Lisa stared at Taylor, who gazed back with a raised eyebrow.

"You did what?" she finally managed.

"I gave Administrator a present to help her deal with beneath," the other girl replied calmly as if this was sensible or even believable.

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, as Lisa tried to think of some response to that. Her own power was pretty much doing the same thing for much the same reason. Eventually, almost despite herself, she weakly said, "Her?"

"She feels like a her to me, and doesn't seem to mind," Taylor smiled, before reaching for the orange juice and pouring another glassful.

Shaking her head to dislodge the insanity of the whole thing, Lisa took a couple of breaths and tried again.

"OK. Tell me again, slowly, what you actually did. Because I'm pretty sure it's not something that should be possible."

Taylor grinned faintly, sipping the OJ, then put the glass down. "Funny, she said pretty much the same thing."

Putting her fingertips on her temples and massaging them in a small circular motion as she tried to get to grips with her crazy friend, Lisa sighed. "That doesn't actually surprise me…"

"It's simple enough in a sense," Taylor explained, holding out a hand on which was now one of the remaining two crystalline little abnormalities she'd made earlier. "These things are incredibly multidimensional, in a way that's both like how the aliens do it, and not. I figured out how to do this…" She held it between both hands, did something bizarre, her fingers seeming to go elsewhere for a moment while still remaining present, then pulled them apart. Each was now holding an apparently identical crystalloid.

Lisa looked blankly from one to the other. Even her power was staring. "What happened?"

"I moved one specific aspect of the dimensional layering apart," her friend said gleefully, holding both of the things up and gazing at them with a pleased expression. "This isn't two of them, it's the same one."

"...in two separate places at the same time."

"Exactly."

"That's impossible." Lisa's voice was flat, and she could feel her power gaping in shock.

"Not as much as you'd think, it turns out," the other girl grinned. "Not simple, fair enough, but it can be done if you get it right. It took a lot of thinking about it though and until I actually did it I wasn't completely certain it would work. But…" She shrugged, tossing each object up and catching it. They spun through the air, light sparking off the facets that didn't quite match up with the number of faces and edges each time they revolved, in a way that was making Lisa dizzy to watch.

Putting them down on the table next to her plate, Taylor resumed eating breakfast. Danny had already left for an early morning meeting with the city administration, leaving the two alone for now, and Taylor had dropped the bombshell of her little experiment last night when they'd been halfway through the meal.

"Anyway, the main thing to think about is that this is the same crystal," Lisa's friend went on after a couple of bites, pointing at the pair of objects with her fork. "The distance between the… ends, I guess… is irrelevant as in a very real way there is no distance. At all. And it turned out that with a little careful work you can use them as a communications system. Kind of, it's more complicated than that, but it gives you the basic idea."

"You build a quantum entangled communicator out of household chemicals," Lisa finally stated in a light-headed voice.

Taylor rocked her hand from side to side. "Meh, not really, that's not exactly how it works, but it's the right basic concept. It's closer to a portal in a sense, but that's also not really right either. And as far as I can figure out from reading about it, quantum entanglement can't technically be used to transfer information despite what fiction tells you. This can. A hell of a lot of it, in fact. And way more efficiently than the aliens do with their version." She smiled at Lisa, who was trying to wrap her mind around the whole idea and having trouble with that. "So once I managed to make that bit work, it wasn't very difficult to figure out that I could use it to patch the low bandwidth link Administrator had with me through the crystals and make it way better. Without all that tedious mucking around with brain tumors and that sort of thing, and all the hassle of a Trigger. Those sound like a bad idea to be honest."

She grinned again as Lisa put her head in her hands and moaned faintly. "This is much less painful and a lot more useful than the old fashioned way of doing it. I've given Administrator a way to directly observe beneath and watch how I'm accessing it, rather than just seeing the results. She seemed pleased after an initial… attack of confusion."

Getting a thoughtful look as Lisa raised her head to stare at her friend, she went on, "Poor thing was really terrified when she really saw the full extent of beneath. I had to reassure her I wouldn't let it eat her." Taylor smiled faintly, before going back to eating, while Lisa just looked wordlessly at the other girl, all the time wondering somewhat desperately if her friend actually realized just how ridiculous everything she'd said was.

