Wednesday afternoon Taylor found herself patrolling with Carlos and Dennis through the docks after a boring, but slightly annoying due to the continued focus on Maul, day at school. So far they had interrupted two drug deals and one rape attempt. All of the participants had turned out to be unarmed and had pretty much given up as soon as they realized they were up against capes, though, so things were still boring.
Taylor was getting plenty of practice bouncing around, onto, and off of rooftops though, and was doing her best to get her 'wall jumps' working well on various kinds of wall. She had figured out how to attach one of her body cameras to the top of the control hexagon on the jump harness and wanted to see what the footage would look like later. Dennis was quite jealous of her antics, but initially switched to excited when she mentioned that Dragon was trying to figure out how to make more of the harnesses. Then he shifted to depressed with a comment about never being able to save up for one?
"Why would you have problems saving up?" Taylor asked after landing next to Dennis. "I mean, most of the supplies I have seen you use seem to be standard reams of the unusually cheap, rougher copy paper?"
Dennis turned his head in what Taylor thought was probably an evaluating gaze, then tapped a couple of points on his helmet before speaking over the radio. Taylor noted that she couldn't hear him speaking with her ears despite being right next to him. "I've told the others about this anyway, so might as well tell you too. Most of my money that isn't going to my trust fund is actually going towards my father's medical bills," Dennis explained, sounding very down. "As such my personal upgrade budget is basically nonexistent. Tinkertech like that harness won't come out of my costume stipend."
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know."
"You wouldn't have, while it isn't really a secret I don't tend to talk about it. Outside of my family I think the Wards and a couple of people in the PRT are the only ones I have mentioned it to at all, though I do know my mother has informed the school. One of the reasons I pulled three shift days in a row and volunteered for a double on Sunday was so that I can head to Medhall after school every day to be with my father as much as possible during his next treatment. So, yea. Don't worry too much about keeping it to yourself. I would just appreciate it if you didn't spread it around at school."
"Heads up you two," Carlos interrupted, sounding apologetic for it. "We got an armed group just around the next corner. Mostly knives, one obvious handgun, but they look to be preparing to cause trouble."
Dennis tapped his helmet again, apparently undoing whatever he did so he wasn't able to be heard normally. "Right, any word on if we should engage?"
"I checked in with the console. We are clear to engage if they appear hostile on approach."
Dennis obviously looked over at Taylor. "So Maul, want to lead the way, see what they do?"
"Sure," Taylor said, grinning a little. She looked up at Carlos, who waved her on. So she wandered around the corner and took in the sight of the group of men, looked like a bunch of ABB. Raising her voice a little she called out. "Hello boys, what's up?"
The group of thugs looked at Taylor, and the one with the handgun leered. "Hello there kid, here to have some fun?"
"I suspect we have very different views of what would be fun right now," Taylor said, tilting her head to the side. "And for the kind I think you are talking about, you aren't my type."
"Grab her and tie her up," handgun yelled. "She can be our post-raid entertainment."
Taylor grinned as the group moved towards her. In her book that counted as hostile. She flipped the collapsible baton into her left hand and grabbed the wok off her back with her right.
She might go easy on them. After all, they had made good on their offer of some fun. Then again, that wouldn't be as fun for her...
Dennis watched the ambulance pull away with the last of the gang members that Taylor had incapacitated. She had opened up with the collapsible baton and brained the guy with the gun first. Then she had waded in with the wok, alternating between swinging it for maximum damage and using as a shield.
The gang members had initially laughed at her choice of weapon, one asking if she was planning on cooking them dinner. Dennis suspected that they would never look at a wok the same way again. He certainly wasn't going to.
He turned and looked at the police van also being loaded. In contrast to the group that was taken away by ambulance that group had been taken out by him and Carlos. Dennis had decided to get some 'paper stairs' practice in for getting around back of them while Carlos had dropped into the middle of them. While they still had minor injuries they didn't have concussions or broken bones.
Dennis then turned to look at Taylor, who was wiping some blood spatter off of the wok with a cloth. The thing was undamaged despite being used as a knife shield a couple of times. The blood had come from the only time she hit someone directly with the wok, nailing them in the face with the loop handle opposite her grip and knocking a tooth out when he tried to gank her from behind. That was also the only blood that had been shed in the entire fight despite the knives and blunt force injuries.
