"Interesting…" Taylor murmured under her breath as she turned the page of the journal, reading the next few paragraphs intently. "Very interesting indeed…"
It appeared that her ancestry on her mother's side included some people even odder than old Papa, if his writings were to be believed. One such person was 'Little Anton' as the old man constantly referred to him, although from what she could make out the guy had been in his twenties by the time this volume was written. He seemed, as best she could determine, to be a cousin several times removed, although the exact relationship was definitely a touch vague. Which was typical of Papa's writings, since the man hadn't been particularly voluble on the subject of people who were not of the female persuasion.
If they were, he'd put in quite a lot of effort on the descriptions, background, likes, and so on. The old horndog.
However, the thing Taylor had found particularly interesting about Little Anton, other than his exact relationship to her, was that he had apparently had a special talent. Well, two of them, but one was mostly lawbreaking, which wasn't really the main point. The interesting one was what Papa called 'his little trick,' that, based on the description and some references to a couple of scientists who'd studied it, appeared to be pretty close to a Parahuman ability in modern terms.
Which yet again puzzled her as that wasn't supposed to have been a thing before about 1983, and this journal had been written in the early sixties. But Papa had apparently taken the entire thing completely seriously and even made mention of Anton having managed to teach this skill to at least a couple of other people.
What that skill was… she wasn't completely certain aside from Papa having described it as 'looking around a corner that wasn't there' along with comments that Little Anton could do some unusual things which normal reality would appear not to allow. Like putting one thing inside another thing without opening the first thing. Or indeed removing a thing from inside another thing likewise, which he appeared to have made good use of in some less than entirely legal ways.
Pick-pocketing and smuggling, in other words. Although Papa had called it the young having fun.
She grinned to herself. The old guy had had a very weird outlook on life in quite a few places, that much was pretty obvious.
Putting the journal down on her stomach she lay back on her bed and thought about what she'd read. If she could take her old relative at his word, another relative had possessed a… what, a psychic talent, or something? An ability that would seem quite out of the ordinary, certainly, and something that these days would undoubtedly be considered a Parahuman power, even though it predated the earliest known one by more than twenty years. Which seemed unlikely, and probably the exaggeration of someone who didn't fully understand what he'd seen.
But…
She had successfully made a gnurr-pfeife following Papa's notes, along with a lot of careful thought and a few inspired modifications on his design to make it work with a flute rather than a bassoon. It worked. There was a warehouse in the docks which had been gnawed clean by millions of little critters that came from the woodwork out, exactly as his writings had claimed. He'd been right on the money in that case.
So why wouldn't he be likewise in this one?
Turning her head to the side she examined her mother's flute, which was lying on her bedside table, gleaming under the lamp. The little widget she'd built was sitting next to it. Reaching out she picked the latter item up and turned it over in her fingers, studying it closely.
She'd read her ancestor's documentation, thought about it for a while, and made the thing. Which performed exactly as advertised, despite this being something that even a real Tinker like Armsmaster would have found a touch unusual. And despite her not being a Tinker.
Taylor was pretty much certain of this. She had no urges to take the microwave apart to build a death ray, nor did she find herself sitting in the middle of a big pile of scribblings unable to remember the last two hours. Those were apparently traits of Tinkerhood which were almost infallible. Sudden fits of crazy inventiveness out of the blue accompanied by everything in sight being stripped for parts, a resulting device which broke the laws of physics and no one could understand, combined with any number of other problematic issues. And an urge to wander the streets in a silly costume fighting like-minded nutters.
She had none of that. Sure, she'd enjoyed making this gadget, and had a lot of ideas for other things she could try with it, but she didn't want to go out and fight Lung for example, neither did she feel an irresistible requirement to rebuild her computer into a spaceship. Although that would undeniably be extremely cool now she thought about it…
After a moment she shook her head with a small smile. No, that wasn't really the point. What was the point was that she more or less understood what this little device did, in a sense. Not the science of it, not really, but she had a good instinctive feeling for how it worked and why, and could probably explain that well enough to someone else to allow them to repeat her work. Most of it hinged on Papa's stash of crystals anyway, which she didn't yet fully understand, or quite know how to duplicate. He'd documented the process pretty well but it was more than a little complex and required a fair bit of other information she hadn't yet learned. Even so, it was learnable with some work, that she felt certain of.
And when she considered how the gnurr-pfeife functioned and what it did, she couldn't help but notice that in a sense it also called things from around a corner that didn't exist…
Maybe Little Anton's talent had been real after all. And maybe, just maybe… She could learn how he'd done it. Papa had written several pages on what the younger man had said about it after all, in enough detail that she got a sort of sensation for what he'd done. And he'd apparently claimed it wasn't that hard if you really tried…
Putting the gnurr-pfeife resonator down again she retrieved the journal and flipped back a few pages, before re-reading the relevant section very carefully and slowly to ensure she didn't miss anything at all.
