Signal to Noise
07
"Keep up."
Huff, huff, huff. "I. Hate. You."
"If you've got enough breath to bitch, you've got enough breath for another block," I demanded, ignoring the whining as I turned a corner and adjusted our route through the Docks to tack on another block to our run.
Beside me, Taylor glared. I ignored it and asked, "Count?"
She swallowed. "Fifteen, left side." A desperate gasp for air. "Three right side."
"Composition."
The girl grunted. "Pimps. Johns. Whores. Drugs. Left. Hah, hah. Druggies. Right."
"Armed? Unarmed? Come on, we need details," I reminded.
"Two. Handguns," she coughed. "On pimps. One on druggies."
I smirked. "Models?"
"Asshole."
I ignored the epithet. "Learn to recognize what you're dealing with on sight. A druggie with a snub-nosed revolver and five or six shots is a smaller threat than a competent civilian carrying a semi-auto with an extended magazine and backup mag. One's going to blow his load quick and spray it all over the place. The other's going to take cover and aim. Now. Models?"
"Colt 45. Snub-nose. S&W, .40, long revolver. Browning, 9mm. Tiny gun," she answered eventually.
"Trash or backup cop weapon, dick compensator or enthusiast and, shit but probably for concealed carry—meaning he's probably competent," I assessed. "You're wearing no armor. Which of these is most likely to kill you?"
Taylor huffed for a few moments before answering, "Trick question."
"Good answer," I nodded. "Even a BB gun can be lethal. Rule one: never point a gun at anything you do not intend to kill. Which means that it's a safe bet to assume that anyone pointing a gun at you intends to kill you with it. That may be conditional on your actions, or theirs, or it may not. So, you've got powers. You know there are guns involved. Say I told you to hit the left one solo. You've only got what you have with you right now. How would you do it?"
More huffing as we ran. She was starting to slow down, but stubbornly kept running. 'Going to have to push her into collapse at this point,' I mused. I needed to know where Taylor's limits were. Moreover, she needed to know where her limits were. Thus, training to failure.
Finally, she answered. "Send in rats. Snatch the guns. Or bugs and jam them. Swarm to blind them. Go for noses, ears, eyes. Come in with zip ties."
"You are dead," I sighed, shaking my head. She shot me a questioning look. "Step one. Hard cover. Rats are a good idea. Bugs might jam them, but don't count on it. Try that shit with an AK and whoever's using it is going to laugh as they proceed to drop it in the mud, fill it with sand, then drape bacon over it to cook breakfast using the barrel heat while blowing bloody chunks out of everyone in their path. Most guns are made to fire even if partially gummed up, so you'd really have to work at it to fuck it up—it's not like in the movies, where they just jam whenever's convenient for the protagonist."
That was one of the things I'd hated about what I'd read of canon Worm. It was almost as bad as watching a 'hacking' scene on TV or in a movie—just to the left of black magic, and handwaved for convenience, because someone didn't do some basic research or couldn't find a way to make it work the way they wanted using real-world logic.
"Other than that, yeah. I'd call it about as good as you can get with just bugs and rats." The hideout was just up ahead so I picked up the pace. "Come on, one more sprint, then a cooldown."
Nearly in front of the doors, Taylor fell flat on her face. I sighed, turned around, and hauled her to her feet. "Walk it off inside," I instructed and lead her in through the smaller of the two doors.
We walked into a madhouse.
Mechanical arms were dropping sheets and chunks of metal and old computer components from a bin onto a conveyor system, which fed it into a fabrication unit. The fabber tore down whatever it was fed and reconstructed the raw materials into a finished product based on schematics I'd already programmed in—I wasn't entirely sure how it worked beyond 'force fields' and 'molecular assembly.' Right now, it was spitting out pylons and computer cubes. A few men and women loaded the completed pylons and cubes into bins. The cubes would be going on sale over the internet, in a deal I'd struck with Toybox. The pylons would be planted in batches, starting today—block by block.
