"There was nothing you could have done, Colin." Dragon's voice was soft and sympathetic. The Tinker stared at the micro welding tool he was flipping through his fingers, his mind entirely unable to concentrate on the maintenance work he'd intended to do.
"It was my… our… Endbringer prediction software that gave us enough warning to get so many to Canberra before the attack," he replied quietly, his attention on the light glinting from the tool as it spun over and over. "We thought we might finally have a decent chance of preventing the destruction of yet another city. The software worked, even though it's still a prototype. One of the largest responses to a Simurgh attack ever, three hours warning allowing us to prepare, make plans, try to anticipate everything we could against an implacable foe who has outthought and outfought us at every turn…"
"Yes," his best friend agreed, watching him through several cameras. "We did that. Many helped, but it was the pair of us that did the bulk of the work. You did most of it, to be honest. It was your idea, you came up with much of the coding, I just polished it. It's not perfected yet, certainly, but it worked better than we'd ever expected."
He raised his eyes, his head propped on the fist of his other hand, to look at her image on the monitor in front of him. "How much of our work was simply yet another example of that monster playing with us?" he asked bitterly. "It worked far better than we expected. In hindsight, that makes me suspicious. Everything that happened, all the preparations, the plans, the heroes and villains who came together to save lives… how much of that was just another trick? A ruse just to set up Eidolon's death?"
Neither said anything for a few seconds, his words echoing in the room.
Eventually Dragon sighed. "It's impossible to know. You might be right. That's the real evil the Simurgh does… we never know how much of what we do is the result of some sort of subtle influence, how much is by our design not hers, and how much is just random chance. So yes, you might be right." He kept watching her avatar's face unblinkingly.
"On the other hand, you might just as well be wrong. We cannot know. If we assume every bad outcome is her fault, then get even more paranoid and assume every good outcome is also her fault, we end up relegating ourselves to the role of a puppet dancing on a string with no ability to change our fate at all. I'd prefer to believe that isn't the case. She's not all powerful. She can't be, or what would even be the point of… anything? Why set up all these scenarios in the first place? What does she get out of it? If we genuinely had no chance, I don't believe these attacks would continue. We'd have been crushed flat the first time she, or any of them, turned up. As we haven't been, there must still be hope of a win, no matter how it seems sometimes."
The Tinker lowered his eyes to the tool he was still toying with, then put it down with a click and pushed it away. "All we can do in the final analysis is proceed on the basis that what we do does matter and do the best we can," Dragon continued after a period of silence. "If we give in, if we allow her to make us convince ourselves that there's no way to succeed, that nothing we do matters in the long run, she wins. We don't know the rules of the game, we don't know what she gets out of it, all we know is that we keep fighting no matter how dark it appears. That is ultimately the best defense against evil, isn't it? Keep walking into the darkness, hoping to bring light to those who can't save themselves, even if in the process we ourselves fall. We pick ourselves up and try again. That's what being a hero is. And Eidolon knew that as well as anyone else did."
She smiled slightly as he, minutely, nodded. "Even most of the villains understand that. We've both witnessed acts of incredible bravery from people considered the worst of the worst over the years, proving that there's still hope. We fight, and sometimes we die. That's the way life works. If we assume there's no hope, we've lost before we begin."
After some time, he heaved a sigh. "Once again you are far wiser than I am. I envy you your ability to see with clarity I tend to lack at times."
His friend chuckled. "Colin, you are one of the most clear-thinking people I've ever met. At times obsessive to the point I worry about you, but you are a good man despite your very human flaws." She grinned as he looked at her image again. "Ego could do with a trim sometimes but that's not uncommon in our line of work."
Reluctantly he smiled a little. "You are not the first to have mentioned that," he admitted with a rueful laugh of his own. "Considering the source I'll bear it in mind."
The silence between them was less doleful this time, although not cheerful.
"I still can't work out how it happened," he eventually said, breaking the quiet. "Legend is one of the most experienced and careful people I know."
"To be honest I'm not actually particularly surprised," Dragon replied thoughtfully, making him give her a quizzical look. "You know as well as I do that Endbringer fights are complete madness, especially ones against Ziz. No matter how much we try, maintaining battlefield discipline is impossible. They inevitably end up as a total free for all, and the number of friendly fire incidents is appalling. We've lost up to eight percent of capes from accidental interactions with someone else's attack at times in the past. Those fighting are wielding horrendously powerful weapons and powers, all aimed at the same target, who is very fast, very smart, and very sneaky. A near miss on her is an instantly lethal hit on the poor bastard who didn't duck quickly enough when she moved that little bit too soon or too late. And of course that's one of the biggest problems with fighting the bitch, she's a master at moving just enough that most attacks miss. Her precog is second to none."
"I suppose you're correct," he commented after thinking over her words. "Still… Eidolon? And Legend? If you'd asked me to pick people least likely to have a friendly fire incident, they'd be near the top. Aside from anything else, why didn't Eidolon have a suitable power up to deflect a miss from someone else? That's just common sense and he had far more options than anyone else in that area."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure. But… to be honest, and not wanting to speak ill of the dead, the man was considerably more impulsive than I felt was wise a lot of the time. He took risks. I hesitate to say he felt he was invincible, it's doing him a disservice, but there have been times in the past where he was careless and people have paid the price. You know that just like I do."
"2009, yes. Four dead, two wounded grievously, thanks to Eidolon miscalculating an wide-area attack on Leviathan…" Colin nodded.
"That wasn't the only time either. It was a genuine accident, agreed, but it could have been avoided if he'd been that little bit less overenthusiastic and checked his backstop better. He's very far from the only one who's had that sort of problem of course. In the middle of a high speed desperate fight for your life against an incredibly lethal opponent, mistakes happen. People miss, and judgment calls turn out to be wrong. This time, he got unlucky."
