"Hello, Director Piggot."
Carol Dallon looked at the woman she'd unexpectedly nearly bumped into in the small convenience store, one that was handy to her office in the commercial district where she'd gone to get some papers she forgot the day before. As it was Christmas morning she wouldn't normally bother, but there were some things she wanted to check while the thought was fresh in her mind so she'd decided to quickly drive in and collect the documentation, then get home in time for their planned holiday lunch with her sister's family at Sarah's house.
Of course, because it was Christmas, most of the larger supermarkets in the city were shut, and on the way home her sister had called her to ask if she could pick up some carrots and peas, having run out of both. As this place was on the way home and had a small but reasonably well stocked fresh produce section she'd stopped there. And having rounded the end of the aisle almost walked into someone familiar. The PRT Director was inspecting the shelf in front of her and looked up as Carol stopped a couple of paces away.
Rather oddly, the other woman was looking rather pleased with life, if Carol was any judge, a very small satisfied expression apparently lurking behind the more normal somewhat annoyed air she usually showed.
"Ah. Mrs Dallon. Good morning," Emily Piggot replied with a nod. "I hope your family is enjoying the holiday?"
"The girls seem pleased, certainly," Carol responded. "My husband is in a good mood as well."
Piggot's eyes drifted towards the basket Carol was holding. She followed the gaze, then smiled slightly. "Some last minute shopping for my sister," she explained. "Luckily I was just passing. Had to get some documents from the office."
"I see." Emily looked back at the shelf in front of her, which contained various wines. She seemed regretful for a moment. "I needed some spices, and was just wishing I could still drink," she said after a moment, unexpectedly sighing regretfully. It was unusually open of her, a small glimpse of humanity in the often rather forbidding exterior she projected to the world. "But my doctor would be… annoyingly verbose… if I risked it. Ah well." Shaking her head a little, she shrugged. "Life's like that."
She glanced at her watch. "Better get on with it, I still have a number of things I need to do today."
"It is Christmas, Director," Carol pointed out. "Even you are allowed to take one day off."
Piggot snorted, although in a manner that was almost humorous. "In this madhouse? I should be so lucky. But I'll be leaving early, after having a hopefully worthwhile meeting."
"Well, good luck then," Carol replied, nodding to her. "Happy holidays, too."
"And to you, Mrs Dallon. My best to your family." Emily nodded back, then turned and walked off. Carol watched her go, wondering if she was hearing things. Was the other woman… humming?
That was just strange.
Possibly she'd got some good news or something. She was certainly a lot more mellow than the last time they'd met…
Shaking her head in mild wonder, Carol finished her shopping and was soon leaving the store on her way back to her car, still somewhat amused at the thought that Emily Piggot even knew the tune to a Christmas carol, never mind hummed it to herself.
The things you learned about some people.
"What do we have so far?" Emily asked, looking to Armsmaster, then Renick.
The former sighed faintly. "More data than we can handle in a month, Director. We have what appears to be Coil's entire mercenary force, including medical staff, and Coil, or more accurately Thomas Calvert, himself. All of them are physically fine, but utterly exhausted, as if they've been subjected to significant sleep deprivation. I suspect some very long interrogation sessions were employed for most of them. All of them appear to be… somewhat twitchy… if we turn the lights off in their cells. I hesitate to venture a guess as to why."
He glanced at Renick, who shrugged with a nod. Returning his attention to Emily, he continued, "Additionally we have an absolutely vast amount of data on high density tape cartridges, totaling some twenty six and a half terabytes of documentation, video, imagery, and every other form of information one could imagine. Including, I am disturbed to say, a very significant amount that originated on our own servers. As we suspected, Calvert was harvesting our systems for his own ends for a minimum of a decade."
Emily gritted her teeth in fury. "That utter bastard."
