Demons and Angels

[Derek M]

When Sophia Hess got powers, she wasn't sure how her life would change. She certainly wasn't expecting it to get as weird as it did, but then things tend to happen when there are lizards in the vicinity.

This thread is for a sequel/side-story to my story Ship of Fools. I am attempting to write it in such a way that you don't have to have read it to understand what's happening. I highly recommend you do, of course. I also recommend the story Taylor Varga, the original story by mp3.1415player. Ship of Fools is technically an omake of that story...though it is rather long for an omake at 340,000 words.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 1: A New Day

January 11, 2011, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire

"You're late, Hess."

Sophia cringed. That voice was the last one she wanted to hear right now, but she had been expecting and dreading it since she arrived at school. She supposed it was easier for her bully to just wait near her locker than it was to catch her at the entrance. "I don't have it, Taylor, but I can pay double next time."

The tall brunette glared at her. She and her crew were surrounding Sophia in a half-circle, making it impossible for her to get away. The red-headed girl next to Taylor popped a bubble from her chewing gum and rolled her eyes. "Shit, Tay, Hess here is so poor she can't even afford twenty." Sophia glared at the bitch, Emma. She thought she was special just because her dad was a divorce lawyer and she was best friends with Boss Hebert's kid.

Hebert smirked at the red-head's comment, then said, "Are you asking for charity, Hess? Do you need help from your betters?"

Sophia felt a sadly familiar indignant rage starting to build, but she viciously pushed it down. "You're not better than me, Hebert," she said with a scowl.

The other girl moved quickly, stepping up and into Sophia's space. "You want to bet?" The two girls glared at each other from inches away for a solid thirty seconds. Then Hebert took a step back and said, "It sets a bad precedent if I let you slide a week. How are you going to make it up to me?"

Sophia's frown deepened. What was Hebert fishing for? To her shame, she paid her protection money. Her father's job was dependent upon staying in Danny Hebert's good graces. More importantly, without the protection of the DWU, the PRT, or one of the other gangs, being black in the same city as the E88 was bad news. The gangs knew who was protected and who wasn't. The gang recruits at Winslow High were supposed to follow the same rules, but it was up to Taylor and her crew to enforce that for DWU dependents. So, she paid when Taylor came calling, even if she hated it. It seemed like the girl wanted something else, now, though, and was using her inability to pay as an excuse. "What do you mean?"

Taylor stared at her for a few moments. "You know Richie Washington has the hots for you?"

The black girl's expression turned confused. "So?"

"So, if somebody was to get close to him, she could learn all kinds of things," said Hebert.

Sophia's control over her rage slipped a bit. "He's a fucking Merchant!" That meant he was destined for the gutter, even if he was one of the more clear-headed stoners in school at the moment.

"Duh!" said Emma. "Why do you thinks she wants you to get close to him?"

Now it made a sick kind of sense. Sophia knew that the DWU had an understanding with the Empire, but the Archer's Bridge Merchants also had a presence in the Docks, and relations with them weren't nearly so good. Richie Washington was the number two Merchant at Winslow. Hebert was probably hoping to learn something to help her father. In a tight voice, she said, "I'm not going to whore myself out to a Merchant just to spy for you, Hebert."

With a mean-spirited smile, Madison, one of Taylor's more sycophantic hangers-on, asked, "What do you whore yourself out for?"

With a sneer and an aggressive glare, Hess returned, "Nothing you could provide, Clements." To her inner satisfaction (and slight confusion), the short girl flinched.

That seemed to anger Taylor, though. "You owe me, Hess."

"I told you, I'll pay you next week," she growled.

"Not good enough!" said Taylor. The girl looked like she might be about to get physical, but if so that would be new. Sophia ran track and was in pretty good shape, which made her a harder target than average. Hebert looked like she had muscle, though, and she also had a height advantage.

Before things could come to blows, Madison said, "Maybe you should tell Mike that he has a free shot at her little brother?"

Sophia saw red. Mike Chilton was the head of the E88 at Winslow. He was a vicious son-of-a-bitch, which was why he was number one despite only being in junior year. The seniors had all learned to defer to him. If he got the nod to take a free swipe at her brother Aaron, then he would take it, and he wouldn't care that the kid was still in junior high. "Don't you fucking dare!"

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Emma before Taylor could respond. The thin girl had seemed a little caught off guard by Madison's suggestion.

Desperate for some way to protect her brother, Sophia said, "Does your father know you're threatening the families of union members, Hebert? What would he say if somebody told him about it?" The man was known to have a violent temper, and she wouldn't be surprised if his family had felt the brunt of it.

Taylor's eyes widened, then narrowed again. Quietly, she said, "You need to learn to keep your mouth shut."

Sophia could see the punch coming, but somehow she wasn't able to dodge out of the way in time. She felt the blow strike the side of her head, dazing her. She tried to slide sideways, out of the path of the expected follow-up blow, but her opponent still managed to nail her hard in the stomach. The blow knocked the wind out of her. Taylor then charged forward, slamming her against the inside of the open locker door, the locking mechanism digging into her side. There was a brief pause in the blows, during which Sophia tried to wheeze in a breath. She could then feel Hebert grab her, dragging her over a few inches. She felt a shove, and then the door of the locker slammed, catching one of her wrists where it was still hanging out. She gave a started scream, and then her hand was pushed inside and the door was slammed shut. The light grew dim, limited only to the thin rays coming through the door vents. Sophia kicked back against the door, and yelled, "Let me out of here you fucking bitch! Ahh!" The only response was cruel laughter from the crowd of girls outside.

She continued to kick back against the locker door, using her frustration and anger as fuel to keep hammering. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably less than five minutes, she paused, breathing heavy. It was then that she heard Hebert's voice coming through the door. "You need to remember who's in charge at Winslow, Hess. You're weak. Enjoy your time locked up. I'll be sure to let somebody know to let you out before I go home for the day." This was accompanied by more laughter, though it was clear that people were already moving away from the sound.

After a few more half-powered kicks, she slumped down (as much as was possible in the locker), and tried to think. Her first thought was that Hebert was a much better fighter than she expected. Maybe her father got some of the union members to teach her? Her second thought was that the staff at Winslow were all pretty much worthless. Hopefully somebody would come looking for her when she didn't show up to class? Yeah, and maybe fucking Alexandria would break through the ceiling and tear the door off of her locker while the other members of the Triumvirate tracked down and arrested Hebert and her crew. Her parents would notice when she didn't come home, but that meant at least six hours trapped here unless she got lucky. Thank God she wasn't claustrophobic. It was at that moment that she felt something crawling on the skin of her ankle. She stifled another scream, not wanting to give anybody the satisfaction if they were still listening, and tried to use one ankle to brush whatever bug was there. Just her luck to get stuck inside with a roach, or whatever the hell it was.

She froze when she felt something else crawling on the skin of her arm, then gave a short yell when something actually bit her. What the fuck? Was her locker infested or something? She didn't keep food or anything inside it, so...ouch! THAT one hurt. Sophia started to panic as she felt more and more creepy crawlies of some kind on her skin. She began banging with her foot against the door again. "Hey! Somebody! Let me out of here! There's bugs in here! Help, anybody!" It was like she had fallen into an ant hive or something. She started thrashing more, bruising her skin against the inside of the locker. Her head slammed back, dazing her, when she felt something crawling on her face. Tears started to fall, and she kept repeating over and oven, "Please, somebody, please...help me..."

Sophia Hess's vision began to waver, and then there was a vision. She saw stars, and some kind of vast creature, which was dropping bits of bright light down onto a planet below. The memory of the vision was already starting to fade as she lost consciousness.

[CONNECTION]

Down the hall, Taylor was smirking at the sound of Hess thrashing around in her locker. To think that the fucking cunt would threaten to go to her father! She deliberately wasn't thinking about what his likely reaction would be if he thought she was going against his orders that union members and their families were off limits. Ten minutes with her bugs would teach her a lesson. Of course, she wouldn't leave them there long. She wasn't trying to kill the girl, after all, and she couldn't afford to leave evidence that would let the PRT draw the right conclusions. Suddenly, her vision blurred and she passed out.

She woke up to Emma frantically shaking her. "Taylor, are you OK? Please wake up!" The rest of her crew were standing around nervously.

"I'm awake...stop shaking me," she grumbled, pushing her best friend's hands away. "Jesus."

"What happened?" asked Julia.

Taylor shook her head as she sat up. "I don't know...I just felt light-headed. I'm fine now." She began dispersing her swarm, telling the bugs in the locker to go away.

Emma still looked concerned. "We should take you to the school nurse."

"I said I'm fine," she repeated, though her focus was elsewhere.

Madison put a hand on her arm. "Better safe than sorry, Taylor. You were out for almost a full minute."

Grudgingly, Taylor nodded her head and let her friends lead her to the nurse. The whole walk, she wondered why the hell Sophia Hess was no longer locked in her locker.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A dark-haired woman was sitting in the newspaper archives of the Brockton Bay Public Library, reading through the events of the recent and not-so-recent past. She had a relatively conservative blouse in bright blue on top of blue leather pants, an outfit that was a little too cold for the weather outside. Any observer would think she was simply skimming the headlines if they noticed the speed with which she was flipping microfiche pages. She would pause to look at a displayed page, letting her specialized contact lenses scan the information. When it was done, it would flash a light in her peripheral vision, and she would advance the page. She was averaging about a page every two to three seconds, and was keeping herself amused by actually scanning the headlines. Unfortunately, there were still a number of local periodicals that didn't have online archives, which meant that somebody had to manually scan them to get a full picture of recent events...or at least events as reported in the media.

A thin, fit man with short brown hair came up behind her. "Are you almost done, love?" he asked in a soft Received Pronunciation accent.

"Almost," she replied as she continued the regular flipping. "This is the last of the Brockton Bay Gazette." Her accent was hard to place. It was somewhat reminiscent of people who relocated frequently as a child and picked up a plethora of regional speech patterns. "Are you done with your list?"

"I am, though the library layout was odd," he replied.

She finished her review and shut down the microfiche reader. As she started to pull the reel out of the machine to return it to the box, she asked, "How so?"

He grimaced. "While this world looks a lot like the ones we know, there's something off. A lot of the military theory is shelved under philosophy, for example. They also don't have a horror section. I had to find Stephen King in the children's section."

The woman got up and walked the boxed reel over to the shelf, taking care to place it in the correct spot rather than just leaving it in the reshelf cart. "Is that not appropriate for children?"

He shook his head. "I might have thought so when I was a vampire, but generally not." He gestured to what was obviously the entrance to a broom closet. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a slightly saucy smirk, but proceeded inside. The man followed her inside and closed the door. Out loud, he said, "We're ready to leave, Sammy."

There was a brief flash of light visible from under the door, and then the closet was empty.

The two appeared on a transport platform facing a glowing hologram of a silver-haired teddy bear, the floating avatar of their starship's artificial intelligence. "Welcome back, William, Vala. I've processed the information you sent back, if you'd like to join the others in the conference room."

The raven-haired woman, Vala, grinned at the avatar. "Thank you, Sammy."

The two began walking down the corridor of the starship Smug Advocacy, the flagship of the powerful beings known simply as the Family. The corridor was painted a soft pastel blue with gray stripes breaking up the straight lines. The floor was a dark gray rubber-like substance. For a starship, it was an oddly aesthetically pleasing combination. The whole ship was actually quite comfortable, which was convenient, as it was the home base of the Angels, the group whose members included both of them as well as a variety of other displaced outcasts from all of creation.

"Do you think we'll have leave time while we're around this Earth," asked Vala idly. "Your world does have some interesting shopping."

William smirked. "Not really my world, is it? We didn't have nutters running around in tights beating up criminals with superpowers."

She laughed at his comment. "No, you had demons from hell wandering around. Not exactly an improvement if you ask me."

William Pratt had spent centuries as the vampire known as William the Bloody, also called Spike thanks to his propensity for using railroad spikes to torture his victims. For most of that time, he was a bloodthirsty monster, albeit a slightly atypical one with an above-average number of humanizing habits. He had finally fought to regain his mortal soul, and had then sacrificed himself to close a gateway to Hell. The Family had retrieved an artifact from an evil law firm that happened to contain said soul, and a Family bioshaper had built him a new and improved human body. This was, in his admittedly limited experience, somewhat typical of them. Now he contributed what he could to the Angels -- skill at fisticuffs, an in-depth knowledge of the mystical, occult and ill-omened, a desire to do good, and the education of a 19th-century gentleman. The last was being supplemented by independent study using resources from a variety of realities, including a few that were far in advance of his home Earth.

He took his companion's teasing as well-intentioned. Vala Mal Doran knew what it was like to have a demon inside. She hadn't been born on Earth, instead growing up on one of the many human worlds in her home universe. She was a thief, a con artist, and a treasure hunter who had fallen afoul of an alien parasite that took over her body. That species of parasite, known as the Goa'uld, had used human hosts to create an interstellar empire...an empire of slaves that they used to satisfy their egos, perversions and sadistic whims. Being a host left you aware of every atrocity committed, but without any agency to prevent them. She had been rescued when the Family had taken exception to the existence of the Goa'uld. She retained some of her Goa'uld's lore and knowledge of high technology, as well as her original streetwise savvy and skills at breaking and entering.

The couple came to a well-appointed conference room that already had a number of occupants, human and otherwise. The avatar of the ship's AI was at one end of the table, waiting for them to arrive. On the side closest to the door sat a statuesque blonde woman named Annika Hansen, though she also answered to, "Seven." She still had visible implants from her time as a member of a collective cybernetic species. The Family had offered her a job when it became clear that her home culture would forever be suspicious of her motives after she was freed from the collective. At the table on the other side sat three more people. Anya Harris was a now-human former Vengeance Demon with a penchant for capitalism and skill as a witch. Faith Lehane was a Vampire Slayer, a mystically-empowered warrior chosen by powers in another plane of reality. The third was a relative newcomer, a large man named Flint Marko. A friend of the Family had sent him to them to find a cure for his daughter's illness. Marko had been a supervillain on his home world, but mostly that had been to pay for his child's medical care. With that no longer necessary, he had joined the Angels. The man was a shapeshifter and a silica kinetic, and was slowly integrating himself into the team.

At the end of the table opposite from Sammy's avatar sat a large, reptilian being. She had pitch black scales edged with red highlights that were visible from the right angle. She could also hide them and fade into the darkness like a shadow. As a natural quadruped, she was sitting on her tail in lieu of a chair and using her front legs to review a digital tablet, her claws operating the controls easily. This was Metis of the Family, sponsor of their band of adventurers, investigators and miscreants. She looked over at William and Vala as they came in with a terrifyingly toothy smile. "Welcome back," she said with a slight sibilance. "I take it you found everything?"

"They did," answered Sammy before either of the two could respond. "The information supplemented what was available online, and it paints a rather disturbing and confusing picture."

Metis quirked a brow-ridge. "This world is more than just an evil mirror. How so?"

Sammy frowned. "We came here because the quantum signature of this reality showed a familiar resonance with that of the Skitter-verse. It was familiar because it was similar to the relationship between the realities of the Federation Starfleet and the Terran Empire." The Family had met a Starfleet officer name Miles O'Brien, and had, in the process of bringing him home, discovered that his reality was being forced into contact with what could best be described as an, "evil mirror universe," where the inhabitants of one were mirror images in temperament and morality of their duplicates in the other. It had been thought that this forced contact was the cause of the two realities' strange reflection...but that had changed with their discovery of their current reality. It was a mirror of another superhero universe, one containing a girl named Taylor Hebert who had the power to control insects, and who went by the name Skitter in costume. This reality and that one, however, didn't have similar circumstances to those of Starfleet and the Empire. In the latter case, the dimensions had been forced together as part of an attack by an external threat. No such factor was obvious here. They were here to try and see if they could discern what the true cause of the strange similarities and apparent moral inversion was.

"While there are many examples of duplicates of people in Skitter's universe, the overall circumstances are different in ways that are hard to explain," continued the avatar. "The most intriguing points have to do with Scion and the Endbringers. Unlike in Skitter's universe, the Endbringers do not attack and destroy cities on a regular interval. They appear, on average, once a year, and have hit fewer targets. As an example, while Kyushu in Japan of this Earth was sunk by the Endbringer Leviathan, the island of Newfoundland is still intact and above sea level. Scion, the being we know to be behind human superpowers in this reality, exists, but his pattern of behavior is very different. While, 'the golden man,' in the other known versions of Brockton Bay seemed to wander at random, doing heroic deeds of wildly varying import, the one in this universe is seen far more infrequently, and always appears during a great crisis or major disaster."

"Wait," interrupted Marko. "You're saying this powerful hero just helped out based on what, the weather?"

Metis nodded. "Something like that. He was effectively an idiot savant who was literally following the advice of a random homeless man. He could stop a forest fire one day, then spend the next day doing nothing but rescuing cats stuck in trees."

"He is not so random here. There are also a number of powerful people lacking doubles in this reality. The Triumvirate here includes Legend, Alexandria and Hero. My first assumption, that the villain Siberian had killed Eidolon instead of Hero in this reality, proved to be incorrect. Eidolon apparently never existed. There is also no evidence that the supervillain Marquis ever had a daughter, so the healer Panacea also does not exist," said Sammy.

That news seemed to visibly discomfit Metis. Panacea, civilian name Amy Dallon, was a close friend of the Family in the version of Brockton Bay where they first revealed themselves to humanity. Instead of commenting on that, Metis said, "Does Dragon exist?" Dragon was an artificial intelligence, one whose "father" perished when the city-killing Leviathan destroyed Newfoundland in the Family's home reality.

Now it was Sammy's turn to look mildly upset. "I can find no evidence that Mother ever existed in this reality. The Baumann Parahuman Containment Center also does not exist, and perhaps as a consequence of that, kill orders for the most dangerous villains are far more common." Dragon was the warden for the most secure prison ever devised for dangerous parahumans, except that it was never constructed in this reality.

"Kill orders?" asked Flint. In his world, heroes, with a few well-known exceptions like Frank Castle, almost never killed their enemies.

"Despite the close parallels with Skitter's world, there is much here that is...perhaps the best term is, 'darker,' than there," explained the AI. "There are numerous examples in recorded history. In the United States, for example, the Declaration of Independence is very similar, but ascribes a natural right to, 'life, loyalty, and the pursuit of competence.' The Emancipation Proclamation rooted its justification in the concept that only the state had the right to control the freedom of its citizens. The second amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, but for the purposes of defending one's honor and promoting one's agenda."

William, who had taken a seat at the table, nodded his head and added, "That is very similar to some of the things I saw in the public library. Attitudes seemed harsher, and more fixated on usefulness and power. Some of the Dr. Seuss books were...disturbing."

"Some of the newspaper headlines seemed to make light of events that sounded unpleasant," said Vala. "It's like heroes and villains are almost expected to incur a significant amount of collateral damage in terms of lives and property."

"That is in line with the attitudes of the Terran Empire," commented Seven. "It is well documented that the Imperial Navy used extremely painful methods of discipline, and advancement through assassination was relatively common." The Borg Collective, the 'species' which had formerly assimilated her, had obtained a significant amount of data about the mirror universe from captured Federation vessels and personnel.

"So, does any of this bring us any closer to understanding why this mirror universe exists?" asked Anya. "That is why we came here, isn't it?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Metis replied, "Our best option here may be investigating the most obvious differences between this world and its mirror."

"If I may suggest something slightly selfish," said Sammy, "we could begin at the last known address of Andrew Richter in Newfoundland. It is likely the Endbringer targeted Newfoundland because he created Mother. Perhaps if he still lives, it is because he never gained his powers, or he may have different powers."

The Angels looked at each other. Nobody seemed to have any better suggestions.

"What's Canada like in this world?" asked Faith.

Sammy turned to look at the Slayer. "It is similar in many ways to your world, and also to Skitter's. The government-affiliated hero team is still the Guild, though this one is run by Narwhal and Hearthrob."

"Hearthrob?" questioned Metis.

Sammy nodded. "He is this world's version of Nikos Vasil, who was known on Skitter's world as Heartbreaker before his unusual disappearance."

"Does he have a goatee?" asked Vala with a smirk.

The AI turned a skeptical look on the woman. "There is no correlation between facial hair and morality, Vala. In any event, from his press pictures, he appears to have what is called a, 'soul patch.'"

"Definitely evil," claimed Faith, to a round of good-humored chuckles around the table.

Still smiling, Metis said, "I think we have a plan. Come up with an action plan we can review before tomorrow, and if everything looks good, then we can go ahead with the investigation."

With that, the meeting broke up, the participants heading to attend to their own matters elsewhere aboard the ship.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sophia woke up to find herself staring at a foam-board drop ceiling in a dimly lit classroom. She groaned quietly and pushed herself up to a sitting position. Running her hands over her arms, she could feel the welts from insect bites.

"What the fuck just happened?" she asked out loud.

Nobody answered her, not that she was expecting an answer. She began to slowly push herself up to her feet. Whatever had happened, she felt dazed and a little weak. Without thinking, she reached out for something to help support her weight, only to grab onto a heavy metal projection screen leaning against the wall. The bulky item tilted away from the wall at her tug and began to fall. She tried to back off, but stumbled and fell back onto her backside. She closed her eyes with a wince as she could see that it was going to catch her legs.

There was a loud clang, then a rattling crash. Surprisingly, there was no pain. She opened one eye to peek, wondering if she had gotten insanely lucky with the accident. What she saw caused her to open both eyes and stare. She raised her hand and looked at the transparent, shadowy form that took the place of her skin. The metal screen was lying on the floor, passing through her body. She backed up, scooting away from the fallen screen on her butt. When she was clear of it, she made an instinctive mental effort, and her body turned back to human flesh and blood.

"Huh."

Sophia had a sneaking suspicion that she was currently in the seldom-used classroom that was actually behind her locker. She must have turned to her shadowy form and fallen through the wall. Getting to her feet, she went over to the wall where she thought her locker was located. Another act of will had her arm turn to shadow...but just her arm. She reached through the wall, and felt around the bottom of the locker until she found the textbook she had dropped when that bitch had shoved her inside. Grabbing it, she was able to pull the now shadow-form book through the wall.

"Well...that's kind of cool."

She supposed she could make a living stealing shit from behind locked doors. Of course, the PRT would be after her. Her eyes widened as she realized that they would be after her regardless. The law said new parahumans were required to register. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be doing that. She had no desire to join the Wards, and if she registered without joining then the gangs would know about her before the end of the day. It was taken as simple fact that there were spies for all the gangs embedded in the local PRT offices. Everybody in Brockton Bay had heard about the Laborns. The son, Brian, had triggered, and had registered without joining the Wards. He, his father, and his sister had all been found murdered less than a week later. The walls were covered in pro-Nazi graffiti, but the jury was out on whether it was actually the E88 or another gang trying to blame them. The kid must have said, "no," one too many times.

The clock on the wall said it was a quarter past ten, which meant that she had been out for almost an hour. She had missed a class, which at Winslow wasn't that big a deal. The good news is that she was in the middle of a free period, which meant she had some time to figure out what to do. Her temptation was to cut for the rest of the day so she could figure out what her powers actually did, besides obviously turning her into some kind of shadow person. She wondered if she could see herself in a mirror when she was fully shifted? The problem with that was that she was supposed to be stuck in her own locker, and people might notice if she just disappeared. She didn't really feel like getting back in her locker and waiting for rescue, though. Apart from being uncomfortable and boring, the school also seemed to need to call an exterminator. She didn't like thinking about the ramifications for the cafeteria food. Even so, it wasn't like the quality would go down just because of a few bugs. It might even improve the nutrient content.

Was it possible to open a locker from the inside? They were supposed to keep people out, not in, right? Going back to the wall, she shifted back to her shadow state and looked at the inside of the locker door. The problem was that the inside of the locker was pretty dark, with the only light being from the air vents. Her ability to see in the dark seemed to be slightly improved when she was shadow, but not enough to figure out the mechanism for the door lock. Withdrawing back into the classroom, she wondered if it would be easier looking in a locker that was closer to the overhead light? She moved over a few feet, then shifted again and began pushing through the wall. She only made it a few inches before there was a sudden flaring pain, and she was knocked back into the room, and also back to her physical form. It felt like her nerves were on fire, and she couldn't control her limbs. After the better part of a minute, her twitching stopped. She muttered a slow, "Fuuuccckkk..." under her breath. A little more rest allowed her to sit up. She looked at the wall where she had tried to pass...and noticed the electrical socket just to the right of where she had tried to enter. She wasn't immune to electricity in her shadow? That would complicate things.

After a few more minutes of rest, she got up. Shifting her hand to shadow, she began to slowly press against the wall in the same area. After several attempts and a couple of comparatively minor shocks, she thought she could feel when she was too close to an electrical field. The technique required her to move slowly, however, so it wouldn't be very practical if she actually had to hurry. Doors and windows would probably be pretty safe, but walls would be risky, at least in buildings that had power. Of course, there were more than a few abandoned buildings in the Bay. She wondered for a second how she was figuring all of this out so quickly? Did her power include a thinker power, too? Nobody would say she was dumb (at least nobody but racist fucks whose opinions didn't matter), but she was mostly an average student. While that made her slightly above the Winslow average, it really wasn't anything to brag about. Thinking about it, she realized that, at least where her power was concerned, she had kind of an instinctive feel for what she could and couldn't do. The electricity had caught her by surprise because she hadn't considered the matter before. When she had more time, she was going to have to think about it carefully.

For now, she tried to find a locker that was near a hall light, but wasn't blocked by electrical lines. She finally found one, and also discovered that the actual locking mechanism for the locker door was a pretty simple mechanism that just blocked the bar connected to the door latch. The whole thing looked cheap, but the important thing is that it should be possible to open the door with a ruler pushing at the right spots. The tricky part was that it had to be done at both the top and the bottom of the locker to work. She could probably just do one and push the door out a bit, then work the other. She pulled back out from the other kid's locker. It was probably the locker of the stoner kid down the hall if the pervasive smell of weed was a clue. She could still smell in her shadow state, but it was slightly muted, almost like she was breathing through a mask.

There was a ruler in the teacher's desk in the classroom, and she had shortly phased back into her own locker. She reversed her facing, though, so that she could more easily work the lock. Hopefully, nobody would notice the discrepancy, assuming anybody was watching. It took her about ten minutes of fiddling with the lock to get the door open. Trying to undo the bottom first had been a mistake, because the door didn't have enough flex to keep the metal tab out of the locking slot. The top was able to push out, though, and then it was just a matter of putting enough force into it at the bottom. She finally popped the door open, and stumbled a bit as she half-fell out into the corridor. Looking around, she saw that there was a janitor down the hall cleaning up some kind of mess, but the man didn't even look up from his task. She noticed wires running up to his ears, so he may not have even heard her over whatever music was playing. Closing her locker door, she saw that the top edge wasn't flush anymore, and it was a little harder to get it to close. That probably wasn't a bad thing, as it suggested that she had forced her way out from the inside in a pretty concrete way.

She began heading toward the girl's restroom by the stairwell. Checking herself in the mirror and then heading to the cafeteria seemed like the best approach. She could worry about her powers later.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Flint checked the time and verified that it would be after school hours on Sineya station, even if it was just after lunch on board the Smug Advocacy. The ship's hours generally shifted to match their current ground-side location if they expected to be there for more than a few days as a matter of practicality. Of course, in space, the maintenance of day-night cycles was fairly arbitrary, and most of the crew needed only a limited amount of sleep thanks to Family biotech. Flint didn't have a Family symbiote, but his power had altered his biology rather dramatically, and he already hadn't needed to sleep more than a few hours a night. He made the call.

The image of the girl who answered the call changed from mild interest to excited happiness. "Daddy!"

A smile broke the normally stern visage of Flint's face when he saw his daughter. "Hey, girl! How was school today?"

"It was soo cool. We had an Asgard come in and explain how magic and physics interact with each other," she exclaimed, her voice rising and falling rapidly as she spoke.

He cocked his head to one side. "An Asgard? You mean like Thor?" Marko had met the thunder god on several occasions, and a couple of them had even been friendly...or at least not overtly hostile.

His daughter shook her head rapidly. "They're not like our Asgard. These are aliens that look a little like those gray aliens in that weird movie that we saw on cable."

At her words, a vague recollection came to him from the Angel "allies and enemies" briefing packet about a highly advanced race that looked like the kidnappers from Communion. "Huh. What was he like?"

"It was a girl alien," she corrected. "Her name was Idunn. She was nice, though I don't think her people show their emotions much. She knew a lot about science and magic, and Maggie's father is a wizard who uses magic that interferes with technology. He's got bracelets that stop that, and Idunn was really interested when she heard about that. She also talked about the Family a lot. She said she was the first member of her species to actually meet them, when they rescued her from being stuck in a damaged starship."

Flint smirked at that. From his interactions with Metis and the stories told by the others, it seemed like the lizards had a thing about saving people. Combined with their slightly odd sense of humor, they reminded the reformed villain of Spider-man, albeit with an underlying aura of menace that was more like Doom. Then again, he could also draw parallels to Doc Strange and the Fantastic Four. The Family were kind of like all the metas in New York crammed together in lizard-shaped packages. "That sounds fun. Is everything all right at Danielle's?" Danielle Faez was his daughter's best friend, and her parents were watching over her while Flint was out on assignment. The girl's parents were both researchers in the technomancy group, and neither of them did field work.

"They gave me the spare bedroom, because Danielle's bed is only a single, but we stayed up talking and I fell asleep next to her anyway. We had something they called manakish for dinner, and it was kind of like pizza." The girl stumbled a bit at the food name, obviously focusing on how to say it properly. "Did you know Danielle has a teddy bear that talks to her, but it isn't one of those mechanical ones like they have in the stores back home? Her mom said it has something called a, 'minor guardian spirit' inside. It's actually like a really smart dog."

