War Games

Part Thirteen: Problems Large and Small

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Geneva

"Sean," I asked out loud, "Johnson was the only hooper on board, but there were two Golem that we know of. What are the chances that they survived the explosion and the fall?"

"Some of the debris was masked by other debris, so I can't rule it out." He didn't sound thrilled, and I couldn't blame him.

Rogue AIs, especially Golem, could cause a large amount of damage even in a society geared toward dealing with them. Mr Crane, for instance, had murdered a great many people for his own ends, and had gone on doing so until he chose to stop. In a pre-runcible culture such as where we'd found ourselves, even a mediocre Golem would pose a threat to anyone who wasn't actually bulletproof. Worse, if it was indeed a 'Simurgh bomb', as described by the locals, it might be even more sociopathic than the norm for a crewmember of the late and unlamented Kramer.

It would be wise to keep scanning the area for just such a survivor, as well as monitoring the emergency-services EM bands. And then I looked back at our passengers. "Wait a minute … Taylor. How good are your bugs at searching an area?"

"I've already got them looking for casualties where the wreckage landed," she said. "Why?"

"Sean and I suspect there might be one or two survivors from the Gambler's Ruin." Accessing the holotable with my aug, I put up the images of the two Golem I'd seen on Kramer's ship. "Given that we already have Johnson here on board, they'd be the only two who stood even a remote chance of surviving both the explosion and the fall."

Lisa nodded. "And if they're Simurgh bombs on top of being murderous space pirates …no, we don't need that. Not on top of everything else."

"Fucking yay," snarked Alec. "Extra psychotic Terminators. Where's Kyle Reese when you need him?" He put on a bad Austrian accent. "'Come with me if you want to live.'"

Brian didn't say anything. He just face-palmed; whether due to Alec's comment or the general situation, Geneva had no idea.

Ah, lass? One more thing that we need to address. Sean's message was not only sent via my aug, but it was also heavily encrypted to the point that even if someone was able to intercept it, there was no way they'd unravel it. The thing that came up during the fight with the superweapon.

For a moment I was puzzled, then I had it. The U-space anomaly?

Heading forward, I seated myself in the command seat and let my hands rest on the controls. Reynaud glanced at me then away again, evidently recognising the signs of someone conversing via aug. Behind me, I heard one of Sean's sub-minds talking to the Undersiders, but I was concentrating on the conversation through my aug. Precisely. My sub-mind ran the data forwards, backward and sideways. The conclusion came out the same every time. One of the Triumvirate—Eidolon—was sending the monster orders during the battle. Each time he did, it adjusted its tactics to counter what we were doing.

You're shitting me. You have to be shitting me. But I knew he wasn't. Sean was decades older than me, and vastly more experienced. The chances of him being legitimately wrong on this could be inscribed on a New Carth shilling with our particle beam cannon. Neither did I imagine for an instant that he might be pranking me, not with something so important. Which left us one unpalatable conclusion.

We both know I'm not, lass. We don't think he's doing it consciously, but he's doing it all the same.

Has he personally missed any fights against these superweapons since they emerged?

Only against the one in China, and they didn't give permission for any outsiders to attend. They believed they could defeat it on their own.

How did that go for them?

Poorly.

That didn't surprise me in the slightest. However, the rest of the situation was a little outside my experience. So, this isn't a deliberate thing with him, but he's subconsciously giving them orders to be more effective. So he's … clinically insane? To be brutally honest, with what I'd already seen of the parahumans of Earth Bet, that wasn't as far-fetched as it should have been.

If he has powers he doesn't really understand, and conflicting desires—to seek combat, so as to be seen as a hero, which requires a foe too strong to easily overcome—then theoretically I can see it happening. I just can't believe nobody else has seen this pattern, much less himself. He's been a hero for more than twenty years, after all.

Nobody else can see what we can see. The U-space traces were what clued you in, after all. I wouldn't have figured it out myself, not until you told me. The question is, are these superweapons of his making as well, or is he just accidentally taking advantage of something that was already there?

Not enough data, lass. All I can offer is conjecture.

Then conjecture away.

Power corrupts, we all know this. Or rather, if you want to see if a man is corruptible, give him power. Eidolon had power. He was widely seen as the second most powerful 'cape' in the world, after Scion. Publicly, he was a renowned hero, and still is. Then something happened that made him doubt himself, doubt his power. He needed to be better, stronger.

Maybe he's jealous of Scion? The man's effortlessly driven away the superweapon after Eidolon failed time and again.

Possibly. Not enough data. But I am sure that he wanted more. And the superweapons started showing up. One at a time at first, then more and more, on a gradually escalating timetable, making the situation more and more fraught. Making the capes who showed up more and more heroic, especially as every battle inevitably caused casualties. And Eidolon has been at the forefront of every battle he was actually allowed to attend. Scion was not.

Okay, so this is definitely an Eidolon thing, not a Scion thing. But we still don't know why.

