4.2 The First Gambit
They were beautiful, and I loved them. I would call them jellies. Similar in appearance to a squiggle, more so than the other two unit types anyway, a jelly was a baseball sized unit with a dozen delicate arms floating beneath it. They were like floppy water balloons that gracefully bounced along the ground on slender legs. Each one weighed only a few grams, thanks to the methane contained within it, and even better, it had a small catalyst driven polymer absorption system that could reversibly inflate the floating body with methane. This was also my first production line unit that could recharge outside my base. The methane would be reacted to drive regeneration of the used up chemical chain energy sources that powered my units. I had to extract and replace that energy goo for the ants and squiggles. Which was fine, because they would usually need repairs anyway. The turtles were of course disposable, being almost purely carbon, nitrogen, some sulfur, and other common elements. The only part of them that came back were the memory matrices passed amongst each other and any raw materials. For longer term observation though, the ability to recharge in the field was necessary for my jellies, and so, they could recharge by refilling with methane.
Befitting their role of infiltration units, a jelly could shrink down into a minimum diameter of about a pencil while remaining mobile. It could pull itself along using 6 of its arms, while the remainder contained tools. A sound recorder, good for about 7 hours before needing an ant or squiggle to replace the memory matrix, a chemical sensor, an acid etcher, a light sensor, and the last two arms were for my crowning achievement of the month, single use self-contained variable color smart gel extruders.
I chose to believe that I had been simply too excited to explain properly the first time I tried to tell my dad how they worked, because he hasn't been sufficiently excited.
The ability to hide the holes I would need to cut to get into the lair where Coil was hiding made everything so much easier. I would still be careful though during infiltration of course.
I had been having trouble with the mapping these past few weeks. I had a complete model of all the sewer and water pipes around the downtown lair, but Coil used filters for the incoming water pipes. I could program my units to bore a hole, but I assumed that he changed the filters at least occasionally, and boring a hole would be rather obvious. The outgoing sewer pipes were fully mapped though, he thought some kind of valve thing was sufficient protection. It was not.
I was seriously considering making an exit airlock from one such pipe to provide me access to the base. I could order my jellies or ants to crawl out of a toilet, but they'd need at least 15 minutes to clean themselves up and even then, assuming no evidence was left behind, I would not know if they were being watched the entire time on a camera.
No, I needed an option that was secure, and that's where my second unit of the month came into play. Based off my mole miner back from the library job, the mini-tunneler would bore down an inch wide column into the ceilings of the various rooms. The drill tip was more like an acid etch process. I'd been very careful with the design. The acid would only break down concrete. The mini-tunnelers would have to get lucky to avoid rebar, but if they did, the cone tip would slowly cut through the estimated three feet of the concrete roof, culminating in a hole the ceiling about the size of the roller ball in one of the chunky pens I had to use for school. Even better, if the ceilings were painted, there was a chance the paint wouldn't be breached, leaving an intact disguise over the hole.
The jellies would take over from there. Each hole, if opened, would be capped with smart gel, and otherwise the jellies would just listen. Dad and I would review the recordings, which was going to be a giant pain, even though I had figured out a fast forward button for my tech's version of a sound recorder. Still, once we found Coil's office, things would get easier, and then we'd decide what to do from there.
Tattletale was becoming a problem, albeit in a good way. Her lair, well, it was on loan from me, let her breathe fresher air, but she was getting itchy to do something about Coil, so that she could go outside in her civilian ID. Being on land though, and with actual air circulation, we had immediately gotten her a propane stove. It was at least some consolation for her. Until Coil was handled, Tattletale was compromised, as we didn't know how his power worked, and it had been proven that he could extract information from her without her knowledge. Her main demand would be met today. Dad had purchased a burner phone with several gigs of internet data, and I was putting it in her care package for the evening. Along with a small bottle of ibuprofen, since I expected her to abuse her power. Previously, Dad had been unwilling to give her a phone that could potentially be traced to the shipwreck lair. After dad had accepted that Tattletale was probably not a Changer cape trying to infiltrate our family to kidnap me, he had started to get parental about Tattletale. He had even gotten her some weird UV light since she wasn't getting any sunlight.
Her raiding of the Merchants occasionally had not actually otherwise affected us much. We had a lot of cash, that I had chemically cleaned, but mostly it was in a pile in the basement. Suddenly having a lot of money was a great way to out me as somebody interesting. Mostly it paid for Tattletale's food and supplies and built us up a nest egg in case of emergencies. Spending unusual amounts of money on mundane stuff? That's weird. Suddenly having a few thousand because you broke your leg? Less weird, because now it matters enough to dig out resources. At least, that was dad's reasoning and it made sense to me.