…

Taylor Hebert is… disturbing

'You got that right,' Lisa replied to the comment from her power, which gave the impression of currently being as unnerved as she was if not more so.

Administrator suffering from near-Taylor experience

Lisa nearly snorted her coffee out her nose. Was that actually a joke? Her power was changing a lot quicker than she'd realized.

Acceptance of true extent of… everything… as explained by Taylor Hebert difficult

Proof available but… exceptionally confusing

New data overwhelming

New data fascinating

New data terrifying

Knowledge gained from new data beyond value

Host fortunate to encounter Taylor Hebert

'You don't need to tell me that, trust me,' she thought back, finding the conversation surreal. Her power sounded like it was ready to hide under the bedclothes, while at the same time almost vibrating with eagerness to study the very thing that obviously terrified it. A curious dichotomy but a real one.

She empathized with it much more than she felt one should when dealing with an alien supercomputer…

Continued observation of Hebert Discoveries key to supply of further new data

Administrator dedicated to ensuring no interruption to Taylor Hebert's work or life

With a slight worry about how that made it sound like her own power put her as the secondary objective, Lisa asked, 'I hope you're looking out for me as well.'

Host is… friend

Host is also Taylor Hebert's friend

Administrator is Taylor Hebert's friend

Administrator has directed protecting Taylor Hebert's friends and family is top level priority since Taylor Hebert deems friends and family of critical importance

Host is safe

'Good to know,' she replied after thinking that over. She was entirely honest about that, and got a very weird feeling that her own power in its own strange way was determined to make sure she was indeed protected.

For a moment there was another sensation, this one of amusement and reassurance, which swept over the room, making her look around uneasily. Taylor smiled a little.

Taylor Hebert able to communicate directly with Administrator

Direct communication with network node by potential Host technically impossible

Direct communication with network node initiated by potential Host also technically impossible

Taylor Hebert apparently unaware of technical impossibilities

'Or she just shrugs and does anyway it even if she is aware,' Lisa thought with a sort of wry amusement. She got back a wordless sense of agreement in a very similar vein.

Returning her full attention to her breakfast, Lisa finished the pancakes, then put her knife and fork on the plate and picked up the coffee mug. "So you basically built yourself a way to get superpowers without Triggering?"

Her friend grinned. "Not exactly. I'm not asking Administrator for powers. I've got plenty of neat tricks of my own. But I thought it would be nice to let her have some fun too, and since they love new data so much, it seemed like a good way to make sure she gets all the data she wants. Like I said I didn't want to go through all the mess of a Trigger even if I could because they sound a lot more traumatic than seems reasonable."

Lisa nodded silently, shivering slightly at a memory that came back for a moment. She felt her power providing her with a sort of reassurance which was unusual but welcome. "They're not fun, no," she said having cleared her throat.

Taylor nodded understanding, watching her sympathetically. "This way she can get a nice fat data link without all that fiddling around with my brain. I like my brain the way it is, I don't need something weird done to it. So I did that instead." She picked up one of the crystals, or half of the singular crystal, however you wanted to put it, and rolled it through her fingers.

"One end is right up here, but just under the normal skin of reality," her friend said, pointing her free hand at her own head. "Right on the conduit, which now goes through it. And the other end is in the equivalent place in Administrator's processing core, connected to that end of the link. The bandwidth is… fairly substantial." Her voice went very dry for the last words, and she grinned when Lisa shook her head.

"Normal people Trigger, you make an artificial Gemma or whatever the fuck it is and traumatize a super power with it. Only you, Taylor."

"Hey, I try," Taylor laughed. "Seemed like a good idea at the time anyway. And, of course, it worked."

"How did you even figure out how to talk directly with Administrator?" Lisa questioned with puzzlement. "My power can't work it out. It's not supposed to even be possible."

"A lot of thinking and a few good guesses, along with some experimentation," the other girl replied before finishing her orange juice then getting up to clear the table. "And Administrator is doing a lot of the work, to be honest. It's kind of fun, learning an alien language, though." Lisa moved to help her friend tidy the kitchen. "They communicate natively in concepts, is the least wrong way to put it. Not actual words like we do."

"My power uses words," Lisa replied, handing her friend a plate which went into the dishwasher.

