A Wizard In Alexandria's Court
Chapter Ten
by Skysaber
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Story Day Eleven, April 16th 2011, Saturday - Roughly Half Past Noon
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It only took the Empire convoy another ten minutes to arrive.
There was no mistaking it was the Empire, or that it was a convoy; at least three trucks in the lead, followed with a dozen cars, an RV, and four school busses - and that was just what he could see. The trucks were filled with armed men who were making no point in hiding they were armed, and those no sooner came to a stop before the Belmont estate than those troops jumped off and would have deployed instantly...
... save for the fact that they were surrounded by an even larger crowd of even more heavily armed hillbillies, who were standing around, staring at them all unfriendly-like, with even more in the woods and the bushes beyond them.
Jared had been forced to make a judgment call to even allow the Empire convoy in this far. But he'd made it, and allowed it, sacrificing some short-term security in hopes of preserving his long terms plans of destroying their group entirely.
But if he'd started shooting at them now, they'd never trust him enough later to enable him to actually destroy them.
Victor, or Lex actually as he was still in his civilian attire, was already out of one of the nicer cars and strolling towards 'Rick', a smile plastered over his face, Tammi by his side, as he called out, "Hey, Rick! How is it with you? We hadn't seen you in town all week."
Jared decided to do the polite thing and answer. "We were camping, doing some deer hunting just like I said. Now would you mind explaining this?" Jared used both hands to indicate the convoy.
Tammi's eyes were bloodshot and baggy. She looked terrible. But she still drilled him with her eye. "You hadn't heard?"
Now he felt on the back foot.
"Heard what?"
The girl looked haunted. She tried to muster a reply and couldn't.
It was Lex who answered seriously. "Rune has been defeating Lung lately, and he hasn't taken kindly to it. Rather than back down, he and his ABB have declared open war on every white girl in town."
The man actually stopped and swallowed. "He had his bomb Tinker rig every high school in town for simultaneous explosions, real nasty special effects charges, wiping out virtually every teenager in town. That was Thursday. Then, when Rune defeated him again Thursday night, and again last night, he put his men on the warpath. Starting yesterday morning Asians have been hunting down every white girl who might be the right age. The hospitals are swamped. One even got destroyed by more Tinker explosions - everyone turned to glass."
"Panacea is dead," Tammi reported hollowly.
Rick turned to face Jeb, giving the golem a mental command. Jeb then turned to the rest of the hillbillies, and gave a verbal command that echoed the one Jared had already mentally delivered. "Lock down the hills. Nothing Asian gets inside. If they might be ABB and won't turn back on a warning, shoot to kill."
There just was no other option when the enemy was willing to play that kind of hardball. At the levels of crowding they already had inside of the Brockton educational system, they had roughly two thousand students per high school. Four high schools that he knew of...
... Lung had already killed over eight thousand people trying to eliminate Rune. That's not counting staff and faculty, only students. And that was only the strike against the high schools. It was not counting the hospital, or any other attacks.
At this point, if Lung did not already have a Kill Order, the system passing those out would lose all legitimacy. Most members of the Slaughterhouse Nine did not have one tenth that amount of murders to their credit.
And the idea that Lung might get tired of it and stop there was laughable. Once you've committed that level of atrocities, no one backs down. They've committed themselves fully, and would either see their way through to their goal, or get taken down like the mad dog they were.
By choosing this tactic, Lung had gone all-in. He would either succeed at killing the one (local, living) person who was known to be able to defeat him, Rune, and thus resume his untouchable status as the fight nobody wanted to face, or he would get taken out completely.
The desperate gang leader had left himself no other options.
Jared personally avoided 'All-or-Nothing' approaches like that, but berserkers were rather fond of them.
Jeb had already turned to the crowds of hillbillies around the Empire's men, calling out, "Let them deploy! Get those troops on the overlooks and into position where they can do everyone some good!"
Empire troops with rifles swarmed out of their truck beds at that pronouncement. This filled them with confidence if nothing else. Nothing felt so good as being able to defend yourself, when that was truly called for. Hillbilly guides began leading the men in groups out into the surrounding forest.
Seeing crowds of white teenagers paused in their dismounting of the busses that had brought them to this out-of-town locale, hoping for safety, Rick clapped his hands for attention, then called out, "Mama Belmont! Round up the womenfolk! Get some cooking going on. We got us some guests. Let's show 'em some proper hospitality!"
You could feel the palpable wave of relief passing over and through the crowd of refugees - for that's what they were.
Rick extended his arm to Tammi. "Tammi Herren, welcome to Fairhaven. I hope you like venison."
She nearly fainted with relief.
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"Lung is determined to exterminate us." Lex was saying, as crowds of golems moved out to help everyone, getting the troops into positions to protect everyone while they moved all of the refugees inside. There were far too many for the Belmont estate alone to hold, but Jared's golems now held legal title to every building in Fairhaven. It was far too early for what he had been planning, but every estate did have caretaker golems in place, with both backstories and costumes.
It was time to put that to some use. They split the refugees up into groups of about a dozen and led them off into the closest several dozen estates, that were already preparing to hold them.
The hillbilly ladies already had their pots out and were already working on cooking up a mighty fine feast, fit for several hundred - which was about how many they needed to cover.
"He hit all of the High Schools together," Lex continued, rubbing his face, as the man had obviously been under an enormous amount of stress lately. "Then, when Rune faced him again that night, he doubled down on trying to kill her. That's when they blew up the freeways, and the railroads. The airport has dozens of bubbles of stopped time all over the terminal and runways. It's like Grey Boy is among us again, only worse, as that was one cape, who could only be one place at a time. These bombs are seemingly everywhere."
"There is talk of closing the city, just walling us off in here," one of the adult women said.
Lex sounded empty as he returned, speaking into a mug of coffee one of the hillbilly women had prepared. "We had nowhere left to go. Then..." he paused, looking distraught.
Rick finished for him. "Then one of your moles in the city offices, under standing orders to call in certain items of interest, reported my name crossing her desk, which reminded you, you could come up here to the hills, where there were at least plenty of armed men with guns to help keep you safe."
"Yes," Victor sagged with the admission. "That was also how we found your address, and other information."
Rick inhaled as if to sigh, then turned it into a laugh instead. "Well, hey! Why not? Your organization owes us one [Bleep] of a favor for violating our neutrality, getting us involved like this. But provided you're willing to own up to that at some future point, why not? You've got sanctuary in our hills for as long as this problem lasts. Fair deal?"
It was with exhausted gratitude that Victor extended a hand. "Deal. And thanks. We evacuated every teenager we could get, part of our organization or not, it did not matter. Lung has been killing every teen who isn't Asian, but with a special focus on white girls. We... we couldn't leave anybody behind who wanted to come. Not to face that."
Moments later, Rick was excusing himself to go to the bathroom.
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Jared slipped out, leaving his golems to work with the refugee adults to hammer out the details of who was staying where, and all other attendant things associated with receiving a large amount of unexpected guests.