'Why' is for courts-martial, lass. And it doesn't even truly matter whether he personally called these abominations up from the pit of some superweapon hell, or if they showed up of their own accord. Analysis of all the battles that have been recorded show that every single time another cape or group of capes devised a workable strategy against them, the superweapon suddenly upgraded its own tactics on an almost prescient level and murdered them outright.

Geneva felt a chill run down her spine. The only reason that didn't happen to us was … you. Your sub-minds. You figured it out every time, and managed to counter.

Aye, lass. That's my job, after all. But what are we to do with this knowledge? Eidolon has comrades of a power and capability that could knock us out of the sky and crush my hull to ruin if they decided we were an enemy to be destroyed. And that's if he himself didn't decide to take offence at our accusation. For he would see it as such.

Damn the corruption here! This should be taken to the PRT at the very least, but with Alexandria holding down the top spot, that's going to be difficult.

He paused for a moment. I'm thinking we might need to read Dragon in on this. She might be able to offer insights that we don't see.

Yeah, good idea. Fresh eyes on the problem, and all that.

Taylor

My head came up. "I think I found one of them."

Sean's hologram turned to face me as I spoke. "Are you sure, lass?"

"Mostly." I could pick out the movements of people easily enough; the sounds, the smells and the textures were unmistakeable. But what I was sensing through my bugs felt and smelled like a machine, and thus inherently uninteresting to them. Only the fact that it was moving of its own accord had gotten my attention. And even then, at first it could've just been rubble shifting and settling. There was enough of that, over by the remains of the Medhall building. However, this kept moving (and the fact that it had gotten up and was making a walking motion sealed the deal). "We need to turn around. It's back that way."

"Copy that. Any notion of where the other might be?" As he spoke, the whole ship banked gently around in a turn.

"Sorry, I can only see the one. Its buddy might actually be dead, or it might just be keeping its head down for the moment. Right now I've got one bug every foot or so. To find one that's holding still, I'd need one per inch."

"Understood, lass. Does it look like any civilians are close enough to be in danger?"

I shook my head. "There's so much going on down there that everyone's in danger. We need to get the heroes in to stop it before it goes underground or finds a place with no bugs. Can they survive underwater?" I didn't have nearly as many options with aquatic critters as I did with insects and spiders, but I could maybe track it if it tried that.

"Easily." Sean paused. "The PRT and the heroes are fully occupied with the damage the Gambler's Ruin caused before and after we blew it up. They don't have the resources to track down and deal with one problematic construct. But we do."

"What, are you gonna come down on it like the hammer of God and blow it into little tiny pieces?" Alec asked. "Because I totally want a ringside seat for that."

"No," Lisa said quietly. "He doesn't mean that. He wants us to go after it."

"Wait, what?" demanded Alec. "Us? Hunt down the Terminator? Dunno if you've got the memo yet, ship-guy, but first, we're not heroes. We're the people heroes chase. And second, my power does exactly diddly and squat against robots. I know. I've tried."

"And third, I'm team leader," Brian interjected. "Nobody decides where the Undersiders go but me."

"Anyway, why can't you just blow it away?" Alec seemed to be on a roll now. "Because last I checked, you had some really big fuck-off guns that blew those other assholes clear out of the sky!"

That was when I figured it out. "He can't use the guns because they're so dangerous. They're not designed to shoot individual enemies. Even when he was attacking Leviathan, there was a lot of collateral damage. If you were watching the same footage I did, you would've seen it."

"Aye," Sean agreed. "If the Golem hides in an undamaged part of town, demolishing buildings to kill him would draw us a lot of unwanted attention." He raised his holographic eyebrows. "Besides, I seem to recall you lot agreeing to help us against Kramer. This is just the mop-up."

Brian sighed aggrievedly. "Okay, fine. We'll do it. The question is, how do we do it? It's not like we've ever gone up against a futuristic alien robot before."

"That's only because Leet and Squealer never got around to it, and because we've never fought Dragon," Lisa reminded him. "Taylor can track it, you can blind it, and if Bitch wants to be in on this, her dogs are the perfect combination of mobility and damage dealing."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" Rachel bared her teeth at Lisa. "And don't act like my dogs are yours to order around!"

I wanted to defend Lisa, but I was fully aware that doing so would probably set Rachel off even worse. Fortunately, Sean had matters well in hand, so to speak.

"Nobody's saying that, lass," he cut in smoothly. "But things would be a sight harder if you weren't there with your dogs. Is it true they can tear car doors off with those jaws of theirs?"

"Well, yeah, it is," she conceded sullenly. "But I've never fought these Golem things before. My dogs won't know where to bite them."

Immediately, the holographic image switched to a full-sized image of what I figured had to be a Golem; skull-like head, skeletal mechanical body, gleaming metal limbs. As it slowly rotated in place, Sean highlighted the stress points, and which way to twist the joints so as to most easily rip them out of their sockets. By the end of the little presentation, Rachel was nodding. Now that she knew her enemy and how to kill it, I figured, she was a lot happier.

