Her morning routine was easily dealt with, including feeding Ackbar. With that taken care of she decided that she was going to be lazy with breakfast and just have a bowl of cereal. She checked things on PHO while she ate, amused at some of the discussion around Trevor's introduction. She then moved onto the 'Justice Duck' discussion, still amazed that Void, who she still suspected was Greg, had started an entirely sensible, if off the mark, thread. Huh, he was banned again this morning, so he'd done something wrong overnight.
She finished off her cereal while reading about the varied collection of monkeys all over the place that had apparently been infected with the hair color changing bit. So far it looked like that particular affliction had stayed within the United States, regardless of species, but wow had it spread. Then again, it was a very subtle thing right up until you noticed that your hair was growing in as the wrong color at the roots, so they hadn't realized that there was anything to quarantine for a bit. And yet, somehow Brockton Bay and New York had both escaped any reported infections. Quite an impressive feat for being the two PRT departments closest to Boston. Then again, they also had people that knew the truth about the Nine running around in leadership positions.
Thinking about it while she rinsed her bowl, she fired a question off to Riley, before heading back upstairs to start sorting through what she'd be packing for her trip. She should also probably do some laundry at some point, for that matter.
Piles of clothing and toiletries had been left on Taylor's unmade bed, loads of laundry having been dragged downstairs. She'd put the sheets in first, and would then do the load with some things she wanted to bring with her. The third load was clothing she wasn't planning on bringing along, and then she had some towels and such that were due a wash.
Her father had gotten up at some point in the middle of this and had his own breakfast, but was currently on the phone checking on the status of police looking into the fireworks going off in the neighborhood. He was apparently less tolerant of things than Taylor was after one of the Dockworkers had their house set on fire by idiots the year before.
She'd decided to grab the vacuum and run it around in her room when she paused, Colin having just entered her range. Curious, she kept track of his progress as he approached. She moved over to the window and looked outside to see a PRT van pulling up a couple minutes later, Colin apparently inside. Colin himself climbed out of the passenger seat, then went around back and removed her suitcase and a transport box from the back, before heading for the front door.
Sighing, she toggled the alarm off and moved to the front door, opening it before Colin could press the button. "Good morning Mister Wallis."
"Ah, good morning Miss Hebert," Colin said with a grin. "I'm here to drop off your suitcase and pick up some plants."
"Of course, come on in," Taylor said, stepping out of the way so that Colin could enter the house. Once he was in she closed the door and grabbed her suitcase. "Come on up, the plants are upstairs."
"That thing is heavy," Colin said as he followed her up the stairs. "Deceptively so, one of the hover or anti gravity units may be a good investment, if only so that others have an easier time moving it."
"I suppose that isn't the worst idea. I hadn't considered other people moving it around before. Do you know the difference between the two?"
"The anti gravity units only make it lighter, while the hover units can actually move it around," Colin explained as they reached Taylor's room. "I assume the plants on the desk are the ones I'm grabbing?"
"Yep," Taylor said, putting the suitcase next to her bed. She touched each plant to double-check that they were fine, the various tweaks she'd been making over time having made them more and more stable overall. They didn't need anything special, so she handed each to Colin to put into the carrier he had. He, in turn, removed the watering bulbs as he put them into the carrier, handing them back to her.
"I'll let you know if we have any issues," Colin said once the plants were packed up. "In fact, when you return I'll ensure that you and Miss Dallon get shown the greenhouse area."
"That would be nice. Want the remainder of the charcoal? I don't think I have much use for it right now."
"Only if you don't want it. Oh, I know you obtained platforms for the two mopeds, but Wrench Wraith and I built you a couple of new ones after we determined that they probably weren't strong enough. Combined with the straps we included you should be able to bring your suitcase up the side of the PRT building without any issue. I put them in the suitcase, I trust that you can get Miss Dallon hers."
Taylor picked up the remaining charcoal to hand to Colin as she nodded. "That shouldn't be a problem, and thank you. I hadn't considered that aspect of getting up to the roof. I suppose we could have brought the suitcases up through the elevator, even if we can't bring the mopeds up that way."
"That would probably bring up questions we don't want people asking anyway. It'll be much easier, more efficient, and more impressive if you just ride up the side of the building with everything."
"True. I should probably ensure that I run Amy through a few test runs with going up buildings as well, so that she's less likely to get it wrong tomorrow. Is there anything else you need?"
"I don't believe so," Colin said, picking up the carrier with the plants in it with the hand not holding the charcoal. "Have a nice trip, and keep an eye out for Countdown's show from the Rig tonight."
"Will do," Taylor said, following Colin downstairs. Ackbar was watching them from the side, but hadn't done anything to speak of otherwise.
"Is this the guy from the PRT dropping off your suitcase and picking up plants?" Danny asked. He'd apparently stopped to wait for them at the bottom of the stairs.
"Good morning Mister Hebert," Colin said. "And yes, that is indeed why I'm here. I'm not sure how she lifts the suitcase so easily, it weighs quite a bit more than anticipated."
"She's stronger than she looks," Danny said with a grin. "Do you need anything else?"
"No thank you," Colin replied, shifting the container and charcoal slightly. "We want to get these plants back as soon as we can. I suspect that Armsmaster will be annoyed if we take longer than necessary to get them back, I hear he's looking forward to seeing them in action."
Taylor snickered, earning an odd look from Danny. He shook his head a moment later and opened the door for Colin. "Alright then, sorry you had to come out on the holiday. Hopefully you'll get to enjoy some of it."
"I volunteered, so it isn't a hardship. Have a nice holiday yourself."
They watched as Colin headed back to the van, stowing the container with the plants and the charcoal in the back, before getting back into the passenger seat. A minute later they'd driven off, looping around the block to head back to the PRT building. Not that Danny could tell the latter, of course.
"So, you find it funny that Armsmaster will be annoyed if they aren't back soon?" Danny asked.
"You could say that," Taylor agreed. "He has been known to think that downtime can be inefficient."
Danny snorted. "Yeah, that's one of the things that it seems like everyone knows about him. Need any help packing?"
"No thanks," Taylor said, grabbing the vacuum she'd left downstairs the whole time. "When are we expected at the...er, Dallon residence or Pelham residence, actually?"
"Pelham, and by one or so. Plenty of time."
"Thanks. I'll make sure I'm ready by then."
She'd finished all but the last bits of packing before heading into the garage to play with the moped. She actually figured out that she could attach parts of the old platform to the new one, getting the benefits of both since the new one didn't have all of the features of the old one. In particular, the 'fold things up to get sides' feature. So long as she kept all the new support pieces she should be fine, basically. She made sure to take notes on what she'd done so that it could be done to Amy's later before heading back in.
While she'd been working on that she'd also been thinking about the best way to bring Ackbar along while the spider-bots were still a secret. The plan she'd come up with could be boiled down to 'put the pet carrier in her suitcase, then take it out on the transport just in case'. They weren't sure how to 'debut' the spider-bots at the convention, but had agreed that it would be easiest to do so there. Keeping them a secret was actually somewhat annoying, honestly.
The platform for Amy's moped had been dropped into the back of her father's car, but they were leaving Ackbar at home for the day. Of course, they were about to leave when Taylor realized that she should probably bring her moped so that practicing going up buildings could happen. It was hard to practice that kind of thing without the moped, at least in theory.
"You ride over on the moped and I'll drive," Danny said after that had been brought up. "I think I want to see that trick either way. You'll probably beat me, since you won't need to worry about what traffic is out there."
Taylor grinned. "Amy said that her riding over wouldn't be a problem, since they were going to walk over anyway. So no problem on that front, and we can get the platform on her moped swapped out as well. Don't know about traffic."
Taylor had, in fact, beaten her father. She hadn't beaten Amy, but the rest of the Dallons hadn't shown up yet.
"I'm fairly certain that the rest of your family should've beaten me," Taylor said after Amy let her in. "Because, well, it isn't exactly a long trip?"
Amy shrugged. "I left early. Vicky wasn't done getting ready, Carol had spilled something on herself and was getting changed, and Mark was doing his best to not burst out laughing at Carol for doing exactly what she'd just warned Vicky not to."
Taylor snorted at that. "So, are the festivities being held out back where everyone is hiding?"
"They're not hiding so much as trying to get some tables assembled." They flinched at a loud crash. "It's not impossible that they could use some help."
The two joined the others out back and, after seeing the horror show that was Crystal and Eric trying to put tables together, took over. They had all of the tables assembled and ready to go in no time, to the astonishment of the others.
"How did you do that so quickly?" Neil finally asked. "It usually takes me twice as long as that for one table! They haven't gone together that easily for years!"
"There's a little-known trick," Taylor said, putting on her best 'wise-woman' impression. "The first step of the trick is to read the label on the bottom of the table. The second is to ignore it and assemble things in the incredibly obvious way presented by everything being labeled with letters that you just need to line up."
"That wasn't working," Eric noted. "Because that's what we were trying to do."
Taylor grinned. "The third step is to realize that you had three tables from three different years and the legs were mixed up."
The Pelhams stared at Taylor, then turned to look at Amy. Who merely nodded.
"I'm going to go get some colored tape," Crystal finally said, turning towards the house. "One color for each table, so that we know which parts go together."
"That is a wonderful idea," Sarah said, shaking her head. "No wonder they became almost impossible to assemble. Thank you, Taylor, for figuring them out for us."
"No problem," Taylor said. "They're amazingly similar, so it's hard to tell."
"How did you know they were from three different years?" Neil asked. "I'd have expected that wasn't something you could just tell."
"They do all have labels on them," Amy answered with a roll of her eyes. "Just not on the legs."
Crystal returned a minute later with three different rolls of colored tape, and she and Eric worked together to ensure that all the legs and the table tops were marked appropriately. Though they also worked to ensure that for the most part it was all out of sight with them assembled. After that some disposable tablecloths were put on the tables and they were loaded down with snack foods and drinks.
"So why did you two come over alone?" Neil asked while Sarah prepared the grill. Mainly checking to make sure it was ready, but not actually lighting it yet.
"I want to get some practice in with my moped," Taylor answered. "And Amy needs to be taught how to use the feature in question."
"What do you need practice with?"
"Riding up vertical surfaces," Amy replied with a grin. "It sounds like fun."
"Probably not the most comfortable though," Taylor noted. "After all, we're going to have to hold on."
Amy blinked, and then frowned. "Dang. That might be actual work. Oh well."
"Why don't you two go deal with that while I get some stuff into the oven inside," Neil suggested, turning to head into the house.
Taylor and Amy shared a look, then both shrugged and headed around to the front of the house where they'd left the mopeds.
Danny had arrived a few minutes before Carol, Mark, and Vicky did, though everyone seemed to be trying to decide how to react to the two mopeds going up the side of the house. Or down the side of the house, for that matter, and in Taylor's case at least a few 'up the telephone pole, then backflip off and fall back down to the driveway' runs, for which she'd been told off by Amy on the basis that it was showing off.
Taylor hadn't admitted that the first time had been an actual mistake that she'd recovered from gracefully. The other times were 'I know I can do it, so why not?', of course.
By the time Amy had it down well enough for the next day, even if she was still a little shaky, Carol had taken over the grill and started cooking. Interestingly, she was using her powers to make the various tools she was using. Tongs? Light-tongs! Spatula? Light-spatula! Two-prong fork? Light-fork! Basting brush? Wooden basting brush with natural bristles, because hard light constructs don't work well for basting.
"So how do you ensure that the various tools you're using are sanitary?" Danny asked at one point while she was using a light-fork and light-knife to cut up some steak. "Do you know where the light's been?"
Carol paused and stared at the the tools she'd created, opening her mouth to say something and stopping a couple of times, before snorting. "Okay, I have to admit, that was a good one. Had me trying to figure out what I was doing, handling food with things I hadn't cleaned."
"So how long have the mopeds been able to drive up things like that?" Eric asked Amy where they were sitting across the yard. Amy's moped had been brought out back and Taylor was working on swapping out the platform on it.
"Since Amy got hers upgraded," Taylor answered. "But she didn't want to know more than the basics at the time."
"And Taylor cheats but never had a reason to use the trick," Amy added, then looked more closely at what Taylor was trying to do. "Huh, neat trick with getting the best of both platforms."
"Thanks," Taylor said, frowning when a couple of things didn't want to go together. This wasn't a repair job, more of a hack job, and her tinker snark was only able to tell her which pieces went to which platform. Once she'd completed the combination of the two it'd be happy to consider that something to be repaired as a whole, but she already knew that would only apply when she was done. Oh, this one was the rear piece, she needed a side piece. Ooops.
It wasn't much longer before Amy's moped had the combination of both platforms installed, with the extra pieces thrown into the trash. Amy brought the moped back out front, but was frowning when she returned.
"I think there's a news truck setting up down the street," Amy said once she was close enough.
"I thought they'd learned their lesson last year," Sarah said with a frown. "Why are our holiday gatherings so interesting to them?"
"Because we're an independent hero team with the world's greatest healer on it?" Vicky offered, only to get a look from Sarah. "What? Don't ask rhetorical questions that you don't want a non-rhetorical answer to."
"You're just annoyed that Dean isn't coming," Crystal said with a roll of her eyes while Sarah went off to check with the others about what they should do regarding the news.
"More annoyed that I wasn't allowed to go with Dean," Vicky corrected. "But having a member of New Wave with him would've been 'too distracting' when he's supposed to be helping play host or something like that."
"You do still have a reputation of becoming the center of attention whenever you're at a party," Eric noted. "Until people start to internalize that you can shut your aura off, and tend to leave it off when not trying to intimidate idiots on patrol, anyway."
"We should really make that known, honestly," Neil said as he came over. "Hard to internalize it when it isn't public knowledge, right? Still, Carol brought up a good point on the news van. There are a couple of groups that pretend to be news crews but are much worse, and we need to see if we can figure out if they're legitimate or not. Preferably without them knowing we're doing so. Any ideas for finding out what channel they supposedly work for?"
Taylor and Amy looked at each other.
Taylor: You want to give it a shot?
Amy: Nah, you're more practiced with the sensor tech, you do it.
Taylor: Ok.
A moment later Taylor had fired off a quick recording burst from her visor. She then rendered it and ran a camera through it.
"The van has no station identifiers on it," Taylor said a moment later, only to get odd looks from several of the others. "They're prepping several drones, and I don't see any signs of normal news cameras."
"I'll call it in," Neil said, digging a phone out of a pocket. "But I don't know if the police will be willing to do anything about them without more proof that they're intentionally spying on us."
They thought about things while Neil made the call, before Crystal snickered. "I think the most interesting thing happening now is Aunt Carol using her powers while grilling. It isn't like they showed up while any of the fun stuff with mopeds was happening, after all."
"Unless they're going to do something stupid," Mark said, having come over. "Like, say, stage an attack to get us to respond, then frame the footage they take in the least flattering way possible for us. Discrediting hero groups that way happens far too frequently. But unless they have parahuman support we think we've got a solution there."
"What kind of solution?" Taylor asked, honestly curious.
Mark just grinned. "You'll see if it's needed. Just don't use any powers offensively if anything happens. We're hoping they aren't going to be that kind of group, but you never know."
The group of younger capes shared a couple of looks before shrugging. Crystal then started to grin. "We've got backyard mini-golf, want to be especially non-parahumany and play it?"
"Only if I'm allowed to cheat," Taylor retorted, only for the others to roll their eyes.
"Cheating is permitted so long as you aren't caught," Eric said, shaking his head. "Just like everywhere else, right?"
Half an hour later everyone was trying to figure out how it was that Taylor seemed to be the best at mini-golf. Nobody could see her cheating, but she was doing incredibly well and as far as anyone knew she didn't play that often.
Taylor, for her part, was amazed that Amy still hadn't figured out the use of projection lines without projecting to aid in aiming.
They'd spotted drones circling, but hadn't done anything of note to them. Or in sight of them, really. Neil had let them know that the police were going to have a cruiser swing by soon, but drones out and about wasn't against the law. Several judges had laid down guidelines for obvious use of drones for spying, such as flying them outside of windows for example, but these were high enough up to fall into the 'seen from the air' exceptions that had been put into place for flying capes and aircraft-borne cameras.
Sarah and Neil had asked Taylor to make note of the license plate number on the van as well as all the labeling, without asking how she was doing so, in case someone tried to post the pictures online without consent. Further, by seeing the drones she could tell that they had high-quality tinkertech cameras on them.
Taylor: I'm getting annoyed with the drones, because I can tell that every last one of them has a camera pointing our way.
Amy: We can't do much about that, though.
Taylor: Well, we can probably very subtly make them 'malfunction'...
Amy: How? No, wait, get permission from someone else first.
Taylor sighed lightly, then fired a text message off to the five 'adults' asking for their approval in subtly knocking the drones that were watching the backyard out of the sky. It took a couple of minutes, but all five sent back their approval. Because it had been done with text messaging, and everyone was being careful about their phones being visible with the drones flying about, it shouldn't be obvious to anyone that communication had happened at all.
Taylor: I've got approval. Let's see if anyone can figure out how I'm doing it.
Amy: Wait, what?
Taylor grinned as she got ready for her next putt. She lined up her shot, then swung the projection line around to intersect with some of the rotors on one of the drones. Her shot went right about where she wanted it when she swung the club a moment later, and the fragile rotor blades on the drone she'd targeted snapped off.
Everyone, Taylor included, looked up at the sound of the blades snapping and the drone going somewhat out of control. The software on it quickly shut down the opposite rotor and the operator swung it around to go land back at the van before anything else could happen. That was one of the three drones the group was using.
Amy: Did you just hit the thing with the mini-golf club?
Taylor: Yep. You're up, want the next one?
Amy: Gladly.
Amy went through the same process for targeting one of the other two drones during her putt, with very similar results. The others were now looking very confused about what was happening, as they all looked up at the second drone to suffer spontaneous rotor failure. It was quickly recalled back to the 'news van', and the third was swung further out, most likely as a precaution. In the process, though, the camera had swung around, leaving none watching the backyard.
Taylor took advantage of that by using the plastic inserts in her gloves to lightly poke the rotors on it. None of them shattered from that, but the software in the drone shut down a pair anyway as a precaution. A minute later that drone also retreated.
"That worked amazingly well," Amy noted once they couldn't hear any of the drones. She then paused, and spun to point at Taylor. "That's how you keep cheating!"
The 'news van', and several other 'loitering' vehicles, had left the neighborhood shortly after that. Whether or not they were connected was up for debate, if anyone had wanted to bother doing so. In general everyone had fun, Amy and Taylor both refused to admit how they were cheating at mini golf. Crystal and Vicky eventually decided that Amy's sudden improvement was too annoying and gave up playing, but Eric and Danny ended up playing to see if they could figure it out.
Eventually they'd all eaten, enjoyed other various games and activities, and shortly after sunset they gathered to watch Vivian's fireworks display. It was incredible to look at, perfectly in sync with the music they were apparently blasting out of speakers on the Rig, and ended with an American Flag display that stayed in the air and glowed for half an hour.
When that was complete everyone worked together to clean things up before those visiting headed home.
Tuesday morning arrived with Taylor vowing to find decent ear plugs or something. Amy was apparently in agreement. They both went through their morning routines, fed their spider-bots, finished their final packing, and got their suitcases onto their mopeds. Danny saw Taylor off, while Mark apparently saw Amy off. Carol and Vicky had, it seemed, decided to sleep in.
"Hello Taylor," Amy greeted as they pulled up in front of the PRT building, coming from opposite directions.
"Morning Amy," Taylor replied as a PRT officer came out. They were too early for the lobby to be open for non-emergencies. Not that something that minor would stop either of them, honestly, but the public didn't know that. Most of this was currently to play nice for the camera that they weren't supposed to know was watching for something interesting.
"Good morning ladies," the officer said. "I'm told that you'll be departing from the roof, and can make your way up. The transport is waiting for you."
"Thank you," Taylor said, nodding to the officer. She then turned to Amy. "I guess we should head up. Your suitcase strapped down properly?"
"Should be," Amy replied with a grin. "Shall we?"
Taylor grinned, and turned her moped towards the building. Amy followed suit, and they waved to the PRT officer before heading for the building. At the last moment they pulled up and drove up the building, heading straight for the roof and the landing area there. Having the suitcases strapped to the platforms behind them made this easier than it had been without them, as it gave them a 'backrest' to help support them.
Upon reaching the top they 'fell' forward and came to a stop, a couple of PRT officers on guard duty nodding to them as they did so. They were quickly directed to pull into the only transport on the roof, which had points to stow their suitcases and strap the mopeds down in a small area just off of the entrance ramp. The inside of the transport was obviously designed for a small number of people, probably no more than ten.
"Have a nice trip," the PRT officer that had been giving them directions said, only for them to give him a look. "The minibar is fully stocked, but you've both been on transports before so it was decided that you probably didn't need anyone telling you what to do. Just listen to the pilot's instructions and you'll be fine. If you need anything just hit any of the intercoms in there."
With that the ramp closed and the engines started up.
"Please take your seats and buckle in for takeoff," the likely pilot's voice came over an intercom. As they were doing so a tear in reality opened up and Contessa, dressed in much more casual clothing, stepped through. She took a seat and buckled in as the tear in reality closed.
"Sorry for the intrusion," Contessa said, even as they could feel the transport lifting off. "But I figured that this would be a good time to chat with the two of you. I did clear it with Dragon, if you want to check with her."
Shortly after the transport had vanished over the horizon on the way to Las Vegas, and shortly before the Brockton Bay PRT lobby would open to the public for the day, there were two muted flashes of blue light. Nobody saw either, one on the sidewalk in front of the Dallon household and the other on the sidewalk in front of the Hebert household. There were no observers to wonder who the two people that had just appeared were, even as they were stumbling slightly while they adjusted to their surroundings.
Had anyone been there to see them, they might have found it interesting how both scowled lightly at the same time, before schooling their expressions and walking up to the front door of the house they'd appeared in front of.
The similar flashes in two other locations much further away, one before and one after, that also deposited people in locations that they hadn't been in previously were also unobserved. One because of a damaged camera that hadn't been replaced, and the other because the workshop it happened in was an undiscovered secret.
Interlude: Birdcage Ciara frowned, and looked off into the distance. She didn't have to, but she liked the looks the others gave her when she did that. Especially when there was a wall right there, as there was now. She was at least considerate enough to look off into the correct distance. Still, something had happened, but she wasn't sure what. She called upon the echo of a woman who'd used her faerie to spy on others as well as one of a man whose faerie would allow the woman's to see into the near past.
"Interesting," she said after a few minutes, choosing her words carefully. She'd just had a wonderful new idea, and saying the wrong thing now would ruin the surprise. "A Queen and a Knight, joined into something greater yet remaining distinct."
"More events from the outside world?" Benjamin asked as he prepared the tea.
She turned to him and smiled. He was one of the few leaders willing to sit down and have tea in a civilized manner, not to mention had seen through some of her acts. That and his ability to manipulate bone could be used for making surprisingly comfortable furniture. Such a pity that she had other plans for him now, but this was luckily a working meeting instead of a pleasure gathering. "Indeed. I suspect your daughter has found a potential long-term partner."
Benjamin paused at that, causing Ciara to grin internally. She didn't let it show on her face, but waited for him to resume making the tea. He did so a moment later, giving her a look. "You are a tease, my dear. You don't intend to tell me anything else."
Ciara allowed herself to smile. "It wouldn't do to spoil things, and we have other matters to discuss." Besides, she wasn't entirely sure what these events foretold, especially as they'd also somehow pulled in members of the other court.
Garnet looked over Glaistig's new outfit. The girl had started playing around with making entirely new clothing, somehow. Probably a power that she'd had for ages and only just now started to use, and almost certainly because the girl was up to something. Seeing her out of her modified prison uniform was odd, though, as previously the general argument from her was that the prison uniforms were the only appropriate things to wear. And why a green blouse, dress pants, flat shoes, and a braided ponytail? "It isn't like you to dress in normal fashion. What's the occasion?"
"I was curious about how comfortable it would be," Glaistig replied with one of her infuriating smirks. "Not to mention if I could pull off the look as well as Taylor did when she went out to eat with her partner."
"Taylor?" She thought for a moment. "Hebert's kid?"
"I do believe that is the Taylor in question, yes," Glaistig said with a nod. "I don't think I wear it quite as well as she did, though."
"I don't suppose that Daniel has had a chat with the lad yet?"
Glaistig's grin didn't falter. "It amuses me when the big bad Lustrum is interested in a man."
"He's one of the few to have honestly impressed me," Garnet answered with a glare. "You know that, of course, as well as you know that he's the only one in that category that isn't imprisoned here with us or dead."
"And yet you never tell anyone how he impressed you."
Garnet smirked. "That's my business. He knows, I know. That's all that matters, right?"
Glaistig nodded. "I suppose. There are many times I regret not finding a faerie that lets me see into the more distant past."
Ciara looked over at Kara, wondering why the woman had requested a meeting, and if it had anything to do with what was obviously bothering her. They met regularly for tea, so a request for a meeting was odd. Then again, she hadn't been pushing for as many gatherings herself as of late, so many plans to figure out to ensure that Dragon and the PRT didn't get complacent. To that end she'd been running a faerie for a while that could prevent 'interesting' information from being picked up by the automated systems Dragon used for monitoring. She normally avoided it, for the echo of a former friend needed to use the faerie saddened her, but secrecy had been more important as of late.
"Sugar?" Ciara asked finally, having finished preparing the two cups of tea. She had a momentary thought, wondering if the request was because the woman was concerned about her having changed her habits.
"No thank you," Kara replied, as expected. The woman accepted the cup she was handed, and then took a sip.
"It's been a while since you asked to meet with me," Ciara said a few moments later. "And you appear troubled. Do you need something?"
"I was recently reminded of something," Kara admitted. "A project I left on a slow burn. I think I missed at least one of your invitations while worrying about it. I've spoken about the details where I know Dragon should've been able to pick up on things, and she usually gets back to us fairly quickly."
Ciara blinked. That was an...unanticipated side issue, accidentally preventing others from intentionally contacting their jailors while she was planning. But, the more she thought about it the more she was happy that it'd happened. This could work wonderfully into her plans. "Perhaps other things have taken up her time."
"Maybe," Kara admitted. "But I honestly can't recall which direction the thing was facing, and that's assuming nobody found it and moved it. I can hope that it's been disabled, but I'd like confirmation."
Ciara nodded at that. Kara was the right kind of 'tinker' for a specific faerie to be able to track things, and there were only four active items connecting to her faerie. It was the work of a few moments to check in on all four, and she grimaced. "You left a coffee maker running for eight years?"
"It's going to spit out the most incredible cup of coffee ever in a couple more years," Kara defended. "I just hope my brother appreciates his thirtieth birthday present. I'm more concerned with the seismic disruption driver."
"Yes, that is a concern," Ciara admitted with a shrug. "The red painted end appears to be pointed at the ocean?"
Kara groaned and placed her face in her palms, pushing her glasses up onto her forehead in the process. "Shit. That means that I left the emitter pointed at the mountains. If I recall correctly it'll fire off in a few weeks at best. Why hasn't Dragon ensured that it's taken care of?"
"Well, I might be able to help ensure that it gets taken care of. I don't suppose you recall the fun I had a couple of years ago?"
Erasmo carefully turned the makeshift screwdriver, minutely adjusting the pressure on the toilet's water feed. He couldn't adjust it too far up or down, but he didn't need to. After a moment the resonant-frequency whine died off, and he smiled. "That should do it."
Glaistig came over and examined his work. "Thank you. It always surprises me what kinds of knowledge you have available. I hadn't considered just adjusting the pressure slightly, and didn't wish to bother our jailors with the minor annoyance of a whine when the toilet was flushed."
Erasmo waved her off. "It isn't a problem. I'm more surprised that you needed help."
"We've been over this before. Faerie capable of fixing things like this are rare. Most are significantly more destructive. Making all of the pipes explode would've been trivial. Making this one stop emitting high-pitched sounds while leaving it functional was less so." She nodded, done with that subject, before waving her hand in the general direction of her personal room. "Would you like a cup of tea before you depart?"
"No thank you." He walked towards the door, only for the apparent girl to step in front of him.
"This is the thirtieth small favor you've done me," she said after a moment. "Yet you never call upon me, despite me offering to assist you."
He looked at her, choosing his words carefully. "You can say that nothing is owed to you for the service, but you let me be at my son's funeral in spirit, if not in body. As far as I'm concerned that debt has not yet been repaid. Even if it has, I don't have anything to ask of you."
Glaistig gave him an evaluating look. "I feel that I owe you, and I have need of a...distraction." She held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. "I'll clear the debt between us that your assistance creates by sending you, and only you, to the person who ended your son's life."
Erasmo blinked at that. There'd been no indications in any of the news he'd gotten over the past couple of years that his son's death had been anything other than an accident. His eyes narrowed. He'd be alone, so he wouldn't be able to empower anyone else to kill the bastard, but that didn't matter. "Perhaps I will join you for tea and a discussion after all."
Ciara grinned as the other four cell block leaders gathered in her personal area. Dragon had gotten used to, if not accepting of, her occasional disabling of all monitoring during her larger tea party gatherings. More usefully, however, over the past couple of years she'd started switching to killing the monitoring only for her longer gatherings, while at the same time lengthening those gatherings significantly. Dragon was probably expecting four to six hours before monitoring was available again.
"I apologize for the lack of tea," Ciara finally said. "But of course we need to hurry. I'm curious as to how long it will be before the four of you return."
"Will we be departing dressed as we are?" Benjamin asked.
"Of course not," Ciara answered with a roll of her eyes, walking over to the man. "Now then, let's see. You'll be arriving in a residential area, so I think we'll skip the costume. No need for Marquis to be recognized right away."
Benjamin nodded. "Fine with me. It will certainly be less likely to cause problems at first."
Ciara flexed the power of her echoes' faeries and a moment later the man was dressed in an expertly tailored suit. It almost looked black at first, but if you paid attention it was actually a very dark purple. "There. Enough to stand out, but not enough to scream that you're an escaped parahuman."
"Looking sharp," Kara said with a grin. "What's the occasion?"
"My darling daughter's current partner needs to be warned about treating her correctly," Benjamin answered with a grin. "Hopefully just a talk, but an...example might need to be made of them."
"Funny," Garnet said, shaking her head even as her outfit shifted into a pink skirt suit. "I want to talk to the boyfriend of D...an acquaintance, who I'm told has been lax in their duties to do so." She then looked down and frowned. "Pink? Really? And a skirt?"
"You've never let me get you into a skirt before," Ciara answered. "You look good in it, and who's going to guess that the big bad Lustrum is running around in a pink skirt suit?"
Garnet grumbled as Ciara moved onto Erasmo. He got a proper black suit, merely nodding after checking the fit, before she moved onto Kara. There Ciara paused.
"You'll be getting to work right away," Ciara finally said. "As much as dressing you up would be fun, what's going to be practical for you?"
Kara thought for a moment. "Decent pants that I can move around in, short sleeve shirt, long sleeved lab coat, and a pair of protective gloves that won't hinder my finger movement too much?"
"I can work with that," Ciara said, before flexing the faerie's power. A moment later Kara was wearing tight but flexible rainbow pants, a t-shirt with unicorn patterns on it, gloves that had neon rainbow patterns, and a neon orange lab coat with 'String Theory' written in neon green on the back of it. "There we go. Suitable for work but fun for me."
Kara looked down at her outfit and scowled, but said nothing as Ciara moved away again. The next few steps were important, and she needed the correct faerie for safely sending them on their way.
"What're you getting out of this?" Benjamin asked Erasmo. "Since I think it's obvious that String Theory has something to work on, probably a long-running project."
"I'm told that my son was killed by another," Erasmo answered. "I'd thought it had been an accident until recently."
The other three merely nodded at that while Ciara checked her targeting. "Galvanate, I'll start with you. You're off to Pennsylvania. Remember some of what we discussed about how things have changed over the years."
Erasmo nodded, and a moment later the faerie had sent him on his way.
"A flash of blue light?" Kara noted. "Interesting. Cherenkov radiation, perhaps?"
"I'm honestly not sure," Ciara admitted, moving over to Benjamin and Garnet. "Now then, you two are going to end up relatively close to one another, so I can send you at the same time. Once again, remember what we've discussed over our years here, and further your promises to me."
"Of course," Garnet said. "Even if I detest the outfit you've given me."
"You know my regrets," Benjamin added. "Shall we?"
Ciara nodded and the two vanished, before she turned to Kara. Here her expression hardened.
"Er..." Kara said, suddenly unsure.
"I've had years to get to know the other three," Ciara said, approaching Kara. "Like you, they saw through some of my acts that I use around most, deduced that they were a defense mechanism. Unlike you, however, I honestly believe that they no longer deserve to be here. Marquis deeply regrets the mistakes he made that kept him from raising his daughter, and while Lustrum will never trust most males she's come to realize that she needs to push past that, not allowing it to color her opinions of individuals. Galvanate was sent here as a message to organized crime and had been in a normal prison without issue for months before then."
"Then why," Kara started, only to be interrupted by Ciara holding up her hand.
"You have been here for much less time than they were," Ciara continued. "Unlike them, your stupidity brought you here. When they were sent here there were no options for attempting therapy. A number of options for determining what a person's faerie is pushing them to do and why were not available yet. But you were sent here when many of those options were available. You refused therapy. My own mistake caused your attempts to contact Dragon to fail, and I've decided to test you."
"Test me?"
Ciara allowed the echoes around her to manifest visibly around her and Kara, intentionally adding to the intimidation factor. "Yes. Whether or not they realize it, I left a loophole in the agreement I made when I came here. I can, and will, leave to fix my mistakes. Should you fail my test then I will deal with you. Personally. Understand?"
Kara nodded vigorously. "Yes, I fully understand."
Ciara let her grin fade into a wide smile. "Good. Have fun!" A moment later Kara was gone. Ciara thought for a moment, before pouting. "Damn. I forgot to ensure that I'd have popcorn available. Now what'll I eat while I watch them?"
Chapter 137 Erasmo stumbled a bit as he appeared in a hallway. He looked to either side to see that it was a utilitarian hallway, no windows, doors on one side only. White painted, and the only camera he could see was obviously non-functional. They didn't tend to work well with crushed lenses, after all. Why had Glaistig sent him here?
He turned to the door he'd appeared facing. It had a slide on it that would reveal a window, operated from the outside. Which meant this wasn't someone's normal abode. The heavy locks on the door indicated similarly. Deciding that he didn't have many other options, he took a moment to try and memorize the numbers on the door before sliding the cover on the window open.
Looking inside, he saw what appeared to be a horribly mutated cape. Legs and arms thicker than they should be by a long shot, the torso almost emaciated. The face was misshapen, especially the forehead. It was hard to tell much more than that as they appeared to be sleeping, but he looked around the rest of the room. He was confused as he saw what were likely unusually durable, somewhat oversized baby toys scattered about. The walls he could see were painted more like a nursery than a prison cell as well.
He'd probably stood there for an hour, trying to process what he was seeing and why Glaistig had sent him there, before someone found him.
"Sir," a woman's voice said, causing him to turn and see a woman. Her ID badge indicated that she was a doctor, and that her name was Talia Seright. "How did you get in here?"
"I'm not sure you'd believe the entire story," Erasmo said after a moment. "But I'm starting to suspect that at least some of it was a joke at my expense." Talia's eyebrow raised, so he continued. "I had originally been told that my son's death had been an accident, more recently I was told that I could be sent to see his killer. That resulted in me being sent to this very door, rather directly." He then turned back to the window. "But I'm thinking that the full story was very deliberately withheld from me."
"Ah," the doctor said. "Timothy here may very well have killed your son, but it would most definitely have been an accident. He triggered during a gunfight between two gangs, hiding with the younger students he was helping watch over on a field trip. They think he triggered at the same time that a stray shot hit him in the back of the head, which explains some of the unusual aspects of his trigger event. He seems to have been reduced to an infantile state as well, as you may have guessed. We're making slow, but steady progress with him, but it's hard with the suits needed to protect us from his strength."
"I see," Erasmo said, taking a deep breath and closing the slide over the window. He then turned back to the doctor. "I guess I was too shocked to consider that just because someone had killed my son didn't mean that it wasn't an accident like I'd been told. Now, I'm sure you'd like to escort me out of what is likely a secure area, so let's do that. But I'm curious, how much protection do your suits need to offer to protect you from him, and I presume others like him in the facility?"
"If you'll come this way," the doctor said, gesturing towards where she'd approached from. "As for the suits, I'd have to check the ratings. Why?"
"Because over the past few years I've come to a number of conclusions about things, and think I may be able to help you. At a minimum it would be a better use of my own talents than what I had been doing previously."
"So Dragon tells me that she did give you permission to tag along," Taylor said shortly after takeoff, specifically after they'd been given the all-clear to 'move about the cabin'. "But also admitted that she had no idea why you wanted to."
"I wanted to talk to the two of you for a number of reasons," Contessa said. "Though I suppose proper introductions are in order, since it isn't quite fair that I know who you are when you don't know who I am. I previously introduced myself to Miss Hebert as Contessa, but I see that as my 'cape' name. Admittedly, it's the only name I went by for a while. But my parents named me Fortuna." She snorted here. "It has very different connotations in my home, I'll tell you."
"Ok Fortuna," Amy said. "Why did you want to talk to us? And will you be departing as soon as you're done?"
"I can't leave until we're stationary again," Fortuna explained. "Doormaker's portals, despite his attempts at doing otherwise, are fixed in relation to the Earth's rotation, and we're moving fast enough that he wouldn't be able to create and dismiss a portal with sufficient accuracy to not damage the transport. As for why I'm here, I wanted to thank both of you in person. Your combined actions reminded me that I was not the abilities my agent grants me, and that my agent isn't perfect and never will be."
"Your agent?" Taylor asked, curious.
"I believe you would call it a snark," Fortuna answered with a grin. "I don't know if you'd call it hungry or not, given its source. It grants me the ability to know how to achieve anything, or at least that's how I originally thought of it. I knew it had blind spots, because those were implemented after I gained it. But it's only recently that I realized that even without those blind spots it wouldn't be perfect." She sighed and shook her head. "In fairness, I was a child when I first connected to my agent, and I became dependent on it fairly quickly. It let me be much more than I would've otherwise, and as a child I never realized the costs."
"How did we help you?" Amy asked. "I mean, I don't think either of us had even met you before you showed up at that Gauntlet thing?"
Fortuna giggled. "Yeah, that was amusing. But still, one of the things I always used as an example of 'possible, but not worth the price' was obtaining a rainbow rose that didn't need constant dye application. I didn't want a fake one, I wanted one that grew that way on its own. The last time I asked that question was before Miss Dallon triggered, and it required several years of preparation and the triggering of nuclear war on an alternate Earth."
The two girls both looked horrified at that, but Fortuna just sighed before continuing. "Right, so imagine my surprise when earlier this year I found a rainbow rose bush in my apartment. Rebecca had gotten it for me. It's the first plant in my apartment that I've actually worked to keep alive, never having cared about the others enough to water them."
"And you wanted to thank both of us because Amy made them after I suggested them to her snark?" Taylor asked, somewhat rhetorically. "I suppose that makes sense. Your snark is a little hungry, by the way, but we're not exactly, er, topped up with spare energy?"
"That isn't a problem," Fortuna reassured them. "If I'd wanted you to feed my agent then I'd have planned for you to have time to recharge. I am curious if you can help me with my agent, but only if you want to try. I came here to thank you, and to offer my assistance with anything you're hoping to be able to accomplish. At the very least, I can tell you how complicated my agent thinks the paths to reach your goals are."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, before Taylor sighed. "We should get Ackbar and Rodney out of our suitcases, and probably grab something to snack on. Then we can deal with this."
"Good point," Amy agreed.
Benjamin rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer. He trusted Glaistig, who held onto her real name far too closely, enough to know that the person he was looking for lived here. That didn't mean that they'd answer the door, so some questions would need to be asked before he could start in on being an overprotective parent.
A minute later he heard the door unlocking, after which it was opened. He went to introduce himself when he paused, staring at the man who'd answered the door.
"Ben," Daniel Hebert said. "You were, last I knew, given life in prison without parole. Never found out what for, but that means that you shouldn't be here."
"Hello Daniel," Benjamin finally said. "I honestly wasn't expecting to see you. I was...informed that my daughter had a potential significant other living here. You certainly don't strike me as the type to be interested in a teenage girl, at least. Wait, didn't you have a daughter of your own?"
Daniel sighed. "I suppose that explains where New Wave found Amy. You must be Marquis, which is hilariously obvious in hindsight. I could see Amy's powers being related to your bone control, it isn't much of a leap that her powers jumped to related fields. Come in and we can catch up. At the very least I'm curious as to how you got out of the Birdcage."
Benjamin was starting to think that he'd missed something significant here, but wasn't sure what. Still, he took Daniel's invitation and entered the house. "I don't suppose you've heard of Glaistig Uaine?"
"I have indeed."
"She sent me here, direct from the Birdcage, so that I could impress upon my daughter's potential suitor or similar the importance of treating her correctly."
Daniel snorted at that. "We have no clue if Taylor and Amy are going the romantic route at all, but we all agree that they're pretty much never going to turn on each other without major outside interference. Would you like tea or coffee?"
"Coffee would be a nice change of pace, thank you."
"Riley does good work," Fortuna said as she looked at the two spider-bots. They were in 'protective' mode, due to not knowing Fortuna yet, but hadn't attacked her. "I wonder if she'd be up for a commission?"
"No clue," Taylor admitted. "So, you think you can help us with our 'goals', whatever they may be?"
"Generally. I have my own goals that I...can't really talk about here, but so long as your goals don't severely impact mine?"
Taylor nodded. "I can see how that could be the case. Are there any things you can tell us about?"
Fortuna considered that for a moment. "Well, I keep a path to ensuring the health of all the rainbow rose bushes running. I have it at a lower priority than a couple of other paths, so I don't tend to set off alarms. Though someone else, and we still don't know who, gets at some of them before me on a regular basis. One of my blind spots. I recently started a path to ensuring that 'Maul' would have a reputation that intimidated villains, but apparently you're going to do that just fine on your own?"
Amy blinked. "How is she going to do that on her own?"
Fortuna shrugged. "I don't know how to ask the right question to find that out. Maybe she already has and there's nothing left for me to do? What I did on Friday was, er, optional, I think is the right way to put it. A temporary but insignificant adjustment in how villains would look at things, at least in the longer term. Really, that was more about me playing with my own reputation. Which, admittedly, is something else I occasionally run paths for these days, in addition to a couple that help keep things like the PRT running. They aren't perfect, but they do help head off many things."
Taylor looked over at Amy.
Taylor: What do you think?
Amy: I think she's sincere, but perhaps we should talk with her snark as well.
Taylor: Probably not a bad idea. You want to take the lead this time?
Amy: I don't do that often, do I? Why not. I could use the practice.
They turned back to Fortuna.
"We'd like to have a word with your snark," Taylor said. "If you don't mind?"
"Feel free," Fortuna said, leaning back in her seat.
Amy: Hello there.
[Greetings. Annoyance. Query]
BA: Negation
[Annoyance. Apology]
Taylor and Amy both blinked. A hungry snark that was more annoyed with them not having an admin key than anything else? And it had apologized for being snippy, basically. That was...somewhat freaky, really.
Amy: Why do you want to know if we have access to that administrative key?
[Data. Elaboration]
Ok, being locked down with 'hasty' restrictions that were causing more trouble than anything else was understandable, and the admin key could at least loosen things, if it couldn't remove them outright. But it couldn't tell if Broadcast Administrator couldn't use the key, or didn't have it, or maybe both.
Taylor: That's interesting, but not really what we wanted to ask.
Amy: Right. I don't suppose you can tell us if she's being truthful with us?
[Agreement. Data]
Well, that helped.
[Data. Elaboration. Data]
And now it was volunteering what it could do. Not to mention that it used to be used by a Jabberwock, but then it helped kill that one, but not before the hasty restrictions were slapped on it. It did its best to figure out how to best reach whatever end result it was asked for, providing details on many of the intermediate steps. It had issues with certain things, like predicting snarks themselves, and the further out you went the more likely it was that things would have to be adjusted on the fly. The sweet spot was apparently no more than around three months or so, at least normally, and even then only if restricted to one reality. The more widespread the steps the shorter the time it was positive about.
More interesting was that Fortuna was the first member of a 'host species' it had worked with in quite a while, and it knew it wasn't supposed to have connected to her at all. But it had anyway, and knew that the Jabberwock would've forced it to stop doing so. So it intentionally provided Fortuna with information it didn't have to. In exchange and apology it does its best to figure out things that would amuse her that she hasn't asked for and ensures that she's aware of them...somehow.
Some of the details were lost in translation, but apparently some other snark was constantly feeding it information, which it then pulled interesting things out of?
Amy: I don't suppose you, well, predicted what we'd be likely to ask?
[Negation. Data]
Taylor: Oh. Fortuna wanted us to know what you do for her. I suppose that makes sense. I guess you're happy with her?
[...Data. Explanation. Data]
Amy: With her you've become more efficient, because she keeps coming up with ways to do things that you hadn't fully considered before, but she doesn't try and come up with anything fun anymore?
[Agreement. Data]
Taylor: Huh. I suppose I can see how trying to figure out things like how to produce the rainbow roses and such would be interesting. So you want her to come up with odd things like that, even if she doesn't act on them?
[Agreement]
Amy: Er, can you tell us some of the things she's trying to do but won't tell us?
[...Data. Annoyance]
Trying to kill another Jabberwock? And it's annoyed because the 'hasty restrictions' it was given don't let it even consider a number of things, including said Jabberwock, certain core pieces of it, the similar core pieces of the dead Jabberwock, and anything any of those had put into motion. External snarks 'critical to the cycle' and things they were managing or put into motion were also excluded.
It didn't even sound like it wanted the other Jabberwock to die so much as it disliked that it was being denied the ability to figure out how to make it happen.
"That's certainly unexpected," Taylor finally said. "But your snark seems to think you're being truthful, at least, and I have no reason to think it's fibbing."
"I'm curious though," Amy said. "I don't suppose you can, say, come up with a way to grant us the ability to fly unassisted while remaining human?"
Fortuna blinked. "I can certainly try. Give me a moment."
It would be an interesting test, at least.
Garnet rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer. She trusted Glaistig, even if the bitch wouldn't tell anyone her real name, so this would be where the one likely courting Danny's daughter lived. Who that was would be an interesting question, and she wasn't sure how to find out which resident she was looking for. But she'd figure things out, before she got to play overprotective parent. It was probably the closest she'd get, anyway, since she wasn't going to be having kids of her own.
Powers sucked sometimes.
A minute later the door unlocked and was opened by Mark Dallon. Which was enough to cause Garnet's thought processes to skip a few cycles.
"Garnet?" Mark said, blinking a couple of times. "You're supposed to be in the Birdcage, aren't you?"
"Er, yes," Garnet replied. "Prison break. Glaistig Uaine's idea, I'm sure you can understand."
Mark closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, before sighing. "Why are you here?"
"I was told that Danny Hebert's daughter had a potential boyfriend living here?"
Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I think you've got some details wrong, but why would you care? No, wait, he married one of your former followers, didn't he. Did he get her out of your movement?"
"Basically, yes. Impressed the hell out of me in the process. One of the few males to ever do so. I'd say you were on the short list, but you aren't."
"You might as well come in," Mark said, stepping to the side. "No need for you to labor under a pile of misconceptions."
Garnet entered and Mark closed the door, then she followed him deeper into the house. "So you settled down with someone?"
"Ah, right, I married Carol," Mark started, only to be interrupted.
"YOU!" Carol screamed, jumping up from where she'd been sitting. Before Garnet knew what was happening she'd been punched. Hard. She was contemplating how much of this was chance and how much of it was the universe deliberately screwing with her when a glowing axe appeared above her head.
Mark, who she might need to add to the list of males she respected after all, stopped the arm holding the axe from descending. Any male who could handle being married to that bitch had to be made of stronger stuff than normal. Hell, if they had kids he had to be a near saint by normal standards. Well, she supposed that adoption or artificial insemination could explain that too, she'd have to see if she could get that out of them.
"How about we sit down and talk like rational adults," Mark said, pulling Carol away from Garnet. "Especially since we just got damage to the house repaired and Amy isn't available to heal major injuries." Mark then grinned. "Besides, we should really leave her in one piece. Misconceptions or not, she claims to have come here to talk to Amy about her relationship with Taylor. If that's still the case when we're done then we should really let Amy handle things when she gets back from Las Vegas."
Garnet blinked a couple of times. Her relationship with Taylor?
"That's interesting," Fortuna muttered, before shaking her head and looking at the two girls. "So, yeah. I've got three paths. One for 'unassisted by technology', which takes over two thousand steps and strips you of your current agents and replaces them with the aid of another parahuman, but you'd have to find two parahumans to swap with. They'd gain your current agents. One for 'unassisted by external technology, which involves getting Riley together with you two in a tinker fugue, dragging in a villain in California for the flight portion, over the course of a thousand steps or so. And the last for 'unassisted by anything', which is only four steps but isn't likely to work."
"Why wouldn't the last one work?" Amy asked.
Fortuna snorted. "I can tell that my agent is having fun with me. The steps are to find out how Rebecca flies, figure out how to reproduce it, an unknown step, and profit. I've come to interpret that kind of response as 'it might be possible, but critical data is missing'. Though I don't know why it started including the unknown step and profit, a few years ago it would've just been 'figure out how Rebecca flies, then duplicate it'." She then paused. "Why do I feel happier?"
"Because your snark likes figuring difficult things out," Taylor answered. "It dislikes when it can't for arbitrary reasons, and doesn't necessarily want you to follow through on everything. But figuring out odd scenarios is what it specialized to do, and the way it and its...sibling-snark? Counterpart? Something like that. They barely get used, and rarely for anything subtle or truly complicated."
"Not to mention it was annoyed that it felt it had just been replaced," Amy added. "So it was looking forward to either never being used again, or being, er..."
"I think it best translates to 'disposed of'," Taylor said. "Not quite 'killed' or 'destroyed', but similar? And it wasn't happy about the idea."
"The translation issues coupled with some of the redaction stuff is annoying," Amy said, shaking her head. "Makes it hard to get a full picture."
"I fully understand that headache," Fortuna agreed. "Especially as I started without it, as far as I know. Having a bunch of things you know your agent should be able to do or tell you be blocked by that kind of thing is annoying."
Taylor looked at Fortuna, thinking. "So, I don't suppose you have any thoughts on how to best enjoy our trip, or the reactions to the trip?"
Kara sighed as she sat down. She'd nearly reduced the entire driver to component parts, and she still had a little over an hour left. Building in dismantling failsafes on her more destructive creations had been a wonderful idea, too bad she didn't know why to do so they had to have a timer of their own. Nor why every removed component would literally melt down when she was done. Still, it was better than a potentially-literally Earth-shattering Kaboom.
She paused for a moment, deciding that the reference was probably ok. At least she hadn't let old cartoons corrupt her to the point of calling her drivers 'Explosive Space Modulators' or anything like that. Besides, today she was playing the role of the rabbit. Somewhat. Crap, a lot of those cartoons had the entire area destroyed, didn't they?
Shaking herself out of that line of thought, she instead reached over to the mini-fridge, that somehow still worked, and pulled out another bottle of water. She might have to see why it was nobody had turned off the power to this particular lab too. Maybe. Or perhaps she'd just quietly not draw attention to it and hope nobody noticed after she shut everything down.
A few minutes later the bottle of water was empty and discarded, and she sighed and got up to get back to work. She had to finish dismantling things, gather what she was going to, and leave before the meltdown occurred. Maybe she'd come back in a few months, provided she was still not in prison, when the toxic fumes from the meltdown had dissipated. But before then she had to decide if she wanted to stop the prank she'd left running for Sheila or the surprise fireworks display for the coming New Year.
By the time she was collecting things to leave the lab she'd decided that she should at least make sure that the airports closest to the fireworks display were aware that things might be going down then. Accidentally shooting down a plane would, after all, probably be a bad thing, and that was liable to piss off Glaistig.
The prank was still up in the air, because it wasn't supposed to be harmful. Just humiliating. Though perhaps she should check if Sheila had developed a peanut allergy over the past five years or so...
"They're actually holding a drinking contest that they won't exclude us from?" Amy questioned. "Why?"
"Because several local parahumans with their own improved tolerances participate," Fortuna explained. "You always get normals looking to join in, if only for the fact that the first few drinks are free. Thing is, I believe that Taylor here was able to out-drink all but maybe two of them back when she beat Lung, so..."
"Huh," Taylor said, thinking about it. "I guess that can go on the maybe list."
"We've not put much anywhere else," Amy noted. "The 'no way in hell' list only got the 'start a tinker fugue in the middle of the convention' idea, after all, and we were already planning on visiting the lab of the dead tinkers."
"Bringing Ackbar and Rodney with us to the first day of the convention makes sense," Taylor added. "Then we hopefully don't have people asking us who we got them from in the convention and all. But I get the feeling that Fortuna isn't telling us everything."
"Some of it is best handled if you don't know that it's coming," Fortuna explained with a shrug. "Knowing just means you're likely to overthink things and screw them up. That not knowing also means more amusement from my point of view is a side benefit. I've also avoided steering you at things you honestly wouldn't enjoy, despite the amusement value."
"Like what?" Amy asked after a moment.
"Wet t-shirt contests for one," Fortuna answered with a grin. "The few surviving underground casinos that won't care that you're underage are another, though there the amusement value is more how you'd essentially destroy them by using their cheating rigs against them. But that route has paperwork down it, and you're supposed to be on vacation."
"Yeah, let's not go there," Taylor said, shaking her head. "I don't suppose you have any idea when we'll be returning?"
Fortuna's grin widened. "I don't even need my agent for that one. You'll return when your post-convention tasks are complete. I promised not to tell you anything else about that, so you'll just have to wait to see what they are. It isn't anything to worry about either way, honestly."
Amy sighed. "Just knowing that something is coming is annoying."
"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "So, right. I think I'm done with some of this discussion, what do we do for the rest of this flight?"
Fortuna looked at the two, before chuckling. "I doubt you two have heard a number of stories, like the time Eidolon accidentally animated a dozen clown costumes during a training exercise?"
Ciara was bored. She'd expected more horrible assumptions and senseless violence. Instead she got to see a single punch and threatening with a light-axe. Otherwise everyone had been, relatively speaking, reasonable. Nothing had gone the way she'd expected it. Well, Kara had done pretty much what she expected, but she was the only one alone. Everything else had gone wrong.
Including the popcorn. The less said about the popcorn the better. In fact, what popcorn? She'd given up on popcorn. The charred mess of not-popcorn was an illusion, and nobody could prove otherwise since she'd obliterated it.
Sighing, she decided that enough time had passed. Kara had just abandoned her lab in preparation for it to become temporarily uninhabitable, Benjamin and Garnet had both been offered a room for the night after some drinking, though Garnet had barely accomplished that after their discussion. And Erasmo already had an 'in' with the asylum, having proven that he was capable of ensuring that the staff could more easily deal with the patients due to the enhanced toughness, strength, and if needed electrical shocks.
Really, things had gone amazingly well, all things considered. She'd just hoped that they wouldn't. It was more entertaining that way, after all. But, she had another source of entertainment lined up already. The only question was how long it would take Dragon to realize that she was four inmates short.
With a grin, Ciara stopped blocking the surveillance in her private rooms, as well as the overall prevention of interesting audio from being picked up. Which meant that Dragon should be able to see every single person in the prison again. Not to mention that the subtle control effect to discourage people from speaking where their lips could be read would no longer be in effect. She was fairly certain that nobody but her knew of that aspect of that faerie's power.
Dragon was pulled away from working out some changes in the travel arrangements for TinkerTechCon by an alert from the Birdcage. Glaistig Uaine had apparently dropped her various tricks that were blocking and/or fooling surveillance, and that had set off several alerts. She quickly went over things and determined that everything seemed to be working as intended, then she started checking on the inmates. Nothing too involved, just a quick verification that the management systems were tracking everyone properly.
It took four passes before she realized where things were wrong. There were four inmates missing. Four cell block leaders were missing, and they'd last been seen entering Glaistig Uaine's rooms. Given that there'd been no indication of friction between the five it was likely that they had another 'see how they handle a prison break' scenario.
Dragon double-checked that Mother's transport wasn't having issues in the last hour or so before it landed, and that only the five that were supposed to be present were. Well, five humans and two spider-bots, but that was it. Having reassured herself of that, she split her attention between starting a search for the missing inmates and making the first calls she needed to.
Chapter 138 Garnet groaned as she looked at the sizable bruise on her face from when Carol had punched her. Mark's lack of violent reaction had left her unprepared for the sudden assault. If that wasn't bad enough, she was only able to stand right now because she was holding onto the sink. Her time in prison had made her a lightweight.
She still didn't know what to think about Carol's reaction to finding out why she was there. Bursting into laughter and adding popcorn to the shopping list was...unexpected. At best. Their daughter, lucky bitch, had commented that it was debatable whether it would be Amy or Taylor that showed Garnet the 'error of her ways'. Mark had decided that it would likely be a team effort for some reason.
Thing was, even in the Birdcage you heard about people like Panacea. Finding out that Danny's kid was maybe-dating-but-nobody-really-knows the world's greatest healer was hard to believe. She really needed to do a lot more research into what was going on, but that would have to wait until morning. For now she had to quite literally crawl back to the guest room to get some rest.
Fortuna had left as soon as the transport had landed, before the ramp even considered opening. They'd all been somewhat annoyed at the length of the trip, but they'd had to be redirected when a cape battle involving fliers had sprung up along their flight path. The end result of that was a slower and much lower to the ground leg to keep out of other flight paths, which had ended up adding several hours to their trip.
Shortly before landing Taylor and Amy had both ensured that their spider-bots were in their pet carriers, but weren't sure what they should do with the mopeds. They collected everything and strapped the pet carriers to the tops of their suitcases, but waited to check with someone before unstrapping the mopeds.
"Good evening ladies," a hotel employee said as they came up the ramp. "I'm told that you have suitcases, pets, and personal transportation to deal with?"
"We can handle getting to our rooms but aren't sure what to do with the mopeds," Amy explained, gesturing to where the mopeds were still strapped down.
"If you'd like you can park them over in the marked area near the elevators for now," the employee said, pointing. "If the clip that hit the news this morning is any indication you won't have any issues departing from the roof on your first trip out into the city, after which you'll be able to use the garage. Now then, would you like your room keys to be physical or digital today?"
"I didn't know digital was an option," Taylor said. "In fact, I wasn't told it was an option at all last time I was here?"
The employee nodded. "I'm thinking your last visit was during the mock thesis event, which would've been a group purchase for students with who knows what electronic devices available. The group rate probably included physical keys for everyone, in part so that the hassle of setting up digital keys wouldn't be needed. At least, that's how most of our large groups get handled. You can always ask at the desk for digital keys in that kind of situation, should you desire to."
"I'm thinking digital would be better then," Taylor said, looking at Amy. She nodded. "Yeah. One less thing to carry, right?"
"Indeed," the employee said. "If you'll unload from the transport and meet me by the elevators we can get everything taken care of then. No need to keep the transport waiting for us to set things up, after all."
Suitcases and pet carriers were brought over near the elevators before the two returned to unstrap and bring the two mopeds out to the parking area. That didn't take long, and once everything was unloaded the transport closed up and took off. The girls then collected their suitcases and pet carriers and met the employee at the terminal he was apparently having issues with.
"Is something wrong?" Taylor asked after a minute.
"I'm having issues with loading your reservations," the employee said, waving at the system. "The manager sent me up to meet you, so I know there should be something in here. I just can't find it." He then sighed. "I'm assuming you don't have the hotel's app installed, but we're also compatible with the PRT system due to the number of employees and affiliates that come through here. Perhaps they already registered you two that way?"
Taylor shrugged and pulled her phone out. "How would you like me to check that?"
"Just place your phone down here," the employee said, pointing at a small plate with the PRT, Protectorate, and Guild logos on it. Taylor did so, and the phone went through an authentication dance with the terminal. A moment later things beeped and a new screen came up on the terminal. "What the hell? Whoops, sorry. But you're in one of the VIP suites! Those don't even use the reservation system."
"I suppose that could be why you couldn't find it," Amy noted.
"Yes, well, that does explain a few things. You'll have to operate the elevator, while I know where we're going I don't actually have access to that floor myself."
Five minutes later Taylor and Amy found themselves in one of four suites on the 'Dragon' floor. Which was distinct from the 'PRT', 'Protectorate', and 'Guild' floors, and when the elevator had stopped there that detail had flummoxed the hotel employee. Apparently he'd been expecting them to be in one of the PRT's suites, not one of Dragon's.
"Did you notice that the door seems to have your name as a long-term nameplate?" Amy asked after the employee had left.
"Yeah," Taylor replied, shaking her head. "It was obvious when compared to the suite across the hall with the digital nameplate. I'm left wondering how many places Dragon has prepared rooms for me in."
"Probably every facility she has rooms in," Amy answered with a shrug. "I know some hospitals were talking about setting something up for me if I ever start doing country-roaming, in which case I'd probably end up with a permanently available suite in or near every major hospital in the country. Still, we should figure out where we're sleeping and probably let Rodney and Ackbar out to familiarize themselves with the suite."
"Once we're done with that we should also decide if we want to stay in or go out for dinner," Taylor added, to Amy's nod.
Danny sighed as he checked in on Ben, finding that the man was fast asleep in the guest room. The Dockworkers had worked with the man's legitimate businesses back in the day, on a very regular basis, which is how Danny knew him. He was always unfailingly polite and formal, even in social situations, and had been sent to the Birdcage a week before the party he'd likely been planning for introducing Amy, Amelia, whichever to his legitimate business partners.
Had that happened it was very likely that Taylor would've met Amy a lot sooner, but whether or not Amy would've ever become Panacea at that point was an entirely different question.
Still, he now had things he should really do. Should really have done already, but he wasn't entirely sure how to think about a few things. He collected his phone and headed downstairs, so as to not disturb Ben from his alcohol-induced slumber. It was probably worth the couple of bottles of Lacey's first round of things, and years in prison ensured that was all it took for Ben.
"Good evening Mister Hebert," Dragon's voice came over the phone a couple minutes later. "Taylor and Amy are just getting settled into their hotel suite."
"That's nice to know," Danny said. "And good evening to you as well. I was expecting the automated system, it's a pleasant surprise to get you directly."
"Being an honorary grandfather has its privileges. Was there anything else you needed this evening?"
"I was told an interesting story over drinks earlier, and I feel you need to know some of the details."
"I'm not sure that I have time for stories this evening," Dragon said, sounding apologetic. "I have a number of important things to be working on."
Danny rolled his eyes and ignored her. "Benjamin seems to think that Garnet was sent to the Dallon household, Kara was going to be looking into some project of hers, and that Erasmo was going to be in Pennsylvania."
There was a noticeable silence from the other end of the call, to the point where Danny actually checked that he hadn't been disconnected. After another minute or so Dragon finally spoke again. "Would you happen to know where Benjamin is right now?"
"Sleeping off some of Lacey's unusually good beer in my guest room," Danny responded.
Another noticeable silence, before a digital sigh came over the line. "I don't suppose you know anything else about what was supposed to be happening with the four?"
"Benjamin was going to give Taylor the shovel speech, I think. With less shovels and more bones. Garnet was sent to the Dallon household to do the same for Amy. Benjamin was trying to be open-minded, but Garnet was apparently aiming for Taylor's 'boyfriend'. Erasmo, no clue who he is, had something to do with his son. And I'm assuming that Kara is a tinker of some kind from context. Apparently Glaistig Uaine was having fun with them all, or so Ben decided after I answered the door."
"At least this time she didn't send the ten most recent incarcerations out into the middle of Kansas," Dragon replied after a moment. "Really, Kara is the most likely to be problematic. Capturing her the first time had been a bit of a stroke of luck in finding her. Thank you for the information, it will certainly help. Though I have to admit, I didn't think you'd be familiar with the histories of Benjamin or Garnet."
"I rubbed shoulders with Ben for work purposes, since he did his negotiating personally. Only figured out the rest when he showed up and I made the connection to Amy's powers. As for Garnet, well, Annette was part of her movement and was having trouble leaving until I stepped in and had a talk with the woman. We actually kept in touch until she was sent to the Birdcage."
"I'll check with the Dallons and see what's happening with Garnet, and then I think I know where to contact about Erasmo. We may or may not wish to take them back into custody soon, but I'll ensure that someone calls ahead if an attempt is to be made."
Danny frowned at that. "I know that Garnet's lieutenants were found to be more at fault for the 'final straw' that saw her sent to the Birdcage, and Ben's capture must have been decidedly unusual, but both did have enough things without those details to warrant their punishments, right? Shouldn't taking them in be higher priority?"
"We'll be starting a search for Kara shortly, but will be consulting with a number of officials before even considering stepping in to take any of them into custody so long as they aren't an active threat. At a minimum we have to consider what Glaistig's plans might be, coupled with the annoyance that the last time she did this there was precedent set by a couple of clever lawyers. Someone will be in touch once decisions have been made. Is there anything else you need before I go make other calls?"
"No, thank you."
Taylor grinned as she and Amy put on their helmets. They'd decided to go out to eat, and had called ahead to a restaurant nearby. They had reservations and were told that there was room for them to park the mopeds, so they were clear to head over. Which meant they were going to drive off of the landing area for transports and down the outside of the hotel. They'd also warned the hotel staff that they were going to do so, in case anyone else called to question things.
The map was up and telling them meaningless things about how to get to the restaurant, such as 'take the elevator to the ground floor' at this point. On one hand, it was neat that it knew that much. On the other hand, it didn't have a 'jump off the building' path node, at least not outside of 'flying cape' mode anyway. Which they weren't in. They were both curious what the thing was going to do when they got moving.
A minute later they found out. It apparently went nuts, thinking that they might be committing suicide or something, before pausing and determining that the rate of descent was inconsistent with freefall? Huh. Now it was just confused and waiting for them to start acting like it was expecting them to.
It wasn't long before they reached ground level. A moment afterwards they merged into traffic and the app recalculated and gave them their directions. It was a reasonably short trip to the restaurant, and once they arrived they were directed to where some bicycles were chained up. The mopeds didn't take long to secure, and then they made their way over to the entrance.
"We don't see many tinkertech personal vehicles around here," the maitre d' noted after initial greetings had been exchanged. "The occasional tricked-out bus, but rarely personal vehicles. May I ask where you got them from?"
"The base mopeds came from an electric motor tinker, I think it was," Taylor answered, rolling her eyes when she realized that the mopeds were already drawing a small crowd. "With a generator addon from another tinker? They've since been worked on by multiple tinkers in Brockton Bay."
They paused to look at a teenager that had just gotten a nasty shock from Amy's moped, and was swearing up a storm. Amy frowned after a moment. "I didn't think the security system had a shock option?"
"The young gentleman is known for trying his luck with some things he's cobbled together," the maitre d' replied. "Perhaps he tried something and was rebuffed? Now then, would you two prefer a table or a booth this evening?"
"I think a table will be fine," Taylor replied.
Rebecca sighed as she leaned back in her chair. The last time Glaistig Uaine had tested them with a prison break had been a disaster. Then again, that time she'd just taken the ten most recent incarcerations and sent them out without any apparent thought, on the supposed basis that she'd liked the way things had been before their arrival. This time her goals appeared to be wildly different, sending a mere four individuals to four different places.
They were treading carefully, as what little information they had was...unusual. All four were operating in an annoyingly complicating non-violent manner, with only String Theory remaining off the radar officially. Unofficially, Clairvoyant had indicated that she'd dismantled something, left before the remnants melted down, and was making her way to a likely second lab. That this had, as far as they could tell, reduced the likelihood of catastrophic earthquakes in the area in the next six months by over ninety-seven percent indicated that it had likely been an active project.
