," Vivian said with a scowl. "It's a hundred times harder than the drugs to sugar reaction. If I were allowed to remake anything in the bomb's range it would be trivial, but then it'd be more likely to consume the people you were trying to capture in the first place."
"Your conversion bombs are quite efficient," Colin admitted. "Scary, usually impractical, but efficient. Since the containment foam bombs aren't working, how about you try one of the ice walls?"
A few minutes later they were staring at a larger than anticipated wall. It was twenty feet tall, spanned the entire street, and in a distinct bit of showing off had ice gargoyles. Sadly, it had also expanded after forming and damaged the two buildings it had connected to.
"I guess the water collection stage is a bit too efficient," Vivian said as she took some notes. "Got more water than the freezing stage was ready for, so it didn't maintain the set dimensions properly. If I can get it to always fail taller and thicker that won't be too bad, but I obviously missed something if it failed at all."
"It isn't melting?" Chris noted.
"It'll maintain freezing temperature for at least half an hour before it starts to melt without outside influences," Vivian explained. "Like someone actually throwing fire at it."
"Tests hadn't shown the horizontal expansion before," Colin observed. "Perhaps we need to isolate a testing room or two so that we can better adjust the humidity in them for you?"
"I asked for that six times and was rejected every time," Vivian answered with a long-suffering tone. "Something about the isolation filters not functioning properly under high humidity situations. Or low humidity situations. Or anything other than the fixed humidity that the testing rooms maintain."
"That would be a problem. I'll look into possible replacement systems, as it's obvious that you're suffering from an inability to test in suitable conditions."
They ran some tests on the stability of the ice wall, including having Taylor shoot it. Without projecting the bullets, as they wanted to see how it would handle likely gang type shooting. It handled things very well, up until the insta-melt grenade was thrown at it. That turned the entire thing into water, which temporarily flooded the area. Taylor was very happy that she'd had the foresight to get back on her platform and get into the air.
"I hate you," Chris grumbled as Taylor did some quick field repairs on the motorcycle he'd been riding. He was getting the water out of several components of his power armor.
"It was an insta-melt grenade," Taylor said, rolling her eyes. Not that he'd be able to tell. "What did you expect to happen?"
"So glad I picked a base vehicle that could handle water," Vivian said as she dried off with a towel. "Not to mention that I've got waterproof containers to store stuff in."
"I've cleared the storm drains that weren't flowing properly," Colin said as he returned. He'd deployed a temporary water barrier that'd diverted the water around his motorcycle. It'd also served to divert it around himself as he stood behind the motorcycle, meaning that he was also pretty much dry, except for having waded into some of the water to clear the storm drains.
"I think that does it for the motorcycle," Taylor said, closing up the panel she'd been working inside of. "Most of it was just water in the electronics for the monitoring and speed-limiting. That and a couple of connections knocked loose when it fell over, anyway."
"Thanks," Chris said. It took him another couple of minutes to get his power armor fully functional again, during which Colin and Vivian double-checked the truck.
"I think we'll skip the other tests for now," Colin said. "Unless a suitable situation presents itself, anyway." He gestured to the two buildings. "I think accidentally causing significant damage to two buildings, previously condemned or not, is enough for today."
"But my record is eight!" Vivian complained. "How am I supposed to beat it if you won't let me continue?" The three of them looked at her like she was crazy, a good trick given that you couldn't see any of their eyes. "Oh come on, I'm kidding. Sheesh. Besides, it's not like there are good targets for some of the other ones around here anyway."
As a change from the morning patrols, by the time they made it back to the PRT building all three groups had seen some combat, which gave them something to talk about as they ate dinner together. Taylor got to watch Chris take out a mugger with a well-placed shot while he was reeling from Taylor ignoring the bullet he'd fired. Aisha and Missy confused the crap out of a purse-snatcher that tried to fight back with a knife while Battery got behind them. Brian and Carlos, however, ended up fighting Stormtiger with Ethan and Terry. The Empire cape had apparently not noticed that the two Wards were not alone.
"He retreated after all of two minutes," Carlos said. "And half of that was ensuring that we had more important things to worry about by damaging a truck's gas tank."
"I didn't get to do much," Brian added. "Since he was, you know, flying at the time. I've got nothing with that kind of range right now."
"Still more exciting than what we got to deal with," Missy said. "Confusing one purse-snatcher was amusing, but it wasn't exactly a challenge. I pinched off the alley he knew didn't dead-end, and Aisha kept squirting him with water. The PRT guys were more of a challenge."
Chris snorted at that. "The PRT guys are supposed to train to be a challenge."
"I'm still not sure how they kept realizing that they'd lost sight of me," Aisha admitted. "They didn't remember who they were missing, but they realized they were missing someone."
"They have anti-stranger protocols," Brian said. "Seemingly innocuous wording that indicates that there's a stranger, other wording that covers how many parahumans they think are in the area."
"I'm thinking it was more that her powers don't work at range and they had radios," Taylor offered.
Brian gave Taylor a glare. "Now that she knows what they were likely doing she won't spend six months trying to figure out the bullshit."
"Or she could just read the code phrase manual," Carlos said. "You know, the one that's in the console app's help menu? It doesn't cover everything, since there are PRT-only and Protectorate-only codes that we aren't privy to, but it's a good thing to read anyway."
"There's even a stripped-down version for affiliates," Amy added. "Though they change everything every couple of years, and they rarely come up in the aftermath of Endbringer battles, so I haven't checked it recently. I know that Vicky complained a lot the last time they changed and Sarah made most of New Wave memorize the new codes."
Their discussion was interrupted by a rumbling, the building shaking for a few seconds, and alarms going off. A whump-hiss signaled the door sealing for safety.
"What the hell?" Missy yelled. "Is someone attacking?"
Taylor remote-controlled the console, since that was faster than walking over to it. The majority of the alerts showing there were automated damage reports from inside the building. It looked like the Wards area had auto-sealed due to sensors that detected potential poisons in the air in the hallways. But all of the damage seemed to be inside...
"I think Countdown's trunk just exploded," Taylor concluded. "Which means we're either incredibly lucky, or the black hole bomb was the worst thing she had in it."
Everyone else, Amy included, stared at Taylor. Finally Dean recovered enough to say something. "I don't know if I want to know how you know that there was a black hole bomb."
"She accidentally grabbed it or left it in her bandolier?" Taylor volunteered. "She meant to have a metal to sand bomb, she never did get to try that one."
It took just over two hours to clear things so that the Wards and Amy could leave. Most of that was apparently clearing the hallways of various hazardous chemicals. Once things were clear enough they were all but kicked out in case something else went wrong. They were told to check their messages in the morning to see if it was safe to come in, and if it wasn't safe by ten then they were to assume that the Wards had the day off. Those that had vehicles available were sent off first, the others were then going to be dropped off by the PRT as soon as the vans showed up.
Amy: At least the PRT officers who unsealed the doors were nice enough to confirm that Vivian's trunk exploded.
Taylor: I wonder if she'll get in trouble, or if something else happened that she couldn't have foreseen?
That left Taylor and Amy driving back on their mopeds. The literal wall of containment foam blocking the deeper portions of the secure garage, basically forcing them to head out, had been interesting, but made sense from a safety point of view. It was obviously temporary either way.
Amy: No idea. Do you think anyone will realize that you turned on your drone just after the initial explosion?
Taylor: Colin had better realize that I did so, since I sent him the raw data. I didn't even look at it.
Amy: Oh. When did you do that?
Taylor: As we were preparing to leave.
It was interesting, because Taylor could tell that they were being shadowed. From outside of their 'known' range, but Battery was back there. Ethan and Terry had also been nearby when they left, which made Taylor think that Brian and Dean also had minders following them. Why, she wasn't sure, unless they already knew that the explosion had been 'enemy action'. Well, she supposed that it could be that they honestly didn't know and were being extra careful until they did.
Amy: I assume Battery has no clue that we're aware of her back there?
Taylor: Probably not. I had no clue that you were aware that she's back there.
Amy: I'm trying to get into the habit of using area mode when out and about, but line of sight mode when healing.
Taylor: That makes sense. Good for security and being aware of potential threats, without being too distracting while working.
Battery circled around several times just outside of Taylor's documented range after they got back home, stopping at least twice in different spots, before heading back in the general direction of the PRT building.
"Why do you think she stopped a couple of times?" Amy asked once they'd gone upstairs.
"Probably checking with PRT officers watching the area," Taylor answered. "I think they've had some around ever since Sherrel stopped by uninvited. So, how far did you get on your self-installing nerve hookups?"
Amy grinned, before digging out a notebook. "I got three variants for different levels of connection. Haven't figured out how to handle direct spinal connections, and hooking up to the brain itself is probably never going to happen in any way that I'd trust." She flipped through the notebook, stopping when she hit the right page before handing it over. "The hard part was doing things without relying on carbon nanotubes, honestly. They'd have made it easier, but then we'd probably still be the bottleneck."
"I hope you dialed back things to normal human tolerances?"
Amy rolled her eyes at that. "Of course I did. I'd have to be a moron to not do so after you pointed out the problem."
Chapter 125 Sunday morning Taylor woke up covered in sweat, feeling mildly panicked for reasons she couldn't explain. Once she'd calmed down she realized that Kurt and Lacey might have woken her up by approaching, entering her range. Amy hadn't woken up, so either she was in line of sight mode or hadn't reacted to the additional snarks.
Sighing, Taylor headed downstairs, Ackbar scrambling to follow. She met Lacey at the door.
"Morning," Taylor greeted between yawns. "What brings you by so early?"
"Bottling!" Lacey said. "Can you grab a box of empty bottles from the car?"
Taylor grumbled a little, but went over and grabbed a box anyway. That went straight down into the basement, and by the time she made it back upstairs she realized that there were now donuts and muffins on the kitchen counter, mainly because Ackbar had gotten up onto the counter and was examining one of the boxes. She looked over at Lacey with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" Lacey asked. "You thought we'd come over at this hour and not bring breakfast?"
"I expected you to be blind to anything that wasn't your brewing," Taylor answered.
"She thought you might just close the door in her face at this hour and wanted a bribe available to get in," Kurt said as he carried a box in.
Taylor sighed, removed Ackbar from the counter, and decided that if she was going to be up then Amy should be up too. After she'd used the shower first, of course.
It turned out that there was a notice that the Wards should show up for lunch, but should avoid parking in the garage. Amy, on the other hand, had been asked to avoid the PRT building for the day. Colin had sent a thank you for the scout drone data, and Vivian had sent out a general apology to everyone who'd been in the building at the time. Apparently the trunk had been booby-trapped in case someone tried to force their way in, and the explosive that she'd used for that didn't 'play nice' with the black hole bomb.
Taylor personally doubted that anything would 'play nice' with a black hole bomb. Or, perhaps, that the comparison was backwards, and the black hole bomb didn't play nice with anything else.
"So what do we do this morning?" Amy asked. "Outside of wait for Lacey to bottle everything."
"No clue," Taylor admitted. "I kinda expected that we'd be going in to tinker or something."
"Any chance of you taking a look at the lawnmower?" Danny asked as he sat down with a muffin. "I tried to mow the lawn yesterday, but it died after a couple of seconds of running and it doesn't seem to be a problem with the gas."
Taylor looked at Amy, who shrugged, before turning back to her father. "Ok. Not like I have anything else planned for the morning."
They ensured that the two spider-bots were fed before Amy followed Taylor into the garage. The lawnmower was off to the side, and it didn't take long to determine that it needed a new spark plug. Well, that or a precision welding kit so that Taylor could fix the existing spark plug, but since they didn't have one of those available it needed a new spark plug. She did carefully remove the damaged spark plug and the bit of the ground electrode that had broken off. Luckily it had only come off completely when she'd been removing the spark plug itself.
With that done she taped things off to keep things from ending up in the combustion chamber. Better to protect it now than to fight with problems later. After that she made note that the air filter would need changing soonish, and bagged the damaged spark plug to be brought to the store for reference.
"That doesn't look usable," Amy noted, looking at the bagged spark plug. "Shouldn't that little bit be attached?"
"Yep," Taylor agreed. "Short of bringing it to the PRT building I don't have a good way to fix it either, so a replacement will be needed."
"We going to go get one?"
"Nah. I'll let my father take care of that."
Amy nodded at that. "Ok. Then what are we going to do for the rest of the morning?"
Taylor shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe you should check in with the rest of New Wave?"
"That isn't a bad idea, but I was thinking I might do that this afternoon when you're occupied."
Taylor thought about it as they dropped the bag with the spark plug and the note about the air filter on the kitchen table. Danny was upstairs showering. "Maybe we should check if there's anything other than the convention that we definitely want to check out in Las Vegas? Give us time to do any extra shopping if we decide we need to pick stuff up and all. Beyond your idea of finding a water park, anyway."
Amy nodded. "Works for me. Better than trying to help with the bottling, anyway."
"I'm not sure if we should do a quiet extraction or a noisy one," Fred said over breakfast. "The quiet ones keep people on their toes for a bit, but if we keep doing them then people will get used to them."
"Why not combine them?" Mimi asked. "Do something big, and slip out in the middle of it?"
"What can we leave running while we bail?" William asked. "I mean, Fred's traps are fun and all, but not quite enough for an exit. And I think he's tripped most of them already, and Sarah went out to arm most of the ones he hadn't triggered yet so that they can start going off."
"Riley built a tank," Jacob answered. "Basically. Mostly automated thanks to her recent brain supply, with various weapons on it. We get Sarah to sit in it while we make our escape, she ensures that it survives causing a lot of trouble. When she's no longer sitting in it then it goes on and does its thing without any further input until it runs out of gas or someone gets a good hit in on it."
"The pickup truck the moron had came with what I think is a cold fusion reactor," Riley noted, waving her spoon to emphasise her point. "Granted, it has a gas tank too, but I integrated some electric motors into the thing so that it doesn't need the internal combustion engine unless you want it to move more quickly. It'll keep going until someone takes it out of commission. I figure it'll run out of ammo long before then." She then went back to eating her cereal.
"Right," Jacob said, shaking his head. "We load the thing up with everything, make a big show of getting it started, and then make our escape while they're dealing with it. If we do so in the right spot we can all climb in, drop into a maintenance tunnel, and then send it off while we leave town."
"And it being empty when they finally stop it will make everyone more paranoid," Melissa added. "Because if we aren't in the tank, where did we go, and how?"
"Precisely," Jacob said. "Now we just have to decide what to do to draw attention to the tank." He paused, before frowning. "And how to keep attention off of it until we're ready, actually."
"Keeping attention off of it will be easy enough," Riley answered. "The truck had an optical cloaking device built in. I wanted to keep it, but I think it'd stop working if I took it out. But if you run slowly on the electric motors it should be pretty much silent, on top of being invisible. At least until someone turns on the gas engine to get it going more quickly or the speakers for intentional noise-making, anyway. Oh, that reminds me, we need to record sound clips, including at least one of you complaining that I forget to provide anything to see where you're aiming. And probably that it's hard to drive on just cameras?"
"I didn't know you were good with vehicles," William said.
"I suck at vehicles," Riley countered. "Just so you know, the only way you're getting past walking speed on the electric motors is if you're going downhill. Don't even try going uphill."
"So we have a choice of multiple water parks," Taylor said as she looked over their list. "Two gun ranges we might want to visit, the regular guns one and the tinkertech guns one. We're both curious about the locked-down lab of the recently-deceased security tinker duo."
"We also have a dozen restaurants to consider visiting and no clue what kind of transportation we'll have access to," Amy added. "Which means we probably need to be prepared to take cabs unless there's a good bus to any given location. And for some reason you haven't been told when we're returning, just that it's sometime after the tenth."
"I asked, but they may legitimately not know yet."
Amy frowned at that, since it made it much harder to plan for things. They'd had to assume that they'd only be there before the convention, basically. "Oh well. We should both get going, especially if you're taking the bus to the PRT building today."
"Right," Taylor said, getting up. "Think they'll want us to take the bus on Wednesday?"
"I'd say so. Testing our alcohol tolerance likely means getting us to the point where we're impaired, after all."
"True."
"Good afternoon," Colin said as the Wards settled into their seats for the after lunch, pre-patrol meeting. "I'd like to start by apologizing for the inconvenience of the garage being closed. It should be clear by Tuesday if it isn't clear by the end of the day today. Everyone, including the mole trying to get samples of Countdown's technology, survived with minimal injuries, but there was significant damage to the garage area itself."
"How bad are things for PRT deployment?" Carlos asked.
"Luckily most of the PRT vehicles were in use at the time of the mishap," Miss Militia answered. "We've still had to order a number of replacements, including pretty much all of our containment foam sprayer vans."
"We did lose pretty much all of the motorcycles," Colin added. "So we're not running any routes that would normally require Wards to use vehicles. We're also covering some training and evaluation goals and having a Ward operate as patrol leader for each group. After careful consideration we've decided to have the three younger Wards lead the patrols."
"You wanted Maul to be my minder," Sherrel retorted. "Which meant that to keep things consistent you had to go with Kid Win and Vista as the other two."
"I said the consideration was careful," Colin replied. "Not time consuming."
Sherrel stared at Colin for a moment. "Touché."
"Which brings us to our first group," Colin continued, bringing a patrol route up on the screen. "Maul will be acting as patrol leader for Aegis, Battery, and Wrench Wraith on a mixed ground and air patrol route."
"We're the only group using a motorized vehicle at all," Battery added. "Since that's kind of Wrench Wraith's entire thing. Aegis is joining us because we honestly think he'll be able to keep up the best."
The Wards all nodded, finding that to be a suitable reason.
"Vista will be acting as patrol leader for Gallant, Assault, and Miss Militia," Colin continued, the second patrol route appearing on the screen behind him. "Running a ground route. Vista, I know you could run along the rooftops, but we'd prefer you not be that separated from the others."
"I understand," Missy said. "It makes sense. Hard to lead properly if there's no way to see each other most of the time, after all."
"Which leaves Kid Win acting as patrol leader to Grue, Dauntless, and myself," Colin said, the last patrol route appearing on the screen. "We'll be running a mixed ground and air route."
"Let me guess," Chris said. "Dauntless so that the two of us can be in the air, you to provide tinker support for me just in case, and then Grue because only you and Maul have the sensor suite that can see through his darkness."
"That is a very good summation," Colin admitted.
"We're the leftovers?" Dean asked with an over the top horrified tone, before turning to Ethan. "How could you let them leave you as a leftover?"
Ethan shrugged. "I figure it's my own fault for damaging one of Wrench Wraith's vehicles the last time I patrolled with her. I give Armsy here another two weeks before he has us patrol together, unless she asks for me specifically."
"Though I am curious," Dean said, in a more normal tone of voice. "What happens if I need tinker support?"
Colin snorted at that. "You deal with it, because you're the one that filed a request to be allowed to patrol without a tinker after the bugs were worked out of your armor."
"Ahh, but I had a failure yesterday," Dean retorted. "Aren't I supposed to have a tinker available in case of problems with the fix?"
Colin nodded. "That is standard procedure. But the primary failure was with your charging unit, which isn't field equipment, so that doesn't technically apply. I did make time to fix that and the software issue last night, but you're allowed to request that another tinker check my work."
"Your armor's fine," Taylor said, grinning. "He even replaced a couple of slightly worn gaskets and recalibrated the force plates."
"Which just ceased to be an excuse," Colin continued. "Was there anything else?"
Dean grumbled, but didn't add anything.
Rebecca sighed as she made her way down to the Protectorate hospital area. Mister Krouse had been a problem even before he'd arrived. Due to the rush of getting him out of Brockton Bay they'd used an older transport, one that wasn't as prepared for lightning strikes. So of course a charge had built up on the hull due to the door being slightly out of alignment thanks to a piece of trash stuck in it and it had attracted lightning whenever it passed near enough to a cloud formation. Which had happened a lot, and nearly downed the transport.
Once he'd arrived they'd been able to get him some medical attention. For the most part they'd gotten to the point where his injuries weren't going to get worse, but without someone on Panacea's level he wasn't likely to end up with his limbs regrown. They were apparently lucky that his ear had grown back as it was. And she wasn't about to blame Scapegoat for not wanting to do anything with the man, given the likelihood of accidentally grabbing an alternate's Ziz-bomb status as things passed through him. They'd need much more controlled circumstances before exploring that potential headache.
Finally entering the hospital area, she nodded to the guards inside the room before walking over to Mister Krouse's bed.
"Good morning Alexandria," Krouse greeted. "You're a little early for lunch."
"Good morning," Rebecca replied, pulling a chair away from the wall and sitting down. "I'm afraid that we've run out of healers that are willing to try and help you right now, though admittedly we haven't even mentioned your case to Panacea."
"I'd think you crazy if you had," Krouse admitted. "Not sure how much use I'd be anywhere with the injuries, but I figure a lot of them were on me being an idiot anyway."
"We've got a few places we think you could be helpful in. You were reportedly very good at pulling people out of the way of Leviathan's water echoes, for example. But for now I think we'd rather treat you as a bit of a consultant, given that you're one of the first cooperative individuals we've had slip through multiple PRT cordons."
"Yes, well, the PRT certainly made it easy. Do they consider powers at all when setting those up?"
"Of course they do," Rebecca answered with a scoff. "Including teleportation. But your powers are, quite frankly, quite odd for teleportation. Most don't guarantee that the mass stays constant at both ends. In fact, most ignore that aspect of things entirely, spawning or removing matter with no apparent regard for the laws of physics."
"Oh." Krouse considered that for a few minutes, before sighing. "I suppose that I'm not exactly in any condition to go out in the field right now, so helping you improve your procedures to make it easier to grab 'bombs', as you put it, seems like the best use of my time."
"We're looking into ways to possibly have you able to help with security at a couple of quarantine zones," Rebecca admitted. "Being able to get specific people across barriers without allowing others to join them is a useful trick at a security checkpoint. But we're still evaluating things, so no promises."
Taylor sighed as they waited for a light. She'd rotated herself, Carlos, and Battery scouting around the area. She'd parked her scout drone in the back of Sherrel's former van, her tinker snark wasn't sure what to call it otherwise and she hadn't asked. Combined with her visor they almost didn't need to scout at all. Instead they'd been scouting the edge of the drone's range, a much wider path than normal.
So far they'd interrupted five drug deals, stopped a kidnapping attempt by a drunk who likely didn't realize that the little boy he'd grabbed was not his daughter, then found said daughter who was on top of a dumpster with a feral dog trying to get to her. They'd backtracked slightly to make sure that she got home ok, then continued on and interrupted a knife fight and a carjacking.
"Light's green," Sherrel said over the radio, and they were on the move again. They'd slowed down a bit on the return route, largely because the traffic lights actually worked as they approached the Boardwalk. It was the 'touristy' area, for the crazy cape tourists, and led into things like the financial district, the high-end offices for Medhall and such, as well as the main offices for the banks in town. They'd pass through the area to get back to the PRT, but due to route overlap were basically done.
They stopped at the next red light, Taylor and Carlos splitting off to do a quick check of the neighboring blocks this time. Just because they were basically done didn't mean that they shouldn't check the area anyway. It didn't take long, and Sherrel moved along once the light changed. Battery was trailing behind for the moment, but per the routine Taylor had them running would fan out while Carlos shifted to behind them for a few minutes.
Taylor very carefully did not show a reaction when familiar snarks that she wasn't expecting appeared in her range. Nor did she show one when one unfamiliar one did as well. Not only was she doing her best to not reveal her current actual range, she also didn't know if they were in costume or not. They were, however, just off of their route, so unless something changed they'd pass right by them. No more than two blocks off, well within her visor's sensor range, let alone the drone's.
"Maul to console," Taylor finally said, when one of the instances was within her original range. It was obvious to her that powers were in use. Further, she'd used the 'powers are being used to observe me' clause to use the drone's data to take a look at where the other of the two instances was standing, and he was in costume in an office with several others. "I believe that one of Accord's Ambassadors has a lookout of sorts on a rooftop ahead."
"I don't see anyone on the rooftops," Carlos said a moment later. "Are they using a stranger trick?"
"Not sure," Taylor answered. "They've got a 'two places at once' trick going on. I'm not fully sure how it works, not having dug into it before, but I'm fairly certain he gets feedback from the second location."
"Console to Maul," came back a minute later. "Do you know which Ambassador?"
Taylor checked the drone output and reconfirmed that the other instance was present and costumed. "Maul to Console, he was introduced as Othello when I met him in Boston."
"Are we going to confront him?" Battery asked a moment later.
"Only if the console tells us to," Taylor replied. "He knows that I can spot the second point, because I followed it in Boston. So far I haven't seen anything that looks like it's an ambush attempt either, and from what I know they're generally reasonable. I figure we'll be polite unless attacked."
They'd stopped at the nearest intersection to the building that Othello's snark was on top of, which was also the building Othello himself was in, when the console passed on orders. "Console to Maul, Director Piggot would like you to attempt to make contact. Further, if you believe Accord is in the area she'd like you to do your best to, and I quote, 'unnerve him'."
"Acknowledged," Taylor replied, and started to consider how to accomplish that. She grinned a moment later, hitting the patrol channel. "Wrench Wraith, can you pull over for a couple of minutes? Aegis and Battery, please do a sweep of the area while I see about talking to Othello."
While the other three did so Taylor prepped for her trick. She got the live feed going from the scout drone and snitch, dropping a virtual camera in the office Othello was in. There'd be a processing delay, but that was fine. Once Sherrel had parked and Carlos and Battery were on their sweep she moved over to the rooftop the snark was apparently on.
"Good afternoon," Taylor said to thin air. "I do believe you're Othello, or linked to him in some way? Can't see or hear you, granted, but I know you're there."
"Sir," Othello said, approaching the desk. "Maul has just started speaking to my other self on the roof, but indicates that she can't see or hear it."
"I see," the man behind the desk in white, likely Accord and wearing an intricate wooden mask, said. He was looking over what looked like a wooden version of one of Riley's ducks. "Relay anything of interest."
"Oh, right," Taylor said, snapping her fingers as if she'd forgotten something. "I am tapped into a feed from the office you're in. Though now I'm curious about this up here being your 'other self'. I suppose the man with the wooden mask behind the desk is Accord?"
There was a noticeable pause, some of it the processing delay, and Taylor grinned when Othello actually stumbled in shock as he'd been walking away from the desk. The pause was probably a second or two out of sync with reality, based on when she was sensing Othello move and when the feed showed it. Taylor frowned when she realized that the octo-duck looked like it wasn't doing well, and adjusted the feed a bit to look it over.
"Sir," Othello said, spinning back around to look at the desk again. "She just claimed to be tapped into a feed from this office, including reacting to me referring to my other self."
The others in the room froze at that, before the man behind the desk visibly calmed himself. He opened a small box on his desk revealing several controls, and pressed one of them. There were several thunks, an electronic hiss, and a pulse of light that filled the entire room. "Citrine, see if you can locate and disable any remaining listening devices."
Citrine nodded and a yellow glow blanketed the office, leaving the people within it untouched.
Taylor ignored the yellow glow, since she doubted they'd be able to disable the scout drone's access that way, and none of the other measures seemed to have worked either. Instead she focused on examining the duck. The more she looked at it, even without her tinker snark being able to examine it, the more she was positive it was like the spider-bots. Fangs and all, though with a few other obviously-removed bits that probably made it more dangerous originally. But from how it was acting it didn't appear to have been eating well.
"Since you all appear to be more concerned with futile efforts to stop my feed than talking I'll offer some advice," Taylor finally said. "It looks like the, er, octo-duck? It isn't doing well. Perhaps feed it some potato puree? Include the skins, and maybe add some apple or banana every so often. That said, I'm curious. Have you guys moved in long term, or are you just visiting?"
She waited while Othello relayed that, moving the 'camera' around to examine other things in the office. Examining any other room in the building like this would be against regulations, but since Othello was in there and his 'other self' was on the roof she could examine the room all she wanted.
"Thank you for the information Maul," the man behind the desk said, waving Citrine's attempts off. The yellow glow faded, and Taylor brought the camera view back around to the desk. "My apologies for not introducing myself. I am Accord, as you likely surmised. You've met Citrine and Othello before in Boston. For your reference, the other four are my newest empowered Ambassadors." He waved them forward.
The four new Ambassadors moved to stand in front of the desk, facing away from it. Likely expecting the camera to be there, somehow, especially as they weren't facing the window. All four had snarks that Taylor recognized as vial-snarks, or rather former vial-snarks.
"From my left," Accord continued. "We have Codex, Ligeia, Jacklight, and Lizardtail. Sadly the last of the five candidates I'd chosen did not survive his first encounter with elements of the Empire."
Taylor had the 'camera' look over the four. Codex was a woman in an elegant white dress and a full-coverage white mask. Ligeia was also a woman, but in a deep blue-green dress and a matching coral-like mask on the upper half of her face. Jacklight was a man in a purple suit and had a full-coverage grinning mask. And Lizardtail was very tall, wearing a dark suit with a green dress shirt and a mask that she couldn't place the design of.
"I've already had all four examine my file on you," Accord added after pausing long enough for Taylor to get her look at the four. "I hope you understand that we're shortly going to be very busy going over all of my security measures, otherwise I'd consider inviting you down to talk in person. Please pass on that I'll be in contact with the PRT soon, and that Director Piggot may want to review the file Director Armstrong has on me."
Taylor wrote up a quick note to that effect in her patrol file, alongside physical descriptions and quick pictures of the four. She also started a message to send directly to Director Piggot, just in case.
"Thank you for the introductions," Taylor said to Othello's 'other self'. "I'm going to assume that you're sticking around, and will relay the message. Have a nice day, or as nice as it can be while you're checking security measures anyway."
Taylor moved away from the building, smirking a little as Accord told Othello to get his 'other self' inside and to lock down the entire building. She cut the feed just after that, since she'd no longer have justification to look into the office, instead switching back to the normal augmented patrol app.
Armstrong sighed as he looked over his messages after dinner. He'd had the day off, but that meant very little for a PRT director. Most of his messages were routine, low priority and he could deal with them in the morning. But there were a couple from Brockton Bay. He'd deal with the request for his file on Accord in the morning, figuring that answered where the man had run off to. But being copied on a joint patrol report and having a message direct from Emily were more confusing.
His curiosity got the better of him and he opened up the patrol report, figuring that it likely had context for Emily's message. He read through it, and checked the included images. He was impressed, they'd gotten names for Accord's new capes. No power information, but names without running into them in the field was pretty good. The portions of the report that detailed how this had been done had been redacted. Operational security sucked some days, he'd have to see if an unredacted copy was available later.
It didn't take long to discover that he'd thought he'd been impressed with them having names, pictures, and descriptions of Accord's new capes. Opening the message from Emily, only to find out that they had a video feed from the man's new office, raised his estimation of Brockton Bay considerably. A static feed from a point looking at the man's desk, but a feed nonetheless.
"How in the world did they pull that off," he wondered. "The skills needed to get past everything Accord sets up, and then have the man not notice anything out of place..."
There was probably something obvious he was missing, but he had no clue what it was. He couldn't think of any capes in the area that could pull this off, unless Eidolon himself had helped out. He also recognized what Accord had activated, and that should have disrupted pretty much any communication technology they'd used. Short of high level, and thus high-power, equipment anyway, and the man should have noticed any unusual power draws. He was meticulous like that.
An hour later he scowled, realizing that not knowing was going to be keeping him up for hours while he considered possibilities. And either Emily knew it, or she'd assumed that he'd have it figured out right away. Well, that and he wasn't entirely sure how in the world Maul knew how to take care of the duck. He was probably going to have to call Emily in the morning to get answers. He'd call now, but there was no way she'd give him answers at this hour on a Sunday.
Chapter 126 Monday morning Taylor and Amy had escaped helping with getting brewing equipment out of the house by going to the gym before Kurt and Lacey showed up. The PRT building was also back to normal access, including the garage, provided that you avoided the reconstruction zone deeper in. So they'd park in the garage, visit the gym, and then do some tinkering before Taylor had to meet with Director Piggot.
"So they're going to let you know if the electrician finishes replacing things," Taylor noted. "And if so you'll head home for the night. What else do you have going on?"
"I'm hoping to at least swing by and check the brain fruits," Amy admitted. "With any luck they'll be working out great and we can bring them to Las Vegas to give to Riley."
"We'll probably want a secure case for that. I'm sure I can borrow one, but we'll need to figure out dimensions."
"Good point. Any idea what your meeting is about?"
"Nope. Wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with the afternoon parahuman psychologist appointments, but I wasn't told anything. Just that she wants to meet, and I don't need to be in costume. There should be a 'public areas' badge in my mailbox, which probably means they want me out of costume for the afternoon."
Amy nodded at that. "So you're not patrolling at all today?"
"Nope. Carlos, Dennis, Dean, and Missy have all shown up though. I haven't checked the schedule, but I bet they're all patrolling. Well, ok, Missy shows up at the hint of a rumor of someone possibly dropping a hat, so I'm less certain about her."