Each pylon was six feet long, with a four inch radius, and shaped like a half-pill—rounded on one end and flat on the other. When placed on flat ground and the activation button triggered, they would burrow down two feet before spreading out small metal roots to better anchor themselves in place. For the moment, that was all they had the power to do. They didn't have the juice stored in them to power the force field they would be generating
However, lack of power wouldn't be a problem for long. On the opposite side of the floor from the fabber was a floor to ceiling tube. Crammed inside the tube was a lot of my tech, repurposed or scaled up a bit—power absorption and storage, computing and processing power, shielding, subspace storage in the event there was a problem and I needed to shift the problem off onto someone else's plate to deal with. There was some fancy new stuff, though. Power control systems, monitoring systems, subspace power transmission, magnetic field generators, gravity generators, a VI to run it all, and soon to be at the heart of it: a star the size of a ping-pong ball.
Tinkers truly were the most bullshit parahumans, given time. We could make tech to emulate or surpass the effects of other classes, if we put our minds to it. All it took was time and resources.
Of course, if you want to drive a Tinker up a wall, deny them time. Prevent a Tinker from Tinkering and they become useless—just a normie with a compulsion to tear apart microwaves.
I'd had five days since we spoke with Ms. Militia, and instead of improving my personal equipment/loadout directly, I had opted for build order buildup. Namely, construction and energy production units. And as soon as I gathered up the balls to flip the switch on Enola, I could pull us off the grid and start planting pylons and locking down the area.
"Shower, then back down here," I instructed Taylor, following her up the stairs to our rooms, silently thankful I'd had the foresight to include two half-bathrooms in addition to the three bedrooms, training room, and kitchenette/living room. "And don't eat."
"Fine," she grumbled, heading into one bathroom while I took the other.
Taylor was on a diet. Not just a diet, but an exercise program. High protein, vegetables, low carbs. Lots of training. Two hours of stamina and cardio building exercises when we woke up. Two hours of rest for her, Tinker time for me. Two hours of weight training. Two hours of rest/Tinker time. Hour and a half of martial arts training where I tried to impart as much as I could from what had been dumped in my head onto her, followed by a half hour of intense sparring. Then we hit the showers again, put on our 'work' clothes, and hit the town for eight hours—power training and patrolling.
Sleep from two to ten and start the whole thing over again.
I was so glad I didn't have to go through the shit I put her through, thanks to Peak Condition. I honestly didn't think I could pull it off. But because I told her it would work, she agreed to give it a try.
Finishing up my shower, I changed into workout clothes and headed downstairs. Taylor joined me a few minutes later. "You're sure this won't blow us all up?" she asked as I stood before Enola.
"Nope. Hopefully, the VI catches it if there's a problem. Enola, you ready?" I asked.
A hardlight hologram of a young woman—who looked suspiciously like a green Cortana in a dress—blinked into being and nodded. "All systems ready."
Taking a deep breath, I nodded, took the oversized switch in hand, and flipped it up. "Contact."
There was a loud pop and a sudden hum, then nothing. "Enola, status?"
"Fusion achieved. Reaction stable. Everything within expected tolerances," the VI answered.
"Take us off the grid," I ordered. The lights flickered once, but that was it. "Any change?"
The green girl shook her head. "Power draw is negligible. We are operating with a 99.99998% energy surplus."
I noticed someone clapping, and looked back to see Kurt and a couple of his buddies beaming. "Good work, boss. What next?"
Digging into my neural interface, I sent off a map and the watch at the man's wrist chimed—basically a wrist-mounted version of the cube computers. "This is the distribution pattern and schedule based on our current output. Groups One and Two go out today, Group Three tomorrow, and so on. Get some guys on that and we'll start getting the shield up."
Kurt nodded and began making calls. In the meantime, I turned to Taylor. "Go take a break. I'll be up in a few hours and we can work on weights."
"Fun," she muttered, heading upstairs.
I projected my costume around me and took the stairs up to the roof. Since I had no secret identity, I didn't really have to worry about people seeing me coming and going from here in costume—and since the first four pylons were going up around our own hideout, it wouldn't matter if someone did take an interest.
Once I was outside, I pulled up my flight program. I hadn't actually had a chance to test it since I'd made it and I had a feeling I was going to need to refine it a bit. That said, the only way to work out the kinks in it was to actually experience them firsthand. "Here goes," I muttered, before slowly easing the throttle open and lifting off the ground about an inch.