Having thought over her words, he sighed. "I find myself feeling guilty about the fact that I personally never particular cared for the man, I have to admit. I think that's part of my problem with all this. He… I don't know, I can't find the right words, but aspects of his personality were… worrying. But I can't help thinking that it's showing disloyalty to a brave man who fell in battle."
"He was an asshole in many ways, Colin," Dragon told him evenly. "Yes, he was a member of the Triumvirate, and one of the most powerful, definitely the most versatile, Parahumans in existence, but he was also vain, egotistical, had an inferiority complex the size of the Rig that drove him to take stupid chances at times…" As he looked at her, somewhat surprised, she smiled wryly. "That doesn't deduct from his dedication to throwing him into every Endbringer battle without hesitation, but don't let your respect for him as a hero cover up the flaws the man had. We all have our own problems, of course. His were larger than many people's but he was still a hero. The fact that he was part of the Triumvirate doesn't mean he was perfect, far from it. And I think his own gung-ho attitude finally caught up with him, to be honest."
She shook her head as he listened curiously. "Did the Simurgh plan it? Who the hell knows? It's obviously entirely possible, but it's also entirely possible it was simply a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not paying attention to anyone other than his target. We both know that target fixation is a real issue and almost no one is immune to it. Not even him. Sometimes especially him, if we look at previous battles. Legend had built up an attack that might well have turned the tide of the operation, using plans discussed before everything started, Eidolon for whatever reason didn't wait to see if it worked and was trying his own attack, he didn't have a suitable defensive power ready, neither one of them coordinated with the other... It was a total mess but that sort of thing all too common. And in the end the damned Simurgh was the only one who ducked in time. We were lucky that Legend's lasers were speed of light attacks or we could conceivably have lost both of them. Legend had no idea Eidolon was in the line of fire, because he shouldn't have been, and as far as I know Eidolon didn't even bother to check if anyone was in the other direction."
"And now Legend has to deal with the fact that he accidentally killed one of his friends," Colin remarked after another period of reflection. "I'm not the best with people, but I can well imagine how he must feel."
"Of course you can, Colin. You're not the most emotionally intuitive person I've ever met, I agree," she replied with a fond smile, "but you're hardly a robot. That, according to Saint, is my job." Dragon grinned as he somewhat tiredly chuckled.
"You're far better with understanding people than I am much of the time, so I feel we can safely ignore Saint's delusions," he replied with a small smile. He thought for a second or two while she waited patiently. "The question now is what will happen without Eidolon?"
"I have no idea. I think we're going to have to just see how things work out. Legend is clearly going to be badly affected by what happened for some time, which is entirely understandable. But he's a good, intelligent man and I think he'll come to terms with it. All the data we have proves it wasn't his fault. At worst it was a tragic accident, and to be brutally honest I'd really suggest it was Eidolon not thinking things through as well as he should have done. I've already told Legend that, and shown him the recordings. From where he was when he fired he couldn't possibly have known Eidolon was there, and if the Simurgh hadn't moved the way she did right as he was leading her flight path, none of this would have happened. Like I said, Eidolon shouldn't have been there. It wasn't in the plan and Legend did announce his attack over the com system and told people to stay clear. He's blaming himself, of course, but he shouldn't. In my opinion at any rate, for what that's worth. I think Eidolon's battle lust got the better of him if you boil it down to the most basic level."
She paused, then added a little more cheerfully, "On the positive side of the whole sorry mess, it was very nearly the shortest Simurgh battle on record, and certainly the one with the least casualties overall. Why she left mere seconds later rather than press her advantage while everyone was in shock is a complete mystery, but we can be thankful she did. The city was saved with minimal damage, no one was exposed to her song long enough to cause permanent damage… If Eidolon had survived we'd be celebrating a great victory."
"Perhaps that's what she wants us to do." He gave her a look that made her roll her eyes, then smiled slightly.
"You need to work on your joke timing, Colin," she replied with a return grin. "Admittedly it's possible it's not a joke, but like I said, we can't assume everything is a Ziz plot or we'll all end up barking mad in weeks. Like Tagg."
She grinned more widely when he winced. "That man is…"
"He is, yeah." Inspecting him, she asked, "Are you feeling better now?"
"In some ways, yes, I think I am," he finally replied. "Talking with you always helps put things into a perspective I often can't quite reach on my own. Thank you."
"As always you're welcome, Colin."
"I worry about the next attack, I have to admit."
"We can only get ready for it and deal with what happens when it happens though," she pointed out. "Second guessing something that's not yet come to pass is another thing that will drive you mad. We'll improve the software, prepare our plans, and wait."
After considering her words he nodded agreement.
"So, on a completely different note," she remarked a moment later, "I hear you have some interesting insects in Brockton Bay these days."
Dragon grinned as he looked worried all over again.
"I was nearly successful in suppressing that knowledge," he growled, making her laugh. "Thank you so very much."
"It was my pleasure, Colin, you know that." Her smile was somewhat impish as he sighed heavily. "Have you found out anything more about your new friend?"
Grumbling to himself about how some people had a very annoying sense of humor, he began filling his friend in on all the information they had on the HOUS. None of which made him any less worried about the damn thing, but at least it seemed to be keeping to itself recently.
Hopefully that would continue.
Sitting up, Missy rubbed her eyes, then looked at her watch. Half past six AM, so the nurse would check in on her shortly. Today was her last day in hospital. Physically she felt fine, and had done for a couple of days now, the tiredness of rebuilding from Amy's healing having long since passed. And mentally… She was definitely a lot closer to being in the right sort of place there too, thanks to Doctor Willis, who had patiently listened during their regular sessions in the last week, asked calm and insightful questions, and somehow led Missy to drawing conclusions from things she already knew that she just hadn't seen before.
