The rest of the week passed in something of a blur of practice, practice, and more practice, because Ms. Liberty was an evil witch like that. Probably not, mind you, but after I'd been spending two hours running her private obstacle course, and then had to sit down for the magic lesson, my opinion of her kind and gentle nature was tending firmly towards the sardonic.
The only thing to relieve the monotony of endless practice was a text on Wednesday from Tattletale as to where and when I should meet them., after I'd sent a text to her on Tuesday evening, indicating that I might be willing to tag along on her robbery. I sent the text on to Assault, of course, but I didn't hear anything back from him. I still wasn't sure about this, to be honest, but I trusted Assault, and, more to the point, he'd given me a hand-written note, which he insisted Battery would recognize as his handwriting, saying that he'd told me to do this for "classified" reasons.
When Friday rolled around, though, things were different.
For one thing, right before the end of Homeroom, Sophia Hess knocked on the door to my classroom, had a brief word with the teacher, and then I was called up, and told to go with her to the principal's office.
Only, we never got to the principal's office. Instead, she took me to another room, knocked on the door, and had another chat with another teacher.
And then Emma popped out, and we were turned around, and headed for the principal's office.
Where we were met by three people in obviously expensive suits. One man, and two women.
Seeing them made my eyes narrow. There was something off about them. For one thing, they were far too fit. I mean, you see a man—or a woman—who's that fit occasionally, even in an office job. But all three of these people were like that, and that's the sort of thing that you don't see very often, whether in private employment, or in public service. Not wearing suits like that, anyway.
"What's going on?" Emma asked, before I could say anything.
"You three have been called to testify in court," Mrs. Blackwell's voice came from behind us, causing Emma to visibly start. "Despite my objections, this has obviously been judged important enough to pull all three of you out of school, rather than waiting until afternoon, and having you simply make depositions. I trust that you will try to get everything dealt with quickly enough to return to your classes before the day is out?"
And just like that, we were all bundled up, and escorted to three different cars, and driven off the school grounds.
It wasn't until we were...oh...I don't know. Probably at least four blocks. Anyway, once we'd gotten well away from the school, the woman who'd come to get me slowed down, and turned into an empty parking lot.
I turned to look at her, feeling more than a little nervous. She stared at me, expectantly, and then gave a little sigh.
"Of course he wouldn't have told you, he never tells anybody what they need to do," she muttered, and then shook her head.
"What?" I asked, now completely baffled.
"Come on," she said with an sigh. "Let's get this dealt with."
She got out of the car, and walked around to the back.
A minute or two later, she walked back around, slid back into the car, and stared at me.
"Well?" she finally said.
"Who are you?" I asked her. "Really, I mean. Not just the name that Principal Blackwell gave."
She muttered something else under her breath, and then slowly reached down, and picked up the purse she'd been carrying. Moving gently, as if she was trying to avoid startling me, she pulled a wallet out, and flicked it open with the air of somebody with long practice at this, to show an ID card.
According to the card, her name was "Special Agent Barbara Dossen, PRT".
"Wait, what?" I said, looking up. "What's going on?"
She gave me a tight smile.
"I don't know," she said, obviously not liking that experience in the slightest. "Apparently, somebody's planning to pull something big, today. And according to the Protectorate, they have quote 'reliable information' that we can't trust our normal chains of command and our normal roster to coordinate a response. So this is an officially off-the-books operation, and I don't have any idea what's going on. Only that my orders were to get you out of class, provide you with a costume, get you to a place to change in private, and then clear out. I don't know anything else. Just that."
I blinked. That didn't sound right.
"Who gave you those orders?" I finally asked.
"Director Piggot," she said immediately. "She handed me a sealed envelope with the orders, along with instructions to have the envelope personally counter-signed by every member of the Protectorate before I was permitted open said orders. Just so that I would know that the orders were legitimate."
I blinked.
"Huh?" I asked.
She scowled, and gave me an almost-glare.
"On occasion, a Master who can control humans will manage to get sufficiently widespread influence within the local PRT or the local police to make a conventional operation impossible," she said. "If there is reason to believe that is the case, standard procedure mandates the use of sealed orders, countersigned by a significant portion of the local Protectorate, and requires that even those sealed orders contain the minimal amount of information needed for us to do our jobs. So. I am aware that I am to give you your costume, and a place to change. And I know nothing else. And I will know nothing else until the entire op is finished, we find the Master, and we can purge his influence from PRT Department ENE."