I was not stupid enough to just go all out right from the start. I didn't need a broken neck today, thank you very much.
Giving it a little more juice, enough to get me a foot off the ground according to laser range detection, I began working on maneuvering. It was kind of like ice skating. Underwater. In a heavy wind. And it fell apart just like my metaphor when I clipped a railing and sent myself ass-over-teakettle flailing through the air.
"Stop, stop, stop damnit!" I yelped, eventually getting myself under control. Suddenly, I was thankful I had picked the roof to do this, where no one else could see. No one but Taylor, given that I spotted a crow sitting unnaturally still and silent perched on an air conditioning unit. Picking up a piece of trash off the ceiling, I tossed it at the bird, which failed to move. "Caw, damnit! And move when someone throws something at you. In fact, that's your assignment. Go watch Animal Planet or pull up nature documentaries on the stuff you use most on youtube. Learn to mimic their behavior."
The bird cawed once, but otherwise refused to move.
'Probably laughing her stick ass off right about now. That's okay, I'll get her back during sparring practice and she knows it,' I thought, sending the bird a predatory leer.
In the meantime, I went back to making a fool out of myself now so I wouldn't do it later. 'As if the answer to all my problems isn't 'Tinker a solution.' I need some way to not drift if I don't want to, stay oriented how I want, and quickly change direction as needed. Which also means I need a way to make sure I don't snap my neck by turning on a nickel and handing out change for dimes. Also, maybe more information on my display in flight mode—altitude, air speed, attitude, horizon… basically an entire damn flight instrument readout.'
Dropping down to sit crosslegged on the roof and thankful that my hardlight projections insulated me from the cold, I pulled up my interface and began to Tinker. 'Thrust vectoring will help with a lot of problems, if I can learn to control it—I can have thrust points form the same way I do apertures for lasers that aren't mapped to body parts. Slave that to a copy of Enola and let her keep me oriented as I want. Inertial dampener, also under Enola's control. EFIS is easy—I've already got all the detection stuff, I just need to have it pop up the moment I go into flight mode and add a few lines for attitude and horizon. And since we're on 'things I already have done and just need to incorporate,' I might as well add navigation and target detection and tracking.'
A little over an hour and a half later, I was back in the air, pulling off graceful maneuvers around and over rooftop obstacles… which basically amounted to having a mental controller in hand, pointing which way I wanted to go and how I wanted to get there, and letting Enola do the hard work. I should probably be ashamed that I couldn't do it manually and go ahead and turn in my man card—what little there was left of it—but fuck that noise. That shit was hard. I wasn't so proud that I wouldn't take help.
For my last test for the morning, I pointed myself skyward and opened up the throttle. I felt… absolutely nothing as shields and inertial dampeners kicked in and I shot upwards at a hundred miles an hour and climbing, my hands clenched into fists at my sides as I grit my teeth and forced myself to move. I hated flying. And heights. But I needed to be able to stomach it if I wanted fast getaway options.
"Approaching sound barrier," Enola announced. A moment later, a faint shudder ran through my body but there was no sound over the low roar of wind against my shields. My third person camera showed me leaving a contrail as I punched through the cloud layer over the city.
"Mach 1 and I'm not even trying. Suck it, Glory Girl," I chuckled.
As I continued accelerating and nothing happened, I began to relax, easing back on the throttle as my heart stopped trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Just shy of 7,000 feet, I flipped over and turned downwards, not wanting to risk blacking out due to lack of oxygen. "Enola, make a note: Tinker in a contained atmosphere. And air scrubbers. Actually, fuck it, all of that and complete isolation because fuck plague bearers."
"Noted," Enola replied.
As I continued to descend, I frowned. "Hey Enola, did we ever work out how to brake?"
The VI paused noticeably. "No, Master," she answered.
"Fuck," I muttered as we rapidly approached ground level. "Okay, try flaring the shields out a bit—just make our surface area bigger. That should do it."
Almost immediately, we lost control and I went tumbling through the air end over end. "Fuuuuuck—I'm gonna die~!"
Eventually, Enola stabilized our flight and got us down to around thirty miles per hour as I turned back towards the hideout. "I apologize, Master. I believe I have worked it out, however, and we will not have that issue in the future."