It was amazing how much talking things out with someone who wasn't going to judge you helped, she thought as she got up and headed for the bathroom. Amy, too, had helped an enormous amount aside from the actual healing. The older girl was hilarious in a deadpan way anyway, and when you saw the side of her most people didn't, she was even more so. And she obviously cared, she'd made that clear in the times she'd stopped by and just chatted to Missy. Not treating her like she was made of spun glass, or the age difference really mattered, just talking to her like a real person with real issues. In a very different way from Doctor Willis, sure, involving a lot more dark humor and snarky jokes, but it helped at least as much.
Smiling a little to herself as she had a quick shower, Missy decided that Amy was definitely now firmly in the good friend category. It seemed to go both ways too, which she hoped might give Amy more reason to be happy. She'd got the impression quite rapidly that few people saw this side of the Dallon sister other than the other Dallon sister. Vicky herself had popped in twice, to say hi and ask how she was getting on. The older blonde had genuinely seemed concerned for her, and relieved when she told her she was fine and getting better.
It had made Missy feel a a little guilty about some of her less charitable thoughts towards Vicky in the past, driven by her crush on Dean. Something else she'd discussed with Doctor Willis, and something she thought might no longer be that much of a thing as a result of some of the enlightenment she'd received thanks to that.
Dennis and Chris had also visited once more each, the former looking worried and clearly wondering if Amy was anywhere near. Missy grinned as she washed her hair at the expression he'd been wearing. Amy definitely scared the crap out of him, and after her spending a while explaining how practical jokes on her would likely end weirdly, he had reason to be like that. It had been incredibly funny to watch and Missy had learned a lot about how to intimidate people…
She's also had a visit from Dean and Carlos the day before, doing the same thing the other two had and manipulating a patrol route to include a stop at the hospital. The only Ward she hadn't seen was Sophia and she was absolutely fine with that. Plus Assault had visited too, bringing far too much chocolate and a totally absurd number of balloons with silly messages on, which had amused Missy and him equally.
So while she hadn't even slightly enjoyed the experience that landed her here, and wished she could have avoided it, at least there had been some benefits. Her mental state was probably in some ways better than it had been since before she Triggered. The sessions with Doctor Willis had included, of course, discussing her home life and her issues with her parents, and she felt she probably had a better idea of how to handle it going forward.
Finishing her shower with a rinse off, she waited for the dripping to stop, then got out and began toweling herself dry. After she brushed her teeth and used the toilet, then got dressed, she went back into the other room and sat down, still deep in thought.
The most startling thing about her ending up here had been her parents, who apparently finally properly realized that their daughter being a Parahuman wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Missy had no idea what they'd really thought, actually, but as far as she could see both of them had been so wrapped up in their constant bickering and fighting with each other they'd pretty much ignored the minor fact that their child was a Ward in one of the most dangerous cities in the US, and went out on the streets in costume almost every day. Suddenly finding out that Missy had nearly been gutted like a fish and barely survived, due to a weird giant insect out of nowhere, seemed to have shocked them into taking a long hard look at everything.
She had a shrewd suspicion that Doctor Willis might have had a word with them too, since when they'd visited the day poor Eidolon got killed, two days ago, they'd been somewhat pale, much calmer than usual, almost pleasant to each other for the first time she could recall for years, and casually mentioned as it if was no big thing that they were arranging to attend therapy themselves.
Missy had nearly fallen off her bed when she'd heard that. And seen her mother give her father a look of something close to actual understanding, which was… novel.
Shaking her head in wonder, she tried to understand how her nearly getting killed horribly had finally broken through their self-absorbed outer shell and done something she'd never thought was possible. Until it actually fixed something, she wasn't going to take it for granted that the situation would indeed improve, but this was the closest to light at the end of the tunnel she'd ever seen, and there was the barest chance that this time things would finally start to get better. Bizarre, but there you go.
Yet another oddity of life in Brockton Bay, she thought with a baffled sigh. Every day was weird and weekends were doubly so…
A tap on the door made her look up from her reflections. It opened and Amy came in, smiling at her. "Hi. How are you feeling today? You're getting out of here this afternoon, so I guess that will help."
Missy shrugged, smiling back. "I guess. I can't say I've hated it here, honestly. In a way having a break was probably a good thing if you don't think about how it happened. And I've… well, I got to know you a lot better and that's great. You were also completely right about Doctor Willis. She's helped me more than I'd have ever thought."
Sitting down in the other chair, Amy relaxed, pushing her Panacea hood back and turning her head to regard the younger girl. "I'm glad to hear that. Really glad. She's very good, and most Parahumans probably need all the therapy they can get." She smiled faintly. "Some more than others. Not everyone is as mentally wonderful as I am, for example."
Missy giggled at the supercilious expression Amy put on, sticking her nose in the air and projecting an upper-class vibe. "Some of the lower classes are quite, quite deluded, you know," she said in a high class Bostonian accent, her voice higher pitched than usual and a perfect match for a character on a soap opera her mother watched. Missy collapsed in laughter and Amy grinned at her.
"I'm really happy she helped you," the older girl added, looking much more natural as she dropped the character impression. "She's helping me too, definitely, although I think I'm a longer term project."
"You seem pretty OK to me, Amy," Missy told her.
"My inner evil is well hidden," Amy replied, scowling comically. "Mua ha ha. Dennis will rue the day. Rue it, I say!"
"How do you rue a day?" Missy puzzled over the saying.
"I have no idea, but it's probably painful. Maybe involving a spike."
They shared a look then both started laughing. "I like this version of you, Amy," Missy snickered, wiping her eyes.
"So do I, but too much of the time I have to be serious Amy. Because so many people are fuckwits…" Amy sighed a little, causing Missy to reach over and pat her hand comfortingly.
"Don't let the incredibly high fuckwit ratio ruin your life, Amy," she advised wisely while wearing a serious expression and nodding. Amy grinned again.