Then her scowl intensified, and, somehow, seemed to become actually directed at me.
"Now," she said. "You have your own orders. I would suggest you get to it."
I was in the middle of changing when my cell phone went off. Which was rotten timing, but...eh. That's cell phones for you.
According to the caller-ID, the number belonged to Assault.
"Hello?" I managed to croak into the phone, once I'd accepted the call, as I hopped frantically to try to put my pants on one-legged. "Assault?"
"Miss Hebert. I trust that you're alone?" his voice came through.
I frowned, and then sent my senses out through the nearby mice.
"As far as I can tell," I told him.
"Good. In that case, I have some marching orders for you. Your mission, should you choose to accept it-"
"I swear to God, Assault," I cut him off, "if you destroy my phone to keep this message secret, I will hunt you down, and murder you in your dreams."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
Then Assault sighed.
"Battery wants me to tell you that she just won ten bucks off of me," he grumbled.
I blinked.
"What?" I said.
"Never mind. I didn't think you'd get the reference. Most wizards don't. Guess it just goes to show what I know. Anyway. As I'm sure Agent Dossen explained—or possibly not—we're running the standard protocol for if we have reason to believe that there are large numbers of people in our department who've been Mastered or otherwise compromised. Which means that the only people on our end who know what's going on are Battery, myself, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Director Piggot. Me, because I'm the one you approached, Armsmaster because he's the Protectorate leader and had to countersign the protocols being enacted, Battery and Miss Militia because they're the ones who are supposed to lead the investigations to clear our agents, and Director Piggot because she's everybody's boss. With me so far?"
"Um...I guess," I said. "This is a top-secret operation, right?"
"Like they have in the movies," he confirmed. "Which, to my knowledge, makes this the first time anybody's ever instated the real Canaris Protocol outside of a simulation or a test run."
"Ooo...kay," I said. "Why are you treating this...why did you call for...that thing?"
"Because," he said. "You told us that your friends were being asked—or perhaps forced, we don't actually know for certain—to stage a bank robbery. By a villain that was willing to offer double the earnings, or twenty-five grand, for them to carry it out, despite their not having a heavy hitter."
I blinked.
"That...doesn't clarify things," I said, slowly.
"Ah. Well, I shall—hey! Battery! Mmph!"
"Sorry," a new voice came over the phone. "E—Assault's in time out for just a second, so he doesn't do his whole 'pompous professor' imitation, and give you a five hour lecture. Basically, it boils down to the fact that villains don't do suicide missions, and your friends' patron is paying them for this mission. I can give you the full logical extension from those if you want to hear it after the mission, but right now, it means that we can tell with a fair degree of certainty that at least this branch of the PRT is heavily compromised. We're currently in the process of determining to what degree, but the end result is that most of the PRT is out of the loop on this op. Which, to be blunt, is the only reason we're asking you to go through with this, and the only reason we're letting you get anywhere near a villain team with your current level of training."
"This has already been cleared with the court," Assault's voice came back on—presumably he'd gotten out of timeout—"so you don't have to worry about this preventing you from becoming a hero. You have an official warrant for this, in pursuit of your investigation into the Undersiders. Your mission is to find out who is running the Undersiders, and where they are laired, so that they can be taken out with a surgical strike before anybody knows we're on to them. As I'm sure you've guessed, there is a fairly extensive list of things you're not supposed to do, but they boil down to not killing or severely injuring anybody, and trying not to make yourself too well known as a villain or a criminal. Otherwise, you should be good, especially since we're going to pull you in as fast as we can."
"Why are you doing this?" I finally asked. "I mean, I know Assault said to trust him, but I don't want to be a villain. Can't I just...you know...join the Wards?"
There was a sigh from the other end of the phone, and then Battery spoke up.