"Indeed. It will take a significant amount of time to examine all the information and make conclusions about the implications, but we can already say without doubt that his actions have directly cost sixteen PRT staff's lives at a minimum over that period. I suspect the final tally will be considerably larger. And that does not include BBPD officers, civilians, and a number of Parahumans who had the misfortune of becoming embroiled in one of his schemes." Armsmaster's jaw was clenched in anger, a muscle jumping in one cheek. "Additionally we can prove that he has been responsible for half a dozen instances of both the ABB and the E88 causing significant chaos by stoking their various prejudices with carefully targeted misinformation. I believe the true total is substantially higher but it will take some time to be able to prove that. We may well be working on this information cache for months and I hesitate to say what we'll discover." Armsmaster shook his head in annoyance.
"Just from a preliminary scan, it's pretty obvious that Calvert has, one way or another, been involved in starting or egging on an astounding number of gang related problems in the city for years," Renick carried on when the Tinker fell silent. Emily transferred her gaze to him. "And he's up to his armpits in the corruption scandals the Mayor is currently exposing like he's on a mission from god or something. You name an issue that's caused trouble in Brockton Bay in the last ten or twelve years and I'll give even odds he was involved somehow. It's incredible, and almost impressive, for all the wrong reasons. Even with his power, I can hardly believe how much time he must have put in on whatever the fuck he was actually aiming for."
"Do we know what that was?" she asked, almost dreading the answer.
Both men shrugged almost simultaneously. "Not as such, no, Director," Armsmaster answered. "My personal guess is that he had grandiose plans of running the entire city from the shadows as if he was a figure from a rather inept work of fiction, but I honestly can't prove that one way or the other as of yet. He might simply have enjoyed causing trouble for all I know. We'll probably work it out in the end but it will take time, I'm afraid. The amount of data we have to analyze is simply that large."
"You're sure it's all real?"
"Yes. Or more accurately, all the data so far passes every test we can devise for verisimilitude. We also received a large cache of printed documentation, again largely originating from the PRT, but a considerable amount also coming from various military sources, the FBI, police departments all over the country, several civilian data brokers, and even the CIA. Much of it is top secret classification or above. None of it should have been in the hands of Thomas Calvert. Every document we've been able to trace so far is genuine, I'm afraid."
"Christ. How the hell did he pull all this off right under our noses? The CIA for god's sake?" Emily stared at them in shock.
"Leveraging his ability like you wouldn't believe, along with a huge amount of money for bribes, blackmail, and anything else he could think of, not to forget carefully selected assassinations" Renick suggested darkly. "Included in our little gift from whoever it really is that took him down was a full dossier on exactly what he could do, including limitations, benefits, and a lot of other interesting information. His power was… terrifyingly effective. In the hands of someone truly competent he would have been close to unstoppable. Even in his hands he got away with it for well over a decade. Calvert is hardly a genius but he's definitely smart and cunning. Luckily he's also not nearly as careful as he probably thought he was, or we wouldn't have noticed his fingerprints all over our systems when Armsmaster did his deep scan."
She nodded, steepling her fingers together and considering the information they'd given her. While she thought both men remained silent. Eventually she lowered her hands to the table and tapped one index finger on it thoughtfully. "Do we have any idea exactly who it was that happened to do our job for us so remarkably effectively?" she asked slowly.
Neither of the other two said anything for a few seconds, but then Armsmaster shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. Whoever is behind this is exceptionally good at their job. There are no fingerprints, DNA, trace evidence of any sort, or any other ways to uncover their identity on anything we recovered. All the physical media was sterilized somehow to remove all such traces, the intermodal containers the prisoners were apparently transported in are so old they are utterly anonymous and in any case belong to companies that have been defunct since the sixties or earlier, and none of the people so far interrogated are able to tell us anything at all about who captured them."
"They all have consistent stories, so they're probably truthful, but they're also basically useless," Renick added, Armsmaster nodding agreement. "Every one of them described suddenly finding themselves in a completely dark metal lined room in only their underwear, with no time passing between when they'd been doing whatever it was they were doing and that moment. Clearly some form of teleportation, but it doesn't match anything we have on record. Each of them, after some period of time which was probably to soften them up psychologically, was interrogated by someone who by the sound of it is an expert at the job. Obviously a professional, someone who had a hell of a lot of practice finding out what they wanted to know from hostile captives."