Then she began experimenting.
"Do you need new glasses, Taylor?" Danny asked as he inspected his daughter, who was fixedly staring at a box of cereal with slightly crossed eyes. She blinked a few times, then shook her head as she glanced in his direction.
"Nope," she replied cheerfully. "Just practicing."
"Practicing what?" he queried, puzzled. "Trying to see double?"
"Kind of, but no," she very usefully answered. He stared at her then sighed a bit.
"Helpful. Very helpful. I take it you've been reading Papa's journals again?"
"Yeah," she nodded as she poured some of the cereal into her bowl and added milk. "Lots of cool ideas in them."
"I recall the last cool idea you took from those things," he grumbled, filling his coffee cup for the second time. "I've still got nightmares about being eaten by millions of little glowing mice that aren't mice."
"Papa said gnurrs don't eat living things," she pointed out with a grin. "Only your pants, mostly."
"Even so, I don't really want to experience that, so let's not, all right?" he urged her after a sip. She shrugged, spooning cereal into her mouth.
"Not planning on that," she admitted. "Although I do have some ideas for experiments."
He felt nervous about the look on her face and hastily changed the subject before she suggested something he was sure he wouldn't like. "Ready for another day of recording your little friends?" he asked, a slight smile coming and going. Taylor sighed heavily, but nodded.
"I've got everything set up same as usual," she told him, tapping her chest over where one of the recorders was dangling. "We've got three weeks worth so far. Isn't that enough yet?"
"We want to get as much as we can," he replied. "Michelle is sure that we could probably make a good case already, but the more the better. And there's always the chance that they'll do something particularly egregious that will absolutely nail them to the wall."
Putting his hand on hers where it lay on the table, he squeezed gently. "I'm sorry you're going through this," he said quietly. "But soon enough it'll stop for good. Just hang in there."
The girl nodded a little, sighing to herself. "I know, and that's all that's stopping me breaking Sophia's nose," she replied in a low voice. "I hate that they make me feel like that."
Squeezing her hand again, he released it. "Just keep it together a little longer. We'll get them, and we'll shut them and their enablers down hard when we do."
Meeting his eyes she nodded. He nodded back.
"Well, I need to get to work," he said after a moment and finished his coffee. "I'll see you tonight. Call if you have any problems, you know the drill."
Taylor ate the last of the cereal, tipped the bowl up and drank the remaining milk, then grinned at him. "I do." The grin slipped slightly and she seemed uncertain for a moment. Eventually as he was rinsing out his mug in the sink she said, "Dad… I've been thinking."
"Uh oh," he replied with a chuckle. "Now I'm really worried."
His daughter almost laughed, but looked seriously at him. "I… think we should get cellphones. Just in case."
He looked back at her for several seconds, then sighed heavily. His automatic reaction was negative, but he overrode that ingrained response with an effort of will, knowing why he had it but also knowing she was right. "I can't in all honesty say I disagree, all things considered," he finally replied. "I don't like it but I understand it, and you're probably right. One more thing we should fix."
She got up and hugged him. "I know why you don't want to and I feel the same in a way, but it's been long enough."
Putting his arms around her he held her for a moment. "I suppose it has been. I'll stop off on the way home and look into a suitable plan for both of us." Releasing her he looked into her eyes. "But I will not have one on in the car."
She nodded agreement without a word, then went to wash her bowl and spoon. A few minutes later both left the house, Taylor heading for the bus stop and he driving off towards the DWU, mulling over the changes the last few weeks had brought to them both and on the whole pleased with them, even if Taylor's achievements via the old journals had borne unexpected fruit.
"Are you still turning up every day?" Emma sneered from behind her, as Taylor collected a book from her locker. Taylor didn't reply, merely closing the door and locking it, before turning around and staring at the shorter red-head. Madison was next to her, and a little behind them was Sophia, who was glaring at her as was standard practice, giving off the impression that she was spoiling for the chance to get physical. Around them a small crowd of the usual suspects gathered, some of them making little snide comments and a few just watching.
"Honestly I don't get why you keep coming here," her former friend continued. "No one wants you. You're pathetic and useless and stinking the place up. Why won't you just go away and leave the rest of us to get on with our lives?"
"Funny, I was thinking the same thing," Taylor muttered, almost inaudibly although Emma obviously heard based on how her expression twisted.
Leaning forward the other girl stabbed her in the chest with an outstretched forefinger. "What did you say?" she demanded shrilly.