"We'd prefer you do that, too," she said. "Unfortunately, we've got a problem. Actually, we've got several problems, and you're one of them. Until we can clear our system of these kinds of leaks, we can't bring you in. Hell, until we're sure it's safe, we can't even enter your revised power testing into the PRT databases. So I'm afraid that, like or not, for the next week to two weeks, you're stuck outside the system. Right now, this is the safest thing we can think of to do with you. Think of it as being sort of like witness protection, except that it's really kind of the exact opposite."
"Why? Why am I a problem? And why would that mean you have to...to...I dunno? Make your systems safe?"
"Because the power testing indicates you can force Triggers," Assault said, bluntly. "And while we don't know if you could do that for humans, there are more than a few villain groups—as well as several national governments—that would be willing to take the risk that you couldn't."
"Huh?"
"He means they'll try to kidnap you if they find out," Battery explained. "Which makes you the third of four such risks in the city, two of which are already widely known. And even if your kidnappers can't get you to make humans Trigger, a good enough Tinker or Bio-Tinker could probably study your rats, and figure out how you did it. And then they'd be able to duplicate the process at will."
Four such...oh. Oh, shit.
"You mean, I'm somebody like Panacea?" I whispered, my voice gone quiet.
"I'm afraid so," Battery said. "And unlike Panacea, you don't have a super-powered family to protect you. So right now, putting you with villains who can be trusted not to try and push you for the full details of your power, or sell you out to the highest bidder, is probably the single best thing we can do for you. And right now, there's a very limited number of people who fit those qualifications."
"How limited?"
"What are your opinions on openly joining the Empire's roster of capes?" was the reply. "Kaiser may have a lot of failings, but he's loyal to his people, and he's known to be powerful enough to fend off most major cape teams. If anybody else could keep you safe, it would be him."
That was...I had to admit, that was some pretty fucking limited options.
"So, it's the Undersiders, or get ready to take an extended trip to China?" I asked.
"Yeah, pretty much. Wish I had better news for you," Battery told me. "Hopefully, it should only be for a couple of weeks, but...that's what we've got for you. Oh, and make sure you keep your rat's powers a secret. As secret as you can, anyway. That's not something you want getting out until you're in the Wards, and as protected as we can make you."
"Oh," I said. "Do you think this will work? Will I be able to join the Wards when you're done?"
"We've got a court order saying we have to let you in," Assault assured me. "So, barring any major crimes like murder, yes, you'll be able to join. Until then, though...well, we'll keep in touch."
About a half-hour later, I texted Tattletale to tell her that I'd made my escape from school early due to lawyers getting involved, and that I'd like to know more about what it was that she and her friends were expecting me to do. Because waiting until I actually had to do it struck me as a remarkably good way to mess things up, and maybe even get somebody killed. Maybe even me.
It was only a few minutes later that she texted me instructions to show up some coffee shop that I'd never heard of, in costume. Which didn't make much sense, but after staring at the map for a bit, I shrugged, and started moving in that direction. Only to be intercepted by Regent, who was also in costume about a block short of the actual coffee shop. He dragged me down an alley behind him, and mounted up on one of Bitch's dogs, before taking me on a run through what seemed like half the city. And then, abruptly, right in the middle of Captain's Hill, he dropped me off, and told me to walk around the Hill to the other side, where I'd be met by somebody else.
Eventually, I finished grumping to myself about secretive would-be team-mates, and did as he asked. Waiting for me was Tattletale, mounted on another of Grue's dogs. She didn't say anything, but just gestured for me to mount up behind her, and we took off.
"Why-?" I started, once we were moving, but she gestured, sharply, and I shut up.
A few blocks later, she answered me.
"You were at the PRT building yesterday," she said. "Don't ask how I know, that's not important. What's important is that we have to be sure that you weren't there to tell the PRT about us."
I frowned.
"Wouldn't your boss know?" I asked.
She shrugged.
"Something seems to have tripped his paranoia alarm," she said. "He wants us to check you out. Make sure you're clean, I guess, and that you aren't a plant. So we're taking you through the scenic route, to make sure that you're not being followed."
"Well...what if I've got a...a wire? I think that's what it's called?"
Judging from her posture, she was happy I'd asked. I guess her team-mates didn't give her nearly enough chances to look smug at them. Even if I was behind her.