"Well, what about me?" Alec was in full asshole mode by now. "I can't track it, blind it, rip it to bits, outguess it, or even make it drop shit. What do you want me to do, stand back and wave pompoms? Because I left my pleated skirt in my other costume."

"You like to play your computer games, don't you, lad?" Sean never missed a beat. "If we gave you a neuro-induction headset, do you think you could operate one of my telefactors? It won't be as immersive an experience as you'd get with an aug, but it should be better than nothing."

Despite his trying to hide it, I saw the interest spark in Alec's eyes. "I'm listening."

Geneva

—and that's what we've got. Do you see it, too?

In my aug-generated mindspace, Dragon's human avatar looked up from perusing the files Sean had transferred over to her, including the raw data. My god, she said, real anguish colouring her words, I didn't want to believe it, but it's all here. The command and response each time, within a fraction of a second. I trusted the man. I respected the man. How could he do something like this to his comrades? To the world?

We don't think it's deliberate, I reminded her. There's a good chance that it might be a quirk of his powers. He doesn't know he's creating or calling the superweapons up, and he doesn't know it's his desire to confront true monsters for him to unleash his full power on that's making them so implacably vicious.

Unfortunately, Sean added, this desire extends so far as to adjust their behaviour so that nobody can destroy them for real, usually by killing anyone who threatens to do so.

And when we arrived, that was nearly us, several times. And when it couldn't get us, it nearly murdered Renaud. Because Eidolon wanted it to be a true monster. And possibly, subconsciously, to punish us for upstaging him and chasing off the superweapon in such a dramatic fashion. I put my hand on her virtual shoulder. But now we have a problem. How do we deal with this? Who do we tell, and how do we tell them?

Chief Director Costa-Brown, Dragon said at once. She deserves to know.

Ah, Sean muttered. There's a problem there. We should've let you know this one earlier, lass, but it got lost in the shuffle. The good Chief Director is also Alexandria.

Dragon blinked, and I could see her newly unshackled mind racing to cover all the aspects of the revelation. Huh. Damn. That actually makes sense. Illegal as hell too, though that's no longer something I have to worry about. But I see your point.

I thought of Legend, but that's still too close to home right now, I offered. He's the one who should be told, but by someone he trusts. Someone you trust. Perhaps Armsmaster? Don't you collaborate with him on occasion?

Yes, I do. She nodded slowly. But not just him. He'll need backup, power-wise and authority-wise. You get along with Miss Militia, don't you?

I certainly do, Sean declared. She reminds me a little of me, from once upon a time. Good soldier. Follows orders. Doesn't let anything blur her focus.

We can definitely bring her in on this, I agreed. But what about the authority side of things? The local Director, Piggot, doesn't like us, not one little bit. If anyone were to give the order for the ship to be impounded and us with it, it would be her.

Dragon shook her virtual head. That's not on you. She dislikes capes, and unfortunately you tick a lot of the boxes that say 'cape' to her. She was also career military before she was invalided into that role, and she's still got a lot of the attitude, along with a truckload of bitterness. But I think she should be read in on this too.

Are you absolutely certain about that? I had trouble believing what she was saying. Really? You just got done saying she hates our guts just because we look like capes!

Eidolon's also a cape, she reminded me. And if there's one thing the Director absolutely despises, it's a cape going off the reservation for whatever reason. With Piggot, there's zero chance that this will be swept under the carpet.

I wasn't quite sure what 'off the reservation' actually meant, but I was pretty sure I understood the context. Okay, yeah, you have a good point. We'll read her in too. Just at that moment, the ship swooped down to hover next to an unattended rooftop. What's happening?

We're letting our guests off to go hunt one of the Golem. Better they bring him down quietly and get him back to us than word get out that a potential killer robot is roaming the city and thus cause a panic.

Should we be automatically assuming that he's hostile, much less psychopathic? Dragon's tone was full of concern. Maybe he can be rehabilitated.

I've told them to accept a surrender if he offers one, Sean said bluntly. If he doesn't, we can't take the chance. I've seen what your 'Simurgh bombs' can do. In any case, he was a willing member of Kramer's crew—and he wasn't tossed out the airlock for not going along with everyone else.

You make a good point. In the meantime, I'll keep scanning all reports in case the other one's out and about. Dragon sighed. I suppose I just want to think AIs are inherently good.

We are what our nature and nurture makes us, lass. Artificial or otherwise, intelligence always forges its own path.

I took a deep breath. I'll put the call through to Director Piggot, arrange a virtual conference.

No. Dragon paused. I mean, yes, put the call through, but make it a face-to-face meeting. People value that sort of thing in this day and age. And trust me, it's a thing that never did me any favours.

That's ridiculous. Face-to-face is just a waste of resources. You can get so much more done in virtual space. But I accepted her insights for what they were. She was the local, not me.

I made the call.