Taylor shrugged. There was no point in replying as Emma was entirely capable of carrying on the entire conversation herself, and no matter what she said it would only make things worse. So she just stared at Emma's throat, watching the veins pulse with anger. Better than meeting her eyes, because that was likely to make her angry enough to cast aside any caution.
"You think you can talk back to me?" Emma shouted. "To me? A worm like you?" For some reason she was in a particularly brittle mood, Taylor realized, and was really going off on a tear. "I'm better than you could ever be. You should remember your place, you useless bitch."
"Yeah, you're completely hopeless," Madison put in, not to be outdone. Taylor glanced at her with a slightly raised eyebrow before going back to not meeting anyone's eyes.
"She's probably on some Merchant crap again," Sophia suggested with a snigger. Emma laughed, while Madison and some of the others nodded. "About the only way she could ever get any backbone."
Sighing under her breath, Taylor just waited more or less patiently for them to get it out of their systems, knowing that every word was being recorded. She distracted herself by going over some ideas she'd had to experiment with the gnurr-pfeife during the weekend, and how her practicing Little Anton's special trick was coming along.
After a few minutes of fairly unimaginative insults from the group arrayed around her, which she managed to completely ignore to the point they looked frustrated, the first bell rang. "We done yet?" she asked in a bored tone, looking over their heads at the clock on the far wall. Sophia gave her a slightly odd look before scowling, even as Emma appeared to be searching for the right words to form a really good insult. "Because I need to get to class and this is getting tedious."
She took a step forward, hoping Emma would get the point and give up. Normally by now they'd have had their fill for the moment and moved off, and indeed several of the hanger's-on were doing just that, but the red-head seemed to still have a full head of steam for some reason.
"Tedious?!" Emma shouted, apparently highly incensed by having her game interrupted. Taylor wondered why she was quite so bitchy, even for her. Maybe she'd put her underwear on inside out or something?
The thought made her smile to herself, which manifested as a slight twitch to her mouth.
Emma noticed.
Emma wasn't happy about it.
Emma slapped her face as hard as she could.
Taylor's head jerked sideways and her glasses flew off. For a moment a cold fury roared through her and her fists clenched. Meeting Emma's eyes, her own narrowed. The red-head, despite herself, took a step back, and behind her Sophia's gaze was fixed on Taylor, an odd expression present. Everyone watching was silent as they waited to see what happened next.
After a long ten seconds, Taylor broke eye contact and bent down, retrieving her glasses and putting them back on. "That's one, Emma," she said quietly. And turned away to walk towards the home room as the final bell rang. Oddly, the crowd surrounding them parted to allow her to pass. Behind her she could hear Sophia and Emma whispering to each other but didn't bother trying to work out what they were saying. It wasn't important.
Inside, she was fuming, and doing everything she could to calm down and not let them know her feelings. Keeping up the impassive and docile appearance was important for her and her dad's plan, even though she longed to return the slap with interest. And possibly a broken bottle.
She wasn't sure quite why this latest assault had caused such a reaction. Emma, although she wasn't nearly as physically abusive as Sophia was, had slapped or tripped her a lot over the last year and a bit. Normally nothing like that hard, admittedly, so possibly that was part of the reason for her reaction. But on reflection Taylor realized that a large chunk of it was that now that she knew she had someone who believed her, who was on her side, after all this time, it was hard to keep pretending that this sort of crap didn't affect her.
When that was literally the only thing she had to look forward to, it became habit to ignore the abuse. The school flat out didn't care, she'd found that out almost immediately. Her hopes of the staff doing their jobs had died a sad death within the first month. By the third, she was pretty much convinced that they probably condoned it, for some twisted reason she wasn't privy to. Certainly no one seemed to give any thought to her in this whole ordeal. Even when she'd managed to get someone to actually pay attention, which took some doing, she'd basically been told to sit down, shut up, and stop the attention-seeking behavior.
All her complaints had been ignored, all her documentation lost, and barely any of the teachers even paid attention at all. Hell, she'd seen Gladly and several other teachers watching as she'd been tripped, or punched, or kicked, or any of the other things, and they'd just turned away without comment. Gladly's comment the first day she had the recorder that she had to ask for help before they could help was so hypocritical she still wanted to strangle the man. She'd asked for help literally dozens of times and every single one of them had resulted in precisely nothing.
The only person who was on her side was her dad, and she bitterly regretted not opening up to him much earlier. Yeah, both of them were in a bad place, both of them still were in a bad place in many ways, but..
Opportunities lost, she realized, have to be forgotten about. At least they'd finally begun talking and their relationship was healing well as a result. And she was self-aware enough to know that she bore at least some of the blame for their years of estrangement, since she'd closed down nearly as much as her father had.