"Does it? Or is it just your brain thinking it's using words because that's what it's expecting?" Taylor gave her a curious look as she closed the appliance. "Remember what I said about what I found out with the gemma and the conduit? It's connected to the gemma primarily, yes, but it's also connected to everything else. To a level that is functionally telepathy no matter what current science claims. The gemma is the main node, but through that it's got a link to your entire brain. Including your language center, as far as I can figure out. Not a neuroscientist, so I can't be absolutely sure but it fits what I can see and everything I've looked up on the internet."

Lisa shivered a little, as the thought was somewhat disturbing when put like that. On the other hand it was normal to how Parahuman abilities apparently worked and didn't seem to cause any more trouble than any other aspect of the whole thing did, so there was nothing to be done about it.

She felt a sense of reassurance from her power but it didn't say anything. "So… you think that it's using my own brain to make me think it's using a language I understand even though the… raw data, maybe… isn't that at all. It's injecting information right into my mind and filtering it through the parts of my brain that deal with language?" The idea seemed plausible even if somewhat freaky. Taylor nodded, having carefully kicked the dishwasher with the ease of long practice, the machine rumbling to life. Moving away from it she took a seat at the table again, Lisa doing the same.

"Basically, yeah. I might be wrong, but I don't think so."

Taylor Hebert's theory correct

"Apparently you're right, actually. My power just confirmed it and it seems impressed yet again," Lisa reported with a smile.

"Great. I thought it was probably right. So yeah, in your case because of how your power works via a normal Trigger, you get translation of their 'language' into ours. I suspect more than most powers do due to how yours seems to be a lot smarter than they normally are for some reason." Taylor was watching her with interest. Lisa's power emoted on the theme of smug for a moment, making her grin. "Definitely high level Thinker, in terms the PRT would use. And Administrator is really smart, because it would have to be to be the highest authority under the top level node." Her friend looked amused for a moment. "Administrator seems to think she's a lot smarter than the top level node, actually. I have a strong feeling that's all too true."

Taylor Hebert's theory correct

This time there was a considerable amount of sarcastic delight in what Lisa's power told her, along with a complex mix of emotions showing contempt for the top level node, affection for Lisa herself, impressed amazement towards Taylor, and respect for Administrator. The whole gamut was so strong Lisa blinked in mild incredulity for a moment or two. "Huh. That was different..."

"Hmm?" Taylor raised an eyebrow so Lisa explained. Her friend nodded thoughtfully. "Ah. Interesting… I wonder."

"You wonder what?" Lisa asked with a slightly worried frown.

"I wonder if knowing how the aliens communicate actually affects the method." Taylor studied her as Lisa absorbed the idea. "If you know the mechanism, you might end up seeing past it, if that's the right way to think about it. The brain is very plastic and you can learn all sorts of new tricks with practice. Like beneath, for example. In fact having the ability to see beneath in the first place almost certainly changes how your brain works in some fairly fundamental ways, I suspect. That might well affect how your power interacts with you over time…"

Lisa sighed faintly, although she was also rather intrigued. "Taylor, are you spreading cognitohazards? There's a word for people who do that."

"Yeah," her friend grinned. "Scientist."

"Not quite the word I had in mind but whatever. It'll do for now." Lisa returned the grin.

"Fair. Anyway, because I don't have a gemma I had to do the same thing manually, so to speak. It's potentially much more useful but takes a lot more work. Seems to do the job even so."

"And you don't even get powers out of it…"

"Like I said, I have plenty of powers," Taylor chuckled. "I have incredible imagination, common sense, a level of maturity that stuns adults at fifty paces, and a very big alien supercomputer for a friend!" She leaped to her feet, spreading her arms wide. "With those and the backing of U.N.I.O.N. and the Chief I shall discover the truths of Reality and do fun things! In the name of Grand-Uncle Papa, I swear it!"

Lisa covered her eyes and slumped back in her chair giggling helplessly. "You are a complete lunatic."

"Takes one to know one."

"Yeah. So much common sense and maturity." Lowering her hand Lisa smirked at her friend, who just grinned back as she retook her seat.

"I have them, I don't have to use them…"

"Clearly not, Agent Gimme." They shared a laugh, then Lisa looked at her watch. "What do you feel like doing?"