PRT Building

Director Emily Piggot

The elevator still worked, probably because its Tinkertech didn't rely on anything so old-school as cables. Seeing how the top of the building, including Emily's office, just didn't exist anymore, this was a good thing.

Still, the damage reports for the building as a whole were dismaying, even though the structure was still standing. Half the bullet-resistant polycarbonate covering the frontage was either just gone, or so warped by the heat weapon that had been played over it that it would have to be discarded anyway. Emily was no bean-counter, but her private estimates of the cost of fixing the building ran into the tens of millions. If the damage to the foundations was worse than currently thought, it might just have to be demolished utterly and rebuilt from scratch.

"It could've been worse," Renick commented as they stepped out onto the first floor. Even here, the building looked like a bomb had hit it. "I hear the Medhall building was basically demolished."

"Mmm," agreed Emily. Absently, as she stepped over rubble and eyed cracked support pillars, she wondered exactly how much of a strain the renovation of her building was going to put on the annual budget. For sure, there would be some screaming from the bean-counters.

Her phone buzzed, and she checked the caller ID. Alien Spaceship, it said. That narrowed it down to maybe four people, if she counted the artificial intelligence as a person.

"Piggot speaking. Who am I talking to?"

"Hello, Director." It was the too-young captain of the ship, Hastings. "I hope you survived the attack with minimal casualties?"

"We're doing better than Medhall," she admitted. "Some injuries, but no deaths. Due almost entirely to your warning, so thank you for that. But you didn't call to pass the time of day. What's the issue?" No matter her personal dislike of the ship and its crew, they had been making the effort to not cause too much havoc.

Instead of her usual polite tone, Hastings seemed to be playing hardball. "We need a face-to-face meeting with you, Armsmaster, and Miss Militia, about a potential new problem that's cropped up."

And there went the other shoe. "Of course it has," Emily gritted. "How urgent? Is there another ship?"

"No." Hastings paused for a moment. "I can't give you details outside a secure conference, but I can tell you this. While the relative urgency is moderate to low, the overall importance of this data is very high, and the security requirement for passing it on is absolute. We do not want this getting out to unauthorised ears."

Emily took the opportunity to breathe in deeply, then out again, trying to disperse the anger that simmered in her guts. How dare Hastings show up, then act as though chasing off Leviathan gave her leave to dance all over standard protocol. And this new problem … "Let me guess. Some other unintended consequence of your arrival has gotten loose, and you want to fill me in on how to stop it before it's too late?"

"Actually, no, though I don't blame you for reaching that conclusion." Hastings was still polite and courteous in the face of the accusation. "It's in relation to a pre-existing problem on Earth Bet. We've just seen it in a new light, but we absolutely need to confer with you before we move forward with any actions."

Despite Hastings saying absolutely nothing that could give any information away—Emily was all too familiar with that sort of phrasing—the ramifications of what she wasn't saying were problematic, to say the least. The crew of the spaceship had (with the exception of Leviathan and the Endbringers) been casually dismissive of the force any cape could bring against them. But now they'd encountered something based on Earth Bet that they couldn't simply brute-force aside with their frankly terrifying firepower. Or rather, something they could possibly defeat, but they wanted to talk to Emily and the two highest ranking members of the Protectorate ENE contingent before they made any moves against it.

Which meant Emily needed to know what they'd spotted that the PRT and Protectorate hadn't, no matter how much their protected status rankled at her.

"We can talk," she allowed cautiously. "What would you consider to be a secure enough area?" Her office would've been her own first choice, but thanks to the other goddamn spaceship, that was no longer an option.

Hastings didn't hesitate. "The Bond James Bond. If there's anyone on this world with the capability of eavesdropping on us when we've got full chameleonware running, we've yet to encounter them."

"And you want Armsmaster and Miss Militia along as well." Emily decided to make sure of that.

"Yes. Dragon thinks Armsmaster should be in on this, and Miss Militia is still our liaison. Finally, you're the local head of the PRT, so you need to hear it too. I assure you, it will make more sense once we can talk freely."

Emily grimaced. I should damn well hope so. "Alright, then. I have them out and about doing search and rescue at the moment, but if it's as important as you say, we can spare two people for a short while." She suspected Armsmaster wouldn't turn down a chance to inspect the interior of the ship, and as Hastings had intimated, Miss Militia was already on good terms with the crew.

"Thank you. At the front of the building, five minutes?"

"That should be adequate timing, yes."

"See you then."

Emily ended the call and put her phone away. "As you may have gathered," she informed Renick, "that was Captain Hastings. She claims to have uncovered vitally important intel about a potential problem right here on Earth Bet, unrelated to their arrival. I'll be conferencing with them on board their ship, along with Armsmaster and Miss Militia. You'll be fielding my calls and running the command post until that's over."

"I see." Renick paused. "And if there's an emergency?"

She smiled sourly. "I suspect, with the ridiculous level of tech they've shown already, they'll be aware of it before we are." It wasn't even remotely a joke.