"I try not to, but it's so hard! You wouldn't believe some of the assholes I deal with." She flopped back in the chair and spread her arms limply to the sides, staring at the ceiling. "It's like trying to handle a kindergarten full of four year olds after a sugar crash. No. Worse. I've done that in the children's ward. Adult toddlers are much worse than actual toddlers."
"Poor Amy."
"Poor Amy indeed. I pity the bitch sometimes."
Giggling, Missy shook her head even as Amy sighed heavily, then started smiling again. "I'm glad you're in a better place, Missy," she said, rolling her head to the side to meet the younger girl's eyes, and talking quietly. "I've enjoyed the time we've spent talking, and I'm very pleased I was able to help in ways other than the healing thing. I'll miss you being around."
"I've enjoyed that part too, Amy," Missy assured her with complete truthfulness. "Making a new friend is good."
"It is, yeah." Amy held her hand out and Missy took it, squeezing it in thanks. The brunette smiled faintly. "All good, perfectly healthy. Make sure you get enough exercise, eat right, and don't get stabbed again. Not good for you, getting stabbed. It's my job to know that sort of thing so pay attention."
Grinning, Missy nodded. "I shall follow the instructions of the White Mage, for she is wise and merciful."
"You bet your ass she is." Releasing her hand, Amy stretched. "And now I have half an hour to run around like an idiot fixing other idiots, then it's off to learning quadratic equations at school. Yay." She sat up and ran her hands through her hair. "Vicky's right. This is too early in the morning to be awake. I could do with another hour in bed. Coffee will have to substitute for sleep. Again."
"Don't kill yourself trying to fix everyone else, OK, Amy?" Missy requested with a certain amount of concern as she watched the older girl stretch then stand. "You work too hard."
Amy shrugged. "I know. Doctor Willis has explained that more than once. But it's hard to stop. So many expectations…" She sighed faintly and was about to add something when there was a knock on the door. As both girls looked that way, to their surprise the person who entered was familiar to them but not someone either expected to see.
"Director Piggot!" Missy exclaimed, suddenly feeling apprehensive.
"Miss Biron," the PRT Director replied having closed the door behind her, now standing looking at both of them with a typically mildly disapproving expression. "And Panacea. Thank you for saving my Ward from her own ill-advised actions, incidentally, while you're here."
Amy gave her a long look. "It's what I do. And Missy is a friend too. I would prefer it if you don't give her a hard time and potentially cause more problems I'll have to fix, if you don't mind. She's very well aware of what could easily have happened, believe me. We've talked about it at length and I've pointed out how lucky she was that a passing Hornet of Doom stepped in." Her voice was back to the normal somewhat tired and pretty acerbic Panacea one Missy noticed, looking between her friend and her superior with a sensation of worry. This could get messy since neither were the sort of person to back down from an argument…
"Indeed? In that case you have my thanks again." Director Piggot, who had been gazing at Amy, switched that gaze to Missy, making her shrink into her seat slightly. "I'm glad she realizes that by ignoring orders she put herself into a position where a messy death was very much an option, and that those orders were specifically designed to prevent that sort of thing. If I had to explain that to her I would have both been fairly annoyed and very sarcastic, as well as disappointed in the lack of foresight someone I feel is usually quite responsible showed. Luckily that isn't needed now."
"Not at all, no," Amy replied, Missy hearing the tiny note of dark amusement and a certain amount of respect in her voice, while feeling that the director might be getting her own sort of amusement out of rubbing it in. "So you won't be required to unlimber the doubtless master-level sarcasm I'm reliably informed you can bring to bear. Leaving sufficient reserves to deal with people who are much less responsible in general. I will name no names but I expect we both could come up with a list."
Director Piggot's mouth, just at the corner, twitched once. If Missy hadn't been watching she'd have missed it.
"Excellent. I am not a well woman, so I can't afford to waste a good head of steam on someone who doesn't require or appreciate it. And mentioning that unauthorized solo actions by government representatives such as Wards, however well intentioned, have the potential to cause significant trouble for an organization such as the one I represent, which can have far reaching detrimental effects on the stability of the precarious balance society is plagued by, would also be unnecessary, I expect." Her voice was as dry as the Sahara.
"Completely unnecessary, yes," Amy replied in almost exactly the same sort of voice even as Missy winced internally.
"Once again, good news. Clearly, as such an action would never be repeated, there would be little requirement to belabor the point and extract some form of promise to that effect, I suspect. Avoiding a tedious lecture and the following argument which would almost inevitably occur."
"Quite." Amy smiled thinly. "I feel that such a lecture is, while possibly in some ways deserved, redundant. You are a busy woman, Director, and as you say wasting your time on minor matters that have already been resolved is inefficient."
"Armsmaster would doubtless agree with your comment," the older woman nodded, her eyes not straying from Missy's, the girl feeling like a mouse confronted by a snake. "As it happens I do as well. Wonderful. In that case I will simply say that I am pleased that Miss Biron is healthy and safe, and that when she returns to her position on Monday she will face no further action or reprimand. Assuming that such an event does never happen again, of course, as in that case there would be repercussions."
"I think we can agree that is highly unlikely, Director Piggot," Amy responded evenly. "It would take someone of much lower intelligence to ignore just how much luck was involved in the recent events."
"That it would. Miss Biron has never struck me as someone with low intelligence, I will admit." The director nodded, that little quirk of the corner of her mouth coming and going once more. "She also obviously has friends who are prepared to help her even if she missteps. This is rarer than it should be, and I approve."
Bowing her head slightly, Amy smiled slightly. "Thank you."
"And thank you. Our conversation was quite… entertaining." Finally removing her gaze from Missy, causing the girl to relax in relief, the dumpy blonde woman looked at Amy, then turned to leave.