"Thank fucking Christ," I muttered. "Get me on the ground. I need a change of panties." I turned that over in my head and threatened, "Repeat that to anyone and I'll delete you."
"I would never," the VI assured me.
I didn't believe a word of it. I'd programmed her after all.
"What do you think?"
I looked over the beginnings of a silk body suit. "I think that's a lot of spiders. And you're going to need more."
Humming in thought, I sent a command to the fabber to spit out two watches and copy/pasted some code over to them—power storage, computing, Enola, shields, lasers, and flight. Then, I dipped into the programming and slaved the copies to my own and installed limits. They would only activate shields when Enola detected a threat or for flight. Lasers were limited to darkness and force, and only if Enola authorized it would they even become available. Flight was stripped down to a safe hundred miles an hour with a ceiling of three thousand feet. They would self-destruct violently if I sent the command or Enola detected anyone other than the intended user or direct family so much as looking at them funny.
Picking up the two watches fresh off the assembly line, I tossed one to Taylor and pocketed the other, along with eight cubes. "Put that on. I'll explain how to use it on the way."
Slipping onto the bike, I waited for Weaver to hop on behind me. "Did you pick a name?" she asked, slipping her hardlight helmet on.
I nodded. "I decided to bite the bullet and just go with Azazel."
"You know that and the black suit makes you sound and look like a villain," she pointed out. "An anti-New Wave member."
One of the dockworkers opened up the loading bay door and we roared out of the hideout and through the forcefield. "Don't give any fucks," I shrugged, flipping on my shields to cut out the chill wind—it made riding patrols so much more fun, not having 30 degree or below wind slapping me in the face.
"Where are we going?" Weaver asked, no longer having to speak up since we were using our own private subspace communications channel.
I grinned. "It's a surprise."
The surprise didn't last long as I eventually pulled into a hospital parking lot, found a spot, and killed the bike. Weaver followed me inside and I could feel the raised eyebrows and the stare as she tried to bore a hole into the back of my head with those yellow lenses. Walking up to the front desk, I smiled up—and god I was getting tired of that—at the receptionist. "How can I help you, honey? Are you a Ward here to see someone?"
"Not Wards. Independent heroes, ma'am. We're here to visit my friend Amy." The slightly overweight woman—her nametag labeled her as Rhonda—sent me a confused look. "Panacea."
"Sure, I'll just page her and let her know you're here," she said, a faintly suspicious look crossing her face.
I shrugged. "Tell her CC says we agreed to stop meeting like this."
Picking up the phone at her desk, she hit a button—probably for an intercom or something, given her next words. "Would Panacea please call the front desk, extension 110? Would Panacea—"
"Do I want to know?" Weaver asked, and I shrugged.
"Inside joke. You had to be there," I waved her off as the phone on the woman's desk rang.
"Front desk," she answered. A moment later, she said, "A couple of independent heroes are here to see you." She looked up at us, gesturing vaguely.
Interpreting that as a request for our names, I said, "Weaver and Azazel. But tell her that thing I told you."
"Azazel and Weaver," she sighed, before adding, "She said, 'CC says we agreed to stop meeting like this.'" Blinking, she looked me over. "Yes, she's tiny."
"God damnit Panpan," I grumbled.
The woman, whose name I'd already deleted from short term memory, hung up and gestured to the elevators. "Fifteenth floor. She should be waiting in break room two."
Weaver and I made our way to the elevator. I punched the button for the fifteenth floor and waited impatiently, tapping my foot on the floor. The door opened and I found a white-clad figure in my face, one dainty finger poking my nose. "Wha—?" I had time to ask, before I was smothered in a hug that threatened to crack my ribs.
"Amy, we're in an elevator," I pointed out, returning the hug briefly. When she didn't let go immediately, I sighed. "I missed you too. Come on, let's find somewhere private to talk."
Amy nodded and took my hand, leading us out of the elevator and to an empty room, where she closed and locked the door behind us before pulling down her hood. "You don't call. You don't text. You're sending me mixed messages here, Claire."
Weaver turned her head towards me and again, I could feel the raised eyebrows. "And the PRT are still watching your family, aren't they?"
