Putting her phone away, Taylor felt quite satisfied. She'd texted Lucy at lunchtime at Arcadia, her friend responding immediately, asking if she wanted to go see a movie that evening. The other girl had eagerly replied in the affirmative, and Taylor had asked her to see if Amy and Vicky might want to go as well. After a short pause, the answer had come back that both were up for it. They'd briefly chatted then Lucy had told her lunch was nearly over and said goodbye for now.
Fairly pleased, as she was becoming very fond of Lucy who was fun, quick-witted, and generally nice to hang out with, Taylor went back to reading a textbook on physics, the assignment sheet for her current work on her desk. She was about halfway through it, and was currently working out the answer to the next part. While also, via glowspider, doing her English work, writing an essay for Biology with another one, surfing the web looking up Parahumans and making notes on any she might run into locally as well as notable ones across the country, foiling several burglaries, two muggings, half a dozen assaults of other types, a convenience store robber, an attempted arson case, and a domestic violence one. In the latter the man who'd taken a vicious swing at his wife with a half-empty beer bottle had found himself ducking at exactly the wrong moment when a cockroach flew into his eye and managed to break his own arm as he missed his target and hit the edge of an open door, which gave the woman time to flee and caused Taylor to grin in a rather bloodthirsty manner.
She wasn't a fan of bullies in general, and that guy outweighed his wife by about two to one at least. In her view he deserved what he'd inflicted on himself. The cops that turned up about ten minutes later, called by a concerned neighbor, seemed to share her opinion.
And while she was doing all this she was also exploring dozens of underground areas around the city, keeping tabs on Kaiser and his minions, watching Lung issue a lot of orders in a somewhat slurred voice in between pulls from a bottle of tequila, interfering with a number of Merchant drug dealers who kept finding all their money and bags of drugs very sadly accidentally nibbled to the point of uselessness by insects, monitoring the PRT in case something interesting happened, watching the still-ongoing work in Coil's former base, checking on Lisa and her friends, and in general just observing the city and its inhabitants as discreetly as she could. She didn't want to invade anyone's privacy, but she was also quite happy to help deal with various problems wherever possible.
Not to mention she was also coordinating two dozen rockworms, or what she had announced to her dad the night before while wearing a massive grin that she was going to call drillipedes, which had made him cover his eyes and sigh heavily, as they carefully excavated parts of the reef at the mouth of the bay in areas she'd identified as key to its stability.
This last task was one she was being very cautious about, stopping regularly to let everything settle, and trying to match the digging to the strongest parts of the tide, so the vibrations from the ship moving back and forth would help mask her actions. So far it seemed to be working, as she'd watched Armsmaster investigate his instrumentation several times in the last three days, frowning slightly, then end up spending some time reading an old report on the sinking of the ship years back. He'd apparently narrowed the seismic traces down to coming from that direction, which she'd assumed he'd do at some point, and seemed to be trying to work out what exactly was happening to the ship which was the obvious culprit. All this played nicely into her plans of course since if he was already primed to think that perhaps the thing was starting to move, when it finally went over in a few days, he'd most likely put it down to exactly what she wanted him and everyone else to think.
So far he didn't seem to have told anyone about it, presumably because he wasn't sure anything much was amiss, but his records would certainly back up the story she was wanting to spread.
Writing a few lines, she mused that the sheer number of things she was simultaneously doing was so far past what seemed plausible it still stunned her, but it was also completely natural to her now. Even her power seemed mildly impressed that she was handling it so well, but it was certainly as pleased as she was. All the little helpers she'd made over the last month were also making her far more effective than she'd have been if she was limited to ordinary insects, although she was also sure she could have done a pretty decent job under those circumstances too. The extra abilities she'd forced her power to hand over by not taking no for an answer just made it both easier and a lot more fun.
The thing at the back of her head seemed resigned and amused as she thought that, making her grin slightly.
When she finished that assignment, she took the other sheets her spiders handed her and slipped the entire set into the envelope to send off. With the aid of all the extra limbs, she could do the work nearly as fast as she was capable of writing, which in their case had taken some practice since spiders weren't noted for their penmanship in general. But she'd managed to learn how to duplicate her handwriting fairly quickly and was highly pleased with the result. "Right, that's done," she announced to the glowspiders sitting around the room watching her with interest. "Thanks, guys." Closing the various websites she'd had open for the work, she brought up the local shipping weather forecasting site and studied it. "Great. Still saying we're going to have one hell of a storm over the weekend. Wow… Gale force ten to eleven. That's nasty. Um… gusting to over seventy miles an hour? Yeah, that might do it even without my help, actually."
Taylor looked up the tide tables for Saturday night, seeing that the tide peaked just before midnight, and was a high one, nearly ten feet. It would be in full ebb by the time the winds were at their highest at around quarter to one, producing a monstrously huge force on the ship. If she waited for the thing to exert the maximum pressure on the reef, which her drillipedes could easily detect from within it, then quickly dug out all the remaining pieces she was leaving in place to hold things together, it was pretty likely that the entire reef would promptly collapse as her dad had suggested, taking the ship with it. And at that time of night with that sort of gale blowing there wasn't going to be anyone anywhere near it who might get hurt, so the timing was perfect.
Worst case she'd have to wait for the tide to come in and go out again, which would probably work nearly as well as people would assume that the ship shifted overnight then finally made things fall apart on a delayed reaction. It was less plausible if she waited too long, unless another storm came along. Which it would almost certainly do at some point fairly soon, March and April being in general the season for this sort of weather, but she didn't want to leave the thing half-cocked as it were in cause it happened to suddenly decide to become a problem at an awkward moment. Such as when a trawler was trying to get past it…
That would be both embarrassing and potentially very dangerous, so it was best avoided.