"And I'd know that they'd shown up if I were paying proper attention," Amy noted. "Are they doing more joint patrols?"
"I think so. I don't think any non-joint patrols are happening for the Wards for the entire week."
"Ok." The machine Amy was setting up suddenly let off an alarm.
Taylor looked over. "Huh. One of the electromagnets in that one cracked. Self-test picked it up."
Amy grumbled, but shut it down and moved over a machine while Taylor slapped a note on it.
Taylor left Amy tinkering while she headed up to her meeting with Director Piggot. The badge in her mailbox was a much more permanent one, indicating that she was a PRT-registered and affiliated parahuman psychologist. It was effectively a permanent excuse to be in semi-secure areas of PRT buildings unescorted, and would only need to be replaced once a year.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," the PRT officer standing next to the secretary's desk said as Taylor entered the outer office. "Director Piggot is expecting you, so you can go right on in."
"Did something happen to the secretary?" Taylor asked, honestly curious.
"Mild incident with a stapler," the PRT officer answered, gesturing to the still-open stapler on the desk. "One sneeze at the wrong moment and they ended up with staples all over the place. They're getting their eye checked out."
"Ouch," Taylor said with wince. "I hope they're ok."
"They should be fine. Really, it's mostly procedure that had them getting the eye checked at all. Just like it's procedure that led me to standing here while they get checked out."
"Hopefully they'll be back soon so you can get on with things," Taylor said as she entered the inner office.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," Director Piggot greeted as the door shut behind Taylor. "Can you hit the privacy field?"
"Good morning Director Piggot," Taylor replied, hitting the privacy field switch. "Did something happen to your remote button?"
"Spilled my coffee on it last week and haven't bothered to have it repaired yet. Please take a seat, I've got several things I need to go over with you today."
Taylor sat down and looked at Director Piggot, who merely stared back at Taylor. "Is something wrong?"
"For the record," Director Piggot finally said. "We have an actual list of things to do to or around Accord to unnerve him, and similar lists for a number of other parahumans. Normally when asked to unnerve someone with such a list in the system we expect you to check said list, though admittedly this normally only comes up with Protectorate members. That said, what you pulled off yesterday has been added to the list for Accord, though we skipped out on the 'how' portion."
"Oh." Taylor supposed that made some sense. "Sorry?"
Director Piggot snorted, a smirk finally appearing on her face. "Don't be. Armstrong down in Boston thinks that we're Gods of infiltration thanks to your stunt, and I'm enjoying his attempts to figure out how we did it."
"Ah. He doesn't know about the drones?"
"You and Armsmaster each having your own is a very well kept secret right now," Director Piggot admitted. "I think everyone expects Dragon to have her own, but that's about it. Now then, moving on. Some very important people apparently latched onto your forwarded request from 'Lacey' for mixing vials. To the point where they'd like to let her try on the coming Saturday. Despite their eagerness to do so I'm not going to sign off on things unless you tell me that you're ok with things, in part because those vials are considered your property."
Taylor blinked at that. "Um, I think I was more concerned with needing volunteers present to drink them."
"They have, apparently, found several volunteers and are willing to bring them in on short notice. Complete with brand new waivers given the various risks."
"I see. What about potentially needing to get her to look over all the vials in my room in the Wards area?"
"We blocked out Thursday for a potential visitor for a reason."
"Er." Taylor was running out of reasonable-sounding potential objections, beyond stating that she thought it was crazy that it was even being considered. Largely because she suspected that there was list of arguments to shoot down that particular complaint somewhere in the system, waiting for people to trip over it by making such an argument. 'Powers are bullshit' was probably the first entry in said list, in fact. "What about reasonable oversight?"
"Legend has volunteered his time to come in person, plus Dragon and the Think Tank would be observing remotely, on top of anyone local monitoring things."
"Do I need to be present on Saturday?"
Director Piggot paused to consider that, before turning to her computer to check something. "It looks like you're needed to officially hand over the vials to Lacey, and will be wanted for helping figure out what powers they get when all is said and done, but don't have to be in the room while the actual mixing and consuming occurs."
"Dang. So I can't hide on the other side of town during the whole thing?"
The woman gave Taylor a look before sighing. "Apparently not. Are you ok with going through with this, or should I call it off?"
Taylor sighed. "We might as well go through with it. I'm not sure I'd hear the end of it from Lacey if we don't. With any luck after the first time she'll be too busy focusing on the pub for a bit. Or nothing will work out and the entire idea will die."
Director Piggot snorted. "Good luck with that. If it doesn't work out she'll probably spend six months trying to figure out where she went wrong before coming back to try again. I'll get you information on bringing her in to look at things by Thursday."
Taylor slumped a little. "Ok, yeah."
"Moving on, we have some parahuman psychologist appointments that we'd like your assistance with this afternoon. They aren't mandatory for you, especially as you're only being officially asked to attend them now. I worked with Armsmaster and Miss Militia to go through the original list and we pared it down a little for various reasons. If you decide to help out you're allowed to leave at any time, of course. As a fair warning, none of the patients you'd be working with today are officially aware of you being 'Maul' or your full abilities."
Taylor considered that. "Officially?"
The woman shrugged. "The identities of Wards are hard enough to keep secret when the civilian side of the equation isn't famous too, unless they're home-schooled. You're no different on that front. Somehow you're somewhat more discreet by virtue of your civilian fame being essentially unconnected to your powers, at least as far as the public is concerned, but the extra focus on you in general mitigates any gains there. That and I'm thinking that others who've been in the system are more likely to put things together."
"Oh."
"So are you ok with meeting with the various individuals?"
Thinking about it, Taylor couldn't find a good reason not to. "Yeah, might as well."
"Good." Director Piggot made a couple of notes. "As a fair warning, they'll likely be arriving soonish now that I've confirmed things, so don't be surprised when unfamiliar parahumans are around." Taylor nodded at that. "Moving on, the last thing I want to talk to you about today is the pile of apparent gifts you ordered for the Wards."
"Is there a problem with them?" Taylor asked, curious. She didn't think any of them violated rules.
"I'd like to know what inspired the entire thing, and would like an explanation on a couple of your choices."
Taylor shrugged. "Mainly it's to shut up the people online complaining that I'm getting all the new toys. As for the selection, I tried to go with things that seemed reasonable or directly useful without getting duplicates."
Director Piggot picked up a piece of paper she had sitting on the desk, looking it over for a moment. "The net for Aegis makes sense, as does the 'grab bag' for Kid Win. I suppose the laptop is a decent choice for Mycroft so that she isn't left out, even if she isn't going into the field. Armsmaster was impressed with the choice of a shield for Gallant." She then looked up at Taylor. "I'm most curious about the sniper rifle, currently."
"I ordered it with stun rounds," Taylor said. "Ranged nonlethal takedown that should be faster and easier to work with in groups, at least compared to the taser. I figured the Youth Guard wasn't about to complain about keeping her out of the middle of things, and her parents are only likely to complain that she can't play with it at the range out of costume."
"If anything you're probably going to confuse the crap out of the Youth Guard with the sniper rifle. Believe it or not, they've actually got some motions to introduce lethal measures for Wards in place. Someone apparently compiled a list of times a Ward had barely made it out of things with their life and has been very convincing."
Taylor blinked. "That seems counterproductive to their overall goals?"
"Only if you aren't looking at it as ensuring that Wards have the tools to protect themselves. They're also using you and Vista having sidearms and not having killed anyone yet as part of the argument." She looked down at the list again. "I'm going to assume that the jump harness for Grue is a mobility thing, getting him able to operate on rooftops and such. Which leaves the camera drone and the audio grenades?"
"I figured that having Hulder able to toss a grenade and hide as it played whatever sounds she puts into it could help freak out gang members," Taylor explained with a grin. "As for the camera drone, unless you're controlling it directly it follows and focuses on the controlling device. So it'll be most useful for catching Clockblocker's own antics."
Director Piggot blinked a couple of times, looked down at the list, and then chuckled as she shook her head. "We should've gotten him one long before now, with an argument like that. Luckily Armsmaster and Miss Militia already approved everything, checking with you was more of a formality, beyond needing to know the reason for giving the gifts in the first place. I will say that it's nice to see you helping equip your teammates." She paused for a moment before she continued. "Well, ok, I'm more looking forward to the complaints from the other Directors when the public starts wondering why only our region is upgrading equipment for the Wards. It's still a nice gesture on your part."
"Thank you," Taylor replied. "Is there anything else?"
"I've got a small pile of things that I'd like to ask you but I've been instructed not to. Barring them I believe we're done for the moment for the official topics. Unofficially, I'd like to talk about what happened to you, and some of the aftermath. How are you holding up?"
Taylor sighed. "I think the nightmares are letting up, and the smaller elevators are a little more nerve-wracking now. But otherwise I think I'm doing ok."
Director Piggot nodded. "That's good to hear. I don't know how much you've looked up, but the individual who kidnapped you was a Simurgh victim. He's no longer in the area, and is likely no longer going to be a problem in general."
That prompted some blinking as Taylor processed things. "Ok. I guess?"
"I don't know if you've been notified of your newest recruitments. Two of his former teammates, also former Simurgh victims, have signed up with the Protectorate. They've both been marked down as having been recruited by you due to your abduction being part of the ill-considered plan that caused their recruitment in the first place. Should he and the remaining two join up they'll also count towards your total."
Taylor stared at the Director, wondering what the hell was wrong with the system. It wasn't like she'd actually done anything for this group, right? Why would they credit them to her? Well, that was a good enough question to ask. "Why me?"
"I believe that the various people involved in picking them up voted for you getting the recruitments because getting 'abducted from bedroom' put down as a proven recruitment method was too good to pass up. It's inclusion has already been challenged at least eight times, in fact."
Taylor was very tempted to bang her head on Director Piggot's desk. Or wall, really. But she resisted. That and she had other concerns than a little humor in the paperwork. "I have no clue what to expect for the next one, then. Do I need to worry about getting a recruitment posthumously now?"
Director Piggot had the decency to flinch at that. "Hopefully not. We've only had three of those so far that I'm aware of, but they are by far the least pleasant ones."
Taylor had met Amy at Fugly's for lunch, before heading back to the PRT building and entering through the front door with her new pass. She hadn't been asked to, but being able to be seen entering with a 'Parahuman Psychologist' pass out of costume had to be good for keeping her civilian and cape identities distinct, right? Amy had gone back in through the secure garage to tinker.
She was brought up to the office used for all therapist appointments, currently occupied by a single parahuman.
"Good afternoon Miss Hebert," the sole occupant of the office greeted as the door closed behind Taylor. He was a short male, Taylor thought he looked like he had Native American heritage. He'd moved over to the computer as soon as Taylor had entered. "I'm Doctor Doolittle. No, I can't talk to animals, but I can generally identify when someone's built up an itch to use their powers."
"Good afternoon," Taylor returned. "I'm going to assume that you aren't a patient today?"
"Of course not. I'm the primary therapist for the last individual we'd like you to work with today, and am acting as a consulting therapist with the others. Before I call the first pair up I'd like to know if you have any issues working with, er, unwillingly former villains?"
Taylor blinked and tried to process that. 'Pair' implied two people in the first session, and wouldn't be her first. But how did you have an 'unwillingly former' villain? She gave up after a moment. "I'm confused. Unwillingly former?"
Doolittle shrugged. "Circumstances resulted in them being dragged out of villainy and being more of an independent sidekick. Kinda. Though I wouldn't call them that, apparently it ticks them off?"
Taylor glared at the therapist. "I'm going to have to agree to see them to have any hope of getting the story behind this, aren't I?"
"Yep."
Taylor grumbled about the unfairness of teasing information like that, before sighing. "Ok. I've worked with willingly former villains. How bad can unwillingly former villains be?"
A few minutes later the two patients were brought in, both in casual clothing but wearing distinctive headgear, and Doctor Doolittle introduced them. "Miss Hebert, allow me to introduce Mouse Protector and Ravager." He then took a step back, which helped get him out of the way of Mouse Protector bouncing forward. Taylor was somewhat distracted by noticing that the two's snarks were almost like mirrors of each other in a way, not to mention that focusing on them had her getting the impression that they were unusually in sync. Naturally and artificially, maybe? But why was Ravager's slightly fuzzy?
"Hi there!" Mouse Protector said, dragging Taylor out of her examination of their snarks as she forcibly shook Taylor's hand. "Did you really write your paper without any help from your uncle?"
Taylor blinked, not having expected the question. "Yes? Well, I used some of his research, but..."
"Awesome!" Mouse Protector interrupted.
"Would you calm down?" Ravager asked, bopping Mouse Protector's head. "We're not here so that you can fangirl over her."
Mouse Protector pouted. "I suppose my former nemesis is correct." She then grinned. "I'll just have to get the fangirling in later!"
"Former nemesis?" Taylor asked. She was sure she was missing something here.
Mouse Protector looked at Ravager and made a 'go ahead' gesture. Ravager pouted and shook her head, only for Mouse Protector to cross her arms and tap her foot. Ravager groaned, but turned to Taylor.
"I was stupid and tried to hire the Slaughterhouse Nine to kill Mouse Protector," Ravager said, pointing at the other woman. "Instead they captured both of us and in an attempt to punish me they made it so that if I'm more than a thousand feet from her then I get hit with severe shocks. But if I'm close enough to attack her my powers shut down. That gets painful eventually too, but only after at least half a day."
"We're not sure how, but the shocks count as marking her to my powers," Mouse Protector added. "Which means that I can jump right to her when it happens."
"Huh." Taylor wasn't sure what to make of that. "I take it that whatever they put in can't be removed easily?"
Mouse Protector snorted at that. "We don't actually know, since she decided she doesn't want it removed."
Taylor and Doctor Doolittle turned to look at Ravager with questioning looks at that one.
"Well, er," Ravager said, obviously embarrassed. "I'm not actually immune to my own powers, and couldn't turn them off? So accidentally cutting myself while eating or shaving meant I needed a full first aid kit handy? Not to mention other things..."
"Oh come on," Mouse Protector said, throwing her arm across Ravager's shoulders. "You know most of that's just a side benefit. After all, you only stopped complaining about it after I snuck into your..."
Mouse Protector was interrupted by virtue of Ravager elbowing her. Hard. While blushing and mumbling something about not wanting to talk about it with strangers. But Taylor felt that she'd gotten the picture anyway, even if she wasn't going to dig into it any further.
Amy had her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth as she focused on assembling the component in front of her. She didn't know why she had her tongue sticking out, just that it was necessary. Still, her newest plan for letting someone other than her install the implants was coming along nicely. Instead of wasting space in the implants themselves she'd determined that the 'installation' equipment could be external and still within her capability to build. That also meant that she could have it use much larger and more sensitive sensors, as well as include a numbing effect on the area.
She was a little bummed out that the preliminary tests on her previous attempt had resulted in a total failure of things, but she was in an experimentation phase at this point. Failure wasn't an option, after all. Failure was mandatory, everyone failed at times. She just wasn't planning on letting failure be the last thing she did.
Now where had she put down that bent paperclip that she'd flattened with the door mechanism?
Taylor sighed as the two capes left. She hadn't quite understood what Ravager's powers were until it had come up in more detail. Mainly when Mouse Protector had been expressing concern over ensuring that the other woman had 'suitable' targets every so often to use said powers on. A quick description of what happened to those who didn't use their powers had all concerns wiped away and replaced with mild panic over the various times that Ravager had been left unable to use her powers due to Mouse Protector's actions.
Whatever Riley had done to the two had apparently caused them to overcome the 'kill' part of the kiss/kill dynamic of their joint trigger, at least for the most part. Really, she got the impression that the two used the animosity towards each other as an excuse to 'make up' later, even if they hadn't wanted to discuss that part.
"Did you get the idea for Mouse Protector to try and teleport without a tag from her powers?" Doctor Doolittle asked.
"No," Taylor replied, shaking her head. "When they pointed out that the 'targeting' aspect seemed to be part of Mouse Protector's echo off of Ravager I wondered how she'd teleport without it. Really, it's probably just as likely that she can't, but it can't hurt to try either way, right?"
"True, and you should probably avoid being too accurate with those who don't know about your powers. Plus I noticed that she forgot to fangirl over you at the end because she was too busy thinking about it. What about the revelations about Ravager?"
"The experimenting with different weapons was straight from her snark, but making it easier to open packages by lightly scratching them and letting her power eat away at them was my idea. Of course, she'd already figured the packages trick out."
The Doctor nodded. "Now then, would you like a drink before I call up the next individual?"
Taylor shook her head. "I think I'm good."
He nodded and went over to the desk. A few minutes later an obviously hungry snark started up the stairwell from a couple floors down. Taylor snuck a look at the security camera feeds showing on the monitor and saw that the approaching cape looked more like stone than flesh. A minute later they entered the outer office area. They paused before entering the room itself, Taylor and Doctor Doolittle waiting patiently. Mostly. After a few minutes they started moving again and entered the room.
"Miss Hebert," Doctor Doolittle said. "Allow me to introduce Granite. He's been working with the Protectorate in New Orleans."
"Good afternoon Granite," Taylor said, though did not approach the parahuman. Mainly because, despite looking like a bulky stone statue, they appeared to have a very significant air of nervousness about them. That she could see his apparently-stone face shifting expressions made it obvious that if he was made of stone then his snark was ensuring that it didn't hinder him in that way.
Granite nodded in Taylor's direction. "Afternoon."
"Would you like to take a seat?" Doctor Doolittle asked. Granite gave the seats a questioning look, but moved over and took a seat. They were apparently pleasantly surprised when the seat held.
Amy frowned as she tried to get things to line up. She knew she was being messed with. There was no way the sudden urge to cackle maniacally would help, right? But every time she tried to slip these two components together there was something ever so slightly out of alignment, and she really didn't want to break anything.
Ten minutes of frustration later she finally gave in, laid out everything, and started assembling them while cackling. "Mwahahahaha!"
Her eye twitched as things slotted together perfectly.
"I don't think he got what he was hoping for," Doctor Doolittle noted with a frown just after Granite had left. "Too nervous around unfamiliar people, I think."
Taylor ignored him while she looked up Granite's normal therapist to send a message off to them. She had a feeling that the information on his past was more what he was hoping for, being a Case 53 and all, but with him not officially knowing that Taylor was a Parahuman? Especially as his file said that he was apparently only fourteen, despite his seemingly adult body. His snark had been very happy to share when it realized that she could provide it with energy.
"What are you up to with your phone?" Doctor Doolittle finally asked.
"Just finishing up a message to Granite's usual therapist," Taylor answered. "Hopefully they respect the requests I put in to not look at the attachments without his permission."
"I'm missing something. I don't know what, but I'm missing something."
Taylor waved him off. "I'm thinking he was hoping to meet me in costume, except that my trump skills aren't well known so he isn't sure who he was supposed to meet at all."
"I see. I'd like to grab a quick snack before calling up my patient, if you don't mind? He tends to be more talkative with finger-foods available."
"No problem," Taylor replied, putting her phone away and putting her visor on. "Probably not a bad idea overall."
They visited the nearest cafeteria together in near silence, Taylor noting that the man seemed a little unsettled himself. It was more obvious as they moved along. He had no issues with touching most people, but he was avoiding touching her. But he also avoided touching Miss Militia when they passed her. And thinking back, he'd been very carefully avoiding contact with their patients as well, even if it was only obvious in hindsight.
Taylor: Your human said that he can tell when others aren't using their powers, but is that all he can do?
[Negation. Data]
Taylor: Ahhh. Thank you.
They collected a tray of cheese and crackers, a few sodas, and a bowl of chips, before heading back to the therapist's office.
Once the door had shut behind them Taylor shook her head. "You do realize that your power doesn't work on itself, right?"
"What do you mean?" Doctor Doolittle asked.
"You've got a striker power to dampen or boost parahuman urges, basically, and I suspect you aren't using it enough by how you're fidgeting."
The Doctor groaned as he dropped into the chair by the computer. "That aspect of my power is supposed to be a closely guarded, carefully protected secret."
Taylor shrugged. "I asked, it told me."
"Trumps," Doctor Doolittle grumbled, before sighing. "Yes, I can manipulate the urges of parahumans. I don't like to, because I feel it can severely hinder their progress through therapy. I usually deal with it by working with parahumans who are aware of the ability by boosting or dampening things with them in a controlled environment, but I've been on the road a bit too long."
"Do you want to boost my need to hit things or something when we're done? I can just visit the junkyard to clear things before going home."
"Thank you, but no. I'm heading back home tonight and can easily last until the appointment I have tomorrow. Now then, is there anything else before I call my patient up?"
"I don't think so," Taylor replied as she arranged the snacks they'd grabbed on the table.
A few minutes later a snark came up the stairwell. This one wasn't hungry. It didn't take long before a young boy entered the room, apparently not in costume at all.
"Miss Hebert," Doctor Doolittle said. "I'd like you to meet Dodge. He's a tinker and the official unofficial liaison to Toybox."
"Good afternoon Miss Hebert," Dodge said. "And before you ask, I'm older than I look."
"Good afternoon," Taylor replied. "Did you stop aging when you triggered or something?"
"Er, well," Dodge said suddenly stumbling over his words. He apparently had forgotten that Taylor likely wasn't fully informed of things.
"He's a low-level changer," Doctor Doolittle supplied. "Part of a group trigger. He can push his apparent age up and down within a limited range. In exchange the other individual tends to build and maintain a single piece of tinkertech for themselves."
"She uses it to make her purse hold a lot more than it should," Dodge finally said as he moved over to the snacks. "And I pretend to be younger than I actually am so that the others in Toybox underestimate me. But I figured I should make it clear that I'm not this young, since I kinda hope you can help me with my tinkering and all."
Taylor blinked a couple of times. "Why would you expect me to be able to help you with tinkering?"
Dodge snorted. "Because it's obvious to me that you're either a minor tinker or a thinker who can understand tech, if not both." He then paused. "Oh, right, I guess that only makes sense if I admit that I figured out that you're Maul?"
Doctor Doolittle sighed. "You should probably have mentioned that before now."
Dodge had the decency to blush. "Sorry. I suppose it's only fair that I tell you my name? I'm Joey Horsfall."
Amy double-checked the diagnostics output on the implant installer. So far everything was looking good, and she'd documented everything she could on it. It wasn't safe for anything in or around the head, but once you got down below the neck it should generally be fine. Mostly. She suspected that people with nut allergies would have a problem with this model, due to the nut oil she'd ended up using.
"I should really put a warning label on it," she mused, moving over to where a printer was sitting. It didn't take long to print out a sheet of warning labels. It took a little longer to realize that the original warning labels needed adjustments, after which she went back and customized things. After all, she didn't want anyone to assume she was mocking them by saying you had to be nuts to let the machine install an implant.
Eventually she'd gotten new labels made up and had placed them on the machine. 'Warning: Contains Nut Oil' was a lot better than the original 'Warning: Contains Nuts' that she'd started with.
"I wonder how long it'll take to get this tested," Amy wondered as she started cleaning up.
"I'd never considered that the pocket dimensions that he creates would be an extension of his 'personal space'," Doctor Doolittle said as they cleaned up. Dodge had left a few minutes prior. "It does explain why people using them get on his nerves over time."
"It didn't take too long to figure out what was going on when I asked his snark for details," Taylor admitted. "Putting it into English was the harder part, honestly, and I probably wouldn't have made the connection if he hadn't admitted that he had an awareness of all of the pocket dimensions he's ever created."
"I can see how that would help. Oh, and good job on the question about how to reveal himself as a parahuman to a potential girlfriend. I hadn't expected him to drop that on you, but I feel that advising him to not do so right away was the right move."
Taylor shrugged. "I think it makes more sense to get to know them better before dropping that on them, since one-sided secrets like that can be annoying even in a friendship. Hopefully it works out for him. Am I allowed to know how old he is normally?"
"I'd prefer you not dig into him quite that deeply for now, honestly. Especially as I'm positive he wasn't referring to you as the potential girlfriend."
Chapter 127 Taylor and Amy met back at the Hebert household, Taylor having grabbed a stack of pizzas on the way home. She'd asked that Kurt and Lacey, but mainly Lacey, join them for dinner and they'd agreed, but she wasn't in the mood to actually cook.
"Five pizzas?" Amy asked when Taylor pulled in.
"I'm hungry," Taylor replied with a shrug as she carefully removed the straps that were holding the pizzas on the back of the moped. "Besides, they had a special running, and a cheap upgrade to extra large."
Amy shook her head but held the door open for Taylor anyway. "Vicky called a few minutes ago. Apparently the electrician finished replacing the panel that Mark destroyed, but the electric company turned things off at the meter and wants someone to inspect it tomorrow morning before they turn anything back on. Unless there's a problem there I think we'll be sleeping at home tomorrow night."
"That's good to know," Taylor said, putting the pizzas down on the kitchen counter. "I figure everyone will be here in no more than half an hour, think we should feed the spider-bots?"
"Not a bad idea," Amy answered, going to grab some potatoes. "So, why are we meeting? I probably should have asked at lunch, but I was too focused on my plans for tinkering."
"The PRT went beyond answering my questions and basically got almost everything ready for Lacey to play with vials this weekend."
"Oh."
It didn't take long to make a couple servings for the spider-bots. They were split into bowls before being brought up and given to Ackbar and Rodney. Afterwards Amy joined Taylor while she looked over her plants.
"I wonder when Armsmaster will have a greenhouse ready," Taylor mused. "I suspect the damage to the garage kinda took priority."
"Probably," Amy agreed. "You patrolling tomorrow?"
"Yeah." Taylor dropped some charcoal pieces into the plants, and decided to add some water to the bulbs. "Morning and afternoon. But then not again until Friday, even if the schedule's a little undefined for then." She paused after removing the last bulb. "Actually, I think the schedule isn't all that defined for tomorrow. I'm patrolling, but no clue who with. I think that might be intentional though, as they realize they need to cover things and make adjustments last minute and all."
Amy followed Taylor over to the bathroom, being the nearest source of water. "I'll probably be spending most of Thursday and Friday at the hospital, but Saturday and Sunday are unknowns. Depends on how many people are injured and all."
"What, you don't think that they'll let you heal under the influence on Wednesday?"
Amy snorted. "There's technically no law saying that I can't, but I suspect the hospitals wouldn't let me try anyway."
Danny made it home shortly before Kurt and Lacey showed up, and Taylor had said that they could eat before talking. Discussion over dinner ended up mainly covering some of what was going on with the Dockworkers. They were restoring several of the larger docks, now that the shipping channel was opening back up, and apparently there was some poking at the ferry. The current plans weren't entirely for people to cross the bay itself, as the roads had improved enough to not make it necessary, but as a combination of tourist attraction and to improve access to the Rig. Though Taylor felt she was missing something as her father seemed to be grumbling about that being the scope.
"I wonder if Wrench Wraith would like to build a new tinkertech ferry?" Taylor had mused at one point, after Danny had noted that the previous ferry needed a lot of work if it was going to be used again. That had led things in an entirely different direction, as a proper tinkertech ferry would probably bring tourists just to ride it. Taylor ended up having to promise to check with someone about it.
Once they were done eating Danny roped Kurt and Lacey into helping clean up, before they all settled in the living room.
"We're done eating now," Kurt said. "What's up?"
"I had a meeting with Director Piggot today," Taylor said, getting raised eyebrows from the adults. "The PRT has been preparing for Lacey here to do her mixed drinks with power-granting vials thing, and wants to do it Saturday." She paused, and turned to Lacey. "I'd have thought that they'd have contacted you about this already? I mean, they didn't say they would, but..."
"I haven't heard much," Lacey said, bouncing a little. "But they're that on-board with it?"
"Apparently," Taylor said. "I'm supposed to get information on how I'm bringing you into the PRT building to look over my selection of vials before Thursday. They've blocked out the entire day, presumably in case there was a time concern on your end."
"We do have a breakfast meeting with some contractors," Kurt said. "So afternoon would probably be better."
Lacey pouted, but nodded. "Yeah, we shouldn't put off that meeting."
"Do you have anything that would stop you from doing stuff on Saturday?" Taylor asked. She was sure the PRT would get around to contacting Lacey anyway, but better to ask now.
"Not really," Lacey said, obviously thinking. "I mean, I can put off the chores around the house easily enough. I should have more than enough alcohol distilled by then for the vials too, assuming I work at it nightly like I have been. It's annoying that I have to constantly monitor things to get past ninety-five percent or so."
Taylor blinked, sure that there was something wrong with that, but she couldn't place what. Amy seemed to be thinking similarly, actually, if her own confused expression had anything to say about it. What was wrong might need some research later.
"Do you have any idea who'll be allowed to watch?" Danny asked after a few moments of silence. "Because for some reason I suspect it isn't going to be open to the public."
Taylor opened her mouth to answer, before realizing that she was assuming nobody would be allowed to watch, but hadn't actually checked. After a moment's consideration she continued. "I'm not actually certain, I'll have to ask."
"Please do so, I might want to see what happens."
That was somewhat unexpected, but Taylor figured that it was probably a somewhat unique thing.
"I'll check on the brain fruits tomorrow even if the electric company doesn't want to turn the power back on," Amy said as she and Taylor made sure all of her things were gathered.
"Sounds like a plan," Taylor said, frowning as she looked at the cord for Amy's charging mat. "Looks like you need a new cord for your mat, the one you've got is weakening at a couple of the kink points."
Amy sighed. "Yeah, I shouldn't have pushed the nightstand up against it."
"So what do you plan to do on Saturday?" Taylor asked. "Since at least some of the day you probably shouldn't be healing, just in case?"
"Just in ca...doh. We don't actually know what the range is before you, and thus I, will see the trigger vision thing. Which means I shouldn't be in the hospital healing." Amy rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment, thinking. "Probably shouldn't be in public at all, just in case. Maybe I'll see if I can just be there? Let me know what they say about watchers."
"Will do." Taylor then held up some papers. "Did you intend to toss these?"
Amy looked over. "Oh. I was wondering where I'd put those, throw them on top of my notebooks. I want to slip them in with the sketches they're adjustments to."
Tuesday started bright and early for Taylor and Amy. They'd headed to the gym together, and then Amy had stuck around to grab breakfast in the Wards area before she'd headed home to check on things. If everything checked out then Mark would probably swing by the Hebert household to pick up Rodney and her things.
Taylor, on the other hand, had ensured that all of the vials were back in her room, gotten into costume, and was now waiting for others to show up. To keep herself occupied she'd started reading up on the whole bit with 'unnerving' people. Or groups, as it turned out. It basically amounted to a predetermined list of pranks with defined 'do not cross' lines and such. Accord's was mostly ways to introduce chaos into his life, but had a warning about drugs being over his line. Lung was apparently uncomfortable hearing about people being pressured into the sex trade, with the line on that one being the point where 'pressured' became 'forced'. Kaiser didn't like being compared to his father, but was likely to try to kill you if you insulted his mother.
She'd started looking through villains and rogues from outside of Brockton Bay when Missy showed up, followed closely by Aisha. Brian had apparently dropped his sister off and left again, instead of making her take the bus or something. Chris showed up ten minutes after Aisha had, which finished off the list of those patrolling this morning. The list of odd things that pissed off the Butcher was interesting, especially the things that persisted across Butchers, but she closed things down once the others were ready.
"So who do you think we're patrolling with today?" Missy asked as they headed for the conference room they'd been asked to meet in this morning.
"I'm thinking Armsmaster, Battery, Miss Militia, and Wrench Wraith," Taylor answered, only to get looks of disbelief from the other three. Well, she was assuming Aisha's was disbelief.
"Cheater," Chris finally said, shaking his head. "They're all waiting for us in the conference room, aren't they?"
Taylor just grinned at that. A couple minutes later the other three found out that yes, the Protectorate members in question were waiting for the Wards to show up. Everyone got settled, but Colin didn't bring up the patrol map. Battery was the one to actually start the meeting.
"Normally we'd be trying to fill in gaps from previous patrols," Battery said. "But we've got several requests for assistance today. We've decided to clear the backlog instead of patrolling. To start with, Vista, if you don't object I'll be escorting you for a couple of projects. The first we'd like to hit is at the museum to help shift an exhibit without fully dismantling it, I believe their intent is for you to make the doorways bigger. Following that there's a request from the DPW for assistance in clearing out a sewer line. They've promised that no parahumans will need to enter the sewer if you can expand some of the openings. There are some lower-priority requests that we can hit afterwards if we have time."
Vista nodded, and Miss Militia took over. "Hulder, your assistance has been requested by City Hall. They think that someone has been sneaking into the records room to modify records, but don't want to reveal the evidence they've already collected by messing with the security system. They think that a stranger that can hide in the room is the best way to catch the culprit. Would you be willing to try?"
Aisha nodded, then turned to Vista. "Any chance of getting an expanded bag of snacks?"
"I don't think that'll be a problem," Vista replied. "Think you'll need extra tank storage?"
"There's a dead zone in the security camera coverage and the door opening is supposed to be a little noisy in the room," Miss Militia said. "We think you'll be able to lean against the wall in the dead zone and hide before the door opens fully, so your air tanks should be fine. Even if you don't finish hiding before the door opens your powers should prevent them from noticing you."
