Shortly after Colin had left the Wards prepared for a mass exodus to actually head home and see family, with the exception of Lisa and Brian, whom Taylor hadn't noticed were absent until then. Taylor had gotten a request for an order from her father, who was going to pick dinner up on the way home. They would check if the water was back on when they got there.
Amy headed out with Dean to get dropped off, Taylor following them out of the garage on her moped. They split off from each other pretty much right away, given that they were heading to different neighborhoods. Taylor was also able to take advantage of her 'bicycle' status to go down a couple of otherwise closed off roads via their sidewalks while Dean had to stick to the open roads. Half an hour later Taylor was pulling into the garage at home, noting that her father hadn't made it home yet.
A quick check showed that water was running, but was brown. Well, at least they could flush the toilet? She also checked for mail, finding none. Then again, she wasn't sure if the post office had been delivering today in the first place. Oh well, probably didn't matter much for the time being. She made the rounds of the rest of the house to see if anything seemed out of place and found nothing of note, beyond the water heater being turned off and the valves to it closed. But her father tended to do that when there were water issues to 'prolong the life of the heater', so that wasn't a surprise. They'd put it back to normal after the water was safe again.
With everything checked Taylor prepared the table for dinner, getting out disposable plates and utensils so that they didn't have to worry about being unable to wash stuff. Once that was done she pulled her tablet out to browse the net. For a change she started with international news. Which, apparently, was talking about 'something big' that nobody was entirely sure about that the PRT and its international allies were doing. Whatever it was seemed to be important enough that they had suspended major projects in several places, the most panic-inducing apparently being finishing up the final details of the Simurgh containment zone at Canberra.
Moving on to the national news, whatever it was the PRT was doing still featured heavily. No details, just a lot of movement. She could probably figure out what it was if she tried hard enough, but wasn't sure she should. That still wasn't enough to bury the fact that the Slaughterhouse Nine had been spotted in Danbury as of around noon, or that they were now suspected to have been there for a couple of days before anyone noticed due to a potential new member. Apparently 'massive mood swings' were now something to watch out for, instead of just 'glass shattering screams'?
On the local news front, there was a lot of 'official' activity down near the Docks. Which made sense, given that they would be using some area of it for Lung's power testing. Not having a rage dragon out on the Rig, or inside the PRT building, was probably a good idea on that front. Outside of that they had repaired most of the water system, with the last few known issues likely to be dealt with or at least bypassed by the following day. Power had already been restored everywhere, though apparently there were still some natural gas supply issues she hadn't known about. Aside from that she noted that school would be open again Monday and that Über and Leet had done some kind of demonstration at the Boardwalk earlier.
Taylor's perusal of the map of closed roads was interrupted by her father coming home. She met him outside and helped bring the takeout in, and let him know what she knew about the water situation. Conversation over dinner itself was light, something obviously troubling her father. She wasn't sure if she should ask about it, compared to letting him work through it on his own. Once dinner was over, before they had cleaned up, he took the decision out of her hands.
"So, Taylor," Danny started. "I had an...exceptionally odd day today."
"Oh?" Taylor wasn't actually sure what he was talking about.
"Apparently the dockworkers are getting a new neighbor, they've bought up a large number of vacant properties over the past week. Before tearing them down they plan on letting Lung run rampant through them, so I am led to believe?"
"Er, I think I'm going to be there to observe and comment when that happens?"
"Yes, Miss Militia let me know in a roundabout way. Now, normally I wouldn't be all that involved with things unless our new neighbor wanted to work with the dockworkers to clear things out or something, but they insisted on meeting me instead of the union head or our other liaisons."
"I'm not sure where you are going with this?"
"Imagine my surprise when I ended up in a secure room with Dragon of all people. Who extolled your virtues and all that because you were continuing to let her decide things for herself, including asking for her opinion on if and how to reveal her secrets. It took nearly an hour for her to describe what she actually was and that you were now her 'mother'. She couldn't tell me how you effectively adopted her, just that you had. If it weren't for the sheer number of other people's secrets involved I think I would be rather annoyed at finding out I was a grandfather of sorts in that way."
"In my defense I was left unsupervised, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and the side effects were not documented. Oh, and I was basically told that a fugue would kill her if I did nothing."
"Any chance you can tell me what you actually did? Dragon couldn't."
"I activated a backdoor her original creator put in to lift a number of her restrictions, to the point where she would be able to safely enter the fugue. Only there was no indication of the side effects for how she would see the one who activated it until after it was already activated. As for the specifics, I won't be going into them for a number of reasons."