Oh well. All one could do is move onward, and with any luck the evidence she was gathering steadily would sooner or later make this whole horrible experience a thing of the past. And screw over the people who'd been screwing her over at least as much as they'd managed in the other direction.
She sighed a little as she sat at her desk, having made sure no little traps had been left for her this time. Apparently she was lucky for once.
Shaking her head almost unnoticeably she put her bag beside her and waited as the rest of the class filtered in, talking among themselves and quite a lot of them staring at her. Which wasn't in any way unusual, so she just kept her eyes on her desk and waited, not looking around but wary of any sudden moves in her direction in her peripheral vision.
Julia and Madison, who sat directly in front of her, started making snide comments just loud enough to be clearly heard, and obviously directed at her. She didn't react at all, allowing the words to slide off her, although she was grimly satisfied that every syllable would be recorded for posterity. Not one of the people around her paid any attention to the little card around her neck any more, having apparently decided it was all a bluff she was still trying to make work. Even the teachers ignored it, and she'd caught some really quite useful comments from a couple of them here and there. Things they probably would really rather not be made public.
It made her almost grin inside when she considered the likely results should their words come back to bite them.
Whether it was enough to get this entire shit-show shut down yet she didn't know, but every day of hell was a day closer to her salvation, with any luck.
And, of course, she had Papa's journals to think about and distract her from the awfulness surrounding her. That alone almost made the last year worth it, as she wasn't sure she'd ever have come across her ancestor's stuff without those three little bitches stealing her mom's flute.
It wasn't enough to make up for the whole situation, of course, but it was a small silver lining to a horrible experience.
Taylor sat there vaguely listening to her bullies, aware that Sophia and Emma were still whispering off to the side and eyeing her occasionally, all the time doing her best to ignore everything around her as she pondered the knowledge imparted to her by the writings of a very strange old man from years ago.
It helped, at least a little.
"What the hell did this?"
Armsmaster didn't reply, as he looked around at the scoured clean and very decrepit warehouse which was sufficiently ramshackle that he was a touch nervous about standing where he was inside it. Beside him, Assault was inspecting the floor with raised eyebrows, looking at the little grooves all over it from one end to the other. Shiny bits here and there betrayed where metal fixtures had been embedded into the ancient concrete, most likely steel bolts for holding down machinery. When the Tinker walked over to look directly at one of these fittings he saw that even the remains of the bolts bore the same scrape marks.
Kneeling down, he ran an armored finger over one inch-diameter bolt, noticing that the grooves ran through the concrete into the metal without even the slightest deviation, showing that whatever had done the damage had found high tensile steel as little obstruction as concrete. Something extremely sharp and with a large amount of force behind it had sheared through everything without pause or hindrance.
Standing up again, he looked about him, using his suit's sensors to take measurements of the warehouse. "I estimate nearly a foot of the floor has been removed," he stated after running some calculations. "Including anything that was on the floor, or embedded into it."
Assault glanced at him, then followed his gaze around the building. "That's an awful lot of material," he commented slowly. Armsmaster nodded.
"Where did it all go?" his colleague asked a moment later.
"I don't know," he replied, shaking his head. There wasn't a trace of any rubble, not even dust. Even leaving aside the old machinery that this place almost certainly had contained, as it had been some sort of factory at one point and most likely full of the remains of the tools as so many of these buildings were, the amount of floor that had vanished was impressive. The building was nearly two hundred feet by eighty, meaning that something like sixteen thousand cubic feet of concrete had evaporated into thin air. More than a hundred tons of the stuff, without leaving the slightest detritus behind.
If you included a reasonable estimate of scrap machinery and other materials, it could well be double or triple that. The damage extended up the walls nearly ten feet, removing internal structures, beams, stairs, and enough of the rest of the building that it was a miracle it was still standing even to the extent it still was. If it hadn't been of such solid construction he had no doubt it would have collapsed entirely by now, and it was only a matter of time before that happened.
The wind moaning through the holes in the roof strengthened for a moment, making the whole building creak loudly, and he considered uneasily that a matter of time might indeed be a very short matter of time. It would be best to finish off in here and leave quickly before something awkward happened.
"I wonder what it was that made those impressions?" Assault remarked, kneeling down and feeling the floor for himself. "It almost looks like… tooth marks."
"I noticed," Armsmaster agreed soberly. "Unnerving, if unlikely. There is nothing alive that could possibly eat solid concrete, never mind high tensile steel."
"As far as we know," the other man responded as he stood.