"Most wires use fairly low-power radios," she explained cheerfully. "Any conventional wire would be thrown off by the route we're taking. The PRT would have to blanket the city with receivers to track us like this, or they'd have to have teams following us to make sure they didn't lose you. Which is what we're looking for."
"Oh. Well, what about non-conventional wires?"
"Tinkertech? Good call. There's supposed to be a few Tinkers on the West Coast that could make a wire like what you're talking about—one able to broadcast all over the city without having an appropriately large antenna or power source. And Armsmaster is certainly good enough to take their work, or even a less talented Tinker's work, and streamline it to the point where we'd never be able to find it on our own. But even Armsmaster can't make a device to magically pass data along without some kind of transmission or broadcast method. And if you know where to look, you can always pick up a functional omni-scanner for cheap. So..."
She trailed off, and shrugged.
Huh. I guess they had thought about this, after all.
Assault:
On the other side of the city, Armsmaster suddenly paused in his setup of the crystals to sneeze, and then scowl at the strange-looking...device? Assault guessed it qualified as a device, since he was darned sure the other man wouldn't be doing magic, not as a Tinker. Carefully, the Tinker reached out with his unoccupied hand, to tap one of the crystals he had carefully placed over an incredibly intricate and well-drawn chalk diagram, moving it ever so slightly to the left, before he slowly slotted the last crystal into place.
Although Assault was danged if he could see any actual connection between the twelve quartz crystals arranged in a circle around the edges of the chalk diagram, and the actual plug-in radio located in its exact center.
"How does this work again?" he asked, fascinated by the whole process of the solid, practical, and above all else efficient Tinker carefully...playing with rocks.
"I don't know," the local Protectorate leader replied, his tone sour. "It's something Myrrdrin and I put together just about right after we joined the Protectorate, and none of his explanations for the actual mechanics behind it ever made much sense to me. As far as I can tell, it uses a dedicated pocket dimension and quantum linked resonance imaging to transmit the vibrations of the host crystal-which can be any sized crystal, so long as it's been properly attuned-to these twelve receiver crystals, which vibrate in time with the original, and allow the radio to take measurements, and recreate voices and sounds. Basically, it's a listening device that doesn't need an antenna, or use any kind of broadcast transmission or known transmission media to pass data. We were both drunk as hell at the time, and as far as I know, he, myself, and Chevalier are the only people in the world who know this exists. And even we don't know how we made it, or how to fix it if it breaks."
"Huh," Assault said. "So why use it now?"
"Because unlike any other listening device I could use or make, this one is completely immune to any kind of magical or powers-based interference and almost any form of detection. So even if they make the entire trip under Grue's cloud of darkness, this will still transmit, and it will still tell us what direction she happens to be in."
Assault blinked.
"That's...pretty useful," he said.
"It is," Armsmaster groused. "And I have no idea how it works, or how to even begin to duplicate it. Despite spending something like five and a half years trying to figure it out. My power hates it with a passion because of that. But it's completely reliable, and completely impossible to detect, because it uses a combination of magic, Tinkertech, and fundamental powers to function. Okay, hang on, it's time to adjust the setting."
So saying, he reached past the crystals, and carefully started to adjust the tuning dial on the radio. Suddenly, he stopped, and then quickly pulled his hand back, right before all twelve crystals jumped up into the air, and began to slowly orbit around the radio.
"So why don't we have more of these?" Assault finally asked. "I mean, even if you can't figure out how to duplicate it, I'm sure somebody must have come up with a similar idea."
"Because originally, this was a large-scale divination and clairvoyance spell that the White Council used to spy on particularly dangerous wizards," Armsmaster answered. "Their version uses five crystals, which must be absolutely pure quartz. Each of the quartz crystals is about four times the size of these, and must be hand-carved with the appropriate runes, and the circle itself is exactly twelve feet across. And the crystals have to be replaced every time the spell is used."
"So...not easy, or cheap, to use."
"That's right."
"And your version isn't being used or studied because...?"
There was a brief embarrassed silence.
"Let me guess," Assault said with a sigh. "You were so blackout drunk that you didn't even make notes about how you did it."
"Most of my notes for that night involve observations on how Charity Carpenter would look in a sorceress costume for Halloween," Armsmaster admitted. "And as far as I can tell, my power wasn't in any better shape than I was. And Myrrdrin was even more hammered than I was, so he isn't any help, either."