He had a more important problem to be dealing with. Several, actually. Most of the estates up here still had no running water, and not every place even had their own water tanker parked outside, empty or not. And the Belmont mansion was, so far, the only one with heated water, or indeed, any electricity.
Things were going to get mighty uncomfortable unless several rather important things were done soon.
Further complicating matters, the Empire had not sent Rune un-escorted. No, far from it. She was critical to the ongoing fight and everyone knew it. Events as they stood hinged on her being able to continue to do battle.
Lex had introduced his wife. So they were officially Alexander and Ariana Vikers, out of costume. But Jared knew Victor's wife was also the cape Othala, and since that experience leaving the gun store where someone had used a power to determine his skills, Jared had been fairly certain that Lex was really the cape Victor, a noted skill thief - as it's not like there were many people there at the time, particularly not ones who had a vested interest to determine what skills Rick had.
So that was Victor and Othala present. Tammi, he was pretty sure was Rune, and there were two gorgeous adult identical twins following Tammi everywhere the girl went, sticking close by her side, who had been introduced as Jessica and Vanessa (call me Nessa) Biermann. Those two names he knew as well as he knew Kaiser's civilian name, making those Fenja and Menja, capes who turned into blonde giantesses, and who routinely fought on the Empire's front lines together.
During all of the hustle and bustle, a mousy young woman, brown-haired and shorter than average, came out of one of the cars carrying her baby. Jared would have paid no attention to her except that she just automatically came up to the Belmont house and was accepted by the Empire guards, when most people were being turned away to the other properties to prevent crowding. The fact she was greeted by the other adult Empire capes with the ease of long camaraderie told him as much as he needed to know even before they introduced her as Kayden Anders.
This was Purity, a flying blaster considered almost as powerful as Legend. Yet another Empire cape who did not actually believe in the racism, but had hung around long enough to be affected by it.
That was six Empire capes present, and who knew how many more? There were probably some that were not dedicated to Rune's defense alone - and the ones he had detected were only because they were obviously her bodyguards.
Exciting times.
Jared hurried his steps in search of Taylor.
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Most of the Fairhaven estates were either based on styles that were over a hundred years old, or actually that old. Only a couple dozen were more modern architecture, and those were frankly the ones still in the worst shape, as having walls made primarily out of large windows... well, those windows had shattered early on in the abandonment, letting the weather and wild animals in. Often enough, fires had happened in those places, so without firm brick walls there was not much left.
New England building styles did not come about by accident, after all. They were practical for the weather in that part of the world, insulated and firm against storms. Smaller windows did not shatter as easily under the periodic storms. So those places generally had their windows intact until the power went out completely, after which it was much harder for the weather that did get through to start fires.
So the traditional had won out over the modern in this case.
And the traditional New England manor house was done at least partly in imitation of the manors back in England, that were developed back in the day where the horse was the primary method of transportation, and the nobles were expected to regularly hold lavish parties with dozens or even hundreds of guests.
One of the luxuries of modern living was the ease of travel. You could get anywhere in the world in a day or less, and hotels and other conveniences were everywhere. But during the period where manors became fashionable in England you could not even rely upon decent roads, much less a four-star hotel everyplace you may wish to lay your head.
Back then the next, nearest town was frequently a day's travel away.
No, for the class of noble the manor was developed for, the only hotel around for miles was their own house. So they built them a bit like hotels, with scores, or even hundreds of bedrooms, just to have space to keep their guests for all of those parties their social responsibilities obliged them to keep having.
New England duplicates, built in imitation of those styles, were generally quite a bit smaller, having only dozens of bedrooms instead of scores (never mind the hundreds!) and then only in the largest of cases. The Belmont manor was far from the largest estate in Fairhaven, having only about a dozen bedrooms, plus the master suite.
So they were going to be sleeping two to a bedroom to handle their share of the refugees, plus filling the servants' quarters downstairs.
Somewhat to her own surprise, Taylor had invited Tammi to share her room. It was done at least partly out of sympathy, the girl was looking exhausted, like a complete nervous wreck, and one who had not been able to sleep for a while. So what Taylor had been more or less expecting was for her guest to reach the room and more or less instantly crash on the bed.
But despite her obvious exhaustion, the other girl was still more cautious than that, carefully checking out the room, closet, and attached bathroom before laying down her bag and sitting heavily on the bed with a weary groan.
"Is that all you brought?" Taylor asked, dumbfounded that all the girl carried was a light backpack.
"Uh huh," Tammi yawned, trying to cover her mouth with one hand while she stretched. "My apartment block got turned into a cloud of dust by a mortar shell, not even a Tinker one, just part of the random shelling. They didn't even let me go back in. This is mostly convenience store stuff, and a new pack of panties."
"Oh." Now Taylor felt bad. She moved to open the door to her closet, standing aside to let her guest view the clothes hanging within. "Well, you can borrow anything of mine, if you want to. I'm a little taller, but we're not that different in build."
"Thanks, I..." Tammi yawned a second time, was about to say something polite, then actually looked at the clothes instead of just sweeping the room for hidden bombs and her eyes went wide. Despite her tiredness, she was soon on her feet checking them out. "Where do you buy your clothes?!" Tammi asked. "I'm rich, and I don't even know how to find brands like these."
Despite knowing that Jared would instantly have had something believable to say, delivered so smoothly anyone could credit it, Taylor struggled as she had never considered how she'd answer that question if she ever got asked.
Not hearing an answer did not dim Tammi's interest. She looked down and gasped. "Where do you get your shoes?"
There were only a couple pairs in the closet, and those were nothing special. No, what had piqued Tammi's interest were the ones on Taylor's feet, the ones Jared had given them to wear during their camping trip, and that she had not taken off yet.
The boots were slim and elegant, felt amazingly light, and once put on were comfortable and automatically adjusted to be a perfect fit for their feet.
They were also practically their own superpower. No, scratch that. They had an emergency escape teleport capacity built-in, so by any reasonable standard, they were super-powered.
When Jared had given each of them their own pairs, he had explained that these boots could be used to walk safely on lava or ice. They doubled normal walking speed and the wearer would not be slowed down by mountain, forest, jungle, or shifting sand. They were also as silent as cat's feet, and could make the wearer invisible a few times per day.
But what Taylor and the other girls had prized them for was being flat-out the most attractive and comfortable footwear any of them had ever worn. They even self-cleaned and self-repaired.
Some nights they had not even bothered removing them for sleeping, as they did not make your feet stink.
They were the Holy Grail of women's footwear, and now that another girl had noticed her pair, Taylor actually had to fight the urge to defend them, or run away shouting the other girl could not have them, or something similarly irrational.
Lisa had leaned in their door. "Oh, we here in the hills tend to see to our own needs. The clothes and shoes are things we make right here. I can put you in touch with a cobbler and seamstress, if you're interested."
"Am I EVER!" Tammi enthused, now wide awake.