Finally he shook his head and spoke up. "So, er, yea. Normally I prank people at least once. Leave them frozen in an embarrassing way or something like that in public, even though I get punishment duty for each incident due to it technically being a minor case of assault with my power. I'm sure you have seen some of the clips on PHO of me getting the other Wards. You, however, get a pass on that. Mainly because right now you scare me too much and are allowed to hit me when I piss you off."
"Somewhat more of an encouraged to hit you when you piss me off," Taylor admitted, swinging the wok back onto her back. "I have a foam bat so I am less likely to injure you when I do, even."
"I am suddenly even happier about my decision," Dennis mumbled, then rubbed his arm where he had landed wrong when a piece of paper he had been using in his paper stairs trick had decided to stop being frozen unexpectedly. "Now if only my power came with a timer."
Taylor blinked at that, though suspected Dennis didn't expect her to hear it at all. "What kind of timer?"
"Oh, er," Dennis faltered, apparently shocked Taylor had heard him. "Well, uh."
"He has issues with not having any clue how long something he freezes will stay frozen," Carlos answered instead. "He complains about the lack of knowing when things will unfreeze every so often, most commonly when something unfroze too early or when he has accidentally trapped something in place and it just doesn't want to unfreeze."
"Oh," Taylor said, thinking. "I wonder if your snark can do anything about that?"
Hey. Is there any reason you don't tell Dennis how long things will be frozen for?
[Elaboration]
Huh, so you don't know how long you can hold onto things? That sucks. Can he cancel it early instead?
[Agreement]
How does he cancel it early? He doesn't seem to know.
[...Embarrassment]
"Ummm, Taylor?" Dennis suddenly spoke up. "Why do I suddenly feel like I have a mental off switch for my power?"
"Your snark forgot to enable the manual cancel button," Taylor said. "It is kinda embarrassed about having forgotten. It can't give you a timer because it never knows how long it can hold something for either."
Thanks for fixing your oversight.
Dennis looked at one of the pieces of paper he had recovered to stow in his costume, littering being something heroic Wards were encouraged to not do. He lifted it up in front of him and froze it. He let go, prodded it, and then held it again. A moment later it flopped over, no longer frozen, well before the normal thirty second minimum time things normally stayed frozen for. "Holy crap. I can turn it off now. Thank you!" He continued to freeze and unfreeze the piece of paper, then started playing with a rock as well. "This is awesome!"
"Aegis to console," Carlos said over the main console channel, shaking his head at Dennis's antics. "Please note that Maul has influenced Clockblocker's power, granting him the ability to manually unfreeze objects he has frozen. Maul reports that this was an oversight on the part of his power that has now been corrected."
"Console acknowledges," came back. Taylor wondered if Missy's bigger pocket trick had been reported? But, since that didn't happen while Missy was on patrol it didn't need to be reported. The reporting rules on new or improved abilities were a bit weird, now that she thought about it, since only things that came up on duty or in official power testing sessions needed to be reported at all.
When the three Wards made it back to the PRT building Taylor was asked to copy off her body camera footage for review. She did so, and a PRT officer watched it with her. They commented on a couple of her early wall jumps before fast-forwarding to the actual fight. The peaceful arrests being caught on the camera were noted for later.
What followed was a careful review of everything the camera had captured, a quick check of various rules and regulations, and Taylor getting a sign-off on her actions by the officer. The footage would be provided to the police department as evidence in the various arrests and Taylor was encouraged to split off some of the wall jumping antics as well as the violent fight to post online, provided she included the initial comments the gang members made towards her.
Taylor was a bit surprised at the last one, but figured it wouldn't hurt. If she posted it tonight maybe tomorrow people would be a bit more wary of talking about her in disrespectful ways at school?
She headed back to the Wards common area and hooked the body camera into her tablet to download the footage. After some quick editing Taylor had saved the two video clips, posted them online, and made a thread for each of them on PHO. She had then changed back into her civilian clothing and headed home. Taking the time to think as she drove she made a decision. If Amy already knew and hadn't been able to help then there was nothing to be done and all Taylor would be doing was letting Amy know that Taylor knew. If Amy didn't know then Taylor felt it was justified to inform Amy. Having made her decision Taylor fired a couple of text messages off.
Half an hour later, as Taylor was eating dinner with her father, Amy responded. Taylor smiled, Dennis may have a much better weekend than he thought.
Thursday morning came with what would normally have been depressing news, though Taylor now merely saw it as yet another thing needed due to snarks. Still, she watched the news report on the Slaughterhouse Nine surfacing in a largely unknown town in Texas last night, the town only notable due to having a number of capes on both sides of the law. This meant that the standard call from the public for kill orders against most of the Nine had begun again. Currently only Crawler, Mannequin, and the Siberian had kill orders, with the Siberian's being from before joining the Nine. Taylor suspected that the other two were somewhat deliberate. Crawler probably encouraged the kill order and she had been told that Mannequin had issues.
