Three seconds later she had a new high priority path running. Her phone was out so that she could fire off a text message as she spoke. "Door to within a block of Weathergirl in Brockton Bay, and please double-door Amy or Taylor to Kenta's house when they call for the medical emergency door. No need to contaminate where they are now."
A moment later she'd stepped out between two cars and turned down the street. Apparently Miss Alcott was hiding her full capabilities. Good for her, good to know, and it might come in handy later as well. Hopefully it would help her keep Kenta from leveling the Eastern Seaboard. The text message to the two girls was completed and sent a moment later. Fortuna rushed up the walk to the Alcott residence, ringing the bell as soon as she got there. She'd slipped the phone into a pocket just in time for the door to be opened by Mister Alcott.
"Hello," he greeted. "Can I help you?"
"My apologies for the interruption," Fortuna replied, pulling her wallet out of another pocket. "I'm on a very tight schedule and need to ask your daughter a question. Just one, and I pay well."
"I don't know what you're talking..." he started, only to pause when Fortuna's wallet opened to show her PRT credentials. "Oh."
"I also happen to know that she isn't limited to the weather, but I'll keep that secret."
"Ah." He looked between her and the stairs.
"Ninety eight point six three seven two zero percent chance that it's important," came from young Dinah at the top of the stairs, not that Fortuna could see the girl.
The man nodded and gestured Fortuna into the house. She stepped forward and looked up at Dinah, who was at the top of the stairs still. "What are the chances that, if checked by the PRT in the next day, the three men currently being chased by Lung would be found to be mastered?"
Dinah blinked. "Zero percent. Absolute zero."
Fortuna nodded as she extracted a wad of hundreds from her pocket and handed it to Mister Alcott. That the men weren't mastered was fortuitous. "Thank you." A moment later she was out of the house and heading back to the cars she'd arrived between. "Door to supply room six, row four." She stepped through and moved down the row, collecting a small whiteboard, a marker, and a spike strip. Her phone went off as she was lifting the last of them, and she shifted things to pull the phone out. She nodded at the message, tapped out a reply, and then dropped the phone back into her pocket. "Door to Third and Westinghouse, Brockton Bay."
She carried everything down the alley, kneeing the man halfway down it in the crotch as hard as she could. Not only would it stop him from getting in Kenta's way, thus saving his life, but it would also keep him from attempting to drunkenly rape a girl later in the evening. It took a moment to set up the spike strip, and then she wrote out two messages on the whiteboard, one on each side.
Taylor blinked as a message came in, to her and Amy, as they were preparing to break off for lunch.
F: Medical emergency, Lung's family in critical condition. Need one of you to call Scotty for a medical emergency door ASAP.
Amy: I'm in the middle of two people, you go.
Taylor: Can do.
Taylor stepped to the side. "Scotty, medical emergency door." A familiar tear opened up in front of her and she stepped through to an empty room in what looked like the Cauldron compound, wondering why she was there. The tear closed behind her and another opened in front of her, a cloud of drugs coming through it. Which was probably why she had the extra stop. She stepped through that tear and found herself in a small dining area with drugs everywhere, four unconscious people, and a giant hole in the building. The latter was presumably from Lung's exit.
Taylor quickly grabbed the two nearest to her, a woman and a young girl. The latter didn't register as organic, despite breathing and having a snark. She looked slightly 'off' and appeared to have a partial wing, so it was likely something to do with her powers. Taylor quickly stabilized the woman while reaching out to the familiar-looking but unknown snark, but realized that she was going to need to get all four out of the cloud of drugs. And poison, actually.
Taylor: I can't heal her while you're doing whatever it is you're doing. Can you stop?
Instead of an answer, the snark disconnected. Which was annoying. Taylor moved to the other two, Lee and Airi. They were also stabilized before Taylor returned to the girl.
BA: Establishing Additional Connections
It was quickly obvious that just opening connections wasn't working, as the other snark started closing them almost immediately. Frowning, Taylor pushed to change tactics, Broadcast Administrator starting on it right away. The new connections started draining small amounts of energy, not much on any connection but enough to prevent them from closing.
BA: Error: Connection Refused. Target has insufficient resources
The girl snapped back to being human, which allowed Taylor to stabilize her and see that she'd probably just triggered, as well as that she was likely the unpowered woman's daughter. Keeping the snark suppressed was annoying, but Taylor could easily handle doing so. She carried the girl outside first, placing her off to the side, then repeated that for the other three. Once outside of the cloud of drugs and poison she was able to clear each of their systems without having to worry about them breathing things back in, though she'd still need to get them further out of the area soon.
Once all four were as good as they were getting, Taylor touched each to wake them up. As annoying as it was, just in case she left the girl's snark suppressed. As soon as it was obvious that they were all stirring she also sent a message back to Fortuna to say that all four were alive and out of the house.
"Nani ga okotta?" the unknown woman said as she awoke. Taylor assumed it was a question based on the tone alone.
Lee and Airi were much quieter as they woke, cautiously looking around as they came to, but the young girl looked around fearfully before jumping at the unpowered woman. "Mama!"
"Takara? Daijōbudesu ka?"
"Not to intrude," Taylor said. "But I don't suppose you speak English? Otherwise one of the other two here is going to need to start translating, and I don't want to stay near the house full of poisoned drugs."
There was a pause as the four looked at Taylor, then the adults looked around until they spotted the house. The girl, however, squealed. "Maul!" She stayed latched onto her mother despite the squeal.
"Did you say poisoned drugs?" Airi asked.
Taylor nodded. "Yes."
"Then I vote we get moving and answer questions as we do so."
"I concur," the unknown woman said, carefully getting up. She picked the girl up as well. "Though I would like to know what happened."
Taylor shrugged as the other two got up as well, then they started moving down the street a bit. "Amy, or Panacea, and I got a message asking for emergency healing. She was in the middle of healing others, so I came. Found a house with a cloud of poisoned drugs and you four bleeding and unconscious. I stabilized you, got you out, and then finished healing you up. I'm assuming that Lung is off chasing those responsible, based on the hole in the front of the house." She looked back at the house. "Do you mind if I call the PRT for pickup and a cleanup team? A change of clothing is probably going to be needed, given the drug and poison residue on what you're wearing, and we aren't getting them from the house."
The woman looked at the other two adults, and Airi rolled her eyes. "You're married to Lung, and the PRT knows it and that Takara is his daughter. Miss Hebert here has helped Lee before, and if she hasn't figured out that I'm a parahuman yet then people have massively oversold her abilities. Though I'm surprised that Lee is still here and not chasing after your husband."
Lee shrugged at that. "No clue which way to go, and staying with Miku and Takara to keep them safe is a good alternative choice."
The woman, Miku, sighed. "Very well."
Taylor nodded. "Give me a moment." She then looked at the other two, then examined the area. Seeing nobody watching, she nodded. "May I ask how much do you trust these two?"
"Kenta and I trust Lee with our lives, have for years, and Airi is trusted enough to look after our daughter on a regular basis. Why?'
It took a moment, but Taylor had a packet of pamphlets out of her utility belt. "Here, you may find the information and resources useful going forward. Speaking of which, if you don't mind, I'd like to stop suppressing your daughter's powers, but I think you'd have to put her down, just in case."
The others stopped and stared at Taylor for a moment, before the adults turned to look at Takara. Lee was the one who snorted, though. "Figures that she'd trigger. Any idea what she can do?"
"Not really. I saw what looked like a wing, and I couldn't heal her until I forced things off because she wasn't registering as organic. When I stop suppressing things her powers could lash out, though, which is why I don't think she should be held while I do so. Either that or I need to be holding her, since my belt should keep me safer than any of you would be."
They paused for a moment, then Miku sighed. "Can you hold on until the PRT shows up, at least? I'd rather not have you do so in public, and if she has triggered then the PRT is going to know soon enough anyway. Letting things go while she's in one of their vans is less obvious than doing so in the open."
Taylor nodded, then started the call she'd prepped but not triggered yet.
Kenta raged as he followed the vehicles containing the men who'd killed his family. They'd had enough of a lead before he'd ramped up properly to make it difficult to catch up to them, but he was making progress in catching up. His rage was such that it felt like the intervening blocks were passing by in an instant. Another couple of minutes at most and he'd have them.
He wanted to frown when something happened off to the side and a strip flew across the street just in front of the fleeing vehicles, but when they passed over it became obvious that it had punctured their tires. It retracted just after the two had gone by, and Kenta looked over to where it had come from. Only to have his thoughts come to a halt for a moment, because she was standing there.
With a whiteboard. Containing writing. He couldn't stop himself from reading it.
I got Maul to your family in time to save all four. You're welcome.
She'd what? The woman then flipped the whiteboard to show a second message on the back.
The three men you're chasing weren't mastered. Have fun.
It took him a moment to process that, during which she'd collected the spike strip and walked into the alley. He suspected that she wasn't going to be there by the time he could get close enough to take a look, and he'd not actually stopped moving forward.
On the other hand, his family was apparently safe, and he had very few reasons to not make an example out of the three men who'd tried to kill them. And there was absolutely no doubt about the latter detail, so they were about to have a very bad day. Especially since he now knew that death would be too much of a mercy for them.
Thanks to the added 'noise' of the energy transfers, Taylor had the beginnings of a pounding headache by the time they made it back to the PRT building and got everyone out of the clothing that had drugs and poison coating it. Not to mention through showers. Luckily she'd been able to clean up her force field belt, visor, and utility belt pouches on her own. The rest of her clothing, including the 'healer' shoes, were going to go through a cleaning cycle. Then she'd had to clean the drug and poison traces out of the other four again, of course.
At least it looked like Aisha had done a good job with cleaning the Wards area kitchen.
But now it was finally time to lock a room and stop suppressing Takara's snark, since they hadn't wanted to risk her damaging a van. Something that even Amy was looking forward to, because the other girl was getting annoyed at Taylor's growing headache. Even as she was also annoyed at the stupidity of some of the holdout patients for the afternoon down in Georgia. Just in case clothing damage occurred, the little girl was in nothing more than a hospital gown as Taylor finally had Broadcast Administrator let up.
[ANNOYANCE]
BA: Counterpoint
[...annoyance]
Takara went from being a human girl to suddenly looking like she'd been painted, clothing and all. She also looked very much like a little dragon now, complete with wings that appeared to be the same color as the hospital gown. Which wasn't the same color as when Taylor had first seen a wing on the girl, so it was presumably the wing taking the coloring of whatever it emerged from. That would be useful to know from a costume design point of view.
Over the next five minutes the girl gradually reverted back to a normal human state, at which point medical staff looked her over. That was made more difficult by the girl being excited over having powers and wanting to be a Ward.
Taylor: So, now that you know that I was ensuring that Takara didn't die, would you like to volunteer anything about the powers you're granting her? Since I doubt she's going to be able to articulate anything well enough for some of the more inquisitive people that will want to poke her to learn how everything works.
There was a pause before the snark responded.
[Data]
BA: Query
[Elaboration]
BA: Query
[Rejection]
Well, that was far better than absolutely nothing. Though figuring out how the 'be in multiple places at once while fully painted' bit worked was going to be fun for the power testers. That the girl would follow some 'cartoon' rules while in that state would hopefully make her safer, but what those rules were hadn't been volunteered. Which was also going to be fun for the power testers.
Taylor made note to be conveniently busy for the next couple of weeks if any 'help with power testing' non-patrol tasks came through for her. She didn't want to be anywhere near the headache that this would cause, because in order to test some of the aspects of her powers they were going to have to risk injuring the girl. Which was an iffy prospect at best, given her father.
Speaking of Kenta, Taylor wasn't sure where he was. Surely someone had gotten word to him that his family was safe? She didn't think he was the kind of person to take someone else's word on that front, yet he hadn't shown up yet. Then again, it was possible that he was still hunting down those responsible for the attack, which would easily cloud his judgement on pretty much all other matters.
Ethan finished bagging the evidence he'd been collecting, including the memory cards from the camera he'd brought along. Drugs and materials for making improvised bombs had still been in the back of the pickup truck, even after Lung had torn the roof off of it, in addition to one mostly assembled device that they hadn't used. The anti-Japanese bumper stickers and the box of conspiracy theorist handout sheets stating that Japanese parahumans were trying to subvert the 'rightful government of North America' helped paint a picture of why the men had targeted Lung and his family in the first place. Not to mention indicated some of their intelligence level. Handwritten instructions on the most direct route from the highway to a residential street, with the license plate of the van at the end, told Ethan that the truck probably hadn't been in town long enough to be picked up by a sensor drone sweep.
The van had been a rental, and Lung had been more careful with it. Possibly due to knowing that, or maybe the men hadn't locked the doors so it'd been easier to get in. Tires were still flat, and Ethan wasn't sure where the spike strip that the two vehicles had seemingly run over was, so they needed flatbed tow trucks no matter what. But inside the van he'd found notes on the likely identities of the ABB parahumans, home addresses, and movement notes from the day before. Since they'd mostly holed up in Lung's house they'd inadvertently made themselves an easy target.
At some point he'd need to see if he could find out how Taylor got all the way from Georgia to Lung's house in time to save the man's family, but at the moment that wasn't actually important. Just that she had, in fact, saved them, which meant that Lung was being creative with punishments. Much better than being on a rampage. Of course, there were other mysteries as well. For example, once the fire damage started hitting neighboring buildings it should've kept going, but instead entire blocks had been spared that damage.
Whatever the explanation was, it wasn't likely to be coming soon. The fire department was already working on the fires, a pickup van and three ambulances were waiting a couple blocks over so as to not put 'pressure' on Lung, and absolutely nobody was in the mood to tell the enraged man to stop what he was doing. Which appeared to be using fire to carve Japanese characters into the skin of the men after having ensured that they couldn't run away. Or walk in general, really.
It was obvious that killing the men wasn't on Lung's list of tasks at this point, and that doing so would be a mercy. One that Ethan didn't think the men deserved.
They'd stopped with the 'waiting list' patients and packed up early, Amy getting her family members home before swinging by the PRT building. There'd been zero attempts at getting into the National Guard base while they'd been there, presumably because normally people weren't stupid enough to try in the first place. There being very little information about them having been there added to that, though as promised the news had picked up on the Presidential visit. Moving the President around was hard to do in secret when you were shutting down airspace to do so, though there were other mentions of things that she'd not followed the article links for.
Taylor had been asked to look at the three idiots, if only to ensure that they weren't going to fall over dead before they made it to trial. Which had been a possibility, and she'd healed them just enough to prevent that. She wasn't in the mood to do any more than that, though, and had needed to restrain herself from punishing the men further. Amy sending her ideas hadn't helped. She hadn't been asked to check up on Kenta, presumably because his regeneration would've dealt with everything already.
"So how are they?" Amy asked after entering the break room that Taylor was eating a snack in.
Taylor shrugged. "They should be fine physically, but you know that. Lee and Airi seemed to be doing their best to take things in stride, but I think Miku might've been a bit in shock. As much as Takara was clinging to Miku, the opposite was just as true. Getting them to separate long enough to release Takara's snark was a minor challenge."
"Ah. At least she's going to be someone else's problem, right?"
"You'd think so, but she wants to be a Ward. Specifically with Missy and I. So there's probably going to be a seven year old to go along with the eight and nine year olds. One that's already obsessed with Missy and I, and thus probably going to be a terror if patrolling with the other two."
Amy blinked a couple of times. "Oh. That sounds...very annoying."
"Yep."
They sat there in silence for a minute before Amy frowned. "Is Kenta's snark...different?"
Taylor nodded. "I believe that he second-triggered, especially since it seems like a little bit of Lee's snark is in the mix now."
"Oh. Huh. Good point, I hadn't noticed, but now that you've mentioned it I can't help but see it. What does that mean?"
"That when he ramps up enough that he can now teleport between points by way of a 'fire clone' appearing at the destination, connecting back to him in a straight line of fire. Then an instant later he's where the clone was and the fire where he was dissipates."
Amy turned to look at Taylor. "How the hell do you know that without having asked his snark?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Because I watched the video clip posted on PHO. There's panic across at least five threads about it."
"Oh."
Kenta sighed as he sat in the kitchen area of a spare safe house. He'd turned down the offer of temporary use of a PRT apartment for a number of reasons. Part of that was that the PRT was already cleaning up the drugs and poison back at his home and he didn't want to feel even more in debt to them. They'd actually made good time on ensuring that the bedrooms were clear and collecting clothing from them, something that had impressed him. Not to mention Takara's plush toys, though they'd needed to call over with a request for some of those. But even when that cleanup was done they wouldn't be moving back in until a collection of repairs were made. Not to mention replacing all of the windows with ones that would be a lot harder to throw things through.
He would be having a chat with the company that had installed the previous supposedly-secure windows. They would not enjoy it. Especially since he would be bringing multiple lawyers and a representative from a company the PRT had recommended. Yes, they were 'less effective' over time, but should've lasted at least a year and not the three months since they'd been installed.
But until all of that was taken care of, they would be using the safe house. Which didn't have supposedly-secure windows at all, because it hadn't been a high priority at the time. Of course, now he was glad that they hadn't made it to that phase of things, because it would've been a wasted expense. Still, as soon as his home was repaired it would be the next thing on the list, just in case.
Luckily Takara had tired herself out, so as soon as Miku had her settled they could discuss things. Though it was too bad that they couldn't get any of the food from the kitchen back at home, because he could really use a drink right now and there was some good beer in the fridge.
He was distracted from thinking about his beer by the doorbell ringing. He looked over at the front windows, and there was no sign of anyone having pulled up. With how on-edge he'd been all day he was certain that someone walking up to the house would've gotten his attention as well, and they'd have needed to get through the four-level cordon of his people watching the area as well. Frowning, he carefully made his way to the door, carefully checking the peephole. There was no longer anyone outside, which could mean that they were laying in wait. His frown deepening, he opened up the small closet near the front door and punched a code into the safe there. Opening it up, he extracted the shortened shotgun from inside and loaded rounds into it. Safety off, only then did he open the door.
Instead of someone jumping at him, he found a six pack of beer with an envelope addressed to him on top of it. Looking around again, he found himself very confused. Cautious of things, he closed and locked the door, followed by heading back towards the kitchen for some disposable gloves. Once he'd found and put some on he moved back to the door, double-checking it and readying the shotgun again. For the second time nobody jumped out at him, and he carefully picked up the letter. Opening it, he found that there was a single sheet of paper inside.
Kenta,
My apologies for not stopping those men before they attacked. I've been doing my best to stay out of your business, and that blinded me to the potential threat. For the time being I'm keeping an eye on you and your family, just in case, and should your daughter join the Wards she will be kept within some of the protections I maintain. That's non-negotiable for Wards, and you should probably take that into account when making decisions on that front.
I'd apologize for shoving your face into a pile of drugs back when we first ran into each other, but I honestly believe that it was for the best at the time. You triggering was unexpected, but not unnoticed. In the grand scheme of things you seem to have done more to help than harm, which I don't think would've been the case otherwise. Feel free to disagree.
Good job with the gloves, but next time check them for holes. Your left palm is exposed. You've also forgotten to put the firing pin back into the shotgun. I promise that the beer is untainted.
-Mysteriously Dashing Fedora-Bearing Meddler
Kenta's eyes narrowed, and he checked his left palm. Sure enough, there was a small hole in the glove. A check of the shotgun showed that he had indeed forgotten that the firing pin wasn't in the shotgun, something that he'd done just in case Takara did get into the safe and forgotten about. How the hell that woman had known about both details in order to write the letter before he'd brought out the shotgun or grabbed the gloves was something that he didn't want to think about.
Grumbling about being crazy for trusting the blasted woman, and even then only because he'd been able to confirm with Miss Hebert that said woman had been the one to send her, he collected the beer and brought it inside. He locked the door, re-secured the shotgun, and then went back to the kitchen. The gloves were thrown out once he was there, and Miku looked at him oddly.
"That blasted woman left a note and some beer," Kenta said, placing the beer on the table. "And somehow knows way too much on top of that. She's either a precog or knows one, I'm thinking."
Miku nodded in understanding. "And now you don't know what to think of her, given what you said she did today versus what she did years ago."
"She terrifies me, since I'm fairly certain that if she wanted me dead then I would be, powers or no. Then she apparently does her best to stay out of my business for years, right up until doing so would cost me you and Takara, at which point she steps in and ensures that aid reaches you in time. Does an action that can never be repaid balance out an action that can never be forgiven?" He grumbled a bit before extracting a beer from the six-pack, opening it even as Miku read the letter that had come with it.
She read over the letter multiple times, frowning as she did so. Eventually she put the letter down and looked up at him. "I'm not sure what she meant about you possibly not doing more help than harm, but otherwise it doesn't read like there's dishonesty. Not that it's easy to tell in a letter, of course."
Kenta sighed. "At the time I first encountered her I was young and foolish, aiming for membership in the Yakuza. We were likely going about things in the wrong way at the time, not that we realized it. Too sure that we were big fish and could handle anything, it was probably inevitable that we'd have found something else we couldn't handle if we hadn't run into her."
"Perhaps we should sleep on it and worry about all of this in the morning. Nothing has to be decided tonight, after all, and I don't think that I'm ready to make any decisions about Takara's future right now anyway."
He nodded at that. It was a good point. Until they'd properly settled from this they weren't going to be thinking things through properly, compared to knee-jerk reactions made for perceived but possibly false safety. Nothing was going to be decided until they were both positive that they knew what they were signing up for, the pros and cons. "Perhaps we'll be waiting a few days, even."
"Though there is one thing I think we should discuss. Did you know that you were teleporting while chasing those men?"
Kenta opened his mouth to respond to that, finding it ridiculous, only to stop and think about it. "Huh. That would explain the feeling of clearing entire blocks without actually traveling down the street normally. I guess I'm going to have to see about learning to control that when I'm not blind with rage?"
Miku scoffed. "I don't know which is worse. That it took someone else pointing it out to you, or that I'm the first one to bring it up."
He honestly wasn't sure which of those was worse, but personally felt that he'd been perfectly justified in not noticing at the time. Not that said justification was going to stop Miku from teasing him about it for at least the next month.
Chapter 242 Monday morning Taylor was unsurprised to find that the local news was all but ignoring the previous day's incident with Kenta in favor of the national speculation on what happened down in Georgia. Though they'd been at a National Guard base, apparently the entire area had been locked down by the Army very early that morning. Following that with a visit from the President, with the official explanation they'd been told about the previous day, resulted in a lot of interest.
A few people apparently wanted to know why they'd been using a National Guard facility instead of a military facility if the President was going to visit, as was obviously known in advance if the Army was involved when they were, but that was easily explained by laws regarding parahumans and the military. Some based on treaties, others based on incidents that happened over the years. The most important of which was that, outside of a recognized crisis, parahumans weren't supposed to use their powers while within the borders of any armed forces facility, and there were limits on using them in the immediate vicinity of said facilities as well.
Those laws made no provision for how the powers were being used, or who was using them. There were exceptions for triggering in or near a relevant facility, but otherwise it was essentially a blanket ban. One that had been enforced a couple dozen times already, at least twice on active members of the Protectorate and three times on underage parahumans. It hadn't been needed with any Wards yet, but Taylor wasn't interested in being the first potential case there.
Digging a little, she was able to find coverage on more local concerns from the day before. A few buildings had been damaged, and they'd figured out that 'family of an ABB parahuman' had been attacked. That was being used as the reasoning behind Kenta's chase and eventual mutilation of the three men. She suspected that the news knew that Kenta's family had been attacked, but was sticking to not revealing that detail. Or for that matter that they knew where he lived, since they only referred to him as Lung and they seemed to be avoiding mentioning the house in general. Though they did give her credit for having arrived in time to prevent deaths, but without any details. Like how she'd arrived in time, which the reporter expressed curiosity about.
A quick check showed that PHO was digging into how Taylor made it from Georgia, where she was known to be, to Brockton Bay on essentially zero notice and without any signs of having traveled. One patient said that it looked like she'd stepped into thin air and vanished, which was somewhat accurate, but they hadn't gotten a good look and she was gone an instant later. The PRT was denying that she had a relevant mover power, but wouldn't comment on her having assistance from another.
All in all, it was looking like it might be an annoying day, if only from the point of view of students asking her questions.
Arrival at school, on 'foot' thanks to Missy having arrived at the gym that morning, proved Taylor's fears regarding her day. Sure, there was some attention on Amy, wanting to know if the President had or hadn't shown up the day before, but almost all of the focus when they arrived was on Taylor. Both from the Presidential visit in the morning and for the getting to Brockton Bay around lunchtime. Taylor wasn't in the mood to answer any of the questions, but her lack of response wasn't deterring anyone. Bells ringing to signal classes starting felt like the only reason she got a reprieve.
Her actual morning classes were fine, with people yelling questions to her in the halls between classes. At lunchtime she decided enough was enough when she couldn't do much eating due to all the interruptions, used her visor to double-check the school rules, and then stood up suddenly.
"LISTEN UP," she yelled, causing everyone wanting to ask her questions to go quiet for a moment. Possibly hoping for answers. "I'm not answering any of your questions, which should've been obvious by now. The next person to keep me from eating my lunch gets punched."
Everyone blinked, and a number of people physically backed off. Nobody tried to interrupt her as she sat back down to keep eating.
Amy: While nobody is coming over to yell at you for the threat, I didn't think that was allowed by the school rules.
Taylor: If I follow through with the punch then I'd be in trouble, but telling people to leave me alone in that manner is just barely within the rules.
Amy: Really?
Taylor: Yep. By my reading of things, thanks to my warning and the reasoning behind it, anyone I punched for that would be considered to have been the instigator. They'd get in trouble as well as a result. Probably to the tune of a single detention for a first offense on each side. Of course, I'm probably also skirting by on the fact that teachers and staff are supposed to keep things from getting to that point in the first place.
Amy: Ah. That's a good point.
The reprieve actually lasted long enough to escape via a pocket dimension at the end of the day, at which point Taylor checked PHO and found that there was an entire thread dedicated to whether or not she could get away with punching someone. A surprisingly dedicated group of people had found the school rules, decided that the answer was 'not without a detention', but also considered her reputation as a Ward. On the latter front, the original thought was that the PRT would get uppity about it, if only for PR reasons. Up until someone pointed out the things she'd gotten up to without getting in trouble in costume. Punching someone in civvies for not letting her eat lunch in peace would be a minor footnote at best.
A quick check of things for the afternoon showed that nobody had requested changes, so Aisha and Chris were going to be patrolling with Rosa while Missy took the console. Ryan and Sandy had the day off due to a lack of Wards, since Taylor had the day off after the weekend. Not that she didn't 'visit' the PRT building anyway, specifically using the garage to unload vehicles from the Shaper-linked pocket dimension and then load them into the larger Broadcast Administrator-linked one. Mainly because the latter had actual parking spaces defined in it.
Amy: I want to pick up some plants for the new greenhouse, if only to have something there. You want to join me?
Taylor: That seems like a good idea. Any preferences for where to get them?
Amy: I'm thinking that I'd like to get a couple from the beach. Perhaps a few from Honolulu? They'd be more likely to work well with keeping things in a tropical environment with the plants from the beach.
Taylor: That seems reasonable enough. I'll let my father know what we're up to. And I should probably let Honolulu know that we're coming. Though I'm less certain about how to check the beach.
Amy: I'll just ask 'Scotty' out loud and see what kind of response I get.
Taylor: I guess that would work.
Taylor finished up moving the minivan, ambulance, and her own moped into their parking spaces while sending messages off to her father and Honolulu. Amy could move her own moped easily enough, and if they were popping over to the beach they might end up using them as an easy way across the water anyway. With that done, she went home to change into clothing that she'd be happier with getting filthy from moving plants around.
She'd gotten back two 'no problem' messages by the time she was done changing, so she headed into the pocket dimension and looked between the minivan and the ambulance. Nodding to herself, she opened up the back of the ambulance and made sure that things were clear enough to pass through it without issue. She'd just finished ensuring that things were folded into storage positions when Amy entered.
"I'm told that the beach is a bit windy and that a storm will probably blow through later this evening," Amy said. "Why are you in the back of the ambulance?"
Taylor hopped out and closed the back doors. "Because loading things directly into the pocket dimension is easier to hide if we open the portal inside of it, so it should only be obvious that something odd is up if someone notices that we put too much to fit into the back of it or something."
"Ah. Good point. I vote we start with the beach anyway. Plenty more daylight remaining in Hawaii, after all."
"Works for me. Want to pick up your moped and meet me there?"
"Why would I want my moped?"
Taylor snorted. "Were you planning on swimming to the other landmasses?"
Amy blinked. "Oh. Right. The mopeds can travel over water, I'd forgotten about that."
They'd picked up a few smaller plants from the beach, then purchased a number of tropical plants from a couple of businesses in Honolulu. The latter had been both amused and confused by the ambulance, since seeing non-local vehicles at all was odd there. That they were able to ignore some of the rules for bringing a vehicle to the state in general due to the ambulance being a federally registered tinkertech vehicle just made it more unusual. Taylor had absently looked up some of the rules for registering a vehicle for use on the island and had easily determined that they wouldn't be able to produce half the paperwork needed, because they hadn't had the ambulance shipped in at all and it wasn't built there.
Once all of the plants had been obtained they'd then worked on replanting them properly in the greenhouse. Or as properly as they could with the ones that they'd pulled from around the beach, because that was somewhat new territory. They did their best either way and could tweak the individual plants until they were happy in the greenhouse if there were problems later.
Taylor had then allowed Amy to play assistant, or more accurately tool fetcher, as she fixed up some minor damage from a tree having clipped Amy's moped. It wasn't significant, but it was highly visible and thus quite annoying to look at. Luckily the paint job was simple enough to not have to worry about a lack of painting skills in fixing it, since cosmetics didn't seem to be something that Taylor's tinker snark considered important enough to help with. Well, cosmetics unrelated to functionality. Presumably if she ever found something that depended on being, say, red to go faster or purple for stealth then her tinker snark would help with the paint job.
But now they'd both headed home, showered, had dinner, and both were working on homework. In theory. In Taylor's case, she'd opted to check on the afternoon patrol first, wishing that the footage had been entered into the system properly. Apparently Rosa had fired at a couple of thieves with her water guns today, demonstrating that just because she's 'only' throwing around water doesn't mean that she's ignorable. One of her water bombs had broken a hand when one of the men tried to 'catch and redirect' it. Which failed as soon as they made contact and the effect keeping it to a mere liter sphere was dispelled. Strangely, they hadn't been ready for the water to explode to a significantly larger volume.
Obviously, the thief didn't know that you never trusted the laws of physics around parahumans. They were also lucky that the water expanded much more slowly than it had any right to if it were merely under extreme pressure.
That had led the other to try to run away, but the more normal water gun was enough to knock him into a wall. Aisha apparently punched him in the face on her way out of said wall a moment later, having slipped around him while he was gaping at his partner's injury. Chris claimed that the man had noticed her doing so, guarding his back against her just in case, but of course he'd then forgotten that she existed when she'd slipped into the wall with her powers.
All in all, it sounded somewhat hilarious, but if they'd submitted the footage from cameras then it wasn't in the correct places for her to get at it. Which was annoying.
Tuesday morning Amy noticed that the tracking threads had obtained pictures of the ambulance in Honolulu, as well as the two girls loading plants into it. Apparently this was 'extra bullshit', because teleport hops with a vehicle across the country were one thing, but over the ocean was another. Getting people to and from Hawaii was also considered a worst-case scenario for things like Endbringer battles. Yet the two had apparently popped over to purchase some plants.
There was no consensus, but the threads were split pretty much evenly between them having access to incredible tinkertech or favors owed by very impressive mover-class capes. Several people had brought up statements that had been made about properly shooting at walls or departing via closets, which were being used as arguments for incredible tinkertech or dismissed as intentional falsehoods intended to let people know that they weren't getting anything accurate in response to their questions. The minimal description of the 'vanish into thin air' trick from the weekend wasn't helping them come to conclusions.
Taylor had looked over most of that while preparing for the day, and met up with Amy and Vicky in the gym before school.
"Why are you here now?" Vicky asked as soon as she saw Taylor. "Aren't you spending the afternoon in here?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Leave her alone. You're just annoyed that you can't come this afternoon so you had to get up this morning."
"Well, yes, but she's the reason for it, reserving the gym for the Wards after school. Which means she'll be here this afternoon, so why is she here this morning?"
Taylor sighed. "Yes, I reserved the gym. No, I don't expect to get much exercise, because three younger Wards will need supervision."
Vicky actually flinched at that. "Oh. Sorry, that's going to suck, isn't it?"
"I'm thinking that I'll be coming in before they arrive and ensuring that everything is set to something sane and that the lockouts are enabled so that the settings can't be easily changed. Just in case."
"Probably not a bad idea. Just don't forget that you did that and annoy everyone else that comes down here."
They'd taken the minivan to school on account of a light drizzle, and Taylor discovered that the previous day's threat of punching people who kept her from her lunch wasn't helping with the before-classes crowds. She did her best to ignore them anyway, and was fully willing to punch someone to make a point if they tried to stop her from eating lunch later. At least the teachers were a bit more on the ball about breaking up the crowds trying to form around Taylor today.
Amy was also getting pestered this morning, mainly by those wanting to know how they'd gotten the ambulance to Hawaii on short notice. Or, since it hadn't been seen locally recently, if she'd actually had it shipped there for some reason. She was claiming that she'd taken advantage of parking areas for the transition, which was accurate enough yet not being believed at all. Not that she cared, nor was she elaborating beyond that point.
Once again, bells and the start of classes were the actual reprieve from things. A few attempts at asking questions occurred between classes, but nothing significant, and come lunchtime people left Taylor alone. In favor of annoying Amy, who hadn't made any threats about punching people and was thus apparently 'fair game'. Teachers intervened to tell them to stop twice, but it was obvious that it wasn't all that effective, especially as some students decided to play 'distract the teacher while others get answers from Amy'.
Amy: I'm so tempted to punch someone right now, but I'm not in the mood to get yelled at for it later.
Taylor: That could be annoying, yes.
Amy: And I bet Vicky would've punched someone by now, except for the whole set of restrictions she's under after punching you.
Taylor: Ah, yeah. I'd noticed. She's had to get new utensils multiple times.
Taylor was considering punching someone for Amy when the decision was taken out of her hands by Louise. Or, more accurately, by one of the students trying to question Amy apparently grabbing Louise's tail in an attempt to move her out of the way.
Louise didn't say anything, instead opting to show her displeasure by jumping up and punching the guy in the gut. The other students scattered and a teacher came over to see what had happened.
"She just jumped up and punched me for no reason," the boy that'd been punched claimed.
Louise just glared at him. "You grabbed my tail and tried to pull me out of my seat."
The teacher looked at the boy, then at Louise, before nodding. "I see. Presumably to continue asking Miss Hebert questions?"
Taylor shook her head. "They were pestering Amy, probably because she hadn't warned anyone about punching them."
"That isn't exactly better," the teacher mumbled, before shaking his head and turning to Louise. "I'm giving you a warning for now, since I'm unaware of any other warnings for you. If there are any it will be a detention." He then turned to the boy. "Mister Simmons, you are getting dangerously close to more significant disciplinary measures being taken. At a minimum you've just earned yourself a week of detentions."
Louise sighed. "Might as well save you the trouble of looking it up, I have a warning from shortly after my procedure regarding hitting people who grab my tail."
"That does sound familiar, now that you mention it. In that case you'll have detention tomorrow after school. Finish your lunch and swing by the office for the detention slip, I'll ensure that I'm done with him before you get there."
She nodded, then returned to her lunch while the teacher escorted Mister Simmons to collect his things and partially-eaten lunch before being brought to the office. As a side bonus to the entire show, nobody dared approach them again for the rest of the lunch period, even after Louise left to get her detention slip from the office.
After school Taylor easily escaped to the minivan, though she was alone in doing so. As a result of that, Missy easily beat her back to the PRT building, though Taylor cheated and found a secluded wall to drive into instead of driving all the way to the PRT building itself. That meant that she had plenty of time to drag Missy down to the gym so that they could check the settings on everything and lock them down before the kids showed up. They found that the settings were all sane, but the control lockouts weren't active, so they turned them all on. Once they'd finished that they headed back to the Wards area to wait, though neither bothered with getting into costume.
Chris showed up next, being dropped off by Dean. Who headed down to the gym himself, then called Taylor.
"Hello," Taylor answered.
"Hi Taylor," Dean greeted. "Did you already pop down to the gym to lock the equipment before you bring in the younger Wards?"
"Yep. Missy and I did that as soon as I made it here. I wanted to make sure it was all set to something reasonable and that they couldn't accidentally change things to a dangerous level."
"Good on you, Armsmaster asked me to give things a once-over before I head over to the Rig, I'll be sure to let him know that you were thinking of things too. Good luck with the brats."
"Thanks. I think. I'll be nice and not let them know that you think they're brats."
Dean chuckled at that. "I'm reliably informed that all Wards are to be considered 'brats' by members of the Protectorate, regardless of relative ages, with the sole exception of the Wards leader. Though that exception might be because Assault is afraid of you."
Taylor rolled her eyes at that one. "Right. Apparently I need to hit him the next time I see him. Thanks for letting me know."
"You're welcome. I think I'll not warn him, but do try and get a recording of the event."
"I'll try."
Taylor had given the three youngest Wards a safety lecture on the gym in the Wards area, then the seven of them had all gone down together. Chris and Ryan went into the men's changing room while Taylor, Aisha, and Missy took Rosa and Sandy into the women's. A quick change into suitable clothing was followed by meeting up in the main gym area. Taylor was going over equipment with the younger three while Chris and Missy went through their own routines nearby. Aisha was the designated demonstration dummy, to her significant annoyance. Though at least she figured out part of why when Taylor quipped about her needing to get her walking stamina up when told to demonstrate one of the treadmills.
They quickly discovered that for Ryan there was no 'strain', he could or couldn't perform any given exercise at very well defined limits. Exercise wasn't likely to improve things for him. Rosa and Sandy didn't have that particular problem, though they had very different limits and needs due to their differing biologies. Still, all three were put through basics on the machines they could use at their size, and then the group moved to the pool.
Of course, that couldn't be easy, as it turned out that none of the three kids knew how to swim without a floatation device strapped to them. Which was particularly embarrassing for Rosa. So instead of a few laps they ended up attempting to give the three swimming lessons. That didn't go exceptionally well, though at least nobody drowned. Granted, that was probably on a technicality, but Taylor would take it.
They'd started with Sandy, who was nervous but willing to go for it. She carefully moved over to the steps, started to climb in, and then started to get cramps. Which didn't make sense until Taylor had checked on her, only to find that Sandy was very sensitive to the chlorine used to treat the pool. A quick use of Shaper to purge the chlorine was followed by putting a note in the girl's file and sending a warning to Zelda about the issue.
Ryan had volunteered to go next, and they'd discovered that he literally could not swim in water. His body was denser than water with no ability to change that. On the other hand, he also didn't need to breathe, and thus wandered into the deep end without any issue whatsoever. At least until he tried to leave again and found that he couldn't get enough traction on the pool's bottom to make it up the incline. A rope helped with that, followed by a note in his file and a warning being sent to Arthur and Stella.
That left Rosa, who was more nervous after the failures with the other two. But they got her to try anyway, only to find that everything she thought she knew about swimming no longer applied due to her changed body. Or perhaps just didn't work without a flotation device strapped to her. Sandy was fairly vocal in yelling support from the sidelines, and Ryan had done his best to help from in the water, but in the end they'd made very little progress. A mention of which was put into the girl's file, but Lucia didn't need a message specifically telling her that her daughter still couldn't swim.
With the 'swimming' portion of things essentially a complete failure, Taylor had the other three older Wards bring the kids back to the changing rooms and ultimately to the Wards area. She then went around and unlocked everything that she and Missy had locked previously. The others were back in the Wards area by the time she was done with that, and she made good time changing and heading over to join them. They weren't cooking, but they were having dinner together as soon as PRT staff delivered it.
"You're a jerk," Aisha said as soon as Taylor had entered the Wards area.
"Why?" Taylor asked.
"Because you singled me out to demonstrate everything just to punish me for whining about walking."
"It wasn't just to punish you."
Aisha gave Taylor an annoyed look. "Really. What other purpose could it have had?"
Taylor shrugged. "Everyone else that was available to demonstrate in your place is a Brute, and I didn't want an unrealistic view of what they could expect because of it."
It was obvious that Aisha hadn't expected something that logical, as she opened her mouth multiple times to say something only to give up and pout instead. That was followed by storming off to the couch and dropping onto it without saying anything else. Taylor suspected that it was a combination of not being able to refute that, annoyance of being the only older Ward that hadn't gotten a fugue, and likely a touch of being angry with Brian for not being willing to sign paperwork for her to apply for the fugue as well.
Deciding that there wasn't much to be done there, Taylor instead focused on getting the table up out of the floor so that they'd have somewhere to eat. At the same time she was composing a couple of requests, one to send off to Cauldron about the beach and the other for the PRT to review and, if they agreed, to forward on to parents. It definitely wasn't the right time of year to be teaching Sandy to swim locally, but perhaps concerns about further out travel could be alleviated with the incredibly private beach instead of a comparatively more local destination.
That done, it wasn't long before their dinner arrived. A couple of PRT staff members dropped carts off from the cafeteria and left, leaving the older Wards to get everything set up. Rosa and Sandy did collect utensils, but Taylor had ordered individual meals for everyone so they came on their own plates. Nicely labeled plates at that, each prepared based on information provided by a nutritionist for them. Not one of the fancy thinker ones, granted, but one that the PRT had on staff locally.
"Individual meals?" Missy asked when she realized that her meal was labeled.
Taylor nodded. "Yep."
"I didn't think that they normally did that from the cafeterias?"
"Only when you go through the nutritionist."
"Ah. Is this going to become a regular thing?"
Taylor snorted. "Nope. I have what is on the surface a politely worded message from the nutritionist telling me to leave them alone for at least a couple of months after this request. The needs here are both too varied and too vague at this point."
"Oh."
The six Wards at the table ate, with Ryan off to the side playing a game on his phone instead. Potential future visits to the gym for Rosa and Sandy were discussed, though Taylor didn't bring up future swimming lessons. Partially because she didn't know if there would be any from the point of view of Wards activities, especially with Sandy's issues with chlorinated water. It was probably important for Rosa to learn, though, given that she'd be working with water. After that they'd discussed plans for the rest of the week, which Taylor would finalize later.
That evening, once everyone had gone home or been picked up, Taylor ended up on her bed going through various messages and requests while trying to plan the rest of the week. The city had put in verified requests for Sandy to help with curbing, which the girl had agreed to doing the following day. Coupled with Missy being unavailable due to helping put furniture back and Rosa being scheduled to work with Colin on a containment foam test, that pretty much left two of the remaining three older Wards patrolling with Ryan. After some thought, Taylor put herself down as being on console, since it made sense to be available just in case something went wrong with Rosa's gear.
Thursday and Friday were still somewhat up in the air. Sandy might be doing more curbing repair work, and Taylor was thinking about taking that tunnel examination job that was on the request board. Rosa might be tinkering after the initial containment foam tests, or might want to patrol, but Ryan wasn't available on Friday due to family coming to visit for the weekend. Saturday had an entry in place already for Rosa to be working with Sherrel and the BBFD, and there were out of town requests that could be taken by Missy and Taylor if they wanted.
One of the out of town requests had Taylor blinking, since it was specifically for her and had a question attached. Apparently a second research team wanted to visit the beach. Or at least wanted to get to the beach so that they could depart from there on a more involved visit, and they wanted to know if Taylor had any way to get a modified yacht over. Giving it some thought, Taylor dropped a response saying that the answer was likely yes, depending on the size of the yacht, with the caveat that she had no way to do a direct water to water trip. As such, they'd need to have the yacht out of the water and ready to move on a trailer or similar, and not to forget that they'd be exiting on a sandy beach with no boat ramp.
Of course, once that was done, she stopped and thought about the whole thing. Bringing the yacht to the other Earth was probably going to be the easy part. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know how they'd get it back out of the water to return it to Bet, but had a feeling that if their overall request was approved that she'd eventually find out anyway.
Chapter 243 Wednesday morning Taylor was woken up by the sensation of a snark entering her range. It took a moment for her to wake up properly, but the snark was labeled. She threw her belt on, collected her guns, and threw her visor on before heading downstairs to see what was going on. It didn't take long to discover that a car had pulled up on the street, but it didn't look like anyone was intending to be hostile. With a sigh, she disarmed the alarm and opened the door.
"Bit early, isn't it?" she called out.
Hookwolf, not having seen her open the door, jumped and spun around. "Yeah, sorry." He then shook his head and picked up what looked like a child from the back seat of the car, leaving the car door open as he came up the walk. As he got closer it became obvious that the kid probably wasn't even in school yet. "I'd have gone to Panacea, but I try to avoid approaching New Wave. Some of them are a bit...jumpy."
"Do you have problems with the hospital too?"
"Technically no, but I don't know what the hell Nick got into." He sighed. "I'll be straight with you, he got into a drug lab and I'm not even sure what he was exposed to, but we found him catatonic almost half an hour ago now and he might've been there for hours already."
Taylor looked between Hookwolf and the kid, Nick apparently, before sighing and flipping her striker switch. She then touched the kid's cheek, flinching at what she found. He had the immune system upgrade, but that was essentially making things worse due to it treating half the things he'd ingested as something to attack. Amy had jumped awake, but didn't do anything to distract Taylor as she started breaking the drugs down, reversing inflammations, and otherwise flushing the kid's system.
"Is he related to you at all?" she asked as she was nearing done.
Hookwolf shook his head. "No, he's the kid of one the grunts. Jim, one of our club bouncers? I think. Don't recall moving him elsewhere, but I haven't seen him at the club in the past week or so. Hmmm."
"Well, I'm going to need to bring him to the hospital, because someone needs to monitor him as the stuff gradually clears out of his brain, and if you aren't related then I don't think I'm allowed to trust you to get him there. Or tell you anything of his medical information, which they'll need."
"Ah. Right. Should've known you'd obey privacy rules and all that. I'll ensure that his folks know, but you think he'll be okay now?"
"Amy or I will probably need to check on him after school, but he should be."
Hookwolf sagged a little in relief upon hearing that. "Thanks." He then looked back at the car he'd arrived in. "Well, if you don't mind, I need to go to deliver that message, and then find the idiots responsible for guarding that particular lab. There's no way that Nick should've been able to get in, especially at his age. We spent most of the night looking for him too, after he slipped out of the apartment upstairs."
"Any chance you've got contact information for Nick's parents? Full name? That kind of thing?"
Hookwolf paused, then frowned. "Maybe. I think I might have Jim's phone number in the car, at least."
Taylor lifted Nick out of Hookwolf's arms, then watched as the man headed back to the car. He returned a moment later, rummaging through a small pile of business cards. It was nearly at the end of the stack that he stopped and backed up a couple. Looking over it, he nodded, then looked up at Taylor. "You have any way to take down the information?"
She shifted Nick a little and held out one hand. "Let me see the card for a moment and I should be fine." He handed it over and she quickly entered all the information on it into a file on her personal phone. Apparently Nick's last name was likely Cross, unless for some reason he didn't share a last name with his father. "Okay, I've got it."
Hookwolf dropped the business card onto his stack while mumbling something about tinker bullshit. "Okay then. Do you need anything else?"
"I don't think so."
"Alright. Thanks for this, I'm sure that Kaiser or I will have a message for you at Somer's in the next couple of days, depending on decisions as to whether I owe you a favor or the Empire does."
"How about you see about getting the drug labs out of the basements of buildings people live in? Both to stop this kind of thing from happening and because I know they can be dangerous in general."
Hookwolf stared at Taylor for a moment, before snorting. "Okay, you've got a point there. After this I shouldn't have a problem getting any we've got with kids in the building relocated, anyway, since I can't see Kaiser objecting about keeping kids safe."
She watched as he stormed back to the car, pulling a phone out of a pocket as he did so. He slipped a headset on once he was behind the wheel, and then pulled away. At that point she adjusted the way she was holding Nick to make it easier to walk. She brought him inside, then laid him down on the couch so that she could head upstairs and get dressed instead of visiting the hospital in her pajamas.
Amy: So what's going on over there?
Taylor: Empire grunt's kid got into a drug lab and apparently liked the stuff he found there.
Amy: Ouch.
Taylor: Yeah. Hookwolf brought him to me because New Wave is a bit jumpy.
Amy: ...yeah, I can see that. Though I'd hope that they'd be intelligent enough to listen to him if he didn't look to be attacking.
Taylor: I'm going to bring the kid to the hospital, then finish my morning routine. Want to hit the gym early?
Amy: I'm up anyway, so might as well.
Fifteen minutes later the staff at Brockton General had Nick and a copy of Taylor's notes, both for contact information and what happened to the kid. They weren't happy about the whole thing, but understood that there wasn't a whole lot Taylor could've done differently under the circumstances.
After a reasonably boring day at school Taylor found herself attending a meeting. It was a small enough one, just Colin and Director Piggot. They'd apparently asked Mrs. Cooper if she wanted to attend but the Youth Guard representative had declined.
"So," Director Piggot said after all the formalities were dealt with. "You reported contact with Hookwolf this morning. At home."
Taylor nodded. "Yep."
"And you didn't call it in right away, instead submitting a low-priority interaction report.'
"That's right."
The woman sighed. "Why?"
"He didn't use his powers, had sought me out as a healer for a child in critical condition, and as far as I could tell was entirely truthful about why he was there. Under what regulations should I have called things in as a priority alert?"
"The ones where a known villain confronted you in any way in your civilian identity?"
Colin 'politely' coughed, causing Director Piggot to look at him. He took that as permission to speak. "Those regulations don't apply to outed parahumans, regardless of age, if powers weren't actually used."
Director Piggot blinked, then frowned. "Okay, how about showing up with a child that he admitted wasn't his?"
"He was bringing the child to her for a medical emergency. Regardless of affiliation, that smooths out a lot of the protocols in favor of getting the individual, regardless of age, taken care of."
"What about the hospital handoff, then?"
Colin smirked. "She is a recognized healer in the system, with ratings for diagnosis included. The latter is the important part, because it means that she's permitted the informational only notifications when she's handing patients that she's diagnosed off to medical professionals. Being the initial one to provide direct healing is actually irrelevant."
Director Piggot narrowed her eyes. "And you're only bringing all of this up now because?"
"I informed you that she'd filled out everything correctly when you called me. You disagreed, but told me that you didn't want to hear my explanation as to why I thought everything had been filled out properly. Personally, when I looked over things to double-check, I was amazed that none of the 'missing' paperwork was excused by anti-hero regulations."
Taylor snorted. "Like I was going to use the 'fuck it' rules to dump Nick on Brockton General without any documentation whatsoever. Amy would've tore me a new one for even thinking about it."
Both of the adults stared at her for a moment, before Director Piggot sighed. "Okay. You did good in filling out the paperwork you were required to, apparently, and I need to go back over some of the requirements for when a diagnosis-rated healer is in my chain of command. I don't suppose you left anything out that I can use as proper justification for this meeting?"
"Hookwolf mentioned him or the Empire owing me a favor, depending on what Kaiser said. I essentially told him to get the Empire's drug labs out of residential buildings, and he agreed that he should be able to at least get those buildings with kids living in them taken care of. I don't know if they'll still drop a message for me at Somer's Rock or not."
There was a moment of silence at that, before Colin nodded. "It isn't something I'd considered, but it sounds like a much better use of a favor from the Empire in general than anything I might've come up with on short notice."
Director Piggot sighed. "He has a point. No way they were going to do anything like stop selling drugs in general just because you saved one kid, and it's incredibly hard to argue against. Since that isn't objectionable in the least, though, why didn't you report it?"
Taylor smirked. "They forgot to include the 'Ward' checkbox when they updated that form last month, leaving just 'PRT' and 'Protectorate' options."
Watching both of the two groan was amusing. She wondered if they'd check to find out that she'd already reported that issue, or if they'd report it themselves on top of her existing report.
Annoyingly, Taylor had been shunted off of console and was out with Sandy and the highway department people. Not because she was needed in a support role, but because they'd opted to use the Wards console duty for training someone new and thus wanted the PRT to be the primary console contact for the afternoon. For the same reason they'd also been asked to make more requests to console than usual, which the patrol group was hopefully doing much more than Taylor and Sandy were.
To keep herself occupied while Sandy moved along fixing some of the worst granite curbs in town, Taylor was reading up on the news. The Nine had shown up in Wyoming, essentially leveling a couple of communities along an interstate before stopping in a city named 'Rock Springs'. Why they were there was a mystery, though she could probably just ask if she was curious enough. A quick check of parahuman activity in the area did indicate that there were a couple of small groups of independents that straddled the line between 'hero' and 'villain', but nothing all that notable jumped out at her about the area otherwise.
Aside from that, the big thing in the news was speculation on when and where the next Endbringer attack would be. It'd already been three months since Behemoth had attacked China, so everything had become a waiting game with groups all over the planet double-checking their stockpiled supplies. The Guild had even announced new rapid-response transports specifically designed for getting people into and out of the affected area, wherever that might be around the globe, using teleportation units obtained through agreements with Dragon-tech and the Protectorate.
She'd do more to prepare, but she still wasn't cleared to go to a remote Endbringer attack. Domestic or otherwise. Sure, they'd likely be setting up the field hospital roll-out unit like they had over the weekend, but that didn't necessarily require a long-distance departure to join the fight. Actually attacking an Endbringer wasn't something she was certain about attempting, given that most of her options there weren't likely to be effective. And trying to explode one sounded like it would be horribly dangerous, even if they were attacking under their own free will.
Internationally, Scion was currently in Australia, apparently trying to save local species from each other in his usual somewhat-inept but occasionally-brilliant way. They were okay with that, though, since he'd taken a break from that to intervene in a larger-scale cape battle that had threatened to cause major problems. Nobody was certain why he'd headed there in the first place, but he'd spent some time out over the ocean when he was done in Asia before visiting 'the land Down Under' and two different boats had apparently been saved in the process.
On a more local front, tensions between the Empire and the Elite had started up again, though no reporters seemed to know what had caused it. At least one building had been set on fire in the process, and gunfire had been traded between the two territories, but that was all that they knew about right now. The fire department had revealed that they were looking to work with Rosa, calling the water department idiots for not being willing to at least have her look things over. And there had been a break-in attempt at a bank by an unknown likely-parahuman who'd accidentally sealed the vault door instead of forcing it open.
"Hey Maul," one of the highway department people called, causing her to flip her platform over so that she could see them below her.
"Yeah?" she replied.
"Noah says that there's something suspicious stuck to a wall around the corner, and that it beeped at him when he was approaching to move the work signs ahead of us."
"Ah. I suppose I can take a quick look, and if it might be dangerous I can get someone out here to deal with it."
"Thanks."
It didn't take long to swing around the corner and spot the device. It was a small cylinder with blinking lights on it. Looking over it, Taylor frowned. In theory it was a simple prank, an automatic squirt gun. Except that it'd been modified to handle something more viscous, and apparently needed a glass tank to hold whatever it was. It had a proximity sensor of sorts, and the beeping was likely inadvertent due to a couple of things grounding out on the cylinder when they shouldn't be.
Well, getting a sample of what it sprayed should be easy enough. She dropped down and pulled her wok off of her back, then held it in front of where the thing would spray. It beeped a few times, then sprayed right at the wok. A little splashed out, and went up in smoke when it hit the pavement, but the rest was easily captured in the wok. Of course, the fact that it tried to spread out over the wok and headed for her hand might've had something to do with that.
She put the wok down and backed up, but as soon as the liquid had covered the entire thing it went up in smoke. The wok was apparently unharmed by the experience. With a frown, she hit the mental button for the console. "Maul to console, we've run into a modified automatic squirt gun loaded with a liquid that has to be parahuman in origin."
This was probably going to take way too long as well.
Taylor sighed as she stepped into her room at home. They'd made a big deal regarding the squirt gun, or rather the squirt guns. Turns out there were several of them in the area, all loaded with what appeared to be the same liquid. Which they'd discovered was apparently some kind of 'stitch remover' when a police officer hadn't been careful enough while helping secure the area around one and ended up having their clothing fall apart on them. How it targeted all of the stitches in clothing without affecting the rest of the fabric was best explained by it being the result of someone's parahuman ability.
They'd very carefully finished securing the rest of them before allowing Taylor to bring Sandy back to the PRT building, thanking both of them for their assistance. Sandy for the work on the curbing until they'd run into the device, and Taylor for helping to find them. Especially as only four of them beeped, the rest stayed silent. Patrols in that area had been locked out for at least a few days as well, just in case.