"We can build a partial picture of the people involved from the evidence we've gathered, but it's largely no help," Armsmaster put in. "Each man was transported by means unknown to an obviously purpose-build interrogation room, designed by a group who were highly capable and experienced in such things. They described the room as lined with seamless copper sheet aside from a door and a window. The window was mirrored and solid enough that all of them felt it was armored and essentially unbreakable, while the door appeared similar to one on a ship, with a completely smooth interior surface. I would imagine from the description that it may well have been hermetically sealed as well. The overall design suggests a carefully designed RF shielded facility, most likely using night vision cameras and infra-red illumination to observe the prisoners in what to them is total darkness."
"Psyops, in other words."
"I believe so, yes, Director," he replied, nodding. "Carefully calculated to apply maximum psychological pressure to create a sense of uneasiness and malleability in the subject. It is an old technique, but if done by an expert, extremely effective. I will note that it is something that a number of black ops government organizations are noted for utilizing in the past. The CIA being the obvious possibility but it's certainly not restricted to them."
"Wonderful. They're not even allowed to operate inside the US," she growled.
"We have no proof it is the CIA, Ma'am," he responded. "It may well not be. It's quite possible that it's in fact an agency that is so secret even we don't know about it. Perhaps a small but extremely skilled group specifically set up for highly deniable operations, exactly as we are seeing here. I have heard of such things in the past from a few sources although of course it's almost impossible to be certain of the truth of matters of that nature by their very design. But whoever it is has some remarkable technology, I feel certain, and likely some Parahuman resources of their own. Some of the testimony from the prisoners implies at a minimum a team of highly effective Thinkers were in use during their interrogations. Each of them described the same thing, a man's voice that always remained completely calm and collected no matter how long the interrogation went on for, disguised by some form of voice scrambler, and questions that betrayed a much deeper knowledge of their actions than seems plausible without inside information."
"Or a team of Thinkers…" Emily mused. "I understand. Interesting, and concerning."
"I think we can be certain that whoever is doing this is really good at cloak and dagger stuff and has been doing it for a long time," Renick suggested somewhat uneasily. "Which tells me their security is absolutely state of the art and their classification level is so high we're unlikely to get a straight answer out of anyone. I can guarantee it's not us. And I've reached out to various contacts in other federal agencies, without any luck at all. Sure, it's possible someone knows and can't tell me, but… the answers I got make me think that no one I talked to had a clue either. I don't know who these people are, but they're really fucking good and very, very dark."
She sighed. "So we've got a bunch of spooks that even other spooks don't know about lurking around somewhere in the city doing our job better than we do. Wonderful. Why? Why now? What else are they going to do? What is the end goal? I've got more questions than answers and it worries me."
"I'm not all that pleased about it myself, Director," Armsmaster commented, frowning. "My best guess is that Calvert did something that attracted a form of attention he should have avoided, and this is the result. It all started with him as far as we can tell. Whoever this group is, they took him out of play without any obvious trouble at all, and rolled up his entire organization in a way that frankly startles me. After which they extracted every piece of information they were after, confiscated all his assets so effectively they've for all intents and purposes vanished into the ether, and when they were finished with him, just gave him back to us along with enough evidence to bury him for the rest of his life. Leaving not a single actionable clue as to who they are, how they did it, what made them turn their attention to him, and what they got out of it."
"Aside from a hell of a lot of money," Renick pointed out wryly, making Armsmaster glance at him then nod.
"True. However I very much doubt that an agency capable of what they demonstrably are lacks a budget that probably dwarfs that of the PRT itself. I feel that taking his resources was more in the nature of a punishment for him rather than an end in itself. Proving that they could and there was nothing at all he could do about it."
Emily smirked slightly. That was plausible, and in a sense very funny. Calvert must have nearly had a heart attack when he found out how screwed he was…
"I'm somewhat surprised that they did hand him over, rather than just making him disappear for good," she said. "Obviously they could have done that without any problems. It's easier than what they did do. Most of the black ops I've heard of in the past wouldn't have had any compunctions about cleaning up loose ends after they got what they were after."