Amy sighed, hopping up onto the empty bed. "Yeah. I've missed our verbal sparring. You were right. I like having someone around to bitch at."
"Okay, what?" Weaver finally spoke up.
Turning a look on Taylor, I gestured towards the helmet. "Go ahead and take it off." She crossed her arms. "She's going to figure it out eventually, if the PRT ever gets off my goddamn case. Besides, it's Amy. She's… well, she's not harmless. Kitty has claws. But she won't go telling anyone who you are."
"Fine," Weaver sighed, pulling her helmet off and shaking out her hair, before pushing her under-mask with the corrective lenses up and exposing her face. Then, she fished her glasses out of a pouch at her waist and put them on. "Taylor Hebert," she introduced herself, holding out a hand for Amy to shake.
"Amelia Dallon," the bio-Striker smiled, shaking the offered hand. "So, how did Claire get you roped into her mess?"
"Hey! What makes you assume—"
"She broke into my house invisible and naked and asked to surf my couch," Taylor interrupted.
Amy nodded. "Sounds about right."
I frowned. "I resemble those remarks."
Shifting her green-eyed gaze onto me, Amy looked me up and down. "Wow," she muttered. "That is a lot of edge, Claire. Like, all the edge. It's like you took Aunt Sarah's costume, Tinkered it full of edges, and painted it black. Unlimited Edge Works."
"Bite me, Amelia," I grumbled.
Amy turned an amused look on Taylor. "Verbal sparring," the healer explained. "So, what are you guys doing here? Other than evading the PRT blockade around my family."
"I come bearing gifts," I answered. "Watch hand. Gimmie."
Amy rolled her eyes and held out her arm. Fishing her watch out of my pouch, I strapped it on for her. Pulling it back, she turned her wrist over and examined the face. "Pretty. You're a Tinker though, so I'm guessing it's a bit more than an analog watch."
I smirked. "It's got enough tech crammed into it to make Q jealous."
"Who?" Amy and Taylor asked together.
Palming my face, I groaned. "Right. Your generation," I muttered. "Movie night soon. Assuming we can get them. Amy, take a night off and come by our place. Enola will show you how to get there."
"'Enola?'" she asked.
"Enola Gay." She blinked absently. "I named the VI running my fusion reactor after the plane that dropped the first nuke on Japan."
"Ooh," Taylor nodded. "I was wondering…"
Amy nodded as well, before her eyes went progressively wider. "Wait. VI? Fusion reactor? Nukes?! Did you really think taunting Murphy that hard was a good idea?"
"Yes. What's he gonna do, use one of the holes this crapsack universe isn't already using to fuck me dry? I mean, between the government and the world itself, I've never been fucked this hard before. Might as well tempt Murphy and upgrade this menage au trois to a gangbang," I rolled my eyes, earning winces from the other two. "Anyway, how much longer do you have on your shift?"
Checking her shiny new watch, Amy answered, "Two and a half hours or so. I can stop pretty much any time, but, well…"
I nodded in understanding. "We'll let you get back to it. Call Vicky and tell her you've got a ride home tonight and we'll be back later."
"You can't come to the house Claire, you know that. Even like this," she warned.
"Never said I was going to. Now, hop to. We need to talk shop later. I've got some things I want you to do for me." Amy raised an eyebrow at that. "I promise you'll enjoy it. Trust me."
Huffing out a breathy sigh of put-upon annoyance, Amy nodded. "Fine."
"Great. Meet you on the roof in two hours and some change," I agreed.
Beside me, Taylor quickly pulled off her glasses, flipped her mask down, and pulled on her helmet. "It was nice meeting you."
Amy nodded. "We can talk more later. If you're hanging out with her, I should probably give you a heads up on some of her bad habits, according to Aunt Sarah."
"Naked sleepwalking?" Taylor asked, earning a nod. "Been there, done that."
"That is not a thing that happens," I rolled my eyes. Taylor eyed me judgmentally. "Anymore."