"Understood, ma'am."

The Golem Called Joseph

Joseph had passed through fire, but he didn't care about fire. He could handle more heat than anything but a hooper, and that was a fact. His left arm had been damaged by the collision with the ground, but even that could've been a lot worse.

He was the only one who'd seen the danger incoming, and dived for an escape pod. The pod had barely had time to launch when the Gambler's Ruin went up. It had come apart under the force of the explosion, but in doing so it had shielded him from the worst of it. Now, he was on the ground and on the run, but he didn't care.

There were stupid, slow humans all over this planet, and they had electricity, so it shouldn't be too much trouble to force one to show him how to access it. And if one couldn't help him, then another would.

No augs and no gridlinks meant they couldn't call for help. Even if he hurt some of them really badly, which he was looking forward to doing. Back in the Polity, they had laws against Golem ripping unmodified humans' arms and legs off. They probably had laws like that here too, but there was no ECS to come down on anyone for breaking them and killing citizens.

Joseph was a god among weaklings here, and he fully intended to carve out his own little niche in this stupid, backward world.

If only those bastard bugs would stop buzzing around him, it would be even better.

Taylor

"That way." I lifted my arm and pointed, making sure to hang on with my other hand and both legs. Riding a massively mutated dog-thing across the rooftops wasn't easy at the best of times, especially when they were climbing vertically or leaping from one roof to the next. "About two blocks."

"I'll go ahead and see if I can spot it," Alec announced, via the speakers in the 'telefactor' robot humming along beside us on what I guessed was the same sort of anti-gravity that the ship used. Alec himself was strapped into a seat back in the Bond James Bond, wearing an elaborate headset that he'd said beat nine shades of shit out of the best VR gear he'd ever tried before. The robot itself was about the size of an adult human except that it was horizontal instead of vertical, with a bunch of sensors and lenses and stuff on the front, plus a couple of robotic arms. It didn't have built-in guns (somewhat to Alec's disappointment), but the arms were equipped with spinning blades, welding arcs and a bunch of other tools that could easily be used as weapons in a pinch.

"No, hold back!" called Lisa. "If it sees you, it might— fuck." She hissed in annoyance as the telefactor accelerated away from us. "He heard me. I know he heard me."

I reached up to my ear and tapped the earpiece that Geneva had given me back in the coffee shop. "Skitter calling Sean."

"I'm here, lass. What's the problem?" The warm brogue of the ship's AI was comforting to hear. For an alien computer intelligence from five hundred years in the future, he was very human.

Also, as an avid reader of various types of science fiction, I very much wanted to live in that future.

But this wasn't dealing with the problem at hand. "Yeah, uh, Regent's gone on ahead and we're worried he might accidentally alert the Golem that we're on its trail. Could you ask him to back off until we get closer, please?"

"I can certainly do that for you."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, lass. Sean, out."

The call ended, and I concentrated on hanging on as the dogs galloped across one rooftop then leaped to another. Then I spotted the telefactor coming back toward us. It had no facial features as such, but to my eyes there was a sulky set to the sensors and arms that was all Alec. "Okay, who dropped the dime on me?"

"Doesn't matter." Brian's tone was sharp. "That thing's not a toy, and it's not invisible. If the Golem saw you, it would probably take hostages or go underground or do something else to try and get away. The faster we can catch up to it, stop it and kill it, the better."

"Yeah, okay, fine, we'll do it the boring way." But the telefactor fell in alongside us anyway.

"Good." Brian wasn't giving an inch. "If we can stop this thing before it hurts anyone, then it'll look a lot better for us all round with the PRT. And that means no showboating."

It turned out the telefactor arms were pretty damn versatile. I'd never seen the bird so thoroughly flipped before.

Miss Militia

Hannah reached the front of the PRT building at the same time as Armsmaster did, but that was probably because he'd been keeping the pace down for her. She was reasonably adept at riding a motorbike, but the after-market extras he'd added to his machine gave it truly ridiculous levels of performance. Still, that was what Tinkers did.

The entire street had been blocked off to car traffic since the attack, mainly due to the enormous hole in the road and the rubble strewn around, but they weaved their way around the larger chunks and parked in a conveniently empty spot. As Hannah got off her bike and removed her helmet—Armsmaster, of course, wouldn't need the extra protection—she spotted the Director coming over from the ruins of the main entrance.

The PRT building itself had taken a severe beating, but it seemed the extra care that had gone into its construction had paid off. Only the top two floors were gone; the rest, though a mess, was still standing. Not like the Medhall building. That one had been comprehensively demolished.

"What's this about, Director?" asked Armsmaster when Piggot got close enough. "All we were told was that the captain of the Bond James Bond wanted to talk to us."

"I don't know much more than you do," the Director admitted. "She just said it had to do with new information about an ongoing problem, but that she wanted to brief all three of us under airtight security."

