Chapter Eleven: Snake in the Grass

It was a few days after the meeting, Thursday afternoon to be specific, and I was sitting in Kid Win's lab going through a material requisition form. I may not have had my press release yet, but sue me, I was technically an official Ward, and I wanted my tinker supplies ASAP gosh darn it. Between forcing myself to get ahead on school work and all the planning sessions with my parents, I barely had any time to even consider my powers, let alone make any tangible progress. I needed a win here.

"So, I think I can see uses for the rest of this, but what do you need a bottled cloud for?" Chris looked at me skeptically.

As Armsmaster was busy, and this could not wait, I'd decided to just bite the bullet and figure things out myself. Chris had come into the base to find me looking at the requisition form in frustration and offered to help me fill it out.

"Also, what do you mean by 'bottled cloud'? Can't you just use condensed water vapor?"

Oh Chris, you simply don't understand the intricacies of magical formulae. Then again, neither did I really. It was all conceptual mumbo-jumbo without any technical meaning or logic. In the immortal words of Todd Howard, It just works.

"Nope," I popped the p, "that won't work. It's gotta be from a real cloud formed in the atmosphere. And no fog either. That's a whole separate thing."

"No offense, but your powers are kind of weird."

Chris really seemed to come out of his shell inside the laboratory. It wasn't suave confidence, but this also wasn't the shy boy I'd met on Tuesday.

"None taken, and tell me about it. Sometimes, I feel like I live in an absurdist comedy."

"I can relate to that." His eyes went a little distant before snapping back to reality. "So," he furrowed his brow, "what exactly are you going to make with this?"

I could be coy, play it off as some super advanced tech, but I decided to just be blunt. "It's for a spell called Clairvoyance, and it's useful for locating things. It makes a literal path to find things. Pretty good first spell for me, eh?"

Yes, I was playing up my new name, but also, it seemed like it could be incredibly overpowered for a novice rank Illusion spell depending on its limitations. With an in-game description of "draws a path to the next objective", I suspected that this unassuming little spell that was practically useless to the player would become an incredibly powerful tool in my kit.

I succeeded in making the young Tinker look dumbfounded.

"Okaaay, did you really choose your name based on this one piece of tech? Also, you probably shouldn't play up the whole magic angle. Myrddin kind of cornered the whole market on that already, and half the country thinks he's a little, uh, kooky. There are so many Christian fundamentalist groups that want him removed from his leadership role, you have no idea."

"First of all, no, the name came first, and this spell is just a happy, amazing coincidence. Secondly, it's not my fault that my power looks and acts like a wizard spell straight out of Dungeons and Dragons. Buuut, I guess it's probably a good idea to pretend that everything I make is actually all high tech. Ya know, for the sake of everyone's sanity."

As fun as it would be to play the part of the archmage, people did respond poorly to that kind of presentation. When the first people that came to mind were Myrddin, the half-crazy hero, and the Adepts, a cult-like group of villains operating out of New York City, the whole idea was somewhat ruined.

My Tinker-partner was not convinced, "Sure, but you still need to justify your choices to the director and Armsmaster. Okay," He tapped his pen on the table, "how much volume of 'bottled cloud' are you talking about here? Because there might be logistical issues with removing clouds wholesale from the sky…"

"Not that much," I answered, waving my hand in a so-so gesture, "maybe a liter in atmospheric conditions? Really, this isn't too exact. I need a jar, and I need it full of cloud."

I cupped my hands to mime a jar. With cloud inside of it.

"But a cloud is just condensed water!" he was seeming a little exasperated at the weirdness of my power. I commiserate with you, Chris, I really do.

"Don't forget the ice crystals and debris particles," I said.

"But- but- what does that even do for your tech?"

"Say it with me, 'powers are weird'."

"'Powers are weird'," he echoed back, sighing deeply, "I'm just trying to understand. I, uh, I mean I was kind of, um, looking forward to working together, er, collaborating with you on a project, and I don't really get this."