"I guess we'll find out, right?" she commented to the spiders, one of which hopped onto her lap and snuggled down like a very odd cat. Smiling, she stroked it, feeling the fine hairs on the carapace under her hand. The things were definitely smarter than she'd intended and seemed to be learning fast, and were very fond of being petted. She'd even seen her dad idly stroking one which seemed to have taken a particular liking to him after it had helpfully brought him a book when he'd sat down in the living room. It was the wrong book, but the thought was what counted…
"Yes, I love all of you equally," she assured the spiders. "You're very cute. Right, time for lunch, then an afternoon of experimentation!" Several of the glowspiders lifted their forelegs and waved them, making her grin, as she'd done that for her own amusement once and they now did it themselves, apparently finding it fun.
The spider climbed onto her shoulder as she got up and headed down to the kitchen seeking something tasty, the others dispersing throughout the house and into the basement or attic. She made a mental note to ask her dad if he minded if she used a drillipede to dig a tunnel from the basement into the agri store, since she now had them and it was something she'd been thinking about ever since she'd first located the place at his suggestion. With some careful work and a little drider-silk reinforcement she was pretty sure she could do the job safely and quite quickly. Probably have to go out the back, turn under the old access road behind the back yard, then into the main tunnel from there, so she avoided everyone's basement or foundations, but that wouldn't add much effort all things considered. And the result would be very convenient.
Not long afterwards she was running through the tunnel deep under the streets, her mind buzzing with ideas to try. Even as she was everywhere in the city doing many other things as well, and helping out wherever she could without anyone noticing.
Reading the email that had just arrived, Danny thought for a bit, then picked up the phone and dialed a number. On the other end being picked up, he said, "Hi. Can I speak to Kyle, please?" He waited.
"Hey, Kyle. I got your email. Are you sure we need to do this?"
"Yeah, unfortunately I am, Danny. We need representatives there during the talks with the Feds, to show solidarity if nothing else. Who the hell knows what those idiots are thinking about, but if we ignore it, sooner or later it's going to cause trouble. You recall what happened in two thousand five, right?"
"Oh, god, how could I forget?" he sighed. "Fucking rich assholes and their lobbyists throwing their damn stupid ideas around so they can make even more money off the backs of the people doing the actual work."
"That does seem to be a pattern with that sort," Kyle chuckled rather sadly. "God alone knows what they're going to do with all that money other than sit on it and gloat, but you know the type. They seem to work on the basis that there's two kinds of money; the kind that's theirs and the kind that's not theirs yet. We have to point out that if they keep pulling money away from the people who are the ones making their obscene profits they'll end up seeing those profits vanish completely. It's a lesson that never seems to stick for very long."
"If at all. I'm living in a city where we still see the end result of that sort of brain dead moron deciding that if he can't have all the toys he wants, everyone pays the price." Danny looked out the window at the distant container ship just visible on the horizon and thought, but didn't say, that this specific reminder of a very stupid and dark part of the city's history would soon be gone.
"I know, which is why I think you need to be there. You know how they play their games, and Rick trusts you implicitly. I cleared it with him, asked for you specifically. The Brockton Bay DWA might not be the biggest union around but you're one of the oldest in the country with one hell of a lot of experience and more sheer determination than practically anyone. I've got representatives from half the ports on the East Coast already lined up to help, and I'm working on the other half. Can I count on you as well?"
"You're going too?"
"Yes. New York is not happy about the latest inanity from those fuckwits, not even slightly, and we've been working on trying to head it off before someone in Washington starts seriously considering listening to them. It's an uphill struggle though. They seem to have a near-infinite amount of cash to throw at their pet senators."
"Even though they claim to have no money at all when it comes to paying the stevedores, longshoremen, ship crews, and other workers," he grumbled, leaning back in his chair and thinking over the problem.
"Of course. Paying off a senator is 'investing in future profits' whereas paying people to earn a living is 'an inefficient cost of business,' Kyle growled. "That's how they think. Sooner or later someone is going to start shooting the fuckers and they don't seem to be able to work that out. Or remember that unions like ours are the compromise a lot of people shed a lot of blood for a long time ago so people like them wouldn't end up in a shallow grave. I'd prefer that we don't have to remind them the hard way, but…"
"I'm not a politician, Kyle. I'm an accountant-trained hiring manager."
"Who practically runs the BBDWA and everyone knows it. Rick is the president, but you're the one people listen to. You know how people work, you can talk to almost anyone on their own level, and you might be a skinny balding guy with glasses but you can damn well hold your own in a bar fight if it comes to that. I know that from personal experience."
Grinning a little, Danny replied, "You should have ducked faster. I warned you. Then I had to drag you two blocks while fighting off those other assholes with a hockey stick."
"Yeah. Good times."
Both of them laughed slightly at the memory. "There's a reason I left Brockton Bay, Danny. New York has a reputation it easily lives down to, but I've had a lot less events where I nearly died in the last seventeen years than I did growing up in the Bay."
"You'll have to come back and visit some time. It's been a while."
"Yeah, it has. I might do, once we get this latest fucking stupidity stamped out."
"Fine. You're right." Danny sighed faintly. "OK, I'm in. Why LA though?"