We parted company at the elevator and Weaver and I went back to our patrol. After making our usual loop through the areas where the dockworkers lived, we made a loop through the Boardwalk, then headed for the Docks. As I drove along under the speed limit, listening to Taylor reporting on what her senses told her—with Enola dropping map pins and taking notation for later use—I caught sight of another motorcycle headlight coming up from behind in third person camera. A bit of focus zoomed the view and cut through the glare, showing a silver-and-blue armored figure atop a Tinkered-up bike that put mine to shame and made me suddenly embarrassed to be riding it—like that one big, burly biker gang member caught riding a moped or driving a minivan. It gave me dick envy and I didn't even have one anymore.
Armsmaster pulled even with us and slowed down. Enola pinged an incoming tightbeam laser transmission and I accepted. A moment later, he pulled away again before turning down a side street.
"What was that about?" Weaver asked.
"He gave me his email. Dragon's, too. And a number," I told her. "I kind of owe him Tinker time and with the PRT trying to crawl up my ass, I haven't exactly been able to deliver. Hang on, I'm going to call this."
Dialing the number, a video-chat request initiated. I set my camera field of view for it to my face with enough over the shoulder to show Weaver was present. A moment later, Dragon's mousy visage popped up in my brain, almost but not quite superimposed over the road ahead just like my 360 degree camera. "Claire?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny—" I began.
"I turned the tortoise over because I was told to. I left it because I was told to."
I frowned. "Confirmed. Now shut up. Tell Armsmaster to call me on this number and butt out."
The AI affected a hurt look before closing the connection. A moment later, my phone rang, requesting another video chat. I picked up, to a feed off Armsmaster's helmet cam. "You look different."
"Yeah, well, I can't exactly show my face to your bosses," I pointed out. "Enola, secure the call."
"Secure," she confirmed a second later.
At the same time, Armsmaster said, "All my comms are secure."
"Great. Is Dragon listening in?" I asked, turning down a side street as Weaver pointed left.
"No. Why?"
Instead of answering, I asked, "Are you dating… what's her name? The big-tittied blonde greasemonkey Tinker."
Armsmaster made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh. "There may be some shred of truth to those rumors."
I nodded. "Okay. So, you trust Dragon?"
"Of course," he answered immediately.
"She's an AI. She wants help. You know who the Dragonslayers are?" I asked, getting a noise of affirmation in answer. "I've been doing some digging—"
"Lie," he muttered.
"Allow me my lies, damnit. You wouldn't believe the truth." When he said nothing, I continued. "As I was saying. I believe Saint—their leader—is one of Teacher's pets. Traded freedom for power, because he has a hateboner for AI and thinks Dragon's the anti-Christ waiting to happen. Pretty much takes every trope about 'evil AI overlords' in the book as Gospel. Dragon's father was Andrew Richter. Richter made Dragon and a few other AIs, along with Dragon's kill switch—Iron Maiden, later renamed Ascalon by Saint. Saint George. Dragonslayers. Killed the dragon with the holy lance/sword Ascalon. He's got delusions of grandeur on top of being a paranoid, Mastered fuck."
Weaver tapped my shoulder and gestured for me to slow down. "Hang on. May have something." Muting my feed to Armsmaster, I asked, "What's up?"
"A couple of guys stalking a girl, but something's off. Something big came into my range and we passed back out again. I got a brief look at the street from above," she answered.
I frowned. "Big guy, leather jacket? Little guy, dressed like a clown?" I asked, and she wagged a hand in a so-so gesture. "Girl's blonde, maybe wearing a long coat? Green eyes, freckles?"
"Yeah. How did you know?" she asked.
"In the words of Admiral Ackbar, "It's a traaaaap." That's the Undersiders. The blonde is Tattletale—intuitive Thinker. She's wearing a coat because she's got a catsuit on under it. The big thing that came into range was one of Rachel Lindt's, or Bitch's, dogs. She can make them bigger, stronger, and uglier. The big fucker is Grue, his power is basically Cone of Darkness that spreads out like smoke. The little shit is Regent. He's a human-controlling Master who gains more control over someone the longer he's with them." Thinking it over, I unmuted Armsmaster's feed. "I'm going to have to call you back."
"Trap?" he asked. "The Undersiders?"
"Stop reading my lips," I shot an annoyed look towards the camera's field of view. "Clever Russian bear walks into trap. Long story short, don't repeat anything I said to Dragon. Saint's got backdoor root access and can see and hear everything she's doing. He needs to go before he kills her. I'll call you later and we can work something out with Tinkering and dealing with that problem."