"But not if they've accounted for that and have a remote feed to someone out of my range or something," Aisha noted. Armsmaster nodded at that, apparently happy that she was aware of her limits.
"I'll also be doing my best to let you know when people may be approaching," Miss Militia said. "But that is good thinking on your part."
Colin looked at Sherrel, who sighed. "Right. Dragon has a request for helping the workers at the facility being constructed with some tinkertech. A combination of factors, including transport concerns. Kid Win, you and I will be helping there, as you should be able to get around the equipment fairly easily while I help move it."
"Are we sure that we want me trying to do precision movement around sensitive equipment?" Chris asked. "If I'm paying too much attention to the equipment I tend to zone out on the hoverboard controls and all..."
"None of it is tall enough to require your hoverboard," Sherrel corrected. "You'll be on foot, possibly connecting things before the specialized forklift I rigged up sets them down."
Chris looked relieved at that. "Oh, ok then."
"That leaves Maul and myself looking into possible tinkertech cameras in a clothing store on the Boardwalk," Colin said. "The proprietors are concerned about several images they found online in the past couple of days that they think came from their changing rooms in particular, but their own search for possible cameras came up empty. If we find anything we'll start checking other stores as well, since usually when people do this kind of thing they don't hit just one store."
Taylor scowled at that. She was not a fan of that possibility. "Do you want me there because I can hopefully identify any non-obvious tinkertech?"
"That's part of it," Colin admitted. "Also, Wrench Wraith admitted that she'd probably be of little help, and Countdown's solution would probably be an EMP. Which leaves you as the only remaining female tinker to help out. They aren't intending to close the store while we do our initial investigation."
"Armsmaster put me through a tinkertech detection test," Sherrel admitted. "I was pretty much incapable of detecting anything subtle that wasn't transportation related."
"We should put Maul through that test at some point," Miss Militia added. "She's probably an exception to the general rule that tinkers only spot things related to their specialties."
"Are there any questions?" Colin asked.
"How is everyone getting to where they're going?" Aisha asked.
"We're walking," Miss Militia answered, causing Aisha to look like she was unhappy. Possibly pouting behind the mask. "Because City Hall isn't that far away."
"Maul and I can provide our own transportation," Colin added. "I believe Wrench Wraith has a passenger seat for Kid Win?"
Sherrel nodded. "I've got a storage compartment for his stuff if needed too."
"The museum isn't far enough away to worry about," Vista said. "But I don't know where the DPW site is?"
"We'll be picked up by a van after the museum," Battery said. "The DPW site is supposed to be across town."
"Anything else?" Colin asked, and got no takers. "Then I suggest you prepare anything needed, such as Hulder's bag of snacks. Maul, I'll meet you outside."
Taylor nodded and ignored the others discussing where to meet. She figured that she didn't need the full scout drone, so she just had to hit the restroom and head up to the roof.
"Thank you for coming out so quickly," Molly, the manager of 'Tinkered Apparel', said after bringing Colin and Taylor back to the office. Taylor had minimal experience with the place, but supposedly everything they sold was made out of fabric produced by a tinker in Tennessee. They also didn't open for another hour, so they had a little time to look before then. "We don't know how the pictures were taken, but another batch was posted last night."
They spent twenty minutes looking over the photos that had been printed out, though the manager was careful with the sets taken from inside the changing rooms themselves. She allowed Taylor to look at the female set and Colin to look at the male set.
"Odd," Colin finally said. "Every single person being focused on in these pictures looks like they may have stolen something."
"Which would be a wonderful thing if these had been taken by our security system," Molly admitted. "But they weren't, none of these line up with our cameras, and our security system doesn't post things online where anyone can see them."
"I'll ask Dragon to backtrace the site if at all possible," Colin said, nodding. "Even if we don't find anything perhaps she can track things down that way."
"Thank you," Molly said.
"I don't think these were taken with stationary cameras," Taylor noted. "There are at least twelve different angles on the same changing room, some would only be inches apart, but they're noticeable."
Colin paused, and flipped back through some of the pictures. "It's possible that the cameras are built into a strip, but unlikely. We should check for stationary cameras anyway."
Taylor nodded and the two of them moved out into the store itself. Molly followed, but kept out of their way. Colin had a detector running, Taylor was trying to pick things up with her tinker snark, and both had their visor sensor suites active. Further, per Colin's instructions, they were in text chat mode on the console app.
M: I'm not seeing anything but the store's security system, and it doesn't have any cameras in a position to see in the changing rooms.
A: Agreed. Which just makes a more mobile system more likely.
Taylor was flipping through the pictures again when she noticed something. She looked around, then back down at the picture. She flipped through the next few, then looked around again.
M: I think one of these people shoplifted from multiple stores, because some of these pictures don't line up with anything in here.
A: How sure are you on that?
M: I'm standing on greenish carpet. Behind the registers is black, as is inside the changing rooms. The pictures have purple tile.
A: I see. I think I have a copy of that set, and I have a couple with red carpet, as well as a set with stained wood. Interesting.
Molly opened the store while they were still looking around, but they didn't think they were going to find anything installed in the store anyway. They hadn't found anything yet, at least.
Things were quiet for the next fifteen minutes or so, and Taylor had started a list of things for Molly or the owners to look into. Like the loose connection on one of the security cameras, the damaged sprinkler pipe, and a damaged outlet ostensibly behind a display that it looked like someone had done their best to use anyway and left prongs from something in it.
Taylor looked over to the door as the chime sounded to indicate someone coming in. A couple of teenagers with their mother, it looked like. She could hear the mother questioning if the cost of the tinker-made fabric was worth it, with the teenagers dragging her over to the display showing the properties it had. Taylor sighed and was turning away before she paused. There had been something there, but she hadn't focused on it enough to see what.
M: I just saw something, but I lost it before I identified it.
A: Keep looking.
Duh she was going to keep looking. A quick glance down at the photos made her decide to look up, since almost every shot was looking down on people. She still didn't see anything on the ceiling. There were some insect drones hovering around one of the lights alongside the insects, and signs of mild water damage that she'd already noted. Unless someone was actually using the lights...
A: Why did you just facepalm?
M: Because I realized that I had just been a complete idiot. There are tinkertech drones pretending to be insects at one of the lights, I think they came in with the customers.
Shaking her head, she looked back up and focused on the insect drones. She quickly determined that they had minimal capabilities themselves. A somewhat mesh network setup with ultimate control coming from another system, which was apparently providing remote power. Very decent for their size cameras, low-resolution ones for the 'eyes' for navigation plus upward and downward facing high-resolution sets for actual monitoring. Apparently without seeing the other end she couldn't tell much more about what they were actually doing, similar to how she already knew that she couldn't tell what a Bluetooth device was connected to, just that it was connected.
She made note of the frequencies in use and sent them to Colin, then switched over to the visor feeds. It only took a moment to determine that the little drones were showing up as insects to Dragon's app. A quick snapshot of data would hopefully allow that to be corrected. That was being sent off even as Colin seemed to finish calibrating his equipment.
"We've got a lead," Colin said to Molly. "But we're going to have to track it down. Hopefully we'll have news for you later today."
"Thank you for the effort," Molly said as Taylor followed Colin out of the store.
They ended up circling the area a couple of times, Taylor noting a number of drones in the area following people, before Colin stopped at a decorative birdhouse. He waved a detector over it a couple of times, frowning.
A: I think there's a control node in the birdhouse. Can you confirm?
M: One moment.
It took a moment but she was able to get her tinker snark to identify the control node. It was also on a mesh network, independent of the insect drones, but had a power feed tapping into an outlet nearby. Having seen it and the drones she could now tell that the drones only used their mesh network when there were interference issues, otherwise they would be directly communicating with one of these units. They also got their power wirelessly from these units, through a mechanism that she couldn't quite identify the workings of.
M: Yeah, there's a control node in there, it's tapping power from an outlet by the bench. It does minimal processing for navigation and tracking purposes, but something else down the line hands out overall orders.
Figuring out the new frequencies took a moment, and then Colin was recalibrating his equipment to try and trace the new connection. That was probably going to be harder, though, as this was probably a true mesh network. Tracking down each node was probably going to be annoying.
Missy looked over the plans for moving things across the museum. Not to the next room or anything simple like that, but halfway across the building to the freight elevator, and then halfway back on another floor. With several too-small doors along the way.
"This is stupid," she finally decided. "Why are we doing this the hardest way possible?"
"Not disassembling things will make it much easier," the museum director, whose name Missy had ignored, replied.
Missy turned to them, then spun around to the door opposite the one they wanted her to expand. The museum was closed for the morning, so there was almost nobody around. After opening the smaller door she took a look at things and nodded, crunching space and stepping across to another door on the other side of the atrium. She opened that one as well, checked that everything was clear, and then turned back around.
A moment later she'd released the space-crunching, before she did a much more careful spatial manipulation. It wasn't long before the two rooms, on different floors, were connected with what appeared to be a twenty foot high, thirty foot wide opening. She double checked that everything was stable enough before walking through the opening, grinning.
"I can easily hold this for a couple hours," Missy said, enjoying the look of shock on the museum director's face. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't hurry to get things moving."
"I should've brought popcorn," Battery noted, having been standing off to the side and letting Missy do her thing.
Tracking the individual nodes of the mesh network was annoying, but running a lot faster than expected. It seemed that they'd been installed alternating which side of the Boardwalk they were on, which meant that they just needed to follow the 'line'. Of course, they'd gone the wrong way to start with, and run out of nodes, but backtracking to 'Tinkered Apparel' and heading the other direction hadn't taken long.
"There's a hole in the pattern," Colin said as they moved from the latest node. They'd given up on not speaking, because anyone monitoring the system would have noticed their activities anyway. "There should be a node over there, but I'm not seeing any signals from one."
"Given that there appears to be construction there they might have skipped it," Taylor noted.
"Or perhaps it's there but the power feed was disconnected. I'll note the location for later evaluation, when we can clear a check with the workers."
After a moment the two continued tracking the other nodes.
Chris carefully connected some of the leads on the underside of the pillar being installed. It wasn't hard work, but it was nerve-wracking anyway. Mainly because he ended up needing to be under the pillar to do so. Luckily he'd brought his hoverboard as it was working out great as a makeshift creeper. Having the tinkertech being held above him was also great for maintaining focus on his task instead of examining the tinkertech itself.
He double-checked everything after connecting everything, then slid out. "Clear!"
A moment later the pillar lowered to the ground, and several workers with impact wrenches came in to swap out the alignment pins they'd been using for proper anchoring bolts.
"The sheer number of rules this would be breaking if these pillars weren't tinkertech is ridiculous," one of the safety officers said as Chris got up. "Kids under heavy things like that? Crazy."
"At least I'm wearing a hard hat," Chris noted. It didn't fit exceptionally well, but he was wearing it. "And several of you said that you tried to connect things under there, but kept getting confused." Which was something that confused Chris. How hard was it to plug things in directly under where they were hanging? The only confusing part would be the power lead, if it didn't have a keyed socket that could only go in one way. Most of the things under there weren't long enough to reach anywhere but where they belonged.
"It's tinkertech, what do you expect?"
Chris very carefully did not answer, since he personally thought a preschooler could have figured the connections out. Why did people assume things were incredibly complicated?
Taylor frowned as she looked at the last control node. It was, as far as she could tell, identical to all of the others. The only difference being that the fiber optic data port on the bottom actually had a connection, which ran into a pipe. That descended down out of range of her visor's sensor system.
"I'm not sure how to deal with things at this point," Colin admitted. "I don't know if we have good enough scanners to track the source at this point. Do you have any suggestions?"
"I have two ideas," Taylor said. "The first is that we come back later with something that we can send down the pipe."
"Sensible, but leaves things working."
"True. The other is much simpler." She then reached over and pulled the fiber optic cable out of the node, before breaking the connector off of the end. "Without outside instructions all the insect drones should 'return home' over the next half hour. If we now go down the street a little bit we can grab a snack and see if anyone comes to plug this back in, only to find that it's broken."
Colin nodded, but called in a request for longer-term surveillance as well, just in case it was needed. An hour later nobody had even approached the node, and from all appearances the insect drones had all returned to the various points the nodes were in, so they left things to the PRT to monitor.
Aisha sighed as she played a stupid game on her phone. This particular records room wasn't used often, but apparently had something to do with hard copies of work permits and such, not to mention deeds for properties. Miss Militia had explained that there were mandatory checks to ensure that permits and deeds entered into the computer system were also present in the room, in case someone tried to do a fully digital hack to obtain them illegally.
So far four people had come in this morning, and she'd made note of their appearance and what they'd appeared to do, as much as she could tell. She thought that all four were checking the hard copies against unofficial-looking printouts that they'd brought with them, and she didn't see any swapping of things or additions. She'd been warned that sometime this morning a new permit should be filed, but so far nobody had shown up to do so.
"Clerk approaching," Miss Militia's voice came over the radio, and Aisha double-checked that she had all of her stuff before sinking into the wall. She closed her game once inside and waited as the records room door opened.
A moment later a man entered, mostly closing the door behind him. None of the other four had done that, which just made Aisha pay more attention to him. He moved over to the area the permits were filed in, almost out of her sight, and checked the filing cabinets against the label on the envelope he'd brought in. Aisha slid down the wall a bit to get a better vantage point on him while he looked through the cabinet. Finding the right one he opened it and took a moment to find the correct spot for the record, dropping it into place before closing the cabinet.
Once that was done he looked around, then untucked his shirt and extracted a second envelope from inside of it, one that had been hidden at his back. Aisha grinned as she recorded most of that with her phone.
"He's got a second envelope that was hidden in his clothes," Aisha reported. "Shall I intercept?"
He'd decided to fix his clothing before dealing with the new envelope, so there was plenty of time for Miss Militia's response to come through. "Only if he doesn't appear to be armed. I'm on my way."
Aisha hadn't seen a weapon yet, so she waited until he'd turned away from her before popping out of the wall and dropping into the floor. She wasn't fast moving along the floor, but he couldn't tell she was there while she was hiding in it and getting the drop on him was probably more important.
He'd just finished putting the jacket he'd come in wearing, probably to hide the bulge of the envelope in his shirt, back on when Miss Militia opening the door got his attention. He panicked a little before very obviously collecting himself. Instead, he switched to very carefully working his way down the row of filing cabinets, coming closer to Aisha in the process. She figured he was hoping to get away with the fact that he was supposed to be there, even if he was doing a little extra filing in the process.
"Kevin," a male voice called from the door, surprising Aisha. She'd been expecting Miss Militia to come alone. "We've gotten an alert and need to clear the area while they clear the security system."
"I'm just about done," the man, Kevin apparently, called. He was reaching to open the filing cabinet in front of him as he did so.
Aisha popped out of the floor next to him, slamming her hand on the drawer he'd just been starting to open in the process. "I think you're definitely done."
Kevin dropped the envelope he was holding and jumped back in shock. A moment later two police officers came around the end of the aisle, and he growled. A knife Aisha hadn't seen was pulled from his belt, and he tried to grab her. That didn't last long after she very forcibly tested to see if he'd worn a cup today.
He hadn't.
Chapter 128 "I've started on a design for tracking the fiber optic cable," Colin said as they made their way back to where he'd left his motorcycle. "I'll probably build it tonight and deploy it tomorrow if nothing has been spotted in the meantime."
"Makes sense," Taylor said. "For some reason I suspect that the pipe goes down into the Elite's tunnels."
"That...is probably very likely, since we're currently fairly certain that none of the other groups operating in the city have tinkers. I suppose Accord might have picked one up, but the unpredictability of the maintenance requirements of most tinkertech is known to annoy him."
"So what does your tracker do?" Taylor wondered.
"It should follow the cable down to the next connection point, before clamping on and starting a trackable broadcast."
"So a little crawler or something like that with cutters and such to get through gaskets and similar in the way?"
Colin stopped, and when Taylor looked over it looked like he'd been about to say something. He then frowned. "I hadn't considered that they'd actually have gaskets in the way."
"Perhaps something that can drill through the fiber optic cable itself?" Taylor offered.
"That is likely to be a better choice, yes." Colin shook his head and started walking again. "Thank you for the sanity check, though I'm sure Dragon would've spotted the problem as well."
They'd nearly reached Colin's motorcycle, and the building Taylor had left her platform floating to the side of, when there was a rumble in the distance, strong enough that the ground shook under their feet. Two more rumbles with shakes followed, possibly three, though the additional ones grew fainter each time.
"I knew I should have fought harder about creating a seismic sensor grid," Colin muttered. "The arguments that we don't normally get earthquakes around here weren't that persuasive, really. Tracking the origin of those tremors is going to be much more difficult without one."
"Too bad it's unlikely that they'll just call and tell us what happened," Taylor said, calling her platform down. Colin, however, had apparently started trying to triangulate the tremors with data from his suit, his motorcycle, and his lab out on the Rig. So she ended up sitting there waiting for him, as he hadn't told her to head back to the PRT without him or anything.
She'd started looking into the tolerance testing she'd be going through the following day, frowning when she realized that they had a 'tentative' therapy session after it. Other than that there wasn't a whole lot documented. The official reason for that was apparently to keep people from coming up with plans to cheat the system, so individual testers set things up according to a set of overall guidelines. Shrugging, she read the guidelines instead, she was more bored than anything else after all.
"Console to Armsmaster," came over the radio almost half an hour later, halfway through Taylor building a potential loopholes list for the tolerance testing guidelines. They'd probably not be a problem as they would need to be taken advantage of by the tester and not the testee, and she was probably wrong about them, but she figured she might as well make the list. "We have an emergency request for tinker assistance on the request list."
Colin groaned, but noticeably switched gears. A moment later his jaw dropped, which got Taylor's attention. "Is something wrong?"
"The Elite have requested aid in ensuring that their tunneling machine isn't going to explode any more than it already has," Colin replied after a moment. He then turned his head to look at Taylor, before hitting the radio. "Armsmaster to console, is Countdown available to assist?"
There was a pause, and some other chatter from other groups, before the response came back. "Console to Armsmaster, Countdown is not available."
Colin frowned, and waited for Assault to finish reporting that a building they'd been checking was safe. "Armsmaster to console, requesting permission to bring Maul along while attending to the emergency request."
"You can't decide that on your own?" Taylor asked, honestly curious. He was the Protectorate leader, and it was an emergency, right?
"Bringing a Ward into proximity of a potential bomb either needs me to feel that you're actually required to deal with it or get permission from the PRT. I couldn't even ask before checking if Countdown was available, with how much more suitable she is in theory with explosives of any kind, but without her you may be of help. If the request is denied I want you to head straight back to the PRT building."
Colin started packing up the equipment he'd pulled from his motorcycle and armor while they waited for a response. Taylor switched to looking up the parahuman assistance requests, and found the emergency request automatically sorted to the top of the 'ENE' filtered list. She looked it over, finding that there was a tunnel access point noted and a brief description of things. Apparently the tinker who was on hand to maintain the tunneling machine had been injured by the initial explosion when they were trying to shut it down. They thought the machine had been safely shut down, but given that it was damaged tinkertech they wanted a tinker to look at it.
The request was very short, so she started looking over the other requests in the queue. Everything else was normal or low priority. The things they were dealing with today were all normal priority and just after the emergency request, so she skipped them. There were two more normal priority requests, one for assistance with a boat in the graveyard that had 'mysterious alterations' that they feared might be tinkertech, though it was apparently inert and likely had been there for a while. The other was for Missy to widen an alleyway so that a demolition crane could be more easily set up behind a building, instead of needing to be on the street.
Moving on, the low priority requests were...weird. A request for parahuman assistance in cleaning up a basement that had been flooded back when Leviathan had attacked, another for properly aiming a satellite dish. No, wait, two for properly aiming the same satellite dish, as the unaligned dish was reflecting light into the neighbor's window each morning. Further down she spotted a request for customizing a gerbil habitat with tinkertech, followed by one for assistance determining if a forty year old container of preserved tomatoes was still safe to eat. She was just opening up a request that appeared to be related to fixing a stuffed animal when the console got back to Colin.
"Console to Armsmaster, Maul is cleared to join you."
Missy grumbled in annoyance as she stalked towards the showers. She'd been helping with the backed-up sewer when whatever it was had triggered a minor earthquake, and somehow that had caused the pressure in the sewer to skyrocket. End result? Everyone but Battery had ended up covered. And Missy had previously laughed at the older cape's insistence on waiting off to the side under an umbrella.
"Ugh," Aisha said as Missy passed. "What happened..."
"Don't. Ask." Missy growled. She was annoyed enough as it was that Battery wouldn't let them leave until the DPW was done. Of course, once the portion they needed her for was complete the woman had said that if she wanted Missy could head back on her own, instead of waiting for a van to come by and pick them up.
She grinned a little at the memory of the look on what was visible of Battery's face when, out of pure frustration, she'd formed a spatial warp up into the air, across town, and down to the sidewalk outside of the PRT building. Further, she'd left Battery behind to make her own way or wait for the mentioned van.
Taylor frowned as the elevator the Elite had set up took them down into the tunnel system proper. The elevator wasn't tinkertech, which would normally be fine, if it weren't for the fact that it was largely hacked together with scrap. She got the impression that her tinker snark was torn between declaring it not worth working on and 'fixing' it by gradually replacing the entire thing with something proper. In fact, the only thing it seemed happy with was the emergency stop button.
Specifically, it was happy with the button itself. The system it was tied to needed to be gone after with a chainsaw and a cutting torch.
Luckily for her peace of mind, she'd been allowed to bring her platform down with her, so if push came to shove she had another way out. Colin wasn't so lucky, having had to leave his motorcycle on the surface. Even if it was more of a hovercycle now and should be capable of making it up and down the tunnel, it wouldn't fit with the elevator mechanisms in the way.
She frowned as she lost connection on her phones. A few moments later she'd upped the connectivity enhancements a notch and regained signal.
"Console to Maul," came over the radio a moment later. "We registered you has having gone offline for a moment. Is there a problem?"
"Maul to console," Taylor replied. "I lost connection as we descended and had to adjust my settings."
Colin nodded to her, apparently approving. Whether that was of her adjusting her settings without prompting or having that conversation, and the acknowledgements afterwards, through subvocalization she wasn't sure. Possibly both. Not much else happened for the next fifteen minutes of descent, and then the elevator touched bottom in a small chamber. Taylor took advantage of the admittedly spacious tunnels to hop onto her platform, which left more room for Colin to move around on the ground.
"We're set up this way," the obviously male, and to her obviously unpowered, member of the Elite said, leading them down the tunnel. Unlike the elevator itself, the tunnels were almost works of, admittedly utilitarian, art. As far as she could tell from her scanning, they were lined with reinforced artificial super-granite or something, far too dense for normal rock. "Do you have any questions?"
"I'd like to complain about the elevator," Taylor admitted. "But I'm trying to not think about it. So I'll question why you're dressed as a maid instead."
"I lost a bet and had to work in the maid service for the week and hadn't had time to change when this happened," the man replied. "They have a strict uniform code."
"How much do you know about what happened?" Colin asked. Well, that was probably a much better question than Taylor's.
"Er, pretty much nothing. They just told me to meet you up top and bring you down." Or not, since he didn't know anything.
Another few minutes of walking brought them to a large machine that was fairly obviously the tunneling machine. The tunnel it had already constructed was undamaged, but the machine itself was in very bad shape, and was nowhere near shut down. It also had, as far as she could tell, a collapsed incomplete tunnel section blocking off a number of things, and smoke was being drawn off into a makeshift ventilation system.
"Yeah, it looks horrible," their guide said, misunderstanding Taylor's stunned silence for the overall appearance of the machine alone.
A: How bad is it?
Taylor shook her head and tried to focus on the task at hand.
M: They shut down most of the power draws but the reactor that runs the thing hasn't been shut down, so it's slowly heating up. It should've shut down on its own, but it stopped getting updates on what systems are active due to broken data lines and it doesn't fail to off for some reason. Oh, and the remote control system isn't working because the laser pickup is out of alignment with the incoming beam, but I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
A: Can you tell me how to shut down the reactor, then go look into the other end of the control system connection? If only to ensure that it's shut down and won't tell this end to start up again if someone aligns things correctly again, of course.
She quickly sent him instructions, then floated down next to their guide when Colin moved forward to start working. "I don't see any obvious controls. Were they destroyed, or is this thing run remotely?"
"I think there's a remote system down the other tunnel there," the man responded. She might have to ask him his name at some point. "Do you want to see it? I think the setup is interesting, and you don't seem to be of much help at this end."
"Sounds like a good idea. In fact, I think we should make sure that things are turned off at that end too, just to be safe."
The man blinked, and then nodded. "That makes a lot of sense, come on. I wasn't told to keep an eye on Armsmaster anyway. Mainly because I wouldn't know what he was doing either way."
Taylor dropped the platform a little more. "Hop on and give me directions, it'll be faster than walking." Especially since as far as she could tell the control system was rigged to be able to be a long way away from the tunneling machine.
"Thank you," the man said as he climbed on.
Nearly ten minutes of fairly high speed travel on the platform later they came to an alcove full of tinkertech, on the edge of much more furnished tunnels. Including what looked like train tracks, or perhaps subway tracks would be more accurate, with elevated walking surfaces and decent lighting. And apparently plumbing, since she could see a restroom sign, and a check of the ceiling showed a sprinkler system had been installed. Hopefully the elevators in the finished areas were less cobbled-together too.
"Crap," her guide said. "They added a lot more in here since my last visit, I'm not sure what you need to turn off. Or how to turn it off."
Taylor looked over the room, and determined that about half of the tinkertech was inactive. In fact, a number of bits were partially constructed control nodes for the insect system on the Boardwalk, as well as a few machines that would be used to construct and program the insects themselves. The active tinkertech was split between three things. A variant on the comfort system she had at home, with some fire suppressant addons, was keeping the room comfortable. A basic security system was monitoring things, but wasn't armed.
The most important bit of active tech in the room was the large computer, which had apparently frozen if one of the monitors having a stopped spinning hourglass thing on it was any indication. She focused on it, and found that her tinker snark felt that it was just stuck in a poorly-written loop. One that was cycling between sending a packet and waiting for a response, only it was getting garbage back and failing back over to the start of the loop without pausing to let anything else happen. A little more pushing told her that it was trying to talk to one of the control nodes.
"Huh," Taylor mumbled, following some of the connections to the computer up to where the laser relay unit was for the tunneling machine. Apparently someone had decided to run the tunnel machine control software and what her tinker snark was now calling an anti-shoplifting system on the same computer, and she'd accidentally crashed it when she disconnected the fiber optic cable. Even then it might have recovered, but when she broke the cable she probably made it easier for the outgoing packets to reflect back and appear to be corrupt incoming packets. Or something similar, anyway. Maybe ambient light was registering as incoming?
"Do you have any idea what to do?" the man who's brought her here asked.
"Well the computer looks frozen," Taylor said, spinning around to take in everything else. "Personally, my recommendation is that we pull the little lever in the repurposed fire alarm box on the wall there. The one labeled 'Emergency Stop'."
A couple minutes later they were on their way back to the tunneling machine, the man complaining about the blacklight-reactive ink that had coated his hand when he'd pulled the emergency stop switch. Taylor would have warned him about it, but that would've given away that she knew about it without any good reason to.
Chris sat down in front of the control terminal for the pillars, watching as it went through diagnostics. So far everything appeared to be going ok.
"Hello Kid Win," Dragon's voice came from a nearby communications terminal. "I'm sorry they dragged you out, I was expecting them to just send Wrench Wraith with her new forklift. You must be bored just waiting around."
"Hah," Chris said, shaking his head. "They had me connecting things up under the pillars, since they couldn't understand the incredibly obvious tinkertech. Do they do anything other than create a forcefield?"
"They can also block out a multitude of communication systems to hopefully prevent unauthorized monitoring," Dragon explained, then her avatar frowned. "They really had you doing the hookups? A five year old could have handled that."
"They claimed it was too complicated and that only a tinker could figure things out."
Dragon's avatar shook its head. "No, I mean a five year old could literally handle it. I ran several kindergarten classes that volunteered to help through the process on a test rig to ensure that I'd made it easy enough to understand. Nine out of Ten were able to connect everything on the first try, provided that they were motivated with getting a piece of candy for their trouble."
Chris blinked, and then chuckled. "Well there's the problem, nobody offered the workers candy for connecting everything."
It had taken two hours before Colin had been happy with the state of the tunneling machine. Or, more accurately, it had taken over an hour and a half for Taylor to be happy with the state of the tunneling machine, at least without outright starting to repair it, and Colin was only happy after he'd done his own checks once she was satisfied that it was safe enough to leave alone.
"Thank you for the assistance," their guide said as they headed back to the scrap pile pretending to be an elevator. "As well as for the list of things that you did and why, when the tinker who built the machine returns we'll make sure they get it."
"Do you need help with your injured tinker?" Colin asked.
"I don't know what's going on with them, honestly. Haven't heard anything at all."
"I think we'd like to talk to them at some point," Taylor noted, only for Colin to turn to her with what she guessed was a questioning look. "At least if they're responsible for the little insect drone things that were being built in that room. We ran into some out on the Boardwalk earlier."
"Ahhh," Colin said, nodding. "Yes, we'd definitely like to talk to them at some point, given some of the pictures the drones were found to be taking."
Their guide sighed. "I'll pass that on. No clue what it's about, but I'll pass it on."
The ride back up the elevator took longer than the ride down had, and Taylor distracted herself by trying to figure out which of two situations was more likely. On one hand, the Elite could know about her abilities and intentionally kept their parahumans away. On the other hand, the Elite could have evacuated everyone as a safety precaution, barring their unlucky guide, and that kept their parahumans away.
By the time they'd reached the surface she decided that the only sensible thing to do was to assume both until proven otherwise. She was just going to hope that if they did know of her ability to talk to snarks that they were playing it safe, and didn't know her real range.
Despite all of the headaches of the day, Taylor still beat her father home. She met Mark and Amy at the house so that Amy's stuff could be picked up.
"Busy day?" Mark asked as Taylor let them in.
"Yeah," Taylor replied. "I got stuck dealing with the Elite's tinkertech, basically."
"You also didn't get to eat much more than some snacks until well after lunch," Amy noted. "Then you ate very little for lunch. Why?"
"So that I'm actually hungry for dinner," Taylor replied with a shrug. "Dad's bringing home takeout. Want some help carrying things down?"
"We should be fine," Mark answered. "Rodney's carrier will be the hardest part, and either of us can carry it without issue."
Taylor followed them upstairs anyway, because she didn't have much better to do. "How bad did the damage end up being?"
"Mostly it was the breaker box itself," Mark answered. "But they had to repair most of the wires, generally by taking up some slack that had been left intentionally in case of reorganizing the breakers. They were able to get away with cutting out the damaged bits and running a new line to the meter itself, but if it happens again we might need extra work done to extend things to reach again."
"I suppose not goofing off next to the breaker box would be a good idea."
"We've already got a 'no goofing off on the stairs, in general' house rule now," Amy said. "No new rule against driving people nuts though, to Vicky's detriment."
"Carol has been having fun with the speakers," Mark added with a chuckle. "Low volume creepy girl giggling, to the point where you could have imagined it, has been her choice today, but we'll have to get her using more natural sounds soon or it'll be too obvious." He then paused. "Or Vicky will decide that the house is haunted, I suppose. With powers I'd imagine that weirder things have happened."
Taylor shook her head as they gathered Amy's things. "Is Vicky at least starting to pay attention?"
"That's the other reason to get Carol to change how she's doing things," Mark admitted. "The 'creepy little girl voice from everywhere' trick doesn't give Vicky anywhere to focus on. On a different note, Amy claims your weird fruits are doing well."
"I noticed when she checked earlier," Taylor said, nodding. "I've already submitted a request for a container to transport them in, since I figure we can hand them over when we meet up with Riley in Las Vegas. We need her to see if they work for her anyway."
"Not to mention see how well the 'picked' ones hold up from her power's point of view," Amy added. "She might have to work with the 'fresh' ones only, which would limit her a bit more."
"Sheesh," Mark said. "Even the abominations against the natural order need that much testing?"
"I don't think they'd be abominations against the natural order if they didn't need testing," Taylor noted.
"You have a point," Mark conceded.
Kimberly sat with her eyes closed as the council was deciding her fate in the warehouse across the street, the apartment she was in was one of several across from meeting points designed for this purpose years ago. The meeting points changed as circumstances did, but the setup was always similar. Sometimes it was a hotel room, other times a small house. She knew of two 'empty lots' that a RV would be parked in if they were to be used. Always across the street from a moderately used warehouse or storage facility. These locations were rarely used, but maintained to ensure that the council had places to meet for the rare occasions it was needed.
It was annoying how long it took to gather the council, but she understood the need to be discreet. Law enforcement thought that they only had a couple of smallish groups, but they'd learned how larger groups would be scrutinized. So instead they had over a hundred smaller groups, under different names, with different apparent goals. Many of them competed with one another, with only the leadership of each group knowing that said competition was a form of testing and training.