"There's a major meeting of shipping companies there next week, it's been planned for over nine months. LA is the largest port in the country, and most of them have their main office there, plus California has a fucking huge economy so it gets the lion's share of trade anyway. They're going to have at least nine senators attending and more lobbyists than a dog has fleas all yapping at them and slipping them fat envelopes under the table. The usual stuff. You can probably guess half the names without even trying. We need to put on a strong showing and make it clear that the ILA and all associated East Coast unions fully back the ILWU. We're all in this together. Show them that if they keep on with these stupid ideas all they're going to do is get a lot of people very, very angry with them and in the long run lose a hell of a lot of money even if they get a short term profit jump."
"Assuming they bother thinking about the long term. Short term profit is pretty much the only thing they seem to care about these days."
"True enough, but I think we can probably change their minds. And if not… well, there are other methods. Not ones any of us want to use, but if we have no choice, we have no choice. They need to realize that we're not going to just let them fuck everything up to make a few billionaires who already have more money than they could possibly spend in their entire lives slightly richer at the expense of everyone else."
"A tall order."
"Yeah. I know."
"All right. I haven't been to LA for over a decade. Guess I'll find out if it's changed."
"Lot more Parahumans, that's about it."
"We can probably match them in that area," he snorted, smiling a little.
"Per head, way more, sure. LA's a lot bigger so they still have more."
"We have a rage dragon…"
"Danny, Lung isn't something you boast about." Kyle sighed as Danny grinned again. "Jesus Christ. You've lived in that city for way too long."
"It's home. My family has been here as long as Brockton has, you know that."
"Which is why your family is fucking insane. I know that too. Why are we talking about Parahumans anyway?"
"You brought it up."
"More fool me. OK. I'll get the ticket arranged. The ILA is picking up the tab."
"All right." Danny hesitated, then added, "Can you make it two tickets?"
"Huh? Why?" Now his old friend sounded curious.
"You heard about the mess with Winslow and everything that came out of that?"
"Oh, yeah, I've been following that here and there. Sounds like a fucking mess."
"That's putting it mildly. It'll be going on for years probably. But the end result is that Taylor is homeschooling right now, same as everyone else from Winslow. She's actually doing very well and enjoying herself. But I don't want to leave her at home alone for three days. I thought she might like to come to LA, she's never been."
"OK… hold on… yeah, that's not a problem. Hope she doesn't get bored by all the damn politics, but there's lots of pools in the hotel, so she can probably find something to do. I haven't seen the kid since she was about four. How's she doing other than the schooling problem?"
"We had some trouble with bullying a while back but that's done with now, she's making new friends quite happily, found some hobbies, and seems to be enjoying life," he replied with a small grin wondering what his friend would say if he realized just what he meant by that. It was true enough although in a very odd way.
"Good. Glad to hear it. Once all this is done with, maybe you want to come down to New York for a visit, and bring her. My two kids are about her age, she might like to meet them."
"Yeah, I'll mention that to her. Well, I guess I'll see you in LA next Thursday night."
"Yep. Thanks, Danny. It means a lot. Give my best to the rest of your mad crew, hey? Talk later."
"Bye, Kyle." Danny put the phone down, then turned back to the window and peered out at the bay, thinking hard. After a while he said quietly, "Do you want to go to LA for a weekend away?"
His cellphone chirped a moment later, causing him to pick it up and read the message. Grinning, he put it down again and got back to work.
On the window the pair of wasps that had been sitting on the glass wandered around for a bit then flew past him into the rest of the office and vanished, but he was pretty sure that his daughter's many eyes were still watching.
Everything.
She did that.
It was a little weird, but on the whole seemed fairly harmless and certainly helped quite a lot even if no one but him realized.
"Well met indeed, my dear colleague," Taylor announced grandly, bowing as Lucy walked up to her. "How fares the day? Has one succeeded in prevailing against the forces of darkness yet again?"
"I can gladly report completely success in staving off said forces for another day, my valued associate," Lucy replied gravely, returning the bow. "As one would obviously expect from a seasoned adventurer such as myself. Or, indeed, yourself too."
"You are too kind."
"It was my pleasure."
Both of them nodded regally to each other, then turned as one, as if they'd practiced it, to regard Amy and Vicky who were staring at them. The latter hissed out the side of her mouth, "I think they've gone completely round the bend this time. What do we do?"
"Don't make eye contact and back away slowly," Amy hissed back.
All four of them looked at each other, then started laughing. "You two are totally nuts, you do know that, right?" Amy chuckled as she nodded to Taylor, who was grinning. "Although I have to admit the upper crust accent is on point."
"Why, thank you, my good healer," Taylor replied cheerfully. "Perhaps you might wish to accompany the team of Hebert and Cheung on an adventure one fine day. A competent healer is worth her weight in silver at least."
"I thought it was gold," Amy responded, raising an eyebrow.
"In this economy? Are you demented, my good woman?" Lucy put her hands on her hips. "Gold is vastly overvalued. Silver is all we can offer." Turning to Taylor, she added, "I thought we agreed on Cheung and Hebert. Alphabetical order seems fairest."
"But as the tallest one present, my name should naturally go at the top of the billing," Taylor retorted. "It will also make the triumphant photographic records far more visually stimulating to have us arrayed in order of height."
"How can two people be arrayed in order of height, though?" Lucy mused, tapping her chin with her finger. "Surely it then only depends on which side one starts with."
"Well, that is certainly a valid point, I agree. Hence the addition of another adventurer to the party to allow a correct height scale to be determined." Taylor pointed at Amy, who was shaking her head while her sister muffled a laugh. "Our esteemed potential healer here is clearly between our heights, making her the obvious choice. As well as bringing medical abilities to the table."