"The thought occurs to me that by handing him back along with all the evidence they gave us, they are getting what they're after," Renick suggested, looking somewhat disturbed. Both Emily and Armsmaster stared at him, then looked at each other.
"That… is a thought I can't say I like," Emily finally replied.
"But it is also quite possible," Armsmaster commented in a considering tone. "It may be that they're sending a message. Or several messages. Telling us that they are capable of doing what we can't, or won't, for example. While also showing up holes in our own operations in a way that allows us to close them without it becoming public knowledge. And possibly as a warning that they are operating in the city, and are watching us. Victor's disappearance may well be part of the same message. It was a masterstroke of planning, identifying one of the key figures in the E88 and removing him without a trace to indicate how or where he went. He is in many ways the single most dangerous cape the E88 possessed, and by removing him from play they've drastically crippled Kaiser's reach, taken a potent force multiplier off the table, demonstrated to us that they can reach further than we can, and likely gained a large amount of inside information on the Empire's operations. "
Renick was nodding with a small frown, and put in when the other man stopped, "Assuming he talks."
"I have little doubt that he will tell them anything they wish to know," Armsmaster replied quietly. "Eventually."
Emily couldn't quite suppress a shiver. She had some fairly unpleasant ideas of what people like this mysterious organization were capable if only based on knowing what the PRT was capable of given suitable reason. Any group like the one they were dealing with was highly unlikely to be nearly as nice as the PRT was if pushed hard enough.
She almost felt sorry for Victor.
Then she realized she was almost feeling sorry for a murderous Nazi and got over it immediately.
Hopefully he was having at least as hard a time as her imagination suspected he was…
"This whole situation is disquieting at best," she said after they'd been silent for a few seconds of thought. "However, we do at least have Calvert, which I for one am very pleased about. I have a lot of things to discuss with that man."
"As do I," Armsmaster growled. "At length."
"It'll have to wait," Renick remarked, looking at the folder in front of him. "The man is currently in no fit state to talk about anything."
"I thought everyone involved was physically fine, merely exhausted?" Emily raised an eyebrow as she leaned forward a little. "What's the problem with him?"
"Oh, he's physically in reasonable shape, true," her deputy replied, picking a page out of the folder and handing it over to her. She accepted it and quickly scanned it, listening as he summarized the medical report. "Mentally is a different matter. The medical opinion is that he hasn't slept for probably at least three days, which is bad enough and would leave him in a fairly fragile state on its own. But… there's evidence he may have had some sort of psychotic break . Not to the point of being clinically insane, but he's… not right. Babbling about a chair that follows him around the room and stares at him, that's one thing."
She looked at him in bemused bafflement. "A… chair?"
"A chair. Yes. No, I have no damn idea what that means, but he wouldn't shut up about it when he finally woke up from what appeared to be some sort of minor coma according to the doctors. He's also obsessed with the idea that something enormous was watching him from somewhere outside and laughing at him."
She squinted at him. "Outside what?" she queried.
He shrugged, "Just… Outside. He isn't very clear on that. But he said it looks at him and keeps laughing. And there was something else that was grinning at him like a fox, he said. No fucking idea what all that is about, but clearly there's something very wrong with the inside of his head."
"That sounds like an understatement." She shook her own head slowly, wondering what on earth he'd experienced to end up like he had. The medical report confirmed he was physically uninjured but mentally seemed more than slightly adrift. Handing it back to Mike, she watched as he slipped it back into the folder.
"It may simply be stress from whatever his captors put him through combined with lack of sleep and worry about his fate," Armsmaster remarked, having been listening with a thoughtful expression. "Calvert always struck me as somewhat highly stressed at the best of times, to be honest. Considering what we now know about the man, that's not surprising. He may have been on the edge of a mental breakdown for some time now and whatever happened tipped him over the edge."
"Possible, I suppose."
"The problem at the moment is that he's nearly incoherent and doesn't really respond to questions," Renick went on after a moment. "Just babbles about chairs and fox-things grinning at him and laughter from outside, in between claiming that 'they took it from me.'" He shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea what it is, and neither does anyone else. But he's certainly not in a position to be interrogated for now. The doctors are working on a suitable treatment for the man, probably some antipsychotics at a minimum, and tell me he's likely to need days at least, probably weeks, before he's in a state fit for questioning. Quite possibly longer."