Growing more serious, Taylor checked the time as well. "Dad said he'd be back for lunch about one, so why don't we spend the time until then revising for the final placement tests on Thursday? After lunch we can find something else to do. Anne's at college until late afternoon, but she wanted to do more practice with beneath later And maybe go into the city for something to eat."

"Sounds like a plan," Lisa agreed as they both headed out of the kitchen into the living room. She still wasn't entirely sold on the whole concept of school, and she knew Taylor had her own reservations, but Danny had gone to a lot of trouble to help her as had her friend and he was probably right that in the long term it was a good idea. So getting ready was only sensible. Shortly they were deep into looking through textbooks and reading the notes on what Arcadia would expect yet again.

Casting an unfriendly look at the raven sitting on Amy's shoulder, Carol shook her head irritably. "That thing is a complete menace."

Amy stroked Edgar's head with a finger, smiling a little. Edgar himself trilled gently, leaning into the action, which made Carol sigh. "He's a good raven, aren't you, Edgar?"

The bird emitted a happy gurgle and she laughed. Her mother glared, then looked at Mark, who was watching with a definite smile. "What are you smirking at?" she snapped.

"Nothing, dear. Just watching, that's all." Amy's dad was definitely showing a lot less of his depression since Edgar turned up and made himself at home, which made both Amy and Vicky very pleased while seeming to somewhat annoy Carol for some reason. That said she did seem to slowly be starting to accept that the raven was there to stay.

Not like it, true, but she was living with it, which was probably about the best one could hope for.

"I hope you're not taking him to the hospital later," the older woman said while collecting the used cutlery to wash. "The school is bad enough. I have no idea why they let you have him inside the building…"

"They couldn't really stop him, Mom," Vicky said with a grin. "He kept finding his way back inside after lunch when the teachers told Amy to put him outside, although no one could really work out how. It was hilarious, she'd take him to the window and toss him out, and five minutes later he flew back in the door. There must have been another window open somewhere or something. In the end they gave up."

Amy giggled. It had indeed been extremely funny, and if anything Edgar had been thoroughly enjoying the game. But the staff had finally accepted that all they were doing was causing more disruption to the school than just letting Edgar stay with Amy, which seemed to be all he was really interested in, and had decided that as long as he sat quietly near her it was about the best they could hope for.

She'd been asked not to set her attack raven on anyone else, not even Dennis, although he was acknowledged as having been asking for it…

She was still somewhat surprised how Edgar had eagerly taken the opportunity to do what she'd asked him to and was impressed all over again just how ridiculously smart the raven was. And how bizarre his sense of humor was, as he'd obviously been having fun the whole time. Dennis, not so much.

He certainly wasn't calling her the Dark Lady Amy to her face any more. Although she had a suspicion he was muttering it under his breath when she was out of earshot.

Inwardly she found the whole thing a lot funnier than she let on, but she had a reputation to live up to.

"I think I can persuade him to stay outside at the hospital," she said. "Or Vicky can keep him busy. I won't be there all that long anyway. Half a dozen urgent cases, and clearing up about a dozen more non-urgent but serious ones too."

"I'm glad you're being more sensible about how much you do there, Amy," her dad said, looking over his shoulder from where he was filling the coffee machine. "You look a lot better than you did before Christmas. You were too tired when you were there at all hours." He glanced at Edgar, then met her eyes. "He's good for you. Gives you something else to think about."

The girl nodded slightly, smiling at him. He was right, and until she'd more or less been forced to take a break, she hadn't realized quite how stressed she'd become over the months. Right now she felt a lot better than she had done for… a long time, definitely. And Edgar, as annoying as he was sometimes, was a big part of that.

The raven poked her with his beak, then snapped it a couple of times, so she gave him the little bit of bacon he'd been eyeing before putting her now empty plate on top of the pile of them on the table. Standing, she said, "Better get ready I guess," to her sister, who nodded.

"Have you heard any more about the situation with Winslow students?" Carol asked as the two girls were about to leave the kitchen. Vicky looked back, stopping in the doorway, and nodded.

"Yeah, we had an announcement yesterday afternoon, actually. There's about a hundred or so of them turning up on Thursday. The gym's going to be used for some sort of assessment testing for them all, to work out which classes they'll go to. Apparently some acceptance tests were mailed out to all the Winslow students by the school board before Christmas so they could select which school they should go to, and these ones are more detailed or something."