"A valid point, yes," Lucy agreed soberly. "Although I must point out that Miss Dallon is a mere inch taller than I."
"Which still counts," Taylor riposted.
Sighing, Lucy accepted the counter argument and nodded. They both turned to Amy, who shook her head.
"I was right. You're both nuts. Stop doing skits and lets get popcorn before they run out."
Both of them giggling, Lucy and Taylor followed the Dallon sisters into the cinema, behind Vicky who was laughing quite hard. "So what are we seeing?" Amy asked as they entered the foyer and grouped together at one side out of the way of the other people coming in, many of them around their own age and some who were looking oddly at them having seen them outside. The whole place was quite busy for midweek, but not packed. Everyone looked around at the movie posters, then at the large screens behind the concession stand where the currently playing movies were shown.
"Um…" Taylor studied the screens. "I've heard that the Tron: Legacy one is pretty good."
"Yeah, so have I," Vicky put in, nodding. She pointed. "Megamind is supposed to be fantastic too."
"You are a superhero, why do you want to see a superhero movie?" Lucy asked quizzically, smiling a little, which made Vicky giggle.
"See how other people do it, maybe? It's an Aleph one and they've got weird ideas about superheros and supervillians."
"I guess?" Lucy looked back at the listings. "I'm up for that one, or the Tron one. Hmm. Clash of the Titans might be fun too. I've seen Inception, that was weird, but I'll sit through it again if anyone else wants to watch it."
Spotting a title that made her grin, Taylor pointed. "The Green Hornet, perhaps?"
Lucy looked at her with an eyebrow up. "Because it has the word 'hornet' in it, I assume? You and bugs…" Taylor laughed, making her friend shake her head with amusement. "You know it doesn't actually have a hornet in it, right?"
"Shame," Taylor sighed theatrically.
"I wonder if our version of it will have a hornet in it?" Vicky asked thoughtfully, making the other three look at her. "If anyone could find the HOUS they could ask."
Her sister giggled. "You think Hollywood wants to have a four foot long AGH as an action star?"
"Hey, she one-shotted Hookwolf, so she's got the action bit down pat," Vicky replied with a grin. "Not sure about the acting ability though. And finding a leading man to act opposite her might be tricky…"
Highly amused, Taylor listened to the two Dallons arguing about which Hollywood star would be a good foil for her alter-ego, while reading the movie listings again. When both of them got it out of their system they discussed the choices available for a little longer then finally settled on Megamind as they were all in the mood for some silly fun. Next time it would be Tron, they decided. Which made Taylor happy because everyone just accepted there would be a next time.
She hadn't had this sort of experience for far too long and was very much enjoying it.
The movie was hilarious too, which was good. She considered watching all the others playing, which she could of course easily do, but decided not to as she wanted to leave something to look forward to. Multitasking to her level would let you do all sorts of weird things, most of them very much worth it, but she didn't want to experience everything all at once. She'd leave some experiences for later, with her friends.
When they came out three hours or so later, they decided to get a burger and headed towards the same restaurant Sophia had made a fool of herself at a while back. Shortly they were sitting down with their food.
"That was a damn good movie," Vicky said enthusiastically. "I hope they make a sequel."
"It was very good and very funny," her sister agreed cheerfully, before grabbing some fries and eating them. "I liked it," she added after she swallowed.
"Yeah, me too," Lucy nodded. Taylor did as well. It really had been a good movie, and she'd thoroughly enjoyed it.
"So how's the home schooling going, Taylor?" Amy asked curiously, looking at her.
"It's going well, thanks," she replied, putting her soda down and smiling. "So far I haven't had any trouble with it at all. Without all the crap from Winslow getting in the way I can actually concentrate on the work, and I'm normally done by early afternoon."
"What else do you do?" Vicky asked. "If you don't have people to hang out with, do you just stay and home and read or something?" She seemed genuinely curious and mildly concerned.
"No, I've got lots of other things to keep me occupied," Taylor replied honestly. "Hobbies, talking to my dad, sometimes I visit him at work… I go to the library, Mike's shop, see Lucy pretty often, that sort of thing. I'm not bored, that's for sure."
"Huh. I don't know if I could handle being on my own so much of the time," Vicky admitted, making her sister grin.
"You mean you're so air-headed you'd run out of things to do then lie around complaining," Amy commented with a smirk.
"Hey! I… mostly don't mean that," Vicky replied, somewhat unconvincingly.
"Oh come on. If you didn't have Dean to get annoyed about, all the people at school hanging around your glorious self, and bad guys to beat up, you wouldn't have a clue what else to do." Amy gave her sister a mischievous look as Taylor and Lucy watched, amused.
"You do know I take AP Parahuman studies at BBU, right?" Vicky pointed out. "I do more academic work than you do."
"Not convinced," Amy snorted, eating some more fries. "Three AP classes a week don't make up for falling asleep in Math class four times since last Monday."
Vicky looked embarrassed, while Taylor and Lucy both giggled. Amy confided, "She's not very good at math. And she snores."
"Hey! I don't snore!" Vicky retorted, then looked slightly embarrassed again as the other three all looked at her then each other, before breaking down into laughter.
Folding her arms across her chest and looking miffed, Vicky muttered to herself, before glancing to the side as some more people came in. "Shut up, all of you, it wasn't that funny," she grumbled, before nudging her sister who was still snickering. "Hey, look, it's Dennis and Chris." Lucy and Taylor looked past Vicky at the two boys who'd come in, while Amy turned around in her seat to look as well. Taylor recognized both of them as the Wards Clockblocker and Kid Win, having seen them in both Arcadia and the PRT building quite a lot over the last few weeks. Her memory for faces, always good, was close to perfect these days, and she was well aware of the supposedly secret IDs of every Parahuman in the city, not that in general she much cared. Unless they were about to do something stupid at least…
But she wasn't going to mention that to anyone, because it really wasn't relevant.