"If they have to pump him so full of thorazine he gurgles when he walks I can live with that, as long as we can get everything he knows out of him," Emily grumbled.
Renick shrugged. "We'll have to wait and see how he responds to treatment. We've set up suitable countermeasures for his power just in case he has a sudden attack of sanity, or if this is actually some sort of act, but from what I've seen and what the medical assessment found, that at least is very unlikely. All we can do is sit on him while we question everyone else and go through all the data we received. There's already enough there that we can put him and probably them away for the rest of their lives."
"The data package included a number of transcripts of interrogation sessions for most of the mercenaries and Calvert too, which may well answer most of the questions we have for him," Armsmaster said, making Emily look to him. "I highly doubt they turned over everything they learned from him, but we certainly received a lot of information specifically of interest to us. Three of the mercenaries have so far been queried about their relevant transcripts and confirmed them as factual, which suggests the rest probably are as well. So we have enough to begin our own investigation even absent Mr Calvert's input, especially combined with the vast amount of other data."
She nodded, tapping a finger on the desk as she thought. "Where was he doing all this? He must have had some sort of base, correct?"
"Undoubtedly, but we aren't yet sure where," Armsmaster replied immediately. "To be honest that has been a lower priority matter compared with transporting all the evidence and captured personnel. It's next on the list to work on. Once we locate it, we can sweep it for anything our unknown group may have left behind. I expect that Calvert had a very large computer system, the tapes prove just how much data he possessed and I assume they're only a partial record of the full system. To be able to do what he was doing he'd need a significant amount of processing power and storage, quite likely a significant fraction of our own system and possibly in fact purloined from the PRT in the first place. I would like to lay hands on that if I could."
"Personally I'd be surprised if these people left that behind," Renick commented with a wry smile. Armsmaster sighed faintly and nodded agreement.
"I believe you're probably correct but it's worth checking."
"What about weapons, equipment other than the computers, anything of that nature?" she asked curiously. "Did they hand over anything like that? Or was it just the documentation? Sixty or so mercenaries armed to the teeth like we know they were must have had an armory bigger than ours is. He had Tinker Tech laser rifles for god's sake, according to the reports."
"No, aside from their clothes and the tapes and paperwork, nothing else came in the boxed set," Renick replied with a momentary smile, as she snorted with mild amusement. "We've found some documentation suggesting he'd… acquired… a fairly appalling amount of weapons from various sources, including the military which is going to annoy the hell out of them when they find out, but none of that was given to us. I would assume this group either kept them or disposed of them somehow. We may never know what happened to that equipment but I doubt we'll see it again."
"Worrying, but I suppose better that they're in the hands of professionals than a super-villain's private army, I suppose," Emily grumbled, having thought it over. "At least they're unlikely to end up on the street or in the possession of someone like the Empire."
"True enough," her second in command nodded.
"I find myself wondering," Armsmaster commented thoughtfully after a few seconds of silence and making both the others look at him, "which villain will be the next to vanish…"
Emily and Mike exchanged glances, then she turned back to the Tinker. "You think more will get… acquired? Why?"
"Logically if this group is actively working to take down the villains in this area, which seems as plausible a reason for them to be here as any other I can come up with, such a goal would require further actions. They took out Coil in one operation, but they only captured Victor so far from the E88. As I said earlier, this was clearly a very carefully considered move to both drastically limit the Empire's effectiveness and gain insight into its inner workings in one action. The work of someone truly skilled at gang analysis, I would expect, and covert operations as well. We ourselves have removed Rune and Othala from the board, so in total the Empire is down their healer, one of their Movers and Blasters, and their overwatch sniper cum intelligence expert and all the other tasks Victor excelled at. It may only be three capes in total but it's disproportionately crippling for them. Kaiser is undoubtedly extremely annoyed by the whole situation."
"I can't find it in myself to be particularly upset about his feelings," Renick commented, making Armsmaster twitch a smile for a second and Emily chuckle.