"So neither one of you can figure out what you did, and you can't duplicate your invention."
There was another pause.
"Basically," Armsmaster finally said.
"How many times have you blown yourself up trying?"
There was another pause.
"Five," Arsmaster eventually admitted. "Maybe six, if you count the time Myrdrin tried to call Chevalier in to give us a hand."
"Maybe six?"
"We're still not really sure what happened with that, to be honest. Just that, one second we were in the lab, and the next we were sitting outside a large crater. Which apparently formed with no detectable explosion. Or any way for us to pass through the intervening distance."
"Wow. No wonder you always look so pained whenever the subject of Leet and his technology comes up."
Any response the senior hero might have made, though, was interrupted by the sound of a voice coming out of the radio.
"What about magic?" the voice asked. After some thought, Assault decided that it was probably Taylor.
There was a pause, then.
"We don't actually know any way to stop that," another voice admitted. After some thought, Assault decided that it was probably Tattletale, because it was definitely female, and Bitch wasn't known for being all that chatty. "Why? Are you? Being tracked by magic, that is?"
"I doubt it," Taylor said thoughtfully. "I can't imagine how that would work, anyway. But I have to warn you, I am very much an apprentice wizard. If that. There's a lot about magic I don't know."
"Fair enough," Tattletale's voice answered. "Say, what's with the satchel, anyway?"
"Mice," came the response. "For my magic. Hence the reason I wanted to plan ahead."
"Huh. That makes sense. They okay, in there?"
"They seem to be. And they've got plenty of snacks in case things go wrong, and I end up using more magic than I expected. Since their stamina seems to be linked to how well—or if—I can use my magic."
"Really? I wonder why that is?"
Assault had to admit...now, he was kind of curious about that himself.
Taylor
"Really? I wonder why that is?" Tattletale said, without looking back.
"I don't know," Taylor said, shrugging. "Doesn't really seem to make sense to me. I guess it's more powers-related stuff. Either that, or it's magic, and I just don't know enough to explain what's going on."
"Oh. I suppose that makes sense."
There was a moment of silence.
"So," Tattletale said, as they came up to an overpass. "I'm going to drop you off here. Bitch and Grue should be waiting there, and they'll take you—on foot—to the actual lair. I'll meet you there, and we'll go over the stuff there. Sound good?"
I nodded.
"Sure," I said.
Two minutes later, I had a very different opinion of the matter.
Slowly, I raised my hand to rub at my jaw, where Bitch had just punched me.
"Well?" she growled, staring me in the eye.
I couldn't believe she'd done that. These people had come to me for help, and now she was punching me, and trying...fuck, I don't know. Assert dominance, or some stupid shit.
Just like Sophia.
Okay, you know what? Fuck that shit. I've had enough of dealing with that kind of shit from the Trio, and I will be damned if I'm going to put up with it from some punk-ass bitch who just fucking asked for my help.
Carefully, I took the satchel off, and laid it on the ground.
I didn't even bother to finish standing up, before I dove for her.
Grue got back less than a minute later, and he just stopped, and stared.
"What the actual fuck?" he yelled, on coming into sight of the two of us. "Goddamnit, I leave you people alone for five freaking minutes! What the hell is wrong with you two?"
So saying, he put the tray of drinks he'd brought down on the ground next to my satchel, walked over, grabbed one arm, got a fist to the helmet for his trouble—that hurt, need to remember not to punch somebody's helmet again—and then hauled me off and sort of threw me to the side. Then he turned back to Bitch, who stopped trying to get up, and just...stayed.
Then he turned back to me.
"Alright," he said. "What happened?"
I just shrugged.
"She punched me. I objected," I told him. "All there is to it, really."
"Really? Because you looked like you were trying to kill her, from where I was standing. Not doing too good a job of it, but it looked like you were trying."
I shrugged, the red mists starting to recede a bit. Not to their normal levels of slumber, I'll grant you, but enough so that I could pretend that they weren't going to overwhelm me again. Not yet, anyway.
"I got bullied a lot, before I triggered," I said. "Some of it was physical. Like hell I'm willing to put up with more of it, now. Especially not from somebody who asked me for help."