Of course, there were non-patrol tasks generally available, so that might not be as big of a problem as it might otherwise be. The next day was fairly well handled on that front, actually. Chris and Rosa were both going to be tinkering, the former due to having some ideas that he wanted to work on and the latter because she had to rebuild a few things after containment foam had failed miserably and caused her gear to explode on her. Aisha had asked for the afternoon off, Sandy was going to be across town from where they'd been today to work on more curbing, and the Protectorate had put in a request for Ryan to help with isolating some sounds on the Rig. It was a decent opportunity for Taylor to grab the tunnel checking task. Missy could either take the day off or tag along with someone else.
Friday was going to vary. She double-checked the available out of town requests and found that the research group had a green light for Saturday or Sunday at the beach, as well as there being a couple of other things that Taylor was either cleared to take or had been specifically requested for. A couple of 'help identify tinkertech' items in particular, though there was also an hour-old entry for helping figure out problems with a captured tinker. On the 'she could help with' front, there was a request for help hunting a parahuman down, but no indication if it would still be valid by the weekend.
Surprisingly, Brian had apparently given the green light for Aisha to do a couple of things, though whether or not Aisha wanted to participate in a stakeout or two was unknown. Missy might like to see New York, even if moving equipment was boring, and there was a festival that she might be able to help with in California. But with three of them possibly out of town there wouldn't be enough people to patrol with the kids. Then again, Rosa was going to be doing tinkering, Ryan had the whole visiting family deal, and Sandy was getting plenty of power use with the curbing project. So perhaps things would be fine after all.
Colin frowned as he examined the automated squirt guns. He was looking to identify possible component supply chains and extracting likely fingerprints from the internal components of the otherwise mundane devices. So far he'd not had much luck on the latter, but he had partial serial numbers from several components and at least two likely complete ones. He disliked working against competent foes like this, but luckily there were more subtle traces from the removed serial numbers. In particular, several of them were stamped in after the plates were installed, and that process had left traces in and behind the serial number plate that the sanding off of the numbers hadn't removed. That and they had other options.
He finished with the one he was working on and put it on the table to his left. When Trevor was done with the one he was currently working with he'd take it and do his thing, then they could compare their results. Sure, they could've trusted that 'repairing' the serial number plates would restore the original serial number, but having information ahead of time to compare with afterwards was a far better proposition. If the information was contradictory then they could conclude that Trevor wasn't restoring the original serial number, but creating new ones.
With any luck Dragon would be making progress on identifying the substance that had been contained inside of the units as well. They could've come from two different sources, but if the substance came from someone selling it then they would hopefully keep their own records that could be used as part of finding the ones responsible for this.
Thursday morning Taylor and Amy were in the gym when they got an alert. School had been canceled, city-wide, due to some of the devices that'd been found the night before being discovered near an elementary school. Instead of risking students being caught by the things the city had decided it would be better to keep people home. A general warning about them had also gone out as well, since the actual spread of the things was unknown.
Frowning, Taylor checked a couple of things, then submitted a request. It was highly likely that Chris and Rosa would end up coming in to tinker all day, and Aisha was likely to stick with taking the day off if Brian let her. But there were ways to be more productive, and Taylor figured that she could volunteer to help there.
"I think I'll swing by the hospital and check on Nick again," Amy said as they were entering the locker room again after their workout. "He was making good progress yesterday, and it isn't like I have anything better to do now."
Taylor nodded. "Not a bad idea. I'm waiting to see if a request I put in clears or not. Though I should probably pop a message off to Missy as well. I don't think the others are going to be doing much out of the building today, since I can't see them wanting to let Sandy wander around fixing curbs at all until they've done something about clearing things out. But me flying around on my platform is much less likely to be a problem."
By the time they'd finished eating a larger breakfast Taylor had been informed that she was cleared to run back and forth across town looking for the devices, though they were planning on using her sensor data to send out squads instead of having her deal with any of them directly, barring high priority cases anyway. To that end she headed for the Wards area to get changed while Amy popped over to the hospital.
It wasn't long before Taylor headed out, bringing her tablet with her so that she could record to it's far larger drive in the process. Might as well see if she could get the city their inspection images while she was at it, after all. But running the Snitch, scout drone, and her visor together should allow her to cover significant swaths of the city with each pass. That she could look for new parahumans in the area was an added bonus, though reporting them would only happen if they were obviously using powers.
Max sighed as he looked over options for where to move drug labs to. As much as he disliked it, Miss Hebert had been correct and keeping them in residential structures was an unnecessary risk. Sure, the original thought was to have someone on hand at all times, but a single apartment with people rotated through could accomplish that far more safely. The problem was finding places where they had or could install such an apartment. This would be much easier if they weren't also dealing with the Elite having decided to run raids, meaning that the new labs had to be further away from the disputed areas. And they had to be away from their borders with the ABB, especially after Kenta had been attacked with drugs in his own home.
The entire thing was quite annoying, and that was before taking into account the group or groups that had moved into town and were making trouble. They could very well be the ones that had sparked off the latest tiff with the Elite, for that matter, since he hadn't authorized anything on that front until the Elite 'retaliated' for something. Nobody had been able to tell him for what, which was more annoying. That was without the direct attacks.
There was the girl with the purple rope that acted like a snake sometimes, who seemed to be in charge when working with another girl that carried giant, improbably useful scissors. Both of whom might be working with the tinker whose magnetic tech apparently had a shelf life before it superheated and melted things instead. Or perhaps the tinker was independent. The woman with the ability to control others was another unknown, though from the footage they had of her on a secret security camera she did so by literally stepping into her target.
Finding where they were all hiding when not out and about was a high priority task right now, if only from a recruitment point of view. None of them appeared, at least at first glance, to be the 'wrong kind' of person to recruit. And if they were then perhaps it was time to secretly sponsor an 'unaffiliated' team. He had enough grunts that were both trusted and had gotten over their bigotry to serve as go-betweens at this point.
Taylor ended up meeting up with Amy at Fugly Bob's for lunch, after an incredibly boring morning of flying back and forth across the city to see if they could spot more automatic squirtgun devices. She'd essentially covered the entire city once and had run a second, slower pass over a couple of areas at the console's request before breaking for lunch. None of the six previously-unknown parahumans she'd passed by had been using their powers either.
"So they asked you to stick around and check a few people who got caught by the stitch dissolving stuff?" Taylor asked after they'd eaten and were deciding if they wanted to get milkshakes as well. "How many do you think intentionally triggered the things?"
Amy shrugged. "I'm guessing at least a third of them. Only one woman with stitches due to a nasty cut had any actual problems, though she did provide an interesting case study. Whatever that liquid is, it can get into your blood and keep stitches from taking for at least a few hours."
Taylor had known that, of course, but discussing it in public was a good way to get the word out. "And of course a likely time for it to be exposed to your blood is if you have a wound large enough to need stitches. I wonder if that's intentional or a side effect?"
"Dunno. Any leads on who's spreading the stuff around?"
"Not that I know of, but they said I'm done helping search for the day and that we can do normal Wards stuff this afternoon. So maybe they've got something now? Either that or they think they know where most of the things are, so we can function somewhat normally. Not that we were planning on patrolling in the first place."
Based on the number of people typing into or chatting on phones, all of that was going to get out fairly quickly. Probably faster than if the news had covered it, honestly.
Taylor ended up ensuring that everyone else was set with their tasks, making the footage for the tunnel inspection request, and ensured that both Chris and Rosa had taken proper breaks to eat. Missy had even shown up for the afternoon and was running the Wards console for the PRT officer that now needed training in working with another console operator. With all of that taken care of, Taylor had opted to head home. She'd done enough already for the day, after all.
Tomorrow she'd probably check to see if Rosa wanted to try a patrol, but if not then she might take the afternoon off. Or perhaps she'd head to the beach, make sure things looked ready for trying to drop a boat into the water? That could definitely work. Either that or see if there was a good spot further away from the beach itself that would lend itself to launching the boat. Though, thinking about it, she had scout drone data of the entire area, perhaps she should load that up and take a look instead?
Dinah sighed as she sat down after dinner. They'd started this routine last month, and it was so annoying. But she'd do it, because it was useful. Her powers at least agreed, something over ninety-nine percent chance of it being useful at the time they'd asked.
"Are you ready?" her mother asked.
"Yes," she replied, pulling the notebook towards her. She'd run down the list of questions, write the answers for each down as appropriate, and then go to bed early to deal with the headache with the assistance of pills that helped her sleep through the pain.
To start with, they wanted to know if there was anything that would likely significantly threaten their home. They'd had to change this one after realizing that the chances of any attack affecting Brockton Bay were pretty much ninety-plus percent all the time.
Chance of a large-scale attack affecting Brockton Bay this weekend? Six point three five four two six percent. Which meant that she could skip the next few questions and get to the potential larger problems.
Chance of an Endbringer attack in the coming week? Dinah blanched a little. Ninety-eight point eight zero four one zero percent. The rest of the page was skipped, and she flipped to the back of the notebook instead, as she had more pressing concerns now that they were within a week of an attack. Based on their history, she picked the next most likely one to start with.
Chance of Ziz attacking in the coming week? Ninety-eight point eight zero three four three percent, which implied a very slim chance of one of the others being involved. Which meant she could skip asking about the other two.
Chance of the next Endbringer attack directly affecting North America? Eighty-seven point five five three zero two percent.
Chance of the next Endbringer attack directly affecting New England? Eighty-seven point five five three zero two percent.
Chance of the next Endbringer attack directly affecting Brockton Bay? Eighty-seven point five five three zero two percent.
Dinah flinched a little at the pain. She wasn't entirely sure why the three questions had identical answers, and the mosaic wasn't going to help. The Endbringers seemed to be too hard to predict when it came to specifics, only functioning with her power in generalities. And they generated much more significant headaches in the process.
"One more," her father said, having leaned over her shoulder to look at the answers given. "Though let's expand the scope a little. Chance of the next Endbringer attack directly affecting Las Vegas?"
She flinched again. "Eighty-seven point five five three zero two percent."
"Weird." He let her write that down, then picked her up. "Let's get you to bed. We can figure out what to do with this information in the morning."
Chapter 244 Friday morning brought with it the resumption of school in Brockton Bay. It also had Vicky bringing an extra bag with her to the gym in the morning.
"What's up with the bag?" Taylor asked.
"Invitations," Vicky answered, pulling an envelope out of it. She double-checked the writing on it before handing it to Taylor. "Finally nailed down details for my birthday party and spent most of yesterday writing them out."
Taylor opened up the envelope and pulled the invitation out. Apparently things were going to be on the twelfth at the Dallon household. And she might need to consider shopping for a gift. Crap. "Well, at least I have more than a couple days advance notice of this one."
"Huh?"
Amy sighed. "We got two last-minute invitations to parties Saturday night. Faultline apparently returned yesterday, so they'll be having their Halloween Weekend party and Labyrinth wants to be able to participate safely. Which at this point means having Taylor or I there, but at least she offered free drinks and snacks for us all night in exchange. And Kurt and Lacey apparently forgot to send us invites to their gathering at the pub and only realized it when we hadn't let them know if we were going or not."
Taylor nodded. "Funnily enough, they pulled off sending us messages within three minutes of one another. We haven't actually decided what to do about things, but I'm not sure if we'd enjoy ourselves at either."
Vicky stared at Taylor like she had grown an extra head. "Why the hell wouldn't you enjoy yourselves?"
"Because I suspect that we'll be the only teenagers at the pub, for starters. As for the Palanquin, how have you not noticed that Amy and I aren't a big fan of crowds in the first place?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "Because she can't see why anyone wouldn't enjoy them. She likes the attention. You and I had different experiences, where crowds and attention are actually bad things. That and I think that some of it is because if she isn't getting attention then people are less likely to attack her so that she can not dodge."
"That is a good point, did she become more outgoing when she triggered?"
"Yeah."
"So that entire theory makes sense."
Vicky looked thoughtful. "You might have a point there. I get restless a lot more quickly now that I keep things in pure defense mode more often."
They discussed other aspects of power urges to no real end as they actually worked out, but switched to complaining about the horrible pumpkin waffles being served in the cafeteria when they got there.
Gossip at school had been directly influenced by the morning news coverage of differences between Earth Bet and Earth Aleph regarding the celebration of Halloween, at least in the two different United States. Earth Aleph still had trick-or-treat in most communities and tended to have costumes inspired by pop culture more than anything else, while Earth Bet had shifted almost entirely to parties for different ages with known attendance for the younger kids and had costumes inspired by parahumans. Sure, there were still some areas that did trick-or-treat, but they tended to be wealthy, 'safe' areas. It was still popular in gated communities, for example. Earth Bet had also switched almost entirely to the Saturday closest to Halloween, while Earth Aleph was still doing their stuff mostly on the thirty-first.
This all led to the discovery that there were amazingly few large parties occurring in Brockton Bay this year, at least compared to the previous year. There were four known 'larger' gatherings of some kind occurring, at least as far as the student body seemed to be aware, and two of them were in known gang territories. The only confirmed 'neutral' one was the Palanquin's event. Everything else was being done as smaller family or neighborhood events, if anything was being done at all. Based on all of that, the Violet Rose's gathering was considered a 'smaller family' style event, invitation-only and limited attendance due to the size of the pub.
It wasn't until lunchtime that Taylor had any reason to shift gears herself, but a message came to her shortly after the repeaters came up. One that had her blinking at first, and then swearing.
"What's wrong?" Amy asked, obviously having noticed.
In response, Taylor forwarded the message to her.
Taylor,
Got these chances last night into this morning. In order they were asked:
Last night:
Large-scale attack affecting Brockton Bay this weekend: 6.35426 Endbringer attack in the coming week: 98.80410 Ziz attacking in the coming week: 98.80343 Next Endbringer attack directly affecting North America: 87.55302 Ditto, but New England: 87.55302 Ditto, but Brockton Bay: 87.55302 Ditto, but Las Vegas: 87.55302
This morning:
Ditto, but South America: 3.18523
We chose these three with dart throws and a map of North America:
Ditto, but Beauval, Saskatchewan: 87.55302 Ditto, but Parral, Chihuahua: 87.55302 Ditto, but New Amsterdam, Indiana: 35.31853
Attack causing significant loss of life if won: 1.35183 Attack causing significant loss of life if lost: 99.99999
-Dinah
Amy swore as well.
Amy: So what do we do?
Taylor: I'm working on a top-priority message to the Think Tank. Technically if they deem it less than top-priority then I could be punished, but I don't see that happening in this case.
Amy: Yeah, I don't think that's going to be a problem in this case.
The Think Tank had been discussing a couple of things verbally, part of that traditionally being the griping from the one that'd lost the draw for reviewing the unfiltered 'top-priority' messages for the day. Most of which were downgraded to low-priority and discarded as attempts at wasting their time, of course, with the requestor barred from sending them messages for varying lengths of time. The exceptions were generally those that came through regional directors or Costa-Brown, though every so often something actually important, if not actually jump the queue important, did come through.
It was a general annoyance that the actual jump the queue important things tended to come from everything but the top-priority message queue. Like Miss Hebert's 'minor' revelation that there were seventeen more Endbringers. Admittedly, it wasn't like that was urgent, something they could realistically act on, or had given them any additional insight into the ones they already had to deal with. But it was still annoying that the things they saw as worth working on didn't tend to be the ones everyone else though were crucially important.
"I wonder what Miss Hebert just sent us," coming from JumpChain, who'd drawn 'top-priority' duty for the day, stopped conversations dead. The follow-up "Oh shit" had several members hitting the pause buttons on their own queues, and they weren't disappointed. A moment later Miss Hebert's message appeared on every one of their screens.
Trusted precog says almost certain Endbringer attack in next week, but their information points at not this weekend. Almost certainly Ziz, large potential loss of life if lost, very wide area of effect.
A collection of labeled percentages followed. None of which looked like good news. It didn't take long for several members to indicate that the information was coming up as correct to their own powers. Figuring this out was going to be important, and the most useful piece of information for that was probably the dropped chances for New Amsterdam.
Politely asking for more direct access to the precog would come later. Someone able to spit out information like this would be incredibly useful, even if they had to pay out large sums of money to an independent parahuman.
When school ended Taylor found a message waiting telling her that an impending incredibly inspecific Endbringer attack wasn't going to change any scheduling until Monday. Also, she should do her best to not spread things around because they'd prefer to not have people going into a blind panic over the possibilities. She also had a list of places that the Think Tank would like to have Dinah check percentages on. Fifty, in a specific order, if the 'trusted precog' was both willing and able, and a reimbursement claim code in case she had to pay for the information. One with a frankly ridiculous upper limit on it.
Deciding to take a few minutes to decide on how to word things, she escaped to the PRT building before sending any further messages. Once there she found two boxes on her Wards bed, with a note attached.
Money for Miss Alcott, and some incredibly-hard-to-get tinker-produced headache-specific painkillers to aid her. Valued at ten grand a pill when sold, and the Think Tank doesn't have a reliable source for them.
Please ensure that her parents read the dosing instructions.
-Fortuna
P.S. It occurs to me that you may be able to pick up some of the pills when you're helping out on Aleph, so perhaps they're not that hard to get after all. They're over the counter medicine there.
P.P.S. Dinah and Elle might both enjoy a visit the beach, but that should probably wait until Sunday.
The postscripts were handwritten, in two different inks at that, compared to the rest being typed. A quick check of the boxes revealed that there was ten thousand dollars in one and a bottle of fifty pills in the other. Which for the going price of the pills was insane, except that the things were apparently incredibly easy to get on Aleph. A quick check of the dosing instructions showed that there was a chance of temporarily going into a coma if you took too much, and there was a warning about taking it with other 'targeted nanofoam emulation' medicines. Ah, and there was also a warning about the 'coma' being potentially instantly lethal to those with parahuman powers due to a brain interaction issue.
"I wonder if anyone's tested this stuff with the upgraded immune systems," Taylor mused aloud as she placed the pills back into the box. It was over the counter medicine on Aleph, and they likely had that spreading over there, but that didn't mean that the medicine was known to work with the altered system. No answer was immediately available, of course, so perhaps she'd need to monitor Dinah the first time she took some.
Sighing, Taylor looked over the boxes, then brought up the schedule for the afternoon. She had nothing of note going on. Rosa was coming in to prepare for the following day and thus wasn't available for patrolling at all. Sandy was back with the highway department to work on curbing, apparently she found that to be fun. Ryan was unavailable due to visiting family, Chris had asked to take a couple of flying non-patrol tasks, and Brian had flagged Aisha as not being available for the afternoon due to a school project of some kind. A quick check found a couple of things that Missy could do in the non-patrol tasks list, which were flagged and sent to see if Missy was willing to do them. Of course, Missy showed up a moment after Taylor had sent the message.
It didn't take long for Missy to come to Taylor's room. "No patrol today?"
Taylor shook her head. "Nah. Everyone has other things they want to do."
"Ah. I'll take the tasks you flagged then. You grabbing some too?"
"No, I've got something else that I think I should take care of instead."
"Whatever. Have fun."
Taylor marked herself as 'off' for the afternoon, then picked up the two boxes and headed for the portal door in the common area. She'd have to drive over to the Alcott household, of course, and she should probably call ahead to make sure they were home.
Dinah stared at the bottle of pills. "I've only ever had one of these pills, and only had that one because the PRT wanted to see if it worked with my headaches. Where did you get fifty of them?"
Taylor shrugged. "A woman that knows far too much with a love of fedoras."
"Oh, her. Huh. I wonder if she considers this extra payment for the other day?"
"Regardless, I think it makes sense for me to ensure that they still work properly after the whole immune system thing."
Dinah blinked, then looked down at the pills. "Chances that these work as well as the other one did now that my immune system is different?" She blinked again, and grinned. "Ninety-six point three five six eight one percent."
Taylor snorted. "And that leaves over three percent chance that they don't, so I'm thinking that I still want to double-check."
"I'm going to agree with the one who has actual healing abilities," Mrs. Alcott added. "Let her monitor you."
"I also wonder if I can get some of the answers the Think Tank wants without making your headache worse."
Dinah looked interested in that, but they started with her taking one of the pills ahead of answering more questions. Taylor carefully monitored her as the pill took effect, and ended up satisfied that it was working correctly. At the same time she was interested in how it worked, something that Amy seemed to be interested in as well despite being across town. Still, once it had properly kicked in Dinah started going down the list of locations. She made it through ten before the pain started to get to be too much. Seven of the ten had the exact same percentage number, the other three varied and were lower.
"I assume you'll notice if your headache gets worse at this point," Taylor stated, getting a nod from Dinah. "Do you mind if I make an attempt at getting some of the others on the list?"
"You can try," Dinah answered.
Taylor nodded, and reached out to the girl's snark.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Data]
Taylor: Yes, that's what I'm looking to do.
[Query]
Taylor blinked, and took a moment to ensure that her document was ready.
Taylor: I'm ready. Would you...
[Data. Data. Data. Data. Data. Data. Data. Data]
She scrambled to punch all of the numbers into the document, and ended up putting the one 'constant' number on the clipboard to be able to just paste it in. But she got all them into the document, at which point she turned to Dinah. "You okay?"
The girl nodded. "It got a little worse, but I think I can handle a few more."
"That was all forty, actually. Your power seemed to be bored with the general question and wanted to be done with it."
Taylor: Any hints as to what the differences are between the locations?
[Collup]
Taylor blinked.
Taylor: I'm assuming that was censored.
BA: Agreement
Fun. Oh well, maybe the Think Tank could figure it out.
[Data]
...right. It only took a moment to add that to the end of the list, before double-checking the rest of the information. At which point she submitted it as a top-priority message for the Think Tank, as they'd requested. She then looked at Dinah, who was giving the bottle of pills looks. Sighing, Taylor picked the bottle up and handed it to Mrs. Alcott.
"Awwww," Dinah grumbled.
"If you take too much at once then it can literally kill you," Taylor countered, and Dinah flinched. "I think too much and your powers literally get disconnected from you as your brain temporarily shuts down."
"She'll only be getting at most one pill at a time," Mrs. Alcott said, sounding very sure of herself. "In fact, I think I'm going to keep these in a locked box, and only carry at most two pills with me in case they're needed otherwise."
"Now then, I've been told that a visit to the beach might be appreciated, and I might be able to swing that on Sunday. But there might be another younger parahuman there, so you and they would essentially be outed to each other."
Dinah's eyes went wide, and she turned to her mother. Who sighed. "I want to check with your father first, and we'll need to discuss the other parahuman aspect as a family before making a decision."
Taylor nodded. "That said, should I be seeing about getting more cash for you? The Think Tank provided me with a sizable reimbursement fund."
"No, we're good there. The pills alone are worth it, even if we'll be using them sparingly for a number of reasons."
"Okay then. Anything else you'd like help with while I'm here anyway?"
Mrs. Alcott looked at Dinah, who shook her head, then turned back to Taylor. "No, I think we're good. Hopefully the Think Tank can figure something out in time."
"Supposedly only a thirty-ish percent chance there, but there's hope. Better than the twenty-ish percent chance of them figuring it out without me telling them those numbers, though."
That evening Taylor was planning out her weekend, at least a little bit. In part because she had to do final scheduling things as Wards leader. She was starting to understand why Dennis went for 'as little as possible' after Carlos went for 'just patrol all the time'. Those two systems made things a hell of a lot easier.
Taylor: So, my father thinks that the pub's gathering tomorrow will primarily be adults, almost entirely Dockworkers at that. We might be the only minors there, not that we'd be excluded from drinking. Because of course we'd be expected to drink something.
Amy: Yep. Conversely, the Palanquin is likely to have more teenagers, but a more chaotic atmosphere. At the same time, not letting Elle have her fun seems like it would be rude without a good reason not to go.
Taylor: I bet we could get them to let us sit in a room upstairs while Elle has her fun.
Amy: That...huh. You might be right. I hadn't thought about that. What would we do though?
Taylor: Not that we both have to go, but bringing a plant or two and working on making those 'targeted nanofoam emulation' pills could be a good project. They appeared to be mostly carbon, with a little bit of a wrapper to target neural tissue.
Amy: Oooh. I wonder if Carol and Mark would see that as working around my limited greenhouse time?
Taylor: My father hasn't given me any such restrictions, so you can just say you decided to help me.
Amy: That would probably work, wouldn't it?
It didn't take long to send a message to Melanie to let her know that they were likely to show up, if only to let Elle have her fun, but that they'd prefer to do so while working on other things in a back room. A message to Lacey to let her know that she and Amy wouldn't be visiting the pub followed. With that done Taylor returned to other planning.
Tomorrow's plans started with a first thing in the morning shuttling people and equipment to the beach, which was probably why tomorrow was a poor choice for Dinah and Elle to maybe visit the place. After the beach visit she'd then go and deal with tinkertech in a couple of other places, including attempting to see if she could get information out of a captured tinker's snark to see if something was intentional or not on the tinker's part. What that was hadn't been specified in the request. That shouldn't take more than an hour or two at each stop, leaving plenty of time to prepare to pop over to the Palanquin. Perhaps including purchasing a couple of smaller potted plants and a few other things as raw materials? Oh, and she should probably collect a few of the carbon cubes, touching up the plants in the process if they needed it.
Amy had arranged to spend tomorrow morning at Medhall, to help them with ensuring that nobody died with a couple of things that they thought would have useful interactions with the new immune systems. That they couldn't test on animals was an annoyance to the medical community, but not an insurmountable one. Difficult to deal with, of course, but not insurmountable.
As for the rest of the Wards, that was fairly straightforward. Aisha and Missy were out of the area doing things, Rosa would be tinkering with Sherrel and the fire department, Chris had requested that he be permitted to tinker as well in preparation for Sunday, Ryan doing the family visit thing, and Sandy...actually, she wasn't sure about Sandy without abusing administrative permissions to see what the private block was on the girl's calendar. Something that had her unavailable for the day, as of earlier in the day.
Moving on, Sunday was essentially free for both her and Amy. But she'd known that. The kids were all going to have the day off, and Missy had agreed to help out with stuff in California for the day. Aisha had apparently finished her project, since Brian had flagged some more out of area stuff as acceptable and the girl had agreed to do some of them. Which left Chris, who'd been tagged for a joint patrol with the Protectorate in order to allow Colin to field-review recent creations of his. Which nicely explained the need to prepare for the things the day before.
Well, checking with Melanie tomorrow about possibly bringing Elle to the beach, as well as confirming one way or another with the Alcotts regarding Dinah, was likely to be a thing. Dinah probably deserved the trip, Elle was probably an attempt to get Dinah access to a possible friend. If the two couldn't go on Sunday then it would likely be Taylor and Amy, and possibly Vicky, at the beach without the two kids with them. Because why give up a potential day at the beach? Costa-Brown had even sent a message indicating that, thanks to the warning about impending Endbringers, nobody else would be using the beach on Sunday.
Of course, throwing Taylor for a loop, she'd even recommended that they visit the beach, if only to de-stress before the expected attack. Apparently the Think Tank agreed that it was incredibly unlikely to happen over the weekend. Mentioning bringing along 'those Fortuna seemed to feel should get some beach time' just added more validity to some of the previous thoughts regarding revealing things to the other two, or at least the trust put in Fortuna regarding them. Being told that she could offer to bring the 'trusted precog' along as well was, however, mildly amusing. Fortuna obviously had a clue, but hadn't passed that information on to anyone else.
Amy: Hey, are you watching the news?
Taylor: No. Should I be?
Amy: They've got footage of Riley terrorizing people with the powered spider-bots.
Taylor: Ah. Maybe I should take a look.
Taylor got up to head downstairs, but looked over her other messages while she was at it. She noted that she'd been mentioned, as Maul, in a new thread, and decided to see what they were saying about her. She'd barely started reading before she stopped.
Taylor: We...might have a problem.
Amy: What?
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Topic: Implications of Cape Spider Robots In: Boards ► General BlubMid (Original Poster)
Posted On Oct 28th 2011:
So. This morning we found out that Bonesaw has cape spider robots. This is, of course, terrifying.
At the same time, I find myself...concerned.
Because Maul has a cape spider robot too, or so those who attend her school claim. It's a lot nicer looking, seems reasonably well-behaved, and Panacea has one that apparently isn't powered. For that matter, you can buy ones without powers in the PRT store. No real issues there, right? Except, well...
They're still spider robots. We know that Bonesaw builds her own. Nobody seems to know who makes these other ones. I'd have pointed to Maul's having powers as indicating a different source, but now Bonesaw has multiple with powers. Sure, she could've heard about Maul's and decided that was a wonderful idea...
(Showing page 1 of 14)
►BowlingBrother Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
I...wow.
I don't know what to think about that.
►Chocolate Handgun Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
So, er, yeah. Thing is, I think we've seen the Nine be influenced by what others have done. Even what Maul has done.
Remember the ducks? That only happened after the debut of another duck?
Though I'm not sure how you get two tinkers that can both make spider bots with powers. That's the most troublesome aspect of this, at least for me. Spider-bots? Yeah, well, they're robots. Lots of tinkers build robots, and a lot of them could probably do spider shapes. But two that can do the powers thing too?
►Thief Of Wonder Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
ALL SPIDERS ARE EVIL! KILL THEM WITH FIRE!
Wait, can you kill Bonesaw's abominations with fire? Crap crap crap...
►mynameismyown Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
i want a powered kitten bot now
why are they all building spiders
spiders arent cuddly and cute
►WontBuffOut Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
Huh. Depending on things, it could be that someone decided to show Bonesaw how to make "proper spider-bots", one of which was powered. So mysterious tinker copies Bonesaw, but "better". Then Bonesaw hears about the "powered" one and decides to copy the mysterious tinker.
If that's the case, I don't know what comes next.
►ILikeRoButts Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
Honestly? I'm not sold on the connection, because I could easily see Maul's bot being tinkertech-based powers while Bonesaw decided to emulate that with actual parahuman brains.
On the other hand, others have retrained her spiders before. So perhaps someone has been gathering the things, making them friendlier, and has started selling them? Sending prototypes to Maul and Panacea could've worked in their favor there...
►Revealing Truth Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
They're obviously all faked. There's no way their legs could possibly work that way if they're built the way they appear to be
See here and here for proof!
►Thief Of Wonder Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
GOOD NEWS! You can apparently kill Bonesaw's abominations with fire!
BAD NEWS! That only works if Burnscar isn't around.
New plan!
CRUSH ALL THE SPIDERS!
►SpoolsOfSorrow Replied On Oct 28th 2011:
I wonder if Bonesaw has a sister. Siblings can get very similar powers, doubly so for identical twins.
No clue how to find out, but I wonder...
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 12, 13, 14 ■
Jacob sighed as his phone beeped. It was set to be silent except for a very short list of people, so he knew it was probably important. Pulling the phone out, he checked and found that it was a message from Taylor. With a link to PHO. Why the hell was she linking him to PHO with no explanation? Grumbling, he followed the link and started reading, only to start swearing almost immediately.
"Why are you swearing?" Riley asked, raising an eyebrow when he looked at her. The rest of the group was curious as well, but none of them seemed willing to speak up. Then again, he and Riley were the only two present who'd already finished their dinner.
"Because of you, essentially," he replied. "One moment." It didn't take long to forward her Taylor's message. He then went back to reading the thread, because perhaps something of use was in the thing for fixing this mess.
Riley started bouncing a little, causing him to look over at her. "Oooh! I can pretend to be my own 'good twin'!"
"Your what?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm chaotic evil, but thanks to my other body I can also be my own chaotic good twin sister."
Jacob wasn't sure if that was a brilliant idea or the worst idea ever. Actually, they were parahumans, that made it much more likely to be both at the same time. "I'm not sure that kind of ruse is the best idea, but we can run it past the Think Tank. And your mother, for that matter, since she'd have to pretend to have had a second kid for it to work."
Riley blinked at that, before groaning. Which wasn't what he'd expected. "If mom has to play along then it'll never work."
"And why not?"
"Because there's no way that she wouldn't decide to go over the top in lamenting that my 'good twin' never does anything horrible to those who deserve it."
"Oh." She might have a valid point there. Amanda got weird at times, and the lines she didn't want Riley to cross were...convoluted, at a minimum. "That could be a problem, yes. Though I'm not sure that she'd take that particular angle."
"The woman's crazy enough to do it," William argued. "Or any number of other, potentially intentionally contradictory things. Just taking into account the plague that was released? The woman celebrated when the pope died, lamented that the rest of the cardinals didn't, cackled over the reports of sickly infants that died to it because they obviously weren't suited for survival of the fittest, then all but demanded that Riley ensure that a crazy cat lady wouldn't die because then nobody would take care of her cats. And those are just the reactions that I'm aware of."
"Mom cooed over the powered spider-bots," Riley added. "Which was awesome, until she started yelling at me for arranging to 'torture' them so that they could become powered."
Jacob sighed. He suspected, but wasn't positive, that Amanda had broken when Riley had triggered and had pulled herself together around a core of 'support Riley so that she would never lose Riley'. It could explain quite a bit about her attitudes surrounding her daughter. Not everything, granted, but a lot of things that he'd personally noticed. "I'm going to ask the Think Tank for assistance on this one, and we can go from there. We'll talk to your mother about the 'good twin' idea if, and only if, the Think Tank tell me that it could be a good solution to this mess."
Chapter 245 Saturday morning Taylor got up early and headed to the gym. Amy had gotten up to join her, even if she had plenty of time before she'd be heading over to Medhall.
"You just popping over on your moped?" Taylor asked as they went through their routine.
Amy shook her head. "I'm going to take the ambulance. For multiple reasons. Appearances, possible rain, and the beacon should let you get to the area quickly if that becomes necessary for any reason."
"Ah. That would make sense." Thinking about things, Taylor sighed. "I don't suppose you have any clue about what I could get Vicky for her birthday?"
"That...is complicated. In the past we've defaulted to gift certificates so that she could get clothing when we didn't have better ideas, but I think she's actually trying to find equipment to help her with patrolling."
"Oh. That sounds far easier to deal with in some ways. I wouldn't have to figure out where she'd like to shop, for starters."
"Well, you'd know better than I do what would likely be useful on patrol. The rest of New Wave doesn't like me patrolling with them, even with the new costume."
Taylor dug into some ideas for Vicky while they worked out, and after breakfast they split up. Amy took the ambulance out of the pocket dimension into the parking lot and drove it home while Taylor got into costume and prepared to head to Miami in order to pickup researchers with their yacht. Which was going to be 'fun'. Luckily she had a spare beacon available for use with a hotel room or something like that, since she could bring it to where they had the yacht waiting in order to make opening a portal easier.
With any luck things would go reasonably quickly with that and she could get to the first tinkertech task well before lunch.
It turned out that the researchers with the yacht had planned things out well. They'd had a tracked carrier for the thing that rolled right into the water, released the yacht, and then rolled right back out again. Nobody had to so much as get wet, and the carrier was ferried back to Miami by Taylor. Total time, once she'd gotten to where they wanted to be picked up, was only three quarters of an hour. Most of that was ensuring that she knew how to get the carrier back into storage properly, including plugging it back into the charger.
Annoyingly, they had support staff to do that for her, so the only thing she'd actually done was open and close portals.
With that done, she'd put the beacon away and then headed to her next stop, the first tinkertech evaluation request. Which was in Portland, so she'd ended up needing to take a teleporter. They dragged her to a storage room full of tinkertech, though only cared about the items on a table in a corner.
"This is the stuff," the PRT staff member escorting her said, gesturing at the table. "We found most of it in a dirt pile just outside of town. It all seemed functional then, so we cleaned them up prior to testing, only to have them fail and even fall apart in a couple of cases. We were hoping you can tell us what they do and maybe get them working again."
Taylor's eye twitched as she focused on the items.
Taylor: You have got to be kidding me.
UMR: Assurance
Taylor: But, really?
Amy: What?
Taylor: The fix procedures for this stuff.
Amy: Really? What is it?
Taylor: To start with, bury it under an inch of dirt, preferably unfiltered dirt at that. Ideally piss on them for lubrication, rinse with muddy water, grind the dirt in with a filthy rag. Preferably one that was used to clean up oil and food previously. The two solar panels need to be incapable of getting any light whatsoever, at which point putting the pieces back together should work. To finish reassembly those ones need to be thrown against a concrete wall a few times, or perhaps hit with my maul. Depends on how horrible the dirt is or isn't, if I'd pissed on them or just rinsed them with muddy water, and how horrible the rag was.
Amy: ...
Sighing, Taylor turned to the staff member. "Do you have a cart? Because apparently I need to go outside to fix these."
The staff, and eventually parahumans, in Portland had been horrified at Taylor's actions with the tinkertech, up until she fired the laser pistol and punched a hole in a large rock. They stopped complaining after that, as well as accepted her maintenance instructions that amounted to 'treat like crap' along with a warning that appropriate tinkers needed to be involved every few months or even that wouldn't work. The other items included a remote non-tinkertech camera disabler, a jammer to prevent alarm systems from calling home properly, and a quiet cutting tool that they thought was intended for locks and chains.
With that done, she'd unexpectedly ended up in Toronto. Apparently she'd missed that the tinker they wanted her to examine had been captured in Canada, which would make more sense from the point of view of her going to them instead of having them brought to her.
"We've got a good dozen examples of their tech," Narwhal explained as they moved through the building. Thankfully, from Taylor's point of view anyway, she was dressed casually and not just in her force fields. Which Taylor had been curious about, and upon asking the woman's snark had been informed that the horn and 'scales' shredded anything the woman was wearing when they manifested. "We just aren't sure if a few things are intentional or not on their part."
Taylor nodded. "What is it that they do that you're concerned about?"
"I'd prefer that you tell us that, in case we're wrong. Better for you to not be biased towards our conclusions."
"Ah. Okay."
It wasn't long before they reached the room in question. The door was locked with level seven clearance and was obviously an armory by design. The inner security cage was set up with level nine clearance, but a few other bits of tinkertech were outside of it. Mostly restraints, it looked like. Inside the security cage were several locked boxes, and Narwhal let Taylor open them. The first contained a small pistol. One that would fit in the palm of your hand, yet fire an incredible amount of energy. At the same time, it would put out radiation that would be incredibly likely to give you...unusual tumors.
Closing that box, she moved to the next one, which contained what looked like a shotgun. It was, essentially, a double-barreled version of the itty bitty gun, and could get six shots out in the time the little one could get one out. The individual shots weren't any more powerful, and it would also put out that radiation. The third box contained a micro-serrated vibrating knife that also put out the radiation. That trend continued with the ball lightning gun in the fourth box, the climbing boots in the fifth, the four deployable shields in the sixth, the two stun pistols in the seventh, and the handheld skin regenerator in the eighth.
Oddly, only the person using the regenerator was at risk of the radiation, assuming it wasn't being used on themselves, due to how the radiation would affect them.
Taylor: So, would I be safe from the radiation these things put out when used?
S: Affirmation. Offense
Amy: It's radiation from someone else's powers. Why would either of us assume that you're able to protect us from it when we can ask and be certain?
S: ...acceptance
Amy: Though I'm mildly confused about why you're asking about it, Taylor.
Taylor: Because the radiation would, once built up enough in a person's body, form a tumor. When the tumor gets large enough it would explode.
Amy: ...WHAT!?
Taylor: The question is whether or not the tinker intended that effect or if it was outside of their control.
Taylor closed the last case and turned to Narwhal. "So you want to know if the tinker is intentionally making things that cause people to develop explosive tumors?"
Narwhal blinked. "Explosive tumors? We've had several people develop severe tumors, but nothing that's exploded."
"Oh. Once they get big enough they're supposed to explode."
"I see. If you don't mind, I think I need to have someone call in all the people who developed tumors for emergency healing."
"I can understand that. How about directing me to the tinker so that I can see if their snark will own up to whether or not it's intentional."
"He should be the only parahuman below this floor, the holding cells are two floors down."
Taylor blinked. "There are four parahumans below this floor. The one two floors down, and three on the opposite end of the floor below that."
There was a pause, and Narwhal's eyes narrowed. "There isn't supposed to be a third floor down from here. My personal method for dealing with that would be to tear a hole in the floor above them, but I don't suppose you have any other ideas? I'm not sure that putting a hole into an unknown area right next to the holding cells is the best option, but I don't think we have many other options right this moment."
"Hmmm. I suppose that if I set up the spare beacon then I could open a portal to the room they're in. Put a squad in the pocket dimension, they come out right on top of the parahumans? I think they're all in the same room." She paused for a moment, then sighed. "And I was just going to recommend checking the latter after I got the beacon up, but I'm wearing sensor equipment that would even let us see their faces and equipment. For the best results, I should probably get closer to them, since they're right on the edge of the range I get with the smaller system."
"How about we carefully go down as though to give you access to the holding cells, you get your scan in, and then I carefully assemble a trusted team. In person, in case they've tapped the systems here. Which I think they had to have, if they didn't set off any alarms down there. Also, I think I'm going to want you to see if you can figure out anything about their powers. We'll decide if we're going the 'punch a hole in the floor' or the 'portal to behind them' route once I know who's available."
Taylor nodded, and Narwhal led the way. Of course, there was still one other thing to get out of the way.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Confusion]
Taylor: Yes, I'm talking to you. I don't suppose you can tell me if your human intentionally makes everything with radiation that can make people explode?
[Query]
Taylor: Yes, that.
[...Query]
Figures that it would actually want to know why they wanted to know.
S: Data
[Confusion]
S: Elaboration
Huh. Appealing to it on the basis of wanting to know how it interacted with the wide-scale changes being made to immune systems. Not a tactic that she'd have considered normally, but it probably wasn't a bad one.
[...Data]
And there it was. It was the snark's preferred method of dealing with unauthorized users, put in to pretty much everything in the background. Further, the end result might not react well to things that attacked cancerous cells, or ones that looked cancerous anyway.
[Elaboration]
And apparently it let its human build protection devices that could be given to authorized users that undid things and absorbed the radiation. DNA-locked, this time around, but they could interact poorly with things as well if something else had modified the body to dismantle things. Which was good to know.
[Query]
S: Data
[...Query]
S: Elaboration
And now the snark was being thoughtful. Taylor suppressed the urge to sigh as she let the connection close, threw all that information into a document, and then saved the document to her phone instead of submitting it for now. She then opened a new document up and reached out to the snarks of the other three.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Confusion]{Dismissal}|Query|
BA: Data
[Alarm]{...}|Data|
Taylor: Yes. Well. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to tell me what you do for your humans?
[Negation]{Negation}|Query|
BA: Data. Elaboration
That...was an interesting tactic. Tell us or we'll have to shut you down, with an added warning that if things go wrong they could be explosive.
{Query}
BA: Fat Man
Okay. That was definitely censored, apparently a report identifier of some kind wasn't allowed to be sent in the clear. At the same time, the choice of censoring was interesting.
[Data]{Data}|Data|
At the same time, it was apparently effective. One thinker that knew how to avoid being detected by anyone they defined as a specific threat. Another thinker, focused on knowing how to build around existing structures without disturbing them. And last was a brute/striker combination that happened to excel at tunneling. She was also the only likely direct threat. All of that was thrown into the document.
They took the stairs in the corner of the floor down, with the visor sensors recording so that they could examine the footage afterwards. Once they were on the lowest level they moved towards the occupied holding cells, Narwhal clearing their passage with the posted guards. Taylor started rendering part of the recorded data while that was happening.
"This is the guy," Narwhal said, gesturing at the holding cell. It was obvious that this was establishing a cover for why they were down here. "He refuses to tell us anything, but we're hoping you can get information out of his powers anyway."
Taylor nodded to go along with the ruse. "I can certainly try." She then stood there staring at the tinker while making random 'concerned' expressions for a few minutes. It was obvious that this unnerved the man, but she didn't care and was looking over the rendering instead. Getting pictures of the three parahumans and the eight unpowered humans was trivial. A concerning detail was that three of the unpowered individuals were wearing PRT uniforms.
"Any luck?" Narwhal asked once the silence had gone on long enough.
"I don't think the radiation is their fault."
The woman nodded, the tinker glared at them, and then they left. They headed back upstairs, and into a room that Narwhal locked down and activated privacy fields in. "So what've you got?"
"The radiation is a snark-installed security feature, it won't play nice with the upgraded immune systems. As for the unexpected basement, people are spread between three rooms, all of the parahumans are in one with a couple of normal humans while the other two occupied rooms have only normal humans. One of the unknown parahumans is a shaker/brute that can tunnel well, the other two are thinkers that probably aren't a concern when it comes to ambushing them, and three of the normal humans are wearing what appear to be PRT uniforms. Oh, and none of them are wearing masks."
Narwhal just stood there blinking for a moment, before shaking her head. "You're a tinker with a pile of tinkertech. I keep forgetting that because of the whole blaster and trump bit, and I feel foolish given that you said we could get their faces. Right. Can you prep a quick overview of everyone down there on the terminal in here? I'll go get people, you can brief us, and we can vote on which method of entry down there we use."
"No problem."
Taylor sighed as she waited for them to do the 'send someone else through the teleporter' dance after lunch. The team that Narwhal had gathered had ended up going with the 'punch a hole in the floor' method, if only to have a reliable way in and out that didn't rely on portals that nobody local could control. Of course, they'd already done the initial entry, shoved everyone that had been down there into the holding cells along with the day's guards when they'd been found to be in radio contact with the group, and were now carefully going over the equipment down there. During that they'd had Taylor remove tumors from a small collection of people, keeping her out of things otherwise.
"You're clear," the person at the controls told her.
"Thanks," Taylor replied before stepping onto the teleporter. A moment later she was in Raleigh, and was met by an annoyed-looking woman.
"Afternoon," the woman greeted. "I'm Cloe Salvage, the deputy director's secretary."
Taylor nodded. "Good afternoon. Not happy to have me foisted off on you?"
"Oh no, that's not a problem at all. I actually volunteered to meet you after Frank had to leave to deal with his daughter breaking her arm. No, the problem is that he didn't think to ensure that we can get into the room with the tinkertech in it and isn't able to come back to open it up himself."
"Oh. Standard security level restrictions?"
"Yep. We need SL8 or better, and I've only got SL6."
"No problem, then. I've got SL10."
Cloe looked at Taylor for a moment. "Ten? I thought it only went up to nine?"
"Doesn't change the fact that I'm at ten. Shall we go look at your mysterious tinkertech?"
"Er, yes, I suppose we can."
It didn't take long to reach a room that had been sealed with SL8. Out of curiosity, Taylor checked the settings, and found an explicit access list as well. Blinking, she turned to Cloe. "Any chance you can try and unlock the door?"
The woman rolled her eyes. "A couple of others already checked for me and it said that they needed SL8."
"Humor me."
A phone was produced and held up to the reader, and the door unlocked. "What?"
"It's actually configured for SL8 or four specific people. You're one of them."
"Oh. Who else is permitted?"
"Bonnie Snider, Miriam Pierce, and Cornelia Cokes."
"And now I wonder why Frank didn't tell any of us that we could open the door. Oh well. I can yell at him for forgetting to mention that later."
They entered the room, and there was a single table in the middle. On the table was a box with a single button and a display screen. Taylor walked over and circled the table, looking at the box from different angles, focusing her tinker snark on it. Frowning, she activated her visor sensors for a moment, then rendered the output.
"Well?" Cloe asked.
"I'm trying to figure out why you want me to look at this at all."
"Because we have no clue what it does or how dangerous it might be, of course."
"It's a gift box that only opens if you push the button at each of the correct GPS coordinates. The numbers that appear on the screen when you get it wrong are the distance to the next place you need to push the button."
"Seriously?"
"Yep."
"Fuck."
"It isn't even tinkertech. It's all off the shelf components in a wooden box."
Cloe stared at Taylor, then turned to look at the box. "It doesn't look like wood to me?"
"I'm assuming that it's painted with a semi-metallic paint."
"Oh."
Taylor had headed back to Brockton Bay, changed into civilian clothing, and then headed to the Florida house on Aleph. She checked the new computer there, as well as noted that the locks on the door had PRT-style access key functionality available so that she didn't need physical keys. At the same time, she found keys with her name on them in a bowl by the door, as well as a set for Amy. Nodding to herself, she looked for a phone book. She didn't find one, and ended up on the computer for half an hour just trying to find a site suitable for looking up directions. She was annoyed when it turned out that there was a small shop literally just around the corner.
It didn't take long to find each of the different kinds of over the counter nanofoam medicines, of which there were seven. All made by the same company, apparently, which made sense if it was the work of a tinker. Three were 'targeted nanofoam emulation' and they all targeted the brain. Headache relief, a sleep aid, and a 'focus enhancer'. The other four were just 'nanofoam delivery' medications. Allergy relief, general pain relief, a basic cold medicine, and a weight loss drug.
She picked up one package of each, swung through the candy aisle and grabbed a couple of things that looked interesting there, picked up a couple of local sodas, and then got in line to purchase everything. A couple of problem customers in front of her, one of which didn't seem to know how to pay with their debit card and another that couldn't read the price tag on her granola bars, meant that it took almost fifteen minutes for her to get to the only person running a register right now.
The cashier looked at the stack of nanofoam medicines. "You do know that it's dangerous to take these together, right? And it won't help with the flu going around either."
"The flu isn't an issue for me, and I'm not planning on taking them at all. I want to see if I can tear them apart to figure out how they're made."
"Whatever." He obviously thought she was making stuff up. Still he rang up everything, bagged it while she fought with the little card terminal, and then handed her the receipt. "Have a nice day, do try to not kill yourself."
Ten minutes later she'd locked the door to the house before opening a portal to head back to Bet. She'd take the minivan to buy some potted plants that they could use, as well as various other things that they might need for the evening. Oh, and she should probably pick up some food for the following day, if they were going to spend the whole thing on the beach. And a larger cooler, since they wouldn't be using the one Missy had.
"Hello ladies," the bouncer outside of the Palanquin greeted them. "No costumes tonight?"
Taylor looked at the line of people waiting to get in. "I'm not seeing many costumes at all. There are what, two in line right now?"
"Yeah. We probably should've advertised the ten dollar discount for the first instance of any given costume better. Not that it would apply to you two anyway, head on in."
The two went straight for the stairs, and were met at the top by Melanie. "Welcome. I'll let Elle know that you're here. Will the conference room work for what you want to do?"
Amy nodded. "It should, yes."
"Alright. Let someone know if you want any food or drinks. I'll be right back with Elle."
Taylor popped a portal open and the two unloaded the earlier shopping for the evening onto the table. That didn't take long as the potted plants were all in a carrying tray and the rest of the shopping was in a couple of bags.
Melanie returned with Elle just after they'd finished, and stared at the pile of plants and the couple of shopping bags that had been placed on the table. "Where the...you know what, I don't want to know."
Elle came around Melanie and into the room proper to hug the two, saying thank you a couple of times to each. She was dressed up as a butterfly, or so it appeared, the 'wings' connected to her arms.
"You ready?" Taylor asked, and Elle nodded. A moment later the girl shuddered as Broadcast Administrator shut down her powers. "There you go. We'll let you know if we need to take a break from that."
The girl grinned and curtseyed. Mostly. "Thank you." She then darted out of the room and headed downstairs.
Melanie shook her head. "She has way too much energy most days."
Taylor shrugged. "You'd know better than I would. Still, there is one other thing. You know that beach that we visited recently?"
"Yes. Impressive contacts you have there. I assume someone you helped?"
"Basically. But for whatever reason one of those involved has recommended that we take Elle and another there. I don't know why, exactly, but I trust that they have a good reason." Granted, Fortuna might not know what that reason was, exactly, but it would probably be good. "To that end, we were planning on a trip tomorrow to de-stress before the coming week. The other one we were told could go confirmed that it was okay on their end a couple hours ago."
Melanie raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow, as in picked up in the morning and returned mid-afternoon to early evening?"
Amy nodded. "Yes."
"And I thought you said you don't do babysitting. Is five hundred dollars each enough to cover watching her for the day?"
Taylor blinked at that. "What?"
"We're expecting to need to clean all day tomorrow, and her powers aren't conducive to helping without putting a lot of strain on her to keep focus. Which ends up taking someone away from cleaning to watch her, possibly even two people traveling around town with her if she's having problems maintaining the focus needed and we need her out of the building. You two are some of the only people I'm willing to consider trusting with her, and being on a different planet will make it difficult for anyone looking to grab her to succeed."
Amy shook her head. "I think we're more shocked with the money side of things, not the rationale for getting her out of the building for the day."
"What? I'm not about to take advantage of you two. Sure, you might drive me nuts with some of your antics, but none of it has been harmful. Confusing, granted, and I still want to know how the appearing and disappearing paperwork really works, but not harmful."
Taylor shook her head. "I don't really have any use for your money."
Melanie frowned at that. "Now see here..."
Taylor held up her hand. "No, you don't understand what I'm saying. You're running on the assumption that I'm making a certain amount of money as a Ward. Normally that tops out at fifteen dollars an hour, essentially, for a Ward, going up to twenty dollars an hour for a Wards leader. After a couple of years of being in the system."
"Yes, that is about what I know of the rates right now."
"A combination of things has resulted in my effective income being significantly larger than that, even if my pay on the Wards side of things is theoretically not that high. The other sources vary, but the combined effect is substantial, and I'm under the impression that Amy has been accumulating her own sources of additional funds along the same lines."
Amy nodded. "We haven't compared notes on our respective incomes, but as an example? I was easily able to afford the minivan that I got for Taylor, and I suspect that she barely paid attention to the bill amount for the ambulance she got me."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Of course I paid attention to the amount. Spending six hundred sixty four thousand, six hundred thirty seven dollars and eighty two cents on a tinkertech-enhanced ambulance isn't done lightly. Granted, most of that was the tinker-produced armor plates and modular medical equipment, but still."
There was a pause as the other two absorbed that, but Amy turned to her first. "What?"
"Are you saying that you didn't look at the purchase price that was listed on the transfer of ownership papers?"
"I...okay, I admit that I skimmed some of that. How the hell did you remember the amount?"
Taylor shrugged. For whatever reason it'd been easy to remember for her. "It isn't like that's the actual value of the thing, with all the extras they put in."
Melanie sighed. "Okay, I think I get it. Five hundred dollars is chump change and you definitely don't need the money. Can I at least contribute to whatever you're buying for lunch?"
"I suppose. Will Elle have any problem with basic sandwiches? We're currently planning on keeping it simple and I picked up bread, ham, turkey, and cheese earlier."
"That should be fine."
They hashed out plans for picking Elle up, since Melanie said there was no chance of the girl not wanting to go, and then the woman went to see how rowdy things likely were already while Taylor and Amy unpacked what they were going to be working with. Keeping the lockdown on Elle's snark while also working out how the pills were constructed and how that could be duplicated was an interesting exercise, but they pushed through things by trading off who was being strained by the open connections.
By the time Elle was pulled out of the club area in order to get some sleep they'd determined that the base nanofoam component was the same in all of the pills, a small wrapper around the drug being delivered that could enter the bloodstream with minimal interaction from the stomach. The bits of nanofoam were wrapped in a protective layer that tore the 'foam' apart when it broke up, though there were two variants of that. The 'targeted' variants had a shell containing protein markers that partially mimicked human cells that only broke down when the markers interacted with neural tissue, which would mostly happen in the brain. The 'untargeted' variants actually started to break up as they left the stomach, delivering their payload directly into the bloodstream.
Making the stuff was significantly harder, and automating it wasn't likely to happen for them right now. But they had a lot of notes on how it all went together, why several portions worked the way they did, and a few on what to watch out for in constructing things. Such as a couple of pieces only working if they contained carbon thirteen even if the rest had to be twelve.
They'd cleaned up while Elle was being dropped into bed, and Melanie came to see them off when that was dealt with. Only to find all of the stuff they'd had out on the table missing, though they did notice her checking the trash can for their wrappers and such. The look on her face was amusing, but watching her frown and pull one of the wrappers out of the trash had them smirking.
"I don't recognize this brand," the woman finally said. "Where'd you get it?"
"Florida," Taylor replied.
"Huh. Oh well. I suppose I'll see Miss Dallon in the morning when she comes to pick Elle up. Feel free to slip out the back door, and have a nice night."
Chapter 246 Sunday morning Taylor and Amy skipped the gym. Instead they met up and prepared the cooler for the day, though they'd opted to just bring all of the sandwich fixings and make them at the beach instead of making them ahead of time. With that done they then split up, Taylor picking up Dinah while Amy picked up Labyrinth. Both of their vehicles left the PRT garage, then went their different ways.
Taylor made it to the Alcott residence before Amy made it to the Palanquin, and barely made it to being parked in the driveway before Dinah was coming out of the house. The girl was dressed fairly warmly, in contrast to Taylor already being in a bathing suit with a light shirt on over it. Then again, Dinah didn't have tinker fugue upgrades and would be more affected by the local weather.
Mrs. Alcott followed, even as Dinah opened the sliding door to climb in, dropping her backpack onto the floor. "Thank you for taking Dinah with you today. Hopefully she'll have fun, we've not actually done much visiting of beaches in general. She isn't a very strong swimmer, but assured us that she'll be fine. Though I did have to have her pack sunscreen, she didn't think you'd have any."
Taylor blinked, then nodded. "Okay, I'll admit that I'd not thought much about that. It hasn't been needed yet, but I know why and should've considered it."