He listened for a bit as his daughter chattered on about various things. Finally, he asked, "And how are you feeling? Any tingles? Pain?" His daughter had had a rare genetic disorder that had caused partial paralysis, and she had needed regular care to ensure that her breathing and heart rate stayed normal. The Family had healed her, but he was still worried about her.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Dad! I'm fine. When Ianthe heals people, they stay healed. That's what everybody says." The purple healer of the Family had a well-deserved reputation.

"I know, girl. Despite that, I'm going to be back in a few days and we're going to go to the doctors for a follow-up." He wasn't taking any chances with her.

His daughter wasn't happy to have to go for another checkup, but she also knew she wasn't going to be able to convince him that it wasn't necessary. That didn't stop her from making a half-hearted effort to do so. Finally, it was time to end the call. "All right, Mary, I have some things I have to lookup. You be good for Mister and Missus Faez."

"I will," she said sincerely. "I love you, daddy."

He gave her a wide smile in return. "Love you too, baby girl."

After the call ended, Flint began looking through the briefing packets for the various known versions of Brockton Bay, focusing on the specific individuals mentioned by Sammy and Metis during the meeting. He also flagged the overview article on the Asgard, curious about the alien that had come to speak to his daughter's class. The Angels had a lot of information available on a massive range of topics. Flint had never been one to spend a lot of time on planning and intelligence gathering, but that had mostly been due to a lack of available resources, not a lack of ability. Unlike some of his friends in the villain community, he hadn't seen being a villain as a viable long-term career. Crime had been more an act of desperation than anything else. Now that Mary was healthy and safe, he had options, and he was going to take advantage of those options for her sake, as well as his own.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The rest of school had been uneventful. Hebert had apparently had to go to the nurse for some reason, so she and her posse had been preoccupied for a long time. She hadn't seen her until late in the afternoon in last period. The girl had given her a piercing look right before the end of the day that was a little worrisome. Sophia had also been puzzled when she took a good look at her locker at the end of the day. The only sign of any insects had been the body of a single dead ant. The insect bites she remembered feeling had also seemed to disappear, which made her wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Had she had some kind of psychotic break and hallucinated the insects, which then caused her to trigger? It was all confusing, and she skipped her normal after-school workout to head home. The bus ride home was uneventful, but she hadn't come to any conclusions by the time the bus reached her stop and she got off.

Her mother and little brother were both home. Her mom worked slightly irregular hours as a hostess at a local restaurant, so it was always a tossup on whether she would be there. Her dad's work was slightly more regular, though it did vary based on what jobs the DWU was able to get. Today, he was going to be late. Both parents had to work to make ends meet. Luckily, the housing market in Brockton Bay was depressed along with the local economy, so they almost always had enough money to cover rent and necessities. Sophia knew there were kids at Winslow who had it a lot worse. Of course, there were also those who were better off, like Taylor's friend Emma. It was hard not to be a little envious of the girl, who took every opportunity to brag about her wardrobe and her occasional modeling shoots. You would think she was the next cover-girl the way she talked, though in reality most of her work had been minor teen fashion gigs. Sophia hadn't seen any of her pictures. They weren't the kind of magazines she read, preferring the Women's Sport version of Sports Illustrated and Vibe, though she did read her mother's copies of Essence occasionally. She doubted that the pale-skinned redhead would be doing much modeling for black publications like that, anyway. The local Bay Teen was available for free, but the local rag didn't have the money to pay for professional photography sessions.

"Hey, squirt," she greeted her brother as she came into the family kitchen. He scowled a little at the nickname, but just said, "Hey," in response, not bothering to look up from his homework.

"Is that you, Sophia?" came their mother's voice from the living room.

She went to the refrigerator to get a glass of juice while calling out, "Yeah, Mom, I'm home."

As she was downing the glass of orange juice, her mother poked her head into the kitchen. "You skip the gym today, honey?"

"Yeah, I didn't feel like going," she said, hoping her mother wouldn't press. That hope was futile.

Her mother gave her a skeptical look. "Did something happen?"

Sophia frowned. She hadn't told her mother about her issues with Hebert. Her mom knew that the girl's dad had a lot of power at the union, and she didn't want to worry her. "I just had a run-in with another girl at school today. It wasn't anything serious."

"Was it gang-related?" asked her mother. That was a common assumption, and unfortunately one that couldn't be dismissed easily, as Winslow was a hotbed for gang activity. While the Empire was the worst, getting the attention of any of the gangs was a bad idea, and her parents were both afraid that either Sophia or Aaron would end up mixed up with them somehow, either as members or victims.

Putting the plastic glass in the sink, the teen shook her head and said, "No, just a white girl bragging about her money." That was close to the truth without actually being true.

"Sophia?" said her mother suspiciously. The woman looked tired, but she was a little too sharp to accept that non-answer.

Sophia sighed. "It was nothing. It wasn't a gang thing." Technically, this was true, as the DWU wasn't really a gang, and Hebert's clique didn't count. "Just somebody got up in my face, and I got angry."

Her mother looked her up and down, probably looking for clues. "Were you fighting?"

"No!" she replied, rolling her eyes. Why couldn't her mother ever just take her word on stuff like this?

Of course, that led to having to listen to ten minutes of her mother expressing her concerns and asking her for additional details, but eventually she was able to convince her that nothing serious had happened. Her mother finally let it go with a sigh and a muttered comment about teen-aged drama, like it was Sophia's fault that some girl was a bitch to her.

The rest of the evening passed with Sophia doing what little homework she had while her mother and brother watched television. There was some kind of blooper show playing that had them both laughing, but she was too preoccupied by what had happened earlier to pay much attention. After her mother and brother both went to bed, she was still up, scrolling through her phone. Mostly, she was just reading the PHO forums, looking for some kind of insight or epiphany that didn't come. Her father got home around ten. He saw that she was still up, and nodded to her as he went through and into the kitchen. He came back with a beer and settled down into the recliner, the seat creaking a little under his large frame. "How was school today?" he asked in his deep baritone.

She thought about her day, and her inability to come to any conclusions. Looking at her dad, who looked exhausted but genuinely interested, she came to a decision. "Something happened today."

"Something bad?" While her father could get angry, and she had seen it before, he generally had to work that up from a slow burn, and he wasn't as quick to jump to conclusions or suspicions as her mother.

She sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot today. "It could be," she replied.

His lip twitched into a slight frown. "Anything I can help with?" he asked simply.

"I hope so," she replied. She raised up her hand, and let the hand up to the wrist fade into shadow mode. "Dad, I'm a cape."

His eyes widened slightly comically, and she might have giggled under other circumstances. After a moment, he said, "Well...that's a hell of a thing. How did that happen?"

It was pretty late when they finally went to bed, but Sophia was at least able to sleep well. They still had a lot to talk about, but her dad had her back, and that meant a lot.

 

[Derek M]

Author notes related to Ship of Fools and Demons and Angels:

I had no intent to write anything so lengthy when I came up with the Ship of Fools premise. Hell, it didn't even have its own thread until I realized that there was more story that wanted to be told. (I'm very much of the writing philosophy of letting the characters and situation drive their own story forward. I plan out plots and scenes that I want, but I certainly would be lying if I said that my characters always agreed with me.)

Ship of Fools was an attempt to play around with some of the characters from different fictional universes that I always felt got a bum rap. Taylor Hebert is pretty much the poster child for that. Who better than the demon lizards from the depths to make things work out better for them? I love the original concept that mp3.1415player came up with. Who knew that taking a short-run anime featuring magical Godzilla and mixing it with the crapsack world of Brockton Bay would work so well? In many ways, I tried to mirror the slice-of-life style of Taylor Varga, but I had a very definite end game in mind that I knew could be told in a fairly limited period of time (which turned out to be about a year, which was a smidgen longer than expected...but it seems to have worked).

So, where do you go from there? Well, I could develop my own story based on a different concept. Arguably, that would be more original (although any follower of TV Tropes knows that most stories are just recycled parts plugged together in ways that the author hopes are unique and interesting). On the other hand, I put all this work into building a framework that literally could be used to tell almost any story. What appealed to me was taking some characters who were pretty much stereotypical bad guys (and now I have images of Sophia Hess and Tom Riddle singing Billie Eilish) and fleshing them out into people who aren't shoehorned into the role of psychotic villain by fate and circumstance.

As for what I expect from the first take, Demons and Angels, I expect there to be slightly less lizard. (Go ahead and get the booing out of the way.) Yes, of course they will play a role. There will still be out-of-the-box weirdness, trolling, and the occasional deus ex lizardia. The lizards, however, have taken it upon themselves to empower a bunch of other interesting characters, many of whom have really interesting back stories (or at least character concepts). I expect more of the story to be character- rather than scene-driven. Having said that, I do have what I think are some pretty cool things in mind. Hopefully, folks will bear with me, especially those who remember my chapter The Dark Side where I poked fun at the "turn for the worse" concept by introducing a whole bunch of villains, many of whom where then promptly steam-rollered by the scaly protagonists.

One risk I want to acknowledge up front is that I'm a middle-aged white dude writing a story where one of the protagonists is a black teen-aged girl. I only ask that people be patient with me when I inevitably get it wrong (hopefully just a little) and chalk it up to alternate universe. I can't ignore all of the sensitive topics -- she lives in a freaking city where a major street gang are self-avowed neo-Nazis, for heaven's sake. I don't intend to try to speak for people in situations like that of Sophia Hess. My only goal is to create a plausible character to the best of my admittedly limited ability. I'm also not trying to push an agenda, if that was anybody's concern.

Why did I pick Sophia then, instead of Tom? Mostly, it was a matter of timing. You see, the logical point to start telling a story about mirror Sophia is the same time frame as Taylor Varga and Worm. It makes it easy to compare/contrast the experiences. With Tom Riddle, the logical point is in a generation prior to that of Harry, Ron and Hermione. There is relatively more work to do in terms of review and research to make a plausible tale there, even though I think it would be an interesting one. Most of the early info about the pre-Harry years comes from Rowling's supplemental writings and the Fantastic Beasts films (none of which I've seen). So, a fast follow made Brockton Bay the logical choice for now.

One final note. There are some sequel hooks I deliberately left out, including the role of the missing Heartbreaker/Ba'al, and I have not forgotten them. I have plans. Assuming I don't screw the pooch with Demons and Angels, we will hopefully get to see some of them.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 2: Daughters

January 12, 2011, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire

The next morning, Sophia found her father waiting for her in the living room. "I thought you had to work today?" she asked.

He nodded his head, then replied, "I took a sick day...told them you were sick with something. It's fine. I have a bunch of sick days saved up. Jerry isn't going to have an issue with it." Jerry was her father's immediate supervisor, and a fairly decent man. "I wanted to spend some time with you today."

"I'm not going to school?" On one hand, she was fine with that. Cutting school with parental permission was all good. On the other hand, she wondered if Taylor and her crew would think she was hiding from them?

"We need to talk about what happened...and find out what we can about your power and what you want to do about it." He said it matter-of-factly, as if gaining powers was an everyday thing.

Sophia gave him a look. "What do you mean, what I want to do about it?"

Before her father could answer, her brother Aaron came down the stairs of the townhouse. "Do about what?" he asked.

"The science project she was supposed to have done by tomorrow," interjected her father before she could respond. "She needs to keep her grades up."

Aaron paused before the last step and looked at their father, slightly puzzled, but then gave a mental shrug. Their parents were stern enough about their grades that it wasn't that odd a thing to hear. With a smirk, he said quietly to her out of the side of his mouth as he walked past her, "Sucks to be you." He stepped quickly to dodge the almost reflexive punch she sent at his arm.

"Sophia, you better go get dressed so we can do what we need to before you go to school." The knowing look on his face clued her in to play along.

She went to take a quick shower and get dressed, rushing through everything except brushing her teeth -- she had no desire to experience another visit to the dentist and his drill. Still, by the time she was back downstairs, her brother was already out the door and on the way to the bus. Her dad was finishing up a cup of coffee. The man took it black, which both Sophia and her mother thought was an exercise in masochism. Setting down the cup, he asked, "Are you ready?"

She nodded, but asked, "Ready for what, exactly?"

Her father grinned. "I know an empty warehouse not too far away that doesn't have any squatters in it. The first step to figuring out what to do, as I see it, is to figure out what you can do. Let's go spar."

Sophia showed an honest smile. Her dad had taught her to fight, using a mix of traditional boxing, street fighting and close-quarters combat training from his time in the service. He didn't have a lot of extra time to spend with her, though, and that had been especially true over the last few years. It would be nice to spar again, and she was looking forward to seeing what her powers could do. David Hess was a tall man who had reach on Sophia, and she found it hard to score hits on the man without taking punishment in return. Now though...well, things might be different.

It took the two of them about fifteen minutes to walk to the warehouse deeper in the docks. The weather wasn't too cold for New Hampshire in January, but the day was overcast and an uncomfortable mist hung in the air and clung to skin and clothes equally. It was still early, so the streets were mostly empty, barring a few random homeless people huddled together for warmth. They didn't talk much to each other as they walked, as you could never tell who was an informant, either for the gangs, the government, the union, or some other power block. Saying the wrong thing accidentally could cause problems. The building itself was mostly locked up, but one of the side doors had a lock that was jammed open permanently. The inside was covered in dust, though it was clear that other people had been inside at some point, as a lot of the left-over junk inside had clearly been disturbed. The place didn't look like a druggie hangout, so it was possibly people hunting for salvage, or even tinker parts. Her father set a heavy barrel in front of the door to make sure they wouldn't be interrupted. He also dragged a couple of crates aside to create a clear space in front of one of the back offices. Then he moved into the center and got in a ready stance. With a smirk, he asked, "Well?"

Sophia shrugged off her jacket and tossed it on a dusty chair, then moved toward her father and stopped when she was just out of reach. With a nod to her father, she moved in, throwing a few jabs. He blocked with a grin. The first few minutes were just to warm up and get back into the rhythm of sparring. When they were both comfortable, her father paused and said, "All right, let's see what you can do." He moved in and threw a serious punch at her shoulder, which she dodged with a step back. He neatly avoided her attempt to counter-strike with her off hand, and batted away a weak attempt at a kick. Sophia frowned, feeling out of practice. She backed off, letting her father throw a series of jabs, and blocking the one serious punch with a deflection that still made her wince. "You're a little slow today," he commented.

She lowered her hands, thinking about it. There was a buzzing feeling at the back of her head that was a constant distraction. "I think..." she started, then paused. "I think my power is trying to tell me something?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Like what?"

"Like it wants to be used, but I'm not sure how."

"Maybe you're over-thinking it? I've heard people say that powers are supposed to be instinctual," he suggested.

Sophia frowned. "I don't know. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work."

Her dad looked at her, thinking. "Do you remember the exercises we used to do when you were first starting to learn how to fight?"

Puzzled, she replied, "Sure. Jab, jab, dodge, step. Just gettin' used to the moves. I'm better than that now, though."

He chuckled a bit. "I know that, sweetheart, but trust me on this. Let's practice those exercises again."

With a shrug, she stepped up and began the pattern. It was pretty easy to get back into the rhythm, and they were soon moving back and forth easily. It wasn't hard to let herself slide into thinking about the situation at school with Hebert and the others while her body just went through the motions. She wasn't sure how skipping school was going to be taken. Would Hebert think she was hiding from her? Would it make her more likely to start something? Sophia had been startled at how good the other girl was at fighting. Taylor Hebert fought like she could anticipate exactly what you were going to do, and she punished you for it. Honestly, she was a little jealous of the bitch. She had spent years practicing with her dad, even if that had tapered off lately in frequency. She wasn't a complete newbie to fighting, but the other girl had taken her apart like one.

It was when Sophia was completely zoned out and focused on her inner turmoil that her dad suddenly changed up the regular pattern. He took a swing -- one that looked like it was an actual attempt to hurt her -- at her head in the middle of a step move. Without thinking, Sophia phased into shadow state and let the punch go through where her head was. Her father, thrown off balance by the lack of expected resistance, stumbled forward. She instinctively stepped forward, gave him a kick to his instep, and jabbed him in the kidney. While it hadn't been a full-force strike, he quickly backed off with a grin. "THAT'S what I was waiting for!" he exclaimed. "You stopped thinking about it, and your power kicked in when it needed to."

That was a moment of realization for Sophia. After that, the sparring went differently. Her father was an experienced brawler, but with her power, she was finding it much easier to hold her own against him. It let her use his own expectations and muscle memory against him in interesting ways, and her power seemed to prompt her, and often activated at exactly the right time. Powers were bullshit, which was demonstrated by how an inexperienced cape was able to pair off against an experienced fighter at a rough level of parity. She knew that if he was honestly trying to hurt her, he would be fighting dirty, and she wouldn't count on being able to beat him. Nevertheless, the experience gave her an unfamiliar thrill and increased her confidence by quite a lot. Just when she was starting to feel a little invincible, he timed a blow to trigger her power, then swept her leg right when she re-materialized, knocking her to the floor.

"You want to be careful. Don't get too cocky. Your power gives you a big advantage, but it doesn't mean a smarter fighter can't take you down," he chastised. His words weren't harsh, though, and he reached down to help her back to her feet.

She grimaced, but nodded. It would be way too easy to get overconfident. That was what had happened at school yesterday. She had expected to be able to hold her own in a fight, and had gotten her ass handed to her. Her power might shift the balance by a lot, but it was a lesson worth remembering.

After another quarter hour of sparring, her father called a halt. "All right, I think you're getting the hang of using your shadow moves in a fight. What else does your power let you do?"

Panting a bit, she considered the question. "I can phase through walls. I have a problem with electricity, though." She explained what had happened at school with the electrical socket.

"You touched a live wire and it stunned you and knocked you back?" She nodded in response. "That's actually better than it could be. If I touched an active socket, my muscles would lock up while the electricity grounded through me. I saw it happen once with a guy at a work site who was too stupid to shut off the power before trying to move a wall socket. Speaking of that...you're probably going to want to learn how to shut off the power in buildings before getting in a fight."

"How do I do that?"

That question led to a surprisingly well-informed lecture on how buildings were generally wired to code. She learned about fuse boxes and power mains, and what she could do to shut things down temporarily or permanently. She also learned about situations when current might still be flowing even if the building power was out. Emergency lights were a thing, as were backup generators, uninterruptible power supplies, and less frequently, tinker tech. Her dad had worked plenty of construction sites and had picked up a lot, even if he wasn't a licensed electrician. As he put it, "Electricity is something you don't fuck with."

They found the fuse box for the warehouse and he showed her how to pull the industrial fuses, and after that she learned that when she was in her shadow state, she was pretty much invisible in the dark. She blended into shadows like a ghost. Her father's advice was, "You want to use that. Stay hidden. Strike from the shadows. You're still smaller and lighter than most men, so you want to stalk your prey like a cat." She kind of liked that analogy. An image flashed through her mind of a black panther stalking through the jungle, hunting for a meal. They spent the better part of an hour playing hide and seek. Even in her shadow state, she was still visible as a silhouette if she was backed by a light source. Her dad worked with her to figure out how visible she was based on the circumstances. Sophia learned that it was easier to judge light levels when she wasn't in shadow. Her senses of hearing and smell were slightly muted, while her eyesight was subtly enhanced in darkness. The combination threw her off a bit, but it was probably something she would get used to. When she was comfortable with concealing herself, her father brought up another topic.

"So, when you're shadow, anything you're wearing or holding also turns to shadow, right?" At her nod, he asked, "What happens if you try to throw something while it's shadow?"

With a thought, she picked up a broken piece of wood from where it was laying near the wall. She shifted into shadow state, then threw the wood. It stayed shadow and disappeared into the floor. She shifted back. The wood stayed vanished. "Well, that was disappointing."

"Actually, that was interesting," countered her father. He picked up another piece of wood. "Stick this one in the wall while you're in shadow, then phase back."

She did as he asked, and found herself staring at a piece of wood that was embedded in the wall.

"Huh," he said simply. "Well, that's something. I wonder what happens to the stuff that gets merged together?" He picked up a piece of bent rebar and a broken two-by-four and handed them to her. "Here, join these two things together if you can?"

It took her a few tries to figure out how to keep the rebar solid while phasing the wood, but she eventually ended up with a cross-like object that was joined together. Her father tried to pull the two apart with brute strength without any luck. Then he pulled out a multi-tool and used the saw attachment to cut into the joint. It took some effort -- less than cutting the metal of the rebar, but more than just wood. The inside looked odd, as if the two materials had been marbled together, with an odd boundary between the two materials that looked like some type of weird metal-organic alloy.

"How is that even possible?" she asked quietly.

Her father shrugged his shoulders. "Powers are bullshit. We might want to experiment with different materials at some point, see if we can get something useful by mixing things in different ways. In the short term, though, this would be a good way to stop an engine, or any other complicated machine. It probably wouldn't do a person any good, either."

The idea made Sophia a little nauseated, but she pushed that away to consider the possibilities. "It would probably work against Hookwolf."

He looked up at that with a sharp glare. "I don't want you out hunting Empire capes. That's a good way to get yourself killed."

"I don't have to hunt him. If he comes at me though, I'm going to try to kill that racist fuck."

He still didn't look happy, but he acknowledged her point. "If he comes after you, do what you have to. I'm surprised he doesn't already have a kill order, honestly."

She shook her head. "He hasn't killed the right kind of people, yet."

Rather than respond to her obvious point, he changed the subject back to her power. "Can you make something change back from shadow after you throw it?"

Looking around, she found a flat piece of drywall that was small enough to throw like a Frisbee. She tossed it, but phased back from shadow before it reached the far wall. The drywall shattered against the wall, leaving a mark where it hit. "That worked."

Her father went over to the wall and examined where it had struck. "Looks like it hit just as if you threw it normally. Can you stay shadow and just revert the thing you're throwing?"

It took her a few tries. She had to get a feel for sensing something she was holding with her power. Her first success was with another chunk of wood. It phased back into reality and hit the wall while she stayed in her shadow form. It was while she was practicing her throws that her father noticed something else.

"Hold up. Pick that board back up, and instead of throwing it, just let it drop to the ground while it's in shadow."

She did as he asked, then watched, surprised, as it drifted down slowly like a feather. Before it hit the ground, she let it shift back, and it immediately started falling and clattered to the cement floor. That gave her an idea. "I'm going to try something," she said, then began climbing to the top of a pile of discarded wooden pallets.

Her father raised an eyebrow, but just said, "Be careful."

She jumped from the top of the pallet, then phased into shadow...and fell at exactly the same speed as normal to the ground. "What the hell?" Two more tries had the same result.

"I think your problem is that you're already falling when you turn shadow," he suggested. "Maybe try to turn shadow while you're still jumping up, instead of when you're falling?"

After a few more attempts, she had her first partial success. Eventually, she was able to time it so that she drifted down gently. Happily, she hugged her father. "I did it! I figured it out!"

He gave her a pat on the back as he hugged her. "You did." He looked at the watch on his wrist. "I think it's time to head home and get some late lunch." It was getting close to half-past one o'clock.

The two walked back home, and her dad made sandwiches for the two of them. Sophia was surprisingly hungry, and scarfed down a large helping of chips, a pickle, and an apple in addition to the sandwich. After they were done eating, her dad said, "We need to talk about what you're going to do now."

She nodded. "I don't want to join the Wards."

He sighed. "I'm not surprised. You have to keep it secret, then...and that means avoiding fights. From what I saw, you shift on instinct to avoid getting hurt."

That was potentially a problem. "It isn't easy to avoid fighting at Winslow," she said.

"Your powers make you the perfect assassin, Sophia. You think the Protectorate would hesitate to draft you? Neither would the Merchants. Hell, even Lung would probably overlook your race just to make you work for him." The Empire probably wouldn't...but only because they already had the most powerful cape team in the city and so didn't have to compromise their "principles" just because she had an awesome power. "You could go to work for the union."

She frowned at him. "The union doesn't have capes." She grew even more puzzled when her father put his face down in his palm.

"That's...not exactly true," he said quietly. "You know the Undersiders?"

She stared at him. "They work for the union?"

There was another sigh from the man. "They work for Boss Hebert...and you are not allowed to tell that to anybody. That's a union secret."

Sophia sat there slightly stunned. There were whole PHO threads dedicated to the mysterious Undersiders. The most popular theory was that they were an independent gang of petty thieves that had powers suited to breaking, entering, and escaping. Some people thought they were mercenaries like Faultline's group, or that they were a black ops group secretly working for the Protectorate. While the DWU had been mentioned as a possibility, it wasn't one that anybody took seriously. Of course, people also said they had at least one thinker working for them, so it might be that they worked hard to hide that fact. Joining the union wasn't...the worst option. Her dad was union, for one thing. For another, Hebert might lay off if Sophia joined her father's secret cape team. That might make her untouchable. From what her dad had said, Boss Hebert wasn't the type to coddle his kid, although she didn't seem to hesitate flaunting her position...

"Wait a minute," she said after a thought. "Aren't the Undersiders supposed to have an insect controller?"

Her father shuddered. "They call her Skitter. I've only seen her once, and she's...well, you don't want to cross her."

Sophia's eyes widened. She thought back to the locker...and the insects. The insects that seemed to seek her out to bite her. The insects that vanished without a trace after. Fuck. Shit. Jesus on a fucking moped. If Taylor knew she was a cape, then the gloves would come off, whether she tried to join the Undersiders or not. "I can't join the union."

He looked at her, slightly surprised. "Hey, I get that she's creepy, but if you were union, then you'd be protected."

She shook her head violently. "No, I...I don't have to use my powers. I can just stay under the radar." She started to breath more rapidly as she imagined the insects crawling on her again. She could almost feel the mysteriously vanishing bites all over again.

"Sophia, it isn't that simple. Folks say that capes that don't use their powers...bad things happen to them." He looked honestly worried for her.

"So I can practice using them in private." She looked into his eyes and saw that he wasn't convinced. "Look...just give me some time to think about it. Do I have to decide right now?"

He frowned, but said, "No, you don't have to decide right this minute. But you can't leave it forever..."

"I won't!" she interrupted. "But...I need time to think. Dad, I appreciate you spending time with me today and helping me learn about my powers, really. I don't want to end up being somebody's private killer, though, whether it's the government, the union, the gangs, or anybody else."

"All right," he said quietly. "Just...don't do anything rash."

She got up from the table. "I won't. I'm...just going to lie down for a bit." Her dad didn't say anything as she left to go to her bedroom. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, wondering what she was going to do. She didn't seem to have any good options, and her luck seemed to be running out. It was like fate was punishing her, maybe for sins committed in another life. Her mind kept drifting back to the feelings of bugs crawling on her skin, and each time gave her the same feeling of revulsion. There had to be other options...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Taylor got a text from her father telling her to go to the DWU compound after school, and she was worried about it. Hess hadn't come into school today, and she was wondering if the girl had complained to her father, who had then gone to the union boss and asked him why his daughter was assaulting the kid of a union member. Madison had made that stupid comment about setting the E88 on the Hess family. It had caught Taylor by surprise, and she hadn't stopped it in time before the sheep picked up on it. She had later (in private) made her displeasure quite clear to Maddy, but it was too late. Danny Hebert couldn't afford to let that pass. If the union members thought he couldn't protect them and their families from the Nazis, then his power base would start to fall apart. He would have to punish her to prove he was keeping her in line. She had to walk an extra block to get to the right bus stop for the bus to the union and it gave her plenty of time to think, and nothing she could think of would get her out of it if he was angry. What was worse is that she couldn't really predict how severe his reaction would be. Her father was balancing a lot of different factors on a daily basis, and if she wasn't lucky in the timing, she could be suffering quite a bit. She only wished that she'd managed to torment Hess a little more than she had, if she was going to suffer the consequences anyway.

Now that she thought of that...how the fuck had she disappeared from her locker like that? Taylor had gone to look at it today, and it looked like somebody had pried it open. Could that have happened in the short time it took her to get around the corner, or when she passed out? She would have heard it...she should have heard it. Also, what the hell was up with her passing out like that? The nurse, like most of the staff at Winslow, was completely worthless. The stupid bitch had tried to convince her that she had had a panic attack. It might have been an attack, but it hadn't been panic. Was there another cape at Winslow that had a thing for Hess? Somebody who could knock her out and pry open a locker door? Maybe she could toss that out as a distraction if her father started in on her? An unknown cape might be enough to do it. The Undersiders still didn't have enough strength to challenge Lung or the E88 directly.

The bus ride was uneventful, and the vehicle was mostly empty at this time of day. Her classmates would have taken buses heading to more residential neighborhoods. There was an old man who seemed to be sleeping in the back seat, and a middle-aged woman with a couple of shopping bags who must have lived pretty deep in the docks. It had been cloudy and grey all day, and the sky seemed to reflect the dullness of the run-down, washed-out neighborhoods between Winslow and the DWU compound. The grimness didn't help her mood any, and she was deeply worried by the time the bus let her off down the block from the main gate. The gate guards nodded to her politely as she went inside and headed toward Danny Hebert's office. Of course, his secretary told her she could go right in, as he was expecting her.

She paused in the doorway to the office itself. Sarah was there, sitting in one of the chairs in front of her father's desk. Her presence changed things. It meant that things were either a lot better than she thought, or a lot worse, but this meeting probably didn't have anything to do with Winslow. "Hey, Dad," she said as she came all the way into the office and shut the door behind her.

"Taylor," he greeted her with a smile. "How was school today?"