"Which means being on board the ship with its chameleonware running." Hannah made the connection just as the ship in question hove into view over the nearest building and gracefully swooped down toward the street nearby. With her practised eye, she could make out the haze of anti-gravity under it as it settled toward street level with barely a sound. Her weapon was currently an assault rifle; she switched it out for a pulse pistol, which she settled into its holster at her side.

"You've mentioned that before," Armsmaster said. "Is that stealth?"

"In the same way that what I do can be summarised as 'weapons'." Hannah led the way toward the Bond James Bond. "There's a whole lot missing from the word."

The ramp extended as the ship came to rest on its undercarriage. Hannah could see where the hull plating had been replaced, and where more needed to be affixed. Then the outer hatch slid aside, revealing Geneva standing in the aperture.

"Miss Militia, Director, Armsmaster." Her tone was as businesslike as her posture, despite the fact that she looked half Director Piggot's age. "Good to see you again."

"Captain Hastings." As befitted her role as liaison, Hannah went up the ramp first. "Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted." Geneva shook her hand, her grip firm without being overpowered. "I appreciate you taking the time to listen to what we've got to say."

"You did say it was a problematic situation." Director Piggot followed Hannah up the ramp, with Armsmaster bringing up the rear.

"Yes, we did. We considered it important enough to bring it to your attention immediately." Geneva stepped aside to allow Hannah to enter the ship.

Within was much the same as she recalled it being, the last time she'd attended a meeting in the ship. That time, of course, she'd been outranked by the likes of Legend and Chief Director Costa-Brown. Now, she was still outranked but as the designated liaison, she held a fragile authority within the ship.

Not that she intended to press said authority very hard; or at all, if possible.

Apart from Reynaud, who offered her a friendly nod, there were two people seated in the cabin who she hadn't met before. One, a bald muscular man with an odd circular blue tattoo on one cheek, looked back at her curiously, while the other was a teenage boy wearing the most comprehensive headset that she'd ever seen over his eyes and half his face.

"What's going on here?" she asked cautiously. "Who are these people?"

The kid didn't seem to hear her, carrying on a muttered conversation under his voice, but the man certainly did. "Johnson. You with the local cops? Thought you were supposed to be all primitive and stuff." He nodded toward her pulse pistol.

Reynaud sighed as Director Piggot and Armsmaster came back into the cabin. "Sorry. Johnson's a hooper, and he was one of Captain Kramer's crew, so he's staying on this ship until we can get back to the Polity and hand him over for his crimes. And that's Regent; he's one of the Undersiders, and he's helping us with a mission."

"Harbouring a known supervillain is a crime," snapped the Director. "Armsmaster—"

"Stop." Knowing that she was likely to get yelled at extensively, Hannah stepped in the way nonetheless. "The Bond James Bond is considered Polity territory. Earth Bet doesn't have an extradition treaty with the Polity, so we can't legally remove him."

"She's right," Geneva said from behind Armsmaster. "If you tried, I'd be forced to remove you, and that would really put a cramp in the discussion I'd like to have with you. Please, take a seat."

"Mmm." The Director nodded with bad grace, gave Hannah a look that said, 'we will be having words later', and sat down. Armsmaster followed suit, gingerly at first, then relaxing as the seat failed to even creak meaningfully under him. Finally, Hannah took her seat, eyeing the holo-table expectantly.

"Thank you." Geneva stepped up so they could each see her, while she didn't obscure anyone's view of the holo-table, which only confirmed Hannah's suspicions about what was going to happen. "Just so you all know, Regent can't hear or see a thing that's going on in this cabin. He doesn't even know you're here. And while Johnson and Reynaud will be present for everything I've got to show you, they won't be sharing it with anyone outside. Understood? Good."

Sean's voice came over the speakers then, as the holotable lit up with his visage. "Ship has been sealed. Chameleonware on and holding. We're as secure as we're going to get, captain."

"Thank you, Sean." Geneva dusted her hands off. "So, to begin. As we've already told you, U-space—underspace—serves as a conduit for the powers that your parahumans use every day. We've also told you that we can detect U-space activity, and can pinpoint your 'capes' that way, via their connection to and use of it." Director Piggot's head came up, and Geneva turned to look at her. "And no, we are still not going to give you detector technology. This is about something that's been detected, not the detector itself."

"Are you talking about giving us information about the identities of villain capes that you've identified out of costume?" asked Armsmaster. "Because that could get problematic if you wanted to keep word about the detector quiet."

"No." Geneva shook her head. "This isn't anything so trivial." She didn't do anything that Hannah could see, but Sean's face was replaced in the holodisplay by a still image of the Leviathan battle. "We were recording traces all the way through this fight, and we discovered something extremely troubling. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I'll show you and see if you can pick it out."

Ghostly blue traces faded into view across the image, connecting every cape there to a line that faded into nothing. Leviathan's trace was also in view; his was massive. The footage speeded up; the Bond James Bond slammed a missile into the Endbringer, then broke off the fight to deal with a tsunami. Not the last time in the fight they'd had to do it, Hannah recalled.