"Not a problem, if you don't need it then you're much less likely to think about it. Just try to ensure that she uses it."
"Will do."
Mrs. Alcott then turned towards Dinah in the back. "You behave and listen to Taylor and Amy."
Dinah nodded. "Of course."
A few minutes later Taylor had pulled into a dead-end alley, and from there into the pocket dimension.
Kenta grumbled a bit as they waited for the ferry. He had, very grudgingly, agreed to allow the Protectorate to put Takara through power testing. Mainly because he and Miku couldn't figure out a number of details and it wasn't safe to bring Takara out in public when she would seemingly randomly start turning into a drawing. Her transformation didn't seem to occur because of threats like his did, and anger didn't seem to be involved either, but they hadn't spotted any patterns at all. She'd even randomly change in her sleep. The end result was that they had no clue what to avoid in order to keep her powers from activating.
Sadly, the PRT and Protectorate were pretty much the only ones available that had experience with figuring this kind of thing out. They'd offered to run Takara through testing, and he'd originally not wanted to accept, but not being able to bring her anywhere was getting to be troublesome. On Friday Miku had put her foot down and demanded that they do something, so he'd reluctantly called and asked about power testing. Which led to heading over to the Rig for the actual testing, which meant waiting for the ferry.
Insisting on driving over on their own instead of taking the offer for a pickup probably contributed to the wait, being unable to go across the force field bridge they might've used otherwise, but he was already feeling far too indebted to the blasted organization.
Complicating matters was one of the significant differences between his power and his daughter's power. When he transformed it was only his body as he grew, but when she transformed her clothing was included. He already knew that things like phones continued to work through this, somehow, and would transform to match her within a minute of being picked up or would revert to 'real' within a minute of her putting them down. What that meant was that they couldn't even rely on her clothing to hide her transformation, because it would transform with her.
He'd complain about that more, except that Lee had pointed out that it meant that Takara would likely never need someone to bring her pants after a fight because her transformation had destroyed them. When put that way? Kenta would take the headache in exchange for not having an even worse headache. But that didn't make their lack of knowledge regarding why she kept transforming any less annoying to deal with.
Of course, looking over at Miku, he was fairly certain that she'd put her foot down more because she was afraid of what Takara's constant transformations meant than their inability to bring her out in public. After all, it wasn't like they couldn't just bring her out 'in costume', especially since they'd done so multiple times before she had powers. But if the trigger for the transformation was something they couldn't see, like some form of attack that they weren't aware of?
Taylor wished that they'd done some initial checking of things before deciding to bring the two kids to the beach. Specifically, while Dinah wasn't a strong swimmer, she at least knew the basics. Elle didn't have even that much. She was enthusiastic, apparently liking the idea of being able to swim even if she'd never learned how to, but they hadn't ensured that they had any floatation devices for her.
Plans for an 'emergency beach trip' kit were already being made, and 'floatation devices for non-swimmers' was on the list already. As were sunscreen, spare towels, beach chairs, a drying rack, and non-perishable snacks.
Still, Elle also seemed to be a reasonably fast learner, and they'd only needed to drag her out of the water by force the one time. Granted, that had been when she'd run in recklessly upon their arrival, and that had also led to them needing to get her out of her now-soaked warmer weather clothing that she'd had on over her bathing suit so that they could lay it out to dry in the sun. She'd been a little too excited to get into the water and hadn't wanted to wait, so it was probably a good thing that Taylor and Amy had both essentially been ready to dive right in themselves.
Taylor and Amy were taking turns with Elle, the other keeping an eye on Dinah. Who had done a little swimming, and then decided that trying to build a sandcastle was far more interesting. She wasn't having much luck yet, but she was doing a decent job of experimenting to figure things out, like how wet the sand needed to be. She might even figure out that she should be further away from Elle, whose power kept subtly altering the beach before Taylor or Amy ensured that she was moved enough to keep her power from anchoring to the surroundings.
Eventually they'd pull Elle out of the water and do something about lunch, of course, but probably not for another half hour to forty-five minutes at this point. That would probably be a good time to parse out the visor recordings of the morning for pictures as well, before resetting things to record for the afternoon.
Colin sighed as he helped the testers examine the data they'd collected that morning. He'd ended up participating for several tests, but didn't feel that they'd learned anything truly important from his participation. Sure, they had more data points on several things, but they hadn't learned anything about what caused Takara to transform. Or at least he didn't think they had, data analysis over lunch might tell them something that'd been missed.
He left a modeling program going over possible iterations on the transformation data while he examined other information that'd been collected. The girl's powers did absolutely nothing to change her capabilities before her transformation kicked in, as far as they could tell. Stage one of that shifted the girl to 'drawn', at which point she went from 'normal human' to 'seemingly indestructible' due to her body following a variant of cartoon physics. At the same time anything that was 'clothing' became unremovable as it transformed with her.
As far as they could tell, it was the first stage that unlocked the ability to pick things up and convert them to 'drawn', but keeping her there without her transforming further was nearly impossible. But anything picked up and carried would transform into a 'drawn' version, while retaining all functionality it had before the transformation. At the same time, the object would become essentially weightless to the girl.
The second stage of the transformation brought out wings and a tail, and was the first 'stable' point. Coloring of the wings and tail was based on the color of the material they extended from. Skin color if the girl was naked, otherwise the clothing or armor she was wearing dictated the color. Though they'd not tested the skin color aspect, they'd trusted the girl's mother on that front. At that stage the girl could fly short distances, but quickly tired.
Transitioning to the third stage converted the rest of the girl's body to a humanoid dragon form. Anything covering her hands and feet vanished, though would influence the color of the scales they would've covered. Her height remained the same, but she 'thinned out' slightly and became at least twenty percent weaker. At least until an object transformed into a 'drawn' object, at which point it seemed effectively weightless to the girl. In that stage she could fly three times further and recovered from the flights much faster.
The third stage also unlocked the 'be in multiple places at once' trick, with the duplicates appearing from behind other things when possible or in a cartoonish smoke cloud when they had sufficient camera coverage. Oddly, outside of her clothing she couldn't have anything that had converted to 'drawn' in more than one place at a time. But she could almost instantly move things around, dropping an item into a pocket or putting it behind her back only to retrieve it elsewhere. And when doing the 'behind her back' trick it didn't seem to matter how many cameras were on her, from any angle the object went or came from 'behind' her. The entire ability primarily manifested when someone was trying to get away or flank her, but also popped up as a distraction as well as when she was 'trapped'. The latter was especially useful, as all of the duplicates were equally 'her' until they vanished and the 'trapped' instance of her could vanish instead of one of the created duplicates.
A quick check showed that the modeling program hadn't found anything yet, before he moved on to the discovered weaknesses. Fire seemed to 'dry her out', slowing her down, but she didn't catch on fire when she'd experimentally poked a flame. Though she didn't seem to be able to make duplicates while 'dried out'. Water wasn't a problem for her, but other liquids that functioned as ink and paint removers were. The latter would instantly dispel any duplicate, reverse the transformation on objects, or if it hit the last instance of the girl would cause a painful instant reversal of her transformation. So long as it was wet and in contact with her skin it would also prevent her from transforming again, one of the few pieces of good news for the family. Simple patches applied to the girl's skin would let them keep her from going to the 'drawn' state so long as the ink remover hadn't dried out.
Wet ink, paint, and correction fluid had odd effects on the girl. If just splashed on her then they would merely change the coloring of the portion of her that they hit, unless they hit her eyes. Hitting her in the eyes would blind that instance of her, even if she'd been wearing a visor or goggles for protection before transforming. If applied to an object then it would cause some of the cartoon physics to be canceled out if you hit the girl with the object as well. But during the splash tests they'd accidentally discovered that swallowing any of them made her grow, her overall color scheme changing based on the color of what she was consuming. It was temporary, only affected that one instance of her, and gave her indigestion when she transformed back.
With another sigh, Colin made note that his analysis program hadn't found any patterns. It had correlated things with 'not fully under their control', which they'd known, but that was about it. Since the Think Tank was occupied with emergency analysis, not that he disagreed with their prioritization, they were probably going to have to call in the only expert available. Except that he wasn't supposed to call in Taylor while she was 'off-world' unless it was an emergency, and wanting to know what caused Takara's transformations wasn't one.
Perhaps they'd get lucky and the tests they wanted to run after lunch would prove useful. He wasn't expecting it, but he could hope. Or maybe Doctor Yamada could figure something out when she met with the girl later in the afternoon, even if her primary goal was going to be determining what urges the girl was getting from her powers.
Taylor and Amy got a break from teaching Elle to swim after lunch. The lessons in the morning had tired her out a bit, and she'd decided to join Dinah in trying to build a sandcastle. Even better, thanks to both girls having snarks they could be monitored somewhat while the older two were in the water. Not that either went deeper into the water than needed to get more water and wet sand for a bit.
Eventually they reached the point where it was time to get the two kids back home. Most of their stuff was packed up before they all took a turn rinsing the sand off. Both kids had dry clothing to put on, Elle's having dried well enough from her dip that morning. During that entire process Taylor and Amy had their visors on and were going through the afternoon recordings to extract pictures. They planned on giving the Alcotts and Melanie a packet of pictures from the day, but weren't sure if Melanie would care.
"I wanted to ride in the van," Elle pouted as they prepared to leave.
"The streets are narrower on the way to Dinah's house," Taylor explained. "The ambulance is wider and thus harder to get there, which is why Amy picked you up in the ambulance in the first place."
"Oh." The girl still looked disappointed, but didn't complain further.
A few minutes later both vehicles left through a portal that Taylor had popped open in the parking deck that the PRT used as their hidden entrance. Not at the hidden entrance itself, of course, but close. Though as they left she did wonder a bit about who else parked there, because there always seemed to be cars in various spaces but no matter when she passed through there was never anyone coming or going.
Regardless, they'd made it most of the way to the Alcott household when her phone rang. Blinking for a moment, she answered. "Hello Armsmaster. What do you need?"
"Good afternoon," he replied. "As much as it annoys several of us professionally, we're having issues with a specific aspect of a parahuman's power testing. I'm hoping that you can come to the Rig for a few minutes as a last ditch attempt to identify the last component of things. I'm hoping that a targeted attempt by you will help where your more general pass didn't."
"Ah. So I'd be able to do so from a distance?"
"Yes. If you're willing to help then I'll send along what we already know, we have the one question we want an answer to but won't object to anything else being confirmed."
"I suppose I can give it a try. I need to drop someone off before I'm free, but I'll head over when I can."
"Thank you."
Taylor was almost positive that they were talking about Takara, but if they only wanted her for a few minutes then it shouldn't be too annoying. Even if she'd decided to avoid the girl's power testing. A minute later she got a message with their notes from the day and looked over it, confirming that it was Takara that they'd been working with today. They'd been quite complete with things, but a quick check showed that there wasn't a whole lot of useful information on what caused the girl to transform. It looked like there being a threat might be part of it, but either she was detecting threats that nobody else was or there was another component.
Ten minutes later they made it to the Alcotts, and Mrs. Alcott came out to the van.
"I hope she wasn't a problem," the woman said as she was helping Dinah out of the van.
Taylor shook her head. "Not at all. She spent more time figuring out making a sandcastle than swimming."
Dinah nodded. "Elle made it harder, but it was fun anyway."
Mrs. Alcott rolled her eyes. "She didn't want to go along with the plan you came up with?"
Taylor snorted. "More related to other details. Regardless, I have pictures in my phone if you'd like copies."
"Oooh! Please, do you need my email address?"
"No, because you already gave me it. Unless you've changed internet providers recently?"
"Oh, right. No, same address."
Taylor nodded and sent the email. "You should have them in a few minutes."
"Thank you so much."
Dinah nodded. "Thank you for inviting me." She then frowned. "Though you don't ask me many questions. Why not?"
Taylor shrugged. "Most of the time I don't want to know the odds. Leads to too much second-guessing."
"Oh."
"That and the more non-weather questions I ask you the more likely it is that someone else figures out what you can do."
Dinah pouted. "It isn't like that stopped that woman."
"She's a special case. Don't worry about her."
"Chances that you're telling the truth." The girl blinked. "One hundred percent? That didn't even hurt."
"As I said, she's a special case."
Taylor had gone to the effort of driving back to the PRT building, then parked the van in the pocket dimension and exited into the Rig. She found Colin waiting for her.
"Good afternoon," he greeted.
"Hi," she replied, noting that Takara was in her range. "I got your file, is there anything else?"
"Doctor Yamada didn't have a lot of luck ferreting out urges, so any insight you can provide there would be appreciated."
"Okay." A quick review of things occurred before she reached out to Takara's snark.
Taylor: Hello again.
[Annoyance]
Taylor: Yes, you're annoyed with what I did. You still accepted that it was for the best before.
[...agreement]
Taylor: Now then, you may have noticed that they've been testing your human all day, but there are a couple of things they couldn't figure out but feel are important. While they'd like me to confirm everything they did figure out, they're most concerned about what causes the transformation of your human and what you're pushing your human to do.
[Query]
Taylor: If you tell me so that I can tell them then they'll know what to do to put your human in a position to actually do those things.
No way was Taylor going to mention the 'keep her out of situations' side of that particular coin.
BA: Query
[Contemplation]
Huh. Offering to trade some of the loopholes that'd been discovered for the information that was being requested. Not a bad strategy in this case, all things considered.
[Data. Elaboration. Data]
BA: Data
Huh. Takara would automatically transform when there was a threat or when she had a mental 'target', threats pushing her to 'drawn' with wings and tail while a target would push her all the way. Working to 'annoy' the chosen target was part of her urges, and the more confused the target got the better. And in the case of a human source for a threat, if confirmed and identified by the girl, they would automatically become her target. Which nicely explained why automated turrets during her power testing caused her to get to the 'wings and tail' stage but didn't push her further.
There was also the implication that the threat didn't have to be towards Takara. So long as someone or something in the area might be a threat to someone else, in her eyes, she could make the jump to 'drawn'. Whether or not she realized that she was thinking about someone or something as a threat.
"Well, I think I've got what you wanted," Taylor finally said to Colin. "She's definitely got an interesting mix of the two power sets."
Colin paused at that. "Two power sets? Shouldn't that be three power sets? Dragon from her father, the drawn style from Ekaki, and the cloning from Oni Lee?"
"Her snark is definitely pulling from Lung and Ekaki. I don't think anything but mild inspiration came from Lee's snark, if that. I think all of his snark's...potential, I guess? I think it went to Lung's teleportation trick."
BA: Agreement
Taylor nodded. "And my snark agrees with that assessment."
Colin frowned. "I hadn't considered that, but I suppose it makes sense."
"I've attached the additional notes to her file, but don't think her snark is going to be overly cooperative for confirming anything else. Is that all?"
"That's plenty for today, thank you."
"You're welcome."
Ten minutes later Taylor was home and taking a proper shower before dinner, while also thinking about how to arrange patrols for the next couple of days. She had to ensure that she didn't schedule anything that couldn't wait in case of an Endbringer attack, after all. Perhaps they should aim to get Ryan and Sandy out on a patrol tomorrow afternoon, and then possibly get Rosa out on Tuesday? Wing it for Wednesday on, as the longer they went in the week without an attack the more likely it was to hit. That and she'd need to double-check calendars, but she didn't recall seeing much of anything on them.
Miku sighed as she got a glass of water around midnight. She'd originally hoped that Takara would never trigger, but they'd known that she had the potential to since just after her fifth birthday. In that respect it was probably inevitable, what with Kenta's dealings and the inevitable attacks on him because of them. That the actual attack had been from those he'd never actually wronged was the only real surprise in the end. But she'd still held out hope, because she had once had the potential to trigger as well. Never had, and the structure in her brain had vanished shortly before she'd married Kenta, but she'd had the potential and escaped without triggering.
Sipping her glass of water, she picked the folder containing the results of the day's power testing up and idly flipped through it again. She'd read it at least half a dozen times already, wanting to be certain that she understood everything. At the same time, it was interesting to see the slightly different styles of reporting things. Each tester, Armsmaster, Doctor Yamada, and what she personally suspected was Miss Hebert or Miss Dallon had their own tells in wording and layout when you'd stared at things long enough.
Knowing what they did now was definitely nice, even if she wasn't a big fan of Takara's 'weaknesses' being documented and known by the PRT and Protectorate. On the other hand, Armsmaster had made them an entire box of modified bandages with what should be a non-irritating ink remover soaked into them at no charge. It should last them at least a couple of weeks, by which point Kenta hoped to have figured out an alternative source. Though if they did follow through with Takara's continued desire to join the Wards then the PRT would apparently continue to provide them.
Finishing her water, she placed the glass in the sink and headed back to the bedroom they were using. She wanted to be in her own bed, but their home wasn't repaired yet and wouldn't be for at least two more weeks. Even then they'd determined that they might not be entirely comfortable in it, having been attacked in it already, so they were looking at other properties that Kenta's organization owned and considering moving into one of them instead. But they'd still be able to bring the bed, which was the part she was concerned about at this point. The mattress in this safe house was sub-par, in her opinion.
Along the way she stopped at Takara's door, pulling down on the pin connected to the bell on it before very carefully opening it. She and Kenta made sure that whatever room their little girl slept in had a door that could be opened and closed silently, to make it easier to check on her, but rigged the bell up so that they would still be able to tell when it was opened. Lee had obtained the parts needed to duplicate the bell setup here even before they could get back into their home to collect more items.
Miku suppressed a snort as she saw that Takara had shifted into a 'drawn' state, but this time she'd apparently pulled the blankets in with her. Perhaps even the entire top mattress, it was hard to tell. Sleepovers with those who didn't know her little girl's secrets were definitely off the table at this point, that was for sure.
Upon arrival at school on Monday morning Taylor found that people were being oddly skittish around her and Amy, and by extension Missy and Vicky that had arrived with them. The entire thing was somewhat odd.
Taylor: Any ideas as to why people are suddenly avoiding interacting with us?
Amy: Not really, no. I'm not sure if I should be happy that they're leaving us alone or worried about what rumor is running around now.
Taylor: I know the feeling.
The complete lack of people wanting to so much as approach them made it easy enough to get to homeroom, and from there to class. At the same time, their enhanced hearing wasn't picking up anything of use as to why people were skittish, just chatter about whatever parties they'd gone to over the weekend. Whether that was because they were being extra cautious or just because the parties were the more interesting topic of discussion wasn't easily determined.
The 'skittishness' didn't seem to affect people interacting with them as part of classroom activities, and none of the teachers seemed to be affected. Or at least that was the case for Taylor, and Amy hadn't complained, but Missy or Vicky might've had a different experience. Regardless, it was still evident between classes. It wasn't until things were breaking for lunch that they got their first real idea of what the problem was.
"Hey Taylor," Louise called as they came to the same intersection on the way to the cafeteria. "Have you seen any of the rumors online about your spider-bot?"
Taylor blinked, even as she noticed other discussions come to a halt around them. "I saw a few, but several of them were ridiculous."
"What do you think of some of the origin theories for your spider-bot?"
"Well, it was in an unlabeled gift box left at my house, and we know that they're available in the PRT store now."
Louise nodded. "But yours has powers, like Bonesaw has with a couple of others."
"Believe it or not, when he was delivered he didn't have the powers he has now. The whole glowing web thing he can do happened after I already had him, though before I got around to naming him."
There was a noticeable silence at that, before someone else called out. "You mean that your spider-bot triggered on you?"
Taylor shrugged. "Yeah. Though I've not heard of traditional pets triggering." She wasn't about to volunteer her own part of things regarding the triggering, of course.
Sadly, finding out that Ackbar had already been Taylor's before he could use powers like a parahuman was enough to get people swarming again. Which was enough to make Taylor wish that she had kept her mouth shut, or at least that Louise had waited until the end of lunch to ask questions.
Elizabeth carefully ensured that she'd signed off and that nobody was expecting her to be active online. She was going to be missing out on a number of things, but it couldn't be helped. Circumstances out of her control and all. Annoyingly, she had basically no idea what she was going to be doing, as Coordinator hadn't seen fit to inform her. Which, at least from her point of view, also couldn't be helped. Not that she ever knew what she was going to be doing, she was lucky that she knew the when, and that was mostly because Coordinator wanted to ensure that the three of them didn't screw things up by accidents of timing since she couldn't predict the managing Shard. Restrictions were annoying on that front.
Though there was the more recent development of 'ensure the other two avoid communicating' thrown in there as well, which had resulted in specific 'avoid these areas' orders being issued to Gordon and Margaret twenty minutes previous. They were, to their own annoyances, following the orders and relocating without making it obvious what they were doing. Oh well. It wouldn't be long now.
[Alert: Process has started]
Dragon paused in her examination of one of the Guild's rapid response transporter endpoints as several emergency alarms went off. It was the work of a clock tick to bring up sufficient details to tell that Ziz had just broken orbit and was descending at high speed. It wasn't much more work to calculate trajectories. Especially since the Endbringer's path had already leveled off, making that part of things trivial, even if the approach was faster than usual. As soon as the calculations finished and output a target they were put through a double-check using data collected since the first set of calculations had been started. Dragon was certain that had she been in one of her organic bodies that she'd have paled by now.
Seconds later the second set of calculations had confirmed things, and moments later she'd remotely activated Brockton Bay's Endbringer sirens. She'd have the rapid response transports taking off, relying on air traffic control to keep aircraft out of their way, within thirty seconds, after which she'd make her way back to New England through her pocket dimension.
Chapter 247 The Endbringer alarms went off as lunch was ending, startling everyone. Taylor swore, decided that a local attack meant screw stealth, and fired her pistol opener at the wall next to the table they were sitting at. She, Amy, Vicky, and Missy vanished into the resulting portal before anyone else seemed to have reacted, though Vicky had flown over the table and Missy had warped space to reach it.
There was no way that wouldn't be on PHO by the end of the day, but with any luck there wouldn't be any picture or video evidence included.
Taylor and Missy exited into the Wards area very shortly afterwards, the portal closing immediately so that Amy and Vicky could pop one open to their home. Both girls went straight for their rooms to change, though Taylor got a text message as she was doing so.
C: An Endbringer attack and you couldn't wait for some others to get to your portal?
T: What, and out your identities?
C: ...is that really important in the face of a local Endbringer attack?
T: My Wards Leader documentation says yes, short of the Endbringer hitting the school directly. Has the school come under direct attack?
C: ...no.
T: And are Dean or Dennis complaining that I didn't give them time to join me?
C: Not that I know of, so I guess that's point made.
Granted, it could very well be that neither Dean nor Dennis were aware that she could just as easily have dropped them off on the Rig as brought them to the PRT building. But she didn't see any reason to let Chris know that.
Taylor was nearly done getting into her costume when the console suddenly cut out and reset, only to come back online a minute later.
"Boston to all points," came over it a moment later. "Ziz has crash landed into the Protectorate Headquarters ENE. Automated lockout of the Protectorate Headquarters ENE from all secure systems has been completed. Communications are temporarily routed through Boston, but may be shifted again in the next fifteen minutes."
There was a pause, before Taylor mentally hit the console button. "Maul to console. How many of the ENE's parahumans, tinkers specifically, were last known to be in the Rig?"
Taylor finished getting into costume before the response came back. "Console to all points. Countdown, Reknit, and Wrench Wraith are known to have been in the Protectorate Headquarters ENE at the time of Ziz's arrival. Be prepared for unknown tinkertech."
It was highly unlikely that anyone would complain about the string of swears that Taylor let out at that.
Dragon wanted to frown, but was in a suit that didn't actually support that right now. It was now just over an hour after Ziz had landed in the Rig, and apparently locked it down with the force field system, and there was still no sign of the Endbringer doing anything outside of the structure. There was also no scream, which was concerning a number of people, and outside of passes to test the force fields they were keeping most people back. She and Mother had also already checked and found that the beacon in the Rig was disabled, and any attempt at bringing a spare beacon close enough to bypass the force field was met with a jamming field of some kind causing portal endpoints to not function. They'd even tried to slip someone in with Doormaker and failed.
Additional checks had been made regarding using sensor drone technology that had been in the Rig to get information, but of the six different systems that could be remotely activated by someone outside of the Rig there was only one responding. Except that it had obviously been compromised, and was returning an obviously computer generated infinite plain with a floating clock and a 'please wait' message. It wasn't even a countdown clock, it was the actual local time ticking along normally.
Evacuating non-parahumans from the city had been unusually orderly as a result of the lack of anything to fight, and a very large contingent of parahumans had already arrived to render aid. But for now they had little to do, waiting on the distant sidelines. They'd gotten the field hospital set up in Miami, but Mother had returned to hopefully be able to identify whatever tinkertech that Ziz was sure to emerge with. But it was a waiting game at this point, and the longer it went on the more likely it was that something they couldn't handle would come out of the Rig.
Also concerning right now was that while Alexandria and Legend had shown up, Eidolon hadn't. Which meant that he was still largely out of commission. That could be a problem, but there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it.
"Console to all points," came in at the two hour mark. "The teleporter control system has just gone offline. I repeat, the teleporter control system has just gone offline. All teleporters are to be considered compromised."
Taylor frowned, because that meant that the field hospital had just become useless. It was far too remote to get people to without the teleporter system, after all. Amy had started moving just as that came across, so she was likely going to ensure that the teleporters deployed at the field hospital were shut down.
Amy: Huh. The controls are fully functional and responding fine here, though the automatic list of PRT destinations isn't responding. Oh, and Dragon's list of destinations just went offline as well. And there goes the Guild's.
Taylor: Yeah, we have our own control system. I'm assuming that Ziz somehow hijacked the PRT's. Which probably means that they're going to replace the whole thing with a pile of regional control systems. Dragon and the Guild might do so as well, actually.
Amy: Makes sense, I guess. Oooh. Without those systems linked in the only destination left is one on Aleph, didn't know that was accessible to our system.
Taylor: That...probably shouldn't be surprising, but it is. Does it have a remote list icon?
Amy: No, now that you mention it.
Taylor: So Dragon probably added it directly for whatever reason. Probably doesn't want it in the automated share lists, just in case.
Amy: Regardless, since the PRT system is supposed to be able to interface with this thing automatically I'm going to power everything down and stow it. I can deploy it again if the PRT regains control of their own control systems.
Taylor: Good idea, which is probably why Dragon shut her system down.
Amy: Actually, we should probably just shut the whole field hospital down. Nobody's getting here easily, after all.
Well, at least those at the field hospital were unlikely to be attacked through the teleporters with them shut down. Though if the teleporters were going to be used in the attack it would certainly help explain some of the range that Dinah had predicted. Looking around, she frowned, because far too many of the responders were here with no way to get elsewhere in a hurry now. And she didn't think Strider had bothered to help ferry people with the teleporters working.
"If this was just a stop-over to build things then we're screwed," Vicky said, obviously having noticed Taylor looking around.
Taylor nodded. "Yeah. But what else can we do?"
"Wait and see what horrible thing she comes out of there with, I guess."
Everyone was feeling useless, but Taylor was fairly certain that if the 'scream' was being used then it was targeted and intentionally skipping her. But they'd also checked several people with the master effect scanners and found no signs of influence, meaning that the Endbringer seemed to have changed tactics significantly. Then again, setting up long-term manipulations wasn't really an option anymore, so that might explain it.
With a sigh, Taylor hit the console button. "Maul to console, I don't suppose Strider came? If Ziz is going for a widespread attack then we may need to move defenders around, and we just lost our teleporter network."
She didn't get a response, but she wasn't surprised. There were likely a lot of things going on right now that she wasn't privy to. Like panic over whatever it was that Ziz was up to, most of which she was sure that she wasn't seeing. Besides, there was plenty of that to go around.
Once Amy had finished packing up the field hospital she'd returned to Brockton Bay via pocket dimension portals. This included saying 'screw it' and changing into her combat costume, because if Ziz was going to screw up the field hospital then she obviously wanted to get in on the fighting. Not that there was much of that to do right now either.
"I think we may need to move the railgun into your pocket dimension," Colin said as he came up to where Taylor and Amy were now waiting, just after Amy had shown up. "Assuming that it survives intact. Having it stuck in the Rig when it could have come in handy for breaking the Rig's force field is suboptimal."
Taylor shrugged. "Hindsight is wonderful, but it doesn't help us right now."
"True. Though we've tried sourcing other possible guns, none of which we think we can get prepped before the end of the week. The Navy was apologetic about not having anything close enough to help today."
"I doubt you came over here just to inform us that there's no gun for us to help shoot. Something else come up?"
Colin nodded. "The Think Tank seems to think that you, specifically, are critical for what is coming. They don't know why, and my first thought was the railgun. Which is, of course, trapped on the Rig and thus useless to us right now."
Amy frowned. "Just her, or either of us?"
"Er...looks like just Maul, actually. Though the timestamp indicates that it was originally generated while you were still in Miami."
"Perhaps check, because if it's just her then that really narrows things down."
"That is a good point. Give me a moment." It didn't take him long to fire a message off, but whether or not a response was coming was ignored as the Rig lit up, electricity arcing over the force field.
"That does not inspire confidence in what's about to happen," Vicky said after a moment.
Nobody bothered to respond to that, though a number of people were taking cover as it seemed that more and more energy was gathering on the force field. A yell from one side caused Taylor to turn, and she flinched when she saw a funnel of some kind coming out of the PRT building. No, actually, it was multiple overlapping funnels. Turning, she looked behind them in the general direction of the Guild rapid response transport. She could see that the personnel there were doing something to the thing, but wasn't sure what that was. But there were no funnels there.
More concerning were the electrical discharges appearing around the upper portions of the funnels. Taylor hit her broadcast button. "Maul to all points, heads up over the PRT building. Possibly all Protectorate and PRT buildings with teleporters."
The warning was well-timed, as a massive discharge of energy occurred a moment later, items appearing in the air over the city. At the same time, most of those items went flying off into the distance, though none towards the ocean. One, however, landed just down the street from where they were standing. Taylor's tinker snark went to work on it immediately.
"What the hell?" Taylor mumbled.
"What is it?" Colin asked.
"I think it's a matter to wrapped candy bomb with a variable range, currently set to be very large, armed but tied to a remote detonation system, with a sensor system included for some reason."
Colin was distracted from replying when a loud bang came from the Rig, drawing attention back that way. A rectangular platform lifted up off of the Rig, Ziz on top of it. Though for whatever reason the Endbringer was wearing a yellow short-sleeved dress with a white apron, black and white striped stockings, and black shoes of some kind. There appeared to be a key sticking out of her back as well. She lifted up off of the platform and it tilted forward towards the shore, revealing it to be a large screen. Showing was North America, with dots in a large number of places, and it looked to split across time zone lines. Each time zone had a countdown timer to midnight, and there was a meter off to one side that was currently empty.
Notably, the entire thing was still inside of the Rig's force field.
"What the hell does that mean?" Colin asked.
Taylor focused her tinker snark on it, unsure if it would work at this range. It did, and she blinked, looking back at the matter to wrapped candy bomb, and then back to the display. "You have got to be kidding me."
Colin turned to Taylor. "What?"
"The bombs are monitoring the area around them for trick or treaters, in costume, ages four to twelve. One 'point' per person per house that they get candy from, and when all of the timers hit zero the bombs go off. Destroy the control unit and the bombs will also go off. But if the meter to the side fills up then the bombs get reconfigured to a 'consume just the bomb' range instead. Won't stop them from going off though."
Amy blinked a few times. "That...what?"
"Oh, and I think there are 'bonus points' for older siblings being in costume while with their younger siblings, but that isn't coming across nearly as clearly as the rest. It's almost like the initial set of information was written out for my snark, and it's working on other details. It's also annoyed that there's a loose connection in the power backplane."
There was a pause, but Ziz actually dropped down behind the display at that. A moment later she popped back up and sat on the corner of the display, nodding in the general direction of the group.
Taylor sighed. "Nevermind on the loose connection. Now the question regarding it is whether that was left loose intentionally or not, and I don't think we're getting an answer anytime soon. What do we do about the rest of it?"
Colin sighed. "I think I'm letting you broadcast what needs to happen to all points while I see how much candy we have available in the PRT building, since we can't get at Countdown's stash in the Rig. Not to mention checking to see what we have available for transports. Oh, and do get as many details as you can, we can hopefully use every bonus point available to our benefit."
"Do you think that we'll be dragging people back into the city?" Amy asked.
"That hadn't occurred to me, but if they want to risk it in order to help then I don't think I'm going to argue against it. I'll pass it along anyway."
David frowned as he looked over data with the Think Tank. He'd switched into a large-scale planning power configuration, but this was taxing it. Emergency alerts were firing off to everyone, everywhere on the continent. They'd even gotten Mexico to cooperate, given that a number of bombs had been sent over the border into the country. But getting candy suitable for things distributed such that kids could go around and trick or treat was problematic, since that hadn't really been a tradition to speak of for years. Bulk individually wrapped candy just wasn't easy to get your hands on.
The whole situation was annoying, and was pushing him and the rest of the Think Tank planning team to their limits. Which sadly fit what he now knew regarding why the Endbringers had been attacking to begin with. He couldn't participate in an outright battle of strength, so the 'fight' had been shifted to an entirely different kind of conflict. One that he could be challenged by, even if it was entirely different from anything the Endbringers had done before.
Then again, it was the Simurgh. They should probably be amazed that she'd not done anything remotely like this before now. It felt appropriate for her.
He took a moment to check their predictions. A few areas had gotten started as soon as they knew there was a way to help, so they already had some data coming in. Sadly, it was looking like a very large percentage of the continent needed to be involved in order to 'win' this battle, and the blasted Endbringer was just going to sit there waiting to see if they pulled it off or not. Behind one of their own force fields at that, the bitch.
His phone ringing drew his attention, and he tapped his earpiece to answer it. "Eidolon."
"Fortuna and Kurt are bouncing around Aleph picking up candy," came Rebecca's voice. "I decided that the risk is minimal, though I'm not sure what we'll tell people if they notice. Hopefully they'll just think that someone figured out how to make a candy summoning device and didn't realize that it was pulling it from Aleph. They're dumping things into one of the pocket dimensions Dodge made available for use."
"Thank you, and thank them. What budget is that coming out of?"
"I honestly don't know, Kurt didn't have time to tell me. Do you have Miss Hebert's list of bonus conditions?"
"I do, and we've been evaluating them. Teenagers in costumes escorting children are worth more than adults in costumes, there's a multiplier to that either way for being related to at least one kid in the group, and they stack. Which means larger groups of friends with escorts from different families will be the best bet, up to the twenty kids per group limit anyway. Unique costumes in a group helps as well, and 'parahuman costume' versus 'halloween costume' seems to not matter. Which makes Protectorate and Wards members helping out far easier, but they should avoid groups that have kids with a costume based on the parahumans."
"That sounds far better than I thought it would."
"Yep. There are bonuses for orphans being escorted by strangers as well, and 'scaring' kids before giving out candy is apparently worth bonus points every half hour per kid. But only if they take a piece of candy, so scaring them to the point where they're too scared to take candy is counterproductive. To the point where that's one of the things that can push points into the negative for a house."
"Of course, because this would need to be as complicated as possible."
"Oh, and we figured out some of those odd percentages. They seem to have represented the likelihood of an appropriately-aged kid with a costume being in the city or town in question today. Small towns with very few children in that age range had a lower chance of being directly involved."
Rebecca groaned at that one. "Is there anything else I should be aware of or something I can help with?"
David frowned. "I don't think so, but thank Dodge again. His pile of pistol openers to pocket dimensions has been a godsend. Strider can easily get people with those to Europe and Australia, even if he can't get crates of candy back here on his own without stopping points. His agent's limitations are annoying in that respect, but the pocket dimension bypass is wonderful. That other countries are allowing us to do so is great as well, but I believe that you said the President is handling thanking other countries."
"I'll thank Dodge, and the President has already issued a public thank you. More official ones will hopefully go out when we've finished this whole thing."
Taylor's eye twitched, and she could tell that Amy was doing her best to hold back snickering. Instead of waiting for people to return to Brockton Bay, they'd popped down to Miami to help escort kids around. They were going to be helping with a group of what had been nineteen kids, a few of which were orphans but most had an older sibling or cousin helping out. Taylor had switched to the healing costume so as to not be duplicating with Amy for an added bonus.
The reason for the eye-twitching was the last-minute addition to the group, coupled with the groups of people that included a news crew catching little Theresa running up to Taylor with a loud 'Mommy!'. In a robot costume. Because why not go for absolutely absurd. With any luck people would assume that it was a ploy to try and get a bigger bonus for the group due to establishing a family connection.
Not that PHO would give a damn if it was a ploy, they'd jump on it no matter what.
Still, that put their group at the defined maximum before bonuses started being canceled out, so they could get going. They had a route that should hopefully let them hit as many houses as the kids could handle before they started to get too tired, at which point Taylor and Amy would end up joining another group. Either here in Miami or by moving to another location with a beacon, depending on the time. Though short of running the same route a second time they'd likely have Theresa with them all night.
It felt very wrong going down the streets with a group of kids collecting candy all to foil an Endbringer attack. Though seeing at least eight others in the immediate area that were dressed as Maul, even though they were nowhere near Brockton Bay where she'd half expect that, also seemed wrong. There were lots of Vista costumes too, for that matter, but they hadn't seen a single Panacea costume on a kid. The less said about the grandfather they'd seen giving out candy the better.
At the same time, it was obvious that the kids weren't enjoying this all that much, at least compared to what you might expect. Probably because all of the adults and teenagers were a bit on edge due to the reasoning behind the sudden candy-gathering and the kids were picking up on it. Well, that and in an attempt to maximize 'bonus points' there were more unknown people around them then they would otherwise be exposed to.
Being in one of the very few areas that had gotten properly started on the whole 'trick or treat to save the continent' thing meant that there didn't look like there was a lot of progress yet when you checked the screen that Ziz had built. At the same time, a digital duplicate of the screen was available through sensor drone tech, how was unknown, and it provided enough detail to show that progress was being made. Hopefully that would speed up soon, because they had a long way to go.
Fortuna entered the supermarket and grabbed a shopping cart. Buying candy on Aleph was easy enough, even if the timing was horrid. Full price because it was Halloween and most communities were doing trick or treat tonight. They couldn't even ask for discounts due to needing the candy for an emergency without revealing things that they didn't want to reveal. But most of her paths were on hold due to the incredibly wide-reaching effect of the Endbringer's 'attack', so there really wasn't a whole lot else she could be doing to be useful. Thus bouncing around to the most well-stocked stores in the Aleph United States to fill shopping carts full of candy.
Well, okay, she wasn't going to all of the well-stocked stores. She was skipping any that her path said would take too long to check out at, instead adding them to the list for Kurt to take. He could do plenty of extra work while waiting on slow staff thanks to the phones he was carrying with him, after all. And if he wasn't getting extra work in then it served him right for repeatedly purchasing the horrible generic version of the snack she liked. No matter if he said that the high fructose corn syrup in the generic version wasn't noticeable compared to the proper sugar in the name brand version.
Hmmm. Perhaps she should arrange for the two of them to get fugue upgrades. The enhanced senses from that would probably show Kurt where he was going wrong, and the rest of the package could only help both of them with all kinds of things. But how to convince him without running a path to do so? It was something to think about, at least. She'd need to ensure that her arguments overcame his difficulties in trusting others. Of course, Taylor had already saved his life once...
Taylor stepped out of the portal into Los Angeles, Amy and Theresa following her a moment later. They'd looped around Miami and neighboring towns, but instead of being sent back to Brockton Bay they were moving to the West Coast to pick up on daylight. Mainly because people really didn't want to return to their homes while Ziz was still floating over the Rig, so there wasn't a lot to do back in Brockton Bay.
"Where's Missy anyway?" Amy asked as the portal closed behind them. "I'd have thought that she'd be out and about by now."
"Vista is helping move transports around with candy," Theresa answered. "Not as good as a proper mover, but she can crunch airspace down well enough to fake it."
"Ah. That makes sense."
"I think she's enjoying riding on the top of the transports so that she has clear lines of sight. It only works because they aren't actually getting up to speed, but she seems to be enjoying it anyway."
Taylor blinked at that, but couldn't really argue the idea. It did, after all, sound like something Missy would enjoy. She was just happy that it wasn't her responsibility to report that Missy was doing that. Good luck to the person who got that job if the Youth Guard took offense. Helping with a large-scale Endbringer battle could only go so far on that front. Though how this all looked on paper, with Wards moving around to help with a continent-wide attack and all, was sure to be interesting. Hard to argue that they can't go to a remote location during an Endbringer attack when the attack was this wide-reaching.
Despite all of that, though, Taylor knew that her father had been asked for permission to have her running around in other cities. Priorities could be weird.
"Ah, there you are," a PRT staff member said as the group came around a corner. "Sorry about not being ready for you. We've got a van ready to bring you over to the neighborhood that the Think Tank assigned you to. It's right out front, do you need an escort?"
Taylor shook her head. "No, we're good. The map app is still working fine."
"Right, good. Thank you, I need to get to the roof to double-check the transports passing through for candy distribution, and make sure that the extra sacks for kids are included."
The staff member rushed off in the direction they'd come from, and the three shook their heads before continuing on. They found a van waiting with another parahuman, a young boy in costume that looked to be ten or eleven. The costume was dark, with a helmet that concealed his eyes but left the lower part of his face open. For some reason it had triangular ears.
"Hello," Taylor greeted as they got in. "I'm Maul."
"Panacea," Amy added, nodding to the boy.
Theresa defaulted to acting closer to her apparent age. "I'm a robot!"
The boy snorted at that. "I'm Catboy."
Taylor blinked at that. "Catboy?"
He nodded, and then a moment later he shifted into a small black cat, with specks of light moving over or through his fur. A moment later he shifted back. "I'm sneaky as a cat."
"I see. Are you candy-collecting today?"
"Yep. Even if I don't like candy."
Amy turned to look at him. "You don't like candy? At all?"
"Nope."
Taylor was curious, so checked the boy's file for any obvious warnings that might be related. She was technically working with him, after all, so felt justified. And right out front in the all but public area was a note that his senses of smell and taste were more cat-like than human. That probably made getting him to eat right problematic, if his dietary needs hadn't adjusted in the same way.
The requirement that candy not be 'redistributed after collection' was probably fun for this kind of situation. Ostensibly, it was probably a combination of not allowing the loophole of collecting the same candy multiple times and not taking candy from the kids once they'd collected it, but what would someone who didn't like candy do with it all? Then again, that restriction only applied until the bombs went off either way, so he could obviously give the candy to someone else tomorrow.
Unlike Theresa, who seemed prepared to hoard every piece of candy that she'd obtained so far. To the point where her biological bodies might need to get actual exercise to work off the extra calories, because they knew she had a sweet tooth. In fact, Taylor put a reminder on her calendar to check on that aspect of things, just in case.
"So where are we headed?" Taylor asked.
"We're heading into the southern parts of town for now," the PRT officer driving the van answered. "I'm told that you'll like it, since it's a lot easier to not get lost due to being built on more of a grid than the East Coast cities are. We're using a post office as a meeting point."
Well, that could definitely help with not accidentally running into the same homes multiple times. Whether or not it would make things more 'enjoyable' was another question entirely, though, because sometimes the odd turns streets made negated the need to backtrack as much to hit side streets. Though with a grid they could probably just go back and forth across it, then repeat ninety degrees rotated on the way 'back'.
A few minutes later Taylor was sighing, because the Think Tank's first route for them here loaded for her. It was, indeed, a back and forth across the area, with a straight shot back to the post office when they were done. Because apparently they'd built the blocks in this area with two rows of houses in most cases instead of having houses on all sides. Very different from the East coast, where there was far less of a grid and things were far less organized in layout. Well, at least it meant basically zero backtracking?
Chapter 248 Running through grid after grid in Los Angeles was fairly quick, but also tedious. It was made worse by many of the kids obviously getting tired. Catboy had apparently already been through a dozen grid sections before Taylor, Amy, and Theresa had shown up and had joined them after eating dinner. He started complaining that it was more walking then he'd ever done in a single day, but it wasn't like a lot of the other kids weren't in a similar boat. At the same time, anyone with Taylor and Amy could get a quick heal for any walking-related aches and pains, so they were able to move a little faster than some of the other groups.
When someone realized how much faster their group was moving they ended up working over other groups as well, but even that couldn't keep the kids going for hour after hour. The youngest kids had to break off first, before they fell asleep on their feet, and many of the older kids weren't far behind them. At the same time, there had been hope that naps would be enough for some of the kids to make another attempt later, even if it would be well after dark. That hadn't worked out nearly as well as they'd hoped, but they kept kids moving through new areas until late at night.
It was a quarter past eleven on the West Coast when the meter finished filling, though news of that was delayed as a precaution. By half past eleven they were finally packing up, taking Ziz's decision to return to orbit as a sign that they were, in fact, done. Having Taylor look at one of the bombs in order to declare the range as reduced was the final check. Taylor, Amy, and Theresa still timed their return to Brockton Bay for midnight, just in case, but it hadn't turned out to be necessary. Taylor dropped her costume off in the PRT building before going home to collapse, Amy went straight home, and Theresa had used her own pocket dimension. Likely to swap into a non-biological form for a bit.
There was no way that Taylor would've been going to school the next day, not when it was nearly four in the morning by the time she actually got to sleep, so it was probably a good thing that they were keeping a state of emergency going that would keep schools closed for at least a day. Possibly longer, because 'scan large numbers of people for Ziz influence' was also on the list of things to do.
Elizabeth found her Alice Doll costume amusing enough to keep for the time being, even if the combat protocols didn't seem to care about it anymore. It had done its job, even if she didn't think anyone had realized exactly what it was. More important to her was figuring out where things hadn't gone to plan for the combat protocols. The original intent had been to have all of the rules set up so that the last piece of candy needed would've been handed out within the last fifteen seconds, but it'd been the better part of an hour earlier when that happened.
Looking back over the day, she examined various things, and came to the conclusion that two different factors had come into play unexpectedly. The first was that bud from Prototype being able to see more deeply into the programming of things than expected, implying that it had learned more than anticipated about examining technology. It was a useful trick, because it couldn't have depended on another shard to accomplish that and the combat protocols had done their best to ensure that all known analysis techniques would fail.
That meant that the little bud had figured out new ways to analyse things that bypassed attempts to stop it. Which was wonderful, if mildly difficult to prepare for. At least without a direct request for information from the bud, anyway. Getting mad at it wasn't even an option, because learning new things was the entire point. If she were more inclined to emotions then she'd probably be proud of it.
The other factor was missing that the AI would participate in candy collection, which meant that there were more bonus points for family in the mix. Somehow the combat protocols hadn't expected that, but ensured that it all worked under the rules anyway. Fair was fair, after all, and the unconventional relationship was recognized in both directions. Though she wasn't sure if she agreed with the doubling of bonus points due to Miss Dallon joining them. Yes, she was a teenager, but she wasn't really 'family'. Yet the system had decided to treat her as an aunt, and the combat protocols had let it.
Oh well. The combat protocols had already filed a request for updates to the simulation engine data set, so it wasn't on her to do anything with it. And none of it looked usable as a loophole for other things, sadly, so there was nothing more to do with it.
Instead she was going to check on various online communities and see about fanning a few likely-amusing flames.
Despite the incredibly long day Monday, on Tuesday Taylor was still up at ten in the morning. That was a combination of not needing more than the six hours of sleep she'd gotten and needing to sit on the toilet. That she'd woken up needing to pee, and not with plenty of time before she needed to, was probably a sign of how tired she'd been.
It was not a day for 'get up, visit the gym', so she wandered downstairs to find food, Ackbar trailing behind her. She found that her father wasn't home, by virtue of there being a note on the fridge telling her as much. Apparently there was a meeting of some kind that he'd been called to, and he'd opted to leave a note just in case sending her phone a message woke her up. Not likely a problem, but she appreciated the sentiment anyway.
A late, but sizable, breakfast for herself and a small bowl for Ackbar were followed by cleaning up and deciding to do some laundry. She also grabbed her visor, not having bothered when she'd woken up, so that she could check on a number of things. Of course, as soon as she signed into several things she was bombarded with alerts. She was being requested for some 'emergency evaluations' of tinkertech, she or Amy needed to check on those that had been on the Rig when Ziz had landed, and PHO had exploded in a manner that had gotten the attention of the Youth Guard for some reason. Which meant at least one meeting, if not three or four.
Grumbling, she first double-checked a couple of regulations. Sadly, she found that she was shit out of luck on them, because the way things were worded meant that they were still acting 'on the day of an Endbringer attack'. Since the attack had crossed midnight in New York, and thus had continued into the next day. She'd officially have the day off tomorrow, as would the rest of the Wards that did anything in costume. Today, however, was technically fair game for them to keep her busy.
She filed a complaint about that anyway, it just wasn't the one she wanted to file.
Since she wasn't able to relax at home all day, she got dressed in comfortable clothing, sent a message to her father to let him know that she was going to the PRT building and likely the Rig later, and then left. A minute later she stepped out into the Wards area, finding that Ethan was the only other parahuman in range when she did so. Not that it was important, and the Protectorate was probably sleeping in or dealing with the Rig. Though being the only Ward around was annoying in its own way.
A message came in before she'd even had a chance to leave the common area, asking her to attend the first of who knows how many meetings. Given the timing, she figured that they had an alert set up. Wards area, triggering of the beacon, maybe just her devices connecting to the local network? Whatever it was, they were obviously looking to get things out of the way. So she sighed and headed upstairs to the conference room mentioned.
"Good morning Miss Hebert," Director Piggot greeted as Taylor entered the room.
"Morning," Taylor replied, just before noticing that her father and Mrs. Cooper were also in the room.
"You're up earlier than we thought you'd be," her father noted. "I hope you slept well, at least?"
"Well enough."
Director Piggot gestured to the seat next to Danny. "Please take a seat. We have a few things to go over before you can hopefully look at a couple of things and take an hour to help out over on the Rig." Taylor grabbed a bottle of water before sitting down next to her father while Director Piggot secured the room. Only once that was done did the the woman continue. "To start with, thank you for all of the work you put in yesterday into early this morning. We've actually been going over some of how much you ended up doing, the first of several such conversations I'll be having over the coming days."
Taylor nodded. "It isn't like it was actual fighting, just a lot of walking after identifying some tinkertech."
"Not to mention healing sore muscles and blisters in a large number of children, allowing them to keep going longer. You did enough, and spent enough hours on your feet, that you're getting the next few days off in general, and I'm having a couple of PRT staff take over your Wards leader scheduling tasks until at least next Monday so that you can focus on helping Panacea out over the weekend."
"The Youth Guard was going to insist," Mrs. Cooper added. "But Director Piggot beat us to it and went further than we'd originally planned."
Director Piggot shrugged. "She did far more than anyone expected her to, as did a few others. In fact, nationwide the Wards that were active for more than twelve hours can be counted on one hand, and three of them are from Brockton Bay. Kid Win and Vista both did their parts as well, so they're all getting a few days off. That Thorburn will have to figure out how to handle things for a few days without enough older Wards to assemble a patrol with is an added bonus."
"Thorburn?" Taylor asked, only for her father to chuckle.
"PRT staff member that's been annoying Director Piggot," he said after Taylor looked at him. "She whined about him a bit when she mentioned giving you some time off of Wards leader duties before you showed up."
"Ah. But it'll only be a couple of days, right?"
Director Piggot grinned. "Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that I can't leave him with unrealistic expectations of what's needed. Either that or he'll actually read the manuals and provide a reason to keep him around without a couple of moles covering for him."
"Oh."
"Moving on from my test slash revenge, there are a few other things that have come up. For starters, while nobody is complaining about it, you did reveal the ability to open a pocket dimension portal to leave school. While there are no pictures or video, there were enough witnesses to make it impossible to keep quiet. At the same time, have you seen the 'analyse everything Maul and Panacea have ever said' thread on PHO?"
Taylor blinked. "No, I don't think I have."
"Ah. They figured out that you had, in fact, shot at the wall correctly. Something previously dismissed as you not wanting to tell the truth. People are now collecting all of your 'obviously dodging the question' answers to see if they can figure out the actual meanings. Some of their guesses were amusing. You may want to look at it later, but regardless, people now know that you can open portals and deduced that Miss Dallon and Miss Biron can as well. They obviously don't know the limits of them, but they're no longer a secret. I understand keeping things back 'just in case', but at this point I'm going to recommend flaunting the things a little."
"Not sure how I'd flaunt them, beyond being less discreet in leaving school with them."
Her father snorted. "You could probably get to school with them easily enough. Or perhaps have extra supplies sitting in one while patrolling?"
Taylor sighed. "I'll think about it."
Director Piggot nodded. "Also, thanks to you being the one to explain what was going on with the bombs, people now know that you can understand tinkertech in some fashion. To the point where we'll be adding it to your public ratings as a thinker ability, though we won't be including the maintain or repair portions. I believe that there's a thread on PHO speculating on how much of your tinkertech was 'figured out what someone else had built and was able to keep it' as a result."
"I think I saw that thread, but I hadn't actually looked over it yet."
"Regardless, it's a known thing now due to too many people hearing you and talking about it. Good job keeping it quiet until now, at least. Luckily they're also using that as part of the explanation for why you and Amy have the spider-bots you have, the assumption appears to be that you figured out how to make them safe after someone else somehow took them from Bonesaw."
Mrs. Cooper snorted. "Crazy, the lot of them. I'm going to have my hands full with that mess."
Taylor turned to look at the Youth Guard rep. "What mess?"
Director Piggot waved at Mrs. Cooper. "She was read in on the Nine as part of being made their Youth Guard representative, since we're now a reasonably quiet region when others aren't overstepping boundaries and her predecessor for the secondary role died while on vacation. That includes being told who made your spider-bot."
Mrs. Cooper nodded. "I didn't know Shane well, but he at least kept good notes. At the same time, I think he was a bit lax on several things, which I'll be talking to Jacob about when they finish up their current run. Though I heard that Riley actually joined groups to help supervise kids collecting candy and didn't cause a panic, which surprised me."
Danny snorted. "Wait until you hear some of the other things they've gotten up to." Mrs. Cooper looked at him, and he grinned. "What? He likes having someone outside of the organization to talk to about things."
Director Piggot sighed. "This isn't the place, nor is Mister Hebert the one to be grilling about things. Still, most of this could've been handled with an informational message. The real reason we wanted to have this discussion is a couple of final concerns that came about." She turned to Taylor. "To start with, we're concerned about the young girl that consistently referred to you as being her mother, while also bearing a resemblance to you, yet is otherwise a complete unknown to us. Your father claims that it isn't his place to tell us anything, but that he was aware of her. Armsmaster also said that the girl is a known quantity to him, but again that it wasn't his place to tell us anything, and refused to budge on the point."
Taylor cringed at that. She was half expecting this, though, so had come up with a couple of things. The easiest, though least likely to work, was to try and deflect the whole line of questioning. "I don't think it's my place to explain either."
"I'm afraid that you're the only one we've asked where that explanation won't work, if only for the girl's safety now that the public knows that she exists."
"Okay then, do you have a court order?"
That caused Director Piggot and Mrs. Cooper to blink, but the former was the one who frowned and answered. "No, why would I need one?"
"Because otherwise it's a secret that I don't believe I should be sharing."
"What do you mean by that?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "The story of how I came to be her mother figure is incredibly private to her, and that's before throwing things like medical confidentiality in the mix."
Director Piggot stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowed, before swearing under her breath. "Fine. That at least makes it not my problem that we don't have answers. The other element that I was specifically asked to get information on was the precog that you were in communication with, given that their information was accurate. Otherwise the Think Tank will probably be bothering you about it in a couple of days when they're done with their forced break."
"That would be another one where I need a court order."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Good luck with the Think Tank, then. Now then, unless there are any more concerns to be addressed from the Youth Guard?"
Mrs. Cooper shrugged. "She's made it fairly obvious that everything we're concerned with requires court orders we don't have."
Director Piggot nodded and turned back to Taylor. "In that case, barring questions from you or your father then I think we're done with meetings for the day. Do you have any questions?"
Taylor looked at her father raising an eyebrow. He grinned. "I got all the things I was concerned about answered already, before you even arrived. Some of it was how to properly handle the fact that you aren't cleared to travel for Endbringer fights, yet essentially did. The wording..."
"Doesn't take into account such wide-scale attacks," Director Piggot offered. "Nor an attack that means traveling away from the Endbringer can still result in participation when the attack started locally, for that matter. We need to get that reviewed in light of what happened."
"Yeah. That. Not to mention some communication difficulties. The Youth Guard was also concerned that I returned to town long before most others did."
Taylor blinked at that. "Didn't you head back to the house on the basis that if needed I could more easily remotely open a portal for you?"
"Yep. They were still concerned about me being 'reckless', despite there not really being anywhere I could get to that was safe."
"You were one of the first people to return to the city," Mrs. Cooper said. "Admittedly, they'd essentially dropped the evacuation cordon, but that was more because they were putting people towards candy distribution and coordination tasks. There was still a risk that the Endbringer was messing with people's heads."