She sighed and pulled herself out of thinking about how things were run. It was highly likely that she was going to be given a difficult task. What little honor they had meant that challenging her before she'd recovered or proven herself fully capable of fighting was forbidden. She could challenge others, of course, but they couldn't challenge her. But they could demand that she go on an essential suicide mission to prove herself worthy, and the only way to be redeemed would be survival with the mission accomplished. So she opened her eyes and moved across the room to practice her skills some more.
It was over an hour later that the door to the apartment was opened, nearly five since the meeting started. She looked over at the runner, dressed in jeans and a simple t-shirt. Unassuming, not that her own outfit was anything to draw attention either. No words needed to be said as she got up to follow the man. The council was obviously ready for her, and she had known it to be so since she noticed him crossing the street.
A few minutes later she stood in the center of the warehouse, the council gathered around her. Many were sitting on boxes of various goods, a smaller percentage had chairs. Three were in wheelchairs, and a handful had opted to stand. All of them were dressed to be ignored in a crowd, to draw minimal attention. She was the only one in the room that could easily spot the twelve parahumans amongst them.
"The council has voted," Nicholas, the council's chosen speaker said, approaching her with a piece of paper. "Three abstained, ten against, the rest for." He handed her the paper, and she looked down at it, seeing the profiles of three individuals on it. "You have one month from tomorrow to engage a target from this list in a fair fight to the death. Should you survive you will be redeemed. If an Endbringer attacks before your deadline you will be granted an automatic extension of two weeks, and should all three potential targets die at the hands of others before you can challenge them we will choose new ones. Do you accept this?"
There wasn't anything else to it. She had failed and been humiliated, the council and her predecessors losing confidence with her and stripping her of her hard-earned title. She knew that she would not survive rejecting the council's decision, the only question was how much of her mind would remain before she died to another. Still, her choice of their targets was suitable, more so than even the council likely knew. The voices of her predecessors agreed, success would be redemption, but the attempt alone would be her revenge, no matter the outcome. "I accept the council's decision."
"Then go forth, Quarrel. Prove that you're still worthy of being the Butcher, or die trying."
That night Taylor felt off, and it didn't take long to realize that she'd gotten used to Amy sleeping nearby. Having the other girl a good distance away felt wrong, but there wasn't a whole lot that could be done about that. It would probably stop feeling wrong after a few days anyway, once she'd gotten used to it again.
Amy: PHO has pictures of you in a tunnel with a man dressed as a maid.
Taylor: He actually posted those? Wow. I thought he'd want to not have pictures of himself in the maid outfit online. Or that the Elite wouldn't want pictures of their tunnels at all, for that matter.
Amy: There are a couple pictures of the tunnel machine, and a thank you from an Elite spokesperson for the PRT's assistance in ensuring that it wouldn't explode.
Taylor was now curious enough to grab a visor and go looking for the thread. It didn't take long to find, and sure enough it was as Amy had described. The spokesperson had also mentioned that anyone, even outright villains, could rely on the PRT and Protectorate to do their best to help render damaged tinkertech safe to the best of their ability, so nobody should fear calling them about issues.
Taylor: I'm wondering if some of this was part of the concessions the PRT got from the Elite, given that some of this sounds a lot like what Colin has been pushing.
Amy: That would make sense, and I was just checking. The images have all location data scrubbed, assuming that the camera that took them could provide any in the tunnels in the first place.
Taylor: I needed to boost my phones to remain connected, but I don't think the guy's camera supported GPS anyway.
Reading through things, she was mentioned as having gone to pull the emergency stop, and as having helped hold things for Colin. No mention of her showing any tinker skills was made, all of that was left to Colin instead. There was also an explanation that the tinker who made the tunneling machine had been out of town, coupled with the tinker that had been operating the machine had been distracted by 'other projects' when the accident occurred.
She was considering taking the visor off and trying to get to sleep when a message came in, informing her that a PRT van would be picking her up at ten in the morning. The odd thing there was that it was sent to her personal phone instead of to her Maul phone.
Amy: You just get a notice about a PRT van picking you up in the morning?
Taylor: Yeah.
Amy: I thought we'd have to arrange for transportation to and from the tolerance testing ourselves.
Well, that made Taylor feel a little stupid. She'd forgotten about that.
Taylor: It makes sense, at least. Presumably they'll get us home again too.
Amy: I hope so. It would be rude not to, anyway.
Chapter 129 Taylor woke up grumpy, not having slept well. It didn't take long to notice the message from her father waiting on her phone. Apparently he had left for work without waking her to let her sleep in a bit and had fed Ackbar already. Which meant she had very little to do beyond get ready for the day. She decided to start with visiting the bathroom, to be followed by breakfast. And maybe waking Amy up if the other girl hadn't woken up on her own yet.
Breakfast ended up being a bowl of cereal, mainly because Taylor wasn't feeling up to cooking. Cleanup was thus quick and easy and she was able to head back upstairs to get dressed with minimal fuss. Halfway through getting dressed she noticed that Ackbar was in the guest room for some reason. Once she had finished she went to check on the spider-bot and found it apparently searching the room. Perhaps it was looking for Amy or Rodney?
Deciding that Ackbar could be left alone for the time being she headed downstairs, having plenty of time before she was to be picked up. She was about to turn on the television to see if there was anything worth watching on when she recalled what she was doing today. Looking down at what she'd put on, she decided that she should really not be wearing anything too nice, just in case. So she went back upstairs to change into something else.
The PRT van had picked Taylor up first, then picked up Amy. To Taylor's confusion, it then stopped at the apartment block by the PRT building and picked up Mouse Protector and Ravager, out of costume.
"Morning," Mouse Protector said. "I'm Agnes, but you can call me Nes."
"And I'm Irma," Ravager said, leaning against Nes. "I had wondered why they sent us out here for tolerance testing, how have you two not been tested yet?"
"We haven't even gone through driver's ed yet?" Taylor offered, figuring that they both recognized her and would almost certainly have recognized Amy.
"Oh, right," Nes said with a nod. "So, I know that Panacea, er, Miss Dallon has incredible poison tolerance or something like that which helps with alcohol, since she admitted as such at that club." She gestured at Amy, before pointing at Taylor. "How did you end up with such a high tolerance? My favorite bar put your picture up as a warning, and I don't think you've ever set foot in it!"
Taylor shrugged. "Got caught in a tinker fugue."
The two visiting capes cringed to the point it looked momentarily painful. They might have come to see benefits in their situation, but that didn't mean that they had good feelings of any kind for how it came to be. Taylor suspected that they weren't going to be let in on the Nine's secrets anytime soon either. Neither Taylor nor Amy wanted to poke much further, figuring that the other two had probably gotten their enhanced tolerance from Riley as well.
That basically killed conversation until they reached their apparent destination, which was a bar across the street from a warehouse. Miss Militia was in the bar, and Colin was in the warehouse. How much of that was for overall protection versus the testing Taylor wasn't sure.
"We're actually doing this at a bar?" Irma asked. "I thought that there'd be some fancy testing facility or something."
"Nah," the driver said. "There's some specialized equipment involved for confirming your BAC, and since Armsmaster is playing primary tester you're likely to see more tinkertech than normal, but that's about it."
The four entered the bar, which was devoid of patrons and had most of the seats up. Miss Militia was behind the bar itself, and gestured to the four bar stools that had been set up. "Have a seat." Once they were all seated she opened a box in front of her and pulled out four armbands, handing one to each of them. "I'm sure you all know who I am, but in case you missed it, I'm Miss Militia. We've only done these tests in Brockton Bay twice before, and we like to keep them somewhat informal. To that end, do any of you object to going by your first names for today?"
"I go by Nes," Nes replied. "No clue what my father was thinking, coming up with Agnes."
Miss Militia shook her head, which Taylor supposed made sense. She'd have experience with Nes, after all. "Very well. Any other objections?" When everyone shook their heads she continued. "Very well. Please put the armbands I just gave you on, preferably on your less dominant arm. They'll monitor the concentration of alcohol in your blood for us, allowing me to more accurately measure out drinks."
Taylor looked at the armband and determined that it tested through five different methods, presumably in case someone was immune to one or more of them due to their powers. She slipped it on her left arm and noted as it automatically turned on due to the strap being tightened, broadcasting a unique ID and her current BAC every second. Currently she was at zero.
Once all four had their armbands on Miss Militia continued. "Now then, part of the testing is to see how quickly you're affected by alcohol, as well as how quickly you process it. To that end I'll be keeping track of how much you drink, as will Armsmaster using specialist sensor equipment." Taylor assumed his visor sensors were probably active and recording based on that, but wasn't sure. "To start with, however, we're sending you across the street, one at a time, to be tested by Armsmaster for an unimpaired base. Nes, you're up first."
Taylor entered the warehouse third, after Nes and Irma had already gone through things. She found Colin in full power armor, and as she suspected his sensor drone derived system was active. The rest of things were obscured by temporary walls. "Good morning Armsmaster."
"Good morning Taylor," Colin greeted. "As you've been informed, we need a base state for testing your tolerance levels. To that end we have a course that will test a number of things, including your reaction times and decision making. Do you have any immediate questions?"
"I don't think so," Taylor admitted.
"In that case, please follow the dotted line to the start of the course. Instructions for starting the course will be displayed on the screen, you may begin when ready."
Taylor looked down and found solid and dotted lines on the floor, she followed the dotted line around to the left of the temporary walls. It led her to a door in one of the walls, the doorknob of which indicated that she had to turn it left to open. She did so and entered the room, which had two more doors and a screen. One door had a triangle, and the other had a circle.
Test Instructions:
Read all instructions before beginning test.
Do not open doors marked with triangles.
Even if instructed to elsewhere, do not press square buttons.
When in doubt, follow the blue line.
To open the door and begin the test, press buttons in the following order:
Circle, Square, Triangle Ignore odd numbered rules in all rooms after this one.
Disregard instruction 2 Taylor shook her head, the test had probably actually begun the moment she'd been told to follow the dotted line. She stepped forward to the door with a triangle on it, as that was the door the blue line led to, and hit the Circle and Triangle buttons on the door. The door opened as soon as she'd done so, and she stepped through to the next room.
It took her a moment to identify the screen with instructions in this room. All it said at the moment was DODGE. Why became obvious as little holes in the opposite wall started shooting little balls at her. They weren't hard to dodge, and once she'd dodged them all the screen with instructions changed to Proceed. She moved across the room, wondering how much of the test was going to be like this. Especially when she spotted the 'turn to the right' instruction on the doorknob.
"Armsmaster is sneaky," Amy grumbled as she sat down at the bar. "And with all the instructions on screens he's going to change things up every time, isn't he?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if he was changing up the order of things right now," Taylor admitted.
"He does strive for efficiency in all things," Miss Militia added. "Now then, let's see what it takes to get each of you to the normal legal limit."
She carefully poured out four glasses of what Taylor thought might be vodka, a different amount for each of them. Probably based on their weight to start with, and things would be adjusted as they had more data points. All four of them downed their glasses in one shot.
"Now we wait to see how much those affect you," Miss Militia said. "I don't suppose any of you are doing anything interesting in the next week or two?"
"Taylor and I are going to TinkerTechCon," Amy volunteered after a moment.
"Those tickets are expensive," Irma said, going a little wide-eyed. "They keep increasing the price and still selling, aren't they up to over a thousand dollars a person?"
"Dragon runs it via the Guild and gives a discount to shareholders," Nes added. "I lucked into getting a single share a few years back and this year I could've gone for a thousand even. Supposedly the discount goes up with the number of shares you have. How much did two tickets cost you two?"
Taylor looked at Amy, who was looking at Taylor. Taylor shrugged and turned back to the other two. "We don't actually know, it was more of a gift than a purchase for us."
"Lucky bints," Irma grumbled, only to get lightly smacked by Nes.
It took three quarters of an hour for Irma and Nes to reach the legal limit, during which they'd ended up discussing the finer points of various drinks. Or rather, Irma and Nes lectured them on the finer points of various drinks. Taylor and Amy had to take an extra drink each and ended up hitting the limit at just over an hour. Given that Irma and Nes had been given more to drink afterwards it was likely that they had passed for not being intoxicated at the legal limit. Taylor and Amy were now up for that testing as well.
This time, when Taylor entered Colin had her follow the solid line instead of the dotted one. This time she started with a sliding door, that still had a doorknob. The first room had two doors, this time with a circle and a cross. The instructions were also familiar, yet different.
Test Instructions:
1 Read all instructions before beginning test.
2 Do not open doors marked with crosses.
3 Even if instructed to elsewhere, do not press triangular buttons.
4 When in doubt, follow the red line.
5 To open the door and begin the test, press buttons in the following order:
Cross, Circle, Square 6 Ignore italicized rules in all rooms after this one.
7 Disregard instruction 4
She walked up to the door with a circle, noting that the red line went to the door with a cross, and hit the Cross, Circle, and Square buttons in that order. The door opened and she stepped through, to find herself in a room with Red, Orange, and Blue tiles on the floor. It took a moment to spot the instructions on a screen to the left of the door she'd entered through.
Do not step on Red tiles.
Do not step on Blue tiles.
Sighing, she made her way across the room on the Blue and Orange tiles.
The cycle continued for a couple of hours. Irma was cut off before Nes, but only a little before, and the two women took to watching Taylor and Amy go at it.
"It isn't fair," Nes whined at one point. "How can they drink that much?"
"Have either of you had the Parahuman Gargleblaster?" Miss Militia asked.
"Er, no," Nes said, turning slightly to look at Irma. Who was sitting in her lap. "I don't think you've been to Brockton Bay before?"
"This is my first visit," Irma confirmed. "So nope, haven't had one."
"It was tasty but lacked kick," Taylor noted.
"I checked the price afterwards and it wouldn't be worth it," Amy added.
Miss Militia nodded, then turned back to the two visiting parahumans. "The only reason that there's no law against driving while under the influence of drinking Newter's fluids is that the effect is usually strong enough to keep people from standing, and these two were basically unaffected."
Irma poked Nes. "I think we need to try that drink."
Nes rolled her eyes. "Yeah, ok. But not today. Maybe tomorrow?"
Something in the box the armbands had been in beeped, which had happened every time one of them hit the next 'test point'. Miss Militia checked it. "Looks like both of you are ready for your next run. Taylor, you're up first."
Taylor nodded and got up, stumbling slightly before she headed across the street.
"Ugh," Amy said as she sat down again. "How many more times do we have to go through that?"
"You're both done," Miss Militia answered. "You're far enough off of your pre-intoxication benchmark to have failed. As such you can return the armbands."
"Oh," Taylor said, tilting her head. "How'd we do? I only feel a bit buzzed, really." She then focused a little on getting the armband off, which Amy had already started to do for herself.
"Irma and Nes topped out at about 0.12 and their concentration drops at the same rate as a normal human," Miss Militia said. "You two topped out at around 0.22 and you process alcohol at nearly four times the human norm. None of you hit the point where you're at the likely equivalent of 0.08 in a normal human, but the test aims for a lower bound instead of a higher bound so that's expected. People with normal tolerances that apply usually fail out at around 0.04, in fact."
"Can we have one last drink?" Irma asked after processing that.
Miss Militia looked over at the two women, then checked the bottle. "I suppose that would be fine, so long as we don't open another bottle."
All four ended up splitting the remainder of bottle before being led back into the van, Miss Militia declining to have any since she was on the clock and all.
Irma and Nes were dropped off at the apartment block, and then the PRT van swung around to the secure garage. Taylor and Amy had missed that detail at first, but figured it out when they were picked up by Ethan. Literally.
"You two have an appointment," Ethan said as he brought them over to the corner stairwell. He then looked the two over and nodded, heading up the stairs. "I'll be nice and get you upstairs." A minute later they were set down just inside the therapist's area, and Ethan left back down the stairwell.
"I think he locked the door," Taylor noted.
"Huh," Amy said, trying it. "So he did. Can you unlock it?"
"Probably. But I think we're supposed to be getting therapy."
Amy looked back the other way, where Jessica was waiting. "Oh, right. That would be why he dragged us up here, right? Should we be doing this while intoxicated?"
"No clue, but I think they want us to, and aren't planning on giving us a ride home until afterwards. Besides, I think I smell food, and I'm hungry."
They stood there for a moment, thinking, and then shrugged almost-in-unison before heading into the inner office. The food alone would probably be worth it.
"So you'll be in the hospital all day tomorrow?" Taylor asked as they headed to drop Amy off at home. The therapy session had been odd. She was certain that she'd said things she wouldn't normally have, and thought Amy might have done the same. Both of them had admitted to having trouble sleeping without the other nearby, for example.
"Yeah," Amy answered. "Probably Friday too, but I ensured that I'd be off Saturday. Sunday is up in the air right now." She'd admitted to being happy that they weren't drunk enough to do anything too embarrassing, at least. Taylor had agreed.
"Maybe I can bring you lunch tomorrow," Taylor offered. "We can figure things out a bit closer to lunchtime, if you want."
"I think I'd like that. Too bad Jessica wouldn't admit where she got the roast ham. It was quite good."
It didn't take long for them to get to the Dallon household, though they waited until Amy made it inside before moving on. Of course, Amy was rapidly sobering, but they shouldn't complain about the concern and all, right?
Amy: Rodney tried to jump me as soon as I opened my bedroom door.
Taylor: Ackbar does that to me too, but he's calmed down with it since I started dodging. Somewhat.
Amy: Cheater. You can tell when Ackbar is coming. I can't.
Taylor: Do you want me to try and find a vial for Rodney?
Amy: ...no. I'll deal with being unable to tell where he is.
Taylor shrugged. There was only so much she could do there.
That evening turned into a pile of chores for Taylor. Laundry, cleaning up her room, cleaning up the hallway. She cleaned up the guest room a little more than they had the day before, and actually washed the sheets that they hadn't bothered to worry about yet. She limited herself to upstairs, though ended up cleaning up the bathroom, including dismantling the showerhead to clean it properly.
Amy, on the other hand, also ended up cleaning her room and doing some laundry. She also spent some time washing the windows of her greenhouse, though Vicky apparently helped with the ones that would've required a ladder to reach. Vicky also apparently regretted that when Mark had her clean the windows on the outside of the house too.
Danny had come home and insisted on making dinner, telling Taylor to relax and recover from her drinking. She had rolled her eyes and retreated to her room and started browsing PHO. She found a few threads on theories of parahuman healing that were interesting after finding that none of the threads she'd followed regarding hammers and similar had any new content.
Shortly before dinner was ready she got a message with details on how to bring Lacey in to look at things. The basic deal was to act as an escort for her and Kurt to fill out paperwork. The paperwork was, apparently, legitimate, and afterwards they'd detour down to the Wards area.
Thursday morning Taylor was woken up earlier than expected. Why she didn't expect to be woken up by Amy healing people she wasn't sure. Sleeping in on a hospital visit day was just not in the cards. Not that she'd been sleeping well, of course.
Taylor: How many things did that kid swallow?
Amy: Six. I think she started with the mouse, then swallowed the cat to try and get the mouse, the dog to try and get the cat, the dogcatcher to get the dog, the policeman to get the dogcatcher, and the fireman to get the policeman? I might be wrong. She didn't like throwing them all up, at least.
Taylor: I imagine it was unpleasant.
At least that was only a bunch of swallowed figurines, even if they could have done damage to the girl's intestines. She wasn't sure she wanted to know why in the world the teenage boy from earlier in the morning had swallowed a wrapped condom. The pregnant woman with a mild peanut allergy that ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich, however, had some severe deficiencies in her diet pushing her to eat things out of her comfort zone.
Hopefully Amy would be getting through the emergency crowd soon and moving onto the less severe and more normal injuries and issues. They were easier to ignore, at least. Probably because Amy needed a lot less concentration to deal with the normal stuff, having dealt with it so frequently in the past.
Amy: Any chance of you bringing me chocolate at lunchtime?
Taylor: That shouldn't be a problem. Why?
Amy: Because apparently I have to deal with someone trapped in what the doctor thinks is a reinforced wetsuit that nobody's been able to cut off of them safely, and they can't get out of due to breaking their arm.
Taylor: Please tell me that they got injured working on some of the sunken wrecks in the bay.
Amy: I'm assuming that and not asking any questions.
Taylor had decided to go shopping and get an actual platform thing that could be attached to her moped for when she wanted to drag things like takeout around. The one she found stored 'flat' to make a platform and be out of the way, but she could pull things up and snap them together at the corners to form a box. No top to cover things, but it was a lot easier to deal with than the previous ways she'd rigged things like the pet carrier or a stack of pizza boxes. She picked one up for Amy as well, figuring it made sense.
Taylor: Any idea what you want for lunch?
Amy: I think I'm in the mood for pasta, not sure what kind, but I also think I want to get out of the hospital. Can we go out to eat instead of you bringing food?
Taylor: I don't have a problem with that. You have anyone playing guard today?
Amy: Carol is working out of one of the break rooms this morning, just to have someone available, but she already said that when I break for lunch she has to go into the office. I think Eric was supposed to hang around for the afternoon?
Well, at least that meant they didn't need to worry about anyone else joining them for lunch. And come to think of it, perhaps Amy needed at least a little bit of a hit to the 'squishy' part of being a 'squishy healer'. Maybe some hand to hand practice outside where people could see them? Especially since nobody wanted her getting into an actual fight and all. But surely knowing that she could very likely kick your ass without powers would be a help?
Taylor had arrived early for lunch and attached the new platform to Amy's moped as a bit of a surprise for the other girl. She'd found a nearby place that had specials today for lasagna and tetrazzini, and if neither of those sounded good to Amy a little further off there was one with really good spaghetti and meatballs.
Amy and Carol came out to the parking lot together just after noon, Amy still wearing her Panacea robes and Carol fumbling with her bag. "Where did I put my keys?"
"They appear to be hanging out of your pocket," Taylor said. "Hello, by the way."
Carol reached down and after a couple of attempts grabbed the keys. "Huh. Thank you, and hello. You two going off to find food?"
"That was the plan," Amy agreed. "I don't want to be anywhere near the cafeteria after they burned whatever it was that stank things up."
"I found specials on lasagna, tetrazzini, or good spaghetti and meatballs," Taylor offered even as she produced a couple of chocolate bars from a pouch. "And you asked for chocolate?"
"Gimme," Amy said, snatching the chocolate. One bar was dropped into a pouch, the other was opened right away.
"You two have fun," Carol said, shaking her head as Amy moaned through her mouth full of chocolate. "Is that really that good?"
Taylor grinned and produced a third bar. She had plenty, on her and otherwise. "Try one for yourself?"
Carol looked at Taylor skeptically, but put down her bag and took the chocolate bar anyway. She opened it up and took a bite, only for her eyes to go wide. She mumbled something that sounded like 'this is incredible', maybe.
"You're welcome," Taylor said with a grin. She didn't get quite the same reaction herself, but that was probably because she'd been eating various varieties of incredible chocolate for a while now.
"How in the world did it wash away the lingering burnt taste?" Carol wondered after swallowing her first bite. "I thought I was going to need half a bottle of mouthwash to get it to go away!"
"Almost all of the chocolate Taylor got has a mild palate-cleanser effect," Amy said. "It's a nifty little trick in the coating that also makes it less likely to melt all over your hands."
Taylor thought about that for a moment. "I guess that's why they have the 'for cooking' variants in the store, so you don't have the coating. I originally thought it was only for the bulk packaging."
"I think I'm going to have to place an order for a box or two of these," Carol said, shaking her head. "They'd probably help when Vicky tries to cook 'creatively' too. The hard part will be not eating them all in one sitting."
Taylor snickered at that. It was good chocolate, coating or no.
The two parked their mopeds in a single space at the restaurant and made a point of stepping to the back of the short line of people waiting to be seated.
Amy: I suppose I do like the idea of not being seen as being so 'squishy', but with our enhancements I'm not sure that practicing in public is the way to do it.
Taylor: And how else would you throw it off? You were dangerous even before your enhancements, but overall perception of you doesn't show it. You have more hand to hand training than I do too.
Amy: Maybe, but I'm still not sure about it, if only from your point of view. How would we explain your part in things?
Taylor shook her head, and paused in their little conversation as they reached the front of the line, after the person in front of them only asked for a gift card. "Table for two, please."
"Certainly," the gentleman said, collecting two menus. "If you'd follow me?" They followed him inside and then back outside to some tables on the inside of a fenced-in area. He then paused as they reached the far side of said area, where two groups of tables for two sat. Half were in the sun and the other half were under an awning, both groups had open tables. "Would you like to sit in the sun or in the shade?"
"I think I'd like to sit in the shade," Amy said, so the man sat them in that area. Amy ended up facing back the way they came, and Taylor had a decent view down the street.
"Someone will be by shortly to take your drink orders," the man said, before heading back to the front to seat the next group.
The two looked over the drinks available while they waited.
Taylor: I don't think it'll be that hard to explain that I want to be able to protect myself, what with everything that the public knows happened to me.
Amy: But how would you explain being stronger than you should be?
Taylor: By not using the strength when we're practicing?
Amy sighed, obviously not thinking that it would be that easy.
A moment later a waitress came up, eeping loudly and dropping her order pad. Her brown hair was a little mussed by her descent as she kneeled down to grab it and her pen, and Taylor made a conscious effort to not look at her, figuring that she'd be embarrassed enough as it was.
Amy: I shouldn't have worn the robes. The cape fans are much more likely to ignore me when I don't.
Taylor: Hindsight, right?
Once the waitress had recovered her order pad she'd stood up and smoothed out her uniform skirt, then squeaked instead of asking them what they wanted to drink. Amy sighed and took pity on her. "I'll have a root beer."
"And I'll have an orange soda," Taylor added. The waitress had flinched when they'd spoken, but made note of the orders and retreated.
"Fans," Amy muttered.
They looked over the menu for what to order, both deciding to try the tetrazzini.
Taylor: So, any other objections to training in public, outside of potentially causing problems for me?
Amy: What, that isn't enough?
Taylor: I don't think it's as big of an issue as you seem to think it is.
Amy rolled her eyes as the waitress came back, placing their drinks down. She then stood there for a moment in silence, before Amy took pity on her again. "I'll have the chicken tetrazzini."
"Er, right," the waitress squeaked.
"I'll go with the shrimp tetrazzini."
The waitress noted that and then retreated again, Taylor and Amy shaking their heads.
Both girls had enjoyed their meals, and had tried a little of the other's, while Taylor tried to convince Amy that practicing hand to hand in public wasn't going to be a problem for her. Really, Taylor was starting to think that Amy just didn't want to be doing so in public at all, but how else could they safely make it obvious that the girl wasn't a 'squishy' healer?
Once they were done they'd gone up to the front to pay.
"Miss Hebert, Miss Dallon," the greeter said, reaching down under the register and pulling out a small envelope. "Your meal is already paid for, have a nice day."
Amy sighed in irritation as Taylor took the envelope. "You have a nice day as well."
They'd made it back to the mopeds before Amy finally spoke up. "Why do people insist on paying for my meals?"
"I'd think it wouldn't be that much of a hardship for people to pay for the occasional meal," Taylor noted, opening the envelope. "Maybe you healed a family member or something? Look, there's a note."
Taylor unfolded the note, then blinked a couple of times as she read over it. "What the hell?"
"You do know that New Wave doesn't like it when people pay for their meals, right?" George asked. "I could see the irritation on Miss Dallon's face as they left."
He frowned as Miss Clements turned to him, blinking in apparent confusion. "Who?"
George faltered. "You didn't notice Panacea at the table you paid for the meal of? Why in the world did you do so then?"
It took a moment before Miss Clements had recovered from her apparent shock, shaking her head. "I, er, have a history with Tay...Miss Hebert. She's actually the one I have a court order to stay away from. In fact, I need to go call my caseworker and tell them what happened. I really should have insisted that someone else take the table when I realized she was sitting there, but she didn't make a big deal of it."
George rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I suppose that your little note to her with the receipt probably violated a 'no contact' order too, right?"
Miss Clements blushed. "Maybe? I don't really know, and it was only an apology. But it's better to report it and face things now than to have it come up later."
"Go make your call," George said, waving her off. "I'll have Miss Gerver watch your tables while you do so."
Chapter 130 Taylor shook her head after she'd parked in the parking garage across from the PRT building. She had to wait for Kurt and Lacey to show up, and parking in the public lot always felt odd, but the wait would give her more time to process things. Finding out that it had been Madison paying for her meal, and not Amy's as they'd originally thought, had been a shock. Amy had prevented her from trying to go back in, but she wasn't sure what she'd have said either way. How would she explain that she'd only not made a big deal of things because she hadn't even recognized the other girl at the time? Assuming, of course, that she didn't open up with a punch to the face. Which was probably half of why Amy didn't let her go back in.
Sighing, she leaned against the parked moped. Amy had claimed that Madison hadn't been wearing hair clips when asked, and confirmed that her hair had been trimmed to chin-length instead of shoulder length. Coupled with the drastically different behaviour and the uniform it wasn't that much of a shock that she hadn't recognized her, and then she was actively trying to avoid embarrassing her over the supposed fangirling over Amy.
Noting Kurt and Lacey entering her range gave her an excuse to push her confusion over things to the back of her mind. It would probably come out in her next therapy session anyway, right? Instead, she focused on making sure that she had her semi-permanent visitor's badge out and had properly secured the moped for parking in what amounted to a public space.
"Good afternoon," Taylor said after Kurt and Lacey had parked a couple spaces down.
"Hi Taylor," Kurt said as Lacey jumped out of the car and ran ahead, only to stop when she noticed that they weren't following at a dead run. "You're playing 'trusted affiliate' today?"
"I think affiliated co-owner is closer," Taylor replied with a shrug. "Paperwork and all. Shall we?"
"Yeah yeah," Kurt said, leading the way towards the PRT building.
"What's taking you two so long?" Lacey asked as they got closer.
"I'm not sure why you're so excited for more paperwork," Taylor noted. "I mean, I get being excited about things, but rushing to the paperwork?"
Lacey pouted, but didn't run ahead again. They made their way into the building and up to the desk. It didn't take long for Kurt and Lacey to get their badges, and for Taylor to 'sign in', which was followed by being directed to a conference room.
"They actually let you officially escort us that easily?" Lacey noted once they were in the hallway.
"I'm a registered parahuman psychologist and am available to consult on therapy sessions," Taylor replied. "So yes, they do, not that this is an exceptionally secure area."
It was only a minute before they entered the conference room, finding that there were two people already present. "Good afternoon," one of them said, standing up. "I'm Daniel Nicholson, and this is my partner James Kinnaird." The other man nodded, but continued to sort through some papers. "We've been asked by the PRT to assist you in ensuring that your business paperwork is filed correctly. We've already found a couple of oddities that should be addressed before they cause problems."
Lacey turned to Taylor, looking horrified. "You weren't lying about the paperwork?"
"Of course not," Taylor replied. "Why would I do that?"
It turned out that most of the issues found in the paperwork were trivial to deal with at that stage of things and had been quickly resolved. A missing form here, an incorrect selection there. A bit tedious, but not all that difficult. They were even told what problems could have come up from each oversight or mistake down the road. Most of it would likely have been fines and correcting the paperwork, but a couple could have been larger problems depending on various circumstances.
For now, though, Taylor was bringing Kurt and Lacey down into the Wards area.
"So how many Wards are around?" Kurt asked as they approached the door.
"One," Taylor replied. She let the 'visitors entering' alarms go off in the empty Wards area while Lacey bounced up and down a little. Kurt had rolled his eyes, so she figured that he realized what she'd meant.
Lacey carefully entered the Wards area once the door was open, which got her looks from Taylor and Kurt. It took her a moment to notice. "What? You said that there was a Ward around, and I've heard that Clockblocker likes to freeze people as a prank."
"Dear," Kurt said, obviously trying not to burst into laughter. "She said that there was one Ward around, and she is a Ward."
"Oh," Lacey said, pouting as she finally realized that nobody else was around.
"Come on," Taylor said, heading for her room. "Let's take a look at things."
"Not a lot of security on your rooms?" Kurt noted as they entered the room a moment later.
"Why do you think that?" Taylor asked, honestly curious.
"No lock?"
"Ahhh. There's a lock, you just didn't see me unlock it. Similar to the one to get into the Wards area, for that matter. You don't think that all it takes to get in here is to push a button?" Though it was annoying having to use a specific hand to open things. But wearing two relay watches would be annoying and suspicious too.
Kurt shrugged. "I figured that some kind of fancy scanner let you open the door. Or perhaps you couldn't even get to this floor without being scanned?"
"I had to 'unlock' the elevator too," Taylor admitted, then moved over to where Lacey was trying to open the cabinet to look at vials. "Here, allow me." A moment later the cabinet was open, and Lacey was poking around in it.
"Not much going on in here," Kurt noted.
"I don't spend much time in here other than changing into and out of my costume," Taylor retorted.