Riley was actually barred from having a kill order issued against her due to fear of a dead-man's switch releasing a plague if someone pulled it off and didn't incinerate her body and every potential hidden location she could have stashed something in. Taylor had found that interesting when Riley had mentioned it because Riley admitted she had considered doing just that. It never happened because Amanda had 'pulled rank' as her mother and vetoed it. The public didn't know that, so they took that possibility and ran with it. As a result they usually demanded that Bonesaw be captured, not killed, in the interest of public safety.
That and regardless of her age she still looked like a child, and issuing kill orders against kids didn't sit well with people.
When the news anchor started getting repetitive Taylor sighed and turned off the TV. She knew from previous Slaughterhouse incidents that she now had at least a week of highly repetitive news to look forward to. Oh well, she had to get moving to make it to school on time anyway. At least this was likely to distract from people talking about Maul, right?
"ARRRRGH," Taylor yelled as the garage door closed behind her at home that afternoon. The entire school had decided that talking about Maul was a wonderful way to avoid talking about the Slaughterhouse Nine. Theories about Maul's powers and personality crossed paths with attempts to figure out her measurements and sexual preferences from available data. The fight video had done nothing to curb any of it and the wall jumping had them wondering just what her powers actually were. She wanted to go hit something, to decimate what was left in the junkyard, but had promised her father that she'd take care of some things at home this afternoon. Not to mention that Kurt and Lacey were coming over for dinner and to see her.
At least Amy had let her know in English class that she was being dropped off at Medhall by Vicky immediately after school. Apparently nobody from Medhall had ever contacted New Wave and New Wave had only really worked with Brockton General normally, but they pounced on the idea of Panacea making a visit.
Taylor dropped her school stuff off in her room before working her way through her quick list of outside chores she had promised to take care of. Most of it was trivial cleanup of trash that had blown into the yard. Once that was done she headed in to prep the lasagna she had said she would make for dinner.
She was in the middle of prepping some garlic bread to go in the oven later when Riley texted her. Apparently attempting to build and install a Bluetooth module inspired by Taylor's had caused major brain damage to today's test subject. On the other hand, said test subject was a known pedophile and was no longer threatening to rape Riley, so in Riley's book it was all good.
Taylor wasn't sure if she should he happy about the situation or not. After a few minutes of thought on the matter she decided she wasn't going to figure that out anytime soon and went back to preparing dinner, though she did ask Riley if the brain damage was due to installing the interfaces or because too much electricity was pushed through them.
The 'ooooops' that came back was not quite reassuring, and Taylor was wondering just how lucky she had been when the fugue happened.
Taylor looked up from cutting the freshly baked garlic bread as she heard a car pull into the driveway. Her father was upstairs, so that was probably Kurt and Lacey. That was made more likely by the heavy banging on the front door a minute later, given that the doorbell had been intentionally non-operational for a couple of years and all the family friends knew it.
Taylor put the knife she was using down and walked to the front door. She checked, just to be safe, and saw that it was indeed Kurt and Lacey, so she opened the door.
"Taylor!" Lacey said, pouncing before Taylor could get a word in, engulfing Taylor in a hug and getting one of her hands under Taylor's shirt in the process, causing Taylor to flinch at a cold feeling that was probably a ring or something hitting her skin. "Danny told us about the horrible things that those horrible girls did to you in that horrible school. And then that horrible Glory Girl put you back in the hospital!"
"I am not sure if that is too many horribles or too few," Taylor mumbled. "And Vicky isn't usually that bad."
"Probably too many and too few horribles," Kurt said, pushing them further into the house so he could close the door behind him. "I guess you probably know Glory Girl better than we do, though, since you have been seen with her socially and attend the same school now."
"Any chance I can go finish cutting up the garlic bread?" Taylor asked. It was a valid concern, right? And a good reason to no longer be in Lacey's death-grip hug.
"I'll get that, actually," Kurt replied. "Given that I don't think Lacey is willing to let you go yet."
"I don't suppose I get to be released to eat?" Taylor tried as Kurt headed into the kitchen. "The lasagna is best before it cools down too much and all."
"I'll agree with her," Danny said as he came down the stairs. "Besides, it will be quite hard for you to eat if you won't release Taylor."