"Let's have a look at your sizes, then." Lisa had already made her way over to Tammi's backpack and dumped it out on the bed before anyone had twigged on to what she had been planning. Now all Tammi's worldly possessions were on display, and for the most part it was uninteresting, just essentials you might pick up at any convenience store, like she had said. There was also a pistol, another nickle plated Smith & Wesson Model 15, just like they all had, along with a few small boxes of ammo. All that Lisa ignored, reaching past them to pick up Rune's costume.
"Oh, so you like cosplay? So do we," Lisa offered brightly, holding up Rune's costume. Then, on fingering one of the rents, and giving it a gentle sniff, she said, "It looks like this one was on sale from a bombed out store? That's alright, we'll get it fixed up and washed for you."
"Thank you," Tammi ground out, not able to think what else to say. That costume dress was actually missing nearly six inches off the bottom, where a bomb exploding under her flying cement block had turned both her feet to glass, up past her ankles.
Lung had displayed a particular liking for that type of bomb. It had to be one of his favorites, as it represented around three-quarters of the special ordinance his gang had been using.
Tammi had the gut feeling that Lung did not just want to kill her, he wanted to put Rune's crystallized body on display as a trophy, so much so that was most of what he'd had his bomb Tinker produce.
Rune had still defeated Lung that night, despite the loss of her feet. Afterwards, Hookwolf had cut off the affected tissues, and Othala had given her the regeneration power. So she had grown replacement feet. But to say the fighting had been horrible, hard, far too often far to close to killing her, and overall exhausting was putting it too mildly.
But that's what happens when you are the enemy's primary target.
Lung seemed to think that if Rune could be killed, the Empire would fold before him.
And he was probably right.
"Oh! What's this?" Lisa asked, bending over the bed where she had unfolded a T-shirt.
Tammi stifled a gasp of dismay. As she'd gotten that T-shirt from Rick, who had showed up right before school on Tuesday, the morning after her first defeat of Lung, and after congratulating her on winning her bet, had handed her a fancy bag that served as gift wrapping, with a confident, "Oh, hey! Before I forget, you said you were friends with Rune. Could you pass this on to her? I think she deserves it."
Tammi could recall asking, "What is it?" before reaching inside the brightly colored gift bag, past the fluffy paper to pull out a very nice T-shirt, that had emblazoned on the front in very large, easy to read words, "I Soloed Lung, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt."
Tammi could easily recall her face sporting a wide grin as she'd declared passionately, "She'll love it!"
Rune had later been seen wearing that T-shirt night after night while out in costume. Since then, there was on the side, written in permanent marker, the word "Twice", that had since been crossed out and replaced by three and four times that had also been crossed out. The current victory count scribed in was "Five times!" So, read correctly, it was boasting that she'd soloed Lung every night that week from Monday to Friday, and only gotten that T-shirt out of it.
But Tammi did not regard that T-shirt as lousy at all. For one thing it was fireproof, having saved her from at least one napalm attack that had splashed her a bit, getting a large enough glob on her chest that it would easily have killed her. But she had not even noticed the burning gel through the shirt, until the combat was over and Othala had pointed it out.
Tammi had needed to have some hair regrown, and some specks of napalm had stuck places not covered by the shirt. Those burns had to be regenerated. But the shirt had barely even needed to be washed.
It was also as warm as any coat she'd ever worn, but never too hot or stifling. She would have loved it for that, or the slogan alone, but the fact that it had saved her life at least once by now made it far and away her favorite shirt ever. Yet she felt an understandable terror that they would recognize it as part of her genuine costume.
"Oh, have they got these out in stores already?" Lisa enthused, holding it up to look at it. "I know Missy has one, but that was part of a pre-order special..."
Tammi nearly collapsed in relief as the older blonde girl went on nattering about souvenir versions of that shirt showing up.
"Oh, if you're interested, I think Taylor's Alexandria costume is in the back of her closet," Lisa sang, before leaving, "That is if her cousin Mary Sue hasn't borrowed it again. We're all big cosplayers up here. Y'all have have fun now! I'll get these washed."
Then the older blonde girl was gone.
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Lisa met Jared in the hall, and with a smirk showed him both Rune's costume, and the T-shirt he had given her. She lifted the cloth of the latter a bit and rubbed it between her fingers with a knowing look.
Jared understood. If you use materials, like wool or leather, from a creature from the Elemental Plane of Fire to make clothes out of, those materials are naturally fireproof. That doesn't mean they do anything to protect the wearer from fire, but that can happen - like using an oven mitt to protect your hand from touching something hot on the stove.
It was actually trivial for higher level casters to make animals totally immune to fire, cold, even acid, or all three at once. It was one of Jared's suggestions that Redhurst had a flock of sheep altered that way, so they could make robes and other clothes for their students. It was a trivial cost in the long run, and made the students and graduates somewhat safer. But it was so normal for Jared to choose his own clothing with that option, that when he'd gone to a Clothier's Closet for the 'I Soloed Lung' T-shirt to give to Tammi to pass on to Rune, he had unthinkingly chosen one that had those qualities.
Rune had all but incorporated that T-shirt into her costume. She'd been seen wearing it several nights this week, and there was even a photo of her on PHO with a hand-sized splash of napalm burning on her torso proving it was fireproof.
Now Lisa was pointing out that Tammi had that same T-shirt Rune was proven as wearing.
A fairly significant indicator that Tammi was Rune, even without the authentic costume bearing all of the recent battle damage.
Jared in turn gave Lisa a nod and a silent peck on her cheek as reward, before stepping past her and knocking on Taylor's open door before poking his head inside, smiling. "Hi there!" he said to all within, which was Taylor, Tammi, and the adult twins Jessica and Nessa Biermann who were being not-too-subtle about not letting Tammi out of their sight for a moment. "Look, I know you're all enjoying getting to know one another, but could I borrow Taylor for a few minutes, please?"
He was not even done with his request before Tammi had risen in excitement from her seat on the bed, and was drawing him in. "Rick! So nice to see you! It's so good of you to take us in. Hey, Taylor was just offering to let me borrow some of her clothes. Do you want to help me pick out some underwear? I could model it for you."
Ah. Teenagers. Subtle as a hammer, sometimes.
To Jared's complete astonishment, however, the two adult women did nothing to head off or prevent this rather blatant frontal attack - which said they approved of her rather blatant attempt to seduce him, at least to a point.
Interesting.
Now there were several possible responses to this, only one of which would move him closer to destroying the Empire.
'Rick' picked up Tammi, making fake growly noises while she began squealing, and playfully tossed her onto her back on the bed, then climbed over her and buried his face in her midriff like he was trying to eat her for one delight-filled second, before surfacing to say, "Don't tempt me, woman! You know there is no way I could resist you, seeing you in that little! Now why aren't you covered in boyfriends? You're certainly rich enough. Or are you concerned they'd only want you for your money? If so, they'd have to be insane. You're deliciously pretty and talented as well."