"No, neither can I, to be honest. It's been quite satisfying imagining his response… I will also point out that precisely because Victor was taken at that carefully calculated point in time, we were able to be much more effective in our own operation than we've tended to be in the recent past. And, of course, without Calvert in play to interfere, which is certainly something that's happened in previous operations, as well as the change in transport methods you, Director, implemented also because of Calvert, we were able to ensure that both our captives were successfully exfiltrated from the city before the Empire could mount a rescue. One that they'd have had significant trouble with due to lacking Victor, their expert in such things, and again our having cleaned house and found their moles. Once again due to looking for Calvert."
He shook his head rather respectfully. "Our unknown allies have made a dramatic impact on how successful we can be against the E88 by capturing one single key player at exactly the right moment, and set the stage for a whole series of significant changes with their action against Calvert. I can't help but wonder how they knew the exact point in time to act against him, and Victor, to achieve so much with so relatively little effort… It potentially implies they have more knowledge of our own operational methods than seems plausible."
"You think they've got some inside people in the PRT?" Emily queried, worried. "Even right here in this command?"
He shrugged slightly, shaking his head. "I doubt they have assets directly associated with either of our commands, Director. We've done so much careful background checking of literally everyone in both the PRT ENE and the Protectorate ENE that it would probably have come to light."
"Although considering how good these guys are, maybe they've got someone so deep cover that we won't find them no matter how hard we look," Renick pointed out with an uncomfortable expression.
Armsmaster considered the comment, then slowly and admittedly a little cautiously shook his head. "That is, I can't deny, possible. I think it's very unlikely even so. And the problem of course is that if we start thinking like that, we'll end up spiraling into a level of paranoia, driven by absence of evidence being seen as proof that the people we suspect to exist are so good that they can't be found, that we'll spend all our time looking for something that's probably not there in the first place. It's happened before. No, I think it's more likely that there is a team of exceptionally good Thinkers associated with our putative covert group, combined with a very deep insight into how organizations like ours work, and many years of experience. Such a thing is very difficult indeed to do anything about."
"It sounds like a Thinker team better than Watchdog is," she remarked, not sure whether she was more horrified or impressed.
"And faster, if the interrogated prisoners are right about what happened when they were questioned," Renick put in. "Either these people already knew a hell of a lot of things about Coil's organization, which implies they were watching him for a long time before they grabbed him, or their Thinkers are so good they could derive that information more or less in real time. Which is insane. We don't have people that can do that. Precog, maybe? A really good one at that. Or something we haven't seen before…"
"Either or both would seem possible, and fit the evidence for both Coil's takedown and the E88 connection," Armsmaster nodded. "And it's entirely possible as well that both your suggestions are with merit; they might have been watching Calvert for an extended time and able to adjust their questioning ad hoc as required. We just don't have enough information to know one way or the other, all we can do is observe the data and draw possibly incorrect conclusions from it."
"Which means we probably don't bother wasting too much time on it," Emily sighed. "Someone this good, we'll likely never find out the real truth. We sure won't find it out by guessing on the basis of too little information. We should concentrate on what we can do with the information we have now, work through the data they gave us, and deal with the problems we can do something about. However it happened, we've got an opportunity we've not had for years, so we need to capitalize on that and leave the spook business to the spooks for now."
"I concur, Director," Armsmaster nodded. "We may find out more in future but for now we have more important tasks ahead of us. And if our unknown friends do decide to help themselves to more villains, that will probably open up other chances for us we should make sure to use to their fullest."
"On the other hand they might have achieved exactly what they set out to and we'll never see a sign of them again," Renick said, looking slightly amused as well as somewhat frustrated.
"That's certainly possible, yes," the Tinker replied, smiling briefly. "At this point in time there's no real way to know. All we can do is wait and see, while doing our jobs."
Emily tapped her fingers on the desk a few times, considering their conversation so far, then shrugged. "Agreed. For now, we'll trust that whoever the hell is sneaking around in the background knows what they're up do and have good reasons for doing it so… annoyingly. We'll deal with Calvert and his people, keep our eyes open for any opportunity to give the E88 a hard time again, and move on with our lives." She pushed herself erect with a minor grunt. "But for today, I think that's enough. Calvert will have to wait until he's closer to something approximating sanity, and his people can stew in the cells until we've all had a rest over the holidays. They're not going anywhere."