He was looking determinately down at the pen in his hands. Was he being shy about his tinkertech? I knew he had a lack of confidence in that area not helped by Armsmaster's disregard for the apprentice hero.

"Don't worry, I still totally want to work with you too. I just need to get some of the weird stuff out of the way first. Pretty soon, I'm gonna want my first energy weapon, and I'd really like your input on how to make it effective but not so effective that it hurts people badly. And, I'd also like to see if there's anything I can make that you can use in your own tech. Sound good?"

"Yeah." His voice was quiet.

"Awesome! I'm looking forward to it."

I changed gears, "Back to the bottled cloud, though. What's stopping you or any other flier in the city from just opening a mason jar and passing through one of the white puffballs?"

Thanks to Chris' help, I had gotten through the arduous paperwork much more quickly than I otherwise would have, and I had a better idea of what to do for future requests. I was so going to kit out his spark pistol with Fallout tech. Maybe enchant it for him once I figured out how to ethically source souls.

…

My life really was an absurd comedy.

I ignored the dilemma of soul farming for the moment. I was laying on my stomach out in the common area of the Wards base. Besides Chris, who was in his lab, and Aegis -I reminded myself to use his hero name when he was on duty- who was manning the console, it was just me in here.

My agenda had me slated for learning console duty tomorrow after school, but for now, I had finished up all my homework for the day and was texting my friends in our group chat.

Cass: *thats so cool. whats he like in person*

I had just finished telling them about how I'd "met Kid Win during a photoshoot for my internship".

I needed to talk up my new teammate. Represent.

Me: *He was really nice to talk to. Seems intelligent and insightful. Also, his hoverboard is awesome."

It really was. I couldn't wait to have flight capability myself. Idly, I wondered if he would let me take a ride on his board.

Ymena: *Is he hot? :3*

Of course that's all she cared about.

Me: *I don't know, let me take off his power armor and see. Oh wait, why are you arresting me Mr. PRT officer?*

Ymena: *You wanna strip his armor off? Kinky*

I swear.

Me: *Har-har.*

Cass: *innnterrresting*

Ymena: *So is he hot?*

I sighed. I loved my friends, but they made me wonder sometimes.

Me: *Obviously, I don't know what he looks like, but he seems like he'd be cute in a nerdy kind of way.*

Cass: *verrry interestingggg*

Ymena: *So exactly your type then?*

Cass: *i cant help but see a pattern here. you got a thing for heros huh*

Cass: *first panacea now kid win. whos next*

I huffed.

Me: *Since when is quiet and nerdy my type? Also, I do not have a thing for heroes. I'm not looking to date any of them!*

Ymena: *Me thinks the lady doth protest too much*

Me: *How original.*

Cass: *im more of a gallant gal*

Cass: *hes got a suave sexy voice*

Ymena: *Don't think I won't remind you that I caught you reading that Grue fic. That was so damn naughty girl*

Cass: *your never gonna let me live that one down are you*

Me: *Excuse me, what? What fic?*

Ymena: *Nope. I will remind you until the day you croak*

Ymena: *Don't worry about it Sams. It's too impure for your innocent eyes*

Well, now I just wanted to know even more. There were people making smut of Grue? Seriously? His villain page had like three grainy surveillance cam photos to work with. What made him so attractive to the trash-fic community? There's only so far tall, dark, and mysterious could cut it before you needed something else for material. Sure, he was a looker under the skull decal and leathers, but they didn't know that.

*Jasmine is online*

Jasmine: *I heard there was a Grue x Reader fic? Source?*

Cass: *ye ill dm you*

Ymena: *Yall are some kinky hoes X3*

I was mildly concerned for my friends' wellbeing.