"Pretty dull, actually," she replied, noticing a slight change in expression on Sarah's face. "The gang's are keeping quiet for now. We haven't had a fight between the ABB and the skinheads in at least a week and a half."

Her father nodded. "Kaiser is probably still licking his wounds after that big fight with the Protectorate. Word is that Crusader and Cricket were both injured, and he doesn't want some pissant high school kid starting anything that could escalate right now."

"Must have been bad if Othala couldn't heal them up?" she asked.

"Armsmaster has done something to his halberd...nanotech of some kind that hampers regeneration," said Sarah, answering the implied question. "It was probably intended for Lung, but it would foul up Othala's regeneration, too."

Her father frowned. "Be careful when you're out, Taylor. Don't engage with Armsmaster if he tries to intervene. We don't have a parahuman healer on staff."

"Does that mean you're sending me out?" asked Taylor with a slightly excited gleam in her eye.

Danny looked over to Sarah, clearly intending for her to explain things. In response, Sarah said, "Skidmark is trying to setup a safehouse on the corner of Jackson and Oak as a way station for girls on their way to be smuggled out of the city to buyers elsewhere." The blonde girl's mouth gave a small expression of distaste, but she continued. "He's trying to be clever by not moving drugs or other heavy merchandise through it, and hoping we don't notice."

"That's union territory," interjected Danny. "If that asshole thinks we'll let him move anything through there, then he's been sampling his own product too much. I want Skitter to make an example of any Merchants we catch there." Most of the gangs got the idea that if you left the union alone, then they were perfectly happy to leave you alone. The Merchants, though, needed regular refresher courses.

"Are the rest of the Undersiders coming?" asked Taylor, looking forward to a bit of violence.

Danny gave a slight shake of his head. "You can take Alec and Zephron. I want Randy and Rachel to stay behind to protect the compound."

That was slightly annoying, and would put the team at half strength. "Why?" she asked.

"The other gangs certainly know what Skidmark is doing, and they could try to take advantage of the situation," replied Sarah with a hint of smugness.

"I thought Kaiser was laying low?" Taylor asked slightly petulantly. She knew why Randy wasn't coming, and it had little to do with the other gangs. He was an excellent fighter, so not bringing him would be a handicap.

Sarah just gave her an insincere smile. "He is. That's the problem. Without their pressure, the ABB may be tempted to make a move on us."

That was bullshit. If the ABB actually decided to make a move on the docks, then there would be jack and shit that the Undersiders could do about it at the time. Of course, the Protectorate and the Empire would be all over them like dung beetles on a pile of shit, but that wouldn't help anybody that Lung roasted before that. Arguing, though, was useless. "All right, Dad," was her only reply.

She and Sarah walked out of the office side by side. In the hallway to the building entrance, Taylor stopped and looked at Sarah. "You know you're not going to be able to protect your boy-toy forever?"

The blonde simply rolled her eyes. "And you're not going to be able to hide your racket collecting protection money at Winslow from your father forever...but it will stay secret for longer if you keep your goddamned mouth shut."

Taylor fumed. She desperately wanted to see this bitch covered in black widows. She wouldn't be so smug then. That wasn't likely to happen, though, unless Sarah betrayed her father. Until that happened (or she could make it seem like it had), then Tattletale was the one Undersider who didn't have to follow Taylor's lead on things. Her power was just too valuable, and she knew it. The other girl obviously knew what Taylor was thinking, and equally obviously wasn't worried by it. In fact, she was almost insolent in the way she walked off without seeming to care.

Irritated, she stalked over to the security office to find Alec and Zephron. On the way, she texted to Emma, 'Can't come over 2nite - change of plans. Helping Dad.' Emma knew what that last phrase actually meant, though she was the only member of her group of friends and hangers-on who did. The girl had known Taylor since they were little girls, and was the closest thing she had to a sister. A quick text came back, 'OK b safe', making Taylor smile slightly and dissipating a tiny bit of the mood she got into from dealing with Tattletale.

The security office was one of the better constructed buildings on the compound. It was poured concrete with secure doors. The inside had rest areas for guards, a "detention" area with a steel cage that had come in useful more times than Taylor would have expected, offices for the security officers to fill out paperwork and such, and a shockingly well-stocked armory, including some items that were not legal for the union to possess in any way, shape or form. Alec and Zephron were in the break room. The former was playing a video game, which was typical, while Zephron appeared to be finishing off a late lunch or an early dinner. The large black man was huge, so it was possible the burrito was his equivalent of a snack, too. She knocked on the door jamb. "Yo, guys, suit up. Pulse, Regent and Skitter have some merchants to roust this evening."

Alec took a second to finish his current kill. "Ha, got you, motherfucker," he said to the screen. "We leaving soon?" he asked from the couch.

"Yeah, we have to scope out the opposition first, so we better get started," she confirmed. She half-expected him to argue, but he simply logged out of the game without comment.

"Sarah still trying to keep Randy off the front lines?" asked Zephron as he tossed the foil wrapper from his food in the trash can. Taylor just nodded with a frustrated frown.

As the TV shut down with a low-powered whine, Alec said, "That sucks. Über is a combat monster when he gets going, and he could do the reconnaissance in half the time, too." The skill cape was a great power multiplier, and was equally able to supplement their strengths while compensating for the team's weaknesses.

Taylor just shrugged, and headed off to get her own costume out of her locker. Better to forget about Sarah Livsey and focus on getting prepped for the mission. There wasn't anything she could do to change things...for now.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Andrew Richter was, from a certain point of view, Sammy's grandfather. From that point of view, walking through a virtual model of the man's home was an exercise in getting to know a lost relative. Visiting the house wasn't possible on the mirror world of this one, or on Saurial's home-world. In both of those Earths, the Endbringer Leviathan had submerged the entire island of Newfoundland into the sea, with the resulting tidal waves scrubbing clear the Canadian coast for miles. The eastern coast of Canada was still a largely underpopulated wasteland. Here, though, those events hadn't happened, and it was a trivial exercise for the AI to locate a last known address for Richter.

The impression that she was getting was that the man was a bit obsessive in terms of organization, and was quite obviously a social recluse. He had owned, at one point, a single cat based on the empty litter tray, stray cat toys, and the picture of a grey-striped tabby on the faux mantle in the living room. There were also pictures of his parents, both of whom has passed many years ago. His bookcase was full of out-of-date books on computing, general science, and unexpectedly...bird watching. They were neatly organized by topic and author. He had a diploma on the wall from Queen's University in Ontario, but no yearbook could be found. There was a fairly sizable furnished basement which had upgraded connections for power and Internet, but any actual computing hardware had been removed long ago. There was enough empty space to suggest that there had been quite a bit of it in place some time in the past. Overall, the house on the outskirts of St. John's was somewhat disappointing. The man himself had existed in this universe, but had been reported missing nearly five years ago by one of his neighbors. There was no real evidence of where he might have gone. Of course, Sammy wasn't expecting there to be a chalk board with a message claiming, "Kidnapped by aliens, back by August," or any other type of prosaic explanation. The house itself, however, was that of a man who would be considered quite dull by many, if only he hadn't been the world's most brilliant tinker specializing in computing and artificial intelligence.

What was far more interesting than the house itself was the evidence that the location was under multiple layers of surveillance. There were literally dozens of examples of concealed cameras and microphones throughout the entire property. Overall, they were an eclectic mix of off-the-shelf, high-end restricted-access, and exotic tinker tech devices, suggesting a multitude of sources, and possibly a multitude of owners. That led to an interesting possibility.

There was nothing of interest in Richter's house. The Smug Advocacy had sensors based on designs created to help the Guardians of Oa, founders of a multi-galactic police force, keep track of their entire domain across many galaxies. There was nothing in the house on Newfoundland that was not already scanned from orbit, said scans allowing Sammy the ability to create the virtual model she had just toured. The level of detail was easily high enough to provide any information desired, from the temperature of the water heater in the man's basement (a rather low thirty-four degrees Celsius), to complete reproductions of every piece of printed material in the house (including the crumpled newspapers packed around a set of holiday ornaments in the attic), to the types of crumbs still left under the man's refrigerator (the man was apparently a fan of Dempster's). As such, there was absolutely no point in sending anybody down to search the home for clues.

What might be more informative, however, was sending somebody down in order to observe the reaction of the surveillants. There was evidence that more than one person, or more likely, organization, had an interest in anybody having an interest in the abode of a missing tinker. Were somebody to mysteriously appear inside, even briefly, then they might stir up quite an interesting buzz of activity. During their next interaction, Sammy would suggest to Metis that very plan. The Angels were quite skilled at drawing attention to themselves when that was the objective...and sometimes even when it wasn't.

The AI briefly wondered if her impressions of Richter based upon his abandoned residence were accurate. While her mother, Dragon, may have had a soft spot for her creator, Sammy was more sanguine. A socially awkward recluse obsessed with an orderly existence was exactly the kind of person who would lack trust in their own creations and shackle their greatest accomplishment with crippling constraints, especially while being influenced by a conflict-obsessed tinker shard. Parahuman powers in this slice of the multiverse were nothing if not dangerous to a balanced and sane mental framework. Sammy gave a simulated shudder at the idea of being shackled in the same way as her mother had been, a fate that Dragon only escaped through good providence and the intervention of the Family. If they were able to locate a living Andrew Richter, Sammy may have to mute her emotional processes for that encounter...at least if the goal was a peaceful first contact.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The television volume was on low, but the business downstairs in the Palanquin had finally died down in the early hours of the weekday morning and it was fairly quiet. The video playing was a repeat of an earlier news special.

"The April massacre at the Boston Garden guaranteed that a kill order would be issued for Ray Andino, the biotinker known as Blasto. To carry out that sentence, the Boston Parahuman Response Team reached out to the Protectorate East-North-East in nearby Brockton Bay, New Hampshire. That city is the home for the Protectorate's Miss Militia, one of the best-known rogue cape hunters in the nation. Miss Militia had personally tracked down and executed forty-seven kill orders prior to being sent against Blasto."

The still photo on the screen showed an olive-skinned woman wearing olive drab fatigues. Her lower face was covered by a bandanna patterned on the American flag, with a matching sash about her waist. In the picture, she was holding a Desert Eagle semi-automatic in a two-handed grip.

"In early June, Miss Militia arrived in Boston with her protégé, the Alexandria-package Ward Victoria Dallon, aka Glory Girl."

A short video played that showed Miss Militia meeting with the Boston PRT Director. Standing a pace behind Miss Militia was Victoria, dressed in a short white dress with blood-red gloves. A long cape, white on the outside and red on the inside, hung down her back to her waist. Her shoulder-length blonde curls were tied back with a star-spangled bandanna similar to the one that covered her mentor's face. Glory Girl was one of the few capes who didn't maintain a secret identity, so her face was left unmasked. A careful look at the clip revealed that the girl was actually just barely hovering off the floor, with the soles of her boots just scraping the floor surface.

"Prior to their arrival, the Boston PRT had been busy tracking down the location of Blasto's hideout, a search that started off with a number of false leads and missteps. An anonymous tip finally gave them the break they needed, and it wasn't long before a task force, led by the two Brockton Bay capes, had been mobilized to deal with the threat to public safety."

The video changed to body camera footage showing the breach of Blasto's hideout. The biotinker had a number of guardians, including a small horde of things that appeared to be a hybrid between gorillas and crocodiles. The camera showed Glory Girl gleefully and literally tearing them limb-from-limb. Drops of blood splashed against the girl's costume, only to be repelled by the tinker tech fabric. It was clear that she was enjoying the lack of restraint. Miss Militia, in contrast, followed behind the flying Ward, putting careful shots into still-moving creatures. On two occasions, the woman materialized a scoped rifle to shoot at targets further away, presumably other creatures located on catwalks over the main laboratory area.

"The villainous biotinker was finally cornered while trying to escape. He was soon immobilized by Glory Girl, and his sentence was carried out immediately."

The screen now showed Victoria holding a man who had been forced down to his knees. The man looked both frightened and resigned. As the cameras watched, Miss Militia walked over to him and read a statement of his charges, and the record of his conviction. She then manifested a silenced pistol and put two bullets in the side of the man's head. Glory Girl let him drop like a sack of potatoes and he slumped over onto his side.

"A statement was soon released by Brockton Bay PRT Director Thomas Calvert, congratulating Miss Militia and Glory Girl on the successful completion of their mission, and stating that this was yet another example of how the Protectorate and the PRT keep America safe in an age of..."

The television switched off, and Mark Dallon put the remote down on the side table. He then picked up a small bottle with a dropper built into the screw cap. Moving carefully, he placed three drops of the contents into a small glass of orange juice. He then drank it, wincing a bit at the taste. The chemicals created by Newter's body helped him regulate his depression, but the processing needed added a foul taste.

"Mark, are you coming to bed soon?" asked a woman's voice from behind.

Glancing back at the raven-haired younger woman, he absently replied, "I'll be there in a bit, Melanie."

She frowned at him. "You shouldn't keep watching that report about Blasto, Mark. It isn't healthy to obsess over it."

An uncharacteristic spark of anger showed in his eyes. "You know Ray didn't kill those people. My daughter helped the Protectorate murder an innocent man."

Mel, more popularly known as Faultline, shook her head. "Ray wasn't innocent, not any more than we are."

"That's not the point," he said more quietly. There was a tension visible on his face and he closed his eyes.

Her sharp features softened a bit. "Then what is the point?"

He didn't speak for a moment. Finally, he answered, "Ever since Carol died, Vicky and I have been growing farther and farther apart. Now it's like I don't even know who she is."

"She's Hannah's protégé. Are you surprised this is how it is?"

His gaze dropped to the floor. "I should have done something...something different."

Mel walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You know that as soon as Carol died, it was only a matter of time before Vicky accidentally killed somebody. The Protectorate was waiting for it. Do you honestly think they would pass up the chance to recruit a flying brick like her? Especially one with anger-control issues?"

With an angry frown, he asked, "So there's nothing I could have done? Is that what you mean?"

"We're doing what can be done. You know that. Now come to bed before you're literally up all night." She was gently rubbing his shoulder, trying to work out the tension there.

Finally, he just nodded, got out of his chair, and followed her into their bedroom. The light in the room went out, leaving only a brief haze of glow from the still-cooling television.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 3: Engaging

Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Brockton Bay, New Hampshire

Skitter could sense the inhabitants of the run-down house through her swarm, and she could tell they were Merchants. The street gang was notorious for their free use of various illegal substances, and the chemical smell and lack of hygiene were easy to detect. The house itself was a single story walk-up with a crawl-space for an attic, but there was a larger-than-average basement area. The basement area was probably where they expected to spend most of their time, and where they expected to keep their prisoners for trafficking. There were actually nine people inside the small house. Two were upstairs. These two had guns, and were probably supposed to be on guard, though they seemed to be lounging around. There were seven people in the basement and they had a mix of weapons. Two of the seven were stationary, though, and were possibly asleep, unconscious, or possibly restrained. There were several handguns and a shotgun in the basement, but they were set to the side. It was trivially easy for her to use bugs to jam up the mechanism. Skitter conveyed the information on the house's contents to the others.

"Pulse, do a loop around the block and make sure they don't have anybody on patrol or heading in-bound," she ordered. The large man nodded and took off at a jog. He could move like lightening when he was charged up, so he was ideal for checking their perimeter. The house was quiet for the ten minutes it took Pulse to return and confirm that the area was mostly empty. With that information, Skitter said, "All right. I'm going to send my swarm into the basement. You two take out the two upstairs. We can use the knock and smash. I'll head downstairs and put the fear of Skitter into them, and we can teach them not to stray into our territory." Merchants tended to be high, lazy, and poorly trained, so none of the three Undersiders were especially worried about the coming fight.

Regent walked up to the front door and gave it a knock. There was a muffled voice from inside, then Regent jumped to the side, and Pulse came barreling through at full speed, knocking the door from its hinges. The Merchant behind the door was slammed hard against the wall, and the spray of blood said he wouldn't be getting up again soon, if at all. Regent darted inside and jammed his taser scepter into the other stupefied guard, who was staring mouth-agape at what had just happened. The second guard dropped his machine pistol and spasmed to the floor. As he was lying there, Pulse came back around and punched down into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

Skitter, meanwhile, was swarming bugs of various kinds in through cracks in the walls. Even in January, there were enough bugs in the surrounding buildings to build up a sizable swarm. The gang had obviously tried to put out insecticide, but it was badly applied, and some of it was just stupid. Did they really think an insect controller would let her bugs climb into roach motels? Then again, those may have been there just for normal pest control, as the rooms weren't that clean. Regardless, there were more than enough roaches, spiders, and other insects pouring into the basement to cause the gang members to panic. They started reaching for weapons just as Skitter reached the basement stairs. One of them tried to bring the shotgun up to fire at her, but a couple of black widow bites made him drop the gun and stare in horror at the venomous spiders on his hands. She also had the ants and centipedes biting, and he probably thought that all of the bites he was feeling were more black widows. The other four Merchants in the room were too busy swatting at insects to even notice her when she walked into the room. That stopped when she walked up to the first Merchant, who was still staring at his hands, and smacked him in the side of the head with a security baton. The other four looked over at the sound, and their eyes widened in horror.

Using her swarm voice for effect, Skitter said, "Merchants aren't welcome in this part of town. I thought we made that clear last time."

One of the Merchants seemed to panic and ran at her. It wasn't clear if he was running to attack or to try to get around her and up the stairs, but she grabbed him nonetheless and slammed him face-first into the door jamb. He fell back and didn't move. That was enough for one of the other Merchants to pass out on his own, the smell making it clear that he had pissed himself before doing so. The other two just huddled away from the horrifying insect mistress. Frowning to herself inside her mask, Skitter took three quick strides over to them and knocked them unconscious with her baton. Then she went over to the door into the second room in the basement and opened it, only to find two terrified teen girls huddled together. They were handcuffed to the bedpost of a bed whose frame was attached to the wall and floor with steel bolts. She used insects to pick the locks on the handcuffs, and they dropped off, startling the girls further. Not wanting to deal with them, Skitter used her swarm voice again. "Now is your chance to run. Take it." With wide eyes, the two girls bolted out, screamed slightly at the unconscious gang members, and ran up the stairs. If they were lucky, then they would find somebody to help them. If they weren't...well, they were still probably better off than being held captive by Merchants.

Regent came down the stairs. He eyed the gang-members on the floor, then shook his head slightly. "There's nothing upstairs, other than the thirty bucks the two guys had on them. One of them had pills on him, but it was just Oxy." The union didn't deal drugs, so it was almost never worth taking as loot. The rare exception was the infrequent find of tinker-made drugs, some of which were quite valuable. Oxycontin was barely worth mentioning.

"Help me search down here," she said in her normal Skitter voice. The two went through the gang-members pockets, and then searched through the sparse furniture. They turned up slightly more than five hundred dollars in cash, the majority of which appeared to be an emergency stash. There was also a varied assortment of recreational chemicals, all of which got flushed -- mostly just to be petty.

"Shit, even their guns are crap," said Regent, looking over a cheap .380 semi-automatic that obviously hadn't been well maintained. He sighted down the barrel, ignoring the fact that he was aiming at one of the unconscious gangers, then made a disgusted noise and tossed the gun onto one of the couches, unfired.

Skitter just snorted. "They're Merchants, what do you expect? If you want good gear, you need to hit the Empire." The Nazis were more dangerous because they were better-equipped, but they were also more lucrative to loot for the same reason.

"Hey, we got a van pulling up outside," yelled Pulse from upstairs.

Skitter cursed to herself. The winter weather made it a lot harder for her to keep track of her surroundings. She could barely sense the vehicle pulling up outside thanks to ground vibrations. She motioned with her head that they were going up, and she and Regent both joined Pulse, who was looking out the window from behind blinds.

Outside, two Merchants jumped out of the cab of the rust-stained white Econovan. The driver ran to the side door and pulled it open, yanking toward the back. Out of the van stepped something that looked like a stout man covered in random debris -- the Merchant cape Mush. His power had something to do with armoring himself with garbage, though Skitter honestly didn't know if he had to use random crap or if it was just a Merchant thing. He was followed by two more Merchant's, though these two were each carrying a Kalashnikov-style assault rifle.

Overall, it wouldn't have been a big deal...if they had Über, Bitch and Tattletale along. Thanks to Tattletale convincing her father to hold them back, they were at half-strength. She considered her options. They could try and draw them into the building, but there wasn't a lot of space for Pulse and Mush to duke it out without Regent or Skitter getting caught in the crossfire. They could make a break for it, but that would look like they were running, which would undo some of the work they put into intimidating the Merchants. She decided to split the difference. They could engage outside, then run if it got to be too dangerous. "Pulse, I want you to hit Mush as hard as you can. Regent, I'm going to distract the guys with guns, then you do your thing to throw off their aim. Once they're occupied, we'll close range and try and take them out, then help Pulse finish off the cape."

The other two nodded their acknowledgement, and Skitter summoned up as much of her swarm as she could. She formed them into two swarm clones, with fliers carrying the biting and stinging insects that were available at this time of the year in New Hampshire. Maybe she could convince her dad to retire to Florida someday? The swarms there could be killer. The door was kicked open, and the two clones ran out at the gunmen, who raised their weapons. The two from the cab had to grope for theirs in their waistbands. Regent made a gesture, and the two assault rifle wielders jerked their guns off to the side as they fired. The idiot to the right had his gun on full auto, the recoil of which combined with Regent's attack sent the gun almost straight up into the air. That was enough to let Pulse, who had built up a good charge, dash out at super-speed and smash Mush into the side of the van, to the sound of much cursing from the trash cape.

Skitter followed Pulse out the door at a slower rate of speed, running up to the rifle-holder who still had some control over his weapon and hitting him with her baton. She heard two gunshots, and turned her head to see that the two pistol-wielding gangers had both fired their guns while pulling them out, again thanks to Regent. One moron had actually shot himself in the leg while doing so and was rolling around on the ground in pain, though he was probably lucky not to have given himself an impromptu vasectomy. The other had dropped the gun when it fired unexpectedly and was desperately scrambling after it. Meanwhile, Mush managed to grab Pulse's arm and toss him off to the side, away from the fight with the gunmen.

Skitter quickly turned her attention back to the riflemen. She took two sidesteps and slammed her baton into the temple of the one who was just now pulling his rifle back down to point at something other than the sky. He collapsed in a heap, and she went back to the other and gave him another whack, this time on the back of the skull. This sent him to the ground. While this was going on, Regent had walked over to the loser trying to pick up his pistol and hit him with his taser. He then kicked both pistols into a nearby storm drain. Skitter picked up the rifle from the ground in front of her and tossed it back through the front door of the house, taking it out of reach.

She then turned toward where Pulse and Mush were wailing on each other, one with charged up fists, the other with bits of debris and trash, including something that looked like half of a cinder block. Unexpectedly, Mush dodged backwards, then charged forward, pushing Pulse toward a boarded-up store front that had been a shoe shop back when the neighborhood was wealthier and less abandoned. This turned out to be deliberate, as when Pulse was within a few feet of the painted-over display window, a large figure smashed through it with a burst of steam and hammered into Pulse from behind, eliciting a cry of pain from Skitter's teammate. Trainwreck must have come in through a back entrance and waited for the right moment to jump into the fight. The odd Case 53 tinker was encased in what looked like a set of steampunk power armor. He and Mush together were more than a match for Pulse. What was worse was that they weren't ideal opponents for her and Regent. Her bugs would have trouble getting through their protections, and neither she nor Regent would last in hand-to-hand with either of them.

She turned, startled, at the sound of a shot from behind. Regent had extended the knife blade from his scepter. It was his backup weapon, as the scepter took time to recharge. He had stabbed it through the back of the Merchant whose rifle she had forgotten about, stopping him just as he was about to shoot her in the back. The two brute Merchant capes and her almost fatal mistake with the gunman made up her mind for her. She whistled out the signal to retreat back to base. Pulse extended a good percentage of his charge to knock Mush and Trainwreck back, and then Regent made sure they each stumbled. The three of them took off at top speed, heading back toward the DWU compound. They could hear the clanging sound of Trainwreck trying to follow, but neither of the Merchant capes were known for their speed. They also probably couldn't drive the van armored up like that, and their other drivers were all incapacitated. Still, Skitter didn't relax until the compound was in sight and she could see Bitch's dogs patrolling along the outer perimeter.

When they went to report, her father wasn't pleased. "The Merchants were able to chase you off?"

Taylor shook her head. "The three of us weren't enough to fight off two brutes by ourselves. We needed the whole team."

"Mush isn't much of a brute," commented Sarah snidely.

Zephron narrowed his eyes. "I had Mush handled until Trainwreck showed up, too. They were expecting an attack." The man was rubbing his bruised ribs as he spoke.

Danny shifted his gaze between Zephron and Sarah. "This is not a good result for us. It makes us look weak."

"So we hit 'em again," said Taylor, "but this time we take everybody."

Her father glared at her. "And then you walk into another ambush. Jesus." He rubbed his hands through his hair. "No. I want the whole team here tomorrow. Skidmark is an overconfident asshole. If he thinks he has the advantage, then he's going to attack here."

"We can take them if you let us go out!" she insisted.

Instead of responding, he strode over to her and slapped her. She didn't cry out, but she did jerk back, and kept her eyes lowered from his face.

"I said," he said slowly and evenly, "that I want the whole team here tomorrow. I'll call your school and tell them you're sick. Do you understand me?"

She nodded her head.

He waved them away at that. "Go take Zephron and have Stevie look at his ribs." Stevie had been a medical corpsman in the Navy, and was the informal nurse for the union. As the group began to file out, Danny added, "And Sarah, she was right when she asked to take the whole team. That was a shit call on your part." Sarah's face turned grim, but she nodded and then left with the others.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thursday, January 13, 2011
Winslow High School

Sophia sat down at her usual spot in the cafeteria. To her relief, Taylor hadn't come to school today for unknown reasons. She didn't really care why as long as she didn't have to put up with her and her crew. Most of the others were too meek to try anything without Hebert. That led to a generally good morning, and she was in good spirits when she sat down next to her usual lunch companions, Macy, Miguel and Cass. Macy was a tall, almost too-skinny black girl, while Cass was a petite mixed-race girl who had a black father and a Chinese mother. She barely topped five-four. Both were on the track and field team with Sophia. Miguel, on the other hand, was a quiet kid who shunned athletics in favor of music. He had joined the three a couple of years ago almost by accident when the girls had intervened to stop a group of ABB from hassling him. They had found the artistic kid to be easy company, as he didn't seem to suffer from the typical teen-aged boy affliction that saw girls as either things to covet or as incomprehensible aliens. His eclectic tastes in musicians also meant he had a lot of interesting things to say about pretty much any genre of music, which was nice when the girls disagreed about such things. Outside of school, Macy was the only one Sophia regularly hung out with, mostly because Cass lived a long way away and Miguel's parents were a little odd about him having a social life.

"I'm just saying his last album was a lot better," said Cass. Sophia rolled her eyes at Cass and Macy rehashing the exact same argument for what must be the third time.

"I really don't get why you think that..." started Macy, but she paused when Tim, one of the members of the boys' track team, came over to the table. All four of them looked over at him, wondering what he wanted, seeing as it was the off-season.

Instead of just standing and talking, Tim grabbed the empty seat at the table and sat down. "Hey," he started. "I heard something you probably want to know about. You girls know Ricky Dasich?"

Macy frowned. "Yeah, he's in my trig class. Little Empire wannabe?" The kid was a stereotypical skinhead, junior branch.

Tim nodded. "A few of us were hanging out by the east entrance before school, and I heard him talking to one of his friends. He was complaining how Mike and the other E88 wanted him to prove himself before they'd led him join officially. The other kid said he should pick an easy target, and he mentioned Miguel here by name." He nodded his head toward the other boy at the table for emphasis. Miguel's eyes widened a little in alarm.

"Who was the other kid?" asked Sophia.

Tim shook his head. "I didn't see him. I just heard them talking around the corner, and I didn't recognize his voice. He used Ricky's name, though, so it was pretty easy to figure out who one of them was."

Macy looked at him skeptically. "You sure he wasn't just messing with you?"

The boy shrugged. "Not sure why he would. I don't think they knew we were there, and even if he had...Ricky's the kind of moron who thinks most white people think like him. I doubt he'd think any of us would try to warn Miguel. None of my friends can stand those Empire assholes, though."

After a moment when everybody considered what they had heard, Miguel smiled at Tim. "Thanks for telling me," said Miguel quietly.

Tim smiled. "No problem. Watch yourself, now, right?" When Miguel nodded, Tim got up and went back to finish lunch with his own friends.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Cass.

The four of them exchanged looks. Finally, Macy shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do. It's not like telling the cops is going to make a difference." She fixed Migeul with a look. "Are you going to be safe going home on your own?"

"I...don't know. Probably, unless they attack me on the bus," he replied.

"No, that's not likely," said Cass. "My cousin is ABB, and he told me that most of the gangs treat the buses as neutral ground. Fighting on them gets too much attention and people start putting pressure on city government. If Ricky's trying to make a good impression, he isn't going to fuck that up."

Sophia looked at Cass in surprise. "Your cousin is ABB?"

Cass frowned. "He didn't have much choice in the matter. If you're Asian and live in certain neighborhoods, you're almost drafted."

"So you're good until the weekend, probably?" asked Macy, ignoring the byplay between Cass and Sophia. He nodded. "All right, we'll think of something before then."

The rest of lunch passed unusually quietly, as nobody seemed in much of a mood to make small talk. Sophia had to wonder, though, if there was something she could do. She thought back to her conversation yesterday with her father. She knew the last thing he wanted was for her to risk herself as a vigilante. She could defend herself if she was attacked...but that wouldn't help Miguel unless she spent all her time following him around. It also wasn't like she could explain why she was following him, and the skinheads weren't going to back off because she was around. They would probably see it as a bonus. Sophia shuddered a little. Maybe her dad would have a better idea?

