"Whatcha doing?" Lisa dropped onto Taylor's bed and grinned at her friend, who was sitting at her desk bent over a collection of small brass and copper parts, a tiny screwdriver in her hand.

Without looking away from her task, her friend replied, "Making a better gnurr pfeife. In theory, anyway."

Lisa paused, then very carefully and with some trepidation asked, "Better how? Because it already calls more gnurrs than any sane person, or even you, would consider reasonable."

Taylor laughed under her breath. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to increase the number of gnurrs. You're right, it brings a sufficient quantity for most purposes. I'm trying to make it have some more safeguards."

"Which means?"

The other girl looked over her shoulder, then down at the small collection of shiny parts in her hands. "Which means I'm adding some anti copying functions. I think."

Spinning her chair around she waved the thing she was holding at Lisa, who examined it with interest. Her power was doing the same and complaining it didn't make any sense, but by now both of them were used to that. "See, the issue with Papa's original widget was that it was possible to record what he played. And if you played that recording back, it worked nearly as well as a live performance."

After a moment Lisa winced while her power looked horrified. "Ah."

"Yeah. It worked over a radio link too. Which, according to his notes, got a bit… awkward. And took a fair bit to fix. Because the people who ended up with the recording firstly didn't realize you had to play it backwards to unsummon the gnurrs, and even if they had the gnurrs ate their recording. And their equipment. And their building. And most of the town…."

"And their pants, based on what I've seen," Lisa couldn't help commenting, which made Taylor grin.

"That does tend to be something of a hazard around gnurrs, sure," she agreed. Looking at the device she was holding, she went on, "On paper, assuming I got the math right and I understand how it works the way I think it does, this will add a special set of harmonics which will block it from being recorded, broadcast, or any other sort of thing like that. It'll only work live."

"That certainly sounds like a sensible safety precaution," Lisa agreed with a nod.

"U.N.I.O.N. is fully OSHA compliant with its eldritch manipulations of the concept of yesterday," Taylor giggled, turning back to the desk. Putting the device down, she pulled a desktop magnifier on an articulated stand over it, turned the built in light on, and leaned forward. Lisa got up and moved to watch over her shoulder as the other girl put the screwdriver down inside the open end of the small construction and very slowly and carefully made some adjustments. The glint of one of her variant of Papa's special crystals could be seen deep inside the thing, and as she tweaked the screw, a faint hum started up.

"Great. I think that's working," Taylor muttered, while Lisa's power commented with confusion that somehow energy was being released without any sign of where it was coming from. This upset it even as it fascinated it. "It's definitely showing piezouncertainty as I calculated..."

The hum wavered in and out of audibility as Taylor fiddled with several other screws around the crystal, a few flashes of familiar iridescent light coming and going every now and then. Eventually she picked up a tiny wrench, obviously one of the ones they'd found in the DWA store room, and used it to hold a nut still while she adjusted the screw going through it. The hum evened out after briefly causing harmonics that made Lisa's teeth itch, then died away to barely perceptible. Turning the nut a fraction Taylor locked it down and nodded.

"There. That should do it." She put the tools to one side then picked the new gnurr resonator up and very gently blew across the open end as it if was a bottle she was trying to get a note out of. The eerie atonal moan that arose, peaked, and died away caused the hairs on the back of Lisa's neck to stand on end and her power to wince in mild shock, over and under tones surrounding the audible part with harmonics that were frankly disturbing as hell. Outside, in the distance, several dogs started barking frantically.

"Resonates properly, so with a bit of luck it'll work," Taylor said, smiling. "We'll need to talk to Dad and find which warehouse we don't need for some tests. And take something to try recording it with, of course."

"That sounded even more freaky than the original gnurr pfeife did," Lisa pointed out.

"The freakiness is how you know it's working!" Taylor exclaimed brightly, making Lisa sigh.

"You're weird, you know that?"

"Guilty as charged," her friend giggled. Putting the resonator to the side she busied herself tidying up the small collection of metal shavings and off-cuts, some of them being put into a box for useful bits the rest going into a plastic bag that she dropped into the waste bin next to the desk. Once her tools were all back into the old wooden toolbox they'd come from, she vanished it, along with the gnurr resonator, turned her chair around, and tipped it back, putting her feet up on her bed. Lisa sat next to them and flopped backwards.