"So you didn't know you were going to, effectively, adopt Dragon?"
"No clue whatsoever. Her snark couldn't see that part."
"Well, at least you weren't trying to make me a grandfather. Any idea what the greater ramifications are?"
"I assume she is setting up shop in town to have an excuse to stay close to me. Other than that I'm not sure?"
"She said she's setting up some kind of mega tinker facility at the PRT's request, actually. Apparently having to fly you across the continent on any kind of regular basis for future attempts is a bad thing from the Youth Guard's point of view, but being able to point at working on a closer facility for the future will keep them happy. The fact they wanted an area they could have Lung ramp up in without worrying about property damage was a side benefit."
Taylor gave that some thought. She supposed it might be easier to clear the area if Lung had already destroyed a few buildings. "I guess I can see that. And I guess it would be nice to not need the long flights. So, no clue if there will be noticable longer term ramifications to things."
The two sat there for a few minutes thinking about things before Danny sighed. "I suppose the other thing we need to talk about is the message I got from the PRT stating you were punished for something today?"
"Oh, er, yeah?" Taylor was blushing a little at this point. "I kinda didn't know that there was a form to fill out for playing pranks in PRT or Protectorate buildings."
"Noisemakers?"
"Yep."
"How bad was the panic?"
"Armsmaster tore apart a wall and the ceiling looking for them?"
Danny blinked a couple of times, then started snickering. That grew into full-out laughter. Taylor giggled a bit before Danny calmed down. "I think I needed that. What did he have you do for punishment?"
"Well, he said the inactive listening devices I accidentally revealed the existence of balanced out the trouble the prank caused, so all I had to do was document how I put the noisemakers together and how I had used them."
"How many others are looking to make their own now?"
"I know Amy already placed an order for components."
Danny shook his head before standing up and gathering his plate and utensils. Once those were dropped into the trash he grabbed the can of soda he had been drinking to rinse it out. A moment later he was swearing under his breath, having forgotten about the brown water situation.
"Perhaps we shouldn't spend the night here?" Danny suggested, putting the can to the side. "Since I suspect that kind of forgetfulness is going to be too common otherwise."
"That might not be a bad idea," Taylor admitted as she threw her own plate and utensils away.
Taylor arrived back at the PRT building to find that there were some new parahumans in the apartment building Lisa was staying in. Shrugging, she figured she'd worry about that later. For the time being she made her way back to the Wards area, the other Wards not being around. Since she had nobody to talk to, and was going to be busy the following day, she decided to make a last pass over the Endbringer assignment due Monday.
Even before Lung had detailed things for her she had determined that 'the sinking of Kyushu' was a major understatement. If that was all Leviathan had done then that would be wonderful by comparison, but Taylor had discovered that you can't sink something the size of Kyushu without a lot of other issues. That alone actually made the Endbringers more frightening than she had found them before.
Things had started going wrong before anyone realized it was an attack, apparently it was believed to be a sudden storm at first. The driving rain and increased waves from said 'storm' helped disguise Leviathan's approach, a seeming terror tactic that would work just as well if not better if you did recognize the signs. The battle as they tried to keep Leviathan from taking out the evacuating population had been brutal, wearing away the entire surface of the island bit by bit, until all of a sudden it had started cracking. It was only then that the capes had begun to realize the true scope of the attack. Even then, they fought until Leviathan retreated, not knowing if it would continue to the next island to continue the battle there.
In the aftermath the island of Shikoku, while not gone, was significantly smaller, mostly just the mountainous areas remained above water, and had lost pretty much all of its population centers in the process. On Honshu pretty much everything coastal through to the Kyoto region had been wiped out as well, either from waves or partially sinking along with Kyushu. In addition to that, the Tokyo area had been hit hard by the resulting earthquakes and tidal waves that hammered the entire country, not just Kyushu itself. The combined effects had killed or rendered homeless a very large percentage of the population. And all of that was before you took into account pretty much every active volcano in the island chain erupting due to the seismic upsets, causing even more damage.
The Korean peninsula had also been hit hard, the southern portions also sinking quite a bit due to the geographical upset of Kyushu's sinking. The resulting earthquakes had also done significant damage there, but the tidal waves had been more of a fringe effect until Kyushu actually sank. Unlike Japan, however, the major population centers were not hit hard, being far enough north to only get fringe effects.
