-ooo-

Recoil

Part 8-2: Changing Things Around

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

Monday Afternoon, April 17, 1995
PRT Department 04: Chicago
Captain Taylor Snow's Quarters

"Draw!"

Already tense, I was ready for the challenge. My right hand flashed down and folded over the worn grips of my old-style Colt revolver. It came up out of the holster like a living thing, its aim-point already painting a dot on my HUD. Bringing the barrel up, I chopped at the hammer with the heel of my left hand. I was holding the trigger down so there was no obstruction to firing, and my rapidly fanned shots hit the leader of the Bloody Circuits gang right in the breadbasket.

The micro-explosives went off, blasting apart subdermal armour and cybernetics alike; he stumbled to his knees, dropping his laser pistol, which had only just cleared its holster. Slowly, he toppled forward to fall flat on his face. I could see where one of my shots had penetrated all the way through and blown out his back, exposing the stainless steel of his spinal column.

Lisa fired a shot in the air, the concussion causing the air itself to quiver. She worked the lever-action of her replica Winchester, making everyone entirely aware that the next plasma-jacketed round lay in the chamber, ready to blow apart anyone who looked at her funny. "You guys don't want to be making any stupid moves," she said, her words backing up the physical threat.

None of the other gang members tried anything as I walked forward and kicked the gun clear of the cyborg outlaw's hand. Killer-Byte, as he'd styled himself, had been a thorn in the side of the local towns for some little while, but now his time was done. Just to make sure, I accessed my HUD and scanned his body. There were no backup mechanisms, no hidden computer cores.

Killer-Byte had been shut down for good.

Suitably intimidated, the rest of the gang offered no resistance as Lisa and I set about disarming and securing them. All we needed now was a link to the local laser-telegraph line, and we could get the local law out here to take them into custody.

As I walked with Lisa to where our patiently waiting hover-cycles were tethered to the hitching rail, I reached a decision. I can't do this anymore.

"Do what?" She looked at me with concern. "Go on adventures with me?"

I snorted. Oh, no, I'm loving these. No, it's Jack Slash. I know I agreed to wait until he tries to recruit Riley, then nail the gang and put him on ice then, but …

"… but he's going to kill too many people and enable too many villains in the meantime, yeah?" Her look turned sympathetic. "I get it. Trust me, I get it."

Will it change too much if we take him off the board now?

She grimaced. "You know I can't answer that one. The butterfly effect is a very real thing, but it's unpredictable. Something you think will have a huge effect will sink without a ripple, and other things that you figure nobody cares about have long-lasting consequences."

You know why I wanted to wait.

It was her turn to snort derisively. "Well, duh. So she'll be amenable to the idea of being recruited by us. Having a high-end medic of her calibre on call for emergency situations would be ideal. Especially with the crap you've already put yourself through, and given that Panacea's not a guarantee anymore."

Yeah. It was true. Think she'll still be up to it if there's no threat from Jack Slash?

"Hmm." She rubbed her chin. "I might be able to come up with something. Leave it with me."

Okay, cool. I appreciate it. 'Lie, cheat, steal and kill' is all well and good, but leaving people to die when I could have saved them sucked enough with Behemoth.

"I know. I know, I know, I know." She hugged me. "Can you wait another year?"

You're talking about Gray Boy.

"Yeah." She rested her chin on my shoulder. "I have no doubt you could kidnap Jack and kill Screamer—not in that order, of course—but then you'd have that monochrome little twerp on your case, and he'd be really hard to shake. Especially when we don't have any effective way to neutralise his power."

So, wait until Glaistig collects him and turns herself in, then grab Jack? I didn't like having to wait even a year, but at least it was better than ten years.

"It's a plan." She shrugged. "We've got a year to firm it up."

Yeah, okay. We'll do it your way. As she'd known all along.

"Good. Though Winter's in the country now. I can make it so she'll be passing through Chicago in three weeks, if you're okay with that."

Yeah, that'll be good. I thought I was going to have to go to her.

Pulling back slightly, she gave me one of her impish grins. "Having mercenaries available to lay a false trail of contacts is a very useful thing."

And I can kill her, at least? This was a death I could definitely get behind. Winter was a sadistic murderer who specialised in gun-running and dabbled in human trafficking. If she had any positive qualities, I hadn't found them yet. Also, denying the Nine of her membership could only serve to weaken them in the long run.

"Absolutely. I'll make sure Andrea gets all the details."

I knew there was a reason I was keeping you around.

She smirked at me. "And here I thought it was my irresistible charm. Kiss before you go?"

As I kissed her, the wind kicked up. Her lips tasted of dust and blood. A piece of prairie grit stung my eye, and I blinked—

—and opened my eyes, sitting at my desk in my quarters. Before me lay two carefully handwritten letters, one going to Danny and one to Gladys. They were similar in tone but different in actual wording, phrased to sound like chatty missives to old friends. If anyone looked through them before sending them on—as I was sure someone would—they would read as long on sentiment and short on any substance to do with the workings of the PRT.