"So that's done. What next? I've read half those books we got and want a break," she said.

"Anne's still at college, and Dad's at work," Taylor said thoughtfully. "We're all on our own. You know what that means…"

A slow smile spread across Lisa's face as she gazed at the ceiling. "We have been left… unsupervised."

"Indeed we have." Taylor emitted a low chuckle. "We can't be held responsible for what happens in that case, right?"

"Some would say it's a mark of maturity to be, well… mature," Lisa pointed out.

"We can be very mature. That won't stop us having fun though."

"A valid point, yes." Lisa nodded thoughtfully. "So what, bearing in mind it's the middle of winter on a Friday, would count as fun under the circumstances?"

"Both the Dallons will be at school, of course," Taylor replied, tugging her bottom lip as she pondered the matter. "So we can't ask them if they want to meet up and advance the friendship they so clearly need. And Edgar is with Amy, so he's out."

"You think Edgar would be up for something interesting?" Lisa queried with a raised eyebrow.

"He's a smart little guy from what I've seen and I have a feeling his sense of humor is a lot of fun," Taylor grinned. "Sure seems that way from what Amy and Vicky told us."

"I can sense some very strange things in the near future."

"Yeah, me too. I can hardly wait. Anyway, what else is there? We could go and find another Nazi. There's lots of them wandering around still."

"Isn't two enough?"

"The more test subjects the better, you know that, Agent Thinky."

"Fair. Your dad is going to sigh again though if we come home with three Nazis this time."

"No reason to stop at three."

"Also fair. And the fewer Nazis around the better, that's pretty obvious too." Lisa nodded. "But at the same time we don't want to leave any traces of what happened. If they keep vanishing and we're somehow known to have been nearby, like from traffic cameras or something, that could possibly lead someone who wanted to put enough effort in to suspecting we might be involved even if they can't figure out how. The PRT, or even the cops. We're on record as having been right there when Alabaster disappeared, which they'll work out happened sooner or later. Even if the E88 doesn't tell anyone."

"True," Taylor agreed. She frowned. "And well worth thinking about. We need to avoid leaving traces of U.N.I.O.N.'s activities. Dad's organization can only work from the shadows after all." They grinned at each other.

"That is the U.N.I.O.N. way, definitely. No one is even sure we were there to begin with."

"OK. So if we steal more Nazis we need to make sure we're nowhere near them. That's a little more fiddly to arrange but it's not actually that difficult. I can nab someone from blocks away if I know where they are. And Administrator is grinning at me, because she wants to play too, and says she'll help to avoid attention…"

Lisa looked around the room, feeling the sensation of something very large watching them closely become apparent then fade away. Her power sent her an impression of also finding that odd, which considering what it was, was a little disturbing. Taylor seemed to just be amused.

"That will never be anything other than fucking peculiar," Lisa commented.

"She means well," Taylor assured her. "But she doesn't yet have the people skills your power does."

"You think my power has people skills?" Lisa asked with a funny expression.

"It seems to be pretty good at it, at least as far as talking to you goes," her friend smiled. "I'm reasonably sure that puts it into a very small class of super powers. We need to come up with a good term for the alien supercomputers, really. It's a bit of a mouthful. But yeah, your power is particularly chatty from what I've seen, and I think that's unusual."

"Administrator certainly seems to talk to you," Lisa pointed out.

"Oh, sure, but I had to kick that off. We're still working on it. She sure doesn't talk like your power does to you, from what you told me. Mind you, I still think that's got something to do with how powers actually link into the brain, and because I did it my way I've done something strange to the whole setup."

"Everything you do is strange, Taylor," Lisa laughed.

"From some viewpoints I can see how you'd think that," her friend grinned. "But it's fun too, right?"

"Oh, god, yes. So much fun."