As she reached for the door, Amy spoke again, in a rather less acerbic voice. "Director Piggot?" Pausing, the woman looked back over her shoulder. "You need to have your doctor check your dialysis progress. I can see without even using my ability that it's not working as well as it should do, just from the color and texture of your skin and experience healing a lot of people suffering from kidney issues. I would strongly urge you to let me heal you, but knowing how stubborn you are about that and not wishing to belabor the point without much chance of success, please get another doctor to give you a thorough workup. I can refer you to the renal unit here, if you'd like. They're very good."
The director stared at her for quite a long time, Amy staring back, while Missy just watched, feeling that something she didn't understand was happening. After close to thirty seconds Piggot nodded very slightly. "I will take your expert opinion under advisement, Panacea. Vista, I'll see you on Monday afternoon. There will be a briefing covering the current situation in the city in light of recent events. Don't be late." With that she exited the room, the door closing with a click.
Missy let out a long breath, before turning to Amy, who was still looking thoughtfully at the door. "How did you do that?" she asked in astonishment.
Turning to her, Amy grinned with lots of teeth. "I am amazing. And at least as much of a bitch as she is. Which she's aware of." She stood up as did Missy, after a glance at her watch. "I really need to go."
Missy hugged her, making the older girl look surprised for a moment, then smile. "Thank you for everything. And yes, you are amazing. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."
"I'll do my best," Amy assured her, looking rather happy. When Missy released her, she pulled her hood up and added, "I'll try to get back here before you leave, but if I don't see you again in the hospital, stay in touch, yeah? And please try to keep away from murderous bastards like Hookwolf? For me? I'd much prefer not to have to put a friend back together again."
"I'm not planning on having that happen again, trust me," Missy told her with absolute truth and a shiver. "It wasn't fun…"
"No, it wasn't. For either of us."
"I wonder if I'll see the HOUS again?" Missy pondered out loud as Amy headed for the door.
"If you do, get an address. I'd like to talk to her," Amy replied, before waving and leaving. Alone, Missy flopped on her back on the bed and relaxed, wondering whether her parents actually would manage to somehow settle their differences, as well as trying, yet again, to work out what the hell the giant hornet really was. Aside from a giant hornet, of course.
When the nurse turned up twenty minutes later with breakfast she was no closer to an answer on the latter problem, so she just moved on and started eating while browsing PHO on her tablet.
Blinking at the ceiling, Taylor tried to recall what she'd been thinking about just as she woke up. Something had come to mind then slipped away again… She hated it when that happened. Sighing after a few seconds, she gave up trying to force the memory back and yawned. It would come to her sooner or later. Sitting up she looked at the window, seeing brilliant sunlight hitting the curtains, which made her smile. The weather forecast for the weekend was finally for sunny days and none of the rain they'd had so much of over the last few weeks. The weather was rapidly warming now, and spring was definitely in the air.
She was looking forward to it, and all the wonderful new insects it would bring.
Flipping the covers back and hopping out of bed, she went about the usual process of preparing to face the day. Soon she was sitting across from her dad at the kitchen table, both of them eating. He had part of his attention on the local paper, which despite the internet being a thing, still existed. Even though people were predicting the end of newspapers any day now it hadn't happened yet.
"What eldritch horrors do you have planned for today?" he asked as he finished his breakfast, leaning back with his coffee mug in one hand and the folded paper in the other. His eyes met hers through their respective glasses, over the top of the paper.
Smiling at the way he put it, she shrugged a little. "Nothing specifically planned right now."
"But still an eldritch horror, I assume?" He was looking amused as she laughed.
"It's a hobby."
"Apparently it is. One that would send most people screaming for help, but if it keeps you happy and quiet, I suppose it's worth the psychic damage risk."
"It's not that bad, Dad," she protested with a broad grin.
He lowered the paper and peered over his glasses at her with a frown. "Taylor, you turn into a hybrid between a scorpion, a spider, and a hornet, with god knows what else mixed in, capable of producing venom that literally sets concrete on fire, for fun. I can't help thinking that this is slightly outside the sort of experience a father would consider normal for his teenaged daughter…"
By the time he finished, she was giggling again. "I can do other things."
"That does not make it better." Despite his words, he was smiling. "Despite what you personally may believe."
Finishing her own breakfast, happy and pleased that they were able to play around like this after so long, she took all the crockery to the sink and quickly washed and dried it as he prepared some more coffee. "What are you doing today, Dad?"
"I was planning on relaxing for a while, doing some reading, probably trying to work out why the truck is making that rattling sound and shooting whatever is doing it because it's irritating, then possibly going to visit Kurt and Lacey later. They invited me over to watch the game on TV. You can come if you want."
"I don't much care for ball games," she told him.
"Neither do I, really, and I'm not sure they do either, but it's a good excuse to get together and eat," he grinned. "If it was warmer we'd have a barbecue or something. We should do that as soon as we can, it's been too long, now I think about it."
"I'll have to find where we put the dolls, then," she replied with a thoughtful look. He stared at her, lifting his eyebrows.
"Dolls?" he echoed in a confused voice.
"Yeah. We need half a dozen of them, small skinny ones with improbable proportions."
He didn't look any less confused, while she was holding in a laugh.
"You've lost me."
"We line them up in front of a steak. That's how you do a good Barbie queue."
Her dad stared at her for several seconds, his coffee forgotten, then slowly turned and banged his head on the cupboard door. "Oh my god," he moaned, resting his forehead on the wood as she broke down in gales of laughter. "And I thought my dad jokes were bad. What hath we wrought, Annette?"
When he turned around and glared at her she just laughed harder. Pouring his mug full of coffee he sighed, then started drinking it and wandered off shaking his head sadly.
She was up in her bedroom sitting in front of the computer looking up something she'd been wondering about an hour or so later, internally grumbling about how incredibly slow the damn thing was and considering going to the library again since even with the bus trip added it might be quicker, when he came into her room. He'd been downstairs in his study looking through some paperwork for the last half hour, she was aware of that as she couldn't help but notice via all the bugs around the place, but she didn't deliberately spy on him, so didn't know what the documents he was holding were.