"Stupid logic," Lacey mock-grumbled, releasing Taylor after another squeeze. The three of them then moved into the kitchen where Kurt had made quick work of the rest of the garlic bread and had started cutting up the lasagna. Everyone sat down and dug into dinner, the consensus appearing to be that further discussion could wait until they had eaten.
Once everyone had their fill they moved to the living room. Danny took his easy chair, but Kurt and Lacey dragged Taylor down onto the couch between them.
"So little one," Kurt said, poking Taylor. "How have you been? How's school?"
"I've been fine," Taylor said, poking Kurt back. "School's ok. I got a bit ahead of myself while I was stuck in the hospital, actually, so I don't have much homework for a bit."
"You know," Lacey said, grinning a little. "I was tempted to hunt Jacob down and slap him when I saw that clip of you riding a wrecking ball."
"What?" Taylor said, blinking. Danny sat up straighter. Kurt looked confused.
"Granted I didn't know for sure that it was you until I saw you out on the boardwalk," Lacey continued. "Then again, there aren't that many people that both know you well enough to tell and would ignore the supposed 'evidence' against the connection online. As such I think Zoe might be able to figure it out, but I don't think anyone else would."
"What are you talking about?" Kurt asked, staring at Lacey. "Because I am very confused."
"The final confirmation, of course, was when we came in and I hugged you," Lacey said, holding up her hand to show Taylor. She had an extra ring on her middle finger, which had apparently discolored to a pinkish hue. Actually, it was more like it was slowly falling apart as they watched. "One shot cape detector ring made by a tinker in Lustrum's employ, just requires a second or two of skin contact with a cape and it will cool off and shock the wearer. Your mother swiped a box of them when she left the movement. She paid off her college loans selling all but a few of them to the PRT. I think Zoe ended up with a couple too, but they can't actually be used by capes because they trigger if anyone touching them is a cape."
"I had wondered where she got that money," Danny admitted. "But I never bothered to ask."
"Not like I need them anyway," Taylor finally admitted, slumping back into the couch.
"I am very confused," Kurt said, looking around at everyone else. "Are you saying little Taylor is a cape?"
"Maul, to be specific," Taylor said, figuring that there was no use pretending otherwise at this point. "I wonder if I need to get some NDAs delivered for you two now."
"Do you have any way to check?" Lacey asked.
"Most likely." Taylor pulled her personal phone from the holster she had it in, having left her Maul phone in her room, and ran a couple of queries. From there she ended up filling out a couple of digital forms. "Looks like while I don't need you to it is highly recommended, so I filled out the requests."
"No problem," Lacey said, patting Taylor on the head. "I was kinda expecting that, since I assume you joined the Wards. Otherwise it would be quite odd for you to be publically hanging out with PRT therapists and the patrolling Wards."
They sat there for a minute before Taylor jumped a little. Poking her phone she read the email that had just come through. "Huh, they have already printed the NDAs and are sending them via rush delivery. I wonder what that mean..." Taylor trailed off and looked towards the kitchen. "What the hell was that?"
The other three watched Taylor jump up and run into the kitchen, momentarily shocked into inaction due to not knowing what had set Taylor off. She had returned with a tinkertech box by the time any of them had recovered.
"Is that one of the PRT paperwork boxes?" Danny asked, getting up to take a closer look at it.
"Yep," Taylor said, putting it down on the coffee table. She then tapped the top of it with her left hand and it opened up. "With two NDA forms in it, apparently they mean it when they say rush?"
"That is kinda freaky," Kurt said, giving the box an odd look. "How did they target your kitchen?"
"Tinkers are bullshit?" Taylor offered, shrugging. "I mean, a fugue turned me into a living Bluetooth accessory, so the protectorate base having some kind of sensor that lets them target the kitchen here isn't that farfetched. It isn't like they don't know where I live. They can probably determine what building my phone is in too."
Kurt really looked like he wanted to ask questions, but was stopped by Lacey punching him in the arm. "We sign the NDAs, then we grill her." Kurt glared at her, but acquiesced.
A quick check and the two NDAs were split, one each handed to Kurt and Lacey. Danny fetched them a couple of pens as the tinkertech paperwork box didn't include any. Fifteen minutes later they had read and signed the forms, and Taylor returned them to the box.
"I am so tempted to try and keep this thing in sight to see how it leaves," Taylor finally said. "But I suspect if I last long enough it will just wait until I fall asleep, then vanish."
Taylor finally picked the box up and brought it back to the kitchen. She came back into the living room and dropped back onto the couch, glaring at the kitchen a moment later. "There it goes."