Taylor suddenly looked thoughtful. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Hmmm… Now there's an idea," she remarked slowly in a low voice. "I think… Yeah, that would actually work." Tapping her lip, she pondered whatever it was she was pondering while Lisa watched somewhat nervously. That expression on her friend's face seemed to invariably precede something a little out of the ordinary happening, in her recent experience. "I think." Dropping her feet to the floor, Taylor spun her chair around again to face her desk, manifested one of her notebooks from beneath along with a pen, and flipped to a new page. Shortly she was scribbling rapidly, stopping every now and then to use a calculator, and occasionally nodding to herself.

Taylor Hebert is doing it again

The very dry comment inside her head, accompanied by a weird combination of mild worry, amusement, and resignation made Lisa laugh, it was so unexpected. Taylor glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow. "My power seems to think you're going to do something bizarre again," she explained.

The other girl grinned, going back to her calculations. "Probably. Depends entirely on what you consider bizarre, I guess."

"You. Very much you," Lisa giggled, making Taylor do the same. A few minutes later, during which Lisa had got up to watch over her shoulder, feeding both her own interest and her power's, she finished and sat back. Flipping through several pages of complex and strange notation, she double checked her work before underlining the final string of results.

"Pretty sure that will work," she said cheerfully.

"If I'm following it properly, I… think so?" Lisa replied after some seconds, gazing at the notebook. Her friend had taught her, and her power, a lot about Papa-tech, but she would be the first to admit that Taylor was far ahead of anyone in the subject. Probably even Papa, because from what she'd read in the journals Taylor had let her look at, the man did most of this sort of thing subconsciously whereas the other girl actually appeared to understand a lot of it.

Papa was a subconscious genius. Taylor was very much a conscious one, especially when it came to this peculiar version of science.

"Want to see if it does?"

"Might as well. If it doesn't…"

"If it doesn't nothing much happens. If it does it'll be fun. And useful, actually." Taylor grinned, closing the notebook and putting it away, then stood up. "It was the new crystals that gave me the key. Pretty sure the concept is transferable."

"Where do you want to try it?"

"The basement's as good as anywhere," the other girl replied, heading to the door of her room, Lisa following. "Let's see if it does what I think it will."

Both girls left the room and descended the stairs, feeling curious and anticipatory.

"Someone here to see you, Danny," Kurt said from his office door. Danny looked up from the paperwork he was editing, feeling a sense of deja vu. "Don't worry, it's not like yesterday," his friend grinned, making him sigh in relief. "It's Alan."

Indeed, a second later, Alan Barnes popped into view behind the other man. Danny smiled and waved him in as Kurt stepped aside, nodded to both of them, and wandered off. "Alan! What brings you here? Everything OK?"

"Everything's fine, Danny, or as fine as it can be right now," his friend assured him, taking the chair Danny indicated. "I was just passing on the way back from seeing Emma at the hospital and thought why not stop for a visit. I haven't been here for… well, years, it must be."

He looked around the office. "Doesn't seem to have changed much," he added with a smile.

"No, things are pretty much the same, at least here," Danny chuckled. "Quite a few changes in other places though."

"So Anne said. She seemed impressed."

Danny grinned. "I'm not sure if that's good or not," he admitted.

"Good. Anne needs the distraction, and doing things with Taylor and Lisa have definitely helped her keep her mind off… the problems," Alan replied somewhat sadly. "For which you both have my thanks. You standing by us even after what happened is the only thing, I think, that's kept my family together. I owe Taylor particularly a debt I can never repay for that."

"Alan, that's what friends do," Danny responded after a few seconds. "You've known Taylor all her life. Me most of mine. You know it would take something… incredibly bad… to change our friendship."

"Hess nearly managed it," Alan sighed, looking past Danny out the window of his office towards the bay.

"She tried. She failed. Taylor was the better person, and she realized that Emma was a victim too. We've been over this." Standing, Danny walked over to his friend and squeezed his shoulder. "No need to go over it again. Things will, somehow, work out. Just keep that in your mind and stop obsessing about the past. That's something it took me far too long to learn, believe me."

"Easier to say than do," Alan noted.

"Damn right, but it's still worth doing even if it's hard work," he agreed. "Come on. I need to go and find out a few things down in the main workshop. You can have a look around, you haven't been here for way too long, and we can get lunch in the cafeteria. By the sound of it you need some coffee."