"Very definitely not, Director," Armsmaster agreed soberly. He also stood, as did Renick. "In that case, I wish you a good holiday period. You as well, Deputy Director." He nodded to them both, then turned to leave.
"Merry Christmas, Colin," Emily said as he reached the door, feeling unaccountably cheerful at the moment. He looked back at her, then smiled a little.
"Thank you, Emily," he replied quietly. "The same to both of you." Moments later he'd gone and the door swung shut behind him.
"Got plans for the rest of today?" Mike asked as he collected his documents and tapped them straight.
She looked at him, then at her watch. "I'm planning on treating myself to a good meal, some decent music, and a relaxing evening for once," she admitted, smiling slightly. "For the first time in a long time I'm feeling positive about the near future."
"Weird, isn't it?" he chuckled. "I wonder what the next strange thing will be?"
"I have no fucking idea, but I'm sure there'll be one sooner or later," she replied, shaking her head as they left the secure conference room. "That's how this city works, after all."
"Damn straight it does," he agreed. "Have a good night, Emily."
"You too, Mike. My best to your family." Lifting a hand in a wave, she headed in the opposite direction, while wondering just who it was who'd given her such a nice present for Christmas.
Whoever it was, and despite the bizarre methods used, she was quite pleased with the outcome, all things considered.
"Merry Christmas, Lisa."
Lisa looked at Taylor, then Danny, then the small pile of wrapped presents under the tree the latter had brought home a couple of days ago. "You… didn't have to get me anything, you know, guys," she said slightly unevenly, feeling a wave of unaccustomed emotion go through her. A flashback to happier days years ago when she was much younger and her brother was their with her, before things all became… bad… hit her forcefully and she found herself sitting down on the sofa rather suddenly.
"We wanted to," Taylor replied with a smile. "You're my friend. We may not have known each other for all that long, but…" She shrugged, putting her hand on Lisa's back and patting it a few times. "You are a friend. And it's Christmas. Time for friends and family to be together, regardless of what you believe." The younger girl gave Lisa a look of understanding as Lisa herself felt a tear gather in the corner of her eye, which she wiped away with the back of her hand.
"And U.N.I.O.N. people stick together," the brunette added wisely, making Lisa burst out laughing, and Danny shake his head with a grin.
"Thanks," Lisa finally replied, calming down and smiling back at the two Heberts. "I mean that."
"I know you do," Taylor assured her, picking up the largest present and handing it to her. "Try this one first." She sat next to Lisa, as Danny moved to the chair opposite the sofa and also sat. Lisa deliberately didn't let her power ruin the surprise, something that was much easier these days, and started unwrapping the thing. She could feel her power was watching with interest and a certain amount of affection too, something that was still strange but becoming less so as time passed.
When she'd removed the paper she looked at the contents revealed under it. They'd given her a high end laptop, one that had everything she could possibly want and something she could make very good use of. "Wow. Thanks. Very much indeed," she finally said, looking up at them both in turn. "You sure didn't have to spend this much on me."
"We've got the money now, so why not?" Danny smiled. "I hope it's useful to you."
"It will be," she replied gratefully, opening the box and admiring the sleek top of the line Draco-Tech machine lying inside the padded interior.
He handed her a much smaller box, which rattled slightly when she put the laptop to one side and accepted it. "This one is from me."
Lisa shook it again, then tore the paper off and opened the prosaic little plastic container. Inside was… a key?
Her ability gently prodded her, and her eyes widened slightly. "This is the key to the front door," she said slowly.
"Indeed."
"Why?"
"Because you need somewhere to live, we both like you, and we have a spare room," he shrugged, smiling. "May as well make it official. It's yours as long as you want."
She stared at him, then Taylor, before nodding carefully. "Thank you again," she said, unable to think of anything else which was very unusual for her.
Lisa could see in their faces they knew what she was feeling even so. Taylor looked pleased, and Danny was grinning.