"How do you know it left?" Lacey asked, confused. "I didn't hear anything, or see any flash of light?"
"I think I am feeling a snark when the boxes come and go," Taylor answered. "But it isn't quite there, so I am not entirely sure."
"Snark?" Kurt and Lacey asked at the same time.
Taylor and Danny gave the two an overview of everything they were allowed to reveal. The two decided that Taylor's power drawing on Lewis Carroll was appropriate for Annette's daughter, making Taylor and Danny smile. Kurt laughed quite a bit when he found out about the anti-hero branding form, while Lacey was more amused hearing Taylor's views on PHO having built up her cover story for the public. By accident, starting before anyone who knew to help it along was aware Taylor had triggered.
All humor left the two of them when they found how just how bad off Taylor had really been when Glory Girl punched her.
Finally the entire story that was going to be told had been told. Kurt and Lacey sat there digesting the information.
"I don't suppose there is any alcohol in the house?" Kurt finally asked. "Because I feel like I need some."
"Sorry," Danny replied. "I finished the last of the beer off while Taylor was in the hospital, and haven't picked up any more."
"Damn," Lacey whined. "We might have to go home to drink ourselves into a stupor over this."
"Probably better that you do," Taylor commented. "Then you don't have to sleep here because you drank too much to drive home."
For some reason Lacey didn't like that observation. Still, Kurt and Lacey stuck around for another hour before heading home. Once they had left Taylor tried to find out how the paperwork boxes came and went but found nothing at all on them that she could access beyond basic usage instructions and how the various secure opening methods were implemented. In fact, as far as the PRT documentation she could access indicated they had no special ability to move themselves around whatsoever.
Due to a projected rain shower that afternoon Taylor took the bus to school Friday morning and was thus entering the school from a different direction than normal. She had just made it to the door on that side of the building when she was intercepted.
"YOU!" Dennis yelled, running up to Taylor. "YOU, YOU, YOU!!!" He then grabbed Taylor in a hug and spun her around. "THANK YOU!"
"You're welcome," Taylor said, squirming in Dennis's arms. He was squeezing her quite tightly. "But shouldn't you be thanking Amy? I just mentioned things to her, she did all the work."
"Oh trust me," Amy said as she walked up. "He did. Quite a bit last night, and my ribs are still sore. I had to tell him that you let me know to get him to let me go. At least if he breaks your ribs I can fix them." Taylor glared a little at Amy. "Still, I don't know why he never mentioned anything to me himself, given that I heal strangers with no expectation of payment all the time and all. Why would a friend's father be lower on my list?"
"Yeah, my family and I are probably all idiots," Dennis said, releasing Taylor as he rolled his eyes. "Because, you know, on top of that Amy here heals people primarily at Brockton General, including those dragged from across town and across the country just to be there when Amy is. No clue why any of us thought that my dad getting his cancer treated at the facilities at Medhall would have caught her attention normally. Plus Medhall is known to not send patients to Brockton General, ever, because they only take the patients that the Brockton General facilities are known to be unable to help with, Panacea's visits aside."
"I cleared out nearly fifty terminal patients from Medhall last night," Amy added. "Most of them weren't responding to treatments at all, and those few that were partially responding I was able to help them figure out which portions of the treatments were likely working when I healed them. The staff said they are donating a couple million dollars to the fund that ferries less fortunate people here from all over the country in thanks, since I don't accept payments directly."
"I overheard someone say something about contacting New Wave to have you visit monthly or something too," Dennis added. "Still, Taylor, thanks for doing what I should have done a while ago."
"So, can we go inside before rumors about the two of us start?" Taylor asked, looking around at the group of people that had been watching them. "Not that I don't like you, but I don't like you that way."
Dennis shivered at that, apparently he wasn't that enthused with the idea right now either.
"That isn't likely to be a problem," Amy said, leading them inside anyway. "The fact I visited Medhall to help with their terminal patients last night made the front page. Good publicity for New Wave, and Medhall is only barely coming out ahead due to their donation being mentioned. The reporter pointed out that having terminally ill patients not responding to treatments but not calling me in to help when they were in Brockton Bay already was irresponsible unless the patients had specifically declined parahuman healing."
Amy turned out to be right, and the topic of discussion all day was Medhall being stupid. Taylor had, of course, been identified as the 'concerned friend who had alerted Panacea that the patients existed' as part of the explanation for why Dennis had hugged her, once someone got the courage to ask about it. This spread quickly and resulted in five more students grabbing her for surprise thank you hugs throughout the day.