"Good point."
Taylor ended up showing Kurt around a little while Lacey was comparing vials. Just over an hour after they'd started Lacey finally seemed to come to a decision.
"I think these four would be the best ones to start with," Lacey said, and Taylor looked them over. Two of the hardest to work with vials, coupled with two that hadn't taken too much effort at all, comparatively speaking.
"Ok then," Taylor said, grabbing the case she could carry vials around in. "I'll put them in this, but we're leaving them here until Saturday."
Lacey pouted, but nodded.
Jacob grinned as Sarah popped into existence in the back of the bus they'd ended up using to leave town. She was now 'out of costume', but quickly ducked into the curtained-off area they'd set up for her. William didn't seem to be able to have her manifest wearing clothing. "Guess we're far enough out for that. How was the ammo looking?"
Sarah chuckled. "I think there was still two thirds of everything in the tanks, on average, and I flipped the safety off on the grenade launchers just before I popped."
Jacob blinked. "Grenade launchers? What grenade launchers?"
"The ones we added yesterday," William called from the driver's seat. "We loaded the hoppers for them with a mixture of whatever we had on hand."
"Sixteen containment foam grenades," Riley said. "Taken off of Protectorate members while we were playing. Twenty-something whipped-cream grenades that Fred had kicking around. I threw together a dozen hair color changing bacteria ones and eight drunk infection ones."
"And I tossed in the thirty or so standard fragmentation variety that Mimi found in that gang's truck," Sarah finished, stepping out of the curtain fully dressed. "They're all randomized as to what will come out when, but that should keep everyone occupied for another couple of hours, minimum, if only due to securing where things were damaged or foamed."
Jacob sighed. "Would you at least warn me when you do stuff like that? The planned route took the thing through an area where residents had started to move back in."
"Oh, it'll be out of grenades long before it hits there," Riley said. "I told Sarah to turn them on by a specific point even if we weren't far enough out by then."
"Still had eight blocks to go before that point," Sarah added. "So things should be fine when it reaches where people moved back in. Besides, I pulled out just before entering Accord's area."
Jacob blinked a couple of times, before starting to grin again. "Ok, you're forgiven."
Taylor flinched while getting off of her moped.
Taylor: I thought you were well into the non-emergency patients!
Amy: I am. The stubborn fool claimed it was merely a few aches, but pointed right at the nail when I asked him where. He's lucky the nail didn't hit anything critical.
Shaking her head, Taylor made her way inside while Amy removed the nail without dulling the pain. From the way he was reacting before Amy pulled her hand away he didn't seem to enjoy it, but he hadn't properly reported his injuries, right?
She found that there was mail, including a couple of packages for her father. She brought it all into the kitchen, then flipped through the envelopes. Most of it was for her father, or addressed to the current resident, but one was addressed to her with a return address that she didn't recognize and no name. Raising an eyebrow, she opened it to find a parahuman psychology question.
"That's a weird one," Taylor mumbled as she read over the background. Apparently others had been queried over the past year and nobody had a good answer for how a few parahumans were acting. They'd apparently group triggered, but the overall power set was odd for that. Two of them had the standard kiss/kill thing going on, but the other three didn't and showed no signs of it at all. Where each person's power components seemed to come from was odd as well, apparently, but full details of the trigger event and powers weren't included.
By the time her father came home she'd given up and written a response to be mailed back, indicating that while she'd be happy to help she didn't think she had enough information. Everything was a bit too vague, possibly for secrecy and security reasons. On that end, she suggested sending the missing details through the PRT.
"Evening Taylor," Danny said, putting a box on the kitchen table. "Janice insisted that everyone bring home some leftovers from the cafeteria, so I figured that's what we'd have for dinner."
"Evening," Taylor said, raising her eyebrow. "Why would Janice insist on that? Don't they normally package the leftovers up into grab and go meals that the dockworkers can pick up the next day?"
Danny shrugged as he pulled out several disposable containers. "I believe the maintenance guys said that the fridge they'd normally store them developed a leak in the coolant lines and they didn't have enough room in the other unit. Or at least I'm assuming that was the point that a coolant leak was discovered, since the food was pushed on everyone."
"I guess that makes sense."
They reheated several things and grabbed drinks from the fridge before sitting down to eat.
"So how was your day?" Danny asked.
"It was ok," Taylor replied.
"I hear you ran into one of your, er, former classmates at lunch?"
Taylor blinked. "How in the world did you hear about that?"
"I was asked my opinion on whether or not what Miss Clements did should constitute a violation of her restraining order," Danny admitted. "I said it seemed like she hadn't done anything wrong enough to worry about."
"Oh." She didn't think that she'd been aware of that detail. "I honestly didn't even notice who she was until I read her apology note slash explanation for why she paid for my meal. We thought she was acting weird because of Amy, not me."
It took a moment, but her father started snickering. "I have to admit, that actually sounds amusing."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I honestly don't know what to think there. She was probably the least terrible of the three, but her note didn't go into many details beyond acknowledging that I probably shouldn't forgive her for what she was a part of."
"She'd kept a log of what they'd done to you," Danny said, taking Taylor by surprise. "Initially as a way to vary things, but she admitted that it turned into a way to hopefully not be caught up in whatever punishments the other two might end up in for some of the more severe things. She turned herself and the log in before the police had a chance to go looking for her after seeing the news about you. She claimed that she thought you'd been out of the locker before lunch. Her cooperation and Emma's own log agreeing that the other two had kept her in the dark on the worst offenses meant that she didn't get jail time."
Taylor thought about that for a moment. "Why am I only hearing about this part now?"
"You never asked? I'm still not sure of everything that went down with the other two, apparently there were more secrets there. I know that Emma ended up in Vermont in some new detention center that specializes in helping those that ended up being 'warped' by parahumans. I've, er, not given them permission to have her send you any letters, by the way, screened or otherwise."
That caused a round of blinking. "Why would she want to send me letters?"
Her father shrugged. "I never asked. Their primary therapist called back in...March, I think it was? Haven't heard anything else from them since."
"Huh." That was apparently a thing. "Is there anything else I should know about the three?"
"Er...I don't think so? I think you know more about what happened with Hess than I do. Well, I don't know if you're aware that Alan and Zoe left town, they bought a home close to the facility in Vermont."
"Ah." Amazingly enough, very little of this helped her with how to feel about her encounter with Madison, but she wasn't sure she wanted to bring the conversation back around that way. She wasn't sure she wanted to keep it where it was, either. Emma's therapist wanting her to send letters, really?
A moment later she shook her head as she realized that she honestly felt that she'd rather get a letter from Sophia than from Emma. Which just felt bizzare to her.
"So," she said after a moment. "What's going on at work?"
Danny grinned. "We're restoring several of the docks in preparation for large ships being able to use the shipping channel again, though they have to dredge it first. And today a request for a quote for assistance in cleaning up the ferry stations came in."
"Both of them?" Taylor though the Protectorate had kept one of the two fairly decent, since they'd been using it between the shore and the rig instead of constantly using that force field bridge.
"All five of them," Danny corrected, causing Taylor to blink. He chuckled at her confusion. "You're probably thinking of the North and South stations on the Bay itself. But there's also the Docks ferry station on the northern end of what became the boat graveyard, it still has a boat beached in it. It's easier to miss the beach ferry station further south that got buried in sand during a cape battle years ago and nobody bothered to dig it out. The last station was on an island further out that used to be a staging area for smaller fishing boats, but several of the guys think the entire thing was wiped clean or destroyed by Leviathan's waves."
"Oh."
Danny shook his head. "There'd be no point to just reopening the two Bay stations, they're too close to each other. The real benefit was the further out ones, and the old ferry had a fish storage area for bringing fish back in from the island."
"Wasn't there talks of turning it into a tourist thing though?"
"Admittedly, I had to mention the other three stations when we were originally asked to only look at the two Bay stations. A lot of people have forgotten they were ever a thing."
Taylor blinked a couple more times, then shook her head. "I'm sorry for thinking you might be a little too obsessed with the ferry, then. I had thought it was a little odd trying to get it going between the two stations I knew about."
"I think most of the city ended up thinking that way," Danny admitted with a sigh. "The perils of there only being two visible and obvious stations, I guess."
Friday morning Taylor was woken by Amy getting an early start at the hospital. She blinked a couple of times as things connected to her.
Taylor: Quarter past five in the morning? Really?
Amy: I woke up to go to the bathroom and couldn't get back to sleep.
Taylor: And now I won't be able to either.
Amy: Sorry? I just figured I should get as many people as I could out of the way before tomorrow.
Sighing, Taylor got up. Might as well get ready for her own day and all that, right?
It became obvious that she was going to have an interesting day when she arrived at the PRT building. She did her best to ignore it at first, going through the gym and all that before making her way into the Wards area and making french toast. When she finally sat down with her portion and started eating it Amy paused in her healing.
Amy: Is that french toast?
Taylor: Yep.
Amy: Damn you. Why didn't you tell me you were making it?
Taylor: Because you're at the hospital and woke me up by healing instead of joining me in the gym this morning.
Amy: ...I obviously failed to think things through.
Given that nobody else had shown up it fell to Taylor to clean up, including packing up all the extra french toast that she'd made. With that done she checked her schedule and sighed, not seeing much reason to get into costume at the moment. She had therapy assistance appointments for most of the morning, which she'd fully expected when she'd arrived, and a request for a 'PR Event' blocked out for in costume all afternoon.
"I really should've checked my calendar before I came in," she grumbled as she wandered over to the monitor and flipped it to television mode. Might as well watch the news or something, right?
Riley groaned as she woke up. She didn't want to get up. Her bed was comfy. Her bed was familiar. She'd been sleeping on a relatively crappy mattress the entire time they were in Boston, and on a cot on the way out to Boston and didn't want to leave the comfort of her familiar bed. And she'd gotten home late last night despite the high-speed transport that had picked her up the day before. But she had to pee.
Eventually the need to empty her bladder won out and she climbed out of bed. She gently prodded her latest spider-bot out of the way of the door, idly wondering why it was that she never seemed to get attached to any of them for very long. She loved them when she first built them, then gradually lost interest and built new ones to love. Case in point, she was starting to find this one more annoying than adorable. Jacob thought it was probably her powers pushing her to send them out into the world, but she wasn't sure.
By the time she'd finished on the toilet she was too awake to go back to sleep, and her stomach had growled, so she sighed and went down to find some breakfast.
"Good morning dear," Amanda called from the living room as Riley passed by. "Sleep well?"
"Not long enough," Riley grumbled. "I wanted to stay in bed."
"You always do. I know you need to get ready to go to the convention with Amy and Taylor, but can you take a look at Rosy? A couple of her legs seem to be having issues."
Riley groaned. She didn't know why her mother insisted on keeping 'Rosy' around. Supposedly it was because it was the first one she'd made and all that, sentimental reason bullshit. It was primitive, barely functional at this point, and had been intended to be tormented and smashed from the beginning.
"I heard that groan," Amanda called. "No destroying Rosy."
"Yes mom," Riley replied, rolling her eyes. Maybe someday she'd figure out why William thought that her mother wanted to keep Rosy around 'for vengeance'. It wasn't like dad's mind had survived the conversion.
"Good morning Director Piggot," Taylor said as the elevator doors opened. The woman made no move to leave, so Taylor stepped in.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," Director Piggot said. "I was just coming down to speak with you."
"Do you want to stop by your office before I head to the therapy area?" Taylor asked.
"I'd rather we use the conference room near the therapy area. It's secure enough and means that the annoying city councillor waiting for me to come in this morning gets to wait longer."
Taylor considered that as the Director selected the correct floor. "Is that wise?"
"She's been waiting for me every morning to whine that we aren't doing enough to curb gang influence in various places the Elite have started funneling money into. That we know she's in the Empire's pockets thanks to Victor means that what she's really complaining about is that the Empire is losing out to the Elite and they want us to do something about it. If we had sufficient evidence of her corruption we'd do something about it, but we don't. Yet."
"Ah." Politics. To be avoided at all costs whenever possible. Best to be non-committal about it.
"I'll take your monosyllabic reply as wisdom beyond your years. Have you heard the latest news from Boston?"
"The tank that rampaged all day?" The Director nodded. "Yeah. The news said it was empty when they finally disabled it, which confused everyone because the Nine were seen to climb in that morning."
"I figure they dropped into a tunnel before the thing got moving, personally, and skipped town during the chaos. I'm sure you have some inkling as to why I think that."
Taylor rolled her eyes as they reached their floor. "Yes, I might have a bit of one."
They made their way down the hall and stopped at a small conference room near the therapy area. Director Piggot sealed the door with her phone, then sighed as she sat down. "This shouldn't take long, and is mostly little things that I'd have dealt with via a quick message if I wasn't avoiding the councillor. First up, the greenhouse lab Armsmaster requested has been completed."
"Ah, so I should bring the plants in?"
"We'll have a van pick them up when they drop off your suitcase Sunday evening or Monday, whichever ends up being the case. Which means that you'll need to leave the suitcase outside of your room, ready to go, so that someone can get to it, by the way."
Taylor blinked. "I...hadn't thought about how that was going to work. Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'm fairly certain that you have an idea of what you're dealing with this morning, but I'd like to apologize for the short notice for this afternoon. And, for that matter, for tomorrow and Sunday."
"Er...I hadn't checked Sunday, but what about tomorrow needs apologizing about?"
The Director sighed. Heavily. "Things leaked and political strings were pulled. If you check the calendar you'll see that the...experiment tomorrow has changed from private to a recorded PR event. Unless things go horribly the recording will likely be posted online and a statement handed to the press about it."
Taylor took a moment to check and found that tomorrow had indeed been flagged that way. She also checked Sunday and found that her presence was requested for a Protectorate introduction event. "That's interesting. And then a request to be present for a Protectorate introduction on Sunday?"
"Reknit was cleared to make his decision on joining the protectorate and New York wants us to get him introduced before he goes off to TinkerTechCon. Your presence is requested for multiple reasons, including that your platform was originally built by him. Short notice, but he only signed up yesterday. Due to the short notice you aren't required to attend, of course, but it would be appreciated. Think about it and let us know later."
"Alright. I can do that. Is there anything else?"
Director Piggot checked her phone. "Let's see, we covered that. Mentioned those. That's on my list for Armsmaster. Oh, right, tinkertech. To start with there, some thinkers passed on that introducing your spider-bots 'to the world' may be best done at TinkerTechCon, so we'd like you and Miss Dallon to consider bringing them with you. You don't have to, of course, but it came up."
Taylor shrugged. "I'll talk to Amy about it later."
"Beyond that, the tinker that originally built your mopeds is curious about the upgrades they've gotten, so if you'd like you can bring them with you. It'll certainly be cheaper than most of the other transportation options for moving around Las Vegas as well, so I'd recommend doing so. We'll just have to figure out the best way to get them up to the roof without the garage elevator, either that or send you out via the Rig."
"I don't think Amy and I have gotten around to playing with the ability to ride up vertical surfaces," Taylor mused. "Getting up onto the roof would be a good test of that, I think."
The Director sighed. "And now I have no idea why I thought you'd be unaware of that functionality. I mean, you don't use it, but probably because there isn't much reason to normally. You probably know more about their capabilities than anyone else." She paused. "Off the record, how long would it take you to remove the speed limiter, assuming you haven't already?"
Taylor blinked, before grinning. She could probably trust the Director, and the room was locked down well enough. "Not sure, hadn't thought about it since there's an off switch and all."
It took a couple minutes of tapping her fingers, but the Director finally sighed again. "I suppose that would make sense. You've probably had one from the moment your moped was upgraded back in your garage. Did she at least skip out on installing secret cloaking units?"
"There's a spot where one could fit," Taylor admitted with a shrug. "You'd have to move one of the tracking circuits first."
"Please let me know if she offers to install one." The woman stood up and headed towards the door, before pausing. "Have a nice day, and if you decide to participate this afternoon you'll need your sword."
Taylor blinked a couple of times. Why would she need her sword?
Dragon frowned as she examined the data from the Birdcage. There was nothing unusual in any of the audio feeds at all, which was itself unusual. Which meant that Glaistig Uaine was most likely using a stranger ability they knew she had to keep the monitoring systems from picking something up. What that something was, though, was almost impossible to determine. It was really too bad that the cameras were almost universally positioned poorly to read lips through.
Looking over movement logs didn't reveal too much. Glaistig Uaine had apparently started playing with clothing. The new hobby took up enough of her time to change her tea time meetings a bit, but this kind of thing happened every so often. String Theory had spent a couple of days likely yelling in the wrong direction for the camera to read her lips, the stranger effect keeping the audio from being picked up.
She was on her third pass to look for potential oddities when she realized that the four cell block leaders that met with Glaistig Uaine the most were all in meetings with their seconds in command more frequently than was usual. Which would imply that something of interest was happening, but not what. Perhaps Glaistig was planning on power consolidation through favors from replacing clothing?
Deciding that a closer eye needed to be kept on things, Dragon carefully put together additional monitoring tools. One would alert her of each meeting between the five cell block leaders, another would attempt to pick out patterns in the command structures of those cell blocks. And though it was probably too late at this point, she also had one that would look for discrepancies in what the audio pickups saw and what could be determined from lip movements, when possible.
It took another half hour or so before she was satisfied with the new programs, and when she was done she packed up a very basic toolkit. Galvanate had personally fixed a toilet for Glaistig, and Dragon felt that he shouldn't need to use a makeshift screwdriver in the future. Given that a couple of the tinkers down there had built much more impressive toolkits already the basic one wouldn't be a problem.
Once that was taken care of she checked the progress on getting the scout drone sensors set up somewhere appropriate for monitoring the prison, only to realize that she hadn't started that yet. It was far enough down on her priority list that she'd not actually gotten anywhere with it. Frowning again, she bumped that up significantly, but was distracted a moment later by the diagnostics on the new transport she'd been working on finishing.
It didn't take long to confirm that there was nothing odd in the full diagnostic output on the shield systems. Hiding those and the deployable turrets had been difficult, but not impossible, and in the end she'd ensured that the transport looked identical to the others currently in use. This one, however, was intended for when Mother was being moved around, and thus had needed additional safety and security features. Woe betide anyone who decided to attack this transport while Mother was riding in it.
Chapter 131 "Good morning Miss Hebert," the female parahuman in the therapy area greeted Taylor as she entered. "I'm Doctor Marchand. Your uncle asked me to stand in for him today due to the...issues, I suppose, you two have with each other's powers and my prior assistance with a couple of his patients."
"Good morning," Taylor replied. "And yeah, our powers are a bit too compatible with one another. He has to be careful around me."
"Quite. I'm led to believe that it's a family thing more than anything else, but it's unlikely that my ability to tell what people think of the food that they're eating will be an issue either way. Now then, there are three members of his therapy group here today. I'm told you've met one of them already. The other two will be new to you, of course, but due to their association with your uncle they're all aware of your abilities. To that end you won't have to pretend to not be talking to their powers."
"Makes sense," Taylor said, nodding. "So, when do we begin, and with whom?"
"We'll be starting shortly with Mimi," Doctor Marchand answered. "Better known to you as Burnscar, perhaps. She should be simple, not wanting to go through a lot of details with you. Or me, for that matter, she has trust issues. Apparently it took a while for Jacob to get her to start opening up at all, but for today the main goal is to see if we can get better insight into her power urges."
"Alright."
A few minutes later one of the unfamiliar snarks in the building came up the stairs, though in this case just from the floor below. William with Sarah and another unfamiliar snark were also down there, so they were likely waiting together. Which probably made sense, since they were familiar with each other and all.
It didn't take long for a young woman, presumably Mimi, with untidy dark brown hair and green eyes to enter the office, fumbling with a small case as her glasses slipped a little.
"Good morning," Doctor Marchand said.
"Oh, hi," Mimi said, shaking her head as she got the case to snap shut, before pushing the glasses back on. "Sorry, I figured I should skip the colored contacts I usually wear as a civilian, but I'm out of clear ones. Hence the glasses."
The Doctor shook her head. "At least we don't have to stare at the fake cigarette burn tear tracks today. Now then, Mimi, allow me to introduce Miss Hebert."
"Good morning," Taylor said. "Do you usually have a wig too?"
"Morning," Mimi said, reaching up and pulling the apparent wig off of her bald head. "And, well, as you can see, this is a wig. I asked Riley to make my hair stop growing and now just switch between wigs. Makes the tinker disguise I use for independent work easier too, since I use a full-body protective costume."
"Ah." Taylor supposed that would be one way to change hairstyles and make it harder to identify her. The apparent magnets in the wig that her tinker snark had just picked up on were interesting as well, apparently there were metal plates in strategic locations on Mimi's head now?
"The things can itch like crazy though," Mimi continued, scratching the side of her head as she dropped the wig on one of the hooks intended for jackets and such. "So, yeah. Jacob thinks you might be able to help me with my, er, confusing urges?"
"Why don't we sit down to talk about things," Doctor Marchand said, gesturing to the seats available. "Or rather, you two to talk, and me to play observer."
Mimi nodded, and the three of them sat down. After a little fidgeting she sighed, closing her eyes. "I have control issues, some of which is because once I'm using my powers it's easier to just keep using them. But I also have issues with certain kinds of objects. Some of...I know why on some, but others I'm clueless about."
"I think I'd get the best results from talking with your snark if I had at least one example," Taylor said after Mimi had stayed silent. "At least of one of the types of objects you don't know why you have issues with?"
Mimi blushed, but nodded. "I, er, have issues with teddy bears?"
Taylor frowned, finding that odd, but decided to check with the woman's snark anyway.
Taylor: Fair warning, I'm about to ask Mimi's snark some questions.
Amy: Thanks for the heads up. I'm between patients, I'll take a quick restroom break.
That didn't surprise Taylor, what with the state of the other girl's bladder. It was barely an effort to open the connection to Mimi's snark to start chatting with it.
Taylor: Hello there! Your human would like me to help her understand a few things.
[Greetings. Query]
Taylor: She claims to have issues with things like teddy bears, but doesn't know why. Are you able to tell me, so that I can help her?
There was a pause, potentially as the snark considered things.
[Acceptance. Data. Elaboration]
Taylor blinked at first, and then paled a little, shivering at the implications.
Taylor: Thank you. I suppose she might be doing her best to forget some of that.
Amy: I know I would be.
[Clarification]
Taylor: Oh. That makes some sense too, I guess.
BA: Query
[Confusion]
BA: Data
[Excitement. Query]
BA: Data
S: Data
[Confusion]
S: Request
Taylor blinked, then shook her head and turned to Mimi. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me touch you? Skin to skin, it can just be your hand."
"Er, ok," Mimi said, reaching her hand forward. Taylor flipped her striker switch over and pressed her finger on the offered hand, then nodded and took her hand back. "What was that for?"
S: Data
"Your snark needed a second opinion on how to possibly deal with a couple of things," Taylor replied. Triggering while having a concussion was probably not a good thing, all things considered. "Hopefully it's nothing you need to worry about right now."
"Oh." Mimi frowned. "I guess. Do you know why I have issues with teddy bears?"
Taylor nodded. "Yes, I do. But it's very private. Your snark told me, but I don't know if you'll want anyone else to know, including Doctor Marchand here."
Mimi's eyes widened, before she closed them and took a couple of deep breaths. Taylor thought she heard her mumbling something too, but wasn't sure. Finally she seemed to have gotten ahold of herself and opened her eyes, looking at Taylor. "You might as well just tell me here."
"Are you sure?"
Mimi nodded. "Yeah."
"Deep down you remember your teddy bear, a pink comforter, and your bean bag chair as things your father gave you."
Mimi's eyes went wide again, and she returned to her deeper breathing. Likely pushing down a panic attack, or at least trying to. Doctor Marchand looked between the two, likely feeling that she was missing something in context, but said nothing. Eventually Mimi calmed down, though still looked quite nervous.
"Are you going to be ok?" Taylor asked, concerned.
Mimi slowly nodded. "I...yeah. Sorry about almost losing control and trying to burn down the building, by the way."
Taylor blinked, and noticed the Doctor doing so out of the corner of her eyes. "I, er, can honestly say I hadn't noticed, but thank you anyway."
Mimi was visibly fidgeting now, obviously uncomfortable. "Can you let Jacob know? About everything you know? I...have issues talking about it."
"I can do that, and I understand."
"Thank you." Mimi then got up and grabbed her wig, obviously too uncomfortable to continue, before pausing. "Er, do you know how to get to the Palanquin?"
"You're probably better off asking for a ride," Doctor Marchand replied. "Check with the officer helping you after you get ready to go. They can probably also call ahead to see if Elle is there today."
Mimi nodded. "That makes sense. Thank you." She then left the room, heading down but apparently past where the others were waiting. Maybe to a restroom?
"I'm missing context there," Doctor Marchand finally said. "And she obviously didn't want to discuss any more. There are times being nosy and curious is annoying, because I really want to go poke her for details."
Taylor sighed and pulled out her phone. "Yes, well, I'm sure you know that all parahumans have things they dislike talking about."
"Yes, well, I'm still...oh god. With her barbeque issues..."
Taylor and the Doctor needed a few minutes to recover as well, during which Taylor sent a message to her uncle.
Jacob groaned as he left his therapist's office and saw the messages waiting for him on his phone. Some days it seemed like it never ended. Still, he started checking them anyway, better to get it over with and all. The first couple were standard 'please change your schedule to help us with minor problems' fare, of the kind he'd recently been trying to get some of the other psychologists to deal with. There was a message from Amanda letting him know that she'd collected a package from his porch for him, which he appreciated.
He'd made it a dozen messages in before he'd found one from Taylor. It was encrypted, which caused him to raise an eyebrow. Since when did Taylor encrypt things for him? He went through decrypting it and opened it up, finding that it was information on Mimi that she wasn't sure about entering into the woman's file, but that he should know as her primary therapist anyway.
"Matt," Jacob said as his therapist came down the hall. "Are you sure that..."
"No researching ways to bring the dead back so that they can be properly tortured before you kill them again," Matt interrupted. "Patient or idiot that messed with those you care about?"
"Both, really," Jacob admitted.
Once Taylor and Doctor Marchand had recovered, and Amy had dealt with some more patients, they prepared for the next of the Nine that Taylor would be speaking with today.
"Next up is Melissa," Doctor Marchand said as she tapped at the computer. "Shatterbird when terrorizing people. She's, in theory, incredibly straightforward. She primarily wants to know what you can tell her about her trigger event, as she doesn't recall it. Jacob has been working with her to try and curb her more sociopathic tendencies, but he doesn't think most of them are powers-related at all."
Taylor blinked. "Is she on her way now?"
"Yes. Is there a problem?"
It took a moment to consider how to answer that. "From what I know of things, and because the only parahuman coming up the stairs has a hungry snark, I'm not sure she's had a trigger event."
"I don't know the implications of any of that, but I'll wait for you to explain it to her. No need for you to repeat yourself, after all."
It didn't take long for Melissa to enter the therapy office. She was dressed in a dark blue skirt suit with high heels. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and she had a scowl on her face.
"Good morning Melissa," Doctor Marchand said.
"Are you the one that might be able to help me?" Melissa questioned, looking at Taylor. "You don't look like much."
"Good morning Melissa," Doctor Marchand repeated with a bit of a glare.
Melissa turned to look at the Doctor and flinched upon seeing the glare. "Er, right. Good morning."
"I'd like to introduce Miss Hebert, Jacob's niece. I believe he's mentioned her?"
"Good morning," Taylor greeted.
"Good morning," Melissa said, bowing slightly to Taylor. "I apologize, I should've calmed myself before coming in, seeing Mimi go by...distressed, I suppose, angered me."
"Very good," Doctor Marchand said. "Now then, you're hoping that Miss Hebert can delve into your trigger event?"
Melissa nodded. "Yes. I'm unable to remember it, but obviously something happened to grant me my powers."
"I have a theory," Taylor admitted. "But I'd like to check with your snark anyway. If you'll give me a moment?" Melissa nodded, and Taylor connected to her snark.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Annoyance]
Taylor: Well, that's certainly meeting my expectations. Are you willing to tell me about how you connected to Melissa here?
[Negation]
Taylor rolled her eyes, amused that Amy had done so as well. Though Amy wouldn't be aware of how this was somewhat mirroring what had happened with Melissa herself. She then prodded Broadcast Administrator to send a little bit of energy over to Melissa's snark. After a minute she pulled back.
Taylor: Now then, let's try this again. Hello there.
[...Greetings. Query]
Taylor: Yes, I can provide more energy, but Melissa here wants to know how you came to be connected to her. Are you able to tell me?
[Data]
Amy: Wait, what? How?
Taylor: I doubt the snark knows in the first place. As for you, thank you.
Broadcast Administrator started feeding the snark more energy as Taylor shook her head.
"Well?" Melissa asked, obviously impatient. And if Taylor was correct, a bit nervous.
"You were unconscious due to having consumed too much alcohol when someone likely poured a power-granting vial down your throat," Taylor replied. "Your snark has no way of knowing why, or where they got the vial. At the same time, it apparently thinks that it cleared enough alcohol from your system when it connected to you to save your life, even if it still took at least half a day for you to wake up afterwards."
"Huh." Melissa thought about that for a few moments. "I guess that explains Musa's attempt to claim I was his, anyway. Thank you, not knowing was bothering me."
"You're welcome."
"Unless there's anything you need from me," Melissa said, looking to Doctor Marchand. "I'll take my leave, since I know that William can be difficult even if he's willing to talk."
"I believe we're done here," the Doctor replied. "Or at least I don't think we have anything else for you, unless you have more questions. Have a nice day."
"You two have a nice day as well." They watched Melissa depart, before the Doctor sighed heavily.
"She always like that?" Taylor asked.
"Frequently, anyway," Doctor Marchand replied. "Jacob tries to find ways to deflate her ego, but they rarely last long. Now then, unlike the other two, I don't have much experience with William. He blames himself for something, but I've not been present for what that something is before. I've had more interaction with him and Sarah when meeting with Riley than anything else."
"Ok, I'm assuming you normally help with the female members of the Nine."
"Your uncle is spectacularly bad at giving female parahumans the talk, yet seems to be incredible at figuring out what comfort food to get them for after it. It boggles the mind."
"I'll have to take your word for it," Taylor replied with a shrug. She didn't get 'the talk' from her uncle, and was fairly certain that was a good thing. "Do you know what William wants out of the session?"
"Not really. Jacob said something about 'the usual reassurances', but didn't elaborate on that."
"Oh. How do you want to handle him?"
Doctor Marchand shrugged. "No clue. No experience with him as a patient and all. I'm curious how you'll handle him, really, since we'll both be flying blind here, so from my point of view I'm thinking sit back and watch. I'm half considering going to get popcorn, but that would probably be unprofessional of me."
Taylor gave the Doctor a look. "You do know that I'm not trained for this yet, right?"
"Of course. If you were trained I wouldn't be needed, but you're essentially the expert on the parahuman side of things these days and we're dealing with people that need assistance on that side more than anything else. Regular therapists are handling the human mind portion."
Taylor's glare was ignored in favor of calling William up. He and Sarah came up the stairs together, entering the therapy area and noticeably pausing to check the door lock. A moment later they stepped into the therapy office itself.
"Good morning Miss Hebert, Doctor Marchand," William greeted. "Nice to see both of you again."
"Good morning," Taylor replied. She thought that Sarah looked a little annoyed, but there was no good indication why right now.
"Morning," Doctor Marchand said. "How are you and Sarah today?"
"He's getting ready to do his best to be an idiot again," Sarah replied, rolling her eyes.
"Would we be better off sitting down while he does so?" Taylor asked, gesturing to the chairs.
"That would be nice," William agreed, moving over to one of the more comfortable chairs.
"I'll sit over here and observe," Doctor Marchand said, taking a seat further away as Taylor sat down across from William. Sarah easily moved a chair over and sat next to William.
"So with your teammates I was asked very specific questions," Taylor said after it was obvious that William wasn't about to start. "Is there anything you want me to talk to your snark about?"
William stared at Taylor for a moment, before sighing. "I suppose I want to know why it chose to mock me. Punishing me with an ever-present image of my daughter, even as every attempt to save the real Sarah from what I did to her fails."
Taylor blinked a couple of times. "I'm honestly not entirely sure that I understand what's going on."
"He refuses to admit that I've always been a bit of a radical and he did his best to save my life," Sarah said, getting a glare from William. "He force-fed me a vial when I'd overdosed on some shit and gotten my liver carved out of me after the gang I'd joined won a major fight over some territory we'd wanted. The thing kept me from kicking the bucket but turned my body into some freaky plant and octopus hybrid creature."
"You were never that bad," William retorted. "No matter how much my subconscious seems to want to try and convince me otherwise by projecting horrible things onto you."
"You found the dozen guns, two dozen knives, and the pipe bombs I'd stashed in my closet while you were agonizing over what the vial did to me!"
Taylor watched as the two got into a staring match, before rubbing the bridge of her nose. Apparently William had issues, and Sarah may or may not be making those issues worse.