Individually, they were innocuous. Combined, then analysed by the decryption program I'd written long ago for Andrea, they made up the latest series of instructions for my girlfriend to carry out, as well as a letter intended for her eyes alone. Overly complicated, perhaps, but I couldn't afford to have even the slightest official suspicion attached to my activities, if I were to have a free hand in saving the world.

Getting up out of my chair, I stretched—spending time in a self-hypnotic trance meant I'd been sitting in the same position for a while—then folded the letters and inserted them into the appropriate envelopes. These were already addressed and stamped, but I didn't seal them; they had to be inspected for microdots, pinholes, chemical treatments, contraband information and other assorted spycraft first. I didn't object to such inspections, as I was the one who'd recommended their implementation for all mail entering and leaving the base.

After all, I didn't want anyone else smuggling information out of the PRT on my watch.

Friday Morning, April 21, 1995
Brockton Bay
Andrea's Penthouse

"Where do you want it, ma'am?"

Andrea side-eyed the security guy. She wasn't old enough to be called 'ma'am' by anyone, even if she was paying his salary. "Right here, middle of the floor. That'll do."

"Sure thing, ma'am." He nodded to his offsider, and they hefted the bulky crate off the folding cart and placed it on the thick carpet. "Just sign here, please."

Andrea accepted the clipboard and scribbled an approximation of her signature before handing it back. "Thanks," she said, fully aware that the crate was heavier than her, and she would've had no chance of manhandling it into the elevator and out again. She was just happy the building's highly paid security team had been able to accept delivery and bring it up themselves. There was no way she wanted any grubby strangers tramping through her home.

"You're welcome, ma'am." Both security guys headed back to the elevator, towing the folding cart with them. She watched until the door closed behind them before she turned back to the package.

"So, what do you think, Alec sweetie?" she asked the infant who had been watching the whole show from what she called his BMD, short for 'baby mobility device'. Sitting upright in it, his feet could touch the floor and push himself along, but the carpet offered enough resistance that he couldn't go anywhere fast. Out of it, he seemed on the verge of mastering the art of crawling, so she'd made sure to put up barriers anywhere she didn't want him going.

Taking care of a baby was tiring, but oh, so rewarding.

He gurgled happily in reply and waved his arms excitedly. She'd found he responded well to stimulation, which was good. The last thing she wanted was a moody emo baby; she figured she'd get enough of that when he hit his teen years.

"Yeah, I think so too." Going over to him, she got down on all fours and rubbed her nose against his, something that always made him laugh. Which of course was why she did it. "We're going to have a little …" She paused, considering. "Not sister … cousin. Sure, that'll do. Cousin Dragon. Dang, that sounds badass."

Reaching up, he wrapped his hands in her hair as she was lifting him out of the BMD to cuddle. She was still in no way interested in experiencing the more biological side of motherhood, but she'd found that taking care of Alec was deeply satisfying in ways that she'd never experienced before. While it could get messy at times—how Alec could puke up his own body-weight in the space of twenty-four hours, she never did figure out—she had a cleaning service to deal with that side of things, so she got to enjoy the fun aspects of being a mom. His wonder and joy at seeing anything new touched her deep inside and gave her a whole new enjoyment of life.

Still holding him, she went into the kitchen and returned with a small but sharp knife. This served to slice through the heavy plastic strips holding the crate closed, then she put it safely away before going back to the now-opened box. Both she and Alec peered inside with interest as she lifted off the lid and got a look at the contents.

With a snort, she shook her head. Andy was definitely still as clueless as ever. He'd taken her suggestion on board about making the robot body as lifelike as possible, instead of being some cybernetic horror stalking the streets of Brockton Bay. Folded up in the crate was, to all appearances, a young child. To Andrea's inexpert eye, maybe four or five years old, but as featureless as a Barbie doll.

Still, he hadn't supplied clothing.

"Well, that's gonna be a little bit of a problem isn't it, Alec sweetie?" she asked the baby. "Mommy's going to have to go clothes shopping for Dragon before she can go out in public, isn't she?"

Alec gurgled in agreement, then appeared to concentrate before he made a prolonged flatulent noise. Andrea knew that sound. She checked his diaper and sure enough, he needed changing.

Dragon could wait. Alec needed her.

And tonight, of course, was her regular meeting with Danny, Annette, Gladys and Franklin. No longer hitting the nightclub scene since Alec had come along, they tended to go to quiet baby-friendly restaurants. Gladys wasn't as mother-hennish as Annette (who was by now very noticeably pregnant) but she still enjoyed making Alec giggle.

All in all, ignoring the surreptitious espionage side of things, it was a nice sedate night out, which was just what she needed these days.

My God, she realised, not sure if she should be laughing or horrified. I'm actually getting domesticated, here. When did that happen?

Taylor, she decided firmly, was a bad influence.

Cuddling Alec to her and looking down at the robot kid in the box, she sighed in resignation. Well, I guess there's worse ways to go.