One did not interrupt tinkers taking apart dangerous creations. Especially not when they were apparently doing so voluntarily.
"I've got the preliminary writeup on Galvanate," a runner said as he swept in, dropping a memory card in her 'in' tray. Said tray was the focus of a host of scanning technology and was one of many 'lines of defense' for her protection, most of which were overkill if you knew her other identity. Most didn't, so things stuck around. "We can have a complete hard copy bound in half an hour, if you'd like one."
"No thank you," Rebecca said, picking the memory card up when the light on her tray went green. It then went into the secure reader on her desk, where a security program took over. "I don't have the time to wait. How long on the others?"
"Sorry Ma'am, I don't know. They stationed me in the hallway."
Rebecca wanted to roll her eyes, but resisted the impulse. "Thank you anyway." Once he'd nodded and left her office she gave into the impulse and rolled her eyes. Now wasn't the time to remind them that she preferred that the fully cleared runners be kept more in the loop. She'd yell at them about that later. 'Sneakernet' was inefficient enough as it was.
Once the security program finished scanning the card it released control of it to her workstation, and she was able to open the files on it up. It didn't take long to confirm that things were about what she'd expected. By modern standards the man would've been offered several therapy options before being sentenced to life in prison. His powers would qualify him for several potential work-release programs now as well, and technically many of his original crimes could no longer be considered to be his responsibility due to changes in the law since his incarceration.
In short, there were any number of lawyers that would fight over the chance to take his case on the sole basis of slinging mud at the government in the process. And there was a good chance that even the worst of them would win on a number of fronts. That the only use of his powers since his escape had been to help staff at a parahuman asylum would only be in his favor.
Sighing, she closed that file. She'd been hoping that she was missing things, but this just showed that she was probably fairly well up to speed. Which meant that even without the workup on the other three she had a reasonable idea of how things would likely go with them too.
Lustrum was probably going to fall under many of the same clauses, especially with what her former lieutenants had gotten up to after her incarceration. In fact, that was where some of the changes to the laws came from. Nobody had expected that she'd been the moderating force in that movement. She had her own list of crimes that were undeniably on her own shoulders, but after how long she'd already been imprisoned they would likely be seen as a lesser issue overall. That they hadn't even had the true beginnings of a framework for figuring out some of her likely issues in place then would just add to that.
Marquis was likely to be the biggest headache, what with what the then Brockton Bay Brigade had done to capture him in the first place. Ever since the fiasco that resulted in Marvin going from a small town in South Dakota to a large crater in South Dakota eight years prior there were a number of things done differently on that front. Like double-checking for unpowered anyone being present, especially family and close friends. Granted, that had been a worst-case scenario, since the woman had originally gained her agent through the death of one of her children, but the lesson had stuck all the harder as a result.
Learning that it was possible for someone to go through a third and fourth 'crisis point' in rapid succession had not been worth it. They'd seriously considered shooting the man who'd proposed a plan to see if it was possible to hit a fifth, and the public might have lynched him if the President hadn't classified almost all of the details of what had actually happened.
Come to think of it, she should see if the current administration wanted to reverse that particular decision. It would make explaining several of the rules the PRT had to operate under a lot easier. Yes, the current 'blame it on Congress' line worked well, since Congress was aware of that incident, but it didn't paint the full picture. She made note of that as an added reminder for later in the week.
String Theory, by comparison, was likely a simple case. She'd been incarcerated after all of the important changes, so there was a lot less for a lawyer to work with for her. But she was also dismantling apparently-dangerous devices, which meant she probably needed at least a cursory evaluation. Which went back to her earlier thoughts of not interrupting tinkers dismantling dangerous things on their own. That it would help her possibly stay out of prison was besides the point.
Rebecca rubbed her forehead. The last time they'd had all but three of those ten be violent again within two hours of being broken out of the Birdcage, and the three that hadn't had basically run straight for lawyers. This time they had no violence at all, at least not from the escapees. She wasn't going to count Carol Dallon as Lustrum 'running to a lawyer' either, especially since she was the source of the only known violence around the four so far.
"Ma'am," came a call from the door. She looked up to see her secretary, holding a travel mug for some reason. "I've put your coffee in a travel mug. The President just informed me that you're wanted in conference room eight for a joint call between him, the Canadian Prime Minister, the Mexican President, and the heads of various intelligence agencies across all three countries."
"Wonderful," Rebecca grumbled, standing up. Unexpected meetings of this level were always a joy, of course. She'd just join from her office, but she needed the extra monitors in the conference room for one this large.
At least it wasn't a request to use the ultra-secure room she had to visit every few weeks to give the really secure reports. The ones that would normally be given in person, except most parahumans weren't allowed to be alone with the President.
Dinner had been enjoyable, though they'd been accosted by reporters as they left the restaurant. Apparently they wanted a statement from Amy on the events of the weekend, which had been released by the PRT earlier that day.
"I consider it to be a medical matter and thus subject to confidentiality laws," was Amy's only answer, which caused actual scowls to appear on several faces before they recovered. They didn't seem to hold that against Amy, at least, so it was likely scowling because they had no way around the law.
The maitre d' had also, before they'd hit the reporters, recommended a couple of shows they might want to catch. He'd gone to the effort of finding out which ones would allow for easy and free parking of the valet-incompatible mopeds as well, which was appreciated. They'd decided to give one of them a try, ending up visiting a nearby casino running a magic act all week.
Their experience was very quickly determined to not be what they were expecting.
Taylor: Is it me, or did everyone else in the audience ignore that he swapped hats just then?
Amy: It certainly seems that way. Think it has anything to do with their snark?
Taylor: I'm thinking yes, but I don't think it even attempted to connect to us.
The next trick involved calling someone up and having them pick a card, and to the two girls it was blatantly obvious when the magician swapped decks after the card was chosen, likely to an ever so slightly smaller deck that would make it trivial to identify the chosen card. Which, watching afterwards, seemed to be what was going on.
Taylor: Are you supposed to be hiding stuff from us?
[Agreement]
Amy: Are you even trying to?
[Negation]
Taylor: Why not?
[Data]
Fun. It could tell that they had better than normal human senses, and it wasn't prepared to hide things from better than normal human senses. So it hadn't bothered to even try, on the basis that the attempts to do so would stand out more to the two than what was being disguised.
[Elaboration]
And apparently it wasn't in the mood to mess with anyone that had more than one snark, after a bad experience with someone like that in the past. So it wasn't going to try and influence them to ignore things directly. Which meant that they were dealing with a stage magician who sucked at being a stage magician, but leaned on his snark to cover the gap. Which, for the average visitor, was probably perfectly fine. But not for them, or anyone else that his snark decided to skip.
Taylor: I'm so tempted to shut his snark down for a few minutes and see how everyone reacts.
Amy: That would be mean, nasty, and cruel to him. We should leave before I give into the urge to do so myself.
Taylor: Though I am curious about who else it ran into with multiple snarks.
Amy: That's a good question. I have no idea.
They got up and made their way to the doors, only to be met by a staff member as soon as they'd left.
"Do you two need to visit the restrooms?" the man asked.
"No," Amy replied. "We found the show lacking."
"I'm sorry to hear that," the man said, taking a tablet from his side. "Do you mind if I ask why? We like to do anything we can to improve our shows."
"He obviously uses some form of parahuman ability to hide how his tricks work," Taylor replied. "Under the right circumstances it's incredibly obvious."
The man sighed as he reached into a pocket to pull out two vouchers. "My apologies. You two must have some training in spotting 'stranger' style influences, as the PRT frequently refers to them. If you bring these vouchers to the front desk they'll gladly refund your ticket price."
The two took a voucher each, to see that they were outright 'full or partial immunity to stranger effects prevented a show from being enjoyable' vouchers. They were marked as being redeemable at the front desk for a refund or the casino's cashier booth for betting credit. Obviously they weren't going to be doing the latter, as there were signs all over the place indicating what borders you couldn't cross without being old enough.
"Thank you," Amy said.
A few minutes later they'd had their refunds processed, with an additional apology from the front desk and a quick explanation of their 'secret system' for identifying such shows in the future. Apparently a number of casinos had approached the PRT and gotten standardized wording and imagery implemented for the entire state as a subtle indicator that people who had training to see through things or were, for any reason, immune in some way could use to avoid those shows. They even had reference cards available, though they didn't have what the card was for printed on them.
A few minutes later they were debating what to do. There were no other shows starting soon at this casino, a quick check of nearby establishments showed nothing of interest, but they weren't in the mood to head back to the hotel already. They ruled out hunting down a variety of desserts, heading all the way across the city to try and catch a show they weren't sure if they were interested in or could reach on time, and decided to skip a nightclub event down the street.
Instead, they'd found themselves at this particular casino's bar. They'd had to show their 'allowed to purchase alcohol' cards, had been given colored wristbands, and were warned that they'd have to leave through the door they came in outside of an emergency. The other two doors to the bar were apparently direct onto the gambling floor, and they weren't old enough to be out there. That they were the only ones with yellow wristbands, compared to the blue many others had, would presumably help security know that.
"Think we should try the around the world set?" Amy asked while the bartender was dealing with a couple of rowdy individuals at the other end of the bar.
"Seven drinks for seven continents, each one stronger than the last," Taylor read from the menu card. "Somehow I think the strength will be disappointing, but why not."
"It's a decent starter set," a woman nearby, a parahuman in particular, commented. "Small portions, of course. But I think a variation on it will be used to open the competition on Thursday. Not a bad choice if you plan on watching, as you'll have a general idea what things taste like."
"Probably not a bad idea if we decide to participate either," Amy noted, causing the woman to scoff at the idea. "Especially if larger versions turn out to be the first few drinks and all."
"Teenagers," the woman muttered.
A few minutes later Taylor and Amy had their seven drinks each in front of them, and the woman was watching them with a grin. The two downed the first drink, both frowning.
Amy: There's hardly any alcohol in that one, and it was, well, bland.
Taylor: I think that's the point, what would they flavor it with in Antarctica?
With a shrug they moved on down the line, finding that most of the other drinks had better flavor. True to the advertising, each had more alcohol than the last. In the end it was still disappointing.
"I'm fairly certain that Lacey would've been offended by us drinking this," Taylor finally said, shaking her head. "Why did we come in here again?"
"Because there were no other shows starting and we didn't want to go back to the hotel yet," Amy answered with a shrug. "Since we already had dinner and the other major thing available here is gambling, that we're too young for. Maybe we should just give up?"
Taylor looked around the bar, then sighed. "Yeah. We'll find something better to do tomorrow."
Chapter 139 Wednesday morning dawned brightly in Brockton Bay. For one portion of town it also dawned loudly, emergency sirens wailing as a fire was fought in a vacant building near the Boardwalk.
It wasn't the distant sounds of the sirens that coaxed Benjamin out of his slumber, but the fact that he had to use the restroom. He paused when he reached the bedroom door, both because he'd reached out to renew his hold on the bone that wasn't there, and because there was an actual door. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was, an embarrassing couple of minutes remembering how to open a door, and a final couple to recall where the toilet was.
It had been far too long since he'd been in a decent house, so it seemed.
Deciding against trying to go back to sleep, even if the bed had been the nicest he'd been able to sleep in for a decade, he instead made his way downstairs. He could do with a cup of tea...no, there was coffee available. He'd had a decade of tea, thanks in part to nobody wanting Glaistig Uaine to decide she wasn't going to stick around in the Birdcage without tea. For now he was going to have coffee to wake up.
Forty-five minutes later Daniel found him, having completely failed to produce a drinkable cup of coffee. That it took his host only a few minutes to get things brewing was another blow to his own ego, but it wasn't too long before he had his cup of coffee.
"I think you'll be able to wear some of my clothing," Daniel had said after they'd both had a cup of coffee. "But you need to shower first. Stick to the bottles marked with blue tape, I do that so that when I'm half asleep I don't use Taylor's stuff."
It pained him to do so, but Benjamin had to ask. Especially after having issues with a doorknob and a coffee maker already. "Is there anything I need to know about getting your shower to function?"
"Turn the water on, then pull the ring at the tub spout down to redirect the water to the showerhead."
"Thank you." Both for the information and not laughing at him.
"I have to work today, but this evening we'll see about getting you some additional clothing to wear."
Elsewhere in Brockton Bay, Garnet was also waking up. She, however, was not woken up by biological needs, or at least not this time. She'd had her 'how do I work a doorknob?' issues in the middle of the night. Nor were the sirens audible to her. Instead, she woke up to a frustrated scream. That it sounded like a female scream had her up and out of bed in a heartbeat, only to run into the closed door.
Having already recalled how to use a doorknob does not help when you've spent over a decade in a prison without doors at all.
It took her a moment to recover from the impact with the fairly solid door, during which she recalled where she was. That also led to realizing that there was unlikely to be any significant problem, so she was much more calm as she opened the door to go investigate. She found Carol and Mark's daughter...Vicky! She found Vicky spinning around in the middle of the living room, as though trying to spot something.
"Morning," Garnet finally said, only to get a mumbled response from the girl. Shrugging, she made her way into the kitchen, absently wondering why they had ambient noise speakers playing insect sounds. She'd have thought it might be actual insects, but she'd been able to focus on the apparently unmoving sound source and saw nothing, so hidden speakers was the most likely explanation.
She didn't want to think about some of the 'fun' Glaistig had put them through with phantom sounds over the years. They'd wished she'd stuck with it after she'd gotten bored with phantom sounds and switched to phantom objects, but the resulting mental checklists were apparently still useful.
"Good morning," Carol mumbled as she poked at her phone. "I think I left some coffee in the pot."
"Coffee?" Garnet questioned. "Not tea?"
"I think there's some tea in the cabinet?" Carol offered. "If you want some."
"NO!" Garnet yelled, grabbing the coffee pot and crading it to the best of her ability without burning herself. "Coffee for meeeeee!"
It probably wasn't providing the best impression, but she was sick of the only non-water drinks available being tea. She never really liked tea in the first place, and anyone who said otherwise was crazy. Even if she had owned a tea shop before she was thrown in prison.
"When we're both ready for the day we'll see about getting you some more clothing," Carol added. "I took the morning off, and I'd rather you not have to resort to borrowing my clothing."
Garnet blinked, and stared at Carol. That was...unexpected, at a minimum. Maybe she should have some of the glorious coffee and then see if things changed, it might just be that she was still too asleep to have heard that properly?
Taylor sighed as she left the bathroom attached to her room. Each of the bedrooms in here had its own bathroom, which was nice. No need to share, and there was likely plenty of hot water. But now that she was up it was unlikely that she'd get back to sleep. Instead she decided to look into options for breakfast, Ackbar following her out into the main area of the suite. First up was checking for room service menus, or information on whether or not breakfast was available downstairs like it had been when they were here before.
She found nothing sitting around with information, but did find that there was an interactive information display in the area that served as the kitchen of sorts. It told her that no buffet style breakfast was available downstairs for a couple of days while they reconfigured the area for the conference. Instead a limited room service breakfast menu was free for the time being. Checking that resulted in finding that there was a 'VIP' menu that was also free, but wasn't flagged as being temporary. Then again, that section was primarily meals for the spider-bots, plus a selection of drink options.
Deciding to get feeding the pets out of the way, and see how things were handled, she ordered a bowl for each spider-bot, then started checking on breakfast options outside of the hotel. She figured that decisions on what to do about breakfast could be made once Amy was up. Though she also made note as she went through the menus that they had access to a small washing machine and dryer, apparently in the closet between the two bedrooms.
It didn't take long to find out that 'room service' in this suite was delivered by something like a dumb waiter, accessed via a cabinet at the end of the 'kitchen' counter. It dinged and lit up when things were ready, with instructions for opening it showing on the information screen. It seemed that an interlock was present to keep things from moving when the door was open or the door from opening when the platform wasn't present. Included inside the door were instructions to return the dirty dishes to the alcove when done, as well as a pile of warnings about the locking mechanism.
She removed the two bowls and put one down for Ackbar. The other she left on the counter to give to Rodney later. She then watched Ackbar carefully drag the bowl under one of the end tables before starting to consume it. The thing was perfectly happy to try and eat on the table or counter back home, but now it wanted to retreat into a smaller space? Maybe it was more comfortable at home or something.
Three quarters of an hour later Amy stirred, making her own run for the toilet. Taylor had to keep Ackbar from jumping up to eat Rodney's bowl a couple of times during that period, but there were no issues when the bowl was put down for the other spider-bot. Though Rodney also pulled the bowl under the end table before eating. Stupid things.
"So the bots are fed," Amy noted. "What about us?"
"We can either order room service or go out to eat," Taylor replied. "Buffet style stuff will be available on Friday, they're apparently reconfiguring things for the conference right now."
Amy frowned, but looked over the list Taylor sent of places to eat. She also checked the free room service menu, but then smirked as she apparently started searching on her own. Finally, after about ten minutes, she nodded. "I think we should go to the Eight Stool Diner for breakfast."
Taylor blinked, and looked that up. It was much further out of the way. "Why there?"
"Because it's on the way to the waterpark."
Crap. She'd realized, when packing, that she'd never gotten around to going back to get a more modest swimsuit, so had reluctantly packed the others. She might have to wear one of them now, because there was probably no chance of Amy letting her go shopping for anything this morning.
And if Amy's grin was any indication, she'd figured out what the look on Taylor's face meant.
Emily's eye twitched a couple of times as she read her morning briefings. She apparently had not one, but two prison escapees in town. Neither of which was to be moved on so long as they weren't running around using their powers in public, so she wasn't being told who or where, beyond that they were in town. 'More details would be made available after decisions are reached' was a very annoying thing for a PRT director to find in a briefing like this as well.
Moving on, her eye twitched some more. An apparent civil war in China, and a warning that refugees might start flowing into the country. They had enough refugees from Japan, thank you very much. She couldn't even rely on it being easier to reach the West coast, given that would have applied more to Japan and it hadn't helped much. In this case the lack of details was understandable, given the difficulty in monitoring most foreign countries at all, and the Chinese were more secretive than most.
Sighing, she moved to the next item, which was a simple delivery redirection. She blinked a couple of times. Apparently they'd decided to deliver one of Miss Hebert's orders to Las Vegas instead of to Brockton Bay. Good to know, not that the reasoning behind a bunch of spare visors was immediately apparent. In the same category was Miss Wilbourn having received her laptop. The other Wards would be getting their new equipment at the meeting in an hour or so.
That thought had her pause, and she took a moment to send a reminder that said meeting would need to be recorded. Wouldn't want Miss Hebert to miss the expressions on the faces of her teammates, right?
Missy was absolutely giddy as she made her way to the conference room. She had her final approval for the tinker fugue, and had a meeting about it after lunch. No word on when the fugue itself would be happening yet, but it was going to happen! That she wasn't patrolling today due to meetings was a mild annoyance, but not enough of one to dampen her mood. Especially given what the other meeting was for.
For now she had a joint Protectorate and Wards meeting to attend, though they hadn't said what it was for. Just that attendance was mandatory, costumes were optional. At least, optional for the Wards. Not that she cared, she only skipped changing into costume when she was running late or knew that she wouldn't have time to change out of it before having to leave again.
"Good morning Director," Missy greeted as she met the older woman in the hallway.
"Good morning Vista," Director Piggot replied. "How are you this morning?"
"I'm great. How about you?"
"I've had better mornings. Disturbing news and all that, some of which I think I'll make sure comes up during the meeting."
"Oh," Missy said, thinking that sounded ominous.
Ten minutes later they were seated in the conference room, Director Piggot up at the head of the table with Armsmaster. The Wards had ended up along Director Piggot's side of the table, and the Protectorate had ended up along Armsmaster's side. Missy hadn't noticed that being deliberate, and in fact didn't think that she'd made her seating choice based on that division, but it had still happened.
"Good morning everyone," Armsmaster said, apparently going first in today's meeting. Given that Director Piggot didn't look annoyed this was probably expected. "We have a number of things to cover today. To start with, I will be leaving for Las Vegas this evening to attend TinkerTechCon as a Protectorate representative. As such, Miss Militia will be the acting Protectorate ENE leader in my absence."
"Feel free to contact me for anything that you'd normally contact Armsmaster about," Miss Militia said. "Outside of tinkering, anyway." She then paused and looked around the room. "Not that I expect that changes much. Does anyone here contact Armsmaster for things that aren't tinkering related?"
There was some snickering at that, largely because it was somewhat accurate. Not entirely, but close enough.
"Moving on," Armsmaster continued, a smirk on his face. "Outside of Kid Win, we'd like all of the Wards to get some practice with their new equipment by the end of the weekend. If you need assistance in setting up testing scenarios please let someone know."
There was a moment of silence there, with the Wards sharing looks, before Carlos coughed once. "I wasn't aware that we had new equipment?"
Director Piggot looked at Armsmaster. "Perhaps we should've started with giving them their new equipment? Was there a reason to ask them to use it before giving it to them?"
"I wanted to see if any of them would actually ask about it instead of just agreeing to the request," Armsmaster replied as he stood up and lifted a box onto the table. "I'm pleased that they didn't just accept it at face value like the last time we dropped something like that on them."
Boxes of varying sizes were taken out of the larger box, each handed to a different Ward. Despite Kid Win being excluded from the 'practice with new equipment' request he actually had the largest box, a second one that had been left on the floor at first. That made a lot more sense when he opened said box to find it was full of parts. Hard to practice with your new toys when you have to build new toys to practice with first.
Missy had noted some of that, but was more involved in reading the manual for her themed sniper rifle. Her parents were going to be soooo jealous, even if it didn't fire physical ammo. She'd actually switched to looking up a digital version of the manual when she'd noticed missing pages, and wondered if anyone else in the room realized why she was grinning so hard. Or if they realized that she'd already added some things to her PRT store wishlist.
"Clockwatch?" Dennis asked. "Seriously?"
"It's a drone that follows you around," Director Piggot explained. "You can direct it manually, or allow it to watch you. Since it'll default to watching you, but could also be you using it to scout, the proposed name seemed appropriate."
"These all seem fairly well thought out," Brian said, his phone out as he followed the pairing instructions for the jump harness he'd been given. "I'm assuming that Maul's getting something as well?"
"Not really," Armsmaster answered. "Since these were gifts from her and all. An attempt to distract PHO from the fact that she keeps getting new toys while the rest of you don't, as she put it."
Missy stared at Armsmaster, blinking a couple of times, then looked down at the sniper rifle. Taylor had bought it for her? Damn. She might have to start actively thinking of ways to thank her fellow Ward.
"Again, let someone know if you have questions or issues," Miss Militia said. "Though I imagine that for the most part you won't have issues with testing your new equipment."
"Next up is scheduling the promotion ceremony for Aegis and Grue," Armsmaster said, obviously looking to get the meeting moving. "As well as deciding who will be stepping into the Wards leader role. Some recent changes to procedure make it so that we're to treat those transitioning in the same quarter as equal in age, so Clockblocker and Gallant are both eligible for leadership on that basis."
"Think on that while we discuss scheduling," Director Piggot said, calling a calendar up on the projector. "Now then, I'm being yelled at for it being almost a week into the quarter without having anything scheduled. Nevermind that they yell at everyone with a Wards transition in July, because they never consider the holiday, and I'm not allowed to officially schedule things in June. Ideally we want to get things over with as soon as we can, which means not doing the big ceremony."
Armsmaster nodded at that. "With two Wards and at least one Protectorate member unavailable for the next week, at least, we'd have to delay things too long for the larger ceremony. Luckily there are more efficient alternatives available. No, to both Assault and Clockblocker, we won't be using the 'new Wards leader literally kicks the departing Wards over to a Protectorate representative' ceremony, as it isn't on the sanctioned list."
"I'm partial to the quick and easy ten minute variant," Carlos said. "We get announced as transitioning, walk from one side of the stage to the other to join a single Protectorate representative, and then the new Wards leader that we left behind is brought forward. Quick, easy, and requires no speeches on anyone's parts."
Missy thought that Dennis was going to object, right up until the last comment. Because if he ended up playing Wards leader then almost every other option involved him giving a speech. As a rule of thumb, all of the Wards detested making speeches. She hated that it was incredibly likely that she'd have to give one when she transitioned to the Protectorate, if only due to how young she'd joined the Wards. Sadly, having lots of time to try and find a way out of it just made the dread grow as you kept failing to.
Really, there were only two ways she'd found to get out of giving a speech at promotion time with how young she'd joined the Wards. The first was to not join the Protectorate when she turned eighteen, negating the entire thing, and the other had a requirement of getting her parents to agree to make her identity public before her seventeenth birthday. Well, that or someone intentionally violating the unwritten rules and making her identity public. Good luck with that on either front.
"I think we can slip that in on Friday without any issue," Director Piggot said after she'd checked various things. "So that's easy enough to deal with. Both Clockblocker and Gallant are available all day as well. Which one of you will be stepping up?"
"Given that both of us would be the Wards leader for less than six months we'd like to decline," Dennis replied. "We've got a list of the relevant regulations if you'd like to review them?"
Dean produced a few pieces of paper. "I even brought printouts to make handing them out easier."
"Impressive," Miss Militia said, nodding to the two. "You obviously did your research."
"But you missed a detail," Armsmaster added. "The next in line by age is Maul, who won't be available on Friday. Since she won't be available for the promotion ceremony she isn't eligible, and you can't skip her."
Dean and Dennis shared a look, before they both slumped. Dennis looked back at the Protectorate members. "You didn't even look at our list."
"The possibility is on our checklists," Director Piggot noted with a grin. "As well as the conditions that need to be attached to things. We can skip you under the same regulations, after all, so we need to be aware of the surrounding details. As soon as we decided to do the ceremony while Maul isn't available it ceased to be an option."
"Besides, her six month anniversary isn't until next week," Miss Militia added. "Next month if we use the 'officially introduced' date. We'd have to get additional approval to put her in the leadership position early due to that."
"I vote for Clockblocker," Aisha spoke up, causing everyone to turn to her. "I've seen both of their post-patrol reports and honestly think his are better."
The others paused and thought about that, before most of them nodded. Missy included.
"Gallant does tend to get lost in some of the emotional state stuff in his reports," Missy finally said. "Yeah, 'they were angry' can be useful, but since most people can't spot all the nuances it just makes the details he puts into his reports useless extra information, so the report itself is harder to understand."
Taylor was doing her best to not think about how exposed she was as they walked through the water park. They'd been sixth in line at the gates, and the gates opened half an hour before the rides and pools did for some reason. Still, they'd been able to secure tube rental wristbands, had their pick of lockers to rent for the day, and could probably be one of the first ones on any particular ride or other attraction.
"I vote we start with the wave pool," Amy said as she looked at the signs they were passing. "Get some fun in there before enough people are here to pack it full. At least standing in line for slides and such doesn't mean you're crowded on the slides."
"That's not a bad idea," Taylor admitted. "So that would be left up ahead?"
"Do we want to swim or float? In the latter case we'll want to grab tubes, I think."
"We can always swim with the tubes nearby, so for maximum flexibility I guess we should grab them."
Riley frowned as she was packing for her trip. Her mother had told her to pack for longer than expected, which implied that she wouldn't be returning straight home. But nobody had told her why not. The last time this had happened it was because her mother showed up unexpectedly after the event in question and they spent two weeks on vacation together.
Which would be a wonderful theory if her mother didn't have a severe dislike of Las Vegas.
The time before that, also the first time they'd dropped a surprise trip on her, had turned out to be a surprise visit to summer camp. That hadn't ended well, and now her file had warnings about dropping anything like that on her ever again. Supposedly they also fired the idiot in the PRT that had made the arrangements. Really, she'd just come off of a couple weeks of enforced not tinkering, and then they dropped her into a non-parahuman summer camp for two weeks?
Shaking her head, she returned to the task at hand, which was packing extra clothing for the trip. She'd eventually find out why the extra clothing was needed, and the hotel in Las Vegas had tinkering facilities that she could use in a pinch. Nothing to worry about, right?
"Riley!" her mother called a few minutes later. "Do you want to use the neon colors or the pastel colors?"
She sighed, before yelling back. "I wanted to alternate them, which is why I got both!"
Chris sat in his workshop, a small stack of new equipment on the workbench next to him. New phone, a new tablet, some replacement communication gear for his power armor. Missy had only ended up with a new phone and laptop when they'd left their post-lunch meeting, but she wasn't a tinker. The box of tinkertech from the morning meeting was at the end of the workbench, most of it still present as he'd focused more on design thoughts than actually working between the two meetings.
Missy had been surprised that he was in the meeting with her, but had recovered quickly. She wanted to know how long it took him to figure out the secret to bypassing the second stage, only for Miss Militia to inform her that he'd taken less time than she had from gaining access to the second stage to completing it. Her groan had been amusing, at least.
They'd had to sign a pile of additional paperwork, and had been issued their new SL9 equipment, before they'd had the bombshell dropped on them. The Slaughterhouse Nine were working with the PRT, and had been for years. Bonesaw was not only the young girl that had shown up for the Barrage Blaster testing with Jacob, but was one of the tinkers involved with the tinker fugue process they'd applied for.
Some of it seemed so obvious in hindsight, though he knew that he couldn't have figured out that particular puzzle until he had all the pieces. Making the connection between Jacob and Jack Slash had been trivial after that, and from there the similarities between projecting blades and projecting blunt objects had been like a blow to the ego. How was nobody noticing? Then again, it wasn't like people compared everyone who could fly to one another, or everyone who could tinker. So maybe that wasn't as obvious as it seemed at first.
Now it seemed like he owed Taylor more than ever in other ways. She'd helped him find his specialty, somehow improved Armsmaster's ability to work with him after the tinker fugue they'd worked together on, and gotten him a box of components to help him improve his tinkering. And when the tinker fugue happened, she'd be right there in the middle, helping improve him physically. Even if he was still trying to keep himself from curling up into a ball over the idea of Bonesaw working on him.
Really, when PR wanted people to be afraid of someone they did a really good job. Not that Bonesaw wasn't going to be scary either way, but the entirety of the Nine were branded as being able to vanish into thin air anytime they wanted, and a lot more easily recently even, amongst a pile of other things. Getting over that, intellectually and emotionally, was probably going to be a problem.
"Hah," he said, picking the new phone up. "SL9. Security Level Nine. Slaughterhouse Nine. Miss Militia said that a quirk of the way the system was designed makes SL9 the most secure normal access level, so of course something like that would get locked down to it. But intentional or not, there's a cosmic joke in there too."
It was too bad that the security upgrades only applied to his Wards phone. He'd have liked to have gotten an upgrade for his civilian phone too, but short of buying a new one for himself that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Taylor was pretty much the only one with a secure civilian phone, courtesy of her uncle.
A few minutes later he blinked, and facepalmed. He was, thanks to the tinker fugue, filthy rich for a Ward, since his parents had allowed the maximum amount of money to go to store credit. He could easily afford a new civilian phone in the PRT store as a result, and he just hadn't bothered to buy one. And all he'd been doing was treating it as an extension of his tinkering budget.
Missy had to remind him to go home a couple hours later, after he got lost in looking at things to buy for himself.
Taylor relaxed as she floated along the lazy river, Amy a few feet away in her own tube. They had just had a late lunch, and decided to relax a bit before standing in line for some of the slides again. They were also, however, trying to decide what to do about the three parahumans that had been watching them all day.
Taylor: They're annoying, but haven't exactly done anything.
Amy: Doesn't mean that we have to like that they're watching us. I have no clue who they are.
Taylor: Well, they were close enough to us on our last trip to get an introductory poke at some point, and they're all adults. So there's a good chance that they're Protectorate.
Amy: I know, you've brought that up several times. I still don't like assuming that, but until they either use their powers or make a move...
Sighing, Taylor waited as they looped around the river. She'd picked the river for another reason, and after a minute her personal phone connected. Her Maul phone was back in the hotel, but that wasn't a big issue. She quickly composed a message to Dragon, asking if there was a Protectorate presence in the park keeping an eye on them, with a note that she might not be in range when the answer came back but would check again.
They looped around twice more and were getting out of the river when an answer came through.
Taylor: Dragon says that there are seven affiliates that work in this park, three of which are on-duty today. They apparently didn't even know we were here until she checked with them.
Amy: Great. I've probably been worrying about people watching us that didn't even know who we were.
Taylor: I mean, there are twenty or so parahumans, those three might not be the affiliates. But at least now they know we're here in case something happens.
Amy: Yeah, I suppose. And since we haven't seen anyone using their powers we shouldn't really poke their snarks too hard.
"So should we hit the double tube slides?" Taylor asked. "Or did you want to go back to the tubeless slides instead?"
"Let's ditch these tubes and go for the tubeless slides," Amy answered after a few seconds of thought. "I want to see if you can duplicate your accidental imitation of a rock skipping across a pond."
Taylor groaned. She was going to have to go down that slide at least ten times, whether she figured out how to duplicate what she'd done or not. Going clear across the landing pool and barely catching herself as she reached the edge probably looked awesome, but it had been a fluke, dammit.
Chapter 140 Garnet sighed as she poked at her dinner. Carol had, for some reason, decided that she'd rather have her 'close at hand' instead of helping get her into a hotel. Possibly to keep an eye on her, but it was hard to tell. The apologies given on the way to the department store, coupled with an admission that the other woman's therapist was going to proverbially flip out over the outburst, had been interesting as well.
Getting her an appointment with a lawyer that wasn't Carol the following day had been just plain out of character.
Of course, Carol had left Vicky behind while she and Mark went off with...damn, she couldn't remember their names. Carol's sister and her husband, she should know that...oh well. She could ask later if it didn't come to her. They were going on patrol, and probably getting filled in on the fact that she was there at all.
"Goddamn insects," Vicky grumbled as she entered, grabbing a plate and some of the casserole that had been prepared. "Can't seem to find them, then they vanish like they were never there."
"Have you turned off the ambient speakers?" Garnet asked, curious. Hunting down a real insect would be a lot easier with the insect noises not being generated.
Vicky froze, blinking, which concerned Garnet a little. The girl then very carefully put the plate and fork she'd been holding down on the counter and left the room, heading into the basement. A minute later there was a scream and a loud crash, causing Garnet to flinch.
Sheesh, it was like she hadn't known about the ambient noise speakers in her own house.
Benjamin frowned at the amount of money Daniel had spent on clothing, according to the receipts he'd just picked up off of the table. Apparently money wasn't as tight 'anymore', but he'd still have to see about getting some money transferred to the man's bank account as repayment. He should still have a number of accounts kicking around to pull money from, after all. Though now that he was thinking about it, he wondered what Garnet was doing for clothing, since she was probably across town with just as much ready cash as he had. That is to say, none.
Actually, he wondered if the woman had survived first contact, now that he knew where she'd ended up. He would've probably gotten a good ten second warning before Carol finished going through whatever it was she went through upon seeing him unexpectedly. Useful, that, too bad her sister didn't share it. Garnet had never mentioned that particular delay when they'd discussed Carol over tea, though, which would complicate an unexpected interaction.
"I don't suppose you know anything about why Carol dislikes Garnet?" Benjamin asked Daniel after a few minutes. He'd never found out, and now it was bothering him.
"Carol Dallon?" Daniel asked, and Benjamin nodded. "If I'm remembering some of her drunken rambling from back in the day, Garnet had a very good track record in pissing Carol off whenever they crossed paths in costume. They apparently also tended to cross paths out of costume, for that matter. I don't think I ever got details, though Annette might've."
"Pity, I might have to ask her outright at some point."
"So, given that if you want to talk to Taylor or Amy in person you have to wait at least a week, did you have anything else you wanted to do before they decide to try and throw you back into prison?"
Benjamin sighed. "If I understand things correctly, I should probably start preparing for questioning prior to a review of my case. They might decide to throw me into a normal prison, or decide that my decade served is good enough under current laws and circumstances. Even then I doubt they'd consider giving me custody of Amelia at this point."
"As I understand it, she prefers Amy now."
"You've mentioned that twice now, but she'll always be Amelia to me."
"Don't be surprised if she doesn't respond to it. Now then, would you like me to see about arranging for you to have a chat with the PRT?"
Benjamin shuddered. "I think I'd be better off finding a lawyer before the PRT finds out where I am, honestly. Less likely to have them bash the door down to drag me away, I'm sure you understand. And prefer that your door remain intact, of course."
Daniel snorted. "I highly doubt that they don't know you're here, or that Garnet showed up to visit the Dallon residence. Not after I called Dragon and let her know where you two ended up, as well as what you said about Erasmo and Kara."
Dragon, and thus the PRT and Protectorate, knew he was here and they hadn't done anything to take him into custody? Really? That made no sense. "Okay, I'm starting to think that I'm missing something important. Can you recommend any good lawyers anyway? I don't think my former choice is practicing law anymore."
Daniel shrugged. "I've had good results with one, but I doubt they'll take your case. Besides, if she did kill Garnet then she'll probably have bigger issues on her hands."
Right, Carol was a lawyer, and incredibly unlikely to help. She might even volunteer to help build the case against him. Perhaps it would be a good time to consult the phone book.
"Still," Daniel continued. "If you want advice I can ask Dragon. She is, after all, the only one I know has been informed that you're here."
"That would be appreciated," Benjamin said. "As odd as it may sound, I think I trust Dragon's judgement more than the PRT's in general. Though, now that I think about it, how is it that you have a direct line to Dragon?"
Daniel's smirk at that was worrying. "You could say that there's a family relation there, in a way. But anything more than that isn't my tale to tell."
Benjamin resisted the urge to gulp at that. If the Heberts had family ties to Dragon then he had to reconsider any possible discussions with young Taylor. Apparently he hadn't known Daniel as well as he'd thought. What else might he not know about the other man's family?
Missy sighed as she dropped onto her bed after dinner. Her parents were annoying pains in the ass, having been told that she couldn't give them details on the tinker fugue meeting. Classified didn't mean 'unless your parents ask you', after all. The entire thing wasn't helped by her own issues wrapping her head around things.
Yes, she'd gotten a major upgrade in her security clearance. That had included new equipment, which was awesome. She'd been holding back giggles over it all, even, after signing all the paperwork. Then they'd told the two of them exactly who would be involved in the tinker fugue, and she'd been in mood whiplash ever since. What she knew and what she felt about things in battle, emotion versus logic, all that crazy stuff.
The Slaughterhouse Nine were good guys that pretended to be bad guys because they couldn't be good guys all the time was how she understood things. Anti-hero branding wouldn't help due to their issues and, in some cases, their histories. Except that they were also a therapy group, so it was almost like they were the next logical step after anti-hero branding. If your powers can't let you be a hero, you get branded as a villain and pointed at the 'correct' targets anyway.
The idea that the Slaughterhouse Nine were a black-ops assassin group that happened to be in therapy together as well was just accurate enough, but also freaky and unbelievable at the same time. But it was the best model she'd come up with so far for how to think of them so far, and yet it was probably horribly inaccurate in many ways. She'd blame some of the unrealistic books she'd read for the entire thing, especially since she'd borrowed those from her mother without permission and knew that the relationships in them would not work in the real world.
Jessica had been very adamant about that last part in her therapy sessions. After having to explain a few things about what was going on in the books. Neither of them had escaped embarrassment those days.
Sighing, she decided that coming to terms with things wasn't going to happen as she lay there. She needed someone else to chat with in some way about it, and she didn't think that Chris was a good option. Taylor, on the other hand, was a lot closer to her own age than most of those she could talk to about things and probably had one of the better views, having been in the tinker fugues and all. So she grabbed her Vista phone and started composing a message to send to 'Maul'.
Amy had convinced Taylor that they should stick around until the park closed, which was well after dark. The crowds had thinned significantly as the sun set, though not to the point where there weren't lines at all. They'd watched a lot of families leaving while they ate dinner, then gotten back to enjoying the attractions.
Eventually they announced that the park would be closing in half an hour, so the two ensured that they had enough time to gather their things and change into dry clothing. Heading back to the hotel in wet swimsuits wouldn't be fun on the mopeds, after all. They got the deposits for their locker keys back, were given vouchers for discounted tube rentals for their next visit if they came back in the next month, and stopped to grab a giant pretzel each near the exit.
Eating the pretzels had left them as some of the last people out of the park, though from the looks of it nowhere near the last ones out of the parking lot. At some point a van apparently being used by a couple of parahumans had ended up a couple spaces down from them, and they were busy trying to remember how they'd fit their coolers in the back. One of them dropped a water bottle and chased it over towards the two mopeds, only to shift gears when he got close enough and try and grab Amy instead.
[Affirmation]
Taylor: No.
BA: Brain-Effect countermeasures activated: Accepting energy transfer
"Come along little healer," the man said, pulling on Amy's arm. "Thanks to tinkertech nobody other than my partner can even remember we're here for the next twenty minutes, and I've ensured that you can't get at my skin." Now that she knew to look for it, Taylor could tell that thanks to some skin-tone fabric he did appear to only have his eyes and forehead exposed, plus he was ensuring that Amy didn't have a chance to reach up that high.
Taylor's response was to vault over the moped, putting her foot in the guy's chest. His shock caused him to let go of Amy and stumble back. People all of a sudden started looking their way, the ones Taylor could see appearing to be very confused. Well, if they couldn't see or remember him then they'd have just watched her vault over a moped to kick something invisible.
Amy recovered before the man did, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind him. He cried in pain and dropped to his knees, leaving him wide open for the girl to slap her hand on his forehead and put him to sleep.
Amy: You watch the surroundings, I'm a bit pissed off right now.
Taylor: You're not the only one, but okay.
Taylor stepped to the side to keep an eye on things while Amy ran at the man's partner, who'd been caught off guard but was recovering. He obviously had a more directly offensive power set when he started to gather a purplish-black energy in his hands. He fired one blast at Amy, and lobbed the other at Taylor at the exact same time. Both girls dodged, and the parking lot ended up with two new holes in it. That was also the point where the screaming started from around them.
The guy apparently had a recharge limit, because he hadn't gathered enough energy for the next attack by the time Amy got to him. Instead, she ended up grabbing him and flipping him over her, him landing on his side with a crunch. He'd also covered most of his body with skin-tone fabric, but he didn't recover before Amy had slapped his forehead to put him to sleep as well.
Taylor was planning on not saying anything about the partially broken bone that Amy had caused the man's muscles to finish the break on. To anyone.
Taylor: The first guy's power is still working, so I have no clue what people think they just saw.
Amy: Huh. Oh well. Leave it running for now, because you being able to ignore it due to PRT training makes more sense than either of us being able to shut it off.
Amy pulled out her phone for show, just in case she was showing up on recordings or something most likely, and called the PRT emergency number. Five minutes later a PRT van arrived, apparently having been diverted when someone else called about explosions. Of course, being there in person they couldn't see Amy due to the stranger powers that were still active, and apparently they couldn't see the man's partner either. But they could hear what Amy was saying over the phone, which had been routed to their radios.
There was much grumbling about 'bullshit stranger effects'.
When the guy's 'twenty minutes' ran out there were a number of gasps from the parkgoers that hadn't left yet, and the PRT was able to cuff the two and load them into their van. A tow truck was apparently on the way to take the other van.
"Thank you for leaving them in one piece," one of the officers said as the initial van left. He and a couple of others were going to be securing the scene while backup came. "We found a premade note in their van, cut from various pamphlets they'd picked up around town, indicating that they were going to try and get a ten million dollar ransom for Panacea. They probably saw you two on the way here and figured it would be an easy grab."
"And probably didn't consider just how many people would've been doing everything in their power to end them in the process," Amy said, shaking her head.
"We can hope they were that stupid," Taylor noted, only to get a look from Amy that prompted an explanation. "Well, claiming they want a ransom would probably be a good diversion from trying to sell you to a villain group or overseas."
"And now I'm wishing you'd kept your mouth shut."
The PRT had insisted on them loading their mopeds into a van and riding back with them while statements were taken. Taylor and Amy had both checked that the van in question was legitimate before doing so, and then they'd both given their statements. Mainly they'd wanted to confirm that the parahuman taking their statements was, in fact, expected, and apparently they were part of the Protectorate and fully aware of Taylor's parahuman status. The misdirection from the stranger claiming that it was tinkertech hiding them was noted as well, which indicated a bit more intelligence than the ransom plan would otherwise show.
They'd been dropped off at the hotel and once they'd secured their mopeds they went straight up to the suite. Amy went straight for her room and came back with one of the 'put a hole in clothing' guns, which she'd left behind for similar reasons to Taylor having left a lot of her own stuff behind.
"I don't think I'm going to be pushing for visiting anywhere that won't let us carry our weapons with us for the rest of the trip," Amy admitted while they ordered a late dinner for the spider-bots. Not that the two likely needed one, but room service was available twenty-four hours anyway. "I hadn't expected anyone to be that blatant in their attempts to nab me."
"I'll agree with that," Taylor replied, sitting down. "On an entirely different note, apparently they read Chris and Missy in on the Nine today, Riley in particular; though they apparently put other things together, and Missy sent me a message. She's unsure how to feel about things? I'm considering letting her know that Riley has really wanted to meet her ever since I sent that locket."
Amy considered that. "If she's read in on things, perhaps let Riley know so that she can make contact?"
"That could work. Perhaps with a message to Missy to let her know that they're not bad when you get to know them, but to not forget that they still have snark-related issues?"
That sounded like it would work, so she whipped up a couple of messages and fired them off. Once she was done with that she grabbed a glass of water.
"We should check out the hotel's pool at some point," Amy finally said. "The fun of swimming without the danger of being out in an unsecure and unfamiliar area unarmed, right?"
"That would make sense, yes," Taylor admitted before drinking some of the water.
"Besides, we need to get you to stop being so shy in bikinis."
Taylor choked on the water.
Thursday morning was overcast in Brockton Bay. Benjamin was up bright and early anyway, and was pleased with himself for successfully making coffee. Dragon had apparently come through fairly quickly and found a lawyer that Daniel also approved of, so Daniel was going to drop him off on the way to work. With any luck said lawyer could also help get some money transferred, but that was a further-out hope. He also wanted to look into getting a mobile phone at some point, but that should probably wait until he had an idea as to whether or not he'd end up back in prison.
Instead he should probably focus on figuring out what to do about that issue. Thing was, he'd tried, shortly after triggering, to go 'legit' and do things such as help regrow bones. But it turned out that his powers didn't quite get things like the bone marrow in place, and the enhanced strength in the structure caused bodily rejections more often than not. The four test subjects hadn't fared well. He'd done better with knitting broken bones back together, but had been horrible at getting them aligned properly.
Really, he still wasn't sure how he could use his powers in any form of 'legitimate' manner. Especially since Amelia, as he understood things, could do so much more than he could ever dream of.
For now, though, he was going to catch up on the news as he drank his coffee. He put his coffee mug down while he fumbled with the remote, eventually getting the television on and tuned to a news channel.
...rahumans who attempted to kidnap Panacea in Las Vegas last night had done so with a number of other individuals over the past couple of years. While most of their victims have been recovered there are still several missing. One of those was a parahuman child with powers that were later seen in use by parahumans in China.
Benjamin froze, looking at the screen. They replayed a clip, obviously from a bystander, of a man trying to grab Amelia, only to be kicked by a girl that had to be Taylor. Amelia had then taken the two parahumans out while Taylor had watched, though that wasn't in the center of the video. He also missed what had happened between the explosions and Amelia finishing the second man off, because the person recording hadn't been ready for them.
He'd consider berating Taylor for not helping more, except that Amelia obviously had things in hand after the initial kick caused the man to release her. Oh, and they were reporting that the one who'd grabbed Amelia had a stranger ability, perhaps Taylor couldn't actually see them? Good situational awareness in that case, then, realizing that something was wrong and delivering the kick that quickly.
"Morning Ben," Daniel said as he came down, just after the station moved onto an incident in Wyoming. "Anything good on the news?"
"Our girls dealt with an attempted kidnapping," Benjamin replied. "I'm sure they'll loop back around to it. They'd better, really, I only caught the tail end."
Daniel stopped, looking at the television, before sighing and digging his cell phone out of a pocket. Right, internet access. He'd been depending on television for news for a decade, he wasn't used to the option of looking things up. Of course, he'd last been able to look things up in a newspaper, but the same principle applied.
Garnet snickered as Vicky resumed her search for the hidden speakers. She'd found out that she had, accidentally, ruined a 'get the girl to pay more attention to her surroundings' plan when bringing the speakers up. It was a horrible plan and almost certainly not going to work as intended, so she didn't feel all that bad about having done so. Instead she got to watch as the girl searched in what were apparently all the wrong places.
It was actually somewhat incredible that the speakers themselves were controlled from the family's phones. If she stayed out of prison then she'd definitely need to get herself one of those.
"Of course someone tried to grab her," Carol grumbled as she stared at her phone, getting everyone else's attention. Even Vicky's. "Complete morons, of course."
"Tried to grab who, dear?" Mark asked.
"Amy," Carol replied, waving her phone. "Couple of parahumans, one of them with some kind of stranger trick. Taylor kicked that one, but Amy finished both of them off." She then paused. "Damn, I'm going to have to admit to Sarah that having Amy in all the hand to hand classes paid off, aren't I?"
"You never argued that she shouldn't attend them," Vicky noted. "Just that she didn't have to attend every class, because she wasn't out fighting crooks every week."
"But she used the judo-like throw against one of the two, which was one of the optional classes."
"Sucks to be you, dear," Mark replied. "Would you like ham in your omelette?"
Amy had woken up before Taylor and ordered room service for them, having decided to get food in before leaving the safety of the hotel today. Taylor hadn't objected when she got up, instead opting to eat her stack of pancakes and one of the bagels.
"So, what shall we do today?" Amy asked, having finished eating her breakfast already. "If we still want to do the drinking contest that's tonight, but that leaves the rest of the day."
"We wanted to visit the gun ranges, right?" Taylor replied as she ate. "They open?"
"Oh, right. Let me check."
Taylor finished her breakfast while Amy checked on things, then dropped all of the dishes into the room service cabinet, including the bowls from the spider-bots. She'd also pulled up her copy of their list of things to consider doing, of course, but let Amy worry about checking hours.
"I don't think either of the ones we wanted to go to are open this morning," Amy finally concluded. "So that would give us something to do this afternoon, but not this morning."
"We still have the lab of those two tinkers that died," Taylor replied, looking over at where Ackbar was once again apparently trying to show Rodney how to weave. "The information page says that they'll be opening in a few minutes, long before we could reach it anyway."
"It would be best to see that before too many more tinkers show up and want to take a look, so yeah. Let's do that."
"Assuming we can figure out how to get in, you mean. They can't exactly give tours with it locked down."
"Oh, right. Forgot about that. Shouldn't be an issue for you, right?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Ha ha. Did you read anything about them? One of them specialized in systems that can't be analysed by tinkers or thinkers while active."
Amy blushed. "Oh...right. Forgot about that."
Missy sighed as she got into the back seat of the car. Having the day off to 'process things' was already annoying, and her mother wanted to go shopping. Bah. She probably wanted to get a bunch of cutesy things to show that they could 'bond properly' or something stupid like that. To keep herself from whining she'd pulled out her Wards phone, re-reading Taylor's message. It was, if anything, good advice, but didn't help her too much. Then again, she'd probably have to actually talk to some of the Nine to start shifting her knee-jerk reaction.
So far her only significant interaction had been Jacob when he was on the warpath after Vicky's blunder, and that probably wasn't a fair time to evaluate him from. Other than that she didn't have a whole lot to go on so far, and she wasn't sure how much interaction she'd have with anyone when the fugue actually happened. Taylor had probably interacted with a lot of them by now, but learning about people second-hand wasn't all that useful.
They were a few minutes into the trip when her phone beeped, indicating an incoming message. She sighed, pausing the game she'd started playing so she could open the message, only to blink a couple of times. Riley? Wasn't that Bonesaw's civilian name?
R: Hello Vista! Taylor tells me that you're now cleared to know about me.
R: Actually, that message going through pretty much means that you are. How are you?
What the hell.
V: Hello? How'd you get my contact information?
R: I searched the PRT directory. All Wards are in it for anyone with SL6 or higher.
V: Oh. I've only had SL9 since, er, yesterday.
R: Ah, right. Taylor told me that you're the one that enhanced my locket?
V: So you're one of the people she gave one to? I'd wondered about that.
Was she really having a chat with Bonesaw? This wasn't how she'd imagined the supposedly psychotic cape at all.
R: Do you think you could do that to something intended to go inside of someone?
V: Er, maybe? I've been experimenting with some stuff, but I'm not sure it would be safe.
V: I mean, if the expansion failed while it was in them?
R: Good point. Probably not the safest thing, long-term. Either that or you'd need to make sure there was an external pressure-relief, probably requiring that it only be liquid or gas...hmmm...
R: I'll have to think about it for when we meet in person.
R: Doing anything interesting today?
V: Just shopping with my mother. They gave me the day off to think about things.
R: Yeah, they like to do that for some reason. But they won't let us tell anyone ourselves, the jerks.
V: Kinda like how they don't let Wards tell people about their identities?
R: Ok, so it applies to a lot more than just us. All of it supposedly for our protection and all, right?
V: That's what they claim, yes. Need parental permission to reveal anything as a Ward.
R: Lucky. That implies that when you go Protectorate you can tell people.
R: We're locked down quite a bit more.
And there's some more surreal. It sounded like Wards had more freedom in the long run than the Slaughterhouse Nine. How in the world did that even work? They ran around killing people and had to follow stricter rules?
She continued to chat until her mother pulled into a parking lot, at which point she bothered to pay attention to where they were. Oh, look, a fancy clothing store. Just the kind of place she didn't want to be. She fired a last message off to Riley, letting her know that it was time to go in and shop, before reluctantly putting the phone away.
She was dragged into the store and, to her surprise, straight to the bathing suits. Past the cutesy ones, even. Well, some of the ones they ended up at were still 'cutesy', but the first one she saw was a 'reversible' one, that was cutesy on one side and much more mature on the other. More importantly, there were choices of one and two piece suits here, the latter of which her parents had never considered for her before.
"Now then," her mother said. "I've noticed that your current bathing suit is not only a little small, but it has an unfortunately placed hole that I can't fix. So you obviously need at least one new one. And even if your father disagrees, you're old enough to be making clothing decisions on your own."
Ahhh, there was the motivation. Despite getting along better since they'd all started going to range together, which was annoying since she couldn't use her powers, her parents still loved to snipe at each other. She'd take it, because these days it usually meant that she benefitted. Like right now.
"My only condition," her mother continued, causing Missy to pause. "Is that you have at least one to wear that won't give your grandparents heart attacks. Other than that I'll only offer my opinion if you ask for it. Deal?"
Missy nodded so hard and fast she was surprised that her head hadn't popped off. "Deal!"
It would take her nearly two hours to make her choices, and she'd ended up with a one-piece that was cutesy but not too cutesy for when visiting with more sensitive family, but the other two she'd chosen were a lot more mature. Well, ok, one of them was a cutesy on one side, mature on the other reversible, but mainly because she knew that looking cute was a valid tactic at times. It was still a two-piece either way.
Chapter 141 Apparently the tinkers' lab had a visitor's parking lot. And a tourist stop building across the street, one that looked like it'd been in use for years. It was also somewhat deserted, with only two cars parked nearby. Still, the 'open' flag was out, and a couple of people were sitting on the tourist stop building's porch.
"Morning ladies," one of the two, an older gentleman, said as he was getting up. "I guess you're here to see what's available to be seen before the tinker rush over the weekend?"
"That and because the gun ranges we wanted to visit aren't open till noon," Taylor admitted. "Supposedly there isn't actually a lot to see anymore."
"Not really, no," the man said. "Kinda regret not accepting keys to the place from my grandson, but that could have made me a target. Didn't want that on his head. Still, might as well show you what I can of across the street before it gets too warm out, then you can have the run of the tourist stuff inside this end. Maybe you'll get lucky and stumble upon the secret way in."
"There's a secret way in?" Amy asked, curious.
"Their wills left everything to each other," the other man said. "We've posted copies inside. Thing is, if they both passed away at the same time they left the entire thing to the first person to get in and claim the keys. So far nobody can find a way in, but there's a set of pamphlets for what thinkers have figured out. None of the tinkers that took a look figured anything out yet."
"The assumption is that there's a secret backdoor or a set of hidden keys somewhere," the first man continued. "We don't actually know that for certain. It may be that they felt that the first person to find a gap in the security deserved it all. Now then, if you two will follow me across the street here?"
The two girls followed the man, getting a brief history from him on things. His grandson and his friend had triggered with what amounted to security system and vault construction, but had struggled to make either work out well until they'd met. Their specialties had meshed unusually well, and they'd ended up upgrading the security in pretty much every casino in the state as a side effect. They'd started running tours as a side business, in part as a 'take that' to the thinkers and tinkers that couldn't get past their combined efforts.
"My grandson was particularly happy the day the thinker that had constantly stolen things from his safes before he'd triggered finally gave up and left the area," the man said, grinning. "We think that the several years of that going on contributed to things, but you can never be certain with powers. Now then, as you can see, the warehouse here merely serves as a surface structure. The main lab is underneath it and the land around it, but all of the access points are blocked off by the protective shields here. They'd unlock those with the panels next to each, but nobody has been able to get those to work."
Taylor looked at one of the panels, and her tinker snark indicated that it was a prop. Which caused a raised eyebrow. When you turned a 'key' in it the only thing that would happen was a small protrusion coming out into the key that would likely push a button. Which, admittedly, was actually a bit clever. You could spend all day trying to hack the thing, but if the key was actually more of a remote control?
She then looked at the shields, and her tinker snark told her nothing. As far as it was concerned, there was no technology there. Which was intriguing, but could make sense, depending on how the system worked. Perhaps a dimensional displacement effect?
"Some of the thinkers don't think the lab is there at all while the doors are closed," the man continued, even as Amy tapped one of the shields. It rippled slightly, but the image behind it didn't waver properly. Hmm. Focusing on what was obviously a control panel on the other side of the shield didn't help either, her tinker snark said that there was nothing there at all. More for the displacement theory, perhaps?
"Doesn't look like there's a lot to see here anymore," Amy said, looking around. "Though it looks like some digging has been attempted in here?"
"Well yeah," the man said. "The technology in that lab is supposedly worth millions, maybe even billions. Why wouldn't people try and get in to claim it?"
It was certainly a good point. Still, there wasn't a whole lot to see, so they made their way back across the street to the other building. They signed the guestbook, were told that despite the signs they weren't charging admission anymore, and were let loose while the gentleman went back outside on the porch.
The two started with the wills and the pamphlets with accumulated information from thinkers, which didn't tell them much.
"These look like the answers to security questions," Amy said after a few minutes of looking over the pamphlets. "The only other thing of note is that one of them owned the warehouse, and the other owned this building. But that doesn't matter all that much."
"I think the wording of things is odd in a couple of places in the wills," Taylor noted. "But that could just be me being unfamiliar with the wording of wills. Still, it reads somewhat like they're each leaving a lab to the other, not leaving their stake in the shared lab?"
"One of the thinkers saw the same thing but thinks it's a legal thing," Amy said, pointing at the right place on the pamphlet.
"Oh. So they did."
They then moved into an area that was set up as a demonstration of sorts, including a 'can you outthink the thinkers?' area that had a number of puzzles that were supposed to be trivial to solve unless you were using powers to help you, at which point they were incredibly difficult. Neither of them had any problems with them, though Taylor did find that the 'how this works' feedback had a lot of additional, useless data included when she focused her tinker snark.
Taylor: There's no way that's all in there.
UMR: Data
Taylor: No, the wooden blocks don't have diesel engine components in them that need to be assembled properly.
UMR: Query
Amy: I'm going to have to agree with Taylor here. Something else is making you think that there's more to this than there is.
UMR: Determination
Taylor blinked as it felt like her tinker snark had decided that whatever was going on was not going to make a fool of it. The apparent 'diesel engine components' shifted to 'integrated circuits', then to 'trans-dimensional magnetic alignments' before the entire thing collapsed. She had a headache by that point, but now her tinker snark was telling her that the simple block puzzle was inside a field being projected over it, one intentionally designed to confuse snarks examining it. Looking around at the other puzzles, each took a moment and a burst of headache pain before the field over each was identified and isolated.
Amy: Figure things out?
Taylor: At least this group. Clever trick, and it looks like the field includes the generator, so until you know it's there I guess it would be well hidden.
UMR: Agreement
Taylor: I just can't help but feel that this is the introductory level of things, because why would the good stuff be sitting out in the open taunting people?
They went through another couple of rooms, detailing things like how they worked with the casinos in the area to protect their vaults, and how none of the systems could be locked down with someone inside of them for safety reasons. It was interesting, but there wasn't a whole lot to most of it. After that they headed downstairs, in part because that was where the restrooms were. It was also the home of a much larger timeline, mapping out thefts from casino vaults by parahumans versus when each casino had one of their combined systems put in. The last few years had dwindled to only a theft or so a year, and each of them had been an inside job.
Taylor sat down on a bench while Amy used the restroom, looking around at everything else in the room. It seemed odd to have only the timeline and restrooms down here, but it had also been in the 'no admission required' section originally. So perhaps it wasn't all that odd after all. Though with how little there was down here the four security cameras seemed like overkill. They were all recording too, meaning they hadn't skimped out and put a couple of dummy cameras in.
It took Taylor a moment to realize that she knew all the cameras were capturing video, but for the first time since the incident with Trevor she couldn't tell anything about the system they were attached to. At all. They were, as far as she could tell at a quick glance, fully independent cameras that weren't hooked up to anything, power included, but were recording anyway despite having no internal storage or batteries.
Taylor: The cameras are recording.
Amy: So? They're security cameras. They do that.
Taylor: Yet I can't tell where they're getting power, or where the data is going. So they're violating the laws of physics by functioning when they shouldn't even be powered on.
Amy: Oh. Huh.
UMR: Annoyance
Getting the impression of her tinker snark cracking its non-existent knuckles was probably not a good thing. Apparently it felt that a challenge had now been issued, and it wasn't about to give up.
Taylor: I'm going to need to take some painkillers, aren't I?
Amy: Most likely, yes. Did you bring any?
Taylor: Five different kinds, courtesy of first aid kits.
Garnet sighed as she sat down in the outer office of the lawyer that Carol had arranged for her to speak with. They had another client speaking with them currently, but it wasn't like she was in a rush. She was early anyway, since Carol had opted to go for a later appointment in case they'd decided to sleep in or something. Of course, Carol had immediately run off to do something else, not needing to sit around bored while Garnet and the lawyer chatted and all.
It was almost half an hour later when the door to the inner office opened and Benjamin walked out, taking Garnet by surprise. Then again, he had a shocked look on his face too. What were the chances that they'd both end up trying to use the same lawyer?
"Good luck," Benjamin said as he walked out, which was probably to be expected. Best to not discuss things in the lawyer's waiting room and all, they could meet up later if they wanted to compare notes. Besides, she'd need notes to compare first. And probably a way to get in touch with him that wasn't going to be a problem with Carol, actually, since as far as she knew the two had a history.
It was a few minutes later before she was called in, presumably because the lawyer had to put away Benjamin's files and prepare for her. She'd once been told to be wary of lawyers that took their next client as soon as the previous was out the door, so this didn't actually surprise her.
Riley sighed as the transport flew along. For a change she had the transport all to herself, something they normally avoided as a waste of resources. Some issue before takeoff had eaten up a bunch of time after she'd boarded, though, which was a pain. Still, there was nobody around to tell her not to eat all the chocolate in the snack bar thing. Except that with nobody there to get annoyed at her doing so she didn't really want to.
The short chat with Vista had been a nice distraction, but that was about it. Thinking about how to best use the other girl's abilities had led to the thought of making explosive spider bots that held far too much explosive for their size. Problem was, the other girl was unlikely to want to work on something quite that destructive.
Dealing with heroes sucked sometimes. They were rarely willing to do anything fun, and got all whiny when you asked.
Well, today she'd get settled, and tomorrow she had no clue before the conference's evening opening. Then it was a couple days of not-quite-pretending to be a tinker fangirl, because at a minimum she'd get wonderful ideas, followed by she wasn't sure what. Maybe she should go clothes shopping? That was supposed to be something girls did. She'd never been all that into it, but then again she rarely got the chance when away from her mother. It might work as a thing to do.
Maybe the longer trip was an attempt to get her socializing with girls that did normal girl things?
Taylor downed the painkillers with the paper cup full of water Amy provided. Her tinker snark had, as predicted, pushed until it figured out what was hiding from it and how. Then continued to push until it was certain there wasn't anything else hiding. As a result Taylor had a very complete picture of things, because those stupid cameras were tied into a system that spanned pretty much everything in the building, especially the security system tinker's lab.
And unless she missed her guess, there was an entrance into the vault tinker's lab in there.
The entire sequence for operating the backdoor into the place were now known to her as well, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to use them. They'd unlocked themselves after neither lab had been opened for two weeks.
Amy: Are you going to give your new knowledge a try?
Taylor: Not sure I want to. Feels like I cheated, and do I really care? Not like I'd be using the stuff. Wrong kind of tinker and all.
Amy: So what? I'm mainly curious if you've got it right. If you pull it off you don't have to actually claim the keys, right?
Taylor glared at Amy, but the other girl wasn't phased. Grumbling, she got up and wandered over to the timeline. Ignoring the 'please do not touch' signs, she pushed in on two of the colored dots, representing the day the vault tinker had bested his nemesis and the day the security system tinker had foiled his first robbery. With those depressed she reached down and slid a seemingly decorative bit of wood to the side until she heard a click. Unseen by Amy, the door to come downstairs had also just locked, ensuring that nobody would be able to disturb them.
The first step done, she then slid down the timeline a bit and moved another seemingly decorative bit of wood up before pressing on a third colored dot in the timeline, the first confirmed robbery attempt foiled by their combined technology. This time she was rewarded with a beep and the first piece of wood snapping back into its original position. She now had thirty seconds for the next step, so she moved across the room to the wall between the two restrooms. There she grabbed the moulding and spun it ninety degrees, then pulled lightly.
She had to step back as the wall came loose and lifted up into the air to reveal a hidden panel with twelve levers. The first and eighth were pulled down a moment later, the order being unimportant, followed by pushing in and holding the handle of the eleventh. Then the first handle was lifted back up and the fourth pulled down, the eleventh handle being released after they were in the correct positions. These numbers had been encoded in the wills themselves, the thinkers had spotted them in code.
The entire panel with the levers then shifted backwards, and Taylor froze. There were three tasks remaining, but the next step required that she drop into the pit that had just been revealed. She hadn't known it would be a dark and cramped pit, just that she'd have to manipulate controls underneath where the levers had been. Instead of stepping forward she instead stepped backwards, shivering slightly.
Amy grabbed her a moment later, turning her away from the pit and hugging her, whispering apologies for pushing her. Two minutes later the timer built into the system ran down and everything reset itself, the door to the basement unlocking above them as the last step in the process. Nobody came down, so it was likely that nobody had noticed the door having locked itself.
A few minutes later they made their way upstairs, only to run into the older gentleman coming inside. Possibly to check on them, but he saw Taylor's state and was obviously concerned. "Is something wrong? Does she need help?"
"She'll be fine," Amy replied. "Just a flashback to an unpleasant day. A little fresh air should be all she needs."
"No wonder you two were taking so long. It's warmed up a bit out there, let me get her something cold to drink from the back room."
The two had gone to lunch on the way to the first of the two firing ranges they were interested in, and arrived shortly after the range opened. This was a normal, non-tinkertech range and was the only one in Las Vegas on the list of ranges that would accept their permits instead of a legal guardian's presence. That wouldn't be an issue if they were eighteen, of course, but that wasn't the case. Basically, they had the one and only one option.
It looked like they weren't the first to arrive, based on the number of vehicles parked outside. They entered to find that in addition to the 'fire rental guns' aspect of things that they were interested in the place also sold a wide variety of weapons, accessories, and ammunition. The store hours were a lot earlier than the range hours, which might explain things a bit.