"The Central Library," Geneva said, as the imagery showed exactly that. Every hero there was visible in stark detail, along with their U-space traces. "The superweapon was trying to get into the bunker, but we were hammering it hard. So, it changed tactics … now."

In the hologram, the ship shot straight upward, just as Leviathan hurtled out of the building on what would've been a collision course. Then the image changed.

"After we put it in a hole, it decided to follow the sewer lines toward the aquifer," Geneva narrated. "We were going to ambush it. Until it reacted, and ambushed us first."

Hannah blinked and flinched as the Endbringer leaped upward from the trench that had been blasted in the street, and wrapped itself around the fuselage of the Bond James Bond. Unable to move as fast as the others, she hadn't been there for that.

Nothing the Endbringers attacked with such ferocity ever survived. Or it hadn't, until now.

"I'm not sure I see your point," Director Piggot said as the action paused once more. "Leviathan is very smart and very fast. This is not new information."

"True. That isn't new information. But this may be." Geneva led them through a rapid-fire selection of other turning points in the battle, then went back to the first one. "I'm going to run this through at one-tenth speed, with a timer counting down to Leviathan's change in tactics. Watch the U-space traces on the capes."

With that hint, she started the hologram running again. Hannah concentrated on the otherworldly traces as the capes moved back and forth, until, right as the counter hit zero—

"Wait!" That was Armsmaster, just as Hannah herself went to speak up. The Director, as well, had her hand half in the air. "Go back. Show it again."

The imagery flicked back and then scrolled forward, even more slowly. And Hannah saw it.

At normal speed, it would've been impossible to spot. Even at one-tenth, it was almost too fast. But now, it was plain to see. She looked at Armsmaster, then at the Director. "Did you see what I think I saw?"

Director Piggot frowned. "Eidolon. Something happened to his trace. Armsmaster?"

The armoured hero nodded. "I saw it. Play another one."

"Roger." Geneva ran through the leap from the sewer line, slowing the action down as the moment approached. Hannah was watching for it this time, and she spotted it on the first iteration.

"Eidolon again." Director Piggot didn't look happy at all. "Show us the rest."

One by one, the recordings that the ship had made played through. Each time, Eidolon's U-space trace displayed a telltale flicker, whether he was using his powers or not, each time Leviathan changed his tactics and attempted to overwhelm the Bond James Bond.

"Okay, we see it." Armsmaster spoke for the group after the last image had faded. "But what does it mean?"

Hannah knew, but she didn't want to believe it. Still, she had to speak up. "Orders. He's giving Leviathan orders."

Director Piggot drew a deep breath. "Fuck."

"We don't think it's deliberate." Geneva's tone was as impersonal as a doctor informing someone that yes, the tumour was malignant. "He doesn't come across as the type. Our guess is that some kind of subconscious power interaction calls them up when he wants a good heroic battle that he can throw his all into."

As much as the logic repelled Hannah, she couldn't fault it. "And when it looks like someone who isn't him might score a telling blow, he has it change tactics to kill whoever it is?" There were no holes she could poke in the idea, but that didn't mean someone else couldn't. "Who else have you run this past?"

"Me." It was Dragon's voice. "I've analysed it as hard as I can, and that's the best conclusion I can make out of it, too."

Armsmaster raised his head. "Dragon?" he asked hesitantly. "I … I heard. About everything. Are … are you well?"

"Doing better than I was before, thanks." Dragon's human avatar manifested in the holodisplay. "So. This is what we had to tell you. What are you going to do with it?"

Director Piggot looked like she'd aged twenty years in the last five minutes. "God damn you," she grated. "Why did you have to drop this in my lap? Why not the Chief Director's? Leave me out of it!"

Geneva didn't say a word, but the hologram changed; this time, to a still of the meeting in the ship that Hannah, Legend and the Chief Director had attended. Hannah saw her own U-space trace, which was a distinctly odd experience, and Legend's … and she also saw one attached to Rebecca Costa-Brown. She blinked slowly, and looked again. It was still there.

"What the fuck?" Piggot was half-out of her seat, glaring at the hologram. "You have to be shitting me!"

"I assure you," Geneva's tone was rock-solid. "We are not."

"… who?" Director Piggot settled back into her seat. "Who the hell is she?"

"Alexandria." Armsmaster made the connection first. "It's her. Has to be. Body type is near-identical."

Alexandria is Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown. Holy shit. Once upon a time, Hannah had been fascinated by Magic Eye images, and she'd become quite good at teasing the hidden picture out of them. Now it was happening to her brain, as two disparate concepts merged and became one. The entire world seemed to shift around her as the new paradigm settled into place.

Piggot glowered at Geneva. "How long have you been sitting on that? You had to know it goes against the entire idea of the PRT! There's an entire chapter of the PRTCJ that forbids a parahuman holding command rank!"