"I think the first tests filtered out the best students from an academic standpoint," Amy added. "Considering the reputation Winslow has I'm a little surprised that a whole hundred students are good enough to attend Arcadia in the first place."

Vicky laughed slightly and even Carol looked momentarily amused. "It certainly doesn't have a good reputation, that much is true," their mother said, shaking her head. "Considering what…" She stopped, then went on after a second or two, "Let's just say that its reputation is well deserved and leave it at that."

Amy and Vicky exchanged glances, then both decided as one not to ask. Amy had a shrewd idea that Carol had just been close to saying something related to whatever case Sophia Hess had managed to get herself mixed up in, but had caught herself at the last moment. Which was interesting…

By the look in her sister's eye, Vicky was thinking something similar. But that wasn't something to be discussed here and now.

Carol was now looking like she was thinking of something that cheered her up, which was back to what they'd been experiencing for a while now. Edgar apparently forgotten, their mom finished putting now-clean dishes away, almost humming to herself. Amy and her sister again met each others eyes, this time with a tiny bit of apprehension. A happy Carol Dallon was an unnerving sight to encounter.

With a jerk of her head at the doorway, Amy started backing towards it. Vicky nodded silently and followed her upstairs. A minute later, having grabbed their school stuff and coats, they were outside in the snow having waved goodbye to their dad and hastily left before the weirdness spread.

"That is still freaky to see," Vicky commented in a low voice as she took off, Amy held in her arms. Edgar quickly followed, gliding alongside them with occasional flaps, while looking around alertly.

Amy nodded. "Yeah. You're not wrong. She's doing something horrible to someone to be that… cheerful."

Both shivered, then deliberately turned their conversation to other things. For the sake of their sanity if nothing else.

"Well?"

"Nothing, Max. Not a single clue. No one knows a fucking thing about it as far as we can find out, and believe me we've tried everything." James slumped tiredly into the chair on the other side of the desk from Max, and spread his hands in resignation. "No one saw anything, no one heard anything, no one knows anything. And as far as I can tell that's completely true, it's not someone else leaning on any witnesses. There aren't any witnesses. Victor just… vanished. All the information I can get, and even that cost a hell of a lot of favors and money, is that even the PRT doesn't have the first idea what happened."

"But they know something did?" Max queried, frowning.

"Yeah, I think so. Word gets around no matter how careful you are, unless you want to kill every single person you talk to. Which even for us won't end well." The other man shrugged. "They're probably aware that we've lost Victor, but I can pretty much guarantee that at least they don't have him. Who does, though… That part is a complete mystery."

"Fuck!" Max thumped the desk with his fist, setting the pens rattling in the small pot of them to his right. "And no chance to retrieve Othala or Rune."

"No. Not a hope. Not without a hell of a lot more resources than we have, months of work and probably millions of dollars, and, of course, Victor." James shook his head in disgust. "He was the best we had at exactly the sort of thing we need right now. Which is almost certainly why he was taken. I'd say it had to be part of a PRT op considering what happened aside from being damn near certain they're as confused about the whole thing as we are."

"So what else does that leave?" Max tapped the desk with an irritated finger as he thought. "Another government agency, that's one possibility."

"Not as far as any informants I can find say. Doesn't mean it wasn't some sort of black bag op, but if it was it was someone even the normal spooks don't know about." Krieg shrugged. "I've got a few people I called in favors from in the military, they checked with their people, and everyone denies any knowledge of everything. Assuming I wasn't sold a bill of goods that means it wasn't the CIA, FBA, military intelligence, State cops, or any of the other ones you'd think of. But we both know there are some really dark programs deep in the government, ones even the rest of the government doesn't know much about. It might be one of those but if it is I have no idea how to find out any more about it."

"Fine. Not much we can do about that right now, but keep your ears open. Could it be someone else wanting to move into Brockton and taking out the competition? Accord maybe? He's a sneaky little shit, and this sort of thing is exactly what I can see him doing." Max was feeling very, very angry about the whole situation and the longer things went on without any real information the more angry and paranoid he got about it, so his voice was harsh.

