It didn't take long for Dad to get to the PRT headquarters, but by the time he had arrived I'd changed into a set of clothes I'd bought in the gift shop - the cheapest I could find - and was keeping my costume in the carrier bag. He worried at the best of times, and him seeing me with a bloodstained suit wouldn't help anyone, least of all me. As it was, it took ten minutes to assure him that everything was fine before I could get in the car in the side carpark and we could leave.

The drive home was quiet - or as quiet as a drive home in the Brockton Bay evening ever was. Engines droned, sirens wailed in the distance and the Beatles sang tinnily out of the old radio. Inside the car, though, the silence was like lead. We didn't talk. Occasionally, Dad glanced over at me, as if to reassure himself that I was still there, still OK.

On the way we pulled by the spot where I'd been kidnapped and found that my briefcase was miraculously still there, having fallen into the shadow of one of the buildings. I opened it up as we drove away and checked inside. The papers were still alright, but the laptop's casing was cracked. It still booted up, though, so I chalked that up on the 'good things that happened today' list. It needed some fleshing-out.

When we finally arrived home, Dad sank like a stone into the chair in the living room.

"What happened?" he asked bluntly. Something flickered in his eyes. There was worry there, but something else, too.

Gingerly, I settled down on the edge of the sofa and started my story. I began from my leaving Lunar Technologies' offices and, bit by bit, told the tale. I left out some parts and downplayed what I could, but nevertheless by the time I'd gotten to Armsmaster's arrival, Dad's knuckles were white where he had clenched them together in front of him. A long moment passed as his jaw worked and no sound emerged. When he finally spoke, his voice shivered with emotion.

"We should have been more careful. I shouldn't have let you walk back. I shouldn't have let you go out so soon."

"Dad-"

"You were attacked, Taylor!" he burst out, suddenly, almost standing up. "You were attacked, and they almost got you. If you hadn't been clever - no, if you hadn't been lucky, I'd be talking to the police right now, and you'd be strung up in some drug dealer's back room! God!"

He stood and started pacing back and forth.

"You're not going to go out on business like this. Not for a while, at least. If you have to - if you absolutely have to - I'll be driving you."

"Dad, you can't," I said. "If someone sees you-"

"Then I'll wear a fucking mask! It doesn't matter, Taylor! You're more important than that. More important than however much money."

I was about to reply, then he turned and there was something new in his eyes, a white-hot certainty.

"Leave the offline business."

I blinked. "But, we just got a deal with Medhall! I'm on the way up! I can't just stop now!"

"You can, Taylor Anne Hebert, and you will. In fact, you are hereby grounded."

"How long?" I asked, surprising myself with how cold my voice had gotten all of a sudden.

"Until I say it's over," he replied. He sounded like he was trying to be firm, but his voice was verging back onto a shout.

A part of me wanted to just go with that, the same part that was always just a little scared when Dad had gotten angry at someone when I was little. Most of me wasn't like that, though. Most of me wasn't scared, or didn't care. Maybe it was something about having powers. Maybe it was more to do with having gone out and done my own thing. Either way, I wasn't going to back down.

"No," I said. It came out like a statement, and it looked like Dad had been punched in the stomach. "I won't go out looking for trouble, but I won't be grounded just because some fuckers jumped me."

"Taylor, you're not leaving this house until I am confident that you'll be-"

"Safe? I'm never safe when I go outside in this city, Dad, no-one is. That's what the Bay is now. We're the fucking cape capital of America, with gangs on the side! I'm trying to change that!"

"And you can't change anything if you're dead!" Abruptly Dad turned and, with a yell, punched the wall. When he turned back to me he was nursing his hand and looked no less angry, but he seemed to have put a lid on it. He ran a hand shakily over his face, collecting himself. "Let's… let's not talk about this now. We'll talk in the morning."

"Okay," I said. "Dinner?"

"Dinner."

XxXxX

After dinner had been cooked and eaten, Dad went out, saying he was going to go and meet up with Kurt. I knew that likely meant he was going to get something to drink and I tried not to hold it against him, but it was hard. Once the car pulled away, I picked up the phone and dialed Kurt and Lacey's number for the first time in months. It took me a moment to remember it and I suppressed a twinge of guilt. They'd been good to me when I was younger. The phone rang.

"Hello? Kurt Stirland speaking."

"Hi, Kurt, it's, uh, Taylor. Taylor Hebert."

"Taylor! Long time no speak." I could hear the smile down the line. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," I assured him. "Look, um, Dad said he was going to meet up with you and, uh, he's had a bad day…"

"I'll take care of him," Kurt said. "And I'll keep him out of trouble. You and Danny should come around sometime. We haven't seen you in ages." He chuckled. "I remember when you were only up to my waist."