Hopping to her feet, Vicky went over to talk to the two young men, who turned at her approach and smiled at her. "Friends of yours?" Taylor asked quietly as she picked up her burger.
"More of Vicky's, but I know them pretty well too," Amy replied as quietly, returning her attention to Taylor and Lucy, who was listening. "They're nice enough. Vicky makes friends very easily, and knows half the people at Arcadia," she went on after a moment. "Me… until recently I haven't really made that many friends." She shrugged a little. "Vicky's the gregarious one. I'm the snarky one."
"Snark is as important as making lots of friends," Lucy assured Amy seriously, before smiling as Amy laughed. "And I'm perfectly happy to count you as a friend. I don't have all that many either. I mean, I know lots of people at school, but only about half a dozen of them are friends, if you know what I mean. The rest are mostly people I know because I see them a lot." She shrugged slightly as Amy nodded. "Not to say I don't like them, but… I'm not too fussed if I don't see them for a while." The girl glanced at Taylor, then back to Amy. "You guys are probably as much my friends as anyone else I know at school. Especially Taylor. Meeting her was one of those things you look back on and think 'I'm glad that happened.'" She looked at Taylor again and added with a grin, "Even if you also think 'what the hell did just happen?'"
"I'm not that bad, am I?" Taylor queried, amused.
"No, not for a crazy bug girl."
"Coming from the insane lizard girl I'll take that as a compliment."
"Do as you wish."
"I shall."
"You are both a little touched in the head," Amy sighed, although she was smiling.
Taylor and Lucy both laughed, then the four of them started discussing the movie some more. As part of her multifaceted attention did that, many more parts were spread around the place, watching for trouble and where required and possible stepping in to prevent it. It was second nature to her now, and she felt she was genuinely helping. Low level crimes weren't, individually, as big a problem as something far more serious, but the sheer number of them was corrosive to society as a whole as her parents had more than once told her. Reducing street crime could only help in the long run, and was very satisfying, as was being able to do it without anyone realizing. Or, indeed, having to move from where she was enjoying the company of her friends.
Unfortunately, of course, every now and then something sufficiently serious required a more direct intervention, where a moth up the nose didn't quite cut it.
And as she watched a group of people about a mile away, she internally sighed, then started bringing the resources she'd need to bear on the problem.
'Stupid Nazis. Why are they so… Nazi?' she thought with mild irritation. Then, even as she nodded to the suggestion Vicky made of going to a nearby place that sold some really nice crepes for dessert, the four of them rising to that end, she got to work.
"OK, they're down."
"I'm really not sure about this, sir. Didn't Kaiser say…"
A meaty thump was met with a muffled cry of pain. "Shut up and do what I tell you. He's losing his touch. We can't just ignore the insult to the glory of the Empire. Once we've sorted out that fucking bug he won't dare say anything about any minor… irregularities."
"I hope you're right."
"Of course I'm right. How long with that keep those guys down for?"
"They drank about… hang on, let me look at the instructions…"
"Oh, for… just answer the question!"
"OK, OK, I think about an hour. If I got the dose right. There's no coffee left in the thermos so split five ways that should be about it. At least half an hour worst case."
"And they won't remember what happened?"
"The lab tech claimed this stuff fucks up your short term memory, so they probably won't remember much. Not accurately anyway."
"Good. Right, come on, and everyone keep your eyes open. I got the camera feed, but Max is sneaky sometimes, there might be something he didn't tell anyone about."
"He's really not going to be happy."
"Fuck him. He had his chance. Let's get on with it."
Alabaster waved his small team of like-minded if in some cases mildly reluctant henchmen onwards, exchanging a roll of the eyes with Stormtiger, who shrugged. It had taken them weeks of carefully sounding out the rabble to find six people who were prepared to risk Kaiser's wrath, and even then they'd had to pay them a lot and call in quite a few favors. Both were certain the end result would be worth it, but they knew full well they were taking a chance. Kaiser might be going soft, not immediately seeking to demonstrate just why the Empire was so feared, but he wasn't a pushover. Or an idiot.
But the insult to the E88 couldn't go unanswered and their glorious leader wasn't exactly showering himself with glory at the moment, sitting around telling everyone to wait. It was undignified, and left a bad taste in his mouth. Someone fucked with you, you ended them, that was how it worked. Killing Brad was the biggest insult imaginable and that fucking bug was out there somewhere thinking it had got away with it.
He intended to show it the truth. Admittedly finding it was still being something of a pain but he had a few ideas along those lines, since they had a fairly good idea of the rough area it probably lived in. Burning down a few buildings in that part of the docks would likely flush it out sooner or later, and no one would miss the vagrants and other low-lives that might be in them.
Brushing irritably at the moth that kept flying into his face, he watched as the six E88 members cautiously approached the weapons storage building, an anonymous apparent small office block in a largely decrepit area of the city, on the edge of the commercial district and surrounded by boarded up shops. It didn't look like anything important from the outside, which of course was the point. Inside, on the other hand, it had been extensively remodeled with much thicker walls, armored doors, and a series of serious alarm systems. Not to mention the permanent guard detail of five men which were rotated out every six hours. They'd chosen this specific time as it was halfway through a shift, giving the guards time enough to get bored, and welcome someone turning up with sandwiches and some coffee, something he'd arranged to happen regularly for a couple of weeks now to get them accustomed to it.