Alan laughed slightly and stood. "I remember the coffee you guys make. If I drink a cup of that I'll be so awake I'll be vibrating for two hours."

"Yeah, it's pretty good," Danny chuckled.

"I didn't say that, did I?"

"Be nice or I won't take you to Pat's place afterward."

Alan grinned, looking more cheerful, as they headed through the outer office and went deeper into the DWA buildings, talking idly about happier times and both agreeing without a word to let the past lie in the past where it belonged, for good or ill.

"So what do we have?" Emily asked, looking up as Mike Renick and Armsmaster came into her office and sat down.

"Looks like the Network did it again," Renick replied, appearing somewhat pleased in a rather strange way. She stared at him, then sighed heavily.

"Who did they get?"

"Alabaster, Director. Or at least that appears to be the case. He's seemingly vanished without trace, and various intercepted chatter claims that Kaiser is angry enough to kill someone." Armsmaster shook his head. "Admittedly that's a low bar to clear in his case."

"I see." Emily sighed again reached into her pocket, before handing Renick a twenty. "I hate you sometimes," she commented as he snapped it between his fingers with a triumphant look, then put it away.

"Just because I'm better at guessing…"

"You got lucky and you know it," she growled. Looking back to Armsmaster as her deputy grinned, she went on, "What happened?"

"Two days ago an E88 team went after an ABB group who had, based on what we've determined, raided an Empire weapons cache while the Empire is distracted. An informant apparently let slip the location and that it was unguarded due to Kaiser currently being more concerned with attempting to locate Victor and also being short handed due to the loss of Othala and Rune on top of that. Additionally our operation that led to their capture seems to have reduced his manpower sufficiently that the organization neglected to guard several hidden depots they maintained."

Armsmaster smiled a little grimly. "Unfortunately during their operation to steal Empire weapons, it appears that a group of Empire gang members including Alabaster purely coincidentally happened across them mid-theft. They did not react well."

"What he means is it turned into a running gun battle for several miles through the city," Renick added. "The E88 crew really weren't happy and there were about twice as many of them as the ABB had available. More heavily armed too. They opened fire on the spot and took out a number of the opposition while the others managed to escape in one of their vehicles. The Empire pursued, and it turned into something out of a movie. Both sets of idiots shooting at each other while driving like lunatics. Remarkably enough no member of the public was killed, but two Empire gang members and five of the ABB died at the initial encounter. There there were a dozen wounding casualties, multiple destroyed vehicles one of which started a fire that burned down a shop on James Street, and lots of broken windows from stray rounds. Complete chaos, but it could easily have been much worse."

"Jesus." Emily listened to the report with concern. And curiosity, because… "Why didn't we get involved?"

"BBPD was dealing with it as an unpowered gang fight, and it was only when they finally managed to catch the perps that one of them mentioned Alabaster was involved. No one knew until that point. No trace of him at the site it all ended, which was a mess. Both vehicles crashed and rolled, one due to mechanical issues and one because it hit a fuck-off big pothole and lost a wheel. The video from a restaurant's CCTV system down the road a ways is pretty spectacular. I'm a little surprised none of them ended up dead as a result, air bags or no air bags." Renick shook his head.

"Blind luck and modern automotive engineering, I suppose. Anyway, when the Empire vehicle crashed, it ejected the driver right through the windscreen. When the cops found out Alabaster was allegedly present too, they checked but couldn't find a trace of him. Their working assumption is that he got punted out as well but because of his power got up and ran. Must have realized that without backup he's only got the ability to not die going for him. That wouldn't help much if enough cops went after the bastard."

"The interesting part Mr Renick hasn't mentioned yet is that Glory Girl was on site and apprehended the Empire minions before the BBPD arrived," Armsmaster put in with a glance at Renick, who nodded. "As well as Panacea, who healed a wounded bystander and stabilized both the Empire and ABB members. Undoubtedly saving the life of at least the Empire driver who by the report filed was severely injured in the crash. She also volunteered to deal with the other casualties, an offer that was accepted by the BBPD."

Emily nodded thoughtfully. "Was Glory Girl in pursuit of the perps?"