Monday Afternoon
April 23rd, 1995
Deer Lake, Newfoundland

Andrew Richter resisted the urge to bite his nails as he stared at the screen of his computer. "Should I—" he began.

"Nope." In Brockton Bay, Andrea cut him off before he'd even gotten started. "She's got to learn by herself. If you program it into her, she'll expect to have everything handed to her. This way, she'll learn to be independent sooner."

He wasn't at all sure if he even wanted his latest creation to feel independent. She was a true AI, capable of feelings and emotions, and with the potential to cause an extinction event for humanity once she grew into her full capability. If she ever decided she simply didn't need humanity—or worse, that they were in her way—the consequences could be disastrous.

But Captain Snow had described Dragon as being a warm, empathetic person in the future. Despite having been confined behind multiple barriers holding her back from true freedom, she'd spontaneously offered a hug to a scared, lonely sixteen-year-old girl. Snow had also recommended Andrea for the task of acclimatising Dragon to humanity and the world at large, and he'd long since learned that the reason for bringing an expert in on a job was to let them be the expert.

Having met Andrea, his impression was of someone not totally mature, but utterly comfortable in her own skin and as quirkily human as anyone could get. More so than Captain Snow in some ways; the woman was scarily competent, especially with firearms. As he'd briefly suspected when they'd met back in Deer Lake, she could easily pass for a robot masquerading as a human.

He'd been annoyed with himself when Andrea had scathingly suggested that maybe Dragon might need clothing to go out in public, but the true facepalm came when he saw the pink romper suit Andrea had bought for the purpose. Or rather, the cute baby dragon embroidered on the front.

On the screen, the actual robot attempted once more to get to her feet. She wasn't as clumsy as she'd been five minutes ago after uploading into the body, but the coordination wasn't quite there yet. "This is hard!" she complained in a very childlike voice. "You make it look easy!"

"That's because I've been doing it for years and years,"

Andrea reminded her in a kindly tone. She gestured over toward where Alec was in his walker, watching the show avidly. The infant had immediately taken to Dragon, gurgling happily and reaching toward her. This had assuaged some of Richter's worries concerning the appearance of the human lifelike model. "See? He's not going to be walking for some time. His brain's still writing the software it needs to do that, and his muscles aren't nearly developed enough yet. You're getting a head start."

"Oh."

Dragon was mollified, but not so much that she was about to give up. "Can you show me how?"

"I can definitely do that, sweetie."

Andrea sat down beside the artificial child, then swivelled on her butt to lie flat on her stomach. "Come on, let's start with the basics."

"Alright."

Obediently, Dragon copied her posture. "What do we do now?"

"Now we get up on all fours."

Andrea pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. "We can do that, can't we?"

"Yes."

Dragon followed her lead. "But this is where it gets hard."

"Well, yes."

Andrea conceded the point. "That's because being on four legs is more stable than being on two legs. But now we get up on our knees." She sat back on her haunches and then rested her butt on her heels as she knelt upright.

"I can do that." Once more, Dragon copied her. "I'm nearly standing up, aren't I?"

"Nearly,"

Andrea agreed. "Now, get one foot under you, like this." She reached out to Dragon. "Here, I'll steady you."

Dragon held Andrea's hand as she copied the posture. She was wobbly, but to Richter's anxious gaze, Andrea's assistance was making all the difference. "What do we do now?"

Andrea smiled. "Now, we stand up." Still holding Dragon's hand, she drew herself to her feet.

Following Andrea's lead, Dragon also stood up. With her feet planted firmly on the carpet, clinging to Andrea's hand like a lifeline, she looked up at the camera, her face aglow with joy. "I'm standing! Look, father! I'm standing up!"

"Yes." Richter decided that the screen needed cleaning, because it had become blurry all of a sudden. All he could really see was Dragon's beaming smile, and Andrea's proud one, and that was the only thing that mattered. "You're standing. You clever, clever girl."

"Yes, she is, isn't she?" agreed Andrea. "She's the cleverest girl I know."

Letting go Andrea's hand, Dragon took one tottering step and hugged her tightly. "Thank you, mommy Andrea."

Richter blinked. Mommy Andrea? Where did that come from?

And now she was spontaneously hugging. Richter knew he hadn't programmed that into his AI.

On the screen, Andrea was kneeling now and hugging Dragon back. "You're totally welcome, my clever little Dragon."

Is she actually learning to be human?

Maybe there'd been something in what Captain Snow had to say, after all.

It definitely warranted closer study.

Washington Park, Chicago
Saturday, May 6, 1995
1955 Hours

I had one eye on the street and the other on the time as the unmarked car rolled through some of the grimier streets of Chicago. Kinsey, in plain clothes rather than uniform, sat behind the wheel. Likewise attired, I was in the passenger seat. So as not to draw unwelcome attention from the few police officers who might pass through this area, neither of us were visibly armed.