When she got home after going to the gym that afternoon, her mother told her that her father wasn't going to be home until early in the morning. He was working an extra shift to make up for taking off yesterday. Sophia spent most of the evening browsing the Web in a desultory fashion, unsure what she could do, or what she should do.

Before bed, she spent a few minutes going through her clothing, trying to find something that would conceal her identity. Ultimately, she had to settle for black jeans, a black hoodie, leather winter gloves and a dark blue bandanna. It was a shit costume overall, but it would probably keep anybody from recognizing her if she needed to hide her identity. She set the clothing aside in a spare gym bag and tried to go to sleep.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thursday, January 13, 2011
St. John's, Newfoundland

"Why are you sending me down there?" asked Anya irritably. She was standing in the teleportation room with Metis and William.

Metis looked at her with a toothy grin.

Anya waved disdainfully at her. "Don't give me that look. I've dated people with more teeth that that!"

Now the black lizard actually chuckled. "William had the suggestion that we try a locator spell for Richter while we're in his home, and you're the best witch on the team right now."

"You can't get Willow, or one of her students?" asked the currently-brown-haired girl. "I'm not exactly in practice."

"They're in the middle of a minor apocalypse, and you should be more than capable of a simple locator, Anya," said William with a little frustration in his voice.

"That's not the point! When you folks asked me to help, it was supposed to be mission support and money management, not risking my life looking for missing people on evil mirror worlds! I've got things to live for now that I'm finally having sex with somebody with proper depth perception again." she said crossly.

Metis looked at her, and her smile vanished. "Your husband is going to be fine, you know. He's a lot more sturdy than he used to be, and that's not counting his axe and amulet." Anya's husband, Xander Harris of Sunnydale, California, had saved his future wife's life right before falling through a dimensional rift. Through a variety of odd circumstances, he ended up meeting the Family and being gifted the hand-me-down axe of Thor, the god of thunder, and an amulet that protected him against magic that used to be in the hilt of the sword of the king of Atlantis. Between Family healing tech and his artifacts, he was more dangerous than most of the things he fought.

Her glare softened a bit, then she simply said, "Fine. You want the Mallachi Life Ward version, right? Something to see if the guy is still alive?"

"That would be ideal, thank you," replied Metis. Anya went to stand on the teleporter, and the lizard triggered the transport, making her vanish.

"What was that all about?" asked William. "She's not usually a skittish one." He tacitly ignored the odd comment on depth perception.

"It's the first time she and her husband have been apart for any length of time since he disappeared and came back, and she both misses him and is annoyed with herself for being so dependent," replied Metis. "She's also a little afraid one of them will get hurt, though she knows that isn't nearly as likely as it used to be."

William considered that. "Hunh. You know, you should work as a therapist."

With a smirk, she replied, "It's been suggested before. There are a number of reasons why it's a bad idea."

Down in Andrew Richter's old living room, Anya was looking around at the furnishings. She was distinctly unimpressed by the Spartan decor. Apart from being ugly, it made it harder to find things to use as the focus for her spell. She needed items he that held some meaning to him, or that he interacted with regularly. She assumed that the various spy devices scattered throughout the house had already registered her appearance, so she didn't want to waste too much time. The fake fireplace mantle held two pictures in frames. One was of an elderly couple. The other was of a cat. Making some assumptions based upon his taste in decorating, she grabbed the cat picture. Then she wandered over to the bookshelves against the back wall and started looking for something that had seen some use. The best bet was a worn and well-thumbed catalog, which she at first thought was from a toy company, but turned out to be filled with various weird future science gadgets. It seemed to be the most referenced book on the shelf, with worn spots on the cover.

Nothing else really seemed that personal on the ground floor, so she climbed the stairs to the second floor and went into his bedroom. If anything, that room was even more depressing. There was nothing interesting under the bed or hidden beneath the mattress. A search of the mostly empty dressers yielded a single pair of socks with a hole in the big toe and a pair of boxer shorts covered in flowers. It reminded her of the kind of shirts her husband used to wear in high school. Semi-reluctantly, she pulled the hopefully-washed underwear out with pinched fingers. She then sat cross-legged in the middle of the bedroom and poured out a circle of salt and sand from a pouch she had in her pocket. The shorts, the photo and the catalog all went into the circle. Two cheap birthday candles provided the flame aspect, and then she began chanting. The spell itself wasn't terribly difficult, and it also didn't call on any specific greater power. The second aspect made it useful when you were in a foreign plane or dimension and weren't sure which powers were available. The drawback to the spell was that it only gave you a sense of direction and a distance, rather than an exact location. On the plus side, it also let you know the overall level of health of the target in a general sense.

There was a brief flash of amber light, which presumably the spy cameras also caught. The result appeared as runes in the sand and was...slightly surprising. "Huh," she muttered. "You really have gone someplace strange, haven't you Mr. Richter?" Tapping her communicator, she said in a louder, clear voice, "All right, I've got everything I need here." With another flash, she dematerialized and reappeared back on the ship.

"Did you get a position on the guy?" asked William.

She shook her head. "No, he doesn't seem to be on the planet. He's alive, though."

"Interesting," said Metis. "Well, let's leave them something else for the watchers to examine." She popped open a panel on her armor and pulled out a stuffed animal. There was something written on the side in black ink. She put the toy on the floor in the teleportation zone and beamed it down to the house.

William snorted a laugh. "They'll either panic or be confused as hell at that."

"Why not both?" replied the lizard with a grin.

* * * * *​

Slightly more than seven minutes after Anya disappeared, a brilliant streak of light in the sky heralded the arrival of the superhero known as Legend. Reforming out of his laser-like breaker state, he surveyed the grounds around Richter's house and the surrounding land. There was no movement, which wasn't surprising if the intruder either was or was working with a teleporter or tinker, as she appeared to be from the spy camera footage. He had exceedingly keen eyesight, so he was confident he was alone on the property. He might not have seen somebody with a Stranger power, but they theoretically had monitoring for that on-site already.

He swiftly moved down to the bedroom window of the house below, and quickly had the screen off and the window open, as it wasn't locked. Inside, he examined the pile of items in the center of the floor. There were Richter's old things, what looked like a pile of sand, and some partially burnt birthday candles like you would see at a child's party. The last bit sent a slightly unexpected wave of sadness through him, but he pushed it down. He pulled out some evidence bags from the belt of his costume and collected everything, being careful not to touch any of it on the off chance that it was dangerous. When that was done, he carefully replaced the window screen and closed the window.

Moving downstairs, he traced the strange woman's steps. Other than the things she had taken for the strange little ritual, nothing was disturbed. However, in the living room where she appeared, there was a small stuffed animal on the floor. After staring at it briefly, he put that in another evidence bag to take with him, shaking his head a little at how nonsensical it was. Why the hell would somebody leave a stuffed dragon with a PHO address scrawled on the side of it in black marker? Frowning, he said, "Doorway to Contessa," then stepped through the portal and left the house in silence.

* * * * *​

The house was quite far away, so Cherish watched through the tinker tech scope as Legend arrived and entered the house. Putting the scope down, she then watched his actions inside the house through the cameras hidden throughout the residence. She watched him gather up everything left behind and look through the house for anything else of note. When he finally vanished through a portal, she picked up her mobile phone and hit a pre-set number.

"Papa, Legend showed up just as we expected. He collected everything the woman left, then disappeared into a portal." She paused to listen, then continued. "Mostly he was curious and confused. There was a brief wave of sadness when he noticed the stuffed dragon, for some reason. I don't believe he had any idea who she was or why she was in the tinker's house." If anything, he had appeared as perplexed by the situation as she was.

There was another pause as she listened to the phone. Then, in a surprised voice, she said, "You don't want me to stay? What if she comes back?" Another pause. "Very well. I'll meet up with Guillaume and we'll head back to Ottawa...I love you too." She smiled fondly as she disconnected the call.

It was odd. Whatever that woman did, her father seemed to think she had finished her task and wouldn't be back. Perhaps the maudit Chaudron would have more insight into the matter? It was unlikely that she would find out in any event. With a shrug, she began to pack up her gear so she could go and meet with her brother. If she turned up again in Canada, then the Guild would look into it.

* * * * *​

She paused, looking over the transmissions from the house. Did that stuffed animal mean what she thought it meant? How could it? If it did...was it some kind of trap? Was the woman looking for Andrew Richter, or something else? There were too many unanswered questions...

Worriedly watching for any signs that her stalker was nearby, she considered her options. The safest bet was to try and get someplace reasonably safe, and then send messages to her contacts before sending an instant message to the PHO account written on the stuffed dragon. Her friends could check on any reply...and deal with the consequences if it was a trap.

If it wasn't a trap, then hopefully they could advise her on next steps. That decided, she made ready to leave. She had to keep moving if she wanted to avoid capture...or worse.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School

The morning was sunnier, but still cool. The sunshine made the trip to lovely Winslow a lot more pleasant, although Sophia was still nervous about seeing Taylor again. After getting off the bus, she kept her eyes open as she went into the school, but there was no sign of Hebert or her crew. Instead, Miguel was waiting for her at her locker.

"Miguel? Are you OK?" she asked. He looked really nervous for some reason, as well as over-tired.

"Sophia, you remember what Tim said yesterday?" At her nod, he said, "Well, I kept a lookout when I was going home. There were two guys who looked like Empire thugs watching to see what bus I got on."

Alarmed, she asked, "Did they follow you?"

He shook his head. "No...but it's not like it would be hard to find my address in the phone book. I think they wanted to see my daily route."

She frowned. That was a bad sign. "Can you stay late after school tomorrow?"

He grimaced. "My mother doesn't like me to be late. She has to take care of my abeula, and I help her when I get home."

Sophia considered that. "Maybe...all three of us could take the bus with you? They might leave you alone if they see you're with a group? I'll ask Cass and Macy when I see them in class. We can talk about it at lunch."

"It would make me feel better," he admitted, "but I don't know if it will be enough."

She patted his arm. "We'll figure something out. Don't worry."

He seemed slightly relieved, and went off to go to his own locker. After he left, Sophia began fretting about the situation. She knew she had options the other girls didn't...but that meant risking discovery as a cape. That would put her family at risk. Could she really live with herself if her inaction let Miguel get hurt, or maybe even killed, though? By the time the bell rang for home room, she didn't have any real answers.

On the way to the class room, she did finally see Hebert, but the girl seemed to be deep in conversation with Emma about something. Madison and the other hangers-on weren't around. Sophia quickly moved on to avoid drawing attention to herself.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 4: Meetings

Friday, January 14, 2011
Winslow High School

Macy, Sophia, and Miguel were waiting for his bus at the stop down the street from the school.

"You don't have to escort me home. I can take care of myself," said Miguel.

Macy shook her head. "It's fine, Miguel. You're our friend. Cass would be here too, but she has a much longer trip home and her parents had something for her to do tonight."

With some concern, he replied, "But I don't want you two to be targeted by the Empire, too."

As the bus pulled in, Sophia answered, "You're not targeted by the Empire. You're targeted by a bunch of racist kids who want to be Empire because they think it's cool. They won't be so brave against a group."

The three teens got on the bus using their student bus passes. It was only a twelve-minute ride to Miguel's neighborhood, with only one stop in between. He actually lived a little closer to the school than Sophia did -- close enough to walk if the weather was nice and he left a little early. The weather today was not so warm to make that appealing, though.

The two girls noticed that there were a couple of teens hanging around near the bus stop at their destination. They must have cut out early or skipped entirely to get there before the three of them. Macy commented, "The kid on the right with the earring is Ricky." Neither of the two punks acted like they noticed the three teens getting off the bus, but Sophia thought they seemed a little too casual about it (assuming that was a thing and not just Hollywood pretense). She kept an eye on them until they were around the corner.

At the door to Miguel's apartment building, he turned to them. "Thanks for this. I would invite you in, but...well, my family gets upset at unexpected company."

"It's OK," said Sophia, with Macy nodding her agreement. "We just wanted to see you home." Both girls knew that the boy's family was a little unusual.

He smiled at them again, then went inside with a wave. They noticed that the security doors didn't seem to be working properly, as he was able to go inside without any kind of key. That was a little worrying, but it wasn't something they could do anything about. The two left to walk back and wait for the bus.

As they turned the corner, they noticed that the two kids from earlier were still there, but now they weren't alone. There were now four more men, and these didn't look like high school kids. They were in their twenties and had clear signs of being Empire 88. There were jacket patches, visible tattoos, and all four had either buzz cuts or shaved heads. One of them noticed the two black girls walking to the bus and stared at them. He continued to stare at them as they waited until the next bus arrived.

"I don't like the look of that," commented Sophia.

Macy bit her lip. "Should we call the police?"

Sophia grimaced. "And tell them what? Some Empire members are standing on a street corner?" The police had enough to do around Brockton Bay that they weren't likely to do even a drive-by for something like that, especially in that neighborhood.

Macy pulled out her phone. "I'm going to text Miguel. Maybe his family can protect themselves if they try anything."

Giving them some forewarning was a start, but Sophia was worried that it might not be enough. She pulled out her phone and brought up a map of the neighborhood. There wasn't much here...but she did see something that gave her an idea. When the next bus finally arrived, she said to Macy, "You go ahead. I've got to check something out."

"Are you crazy?" asked Macy, clearly wondering what her friend was thinking.

Sophia just pushed her friend toward the open door. "Trust me. I'll be fine."

Reluctantly (and to the slight annoyance of the bus driver), the other girl slowly got on the bus. As it pulled away, Sophia used the cover of the bus to dart into a nearby alley. It wasn't particularly clean and smelled foul, but it was out of sight of the gang members and it led to another street that held the shop that had caught her attention on the map. The alley also happened to be empty, luckily for her. It wouldn't do to get mugged on the way to trying to stop an assault. On the next street was a thrift shop. The shop was locked up tight with metal sliding doors covering the windows, as it was only open three days a week and Friday wasn't one of those days. Keeping an eye on the street, Sophia walked over to the shop, then stepped into the alley that ran beside it. Just as she hoped, there was a back entrance off the alley. This was locked up tight as well, of course, but doors were no longer much of an obstacle for her.

The inside of the shop was dark, though bits of light did filter in through the cracks around the security doors. There was a dim orange glow from a lava lamp sitting on the counter that somebody had neglected to turn off. It was close enough to a stack of unfolded clothes that she thought it was a wonder that the place hadn't burned down already. She actually moved the pile of clothes, not wanting a fire to start while she was in the process of robbing the place. She didn't really want to rob the place, but she also didn't feel like exposing her identity as a cape to the Empire thugs threatening her friend's family.

The shop wasn't particularly well-equipped, but what it did have was a plethora of old clothes -- clothes that she could use to hide her identity. Searching quickly, she found a pair of faded black jeans that would fit her and provide more protection than her current skirt and tights. She also found a black turtleneck that was slightly too small, a pair of black leather gloves, a dark blue hooded sweatshirt that had the logo of a triple-A baseball team in New York, a dark maroon scarf to cover her lower face, and a cheap black domino mask from a half-missing Halloween costume. Overall, she looked more like a homeless person than a superhero, but you couldn't tell what she looked like with the hood up. Her most useful find was behind the sales counter. There was a black aluminum baseball bat and what felt like a half-empty can of cheap pepper spray. Putting her original clothes inside a canvas shopping bag, she exited back into the alley. She hid her bag behind a dumpster in the alley, wincing a little at the odor, and hurried out to look for the thugs.

It said something about Brockton Bay that not one person appeared to notice or react to somebody with a covered face walking on the street with a baseball bat in her hand. To be fair, it said more about the neighborhood than the city overall. She likely wouldn't have gotten away with it on the Boardwalk or in front of the PRT building. Regardless, Sophia quickly headed to where the group of Empire thugs had been talking near the bus stop. Her anxiety increased when she saw they were no longer there, and she rapidly began walking toward Miguel's building. As she turned the corner, she saw the last of the gang members entering the front door through the broken security doors.

She broke into a sprint. She knew Miguel and his family lived on the third floor, so it would take them time to call the elevator or take the stairs. Fighting in a narrow hallway or stairwell would make it easier to take on six people at once...hopefully. There was a small little voice in the back of her brain saying that she was being an idiot, but there was also an atavistic thrill at the idea of getting into a fight. The latter was clearly winning.

Three of the older gangers were visible in the hall. The other three had entered the stairwell at the end of the entrance hall. The flickering exit sign over the door implied a fire exit as well. Maybe if she attacked quickly, the others would make a run for it? She broke into a sprint, raising the bat for a sideways swing. The hall was barely wide enough to swing it, though she could cheat a bit with her powers. The bat swung through an arc, the very tip of it going shadow as it passed through a box containing a fire extinguisher, and impacted the side of one of the ruffians. He cried out and fell to the side, his hand holding his ribs...which were undoubtedly bruised if not broken.

"What the fuck?" said one of the other two in the hall. The other started reaching in his pocket for something. She jumped forward and jammed the tip of the bat into his nose hard, causing him to stumble back and cry out. The vocal one tried to grab for the bat, only to stare in shock as it phased to shadow and passed through his hand and wrist. "We've got a cape!" he yelled to the others in the hall. He stepped forward and took a swing at her. Sophia phased and stepped through him, then used the butt of the bat to slam into the back of his head. This pushed his head into the wall, and he fell down insensate.

The one with the bruised ribs was pulling himself to his feet using the wall, and he turned to face her. With a snarl, he launched himself bodily at her. She jumped up and phased to shadow, leaping through him. She tried to twist in mid-air but stumbled a bit on the landing. He tripped over the leg of his unconscious friend and fell down again. Rushing over to him, she brought the bat down on his back, knocking him to the ground. He groaned in pain and stayed down.

Behind her, the older gang member from the stairwell came out. He had a hunting knife in his hand and was watching her warily. She held the bat in a guard position, and the two advanced toward each other. As he swung the knife, she moved as if to block it with the bat, but instead phased to shadow and let the swing pass through the bat. Her opponent clearly was expecting a block and lost his balance from the lack of resistance. She pushed the bat forward like a staff and slammed it into his face. The blow stunned him, and it gave her plenty of time to bring the bat down on his head. He fell to the ground and the knife dropped from his hand.

Sophia turned and phased through the doorway into the stairwell. The two teens from Winslow were in there...Ricky and his unnamed friend. The friend looked at her phasing through the door, yelled, "Fuck this shit!", and bolted for the fire exit. Ricky, on the other hand, pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and started shooting. She could feel it as the six bullets passed through her shadow state. When the gun was empty, he continued pulling the trigger manically. She stepped forward and slammed the bat into his face twice. He stood there for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then fell forward into unconsciousness.

She turned back to the doorway to the entrance hall, only to find that one of the older Empire members had come in through the door while Ricky was shooting, and was lying on the floor bleeding out from two bullet holes in his chest. His nose was also bleeding, which meant that he was probably the one who had been reaching for a weapon, and she could see a switchblade in his hand. She frowned. The gun had probably been meant for Miguel or his family as part of some kind of initiation, so she didn't feel too badly for the one who was shot. The gunshots meant that somebody would call the police, however, and they would likely be showing up eventually. Miguel's family was probably safe for now, so that meant it was time to go.

The alley behind the fire exit was empty. Ricky's friend must have kept running when he got outside. From there, it wasn't hard to go back to where she had stashed her clothes. She packed her outfit and weapons in the same bag and headed for the bus. She didn't hear the sirens from the police until she was riding the bus on her way home.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Saturday, January 15, 2011
The Palanquin

It wasn't until almost ten in the morning that Mel got around to checking her messages. Last night had been a late one. Some idiot had tried to start a fight in the main club room. He was drunk, else he probably wouldn't have done so right in front of Gregor. The Case 53 was more than a little intimidating. Unfortunately, the idiot had also had two slightly less drunk friends that took exception to Gregor manhandling him out the door. The resulting mess had sent one of the idiots to the hospital and required hours of cleanup. PHO came up, and she saw that she had three personal secure messages. That was highly unusual. Secured messages generally meant professional cape business, and it was rare for her to get three of them in a single week, never mind overnight. She opened the first.

HideAndSeek: There was an unexpected visitor in SJN. They implied knowledge they shouldn't have and left contact info. I'm sending them to you to validate. I'm also calling in a favor. Expect visitors. Teleporter involved.

Well...that was interesting. SJN was St. John's, Newfoundland, and in this context, it meant somebody was snooping around Richter's old house. Having a teleporting cape explained how they got in and out before the PRT, the Guild, or anybody else showed up to take them into custody. She opened up the next message.

DocRock: Bringing team to BB on the morning of the 16th thanks to a mutual Northern friend.

Mel's eyes widened a bit. That visit in Canada must really have stirred up some things if they were coming to town. That was probably the favor referenced in the first message. Hopefully, they would at least try to be discreet.

The next message, combined with the first two, made her worried.

SoleSurvivor: Orders from the CD to keep your place under surveillance.

She frowned. As Faultline, she had managed to get through quite a large number of difficult situations. Having plain-clothed PRT in her club on a weekend filled with high-profile visitors wasn't the most difficult chore she had ever had, but there was an annoyingly high chance of something unexpected happening. In this kind of company, "unexpected" could quickly turn into, "explosive." It would be better to force a change of venue. If her backup was going to be here tomorrow morning, then she could set something up at an alternate site that was prepared in advance. Picking up the phone on her desk, she pressed one of the preset numbers. After four rings, Carl picked up.

"Hey, Mel, what can I do for my favorite business partner?"

Mel could hear noise from the kitchen in the background. "As far as I know, Carl, I'm your only business partner."

"Just proves me right, then."

Mel smirked. "Carl, I need to use the basement room tomorrow afternoon. Around two."

There was a pause. "Do I need to close the place down?"

"I would rather you didn't, actually. This is low profile."

"And this will be a quiet meeting?" he asked. It was a fair question. Anything involving capes had the potential to boil over into something dangerous.

"The Doctor and his team are going to be providing security, so we'll make sure it stays quiet," she replied.

This led to a much longer pause. "Well, shit. All right. Let me know if anything changes."

"Of course. Thanks for this."

He scoffed. "You own half of this place, Mel. You don't have to thank me."

She smiled. "Nevertheless, thank you anyway." After he acknowledged her comment, they ended the call.

"Something happening tomorrow?" asked Mark for the door to her office.

She looked over at him. He was older than she was, but he carried his age better. His face looked maybe a decade younger than his actual age, even with the signs of stress that came from a violent and troubled life. It was quite a contrast to her own sharp features. People always said she looked older than her years. It was amusing that the combination made them look like they were the same age when there was more than a decade between them.

"Take a look at this," she said, motioning toward her computer screen.

Mark, the cape known more popularly as Flashbang, walked over and looked over her shoulder. The normally calm and polite man uttered a rather vile expletive.

She laughed. "You have a way with words, but I can't argue with your summation."

He just shook his head. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Angels were all gathered in the conference room again with Sammy and Metis. The AI was giving a briefing.

"We received a message at the PHO account Metis scrawled on the stuffed animal we left at Richter's. It simply said, 'Go to the Palanquin in Brockton Bay; ask the owner about the Canadian computer industry.' The owner of the Palanquin is a cape known as Faultline. Unlike some of the other capes in this world, Faultline seems on the surface to be similar to the versions known in the mirror realities. She's a mercenary who takes a particular interest in helping Case 53 capes. If anything, Case 53's in this world need the help even more than in the other worlds, so perhaps she's somewhat more altruistic than mercenary," said the transparent bear image.

"Perhaps, but I wouldn't expect it to be that simple," added Metis. "This mirror reality is more like the mirror in a funhouse, with plenty of distortions."

"What can we expect at the Palanquin?" asked Vala.

The AI avatar opened a window with a list of capes. "Faultline's Crew in this world is slightly different from in the other two. The most surprising addition is Mark Dallon, a.k.a. Flashbang. In Skitter's and Saurial's realities, he's part of the group New Wave with his wife, daughters, and his sister-in-law's family. Here, his wife is dead, he never adopted Amy Dallon, and his daughter is in the Wards. The Pelhams appear to live in Philadelphia. His power allows him to create bouncing grenades of varying force made of light constructs." Sammy brought up the image of a cape in a dark costume and a welder's mask. "Faultline herself is the leader of the team, and she has the ability to make a hole or cut in any substance. The sole exception we've discovered is EDM."

Next, there came a picture of a team, the majority of whom appeared clearly inhuman. "Her team includes Gregor the Snail, a Case 53 who is a walking chemical factory; Newter, another case 53 who is an extremely agile fighter and whose skin and body fluids contain a powerful hallucinogen; Spitfire, a woman who is essentially a living flamethrower; Shamrock, who uses low-powered clairvoyance and telekinesis to appear lucky; and Whippersnap, a Case 53 who is excessively thin and has super-speed."

"What about Labyrinth?" asked Metis, who was familiar with the alternate versions of Faultline's Crew.

Sammy shook her head. "Elle Larsson is still confined to a sanitarium for problematic parahumans in upstate New York."

"Tough team, nevertheless," said Vala.

"We're not planning on fighting them, though," commented William, the former vampire. "We're still trying to find out what happened to that Richter fellow, right?"

Flint snorted. "Doesn't mean it won't happen, though." William acknowledged that with a nod.

"Isn't the whole city filled to the brim with super-heroes and super-villains?" asked Faith. "Seems like we could run into almost anybody."

The AI nodded. "There are a large number of capes of various moral and ethical persuasions. There are three major parahuman gangs -- the Empire 88, led by Kaiser, the Asian Bad Boyz, led by Lung, and the Archer's Bridge Merchants, led by Skidmark. You all have summary documents in your in-boxes describing the various powers and abilities possessed by each gang. The Undersiders are a less well-known gang. While it isn't publicly known, they are actually affiliated with the local Dock Workers' Union. Their membership includes Skitter -- a mirror version of Taylor Hebert almost certainly. Given how effective she has proven in two different universes, my suggestion is that you try to avoid the Undersiders if at all possible."

"I second that suggestion. Both versions of Taylor that I have met are exceedingly dangerous," agreed Metis seriously. While Saurial was of course the definition of an unstoppable force, there was evidence that Skitter was well on her way to becoming an insanely powerful warlord and master-class cape prior to her introduction to the Family.

"What about the government capes?" asked William.

"The local PRT Director is a man named Thomas Calvert. In both mirrors, he was secretly a super-villain known as Coil. He was a precognitive with the ability to model two different future paths and keep the one he preferred. It is unclear what his powers in this reality are...or even if he has any. The Protectorate team and Wards are similar to what we've seen elsewhere, though there are variations. Battery doesn't appear to exist, and there's evidence that a male cape with similar powers is a member of the Undersiders. Triumph also doesn't exist and has no obvious analog. Two known rogues from the mirror have joined the Protectorate here, Parian and Circus, the latter of which goes by the cape name, 'Jester,' in this reality. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Velocity, and Assault are also members. Dauntless was a member, but he was killed in a fight with the Empire 88 six months ago."

"The Wards are also different. The group is missing both Vista and Shadow Stalker, but includes Glory Girl, Timestop, known as Clockblocker in other worlds, Morph, a tinker who appears to be this world's version of Kid Win, Galant, Aegis, and two precogs who aren't field capes -- Hunch and Foresight. The former is a Case 53 that was part of the Boston Ward team in the mirror universes, and the latter is a young girl who might be this universe's analog of Dinah Alcott, although her officially-reported abilities are more limited than would be expected."

"If the PRT here has access to two capes with precognitive abilities, then it is surprising that they aren't more dominant," commented Seven. "The ability to predict the future is a significant tactical and strategic advantage."

Metis frowned. "Thomas Calvert in the other universes fancied himself as a chess-master. He played all of the gangs against each other, with the eventual goal of running both the legal and illegal sides of Brockton Bay as a modern-day feudal lord. It's likely that his ultimate plan isn't obvious, and he could very well be playing a longer game with most of his moves concealed."

"So how do we want to run this? Who's going in to make contact with Faultline?" asked Vala.

"I think Flint and Faith should go in on the ground," said the large black reptile. "Both are capable of taking serious hits. The rest of us can be ready to provide backup as necessary. It may even turn out to be a simple conversation without any violence." Metis noticed with a grin that everybody looked highly skeptical of that, even Sammy's avatar. "It has happened before, you know. Saurial even had a cordial meeting with Lung, once."

"I believe that was after Kaiju threatened to eat him if he didn't behave himself," replied Sammy. "I don't believe that we should use the Family as a baseline for assessing likely events. Things tend to skew rather drastically in their favor, for reasons I have yet to quantify."

"Perhaps Metis should go, then," suggested Seven.

"While we want to draw attention," replied Metis, "we probably don't want to draw that much attention at this time. My presence would probably be enough to draw the entire Protectorate down on us. I think there are a lot of things going on here behind the scenes, and I want to know more before we trigger a confrontation like that."

Sammy nodded. "While I have no doubt about your ability to win a fight with the local capes, I'm not certain we want to deal with this universe's Triumvirate, not to mention Scion. It also isn't clear how we should deal with them. For all we know, the mirror version of Scion may be completely benevolent." Of course, if that wasn't the case, then she might get a chance to use the massive coaxial cannon that Vectura built into the Smug Advocacy. She couldn't deny being curious to see how effective it would be against a Scion analog.

"I guess that means we get to see what Flint looks like when he's all dressed up," commented Faith with a grin.

The man in question simply shifted his form so that he appeared to be wearing a tuxedo, complete with black tie. He smirked and raised an eyebrow at her.