"No, it was purely coincidental," Renick replied. "She and her sister were at an Italian restaurant almost on top of where the vehicles crashed, with some friends, for a meal. Luckily they were able to render aid, as it could have become much more complicated without their assistance."

"I see." She nodded again. "The BBPD didn't call us in because there was no reason to at the time based on the information available, and when they discovered a Parahuman had been involved, he was gone. Makes sense. I assume they contacted us afterwards?"

"They followed procedure and filed a report of a potential Parahuman interaction with no direct contact, Director. Hence our knowledge of the situation." Armsmaster glanced at Renick, then looked back. "One interesting point that came up in their report involves the witness statements."

"And that is?"

"Two of the people interviewed were one Taylor Hebert, and one Anne Barnes."

Emily's eyebrows rose a little. "Related to Ms Emma Barnes?"

"Her older sister. Yes, Ma'am. Apparently they were the friends the Dallon sisters were having a meal with, along with a young woman by the name of Lisa Wilborne, a friend of Taylor Heberts."

"I see. I take it Ms Hebert wasn't injured in the event?" Emily had been impressed by the young woman and felt an odd sense of wanting her to not have anything more dropped on her, after the recent issues she still found herself angry about.

"No, she was entirely undamaged, as were the others." Renick shrugged. "Everyone hit the deck when the gunfire started, and aside from one ricochet wound, got away with it."

"Good." Emily thought for a moment. "Do we know for sure that the Network got Alabaster?"

She was only slightly wondering if she could get her twenty back, of course.

Renick looked like he knew exactly what she was thinking and shrugged with a small smile. "No, we don't, but then we don't know they got Victor either. On the other hand, both of them have completely vanished, Kaiser is chewing nails about it so he didn't do it, we certainly didn't, so who's left? This is kind of the way they seem to operate. It's a logical conclusion and until we get proof one way or the other I'm personally feeling safe in saying it was them."

"I suppose that's true enough," she agreed with a frown. "Those people are way too good at this sort of crap. I wonder when they got him?"

"Most likely when he was trying to get back to an Empire safe house," Armsmaster replied promptly. "There were no sightings of him either we or the BBPD can confirm, although a number of witnesses claim to have seen someone who might have been Alabaster in multiple locations at approximately that time. Although, as usual, these sightings are so widely distributed geographically they seem very unlikely to all be valid. I suspect very few if any of them are other than the standard panic response civilians are prone to when they see something they can't immediately identify. It's a common problem."

"That's true enough," she agreed with a small sigh, recalling some of the reports she'd read over the years. Members of the public were notoriously bad at recalling accurate details of unexpected events. It was a hazard of the profession and why they tried to confirm such things with less subjective information. Which wasn't always possible, of course. "So he could have vanished from anywhere between the crash site and potentially miles away. That's… unhelpful."

"I think it unlikely we'll be any more effective in determining what happened and how than we have been in previous Network operations," Armsmaster said after they'd been silent for a few seconds. He shrugged a little helplessly. "They're far too practiced and adept at such operations and I very much doubt they'd have left any clues for us. Unless those were deliberately left, of course. That does appear to be part of their modus operandi, possibly purely for the psychological impact. We know they're fond of psy-ops, after all."

Shaking her head in reluctant admiration of the abilities of the mysterious spook organization, she wondered if they'd ever find out the truth of who they were and what they were up to. Likely not, based on everything they'd found out so far, which amounted to a hell of a lot more questions than answers at best. "Well, then, I suppose all we can do is file it under 'Things that we can't answer yet' and move on with our day. And at least the Empire is down another cape. I don't care who did it, that's a result I can live with."

"Indeed," Armsmaster replied, smiling thinly. Renick was looking pleased too. "The less Nazis wandering the street the happier I believe everyone will be."

"Aside from the Nazis," Renick pointed out with a smirk.

"Oddly enough I find myself entirely unconcerned with their state of cheerfulness," Armsmaster said, his smile becoming a little more toothy for a second. Emily laughed, nodding. She felt exactly the same way. They shared a look of understanding for a moment before moving onto other matters.

It was possible, she reflected later, that they'd never know the truth behind the Network, but as long as they kept causing problems for the villains, she could find it in herself to live with that.