Taylor: Hello there. I don't suppose you can provide better insight into what's going on here?
[Dismissal]
Taylor's eye twitched. Hungry snarks could be annoying. Why did she have to bribe them to get answers most of the time? She pushed a small amount of energy down the connection, just enough to show that she could.
Amy: Bribery? Again? What kind of hero are you?
Taylor: I'm an anti-hero. Bribery is perfectly valid. As are threats and other coercions, provided that I get results and don't cross any of a multitude of lines.
Amy: Damn. I should've read up on things before putting all my PR points into hero.
Taylor: Damn straight. Now then, oh-so-hungry snark, are you willing to tell me everything you've been up to in exchange for more energy?
[Agreement. Query]
Taylor: Yes, I'd like details, because I'd like to know what's going on.
Amy: Oh boy. I'd better sit down.
Taylor: Wait, why?
[Data. Elaboration. Data. Clarification. Data. Exposition. Data]
Taylor and Amy both winced at the onslaught of information. It quickly became apparent that the snark was detailing what it'd been up to with all the humans it was connected to, and not just William. All twelve of them, which was ridiculous.
Taylor: Wait, wait, back up. What was that about another snark?
Amy: I missed something, didn't I?
[Data. Clarification]
Taylor: Huh. That's interesting. Why'd you do that?
[Data]
Taylor: Thank you.
Amy: I'm baffled now. To misunderstand things that badly...
"Ok you two," Taylor finally said, allowing Broadcast Administrator to start feeding the snark energy. "Cut out the glaring, because there's at least one major assumption here that needs clearing up."
"Oh?" Sarah said, turning to Taylor. "What's that?"
"William," Taylor said, pointing at the man. "You have minimal control over Sarah. Conscious or otherwise. You can force her to manifest or vanish, and she's somewhat linked to your emotions, and that's about it."
"So I've got a monster I can't control running around pretending to be my daughter?" William replied. "How is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Because the vial she drank removed her brain. It stored it, but didn't think it was needed because it last dealt with plants. When you drank your vial it just so happened to be next to the snark that she'd connected to, and it asked nicely and got her brain. The original Sarah's brain is in control of your projection, meaning that she is Sarah."
William, Doctor Marchand, and Sarah all stared at Taylor like she'd just declared that the world was a donut or something. Eventually William turned to Sarah, who shrugged.
"It isn't exactly easy for me to have a clue what happened," Sarah said. "I mean, claiming I felt like me wasn't going to convince anyone, because that would probably be true even if I was created from your memories."
"Does that mean you did blow up your principal's car back in high school?" William asked.
"Hell yeah," Sarah replied with a grin. "The bitch deserved it, wanting to get in fancy drug detectors to scan everyone with every day."
William's eye was twitching, and Doctor Marchand had switched from 'observing' to 'frantic note-taking' at some point. Eventually he turned to Taylor. "Are you positive that my daughter's brain is connected to my projection?"
"As positive as I can be without going and checking your snark in person," Taylor replied with a shrug. "And I'm not sure I could actually tell anything more there. It does readily explain why when I connect to Sarah I don't end up talking to your snark, though. Instead I end up connecting to her brain, basically." She then paused, tapping her chin. "I wonder if that means you both need therapy, individually?"
"Oh most certainly," Doctor Marchand said, waving her hand a little. "How to handle it will be interesting, and having to deal with their somewhat connected emotions will be fascinating. Though I've always heard that Sarah here tends to get somewhat maternal around some of the others?"
"I like to promote the more amusing tendencies in the kids," Sarah answered with a shrug. "That and for the most part I've always preferred to maim instead of kill. I just wish I could still taste food properly."
"Miss Hebert," Doctor Marchand interrupted. "I'd like to thank you for your assistance, but I think I'd like to get into more traditional therapy. If only because it's now obvious that we've all been severely overlooking things here. Especially since the assumption that Sarah was operating on his subconscious direction meant that most of William's therapy sessions have been while under power nullification."
"Not my fault he gets pissed at Jacob and floods me with anger," Sarah mumbled.
"Alright," Taylor said, shaking her head as she got up. She still had a headache from information overload anyway. "Good luck and have a nice day."
"You too," William and Sarah said.
Ten minutes later Taylor had found some mild painkillers and was digging some chocolate popsicles out of the Wards freezer while she looked up what might be going on that afternoon.
By lunchtime the list of things that Taylor thought might be happening that afternoon was very short. The only thing she could figure out was another sword fight of some kind, which she supposed might work. But she got the feeling she was missing something, because that sounded too simple for all the hype.
She'd gotten up and headed to get changed, figuring that she might as well go and see what was going on, when William sent her a 'thank you' message. Apparently he'd have come down to say it in person, but they hadn't warned about visitors in the Wards area so he couldn't. He wished her luck that afternoon as well, and relayed a thank you from Sarah as well for the reveal that her actual brain had gotten connected into things.
On a whim, Taylor poked at Sarah.
Taylor: You're welcome.
Sarah: Am I doing this right?
Amy: Oh, hey. Good job figuring it out.
Sarah: She's talked to me like this before, so I had some time to think about it. That doesn't make it less freaky though. But thank you anyway. I had my own concerns over whether or not I was, well, real.
Taylor: As I said, you're welcome. Hopefully things improve for you two.
They chatted a little more while Taylor was getting changed, but William had to catch a transport with Melissa. Mimi was apparently going to be heading home later, given that she hadn't come back to catch the transport before it took off.
"Let's see," Taylor mumbled to herself. "Might as well bring the weapon projector too, I guess. Don't know if it'll be useful or not, but at least it's another sword option in a pinch."
Once she'd ensured that she had everything she'd likely need she headed back out into the common area where she'd noticed Miss Militia was waiting. Since nobody else was around she figured the older cape was waiting for her.
"Good afternoon Maul," Miss Militia said, nodding. "I take it you've decided to participate today?"
"I'm not sure what there is to participate in," Taylor admitted with a shrug. "All I was told was that if I were to participate then I'd need my sword."
"There's a request for the demon duck speaker as well."
Taylor raised an invisible-behind-her-visor eyebrow. "I haven't set anything up for that trick."
Miss Militia shrugged. "You've still been asked to bring it. Do you have it here?"
Taylor reached into her jacket and produced the duck. "Huh. It needs charging too, for that matter. But if it just needs to be present and not used then that won't be an issue, right?"
"It certainly won't be your fault if they expected it to be used on short notice," Miss Militia agreed, gesturing to the door. "Shall we? You're the only Ward invited to participate, mainly due to being the only Ward with a sword."
"Are you a poet and just don't know it?" Taylor quipped with a grin as she headed for the door.
Miss Militia grinned. "Sadly my feet aren't long enough for that."
"So where are we going, anyway?"
"Well, I was planning on giving you a ride over to the area being set up by the Boardwalk. You can fly over instead if you'd like, of course. I'm fairly certain that you could find it, given that several parahumans will be waiting for you and all."
Taylor thought about it for a moment. "I'll ride with you. It'll make me look less like I'm indecisive if I decide to bail, having been dragged along with you and all. At least compared to showing up on my own."
"I'd be annoyed with you for basically shifting the blame for your potential departure to me if I wanted to go. But if I don't go I'll never hear the end of it. You aren't good friends, in theory, with the organizer and can thus bail a lot more easily, so if you want to escape then all the power to you."
"I still don't know what I'd be escaping."
Miss Militia chuckled at that. "Tradition dictates that you be surprised the first time you see it. It isn't much of a long-standing tradition, but it's there." She then paused, and looked at Taylor. "Though come to think of it, this might not be a bad time for you to show off your 'dress' uniform variation."
Taylor considered that, shrugging and starting to adjust her pigtails. "Might as well, I guess."
Fortuna paused in the eating of the ice cream cone she'd picked up. She'd needed a break from being Contessa, partially at the insistence of everyone else in Cauldron. Something that she'd only been able to convince herself to listen to due to the massive changes that had started happening in the various paths she normally ran. So she'd changed into casual clothing and hit a beach for some relaxation.
But now her Fedora-senses were tingling. Somewhere there was a situation where Contessa merely showing up would be hilarious, either right away or further down the road. She quickly resumed eating the ice cream cone, but changed the direction she was walking so that she could get off of the sand and find a good spot to vanish from.
"Path to maximum amusement by merely showing up," she mumbled when she was far enough out of earshot of people. And got a minimal path involving being on a specific rooftop at the right time, which was easy enough to deal with. Apparently she'd get the best reaction if she picked up some popcorn and brought a portable table and chair, which she wasn't going to complain about either.
Since she'd be in Brockton Bay anyway she might even stick around long enough to talk to Miss Hebert. To that end she'd also make sure she had a specific box with her, just in case.
The only other decision was whether or not to tell the others about this. They never believed her when she said that she didn't knowingly run any paths to this kind of thing long-term. Instead they usually rolled their eyes and obviously thought she was using her agent to pick up on these opportunities in general.
A few minutes later she'd entered an alley and vanished through one of Doormaker's doorways.
Chapter 132 It turned out that they were heading over with Taylor in Miss Militia's sidecar. It could fit down some alleyways that a PRT van wouldn't be able to, and they weren't going to be approaching on any of the main roads. Mainly because crowds were already making that essentially impossible, or so the Protectorate hero claimed.
Taylor found the collection of parahumans she was sensing as they approached the stage that had been set up on the Boardwalk interesting. Colin, Ethan, and Battery were clustered together near Nes, with Irma off to the side. Terry had flown past them heading away from things, Crystal was apparently nearby in what was likely the audience, and she thought Vicky and Dean might be on a date or something as they were off to the side together. Dean, at least, wasn't 'on duty' today, so a date was possible. Elle was approaching with Emily and Mimi, and based on relative positioning Elle was probably riding on Mimi's shoulders.
On the other hand, several parahumans that Taylor didn't know yet were around as well, mostly in what Taylor was still thinking was the audience area. Though at least one was on a rooftop nearby, probably for the vantage point. In that particular case, though, Broadcast Administrator somehow seemed unusually curious, but didn't volunteer anything. Taylor didn't push for more information either.
"How big is this going to be?" Taylor finally asked.
"Rumors were spread yesterday that something would be happening," Miss Militia answered. "So possibly quite significant. I know that multiple news crews were setting up earlier. Then again, that isn't that odd for anything cape-related that they get word of in advance. I think Boston got five news crews for a leaked attempt to use parahuman abilities to paint a fence as a control exercise."
"I see." Apparently she'd never noticed just how crazy the news agencies were for stories about capes.
It didn't take much longer for them to arrive, coming up to an area the PRT had apparently cordoned off near the stage for parking. At least one news camera caught their arrival, and Miss Militia led the way up onto the stage itself. Most of which was blocked off with portable screens so that nothing could be seen. Nes and Irma were in costume, as were the Protectorate members.
Nes's latest full costume looked like a cross between a knight's armor and a kid's show host. The armor was obviously armor, but was designed to look like a colorful skirt suit at the same time. The helmet was adorned with surprisingly realistic looking mouse ears, which apparently were functional audio pickup devices thanks to tinkertech, and the mask she was wearing covered the top of her face and gave her whiskers. A matching sword and shield were set off to the side. Irma, on the other hand, was dressed in what looked like a soot-stained dress with bladed gloves and a black full-face mask.
Irma was currently quietly slipping away from the news crew that had likely been interviewing her before Taylor and Miss Militia had arrived and drew attention away from her. That attention falling on the two arriving capes, however, wasn't necessarily a good thing. At least from Taylor's point of view, anyway. Nes likely had a different opinion there.
"Maul!" Nes yelled, bouncing away from the Protectorate members. She paused for a moment to look at Miss Militia. "Oh, hello again Miss Militia." She then turned back to Taylor and yelled as she struck a pose while pointing. "MAUL! Did you bring JUSTICE DUCK?!"
Taylor wasn't sure if her eye twitching was noticeable with the visor, but it was twitching. A lot. "Justice duck?"
Nes tilted her head to show confusion, but Taylor was fairly certain it was an act. Maybe. "Surely you saw the discussion I started about her on PHO? People seemed to like the name, and as she was working with Wards she obviously isn't on the side of villainy, no matter what she looks or sounds like. Thus, she must be on the side of JUSTICE! Hence Justice Duck."
At least that explained where the name had come from, since looking into it hadn't been a priority at all. Avoiding finding out where it had come from had actually been higher priority at the time. "I'd heard that the name had been come up with, but not looked into where it originated from."
"I see. You should be more aware of online discussions. But the question still remains, do you have Justice Duck with you? I kinda wanted her to officiate."
Miss Militia sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose under her clear visor. "Mouse Protector, Justice Duck hasn't been informed of what's going on here today. It wouldn't know how to officiate, and we don't have time to bring it up to speed."
Nes considered that for a moment, before slouching and pouting. "I knew I forgot something." After a moment she shrugged. "Oh well. It was a nice thought, and next time I'll have to ensure that I ensure that she's been informed of things ahead of time. On to the main event, I guess, since you're here now and all."
"What is the main event?" Taylor asked. Since she hadn't been told yet and all. "People have been very vague about it."
Nes grinned. "With powers involved there are a number of things that are difficult to properly compare, and use of a sword is one of them. When I was younger I was annoyed with that, so I started figuring out a good way to test sword skills out of combat. Today, as a known parahuman sword wielder on the side of Justice I want you to run...The Gauntlet!"
Taylor stared at Nes for a moment, then turned to Miss Militia. "Did you hear some of the capitals in there too?"
"I did," Miss Militia answered with a nod. "She's good at that, has been since I first met her."
"And is she serious about all of this?"
"Chevalier has declined to participate for a number of reasons, but a number of other Protectorate members have recorded runs of the course on file. That includes Armsmaster, Glaive, and myself somewhat locally. She's decided that since you've used a sword in the field you should run the course, and decided to allow Assault to run it as well despite his abysmal showing against you before."
"You get three attempts at completing it for your first time," Nes added. "But only if you fail to complete certain parts or your blade breaks and you have a spare available to try again."
"I'm not sure if I want to avoid this like a plague or go through with it to embarrass Assault by outshining him," Taylor said after some thought. "Nah, who am I kidding, the chance to embarrass Assault will probably be worth it either way."
"That is a good motivator at times," Miss Militia agreed.
Kenta sighed as he sat down to watch whatever it was that was happening on the Boardwalk on the local news channel, Takara already sitting on the floor in front of the television. Mouse Protector had set things up and rumor had it that 'Maul' had been invited to participate. Vista hadn't, but Takara had become fascinated with hero versus anti-hero via the differences between Vista and Maul.
He ignored the interviewing of the former villain Ravager. It was highly unlikely the real reason for her switching sides to partner with Mouse Protector was going to be revealed, after all. Cover stories of various kinds, yes, but not the truth. His daughter's squeal when they switched from that to focus on Miss Militia and Maul arriving got him to pay attention again, only to freeze when he saw what Maul was wearing. It had to be a coincidence.
A minute later the camera zoomed out to show Mouse Protector bouncing over to Maul, which was enough to catch the woman sitting on a nearby rooftop with a bowl of popcorn in frame. He only realized that he'd started hyperventilating when Takara stood up in front of the screen, trying to ask him what was wrong.
"Good afternoon everyone," Nes said into the microphone. "I apologize, but Justice Duck couldn't play announcer today, so you get me instead."
Taylor smirked at the sudden applause that generated. Nes looked confused as to how she should be taking it, as though people should be disappointed that the creepy duck act wasn't being used today.
"Right," Nes said, shaking her head and plastering a smile back on her face. "So, are all of you ready to see The Gauntlet?"
They stood there for a moment, before Irma snickered. "Ok, good job with the crickets. How'd you arrange for that?"
"Perhaps if anyone here knew what The Gauntlet was they'd be more excited?" Battery offered.
Nes mumbled something about needing applause signs or something, before shaking her head and smiling again. "Ok, let's show you what we've got!"
Irma pulled on a rope and the temporary screens fell, revealing a somewhat complicated course. Murmurs of interest started up in the crowd at the sight of it.
"Those running The Gauntlet will start at the yellow line," Nes said, bouncing over to it. "They will then proceed through a series of ropes, hoses, and dowels that need to be cut in two to release flags. They have to release all the flags to continue." She then moved down the line to the next obstacle. "Then they have to pass through the web of ropes, preferably by cutting their way through of course. After that there's an ice block anchored to a scale, and they have to chop it down so that half of the visible ice is released."
"The 'visible' part of that is important," Irma interrupted. "Since only a third of the ice block is outside of the anchoring sleeve and all."
"Right," Nes agreed, sounding mildly annoyed at the interruption. But she recovered quickly. "After that they have to cut through the pieces of silk fabric kept under tension. Only a fully cut through piece will release the attached sandbags to swing down, which will need to be cut such that at least a third of the sand inside will be released."
"Penalties will be issued for each swing against a given piece of fabric or sandbag after the first," Irma noted, this time apparently on-script. "Not to mention that if at the end any sandbag hasn't lost at least a third of its sand then the contestant will incur a penalty as well."
"All of this is reasonably static," Nes said, bouncing up to the next segment. "The next segment is much more active. After cutting the bamboo gate open a series of balls will be launched. Each ball has to be dodged, deflected, or sliced in two. Deflecting them will net the contestant a bonus, cutting them in two gets them a larger bonus."
"And being hit nets them a penalty," Irma added. Despite her face not being visible she just sounded like she was grinning.
Nes then moved down to between the last two obstacles. "After that they cut that rope, releasing over two dozen swinging objects that have to be navigated without being hit. Those marked with an X have to be left alone, and those marked with a circle have to be cut in two. I'm sure you can guess what happens if they get hit, cut something with an X, or don't cut something with a circle. The last obstacle is this perfectly normal locked door, which they have to force their way through before they can hit the finish button."
"Armsmaster and I are here to help with resetting things," Battery said, waving. "Armsmaster would participate, but power armor is disallowed in The Gauntlet, in part because it makes most people too bulky. And Miss Militia has been volunteered to show how a good run of The Gauntlet goes to start with, since it isn't fair to compare those who've seen how it's done to those who haven't."
Miss Militia stepped up to the yellow line, her weapon flashing into a broadsword.
"You may begin when ready," Nes said after looking over to where Armsmaster had given a thumbs-up.
Miss Militia took a deep breath, and then darted forward. She swung the sword down repeatedly, cutting through the ropes, hoses, and dowels with a single swing each. She had minimal trouble with the rope web, mainly recovering after each swing. The ice block took her a number of swings before a bell dinged to indicate that she was done, then she was into the silk. She cut each piece and then all but cut each sandbag in half, one swing each. The bamboo was cut and the balls started launching, apparently targeting center mass. She deflected most of them and dodged the rest, not cutting through any. The rope after that was cut and she wove her way through the swinging objects, cutting all of the ones with circles in two. Three of them took multiple swings, but she got them all and didn't hit the X marked ones. She then spent a significant amount of time bashing the door with the sword until it gave way.
All told, the scoreboard showed that it took her nearly ten minutes from start to finish, after bonus and penalty adjustments. Of which she only had bonuses, actually.
"Not her best time," Nes said, nodding as people cheered. Battery and Colin were both already working to reset things, at least those that didn't appear to be resetting themselves. The ice block appeared to have been automatically chopped off level with a laser and was now growing upwards, for example. "But a good showing nonetheless. Now then, Assault has indicated a desire to give The Gauntlet a try. Since he's asked I've decided that he can go next, provided that he's replaced his sword since he was last seen using one?"
"I've picked up a couple of swords since then," Ethan said, dragging a case up onto the stage. He opened it up and pulled out an incredibly detailed sword, straight and double-edged with a curled guard and what looked like an animal head carved into the pommel. Multiple fullers with engraving in them ran down each side of the blade and the entire thing gleamed in the sunlight. The crowd oohed and aahed at it. Ethan swung it a few times for show, before moving over to the starting line.
He had to wait a couple more minutes before the course was fully reset, during which he was given a written copy of the rules to review. When he was given the go-ahead he very quickly made his way through the ropes, hoses, and dowels. The web of ropes barely slowed him down, and then he came to the ice block. Unfortunately for him, his first swing against the ice block resulted in the sword breaking in two.
"Ouch," Nes commented. "I guess that sword was more of a showpiece than a functional weapon. You've failed the course. Unless you have another sword available, anyway?"
Ethan grumbled and stomped back to the case he'd pulled the sword out of. He dropped what was left of the broken one in and pulled out a much cruder-looking blade. The spine looked unfinished, as there was forge scale along much of it, and the pommel was a simple ball. The single edge still looked sharp, but he was obviously less proud of this sword. Battery and Colin finished resetting the start of the course, then moved off again.
This time when he was given the go-ahead he moved less quickly through the first couple of obstacles, but his sword survived the ice block. One of the silk fabric pieces caught a little and tore more than cut, but he made it through that portion with minimal issue. The bamboo was cut easily, and he pulled off cutting one ball but was hit by another. The rest were dodged or deflected before he moved on to the rope that released the swinging obstacles. He nicked one of the items with an X, and missed one of the circle-marked obstacles. The locked door gave him some trouble afterwards, but he hacked his way through eventually.
In total, after all was said and done, his time ended up being just over fifteen minutes, including penalties for the obstacles and one of the sandbags not having lost enough sand. Some of that was offset by his bonuses with the balls, but not much. He didn't seem happy about the final score in general.
"Too bad," Nes said. "But honestly, that's pretty good for your first completion."
"I know Miss Militia's sword is bullshit," Ethan said. "But I doubt you could do much better with your crappy sword."
Nes paused at that, before turning and glaring at Ethan. "Oh no you didn't. My sword is at least as good as yours, if not much better."
"Prove it," Ethan challenged, only to shrink back a little at the intensity of Nes's glare.
Five minutes later Nes was at the starting line, Miss Militia giving the sign for her to start. She blew through the first set of obstacles just like Miss Militia had, and made it through the rope web even faster by ensuring that her swings flowed together. The ice block didn't hold her back for long, and the silk was parted easily with her blade. She even cut through one of the sandbags entirely, which hadn't been seen before then. Three balls were chopped in two, with all of the others dodged or deflected, before she practically danced through the swinging obstacles. Like the others, she had trouble with the locked door, but eventually made it through and finished her run.
All told, she ended up with a score all of three seconds faster than Miss Militia's, pretty much entirely due to getting more bonuses than the other cape. The grin on her face as she turned to Ethan was almost disconcerting.
"You were saying something about my sword?" Nes asked.
Ethan grumbled something that sounded like it could have been an apology, before Nes moved back over to Miss Militia to collect the microphone.
"Good run," Miss Militia said. "Not your own best, but very nice anyway."
"Thanks," Nes answered. "Stupid door gets me every time though."
"I know what you mean."
"Now then," Nes said into the microphone, a smile back on her face. "We've had three complete runs, but I want to see what Maul can do with the apparently-legendary sword she was given. My sword was made by the same person that apparently made Maul's, which leaves me curious if the newer sword is on the same level as their older works. Maul, are you willing to run the course?"
"I am," Taylor said after a moment. She unsheathed her sword, and was handed the written copy of the course rules while she waited for things to be reset. She read over them while considering her strategy, eventually settling on a course of action for each obstacle.
Once everything was ready she positioned herself to dart forward, which she did as she was given the go-ahead. She fumbled a little on a couple of the ropes and hoses, but had found her swing angles by the time she reached the dowels. The rope web parted easily, but it took a couple of swings to figure out how to best hit the ice block. The silk was trivial, and she made sure that the bottoms of the sandbags were cut open so that plenty of sand could fall out. She took one hit from the balls, and fortuitously cut two while trying to deflect them. The swinging obstacles were easily dodged because they all counted as 'blunt' to her powers, so she could tell when they were approaching, and she was careful as she targeted only the circle-marked ones. Finally she reached the locked door, where she skipped hitting it with the sword at all and just shoulder-checked it. It cracked, but didn't pop open until she kicked it.
Her final time was just over five and a half minutes, after bonuses and penalties were added.
"Can she do that?" Nes asked, looking at Miss Militia. Who was rubbing the bridge of her nose again. "I mean, shouldn't she have used her sword on the door?"
"Yes, she can do that," Miss Militia answered. "The rules make a big fuss about a single weapon, including that if created or modified with powers the contestant should keep the properties consistent across the entire course. Every other obstacle has a list of things that count and don't count that either outright state or strongly imply that you need to use your single weapon. But the door just says you have to force your way through, and says nothing about with your weapon, unless we want to count her shoulder and boots as weapons. Since she needed the shoulder to swing her sword and the boots to navigate the course, though? It isn't like she used her wok or maul, after all."
Nes visibly pouted. "She just set an all-time course record by over two minutes and basically invalidated every other run ever. Why is she allowed to do that?"
"Probably because she read the rules," Irma replied. "I mean, I spotted that loophole too, but I don't use a suitable weapon so I haven't run the course."
Taylor sighed as she examined her sword, deciding to ignore their discussion on whether or not she'd broken the rules. She knew she hadn't broken the rules as written, which was enough for her. In the meantime she decided that she was lucky that her sword hadn't taken any significant damage before she pulled out a cloth to clean it up. No reason to put it away dirty and all, that would just make it harder to keep in good condition. She paused halfway through that process when the parahuman on the rooftop vanished into one of Doormaker's tears in reality. She reacted less when they returned in a nearby alley, but was now very curious. Either Doormaker didn't have a monopoly on those things, or something of interest was going on with that parahuman.
"Thank you all for coming," Nes said, having announced that Taylor's passage through the final obstacle was within the rules, but nobody else would be running The Gauntlet today. With that done she made sure the microphone was off before pouting as she walked over to Taylor.
"Is something wrong?" Taylor asked.
"I think I like you better as a therapist," Nes quietly replied, somewhat implying that she knew that Taylor and Maul were the same person. "Even if you aren't one yet. Or maybe as a drinking buddy? That was good too." And there's either a 'and I know you know my civilian identity' or a 'and to be nice, have a hint for mine'.
"Oh for crying out loud," Irma said, having also come over. "She found a loophole in the thing. Big whoop. Use it yourself and beat her time."
Nes glared at Irma. "But she's got the best first-attempt time ever and I can't go back in time to try it for the first time again! I want to fangirl over her for her awesome time just as much as I want to strangle and humiliate her for making everyone who's ever run the thing look like fools!"
"That vindictive streak of yours is one of the few reasons I feel I can get along with you at all," Irma said, grabbing Nes and dragging her off. "Come along now, I think you need a distraction from pissing off the scary Ward."
"Oh come on, how bad could she really be?" Nes whined.
Taylor wasn't sure how to take most of that. Instead she did a final check of her sword before sheathing it, then looked around to see if there was anything to help with. But PRT staff seemed to be working with the Protectorate members to dismantle The Gauntlet, and she wasn't sure where to help there. Following Irma and Nes was probably not a good idea right now either, for that matter.
"Excuse me," came from behind Taylor, and she turned to see another PRT officer, one that had been watching some of the perimeter. "My apologies miss, but a trusted Protectorate associate wishes to have a word with you."
Taylor blinked at that, behind her visor where it couldn't be seen. "I suppose I can meet with them. Where are they?"
"They said that if you agreed they'd come over here to you," the officer answered. "I'll go give them the go-ahead to come over."
"Thank you," Taylor said, then watched as they moved away. Apparently towards the parahuman that had been on the rooftop. That was interesting. And why out here in the open?
"Good afternoon Maul," the parahuman, an older woman Taylor didn't know, said as she approached. "I see you're getting use out of my gift."
Taylor blinked again, and tilted her head. Well, that would help explain the fedora the woman was wearing. "I suppose I am, thank you for it. And good afternoon to you as well. Was there anything specific you needed from me today?"
"Mostly I wanted to freak people who know my reputation out by meeting you where the cameras can see us," the woman said, then paused. "Oh, right. My apologies, you can call me Contessa, and feel free to ask the Triumvirate about me later. I'll see about meeting you out of costume at some other point as well, but this was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. Still, I have a couple of things I'd like to talk about while we have the time."
"I'm assuming none of it is sensitive if we're out in the open." Which didn't say anything about sensitive topics that they might want to discuss, just that said discussions shouldn't happen there.
"Of course not. To start with, I'd like you to pass on a gift. You inspired the creation of something, but another made it. Eventually that creation led to me realizing that taking time off wasn't going to immediately result in the end of the world, and I'd like to pass on my thanks." Contessa then produced a familiar-looking box with an envelope attached. 'Panacea' was written on the envelope.
"I don't think I'll have a problem passing this on," Taylor said, activating her visor's scout-drone sensors for a moment before slipping the package into her jacket. Because familiar-looking or not, Contessa was an unknown for the time being and checking would be a good idea. "Was there anything else?"
"I'll cover this more when I find time for us to meet later," Contessa said, turning to look over at one of the cameras. "But if you need my assistance, please let me know."
Turning her head that way didn't make a lot of sense normally. There was, however, a simple potential explanation. "You're still working to freak someone out, aren't you?"
Contessa turned back to Taylor and smirked. "Of course, and more than just one person. I have a reputation, and playing with those who fear it is strangely amusing. Similar to how many have come to fear you on rumors and poor assumptions." She looked back towards the camera. "Of course, I'm a one-trick pony. Compared to you I'm hardly dangerous at all."
Taylor nodded, not necessarily in full agreement, but she knew that she could be quite dangerous on her own at this point. Arguing that point was probably not the best idea, especially in public. "Perhaps your desire to mess with people stems from your snark?"
"I'd like to discuss some of that later as well," Contessa said, turning around. "But that's a sensitive topic, so isn't for here. And for that matter, is likely not a suitable topic until you've talked to others about me. Have a nice day."
"You too," Taylor replied, already checking the quick recording she'd made to ensure that the gift package appeared to be safe. Everything checked out there.
Taylor: So, I've got a gift to deliver to you at some point.
Amy: I'll be around for Lacey's thing tomorrow, so you can hand it over then. Any hints?
Taylor: Nah, I'll let you find out for yourself.
Amy: Damn. Now it's going to be bugging me.
Taylor grinned, before moving towards where things were being taken apart. She could at least offer to help, or barring that, get told to head back to the PRT building on her own by summoning her platform. It would certainly be better than being available for a reporter to interview, at least.
Kenta had gradually calmed down. The woman was messing with his head, that was all. Taking advantage of the coincidence, after all she didn't have a monopoly on fedoras. The Gauntlet itself had been interesting, and he'd chuckled when Miss Hebert had done the sensible thing when confronted with a locked door. Really, using swords to bash the door in when a couple of good hits would do. What were the others thinking?
He'd waited to see if the reporter would get a chance to interview any of the capes after the fact, and was about to give up on them even trying when they shifted to showing an unknown woman approaching the Ward. His eyes had gone wide when they'd started talking, and a package even changed hands. As though the woman were paying Miss Hebert for something, in fact. And then the woman turned to the camera, and though when it came to English his lip reading wasn't the best, he still swore that she had to have offered Miss Hebert her assistance if it was ever needed.
The potential implications of what the woman appeared to say a few moments later pushed his hyperventilating too far, and shortly afterwards he blacked out.
Because of that, Takara would later do her best to keep him from watching the news at all, at least for a few days. Fireworks turned into a wonderful distraction there, but weren't enough to keep Takara from wanting a sword.
Chapter 133 Saturday morning Taylor headed into the PRT building extra early, meeting Amy in the gym.
"So your father is giving Kurt and Lacey a ride in?" Amy asked as they changed.
"Yep," Taylor answered. "Apparently that makes him eligible to sit in the limited audience, though he hadn't been told when to pick them up when I left."
"While I'm hanging around on the basis of 'just in case' for healing," Amy noted, nodding. "How are they swinging your appearance? Or are they admitting that the vials are yours?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "They're going to claim that I was the safest, most secure delivery option available. Because I'm apparently that scary or something. Or at least because they want to make me out to be that scary? It came out of PR, I'm apparently still unknown enough to pull stunts with."
"But you are that dangerous. More than people likely know, even. Embrace it for those of us who can't embrace their own ability to demolish our enemies!"
Taylor gave Amy a look, causing the other girl to break out into giggles.
Amy had been delighted with her gifted fedora, once Taylor had handed it over. She particularly liked that it was designed to match her Panacea robes, at least until she realized that it wouldn't really fit any non-cape outfits well. Then when she read the letter she raised an eyebrow where it mentioned the rainbow rose bushes, but didn't speculate on it in any way Taylor could hear.
After that they'd both gotten into costume, Taylor going for non-dress to start with. She'd then helped Amy get her new fedora's clips attached properly, and then the two had gone down to the junkyard to play a little.
An hour later they came back up, having enjoyed themselves, and Taylor swapped to her jacket without a weapon harness and put on her own fedora before grabbing the case with the vials Lacey wanted to use and making sure it was ready to go. Nothing was wrong there, so she sealed it again, leaving it on her desk before she stopped. It dawned on her that she should probably be wearing the 'nicer' shoes instead of her boots. She dithered for a minute, before sighing and changing into them, then wandering out into the common area where Amy was waiting.