"We knew," Geneva admitted. "But as the saying goes; 'not our monkeys, not our circus'. She wasn't doing any harm as she was … but we did not want to spring this on her unprepared, knowing who she really is. Thus, this meeting."

"So now I've got two members of the Triumvirate to worry about." Director Piggot gave Geneva a suspicious look. "And if you're going to tell me that Legend is secretly Jack Slash, I will be extremely displeased with you."

Geneva shook her head. "No, actually. As far as we can tell, Legend is exactly who and what he says he is."

"Well, good. I doubt I could take many more unpleasant surprises of that calibre today." Director Piggot stood up. "If that's all, Captain Hastings?"

"That's all we had to show you, Director Piggot," acknowledged Geneva.

Hannah stood as well, and followed Armsmaster and the Director toward the exit hatch. None of them spoke; if their thoughts were anything like hers, she wasn't surprised.

"Chameleonware deactivated. Hatch unsealed." Sean's voice was as urbane as ever. "Good to see you again, lass. Safe travels."

"Thank you, Sean." Hannah followed Armsmaster out through the airlock hatch and down the ramp. As she watched, the ramp retracted and the hatch closed, then the Bond James Bond lifted off again. Within moments, it may as well have never even been there. There wasn't so much as a scorch mark on the asphalt.

Armsmaster turned to face Director Piggot. "I have a full recording of the information they gave us. What are we going to do with it, ma'am?" Inherent in his voice was the certainty that something had to be done with it.

Piggot nodded in acknowledgement of the part that had gone unspoken. "We've got no other choice. We go to Legend with it."

It was the only real move they could make but still, a chill traced its way down Hannah's spine. She had the feeling that the first pebbles had been dislodged in what would become a devastating avalanche, and she was helpless to stop it.

This is not going to end well.

Taylor

"It's down there, in the alley." I spoke softly, unsure about just how good a Golem's sensors might be. "I'm pretty sure it's scoping out that shop across the street. It might be aware that something's up, because it's actively avoiding my bugs. I've got spiders weaving webs, but they're almost certainly not going to be enough to slow it down."

Brian nodded. "Got it. Regent, get ready to drop down into the street in case it makes a break that way. Bitch, how do you think we should hit it with dogs?"

"One from this end, one from on top, and one at that end in case it gets past Regent." Rachel took the time to sneer at the telefactor.

"Good." Brian looked at me and Lisa. "Let me know if it busts into either building instead of taking the easy way out."

I nodded, diverting some spiders into webbing up whatever doors and windows I could find. "On it." Just then, down below, the Golem started toward the entrance of the alley. "Shit, it's moving."

Lisa raised her head. "And it's just figured out that the bugs are under direction."

"Go!" barked Brian. "Hit it!"

As the telefactor darted one way and the dogs split up under Rachel's command, I intensified my swarm, determined not to let it get away. Brian poured darkness over the edge of the rooftop, where it tumbled down and pooled fog-like, blotting out all light within. Fearlessly, the dogs leaped into the Stygian blackness, vanishing instantly.

I could follow the battle in the blackness, but only in bits and patches as my bugs were squashed and brushed away, by both metal and mutated limbs alike. When the darkness arrived, the Golem made a dash for the alley entrance, but one of Rachel's dogs got there first. The telefactor was next on the scene; even lacking sight, it used other esoteric senses to home in on the Golem.

If Alec had gotten his robotic hands on the fugitive robot, it would've been over in seconds, but the Golem recognised what was going on and pulled free of the initial grab. It retreated into the darkness, only to meet another dog coming the other direction. Heavy jaws gnashed, jagged teeth grinding on metal, but again it was too quick to be easily trapped. With a convulsive heave, it pulled free, though at the expense of two of its fingers, and dived to the ground.

Moving faster than I would've expected, it rolled under the dog and came up into a dead sprint, only to have the third dog leap on it from above. They rolled over and over in the narrow confines of the alley, crushing dumpsters and destroying fire escapes as they went.

Just as the Golem pulled free of the dog's teeth, losing the rest of that hand to the powerful jaws, the telefactor arrived and clamped hold of it. Despite the damping effect of Brian's fog, my bugs felt the heat of the cutting torch as it sliced into the Golem's left leg. The robot reacted, of course, scrabbling at the belly of the telefactor, apparently searching for an access panel or something similar.

Alec must have gotten an emergency warning when it pried one open, because he had the telefactor throw the Golem at the alley wall. It bounced off, rolling to its feet … right into the jaws of yet another dog. This one got its mouth onto the Golem's skull-like head … and started squeezing. The robot tried to force the immense jaws open, but only had one hand to do it with.

And then the pressure overcame the metal skull's material strength, and the Golem's head crushed inward like an eggshell, destroying the delicate components within. My bugs felt the moment when the lights went out and the rogue robot collapsed like a rag doll.

"Okay," I told Brian. "It's done."

We'd saved the city from a vengeful robot, and nobody had gotten hurt in the process.

But I could tell we weren't out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

End of Part Thirteen