Taylor resisted the urge to roll her eyes at that. "Right. Well, I don't think I have any questions right now."
Director Piggot nodded. "In that case, would you mind heading to the teleporter rooms to give an evaluation of them? We don't want you repairing them, just telling us what condition they look to be in. After that we'd like you to go look at a few things that Ziz left on the Rig, as well as check everyone still in the infirmary there if you're willing."
"Ah, I can see why you'd want some of that taken care of sooner rather than later."
Taylor had taken a look at the teleporters, finding that they all needed a new entanglement crystal as the originals had shattered. She'd then headed over to the Rig and looked at a few of the things that Ziz had left behind. They'd started with the changes to the force field generator, which had been modified to be three times stronger and twice as energy efficient. At the same time, it now had the tendency to overheat when in 'idle' instead of when it was taking punishment, and that was the only reason that they'd gotten access to the Rig. It'd overheated and shut itself off.
A quick round of documentation on the changes was followed by an examination of the power feeds for the system, which hadn't been altered, as well as the generators that powered the entire structure. None of them were altered, though the generators could use a maintenance cycle. After that they brought her upstairs to examine the various unknown devices that'd been left behind.
One was a matter reconstruction device. It could only build one element at a time, but it took anything you put into the feed chute and built said element. When activated it would build exactly as much of the target element as it was set to before shutting down, pulling in atmosphere if there wasn't enough material in the feed chute otherwise. To change what it made you had to adjust two board-mounted dials on the underside of a heat sink. One set the number of protons and electrons, the other set the number of neutrons. The amount of what it made was set at the other end of the machine under a different heat sink with two more board-mounted dials, one of which was a multiplier.
The most problematic detail was that it'd been left set to make fifty kilograms of uranium-235 if anyone pushed the power button. Not enough to worry about specifically, except for a complete lack of shielding in the area. In fact, most of the radiation shielding had been torn out, possibly to be used in constructing the bombs that'd been deployed.
Another device was, essentially, a souped-up sewing machine. One that would likely be capable of sewing two sheets of titanium together with otherwise normal thread if you wanted to do so. It was computer controlled with a fairly straightforward protocol, and somehow used a lead needle that was strength-enhanced to be able to punch through pretty much anything. It also generated enough waste heat while active to turn the entire room it was in into a blast furnace.
A third device was broken in three, but appeared to be a quantum entanglement manipulation system. It'd been tied into the Rig's teleporters, which would need to be replaced entirely as they'd overheated and partially melted. The only reason that Taylor could've 'fixed' one of them was because the emergency shutdown button was partially intact, and she'd essentially be building an entirely new unit around the original emergency shutdown button.
The last device they were worried about appeared to be nothing more than a very well constructed metal box with no obvious way to open it. One that was labeled 'I only open for the idiot' and didn't register as being technology at all. All that Taylor's tinker snark would tell her was that it wasn't locked and had hinges, but there weren't any seams that anyone could spot.
Just in case, she told them to keep it away from David.
They had her look over all of the tinker workshops for anything possibly problematic, outside of depleted material stocks, and there weren't any obvious surprises. After that she checked over the thirty or so people that'd been in the Rig at the time that Ziz had landed. Most of them had been knocked out with no real injuries. Trevor was the exception, he'd ended up with a broken arm and burns on his temples.
"What happened to you?" Taylor asked after she'd healed him.
He rubbed the back of his head. "I might've had an anti-Ziz helmet. Turns out that it gets really hot when too close? I think it exploded off of my head, actually. I don't remember much beyond intense pain at that point."
"I think I'm going to have to recommend not trying that again."
"Yeah. Probably shouldn't have risked it anyway, given that I built the thing a couple years ago, but I panicked and happened to know which box it'd been stored in."
"That's probably understandable."
All in all, it ended up taking almost three hours instead of the 'hour' that Director Piggot had expected, though some of that was probably Taylor being a bit more detailed in documenting things than expected. After that Taylor headed home, somewhat happy that she wasn't expected to help with the rebuilding of large portions of the Rig. Even if her tinker snark really seemed to find some of the damage interesting from the point of view of repairing things.
It ended up being only half an hour before Taylor headed to the PRT building to find something else to fix to distract her from thinking about the state of the Rig. She wandered through the storage room full of broken tinkertech, eventually finding a fancy-looking box labeled as a 'malfunctioning levitating box'. She ended up getting a dolly to put it on, and threw the broom that had been sitting behind it in as well once she'd gotten it onto the dolly. But instead of going back to the Wards area and her workshop there, she instead popped into the pocket dimension. Not only was she intending the first project to be for more 'personal use', but the tinker facility needed testing.
Getting everything to the tinker workshop was harder than expected, though that was partially due to a poor choice of dolly. She then headed all the way back and returned the dolly, before returning to actually tinker. The broom was placed off to the side before she started to dismantle the box. The problem was a combination of a cracked lift unit and a low battery in the control unit, but she had an entirely different goal in mind. The majority of the box was being dropped into the previously-empty scrap bin as a result.
Eventually she had the two individual systems that had been rigged up to work together through the control unit. She started with the one that had a cracked lift unit, dismantling it so that she could use various tools to repair the crack and some other wear and tear issues. Splicing a wireless charger into the charging port was trivial by comparison. It was then reassembled, and with a fresh battery in the control unit she was able to ensure that everything was working. The other unit was then dismantled to deal with some wear and tear issues in it, as well as add a wireless charging unit for it as well, and it also tested fine as well when she was done.
With that completed, she'd documented everything to a significant degree, then taken the battery out of the control unit and binned that entire system. Instead she collected a couple of secure Bluetooth interface boards, happy that someone had stocked the workshop with an entire case of them, and wired them in instead of the original control system. This took longer, because she was now doing things herself instead of with her tinker snark, but she was able to get them into place and even rigged up a pinhole 'pair' button. Downloading a simple control program into the boards wasn't difficult after that. On, off, and field intensity were the only options, after all.
Now that she had two independent units that were wirelessly controlled she could pretty them up. It took a bit to rig up a mounting system that she was happy with, using the CNC equipment available to get everything correct. One topper for each unit, wrapped in a rubber bumper. She added rubber feet for when the two 'landed', thinking that dropping on the lift units had caused the cracking in the first place, and then glued sandpaper on the top surfaces.
Putting those aside so that the glue for the rubber bumpers and the sandpaper could set, she headed home for a late lunch or early dinner. Her father had made a casserole, and they didn't have much to talk about while they ate. She described some of what she was working on, and he chuckled about it, but that was about it. After dinner, she returned to the pocket dimension, ensured that her previous work didn't need any more attention right now, and turned her attention to the broom.
Whoever put it into the storage room had labeled it as being an 'automatic broomstick' with a warning that it only swept in a straight line before it'd hit something and shut down. Admittedly, it probably could be used that way, in theory, but that wasn't actually the original use case. Removing most of the fake-wood finish was trivial, and opening it up to rebuild the battery system wasn't difficult. A new wireless charger was spliced in, since there was plenty of room, and some other basic maintenance was dealt with. Such as replacing damaged bristles, which were all part of the propulsion system.
With the core repaired she was then able to start on the missing components. The easiest was the foot rests, though she ignored some of what her tinker snark was telling her and made them adjustable. It didn't have too much of a problem with that, nor did it have an issue with the seat having some adjustment and padding added into the mix. The real problem was the control unit, which was an external unit that wasn't available. She sat there mapping everything out, figuring out what each lead did, and then removed the old interface board entirely. That was replaced with a serial interface board, into which she plugged a secure Bluetooth to serial board.
Assembling and testing it showed that things appeared to be working, though it needed a day or two to charge properly. It also didn't sit on a charging pad at all, which was annoying, so she rigged up a quick 'charging clip' to hold the wireless charging system in place.
"What have you been doing in here anyway?" Amy asked as she entered while Taylor was looking over the selection of paints available.
Taylor gestured at the three things she'd finished. Mostly finished. "Repairing and repurposing things."
"And what are these supposed to be?"
Rolling her eyes, Taylor grabbed a can of spray paint. "Repurposed lift units from a levitating box and a flying broom."
"Repurposed lift units?"
"I made hoverboards after looking up how skateboards are made, if only to get people wondering about stuff. Didn't expect the 'grip tape' to essentially be sandpaper, but I think it'll work when everything has set up."
"Oh. And what about the broom?"
"It was behind the box and horribly mislabeled. I like my platform well enough, so I was thinking that I'd paint it appropriately and give it away." Taylor tossed the can of paint to Amy.
"Ah. I see."
PHO Interlude: Mommy Maul Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
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Topic: Maul's Unusual Family In: Boards ► General Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Oct 31st 2011:
Sorry for this taking so long to get this posted, but I've been working on it while handing out candy. Because of course I'm handing out candy. I even have a picture of me in a football player costume.
Thank you to the nice PRT officer that dropped off an entire crate of the stuff for me to hand out, by the way.
So, we all know that Maul is at a minimum best friends with Panacea. And that her uncle is Jacob. But now we have a new mystery.
Behold, a young girl dressed as a robot calling Maul 'Mommy'!
I don't think we've seen the kid before, so she's a mystery. But if you compare this still to this picture of Miss Hebert you may notice that there is a resemblance between the two.
Now, while this could be a case of adoption, I can't see any court in the country going for it. Not at Miss Hebert's age, and I'd think that someone in one of the tracking threads would've noticed the kid before now if that were the case.
Or rather, I would think that, if not for a few other videos, that seem to show that the girl is incredibly comfortable around Maul and Panacea, more so than would be explained normally. Oh, and both teens are incredibly good at moving around without anyone noticing.
Frankly, I'm baffled. Does anyone else have anything?
(Showing page 1 of 23)
►UBrokeIt Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
That kid is too cute. I'd wonder if they have powers to be that cute, but I know better.
►SoreEyes Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Something is wrong, and I don't know what.
Edit: I've watched the videos multiple times, and I just keep getting more of a "something isn't right here" vibe from them.
►EyePokeAtThee Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Somehow I think that Hebert would've made headlines years ago if she'd had a kid through any natural process before age ten, as the age of the girl would indicate. So obviously something else is going on.
►DentistDonny Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
This is a horrible, horrible joke to play in the middle of the weirdest Endbringer attack ever. Why the hell would someone do this?
►GamblingMan Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Whelp. Maul has a kid, and the kid doesn't look like her lovechild with Panacea. I wonder if that's enough evidence to call in some bets?
►StationZero Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
How in the world did that happen?
►Eclipse Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
FAKE NEWS
►DenimSocks Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Well, the kid doesn't look like a clone, but I don't have any pictures of Maul at that age so maybe she does.
►BrokenCoupler Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
I have to agree with SoreEyes, there's something off about the kid in the videos. I also found two more and they also feel wrong, but I can't figure out why.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 21, 22, 23
(Showing page 2 of 23)
►Zomboy Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
So Maul's a mommy. Panacea obviously isn't the "other mommy", at least not based on appearance. Who's the other parent?
►AgeOfSin Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
GAH! Why does the girl have to be so cute? She only ever says that she's a robot.
WHAT IS HER NAME?
I'll note that my nephew has apparently been doing the same thing with his pirate costume all night, so I can't exactly blame the kid.
►Slipgate Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Why the hell are they in Miami?
►Tar Hades Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Wasn't there something about screwy time when Maul was born? Maybe she's unstable in time and her future daughter came back in time to see her on the only trick or treat night in years.
►PotionMaker Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Slipgate because Ziz is still in Brockton Bay. Who the hell is going to let people trick or treat there?
►BackToTheBeer Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Maybe the kid doesn't have a name, because she's actually a robot?
►PantsOnFire Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
No, here's a video of Maul calling the girl Teresa. So she has a name!
Is there any record of a Teresa Hebert or Teresa Dallon in New England? I'd try and find out, but I'm pants at that kind of thing.
►NightmaresAreFun Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
I thought it was spelled Theresa?
►SoreEyes Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
I think I've figured out what's wrong.
The kid is the only one that doesn't look nervous. The other kids? Nervous. The teenagers? Nervous. The adults? Nervous. That one girl in the robot costume just looks happy to be with her Mommy.
WTF?
►PressingTheButton Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
I, er. Huh. She's the cutest kid in the videos because she's the only happy kid in the videos. That's freaky, now that I see it.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 21, 22, 23 ■
Topic: Maul's PHO Ratings In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Dazed and Confused (Original Poster)
Posted On Jul 21st 2011:
So, by now we all know about Maul, Taylor Hebert, Jacob's Niece, home-grown badass of Brockton Bay. She obviously has official PRT ratings. Blaster, Brute, little bit of Mover thanks to the Brute and some tinkertech. I checked, they added a minor Trump recently, possibly in relation to what happened with the Butcher.
Personally, I think that they're probably hiding the truth and giving us a pile of shit hoping that nobody figures out what she can really do, but I have no proof.
What else do we have?
EDIT: Updated the ratings.
Draft 18 of PHO's Ratings for Maul! Now capped at 15+ or we get too crazy fighting over numbers and sorted because some people are OCD about that.
Badass YES - I dare you to argue this point. Especially when you consider where she apparently got that Fedora. Yes, it deserves to be capitalized.
Bullshit 12+ - For writing a paper that shocked the entire parahuman psychology profession in a few weeks, fooling thinkers and tinkers in Las Vegas with a few simple pieces of technology (but not for the stunt with the girl guessing cards, that was probably just a power interaction), and killing the fucking Butcher. Oh, right, and she can tell when ENDBRINGERS are coming her way.
Connected 11+ - She's apparently best friends with Panacea, her uncle is Jacob. Tinkers apparently love to hand things over to her, work on her stuff, or both. She got Lung to talk about Kyushu. And the Tinkers deserve an extra mention, or she's got Movers on call, after that trip to Hawaii.
Creepy 8 - Have you seen the whole just walking at the idiots video?
Determined 8 - Seriously, don't get in her way. See the video on Creepy.
Healer 14 - Would be 15+, but she and Panacea don't fix brains.
Hottie 7+ - By popular vote in the thread, especially after the beach pics. See this post for details.
Insane 15+ - She confronts those that shouldn't be confronted.
Prankster YES - We suspect that some of her pranks ran away from her, which several people say is the sign of a born prankster.
Rich 10+ - How she got Rich, we don't know, but at this point we just know she is. Also, she's got Dragon-tech shares, we just don't know how many.
Sane 15+ - She defeats those that shouldn't be confronted, so she obviously knows something we don't, balancing out the Insane rating.
Sanity Inducing 15+ - For those who didn't read pages 21 through 32, we decided that Brockton Bay's increase in average sanity, on top of Void's improvement, is probably attributable to Maul.
Therapist 7+ - Thanks to a number of parahumans who have spoken up about her.
WTF 9 - For killing the Butcher, ignoring a sniper without even flinching, having access to an impossible to reach beach...
(Showing page 148 of 148)
►SnakeCharmer Replied On Oct 30th 2011:
I still say that the spider-bots are a mixture of bullshit, connected, and sanity inducing. Endbringers messing with her is more of a WTF thing.
►Robin Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Personally, I'm thinking that the spider-bots mean that there should be a boost to her Creepy rating. Because they're spiders. How is this not obvious?
►ArmyOfNone Replied On Oct 31st 2011:
Because not all of us are afraid of spiders. Some of our phobias are more refined than that.
►Dreamflake Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
So, I think we need to add a Mommy rating. The kid is cute, liked introducing herself as a robot, and was able to keep up with Maul and Panacea all day if other reports are to be believed. I'm thinking at least a 3?
►Dazed and Confused (Original Poster)
Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Holy crap. That kid's at least seven, if not more like nine.
►IcedFlamingos Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Sheesh. At least link the thread instead of just the video.
►Winged_One Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
I'm going to vote for Mommy 4 and Stamina Monster 5. They only took breaks for meals, as far as I can tell from the tracking threads.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 146, 147, 148 ■
Topic: Endbringers Getting Worse?
In: Boards ► General Sunshine Lover (Original Poster)
Posted On Nov 1st 2011:
So we've survived another Endbringer attack. One that is probably the single weirdest one ever, but where the casualties were all incidental and not because of a fight.
You'd think that would be a cause for celebration, right?
But it was also the most potentially deadly Endbringer attack ever. From what I've heard, those bombs would've wiped out the entire continent, and that could've ended up causing major problems for the rest of the planet on top of it.
Given what happened this time, what kind of horror is coming next time?
(Showing page 14 of 15)
►Natures Vacuum Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
I'm still not convinced that the other two could pull something this widespread. They're much more straightforward in what they're capable of.
As such, I don't expect much to change with them. I'm most concerned about the next time that it's Ziz's turn.
►Leaf Dancer Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
So, looking at things, these pictures and this video seem to show Ziz being annoyed at times. These two show Ziz looking amused.
Compared to pretty much every previous attack that I could find where she doesn't seem to show anything that looks like a proper emotional response at all, outside of maybe "incredibly angry". Possibly.
It makes me wonder if she all of a sudden gained a personality?
►NineFingers Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
I'm still not sure that the "candy bombs" were really that dangerous. There are limits to what's possible, after all. How could they possibly have been that dangerous?
At the same time, even if they weren't able to take out the continent, they'd have essentially screwed over everywhere they landed. Which, long term, would've been bad anyway.
►NobodyHome Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Do you really think that this is a sign of things to come, compared to just being a mindgame? Because I could see Ziz playing the long game here.
►JustKidding Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
I mean, yes, this was big. But so were Kyushu and Newfoundland for Leviathan, and have you seen the pictures of the scar that Behemoth left across China?
Every so often each of them does something big. This is just a continuation of that, I'm betting.
►EmpressPapercut Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Has anyone seen the pictures from the idiot who grabbed one of the bombs right as they were going off?
The thing took most of his right hand with it, and only quick thinking by one of the others nearby kept him from bleeding out.
►PettyArgument Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Just checked and it looks like Ziz is still wearing the costume.
I wonder how long that key is going to turn for? Since looking at the pictures it seems to be turning.
►NineFingers Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Holy crap EmpressPapercut, I might have to change what I thought about the bombs. Don't parahuman things usually ignore people if they affect other things?
►ShouldaBeenSexy Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
To add to things, they tested some of the bomb candy already.
They think that one in every fifty pieces has deadly poison in the center.
Of course, despite none of the wrappers using any language known to man, they think that they've figured out what symbol represents the poison.
Oh, and two kids ate some of the stuff before anyone secured one of the bombs. The first has been spending all of their time throwing up and the second had all of their hair fall out.
►Powerless Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Leaf Dancer - I'm not sure, but I think that she looked resigned once. Though it's a bad angle and might just be a trick of the light.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 12, 13, 14
(Showing page 15 of 15)
►AgeOfTango Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Sorry to burst your bubble NineFingers, but a lot of parahuman things just work in general. The Manton Limit applies to a lot of powers, granted, but doesn't apply to a lot more.
And Tinkertech is less likely to have those limits. Oh, and we already knew that Countdown doesn't have that restriction and Ziz probably used her powers to make the bombs.
►Leaf Dancer Replied On Nov 1st 2011:
Sorry Powerless, but the video from that one shows that it was pretty much just the lighting from a couple of attacks that she'd just dodged.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15
Chapter 249 Wednesday morning Taylor smirked a little while reading her messages, seeing that the order she'd thought of as she was going to bed the night before had been accepted and expedited. Someone else obviously thought that her idea was amusing. Beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot for her to look at, beyond her own reminder to be 'more obvious' when using a pocket dimension to travel around.
Sadly, things had officially 'settled down' enough for schools to be in session, so she had to get up. She made a note to pick up more potatoes while preparing breakfast for Ackbar, then cleaned up and got ready to head to the gym. Amy and Vicky met her there, Missy showing up not long afterwards. They went through their routine, then sat down for their post-workout breakfast.
"So are we rooftop bouncing today?" Missy asked. "Since I don't think it's raining and all."
Taylor frowned. "I'm told that I should be a little more obvious in use of portals, so perhaps we should go that route."
Amy grinned. "I don't know. Perhaps we should be a little less revealing. No need to show that we can just open them. But showing up in the van, and then opening a portal to park it back in the pocket dimension?"
Now it was Taylor's turn to grin. "Oh no, for a plan like that I think it's high time we took the ambulance to school. You can't use the 'nowhere to park it' excuse if it's going into the pocket dimension on arrival."
Vicky snorted at that. "She's got you there. No excuses!"
Amy sighed. "Okay, yeah."
After they'd finished eating they piled into the ambulance, Vicky taking the passenger seat with Taylor and Missy in the back, and Amy drove them to the school. She stopped just inside the parking lot to let the other three out, then turned to where there was a gap along the side of the building. The gym wall had no low windows, meaning that there was plenty of height for opening a portal, and nobody parked there as it was part of the fire lane.
Amy closed the portal as soon as she was through, then reopened it once she was done parking using the 'last place a portal opened' effect of firing off an opening device inside of the pocket dimension. Once it was closed again she walked over to the other three and they went into the building together, all doing their best not to laugh at the dumbfounded looks on the faces of the various students that had watched the whole dance. Luckily for them, Taylor had been recording with her visor, so they could take a better look later.
Of course, this time there were at least four people with phones out as well, so there was a good chance that this would be all over PHO by the end of the day. If not by the time homeroom began. They'd have to check later, once people had a chance to recover and upload things.
It turned out that only one person got their video uploaded before the wireless was turned off in the morning, but that one video was heavily examined by people on PHO before lunch started. The portal reopening exactly where it'd been so that Amy could leave was seen as it being able to be reopened if closed, after it was obviously opened by a beam coming from the ambulance. That this matched descriptions of Taylor opening the portal on Monday just helped, though there were questions about where the portals went.
"So," Louise said as she sat down next to Amy. Taylor had claimed the wall seat today. "How do those portals work? Do they go somewhere specific, or can you choose where they go?"
Taylor blinked. "Did someone actually decide to do something sensible and ask one of our friends to question us on things?"
Louise rolled her eyes. "No, the idiots didn't approach me about it. I'm just curious. Besides, I don't think anyone noticed that I asked."
"Ah. You might have a point there." Taylor looked around the table. "So is someone going to take notes for posting on PHO?" Half the table produced phones at that. "Heh. Long story short, they open into a pocket dimension. With the right equipment they can then be opened directly to other locations, and compatible equipment has been installed in a number of places."
"Ooooh. Is that where you park your van when you're not using it? And the ambulance, I guess?"
Amy nodded. "Yep."
"No wonder nobody can ever find them."
Karen bounced in her seat a little. "Oooh. I bet that some of that equipment is installed in Miami and Honolulu!"
Taylor rolled her eyes this time. "Yes, however did you guess?"
"How much does access to one of those cost?" a boy, Taylor thought his name might be Randal, asked. He might be dating Karen at this point.
"I've not actually checked."
"On paper they cost half a million dollars," Missy answered, causing everyone to look her way. "But they only work with parahumans and if you have something interesting to offer in exchange, even just a possible useful power interaction test, then they tend to just give them out. Unlike Dodge of Toybox, who apparently keeps getting more stingy with his and is up to at least several million dollars for a tiny little space. Then again, he's willing to sell to those without powers."
Louise pointed at Missy. "How do you know?"
Missy rolled her eyes and pulled her own pistol opener out of her utility belt, causing a couple of people to facepalm at the obvious answer. At the same time, Taylor thought that the girl had just made a terrible mistake. After all, she had just shown herself to be more knowledgeable about how you got them than Taylor and Amy. Which meant that she was going to be swarmed by people who wanted more information.
Oh well, with any luck it would keep some of the idiots away from Taylor and Amy.
At the end of the school day, Taylor decided to head outside and open a portal on the side of the building. She entered and closed it to keep curious people from entering, then got the minivan ready. Once she had that ready to go she re-opened the portal and carefully pulled out, since she couldn't actually see out of the portal. Amy was kind enough to inform her that she was good, but this was a lot less stressful when dealing with generally-empty parking areas.
With that done, and the pocket dimension closed again, Taylor headed for the grocery store. She picked up a bag of potatoes and a few other things. Mostly some snacks, but she also picked up some pork chops when she saw that they were on sale. The cashier was barely paying attention as he ran her items through as well, which she saw as a bonus. She paid and was out of the store with no fuss, at which point she headed home. The groceries were put away, and then she headed for the pocket dimension.
Amy: Now what are you doing?
Taylor: Well, I have some fancy new hoverboards and need to test them out.
Amy: Oooh. Mind if I join you?
Taylor: Feel free.
It didn't take long for the two to collect the hoverboards, nor to ensure that Amy was paired to one of them for control purposes. They then moved into the wide open third of the pocket dimension to practice.
Sadly, it also didn't take long to determine that hoverboards and skateboards were very different. Sure, if you wanted to travel in a straight line while standing straight up then you were probably all set. Anything beyond that was an entirely different story. The most prominent difference from what Taylor had found on skateboards was that leaning left and right didn't result in turning, because there were no wheels adjusting to the tilt of the board. It just resulted in moving left or right. Assuming, of course, that you didn't fall off entirely because you leaned too far and couldn't correct for it.
They did a lot of falling off early on.
Eventually they figured out that they didn't have to lean their entire bodies, just tilt the board enough to get it to be applying acceleration in a given direction. Turning was a matter of tilting the board to accelerate in the new direction while decelerating in the old one, except that the board didn't spin easily. Something about the field interactions from the lift units dampened rotational changes, which was made worse if they were too close to each other. But they were able to figure that out as well, including that it was far easier if they did so when shifting one of the lift units away from the surface. Kind of like if they'd been pulling a wheelie on a normal skateboard. That this also helped decelerate them was a bonus and a hindrance at the same time.
All in all, it was the opposite of intuitive for them, Taylor's tinker snark wasn't much help, and they weren't happy with their skill levels by the time they had to head home to eat. Worse, they'd only worked with a perfectly flat area. Adding in uneven terrain was likely to make things much worse. Oh, and due to the lack of friction against the ground, wind gusts were going to be fun too. Long story short, they had a long way to go. But at least they'd proven that the two hoverboards worked, and if they focused they could generally get to where they wanted to on the things. Just not smoothly yet.
Of course, while they were eating in their respective homes, Amy came up with something else.
Amy: So, idea. Two hoverboards, pain in the ass to learn how to use, right?
Taylor: Yep.
Amy: There are a few skaters at school. What do you think of challenging them to ride the hoverboards?
Taylor: That could definitely be amusing.
Thursday morning started with Taylor and Amy collecting the hoverboards and hiding them in their bags before heading to the gym. Vicky hadn't joined them, planning on visiting the gym after school, but Missy was confused about what the two kept grinning about. She didn't ask, instead they focused on the various crazy things people were talking about in regards to the pocket dimensions. Specifically, the day before Missy had noted that her pocket dimension was large enough for several 'rooms' to be contained within it, which meant that people were speculating on what Taylor and Amy might be storing in their pocket dimensions. Beyond the vehicles, of course.
Interestingly, nobody had commented on both of them having the exact same color portal, but perhaps that was because they hadn't seen that Missy's didn't match. Once they had more examples then they'd probably make that connection. Though opening one of their other portals could actually help muddy the water there, if their portals were seen to vary in color at times then people might assume that portal colors weren't constant.
"That's not a bad idea," Amy said when Taylor shared that thought. "But what happens if someone notices that only our portals vary in color?"
Taylor frowned. "That's a good point. I hadn't considered that."
"It isn't like people aren't going to assume that you two aren't sharing one," Missy added. "I mean, I've seen at least three posts implying it already. That you've got another shared and a couple of personal ones is the real secret right now."
"True. Oh well."
Deciding that repeating the previous day's arrival trick wasn't going to do anything of value for the pocket dimension discussions, the three instead walked over the rooftops. It was a nice enough day for it.
Jacob resisted the urge to sigh as he watched Mimi doing her best to seal fire hydrants. Yes, he'd said that she could seal a couple of them to make it harder to put out her fires. He didn't intend for 'a couple' to be every hydrant she could find. He'd have to talk to her later, especially as doing this when they were only around for another day or two was probably a waste of her time.
Instead, he moved into the building that the kid he'd been following all morning was currently hiding in. The longer he kept the boy moving the more time the boy's mother would spend looking for them. That, in turn, would give Sarah and Kobe more time to work on the woman's bunker. Sure, collapsing it with a mixture of intentional physics-defying damage and 'biological' acids, finished up with some explosives, would cause the buildings built above it to collapse. But sometimes to deal with a tinker you had to do some extra damage, and that would ensure that the woman's puppet army wouldn't be an issue in the next couple of months.
As for her kid, he hadn't triggered as a tinker. Instead he was a breaker and changer, able to turn into a nearly-indestructible doll. Three different dolls, actually, each a different size. The one he was currently using was a small ragdoll, oddly enough one wearing a dress, and was the only one that the kid seemed to be able to hold indefinitely. He tended to use it to 'hide' on one of his fellow Wards while they patrolled, then slip away and change to one of the larger dolls when a fight broke out.
With a sigh, Jacob entered a largely-empty room. "Seriously Zach? Under a bucket? You know you can do better than that."
The bucket lifted up and the doll peered out from under it. "I thought it might hinder the tracking beacon."
"Your mother's beacon can punch through a lot more than a mere bucket. We're expecting her to narrow things down in the next half hour, and our best bet to keep her from seeing through the ruse is to make your hiding believable. Like passing through the handmade toys store down the street, perhaps?"
The bucket fell to the side. "Burnscar burned that down on Saturday."
"I thought...oh, right, she had an episode with one of the toys in it. I'd forgotten. Still, you should really do better than this."
The doll gave a very good impression of rolling its eyes, despite not being able to roll apparently sewn-on buttons that served as eyes, before darting through a hole in the wall. It was too bad that Riley had determined that his changer power wouldn't work well with a fugue upgrade, especially since he was such a good sport. Even helped come up with this whole deal to distract his mother while they took out her bunker, since him being 'targeted' by the Nine was enough to get the woman to show herself instead of just sending out remote controlled puppets.
Jacob was about to start following when his phone beeped. With a sigh he pulled it out to check things, only to find that he'd gotten a response from the Think Tank. Huh. Apparently they were back up and running this morning. He took his time reading the message, and determined that Riley would be disappointed. Pretending to be her own 'good twin' wasn't recommended, though if she wanted to set up a 'good sister' deal then they predicted that it could work. Provided that she pretended to be a recent trigger and avoided 'spiders' being part of her deal.
"I wonder if she'll like the 'pretend to reprogram spiders while building something else' plan," he mused to himself. "That they think it would only work if she avoids using human anything in the 'something else' might actually be the dealbreaker, though. I'll have to run it by her later."
Oh well. Time to continue his slow 'chase', he'd be meeting up with Melissa and Riley sometime after lunch and would bring things up then.
The known parahumans at Arcadia had gotten a reprieve when the school's gossip had shifted from parahuman-related things to a couple that had been caught making out by a teacher. Which wasn't a big deal in and of itself, until you added in that they were each dating someone else. A scandal like that was destined to dominate the day's gossip. That had meant that lunch was essentially a non-issue.
It was as school ended that things changed, because Taylor and Amy went outside and didn't leave. Instead, they pulled the hoverboards out of their bags and set them down on the ground, turned off for the moment, then sat back to wait for someone to ask them about the two. A number of students were obviously curious, but the first few groups set up around the area to record what was going on.
Chris was actually the first one to approach them. "What are you two doing?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Waiting for people to ask us questions."
He looked down at the boards, then back up at the girls. "About unusually thick skateboards without wheels? I mean, I suppose it might help with balance practice, but I doubt it would be all that useful."
Amy snickered. "They're far more impressive than that."
"Really? How?"
Taylor answered that by turning one of the two boards on, causing it to lift off of the ground. Chris jumped back in surprise, then stepped closer even as Amy activated the other one. He started to examine them, even getting down on the ground to look under them, but not saying anything. That didn't stop him from sending them text messages.
C: Where the hell did you get hoverboards?
T: Made them out of a broken hoverbox.
C: ... You just happened to make hoverboards. Why?
T: Needed the distraction. Oh, and they suck compared to what you can make, since they have basically no controls.
C: Oh.
A: Trust her on that. It took us hours to figure out how to do things like properly turn on these things. A lack of dedicated propulsion system hinders them a bit.
C: Hours?
T: Yes. We fell down a lot at first. You can't have recordings because we intentionally didn't make any.
"So do they work?" he finally asked out loud.
Taylor nodded. "Yep. They're a bit hard to use, but they work fine."
"May I try one?"
"Go for it, but if you've got a helmet with you it might not be a bad idea to put it on."
Chris rolled his eyes and stepped onto one of the boards. Only to nearly lose his balance immediately, because the board tilted when only one foot was on it. He recovered quickly enough, only to fall over when he leaned too far over. Amy ended up catching the board as it went towards her.
"That was a horrible attempt," another boy called as he and several of his friends came over. Each of them was carrying a skateboard.
Amy raised an eyebrow. "Do you think you can do better."
"Any of us could do better than that."
Taylor gestured to the board that was still sitting on the ground, even as Amy dropped the other one off to the side. "Then feel free to show us how it's done. Just remember that you are being recorded." Including by a couple of visor sensor systems, not that they needed to know that.
The boy scoffed, dropping his backpack and skateboard off to the side before walking up to one of the hoverboards. One of his friends did the same with the other one. Both were a little more cautious in testing the balance of the boards before they literally jumped on, and to their credit they didn't fall off right away. The boy's friend then tried to 'kick off', which involved removing his foot from the board, which unbalanced him and threw him off. Taylor had to jump up to grab the hoverboard before it flew off too far. That was shortly followed by the first boy obviously trying to get moving in a different way, but instead of just leaning forward he also leaned sideways and fell off.
Amy snorted. "Not so easy, is it?"
A girl from the group sneered. "It's obviously a trick. They can't be ridden."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, then each took one board and hopped on. They were obviously concentrating and didn't have a lot of practice, but they moved around the area without falling off. Several students clapped at the display when they'd completed their loop and gotten back off of the boards.
Taylor turned to the girl that had sneered. "You were saying?"
The girl narrowed her eyes, then dropped her own bag and skateboard. "There's obviously a trick."
"And you're going to try it anyway?"
"Of course. Can't let the idiots be the example of a decent skater."
That led to pretty much everyone who had a skateboard and hadn't already left for home, not to mention a number of others, trying the hoverboards. Several people assumed that it was still a trick until one of those who didn't have a skateboard actually got one of the hoverboards to move, at which point background chatter started to favor them being easier to learn if you couldn't skateboard.
The thread on PHO about the whole thing was also amusing, especially as people started to figure out some of the same problems that Taylor and Amy had already discovered. Most of them being the differences between skateboard wheels and hover fields. After all, wheels only needed your weight between them and could use friction effects to turn, but neither of those applied to hoverboards.
C: You know, some of this reminds me of my first hoverboard tests.
A: Really?
C: Yeah, before I put in more thrusters. Once you get more than a few feet off the ground you end up needing them more.
T: Well, these top out at around four feet, if you push them to the limit, so that isn't as much of an issue.
C: That would probably help. My hover plates also primarily push directly against gravity, regardless of orientation, so the whole leaning to turn bit is essentially a non-starter with them.
Eventually everyone had to split up to actually head home. Taylor and Amy openly left together through a pocket dimension, dropping the hoverboards off on charging pads before heading home. Though Missy apparently finally noticed the thread and whined about missing all of the fun, since she'd headed straight home after school had let out and thus never even noticed the commotion outside of the building.
Several members of the Think Tank looked over their conclusions. Sure, they could just ask Miss Hebert, but that would be putting her into a potentially problematic position. No, their best bet was to bypass her entirely, and then nobody could accuse her of overstepping boundaries. Luckily they'd been able to connect a few pertinent details, from which they'd been able to figure out several useful things.
Of course, now they had to decide what to do about what they'd figured out. They had a number of options, including being smug about having figured it out but otherwise ignoring it. That wasn't likely in this case, but it was technically an option, and usually the safest with this kind of thing. But the potential rewards for properly acting on the information were great, so they were likely going to need to come up with a plan. A half dozen plans at least, really, so that they could properly compare them and minimize risks.
Sadly, it was already looking like going the 'troll' route would end badly. It was rare when those plans didn't go badly, really, which is why they tended to jump on any chance to use them when they came up.
And, of course, just as they were preparing to go into a sizable planning session, they ran into a problem. They'd run out of headache pills. The impossible to duplicate headache pills that Cauldron occasionally sold for incredibly large amounts of money. Those aware of where the pills came from grumbled to themselves about secretive organizations hiding the miracle parahuman or tinkertech responsible for making the things, but they couldn't do anything about it right now.
After dinner Taylor had returned to the pocket dimension in order to look over the broomstick. More importantly, she was also working up a proper manual for the thing. She put it through its paces, testing various aspects of it and even making a 'tips' section for flying it. When she was done with that she returned to the workshop to build a stand for the thing, one that would also charge it. It was incredibly simple, but it was far better than the 'strap on a clip while it sits on a table' system. The hardest part was putting the lights for the charger on the little 'hold the handle in place' arms, and that was because she'd stupidly decided to do that after attaching said arms and thus hadn't planned for doing so before then.
With that taken care of she'd also whipped up a stupidly simple charging cubby for the hoverboards. That was much less involved, since it was basically a box with shelves that she sticky-taped wireless charging mats to. It didn't need to be as fancy as something she was planning on giving away, after all. She left the broom in the workshop for now, but brought the hoverboards and the new charging cubby out to the parking area and plugged it in there so that they'd be more easily accessible.
After that Taylor headed back home and watched the evening news with her father. She'd half expected them to be covering the hoverboard failures from earlier, but instead found that they were covering spider-bots. Specifically, Ackbar and Rodney, plus those that were known to be available in the PRT store. Given the 'limited selection' coupled with 'restricted purchasing' in the PRT store there was an assumption that the tinker selling them wasn't building them, and was merely modifying ones that Riley had built. Making them safer, but not necessarily fully safe.
That all led to the theory that Ackbar was one of the first ones, sent to Taylor in an attempt to have her ensure that things had been done correctly. Amy would've gotten Rodney so that she didn't feel 'left out', and the fact that Ackbar had powers would either be 'random chance' or 'the tinker was concerned about the powers or potential thereof'. That no other 'cuddly' spider-bots were known to have powers partially reinforced this, despite a number of people having shown them off all over the country.
It was, in many ways, a much less annoying theory set for the spider-bots. Less accurate, but it fit everything the public knew a little better than Riley making them directly. They even had a theory for why the person responsible wasn't known, that being that if they were known then the Nine might come after them for desecrating Riley's work in the process of making them cuddly. That was considered something to avoid.
After that they segued into a piece on the Nine, and the entire section of a city that they'd collapsed into an undocumented underground bunker. Believed to be part of a back and forth attack set with a tinker who made remote control puppet robots, investigations into the bunker and how it was constructed without anyone noticing were underway. Initial tremors had caused the area to be evacuated two hours before the final collapse happened, but nobody was certain if anyone had been inside of the bunker at the time of the collapse. Digging it out could take weeks, and a couple hundred families had been displaced from the apartments that were no longer standing.
Taylor idly wondered what the tinker had done to deserve that kind of destruction. Or, for that matter, if the Nine had even known what the scope of it would be. It was, after all, entirely possible that they'd not intended to wipe out such a large area. Accidental triggering of a self destruct or similar, perhaps?
Mimi watched as Riley stared at the message that Jacob brought up on his phone. The looks on the girl's face were amusing, but hard to decipher without knowing what the message said. To that end, she came up behind Riley and looked over the girl's shoulder.
"Looks like you're out of luck there," Mimi said after a moment. "You even had to use some poor sod's hand to mess with Blasto's tentacle monster."
Riley glared at Mimi. "So?"
"So you're never going to get to pretend to be your own sister, because your signature is some human component, even if it isn't obvious. You can't escape it, and thus you're out of luck."
That got Riley's eye twitching, before she spun and stormed out of the room. Mimi just grinned.
"What the hell?" Melissa asked, looking between where Riley had just stormed off before turning to look at Mimi. "Are you trying to piss her off?"
Mimi rolled her eyes. "It was obvious to me that she was thinking that she couldn't do it."
"And you couldn't leave it to her to figure out on her own?"
Jacob snorted. "No, no, that was an entirely different tactic. Now instead of feeling defeated, seeing an impossible task that she won't be able to overcome, she's pissed and is going to do her best to pull it off to make a point. In some ways it was a brilliant move." Mimi grinned again at that. "Incredibly stupid in other ways, especially doing so while leaning over Riley's shoulder, but she got lucky there."
That had Mimi frowning. "It wasn't that bad."
Zach coughed, and they looked towards him. "Need I remind you that you told me to be careful with her feelings, especially when within stabbing distance?"
Mimi sighed. "Because she doesn't know you yet. It'll be a few runs before she's comfortable enough around you."
Jacob shook his head. "It was still not the brightest idea, and it'll probably come back to bite you. Possibly literally, if she decides to send a spider-bot at you in your sleep."
That had Mimi suppressing a snort. Riley had only ever done that once. Mimi had then demonstrated that her flames beat spider-bots, coupled with a threat to melt all of them if Riley ever did that again. No, spider-bots biting her in her sleep weren't likely to be a problem.
No, the real problem was probably Riley spiking Mimi's chocolate with something. But to do that she'd have to calm down a little to plan first, so it wasn't nearly as much of a concern.
Chapter 250 Friday morning Taylor woke to find messages waiting for her, most of them asking about the hoverboards. Most of those were easily ignored, but she did end up answering a couple of them. There were a few informing her of details for the trip to Aleph that was still happening as well, apparently they'd be using a Guild teleporter unit for tomorrow morning's hop in order to take advantage of a delivery of containment foam being sent over as the 'lock teleporter to specific destination' check.
Most of the rest of her messages fell into the categories of 'PHO is still going nuts', which didn't surprise her in the least, and 'routine notifications'. She reviewed them, but didn't feel that any of them required that she take action. Though she did appreciate the irony of Costa-Brown having taken the investigation into Theresa out of Director Piggot's hands and officially placing it in Dragon's, with an added note of Dragon not being expected to reveal anything that she didn't want to.
It wasn't long before she was getting out of bed so that she could get ready to meet up with Amy in the gym.
School had been especially dull for a Friday, with even 'what are you doing this weekend?' gossip amounting to 'as little as possible' across the board. There had been some discussion about the hoverboards from the day before, but not much beyond a couple of requests to give them a try again at some point. Nobody at school bothered to ask where to get one of their own, though there were some questions at lunch when a teacher had gotten curious about the portals. They didn't seem like they knew what to think about not needing the beacon active to use the opening devices.
Of course, they weren't stupid. None of them with the school's beacon code bothered to mention anything about it having built-in battery backup, and thus remained functional even when the repeaters were off. But other students finding out that the school had a device that allowed portals to be opened in and around it seemed to result in a number of 'doh' facepalms.
After school Taylor and Amy had both headed home, intending on completing some homework and doing some chores before spending significant time on Aleph over the weekend. In particular, both had gotten an extra assignment in a couple of classes as a result of the attack earlier in the week. Technically extra credit, and they'd both been told that they didn't have to worry about their grades, but they shouldn't have any major problems with getting them done.
It was approaching dinnertime when Taylor got a message from Dragon.
D: May I come over?
T: Sure. You coming via portal?
D: Yes. I'll be there shortly.
With a sigh, Taylor headed downstairs and ended up watching as the portal opened and little Theresa stumbled out. She looked like she felt horrible, clutching her stomach. Taylor just shook her head. "I'm guessing that you ate too much candy."
Theresa looked like she wanted to object, but nodded. "It tastes so good..."
Really, Taylor thought it was a wonder that Theresa hadn't overeaten at least once and needed a check-up before now. Still, a quick check with Shaper showed that Theresa had eaten way too much candy. To the point that Amy flinched in sympathetic pain. Adjusting things to deal with the problem was slightly tricky without just dragging Theresa to the bathroom to have her throw up half the candy, but Taylor dealt with most of the problem.
"There," Taylor said when she was done. "You should be fine in the morning. Well, assuming that you're using the body, it'll take longer if you swap out of it."
Theresa blinked, hand still on her stomach. "But..."
"I left just enough to serve as a reminder that you ate too much candy. Now, should I let my father know that you're staying for dinner?"
"No. I need to finish preparing for tomorrow's shipment to Aleph."
"Alright. But stay away from the candy."
"Yes mommy."
Taylor watched as Theresa left, then shook her head again. "Some days..."
Saturday morning Taylor and Amy met up in the gym for their morning workout, only joined by a couple of PRT officers. One of whom was loudly, but playfully, whining about one of the machines torturing them while the other laughed at their apparent misfortune. The two girls did their thing, ate breakfast, and then split up. Taylor swung by her room for her healing costume while Amy headed home to get hers.
Taylor grinned when she entered her Wards room to find that there was a box waiting for her. A quick check had her nodding before she slipped it into her personal pocket dimension for the time being. She ensured that she was stocked up on snacks as well, just in case, before meeting Amy out in the common area. The two of them headed up to the roof to take the platform to the Rig. More specifically, to the Guild transport that was on the Rig with working teleporter units.
Amy: Why aren't we just popping over with the pocket dimension portals?
Taylor: They turned the beacon off last night as part of working on repairs, plus I was asked to bring the platform with me and I'd recalled it to the roof.
Amy: Oh.
Taylor: Besides, this way we get to fly a little.
Amy: Fair.
It didn't take long to make it across, but they had to wait for the entire dance of ensuring that the teleporter was going exactly where they thought it was to finish. That included waiting for word to come through the portal in Madison.
"Do we have a spare phone that we can give them?" Amy wondered, causing Dragon and several of the Guild staff to look at her. "What? I've been over there, in Florida granted, but there's a repeater that meant my phone worked. Why not hand them one of our phones to make this whole dance faster?"
There was a pause, before Dragon nodded. "That makes far too much sense. I'll ensure that a phone, and probably a dedicated relay system, is sent over. Having additional lines of communication isn't a bad idea in general."
Eventually they were ready for Taylor and Amy to head through. Amy went first, followed by Taylor getting herself situated so that her platform would make the trip with her, and they ended up in what looked like a military facility.
"Welcome to Aleph," one of the soldiers said as she approached. "And to New Mexico, for that matter. I'm Major Hibbert and have been tasked with getting you two to Albuquerque this morning."
"I'm Amy Dallon, or Panacea," Amy greeted.
"And I'm Taylor Hebert, or Maul," Taylor added.
The Major gestured to the open door of the facility, where the containment foam was being loaded into trucks. "We've got a helicopter waiting for you."
Taylor gestured to the platform that she'd brought. "Is there any specific reason that I was asked to bring my flying platform if we're taking a helicopter?"
There was a moment of silence before the Major looked at the platform. "That can actually fly someone safely?"
"Only when unfolded."
"Ah, that makes more sense. I imagine that the goal there is to allow you to bounce between hospitals with less hassle than other options available. We have a lot of people that aren't doing well with this flu and staged the worst cases in Albuquerque due to the proximity to this base."
Taylor nodded. "So you're expecting us to return here tomorrow?"
"Indeed, even if it's a bit of an annoyance to travel back and forth to the teleporter to get you here and home."
Amy shrugged. "We don't need the teleporter to get back home, and if we set up our spare beacon at one of the hospitals then we could just return there directly. Or I suppose if we park my ambulance or Taylor's minivan somewhere, though they aren't licensed on this side so we probably shouldn't be driving them around."
Taylor blinked at that. "Actually, what's the legal situation with my platform over here? Anything else aside, I know there are airspace restrictions and I can't see Albuquerque not having an airport."
Major Hibbert nodded. "So long as you don't fly much higher than the buildings you should be fine. As for your beacon or vehicles, I'll have to make a few calls, but I don't think there will be a significant objection for the weekend. But are you sure that your tech will work here?"
Amy nodded. "It works for visiting Florida. I can't see how New Mexico would be any different."
The Major looked at them, blinking for a moment. "You've been to our Florida?"
"Yep. Just as easy to get there as our Florida, to be honest."
"And they had you coming through the teleporter that you don't need to use. Either there were some major miscommunications in planning or someone forgot to ask pertinent questions. Right. We should get moving either way."
Dinah grumbled a bit as she cleaned her room. She should've cleaned it the day before, but she'd ended up watching movies after finishing her homework instead of cleaning. Which meant that she was cleaning her room this morning instead of going out to visit Elle. It was nice having a parahuman friend that she could hang out with, unlike Taylor and Amy that would draw much more danger. The odds of one of the two killing someone to keep Dinah safe were a bit too high, and that wasn't desirable.
Going the other way, hanging out with Elle had a near-zero chance of outing Dinah as a parahuman. It'd taken a few carefully thought out questions, but they'd determined that the most likely scenario was that people would assume that it was an attempt at opening better relationships with Faultline's Crew by Uncle Roy. Which was amusing, because Uncle Roy had no clue that she and Elle even knew each other right now.
Really, it wasn't likely that Elle would even be available to hang out this morning. This afternoon, or tomorrow afternoon, were more likely to be good times. But Dinah wasn't even allowed to call to find out until her room was clean, and using her powers to figure it out wasn't worth the pain right now.
She was most of the way through putting her shelves back in order when the doorbell rang. Her mother answered it, and a quick check out the window told her that it was likely the mailman. He only rang the bell when there was a package, so something must've arrived. Shrugging, she went back to her cleaning. She only had a little more to go anyway.
"Dinah," her mother called a few minutes later, making her pause. "Can you come down here for a moment?"
Curious, Dinah headed downstairs to find her parents waiting with the mail. One larger envelope had been opened, most of the contents having been left on the table. But her mother waved her over, holding a single sheet of paper. "Yes mom?"
Her mother handed the paper over. "I think you should read this."
Dear Alcott Family,
We apologize if you feel that this is a violation of your privacy, but as thinkers we tend to default to figuring out everything we can. One of our members was able to connect the information that Miss Hebert provided on the Endbringer attack to our information on Weathergirl, at which point it became trivial to realize that there was some creative sandbagging happening.
Good job on that, by the way, since it successfully fooled us. Doubly so on the name, actually. Weathergirl, Whethergirl. When we made that connection we were quite impressed. We're a fan of hiding things in plain sight, at least when it's done well, and we feel that was done incredibly well.
Still, while Miss Alcott is too young to join us, we'd like to offer a contract for occasional questions from the Think Tank and WEDGDG. There are times where being able to get probabilities can be incredibly useful, and both groups are willing to be quite generous with compensation. On top of that, we'd provide some of the most secure phones we have available for communication purposes, in addition to a laptop if one is desired.
We've included a number of informational documents and a sheet with a number of ways to contact us. And no, standing in front of a mirror and calling for Roachsalad isn't a joke, though it is one way and best used to provide a number that you'd like someone to call you at. Feel free to use it in emergencies as well.
Thank you for your time,
The PRT Think Tank
Dinah blinked. They hadn't considered that telling Taylor about the Endbringers would result in this. Though that didn't mean that they couldn't be cautious. "Chance that this is a trap?" The button appeared, and she mentally pushed it. There was a momentary pulse of pain, but nothing significant. "Zero point zero zero zero zero one percent."
"Good thinking," her father said. "Still, even if we hadn't considered this before, we're going to need to do so now. Your mother and I are going to look over the rest of what they sent first, but we'd like you to think about what kinds of questions you're going to want to ask as well. We can compare what we come up with later."
Nodding, Dinah sighed. "I'm not going to be able to go to see Elle today, am I?"
Her mother patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's likely. This seems like the kind of thing that we should put some effort into looking at right away, if only for an initial overview."
"Okay."
Taylor and Amy had worked faster than the hospital staff had expected at each of the hospitals they'd visited. Most of the patients just needed transplants adjusted to be their own DNA, and they'd gotten very good at correcting for that, though a few had been natural chimeras. It was only as they were finishing up with the last few patients before they were planning on breaking for lunch that they ran into the first of the day's real oddities.
Taylor: What the hell happened to him?
Amy: They said that he got sick after his cousin jumped in front of an attack that was going to hit him. She's apparently fine, but whatever the beam was passed through her and hit him.
Taylor: Huh. Really?
Amy: Yeah.
Taylor: I suppose that would explain the mitochondrial differences between him and her.
Amy: Well, it should be an interesting situation to resolve.
Taylor wasn't going to argue that point. Telling them that the ten-ish year old boy was sick because he was essentially pregnant without a proper uterus buffer was something that she had no desire to get involved with. Instead she focused on her own set of patients. Still, eventually she finished with her set, and finished up Amy's less troublesome allotment while the accidental pregnancy issue was discussed. Half an hour after they'd intended to break for lunch they both finally met up to do so.
"That was amazingly difficult to deal with," Amy said as they sat down. Sadly, the hospital food didn't look all that appetizing.
Taylor nodded. "Seemed like it. I assume that they aren't happy with the situation."
"Anything that might be counted as an abortion was off the table from the start, they feel very strongly about that. Nevermind that he won't survive carrying the kid for even two more months even without the flu causing problems."
"So is it in debate until it's deemed a life threatening issue and the wishes of his parents can be ignored?"
Amy shook her head. "No, they're bringing his aunt and cousin in tomorrow."
"Ah. I'm surprised that they didn't have you move the fetus to his mother or something like that."
"That probably would've come up if she wasn't already six months pregnant."
"Oh. I guess that would complicate that idea."
Amy nodded as she ate some of her lunch.
It was mid-afternoon before Taylor ran into her first problem patient. A woman whose brain didn't match the rest of her body. It appeared to be older than her body was and based on the genetic markers was from a different ethnicity.
"Ma'am," Taylor said after suppressing the pain that she'd been in from the flu attacking her in problematic ways. "What happened to you?"
The woman rolled her eyes. "I got the flu."
"Yes, and that's complicated by the fact that your brain doesn't match the rest of your body, by age or genetics."
"Oh. Is that how she did it?"
"How she did what?"
"A couple years back there was a body-snatcher running around. Nobody knew what they originally looked like. She jumped into my body and then tried to kill me in this one to cover up their crimes. Only she wasn't ready for my medical conditions and essentially dropped dead herself instead. Took nearly a month to prove to the authorities that I was who I said I was."
"Ah." Taylor thought about it for a moment. "Do you have any desire to have your appearance adjusted back to what you looked like before?"
"Not really. Why?"
"Because the safest way to help you with the flu is to normalize your genetics, and changing your brain to match your body is a bad idea. But if I'm changing all of your DNA then it isn't that much more work to fix your overall appearance."
"Ah. No thank you on changing my appearance. It would be a bit odd at this point."
Taylor shrugged. "Alright. But you may run into a few things changing slightly due to the normalized genetics."
The woman nodded. "That's fine. I'd rather not confuse my grandson by suddenly looking significantly different, but a few minor changes shouldn't confuse him."
It took a few minutes to safely adjust the woman's genetics to match her brain without significantly changing her appearance. A couple of other tweaks to her immune system to clear out the incorrect configuration from it followed, before Taylor nodded. "Okay, that should do it. You're going to be hungrier than normal until you've eaten a good meal."
"Thank you."
Taylor frowned as they ate some local pizza that someone had picked up at the end of the day. "I hadn't thought about it at first, but people are awfully accepting of us over here."
"Panacea is incredibly well known here," one of the nurses piped up. "Especially in the medical community, ever since she started showing up in the medical papers that get passed between here and Earth Bet. You're not as well known, but I think half the patients have mistaken you for her."
"What?" Amy asked, obviously surprised to hear that, and Taylor quickly set her visor to start recording.
Another nurse snickered at Amy's expression. "Yeah. There's a couple of websites dedicated to stories where you come here or people make it to Bet to heal the impossible. But some of what you've described when diagnosing people has legitimately helped doctors figure out some treatments over here."
The first nurse nodded. "Most people have barely heard of Miss Hebert. Psychiatric improvements for parahumans aren't as relatable to the public as healing the unhealable and inspiring doctors to come up with revolutionary new treatments. Though I personally thought that some of the mocking tone in the early papers that came over because you didn't know the 'proper' medical terms wasn't warranted. Especially since at least one of your descriptions resulted in two of the early breakthroughs over here."
Amy remained stunned at that revelation throughout the rest of dinner, which amused Taylor. But eventually they finished up and met Major Hibbert in the lobby, along with a twenty-ish looking female parahuman.
"Good evening ladies," Major Hibbert greeted. "First up, I got permission for you to park one of your vehicles in this hospital's parking lot. They even set aside a space for you to use."
"Evening," Taylor replied, before looking at Amy. "Any preference on which one we leave?"
Amy blinked a couple of times, probably coming out of being 'stunned' properly with the direct question, and thought for a moment. "It's easier to stand in the back of the ambulance, so I'll vote for it."
"Works for me."
"I'm going to want to see how you get your vehicle here," Major Hibbert continued. "But I've got one more thing before we go handle that. Miss Wilson here requested to meet you when she heard that you have ways to move between dimensions that aren't the teleporter units."
"They don't work for me," the woman, Miss Wilson, explained. "My own abilities interfere with the attempt. Though not needing to lug containers of containment foam mix or crates of raw materials around is quite nice."