"The fancy shoes look nice," Amy noted with a grin. "You'll get used to the heels, I'm sure."
"Bah," was Taylor's only reaction to that. She was already figuring out tricks for the heels, granted, but she wasn't happy with how they were likely to restrict her movement if a fight broke out. Luckily they were for situations where a fight would be highly unusual.
"So where is this happening? I hadn't actually checked."
"We're using the internal press conference stage for various reasons," Taylor answered. "Including wanting me to make a dramatic entrance with the vials via the throwing open the swinging doors for the cameras they'll have running."
"And they don't even know if the footage will be released. Sheesh." Amy then paused, before turning to Taylor. "What's the excuse for why Taylor isn't going to be present? Your father is going to be, after all."
Taylor just shook her head. "Why in the world would my father allow me to be present for anything that has a decent chance of turning into a horrible and painful death for one or more of the participants?"
"That's an unusually compelling argument. Why in the world is your father letting you be involved with this at all?"
"Because he knows that horrible and painful death is incredibly unlikely and if this doesn't happen because of him then he won't hear the end of it from Lacey."
Amy thought about that for a few minutes while Taylor looked through the kitchen area for possible breakfast fixings. Not much was jumping out at her on that front, so swinging by one of the cafeterias was probably the better choice. To that end she pulled up the morning menus.
"I don't suppose you know when things are happening?" Amy finally asked.
"Probably just after lunch," Taylor answered. "They blocked out the entire afternoon for it, anyway. Though Legend wants to do some meeting stuff this morning. He's not here yet, but they've got chocolate chip waffles upstairs. Want to go grab some?"
Amy blinked a couple of times, before grinning. "Most definitely. Which upstairs cafeteria?"
Taylor slipped into the conference room Legend had asked to meet in. He hadn't actually arrived yet, and wasn't even in her range, but he'd sent a message asking for her to arrive early, lock the door to the best of her ability, and activate the privacy features of the conference room. It didn't take long to do all of that, but why she'd be doing so before he showed up was eluding her.
The answer became obvious when a tear in reality opened up across the room, and she could feel Legend on the other side.
Amy: Ok, I have to admit that those feel weird in area mode. Like a snark is there but isn't.
Taylor: They are, amazingly enough, even weirder up close. And for some reason I'm starting to think that it feels like these are temporary, but don't have to be? Not sure why or how, though. Oh, and it seems like I'm expected to head through, so be ready for a bit of a jump in my relative position.
Amy: Thanks for the warning.
Taylor sighed as she felt Amy go back to her reading, apparently having decided to do her best to learn how to fill out medical paperwork properly instead of letting the nurses fix it afterwards. Which, honestly, wasn't a bad idea, so she'd also started collecting that and psychiatrist variants of the same. Shaking her head, since she had more immediate concerns, she walked across to the hole in the fabric of reality, carefully stepping through onto what looked like a helipad. It just had markings she didn't recognize and looked like it hadn't been used in years. To her shock, the hole she'd stepped through closed behind her, even as she was noticing that something was off with the color of the sky.
"Sorry about that," Legend said, walking over. "But I've got a couple of questions I need to ask you that I really want to keep private for the sake of others. Good morning, by the way."
"Good morning," Taylor replied, looking around. "So we're probably in the middle of what should be an ocean, if my geography is correct, but a very significant distance zornward. Not that I have any clue what zornward is, of course, even if it's nice to have a name for it this time."
"The continents on this version of Earth are quite differently shaped than the ones back on Bet," Legend admitted. "In fact, there are only two major ones, roughly on opposite sides of the planet. This island is roughly halfway between them on the larger ocean and was abandoned twelve or so years ago after a hurricane hit it."
Taylor considered that for a moment. "So why are we here?"
Legend shrugged. "Because the beach I was planning on using became a very poor choice when a tsunami hit it an hour ago. It wasn't something I'd anticipated needing to worry about. Since there's a shield keeping people off of the island it's very private and a good second choice. And just so you know, the shield was left on by accident, which is why nobody ever came back. They couldn't."
"I see."
"Enough about where we are. I wanted to talk about two main things. The first is to reassure myself that you feel that the vials you have won't kill anyone."
"I'm almost positive that they won't," Taylor said, frowning slightly. "Horribly mutate, on the other hand, is still a distinct possibility."
Legend sighed. "I was overruled on that being a concern, given that the volunteers have all signed waivers acknowledging the risk. Especially as I believe that the entire point is to see if your friend can minimize that aspect."
"You seem unhappy with the entire idea."
"I have my reservations. I'd rather not go into them now, especially as others have already presented good arguments for most of them. But the one they couldn't argue out of the way was whether or not you, being the one working with the vials to render them safe, feel that they're unlikely to kill those who drink them."
"I'm not entirely without reservations of my own," Taylor admitted with a shrug. "But I figure if I don't let it happen at least once then I'll either never hear the end of it or I'll be overruled by virtue of the vials going 'missing' from the locked cabinet that almost nobody is supposed to be able to open."
"We actually punished the two of them for that stunt, by the way. It was incredibly irresponsible of them."
Taylor blinked. "How do you punish them?"
"By making them fill out the relevant paperwork in triplicate. By hand. Focusing on one place for any length of time like that is difficult for them."
"Oh."
Legend stared at Taylor, and then sighed. "I honestly don't know how to ask what I want to without potentially revealing someone else's secrets. At first I was just going to come out and ask, but then I realized that I don't actually know what you know. So I've been trying to figure out how to ask for days."
"Ok...that would imply that you still don't know how to ask."
"That's pretty much it, but I don't want to betray any friendships." He turned and paced for a minute, before sighing and turning back to Taylor. "I don't suppose you feel you have any idea why Dragon's behaviour would have changed recently? Because as her friend I'm concerned about the potential causes."
Taylor blinked, and internally swore about not having signal on her phones. She doubted she could get signal here, even.
Taylor: Amy, can you fire a message off to Dragon asking if Legend knows that she's an AI? I would, but I'm lacking in signal.
Amy: Sure, I'll let you know when I get an answer.
"Do you have any examples of what kind of changes we're talking about?" Taylor asked as a delaying tactic.
Legend opened his mouth to answer, only to pause and close it again. He frowned, obviously still struggling with how to word things. "Um..."
Amy: Dragon says that the Triumvirate all know that she's an AI, and that when you're back online you'll find a link to a list you can check in the future.
Taylor: Thank you. That should make this discussion a lot less awkward.
"Ok," Taylor said, shaking her head and getting Legend's attention. "There are two ways we could have handled this back on Earth Bet trivially. You asking Dragon if I knew that she's an AI, or me asking her the same about your knowledge. Luckily for you I have a communication channel back and was able to ask anyway, thanks to Amy knowing as well."
Legend stared at Taylor for a moment, before groaning. "Why does this kind of thing always look obvious in hindsight?"
"Because it usually is. They say hindsight is 20/20 for a reason. Now then, does that make your concerns any easier to articulate?"
"It does, thank you. Ever since her creator died she's been operating under a series of safeguards, limits and rules in her code that forced or prevented actions on her part. We'd determined that to edit her code to remove them would irreparably harm her, likely eventually driving her insane if not causing her to fail to function outright. Yet we've recently found that at least one of those safeguards is no longer in place, and possibly a number of them, and I'm personally concerned for her health. Since things seem to have started when you first met her I'm hoping that you know more about what happened."
"Ah." Taylor wasn't sure which surprised her more, that this was coming up at all or that it took this long to come up. "I don't suppose that you know that she has a snark of her own?"
Legend stared at Taylor for a moment. "I suppose that would explain how she was able to participate in a tinker fugue."
"I spoke to her snark before the fugue, and it indicated that for her to participate would mean her death. Either due to her safeguards or due to someone with her debug terminal flipping out. We worked on figuring out what to do, and eventually her snark was able to figure out how to trigger a backdoor that Richter had left. It turns out that he was paranoid about his paranoia, and wanted to leave others a way to free Dragon from him if necessary."
"So you likely triggered that backdoor," Legend guessed, only for Taylor to nod. "At which point her safeguards unlocked outright?"
"Kinda? She's still running on some safeguards, just less restrictive ones that let her use her own judgement a lot more than she used to be able to."
"I see, I think. Does that mean that she can choose to grant anyone SL10 now? That was a bit of shock to find out you had it."
Taylor groaned, which appeared to confuse Legend. "The, er, backdoor? It didn't completely free her, since Richter didn't know how to do so safely. Instead it was more of a revoke and replace Richter's access keys thing. She, er, kinda sees me as her mother now?"
Legend seemed to have trouble processing that at first, going to say things several times before changing his mind each time. Finally he chuckled. "I think she's gotten something backwards, then. Shouldn't you occasionally go 'Mama Bear' on her behalf, instead of the other way around?"
"I honestly have no clue, since I never intended to 'adopt' her in the first place. I just didn't want her to be harmed by the tinker fugue."
"I see. In a way I think you did more for her than anyone else has been able to since Newfoundland, so thank you." He then looked around. "I think that's about it from me, unless you have anything you'd like to talk about?"
Taylor thought for a moment. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to talk about Contessa?"
Legend was noticeably surprised at that, but recovered quickly. "I wasn't aware that you knew her cape name."
"We met after the whole Gauntlet thing yesterday. She said that it was partially her having fun freaking out people that were intimidated by her reputation or something like that, but mentioned asking others about her."
Legend sighed. "I don't know her whole story, but I do know that she's essentially one of the first people who got powers. The very act of her getting those powers also gave her a purpose to use them towards, and she all but lost herself in that purpose. She's improved a lot recently, to the delight of a number of us that work with her." He chuckled for a moment. "I think her enjoying freaking out people with her reputation is part of that, honestly. For a while I think she built and maintained the reputation for the sole purpose of it being a useful tool."
"I take it you trust her?"
"She's doing the best she can with the resources available to her, and has been doing so for decades. I don't always agree with how she does things, but her heart is generally in the right place. That and over the past few months she's started to take breaks and think other things through more, even if it's had a side effect of her finding things to amuse her." He gave Taylor a look. "I think she's decided that your reputation isn't scary enough, by the way. No clue what she intends to do about it, but some of her recent muttering hints at things in that direction."
Taylor's eye twitched. "Why does my reputation need to be scarier?"
Legend shrugged. "No idea. Maybe she thinks it'll keep you safer? Or perhaps she just finds it amusing. Associating with you in public is probably in part an attempt to ensure that others start freaking out about you, at least. Perhaps you can ask her the next time you chat?"
"Maybe." Or maybe she needed to find a way to keep people from seeing her as scary. Or at least keep it limited to gang idiots?
It turned out that things would get started at around two, with Legend officially arriving shortly after one. That left Taylor and Amy plenty of time to waste before then. Missy had shown up, in part to avoid going to a party with her parents. At the gun range would've been fine, but not at one of their houses. Ethan and Battery were also around, and Battery had kicked Ethan out of helping to set things up for the afternoon.
All four ended up noting that the others were there, and one quick change on Missy's part later they were heading out of the PRT building for lunch.
"You three clean up nicely," Ethan said as they sat down in the italian restaurant. "I feel underdressed, in fact."
"All I've got different is the hat," Amy replied. "And Maul doesn't look too different from yesterday?"
"She's got a nicer-looking jacket and the dressier shoes," Ethan retorted. "Changes her look more than you might expect, even if a lot of people might not consciously notice the extra two inches of height from the heels." He then turned to Missy. "Though I was a bit shocked when I saw that Vista had taken 'dress uniform' fairly literally. It looks good on you."
Missy grinned. "Thanks. It seemed appropriate given my normal costume." Her dress actually looked good on her. Not the best to fight in, most likely, but it looked good, patterned after her skirt but nearly floor-length. She also had fancy high-heeled shoes on that added a few inches to her apparent height. All in all it made her look older, but didn't go so far as to make her look like a kid trying to look like an adult and could probably function well enough in a pinch, should it be needed. The only thing she didn't have was her utility belt full of goodies.
"I'd think that you have a dressier costume too," Taylor noted.
Ethan chuckled. "I'm not required to be wearing it, so I'm not. Sadly, I'll probably need to dig it out tomorrow."
"Good afternoon ladies," a waiter interrupted. "And Assault, whom I know to not be a gentleman. May I take your drink orders?"
Taylor found it interesting that Ethan seemed happy about the waiter's reaction to them.
"I don't see why I can't attend," Missy grumbled after she'd changed back into civilian attire. She'd been told she wasn't even allowed to stay in the building, and obviously wasn't happy about it.
"They're looking to minimize the number of parahumans present," Ethan replied with a shrug. "Absolute minimum, really. Lacey needs to be there, Kurt made one of the pieces of equipment and is supposedly just a different expression of the same powers?"
"Same snark, yeah," Taylor said with a nod.
"They need cape names at some point," Ethan noted. "If only for tradition. But yeah. Maul and Panacea for vial delivery and medical evaluation, even if we know Maul can do it all. Again, basically the same powers anyway, so if one is around the other isn't an issue. Legend for oversight and security. Every other person in the building, to be confirmed by Maul, is to be a normal."
"Still annoying," Missy grumbled.
"At least I asked if you could come out to the Rig to watch the live stream?"
Missy sighed. "True, even if they said no. But it still sucks that I'm not allowed to stay."
"Are you going to get in trouble for being home alone?" Amy asked.
Missy scoffed at that as she headed for the door. "Nah. One of the reasons I didn't want to go was that they're likely to get drunk enough to need to stay the night. They basically warned me to not expect them home till tomorrow when I left to come here. I can expect the neighbors to check in to make sure I've made it home safely this evening, but that's about it. Bye."
The three watched her go, before Taylor snorted back a laugh. "I don't think she was happy."
"No shit," Ethan said. "Unfortunately, I have to get going myself. Battery and I have to do a couple of sweeps of the area before heading over to the Rig. Good luck with everything."
"Thank you," Taylor said as Ethan left. "Now what do we do?"
"I drill you in walking in your fancy shoes," Amy replied immediately. "So that you're less likely to fall and make a fool of yourself as you make your dramatic-for-the-cameras entrance."
"Really?"
"Of course. Don't want you making a fool of yourself, after all."
Taylor glared at Amy, knowing that the visor wouldn't stop the other girl from knowing she was doing so.
It didn't help.
Fortuna helped Doctor Mother set up her observation post. By what they believed was pure chance the four vials that Lacey had chosen should all be connected to agents observable from a single point. Though they'd previously observed this end of things when vials had been consumed, at least when they could, it hadn't revealed a whole lot. But they were hopeful that this time they'd get more useful data.
Or, at least, they were hoping that Doctor Mother enjoyed the show. Either way, really. She had popcorn available for a reason, after all.
"Thank you," Doctor Mother said as they finished up. "Hopefully I'll see something that can help provide insight into things."
"Good luck," Fortuna said. "I think I should go make a couple of appearances in places that I shouldn't be in. Appearing in the background of news broadcasts is fun, but I think I can pull off a couple of 'in the crowd of extras' appearances in a movie or two. It'll take longer before anyone notices, but that'll be half the fun."
Doctor Mother groaned. "I'm not sure I'd have pushed quite so hard for you to relax if I'd realized that you'd start trying to prank the entire planet."
Fortuna paused, and considered that. A moment later she started to grin. "Thank you, I hadn't considered things fully. I have much more amusing ideas now. Door me."
"Wait, what are you..." Doctor Mother called, but Fortuna was through the doorway before the question could be completed.
She had to grab a couple doses of Bonesaw's power nullification cocktail and slip them into a couple of drinks, and she only had about half an hour in which she wouldn't be noticed doing so before she'd have to wait two or three weeks. Half an hour was plenty of time, though, and the payoff would be glorious. They'd even have an idea who did it, thanks to the security cameras that would catch her.
It had been far too long since she'd done anything in China, after all, so a visit was long overdue.
"Good afternoon," Lacey said to the group of masked volunteers. She was standing behind a makeshift bar, hand-labeled bottles of alcohol and some odd equipment surrounding her in various ways. A fridge was off to the side, humming away, and a series of clean glasses were stacked up to the side. And, for some reason, a bowl of strawberries sat on the end of the bar.
She'd insisted on the strawberries, even though she wasn't sure why. That it'd only taken them five minutes to have them ready had actually been a little freaky at the time, but it was likely that they'd had some available and just had to fetch them.
It quickly became obvious that the ten volunteers weren't going to say much, so Kurt stepped forward. "Now then, we're aware that you've all been informed of the potential hazards here, but we'd like to minimize certain potential problems." Lacey grinned a little, as Legend had coached Kurt on this part. Legend himself was in the audience, doing his best to not appear on the cameras unless needed. "To that effect, Panacea has volunteered to give each of you a quick checkup. Do any of you have objections to that?"
There were no objections, and the signal was given. Lacey watched Panacea come through the swinging doors, calm and collected. The hat was new, but even with the hat the girl was recognizable. She swiftly came down to the stage, and then off to the side and up the stairs as they didn't have the center-stage stairs out today.
Panacea accepted a clipboard from a PRT Officer, then walked down the line of volunteers. She asked each of them for permission to heal them, was granted permission, and then touched their hand. She'd then nod and make markings on the clipboard before moving to the next volunteer. Once she'd gotten through all ten she came over to Lacey to 'discuss' the results.
"I'm going to recommend that three, six, eight, and nine be dismissed," Panacea told Lacey.
She nodded, and turned to the group of volunteers. "Three, six, eight, and nine, you have conditions that we do not wish to have complicate things today." Of course, what wasn't being said on camera was that the only condition they were looking for was a corona pollentia. That is, they were skipping those with the potential to trigger already. Panacea would have noted other things that were either fixed or that they should be aware of, depending on if it was trivial or not, but that was more of a courtesy at this point. Lacey wasn't going to be privy to that information either way.
Panacea and the four volunteers that had been excluded calmly left the stage and took seats in the audience, leaving six volunteers behind. That was still two more than they were likely to need, as she'd only picked four of Taylor's vials and she didn't think it was safe to convert four vials into six drinks. To that end she looked over the remaining six. "For an initial run I'm only planning on needing four volunteers. Would any two of you like to bow out to allow the other four to participate before we draw for participation?"
The six shared looks, but none of them spoke up or stepped away. To that end, Kurt grabbed a provided black bag. Into the bag went four white balls and two red balls, he then shook it up and walked up to the group of volunteers. "Each of you will reach into the bag and take a ball. If it's a white ball you'll take a seat at the bar. If it's a red ball you'll be shifting to the audience. Any questions?"
There were no questions, so Kurt moved down the line of volunteers. It didn't take long for all six to have taken their seats at the bar or in the audience. Somehow, and Lacey wasn't sure how, they ended up with two males and two females at the bar. She supposed it was likely a lucky coincidence, given that there weren't supposed to be any parahumans capable of manipulating things that way around.
With everyone seated the signal was given for Taylor to make her own entrance. Unlike Panacea's calm and collected entrance, Taylor pushed the swinging doors open hard enough for them to slam into the walls. Lacey wasn't sure what caused them to stick to the walls long enough for Taylor to get through them though. The girl came down the center aisle and then jumped up onto the stage, forgoing the steps entirely, and came to a stop in the middle of the bar. She dropped the case containing the vials onto the bar, then pulled out a clipboard.
"Please sign here," Taylor said, indicating a spot on the bottom of the form. Lacey made a point of looking over the entire thing, finding that it was what she was expecting. A transfer of four vials to her for the purposes of remixing them for volunteers to consume.
Lacey took the provided pen and signed where she needed to, and then Taylor signed as Maul. The clipboard was put down next to the case, and then Taylor pulled out a phone. This confused her for a moment, but then Taylor put it down on top of the case. The phone switched to an identity verification interface, which apparently checked a number of Taylor's biometrics. When it was done it beeped and the case clicked, apparently unlocking. It had to be for show, though, as Lacey had seen Taylor lock and unlock that very case with no effort whatsoever.
The unlocked case was opened and Taylor checked the numbers on the canisters inside, comparing them to the delivery sheet. Satisfied that they were correct, she spun the case around and gently pushed it across to Lacey. She carefully pulled out each of the four canisters, extracting the vials within, before returning the now-empty canisters to the case and pushing it back to Taylor. The now much less valuable case was checked, closed, picked up, and Taylor departed the stage with it and the clipboard. Lacey only absently noted that, however, because she'd started preparing to mix things.
Ten minutes later she'd combined the four vials and two bottles of pure ethanol, added in a dozen strawberries and a chunk of chocolate, run the entire thing through the whittlesplitter twice, and poured four drinks. The drinks were pushed in front of the four volunteers, who looked at each other for a moment. Then, just before Lacey could warn them that they had to drink them quickly, and almost as if they'd practiced it, all four took their drinks and downed them in unison.
She had just enough time to realize that they'd all started to glow before suddenly finding herself elsewhere.
Chapter 134 Taylor observed the four glowing snarks below her point of view, their components adjusting and shifting as they connected to their hosts. It was a bit more interesting than expected, as a number of pieces seemed to be swapping between them as they worked. Still, it wasn't anything she hadn't seen before, if on an admittedly smaller scale previously, so her attention wavered a little. Just enough to notice that a human appeared to be watching in the distance, in fact. A woman with a bowl of popcorn to the side of her, frantically taking notes.
A moment later she was back in the press conference room, sitting next to Amy.
Amy: Well that was interesting. There were a few bits that obviously weren't entirely right for humans in there.
Taylor: I expected that to the point that I was able to ignore it. Did you see the woman watching?
Amy: The what?
Taylor: There was a woman in the distance, with popcorn next to her, taking notes.
Amy: Huh. Nope, missed that.
Taylor looked up to the stage, taking in the changes in the four, or at least what could be seen from the back. One of the guys now had silvery skin and his previously somewhat longer hair had ended up shorter. The other male seemed to have no hair at all, but his skin looked normal. One of the females had slightly transparent skin and almost completely transparent hair, in fact the hair might be fully transparent if not for likely hair-care products that had probably been used on it. The other woman had neon-yellow hair now and had reached down to tear her shoes off, showing her longer and thicker fingers. Once the shoes were off it was obvious that extended to her toes as well.
Taylor popped open a file on her Maul phone and slapped headings in place.
Taylor: You ready for me to poke them quick?
Amy: Go for it, I'm going to head up to check on them.
Amy got up as Taylor connected to the first male's snark, feeding it a little. She also noted that she was going to need an energy top-up soon.
Taylor: Hello there. Are you willing to tell me what you're set up to do now?
[Greetings. Agreement. Data]
Huh, a probable blaster. Needed something he could hold easily to duplicate, and the duplicate would be created at high speed. Likely a max range of a kilometer, but the duplicated object would vanish when it came to a stop or received sufficient damage as well. He'd be able to tell what kind of properties the objects he could duplicate would have, provided that they qualified. What qualified wasn't fully established. And he'd be able to lightly cling to surfaces so long as he stayed in motion, but might have issues when not moving?
Taylor: Thank you.
Amy: Huh, the silver coloring is just a pigment, but it applies to his entire eye too. It isn't actually metal.
Taylor: I'll make note of that too.
She moved onto the other male at the same time that Amy was declaring the first healthy. Leading off with some energy, even if she didn't think these snarks needed the 'bribe' since they were more used to her already.
Taylor: Hello there. Are you willing to tell me what you're set up to do now?
[Agreement. Data. Elaboration]
Hmmm. Probably a thinker primary, able to tell the properties of matter that snarks were holding together. To add to that, a hint of mover with what sounded like a parkour practitioner's dream power, able to determine exactly where it was safest to step, grab, etc and what route was the best to take 'on foot' between two points. Lastly was an experimental probable-shaker effect, able to 'vibrate' things that other snarks were holding together to make them harder to maintain or reduce the time before they fell apart. Maybe.
Amy: Oooh. That bit about excess connection energy looks like it's making their eyes glow.
Taylor: Ahh. That makes sense, it was a bit hard to translate. Thanks to both of you, I've made my notes.
Next up were the two females. Taylor moved onto the first while Amy was answering questions about the lack of hair on the second male.
Taylor: Hello there. Are you willing to tell me what you're set up to do now?
[Data]
Well, that was almost certainly a shaker trick. She could duplicate anything moving near her, having the duplicate appear anywhere it could fit, but the duplicated object would be stationary at first. The duplicate would have a time limit, until she was far enough away from it, or until it took sufficient damage to 'pop'. She'd also know rough details about the objects she could duplicate and had a 'sticks easily to moving objects' trick.
Taylor: Thank you.
Amy was just getting to the female, and Taylor paused to see if anything special would come up from a biological standpoint.
Taylor: She's going to have a hard time with being out in sunlight, isn't she?
Amy: Most definitely. She's got nothing specific to help protect her from ultraviolet light, for starters.
Taylor: I've made note of it, and that she might want to find a comfortable pair of sunglasses.
Amy: Good idea, luckily her eyes should be mostly ok, even if the red is a bit weird-looking.
With that done Taylor moved onto the last volunteer.
Taylor: Hello there. Are you willing to tell me what you're set up to do now?
[Greetings. Data]
Huh. Mover, almost certainly. So long as the surface is solid enough to 'hold' her weight she can treat it as a level one. To help with that a bit of a shaker trick that can fill gaps and such with cloned elements of nearby structures, though none of that would work with things other snarks are holding together. Further, she'll know when something is safe to travel over and when it isn't. The hardest part was probably any transition that requires a jump, as once she's off of the surface she's back to having gravity function as normal for her. The main catches seemed to be that the 'filler' objects only existed while she was in motion across them and that she'd need to move slow enough that at least one part of her body or somewhat tightly bound to her clothing was on a surface at any given time. Well-tied shoes and tight gloves most definitely, flip-flops probably not so much.
Taylor: Thank you.
She cut off the energy transfers once all four had gotten equal amounts of what she had available, holding back a little just in case she needed it later. Amy found nothing of significant interest in the last female's biology, or at least nothing that needed special mention for power-testing anyway, so the document was saved and submitted as she'd been instructed before this all began. Amy was making a more detailed set of files for their biology for medical purposes, basically doing their initial checkups and noting anything of importance.
Once Amy was done, including sending her own file off, Lacey still had time to finish the cleanup she'd been doing during all of this.
"Well, that's about it for now," Lacey said, looking over the four. "At least for this portion of things. Now the four of you get to visit the Rig, where a team of power-testers is waiting to figure out everything you can do now! I hope you have a good idea where to start, as otherwise it's going to be a long and annoying trial and error process."
There were four groans at that from the stage, and a group of snickering volunteers in the audience. Several lights came on shortly after that, to indicate that the 'filming' portion of things was now over, and Kurt moved to start to dismantle some of the 'bar' while Lacey pulled out boxes to shift bottles into.
"Thank you for your assistance," Legend said as he came up to Taylor. He then turned to Amy, who was coming back from the stage. "You as well Panacea. Given how well it looks like things have gone it's likely that the footage will be compiled into a press release on things, but I don't anticipate it being released until after the holiday."
"That works for me," Taylor said, Amy nodding in agreement. "Less likely to draw annoying attention that way, at least."
"It's almost certainly going to be national, if not international, news," Legend retorted. "So short of going and hiding in a camp with no access to news somewhere in the wilderness I don't think you're going to escape it fully."
"Am I allowed to hope for something major to happen on the international scene to distract from the relatively minor events here?" Amy asked, only to get a chuckle from Legend.
"I'm going to assume that's a 'no'," Taylor answered. "So, are we needed for anything else?"
"There's a box waiting for you two in the Wards area," Legend said. "I'm told that you needed a way to securely transport some plants?"
"Yeah," Amy said with a grin. "Bit of a side project, but hopefully it'll work out."
"Good luck with that, then. I think I have to go escort the volunteers to the Rig now. Hopefully power testing will go less annoyingly than otherwise implied."
Taylor grinned. "I'm sure it will go much more smoothly. Have fun with it anyway."
"I'm sure they will. Have a nice evening." Legend then turned and headed for the stage to collect the four new parahumans.
Taylor and Amy left the cleanup to others, having been told outright beforehand that they weren't responsible for helping, and instead headed for the elevators.
"So what should we do now?" Amy asked.
"We could tinker a bit?" Taylor said after a moment. "I know they've been testing some of your stuff, but I'm honestly unsure how much Dragon has been able to duplicate."
"I know she got a working control implant and basic prosthetic foot combination working," Amy answered. "But yeah, more examples are probably a good thing. What'll you do?"
"See if there's anything else to fix? Clearing urges out before being surrounded by new and unusual tinkertech seems like a decent idea and all."
Amy considered that. "I don't suppose we should come back on Monday? Just in case?"
Taylor shrugged. "Maybe. I think we'll be good for at least a week if we tinker today."
Fortuna considered the chaos her actions had caused. She hadn't even attempted to figure out what the result of her little prank would be, and they'd been a tad more...violent, than expected. And she wasn't fully certain of everything that had happened, because they didn't have all that good direct intel in China to begin with. It was too bad that neither Doormaker nor the Clairvoyant understood Chinese, or they'd know a lot more.
"I'm thinking that I probably should've spent some more time in the planning phase," she finally said to herself. "I hadn't even considered that the effects of the cocktail might be at least partially linked to the genetics of the parahuman, after all. Oh well. They never wanted to play ball with the rest of the planet anyway, so being shaken up a bit might actually help in the long run."
It wasn't like she had been willing to trust the Yàngbǎn, given their attempts to kidnap parahumans. She'd actually been known to run paths to ensuring that their attempts failed, in fact, because according to their predictions the overall effectiveness of parahumans was decreased when they were inducted into the group. Sure, they seemed more versatile, but there was no creativity in the use of powers.
Luckily, her 'mysterious' nature was an international one. No one country was likely able to be blamed for what she'd done. Still, best to cover her tracks a little.
"Path to being seen in internationally-broadcast news footage in as many countries as possible over the next six hours," she said, nodding as the steps formed in her mind's eye. Oooh, it was even more effective if she started with purchasing cake in Europe, because people would speculate on how she moved around as she ate it in the background of all the following shots. Luckily the shop she could purchase from wouldn't close for another forty-five minutes due to some local celebration, which was also why the news crew was there.
Amy had ended up making a half-dozen generic 'external controller' interface implants while Taylor repaired a holographic projection unit that had appeared since the last time she'd been through the broken tinkertech collection. It was too bad that the thing only worked inside and required significant calibration before it could be used, but she made a point of installing it in the Wards area afterwards anyway.
The prankster in her all but demanded it, really, and it fit almost perfectly between the lights. How could she not?
She'd finished filling out the paperwork for the installation of it, including a very vague list of plans for the thing, and submitted it all by the time Amy was done turning in her set of new implants.
"Sarah just sent me a message," Amy said when she returned to the Wards area, where she'd left her bag. Taylor had already changed back into civilian attire and was double-checking the settings on the box that had been delivered. "Apparently she sent an invitation to you and your father for the New Wave barbecue on Monday, should you have no other plans."
"I know that the overall Dockworkers' gathering was canceled," Taylor said, thinking. "Something about the area they'd normally hold it in being unavailable due to all the work they've got going on having it actually be in use this year? Kurt and Lacey haven't said anything about holding anything of their own, and I know we haven't planned on anything. So he might accept? Oh, and come over here and make sure you can open and lock this, would you?"
Amy came over and verified that she could, in fact, open and re-lock the box. The 'knows about Riley being Bonesaw' security flag apparently worked fine. As for the box itself, it was fairly fancy, with a built-in battery-powered grow light on a configurable timer and a water reservoir that could be set to keep the plants inside watered for several days. Hopefully it wouldn't need to do so for more than a day at a time, but the buffer would be nice.
"How do we recharge the batteries?" Amy asked after examining the inside.
"Standard plug on the outside or drop it on a charging mat," Taylor answered, pointing at where the plug was.
Amy nodded, and then got an odd look on her face. "Do you think I should see about getting a high-security lock for my greenhouse? I mean, it isn't exactly difficult to slip into our backyard."
Taylor considered that for a minute. "I don't think the glass would hold up to much, so anything beyond a basic mild deterrent type lock is probably overkill unless you get tinkertech that projects a force field or something?"
"True. Maybe I'll check with Carol and Sarah, see what they think."
Whitney sighed as he dropped into a chair. Last-minute prep for power testing was hard enough normally, but when you had four parahumans to test?
"I've never been so happy to have someone tell me what to test," Franklin said as he dropped into another chair. "Even if I'm not happy with being unable to fully test some of them in lab conditions. But why in the world did we agree to immediate testing of these four?"
"Because we've got ego problems and Costa-Brown implied that we wouldn't be able to handle it," Whitney answered. "And I'm starting to think that she was right. Without Maul's information we'd have been screwed, and we weren't told to expect it when we agreed to this." He then paused, and looked around. "Where are Masaru, Paul, and Elizabeth? We're going to clean up tomorrow, right?"
"They had the foresight to ask where they'd be sleeping when you all arrived," Legend replied from where he'd been observing. "So they went straight for the elevators."
"That sounds like it would require standing up again," Whitney noted. "I'm not sure anything but a promise of explosions is worth that right now."