"As far as we know," Armsmaster acknowledged. He headed for the door on the other side of the building and looked through the remains of the window in it to the alley outside, then turned around and examined the scene again. Assault joined him, following his eyes. "Odd…"
"What's odd, other than everything?"
"No damage at all outside the building. It's entirely contained to the interior," he replied thoughtfully. "Whatever did this was indiscriminate, but in a very targeted manner."
"Yeah, I see what you mean," Assault agreed, looking around again. "Weird. Leet experimenting, you think? It's the sort of thing I could see him and Über doing. Mostly because if anyone is going to do something bizarre around here those two are the most likely culprits."
"I can't deny that," Armsmaster sighed. "Although I can't see why they'd scour the inside of a warehouse down to the foundations. It doesn't fit any video game theme I'm aware of. And if they'd done it, they'd probably have posted it on YouTube or PHO by now."
"Unless it was one of his inventions that got away from him again," the other man pointed out with a small grin. "That's always funny, at least from a safe distance."
Armsmaster gave him a look, which had no effect at all. "Perhaps," he grunted. The building creaked loudly again as a gust caught it, causing both of them to look up, then at each other. "I think we've probably seen enough," he added as he headed as quickly as possible to the door they'd entered by, Assault following with alacrity.
As they left, Assault asked, "Any idea how long ago it happened? Or how long it took?"
"We got an anonymous tip three days ago, so before that obviously," Armsmaster replied as he got onto his bike. "My instruments suggest, based on the exposed concrete, no more than a month ago and no less than two weeks ago. But it's hard to pin it down more closely. As to how long whatever it was took to do that damage…" He shrugged a little, annoyed at not being able to give more than an educated guess.
"I can't see it taking less than at least twenty four hours of continuous work taking into account the sheer amount of material removed. It would be necessary to carry the remains away, which would require either quite a lot of time or some large and obvious machinery. One to three hundred tons of rubble is a considerable amount even for normal construction equipment. Possibly as many as a dozen large trucks full. And that doesn't take into account the amount of time and effort needed to erase any traces of remains. How that was done I really don't know yet."
"Yeah, it's not easy to clean up a site that well, never mind quickly," Assault commented, nodding. "I wish I knew why it was done. I can't see the point of it at all. There was nothing valuable in there, because it would have been stolen years ago. That place has been abandoned for more than twenty years."
Armsmaster sat astride his bike and pondered the old warehouse. A muffled crash from inside made both of them look up, as part of the remaining roof suddenly fell as a stronger gust blew past. "It's a disturbing puzzle," he finally admitted. "Hopefully not one that is likely to bite us in the ass. But I suppose we'll have to add it to the unknown Parahuman activities file until and unless we find out more information."
Assault grinned. "That file is getting pretty big," he chuckled.
"We have far too many Parahumans in this city," the Tinker growled. "At least there's no obvious threat posed at the moment." He started the bike. "Hopefully that remains the case."
"Yeah. I could do without yet another problem coming out of left field," the other cape nodded. "Race you back."
Armsmaster gave him a hard look. Assault looked back with a smirk, before taking off in a blur of motion.
Sighing, the Tinker followed. If he found himself opening the throttle a little more than regulations suggested, obviously that was purely because he didn't want to waste any more time on something irrelevant…
Sitting in the living room on the sofa, Taylor held up a cardboard box and squinted at it, her eyes slightly crossed. Concentrating, she focused her attention as hard as she could, until she finally smiled. "Finally," the girl whispered in exaltation. "I got it!"
Putting the box down she opened it and poured the contents into her hand, counting the random handful of coins she'd dumped in a few minutes earlier without looking. "Two dollars and six cents," she crowed gleefully. "I knew it. Thanks, Papa, your notes were right all along."
She was very pleased with her progress. It had taken nearly two weeks of hard work and more attempts than she could remember, but she'd managed to figure out how Little Anton's trick worked. Or at least how to do it even if she didn't understand the exact mechanics of the operation. It required unfocusing your eyes just right and looking past the normal layers of the world to something beyond that, which was a weird concept to begin with, and weirder to actually do, but it worked. It was kind of like those magic eye pictures but in a completely different way, she mused as she spun a quarter through her fingers, watching it turn end over end.
And it had some interesting possibilities. Seeing through a solid object was already pretty cool, but according to what Papa had written there was a lot more to it. Some of the implications were absolutely mind-boggling…
Picking up an empty can of coke in her other hand, she looked thoughtfully at it, then at the coin. After a few seconds she shrugged and gave it a try. Five minutes later she was grinning to herself as she rattled the can, hearing all the coins and random other small objects in it, none of which were able to pass through the opening in the usual manner, slide about.