He nodded, and seemed to sigh.
"So you know," he said, "she didn't mean to bully you. Bitch isn't like that. She's just...a lot more dog-like than most of us. She just wanted to make sure you knew where you stood, is all."
"Great," I said. "So where does she sleep? Cause this isn't finished, you know. I put up with enough of that in school. I'm not going to put up with it here."
Another sigh, then he turned to regard the woman who was still on the ground behind him.
"Goddamnit, Rachel," he growled. "I fucking warned you. Fuck, I've warned you again and again, and a-fucking-gain. You cannot go doing shit like this to people you don't know! They will take offense. I realize you take your social cues from dogs, but even you've told me that dogs don't always fight when they first fucking meet! Now you've pissed her off, and she's going to fucking remember this, and we fucking need her to think of us as friends. You broke it. You fix it. Or she's going to leave, and we're going to be in over our head, with no way to get out."
He turned, and stalked off, towards the drinks and my satchel. I glared at the girl, who was still on the ground, and felt myself flex towards a ready position. Only the fact that she hadn't moved was keeping me from jumping her again...and looking at her, I thought she knew it.
"Sorry," she finally said, not looking at me. "Didn't think. Thought you'd...you'd understand."
I twitched, then, convulsively, but didn't say anything.
"Sorry," she said again, sort of sinking back down to the ground.
I don't know what my face must have looked like, then, but I finally got some words out.
"Look me in the eyes, and say that, bitch!" I growled, sounding for all the world like I'd imagine an enraged pit bull would sound. "Look-"
"No," Grue interrupted, stepping between us again. Slowly, my eyes flicked back up to his helmet, and he shook his head.
"Remember, she takes her social cues from dogs," he said. "And if a dog looks you in the eyes, it's a sign of aggression. If a dog looks you in the eyes, that means that it's getting ready to attack you. So Rachel doesn't do that. Ever. Not unless she's getting ready to attack you. Okay?"
I could feel myself physically shaking with the need to get past this boy, and do something nasty to the girl on the ground in front of me, but something about his stance told me that wasn't going to happen, so I slowly managed to force it down. After several long minutes, I managed to straighten up, try to plaster a more normal expression across my face.
"I'm sorry about that," I managed to say. "It won't happen again."
"No, it won't," he said. "Because the next time she tries something like this, I'll beat the shit out of her myself. I'm the leader. I'll deal with it. Because otherwise, you're not going to be able to sleep safe at night, either. Got it? You got a problem, you come to me. You don't like how I handle it, you leave, and go somewhere else. That's why I'm in charge, and that's why the others listen to me. She starts something with you, and I'll finish it. The same applies to you-you start something, and I'll finish it. Understood?"
I give myself a shake, and then nod, and something in his body relaxes.
"Good," he said. "For what it's worth, once she pulls this shit, and decides you're in charge, she's loyal to the death, and maybe a little beyond, if you know what I mean. And she's damned good with her dogs. Better than anybody I've ever seen, or heard of. So as long as you don't turn on her, she'll be good to you. Got it?"
After a couple of minutes, I nodded, again. Then I spoke.
"I don't care if she takes her cues from dogs, or cats, or purple Martians," I finally said, giving him a direct look. "So long as she doesn't try this shit again, I can tolerate her. Doesn't mean I like her, though."
He sighed.
"Fair enough," he said. "Come on, let's get going. Hopefully, she'll have had enough time to accept that she's not the alpha bitch anymore."
The Undersiders' lair was not what I was expecting. I was expecting...I don't know. Someplace dimly lit, or maybe a dark room with a spotlight shining down on a central table. That, or something like a conference room, with maybe some kind of map display up on one wall. Preferably with some kind of sleek and ultra-modern office building wrapped around the outside.
Instead, it turned out that the Undersiders were laired in an old abandoned factory, the second floor of which had been fixed up, and turned into some kind of studio apartment. There was a big central room, with a massive television on one wall, and a couple of couches in front of it. On the other side of the room, by the windows, there was a larger table, right next to what looked like a kitchenette—an unused kitchenette, obviously—and a few chairs. There were five doors leading away from the central room, three of which were opened to reveal two bedrooms, and a bathroom.