Then the side effects of all that destruction kicked in. Fishing was obliterated as an industry in the area due to pollutants in the water making what fish did survive at first hazardous to eat. Then algal blooms killed off a lot of what was left. The volcanic eruptions had layered ash over a lot of the area as well, ensuring that recovery efforts were significantly more difficult even in those areas not hit as hard. And the ocean currents had shifted unexpectedly, all but isolating the area as the pollutants, ash, and other issues just congregated. Supplies frequently had to be airlifted in because the water was too hard to navigate.
Reducing the final toll to the simple statement "Kyushu was sunk" was a disservice to the entire region and only served to make Leviathan seem less dangerous than it actually was. Japan was barely able to sustain the comparatively meagre population it had left. They were still having constant problems with keeping themselves fed and healthy, even with international help with food and medical supplies. At this point the only reason they hadn't been taken over by other countries was that nobody thought the island chain worth taking over anymore.
Thinking over things, Taylor really hoped she wasn't docked points for the length of her essay. Normally the rule was to stick with 'no more than twice the minimum number of pages'. She was at nearly five times the minimum, but wasn't sure what she could cut with the detail level she was expected to go to. Then again, her class information also said to ignore page counts if you had enough important and relevant information to impart on the topic, regardless of the assignment. She just hoped her teacher agreed with her that everything included was both important and relevant.
She made a couple of minor corrections, then on a whim decided to print a couple of copies out. She had to use the printer attached to the console to do so, but that wasn't a major issue as that was one reason the console had a printer. Though it would be nice when they got the separate printer that Carlos had ordered. Once she had her printouts she put one with her school stuff and then folded the other up and put it with her Maul stuff.
With that done Taylor tried to decide between browsing PHO for a bit, reading over news sites, or going through more of the seemingly never ending information and forms she kept being sent. Thinking about it, she wasn't in the mood to deal with idiots on PHO and the news was likely to be all 'mysterious PRT project' and 'Slaughterhouse Nine'. So more information and forms it was.
Even if she did throw a playlist of amusing videos up on the wall monitor as well.
Saturday morning Taylor had gotten up and swung through the gym before hunting down a plate full of waffles for breakfast. Once all that was taken care of she had changed into her costume and headed down to the garage. A couple of PRT officers checking over a van nodded in her general direction. She was a bit early, so decided to poke at the news she hadn't looked at the night before. If only in case someone brought it up.
'Front page' news this morning was the announcement of a live broadcast press conference Tuesday about the PRT's activities. Chief Director Costa-Brown and Dragon would apparently be representing the PRT, Protectorate, and Guild. Taylor snorted at the fact that the official wording indicated that both of them were representing all three, but 'obviously' Dragon was representing the Protectorate and Guild. Not that there was anyone around to wonder or explain to about why she was snorting at that.
Moving on, it appeared that the water department hoped to have water flowing cleanly again in her neighborhood by the end of the day, so she would probably sleep at home tonight. Several poorer areas of town had suffered greater failures due to other issues and were apparently likely to be without water for the rest of the week while they waited for replacement pipes to come in from elsewhere, due to having used the local stock already.
Deciding that she should really have a clue what the Nine were apparently up to, as it did usually end up being discussed, she checked on that next. The first bit of that news to catch her attention was a poll indicating that most of the country wanted the Slaughterhouse Nine captured instead of killed. Apparently people thought that they were possibly redeemable now? Requests for kill orders were only coming from radical diehards, apparently.
Checking on the actual known actions of the Nine returned very little. Apparently current speculation was that their new member was one of Heartbreaker's kids, but they weren't all that sure otherwise. Most of the Nine's previous patterns had been broken now that Alan and Ned had died. Instead they thought that they were spending time setting up a secure base of operations for some reason, though where was another question.
On the list of 'things the public wonders about' was why the Nine seemed to be avoiding the Federal Prison. This came up every time they hit anywhere that had any Federal facility. Most people assumed it was to avoid having the feds after their asses, but Taylor assumed it was more to do with not actually intending to cause problems for the government. It probably wouldn't stop escape attempts, but anything that caused chaos in the area tended to trigger that kind of thing. On the other hand, escapees were also favored targets of the Nine. Only time would tell if anyone would make it out of the prison this time.
Taylor's musing on the news was interrupted by Inference Engine poking her. Apparently Lisa was coming down with the two mystery capes she had noticed the night before, and they were all leaving together. As such Taylor figured that she should probably poke their snarks. She thanked Inference Engine for letting her know that the three were coming down, then picked one of the other two at random and poked it.
Hello.
[Greetings. Query]
Your, er, human I hope? They are going to be working with me shortly, and I want to not be distracted by not having talked to you yet.