"Yeah… This could come in handy, for sure," she muttered, putting it down and making a lot of notes in her own journal. The one she was never going to take anywhere near school.
The thought of Sophia being able to learn how to reach through something solid was horrifying.
She shuddered as she wrote. No, she didn't want any of those bitches learning anything she was figuring out. It was a family secret as far as she was concerned. Something that was hers, something she'd managed all by herself. Admittedly with the aid of the notes and equipment from a very strange relative, but she'd certainly put the work in.
Taylor spent another hour practicing with the technique, trying to think of other ways to use the ability look past the top layer of reality to something even stranger. Eventually the sound of the front door opening made her look around to see her dad step into the house a moment later. She smiled. "Hi, Dad, good day at work?" she asked.
"So so," he replied, closing the door and taking his coat off, then hanging it up having shaken the small amount of dampness from the light rain outside off. "How was yours?"
"The usual at school," she sighed as he came in and sat down next to her, listening with a small frown. He shook his head sadly. "More shit from everyone, got tripped by Sophia twice, Madison stole my good pen, lots of stupid insults…" She shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I've already downloaded the recordings."
Her dad's fist clenched for a moment then relaxed. "God, I'm sorry this is happening, Taylor," he finally replied in a low voice. "But we're nearly ready to drop the hammer. We'll put a stop to it, believe me."
"I hope so, it's really kind of a pain in the ass," she grumbled, causing him to almost smile although in a very annoyed manner. "Hey, on the bright side I worked out another cool thing from Papa's journals!"
He squinted suspiciously at her, seeming not entirely convinced this was a good thing. "Is it likely to try to eat the world like the last cool thing you 'worked out,'" he queried carefully.
"No," she assured him quickly. Then she paused and thought. "Well… no. It's safe, promise."
"That… did not fill me with confidence," he moaned as he took his glasses off and massaged his forehead. She grinned back at him.
"It's cool, look!" Leaning forward she retrieved the can with the coins in and showed it to him, shaking it a little. He took it from her and inspected it, peering inside through the opening, before meeting her eyes quizzically.
"Why do you have a can full of quarters and other junk, Taylor?" he asked slowly.
"I was practicing."
"Practicing putting quarters into an empty soda can?" She nodded happily. He sighed faintly. "I know I'm going to regret asking, but I have to," he mumbled, before meeting her eyes. "Why did you practice putting quarters into an empty soda can?" he queried patiently.
"It's not that I put them in the can, it's how I put them in the can," she told him. "Watch."
He watched as she pulled a coin out of the can using her trick. His eyebrows went up and he very slowly took the coin from her fingers and looked at it, before looking back at the can he was still holding. "How the…" he managed in a dumbfounded voice.
She did it again, and again. Within a few seconds she was holding a handful of quarters, three keys, half a pencil, a penknife, and two bottle caps, and he had an empty can.
There was a long silent pause, before he leaned his head back on the sofa and groaned. "Oh, god. Annette, why aren't you here to make sense of all this for me?" he complained, making Taylor start laughing. "Your ancestor was a damn menace and he's still causing problems…"
Eventually he lifted his head and fixed his eyes on her. "Explain. Please, before I go even crazier than I probably already am."
"I figured out Little Anton's trick," she began, in the end showing him the relevant journal entry and her own notes. By the time she finished they were sitting eating dinner and her father was staring at her with disbelief mixed with a weird sort of pride.
After dinner, she started teaching him how to do the trick, because she was curious to see if she could if nothing else.
"Watch it, Hebert," Sophia growled as she deliberately barged into Taylor and knocked her into the wall, stepping on her foot in the process. The taller girl suppressed a faint sigh as she caught herself.
"Do you have to push me like that?" she asked in a non-confrontational manner. "I wasn't in your way."
Sophia whirled around and stomped back, shoving Taylor up against the wall with one hand and pointing at her with the other, her finger an inch from Taylor's nose. She leaned in and snarled, "Yes, I have to push you like that, you skinny freak. You're always in the way, and it's my job to make sure you realize that."
"Your job?" Taylor echoed rather incredulously. Ever since she'd begun commenting on their actions for the benefit of the recordings all three of the girls had escalated noticeably, which was in a sense useful but in all the other ways not at all good. But even by those standards it was a peculiar comment.
Sophia smirked nastily. Behind her Emma, who'd been watching the entire encounter with glee, looked pleased and triumphant. "It's more of a hobby, I suppose. Whatever. Just stay out of my way. Or drop dead. That would be my choice, personally." She shoved Taylor again, pretty hard, before stepping back and glaring for a moment then turning away. Emma sneered at her former friend and followed, Madison trailing along behind and waving cutely with her fingertips while smiling maliciously. Taylor watched them go into class, shook her head tiredly, and followed.