This time, of course, the coffee had contained a little extra, courtesy of a favor called in from one of the lab technicians in the Medhall drug research department, who'd been easily persuaded to lose a small sample of a new hypnotic anesthetic which was being tested. It had acted fast, all five men passing out within a couple of minutes, without even noticing something was wrong.
As he and Stormtiger watched, one of their men slipped inside the building, then reappeared in the door a few seconds later urgently waving them forward. Both men ran across the road from the alley they'd been in, following the other normals inside. Making sure the door was closed behind them and locked, Alabaster peered into the guard office, where five men were slumped in their chairs in front of a bank of monitors showing a couple of dozen camera views, all deeply unconscious. One of their guys was checking the guards, finishing a moment letter. "They're all fine, but they're out for the count."
"Good work. Right, let's see…" Walking over to the monitors he scanned them, then pointed. "That one. D5. It's got the stuff we want. Find the keys."
Shortly one of the others handed him a high security key on a ring with a tag that matched the secure room he had picked out. "Good. Come on, let's get the stuff and get out of here. You two, make sure all the evidence is cleared up, and the decoys put back." The men he indicated nodded then started removing all the coffee cups and the spilled thermos which had dribbled the last of the contents onto the floor, to replace them with identical but unspiked versions. Satisfied this was in hand, he turned and headed into the building.
"Fucking bugs," he grumbled as he flicked the light switch on in the corridor leading deeper into the building, and saw a dozen or more cockroaches scatter at the light. One seemed to pause and look back before it vanished under a door. "They give me the creeps."
"They're only little, they can't hurt you," Stormtiger commented with a somewhat sarcastic amusement in his voice.
"I know that but I just don't like them, OK?" he snapped back as they walked down the corridor and pushed the door at the end open, entering the main part of the building. He snapped his fingers at one of the men, who looked around for a moment then found the light switches and started flipping them. A series of clunks came to their ears as large industrial light fittings in the high ceiling came on one after another. Revealed in front of them was a room over a hundred feet long and perhaps eighty across, with a series of metal cages arranged in it. Each formed a ten foot cube of heavy metal mesh, finger-thick bars criss-crossing over the underlying structure with a door of the same construction on one side. Most of the cubicles contained weapons of one sort of another, sorted by type and use, many still in crates but a few on racks. Some of the rest had ammunition, a couple had various other items including computer hardware and various items of gear such as backpacks, clothing, and such things, and two were currently empty.
D5 was five rows down and four across, to the right, so he turned and headed that way, moving down the aisle between the cages. When he reached the right one, he smiled at the sight of half a dozen cased RPG launchers and a stack of rockets for them in their tubes. "Perfect," the white man chuckled. "That thing won't stand a chance."
Sticking the key in his hand into the lock, he turned it, the typed the code on the tag into the keypad next to the lock, and turned the key back. A beep sounded and a small tally light went from red to green then a second later the lock clicked loudly and the door popped open. Swinging it wide, he went inside the cage with Stormtiger following. Putting both hands on the top crate, he caressed it for a moment, before quickly unlatching it and lifting the lid.
He, and his companions, all admired the gleaming black metal and wood of the RPG-7V2 launcher. Picking it up, he held it to his shoulder and sighted down it. "That'll do nicely," he gloated. A glance at Stormtiger showed the other man smiling too.
"Gimme that bag," he said, turning to one of their men, who handed over a large backpack. Putting the weapon into it, he next turned to the containers of rockets, quickly sorting through them looking for the right warhead. Finding the armor-piercing ones he stuffed five of them into the pack as well, then closed the containers. It took him a few minutes to locate the thermal sight he wanted but eventually one of those also went into the bag. Once that was done, he and Stormtiger quickly moved the crates around, putting the one that had held the weapon in the pack on the bottom of the stack, and doing the same with the rocket containers. Hopefully no one would notice their little acquisition mission until they'd succeeded in restoring the honor of the Empire, and then no one was going to dare say anything.
Turning to his fellow cape, he nodded. "We're done. Let's get out of here."
All the lights went out.
It was so sudden that he literally jerked in shock, and he heard at least two yelps of surprise. "What the fuck?" he hissed, looking around and seeing nothing other than the tally lights from some of the locks that faced them. It was as black as the inside of an elephant without the lights on in this place, since there were no windows. "Who did that?"
"Not me," Stormtiger commented from next to him, invisible in the dark.
"Well, obviously it wasn't you, you idiot," he snarled very quietly. "The switches are way the hell over there."
He only realized the pointlessness of pointing at something he couldn't see with a hand no one could see after he'd raised it, then sighed heavily. "Who's got a flashlight?"
"Use your phone," Stormtiger said. As if it was obvious, which, annoyingly, it was. He just hadn't thought of it. A moment later one of the others turned on his phone illumination, casting a cold white light around them, which was just enough to make out what was in the immediate vicinity and spark reflections off more distant objects. "What happened?"
"I have no fucking idea. Someone must have turned off the lights at the switch, and we're the only ones here." He knew the building only had one entrance, and they'd locked it, so the only people inside the place was them and five people who would be dead to the world for at least another half hour. And it wasn't a power failure as the locks were all working as far as he could see. Had one of their people betrayed them? Or was someone playing a joke that was going to get him killed?
He wondered for a moment if one of the guards had woken up ahead of schedule, but they hadn't heard a thing to indicate a struggle and the two he'd left behind might not be the sharpest tools in the box but they were fairly competent.