"That sounds nice," I said, for lack of anything else. "Um, thanks."

"I'm always happy to do a favor for you and Danny. Heavens know you deserve it. It was great to speak to you again, Taylor."

"You too. Bye."

"Bye."

The phone clicked off. I dropped it back onto its little pedestal and wandered upstairs, snagging my briefcase on the way. Now that everything was over, now that I'd been to the PRT, I'd got home and I'd talked to Dad, I just felt done. Spent. Not tired, not in a physical sense, but just… emotionally overworked.

I pulled the laptop out of the briefcase and booted it up, meaning to go on the internet for a bit, then stared at the gold which was habitually flowing out of my hand. The dust I'd used on Barb had vanished. I'd never encountered a time limit before. Was it possible that one day I'd just… lose my powers? That they'd run out of battery, leaving me no better than I was before?

No, I assured myself. No power, ever since Scion had turned up in the eighties, has run out of battery. You're not going to be the first.

The worry still lingered, though. I set the laptop aside. Okay, let's test this out. I gathered up a pea-sized globe of dust and, slitting my eyes, set it alight as bright as I had with Barb. It blazed with a magnesium glare, sun-bright, and I screwed my eyes shut before cautiously opening them again. As it glowed, I could feel a slight draining sensation, like some tiny part of me was being sucked away down a tube. It was faint, and if I hadn't been looking I wouldn't have noticed, but it was there. Then, all of a sudden, the dust winked out like a dying star and I felt the same loss as before. It had stayed alight for more than a minute.

I chewed my lip. Well, that's a point in favor of the 'power battery' theory. A thought struck me. Back when I'd first gotten my powers, I'd wondered whether the glow was some tinker's creation. I'd dismissed it at the time, more or less, but now I wasn't so sure. It would make sense, after all, for a tinker to want to replicate powers. It was one of their biggest problems - because tinkers didn't have personal powers, they were vulnerable to abduction, extortion and attack. What if the glow had been exactly that - an attempt to manufacture powers? I thought back to what Panacea had told me about my biology. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The way she described my nerves as having little 'lumps' she couldn't see, the way signals jumped from one place to another… If I wanted to give someone superhuman reflexes, bypassing their nervous system in favor of instantaneous communication would be a good place to start.

I shook my head. No, this isn't the problem right now. I need to find some way to stop my power just dying on me.

Power was the issue, in all senses. The dust seemed to have some kind of finite battery or capacitor, and if I were designing something like this it would be stupid to make it one-use unless there was no other way to do it. I glanced down at the spot below where my little globe had been. Let's start there.

I stood and went over to my desk. It took a minute or two to find the magnifying glass Dad had given me years ago for bug-hunting. Once I had it, I turned it on the spot where the dust ought to have fallen, if it didn't just vanish when it ran out of power. I had to look really closely but there was the slightest glint, specks of gold hiding amongst the fibres of the carpet. I grinned, then grimaced. Well, that's something, though I should have done that over a dish. I pursed my lips as I thought. I could get something to put the dust on and use up some more, but I was loath to do that because it would be using up more of the dust. Let's try this first.

I drew out a tendril of the dust and sent it into the carpet, seeking out the lost particles. I pictured them lighting up again, igniting and returning to me. Nothing. I sat back on the bed with a whump.

Okay, what now? I refused to believe that there was no way to recharge my powers. Then the plug in the wall caught my eye and I could have kicked myself. Of course. How do you charge a battery? You plug it in.

I sprag up off the bed and dashed down to the basement. I rummaged through the piles of stuff until I found what I was after: a plug Dad had taken off of some old appliance. I checked that the glow could meld with it - it could - and raced back upstairs to plug it in. At once, a tingling rush of power surged through me and I recognized it - it was the same feeling that I got when I linked to a computer, only a hundred times more. That must have been why the glow hadn't run out before: I'd always been supplying it with a little bit of power, or else I'd not used it long enough or hard enough for power to become a problem.

I extended a tendril towards the spot on the carpet and this time there was no resistance. The dust reignited in an instant and spiralled up into the air. "Yes!" I whooped throwing my hands up. I was grinning uncontrollably. I felt like I could jump to the stars, like I could run forever. My skin glowed and the dust danced above it. I blinked, then again, fascinated by the play of light.

My bedroom light flickered. I glanced up. The light on the street outside was flickering too. Realization crashed over me like a tsunami.

I lunged for the switch and clicked it off. The lights kept flickering. It took an almost physical effort, but I pulled the dust out of the plug and they steadied. Outside, the streetlamp glowed sodium-pink again. The feverish energy that had filled me ebbed and I sank slowly to the floor.