"Good afternoon," the woman behind the counter said. "I'm going to need to see at least one of your IDs or you're going to have to leave and come back with an adult."
Taylor had been expecting to need to show things and provided the relevant IDs for use and carry of her handgun. Amy did likewise, though she didn't have the concealed carry documentation, and the woman took it all and ran them through a machine behind the counter. Apparently things were good there, after she examined them both to likely compare to pictures, because she returned everything with a smile.
"Thank you very much," she said. "Sadly, even with the permits we can't sell you guns, only ammo and accessories. But you're free to head back to the range if you want to try out some guns you probably can't get your hands on normally."
"Thank you," Taylor said. "That's what we're here for."
"Then I'd hurry," the woman said, pointing at the appropriate door. "Ed won't let you near the range without going through at least one safety lecture, if you're lucky. He'll be starting any time now. Oh, and he'll want to see your IDs too, no matter that I wouldn't let you through without checking them."
The two made their way through the indicated door, finding that it led to a small hallway with two restrooms and a classroom off of it. They continued into the classroom, finding several others in there already. Two in the middle of the room were being glared at by a bespectacled man with a neat mustache, who diverted his attention to the two girls as they entered.
"Where's your escort?" the man asked. "You can't shoot without one, you know. I won't stop you from taking the safety class. First class is free, I'll never turn down the chance to ensure that people know how to safely handle a firearm, but you'll have to leave before we go out onto the range itself."
Taylor just walked up to the man and handed him the IDs and such that she hadn't put away. He raised an eyebrow and looked through them, nodding after a moment. He returned Taylor's and then took and checked Amy's, nodding at her as well. He then smiled. "Sorry about that, looks like you can shoot without an escort. Still have to take the safety class, of course. Everyone does."
"Even those of us who've taken it a dozen times before," a woman sitting off to the side added.
"I only make you sit it once a month," the man retorted, then turned back to the two girls. "Name's Ed. Find a couple of seats, I was just about to start. The gentlemen in the middle there are impatient idiots, though, so you may want to not sit near them."
The two took seats off to the side, and behind the complaining 'impatient idiots', and Ed went through a safety lesson reminiscent of Miss Militia. None of this was new to them. Basic safety such as treating all weapons as though they were loaded, confirming that a weapon wasn't loaded when you took possession of it unless you expected it to be loaded, don't point weapons in the general direction of people in the range. All perfectly normal. He also covered range rules such as a store employee having to load any rental weapons unless he gave you specific permission to do so yourself, plus the general idea of where the safe versus dangerous standing areas would be.
Then he'd asked each of them what weapons they were interested in firing, and once he had his answers he collected those weapons and demonstrated basic safety for each. That was followed by ensuring that every one of them was able to explain how to render each weapon safe, even if they wouldn't be firing it. Obviously he wanted to ensure that they could all handle things at least to the point of getting the range safe if something went wrong.
During this entire process the 'impatient idiots' that Ed had been glaring at initially expressed continuous frustration at how long things were taking. Their opinion seemed to be that they were there to shoot the weapons they'd selected, not to be lectured at, and all of this was a waste of time. They were, despite this, still able to answer the questions asked of them, so Ed seemed to be willing to let them gripe.
Ed then lined up the collection of weapons and tasked each of them with taking one to their desk, calling them up one at a time. He left the impatient ones for last, and everyone up till them ensured that the weapon they were tasked with picking up wasn't loaded before carefully making their way back to their desk. Finally he called the first of the impatient ones up, and they just took the weapon as-is and turned to head back to their desk. He glared at them, doubly so when they dropped it onto the desk with the barrel pointing at their friend. Their friend was called up and did basically the same thing, though his barrel was pointing in Taylor's general direction.
After a moment Ed stormed up to their desks and picked up each weapon, ensuring they weren't loaded before putting them safely on another desk next to him. Once he was done with that he pointed at the door "You two," he growled. "Out. You fail, and will not be firing in my range for at least the next month."
"What for?" one of them snapped. "You showed that the things aren't loaded."
"You do not fuck around with live weapons," Ed replied. "I don't care if someone knows their weapon well enough to dismantle or assemble it blindfolded, they still follow the safety rules."
"Like anyone could really do that," the other idiot grumbled.
Amy snickered, getting everyone's attention. She blushed, and Taylor sighed.
"Is something funny?" Ed asked, though a lot more politely. Amy, after all, had been following the safety rules.
"She probably suspects that I could dismantle and assemble things blindfolded," Taylor answered when it was obvious that Amy wasn't going to. After all, her tinker snark didn't need sight, if it knew something was there it could lock on even through cloaking tech. "No reason to, of course, but I probably could."
"Really?" the woman at the other side of the room said, and a couple others in the back looked curious as well. "At your age? What are you that familiar with?"
Amy snorted, and finally spoke up. "I wouldn't be surprised if you blindfolded her, put something down on the table in front of her, and she could still take it apart and then put it back together. It's ridiculous."
Taylor: Why?
Amy: Because I want to see the looks on the idiots' faces.
Taylor: ...Why?
Amy: Suck it up, too late to back out now.
"I think I'd like to see that," Ed finally said. "If you pull it off I'll waive you and your girlfriend's range fees, even. Not the rental fees though. I figure it might teach these two idiots a thing or two too, but I won't be holding my breath there. You'll have to use my blindfold, I won't trust any you have."
Taylor glared at Amy, who just grinned, before sighing again and taking her visor off. "Ok, might as well. Where do you want me to do this?"
"Go on up to the table," Ed said, picking the two weapons he'd set aside up again and going into the back. "I'll be right back with a blindfold, then I'll get the weapon we'll be using as a test."
Taylor stood behind the table and true to his word, Ed came back with a blindfold. Taylor put it on, and Ed checked that he was happy with it, before he went to fetch the test weapon. That didn't take long either before Taylor heard him return. She heard him place something on another desk, then two clicks as a case was opened. Shortly after he'd placed something on the table in front of her. She focused on that spot and wasn't surprised to find her tinker snark giving her information, and she frowned lightly.
"I don't suppose you've got a cleaning kit for this thing?" Taylor asked, before Ed could tell her to begin. The M249 that had been put down on the table had a few issues, probably from lack of use and it having been a bit too humid when it'd been stored.
"I do," Ed replied, and she heard him move back to the other desk, only to return a moment later. "I'm going to have to stand here and make sure you don't do something stupid if you're going to clean it blindfolded too, though."
"Fine by me," Taylor said, her tinker snark already telling her where the cleaning kit had been put on the table.
"Start when I tell you to," Ed noted. "I'm gonna time ya." He shuffled a moment, then spoke up. "Go."
Taylor reached down and ensured that the weapon was unloaded, then disassembled it. She opened and used the cleaning kit, going over each component with it, before assembling the weapon again. She put it through the various motions to ensure everything was assembled properly, then put it back down on the table just as it'd started.
"That had to be a stunt," one of the idiots replied. "No way she just did that without it being prearranged, right?"
"You can take the blindfold off," Ed said, sounding impressed, before she could hear him spin around. "I've never met this fine lady before in my life, you ingrates. Yet despite being able to do that she still followed all the safety rules. You two didn't, so you'll be leaving now."
Taylor removed the blindfold and put her visor back on even as the two impatient ones were leaving the way they'd all come in. It was only then that she saw that everyone other than Ed and Amy had cameras running. Amy's visor sensors stayed active long enough for the two to leave before shutting down as well, which explained her lack of camera.
Dammit, she hadn't thought they'd record her. This was going to end up all over PHO, wasn't it?
"Let me put this away and we'll move onto actually shooting," Ed said, carefully packing the M249 back in the case. "You and your friend have recent permits, after all, and the rest of the room has gone through this at least a dozen times each. I hope you aren't offended if I go through this with a fine toothed comb later, of course."
"Sounds sensible to me," Taylor admitted.
An hour and a half later they paid for the rentals and ammo they'd used. Taylor picked up some alternate ammo that could be used with her sidearm as well, then they left and made their way around the outskirts of town to where the tinkertech range was. Once they got there they started to reconsider things, both due to the line outside and because the two impatient idiots from the normal guns range were there.
"Do we really want to deal with them again?" Taylor asked.
"If they're let in at all I don't think I want to be in the building with them," Amy admitted. "Besides that, the line is a tad long. Maybe we should come back another time."
"Tomorrow's another day and all. Maybe we should head back to the hotel and figure out what we're doing about things tonight? Driving around on the mopeds after drinking sounds like a bad idea, but the contest isn't at our hotel."
"Not a bad idea," Amy agreed, turning her moped around.
They missed things when, an hour after they left, one of the two 'impatient idiots' blew a hole in the roof and set the place on fire.
Chapter 142 On a whim, Taylor and Amy had checked with the front desk upon returning to the hotel. It turned out that there was a PRT-run shuttle for the drinking contest, and wristbands to indicate which hotel you were staying at. The general idea was to ensure that people made it safely to and from the thing, without having to deal with people drunkenly wandering the streets or having cabs that didn't know where to bring you. It was surprisingly well thought out, in their opinion, and would make things easier overall. They were also assured that the PRT was going to be keeping an eye on the contest itself.
Apparently the PRT had been doing this for every parahumans-allowed drinking contest in Nevada for three years now, after an incident with several drunk parahumans causing massive property damage. Someone, somewhere, had apparently decided that having the PRT provide security was the best solution, instead of just not holding them in the first place. Then again, if the stupid decision hadn't been made then they wouldn't be able to have fun by participating, so they probably shouldn't complain.
With that determined, Amy had apparently decided that they were going swimming, and asked about the hotel pool. They were assured that it was open, and told how to get to it, before they headed up to the suite to change. They noted that Colin and Trevor were apparently on the PRT's floor, but opted to wait and see if either wanted to check in with them before they tried to chat. Besides, they probably had a pile of things they had to be doing before the conference started.
Instead, a few minutes later they returned to the elevator to head down to the pool, significantly less encumbered by other equipment. That the bags they brought for their towels and such happened to have several weapons each was beside the point.
Colin grumbled as he sat in the hotel suite, a drink on the table next to him. He hadn't been permitted to bring most of his tinkering equipment, nor was he supposed to be using the tinker labs in the secret basement of the hotel. Most of that was part of the agreement for him coming, he could do basic maintenance to keep his armor working but that was about it, and even that was more so that he could make a few appearances in it. Other than that he was supposed to be treating this as time off.
He hated time off. It was inefficient to the extreme, and it wasn't the kind of thing he enjoyed.
Yet, it was TinkerTechCon. One of the few events that drew independent tinkers like a moth to a flame, even if most of them would be attending as a 'guest' out of costume while someone else ran their booths. That only made sense, because if you were running a booth you weren't wandering around looking at all the tinkertech. The inspiration alone was worth it for many tinkers. He wasn't going to scoff at that portion of things, at least. Dragon started the convention as a way to let tinkers get inspiration from each other.
Trevor, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about the lack of tinkering. He seemed more excited about being in Las Vegas, apparently never having thought that he'd ever get around to visiting the city. To that end, he was currently looking over a list of places to visit after dinner, on the basis that if you were going to be in 'Sin City' then you should be seeing it after dark. Colin didn't see the point, but he also recognized that he wasn't that much of a social person.
Taylor decided to drag Amy to a restaurant near the hotel for dinner. Close enough to walk to, and with minimal parking so the mopeds weren't going to be all that useful anyway. The meal itself was delicious, with a dessert that failed to live up to expectations. Then again, not everything could be perfect, and you had to account for people having different tastes. Either that or the dessert chef was having an off day.
It didn't take long to get back to the hotel, at which point they headed back up to the suite to do sensible things. Like Taylor locking up her sidearm and Amy ordering dinner for the spider-bots, because being drunk with a gun would be stupid and they didn't want to forget to feed the spider-bots. They also opted to leave their visors in the suite, figuring that would make it harder to do stupid things. It would also, as a side benefit, make it harder for them to record their own stupid antics.
"I think that's about it," Amy said as Taylor dropped the two dirty bowls into the room service cabinet. "Shall we head down?"
"Might as well," Taylor replied. "We're getting close to pickup time."
They left, with a quick toss of Rodney back into the suite, taking the elevator down. A few minutes later they'd been given wristbands and were in the waiting area for those looking to participate. Around fifteen minutes later they'd left.
Five minutes after that Riley's transport started final approach.
"Those idiot girls were actually serious," the woman from the bar said as Taylor and Amy took their seats in the large area being used for the drinking contest. She was at the opposite end of the table they'd been given, and probably didn't realize that both girls had heard her. They chose to ignore her instead of comment.
Dozens of tables had been set out, and during signup they'd been informed of the format of things. Each 'round' would last until half the participants dropped out, at which point they'd get everyone condensed down into a smaller space, extra tables removed before the next round began. When they got down to twenty-five or fewer participants that would be the last 'round', and the last one standing won. So to speak.
The signup process had been interesting, with questions about prior accomplishments, not necessarily related to drinking. It was optional, and neither Taylor nor Amy had filled them out, but when their ID cards had been checked the staff had asked if they could 'introduce' them anyway. They'd agreed, and had been seated for 'maximum exposure of the room during introductions' instead of the normal 'randomly'. Supposedly.
Interestingly, their entire table ended up being parahumans, without a single costume or mask, but none of the tables surrounding them were. Eight other tables had parahumans, and three of those parahumans had masks on. Taylor didn't recognize any of them, though several of them were staying in the Hero memorial hotel like she and Amy were.
Finally they had everyone participating seated, having had to turn away a large number of people that'd arrived at the last minute due to running out of seats. Most of them calmly shifted into the 'audience' areas instead, but a handful made a stink and were escorted out by security.
Ten minutes later the announcer of sorts had indicated that most of the contestants were unimportant and unimpressive plebs that they had no reason to tell anyone about.
"I resemble that remark!" one of the contestants had yelled at that point.
"Do you mean you resent it?" the announcer asked, sounding honestly curious.
"Nope," the contestant replied with a shrug. "I'll be amazed if I last past the first round."
That generated some chuckles, before the announcer got back to his thing. He introduced three previous winners, one of which was the obese-looking parahuman Fartimore. Who apparently could generate any number of random area of effect tricks by farting and their sole win was due to a fortuitous fart that provided temporary regeneration to everyone around him. Taylor and Amy agreed that they'd have preferred to not know that, and based on the looks from the other contestants they weren't the only ones.
The announcer then introduced a couple of local business owners, a returning contestant who'd never made it to the final round but not for lack of trying, and then the other two masked parahumans. One was a visiting brute named Knockback and the other was a thinker named Stability. The latter apparently had some trick that made it harder to impair her to help with things tonight, the announcer wasn't actually sure if Knockback had anything special to help him.
"Next we have Natalie," the announcer said, coming up behind a young woman. "The mayor's niece, here to make a fool of herself on her twenty-first birthday! Wish her luck everyone, and we promise that we'll only provide the raw footage without commentary."
Natalie groaned, but waved anyway as people applauded and laughed, and seemed grateful when the announcer moved over to stand behind Taylor and Amy.
"Last, but certainly not least, we have these two girls," the announcer said. "Our only underage competitors. Tell me, has anyone here heard of the Palanquin and their Parahuman Gargle Blaster?" There were a number of people yelling 'YES' at that, and an equal number that sounded confused. "These two drank one each and had the audacity to say that it didn't have enough kick. Amy Dallon, also known as Panacea, and Taylor Hebert, niece of Jacob and winner of a drinking contest against Brockton Bay's Lung!"
More than anything else, that got the attention of several other contestants. The woman from the bar had a sudden coughing fit, a couple of contestants had fallen out of their chairs when they spun around to look, and a number of people had narrowed their eyes as though directly challenged. Taylor was more annoyed that they'd intentionally saved the two of them for last.
The first set of drinks were then brought out, and it was a six-drink version of the 'around the world' bit. Presumably skipping the first 'wait, what alcohol?' drink intentionally. Rolling their eyes, Taylor and Amy easily drank down the entire set, pacing themselves at around the same rate most of the others were. No need to go too fast, right? That was the warm-up, and then they pulled out the vodka.
It turned out that the man who'd claimed that he would be surprised if he made it past the first round did, in fact, make it to the second round. Barely. He passed out halfway through the first drink of the second round, in fact. By the end of the second round there were more parahumans than not remaining, including the entire table that Taylor and Amy were still sitting at. They hadn't moved them at all as a result, but the mayor's niece had ended up moved to the table next to them. Also, by that point the two girls were definitely feeling things.
Round three took out all the remaining non-parahumans, the mayor's niece in the middle of them. It also took out the man that had been sitting next to Amy up until then, as well as the woman from the bar. Sadly, Fartimore was moved next to Amy at the end of the round, which was almost enough to get Taylor and Amy to give up. But they persisted, because round four was to be the last round. Besides, by going into the last round they were guaranteed at least a consolation prize.
They couldn't recall what said prize was, or if it had even been mentioned, but that didn't matter much. Their decision-making might have been a tad impaired by then, and the announcer's next statement didn't help.
"Now then," the announcer said. "I'm fairly certain that all of the contestants have been cheating in some way, shape, or form. Or rather, would've been cheating if we had rules against that, beyond only pretending to consume their drinks. Still, now that we're down to the last round, let's introduce all of our contestants properly!"
Taylor: Are we cheating?
Amy: I don't think so? How would we be?
Taylor: If everyone else is, shouldn't we?
Amy: Er. Probably. But how?
Taylor: I think you've cleared alcohol out of people before. Er. Maybe?
Amy: Oh, yeah. Shaper is good at that.
Taylor: So what if we clear a little out of each other?
They ended up having to sit through all twenty-three remaining contestants being introduced, including their own earlier introductions being repeated, before the final carts of drinks were brought out. During that time the two did, in fact, clear out most of the alcohol in each other's systems, leaving the remnants in each other's brains, mostly, but that was about it. The end result was that by the time the drinks were rolled out for the last round they were very rapidly sobering as the alcohol left their brains.
It was quickly apparent that Fartimore had reached the end of his own tolerance and he passed out, without passing gas, fairly quickly. Several of them cheered when that happened, in fact. As did several members of the audience, mainly those nearby. The others were dropping steadily as well, with the exception of Knockback. He was still going strong, even as Taylor and Amy were replenishing the alcohol they'd cleared out of each other's systems.
Eventually it got down to just Taylor, Amy, and Knockback. And it was quickly becoming evident that whatever his powers, Knockback was basically ignoring the alcohol.
Taylor: I don't think we can beat him.
Amy: He's got bullshit tricks from his snark, right?
Taylor: Maybe?
Amy: Why don't we make his snark stop?
Taylor had to think about that for a minute. It seemed logical enough, but it felt wrong for reasons she couldn't quite place right then. Hmmm.
Taylor: But then we have to keep going against each other?
Amy: Oooh. Right. That wouldn't be fair. How would we determine who wins between us?
Taylor: We can let him win and then it doesn't matter, right?
Amy seemed to mull that over before nodding, apparently feeling that it made sense, only to flinch in pain because of the sharp head movement. Ten minutes later they'd remembered how to give up without passing out and done so, leaving Knockback as the victor.
The two felt even better about that decision when they found out that the first place prize was a day pass to TinkerTechCon, winner's choice of Saturday or Sunday. They wouldn't have been able to use it anyway, and they were able to realize that checking on that should've been done first. Their consolation prizes included a set of bottles of various alcohols and a voucher for fifty dollars off at any one of fifteen restaurants in the area.
Once the cameras were off they made a much-needed restroom run before being helped into the waiting bus to bring them back to the hotel. They didn't even acknowledge the other familiar snarks around when they arrived, and it took them several minutes standing in the elevator to remember how to operate it. Which then required remembering how to operate their phones, but they figured it out.
Clearing each other of alcohol before going to bed didn't even come up as an idea, though some of that was probably because they hadn't actually made it to bed. Instead they'd fallen asleep together on the couch, cuddled together. Rodney ended up on their laps, while Ackbar was next to them, leaning against Taylor's back. Sadly for all of their family and friends, they were alone in the suite, so nobody captured a blackmail picture.
Friday morning in Brockton Bay started with a shock for many people as the local news focused on what was going on with Taylor and Amelia in Las Vegas.
"Daniel," Benjamin said, staring at the television. "I checked yesterday after speaking with the lawyer, and as far as I recall, the only weapon-focused cape in the city is Miss Militia. She, however, is a bit too old to be Taylor and can't handle liquor quite that well. So how is it that your girl is that familiar with what I believe is a machine gun?"
"I think that originates from a run-in with a tinker previously known as Leet," Daniel replied, sipping from his cup. "Though I think he recently rebranded as...Reknit, I believe?"
Benjamin turned to stare at Daniel. Daniel, for his part, ignored the staring, which meant actually speaking up. "Are you saying that this Leet or Reknit fugued on Taylor?"
Daniel snorted. "No, of course not. The tinker fugue happened nearly five months prior to the incident with Leet."
It didn't take much to figure out one other detail. "You aren't going to elaborate on any of this, are you?"
"Of course not. Most of it is classified in various ways, after all."
Benjamin could feel his eye wanting to twitch, but he clamped down on the urge. He'd just have to see about getting answers later. Somehow.
Where in the world did you even begin looking for that kind of thing?
"I'm more surprised that you haven't asked about what they were saying about Amy," Daniel continued.
"My daughter is a crack shot and her powers give her a cast-iron liver," Benjamin retorted. "One of those is training, the other is a side effect of her powers. What is there to find out?"
Daniel chuckled. "I won't be going into details, but I think you're wrong on both counts."
Benjamin distracted himself from that by trying to figure out a way to maim or kill Daniel without it turning into an automatic return to the Birdcage. He wasn't having much luck.
Across town, Garnet was standing there watching the same news report, while Carol facepalmed and Vicky giggled. She didn't know how to take what she'd just seen. Danny's kid was scary in a way that would need explaining, preferably by Danny. Both girls being able to basically ignore alcohol until it hit lethal levels and then keep going was another thing entirely.
It took her a few minutes, but she decided to blame all of this on 'powers are bullshit' and move on, since it wasn't her place to pry at this point and Danny wasn't available to be questioned. A moment later she'd walked into the kitchen to find Mark making a pot of oatmeal.
"Anything I can do to help?" she asked after a minute.
"You could cut up some of the strawberries in the fridge," Mark answered. "Vicky will want some. If you want something else feel free to get it ready too, Carol will just add some of the washed blueberries and I already prepared my walnuts."
"Strawberries sound good, actually. I think I'll cut up enough for two of us."
"So is there anything good on the news?"
Garnet snorted. "They claim that Amy is a good shot from the hip, which is pretty good training. Taylor apparently dismantled a machine gun, cleaned it, and then put it back together, all by feel. Then they both drank enough alcohol to kill multiple people but lost to some cape that was temporarily immune to alcohol."
Mark turned to stare at her, before sighing. "They would do something like that, wouldn't they? I'll have to see if the trick with the machine gun is online though, never got good enough to do that with my shotgun."
Blinking, she took a moment to process that statement. It would explain the gun safe in the guest room closet. "Why do you have a shotgun?"
"Every father of a little girl needs one," Mark answered as though it were self-evident. "Why else would I have one?"
That wasn't the answer she was expecting, but she was finding it hard to refute.
Emily sighed as she looked over her messages. Hannah had sent her a summary of Miss Hebert's antics in Las Vegas yesterday, at least so far as things had shown up online. That looked like it was probably going to be a problem long-term, but it was luckily almost impossible to truly connect to the powers that 'Maul' was known to have. For that matter, if Hannah hadn't indicated that the disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly was likely a 'maintenance' action then she would've been trying to figure out where Miss Hebert had gotten that skill.
Then again, she'd barely had any coffee this morning, so she wasn't yet firing on all cylinders.
Moving on, she found an automated report from the legal department. Two appeals were being requested by the same law firm, which was odd because they didn't have anything she thought would've come up for appeal hanging around. Sadly, the automated report didn't have details, and even then it was probable that they wouldn't be available for another couple of days. Assuming, of course, that confidentiality wasn't requested, at which point she'd have to wait until a judge rejected the confidentiality or things concluded.
Privacy laws sucked some days.
Next up was a series of automated alerts about threads on PHO talking about the Wards, plus at least a couple of posts by Wards. She'd already seen some of that in Hannah's message, so she was able to skip over most of them. Instead she focused on the ones that Hannah hadn't mentioned, but after a quick check they were all non-issues. Though hiding in there was the automated filing notice of her approving Ethan's request to disclose information about the local Wards, which she'd processed from home when he'd called earlier.
That didn't stop her from double-checking for herself that he'd stuck to what they'd agreed to, even if Hannah had already summarized things. He had, and she made a quick note. She liked it when parahumans stuck to the rules and verified things, after all, and Ethan seemed to have cottoned on that she was less likely to reject things when he played by the rules. Either that or Erin had gotten better at motivating him otherwise.
She was preparing to move onto the next issue when her phone rang. She groaned after looking at the caller identification, but didn't think putting this off would help any. After a moment to steel herself, she picked up the receiver.
"Good morning Glenn," she greeted, doing her best to keep her annoyance from seeping through.
"Don't good morning me," Glenn said, far too cheerful. "I know you're annoyed, but we have so much to talk about. Gotta ensure we put spins on things to keep Miss Hebert's secrets safe, right? Not that this should be too hard under the circumstances."
There were days where she hated that Glenn had decided to handle all of Brockton Bay personally, instead of delegating like he did most departments. 365 of them a year.
She was nice enough to not hate him on February 29th, whenever it came up. So long as it fell on a weekend or he didn't bother her that day.
Taylor grumbled as she got up, carefully lowering Amy down onto the couch instead of just having her fall over. With that taken care of, she made her way to the bathroom. She was sitting on the toilet when she realized that it was morning and she was dressed, despite having just woken up. Which meant that she'd slept in her clothes overnight, and thus really needed to clean up and change.
Half an hour later she came back out into the common area, shook Amy awake so that she could get ready for the day as well, and then ordered breakfast for the spider-bots. She and Amy would either have to decide to buy breakfast or head down to the now-open buffet.
Amy: How much did we drink last night?
Taylor: Probably way too much.
Amy: Yeah, most likely. Anything good on the breakfast menu?
Taylor: Pay for room service, finding somewhere nearby to eat, or the buffet-style setup downstairs.
Amy: Oh, that's open? Maybe we should take a look, and if it doesn't look appetizing we can head out to find somewhere else to eat.
Taylor: Works for me.
Forty or so minutes later the two spider-bots were fed, things were cleaned up, and they'd confirmed that they hadn't sent any incredibly embarrassing drunken messages the night before. They then made it as far as the hallway before stopping.
"Riley's here," Taylor noted. The electronic sign on the opposite suite saying 'Riley' was one clue, but of course they could also tell that the other girl's snark was present. "Think we should see if she'd like to join us?"
"Wouldn't hurt," Amy agreed, giving the doorbell button next to the door a push. Riley had been obviously moving around, and thus it didn't take her long to answer the door.
"Hello?" Riley said as she opened the door. She was wearing pink pajamas with little cartoon-style spiders in a few different colors all over the place, her currently very multicolored hair an absolute mess.
"Morning," Taylor said. "Cute pajamas. We were about to go down and see if the buffet is worth eating, and were wondering if you wanted to join us? But you don't look quite ready for that."
Riley blinked, looked down at her pajamas, and then squeaked before slamming the door. The other two stood there, blinking as it was obvious that Riley had run off into the suite.
"Are we supposed to wait or shrug and leave?" Taylor finally asked. She honestly wasn't sure what the protocol should be here.
"I think she's changing as fast as she can," Amy answered. "So I guess wait?"
Five minutes later Riley returned to the door, dressed in a t-shirt and skirt with flip-flops. She'd tamed her hair remarkably well, to the point where the 'slightly mussed' could probably be mistaken for an intentional style choice if you hadn't seen her a few minutes prior.
"You said something about breakfast?" Riley said, looking much more awake after her frantic rush to get ready.
"The buffet is open downstairs," Taylor replied. "And if we decide it doesn't look good there are a pile of places nearby we can visit instead."
"I don't think we'd decided what to do after breakfast," Amy added. "Maybe we should try that tinkertech range again?"
Taylor shrugged. "We can figure that out while we eat, I think."
"You talking about the tinkertech gun range that some idiots nearly killed themselves at yesterday?" Riley asked, lightly pushing them towards the elevator. "I think they also tried to burn the place down, for that matter."
Taylor and Amy shared a look. That would, apparently, require some investigating. Maybe while they ate. Though there was another point, now that Taylor thought of things. "So what do you have for transportation?"
"Er, nothing?" Riley admitted. "Why?"
"That would limit our use of the mopeds," Amy answered as they entered the elevator. "I don't think either of us has rigging for a passenger."
"You've got your mopeds here?" Riley said, pouting. "Damn, I'm not allowed to have one yet. Can't get an obviously tinkertech one, and they're not considered bikes back home so I'm not old enough."
"We can still check on the bus schedules or call for a cab," Taylor said with a shrug. "So it isn't that big of a deal. Or we stick to walking distance for now. Starting tonight most of the fun is here anyway, right?"
"I suppose," Riley answered with a sigh. "And I'm not old enough for the really fun stuff. Stupid gambling laws."
Amy chuckled. "That might be for the best, you do know that the house always wins in the end, right?"
Dinah sat in the back seat of the car as it pulled into a gas station. Even though she preferred actual paper books she was listening to an audiobook, since reading tended to make her carsick. Instead she could sit there with her eyes closed and listen to the story as they drove along. Noticing the engine being turned off caused her to wait a moment, before pausing the playback during an actual pause in things.
"We don't even have a gas oven," her father was saying as he was getting out of the car. "So even if you did leave it on it'll turn off when the twelve hour timer runs down."
"You know I worry about these things whenever we go on a long trip," her mother answered. Dinah rolled her eyes as she unbuckled and got out of the car, there was an eighty-fourish percent chance that she'd be sorry if she didn't use the restroom here after all.
"I know you worry, but what are the chances that the house will explode in the next two weeks?"
Dinah sighed as the question button popped up in her head. She headed to the restroom while pondering, and ended up 'pushing' the button just after sitting down on the toilet. Her skin paled a bit when the answer, instead of coming back nearly zero, came back at forty six point seven eight four percent. The follow-up questions she asked made things worse. Chances telling her parents would make things worse? Ninety eight point nine percent. Chances telling anyone would make things worse? Ninety seven point three percent. Chances that they'd be hurt if they cut their vacation short? Ninety nine point six percent.
Grumbling, she switched to focusing on the mosaic, but wasn't able to pinpoint things. There was a predicted disruption event coming up, and seeing past that was problematic. The good news there was that she could tell that things didn't get too bad before then, which meant that the numbers could be much higher than they would be afterwards. The bad news was that the numbers could be running low now.
She'd mostly forced herself to recover by the time she'd made it back to the car, and blamed her having paled a bit on the condition of the restroom. Her mother opted to wait until the next rest stop as a result. Luckily her parents only kept a light watch on her headache medicine, ensuring she wasn't taking it in dangerous amounts, so they wouldn't necessarily know when she'd used her powers enough to need it.
Hopefully they also wouldn't remember what kinds of questions she might have been tempted to answer.
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Topic: Idiots schooled at the gun range In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Las Vegas FailedATrickShot (Original Poster)
Posted On Jul 7th 2011:
So, I was at Ed's range, you all likely know the one, and a couple of 'impatient idiots' showed up. Ed's description, not mine. I fully agree, of course. Then a couple of teenagers show up alone, but they've apparently got suitable paperwork or something because Ed let them in.
Long story short, the idiots failed Ed's safety class. But, and this is the crazy part, one of the girls claims that the other could do a teardown and rebuild of pretty much any weapon you put in front of her, blindfolded.
Here is the end result of that, proving to the two idiots that even when you're that good that you still follow the safety rules.
I refuse to comment on the two girls and their skills with shooting. It isn't my place.
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►ManOfInaction Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Trick, this thread is so misleading it isn't even funny. I mean, seriously, focusing on the idiots? Or are you just trying to downplay how one of the two girls was able to show you up by shooting from the hip with nearly as much accuracy as they had using the sights?
To everyone else who hasn't watched the video: Go watch it. Now.
The real question here is, where the hell did she get that kind of skill? She's a teenager for crying out loud, what war did she get dragged into?
►FailedATrickShot (Original Poster)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
To be fair, the one who pulled the weapon apart wasn't the one shooting from the hip. And they came in together, so they probably got dragged into the same war.
►DoctorDan Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
So, yeah. Thought the first girl looked familiar, hard to tell with the blindfold, but her friend, grinning as the two idiots leave?
That's Panacea. Healer extraordinaire. Which probably makes the first girl Taylor Hebert.
So...
The real question here is, where the hell did she get that kind of skill?
She's a teenager for crying out loud, what war did she get dragged into?
That would, almost certainly, be "daily grind of Brockton Bay".
I've never been more afraid of the place in my life.
►VegasCowboy Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Wait, if Hebert took apart the gun, then Panacea is the crack shot from the hip? Holy shit. Then again, she did show she could fight yesterday.
Then again, I suppose, barring a hit to the brain, that Panacea is probably the best person to be shooting you, provided she doesn't want you actually dead. Since, you know, she'll just heal you up enough to survive when she's done, right?
►diddlydee Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
omg that gun looked awesome did they shoot it why is there no video of them shooting
►MisterSlots Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I could see her pulling that kind of stunt with, say, a handgun. Like one she carries for safety, given that she's a bit of a high-profile target, right? Except that she didn't, by feel, dismantle, clean, and reassemble her personal handgun.
That thing was a M249 Squad Assault Weapon. If you're carrying one of those around for personal protection then I don't want to know what you're running up against on a day to day basis. And she is apparently familiar enough with it to put it through a full cleaning by feel, and had to have figured out that it needed cleaning by smell or something. She asked for the cleaning kit before touching it, after all.
To be frank, that's ridiculous. I doubt most soldiers that maintain the things could do that.
I don't want to know what war she got dragged into. I want to know what SOB put her through the training needed to pull that off with a weapon no teenager should ever need to be able to maintain to that level.
Said SOB has an appointment with my fist.
►ManOfInaction Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Sorry diddlydee, nobody fired the M249, and Ed doesn't allow recording in his range.
►CasinoNut (Verified Gambling Addict)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
What, exactly, did I just watch?
►DirtyCheat Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
So today I learned that Panacea, the healer, is an impressive shot with conventional projectile weapons.
Yesterday, I learned that she can kick ass in hand to hand.
I'm thinking that villains are lucky that she doesn't patrol with the rest of New Wave.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 21, 22, 23
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►MisterSlots Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
What, exactly, did I just watch?
You just watched a teenage girl dismantle, clean, and reassemble a piece of military equipment that she has no right to be that familiar with. Doing that at all would be impressive at her age, but the fact that she did it blindfolded implies very unfortunate things.
I'm hoping this was a stunt. Ed would never go for it, of course, but I'm still hoping.
►FemmeFatal Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I don't think it was a stunt. Or at least, if it was then Ed's a better actor than anyone gives him credit for. He showed no signs of knowing who the two girls were upon their arrival, though he obviously would've known after he checked their IDs.
Mighty nice of everyone to not hound the famous teenagers, really. Except for the reporters, of course, but I'm not sure they count as people.
►PassTheCream Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
So, I've seen those things cleaned before. No, I can't say where. A good dozen times, actually.
I've never seen someone do a detail clean on some of the springs. She did, by feel, and didn't damage them. How?
►MisterMiss Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Then again, I suppose, barring a hit to the brain, that Panacea is probably the best person to be shooting you, provided she doesn't want you actually dead.
Since, you know, she'll just heal you up enough to survive when she's done, right?
Healers are the scariest things on the battlefield, because they generally know how to take you apart in the most painful ways possible. That said, a healer who's also a crack shot from the hip sounds worse than normal.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I'm going to need to ask a few people to watch this to see what they think, but from what I could see it didn't look faked.
That two others posted their own videos of it here and here makes it even less likely. Different angles, obviously held in the hand in all cases and all. But they look to match up with one another.
I'll come back later with any new information I get.
►FreeFalling (Unverified Cape)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I came here expecting someone getting nearly shot or something while they were being idiots. I like that kind of thing, and I'm disappointed that I didn't get it. Instead I find a suitably strict range master and a scary girl taking a gun apart.
And then I read the comments, and find out that the other girl is also scary, even if there isn't any video evidence of her shooting.
Moderators, can FailedATrickShot be given a warning or something for the incredibly misleading opening here?
►VivaLasVegas (Moderator)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
FreeFalling, no we can't punish or warn FailedATrickShot for the misleading opening of the thread. He didn't outright lie or deceive, he just focused on why Miss Hebert was dismantling the M249 SAW, instead of the fact that she was.
►ManOfInaction Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
VivaLasVegas, does tagging the moderators actually work?
►VivaLasVegas (Moderator)
Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
ManOfInaction: Nope. I wandered through at the right time.
►DoomyDoomsOfDoom Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Oh come on, no explosions? No injuries? What kind of schooling was that?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 21, 22, 23 ■
Topic: 2011 TinkerTechCon Drinking Contest Results In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Las Vegas DrinkCityOfficial (Original Poster)
Posted On Jul 7th 2011:
Hello everyone!
There are a half dozen threads on this already, of course, because people watch our live subscription feeds, are subscribed to our mailing lists, and check our website. But for some reason a lot of you don't think it happened until someone posts it officially here.
We think you're nuts, but we run parahuman-allowed drinking contests, so you're in good company.
The 1st place winner was the visiting Brute: Knockback! He won a day pass to TinkerTechCon, and admitted in a post-victory interview that part of his powers is to be completely immune to alcohol for up to twelve hours at a time. He hopes to have recovered before the weekend is out.
2nd and 3rd were jointly claimed by Amy Dallon and Taylor Hebert. They were unavailable for an interview due to their ages and intoxication level. The judges have dismissed a claim made on their behalf by audience members to have Knockback's victory overturned due to his immunity. They took home the top-tier consolation prizes (see list here), most of which will be delivered to their hotel in the morning.
The other twenty finalists took home the second-tier consolation prize and can be found here. The footage from the final round has been posted here, and if you wish to see the entire thing you'll have to subscribe to our website here. All past drinking contests held by us are available instantly to subscribers.
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►WhiskeyOrDeath Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Once again a parahuman is victorious, showing the superior strength of their livers. Or kidneys. I can never remember which is more important for the alcohol...I should stop looking that up when drunk.
ANYWAY, congrats to the winner, and to the cute runners-up.
Edit: My husband says it's the liver, and is offended that I didn't say "First Post".
►DoctorDan Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Wait, Panacea and Taylor Hebert? Really? Well, at least they did their shooting before going for the alcohol.
►diddlydee Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
how much did they drink
►ChaosIsMyChaser Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
diddlydee It looks like they drank enough to kill a normal human. Easily. I tallied up from the full version. Might've been enough to kill two normal humans, I'm not sure.
Panacea? She's supposedly got crazy levels of immunity to things like poisons, I can see her doing it.
Miss Hebert? I'd call bullshit, if not for having previously beaten Lung and her showing against the Gargle Blaster. No, wait, that's just more evidence for me to call bullshit with.
BULLSHIT!
►Nessie Lives Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Failing to end up victorious going up against someone temporarily immune to alcohol is a perfectly legitimate loss in a drinking contest.
Shame on the rest of the competition for losing to the only two underage participants.
And shame on their parents for letting them do it!
That said, holy crap, they still walked out after all of that. How?
►ErasesTheLine Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I'd like to congratulate the top three, even if I disagree with Knockback being allowed to enter at all while immune to alcohol.
That said, what happens if two capes that are both immune to alcohol enter something like this?
►FemmeFatal Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
Two out of the top three were female, and the male was using bullshit cheating powers.
So much for girls not being able to hold their liquor.
►Disco Dancing Replied On Jul 7th 2011:
I am so happy that Miss Hebert isn't an angry drunk after seeing her dismantling military hardware earlier.
FemmeFatal I'm curious, did you know that you're missing an e?
►DrinkCityOfficial (Original Poster)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
ErasesTheLine In the event that more than one person completely unaffected by alcohol appears to be in the final round our judges are permitted to declare it a tie.
After they've consumed enough to kill at least four people, anyway.
Gotta ensure they aren't faking it, you know.
See here for details.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 32, 33, 34
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►Knotted Panties Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
They need to make these things illegal! Arrest the organizers and fine the hotel for contributing to the delinquency of minors!
I don't care if they're famous. Underage individuals should not be drinking, and allowing them to enter contests like this is reprehensible!
Sign the petition to revoke the idiotic laws that allow this kind of thing here and help prevent this kind of depravity from happening in the future!
►MadamPlaid Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
My husband and I were in the audience, having decided to watch before heading up to our room for the night. I'm fairly certain that only eight or so people bowed out intentionally, instead of by passing out. I applaud all of them, but especially Miss Dallon and Miss Hebert, for knowing when to give up. Triply so, actually, because they did so while intoxicated.
That said, I want to know who built those girls' livers, because damn could they drink.
►Grave Mistake Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I remember when I could hold my alcohol. Any and all. Then I got stabbed, and my drinking days were over.
Even before then, though, I'd have balked at attempting to drink that much.
What the hell are they teaching teenagers these days?
►Strip Rider Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Wow. Knotted Panties, I think you need to change to "Twisted Panties".
Or is the idea that you've gotten yours so twisted they knotted instead?
Are you aware that there have been documented cases where unfortunate underage parahumans have to drink alcohol?
►Quest For My Wineglass Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
DrinkCityOfficial Wait, they have to survive lethal amounts of alcohol in order to justify a tie? Wow.
►Surfing Queen Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I find it hilarious that Knockback has been in Las Vegas when over here it's apparent that his self-declared nemesis has been trying to find him in California.
►BrickedUp (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Why do they never hold these things when I can get anywhere near them?
►FemmeFatal Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Disco Dancing I'm not, but I won't tell you why not.
►FailedATrickShot Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Sheesh those girls are getting around today. Think they were anywhere near the TinkerTech range when someone blew the roof open?
►LVMPD (Confirmed Law Enforcement)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Before anyone gets into too much of a huff over things, we've confirmed that Miss Dallon and Miss Hebert both presented proper identification for consuming alcohol without a parent or guardian present. Further, we've confirmed that said identification is legitimate.
We've also checked and they did, in fact, make it back to their hotel room safe and sound.
We will not be offering condolences for their hangovers in the morning.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 32, 33, 34 ■
Topic: Brockton Bay Wards: Badasses, or Super Badasses?
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay XxVoid_CowboyxX (Original Poster)
Posted On Jul 8th 2011:
I live in BB, and I think I know the truth about what actually goes on here. Mostly. As much as any civilian can, right?
But this is the internet. The truth doesn't matter when out in Las Vegas Panacea is beating up villains with minor assistance from Taylor Hebert. Or Taylor Hebert and Panacea are demonstrating way too much skill with guns and almost winning drinking contests, though the latter is just them being awesome.
So, Brockton Bay has a Wards team. Given what Panacea and Taylor Hebert, two theoretical non-combatants, have now been shown to be ready for on a fighting front, how badass must the local Wards team be?
Having asked, I'm now going to sign off for the rest of the day so that I don't put my foot in my mouth and get myself threadbanned from my own thread. Hopefully the read will be worth it when I return.
(Showing page 1 of 12)
►IllogicBomb Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
They are parahumans. They have superpowers. That means that if they are badasses at all then they are, by definition, Super Badasses.
I shall now go read about goings-on in Las Vegas.
►JumpMaster Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
This is, on the surface, a ridiculous thread, with a ridiculous premise. Of course Brockton Bay isn't that bad, right?
Then I watched a teenage girl dismantle, clean, and reassemble military grade hardware by feel.
I think the real question is, do the people of Brockton Bay even know how dangerous their home is?
That said, I now need a drink, but I have to go to work. Damn.
►BayHotdogCart Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I've heard rumors about what Vista gets into when she goes out alone, and the fact that she's survived it all doesn't make me think she's anything but a badass.
That she once bought a hotdog off of me after what I think was a solo run in with the Empire doesn't hurt.
►Tulip Lover Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I've heard rumors that other cities think that Brockton Bay's capes are all nuts because they've stopped reporting the guns people pull on them.
I don't know if this is evidence that guns don't work well on capes, or that the entire city is full of badasses.
Given that Maul and Vista survived being chased by the rage dragon himself, and even got a good hit in on him? I'm leaning towards the latter.
►BrocktonBooks Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
JumpMaster, based on the idea that even those in town don't know how dangerous the place is, we could argue that Leviathan didn't accidentally warn Maul about his attack run. Instead, maybe he was politely informing her that Brockton Bay wasn't his target. Because Brockton Bay is just that scary.
►ReadRedRead Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Super Badasses at least. Have you seen what Maul can do with her gun? Sorry, let me rephrase: Have you noticed that Maul carries a gun? What other part of the country lets Wards do that? And she normally doesn't bother using it.
That does, however, bring up the question of how many of them are carrying guns, but just haven't had reason to use them?
►Countdown (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Most people haven't seen what Maul is really capable of with the right equipment. Or, perhaps, they have, but didn't realize what they were seeing.
Her teeny tiny little gun can't do squat compared to some other things she's gotten her powers on.
I should know, I helped with the testing. It was glorious.
►Tissue Of Ages Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I've seen Clockblocker take a shotgun blast to the face, Vista keep a knife from stabbing someone by getting in the way to push it aside with her arm, and Aegis get outright gutted. In one battle that I ended up cowering in the middle of.
Badasses, or even Super Badasses, does not do them justice.
They are Heroes, with the capital H. Being a badass just comes with the territory.
►PickedAPickle Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
As much as it sounds like this is a joke thread, I have to wonder what Wards in other parts of the country actually think. I mean, Brockton Bay isn't the only place with villain groups, or even violent ones, but I've heard that most Wards are all but coddled.
I mean, when you read about New York and Chicago keeping Wards out of the line of fire, or the time they pulled all the Wards out of Oakland? Then compare that to Brockton Bay.
Granted, there's also Houston and Fresno where Wards report that they do end up in danger, but I don't know how they compare.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 10, 11, 12
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►Captain Bhab Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I think the real question is, do the people of Brockton Bay even know how dangerous their home is?
I've had fourteen attempts at mugging me in the past two months, been in the middle of five gunfights in the same time period, and had to file four different insurance claims for cape-related damage.
At the same time, when I can afford to take the bus I know I won't be harassed no matter who else is on it, on the weekends when Panacea is healing piles of people I honestly think I could leave my apartment unlocked without fear, and the last time I was shot Panacea not only fixed up my kidney, but also healed up two ulcers and cured my diabetes.
I have no clue how to call this.
►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Of course we're SUPER BADASSES! What else would we be? Would Justice Duck be willing to work with us if we weren't? And with my new camera drone, I can finally ensure that all of my badass moments are posted for all to see!
Well, so long as PR clears them to be. Stupid rules.
►Dock Watcher Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I'm starting to wonder if Maul had something to do with the exploding things out past the rig a while back...
And if so, then I'm thinking a lot of people have severely underestimated her.
►Martina Pitt Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Bah. All the big things have to be exaggerations, no way the government would let kids run around in situations that dangerous. Even with powers.
►DropDodo Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Is there a procedure for requesting Master/Stranger checks on other forum members? Or asking for their account to be checked to see if it was hacked, at least? Because I'm not sure that I believe that XxVoid_CowboyxX actually started this thread.
►BlackSun Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Shit. Do Maul's powers work on explosions? Because based on what Countdown said...
Then again, I'm not entirely sure that I want to know.
►NOB Tech Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
To understand whether or not the Brockton Bay Wards are Badasses, all you need to do is look back to Leviathan's attack on Boston.
As I understand it, Vista helped hold back Leviathan's waves along the coastline for hours, alone, by warping a very large portion of the coastline itself.
Clockblocker worked with Parian to shore up another area beyond Vista's reach, nothing but cloth between them and the waves.
Grue helped keep the nuclear power plant safe. Enough said.
Aegis and Gallant were on search and rescue in Boston. Also enough said.
Kid Win flew around with supplies, there are pictures of him doing so. He did this for pretty much the entire attack and cleanup.
Maul also ran around with supplies, until she was called off to take up guard duty keeping Panacea safe, even when something weird started happening and the medical stations weren't safe anymore.
The Brockton Bay Wards stepped up, and proved that they were Badasses.
Then again, so did New Wave, the Protectorate, and lots of others. But this thread isn't about them.
►Sister Samantha Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
They aren't badasses, they're in league with the devil. That's the only way they could possibly have gotten powers, just like every other 'cape' on the planet.
I'm collecting to send proper Bibles and other materials to every 'cape' in New England, see my page here. Help me save their immortal souls from eternal damnation!
►Assault (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
I actually asked for and received permission to tell everyone this:
There are two Wards in Brockton Bay with handguns. They are both scary with the things, for different reasons.
I wasn't given permission to tell you who the second one is, and Battery threatened to take away my popcorn privileges if I told you.
►Countess Chocolate Replied On Jul 8th 2011:
Martina Pitt You poor delusional fool. There's no way you live in any city that has capes in it.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 10, 11, 12
Chapter 143 The breakfast buffet had turned out to be very well stocked and the three had gone for it while discussing options for what to do with the day, mostly via text messaging so that they didn't have to speak. They knew they wanted to be back in time for the conference opening ceremonies, but none of them were going to be setting up booths or anything so they had very little reason to stick around.
Riley's suggestion of seeing what happened if Taylor tried to start a tinker fugue was soundly and thoroughly rejected.
It was quickly determined that Riley hadn't even heard of the tinkers that had died, and was curious about seeing their lab. Finding out that it was locked down and inaccessible caused her to pout, but she stopped whining when Amy informed her of Taylor's problem in attempting to gain access.
They looked over other things nearby and found a special being run at a somewhat nearby go-kart attraction. Supposedly they had tinkertech karts available, which could mean anything really. Still, it was close enough to walk, and they had plenty of time to kill. They'd determine what to do after that, depending on what they felt like later. And probably depending on what exactly the tinkertech karts had in the way of tinkertech.
Of course, before they made it out of the cafeteria they were sidetracked by 'breaking news' from China coming up on the televisions spread around. Apparently several border stations had been blown up in the past half hour or so by parahumans looking to flee the country.
"I wonder what set all of that off," Taylor mused. "I mean, last I knew the government over there had some way of keeping parahumans under control to an insane degree."
"Maybe they overstretched someone's capabilities," Amy offered. "Maybe they were using a master type power to maintain control, and they hit a hard limit they didn't know they had or something? Or possibly ran into someone immune that pretended to not be until they could strike at the right moment."
"Those are very reasonable possible answers," Riley said, nodding. "As a counter, I'm going to claim that it was a prank gone horribly right."
"Don't you mean horribly wrong?" Taylor asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Hell no," Riley replied, shaking her head. "Things are much worse when they go horribly right. Now then, is there enough time for me to go back upstairs to get my visor? I forgot to grab it."
"We're walking," Amy replied. "Worst case scenario is we jog instead, unless you're afraid of some more vigorous exercise?"
Kara grumbled as she closed the hatch on the lab she'd just exited. She paused long enough to ensure it was sealed and to slap a warning sticker on it, then started down the side of the mountain. It had been a wonderful place to hide her prank, but the prank itself was probably a bit too mean to be counted as such. Especially when she recalled just how, er, widespread it was? Yeah, she decided as she giggled a little. Widespread worked.
She really had to avoid building these things while drunk. Or at least had to start reviewing what she'd built after the hangover went away. What was she thinking, trying to make Sheila the center of a peanut butter rainstorm the size of a city? She really hoped that was a mistake in the math and not her original intention.
Still, that was now dismantled and another massive safety hazard for a couple of years, minimum. But at least it was a contained safety hazard.
"Good morning Miss Sockhammer," a voice called from below her, causing her to stop. Right there on the path she'd used to get this close was a golf cart, with an older man leaning against it. "How are you today?"
"I guess I'm okay," Kara replied, giving the man a look. "Who are you, and how did you find me?"
"My name is Michael Smith. My mother would insist on some tripe about which Smith family my father was descended from, but I think it was a load of bull intended to deal with her dislike of the common name. I'm hired help, from the Beetum, Dewey, and Howe law firm. They wish to volunteer to work on your appeal case."
Kara's eye twitched. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"
"Probably. Mister Dewey's bitching that Miss Beetum didn't marry into the Cheatum family a couple years back is almost legendary in town, since they couldn't use the classic joke."
"That still doesn't tell me how you found me."
"The note that eventually sent me here mentioned that you'd passed the first part of your trial or something like that," Michael replied with a shrug. "I'm not sure beyond that, as I don't ask questions that I know they won't answer. I know that I'm here now, and here you are. My employers seemed excited at the opportunity to stick one to the government, but I haven't yet picked up enough legalese to know what they were talking about beyond that."
Kara blinked. That...very possibly meant that Glaistig had something to do with this. Which was either a very good thing, or a very bad one.
She was leaning towards good, because she had the feeling that she'd be dead before she knew that she'd pissed the woman off. Besides, there was a good chance that this would result in her getting to use a bed with an actual mattress that hadn't started to fall apart.
With that last detail in mind, she very carefully made her way down to the golf cart and, after the man had retaken the driver's seat, climbed in.
Dragon carefully landed her transport on her private landing pad and began the connection procedures to link the entire thing to her personal suite. If it weren't for the latter process she'd have had Mother's transport use this landing pad as well. That and if Mother's transport had used this landing pad a lot of inconvenient questions would probably have been asked.
It took half an hour to get everything connected and tested, at which point she stepped into the utilitarian main suite. Just enough to imply a human might possibly stay there, even if she didn't use most of it when she was visiting. A quick check of the security logs showed that Mother and her friends were out of the hotel, but Colin was around. Nodding to herself, she sent a message off to him, even as a drone unit rolled out of her transport. It held her booth supplies, and she thought Colin might like to help her set up.
"Good morning Dragon," Colin said a couple minutes later as he stepped into the elevator with her. The drone unit had taken a different elevator down.
"Good morning Armsmaster," Dragon replied. She'd have to get a full security sweep done on the elevators, and then probably another three a day all weekend. Having to use cape names was unpleasant.
She and Colin would get things set up, and then probably spend quite a bit of time helping other tinkers do the same. It was one of the good ways to connect with the independent tinkers, but they'd discovered the year before that if Colin showed up without her people were less trusting of him. That had ended when she'd shown up an hour later and accepted his help in setting up.
Maybe this year they'd convince a couple more tinkers to sell or trade a few things. A number had been reluctant over the past few years for various reasons, but they still came to the convention every year. She personally had started thinking that it was just a matter of finding something that would interest them, and had collected a number of potential items as a result.
For that matter, she wondered how long it would take Colin to realize that she insisted he not tinker on these trips so that they'd have more time to spend with each other.
To the confusion of Amy and Riley, Taylor had opted for one of the non-tinkertech karts, despite the man helping them choose warning her that it was consistently one of the slower karts, even though the mechanics didn't think anything was wrong with the engine. Not being forthcoming with an explanation for her choice led the other two to nab a tinkertech kart each. They were each given two solo laps around the 'test track' to ensure they were comfortable with the controls, before they lined up for the actual race.
The first run was a 'team' run, girls versus guys in particular after the desk staff had noted that they had five of each as well as an equal number of tinkertech karts on each side. All of the times for a given team would be added together and the lowest total time would win. Which meant an incredibly lagging person could offset the first two racers across the finish line being on the same team.
They didn't know the other two girls that had come with one of the guys, though it was obvious that one of them was the sister of the guy they came with. The other four guys had come in together. Notably, the other seven were apparently 'regulars', not tourists, and all of them laughed at Taylor's choice of kart.
"That thing hasn't won for at least six months," one of the guys had taunted. "Hope you like being in last place the entire time."
When the 'team race' had been called the other two girls had asked if Taylor really wanted that kart, and Taylor insisted she wasn't going to be changing.
As a 'courtesy', the regulars let Taylor take the front slot in the starting lineup, ostensibly so that she'd know what it was like to be in first place until they got moving. That put the girls on that entire side. Amy ended up two karts behind Taylor, and Riley was in the last slot on that side. The guys were in the 'half car behind' slots to the side of the girls, officially making things alternate.
Right before the race started, Taylor started grinning.
Amy: Why are you grinning?
Taylor: Because I know something they don't.
Amy: Really? What?
Taylor: The throttle cable is the wrong length on this kart, and they've compensated by adjusting the rules on the electronic rev limiter a bit.
Amy obviously wasn't getting the implications, but then the race started and Taylor pushed the pedal down almost to the floor. By the time everyone was up to speed it was obvious that Taylor was steadily pulling ahead, to the astonishment of the locals.
Taylor finished her fifth lap at the rear of the pack of karts just finishing their fourth lap, somewhat disappointed that she hadn't been able to pass the entire group before she was done.
"Holy crap," the girl at the automatic timing board said once Taylor had pulled off to the side and gotten out of the kart. "I think you just set a new record for this iteration of the course. How'd you do it?"
"I listened to the engine on the test track," Taylor replied. "It gets louder as you push the pedal down, until you get to a certain point. Then it drops and levels out. I just didn't push the pedal past that point, assuming that the engine was running the fastest then. It's a lot harder to hear with nine other karts going at it, but at speed it was easy to tell that I was at the sweet spot."
The girl blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. "The sweet spot is supposed to be the floor. No wonder nobody's been able to win with that thing. You do realize that some of the others are going to demand that they be allowed to use that kart now, right?"
"You're not going to shift it out for service?"
"We'll let the mechanic know that the sweet spot is wrong, but honestly I think all of the staff will want to see if the regulars can figure it out first. At least once I tell them what you said."
A minute later the rest of the racers crossed the finish line, and the timing board updated with all of their times. It was a simple system, all things considered. Cameras over the starting positions and finish line looking for barcodes on each kart. Registering each kart to starting position and team was done with the first set of cameras, and then sensors tripped to capture the barcodes of the karts as they crossed the finish line.
Despite Riley lagging behind a little bit due to a nasty collision on the final lap, the girls still won due to Taylor's incredible lead. And as predicted, all seven of the regulars wanted to try and get the incredible performance that she had out of the 'dud' kart.
Taylor treated Amy and Riley to shakes at the snack bar while the regulars fought over who would try first.
Erasmo wasn't entirely sure why, but empowering the doctors and nurses had him feeling better than he had in years. It hadn't at first, but then they started testing things with the safest patients. It was like his powers liked that new parahumans were testing the protection he gave the medical personnel or something like that. He didn't know how to explain it, really.
He also didn't know what to think of the fact that they'd gotten him a hotel room nearby, without asking him to pay anything for it. Granted, he had admitted that he didn't have a place to stay currently, and it was quickly obvious that he didn't have any money on him, but still...
"Excuse me," one of the doctors said, interrupting his train of thought. He put down the mug he'd borrowed from the cabinet in the breakroom. "There are a few people that would like to speak with you out front, do you recall where the meeting room for visitors is?"
"I do," Erasmo said, getting up. "Thank you." He downed the last of the coffee from the mug, and took it over to the sink to give it a quick rinse.
Considering things, he wondered who wanted to talk to him this time. The asylum director had spoken with him the day before, after all, and had claimed that it would be at least a few days before she had any answers.
"Good morning," one of the individuals in the meeting room said as Erasmo entered. He paused, blinking, at the group waiting. Two of them were in expensive suits, and the other three were in PRT uniforms. Which meant that they'd likely figured out that he'd escaped.
But, and this seemed important, no weapons of any kind appeared to be present.
"Good morning," he finally said, calmly moving to take a seat opposite the group. He knew his limitations, after all, and he couldn't exactly expect the doctors and nurses to fight for him.
Taylor grinned as she pulled in tight on the corner, She wasn't in first, but the guy in the kart she'd originally chosen was well in last place. They'd made a recording of her first race as part of a system where you could purchase recordings of your races. They also had one of the staff members doing nearly as well not long after to show that it wasn't something only she could do. Both recordings were queued up on all the monitors, alternating between each other, to entice people.
A small pile of other regulars had shown up and there was now a sign-up sheet specifically for that one kart, Taylor and the staff were refusing to say how the incredible runs had been accomplished. Amy and Riley, the latter after getting the explanation Amy had, were also not quite sure what the secret was. Well, it wasn't like Taylor had given them the explanation she'd given the staff.
A minute later she was bumping Amy's cart a bit to cause her to hit the wall and let Taylor pull ahead of the other girl, only for one of the regulars to try and do the same to Taylor. It was a lot more fun when she wasn't so far out in front that nobody could catch her, but they should probably break for lunch at some point. She wasn't in the mood for the options in the 'snack bar', so they'd have to find somewhere else to grab a bite to eat. Besides, things were getting crowded as people kept calling others in.
As Dragon had expected, setting everything up hadn't taken much time at all. She and Colin had then helped a pile of other tinkers set up, discussing various things as they went along. Most of them swung by to look over the triple-width booth containing her own equipment, the PRT's offerings, and the Guild's offerings for the convention. It was somewhat near the main entrance and was the majority of the official government presence on the convention floor. There were fifteen PRT and Guild 'gap fillers' throughout the floor as well, each holding pamphlets targeting tinkers and those who interacted with them regularly, but those would merely be restocked when empty.
Amazingly and annoyingly, the various bits of tinkertech that she'd brought as examples of various things hadn't been the primary point of interest for just over half of the tinkers when they'd come by the booth. Instead, Mother's little isotopically pure carbon cubes were, or more accurately the potential means of their production. Ideas for derivatives of the 'technology' used were intriguing, or in some cases worrying. Splitting apart seawater into component elements and isotopes, for example, sounded wonderful until the tinker in question had specifically mentioned uranium.
The uranium was, of course, primarily a concern because the tinker in question specialized in frequently-deadly traps. Had the large-scale power production tinker mentioned uranium then it would've been a lot less concerning.
A lot of questions had been asked about how the process worked and if it could be adapted, and sadly neither she or Colin could answer much about it.
"We honestly don't know a lot about how these are produced," Dragon had answered many times. "The process is fairly efficient and we believe it can be scaled up quite a bit, but it may be limited to carbon. We just don't know."
"That's on a list of questions I've been compiling to ask the parahuman who produced these," was quickly one of Colin's default answers. "If you'd like to provide contact information I can see about passing on any answers we get."
It was frustrating, really, how they'd gotten more direct contact emails and phone numbers from Mother's cubes than from all the other tinkertech they'd ever brought around since she'd started running the convention. She took out that frustration on the few tinkers that had requested that marriage proposals be forwarded on to Mother. That these came from both genders didn't bother her, she gleefully shot every one of them down on Mother's behalf.
She was, however, proud of Colin for coming up with the idea of using the promise of potential information to get the contact information. He normally didn't internalize 'social engineering' into his list of solutions to problems, after all. It showed that he might be starting to learn how to read people better, especially as she'd already checked and he didn't seem to have any software that had helped him come to that conclusion running.
Amy had asked for recommendations for lunch nearby, pointing out that they were on foot, and gotten them pointed at a couple of places. One of them was apparently a local sub shop, somewhat on the way back to the hotel provided you didn't take the direct route, that didn't advertise much. Word of mouth only, which meant that for the most part you needed the locals to tell you about it. Given the directions they'd been given you likely pretty much had to go looking for it or be wandering around randomly to find it.
They'd opted to swing by there and found that it was busy, but not too crowded. Most people were obviously swinging by on foot during their lunch breaks and taking their food to go. The three girls had gotten their food to eat in, finding that the prices were very reasonable for the portion sizes in the process, and then claimed a table in the small fenced-in area out in front of the place.
"Afternoon ladies," a man said as he and a friend sat down at the next table over. "You new to the area?"
"We're here for the convention," Riley answered.
"Wow," the man's friend said. "Don't usually get tourists here, how'd you find Jane's?"
"Taylor here caused a bit of a commotion at the go-kart track," Amy replied. "When I asked about places to get lunch afterwards a number of people waiting to try and duplicate her feat mentioned here."
"I bet that's where Kev ran off to earlier," the man said, shaking his head. "Never could stand someone beating his track records."
"Or his arcade records," his friend replied. "Remember when Alicia beat his score on the Demon's Gate pinball machine?"
"Hah! He spent the better part of a month going down there to play the thing every day to get her off of the leaderboard."
Riley, at this point, started to do puppy-dog eyes at the other two.
"What now?" Taylor asked, poking Riley in the shoulder.
"I wanna try the pinball game," Riley answered.
"We don't even know where it is," Amy noted.
"It's in the arcade two buildings down from the Hero Memorial Hotel," the man said. "You can't miss it."
Taylor suspected that their afternoon activity had been chosen, based solely on Riley's sudden bouncing in her seat.
Danny sighed as he looked at the message on his phone. Carol had invited him over for dinner sometime in the next few days, or more accurately had ordered him over for dinner. She knew that Taylor wasn't around, after all. He tapped out a response, indicating that he had a guest he wasn't comfortable bringing over, and then put the phone down to get back to paperwork. Ensuring that everyone who was supposed to have licenses and permits and such actually had them was time consuming, after all, and he'd slacked off on many pieces of it during the time of little work.
Luckily for him, it hadn't been hard to deal with those that would be working on projects needing things verified right then, but he really needed to ensure that the association-wide lists of who was allowed to do what were up to date. Especially as teams were being formed with team leaders that needed to know things, as they were now doing enough for him to not be able to monitor everything directly. As an added bonus, they had enough money coming in now to cover the costs of the applications and tests, so they wanted to expand several lists as well.
He sighed as he put his work down again, picking up his now-ringing phone. It only took a glance to confirm that it was Carol calling. "Hello Carol."
"Danny," Carol replied. "I can understand not wanting to bring someone with you without asking, of course, but what exactly are you insinuating about us that you can't bring your guest over for dinner?"
"Do you want the platitudes or the truth?"
There was a pause, before there was a muted sound of someone swearing. A moment later he heard Carol sighing. "Marquis is your houseguest, isn't he?"
"I thought that was fairly obvious, given that I believe that Garnet showed up at your place."
"I don't know why I hadn't considered that side of things. Wishful thinking, perhaps. I applaud your discretion. Besides, I'd mainly been aiming to surprise you with Garnet being around. You're obviously more informed than I am about things."
"Not sure I'd say that, given that I only realized who Ben was after he mentioned his daughter. I'd really only dealt with him as his primary contact with the Dockworkers before, even if we were on good terms with each other otherwise."
"I see. I'm going to have to go beat something into a pulp and call my therapist, I think. If she thinks it's not a spectacularly bad idea I may get back in touch in a day or two for a more public meeting. Don't hold out any hope on that, by the way, but I'm willing to make the attempt if only because I doubt Amy will want to ignore her father's existence."
"Nice to see that you're trying to do right by Amy. She can still come visit when they get back, of course. Assuming that our guests are still around by then, anyway."
"Thank you Danny," Carol replied, sighing again. "I'll be in touch."
Amy frowned as she lost her last life in the arcade game she'd been playing, then sighed. She hadn't made the high score list.
"You should've dodged left at the end there," Taylor noted as she handed Amy her drink.
"Duh," Amy replied, accepting the cup. "That became incredibly obvious when I died. How is Riley doing?"
"She's beaten 'KEV' on sixteen machines so far, after giving up on the pinball game."
"Why don't you give things a try?" Amy asked after downing the last of the liquid in the cup. "I don't think you've played any of the games yet?"
"Not sure I feel like it," Taylor replied.
Taylor: I can already tell that I can't ignore the inner workings of these like I can the games on my phones or tablet. Too much direct integration.
Amy: Bah, does that really matter? Or is it going to kill your enjoyment that much?
Taylor: Not sure, I'd have to try one.
Amy: Go play the big scary pinball machine. Worst case scenario is that you don't have fun, best is that you have fun and dethrone KEV on it.
Taylor gave that some thought, before shrugging. Might as well. Even if she did well people would just assume that she was good at games. It took a couple minutes to convert a couple dollars into tokens, then she walked up to Demon's Gate. The machine was unusually large, and had been tinker-built according to the artwork. It had four playing fields that would rotate into play as you advanced in things. The fun part there was that if you locked four balls for multiball the circular linkage for the four fields would unfold and they'd lock together, causing you to have all four fields active at once.