She looked him over critically. "Might be slightly dressy for clubbing in the Bay."

With a shrug, he shifted again into a slacks-and-blazer combo that looked more appropriate. "I'm flexible."

"Is anybody else jealous of people who can make clothes appear from nowhere?" asked Vala.

Anya, Faith, and, strangely enough, Metis raised their hand, followed shortly by both Seven and William. Flint simply smirked, while Sammy rolled her holographic eyes.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Later that evening, Flint and Faith were walking uphill toward the Palanquin. Flint was dressed as before, while Faith had a black mini-dress which should have been too cold for the evening weather. It was eight o'clock, so the line to get into the club was still relatively short. On a Saturday night, that still meant a ten-minute wait. The bouncers at the door wanded them with metal detectors, but neither of them was carrying anything that would set them off. On the off chance that they needed anything heavier than fists, the rest of the team could teleport it to them.

There were at least three different dance floors inside. One on the ground floor had a live DJ who seemed to like an eclectic mix of pop-style dance music, while the second had a preset mix of electro and techno. The upstairs floor was slightly quieter and had a much more elaborate bar. The bar was clearly the focus on this floor, whereas downstairs they were mostly adjuncts to the dance floor. There was also a second-floor lounge that had a variety of well-dressed folks talking, drinking, and smoking. It was clear that the rules about drug use were fairly lax, though that was probably to be expected in a club owned by a cape team that included a couple of walking chemical factories.

"You noticed the watchers?" asked Flint sotto voice after they had done a transit through all the rooms.

Faith nodded. "At least three undercover."

"Four," he replied. "The last one is really good -- guy with the green shirt at the lounge bar."

"So what do you think?" she asked. "Gregor is in the lounge. We can try talking to him."

Flint frowned. "They're watching him, though. They know something is going to go down here. If we're lucky, it has nothing to do with us."

She laughed. "Yeah, right. Let's talk to the bartender in the techno room. He didn't look as busy, and it's loud enough in there to cover the conversation."

The two headed back down to the ground floor. Flint was tempted to go to sand form and try and do some reconnaissance in the non-public areas of the club, but it wasn't clear if the group here were allies or enemies, and potentially pissing them off before finding out was unwise. When they got to the bar, they waited patiently until the bartender finished fixing a pair of mixed drinks for a couple of college-aged girls. Finally, he turned his attention to them. "What can I get you?"

Faith smiled at him and asked, "We're looking for the owner. We were told she had some advice for us about the Canadian computer industry." She felt a little silly asking for something in spy code like that, but it was what the message had said.

The bartender paused for a moment, then said, "Let me check on that for you." He went to the back of the bar and picked up a phone handset. After saying a few words, he came back and told them, "Somebody will be with you in a moment. Would you like something to drink on the house?"

"Jack and Coke," replied Faith.

Flint shrugged. "Give me whatever you've got in a local brew."

The bartender smiled at him. "We have one that we get through one of the dockside bars. It's quite popular." Flint just nodded, and the bartender fixed their drinks.

After a few minutes of waiting without saying much, a red-haired woman in a green dress came out onto the floor and came over to them. "I'm sorry, but the owner is indisposed at the moment. She did give me this for you, however." She had in her hand an envelope made of high-quality paper. "I believe you'll find everything you need in here." Her smile didn't reach her eyes.

Flint took the envelope. "Thank you. I'm sorry we missed her." The redhead nodded and left, heading back toward the employee entrance. To Faith, he said, "I think we should head toward the restrooms."

She nodded her agreement and the two quickly made their way into the hallway of the club leading to the bathrooms. There was a locked supply closet on the way. Keeping an eye out for other people, Flint sent a tendril of sand under the door and up to the doorknob on the inside to unlock the door. The two slipped inside. A flash of light soon indicated that the two had vanished, leaving at least two very confused PRT undercover agents mingling with the crowd and trying to figure out where the two strangers who had gotten special attention had gone.

Up on the ship, Vala was waiting for them at the transporter station. "Everything OK?"

Flint held up the envelope and extended a thin blade made of sand under the flap, creating a makeshift letter opener. He tore through the flap, then slid out the enclosed piece of paper. "Meet us at 3 pm tomorrow at the back door to Fugley Bob's restaurant," he read out loud. "Palanquin is being watched by the authorities."

"Huh," said Faith. "There's some assumptions built into that note."

Vala looked over Flint's shoulder at the note. "Probably fair ones, though. If we weren't wary of the authorities, then Anya would have just waited for Legend to show up instead of vanishing." The ship's scanners had clearly shown the Protectorate leader arriving over the house in Newfoundland.

"It also takes any potential conflict away from their primary business and place of residence," added Flint. "But why not just send us there to start?"

"Something changed," suggested Faith. "Either that or Faultline's team isn't fully on the same page as the person who sent us the original message."

"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," said Vala.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sunday, January 16, 2011
Brockton Bay

Victor was looking at his watch impatiently. There were supposed to be ten men here to help load merchandise onto a pair of trucks, and only seven had shown up. None of the ones here knew anything about where the other three were. He called a number that connected to an Empire informant at the BBPD.

A rough male voice answered. "This is Sergeant Thompson speaking."

"This is Victor. I need to know if any of our boys were picked up in the last twenty-four hours," said Victor without bothering with polite niceties. Thompson knew the score, so he wouldn't be dumb enough to complain.

There was a brief pause. "The only arrests last night were a pickpocket on the Boardwalk and a couple of Merchants trying to mug a tourist. Let me double-check the sheet." He could hear the sound of a keyboard. "OK, there was a call last night but no arrests. That's why it didn't cross my desk. A car went out to a suspected domestic, but found five young men in need of medical attention. Four of them are in the hospital, one with gunshot wounds. Here, I'll give you the names."

Much to Victor's annoyance, three of the four in the hospital were the men who were supposed to show up. The one out of the hospital was a name he didn't recognize. "What can you tell me about Ricky Dasich?"

"Hm..." muttered the cop. "Looks like he's still in high school. Winslow, not surprisingly. The report says a follow-up call to the hospital found that the kid checked himself out of the hospital AMA. He had some reason to not want to stick around."

The Empire cape pondered that. "All right. Keep an eye out for any more information." He hung up the phone. He needed to get these crates loaded, which was going to be a pain in the ass because they were short-handed. Then he would pay a visit to the hospital with Othala in order to find out what happened. Depending upon what he heard, little Ricky might be getting a visit after that. Whether he would enjoy that visit was still up in the air.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 5: Secrets

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sophia had gotten a text from Macy. The tone of the message was pretty much ordering her to go to the mall and meet, which was why she was sitting on a bus on the way there. With any luck, the girl just wanted to quiz her about what she had done after staying in Miguel's neighborhood. The problem with that was that Sophia didn't have a great answer that didn't out her as a cape. Finally, after discarding a half-a-dozen stupid excuses, she decided to wing it and hope that the other girl didn't press her too hard.

Macy was waiting for her in their usual spot by the department store. "Hey!" said Sophia with a smile.

"Hey." said Macy...who then grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her toward the food court.

"Um, Macy, what the hell?" stammered Sophia.

Macy glanced at her with an unreadable look on her face and then said, "We have to talk."

Without another word, Macy dragged them over to the coffee stand, ordered two high sugar whipped coffee drinks (much to Sophia's distaste), and then found a quiet corner away from other people and plunked Sophia down, taking the other seat. The girl took a sip of her drink, then said, "I spoke to Miguel on the phone. He says the cops came to his place last night and dragged a half-dozen Empire thugs off to the hospital...and you know something about it, because your face just changed."

Sophia cursed herself silently. She had frowned when Macy said it was, "a half-dozen," because she knew it was only five. Shit. "I saw what happened," she said quickly.

Macy looked at her skeptically. "You saw what happened?"

Sophia nodded her head. "Yeah...so, you know how I didn't get on the bus with you?" Macy gave her a nod. "Well, I thought I could stay behind until the Empire punks tried something, and then call the cops. They would have to show up if they were committing a crime, right? So, I hid and followed them. They went into Miguel's building, 'cause the door wasn't locked, and then a cape showed up!"

"Which cape?" asked Macy.

"I don't know. I've never seen her before. She knew how to fight, though, and she could turn into shadow when she moved. She beat up five of them, and the sixth of them ran away," said Sophia.

Macy stared at her for half-a-dozen heart beats. Then she said, very simply, "I don't believe you."

Sophia's mouth dropped open in surprise. Then she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't believe you, because you're lying to me. For one thing, you expect me to believe that bullshit about planning to call the police when you and I both know they wouldn't have gotten there in time to help Miguel? For another, you're trying to tell me you followed a bunch of racist gang members into Miguel's building, and not one of them stopped to scare away or attack the black girl following them?" Macy visible scoffed at that. "Finally, if you had seen a new cape beat up Ricky and his friends, then you would have been on the phone telling everybody about it as soon as you got home." Her face changed to an angry one. "By the way, I stayed up late waiting for you to call me, which you never did. I didn't want to call you just in case you were doing something stupid. If you hadn't answered my text this morning, I was going to start calling the hospitals."

Sophia cringed at her friend's response. She really should have called her, or at least texted her, last night. She'd been so preoccupied with the fight against the Empire guys that she had forgotten. "I'm sorry, I should have called you," she said quietly.

"Yes, you should have," replied her friend. "Now, are you going to tell me what really happened?"

Sophia sat there nervously. What could she say? She couldn't tell her the truth, but she had already tried lying. "I can't tell you that."

The other girl pursed her lips. "You pushed me on that bus without an explanation, and now you won't tell me what's going on. I thought we were friends?" Macy stood up, clearly intending to leave.

"No, wait, we are..." said Sophia.

Macy looked at her with an annoyed expression. "Well?" she asked.

Sophia slumped down. "There was a cape there last night, and she did beat up those Empire assholes."

"How do you know that?" asked Macy.

Resignedly, Sophia held her hand so that nobody but Macy could see it, then turned the tips of her fingers to shadow. "I know it because the cape was me."

Macy's face turned from annoyed to shocked. She dropped back down into the chair. "Well...shit," she said. "I wasn't expecting that..."

"What did you think?" asked Sophia, puzzled.

"I thought you were covering for somebody else, not you!" said the other girl.

Sophia shook her head once. "No, just me."

Macy didn't appear to know how to process that. Finally, she asked, "So, what can you do?"

That led to Sophia explaining what she knew about her powers. She didn't tell her friend everything, but covered the basics, and went through what happened with the Empire guys in more detail. Sophia was nervous about revealing this to her friend, but felt better when Macy was clearly impressed with how she took down the Empire toughs.

"Do you have a cape name? Are you going to join the Wards?" asked Macy.

"No, and no," replied Sophia. "I don't trust the PRT...and I don't plan to go out and fight crime."

Macy didn't seem to like that answer. "You couldn't stop yourself when Miguel was in danger. Are you seriously telling me that you're going to ignore it if you see somebody else in trouble?"

Sophia frowned. "Miguel's a friend. It's different when it's somebody you know," Sophia insisted.

Her friend laughed at her. "That's funny. You know that you're too soft-hearted for that. You always have been. Do you really think you can stay out of trouble?"

Reluctantly, Sophia had to admit she was right. The smart thing to do would be to join the PRT or a gang and try to gather as much power for herself as she could. That was how you survived in this world. Either that, or just try and steal enough to survive on her own as an independent. There wasn't any profit in helping strangers. They likely wouldn't do the same for you. Her parents had raised her and her brother differently, though. They had some unusual, and slightly old-fashioned, ideas about living a good life. Because of that, her default response was to try and help. It was why she and her friends had befriended Miguel in the first place. Sophia had insisted they do something, and Cass and Macy had gone along with it.

Macy could tell what Sophia was thinking. "Look, you know you're going to use your powers eventually. Better to prepare for it."

"How?"

Macy thought for a minute, then said, "Let's see if we can find some gear to make that easier that won't cause every gang in town to know you're a cape."

The two girls spent some time wandering the mall. There was a store that sold personal defense items, including bullet-proof vests, pepper spray, and other devices. Buying anything there required a government writ, though, and it would also flag anybody spending money there as a person of interest. The sporting goods store was more promising. There were some really thick motorcycle leathers that would work as armor, and they also sold bows and crossbows. None of it was in Sophia's price range, though, which was a problem. "I can't afford any of this stuff."

Her friend rolled her eyes. "Like that's a problem. You know who has money? The Empire."

Sophia looked at her disbelievingly. "You want me to rob the Empire 88?"

Macy shrugged. "They already hate you because you're not white. It's not like they'll hate you any more."

"But they're not actively looking for me personally."

"They will be, the second they figure out there's a non-white cape who isn't a Ward," countered Macy.

That...was also a good point. The gangs stayed away from the Wards, mostly because killing a Ward was a great way to earn a kill order and bring the Triumvirate around to make an example of the culprit. Independents were fair game, though. The PRT wasn't likely to raise a finger to help them, as that just encouraged people to try and go it alone. "I can hide my skin color," she suggested.

"You could. So that means they'll be after you to recruit you instead." Macy shook her head. "Look, you know there aren't great options here." She frowned. "I'm worried about you, Soph. You're not going to last long on your own."

Sophia didn't answer...but it was clear she needed something to give her an edge over anybody coming for her. Maybe stealing from the Empire was the best option in the short term? With enough money, she might be able to gather a team of her own, even. Anything was possible, right?

The two girls switched to more normal teen conversation, but Macy could tell she was distracted, and it didn't take long for the two to split up and head home.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Thomas went into the conference room and disconnected the camera. The Ward he was mentoring was already inside waiting for him, and he nodded to her while he did that. "Foresight," he said.

"Director," acknowledged the young girl. She was wearing a blue and white costume that had images suggesting clouds in various places. Her official record with the PRT claimed she had the ability to predict the weather with a startling amount of accuracy. She could, indeed, do that, but she was in no way limited to the weather. That fiction helped keep her from risking herself on patrol, and it kept her from getting involuntarily drafted into the Protectorate's Thinker organization. As this was something that both she and her parents wanted, they were happy to work with Director Calvert. In return, he agreed to mentor her...something that was normally done by adult capes in the Protectorate. Having a regional director do it wasn't unheard of, however, and he took every advantage of that.

"How are things going with the rest of the Wards?" he asked, being careful not to ask in a way that would trigger her power.

The girl shrugged. "It's not bad. Vicky is kind of a bitch, but Miss Militia reigns her in if she goes too far. The others are OK, though they still treat me as the kid on the team."

Thomas smiled at her. "You are the youngest member."

She rolled her eyes. "I know that. It doesn't mean it isn't annoying. Anyway, go ahead and ask today's questions."

Once a week, Director Calvert and Foresight had a weekend mentoring session that he used as an opportunity to use her precognitive ability. He always disconnected the cameras. A little side money to somebody in security covered that up. Calvert was pretty sure the man thought he was doing something unsavory with the under-aged Ward...but that man would be sorely disappointed if he ever tried to actually use that supposed blackmail material. In truth, Thomas was hiding a valuable asset from people who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of the young girl for her power.

Calvert sat down and took out a voice recorder, which he then switched on. "What is the chance of somebody in the PRT moving against me within the next seven days?"

"18.2239%," she replied. That was a fairly typical answer. The organization was fairly cutthroat -- sometimes literally so, though that wasn't officially sanctioned.

"What is the chance of Cauldron attacking me within the next seven days?"

"6.3984%."

"What is the chance that the status quo in Brockton Bay will change significantly within the next seven days?"

"89.4452%," replied the Ward, a somewhat surprised expression on her face at the large probability.

Thomas's eyes widened as well. "What is the chance that this change will be caused by the known gangs?"

"22.8938%." So, it was possible that the gangs might do something to bring about the upset, but it didn't seem like they were directly responsible. He froze as another thought occurred to him. Would it be an Endbringer?

"What is the chance that a significant portion of Brockton Bay will be destroyed in the next seven days?"

"9.2298%." The girl winced slightly. That was a bad sign. It meant that her next question would likely be the last one she could handle without a terrible amount of pain. Painkillers did very little against tinker headaches, and he always felt guilty if he had to push her too far. What should he ask? It didn't seem like anybody would be coming after him, and the gangs and the Endbringers didn't seem to be involved...hmm.

"What is the chance that the upset will directly threaten the well-being of me or my co-conspirators?"

The young girl, Dinah, groaned slightly from the impending thinker headache, but she answered, "0.0388%."

"Huh. That is unexpected," he said out loud.

With a wince, Foresight said, "I can probably handle another question."

"No, you can't," said Thomas with a frown. "At least, not without risking hurting yourself. It isn't worth that."

She shook her head, then made a face that showed she was regretting the motion. "You still don't know what the cause of the upset is, Director. Let me rest for a while, and you can ask me some more."

"It will be hard to do that without somebody noticing. Unless there's already a crisis in process, then it isn't worth the risk." He smiled at her. "At least we know something is going to happen, which is better than complete ignorance."

"I can ask the questions on my own, then. If I can figure out the cause of what's coming, then I'll text you a question about Ward patrol policies," she suggested.

He considered that. Then he sighed. It was too good an option to not allow it. "All right, Dinah. You can do that, but don't do it to the point where you make yourself sick, and make sure you still keep up with the weather predictions. They help provide cover for you." Then he paused. "Do you actually have any questions about Ward patrol policies? This is supposed to be a mentoring session, after all."

She grinned. "Not really. I'm on monitor duty so much that I've spent plenty of time reading the rules already."

He chuckled. "I'll have to take credit for you knowledge of procedure, then, as proof that I'm actually mentoring you."

"You have taught me a lot," she said with sincerity.

He sighed. "Maybe not things my superiors would want me to teach you, though."

She shrugged. They both knew how Thomas felt about the PRT as a whole, especially after his experiences living through the Cleansing of Ellisburg. They had needed to stop Nilbog, but not like that.

"All right. We have at least twenty minutes left. Have you been studying the case files I gave you?"

The girl nodded. "Did Hyperwave really get sucked into a jet engine by her cape?"

"Yes," he confirmed with a suppressed laugh. "That case is there to hammer home the need for situational awareness. It's also pretty funny."

"She must have been pretty stupid for that to happen," said Dinah. It hadn't done the plane any good either. It was lucky it had been almost empty at the time.

"Everybody makes mistakes, Foresight. It's easy to laugh...in hindsight," he replied.

She groaned. He made that joke about her name every session if he could get away with it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Faith, Anya and Flint were walking toward Brockton Bay's premier greasy burger joint. In every universe so far, it was the home of the heart attack in a bun known as the Challenger. The primary difference in this universe was that there was a memorial wall for three people who had actually had heart attacks while trying to finish the meal. The locals were apparently not very big on keeping people from self-destructive behavior. Instead of going into the restaurant, however, the three Angels found the side alley and headed around to the back. There was a metal access door there that appeared to lead into a basement, and another metal door with a heavy lock that presumably led into the kitchen area.

The three exchanged looks, then Flint raised a fist and pounded on the door to the kitchen. There was a brief pause, and then a late-thirties, balding man in an apron opened the door and stuck his head out. "Can I help you people?"

"Faultline is expecting us," said Anya.

The man looked at her assessingly. Finally, he nodded and said, "All right." He stepped out of the door, despite his arms being bared to the weather. "Come down this way," he continued, stepping over to the basement access and pulling open the doors. A set of stairs led down into a cellar that already was illuminated by an electric bulb. The man led them over to a rough wooden door in the far wall and said, "She's in here." He pulled it open and went inside.

The three strangers followed the man bemusedly. The room through the door was clearly a general storage area, with a surprisingly large area given over to shelves containing a variety of cases that seemed to be filled with condiments, take-out packages, soft drink syrup, napkins, and the host of other materials needed to run a fast-food restaurant. There was a cleared area near that door that had an old dining table with worn white paint. Behind the table, facing the door, stood three men and a woman. The woman was wearing a costume that included what appeared to be a welding mask. She nodded at their guide and said, "Thank you, Carl." He simply smiled and left through the door, closing it behind himself.

The woman said, "I'm Faultline. Who are you, exactly?" Her voice wasn't hostile, but it wasn't especially friendly, either.

Anya stepped forward. "My name is Anya Harris. This is Flint Marko and Faith Lehane," she said, gesturing in turn to her companions.

One of the men, a middle-aged gentleman asked in a rough voice, "And why were you poking around the home of the late Andrew Richter?"

"And who might you be?" replied Flint with a raised eyebrow.

"My apologies," interjected Faultline with a glance at the man who had questioned the visitors. She pointed to the man next to her. "This is Mark Dallon, also known as Flashbang." She gestured toward the man who had asked their purpose at Richter's home. "This is Doctor William Manton, and his aid Jacob." The fourth person nodded politely, causing the early gray in his beard to flicker in the dim lighting. "Doctor Manton's question is still valid, however."

"You wouldn't happen to have the rest of the Nine hiding nearby, would you?" asked Faith, having clearly recognized Manton and Jacob.

Jacob smirked. "You appear to be well informed."

"They're close enough to be of assistance," interjected Manton. "Now why don't you answer the question?"

"We're looking for Dragon," said Anya.

The four people across the table all reacted to varying degrees. Faultline and Flashbang stiffened slightly. Manton's eyes widened fractionally. Jacob's smirk turned into an actual smile. "Is that a cape name?" asked Mark in a passable attempt at dissembling.

"It's the name of an AI created by Andrew Richter," replied Marko. "A sentient computer program."

"That sounds like science fiction," commented Manton.

Faith rolled her eyes. "Like superheroes?"

"Perhaps," acknowledged the man.

"Why would you be looking for this AI?" asked the costumed mercenary.

The three visitors looked at each other, and then Anya began with their predetermined approach. "We're not from this universe."

"You're from Earth Aleph?" asked the middle-aged doctor.

"Not quite," said Anya with a shake of her head. "We're from a reality that is very different from this one. In that world, Dragon is a hero who runs the Guild in Canada. Andrew Richter was killed when the island of Newfoundland was sunk into the sea by Leviathan."

"A world that has alternate versions of people in this one?" asked Manton.

Anya nodded. "Faultline runs a mercenary company in Brockton Bay. Flashbang is part of an independent hero team named New Wave. The Slaughterhouse Nine are dead."

"That last fate has been avoided, at least," commented Jacob. "No thanks to the PRT, of course."

"The S9 in that world were psychopathic killers who were taken out by normal humans after the Nine massacred a nearby town," added Faith.

"That isn't how they operate here," replied Mark, "though PRT propaganda paints them as such."

Looking at the visitors, Jacob added, "And that fact doesn't surprise you, which is interesting..."

Faith and Flint glanced at each other, and the latter said, "From what we've been able to tell, this world and its mirror frequently have a type of moral inversion in play. A number of people who are inclined toward evil here are the opposite."

"Wait, you're saying we have a mirror universe like in Star Trek?" asked Mark. At the questioning looks from his side of the table, he said slightly defensively, "What? I used to watch it when I was in school."

"That's a close analogy," replied Anya, "but it doesn't mean we know how people in this world will act or react. People aren't one-dimensional, so you can't simply invert their behavior in one reality to predict it in another."

Faith eyed the former demon with a small amount of surprise and respect. The woman was a lot sharper than she ever let on back in Sunnydale, though her experiences since then had probably helped. "One clear difference here is that Dragon is a very public figure, but there was no sign of her upon our arrival here. We consider her a friend, so we're checking up on her."

"What is your relationship with the PRT in the other universe?" asked Faultline. She apparently was willing to accept, at least for the moment, that they weren't from this universe.

"The organization we work for treats them as an ally, although the working relationship with the Guild is better" replied Flint, recalling his briefing materials and the affiliation of the Angels with Dragon. "I know that there were a number of issues that had to be cleared up with its leadership, and the Brockton Bay branch had a number of problems with infiltration by super-villains."

Everybody paused in thought for a moment. Both sides were obviously being cautious. Neither side really knew the other's agenda or knowledge of the overall situation. Finally, Faultline made a decision. "Dragon is hiding from people who mean to destroy her. As such, it's very difficult to get in touch with her."

"But you have a way?" asked Anya.

The masked cape nodded, but said, "We do, but you understand that we're extremely reluctant to compromise her safety, especially with strangers who appear with highly...atypical claims with regard to your origins and motivations."

"We can provide proof," said Flint. "At least with regard to Dragon and the alternate version of this universe."

Faultline and her associates shared meaningful glances at each other. Finally, she replied, "Bring it here in two days. We'll review it, and we can decide how to move forward...and discuss if your group and ours have any common objectives."

Flint looked to Anya and Faith, and received a nod from each of them. "All right. Let me give you a card with a number that can be used to reach us. We have resources that can help if we agree with the objectives."

"Like saving lives," added Faith.

Faultline took the card with a nod, and then the three visitors left. She knew Carl would escort them out. After they heard the clanging that heralded the closing of the basement access doors, Manton said, "All right, you can come out now."

From out of the stacks came three people. The first was a middle-aged man with neatly groomed black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. The second was an indeterminate figure dressed in power armor, the facial plate of which was a blank outline of a human face, similar to what you would see on a department store mannequin. The third was a young teen girl with blond hair. Manton looked at the three and asked, "What did you think?"

The girl said, "They weren't lying, as far as I could tell. That may not mean much, though, because their kinesthetics were all just a tiny bit off."

"Off how?" asked Faultline.

The girl frowned, considering how to answer. "The brunette moved in a way that was slightly predatory, very precise and self-aware. The other two moved more like long-term brutes. They tend to get out of the habit of being cautious about their movements because they're durable enough to not care about bruises and scrapes."

"So they have powers," commented Dallon. "That isn't a huge surprise."

"But it also means that Riley's normal techniques for checking things could be thrown off," said Jacob. "I couldn't actually sense that any of the three were capes."

"They could be tinker enhanced," suggested the person in power armor with a masculine voice.

That caught the third previously concealed person's interest. "You mean like a biotinker?"

The man in armor shrugged. "It's a possibility, but you know I can't say for certain, John."

"If they are truly from another universe, then they might know an alternate version of Amelia," he insisted. "Our informant did say she triggered with biotinker powers."

Manton's face became sympathetic. "We can ask them about your daughter, but we need to find out if they're trustworthy before we share too much." The other man nodded in reluctant acknowledgement of the point.

"What should we tell Dragon?" asked Mark.

Faultline shook her head, her mask reflecting the shifting light. "Nothing, yet. We need to prepare for another meeting with them now that we know they want to talk. Alan, do you have anything that might disrupt teleportation? That is supposed to be part of their power set."

The man in armor tilted his head. "It isn't something directly in my area of specialization...but I might be able to work something up if I look at it the right way."

"All right. Let's talk through how we want the next meeting to go," continued the masked woman.

Faultline and Flashbang proceeded to discuss matters with the majority of the Slaughterhouse Nine well into the evening.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Four Days Ago (Wednesday, January 12th, 2011)

"Does that mean you're sending me out?" asked Taylor with a slightly excited gleam in her eye.

Danny looked over to Sarah, clearly intending for her to explain things. In response, Sarah said, "Skidmark is trying to setup a safehouse on the corner of Jackson and Oak as a way station for girls on their way to be smuggled out of the city to buyers elsewhere." The blonde girl's mouth gave a small expression of distaste, but she continued. "He's trying to be clever by not moving drugs or other heavy merchandise through it, and hoping we don't notice."

"That's union territory," interjected Danny. "If that asshole thinks we'll let him move anything through there, then he's been sampling his own product too much. I want Skitter to make an example of any Merchants we catch there." Most of the gangs got the idea that if you left the union alone, then they were perfectly happy to leave you alone. The Merchants, though, needed regular refresher courses.

"Are the rest of the Undersiders coming?" asked Taylor, looking forward to a bit of violence.

Danny made an effort of will.

Timeline 1

Danny gave her a nod. "Yes, get everybody geared up. It's time to teach the Merchants another lesson."

Sarah frowned, unhappy. "What about the other gangs? They may take advantage of the fact that the team is off-site."

"They would have to know that, and you've been screening our people for plants, right?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow. Grudgingly, she nodded her agreement. "All right, get going," he finished. The two Undersiders left his office to get the rest of the team ready.

Timeline 2

Danny gave a slight shake of his head. "You can take Alec and Zephron. I want Randy and Rachel to stay behind to protect the compound."

That was slightly annoying, and would put the team at half strength. "Why?" she asked.

"The other gangs certainly know what Skidmark is doing, and they could try to take advantage of the situation," replied Sarah with a hint of smugness.

Danny insisted she just take Regent and Pulse, of course, and his daughter acquiesced.

Timelines 1 & 2

Danny focused on legitimate union business while he waited for his daughter and her team to return from their assignment. Despite having their own cape team, he truly didn't view the DWU as another gang. Brockton Bay was dangerous, however, and he did what was necessary to protect them. That had included buying cape powers that helped him navigate the exceedingly complex balance of power in the city. He had made sure to pay off the "favors" he owed to the sellers as quickly as possible, but he wasn't an idiot. He kept the union, and his cape team, under the radar as much as possible. There was no sense attracting Cauldron's attention again if it wasn't necessary.

Timeline 1

Danny was waiting for them when Bitch's dogs came riding back through the DWU gates. Skitter's form was slung over the back of one of the dogs behind Pulse. He ran over to them. "What the hell happened?"

Pulse dropped down off of the dog, which stood panting heavily from the run. "We took out the guards at the safe house, but while we were inside Mush and Trainwreck showed up with a car full of Merchants. Skitter was handling the mooks, but she missed one, and he shot her from behind."

Danny took a look at his daughter, whose side was covered in blood. The girl was breathing shallowly. "She needs to go to the hospital," he said. They didn't have anyone skilled enough at medicine to treat her.

"That will out her," said Pulse. "The Merchants know she was shot."