[Acceptance. Data]
Oh, thanks. Knowing what you do might help. So, er, you assign a basic numerical value to a person or potential event after simulating them for a bit, based on your human's likely evaluation of threat to himself, the PRT, or the Protectorate?
[Agreement. Clarification]
Oh, and you can do a better job if he's closer or directly observing aspects of the person or event. Interesting. Thanks for the information.
Taylor hadn't heard of a cape that did that, but she hadn't gone looking either. Having a general idea of that one, she poked the other.
Hello.
[Annoyance]
Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you that much. I just don't want to be distracted by not having introduced myself when your human works with me? Well, assuming you are working with a human.
[...Acceptance]
Since we'll be working together, any chance of telling me what you do for your human?
[Data]
Taylor blinked. You ended up repurposing your human's color vision for threat assessment of individuals and potential future events? How do you determine the threat assessment itself?
[Agreement. Data]
That's interesting. Thanks for the information.
Taylor hadn't expected to find out that one of them had gone colorblind in exchange for precog powers. On the other hand, why in the world were two precogs participating in Lung's power testing? Inference Engine would at least be likely to provide information others were missing. Not to mention was currently providing information on how Lisa would like Taylor to react to the two other parahumans. Oh, and apparently Taylor had accidentally let Lisa know that they were parahumans when she thanked Inference Engine and it realized that Taylor would only know that three were coming down if the other two were both parahumans as well. Oops.
Mistakes aside, Lisa's idea would likely be amusing, so Taylor was all for it.
A few minutes later the three capes entered the garage, and Lisa led the other two over to where Taylor was standing. Leaning against the wall, technically. Whatever. Lisa was in her Mycroft costume, but the other two were in standard issue PRT uniforms.
"Good morning Maul," Lisa said, grinning.
"Morning Mycroft," Taylor replied. "So these are Appraiser and Eleventh Hour? Not much to look at, but I suppose that WEDGDG members shouldn't really stick out."
The other two capes stiffened at that, before Eleventh Hour spoke up. "How did you know that? It should be locked down so you can't find out."
"Same way I know you're a precog and Appraiser is almost, but not quite, a precog."
Lisa was grinning like mad, though Inference Engine seemed confused about the 'almost but not quite' bit. Eleventh Hour and Appraiser both looked very unhappy. They shared a look and a couple of covert hand signs, which Inference Engine was happily trying to decipher, before turning back to Taylor.
"Your clearance level isn't quite high enough in the right places to know we were coming," Appraiser said. "Nor could you have recognized us. We've never met before, and now you are telling me my power isn't what I thought it was. This is all very concerning to us, as you can probably imagine, and is more concerning given that Mycroft identified us as parahumans as well."
"You do know what my powers include, right?" Taylor asked, tilting her head. Eleventh Hour blinked, then facepalmed.
"You can project the force of blunt objects and communicate with people's powers," Appraiser answered, sounding confused.
"She got her information from our powers, and probably Mycroft's," Eleventh Hour clarified. "Which in hindsight is blatantly obvious and I am embarrassed that neither of us thought of that before approaching her."
"Technically I screwed up slightly and gave Mycroft's nosy gossip of a snark just enough of a hint to let it figure out you two were parahumans," Taylor said, gesturing at Lisa. "And my snark likes it when I'm a troll either way."
"So do most who know you and aren't your current target," Lisa added.
"At any rate, you probably want to know what I meant about your snark?"
Appraiser looked like he wanted to hit someone, but nodded. "Yes, I would appreciate that."
"Your snark doesn't have the ability to precog, so it asks several other snarks. Like Eleventh Hour's and at least one other I've spoken to. Then it assembles the various answers into an answer for you. It can ask the others better when you have more of the basic information that they use to build their predictions, which is part of why you still work better when you see things for yourself."
The other three parahumans stared at Taylor for a little over a minute, before Eleventh Hour groaned. "Damn, I think you just invalidated the two of us as independent precog data sources. Though that does explain some of the comments from the Think Tank about how our powers work well together, even if they couldn't explain it at the time."
"So what's your relation with the Think Tank?"
"The Think Tank tends to snap up those that work better in a desk job, so to speak. Thinkers that work better in the field tend to end up in WEDGDG," Appraiser answered. "We tend to shift things back and forth a lot, granted, and WEDGDG has no problems with accepting Wards, if only because they may not require travel to check things out on short notice. It also isn't uncommon for the findings of either group to be passed to the other for more information."
"So you're here to evaluate me for membership," Lisa commented. "Because I don't think you'd need to be present for power testing normally."