Looking over her shoulder, Vespa on her head turning to look as well, she asked, "What's that?"
"Maps," he replied, leafing through the stack of large sheets.
"Maps?"
"Maps."
"Maps of what?" Now she was really curious and turned the chair around. The computer could wait and she was getting tired of pedaling anyway, she thought with a peeved grimace.
"Maps of Brockton Bay, to be precise," her dad said as he took a seat on her bed. "Old ones. I forgot I had these, I picked a whole pile of them up, oh, probably about ten, twelve years ago? Something like that. Found them in an old junk store, and thought the things might be interesting. They're much too nice to throw away, too, so I hung onto them. I was thinking at one point I might get some framed and put them on the walls but never got around to it." He handed her one, Taylor accepting the sheet of what was obviously very old paper, browning and curling at the edges, but in very good condition despite the age, and peered at it with interest. The ink looked odd, and the tiny writing was strange although quite readable with a little effort.
"Cool. How old are they?"
"That one is from around nineteen hundred or so. Some of them go back to about seventeen ninety or thereabouts. Only about twenty years after Brockton Bay was founded, in fact, which was in seventeen sixty-eight." She knew he was an encyclopedia of facts about the city, and wasn't surprised he knew the dates by heart. "The really old ones are interesting from a historical viewpoint but not very useful, since hardly anything they show still exists other than the bay itself and some of the landscape. Everything else has been built over many times." He flipped through the inch-thick stack of maps, apparently looking for something, finally pulling out a couple and putting them on top. "These ones, on the other hand, are interesting."
Moving her chair closer, Taylor leaned over as he put the rest of the maps to one side, then smoothed the ancient paper out with his hands. "This one and this one are official city survey maps from eighteen eighty-three. They cover the whole of the docks, all the way from the bay right up to about half a mile the other side of our street, see? All the old wharfs are there, the old shipyard, that's the original rail yard and the line to Boston…" His finger moved around as he spoke, pointing out small symbols, lines, and words. "Even has a depth map of the bay. That's the start of the shipping canal, which is probably mostly silted up now. There's a complete set of these maps here but these two are the useful ones at the moment."
"Why?" she queried, intrigued.
He tapped his finger on one particular point of the map. "See that?"
She leaned closer and looked carefully at the area he was indicating. "That's… right next to the water, yeah, not a house… A shop?"
"Not quite. It's the Captain's Table. Pat's bar."
"Oh. Right." She compared the street layout to what she knew from her own memory of the area, including from above, and nodded slowly. "Wow. It's almost exactly the same as it is now."
"This area hasn't changed much in a lot of ways, at least as far as streets go, and that part of the docks is about the oldest part of the entire city. This sort of place grows inland from the sea, and the buildings there were built to last. But look here, see?" He traced his finger along a line that was faintly drawn on the map, the old ink a little faded. As she inspected it she could see more of them, in fact quite a few, all marked with different symbols at intervals.
"What are those?" she asked with interest.
"Tunnels. This one is an ancient sewer, for example. It's still there, the modern stuff feeds into it. Back then they put at least as much effort into building stuff under the streets as they did for the stuff over them. A lot of it is still better made than the construction dating from a hundred years later." He shrugged as she glanced at him. "Cheaper and faster isn't necessarily better. That's a small river that was built over, so is this one here. You can't see a trace of them on the surface now although if you know where they are you can work out the path with some effort. Lots of cities did the same thing, since areas near the water usually have all sorts of things draining into it, which gets in the way. So they get rerouted, blocked off, run in culverts that eventually turn into tunnels that in turn get built on…"
She nodded, having learned at least the basics of that concept at school. Even so… "I had no idea there were so many of them."
"Hardly anyone does. You can see it in a few places, like on Maple Street where it crosses Grover Drive and floods every year in the spring. That's right here, and you can see there's a stream running right under that intersection. No sign of it on top, but when all the snow melts, the water has to go somewhere. The old tunnel under there the stream's in probably isn't large enough to handle the flow so it backs up and ends up in the lowest part of the land at the bottom of the hill here. And that bit of boggy land right here, next to Franklin Avenue? That's right on the path of this little stream, which is mostly underground, but a tiny part of it still exists above ground there."
He smiled a little as she examined the map, fascinated. "This whole part of the city is basically built on what used to be a bunch of islands of various sizes, with streams and rivers and ponds separating them. Hardly any of that is accessible any more though."
Taylor indicated a line with different symbols on it. "And those ones?"
"Storm drains. Those are the big ones. They're mostly large enough to stand upright in, and a couple of them are almost big enough for my truck to drive down. The original Victorian-era ones are deeper than the newer ones, probably because a lot of land was reclaimed from the bay in the early nineteen hundreds and the ground level in quite a lot of places was raised to reduce spring floods. Then they built on top of that, the newer infrastructure ending up well above the older stuff in some cases. Some of the old tunnels were reused, some were collapsed, a lot were blocked off without anyone even realizing it sometimes. Foundations of new construction cutting right through one, for example. But an awful lot of the older stuff is still down there."
He chuckled as she ran her finger along the course of one of the old drains. "And some of it was used for smuggling, too. I know Pat has an entrance to the old smuggling network in his cellar, but I've never been in there. It's a door probably about a foot thick made of oak beams from wrecked ships, I think. There are likely quite a few older buildings that have something like that buried under them, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn the current owners don't have a clue. The smugglers cut their way into the storm drains, hid the entrance, and never talked about it. I've even heard rumors that there was at least one actually navigable river running right under the city for miles, with side branches and everything. No idea if it's true but I could believe it."
"Definitely cool, yeah, but why is this interesting other than from a historical viewpoint?" she asked, looking up. "You have an idea I'm missing, I think."
"I do," her dad grinned, appearing rather pleased with himself. "Look."