Less visibly, Kinsey had his .44 hand-cannon and his solid fists. I had my Glock, a folding knife and an extending baton. While I was intending on using exactly none of these; as the saying went, it was better to have and not need.

Kinsey also had an unhappy expression on his face. This came as no great surprise to me, as I would've been less than thrilled about this outing as well, except that I knew the real reason for it. All Kinsey knew was that I needed to acquire some information, and the less he knew about the information and the source, the better.

"I'll have eyes in the back of my head the whole time," I said, knowing better than to tempt Murphy by saying anything stupid like, 'it'll be fine', or worse, 'what could possibly happen'. "If something goes wrong, just follow the screams."

He turned to give me a dubious look about then. Of everyone who had ever been a part of my life, he knew me better than most, and I didn't do the 'scream helplessly' thing. It wasn't my thing.

"Their screams," I amended. "Because if anyone tries shit with me, they'll be screaming once I get my hands on them."

"I should still come in, ma'am," he said. "Give you some sort of backup. Bail you out if trouble starts."

"If you walk in there, everyone will ping you as either police or military. Some might even get lucky and figure out you're PRT," I explained. He was constitutionally incapable of looking like anything but a sergeant. "I'd have to be the one bailing you out of trouble then, not the other way around. And do you really want to be the one explaining to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton how the op got blown, if that happened?"

"I don't want to be the one explaining to the Lieutenant-Colonel if anything goes wrong," he muttered unhappily.

We cruised past our destination and I saw two familiar faces, heading away from the bar. Andrea's mercenaries had done their job once more. Now all I had to do was go in there and close the deal. Unfortunately, there were no free parking spaces available that I could see.

Time was ticking down. My window of opportunity was closing. "Pull over and drop me off here, Kinsey," I directed. The bar was only half a block back. "Drive around the block. If I'm not out the front in ten minutes, come in hot."

"Ma'am." He still didn't like it, but I'd given him a direct order.

He hit the four-way indicators, then pulled to a halt. Before the drivers in the cars behind could get too irate—road rage in this area tended to be consummated with gunfire—I got out and closed the door behind me. I moved in between the parked cars and stepped up onto the sidewalk as Kinsey pulled off again. I could tell he was driving slower than normal, keeping an eye on me as long as possible in the rear-view, and I hoped he maintained a visual on the road ahead as well.

I didn't need for some bright spark who kept up with their PRT personnel to ID me as an intelligence officer—despite my best efforts, I had been on TV a few times—so I'd changed up my look. My glasses for the night were a pair of the old round-lensed ones I'd worn back in the day, and I was wearing a wig of straight brown shoulder-length hair, tastefully braided over the ears. I'd carefully picked out my clothes to not be even slightly revealing—I had no illusions about my looks, but beer goggles were a thing—while still fitting in with the area.

Nobody got in my face as I headed back along the sidewalk toward the bar. I knew the signs of looking like a victim, and avoided displaying them, instead doing my best to project a slight 'done with this shit' air. It wasn't hard; while Winter had been dead by the time I encountered the Nine, she'd still been one of their more prominent members. I didn't need or want her to remain breathing long enough to do it again for the first time, but at the same time, I didn't want to die in the process. Neither did I want someone else to die trying, and alert her. Thus, this rigmarole.

The bar's windows had protective mesh on them, which wasn't exactly a promising sign. I looked up at the sign, then down the road as though searching for a better place. Giving the slightest of shrugs, I stepped inside.

Door security was provided by two guys who looked like they only stopped taking steroids so they could inject horse testosterone. 'Beefy' didn't begin to describe them. They didn't just browse the 'Big and Tall' aisle; they were the 'Big and Tall' aisle.

Not that Kinsey or I couldn't have taken them. Don't be silly.

"Armed?" grunted the one on the left.

"Yeah." I was aiming at 'well, duh, who isn't carrying around here?' and from his chuckle, I was pretty sure I'd nailed it. At his lifted chin, I eased open my jacket and carefully slid my hand in. When it came out, slowly and smoothly, I was holding my Glock between finger and thumb.

He glanced at the other guy, who shrugged and took up a metal-detector wand. I knew the drill, holding my arms outward as he ran it down each side of my body, then front and back, picking up my belt buckle and little else. He didn't do my arms, which was his loss; that was where I was holding the knife and the baton. But maybe they didn't care about anything that wasn't a gun.

Once the scan was over, the first guard nodded at the pistol. "Put it away. It comes out, you better have a good reason or we'll put you down." A gesture to the side revealed a pump shotgun in a shadowed niche.

"Got it." I nodded, re-holstering the pistol. I didn't thank them, and they clearly didn't expect it. Politeness was all well and good, but I didn't want anyone here remembering a tall skinny woman with glasses. Also, I didn't want them thinking I was interested in them. That could complicate matters drastically.