Although she was still extremely curious...

"OK, I think we can do it over here," Taylor said, indicating the wall on the east side of the basement. The window she still needed to fix was in the south wall, and the north side had the old coal chute in it, while the remaining one was partially occupied by the stairs. "We can just move this stuff in the way…" The pair busied themselves for a few minutes shifting the pile of cardboard boxes and other random odds and ends to the other side of the room, Taylor cheating quite a bit, and also thinking that she really should get around to poking through all the things down here to see if Papa had left anything else interesting behind.

Putting a mental pin in that idea, she kept working, between her and Lisa soon having the entire wall cleared. "That'll do it. So then…" Retrieving her notes she read through them again, nodding to herself. "Yeah. Looks… well, not simple, but not hard as such. Just a little fiddly."

"If you get it wrong your dad is going to be upset," Lisa commented with a smile.

"Not as much as the neighbors would be," Taylor giggled. Her friend winced and grinned at the same time, the thought being a touch disturbing.

"Let's not get it wrong then," Lisa suggested meaningfully.

"Not planning on that, no." Going over the calculations one last time, she put the notebook away, the plan fully cemented in her mind. {If you see anything going wrong let me know, OK?} she asked Administrator, getting a sensation of agreement and interest back.

"Right, then. Stand back, and if either of you see things going wrong you tell me too," she said with a glance at Lisa who nodded, moving to sit on the stairs out of the way and watching closely.

Stepping back and seating herself on an old wooden crate, Taylor looked beneath. Her inventory was getting rather full indeed, but at the moment the thing she was most interested in was the, by far, largest single item in it. One complete super-villain base, lightly used, minus super-villain and minions.

Smiling a little, she focused very carefully on the exact sequence of operations she wanted to do, then started executing her plan. Gently teasing the layers of Reality apart, in a way she still found almost impossible to explain even to Administrator as the concepts just didn't seem to exist in the alien's language or hers, she slipped barely under the surface of the universe. Administrator was watching intently, feeling completely fascinated, and staying completely silent although the attention of the enormous construct was apparent enough that Lisa looked around a touch uneasily. Keeping track of all the moving parts was a strain on this scale, but Taylor kept going, sensing wordless encouragement from her unusual friend, and Lisa next to her. Lightly sweating, she ever so carefully pushed the confiscated base from where it was stored beneath, at right angles to time, into the gap she'd made just below the barely-there skin of everything that normal people knew about.

It was basically the exact same thing she'd done with the crystal, but on a vastly larger scale. The really tricky part wasn't the actual operation, it was modifying it so one small aspect of the base protruded through the skin of Reality from the other side into this side.

And right into the basement.

She smiled slowly as, with a sound like the groaning of some vast unknowable being from beyond the galaxy itself, the wall in front of her warped in a way that was bizarre in the extreme. Strange iridescent light shone right through it, a phenomenon she'd seen before, lighting the basement without illuminating it. "Nearly," she whispered to herself, altering parameters on the fly more by instinct than anything she could explain in writing, until with a soundless snap! that made everything seem to lurch in a direction opposed to all the normal ones, a large metal door appeared in the wall.

Taylor checked that everything was stable, then carefully let go of the things she was holding with her self-taught ability, ready to grab them if anything slipped. Nothing did, making her sigh in relief, then start double checking that everything was correctly anchored through the layers comprising the separation between Reality and true infinity.

After a few minutes she nodded, pleased with the end result. "Completely stable and locked in place," she announced, turning to Lisa who was staring at the door, her eyes rather wide. "It worked."

"That is incredible," her friend muttered, slowly standing and approaching the door. She put her hand on it and felt it. "Unbelievable. And this part is the only part that's actually… here?" Lisa waved rather randomly around her, implying the whole universe.

"Yeah. It's just like the crystal, but a touch more fiddly because that only has to intercept a sort of… inter-dimensional energy path? Hard to explain, but it's more or less like that. This has to physically interact with normal reality and a sort of… pocket dimension, in a sense, but in another way that's not it at all." Taylor scratched her ear thoughtfully as she tried to explain it more clearly. "It's not beneath, not really, but it's beneath-adjacent, I guess? Not normal four dimensional space time like this room is, but it connects to that through a kind of hole in the walls of Reality. Damn, I really need to figure out some better terminology some time. English doesn't work for describing all this."