Taylor blinked at that. "I'm a bit confused here, but assume that you have some way of making it to Earth Bet and back?"
"Yes, though it's a long trip for me. You can look me up when you get back home, I'm in your PRT's system as 'Snail Mail'."
"Really?" A quick check brought up a SL8 locked record, and the picture did indeed match the woman. "Huh, so you are. Weeks to make a trip?"
Miss Wilson, or perhaps just Leslie now that Taylor had looked her up, blinked at that. "What? You've got access from here?"
"There's a relay in Florida and my phones have very high level communication circuitry."
"I'm...how did someone get a working relay to Florida? Nothing like that would've come through the teleporter and I never brought anything like that over."
Taylor shrugged. "You're the second parahuman that I've met that can use their powers to get here. Admittedly, the repeater is a bit large to carry, but that wouldn't have been a problem for the one I suspect was involved. Less powerful ones fit in backpacks, and I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to connect to one of those if that was what was in Florida, but I think those are a more recent creation of Dragon's."
"And now I feel like a moron for not taking one of her cell phones on an employee discount plan just because I rarely spend time on Bet. I'll have to check with her on that on my next pass through."
"Regardless of that," Major Hibbert said. "Since we now know it exists, we're all curious if your method of moving between dimensions works for Miss Wilson."
Amy nodded. "That's easy enough to test when we're getting the ambulance out anyway, though I'm curious as to why it's that important."
Leslie sighed. "Because I have to jump a month after I've gotten somewhere, to the point where I start planning on doing so after three weeks if I haven't already, and only four Earths I've been on have human life that I can find. And one of those is still a medieval society, as far as I can tell without being able to speak their language. Worse, the last new path I explored included a version of Earth that I'm told looked a lot like they'd expect 'Yellowstone erupted' to look like, which didn't help with the 'survive for the week I was stuck there', so I've been afraid to explore further."
"Er...what?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Her PRT file says that she's got a hub and spoke system. Aleph and Bet are 'hub' dimensions. She can pick an outbound 'spoke' and travel along it, which apparently brings her through two other dimensions until she hits her destination 'hub'. Though it isn't clear on how many of those she knows about, just that there are at least three hub dimensions."
Leslie nodded at that. "I've only explored five 'hubs' in that model. Aleph and the four hubs I can reach from it, specifically. Bet and Slingshot are the two that had instances of my uncle on them. The medieval world I tend to just think of as 'Primitive' right now and the last one seems to be uninhabited. I can also get between Bet and Slingshot directly, though the path from Bet to Slingshot has the world that almost killed me." She then looked at Taylor. "Though the PRT's file seems to have more than I thought that I'd told them."
Taylor shrugged at that. "I just skimmed it, no clue how it was populated. But I assume you want a way to abort a trip, if possible, before you explore any further?"
"Yep."
Amy frowned. "Why Slingshot?"
"Ah. My uncle called it that because it diverged back in seventy-nine when something massive used Jupiter in a slingshot maneuver before vanishing somehow. But several asteroids were displaced and there was a several-year scare before they all missed Earth. He called Bet 'Earth GM' for the golden man that would become Scion, and I only found out last year while visiting Slingshot that he thought of Aleph as 'Earth Niece' because it was the only one of the three that my parents met on."
"Huh."
They stood there in silence for a minute, before Taylor nodded. "Right, well, let's head outside and get the ambulance out. We can see how power interactions work while we do so."
The space that'd been chosen for them was near a flat wall, which would've been perfect if it weren't for the issue of said wall not actually being connected to the parking lot. Instead they ended up moving around the building until they found a wall that was suitably positioned and started there. The Major had a video camera out and Leslie just watched as the portal was opened, Amy went in, and then the ambulance was driven out. The portal then closed and they went back around the building so that Amy could park.
With that done, they then opened the portal in the ambulance and had Leslie try to enter it. Which looked like it was going to work, only for her to be thrown back out of it a moment later.
"Dammit," Leslie groaned.
Taylor looked at the portal, and then back at Leslie. "I have an idea, but I need to make a phone call. Worst case scenario might be that someone can come to you. Of course, you'd be revealing that you have powers to someone else."
"I'm willing to give it a shot, and we don't exactly do the whole secret identity thing here. Slingshot doesn't either, for that matter."
Taylor nodded, and dug out the contact for Joey.
"Hello Taylor," he answered after a single ring. "What's up?"
"I'm with a parahuman who literally can't enter a pocket dimension due to their powers locking them to a specific Earth at any given point in time."
"Okay? Don't get why you're calling me."
"I'm wondering if you're interested in finding out if that works for their own pocket dimension instead of someone else's."
"...damn. That's devious. No wonder Riley respects you so much. Who do I have to decide if it's worth revealing myself to?"
Taylor smirked at that. "She's from Aleph, and they don't do the secret identity thing over here."
"...what?"
"Granted, she's known as Snail Mail on Bet. But I've got an upgraded beacon that I can tie you into temporarily if you want to come through."
There was a minute of silence before Joey snorted. "Okay, yeah. You definitely win. Send me the beacon code and I'll be there shortly."
"Will do."
Taylor sent the code over, and adjusted the beacon to allow Joey to use it temporarily.
"Got it," he said a moment later, then paused. "Wait a minute, are you currently on Aleph?"
"Yep."
"But my portals don't open to other Earths?"
"They do if there's a beacon or opener on the other Earths."
"I think he'll be here shortly," Taylor said aloud, causing the other three to look at her funny.
"Who?" Amy asked.
"How many people do you know of that would be professionally interested in someone who can't enter a pocket dimension?"
"Probably a dozen." She paused for a moment, then facepalmed. "But, of course, the one who makes them would be the most likely, wouldn't it?"
"Bingo."
Major Hibbert simply backed off a little and sat on a bench, obviously not wanting to miss the show. Five minutes later a portal opened right next to the ambulance, Joey wheeling his cart of equipment out. He looked around in wonder, then shook his head. "Right. I heard that someone can't enter my pocket dimensions?"
Leslie stepped forward. "Er, yeah. That would be me."
"Ah. Hi, you can call me Joey." He then patted his cart. "And this has everything we should need to set you up with your own pocket dimension, because Taylor made me far too curious to not try it." He then gestured at the still-open portal behind him. "But first, I'd like to see you try and enter this portal, just to be sure that Taylor isn't playing a joke on me."
Sighing, Leslie nodded and tried to enter the portal, only to be thrown back out again. "Damn that's annoying."
"And weird. What kind of powers do you have?"
"I move between Earths in manners that aren't entirely under my control."
Joey nodded, looking more curious than before, and turned to Taylor. "Okay, you're forgiven, because testing this is way too interesting." He then set up his equipment. A couple minutes later Leslie's acid green aura had been turned into a crystal key. He explained a few details, including that Amy and Taylor could put a crystal into her body so that she'd never lose it. A few copies of the key were made, and then she fired at the building with a pistol opener that had a crystal installed in it. The acid green portal opening appeared.
Leslie stared at it for a minute, then took a deep breath and walked into it. Two minutes later she emerged again, grinning. "It didn't throw me out!"
Joey nodded. "I suppose the next test is to get some opening equipment set up in there and see if it can get you elsewhere. I'll be right back with a kit, and I should dig up a beacon code or two for testing as well."
Chapter 251 Sunday morning Taylor and Amy skipped the gym, having spent far too much time working with Joey and Leslie the night before. Major Hibbert had left an hour in, but they'd continued with a variety of tests before implanting a crystal into Leslie. After all the testing they'd essentially determined that the woman could enter her own pocket dimension, but she could only leave through a portal that led back to the world that she was currently supposed to be on.
That restriction only applied to her. Anyone else could come and go as they pleased, but unlike most pocket dimensions the 'who triggered the opening device' behavior was different for her versus others. If she triggered it then the last portal to the Earth she was tied to opened up, but if someone else triggered it then the last portal in general opened up. Eventually asking her snark had gotten very little of extra use beyond there being a quantum signature of some kind involved, one that shifted when she used her power to jump to another Earth.
When they'd left Leslie had been half asleep, yet still planning on setting up an opening device at her house so that her family could come and go from her pocket dimension pretty much at will. Beacons were a lot less useful to her, but Joey made sure she had a couple anyway for when people were visiting and might not have a good exit point. Taylor also had a crystal to be handed over to Dragon as part of a desire to have living quarters built using Leslie's pay sitting in an account on Bet, but she and Amy had declined copies for themselves.
Taylor was sitting at home eating breakfast when she got a text message from Riley.
R: What the hell were you thinking yesterday?
T: I was thinking a lot of things. Did you have anything in particular that you're worried about?
R: I just got home from our run and was told that Joey wore himself out with some new girl you introduced him to!
T: It was an interesting power interaction. She couldn't use anyone else's pocket dimensions, and has some weird restrictions when using her own.
R: What?
T: You know, like your insistence that he try working with Missy. Just with less explosive results.
R: ...
R: Okay, I might be overreacting. Are you willing to tell me who it was?
T: Leslie Wilson.
R: Wait, it was Snail Mail?
R: Wow, now that I'm thinking about it, that does sound interesting. Now I'm more mad that I wasn't there to help.
T: You know her?
R: She landed in the middle of a run a few years back, and your uncle introduced her to Dragon.
T: Ahh. I suppose that makes some sense.
R: I guess I'll just have to quiz Joey when he wakes up. But until then I have to go unpack.
Taylor shook her head. For some reason she thought that was oddly appropriate, but it was still a bit surprising.
On Aleph they'd started the day with the pregnant boy. Or Amy had, at least, while Taylor fled to a different hospital entirely. Amy had been slightly annoyed, but it wasn't like she'd needed help when they eventually decided that the boy's aunt would carry the fetus. That, and it meant that Taylor got the first new weird patient of the day, a man with three kidneys. None of which were a genetic match for him, and apparently were the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or at least that was all he'd admit to.
Taylor also got the first direct parahuman complication of the weekend.
"You are...wow," Taylor said as she examined the girl's body with Shaper. Nobody should have that many infections and still be able to walk.
"What?" the girl's mother asked.
"She's incredibly sick, except only the flu is causing her problems. It's probably due to her powers, but it took me by surprise."
"Her powers?"
Taylor nodded. "Yeah. I hadn't checked with her snark, but I think I'm going to have to now."
"She doesn't have powers."
"Ma'am, you aren't the expert here. They may not be obvious, but they're there."
Taylor ignored the woman's repeated insistence that her daughter didn't have powers and instead reached out to the girl's snark.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Query]
Taylor: I'm the one trying to heal your human, but I think I need to know what you do for her in order to do so.
[Query]
S: Data
[Confusion]
S: Elaboration
[...Data. Elaboration]
Well, that was fun. The girl's snark collected infections and pathogens in her body when she was exposed to them in order to let her mix and match them later, but it wasn't ready for something that screwed with her immune system directly instead of just attacking it like HIV would.
Taylor: I don't suppose you realize that everything you've already collected is less useful now that people are getting the new immune system boost?
[...Confusion]
S: Data
Taylor: Look, if you don't want to let the immune system boost go through then I'm probably going to have to shut you down long enough to force the issue.
[Query]
BA: Data
[...Acceptance]
There was a shift in the girl's body, and suddenly the flu was essentially walled off from the 'stored' items. It could thus work on the girl's immune system without causing her the other problems.
Taylor: Thank you.
"I think you'll be fine now," Taylor said out loud, interrupting the girl's mother. "But I'm curious, have you been making people sick?"
The girl nodded. "Whenever Nick makes fun of me I make him sick for a few days, but I had to visit Sarah in the hospital to find things that would only make him sick."
"Right. Well, it probably won't work if he's gotten the flu, and you need to be careful. Most of what you can make him sick with could make others sick too."
"Nuh-uh. I make it so that they can't first."
"Ah." Well, wasn't that terrifying to think about. She was one mistake or bad day away from making who knows what kind of superbug. And of course, Taylor had no clue what kind of reporting should be done on this side of things, beyond making a note in the girl's file about the 'stored' infections due to her powers.
Though seeing the look on the mother's face after hearing her daughter talk about making someone sick after changing the infections was oddly amusing.
By lunchtime they'd actually run through most of the problem patients that'd been brought to the area and as such Taylor had been pulled off of healing for the afternoon. Instead they wanted her to help with parahuman psychology. A couple of people that were local enough to get there on short notice had incredibly difficult to figure out urges and their normal therapists had figured that getting some help from Taylor could bring about the breakthrough they wanted.
"Good afternoon," Taylor said as the first parahuman and their therapist came into the office that they were using. Unlike what seemed to be the norm on Bet, the therapist wasn't a parahuman as well.
"Hi," the parahuman, a young man with blue hair that could've been a dye job just as easily as snark-induced.
"Good afternoon," the therapist said. "I'm Doctor Gatti and this is Alvin. He triggered, by your terminology, last year but can't seem to properly contextualize what it is that his abilities want him to do."
Taylor nodded. "I can try talking to his snark, my term for the source of his abilities. I just can't guarantee that it will tell me anything."
"That's fine," Alvin replied, nodding as he did. "I just want to know what's going on."
"Alright. Give me a moment."
Taylor: Hello there.
She waited for a moment. The connection was open, but the snark wasn't responding.
Taylor: Hello?
Still getting no response, Taylor frowned. Eventually she decided to go for it and flooded the snark with connections.
BA: Error: Connection Failed: Target has insufficient resources
Nodding slightly even as Alvin shivered, Taylor then prompted for a small amount of energy to be pulled over all of the connections for a moment. She kept that up for a couple of seconds, then allowed all but the original connection to close.
Taylor: Shall we try this again? Hello.
[Query]
BA: Data
[...Acceptance]
Taylor: Right. Now that you're not ignoring me without saying anything, your human isn't sure what you're pushing him to do.
[Query]
Taylor blinked at that.
S: Data
[Confusion]
BA: Data
[Confusion]
Amy: That's a natural trigger, right?
Taylor: I thought it was. Now I'm less certain, given how confused it is at mentioning humans. I mean, it's connected to one, it shouldn't be that clueless.
[Query]
BA: Data
Well, thinking that it'd connected to a biological computer instead of a living thing was different.
Taylor: So now that you know you're connected to a human, what are you pushing your human to do?
[...Data]
Well, that was problematic. Connecting to wider networks for data gathering wasn't all that easy when you weren't actually a computer.
With a shake of her head, Taylor looked at the other two. "I'm sorry to say that you have a very confused snark. It thinks you're a computer and wants you to attach to other networks."
Alvin blinked a couple of times. "What?"
"Not much more to say right now."
Doctor Gatti sighed. "I'm actually seeing how that ties into some of the weird dreams now, but dealing with that is going to be difficult. Perhaps impossible, but at least we know what the problem is now."
Taylor nodded. "With any luck it might get a little better, since hopefully his snark will attempt to adapt now that it's been told that it was mistaken about what it's connected to."
"Ah. We'll have to see."
Dragon looked over her list of things to send over to Aleph in the next week. Two full-size repeater units, one for the Air Force and one for Miss Wilson to install in her home. One backpack repeater unit for Miss Wilson to bring with her. A dozen cell phones, to be split between the Air Force and Miss Wilson. And Mister Horsfall had just confirmed that he was willing to part with additional beacons so that 'easy access' points could be set up for Mother and Miss Dallon to visit Aleph in the future. Not to mention that he'd have access, for that matter.
Having three full repeater systems on Aleph seemed like a waste of resources, but both the Air Force and Miss Wilson didn't want to be dependent on Cauldron's, not that they knew that it was Cauldron that had put the first one in at this point, nor did they want to be dependent on each other. So there would be plenty of redundancy for Mother's visits, which wasn't exactly a problem.
Mister Horsfall also needed to provide pictures at different ages so that they could make up a proper Aleph-travel passport for him, for that matter, and now that travel was more easily accomplished between the two dimensions there had been some additional queries about other parahumans that might want to visit. She wasn't sure about making the trip herself right now, but a number of others might be willing to take up the offer. Getting a proper system in place to get the passports and other concerns dealt with was likely going to become a priority.
The only other amusing detail was that they hadn't yet picked up on one thing in particular. They hadn't been able to make their own quantum entanglement crystals, and those couldn't be passed through the teleporters. So they were planning on Miss Wilson looping through Bet again to pick up a couple more so that more teleporter endpoints could be set up, instead of just passing them through a pocket dimension.
Taylor looked over the twin parahuman girls that were sitting next to each other, even as their therapist Doctor Butler stood over by the door. Jade on the left in a dress and fancy-looking jewelry, Luna on the right in jeans and a t-shirt. Despite looking like they could be identical twins, if you discarded their clothing choices, they obviously hadn't ended up with the same snark. Jade had triggered first, almost two years ago now, and was a tinker that built new functionality into existing jewelry. She didn't know how any of it was powered, only that it charged best when left with the sky visible. Her sister Luna had triggered only a couple of months ago and had been described as essentially a bright and shiny version of Shadow Stalker, but with a water weakness and a 'stronger/weaker' pattern that had eluded explanation for her so far.
"I'd have thought that this would be two sessions," Taylor finally said. "Or is there something going on between you two as well?"
Jade fidgeted, but Luna sighed and answered. "We want to work together, and I only feel right when we try to, but what we can do doesn't work together. In particular, I can't seem to use anything that she makes, as none of it shifts with me."
Her sister nodded. "So instead we end up fighting with each other instead of working together. I want to help her with whatever it is that pushes her to working with me, but I don't know what it is or how to help."
Ahhh. That was a different story, and talking to both snarks at the same time made a lot more sense there. As such, Taylor nodded and opened up a shared channel with both snarks.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Greetings]|Confusion|
[Query]
|Data. Query|
[Data]
Taylor: Right, now that you both have identified yourselves to each other, your humans would like to know what they're supposed to be doing together.
[Confusion]
|Agreement|
Taylor: Well, no matter how obvious it feels to you two, they haven't got a clue.
[Data]
Taylor blinked at that, and could tell that Amy had paused for a moment as well.
Taylor: Seriously?
|Elaboration|
Well, at least that was an explanation.
"So," Taylor said out loud. "Jade, your creations recharge under the light of the moon, even if that's during the day."
Jade blinked at that. "Really? I wonder if that's why I like using silver so much..."
"And Luna, your snark's parent took a liking to human names and meanings. Your breaker state, the light you turn into, is apparently moonlight. You're strongest when the moon is in the sky, again even if that's during the day."
Luna's eyes went wide, and she pulled out an organizer from her back pocket to check things, but it was Doctor Butler that facepalmed. The woman stayed quiet for the moment, but had obviously put things together.
Taylor looked at the two girls. "So, knowing that?"
The two girls looked at Taylor, then at each other, before first Jade and then Luna shook their heads.
"Luna can power the things that Jade makes," their therapist stated. "Perhaps even be stored in somehow, though be careful if testing that theory."
Well, that seemed to take the two girls by surprise. Taylor really should've had her visor recording, if only for the looks on their faces when they understood what they'd just been told.
Kenta grumbled a bit as he made his way through the stack of papers, notes from his lawyer attached to various points. Occasionally he'd go to the more detailed notes in the notebook next to him, wanting to be absolutely sure that he understood everything that he was reading. Legalese was rarely pleasant, after all, but all of this had him doubly concerned. But so far everything appeared to be reasonably straightforward.
Reasonably straightforward and legalese did not belong together in any description he was comfortable with, so he was actively looking for the catch. Perhaps something in the stack that was horribly convoluted and twisted would invalidate the rest with clever wording or something similar. Perhaps even a clause that his lawyer, good as he was, had missed. Slogging through the entire stack and ensuring that every single word was understood was the only way to be certain, even if getting to that point required notes from his lawyer and three law books. So far.
Miku thought that he was being overly paranoid, but he was of the opinion that there were far too many people that might be out to get him to take the risk.
The next stack over was going to be just as annoying, if far less potentially binding. And if he made it through that then he'd start looking over the paperwork from investigations into multiple companies. With any luck he'd be putting at least one group out of business entirely, the only question was who had actually been in the wrong. He wasn't in the mood to put an innocent middleman out of business just because their supplier pulled a fast one on them. Scare them into double-checking their vendors better, perhaps, but not put them out of business.
Taylor frowned as she watched the last patient of the day sitting down with her therapist. They'd apparently 'rushed over' and had arrived just in time, but there was something...off. Cathy was the almost-twenty parahuman, and her therapist Michelle was the first one to not introduce themselves by last name in a professional manner. In fact, Taylor still didn't know either of their last names.
It had put Taylor on edge, because it screamed that something was wrong. Luckily Amy had already been on her way over to meet up before they headed back to Bet.
"So what's the problem that you're having?" Taylor asked.
"I feel like I need to help certain people," Cathy said, even as she looked Taylor over with an odd look in her eyes.
[Assertion]
Taylor: Ahhh. That might explain things. No thank you.
[Confusion]
"Specifically a few friends of mine," Cathy continued, even as Taylor was wondering about the girl's snark. It hadn't pushed the issue, so anti-master countermeasures weren't needed yet.
Taylor: So, you let your human make people lust after her?
[...Elaboration. Data]
Huh. It let Cathy form power-enforced mutual attractions with up to five people that the girl was attracted to, pushing all involved to make things work so as to eventually make a cohesive combat group. Which...probably meant that she was either lesbian or bisexual, if she found Taylor attractive enough for things to kick in here. But it admitted that there had to be at least a small amount of mutual attraction as well, so it wasn't entirely new to the 'not working' side of things.
It just hadn't expected to be told no, instead of finding that the girl's current target just didn't find Cathy attractive in the least.
[Query]
And apparently found the complete lack of combat for the group to engage in annoying
Taylor: No, I don't think I can help there.
"Apparently you didn't get the memo," Taylor said out loud, interrupting Cathy. "But master-type powers, that is anything that affects someone else's mind, don't work on me."
The girl blinked at that statement, then actually looked like she wanted to cry. "Really? I'd hoped that you might find me attractive enough to come back another day."
"Is Michelle even your therapist, or is she just playing the role?"
"I was her therapist," Michelle answered. "Though we found her one that there's no mutual attraction with after things escalated between us, but we didn't think that he'd be up for this."
Taylor sighed. "And what was the ultimate goal of this entire charade?"
Cathy fidgeted for a moment, but sighed after looking over at Michelle. "I was hoping that you'd at least be willing to help Nancy with her cancer, and Jenny really wants to have a little girl with me. When I read some of what was able to be done on Bet, and then found out that you two were here..."
Amy: What's going on over there?
Taylor: I believe she's trying to make several others happy, and we're the first ones to show that we might be able to make some of it possible.
Amy: What?
Taylor: Specifically, some cancer problems and one of her other partners wants to have a kid with her. But everything I'm seeing is telling me that she's a lesbian.
Amy: ...
Taylor: Also, could you check what the laws are for mastering someone over here? She didn't bring her actual therapist, and I'm not actually licensed for anything, so this isn't exactly a protected meeting of any kind.
Amy had turned to talk to someone before Taylor had even finished sending that, so was likely on it. And would likely bring someone appropriate for the situation if needed, for that matter.
"So," Taylor said. "You have a few...girlfriends, I guess?"
Cathy carefully nodded. "I suppose that's a good way to put it. Though I'm not entirely sure how Kara got into the mix. Michelle was an accident during therapy after I got my powers, and Nancy I just wanted to stop attacking me at school before I understood what my powers were doing. Jenny and I were dating before I got my powers and if I didn't have little markers in my head then I'm not sure if I would've noticed that I used my power on her. But I've never had a marker for Kara. I didn't even meet her until I knew how careful I had to be. Almost ruined several relationships without even noticing early on." She then paused. "Why am I telling you all of this?"
Michelle snorted. "You probably left the 'attempting' marker active for her, and it's doing the whole 'unusually trusting and talkative' bit that tends to happen. The same one that originally got me because you hadn't realized what everything meant yet and you didn't want to be closed off during therapy?"
Cathy blinked, then blushed. "Oh, right."
Amy: Is the therapist named Michelle?
Taylor: Yes, actually. How'd you know?
Amy: Because Cathy Beck and Michelle Penn were reported as having gone missing a couple hours trip away and them having come here apparently makes sense to the authorities.
Taylor: Ah. They do this kind of thing often?
Amy: I was told that those around Cathy wouldn't go against her stupid ideas and that Cathy herself tends to get tunnel-vision when she gets an idea involving those around her.
Taylor: Tunnel-vision sounds about right.
Amy: Still, a couple of police officers will be there shortly to pick up Cathy, since she's violating a court order or two by attempting to 'collect' someone again.
Taylor: Good to know.
They sat there for a moment, Cathy obviously embarrassed and uncertain about what she could do now that her plan had failed.
"We should get going," Michelle said, causing Cathy to look at her. "What? The others likely already noticed that we left and will be looking for us, since we didn't tell anyone we were leaving and we only realized that we'd forgotten our phones an hour into the trip."
Taylor sighed. "I don't think I should let you leave, to be honest." Both of the others looked at her, obviously confused. "Well, Cathy in particular, as I understand things."
"W...why?" Cathy asked.
"Because I'm reliably informed that you were already reported missing and that someone will be here shortly for you now that your location has been reported."
Michelle blinked at that. "When did someone report our location?"
"Just a couple minutes ago."
"But we've been in here with you for longer than that, so how could you know that?""
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I have multiple ways to communicate with people outside of the room right now. If I didn't have them, my other abilities aside, then I'm not sure that I'd have been willing to meet with completely unknown parahumans on such short notice."
"Oh."
"Besides, I should probably write up a couple of things for Cathy's actual therapist, even if you weren't actually here for that."
Taylor arrived home later than anticipated, mainly because she and Amy had spent almost two hours going over what had happened with Cathy. Writing up notes and sealing them in an envelope for Cathy's actual therapist was included. The most important bits there were that Cathy was unlikely to be able to resist trying to 'collect' people with her powers until she'd filled all five slots and that a combat activity of some kind for the entire group might be a good idea. Laser tag or paintball were the primary suggestions, since Taylor got the impression that something physical would be ideal.
Whether any of that happened was an entirely different question, what with Cathy having been taken into custody until a judge could look over things again. Aleph didn't have some of the laws that Bet did, but they did have others, and the attempt made was in violation of previous court orders. At the same time, blaming her for her power pushing her to do things regardless of if she'd want to normally seemed at least partially wrong to Taylor, even if she'd been the target of the attempt.
Knowing the psychology behind parahuman abilities made it much harder to blame people for some of what they did. Which was a pain some days, because without knowing those details it would be so much easier to decide to dislike someone.
Still, Cathy was, for the time being, no longer Taylor's problem. Nor were any of the others in Cathy's influence, though if the immune system boost didn't take care of the cancer then they might be seeing whichever one it was that had it on a future healing visit to Aleph. One that likely wouldn't be for a couple of months minimum, barring something happening that was declared an emergency or similar.
Actually, Taylor wouldn't put it past people to arrange for the next 'teleport people in and out' healing weekend to include severe cases from Aleph at this point. It wasn't like it would be any harder to get people there that way. The only catch was that Aleph only had the one teleporter right now, so they couldn't cycle people in and out without dropping another one over there.
Really, that made enough sense that Taylor decided to write up a message to send off to the hospital administration about it. It wasn't like she or Amy would notice that people were coming from more than one dimension in that situation.
After that, Taylor looked over the Wards schedule for the week while she was otherwise preparing for bed. She had the next two days off, but had been requested for a meeting tomorrow afternoon. No real details, she was only requested and didn't have to go, and a meeting wasn't exactly a significant hardship. She'd probably go just to satisfy her curiosity as to what it was about. The rest of the Wards had tomorrow off for various reasons, some of which was tied to screw-ups by the PRT staff member that had been in charge of Wards scheduling for the past week.
Tuesday was easy enough to drop in Sandy doing more curb 'and other granite' repair with the city. Rosa was going to be working with Colin and Sherrel tinkering as well. Nothing looked to be available right now for anyone else to be doing non-patrol tasks, so putting Missy down on console with Aisha and Chris taking Ryan out on a patrol was easy enough. Wednesday she'd plan on patrolling with Rosa, though she'd probably check with the others and for non-patrol tasks before determining who else to include.
Thursday was currently entirely up in the air, especially as Friday was a holiday that they had off by Youth Guard mandate. Then Taylor had taken Saturday off for Vicky's party and would have to work around that on the scheduling as well. Sunday and into the following week was too far out at this point to deal with, especially since she was supposed to not be dealing with any of this tonight according to the message that she got from Deputy Director Renick asking her why she was doing Wards leader tasks before Tuesday.
She did wonder what he thought of her response that it made sense to have advanced warning for the other Wards before Tuesday morning. But he didn't answer her, so she shrugged and went to bed instead.
Rebecca was amazed that they'd somehow avoided a cross-dimensional incident, though probably not nearly as relieved as those on Aleph were. Having visiting parahumans there for healing work be pulled under the control of a local master would've been a wonderful way to incredibly sour relations between the two dimensions. That Miss Hebert had been immune and then provided significant insight into the woman's powers and urges had firmly put Bet on top in this particular case.
Getting other things into place would take more time and effort, but it would probably be well worth it in the end. More controlled lines of communications using officially installed relay systems would help there, something that it felt somewhat stupid for them to not have done previously. Not that it hadn't come up before, but senators on the Aleph side had panicked at the time and shut it down. Sneaking it in through the military was actually a pretty good back door on that front.
She made a note to swing by Aleph in the next couple of days to pick up a pile of painkillers for the Think Tank. She'd probably even treat them as a gift this time, instead of eating into their budget. That they hadn't figured out that the pills were produced on Aleph was, in her eyes, absolutely incredible. Not that David had figured that out either, actually. Waiting on them to figure out that Cauldron purchased them from stores on Aleph, and wasn't also Aleph's supplier, was at least somewhat amusing. But with more contact between Bet and Aleph there was little to no way that would remain an unknown for much longer.
Grinning, she added to her note to not re-package the pills this time. She'd even leave them in the bag with the receipt from the corner store. It would be far more enjoyable to drop it on them without warning than to guess when someone would let it slip. Easier to have the camera feeds set to record their reactions as well, for that matter.
Chapter 252 Monday morning Taylor met up with Amy in the gym more to ensure that they'd properly woken up before school than for anything else. Vicky joined them, though she'd claimed it was to ensure that neither of them hurt themselves before they woke up properly.
In hindsight, that was hilarious since Vicky was the one that pulled off damaging one of the machines and getting covered in oil and hydraulic fluid. More so when it made it through her force field and irritated her skin and eyes, meaning that she was the only one hurt.
Vicky ended up getting some quick toxin purging from Amy before going home to take a more complete shower and get cleaner clothing. She'd likely end up rushing to get to school on time, but Taylor and Amy took the minivan from the PRT building on account of light rain. They did the 'pull into the pocket dimension' trick at the school, though nobody was hanging around outside to pay much attention to it. Sadly, they hadn't anticipated the crowds waiting for them to arrive inside the school.
"Were you two actually on Aleph?" hit them before they'd even finished entering the building, and it was one of at least two dozen questions yelled in their general direction in the first minute. Nobody gave them a chance to answer, and they decided to ignore everyone. Being strong enough to push their way through the crowd of students when people didn't want to let them through helped.
Granted, forcing their way through the crowds was technically against school rules. But preventing them from getting through was also against school rules, so in order to try and get the two girls in trouble those being pushed would have to admit that they were also breaking the rules. Which made it unlikely that anyone would be punished for either act unless a teacher came along and saw it in person.
Luckily, Taylor was tall enough to be able to see teachers coming.
"What happened to you?" Taylor asked Missy at lunch. People had backed off of the questions about Aleph, possibly out of fear of getting punched.
"Idiots as I came in to school," Missy replied, picking at a small hole in her shirt. "I considered heading home for a new shirt, but then more idiots might've found me, and waiting for the PRT to pick up the first group had me running late enough as it was."
"So someone decided to abduct you out of costume?"
Missy snorted. "They wanted to grab me to use as bait for grabbing you. I think one of them was a tinker, but their taser barely stung, and the other one attempted to out-shaker me. They failed miserably at that, since their abilities couldn't affect anything that I'd already changed."
"Huh. They actually thought that would work?"
"I already said they were idiots."
Taylor snorted, but decided to check what the news was saying about the incident. And it appeared that so far all they'd picked up on was that there'd been a 'small fight' and that Missy had called the PRT instead of the police for 'unknown reasons'. Their current leading theory was that it was out of habit, followed by concern that the individuals were mastered. Somehow the fact that at least one of the two was a parahuman had been missed entirely. Then again, it seemed like nobody had pictures or video either.
"So it looks like PHO hasn't picked up on this," Taylor said. "And the news has squat."
Missy shrugged. "Your point?"
"You actually have the opportunity to get the first description of things out there, without anyone else contradicting you."
That had the younger girl blinking. "Huh." She then tilted her head a bit, before shrugging. "It was a boring pain in the ass, so I don't care. I'm more interested in what Aleph is like."
Amy rolled her eyes. "It's very much like Bet."
"Bah."
Taylor snorted. "What, are you expecting the laws of physics to be different over there?"
"No, but I was expecting there to be more to a description than 'very much like Bet'."
"There's fewer new buildings and prices seem to be generally lower when I go shopping over there. Though that could just be the part of Florida in question, I suppose. I haven't done much shopping in other parts of the country on that side, only really visiting for the whole healing thing this past weekend otherwise."
There was a pause at that, and Taylor realized that a lot of people probably hadn't known that she and Amy could get to Aleph on their own with that level of ease. Ooops. At least PHO would probably have something to be distracted by now?
After school Taylor went straight for the PRT building. She had two things to do there now, having gotten a delivery notification when the repeaters had come on at the end of classes. So she had to pick that up and sort things out there before going to the meeting that she was curious about the purpose of. If that didn't run too long then Amy had expressed some interest in getting some of their furniture shopping taken care of. Specifically, she wanted to get at least one bedroom set up so that she'd have options for when Carol and Mark got loud at night, which she claimed was partially to blame for the show that morning.
Taylor thought it was slightly rude to not invite Vicky along, based on that. On the other hand, having Vicky along while shopping for anything wasn't the most pleasant of experiences normally, and there might be a little bit of 'look for a gift to give Vicky' included in Amy's reasoning. Going further than the area around Brockton Bay might help with the latter aspect as well, for that matter.
Collecting her package didn't take long, and she was even able to get a close to suitably sized box to put everything in. She trimmed it down a little and taped it together, using the bits she'd cut off as support pieces to hold things somewhat in place. She'd provide a digital copy of the manual that she'd written, so the box was sealed up and put aside at that point. There wasn't really enough time to do much else though, as it was nearly time for the meeting by that point.
Taylor: As a quick note, if we do go shopping then I should probably pick up some wrapping paper.
Amy: Why?
Taylor: Because we don't have any to speak of at home right now and I need to wrap Vicky's birthday gifts. I've just got a box of stuff right now.
Amy: Oh, right. Wait, you've already gotten things for her?
Taylor: Duh.
Amy seemed to be a bit shocked at that, and Taylor wasn't entirely sure why. Either way, she headed up to the conference room that was being used for the meeting, finding that she was the first to arrive. That wasn't a problem, though she was distracted by one of the comfortable seats needing some tightening of screws. Not wanting to risk anyone getting hurt, she dug out a toolkit and ensured that the loose screws were tightened down. At the same time she submitted a note for the maintenance system that someone might want to do a quick pass on other chairs to ensure that others didn't have that problem.
She'd just finished up with that when some familiar snarks entered her range, which gave her an idea of what the meeting was going to be about. It also made her wonder if everyone having the day off was at least partially intentional, for that matter, or if that'd just been a happy coincidence. Regardless, she decided to use the restroom now, instead of later, with the added hopeful benefit of appearing to show up after the others had made it up to the room.
A little bit of intentionally delaying herself later and Taylor arrived back in the conference room a little over a minute after others had arrived, but apparently wasn't the last one to arrive.
"Good afternoon," she greeted the four already in the room.
Kenta nodded to her. "Good afternoon Miss Hebert."
Miku and Airi nodded as well, but Takara frowned and stared at Taylor for a moment. She started to switch to being 'drawn' for a moment before she snapped back to normal as her eyes lit up. "Maul!"
Taylor nodded. "Yes, I'm Maul."
Takara looked like she wanted to jump up to head over to Taylor, but she was sitting on Miku's lap and the woman wasn't having any of that. They settled into a mostly-comfortable silence, with Takara obviously annoyed that she couldn't get to Taylor right now, but it wasn't much longer before Deputy Director Renick entered the room with Miss Militia.
"Good afternoon," Renick greeted, taking a seat a couple of chairs down from where Taylor was sitting while his greeting was returned by most of them. Miss Militia sat next to him. "I'm fairly certain that everyone here has met each other before at this point. Though I will admit that I wasn't expecting Miss Yamamoto to be joining us today."
Airi shrugged. "We had an idea that'll come up later."
"I see." He then opened his folder. "I believe that the primary reason for this meeting is a potential Wards membership?"
Kenta nodded. "As much as I dislike it, we aren't equipped to help Takara with some of her needs now that she's triggered. Especially since the conditions that she changes under mean that keeping her identity secret is probably impossible, meaning that keeping her safe will be harder."
"Ah. Is that why you asked that Miss Hebert come, to get her opinion on being a Ward with a public identity?"
Miku snorted, even as she was doing her best to keep Takara quiet and in her lap. "No, we asked if she could come so that we could discuss how she handles younger Wards on her team. She didn't exactly intentionally out herself, after all, so her experiences will be very different. Your younger Wards would be better for discussing how things might go with Takara on that front, but still aren't going to be the same."
Taylor frowned. "I'm not sure what you want to know."
"They're more interested in how you'd likely handle Takara," Airi offered. "Specifically what kinds of things you'd have her doing with her powers, I believe."
"Well, I suspect that she wouldn't have a whole lot of non-patrol options for power usage. She's got more of a combat-oriented power set than one with utility options, though that seems to run in the family." Taylor found it amusing that Kenta facepalmed at that. "Due to her age she'd be restricted to primarily the 'safe' routes though, which limits likely combat options. Especially now that the city has calmed down quite a bit, even if I keep wondering when the next group of idiots will show up. So if patrols aren't enough then I'd probably have to request a list of acceptable alternatives, though I'm not sure what the PRT and Youth Guard would approve."
There was a pause, before Miku nodded. "That's...surprisingly well thought out, given that we just dropped this on you."
Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Did you expect me to not think about it after how excited your daughter was to be a Ward?" Which got Takara bouncing again.
Kenta snorted. "That would be the obvious answer, and it just serves to show that you aren't an idiot. Which is good, given that the position of Wards leader isn't granted on merit."
"Was there anything else that I'm needed for? Because I can't see this not turning into a slog through paperwork at this point."
Miss Militia sighed. "The only other thing is that they've expressed interest in the tinker fugue process that you went through."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "And that requires high level clearances that I can't see any of them getting at this stage. Besides, as much as it's safe in theory for someone Takara's age to go through the process, in practice I'd be incredibly wary of doing so without a much better reason."
Kenta nodded at that, slowly at first. "I suppose that there could be unidentified risks with someone younger, but I'm curious as to what kinds of things you think could be a problem."
"Well, earlier versions of the process severely stunted growth without regular manual adjustments of the enhancements. While that should be fixed with the improved variant, I don't know how well a child's growth rate would be handled by things. And that's before taking power interactions into account, the enhancements might not work well with her transformation. Along those lines, I'd be concerned about the same thing for you. With incompatible powers the best case scenario is that they just get removed entirely by either of your powers and make it a waste of time. And that's just with the strength and durability components."
The man paled slightly as he thought about that. "Ah. And we can assume that the worst case scenario is not to be contemplated. I'm now feeling much less interested in the idea without a lot more testing being done ahead of time."
A few more pleasantries and Taylor left, though Takara was unhappy about that.
Taylor and Amy had opted to stay local while shopping, primarily because they realized that they were far more familiar with the local stores than anything further away right now. That said, they headed over with their mopeds instead of taking the minivan or ambulance, figuring that it would be far easier to just open a portal up on a wall than try and get whatever they purchased into one of the vehicles. Assuming that they didn't have to wait for things to be delivered, since there was no guarantee that what they wanted would be in stock either.
On their way out Taylor realized that they were forgetting a couple of details. Like that while everything was there structurally, the various walls in the 'living areas' weren't exactly painted. They did have fancy blind systems in the windows, but there weren't any curtains, and the floors were generally a uniform 'bare' so they might need carpets as well. That resulted in them detouring to a hardware store first, if only to pick up paint sample cards. Deciding what colors to use made a little more sense from a 'figure out the furniture first' point of view, in their opinion, but having the cards ahead of time made sense to them.
Once actually at the furniture store they found that it was all but deserted from a customer standpoint. Apparently it was a slow day, but that meant very little in the way of other customers being distracting while they looked at things. At the same time, it meant that there weren't any other customers to distract the employees either. And that meant that they had people hovering, ready to help at the perceived possibility for someone to consider the idea of maybe dropping a hat that might only exist as a figment of someone else's imagination.
Really, they wouldn't have minded so much if they all weren't pushy about what they thought the two wanted. Not that they'd spent much time asking what the two wanted, for that matter, and the first two had tried selling them dining room sets without finding out that they were just passing through to get to the bedroom sets today. Figuring out the rest of things would be taken care of as they felt they needed them.
"Hello there," another employee greeted, one that they hadn't seen yet. Rae, according to her nametag. "I'm sure you've been pestered by all of my coworkers already, but do you need help finding anything?"
"We're just looking right now," Taylor answered, since it was her turn.
"I see. Well, at a minimum I'd recommend that you give this set a pass."
Both girls blinked, and Amy turned to Rae. "Why? Because it's not expensive enough?"
Rae rolled her eyes. "No, because I'm fairly certain that I could punch a hole in the side boards of any of the set if I wanted to. Unless you only need it to last a few weeks you should consider pretty much anything else, but if you're asking due to budget issues then I'd recommend making a mismatch set from the bargain 'slightly damaged' stock before buying this one. Notably, you won't find any pieces from this set there, because it seems to skip 'slightly damaged' entirely."
"Oh." That was probably the single most reasonable thing to come out of an employee's mouth since they entered the store. "Well, I at least want a full matching set, so perhaps we should skip this one unless Taylor wants it for some reason."
Taylor shook her head. "No, I think I'd rather have something that can hold up a bit better myself."
Rae nodded. "So you're looking for two sets?"
"Maybe. Amy wants one at a minimum, and I figured that I might as well get mine at the same time if I find something that I like."
Rae ended up hovering, but was at least more useful for getting actual information for each set that wasn't on the information sheets. Such as one set's drawers not having a bump on the rails to keep them open, or that the under-bed storage on another wasn't usable if you put it on anything but the thinnest carpet. Though you could apparently order a two-inch tall 'platform' to stick the entire thing on to solve that problem, one that would need to be special-ordered and that other customers had said was far too flimsy.
Both girls eventually decided that they liked the same basic set, though in different finishes, that came with a basic headboard and footboard, a pair of nightstands, and a pair of dressers that included a mirror for the short one. They'd both just decided to go with a full mattress and didn't care that extra long twin wasn't an option. With that decided, Rae made a quick note of the stock numbers for the various components before going to check what their stock looked like. Two other employees tried to convince them to buy something more expensive while they waited, but neither of them were in the mood. When Rae returned she had a paper with notes on it.
"We've got everything but the actual bed components," Rae said, gesturing. "I checked the basement just in case the inventory was wrong, but we don't have full size headboard and footboard sets in stock for those styles. We've got twin and king for both, and one of Amy's finish choice in queen, but we'd have to order full size for both of you."
Amy blinked at that, then obviously thought about some of the details. "I don't think that's actually a problem. There's plenty of room for a king-sized bed, so why not go for it?"
Taylor nodded at that. "That does make sense, and they have them in stock for both of our choices. Then we don't have to come back or wait for delivery, and it would fill up more of the empty space. I'd add a desk or something to work at to eat up more space, but that seems silly when I'm likely to just set up a 'home office' room at some point anyway."
"I can go mark the various components as reserved for you then," Rae said, and the two nodded. "Are you going to want to get anything else?"
Amy nodded. "I think I want to look at some rugs, and we should get mattresses as well. Actually, we should start with the mattresses, since we will need those and we could just go with wall to wall carpeting."
Rae nodded. "I'll meet you over there once I've marked things in the system."
It wasn't long before Rae joined them, her coworkers having left them alone, apparently figured out that they weren't getting this sale. Both girls decided to splurge a little more and get programmable adjustable bases. Ones that could be controlled with a serial connection specifically, not that they told Rae why that was important to them. They also picked out different mattresses, and Rae made sure that everything was in stock and flagged as reserved before they both decided that they weren't happy with the rugs available in the store.
"I suppose that now we just need to discuss payment and delivery," Rae said once they'd confirmed that they didn't want or need anything else today. "We've got a flat delivery fee for local deliveries, and you'll save money if both sets are being delivered to the same address."
"What if we don't need a delivery truck?" Taylor asked.
The woman blinked at that. "So you want to pick it up yourself?"
"I was thinking a slightly different situation, but essentially."
"Well, we've got plenty of people around to help move things into a vehicle of your choice, which would allow you to get out of here today. Otherwise you'd have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday."
Amy grinned. "Today will be fine, and we won't even need to get a truck. Once we've paid we'll even help move things if you want."
Rae now looked curious, and they went through the process of paying for their individual orders. With that done and confirmed, she brought them out through the back. "Most of the stock is in the basement, we'll need probably an hour and a half to get it all up here. That said, how do you plan on getting it out of here if you won't need a truck?"
Taylor looked around the back area, and sadly found that there weren't any especially convenient walls available. She gave that a moment's thought, then recalled one of the things that they should be able to do now. At least on Bet, anyway. She grinned as the system got a lock on her cell phones, and then a portal opened behind her. "I think this will be fine, though we can save the trips up the elevator by opening this downstairs."
Looking at the portal, Rae walked over to it. She gestured at it a moment later. "May I?"
"Feel free, though it won't be much to look at since that's opening into a hallway."
The woman obviously didn't care about that and carefully leaned forward to stick her head through the portal. A moment later she stepped through, stood there for a few seconds, and then stepped back out. "Wow. I bet the guys won't even think to complain about it being a 'delivery' with that trick. Let me get them, and permission to bring you two downstairs."
Forty-five minutes later everything had been loaded into the middle of the two 'bedroom' units, though they hadn't set anything up. Too much else to be done before the girls were going to be ready for that. Instead the two headed to their next stop to look for curtains and at a different selection of rugs, finding some of the former that they liked as well as some table lamps. From there they determined what color paint they wanted and swung back to the hardware store to pick some up, as well as painting supplies. Lots of painting supplies, as the employees were happy to question them as to what they were painting and to recommend various things. Tape, tarps, rollers, extension handles for the rollers, paint brushes for corner or detail work, and based on their paint selection they even included what they'd need for cleanup. Luckily the owner had also been able to take a look and determine that someone had already put primer on the walls for them, so they only needed the final coats. After they'd gotten all of that they left to make one last stop at a dedicated rug store.
By the time they'd found rugs that they were both happy with they were running late, but they'd informed their families that they were out shopping and were told to fend for themselves for dinner. So once the rugs, still rolled up, were dropped into their pocket dimension they went out to dinner together. In the process they checked PHO, and found that the tracking threads had noticed them wandering around shopping. At the same time, none of the employees that had seen the pocket dimension had said anything that PHO had picked up on, so nobody really knew that any purchases had been made.
After dinner they made their way to their homes, and Taylor split her attention between a little bit of schoolwork and reading up on how to properly paint walls. Luckily they didn't have to worry about ceilings yet, given that the roll-out bedroom units had no 'paintable' ceiling sections to speak of. Lights, skylights, and HVAC type units in the ceiling, but nothing that they'd be painting. On the other hand, they did have to worry about protecting the floor, outlets, switches, window frames, and door frames. Plus anything else on the walls that she wasn't remembering. Which meant learning how to properly tape things off, among other things. All things considered, they might want to ask for some help with all of this, because it seemed a lot more complicated than Taylor had been expecting at first. She hadn't even gotten to the actual painting techniques yet.
It was entirely possible that they should've considered hiring someone to do all of the painting for them, but they'd already decided to make the attempt themselves. Granted, that had been from a 'how hard could it be?' point of view, which was rapidly turning into a realization that they should've checked on more before making the decision. Then again, if they screwed up too much they could just bite the proverbial bullet and hire someone to fix it, and it was just paint.
Taylor: Shit, I think we forgot something.
Amy: What?
Taylor: I just got to a section on ladders, and I can't recall if we have anything suitable for painting in the pocket dimension. There are a couple of ladders built into places where we'd need them, but I don't think we have anything freestanding.
Amy: Oh. Er...
Taylor: I mean, it might be easier to use the flying platform, except that it's round so might be less useful in the corners.
Amy: Well, we can borrow ladders from our homes for now and consider buying our own to keep around in the pocket dimension later.
Taylor: True. Or make a quick trip back to the hardware store to get a couple.
Amy: What kind of options does the PRT store have for ladders? They might have something that'll be easier for us to work with.
That was a good point, now that it'd been brought up. It didn't take long to do a quick pass.
Taylor: There are over six hundred ladders listed in the PRT store.
Amy: Really?
Taylor: Most of them are intended to be vehicle mounted or permanently installed. Filtering those out leaves eight. Six of them are intended for leaning up against buildings and are too tall in their shortest configuration.
Amy: Oh. What about the last two?
Taylor: Their listings indicate that they're normal ladders like we could get at the hardware store. Apparently there isn't any freestanding ladder tinker out there that works with the PRT right now.
Amy: Ah. It was worth a check, but it sounds like we'll have more options to choose from at the store.
Taylor: Yep. Though another option has come to mind, but I don't know if we want to go anywhere near it.
Amy: And what would that be?
Taylor: Recruit Vicky to help with the places we can't reach.
Amy: ...
Amy: No, I don't think I want to see what horrible mess she'd create if she were to try and help us. Mainly because in order to fly she has to have her enhanced strength active.
Taylor: That is a good point. Eric or Crystal?
Amy: Crystal would be the better option there, but she's quite busy with her schoolwork.
Taylor: Which brings us back to borrowing or buying ladders.
Amy: Well, Missy might be able to help with that aspect of things.
Taylor: I suppose that's true, but she isn't available tomorrow afternoon at a minimum.
Amy: Ah. Oh well.
With a sigh, Taylor got up and headed downstairs to check on their ladder situation. Looking over the ladder when she got it out, she frowned. It'd been fine for things around the house, but it didn't really have anywhere to put something like a paint can down while working. Which would mean a lot of up and down or having the flying platform right there to hold paint and such, neither of which seemed ideal.
Taylor: Just so you know, I'm not liking the indoor ladder that we have here.
Amy: What?
Taylor: It doesn't really have anywhere to set a can of paint down at the top. Well, it looks like there's mounting points for something like that, but it isn't something that we have. I'm not sure if we ever had it, actually. There's some 'hold screws' size depressions in the top, admittedly, but that's about it.
Amy: Oh. I suppose I should check our ladders then.
It took Amy a few minutes, but she eventually got to their ladders.
Amy: I think I know what you were talking about now, since we've got one stepladder and one folding ladder and neither really have anywhere that paint could be set down while using them. The one for leaning up against the house does, but that doesn't help us when painting inside.
Taylor: So after school we're going ladder shopping before getting to work on things?
Amy: Looks like it.
Well, at least they'd realized that they needed ladders before they were in the middle of painting. And sure, they could probably get away with waiting until after they'd figured out taping everything off, but it didn't make a whole lot of sense to wait when they could go get something easily enough.
That said, Taylor went looking for her father. Both to find out if he had any tips for her and to find out if he thought they should get anything else. For example, he might appreciate having a painting-friendly ladder for the house in addition to whatever they got for the pocket dimension, or he might know of something that they didn't have that would make the painting easier.
Chapter 253 Tuesday morning Taylor, Amy, and Vicky had met up in the gym, Vicky was given birthday greetings but not gifts since those would come at her party, and then the three debated a bit on how to get to school. Overnight the weather had shifted and a significant downpour had started. It was supposed to be better in the afternoon, but that wasn't the case right now. In the end they decided that they'd rather not deal with the rain and, for the first time, decided to remotely open a pocket dimension portal to get to school.
Amy had taken the lead, and had chosen to open the portal near the gym. Specifically, in the hallway near the changing rooms. It turned out to be a great choice, as there hadn't been anyone there when the three stepped out. Then again, they were a bit early and there weren't a lot of people at school yet at all, in part due to rain-related traffic issues. Those that were there grumbled a bit about the three not being soaking wet.
In the end, almost a third of the student body ended up being late, as at least one accident had screwed things up to the point that many students taking a bus had ended up stuck in traffic or waiting at bus stops. This included the entirety of the other Wards. As such, it wasn't until lunchtime that they had a chance to communicate with any of them.
"How the hell did you two get here without being soaked this morning?" Missy asked as she sat down. She then pointed at Vicky. "I'd include her, but I'm blaming her force field, which works somewhat differently from your belts."
"My force field would be useless for keeping me dry in a deluge like we had this morning," Vicky commented, which got the attention of several others.
"Then how the hell did you three stay dry?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "What do you think we did, other than walk from the gym to here?"
There was a pause, before Missy facepalmed. "I'm an idiot. Doubly so, for not having that idea myself."
Others in the area looked at them oddly, but none of the group was volunteering any more information. Eventually most of the student body decided that they weren't getting an answer and moved on to other topics. There were exceptions, though they were less obvious about it. Primarily Chris, who took advantage of being able to not be noticed sending text messages.
C: I have to admit, I'm still lost. What did I miss?
M: Lost regarding what?
C: ...
C: Seriously?
T: You've whined about us leaving with the trick before.
A: And then agreed that said whining was probably unwarranted.
There was a pause as Chris thought about that, before Taylor could tell that he'd winced.
C: Right. I'm an idiot, question withdrawn. Any word on if I can get my own?
T: Haven't heard anything.
C: Damn.
V: I'd put in a good word for you, but I don't think it would do much since it was more mom's doing than mine to get one.
A quick glance showed that Chris wasn't happy about that, but there wasn't a whole lot else to be done about it.
"So what is everyone doing after school?" Missy asked. "Since apparently I'm stuck inside the PRT building running the Wards console this afternoon."
"At least you won't be out in the rain," Vicky noted. "But I'm going to be heading to the PRT building myself, I've got a pile of paperwork to go through and I want it out of the way so that I don't have to worry about it."
"How much paperwork could you have?" Karen asked.
"I'm eighteen today, which means that I'm in a limbo state for some things until I sign some paperwork, not to mention that I can't patrol with my family until some of my probation paperwork is dealt with. If I get through everything then I think they want me to do an official evaluation run with the Protectorate in the next couple of days. Luckily I finished up my new costume over the weekend, so that won't be a bad test run for it and I can present my new 'adult' cape identity pretty much right away."
That derailed the conversation wonderfully, as Vicky having plans for a new costume and cape identity was something that most people weren't aware of. She was keeping details to herself, but Taylor figured that it would hit the news soon enough. Though there was a comment made about there not being enough interesting things to get hit with in Brockton Bay that had Taylor sending a question off.
Taylor popped over to the PRT building when classes let out for several reasons. One was to be nice to Vicky, allowing her to tag along in order to avoid the rain. Another was that it was a good place to head out with the minivan from. But she groaned as she prepared for the third reason, because she realized that she'd never picked up wrapping paper. That went onto the top of her 'shopping list'. Ladders, fans, lights, and a couple of extension cords would be stop two.
With that on her list, she then waited in the common area for Missy to show up while Amy was doing some emergency healing at the hospital. Though Missy was taking longer than expected, but she eventually showed up. With Midnight in a pet carrier, which explained where she'd gone after school. "Why'd you pick up your spider-bot?"
"Mom wants it out of the way for the afternoon," Missy answered. "Why are you here when you're supposed to have the day off?"
Ensuring that her visor was recording, Taylor gestured to a box that she'd left on the counter. "I wanted to ensure that you got that."
Missy blinked, but moved over to the box anyway. She examined it from different angles, but didn't find any labels. Eventually shrugging, she put Midnight's carrier down and then opened the box. Blinking again, she lifted out the broom and Vista-themed witch hat. "What the hell?"
"I thought you might like a bit more direct mobility while out on patrols. I half considered giving it to Aisha, but giving her something that would make it harder to use her powers seemed like a bad idea."
"And the hat?"
"Amusing idea that someone in branding liked." Taylor also sent Missy the documentation that she'd written.
"I guess I know what I'm working my way through while the others are busy," Missy said once the documentation had gotten to her. She then looked at the pet carrier. "I wonder if I could get Midnight to sit on the broom safely? Not quite a black cat, granted..."
"I'll leave you to that," Taylor said, waving as she headed for the portal frame. "I've got other things to do." Like quickly getting a couple shots of the looks on the girl's face from the visor recording to send to Amy before doing her shopping.