Inside the bar, it was dimly lit, probably so that people could maintain their illusions about who they were drinking with. A TV over the bar was playing a popular comedy show with the sound muted, which made zero sense to me but was probably perfectly understandable to everyone else there. An old-fashioned juke-box, the glass cover cracked and the sides scarred, played a scratchy country & western tune that everyone was talking over. The pervasive smell of stale beer and staler cigarette smoke made me glad that I'd be showering as soon as I got back to base.

The clock over the bar gave me seven minutes to be in position. I moved over to the counter, noting the location of the ladies' restrooms as I did, and ordered a glass of the most inoffensive-looking beer they had on tap. Drinking was never my strong suit, but I could when I had to. In Rome, do as Romans do; in a bar, if you're not drinking, you're standing out from the crowd.

I kept my eye on the glass from the moment the bar attendant picked it up until when he placed it in front of me. I hadn't ordered ice, but there were several large cubes in my drink. It was an old trick; ice was basically free to make anyplace there was electricity, and it significantly reduced the amount of beer they had to put in the glass. Fortunately, he hadn't taken the glass out of sight. No roofies sat fizzing at the bottom of the drink, so I sipped at it, looking around the bar, trying to give the impression of someone who was halfway to nowhere and waiting for her ticket out of town.

The taste was nothing to write home about, but I didn't have an overwhelming urge to gag and spit it out. I was absently grateful for the unasked-for ice, though; it meant there was less beer to get through. But around about the time I was nearly finished, a problem presented itself.

I'd been careful not to make eye contact with anyone; the last thing I wanted was either some guy with romantic intentions or some woman thinking I was leching on to her man. Yet here came the former, smooging up to me with an oily grin. I was taller than him by a few inches, despite the flats I was wearing, but that didn't deter him.

"Hi there," he said in what he probably thought was a smooth and sexy tone. "New in town? I haven't seen you in here before." His clothing was newish but conservative in cut. Just about the sort of thing someone might wear to dress down for a night out on the rough side of town.

I gave him my best 'not interested' look. "Just meeting a friend," I said briefly. Surely that would give him the message that he wasn't in the running.

It went straight over his head, like a Concorde over a particularly dim groundhog. "I can be your friend," he offered. "Let me buy you a drink. Name's Cameron."

This put me on the horns of a dilemma. If I turned him down hard enough for him to actually notice, there was a good chance he'd take offence and start calling me all sorts of names, thus wasting my time and drawing undesirable attention. But if I didn't, he would be encouraged, and I'd have the devil's own time extricating myself from his company in time to do what I was here to do.

So, I took the third option. I lied my ass off.

"Okay, sounds good. I'll have another one of these." I put my glass down on the bar. "Without ice, this time. I'm just going to the ladies'."

If this guy was after what I suspected he was after, that beer would be more roofies than alcohol by the time I returned. It didn't matter; I wouldn't be drinking it. As he turned to the bartender, I got up off my stool and headed for the female restrooms.

The door closed behind me, cutting off the music and multiple conversations and leaving me to plan my next actions. Andrea had specified the first stall to the left, so I turned in that direction … just as the door leading back into the bar opened again.

Shit, was my first thought. The last thing I needed was a witness to what I was about to do.

My next thought, as I saw it was Cameron, was decidedly more profane.

There was no good reason for him to be barging into the ladies' room in the bar after making himself a nuisance to me already. I'd clearly underestimated his determination; as the sole unaccompanied woman in the bar, I'd made myself his target purely by existing. By keeping Kinsey out of the place, I'd traded one issue for another.

Cameron's intention had always been to spike my drink and have his way with me, as had almost happened back in college that one time. Now, it seemed, he'd decided to skip the preliminaries.

I didn't bother speaking rationally to him, yelling at him to get out of the restroom, or even just yelling. Between the volume of the crowd outside, the soundproofing effect of the door and general apathy, I doubted very much anyone would be rushing to my rescue. Also, this had been too slickly done for it to be his first time; I wondered briefly how many other women he'd attacked in this way.

But while I wondered, I acted.

His hands came up to grab my arms at the elbows, probably to immobilise me until he could wrestle me into submission. I didn't give him the chance; a knuckle-jab, up and under the breastbone, drove the air from his lungs. It would've been like having the end of an axe handle rammed into his solar plexus. I knew this, because Kinsey had demonstrated it on me while showing how to do it.

His expression was still transitioning from 'I have you now, my pretty' to 'what the fuck was that' when I kicked him in the groin—there's a reason that's an old favourite—then grabbed him by the hair and rammed my knee up into the middle of his face. As a followup, I smashed his head sideways into the divider between two of the toilet doors, twice. Hard.

That was about the time my brain caught up with my conscious actions. Kinsey had taught me well; every one of those moves had been purely on instinct, one flowing into the next without pausing to wonder what I should be doing. Cameron—if that was even his name—was down, air bubbling through the bloody ruin that used to be his nose. While he wasn't precisely unconscious, he certainly wasn't paying attention to what was going on around him.