"Fuck it. Come on, let's find whoever is playing around and make them regret it," he finally growled, grabbing the phone out of the hand of the man holding it and waving it around so he could see where he was going. All of them filed out of the cage and started back towards the entrance, someone behind him tripping over something in the dark and swearing for a moment.
"For god's sake, everyone use your phones, will you?" he snapped, ignoring the fact that he hadn't used his but confiscated the one he was holding. A couple more sources of light came on behind him, which didn't really help because phone flashlights weren't that bright and this was a large room.
A moment later and one of them went out, accompanied by a yelp from the owner. "Holy shit! What was that?"
Alabaster stopped and turned his head. "What now?" he growled, highly irritated.
"Something stole my phone right out of my hand!" the man replied, looking around in a nervous manner. "I was holding it up then it just… got yanked away." He held up his empty hand to show the lack of something, which was kind of pointless, really.
"What the hell are you talking about you idiot?" Stormtiger asked in an annoyed voice. He looked around too, even upwards. "There's nothing in here other than us."
A clatter from behind them made all of them jump violently then spin around. Waving the light about Alabaster tried to see what had caused the sound, finally spotting a phone on the floor about ten feet away. One that had been completely crushed like a big dog had chewed on it, and was smoking slightly. "What the hell…?" he muttered, staring at it.
A scream of shock from behind him made him spin around again, whipping his hand to his pistol and drawing it as he turned. The second guy who'd been using his phone was staring upwards, while massaging one hand with the other and looking very confused and somewhat scared. "Now what?" he demanded.
"Will's right," the guy replied, still looking upwards. "Something grabbed my phone too. I think it was from above us."
All of them looked upwards, but all they could see were the large light fittings fifteen feet over their head. The ceiling past that wasn't reached by the phone illumination, even when Stormtiger took his out too and added its glow. "There's something else in here with us," the other man commented uneasily.
"There shouldn't be," Alabaster replied as quietly. "How did it get in?"
"I don't know. But that phone didn't crush itself."
They looked at each other, then as one turned to examine the phone on the floor.
Which was gone.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Alabaster moaned. "What the hell is going on?"
Another clatter came out of the darkness, and an object bounced along the floor to land near his feet. He stared down at it, his eyes widening.
Even before he could open his mouth, the smoke grenade popped and started hissing violently, clouds of thick smoke billowing up from it and making him cough. Yells came from the others, Stormtiger immediately using his power to blow the smoke away. It worked, but a second later another grenade bounced off his head, igniting a second later, and two more rattled across the floor after that. The amount of smoke coming from them was so great nothing Stormtiger could do did more that stir it up and within a few seconds Alabaster couldn't even make out the light from the phone he was holding at arm's length.
Furious, he lifted his arm and fired a couple of shots in the direction the last grenade had come from, hearing a whine as one of the rounds ricocheted off something hard. "Jesus Christ you idiot, don't do that," Stormtiger yelled. "If you hit one of the ammo dumps this entire place will go up."
"I can take it."
"I can't you colossal asshole," his colleague screamed in fury. "Stop shooting at things you can't see!"
"Well, what the fuck do you want to do then?" he howled back.
"Get the hell out of here first? That would be my ideal move," the other man replied acidly.
"Fine. How? I can't see a fucking thing."
"Find a cage then follow them to the door, I guess. Everyone feel around."
Sighing, and very angry, not to mention wondering who the hell was doing this, because they were most definitely being attacked even if no one was actually shooting at them, Alabaster put the phone in his pocket since it was completely useless now and started feeling around, keeping his pistol ready just in case. He knew someone else was in there with them somehow and when he found them he was going to shoot them until he ran out of ammo.
After a few seconds his questing hand found cold metal. "Got it," he announced.
"Yeah, I found one too," Stormtiger's voice came back. "Everyone else good?"
"I am, sir."
"Me too."
"Yeah, I've got one."
"I have as well."
"So have I."
Alabaster started to slowly feel his way along the cage towards where he thought the door was, then stopped as something struck him. Mentally replaying the brief conversation, he slowly asked, "How many people did we bring with us?"
"Six," Stormtiger replied.
"How many did we leave in the guard's room?"
"Two."
"OK. How many people just answered?"
"Um…" He could hear the confusion in the voice of his colleague. "Four?"
"I heard five answers. Other than you. And one was a woman's voice. We didn't bring any women."
"Oh shit."
There was a soft laugh from somewhere above them, then it went quiet again. The grenades had stopped hissing by now and the entire room stank of chemicals from them, but was otherwise entirely silent. All of them were holding very still, listening intently. After some time, Stormtiger hissed, "It's a cape. Gotta be."
"Duh. But which one? How did they get in?"
"That's a secret."
Alabaster froze, as the voice was much too close for comfort, right behind him. He very slowly raised the gun he was holding and aimed it back over his shoulder. "Stormtiger?"
"Yeah?"
"Duck." He fired a moment later, the gunshot nearly blowing his own eardrum out. The sound was incredibly loud and he went deaf for a few seconds until his power reset him to full health, then he could hear the other man swearing violently.
"Jesus fucking Christ you fucking idiot you shot me in the arm!"
"I said duck," he replied hotly. "You should have ducked!"
"I did duck, you cunt. Right into your fucking bullet!"
"You guys really shouldn't be playing with guns, you know," the voice said again, a moment before something yanked his pistol from his hand. Grabbing wildly at it, he yelped as he managed to punch the cage he was standing next to much harder than he enjoyed. A few seconds later the pain was gone again, and he pulled out his knife.
Which immediately vanished from his hand.