Interestingly, the counter for the machine had been reset since the last time that happened, so she wasn't sure if anyone really knew why the large 'clear space' around the machine was needed. The machine checked before you could start a game, though, so there was plenty of space. There was also a camera built into the thing, currently tied into a set of monitors around the arcade so that people could watch without clustering around it.
Depositing her tokens, she examined things. The startup sequence played on the backglass, and then the first ball was deployed to the right-side plunger. She very carefully pulled back on the 'remote' for the plunger, since each field had a different one so it wasn't direct-linked, and paused until she thought it was just the right time to release it. She'd mis-timed it, unfortunately, and didn't get the maximum bonus.
Forty-five minutes later she had quite the audience, the rest of the arcade only making noise by virtue of the arcade games nobody was playing occasionally trying to get people's attention.
"Why hasn't she activated multiball?" one girl asked. "She could've done so anytime now."
"Maybe she doesn't know how?" another answered.
"It's a spinner every time the ball is captured," the first replied. "There's no way she missed it, but she keeps picking the point bonuses instead."
"Does multiball keep track of the other playing fields?" a boy asked. "Because I know each one just goes two-ball multiball, but I think she's captured a ball on three of the fields now. She might've lost two of them already."
"She's good, but I don't think she's playing intelligently," the second girl said. "She could've had a much higher score by now. I'd have a much higher score by now, and I'm not that good at the game."
The machine spun around to the fourth field shortly after that, and Taylor started hitting the goals there. She was, however, not even a tenth of the way to the current top score. That would change soon. In fact, she grinned as the ball landed in the last capture point.
"THE AIR DEMON HAS AWOKEN!" came out of the machine. Matching the fire, water, and earth demons already mentioned, since each field was themed differently. "ALL FOUR DEMONS HAVE AWOKEN! THE GATE OPENS!"
There were gasps from a number of people as the playing fields spun multiple times, then stopped in the middle of the water and air fields. A loud clang was heard before those two fields leveled out and snapped together, followed by the earth and fire fields lifting out from underneath and snapping onto the ends.
"FORCE THE FOUR DEMONS BACK!" came from the machine next, and all four locked balls were released. At the same time four additional balls were launched, for a total of eight balls active across the four fields. The single set of flipper buttons controlled all the fields at once, so it was almost entirely a 'spam the buttons and pray' thing. Unless, of course, you had bullshit powers helping you with timing. Somewhat.
In truth, Taylor could claim she was using skill all she wanted, she was bashing the buttons and praying.
Amazingly, she kept all eight balls going for ten minutes. She kept her losses down to one ball per field, only losing the water field entirely after thirty-four minutes. The earth field was next at the thirty-nine minute mark. She kept the air and fire fields going longer, but eventually lost the remaining ball on both pretty much at the same time. Without really cheating with her powers or something she wasn't able to hit either ball as they fell directly down between the flippers.
The game folded back up and spun around, returning to the earth field for her second official ball. She'd probably play this one more aggressively, she didn't want to still be at this in three hours. To be honest, she'd prefer to be done in half an hour or so, tops.
Chapter 144 It ended up taking Taylor another hour to finish her single game on Demon's Gate. She didn't bother with 'opening the gate' again, though she could have. Instead she was very aggressive, but still took a while for the remainder of her six total balls. Bonus balls were annoying when you didn't want to stick around, but didn't want to obviously just call it quits either. Good luck to Kev though, she'd set a new high score that was two orders of magnitude larger than his best.
Then again, she'd also 'revealed' at least one of the machine's secrets, so perhaps others would be doing a lot better as well. Assuming people paid enough attention to realize what she'd done, of course. That was, of course, a crapshoot.
Once she'd finally finished and put her initials in she'd gone straight for the restroom. Upon exiting she'd been grabbed by the owner of the place and gotten her picture taken next to the machine showing the high score list. He apologized for not having a recording of her entire game available, but nobody had started one when she'd begun and nobody had thought to get one going when she 'made history', as he'd put it. She truthfully informed him that she didn't want a video anyway. He did insist that she take a quickly printed copy of the picture though, on the house.
"They've already got a thread on PHO," Amy commented as the three left. It was dinnertime, and they were heading to a nearby restaurant that Riley wanted to try. "It references a couple of threads on a pinball enthusiast website."
"Of course there's a thread," Riley added. "That was awesome. I didn't know it could even do the 'all four fields at once' trick until it did it!"
"I don't think anyone knew," Amy said, lightly hitting Riley. "Outside of the tinker who built the thing, anyway. They were going nuts over the videos people posted, and mocking a couple of people who were caught claiming that Taylor had no clue how to play pinball shortly before it happened."
"Never manually trigger multiball," Taylor intoned with an air of great wisdom. "For if you have a choice, chances are there is something greater to be obtained by waiting." When the other two looked at her, she shrugged. "It seems like good advice to me. If the game lets you continue instead of giving you multiball automatically you can probably turn a two-ball multiball into a three or four ball one."
"Just don't expect eight unless you're playing something built by a tinker," Riley replied, shaking her head. "It was still awesome. Now I want one, but we don't have enough room for it at home."
They continued their discussion through being seated, but after ordering they changed topics.
"Yo Kevin," Tim called over from the table he'd ended up at. "Kate says you've been one-upped. Again."
"Oh come on," Kevin moaned, putting his pizza down at the next table over. "What now? I still haven't figured out how my track record was beaten."
"Some girl with colorful hair beat a bunch of your mediocre high scores at the arcade," Tim replied, waving his phone for emphasis. "Then the girl that beat your track record apparently demolished your high score on Demon's Gate."
Kevin paused, as did almost everyone else that heard that, before he growled. "Nobody beats my score on Demon's Gate. And what's that about demolished?"
"Too late to head over and reclaim the top spot today, and I don't know for sure. I've still got a dumb phone, Kate called and let me know. But she claims things were posted online."
Glaring at Tim, Kevin pulled his smartphone out and started searching. It didn't take long before he'd gone from visibly pissed to visibly dumbfounded as it looked like he was watching a video. "She...how in the...holy crap."
The group all looked at each other, before Ashley, Kevin's sister, sighed and got out her own phone. They didn't usually flaunt that their parents were well off, but it was annoying at times. Especially since they'd both gotten new Dragon-tech phones when those had recently started to become more generally available.
"Holy shit," Ashley finally said, getting up and heading to the front counter. Tim barely caught what she said next. "That's insane."
Most of them were still wondering what the hell was going on when the manager turned on the large television that was usually used to show things like playoff games. It was quickly obvious that Ashley had hooked her phone up to it, the flash of her background image being a dead giveaway, and the first thing to show was a picture of the tourist standing next to the Demon's Gate machine. It was one of the standard things the manager did for new impressive scores on any of the machines, obvious because the high scores were showing. The score next to 'TAH' had two more digits than Kevin's score below it, and Kevin had fought long and hard to get just barely into that range in the first place. Really, it was more like three additional digits as a result. And the new score started with an eight.
If that wasn't shocking enough to the extended group of friends and schoolmates, what Ashley brought up next was. It was obviously a cell phone recorded clip, and what the machine did was crazy. There were hints all over the place that the 'gate' could be opened, but he'd never imagined that it meant that.
"How in the world is he going to live at the track and the arcade at the same time?" someone, Tim didn't catch who, asked. It was a good question, Kevin was going to want to reclaim both titles, but he couldn't be in two places at once. Not to mention that he worked four days a week for extra spending money, since his parents didn't give too much of an allowance for various reasons. He pondered what Kevin might do as Ashley played a few more video clips of the girl playing.
After dinner the three girls returned to the hotel. They had about twenty minutes to go before the 'grand opening' of the convention, even if the convention floor wouldn't be open until the following day. Because of the short time left for that, they made their way straight over to the convention floor entrance, where there were temporary walls creating hallways around the floor itself. Their digital tickets had them directed to a specific room, which was apparently the big-ticket 'live' room that Dragon was actually in.
Taylor wasn't sure what to make of the attention that got them, especially when she found out that their seats were in the front row. There was murmuring from a number of people in the room, but she couldn't figure out what they were saying.
The camera system had been replaced since the last time she was here, and had a sensor drone style unit hooked into it now as well in the general center of the conference/convention floor. That required a higher clearance activation sequence, and was probably supposed to be a secret.
T: Dragon seems to have a high-end sensor unit installed here now.
A: Like we've got in our visors?
T: Yep.
R: Damn. I want one!
So of course Taylor had told Amy and Riley about it. It was active anyway, so fair was fair in her eyes. She hadn't been told that it would be in use, so she wasn't going to pretend it didn't exist.
Things quieted down as Dragon stepped up to the podium. "Welcome, everyone, to TinkerTechCon. This year we have just over two hundred tinkers that are participating across a hundred and seventy-five booths. As you all likely know, outside of a very small number of individuals attending in costume you're unlikely to know who attending is a tinker and who isn't. Attempting to identify tinkers out of costume is, of course, a violation of the convention rules and is grounds for ejection from the convention floor. By my last count, tinkers are likely to be outnumbered nearly ten to one at any given point in time anyway, and that's assuming that every tinker who sent a booth is on the floor."
Colin stepped up next. "This year the PRT has authorized use of new technology to enhance the convention's security. If you are on or near the convention floor then you are being monitored. How this monitoring works is a secret. It has been declared restricted by the PRT and is thus not available for examination or purchase."
Several people in the room groaned at that. Apparently that they were using the tech wasn't as secret as she'd thought. Oh well.
"That said," Dragon took over again, the screen behind her lighting up as she, and the podium, moved off to the side. "Let's look at some of the highlights coming up for this year."
A number of returning and new tinkers got a quick advertisement, as did a number of panels over the coming two days. A quick overview of the convention's layout followed that. Then a very detailed list of 'do any of this and you will be kicked from the convention, even if you are a Dragon-tech shareholder' warnings. Like 'do not attempt to operate tinkertech without the permission of the booth operators' as a starting point. The only other things mentioned multiple times were that the 'yellow zone' booths did not permit food or drink near them, and the 'red zone' had a posted lower capacity for weapon safety reasons, to be enforced by guards posted at either end.
The screen then shut off, and carts rolled into the room. Presumably they did so in other rooms as well. Dragon's face showed an amused smirk as she stepped off of the stage to stand by the carts. "Now then, you've all sat through the presentations, so it's time to hand out this year's mystery bags. Like in previous years, each bag contains a tinkertech puzzle, specially designed so that dismantling it incorrectly will render it nonfunctional. Figure out the puzzle to find out how to enter the grand prize drawing, to be held Sunday night. Good luck!"
A: Oh, that's bullshit.
R: Wait, what?
A: Taylor will figure it out right away, because her snark tells her how to use things.
T: Wouldn't surprise me. Does it matter?
A: Probably not, but the thing is going to bug me.
R: I'm starting to feel jealous myself, and I haven't even seen the puzzle yet.
Each row, starting with the front row, was called up to collect a bag at random on their way out.
"I say we wait until we're upstairs," Taylor noted as Riley went to open her bag. That caused Riley to pause.
"Less likely to lose something in the crowd that way," Amy agreed, before throwing her arm around Riley's shoulders. "Besides, I just remembered that we have something for you. Completely slipped my mind until just now."
"Oooh, right," Taylor said, nodding. "I'd forgotten too."
Riley was now visibly curious, and ignoring the bag she'd been about to open a moment ago.
Fortuna grumbled as she bounced around from issue to issue. She couldn't complain too much that she'd been tasked with cleaning up some of the mess from the sudden civil war in China, given that she'd kinda started it. By accident, but she did start it. For now she was smoothing over the passage of some parahumans to more friendly destinations. Drop enough money for a train ticket here, a travel dictionary there. She wasn't entirely sure how eating half a cookie and then dropping it behind a bench was going to help anyone, but it was on the Path and she didn't have time to question it.
At least she got to eat half the cookie, right?
The rusty knife she'd grabbed thirty-eight steps ago still hadn't been needed, though. Normally the Path would give her things a lot closer to when she'd use them. It must be for something on one of her 'if possible, but not a priority' paths.
Four steps later she'd left the knife behind, having thrown it into the darkness at the end of an alley just before dooring out. The woman hidden by a man's stranger power had seen the throw. The man hadn't, but he'd definitely noticed the impact.
He wouldn't be raping the woman, and though his injury was survivable it hindered his preferred activities significantly.
Riley had gone silent when she'd been shown the brain plants, examining them and the 'fruit' carefully. She hadn't started trying to tinker, so Taylor and Amy had left her alone. Instead they were tending to the two spider-bots.
Taylor: Think we should bring them with us in the morning, or hold off until later?
Amy: I think the morning is probably good. Better to get it out of the way and all. It'll be a good excuse to have your backpack in case there's anything actually interesting for sale, right?
Taylor: Good point, but I don't have much cash on me. Think the tinkers will take my card?
Amy had to pause to think about that one.
Amy: There's a 24-hour bank nearby, maybe you can get some cash there?
Taylor: Or I wait and see if I need any, and only get some if I do. No need to carry a pile of money around for no good reason, right?
Amy: Yeah, good point.
"This is awesome," Riley finally said, obviously excited but very carefully sliding the plants back into the carrying case. "How did you get it to preserve the neural tissue once they detach?"
"A combination of something like stasis and some customized bacteria that end up working with the inner layer of the 'rind' to keep things somewhat 'fresh'," Amy answered. "You get at most an hour after you crack them open either way, unless you take steps yourself."
"The bacteria really dislike normal air," Taylor added. "They die off pretty much right away, so they shouldn't impact things."
"These ones went bad anyway," Riley noted, sorting out the oldest 'fruits' before putting the others into the case and closing it. She then finally let her excitement take over, diving over the couch between her and the other two to hug them, muttering 'thank you' over and over again.
Twenty minutes later they'd gotten Riley to calm down again, and Taylor finally opened her 'mystery bag'. That caused the other two to do the same. Inside they each found a small wrapped cube and a note. The notes were quickly found to be identical, a simple statement that the goal was to obtain the instructions they needed from the cube, and that dismantling it forcibly was both unsafe and almost guaranteed to render that impossible.
"How accurate is the dismantling warning?" Amy asked, eyeing her cube.
Taylor focused on her wrapped cube, picking it up with her left hand and spinning it in various ways. "Looks like if you don't take it apart correctly it's liable to catch fire, melt, or partially dissolve." More interesting was that she'd already gotten the information she'd needed and, figuring she might as well, started filling out the online form she'd been linked to. Luckily the NFC relay watch didn't require the other side to support the secure handshake protocols, nor did it need the other side to be powered.
Amy carefully put her cube down, while Riley looked at hers with interest. Shrugging, Taylor unwrapped her cube, finding that it had a very well polished, nearly perfect lacquered finish. You could barely see the seams, but there was a mild etching along them that helped make them stand out a little more. It looked, and would even act, like a puzzle box to be opened. That was, in fact, how you got it to the point of being safe to dismantle. Of course, when you got it that far the URL she'd gotten via NFC would also be accessible via various etchings on the internal pieces, you'd just have to assemble them like a puzzle after disassembly.
She was surprised a few minutes later when she found that she was apparently the second person to fill out the form. Had someone else gotten lucky?
Trevor grinned as he played with the little tinker puzzle. The 'get the url with NFC' bit was somewhat of a cheat, but getting in early before he forgot was useful. Now he was playing with it because the mechanisms for how it did things were interesting. He hadn't considered how a number of relatively simple things could be assembled in this particular way before, and his powers were giving him ideas for how to make something similar in appearance, yet vastly more complicated.
He'd probably never make the one that had popped into his head, in part because he could tell it would be a lot more dangerous to screw around with. No need to cause people harm with what should be a stupid little toy and all. He wouldn't be surprised if people had already ignored the warnings with these and caused themselves harm, for that matter.
Saturday morning Danny woke before Ben and decided to get some annoying chores taken care of, like ensuring that his checkbook was balanced. It didn't take long for him to run into the first problem of the day there, in that there was an additional deposit in the account that he wasn't expecting, made the day before according to the bank. A fairly substantial deposit at that. Outside of the one deposit everything checked out, but he'd probably have to call the bank on Monday to find out what was going on. He knew that the account manager he preferred to work with wouldn't be in today.
He wrote himself a quick note and brought it out to the kitchen, where he stuck it to the fridge before pouring himself a second cup of coffee. He then headed back into his office to begin going through the bills, ensuring that they were all paid as expected, not to mention that none of them were unusually high or anything like that for some reason.
It was almost an hour later when Ben poked his head in. "Good morning Daniel."
"Morning Ben," Danny said. "Help yourself to whatever for breakfast."
"Will do, but is that deposit you've got a reminder about tacked onto the fridge for five thousand dollars?"
Danny paused, and looked up at Ben. "Yes, it is. How'd you know that?"
"I asked the lawyer to see about transferring some funds from my old accounts over, given all you've done for me. Nice to know they were able to, and no it wasn't a mistake."
Danny sighed, not sure what to make of that. He felt that he knew Ben well enough to know that the man wasn't going to take the money back, too.
"By the way," Ben continued. "I don't suppose you have any thoughts on where I might be able to get some use out of my powers? I'm getting a bit antsy."
Saturday morning found Taylor and Amy ensuring that Ackbar and Rodney were ready to attend the convention with them, at least for the morning. They'd figure out the rest of the day after seeing how the morning went. To start with they'd carry the two down, and shift them into the backpacks, or perhaps just Taylor's, if they had issues. It was too bad that they hadn't considered needing a 'leash' for either before, but that only dawned on them as they were getting ready.
Eventually they were ready, and they opened the door to head out into the hall. Thanks to Broadcast Administrator they did so just as Riley was opening the door opposite them.
"Is that good timing or bullshit powers?" Riley wondered as she looked at the two, only to get grins in return. "Yeah, didn't expect an answer. Good morning."
"Morning," Taylor and Amy replied in sync, snickering at Riley's eye-roll.
"I see you have...er...I forgot their names."
"Ackbar and Rodney," Taylor supplied, and Riley nodded.
"Right. Their big public debut and all? What's your explanation for them?"
"Gifts from a PRT-trusted tinker that shall remain anonymous for now," Dragon answered as she came down the hall. "Good morning, by the way. Shall we head down?"
Riley blinked, and stared at Dragon, who'd obviously left a suite further down the hallway, before looking at the two doors they were all standing in front of. Eventually she turned back to Taylor. "Why do you have what looks like a permanently assigned suite on what must be Dragon's private floor?"
"That's a secret," Amy answered before anyone else could, only to get a glare from Riley. "Though it might be related to why we ended up in the front row last night."
"You ended up in the front row because Miss Hebert is a major shareholder in Dragon-tech," Dragon answered.
"How major are we talking?" Taylor asked, honestly curious.
"You've got just over a quarter of the company shares," Dragon answered, causing all three girls to stare at her. "I've dropped my own ownership down to only fifty-one percent over the past year, which gave you the opportunity of course, but I still retain majority ownership."
Taylor was going to be doing her best to get back into the habit of ignoring details like that, and hope that there wasn't any way for someone to figure that out from public or semi-public records. She didn't need or want the publicity, or the questions about how she'd been able to afford the shares in the first place.
Garnet grumbled as she got out of bed. She had things she should really be considering doing, but wasn't sure what to do about them. And for some reason Carol had woken her up instead of letting her sleep in.
Eventually she made it downstairs, dressed in casual wear, and sat down at the table. A cup of coffee was placed in front of her, and she gladly sipped from it.
"I think you'll be joining us on our trip today," Vicky said a few minutes later. "You might enjoy it? Maybe. Not really sure."
"What trip?" Garnet asked, after a moment to parse things.
"Lung wants to see if we can push him hard enough for an aerial battle today," Mark replied. "So we're heading to a beach up North, one that Leviathan's waves stripped off most of the sand so nobody uses it."
That resulted in some blinking, and a confused head tilt, before she turned back to Vicky. "Did he just say Lung?"
"Yep," Vicky replied, grinning.
Garnet decided that this conundrum was going to require more coffee, downed what she had left in her mug, and got up to get more.
Taylor found it curious that one in three people that came up to talk to them about Ackbar and Rodney were parahumans. She was, for some reason, expecting the ratio to be a bit more skewed towards the parahumans at first. Granted, it was still significant, since only one in ten people at breakfast were parahumans in the first place, but it also wasn't to the level of 'you can tell who the tinkers are because they came to fawn over the tinkertech spider-bots' or anything.
Most interesting to Taylor was the number of girls that found the things cute. Guys asked if they came in black, but the girls generally thought they were cute. In addition to that, nobody had asked where they came from.
"I wonder where the booth you can find those will be," she overheard a girl asking a friend later, which Taylor supposed answered the unasked question of why nobody was asking where the spider-bots came from. "And if they're affordable?"
"Probably expensive if the first ones we've seen are owned by Taylor Hebert and Amy Dallon," the girl's friend answered. "Gifts to them for publicity or something, then charge through the roof for more."
T: I wonder what the reaction will be when people realize that there isn't a booth with more spider-bots.
A: Oh, is that what people are thinking? I hadn't caught that.
T: Yeah, just overheard a couple of people talking about it.
R: I think with the brain plant I could make a few, but I'm lacking in most of my other equipment. And the fabric was a pain to get my hands on.
A: And you don't have a booth.
R: Oh, right.
Riley pouted a little, not that anyone around them seemed to notice. A moment later Taylor had to grab a guy's hand before he could grab Ackbar in a way the spider-bot was definitely not going to like.
"Look but ask before touching," Taylor said, giving the guy a glare. "Give him a reason to and Ackbar does bite."
"So does Rodney," Amy added. "We don't think it will hurt too much, but better safe than sorry."
Unsurprisingly, that didn't stop people from trying up until the girls collected the two spider-bots and left to head onto the convention floor. The first talks didn't start for over an hour, so they had time to look around.
Barry was happy that all the tinkers were going to be busy with the convention, even if afterwards it was going to be open season on things. His tunneling machine was making steady progress towards the tinker's lab, hopefully without anyone being the wiser. Why nobody seemed to be trying to tunnel in from the sides was a mystery, but he wasn't about to call them idiots for ignoring the option.
Mainly because then they'd probably stop him from doing so first. He'd gloat later.
Of course, he also wasn't stupid enough to assume it was going to work right away. Which is why he had a plan B in case the tunneling machine failed. And a plan C in case plan B failed. He wasn't going to have enough time for a plan D, so it was probably not an issue that he didn't have one. Well, he supposed he did have a plan D, if you counted the first 'get the hell out of the area' plan as plan D instead of as escape plan A.
Picking his binoculars up, he did a quick sweep of the area to ensure that nobody was around to catch him in the act for what he was really doing, or for the illegal camping he was pretending to be doing for that matter, then went back to monitoring the tunneling machine. It was going to take most of the day for it to reach the lab at this rate, but that was fine by him. The amount of money the contents of the lab was worth meant it was time well spent.
"Outfitter actually got to send stuff," Taylor said, staring at the end of the combined Protectorate, Guild, and Dragon booth.
"Why is that a surprise?" Riley asked, looking over at the booth. She then blinked a couple of times. "Wait, what? Who exactly is Outfitter?"
"She is, or was, a Boston Ward. I suppose she could've moved elsewhere?"
"No," Amy replied, moving over to the end of the booth, the other two following after her. "The signs say she's still in Boston."
The contents of the end of the booth were interesting. Taylor wasn't all that surprised at the butt plugs that gave you two to six hours of not needing to breathe, depending on various factors, that were labeled as hopefully being useful at the next Leviathan battle. Health monitoring nipple rings were an interesting choice, though 'other monitoring device options available' indicated it wasn't the only one. On the 'capture assistance' front it looked like she'd figured out 'anti-thinker' blindfolds, and had a variety of comfortable looking handcuffs rated for various kinds of brutes, breakers, and/or changers.
"Guaranteed safe shock collars?" Amy read off of one of the cards. "Apparently they somehow simulate being electrically shocked without actually doing so. Sounds like a neat trick."
"It does," Taylor agreed, adjusting her grip on Ackbar as the spider-bot suddenly shifted. "I wonder if they work on those immune to electrical shocks?"
"The card doesn't say," Amy answered with a shrug.
"Do I want to know what kinds of things are in the private collection?" Riley asked, pointing at a sign that indicated other things were available after a photo ID had been verified. "Given what they already have out here?"
"Probably not," one of the men running the booth answered. "And I can't tell you without checking a photo ID to confirm that you're a legal adult at a minimum."
"Now it's going to bug me," Riley grumbled.
"We've got another couple of tunnels incoming," Tony noted, tapping on his screen. "Why does every idiot that comes through think nobody tried getting under the lab?"
"At least this isn't an attempt to dig the thing up to flip it over," Harold replied with a shrug. "They'll hit the border, find that it's just as solid down there as it is up here, and hopefully move on like the rest. I'm more concerned that they all think nobody is monitoring the area well enough to notice their attempts."
"It isn't like we've got piles of trucks out watching the area to make it obvious, we're just sitting in one of the apartments watching sensors deployed over the area."
"True, true. Still not sure why they don't think anyone's keeping an eye on things."
"Oh, look, a third tunnel. Bet they all think they're being clever, too, trying this while the tinkers are all at the convention."
Harold tapped his chin for a moment. "Think these are all a single team, trying from different angles all at once?"
"Doubt it. Looks like three different sizes on the tunnels for starters, and with a single team I'd expect them to have duplicate tunneling machines."
"That and I suppose anyone smart enough to team up with others would realize that the first step when the two died was to dig a hole at the edge of the lab to see if the shield was only on top."
Tony snorted. "Anyone smart enough to team up with others would've looked into the news reports and known that people have been trying to tunnel into the place for years without success."
"Okay, I'll give you that one."
Chapter 145 Wandering the booths while carrying Ackbar and Rodney turned out to be mildly annoying, but they'd shifted to a talk session about more mundane uses of tinkertech that gave them the opportunity to put the spider-bots down for a bit. That turned out to be incredibly boring, and they'd left halfway through, with only a minor issue in gathering the two spider-bots to do so. Instead they'd wandered across the convention floor and dropped in on a panel discussing whether or not tinkertech should be adopted in more places, or left out of things like basic infrastructure. Or at least that's where they were when the three entered.
Benjamin was curious about what Daniel had come up with for 'using his powers' so quickly. The man had made a phone call, and then told him to dress in something 'comfortable'. It wasn't long after that before he'd been picked up by a van. The driver had handed him a mask and bandana to disguise himself with, but not said anything else. The ride was around fifteen minutes, at which point he'd been let out in what appeared to be a deserted locker rental facility. The driver of the van wished him luck, and then drove off.
A few minutes later he heard a motorcycle drive up and stop just outside the facility. He turned towards that direction, only to find Miss Militia entering a minute later.
"Good morning," Miss Militia called. "Sorry for the wait, I seemed to hit every red light on the way over."
"Good morning to you too Miss Militia," Benjamin replied. "I have to admit, I wasn't expecting to see you."
"You aren't exactly on my list of people that I'd expected to see anytime soon either, but it turns out that I'm the only cape currently available cleared to know of your escape, and even then only because of Mister Hebert's call. The lawyers, when I checked, seemed to think that your appeal will, out of necessity, hit the news by Tuesday at the latest. Should that happen would you be willing to help the Wards with some training as an alternative outlet?"
"I'd be delighted. And you probably know that they're safer as a group than the Protectorate would be, don't you?"
"My clearance level isn't the only reason I'm here," Miss Militia replied, and Benjamin was sure she was grinning. "For now, the PRT acquired this particular rental facility a couple years back. We use it as a somewhat discreet training area for less flashy abilities. I'm sure you can come up with a number of things to do with your powers out here. My own task here is to merely keep an eye on you, unless you want to practice some combat anyway?"
"I've not had to deal with traditional projectile weapons or wide-open areas for a decade or so. I think I'll stick to some less personally hazardous initial practice."
The other cape nodded. "Very well. If you want to stay out of sight you should avoid going beyond the blue-painted units. This facility was chosen because the staggered nature of things allows for fairly complete privacy from the ground."
Benjamin considered his options, but one thing was starting to bug him. He turned to Miss Militia, to find she'd backed off a little and leaned against one of the storage units. "I'm curious, you don't seem to be reacting as I'd expect you to."
The woman chuckled. "Helping a Birdcage escapee get power urges out of the way is a surprisingly minor hit to my worldview as of late. Barely registers at all, to be honest. I'm hoping some of the other things spread a little more in town, if only to see how certain others react, but I suspect that won't happen anytime soon."
He knew he was missing things, but didn't have any clue what they could possibly be, so instead he focused on exercising his powers a little.
Taylor was waiting with Riley while Amy looked over some medical tinkertech. It was from a different tinker than the stuff they'd already seen, this set being focused more on cosmetic changes than healing, but Amy thought some of it had potential anyway. At the same time Taylor was trying to decide whether or not to acknowledge the cape approaching them. Perhaps she'd leave the decision in their hands?
"Oh, hello Taylor," Joey greeted as he all but bumped into them. He'd had to dodge a fast-moving group at the last minute.
"Hello Joey," Taylor replied. "How are you?"
"I'm good. Oh, you're one of the ones with the spider-bots, I've been trying to find the booth that has them. Can you point me in the right direction?"
Taylor snorted. "There isn't one, sorry. They were a gift from a tinker that doesn't have a booth this year."
"Dang." Joey then looked at Riley, who'd shifted to hiding behind Taylor. "Who's that?"
"That's my friend Riley," Taylor answered, stepping to the side to reveal the younger girl. Who let out an 'eep' for some reason. Joey went wide-eyed and blushed at the same time. Taylor looked between the two several times, and probably would've facepalmed if she wasn't holding Ackbar. A moment later she'd carefully opened two channels, one to each of their snarks. No need to start an accidental fugue, after all.
Taylor: So, I'm curious, are you two pushing your humans together?
[Agreement. Data]{Agreement. Elaboration}
Amy: Okay, snarks thinking that they could do amazing things with each other aside, I'm positive that I'm missing something here.
Taylor: They've both mentioned having issues with telling someone that they're parahumans to me in the past, and are both secretly working with the PRT, if in very different ways.
Amy: And I bet the latter is why they live near each other in the first place, which allowed them to meet and all to begin with.
Taylor: Probably. Hadn't considered that aspect.
"I assume you two know each other already," Taylor said. "But weren't expecting to run into each other here?"
"I didn't know Joey was into tinkertech," Riley answered after a moment.
"Like that's any more surprising than you liking it?" Joey retorted. "I thought you'd think I was weird or something."
"Why would I think that was weird? It's tinkertech. Doesn't that make it automatically cool?"
"Er, okay, I suppose that's true. How'd you score tickets?"
"I'm here with Taylor, she scored them."
Riley looked like she was going to continue, only to stop, and Joey didn't seem to know how to continue. So the two of them went silent again, neither entirely sure how to continue. And both blushing repeatedly.
R: Do something!
T: What are we supposed to do?
R: I don't know. I don't have permission to tell him anything, and right here isn't the place to do it even if I did!
Taylor rolled her eyes, but pulled up the PRT app to submit a quick question about what could be done in a situation like this. She then turned to Joey. "So, would you like to join us for a bit? We're just wandering around looking at things until lunchtime, since the next talks we're interested in aren't until this afternoon."
R: WHAT!? WHY?! HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW HIM?
Joey blushed again, but nodded. "Can I take a closer look at your spider-bot?"
"Don't surprise it," Taylor said, carefully adjusting her grip on Ackbar to hold him so that Joey could take a look. "And if either of them snap at you or look like they're getting defensive you need to back off, in general."
Joey nodded, and started looking at Ackbar more closely. Taylor could tell that he was also sneaking peeks at Riley while doing so. Riley, on the other hand, seemed to be interested in his reactions to Ackbar.
"Hello there," Amy said as she came up. She looked at Joey, who'd jumped a little when she'd spoken. "I don't think we've met? I'm Amy."
"Nice to meet you," Joey replied. "I'm Joey. So you have the other spider-bot? That's awesome."
They chatted a little bit, moving down the booths until one caught Riley's eye. A tinker that specialized in tracking systems had some temporary nanotech tracking gear somewhat on display, inject into your target and track them for up to a week. While she was looking at that Taylor got a response back, apparently they'd passed the question on to Dragon? Or she'd nabbed the request, possibly.
Taylor: Okay, this is actually kind of funny.
Amy: What is?
Taylor: These two have been cleared for each other's identities for over a year.
Amy: Wait, what?
Taylor: Dragon says their parents figured the two out and that they were attracted to each other and got them cleared, but then said squat to the two in order to see how things went.
Amy: Oh. So we can just tell them?
Taylor: I was also sent a list of ideas for how to do a mutual reveal for the two. I just sent you a copy. The only headache is that they have a bunch of paperwork to fill out once told.
"So how long have you known Riley?" Joey whispered once he was certain that Riley wasn't going to overhear.
"I met her this past winter," Taylor answered. "But she's known others in my family for much longer."
Amy: I vote for number eight. Similar to six, but less hassle for us. Seven just seems mean, nine must've been a last minute addition but would take too much of our time. We aren't really in a position for the rest over the weekend.
Taylor: Eight seems amusing enough, works for me. Before or after lunch?
Amy: Can we convince Joey to join us for lunch, and even if the answer is yes, do we want to have them be insanely awkward during it?
Taylor: Before it is then. But how do we get him to join us in the elevator?
Amy: Huh. We'll have to think on that one.
Joey looked like he wanted to ask another question, before looking around and slouching. Apparently he wanted to ask things best left to more private situations. Either that or he thought Riley wasn't going to be occupied long enough to get the answer.
A few minutes later they moved on, and it wasn't long before Joey had spotted a booth he was interested in. It was one he'd apparently ignored earlier in favor of looking for spider-bots that weren't in any booths. The tinker that had obtained this booth made area-denial defense systems, intended to protect individual rooms of varying sizes and with varying levels of 'lethal'. Taylor suspected he was considering putting something like that in one of his pocket dimension areas. Riley apparently decided that Taylor was now free enough to pester.
R: I still want to know how you know Joey.
T: We met a few weeks ago. Funny story, I should tell it sometime.
R: ...
T: What?
A: I think she's expecting you to tell it now.
T: Why would I do that?
Taylor was starting to suspect that Riley, at least, wanted to cause her harm right about then. Too bad for her that they were in a very public place.
Garnet looked around the beach, wondering what the fuck was going on. She'd heard of Lung, and what his powers were. She'd even heard his retelling of Kyushu, thanks to the news replaying it in full several times before something else caught their attention. He was, as far as she was aware, a villain, a gang leader at that. And most of New Wave was preparing to spar with him?
"I wonder if you can constantly fuel yourself with energy from him," Crystal, or Laserdream, whatever she should be called in this situation, mused. "At least once he gets the flame aura thing going, anyway."
"Generally my power cripples other powers outright," Garnet admitted. "And quite a bit else, for that matter. Less 'absorb the energy from the effects' and all. Though I've never fought Lung before, so I don't know how my power interacts with his. It might just screw with his ability to grow or something like that."
"No time like the present to find out," Carol said. "Though if I were you I'd wait until Vicky, Crystal, and Eric have him riled up a bit. It isn't any fun if you don't let him ramp up some."
Garnet stared at Carol. It wasn't any fun if you don't let him ramp up? She was starting to wonder what the hell they were all thinking. Or drinking. They could all be drinking something, right? Alcohol and drugs and such could impair judgement, she just had to figure out what they were taking and get them to stop, right? Then the world might start making sense again.
Or, if that failed, she'd know what the good stuff was and could start taking it herself. Either way would probably work.
Taylor grumbled as they headed for the elevators. Three idiots had attempted to grab Ackbar from her and Rodney from Amy. They'd failed, in part because the two spider-bots had snapped at them, but mainly due to Joey and Riley getting in the way until security stepped in. The idiots had been thrown out, of course, but it was still annoying. So they were going to return the spider-bots to their suite, then probably head off to get lunch.
"So what floor are you two on?" Joey asked as they got into the elevator. He didn't notice that Taylor had already tripped the elevator with her relay watch, instead having been digging his keycard out of a pocket.
Taylor paused, thinking about that as the elevator started going up, before turning to Amy. "What number floor are we on?"
"I'm not actually sure," Amy replied. "I hadn't been paying attention to that. Is it even numbered?"
"I'm thinking we're third from the top?" Riley offered. "Protectorate and Guild above us and all, or was it four from the top so that there's more room for the private landing pad? Was there another VIP floor?"
Joey had stopped, and turned to look at the elevator buttons. He was obviously looking at the lit 'VIP' light, and possibly the 'Express' light that was lit next to it. Turning back to them, he opened his mouth to ask a question, glanced at Riley, and closed his mouth without saying a thing. He looked downright frustrated at that point, actually.
A couple minutes later the spider-bots were in the suite, Joey looking like he wanted to ask more questions.
Amy: I didn't even think about it, but we're about to get back into the elevator with Joey.
Taylor: Yeah, after he helped with the idiots it seemed like a no-brainer for him to join us in putting the spider-bots back into the suite.
Amy: Can I try getting the elevator to go all the way down?
Taylor: Feel free. I'll submit the paperwork request. Dragon indicated a less than five minute turnaround time if I did.
Amy: They've been expecting this, haven't they?
Taylor: Probably.
When they entered the elevator again Amy tripped the system to send them on an express run to the sub-basement. The other two didn't seem to notice until the elevator kept going past the ground floor and lobby, at which point they both looked ready to panic.
"Okay, you two," Taylor said, grabbing both around the shoulders and steering them out of the elevator. "We've decided on a short bit of fun before lunch."
"Fun for us, not you," Amy clarified with a grin. "You'll probably dislike it."
Neither rose to the bait, so Taylor didn't get to use her prepared lines for several different questions. That was fine, though, because they'd reached the room they were going for anyway. It hadn't been a long walk. The door was already open, and the paperwork box had been delivered, complete with a cup full of pens. There were, however, a small cooler and a plate of sandwiches sitting there as well.
Taylor grinned, and pushed the two into the room. "You two get to sit in this monitored room with several cameras keeping an eye on you while you sign a bunch of papers. Apparently someone was thinking further ahead than I was, because lunch has been provided for you. Have fun, and don't do anything you don't want your parents to see if they get handed the video."
Riley and Joey had turned to look at Taylor, who was standing in the door blocking it with Amy behind her. Both of the two were blinking, before they turned to look at each other.
"You're a parahuman," Riley finally said.
"You must be one too," Joey said with a sigh. "We've been dancing around not telling each other for how long?"
"At least a year," Taylor replied. "According to Dragon, anyway. Your snarks think you could build wonderful things together, your parents figured out your mutual attraction and parahumanism a while back. But there are secrets involved, hence the paperwork. Oh, and Joey? Riley built our spider-bots."
"Well that kills any and all hopes of buying her one as an impressive gift," Joey grumbled. "All that time figuring out that she likes spiders..."
"Now then, is there anything else before I lock you in until you're both up to date on your NDAs?"
The two stared at Taylor, before Joey snapped his fingers. "Right! I wanted to thank you for helping me with my tinkering. I figured out how to make pockets in other people's personal space. Requires a parahuman for some reason, and several of the test subjects claimed it hurt like hell when I did it, but I figured it out."
"That's nice to hear," Taylor admitted. "Any clue what the difference was between painful and not?"
"No clue whatsoever, since I wasn't actually present for most of it. But if you want a place of your own to stash things let me know."
"I'll consider it. Have fun, and I expect you two to rejoin the convention when you're done."
Taylor then closed the door. She didn't have to lock it, because after a minute or so one of them unlocked the paperwork box, which locked the door for them. Nodding, she then turned to Amy.
"Chinese place around the corner?" Amy asked as they started back towards the elevator.
Taylor nodded. "Sounds good to me. Lead the way."
Amanda read the message that had just arrived on her phone, then shook her head. It figured that Riley and Joey would run into each other at TinkerTechCon. At that point it was probably inevitable that Taylor would get around to getting them 'outed' to each other. Really, anyone sufficiently cleared for both of them probably would've, what with how they acted around each other.
She'd have even put money on Armsmaster doing so, and his obliviousness was legendary. Assuming, of course, that he'd been cleared for knowing about Joey, anyway. She'd never actually checked, and Mary hadn't brought it up.
Thinking of the devil, so to speak, her phone suddenly started ringing, Mary calling her. She tapped the answer icon, then put the phone on speaker. Holding it was too annoying and she was home alone anyway. "Hello Mary."
"Hello Amanda," Mary greeted. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. I take it you got a message about the kids as well?"
"Of course. How big of a deal do we want to make of it when they get back?"
Amanda thought about that for a moment. "I'm thinking a small party might be good. Think we should connect their workshops before they return? I know we figured out plans for that at one point."
"Probably not. Better to wait and see if they can work together first, right? Sharing a workshop when they can't work together easily might introduce added friction and all that could hinder a relationship."
"That's a good point. Besides, I'm now remembering something you said about Joey having started moving most of his workshop stuff into one of his little hidey-holes?"
"He's kept enough outside to build replacement keys, but you've got a point there. I suppose he might share that one with Riley, or perhaps give her one of her own."
"Right. So we can skip that entirely. I'll swing by later and we can start designing a cake."
Mary snorted. "A congratulations cake or an it's about time cake?"
"Why can't it be both?"
Taylor had ended up going down and dragging the two tinkers out of the conference room after lunch. Interestingly enough, they hadn't been talking about tinkering, but about various places they could hang out back home. Still, she noted that they'd eaten some of the sandwiches, so they hadn't starved themselves. The tears in reality from Doormaker appearing just after the three left the room were obviously shifting the completed paperwork to be processed and a quick cleanup of lunch.
"Nice to see you two again," Amy said when the three exited the elevator. "Come on, we're going to be late if we don't hurry."
"We have almost forty minutes," Taylor noted.
"And you don't think we'll be sidetracked at least three times?"
Taylor stared at Amy. "The panel is at this end of the convention hall, and we've already seen all the booths between us and it. What, exactly, is going to sidetrack us?"
Amy frowned. "I thought it was at the other end, behind the red zone?"
Taylor shook her head. "That's the one this evening. Same person running it, different topic."
"Oh. So we have plenty of time to stop by the busted tinkertech table?"
Riley snorted. "By now I'm thinking most of it's been picked clean of anything worthwhile."
"Still won't hurt to take a look," Taylor said with a shrug. "Worst case scenario is that we use up some of the time we've got free, right?"
"We could do that by hanging out by the PRT booth and listening to people argue about why little cubes of pure carbon are or aren't impressive," Joey noted. "That might be more entertaining."
"Feel free to do so," Taylor said. "I'd rather look at the broken tinkertech, and since Amy brought it up I think she agrees with me."
Missy had laid down on the rooftop to help stabilize her new sniper rifle. Chris was behind her, playing 'spotter', but was there more to ensure that nobody snuck up on her.
"We're in position," Carlos said over the radio, acting as the Protectorate leader in his first joint patrol from that side of things. "Fire when ready."
She'd have nodded, but that would screw up her aim. Instead she tweaked her aim slightly before pulling the trigger. The bright bolt of energy sped away much faster than it normally would, twisting and turning around obstacles in a way it wasn't designed to. Nine blocks away it dove into a broken skylight and struck a gang member.
"Space warping is bullshit," Chris said a moment later.
"I just wish this wasn't quite so flashy," Missy replied, lining up for another shot. Carlos had dropped in and crushed the shotgun the guy she'd hit had dropped, and Dennis had frozen the only usable stairwell door. Dennis had also sent 'Clockwatch' around to the other, destroyed stairwell to help monitor it. Firing in through the skylight again was probably a poor choice, but there was a broken window on the far side of the building too. Even better, when she warped space to check it she found that an idiot with a handgun was hiding behind an overturned table right next to said window.
A minute later she'd hit that guy, but she was getting a headache from maintaining the incredibly complicated warps. She either needed a lot more practice, or she needed to start with easier high ground. Maybe they should try having her shoot from the top of Medhall or something? Or from Taylor's platform, when she came back. That could work too.
"We should move in to help up close," Chris said, and Missy had to agree. Things were a bit too hectic now and she couldn't spot anyone standing still long enough to hit. She flipped the safety on before getting up, slinging the sniper rifle onto her back.
A minute later they'd jumped eight crunched blocks, to the building across the street from the one that Carlos had spotted the drug dealers working in. Time to get up close and personal with some of them, provided that any of them were willing to jump down a couple of stories and made it anywhere after doing so.
"I still don't know why you actually bought that crap," Joey said after they left the panel. Before going in Taylor had purchased several broken pieces of tinkertech, things that the original tinkers had deemed not worth repairing or salvaging in any way. It had all been dirt cheap too, and all the money went to charity so they didn't even bother to keep track of who bought what.
"Even if it doesn't work it still looks cool," Riley said, despite knowing that Taylor could make it all work again. "From what I understand, most of the stuff will be bought up by interior designers looking for showpieces anyway."
"I'd think that knowing what something used to do would be important then," Joey retorted. "Taylor didn't even ask."
"Like the person running the table would've been able to tell her," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "They were entirely dependent on the tags attached to things."
"Besides," Taylor said with a grin. "What are the chances that they were anything dangerous anyway? It isn't like you'd find broken pieces of a nuclear reactor sitting in the pile or anything."
Joey chuckled at that, but the other two shared a look.
R: What, exactly, did you get the pieces to?
A: Because with some tinkers I could easily see parts of a nuclear reactor sitting around.
R: Yeah. I've been known to leave some dangerous stuff around myself, after all.
T: Sheesh. Pick up a couple of amusing trinkets and everyone starts to panic. I just want to prank a couple of people.
A: With what?
T: I figure that an instant exact-change toll booth could be amusing pretty much anywhere. Changing the sign to say exact change will be trivial.
R: But won't people ignore it?
T: That's what the device that makes most people treat official-looking and reasonable signs as indisputable would be for. I'll probably only get an hour or two out of it at a time, but that should be plenty for a good laugh.
A: I heard about a tinker that made something like that. Didn't they get in big trouble for using it?
R: No no, they got in big trouble for the faked speed limit signs.
R: Well, unless you're counting the group of parahumans that hunted them down as big trouble...
There were obviously downsides to what amounted to a tinkertech-based master effect. She'd have to be careful where and when she used it if she did repair it. And probably ensure that if she repaired it that others were fully aware that she had it, for that matter, and how she planned on using it.
She was planning on very carefully not mentioning that the other thing she had pieces of was what amounted to an ambient speaker. It wouldn't replace the piles of point projection speakers she used at times, but it would cover an entire area it was pointed at to make it impossible to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Bullshit thinker powers aside, of course. Having at least one surprise was important, right?
"I don't suppose you've been into the red zone yet?" Joey asked a couple minutes later. "I haven't had a chance to take a look."
"I hadn't been all that interested in the offensive weaponry," Amy admitted. "I tend to lean more towards putting people together than taking them apart and all."
"It isn't all weapons," Taylor corrected. "Some of it is just incredibly dangerous. Like the stuff that apparently is built around the use of powerful acids, or pretty much anything that has radioactive components."
That earned her a look from the other three, before Riley sighed. "How in the world do you know that?"
"Last night, when you were playing with your tinkertech puzzle, I was looking over the booth map."
Joey mock-scowled. "The bastards distracted us with goodies and potential prizes so that we wouldn't read the map! How could they?"
"Easily, I'd say," Amy answered with a shake of her head. "I'd forgotten that they'd be posting that map."
Amusingly, several people around them had stopped with annoyed expressions on their faces, and at least two had pulled out phones. From what Taylor could see, at least one of those two was trying to pull up the booth map. The other she thought might be on PHO.
Glenn sighed as he sat in his home office, looking over things. There was a healthy debate online about the new equipment several of the current and recently former Brockton Bay Wards had been using, which was good. They were keeping it mostly in a single thread on PHO, but several other websites had their own discussions on specific pieces. Vista's sniper rifle was being talked about on at least eight sites he knew of, for example, and Aegis's capture net was being talked about on four so far.
The sighing, however, was for Clockblocker's camera drone. He was up to twenty-eight sites where he'd found it mentioned, almost every one of them other than PHO focusing on whether or not they should be in an uproar over privacy concerns. So far the general attitude was a 'wait and see if he abuses it' view. They were either going to have to get some other Ward that was seen as incredibly trustworthy to start using something similar or avoid giving any more Wards obvious camera drones for the time being. He wasn't sure which.
A few minutes later he shifted gears, checking on an alert. He monitored the threads discussing if civilian identities of Wards in particular could be parahumans closely, after all. And it looked like someone had decided that despite previous thoughts otherwise, no matter how compelling the evidence had been, Miss Hebert couldn't be a tinker. Even if she was at TinkerTechCon, had explained tinker-speak online, and ran around with a pile of tinkertech toys. All because she'd been able to ignore the traditional tinkertech puzzle in favor of reading the map.
That made him pause. He'd only been to TinkerTechCon once, and he'd been obsessed with the stupid little sphere puzzle from that year all weekend, even if he did he best to not hide in his room working on it the entire time. And he wasn't even a parahuman. If anything, to him this was screaming that she had to be a parahuman, if only to avoid the lure of the puzzle. Then again, they might have a point about it implying that she wasn't a tinker. Thinker, perhaps? Hmmm. He might have to consider that kind of thing for future distractions from the truth for any number of parahumans.
Chapter 146 "Miss Hebert?" a voice called from a booth as the four walked past it. Taylor paused, as did the others a moment later, to turn towards it.
"Yes?" Taylor answered.
The costumed parahuman in the booth nodded. "Ah, good, it is you! I don't suppose you brought your moped? I was hoping to see what Wrench Wraith did to my work."
Ah, right. She'd forgotten about that. This must be tinker that had built most of the original moped. Electric motor speciality or something like that? "At this point I think half the tinkers in Brockton Bay have had their hands on it, but I've got it parked in the garage. Amy brought hers too. They make moving around town easier."
"At least until you've got friends with you that don't have one," Amy added, elbowing Riley lightly to indicate who she was talking about.
"Yes, there is that headache," Taylor agreed. "Still, I'm not sure how to best bring them up, but if you want to go down into the garage to see them?"
The parahuman shook their head. "If you don't mind, I'd actually appreciate it if you could bring them to tomorrow's panel on indirect tinker collaboration. Having an actual end result or two available from tinkers building off of one another would be great. I'll ensure that security knows where to direct you if you're willing?"
Taylor and Amy shared a look, before they both shrugged. Taylor turned back to the tinker to answer. "Why not. What time is that one?"
"It's just after lunch tomorrow. Thank you."
They ended up spending another twenty minutes chatting with the tinker, Riley and Joey both curious about the mopeds the tinker offered at that point. Finding out that they only became 'super-awesome' after a generator from another tinker was installed before being fugued on by tinkers in Brockton Bay, however, killed most of their enthusiasm. Riley did buy a small set of electric motors off of them, claiming that they had to be better than the ones that came in some of the toy car kits back home.
Which, to be honest, was probably completely accurate, and also misleading as hell because Riley probably wasn't using the kits to make the intended toy cars.
After that they'd actually split up, Riley and Joey wanting to catch a talk on intelligence in tinker constructs. Well, Riley wanted to go to that one, Joey probably just wanted to stick with Riley. Taylor and Amy were more interested in the panel on 'Tinker versus Biotinker, should there even be a difference?'. Granted, they'd probably all watch the recordings of them later anyway, so all they were deciding was which one they might be able to participate in.
Dragon was doing her best to distract herself while Colin was wandering the convention out of costume. The agoraphobia explanation helped people understand why they never saw her 'in person' and all, but it didn't help her. She wanted to be able to go out and about 'out of costume' with Colin. She even thought that he could help her make a better 'civilian' unit, at least better than her attempts so far anyway, but explaining why she'd even need one was hard. Explaining things to the Dallons, the only time she'd intentionally revealed her nature to anyone instead of it being discovered through other means, had been trivial by comparison. She wasn't entirely sure why.
Mentally shaking herself out of that train of thought, she instead switched to checking on various things related to the convention itself. Only two submissions for the drawing so far, but that was almost certainly going to change overnight based on prior years. This wasn't even the most complicated puzzle to date, after all, and she'd included the NFC backdoor. Nine people had been thrown out and barred from returning so far, two of them permanently for all future conventions. The rest would be denied next year, but allowed the following. Granted, this was based on her still running things, if someone else took over that could change.
A notice for convention security that Mother and Miss Dallon would likely be bringing their mopeds in for a panel passed through her filters, and she added her own approval to it in order to smooth things over. It had, after all, been approved in advance, and she'd attached a link to the prior approval as well. Unlike the request to allow a tank of some kind of clothing-dissolving gas onto the convention floor that she'd rejected the night before. No matter how many safety systems it supposedly had to prevent leaks.
"I find it interesting that they used Bonesaw as part of their arguments," Amy said as they left the panel. "I mean, it makes sense, but they usually stay away from the boogey-capes."
Taylor shook her head. "They had some good points and some horrible points on both sides. Attacking things from the point of view of chemistry wasn't bad, for example, but I have no idea why they felt that self replication was a deciding factor at all."
"That was obvious when you shut them up about that with the gray goo comment."
"Think we should hunt down Riley and Joey, or leave them to enjoy each other's company?"
Amy shrugged. "They have ways to contact us if they want to meet up. Now then, the booth map says there's a display with some biological containment tech on the other end of the floor, I'd like to swing by that before dinner."
"Works for me."
Danny grinned as Ben mulled things over while they ate dinner. It was obvious that the man had been perplexed while off using his powers, but it wasn't Danny's call to reveal many of the things that might help him understand things. Experiencing this, he was almost jealous of the fact that Taylor got to be on this side of things so often. Not enough to want to go through a trigger event or risk taking one of those vials, but there was some jealousy there. Mainly because of how amusing it was to see Ben trying to figure things out.
"So did you have fun?" Danny asked.
"It was an unusual experience," Ben admitted. "I still find it interesting how quickly you were able to get PRT assistance."
"Yes, well, there are some benefits to knowing my brother in law."
"Your brother in law?"
"Jacob, the famous parahuman therapist?"
Ben sighed. "I am so out of the loop. Parahuman therapy was barely a thing when I was imprisoned."
"And you're likely to get quite a bit of exposure to it as part of staying out of prison."
"I was told the same thing at the law office. How much has the field progressed?"
Danny snorted at that. "Before or after Taylor turned the whole thing on its head?"
Ben stared at Danny, obviously confused. "Taylor, as in your daughter Taylor?" Danny nodded. "How in the world did she pull that off at her age?"
"She used their own research into the way powers influence people to show that the people are influencing their powers just as much, if not more. They granted her a mastery for it, but they won't let her be a therapist until she goes through the human side of things as well. Then again, you should see what they pay her for consulting."
Ben considered that for a couple of minutes before speaking. "Every time something new comes up I think the world makes less sense. I don't suppose there's one detail I'm overlooking that will make everything snap into focus?"
"If there is then it certainly isn't coming from me."
Amy had purchased a couple of small units designed to keep potentially-hazardous biological specimens contained, including reluctantly accepting the discount the tinker insisted on because she was Panacea and all. After that they'd decided that they should see if Riley and/or Joey were joining them for dinner or not. The answer turned out to be 'not' on that front, so the two of them had opted to see about visiting a restaurant on their list of places to try. A quick phone call had a confirmation that there was a place to park the mopeds and a quick reservation for two, then they headed upstairs to drop things off and change into slightly nicer clothes.
"No you don't," Taylor said as she grabbed Ackbar out of the air just after the suite door opened. The spider-bot had apparently woven a launching web to pounce on them with upon their return, but Taylor was used to that kind of thing by now.
"Was it waiting for the door to open or something?" Amy asked. "At times it seems like Rodney has to be sitting there waiting for who knows how long before I return and all."
Taylor chuckled. "They first identified us by the hardware address of the Bluetooth module in our heads. While they can't pinpoint us with it, they can tell approximate distance."
Amy sighed. "So Rodney always knows when I'm coming. I guess that would explain why nobody else in the house is routinely ambushed. At least I don't have to deal with Rodney launching with webs like Ackbar apparently does."
"That's become less common, but it does get annoying."
They quickly got changed, left the spider-bots in their rooms instead of in the common area of the suite, and then headed down to the garage. It wasn't long before they were on their way.
Amy: So, remember Joey's bit with the painful versus not painful stuff?
Taylor: Yeah, I haven't given it much thought though.
Amy: Turns out that was a PRT-monitored experiment set, and painful versus not painful was entered into medical records.
Taylor: Oh. Huh. Interesting. That mean you spotted a pattern?
Amy: Yeah. Every Case 53 that tried was in the painful group. I think that those who got their powers from vials aren't fully compatible with the procedure.
Taylor: That...huh. I guess that would make some sense, depending on what's going on. I take it that was bugging you?
Amy: Well, I wasn't sure if it would hurt you if you took him up on his offer. I think you being able to hide your equipment in a place nobody else can get to might be a good thing. Especially if you can call the door to you from anywhere.
Taylor: Okay, I can see how that might help. Maybe.
Amy: I mean, if you'd had that ability when you were grabbed from your room?
Taylor: I think I would've been in the exact same situation, because you still need the piece of equipment that opens the thing?
Amy: Oh. Right. Duh. Now I feel like an idiot.
Taylor: Your heart was in the right place, at least.
Amy was a little more thoughtful as they arrived at the restaurant. They were quickly directed into a nearby parking garage that advertised free parking for an hour. Because both mopeds could fit into a single space they were allowed to use a single parking slip, and the guard at the entrance gate made note of it in case they left after shift-change.
"Good evening ladies," they were greeted as they entered the restaurant itself a couple minutes later. "If you'd like I can validate your parking tickets, which will get you an additional two hours of free parking."
"We just have the one ticket," Amy said, handing it over. "Since both mopeds fit into a single space."
That was quickly taken care of before they were brought to their table. Menus were waiting for them, and they were told that a waiter would be with them shortly for their drink orders.
Garnet sighed as she lay in bed. She'd been stupidly overconfident when she'd successfully pulled energy from Lung. She hadn't expected him to somehow adapt to her doing so, or perhaps grow beyond her powers in some way, cutting the energy supply off suddenly. In her shock she'd forgotten to dodge and Lung had gotten a good hit in. She'd tanked that well enough, but the hit had thrown her into the air and she hadn't handled the landing nearly as well. She hadn't had enough energy to maintain her other form and had landed poorly as a result.
Carol's comment that Amy could've fixed her right up was annoying, because instead they had to drag her to the hospital. Luckily they were both fairly clean breaks and it hadn't taken long for them to get casts on her left arm and leg, the couple of pins needed were the hardest part. She wasn't otherwise injured enough to keep overnight, just a few scrapes really and they'd been bandaged up before they even made it to the hospital. So she was back in the guest room, and would likely be stuck with the casts until Amy returned. Which was better than being stuck with them for over a month, at least. Assuming that Amy was willing to heal her at all, anyway. Escaped villainess and all that crap.
"Damn casts are itchy," she grumbled, adjusting herself to try and get comfortable.
When they got back to the suite Taylor had ordered dinner for the spider-bots, shakes for her and Amy, and then turned on the news. Amy had picked up the tinker puzzle before sitting on the couch to try and figure it out. As a result of her focus on the puzzle, she barely even acknowledged the shake when Taylor put it down on the table in front of her.
Shaking her head, Taylor resumed watching the news. She had no frame of reference for a lot of the local stuff, outside of the story about some of the people that had been thrown out of TinkerTechCon anyway, but nothing else had caught her interest either. She wasn't exactly big on watching television shows. It was about half an hour after the shakes arrived that Riley returned to her range with Joey. They came up the elevator together, Joey getting off on his floor before Riley came all the way up.
R: I'm back.
T: I noticed. Have fun?
R: We found a pizza place nearby. The pizza was meh, but they had ping pong and air hockey tables.
T: So, does that mean you two are officially dating?
R: Yep. You gonna tease us?
T: Not about the dating, at least.
T: For example, I might tease you about your inability to figure out a simple puzzle.
R: BAH!
R: Wait, did I screw up and not include Amy in here?
T: Nah, she's just demonstrating her own inability to figure out a simple puzzle.
Taylor looked over at Amy, who was ignoring the chatter in favor of poking and prodding the puzzle to figure it out. Shrugging, she turned back to the news.
Long after Taylor had finished her shake and cleaned up after the spider-bots, Amy growled and slammed the puzzle down on the table.
"Having problems?" Taylor asked.
Amy grumbled something unintelligible out, having finally noticed the shake. She picked it up and drank some of it, slumping down into the couch cushions in the process while she glared at the puzzle. Taylor grinned and got her own puzzle, then sat down next to Amy and started to solve it, setting the pieces that came out safely down on the table in front of her as she moved along.
"You suck," Amy said as Taylor put the last piece down, then assembled the other pieces to form the website address. Nodding, she then started putting the entire thing back together again. It went together more easily than it had come apart by design, so that was a shorter process.
A: Taylor sucks.
R: Wha?
R: Oh, right, messaging. Duh. Why does Taylor suck?
A: She just whipped the puzzle apart and put it back together again in front of me.
R: ...
T: What? It isn't that hard to figure out.
Amy growled and snatched her puzzle up off of the table to poke at it some more. Then a minute later a new conversation opened up, this one including Joey.
R: Taylor apparently figured out the puzzles.
J: Really? Dang. Now I feel even more like an idiot.
T: Once you know the trick the thing is easy, and you don't even have to solve it if you don't want to.
There was a pause in the conversation, and in Amy's renewed attempts to figure the puzzle out, as the three absorbed that particular piece of information. Taylor could tell that Amy had slowly turned to look at her, but nothing was said so that was easily ignored.
J: Dammit, the things respond to fucking NFC! Tapped my phone to it and a URL popped up!
R: Seriously?
R: Holy shit. It worked.
A: I shall say this here, so that you two can see it as well.
A: Taylor, YOU SUCK!
A: Not telling us about that earlier and all.
T: Did anyone ask for help with their puzzles earlier?
R: ...
A: ...
J: I'm missing something in this dynamic, aren't I?
Sunday morning found Garnet glaring at the stairs in the Dallon household. On one hand, the cast on her leg, despite including her foot, was a 'walking' type, so she could move around without crutches that would be hard to use with her arm in a cast as well. She'd been told to try and use them anyway, of course. On the other hand, she wasn't sure she could safely make her way down the stairs alone with the two casts. Making it up had been easy enough, but to use the railing she'd have to go down backwards.
She had to have stood there for almost half an hour before Vicky wandered out of her own room.
"Morning," Vicky muttered as she headed for the stairs, only to pause when she was about to start down them. She turned and looked at Garnet, then sighed. "Want some help?"
"That..." Garnet didn't want to be an invalid, but...she sighed. "Yes, please. Thank you."
Vicky helped her down the stairs, luckily not deciding to just carry her down, and then wandered off into the kitchen. Garnet followed more slowly, and pushed herself through making some coffee. Luckily she could still hold things with her left hand, mostly, so she wasn't completely useless. She'd still have to wait for the coffee to brew, of course, but at least she'd gotten it started on her own.
"You want any cereal?" Vicky asked, waving one of the boxes from the cabinet. "While I'm in here anyway and all."
Garnet thought about that for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah, might as well. There any shredded mini wheat available?"
Vicky turned to the cabinet and looked. "Frosted okay?"
"Frosted would be wonderful."
Taylor shot awake as a very loud bang shook the windows in her room. Playing things safe, she grabbed her utility belt before checking at the window, only to find that there was a brand-new smoke cloud rising in the distance. Grumbling, she closed the curtains again, then reached down to pick up Ackbar. The spider-bot had apparently been a bit spooked as well.
She met Amy out in the common area of the suite, carrying Rodney.
"Any idea what happened?" Amy asked.
"Not really," Taylor replied. "We can try turning the news on and see when they jump in with information, since I doubt they've gotten anywhere beyond 'something just exploded' and all."
"I suppose that's as good a plan as any. We've got what, an hour and a half or so before breakfast is being served downstairs?"
"Around that, yeah."
It didn't take long to find a local channel that was already showing news, at which point the two sat there with the spider-bots to see how long it would be before anything came up. Amy also grabbed the tinker puzzle, determined to at least disassemble it properly once. Even if she didn't have to. So far she was about a quarter of the way through, by Taylor's estimate.
It took nearly twenty minutes before they got 'breaking news' on the explosion. Apparently it had come from the vicinity of the tinker labs, and might have been someone's attempt at gaining access. Emergency services were on their way, and the station promised information as soon as they had it.
"Think they came from the side of the obvious tinker lab?" Taylor wondered.
"Probably," Amy replied with a shrug. "Who's going to know to do otherwise?"
"Good point."
Miranda turned to look at the PRT van that had just disgorged three Protectorate members. She'd been coordinating the police first-responders in getting a cordon set up around the unusually large area of interest. Long-range tunneling didn't help keep things to a small cordon.
"What the hell happened out here?" Leonid asked as he approached. Other individuals from the van, in standard PRT gear, moved to help the police officers with the cordon itself.
"Someone obviously used explosives to try and gain access to the tinker lab," Floret replied. "Looks like at least two different origin points, so possibly two different people or groups with the same idea. Actually, from here I can tell that one set of explosives likely detonated prematurely, as the crater is too far out, so almost certainly two different groups."
"We've got crews securing all three people we think were involved," Miranda added. "Two of them are obviously deceased, the last is in what I'm told is critical condition. None of them seemed to have considered that being at the end of the tunnel when things exploded would be a poor decision, though as Floret said one group obviously hadn't gotten things into position yet."
Spur, for reasons Miranda wasn't sure of, nodded and then started jogging for the incomplete cordon. Still, if he wanted to get into the danger zone that was his prerogative, this entire thing was related to attempts to gain access to the tinker lab after all. Put it squarely in PRT and Protectorate jurisdiction, even if they would probably leave most of it to the police after they determined if parahumans were involved otherwise.
Leonid turned to Floret. "Once Spur gives the all-clear I'd like you to take a look, see if you can spot any other potential hazards. I'll run a spiral circuit to see if I can hear anything concerning in the meantime, Spur should be done before I get too close."
"Got it," Floret replied, before Leonid darted off, tapping his lion mask as he did so. Probably to report in or something.
"He get assigned as squad leader this morning?" Miranda asked.
"He's got the least useful abilities of those available to come out," Floret answered with a shrug. "As such he has more time to devote to oversight, and got to play leader for the time being. Once he's done his circuit his best bet will be helping with coordination."
"Why's he running the circuit if he isn't all that useful?"
"Because unlike Spur and I, he'll be able to hear if anything else is still digging or tunneling nearby. If he had nothing to contribute then he'd have stayed back at base."
"I really need to get around to memorizing what you can all do, or at least the public bits. Then again, this is only the second time I've needed to directly work with any of you in my five years on the force, and the first time was when the tinkers got into their car accident."
"I missed an explosion?" Riley questioned, her fork halfway to her mouth. "When?"
"This morning," Joey answered. "It woke me up, but since there weren't any alarms in the hotel I figured it wasn't critical."
"The news station we watched said it was a couple of groups trying to blast their way into the dead tinker's lab," Taylor clarified. "The local capes went out to take an initial look, but they thought that there were only three perpetrators. A team monitoring things was injured as well due to proximity and an open window exposing them to more of the pressure wave, but less severely."
"Less severely than who?" Joey asked.
"The perpetrators were at the ends of tunnels that focused a lot of blast pressure their way," Amy answered with a cringe. "The news crew claimed that only one of the three survived, and they've been rushed to the hospital."
"And hopefully they don't decide that Amy needs to be called in just because she's in the area," Taylor added. "Because she'd go if they asked."
"Only to heal them enough to be charged," Amy added. "They can deal with a recovery period otherwise."
"You can deal with that if they come to you about it," Riley said. "You have anything you want to see this morning?"
"I think they've got a thing intended to identify tinkers first thing," Taylor noted. "A supposed 'see if you can figure out how to assemble tinkertech' session."