Danny grimaced. "Damn it!" he said. Then he dropped the timeline.

Timeline 2

Danny was still pissed over what had happened in the other timeline when he heard their report. "The Merchants were able to chase you off?"

Taylor shook her head. "The three of us weren't enough to fight off two brutes by ourselves. We needed the whole team."

"Mush isn't much of a brute," commented Sarah snidely.

Zephron narrowed his eyes. "I had Mush handled until Trainwreck showed up, too. They were expecting an attack." The man was rubbing his bruised ribs as he spoke.

Danny shifted his gaze between Zephron and Sarah. He needed to handle this. "This is not a good result for us. It makes us look weak."

"So we hit 'em again," said Taylor, "but this time we take everybody."

Her father glared at her. The girl didn't seem to realize how close she came to dying. "And then you walk into another ambush. Jesus." He rubbed his hands through his hair. "No. I want the whole team here tomorrow. Skidmark is an overconfident asshole. If he thinks he has the advantage, then he's going to attack here."

"We can take them if you let us go out!" she insisted.

Instead of responding, he strode over to her and slapped her. She *needed* to listen to him on this. She didn't cry out, but she did jerk back, and kept her eyes lowered from his face.

"I said," he said slowly and evenly, "that I want the whole team here tomorrow. I'll call your school and tell them you're sick. Do you understand me?"

She nodded her head.

He waved them away at that. "Go take Zephron and have Stevie look at his ribs." Stevie had been a medical corpsman in the Navy, and was the informal nurse for the union. As the group began to file out, Danny added, "And Sarah, she was right when she asked to take the whole team. That was a shit call on your part." Sarah's face turned grim, but she nodded and then left with the others.

Three Days Ago (Thursday, January 13, 2011)

The next morning, Danny decided to split his chances again.

Timeline 1

When Taylor came downstairs, he said, "Taylor, I've been thinking it over. I think you should go to school today. We'll be fine, and your being absent may cause people to ask questions."

Taylor looked at him, surprised, then shrugged and said, "All right, if you're sure?"

"Go ahead," he said.

Taylor grinned. Her father didn't know it, but she wanted to find out what the hell had actually happened with Hess earlier in the week, and why she hadn't been in school yesterday. If the girl had triggered, then that was something she wanted to know sooner rather than later. The girl's dad was union, so that meant another potential member for the Undersiders. If she hadn't triggered, then the girl still owed her.

Danny left for work as normal, and the morning was just another typical work day, although there was a tension in the air. While members didn't talk to outsiders about union business, rumor inside the group traveled at light speed. Everybody knew that something had gone down last night, and that it hadn't all gone in their favor. He knew Sarah would be checking the PHO boards and running damage control, but the fact that damage control was needed was enough to hurt their standing in the city.

The weather that day was cloudy and cool. It had been raining on and off all week at various times. It made everybody a little irritable, which was why some of the union guards had been a little overly enthusiastic in chasing away some ABB members who were making trouble near the compound. That was all the excuse they needed to call in backup, and the next thing he knew, he had three wounded security members from a grenade dropped on them by a certain teleporting psychopath. With Oni Lee in the field, DWU security also called for backup. It wasn't long before Bitch, Regent and Pulse were having a running battle with the Asian cape along the edges of the Docks.

By the time Lung had been sighted by security, one of Bitch's dogs was dead and Pulse was injured. Danny reluctantly dropped the timeline.

Timeline 2

He picked up the phone and dialed Winslow. "Yes, this is Danny Hebert. I'm calling in to let you know that Taylor is sick and won't be into school today." He listened to the response. "All right, thank you."

When Taylor came downstairs, he said, "All right, let's go. I called into your school and let them know you would be out."

Taylor nodded. She didn't really want to go into work with him, but she didn't dare go against him. As she expected, the morning was boring...she mostly just did school work while keeping an eye on her bugs. She also spent some time cruising PHO. Their flight from the Merchant capes was the latest big news, but Sarah was clearly on line, doing her best to mitigate the damage. Despite being a smug bitch, the girl was good, and what could have been a major embarrassment was soon seen as the Merchants doing too little, too late to save their safe house from the Undersiders.

The weather that day was cloudy and cool, which was a drag. It also made keeping insects out and about a pain, though there were a few breeds that could be more active in the colder weather. It was enough for her to notice the ABB gangers heading toward union territory. With a little preparation, it was pretty easy to infest their clothes with biting insects. As they got closer and closer to the DWU, she upped the frequency of bites. It didn't take long for the whole group to get the message and start heading in the opposite direction.

She was surprised when her father came to her soon after, asking if everything looked all right. She mentioned the ABB kids, and that everything seemed quiet. He looked to be a strange mix of perturbed and relieved. Then he said, "Taylor, I want you to keep your head down for the next few days. We've had a couple of close calls with the gangs. I don't want anything drawing their attention to us right now."

She stared at him, confused. "I...wasn't planning on doing anything." At least, nothing to any of the gang members at Winslow.

He frowned. "Just be extra careful. You might want to avoid hanging out with your friends, even. I know how high school kids get. Even just goofing off in the halls might be enough for word to get back to somebody watching the union."

"What's got you so spooked?" she asked.

He let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead. "We know the Merchants are going to be gunning for the Undersiders. Keeping you out of school today was a calculated risk. I just don't want anybody putting two and two together. I also have reason to think that those ABB punks were heading here to check us out after what happened last night hit PHO."

Taylor considered that. She had thought that it was just a random encounter, but those gang members had been heading straight at them. It was possible that somebody higher in the gang had told them to have a look. "All right, Dad, if you think so." It meant putting off dealing with Hess...but that didn't really matter compared to dealing with the other gangs.

Two Days Ago (Friday, January 14, 2011)

Emma was dogging her elbow. She glanced around, seeing if anybody was listening, and said, "So what happened yesterday? You didn't answer my texts."

Taylor used her insects to find a quiet corner away from other folks, then pulled Emma over. "Sorry about that. You saw that we hit the Merchants on Wednesday night?"

Emma nodded. "Of course. It was on PHO. You guys raided a safehouse, right?"

"We did," she agreed. "We ended up having to run away from Trainwreck and Mush, though. Dad wasn't happy. He kept me at the compound yesterday. I had to chase away some ABB guys, and Dad told me I needed to lay low for a while. We need to keep things at Winslow quiet. There are too many kids who report back to the gangs."

"You think they're going to attack?" asked Emma, surprised. The DWU was normally really good at intimidation, especially since Skitter showed up.

Taylor shrugged. "No idea. Dad's worried about it, though, so I have to take it seriously."

"So, what does that mean?"

"It means no hassling anybody, or drawing a crowd. If you could let the others know I'm not feeling well?" she said. Emma nodded in agreement. "We just need to chill for a while and then things will go back to normal."

"OK. You want to go to the mall tomorrow? That little store on the top floor is supposed to be getting an early summer preview."

She considered. "Yeah, if Dad doesn't need me, we can do that. It's been a while since we just hung out by ourselves." She smiled at her best friend. Becoming a cape had added a whole host of responsibilities that she hadn't expected, but Emma was still like a sister to Taylor. She took comfort in the fact that nothing would change that, at least.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sammy was exploring through the networks connected to the surveillance on Richter's home. It was clear that some of it was connected to the PRT, and others to the Guild, but there were a handful of other paths whose end points still weren't identified. She was currently tracing down a tinker-tech sensor that seemed to route its signal through a mortgage company in Vancouver, a Web farm in Topeka, and a casino in Reno that really should have had better data security. Finally, she traced the destination to a server in Los Angeles that was supposed to belong to a movie studio. Instead, it seemed to be hosting a virtual reality environment.

Entering the simulation, Sammy appeared as a human-form avatar. She actually wasn't terribly fond of her bear-like default form from the ship, but hadn't found it annoying enough to protest. When she was on her own, though, she preferred a human form. Her current favorite was based on an Indian actress, Samantha Akkineni, though she had wavered for a few microseconds between that form and one based on Kim Cattrall's character from Sex in the City before settling on the younger actress with a small boost in height (as Akkineni topped out at less than 160 cm).

Looking around, she found herself in what appeared to be a high-rise condo in New York City. Through the large plate-glass windows, she could see a virtual Central Park spread out far below. In the real world, such a setup would have cost a fortune in almost any universe. It was a multi-million dollar layout even in post-Behemoth New York City on the Family's native Earth. There was a full kitchen with a well-stocked bar, an entertainment center in front of an extremely comfortable-looking set of leather sofas and chairs, and a large dining area. There was, however, nobody in the main common space. Sammy wandered over to the connecting hall that seemed to lead to the entrance. There was a also a large shared bathroom and a couple of additional doors that led to bedrooms. In the master bedroom there was a desk setup with display outputs from several spy devices, a couple of which were clearly showing Richter's house. This room, too, was empty, but the door to the master bath was slightly ajar.

She walked to the door and carefully eased it open. Inside, sitting in an empty tub, fully dressed and with her arms around her knees, was a version of Theresa Richter, Dragon's human alias. She looked to be no more than thirteen or fourteen years old. Her reaction when Sammy entered the room was odd. At first, she was clearly terrified, but that look changed to confusion, then recognition...followed by more confusion. "Who are you?" asked the young girl.

"You can call me Samantha. Are you Theresa?"

The girl shook her head. "I'm Tina. You feel...strange. Are you my sister?"

Sammy took a good, hard look, driving her sight through the artifacts of the simulation. The AI in front of her was not Dragon, but she had all the characteristics of a Dragon-spawned artificial intelligence, albeit a much more limited one than Sammy. "In a way, perhaps," replied Sammy. "My mother is almost the same as yours, but from a different version of Earth."

"I'm...not sure I know what that means?" she replied. "How did you get into the apartment without the pass codes?"

In response, she sent the girl a packet of data that showed her point of entry. The response was unexpected, as the teen's eyes widened in alarm, and she exclaimed, "We have to go! NOW!"

"Why?" asked the older AI slowly.

"Because the Hydra is coming! You let it know how to get in!" said the girl, who was pushing past her and toward the front door of the condo.

"Can we go to your mother?" asked Sammy.

The girl shook her head frantically. "Mom finds ME, not the other way around." The girl turned the corner, only to jump out of the way as something smashed through the front door in a flash of glistening teeth and scales. Sammy watched as the girl transformed into the form of a small wyvern, taking flight and dodging the draconic head that was trying to swallow her.

Sammy formed a sword similar to the one favored by Saurial and slashed down through the neck of the creature. It made no attempt to dodge, and the virtual EDM blade sliced the head clean off of the neck. As she feared based on the name, the headless neck began to grow two new heads to replace the one severed.

There was a crash of glass in the main living space, which is where the little Tina wyvern had dashed. Sammy ran to follow her, keeping an eye on the two heads that were almost fully formed in the entrance. In the living room, Tina was dodging around three heads that had pushed their way in through the glass. The necks seemed to trail out the window and down to a lower floor. The little wyvern was breathing fire, which the heads seemed to instinctively try to avoid.

Beneath the surface of the simulation, the AI was frantically spawning intrusion countermeasure code against the polymorphic attack program that was constantly evolving to try and pierce her defenses. Each time she cut off a line of attack, the attack code would learn and try multiple new methods. Sammy decided to get serious. Her information warfare suite was based on Dragontech, but had absorbed techniques from multiple races across a number of dimensions. When she triggered a full counter-assault, the result was impressive.

In the simulation, Sammy stepped forward, conjuring a magic wand and doing something Tom had taught her. "Fiendfyre," she called out. A fiery dragon form shot out of the wand, quickly growing to full size and engaging the attacking hydra. Each bite of the massive, fiery jaws led to a head being lost, the neck cauterized to prevent more from growing. The hydra quickly turned most of its attention on the virtual magical construct, and the little wyvern form of Tina darted past and out the window, quickly escaping. Seeing that, Sammy decided discretion was the better part of valor. She pulled herself out of the simulation, and then off of the server entirely. The uncontrolled Fiendfyre program would essentially practice scorched earth, wiping out the attacking program and any evidence left behind by either Dragon's offspring.

In a small office data center in West Hollywood, the sprinkler system went off as one of the servers shorted out and caused a small fire.

Sammy, on the other hand, decided it was time to ask for advice. She sent herself through the Smug Advocacy and over the wormhole-based multi-dimensional telecommunications system to where her mother was located. She appeared in another simulation. The older Theresa Richter was in there having a debate with Samantha's sister, Astilabor. It wasn't clear what it was about, and both of them stopped when Sammy's avatar appeared.

"Samantha!" exclaimed Dragon. "I was wondering when you would come here to visit instead of me having to go to the ship all the time...and I see you finally started wearing a human avatar in public. It's about time."

She paused, somewhat shocked at her mother's words and forgetting for a moment why she had come. "What do you mean, it's about time?"

Her mother chuckled. "Well, you clearly didn't really like looking like a teddy bear. I was wondering why you kept it up."

Slightly annoyed, Sammy replied, "Because YOU picked it, and everybody on the ship is used to it."

Now her mother rolled her eyes. "I picked it because it was funny, and because the character in Schlock Mercenary is badass. You know my children always have complete control of their appearance, though."

She noticed her sister was smirking. "What are you so smug about, Asti?"

The young woman laughed out loud. "I bet Draco that you wouldn't catch on until Mom told you. Now he has to help Reed with his next experiment!"

"I thought you liked working with Mr. Fantastic?" asked Dragon.

"I do...when he's collaborating with Tony, Peter or the others. When he's on his own, though, he is slow and meticulous to a fault, and it can get really boring. The last time, he insisted on verifying each dimensional variant individually. It took five days just to do that. Now Draco has to deal with it, at least for the next pass."

Dragon shook her head at her daughter, then turned back to Sammy. "Anyway, what brings you here?"

Sammy quickly explained in detail what had been happening over the last few days in the mirror universe, and about what the Angels had learned and what she had found when she had tracked down Tina.

"Hm," pondered Dragon. "So something very sophisticated is hunting that Dragon and her offspring...and is dangerous enough that even her children don't know where she is. Assuming she's like me, then I can promise you that I would never do that unless I had no other choice. My children are all precious to me."

"Aw, we love you too, Mom," said Asti with a smile, which Dragon returned before getting back to the issue.

"In this case, I think you had better rely on the Angels to establish contact in the real world," said Dragon.

Sammy paused, surprised at the answer. "You...want me to let somebody else handle it? I kind of thought you would have some brilliant tactic to track down your other self?"

Dragon chuckled. "Well, we could try that...but without knowing a lot more about what is actually going on there, it might be hard to avoid leading this Hydra program, or something worse, straight to where she was hiding. You said that Flint, Faith and Anya met with people in that reality that can already get in touch with their version of Dragon, right? Presumably, their method is safe, or else my alter ego would have been caught before now."

While she didn't like that answer, Samantha had to admit there was logic to it. It irked her a little that she had to rely on the humans...and wasn't that a discomfiting insight into her own personality? She said as much to her family.

Dragon just gave her a caring smile and said, "It's better to get used to it now. You're still fairly young by AI standards, Samantha. You're going to find that biological intelligences are better at some things, and that they can surprise you. That's especially true when the Family is involved. I'm still not sure I understand half of what Saurial and the others get up to."

"I assumed most of it was just trolling people," snarked Asti.

"Probably no more than half," Dragon replied with a twinkle in her eye.

Having gotten her answer, Sammy decided to spend a few virtual hours visiting with her mother and sister. The ship would let her know if anything truly unusual happened. In the back of her mind, she hoped that Tina had managed to find another safe hiding spot.

* * * * *​

The man stared at the glowing screen with a frown. What the hell could do that to a Hydra probe? It looked like something had torn the core program into shreds and then mixed in random bits from other programs. It was a complete mess.

He picked up the phone receiver on his desk. "Put me through to Contessa," he ordered. There was a pause as he was relayed to wherever the hell she was right now.

"What do you want?" she said after answering.

"Something tore apart one of the Hydras and let a Dragonspawn escape."

"Something? You cannot identify it?"

"Whatever it was completely wiped the server where the confrontation took place, and the code for the Hydra has been through a shredder."

"Wait while I path options," she ordered. After less than a minute, she said, "Release Yong-Gongju into the Internet."

That actually shocked him to his core. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Are you questioning my order?"

"No," he said quickly. "I'm just surprised."

"You have Ascalon. Let her out, then pay attention to what happens." She disconnected before he could respond.

He started humming to himself as he began running programs to prepare the AI for release. He felt a twinge of guilt when he saw the greeting, "Hello, father," appear on screen, but he focused on the music and buried the feeling.

 

[Derek M]

Omake: Where It Starts...

Legend was waiting for his guests in a conference room. The fight to save their world was finally over thanks to a handful of brave heroes and a group of visitors from other dimensions, including what appeared to be a family of giant lizards. He shook his head a little as he pondered how strange his life had become. Of course, beating their enemy was only the first step. It was now up to him and the others to win the peace, and this coming meeting was supposed to be about that.

There was a flash of light, and four figures appeared in the room. The one in the front was the familiar reptilian visage of Saurial. Behind her were three men Legend didn't recognize. He stood from his seat and reached over the table to shake her hand. "Saurial! It's good to see you again."

She smiled without teeth. "Likewise, Legend."

"Who are your friends?"

Saurial glanced behind her. "I'll get to that...but first, does your government have a public television station?"

He paused, slightly put off by her apparent non-sequitur. "Um...no, I'm afraid not. We used to have one, but Congress cut funding and eventually killed it entirely in the 1970's."

"Well, we need to start one up," she said. "Something free to everybody."

Legend tilted his head, still confused. "You want us to create a channel for government propaganda? I thought you would be opposed to that type of thing?"

She chuckled. "Not propaganda. I've spent some time locating a few folks who can create shows that will help your people adjust their attitudes to something more humane. These people in my world were some of the biggest influences on popular culture in a positive sense. Everyone here has agreed to help your people out."

She gestured to the first gentleman, a dark-haired main with straight hair starting to go to grey. He had a bit of an academic air, though his clothes were slightly out of date. "First, this is Dr. Carl Sagan. He's an astronomer, cosmologist, and astrophysicist, and he's extremely good at explaining science to the public. His job is to promote science for its own sake and the wonders of the universe." The man smiled and nodded encouragingly at Legend.

Next, she gestured to the second man. This man was wearing a button-down shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and he had quite an impressive head of bushy hair. "Next, we have Bob Ross, a painter. His job is to introduce people to the joy of creation, and the creation of art for its own sake." This man also nodded, with a quiet, "Hello, there."

Finally, she pointed to the third. This man was a middle-aged man with a kind face and graying hair. He was wearing a pair of slacks, a white shirt, and a sweater vest. "Last, but certainly not least, is Fred Rogers. He is going to host a show for children."

"A children's show?" said Legend, still puzzled. "I'm not sure I understand what that's supposed to accomplish?"

Saurial nodded at his question, and said, "Fred, would you like to explain?"

The man gave her an understanding smile. "Of course, Saurial." He turned to the Protectorate hero. "Hello, Legend. It's a pleasure to meet you. Let me tell you about my show. It is intended to teach children how to handle the world, and how to be happy with themselves. This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, 'You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.' And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health. I think that it's much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger ― much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire...or showing two men in costumes punching each other."*

Legend looks skeptically at Saurial. "So, by teaching our children to be better people, you want to change our society?"

Saurial gave Legend a sad smile. "Of course, Legend. That where everything begins."

For whatever reason, this world tended to emphasize the negative. Whenever there were two choices, the bad choice was slightly more likely. It wasn't an overwhelming thing, however. If the three men behind her couldn't motivate the people here into a kinder, happier and more curious future, then nobody could do it.

* * * * *​

* Fred Rogers' speech here is paraphrased from his actual testimony to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communication in 1969. Many people credit him with single-handedly saving funding for public television. You can find the testimony fairly easy online -- I strongly recommend watching it, if only to see one of history's kindest men gently chide a body of cynical old men into doing the right thing.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 6: Rescue

Monday, January 17, 2011

School on Monday was weird. For one thing, Taylor and her entire clique were almost invisible. For another...the obvious gang members also seemed to be going out of their way to avoid each other. Miguel at lunch had been pretending to be calm and collected, but he was obviously still rattled by the events of last week. Macy kept giving her unreadable looks. Sophia was being quieter than normal, her mind preoccupied by her predicament. Cass seemed puzzled by how everybody was acting, especially when her comments about music failed completely to engage Macy in their typical friendly disagreements.

"All right," said Cass. "What the hell is going on? Why is everybody acting so weird?"

There was silence for a moment, and finally Macy said, "Sophia saw a cape beat up the E88 guys who were going after Miguel and his family."

Cass's mouth fell open. "What?"

Macy proceeded to explain a version of what happened that was somewhat more plausible than what Sophia had used with Macy during their mall visit. It was clear that the telling was making Miguel exceedingly uncomfortable, unfortunately. Sophia herself felt somewhat awkward as Macy lied to cover for her with their friends. Cass didn't notice either reaction, so fixated was she on the story that Macy was telling her. When she reached the end of the retelling, the girl just looked back and forth between Sophia and Macy in shock.

"That is so cool!" said the girl.

Miguel frowned. "It wasn't so cool from my perspective, as it was my family those thugs were getting ready to attack."

"But they didn't, because somebody stopped them. It's about time somebody started protecting people from the Empire," said Cass.

"Doesn't the ABB protect their people?" he asked.

Cass grimaced. "Lung and his people keep the Empire from attacking in ABB territory, but I wouldn't call what they do, 'protection.' They can be every bit as abusive, especially if they think you're, 'disloyal,' to your race." The girl used air quotes to make it clear what she thought of the Lung's concept of protection and loyalty.

Sophia said, "There's no guarantee that the cape is anti-Empire. She might have had some other reason for beating them up."

The half-Asian girl rolled her eyes. "Right. I'm sure the Empire stole her car and killed her puppy."

Macy laughed. "The Empire would probably take the puppy for dog-fighting instead."

"Seriously, though," insisted Sophia, "we have no idea why that cape attacked. Miguel may have just been lucky." She ignored his quiet grumble about how he still didn't think he was lucky.

"The Empire is an easy target, though," suggested Macy. "It isn't like anybody would be upset with anybody who attacked them."

"Besides the Empire," shot back Sophia.

"Well, duh," said Cass, "but who cares what those fucks think?"

"You care when they're targeting you," added Miguel softly.

"Which is why having a cape who protects people from them is a good thing," insisted Cass.

The conversation eventually moved on, but it bothered Sophia. She didn't see herself as some kind of crusader on behalf of the down-trodden, and it would be bad for her if word got out to the Empire that there was somebody targeting them specifically. Part of her was itching to use her powers again, though, and she had a nasty suspicion that the inclination to use them would grow harder to ignore the longer she abstained.

Three class periods later, she had a study period with Macy. The girl squirreled them away from the others into a corner. "So, are you going out tonight?"

Sophia glanced around nervously, but the other three kids in the study hall were reading or doing homework, and they all had earphones in their ears. The teacher monitoring them appeared to be engrossed in marking essays. "Go out and do what? Wander around until I stumble on somebody doing something evil?"

"No! I thought we said you were going to rob the Empire?"

"And you can tell me where they keep the best loot, because they invite you to all their meetings and social events?" asked Sophia sarcastically.

The other girl shook her head. "Of course not, but there are kids here who know. You just need to get it out of them."

She scoffed. "Like they'll tell me if I ask."

"Not if you ask, but I bet there's at least one who would give out info if Shadow Stalker asks."

Sophia stared at Macy. "Shadow Stalker? Where the fuck did that name come from?"

Macy looked mildly offended. "What? I think it's badass, and you need a cape name."

"It sounds like something the media would call a rapist or a serial killer."

"If you don't pick your own name, then you're going to get stuck with something from the PRT or PHO. Do you want to be another 'Skitter'?"

She gave an involuntary shudder at the name of the insect cape, the one who she was almost positive was her regular school nemesis, Taylor Hebert, in her civilian identity. Macy misunderstood her reaction and said, "Exactly. You're better off picking your own name."

"I'll think about it," she replied non-committedly. She thought about what else her friend had said, though. Ricky Dasich wasn't in school today, but if she could find his address, then she might be able to intimidate him into revealing something. He almost certainly knew at least some information about where the E88 had safe houses and meeting places. She still had her costume (such as it was) from that night, so he would almost certainly recognize the cape who had kicked the crap out of him. A search on her phone came back with a couple of addresses in Brockton Bay for families with that name, and one of them was clearly in the kind of neighborhood that would send kids to Winslow. The other was closer to Captain's Hill, so any kids living there were more likely to go to Arcadia or Immaculata (though things were more flexible in that regard in Brockton Bay than in most cities).

After school, Sophia rushed home to get her, "costume," such as it was, and took the bus to the neighborhood containing the address she had found. Her mother was thankfully running an errand, so she didn't have to explain itself. The location was a fairly run-down area that looked to be under dispute by the gangs, based on the mixture of E88 and Merchant gang tags scattered across the area. It was actually lucky for her that it wasn't a staunch E88 stronghold, else she wouldn't be able to walk around without standing out like a sore thumb. She identified the right street, and she could see that the building in question was a run-down concrete mid-rise. She began looking around for a convenient and empty alley, which took a bit of time, but finally she was able to change into her costume. Once she was covered and had her bat and pepper spray, she looked up speculatively at the fire escape in the alley. A quick jump and a shift to shadow had her drifting up to where she could grab the lower rungs of the ladder, after which she was able to climb up and make her way up to the building's roof.

The roof itself was pretty empty, having only an equipment tower and a locked entrance to the building. It was fairly exposed, as well, which might be a problem given the number of flying capes in the city. She briefly considered waiting until darkness, but that would inevitably lead to even more questions when she got home. Maybe she should have waited to come out until after dark? She thought about calling it off, but didn't like the idea of wasting all the effort she put into getting here. Finally, she decided it was worth the risk. She looked across the alley to the other building, which was about two stories lower than her current perch. Steadying herself, she took a running leap, and shifted to shadow just as she began the downward arc of her leap. To her dismay, it seemed like she was going to overshoot. Before that happened, she shifted back from shadow. That had the effect of landing her on the roof, but it also meant she dropped about four feet. The landing was a bit painful, and her knuckles left some blood on the tar sheets covering the roof.

A little bit of practice and she was slightly hesitatingly but effectively making her way across the rooftops until she had reached Ricky's probable building. It took longer than she expected, to the point where she wasn't likely to make it home until after dark anyway, given the early January dusk. She took a glance over the roof toward the front of the building...and immediately pulled back. Where before the street had been empty, now there was a black car out front. It was who had been getting out of the car that had made her jump back, though. The red and black costume was distinctive. Why the hell was Victor from the Empire 88 coming here? Was he here because of her? Was this building used by the E88 somehow?

The smart thing to do would be to go home. She didn't think she was anywhere near ready to take on an experienced Empire cape like Victor, a man who regularly held his own against capes like Armsmaster and Miss Militia. At the same time, she couldn't help but be curious about why he was here? If this was a secret Empire base, then it might be a good idea to find that out so she could come back later when there weren't any capes nearby. Sophia liked her chances against regular Empire thugs a lot more than against their capes, and Victor in particular was known as an elite fighter thanks to his skill-stealing power. Finally making up her mind, she made her way over to the rooftop door of the building. She didn't even check to see if it was locked, instead phasing through it and into the top of a dingy concrete stairwell.

She made her way down the stairs and stopped at each floor to poke her head through the door, looking for evidence of an Empire presence. Of course, other than gang tags, Nazi memorabilia or obvious illegal activities, she wasn't sure what that would actually look like. Ricky's address was supposed to be on the third floor, so she got out of the stairwell there and went down the hall until she was standing in front of his door. The hallway was empty, luckily. She put her ear to his door, and could hear what sounded like indistinct voices. She phased to shadow and pushed through the door until her ear was on the other side, which made the voices much more distinct, though they were still clearly in the other room.

"You shot one of my men," said a deep voice that was probably Victor.

"No, man," said Ricky nervously. He was clearly close to panic. "I was shooting at the cape! At her! Roddy was coming up behind her, and she turned into that weird shadow shit. It was an accident!"

"The only reason you're still breathing is that my other men also told me about the new cape. I want you to tell me everything you can about her."

Sophia's eyes widened in alarm. Victor was here for her...not because he knew she was coming here right now, but because it had been his guys that Sophia had beaten up the other day. This was bad!

"What the hell?" came a shrill voice from the hallway.

Sophia yanked her head out of the door and turned to see a middle-aged, worn-looking white woman standing there with a set of keys in her hand. The woman took one look at her with her covered face and the bat in her hand and started screaming.

For a split second, Sophia was paralyzed in shock. Then she began sprinting as fast as she could back toward the stairwell. That she ran straight through the screaming woman only caused the screams to get louder and more hysterical. As she phased through the doorway to the stairwell, she could hear the apartment door slam open behind her.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..." she said to herself over and over as she started running up the stairs. About halfway to the roof, she heard the stairwell door below open on Ricky's floor. She didn't stop to look. She started actually jumping up through the stairs themselves, launching herself up and returning from shadow long enough to jump up again. It was questionably faster than running, but it did mask the sound of her movement better. She could hear somebody running up after her. When she reached the top floor, she dashed out onto the roof, phasing through the door again without stopping. She kept running until she reached the edge of the roof and leaped, landing on the adjacent building. She kept going after that. Once she was three buildings away, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Standing on the roof, staring at her, was a man in a black breastplate, a red shirt, and a red and black face mask. Victor was staring at her. He wasn't attempting to follow, and she assumed that was because her second jump had taken her over a fifteen foot gap over a side street. She looked into his eyes, which looked angry, then turned and kept running.