Of course by the time she got to her seat someone, and she didn't need three guesses, had left a number of thumbtacks on it. She had no idea why they still bothered with this stupid trick because it wasn't like she was sufficiently unwary enough not to check every time. Without comment she swept them into her hand and looked at the likely culprit. Madison smirked back at her. Turning to the front of the room and the man standing there watching, Mr Quinlan the math teacher, she gave him a look. He'd clearly seen the whole thing but he merely looked back before turning away to write something on the board.
Under her breath, far too quietly for anyone to hear, she said something very rude, then walked over to the garbage bin, giving the trio a wide berth, and dropped the thumbtacks into it with a clatter that was clearly audible throughout the room while everyone else followed her with their eyes. Going back to her desk via the same route she sat down, feeling very aggrieved but resigned to this sort of idiocy.
Madison turned around in her seat and grinned at her in a shit-eating sort of manner, Emma and Sophia clearly suppressing laughter.
Taylor kept the desire to strangle the little shit bottled firmly up as always. No sense risking the plan.
About five minutes later an idea hit her, and she almost smiled in an evil way, managing to catch it before anyone noticed. Mr Quinlan was reading something from the textbook, a math problem she'd solved before he was halfway through since it was pretty trivial, and everyone else was mostly paying attention. Madison was resting her head on her hand with her elbow on the desk, desultorily making notes, Sophia was visibly half asleep, Emma seemed to be drawing something, Julia and Cathy were whispering to each other and freezing every time the teacher looked at them… No one was currently paying any attention to her.
The brunette examined Madison, who was sitting directly in front of her. Her third-rate wannabe nemesis wasn't paying attention to much of anything, and she had her legs crossed with one foot wiggling back and forth, the shoe dangling from her toes. Taylor watched for a few seconds, then turned her attention to Madison's bag, which was hanging from the back of the chair, a few feet from her.
She slightly crossed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, making a little gesture with her left hand under the desk.
Then she did the same thing while peering at Madison's half-off shoe.
At no point did she move from the desk, and Mr Quinlan had her in view the entire time. Her other hand was writing in her notebook in a perfectly normal manner. Moments later she was turning the page in her textbook, ignoring everyone else as was her usual practice.
Twenty minutes passed with the drone of the teacher and scratching sounds from pencils and pens on paper the only thing to break the silence. Which made the screech that Madison emitted when she put her foot on the floor even more startling, causing everyone, even Taylor, to jump violently.
"AAAHHH! MY FOOT!" Madison screamed as she frantically scrabbled at her shoe, yanking it off even as Mr Quinlan, who'd clutched at his chest and gone a funny color for a moment, hurried towards her. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"
The blonde girl succeeded in ripping her shoe off and pulled her foot over the top of her desk so she could see it. Everyone else was watching, most of the students further away from her half standing to get a good view. Sobbing with pain, Madison paled when she saw the glint of metal right on the bottom of her heel. Emma was staring in shock and Sophia, after a momentarily startled expression, was examining the other girl's foot with a clinical interest.
"That's a thumbtack," she commented helpfully.
Madison gave her a vicious glare, her normal cute composure entirely missing. "I KNOW IT'S A FUCKING THUMBTACK YOU IDIOT!" she howled. "GET IT OUT!"
Sophia reached out with a finger and thumb and yanked. Madison went white. "Huh. Stuck in there good," the girl said thoughtfully. She pulled harder, causing Madison to whimper, and finally got it extracted. The teacher was hovering nearby watching, his face betraying a certain amount of confusion. Sophia looked at the tack in her fingers, then at Madison and Emma, and finally at Taylor. Who shrugged.
"Must have dropped it when she put some on my seat," Taylor remarked calmly.
Madison, tears of pain streaming from her eyes, turned to glare at her. "I didn't drop one, I put all of them on your fucking chair," she shouted.
Taylor raised an eyebrow, even as Sophia put her hand over her eyes and Emma sighed loudly. She looked at Mr Quinlan, who shook his head. "You heard that, right?" the girl asked without any real emotion.
He glanced at her, shook his head again in a put-upon manner, then turned to Emma. "Please take Miss Clements to the nurse, Miss Barnes. Class is nearly over anyway." Then he went back to the front of the room and finished writing down the homework assignment. "Miss Hess, make sure you give both your friends a copy of this," he instructed as Emma helped a bleeding, limping and complaining Madison out of the room, the red-head looking confused and rather irritated. Sophia flicked the thumbtack into the garbage after looking at it again and shrugging, before copying down the relevant information. Everyone else did the same, including Taylor, who hid a sense of justified retribution behind the usual mask.