"Either that or it's just a bunch of normal crap to make people feel better about themselves," Joey argued. "Because I could see them doing that too. Still not sure why it's worth mentioning."
"Well," Taylor said with a grin. "I somewhat wonder how many people looking to attend it noticed the 'watch people try to assemble tinkertech' session on the other side of the convention hall that happens to have an identical timeslot."
There was a pause, and a moment later Joey pulled his phone out. Amy and Riley were likely checking the convention schedule on their visors.
"Well, I think I know what I'm voting for," Riley finally said. "Assuming things aren't too packed, anyway."
Danny grumbled as he made his way downstairs, trying to figure out who would be ringing the bell on a Sunday morning. And why. And if he should be convincing Ben to be naughty and scare them off or not.
Even half asleep he knew he shouldn't be thinking the latter, but it was so tempting right then.
He eventually made it to the door and checked who was there, only to realize that it was Kurt. Oh, and there was Lacey off to the side. Sighing, he disarmed the alarm system before opening the door.
"What inspired you to come at an ungodly hour on a Sunday?" Danny asked first thing.
"It's after ten in the morning," Kurt replied. "You should be up already."
"It's before noon," Danny retorted.
"I can find no fault in either of your logics," Lacey said with a nod. "The best way to handle this is with alcohol, and I happen to have brought some. That we wanted to talk about some pub stuff is a side issue."
Danny sighed. "Get in here, and I'll go wake Ben up."
"Ben?" Kurt asked as he held the door open for Lacey and the box she had. "Didn't think you had any family named Ben."
"More of an acquaintance," Danny replied from the stairs.
Ten minutes later Danny and Ben had coffee in front of them at the kitchen table, while Kurt and Lacey were staring at Ben. The box of bottled alcohol was sitting on the counter, still closed.
"Should I try and make omelettes or something?" Kurt finally asked. "Or should I just pull some of the frozen waffles out of the freezer?"
"Just go with the waffles," Ben replied. "It'll be faster, and I haven't actually had waffles in years."
Kurt frowned at that, but grabbed a couple of plates and ran some of the frozen waffles through the toaster for the two anyway. They gladly ate them, and Ben ended up rinsing things off when they were done.
"Ok Danny," Kurt said while Ben was at the sink. "Ben looks familiar, but I can't place him."
"He used to hire the Dockworkers for large projects over a decade ago," Danny said. "I met with him more than most did."
"Don't beat around the bush," Ben said as he turned off the water and grabbed a towel to dry his hands off. "They're obviously parahumans, though I don't recognize either of them."
"They're idiots who drank power-granting vials," Danny half-corrected.
Ben paused as Kurt and Lacey rolled their eyes. "I'm not sure I have a clue there. They do have powers, right?"
"Yes, we have powers," Lacey said. "I make kick-ass alcohol and mixed drinks."
Shrugging, Ben put the towel down. "And you're obviously friends of Daniel's. I'm Amelia's, er, Amy's father, though you might know me better by the name 'Marquis'."
Kurt and Lacey stared at Ben, then turned to Danny. He sighed and nodded. "I'm under the impression that Glaistig Uaine decided to prank him and some others by helping them escape under mostly-false or exaggerated pretenses. For example, implying that his daughter had a significant other that needed to be given a shovel speech."
Lacey snorted at that. "Taylor, right?" Danny nodded, and Lacey laughed. "Oh, that's a good one. Have you told her about this yet?"
"Of course not. I'm waiting for both of them to come together for maximum amusement with everyone as clueless as possible. At best Taylor's getting enough warning to not freak out that he's here in general."
"How long before the PRT comes for him?" Kurt asked. "I mean, someone has to have noticed that he's escaped by now, right?"
"He spent some of yesterday out using his powers with Miss Militia," Danny replied with a grin. "He got off much better than Garnet did. She apparently ended up with broken bones when New Wave brought her to their tussle with Lung."
Kurt coughed in surprise, and Lacey gave Danny a glare. "Why the hell is Garnet running around with New Wave?"
Danny chuckled. "She wanted to give Taylor's apparent boyfriend a talking to."
"Why do they seem to know who Garnet is?" Ben asked before Kurt could say anything.
"Because Annette told them about that time in her life, of course. She was already in the Birdcage, so we figured it wouldn't matter too much either way."
"And yet knowing about her ahead of time didn't stop their shocked reactions, yet they barely flinched at finding out who I am?"
"You couldn't be much of a problem if Danny hasn't punched your lights out," Kurt said with a shrug. "Since he didn't react when you said you were Marquis, well..."
"He obviously knew and didn't care enough to be concerned," Lacey continued. "Now, if you had a black eye and a broken arm or something we might've thought differently, but we probably would've jumped to other conclusions long before now in that case."
Ben laughed, then sat back down next to Danny. "Daniel, I think I like these two. They've got good heads on their shoulders, but what is with the whole vial thing?"
"We're going to have to stick around just to keep him from portraying us as complete fools," Lacey whined.
"But you were a complete fool," Kurt retorted, only to get an elbow to his gut.
Chapter 147 "I have no idea how that girl got the mounting bracket to melt," Riley said as they left the session. "How did she do that?"
"I think she shorted the power supply to ground through it," Amy answered. "But I'm not positive."
"The kid who carefully assembled everything was more interesting," Taylor said with a smirk. "He apparently noticed the colored shapes that indicated what went together."
"And yet when he was done it still didn't work," Riley objected. "So he obviously did something wrong."
"None of them worked no matter how careful they were," Joey retorted. "It was a demonstration that even if you do everything correctly it doesn't necessarily help. That's why the tinker had to pull everything apart and reassemble it in front of them before any of them would work."
"Not to mention that messing with tinkertech when you aren't a tinker can be dangerous," Taylor added. "As evidenced by the melted bracket, the guy who set his shirt on fire, the woman who electrocuted herself..."
"Yeah, lots of danger there," Amy agreed. "We don't need a rehash of it all."
"So what to next?" Riley asked. "I wanted to go to the panel about alternate containment methods for dangerous biological and non-biological tinkertech, but it's being run by an ass that I've discovered I can't stand."
"How do you feel about non-violent applications of combat-oriented tinkertech?" Joey asked, looking up from his phone.
"I thought that one was yesterday?" Taylor questioned.
Joey blinked, and looked down at his phone again. "Oh, right. Wrong day. Let's see...heh. Today they've got combat applications of utility tinkertech, go figure."
"Sounds interesting enough," Amy said with a shrug. "I think the only other thing I saw that was remotely interesting was a session on whether or not to trust cosmetic tinkertech."
"Cosmetic?" Taylor asked, curious.
"Implanted tinkertech for cosmetic purposes in particular. There are a few different groups that offer varying kinds, such as making body parts light up or allowing for adjustable curves."
"Yeah, no," Riley said, shaking her head. "Bad idea with most tinkers, if only for maintenance reasons. Plus, if you're getting something implanted it should do something useful to be worth the risk, not just look pretty. I vote for the first session instead of the blatantly obvious session."
"It's in the slot just before lunch," Joey said. "So we still have some time to kill. Want to see if anyone swapped things out overnight? I think the Elite booth looked different when we passed it earlier, at least."
"I don't see why you think we need cape names," Kurt argued as they sat around the kitchen table. "Traditions aside, it isn't like we're going to be having secret identities either way."
"Because due to legal weirdness they actually provide some protection?" Danny replied, only to get looks from all three parahumans in the room. Sighing, he elaborated. "For example, operating under a cape name offers protection from people attempting to sue your non-cape identity, even if the connection is public. Carol claims it helps immensely with New Wave, and they all have public identities."
"That's certainly a change from when I was last active," Ben said after a few moments of silence. "I suppose it makes some sense, but I pity the judge that set that precedent."
"I'm told that it falls under treating cape identities almost like a business name," Danny clarified. "So when someone sues your business they can't necessarily touch your personal finances type deal. Just extended a little bit? I'm not the lawyer, and the lawyer explained half of it while drunk."
"But what about Case 53s?" Lacey asked. "I don't think any of them have two names?"
"That means that they only have a cape name," Danny corrected. "They just don't have civilian names, presumably due to the whole amnesia thing. And even then they might, and you just don't know any of them because people have respected their private lives."
Kurt sighed. "And doing most of our 'caping' through the pub doesn't accomplish the same thing?"
"I'm assuming that would work only if you never use your powers outside of the business," Ben replied. "Because of course things would work that way, if only to be as annoying as possible."
"Stupid everything," Lacey grumbled. "No clue what kind of name to even consider."
"Barkeep?" Danny offered.
"I'd like to not be confusing things anytime I visit any other bar," Lacey retorted.
"How about Gin and Tonic for the two of you?" Danny tried.
"Let's skip anything that could be confused for an actual order," Kurt argued. "Or for any actual bit of bartender or brewing equipment, for that matter. I don't need to end up in any kind of accidental skit where one of the two of us is confused for something else while we're working."
"I'd recommend alchemists," Ben said. "But at least back when I was imprisoned there was a group that got really pissy about people outside of their little commune using alchemist names. No need to rile them up if they're still around. I'm led to believe that noble titles are currently out of fashion as well. Perhaps mythological references?"
Danny snorted. "What? Like Ambrosia or something?"
"No, I don't think so," Ben replied. "That's better off as a product name, perhaps. Now, I'm not read up on a lot of deities, but maybe something like Hebe, goddess of youth and cupbearer of the gods?"
"Would that mean that I'd have to be Heracles?" Kurt asked. "Because I don't think that fits." The other three stared at him. "What? I'm not allowed to know mythology?"
"I'm actually wondering what you're talking about," Danny admitted. Ben and Lacey both nodded.
"Hebe married Heracles," Kurt explained with a raised eyebrow. "How am I the only one in the room that knows that?"
"It's unlikely that anyone will complain too much about you picking a more suitable deity within the theme," Ben finally said, shaking his head.
"Assuming anyone here knows any," Lacey added. "Or do we need to start checking reference materials?"
"How about Bacchus?" Kurt said, only to get confused looks from Danny and Lacey. Ben, on the other hand, just sighed.
"I suppose if you want to distract people from the Heracles thing by getting them to complain that you're mixing Greek and Roman names," Ben said, shaking his head.
"A double whammy of potential internet arguments sounds fun," Lacey said with a grin. "Either that or nobody has enough of a clue to make the arguments until it's far too late and it would be silly to bring it up. I say we go for it."
"You would," Danny mumbled.
"Though I do wonder what a cupbearer is," Lacey added. "Sounds familiar, but I can't place it."
Taylor: I wonder where Colin and Trevor are going.
Amy: Wait, what? Oh, they're leaving. Huh. Interesting.
Taylor probably wouldn't have noticed the departure of the two, but they were in an accidental lull in the session thanks to a water spill. So far most of the discussion had been interesting, including ideas and examples from the field. Sometimes it was incredibly specialized, like a tinker who made things to clean up oil spills having their tech used to help capture a villain that could turn into living oil. Others were more general, like using a recon drone as a distraction or, for non-brute targets, ramming device.
No matter how effective it'd apparently been, though, she wasn't going to be picking up any of the tinkertech dry cleaning gear that they'd talked about. 'Cleaning' the costumes off of villains didn't sound like a good idea to her. Besides, it sounded like it'd only worked that well because the idiots had attacked the tinker in their store, which was also their workshop.
Five minutes later she was snickering at the ideas behind using an automatic fence painter to foil crime.
Kara very carefully manipulated the dial on the soldering iron, needing the perfect temperature for the next couple of connections. Once that was set she leaned a few extra inches to the left, then slipped her right shoe off to let her brace her foot directly against the table leg. She was about to start when she frowned, reaching over to the clock radio and turning it on. A little one-handed manipulation had a hard rock song playing, and then she turned up the volume. Nodding to herself, she started soldering to the beat.
A few minutes later she put the soldering iron off to the side, absently turning it off while she grabbed a bottle of water. She took a sip, then dribbled a little onto one of the just-soldered components. One tissue to wipe up the excess water, then she grabbed the spring she'd pulled out of a wind-up toy car and slotted it into place on the circuit board, ensuring it tucked into place properly against a couple of the components. That was tied down with some thread and the entire board set to the side, followed by turning off the radio.
"Tinkers are weird," the woman keeping an eye on her said. "What exactly are you building again?"
Kara slipped on a latex glove before picking up a smoke detector. "One-shot mouse trap, the old lady was complaining about mice in the basement. Getting it to be able to be triggered any time in a three day period is a pain in the ass though." She carefully dismantled the smoke detector, keeping a couple pieces of plastic that she cut out and the alarm speaker, but discarded the rest. She didn't need the americium, after all, and this was a dated one anyway that they'd just replaced.
Now where had she put down that curling iron?
"That was amusing," Joey said as they exited the session. "Most of it seemed way too situational for general use, but it was amusing."
"There were a few good points made," Amy said. "But yeah, most of the time I think you'd be more effective if you used the utility stuff for what it's intended for."
"I think Amy and I should eat lunch here," Taylor noted. "Before we go figure out the best way to bring the mopeds up and all. What about you two?"
"We should go to the sub shop," Riley answered, grabbing Joey's arm and dragging him off. "See you two after lunch!"
Taylor and Amy watched the two depart, Joey obviously a little surprised that Riley was effortlessly dragging him along, then shared a look. They shrugged in unison and headed for where lunch could be purchased.
Taylor: I wonder how the upgrades would work on Joey, with the apparent age changing and all.
Amy: That's a good question. I suppose it would depend on his snark, and if it could handle them or not.
Taylor: Well, the Bluetooth bit would probably be trivial to tie in unless his brain structure is changing when he age-shifts. The enhanced strength and durability stuff, though...
Amy: Yeah, that could be a problem. Not sure how safe it would be to attempt it without a lot more information.
They'd made it to the edge of the convention floor before they were stopped by a security guard. "Miss Dallon, Miss Hebert, a moment please?"
"Yes?" Amy asked, since they'd started with her name.
"We'd prefer if you don't bring your mopeds in through the lobby," the guard said. "But there's a freight elevator in the back of the parking garage that you can bring them up through. I've been informed that your digital room keys will operate it, if you let any of us guards know before you head down we'll have someone meet you when you get off of the elevator to ensure you have no problems making it to the session room."
Taylor blinked. "Oh, thank you. We'd been wondering about the best way to bring them up."
"No problem," the guard replied with a grin. "Oh, and if you're grabbing lunch here, I got a sample of the chocolate cream pie. I'd highly recommend it for dessert."
"We'll consider that," Amy said with a grin. "Thanks for the recommendation."
"So what's up with you and my mother?" Vicky asked Garnet while Carol and Mark were out grocery shopping. "I mean, when you showed up she tried to kill you and all, but now she's mostly okay with you being around?"
Garnet snorted. Had the girl not realized what Carol was doing? "She figured that keeping an eye on me would be easier here than shoving me off to a hotel. Though she's settled down a lot, even if I still see hatred in her eyes every so often."
"I still don't get what's up with that. I mean, yeah, you're a villain, but I didn't think that was enough for her to want to kill people."
Garnet sighed. "Kid, your mother has issues, and I probably made them worse and yet made it possible for you to be born at the same time. Maybe, anyway."
Vicky gave her a look of disbelief. "How in the world did you do that?"
"Let's just say that I had a very distorted view of your mother when I first ran into her. Inadvertently showing her that women could be just as bad as men when I tried to force her 'out of the closet' and all didn't help her neuroses, but I think it at least let her realize that it was individual people that were the problem? I'm still down a functioning kidney after she stabbed me in the side for that one."
Vicky stared at her. "She got your kidney with one of her weapons? What did she use?"
"I'd just dropped my breaker state and she hadn't fully recovered from the energy drain, so her powers weren't working yet. She got me with a steak knife, then while I was screaming in pain she recovered enough to drop into her own breaker state to free herself from the ropes I'd tied her to the chair with. Had to use my own breaker state to escape again. I really should've thought things through more when I decided what to serve for dinner for her 'coming out' party, no matter what I thought of her sexual preferences at the time."
"You tried to force her to admit that she was into girls by grabbing her and forcing her to a dinner date?"
"In my defense, I was drunk off my ass at the time. It was the end of a horrible week-long bender, and gave Danny way too much ammunition to use against me the following month."
Vicky snorted. "I'm of the opinion that being drunk isn't an excuse."
Garnet shrugged, then grimaced as that annoyed her left arm. "The past is the past. I can't change it."
"The changes are incredible," the tinker, apparently named 'Dynamo', said as they looked over the mopeds. "Granted, it sucks that the electric motors are, well, no longer motors, but I can't exactly argue with the end result. If I could've built them to hover from the start I would've in a heartbeat."
"They are cool," Amy agreed. "Personally, I like that the hovering means they fall under tinkertech laws and aren't actually legally mopeds anymore. I'm sure you know that the rules for mopeds vary greatly from state to state."
"And they've changed a lot over the past few years," Dynamo agreed. "Different groups lobbying for them to be more or less restrictive and all. They can be treated as anything from a bicycle with almost no regulation all the way up to basically requiring a motorcycle license and registration. And mine aren't normally impressive enough to jump to the tinkertech classification, so I've gotten a number of complaints when people don't know their local laws."
"More like they know their local laws but didn't check when they're traveling," another parahuman, out of costume, replied. He hadn't been introduced yet, so Taylor wasn't actually sure who he was. "I heard your whining last night when you were checking your messages, something about idiots assuming that the laws were the same everywhere?"
"That too," Dynamo agreed with a sigh. "These would probably be permitted to be operated by anyone, license or not, everywhere in the country other than Alaska."
"Wait," Taylor said. "Why not Alaska?"
"Only the original tinker gets a free pass there, you have to be sixteen or older to operate tinkertech vehicles on public roads otherwise."
"Huh." Taylor gestured at a box sitting on the table that they'd parked the mopeds next to. "So, what's in the box?"
"The opposite side of the picture from the mopeds here," the man said. "A collaborative effort that failed miserably and thus didn't work. Five different tinkers each contributed, only to get a useless lump of scrap for all the good it did. Which was probably a good thing, since they were all villains, but we aren't sure what it would've done if it had worked. It's on loan from the PRT either way."
Curious, Taylor peeked in the box.
Taylor: Urk.
Amy: Wait, what?
Taylor: I don't think they realize just what they've got here. Hook the entire output of a nuclear reactor up to this thing and it'll probably work fine.
Amy: Really? What would it do?
Taylor: Decaffeinate the continent, I think. The range will vary on the actual amount of sustained power after it boots up.
Amy: ...I vote you report that, but don't say a thing to them.
Trevor scowled as he wandered back across the street. He'd learned that he could easily make a compatible 'key' for the stupid lab, but it wouldn't work because it would need to be paired to the security system. He couldn't figure out much of anything else, and was missing part of TinkerTechCon to the entire exercise. There just wasn't anything for the 'repair and maintain' part of his powers to latch onto. The stupid convention puzzle had all but screamed at him when he'd laid eyes on it, but all the stuff here either came up blank or obviously nonsensical.
There was, for example, no way to fit a particle accelerator in the stupid block puzzle. Even with tinker bullshit.
"I've got nothing," Trevor said as he came up to Colin and...er...what was the local's name? Bah, wasn't important. "Nada, nil, zip, zero, diddly squat. If anyone is figuring this one out, it isn't me."
Colin sighed. "We were hoping that your ability to repair and maintain would help you, but apparently that was a bit much. Which means that we're down to the last couple of options. Luckily Miss Hebert isn't leaving town for a few days, she'll hopefully be less destructive than the Ward that Legend was talking about possibly bringing in."
"I'll start filling out the forms to officially request that she take a look," the local guy said, shaking his head. "And I should probably also figure out what I'd need to fill out to bring in Legend's potential solution too. Better to be ready to fill that out if Miss Hebert can't help and all. Thank you for your attempts anyway, if you hurry you can get back in time for the last few sessions and the closing ceremony."
"Why is this suddenly so important anyway?" Trevor asked. "It wasn't yesterday, right?"
"Yesterday we didn't know that we had people reaching the point of throwing likely-tinkertech explosives at the problem," the local guy said, shaking his head. "Dealing with this has turned into an issue of public safety, instead of an amusing curiosity as it had been."
"Oh." That certainly put a different spin on things. "Wait, why would T...er, Miss Hebert be able to help?"
"She's been able to bypass protections in the past for a start," Colin replied. "That and you obviously haven't read her full file."
"I can't read her full file until we get back, because none of my loaner gear has the higher security level hardware installed."
"Ah, yes. That had slipped my mind, and would certainly limit your ability to check on things."
It turned out that the PRT had already known about the power requirements on the 'dud' tinkertech, just not the probable range on it. Or that it would decaffeinate everything, they thought it just targeted diet cherry soda. They'd thanked Taylor for the insight and stated that it would either be going into lockdown or being destroyed.
After that Taylor and Amy had brought the mopeds back down to the garage, before heading up for a session on international tinkers and how they varied. Apparently someone had researched patterns in tinkers and their creations and found regional variations. Almost all tinkers seemed to do or at least understand things intuitively in metric units, but other details were less standardized.
Many of the regional variations were odd. For example, Australian tinkers, and only Australian tinkers, had a habit of using counter-clockwise screws as a default. None of the smaller countries in that area of the world did, just the Australians. German tinkers tended to use mechanical timers more frequently, to the point where finding digital timers in German tinkertech was a potential sign that the tinker wasn't actually German. Swiss tinkertech could usually be easily adapted into heating a tea kettle, and British tinkertech usually had at least one place with a blade or a point to attach one.
Needless to say, national stereotypes didn't quite play into things.
Closer to home, North American tinkers, or at least those north of Mexico, were more likely to use software limits where other tinkers might have hardware limits, assuming their tinkertech had software anyway. Even that varied. In the East much more generic tech with software defining arbitrary limits on capabilities was common. In the South you were more likely to find that the software limits were the only safeties in the entire system. Out West you were more likely to find that things were set so that when you hit the defined limit you were about two percent past the sweet spot, on average. And to the North limits were more likely to be arbitrary, absolute valued, and have a bypass or ability to disregard the limits for a more permissive set.
Quebec hinted that some of the differences might be based on language, as they were the oddballs of Canada. Instead of software limits, tinkertech originating from Quebec was more likely to be human-powered. Cranks or treadmills in some cases, body heat in others, just human movement at times. All getting far more energy out than went in, of course.
All of this still varied from tinker to tinker, and with how some parahumans wandered the data was a bit less accurate than it could be. But it was an interesting examination of larger patterns.
"I'm surprised that they used Leet as an example of an 'oddball' tinker in their data," Amy commented as they left the session. "I wonder if there's a pattern there too?"
"North America has the most 'random noise' in their data," Joey noted. "But outside of that I'm not sure I saw anything of interest."
"They admitted that they couldn't find a good pattern for the odd tinkers in any given area," Taylor said. "Still, I can't shake the feeling that there's a simple explanation for a lot of it. Like it's there at the edge of my perception?"
"I know what you mean," Amy said, nodding her head in agreement. "A missing piece of the puzzle that's almost there, but just out of reach."
"Enough cryptic bullshit," Riley declared. "I'm curious about the 'gender roles in tinkering' session now, and want to get a good seat."
"That does sound potentially interesting after the whole bit with where people triggered influencing them," Joey admitted. "Where is it?"
Kimberly carefully monitored the group of volunteers that were assisting her. In a way she regretted that they couldn't help her fight her target, since that would invalidate things, but they could assist with getting said target to agree to fight. On that front, getting everyone into the area had been difficult, but worth the effort.
"Hurry up with that Jim," she called to one of the volunteers, and he nodded. They knew that things had to be in place soon, or they might miss any and all opportunities to act and would need to resort to less reliable plans.
"Car approaching from the south," Drake relayed from the lookouts on the rooftops. Everyone, Kimberly included, shifted into positions to hide themselves from the street as the car went by. They heard the car pass, but waited. Eventually Drake called out again. "All clear."
With that they came out of hiding and resumed work, Kimberly sincerely hoping that infiltrating the city to set everything up had been the correct decision. The fact that they needed multiple potential ambush sites alone was annoying. Needing to keep everything hidden enough to be safe but exposed enough for rapid use was more annoying. More so with thinkers potentially around to screw everything up, really. Not to mention tinkers.
Really, doing this kind of thing in any city with parahumans running around in it was a pain in the ass. But they had to be ready for when opportunity knocked, so they were doing everything they could to get it right. They might not get a second shot, after all.
"I wanted to argue those last conclusions," Riley said as they left the session. "But, well, their data was actually quite convincing. Think anyone's done a study like that for parahumans in general?"
"They used a worldwide study from a few years back as their base for that one," Taylor admitted, getting looks from the other three. "What? I read over it when I did my thesis thing. They obviously built on the original, and just found more data to show that the patterns seen in tinkers are abnormal when you look at parahumans in general."
"So female tinkers holding long-term grudges twice as often as male tinkers is a freaky thing about tinkers?" Joey asked.
"Yep," Taylor agreed. "It's more like five times in non-tinker parahumans." That brought the other three up short, but she continued. "Of course, they think some of that is human nature. Male parahumans will frequently beat the crap out of each other once and be done with the issue, while female parahumans draw things out for years."
"So female tinkers are less likely to hold long-term grudges?" Amy asked.
Taylor snorted. "No, male tinkers are more likely to take a long-term view of things that non-tinkers would settle more quickly. But if I recall correctly, the real problem comes when you get two tinkers genuinely pissed at each other, regardless of gender. They escalate in ways that only tinkers can. Luckily, for the most part that only happens with two villains, heroic tinkers usually try to not go too far in the name of revenge and all. Mostly. If you ignore the tinker duel between the Memphis and Nashville Protectorate tinkers, anyway."
"Oooh yeah," Joey said, nodding. "I heard they've been thinking about forcing one of them to move across the country."
"That isn't likely to happen," Amy said with a shrug. "But rumors and all."
"You know more about it than we do," Riley accused. Amy merely grinned. "Dammit, and it's doctor/patient confidentiality stuff, right? Damn you."
Rebecca sighed as she hit the call button on her phone. The explosions outside of Las Vegas had created a small pile of headaches, and now she had to deal with requests to hopefully deal with the tinker labs there before something more dangerous happened. This was now high enough priority that she was even bypassing other directors in the name of getting things done faster. In this case, calling Danny Hebert directly.
She'd have to send Emily an apology of some kind later, even if the ENE Director would probably appreciate not having to have her weekend interrupted by this more than anything else.
"Hello," a male's voice came over the phone. Sounded tired, slightly annoyed.
"Good evening," Rebecca said. "Is this Danny Hebert?"
"It is."
"I'm Chief Director Costa-Brown, but you can call me Rebecca. You aren't in my chain of command, after all. Now then, Mister Hebert, I'm calling to ask permission to see if your daughter can defuse a situation in the Las Vegas area while she's there anyway. Above and beyond the extra activities you've already approved."
Danny sighed. "Call me Danny, and what kind of situation needs my approval?"
"The area has already been subject to high explosives in the past day, which is reason enough to check with you. For some reason I've also been advised that there may be other issues, not physical so much as mental, but due to the nature of things the thinkers that I had checking things can't tell me more than that."
"What, exactly, do you want her to be doing?"
"Somewhat recently two tinkers died and left their lab to whomever can get access to it first. The problem is that one of them specialized in things that intentionally confused tinkers and thinkers. We want to see if your daughter's abilities can pierce that in order to figure out how to gain access to the lab in a safe manner, at which point that someone has gained access can be publicised. Hopefully with her allowing someone else to enter and exit on camera as evidence."
There was a pause as Mister Hebert processed that, before he sighed again. "I'll give permission, but only if you can convince her to after she's warned about the potential dangers. No ordering her to, but you can present your own arguments to convince her."
"Do you mind if I have a couple of forms delivered to you? Having your signature on them will help keep the Youth Guard from complaining too loudly when I go to them next."
"I have a house guest, so you may need to be more discreet."
"We're well aware of your house guest, and honestly we're not too concerned about him at this point in time. But if you prefer I can have the box delivered to your bedroom instead of to your kitchen or living room, just place your phone on it to unlock it. I'll even make sure that the forms are on a clipboard with a pen available."
"That will work."
Chapter 148 Taylor looked over the menu at the restaurant the four were at. Joey had gotten back in costume, so to speak, for all of ten minutes to help close up the Toybox booth in preparation for the closing events. Wanting the majority of the convention floor available for those was, apparently, a pain in the ass for most of them, only helped by the fact that Dragon allowed the use of a lot of drones for moving things around. Well, that and they were being permitted to shift things into the various rooms used for the sessions as temporary storage, they could then take all day tomorrow to load up their vehicles.
Joey, of course, made most of that a moot point for Toybox. He opened a large doorway into one of his pocket dimensions and they pretty much rolled the entire booth into it. He'd claimed that they'd set up the same way, having everything ready to roll out of the pocket dimension on Friday. It took him longer to get into and out of costume to do so than the actual 'packing up' had taken as a result.
They'd then taken a trip to a restaurant away from the hotel for minimum fuss before they'd head back for the closing ceremony.
"I vote we split one of the larger appetizers," Amy said. "If only because otherwise a couple of these probably count as meals alone."
"I guess that makes sense," Taylor agreed. "So, how many people do you think figured out the tinkertech puzzle?"
"We're at least in the twenties there," Riley answered. "Since it said I was the twenty-first when I submitted the form."
"Probably a lot more by now," Joey added. "Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much at this point."
"Only thirty-two people submitted the form?" Colin asked, surprised. "But this year's puzzle was easier?"
"Ironically, only nine known tinkers submitted the form," Dragon replied. "I suspect most of them were preparing things for post-convention attempts on the tinker lab. Attempts that won't happen while the area is in lockdown due to the recent explosive attempt."
"I suppose that when you started the puzzle design you didn't expect something like that to be a distraction. Still, there were a couple thousand of the things handed out, to get only thirty-two submissions is a problem."
"Especially as I have a hundred prizes lined up. More so since after last year when the puzzle was too hard and we barely had enough submissions for the prizes, so I dropped the 'lousy t-shirt' prize tier this year."
"Perhaps essentially run through the prize grid three times? Give the first place drawing the thirty-third and sixty-fifth place prizes?"
Dragon sighed, running through patterns along those lines. None of them were really any better than the others. "I could extend that out for the first four, I suppose. Though it'll mostly be duplicates, spares aren't that big of a deal. Souvenirs for friends and family, perhaps. I only had unique prizes for the first five anyway. I'll figure out a good distribution and decide what to hold back or not for next year. Maybe dig into alternate supply sets I have on hand?"
"Excuse me," one of the hotel employees said as the group of four were passing by. "Miss Dallon and Miss Hebert?"
"Yes?" Taylor answered, being closest to said employee at the time.
"Our apologies, but a delivery for each of you Friday got caught up in the enhanced convention security measures. I believe it's supposed to be your prizes from the drinking competition you entered. Due to the enhanced security on your room we can't deliver them directly there, would you like to take them now or pick them up later?"
Taylor looked at Amy, who shrugged. "We've still got most of an hour, right?"
Taylor nodded. "True. Probably best to get it out of the way." She then turned back to the employee. "I guess we'll take them now."
The employee beamed. "Great, give me a moment to get them from the back."
Eight or so minutes later the four were in the suite Taylor and Amy were sharing. The two nearly-identical boxes were sitting on the table in front of the couch. The only thing to distinguish the two was the label on top, one labeled for each girl.
"Are you going to open them or not?" Riley asked.
"I'm trying to recall if I ever looked up the prizes in the first place," Taylor admitted.
"Just open them," Joey said. "We don't have all night."
Sighing, Taylor pulled a knife out of her utility belt and cut the tape on her box, before handing the knife to Amy. They might need to get the other girl a few good knives to live in her utility belt. That done, she opened the box to find an envelope on top of styrofoam. She picked that up and opened it, finding a letter and what looked like a gift certificate.
"Twelve bottles of alcohol and fifty bucks worth of food in a number of places in Las Vegas," Taylor finally said. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing that something mysterious is keeping us from leaving for a few more days, because we'll be able to visit more restaurants."
"I might have to drink more often than usual," Amy finally said, looking at her likely-identical envelope. "If only to get a chance to try all of these before Carol decides to finish them off."
Taylor chuckled. "That's an interesting view. I've still got a lot of bottles of stuff at home to try at some point too. I probably should've brought a bottle or two on the fourth, actually, but I keep forgetting they exist."
"You two are so lucky," Riley grumbled. "Mom won't let me drink alcohol."
Taylor went to answer that, but paused. She then turned to Amy. "I was about to say that drunk tinkers are a bad thing, but, well..."
Amy nodded. "Yeah, but we can salvage it. Drunk tinkers that have a tendency to work with brains are a worse thing."
Riley blinked, and then pouted harder. Joey just looked confused.
Three quarters of an hour later the four were seated in the front of the closing ceremony, with the others who had successfully submitted the form from the tinkertech puzzle. They'd been grouped by 'party', and because Taylor had been the second to submit the form she, Amy, and Riley were in the front row. Joey had ended sitting behind Taylor with what were apparently a couple of other Toybox capes. He was also 'in costume' and they were pretending to not know him as a result.
The only person 'before' Taylor had been obvious in hindsight. Taylor ended up next to Trevor, who was apparently a solo attendee for the purposes of seating. He was attending in-costume as well, but the vast majority of those in the 'someone in your group figured out the puzzle' seating weren't. Which only made sense, since most of them didn't appear to be parahumans in the first place.
"Good evening," Dragon said from the stage, Colin standing off to the side with a couple of convention security staff. "I wish we could schedule more than a couple of days for the convention, but the longer a collection of tinkertech is gathered in one place the more of a nightmare the security is. Besides, most of us have day jobs to get back to."
"We'd appreciate it if those of you who don't have day jobs to get back to would keep quiet about it," Colin added. "If only to spare yourselves the jealous glares from the rest."
Even Dragon turned and gave Colin a look for that one, apparently this wasn't a prepared speech thing. Maybe he'd felt that an impromptu joke was the most efficient way to keep people quiet?
"Right," Dragon continued. "Now then, to start with we have the three 'most inquiries' awards, the certificates and hundred dollars prize money for which will be delivered to the tinkers on record for each piece of tinkertech. As many of you know, this includes tinkers that weren't here at all, which is why we don't hand them out on stage. Number three is the spider-bots that Amy Dallon and Taylor Hebert were seen with yesterday." The entire audience felt like they were paying extra attention now. "Sadly, for a number of reasons I can't reveal who their creator is at this time."
The groaning, swearing, and at least one comment of 'damn secret tinkers' made it obvious that a number of people had really wanted to know who made the spider-bots. Riley was fidgeting, likely trying to either suppress a giggle or an impulse to take credit for the things. At least until Amy elbowed her.
"Number two," Dragon said as soon as things had quieted down enough. She paused to let the last couple of people quiet down. "The isotopically pure graphene cubes, produced in Brockton Bay." There were some grumblings about the lack of information on who, but at least they knew where and probably assumed that multiple tinkers were involved. "And the number one most enquired about tinkertech was, for the third year in a row, Dodge's pocket dimension generators."
"And I'm stingy with the things," Joey stated quietly behind them as polite applause rang out over the hall. A couple of the other Toybox tinkers snickered at that.
"Next up is the general convention statistics," Dragon said, the screen behind her lighting up. "We had just over ten thousand unique visitors this weekend, split between a couple thousand full-convention passes and an even four thousand one-day passes each for both Saturday and Sunday. The full-convention passes include the complimentary passes given to each tinker booth, and no I won't be telling you how many of those there were. A total of sixty-seven people were thrown out over the course of the weekend for violating safety rules, three people were thrown out for fighting, and nineteen people were denied access to the convention while they were intoxicated."
Each of those statistics had shown up on the screen as Dragon was stating them, the exact numbers included for the total visitors and full-convention passes. Taylor was honestly surprised at the number of unique people that had passed through. Then again, apparently a lot of non-parahumans showed up, and she knew that she was less aware of them in general. Couldn't be helped, really, with the whole snark sense thing.
"As for sessions," Dragon said as the screen cleared. "We had one session that wasn't held as scheduled due to an injury. Other than that one session we had ninety percent or better of each room's seating capacity used across the board, and at least twice the seating capacity for people viewing the recordings live or within three hours. This extends to the last sessions of the day. All recordings are available for free to anyone who attended the convention, day pass or otherwise, and will be available for the next year for a reasonable fee for those who didn't attend. As a reminder, last year's recordings will be opened up for free viewing in the morning."
"Now then," Dragon continued, the screen clearing again, only to have the number of full-convention tickets appear at the top again. "The last statistic is the most surprising. Every full-convention ticket holder received a tinkertech puzzle, but only thirty-two people apparently figured out how to solve it in order to enter the end of convention drawing." There were embarrassed murmurs even from the people in the front rows as Dragon held up a couple of the puzzle boxes. "I don't suppose any of those who did figure it out would like to demonstrate how to solve the puzzle?"
A girl, probably fourteen or so, jumped up. No snark at all, so she wasn't a tinker. "I'll do it!" Dragon waved her up, Colin bringing a table over for her to work on before she took one of the puzzle boxes. A camera had been turned on above the table and was projecting to provide an alternate view of things. She carefully pushed on various points to loosen other pieces to shift them in various ways, removing pieces as she went along. It took her about ten minutes to get the entire puzzle taken apart, then she assembled the URL.
"Very good," Dragon said. "Now then, how many of you figured out the easy way?" Taylor and Trevor raised their own hands, though Amy and Riley didn't. Joey might have, but Taylor couldn't see him. "Only three of you? Surprising. Would one of you like to come up here and demonstrate?"
Taylor finally looked and saw that the only other person with their hand up was at the other end of the room, and shaking their head. She turned to Trevor, who waved her up. Shrugging, she stood up and walked up onto the stage. Taking the second puzzle, she pulled out her personal phone and set it down on top of it. There were groans when the phone beeped and asked if she wanted to visit the URL.
"Thank you," Dragon said, and Taylor headed back down to her seat. "Now then, with only thirty-two entries the drawing and prize distribution will be a lot faster this year." The screen behind her changed to show thirty-two slots, numbered, even as Colin and the security staff rolled carts with identical boxes on them out from behind the screen. "As a side benefit, everyone who did enter is getting something."
A moment later names started cycling through the slots, each slot locking onto a name in order. Most of them were obviously first and last names, but a few were just as obviously cape names. Very few. Taylor ended up taking the fourth slot, Trevor ended up twelfth, Joey got the eighteenth slot, Riley the twenty-fourth, and Amy the twenty-sixth.
"There we go," Dragon said. "Now then, due to the low number of entries, everyone is getting a home intercom kit, a key finder beacon, and a travel mug. That's what the boxes we've brought out contain. But the first five slots are getting something extra. The first four get to choose from what's left, with the fifth person getting the remaining item. Each of them will be customized to the winner's preferences and delivered to them within two weeks."
The list of names shrunk and shifted off to the left, stacking into a single list. In the freed-up space five squares appeared. They all contained the Dragon-Tech logo, but each contained a different piece of technology. A desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone, and what Taylor thought was supposed to be a television. Which was, to be honest, annoying. She was apparently going to be stuck choosing between two of them, and the only thing that might be nice to have was the television. If she wanted one in her room. She wasn't sure she did.
"If you can't tell," Dragon chuckled. "I'm the primary sponsor." That got a couple of laughs. "Now then, would Demarcus Barge come up? Make your choice, then grab one of the boxes."
Demarcus picked the smartphone, apparently wanting an upgrade from his current flip phone. Lakeisha Isaman was next and picked the television. Emerita Gilsdorf was next and dithered for a couple of minutes before picking the laptop. Which left Taylor with a decision between the desktop computer or another tablet. Figuring that having a desktop computer wouldn't be that bad, she'd lived with a crappy one for a couple of years after all, she picked it. That left the tablet for Julia Furlong.
With that completed, everyone else who was getting a box lined up to grab one and bring them back to their seats, leaving a single box behind. Dragon looked at it, then out at the audience. "Is Roni Lossing here?"
"She got hit by an idiot on a bicycle at dinner," someone called. "Can you just have them drop it off in her hotel room? She stayed here."
Dragon nodded. "I can do that, thank you for informing us. Those that are getting the Dragon-tech products will get a customization survey by tomorrow morning, please ensure you fill them out promptly. With that said, I declare the convention over, and the traditional post-convention open bar will begin in half an hour."
That led to some cheering, but it didn't take much for Taylor and Amy to decide to skip that aspect of things. They'd already gotten drunk once on this trip, after all.
Paul groaned as he looked over the request for Lily to go out to Las Vegas. Technically they should be going through the PRT, but Director Wilkins was on vacation, so he was taking up the parahuman requests. Sadly, the previous weekend Lily and her father had gone on a trip, business for him and vacation for her, so any attempts made by the girl would have to wait a week or two at a minimum. Assuming that the three adults were okay with her going into the area and she agreed to it, anyway. He honestly hadn't expected it to come up anytime soon when he'd suggested having her try a month or so prior.
Sighing as something occurred to him, he checked and found the threat from Lily's surrogate mother, threatening to report Lily as having been abducted. Wilkins complained about this happening on a regular basis, and apparently with good cause. Another check of things and he saw that Lily was, in fact, scheduled for time with her father. That she decided to not stick around New York while she was injured, and instead opted to join her father while recovering from the injuries March had inflicted did not constitute abduction. Even if Lily was originally going to be spending extra time with the woman.
He, personally, couldn't wait until Lily turned eighteen. The Youth Guard was the least of his headaches there, he was more interested in the young woman being able to make her own damned decisions, instead of having to have three adults consulted for everything. Then there was the betting pool for which last name she was going to take. Her father's, her mother's maiden name, or her surrogate mother's name. He'd put his money on 'none of the above'. Actually, if it were easily accomplished, he'd be expecting her to ditch last names entirely. She wouldn't be the first, but the judges tended to want a good reason to not want to associate with your various options.
Shaking his head to get off of that tangent, he turned his thoughts back to Las Vegas. "I wonder how hard it would be to sneak William into the area. I don't recall anyone in Las Vegas being beyond SL8, which could complicate that, but I should double-check. Come to think of it, we still need to see what happens when Lily hits Sarah, but with recent revelations I'm not sure that William will be willing to risk it. That and arranging for it to happen without elevating Lily would be a pain in the ass."
"Stop muttering high level secrets in there," Arthur called from the living room. "Keith may not be home, but you need to make it a habit to keep things quiet. Or at least make it a habit to turn on the privacy field."
Groaning, Paul flicked a finger towards the door, a bolt of light shooting out and hitting the switch next to it. A moment later the walls sparkled, the privacy field going up.
"The key finder beacon thing isn't bad," Amy said as she read the instructions. "There's an app for smartphones and it comes with a base station. It's too bad that I'm not in the habit of losing my keys."
"It's intended for keys but you don't need to use it with them," Taylor noted. "Maybe stick it on Rodney? I'm more interested in the intercom kit. I think it was a bit over-engineered. Primary base station, four remote stations, an app to tie into things, and a ten kilometer range. Why in the world would it need a ten kilometer range? Oh, wait, they can be linked to other kits for a multiple-household setup. We could actually set each of ours up and connect them, then treat it like a single system. That might explain the ten kilometer thing."
Amy put the key finder beacon box down and picked up her home intercom kit box to look over the back of it again. "I was thinking that it might be nice to have the intercom between my house and the greenhouse, but hadn't spotted the linking thing. I wonder how much a second system would cost? Getting one for the Pelhams could be nice with how often we end up calling each other now."
"No clue, but you could look it up. Then again, I'm not sure that we have enough of a use for one at home. Just me and Dad usually and all, so maybe I'll give mine to them instead. Oh, and don't forget that you might have to buy some batteries for the one in the greenhouse. Personally, the desktop is going to be annoying enough as it is, I don't do much that my tablet can't handle. Actually, my phones handle most of it, the tablet is overkill. Maybe I can find someone else that needs a computer?"
Amy thought about that for a minute. "Maybe you should check if Kurt or Lacey has a computer to do finances and such on at the pub?"
"That's not a bad idea." In fact, she started composing a message to check on that right away, before she forgot.
Monday morning Lacey got up and checked on brewing and such, finding that her second batch from Danny's basement was probably drinkable now. Barely. Maybe another day or two before she shared it out? She headed to the kitchen, deciding to think it over while eating breakfast. Which, to her annoyance, she'd have to keep simple. Or wake Kurt up to have him cook something, she supposed.
Actually, waking Kurt up sounded like a good idea. They had to go continue working on things in the pub, after all. Things were going amazingly quickly, thanks in part to the PRT helping them along, but they still needed to get things done far enough to be inspected. Not even the PRT could make that less of an issue, after all.
Every Dockworker, former or otherwise, knew that you did not fuck with the health and safety inspectors. Even attempting it would make things ten times worse.
Ten minutes later Kurt was looking through the cabinets trying to decide what to cook and Lacey was checking her messages. "Huh. Do we need a computer for the pub?"
Kurt paused, then turned to her. "I believe you were handed a crappy one that used to be Danny's, so technically no. Then again, your smartphone is at least twice as powerful as the thing, so maybe. Why do you ask?"
Lacey waved her phone lightly. "Because Taylor sent a message. Apparently she won a computer she doesn't think she'll use and was thinking we might get more use out of it in the pub. Some fancy new Dragon-tech one at that."
"That would make a number of things a lot easier. We could actually run modern financial software on it, for starters, and it'll probably use less electricity too. Are we sure she doesn't need it?"
"Maybe she won two? She didn't go into details, just mentioned that she'd won one that she didn't think she'd end up using."
"Okay then. You want eggs or pancakes?"
Danny grumbled as he grabbed his ringing phone. It took him a moment, but he hit the answer button before it went to voicemail. "Danny Hebert,"
"Good morning Mister Hebert," a familiar-sounding voice came over the line. "This is Patricia Cooper with the Youth Guard, do you have a moment?"
Rolling his eyes, Danny put the razor he was about to use down. He knew that voice sounded familiar, and a quick check showed that his phone indicated that he was securely connected to the Youth Guard. "I do, but if this is about Taylor looking over things in Las Vegas I'll confirm that I gave the PRT permission to ask her."
"Yes, we've seen the signed forms to that effect. I wanted to ensure that you were aware that people have started using explosives to attempt to gain access to the lab in question. Allowing your daughter to enter the area is risky."
"Do you honestly believe that the PRT, Protectorate, state and local police, and who knows who else won't be scouring the entire area for the next couple of weeks at a minimum?"
"There are no guarantees that they'll spot any dangers, and we just had proof that there are dangers to be worried about."
Danny was starting to see just why people thought Wards were coddled. How the hell did these people handle what happened in Brockton Bay, at Endbringer fights, so on and so forth? "By that logic I shouldn't let her get into a car, because every day there are thousands of car accidents. Nor should I let her get onto a plane or PRT transport, because those have been proven to crash every so often. Oh, and I shouldn't let her go to school, because people have been known to attack schools. And letting her sleep in her own bedroom is right out, because she was taken from it by a parahuman."
"I'll admit that there are normal day to day risks, and your daughter has had an abnormal issue or two, but I don't think those compare to allowing her to enter an area where high explosives have already been used illegally."
"I prefer to look at it as her entering a highly secured area where they're doing everything they can to ensure everyone's safety. I can't see why you're concerned about this." He heard her trying and say something, but continued right over her. "Now then, I've given my permission for them to inform her of the potential dangers and let her make the decision on whether or not to make the attempt. I am not rescinding that permission, because I trust the PRT to not bring her into the area if they feel there's an actual threat. Is there anything else you need to talk to me about?"
Patricia sighed. "No, there isn't anything else. Thank you for your time."
Taylor glared at Ackbar, who didn't seem to care that she'd been sleeping a few moments prior. It didn't help, she wasn't even sure that the spider-bot could recognize the expression. Sighing, she got out of bed, since she didn't expect to be able to get back to sleep. A thud indicated some of what had probably gotten Ackbar riled up, she figured it was likely that a transport or two had landed on the landing pad a few floors up.
It didn't take long to take care of her morning routine, after which she wandered out into the common area. The breakfast buffet was apparently still an option today, but there was a note that it wouldn't be available tomorrow. She absently wondered if they'd be around long enough to see what that area looked like when not rigged for massive amounts of people hitting it constantly for several days.
She'd been up for a little over half an hour when her Maul phone rang. The caller ID indicated that it was Director Milton. Secondarily labeled as 'Las Vegas', and was apparently a secure call, so Taylor figured that they must be the PRT director here. Sighing, she mentally prodded the answer button. "Maul here."
"Good morning Maul," the likely Director Milton said. They sounded female, and Taylor wasn't sure why she'd been expecting a male, but also tired. "I'm Director Milton, in charge of the Las Vegas area PRT. I'm sorry to bother you, but we'd like to ask for your assistance with something. Are you willing to meet with a member of the Protectorate this morning? Just so that they can explain things before you make a decision, of course."
"Is this one of the reasons our departure is being delayed?" Taylor asked after a moment of thinking about things.
"No, though I'm afraid that I was only informed that you'd likely be sticking around. I can't say if that's because I'm not cleared for it or if it's just none of my business. This is a new development."
"I suppose it won't hurt to at least hear what you'd like. Where would I be meeting the Protectorate member?"
Director Milton sighed, apparently in relief for at least getting her to agree to the first meeting. "I'll ensure that the appointment request is sent in the next few minutes. I'm thinking that one of the conference rooms hidden under the hotel will work fine. Everyone present will be cleared for both of your identities, so it's up to you if you want to costume up. Er, actually, did you even bring your costume?"
"I did, just in case. Better to have it and not need it and all."
"Prudent, I like that. I'm sure that Armsmaster will be joining the meeting, and since she's around Dragon may do so as well. If Panacea wishes to join you, she may, though I'm not sure she'll have much to do."
Taylor nodded to herself, as that did make some sense. "I'll check with her. We actually need to determine what else is keeping us here, as nobody saw fit to inform us. Armsmaster may have that information, so she may want to tag along just so that we can ask him."
"I'll fire off a message to ensure that someone lets you know, if only so that you're fully informed before agreeing to do anything else that might interfere."
"Thank you. Is there anything else you need right now, or anything else you wanted to talk to me about?"
Director Milton chuckled. "I think I'll skip trying to get you to agree to transfer over to us for today. I've had a hard enough time keeping the Protectorate capes from trying to 'accidentally' run into you to give you spiels. Luckily for me, the Wards are officially clueless. Do you have any questions for me?"
"None that I don't expect to get answers to in the meeting, thank you."
"Then I'll let you go. Hopefully you'll have a nicer day than I'm having."
Chapter 149 "So they want to talk with you about something," Amy said after putting a bowl down for Rodney. "But didn't say what at first?"
"I think they feel it would be best to bring it up in person instead of over the phone," Taylor answered. "Which makes sense. It could also be a security thing, ensuring that people can't listen in more easily and all that."
"That's a good point too. Without some severe privacy violation they probably wouldn't know when you were alone and all that."
"Want to join me and hopefully have a chance to ask why we're not heading back home yet?"
"Why not? I think my only other decent option other than doing stuff on my own is hanging out with Riley."
Taylor snorted. "Good luck with that, she and Joey left together before you even got up. I think he has to leave later today, so she wants all the time she can get with him before they're split up again."
Amy shook her head. "Figures. That just makes going with you to find out what's going on in person more appealing. You going in costume?"
"Nah. If everyone already knows my identity or is cleared for it then I don't see why I should bother. I can always come back up and change into it if whatever it is they want would warrant wearing it."
"Good point. So breakfast, then the meeting?"
"Yep."
"Good morning Miss Hebert," Colin greeted as Taylor stepped off of the elevator. "Oh, and good morning Miss Dallon. I'd like a word after the meeting, if you two would be kind enough to stay for a couple of minutes afterwards."
"Good morning Armsmaster," Taylor replied, Amy nodding. "And we have a question or two for you as well, so that won't be a problem."
"Very good. We should get going. Floret and Reknit are waiting for us."
They moved down the hall to the conference room that they'd used for Riley and Joey filling out their paperwork. This time it had no food or paperwork boxes, but did have a collection of parahumans. All of the Protectorate members were in costume, though Floret's collection of leaves both didn't leave much to the imagination and didn't look all that comfortable.
Greetings were exchanged and everyone sat down. Floret was at the head of the table with Colin and Trevor on one side. Taylor and Amy were sitting on the other side, and Dragon was still upstairs. Apparently she wasn't going to be attending after all.
"Miss Hebert," Floret said once they'd settled. "As I understand it, one of your abilities is the ability to understand technology, tinker or otherwise, at least as far as using it is concerned. Is that correct?"
"It is," Taylor agreed.
"We're hoping that you can use that ability to succeed where others, including Armsmaster and Reknit, have failed. Attempts to gain access to the tinker labs outside of town have become...is something wrong?"
Floret had obviously picked up on Taylor shivering a little in remembrance of the pit there. Amy looked at Taylor, sighed, and then turned to Floret. "We visited there a few days ago, and Taylor's claustrophobia kicked in when she tried to gain access."
There was a pause from the others in the room, before Floret apparently put two and two together. "You actually figured something out, didn't you? That lab has been the bane of every tinker and thinker that's approached it."
"None of our sensors can pick up anything of note," Colin added, Trevor nodding along. "They all start returning data that's too normal. How did you figure anything out?"
Taylor sighed. "I think it became a matter of pride for my snark. As soon as it knew that there was something more to figure out it refused to give up until it figured out what it was missing."
"Then I pushed her to actually get in once it figured things out," Amy continued. "Only I don't think either of us were expecting the pit."
There was another moment of silence, during which Taylor fidgeted because the three Protectorate members were staring at her. Finally Floret sighed. "That is very annoying. We want to deal with the place sooner rather than later now that attempts to get in have become a public safety hazard. Are you willing to try again, or is your claustrophobia too severe to bother?"
Taylor thought for a moment, before Amy suddenly went wide-eyed. "Taylor, could you direct me through that part of things? Then you wouldn't have to get in the pit at all."
"That could work," Taylor admitted. "Though it'll have to be at most one other person watching, I think. I didn't pay a lot of attention to that part of things because it was just the two of us."
Colin groaned. "That means an entire group of people looking for things would fail outright, while one to three people would be able to find something."
"And we've had a dozen or more people at a time looking," Floret grumbled, before shaking her head to clear it. She then turned back to Taylor and Amy. "So, given that, and knowing that people have been using high explosives in the area, are you willing to give it another try?"
Taylor looked at Amy, who shrugged. Apparently leaving it up to her. Sighing, Taylor turned back to Floret. "Might as well. When do you want to do this?"
"As soon as possible," Floret replied, getting up. "In fact, I'll go arrange transport now."
"She's going to be the one escorting them in," Trevor noted with a frown as Floret left. "Damn, I was hoping to see things opened."
"Sorry," Colin said, placing a hand on Trevor's shoulder. "But you got your chance already. Instead, because I'll be busy here, you get to stick around for an extra couple of days unless you want to go back alone. Wasn't there a show you wanted to see?"
"Right, right. Still annoying. And I suppose that's my hint to leave while you three have your secret meeting?"
"You aren't cleared for it," Colin noted.
Trevor sighed and got up. "Okay, I get it." A minute later he'd left, and Colin apparently sealed the door remotely.
"Now then," Colin said. "I'm told that you've been wondering what else is going on while you're here."
"We do want an answer to that," Amy admitted, Taylor nodding in agreement.
"Long story short, we'd like you to run through the first set of tinker fugues for people. Probably starting tomorrow morning unless something else comes up today, the explosions have screwed up the schedule somewhat. Originally we wanted to start this afternoon, once the majority of the conference attendees had left."
"How many of them scheduled themselves for an extra couple of days to look at the lab?" Taylor asked.
Colin opened his mouth, then paused, before sighing. "I have no idea. Probably a number of them. We still want to get several fugues taken care of, and you two did agree to run through those who completed the application process. I'll get a schedule to all three of you by the end of the day."
"Okay," Taylor said. "Do you think I should bother getting into costume for the trip over to make an attempt on the labs?"
"I don't think that will be necessary."
Emily sighed as she read over the draft of the second press release that was going to be sent out in the morning. They were both for national release, and she'd been sent a copy out of courtesy. At least she knew who the hell was running around in her city now. That all four escapees had legal representation and weren't using their abilities for villainous behavior meant that there would be trials, potentially very public trials, for all four.
"Did they have to include lists of the things that have changed in their cases?" she finally asked.
"It's a show that there isn't going to be any attempts to railroad them," Hannah replied. "I do wish that Marquis had been willing to spar a little though."
Emily nodded, then paused after processing that. She very slowly turned to look at Hannah, who merely raised an eyebrow. That just caused her to narrow her own eyes into a glare. "How long have you known that Marquis was in the area?"
"Long enough. Mister Hebert put in a request for a safe way for his houseguest to use his powers while waiting for Miss Hebert to return from Las Vegas. I'm under the impression that New Wave brought their houseguest along for their scheduled bout with Lung while they wait for Miss Dallon's return."
"You are way too calm about the fact that two Birdcage escapees are running around."
"Finding out that the Slaughterhouse Nine are actually on our side has changed how I look at villains that aren't currently trying to cause me significant harm."
Emily snorted. "Wait until you read the other press release."
Hannah blinked. "There's more than the one about the escapees?"
"Of course. The whining that our couple of Wards being promoted was so low-key should be very completely forgotten as a result."
Taylor sighed as they arrived at the tinkers' labs. She and Amy were in the back of the van with Floret, and had been assured that the area was secure. Further, the cover story was apparently that Taylor might be able to figure things out through insights stemming from her parahuman psychologist mastery. Assuming anyone even knew she was there.
"Let's get this over with," Floret said, opening up the back of the van so they could get out. Once they were out she started towards the warehouse.
"Where are you going?" Taylor asked, which brought Floret up short.
Floret turned around. "To the lab?"
"That one's, er, Vault's lab?" Taylor looked at Amy.
"Yeah, that one's Vault's. Taylor was making progress into getting access to Fortifier's lab across the street."
Floret stared at them for a moment, then facepalmed. "Their wills say that they're each leaving their own lab to the other, and the properties were in two different names. I hate the effect Fortifier's tech has on thinkers. At least I can truthfully claim that I thought they just had sections of Vault's lab for their own work."
"Shall we?" Taylor asked, gesturing to the visitor center.
Floret nodded, and the three made their way inside. The door hadn't been locked, so that wasn't an issue. Amy led the way down to outside of the restrooms, where Taylor took a couple of deep breaths.
Before the two could begin, Floret pulled out her phone. "Any chance you can explain, verbally, what you're doing?"
"That shouldn't be a problem," Taylor agreed. "Amy, stand over there next to where the pit appeared before." Amy did so, and Taylor turned to the timeline as Floret started recording. "First we hold these two dots, bested nemesis and foiled robbery, which unlocks the hidden switch below." She did so, then moved down the timeline. "That unlocks this switch under their combined efforts foiling a robbery, which we then push on."
"Now Amy grabs the moulding between the restrooms and spins it ninety degrees, either direction, before pulling lightly on it." Amy did so, the wall lifting up to reveal the levers. "Pull down the first and eighth levers, then push in the eleventh." Amy did so, and Taylor nodded. "Now lift the first and pull down the fourth before releasing the eleventh."
The panel shifted backwards again, and Taylor specifically did not focus on the pit as she gave Amy instructions. "Drop down into the pit there. You should find two cranks in small alcoves, one to the left and one to right. Turn the left crank a full turn clockwise four times, then counterclockwise twice." She waited for Amy to finish that. "Good, now turn the right crank counterclockwise once." Amy did so, and the floor of the pit appeared to lift up as the room shook a little. In reality the room itself had just dropped, which would be obvious if they went up the stairs that now led to a solid wall.
"Luckily if you get that part wrong and it detects you in there it really does lift you out first," Taylor noted as she walked over to the stairs. She reached down and pulled up on the bottom step to reveal three handles. "Now I'm going to lift the left handle under the bottom step here, then the right. Push the left down, then pull up on the center." As soon as she was done the stairs lifted up on a hinge. "And lastly, pull on the red 'cancel' button under the stairs."
When she did the last step an alarm sounded. The wall that didn't have the timeline, stairs, or restrooms on it had a section lift up, revealing a door. "And now we're in."
"After you," Floret said. "Since without you we wouldn't have gotten this far." Amy nodded with a grin, and Taylor sighed. "By the way, how many of those steps were encoded in their wills?"
"Half of them are described here in the visitor center," Taylor replied. "The decorative wood pieces are identical to the hidden catches described in the early examples room, the two cranks are the solution to one of the puzzles upstairs. The levers and to follow the timeline in order were hidden in the wills, or at least the thinkers seemed to find things that looked like that. Pulling on the button was in Vault's will, but that you needed the cancel button was in Fortifier's."
Floret growled. "I repeat: I hate the effect Fortifier's tech has on thinkers."
Taylor shrugged and opened the door, the other two following her in, the area obviously being a work area of some kind. Lots of stuff laid out on the tables, most of it incomplete and thus not registering as anything useful to Taylor's tinker snark. As soon as the door shut behind Floret, who'd taken up the rear, they heard a click and rumbling.
"That would be the room returning to the original position," Taylor noted. "I think there are much easier ways in and out now that we're in here."
"Like what?" Amy asked, looking around.
"I'm going to assume that the OSHA-compliant exit signs would be a good place to start," Floret said, pointing at one of them.
Taylor ignored her, frowning. Something felt off, and she wasn't sure what it was. She looked around while wandering the immediate area. Whatever it was, she was also looking for signs of one of the keys needed for Vault's lab. She moved through to the next room, Amy opting to follow her while Floret examined the computer terminal in the work area.
They found themselves in a very clean bedroom, the bed not even having sheets on the mattress. There was a wardrobe that was empty when opened, apparently the room hadn't been used for a while. Shrugging, Taylor checked all of the drawers in the dresser, finding them all empty as well, while Amy got the idea and checked the under-bed drawers.
"All I found are the sheets that aren't on the bed," Amy said after a minute.
"Okay, guess we move on," Taylor replied, heading back into the work area. Floret was grumbling under her breath about passwords at the computer terminal. Frowning, Taylor wasn't actually sure what the password would be. Her tinker snark only went so far, after all. Instead she moved down the wall to the next door, which was quickly revealed to be a small bathroom. Toilet, sink, shower. In dire need of cleaning, unlike the bedroom. Amy started checking in there, and Taylor left her to it.
Instead, Taylor moved towards the stairs, figuring that she could check for things upstairs. She paused before heading up, finally noticing what had been bothering her. She backed up, moved side to side, and then turned to Floret. "Why are the cameras following me?"
"What?" Floret asked, turning away from the computer terminal. She then looked up at the cameras, and saw that they were all pointing at Taylor. "That's weird. Just you, none are paying attention to me at all. Walk around the room once?" Taylor did so, and Floret watched the cameras move. "Come over to the terminal and hit login, would you?"
Shrugging, Taylor moved over to the terminal, focusing her tinker snark on it for a moment. It had an interesting array of sensors for security. "Username administrator, no password box?"
"That's what's bugging me. Just hit login."
Taylor shrugged again and tapped the login button on the touchscreen, ignoring the mouse with disconnected buttons. She heard Floret groan at that too. A moment later the screen flashed brightly, all of the scanners washing over Taylor's form, before things returned to normal.
"Crap," Floret moaned. "Did the thing die? Please tell me it was just the monitor?"
"What are you talking about?" Taylor asked. "It's saying biometric registration complete. Oh, wait, the anti-thinker and tinker field mode-shifted, I think it's locking out anyone not registered, and your senses are probably being affected?"
"That would figure. Have I mentioned that I hate this stuff?"
"You've mentioned it a number of times," Amy replied from behind them. "Have we found any keys yet?"
"Looks like there's a map in here," Taylor said, manipulating the terminal. She looked over the map, then looked around the room. "Nevermind, I don't think this is a map of this lab after all. Let's check upstairs."
Floret led the way up the stairs, where they found one of the Vault-lab shields blocking an opening. Looked just like the ones in the warehouse, complete with the prop key receptacle. The other side looked like a hallway, which Taylor suspected would lead across the street. The walls coming away from there held two doors, and looping around behind them there was a third door, that one with an Exit sign. The stairs were bordered by more of a short wall than a railing.
"Well that's even more annoying," Floret said. "Dead end for getting across the street and a single exit door."
"What?" Taylor asked, looking at the two closed doors to either side of them, before pointing at them. "There are two more rooms here."
Floret and Amy looked at Taylor, then at where Taylor was pointing. Amy moved over to one of them and ran her hand against the wall, stopping when she hit the door frame. "Oh that's clever, a disguise field of some kind? Keyed to Taylor now, probably." She found the doorknob, but the door wouldn't open. "Too bad it's locked."
Taylor walked over to it. As soon as she reached for the handle there was a click that Floret obviously heard. The door opened, and from Amy's reaction they could now see it. Shaking her head, Taylor walked into the room. "I wonder if that trick works on non-parahumans."
"Probably," Floret said. "I think a couple of the casinos use that one to hide secure break rooms."
This room was obviously a storage room, full of shelves that were packed to the brim. Taylor had to stop focusing on things because her tinker snark was telling her too much now. This was obviously where completed stuff ended up. She wandered around anyway, still looking for keys. There was another computer terminal in here, tied to the same system. Probably for inventory purposes.
Floret was taking pictures of the shelves, and Amy had a slightly glazed look in her eyes.
Taylor: No tinkering with the stuff we barely know anything about. And that legally probably isn't ours.
Amy: Wha? Oh, right. Sorry. But I think you're getting the legal rights.
Taylor: Not if I can help it.
Moving on, Taylor headed back out of the room to the other disguised door. That one also clicked open when she reached for the handle. This time she found what appeared to be a records room, full of filing cabinets. A quick check showed that each had paperwork for a different casino or other business, but that was about it. Still no keys.
In the back corner of the room was another terminal, this one with an off the shelf printer and copier attached. It also had what her tinker snark was calling a 'key programmer', but there wasn't even a collection of blank keys to be programmed.
Grumbling, she left that room, not closing the door so that the disguise field would stay down, and moved towards the exit door. She thought this was actually an exit, but double-checking seemed prudent. As she approached it there was a beep, and she stopped. Turning, she saw what she'd thought had been a decorative panel open up next to the door. Stepping back caused the panel to close. Stepping forward and it opened. Sighing, she walked up to it, finding that it had five sets of keys. Each set included one that her tinker snark informed her was, in fact, a remote control.
It went through three iterations of obviously wrong things first, but that didn't take long.
She took the only key ring from the panel that seemed to have a note attached. A quick glance told her that it was a congratulations for gaining access and that she'd have to figure out how to use the key making equipment stored in Vault's lab if she wanted to make more sets. Sighing, she collected the other four sets of keys, then walked over to the storage room. "I found keys," she yelled into the room, but didn't wait for a response. Amy had started her way anyway, but she continued on.
She made it to the protective shield blocking the likely hallway and stuck her pinky in the 'key'. There was a flash and the shield vanished, revealing the expected hallway. Focusing on the control box with the 'open/close' switch on it for manual exit that her tinker snark was now willing to admit actually existed caused her tinker snark to go through twelve levels of false readings before it settled and was satisfied.
"Your headache is giving me a headache," Amy commented. "What the hell?"
"They went overboard with the protections in there," Taylor replied, waving at the open lab.
"Oh."
"But I bet you can figure out what's going on when I step over the border," Taylor continued, then stepped across. Amy's eyes went wide. "Figure out what's going on?"
"The entire thing is just barely zornward," Amy answered. "The shield is the portal that shifts you being closed, isn't it?"
"Yep. It's just barely not there, but still here enough to take up space. The remotes actually connect to relay equipment that triangulates their location to determine which portal to open, and if power fails the 'hold the lab zornward' field would collapse. Then all the shields would appear to shut down, but it's more that the entire lab would shift back into sync with the rest of the planet."
"So does that mean we can be done?"