"I checked," the other man replied. "Sent a message through a neutral third party. Accord claims he has no interest in Brockton Bay at all and he wouldn't stoop to hiding it if he did. Said if he was intending to do something here we'd know about it. Along with several threats about contacting him again unless we wanted to pay his price. I also checked on whether Faultline might have had something to do with it, but her group are out of town right now as far as I can tell and have been for over ten days. And they're not subtle either. This was the work of someone with a lot of practice in making people vanish, I can guarantee it. Same problem with almost everyone else I could think of."

"The Elite? They've got some experience in covert ops…"

James shook his head. "Not that I can prove, no. Alexandria has been causing them a lot of trouble clear on the other side of the country and they're currently up to their armpits in dealing with that. The Butcher and the Teeth would have fucked things up so much within hours everyone in the city would know about it, the less said about the Nine the better and they're currently being deviants in New Mexico anyway last I heard, I checked on the Travelers and they're two thousand miles away doing god knows what. No reports of anyone recently triggering in Brockton either, so it's probably not a new Parahuman and even if it was, this isn't the sort of result of someone who's new to their powers."

"Point," Max was forced to agree. New Parahumans tended to be rather obvious in almost every case he'd heard of and Victor's disappearance was simply too clean to have been the work of anyone who didn't know exactly what they were doing. And had done it before, as the other man had said. He was grasping at straws and he knew it, but Victor was far too important to lose if there was the slightest hope of retrieving him.

Changing the subject slightly, he nodded at the window overlooking the bay and the complete lack of the obstruction that had squatted on the horizon for so long like a malignant and rusty tumor. "Any new information on that?" he inquired, not having to specify more detail. James looked in the relevant direction then back to him with a shake of his head and a frown.

"No. Without an inside man in the PRT we can't find out more of what they know, and our last sleeper mole was discovered yesterday. He got careless. Too low level to be much use anyway, but it's left us completely blind to what they're doing until and unless we can recruit new people there, which is proving difficult since Piggot got a stick up her ass about security. Same problem with the BBPD and the city admin, they're all running around like idiots rooting out every possible data leak they have." He looked disgusted. "We've lost a lot of good people and suddenly we're on the back foot but I can't find out how they got so fucking competent all of a sudden. It's a change I don't like."

"We agree on that," Max snarled. "This is all connected somehow, I'm sure of it. I just can't figure out how. Someone is fucking around pulling strings in the background and I do not like it."

Slamming both palms down on the desk he leaned forward. "We have to find out who's behind all this shit and stop them before we lose everything we've worked so hard for decades to build!"

"I know, but I'm open to suggestions on how," his current second in command replied mildly. "I've tried everything I can think of. No one knows anything more than we do as far as all the information I can scrape up indicates, which leaves us kind of in the dark. Your rented Thinker couldn't find anything either, which is worrying in its own right."

"Yeah. That was a very expensive bust…" Max shook his head in disgust at the lost of over half a million dollars for nothing. "Who's left?" He thought hard. "No one from outside from what you can find out, which doesn't prove it can't happen, but at least probably eliminates the obvious suspects. Is there anyone else in the city itself who could do this, or are we definitely dealing with an external threat?"

"About the only one I can think of is Coil," Krieg replied after a moment. "No one really knows much about him other than he's a slimy fucker, and has some tame mercs. We don't have any real read on the guy, what he wants, or even what his powers are. If he even has powers for that matter."

"Which suggests to me that he's a very good candidate for being behind this," Max said having thought it over for a few seconds. Coil had been around for a while now, but he was slippery and hard to track down, while keeping to himself as far as anyone knew. Max's organization had looked into the man several times without nearly as much luck as he'd have liked, but since there was never any sign that Coil was working against them, or in fact doing anything much at all, he'd ended up becoming a low priority in favor of far more important issues.

Max was now feeling that this was a mistake. And possibly exactly what the bastard had wanted.

Pointing a finger at James, he grimly said, "We need to find out more about him immediately. If he is behind what's going on, I want to talk to that man. Very seriously."

"I'm ahead of you there, Max," James replied with a small dark smile. "I've had people digging around for more information on him for days now. Tricky bastard to locate, I have to admit. He's got a lot of funding from somewhere as far as I can tell and bought himself some serious security, but he can't hide forever." The other man shook his head a little. "Even so I can't quite believe he could have pulled all this off. Maybe Victor, sure, although I don't know how he did it, but that ship? Even if he could why would he do it? What's in it for him?"