Yeah. Coming to this city had, after a rocky start, been the best thing she'd done for a very long time.
And they hadn't even got to the really cool stuff yet…
Carefully putting the house key down on the coffee table, she leaned back and enjoyed opening the other small presents, and watching both her friends open theirs. On the whole, she mused, she was exactly where she needed to be, and she could tell her power thought the same thing.
And somewhere much too close and still infinitely far away, something enormous seemed to wink at her, Taylor looking up at the ceiling for a moment when that happened and smiling slightly before going back to what she was doing.
"Emma actually responded to a question," Anne said as they got into the car. She was feeling a strange mixture of sadness and hope. Looking back at the hospital while she put her seatbelt on, she sighed. "Do you think that means…" Unable to really continue the question she trailed off. Her father and mother looked at her, then each other. Reaching back, her mom took her hand and squeezed it.
"I hope so, dear," she replied quietly. "I really hope so. Time will tell."
As her dad started the car she caught him looking at the building as well. He swallowed a little, then nodded. "All we can do is hope, and support her as much as we can," he said in a low voice, sounding depressed but still seemingly trying to remain positive. He met her eyes in the rear view mirror. "She'll come back to us, but it's going to take a lot of effort from everyone."
Anne nodded silently, leaning her head back on the seat and not looking as he pulled away. She wasn't sure she could turn her gaze back at the building without bursting into tears. Soon they were on the freeway heading home, and to a Christmas dinner lacking someone that should be there.
She hoped desperately that this state of affairs would improve. She missed her sister so much it hurt sometimes.
Her mom's phone ringing made her open her eyes, having closed them due to sadness, and watch as the older woman pulled the device out of her pocket and looked at it before answering. "Hello, Danny. Merry Christmas."
There was a short pause, then she replied sadly, "We've just left the hospital. She's… well, she's definitely improving, but she's a long way from normal. We've got hope, though."
Anne listened as her mother went quiet again, nodding a couple of times. "Thank you. It means a lot, especially considering… yeah. I know. I try to think that, but it's so hard. Yes. You're right, of course." Her mom rubbed her eyes with her forefinger and thumb, nodding again to herself. "Probably. All we can do is wait and see."
Danny apparently spoke for some time, while Anne's mom looked slightly surprised, then pleased. "To be honest, Danny, I think we'd all like that. Home is… it's not the same without Emma in it. Perhaps you're right. Hold on, I'll ask the others." She lifted the phone from her ear and looked at Anne, then her husband, both of whom were listening although Anne's dad was mostly concentrating on driving. "Danny invited us to come over to their house for dinner."
Anne looked at her father. He only hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I think that's a wonderful idea. What about the turkey though?"
"It's defrosted but not cooked. We can go home and I can cook it, then we can take it with us. Danny said they have plenty of food as well, so between both of us we certainly won't starve."
"Sounds more like we'll all be in a food coma for a week," he replied with a snort, sounding more cheerful than he had for a while. Anne giggled and her mother looked amused. "Yeah. Why not. Let's do that. It's Christmas, we deserve too much food and some friends around."
"I agree," Anne put in from the rear seat, her mother glancing at her and smiling, then putting the phone to her ear again.
"We'll do it, Danny," she said. "Around seven? Yes, that's no problem at all. We'll be there. And… Danny? Thank you. And Taylor. This means a lot to all of us."
Looking far happier than only minutes ago, Anne's mother said her goodbyes then disconnected and put her phone away. "I am so very glad that the Hebert's are such good people," she said after a long moment of silence, reaching back to hold Anne's hand again. "I couldn't bear to go through this and have lost them as friends as well."
"I know what you mean, Zoe," her husband replied softly as Anne nodded without a word. "I know exactly what you mean."
The reduced family was mostly quiet on the way home, but they all felt much happier than they had done on the trip to the hospital.
Life wasn't perfect, Anne mused, but it wasn't nearly as bad in some ways as it could have been.
And, never forget, they had an underground base to steal, so there was that to look forward to…
She was still giggling when they got out of the car at home, but wouldn't tell her parents why.