Taylor's mouth had opened in a 'O' of outrage, and Jared inwardly winced, promising to make this up to her later.
Tammi could not have been more pleased over the outcome of her little tease. She lay there looking victorious for a moment before pouting up to his face. "Rich? Hah! Oh, my college fund is all filled up, but my family took over most of the money. I barely have a few thousand in checking. And it's no fun betting on Rune anymore. It went from a thousand to one odds to ten to one - in the opposite direction! Now if I bet a thousand, I get only a hundred, minus bookie's cut."
Rick loomed over her on the bed. Smiling, he touched her cheek delicately with one finger. "Ah, my dear, this is the point where we stop betting on Rune. Yes, she can do it, and everyone knows she can do it. That's the problem, what makes the odds so bad. Now to make money, we shift our bets to someone they think *can't* do it."
Tammi looked up at him curiously. "Like who?"
Rick shrugged. "Menja and Fenja come to mind."
The two adult women, who had been studiously ignoring this little exchange, now turned to look, appearing interested.
Tammi had gotten riled up at him, propping herself up on her elbows. "But they're just the sort of people you said can't do it! All they are is big and strong! Their weapons won't defeat him!"
"No, of course not. Any more than Rune bashing him with rocks would defeat him," he agreed. Here he smiled, glancing around. "Anybody here have authority to take bets?"
Jessica and Nessa glanced to each other, deciding they didn't, before both standing up, saying in unison, "We should ask Lex."
"Excellent idea!" Rick declared, rolling out of bed, somehow doing so to where he stood up with Tammi in a bridal carry. "Let's go ask him!"
In moments they were downstairs, intruding on the adults again. "Hey Lex!" Rick intruded on their little meeting, still carrying Tammi. "I'm looking to bet on some thousand-to-one odds again!"
Victor looked up and apologized, smiling tiredly, "Sorry, but we're not offering those odds on Rune anymore."
"But you are on everyone else?" Rick challenged.
Victor said nothing, just evaluating the kid before him with his eyes.
Rick put Tammi down on her feet, so he could lean in close to Victor. "Look, we all know Lung's current mania against Rune is because he thinks she is the only local cape who could defeat him. The betting odds have got to be reflecting that too, as so far she is the only contestant in the running. If the same horse is always winning, the betting odds get terrible. You need other people who can beat him both to get Lung to back down off of his dangerous obsession for killing Rune, but also to liven up the betting pool again. Am I right?"
Victor groaned, then closed and rubbed at his eyes. "You certainly are," he agreed.
Rick nodded, putting an arm around Tammi, who was leaning into his side. "So I am willing to offer you that same bet, ten thousand at one thousand to one odds that another cape will be the next one to defeat him."
Anyone could see Victor calculating things in his mind, before deciding, "Alright. Who is your pick?"
Rick just shook his head, once again dialing his smartphone.
"Numberman."
"Rick Belmont. New bet. Same amount, same odds, different horse. Ten grand at thousand to one odds that Fenja will be the next Brockton Bay cape to defeat Lung. Then same bet, same odds on Menja the next day."
With a wink and a knowing smile, Rick then handed off the phone to Tammi, who took it. "Hello, Numberman? Tammi Herren. I too wish to place the same bets as Rick Belmont. Yes, ten thousand each at thousand to one odds, Fenja first, then Menja the next day."
She handed off the phone to Victor, who took it. Glancing in between the Biermann twins, he got a gleam of triumph in his eyes. "Yes," he answered once he took the phone. "Yes, we'll cover it."
He ended the call and handed the phone back to Rick, plastering a smile of false friendliness over his face. "So what is your plan this time?"
Rick shrugged, before patting Tammi on her shoulder. "Tammi here may or may not be pen pals with someone in the Empire," he boasted, as if ignorant of all of the Empire capes surrounding them. "All we have to do is rely on her to pass along how to do it, give it some time to filter up the chain to reach the cape in question, and victory is in the bag."
Victor now leaned forward. "How?"
Rick smiled. "Tammi was right. Just beating on Lung is not going to defeat him. But strength can be used for more than just beating on things. Tell me, have you ever heard of a former Olympic sport called the Hammer Throw?"
Tammi squirmed excitedly in his side and looked up at him. "No, what is it?"
Rick smiled for her. "Basically a metal ball with a chain attached. You swing the ball around by the chain really fast, so when you release it, it flies really far. Ordinary humans could throw one hundreds of feet. A pair of giantesses like Menja and Fenja? I wouldn't be surprised if they could toss it a couple thousand."
Tammi was confused. "So... they hit Lung with a hammer? So what?"
Rick smiled fondly down on her. "No, dear. You can make the metal sphere on the hammer hollow. Here, let me show you." He walked over to a table, picking up two empty bowls of the same size that had once held snack food. Then he placed an Armsmaster poseable plastic doll on the table.
He explained, "At Fenja and Menja's size, they would be proportionately very similar to the size difference between me and that foot-tall Armsmaster, there."
Without further explanation, Rick brought down one of the empty bowls hard on top of the plastic toy, holding it by the bottom so the empty part of the bowl came down over it like a dome. Then, in one swift stroke he slid it off the table to match with the other empty bowl, held in his other hand.
So between his hands the two bowls formed an empty sphere, with the now-broken Armsmaster toy trapped inside of the hollow globe.
Rick smiled, finishing his explanation. "They'd have to have Kaiser's help to make the empty metal sphere. You'd want the edges to be sharp, so any lizard bits sticking out between the halves would just get cut off, and you'd want the two halves to screw together so once in Lung could not get out. But either giantess could trap Lung in a hollow metal ball just as I have done to this Armsmaster toy - and he would have virtually no leverage to get back out. Make it thick enough, and if he tries to melt it, Lung will just weld the parts together with himself still trapped inside. Then you play 'Bowling with Asians' all of the way down to the docks, clip on a chain and practice the Hammer Throw to toss him out to sea. Lung sinks, already inside of his own anchor - and once surrounded by water no amount of heat is going to melt that metal, and he still hasn't got any leverage. The only difficulty is you want to catch him before he gets too strong and big, but once inside of the sphere he is not going anywhere but the bottom of the bay."
Rick placed the bowls with the broken toy down, to the dumbfounded appreciation of his audience.
During their silence, Rick quickly excused himself and got out of there.
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"I'm sorry you had to see that," Jared apologized, once he'd found where Taylor had hidden herself.
"Is anything with you real?" Taylor demanded, from where she was curled into a ball, hidden in a closet.
He got in with her, and put his arm around her. "Sure, and I'll prove it to you," he added easily. "I call as witnesses Lisa and Dinah. Both are powerful Thinkers. You know them. You were there when I met both of them, and you've seen them use those gifts. More than that, they are your friends. They would certainly warn you, if I was trying to deceive you. Then let's pretend their testimony is not enough, and ask you a question to be answered out of your own experiences: When have I ever lied to you, Taylor? You've been there alongside of me since the beginning. You were the very first person I got onto my team. You've seen everything I do, and when you have asked, have I not explained things?"