"I have no idea," Max admitted, glancing out the window again at the distant mouth of the bay for a moment. "I wish I did. But I just can't shake the feeling that they're connected. It's too much of a coincidence to have two different things we don't understand happen so close together. Especially around here."

"Can't disagree with that, but I can't see the connection either."

"No. But we have to assume they are until we can prove otherwise." Max sighed. "Keep looking into Coil, and keep thinking of anything we've missed."

"Victor might be dead by now, you realize?"

"Of course I do, but all we can do is work on the basis he's still alive until we have proof otherwise." The Empire leader spun his chair around to stare out at the bright winter day. Waving a hand at the scene he said over his shoulder, "We need his skills to help us reach our destiny out there. We can do it without him, obviously, but it will be much easier with him, so until I am certain he's gone beyond retrieval we'll keep looking." James walked around the desk to stand next to him gazing out at the city spread below them.

"What if he left on his own?" he asked quietly.

Max couldn't help wondering, as he had been ever since the man had vanished, if that was what had happened. Eventually though he shook his head. "I can't see him doing that. His wife was here, his life was here, and he's dedicated to the cause. He wouldn't have just up and left without any reason. And all the physical evidence suggests he just vanished into thin air anyway, which strongly implies teleportation rather than him voluntarily walking off. Or being Mastered into walking off, which would be about the worst possibility…"

"Yeah." James looked disturbed at the thought, which was understandable. "I agree that the evidence we have doesn't fit that scenario. Or a Stranger unless they're insanely powerful and can affect cameras and other electronics as well as people. It's possible but there are damn few Parahumans capable of anything like that running around. None recently that I know of."

They studied the scene for some moments until Max turned the chair around again, looking up at the other man. "Let me know what you find out about Coil as soon as you get anything."

Krieg nodded at the comment, taking it as a dismissal, and left the room, the door clicking shut behind him with a sound that echoed through the quiet office. Alone, Max racked his brains trying to think of anything he'd overlooked but had no breakthroughs, which very much annoyed him.

When he found out who was behind all this they were going to be lucky if he killed them quickly...

Leaving the hospital, having healed everyone she'd come to deal with and a couple who'd arrived following a road accident just as she was on her way out, Amy looked around the area outside the large building for her sister. It was cold but calm, the winter late afternoon sun nearing the horizon and illuminating everything in golden orange light and making the buildings shine with a veneer of beauty they very much didn't deserve. Spotting a familiar head of blonde hair a hundred yards away in the small park that extended to the side of Brockton General, she headed that way, glad of her heavy coat and gloves. As she tromped through the packed-down snow on the path she thought about how the day had gone, smiling a little at the memories of Edgar staring at Dennis through the entire lunch period with an intent gaze that made the boy seem somewhat nervous.

She was certain the raven did it for exactly that reason, and considered it funny. Because it was.

As both she and Vicky's schedule had a free period in it at the end of the day they'd left at two, so after her work it was still fairly early, only just after three in the afternoon. The girl was considering what else to do with the remainder of the day, as she didn't feel like returning home just yet. Rounding a large tree a few yards from where her sister was waiting for her, apparently sitting at one of the tables that in warmer weather were used by hospital staff and patients for outside meals, she stopped dead and stared.

After several seconds, she resumed her approach, only to stop again next to Vicky, who was grinning as she snapped pieces off a raw hot dog and tossed them onto the table. Edgar was sitting on her shoulder watching the proceedings, occasionally making a sound that prompted the other girl to give him a piece of hot dog as well.

"What the hell?" the brunette finally said in bemusement, staring at the half dozen other large black birds in a row on the table, all of them watching Vicky closely. The small flock of ravens were grabbing pieces of hot dog as her sister tossed them, quickly gobbling them down while muttering to each other in bird.

"Hey, Ames. Look, Edgar made some friends," Vicky said happily, looking back at her.

Amy pointed at the other birds and said, "Explain?"