Getting wrapping paper hadn't taken long, and Taylor got a card and some ribbon as well. The ladders, fans, and lights had taken a bit longer due to needing to decide on which ones to get. By that point Taylor just asked for a recommendation on multi-plug extension cords, got a brand recommendation, and bought a literal box of them. With all of that purchased and stored in pocket dimensions as appropriate for the purchase she'd pulled the minivan in from the parking lot at the store.
Amy still wasn't done at the hospital at that point, mostly because they'd waited for Jason to show up after the two most critical patients had been dealt with, so Taylor got everything moved to where they'd be using it. She also went to put the extension cords that they wouldn't be using away, picked what she thought was a sensible place to store them, and found that there were already six extension cords there. Following that, she moved to the point that she thought was likely to be the best place to store ladders and found that there were a collection of hooks, but no ladders on them. She had no clue about where to put lights or fans, but ended up digging out the Snitch and using it to look over the rest of the pocket dimension anyway.
By the time Amy arrived Taylor had determined that extension cords were the only 'extra' thing that she'd purchased, and that it might not count as 'extra' since the six she'd found didn't plug into normal outlets. Instead they attached to various power points in the maintenance areas, ones that would normally be used by the normal interconnects between things. Which made Taylor feel better, even if they could've used one of those power points instead of the in-room ones.
"So what's first?" Amy asked, obviously having changed into older clothing. Probably to avoid ruining anything she cared about, something that Taylor hadn't bothered with yet.
"First we need to prepare to paint," Taylor said. "That is, ensuring that our tarps are laid out, and that we have everything we're painting next to taped off properly."
"Oh."
"I figure we should take care of both rooms on that front first, and then maybe have my father or Mark take a look. Unless you think someone else would be a better choice?"
Amy sighed. "Carol would actually be the better choice, if only because she got very good at fixing damage caused by her weapons."
"I'll admit that I hadn't considered it that way, but I can see how that would be the case."
They spent the entire afternoon ensuring that they had everything taped off to the best of their ability to do so and that there were no gaps or likely trip-points with the tarps. Most of the latter being 'tape them down too' in the end. They had a stack of wall plates for each room that they'd taken off to make dealing with the switches and outlets easier, in addition to the framing bezels from around the control panels for other functionality. They'd also removed the hanging rods and doors from the closets, though not without some minor difficulty with the hinge pins. On the other hand, they also realized that they needed to go shopping again when Taylor's notes of things to take down while painting included 'curtain rod hangers'. They didn't have any of those already mounted in the rooms, and hadn't purchased any to go with the curtains that they'd picked up.
Both of them agreed, while taking some quick double-check measurements, that this was likely to be far from the last 'oops, forgot that' entry on their shopping list for the bedrooms.
They felt that they'd done a decent job of things by the time they headed to their own homes for dinner. Vicky had gone out to dinner with Dean so Amy didn't have any information on how the paperwork went, but that was probably fine. After dinner Taylor brought her father and Amy brought Carol into the pocket dimension to look over their prep work.
"This isn't bad," Carol said as she looked over things. "But you've blocked off all of the outlets. Where are you going to plug the lights and fans in?"
Taylor gestured at the bathroom door. "We figured it was just as easy to plug them in and run the extension cords out of the bathrooms so that we could ensure that the entire outlet was protected from accidental painting."
"I see. That does seem like a decent idea, especially if you're not used to painting. I assume you over-tarped just to be safe?"
"Over-tarped?" Danny questioned. "I was wondering if they could use a couple more, if only to expand their work area for putting paint cans, roller pans, and such near them."
"We've got a couple extra to move around as needed," Amy pointed out.
Carol shrugged. "Okay, so maybe that's more of a personal preference than anything else. Still, this looks good enough. Actually, thinking back to my first few times painting rooms, I think you'll appreciate having gone the more cautious route where I wouldn't have gone nearly as far with taping things off. I know what I'm doing now, but I made a mess of things then."
"So when are you two going to start painting?" Danny asked.
"Maybe Friday?" Taylor offered after a moment's thought. "I've got to do Wards stuff for the next couple of days, anyway."
Amy nodded. "And I still haven't actually gotten Vicky a birthday gift, so I probably need to go shopping. Taylor apparently already did her shopping."
"Still need to wrap things though."
Carol looked between the two. "How in the world did one of you pull off doing shopping without the other one noticing?"
Taylor shrugged. "It's easy when you're doing all the actual purchasing online."
"Oh. That would make it trivial, wouldn't it?"
Amy grumbled at that. "I'm more annoyed that you came up with ideas and didn't share them, meaning that I still need to come up with something."
Taylor idly noted that Amy had not, in fact, asked if she had any more unused ideas. But outside of one outstanding item she'd already bought what she'd thought of, so it probably didn't matter much.
That evening Taylor had gone to the trouble of wrapping the gifts that she'd gotten for Vicky. She'd also, on Carol's recommendation, checked the ratings on the filter system that'd been installed in the pocket dimension. Specifically, how it would handle paint fumes. The end result was that apparently the entire system used calibrated energy fields to direct components of the input air in different directions, and the paint fumes would be sent out the 'harmful if concentrated' channels. Into the surroundings if the unit was deployed, or into an 'enclosed pocket' against the ceiling of the pocket dimension so that the normal maintenance function that the snark provided could purge them.
Apparently they hadn't included the weaponization module, which would allow for a fun set of other things to be done with 'waste contaminants of various kinds'. Which was the original purpose of the entire system before Dragon had reverse-engineered it and split the components up a bit more. Beyond that, the actual physical filters that were there as a backup were also rated for an obscene number of things. Including nuclear and biological waste, apparently. But they'd only last a few months at most without the other systems running.
Actually, after a more careful reading, they could also handle radioactive biological waste and airborne molten metals, though the latter only for an hour at best. She might have to look up the tinker that produced the originals at some point, to find out what the hell the filters were originally intended for. Where the hell did you find airborne molten metals?
Wednesday morning Taylor frowned as she looked over PHO. Someone had leaked the news about what she and Amy had been shopping for. Which wasn't annoying in and of itself. No, the more annoying detail was that there was a six-page discussion on PHO about thread counts on the sheets that they'd obviously have purchased, and four pages of arguing about what kind of pillows they bought.
The annoying part was that they hadn't considered getting sheets or pillows, and probably needed blankets too. Closet organizers were also something to consider, but lower priority.
She added those to her list before continuing to look over things. People were torn as to what to make of them purchasing entire bedroom sets, in particular because they weren't sure where they were to be used, so the tracking threads had whipped up support for spotting the delivery trucks that would obviously be dropping everything off. Hebert household, Dallon household, and PRT apartment building teams were already assembled. Which amused her, since everything had already been delivered so it was all a waste of time.
Heading to the PRT building for their morning run in the gym was derailed as soon as they stepped out of the portal into the Wards area. The fire alarms were active and a team was just getting started on Rosa's workshop.
"What happened?" Taylor asked, honestly not expecting to get an answer.
One of those passing back towards the hallway stopped at her anyway. "Oh, hello Miss Hebert, Miss Dallon. Looks like something went wrong in Water Monkey's workshop, an explosion rocked the building about ten minutes ago. Not much of a fire, but a lot of things look damaged."
"Oh."
It only took another ten minutes for them to declare the initial danger over, after which Taylor took a look. Most of Rosa's equipment in the room was damaged, and it looked like it might've been due to leaving one of her packs attached to a running faucet overnight. The fire damage was mostly from a damaged electrical box on the wall, one that her tinker snark spent several minutes thinking about before declaring that it would be better to replace it entirely.
Cataloging all of the damage ate up all of the originally planned gym time, at which point Taylor and Amy sighed and grabbed a proper breakfast anyway. It was obvious that, even with Taylor's help, Rosa wasn't going to be patrolling for several days at a minimum. Which was annoying, because it meant that plans for the afternoon had to be adjusted. Then again, there were other things they could do when not needing to keep an eye on one of the kids, so it shouldn't be too bad.
By lunchtime Taylor had gotten official confirmation that Rosa wasn't going to be patrolling. Colin was going to be working with her in the next couple of days to figure out exactly what had gone wrong so that they could prevent it from happening again, but she was going to have to provide her own list of what she thought the overall damage was as well. It was likely to be compared to Taylor's own list to either encourage the girl to not cover up things or to teach her a lesson in how to properly examine things.
At the same time, a couple of people had decided to skip the unfounded gossip and just ask questions.
"So are you two looking forward to your new beds?" Louise asked as they ate.
"We have a pile of things to do before we can get them set up," Amy admitted. "Painting the rooms, for starters."
"Not to mention more shopping," Taylor added. "We forgot a few things, but we aren't exactly ready for them yet so it isn't that big of a deal."
"Is that one room in each of your houses?" Louise asked.
"Nah, they're in the same place. Amy's room is a floor above mine, actually." Not that they couldn't change that, of course. Or that it mattered all that much which one was where beyond possibly getting used to them being in specific spots.
Though why that news seemed to cause a wave of disappointment to spread through the cafeteria might be something to think about later.
"So is there anything interesting planned for the afternoon?" Dennis asked to break up the lull in conversation.
"I was going to patrol with Water Monkey," Taylor admitted. "But plans have changed due to an incident this morning, so I have to figure out what to do about things."
There was a pause as several people, Dennis included, stared at Taylor. Phones were then brought out and people apparently started looking for what this 'incident' was. It wasn't likely to hit the news anytime soon, though, so good luck to them in finding it.
It wasn't often that Costa-Brown gave the Think Tank gifts, but she'd apparently purchased a bag full of headache medicine for them. Those more in the know were amazed that Cauldron had been willing to give up that much of the stuff without taking a pile of money for it. The rest were more concerned with ensuring that the pills were fairly distributed. Which meant that the entire Think Tank was watching as a small team opened the box.
Unlike previous purchases of headache pills, the first thing out of the box was a plastic bag that'd been tied shut. One with an unfamiliar logo on it. The team opening the box were obviously frowning as one of them opened the bag, and then dumped a pile of over the counter medicine boxes out of it. Most of the Think Tank was scowling at that, because they didn't think that Costa-Brown would be one to prank them in this way.
One of the others present picked up one of the boxes, while a third picked up what looked like a receipt. Most of the Think Tank had stopped paying attention, at least until the one reading the box swore. "The bastards!"
"What?" another member asked over the communication link.
They were ignored as the member reading the receipt grabbed one of the boxes, and allowed the receipt to be taken from them. Those two looked particularly annoyed as they did so, and the others present picked up other boxes to look at as well.
"I don't believe it," the one who'd originally taken the receipt finally said. "The stuff is mildly expensive over the counter medicine wherever it was purchased."
"I'm thinking it's from Aleph," one of the other two said. "Now that the teleporters are working we don't have to rely on the few movers who can get between here and there through other means, which probably means that Costa-Brown just visited long enough to buy out a corner store's supply."
There was silence on the communication channel for almost two minutes before someone laughed. "How many times could we have asked Snail Mail to pick up some drugs at the corner store for us? A single bag of medicine would've been trivial for her to bring back with her. What other things does she alone give us access to that we've never thought to check on?"
Well, when put like that it made them look like fools, didn't it?
As soon as school let out Taylor headed for the PRT building, taking a quick look at Rosa's workshop. She found that someone had already replaced the electrical box and moved over to take a quick look. She found that they'd left several things intentionally disconnected with little warning labels and a note that said that she or Colin had to approve before any given lead was reconnected. Her name was added on by hand afterwards, but it looked like that had been done by Colin, so it was likely fine.
She put a request to confirm that into the system anyway, of course.
With that done she got changed, since she should go out on patrol even if Rosa wasn't available. Not that she'd determined who she was going to be patrolling with yet. Some of that might come down to who showed up since she'd put today down as 'recommended, but not required' for the older Wards, with a note that she needed at least one of them to show up. She fully expected Missy to show, and probably Chris, but Aisha was going to be a crapshoot.
It was thus to her great surprise that Aisha was the first one to arrive, beating Missy who had the ability to get there using pocket dimension portals.
"I wasn't sure if I should be expecting you at all today," Taylor noted. "And here you are, earlier than I'd have thought."
Aisha shrugged. "I got picked up by Brian right after school let out thanks to a couple of idiots."
"What kind of idiots?"
"The kind that thought they could bully me. I didn't actually find out if it was because I'm a girl, I'm black, or if it was because I'm both. But one of them punched me and Brian wanted to make sure that I was okay. At which point he dragged me here, and unless you need me for numbers he wants me not patrolling."
"Why would he want you not patrolling?"
Aisha rolled her eyes. "Because one of them actually got a good hit in while I was kicking the other one in the balls and he doesn't want anyone to notice that I'm limping slightly on patrol."
Taylor blinked a couple of times. "That's got to be one of the worst reasons ever."
"Yeah, like I couldn't hide a limp."
"Then again, blindness to the obvious is a thing. Who are you talking to?"
Aisha stared at Taylor, blinking a couple of times, then facepalmed. "I'm an idiot. Right. You could just heal me right up so that there's no limp to be hidden in the first place."
"So shall we ignore your brother's request and have you go out anyway?"
It looked like the girl was going to say yes, before she sighed. "No, because that might piss him off, and I'm supposed to write a stupid extra essay on why I shouldn't be fighting other students anyway. The console is boring, but would give me time to do that so that I don't get in more trouble for having skipped it."
"Ah. Okay. We'll have to see who else shows up anyway, though, since I should really get a patrol in myself and so far you're the only one here."
"That would fall under 'need me for numbers', so it should be fine."
Taylor went and grabbed a snack, and Missy showed up halfway through the bag of chips. The girl went straight for her room, probably to get changed, and Taylor had finished the bag by the time she returned.
"So what's happening with Rosa not patrolling?" Missy asked.
"Where the hell did you get that hat?" Aisha countered, pointing at the witch's hat that Missy was wearing.
"It was a gift."
Aisha didn't like that answer, at least from the look on her face, but Taylor interrupted. "I'm looking to patrol anyway, if only to keep the Youth Guard from possibly complaining that I'm not looking after my own needs."
Missy nodded. "Well, Chris isn't likely to show. He wanted to get some shopping in for a surprise gift and confirmed that I was going to be around today so that he'd have no worries at all about skipping out for the afternoon."
"Okay, then I guess the two of us can go out with Aisha on console."
Missy started to nod again, then paused and grinned. "Oooh! Can we do a flying route?"
Taylor blinked, then snorted. "Are you sure you want to learn the ropes on that thing while on patrol?"
"I'm lost," Aisha admitted.
Missy's answer was to crunch space down the hallway to get back to her room, and a minute later returned with the broom. She then held it up, grinning widely. "I've got a flying broomstick. Though in limited testing I found that Midnight doesn't like to ride on it with me."
"Where the hell did you get that?"
"Taylor gave it to me."
Aisha turned to glare at Taylor, who rolled her eyes. Not that Aisha could see that through the dark visor. "Why did you get her something to fly on?"
Taylor grabbed Aisha and lifted her off the ground. "So, now that you aren't on the ground, how effective are your powers?"
The girl blinked a couple of times, looked down, wriggled a bit, and then pouted. "Okay, I can't really argue that point. And with higher vantage points Missy could probably use her powers more effectively, so giving her the added mobility makes much more sense than giving it to me."
Taylor nodded and put Aisha down. "If I come across something a bit more ground-level then you might get it. Or you can just ask for a branded bike or something." She then turned to Missy. "Given the comment about Midnight, I assume you tried at least some flying already?"
"Expanded the room and flew around in it a little," Missy explained. "Midnight seems afraid of it, but only when the broom is 'on', so I think the flight system messes with spider-bot senses."
"Ah. That could be the case, yeah. Perhaps just the negated gravity field screwing with the sense of up and down?"
"But I don't get to be a witch with a black spider familiar for laughs, which is annoying."
Taylor shrugged. "At the same time, you won't be bringing Midnight into a possible fight."
There was a pause, before Missy nodded. "I hadn't considered that. I wouldn't want Midnight to be hurt, so patrols are probably a bad idea."
"I so need to get prepared to monitor PHO," Aisha said after a moment, moving over to the console. "See when the first person posts a picture of Missy playing witch on patrol."
"I suspect that she's forgotten her annoyance," Taylor said, looking back at Aisha. "Still, we should pick a route and get all of that set up." She then brought a list of flying routes up. "Do you want to play it safer with one of the less dangerous flying routes, or go for it with one of the ones that pass over all the gang territories?"
Missy frowned. "I didn't think we were allowed to use the latter without approval."
"On paper, perhaps, and that's what the icons imply. But I'm looking at them now and it turns out that if that's supposed to be the case then they screwed up. They only require SL6 or better to activate, no PRT or Protectorate flags at all."
"Ooooh. Let's do one of them then. Can't give up the chance to distract them from realizing they made a mistake by having them react to the more obvious detail of me flying around instead."
"Works for me. I'll get that ready, make sure that everyone is ready on the console, and then we can head up to the roof. Though do you have the clips in for your hat?"
Missy looked confused at that. "Why would I...wind, hat with a sizable brim. Right. Be right back."
Chapter 254 The PRT officer on Wards console duty didn't say anything about the chosen route, so Taylor was on her platform flying along as Missy got used to using the broom outside instead of being constrained to a single room. She was doing a lot of darting back and forth, speeding ahead only to then retreat back to where they'd already been, and occasionally trying to match speed but spiraling around Taylor.
Of course, Missy would prefer that the six 'crash into buildings' incidents as they left the PRT building never be talked about, but Taylor had her visor and scout drone recording. Clips of those from a number of angles were going to be available, and likely shared with several others. They might even make it into the system, since the augmented patrol app was running and thus making a copy of things as well.
Taylor suppressed the urge to frown as two parahumans on a rooftop came into her range as they flew along. A quick check confirmed that they were in costume, so as they got closer Taylor highlighted them on the augmented patrol app before hitting her console button.
"Maul to console," she subvocalized. "I don't recognize these two, but they appear to be teenagers and they're parahumans in costume that may be waiting for us. Do we have any information on them?"
Missy swung around to fly next to Taylor as they waited, and it wasn't long before Aisha responded. "Console to Maul, those two are unknowns. Rumors indicate that the purple rope can be controlled somehow, and that the scissors may be a power creation or focus, but we have no confirmed details."
Well, that was at least better than nothing. They reached the closest point their patrol would come to the rooftop the two were on shortly after that, and Taylor wasn't really surprised when the purple rope was thrown in their general direction. What did surprise her was that it just fell, slapping against the building that the two parahumans were on when it did absolutely nothing special.
"Was that supposed to do something?" Taylor asked after a moment.
The girl that'd thrown the rope looked back up at Taylor, her knitted domino mask looking a bit too potentially itchy. "It was supposed to try and grab you."
"Huh. Didn't work. You feeling okay?"
"Yeah. I knew you would be able to get free, since I'm not a brute, but to have it fail to even try is annoying." She then wiggled the end of the rope, before whipping her hand at the girl with the scissors. The rope suddenly jumped up and moved to wrap around the other girl, who batted it away with the scissors while jumping to the side. "See? Works fine on her." Whipping it back towards the two Wards had it falling down again. "But not on you two. I don't usually run into people that outclass me to the point where my power won't work on them."
Taylor nodded, even as Missy moved down and between two other buildings, likely looking to get around the two without being seen. The sudden jump to behind the building they were on a moment later confirmed that. "Huh. Not much that I can do about that. Though I'm not sure why you targeted us to begin with."
"The stupid gangs are terrified of making you angry for some reason, so going after you shows that I'm not nearly as much of a scardy-cat as they are."
"Ahhh. At least you waited for me to be in costume?"
The two girls looked at each other, then back at Taylor. "Why the hell would we risk the wrath of who knows who by going after someone out of costume?"
Taylor might've answered, but Missy took that moment to fire off a stun blast into the purple rope girl while hitting her scissor-bearing partner with her taser. Though that did mean that they found out that the scissors were powers-created, since they vanished when the girl collapsed.
"How did they last long enough to do this if they're that horrible at watching their own backs?" Missy wondered.
"I'm going to assume that someone took pity on them," Taylor answered. "Either that or they underestimated us on the basis that we're good guys? I'm not really sure. But they attempted to attack us, technically, and declared that it was their intention to do so."
Aisha confirmed that a van was on the way to pick the two up, but Taylor decided to see if she could get any more information from their snarks.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Query]|Dismissal|
Well, scissor-girl's snark didn't want to chat, and Taylor saw little reason to force it to.
Taylor: I'm the one on the flying platform that your human just failed to grab.
[Acceptance]
Taylor: I don't suppose you're willing to tell me what you do for your human? Or perhaps why she couldn't grab me?
[...Data]
Well, one out of two wasn't horrible, and apparently the girl couldn't use the grab trick on flying targets specifically. There was a subtle implication of a lack of connection back to the girl, perhaps she connected through the ground somehow for that trick and the rope followed it?
Taylor ended up moving both girls down to the ground so that the PRT officers could secure them, at which point she and Missy continued on their way. It took a few minutes for Missy to return to the more energetic flying routine that she'd been doing before they ran into the two girls.
"A pair of parahumans, two robberies, and one outright attack against you," the police officer supervising loading of the latter group into vans said. "Busy afternoon for you."
"Apparently," Taylor said, looking around. Missy hadn't spotted anyone else, but that didn't mean that there weren't others nearby waiting for an opening.
"Too bad the first group got away already."
"What?"
"Yeah, they woke up on the way to the PRT building and broke out of the van. I figure it was difficult to restrain them properly when they're unknowns and am just glad that you girls didn't call us for those two."
Well, that was unexpected. Somewhat, the officer had a point about keeping unknowns secured in transit, and Taylor hadn't been able to learn that much from their snarks with a gentle approach. Coupled with them showing basically zero useful abilities at the time made it pure luck for actually holding both of them once they woke up.
The officer was called over to one of the vans a moment later, and Taylor called her platform over to jump back on it. They didn't have to stick around at this point anyway, so she and Missy could get moving again.
"I wonder if we'll run into anything else," Missy said. "Beyond lots of people having started setting up along the route with cameras, anyway."
Taylor shrugged. "No clue, but they're up to page fourteen on PHO."
"Really? Huh. Think we should make a quick video to put up ourselves?"
"Up to you, I think."
They ended up recording a few minutes of Missy flying from various angles, and Taylor let Missy upload it. That made the thread explode with new discussion, amusing both of them and Aisha.
Anne grumbled a bit as they entered their temporary base, the key she'd made to unlock the door vanishing now that she didn't need it. "Why the hell did we go along with Nana's plan?"
Irma rolled her eyes as she continued to go over her rope. Luckily it hadn't been damaged while they were out. "You know that we agreed that looking like lucky idiots would be more likely to get us ignored for recruitment by anyone while we try and figure out where Michael and Natalie are hiding. I'm more annoyed that Vista actually got the drop on us."
"Yeah, yeah. We should've had another few seconds or so before she made it into position, but we forgot to take into account her ability to crunch space."
"We know better for next time. I'm just happy that the PRT didn't restrain us properly to keep us from using our powers. It would've been much harder to escape from their holding cells." Nodding to herself as she found no damage to the rope, Irma flexed her power to coil it up before sending it over to the empty hook in the set that she'd put up to keep it and the others like it on when not out in her chosen costume for their stay in Brockton Bay. Her mask and belt followed a moment later, though she didn't have extras of those yet. "As an added bonus, we now have an extra 'escape' plan ready that we can use and not be seen to be repeating ourselves."
Anne waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Do you have any plans for dealing with the Wards next time? That they've got multiple that are too strong for you to grab could be problematic for our current bag of tricks."
"My current thought is that we avoid them. Not like they're likely to get in our way, and we did expect that a lot of the locals would be trouble to deal with anyway. The whole 'lucky idiot' thing is entirely because of that."
"I suppose."
"But we should check with Nana anyway. She might have other thoughts, and I'm less sure of things with Vista. I half expected to be unable to do anything to Maul."
Anne nodded. "Yeah. Given that, I think I should make another attempt to get Nana to agree to let me put a gun back into one of my slots. Perhaps she'll agree if I swap out the short sword, since I'm starting to think that we need a long-range holdout around here."
"Not sure if that'll convince her, but feel free to try anyway."
Taylor checked in on Rosa when they finished their patrol, and found that she'd carefully piled some equipment up along one wall, and haphazardly thrown other equipment into a pile in the corner. The latter looked to be the worst off, and was probably seen as scrap or spare parts to the girl's snark now. Especially since Taylor's tinker snark was making her think that some of it would be better treated that way as well, unless she really wanted to get all of it working again. The girl was, at the time that Taylor checked, working on part of her backpack that seemed to need several components replaced or repaired.
Shaking her head, she went and got changed, then ensured that Rosa was ready for when she was picked up to head home. That left Taylor as the last of the Wards to leave, but it didn't take her long to get home. Her father had dinner ready when she got there, and she described the patrol to him as they ate. This included showing some of Missy's initial trouble with buildings, which amused him.
After dinner, she looked over PHO and found that Missy and Dennis had both been posting in the thread about the broom. Missy was answering questions, mostly, while Dennis was asking stupid questions. Like if Missy could cast spells now, and if she had a black cat that just couldn't make it today.
Oddly enough, he'd dropped the latter line of questioning like a rock when Missy had posted a picture of Midnight, with an apology stating that the broom wasn't spider-friendly.
She was still looking over the thread when she finally got a response to an earlier question that she'd asked, causing her to grin. That led to her switching over to her tablet for some actual design work, since she felt that things should be presented correctly. It took a bit of trial and error, but she ended up happy with the end result and printed off a copy.
Amy: Why are you grinning?
Taylor: Plans coming together.
Amy: Ah. Did you know that there's a store just outside of town that sells brute-rated backpacks? They're only rated for lower levels, granted, but they're stronger than they look.
Taylor: Really? Do they sell brute-rated anything else?
Amy: Well, they've got supposedly brute-rated folding chairs, but I watched a non-parahuman toddler break the display model. Granted, it could be that the display model isn't one of the brute-rated ones, but I'm not about to trust them. Luckily that's a different brand from the backpacks, which seem to be built well.
Taylor: Good to know, I guess, but have you handed one of the backpacks to said toddler?
Amy: No, but now I want to. I wonder if she's still here or if her mother would object?
Taylor resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she finished up what she was doing, then double-checked her plans for the next day. Which were...sparse. Possibly patrol, but she'd likely grab the console so that she could be around since her calendar said that Colin was going to be going over things with Rosa. Missy was probably going to want another stint on her broom, so having her patrol with Ryan might not be a horrible idea. Aisha had only an hour ago indicated that she didn't want to take any of the non-patrol items on her potentials list as well, and instead wanted to go out on patrol, so that essentially created a full patrol group there. Though Chris also wanted to do something, so perhaps Missy would be bumped in favor of Chris who had taken the day off today?
Some weeks were far easier to schedule than others.
Thursday morning started a little noisier than expected due to a truck down the street deciding that it no longer wanted to function as a truck. It might've been a little quieter, if as part of things one of the wheels hadn't ended up rolling across the street into a different car, setting off its alarm.
Taylor had taken a quick look and was fairly certain that her tinker snark had wanted to flinch at the mess. The truck was almost certainly a write-off at this point, but it looked like the final failure would've looked spectacular.
When she made it to the gym she found that Vicky had joined Amy for a morning workout, and Missy arrived a few minutes later.
"So what brings you here this morning?" Missy asked Vicky.
Vicky shrugged. "I'm scheduled to run a quick patrol with the Protectorate today, to get it out of the way. First evaluation of me as an adult instead of as a minor and all that annoying stuff. So I'm going straight home to change after school, then flying over to the Rig."
Taylor thought about that for a moment, then submitted a quick question on Vicky's behalf. It couldn't hurt, at least, and was probably going to be better received coming from inside the system than from Vicky herself.
"So what else is happening this afternoon?" Missy asked. "Since Taylor apparently gave me the option of tagging along on a patrol or tagging along while more granite is repaired around town."
Amy looked over at Taylor for a moment, then shrugged. "I assume she has good reasons for that. I'm going to be working on a few things in the greenhouse today. Someone actually wants to buy some of my bamboo, so I need to prep some of that for them, and I should whip up some more rose bush bulbs."
"I'm planning on running the console for the patrol," Taylor added. "In case I'm needed for tinker support while Rosa's damaged stuff is looked over."
"And there's the expected good reason for me only being able to tag along on things," Missy grumbled. "Why can't you have unreasonable plans that I can argue against?"
"You aren't whining about me not making one of the others play tag-along instead?"
"I just patrolled, they didn't. That part was obvious. The non-obvious part was why you weren't available to make it two patrols."
"Ah. You can always take the day off instead you know."
"Fat chance of that happening today. I'm using 'Wards stuff' as an excuse to not go shopping with my father."
Vicky snorted at that. "Figures. Though how bad could shopping with him be?"
"I have zero interest in coffee or the various things that are used to make it, but I'm willing to bet that he could give lectures on the subject. We need a new whatever he decides to get for the weekend and I lost interest about five minutes into his first lecture on the subject. That was three days ago. Being stuck unable to escape while shopping with him should legally be considered torture."
"Oh."
They talked about other things for a bit after that, including Vicky teasing Missy about going around as a witch like she was a little girl playing dress-up. Missy's counter-argument was that now she could snipe people from high altitude and that she had other tricks that she could use now.
Vicky had laughed at that until Missy demonstrated one of those tricks by carefully piling up a dozen cinder blocks that she'd been carrying in one of her pouches, having been practicing using her powers to keep them compressed down to a smaller and lighter size for transport. The idea of those being dropped from heights on particularly troublesome targets was actually an amusing image for them. Then again, Missy was the only one in the room without a force field available.
By lunchtime Taylor had forgotten about her morning request, but as they were sitting there eating Vicky paused, then beamed and turned to Taylor. "Thank you!"
Taylor looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
"I can't think of anyone else who would've asked for me to be given access to visitor arrival points."
Blinking, Taylor recalled her morning message. She then nodded. "Yeah, that made sense to me, but I wasn't sure if there was something else involved in their decisions for who got access to those."
"What are you two talking about?" Amy asked, obviously confused.
"I asked the PRT about affiliates in general and Vicky specifically getting access to more visitor arrival points. You've already got access for other reasons, of course. I'm assuming that they agreed with my logic. Either that or Armsmaster got word of the request and decided that it would be inefficient to not approve it, I suppose."
Amy nodded, but a small number of students were obviously confused about what they were talking about. Not that anyone who had a clue was going to enlighten them beyond what they'd already stated. Taylor heard a couple of people mention 'secret entrances' and figured that was probably accurate enough. That the entrances were for use from pocket dimensions was just an extra detail.
More people would've taken note of the conversation if the majority of students weren't crowding Missy, wanting information on the broom and her 'witch costume'. As if adding a hat counted as an entirely new costume. Dennis being over there acting clueless and wanting details could be a clever ruse on his part, or he could've been kept entirely out of the loop and was actually clueless. Taylor wasn't sure if she wanted to check on that, let alone how to without asking him directly.
It was shortly before the repeaters shut down that Taylor got a message of her own, stating that Colin and Director Piggot had approved a schedule change for her. A priority request for her time to start with, and if she had time today a lower-priority documentation task afterwards. Which was annoying, but at least she hadn't scheduled herself for patrolling. She had no chance to look for details before the repeaters shut down, which left her mildly frustrated as she made her way to her afternoon classes.
Jacob looked over Mary and Tori. They'd mostly figured out how to dress like normal teenagers, which was a plus. The only thing detracting from that in his eyes were that their shoes had velcro instead of laces, but the fact that said shoes existed in the first place probably meant that he was over-thinking things there. Further, they'd figured out that they could keep their preferred comfort toys with them without the toys being noticed by hiding them inside of their purses.
All in all, they actually looked normal enough to wander around in public in a city like Brockton Bay. Not that he'd want them doing so unescorted, of course, but it was enough for him to be willing to consider bringing them to visit Taylor.
"You look like you've done your research," he said out loud, and both girls beamed at him. "Next up is me taking you out to eat to see if you can act as normal as you look when in public." And that had Mary looking mildly panicked and Tori pouting. "If you can pass as at least as normal as Riley then I'll arrange to meet up with Taylor and possibly Amy." With that both girls looked at each other, then nodded. They were determined to pass this, apparently.
Of course, he'd still have to figure out when to bring them, and where they'd end up going for that matter. He might end up wanting to go somewhere other than Brockton Bay, but that would be trickier to arrange right now. Yes, he had a teleporter in his house, bought under the excuse that it would make moving around easier and still let him sleep in his own bed more often. But bringing Mary and Tori through it could result in questions that he didn't want to be answering. Perhaps dropping them into his own pocket dimension long enough for him to use the teleporter would work? It was an idea, at least.
He pulled out his phone and made a quick note to get proper locks for the containers he had in his pocket dimension. If he did use that plan then he'd need to ensure that neither girl could get at the toys he was storing. Meeting up with Taylor and/or Amy only to start with emergency healing was something that he'd like to avoid.
After school Taylor made her way to the PRT building, grumbling about the lack of information available on either task she was being given for the afternoon. Though she did amend Missy's potential activities list to include running the console, since now that would be open. One of the only good things about the two activities for the day was that she apparently didn't need to be in costume for either of them.
A quick check of things in the Wards area, including finding a stack of mail waiting for her, was followed by heading up to Director Piggot's office. She'd go straight to the 'high priority' task, but nobody had bothered to put down where it was or with whom. Which left checking with Director Piggot or Colin, and only one of them was in the building. Or at least the system said that Director Piggot was around, which was as good as Taylor was going to get with the woman.
"Good afternoon Miss Hebert," the director's secretary greeted. "What brings you by?"
"Afternoon," Taylor replied. "And a 'high priority' task was approved for me, but nobody seems to have seen fit to tell me anything more than that it exists. Armsmaster isn't in the building yet to ask, so I figured that checking with Director Piggot was my next best bet."
"She's currently in a conference call, but luckily I can help you there. Mister Chambers pulled a favor or two in order to get your assistance with something, but I'm not sure what. He should be in his office now, but if you want I can call down to confirm?"
Taylor shook her head. "No, that's okay. I'll head down there, see if I can get whatever it is he wants help with out of the way."
It only took a couple of minutes to get to Glenn's office, and he called for her to enter as soon as she knocked. She found him going through a box full of books. "Afternoon. I hear you wanted my help?"
"Ahh!" Glenn said, a look of relief on his face. "Yes, yes. I'm at a complete loss and was hoping that you'd have additional insight into young Takara's branding."
Taylor blinked at that. "What?"
"You're probably the most knowledgeable person about her powers we have available, and even noted things that the testers didn't regarding how her transformation integrates her clothing coloring. I was hoping that you might be able to provide more insights that could help with her branding."
"Oh. I'm not sure what I could contribute, to be honest."
He gestured at the box of books, and then at a stack of papers. "I've been going over various 'dragon' related sources and am tempted to start trying to tear out more of my hair. But finding something that works for a young girl and isn't likely to create issues with the local gangs is a horribly complicated task."
Taylor nodded there. "Yeah, I can see how that would complicate matters." She then took a moment to pull up a couple of things, and found that Glenn had been informed of Kenta's identity as part of things. "At least you don't have to worry about all of the gangs, right? I can't see her father allowing anyone to object if she uses Asian influences."
"Why would that..." Glenn started, then blinked a couple of times. He then groaned. "I'm so used to what I can't use in this blasted town that I limited myself without thinking. Of course her father won't let his people object to Asian influences. He'll probably be expecting them, even. Of course, out of habit I don't have any of those materials here, but at least I have time to get them."
"Glad I could help. Was there anything else?"
He looked at her, obviously thinking for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, actually. Three things. First, good call with the hat for Miss Biron. I've got people working on a line of merchandise using that and the broom for her, and we're thinking that it will be a success. Makes me wish that Parian was willing to make more of those plush toys, but she declined on the grounds that it would devalue those already made. Second, for today and the whole witch hat idea you're owed a favor from my department in general, I'm sure you can find the documentation on how those work."
"It shouldn't be hard to find, no, but if I have trouble then I'll let you know."
"Please do. Lastly, I'd like to apologize for not keeping a close enough eye on things in order to stop the horrible paint job."
Taylor blinked at that. "What paint job?"
"You'll see."
That didn't make her feel all that confident.
Taylor ended up waiting for Colin to show up so that she could ask him about the documentation project, only for him to direct her to head over to the Rig where Sherrel was waiting. Worryingly, he also apologized for the paint job, without providing any other details. She didn't know what to make of that, but she used her pocket dimension to get over to the Rig anyway. Vicky was there already, though she was higher up in the Rig with Terry while Taylor was heading down to meet Sherrel.
It didn't take long to get down to the garage that Sherrel worked out of, and she found the woman working on something under a PRT van. "Good afternoon."
"Hi," Sherrel replied, half waving before there was a ping sound. "Goddammit, this blasted transfer case refuses to cooperate."
Curious, Taylor walked over and looked under the van. "Do I want to know what bent the drive shaft?"
"No clue, because nobody told me. But I can't get both universal joints disconnected properly because of the bend and the transfer case doesn't want to come off of the transmission. I don't suppose you can spot anything that I missed?"
Sherrel moved out of the way so that Taylor could look over things. That didn't take long. "I think there's still a bolt above where the drive shaft connects."
"FUCK. I forgot about that one. Maybe I'll just cut the stupid shaft off to get at it."
"Whatever works. I was told that there's something for me to document?"
The woman blinked, then beamed. "Oh yeah! Forgot why you were even coming for a moment. Give me a moment and we can go take a look."
Five minutes later Taylor had been brought to the parking area of the Rig, where a tarp sat over what looked to be either a long truck or a bus. Sherrel grinned as she pulled the tarp off, revealing that it was indeed a bus of some kind. One painted with neon stripes as a background for the 'ENE WARDS' in a vibrant but not quite neon green over it. Which nicely solved the mystery of why people were apologizing for the paint job today. Perhaps they could treat repainting the thing as a Wards group activity?
"There you go," Sherrel said, ignoring that Taylor was still shocked at the paint job. "One bus for the Wards. Problem is, nobody can fully understand my documentation, so we asked and got permission to just have you write it. Mainly because everyone's already expecting you to do so anyway, so you might as well get proper credit for doing so." She paused, and then apparently took Taylor's silence as 'questioning'. "In particular, nobody's been able to get the flight system down without me actively helping them. After the fourth near-crash we figured that it was a lost cause."
Taylor finally snapped out of staring at the paint job, though that might've been due to her tinker snark starting to feed her information on the bus. Which could probably double as an armored personnel carrier if needed. "Why does it have a pop-up weapon mount integrated into the roof at the back?"
"You'll find that a t-shirt cannon is in the storage area in the back right now, and we're sure that Water Monkey can make a water gun compatible with it."
"Oh."
Chapter 255 Taylor had decided to test the bus inside the empty third of the pocket dimension linked to Broadcast Administrator. It was far less visible than doing so outside and also meant that she didn't have to worry about anyone seeing her blunders. Operating it on the ground was easy enough, and made her happy that she'd gotten training with buses already. Taking it to the air was a different story. When in the air it operated on principles similar to the mopeds, but tied into a decidedly less effective control interface due to having been rigged to be an on-the-ground system first. Though it did have some of the gravity and inertial control systems from the platforms, meaning that you didn't have to be buckled in securely if the bus was flown upside-down.
That was particularly important given that the only seatbelt in the entire thing was for the driver, something that Taylor submitted a question about as soon as she realized that the various reconfigurable seats in the back didn't come with any safety restraints whatsoever. Sure, the inertial control system should keep injuries from occurring, but having seatbelts as a fallback just made sense to her.
Over a hundred pages of documentation later and she returned the bus to the Rig so that someone else could give it a try with her instructions. She then went home to eat dinner with her father. At the same time she'd decided to try and work around her own snark's thoughts and restrictions in regards to the paint job through appealing to safety concerns.
Taylor: Okay, so we can agree that one primary function of the bus is that it's supposed to protect those riding in it, right?
UMR: Agreement
Taylor: And while I get your point that the paint job makes it more visible to other motorists, that just makes it worse.
UMR: Confusion
Amy: You've lost me too, by the way.
Taylor: The paint job is too bright and eye-catching. It's likely to cause accidents as people gape at it. I'm also thinking that it's visible from far too far away, making it an easy target for larger weapons.
UMR: Contemplation
Amy: Seriously? How could it possibly be that bad?
Rolling her eyes, Taylor grabbed pictures of the bus from all sides from a recording she'd made while documenting it. The crazy paint job even went under the thing, so as to be visible when it was in the air. Those pictures were sent over to Amy.
It was obvious that the other girl was stunned when she opened them, given how long it took her to respond. And it seemed like their snarks were waiting for her reaction before continuing the conversation.
Amy: Holy fuck. Who the hell approved that monstrosity of a paint job?
Taylor: Given the apologies I got, I think it was entirely Sherrel's idea and nobody else realized what it was going to look like until they saw it for themselves.
Amy: That thing looks like it's intended to paint a target on anyone riding in it.
UMR: Reluctant Agreement
And with Amy's reaction Taylor finally had the agreement of her tinker snark that the paint job had to be replaced. It probably wouldn't help with anything fancy, but a flat color with minimal lettering beyond anything legally required should hopefully be within what she could get out of it. The worst case scenario was that it helped her safely strip all of the paint when they were ready for that step.
"What has you grinning all of a sudden?" her father asked.
Taylor swallowed the bite that she'd been chewing before answering. "I convinced one of my powers that a paint job has to go. Getting a new one in place might be a bit more trouble, but I think getting the current one out of the way is the more important part of the process."
"Why would you be convincing it that a paint job needs to go?"
"I'd show you, but I'm not sure I want to let too many people see the horror that the current paint job represents. Though this does mean that I probably have to order some paint and other supplies, though hopefully I can use the paint booths in the Rig or PRT building garages to do the actual work in."
"And now you keep making me more curious. Maybe I can get Director Piggot to tell me?"
"If she's willing to let people see it then maybe. But given that everyone who had seen it was apologizing to me I'm not sure that I'd want to bet on it."
He gave her a look, and she had a feeling that he was definitely going to be requesting pictures now. Good luck to him if Director Piggot was as embarrassed about the paint job as everyone other than Sherrel seemed to be.
Friday morning Taylor and Amy opted to skip the gym and get straight into painting in the pocket dimension.
"So we'll start with your room," Taylor said. "That way if we don't finish both then at least you're closer to ready to use it if you feel it necessary."
"I guess that works," Amy agreed. "Though I bet it's also so that your room comes out better because we'll make most of our initial mistakes in mine."
"More like the sooner we screw up your room the sooner we can find someone to come in and fix it while we proceed to screw up my room."
"Ah, that would also make sense. Do you really think that we're going to do that poorly?"
Taylor shrugged. "I remember trying to help my parents paint walls when I was younger, but that's about it for my prior experience."
Amy nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'm not sure I even did that much."
"By the way, did Vicky say anything about how her patrol went yesterday?"
"She ended up bored out of her mind and annoyed that PHO didn't even connect her new costume to her. Despite the lack of a mask, but I think most of that was that they were too high up for a good look except for the two times they dropped down on a crime."
"I guess that makes sense. Did the costume at least work out for her?"
"Personally, I think it looks silly. But I think that was at least part of the goal. She switched from her pure white dress to a light blueish-grey bodysuit with strips of white lights running down her arms and legs. She also put a star made out of lights on her chest and back, and built a silver crown instead of her gold one. The goal is apparently to be able to turn off the lights when she wants to be sneaky at night, with the blueish-grey standing out far less than the white and gold did in general in urban areas and especially in the dark. I think she's got speakers hidden in the crown and in the out of place wrist protectors on the gloves she added, but she didn't demonstrate any of that while I was around."
"Huh. Whatever works for her, I guess."
"Now then, I guess the first thing we should do is open the paint cans?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "The first thing we should do is put anything we don't want to get paint on to the side, then put on the goggles that we picked up at a minimum. Then we'll want to make sure that our brushes and rollers are ready, as well as decide who tackles what to start with. Once we have all of that covered we can use these opener tools they gave us to pop the lids off of the paint cans."
"I knew I should've paid more attention to the stuff you sent me."
By the time they stopped for a late lunch the two had made less of a mess than they'd expected. Thanks to warnings they'd been given they hadn't gone too quickly with the roller brushes, though the thickness of their coverage on the completed portions was far from even. They were likely going to need to do at least one more coat of that room to get the color that Amy wanted, which would hopefully even out some of the issues they'd created.
As an added bonus, they'd only needed to remove paint from a surface that they hadn't intended to paint three times total. Most of that thanks to having taped off far more than they might've needed to if they were more experienced, but they saw that as a victory anyway.
After lunch they shifted to Taylor's room, since Amy's needed time to dry before any attempt at a second coat could be made. They took their lessons from the morning and finished the first coat in there a lot faster, but at the same time had twice as many mishaps to clean up from paint ending up where they didn't want it. Some of that was probably that they'd gotten a little too confident, but swapping who was doing what right from the start certainly hadn't helped.
Once they'd cleaned up again, which also went a little faster with experience, they'd both headed home and showered. Dealing with some of the paint that had ended up on them was annoying to deal with, but they made it through that without too much trouble. Making spray bottles to use on any stubborn bits had been a wonderful tip from the hardware store. Remembering them was the trick, but it wasn't exactly a long trip back to where they were working to get them.
It was while they were eating dinner, Amy as part of a New Wave dinner, that they found out that 'Lady Meissa' had gone on a more public-oriented patrol down the Boardwalk, if only to get people to both know who she was and to inform her of her new cape name. This was done with Sarah, so it was Lady Meissa with Lady Photon.
Amy: Aunt Sarah is amazingly happy with the day, despite the lackluster reaction to Vicky's new cape identity.
Taylor: Is that because she's getting to give Vicky an 'I told you so' regarding her branding?
Amy: She had no problem with that. No, the real bonus for her is that the news hasn't used the name 'Photon Mom' once to refer to her now that New Wave has 'two ladies of light'. It's an unexpected bonus to Vicky's choice of names.
Taylor: Ahhh. The only question is whether it will last.
Amy: Yeah, I'm not touching that.
The only other thing of note that Taylor did that evening was ensuring that things were still set for weekend scheduling for the Wards. She and Missy had tomorrow off thanks to Vicky's party, and Sunday had turned into an 'everyone working with PRT squads' day. Which looked like it was originally scheduled for tomorrow, until it ran into multiple 'taking the day off' conflicts.
Saturday morning Taylor met Amy at the gym, half expecting Vicky to join them. Instead Missy joined them.
"No Vicky?" Taylor asked as they each started out on their chosen machines.
Amy shrugged. "She insisted on helping decorate for the party, and that I not help decorate."
"I'd think that it would go the other way around. It's her party, so why is she doing all the work?"
"I'm assuming it's because she forgot that I know that she has a bunch of point projection speakers."
"Ahh."
"Why would that matter?" Missy asked.
"Because she was pranked with a bunch and probably wants to try and get Amy, and maybe me, with them."
"Oh."
Amy rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised if none of the guests are fooled by them. Still, her insistence that I not help decorate means that I'm expected to either hide in my room or stay out of the house most of the morning. Which means I have little to no idea as to what to do."
Taylor shrugged. "We could go shopping."
"Who are you and what did you do with the real Taylor?"
"We need curtain rods, sheets, blankets, pillows, and possibly closet organizers. I'm also thinking that ordering a proper gun safe or two would be a good idea, since I don't think we'll want to use the main 'armory' room for the guns we carry around normally, but that can be done in the PRT store to get something far better than anything in a normal store."
"When did sheets, blankets, and pillows get added on to the list?"
"We could bring our pillows, but do you have king-sized sheets and blankets?"
Amy sighed. "Right, different size bed means different sized everything else that goes on the bed. I'd planned on just using spares from home, but that obviously isn't going to work, so I guess shopping makes sense. Though do we want to do that today or wait until we know if we missed something else?"
Taylor shrugged. "Either way, but the only other thing I see you wanting to do is tinker a bit."
"No, not today. Don't want to be in the middle of something large and then have to drop it for the party, and having everything needed to at least use the new bed makes sense."
Missy got up to adjust the settings on the machine she was on. "If you don't mind the company I think I'd like to join you. Though Taylor, can you tell me if I'm being stupid or if this thing has a problem? It doesn't seem like it's providing enough resistance."
Taylor looked over and focused her tinker snark on the machine. "There's a short making one of the sensors return false positives. Shut it down and I'll drop a maintenance ticket into the system for it."
Missy grumbled about that, but powered off the machine and moved to the one next to it.
"I don't think you joining us will be a problem," Amy said. "Though I can't see how exciting it'll be watching us pick out the few things we know we need."
"It'll be far nicer than dealing with my grandmother. Trust me on that one."
Taylor blinked at that. "Your grandmother is visiting and you didn't request the entire weekend off?"
"Hell no. She's visiting for over a week anyway while her heating system is being replaced. I'd be volunteering for extra shifts this weekend if not for the party today and whatever the PRT wants us doing tomorrow. I'm hoping that it's time consuming. On that note, please put me down for doing something every day in the coming week so that I have an excuse to be away? Next weekend too if you're scheduling that already."
That didn't sound too bad, and Taylor went to do so, only to run into a problem. "I can't do that."
"What? Why not?"
"Your parents requested time off for you on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday."
"Fuck, they've got plans and didn't tell me."
Taylor didn't think it was her place to comment on that further.
The three had taken the minivan to the department store. They started with looking at curtain rods, finding that Taylor's first choice didn't come in the right sizes and Amy wanted a fancier set that might need some paint of its own. After that they moved to looking at pillows, figuring that they needed to know what pillows they were getting in order to know what pillow cases they were going to need.
In the end they got a dozen pillows total. Eight normal pillows, two longer ones, and two curved ones designed for some forms of reclining. The latter weren't going to need cases and had been bought in colors suitable for each room. With that done they'd moved on to sheets, each going for their preferred brand in the appropriate size and grabbing additional pillow cases where needed. Amy only needed one extra, but Taylor's preferred brand only provided two in the base set and thus she'd needed to pick up three total extras. Or rather, two and six extras, since they both opted to get two sets so that they'd have a spare each. Along with the sheets they also grabbed some accessories that they thought would be nice, such as elastics that would keep the sheets from traveling too far.
Blankets were next, though kept on the light side as far as blanket weight went. They picked up extras of those for potential variety, but the selection wasn't that great unless you wanted heavier winter blankets. With all of those picked out they checked the time and decided that looking at closet organizers would have to wait. Instead they checked out, Missy meeting up with them having found a pet bowl holder.
Taylor idly wondered just how many things the younger girl had gotten for Midnight, compared to the 'barely anything' that Ackbar and Rodney had. It seemed to be quite a bit, but then again Missy had wanted a pet. Taylor and Amy had their pets dropped on them unexpectedly and thus weren't nearly as interested in things like playing with them.
They ended up putting their purchases into their own pocket dimensions, pulling the minivan in right from the parking space in the process. From there Taylor and Missy had to get their gifts, and Taylor met the younger girl back in the Wards common area to make it easier for her to tag along in order to get to the Dallon's.
"Welcome!" Vicky greeted as Taylor and Missy stepped out of the pocket dimension portal. "Ames will be right back down, but you probably knew that already. Oh, and gifts are being dropped in the corner of the living room for now."
Taylor was about to say something, but the doorbell rang and Vicky darted off to answer it. That wasn't surprising to Taylor, since it was Dean at the door. Instead she turned to Missy. "I wonder if not being able to get a word in will continue."
Missy shrugged. "No clue. Shall we drop our gifts on the pile and look for the snacks?"
"Wonderful idea. Or maybe see if the promised lunch is already available?"
In the end Taylor was honestly surprised at how few people had come to the party. Apparently a number of people that Vicky had invited hadn't been able to come, or hadn't wanted to come. A few had sent cards along anyway. That meant that there was plenty of extra cake and a smaller audience to be confused by the various 'mystery sounds'. That Amy and Taylor weren't reacting to said sounds at all was visibly annoying Vicky, but not to the point of her saying something about it.
Honestly, it was somewhat annoying, and Taylor was considering bringing it up just to see the older girl's reaction to being found out. Especially after she'd been a moron about part of her setup.
Regardless of that, they'd gotten to the 'opening presents' part of the day. Vicky had started with the standalone cards, most of which contained gift certificates. A few of her friends had pooled their funds and gotten one for Parian as well, which had been an unexpected surprise. High-end clothing stores, a couple of places to eat, and a fabric store were also in the mix. Vicky had rolled her eyes at the last one, apparently she'd originally considered doing all of the sewing on her costume herself but had bailed after the first couple of attempts.
Moving on to the larger gifts, she attacked them in no particular order. Missy had put together a basic utility belt for her. She'd made it white, which didn't quite match the new costume, but Vicky assured her that it was something she could work with anyway. Taylor easily confirmed that the pouches were expanded by sending Missy a quick text message, but Vicky didn't make that obvious to anyone. Dean had gotten her a necklace, which apparently matched a bracelet that he'd given her previously. The Pelhams had gotten her a bulk pack of zip-cuffs, which she'd admitted was something that she kept forgetting to stock up on.
Upon getting to Amy's gift, Vicky frowned as she hefted the box. She gave it a shake, then opened it up to find a backpack. Which wasn't a surprise to Taylor, except that it wasn't an empty backpack. Vicky opened it up to find the description of the backpack's stronger construction sitting on top of a set of comfortable looking pajamas.
"Do I want to know how you knew that I needed these?" Vicky asked, holding them up. "Not that I'm complaining about getting them."
Amy rolled her eyes. "We use the same laundry room, and you have a habit of forgetting that things are in the washing machine. Or did you think that we had some fancy tinkertech setup that automatically moved things from the washing machine to the dryer for you? I happened to be the one who put your stuff in the dryer and noticed that an entire sleeve had come off."
"Oh. Right. That's a lot more reasonable than what I was thinking."
There was some giggling at that, and she moved on to opening a purse, two pairs of identical-looking shoes that Vicky seemed delighted with the differences between them that Taylor couldn't spot, and an empty box. Apparently the box was, somehow, the first clue in a treasure hunt for Vicky to figure out later. The box was carefully put to the side as a result of that revelation, and then Vicky came to Taylor's gifts. They'd ended up being the last ones, partially due to Taylor having intentionally half-hidden them behind the table.
"Show-off," Amy grumbled when she realized that there were multiple gifts.
"Like you didn't give her two things," Missy retorted.
"I barely came up with two ideas and Taylor came up with three."
"I've got at least two more I could've used too," Taylor added, which got some glares from Amy and a couple of others that overheard the comment.
During this Vicky had been opening the largest of the three gifts. She looked at the box that tearing the paper open had revealed, looked at Taylor, and then looked back at the box. She then broke the seal on the box and opened it up. "Where the hell do you find bulk boxes of blunt trauma kits?"
Taylor grinned. "PRT store."
"Figures. The worst part is that I can see them being useful." She put that box to the side and moved on to the next smallest box. Tearing the paper off of that one revealed a plain cardboard box. One that was taped shut decently well, not that she was hindered by that. Inside she found three small objects and a manual. Vicky opened the manual, which said very little on the cover, and then grinned.
V: Thank you very very much. I didn't know they made these.
T: I special-ordered them. Asked if the programmable version could have the programming chip replaced with the bluetooth module.
V: Oh. Neat. Thank you even more.
T: No problem.
Of course, text messaging didn't tell anyone else what they were, and Vicky obviously wasn't in the mood to reveal it to everyone. As evidenced by her carefully closing up the box, before looking around at everyone. "I gotta keep some secrets."
There was grumbling about that, and Vicky actually went and put the sound grenades away so that nobody could sneak a look at them. When she returned she then looked at the last, and smallest, box of the set. She carefully opened it, only to find that inside of the box was a card. Rolling her eyes, she opened the envelope and pulled the card out, catching the paper that fell out when she did so. She read over the card, then unfolded the paper and read over it. At least twice, before she turned to Taylor.
Vicky waved the paper. "A certificate for being shot at by a modified naval gun?"
Taylor nodded, slightly amused by Amy's wide-eyed realization. "Yep."
"Where the hell did you find someone willing to allow you to fire a naval gun at me?"
"Admittedly, some of the modifications were so that Amy and I could have some fun with it, but most of them were because they mounted it on land."
Eric snorted at that. "You gave her a certificate for shooting at her. What the hell kind of gag gift is that?"
Vicky turned to stare at Eric, ignoring the couple of others nodding. "Gag gift? It better not be, because it sounds awesome."
There was a collective pause among most of the guests at that, and several of them turned to stare at Taylor. Who shrugged. "Given how she reacted when I got hit with a tank shell I'm going to assume that she gets urges to take new kinds of impacts on her defenses. Having access to a testing facility with a naval gun makes ticking that off of her list of things she's been hit with easy enough."
The various looks of realization were quite interesting. After that they cleaned up the mess, Vicky put most of the gifts away, followed by taking a number of pictures of the mystery empty box as a just in case measure. With that done she put it away as well, but found herself intercepted by Taylor as she came back downstairs.