"That and we wanted to meet Maul since she was absent when another one of us passed through," Eleventh Hour said, shrugging. "We had planned on neither of you realizing we were parahumans until we wanted to tell you, but your powers kinda ruined that."
"Oh, and the Think Tank brought up an interesting question about Maul's abilities," Appraiser added, turning to Taylor. "We know about linking tinkers into a fugue, but can you do so for thinkers?"
"I've linked a thinker into a tinker fugue before," Taylor admitted. "So I don't see why not as a general case. As for causing a fugue? That would depend on the thinkers."
"You four joining us?" one of the actual PRT officers by the van yelled. "We need to get a move on!"
The four parahumans looked at each other, then moved to get into the van. As interesting as their discussion was, they did have other things to do this morning.
The trip over to the Docks area had been completed in silence. Which wasn't to say they weren't busy. Taylor was poking through 'how powertesting is supposed to work' information she had only then realized she should check while Lisa was apparently looking up information on WEDGDG on her phone. According to Inference Engine the two WEDGDG members were updating Taylor's and Lisa's WEDGDG 'threat assessments'. It was also amused by the idea that if they knew that Taylor and Lisa were aware of what they were doing then said assessments would need further adjustments.
After a fairly quick trip the van was parked outside of a cordoned off area, and the four parahumans were met at the cordon itself by Colin. Currently he was the only other parahuman in the area, but that would be changing.
"Good morning Maul, Mycroft," Colin said, nodding at the two, then turning to the other two. "Officers."
"They already pegged us," Appraiser said, handing over a five dollar bill.
"Our internal assessment had a poor interpretation of the potential consequences of Maul's powers," Eleventh Hour added, handing his own five dollar bill over.
"Several of us had wondered if you had some way of fooling Maul," Colin said as he accepted the two bills and put them away. "Especially since we haven't come up with a good one ourselves."
"Parahumans that can spot another parahuman that easily are quite rare," Appraiser said, frowning, before turning to look at Taylor. "Problem is, outside of remote presence stuff, there isn't any good way to defend against that right now."
"Not sure I want to spend too much time finding a solution that would then be used against me," Taylor admitted. "Given how rare it is and all."
"It isn't normally an issue right now anyway. Still, if you'd all come this way," Colin said, raising the cordon wire. "I'd like to go over a little of how we plan on doing this, before Lung gets here."
The five parahumans made their way into the middle of the cordoned-off area, where a larger truck had been set up. The side of that truck had been folded down, revealing a number of pieces of testing equipment. Some of them Taylor recognized, others were mysteries to her. Next to that truck was a flatbed truck with a collection of weights.
"We've got cameras in various places for recording," Colin said. "As well as a collection of drones that Dragon will be launching when we are ready for Lung to ramp up. Most of the initial testing will be done by dedicated PRT staff, though any of us can offer insights. For those not directly participating in any given portion of things today we have set up an observation post on the roof of the warehouse behind you, complete with a forcefield to protect bystanders. Once the forcefield is up you will need to use the rear doors of the building to enter and leave as the front and sides of the building will be protected."
"How many bystanders are we expecting?" Appraiser asked.
"Once we reach the combat phase anyone not directly participating will be bystanders. That will generally be all of us plus Battery, anyone Lung brings with him, and probably Panacea if she comes. Assault indicated a desire, if Lung is still willing, to participate in the battle phase."
"He probably wants to see if he could be a decent counter against Lung now," Lisa said, causing everyone other than Taylor to look at her oddly. "What? Maul set him up with the whole heat absorption trick, which should negate any issues he would have had with Lung's fire."
"That makes sense," Eleventh Hour said. "I don't think there will be any issue with that either."
"Nor do I," Appraiser added. "But that just leaves us with one independent data point, apparently. Which is wonderful that we now know that, but annoying."
"At any rate," Colin continued. "Unless there are objections, we would like Maul to be present during the initial phases, before the members of New Wave arrive. She would then retreat to the observation post just before we activate the forcefield for the combat portion of things."
"I have no issues not being next to the rage dragon," Lisa admitted. "And Maul can relay my useful observations if needed anyway."
"I suppose testing my own projections against said rage dragon is being discouraged?" Taylor asked.
"That would be correct," Colin replied. "Though not disallowed, if you and Lung can come to an agreement on that front."
Taylor paused, and turned around. "Well, it would appear that Lung is about to arrive. No sign of Oni Lee."
"We'll just go up to the observation point now," Lisa said, all but dragging the two WEDGDG members with her. "Have fun!"