"Well," she grumbled. "Not everything."
"Ask," he commanded.
She uncurled a bit. "How did your little robot helpers change Rachel's dogs?"
He touched a finger to her lips, looking fondly into her eyes. "Homunculi, not robots. Correct terminology is very important in what I do. Everything gets *very* confusing if not everyone is using the right words. And to answer your question, magic divides all creatures into certain types. Both robots and homunculi are of the 'construct' type. Dwarves and elves and humans are all of the 'humanoid' type. Dragons, naturally enough, are of the 'dragon' type, but come in lots of individual races. Now, in addition to types and races, you have 'templates', which allow for weird stuff like a dragon having a child with a minotaur, or a human with construct arms."
He shifted to get more comfortable, and somehow she found herself curled up in his lap, with his arms around her. "Now, there are fairy realms just as there are mortal realms, and I know how to sense the dimensional weak points the fairy like to call their doors. So I can get to and from their realms just by walking. Now any corporeal creature created in the fairy realms gets some of that magic imparted to them. So if you and I were to get married, and have our honeymoon there, our child conceived in that realm would have what is called the Fey-Born template. An ordinary child born to two mortal humanoids, yet because of the place infused with fairy powers."
Taylor's face was on fire with her blush, but she did not move outside of his embrace.
He continued. "Now this applies to any creature with a body created there. So I created my homunculi, not on this plane of existence, but in the nearest fairy realm, and so they all have the Fey-Born template - which includes a lot of powers. One of those is called Polymorph Any Object, which is very close to what you've heard in tales and stories of wizards turning their foes into frogs, or fairies transforming their enemies. Changing one dog into another type is easy, and permanent - and since subjects tend to be average for whatever they become, that removes all of the scarring and missing bits."
Taylor relaxed a little, admitting, "Ok. I did not understand all of that, but at least you told me." Here she sat up to look him directly in the eyes. "So why did you behave all... like that, to Tammi?"
"Not here," he told her, standing up and bringing her with him. "The walls have ears."
OoOoO
"That's..." Taylor mused in wonder, having had her mind scrambled as he'd explained his entire plan to her. She shook herself. "I can't tell if that's genius, or mental."
But she was smiling fondly as she said it.
"Aha" he tapped his nose. "Allow me to quote Aristotle: There is no great genius without some touch of madness."
She glowed, appreciating his attention to the classics.
He stood, taking her with him. "Come on. Let's go save the town."
OoOoO
Since it was just the two of them, they took the Trans Am down the road to town, making the trip in half the time because they drove at twice the speed, which lawmakers considered unsafe, but Taylor, who was in the passenger seat, was relaxed and mellow as, with her bug senses assistance, she was certain she could have done it even faster without any risk of accident or collision.
She even mentioned her willingness to try.
When she did, he promised that she could drive on the trip back.
Once down out of the hills, they took a certain route that Taylor had never been on before, winding up in a weed-choked empty lot in the middle of a burned-out neighborhood.
"Why are we here? I don't sense anything... or anybody," Taylor queried.
Jared's smile was triumphant. "Exactly! Now, what are the important things you don't sense? Start cataloging them. Do remember that trick I played on Armsmaster with the sonar - sometimes it's what you *don't* sense that should tip you off."
Taylor sat up and paid more intense interest in her surroundings. "No fires. No people. I sense plenty of bugs, but they are more rural types than city ones. All of the usual trash and garbage of the city is pretty minimal out here."
"And what should that tell you?" he probed.
"No people, no trash?" she suggested.
"Trash lingers," he instructed. "This part of the city has lain abandoned for decades. That's why the bugs are more 'meadow and field' types than city type bugs. What else can't you sense?"
"The buildings are all burnt-out shells," she cataloged the oddities. "Almost no furniture or interior walls, none of them wood. More buildings have collapsed than are still standing. I wouldn't want to walk through the ones that are, as I can feel some of them sway in the breeze."
"What else don't you sense? Except, perhaps from this car?" He had left the engine running.
With that broad a hint, it was only moments before Taylor had gotten it. "No electricity!" she exclaimed.
Jared nodded. "All of those power lines through here burned down, and have never been replaced," he told her. "No power lines, no water pumps, no water no people. Even the roads in and out of this section of the city are choked with pot holes and garbage, as almost no one has any reason to go here. Now, what have you heard recently that makes that significant?"
He was instructing her - and she loved it. She loved rising to the challenge, to learn more about her new career. But sadly this was one of the few times where her natural wits and talents failed her, and after a few minutes she shook her head, long dark hair flying with the motion. "I have no idea what this area has to do with saving the city."
"Less to do with saving the city, and more to do with saving ourselves," he probed. "Still no answer? Alright, this was only a brief mention a while ago, and a great deal has happened since then. No demerits for forgetting. Fairhaven has no electricity because the power lines burned down during the riots that created the Boat Graveyard. Those power lines have never been replaced - which is causing all sorts of problems, not just for us, but for a couple of hundred refugees right now. Those folks could very much use the extra comforts of having lights, and central heating, and distractions like radio and television just now. All of those facilities exist there to be used, since they've all been repaired. They just don't have any juice to run on."
Jared slid his legs up and out, over the door, leaving the car without opening it in one sinuous gesture, to walk five feet and stand on a scraggly patch of weeds. "This is where the first of those utility poles once stood. It connected over there." He pointed to an intact pole with wires still dangling from it, on the other side of a large, overgrown lot, saying, "Back when those fires happened, that was a parking lot for that factory right there." He pointed to the fire-gutted and collapsed building next to the lot, but no where near the intact utility pole.
"The riots came after the regular working day was over," he instructed. "That factory was only working one shift, and so the parking lot was vacant, the empty paved lot creating a fire break the blaze never got past. So all of the utility poles on that side of this line are still, more or less ok. I've had some golems checking them out just to be sure, though. One of the Ents made sure they were all cleared of vines and branches earlier today."
Taylor inhaled in a great gasp of surprise, and exclaimed, "You're restoring electricity to Fairhaven!"
An announcement which she considered confirmed when a utility pole, reassembled out of dust and ash, began to rise into the air behind him.
The wizard shrugged. "Why not? Now that we own the property, we're not as afraid of official attention. And the place *is* a lot more livable when the lights and appliances all work. I'd restored some function to the Belmont estate, but there was no way that place was going to handle all of our refugee crisis alone. And I just did not have the time, or the resources, to do to the others what I'd begun with it. So if we wanted power and lights, this was the best way to do it."
He had to bend to the side to avoid being struck by a couple of dead power lines flying up into the air to reconnect themselves to their old places. Soon, in a couple of minutes, the repair work was completed, and that utility pole stood stark and dead, but fully intact, and connected to the one across the parking lot.
"Only five more to go," he exulted as he slid back into the vehicle.