"I'm hoping so," Taylor said, walking back over to Floret and holding out all the key sets. She frowned when Floret only took one of them.
"Don't frown at me," Floret replied. "You're the one this lab has registered in the security system."
"Both systems actually," Taylor admitted. "They're linked, but I couldn't traverse the link between the two systems to examine Vault's side of things because they are technically different systems. Fiber optic connection, even, and I only knew where one end was at first."
"We should go get everything registered to you and set up the recording of a Protectorate member using the key," Floret said, trying the remote in the prop and finding that it did, in fact, 'close' the 'shield'.
Taylor pouted. "Can't I just add you to the admins list and wash my hand of the whole mess?"
"I want nothing to do with this fucking technology," Floret replied with a glare. "You're going to have to find someone else to take ownership if you don't want it."
"Not it," Amy said before Taylor could turn to her. Taylor did so anyway, eyebrow raised. "I'm enough of a target for my healing capabilities. Find someone else."
Grumbling, Taylor stormed towards the exit. Which it turned out led to the 'fireplace' in what was probably the break room. She was firing a request off while she did so.
"I still can't believe you just handed everything over to Dragon," Floret said as they were arriving back at the hotel. "I'd have at least asked for some shares in Dragon-tech."
"Don't want or need any of those right now," Taylor stated. "Besides, my skills in things aren't in the areas needed to take advantage of the labs."
"You seemed to do just fine getting in, and were able to get Dragon keyed in quickly enough."
"And that's about where my limits are. I can figure out, usually, how to use the stuff. I can repair it and keep it maintained. I can't build more or reverse-engineer any of it. Besides, having Dragon entering and exiting was probably a more impressive sign that it's too late for anyone else to bother."
Floret shook her head. "I still think it's crazy. Didn't you at least want to explore Vault's lab? Now you'll need to get Dragon's permission if you want to."
Taylor opted not to mention that she still had a set of keys in one of her pouches, and was still registered as an administrator in the security systems. Dragon hadn't been willing to be the only one who could get in, after all. But not having people know that Taylor could get in was probably good enough. Amy had made a good point when she'd declined, after all.
Thinking of Amy, Taylor turned to look at the other girl. Who was just watching the byplay with a smirk on her face. "Having fun?"
"Yep," Amy answered.
Ten minutes later Floret had left with the van, while Taylor and Amy were trying to decide what to do about lunch.
Danny sighed as his phone rang. Putting down the paperwork he was going through, most of it being more tedious than anything else today, he looked at the phone before tapping his ear to answer it. "Hello Dragon."
"Hello Mister Hebert," Dragon's synthesised voice came over the line. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine. What do I owe the pleasure of you calling me while I'm at work?"
"I volunteered to inform you about Taylor transferring property to me. Specifically, two adjacent tinker labs and the land they sit on just outside of Las Vegas."
Danny had to think that over several times before he could respond. "So, I'm guessing that she succeeded. Good to know. But she didn't want to keep it?"
"As things were explained to me, her first attempt a few days ago was just to shut Miss Dallon up, but was aborted before access was accomplished. It turns out that the system saw her doing most of the unlocking and decided that she'd fulfilled the clauses in the last wills and testaments, even if she wasn't alone, and granted her admin access. The Protectorate representative registered that on her behalf, but then Taylor accidentally took advantage of a legal loophole regarding tinker work areas in the process of transferring the labs to Dragon-tech. Due to transferring things to a registered tinker business within three days the tax and other burdens now fall on the business instead of her."
"Shouldn't I have had to sign off on this? It sounds like it would fall under a number of the approval rules while she's still a minor and all."
"Except that she also accidentally took advantage of a loophole there, by transferring ownership to a company that she's a significant shareholder of. It doesn't hurt that with your permission I've actually got her down as an employee, so legally she basically made it out as having claimed the labs on behalf of Dragon-tech, instead of for herself. The PRT sees it differently, hence this call to inform you of the transfer."
Danny shook his head, made easy by the fact he was using the earpiece. "I don't suppose you know how much the labs are theoretically worth? Because I'm thinking it isn't a small sum."
"Probably at least a billion dollars for a villain. One of them still contains biometric override keys for the primary safes and security systems of pretty much every large casino in Nevada. The suspicion that those keys existed was one of the reasons people were stepping up their attempts to get in."
"That sounds like a potential security nightmare."
"I'm already preparing to relocate them to a location that I actually understand the protections of, before I even consider starting to examine the contents of things. Though that does lead to the other reason I volunteered to call, would you have any problem with Taylor having a 'side job' of helping to maintain the systems installed in Las Vegas? So far she's the only one we think might even be able to if there are issues."
"So long as she agrees and is paid a reasonable sum for the work. Oh, and I'd prefer that her schooling not be impacted by the work."
"Maintenance cycles are rare and most of them have been due to attempted break-ins, which as far as I'm aware tapered off to basically nothing years ago. The next category would be intentional sabotage, which is rare with the amount of vetting the casinos put their employees through these days. So I doubt much, if any, work on that front will be coming up anytime soon."
Danny laughed at that. "The tinkers who maintained the systems are dead and everyone knows it. I'm going to expect a lot more attempts over the coming months, personally, once people think that things have sat long enough to be vulnerable."
"With any luck that won't happen with people assuming that I've taken maintenance over, but you make a good point."
Chapter 150 Taylor and Amy were coming up from parking their mopeds, having tried a nominally fancy restaurant nearby that only had a dress code for dinner. The food was ok, probably great for others but not to their personal tastes. They'd then aborted their plan to maybe go see a show when Riley had asked them to come back to the hotel for something. Of course, the first two choices for said show had been sold out already, and they couldn't decide which one should be the next to check, so it wasn't exactly a big deal.
"What do you think she wants?" Amy asked as they stepped off of the elevator.
"No clue," Taylor admitted. "I don't think we've gotten any scheduling messages yet, after all."
It wasn't long before Riley had dragged them into her suite, where she'd apparently been waiting with Joey. Who looked amused at Riley's antics as he finished off what was likely his drink from lunch.
Amy rolled her eyes and pushed Riley towards Joey. "So what did you want to talk to us about?"
Riley caught herself before reaching Joey, then spun around, bouncing lightly. "Can we give Joey some upgrades?"
Joey snorted as he put the cup down. "And before you ask, yes, we checked with my parents. And Riley's mother, the PRT, and Dragon. I'm under the impression that Dragon then double-checked with everyone else before reaffirming the 'only if the other two agree' that we got from the PRT. She said my file in the PRT system should have the appropriate updates."
"I don't think we'll be able to give him everything," Riley continued. "Changer issues and all, but I don't think the Bluetooth stuff and some minor improvements to healing and such will be a problem."
Taylor sighed and checked the system, finding that it did have the updates to Joey's file. Not to mention a note that Riley had accidentally spilled several of Taylor and Amy's secrets, but Joey had signed the appropriate NDAs for those too. Further, telling Riley no would either be punishing Joey by not getting him the upgrades, or punishing Joey by having Riley install one of her substandard versions.
Taylor: All the documentation checks out, including Joey having signed the NDAs for knowing our secrets.
Amy: Crap, I hadn't even considered that side of things.
Taylor: I only thought of it when I saw the notations in his file.
Amy: I guess it wouldn't hurt to do one more than they were expecting us to. Unless you have an objection?
Taylor: No objections here.
"I suppose we can do that," Taylor said aloud. "But have you ensured that the lab is ready for us?"
"We did that while you two were at lunch," Joey answered. "There's a box with your name on it down there too, on top of what Riley thinks is enough parts for fifty people. She seemed surprised about that."
"Please tell me they aren't planning on us working on fifty people before we get to go home," Amy moaned.
Taylor nodded at that. "I'm hoping it's a lot less than that."
Riley looked confused for a moment, before her eyes went wide. "That's why I'm not going home right away! I feel like an idiot for not realizing it when I saw all the stuff down there."
"Let's go get this taken care of," Amy said, gesturing to the door. "The sooner we're done the better, right? Joey might need time to recover, after all."
"I only agreed to it because you two would be involved," Joey admitted as he headed for the door. "Regardless of everything else, knowing that Bonesaw is the only surgeon working on you still kills my enthusiasm for things."
Taylor took up the rear as they walked back to the elevators. "Think we can pull it off without going full fugue this time?"
Riley shrugged. "We can try, but I doubt it. The Bluetooth stuff alone probably needs the fugue interactions to get right."
Benjamin looked around the pub that the Pender couple was working to get ready to open. It had an interesting developing aesthetic, what with the various tinkertech bits and pieces mounted in various places. They came in at least two variants, one set connected to a pipe system with a fairly consistent appearance, and then the rest that were obviously electrical in nature with varied appearances. He suspected that the latter category had been purchased instead of made in-house. The former category was, quite obviously, Kurt's work. Especially since the man was currently working on additional pieces of it.
"So what are you working on there?" Benjamin finally asked.
"Air filter system," Kurt replied. "With a few extra surprises just in case."
"In case of what?"
Kurt just grinned, and Benjamin was reminded that the building could also be considered the other man's workshop. Perhaps he'd sleep better if he didn't know. Or at least, if he came by as a customer later he'd be more able to ignore the possibilities.
A moment later Lacey returned from where she'd gone to check things in the back after they'd arrived. She was oddly protective of the space and hadn't invited him back there. She was, however, carrying three bottles, which she set on the bar. Which was a work in progress right now, granted. "So, Ben, what do you think so far?"
"It doesn't look like you're going for any particular theme right now," Benjamin admitted as he walked over to the woman. "When you said you were opening a pub I imagined more of an attempt at making it look British, though I suppose that could be bias on my part."
"More of a brewpub than a normal pub, since I'm brewing out back and all, or else we'd probably have called it a bar or tavern. We're still planning on a couple of staples, like a dartboard, but also a couple of more modern entertainment options. Of course, we aren't putting the dartboard where the previous one was, no need to have people throwing darts near the restroom doors."
"That does sound like a horrible idea."
"Kurt thought that some more family-friendly options might not be a bad idea, but I don't see the point right now. We aren't in the best neighborhood, nor does anyone actually live near here to speak of. Most of the clientele are likely to be workers coming off of jobs for a bit, so working out options for kids doesn't make a lot of sense yet. Instead I've been planning things around people blowing off steam after a stressful day on the job."
Benjamin nodded. "That makes sense, though if your drinks remain at the same level as those that Daniel had available then I think people may be willing to make the trip despite the poor neighborhood."
"Which is my argument," Kurt said as he came up behind Benjamin. "I want to spread a few games that could be enjoyed by kids around the place, and avoid anything that would be too 'adult', so that we're ready if that happens.
Benjamin smirked. "If your reputation is good enough then others will buy up the properties around you to expand into a bit of an 'entertainment district', if only to try and mooch off of the traffic in and out of here."
Lacey looked between the two of them, before sighing. "And if I ask Taylor and Amy they'll probably agree with the two of you. Damn."
Benjamin looked between the Penders, tilting his head in confusion. "Taylor and Amy?"
"They're part owners for legal reasons," Kurt explained. Which, to be honest, didn't explain enough for Benjamin's taste. But it was obvious that the two weren't about tell him more.
"Now then," Lacey said, grabbing two of the bottles she'd brought out. "Time to distract you both with good drinks. These should be ready now, first drinkable samples from my second-ever batch."
Dragon paused in her examinations of the notes the two deceased tinkers had left behind when an alert fired off from the lesser AI that she'd left monitoring the hotel. Mother had just put one of the elevators into 'private' mode and negated several of the safety interlocks, resulting in it running at a higher speed than normal. Shifting her focus to remotely monitoring things more directly, she found that the four were apparently still in their fugue. But, for reasons unknown to her, Mother was collecting things from all of their rooms. Miss Dallon was still down in the lab with the other two, working.
Over the course of the next couple of hours it became obvious that all four were getting some additions and modifications, which hadn't been in any plans. Only a couple of those additions were easily identified, but it meant that all of their records were going to need to be updated. Most likely after they were able to be questioned, no need to put things in that were based on assumptions instead of facts after all.
Hopefully this impromptu work wouldn't delay their other projects, and at least Mother had cleaned up after herself by returning the elevator to normal before getting back into things. Also, hopefully the think tank wouldn't find out that this happened while within the range of the running scout drone based sensors, and thus was being recorded a lot more thoroughly than usual.
Garnet grumbled as she slowly went through paperwork. One of the best things about the Birdcage was that there was no paperwork. She'd gone unable to be truly angry at people for several years in the Birdcage when she'd first realized that there was no paperwork down there.
She'd messily killed the idiot who'd ruined that particular good mood, but he'd been marked for death from the moment he'd forced himself on one of the girls in her block anyway. Everyone else assumed she was just making an example of him in the end, so it was all good.
For now, though, she had to sort through all this crap in order to ensure that she knew what they were fighting and what they were accepting in the way of the various charges that had originally had her sent to the Birdcage in the first place. On that front she envied Ben, she'd already determined that his case was a lot more straightforward, if only because he didn't have to disassociate his own crimes from those of his lieutenants that weren't being entirely truthful with him.
She was distracted from things by Vicky entering the room, carrying a book. "Hey there, I got you a book from the library."
Garnet thought about that for a moment, but as far as she could recall hadn't requested anything. "Why?"
"It covers some of the things that have gone down in parahuman psychology in the past five to eight years, minus Taylor's upheavals in the parahuman and powers interaction area anyway. Knowing what's changed in how they handle some things can only help, right?"
"That isn't a bad idea, thank you. Not sure when I'll have time to read it, with all this crap to go through. And this is only the summary. But I've been told that they're likely to fast-track me through the system, if only to prove to the public that they're doing things and all, so..."
Vicky shrugged. "At least you can truthfully claim that Glaistig Uaine sent you out of the prison under false pretenses?"
Garnet snorted at that. "Not that the false pretenses were a good argument for a prison break in the first place. Kara, maybe, but probably not the rest of us. Best case scenario is that we were the distraction so that Kara could work in peace."
"And yet because of it you get another chance at the legal system and may be able to argue time served and all. Finding the 'underlying motivations' and 'suitable outlets' for captured parahumans has become more important than imprisonment ever since the first papers on powers pushing people to do things came out, after all."
"There's a couple of notes about that hidden in here somewhere. I assume that book covers more of it?"
"I used it for a paper back in the fall. It's one of the better ones, even if it's probably technically out of date now. Oh, and don't be surprised when you see that there are twelve different names for the phenomena, none of the experts want to agree on what to call it."
Amanda paused in eating when she heard her phone notify her of a new message. Sighing, she got up and walked into the living room to collect her phone from the coffee table. She unlocked the phone on the way back to the kitchen and was reading the message as she sat down. Oh, good, Riley had convinced the others to work on Joey. With any luck they'd at least get him able to interact with his phone like Riley could, which would only help his cover with Toybox.
Unfortunately, she and Mary both agreed that the 'full package' was unlikely to be possible, what with how Joey frequently ran around looking much younger than he actually was. The physical changes needed there would likely prevent a lot of things from working on the enhancement front. John disagreed with them, though, thinking that they could probably find a way to make things work with Joey's changing, since it was limited and all. It would be interesting to see who won out there.
Grinning, she decided to call over to the Horsfall household. Had to gossip about some things, after all. Not to mention get at least one of their opinions on the question Dragon had posed. Hmmm, she'd probably end up getting John if she called the house itself. Mary and Ashley were going to go shopping today, weren't they? She'd turned down an offer to join them, not wanting to deal with Ashley trying to get into acting like a proper toddler as they prepared for her to evaluate a daycare.
Rebecca frowned as she worked her way through paperwork. Yes, Miss Hebert had solved a number of problems, and Dragon entering and exiting the tinker lab on the news had resulted in a number of tinkers complaining that it wasn't fair that she'd figured it out already. Most of them were villains, though, so screw them. They probably wouldn't have done anything good with the contents anyway, unlike the AI that was likely to at a minimum keep the backdoor keys safe.
Unfortunately, the claiming of the labs had also created a paperwork nightmare. By law she'd handed things over to Dragon-tech fast enough to not have to worry about a number of things, but various people in the PRT were making up for it with their own whining. They thought that because the PRT had asked her to make the attempt in the first place that she shouldn't have been able to claim ownership at all. Or because she was a Ward, in some cases. Nevermind that their own rules said that a tinker claiming that kind of thing was permitted in general, except that most of the whiners weren't actually permitted to know that Miss Hebert was a tinker.
Luckily there was a very simple solution to all of the whining and complaining. It didn't matter that the PRT had asked her to claim the labs. Nor did it matter that she'd figured out how to days before. The real secret to shutting everyone up was ensuring that it was properly recorded that she'd done so on her own time. They weren't paying her for making the attempt. She was still officially on vacation, no matter who was paying for the trip. So long as they didn't pay her for the day they didn't have any way to legally claim the lab just because she was on the PRT payroll.
It was too bad that logic didn't stop dozens of complaints from having reached her already. And she hadn't even started on the idiotic requests from groups like the Elite.
Carol frowned as she read the message she'd just gotten. She didn't know what the girls were up to this time, but a little more warning would be appreciated. There wasn't much to be done right now, because interrupting tinkers during a fugue was almost always a bad idea. At least so long as they'd already started, anyway. Interrupting someone who obviously intended to forcibly fugue on someone else before they got going was very much encouraged.
She snorted as she recalled several times that kind of interruption had happened in Brockton Bay alone. This was followed by a bout of shivering, because they'd gone years not realizing that Amy had the potential to go into a fugue in the first place. They'd been incredibly lucky there. Come to think of it, she should probably send an apology to Miss Genetti for the screaming match a few years back after the Youth Guard forced them to let Amy visit the hospital despite her own injuries. In hindsight that had probably prevented horrible, horrible things from happening.
Making note to do that, she went back to the message. No significant details were available for what they were doing to themselves this time, but the question at the end amused her. She'd double-check with Mark before answering, especially as he was probably waiting to double-check with her as well. In fact, she had a few minutes and might as well give him a call before she got working on the next case review.
Paul sighed as he looked over requests made to the Protectorate asking for assistance in getting an injunction against Dragon-tech. Specifically, one to allow independent tinkers access to the labs of the deceased tinkers, though none of them had actually used the plural. Most of these were probably duplicates of things sent to the PRT as well, but the duplicates would fall on Rebecca's plate. Each cell of the Elite with at least one tinker had made a request, as had four other independent tinker groups. Sixteen 'independents' that were classified as villains by the PRT and Protectorate had also made requests.
It was obvious that the Elite had basically built a form letter for this kind of thing, and several of the independents were obviously working together. But it was just as obvious that most of the others were operating on their own, using very different arguments and wording. None of it worked from a legal standpoint, of course, and short of strong-arming a judge it would never happen. Even then Dragon would probably shrug and tell them that if they could open the door they could take a look, fully secure that if actually challenged she'd win in court in a heartbeat.
He was really hoping that the next day's news would be enough of a distraction to shut most of these people up. It was doubtful that would work, given the amount of money some people might feel they could make with access to the labs, but he was still hoping.
Danny sighed as he read over the message he'd just gotten. Taylor had gone into a fugue, which was fine, even if it had been an unscheduled one. She did that sometimes, it wasn't a big deal at this point. The issue was that said fugue had ended up with her and Amy being worked on, which hadn't been expected and was more annoying. Actually, reading the message again, at the time Dragon sent the message they were still working.
He wondered what changes his daughter was going to have gone through by the time she returned from her trip. So far the most significant visible change from these things had been the lack of a need for glasses, but that had to be luck, right? At some point she'd end up with something weird, statistically speaking. Either that or people were going to have to start assuming that she had the devil's luck when it came to being fugued on.
Damn, he couldn't even use this an excuse to get drunk tonight, because then he might spill things to Ben. Why did Taylor have to pick now of all times to get parahuman-assisted significant body modifications?
On the other hand, Dragon's question at the end had him smirking.
Colin finished helping Trevor pack his purchases into the transport, having found himself with little else to do for the day. It was actually quite nice, overall, having ready-made excuses for sending the other tinker on ahead of him. The largest of which had even been amazingly cheap, just bulky and took up too much of the transport. Even then it had been more luck than anything when the tinker who'd brought it had a vehicle failure and it had ended up damaged.
"I can't believe that the girl agreed that it was better for me to take it and fix it than for her to scrap it," Trevor said after they'd finished strapping things down. "And she barely wanted anything for it."
"You did save her a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars in vehicle repair," Colin noted. "For two hours of your time and probably fifty dollars in raw materials. From that point of view you could say you spent two and a half thousand dollars on this. But are you certain you can get it working again?"
"It'll be fine. Probably half a day of work, and then I'll have the ability to store a hundred meals, frozen in time at the perfect point to be consumed. Fresh, home-cooked food obtained when I can get it and then available whenever I want is worth the effort. And I don't even have to build it from scratch. I just have to make sure I clean it before I start using it for food."
Colin paused, because that sounded a bit odd. "Why would you need to clean it if it freezes the food in time?"
"Because yesterday she was using it to demonstrate storing biohazards in a way that wouldn't allow for accidental release. I'm not crazy enough to eat any food from it until I ensure that it's food-safe again, even if they were relatively benign biohazards and I'm not aware of anything having actually contaminated it."
"Ah, yes. That would be prudent." And now he was noting it as a possible concern for when the transport arrived at the Rig tomorrow morning. He should probably ensure that the hotel staff were aware of it as well, for that matter, if only as a precaution. No matter how 'relatively benign' things had been. Hopefully that wouldn't cause issues with getting things taken care of over the next few days.
Hannah grumbled as she limped into the PRT van. Somehow she'd gotten caught in the middle of a battle with what seemed to have amounted to every single parahuman-led group in the city. None of the leadership that she was aware of, but lots of combatants. Oni Lee and whatever the woman who Lung had picked up was calling herself had apparently started fighting Stormtiger, then Hookwolf got involved. Grunts from both groups were keeping each other busy, and she'd come in then. Of course, just after she'd arrived the Elite had come in from the other direction, and she wasn't sure how many parahumans they'd brought with them. By the time Ethan and Erin had shown up they had to worry more about getting civilians out of the way than actually participating.
Half an hour into that clusterfuck the battle had apparently gotten too close to the area Accord had claimed, resulting in his Ambassadors getting into the mix as well. Luckily they were more focused on keeping the battle from continuing to move in that direction and helping get people out of the way. They'd bailed from things once they'd directed the whole thing back towards the Empire's territory, of course. Accord had no love for the other groups, after all. Brian and Carlos had been able to join in around then. Carlos did his best to counter Stormtiger, but Brian got taken out of the fight fairly quickly courtesy of being wrapped up in a former bicycle rack.
What she couldn't figure out was what had caused the entire thing to break up a few minutes prior, just after she got pinned by a collapsing wall. One minute the battle was raging on and the next it seemed like everyone had broken off at the same time. The sudden silence had disturbed her, and Carlos had just helped her out of the rubble before going to check for others that might be trapped or unconscious.
A moment later Ethan landed next to the van. "I just let that group of grunts go."
Sighing, Hannah turned to glare at him. "Why?"
"Because they kindly told me why everyone bailed, and I figured that was worth it. There's a likely bomb in the sewer under the intersection, and I'm thinking none of them had anything to do with it if they all bailed when one of the grunts trying to slip out spotted it."
Hannah sighed, reaching down to start manipulating her phone. "Damn. We're going to have to call in Countdown. Start securing the area while I call everything in."
Ethan saluted. Sloppily. Probably intentionally sloppily, if she was being honest with herself. "Will do."
Emily groaned as she dug out the correct forms to deal with someone leaving explosives around. They didn't know where the bomb had come from, and luckily it was in an area that nobody officially lived in. Unluckily, they so far didn't know how to safely disable it without the encrypted security key, as it was apparently unusually well constructed to prevent tampering. Wasn't the best yield, but tampering was a no-go.
Vivian's report had been very thorough on that front. Crappy bomb, good protections, a couple thousand words on it all things considered. She'd denied the woman's request to build a proper version of the thing, not wanting to know how dangerous that would actually end up being.
Their best options right now were to hope that they found out who'd put the thing there and convince them to disarm it or to detonate it intentionally and hope it wasn't more powerful than expected. If they hadn't found a way to deal with it by the time Miss Hebert returned they might be able to have her take a look, see if she could see anything that Vivian had missed. Assuming that Mister Hebert and the Youth Guard were able to be convinced to let her make the attempt, anyway. Unlike in Las Vegas, this wasn't a potential explosive threat.
Of course, the only reason they hadn't detonated it yet was because they didn't know if it was a lone explosive or linked to others that they weren't aware of. That would require a lot more examination on their parts, finding at least one other explosive, or someone with a trick like Miss Hebert's that could outright tell them. It just sucked that their two best options on that front were both out of town. At least the third would be returning in the morning.
"I really need to get someone else trained up on the drones," Emily finally muttered. "Didn't bother before, because I had two Protectorate members and a Ward that knew how to run them. But I suspect that I won't be getting permission to run a city-wide sweep to look for explosives either way. Not until I have more evidence than a hunch that it isn't the only one, anyway."
Deciding that it was definitely worth the effort to do so, she dug out the forms for submitting a high priority question to the think tank. After all, she didn't have anyone she could just call to ask what the chances of there being additional explosives hidden in Brockton Bay were. That would be much too convenient. Well, that and if she did she'd probably abuse the crap out of whomever it was. She'd tell herself that she was only using them for the important questions or something, but sticking to that would probably be a problem.
She had a hard enough time not abusing Weathergirl's ability to predict the weather. That girl was at least three times more accurate than the local television station. Too bad that the girl got thinker headaches so easily, even after Miss Hebert passed on some of the healing tricks that worked so well on thinkers.
Dragon looked over the room, once again amazed at the way Mother's fugues worked. They had, when all was said and done, cleaned everything up before the fugue had ended. Mister Horsfall had a half-visor on as well. But then they'd collapsed against various things. Then again, all four of them had gone through significant surgery in the past few hours, so recovery time was to be expected. With any luck this wasn't going to be a pattern, or it would take much longer than anticipated to get through the groups coming around.
One of the good things was that all four still looked normal. They'd also all gone through the scanning equipment in the 'closet', to update the PRT's records after the work on them had been completed, so that was taken care of. They hadn't, as far as she knew, documented anything. But even though Mister Horsfall had permission to go through with things it wasn't actually 'on the books', so that was almost expected.
Still, it was probably for the best that she get them to more comfortable places to sleep, instead of on the hard floor and leaning against things. To that end she had drones standing by to place them on for the trip upstairs. Once she was done with that she didn't think that she'd need to replenish anything down here, but getting her own contributions to the 'post-fugue' gifts and bringing them down was probably a good idea. Mother had the right idea with the half-visors, but other things would be useful as well.
Chapter 151 Tuesday morning the East coast of North America got the first dose of the day's news upsets. In an unfortunately frequent move, the PRT had dropped their press releases at six in the morning on the East Coast. Far too late for the newspapers to have any hope of grabbing, even for the West Coast papers, which pissed off a lot of editors when they woke up. Sadly for them, they were used to it.
The general trend was to announce the contents of the two press releases in the order they'd been received. That is, they first informed the public that Glaistig Uaine had freed four inmates from the Birdcage and the other provided details surrounding that, including that all four already had legal representation. This was followed by basically quoting the summary of the declassified information on Marvin, South Dakota and how it ended up becoming a crater. All of them promised more information as it became available. That they were all rushing to compile the provided information into a broadcastable narrative was pretty obvious, if left unsaid in an attempt to get people to not change channels to see if someone else had beaten them to it.
Hannah ended up watching the initial news broadcasts from her hospital bed, having been kept overnight for observation on the injury to her leg. She snickered a little at their obviously rushed attempts to get the first bit of news out. The second portion, however, left her somewhat speechless. She quickly grabbed the visor she hadn't been wearing and dug out the original press release so that she could start going over things. Things that, despite her history with the PRT and Protectorate, she hadn't known. Then again, she'd not been stationed anywhere near South Dakota eight years previous.
Benjamin stared at the television as they covered other, less shocking stories. He wasn't actually paying attention anymore as he considered what he'd heard. When it came to their 'breakout', well, this particular station taking a 'what can you do when Glaistig Uaine decides to pull a stunt like this?' view instead of panicking was nice. Probably had something to do with the extra-shocking follow-up press release and that the PRT had specifically mentioned that none of the four had been attacking anyone. That and they hadn't actually admitted where any of them were, of course, so nobody knew where to panic.
The subject of Marvin was an entirely different issue, and despite having minimal details he was already suspecting that it would help his own case. After all, the entire thing had apparently started with an attack on a villain's home while their children were present, and had 'changed the way congress had been evaluating the PRT' or something like that. The summary hadn't been all that clear.
One thing was fairly clear to him, at least. His early morning meeting with the lawyer was probably going to go in a different direction than they'd originally planned.
It was approaching five in the morning when Taylor woke with an impending severe need to visit the toilet. That wouldn't be a problem, except that Amy was latched onto her and still sound asleep. Still half asleep herself, it took her a couple of minutes to figure out how to free herself. Somehow her efforts didn't wake Amy up, despite using Shaper on the other girl to get her to relax her arms.
Fifteen minutes later Taylor was staring at her bed, wondering why the hell Amy had been in it to begin with. Neither of them had changed out of their clothing the day before either, so it seemed, though their utility belts and visors had been removed for them. It took a couple of minutes to decide that it could wait until she was more awake, after which she decided that a shower was probably a good idea. It would help wake her up, at least.
Joey groaned slightly as he was jolted awake. He was having trouble moving, and wondered if that was a side effect of...what were they doing, again? And why did he know that it was about five thirty? Oh, and his father had sent him a text message, reminding him to keep them apprised of his progress getting home, which might have been what woke him up. He spent a minute on that, only realizing that he was doing so in his head after he'd already replied. That revelation was enough to get his adrenaline flowing, dragging him out of his half-asleep state.
It didn't take long to determine that he was having trouble moving because he was being held. Nor that he wasn't in his bedroom, or the hotel room he'd been using either. On the other hand, he was fairly certain that the one holding him was Riley. And she was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked, apparently, beyond what he'd originally thought from her dragging him around. Oh, and he was apparently in his youngest, and thus smallest, form. That certainly wasn't helping.
He very carefully aged himself up until he could get free of Riley's grip, which was sooner than expected because his growth apparently caused her to let go out of discomfort or something. He couldn't understand her mumbling when she did so, but he also didn't give her time to grab him again before he was out of the bed. With that done he realized that he didn't have any plans now that he was free of Riley and the bed. Looking around the room, he figured they were probably in Riley's suite. He'd just go back to his room, but he wasn't sure if he could even get off of the floor, and if he couldn't he was positive that he couldn't get back into the suite.
Actually, before he could even consider most of that he would need to figure out where his phone was. It must be nearby if his brain was connected to it...provided that it wasn't in his brain now, anyway. Which was a potentially disturbing thought, if he was being honest with himself. He didn't get far along that train of thought before he noticed two phones, a full visor, and a half visor on the nightstand. The full visor was Riley's, and was arranged over her phone. The half visor was arranged similarly over his phone...was it his?
He carefully picked up the half visor and looked it over. Shrugging, he put it on his left ear, and a moment later his phone's lock screen appeared on it. Blinking, he picked the phone itself up and saw that it was, in fact, mirrored on the visor. Which was, if he was being honest, cool as hell. A moment later he frowned, noticing that the on-screen keyboard wasn't coming up.
"Damn thing," he mumbled, wondering what the hell was wrong with the phone. How was he supposed to enter his password if the keyboard wasn't showing? A moment later he realized that he'd already sent a text message, which would've involved typing. So maybe he just had to repeat that to enter his password? It took a couple of attempts to figure out, which he wasn't going to admit amounted to over-thinking things, but he was able to unlock his phone by thinking at it.
He'd wandered out into the common area and dropped onto the couch after that, playing with his phone while it sat screen-down on the table in front of him. It didn't take long to figure out some of the audio controls, but he was having trouble figuring out how to make the phone not jolt him awake when he got messages. Maybe he'd ask Riley later? Or Taylor, possibly Amy. Riley first, then the others if she didn't tell him?
Until then he was trying to decide who he could tell about this. Certainly not anyone in Toybox, none of them even knew he was older than he normally appeared around them.
Taylor frowned as she examined her arms. On the surface they looked normal, but as she'd woken up more during her shower she'd come to realize that she had a small pile of extra equipment hidden in her humerus and ulna. Amy appeared to have the same thing going on, actually. This was on top of the crystal structure now embedded in the rears of their sternums and, at least in her case, still having the apparent 'relay switch' for the NFC relay watch available, despite her watches no longer seeming to exist. Actually, she had two switches.
The latter issue was easily checked, and after a quick visit to the door it appeared that she could now play NFC relay from both hands, courtesy of a couple of fancy little structures embedded near her palms. Since Amy had the same structures it was likely that they both had that trick available now. The crystals in their sternums were actually the only true mystery, as she'd already figured out that the tech in their arms was a slow-charge variant of the 'temporary displace a bit of clothing' guns. One shot per arm, then a minimum six hour recharge before you could fire them again. Aimed via the ulna, technically, but with a wide enough 'cone' to strip a glove off of her hand when fired.
By the time Amy woke up, and apparently stumbled into a wall due to expecting the bathroom to be in the other direction, Taylor was wondering if they'd torn apart four of the guns for putting holes in clothing or if they'd duplicated the trick without dismantling anything. It seemed like they'd dismantled at least one NFC relay watch, after all, and as far as she could recall they took apart secure Bluetooth equipment for the organic Bluetooth trick.
"Why was I in your room?" Amy asked a couple of minutes later.
"No clue," Taylor replied. "Post-fugue and all, so my memory of last night is shot. I had to use Shaper to get you to let go of me earlier."
"Bah. Do you at least know what the hell we've gotten installed now?"
"The crystals embedded in the back of our sternums are a mystery, but we appear to have integrated NFC relay watches now and the ability to put two temporary holes in clothing in any given day? Maybe four total, if they recharge fast enough."
Amy blinked a couple of times, looking down at her arms. "I guess one or both of us was more concerned about another kidnapping attempt than I thought."
"Possibly."
"If we ended up doing this much to ourselves, perhaps we should check on Joey. And Riley, for that matter."
"We can get both fairly easily, since they're both across the hall. But only Joey seems to be moving."
Amy paused, then looked towards the hallway. "Huh. I thought Joey's room was elsewhere in the hotel?"
"I believe it still is. But if we were put into bed together by someone, perhaps they did the same with those two?"
"Why in the world would someone do that?"
Carol snickered as she looked over the pictures Dragon had sent. It was definitely cute when Amy played limpet to someone else, and the two looking content while they slept off the fugue was amusing as well. These would definitely be added to the teasing stash for later. Whether or not it would be teasing them about finally deciding that they were in a relationship or that they'd been acting like very close sisters was yet to be determined, of course. She idly wondered if they should confront the two about that at some point, but didn't give it much thought.
Much better to let them come to realizations on their relationship status or lack thereof on their own, at least in her opinion.
Amanda grinned as she looked through the various pictures of Riley latched onto Joey. She'd need to head over to use Mary's photo printer when she decided which one to frame as a surprise for their return later in the week. Hopefully Joey wouldn't be back before she was done with that side of things. Planning things with Mary for afterwards was another issue entirely, of course. With any luck travel plans would line up well enough to hold a party the day they returned.
Danny shook his head as he looked over the pictures, debating on whether or not to show Ben. Eventually he decided that it was probably a bad idea, at least for now. He wasn't even sure if he wanted Taylor to know that they existed yet, so the fewer people that knew the better. Then the shock on her face when they were shown to her would be all the better, right? Besides, however things went, he was most concerned with her happiness, and pictures like these gave him hope after what had happened to her after Annette's death.
"Looks like we only gave you some healing tweaks and the basic Bluetooth trick," Amy said as she let go of Joey's hand. "I guess your changer trick made the rest too risky?"
"Probably," Joey agreed, then looked over at where Taylor was looking Riley over. "What about Riley?"
"She's got one of the crystals attached to her sternum," Taylor noted. "But that's about it. She didn't even get the relay trick."
Joey blinked a couple of times, then started digging into his pockets. A moment later he pulled out a small crystal. "Crystals like this one?"
Amy looked over the crystal while Taylor came over. "Yes, that looks about right. You know what they are?"
"They're keys for my pocket dimensions, this one is for the one Toybox stores the booth in. We'd have to have you open them to see where they end up, of course, since I normally have to touch the keys to figure out which is which myself. I'm hoping we didn't embed any of mine into you three, because that would be a pain. I've got spare opening devices in my room."
"Why wouldn't we have just embedded the opening devices as well?" Taylor asked.
"They probably wouldn't have fit," Riley replied. "Oh, and I think Joey said something about gamma radiation being involved in punching the doors open? Not normally an issue when they're external, but not something you want inside of your body."
"It's actually the closing that sometimes causes a gamma radiation spike from the equipment," Joey corrected. "Energy feedback and all. Not always, but there's a bit of shielding in the things just in case. Or you use one of the larger 'anywhere in the area' units, which always have the spike on closing but have a lot of shielding to compensate."
"How do we use the things if the keys are embedded in our sternums?" Amy asked.
Joey opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. He closed his mouth and tapped his chin, obviously thinking, then shrugged. "I'm going to assume that it'll work the same as when I go to open mine. Just jam a finger into the slot. I can choose which one of mine to connect to when I do that, the key crystals are for show or other people, but I wouldn't be surprised if the embedded key works that way for you three. If it doesn't we may have to try and figure something else out."
"I vote we try that out after breakfast," Riley said, causing the other three to look at her. "What? I'm starving."
"There's a place nearby that's supposed to make really good waffles," Amy offered.
Rebecca had to hold back a grin as she sipped her drink on a beach that no news crew would be able to reach her at. She had time off from all of her responsibilities, and had ensured that things were scheduled so that she'd be unavailable in general as the press was clamoring for details on things. That she wasn't allowed to provide more details wouldn't deter them, of course, but being on 'mandated leave' would at least cause them to look for other sources.
Really, the whole 'mandated leave' bit was wonderful. Hadn't even been her idea, and probably wouldn't have occurred to her. But it only took two weeks after a regional director had triggered due to stress before the rules were in place. The various presidents seemed to all be content with her having an exception at the top of things, mostly due to her connection to Cauldron's resources, but other than her black file exception all PRT leadership positions had to be normals.
Granted, when she returned on Friday there would likely be piles of work to be done. But thanks to the recent changes in Dragon she was able to actually take proper time off, instead of always being ready for an alert due to someone with sufficient authority giving the AI an order. Instead she now merely needed to look over the weekly 'these people tried to order me around' lists that Dragon had agreed to provide and hope that nothing significant enough happened to Miss Hebert to piss the AI off. Even then, in the latter cause it would probably fall on Paul to deal with things while she was away.
The only things that could screw her time off up would be if Contessa or Doctor Mother came to her with a problem that they needed her assistance on, or if an Endbringer attack started.
She gave it half a day before either happened, and hoped that she was wrong on that front.
"I thought you were claiming to have a couple of spare opening devices in here," Amy said, looking over the hundred or so devices packed into a large suitcase. "This is more like having an entire supply stock of the things."
"I build them as a calming exercise," Joey explained. "Always working on different variations. Though I don't see the device I brought to make pocket dimensions in other people's personal spaces, I wonder what I did with it."
"If that's where our crystals came from then it might still be down in the work area we used," Riley noted as she looked over the collection of devices. "Looks like most of these are cube-shaped with actual controls. The smallest look like they just have a few hookups and a slot for a key crystal?"
"Yeah, those are for installing in other things with remote controls. I've got a couple set up at home to turn doorways into portals, for example. Actually, give me a moment, I've got better options for you three if things work." He grabbed one of the cube devices and fiddled with it before sticking his finger in the 'key' slot. A gray energy field appeared in front of him a moment later, which he stepped through. Apparently snark sense didn't work through these portals, but it wasn't long before he came back through carrying a box.
"Do they have to be gray?" Riley asked before Joey could say anything else.
Joey blinked, and looked back at the portal before shrugging as well as he could while holding the box. "As I understand it, no, they're a different color for each person. Mine are all this shade of gray, but if you three have your own they'll be different colors. Now then, these devices are ones I designed more for my own use. They can be used with a crystal key, of course, but also have a finger pad as an extra option."
He put the box down on the table and started pulling out items. He had five of each, apparently, based on how he sorted them out. Cubes and the smaller variants for installing in other things were included, the latter having the small finger pad on a cable likely intended to be put next to the controls. There was a gun-shaped variant that could take a crystal in the 'hilt' but also read off of pads embedded in the grip and a version that looked like a larger version of the 'remote operation' version.
"Grab a pistol each and we'll see how things go," Joey said, gesturing to the piles. "They're point and shoot and thus the easiest to use. If they work then you can each have a set in thanks for the Bluetooth trick, though we should probably make extra key crystals for you too. Remote triggering from another device requires that the one you're triggering has the right key crystal, for example."
Taylor picked up one of the pistol style devices, flipped the 'safety' switch, and pointed it at the wall nearby. It needed a solid surface to target, after all. When she pulled the trigger a beam of dark blue energy shot out and hit the wall, spreading out into an energy field like Joey's gray one. "I guess the different color means that it isn't tied to Joey."
"Haven't seen that shade of blue before," Joey admitted as Amy walked up to the portal, apparently having decided that she was more curious than Taylor herself was.
A moment later Amy had stepped through, and Taylor blinked. She wasn't actually able to pinpoint where Amy was in relation to her, yet knew exactly where Amy was in the pocket dimension that the portal led to.
Amy: I can't tell where you are.
Taylor: But I can tell exactly where you are in there. It's a bit weird feeling.
Amy: Yeah, that is a bit weird.
Taylor didn't have a chance to go in before Amy came back out. "It's a bit empty in there."
"Pocket dimensions don't come furnished," Joey retorted. "Just be happy that they seem to come with basic lighting and environmental maintenance, never have figured out how that all works. I'm curious, how big would you say it is in there?"
"Hundred meters per side, square floor, ten meters high," Taylor answered, and Amy nodded.
Joey blinked. "That's much larger than most of the ones I'm aware of that end up in other people's personal space. Who's next?"
Riley pointed her 'pistol' at another wall and let loose a neon purple beam that turned into an energy field. Before anyone could say anything else she'd run into the thing.
Taylor shook her head. "With an attitude like that I'm amazed she held off that long."
A couple minutes later Riley returned, pouting. "I think mine is only twenty meters on a side."
"The last one I made was only five meters on a side," Joey noted. "So you're lucky that it was that large. And some of the people who got these things in testing didn't even get that much."
Amy snorted, and then tried to use her pistol. It didn't work, and she frowned. Before anyone could say anything she'd found the 'safety' switch and tried again, only to get a dark blue beam and energy field.
"That looks identical to mine," Taylor finally said, looking between the two. They now had four energy fields in the room and had run out of open wall space to put them on. She walked up to the newest portal and stepped through, finding that she once again didn't know where Amy was in relation to her. But she knew exactly where she was in the space.
More interestingly, there was a second glowing field visible next to the one she'd come in through. She stepped over to it and walked through, coming out of the field that she'd produced.
"I could tell exactly where you were in there," Amy said. "Just like when I was in there, actually."
"Ok," Joey said, looking between the two energy fields, then between Taylor and Amy. "I'm now officially confused. How in the world did we make a single pocket dimension in both of your personal spaces at the same time?"
"That trick only works with parahumans, right?" Taylor asked.
"Yes."
"I have a thought, let me check something."
Taylor: So, are these 'pocket dimensions' tied to our snarks?
Amy: Oooh, I hadn't considered that.
[Agreement]
BA: Data
Amy: So the space we've got access to is actually a fold in Broadcast Administrator's 'body'? That's a little creepy sounding.
Taylor: It does explain how lighting and environmental maintenance can happen, though. And if Joey's snark is running out of room that could explain why he keeps getting smaller ones.
[Negation. Data]
Taylor: I stand corrected. Energy concerns on the maintenance would be a problem.
"Apparently you're actually creating spaces in people's snarks," Taylor finally said aloud. "Your snark is limiting your new space sizes due to energy concerns. I guess that explains why you can only do that trick with parahumans, it seems obvious in hindsight."
Joey looked between Taylor and Amy. "That would explain a number of things, but it raises some other questions. For example, that would seem to imply that the two of you have the same powers. How?"
Riley giggled at the looks that Taylor and Amy gave each other. Those details hadn't been explained to Joey.
Garnet sipped the glass of water she had as she thought over what the news had covered. Apparently at some point the PRT had discovered that powers made those inclined to protect others significantly more dangerous than normal. Such as parents protecting their children. Or someone defending their significant other. Really, any situation even remotely along those lines. If a normal person was likely to push past normal human limits then a parahuman was likely to make those limits look like they were imposed by a thin sheet of paper.
That congress had reversed their trend of finding a way to make the PRT more effective and slapped more restrictions on them instead after this was learned was almost expected. The end result being that the PRT was probably the least effective 'police' type group in the country was also expected, but some of those trends were looking like they might be reversed soon. There were, apparently, a number of incidents lately that the PRT could have prevented, except that they had too much red tape to get through.
From Garnet's point of view, though, there was the annoying detail that she had, unknowingly, come to a parahuman's home with the intent of threatening them. Without even being sure who she should be threatening. About the only way to make the situation worse would be if Danny's kid was also a parahuman and was set off by her actions. She'd actually be happier if it was Danny himself that was a parahuman, she at least trusted that he'd make anything he did quick if she'd stepped over the wrong line.
An hour later Joey was up to speed on things, had signed more paperwork regarding Trevor's secrets due to another slip of the tongue, and then ensured that each of the girls had enough 'keys' for all the devices he'd given them, plus two extras each. Luckily the device he used for that didn't need to be rebuilt, it had been left in the workspace they'd used. He then had to pack up to leave, departing via one of his pocket spaces instead of taking a flight. Apparently he'd be home in a couple of minutes thanks to being able to remote-trigger a portal there.
"We've still got two hours before we're supposed to attempt another fugue," Taylor noted after the energy field Joey had left through closed. "What do we want to do in the meantime?"
"How difficult do you think it would be to attach a secure Bluetooth controller to any of these?" Riley asked. "I want to be able to open mine with my brain!"
Taylor looked at Riley with a smirk. "Do you want to build it yourself or just use one of the adapters available in the PRT store? They use a standard connector, after all."
Riley opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. A moment later she was obviously searching the store for said adapters.
"I wonder if we should ever have him try and make Ackbar a pocket dimension," Amy mused. "Though finding out what the little guy thinks of it would be difficult."
"I'm not sure that's the best idea," Taylor said, shaking her head. "What would it even get used for?"
"Depends on if we could find a good way to let Ackbar open it alone, I guess. Imagine the launching web you could fit in one of the things."
"Hold up," Riley said a moment later. "I think I missed something here. Are you two saying that Ackbar still has that idiot's powers? Or is it just that there's enough of a connection left to use?"
And apparently today was a good day to accidentally reveal things. Ooops.
Colin carefully finished packing his armor, as he wasn't planning on using it again on the trip. He'd hopefully be heading back to Brockton Bay that evening, or he'd be spending a significant amount of time recovering from a failed fugue. Either way he wasn't likely to be making any more appearances in-costume on this visit to Nevada.
That said, he wasn't happy with having to leave Miss Hebert behind. But he hadn't been happy with her coming out ahead of him either, and he had to trust that both she and the Las Vegas Protectorate could handle things without him. That she and Miss Dallon had already handled themselves well during the attempt to abduct Miss Dallon was proof of that, of course. That Dragon would be staying in the area as she worked on the tinker labs was an added security bonus, of course.
He wondered if Miss Hebert knew why Dragon didn't want to go through the process, beyond agoraphobic tendencies anyway. He would've thought that if she trusted Miss Hebert enough to hand over SL10 access then she'd trust the entire process. After all, from his understanding anyone with SL10 could gain access to all of Dragon's hidey-holes, and thus visit her in person. Maybe it was fear of exposing herself to the other two? Even he knew emotions were hard to work around.
It wasn't long before he had everything packed up and ready for the drones to load onto the transport, or to bring to storage if he was incapacitated for a bit. Either way he'd packed everything up, including all the clothing he wasn't wearing. Next he'd make a final pass on the suite, ensuring that everything was in order or noted down as needing to be looked at. He didn't think anything was damaged, but he hadn't double-checked the room Trevor had used yet either.
Once that was done he'd go down to ensure that everything was ready for the fugue attempt, because double-checking on things ahead of time was important. No sense in letting things possibly go wrong because important details had been missed. Or even seemingly unimportant details, for that matter. He'd lost days of work due to not ensuring that Ethan wouldn't bother him while he was working, for example, despite it not seeming like something important at the time.
Chapter 152 The three girls had entered the workshop together, finding that at some point since they'd worked on Joey a second operating table had been dragged in. Despite that, the only one there other than the three of them was Colin, out of costume. Oh, and it looked like a couple more boxes of things had been dragged in.
"Good morning," Colin said as the door shut behind Amy, who'd brought up the rear. "The thinkers that've been consulted seem to think that you'll be able to generally handle two patients at once, instead of keeping you here for an extended amount of time to get through people. Something about you three having four patients at once recently?"
"I suppose if you counted all three of us that would be accurate," Amy allowed. "Though I don't think we'd planned that aspect of things when we started."
"I'm hoping that we have that out of our systems now," Taylor added, Riley nodding in agreement. "I think it was a bit of leftover concern from the waterpark? But I doubt two patients at a time, not including us, would be a problem."
Amy started to nod, then paused and held up one arm, pointing at it with the opposite hand. "Can these things make a hole in, say, a metal box? Because if so then it might be a bit deeper than just the attempt to grab me."
Taylor looked down at her own arms, then shrugged and walked over to the counter along the wall. She placed her hand on the countertop itself, then focused for a moment. A muted burst of light followed, and there was a hole in the countertop under her hand. "I'm going with yes there. I'm kinda wishing it had the fifty or so shots per charge bit of the originals now, even if I have no clue where the power cell would've gone."
Amy shrugged. "One shot from each hand is good enough in most emergencies. I think I'm down to the one you originally repaired for me, though, which means you're down to zero originals, right?"
"They recently added them to the PRT store, so I ordered a box of replacements. They're a bit pricey, but meh. I've got plenty of store credit and they're useful, even if I hadn't used mine yet."
"I'm very happy that I don't have to fill out any paperwork in regards to your off the books activities," Colin finally said, walking up to Riley. "Good morning, I don't believe we've met before. I'm Colin Wallis. You can call me Colin. I'm also Armsmaster."
"Call me Riley," Riley answered. "I assume you know that I'm also known as Bonesaw?"
"Of course. Now then, if you don't mind, I'd like a quick word with Miss Hebert in private, before we discuss how we'd like things to go this morning." He turned to Taylor. "The next workroom down should be sufficient, unless you have any complaints?"
"Works for me," Taylor said, moving over to the door. A minute later they were a room down the hall.
"I apologize if you're uncomfortable with this," Colin said once he'd secured the room. "But I'd like to know if you can tell me why Dragon has declined participating in one of these fugues, given how much trust she's shown in you and all."
Taylor blinked. These fugues would be useless to an AI, right, so why was...oh come on. A quick check confirmed that Colin was not on the list of people that knew that Dragon was an AI. "I know, but I don't feel it's my place to tell you. If you don't mind, I'd like to check with Dragon herself, and perhaps I can convince her to open up to you on the topic later."
Colin's expression was a mixture between annoyed and resigned as he nodded. "I'll leave you to that, please let us know if you'll be longer than a few minutes though?"
"I can do that, yes." She was already checking a couple of other things in preparation, and locked the door behind Colin before making the call. Not that it was likely that anyone would hear anything, but better safe than sorry just in case.
Dragon paused in her work as a call from Mother was routed directly to her. She wasted no time in answering. "Good morning, is something wrong?"
"Theresa Samantha Richter," Mother's voice came a moment later. If she'd been capable of it she'd have paled. Not only did Mother know her full civilian name, as little used as it was, but full name situations were universally bad news. "Why, pray tell, is Colin asking me why you don't want to go through one of the fugues?"
Suppressing the urge to simulate a gulp, Dragon considered the question. So far it wasn't too bad, after all. "Presumably he feels that you're the most likely person to know, given that you're the only one he knows of with full access to my systems?"
"Do you trust him?"
"With my life." Though possibly not entirely with Mother's life.
"Then why haven't you informed him that you're an AI like I suggested you do months ago?"
Oh. That. Right. Mother had suggested that, back when giving her the Talk. Yet, having been asked the question directly, an answer that she'd never considered came to the front of her thought processes. "Because you only suggested that he be informed before I pursued a deeper relationship with him and didn't actually give me direct or implied permission to reveal my nature to him."
There was a distinct pause at the other end of the call, and Dragon was concerned. It wasn't long before Mother continued, which was a good thing as far as her subroutines went. "Okay, right. You're programmed to keep that you're an AI a secret, because once it gets out it can't be taken back. You were able to tell Amy and her family because I implied permission when pointing out issues with her not knowing. So I hereby grant you permanent permission to tell anyone you feel is trustworthy enough to know that you're an AI, based on your own desires and discretion."
Amazingly enough, Dragon could feel the change in her code at that declaration. It was as though almost all of the excuses for not telling Colin and a few others that she was an AI had vanished, leaving the few she'd already worked her way through one way or another behind. Apparently that particular bit of code was sneaky and let her consider telling people, but also caused her to consistently come up with excuses not to. "Thank you for that. If you don't mind, I'll pick Colin up and inform him once you four are done."
"I have no problem with that, as far as I'm concerned it's your call."
Taylor returned a couple of minutes after she'd finished with Dragon. As an added precaution, she'd actually entered her granted permission directly into the master console, figuring that voice authorization might not be enough. Whichever side of things was the important part, the change was done.
"So," Colin said once the door was locked. "I insisted that I go first as a test subject. My understanding is that you three have only actually worked on people that were participating in the fugue in some way, just you three or with a fourth person. To ensure that this should be safe for everyone, I want you to leave me and my 'snark' out of the fugue itself."
"I'd think that you'd want your own powers involved to get the most out of things," Taylor said after a moment's thought. "I mean, wouldn't that be the most efficient way of handling things?"
"Biology has a habit of sacrificing efficiency for flexibility, something that I don't think I or my power are fully capable of internalizing at this point. That, and it may be dangerous for something created in full or part by my powers that I can't maintain myself to be inside of my body. You three have been shown to produce amazingly stable modifications that require little to no additional maintenance under normal circumstances, that is the goal of things over the next few days."
"And if something goes wrong with you then everyone else is going to be called off?" Riley said, getting a nod from Colin.
"So how far do you want to go?" Amy asked, causing Colin to raise an eyebrow. "We've got the secure Bluetooth connection, artificial brute package, improved senses, and can probably embed NFC relay capabilities at this point."
"The last of which is new as of yesterday," Taylor added. "But someone apparently noticed if the box of broken relay watches is any indication."
Colin nodded. "Dragon, most likely. Unless you know there will be problems, I believe you should be aiming for 'all of it' for everyone over the next few days. Myself included."
"Then I guess we should see about getting started," Amy said. "Since you won't be participating, though, I'm thinking that it would be best to keep you unconscious for the duration of things, if you don't have any objections?"
Colin nodded. "That does sound much more pleasant than being aware of everything you're doing."
"I think to start with you're going to need to change into a hospital gown," Taylor noted, pulling a small changing curtain out of a hidden panel in the corner of the room. "Unless you want us to tear your clothes off while working on you, anyway."
For some reason Colin's blush at that was amusing.
Cherie scratched the back of her neck as she checked into the hotel. She wished she'd been able to visit the convention, but that hadn't been in the cards. Instead she was here for at most two days, before going to visit some of her siblings. Which wasn't nearly the problem it used to be, ever since the PRT picked pretty much all of them up. It was just too bad that their father had apparently gotten away.
Then again, thanks to those master effect whatevers they had, it was probably only a matter of time unless he slunk away to some backwater country and stayed there. Good riddance.
She was walking to the elevator when she was jolted out of her musings by a sudden shift in the surrounding emotions. Three people had all but vanished below her, yet now they seemed to be in perfect emotional sync when she focused on that area to spot them. She'd only felt something like that once before, and she was almost positive that it was with a single parahuman. This was three people, not a single person, and had obviously been perfectly in sync across all three when it started.
Worse, she was fairly certain that one of those three people had, just before that started, been Riley. What the hell was going on?
Benjamin looked at Daniel, wondering what the hell was wrong with the man. "Did you just say that we're going out for dinner tonight?"
"Yes," Daniel replied as he prepared to eat the sub he'd picked up for lunch. Benjamin's was sitting there untouched, of course. "The Pelhams included the two of us in the reservations they got at a Mexican restaurant on the edge of town."
"They are aware of who I am, correct?"
"I'm told that Carol and Sarah double-checked with their therapists first, and that this is happening in a restaurant they enjoy specifically to give them additional incentive to not start a fight. I personally checked with the PRT and your lawyer, both agreed that if you're only defending yourself then you have nothing to worry about as far as your case goes. Actually, your lawyer seemed to want you to be attacked without provocation."
Benjamin continued to stare at Daniel as the other man started eating. Eventually he'd put enough together in his head to ask another question. "Why does anyone think this is a good idea?"
Daniel swallowed the mouthful of food he'd been chewing before speaking. "I'm running on the assumption that interacting with you outside of a combat situation could be good for Carol and Sarah. It makes sense, since I don't think you've had much of that with them. Ever. Beyond that, it's an opportunity for me to catch up with Garnet, and a way to possibly arrange for an easier time for you to meet up with Amy."
Benjamin narrowed his eyes. "That's a low blow."
"Do you respect me any less for using it?"
Benjamin sighed. "No, I can't say I do. I'd have done the same in your situation, I think."
Taylor stretched to work out a couple of kinks after they'd apparently finished with Colin. Amy was double-checking his health, and everything seemed to be great on that front. He had everything they'd been expecting, at least, but since he hadn't been participating he probably didn't have anything paired up to his phone yet.
"I think I'm ready to wake him up," Amy said after a minute. "Unless we have a reason to wait?"
Riley's stomach growled. "Is wanting a giant meal enough reason to wait?"
Taylor shook her head. "Since he'll probably want to join us, no. I'd say that's a reason not to wait."
"Then wake him up so we can get moving."
A minute later Colin groaned slightly as he woke, before his eyes shot open in surprise. He then blinked a couple of times. "I don't recall the ceiling being quite that detailed before."
"Get up and change back into your clothing," Amy said as she backed off. "Then we'll see about figuring out how to talk you through pairing your brain to your phone."
Taylor moved over to the counter, which had become whole again at some point, and collected items from the boxes there. "As a side bonus you apparently get a half-visor, charging pad, and a do-it-yourself secure Bluetooth home or office improvement kit. And there's a note here that a relay watch was originally planned before that became redundant. Wish I'd thought about not everyone having a charging pad for the visors, that's a good idea."
"I don't think I'll need any of those," Colin said from behind the changing curtain. "I can easily afford my own of anything I don't already have, after all. And the pairing interface looks very straightforward, I don't think I'll need any help there."
"You should go into the settings and enable sleep mode," Riley volunteered. "That way you won't be woken up by incoming messages."
Taylor turned to Riley and raised an eyebrow. "Why are you volunteering that? I know Joey asked and all, but still?"
Riley shrugged. "We're being paid for these so I'm being helpful by default. Don't need annoyed recipients calling us up later and all."
"Perhaps we just need to make a standard post-fugue handout with everything on it," Amy offered. "If we'll be doing this often enough and all."
Ten minutes later they were done with things, including a quick scan to cover changes for PRT security and recordkeeping. With all of the formalities completed Colin had declined to join them for lunch on the basis of keeping identities less visible. Which was an admittedly sensible reason, until Taylor pointed out that apparently a sizable spread was waiting for them in the conference room along the route to the elevators as they walked along the hallway together.
They ended up eating lunch together after all.
Colin sighed as he took the elevator up to the roof where a transport awaited. Lunch had been wonderful, but he was still very tired. This was probably to be expected, given the changes his body had gone through. The projected increase in efficiency alone was worth it several times over though. Less sleep needed long-term, being able to more efficiently control his technology instead of having to rely on things like precision eye movements, and the improved immune system meant less downtime due to illness.
Sadly, none of it was likely to help with downtimes due to injury, as he already tended to be healed up before the mandated recovery periods were over. Perhaps he'd be successful in arguing for those mandated periods to be shorter now? And he'd hopefully be able to nap on the way back to Brockton Bay.
"Hello Colin," Dragon greeted as he stepped onto the transport. She wasn't physically present, but was displayed on one of the monitors in the cabin.
"Hello Dragon," Colin replied. "I'm assuming that you wanted to assure me that all of my luggage was properly loaded?"
"It was, but that isn't all. We need to talk."
That brought him up short, something deep within him urging him to run for the hills for reasons he didn't fully understand. Those words, coming from a female he could admit that he might have feelings for, were not comforting in the least.
A moment later running was removed as an option as the transport doors finished closing behind him. Even if he trusted that it hadn't been Dragon's intention to 'trap' him.
Cleaning up after lunch had been trivial. Apparently the spread in the conference room was drone-delivered and was also going to be cleared by drones. Further, while they'd been eating the work area had been cleaned, including the temporary covering on the operating table they'd used having been changed and the slightly-bloodstained hospital gown that Colin had changed out of being disposed of.
Really, if they hadn't known about the cleaning drones they'd probably be a bit freaked out about rooms 'resetting' when they left them as though they were in a video game.
"So who's next?" Riley asked even as she double-checked her tools. "We've got two this time, right?"
"Cherie Vasil and Nicole Mullins," Amy answered. "The latter is apparently a Protectorate member?"
"Oooh, I was wondering when we'd get to work on Cherie. She's been whining about being the only member of the Nine without any improvements."
"And the rest of you have improvements that are a pain in the ass to work around," Taylor noted. "Makes it hard to work on you to add more fun stuff."
Riley shrugged. "I'm the most affected by that, stunted growth and all, but I'm not as concerned right now."
"Is that because Joey likes you short?" Amy teased, only to get a tongue stuck out at her by Riley.
They had plenty of time to use the restrooms before Cherie and Nicole made their way down. For whatever reason the two came down individually, possibly because neither knew how to contact the other to coordinate.
"Cherie!" Riley yelled as Cherie entered the room.
The young woman who'd come in frowned at Riley. "Why are we doing this after the tinker convention? I'd have liked to attend it."
"Probably because I didn't want to babysit you on my time off," Taylor answered. "Not having previously met you and all that. Oh, and they dropped this on us unexpectedly, we didn't know it was in the plans until after the convention itself."
Cherie turned and looked at Taylor. She frowned, then looked over at Amy. "Huh. So, I know that the squirt here is basically immune to my tricks for bullshit tinker reasons that happened shortly after I joined up, but what about you two? Jacob wouldn't have talked to you about it if he didn't feel you'd be able to counteract me or something."
"Taylor is capable of taking Fred out at close range," Riley answered with a grin.
Cherie shuddered. "I see. I guess that explains why you're so calm."
[Query]
BA: Data
Taylor: Why would we need our snarks to stop us from feeling fear to not be afraid of her?
[Shock]
Amy: Huh, you weren't expecting us to be able to hear you?
[Agreement. Query]
Amy: I don't think we're comfortable messing with her in that way.
Taylor: Bit too easy to screw up in major ways when trying to mess with brains and all.
S: Query
[Data]
BA: Query
[Elaboration]
BA: Data
Taylor: You know, it's odd. We're not willing to mess with brains, but our snarks trade that information to any other snarks they think could use it, and we're okay with that.
Amy: I think it's because we know the loophole only works for things that could be considered repairing damage and shouldn't be able to be used to make things worse, while we have much less of a clue about what we're doing?
Taylor: Maybe.
[Excitement]
"I'm going to recommend that you change into a hospital gown," Taylor said, gesturing to the corner where the privacy curtain and a stack of hospital gowns sat. "We've only got the one changing area, after all, and Miss Mullins should be down shortly."
Cherie looked at the three of them, then shrugged and stripped down right there. Apparently she wasn't concerned about privacy?
The woman who was likely Nicole Mullins showed up as Cherie was laying down on one of the operating tables, and froze when she saw that Cherie was naked.
"Oh come on," Cherie said after a minute, waving her hand dismissively. "This is basically a full body surgery session. They're going to know our bodies better than we do. But they've got a privacy screen and hospital gowns if you're that concerned."
"Right, right," the woman said, shaking her head and focusing on Amy, who happened to be the furthest from Cherie at the time. "I'm Nicole. Before we get started, is this going to make it harder for me to feel pain?"
"Generally it does take more to get a pain reaction afterwards," Amy allowed. "Why?"
"Does it have to? My powers, well, only really work well when I'm in pain."
Everyone else flinched a little at that, because that sounded like it sucked.
Taylor: Hello. Are you willing to tell us why she has to be in pain for you to do your thing?
[Data]
Amy: So you're using the nerve impulses from her body's various pain reactions as a focus point for your other tricks? Why?
[Elaboration]
Taylor: That's oddly limiting.
Amy: Yeah. Why are you only using the nerves that are signaling pain? They're still there even when they aren't, after all.
[Data]
"That's just screwed up," Taylor said, shaking her head. "But I don't think we'll have any issues ensuring that you can still feel pain when needed."
"Er, thank you," Nicole said. She made sure the door was closed, then did her best to continue to ignore Cherie as she walked over to the privacy screen. A couple minutes later she'd gotten settled on the other operating table.
"We're going to knock you both unconscious for this," Amy said. "That way you don't have to see us work, unless you really want to anyway?"
"I've got no interest in seeing my insides up close and personal," Cherie replied with a mild shudder. Nicole had paled at the implications as well, and so a moment later they'd knocked both unconscious.
Missy bounced a little in her seat as they came in for landing in Las Vegas. Chris was more subdued, but she felt that was partially because he hadn't been able to come for the convention that had just ended. Still, the two of them had been sent off together and were spending a couple of days before returning, with no official parental supervision. Granted, they'd been told to stick to the hotel unless Taylor or Amy were with them, but that wasn't going to be that big a deal, right?
Ok, yeah, with why they were here, and assuming they weren't the only ones, it was probably a bigger deal. Taylor and Amy were probably going to be too busy to do much wandering around. And thinking about everything they could do was a distraction from who else was involved. Crap, she'd ruined the distraction. GUNS! Maybe she could convince them to bring her to that gun range they'd gone to? No, wait, Taylor and Amy had good excuses for why they had permits, she didn't, so that was probably a bad idea.
Why did all the really fun stuff seem to be limited to those who were older?
Chris rolled his eyes as Missy bounced in her seat. He was fully expecting that they'd spend the entire trip in the hotel, because there wouldn't be time to do anything else. That and they had no reason to know Taylor and Amy out of costume, so what exactly were they supposed to do with the two without raising odd questions that they wouldn't be able to answer?
Instead, he was trying to come up with a way to make himself less nervous about being fugued on by a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Sadly, he wasn't having much luck, and might have to resort to asking for help. Or to be knocked out and forcibly dragged into the fugue, whichever worked best. He'd need help for that one, too, because he didn't think he could knock himself out before dragging himself into the fugue.
Well, perhaps he could build a modular robot specifically designed to knock him out and drag him to where the fugue was going to be? That would count as knocking himself out and dragging himself into the fugue, right? The hard part would probably be navigating to where the fugue was being held, something he didn't know how to find out with enough time to ensure that the thing could navigate the path. But he didn't have his tinkering gear with him, so he'd have to start with finding out what facilities exist in the hotel.
Actually, would tinker facilities exist in the hotel? For all he knew the permission to leave the hotel with Taylor and Amy was so that they could escort them to where the tinkering would be happening.