"Is it safe?"

"Oh, sure, it's not going to randomly drop into beneath, or pop out fully into our world. It's really wedged in there, and it'll stay there unless I move it," Taylor assured her friend. "Administrator agrees. She's been watching closely and double checking my calculations."

"My power is shaking its head and swearing to itself, but it agrees too, for what that's worth," Lisa laughed. Stepping back she inspected the door. "So…?"

"So I think we need to explore U.N.I.O.N.'s new base!" Taylor said happily. "The Chief will want a report on it, after all. And I'm working on a way of linking it to the DWA too."

"You can do that?"

"Don't see why not. Normal space doesn't really matter as far as this sort of thing goes as far as I can tell." Taylor walked over to the door and knocked on it, hearing a solid metallic clunk. "In theory I think it should be possible to connect to it from more or less anywhere even while it's also connected here."

"So… teleportation?" Lisa stared at her, then the door.

"Kinda?" Taylor shrugged. "But not really. It's just in two places at the same time. Again, like the crystal, but not exactly. I'll have to think about it some more."

She experimentally tugged on the handle, finding the door didn't move. Peering into the mechanism she removed the part of the lock that was actually doing the locking part, hearing a distinct click, then smiled as the handle turned in her hand. "That got it. Wow, this is a heavy door."

"It's about a foot thick," Lisa pointed out as it slowly swung open with Taylor pulling hard. "Endbringer shelter, remember?"

"Yeah. Pretty solid." When she got the door fully open, Lisa adding her weight to it to get it the last part of travel, she held it there and pulled a chunk of rebar she had left over in inventory, stuffing it under the door and wedging it open. "That'll do it," she said with satisfaction.

"No lights," Lisa noted. "It'll be darker than the inside of a black cat down a coal mine at night with the lights out in there."

"An odd way to put it but true, Agent Thinky," Taylor laughed, making her friend grin. "No power, so we'll have to figure out a solution for that at some point. But for now, we do it the old fashioned way."

Handing Lisa a powerful LED flashlight she had stashed away, she equipped herself with another one. Lisa looked at the thing she was holding then at Taylor rather curiously. "How the hell much stuff do you have in there?"

"Lots," Taylor giggled. "Hey, I've got a bottomless bag of holding, right? It's only sensible to make sure you stock it with useful things. Like water, food, emergency supplies, spare Nazis… You know, things that are bound to come in handy sooner or later." She turned on her flashlight and held it under her chin, grinning widely. "Shall we see what we can find?"

Lisa flicked on her flashlight and pointed it into the open doorway, which was actually one of Coil's original escape routes. They could see a long concrete corridor that stretched far into the distance, much further than could possibly normally happen without running right into the basement of the neighbor's house. "Yeah. But if I get eaten by a Grue I'll come back and haunt you."

"Fair enough. After you." Taylor gestured grandly towards the opening. Lisa gave her a narrow-eyed look but shrugged and started walking. Soon their footsteps were echoing back into the basement, gradually diminishing until they faded out entirely.

"I'm home, girls," Danny called as he entered the house, closed the door behind himself, and stamped snow off his boots. Putting the two pizza boxes he was holding on the table just inside the door he took his coat off and hung it up, thinking he needed to practice more because being able to put something that large beneath would be very useful. He was getting better steadily but he still couldn't quite manage to store anything much larger than a beer bottle. Which was still useful, of course.

He was a long way from being able to duplicate his daughter's feats, though.

Not hearing any answer, he raised his voice a little "Taylor? Lisa?"

Still nothing. Apparently they were out. Mildly puzzled since normally Taylor mentioned when she was going out and roughly when she'd be back he checked his phone to see if he'd missed a message. Nothing, but that wasn't a concern as such as she was both responsible and not exactly defenseless. And presumably had Lisa with her, the combination of the two girls being somewhat potent in his view.