"This is saving the city?" Taylor asked, as she joined him.
Jared snorted in derisive laughter. "This is saving a couple hundred ungrateful little yuppie larva from having to face the discomforts of having no lights or television, and thus spare ourselves all of the discomforts their whining and complaining would cause. We're still going to have to face Bakuda, but the twenty minutes this takes more or less won't make much of a difference with her, and those same twenty minutes are agony to a crowd of over-privileged teenagers who've never gone a night where it gets dark before - and never been five minutes without being connected to something electronic. Trust me, they'll be whining enough over the lack of running water. They'd go into extra 'feeling sorry for myself' crisis mode if they had to go without music or internet as well. At least now they can charge their cell phones - if they remembered and brought their chargers along. The grief we'll spare ourselves is well worth this short delay in facing the real crisis."
He said those words as he once more dismounted the car, having already driven to the next pole's location.
OoOoO
"Director Piggot? We have completed the De-Crapulator!"
Director Piggot looked up from her desk. She was wearing a full-length rain coat and wide-brimmed hat often worn by fishermen during a storm. She wore galoshes over her feet, and over her face she wore a clear plastic face shield. Her old wooden desk had been removed and replaced by a table of glass with a metal frame. On the floor underneath it were spread plastic tarps, although a new floor of bathroom tiles with a built in drain was due to be installed on Monday, along with a high pressure spray hose.
On her desk was an extremely rugged, embedded, waterproof computer rated for high humidity, dust & salinity conditions.
They'd only had to replace it twice in the last five days.
It had to be blisteringly hot inside all of that protective rain gear, so the windows were open, letting in the cold April air. And when that was not enough, they blasted the air conditioning to cool her office to tolerable levels...
... which only made it more icy and bitterly cold when something wet and splattery struck her, and she had to step into the portable shower, now set up in the corner of her overly-large, even-for-a-director office.
Her life was hell and she made sure to share that with visitors whenever possible. Her deputy director had passed out from the cold when she'd made him stand and wait for over an hour when he'd brought her the reports she'd asked for.
Armsmaster ignored her scowl with the ease of one to whom it was meaningless. She might have been a fish making eyes in a pond for all the effect her glower had on him - which might have had something to do with why their own chief offices had paired them together. Armsmaster was completely oblivious to most human social cues, so the fact that Piggot was constantly blasting everyone around her with negative ones was all but lost on him. So it did not affect him.
He was a trifle resentful when she had assigned him, as his highest priority, that he study human effluent. Still, when Piggot forced Armsmaster to study the poo that kept falling on her, and find out who it came from, his first report had been less than helpful.
As she recalled, it had been: "Well, I can see from just this sample that whoever it is has a very poor diet; monotonous, almost no fruit or vegetables, and overall lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. In fact, whoever it is has almost no care for proper nutrition..."
Then the DNA tests had come back, and they had confronted who they had suspected was responsible. Even Armsmaster could make out the pure, unrestricted joy of Clockblocker's delighted expression, when he exclaimed, "Are you telling me that I second-triggered with the ability to teleport my pooh onto Piggot?"
And the beatific look on the boy's face when he declared, looking skyward, "There is a God."
But then further DNA testing proved that more than one person's waste materials were being deposited onto Director Piggot. So Armsmaster had determined that it was not the sending end, therefore they had to look to the receiving one.
"NO! You're not getting any samples from my brain!" Piggot had shouted.
"That's a very unhelpful attitude," Armsmaster had mildly rebuked. "How am I to study these Crap-ulation molecules if you control the only known supply, and will not provide any of the material they are bonded to for study?"
Kid Win, there at the time, had opined, "Well, it's only fair. She hasn't got any brains she can afford to lose." Thus, a second Ward survived the subsequent high school bombings, as Kid Win had joined Clockblocker in Master/Stranger protocols, and a third source of effluent had begun striking Piggot.
After which Armsmaster had successfully made the point that, "Master/Stranger protocols are the single most controlled and monitored environment on Earth. The idea that multiple people, from different locations, and with different powers, are routinely violating that in undetectable ways, goes beyond the realm of any believable odds. Therefore, I must conclude that the Crap-ulation molecules bonded to your brain are the root source of the problem, and I must insist on receiving a supply for study! There must be appropriate sampling for tests!"
That argument had gone about as one could have expected.
"And I said NO! You're not getting my brain!"
"We hardly need all of it. Half would suffice. I could even build you a replacement for the missing sections. You'd never know the difference." Armsmaster had, rather generously in his opinion, offered.
"Yes, I WOULD!" Piggot had insisted.
"No, you wouldn't. You'd be programmed not to," Armsmaster had countered. "And when we discover the source of the effect, we could name it after you!"
Piggot had been singularly unimpressed by the offer of her opportunity to sacrifice her brain for the glory of science.
Then, on having her mulish expression correctly interpreted by the human interaction software he was testing, the cape had amended, "How about we just start with your prefrontal lobe? There exists plenty of scientific and experimental evidence that people can get by without that. And even you must admit you're not using it for any of its designated functions..."
In return, Piggot had shouted, "I am not letting you give me a LOBOTOMY just so you can play science!"
Armsmaster had shrugged. "Well, if you are going to be unhelpful and withhold the only source of the material behind the effect, then there is nothing more I can do."
With anyone else, that would have been the end of the argument, but Piggot had no sense for when she was being unreasonable, and had shouted at him, "Well, if you can't FIX this problem, then I demand that you build me some sort of de-crapulator - and I can't believe I just said that."
That conversation had taken place almost a week ago.
Now almost universally known as Director Poo-get (even some of her official mail was getting spelled that way), the tyrant of the ENE watched as Armsmaster and Dragon assembled her a sort of bib (or thick collar?).
"Now Director," Dragon explained, as Armsmaster made the final adjustments. "This collar, on detecting human waste arriving, will very rapidly shoot out a thin framework supporting a plastic bag to catch and contain the problem material. It can then be tied off and sealed up for easy removal and disposal."
"Like a bag of fresh-scooped dog-poo," Armsmaster offered helpfully, standing back to gaze upon his work proudly.
This statement did not endear him to the director.
"We are confident this will work, because we have observed that the offensive material will always appear roughly six inches before your face, and then respond naturally to gravity - which is why I have repeatedly recommended that you not sleep on your back."
"But I don't LIKE sleeping on my sides or stomach!" Volcano Piggot erupted.
"Do you like having your face full of offensive material better?" Dragon asked mildly.
"I DEMAND a better alternative!" Piggot turned blue in the face.
"Fine. The moment you think of one, tell us, and we'll try to make it," Dragon responded, as if to a spoiled child. "But we have yet to think of one. So we await your idea."
"But you keep telling me that all of my ideas won't work!" Piggot shouted, pounding both fists on her glass table top without concern for breakage.
She'd broken three such table tops already, and had the bandages on wounds in her hands and thighs to prove it.