"Understood." After a moment, he offered, "If you need backup, call."
"Roger that," I nodded, then hung up. "Come on, let's go see what they want. Think you can hold off on Mastering Bitch's dogs if they come back into range? Just watch through their eyes?"
Weaver nodded. "Yeah."
I gunned the engine and roared down the street, braking hard and throwing us into a slide at the mouth of the alley, playing my headlights over where a big black man—boy, actually—wearing a ski mask was beating on a small white girl with a baseball bat. "Capes," the shorter of the pair, who'd been keeping lookout, said lazily.
I killed the engine and Weaver and I hopped off the bike. Pulling up my neural interface, I ordered Enola, 'Hardlight shields, skin tight. Shield Weaver.'
The VI responded in the affirmative, already scanning for threats. She highlighted two sniper teams—one at either end of the alley. 'Be prepared to shield the Undersiders from fire as well,' I ordered.
"You know," I spoke up into the sudden silence of the alley. "If you guys wanted to meet, there are easier ways to do it."
Tattletale rolled off the ground, pushing her mask onto her face. "Well…" she paused, a frown coming over her face. "Shit. Run!"
"Don't bother, Lisa," I called. "Rachel's dogs aren't coming." I held a hand out to signal Weaver, who nodded. "In fact…" The dogs in question dropped down on the other end of the alley, cutting off the Undersiders. "They're ours now."
"What the fuck did you do to my dogs?!" Rachel screeched. I pointed at her and shot her with a narco-laser. Bitch's monster dogs immediately began to shrink and Weaver apparently directed them closer into the alley so Bitch wouldn't fall off in the street.
"Nighty night. And just so nobody gets any dark ideas. Pew, pew," I hit Grue and Regent with one each as well. "Now!" I clapped my hands as Tattletale turned to face us. "Let's talk."
The blonde across from us closed her eyes and brought a hand up to her ear as we moved closer. A moment later, a shield sprang into being between Tattletale and the shooter behind her. A second shield popped up between us and the shooter at our rear. Lisa's eyes opened, a confused look crossing her face. "I… kind of expected to die just then."
"Yeah, well, he can't kill me. Now, where's your boss? He's already fucked up once and dropped a timeline, so I'm guessing he's in his base?" I asked.
Tattletale blinked, then pulled out her earpiece and tossed it to the ground before crushing it. "How—I just figured that out and you just pull that from your ass? No, not from your ass. You knew all along. You know who he is."
I rolled my eyes. "Of course I fucking know. I got his number off Shadow Stalker's phone and he gave his name himself."
"You knew before that," Lisa accused, accurately.
Sighing, I palmed my face. "Can we do this later? You in or out? I get rid of your boss, we split the proceeds. We work together and run the other gangs out of the city. Yes or no?"
The blonde considered it for a moment before nodding. "I'm in."
"Wait, wait. What makes you think we can trust her? They're criminals," Weaver asked, gesturing towards the Undersiders.
I shrugged. "Vested self-interest. Look, you two take the bike and follow after me. I take it you know how to drive one?" I asked Tattletale, who nodded. "Weaver, stick with her. If she does anything funny, fill her full of black widow venom. Ignore her if she runs her mouth, for now. Her power makes her what amounts to Barnes on steroids. Tattletale, don't antagonize Weaver. Girls, play nice. Now, address for your boss's base."
Tattletale gave me the address and I took off, trusting Weaver's copy of Enola to keep them safe for now.
It was a bit sooner than I'd expected, but Coil had pretty much dropped an opportunity to deal with him in my lap by closing himself off in his base for this timeline and his spare.
My original plan of attack against him would've been a sneak attack—an assassination against him either at home or in his office—at a specified time. The setup would have had me killing targets five seconds apart depending on where they were: say 12:00:00 if he was at the office, 12:00:05 if he was at home, 12:00:10 if he was at his base. Meaning that any kills would have forced him to close off timelines where he would be anywhere but at his base. But that was assuming he wasn't at the office at 12:00:05—if he was, then I would have to abort and try again later.
Regardless of him fowling my original plan to run him to ground, I wouldn't waste the opportunity now that I had it.