"Right," Grue said, as he closed the door behind us. "So...where's the map?"
"Right here" came the yell from one of the open doors, before Tattletale came out, and carefully placed a laptop down on the table. "It's a little rough, but it looks like the online map archives are enough up to date to make it all work. Here you go."
Carefully, I glanced at the other two, before I nodded, and went over to sit down at the laptop.
A moment's perusal was all I needed to confirm what I'd first suspected.
"You're not going to be able to have me up high," I said, looking at the map in front of me. "The bank's too big. If I get up on one of these roofs, I won't be able to see more than one or two sides, so I won't be able to do anything if they go around one of the other sides."
"Oh, we know that," came Regent's voice as he poked his head up over one of the couches. "We were figuring you should come in with us when we hit the actual bank."
I blinked, and then turned, and scowled at him.
"What?" I asked.
"Sure. It's easy. You come in, toss a few lightning bolts around, everybody gets down, and then we grab the money, and go. Easy."
I stared at him for a moment.
"And what happens when something goes wrong?" I asked him.
"What could go wrong? We've got a distraction at the other end of town, and we've checked the timing—the schools are still all in session, so Tats says we should be seeing at most two or three Wards showing up. And we can handle a couple of Wards, easy."
I sighed.
"And what if they call in all the Wards?" I asked. "Or, worse, what if they call in the independent heroes?"
The room stopped, and went silent.
"You mean New Wave?" Grue said, sounding distinctly worried.
"Yep," I said.
"That...would be a problem," he said. "I...uh...I don't know if you've seen this on the PHO, but they tend to...they don't get along with us. Like, at all."
"Tattletale keeps running her mouth, Grue's powers block theirs more often than not, and Bitch's dogs tend to be hard to blast down, and even harder to shield against," Regent said cheerfully.
"Oh?" I heard myself say. "And what about you?"
"Oh, they love me," Regent said. "I make them cookies."
I stared at him for a few more seconds.
"And what if we run into them?" I asked. "Do you have your cookies ready?"
Suddenly, he looked slightly uncertain.
"Well," he said, sounding like a man who was getting ready to hedge. "They're more metaphorical cookies than-"
"No!" I said, sharply. "This is not a metaphorical bank robbery! Metaphorical cookies aren't going to cut it. If we're going to run into them, than we'd better have some cookies to give them!"
He blinked, looking thoroughly stunned. Then, slowly, he turned to stare at Grue.
Who just snorted, and shook his head.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I can't bake worth a damn. You're on your own for this one."
Regent's look of stunned betrayal—visible even through his mask—was too much for me, and I broke down laughing.
A/N: The Canaris Protocol is a reference, of course, to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, of the Third Reich. Admiral Canaris is primarily known for two things: he was the chief of German intelligence and special operations from 1935 to 1944, and because, starting in 1939 or so, he agreed to become a spy for the British government, and took steps to allow other British spies and suspected spies to infiltrate the German intelligence community to an incredible degree. By the time he was caught and executed, almost every step of a new German spy's training and deployment was overseen by British agents, and, not surprisingly, the Allies caught pretty much all of them, almost as soon as they landed/arrived. The Soviets either executed these spies, or sent them to work in the gulag (although with Stalin, there wasn't that much difference), but the Western Allies were probably a lot more clever about it-they allowed the spies to stay, and even to keep sending reports back to the Fatherland, but the spies were carefully and directly supervised to ensure that they only sent the reports the Allies wanted them to send. This is part of why Hitler was so convinced that D-Day would happen near Calais, instead of Normandy-all his spies were telling him that the invasion would be at Calais, after all, and what reconnaissance could be made agreed on the matter, so any doubts the German generals had were...well, stupid. Honestly, it's hard to fault the man for that mistake, as the British and the Americans certainly put enough effort into the matter.
The intelligent (and observant) among you will notice two things: first of all, that this plan does not seem to have any way to deal with a Master or a Stranger subverting the local PRT director, which seems like a pretty appalling oversight, and second, that Principal Blackwell's reaction of trying to convince the courts to reschedule around school hours seems like quite an unusual reaction.
Both of these are important, and signal that things are not quite as they seem.