"Distorting space-time to send a missile at every bottom that offends you is more than your budget could afford," Dragon shut her down for the umpteenth time. "And no, not even your emergency purchase authority covers it."
Both Tinkers turned and left, their voices drifting back, "I told you, Director Poo-get opposes science and demands butt-seeking missiles..."
OoOoO
When Jared and Taylor got back to Fairhaven there was a celebration going on. Fireworks had somehow been obtained and were being set off. People were outside of the manors and partying on the lawns, in the (now filled) pools, and swimming, in some cases without clothes on.
There was also an awful lot of very familiar alcohol getting served up.
Naturally, the TVs were also on and running and blaring out the news as the media's talking heads repeated their earlier announcements about the bomb Tinker being dead.
Lisa met them as the returning heroes went and parked the car in the Belmont's underground garage. "So, how did it go?" she asked with deceptive calmness.
"Finding Bakuda was easy enough," Jared answered, sliding once more out of the convertible without bothering to open the door. "We still have that list of major and minor ABB holdings. It was a surprise which one she was in, but the workshop tools, the drilling press and lathe and things she had there to work her metal casings with, were easy enough to find. And find the workshop, you've found the Tinker."
"So, where was she?" Lisa's question amounted to little more than idle curiosity at this point.
"The closed-up boarding school."
"Ah!" Lisa's eyes gleamed as she calculated. Indeed, the choice for where to hide the bomb Tinker made perfect sense.
As the economy had tanked, people stopped having as many children. This was a known effect, people without hope rarely if ever chose to bring children into that situation. Coupled with the fact that all Western nations had already been well below the replacement point - a society needs to have 2.1 children per couple just to stay at the same population level, something that all first world nations were significantly below even before the advent of parahumans and the disruptions that followed, and this had led to a crisis in short order.
So the school board in the mid-eighties found itself with too many schools and too few children to fill them - a crisis that had only grown worse since. New Hampshire had closed over two dozen schools in the first decade since - to a devastating morale effect on the teachers and state educational workers, who had seen budgets slashed and slashed again.
Particularly hard hit had been the more expensive private schools, and the more expensive and exclusive they were, the harder it was for them to keep the needed numbers of students enrolled in order to keep functioning.
The declining supply of school-age children was relentless, and had spared no institution.
Parents having less disposable income had been no less of a factor, where expenses once viewed as an investment in the future now were simply beyond the budget - no matter the long term benefits.
Among the more notable closures had been a number of private boarding schools, many founded in the 1700s, and sitting upon a hundred or more acres of property.
As an example Harvard University had suffered enough setbacks and reversals to be a mere shadow of its former self. From its usual clients it was having trouble finding enough children among the Boston elite to retain its character, and while once wealthier than all but a handful of nations, enough of its long-term investments and wealthy alumni had been destroyed that it was now merely wealthy, and not in the "Yes, we could buy France. Why would we want to?" class.
Less prestigious institutions had suffered similarly, and not having nearly that same depth of pocket money to fall back on, had suffered more seriously for their reversals.
Every city now sported closed schools. The only question was how many.
Brockton had more than most. Lung had lucked out that his territory contained a particularly choice plum, a former girls' boarding school that had a high wall all of the way around, topped by decorative ironwork supplied with plenty of points and sharp edges to prevent anyone from just casually climbing over. The few access points had wrought iron gates that functioned similarly, as a man had actually killed himself once trying to climb over them.
But the girls' school had been aware of what product they were protecting, and acted accordingly.
Lung used the place as a prison.
Oh, not for people that displeased him. No, he simply killed those. No, Lung had inadvertently managed to stumble upon, or perhaps he had been shown, a truth that the barbarian overlord archtype rarely even suspects - that you need more than the guy on the top and the slaves on the bottom to run an organization of any reasonable size or complexity. At bare minimum, you needed what the Pharoahs of old had: an overseer class to watch over the slaves at their labor, to police them and make sure they weren't cheating the ruler or slacking off too badly.
And in order to exist, such an overseer class had to have incentives to be loyal to the ruling class, things like money and influence and, yes, even a degree of power.
In other words, they had to share in some of the benefits of running an organization in order to be loyal to it.
But trusting people like that did not come well at all to the typical berserker mentality. They could not understand anyone who could trade subservience and service in return for a share of the wealth and power. It was alien to them, too foreign to understand, and therefore by definition untrustworthy.
So Lung did what barbarians usually do for people they need but do not trust, and took hostages, namely the daughters and female relatives of those who sold their obedience to him as organizers and overseers of the rest of the slaves.
And where he kept them was the closed up boarding school, surrounded by tall walls, shielded by multiple lines of evergreen trees forming strategically placed privacy curtains so that even standing upon the buildings nearby and looking in with binoculars, any activity going on inside of that campus was all but undetectable. So it gave the perfect combination of privacy and security - even its history already having given it considerable thought to being escape-proof.
It already had dormitories and kitchens, workshops, machine rooms and classrooms. The families of his hostages even hired teachers to join their children in their imprisonment so they would not fall behind on their educations. So it was functioning as a private school again, even if not openly.
It was amazing how much more cheaply it was to run something illegally. Jared had heard a figure quoted once, that it took up 50% of any business' operational expenses just to keep all of the government regulations and paperwork happy - and now he knew that while that figure fluctuated quite a bit, if anything it undersold the problem.
Without all of the fees and full time staff doing nothing but keeping the various government agencies happy, that bankrupt school was now running a small profit doing the same thing it had always done, and with many of the same teachers.
"So...?" Lisa asked in a leading fashion, hoping to draw out the answer she'd wanted.
Jared shrugged. "Lung had trust problems. The entire school was rigged with bombs to turn flesh to glass, just like the high schools were. Once we confirmed Bakuda was there, I simply set them off."
Lisa turned a little green at that thought.
Jared clapped her on the shoulder, choosing to reassure her with the same words that had worked on Taylor, to reassure her, "Oh, don't worry about it. My training as a wizard comes from a fantasy environment, one with basilisks and medusae and witches that turn people to frogs, and whatnot. Transforming people from stone to flesh has been done for thousands of years - and glass is no different. That's been tested. So I can recover the good ones, the innocent ones, which brings up a separate issue."
"Oh, and what's that?"
"Panacea and the other students," Jared declared boldly. "After taking care of our errand, we checked in on them."
Lisa was suddenly evaluating him with her power. "You found something," she declared.
He nodded sadly. "When we came to the glassed hospital to check in on Panacea, they were carrying out the shattered statues and throwing them in a dump truck. We got there just as they tossed Panacea's head in with the rest of the broken glass. I had to charm one of the PRT troopers to learn why, but apparently Poo-get gave herself emergency powers, and ordered that the hospital be cleared in a timely manner, so it could be reopened for use during the emergency as quickly as possible. Well, someone in middle management took that and interpreted the order for speed to be more important than any concern for retaining the statues intact. So, since people-sized chunks of glass could weight in at nearly a thousand pounds, and would require special handling to avoid damage, they just dispensed with all of that in the interests of speed and smashed them all to easily-carried chunks."