There was an hour left until I caught a ride home with Mom, and I had a conundrum. I had nothing to do. The past 72 hours had been filled to the brim, split between constant meetings with my parents or PR and desperately trying to get ahead on my homework before my debut, so this was my first true downtime. Chatting with my friends was nice to decompress, but I couldn't afford to waste my it on too many frivolous activities.

I briefly considered just training my Restoration in the base, but then an idea sparked in my head.

"Hey, Aegis," I called, "who do I talk to about training Blaster abilities?"

"You have a Blaster rating?" He looked askance at me.

I guess I forgot to tell them about that one. We'd have to have a deep dive before my first patrol.

He tapped his fingers absentmindedly on the keyboard, "There's not anywhere designed for that in the building. You'd have to ask Piggot, deputy director Renick -his office is right across from hers- or see if any of the Protectorate heroes are in right now. Sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't want to be distracted for too long."

"No, I understand. Thanks for the help!"

Now that I had special access to the tinkertech elevator, I rode it up to the director's office level. The doors parted noiselessly, and I stepped out into the hall. At the same time, the doors of the more mundane elevator opened to reveal a cluster of office workers. We shared glances and a few nods before going our separate ways.

All except for one man who called to me in greeting, "Pathfinder, is it? It's good to meet the Wards' newest hero."

He was tall, easily six and a half feet, but for all that height, he was not very heavy. From what I could see of his frame, he was nearly skeletal, and what little extra mass he had was packed into tightly corded muscle. From his brown skin, I guessed he had some measure of African ancestry, though it held somewhat of a pale pallor, like he didn't spend quite enough time in the Sun. Thin, angular features dominated his face - thin lips, thin brows, and a thin nose. Though he wasn't wearing a suit, he dressed well enough in a button up with a tie and high quality slacks. Overall, he gave off the impression of a professional or person of importance from the way he dressed to the firm confidence in his tone.

I gave back my polite response, "Thank you. It's good to meet you too, Mr.?"

"Calvert. Thomas Calvert, consultant for the PRT. If you're here to talk to the director, I was on the way to her office already."

My heart skipped a beat, and my blood ran cold. My brain went into overdrive trying to formulate a response. He could know more than he let on, or he could be splitting the timeline and questioning me as we spoke. It's possible he already captured and questioned me in one of his throwaways. If that was the case, I don't know what hope I had. I wouldn't have lasted thirty seconds under torture!

None of this was productive thinking. Agonizing over what-ifs wouldn't do me any good. The only play against Coil was to never give up any pertinent information no matter what he tried.

I played it cool, keeping my reactions close to the chest, "That's not a problem, Mr. Calvert. I can wait. Or see if the deputy director is in."

I would like to say that Calvert's gaze was creepy or searching, but that wasn't the case. He was too good at playing his role to slip up like that. No, he was entirely casual, giving away no tells of the monster that lurked beneath the facade. If I didn't know any better, I would never have suspected what this man was capable of, and that's what terrified me.

"As long as you're sure your business doesn't need to be handled immediately."

"No, it's fine. Really," I insisted.

"Alright then. I think I speak for the entire branch when I say that we look forward to working with you. Good day, Miss." He nodded politely and set off.

I repressed the urge to shiver. Even without accounting for his power, I see how the snake slithered his way into this position - he projected charisma. Any sliminess I felt was colored by my own preconceptions. That level of deception made him all the more dangerous as an adversary.

He could have asked me anything in his other timeline. Or he might be plotting to kidnap me in his evil Bond villain lair. There was simply no way for me to know.

He knocked on Piggot's door, entering a moment later and leaving me alone with my thoughts in the hallway.

My current options for taking him out were limited. Yes, I could throw suspicion directly onto his civilian persona, but without actual evidence, it was my word against his, and not only would I be revealing that I had knowledge of a parahuman's secret identity, but even if I burned said secret identity, he wouldn't even be removed as a threat. He'd just throw himself into being Coil full time, and it would be a version of Coil that bore a vendetta against me. No, if I wanted to deal with the snake, I needed to attack him indirectly through his assets, finding ways to disrupt his future plans.