Little Anton's trick had all sorts of interesting uses, she decided with a certain amount of dark amusement. Although she was going to have to be very careful not to overuse it where other people might end up figuring out something unusual was going on.
But… damn, it had felt good to get one of her own in for once.
She was in a strangely good mood the rest of the day, unlike Madison.
Danny watched his daughter carefully fit the little copper thing she'd made over the end of the flute, adjust it slightly, then raise the instrument to her lips. She thought for a moment, nodded, and began playing one of the tunes she'd been practicing for a couple of weeks now. He held his breath, a feeling of trepidation inside him.
She seemed fairly sure that she'd worked out the right music, using a series of bizarre calculations derived from Papa's old notes, but he wasn't entirely sure this was a good idea even so. But it seemed to make her happy, which was something he was very much wanting to see, so despite himself he'd brought her to another even less useful warehouse a couple of miles from the first one just in case anyone had noticed what the gnurrs had done to it the last time this had happened.
The strains of Greensleeves floated out into the cavernous interior of the tumbledown building, overlaid on the same sort of unsettling sub-harmonics the gnurr-pfeife seemed to produce. The undertones weren't really heard in the normal way, so much as they seemed to arrive directly in one's brain without using the ears, and he shivered at the sensation. It felt like reality was listening with a sense of mild incredulity, not to mention apprehension. The odd not-quite-sounds faded away in a manner that didn't match normal acoustics at all, as if they were echoing into space that wasn't the same one everything else occupied.
He got an impression that something, somewhere both very close and very distant, was listening intently.
She started in on the second bar of the melody, playing with a small frown as she concentrated on the music.
A moment later, a now-familiar glimmer of not-light caught his eye. Danny looked around, catching sight of something moving out of the corner of his vision. When he peered directly at it, it vanished. Glancing at his daughter he saw she'd seen it too if her expression was anything to go on, and she seemed pleased although her playing didn't falter.
Staring around, he kept seeing that strange glow that didn't seem to illuminate anything but itself, in a color he couldn't for the life of him begin to describe. It built below them for longer than he recalled the gnurrs taking before they came from the woodwork out. There was an air that whatever was happening took a little more effort than the gnurrs had…
Then, all of a sudden, the things that had been hiding around a corner that wasn't there, came around that corner and were abruptly here.
The entire volume in front of them was filled with things. Things that glowed darkly, things that chirruped without noise, things that groaned and roared and were completely silent all at the same time.
Things that were floating in the air, things that were mostly teeth.
He recoiled as innumerable semi-immaterial flying somethings about the size of a lemon suddenly started zipping frantically around them, moving so fast they were almost impossible to focus on. The swarm was vast and in no mood to fast.
It was hungry.
Taylor lowered the flute and stared in shock as millions of flying balls of teeth shot around the warehouse, passing entirely through absolutely everything although for some reason they didn't come within ten feet of either of them. As the creatures zoomed through the obstructions, they left perfectly round holes behind. Teeth whirled and screeched and machinery, bricks, masonry, steel, and wood vanished down gullets. In seconds the building was empty, and the walls looked like a colander.
Father and daughter exchanged horrified glances, then Taylor raised the flute and began very quickly playing Greensleeves backwards, the tune eerie and discordant like this, but effective. The munching and crunching and gnawing died away almost instantly, within seconds leaving them standing on a concrete ledge sticking out from the wall about fifteen feet up, a twenty foot section surrounding them the only part of the entire building that wasn't completely perforated.
Neither of them said anything for quite a while.
"Taylor?" Danny finally remarked, very carefully.
"Yeah, Dad?"
"I think we should probably mark that one down as 'Best not played again,' don't you?"
"Yeah, Dad."
"In fact, perhaps we should think very carefully about experimenting with different tunes on the gnurr-pfeife in future."
She nodded silently as they looked around.
Part of the roof at the far side collapsed with a crash. Both twitched, then they quickly began trying to figure out how to get down. Luckily the holes left behind by whatever the hell it was she'd managed to summon made that relatively easy. As they drove hastily away, behind them the warehouse finally gave up and almost gracefully fell apart. At a safe distance he stopped the car and they both twisted around to peer back at the rising cloud of dust, then met each other's eyes.
"I think I preferred the gnurrs," he said weakly.
Taylor started giggling. He sighed and resumed driving. "Papa, you have a lot to answer for," he muttered under his breath which only made her giggle harder.
As they turned into their street, she looked up from where she'd been making some notes and said, "Hey, Dad? I have an idea that might be worth trying…"
Danny's sense of imminent doom began tingling again as she explained.