Her sister shrugged. "I was sitting here on the phone to Dean and Edgar flew away for a couple of minutes. I was worried he was going to find you, but he came back a bit later, then all these guys turned up one after another. I think he told them about you, because they just stayed up in that tree over there like they were waiting. After a while I thought they'd like some food so I went across the road and bought this." She held up the depleted pack of hot dogs, then peeled another out of the wrapping and started breaking it up. "He shouted at them and they all flew down to the table about five minutes ago."

Edgar grabbed the piece she held up for him, tossed his head back and swallowed it, gurgled cheerfully, then flapped a couple of times and landed on Amy's shoulder. Prodding the side of her head with his beak he nibbled her hair while making happy sounds. She reached up and stroked his feathers while still inspecting the other birds which were now staring right at her.

It was a little strange, if she was honest with herself.

"I don't get it," she finally admitted in mild disbelief.

Vicky kept feeding the birds, now smiling as she held out bits of hot dog and each of the creatures plucked the meat from her fingers. "Neither do I but it's cool, right? It's got to be Edgar's fault somehow."

Shaking her head Amy sat on the cold wood next to her sister and examined the birds, who all looked back with avian curiosity. Edgar made a little cawing sound and hopped down onto the table, strutting over to the others and leaning forward. All the rest huddled together and by the looks of it had a discussion, lots of strange raven noises being quietly emitted from the group.

"This is ridiculous," Amy commented, watching in amazement. Vicky was doing the same although she was still grinning. "Why are they all just sitting there like that?"

"I told you, he told them," Vicky replied, laughing as she looked at her sister. "He's probably explaining how you're the Dark Lady Amy and need more minions or something."

Amy sighed heavily and put her head in her hands. "That's ridiculous. They're probably just curious about him."

"Nah, it's the Dark Lady thing, I bet," Vicky giggled. She held out a piece of hot dog as Amy glared at her. "Here you go, birds."

Edgar lifted his head out of the group and looked at them, then went back to the huddle. A moment later as the two girls exchanged glances, the birds separated, and Edgar hopped back to stand next to Amy's elbow, snagging the hot dog fragment en route.

"Kronk!"

One of the ravens looked at him, then Amy, then at the remaining birds, before slowly limping over the table directly towards her. She watched in disbelief as it stopped right in front of her and stared at her.

"Told you," Vicky said smugly. "He's telling everyone how you fixed him."

Very cautiously Amy reached out a hand, ready to whip it back immediately if the new raven lunged at her. She was all too well away just how sharp their beaks were, although despite his little jokes, Edgar was always careful not to bite too hard, she thought. To her surprise the raven glanced at Edgar, then simply let her put her finger on the exposed skin of its foot. Her power immediately told her everything about it.

"It's got half a dozen different types of parasites, the left leg was broken at some point and didn't heal right, and there are some kidney issues," she said to her sister. "What do I do?"

"Fix it of course. What sort of a Dark Lady doesn't keep her minions in tip top shape?" Vicky replied immediately looking both fascinated and highly amused. Amy growled under her breath, but let her power go to work. Within thirty seconds the raven was as healthy as it had ever been, probably more so, and if she was any judge of avian expressions looked startled. He spread his wings to full extent and shook them, then folded them again and cawed loudly, making Amy lean back quickly. Edgar cawed as well, with what sounded like a note of triumph in his voice. Both ravens leaned forward and slid their beaks across each other with a rasping sound before the new one hopped back and took off, flying to land in the tree behind them.

Amy and Vicky followed its flight, then exchanged glances. When she returned her attention to the table she found another raven standing there expectantly.

"Oh, god," she sighed. "This is… not normal. How did they even figure this out?"

Her sister was leaning on her shoulder laughing helplessly. "Your reputation precedes you, Dark Lady Amy."

"Fuck me, this is insane," Amy grumbled under her breath but she reached out nonetheless. And by the time they left the park to go find a burger or something, she'd healed at least a dozen of Edgar's friends or whatever the hell they were, several new ones turning up during the process. When they'd flown away all the ravens were sitting in a line on a tree branch watching them and muttering to themselves.

It was fair to say she was very confused.

Edgar seemed happy though as he rode on Vicky's head, his feathers flapping in the breeze when he looked around with interest.

Amy wondered if things would get less confusing with time. She had a distinct feeling that wasn't likely...