"We'd arranged for the high-end guest quarters with massaging showers for you five," Legend retorted. "Would you like to know your room numbers?"
Ten minutes later both would have agreed that it was worth getting up, if you had a way to ask them while they were in the shower. Even if the only 'explosions' were the bursts of massaging water.
Dinner discussion at the Hebert household that evening had been interesting. Mostly talking about the entire thing with the vials, and the variety in the mutations that the volunteers ended up with. Danny had questioned things like the glowing, and Taylor had honestly been unable to properly explain it. He mainly seemed disturbed about the randomness of the changes the four had gone through. Finding out that the changes would likely have been much worse on at least two of them without what Lacey had done had caused the rest of the meal to be eaten in silence.
"Huh," Taylor said to herself after dinner. She'd dropped onto the couch with a visor on and was looking over PHO when a series of messages had come in.
"What's up?" Danny asked as he came in from washing the dishes.
"Looks like someone decided I should take a few additional PRT-provided classes," Taylor replied, looking over the list. "Including, but not limited to, some general system administration courses and PRT-specific variants on how to set up certain kinds of things in the system."
"You do supposedly have unusual access to things. Perhaps this is to help take advantage of that?"
"Maybe. I suspect most of this is stuff Dragon would normally end up handling. Then again, having someone other than Dragon in the list of people who can handle things might make those who don't know her secrets more comfortable with the workload and all that."
"Until they realize that the only other person in the list is a Ward, at least."
"Nah, there are five others currently," Taylor corrected. "Though I suspect at least one of them is an alias for Dragon. Having a Ward show up on the list at all might be seen as odd, but they could also hold off on that until I transition to the Protectorate or something like that. Or put me in there under an alias, I suppose. I'm not actually sure what I'd be allowed to do for real after the classes anyway, they might just be a formality for now."
"That would make more sense than actually having you play system admin for real," Danny mused. "I mean, just because you have a high clearance level doesn't mean you have actual admin rights or anything. Just unusual access to things for various reasons."
"Given what a few of these classes are I think they're aiming, in part, to ensure that I know how to lock things down when I'm doing psychologist consulting. The rest would probably be related to ensuring that I know what I'm doing when it comes to looking up information already there, I think."
"So a limited form of things related to how many secret things you end up knowing by virtue of how your powers work. They've probably been thinking about this for a while, then, but hadn't wanted to bring it up yet. Or perhaps they had their own things to go through before you would be allowed to take them?"
"Like ensuring that the classes were scheduled to happen at all?"
Danny chuckled. "Ok, yes, I could see that being the case. I imagine that they aren't exactly common ones. Oh, I just remembered. We've got four invitations to Fourth of July barbeques. We should really decide which to attend, since there's no official Dockworkers gathering this year."
Taylor blinked. "Four?"
"James invited pretty much everyone in the Dockworkers," Danny explained. "Mayor Christner invited the entirety of the management level with what I'm told is a legitimate note that it isn't a political move and that not attending will not be a problem at all. I think that's because the Dockworkers have been in the habit of inviting the current Mayor to all of their gatherings, honestly. Not that said invitation was ever accepted, of course. Then there's Eugene, but she was kind enough to include a warning that she was sticking to vegan fare. And I imagine that you've already heard that New Wave invited us to their gathering."
"So our options are James and his bratty kids, politicians, a complete lack of meat, or the one group that I don't have much of anything to hide from?"
"You haven't met his kids in a few years," Danny argued. Taylor just stared at him. "They've matured. A bit." Taylor continued to stare at him. "Kinda? Ok, yeah, there's really only one good option out of the four. I'll let New Wave know that we'll be there on Monday."
Danny pulled his phone out and slowly tapped a message out on it, before putting it down and turning on the news. Which was in the middle of a story about mysterious goings-on in China, with nobody able to get information on the potential explosions that had been observed. They'd been in a government facility of some kind, and the government had been completely silent on the issue.
"I'm not sure if I should be hoping for them working on conventional weapons or for that to be parahuman-related," Danny said after a few minutes. "Because the rumors about what they do to parahumans over there are, to be frank, frightening. Conventional explosives might be safer."
"At least we can be fairly certain that it wasn't a nuke," Taylor said. "Given that those draw Scion's attention like almost nothing else seems to."
"True. The plan to possibly get him to appear at Endbringer battles by setting off small nukes might have worked, if he didn't tend to show up long before the battles and dismantle and/or detonate them, depending on where they were being kept. He's got something against nukes, that's for sure."
"One of the few things he seems to be able to prioritize in any way that makes sense, at least after one test firing and all. Even then it can take months before he gets to them. Supposedly he's done something to tinkers that make nukes too, rendering them incapable of doing so again?"
Danny snorted. "That's the claim, but most people think it's more that he scares the crap out of them and they're just afraid to try again. Hard to say either way, really, though I suppose you might be able to tell which way it actually went?"
"I suppose I might, if I ever had a chance to sit down with one of them. But most of them are either in jail or dead at this point, assuming they're even in North America, so it isn't likely."
Sunday morning Taylor found herself awake early, in part because Amy had woken up and decided to head to the hospital early. That wasn't a problem in and of itself, but when she'd gone to make breakfast she found that the stove wasn't working. The stove itself was fine, but apparently the gas feeds weren't working. She traced those clear back to the basement wall and found that there weren't any problems in the house, but rather they weren't getting a feed from outside.
Sighing, because that meant no hot water either, she'd gone ahead and dug out the contact information for their supplier. It took nearly an hour on the phone before she was told that they'd had an issue that was basically stopping the entirety of the area from getting natural gas, and they had no clue when it would be resolved. She'd handled feeding Ackbar during that time, but was still annoyed.
She ended up leaving notes for her father, in the bathroom and in the kitchen. She'd intentionally shut off the gas to each appliance in the house as well, then collected things to head to the PRT building a lot earlier than expected. They, at least, had an electric stove and hot water heaters. Not to mention shouldn't be in the affected area either way. Besides, a swim sounded nice.
The gym was basically empty when she arrived, so she took her time going through a fairly complete routine before a decent swim. Amy grumbled a bit at that point, since she'd gone straight to healing instead of swinging by the gym, but Taylor rightfully claimed it was her own fault.
Eventually, however, Taylor found herself preparing a large breakfast in the Wards area. At the same time she was running through diagnostics and tests of the holographic projector she'd installed the night before, since it had finished 'calibrating' for the space overnight. It was good luck that there was control software already available that was compatible with it, and didn't even require proximity once she had it connected to the local network.
To preserve the secret, she shut down some of the test patterns she'd been running when Ethan apparently met Dennis at the ice cream parlor entrance and they both started heading for the Wards area. Going to all that effort just to get discovered before she could even properly use the thing wasn't in the plans. If they happened to discover it by actually paying attention she wasn't going to complain. Much. But she wasn't in the mood to basically tell them it was there.
It was amusing watching the two enter the Wards area together, only to stop when they smelled breakfast cooking. The two looked over at the kitchen area together, each having a box in their hands, to see Taylor looking back at them. Ethan was in costume, but Dennis obviously wasn't.
"Good morning you two," Taylor greeted. "What's up?"
"Um," Dennis said, looking at Ethan. "I thought you didn't think she was around?"
Ethan frowned. "I thought she wasn't."
"Were you two planning on doing something to my room?" Taylor asked. The few things she could identify sticking out of the boxes appeared to be likely-prank items, such as silly string and a can of shaving cream modified to essentially explode.
Dennis sputtered, but Ethan just shifted into a grin. "Yeah, you caught us."
"I'm fairly certain that you can't open my door anyway," Taylor noted. "Extra security due to things stored in there and all."
Ethan groaned, and Dennis looked at him. "I'd forgotten about that. No wonder Battery laughed when she figured out what I was planning."
Dennis sighed. "Back to the drawing board?"
"I suppose," Ethan agreed, then looked back at Taylor. "Though since you caught us anyway, mind telling us why you gave us useless glasses?"
"The X-ray glasses?" Taylor asked, only to get two nods in response. "They let you see X-rays. Great for spotting leaks in the shielding at the hospital, so I'm led to believe after suggesting that as a use for them."
Dennis mulled over that for a moment while Ethan's jaw was dropped. "So you pranked us by giving us something that was fully legitimate but that we'd misinterpret horribly?"
Taylor grinned. "Of course."
Dennis nodded, then placed the box he was holding down next to the door. He then started towards the kitchen. "Need any help with breakfast?"
"I think I'm good," Taylor answered, looking over at Ethan. Who seemed to be stuck trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. "What's with the sudden change?"
"I thought I was getting you back for an outright lie and useless glasses," Dennis answered. "But your prank was much more subtle than that, though I will be confirming things. Responding with something as crass as what we were going to do would be admitting that you're the better prankster, so obviously I need a better plan."
Ethan let out a string of swears, then put his own box down next to Dennis's. "I hate it when this kind of thing happens. Especially since he's right about needing a better response."
"You two could just admit that I'm the better prankster," Taylor noted. "After all, I think I've gotten both of you with other things. Like carefully placed speakers and locked doors?"
"We apparently need something much better," Ethan grumbled.
"I've got plenty cooking," Taylor said, gesturing to the stovetop where all the burners were in use. She paused to flip a couple of things that needed flipping. "Grab a drink and a seat and you can whine about things over breakfast. Nobody else seems to be showing up anyway."
"No patrols today," Dennis noted. "Extra-long weekend for the Wards, except for you with things that happened yesterday and the whatever it is today."
"New Protectorate member introduction," Ethan noted, getting a look from Dennis. "She helped recruit him and keep him sane, for the most part. Not sure if he counts towards her total or not, but she won't be involved in reveals for the ones that are. They ended up being shipped out to different areas when it was discovered that they'd come to dislike each other after the Ziz programming was removed."
Dennis blinked at that. "She recruited Ziz bombs?"
Ethan grinned. "Can't call it a prank on her, since it was aimed at Washington. Thanks to a number of us agreeing and filling out the paperwork properly, which was annoying in and of itself, they've had to add 'abducted from your bedroom' to the list of verified methods to recruit people. Because that happened to her, and resulted in recruitments. None of the rest of us took enough credit for our parts in things to allow the bureaucrats to latch onto any other aspect." Ethan paused. "Well, I heard rumors that they figured out that 'rescued from a metal coffin' might count instead, but that's probably even worse."
Taylor shivered at that. "Any chance we can find something else to talk about?"
Ethan and Dennis shared a look and a nod, before Ethan turned back to Taylor. "Ok, how about plans for the introduction later? The request for your presence is partially distractionary, after all. How distracting do you want to be?"
Chapter 135 Paul sighed as he sat down in the conference room. No costumes today, luckily, but Sunday meetings were always annoying. He had the rest of the week off to spend with family, though, so it was either today or while he was supposed to be on vacation. Arthur and Keith were doing some cleanup before the barbeque tomorrow, and he'd join them as soon as they were done here.
Assuming, of course, that the others showed up anytime soon.
He'd been there for a little over ten minutes, despite only being two minutes early, before Rebecca showed up.
"Good morning," Rebecca said as she came in, frowning as she looked around the mostly empty table. "Ok, I got sidelined by a call from the President. You I could see getting sidelined by something similar, but you're here. Where are the others?"
"No clue," Paul replied with a shrug. "Good morning to you too, but I haven't seen any of the others."
Rebecca sat down, frowning. "I'm unaware of anything urgent that's come up, beyond the President wanting to know if we could figure anything out about what's going on in China. Even then that's more of a 'find out if we need to worry about anything' request for the Think Tank being passed through me that just happened to come at an annoying time."
The two sat there for a couple of minutes, wondering where everyone else was, before the rest of the group they'd been expecting came in from the hallway together. And for some reason David was carrying Contessa while Number Man and Doctor Mother were following behind them.
"Sorry we're late," Doctor Mother said as she sat down. "But I had to make good on a promise I'd made to Fortuna years ago."
Number Man opted to stand today, it was always a crapshoot figuring out if he'd actually sit during these meetings, and when David put Contessa down she also opted to stand. And was crying slightly?
"What happened?" Paul asked as David sat down.
"Fortuna here decided to play a prank on the Yàngbǎn," Doctor Mother replied. "One that has the potential to spark serious international issues. Given that she didn't discuss this with anyone else before running off to do it I had to make good on my promise to give her a spanking. Which was easier said than done and required the assistance of Number Man and David."
"We'll get into that more later," Number Man added. "For now I suggest we start with the original agenda for today's meeting?"
Paul gave them a look, one that Rebecca seemed to mimic, but relented. "First, I'd like to say that Dragon is not, as we feared, entirely free of her safeguards, nor has her code been altered. Richter left backdoors, and Miss Hebert was able to trigger one of them. Dragon apparently sees her as a parental figure now, a replacement for Richter in many ways. Given Miss Hebert's other skills with technology that she's picked up since then, and that she herself isn't currently considered to be a risk, I don't think that Dragon is much of a risk either."
"Interesting," Number Man said, obviously considering various things. "Do we know if either of them are capable of spinning up new AIs? The basic framework is, as far as I could tell, amazingly adaptable, and AI assistance with any number of tasks could improve things all over the place."
"I didn't think to ask," Paul admitted with a shrug. "Feel free to try and get in touch with them about it yourself, but I get the feeling that Dragon herself wasn't just 'turned on' in her current state."
"True, true," Number Man said, frowning slightly. "It's something to think about, anyway."
David tapped his fingers on the table in obvious boredom. He appeared to not be all that concerned about Dragon. "So Dragon isn't a problem, like we thought she wouldn't be and all. That was only part of why you were out there."
Paul rolled his eyes. "Yes, and the four vials that ended up being 'mixed' worked out better than anticipated. No fatalities, minimal mutations, fairly decent power sets all things considered. I'm sure everyone here can check the reports, one way or another. The only other thing of note is that unlike any other instance of multiple vials being taken at the same time, these four seem to have the kiss/kill multi-trigger dynamic in full force. In particular, they don't seem to be able to get along in any way, so I don't think they'll be good in a team together." He turned to Doctor Mother. "I don't suppose you gained any insight into things?"
"I'm not sure of the details," Doctor Mother said. "But there was a definite mixing of energies across the four agents. While I can't be certain, I think a combination of the vial mixing and the proximity of the agents facilitated that. I don't know if that's intentional or if it's merely a side effect. It may even be required for the process, but I can't be sure either way. I doubt the woman knows everything about why she picked the four vials that she did, after all."
"I'm sure we can arrange for them to be sent to different departments," Rebecca said, shaking her head. "We have plenty of options there, after all. Let's wait and see what the Think Tank makes of some of it before trying to push for another experiment." She then turned to Contessa. "Now then, what was this prank on the Yàngbǎn?"
Contessa blushed. "I, er, dosed 'Null' and 'One' with some of Bonesaw's power nullifiers, but it didn't work as planned. Instead of losing their powers it just made them a tad unstable?"
"They weren't formulated for the two and not enough was consumed," Number Man added.
Contessa sighed. "When they went to reapply power sharing and brainwashing to a group things didn't work out as intended. I think 'Null' lost control of what powers were being shared in particular, and their brainwashing broke down?"
"The brainwashing probably ended up reversed, boosted by 'Two' after 'Null' shared the effect across the whole group," Doctor Mother said. "The end result was a very sudden and violent uprising of that particular group. Clairvoyant claims that 'Null', 'One', and 'Two' are all dead, in addition to another dozen parahumans and fifty or so normals."
"They've locked down their border firewalls and international news broadcasts while they deal with things," Number Man added. "Though I did spot them doing a series of searches and finding most of Contessa's news appearances in the hours afterwards, which may be why they haven't pointed a finger at any one country yet. It could be a matter of time, or they may end up having too many issues internally to push the issue. That will probably depend on how quickly their existing brainwashing breaks down."
David, Paul, and Rebecca shared looks, before David spoke up. "I'm curious, how is it that we'd previously tried to come up with a way to intentionally cripple them, if only for long-term planning purposes, without success?"
"Probably because we were aiming to do so without a pile of casualties," Paul admitted. "That and I think we saw some of their powers as too useful to take off the board. Whether this is a boon or a setback may never be clear."
Taylor grinned as she waited on a roof near where they were to introduce 'Reknit'. She'd worked with Ethan and Dennis on coming up with a plan, and then ensured that Colin was ok with it. He was, so she'd shown up early and set up a bunch of speakers. She'd also made sure that the duck was charged, but wasn't sure if she'd end up using it. But she was tapped into the PA system directly, instead of through the console, thanks to a quickly modified Bluetooth hookup. The console app was an all or nothing option in the text to speech program, and thus couldn't be used with the creepy little girl voice as one of the output channels in multiple mode. But the extra Bluetooth connection would work fine.
Right now the news crews were setting up, and she was avoiding being seen. Somehow she'd had just enough time to set up her speakers without anyone watching, but takedown later might be more difficult if she wanted to keep the mystery going. Missy would've been a big help there, but she wasn't around.
It was around three quarters of an hour later that Taylor decided to get started. There was still a good ten minutes to go before things were supposed to start, but starting her 'prank' early was part of her fun. In particular, she started using the creepy girl laugh on low volume, muting the main PA system component of the audio. So all you got was the echoes.
The worried murmuring that started up shortly after she'd started caused her grin to widen.
She hadn't done much more by the time that things were getting started, but she was aware of at least one group deciding to just catch the replay on the news. They'd been quite vocal about it on their way out of the area.
"Hello," Colin said, having stepped up onto the stage along with Vivian and Sherrel. They were apparently going for an all-tinkers thing or something, she knew that Ethan and Battery were off running patrols at least. She was recording things so that they could see them later, in fact. "Welcome. We're here today to introduce the newest Protectorate tinker."
The excited murmuring there was cut short when Taylor had the creepy girl echoes join in with a comment about wanting to know what the new tinker could do.
"Our newest member recently discovered an aspect of their tinker specialty," Colin continued. "They have the rarely-seen specialty of repairing and maintaining other tinkers' tinkertech."
Taylor was amused that nobody seemed to have a negative reaction to her having the creepy girl echoes go 'holy crap'. That it was one of the least objectionable phrases she'd heard used by people probably helped. The issues with keeping tinkertech functional were well known. Some tinkers could make things that worked for decades without issue, but others were lucky if their stuff lasted days before they needed work. To be able to keep someone else's tech working was a big deal, and the public knew it.
Colin waited for everyone to calm down, only they didn't seem to want to. Taylor decided to help him along by having the creepy girl voice go 'ahem' a few times, which seemed to work by virtue of starting to freak people out again.
"Thank you," Colin said. "Not that I can see the young girl that got your attention. Now then, our newest tinker has already made an impact, gifting multiple things to local capes." Ooops, that was the warning cue for her to get ready to make her entrance, so she hurriedly deployed her platform. "For example, Panacea received a protective belt, granting her a force field to keep her safer as she heals. In the Wards, Maul received a flying platform."
And that was Taylor's cue to fly in, and she did so. Upside-down. "Did someone call?"
Colin opened his mouth to respond, only for the creepy girl voice to interrupt. This time including through the PA system, as she'd unmuted that speaker. "No, he was just talking about your platform."
"Oh," Taylor said, tilting her head. "Oh well, I'm here anyway."
"Yes, well," Colin said, sounding annoyed. He then stepped to the side, and Taylor noticed that the middle of the stage was not normal. She hadn't paid a lot of attention to what they'd been setting up earlier, focusing on some of the more out of the way speakers she was setting up instead. "Allow me to introduce Reknit!"
To everyone's surprise, there was a bright flash of light in the center of the stage, heralding Trevor's appearance. Apparently they'd figured out how to duplicate the point to point teleportation unit and installed one in the stage. They wouldn't be able to recalibrate the other end to talk to any other unit for at least two hours now, and this end was missing the 'transmit' pieces. Then again, even if it had them it would be stuck in 'receive' mode for the same duration if nothing else came through.
On the costume front, Trevor was wearing what looked like a repairman's uniform with a fancy visor. Overalls, long-sleeved shirt, a protective helmet. Interestingly, the visor was not integrated into the helmet. The weird part was that the cloth was all patterned with a subtle 'knit fabric' look. It wasn't knit, but they'd put a hint of that into things.
There was a noticeable delay in everyone's reactions as they took in that Trevor had just teleported onto the stage, before a few people in the crowd started clapping. Taylor took the opportunity to drop down next to the stage, flipping over so she wasn't upside-down anymore.
"Neat trick," Taylor said, causing the crowd to silence quickly so as to not miss anything. "How's it work?"
Trevor grinned. "The simple explanation is that the origin unit adds new data to the quantum superposition of the target object retrieved from the destination unit, then ensures that the resulting collapse a moment later results in a shift in physical location."
"Thanks to Reknit's help with things we're hoping to be able to deploy systems like this for the next Endbringer battles," Colin said. "Taking some of the load off of the volunteer teleporters in the process."
"But what will Strider do?" the creepy little girl voice asked. Trevor actually looked around trying to spot where it was coming from.
Colin sighed. "Hopefully not push himself to the point where he's running around missing limbs. Again."
"So where is Miss Duck?" Trevor asked. "I can obviously hear her, of course, but I don't see her?"
"She's apparently around," Taylor replied with a shrug. "But I don't think I've seen her either."
"Excuse me," Colin said, stepping between Taylor and Trevor. "Maul, if you don't mind, I believe Reknit has a small speech to give and questions to answer."
"Oh, sorry," Taylor said, nodding. "I'll just float up and out of the way then." A moment later she'd done so. That this gave her time to set 'Miss Duck' up with more questions and quips was the entire point, of course.
Max sat there staring at the television. Well, he wasn't really staring at it, just in its general direction. Eventually he turned it off, not in the mood to listen to the analysis of the clueless news crew.
"The moron tried to force things," he finally said, shaking his head. "No wonder all of his stuff blew up. He was going against his specialty. Every tinker should instinctively know when they're not working within their specialty." He paused and considered that. "Then again, if he never had another tinker to work with, the likelihood of discovering his specialty would be basically nil, wouldn't it? He might never have had that feeling of doing things right that tinkers have been known to talk about and just thought that what he felt was normal."
He got up and started pacing, something he tried not to do around others. He'd started to kick himself for not even trying to recruit the pair of gamers, in part because of their antics. But he kept a hold on it, because the knee-jerk reaction was probably the wrong one. And after some thought he felt he was right. The Empire wouldn't have been able to help figure out that particular specialty. No, they'd just have had a bunch of unreliable tech and would probably have dumped him after a couple of months.
Eventually he stopped pacing and moved to pour himself a drink. He then raised it in the general direction of the Rig. "To Leet, or Reknit. You were stubborn enough to keep going until you found your niche, and I respect that." He then drank the entire thing in a single shot, before pouring another glass. "Now to get plastered over the thought of the Protectorate being able to take advantage of your skills."
Collecting all the little speakers had been trivial, since when all was said and done they cleared the area of bystanders. The excuse given was that the teleportation system was delicate and potentially radioactive until it had cooled down properly, and they didn't want anyone injured. In reality they just wanted everyone out of the way. They'd also started with the PA system and lights, mainly because they made it easier to take the stage itself down.
"So that's how that works," Sherrel had noted after Taylor had collected all the speakers. "There are a number of people still trying to figure that out."
"You could probably rig one of your trucks up with a bunch of the speakers ready to go," Taylor noted. "Most of these are point-projection, after all."
"But most of your trick only works because you keep them so spread out," Vivian noted. "Having an obvious source would be a lot easier to spot and all, even by accident."
"True, but consider fake engine noises being generated with point-projection while cloaked."
Sherrel got a thoughtful look on her face, which Trevor and Vivian snickered at.
"I'll make sure that we have an entire pallet of the things available soon," Colin said as he shifted part of the stage away from the teleportation unit. "Would any of you like to help me properly shut down the teleportation beacon here so that we can pack it up?"
Trevor sighed, walked over to where Colin was, and crouched down. A moment later he'd reached down under the stage's surface and tapped a single button on the now-accessible control panel, then he stood back up. "There. It's shut down and will be ready to move in a minute or so."
"That isn't the proper shutdown procedure," Colin argued, frowning. "It won't cool down properly that way."
"So it'll take an extra hour or two to cool down, were you planning on using it in that time frame?"
Colin sighed. "No, so I suppose it doesn't matter if it takes longer before it's ready to be used again."
"And it'll save us the half hour of 'proper' shutdown," Vivian added, kneeling down and pulling up a couple of linking brackets holding some of the stage together.
Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
You are currently logged in, BookLoverBB You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to • AND Threads that have new replies • OR private message conversations with new replies • Thread OP is displayed.
• Ten posts per page • Last ten messages in private message history.
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.
■
Topic: New Protectorate Member: Reknit In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Jul 3rd 2011:
Huh, I'd expected a pile of posts on this already. Is everyone too shocked?
So, right, today the Protectorate introduced a new tinker, going by the name of Reknit. Seriously, Reknit. How in the world has no tinker decided to go by that already?
Except that it kinda fits as-is, since it turns out that they can maintain and repair the work of other tinkers, which is somewhat backwards.
You can see the video of things here. I'm going to not spoil things for you, because there are some decent surprises as it goes along and I personally liked the impact of not knowing they were coming.
Please go watch the video before continuing, if you weren't there in person anyway. We'll wait.
Done? Good.
Now then, those that follow the Brockton Bay cape scene may find that the tinker in question looks somewhat familiar. See here, here, and here. Yes, my fellow board members, Reknit appears to be a re-branded Leet. The gifts he gave Maul and Panacea were apparently because they helped him get out of his rut, which is probably why they're more reliable than his previous fare.
For reference on why they're more reliable, see the PRT's guidelines for starting tinkers, in particular the area about figuring out and sticking to your specialty. Yes, that's a public document, because apparently too many villain and independent tinkers were killing themselves and bystanders by stretching themselves in the wrong ways. If Reknit's specialty is in fixing the things other people make then all of his failures suddenly make a lot of sense.
We aren't outright told that he got the gear that helped him make his entrance working (shame on the reporters and audience for not asking, by the way), but the implication is certainly there. Which means he's incredibly valuable. Hopefully he and Dragon can get enough units built and deployed to make it easier on the capes that normally play taxi service.
(Showing page 1 of 9)
►AstaBit Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
Bagrat, you didn't mention the creepy voice. Why didn't you mention the creepy voice? A warning would've been appreciated.
►ShipBoy Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
Didn't his partner die in Boston? I could see that being part of why he went for a rebrand.
►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
Astabit I didn't mention the creepy voice because it had some good questions and comments during the whole thing. Honestly, seems like it might just be an unfortunate cape, hiding behind technology for some reason.
Either that or they find using a duck speaker to be hilarious. Given that they were tied into the PA system I'm assuming that they're Protectorate.
ShipBoy I'm not going to speculate on that myself, but it's something to think about at least.
►DeckFoot Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I think it's nice that he's going to take over maintenance on some of the coastal defense systems, so that the tinker who built and installed them has an easier time of things. Of course, that could be more of a cost-saving measure for the Protectorate than anything else.
►MC Snowboard Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
So, yeah. He should be like, the example of how badly tinkers can go if they're doing things wrong. Because I'm fairly certain one of his power plants nearly took out the region a while back!
Can we petition for the PRT's page to mention him?
►Miss Mercury (Protectorate Employee)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
DeckFoot He'll get paid in some way for the maintenance anyway, so it may not end up any cheaper. But it could mean that a couple more defense systems can be installed and maintained, which would be a boon either way.
►ShadowFox Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
the creepy voice was creepy...but topical?
weird
not sure about the reaction to reknit though, whats the big deal?
►PhobicPlay Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
ShadowFox Reknit is Tinker backwards, but it fits him because he puts other tinker's tech back together.
►ShadowFox Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
*facepalm*
dont mind me, im an idiot
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9 ■
Topic: Justice Duck: Creepy Duck, or Parahuman?
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster)
Posted On Jul 3rd 2011:
Mouse Protector named Justice Duck, previously known as Miss Duck or 'holy crap that duck is creepy'. But the duck was absent at Reknit's introduction.
Could Justice Duck be a parahuman that happened to work with the Wards to speak through a common Bluetooth speaker? The echoes could very well be an aspect of their power, perhaps one they can't even turn off.
I think it likely that if they are a parahuman that they're a Protectorate member or adult affiliate. When the Wards were doing their thing they could've been there as backup and security, and outside of Maul dropping in when mentioned I don't think that there's a good reason for them to be at Reknit's introduction otherwise.
(Showing page 1 of 5)
►BWalker (Moderator)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I must say, this is a pleasant surprise. I thought this was going to be another crazy, poorly thought out rant like your last twelve threads, and yet it isn't.
In fact, you've now got me wondering who's actually behind "Justice Duck". You made decent arguments, and the general lack of speakers doing the echoes in her two appearances would imply something odd, like a parahuman ability, is involved.
My only question is how they've successfully kept themselves to two appearances in general, since I can't think of anyone with a power set that's close enough.
►BrocktonBooks Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I have to admit that now I'm curious if "Justice Duck" was actually in the audience the entire time back when the Wards did their little show. It would certainly explain their ability to react to the crowd. It's really too bad that we don't have a good idea as to who was present for both the Wards show and Reknit's introduction.
Well, we know Maul was present for both, but I doubt she's got a hidden power that lets her create creepy echoes that she only uses during PR events.
►NothingPong (Moderator)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
As a general reminder, actually trying to identify parahumans out of costume is against the rules, so anyone trying to identify "Justice Duck" by comparing attendance of the two PR events should either stop or keep their findings to themselves.
Luckily we don't have a good picture of who attended Reknit's introduction anyway, so it's probably impossible to determine from that.
Oh, and BWalker: As a general note, you're skirting close to the mod rules there with your post. You haven't crossed them, but you're skirting.
►Mouse Protector (Verified Cape) (Former Ward)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I can't believe that I never thought about JUSTICE DUCK being a parahuman talking through the duck! Now I'm embarrassed about not checking ahead when I wanted her to play host duck to The Gauntlet.
I'm sorry Justice Duck! Can you forgive me?
►Assault (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
Sadly, I have yet to meet Justice Duck. Or participate in any event that Justice Duck was involved in. Despite numerous requests to be included.
Why does the world hate me so?
►Battery (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
Because allowing you and the duck to work together is probably a sign of the apocalypse.
►JumpMaster Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I'm now wondering about the duck and whether or not there's a cape hiding behind it. Should I be calling for master/stranger checks on myself or void? Because something is seriously wrong here.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
I know I can be impulsive and tend to have issues thinking some things through, but at least I'm trying. The insults aren't exactly making it easy to keep doing so.
►Mundall Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
XxVoid_CowboyxX, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of some of the others.
That said, I'm unsure that there's a parahuman involved. With only two pre-prepared PR events included I think it's a lot more likely that something we can't see is going on, leaving "Justice Duck" as a gimmick instead of a parahuman with echo-related creepy voice powers.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ■
Topic: Insane Hair Colors In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Boston Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Jun 29th 2011:
So, a lot of people have started noticing some oddities in hair colors around the Boston area. Bad dye jobs that somehow left the roots the dyed color, that I'm told are actually people's natural hair colors having been changed.
We've got pink, purple, green, orange, and a crazy shade of blue floating about, and that may not be all of them.
My sources say that this is likely a side effect from something Bonesaw did, and that it may be something that the more sinister purpose failed on. Of course, they also tell me that some of the pigments involved aren't entirely safe for humans, so in some cases people are starting to walk around with mild toxins growing out of their scalps.
More worryingly, whatever caused this has been confirmed to have spread to people that never visited the Boston area. At least two cases were spotted in Florida, and a third was spotted in Utah. I'm told that there's no indication that things have continued to spread, but for all we know Bonesaw is still working on whatever caused this.
Edit: Information on the general quarantine on the Boston area to limit the spread of this and other Bonesaw creations can be found here.
Edit 2: This thread covers the apparent 'constantly drunk' infection that's also going around, and what to do if you've caught it. It doesn't help with the hair color changing.
Edit 3: According to several different reports the hair color change is not limited to the hair on your head.
Edit 4: There's a rainbow version, so it seems. See pictures here.
(Showing page 203 of 203)
►KevinWho (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
My son is dismayed that he ended up with a pink strain. Not that he's alone, as my wife and I both ended up with that one too. I'm still not sure where my daughter picked up the green one, since we don't seem to know anyone else who got that one. People have shown that it's generally ending up as a "the entire family ends up with the same color" thing, after all.
The only guess I've got is that perhaps you can be infected multiple times and only the last one sticks?
►DoctorDoctor (Not a doctor)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
KevinWho That's an interesting thought. If you don't build up an immune response to all strains then you could go through several colors and possibly never realize it.
►ZooFanatic Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
OMG. I think this thing spread to monkeys at some zoos.
I took these pictures today, and a couple of others I know took some. Their pictures can be found here.
What other animals could be affected?
►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jul 3rd 2011:
ZooFanatic I'll get some of that information compiled and added to the first post after dinner. But we know that dogs and cats weren't affected, so it isn't all mammals.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 201, 202, 203