Time was ticking on, and a semiconscious man lying on the floor in full view was not what I needed right now. Nudging open the stall I'd been heading to in the first place, I dragged him inside and dumped him on the commode, wondering if he had bricks in his pockets. 'Dead weight' was certainly a thing, as I'd found out before now. Almost absent-mindedly, I frisked him, vaguely curious as to whether his name was actually Cameron or not.

I found three things of note: first, an actual flick-knife. This one was spring-loaded, as opposed to mine, which only used thumb pressure to open. Second, an unlabelled plastic bottle holding a bunch of little pills. Third, a Congolese passport, in the name of Samuel Masters.

Deciding to keep all three items, I grabbed the other item that I'd come in here for from inside the toilet roll—thank you, Andrea's mercenaries—then exited the stall. Carefully, I used the tip of the switchblade to turn the simple lock to OCCUPIED while thinking over what I'd found. 'Cameron', it seemed, was not who he'd pretended to be, or even what I'd assumed he was. He hadn't exhibited any kind of accent that I'd noticed, though the noise in the bar hadn't made listening easy.

There was only one real conclusion I could reach. Samuel was working with Winter in her people-trafficking (and possibly the gun-running), and he'd decided to start the party rolling before she arrived. If I'd been feeling sympathy for the beating I'd handed him (I wasn't), it would've shrivelled up and died, right around that point. But that led to my next problem. I was all out of time.

The door into the bar area opened again. It wasn't either of the Big & Beefy guys, with or without shotgun, here to evict Samuel. Nor was it one of the female patrons, looking to pass on some used beer.

It was Winter herself.

In costume, she wore a hooded cloak and heavy goggles; this tended to adequately conceal her white hair (that contrasted nicely with her dark skin) and black-rimmed irises. As a result, the PRT of this era had never had a good look at her. In fact, she was barely on our radar. This would all change once she joined the Slaughterhouse Nine and hit the big time.

Or rather, it would have. I was here to make sure she ended up as a 'never was'.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "And where is Samuel?"

Her voice held an accent; not one I could readily identify, but if she came from the same place Samuel did, I was willing to give it a tentative tag of 'Congolese'. Not that I was interested in comparing regional accents when my life was on the line, which it was, because right then two more men bulked into the bathroom behind her.

A tiny part of my mind began to seriously wonder if they shouldn't take down the sign saying 'LADIES' and replace it with 'WHOEVER', because the men had just outnumbered the women in the place.

I still had the open switchblade in my right hand, and the epi-pen I'd taken from its hiding place in my left. As the men began to reach into their jackets (I suspected they weren't going for their wallets) I tossed the gleaming blade in the air. The men's eyes were drawn to it, but Winter wasn't fooled; as I started forward, her eyes narrowed and I found everything slowing down. My heart sludged in my chest, my thoughts felt like my brain was crawling through thick mud, and even my movements were impeded.

The knife clattered to the ground, and I wasn't even halfway to reaching her. No matter how hard I tried to push myself forward and focus on my purpose, it felt like I was in one of those dreams where running forever gets you nowhere. But I hadn't gotten where I was in life by giving up when the going got tough. I just pushed harder.

She stepped forward, moving with apparent lightning speed compared to my current snail's crawl, and shoved me so hard that I fell over backward. I was unable to roll with the impact, but fortunately her slowness field let me down lightly, so I was only a little winded. Then she stepped up astride me and deliberately knelt on my chest.

"What have you done with Samuel?" she hissed down at me, her hand wrapping around my throat. "Answer me, or I will stop your heart in your chest."

She could, too; Lisa had been clear about that point. All Slaughterhouse members were scary—they wouldn't have gotten where they were if the team had consisted of creampuffs—but she was one of the worst ones. Between the hand on my throat, the knee on my chest and the tar-like consistency of the air I was attempting to inhale, I simply couldn't breathe. It was a very effective torture method.

I struggled to speak, forcing what little air I had out of my lungs. "I …" Then I stopped again.

Frowning, she let up slightly; not just the pressure on my chest and the hand on my throat, but also the relative thickness of the air around me. "You … what?"

Just for a moment, I used the respite to draw in some much-needed air. Then my left thumb popped the cap off the epi-pen, and I jammed the exposed needle into her thigh. It punched in through her blue jeans, and I knew she'd gotten the whole dose. "Gotcha, bitch!"

Rearing back, she smacked the pen away from her leg, out of my hand. "What—" she began, but that was all she would ever say for the rest of her life. Her eyes opened wide, her mouth gaped in a soundless snarl, her back arched, and she began to convulse.

Andrea had, under my instruction, gotten her pet chemical Tinker to engineer up a particularly nasty dose for the epi-pen. Synth had combined a virulent neuro-toxin, a high-end paralytic, and something that activated all the pain receptors in the body and kept them going at full blast. Cruel, perhaps, but Winter didn't need to move or speak to use her powers, and we didn't want her murdering a city block full of innocents while we were waiting for her to die. Hitting her with so much pain she was unable to form a coherent thought was our only real option.