Even Lisa bristled at the casual callousness of that act of destruction. Anyone with the least respect could have at least saved Panacea as a statue to herself! "So, what did you do?" she asked, knowing he could not have let such callous destruction go unchallenged - especially if, as he said, he could restore glass statues to flesh.
He shrugged. "We had just come from raiding Bakuda's workshop. I took her completed bombs with me. The PRT team who were so casual about destroying other petrified people just happened to stumble upon an overlooked bomb and they each became glass statues themselves. Funny how that works."
"Poetic justice," Taylor added vindictively.
"And what about the dumptruck?" Lisa asked.
Taylor snorted in suppressed laughter, and the Thinker turned her gaze to the slightly younger girl, who quickly answered for Jared, "The dump truck driver was a member of my dad's union. He came to parties at our house when I was a kid. So I asked Jared to spare him - which he did. Being the only one to survive the unexpected blast, he drove away to report it, which he did. Then he was told to dump his load and report to another work site, and instead Jared cast Make Whole on all of the statues in the back, teleported away with them, made the driver think he'd dumped them, and let him proceed to the other construction site where they were repairing damaged roads."
Lisa lofted her eyebrows. "So we have Panacea stashed away somewhere?"
"And Bakuda," Jared amended. "The girl was a bad person, but that cape power of hers would be dangerous regardless of whose hands it fell into. So I took her away, planning to destroy her shard like I did yours the moment I get some peace and privacy."
"Then how..." Lisa waved to the nearest television set, currently blaring the news of Bakuda's destruction loudly and proudly.
"Oh, come now," Jared gently chided. "I've faked how many cape deaths now?"
Lisa blushed, embarrassed. She really ought to have caught that. To cover for her lapse, she changed the subject, "So who all did we get in the dump truck, along with Panacea?"
Taylor knew the answer to this. "A pain bomb took out a bus loaded with Arcadia's girls' soccer team, on their way to a match in Boston. The driver and everyone nearly died from pain, which actually probably saved their lives as the bus went out of control and crashed, causing nearly everyone to pass out - which spared them from any more pain. So they lived. Anyway, Panacea got called out of class to deal with it, and while she was working the glass bombs went off everywhere."
Jared slung an arm around Taylor's shoulders, obviously pleased with her accomplishments. "You can guess who was reading the doctors' medical reports, the police and their reports, while I saved the statues. There were a half dozen nurses and two doctors mixed in with the rest, but once I'd restored those statues I relocated them to other parts of the hospital, as I think they'll need all of their staff in the upcoming few days. Don't you?"
"Certainly," Lisa agreed. "Whole town could use a dozen more hospitals at the moment."
Jared nodded. "Anyway, we caught the PRT goons before they had cleared out more than the emergency room. So we got Panacea and the soccer team, their coaches and some support people along for the game. One bus driver, and that's it. The cop statues we were able to relocate along with the nurses."
Lisa was running some numbers in her head. "So... Arcadia uses Type C busses, with a capacity of about 80 passengers, assuming three students per seat, plus the driver. Of that, there are thirty-nine girls, twenty three on the soccer team and sixteen on the cheer squad..."
Jared cocked his head curiously. "I did not bother to identify everybody. I was in too much of a rush getting the statues restored and out before we got noticed. But I know there were about six adults, plus the bus driver."
Lisa was nodding, and knowing she could make something with those figures, they did not ask for details, as they would hear the results when she had some ready to share.
But she was mumbling, "two coaches, two teachers, two parents - those six take up the space of nine kids... one student reporter for the school newspaper... One of the teachers was probably the vice Principal, who has family in Boston..."
Taylor leaned forward. "What are you working on?"
Lisa was biting on the end of her thumb. "I am trying to figure out where Glory Girl disappeared to. She wasn't among the casualties announced at Arcadia, and she hasn't been on the news since. She likes shopping in Boston, and knows girls on both cheer and soccer teams well enough to have wheedled an invite to go along..."
Taylor gave Jared a look, then turned to tell Lisa, "Well, if it helps, I did not recognize her among any of the hospital victims."
Lisa gave her a searching glance, evaluating exactly how much of a cape geek Taylor was, before obviously deciding that it was enough to recognize a local celebrity like Glory Girl.
Then the Thinker turned and opened her computer, obviously in the mood to do some research.
"We'll leave you to it," Jared smiled, and began to lead Taylor away, his arm still around her shoulders.
OoOoO
In an otherwise unremarkable neighborhood, in neither ABB nor Empire territory, the otherwise calm and ordered normalcy was shattered by Lung, yelling as he kicked in the door, "Bring me Doctor Whodunit!"
The startled family, as they got up and fled out the back door, yelled behind them, "We don't know who you are talking about!"
"LIES Always I get lies! From house after house I get these lies!" Lung shouted as he smashed furniture. "So your house, too, will be forfeit!"
His pyrokinesis lit up, and there was no further interaction as the family fled as fast as they could go.
Lung finished demolishing that house in short order, then went on to the next house, mumbling to himself as he went, "Stupid Alexandria and her favors. How am I supposed to find some cape that no one knows anything about? This is going to take forever."
Just as he was getting ready to smash in the next door and repeat the performance from the previous house, Lung was prevented by suddenly, catastrophically losing all of his teeth and jaw integrity while suddenly flying backwards several blocks.
When he came to, he saw, flying above him, Glory Girl, carrying a vaguely familiar halberd.
The floating girl swished the weapon as she declared in flat and hostile tones. "Hello. My name is Victoria Dallon. You killed my sister. Prepare to DIE!"
OoOoO
Author's Notes:
Picture, if you will (because it does not fit in the story), Vicky flying away from where she has just delivered her sister to the hospital, when behind her the glass bombs go off. A quick investigation shows that no one inside survived. Then she goes to tell her mom, only nobody is home. But the TV is just announcing that the local high schools, including Arcadia, have just been bombed. Vicky flies off to confirm, learning that she has just lost all of her friends.
The PRT find this young lady weeping on a park bench, and do what government types always do - try to establish control over the situation. Since she is not responsive they take her into custody - figuring they could not afford the Public Relations hit of having a well respected and admired figure like Glory Girl apparently give up, fearing it would lead too many normal people giving up, and result in a sort of societal collapse.
And whether or not it would actually happen, that's what they tell themselves as they cuff her and put her in the back of a van - for her own good, and for the good of society, they tell themselves.
At first Glory Girl goes along with it, while they haul her back to PRT headquarters. When she does not immediately get over it, as they'd prefer, the distress they were layering on top of what she was already feeling causes her to second trigger. Whereupon, upon awakening she decks Armsmaster over a particularly insensitive comment he'd made, grabs his halberd, and flies off seeking revenge.
On the good news side, Halbeard was able to repair his helmet in only two days.
Beta work by Dogbertcarroll