Except… Could I just bring this straight to Piggot? No, no that wouldn't work with the split timelines. Even if she implemented absolute secrecy on the matter, even if he somehow didn't find out about the meeting when he had all the building's systems bugged, he'd still never put himself in a position where he could be caught in both timelines.

Gah! His power was so frustrating to plan against. Anything I did, any move I made, and he'd just drop the eventuality where I moved against him. I mean, was this even the real me right now or the simulation me? This was the real me right? It has to be the real me. Again with the existential crisis. I didn't think his power worked in a way that it actually created two entirely separate universes. That just wasn't something that even Shards could pull off, so this had to be a simulation situation, but making that assumption did not make this any easier to deal with.

Really, the best way to deal with Coil was to break his power with an anti-Thinker ability, but I didn't have anything like that yet. Barring a complete counter, the next best option would be to reduce his options, slowly cornering him until his timelines were forced close enough together that you could launch a full assault and capture him for good. The problem with that strategy was that the price of failure could be steep. One wrong move, and now not only does Coil know he's under attack, but you've given him all the information he needs to retaliate against you. If I tried to launch an operation against him and failed, he might decide that a timeline with a dead Sam should be the only timeline.

Okay, so moving against him now was a bad idea. What did I do then? One thing I knew for sure was that he absolutely could not under any circumstances be allowed to kidnap Dinah. And not just because the mental imagery of that abhorrent doctor of his keeping the girl drugged out of her mind on "candy" made me recoil with disgust - it was an advantage, a multiplier to his power that made him exponentially more difficult to deal with.

So, I'd have to set up Dinah into a position where she couldn't feasibly be taken. Not without bringing down the full might of Brockton Bay's hero population. To do that, I would need some excuse to run into her and recognize her powers. Actually, I'm not sure that I did need to do that. If I worked at it hard enough, she would find me. By nature of her powers, the more I worked to rescue her, and the better a job I did at accomplishing that goal, the more her precognition would drive her to seek me out. That was the plan - Operation High Percentage Sam.

I'd worry about Dinah questioning how I knew she was in danger at a later time. My power was versatile. Why not fake a little precognition if push comes to shove?

Of course, there was one hitch. Coil was not above kidnapping a known precog if he thought it would grant him a greater advantage than what he lost in the exchange. That was the whole reason the girl was always so reluctant to join the Wards. Even ingratiating her with the hero community might not be enough to stop his machinations.

That was why the plan had a part two - Operation Tell Tattletale. It was simple. Using all the proxies and security measures at my disposal, I would slip every nugget of information I knew about Coil to the femSherlock on steroids, and her super deduction would do the rest. Lisa was already working against her not-so-voluntary boss, slowly trying to corrupt his assets to her side, so I was confident she would put my info to good use. This would all feed back into the first part of the plan, because an informed Tattletale made for a safer Dinah in this instance.

That just left the S-class threat level elephant in the secured vault. Noelle. My knowledge of the timeline was… not exact, but I knew that the group of displaced Aleph Earthers wasn't on the villain's payroll yet. Likely, they were still in Boston. I was also pretty sure that Coil was only ever in a position to hire the Travelers because of Dinah's precogging, but I didn't want to rely on that. Who knew how my plans would disrupt his own?

I felt there was less I could do about them. I had no inroad, no openings to contact them. I could maybe head to Boston for a day, but would I be able to locate the elusive faux-villains?

Once again, I was grateful that I had a Clairvoyance spell tome in the works. If it worked as well as I hoped, I might be able to solve a large portion of my problems in one fell swoop.

Okay, but what did I do when I found them? They were less trusting than a pack of feral cats and dangerous enough to pose a lethal threat to any interlopers. Not to mention the whole Simurgh bomb thing. Oh boy, was that one a doozy.