I just had to hope that the paralytic (which also shut down autonomous systems such as the heart) and the neurotoxin combined to kill her quickly enough that she didn't suffer needlessly long.

But I'd worry about ethical standards later. Her other two mooks were just now realising that I'd done something to her, and I suspected trying to explain how she was dead and no longer their boss wouldn't actually stop them from killing me. On the upside, her power was no longer affecting me at all; on the downside, they'd just pulled guns.

Shoving her (now convulsing) body aside, I rolled frantically as they fired, their bullets shattering chunks out of the grimy tiled concrete I was lying on. I flipped to my feet—not the easiest thing to do wearing street clothing, which was why Kinsey had made me practise doing just that—and went for my own weapons.

But not the pistol, not yet. The only one I had a shoulder holster for was the Glock that I was registered and licensed for, which would have a chance of being identified if I failed to police up all my brass. Hamilton would have my back, I knew that for a fact, but then I'd have to figure out how much to tell him about what was going on. That was an interview I wanted to have with him never.

The knife and baton dropped into my hands. I flicked out the blade with my thumb, then threw it underhand in one smooth move. It hit the guy on the left just under the Adam's apple, and sank deep into his throat. He looked startled and dropped his gun, as if surprised that someone might actually have the temerity to fight back.

As he dropped to his knees, his buddy looked even more astonished. They'd started this fight with me on the floor and at three-to-one odds. Now I was upright and armed, and he was facing me on even terms. I wanted to talk to him, convince him to drop the gun, but I was willing to bet neither one of us could hear a damn thing right then. There was something about the sound reflection quality of tiles that almost seemed to amplify gunshots. He did seem a little disoriented, which was a thing.

Needing a distraction, I snatched off the wig and threw it at his face, darting to the side as I did. He fired instinctively at the flaring shape, but by the time he realised the real threat was elsewhere, I was right next to him. Bringing my baton down on his right hand, I felt his wrist bones shatter as the pistol dropped to the floor.

He responded with what I figured was a scream of pain, from the way he clutched the injured limb, so I laid the baton alongside his jaw, sending him spinning to the floor in his turn. Grabbing up my wig, I shoved it roughly on my head, then retrieved my knife and roughly wiped it on the guy's shirt. Winter wasn't even twitching anymore, much less breathing, so I figured it was mission accomplished. The epi-pen needle had automatically retracted after delivering its dose (a damn good idea, considering its contents) so I retrieved that as well.

The door burst open again and I reacted instinctively, settling the muzzle of my Glock into the eyesocket of the door security guy who just come in. There'd been no conscious thought of drawing or pointing it; it just happened.

He had the shotgun, but it was pointed way out of line, as he undoubtedly knew. While my ears were still ringing, I could hear a little more than before. So when he spoke, I picked up enough to make an educated guess on the rest.

"We heard shooting," he said, almost apologetically. Someone his size wouldn't normally apologise for anything, but having a gun poking one in the eye tends to adjust one's priorities toward survival.

Yeah, sure. You heard shooting, but nobody saw three guys go into the ladies' restrooms.

"It wasn't me," I replied bluntly. Surreptitiously, I slid the epi-pen, folding knife, and baton into my pocket. "These three here started it. They've got a buddy in that stall. I'll be leaving now. Got a problem with that?"

His eyes moved downward cautiously; I pulled my pistol back far enough to give him room to do so. "Uh … no. Hey, are they dead?"

"They started it," I said, just as bluntly. "I don't need the heat. I'm out of here." I put the Glock away, then tilted my head to the side. He moved out of the way to let me pass, probably just as glad to see me go as I was to be gone.

I didn't waste time heading for the door. The bartender made as if to call me over for my drink, now sitting unattended on the bar, but there was no way I was even going to sniff at it. It was time I got out of this place, never to return.

The lone door guy looked up as I went past. "Hey!" he called out. "Hey!"

I didn't know what he wanted, and didn't care. Pushing the door open, I hit the sidewalk at a fast trot. If he wanted to catch me up, he'd have to abandon his post and his buddy. Yes, I'd just killed two people in his establishment, but I doubted that was the only murder ever to happen behind those doors.

The beep of a car horn alerted me, and I looked aside to see Kinsey slowing down alongside. I dashed around between two parked cars, wrenched the door open, and dived in. "Drive," I grunted, slamming the door and fumbling with the seatbelt. "Now-now-now."

Kinsey didn't peel rubber out of there, but he added a little speed, then took corners at random until we were both sure nobody had managed to follow us. I wrenched off the wig and glasses, and replaced the latter with my own pair from the glove compartment.

"Do I need to ask how it went, ma'am?" asked Kinsey, concentrating on his driving.

"Moderately well, actually," I said, spritzing myself with air freshener to try to get rid of the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. "I got what I wanted, but there were party-crashers. That place is a no-go for me, from now on. If it hadn't already been, that is."

"Understood, ma'am." Kinsey set course back toward the PRT base. "Am I going to be reading about any of this in the news?"