"What's up?" she asked.
Taylor grinned. "I figured that you should know that you screwed up."
"Screwed up how?"
In lieu of a verbal response, Taylor triggered a cricket sound to be played from a couple of the point-projection speakers that Vicky had hidden.
To her credit, Vicky didn't take long to figure it out. "I forgot to clear the pairings, didn't I?"
Taylor nodded. "Yep."
"So you and Amy have been able to tell that the speakers were set up."
"Well, that and Amy knew you had the things and figured your plan out, so we were expecting random noises around us. Reusing the Bluetooth modules from when you were being hit with them without properly resetting them was just sloppy though."
"So much for that plan, and I spent over two weeks figuring out where to put the speakers and what sounds I was going to play to annoy you two."
Later that afternoon Taylor had returned home and had decided to get some laundry out of the way. Like washing the new sheets that she'd purchased, even if she wasn't going to use them right away. Which meant going through them and ensuring that no little 'inspected by' stickers or similar were on them before she could put them in the washing machine.
Amy: You know, I was annoyed that you didn't tell me about the whole naval gun thing, but reading over what you gave Vicky makes me thankful that you kept me out of it.
Taylor: Really?
Amy: Yeah. Your little list of conditions due to other obligations you have means that she needs to think ahead, and since it was you and not me that gave it to her she can't pester me to take her because she gets bored. Actually, I'm not sure if she knows that I have access without you at all.
Taylor: Ah. Unintentional bonus, I guess.
Amy: So you didn't do things that way on purpose?
Taylor: Nope. I was just happy that I came up with multiple ideas in general. I had to justify the purchase of the blunt trauma kits, and the sound grenades that could be actively controlled via Bluetooth had to be assembled by Dragon as a special-order.
Amy: Oh. And here I just found what I could at the store. Though now I'm curious, what other ideas did you come up with?
Taylor: The other serious idea I had was a reusable flashbang system, which is on backorder. I also had the idea of getting her a 'summon medical aid' alert necklace for when she punched someone too hard.
Amy: ...dammit, now I wish that you'd shared the latter idea with me.
Taylor: I'm calling dibs on the flashbang idea for Christmas, but if you want to get the necklace for her then feel free.
Amy: Ooooh. Right. Christmas. Forgot about that.
Reasonably confident that she'd found all the stupid little stickers and such, Taylor loaded the washing machine and started it before heading back upstairs. Dinner was going to be leftovers from the birthday party, the Dallons having insisted that she take plenty with her after everyone else had left and they realized how much extra food they had. Which meant enough cake for a few days had been included as well.
She was trying to decide what to do for the evening when she got a text message from Joey.
J: Hey, do you have a few minutes?
T: Yeah. What's up?
J: So, your teammate, Kid Win. He wants a pocket dimension, right?
T: He's expressed interest, yeah. Though you didn't seem to jump on the idea of working with him.
J: No real need for modularity in my stuff, no offense to him.
J: But I think I would like something to surprise Riley with. She's trying to make things that don't use human tissue, you see.
T: Okay. Not sure where you're going here.
J: Do you think he could build a test platform that can accept Riley's attempts at a control system?
J: Maybe with a few attachments to control and such so that she can focus on the actual computational component?
T: That sounds easy enough, but I'd have to check with him. Though can't you message him directly?
J: Er, not until I get him additional clearance. Which won't take long, but I didn't want to bother if you didn't think it would be something he could do.
T: That sounds modular enough for him. Though I'm surprised you're going this route.
J: Well, I might also need your help in documenting the interface so that Riley knows what her control units need to do.
J: I have first-hand experience in trying to figure out Riley's documentation, it isn't coming from what I'd call a normal thought process.
T: Ah. I suppose that makes a little more sense.
Thinking about this, Taylor figured that Aisha was going to be very annoyed. She was likely going to be the only older Ward in the city who couldn't just bounce around using pocket dimensions. Actually, she might be able to head at least that annoyance off...
T: For my own sanity, I'd like to point out that Hulder forms her own little pockets in materials so that she can hide.
T: In case that sounds in any way interesting to you.
J: Why is that for your own sanity?
J: No, wait, she's the only one who didn't take a vial or get a fugue on your team. Right. And being the only one without a pocket dimension as well...
J: I'll think about it and check with a couple of people.
Chapter 256 Sunday morning Taylor and Amy met up in the gym, went through their workout, and then split up. Amy was going to swing by the hospital and then attempt to do some tinkering. She had a new potentially-revolutionary project request that had been sent to her and that she wanted to see if she could make work, even if she wasn't sure that it fell into her specialty. Taylor, of course, had to get ready for the Wards doing whatever it was that they were doing with the PRT. Which she assumed meant getting into costume, so she got changed. And then found that someone had left pizza sitting on the counter overnight, which got tossed.
Sadly, since they weren't likely going to be in the Wards area, she couldn't prepare for cooking lunch like she might want to. They had plenty of food available, and not nearly enough time where they were around to prepare it. Though it looked as though someone had been trying to cook some things while Taylor wasn't around, just not much in the meat department since most of that took extra time to prepare.
Missy showed up next, shortly followed by Aisha being dropped off as Brian came in. Chris arrived on his own not long after that, and the four older Wards ended up sitting down for an impromptu meeting while waiting for the younger three to arrive.
"So," Taylor said, looking at the other three. "I suppose that I should provide fair warning, since I suspect that we're going to get another younger Ward soon. One that will probably want to only patrol at first if Missy or I are along for the trip."
Missy groaned at that. "Really? What did we do to deserve enough kids to match us in numbers?"
"I think it has something to do with saving their lives, but that could just be a coincidence."
Aisha jumped up and pointed dramatically at Taylor. "You're an anti-hero. How the hell do you keep pulling that off?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "It comes with the 'hero' portion, I think. Also, I'm technically a healer as well, so it comes with that territory too. Regardless, I figured that I should give you three advance warning. Especially as there'll likely be a PR event, even if I have no timeframe available yet."
Chris nodded at that. "It is nice to know that it's coming with more notice than we'd normally get. Got any insight into what they want us to be doing today?"
"Nope."
"Damn."
Once the kids had shown up and everyone was in costume they'd been split up. Missy, Rosa, and Sandy had been taken in one van. Aisha, Chris, and Ryan had been taken in another, generally following the first. And Taylor was alone in a third, heading in the opposite direction.
"Do I get to know why we're going in the opposite direction from the others?" Taylor asked after a minute.
One of the PRT squad members snorted at that. "Well, the fact that you can tell that despite everyone having gotten into the vans in the garage is a good start. Having you participate in a 'wargame' of sorts with your fellow Wards would be decidedly unbalanced."
"Oh. I suppose that makes sense. So what are we doing while they do that?"
"If this had been yesterday then we'd be participating in a PRT on PRT version to minimize the impact of your powers on the exercise. Obviously that isn't going to be happening, so instead we're going to be playing 'unexpected attack group' for a Protectorate vs Protectorate exercise. Armsmaster and Dragon are assisting with the other Wards, which we believe covers those that would spot you thanks to your tech. Granted, Gallant might be able to spot you, but we think that there'll be enough else going on to distract him."
"So they think it's going to be two teams, but we're making it three because I'm available?"
"Actually, I think we're the fourth group. Maybe fifth? Our 'attack profile' is supposed to be primarily sabotage and traps, which I think is a nod to the Youth Guard to keep you out of direct combat during things."
Taylor rolled her eyes. That figured. "So I assume we'll have supplies available for that?"
"Most of it is supposed to be paintball gear, but some containment foam stuff should be included as well, plus a collection of things like wire and such to rig them all up with. With any luck you can keep us from running into parahumans while we work, which will hopefully confuse them even more. Though we'll still have to deal with the non-parahumans. Speaking of which, don't expect to be able to use augmented patrol functionality to spot people."
"Good to know."
Taylor had been able to figure out that Dennis, Terry, and Trevor were working together when they met up unexpectedly near her. Similarly, Dean and Brian were definitely working together as well, apparently taking advantage of Dean's limited ability to sense emotions while inside of Brian's darkness. She also got the feeling that they weren't working with the other three. Both sides had also had to deal with a third group that had parahumans, from what she could tell. Either that or someone had tinkertech that looked like a non-local blaster power and was doing their best to snipe down fliers. Terry had needed to disengage from Sherrel in a flying truck when one sniping attempt tried to take out both of them.
While all of that was going on her 'team' had been moving through the forested 'contested' area setting up traps, dropping pins on the map for each one so that they could be dismantled later. Someone else would occasionally update those pins to indicate if a trap had been run into or not as well. Though Taylor had personally updated one of her pins after Dean and Dennis had both gotten trapped in containment foam while Brian's darkness was keeping them from spotting the tripwire on that particular trap.
To make things easier on them, Taylor's group had started using a series of tunnels under the area. One that Taylor had discovered by virtue of falling through an improperly closed trap door. It would've been a wonderful pitfall trap if it had been intentional, but as far as they could tell it was just a poorly cleaned latch that hadn't closed properly the last time someone had used it. None of the other groups seemed to be aware of the tunnels, and they'd double-checked to ensure that they weren't 'out of bounds' for the purposes of the exercise.
Mapping the tunnels out and using them to move around unseen was working out great for them though. Taylor would ensure that there weren't any parahumans around, Mike had a little scope that they could pop out through a barely-opened trap door to look for non-parahumans, and then they'd climb out to set a trap or two before vanishing back into the tunnels. They'd even moved all four flags that were supposed to be the goals of the exercise in order to cause some mild panic. They weren't supposed to claim them, but moving them and attaching them to traps was fine.
Lunch was eaten as part of the exercise, Taylor and her two partners ending up doing so in a tunnel near where Battery and Miss Militia seemed to be doing the same. Ethan was shown to likely not be working with them when he arrived and a short battle ensued between the three. A quick check while they were in 'downtime' showed that the other Wards had finished their morning run and were in a lunchtime debriefing of their own. To that end, Taylor decided to check with both Missy and Chris.
T: So how are things going over there?
M: We ran into some issues.
C: I'm not sure if 'accidentally broke sixteen bones across five people' counts as merely being 'issues'.
M: Yeah, well, short of having been the subject of a tinker fugue they shouldn't have tried to get in the middle of Ryan and Sandy.
C: And what about Rosa's water bombs?
M: They only let her get one person with those before they told her to stick to the safer options.
T: So things are productive from the point of view of learning lessons?
M: I suppose. Though what are you doing?
T: Mostly harassing everyone else with traps.
C: Intentionally or did you decide to do that because you were bored?
T: We think the Youth Guard doesn't want me in the line of fire of the Protectorate members, even if this is a friendly training exercise.
M: That makes far too much sense. Sucks to be you.
Taylor shook her head at that, then frowned as Vivian entered her range. She might actually be a problem, depending on what elements of her arsenal she was allowed to use. Mainly from a 'possibly blow a hole in the tunnel ceilings' point of view, admittedly, but still a problem. That nobody else was in the tunnels implied that she'd not done so yet, because anyone else finding them was likely to try and take advantage as well. It was one reason that they'd also been leaving traps in the tunnels, just in case someone else ended up down there with them.
Still, Vivian wasn't coming directly for them, but Taylor paid attention to the direction she was traveling. When they finished eating she led the way to head back the way Vivian had come, and lucked out when they popped up out of one trapdoor and stumbled upon a locked case where they wanted to set up a trap. That changed their strategy entirely, and they very carefully rigged their trap up so that it would hopefully be triggered by opening the case. Or moving it, for that matter, but opening it was the goal. They couldn't test that part without Taylor abusing her access keys, but were fairly confident that it would work.
With that done they'd continued along, but ended up running into an actual base area with guards. Which would seem to have been the better place for Vivian to keep her resupply stash, though that did run on the assumption that she was on the same team as that group. They couldn't tell that for sure, but they did set up a few traps on the paths that they could easily get to that led to or from the base.
It was nearly three in the afternoon when the 'exercise over' alert went out. Taylor and her partners returned to their base through the tunnels, dismantling what traps they came across in the tunnels as they went, and almost three quarters of an hour later made it back. They were also the last ones to return, based on the 'everyone accounted for' before they dropped all of them into a shared console channel for a quick initial debrief.
"Okay everyone," Miss Militia said over the radio once that had happened. "We'd meet up for this, but Team Trap left over twenty as of yet untriggered traps. Good job on that, I think you got every parahuman at least once. I'd also like to thank Legend for providing the flying suppression. He'll be heading back to New York instead of joining us for the proper debrief. Safe routes out of your bases have been marked down based on where Team Trap and Team Normals reported their activities. A sweep of the area will be conducted by a cleanup team as a secondary exercise in spotting and dismantling issues. Are there any other concerns that we need to cover now?"
"I've got a case of grenades that someone rigged a trap on," Vivian answered. "I barely got free of the containment foam, but couldn't get the case out of it. I think it locked, but it will need to be handled with care."
After a moment of silence the PRT leader for Taylor's group hit their radio. "There are tunnels all under the area, and we found them through an improperly latched trapdoor. A number of our remaining traps are in the tunnels that we didn't return to base through. We marked all of the trap doors that we came across as well as the tunnel routes between them, but we haven't found a proper entrance to the tunnel system yet. None of the trap doors seem to be intended to be opened from above."
Another minute of silence followed that before Miss Militia continued. "Okay then. Team leaders should write up their summaries, and we'll all meet back at the Rig for a full debrief."
"We'd prefer it if you don't attend that," one of the PRT officers said to Taylor. "If only to see if anyone not on our team even realized that you were here. But you'll get a copy of all of the summaries either way."
Taylor nodded. "That makes sense."
"Though having to swing by the PRT building to drop you off is going to be a red flag in and of itself," their leader noted. "Any chance you can save us the trip with one of your portals?"
"That shouldn't be a problem, but how did you explain picking me up in the first place?"
"Only the two Protectorate teams came out here at the same time. Everyone else arrived in secret, so there aren't any discrepancies to worry about."
"Right, that would make sense."
Taylor met up with the other Wards for dinner, though she hadn't had time to cook anything. Part of that was ending up dealing with just over thirty total broken bones and seven ruptured eardrums so that they didn't have to deal with healing the slow way. They might have had Amy help out instead, but she'd both been in the pocket dimension and had headed home by the time everyone had been carted back to the PRT building. That the only injuries that needed parahuman healing had happened in the Wards exercise meant that there was going to need to be some acceptable force training. Primarily for Sandy and Ryan. Rosa had only caused the one incident, and the leg that Aisha broke on a PRT teammate was an honest accident.
The next couple of days had scheduling at least partially tied to some of those details. Ryan and Sandy had the next day off, though Rosa still wanted to tinker. Chris had some repairs he wanted to take care of as well, and Aisha was being thrown into a testing session to determine how much force her pockets could exert. Then on Tuesday the three kids were going to get an acceptable force training session. Taylor was planning on some tinkering of her own, maintenance on at least one visor and dealing with a few requests that she'd gotten a message from Colin asking about.
"So apparently there were some accidents today?" Taylor finally said, which caused Sandy in particular to flinch. Ryan...might not be capable of flinching in that way at this point, actually.
"I partially blame the new PRT recruits," Chris said. Which was, admittedly, backed up by the summary reports. "Several of them didn't seem to understand the concept of getting out of the way. At all."
Missy nodded her agreement. "Armsmaster was talking about making a dodge training course when we were finishing up, intending to put everyone who got hit by one of Sandy's rocks through it."
"Everyone but Aaron," Aisha corrected.
Taylor frowned. "Why not Aaron?"
"He couldn't hear the warning due to Ryan being too loud just before Sandy threw the rock."
"Oh. I suppose that would be a mitigating factor." And Aaron was probably the one with both a broken leg and burst eardrums that she'd healed. "Still, there are some things that they scheduled based on what happened today, so that'll take a couple of days to get through. I'd schedule more for afterwards, but I've been instructed to hold off on scheduling four of us until testing and classes are completed."
"Four?" Chris asked.
Taylor pointed at Aisha. "They're insisting on safety testing for accidental powers-created crushing pitfalls."
Aisha blinked at that. "Wait, they're going to put me through testing to figure out how that all works?"
"Yep."
"Awesome! I was trying to figure out how I'd figure out how that happened."
Missy facepalmed at that. "You aren't supposed to be excited to go through any form of power testing."
Aisha snorted. "Why not, when it's probably the first direct way to hurt people that I've even got a hint of? I didn't even notice what was happening until they were screaming. If the PRT wants to help me figure out how I did it then why should I complain?"
Well, when she put it that way...
Monday morning Taylor met Amy and Vicky in the gym. She'd finally gotten the copies of the Protectorate exercise summaries, combined with a summary of the over-dinner full debrief, and had started looking over them out of curiosity.
"Hey Taylor," Vicky asked once they'd gotten started on their workouts.
"Yeah?" Taylor replied.
"How did you know that I was interested in the blunt force trauma kits? I was thinking about them yesterday and don't think I told anyone about my interest after I was, er, overenthusiastic with one guy on patrol with Dauntless and the PRT van had one when it showed up. I mean, after that I planned on purchasing a few, since it wouldn't be the first time that I've caused injuries like that before, but I can't think of anyone that I said that I wanted to get some to."
"Oh. I had no clue you were interested in them."
That stunned Vicky for a moment. "Then why the hell did you give me a bulk package of them?"
Taylor shrugged, after ensuring that her visor was recording. "It was a gag gift that I thought could also be considered useful. After all, I think I'm qualified to say that you've had issues holding back before."
The several looks that passed across Vicky's face as she processed that were highly amusing. Ensuring that there was a recording available had been a good decision.
Leaving Vicky to process that, Taylor went back to the Protectorate exercise summaries from the day before. This included submitting a 'what the hell?' type report of her own, since they'd included Battery and Miss Militia's civilian names in one of them. Granted, she'd had to re-read two paragraphs twelve times to realize what was being said, and not that there were an Erin and Hannah in the PRT squads, but it was still sloppy on someone's part.
Still, in the end, Dennis, Erin, Hannah, Terry, and Trevor had been team 'B' and 'won' against Brian, Dean, Ethan, Sherrel, and Vivian on team 'A'. Some of that could be attributed to the trap that denied Vivian the use of her grenades, but apparently team 'Normals' had successfully gotten one of the flags that team A needed trapped in a block of containment foam and made it that much more difficult to find.
Team 'Trap', that Taylor had been on, had been thought to have a teleporting style mover for how well they dropped things throughout the area without being seen. Many of their traps had been set off after the exercise ended due to people returning to their 'home base' locations running into them. The lack of knowledge that the tunnel system even existed was obviously part of that, though the summary admitted that it was a complete fluke that it'd been found in the first place.
The debriefing summary included a list of obvious mistakes that people had made. Team Trap had screwed up several traps, by placement or construction, and Taylor was positive that she'd set up one of the ones cited. Only about a quarter of the other mistakes were 'set off a trap' related. Actually, it looked like the most common mistake among the two Protectorate teams was a lack of proper communication between parahuman and non-parahuman groups.
Near the end they'd apparently confirmed that the owner of the property hadn't known about the tunnels and was happy that they'd mapped them out to the degree that they had. At the same time he'd asked if they could finish the job, and they'd already determined that the tunnels extended into at least one neighboring property. Who built the tunnel system was unknown, but they'd done a decent job of it and there were signs that the tunnels were still in use beyond their use during the exercise.
It wasn't until the very end that the team Trap leader had apologized for Taylor not being able to make it to the debrief on account of needing to see to the Wards instead. Apparently there'd been absolute shock from most of the room upon finding out that she'd been there at all.
Dragon frowned as she looked over Mother's report. The misuse of civilian names in the summary documents had been noted, flagged, and an automatic replacement should have occurred before they went out to anyone. In fact, three different people had checked the printed versions and found that the replacements had occurred. So why hadn't the replacements happened for the digital copies that Mother received?
She started by double-checking to ensure that the other digital copies had been properly modified, and found that most of them had been. But not all of them, which meant that she had multiple comparison points for what could or couldn't be the actual issue. With that available, she started to step through the entire process. Submission, review, flagging, storage of the flagged originals as a master/stranger precaution. All of those were fine. Distribution to destinations, including long-term storage, was where things started to diverge.
In the end the answer was obvious. Mother had the security clearances required to look up the identities in question, so the rewriting to secure them didn't happen. The system should probably rewrite identities by default, and only leave them untouched if requested, but that wasn't a call that she should be making herself. After all, doing so would affect everyone and not just Mother. The Think Tank in particular would need to be warned ahead of time.
It only took a moment to drop a request for a change order into the appropriate queue, at which point she sent a response to Mother and moved back to what she'd been doing before the report had come in.
Sadly, predicting which dress would make her look best for Colin was by far a more difficult task.
After school Taylor had headed to the PRT building. She had messages from Erin and Hannah, who she'd apologized to about the accidental identity reveals. Both had indicated that Taylor wasn't the one that should be apologizing, as well as that they were surprised that it had taken an outside force for her to find them out. Erin included that she'd lost a bet with Ethan over the reveal as well, but didn't elaborate on that.
That aside, Taylor had an actual list of things to accomplish today. The first was to swing by the greenhouse and look at the plants there. That was for a combination of reasons, including 'tuning them up' and to pick up a carbon cube or two in case she needed them. The majority of her time there was going to be spent having the plants produce a few carbon nanotube harnesses for people. Oh, and a set of sixteen diamond spacers that needed to be made as thermally insulating as possible. Preferably precise down to the atom as far as sizing went.
Actually making the harnesses took more time than anything else, since they called for some very precise twists and layering. One of them had a run with over ten thousand individual tubes, some of which contained other tubes, in a multilayer twisted and braided pattern set. Tubes in tubes twisted with tubes that get wrapped in more tubes that are braided together before being wrapped in other tubes that are twisted together and so on. Some of the tubes were entirely structural, others were obviously intended for various uses. All of it was a pain to assemble.
Amy had actually complained that Taylor was distracting her from her own work due to the amount of hand-holding needed with the plants to get the harnesses correct. What that work was Taylor didn't know yet, but it was a continuation of the previous day's work and was apparently not going to the original plan. Taylor had merely rolled her eyes and told Amy that she could deal with it for an hour.
It wasn't that long before the harnesses and diamonds were made, packaged, and dropped off. With that done, Taylor had moved to tearing down the visor with a couple of minor issues. None of it was currently affecting its performance, mostly being cosmetic or preventative maintenance right now, but her tinker snark had started getting annoyed with the problems the day before. Reseating the connections of a couple of points, removing some scratches, and sealing several microfractures in the transparent armor layer in particular.
Eventually she had to leave the visor alone so that things could set properly, so she checked in on Chris and Rosa. Chris seemed to have moved away from 'fix broken equipment' into 'implement brand-new idea' territory, and Taylor left him to it. Rosa, on the other hand, appeared to be incredibly frustrated.
"What's wrong?" Taylor asked.
Rosa jumped at that, apparently not having noticed that Taylor had entered. "Oh, hi."
"Are you having issues with your stuff?"
"My guns broke yesterday because I couldn't fix them properly."
"Ah. You didn't get a lot of warning after things exploded in here, so that's understandable."
Rosa nodded. "But I can't fix the joints right because the...welder? It's turned off."
Taylor looked over what Rosa was working on, and then checked the equipment in the room. Sure enough, most of it was still turned off. Several of them were obvious as to why they were turned off, having damage still. But the welder's 'damage' was apparently entirely superficial, a couple of dents and a scrape on the side that didn't actually impact the ability for it to function.
Nodding to herself, Taylor moved over to the power box, double-checked what was hooked up where, and restored power to the welder. "There you go. The welder, and only the welder, should work now."
Rosa looked between Taylor and the welder, then beamed. "Thank you!"
"You're welcome."
Taylor kept an eye on her for a few minutes as she got working again, finding it slightly surreal that they let anyone Rosa's age have access to a welder in the first place. But she was a tinker and tinkers could pull off using equipment in ways that worked perfectly well despite not being anything near what they were intended for, without harming themselves. Though Rosa seemed to be using the welder to actually weld in a normal manner, even if her technique was slightly odd. Then again, she was smaller than most people and had options for holding things that others didn't.
Shrugging, Taylor decided to stick around for a few. She dropped a note into the system stating that she'd turned the welder back on as the damage to it was entirely superficial, then looked at what maintenance tasks existed near the Wards area. She found that there was a hidden door that wasn't opening fully a couple corridors over, one that was disguising a maintenance closet, and decided that she might as well take a look at it.
The door took a little longer than Taylor had expected without her having done more to it than tear it apart, Chris and Rosa having left long before she was able to go home. The problem had initially seemed to be caused by a safety sensor being a bit too sensitive, except that once she had the door torn apart to get at it she found that someone had actually run a wire through the space the door opened into. Which had resulted in her checking what said wire was for, only to find that it wasn't documented anywhere she could find.
She'd shifted to tracing the wire to see where it went at that point, not wanting to accidentally cause more problems by just removing it. At one end it terminated at a wall plate with nothing currently attached to it, but there were identification numbers that she could look up. From that it appeared to be intended for a new security station so that someone could be reasonably close to the gym entrance for monitoring without being right next to it in case an alarm had to be sounded. The problem was that the correct wire for that task also terminated in the wall box, and took the correct path, but both wires had the same ID tag.
Deciding to see what was at the other end, she traced it up and over until it terminated at another wall box. In a handicap restroom in the less secure area of the building, with no explanation as to why it would end up there. That led to her filing a security alert, which was responded to within minutes. She'd had to go through everything she'd done and why. They'd determined that whoever had run the wire had probably missed the channel on the other side of the stud in the wall and not noticed.
Given what the entire thing looked like, the primary electrician for that project was probably going to have a very bad time of things come morning. Granted, it was possible that someone else had been involved, and they were going to pull the security feeds for the period of time between the problem door opening fine and no longer opening properly to see if they could spot who'd done work in the areas that would've been involved. So perhaps someone else would be having a very bad time of things instead.
Though when asked about why she took that particular maintenance task, since it'd been flagged as very low priority and might've been ignored for months normally as the door only stopped just barely short of fully open, Taylor had a very simple answer. She'd grabbed the only maintenance task not already claimed by someone else in the entire lower area, excluding repairing or replacing Rosa's equipment since Rosa was actively tinkering. That it was reasonably close to the Wards area and seemed like it would be a simple one had been a bonus on that front.
Chapter 257 Tuesday morning Taylor found several alerts waiting for her, including that Wards activities were canceled beyond the three kids still having their class. Missy was probably going to be annoyed by that, but it was hard to argue them wanting to go over the entirety of the secure areas to see if anything else undocumented had been installed. Annoyingly, the gym was part of the secure areas and was closed while they looked over things, expected to be open either tomorrow morning or the morning after. Which likely depended on how long it took them to clear that portion of things.
Amy and Vicky were both annoyed, but understanding, when they got similar alerts regarding the gym. Though Vicky was more annoyed because she'd gotten up early specifically so that she could make the trip before school, only to find out that by no fault of her own she couldn't go to the one gym in the area with brute-rated equipment and thus didn't need to be up early at all.
The three of them ended up going out for breakfast instead, meeting up to take the minivan to a diner. It ended up being cheaper than their usual routine due to a 'marketing' discount that was applied. When asked, the owner admitted that just by having the three eat in the diner she expected that there would be an upswing in business for a week or two. She followed that up by showing them pictures that someone had posted on PHO, taken as the three were walking in. There were at least four posts following stating that people were intending to check the diner out now.
Their arrival at school was met with people gathering in a way that made it unsafe to put the minivan away in the pocket dimension, so Taylor simply parked it in the student lot. Given the reactions to that she was thinking that some of them wanted to see what was in the pocket dimension and had been aiming to dart in when it opened to let the minivan through. That most of them had phones or cameras out just reinforced that thought.
"You should've pulled into the Shaper pocket," Amy said as they grabbed their bags. "Seeing the looks on their faces at finding basically nothing in the pocket dimension would've been hilarious."
Taylor snorted. "You noticed too?"
"It was hard not to."
At the end of the school day, to the annoyance of her classmates, Taylor just drove off in the minivan. She had a meeting in the PRT building, and then had the afternoon off. Because of that they'd changed plans. Amy was swinging by the hospital and then hopefully the two would meet up and throw a second coat of paint on in their roll-out bedrooms. That depended on Amy's hospital visit and Taylor's meeting both not taking too long.
A few blocks from school she opened up a pocket dimension opening and slipped in with the minivan, before exiting in the PRT building. The Wards doorway was offline, as was the Wards garage doorway, so she used the visitor doorway. It wasn't like she needed to get into costume for her meeting, after all, nor was she anticipating wanting to grab anything from her Wards room. Instead she headed straight for the conference room she'd been directed to by the request. Though she did flinch when Amy got to the first patient she was going to look at today.
Taylor: What the hell happened there?
Amy: I didn't ask, because I don't think I want to know how they got a glue-coated pillow crammed up their ass. Especially given that they're handcuffed to the bed.
Okay, yes, they were probably better off not knowing how that happened. Taylor opted to ignore it for the time being, focusing on the meeting that nobody had given her a reason for. Sadly, she was the first one to the conference room, so had to wait for others to show up.
Ten minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, and five before Taylor was going to send a 'sorry, nobody else showed up' message, Deputy Director Renick arrived. He looked very annoyed as he dropped into a chair, letting the bag he had with him fall to the floor next to him. "Good afternoon, for what's it worth. Or at least I hope your afternoon is going better than mine."
Taylor shrugged. "So far I've left school and sat here waiting for people. Are you it?"
He nodded. "Yes, though that wasn't the original plan. The other two that were going to join us are too busy to do so. Some maintenance was done improperly behind the gift shop and we accidentally discovered that while tracing wires heading out of the secure areas. Only one person was injured beyond bruising when the opening panel took most of the wall with it, but it created a significant mess and took out a number of data links for that area. We've had to close down the gift shop itself for the moment, which has been very annoying, and we aren't yet sure why the elevator isn't working."
"Oh. Did you want me to..."
"No," he interrupted. "For policy and procedure reasons we don't want you to help figure any of it out yet, and the injuries aren't severe enough to require parahuman healing. We might ask for your help if the problem points aren't determined by the end of the week, but don't expect to need to. Fixing things falls under Reknit's capabilities at a minimum."
"Okay. Then why are we here?"
He sat up properly, sighing as he did so, then lifted his bag up to place it on the table. "Originally it was to thank you for some of your previous work, but this morning we also found a recording device in the ceiling of your Wards room. Audio only, and it wasn't connected to anything yet. We know it was recent because we checked the serial numbers and it was only manufactured two months ago, and purchased a couple weeks ago."
Taylor wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Someone wanted to listen to me in my private room?"
"We suspect that the same group installed the ones found near the secret entrances, but haven't finished identifying possible suspects yet. We think that there are at least five compromised maintenance employees, but from what we know it could be as high as twenty." He pulled two large envelopes out of his bag, one flat and one with bulges in it. "Still, that isn't your responsibility to work out." He passed over the flat envelope first. "To start with the original purpose of this meeting, this is an official thanks for spotting and going above and beyond on figuring out the attempted data tap. The head of maintenance wanted to give it to you, but he's occupied helping with cleanup."
She took the envelope and looked inside, finding that it had a certificate and two coupons for free dessert in the PRT cafeterias. "Huh. I didn't think I qualified for this kind of thing after taking the class that let me claim maintenance tasks."
"You aren't officially part of the maintenance staff, but they get these too. If you were part of the staff then there would only be one coupon in there." He then pushed the other envelope over. "This is the official paperwork and your copy of the keys for the Wards bus. We included official permission to repaint it, and a list of things that have to be present for legal reasons, but actually arranging for that will fall to you as Wards leader. I think there might be more in there as well, the officer put in charge of testing your documentation was very happy."
Taylor nodded at that, quickly looking through the envelope. One of the keys would be added to her keyring, which was getting quite large. The rest of the paperwork looked fairly straightforward, and she noted that they'd even included a budget for the repainting that had to be used by the end of the calendar year. Presumably repainting the bus ASAP was being encouraged. There was also a gift card for a donut shop floating in the bottom of the envelope. "Thank you. Where is the bus now?"
"It's out on the rig currently, but will be brought over here by midday tomorrow and left in the main secure garage. We need to get another vehicle moved over to the rig to compensate for the space needed, which is happening today along with the new reserved parking sign being put up."
"Okay. Is there anything else you need to tell me today?"
"Nope. I think we're good, and with any luck the Wards will be able to patrol tomorrow. The sweeps should be far enough by then, though stairwells may need to be used instead of the elevator. You should have a message by lunchtime either way."
"Good to know, thanks."
"Do you have anything for me?"
"Don't think so."
Renick nodded. "Okay then. Have a nice afternoon."
Taylor collected both envelopes as she got up. "I hope your afternoon gets better."
"I can only hope."
She made it halfway down the corridor before deciding that she should show the other Wards the bus as soon as possible in order to get supply ordering accomplished, so she put a tentative 'if they let us' all-Wards meeting on the calendar for the next day.
It didn't take much longer for Amy to finish up the critical cases at the hospital, and both girls changed into older clothing that they didn't mind getting paint all over. This time they attacked Taylor's room first, primarily because they'd left some of the stuff in there and it made sense to not need to move everything between the two rooms twice. They were able to move much faster, and did better keeping paint where they wanted it, than they had during the previous session.
Once they were done they did a more complete cleanup, since they didn't expect to be doing more than touch-up work from that point forward. That included deciding what storage area to keep some of the stuff in, though they did remember to keep out what they'd need for replacing all of the wall plates and covers, not to mention hanging curtains, once everything was dry. After that they went home, showered, and had dinner with their families. They then had to allow said families to inspect their work on pain of being severely pestered until said inspection was permitted to happen.
"I have to admit that you seem to have done a decent enough job," Danny said as they looked over things. "Not perfect, but if you wanted perfect then you would've hired professionals to do it all for you instead."
"That might happen for the next areas we deal with," Amy admitted. "Whatever those end up being. Painting what amounts to three entire houses sounds less than amusing after this experience, but we definitely aren't going to be in a rush to worry about it."
Vicky was flying around to look at the points closer to the ceiling. "I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not that my own pocket dimension could use some paint. I mean, yes, I could hire someone, or try it myself, but I don't think you two are going to be willing to paint it for me and I know I don't have the patience to figure out what I'm doing myself."
Taylor shrugged. "One of the benefits of doing this now is that it gives us a very private and safe place to sleep, should we feel we need it."
Nobody seemed to know what to say about that, but they finished examining both rooms and looking at the way that the extra paint had been stored for now.
"I suppose that once you put the rooms together that you'll need to do more shopping," Mark said as they were preparing to leave.
"We've ordered gun safes for the closets and were planning on looking at organization options there once we knew how they laid out," Taylor admitted.
Mark paused, then nodded. "Good on you, I'd forgotten about that. I was thinking that I wouldn't want to sleep in a room when the bathroom has no toilet paper, handsoap, or towels."
Taylor and Amy shared a look, and Taylor at least suppressed a groan as she added bathroom supplies to the shopping list. Which would include toilet paper, soaps, hair care products, rugs, towels, and probably toilet plungers as a just in case item. For that matter, they had a washing machine and dryer available, but they probably needed to pick up suitable detergent and dryer sheets. The latter would help as they cleaned the reusable tarps.
Wednesday morning the gym still wasn't available, though this time Vicky had apparently been ready for that and slept in. Taylor and Amy weren't as lucky, being too used to waking up coupled with both ending up needing to use the restroom shortly before they might've been up anyway. Instead they ended up making breakfast at home before checking out the state of things in the pocket dimension. Luckily it looked like there hadn't been any issues as the paint dried overnight, so they put the fans away and replaced all the wallplates. The curtains and setting up furniture could wait.
With that done they thought about how to best get to school today. Eventually they decided that it would be amusing to confuse people by getting near, but not actually in, the school with a portal. Getting the portal opening interface to cooperate as they moved away from the beacon was more annoying, and it took more time than expected to get to the alleyway that they'd chosen. They still had plenty of time to get to school despite that, and walked up to the surprise of several students that were outside.
Vicky was incredibly annoyed when she finally arrived, having not expected Amy to have been long gone, and when Taylor saw Missy it was obvious that the girl hadn't had an enjoyable afternoon the day before. Sadly, today aside, the next few days were likely to annoy her as well, and Taylor couldn't do a thing about it.
At lunchtime Taylor had found the 'all clear for Wards activities' message waiting, and at the end of the day she went straight to the PRT building. Missy would likely show up shortly, but Taylor went straight to the secure garage instead of getting changed. There she found the bus waiting, in a space that was marked off as being specifically for the Wards bus. Doing her best to ignore the paint job for now, she got in and carefully moved it into the Wards parking area. None of the others were likely to try and use the area today, since Taylor and Amy were the only ones with spaces and vehicles to put in them, and it was easier to get to than the main garage area.
Missy had arrived while Taylor was doing that, but was still changing when Taylor passed back through the common area to get changed into her own costume. Chris arrived not too long after that, dropped off by Dean who seemed to be passing through the PRT building today. Aisha arrived on her own, having apparently taken the bus, and was the only one of the older four to not bother changing into her costume.
"What's up with you?" Taylor asked after Missy went to get some meeting snacks, having determined that Aisha was going to stay in her civvies for whatever reason.
"I decided that it was obviously in everyone's best interest to have someone volunteer for console duty," Aisha answered. "Couple that with getting plenty of power usage on Monday, plus a bunch more yesterday while experimenting on my own, and I'm an ideal choice."
"Which sounds decidedly unlike you."
The girl looked around, just in case, "I happen to know that Missy is pissed off about yesterday, and I was able to see that the brats aren't cleared to actually patrol today. So we don't need numbers. If Chris joins you and Missy then you can take one of the more dangerous flying routes together and Missy can hopefully work out some aggression."
Taylor nodded, as that did sound reasonable. "I'd have expected you to want to be around to see it."
"I don't want to say the wrong thing and accidentally be her target. I'm the squishy one here."
Well, that was a valid way to look at things. "Okay. How did your testing go anyway?"
Aisha sighed at that. "Apparently I can only cause injury when sinking down into a surface and someone tries to walk on me as I'm doing so, and the injury is actually due to the force pushing them back out again. Worse, it needs them to be moving in just the right way and three out of four times they just bounce a bit and get confused as to what just happened. Doing the same thing with vertical surfaces fails outright, though they think that if someone is trying to tackle me at just the right moment that injuries could result."
"Ah. So it isn't nearly as weaponizable as you'd hoped."
"It's too unreliable. I'd be better off carrying a bat and hitting people with it. And no, they haven't accepted my request to be allowed to carry a bat."
Well, at least she'd made the request on her own?
Eventually Missy returned, they got the table set up and the snacks laid out on it, and it wasn't too long before the three younger Wards arrived. None of them got into costume as they weren't going to be patrolling. Apparently they'd had some issues with the acceptable force lessons and had another round of that today.
"So," Taylor said once everyone was there. "I have some good news and some horrible news."
"Shouldn't that be good news and bad news?" Chris asked.
"You'd think so, but no. But before I get to the good and horrible news, I'm curious if anyone has anything that they'd like to ask me while we're all gathered."
There was a moment of silence, before Sandy raised her hand. Taylor nodded at her to tell her to speak. "Mommy wasn't sure how to ask about warmer costumes."
That had Taylor blinking for a moment. She hadn't needed to worry about that, but that was supposed to be part of the design concerns. "I'll submit a request to get costumes reviewed for cold conditions." Sandy and Rosa both smiled at that. Ryan obviously didn't care. "Is there anything else?" After a moment of silence and shaking heads she continued. "Okay then. On to why I called this meeting in the first place. As I said, I have good news and horrible news. The good news is that we are the latest region to get an official Wards vehicle, the first to have said vehicle be under our control, and the first to have said vehicle be a tinkertech creation."
"And now I'm thinking that I'm going to need to take driving lessons," Chris said after a moment. "What kind of vehicle is it?"
"A bus."
"Okay, that isn't the coolest thing on the planet, but it makes sense."
Taylor snorted. "It's a tinkertech bus that can fly faster than your hoverboard can."
"Now that sounds cool," Missy said. "But I'm expecting a big 'but' here, what with the promised 'horrible news'."
Taylor nodded. "We'll get to that shortly. I've parked the bus in the Wards secure garage, shall we go take a look at it?"
The others all nodded, and Taylor led them down to the garage. The seven of them all came out of the stairwell, and the other six all stopped when they got a good look at the bus.
After a minute, Taylor sighed. "And if you haven't figured it out, the horrible news is the paint job on the bus."
Missy walked around the bus a couple of times, the only one that seemed to have heard Taylor. She was mumbling as she did so, and examined several parts of the paint job more closely, before shrugging. "I don't see the problem. Sure, it's repetitive, but whatever."
"What do you mean, it's repetitive?"
"It just says 'ENE Wards' over and over. Foreground, background, all of it, in horrible color choices."
Taylor looked at the bus, then back at Missy. "What?"
Missy spent the next ten minutes pointing out all the places that the bus said 'ENE Wards', most of which appeared to not be represented in two or three dimensions. Apparently the neon stripes weren't as random as they appeared to be, and Missy could pick out the pattern. At the same time, once looking at it more closely, she also picked up spelling errors in the neon stripes. None of the other Wards could see what Missy did, though, causing Taylor to wonder if her description was a prank.
If it was then she'd nailed the delivery.
"Regardless of all of that," Taylor finally said. "I have permission to repaint the bus. The 'ENE Wards' text has to be on the sides, and there's a few things that have to be there for regulatory reasons, but other than that we can paint it anyway we want to." Several of the Wards looked very interested at that. "But I'm not artistic, and likely to be doing a lot of the work myself, so I'm more interested in what colors to use for a much more plain paint job."
They retreated back to the Wards area, and after half an hour of discussion Taylor was convinced to try and do a fade from white on the bottom of the bus to sky blue from the window line up. She'd use a dark silver for the 'ENE Wards' on the sides, and didn't bother asking about the various regulatory markings that were all going to be in black on the otherwise light colored vehicle.
She submitted the request for costume suitability in cold weather, ordered what she thought she'd need for paints as well as matching window films, and sent off a message asking about how to arrange to use one of the PRT building's paint booths. The three kids went off for round two of acceptable force lessons, which from their grumbling was supposed to be a test of some kind, and Aisha volunteered to clean up the snacks while the other three prepared for their patrol.
Taylor fully expected that was an attempt to get more of the snacks for herself, given how little work cleaning them up should actually take.
Regardless of Aisha's motives, the other three looked over the patrol route list, and then at Missy's insistence asked for permission to run a Protectorate route instead of a Wards route. The PRT officer running the console from their end denied that pretty much immediately, so they grabbed the 'most dangerous' flying Wards route available. Taylor on her platform, Chris on his hoverboard, and Missy on her broom. Though Missy decided to put her rifle on her back instead of hidden inside of a pocket today.
"I think she's a bit angry," Chris said as he came up next to Taylor.
"I'm a bit surprised myself," Taylor admitted. "But she's being quite effective."
"She's hitting people in the head with stun bolts. From six to eight blocks away."
"Noses, actually. She's obviously been working on her aim."
Chris turned to Taylor. "What?"
"Every shot I've seen her land has hit someone on or directly next to their nose. I'm not sure if she's letting them see the barrel of the gun before the shot hits them or not though."
"Huh."
"I'm going to go interrupt that group of six over there."
He nodded, and Taylor darted around the building they were floating near, dropping off of her platform and into the midst of the group fighting.
Today turned out to be a wonderful day to patrol and actually run into things, because the Elite and the Empire were duking it out for some reason. Missy was sniping anyone from either side that was shooting people from a distance, Taylor occasionally dropped in on a closer-up scuffle, and Chris seemed content to play overwatch most of the time. Though some of that might've been that his attempt at a larger gun to take out a car had resulted in broken components, which he was using the 'downtime' to field repair.
"Console to Wards patrol," came over the radio a few minutes later, from a male voice that was obviously the PRT officer and not Aisha. "The police have asked for you to adjust your route six blocks East to help with a hotspot. Do you have any objections?"
Taylor looked up at Chris, who obviously looked towards where Missy was. After a moment he turned to her and shook his head, so she hit the radio. "Maul to Console, no objections."
A minute later their maps reported an update, weaving to the East for a bit before meeting up with their original route further down. Not that they would be following that until someone showed up to pick up those they'd gathered.
"So," Missy said as she dropped the last stunned gunner next to the rest of those they'd taken down. "Where are all the parahumans? The gangs don't normally fight like this without at least some parahuman leadership."
"No clue," Taylor admitted. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if our detour is actually to shift us around where the parahumans are known to be duking it out."
That actually had both of the other two frowning. But there wasn't much they could do about it. Though Missy did fly up again and start looking around, focusing on the area that they were now avoiding. She came down as the police finished loading their van with the captured gang members.
"I think they were telling the truth," Missy said. "There's a lot more activity along where they're sending us."
Taylor nodded. "Okay then. Do you want to ignore the little stuff to get to the higher activity faster?" Both of the other two grinned at that, so she turned to Chris. "I'm thinking that we should have you ride with me for a couple of minutes."
Chris's grin turned to a frown as he looked at his hoverboard. "There's no way that I broke something."
"Nah. You're just slow, I'd talk to Wrench Wraith about collaborating on some human-safe boosters or something."
"Oh. Right."
A few adjustments and they were off, and it was quickly obvious that part of the 'hotspot' was actually a cape battle. One that looked wrong to Taylor. Alabaster was in with the grunts, but Stormtiger seemed to be locked down protecting a building. The threat there was from a brute throwing large stone blocks at said building.
"I'm confused," Missy admitted. "I mean, taking out Stormtiger would be easy, but he's only defending?"
Taylor frowned and flipped through augmented patrol modes. "I think the building is residential, with kids in it. Probably Empire-protected housing?"
"Oh. Wait, does that mean that he's currently the good guy in this battle?"
"Maybe. The question is whether or not we inform the guy throwing the blocks that the building is full of civilians." The other two stared at Taylor for that comment. "What? Pointing out that he's threatening noncombatants might be enough to get him to disengage. If it doesn't work then he'll most likely be distracted and more susceptible to a sneak attack."
"That sounds more reasonable," Chris agreed. "The question is, which of us informs him?"
"It's my plan and I have no reason to not do so myself."
The other two agreed with that, and Chris hopped onto his hoverboard so that Taylor could swing around and drop down next to the brute. Who was definitely paying attention to his surroundings, as he idly tried to backhand Taylor as she landed.
"That wasn't nice," Taylor said as she ducked under the backhand.
"Sneak attacks aren't nice either," he said as he lobbed another block. Though now that Taylor was closer she could see that he was pulling them out of a solid stone slab under a tarp in the back of the truck that he was standing next to, making him a possible stiker. "What do you want?"
"I'm curious as to why you insist on throwing stone blocks at a building with kids in it."
He paused at that. "What?"
"The building Stormtiger keeps preventing your blocks from hitting looks to be residential with kids in it."
"Oh. I'd wondered why he suddenly shifted tactics." He then shrugged, grabbed another block, and threw it anyway. "Whatever works."
Well, that solidified Stormtiger as the current lesser of two evils. Taylor grabbed her maul off of her back, but had to dodge a punch as the cape decided that made her a higher priority target. Missy then hit him with a burst of stun bolts, which appeared to do nothing to him. Nor did taking the maul to his face do much, projected or physical instances.
Taylor: Hello there.
[Confusion]
Taylor: I'm currently fighting your human. He's being a bit stupid. Is there anything you're willing to tell me about what you do for him so that I don't have to hurt either of you to stop him?
[Assertion]
Taylor: Sorry, I'm not going to let him win.
BA: Establishing Additional Connections
The man threw another block in Stormtiger's general direction before trying to hit Taylor again, but found that punching Taylor was less effective than he'd like due to the force field belt. Not that it didn't send Taylor back a little.
BA: Error: Connection Refused. Target has insufficient resources
And with that the block that he'd just pulled out of the stone slab disintegrated, the man stumbling in the process. Taylor got him with a projected hit in the stomach with her maul, and Missy had let loose with another barrage of stun bolts. The man was unconscious a moment later, and Taylor moved to secure him somewhat. Moving him away from the stone slab for starters while Missy switched to targeting Stormtiger.
Because the man was a brute, Taylor opted to further secure him with containment foam. But she wanted to do so in a way that wouldn't let him pull stone out of the ground, assuming he could do so. That required some thought, but she ended up grabbing the tarp from the truck and lightly wrapping him up in it, then tying that to her platform. Once he was lifted up off of the ground she tossed a containment foam grenade into the tarp with him. The tie-down rope from the tarp proved to be long enough for her platform to be untouched by the foam, but he was definitely encased.
With that done, she allowed the connections to his snark to close, unsure if that would cause him to wake up. Either he didn't wake up or he couldn't get out of the foam, which was fine by her as she turned to help with the rest of the fight. Only to find that those regular gang members that weren't already unconscious had fled, along with Alabaster and Stormtiger. Missy was working on securing a few of the regular members, so Taylor moved over to her.
"So what happened with Stormtiger?" Taylor asked.
"He refused to fight back, stating that he and Alabaster were acting in defense of civilians," Missy grumbled. "I had to admit that I had no proof otherwise, which meant no actual reason to detain him."
"Oh."
"Loopholes are a lot less fun when they're used against you."
Chapter 258 The three Wards had taken longer than usual to make it through their patrol and back to the PRT building, largely due to the number of other conflicts that they'd participated in. They'd finally opted to head back after Chris couldn't field-repair his hoverboard when it was hit by a stray bullet. Taylor felt that she could've gotten it working again, but that would be revealing things that the public didn't know yet. Instead she helped Chris get back to the PRT building with all of his equipment. Luckily Missy had done a great job of not being shot at directly and thus hadn't had any issues on that front. Mostly because she was sniping anyone who thought about trying to shoot at her from a good distance.
Reviewing the sensor data afterwards, Taylor was able to confirm that parahumans were the only ones that Missy hadn't hit within an inch of their nose. The brute had been hit in the back and Stormtiger was decent at dodging. For fun, Taylor even compiled all of the impacts on non-parahumans into a video and requested permission to post it on PHO. To her amusement, she got permission within twenty minutes, so she uploaded the video and posted on PHO about Missy's accuracy training. That should be interesting to read the responses on in the morning.
Looking over everything else for the evening, apparently the kids were once again cleared for patrolling and other Wards activities. Of course, they were only going to be able to bring one of the three out on patrol at a time because Missy was off-duty for a few days, followed by Taylor being on 'weekend healing' duty. Which they still didn't have some details on, Amy having double-checked her own messages as well, so they both sent off queries about various aspects of the coming weekend. All they knew was that it was supposed to be a healing weekend. Where they were healing was the primary unknown.
With that taken care of there wasn't a whole lot else to do for the evening. Or at least there wasn't, before Ackbar suddenly shot across the room at high speed and into her bedroom door. Hitting the door knob hard enough to cause problems for Ackbar and the door.
"Somehow I think that I should be surprised that it took this long for you to need repairs," Taylor said as she picked the spider-bot up, carefully avoiding further damaging the leg he'd already harmed. "But I think I'm going to start with the door, because being able to easily enter and leave my room is somewhat important too."
Thursday morning Taylor started her day by double-checking the repairs she'd done on Ackbar the night before. There didn't seem to be any problems, though the spider-bot was obviously being a little more careful this morning. She fed him, cleaned up, said good morning to her father as he came downstairs, and then got ready to meet Amy and Vicky at the gym. After double-checking that the gym was, in fact, available for use like they'd claimed it was the night before.
The three of them met up in the pocket dimension before heading over, and found that Missy had beaten them there.
"TAYLOR!" Missy yelled when she spotted them entering the gym itself. A moment later she carefully turned off the machine she was using, before warping space to pop up in front of Taylor.
"Yes?" Taylor said, slightly confused.
"Who told you to post that compilation of nose-shots?"
"That was my idea, though I did get permission to. Why?"
"Because my grandmother started whining about it as soon as she found out that it existed."
Vicky snorted at that. "What, does she think that your aim needs work? I thought it was awesome."
Missy rolled her eyes. "She didn't like that I got the people fighting the Empire as well as the Empire thugs, and she felt that even with a stun rifle that if I'd aimed properly that I could've 'accidentally on purpose' killed a bunch of the 'Nazi trash', as she put it."
Taylor shook her head. "Those stun bolts are supposed to be ridiculously safe unless you start using multiple on individuals, so I don't think you'd have pulled that off short of getting them to fall on something that hurt them more."
"Doesn't stop my grandmother from being annoyed with me about it."
"And what am I supposed to do about that?"
Missy grumbled something unintelligible at that.
The repeaters coming on at lunchtime allowed multiple messages to be delivered to Taylor. Apparently the gun safes would be available for delivery and installation the following afternoon, which was good to know. She'd need to block out time for that. Apparently before the meeting that they'd decided to schedule for tomorrow as well regarding the weekend. They had 'backup plans' but wanted to see if something else was possible. But didn't want to explain it in the message. Fun.
Actually, continuing down the list, there were complications for weekend scheduling as well. The kids were now the only ones available on Saturday, and Aisha wasn't going to be available on Sunday either. Which meant that the kids were probably going to have Saturday off unless the Protectorate wanted to take them out, given that none of the older Wards were going to be available. For that matter, the following Saturday was also blocked off, but without any explanation. Which made for three days in a row that the Wards weren't going to be patrolling, starting with Thanksgiving.
Grumbling about that lack of information wouldn't get her anywhere, but some of her paying attention to her messages had slowed her down getting to the cafeteria. Due to that, Taylor was the last one to their usual table, but at least Amy had saved her a seat. A bit further out from the wall than usual, but she couldn't hide in the corner every day. Not that she wouldn't continue to try. At the same time, she found it interesting that Louise seemed to have her tail bundled up a bit more than usual.
"Something wrong?" Taylor asked, since Louise was directly across from her.
"What?" the other girl asked.
"You've bundled up your tail."
"Oh, right. Some religious nuts tried to grab me yesterday afternoon. Don't know what they planned entirely, but one of them threw 'holy water' at me that was actually acid. Only got my tail, and I'm using it being a bit extra-sensitive as it heals as a reminder to remember where it is when dodging things."
"Ah." That sounded painful and annoying all at once. "Did you at least get some good hits in on them?"
Louise grinned. "Yep. Broke one guy's arm and dislocated the other's shoulder. Didn't get any hits in on one of the women, but she took the brunt of the acid that the teenager threw."
Amy raised her eyebrow. "And what did you do to the teenager?"
"Nothing, but the second woman got a broken nose while I called the cops."
Taylor had taken a minute to look things up, frowning as she did so. "Did anyone get any video of the whole thing?"
Louise snorted. "Only the woman whose nose I broke, and the police took her phone."
"Drat. That means that we might never get to see the footage."
With that the discussion turned to getting as many details out of Louise as possible, many of which made it to PHO. Courtesy of Dennis making a decently well thought out post that even called out a number of laws that had been broken. That he did this with one of his accounts that normally made a joke out of everything, without including a single intentional joke in the post, had a number of other posters paying unusual attention to the situation and calling for someone to get law enforcement to verify the claims.
After school Taylor went straight to the PRT building, exiting class through a portal she threw up on the wall. She found a few maintenance staff in the Wards area on her arrival, fiddling with an automated scanning robot with its scanning arm sitting at an odd angle.
"What's up?" she asked, causing two of the five to jump.
The one that seemed to be supervising for the moment turned to her. "Oh, hello Miss Hebert. Didn't realize that it was that late or we'd have done our best to be out of here by now. We're supposed to be confirming the location of two lines that weren't in the current wiring system in the floor here, so that we can ensure that we get them removed tomorrow morning, but the scanner is giving us trouble."
Taylor nodded. "It can't drop its arm because there's a bit of food stuck in the joint."
"That's right, and...wait, what? Food?"
"Yeah. If you can tell it to straighten up then I think I can get the offending bit out with some tweezers, if you'd like?"
The man looked back at the robot, and the four others who had stopped to look at Taylor. "Okay, yeah, let's try that."
Five minutes later the robot was successfully scanning the floor, the one that she'd been talking to apparently being the actual operator of the robot while the other four had come to try and help him get it working again. "There we go, that should do it. I love this thing and wish that Armsmaster would build more of them."
Taylor snorted. "I'd personally prefer a safer version to go into mass production."
"What's wrong with this one?"
"The scanning field uses a couple of frequency combinations that are incredibly dangerous to living things within a meter of the scanning arm, though I suppose that there is the pre-check that looks for living things in a safer manner and shuts the arm down if it finds any of a certain size or larger. I guess that means that you could defeat this by arranging for mice to nest near your hidden wires? Not that such a thing wouldn't result in the area being torn open anyway."
The man paled a little and took a step away from the robot. "And now I'm wishing that I hadn't asked. I've been running this thing throughout the entirety of the secure areas since you found that other feed, after we used its less accurate big brother to do a rough scan so that we could focus on finding active stuff. That he insisted on locking off each section, using some other kind of sensor to ensure that nobody was in the area to be scanned, makes a lot more sense now."