Absolutely furious he screamed a vicious slur and reached under his shirt for his backup knife, yanking it free then slashing around him several times. He felt a hard jolt then his hand went numb, making him grab at it. Only to find that not only his knife but his hand had vanished this time. The pain was just hitting as he reset.
"Who the fuck are you?" he screamed in rage.
There was no answer, but a moment later one of the other men yelled in what sounded like complete terror, the sound dopplering away as if he'd suddenly moved rapidly into the distance, before it cut off with a gurgle.
"Oh, fucking hell," he heard Stormtiger mumble, even as he felt an unaccustomed fear in the pit of his stomach.
One of the remaining Empire men let out a rather undignified whimper. Then there was another horrible scream of fear, which again seemed to move much too fast before stopping abruptly.
The four of them left were listening intently, trying to work out where the next attack was going to come from, even as they were all attempting to recall which way the exit was. As they'd spun around several times during whatever was going on, none of them had the faintest idea which direction they were looking in. Alabaster heard a weird tapping sound like wood on concrete or something like that, then a moment later Stormtiger yelled in shock. His voice seemed to pull away upwards then off into the distance. Again, it went silent suddenly.
Deciding that he was not going to hang around to find out what was picking them off one by one, Alabaster frantically started shuffling along the cage he found with his hands, his eyes wide in the completely pitch black room, as useless as that was. He'd move along the rows until he found a wall, then go around that until he found the doorway. He couldn't think of any other way to get to the exit.
He heard two more screams from his remaining men before he finally found the wall, mentally flipped a coin, and started moving right along it. The tapping sound came again, and he froze. After thirty seconds without anything happening, he very cautiously started moving again. Eventually, after several minutes of the most nerve wracking effort he'd ever experienced, he finally found the edge of the doorway. Feeling around he located the door handle and pushed down on it.
Nothing happened. It was absolutely solidly fixed in place.
The smoke was thinning now, and he could just make out a dim red glow from an LED on the nearest cage, a few feet from him. Then, as he fumbled again with the door handle, leaning on it with his entire weight, a somewhat brighter deep crimson illumination came from behind him. Accompanying it was that tapping sound.
Alabaster froze, facing the door. For some reason he really didn't want to turn his head.
"Hi again," the voice said from behind him.
Before he could move, the world whirled around him, and he felt his feet leave the floor. Something spun him around and around, until he was so dizzy he threw up. Then everything went dark again…
Feeling rather pleased with herself and the use she'd put her latest discovery to, Taylor waved goodbye to Vicky and Amy, hugged Lucy for a moment before the other girl smiled and left, then headed for the bus home. She felt like doing the return trip normally for once, for some reason.
It had been a good day, and she was looking forward to a really big storm on the weekend. After that, things might well look up for the whole city.
And a trip to LA sounded like it could be fun too, of course. She was going to look up what interesting creatures might be waiting for her there.
Armsmaster stared at the captives being loaded into the PRT transport, then looked down at the thing he was holding, before he slowly walked over to his bike and dug out a storage container. As he was putting the sample into it, Assault walked over, peering over his shoulder at the transport. "Do we know who called it in?" he asked, turning to Armsmaster, who followed his eyes, pausing what he was doing, before shaking his head.
"No. It was a text message to the PRT hot line, saying that Alabaster, Stormtiger, and a number of Empire gang members could be found at this address along with a large amount of weapons. No identity of the sender, the number isn't in the database, and all the indications are it was from a disposable cell phone."
"Which is probably in pieces in the garbage a mile from here," Assault commented with a slight sigh.
"Most likely."
"Well, the information was right on the money, at least. This has got to be one of the biggest Empire arms warehouses in the city. Kaiser is going to fucking explode when he finds out." The other man grinned for a moment. Armsmaster chuckled.
"Yes, I expect he won't be pleased. It's certainly a good outcome regardless of who is behind it."
Looking at what he was doing, Assault squinted. "What's that?" he asked, nodding at the several feet of roughly eighth of an inch thick thread Armsmaster was carefully coiling up. The Tinker looked at what he was holding, then at his fellow cape.
"I think it's spider silk," he replied rather quietly.
Assault stared at him, then at the thread. "Spider silk?" he echoed, sounding dumbfounded.
"That does appear to be what the initial analysis indicates, yes. Although it has highly anomalous physical properties."
"How fucking big was the spider?" Assault asked with incredulous horror, staring at the stuff. "That's like fucking rope."
They exchanged rather worried glances, then Armsmaster stuffed the material into the container and sealed it, not wanting to answer. Mostly because every estimate he could come up with made him feel faint…
He suspected Director Piggot wasn't going to be all that happy about it either.
And he was wondering how the hell they were going to get what was probably about a thousand feet of this stuff off each of the captives, who were practically cocooned in the material. He didn't want to think about how that had been done, but it was quite obvious that none of the Empire people including Alabaster and Stormtiger were in any fit state to explain. Assuming they even knew, since as far as his initial investigation showed, whatever had happened had been carefully arranged to happen in total darkness.
Looking around at the dark buildings, he wondered what else was out there looking back.
He could swear he could feel it looking back.
Whatever it was…
Max squeezed the edge of his desk so hard his knuckles went stark white, and breathed slowly and evenly until his blood pressure came back down to something sensible. Then he called for a meeting.
Someone was going to pay for this. Somehow.
Taylor's dad laughed like an idiot when she told him what she'd done, complimented her on a satisfactory performance, and was still snorting with humor when he went to bed.
Even the thing at the back of her mind was giggling.
Overall, things had worked out quite well, she felt. As she went to sleep she was smiling.