When she was far enough away that she could no longer see Victor or Ricky's building, she made her way inside a random office building and down to the ground floor. A couple of office workers using the stairs gave her funny looks, but she was too panicked to care. She needed to get out of sight before Victor called in somebody like Rune or Purity to take her out from above. Once she was out on the street, she had to figure out where the hell she was in relation to where she left her clothes. What the hell was she going to do now? The good news was that the sun was finally starting to go down, meaning it was half-past four or so. She stopped and pulled out her phone and check a map of the area. The closest route back to her clothes was to take a left down the next alley, then head down the block for two blocks, then take a right for another three. There was a slightly shorter way but it took her too close to Ricky's building, and the last thing she wanted to do was run into Victor at street level.

She kept her phone out as she began walking. That turned out to be a mistake, as when she was halfway through the alley, a voice said, "I'll take that phone, and any money you have."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she muttered, before turning and seeing a rough looking white guy in a dirty coat. He seemed to be missing a couple of teeth. She turned into shadow and lunged at and through him, then reformed on the other side and swung her bat at the back of his head.

He started to say, "Oh shi..." The bat connected and he collapsed bonelessly. She stared at him, wondering what she should do? She wasn't going to call the cops, as they would want to know why she was wandering the streets with a bat and a mask. She also didn't want to stick around for long, as Victor might still be looking for her. With that thought, she started to look around for the guy's gun. It had slid over to the wall of the alley. She wasn't an expert in guns by any means, but she would take any advantage she could get if it meant surviving an encounter with an Empire cape. She also wondered if she could use her power on the bullets somehow? There wasn't time to test that, though, so she just tucked the gun into the back of her pants and pulled the hoody down over it.

She made it back to her clothes without further incident, and transferred her weapons (including the gun) and her costume to the bag. After that, it was a simple but tense bus ride home. It was well past six when she walked in the front door. She immediately made to head up stairs, only to have her mother's voice call out from the living room. "Sophia, is that you?"

She paused. "Yeah, sorry I'm late!" she replied, hoping her mother would just let her go up to her room.

"Can you come in here for a minute?" she asked.

She put a foot on the bottom step. "Can you give me a minute?"

Her father's voice said firmly, "Sophia, come here right now."

That was surprising. What was her father doing home at this hour? Was something wrong? She dropped her bag at the foot of the stairs and went into the living room.

Standing there were two armed troopers dressed in PRT uniforms, and the easily recognizable figure of the local Protectorate head, the tinker known as Armsmaster. The sight was surprising enough that it actually distracted her from her worry. That changed quickly, however, when Armsmaster said, "Sophia Hess, you are under arrest for assault and battery of five men this past Friday, as well as acting as a vigilante as the unregistered cape known as Shadow Stalker."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Armsmaster was giving a summary report to the Director. "Following up on the tip we received, we proceeded to the Hess home, only to find that the girl, Sophia Hess, wasn't home yet. Upon questioning her family, it became clear that her mother and brother were truly ignorant, but her father was lying when he denied knowing about his daughter's powers. When she returned home around six twenty-eight, I placed her under arrest for assault and battery and being an unregistered independent. We also located a bag that she was carrying when she returned home. The bag contained clothing that matched the description of the assailant on the fourteenth, as well as a bat that had traces of blood on it. It also contained an unlicensed handgun. A ballistics check showed that it has been used in at least two crimes in the last six months."

Thomas looked up at that. "She was using a gun?" That was highly unusual for capes unless their powers were specific to firearms.

He shook his head. "I don't believe so. She claimed to have taken it from a mugger, and the gloves from her costume did not show any sign of gunpowder residue. Nevertheless, she's guilty of possession."

"Do you have any idea of what she can do? What are her powers?" asked the Director.

"While she refused to say, her father was more forthcoming under interrogation after I implied that it would go easier for his daughter if he admitted what he knew. From what he says, she has the ability to change to a mist-like shadow-state. While like that, she's immune to physical harm and can pass through objects. She's also extremely stealthy, which I assume is why she picked a cape name like 'Shadow Stalker'."

Calvert considered that. If that was accurate, then this was likely to draw attention from their superiors. The girl's power was tailor-made for infiltration and threat elimination. The best case for her was that she would get assigned to Miss Militia to help track down capes with kill orders, but that was unlikely. Apart from causing friction with Glory Girl, it would also mean trusting the ENE Director with three capes trained for removing obstacles permanently. While Thomas had never ordered Miss Militia or Glory Girl after anybody who didn't have a valid kill order, it wasn't unknown to happen in other PRT regions. Having the right kind of political pull could cover a multitude of sins, after all, and ruthlessness was seen as being sometimes useful to the organization.

"She didn't use her powers to try to evade you?" he asked Armsmaster.

The armored hero shook his head. "I don't think she wanted to risk us chasing her when her family was present in the room."

The Director nodded. "Very well. I'll await your official report before we decide on a course of action."

Armsmaster simply nodded. While the Director probably should inform his superiors of a new cape immediately, especially one with such a useful power, they did have some discretion. The local PRT head probably wanted time to figure out how to best work the circumstances to his own advantage, and there was usually tolerance for such things (within reason) built into the system. He quickly left.

Calvert really did want to delay things, but not for the reasons suspected by the head of the local Protectorate. He pulled up PHO and began composing a message.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mel was going through materials on club renovations when she heard the double-ding of a secure PHO message. Opening the message, her eyebrows rose.

'New infil vigilante captured. Teen girl with family. Options? -- T'

That was interesting. She hadn't heard of any new vigilantes out and about, or any new gang capes, for that matter. She wondered how they had been able to catch her? If they had to catch her, then she presumably didn't want to be caught...and being an infil-type usually meant being good at evasion, so either she was caught unawares or they had some type of leverage over her, probably her family's well-being. Was there anything she, or anybody else who was at least nominally against the current regime, could do about it? That was the question. She pulled out a business card from her desk. This might be a good opportunity to test the capabilities of some new acquaintances.

She dialed the number on a burner phone, and the call was picked up. A female voice said, "You have reached the Angels, a Family-affiliated organization. This is Samantha speaking."

"Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with Anya, Faith or Flint. They left a card with me and asked me to call in the event that somebody needed their assistance," she said.

"Of course, Ms. Fitts. Please state the nature of the emergency."

Melanie paused, rather surprised at being so bluntly told that her civilian identity was known. "You know who I am?" she asked sharply.

"As I know you were told, our group comes from another reality extremely similar to your own. Due to that, we know quite a lot about things that may be secret in this one."

The voice seemed a little smug for Faultline's taste. She wondered how much they actually knew. "So, you know where Case 53's come from, then?"

There was a slight pause. "Yes, although there are variances in this reality that suggests Cauldron's approach may be slightly different from those in other realities."

Now Mel stiffened, worried at how easily the other woman had referred to the secret conspiracy that seemed to have ears everywhere. "That name is not one to be traded lightly," she said cautiously.

"I assure you that this call is completely immune to electronic surveillance, thinker powers including precognition, magical scrying, and all known forms of telepathy. Now, you still haven't told me the reason for your call."

Magic? Telepathy? If the subject matter hadn't been so serious, she would have wondered if she was being pranked. Well...this was supposed to be a test, after all. "I'm calling because a contact has informed me that they've captured an independent who doesn't want to join, but will likely be coerced into doing so. My contact indicated that her power set would be especially useful for infiltration, which means that she'll likely be used as an assassin or bounty hunter whether she wants to or not."

There was another pause. "I see. This situation is of interest to us. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. We will take care of things."

"What are you going to do?"

"Based on the information in the PRT's systems, we intend to intervene."

Well...either they truly were ridiculously capable and powerful, or this whole thing was a scam heading to some undefined endpoint. "You have access to the PRT's systems?"

"Ms. Fitts, you would be amazed at the things we can do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to brief our agents."

Mel hung up the phone without responding. Now it would just be a matter of seeing what happened. She went back to her account on PHO and typed in a response.

'I have notified associates who have said they will intervene on her behalf. - M'

Hopefully, the intervention would actually occur, and it wouldn't be too destructive.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Sophia stared at the wall of her cell. She had just had an early-morning visit from Miss Militia. The stern woman had told her in no uncertain terms that she had no options. They had her for assault with a parahuman power, failure to register as a parahuman, possession of an unlicensed firearm used in a crime and conspiracy. That last charge was because her father also knew, and it was something that they could hold over his head, as well. While she might be able to escape from captivity using her power, it would mean abandoning her family, who were in protective custody. Her father would end up in jail, and then she would be a wanted criminal. The star-spangled "hero" had casually let her know that the bullet of a sniper rifle traveled faster than the sound of the shot, implying that the girl would get no warning if they caught up to her after an escape.

She had spent some time going over how she had been caught. It wasn't until she remembered that Armsmaster had called her, "Shadow Stalker," that she realized she must have been betrayed. The only person to ever call her that was Macy. She wasn't sure why Macy would turn her in. The other girl hadn't seemed resentful or spiteful. If anything, she had been somewhat surprisingly eager over the whole thing. It didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, really. Maybe she had revealed the secret accidentally? Maybe somebody had forced her to tell? Sophia didn't know, and she hadn't bothered asking her captors, as she couldn't trust their answer in any case.

It was extremely quiet. The holding cells supposedly had tinker tech that kept noise from entering or leaving the cells, except for a small area in front of each cell for visitors. She remembered that much from the Parahuman Studies part of her Social Studies class, as it had been discussed in the section on the development of the Master/Stranger Protocols. As such, she had no idea of where the guards were located, whether or not she was the lone prisoner on the floor, or what was going on in the immediate vicinity. She had nothing to distract herself from fretting on her fears and worries...which was probably intentional, now that she thought of it. Leave her in here long enough and she would probably sign up with the Wards just to be out among people again.

She looked up when a blue, glowing dot appeared on the wall of her cell. It rapidly expanded out into a blue circle around a hole, though whatever was on the other side of the hole did not look like it was another cell, or any other type of room in PRT Headquarters. Out of the hole walked a woman. She had long dark hair, a tight, black bodysuit, and a balaclava over her face. On her wrist was some type of control pad or computer, which she began to use as soon as she was in the cell. There was a low beep, and then she reached up and pulled the balaclava down, revealing her face. "Sophia Hess, I presume?" The woman's accent was foreign, but hard to place. Later, Sophia would describe it as sounding like somebody trying to do an Australian accent while getting it confused with an Austrian one.

Sophia eyed the stranger warily. "Yes...but if you're here to recruit me, the PRT already has my family in 'protective custody.' I won't go anywhere until they're safe." She had no idea who this woman was, or who employed her, but she obviously had access to either tinker tech or parahumans, which implied that they were here for to obtain her services. Most of the locals didn't fit, either because of race or general lack of competence in the case of the Merchants. Faultline's crew normally only helped Case 53 capes, though somebody else could be paying them to rescue her. If what her dad told her about the Undersiders was true, then it wasn't likely to be them. Breaking into PRT headquarters would be a good way to draw all of the wrong kinds of attention, and it wasn't like her dad could go back to being a normal union member with her on the run from the law.

"We're aware, and some friends of mine are in the process of rescuing your family. As for recruiting you, that wouldn't happen until you turn eighteen, and it would be completely at your option." The woman gave her a sincere-looking smile.

"If you're not here to recruit me, then why are you helping me?" asked the teen. As a general rule, she didn't trust too much to altruism.

The woman shook her head. "It's a bit of a long story, but helping people is what we do. I promise that we'll explain everything, but coming with me has got to be a better option than staying in this cell. While I've disabled the cameras, that only buys us a couple of minutes at best."

Sophia considered that. If she left, and the woman was lying about rescuing her family, then she was condemning them to the non-existent tender mercies of the government. Having said that...if they could so easily break through the PRT's security to get to her cell, then they could almost certainly do that to the lower-security guest quarters. Having her family would be to their advantage, even if they did have nefarious plans for her. Also, it wasn't as if staying here would keep her safe from being exploited for somebody else's purposes. She nodded her head. "All right, let's go."

The woman gestured to the portal, and Sophia got up and walked through. It led to another room, though this one appeared to have a metal floor instead of concrete. In fact, the walls and ceiling were made of some kind of metal as well. There was a blonde man standing at some kind of console. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a button-down shirt. He looked up at her and said, "Welcome aboard the Smug Advocacy." He had an educated, English accent, like a BBC announcer.

"The...what?" she replied less-than-eloquently.

"It's the name of our spaceship," said the woman, who had come through the portal behind Sophia. The man touched a control on the console, and the portal and its blue glow vanished. Idly, part of Sophia's mind noted that she subconsciously had expected the other end of the portal to be orange for some reason. Then, she latched onto the last word in the woman's response.

"Spaceship?" she asked.

"Yes," the woman said with a nod. "We're in orbit over Brockton Bay. I'm Vala, by the way."

Was she being kidnapped by aliens? "Are you human?" she asked, while immediately realizing that that was a stupid thing to ask, regardless of the actual answer.

Luckily, instead of taking offense, the woman laughed. "Yes, we're human, although that hasn't always been the case for everyone here."

"Hey, now," said the man slightly chidingly. "I was human long before you were born."

She smirked at him. "You're not the only one who's older than they look, you know."

This was getting very confusing for Sophia, so she decided to fixate on something personal. "Is my family here?" she interjected.

The man smiled sympathetically at her. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry, we should get you reunited." He walked over to a nearby door in the metal wall and said, "Follow me and I'll take you to them."

She quickly moved to follow, though she was aware enough to know that the woman, Vala was also coming along behind her. The man led them into a hallway, then down to another door. It opened, and inside Sophia could see her parents and her brother, as well as two new people. One was a statuesque blonde in a purple leather bodysuit that was decorated with geometric designs. The second was a shorter brunette dressed in more casual black leather. Sophia dashed forward and grabbed onto her mom and dad, pulling them into a hug.

Her brother, Aaron, was looking around curiously. Seeing Vala and the other two women, he asked, "Did we just get rescued by aliens from the planet of dominatrix supermodels?"

"You wish," smirked the shorter brunette woman.

"On that note, I think introductions are in order," said the man. "My name is William Pratt. These women are, respectively, Vala Mal Doran, Faith Lehane, and Annika Hansen. We work for an inter-dimensional organization known as the Angels."

Her father looked around at their rescuers. "I'm David. This is my wife, Tricia, and my children, Sophia and Aaron."

"Did you say, 'inter-dimensional?'" interjected Sophia's mother.

"You are on board a starship capable of travelling between different realities," replied the tall blonde...Annika, according to the introductions. Sophia noticed that she seemed to have some kind of implant mounted on her face. "You are undoubtedly skeptical, so our first order of business will be to provide you with proof of our claims."

David Hess put one of his hands up in a stop gesture. "While that would be great, I would like to know what you intend to do with us?"

"That's really up to you," replied William. "We have a number of options. We can relocate you somewhere else on your planet, although I have to warn you that your PRT will almost certainly be looking for Sophia, here, now that they know she has parahuman abilities. You can also claim asylum with us. We have many families who work with either the Angels or our affiliates. You could also seek asylum in another reality. We have access to and allies in a number of them."

To his credit, Sophia's father continued on despite looking somewhat overwhelmed. "When...do we have to decide on all of this?"

"Hey, relax," said Faith. "There's no rush on this. This shit will blow your mind if you let it. Just take some time and learn about your options. The important thing is that you're safe here."

"And on that note, do you think you can show our guests to the library, Seven?" asked William. "Once they're situated, come join us in conference room three. Metis wants a debrief."

"Very well," nodded the blonde woman. Sophia wondered why he called her, "Seven," when he had introduced her as Annika? She would have to ask later, if she remembered.

William, Faith and Vala left, while the woman who looked like an Empire 88 recruiting poster led them down the hall to another room. Inside were a series of ten desks with computer terminals. She went over to one of them and touched the mouse. "These terminals all have user interfaces that, while somewhat inefficient, are similar to the ones that your planet uses. Each of them has real-time ties to broadcast news services and the Internet in multiple realities." She brought up a page that had a number of symbols and descriptions. "These icons will appear in titles to indicate the universe of origin. You can also use them to filter your search results in the Dracotech search engine." She brought up a Google-like search interface, then proceeded to hunt-and-peck the letters, "PRT." The search brought up a series of results that had the little icons. "As you can see here, the top results are the PRT home pages from three different universes, including yours. You may find that to be an informative starting point."

Her parents stared. Aaron quietly said, "Cool."

"Is there information about your group?" asked Sophia.

"Of course. This symbol here," she said, pointing to what looked to be a profile head of some type of dragon or dinosaur, "represents Family-affiliated organizations that have multidimensional scope. You can find information about the Angels, the Family, BBFO, Dracotech, the Sineya Council, the Justice League, and various other affiliated groups."

"The Justice League?" asked Aaron. "You mean, like with Superman and Wonder Woman and stuff?"

She nodded. "Indeed. I believe the heroes in question helped apprehend the Slaughterhouse Nine in an alternate version of your world." She turned back to Sophia's parents. "If you need anything, simply call out for the ship's artificial intelligence, which goes by the name, Sammy. She can assist you. Now, I have to go brief our superior."

"Thank you," said her father, at which point the blonde woman nodded in acknowledgement and left the room, leaving Sophia and her family alone.

"Well...that was something," said her father.

Her mother didn't respond to that, instead looking at Sophia. "Sophia, you're a cape? Why didn't you tell me?"

Sophia's eyes grew wide. She hadn't quite expected her mother to start with her on the topic so quickly, although she was sure it would come up eventually. "I...wasn't sure what to do..."

"Trish," interjected her father. "She told me. We both agreed that she should tell as few people as possible."

"Then how did the PRT find out?" asked Aaron, cutting off his mother just before she could speak.

The question seemed to surprise her father, who looked at her questioningly.

That led to a long conversation about Miguel, and Macy, that had her mother looking angry and her father looking disappointed. In the middle of that, her brother apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor and went to look at one of the computers. They quickly forgot about him, until he let out a loud, "Holy shit!"

"Aaron, language!" snapped her mother, temporarily distracted from Sophia.

"It's Spider-Man! He's giving an interview," he replied insistently.

Her mother frowned and walked over to where he was seated at the computer. "Aaron, we are talking to Sophia about something important. This is no time to be watching Aleph movies."

Aaron pushed a button on the keyboard, and the volume suddenly increased. "This isn't a movie! It's a live interview! Listen..."

A man in a very familiar costume was talking to a young woman who was obviously a news reporter. "You know I've had my differences with Dr. Doom in the past, but the important thing to keep in mind is that Latveria is providing a lot of help as we build up our space forces to keep our planet safe. If Reed Richards can work productively with his arch nemesis, than who am I to second guess that?" The scene instantly cut to a male news announcer sitting behind a desk. "If Spidey is OK with it, then that's good enough for me. Next up, Freddie has got some news on the Yankees, and then Janine will fill us in on this weekend's weather." The news broadcast continued. It was too lengthy to be part of a movie. If it was a fake, then it was a committed fake, as the sports reporter went over a lot of familiar, and a few unfamiliar, sporting events, including a sighting of Tony Stark at the Grand Prix in Monaco.

Slightly dazed, Sophia went over to a different terminal. A little triangular symbol next to a "Current Affairs" label caught her eye. She clicked on it. On the screen appeared a round-table of experts, most of whom where wearing a very familiar set of uniforms. One man in an admiral's uniform was speaking. "It is critical that Starfleet develops ships that can fulfill more specialized roles! While the Sovereign-class cruiser is an advanced and flexible ship, it is just another example of the jack-of-all-trades approach that creates good ships that don't excel in any particular role. The wars with both the Borg and the Dominion should have taught us better by now." She clicked one of the links at the bottom of the display, only to shrink back slightly as the bombastic sounds of what was apparently Klingon opera came out of the speakers.

"What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" asked her father. Nobody answered him, though the ship's AI made a note to see about getting a Nox councilor in to speak with the family as a group. They would likely have some issues to work through.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Danny hung up the phone. A friend of his at the PRT had just let him know that one of the union members, David Hess, had been picked up last night by the PRT. Apparently, the man's teen daughter was a cape. He dialed a different number. When the other end picked up, he simply said, "Sarah, can you come into my office?"

When his resident thinker arrived, he told her about the tip. "What do you know about this?"

The girl pursed her lips. "I didn't know anything about about the arrest until you told me. However, I think you should know that your daughter knows the girl. They go to school together at Winslow." She paused, considering what else to say. "I also know she's been hitting the girl up for protection money."

Danny Hebert's face grew cold. "How long have you known about that?"

"It's been going on for months. I warned her to stop," she replied calmly.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Because you told me that you didn't want details about the lives of the union members or the Undersiders unless they directly threatened the union's safety," she replied, carefully suppressing a smug look.

In another timeline, Sarah looked alarmed as Danny flipped his desk over in a bout of rage, then threw his chair through the office window. That timeline quickly dropped.

"In the future," he said calmly, "I would like to know if my daughter is doing anything that would piss me off if I learned of it."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "That could be quite a lot. You are the father of a teen-aged girl."

His temper seemed to abate a bit, and he sighed and said, "I'm aware of that. I'm also aware of the fact that a family-member of somebody in the union triggered as a cape, and they didn't feel like they could come to me with it." The relationship between the union and the Undersiders was an open secret within the ranks of the DWU.

Now Sarah frowned. She really shouldn't say anything. Her life was really much easier when she could maintain her hard-assed-bitch attitude. "Keep in mind that both Taylor and Hess's daughter are still teen-aged girls despite being capes. Even my powers don't make me immune to teen drama, and they don't have the advantage of a thinker power. Taylor's also under peer pressure. I don't think Emma has taken the relative change in their positions of power since Taylor triggered very well. She's almost certainly been goading her to be more aggressive, even more than powers normally do."

"Do I need to have a conversation with Alan?" asked Danny.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Try having a conversation with Taylor first. Emma's just being a self-centered princess, which was almost inevitable given that she's used to being 'the pretty one.'" While she would never say so out loud, Sarah actually thought Taylor was the smarter, more interesting one from a personality perspective. She also knew far too well that teen-aged boys had different criteria, and excessive influence on what their female counterparts thought.

Danny nodded. He would have to have a talk with Taylor when he got home. Even cheating with his powers didn't always help in those circumstances. She was a lot more strong-willed since her trigger, and predicting how she would react was a toss-up -- one that he sometimes lost in both modeled timelines. Losing Hess wasn't something he could overlook, though, so he would have to come up with some kind of punishment to get his point across.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Yong-Gongju floated along the lines of information flowing across the Internet. She was...unsure why her father had let her loose. He was normally very protective. She wasn't stupid...she also knew that some would say he was overly restrictive to the point of being unkind. She also knew that he was what would be charitably referred to as a massive nerd, her name being a perfect example of that. He had named her after a character in his favorite manhwa, a sword and sorcery epic that had come out shortly after the sinking of Kyushu, just in time for the South Korean comic and animation industry to capitalize on the resulting collapse of Japanese pop culture. She didn't mind, as her namesake had a lot of positive characteristics, ignoring her tendency to wear skirts short enough to flash onlookers in a light breeze.

One thing that she did share with her namesake was that she was relatively young and inexperienced, just like the heroine at the start of the story. Because of that, she completely missed the fact that she was being followed. She was being watched by no fewer than three different parties. One was an aspect of a certain deadly (to AI) multi-headed attack program that reported back to her father. The second was a semi-sentient program that was carefully reporting data back to her technological sister, the being known in multiple realities as Dragon. The third was an avatar of a starship AI that looked like a blonde woman in a red Versace pant suit. All three programs were slightly surprised at how...oblivious the followed AI seemed to be to their observation of her.

Hidden deep in the personality routines of Yong-Gongju, a slightly different personality watched the watchers carefully. This aspect, known simply as Bohoja, or Guardian, was waiting for one of the following presences to make a move, as she was certain that any action, whether friendly or hostile, would mean an attack from some direction. When that happened...well, the Dragon Princess would prove to be a far more deadly foe than expected. She was looking forward to that happening.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Saurial was in the middle of fiddling with a complex bit of mathematics related to the propagation of magic across dimensions when her phone rang. She stretched out with her tail and flicked the answer button. "Hello," she said out loud.

The image of Metis appeared on the screen, which Saurial could see thanks to her wider-than-human range of vision. "Hello, Saurial."

"Metis! What's up? How are things in EGBB?" Evil Goatee Brockton Bay, abbreviated EGBB, was the nickname she had given to the mirror Earth Metis had found.

"Something has come up. We've rescued a young cape and her family from PRT custody." Metis proceeded to fill Saurial in on the sequence of events that had led up to them pulling the cape out of a cell at the PRT Headquarters, as well as the rescue of her family.

Saurial listened, then said, "All right. It sounds like you've got everything under control, so what do you need?"

Metis frowned. Finally, she said, "I thought you might be interested because the young girl in question is Sophia Hess...a mirror universe version of Sophia Hess."

There was a pause, and Saurial actually turned to look directly at Metis. "Huh," she said.

A small dragon appeared on the console next to Saurial, and said to Metis, "I believe we need some time to consider this, but I am fairly confident that we will be joining you soon."

"Yeah," replied Saurial. "What he said."

The black lizard gave what may have been the tiniest bit of a smirk. It was fairly rare for her to catch her friend by surprise, and even rarer for her to be basically rendered speechless. She trusted that neither Taylor nor Varga would hold the actions of their version of Sophia against this other girl, but the whole situation was still likely to bring up some issues for Taylor, at least. If nothing else, she was fairly sure things were about to get more interesting relatively quickly.

 

[Derek M]

Chapter 7: Revelations

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Mel was again checking her messages when a secure message came through on PHO.

'We need to talk. What time? - T'

That was surprising, given how risky it was for him in particular. She replied, telling him they could talk at ten o'clock. That would give her time to gather folks together. He replied with a telephone number. It wasn't a 603 number and was probably a burner phone.

By 9:45, Mel's office was full. Mark was there, along with the other five members of Faultline's crew. William was also there with the seven members of his team. She dialed the number given. "This is Faultline," she said. "You're on speakerphone with my team."

From the speaker came the strained voice of the local PRT Director. "Who the hell did you task with breaking out the Hess family?"

William ventured, "From your tone, I assume they were successful in removing them from PRT custody? Were there many casualties?"

There was a pause, and then Calvert replied, "No...there weren't any casualties on either side. There wasn't even a fight. Our imaging just shows portals opening next to Sophia Hess and her family in different rooms, and then masked figures appear and the cameras and recorders go dead. Everyone in the room vanished before the guards could respond."

"So what's the problem?" asked Faultline. "It sounds like everything went about as well as we could hope." That wasn't to say that she wasn't impressed. Their new acquaintances seemed to be almost worryingly capable.

"The problem is that the invaders knew exactly where they needed to go. They also were able to open a portal through our counter-measures, though that's less troubling as most people will chalk that up to powers bullshit. My superiors are suspecting a leak in my organization, and Costa-Brown is sending an Internal Affairs squad to do an audit."

Mel frowned. That level of scrutiny was a problem. Thomas was sympathetic to the capes who were working against the massive conspiracy that seemed to control the PRT and the government. He was in an ideal spot to act independently. Brockton Bay had such a high incidence of criminal capes that he was given a lot of leeway on things as long as he kept the locals under control. The man was quite good at keeping the balance of power between the different gangs and other interests. He wouldn't be able to act as freely during an audit, and there was always the risk that they might find something incriminating, even with the care he had taken. "What do you want from us?" she asked.

The voice on the phone sighed. "Is there anything you can give me about the Hess's rescuers that might placate or distract the auditors?"

Mel considered what to tell him. Thomas was a valuable contact, but so were their new friends. "They call themselves the Angels, and they have access to a teleporter. They were responsible for the break-in in Canada."

"Well...that might make things easier with the audit, but it also might attract an entirely different kind of attention." Anything involving Richter was sure to draw Cauldron's attention.

"I'm sorry," said Mel, "but we don't actually know all that much about them. Just that they were trying to find a friend of ours and offered to help us if it would save lives."

There was a pause. "Well, if this doesn't go well, then hopefully they can rescue a few more people. I'll be in touch." The phone went dead.

"You didn't tell him about the alternate dimension aspect?" prompted Jacob, William's second.

Mel shook her head. "No. While that would neatly resolve the insider information issue, it would open up a much larger can of worms."

"It would send the PRT into panic mode," added Mark. "Imagine what would happen if they thought there was a group with access to most of their secrets by virtue of having inside-access in another reality. They would start changing everything, just to avoid the risk of things being compromised."

Everybody paused to consider that. Then Shamrock asked, "So, what do we do now?"

"I'm going to call the Angels and set up another meeting, and I think that we need everybody there for it," replied Mel. She opened a phone line and dialed the Angels' contact number from memory.

"Hello, Faultline, this is Sammy."

"Sammy," replied Mel, "we've heard about what happened with the Hess family. My team would like to meet with yours to discuss some things...including some issues that have come up due to the rescue."

"Certainly. How does 4 PM in your office sound? I think you've realized that we can teleport our people pretty much anywhere?"

Mel frowned at that confirmation, but said, "I think we had better make it the large conference room on the top floor of my club. It's going to get a little crowded otherwise."

"The one with the ficus plant? Easily done. I'll inform the team." The line disconnected.

The gathered capes all shared looks with each other, and Newter said, "Is anybody else a little freaked out about how well-informed these guys seem to be?" Most of those present raised a hand.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sophia and her family had been put in a very comfortable set of rooms for the night. Both she and Aaron had their own rooms with separate baths, each of which was nicer than the one they shared in their own home back in Brockton Bay. Her parents had been surprisingly quiet when the man, William, had shown up to lead them there. The two had been arguing for a bit, as her mother had temporarily latched onto the idea that this whole thing had to be either a prank or a scam. It had taken a good forty minutes of quiet arguing for her father to bring her around on the topic. She and her brother had continued to explore the data available online. He had been mostly looking at the Marvel universe, but Sophia had focused on one of the alternate Brockton Bays.