His finger moved to indicate one specific spot. Taylor frowned slightly before she realized what she was looking at. "That's my warehouse!" she exclaimed in surprise.
"Correct." He looked satisfied. "And what's running right under it?"
She peered carefully at the map. "A tunnel. There's a tunnel under there?"
"According to the map, yeah, there's a tunnel under it. An old one. One of the original storm drains, but I'm fairly sure it's not actually used as a drain any more, because I know there are newer ones either side of it that were put in around nineteen twenty when the railways were being expanded after World War one. I think it was probably bypassed at that point, and there was other construction after the second war further inland, north of where we are now, that might well have cut off the other end. It's quite possible it still connects to other old tunnels and the covered rivers, since this map obviously only shows things build before it was made, and I don't have anything between this and the nineteen thirties covering this area, so I can't be sure. But if it's still intact, which it likely is because they really did build them damn solidly back then, and it's not flooded, which it shouldn't be since it's above the high tide mark except for a small part right next to the shore…"
He watched her run her finger back along the route marked on the map, until it stopped. "It goes right past the end of our street," she almost whispered. "Directly under the old agricultural store." About two hundred yards from their house, in the direction away from the city center, there was the long-abandoned and slowly decaying remains of a large building that still barely had visible the traces of logos for farming supply companies which hadn't existed since before her grandparents had been born. It was completely boarded up, half the roof had fallen in decades ago, and at one point it had caught fire but had been so soggy nothing much happened. She and Emma had been very firmly told never to go in as it was extremely dangerous, and even at the age of ten, had looked at it and decided that this was definitely something they had no intention of finding out for themselves.
And from this map, there was some sort of tunnel right under it. Leading three miles to the docks, and straight under her acquired experimental base.
This had possibilities…
She was already exploring the place with every insect she had available, of course, which her dad undoubtedly realized from the smile he was wearing.
"If you can find out how to get in to that tunnel, and it's not blocked, and you can find out how to get out of it at the other end…" he said in an amused voice as she grinned widely.
"I have a direct, discreet path from here to there even in daylight."
"Exactly."
"How did I not even notice this before?" she asked herself out loud.
"Did you look?"
"Um… not as such," she replied to his grin, somewhat embarrassed. She had this ridiculously powerful ability to discover all sorts of things and hadn't thought to properly explore places she really should have. Resolving to make certain she didn't forget that little lesson, she kept her bugs busy, until about two minutes later her eyes lit up. "AHA!"
"You found a way in?"
"I found a way in. There's a cellar with three rooms under it," Taylor reported happily, hundreds of insects and spiders mapping out the old building in a scurrying mass of chitin. "Except it's got four rooms. One of them was walled off. And in there, there's a cover in the floor that leads down about fifteen feet into a tunnel. Brick walls, about… wow… Nearly seven feet tall with an arched roof. Five or six feet wide. There's at least a foot of mud on the floor too, although it's fairly dry. Cool. It's even got stalactites on the ceiling!"
"That happens in really old building where the water slowly leaks through," he commented, listening with interest. "Is the way in large enough for someone to access it?"
"Oh, definitely," she nodded. "It's basically an ancient manhole cover, or something like that. Rusted solid, but that's not a problem. I can get it out of there easily enough. And the nearest house with anyone in it is over eighty yards away too, so it's pretty discreet. I could just go down the path behind the back fence through the trees." This was true enough, behind where their yard finished and the one on the next street did there was a space about thirty feet wide which was completely overgrown, and as far as she knew had once had a narrow dirt access road for things like coal deliveries. It hadn't been used for decades at least, and was totally impassible to vehicles and most people without a serious brush-cutter and a hell of a lot of work. She'd explored parts of it when she was younger and found all sorts of interesting wildlife living there, quite a lot of which had come home with her over the years.
"Sounds like a project that should keep you busy for a while," he said, smiling at her.
She got up and hugged him. "Thanks, dad. I didn't even think of something like this."
"My pleasure, Taylor. As I've told you more than once, old information is useful to learn. History is important in strange ways sometimes." He hugged her back, then gathered up the maps.
"Can I hang onto these two for a while?" she requested. "I'll look after them, I promise."
"Of course you can." He left the two sheets on her bed then got up. "I'll be downstairs if you need me." He left, and she picked up the maps, studying them with great interest, and wondering where else there might be long-lost underground routes just waiting to be put to use. Even as her power helped her trace out as much of the tunnel nearby as was inside her current range, she was planning on how she'd use this new data.
She could see some absolutely fascinating possibilities with only a little effort.
And she was very curious about whether his story of a long hidden buried river might also be true.
If anyone could find it, it was probably her, Taylor mused as she turned back to her computer and growled when she found it was still downloading the PDF file she wanted!
Stupid ancient piece of crap...
Four hours later she was deep underground below the city, roughly halfway between her house and the old warehouse. The tunnel was lit by a soft green glow emanating from her body, Taylor having opted for a centipede-drider sort of thing as the optimal shape for exploring tunnels. She was more than flexible enough to do a U turn in even a narrow space, and strong enough to dig her way through any obstructions short of a couple of feet of solid steel. Even that wouldn't be much of an obstacle, she'd thought with a grin, not in the face of the chemicals she could produce with little effort.
She was profoundly grateful that her Changer power appeared to make her immune, somehow, to some appallingly corrosive and toxic materials. Having decided that fluorine was almost definitely involved after those initial tests and conclusions, she'd spent quite a while reading up on the chemistry involved, which even though a lot of the documentation was past her current understanding of the subject, had made her feel a little ill.
Apparently her venom was even worse than she'd realized…
Much, much worse.
But still useful as long as she was incredibly careful to make sure she kept it way the hell away from anyone else. It had also made her decide she seriously needed to work on safer methods to deal with people if she ever found herself in that sort of situation again. Hitting them over the head was very dangerous, she knew that for a fact from several sources, and she couldn't always count on being able to intimidate them into legging it on sight. Some people were, after all, stupid. Hookwolf being a case in point.