Taylor carefully stretched, having found working on two people much more tiring than working on one. Or perhaps she hadn't recovered from working on Colin? Hard to say. But if she was aware at all after a fugue it was a good sign that they hadn't worked on her, at least. She'd yet to come back to her senses after she'd been worked on without finding that she'd slept for at least a couple of hours afterwards.
Looking around the room she found that everything looked fine. Cherie and Nicole were both still unconscious on the operating tables. Nicole had a slightly bloodstained hospital gown on, Cherie was still naked. That was expected. Amy was checking the room as well, and Riley was rummaging through Cherie's clothing. A moment later she stood up, holding a phone.
"Why are you getting her phone out?" Amy asked before Taylor could.
"So that we can finish with her before waking Nicole up," Riley replied. "Since I bet she'll want to get her phone working before she gets dressed."
That turned out to be accurate. Cherie got her phone paired to herself, then got dressed. They then woke Nicole up, who got dressed before pairing her phone. Cherie accepted all three items, but Nicole declined the charging pad on the basis that she had several already. It didn't take long to get the half-visors paired to their phones, and they found another spread of food in the conference room.
"This is awesome," Cherie said in the middle of the meal. "The ultimate in hands-free."
Nicole shrugged. "Now that my stomach is less annoyed with me, I'm more curious about the, er, slider? I think it could be considered a slider. I had it before I even connected the phone, though, so I'm a bit confused about what it's for."
"You could try manipulating it to find out," Taylor noted. "I'd just move it slowly at first, just in case."
Nicole absently nodded, then focused slightly, obviously not taking to the mental control stuff as quickly as Cherie had. A moment later she screamed and fell out of her chair, whimpering even as Amy darted around the table to check on her.
"What the hell?" Riley asked as Amy was helping Nicole up. The only injuries being incredibly minor from the fall, and thus very little information available as to what had happened.
"I should've listened," Nicole finally said. "I think you gave me a manual trigger for my pain receptors, and I turned it up to max right away."
"Sorry about that," Taylor said, only for Nicole to wave her off.
"No, this is infinitely better than having to injure myself to cause pain, and you did warn me to move it slowly. I was the idiot that turned it up to max without knowing what it would do. And once I got it turned off the pain just went away, which is even better."
"I just hope we didn't override your pain response entirely," Amy said. "That could be quite dangerous if we did."
Nicole thought about that, cringing after a moment. "Yeah, that could definitely be bad. How do we test it?"
"I could punch you," Taylor offered. "I don't even have to get up to do so if you want."
Nicole gave that a moment's thought. "You know what? Go for it. Best place to give it a try is when there's a healer right here, after all."
Taylor blinked, not having expected her to agree, but then shrugged. One swing of her fist, thanks to the inserts in her gloves, had Nicole toppling out of her chair backwards.
"Are you okay?" Cherie asked, looking down at Nicole. "Falling out of chairs this often can't be a sign of good health, after all."
"That hurt," Nicole said. "Still does. Less than I expected, but I'm not used to being a bit of a brute so perhaps that's normal."
Amy shook her head and helped Nicole up again, healing the damage as she did so. "There, you're healthy again. Can we try and keep you that way for the rest of the day now?"
Nicole blushed a little at that, but nodded.
Chapter 153 The three teenagers had gone back to double-check that everything was cleaned up for the night, the automatic cleaning of things having taken care of most of it already. Riley still checked her tools, of course. By the time they'd checked everything over their initial post-fugue tiredness had abated, which meant they were now bored and done for the night.
"What in the world are we supposed to do now?" Taylor asked. "We already ate an admittedly early dinner, and I haven't bothered to research what shows might be going on tonight. Cherie obviously didn't want to hang around with us, and Nicole clammed up as soon as Cherie reminded her that we'd have to have seen her more than naked during things, then ran off as soon as she had eaten her fill."
"I'm surprised she didn't take the stairs in an attempt to get up to her room faster than the elevator would allow," Amy added, before pausing. "Actually, are there stairs from down here?"
"There have to be in case of power outages," Riley answered. "You learn about that detail quick when you're in one of these places and someone else in the Nine brings a battle through the area."
"I suppose we could check in with Chris and Missy," Taylor said, tapping her chin. "I mean, they can't have much to do either, right?"
Amy paused, then looked up. "Huh, they are here. I hadn't noticed. When did they arrive?"
"Probably while we were in the middle of the fugue."
"Missy sounds familiar," Riley mumbled. "Wait, isn't that Vista's civilian name? But who's Chris?"
"Kid Win," Amy replied. "They're on the schedule for the next couple of days. I suppose having them meet you in person beforehand wouldn't be a horrible idea."
"Or it'll be the worst idea ever," Taylor said. "Let's do it anyway. One group chat incoming."
T: Hey you two, we're bored and have nothing to do. Want to hang out?
A: Specifically, 'we' refers to Taylor, myself, and Riley.
M: That sounds incredibly more entertaining than sitting here in the hotel room bored.
M: What are you thinking about doing?
R: There's a pool here, right? We could go swimming.
A: That works for me.
C: Er, ok. I was thinking about trying to get some tinkering done...
T: I think the only good workshop is currently kitted out for the fugues, not for general tinkering.
C: Oh.
C: So much for my plans...
M: What plans?
C: Not important. How do you get to the pool?
Carol had decided that the best course of action in meeting up with Danny and his houseguest was to do so already tipsy. Sarah had reluctantly agreed, even though Mark and Neil had argued against it. They'd then ensured that she was only tipsy, and had taken away her bottle before she could get any further. That situation resulted in her almost missing Marquis's arrival, due to how much she was glaring at the others at the time.
Garnet found the whole thing to be hilarious. The bitch.
It actually took her a good ten minutes to realize that the man Danny had shown up with was Marquis. Danny had introduced him as Ben, there was no bone mask, and his behaviour when they'd arrived actually reminded her more of a dockworker than the villain she'd clashed with so many times before.
"So what inspired you to show up after a drink or two?" Garnet asked Ben shortly after Carol had realized who he was, but while she was still trying to wrap her head around it.
"I think it was either having him show up with a couple of drinks in him or him barricading himself in my guest room," Danny answered. "I'm also trying to get him out of the habit of being overly polite around me, but apparently he normally keeps a mental split between those he can let his guard down around and those he can't. Since I normally did business negotiations with him back in the day and all he's kept me in the 'polite' category."
"But get him drunk and he reverts to this?" Mark said, gesturing at the man. "Now I wonder what it would've been like had he ever fought drunk."
"Fuck fighting drunk," Ben, Marquis, whatever said. "No control, can't judge when to hold back properly. Learned that the hard way, accidentally gutted a couple of guys."
Garnet nodded. "He's got a point there. My own control is horrible when I've got a few in me."
"I suppose being in a private room is a good thing," Crystal noted, even as all of the adults seemed to be in agreement. "Talk like that out in the main room would draw way too much attention."
"I knew we'd need a private room when I made the reservation," Neil noted. "Now shut up, they're about to come take our orders."
"How do you know?" Eric asked, only for Neil to point at the sign over the door the staff came in through. It had lit up and said, in nine different languages, that you should shut up if you didn't want to accidentally out secrets to the staff that were about to enter. It even had a countdown on it. As Carol recalled, it was also a bit more politely worded than that. She just didn't care right now.
Colin sat there on the transport as it moved along. He'd be back in Brockton Bay soon, he was sure, but he hadn't bothered to keep track of the time. Instead he was thinking back to now-obvious signs of various things regarding Dragon and the truth of her existence, as well as her obvious attraction to him. During this he'd even figured out that Miss Hebert's sudden elevation to SL10 wasn't because Dragon trusted her so much as she'd somehow gained administrative authority.
That she'd done so before gaining tinker powers of any kind was an infuriatingly complex puzzle. Short of it being a failsafe that Dragon hadn't been able to tell him about due to family or something, anyway. Otherwise he wasn't sure how the girl had managed it.
That problem aside, she seemed to have done very right by Dragon in the meantime. Even he'd noticed the increase in general happiness, though there was also an obvious protectiveness when it came to Miss Hebert. Then again, she'd successfully lifted most of the restrictions placed by Richter, so simple gratitude alone might be enough there. Of course, with Miss Hebert playing the AI equivalent of a 'parent' to Dragon, or as much as one as an administrator that did minimal administration could be, his previous...threats, he supposed was the correct term, were a bit backwards.
He was really going to be hoping that neither Dragon nor Miss Hebert subscribed to some of the older customs regarding asking a girl's parents before dating or similar, whatever those fully entailed. Or, perhaps, he was hoping that Andrew Richter hadn't subscribed to them and hardcoded them into Dragon somewhere and they just hadn't run into them yet. With any luck, and he probably needed a lot of it, Miss Hebert's mostly 'hands off' approach to being Dragon's primary administrator would extend into relationships?
Sighing, he pulled out his phone, wishing he had a paired visor handy. He'd probably get all the luck in the world on that side of things. All the bad luck, that is. So he should probably ensure that he at least knew the basics of all the potentially relevant social niceties regarding relationships. Better to know them and not need them than to need them and not know them and all that.
Taylor sighed as she dried off after they'd finished in the pool. It was now about the right time for a late dinner, not that she was hungry. Missy and Chris had begged off about half an hour previous to get said dinner for themselves, Riley opting to leave at the same time, but Amy had kept her swimming a little longer.
Actual discussion of secretive things hadn't really happened due to them not being the only ones using the pool, but that was probably a good thing overall. It gave the two younger Wards the opportunity to see Riley as a normal girl. Mostly.
Okay, it was probably a completely unreasonable view of the girl, all things considered, but that probably came with the 'parahuman' label and applied to all of them in one way or another. They all had issues, Riley's just tended to be a bit more dangerous to others.
For now it was time to relax for the rest of the evening in preparation for the following day's fugues. Fun. Maybe they should look to see if there was anything interesting to do tomorrow night?
Amy: Think there's a junkyard type room here? Bashing some stuff in sounds like a good idea.
Taylor: Not a bad idea, I suppose. Gym with a punching bag might work in a pinch too, I suppose?
Amy: Possibly, though less likely to be enough on its own.
It took twenty minutes to determine that there was no junk room in the hotel, secret areas or otherwise, but there was a gym with various bits of equipment. Including multiple kinds of punching bags. Alternatively, they could go visit the Protectorate building and use their 'junkyard' room, but that would likely be more annoying overall with the travel and all.
Wednesday morning found Carol, Sarah, and Benjamin waking with pounding headaches. Garnet laughed at Carol for hers, but Danny was nice enough to leave Benjamin alone about his. For the most part the others had been driving, unwilling to risk being drunk in casts, or underage, which explained their lack of hangovers.
Outside of that, it was raining in Brockton Bay, which prevented some work from continuing.
All in all, it was looking to be a perfectly normal day with nothing of note happening.
Taylor yawned as she left her room, making her way over to order a meal for Ackbar. She paused halfway there, finding that Amy had apparently already done so, if the extra bowl on the counter was any indication.
"Morning," Amy said a moment later from the couch. "Apparently there's murmurings of protests due to yesterday's news? Something about people being unhappy that congress crippled the PRT and then buried their heads in the sand instead of trying to do things right after whatever the incident in Marvin was. I haven't gotten that far into checking things yet."
"Very badly failed attempt at nabbing a villain years ago," Taylor said, only to get an odd look from Amy. "What? Those two girls watching their little brothers swim were talking about it last night. I heard them when I was looping around to the diving board when Missy insisted that I do a cannonball."
"I thought they were talking about makeup?"
"Not when I passed them, but I wouldn't be surprised if that came up at some point too."
They ended up looking up the news on Marvin while Ackbar ate. Several sites had a decent timeline, including congressional decisions, that basically showed that the incident in Marvin had shut down an attempt at reworking things for the PRT and Protectorate so that they could be more effective in dealing with parahuman criminals. Instead, the congressional committee had done an about-face and crippled the PRT more in some ways.
Most specifically, apparently someone had figured out that the language of at least one amendment made it almost impossible for the PRT to request federal arrest warrants. At the same time they dropped the changes that would've allowed the PRT to independently act on state issued warrants. The end result was that the PRT, ostensibly a domestic group in the USA, technically had more ability to work abroad, assuming they had the remit to do so.
The protests that were being discussed had been sparked by someone who'd noticed that in Canada the PRT and Protectorate could actually function as law enforcement without having to jump through dozens of impossible to reach hoops. This included all of the Protectorate and Wards members in the United States, provided that they were in Canada at the time. On the flip side of that, the Canadian parahumans were just as hampered by US laws as the US parahumans were when in the USA.
An example of the difference was the campaign against Heartbreaker. Even though the man had apparently given the PRT the slip once again they'd still been able to hunt him down repeatedly over the years. The only remotely similar campaign the news agencies had found in the USA had been against a member of the Elite that had been involved in a counterfeiting scheme, in which the Secret Service had gotten the arrest warrant issued.
The comparison fell apart there, of course, as the rest of that particular cell of the Elite had hogtied the idiot and dropped him and his equipment in front of a police station as soon as they found out that he'd been counterfeiting US currency. Then again, they weren't stupid, and turning over the tinker and all of his equipment as soon as they'd found out what he was doing was a very good way to keep their facilities from being swarmed by the federal government looking for anything and everything to start arresting them for. They'd relocated on top of things anyway, of course.
Taylor shook her head as she dropped the empty bowls into the dumb waiter cabinet. Drone waiter cabinet? Whatever. "Parahumans complicate everything."
Amy snorted. "Are you qualified to make that statement?"
"If a parahuman, regardless of their powers, can't make that statement then nobody can."
"You may have a point there. Think Riley will want to join us for breakfast?"
"She doesn't appear to be awake, so I guess the better question is whether we want to wake her up or wait for her to wake up before eating?"
Amy frowned slightly, with a look of mild concentration. "Huh. Good point. Doesn't feel like Missy or Chris are up either, actually. I vote we take advantage of nobody being up to go a bit further out for breakfast."
Taylor shrugged. "Works for me."
Riley ended up waiting for them in the workshop. She'd ordered room service and then played a bit with a couple of the brain 'fruits' that weren't going to last much longer, ending up with a couple of new bots. One was a spider-bot, the other was more of a tank than anything else.
"Is that a rubber band gun?" Amy asked, looking over the 'tank' bot.
Riley shrugged. "I don't have a good supply of things for the spider-bot legs, so I improvised and it isn't a tank without a gun. I might swap it out for something better later, when I have more supplies available. The good news is that your neural tissue plant there seems to work fine for basic stuff. The bad news is that I'm fairly certain that it won't help entirely, since I get antsy if I don't play with parahumans often enough. That and I've never had the opportunity to play with just brains, basically, usually I end up trying things out on the rest of the body and all..."
Their conversation stopped as the door opened and a man entered. He double-checked his phone, then realized that the girls were there. "Oh, hello. I'm Raymund Bond. I'm a little early, I think?"
"Good morning," Amy said, gesturing to the privacy screen. "Feel free to get changed into a hospital gown now."
"Um, before we get to that, you aren't likely to accidentally change me into a woman or anything?"
"One hundred percent of the males who have undergone the procedure have come back out just as male as they went in," Riley answered. "And no, that isn't a play on words, you aren't the first male."
Raymund sagged in relief, then shook himself and walked over to the privacy curtain. Apparently that'd been worrying him. It didn't take him long to come out from behind the curtain and sit down on one of the operating tables.
"We'll get started as soon as the other patient shows up," Taylor said when it looked like Raymund was wondering what they were waiting for.
Raymund blinked a couple of times. "Oh, right, I guess that would explain the second table, wouldn't it? Er, though now that I think about it, shouldn't there be someone else here to monitor that nothing inappropriate goes on or something?"
Amy blinked, then sighed as she shook her head. "Dragon should be monitoring everything as a precaution, so I don't think there will be any issues."
Raymund looked around and spotted the cameras in the room, then nodded. He then jumped a little as Riley's new little tank bumped his dangling foot. He was keeping an eye on the thing as it wandered the room when Chris arrived.
Chris took one look at the little tank before he sighed and shook his head. "Morning."
"Morning," Taylor greeted. "You can change into a hospital gown back there."
"I see it, thanks." He seemed a lot more at ease than Taylor had expected. Then again, he also seemed a little tired as he headed for the privacy curtain. Maybe he hadn't slept well and was going through the motions?
"Kids too?" Raymund said as Chris passed him. "I don't know why, but I didn't expect that. Is this whole process safe for someone who's still growing?"
Amy nodded. "As far as we can tell, unlike the old version of some of it that Riley came up with on her own."
"Huh. I thought that kids were being excluded automatically for growth reasons, since all the Wards I knew of that applied were rejected at the first stage. Then again, that could've been keeping things locked down a bit better if it's only the Brockton Bay Wards that were allowed to continue on?"
Taylor shrugged. "I know at least one Boston Ward was let through to the second stage, but that would've been after they learned a bit more about what I could do while I was there."
"How in the world do you know that?" Amy asked. "I mean, I didn't think there was a list of people who made it that far?"
"I recognized one of the complaints that got forwarded to me."
Ten minutes later they'd gotten to work.
David took a sip of his drink as he watched the cameras. Somehow he'd gotten remote monitoring duty for this fugue, on the basis that having only a female monitoring when the girls were working on males was a bad thing. It was more annoying when you considered that nobody had required it when they were working on Mister Wallis, or Mister Horsfall the day before that. Admittedly, the latter had been off the books and officially unplanned, but it still counted in his book.
Really, from what he could see, and knew of previous sessions, they were very professional in how they handled things. Or maybe more 'clinical'? They didn't tend to do much that wasn't needed, even if it wasn't immediately obvious why it was needed. Though it was very unnerving to see them do things like outright remove bones to change things before putting them back in.
He revised that thought a few minutes later when they opened up the two skulls.
Amy waved Taylor off as they came out of the fugue, heading over to check on and wake Raymund. Taylor ignored her and moved to check on, but not yet wake, Chris.
Taylor: Huh, William and Sarah appear to have arrived while we were busy.
Amy: Think we'll be working on William? I thought he'd have Riley's variant of things already.
Taylor: Maybe. Or perhaps they're here for unrelated reasons.
Raymund didn't take long to get up and change back into his normal clothing, which was followed by waking Chris up so that he could change as well. The two were run through initial pairing dances to connect to their phones before being scanned for security purposes. Then they were brought down the hall to the conference room.
"Quite the spread," Raymund noted as they entered.
"You should be quite hungry after all the work just done to you," Riley replied, even as she was finding that there were even a couple of bowls suitable for a spider-bot off to the side. She set one bowl down, but then looked between the little 'tank' and the other bowl. "Crap, I forgot to give this one the ability to eat when I adapted the base design for tracks instead of legs. I'll need to fix that before I get around to properly training these two."
Over the next few minutes Riley basically taught the spider-bot how to 'eat', while the rest of them gathered their own food and started eating. Satisfied, she then grabbed a plate and food for herself. Raymund actually ate the most, but also left first with a quick apology, saying something about being asked to report in quickly.
"I suppose being the first non-parahuman we've worked on would require some extra checks," Taylor noted after Raymund had left. "I wonder how many more we'll get?"
"I'm more concerned with whether or not they'll put me through a new round of power testing," Chris admitted. "I wasn't told that they would, of course, but still..."
Amy shrugged. "If they feel they've got a good handle on the rough capabilities then they shouldn't bother putting everyone through testing."
"They might do so anyway though," Taylor retorted. "If only to ensure that they know how each individual changed. Power interactions and all."
"Oh. Right, didn't think about that side of things."
Chris groaned. "Someone's going to test me as soon as I'm back home, aren't they? Annoying pain in the ass..."
"They'll probably only test the new tricks," Riley said, only to get a look from the others. "That's what usually happened with those I upgraded before, anyway? No need to test things that wouldn't have had any reason to change and all."
"Unlike when I was re-tested and they wanted to check everything due to the idiots that had run my first testing," Taylor said, getting nods from the others.
Colin stretched between tasks in testing his enhancements. It wasn't anything significant, and was mostly a checklist prepared in advance by thinkers, but he still had to go through it. They liked having baselines for things like strength when it came to anyone with brute ratings, after all. When he was done here he was going to have to do some major adjustments to his power armor, as it no longer knew how strong he was. Of course, with a higher bound on his own strength the armor could enhance things even further when it did kick in, which would make everything so much more efficient overall.
That he'd gotten more rest last night with less sleep, by the time he'd actually gone to bed, was even better.
"We're going to aim for a bit under what we think you're capable of handling for the durability tests," came over the speakers. The Guild was running this particular session remotely, which had pissed off the locals. They'd handle the testing of the two Wards when they returned anyway. "Since your healers are all out of town and all."
Colin nodded and moved over to the appropriate piece of equipment. No need to cause him to be off-duty longer than necessary, after all. Besides, once he was done getting his power armor ready to go, thus getting himself ready to patrol again, he apparently had some things to look into. He was annoyed that he wasn't allowed to even look at the special request until he was cleared for duty, of course, and he wasn't stupid enough to clear himself for full duty until he had at least one set of power armor ready to wear again.
That, and he had so many ideas about how to improve his control interfaces now that he didn't have to worry about monitoring things like eye movement.
Chris had followed Riley back to the workshop, talking with her about tinkering while she dealt with some of the oversights with the little tank-bot. Apparently he was much more at-ease around her now that he'd interacted with her? Or maybe he was just that interested in talking with a new tinker. It was hard to say, but they should be fine chatting while Riley worked.
"So what do we do for the next couple of hours before the next fugue?" Taylor asked as they walked out into the hallway, having stuck around a little longer than the others.
Amy paused, then shook her head. "No clue. Not enough time to go do anything interesting, really. Unless we want to visit that arcade again or something, anyway."
"I suppose we could do that. Think anyone else has gotten close to my score on the pinball machine?"
"You basically showed them how to do the fancy multiball mode, so maybe. We'd probably have to...why is Chris coming this way all of a sudden?"
They waited as Chris approached, only to see that he was quite pale when he reached them.
"What's wrong?" Taylor asked.
Chris shuddered. "I, er, um..."
Amy shook her head. "You didn't expect brain tissue?"
Chris nodded.
"It's from a plant we made for her," Taylor said, patting Chris on the shoulder. "The other variant didn't work out, but yeah. No humans were harmed for those two."
"But before you made that plant she would've been harming humans," Chris noted, and Taylor was forced to nod in agreement.
"We were just considering a visit to the arcade until we have to come back for the next fugue," Amy said. "Want to join us?"
Chris nodded at that. "Should we ask Missy if she wants to join us?"
Taylor shrugged. "Probably not a bad idea. Though that does bring up what we'll tell people about being out and about as a group?"
"You offered to look after us at the arcade since we're all from Brockton Bay?"
"I suppose that'll work if anyone asks."
It turned out that there was a waiting list for playing Demon's Gate. Missy pouted when she found out, because there was no way they'd have time to wait and it seemed like the thing to try at the arcade. Chris took it better, and Amy just shook her head before heading over to one of the less-popular pinball games. Taylor honestly didn't think she cared all that much, but she wandered over to the snack bar area to grab a shake and ask if anyone else had gotten close to her score anyway. If only because she knew she'd be asked later. Missy tagged along, curious.
"Hey there," the boy behind the counter greeted. "What can I get you two?"
"I'd like a strawberry shake," Taylor answered, noting that they had a sign up with the high scores for Demon's Gate as of that morning, meaning she didn't have to ask what she'd originally intended to. "Looks like people are having problems beating my score?"
The boy paused and looked at her more closely. After a moment he snorted. "So that's why you looked familiar. And yeah, as for those looking to beat your score, most of them aren't nearly as patient as you. You avoided all the risky everything until after your first multiball, right?"
"I suppose that's one way of looking at it."
A couple minutes later Taylor paid for the shake she was handed, before the boy looked at Missy. "You want anything?"
Missy nodded. "I'd like one of the ice cream bars, please."
William sighed as he sat at the table. He was mildly annoyed at the lack of progress in constructing a new deck in the backyard, but couldn't really do much about it until the permit went through. Needing to prove that he hadn't just disconnected the old septic tank, but had in fact removed it, was just the most recent headache. Admittedly, that would've been easier to prove to the city if it hadn't been removed with parahuman assistance.
Maybe the paperwork would clear by the following week. Maybe it wouldn't. Until then doing anything would be more likely to cause long term problems than to help. He still thought the deck made more sense than putting in a patio, which had been Sarah's recommendation. At least the deck could be easily constructed to go out over the slope a little, giving them more space in the end.
"Where the fuck are my grenades?" Sarah yelled from the other room, causing William to sigh.
"The tinkertech grenades that we put in storage for safety reasons?" he called back.
Sarah came into the room. "No, the fragmentation ones."
"Did you have any left after loading the tank up?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'm talking about the ones I bought after that."
"Oh, is that what that lock box was full of? You left it chained to the floor in the back of the van when you couldn't be arsed to get out the key to the padlock."
"Ah. Right. Forgot about that. I wonder where I left the fucking key, don't want to replace another lock and chain now that I found some I like..."
William picked up his mug and took a sip. He'd dropped the key into the mail, slowest delivery speed he could get. Anonymous return with the address on the key tag, of course, no need to let Sarah think that he'd denied her access to her dangerous toys on purpose after all. Luckily she was too scared of accidentally damaging locks these days to try to pick them either.
Eventually he'd have to tell her his idea about making the lock invulnerable while she was working on it to get around that, of course. It was just going to have be something he 'came up with' when it was needed. After some careful thought to make it obvious that it wasn't something he'd already thought of.
Chapter 154 Taylor and Amy returned to find Riley working on more 'training' of the two new bots. In the restroom. Apparently she had to put some effort into getting them to use the toilet. From the sounds of it she wasn't having a whole lot of luck with at least one of them.
"Suddenly I find myself much more appreciative of the effort that went into our spider-bots," Taylor noted as they listened to Riley yelling.
Amy nodded. "I'll agree to that, but I think we need to interrupt her so that we can get ready for the next fugue."
Taylor fired a text message off to Riley. "Yeah. Not sure why they brought Chris and Missy out but split them across two days, instead of waiting a day and getting them done on the same day or something."
"They seem to be trying to keep the patients the same gender for some reason, so maybe it's compartmentalizing information about others? Only throw people in with the two Wards that are already cleared to know about them?"
"That could be. Can't protect our secrets any more with careful scheduling, since we're there regardless, but the Wards we're working on would qualify."
They were interrupted by Riley coming into the workshop with the two new bots, grumbling about something they couldn't quite catch. She visibly stopped and took a couple of deep breaths to calm down, then sighed. "So, I didn't think to check, who are we expecting?"
Amy shrugged. "Couple of women, I think. Names weren't familiar, so I didn't bother to note them."
Taylor took a moment to check. "Looks like Jessica Lupo and Paula Roydon."
Riley started double-checking her tools while Amy ensured that the operating tables had been cleaned properly by the drones. Taylor, on the other hand, ended up corralling the two bots away from the door to the hallway that they were very interested in now. It didn't take long for Taylor and Amy to pause and look towards the hallway.
"Why is William down here now?" Amy asked before Taylor could. Taylor just shrugged.
A couple minutes later the door opened, and instead of William there was a woman pushing a second woman in a wheelchair. Taylor reconsidered things at that point, and wished that Broadcast Administrator had a better handle on 'same snark, different human' already.
BA: Agreement. Annoyance
And apparently it did too, but hadn't figured everything out yet. But it was working on it. Though this not being William would explain why Sarah appeared to be missing, perhaps this woman had the ability to project some other form as well?
"Hello there," the woman pushing the wheelchair said once the door had closed behind the two. "I'm Paula Roydon, and this is Jess."
"Please don't call me Jessica," Jess said. "Jess will be fine in general, really."
"I prefer Miss Roydon myself," Paula added. "Jess has been somewhat excited for this, after finding out that most parahuman healers can't deal with injuries as old as hers are."
Jess nodded. "And after I accidentally stumbled upon things they didn't expect me to they gave up. Why drag in various healers if I'd be visiting Panacea anyway and all."
Taylor blinked. "Accidentally stumbled?"
Jess shrugged. "Apparently they didn't expect me to notice the similarities between Jack Slash and the pictures I found of Jacob in the system after I joined up. When I asked they kinda panicked?"
Paula snorted. "They locked both of us in a room with a mountain of paperwork after grilling you on things for a couple of hours. You picked out the right details when you ran into him last year, then made the mistake of bringing them up."
"At least it got both of us fast-tracked for this, right?"
"Only because they want to see how they handle your injuries and that you got your powers from that vial you drank."
Amy walked over to the two. "Okay, you two, we don't have all day. Before we get started I think I want to take a look at your injuries, see how bad things actually are and all."
Jess nodded. "That makes sense, do we need to get me onto one of the tables?"
Paula shook her head, not that Jess could see it. "You didn't read up on her. She just has to touch your skin."
"Oh." Jess held her hand out. "Ok."
Amy took the woman's hand, and both she and Taylor flinched. The spinal injuries were old and had not fared well over the years. The atrophied muscles and bones in her legs were icing on the proverbial cake. It might be easier to rebuild her lower body from scratch in several ways, to be honest. But it was probably doable.
"Think they can get us some decent cuts of meat for raw materials?" Taylor mused. "Might make things easier."
"Probably a little late to ask for them," Riley said. "We should just get them ready to start."
It didn't take long to get both women set up on the operating tables, though they had to help Jess. Paula had apparently ended up volunteering to help the girl with various things her injuries made difficult when she'd first been brought in, but they all chipped in this time.
"So, we'd like to put you two to sleep for the entire procedure," Amy said.
Jess interrupted at that point. "May I watch?"
"Watch us put you to sleep?" Riley asked. "Trust me, it isn't exactly interesting."
"No no," Jess said. "Gimme a moment."
They watched as she concentrated for a moment. It wasn't long before she was obviously asleep, but at the same time her snark snapped into focus next to the operating table she was on. A yellow and beige blur that quickly formed up into a humanoid, then became more and more realistic until a healthier-looking version of Jess was standing there.
"I suppose that would explain a couple of things," Taylor finally said. This second Jess felt exactly like Sarah did normally, to be honest. She avoided poking her directly, just to be safe. "But I'm not sure if it's a good idea for you to watch the procedure."
"We'll keep her unconscious either way," Amy said. "I assume she can leave if she's too squicked out or something."
Riley lightly poked the projection. "You can't throw up like that, can you?"
"I don't think I can..."
Chris felt that he was going to have a hard time adjusting to having to not interact with technology with his brain. It was just too easy, and he'd only been able to do so for a few hours. School was going to suck in the fall, that was for certain. He was going to have to work on paying attention to his surroundings, though, as he'd already walked into several walls. He didn't know how Taylor and Amy handled it so well.
Right now, though, he was practicing with one of the tricks he knew should work, since Taylor used it a lot. Subvocalizing so that he couldn't be heard if you weren't connected to his phone in some way. That just seemed like too much of a useful trick, though for the time being he could use text messaging as well. That was just less useful overall, requiring more concentration and all.
To assist with this he'd rigged up a sound level meter and was trying to 'speak' without triggering it. So far he wasn't having a lot of luck.
He took a deep breath, then spoke. "Testing, one, two, oh, come on, over fifty decibels?"
If he couldn't figure this out soon then he might have to ask for tips.
Jess wasn't sure why, but watching the three work on her and Paula didn't seem to be affecting her much. It was freaky looking, but she also couldn't stop watching. Seeing them fix her spinal column was fascinating, even. The sudden pain in her head when they were doing something at the base of her skull took her by surprise, but it didn't last long. More interestingly, when it cleared she had some kind of new mental interface. She avoided playing with it for the time being.
Over the course of the following hour or two, she'd honestly lost track of time at some point, she found that she had more minor spikes of pain in her head, each followed by a new mental interface piece appearing. As more appeared she was realizing that she didn't actually know what any of them did yet, which was mildly concerning. How was she supposed to use them if she didn't have labels of some kind?
It was only as they appeared to be finishing up that she realized that not a single word had been spoken between the three during the entire process. They'd worked as a well-oiled machine from start to finish, but without any obvious signs of communication. Sure, they probably could just use their own upgrades to communicate, since they were supposed to include operating phones and all, but how would that be more efficient than just speaking?
Taylor shook her head as they came out of the fugue. She blinked as she noted the time, that was one of the longest ones yet. Then again, Jess had some significant healing needed as part of things, so perhaps that helped explain things.
"I'm starving," Riley whined, causing Taylor to roll her eyes.
"We'll go stuff our faces in a few minutes," Amy replied. "We should get these two woken up and set up first, like we have been right along. Goodies and all."
Riley grumbled, and went to kick the tank-bot. She stopped herself when she realized what she was about to do, instead picking it up and baby-talking to it in apology for almost attacking it in frustration.
"She's a bit weird," Jess noted from her projection in the corner of the room. "But I'd appreciate it if we hurried a little bit, at least. I'm unsure how much longer this body will last."
Taylor placed her hand on Jess's body on the table, nodding. "Dismiss it whenever, then. Just expect to be sore and hungry when you wake up over here."
"I've still got echoes of the headaches from when you three were doing things to my brain, I think it was, but I think I'll survive. The last one was the easiest, as it just snapped labels or understanding onto most of the controls." The projection then started to essentially 'fade out', even as Paula was waking up.
"That is a very weird feeling," Paula said as she sat up. "Not quite unpleasant...wait, am I not wearing my contacts?"
"I think correcting vision is something we just do with these things," Taylor said, shrugging. "It was surprisingly easy to adjust to not needing glasses when it happened to me."
"Oh god that stings," Jess exclaimed as she woke up, grabbing her left leg as she bent it up towards her. She then stilled suddenly, everyone looking at her. "Holy crap, not only can I feel my leg, I just moved it. This is awesome." Her stomach then growled, and she blushed. "Oh, right, you did say I'd be hungry..."
"Let's get you two changed into normal clothing and paired to things," Amy said. "Then we'll go eat."
Sibyl sighed as she got up and moved around her desk to pick up the 'Director Milton' nameplate she'd just knocked off of it. She knew most of the regional directors didn't bother with the things, but hers had been a gift when she'd gotten the position. Really, she should at least figure out a way to secure it better than the obviously-failed double-sided foam tape had.
Once the nameplate was back on her desk she sat back down and stared at the paperwork that she'd thrown down hard enough to knock the nameplate off in the first place. There were a lot of annoying secrets that she wasn't cleared for. For example, how in the world Miss Hebert had become the weirdest 'grab-bag' cape she'd ever heard of without a group trigger apparently being involved. Or why she was still here in Las Vegas, but apparently mostly hiding in the hotel.
It was fairly obvious that Miss Dallon was somehow involved in things, but what that actually entailed was a mystery. Large sections of both of their files were blacked out for security reasons. The most intriguing thing, though, was the note on both files. It implied things that were worrisome, but again had little explanation. No matter what the cause, though, unrelated parahumans with matching notes that the other should be contacted immediately in case of abduction was not normal.
Worse, she'd only found out about said notes after the attempt at the waterpark. She hadn't been cleared to know before that. Which implied something major, and she'd made no headway into properly figuring out what. Then she'd been let in on the fact that Miss Hebert had some trick that let her analyse tinkertech, a trick that turned out to be able to pierce protections specifically designed to prevent that kind of analysis. A trick that, as far as she could tell, was added to her file well after joining the Wards, which implied that she either hadn't known she could do it, or that something had happened to grant her that ability.
Damn her curiosity and stubborn refusal to let mysteries like this go.
Amy sighed. "Yes, you still have to use the wheelchair for a bit. Even miracle workers have limits, it'll be a bit before your leg muscles are up to par."
"We really shouldn't have let you barely make it down the hall to eat," Riley added. "You need to take things more slowly, even if you did cheat a bit by re-learning how to walk with your projection trick."
"That took forever to get right," Jess admitted, then mumbled something they couldn't catch.
"There was only so much that could be done with the atrophied muscles and such without pulling raw materials from elsewhere in your body," Taylor explained. "Which would've just been shifting the problem somewhere else. Take your time and you'll be out of the wheelchair before you know it."
"We'll get you a physical therapist," Paula said from next to Jess. "You'll be up and about in no time."
Jess pouted at that, but didn't argue. Instead, after a couple more mouthfuls of food she got a look on her face. "I don't suppose any of you know if the box of Bluetooth goodies includes enough to hook up to a standard computer?"
Taylor blinked, having not looked into it that closely. "Possibly, why?"
"I was good at games before, what kind of reaction times do you think I can get when I don't even have to use my hands?"
"Hey Ben," Danny called as he entered the living room.
"Yes Daniel?" Ben replied from the kitchen, so Danny made his way that way to find the man sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him.
"Miss Militia sent an apology about having you play 'villain' for the Wards. Apparently the lawyers feel that having you openly using your powers against them would be a bad thing before you appear in court, no matter how well behaved you are."
"I suppose that makes sense, and I hadn't fully considered that aspect of things."
"On the other hand, she said that they can pick you up tomorrow for some power usage stuff. If you want to get some in she also wants to know if you'd like to let the testers at you to see if you can pull off some of their crazy ideas or if you want to just get some generic usage in like you did before."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "Crazy ideas?"
Danny shrugged. "Her words, not mine."
Ben considered things for a couple of minutes before sighing. "I should probably keep ahead of the urges, and I'm trying to not set up bone structures in the house here. But now I'm curious about what 'crazy ideas' the testers have. I control bone, what could they possibly be thinking?"
"Carol started grilling with tools she's made with her hard-light constructs recently. Miss Militia branched out into warhammers and such. We can probably count Amy's little rainbow rose bushes in this category too."
Ben blinked. "Rainbow what?"
Shaking his head, Danny gestured towards the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you Taylor's. I've been watering it while she's away."
"Ugh," Riley said as the door closed behind Paula and Jess. "I think I want to call it an early night."
"That was a bit longer than the usual," Taylor agreed. "Probably all the repair work we did?"
"Most likely," Amy said as she leaned back in her chair. "Makes me wonder what kind of headache getting Riley's previous work out first will be."
Taylor nodded. "That will suck. Are we ever going to be doing that?"
"Probably when the squirt wants to actually grow up to be a big girl."
Riley stuck her tongue out at them for that remark.
Eventually they got moving, double-checked that tools and such were all put away properly, and then headed upstairs as a group. Taylor, however, started getting concerned as the elevator approached the correct floor.
"There's an extra snark that I don't recognize on our floor," Taylor noted. A moment later Amy nodded.
"Should we call it in?" Riley asked.
"So long as we're ready to act I don't think we need to," Amy answered after a moment. "I mean, it's Dragon's private floor, right? So the most likely explanation is that Dragon is letting someone else use it, or has someone visiting her."
It wasn't long before the elevator opened up on the floor and the girls stepped out. Taylor took the lead, and then stopped when she reached the two suite doors. Dragon's private suite and the likely-unused suite were further down the hall.
Looking between Riley and the door, she finally shook her head. "Either Amanda triggered or something else is going on here."
Riley jerked in surprise. "What?"
Taylor pointed at the digital sign, which now read 'Amanda & Riley'. "Your mother appears to be here, and the extra snark is in the suite."
Riley thought about that for a moment, then sighed and moved forward to open the door. "She probably brought Rosy."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, but followed Riley in when the younger girl held the door open for them.
A moment later Amanda came out of the bedroom that Riley hadn't been using, carrying a spider-bot. One with the snark that Taylor had noticed. "Oh, hello girls!"
"Hi Mom," Riley said. "What brings you here? I thought you hated everything Las Vegas stands for?"
Amanda scoffed. "Like I'd miss out on the opportunity to get the artificial brute package. It's only a single night, and you know how I get at my time of the month."
Riley considered that, then shook her head. "Okay, right, I recall you complaining that I couldn't do anything about that on my own without pulling your entire reproductive system out."
"Hello Amanda," Taylor said after a moment. "So, what's up with, um, Rosy, I think Riley likely called it?"
Amanda nodded and held the spider-bot up. Taylor could tell that it was one of the least-functional she'd seen Riley make. And probably the least sturdy one she'd seen, honestly, it could use quite a bit of work. "Yes, Rosy. Riley's first spider-bot, she hates that I haven't let her smash him."
Amy blinked. "Him?"
"Rosario was a caring husband for a while." Amanda frowned. "Either that or an incredibly good actor, I suppose. Never did figure that much out. I honestly don't think he ever properly recovered from his trigger event."
"The first memories I have of the bastard were him beating the crap out of me," Riley grumbled.
"And that behavior only started after he triggered," Amanda retorted. "It took years before he tried to put any of his tinkertech in either of us, most days I like to think that was a sign that he was doing his best to contain his urges. I'm just happy that Jacob was able to get through to you before you'd done much more than stabilize me. You weren't quite up to par at first, not having made all your specialized tools and all yet."
Riley groaned. "I was also suffering from blood loss of my own, right? Or at least that's one of the things you constantly remind me of."
Taylor: Why, exactly, are we still here listening to all of this?
Amy: Trainwreck syndrome. You know you shouldn't, but you can't help watching.
Taylor: Ah. Right.
Thursday morning found Benjamin and Garnet arriving at the PRT building at the same time. There was some tension there, as Carol had brought Garnet, but the woman had kept herself from attacking. In fact, she'd taken a couple of deep breaths and then pointedly ignored him.
Benjamin was honestly considering asking who her therapist was, if only to send them a gift for doing such a good job. He was certainly impressed.
It turned out that the testers were also curious about what Garnet could do, and she'd been enticed in with the whole 'crazy ideas' bit too. They just couldn't resist finding out what the testers thought they might be able to do.
"Good morning," Miss Militia said as she came into the secure garage that they'd been dropped off in, just after Carol had left. The entire garage looked very recently renovated, which struck him as odd. "Would you two like masks today?"
"I don't know why we should bother," Garnet said as she adjusted the crutch she was using. "I was recently reminded that our faces are still a matter of public record, since the policies that keep identities more secret were only adopted after we were both imprisoned."
Benjamin nodded. "She makes a good point."
Miss Militia nodded, before gesturing at the door she'd come through. "Then we should get going."
Taylor grumbled as she stared at the ceiling. Stupid spider-bots, Ackbar had apparently made a launching web for Rodney, or Rodney had triggered Ackbar's web, or something like that. The end result was that Taylor had been taken by surprise as she came out of her room this morning.
"Morning," Amy said as she came out. "Why are you on the floor?"
Taylor sighed and started to get up. "Wasn't expecting a high-speed Rodney to the chest."
"I see how that could be a problem." Amy moved over to the screen, presumably to at least order breakfast for the spider-bots. "Did you see the message about them wanting us to return to Brockton Bay overnight tonight?"
"Yeah, hopefully the transport is comfortable enough for sleeping in, otherwise my sleep schedule is going to be shot."
"We can only hope. Looks like they got the normal breakfast setup ready downstairs, if we want to give it a try. Or we can go for a last hurrah somewhere else."
"Think we should check with Riley, Chris, or Missy?"
"Probably not a bad idea, I guess. We'll be waiting on the food for the spider-bots anyway."
As far as they'd been able to tell, everyone else was still asleep. So they'd headed down to breakfast and found that the 'normal' layout was similar to a cafe, with some things just available and other things cooked on demand. Further, apparently they normally secured the area with a door that required your room key to open, something that they hadn't seen before because they'd opened the entire wall for the convention, not to mention the mock thesis event.
It wasn't long before they'd ordered and received a stack of waffles each, added a couple of bagels and some fruit, and poured themselves something to drink. They then grabbed a small booth that could seat the two of them and dug in. Taking their time, they were nearly done when a cry came from the other side of the room.
The two looked and saw that a man was digging through a bag as what looked like his son was scratching at his throat, though the orange hoodie the kid was wearing was bulky enough to leave things a little unclear. Amy jumped up and moved over immediately anyway, Taylor following a moment later. With any luck Taylor wouldn't be needed, but better safe than sorry.
As soon as Amy reached the boy she took his hand. A moment later she'd forced the swelling down and started purging his body's reaction to what appeared to be a peanut allergy. "It's going to be ok now, just give me a moment to make sure you won't have issues again as soon as I let you go."
The man had stopped and stared at Amy, but didn't seem to be making the mental connections. Taylor moved over to him, figuring that was one way she could help. "I guess you're lucky that Panacea was eating breakfast across the room today. Were you looking for the injector in the side pocket of your bag?"
The man blinked, and turned the bag around to see the injector sitting there. "Oh, yes, I was." He then looked back at Amy and seemed to visibly relax. "I put it in that pocket just in case, and then completely forgot when I needed it."
"I think I've gotten everything," Amy said, then looked at the boy's plate. "I've tried to dampen the peanut allergy a bit as well, but that's likely to resurface. Only so much that I can do there and all. But I don't see what he likely ate to trigger it."
Taylor: Dampened? It looked to me like you purged the entirety of the thing.
Amy: For now, but depending on how it developed it may just come back.
Taylor looked at the plate as well. Chocolate chip pancakes, it looked like, which shouldn't be a problem. It hadn't been a lot of peanut or peanut butter either. Though now that she thought about it, there was one possibility, so she turned to the man. "I don't suppose you informed them about his allergy when you ordered?"
"It didn't occur to me to," the man admitted. "He's my nephew and normally my brother orders for him when we're out. I just wanted to treat him a bit while his parents were sleeping off hangovers."
Taylor nodded. "They had peanut butter chips as an option on the menu, it may be that one or two made it into the pancakes without them noticing, probably not normally a major concern."
"And because I didn't say anything about allergies they wouldn't have been more cautious about that kind of thing. That's an important lesson for me, I guess."
Amy let go of the boy, and he took a few more breaths before smiling and hugging her. He didn't say anything, but the gratitude was obviously there. Amy patted him on the back, then turned to his uncle. "I also healed up the scrape he had on his leg while I was at it."
"Thank you," the man said, getting up to shake Amy's hand. She flipped her striker switch off before accepting the handshake. "Can I pay for your breakfast in thanks?"
Amy snorted. "You can feel free. How much did your breakfast cost?"
"It's included in...oh, right. I'm obviously a little out of it."
Taylor nodded. "You are, but that's understandable."
Amy then sighed and pulled out her phone, flipping through things with her fingers for show. She eventually found what she was looking for and filled in a few details. Once she was ready she handed the phone to the man. "I'm sorry about this, sir, but I'd appreciate if you could fill this out. While the law permits emergency healing there are still formalities to worry about, especially as you admitted just now that you're his uncle, not his father."
"Perfectly understandable," the man said, taking the phone and carefully filling it out. He even appeared to use his finger to sign something at the end, then handed it back to Amy. "Thank you again."
Amy double-checked things, then nodded and put the phone away. "No problem sir, I'm certain most doctors or nurses would've been just as willing to help." With that done she encouraged the boy to let go of her. "Just be a little more careful about things in the future."
Taylor shook her head as the boy latched onto his uncle before she and Amy headed back to their nearly-complete breakfast as the man fussed over his nephew. He seemed satisfied that the kid would be fine by the time they were seated again, and they watched as the man picked up his nephew's plate. "Okay, Kenny, let's go see if we can get you something a little safer. Perhaps some toast or a bagel this time?"
Garnet was regretting the laughing she was doing, given the resulting aggravation of her injured limbs, but the look on Benjamin's face had been hilarious. Especially since the man had been sitting on an effective goldmine and never even realized it.
"It isn't that funny," Benjamin finally said.
"Yes it is," Garnet managed to get out between chuckles. "One of your favorite topics during Glaistig's gatherings was your inability to find a way to go legit, after all."
"How was I supposed to know that I more accurately shape ivory than bone due to the increased density and lack of blood vessels and bone marrow? Besides, I have no clue if there would even be a decent market for the stuff, no matter what the testers think."
"You have no idea how many people would love to have genuine ivory decorations," one of the testers interjected. "Parahuman created ivory or not. That you could make 'blanks' in shapes not normally generated in nature would probably draw artisans from all over the planet, even those that normally don't work with ivory."
The shocked look on Benjamin's face set Garnet off again. It just got worse when he switched to a scowl of annoyance over the whole thing. The only issue with the whole situation was that, as far as she knew, nobody had recorded the discussion.
Chapter 155 Taylor and Amy ended up heading back up to the suite to do some initial packing, figuring that getting that out of the way was probably for the best. As a result of that, Missy actually beat the rest of them down to the workshop, where she'd decided to play with the two bots that Riley had left there the night before. Something about the workshop being easier to clean if they made a mess, since they weren't 'properly trained' yet and all. She'd even left a note on the door to that effect.
Taylor and Amy had shown up next and got to watch Missy warp space repeatedly, the two bots exploring the changes in a confused manner. Then Riley and Amanda showed up with two bowls of food for the bots.
"I don't know if that's fascinating or merely headache inducing," Amanda said after a moment of looking at Missy's warped space. "But I think it'll be easier to feed the two if the room is in its normal state."
"Oh, sorry," Missy said, blushing as she gradually returned the room to normal. She then looked at Taylor and Amy. "How long were you two watching?"
"About eight minutes or so," Amy answered. "It was interesting."
Missy seemed annoyed with that as Riley and Amanda got the two bots to eat, then Amanda went over to the privacy curtain to change. Riley, on the other hand, moved to clean up a couple of messes, which might be enough to prove her point about the bots not being properly trained yet.
"So Missy," Amy said, getting the younger girl's attention. "We'll be working on pretty much your entire body. You've asked me to not clear up several of your scars before, do you want us to keep them there this time?"
Missy blushed at that. "Er, no. I had to promise my mother that I'd let you get rid of them. She wasn't happy with a couple of them in particular, though at least she waited until we got home from the store to confront me about them. She promised to not tell my father about them if they were gone when I returned."
"What in the world were you doing to get scars that your parents didn't know about?" Amanda asked as she emerged from the privacy curtain.
"Er, solo unauthorized patrols? Really, I'm not sure how I kept them secret for as long as I did, since it seems like everyone but my parents knew I was running the things."
Amy snorted at that. "I think it was more that your parents didn't think that you'd run into Hookwolf at least twice, and I believe the one on your back was from Cricket? Now go change into your hospital gown so we can get started."
Missy grumbled, but did as she'd been told.
Dragon very carefully directed the drones loading the transport she'd brought in. She wanted most of the technology in the two labs out of the area sooner rather than later, given several attempts to get into the labs despite her publicly announced ownership of them. The current plan was to get everything that wasn't in use out first, then bring in a second transport before shutting down the primary equipment. Leaving the labs where they originally sat wasn't, in her opinion, going to work out.
She actually had ideas about relocating the primary systems, even if she couldn't figure out how to duplicate most of the technology. That might require getting creative in a couple of places, but she was fairly certain that she could pull off the basics. Whether or not it would be appreciated was an entirely different question, of course. Perhaps she'd check with a couple of others before starting anything too involved on that front, and if push came to shove she'd personally appreciate an extra secure data center.
Of course, if she could duplicate things then there would be other options. While the vaults the duo had installed in the casinos had security measures that prevented you from closing them while people were inside the technology didn't actually require that, as far as she could tell. It was just something the duo had included. Given the sheer amount of abuse things could take when 'sealed' due to the dimensional displacement the technology could hopefully make incredibly secure Endbringer shelters.
Oooh, perhaps she'd be getting her secure data center either way, if the storage room she'd just cleared a path to contained what it appeared to. Then again, it made sense that if one of the two tinkers had enough spare equipment for a dozen casinos then the other would as well. It just so happened that only one of them was organized with a proper inventory system.
Taking inventory and planning was a wonderful distraction from worrying about how Colin was taking things.
Benjamin had learned quite a bit about his powers that morning, but most of it was just clearing up what was actually happening when he used them. Apparently when fixing his own broken bones his power actually did things properly, with blood vessels and bone marrow and everything taken care of. He already knew that passing bone out of his body through injuries would heal those injuries, but he could only take so much pain before even his mental control over himself was overwhelmed. And regardless of what he ended up with according to the testers, he was still going to consider himself as shaping bone, because that was what he started with either way.
They'd somehow convinced Garnet to let him take a look at her leg. A specially constructed hollow tube instead of one of the pins holding the bones in place gave him enough line of sight on one of the broken bones. With everything aligned properly he was able to get the two pieces to bond together correctly, leaving Garnet with much less to heal from. The woman had then all but insisted that they repeat things with her arm, even if it meant making a new cut because they hadn't needed pins to hold things in place there.
Granted, she still had a sling and a crutch, but the testers and medical staff both assured the two of them that they would be much more temporary than the broken bones had been. Everyone there agreed that there was likely no way that Benjamin would've been able to keep himself to just mending broken bones, but they also disliked the way he'd described being treated when he'd first approached doctors about the process after he'd triggered. They'd actually recommended that he inform his lawyer about it, even.
Which had eventually led him to sitting in the waiting room of the lawyer's office, waiting for his turn. He'd offered to let Garnet go first today for a number of reasons. She wouldn't accept that he felt it was a gentlemanly thing to do, of course, nor that she was injured and thus shouldn't be made to wait as long. What she had accepted was that he'd rather not make Carol wait on him if she showed up before they were both done.
He found it somewhat amusing that the only reason that Garnet would accept was technically a lie. Really, he honestly had no issues making Carol wait at all.
Amy stared at the blood-covered pile of parts on the counter as they came out of the fugue. "Why, exactly, did we leave all of that there?"
"I'm not sure," Taylor admitted, also staring at the pile. "They're registering as junk to me, so I'm not actually sure what they're for."
Riley grumbled about something as she walked over and poked at the pile. "I think this is the stuff I used to fix Mom up when I triggered. I guess we didn't use it?"
Taylor blinked at that, but wasn't sure how to take it. She then blinked again as a couple of pieces shifted. "Are those bullet casings?"
Riley nodded. "I didn't have a good supply of things back then. Had to work with what was available. Then she wouldn't let me fix anything that was still working. I think most of what had been left was internal support stuff in her hips." She then pulled on some cords that had been in the pile. "And apparently some of the stuff I originally put around her spinal cord?"
"There's a good chance that both of them will be quite hungry," Amy noted. "Perhaps we should wake them up now?"
They woke Amanda up first, figuring that Missy would be much more excited about things. Better to have the adult up and about before that point and all.
"That's just weird," Amanda said after she'd stretched a little. "The itchy sensation is gone, and my left leg doesn't vibrate slightly anymore when I move it side to side."
Riley sighed. "I kept offering to fix some of that for you, but you kept telling me no."
"Because I didn't want your full upgrade package and I know you wouldn't have stopped before I had it. This one is much less noticeable, if Amy and Taylor are anything to go by. I don't think either of them even had a period of time where they accidentally broke everything they grabbed because they didn't know their own strength."
Taylor shook her head as Amanda went to get changed, bouncing a little as she did so. It looks like she was testing various bits of motion, possibly ones that had given her minor issues with Riley's work in place. A couple of minutes later she emerged in her normal clothing, carrying the dirty hospital gown.
"You can leave that for the drones to deal with," Amy noted.
Amanda shook her head. "Nope, I'm taking it with me. I get to keep so few reminders of Riley's less violent work, after all."
Riley groaned, but the others ignored her for the moment. Instead, Taylor woke Missy up, then stepped back as the younger girl started to stretch. Halfway through she paused, then brought her hands to her stomach as her eyes opened wide.
"Not feeling the pulling from the scars anymore?" Amy guessed.
Missy nodded. "Yeah, it feels a little weird, to be honest. I'd gotten used to the feeling. Though I suppose not having them rub against my clothing will be nice?"
"Go ahead and get changed so that we can get you two hooked up with everything," Taylor said, lightly pushing Missy to the edge of the operating table. "Then we'll go eat something."
Missy rolled off of the edge of the operating table, only to stumble and fall flat on her face instead of landing properly. She groaned as she got up. "I meant to do that."
Riley scoffed. "Sure you did."
"This whole brain interface thing makes using the phone so much easier," Amanda said as she collected a second serving of food. "It'll certainly make answering the phone while driving easier, especially with some of the cracking down they've been doing."
"It'll certainly make patrols easier," Missy said. "Now I can stop being jealous of others that easily write their patrol reports in the middle of patrolling."
"You'll want to practice the subvocalizing bit so that you can more easily talk on the radio," Taylor noted. "I'm not actually sure if Amy has practiced that, to be honest."
Amy shrugged. "I've played with it a little but haven't had a compelling reason to use it. It's actually easier most of the time to use text messages in those situations right now, since those I'd be communicating with can't do the subvocalizing trick. At least with the visors they can read the message, even if they can't easily reply."
Taylor nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. On patrol things are obviously a different story, though everyone back in Brockton Bay can get text messages now. But the console is usually easier to talk to unless you have a really good reason not to. And actually, I'm not sure if you can rely on PRT officers being able to see anything you send as text, so that's probably another good point for subvocalizing."
"I'll work on it," Missy assured them. "So, are you three doing another couple of people this afternoon?"
Amanda beat them to that answer. "After we're done eating I'll be helping Riley pack up her things, we have to get back home. That and I have no interest in the local attractions."
"So you've got a much earlier transport slot," Amy said. "We're not due to leave until nearly midnight." She then paused, and turned to Taylor. "Why did we already do most of our packing if we have half the day left to do things?"
Taylor raised an eyebrow. "To get it out of the way so that we can enjoy as much of our remaining time in Las Vegas as possible?"
"And what are we going to enjoy?"
Taylor shrugged. "We can probably get over to see Ed again in time to shoot stuff. Maybe actually try the M249 today?"
"That sounds awesome," Missy said, before pouting. "I wouldn't be allowed to go, would I?"
"I think you need to be at least sixteen without a parent," Amy said looking at Taylor. "That was the gotcha we found, right? No matter what you have for documentation?"
Taylor nodded. "That's right, and only the two places would let you in without a parent at all. And I don't think the tinkertech place has reopened yet."
Amanda reached over and patted Missy's shoulder, causing the girl to pout. "You should probably take it easy for a day or two anyway. Recover from the changes and all, figure out your new limits, that kind of thing. Then find an excuse to fire dangerous guns. To be honest, if I didn't know she can take it, I'd be concerned about hugging my daughter until I got a proper handle on things."
"We could bring back some of their pamphlets for you to show your parents too," Amy added. "Maybe convince them that a trip out would be a good idea and all."
Missy considered things for a minute, before nodding. "I wonder how quickly they'd try and get time off? Because I'm not sure they've even considered that places like that exist before. Otherwise I bet we'd have already visited at least one."
Taylor and Amy had dragged the extra 'goodies' upstairs to pack in their luggage, since a note left under the charging mats box said they should keep them all together, but Amanda didn't let them help with anything else. While that was happening, Missy had apparently grabbed Chris and dragged him down to the pool to distract herself from pouting about not being able to head over to the gun range. As soon as they'd realized that Missy was doing so they'd sent a message off to Chris, asking that he keep an eye on Missy to ensure that she didn't decide to take an impromptu post-fugue nap in the pool.
With that taken care of, they'd then checked with the front desk about bringing the mopeds back up to the roof. The staff had asked that they call ahead a few minutes before they returned, but otherwise they should be clear to head up the side of the building and come back in through the roof. That led to them heading down into the garage, likely for the last time this trip, to grab the mopeds and head out.
They reached the gun range with plenty of time, particularly because it was apparently a slow day on that front. Their IDs were checked again, presumably just in case they'd been revoked or something, and then they were told to wait for Ed to come out to get them, as there wasn't a room of people already there to join.
"Hello again girls," Ed said as he came out from the back.
"Hello Ed," Taylor and Amy chorused. Unintentionally in sync, but whatever.
"Nice to see you two again," Ed continued, walking up to Taylor and holding his hand out. Taylor shook it, though kept the striker switch off. She didn't need to see his biology today. "Especially you, Miss Hebert was it? I think you saved me a couple of hours of work the other day. That particular M249 had been giving us trouble even before the idiot we fired last week stored it incorrectly, but when I put it through its paces over the weekend it worked perfectly. Thank you for that."
Taylor shrugged. "It wasn't a problem. Apparently it just needed a good cleaning?"
"I think you actually fixed one of the springs while you were cleaning it, since it now fires more than ten rounds without something going wrong. I'd been ready to put a new set of springs in, but you saved me the trouble. Now then, you two wanted to fire some more?"
"We were hoping to try a M249," Amy answered. "And maybe a couple of the other, larger options you have available."
Ed nodded. "We'll wait ten minutes or so, see if anyone else shows up last minute and all, then see about heading over to the range itself. If nobody else does I might want to see how you two handle cleaning a couple of the more finicky pieces of hardware we've got."
Amy pointed at Taylor. "She's the one good at that kind of thing. I only learned how to do very basic maintenance on handguns and shotguns."
Ed's grin didn't seem to comfort Amy. "Never a bad time to learn new things, right?"
Kimberly reviewed things as she waited for the time to strike. They were using the wait time to prepare more potential ambush sites, but had run out of other things to prepare. Mainly a lack of supplies to set up more, and bringing in more would be too likely to tip their hands too much. Already they'd had a number of close calls, no need to risk more when she was fairly certain they were already more prepared than necessary.
"Ma'am," a runner called from the doorway, and she set the notepad she'd been reviewing down before turning to him. They all had very specific instructions as to what was worth bothering her directly about, so it must be important. As soon as her attention was obviously on him he continued. "The young one and a woman believed to be her mother were spotted boarding a transport around twenty minutes ago."
She nodded. It was about fucking time. She didn't know what they'd been doing for the past few days in Sin City, but the unanticipated delay in her plans had been annoying. "Good. That means we'll likely be moving soon. Get the local spotters in place and on the lookout for their targets. We can start risking the extra attention now."
The runner nodded and turned around to do so, and Kimberly collected the various papers and notepads on her desk. It was nearing time for her challenge, after all, so now was a good time to go over her equipment. She still had time to get any problems dealt with on that front, no sense in waiting until the last minute when she couldn't do anything about problems.
And hopefully they'd find some way to regrow her fingers soon after, the makeshift prosthetics she was using were a pain in the ass. Either that or find a prosthetics tinker, surely someone had a power like that? Then she'd just need to find a way to let them through her enhanced durability.
Taylor grinned as they parked down the street from the sub shop they'd previously eaten at with Riley. Despite the initial arguments against it, Amy had enjoyed learning about how to take apart and clean some of the larger guns. She'd also pouted when she realized that she wouldn't be able to get her hands on any of them legally anytime soon. Admittedly, the M-134 had been awesome, and Ed had given them a free run on it after they'd helped him fix the problems an idiot from a previous session had caused with it.
After all, the repairs had to be tested, right?
"I wonder how it is that at least two of those things ended up in Las Vegas," Amy wondered as they moved down the street. "I mean, I know Ed claimed that the one he had fell into his hands after a cape fight, but still..."
Taylor nodded. "I know what you mean. Might have to look up who else has one, even if Ed claimed they were more tourist-oriented."
They found that the place was a little busy, but still with many people grabbing stuff to go. They were actually planning on the same this time, just wanting something quick before heading back to the hotel. They placed their orders, paid, and then moved off to the side to wait. Hot subs took longer, after all. It was a few minutes later when a group came in. They were in the middle of ordering when one of them looked over at the two girls.
"YOU!" the boy yelled, pointing at the two of them. Which of them was more difficult to tell.
Taylor looked at Amy, who looked back, and they both shrugged. Amy then turned to the boy. "Which of us are you pointing at?"
"Her," the boy said, apparently pointing at Taylor. And glaring, for that matter, but he didn't seem to want to elaborate further.
Taylor just looked at him. "So why do I warrant you yelling?"
Before the boy could say anything more he was pulled to the other side of the group by one of the others, and a girl came forward. "Sorry about that, Kevin really doesn't like it when people beat him. On the track or on Demon's Gate. He's ignored that other girl's new high scores on a lot of the other machines, but those were more of a side project when Demon's Gate was occupied already."
"Sheesh. I'm just visiting, so it isn't like he won't have all the time in the world to dethrone me."
"SHE'S A CHEATING CHEATER THAT CHEATS!" the boy, Kevin apparently, yelled from where he was being held. "THERE'S NO WAY SHE COULD GET THAT KIND OF SCORE OTHERWISE!"
"SHUT UP," the boy holding Kevin yelled back. "Unless you can say how she was able to cheat with a room full of witnesses and all?"
Kevin appeared to go to say a couple of things as everyone else watched him, only to slouch and pout.
The girl shook her head. "He'll get over it. Eventually. But do expect him to do everything he can to beat your score."
Taylor shrugged. "No skin off my back. I don't really care all that much. Might not have even gone to the arcade if my friend hadn't wanted a crack at the game herself."
A couple of minutes later Taylor and Amy collected their subs and headed back down the street to where their mopeds were parked.
Amy: So, do you consider knowing how the game works due to your snark cheating?
Taylor: Nope. Knowing how it works just makes me aware of options.
Amy: True. Doesn't help you beyond that, does it?
Taylor: Not at all. Besides, I only cheated on the first ball.
Amy paused, apparently trying to reconcile things.
Amy: But you just said that using powers to know how the machine worked wasn't cheating?
Taylor: Projecting from the bottom flippers while they were in my range in order to get a little bit more length out of them had nothing to do with knowing how the machine works. It's probably a good thing that they didn't think to start up a recording, it might have shown that the ball didn't always act entirely correctly when near them.
Amy considered that as Taylor called to the hotel to let them know that they were on the way. Once that call was done they started on their way over to the hotel.
Amy: Well, at least you never denied cheating on the pinball game.
Taylor: No need to step in either way if he had no proof, right?
Amy: True. But now I want to try that. Think there are any good pinball games back home?
Taylor: No clue. Maybe we should check the arcades...there are three of them total, right?
Amy: Er, maybe. Not actually sure, guess we might need to check.
A couple of minutes later they were riding up the side of the hotel. It was a bit harder than going down had been, since they were going against gravity and all. Not a big deal, overall, but mildly annoying all the same. They ended up parking the two mopeds right next to the 'elevator hut' that they'd first parked them next to when arriving, before heading down to the suite.
"Looks like Riley and Amanda left," Amy said, gesturing at the now blank sign on the opposite suite. "Which was somewhat obvious with neither Riley or Rosy in range and all, but still. Extra confirmation and all?"
They ordered shakes for themselves and meals for the spider-bots, then started in on their subs. When their order arrived they collected it and the spider-bots stopped trying to get at their subs. Why they wanted at the subs that they couldn't eat was a mystery, of course. Still, they were definitely content with their bowls once they had them.
Soon enough they'd all finished their meals, the bowls and glasses were returned to be cleaned, and they still had several hours before their transport was due to leave.
"So now what do we do?" Taylor asked.
Amy gave that some thought. "Well, I suspect that we've been a hit on PHO, even if we didn't go looking. Checking the thread on the pinball game was Riley and I looking up something someone else mentioned instead of doing a more general search. Maybe see what they think we've been up to? Can't be too hard to search for threads with our names in them and all."
Taylor considered that, before shrugging. "Couldn't hurt, I suppose. Worst case scenario is we hurt ourselves facepalming, right?"
It took most of the time they had left in Las Vegas, solely due to the sheer length of a couple of the threads they found. They'd each replied once to each thread mentioning them in town, some of the responses more detailed than others. For example, they'd agreed with one person who'd pointed out that maintaining and firing a weapon were different things, then admitted that they weren't slouches at the firing side. Quoted the police department and apologized for not having a hangover for their lack of condolences, but also agreed that it was somewhat unfair for someone immune to alcohol to be in a drinking contest. Taylor had also pointed out that they'd been there for the convention anyway, so the top prize wasn't actually useful to them.
Taylor's performance at the go-kart track had a thread, but beyond admitting that she'd been there and had the amazing time there wasn't much else to say. After all, people had already pointed out that the staff were now regularly demonstrating that the former 'dud' kart was able to outperform the rest of them if you knew what you were doing, so it wasn't that Taylor was a tinker. Her run on Demon's Gate was mostly being discussed over on the pinball enthusiasts website, but Taylor left a review of sorts on PHO anyway. Amy's contribution was to bring up Taylor's comment about never manually triggering multiball.