In conclusion, I guess I'd see what Dinah had to say on the matter? She'd be able to tell me if a meeting went to the dogs or if it was likely to end in a positive outcome.

None of this was to even mention the other schemes and capes Coil had up his sleeve. Trainwreck, Chariot, Circus. Revealing the Empire's identities - those that Tattletale had already uncovered. I'd bet my bed frame there were other contingencies that I didn't even know of.

At least I felt better now that I had an actionable plan.

Step One: Learn Clairvoyance.

Step Two: Get the info to Lisa.

Step Three: Find Dinah.

Step Four: Convince Dinah/Plan with Dinah to get her to safety.

Step Five could come once I was more sure that Dinah was no longer under threat of being kidnapped.

That concluded my -I checked my phone- fifteen minutes of silent contemplation in the middle of a PRT building hallway.

Welpers, time to have that chat with Deputy Director Renick. Fortunately, nobody had crossed paths with me during the thinking session, or they might have been concerned for my wellbeing.

Searching for Renick's office, I followed Aegis' directions, and a bronze plaque made it unambiguous whose office was his.

I knocked softly on his door. "Sir, it's Pathfinder. Do you have a moment to talk?"

"Come in, come in."

I opened the door to reveal a rather mundane looking office. Papers were organized but not perfectly so, spread in a manner that hinted at a lack of time to properly even out all the stacks. A few framed pictures sat on his office shelf, one showing a younger Renick shaking hands with an importantly dressed military official, and another of him with two smiling children and a woman. His wife and kids?

"What can I help you with today, Pathfinder?"

He had a very mild mannered way of speaking, though I knew from the events of Worm that he could turn very militant in the situation called for it.

"I was wondering if there was anywhere in the building where I could safely practice with my Blaster ability. I know we have scheduled training at the Rig, but I thought it would be good to get in some extra sessions. And I wanted to be responsible about it, so- I'm asking you."

Hopefully, phrasing it as honing my skills would garner me some goodwill here.

Renick looked at me intently, seeming unsure of what to say. "Now, I want you to know that you have no obligation to put in extra work to 'catch up' to any of your peers. Being a part of the Wards is not a full time job. It is a program for allowing young parahumans to experience what the organization is like and to give them a measure of security and opportunities for future careers in the PRT if they so wish."

This was not where I thought this conversation was going to go.

"There's no need for you to feel like you have to do everything all at once, and if you need anybody to talk to about there being too much pressure, we happen to have some very good people who can work with you."

He was dead serious.

I just want to grind my Destruction, man. "Thank you, sir, but I'm doing fine. I kind of wanted to explore my powers a bit. You know, um, test out my fire somewhere that won't burn down," I said, blushing a bit at admitting that I basically just wanted to play with my fun new fire beam.

He didn't seem chagrined in the slightest, merely taking it in stride, "In that case, I can talk to Director Piggot and Armsmaster about granting you regular access to the Rig's facilities. I'm afraid we don't have the infrastructure to handle Blaster abilities in this building. I can't promise you'll get what you're hoping for, but I don't see a reason to deny your request either."

He looked at me searchingly. "Is there anything else you wanted to discuss, Pathfinder?"

"No, sir. That's all I wanted to talk about. Thank you again."

"Alright," he started reorganizing some papers on his desk, "if that's all, have a good afternoon, Pathfinder."

"You too."

I left the office feeling slightly put off. I got the feeling Renick did not know how to deal with the Wards well. Or maybe, he was more concerned for me than I first thought. I didn't think I had given off any vibes of being overstressed, but he made it sound like he thought I was already going to burn myself out.

At least I had very likely secured a new avenue for skill leveling. I'd need their facilities if I didn't want to put myself at risk of getting in trouble - my backup option of training at the Boat Graveyard might be looked on poorly since I was going to be a newly minted Ward.

The meeting hadn't left any time for training today, however.

Sigh, I guess I'd go back to watching my friends pass erotic cape-fics back and forth like gum in a packed classroom.