And most of them, even the criminals, didn't deserve the sort of fate Hookwolf had discovered.
She had some possible ideas involving much safer chemicals if she could figure out how to persuade her power to cooperate, which admittedly hadn't so far posed much of a problem. Whatever her power might think about the subject. And she still hadn't really experimented with spider silk, or other things she could make. She'd tried spinning silk, of course, and found it came easily to her, but it had only been a short test she hadn't yet expanded on. That was on the list for the next series of experimentation, along with quite a few other things.
Right now, though, she was having a lot of fun poking around and seeing what she could discover. The end near her house in the old store had been trivial to get into, after she'd squeezed through a gap in the fence behind one of the scrubby trees that half-covered the old wood, then made her way through the undergrowth to the back of the building. Even before the leaves sprouted the bushes and brambles in there were so thick she could barely even see any signs that she was mere feet from people's yards, and checking from outside via her little friends showed she was basically invisible in there. She doubted that anyone else could really push their way through without the aid of a chainsaw, to be honest, so it was extremely unlikely anyone would notice her as long as she was quiet.
A giant house centipede was easily able to sneak under everything though, and made hardly any sound at all. Not to mention that if anyone did happen to come a little too near, she'd see them coming without difficulty and could just freeze and wait until they went away again.
Getting inside the old building had been as simple as digging through the bottom of the back wall next to the overgrown area, which filled what had probably been some sort of loading area many years ago. From there, she'd found a hole in the floor, climbed through it, and within a couple of minutes carefully removed enough of the wall blocking access to the small room containing the cover over the tunnel below she could easily get into it. The cover itself had needed some persuasion but had eventually come loose with a grinding sound and a cloud of damp rust when she heaved hard enough on it. Putting it to one side, she'd just jumped down the hole it concealed, landing in the mud below with a squelch from many feet. Getting back up would barely be harder as she could just climb the wall.
Yeah. Her power was enormous fun and incredibly useful, she thought with satisfaction as she scuttled along, keeping note of side passages and and exploring along them as far as her range reached. She was up to nearly eight hundred yards now, still finding it no harder than the shorter range had been. So she could easily monitor the surface above, which was far closer, and even check the street signs to see where she was. Even better than GPS she mused as she paused to look down a smaller side tunnel that led downwards at a slight angle, eventually joining what appeared to be one of the covered streams her dad had talked about, roughly four hundred yards to the west. Making a note on the pad she pulled out of her pack, slung over her humanoid upper torso, she put it back then moved on. At some point she'd have to thoroughly map the whole network, something she could do really accurately using her sense of where the insects all were relative to her, but right now she wanted to see if she could find out how to get into her warehouse.
Not much later, she stopped and looked up. The destination was at hand, directly above her, roughly thirty five feet away. And to her delight there was a flight of ancient stairs just ahead, narrow and uneven and clearly dating back over a hundred years. They looked like they'd been constructed for maintenance access rather than general use, and annoyingly were blocked about halfway to the surface by a whole pile of old rubble that had either been dumped down them, or had collapsed into them.
Taylor was once more irritated with herself that she hadn't even bothered to look for anything interesting underground, which was a stupid omission she resolved to correct. Just because worms and the like weren't particularly useful right now was no reason to ignore the deep down dark. Her ability went in all directions around her, not just outwards, something she still hadn't quite internalized. Possibly because she was concentrating more on the Changer part of it, she thought.
Thinking on the subject, she also decided that she needed to look into that Coil guy some more. Finding him had been an accident but she suspected it would be a good idea to see what she could find out. And keep her senses peeled for more hidden underground bases… Who knew what lurked below the mean streets of Brockton Bay, she mused with a grin.
The super hornet did. Or would, at any rate.
Climbing up the stairs as far as she could, she started digging. The debris parted before the crab claws she sprouted like it was modeling clay under a knife, and she knew there was no one anywhere nearby so she could make as much noise as she wanted. It only took about fifteen minutes to excavate a path to the surface, and only that long because she didn't want to provoke another collapse. When she emerged through the floor under a pile of rubble at the far end of the warehouse from her normal access hole, she brushed gravel and dust off herself and looked around with satisfaction.
"Perfect," she exclaimed in triumph. "My own subway right from home to the experimental test area of danger and cool shit. I wonder if I can dig right into the basement?"
It was a thought. One she'd have to run past her dad, because he wouldn't be pleased if she dropped the house into a huge underground hole…
Switching to her second favorite Changer form after the giant hornet, she moved on eight legs across to her improvised bench and got to work. There was science to be done.
Or at least whatever it was she was doing. Science was a good enough description for now. She was even writing the results down! And that was the generally accepted difference between science and just fucking around, after all.
Grinning to herself, Taylor scanned her list of ideas, picked one, and began confusing the hell out of her power once more.
Several hours of enormous fun and a few explosions later, she suddenly stopped in her tracks, the memory that had lain in the back of her mind since she woke randomly bubbling to the surface. She smacked her forehead with an armored hand, producing a loud click. "That's where I remembered him from! Damn it, I knew I'd seen that guy before." Picking up her notebook she flipped to a blank page and wrote 'Commander something? PRT press announcement when Clockblocker joined the Wards. Look up video on internet. Was in background behind Director.' Pleased that she'd finally recalled something that had been irritating her for days, she turned the page back to the progress of her current tests, put the notebook down, and picked up the coil of absurdly thick and strong spider silk she'd made. And so far found no way to break or even cut with anything remotely approaching a normal tool. The completely destroyed pair of bolt cutters on the bench next to her notebook were a good demonstration of this.
The stuff would definitely come in handy, she suspected, returning to the immediate issues and leaving the mystery of the PRT guy playing at being a super villain for later.
Although she was definitely intrigued, and fully intended to follow up on the guy...