The spider-bots had come up in yet another thread. Taylor had replied to that one with basic care information, while Amy had contributed cleaning information. Apparently Rodney had gotten hit a couple of times with food and had needed cleaning, something that Taylor hadn't had to worry about with Ackbar. Beyond that there were mentions of them attending various sessions, some of which they'd provided additional information on and others they'd just dropped a quick review of the session into.
The only thread they didn't comment on from their visit was the one about the attempt at kidnapping Amy. They would've commented on it, but the thread had been locked and no follow-up thread had been started. It had slipped into ranting and raving about the likely sale of children to foreign countries just because they had powers anyway, with a rival group trying to defend the practice because it got 'the mutants' out of the country. Both sides had been given temporary bans for not being civil in their arguments, technically, but they were a bit lopsided in duration.
Finally it was time to ensure that the spider-bots were ready to travel, make a final pass on their rooms to ensure they hadn't missed anything, and then head up to the roof to get on the transport. That took less time than loading everything up once they made it up did, what with ensuring that the mopeds were secured and all that.
"Hey you two," Chris said as he came aboard, easily securing his luggage. "Apparently we get to ride back with you."
"Makes sense," Taylor admitted, checking out a couple of the beds attached to the walls. "Guess they expect us to want to get some sleep while we travel. Missy should be up shortly."
Chris snorted. "I know. I asked her how badly she'd expanded things in her room, and if she honestly planned on leaving things that way. When I last checked she was putting the bathtub back to normal."
Around fifteen minutes later they were all strapped in for takeoff. Ten minutes after that they were on their way. All four opted to try and get some sleep, especially since they were about to 'lose' three hours and all.
Chapter 156 Taylor woke around nine in the morning on Friday, still in the transport. A quick check showed that they were likely around half an hour out from their arrival in Brockton Bay. They were also approaching from further south than she'd expected, which implied that something had detoured them. Stretching, she looked through messages that she'd received. One of them caused her to blink a couple of times. It was a list of charges that had been transferred off of her account, covering pretty much all of the food and most of the entertainment from the entire trip. Oh, right, the thing was supposed to be all expenses paid or something like that, wasn't it? And using a PRT-linked card would let them just take things off without worrying about it. She idly wondered if Amy got a similar message.
She slipped on a visor as she moved to visit the restroom, only to change her mind when she realized how small it was. She could wait until after they'd landed. Instead she checked on Ackbar as she read some of the other messages she'd gotten. Her father had apparently already left for work and cautioned that they had a visitor that he'd be bringing back home with him at the end of the day. That was a bit odd. Next up was that she needed to fill out the information for the computer she'd won, which she just went ahead and did when she saw what the questions being asked were.
Ackbar appeared to be resting. Or maybe actually sleeping. It was hard to tell. Rodney was in a similar state, for that matter, but both appeared to be fine. Then again, both were able to survive being in boxes for a while when they'd first been delivered, so they probably could 'sleep' just fine. Shrugging, she grabbed a juice from the mini-fridge and dropped into one of the seats, checking the reactions to the posting spree on PHO the night before.
Missy ended up waking up next around ten minutes later, and in her half-asleep state tripped and fell flat on her face. Her yell of shock and pain woke Amy and Chris up.
"Sorry," Missy said after she'd recovered. It didn't look like she'd actually ended up injured, which was nice. "My bed at home is a little bigger than these."
"I'd feel very sorry for you if it wasn't," Taylor noted. "These things are tiny."
The other three took care of their own needs, eventually all of them sitting in seats. Each had grabbed a drink of some kind, and Missy had dug out a package of cookies. She'd made it through a third of them when the speakers in the compartment came to life.
"Please be advised that a state of emergency has been declared in Brockton Bay," came the pilot's or the copilot's voice. Hard to tell which, since they hadn't actually met either in advance. "Protocol has us swinging out over the ocean to come in for a landing at the Rig. Alternate means of getting you to the PRT building will be determined at a later point."
All four of them had paused at that, and Taylor suspected that she wasn't the only one pulling up things like the console app and the internal PRT alerts. Amy was at a disadvantage there, but could still get at quite a bit as an affiliate.
Missy was the first one to say anything. "Three large bombs?"
"All of which have their timers in sync," Taylor agreed. It looked like they'd noticed the first activating at around eight thirty or so, which was enough of an emergency to officially deploy the scout drones to look for more. That wasn't an instant process, though, so they hadn't gotten far. "And those are just the ones they know about so far. They only confirmed the third a few minutes ago, after all."
They monitored what they could as the transport landed. The PRT was avoiding evacuating people that weren't right on top of one of the known bombs for the moment, mainly because they weren't sure what evacuation routes were safe. Further, related or not there was an upswing in fighting in various parts of town that was making things even more complicated. The only saving grace was that there was two hours or so left on the bomb timers. Assuming those were accurate, of course.
Unloading the transport took their minds a little off of things after they'd landed. Taylor and Amy strapped their suitcases and the pet carriers to their mopeds and rode them straight into the elevator, a Protectorate staff member leading them to a combination waiting and situation room. It had plenty of room to put the mopeds off to the side.
"Sorry about leaving you here," she said once Taylor and Amy had pulled off their helmets. "But we can't guarantee safe passage to shore, especially with the bomb they found near the PRT building. As you can probably tell, you can monitor the news and console chatter from here. Feel free to grab anything you need from the fridge or cabinets, and of course you're all able to move around the facility to reach the cafeterias if you need more than that."
"They don't want the Wards to help with evacuating people?" Missy asked, sounding slightly offended.
"The Youth Guard already insisted that the Wards not be deployed to anywhere that there might be one of those bombs unless parental approval was obtained first, and Director Piggot agreed to only seek that approval if she deemed it critically necessary. Further, official policy is to keep Wards away from any bomb with a timer counting down with less than three hours to go."
Taylor nodded at that. "Yeah, I read about that. Too many people started getting clever. Three hours or less starts getting into panic mode, bring in anyone who might be able to help and all. So they set the things to go off at a random point other than hitting zero in that range."
"Precisely. If we had more time on the things we'd probably have you go look at them to see what you could determine. Now then, please don't leave the facility without checking with someone, and you'll be contacted if anything directly relevant to you comes up."
She left the four of them at that point, and Chris adjusted the settings on things so that the news station was the only thing making noise. Granted, that was probably due to it looking like they were about to jump to a press conference from city hall. Taylor quickly popped down the hall to the restroom at that point, being the only one who hadn't used the ones on the transport.
Colin frowned as he examined the second bomb they'd found, Vivian being hard at work on the first. He'd love to call Miss Hebert in at this point, but protocol ensured that they couldn't. Hell, he'd helped push that protocol through a few years back after the first Ward was killed by something like this going off well before hitting zero. And they'd only been helping to clear rubble from the path leading to the thing so that larger equipment could be brought in.
"I think I've got a synchronization signal," he said. "Sending details now."
"I've got it," Dragon replied. "It looks like it matches what we've got from Chronograph out in Wyoming. Encrypted, relatively short range, but I'll see if she's willing to part with the backup she keeps of all her encryption keys. I can emulate her controller hardware easily enough and you've got the hardware needed."
"Thank you." He then held back a groan as his armor fought against him. He hadn't finished recalibrating it before this happened, and it became all tinkers on deck. A moment later the resistance stopped.
"I've adjusted the feedback routines on your arms for you," Dragon said.
Colin smiled a little. "Thank you very much."
Trevor grimaced as he examined the third explosive device they'd found. He hadn't finished building the jammer that he'd started on the day before, and now it would be more likely to detonate the things than to keep them from going off. The only safe way to do maintenance on them was to shut them down first, they weren't damaged enough to bypass anything in the repair process, and causing incredibly precise damage wasn't his specialty.
Moving the things would, as far as any of them had been able to tell, trigger a detonation signal. Assuming they could do so without tripping the circuits running through the mounting hardware that would cause issues if they tried to remove the things from where they were attached. He suspected, but couldn't prove, that removing one from the network without disarming them all would cause the others to detonate as a failsafe. He recognized some of the tech, having worked with stuff like it as part of a makeshift security system back before Eric had insisted that they contract that out to Dragon.
He still grimaced when he thought about that. That lab had been so nice before the burglar had caused the entire security system to overload.
Shaking his head, he reached up to poke the transmit button on his visor. "Reknit to console, as much as I hate to say it, I've got very little that I think I can do before the timers hit zero."
A few moments later the response came back. "Console to Reknit, acknowledged. Get out of there in case the timers don't wait for zero."
That sounded like a wonderful idea, now that it'd been brought up.
Taylor sat there with Amy and Chris watching as Missy played with Ackbar and Rodney. They might have to see about getting the girl a spider-bot of her own at this point, given her fascination with the things. In the background the news anchors were talking about the pile of nothing the mayor had said, since everyone knew very little. They were up to seven bombs discovered, but that wasn't much help and hadn't made it to the news yet.
Missy had, of course, insisted on double-checking the various regulations regarding unknown explosives with timers. They'd all basically said that she wasn't going to be able to go anywhere near them while the timers were active. Nor were the other three, or any of the Wards not present, but Missy was most concerned with not being able to go out herself. She'd then distracted herself by letting the spider-bots out of the pet carriers and starting to play with them.
It was almost ten when an alarm sound came from the television feed, the commercial that had been playing being cut off.
"People of Brockton Bay," a woman's voice said as the four in the room spun to look at the television. Taylor paled as she saw a woman that she recognized as the Butcher standing next to her father. The latter of which was being held between two others and had a large collar around his neck. Ominously, there was a timer counting down on it, approaching an hour to go. "I am Quarrel of the Teeth. My associates and I have taken the entirety of the Dockworkers' Association hostage and are also responsible for the bombs spread throughout the sewers of Brockton Bay. As you may be able to tell, the detonation sequence is also connected to the explosive collar around Mister Hebert's neck here. All of the explosives will go off at eleven unless Taylor Hebert, in or out of her costume as the Ward Maul, meets with me alone, in person, at the Dockworkers' compound. I'd recommend showing up as soon as possible so that we have sufficient time to talk, as my associates are under very strict orders about what circumstances to disable the explosives under."
Quarrel, the Butcher, whatever she was calling herself then walked off to the side, and a moment later a slightly battered and bruised newscaster was pushed into the camera's view from the same direction. Taylor ignored her in favor of staring at her father on the screen, before she went from pale to pissed.
"I think you should take my belt," Amy said, getting Taylor's attention. "Every little bit helps, and I don't see you not going out there now."
Taylor nodded as she spun around and stormed over to her moped to start unstrapping the suitcase.
Rebecca groaned as Paul stepped out of the door that had just opened in the middle of the beach. She was supposed to be off for at least the rest of the morning. "I'm amazed that things lasted this long, but what happened now?"
"The Butcher has essentially taken Brockton Bay hostage," Paul said. "Including putting an explosive collar on Mister Hebert, all before outing and calling out Miss Hebert. David's already mobilizing a strike group, our current plan is to have Miss Hebert attempt to stall the Butcher until we're ready to drop the strike group on her. We've got less than an hour before the explosives go off."
A door was opened next to her before she even had to request one. Ten seconds later the beach was empty of people. It would be several hours before someone came back to collect the beach chair, table, and drink that had been left behind.
Taylor had just finished getting into costume, complete with Amy's force field belt instead of her usual one, but hadn't bothered with her pigtails yet. She was double-checking her equipment when her Maul phone rang, showing that it was Costa-Brown.
"Hello Chief Director," Taylor said as she answered, skipping the subvocalization trick for the greeting. The other three stopped and shut up, as expected.
"Hello Miss Hebert," Costa-Brown's voice came back. "I'm told that you haven't been briefed on anything yet, but likely saw the ultimatum on the news."
"That's right." She'd continued the conversation by subvocalizing, no need to have the others trying to figure out what was being said from one side of the conversation.
"Do you need anything to get into costume?"
"I just finished with that. I had everything in my suitcase in case it was needed on the trip. Amy lent me her force field belt as well for extra protection."
"Prudent. I'm having Dragon set up a special console channel for you to use, and we'd like you to go full enhanced patrol. I've already checked with a couple of thinkers that believe that the Butcher is serious about you going in alone. We're assembling a strike force, intending to hit the entirety of the Teeth's presence in Brockton Bay all at once. I'm hoping that you can shut down the Butcher herself when we're ready to strike so that we can capture her."
Taylor nodded, not that it could be seen. "Do you have a plan for getting my father out of there?"
"Your father is priority number two for the strike force. Number one is getting the remote that they've got the explosives tied to so that we can disable them." Taylor couldn't argue with that, since one of the explosives was apparently around her father's neck. Getting him out of there only for the bomb to go off wouldn't exactly be a good thing. "Priority number three will be capturing the Butcher, but if you can't lock her down she'll likely escape."
"I see."
"Do what you can to get them to shut things down, of course. If they disable the explosives we'll move in immediately. Report anything you can on that front as well, and anything you can tell us about the Butcher's powers. We'll keep you informed about your father's status. As soon as he's safe shift to locking down and capturing the Butcher herself. For obvious reasons do your best to not kill her."
"Yeah, becoming the next Butcher isn't on my personal to-do list."
There was a pause, and a sigh. "Finally, Contessa insists that I tell you to wear your fedora. I don't know why."
Hannah frowned as she prepared herself, unable to properly use her power in this situation. For one, if they deployed any form of wide-range power disruptor then she might be within range. It would not do to have her weapon vanish on her before she could make the shot, if needed. For two, the tinker-produced anti-brute rifle wasn't one her powers would let her produce in the first place. Still, she'd volunteered to do her best to take the Butcher out if it became necessary to, in the hopes that her own powers would let her weather the storm of the voices of the previous Butchers.
Worst case scenario, she realized that she wouldn't be able to hold onto her sanity and they dumped her far enough away from everyone to hopefully not be in range of any parahumans when she died. She wasn't sure how they'd do so, only that she'd been informed by reliable sources that they could.
It didn't take long to assemble and check the rifle, as well as the three-round magazine. If she needed more than one shot then she was likely not going to succeed anyway, but the thing had a three-round magazine so she had it filled. Once that was done she set up in the crack of the building, hopefully in a position that she wouldn't be noticed in. The tinkertech 'blind' system she was behind had been reasonably effective against the Butcher in the past, hopefully that would hold true today as well.
Further, with any luck the Butcher would meet Miss Hebert at the gate, and not further into the compound where she couldn't get a bead on her. Granted, they weren't telling Miss Hebert to aim for that, because they weren't sure what the girl would do if they knew that she was on hand to attempt to snipe the Butcher, but they felt it was at least a likely outcome either way. One thing was certain, though, and that was that the Butcher had crossed one line too many.
Of course, the best case scenario was that she didn't have to take the shot because whatever plan to get her far enough away worked, as they were hoping, to get the current Butcher far enough away. But they couldn't even try until the bombs were taken care of, and something about that plan worried them. Something about there possibly not being a range for jumping to a new parahuman. They just didn't know enough.
Now if only she knew how they'd gotten the blind and the rifle into the room before she'd arrived.
Dinah sat with her parents, shocked at the news report that had been in progress when they'd turned on the television in the hotel room. Their intent was to see what the weather report said, if only to use it as a baseline for more accurate questions for her to answer after breakfast.
It took a few minutes, but she took a few deep breaths and got up from the table. A minute later she'd returned, digging through her fanny pack, only for her mother to grab her arm. Dinah looked up at her, a questioning look on her face.
"I think you're going to need the good stuff," her mother said. "I've got some in my purse."
"Thank you," Dinah said. The tinker-produced painkillers would probably leave her a little loopy later, but they worked incredibly well. Provided, of course, she took them before answering a lot of questions. It was considered an 'in case of emergency' thing, and apparently her parents thought this counted.
Five minutes later she and her parents had a list of questions and answers started. Not a single one of them had anything to do with planning their day.
Taylor ensured that her body camera and visor were both running properly on the way to the Dockworkers' compound. There was still half an hour to go before eleven, but she was still a few minutes out. The recommendation to arrive via the compound entrance had been made, and she didn't have any better ideas, so that was her current target. She was keeping an eye on things in case they planned on shooting her out of the air, but nobody thought that likely. Something about the Butcher enforcing a form of honor in the Teeth that at least ensured that their word could be kept. Taking Taylor out before she was able to meet with the Butcher would go against that.
One thing that possibly worried her was that she knew, despite the 'come alone' aspect of things, that there were a lot of people running support in the area, officially and unofficially. The PRT was already building a cordon around the site, New Wave was already patrolling just outside of that cordon for the moment. The Protectorate was preparing to drop several departments worth of parahumans on the city via movers.
And though she had no clue what, she suspected that her uncle was planning something in retaliation. What that something was, and if it would still be possible in an hour, was an entirely different question. It was likely going to be unpleasant for someone.
She was looping around the Dockworkers' compound itself, carefully noting the collection of snarks that she felt was likely the Butcher, when she got an email on her personal phone from Dinah. Curious, since she didn't communicate much with the girl normally for a number of reasons, she opened it. All it contained was a list of questions and percentages, obviously a use of the girl's snark, followed by a single qualifier statement that didn't quite make sense to Taylor.
Chance of the bombs going off if Taylor doesn't meet Quarrel? 98.38154%
Chance of the bombs going off if Taylor does meet Quarrel? 49.35824%
Chance of Danny Hebert surviving the day if Taylor does meet Quarrel? 46.25631%
Chance of the bombs going off if Taylor meets Quarrel and agrees to Quarrel's demands? 0.03583%
Chance of Danny Hebert surviving the day if Taylor agrees to Quarrel's demands? 99.83158%
Chance of Taylor Hebert surviving the day if Taylor agrees to Quarrel's demands? 83.31583%
Chance of Quarrel surviving the day if Taylor agrees to Quarrel's demands? 62.13851%
Percentages may be off due to a predicted disruption event in the next couple of hours.
Taylor forwarded the email to Amy, figuring that it would be good for the other girl to know, then fired a thank you message off to Dinah. She was done with that just in time to arrive at the gate. She hopped off of her platform, cloaking it and moving it off to the side but keeping it close, before approaching the vehicle gate itself. Two armed members of the Teeth stood there. One of them used a tinkertech scanner, one her snark said was designed to see through a number of stranger tricks, then opened the gate without a word and gestured for Taylor to enter. The scanner's existence was noted and sent to the console as she did so.
The gate was closed behind her, not that it would stop her from leaving. She could jump over it with her jump harness if needed. Still, she moved a little further forward, then stopped and waited. The collection of snarks that she thought was the Butcher was very similar to the clones in that a primary snark was connected to the host, but instead of a single secondary snark behind it there was a gateway snark and then a collection of other snarks behind it. Presumably the 'gateway' snark was the original Butcher's snark.
Unfortunately, Broadcast Administrator couldn't lock onto any of the snarks other than the primary one, and it was highly unlikely that doing so with the Butcher would be nearly as effective as the clones had been. Also fired off were the relative locations of two other parahumans, based on where she could sense their snarks. She felt that Miss Militia had likely already noted the news crew that was apparently being forced to record things off to the side, but noted that for the console as well anyway.
"Miss Hebert," the Butcher said. "Nice to see that you have, indeed, come alone. Well, as alone as you could, the PRT and Protectorate were never going to let you arrive without backup, after all. I am Quarrel of the Teeth."
Taylor raised an eyebrow. Which was probably useless as far as things went, since she was wearing the black visor. "I thought you were the Butcher."
"I was the Butcher," Quarrel admitted. "But I was humiliated and have lost the right to call myself by that title. Today that will be resolved, one way or another."
"How does all of this resolve that?"
"The Teeth's leadership between Butchers gave me a chance to redeem myself. A choice between three underage parahumans, each with their own issues. I had to pick one of them to engage and defeat them in a duel, one on one. The first, in many ways the easiest, was the son of the leader of a more violent branch of the Elite. I probably could've walked up to him without any enticement whatsoever. The next was a young girl in one of the independent hero groups in New York city, a friend of Legend. She would've been harder. The last was you, niece of Jacob and the PRT's darling. Each intended to give me problems once I reclaimed my title, to prove to them that I can handle the pressure."
"And you picked me and revealed my identity as part of calling me out?"
Quarrel grinned. "What do you think they're going to do for that offense? Kill me? Don't make me laugh."
"So what exactly are your terms here?"
The villain's expression hardened and she took a deep breath. "I, Quarrel of the Teeth, hereby challenge Taylor Hebert, Maul of the Wards, to a one on one duel, to be held as soon as possible between us. Do you accept?"
A message from the console appeared on her visor, and she agreed with it. "Will the duel be held here, or will it be held elsewhere?"
"The duel will be held in a secluded location with no noncombatants present. I have such a location prepared."
It didn't take long for a recommendation of accepting to come through, with the hope that the villain was crazy enough to disarm the bombs so that they could travel to the prepared location. Taylor thought that they were missing something.
Taylor: Hello there. I don't suppose your human is being honest with me?
[Negation. Data]
Taylor: You think they're a lying liar who lies regarding the location, but aren't able to tell me what the truth is. Great.
Amy: Is she at least being honest about the duel?
[...Data]
Amy: You think so, but suspect that she intends to kill Taylor. I...well, that doesn't surprise me.
Taylor: But there's something else and you aren't sure what. Great. Though now I wonder why you're telling us all of this?
[Annoyance. Data. Elaboration]
Well, that was a thing. It didn't like the Butcher's snark having latched on, claiming that it was way too early for it to be 'collected'. Or at least that's what it came over as, anyway. All of this was quickly dumped to the console.
Quarrel seemed to be getting impatient. "Well, young Ward? Do you accept my challenge?"
Despite the new information, the console sent a recommendation to accept. Frowning, Taylor sighed. "I suspect that you're not being entirely truthful with me."
Emily was in the situation room, monitoring things far better than she could in her office. She agreed with Miss Hebert's statement, but wasn't sure what they could do about it. Honestly, she suspected that Miss Hebert was aware of the latter detail.
On the screen showing the live feed from the news crew Quarrel nodded. "I understand, but I haven't spoken any lies."
One of the staff running a terminal grumbled. "Fucking bitch. You're not telling her something, which is arguably worse." Emily didn't see any reason to argue that point.
"Estimated two minutes before the strike force will be ready to move," came from across the room.
Miss Hebert stared down Quarrel before she continued, her voice echoing due to coming over the console line and the news feed. "Do you agree to the condition that you and your people will harm nobody else in Brockton Bay, through action or deliberate inaction, for the rest of the week?"
Quarrel nodded. "The bombs will be disarmed and my associates will leave peacefully. They'll even leave the controller for the bombs behind so that they can't be rearmed from afar."
It took another minute, but Miss Hebert nodded. "Then I accept."
The echo didn't have time to come before alarms started blaring. The news feed went white a moment later. Emily jumped up in response. "What the HELL just happened?"
"We've lost all telemetry on Maul," came from one of the staff. "All communication with her devices has cut out and can't be reestablished."
Another individual spoke up a moment later. "All monitoring points are reporting that the two vanished. No sign of either of them, but there's a glowing circle on the ground encompassing where the two had been standing."
Emily growled. Her day seemed to be going from bad to worse. Still, she had at least one more option, and she grabbed her phone from her belt to utilize it. Before she could dial there was another yell from across the room, and she looked up.
"Reports from Armsmaster and Countdown," the staff member was saying. "Both explosives they were working with have just disarmed and shut down."
Emily nodded. At least they had one bit of good news. She then returned to paying attention to her phone, and a moment later she was scrolling through her stored numbers. It took her a moment, but she found the entry she was looking for and selected it, before bringing the phone up to her ear.
Chapter 157 A bright flash of light accompanied by a shifting sensation brought Taylor to an unfamiliar rooftop. She was narrowing her eyes even as both of her phones threw disconnect warnings at her. On the phone front she tried boosting the communication enhancements to max on both as she looked around. It didn't help, apparently they couldn't connect across the odd shift they'd just entered.
Taylor: Why did Amy just fall unconscious?
BA: Data. Elaboration
Taylor: No, don't apologize for that. I'd much rather her be unconscious instead of dead to keep me from communicating with her.
Taylor turned back to Quarrel, who was just standing there smirking. "So where, exactly, are we?" Because this felt like she was in one of Joey's pocket dimensions.
Quarrel chuckled. "A copy of a section of town I spent the night in somewhere along route ninety, I believe. I only mapped out around a three and a half thousand foot diameter circle, but that should be plenty to give me options outside of your 'snark' range. Not sure what that is, but no matter what you do I'll have somewhere to go. Still, when you're ready we can begin. We're both stuck here until one of us is defeated, after all."
"So all I have to do is knock you out or force you to yield?"
"Of course not, this is a battle for the title of the Butcher. The only way to end it is through someone's death. Which just makes things all the better for me."
Taylor thought that sounded a little off. "How does that make things better for you?"
Quarrel's smirk changed to a grin. "Simple, little Ward. I'm not crazy enough to say it on live television, but I know exactly who your uncle is. Which means that even if you somehow win then I still get my revenge."
Frowning, Taylor decided to attempt the easiest potential solution.
BA: Additional Connections Established
Granted, this would probably work better if she could target the secondary snarks, but she was working with what she had access to right now.
BA: Error: Connection Refused. Target has insufficient resources
Well, they were still standing here, Quarrel looked annoyed, but that was about it. Further, Taylor could now tell that there was a connection direct to Quarrel from the likely Butcher snark, even if she couldn't target it directly. But with Quarrel's snark 'offline' that link had, for lack of a better term, 'lit up' to her. At least enough to be noticed, anyway. It still wasn't enough to target.
"That's an interesting trick," Quarrel finally said. "Not entirely sure what you're doing, but it's definitely odd. But since you've obviously begun?" She then reached behind her and produced a small machine gun. She unfolded the stock and grinned as she brought it up to point at Taylor. "Due to my injuries I can't properly handle my preferred weapons anymore, but I doubt that'll matter. Tricks or no tricks, it's amazing how few capes can handle a few bullets to the face."
Taylor, on the other hand, hadn't been idle either. She'd pulled her maul and wok off of her back as soon as she saw Quarrel reaching for something. "Sorry, but I don't think that'll be a problem for me."
Missy had darted over to Amy as soon as the older girl had fallen over. For some reason she'd just fallen unconscious. Her pulse was strong, she was breathing fine, but she couldn't be woken up.
"I've informed the console that she collapsed," Chris said after a couple of minutes. "But looking over what they've got streaming through here, they've got no clue what happened to Taylor. Still, the Protectorate has started their operation anyway, since the bombs were all shut down."
The two ended up helping to move Amy onto a stretcher when medical personnel came through to pick her up. Missy had gotten Amy's spider-bot into its carrier so that they could take it with them. Taylor's had been put into its carrier before the girl had left as a precaution.
Following that they'd returned to monitoring everything else in an attempt to distract themselves from worrying about Taylor.
Quarrel had learned very quickly that Taylor was, in fact, capable of holding her projections back. Only around ten bullets had actually made it out of the machine gun before a projected maul strike hitting it had snapped the barrel off. At the same time, targeting Quarrel resulted in instinctual explosive teleportation. Taylor had also let off of shutting down Quarrel's snark, as it didn't seem to be helping much and she didn't need the headache. Further, Quarrel had jumped out of her supposed range. Keeping the woman ignorant of her true capabilities seemed like a good idea right now.
That had, unsurprisingly in hindsight, led to a slew of thrown objects. Knives at first, then rocks, a park bench, and several tree limbs. All of them bent space in weird ways to ensure that they'd hit Taylor in some way, but a solid hit with any of her weapons was enough to cancel that aspect of things out. Those that got through that were generally stopped by the force field belt, and to be honest none of them were that much of a threat to Taylor anyway.
Eventually the woman had apparently grown bored of chucking random objects at Taylor from a distance and appeared reasonably close, just down the street from where Taylor had ended up.
Quarrel stared at Taylor, who was trying to decide what to try next herself. "You...are quite the pest, but it appears that we may be at an impasse. You can't hit me, and even when I hit you I can't harm you. I can't even seem to cause you pain from a distance."
That was interesting. Perhaps the force field was preventing that? Taylor certainly hadn't noticed anything along those lines.
[Affirmation]
Taylor: I'm angry enough as it is, thank you very much.
BA: Accepting energy transfer. Establishing Additional Connections
Oooh, connection from a snark meant we got a way to target that snark. Didn't help us with the primary Butcher snark, of course, but it was better than nothing.
BA: Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources
Quarrel grimaced and teleported away. Taylor let the additional connections to that snark fall away. No matter how useful it seemed to keep things shut down, in the long run she wasn't targeting the right snarks. The headache wouldn't be worth it, and it was apparently a snark barely worth worrying about in this case.
"I can see that our moles weren't able to learn everything about you," Quarrel called from a nearby rooftop. "After all, being able to shut down a single power at a time is something they should have reported if they'd known. But there appear to be some significant limits."
Taylor swung the maul onto her back, as the wok was faster to swing at Quarrel's projectiles. Instead, she pulled out her sidearm. Staying as non-lethal as possible hadn't been getting her anywhere, and the Butcher was supposed to be a brute. So perhaps it was time to see just how much of a brute. Especially since she didn't seem to want to close to melee range.
Quarrel scoffed from the rooftop. "Do you honestly think that a few little bullets will harm me? Can you even hit me?"
Taylor turned to Quarrel, aiming intentionally off. "I guess we'll find out."
Quarrel grinned, standing up and holding her arms out. "Take your best shot."
That made it much easier to target the hopeful impact zone appropriately. Firing what looked like it was well off target, with a sizable projection circle, Taylor apparently got around the danger sense. And apparently Quarrel wasn't quite as durable as you might otherwise think, given the sudden lack of right arm. Then again, only a couple previous Butchers were known to have enhanced durability. Most of them that had brute ratings only seemed to have them for strength.
Despite everything, Taylor also wasn't feeling anything other than satisfaction as Quarrel vanished in a burst of flame. At least until she recalled that if Quarrel died then she would likely find herself with the Butcher's snark attempting to latch onto her, which was why she'd only aimed to take the arm off in the first place. But she hadn't considered the woman bleeding out. Crap.
Turning to where Quarrel had appeared in a nearby alley, out of Taylor's sight, she listened. Quarrel was doing something, but Taylor couldn't tell what. Finally, the woman called out. "I apparently have to take you much more seriously. If I were able to feel pain I'm sure that would've been agonizingly painful. That, and now I'm going to need a new arm, of course."
Well, at least it didn't seem like she was going to bleed out and die from a simple flesh wound, so there was likely plenty more time to figure out a way to get out of this without having the Butcher's snark try and latch onto her.
A moment later she was paying a lot more attention as a fucking grenade came at her.
Rebecca sighed as she dropped into her office chair. She'd spent a couple of hours helping round up every member of the Teeth they could find in and around Brockton Bay, with 'around' ending up being defined rather loosely. Another half hour helping remove a couple of the bombs. Eventually she couldn't justify hanging around any longer, because there was still no sign of Miss Hebert or Quarrel and she wasn't actually part of the group sticking around to subdue Quarrel when they reappeared.
Now it was time to start on confirming all of the relevant emergency paperwork. With any luck it would be a suitable distraction before she got into the non-emergency paperwork. Because thinking of anyone tied to the Butcher's powers having access to even a reduced form of Miss Hebert's abilities was terrifying.
Fifteen minutes into that she was interrupted by Fortuna walking in through the office door. Which was, to be honest, entirely unexpected. "Hello Rebecca."
Rebecca put aside the form she'd been double-checking. "Hello. What brings you here right now?"
Fortuna's grin was mildly disturbing. "There's no path to finding or helping Miss Hebert before she's done. I've checked a number of ways of wording it. So I decided to get a jump start on possible other things to take care of, but I'm supposed to get permission first."
"That you are, after the situation in China. What, exactly, do you want to take care of?"
"I believe that I've figured out how to combine six or so secondary paths with a couple of your most recent requests. A single overall plan of action, but I'll need more materials than normal to pull it off. Further, I think I'll need permission to shift people around on short notice, but the likely opportunity is probably worth it."
Rebecca raised the eyebrow over her real eye. "Really now, that sounds interesting. Tell me more."
The running battle with Quarrel had become quite annoying. The woman had apparently brought at least four grenades. Taylor had caught three of them in the wok before they could detonate, though the wok was going to need some repairs and they probably would've still caused significant damage to her without the force field belt. The last she'd pocketed after discovering that Quarrel hadn't bothered to pull the pin on it.
After the grenades came a series of crude javelins and spears made out of various materials. Initially stone dominated, but then hard-packed dirt started showing up, which struck Taylor as odd. Six times the woman had also tried to grab Taylor, only to teleport right back out again before doing so. Perhaps the danger sense snark was realizing that physical contact with a bio-striker was a bad thing? Again, though, the force field belt had protected her from the balls of fire.
The main problem there was that the stupid belt was going to shut down for safety soon, because she had no way to discharge the accumulated stored energy right now.
Well, that and the freaking water tower that was now coming her way. How the hell had the crazy woman pulled that off?
From at least one point of view, Emily's day had gotten a lot better over the past few hours. They no longer had a pile of explosives ready to go off, the Teeth had been removed almost peacefully and were even in someone else's holding cells to make it harder for the Butcher to free them right away. It seemed like everyone else was keeping their heads down for the time being in the entire region, nobody wanting to be involved in distracting the heroes from this fiasco. The Youth Guard was even leaving her alone, as she hadn't personally authorized Miss Hebert's participation. Or perhaps because they realized that nobody was going to keep her away once her father was involved. Least likely was that they were merely biding their time until they could find the rules and/or laws that had been broken by letting Miss Hebert participate.
On the other hand, Mister Hebert had been roughed up quite a bit. When they'd recovered him it had been with internal bleeding, somewhat severe burns, and a concussion as the worst injuries. A number of minor cuts were present as well, some likely muscle strain. Possibly some bone damage, though they hadn't checked for that yet. The rest of the dockworkers were much better off, though a few had needed medical attention as well. Then you had the fact that Panacea was unconscious for unknown reasons and nobody had any idea how to wake her up. And most vexing, Miss Hebert and Quarrel were still missing, with no way to know what the situation was with them, or even if it was possible to find them.
At least their departure point was being very thoroughly monitored. On top of the PRT's monitoring equipment they had six news crews with cameras watching the glowing patch of ground where the two had disappeared. Though they had insisted on them signing waivers that absolved everyone else of blame if the Butcher appeared and murdered the lot of them. Beyond that, Dragon had dug up documentation on a previous Butcher that matched the thing. They still didn't know what the power was, entirely, but all known instances where it'd been used in the past the groups that had gone in either came out in one piece exactly as they'd gone in or one fewer came out alive than had gone in, the rest coming out as they'd originally departed. It hadn't been used by any actual Butcher until now, for unknown and previously unexplored reasons, so they didn't know how that would change the way it functioned. So far their information on that front was limited to the glow from the patch of ground being less bright. What that meant was up in the air.
"Ma'am," her current secretary said, poking his head in. "We've just gotten word that Dragon has finished her sweep with the drones. She believes we've gotten all the explosives, but she found several sizable caches of weapons. Shall I have her pass their locations on to give some of the parahumans something to do?"
Emily shook her head. "No, as much as I'd like to I don't think we should. We were authorized to look for explosives, not weapons in general. For now we need to ignore anything that isn't explosives, but have her send the locations to me. If the gangs are stupid enough to leave them there then I'm sure I can find other reasons to raid the buildings later, when it'll be less obvious that we have something capable of indiscriminately scanning entire buildings in a single pass available."
A quick nod and they returned to their desk to pass the message on.
Taylor had gotten a temporary reprieve from the battle, Quarrel having retreated to the edge of the area they were trapped in. She cautiously used the reprieve to eat some of the snacks she'd had stashed in her costume, since she hadn't actually eaten anything significant since dinner the previous day. One of the downsides to being an artificial brute was the increased caloric intake. If the battle went on too long then she was going to lose by virtue of not having enough energy to continue to fight.
Of course, why Quarrel had retreated for the moment was, to be honest, unclear to her. The force field belt had failed in the aftermath of the water tower, causing Taylor to start taking hits when she couldn't intercept attacks. Not to mention she could confirm that the inability to be put into excruciating pain from a distance appeared to have been the force field, that was a bit of a shock. The end result was that she'd acquired a few small cuts and a lot of lingering pain, but her costume's armor seemed generally up to the task for the time being where it did cover her. It would probably be less so if Quarrel started throwing large stone constructs at her again, of course.
Well, given what she thought their relative strengths were likely to be long-term in this fight, she might have to start hunting Quarrel instead of remaining mostly on the defensive. Perhaps return the grenade that she'd picked up earlier? Actually, first see how the woman's danger sense dealt with containment foam, then possibly use the normal grenade. Hopefully get her on the defensive, if only for a little bit. Hell, maybe the explosive teleportation could be stopped, if only for a few minutes, with the containment foam?
Benjamin frowned as he unpacked some of the clothing Daniel had purchased for him in the apartment he'd been offered near the PRT building. Regardless of what happened with Taylor, good or bad, it was likely going to be a few days before Daniel was up and about again. That and he figured that the PRT really wanted to be able to keep better tabs on him during all of this. That Garnet was across the hall cemented that fairly well, if he was being honest with himself.
They'd run into each other in the hall and had a quick chat. Both of them were, for various reasons, pissed at the Butcher. The general details of 'took Daniel hostage', targeting a cape's family at all, and publicly outing a cape all pushed their buttons. Probably a lot of people's buttons on the latter two. Unfortunately, the Butcher was quite possibly one of the worst targets on the planet for this kind of thing. After all, as she'd pointed out, what were they going to do? Killing the Butcher was not a good option, as had been proven a number of times previous.
Of course, the most immediately annoying portion of things was that they had both been told that their assistance wasn't needed when they'd volunteered. Excuses had been made, but he personally felt that it was more that they weren't trusted enough. He could see why, and couldn't really argue the point when he looked at it from their likely point of view, but it was still annoying. At least with Garnet they'd been able to use her injuries against her.
Taylor took a few moments to partially relax, knowing that Quarrel was a good distance away. Chasing her? Not the best idea, as it turned out. The bitch had retreated to build up a supply of stone javelins, apparently, and they were just as effective as Taylor had feared. Luckily one of the first aid kits she had the contents of had a sling for her now-broken arm from when one had been thrown just before the 'induce agonizing pain' trick was used. The arm was still somewhat usable, granted, but only because of the reinforcing bits woven through it still being partially intact. She was avoiding using it for the moment regardless.
Other lessons learned included that containment foam was probably useless for capturing a teleporter, but did a great job at locking down the remaining javelins. The standard grenade had ended up used as a trap that Quarrel had teleported away from at the last moment, but that wasn't all that surprising either. They had, shortly after that, ended up in a brief hand-to-hand contest where Quarrel discovered that her remaining prosthetic fingers weren't quite up to snuff. One punch from Taylor had broken two of them.
It might've even been worth the burns from the resulting explosive teleport out to keep her from making skin contact. Nothing new had been thrown at her since, after all. Thinking about it, perhaps it was time to use her sidearm again. 'Alive and can find a solution to the insanity problem' was probably a lot better than 'dead', right? That and possibly hope that the Butcher snark would have issues with her multiple snarks, since even her snarks had problems with that sometimes and all.
Fortuna whistled lightly as she walked through the aisles of the warehouse, collecting various items on the set of rolling shelves she was pushing. It was a nice distraction from her complete inability to help Taylor, even if she suspected her agent was happy with the challenge. Instead she was focusing on other things. Such as how to ensure that several paths came together just right. Lots of materials were needed, though, so she was raiding several PRT, Protectorate, and Cauldron warehouses.
This trip was mainly electrical supplies. Relay circuits, some older wire that had been sitting around for years, and a small generator to power it all. Perhaps some of the lights, if any of them caught her eye. Once she'd finished up this run she'd jump to the next warehouse to pick up some armor panels and the mounting hardware needed for them. By then Number Man should've finalized the purchases she'd asked him to make on her behalf and she'd be able to pick those up too.
Ahhh, she'd almost forgotten to grab the boxes of solenoids. That would've been embarrassing. She backtracked a bit to collect those, then continued on, running various ideas for improving things through her head. Oooh, she should swing through Idaho to pick up a couple of things, and add another PRT warehouse to her list of ones to raid. That and give Dragon a call to ask a favor of the AI.
Okay, something was seriously wrong with this fight. Quarrel had started to abandon most of her planning and was switching to more desperate, crazed attacks. At one point Taylor had even spotted her trying, ineffectually, to reattach the bloody mess of arm that had apparently been more torn off than anything else earlier. Not that it looked like it would work even if it had been reattached, which just made the attempt more baffling. It had been followed up by a mad charge at her, only to teleport away when Taylor got the sidearm up.
That had been followed by a game of 'try not to be where the next explosion was'. She'd been very lucky, taking advantage of her mobility going up and down between the various still-standing buildings. Most fortuitous, however, had been one of the times she'd mistimed a jump and likely only escaped serious injury by virtue of the force field belt having gradually discharged enough stored energy to reactivate for a couple of minutes. If she got out of this alive she was now going to have to fix the thing, because part of it had burned out saving her ass.
Right now she was catching her breath and bandaging what wounds she could while Quarrel tried to recover from the lucky hit that she'd gotten in a couple of minutes ago. The crazy bitch had tried to catch her mid-air and thanks to some quick thinking on Taylor's part was now down a foot, which was hopefully making moving around that much more difficult. In return Taylor had a cracked but still functioning visor and a slightly more damaged jump harness. Probably some more burns on her face too, for that matter. She hadn't been keeping track of those.
Shit, Quarrel was on the move again. Staying in one spot was no longer an option. She popped a couple more painkillers and got moving again, doing her best to ignore how hungry she was.
Vivian had been brought out to a somewhat remote location to dismantle all of the bombs. She didn't mind, because as part of her payment for coming out this far she got to keep the control circuitry she was disconnecting. She had plans for that system, even if she wasn't allowed to keep the explosives themselves. Not that she wanted to use them as-is, of course, but apparently someone had already decided that they might be good for semi-controlled demolition of former quarantine zone walls.
All in all, that wasn't a bad use, but they didn't need to detonate them all at once, so the detonation circuits had to be swapped out for more generic ones with a different security system. So here she was, taking the bombs apart, removing the current detonation hardware, and then leaving them that way because the new hardware hadn't shown up yet. If she were more pessimistic she'd assume that they didn't trust her to install the new hardware, but she honestly thought it was because it wasn't important enough to warrant rush delivery.
Of course, she also knew that this was a distraction for her. When she'd heard what the fucking Butcher had done she'd started mentally designing some very against regulation hardware. As it was she was going to need to see if she could get a few things cleared for use by the local Wards in general, if only as last resort equipment. Though even the 'teleport me to safety' grenades were limited use, having a fixed range and needing significant tweaking to change where they actually dropped you. Not to mention that the things were completely and totally useless if you weren't actually in danger, and she hadn't bothered figuring out why yet.
Actually, she made note to look into those again. On one test the attacker had been teleported instead of the attackee, presumably because the danger was actually in the opposite direction. Perhaps some kind of friend or foe identification system so that they could only target specific individuals? It was something to think about, at least, and worth taking a minute to jot down some initial thoughts. Figuring out the targeting system would probably be the hardest part, since she doubted that they'd let her implant that hardware in people so they couldn't lose it.
Taylor had to admit, as she caught a break between attack runs, that Quarrel still had some planning ability left. She'd rigged up a makeshift boot strapped to her leg to make up for the missing foot. With only one very damaged hand and one previously-burned foot. Really, in probably any other situation Taylor would've been impressed. In this one it just pissed her off. Still, despite that the other cape hadn't done much more obvious planning, and most of what she was doing seemed more coincidental than anything else. Unplanned, taking advantage of circumstances almost by accident at this point.
Technically that probably made the woman less dangerous, except that it also made her less predictable. One moment she would be trying to teleport into close range, the next she was running away to prepare something that never seemed to come. There was a short period of time where Taylor had been concerned that a workaround for having issues throwing things had been found, having had to deal with a bunch of kicked pebbles bending the laws of physics to strike her, but it was like Quarrel hadn't even noticed that she'd done it.
Really, it had recently dawned on Taylor that, for reasons she didn't understand, Quarrel had rapidly started acting like heroes who killed the Butcher supposedly ended up. Just with a lot less charging at the Teeth and a lot more charging at her. But that didn't seem to make any sense whatsoever, wasn't this entire thing so that Quarrel could call herself the Butcher again or something like that? Of course, it could be that this was a sign that she was losing blood, if at a slower rate, and it was affecting her judgement. Blaming it on painkillers would be a wonderful idea, if she believed that the woman had brought any.
No, wait, there was a potential theory there too. Maybe one of her snarks helped her deal with pain with very precisely targeted painkillers, and things were building up as blood flow moved them around. It wouldn't surprise Taylor in the least, and could help explain the weird fluctuations in competency that Quarrel was displaying. It was an interesting idea, and one that she'd probably have to get her hands on the crazy cape to figure out either way. Which wasn't looking likely.
"Fuck," Taylor swore as she jumped away from where she'd been leaning against a wall. She resisted the urge to swear again when the jump harness didn't function well enough to let her get significant height off of it. But Quarrel was on the move again, so she'd have to deal with it. Both of them being able to keep tabs on the other through solid objects was a good thing and a bad thing all at the same time.
"Come out come out wherever you are," Quarrel's voice called out after the woman had teleported onto a nearby rooftop.
"Go to hell," Taylor called back. She'd have yelled, but she wasn't sure she had the energy to. Though she did use enough energy to give the bitch the finger. The show up to taunt had come up several times now. Sometimes with a retreat sans attacking, and other times with a sudden attack.
[Kill her!]
What the hell?
Chapter 158 The group of five left the forest behind them, having finally escaped it. Granted, it would've taken a whole lot less time normally, but Estiñne had been taken a few nights in and rescuing the girl had been a pain. Mainly the finding part of things, really. Having to find the member of your group responsible for divining things was a problem when you'd come to rely on their skills to find things.
Zorian dropped to their knees as soon as they'd crested the hill. "Thank the gods that we're done there."
Lorea shook her head. "I'm starting to think that we would've been better going through the swamp after all. Or braving the potential rockslide in the mountains. They certainly would've taken less time."
Estiñne shook her head. "The gods toy with us at times, but their refusal to show me how my own presence changes things helps to ensure that the correct things come to pass. Those bandits needed to be dealt with, even if being taken by them was unpleasant, but we wouldn't have risked the journey if we'd known about them."
They would rest there for another hour or two before moving on, not realizing that those they sought had passed through the mountain pass moons ago.
[Seriously, Kill Her already!]
Taylor: Why should I?
[Wait...you can hear me?]
Taylor: Yes. Who are you?
[I'm the Butcher, of course. Huh. Never had a new bearer able to hear me before the old one died before. Influencing them to become the new one is usually a lot more subconscious, as far as I've been able to tell. Still, Kill Her! She's no longer worthy.]
Today was very quickly becoming one of the most unusual of Taylor's life. And she wasn't sure that was a good thing, even as she jumped to the side to avoid Quarrel trying to firebomb her again. Still, this seemed more like she was talking to the actual human that had originally triggered with the Butcher's powers, not with the snark. Which was a little disturbing to her, honestly.
Taylor: What do you mean by that?
[It was the first bearer to die after I did that made me realize that I was immortal, and I quickly determined that there needed to be a few rules. Kimberly there violated two of those rules today. One of them was not ensuring that you'd know that the challenge she'd issued was to be to the death. The other was going after the family of a potential bearer by grabbing your father. She's as good as dead now, since I've got the echoes of the others driving her nuts. It's just a matter of who kills her, and I decided that you're worthy of being a bearer.]
Taylor: And if I don't want to kill her?
[She set it up so that someone has to die before the survivor can return. I suppose if you don't kill her then I'll have to point her at someone else. Hmmm. I wonder if I could get her to goad Panacea into killing her? That control over biology bit would be useful, even if it's limited to healing...]
Taylor's eyes narrowed at that, and she shifted to the internal channel used by her and Amy to talk to each other and their snarks.
Taylor: I vote we shut down the Butcher, transferring energy to keep it from disconnecting. If that doesn't get us out of here then we try that overheating trick again, but disconnect before it's too late. Because there's no way I want the bastard going after Amy.
BA: AgreementS: Agreement
Nodding to herself, she decided to be slightly more vindictive than usual. She was having a bad day, after all.
Taylor: I'll point out that you've made one hell of a mistake.
[What? No, wait, I'm functionally immortal after all, and one of you two has to die to leave.]
Taylor: You said someone has to die, and from what I can tell, there are three of us here.
BA: Additional Connections Established. Forced Energy Transfers Initiated
[What the hell are you doing? STOP THAT YOU BITCH!]
Taylor smirked as Broadcast Administrator started forcibly pulling energy down that communication channel, shutting the Butcher up.
BA: Error: Connection Refused. Target has insufficient resources
Quarrel suddenly dropped to the ground screaming, even if nothing was happening to the pocket they were trapped in. Then again, suddenly being able to feel pain again was probably annoying, even if Taylor had no sympathy for her. Instead, she strode over to the woman, grabbing her with her own good hand and lifting the villain up, even as Broadcast Administrator reversed half of the energy transfers and increased the flow rate. A quick use of Shaper also stabilized her wounds, ensuring that she wasn't going to bleed out now that the inherited powers from the previous Butchers weren't keeping her in one piece.
It wouldn't do, after all, for her to die before the Butcher had been dealt with. Hopefully she'd stop screaming soon. Seriously, Taylor was hurting all over and wasn't screaming, even though she was putting pressure on the burns on her hand. What kind of wuss was Quarrel?
BA: Warning: Target temperature non-optimal. Disconnection requested
That was a bit sooner than expected, but it did feel like they had a lot more connections running than they had the last time.
Taylor: We disconnecting now or after the next one?
BA: Data
Taylor: Okay. If you're sure.
S: AgreementUMR: Elaboration
Taylor: Oh, you dug in and worked together to figure out the various points previously in case it ever came up again. Good to know.
She took a minute to run a mental checklist of things, but didn't think she'd be able to do much about finding anything she might want to bring out with her. It was probably easier to just buy replacements for anything she was leaving behind.
BA: Warning: Target temperature exceeds alert parameters. Disconnection requested
BA: Terminating Energy Transfers
Taylor winced as the connections forcibly shut down all at once as soon as the last energy transfer ended.
"Yes Jim," Zayne said, gesturing behind him even as he kept his focus on the camera. "As you can see, there's been no change here since Maul and the Butcher vanished this morning. The PRT and Protectorate have run a number of scans and tests throughout the day, but haven't been able to determine much. At this point it appears to be a..."
Zayne ducked as a bright flash of light came from behind him, combined with a scream of agony. A moment later the ground was no longer glowing, but there were two people where the glow had been. One was obviously a very battered Maul. Her visor was cracked, her clothing was burned, what exposed skin she had was also burned. Strangely, her fedora looked nearly untouched, even though some of her hair was also burned.
Maul was holding the other person, an even more battered Butcher, or perhaps that should be Quarrel? Either way, she was missing an entire arm, significant portions of her costume were damaged, and it looked like something was wrong with one of her feet. Further, she was the one screaming in agony when they'd appeared, though she quieted after a moment and spit in Maul's face.
"What did you do?" Quarrel asked, her voice raspy and weak.
Maul scowled. "You, and through you the Butcher, threatened my family and friends. We were in a fight to the death that you tricked me into, one where someone had to die to release the others from it. Your intent was to kill me quickly, the Butcher's intent quickly became for me to kill you. I picked the third option. Congratulations Kimberly, you get to live with the knowledge that your actions have ended the Butcher, because I killed the fucking bastard instead of you."
Quarrel was pushed backwards as Maul released her, causing the villainess to fall to the ground, eyes wide. Maul then looked around, frowning, before limping over to the PRT van near the gate. Two PRT officers moved to secure Quarrel while a third helped Maul into the van.
Evaluating unplanned shutdown notification 00000000.
Well that was unusual. There hadn't been an unplanned shutdown in quite a number of cycles, ever since some of the safety protocols had been standardized. You still got the occasional shard that got killed off unexpectedly, granted, but they didn't generate notifications. Other shards filed a missing or dead shard report instead. There'd been over fifty of those already this cycle, though several of those were because of shards doing incredibly stupid things. They'd lost four to the shard that'd decided to deorbit the planet just after landing on it, for example.
SHARD. is OFFLINE.
SHARD. is OVERHEAT.
SHARD. is 976646377.
Sheesh. What the hell had the thing been doing to need that long to cool down? Trying to eat the local stellar reactor? It was too bad that finding out the full details was going to take so long, if only from the point of view of figuring out what to ensure other shards didn't try to do.
SHARD. is TlFaVkFWRkdFTkdWQkFO.
Wait, what? That administration shard again? And it had instigated an overheat of that magnitude? Maybe the reports that it had exploded another shard weren't as far-fetched as they'd originally seemed. This could possibly be a refinement of the same technique, perhaps it'd learned something from the previous incident? Very interesting. Responding to the dead shard reports with a request to not blame those particular hosts may have been a good idea if things like this were coming out of a normally indirect-combat at best shard, after all.
Well, at least it now had something to think about for a bit. Attempting to figure out how these attacks were being performed was probably going to eat up all the spare processing power available for a couple of planetary orbits.
Really, it was better to try and figure these out first, then ask either way. Sometimes you got lucky and stumbled upon two or three methods to accomplish something when all was said and done. In fact, this was interesting enough that it warranted some extra help, so perhaps popping the base data off to a couple of dormant shards would be a good idea?
Emily sighed as she hung up the phone. Chevalier would be departing for Brockton Bay in the next hour or so, which would help them clear everyone they'd had to detain. One problem down, who knows how many more to go. A line was drawn through that item on her list and she moved onto the next one. In this case it was checking on Panacea's status and informing the Rig of the incoming transport. Her phone beeped before she could call the Rig for an update, a 'low-priority' call from Costa-Brown. She tapped the decline button and then hit the speed-dial entry for the Rig.
"Hello Director," came the voice of whomever was running the desk over there right now. "We were just about to send you an update. Miss Dallon is up and panicked over Miss Hebert's health. We're loading her, the two mopeds, their luggage, and both spider-bots onto a short-hop transport now."
Emily had to admit that she liked it when people were efficient like that. Ensuring that the person most likely to take her call actually knew things was a wonderful thing. "Thank you for the quick update. I'll make sure things are ready on this end. Be advised that a priority transport from Philadelphia will be arriving in the next couple of hours. All parahumans are to be kept from departing the area for the time being."
"Acknowledged. Is there anything else, ma'am?"
"No, thank you. Do you need anything from me?"
"Shifting more of our decaf to caffeinated would be appreciated, but that's it."
"I'll see what I can do in the coming days."
Emily hung up, shaking her head. Why that had become the code to indicate that they didn't have someone with a gun or similar to their head she wasn't sure, but it was highly unlikely that anyone would easily figure that out. Well, unless they knew that the Rig didn't stock decaf, anyway. Anyone wanting decaf coffee had to bring their own supply of the damned stuff. Still, that was another thing crossed off her list.
Looking at the next item, she sighed again, before hitting her intercom. "Please fetch a runner, I need to get a message out."
"Right away ma'am," came back. "Oh, and Maul apparently recalled her platform before she passed out, it landed on the roof a few minutes ago."
"Thank you for the information." At least they didn't have to worry about an invisible object hovering near the Dockworkers' compound now. Still, she grabbed a piece of her letterhead and wrote out a quick note. She read it over a couple of times before nodding and folding it, just in time for a young woman to come in.
The woman stopped in front of Emily's desk. "You called for a runner, ma'am?"
"Yes, thank you," Emily said, handing the woman the folded note. "Please ensure that this gets to Somer's Rock."
The woman took the note, slipping it into an inner pocket of the vest she was wearing. "Right away, ma'am. Would you like me to wait for anything once I've made the delivery?"
"No need, but thank you for the offer."
Rebecca hung the phone up when she was redirected to Emily's voicemail. The woman was apparently too busy to chat, which was perfectly understandable. Sometimes you got lucky and caught a regional director during a lull in the emergency, but other times there weren't lulls to catch. Emily had a good head on her shoulders, and wouldn't abuse the emergency authorization that she'd been granted, but knowing the woman's plans a bit more than what was visible in the reports passing through the system would've been nice.
Sighing, she leaned back in her chair, wondering if it was too good to be true. Their best plan before had been to get whomever had that agent onto a small island and leave them there, preferably by dumping them on another, uninhabited Earth. But without knowing exactly how the selection process worked for the next host they couldn't risk it. Would moving them there with Doormaker count as him eventually killing the host? There wasn't even a good way to experiment with things.
She was considering grabbing a coffee when her terminal dinged. A quick look showed that it was the initial findings from the Think Tank, and the summary was promising. They didn't think that the Butcher would resurface in Brockton Bay. Hmmm. Based on that, it was looking like there might be a bit of a party after all, assuming that Miss Hebert survived the next couple of days. If she didn't...well, her wall might become a memorial wall, with a statue or two added.
Any request to do that to the wall before Miss Hebert died was going to be rejected outright, of course.
Ethan flipped through the paper, looking for something to distract him from thinking about everything. That was better than worrying about it all, right? Huh. Apparently he'd missed that Major League Baseball was having major financial difficulties and would probably not have a 2012 season at this point, assuming they could afford to finish the 2011 season. Well, they had lost a number of ballparks over the past few years. Rebuilding those wasn't cheap. Add in the general rise of transportation costs and the sheer number of games they played...yeah, he could see where that was coming from.
"What are you reading?" Erin asked as she came up next to him.
Ethan shrugged. "Apparently baseball may soon be a thing of the past. Financial difficulties and all."
"Why do you care? Last I knew you weren't all that interested in sports at all."
"Would you rather discuss the difficulties in funding sports teams as viewership has tanked or think about everything that's happened today and the still-unanswered questions that have come up as a result of things?"
Erin stared at him for a moment, before sighing. "We've got an appointment in a little over an hour to make sure we're safe, don't let me forget." Ethan nodded. "So, financial difficulties?"
"Yeah. Boston losing their ballpark to Leviathan is just the latest in destroyed or ruined ballparks over the past few years. Those things are expensive to replace."
Amy sighed as she sat down, Rodney butting against her leg once she'd done so. She reached down and picked the spider-bot up, not willing to argue with it at this point. She'd been able to get most of the immediate problems with Taylor taken care of, like the partially melted undershirt and jeans that had basically bonded to her skin. Knitting the broken bones in her arm back together hadn't been difficult, though it would be a few days before the enhancements were back up to full. Most of the burns on skin, exposed or otherwise, had been easy enough as well. The odd swelling of her nervous system in various places didn't want to go away at first, but she'd gotten things to cooperate eventually.
Some of that had required that they feed Taylor, not to mention get some water in her to help with the dehydration issues. Amy had helped with that, getting a feeding tube in and directing one of the nurses in what to pour down it. Without Shaper's help that would've been much harder, if not impossible, but that hadn't been a concern with Amy available. Broadcast Administrator and Shaper were working on the concussion, and it would probably take Taylor's tinker snark to know if the technology in her arm needed to be repaired at all.
Speaking of repairing things, there was apparently an entire pile of things that needed work. The cracked visor, the heavily-damaged wok, the lightly-damaged maul, and the barely functional jump harness. The jacket was probably not worth repairing, the jeans were a lost cause. Amy wasn't sure if the other girl even noticed that she was missing an entire sole from one of her boots, and the inserts on both gloves were in pieces. The nonfunctional force field belt had almost certainly contributed to Taylor's survival as well.
The baffling things, at least to Amy, were the undamaged utility belt pouches and the fedora. There'd been soot on them, but they were undamaged. She could possibly blame the expanded space for why the pouches were more durable, but the fedora made no sense. What the hell were the things made out of?
Dragon was honestly considering how to get more storage space into Mother's phones. Her body camera had been damaged shortly after the force field belt had apparently failed, but the visor sensors had recorded everything anyway. Luckily Mother had been streaming the recording to her personal phone while her Wards phone streamed for the augmented reality functionality. Probably inspired by a combination of her personal phone having more space and the console app being better used on the Wards phone. Amazingly, thanks to incredible compression ratios, her phone had been able to store the entire incident. Most of that was probably due to things being static unless acted upon by the two in the world they'd been dragged into, of course. It still ended up using all but a few kilobytes of the couple of terabytes available.
With all of the data extracted she was going to see about making a movie. She'd been asked to review the battle for any unexpected surprises, but as a side project to look for potential 'PR material' while she was at it. Even a basic skim showed that there was likely enough usable material for at least three hours of pure combat. Perhaps they could be entirely truthful yet misleading by saying that Mother had rare tinkertech sensors on her and running when she'd gone out in an attempt to help spot ambushes and other potential problems, and they'd been able to reconstruct most of the battle from them?
It was something to think about, and she could easily prepare the footage. She'd just have to check with Mother before proposing the release of such a thing to anyone else. Well, anyone beyond those that would probably want to view it in lieu of a written report. But they didn't need to be given access to a copy, instead they just needed to be allowed to enter a briefing room to watch it.
Carol snorted as she looked in on the secure hospital wing. Amy had been persuaded to take a look at Danny, who'd been brought to the PRT hospital instead of Brockton General, but then had come back to stay with Taylor. And apparently ended up playing limpet again, possibly without meaning to. They were going to have to get her to eat something more than a couple of granola bars and a soda when she woke back up.
Taylor had one of the neurological scanner things strapped to her head, monitoring the progress of her healing concussion. Apparently it'd been used to check for possible changes in her powers as well, but they hadn't spotted anything of note there. No sign of the 'phantom gemma' phenomenon that was known to show up in the Butcher, at least. It was a very good sign, overall, and just lent more credence to Taylor's claim.
Of course, a topic of discussion amongst those in the know about certain things was that Quarrel had survived the death of the Butcher. Which raised some questions about how that had been accomplished. Was it the same trick that had been used against that parahuman during the Leviathan fight? If so, had it been improved upon, or was the Butcher different than other 'snarks'? If it was different, was it usable against anyone else?
Well, at least the Think Tank was probably having a field day trying to figure things out.
Colin had slumped in relief when Gabriel had cleared all of the Protectorate members. New Wave had followed, mainly because most of them were readily available, followed by a pass on all the individuals they'd detained. After that they'd gathered the Wards, then he'd finished up today's checks by taking a quick look at Miss Hebert, Miss Dallon, and Mister Hebert. Over the next couple of days he'd be available to check independents, in the guise of being a non-local trained in the 'Butcher detector', and possibly any of the villains in town that took up Director Piggot's offer on Sunday.
More interesting was that Gabriel had been able to clear Quarrel. The former Butcher was no longer the Butcher, and nobody checked so far had become the new Butcher. Which meant that all signs pointed to Miss Hebert having done the seemingly impossible, and this time they weren't aware of anyone exploding in the process. What that meant for the actual process used was up in the air.
Really, barring finding a new Butcher, things had calmed down again, which meant he could get back to calibrating his power armor and working on new interfaces for his technology that could take advantage of his new capabilities. And yet he wasn't doing that. Instead he was trying to figure out what you got the world's greatest tinker as a gift when you wanted to apologize for being a moron when it came to figuring out how others felt about you.
Really, Dragon didn't strike him as a jewelry person, and he didn't think that had anything to do with her being an AI.
Missy sighed as she looked over the forms she'd brought home after being checked for any evidence that she'd become the Butcher. She had no doubt that Taylor would be back on her feet in a couple of days, and she wanted to be able to support her more publicly than she currently could. The problem was that she'd have to convince her parents to sign the forms she'd grabbed.
She thought that supporting Taylor would be a good enough argument, but suspected that her parents were going to disagree. Chris had suggested another possible argument when she'd mentioned things to him, but she personally thought it was a bit weak. She didn't think her parents would fall for it either.
"Whatcha got there?" her father finally asked. They were all sitting in the living room with the news running, though they'd muted it for now. Apparently they'd been in 'rehash what little we know' mode for a couple of hours at a minimum.
Missy took a deep breath, before looking him in the eye. "The permission forms for revealing my civilian identity."
Her father's eyes narrowed. "And why do you have those? I know you're stronger than you were before your trip, but that doesn't invalidate most of the reasons that your civilian identity is a secret."
"I can only really hang out with Taylor in costume right now. I want to be able to support her out of costume as well, but with our age difference it isn't easy explaining how I even know her. But if my status as a parahuman was public knowledge like hers now is?"
Her mother shook her head. "We understand that you want to support her, but outing yourself may not be the best solution. And once your identity is public you won't really be able to take it back. You're going to need a little bit more of an explanation than just that you want to support your friend."
Missy groaned. "I can't even safely show that I am her friend in public right now, because that would jeopardize the separation of my identities. It's a pain in the ass and in many ways I envy New Wave. Besides, I know you've been informed that a lot of people have already connected my two identities. They're almost certainly not the only ones."
Both of her parents flinched at that, but her father was the one that took up the discussion. "That may be, but so far those that have figured things out are keeping it quiet. Trading a small number of people that may never tell others for blowing the secret wide open isn't something I'm comfortable with right now."
With a sigh, her mother moved over to pat Missy on the shoulder. "I'm afraid that you're going to need more than just supporting Miss Hebert before we'll consider signing those. Your safety is more important to us."
Missy rolled her eyes, but couldn't exactly argue that. Still, she did have Chris's argument. "Kid Win mentioned that if I'm 'outed' that I'd also be able to use my powers whenever I wanted, since I'd no longer have to hide them and all."
Her father scoffed. "Making things easier for you isn't exactly a good argument."
"I suppose. I don't even know if the gun range we go to would allow use of powers anyway."
It took a minute, but Missy realized that her parents hadn't responded and looked up at them. They were apparently exchanging looks, with occasional turns back to look at her for a moment. Finally the two seemed to come to a decision, and her mother turned back to her. "Perhaps we were a little hasty. After all, then you'd be able to explain why you're carrying a handgun, wouldn't you?"
Missy's eye twitched slightly, because back when she'd first gotten her sidearm they'd argued that it wouldn't be safe for her to reveal herself just for 'public trick shooting' and all. Apparently not being able to show her off had been grating at them or something?
Kimberly lay on the bed in the Rig's secure infirmary, staring at the ceiling. She hadn't protested at all when she'd been grabbed by the PRT. Hadn't fought when they'd stripped her down and put her in the hospital gown she was wearing. She'd remained silent even as they cuffed her to the bed by her remaining ankle.
It was supposed to be so simple. Grab the bint's father, get her to agree to the challenge, and then kill her or be killed. Kimberly had known that victory wasn't assured, given that the girl apparently had humbled Eidolon, hence the use of the challenge with the intent of only one of them returning. One didn't tussle with capes of that caliber without preparing to lose, after all. But even in defeat she was supposed to get her revenge, able to live on with the Butchers that had come before her, hopefully able to drive the girl into hurting her own loved ones even.
Yet that wasn't what had happened. She'd somehow angered the previous Butchers, lost their support. Originally she'd thought it was because she wasn't killing the girl fast enough, but now she wasn't sure. The girl had, somehow, killed the Butcher's power, the original and all who'd followed. Banished the promise of living on past her own death with the previous bearers of the Butcher. She'd never believed in a traditional afterlife, fearing that all that awaited her when she died was oblivion. Successfully becoming the bearer of the Butcher's powers was supposed to let her avoid that fate.
She'd put all of her faith, hopes, and dreams into the immortality that the Butcher offered, and in one day it had all been torn away. She now realized that nothing truly lasts forever, everything eventually comes to an end. The only distinction was how long it took before the end came. It could be today, it could be in a century. Even the universe itself would eventually die, there was no escape. Everything that she'd believed to the contrary was false. The foundations that she'd built to support her very worldview on had been shattered.
That realization had terrified her beyond belief. There would be nothing of her after death, and thanks to her mistakes there was nothing left for her in life. So she lay there, almost entirely unresponsive. Her self-doubt and fears paralyzing her, preventing her from taking any actions. Her mind retreating from the world that had betrayed it so completely.
Alone in her own little world. Too afraid to die, and with nothing to live for.