All of that left Taylor wishing that she had gotten Dennis's thank you over the weekend. In the Wards common room. Maybe in costume for good measure? Then she could have faded more into the background instead of becoming a 'non-parahuman student celebrity' as one of her teachers had put it when telling people to leave her alone during class.
Though Amy had also gotten a collection of apologies from students, apparently everyone had assumed she was aware of but not willing to help the patients at Medhall. The realization that someone just had to mention things to her caused some previously unkind opinions of her to be overturned. After all, if nobody tells her someone is sick how is she supposed to know?
Dean had grabbed Taylor and Missy after school to drive them to the PRT building, with Amy joining them for a trip back to the Dallon household. Dean's excuses were that Taylor could show him the vehicle entrance, Missy already knew about the secret entrances, and Amy shouldn't need to worry about taking the bus home.
Vicky might have been put out by this, but she was heading out on patrol with the Pelhams this afternoon and Amy hadn't wanted a trip home via flight in the rain. On the other hand, Carlos, Dennis, and Chris would definitely be put out by it once they found out what was going on. If only because of not knowing about the access keys class yet.
After Amy had been dropped off the remaining three entered through the parking garage, Taylor pointing out which wall they wanted. Once they were in they made their way into the Wards area from the parking area and all three got changed into their costumes. Dean and Missy were to patrol together this afternoon so that Chris and Carlos could hit one of the aerial routes for yet another test of his continually rebuilt modular hoverboard. As she couldn't fly this left Taylor to tag along with Dean and Missy.
Before anyone could leave, however, Taylor received a meeting request.
"Looks like Director Piggot wants to talk to me," Taylor called out, causing Missy to groan and drop onto the couch. Dean hadn't actually finished putting his power armor on yet, so probably hadn't heard her. "I'll go see what she wants, you two can decide if you want to wait up for me."
"I'll check with Dean once he comes out," Missy said, pouting. "I hope you aren't in trouble."
Taylor quickly disarmed, leaving her weapons by one of the couches, and threw a half-hearted wave at Missy as she headed off to visit the Director.
"Hello Maul," Director Piggot said as the door closed behind Taylor. "How are you this afternoon?"
"I am doing well," Taylor said, shrugging. "I could have done with less attention at school, but that is apparently what I get for pointing obvious things out to people."
"Yes, well, PR was torn about that. For one, you made an affiliate look much better without improving the PRT's reputation. Then again, you didn't reveal yourself by accident, but should your identities ever be connected you are currently running a positive reputation on both identities which would be good in the long run. Speaking of which, I would like to congratulate you on your restraint in the fight Wednesday night, given the threat made against you. Overall reports indicate that you avoided additional damage after putting any given enemy combatant down, and the one person you broke more than two bones on was seen coming back for more three times on your body camera."
"That guy was persistent, though he did inspire me to start with breaking a leg instead of the arm holding the knife. I hadn't previously given much thought to the stopping power of different injured limbs."
"Going after the weapon arm was a good tactic as well, just remember that most people can use both arms with their weapons. Also, thank you for targeting the individual with the gun from range first this time. Still, none of that is why I called you in. Can you tell me why it is that you revealed yourself to two individuals last night?"
"Technically they figured it out themselves. Friends of the family that thought I looked familiar on video, then saw me in person on the boardwalk at some point and felt they were sure. Then last night they confirmed their suspicions with one of Lustrum's cape detector rings while over for dinner."
Director Piggot stiffened in her chair. "Where did they get one of those?"
"My mother, so I am told. She swiped a box full when she left the movement and paid her college loans off by selling most of them to the PRT."
Director Piggot relaxed with a frustrated look on her face. "Ah. So that lead is a dead end. We still don't know who made them, you see, and new ones still show up every so often. Still, thank you for getting the two of them to sign NDAs, even if you weren't required to."
"It was recommended, they didn't have a problem with it. Wish I knew how the paperwork box came and went, though."
"Should you ever figure it out and don't find it classified above my level I would love to know as well. Still, that is everything I had to talk to you about today."
Taylor took the dismissal as intended and left the office. Missy and Dean had left the building before she even made it up to the office, and she didn't want to try and catch up with them. So she collected her weapons and headed down to the junkyard. Maybe they had some new statues that she could pretend were PHO posters or some of the more annoying gossipers at school?
Really, I write what comes out of my head. I don't claim to be a good author, in fact in Discord I slapped the label "Crappy Author" on myself.