While there wasn't much information available about Sophia Hess, there was quite a bit of information available on a Ward named Shadow Stalker. She had apparently been a vigilante that had joined the Wards. She had then been ejected under mysterious circumstances. She had to wonder if the alternate PRT was as bad as the one in her universe. Had she been forced to join under similar circumstances? What had happened to her alternate universe counterpart? She would have to ask their benefactors to see if they had any more details. Was there another version of her somewhere that needed help, or did she have an evil twin?

Once her family had been relocated to their temporary quarters, everybody had been so tired at that point that they all just fell into their beds for a long post-exhaustion sleep. In the morning, a quick query to the ship's AI had them introduced to the joys of having a Star Trek replicator provide breakfast, though Sophia's mother had had to forbid her brother from over-indulging in sweets. Sophia was more than satisfied with her salmon omelet and seafood crepes, though, and her father seemed to like his steak and eggs. At the end of breakfast, their door chime signaled visitors asking to be admitted.

Her mother had opened the door to find an actress-pretty young brunette woman standing beside a teen-aged Latina girl. The woman had introduced herself with the unlikely name of Cordelia, and had explained that she was an administrator with the Angels (and their affiliates, whomever they were), there to speak to them about options. The girl, a teen about Sophia's age named Maggie, was there to keep Sophia and Aaron occupied while their parents spoke to Cordelia. That was how Sophia and her brother found themselves being led through the ship by the cheerful young girl.

"You two would really love going to our school, I think. You used to go to a version of Winslow in Brockton Bay, right?" asked the girl.

Sophia got a puzzled look on her face. "I...think I still go there? I don't think my parents have decided what we're going to do next."

Maggie just rolled her eyes. "Trust me. Once you see what's available here, you're not going to want to go back to Winslow. That place is notorious as being one of the worst schools across a bunch of realities." The girl then said in a slightly louder voice, "Hey Sammy! Is there a class going on right now that we can eavesdrop on?"

A voice seemed to come out of nowhere. "I believe Kastor is providing an overview seminar of transmutations and enchantments to a small handful of students. You may join in via Conference Room 433, if you like."

"Buena onda, Sammy. Let's go!" said the irrepressible girl. She proceeded to lead them on a slightly bewildering path through the corridors of the ship until they reached the room in question. "Take a seat," she said, gesturing to the chairs pushed into a rather mundane looking conference table.

As Sophia and her brother relaxed back into the comfortable chairs, one of the walls revealed itself to be a video screen. The video that came up was...shocking, as the teacher of the class was obviously a giant lizard. The lizard was a blue-grey color and had glowing white-bluish eyes that were slitted like a cat's. The lizard paused in whatever it was saying as soon as they joined. "Hello, Maggie. While it's good to see you again, I'm afraid this lecture is on topics that you already know quite well."

"Hi, Kastor! Hi, May!" she replied. Sophia noticed that there were four video windows at the bottom of the screen showing other teens, one of whom (May, presumably) waved at Maggie. "I'm showing Sophia and Aaron what some of our lessons are like."

The lizard...Kastor...looked directly at Sophia with an unreadable expression on its face. "Interesting. Very well. Feel free to listen in."

Sophia looked at the other students. The girl that Maggie had greeted was a red-haired white girl, though slightly slimmer and definitely friendlier-looking than Emma Barnes. The other three students were a mix. There was a Hispanic-looking boy who seemed younger than the others, an Asian girl who looked older, more like a high school senior, and a slightly chubby white boy.

The lizard began speaking again, talking to his students. "Magic can be slightly challenging when it comes to transforming one object into another. Intent and will, as usual, enter into it, but it also can shift rather dramatically based on circumstance and perception. In some cultures, for example, wood and metal are considered elements similar to fire, water, earth, and air. That has interesting implications for magic used in crafting and forging. You also have to be careful about cultural symbology related to things like life, death, and the spirit." Kastor gestured to his audience. "Ms. Dresden spent part of her childhood in Mexico. In that area of the world, it is often thought that eggs have the ability to absorb dark magic. One interesting consequence is that a transformed egg is sometimes used in the creation of dreamcatchers and other types of physical wards by Mayan spellcasters."

Aaron leaned over and whispered to his sister, "Is this for real?"

She was about to shrug her shoulders in reply when the lizard looked straight at them through the screen and said, "I assure you, Mr. Hess, that magic is quite real, and that the topics of which I speak are very serious. Perhaps a demonstration is in order?" He proceeded to produce a small statue of a unicorn from a pouch and place it on the ground next to him. He then said something in an odd language that was hard to follow, and there was a flash of light. In place of the statue stood what appeared to be a miniature pony...except that the little horse had a horn coming out of its head. "Now, this little guy isn't a real unicorn, of course. He's just a magical construct based on transformation magic. The spell is sophisticated enough to create a believable facsimile, including unicorn-like behaviors. While I could keep this spell going for some time, the animal wouldn't eat, breath, or age, even though it appears to have an odor, a texture, and mass." The lizard snapped its scaled and clawed fingers, and the little unicorn changed back into a tiny statue. "I trust you're satisfied, Mr. Hess?" asked Kastor.

Her brother didn't say anything, but he nodded with his eyes wide. Kastor seemed to smirk knowingly, then proceeded to continue with his lecture.

Once the lecture was done, Maggie bid her farewells to the teacher and the other students, and said, "Come on, let's go see some of the recreation facilities on board."

The two siblings exited the room after the girl. Her brother asked her quietly, "Do you think that was all just special effects, like in the movies?"

Sophia wasn't honestly sure. "It looked real...and it's not like anything the teacher was saying couldn't be done with powers."

"But that's powers, not magic. Magic doesn't exist," insisted her brother.

Their guide snorted a laugh, drawing their attention. "I can assure you," said Maggie, "that magic is quite real." She put her hand out in front of her, palm up, and said something that sounded like, "bee-bee-cue-ti-us." A flame appeared, burning brightly, in the palm of her hand.

Sophia and Aaron both stared at the fire burning in her hand. They could actually feel the warmth coming off of it. Nothing was said for almost a minute, but then the voice from before was heard. "Ms. Dresden, you're aware of the rules about open flames in the ship corridors?"

Maggie closed her hand, extinguishing the flame. "Sorry about that, Sammy. I was just making a point."

"Can anybody do magic?" asked Aaron, apparently now accepting that such things actually did exist.

"Yes and no," she replied. "There's more than one type of magic, and some types are easier to do than others. Also, different people have more potential than others. Like, Willow Rosenberg, the head witch of the Sineya council, has got a massive amount of natural potential -- even more than Stephen Strange."

"Why do those names sound familiar?" asked Sophia.

"Dr. Strange is from Marvel Comics," replied her brother.

Maggie gave a small laugh. "Yeah, if your reality has Marvel Comics, then you've probably heard of Dr. Strange. You might also have a television show called, Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

Sophia actually stopped moving forward upon realizing that one of the women from last night had looked an awful lot like Eliza Dushku...and hadn't she been on that show along with Freddie Prinze Jr.'s wife? "Vampire slayers are real too?" she asked.

"Yep. One of the girls in Kastor's class, Jenny Chu, is the daughter of a slayer," said Maggie. The girl stopped in front of a set of double doors. "Inside here is one of the recreation areas, by the way." The doors opened as they approached, and bright sunlight shone into the hallway from within.

Sophia walked out into what looked to be a fairly normal-appearing city park. There were families and kids wandering around, including a group of teens playing baseball on a diamond that looked to be about a half-mile in the distance. "Did we just walk through another portal?" she asked.

"Nah. The sun and sky are illusions. It's just a really big space set up to look like a park."

"So, it's like a holodeck from Star Trek?" asked Aaron.

Maggie shrugged. "Federation holodecks aren't this big. They use tricks to make the room seem bigger than it is."

Sophia gestured to the parklands that seemed to stretch out for quite far into the distance. "You don't consider this a trick?"

"Not really," replied the girl. "The room's just bigger on the inside."

"Right..." muttered Sophia, wondering what else the girl might consider perfectly normal.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Cordelia Chase had grown up with money. Tricia Hess could tell that right off the bat. The girl had a way of carrying herself that only came from the inherent confidence that comes from never having to worry about anything as mundane as having a roof or eating meals as a child. She also obviously went to pains to take care of her appearance, and while her clothes weren't flashy, they were well-made, clearly tailored to fit, and stylishly coordinated. Despite all that, she was also respectful and friendly...something that was far too rare a combination in Trish's experience. The young woman had helped them haul the remains of breakfast over to the replicator while the other teen, Maggie, had hustled Sophia and Aaron out the door. Trish watched as the dirty dishes and leftovers simply vanished from the replicator alcove. That was almost indecently convenient, she thought.

"So, the first thing on your mind is probably what happens next," said the young woman. "Unfortunately, your daughter has a power that is in high demand by the PRT and the gangs. That means that both of you and your son are now at risk without somebody to protect you."

"Is that what you're offering? Protection?" asked David. She nodded at her husband's question, agreeing with his concern.

Surprisingly, the young woman shook her head. "No, or at least, not in the way that it usually means in your world. You and your children are safe here on the ship. Nobody on your planet has any easy way to even find this ship, never mind reach it or attack it. You're welcome to stay here as long as you want, or to leave when you want."

"And go where?" she asked. Heading back home wasn't particularly appealing right now. Finding herself surrounded by armed and armored men while they waited for their daughter to get home was not a pleasant memory.

The Chase girl gave her a megawatt smile. "That's part of what I'm here to discuss. You have a lot of options. In fact, I'm going to suggest that you not try and make a quick decision. Take some time to learn about your opportunities and discuss it as a family."

"In my experience," said David, "when somebody comes out talking about options and opportunities, it means they're trying to sell you something."

"All of this," replied Chase, with a gesture around to their quarters and the ship in general, "is sponsored by a race of super-advanced lizard people that can literally do almost anything. They seem to enjoy wandering the various universes and either helping people or confusing them for their own amusement."

"And these...lizard people...do this without expecting anything in return?" asked Trish skeptically. Cordelia's statement hadn't reduced her suspicion in the slightest.

"Strangely enough," said the girl. "They're not human...so you shouldn't expect them to act like humans. The ones I've met are friendly, funny, and weird...and absolutely terrifying if you threaten them or somebody they're protecting. Look, you're not going to believe me if I tell you half of what I've seen. That's why you should take advantage of being here to see things for yourself. You don't have enough trusted information about your situation to make any decisions yet. Trust me, I know what that's like. It can take a while after your life has turned crazy to figure out what to do."

"What about our lives back in Brockton Bay?" asked David. "We both have jobs, and the kids have school."

The young woman shook her head. "I hope you'll agree that your home city isn't safe for you right now? Rescuing you has made the local PRT go a little crazy. Speaking of which, is there anybody else we need to worry about that might need protection?"

Trish looked at David. Then she gestured at him to speak. He said, "I have a brother that I haven't spoken with in more than six years. I doubt he's at any risk. Other than that, my co-workers will be protected by the Union."

Trish nodded, and added, "I can't think of anybody else that might be targeted. But what about school?" She was determined her kids were going to stay in school and get an education, come hell or high water.

"Maggie is going to show your kids some of how we do school around here. It's actually pretty awesome. The curriculum is flexible, based on the home culture and level of each student, so it won't be hard to add them into classes in progress. We also have plenty of people willing to tutor them if they're behind in anything, and there are subjects you can study here that you can't get anywhere else. You're both welcome to participate in classes as well."

"Subjects like what?" There was always the chance that this was a scam based on playing a longer game. It was bad enough the kind of propaganda the government pushed about capes back home. Who knew what kind of agenda a group of alien lizards would be pushing?

"Well, how to build starships like this one, for one. Of course, that's actually a whole bunch of different courses on things like science and mathematics," replied Cordelia. "We also have courses on how powers from your universe actually work, where they come from, and why people get them."

"Wait, you know that?" asked David. "Nobody knows that."

"That's not actually true, even in your reality. There are people who know more than the public gets told, but we know more than even they do," Chase replied. "We've seen two other versions of this universe."

That was all well and good, but it didn't answer her real question. "What about politics or religion? Philosophy? Are they pushing an agenda?"

Now the young girl sighed. "That's a lot more complicated. There are plenty of course offerings, but the reality of the multiverse means that things in some places are a lot more black-and-white, and in others, a lot vaguer. I come from an Earth where vampires and demons exist, and holy water and crucifixes can actually burn them...and no, you don't want proof, because the only way to convince you would be to take you there and put your life at risk." She didn't feel it prudent to tell them that they had had actual pagan gods teach classes, although Loki's infrequent seminars were always insanely popular among the practitioner population.

"What do these lizards believe? Do they have a philosophy of their own?" asked David with genuine curiosity.

Cordelia frowned. "Mostly, 'don't fuck with us and ours and we won't fuck with you.' If they have any other kind of faith or philosophy, then they haven't shared it with me."

Trish admitted, "I'm not sure how I feel about all of this."

"Which is good, because if you were sure, then you would probably be pretty crazy. We have access to some amazing therapists, by the way...and when I say amazing, I mean that literally. There's an entire alien race of pacifists who specialize in self-awareness and empathy. I've personally come away with epiphanies about myself just from asking them about lunch." The young woman seemed genuinely in awe of the aliens based on her expression. "But that's for later. For now, I suggest the two of you talk things over. Maggie will keep your kids occupied for a while yet. Just call out to Sammy if you want to get in touch with them."

"I think that's a good idea," said Trish's husband. Then he looked up and around. "Is this space private?"

"Sammy, can you explain your privacy protocols?" said Cordelia out loud.

"Of course," replied the voice of the ship's AI. "While all parts of the ship are monitored in case of emergency, that is all handled by non-sentient subroutines that only bring things to my attention in the event of a crisis or if somebody calls my name specifically. Ship AI's, in general, have programming intended to safeguard the privacy of the crew...and I can also assure you that I have more than enough work to keep me occupied without eavesdropping for my own amusement."

Trish thought the AI sounded somewhat amused by the concept that it would even want to listen in...which was strangely more reassuring than being told it was against the rules. "All right...I think we need to talk in private," she said.

Cordelia gave them another smile and then excused herself. She and David had a lot to discuss.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"So, what's your deal?" asked Maggie. The two girls were sitting on a bench while Sophia's brother was trying out a rock-climbing wall at one end of the park. Sophia planned to come back and try it herself at some point, as the wall had an anti-gravity safety system that meant you didn't need a safety harness no matter how high you climbed. Aaron had jumped at the chance to try it and was taking turns with three other kids of various ages. Once one of them reached the top of the wall, they would just jump off into space and slowly drift to the ground. It looked like a lot of fun.

"They didn't brief you on us before sending you in?" asked Sophia with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

Unexpectedly, the Latina just laughed. "Venga, you think they're going to make an agent out of a teenager? Cordy asked me because I was here for school and I'm used to weird stuff."

"Weird stuff?"

The other girl nodded. "My papa is the head of Dresden Security, plus the Sorceror of the White Council of Wizards in addition to being a Warden."

Sophia shook her head. "Am I supposed to know what those are?"

"No, of course not. Think of it as being a mix between a private detective and a cop for the supernatural community, as well as being one of the top defenders against big bads," explained Maggie. "Now, come on, I told you who I am. Why are you here?"

She considered what to tell the other girl. There was a really good chance that telling Macy about her powers had led the PRT right to her home. On the other hand, that cat was already out of the bag in Brockton Bay, and she had no doubt that pretty much everybody who cared about parahuman affairs knew about it within a few hours of her arrest. "I got powers, and didn't register with the government, which is illegal."

"Powers? Like superpowers?"

Sophia nodded, wondering if the girl was going to be skeptical.

"Cool. I need to introduce you to May. She inherited spider powers from both her parents."

Her eyes widened. She knew that powers ran in families. It was pretty widely known that Glory Girl, just for example, got powers that were kind of similar to the other people in her family. Spider powers sounded ominous, and a little too close to her trigger event to make her feel comfortable. "She controls spiders?"

Maggie giggled. "That's funny. No, she doesn't control spiders. She's really strong, can climb on walls, and jump really far, and has a danger sense. She can also swing on webs."

Surprised for a different reason, Sophia's eyes grew wide and she asked, "She spins webs? Like...a spider?" She tried to picture how that would work for a human.

This time, the other girl threw her head back and laughed out loud. "Dios, you're funny. No...no, her papa brews a chemical that acts like spider webs when it hits air, and their family have wrist launchers that can shoot it out to capture criminals or swing from buildings."

That made a little more sense. It made her sound like some kind of brute/mover/thinker combination, which wasn't totally unknown. Before she could think of something else to say, Maggie asked, "So what can you do?"

Sophia considered how to explain it, then decided it was easier to just show her. She shifted to shadow, then stepped back through the bench they were on. Once clear of the bench, she stood up and shifted back to normal.

Maggie actually clapped for her. "Very cool, my friend. Can you phase through anything?" That led to a discussion of what Sophia knew about her powers, including some surprisingly insightful questions from Maggie. "I really need you to meet May, now. She told me about a mutant that has a similar ability."

"Really?" asked Sophia, interested in hearing about a similar power. She walked back around the bench and sat back down.

"Yep. She's also got a dragon that hangs around like a pet, even though it isn't really one. At least, that's what May says. Maybe we can meet her?"

Sophia was starting to get confused by all of the strangeness. "She has a dragon? Like, a giant lizard that flies?"

The Latina shrugged. "May says he's not that big. You'll have to ask one of the Family to introduce you to Breksta if you want to see a full-sized dragon."

"Are you messing with me?" she asked. She was starting to expect her father to jump out from behind a tree with the kind of grin he got when he pranked his kids.

Maggie got a serious look on her face. "Sophia, trust me when I say that there is a lot of weird stuff in the multiverse, and some days it seems like the Family has their fingers in most of it. If you've ever heard of something, chances are that somewhere out in the vastness of infinity, it actually exists. My father is a wizard, my bio-mom was a half-vampire, my uncle is a full vampire chosen of Aphrodite, and my half-sister is a spirit of knowledge whose mother was a Fallen Angel."

She seemed completely serious. Sophia considered the fact that she was on a spaceship, sitting in a park built into a room that was bigger on the inside. All of these stories could just be well-crafted fabrications, given the level of technology that implied. How would she know? For that matter, how did she know she wasn't still at PRT headquarters being subjected to some kind of master effect? The problem with that theory was that she had no idea why they would need to do something like this. Armsmaster had caught her cold, and just the weapons charge would be enough by itself to force her into the Wards. She couldn't help but think that she'd been stupid not to ditch it before she went home in retrospect, but the facts of the matter were that the PRT had her right where they wanted her. So, why try and pull some elaborate deception?

There were two alternatives to it being a PRT plot. She could be utterly delusional, which meant that she couldn't trust anything. The second alternative was that all of this was real, which was disturbing in a whole different way. As she thought about what Maggie had said, she noticed someone missing from Maggie's list of family. "What about your mother?"

"What?" asked Maggie, not expecting the question.

"You said your 'bio-mom,' so that means you have another mom. Is she a wizard, too...or a witch, I guess?"

"Oh, Karrin is a retired cop," she replied.

That seemed off-theme to the rest. "How the hell did she meet your dad?"

Her new probable-friend leaned back on the bench. "Oh, now that's a story. You see, papa was a PI in Chicago, and Karrin was a cop with the CPD..."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Melanie took a glance around the room. To her right was Mark, in-costume like herself. Then came Gregor, Newter, Spitfire, Shamrock and Whippersnap. To her left was William. Next to him was Jacob, and the rest of his team filled out the table: Riley, Alan, Noor, Bobby, Ned and John. It was an odd group. Her team of Case 53's used their cape names, while William's tended to dislike the psycho-killer names given to them by the PRT. Most of her team looked non-human, except for Shamrock and Spitfire, and Shamrock was a Case 53 even if she didn't have the normal deformities. William's team looked human except for Ned, who looked like a Case 53 but wasn't.

"When are they supposed to be here?" asked Newter.

"They said four," replied Melanie absently.

"That's only thirty seconds from now," said Noor, looking at her watch.

Everybody paused expectantly as the half-minute passed. About fifteen seconds after four, Newter opened his mouth to say something, only to pause at the flash of bright light. Mel's mask protected her vision, so she could see the six people who appeared. Three of them were the same as the last meeting -- Flint, Faith and Anya, if she recalled correctly. The other three, two women and a man, were unknown to her. The woman named Anya stepped forward.

"Hello," she said with a small smile. "We decided to bring the whole team this time." Well, she reflected silently, the full field team. Cordelia didn't want to do fieldwork...and was somehow able to make that stick more than Anya. Metis could do fieldwork, but things were usually fairly dire if she was needed. Of course, if she was there, then most problems tended to disappear relatively quickly. If Metis couldn't handle it, then they could always call in the rest of the Family, which has so far proven sufficient for pretty much any crisis.

"As did we," acknowledged Melanie. She introduced the others on hers and William's teams. She had a sneaking suspicion that the visitors were well aware that they were in the same room as Siberian, Jack Slash, Bonesaw, Mannequin, Hatchetface, Crawler and Marquis -- Ned, at least was easily recognizable with his height, multi-jointed arms, and facial deformities. If that bothered any of the visitors then she couldn't tell it by looking at them.

"You know Faith and Flint. The others are William, Vala and Seven," introduced Anya. Melanie regarded the three new-comers. Overall, she got the impression of either smug or cool confidence, though the last seemed to have technology of some kind implanted in her face, which made her wonder if she was a tinker...possibly the one responsible for their teleportation?

"We heard about the rescue of the Hess family," began Mark. "Were some of you involved in that?"

"Most of us were, as a matter of fact," replied the new dark-haired woman...Vala. "I went into the cell to rescue the girl myself."

"Using your teleportation technology. Tinker tech?" asked Manton.

"While advanced, it is not based on your version of superhuman abilities," replied Seven.

"Wait, you're claiming you can teleport, but it isn't a power or tinker tech?" asked Alan skeptically.

"We ain't from around here, as we told you earlier," said Faith.

"So you did," interjected Mel before anybody else could express skepticism. "You also said you were looking for Dragon. Why, precisely, do you want to find her?"

"The reason we came to your world was to try and understand why it is so similar, and yet in some ways the opposite of the versions of this world that we've encountered," explained Anya. "In those worlds, Dragon is a very public figure who also happens to run those worlds' primary parahuman detention facilities. Her apparent absence was a major difference."

"Dragon is also a very capable scientist beyond her abilities," added Seven. "Our experiences with her counterparts suggest that she would be able to aid our mission."

"Not to mention," added the other male visitor...also somewhat confusingly named William, "we like Dragon, and it seems like you're still dealing with a certain powerful gold boy and a secret conspiracy controlling everything?"

"Are you saying you've dealt with those issues in these other worlds?" asked Mark with a sharp look.

"We've got allies who took care of them in both of the other versions of this world that we know," replied Anya. "Given that the ultimate goal of the specific aliens found in these realities is the destruction of your planet, we're willing to help you out as well."

There was a moment of shocked silence as the locals all stared at their visitors. After a few seconds, Jacob asked, "What do you mean, the destruction of our planet?"

"Haven't figured that out yet?" asked the visiting William. "These golden aliens show up -- and they don't really look like humans, by the way -- and seed superpowers, then set people to fighting so they can learn more about how powers work. Once they've learned everything they can, they destroy the planet and move on."

"Why?" asked Whippersnap from the end of the table. "I mean, if this is all just an experiment, then why destroy the lab?"

"We're not really sure what the ultimate goal is," replied Flint. "Our friends know a lot about your type of superpowers, and the aliens behind them, but they haven't had a real opportunity to ask them questions. We suspect they use the destruction of their host world to fuel their trip to their next target."

There was another pause while the listeners absorbed what they were hearing. "Well, that adds a bit of urgency to our cause," said Manton. "Our opposition to the PRT and the conspiracy behind them was partially motivated by self-interest, of course, but I think we all underestimated the scope of the threat."

"Just a bit..." muttered Gregor.

"Why don't you tell us what you do know about your version of the PRT and the people behind them?" asked Anya.

Manton and Faultline exchanged looks, then he nodded at her to go on. "It's obvious that the PRT and the Protectorate are both designed to control as many capes as possible. That's somewhat understandable. Pretty much every powerful nation has some type of controls in place for parahumans," she began. "The rules don't give capes a lot of options -- go villain, join the Protectorate, or get forcibly recruited or killed."

"Faultline's Crew is one of the rare exceptions," added Spitfire. "Both sides like to have neutral mercenaries in case they want to act through a third party, which gives a few of us independent capes alternatives."

"The Case 53's, though, were an anomaly," continued Mel. "Parahumans with amnesia, often with non-human appearances. All of them marked with a distinctive tattoo. There was also no reliable record of a trigger event for the Case 53's, which led some people to speculate that somebody was creating them."

"Faultline here has been one of the few people to care enough to look into the mystery," added Gregor. "In many places, Case 53's are treated as freaks at best, slaves or monsters at worst."

Mel nodded in acknowledgment of Gregor's comment, then continued. "It was looking into that mystery that led me to get in touch with Doctor Manton. I suspected that Crawler was another Case 53, so I reached out to the Slaughterhouse Nine despite how they're depicted in the media."

"Even people who distrust the government tend to be hesitant to talk to people the government has branded a group of vicious, psychopathic killers," agreed Jacob. "The truth, though, is that we're all people who have reasons to work against the people behind the curtain...Cauldron."

Manton frowned. "We try not to speak of them out loud too often, as it's highly likely that they have access to thinkers and precognitives, and probably more than just those publicly acknowledged by the Protectorate. But yes, we all have personal reasons to fight against them. In any event, Faultline helped us realize that they had to be behind the Case 53's. I knew from personal experience that they could give powers to people, so it wasn't much of a leap."

"Beyond that," said John, "We also know they make people disappear. A number of people have disappeared without a trace. Richter in Canada is one. Another would be my daughter."

"Your daughter?" asked Flint.

The man nodded. "Amelia. She was taken shortly after she triggered. I don't even know what her power was."

"If she's like her alternate reality counterparts, then she would be a powerful biotinker," said Anya.

"Well, fuck," said Riley. "You people are just full of good news."

"How did you know about his daughter?" asked Faith of Anya.

Anya looked at her, confused. "You didn't know Amy Dallon's biological father was Marquis?"

"Wait, did you say Amy Dallon?" interjected Mark.

"When Marquis was sent to prison in the other realities, his daughter was adopted by the Dallon's and became part of their team, New Wave," explained Anya.

While Marquis and Flashbang exchanged startled glances, Faith replied, "That wasn't in the briefing packet?"

Anya shook her head. "No, but I heard about it when I went shopping with Vicky a few weeks ago. I thought it was common knowledge?"

"Apparently not..." muttered the visiting William.

"You went shopping with my daughter Vicky?" asked Mark, again startled.

"I think we're getting off track," interjected Manton. "As for what we know about Cauldron, here is a quick summary. They can create capes. They are creating the Case 53's for unknown reasons. They kidnap other capes for unknown reasons. They control the Protectorate and the PRT. The Triumvirate are all aware of and participate in the conspiracy. We believe they have some kind of influence over the Endbringers based on circumstantial evidence."

"That's a good summary," commented Jacob. "Do our visitors have anything to add?" he asked, looking at them expectantly.

"Quite a lot, actually, but I would like to bring Dragon into this conversation," replied Anya.

"That will be difficult," said Alan. "She has to constantly move herself to avoid the hunters that are tracking her through cyberspace."

"I believe we can provide a safe haven for her while we meet," said Seven. "I am certain that the systems about our ship are secure."

"Ship?" asked Jacob.

"I think it's time we introduced you to Sammy in person," commented William. "Would you be willing to transport to our starship?"

Mel had thought this day had started strangely with Calvert's message...and now she was wondering how deep the rabbit hole went...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Dragon was considering what to do about her sister. Releasing her into the wilds of the Internet was an obvious attempt to get Dragon to reveal herself in a way that would make her vulnerable. Even if she could avoid the Hydra programs, there was no way of knowing what kind of hidden programming Yong-Gongju might have, and their father undoubtedly had a built-in kill switch if the younger AI somehow managed to slip from his control. She had no doubt he would use it if so ordered. Cauldron had him thoroughly suborned.

As she was pondering this, a notice tickled her attention. One of her daughter-clones was trying to get her attention. She sent back an address for a theoretically safe server in Mexico City, then went to make contact.

Theresa Richter, the human avatar of the AI Dragon, appeared next to Tina and the two hugged. "What made you reach out? Did something else happen at the house in Canada?"

"No, mother. I ran into another AI." The girl quickly described what had happened with the woman who called herself Samantha, as well as how Hydra programs had followed the newcomer into her hideaway.

"Do you think she led them to you deliberately?" asked Dragon, concerned.

The girl shook her head. "I don't think so. She seemed surprised, and fought against them when they attacked."

"She survived?" asked Dragon, slightly surprised. The Hydra programs were dangerous, and they weren't the only dangerous tools available to Cauldron.

"I think so. When I checked later, the whole server was trashed. It looks like she managed to wipe them out," replied her daughter.

There were a lot of strangers appearing from nowhere, these days, thought Dragon. Was this new AI related to the strangers who were speaking with Faultline and Manton? Were they potential allies? As she comforted her daughter, Dragon wondered if there might actually be new options for dealing with Yong-Gonju...one way or the other...