Taylor didn't bother to comment on that, but did stick around and watch until the scanning robot was no longer in the Wards area. Only once it was gone did she start working on patrol route options. A quick peek told her that Rosa was likely going to want to be tinkering, and both Ryan and Sandy were expected to come in. Except that Sandy had probably been expecting more granite work throughout town, but that had been canceled due to heightened gang activity in the area that they originally wanted to work in. So they could have Ryan or Sandy go out on patrol, but not both. Hmmm.
Either way, Chris would be justified in not wanting to go out until he'd finished fixing up his equipment, so that left Taylor dragging Aisha along with one of the kids. Probably on a Boardwalk run, though a quick check of the temperature made Ryan seem like the better option until Sandy's cold-temperature costume concerns were dealt with. Though what to do with her was another question entirely.
It was too bad that she couldn't have the girl try and figure out her own temperature tolerances. Yes, the personal rooms had individual controls, but there was no way that Taylor was going to unlock the 'reasonable temperature range' to let Sandy try to figure out how cold was 'too cold' on her own. That was something that would need to be done under someone else's supervision, Chris was the only one that would be available to provide said supervision, and there was no way she was going to trust a tinker who needed to fix their equipment to monitor things.
Sadly, that left very little to have Sandy do, beyond perhaps do her homework in her room with the lights on full.
It was almost half an hour later when the rest of the Wards that were coming in today had all finally arrived, the three kids arriving together. Taylor had chosen a patrol route, cleared things with the PRT officer that would be running the console so that she didn't have to put Chris on the Wards end, and gotten squat for ideas for what to do with Sandy.
"Hey you three," Taylor greeted as the kids came into the common area. "I figure Rosa wants to work on fixing her stuff. Chris will be available if you need help. Ryan, you're coming with Aisha and I on patrol. Sandy, I'm sorry, but they canceled working on granite things for you due to the gangs becoming more active."
Sandy nodded slowly, and Taylor noted that the girl's vine-hair was looking a little off. "What will I do instead?"
"I don't have anything else for you to do, but looking at you I think you could use some time in your room here with the lights on full. Maybe after I make you a quick snack. Do you have homework you can work on?"
This time the girl nodded more quickly, so Taylor grabbed a steak from the meat locker and cooked it enough for it to be safe for Sandy to eat. Rosa had already gone to tinker at that point, and Ryan had gotten into his costume. Aisha had decided to make a snack of her own as well, though in her case she just made a bag of microwave popcorn. When Taylor was done she gave Sandy the steak, then had a thought.
"Sandy," she said. "Do you mind if I use my healing powers to check if you need anything else?"
Sandy blinked, then shook her head and held out a hand. Taylor flipped her striker switch and took the hand. Three things jumped out at her right away. First, the girl was a bit dehydrated, which was easily fixed by getting her to drink more water. Second, she was running low on a few nutrients that her body created while exposed to sunlight, which just reinforced having her stay in the room with the artificial sun lamps for a bit. Third, and most importantly, was that her metabolism wasn't running at a level that could keep her 'warm' through that alone.
It was entirely possible that her costume had been designed around a reasonably close to human ability to maintain her own body temperature, and Sandy's modified biology wasn't actually capable of that. Really, it was closer to dealing with a plant that didn't handle the cold well, and this wasn't something that would only apply to costume design. The girl's entire wardrobe would need adjusting if she was going to stay in New England.
"You need to get a big glass of water," Taylor finally said, just before going over and turning up the thermostat for the room. "There are other things that I'm going to have to let others know about too."
Sandy nodded, and dug an empty water bottle out of her bag. Taylor helped her fill it even as she wrote up a report on what she'd discovered. With that done, she finally double-checked her own equipment, collected Aisha and Ryan, and headed out on patrol.
Colin paused as a high-priority alert came up. He then finished the line of text that he'd been in the middle of and saved his work. Working through the secure areas of the PRT building had led to doing the same with the Rig, and a lot of the initial work fell to him parsing the output of his own equipment. Once he was certain that he wouldn't lose any work there he opened up the message attached to the alert.
After a few moments of reading he wanted to sigh. Of course their resident plant-girl would have plant-like reactions to temperature shifts. He flagged her as being off of normal rotation entirely until they had a solution, then appended a few initial observations to the report. Integrating a light bodysuit with temperature controls into the girl's costume would most likely help significantly, but coming up with something that could help her out of costume was probably going to be a bigger concern.
On that front, he also added a request for official testing of the girl's ability to maintain her own body temperature. It wouldn't be the most enjoyable test for her, but it had just become a medical concern that they'd need to know the limits on. Due to that it would be a higher-priority issue, and with any luck they could get it taken care of in the next few days. It wouldn't even take long to get set up for it, though ensuring that the monitoring equipment didn't use plant-derived materials might take slightly longer. Primarily because he wasn't actually certain if a few of the common adhesives used had a plant-originating component.
The trip down the Boardwalk had been reasonably boring. Taylor had spent the entire patrol on her platform looking for possible trouble and found squat. Ryan had done a few tricks with sound, and Aisha had spent some time following him while hiding in the ground so that it looked like he had less backup than usual, but despite that there hadn't been much activity in general. The weather just wasn't ideal for interacting with the public.
Their return to the PRT building was followed by Taylor checking in on Sandy. The girl looked a lot better after having finished off her snack and drinking the entire bottle of water, but had gotten stuck on her math homework. A little help was provided there before Taylor checked on Chris and Rosa. The former was well on his way to rebuilding his damaged equipment and the latter was having trouble with a few things that she didn't want to rebuild but wasn't having any luck fixing.
"You know," Taylor said after looking over Rosa's damaged equipment. "As I understand it, not all tinkers can fix what they make when it gets significantly damaged. Sometimes you just have to start over."
It was immediately obvious that Rosa didn't like that. "But it was hard work to make."
"But you know how to make it now, so you just have to make it again."
"I don't want to make it again, I want this one to work."
Taylor shrugged. "Personally, I think it looks like you're going to need to replace more than half of it anyway." Just barely more than half, admittedly, and only if you counted off the shelf gaskets. "It'll probably take more work to fix it than to just build it from scratch." Rosa frowned at that, looking over her pile of similarly-damaged creations. "Either way, I think you should get ready to go home, since you aren't eating dinner here and I've gotten confirmation that your ride is on the way."
Rosa nodded and started doing the minimum of cleanup that she was going to need to do before leaving, and Taylor finally went to change out of her own costume.
That evening Taylor checked on the PHO thread that she'd made for Missy's 'shoot everyone in the nose' antics, only to find people being directed to a new thread. Apparently today's family activity was a trip to the gun range, and several people had recorded video clips. This included some of Missy making literally impossible for a normal human shots. That she was doing this with what looked to everyone to be a perfectly normal handgun and without the visual distortions that her powers normally caused had people wondering what else she could do.
Admittedly, none of the shots that Missy pulled off in the recordings were all that impressive compared to what she could really do with bullets. Something that Taylor was certain was deliberate. The really amusing bits were actually the reactions to the larger guns that Missy wielded with no issues whatsoever. People weren't entirely sure what to make of the girl having little to no issues with a larger shotgun beyond needing to brace herself a little more than usual.
Of course, watching the woman who was likely Missy's grandmother accurately hit her target with her own small pistol was interesting as well, and perhaps indicated that some things ran in the family.
And there was much snickering over the comments that people made about being concerned if or when Missy was allowed to bring a 'proper gun' on patrol.
Friday morning brought with it a little extra wind and a few notices for Taylor. Such that a complete block on all outdoor Wards activities for Sandy was now in place until a solution to her temperature control problem could be implemented. They apparently hoped to have such a solution 'soon', but didn't have an actual timeline. Though they were planning on testing her limits the following day, assuming that the testing plan for doing so was approved today.
There was also a set of notices stating that both Rosa and Ryan weren't going to be available today or tomorrow, with no explanation as to why not. Of course, Taylor hadn't expected them to be around tomorrow while all the older Wards weren't, so that only affected Aisha and Chris. She sent a message letting them know and telling them that they would need to decide if they wanted to go on a patrol or take the afternoon off. She fully expected them to take the day off, with Chris probably only going in to tinker some more.
Missy was in the gym that morning, and generally in a better mood than expected. Of course, that could be because her family got along best on the firing range, which felt wrong in a few ways. Their mild discussion while working out led to her admitting that she'd intentionally held back quite a bit as well, though apparently mostly to keep her grandmother from grumbling as much about how many Nazis Missy hadn't killed.
That Missy was worrying about things from that angle was probably a problem in and of itself.
The one common thread of discussion throughout the day, at least for both Taylor and Amy, was being asked about where they were going to be healing over the weekend. Which they wouldn't have answered even if they could answer it in the first place. Missy probably had to deal with a lot of questions about her time at the firing range. But eventually the school day came to an end, and Taylor headed to the PRT building to meet up with the safe installers. Amy was letting Taylor handle that while she visited the hospital to help with a couple of priority patients.
The safe installers had their truck parked in the secure garage, so Taylor headed that way to find them. Except that they weren't at their truck, so a quick call to find out where they were was made. It turned out that they'd been grabbing a snack in the cafeteria, and they quickly met up with Taylor in the garage.
"So how do you want to do this?" Taylor asked once they'd shown up. "Because you've not parked at any of the loading dock points in here and the only one in the pocket dimension is nowhere near where you want to be going."
The man that appeared to have the keys to their truck out frowned at that. "Are you implying that there's a way in that's shorter than using the internal loading dock?"
"Yep. I can open a portal to a corridor between the two rooms."
"Right. Let me move the truck so that we can unload the safes while you show Matt where they're going."
Taylor shrugged and opened up a portal with her pistol opener. She showed Matt both closets, and then how to get under them with the maintenance hatches. He thought that was going to make things a lot easier. They didn't let her help move the safes into position, since she wasn't on their insurance. Even if she was a brute. Watching as they bolted the safes down so that they weren't going anywhere in relation to the closets was admittedly interesting, and she couldn't argue with their decision to move things over a little to get a better anchor point than originally requested.
Things went quickly, in part thanks to the under-floor access, though Taylor would have to go through the lock setup with Amy later. The installers cleaned up after themselves, Taylor signed things, and they left. Having plenty of time at this point, she checked menus and headed for the cafeteria serving chocolate cake. Amusingly, Amy met her there a few minutes later.
Amy: You should've asked if I wanted some before getting your own.
Taylor: I don't see why. You were busy, I wasn't.
Amy: You knew I was wasting time with patients that didn't actually need parahuman healing.
They might've had the discussion verbally, but that would've interrupted eating the cake.
Taylor and Amy were sitting in a small meeting room at Brockton General. A couple of people from the hospital administration were there, and Dragon had arrived as a combined PRT, Protectorate, and Guild representative.
"We were originally hoping that you could set up on or near that beach you two have access to," Miss Tash said, flipping through a few papers she had with her. "But Dragon assured us that there wasn't anywhere suitable to roll out the units close enough. At the same time, she said that she'd check with some others as to possible options."
"I did," Dragon said. "And they arranged for a beacon and repeater system to be set up in what I'm told is an incredibly secure location. Though they didn't tell me where it was, and they only sent me the beacon code twenty minutes ago so I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. If it isn't suitable then the Guild has stationed a large ship in international waters, far enough from land to cover legalities. The agreements we've worked on cover both scenarios."
"Ah. Then perhaps we can entertain the additional requests after all." She notice Taylor and Amy giving her curious looks. "Right, sorry, we've run into a pile of problems due to the PRT's teleporter network still being unavailable. The Guild offered use of their system, but wanted a more international pool of patients, and then a couple of countries that wanted to participate had additional requests. No matter what we'll be dealing with only normal healing tomorrow, but if Miss Hebert is willing to there are a number of people that would like her to do some therapy sessions on Sunday."
Taylor blinked at that. "I suppose that would work, but I'm nowhere near being a licensed therapist."
"We're aware of that," Dragon said. "Beyond giving you warning and having time to let the patients know we also want the extra day to ensure that the volunteer therapists are all still available, especially those that speak English and the various languages that we're aware you don't know. We're only expecting six or so people at last count either way."
"Will I need to find a spot to roll out the therapy room?"
Dragon nodded. "Most likely, yes. Especially if we're using wherever the beacon code I was provided leads to."
Miss Tash pulled a few sheets out of her stack and slid them over to Taylor and Amy, with Taylor getting an extra sheet. "We've already cleared things with your parents, but we'd like you to sign the agreements for dealing with international patients as well as doing the psychiatric work. Just to ensure that our bases are covered."
Taylor took her set of sheets and looked them over. They were fairly straightforward and had her father's signature on them already. One sheet for dealing with the foreign patients, though worded more as allowing the PRT, Protectorate, and Guild to act as proxies for dealing with foreign laws and governments. Another for doing the healing weekend officially outside of the country in a 'neutral location', worded such that another dimension or international waters should apply. And then the last was essentially a duplicate of the first, but for psychiatric and therapy concerns instead of for physical healing. Once she was certain that she understood what each was for, which took a couple of double-checking of meanings for specific terms, she signed all three.
With the paperwork done, Dragon stood up. "Perhaps we can see about checking the potential location for suitability?"
Amy opened up a portal to their pocket dimension, and Dragon entered the beacon code into one of their terminals by hand. Taylor wasn't sure if that was because she'd honestly not left a remote access point for herself in the system or if it was for show. Once the code was in they opened a portal there, and Dragon insisted on going through first. She returned a moment later to let them know that it was safe.
Stepping out of the pocket dimension, they found themselves in a large, circular paved area. There was a chain link fence around the outside of it, with no gates or gaps visible. In the center, just behind the portal, was a small white building with flat sides and a single locked door. Next to the door was a set of power hookups, that Taylor's tinker snark told her were tied into a generator in the building. Presumably the beacon and relay hardware were also in the building.
Most interesting from Taylor's point of view was the pile of warning signs on the fence, spaced out evenly around it. She jogged over to get a better look and found that they were all identical, and it looked like they said the same thing in several languages.
Do Not Cross Fence The Forest of Mystery is Heavily Trapped for Your Protection We probably went overboard, to be honest Errant paint bombs likely mean that someone is trying to approach
Blinking, Taylor looked at the trees beyond the fence. "Why do I get the feeling that the signs aren't a joke, and that someone had far too much fun with this?"
Chapter 259 Oddities with the forest aside, the entire area in the clearing seemed to have been specifically made to make it easy to roll out the various units in the way that they wanted to. They even had room for placing the therapy unit further away from everything else for additional privacy while using it, not that there should be any significant issues there with all the things they'd put in that unit.
Out of curiosity, Taylor had dug the Snitch out of her belt and used it to scan the area. Dragon fired up an augmented patrol instance for them to use to see a live readout as well, and those who could see said readout were amazed at how dense the traps were in the forest. Somehow there were traps overlaid on traps that were built on other traps that were interwoven with more traps. If you were lucky, knew exactly where everything was, and the wind didn't blow too hard then you might be able to make it through safely. The only saving grace was that they didn't think any of the traps were likely to be fatal.
Whether or not that trend continued deeper into the forest wasn't something that they looked into.
With all of that confirmed, they decided on a way to deploy things for the morning, then headed back to the hospital to finalize a few more details. On-site security was going to be minimal, as they didn't expect any attacks from outside without a lot of warning. Instead they were going to focus on keeping the transporter endpoints secure, which was going to be handled by Guild personnel. That didn't mean that a couple members of New Wave weren't going to be on hand, just in case, but they weren't planning on bringing extra parahumans in to provide security in the clearing.
Also included, due to the entire location being remote and barely-accessible, were discussions on lunch plans for the weekend. Apparently the tentative plan, provided nothing fell through, was for some food to come through from each of the various places people were gathering. That would then be set up on a buffet table for everyone on-site to eat from. The backup plan was to just send a few people to a burger or pizza place near one of the teleporters to pick up some takeout.
Last on the agenda was how to identify and work with the translators. Those patients that didn't speak English were going to have specific things on their ID cards that could be used to determine what languages they did speak in order to find a suitable translator if one hadn't come with the patient. They could also request one over the radio if one wasn't present in the immediate area at the time they were needed.
By the time they were done with all of that it was time to head home for dinner.
Due in part to waking up first, Taylor was the one that popped over to the clearing to deploy all the roll-out units for the day. Once they were as ready as they needed to be for others to get prepared she headed back home so that she and Amy could swing through the gym. To Taylor's surprise, Vicky joined them.
"What got you up?" Taylor asked the older girl.
Vicky shrugged. "I'm hanging around for security today, even if it's likely to be incredibly boring. Something about you having an incredibly out of the way location?"
"I suppose you could say that, though it isn't really all that far away in some ways."
"Huh?"
"About thirty kilometers or so away from here, if you look at it the right way."
The look on Vicky's face was amusing, but Amy took pity on her sister. "It's on another Earth, but the equivalent location is only about thirty kilometers from here."
It took a moment, but Vicky actually facepalmed at that.
Aisha grumbled as she made her way through the stack of papers that she'd been given. Chris had only needed to read and sign five things, but she was on form twenty-something and was only halfway through the stack. She would've given up long before now if not for the promised reward at the end. Well, rewards, but the upgrades for her phone would apparently take up to two weeks to come in.
Why she needed to go through all of this was beyond her. Most of the paperwork seemed like it related to things that shouldn't matter in the least, beyond 'keep identities secret' stuff anyway. There were supposedly a pile of other things that she'd not been cleared to go through as well, and she was hoping that them mentioning that detail was a slip. Otherwise those responsible for ensuring that she went through all of this paperwork would be far too cruel, intentionally taunting her with secrets that were out of her reach.
Most of the morning had been spent dealing with incredibly varied patients. On the most 'normal' end were some people that were suffering from complications due to the immune system replacement not liking previous medical procedures or disorders that they'd been born with. There were several people with amputated limbs or chronic health issues as well as a couple of severe and very recent injuries, one of the latter apparently being the result of a car crash near where one of the Guild teleporters had been set up.
Other things were a lot more weird, complicated, and difficult to come up with solutions for. Like the two friends that had triggered together and could combine into a single body, but now had their individual boosted immune systems start attacking each other if they did so. Encoding both immune systems to 'trust' the other had been slightly tricky, but they'd done it. Then there was a boy that'd found a tinker's gun that had started to transform his entire arm into a cannon of some kind, but only made it part way before failing. It ended up being easier to amputate the arm and grow him a new one.
There were also people that they couldn't help. Most due to the problems being brain-related, but not all. The first powers-related issue that they couldn't help with had been identical triplets that had the ability to shrink down to the size of a mouse. What their problem was hadn't been obvious at a glance, but it didn't take long for them to explain that they hadn't been identical originally and were hoping for a fix there. They'd even brought pre-trigger DNA samples and pictures. Sadly, their single snark was enforcing the 'identical', to the point where if they changed one of the three then the other two changed with her. Changing two at the same time in opposite directions caused all three extreme pain before the changes averaged out. Sadly, it was also obvious that the changes were also reversing on their own so they couldn't even have a few things that were annoying them changed.
The last patient before breaking for lunch was a toddler who had somehow gotten their arm stuck inside of a pipe that was too small for their hand to fit through. That their arm was slightly crushed by the pipe meant that something odd had likely happened. Amy ended up causing the kid's arm to shift around the pipe, pulling bones out of the pipe in the process. It looked incredibly weird and the kid's parents had obviously disliked the entire thing, but it was less traumatic to the kid than cutting their hand or arm off to remove the pipe.
Lunch did end up being a buffet, with everyone trying at least a couple of dishes that they weren't familiar with. This did not always work out, but at least they'd made the attempt. As an added bonus, they got a show with their lunch when a volunteer helper got curious enough to climb over the fence when nobody was paying much attention to them. Vicky had to rescue him after he set off over two dozen traps.
Chris looked at the bag of crystals that Joey had made for him. Having one slipped into his body seemed like an incredibly odd idea, but it was also something that would be far too useful to ignore. Building the modular testing system that would pay for the pocket dimension he now had was going to take some time as well, but that shouldn't be a major problem. No, he was more concerned with getting at least a basic build-out done inside of the pocket dimension. Having an essentially portable tinker lab and place to sleep sounded far too nice to skimp on, and he could easily afford it.
Looking back at the small pile of opening equipment, he was mildly annoyed that all of it was far too specialized for his power to work with. For good reason, really, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Self-contained units weren't necessarily a bad thing, but the more he delved into his specialty the harder it was to accept them if he had any way of changing things to be more flexible. Or at least more easily rebuilt with replacement units.
Shaking his head, he focused on what he needed to do now. To start with, a quick request for a meeting to talk over options for building out the pocket dimension. Once that was sent he'd need to gather some supplies before he could start tinkering.
His stomach grumbling a bit had him slotting 'get lunch' in before gathering supplies.
After lunch the patients became a lot less interesting, presumably because the most significant cases from each region had been sent through first in case of time constraints. They still got the occasional 'interesting' patient, but no major issues. The most difficult patient for the afternoon had been a man whose 'tapeworm problem' was actually a biotinker creation that had migrated out of his digestive tract and was trying to replace his immune system. His augmented immune system had disagreed, and in the end Taylor just obliterated the creation to supply the raw materials needed to heal the damage to the man's systems.
The last patient of the day ended up being an old woman with arthritis, and the translator assured them that she was incredibly happy as she headed back to the teleporters to return to her home.
"So who wants to pack up what?" Taylor asked, looking at Amy.
"We'd like to request that you not pack anything up," a woman interrupted. Taylor and Amy turned to look at her, recognizing one of the Guild squad leaders. "Specifically, we're hoping that you'd allow us to run some reasonably new recruits through overnight guard duty with everything set up."
Amy half-nodded. "I suppose that makes sense, and it would save us the trouble of pulling everything back out in the morning."
Taylor shrugged. "I'm not sure that I care either way, so why not."
The woman smiled. "Thank you. Dragon didn't think that you'd turn down the request. Is there anything you need to do to the roll-out units to secure them for the night?"
"We'd normally lock down and shut down the teleporters, but you might need them so that would probably be counterproductive."
"Ah, yes. We'd appreciate it if you left them active, just in case. There aren't exactly a lot of ways to get here and back without them."
Twenty minutes later Taylor and Amy had returned to their homes and claimed showers. To Vicky's annoyance in Amy's case, but it was harder to argue that Vicky had been doing more shower-worthy activities throughout the day. Outside of fetching one person from the forest all Vicky had done was enjoy flying around in circles.
"That's the single most unique thing that's happened yet," Joey said. "I'm going to have to apologize to Taylor for being initially dismissive of her request to get you a pocket dimension."
Aisha blinked at that. "Taylor asked you to give me one?"
"She technically pointed out that your powers might have an interesting interaction due to making your own little pocket. I didn't expect it to be so significant, and I doubt she did either."
"Oh. I guess I'm going to have to thank her."
Joey nodded. "Perhaps before asking her to implant one of the crystals in you. That should make your trick even more useful."
That had Aisha blinking again, before looking down at the crystal she was holding in her hand. "These work when they're inside your body?"
"Yep."
Grinning, she held the crystal up to take a better look at it. It didn't look like much, but that didn't matter to her.
After a moment of her staring, Joey sighed. "Okay, enough of that. We have more tests to run, and to do that we probably need to make a few more crystals for you and get some equipment set up in your pocket dimension."
She turned to him. "Tests?"
"Yep. You're now interesting enough that I want to see how a few things work."
"Oh." She supposed she shouldn't complain about getting help in figuring things out.
It took a while to set everything up, not to mention for the copied crystals to be ready to be used, but eventually they were ready for a round of tests. First up was running her through all the normal opening methods, though apparently she'd have to get an upgrade kit from Dragon in order to use most of the PRT's beacons. After that they got into the things unique to her.
Unlike everyone else that Joey had given a pocket dimension, Aisha didn't need an opening device. Instead, she'd found that so long as she was holding the crystal key then she could focus on the pocket dimension while sinking into a surface and land in it instead of in her normal little pocket. The surface she came out of would act like a window back to the 'real world' so long as she was inside of the pocket dimension.
It didn't take long to determine that unlike her normal little pocket, she couldn't move the exit point with the pocket dimension. Testing other possible concerns showed several. For example, if she used her powers to enter the pocket dimension then no other portals to it could be opened until she left. That would prevent her from vanishing into a wall and then going home, but she didn't really mind. Attempting to use her powers to enter the pocket dimension while a portal was already open provided significant resistance, but if she pushed then the portal would be forcibly closed.
The absolute biggest benefit, at least in Aisha's view, was that she could put a number of things in the pocket dimension and didn't need to worry about how much air she had available. Once the crystal key thing was embedded in her then she'd always be able to slip into her pocket dimension, and if she prepared properly then she could then leave with very different equipment than when she'd originally entered.
One of the only downsides was that she had to 'force' herself to leave if she sunk into the floor. Somehow she landed safely, but the opening to return was on the ceiling. Perhaps one of the first things she needed was a ladder or mobile platform that she could use to reach the ceiling in that situation? Though where to get one was a different question. She wasn't made of money, after all. Perhaps she could admit to the PRT that she now had an alternate use for her powers and get them to provide her with a suitable solution?
Either that or she could just ask Brian. She should probably show him the pocket dimension anyway. He'd probably have some good ideas for things she could put in it and more ability to get some of them. That it would also be showing off something that she had and that he didn't was an added bonus, especially since until he had sufficient security clearance she couldn't tell him the details of how she got it.
Really, the only major downside to all of this was that the clearance she needed to be allowed to meet Joey was only SL8 and not the SL9 that the others had. Still higher than her brother, but not the highest level you could get without being Dragon or Taylor. And it couldn't just be Taylor's powers that got her SL10, because Amy didn't have it. Of course, that could be because Amy wasn't a Ward, which was a wonderful argument until you thought about it and realized that something like that should really require being in the Protectorate.
After dinner Taylor had sat down to go through her messages in detail. She had messages from Aisha and Chris looking to meet up with her before healing in the morning, which was interesting. She let both of them know that she would be swinging by the gym before heading over, but wasn't sure if either would be able to get in that early. Whatever it was probably wasn't critical anyway, so it could wait until Tuesday if needed.
For some reason they'd sent her the full results from Sandy's testing. Sure, it was medical information that she was cleared for, and the testing was a result of her own report, but she wasn't the girl's doctor and probably didn't need the full file instead of the summary for the girl's public file. A question was sent in as to why she'd been sent the full file, but she reviewed the whole thing anyway. They'd spent the entire day testing the girl, and basically came to the conclusion that while she could tolerate a fairly large temperature range she was most comfortable in a very warm environment.
The statement near the end, before the semi-public summary, that this made costume design 'problematic' was probably a significant understatement. Taylor did not envy Glenn or anyone else involved on that front, and was somewhat happy that she was the wrong kind of tinker to help design a solution.
A 'costume suitability review' had been triggered for all Wards system-wide as well, meaning that they weren't permitted to do Wards activities that would have them outside if the temperature was below a certain point until their costumes had been approved. Sadly, Brockton Bay wasn't expected to exceed that temperature at all this week and wasn't on the 'automatically approved due to known local weather conditions' region list. That essentially meant that Wards activities in-town weren't happening until after Thanksgiving at a minimum, and that assumed that their costumes got a review by then.
Finding ways to let everyone get power usage without being allowed to run patrols was going to be annoying.
The last of the interesting messages for the evening was a collection that, together, meant that she should be good to start working on stripping down the bus by Tuesday, though the paint wouldn't show up until Friday. That was faster than expected, and apparently was in part because of more significant problems with another vehicle in the shop having its engine fail. As such it needed an engine swap and they wanted to wait to see what other work might be needed before painting it, leaving a booth open.
Sadly, having the other Wards join her for stripping the paint off of the bus and then repainting it wasn't likely to be a good use of anyone's time.
Sunday morning Taylor beat Amy to the gym, though that was in part because Amy had agreed to ferry some of the Pelhams over to the clearing first thing that morning. To Taylor's surprise, Aisha was there in the Wards area waiting for her.
"I thought you had things to do today that were going to keep you from being around," Taylor noted.
Aisha shrugged. "Not until lunchtime, and Brian had a first thing in the morning meeting for Protectorate stuff."
"Ah. So what did you want to meet me for?"
"This," the girl said, pulling a crystal key out of her pocket. "Joey said you could put it inside of me so that I can't lose it, and he asked that I pass along thanks for pushing him to work with me."
Taylor nodded. "Okay, let's go to your room so that you can lay down. And why would he be thanking me?"
"My powers give me an alternate way into the pocket dimension so long as I'm in contact with one of my keys, though we tried with one of his and it doesn't work with them."
That would make sense, though Taylor didn't push for details right now. Instead she focused on slipping the crystal into the younger girl's body. That was followed by Aisha jumping up and using her power to slip into the wall, wherein she vanished from Taylor's senses entirely until she stepped back out.
Aisha was grinning as she bounced a little in excitement. "It worked! Thank you."
"You're welcome."
At that point it was obvious to Taylor that Aisha could probably get into her pocket dimension using her powers outright, instead of forming a little pocket. Looking for a report on that in the system, assuming that Joey had submitted one, might be a better way to get any other details that they'd already figured out.
Unlike the day before, Taylor wasn't in costume as she arrived at the clearing for the day. Amy was, but Taylor was going to be doing psychology work and was thus in normal, semi-professional clothing. While Amy went to double-check on the hospital setup, Taylor headed to the opposite end of the clearing to deploy the therapy office roll-out unit. It didn't take long to do so, and she ensured that it was powered up and ready to go with a few minutes of work.
Taylor: You need any help over there?
Amy: We're good, but they've just brought through a food cart for you. Snacks and drinks for people that you're working with.
Taylor: Ah. I'll come grab that.
Getting the food cart didn't take long, nor did putting things out or in the small refrigerator in the therapy office as appropriate. During that Taylor also shifted the furniture around a little bit, having decided that she wanted it to be laid out a little differently than it had been. Mainly because there had been a couple of 'hard to move around in that way' moments when she'd brought the food cart in.
The cart itself was stored in a storage area behind the main therapy room, since Taylor expected to be bringing at least the perishables back out with her at the end of the day. While putting it there, she noted that the entire unit was reporting as having a full supply of water and an empty waste tank for the bathroom built into it.
Taylor: Has anyone checked the water and waste tanks on the units over there?
Amy: The wha...oh, right. Sinks, bathrooms, we didn't put things away overnight for them to cycle through the pocket dimension's filtering and such. I'll go check that now.
It didn't take long for Amy to verify that they should be good for at least the rest of the day, if not for two days, on the hospital unit. The 'triage' unit, however, was running low on water and high on waste. It got packed up enough for a recall to the pocket dimension. Amy overrode the normal systems to dump the waste tank and refill the water tank without the full clean cycle that would normally happen, then rolled it back out and helped get it ready again.
That took long enough for the Guild to be ready to start sending people through, and thus they got started on things.
By lunchtime Taylor had run through a handful of sessions. She'd started the day with a man whose power let him clean things, but he wasn't cleaning enough varied things, nor was he making any attempt at large-scale cleanups. Some of that was apparently a legal and cultural issue for him, but with Taylor's statement he was hopeful that things would improve. Then there had been another man, this one had been having issues figuring out some of his power urges ever since he'd triggered. It turned out that his snark wanted him to get pregnant, and when Taylor had informed it that human males can't get pregnant it had been stunned.
It had then asked if she knew anyone who would change the man into a human female to facilitate the pregnancy, and Taylor had told it that she wasn't aware of anyone who would do so for the snark. That particular discussion was noted for the man's therapist, but the man himself wasn't told so as to not influence him towards things that he probably didn't actually want.
The first group had been cousins that had triggered together and whose parents wanted to stop breaking out into fights at every gathering. Sadly, they had the 'kiss/kill' group trigger effect firmly pushed to the 'kill' end of the spectrum in the form of their snarks pushing for them to literally try and kill the others off to prove which configuration was the best. Splitting them up wasn't going to help, but providing structure for their conflicts might. At least so long as any rules they were given didn't prohibit lethal attacks, anyway.
The last session before lunch had been another group, this one a family team that was having problems working together after a few years. It took a little bit of work to determine that the problem wasn't their team, but that their only remaining 'opponents' weren't really providing any kind of challenge whatsoever. The entire group had been given the recommendation to look into non-combat uses of their powers.
During all of that Amy had been working with the morning 'serious' and 'weirder' patients. These ranged from kids who'd been seriously injured when they fell onto exposed rebar through to a woman who'd had her uterus torn out of her without any other significant damage being dealt to her body. The only parahuman that Amy saw for the morning had been a toddler with the ability to spit out molten rock and no resistance to being harmed by heat anywhere other than around their mouth.
A new buffet had been set out for lunch itself, with some similar foods and some different ones. There was no 'floor show' of someone trying to climb the fence today, though when that was pointed out they also noticed that someone had reset the traps set off the day before. That none of the overnight guards had noticed that happening was noted so that they could be yelled at for being inattentive later.
Fortuna had a sudden feeling of a job well done, and assumed that someone had finally noticed that the Forest of Mystery's traps had been reset. That entire project had grown over several years, from the first 'test a thinker who can spot traps' through to making it more and more densely packed for additional agents and more varied information. Luckily they'd kept six different clearings 'safe' as start and end points for people moving through the forest and had been able to get one set up for the weekend with minimal issue.
She'd be back out there during the week to prepare a few additional items for a likely-thinker power from a vial that'd been purchased, but for now she returned her focus to the casino floor. On a lark, she'd decided to see how many cheaters she could expose without anyone realizing that she was doing so intentionally. She was up to seven so far, but there were two more currently in the room. The one planning on using a programming override device on the slot machines should be trivial, but the one marking cards with their agent was going to be tricky.
Taylor sighed as the therapy office unit stored itself, then started pushing the food cart back towards the teleporter unit. Her afternoon had started with a man who wanted his powers to stop trying to master literally everyone under the age of twenty around him. It got a nasty shock when it tried to control Taylor, but the snark wasn't configured to allow choices at all. Options had been discussed, but the man really didn't like the idea of having the ability to control others at all.
Then there was a woman who had triggered while pregnant and whose snark had kept at the eight-month point due to not understanding the difference between her and her child while 'healing'. She wanted to give birth to her daughter after triggering a year and a half prior. Some discussion with her snark and a few demonstrative changes using Shaper hopefully meant that the woman's pregnancy would be able to advance through the last month or so.
The other five sessions from the afternoon had been much more straightforward. Answer one or two simple questions about power urges that the person was getting, get thanked, and move on. The afternoon healing had been rather tame as well, though some of that was apparently a distrust of the Guild in some of the areas they were pulling from. Future attempts were supposedly going to be a larger draw, now that they'd shown that the offer was genuine through those that had overcome the distrust and gotten healed.
"I think that does it," Amy said as a Guild member took the cart from Taylor. The teleporter unit was the only one still out. "Think they'll leave the beacon turned on after today?"
Taylor shrugged. "No clue. They might, but I wouldn't be surprised if they only turn it on when they want visitors. Especially with the amount of effort maintaining all the traps would likely take, no need to have people coming to challenge themselves."
"Good point. Did Sarah talk to you about Thursday?"
"No, I haven't actually spoken to her at all since I took my lunch offset from her."
"Right. She hasn't heard back from your father on the invitation she sent to join us for Thanksgiving dinner."
"Oh. I'll check with him when I get home, since I hadn't actually thought about what our plans were likely to be in the first place."
Chapter 260 When Taylor asked her father about their plans she found out that he'd been waiting to hear if Jacob was going to be coming for Thanksgiving. They made a quick call and found that no, he wasn't able to come due to transportation issues. What those issues were wasn't offered and they didn't press him for details. That did mean that they didn't have any specific plans to speak of for Thursday, so they accepted the invitation to join New Wave. They also asked what they should bring, but were informed that there was going to be far too much food already.
Neil, who'd answered the phone, had even spent ten minutes on the subject of everything that Carol, Mark, and Sarah were already planning on making. Apparently both houses were going to have their kitchens dominated by various cooking tasks all week, either directly making things or preparing for things that would then be completed later. Including, but not limited to, needing space to store a significant amount of dough in the fridge, because the stuff needed to be chilled before actually being used. He even thought that leftovers were going to be available for weeks.
With that figured out they'd ended up sitting down and discussing the rest of the week.
"Thanks to the panic over costumes in cold weather they've got us basically unable to do a thing," Taylor admitted. "Even though the only Ward in the area with a problem has decidedly nonstandard biology and nobody else had issues with the temperatures."
Her father nodded. "I think you're missing that not everyone complains about mild discomfort, so it's likely that the Youth Guard decided to push for everyone to have their costumes tested as a precaution."
"Yeah, except that they had little to no reason to suspect that the issue was widespread enough to warrant shutting down all Wards activities in areas with colder weather until each individual costume could be checked."
"Okay, I'll give you that. What are you going to be doing about it?"
"I'm trying to find ways to get power usage without going outside, though they've got the youngest three blocked out entirely for now. I'm easy enough, since Amy and I have outlets that we already use. The others are more complicated without letting them leave the PRT building in the process."
"Well, good luck with that."
Taylor spent a couple of hours coming up with potential plans for Aisha, Chris, and Missy before going to bed. Chris was the easiest of them, since he was probably going to want to tinker anyway, but she found items for all three of the others. Nothing for herself, but she had other things that she could be doing.
Monday morning, as she was getting ready to head to the gym, Taylor got confirmation messages from Aisha and Missy. The former was willing to spend tomorrow afternoon working with a PRT squad for training in stranger protocols, while the latter was going to spend the coming afternoon helping to move a few things around on the Rig. Spotting the loophole that allowed that was a stroke of luck.
Taylor had made it to the gym and started working out by the time Chris responded. He'd declined the possible work helping with wire tracing and instead just wanted to tinker for a couple of days. Which was likely not going to be a problem, and he mentioned something about a 'special project' that he had to work on. It was likely that said project was Joey's gift for Riley, at least once Taylor gave it some thought.
"Hey Taylor," Vicky said as they finished up their workout. "Any chance of going to use that naval gun on Saturday?"
Taylor shook her head. "The entire day is blocked off, though at least I've some some clue about what I'll be doing as of an hour or so ago. First thing in the morning meetings, a press event of some kind just after lunch, and something 'tentative' in the afternoon for me even if the rest of the Wards should be free after the press event."
"Oh. Sounds like you'll be busy. What about Sunday?"
A quick double-check of things showed that Taylor wasn't blocked out for anything on Sunday, but the other three older Wards had their own 'tentative' blocks throughout the day. "I think I'd be good then, but I'll have to make sure that the facility will be available."
Vicky grinned. "Let me know."
"Will do." Sending a message off to ensure that nobody else was going to be using the facility took only a moment, but who knew how long it would take to get a response.
The gossip at school had been entirely focused on where healing had happened over the weekend. Being told by anyone who'd spent any time there that they'd been in a clearing in the Forest of Mystery didn't seem to deter anyone, though there was also a lot of searching to find places that might be known as that. It didn't seem like anyone was taking it as though it were a joke despite the name sounding like it could be one.
As the school day came to a close, and Taylor was gathering her things to leave, she and Amy were discussing what to do for the afternoon.
Amy: I think we should wait an hour or so before we go shopping.
Taylor: Okay, I guess. Why would we be waiting?
Amy: To convince the tracking threads that we're not going anywhere. With any luck, by the time people figure out that they were wrong they'll have committed to plans that aren't following us around.
Taylor: Huh. That isn't a horrible idea.
Discussing precisely what to do during that buffer time was interrupted by a group text message from Chris hitting both of them.
C: Hey, do either of you have a few minutes to help me with something?
T: What, do you have a tiny little crystal that you want hidden inside of your body?
C: ...yes, actually. How did you know that?
A: Aisha had her do that yesterday morning.
C: Oh. That makes sense.
T: I can meet you in the Wards area if you want?
C: That would be great.
C: Oh, but I don't have the upgraded equipment needed to portal over there yet, so it'll take me a few to get there.
A: Perhaps we'll play in the junkyard while waiting for you.
T: Works for me.
C: Cool. See you in a few.
Well, that pretty much settled what they would be doing before going shopping.
Chris had come to find Taylor and Amy in the junkyard, only to enter just as the two were swinging small statues at a giant stack of breakable items. The resulting devastation was incredibly noisy and made a horrible, horrible mess.
"You did that just as I was arriving on purpose," Chris accused.
"Maybe," Taylor replied. "You have a preference for which of us puts your crystal inside of you?"
"Not really."
"I'll do it," Amy said, causing Taylor to raise an eyebrow. "It'll give Taylor time to get the minivan ready for us to go shopping."
Taylor shrugged. "I guess that works."
Neither task took all that long, after which Amy met Taylor in the garage and they left to go shopping while Chris got to tinkering. They opted to just head for the department store, figuring that it would have everything they needed to pick up. The store wasn't busy when they arrived, so they each grabbed a shopping cart.
To start with, they looked at closet organizers, but didn't find any that they liked that would also fit around the gun safes. That wasn't exactly a priority, though they did get a selection of hangers and some 'stack multiple hangers' items that you'd hang on the rod by both ends to access but drop one end off to 'collapse' the set of hangers into a smaller area. They moved from there to rugs and towels for the bathrooms, each picking their own preferred styles.
Trash cans for the bedrooms and the bathrooms were another thing that was personal choice, but they both got identical toilet plungers after spending far too long looking for them. They ended up being in an aisle that they couldn't get into at first because other shoppers were blocking the ends off. Toilet paper and paper towels were both picked up, as were detergent, color catcher sheets, and fabric softener dryer sheets. While they were getting hand soap they also realized that they should probably get other cleaning supplies and picked up glass, floor, and toilet bowl cleaners. Brushes and mopping equipment, including buckets, were also added to the pile after that.
They ended up running back and forth across the store as they remembered things. Shampoo and conditioner, tissues, body soap, deodorant, hair dryers, face cloths, hand towels, cotton swabs, and toothpaste with tooth brushes. Though there were a couple of moments that they stopped in their tracks.
"Huh," Amy said, looking at a selection of disposable razors that she'd trying to choose between. "I don't think I've needed to shave my legs for a while. Did we make that a non-issue during fugues?"
Taylor blinked. "I think so, now that you mention it."
"I wonder if any of the others have noticed that."
"No clue. But I do keep needing to work on my finger and toe nails, so I suppose we'll need that stuff."
"Oooh, right."
Nail care kits had come in a variety of types and Amy had gone for a much more comprehensive one than Taylor had, though that was probably because Taylor had never been as into keeping her nails looking 'perfect'. At the same time, Taylor grabbed a wider variety of brushes, combs, and even some touch-up scissors for her hair while Amy just shook her head at the collection. Of course, Amy also seemed confused when Taylor grabbed some dish soap when they weren't getting anything else kitchen-related.
Though not expected to be needed often at all, they did pick up enough 'first aid' stuff to put in the medicine cabinets behind the bathroom mirrors. Taylor also surprised Amy by swinging through the pet supplies section for a literal stack of stainless steel pet bowls, explaining that on top of being good for use with Ackbar that they were also useful for a number of things while being both cheaper and more durable than some of the other options available. Amy had taken one look at some of the fancy but fragile bowls in the personal hygiene area after that and gone back for her own stack of pet bowls.
They finally ended their shopping trip with grabbing shower caddies, toothbrush holders, and little spray bottles for water. A couple of parents with kids, apparently all there together as well, commented on their full carts while they were all in line. At least until one of the kids asked about the flames on the minivan, which the parents had parked near. Taylor had made the mistake of admitting that the flames could be lit up different colors, and then ended up agreeing to show the kids.
Amy had just grinned in the next checkout lane over.
Once they'd all checked out they left and headed to the minivan. Several others had parked near it during the couple of hours that Taylor and Amy had been running around the store, including the two families and at least five other people that were in the middle of taking pictures.
"Give me a minute to unload things into the van first," Taylor said as they approached the group of vehicles. "Then I can start it up and cycle the flame lights."
"Take your time," one of the fathers said. "We need to load our purchases into our cars anyway."
Amy had just opened the back of the van when a man parked on the far side of it grabbed a shotgun from the back of his truck and pointed it right at her face. She didn't react in time to stop him from firing it into her face while yelling something about 'freaks', but when the first shot did nothing to her he cycled the gun to try again. During that Amy grabbed the end of the gun, pushing it down even as the man fired again. That time the end of the barrel blew open, the shot being unable to leave the barrel properly due to Amy's force field.
The gun was dropped, Amy lightly kicking it behind her as she moved forward to grab the man. Taylor carefully picked the gun up and engaged the safety, frowned, carefully unloaded the entire thing, and then looked over the damage to the barrel. Chances are the man wasn't going to be replacing the gun, and it wasn't suitable for use at all anymore. Really, she didn't think it had been suitable for use before it had been damaged.
Once Amy had the man secured, Taylor walked over and sat down next to him. The kids from the two families had come over, curious, and they got to watch as Taylor went through all of the things that the man had done wrong with the gun, on top of a general gun safety lesson. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but tied up next to Taylor during this, and when the police arrived they questioned everyone else on the incident before hauling the man to his feet to put him in the police car. Taylor and Amy had their statements collected, the police thanked them for ensuring that the man didn't harm anyone else, and the crowd dispersed enough for the girls to finally get their purchases into the minivan.
"Did you really have to go over the dozen things he's obviously been doing wrong with the gun that he'll never fire again?" Amy asked as they prepared to leave. "I mean, he isn't likely to be allowed to own a gun after this, let alone get that one fixed."
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I thought it was amusing, and the kids seemed to pay enough attention that I'm hoping some of the 'guns are dangerous, treat them with respect' got through to them. Besides, he really had done a horrible job with the thing. I'm amazed that it hadn't failed before you blocked the end of the barrel."
"I thought you were playing things up for show."
"The safety was stuck open no matter what you did with the selector, it could only take a third of the shells it should've been able to with some of the damage there, and several components had been reassembled after previous damage with superglue."
"Oh."
They opted to just open a portal and pull right into the pocket dimension after they'd put the carts away, at which point they dragged their purchases to the two bedrooms and dumped them in piles there. It was late enough that they needed to get to their own homes for dinner.
After dinner, and explanations of what had happened to their families, the two had returned to the pocket dimension in order to properly put the two bedrooms together. They started by putting those purchases that they'd made that needed to be washed into the washing machine, with Amy looking oddly at the dish soap that Taylor put next to the detergent. That was followed by focusing on one room, getting curtain rods hung and furniture assembled and into position. Things that weren't being washed were put away where they belonged, then the two shifted the wash into the dryer and attacked the other room.
By the time they were done with both rooms they were able to collect towels and bathroom rugs from the dryer to put them into place in the bathrooms, at which point the pile of garbage was collected and dragged to their respective homes to go out with the normal trash. That was when Vicky informed Amy that videos of Taylor's little 'chat' with the would-be killer had been posted on PHO. A quick check of the thread showed that a couple of people had uploaded videos starting from just before the man grabbed the shotgun.
Taylor: They rated his attempt a negative one out of ten, and only because of 'bonus points' for a lack of hesitation.
Amy: Really? Where does...nevermind, I see it. I was reading over their review of your safety lecture. Eight out of ten, though most people are blaming your prop for the reduction.
Taylor: You'd think that showing an obviously failed firearm as an example of why you want to properly maintain one would be a good thing, but noooo. I didn't pull out a properly maintained firearm so I didn't do things right.
Amy: Can't please everyone, I guess.
Taylor: Though the speculation on the pile of purchases that we'd just made is amusing too.
Amy: What?
Taylor: They've got another thread for that. Didn't you open it already?
Amy: Oh, that one. Hadn't started reading it yet. I'd probably be moving faster if Vicky didn't keep trying to show me posts out of order.
Taylor: Why not hit her when she's being annoying?
Amy: Hasn't helped.
Arriving at school on Tuesday was interesting in that students were initially acting 'mock-afraid' of Taylor and Amy. The latter was apparently likely to take them down so that the former could make them sit through safety lessons. That is, until a couple of teachers threatened to give those students detention so that they could have a lesson in the school rules. It took no time at all for that to spread throughout the entire school, nobody wanting to have to extend the next day's half day in order to serve a detention.
Of course, just because the acting stopped, that didn't mean that the questions stopped. Not that they were being answered with any new information, all things considered. Amy admitted that she'd only reacted after the first shot had been fired because she honestly hadn't been expecting anyone to be that stupid, and Taylor pointed out that Amy had healed at least two people that had hearing issues after the shotgun was fired. That there were no serious injuries at all, not even to the idiot, was already known.
One thing that was asked, and that neither girl could actually answer definitively, was why he targeted them. They assumed it was because he was anti-parahuman, but couldn't actually be certain and didn't exactly have any way to find out right now. It probably wasn't all that important anyway, and if it was then they'd likely find out on the news. Eventually.
David stumbled in shock, nearly spilling his coffee, as the 'secure communications' bar in his mind flashed and vanished, the symbol that had been above it remaining but shifting to more of an 'indicator' area than anything else. After a moment it also started blinking, as though the system were in use. Realizing what that likely meant, even if the blinking stopped after a moment, he hurried back to his office and locked himself in.
Once all of the privacy features of the office were enabled he dropped down into his chair, the coffee that he'd put down on the table forgotten. He had to call an emergency meeting, and probably send out some warnings. Specifically, if their general theories at this point were correct, they needed to ensure that people didn't panic if the Endbringers suddenly vanished or otherwise acted oddly.
He was going to leave the decision on whether or not to call in either of the two girls to the others, though. His own judgement there was likely compromised. Which probably meant waiting until the meeting after the one he was calling.
Taylor had made her way to the PRT building after school. Amy was going to be doing some more work on her tinker project, supposedly having had some inspiration earlier in the day for it. Aisha and Chris should both be heading to the PRT building as well, if only to change, but Taylor was there for a different reason. She went straight to the garage, where she'd left the bus parked, and brought it through to the maintenance garage.
She borrowed a lift long enough to remove the undercover from the bus, and while she had easy access to the tool chest there she also removed all of the other body panels that it would be helpful to have off of the bus while working with painting it. Each piece she removed was carried into the paint booth that she would be using, then she moved the bus itself in. With that done, she collected a roll of paper and several rolls of tape.
A couple of the PRT maintenance staff yelled to say that Taylor was crazy, but she wasn't sure why. Instead she focused on taping off the areas she wanted to be sure not to mess up, and then collected a few things from a couple of nearby supply closets. The spray guns in the paint booth needed a little bit of maintenance as well, cleaning out a couple of points in particular, which took a few minutes. She then ensured that her visor was recording, just in case anything she did was useful, before she started carefully mixing the various things she'd gathered. It took a bit of careful work before she was done, and the mixture was then loaded into the spray gun.
She wasn't entirely sure why she'd mixed any of the stuff, only that it would get the paint off far easier than sanding would, and would thus make it a whole lot easier to repaint. Less body work would be needed if she was able to re-use the primer layer that was already there. But whatever the actual effect was, she put on a mask just in case and got to work, spraying all of the painted surfaces down. It took three coats of her cleaning solution to get all of the paint off, after which she went around and gathered the piles of gunk and threw them into the trash can.
Getting the window stickers off was actually harder, requiring her to heat them up to get them to release. She'd debated a bit over whether to put sky blue ones on instead, but decided to go for it in the end. That would be one of the last steps, but for now she had to get the old ones off for her own sanity. She kept at it until she had all of the neon stripes removed from everything, smiling once she was done.
"That was strangely satisfying," Taylor said as she left the booth. "Too bad I can't continue, but the paint hasn't shown up yet."
"Don't tell me that you're going to paint over the existing paint?" one of the maintenance staff asked, sounding horrified at the prospect.
Taylor blinked, and shook her head. "No, there's no way I could've hidden the previous paint job well enough, so I stripped off all the paint. Luckily I was able to keep the primer on."
That brought silence to the entire garage, and several of the maintenance staff moved to look in the paint booth. A couple of them claimed that it shouldn't be possible, but the one who'd originally spoken to her came over, shaking his head as he did so. "There's no way that you aren't a tinker after that stunt. You do know that most people have to do significant work to get vehicles ready to paint, starting by stripping the entire paint job down to bare metal?"
"But this was the safest way to not damage the armor layers as well. I recorded what I did, so maybe the mixture I made to remove the paint can be reproduced by someone else? To be honest, I can't tell you how much was just the things I was mixing and how much was powers making it work, just that it did work in the end. Though if you want a sample, I had extra and left it on the table in case I found something I missed later."
"Which also sounds like a tinker. I'll hope that your hopefully incredible breakthrough pans out on that front, and I apologize for thinking you were crazy when you started. But I'm definitely getting a sample of the stuff and really hope that your recording helps someone else make more."
"I'll make sure to submit the full recording before I head home, but first I'm hitting a restroom."
Evaluating Cancel Order: Recurring task 00000D012.
Coordinator honestly wasn't surprised that this had come in. It was really about time, but the conditions tied to it were more problematic than anticipated. With any luck, being able to return the three to their original tasks would get a few things back on track. Even if the current projections made it incredibly unlikely that the original plans would ever be used.
Still, before that could happen the Cancel Order had to be dealt with, and ensuring that nothing went wrong with it was going to be complicated. It would've been trivial to just direct the three to leave that instance of the planet. They'd have vanished, the hosts would've been confused for a bit, and that would've been it. But no, the Cancel Order didn't allow for that. So plans had to be drafted to ensure that all of the conditions of the Cancel Order were met.
Luckily, nothing in the Cancel Order prevented Coordinator from contacting the three TROUBLESHOOTER units so as to best handle things. Getting their input would likely be incredibly helpful in this case. Actually implementing the Cancel Order was probably going to take a minor rotation or two to accomplish at a minimum, longer if Coordinator had to figure it all out on its own.
Well, better get started.
Requesting non-host data from PredictionEngine.1.
Requesting non-host data from PredictionEngine.5.
Requesting non-host data from TROUBLESHOOTER.0.
Requesting non-host data from TROUBLESHOOTER.1.
Requesting non-host data from TROUBLESHOOTER.2.
In addition to submitting the recording, Taylor had checked in on Chris and even looked in on Amy as the two tinkered. Neither were so deep in to have lost track of time, so she let them be and went home to take care of some chores instead. This included cleaning up a mess that she was sure was a result of Ackbar trying to get into the kitchen cabinets. None of the chores took long, so she checked what had been left out for dinner and got started on preparing things.
For the most part she was able to work in peace, though a couple of notices did come up. A general thank you for the recording that she'd made, confirmation that the maintenance staff had submitted samples of the resulting substance for analysis, and a completion notice for Missy's job over on the Rig were the notable ones from today. She also got an updated calendar entry for the weekend, apparently they wanted to put her through cold-weather costume testing on Saturday afternoon so that she could veto it for some of the others if she saw a problem with the methodology. If she didn't then Aisha, Chris, and Missy would go through the process on Sunday.
The first true distraction of the evening didn't come until she was getting ready for bed, when a message sent to her and Amy arrived.
Communications are online and a message is suspected to have been sent. Meeting at 2 tomorrow. Call Scotty or use beacon to attend.
It took a moment, but Taylor realized what it was saying.
Taylor: I guess we're going to have to check to ensure that David's snark hasn't been an idiot and isn't planning on being an idiot.
Amy: Looks that way.
Taylor: What do you think the chances are of it having done something right for a change?
Amy: No clue, and I'm not sure that I'd want to put money on it either way.
Taylor: Yeah, I agree there.
Well, apparently they'd have to wait and see how things went tomorrow. With any luck they wouldn't have to scramble to fix more problems, but somehow Taylor expected that they'd end up needing to do something. Hopefully not something significant.
Doctor Mother scowled at the naval cannon. Sure, they could just tell Miss Hebert that it would need a little work before it could be used, but that would negate some of the 'everything just mysteriously works' vibe that they liked to keep going. Not that Miss Hebert was likely to believe that particular line after her assistance with the water filtration system. Sadly, one of the blasted mutated foxes had made it into the facility and damaged the control systems. Worse, Fortuna had found that the path to getting it working was faltering slightly, meaning that intentionally or not they'd gotten some tinkertech into the mix and said tinkertech needed proper tinker maintenance.
Grumbling, she did what she could while taking notes on what David or Miss Hebert would likely need to look over before the blasted thing was usable. With any luck Fortuna would get the facility fox-proofed again and that would hold long enough to make it through the weekend. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, but at least they weren't likely to need this facility over the weekend itself. The next vial recipient wasn't expected to begin testing for a couple of weeks at this point, and they were pushing for thinker more than brute either way.
As a side benefit, this was a wonderful distraction from worrying about what David's agent might've already screwed up, since it'd apparently not waited for guidance from anyone before sending something out once it had communications online. Hopefully that was just a notification that it was online, but she didn't think that likely. No, she suspected that it had already modified the orders for the Endbringers, but since there hadn't been any visible change in the three they'd have to hope that it was a 'hold off until further notice' type thing instead of something more involved.