I considered the question, thinking back to the bar. "I doubt it, Kinsey. Places like that have ways of getting rid of inconvenient bodies."

"As you say, ma'am."

We spent the rest of the ride back to base in companionable silence.

Brockton Bay General Hospital
Maternity Waiting Area
Monday, June 19, 1995

Andrea hugged my arm, apparently even more excited than I was. "I can't believe it! It's finally happening!"

I glanced around for eavesdroppers, but Danny was pacing back and forth, Kinsey was chatting in low tones with Gladys, and Dragon—now apparently in a ten-year-old body—was watching baby Alec. Meeting this version of the AI for the first time had been interesting; I could see faint echoes of her other-future self, but she was also picking up tiny mannerisms from Andrea. From what I understood, the others knew nothing of Dragon's origins, just that she preferred it as a nickname.

"Well, it should really have happened eight days ago," I said in a low tone. "But butterflies happened, I guess. I'm just glad she's being born at all."

She nodded firmly, still excited. "But think about it. You're going to be the first person ever to meet their own past self! I mean, that's like … wow!"

"I know, I know." I'd read science fiction on the subject, with results varying from beneficial to catastrophic. I was pretty sure the universe wasn't going to implode from us meeting, but there was still a tiny bit of worry about how my past self would see me. "It's huge. I can't wait."

We got up and went over to where Dragon was entertaining Alec. He gurgled at us. Somehow, he was even cuter than the last time I'd seen him. "He's crawling now," Andrea said proudly. "Pretty soon, he'll be walking."

"And I'll be there to help teach him how," Dragon agreed. "Walking isn't easy, but it's so rewarding once you figure out what you're doing."

"You're not wrong there, kiddo," I said. "I remember after the Compound, it took me a little while to get back on my feet again."

"Mommy Andrea told me about that," Dragon replied guilelessly. "She said you were an idiot who rushed in without looking and got yourself hurt."

I snorted with amusement and did my best to raise an eyebrow in Andrea's direction. She stared steadfastly back, refusing to give way on the subject. "And I was right."

"Ignoring the fact that I was actually in a helicopter that got shot down by the bad guys," I pointed out.

"And what were you doing flying so close to where you could get shot down?" she countered.

My lips tightened slightly. I could see the way this was going, and I was losing the argument. "We didn't know they were willing to escalate that hard, or that one of our own was passing information to them."

Andrea rolled her eyes. "Villains? Willing to escalate? Whoever heard of such a thing?"

Dragon raised a finger, went to speak, then closed her mouth and lowered her finger again. "Nobody, in all the history of the world," she agreed, deadpan.

Well, that answered the question of whether Dragon understood sarcasm. "Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "I get it. We dropped the ball."

"Darn tootin'. I think—"

But whatever Andrea thought went by the wayside as a doctor appeared at the door. "Mr. Hebert?" he said.

Danny's head whipped around. "Y-yes?" he blurted. "Anne-Rose? Is—is she okay?"

The doctor smiled. "Mother and baby are doing fine. If you and two of your friends would like to come along …?"

Danny looked at me; I looked at Andrea. Then we both looked at Kinsey and Dragon.

"I'll mind the children, ma'am," he said, before I even figured out how to word the request.

"Thank you, Kinsey." I followed Andrea and Danny from the waiting area, through a series of corridors, to where Anne-Rose lay in a bed, holding a tiny wailing bundle.

"Wow," breathed Andrea. "So cuuuute."

"Mmm." It was weird to look at a younger version of oneself and have that thought. Tiny wisps of dark hair surrounded the newborn infant's face.

Danny was consulting with the doctor as I leaned in and whispered to Anne-Rose, "Well done. How do you feel?"

"Like I've just been beaten up with baseball bats," she replied wryly. "But they said it was an easy birth. No complications."

"Oh, good." I divided my attention, as Andrea was still cooing over the baby, to address Danny. "So, uh, what were you going to call her?"

"Her?" asked Anne-Rose. "It's a boy."

I blinked. "It's what?"

"A boy," repeated Danny. He glanced at Anne-Rose. "We were thinking of naming him after you and Andrea anyway. Tyler, uh, Andrew—"

"Make the middle name Campbell and you've got a deal," Andrea said decisively. "No way is any kid I'm associating with getting called Andy."

Annette smiled at her long-time friend. "Okay then," she said. "His name's going to be Tyler Campbell Hebert."

I was still a little stunned by the unexpected news. It's a boy? How does that even work? It took Andrea nudging me to get me back on track.

"Hey," she said. "Pay attention."

"Right," I said. "Tyler Campbell, huh? I've definitely heard of worse names." Leaning in, I gently took hold of one tiny hand, which clutched convulsively around my pinky finger. "Hi, Tyler," I whispered. "Welcome to the world."

He blinked at me, then wailed again. Apparently, his opinion of the world was not exactly high at the moment.

To be honest, I couldn't blame him.

End of Part 8-2