Shrugging he moved into the kitchen, putting the pizzas on the table and helping himself to a slice of one, then turned the oven on to keep them warm. As it heated up he fixed himself a cup of coffee, ate another piece of pizza, then put both boxes in the oven.

Drinking his coffee he went into the living room and stood looking out the window for a few seconds, before he sniffed.

A somewhat puzzled expression crossed his face.

"Why can I smell damp concrete?" he mumbled, looking around. A thought crossed his mind and he winced. "Oh, hell, is the damn basement leaking again? I thought I fixed that last winter…" There had been a crack in the foundation that had led to a puddle in the lowest corner of the basement, right next to the ancient coal bin, and luckily well away from anything important. Even in the state he'd been in then he'd stirred himself enough to get some fast setting concrete and patch the crack, which had stopped the problem quite effectively. Possibly, though, it had come back, because he could definitely smell concrete, almost as if it was still setting, which was something he was quite familiar with from work at the DWA.

Sighing, he headed for the basement door, opened it, and descended the stairs.

Then stood staring at the completely unexpected, completely out of place, and extremely thick steel door that had somehow managed to appear out of nowhere in a wall that he knew for an absolute fact had not had such a feature two days ago, the last time he'd been down here. And, for that matter, couldn't possibly exist anyway because he could see the corridor behind it, due to the illumination provided by the bare lights in the basement ceiling, led off in a direction that would have gone right into the next door basement but obviously didn't.

"Oh, for god's sake," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. "What did you do this time, Taylor?"

Because there was only one possible explanation for this and his daughter was it.

He had a pretty shrewd idea that the corridor led to a certain former villain's secret base, which now apparently existed under his house and neighborhood in a manner that logic suggested wasn't possible, but then he was looking right at it, and recently logic and Taylor didn't seem to be totally compatible in every respect.

"Damn it, Papa," he grumbled, finishing his coffee then rummaging around on the workbench for the flashlight he was sure he'd seen down here a while ago. "This is your fault again…"

Finding the flashlight, he turned it on, then went to find the two girls and tell them he had pizza. And ask what the hell they thought they were doing.

He'd always wanted a bigger basement but this was fucking ridiculous.

Amy looked out the window into the back yard. Then she met Vicky's eyes.

"He did it again."

"Yeah, looks like it," her sister replied with a grin.

Both of them watched Edgar strut around the back yard through the snow, making a whole series of squawks and caws, while around him dozens if not hundreds of ravens huddled in small groups watching. Many of them looked somewhat beaten up, and were obviously not the last lot Amy had healed, because every last one of them was in the peak of health. And had again spent the day sitting around Arcadia making everyone look slightly worried, although she had to admit they were very careful to keep out of the way. Apparently, for reasons she still didn't understand, they wanted to be near her, but were fine with staying outside and freaking out the public.

Which, to be honest, was something of a relief. Edgar was bad enough. If all his friends wanted to follow him inside there wouldn't be enough room in Arcadia for the people.

And now he'd rounded up another batch from somewhere. Rather desperately she wondered how many ravens Brockton Bay could actually have living in it. She suspected a lot more than most people would find comfortable. And also that, based on what had been happening, Edgar was intent on having every single one of them meet her…

"This is getting silly," she complained, although despite herself she was smiling. Edgar looked so happy ordering his minions around, and kept looking over his shoulder at the window as if to seek her approval.

"He's certainly taking it seriously, whatever it is," their dad said as he got up and joined them in peering outside.

"You've got your very own cult, Ames," Vicky giggled, making Amy give her a dark look accompanied by a sigh. "The Dark Lady Amy provides. And the Flock follows."

Mark started snickering, making her transfer her irritation to him. He'd sure improved quite a bit in the last few weeks. Which left him finding the entire situation much funnier than it probably warranted.

Carol, on the other hand, walked into the room, looked out the window, gritted her teeth, and turned on her heel. She didn't seem to see the funny side at all…

Shaking her head, Amy went to get her coat. There was work to do. Vicky followed making jokes about the Dark Lady Amy, ending up with both sisters bickering at each other outside in the back yard even as Amy healed raven after raven, all of which seemed pleased and grateful.

Edgar, of course, supervised.

He was good at that.