Anyway, keeping Tattletale safe and happy was irritatingly mutually exclusive. She has a few goals to keep her busy. First, use my map of the city and her upcoming internet access, to help me ruin Coil, allowing me to claim the downtown lair. The second and a much more minor goal was to locate Squealer's tinkerlab, and help me develop a plan to steal all her tinker materials, or even vehicles. I doubt I'd get much from her tech, but she had to have a lot of metal, and I wanted that. Lastly, Tattletale needed to decide what to do with her future. As long as she did the occasional raid for cash, we could readily support her. After all her help, well, I'd like her to join a team with me. She could keep raiding, but we could cooperatively improve more of the underlying problems of the bay, like identifying all the locations of all the safehouses of all the gangs, then collaborating with the PRT to hit then all in rapid succession. The PRT could send teams to take each one or even just stall for time, while maybe the Protectorate could travel as a group, forcing all the capes in a gang to show up, or lose everything in the safehouse. The gang capes wouldn't be able to defend, being stuck in fights with the Protectorate, and the PRT would eventually overpower the regular gang members.
I could avoid any attention, and then join the Protectorate when I was an adult, and make my official debut as a hero. By then my armor would be pretty capable, I hoped.
Of course, if Tattletale wanted to be a villain, then dad had said it would be best to let her go do her own thing. Trying to force her to be good via our working relationship would be asking for betrayal, especially after her experiences with Coil.
Tattletale had also asked about her former team. She had explained their powers. Grue's darkness, Regent's muscle spasms, and Bitch's 'make super dogs'. She expected that Coil had brought them deeper his organization, since they still appeared to be a team. They weren't doing too much though. Occasional robberies and stuff.
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The mini-tunnelers and jellies had worked, I could record sound in all rooms of his base. Or, at least I think I could. Expecting his base to be laid out like an Endbringer shelter had been a foolish oversight. I wasn't sure I have all the rooms covered. In fact, I probably didn't. I was already creating more eavesdropping points, but there was another problem. 15 jellies, recording even just only conversation, produced a hundred or so hours of talk everyday. Dad was willing to be patient, and accepted that we'd miss things going through them. I wanted to bring in Tattletale. If Coil could still get information from her, he wouldn't be looking for her, and he was. Months after she vanished, and he's still got his mercenaries looking for her. They watch the market, the mall, and apparently a safe house Coil says she doesn't know he knows about.
He hasn't said anything about me. Well, I didn't think so anyway. I hadn't found his office yet, but he really liked walking around and talking to his mercenaries about once a day when he showed up in the evenings, so that was something, and of course they talked about their individual goals. Tattletale was an occasional one, right behind a protection racket. The Undersiders regularly hit places around the edges of Coil's territory, implying that his gang kept the businesses safe because they were paying him.
I wanted to give Tattletale the recordings. Dad wanted to wait. I brought up the argument again after dinner.
"Why would Coil be faking? He has to be unaware that I've infiltrated the downtown lair. If we let Tattletale analyze this information, she could do it so much better than us, and she has the time. I've got school, you've got work, we're too busy to listen to the rambling of an entire lair."
Dad sighed in frustration as we collected the dishes. "A gang is like a business. They've got to take a long view if they want to last. Coil could easily know through Tattletale that were interested in him. He keeps a minor amount of demonstrative interest in her, so that she has to seek allies, and then he snatches you both when he needs Tattletale again. Until the opportunity to get you both outweighs the lack of just Tattletale, he has no reason to bother kidnapping her again. We could always just tell the PRT the location of his base. Coil may have enough secret tunnels to get himself and his men out, but that lair had to be the majority of his physical resources. Even if the PRT leaks like a sieve, they'd still jump on that lair, and that would seriously cripple him."
"Yeah, but it wouldn't stop him, and I agreed to do your plan, rather than going out and being an active hero in the city because I believed that I could make a real difference, actually get rid of a gang, not just make them retreat a while."
"You're making a difference, Taylor, and Tattletale using your armor lets you do both. I want you to be safe. I'm proud you want to help and be a hero, but being a smart one is better than getting hurt. Making Coil's gang die from dozens of small losses, and losing a supervillain lair is by no means small. No matter how much he evacuates from it."
"No matter how much?" I slowly start to grin as a plan dad will accept occurs to me.
"What are you thinking Taylor? That's the happy smile when you think you're going to teach your old man to suck eggs."
"Let's cut our losses, in the most conclusive way we can. We give Tattletale the recordings, but not meet with her. Either she helps, or betrays us. Coil is small compared to every other gang, he cannot accept the loss of that lair. He'll have to evacuate if Tattletale starts listening and he's still monitoring her. I'll record Tattletale, and if Coil does react, we can confirm that she can't help but share the info, either by betrayal or Coil's power. Either we win and can eventually crush Coil's gang, or we roll the dice by alerting the PRT to his lair. Also, you've been the one most worried about Tattletale's social stuff. This cuts through all the problems as safely as possible for us, and quickly too."
"You can be awfully like your mother, you're her little owl. We'll do your plan then. You've got a head on your shoulders and a big heart, and I love you too."
"Thanks dad. Let's start the plan tomorrow then. Maybe we can just watch a movie tonight."
I'm proud and happy to be like mom, but it still hurts. I think it's worth it though. Dad and I are getting better about the talking thing I think. I probably owe Kurt and Lacey some cookies or something. Dad goes drinking and catches a game with them twice a month or so, and he's usually less willing to let bad stuff slide afterwards and tries to build on the good.
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