16.4 Compromise
"Dad, I don't want to work with Ms Piggot anymore."
He sighed and put down his fork as he leaned back. "Why?"
"She's going to betray us. She doesn't like me, and she doesn't like Amy or Lisa. The only person she sort of gets along with is Rachel. She makes Alec even more annoying than usual. I've tried to get along with her, but she's a jerk. Most importantly, the more she learns about me, the less safe I'll be when she betrays us."
"I'm still thinking we can convince her to consider us allies but even if she does decide we're the enemies and go to the PRT, she doesn't know all that much. Besides, the PRT isn't evil as a whole, even if they're poorly managed. With the number of failsafes and contingencies that Lisa and I have in place, at worst you'd become a probationary Ward. That's not a safety issue."
I overplayed my hand on safety issues, obviously. Down in my lab, I thrash a few arms in frustration. I buy myself time with a mouthful of rather boring pasta. At least there's one benefit for dad not letting me simply generate my voice during dinner in my room of my lair.
After a length of time spent chewing that only just edges towards passive aggressive, I swallow and continue. "Fine, then how about I just don't like her and she doesn't make us safer? She won't tell us anything useful. I can get training from Thrawn's mercs if you still think I need it. You heard the recordings from her house. She was talking about me with those friends of hers from work behind my back, and saying mean things about me. I mean about us! Even about Amy!"
Dad sighs and puts his silverware down. "Yeah, I wasn't happy about it, but she certainly wasn't telling them everything she knew. She didn't tell them anything about the appearance of your lairs, or about your tech. Yes, she told them about Arania, but she told them only enough that if Amy gets in trouble, they'll be able to protect her as either Arania or Panacea, and give either identity enough time to figure out if and how to explain things."
He paused again, but started before I could. "Taylor, how important is this to you? I'm not saying yes or no, because I'm still thinking and have been since I heard the recording. I want to know how you feel."
I tried not to sulk. "She saying things to her friends about me, behind my back, saying that I was dangerous and evil. If I hadn't been protecting her house I wouldn't even know, and it only registered as weird on my matrix processor because that's both the first time she's had visitors that weren't the PRT inspection teams and my name popped up. We don't need her. She's a risk, and a foolish one. I have to pull most of my stuff whenever Lisa tells me the PRT is doing another inspection of Ms Piggot's house. She doesn't even want to help us."
"So, we stop working with her and she tells the PRT everything she knows?" Dad held up a hand to stop my interruption. "I mean, let's consider that outcome. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. First off, what does she know? I'd have to check with Lisa, but here's what I've got: I'm pretty sure Ms Piggot can only describe the inside of this lair and state that it's likely somewhere in the urban parts of the city. She knows about none of the others. She doesn't know what's really going on with Arania, and unless she's written it down without Lisa somehow noticing, she won't remember Imp. She doesn't know Sandra's secrets either. What else? I'm asking seriously. What could she do to us if she tried?"
"Maybe get a tinkertech tracker? I mean, I scan her every time, before she gets here, but she had that one guy, Colin, check her house for bugs. If he had a tinkertech scanner looking for my stuff, he-"
"Hold up a second, Little Owl. None of your stuff uses wires or electrical currents, right? I mean, your… uh protection you provided to Ms Piggot's house isn't getting picked up by the PRT. Even tinkertech uses electricity, right?"
"I've had to thoroughly scrub parts of her house to clean out my polymers, and even that wouldn't have been enough if my stuff was actually biological. Also, some of Leet's stuff that still worked detected my stuff using scans with a pulsed synchronicity wave."
After a moment, I take pity on dad's confusion. "I don't know what that means either, but it could detect any of my stuff. And a passive microphone could pick up on the ultrasonics, if they tuned it properly and put it near the perimeter sensors."
Dad waved that off. "The point is, your tinkertech is already as hidden as possible, right? Unless there's a way for you to make all the residue compounds look naturally occurring?"
I considered things on my matrix processor for a few seconds. "No. Not really no."
"Hmm... " Dad hummed. "Ok, how about this as a compromise. I still want you to work with Ms Piggot, but she stops coming near any of Recluse's stuff. Amy hasn't gotten any combat training, and she's the one who was actually kidnapped. We can talk with Lisa to increase the time she spends monitoring of Ms Piggot, just in case Lisa has been missing something. Afterwards, we'll pay Ms Piggot to 'volunteer' to teach classes at my camp. You and Amy can attend. You need to learn how to fight without your tinkertech arms anyway. If this was just about combat training, yes, Thrawn's mercs could teach you. However, Ms Piggot knows how the PRT works, how to interact with them, and she certainly has a vast network of contacts. Lisa was positively gleeful over getting to listen to whoever it was that Ms Piggot was talking to. As strong as we're getting, none of us can just create either of those things. If we can turn her into a real ally, she could be of magnificent help in cementing your position in the city."
"And she never comes to my lair again?"
"As long as you learn how to fight until you are goo- skilled enough to protect yourself and those around you. I've still getting cold sweats over you fighting Hookwolf."
That was fair, it- Dad was negotiating with me. Hmph. "Then I want to make my lairs bigger."
"Sure, that's fine, Taylor. Just talk to Lisa to make sure nobody is likely to notice."
I sighed and went back to eating. I should've asked for something else, if he was so willing to give that up.
========
Sensor readings trickled in, as water flowed started up through the pipes. Fresh water from the west, just south of Captain's Hill, and the sewage draining east and north to my treatment plant. The storm drains would have to stay mostly broken for a while longer. Enough of those were people sized that they had been manually inspected, and there was too much of a risk of getting caught.
Oh, Ms Piggot entered range of my sensors at some little out of the way cafe Lisa had picked out. Every human smelled a bit different, and had a slightly different body structure and gait.
From my lab, I generated my voice in Lisa's ear. "Li- Thrawn, she walked into range, I'm assuming she parked her car outside of it."
"Thanks."
I saw her people get up and start moving. The waiter at least. The guests were her mercs, but she said she was sponsoring the cafe, or owned it, or something. Probably both.
After I had some better numbers, I could likely cut down on the number of turtle and ant units, and just use my big extractors in my treatment plant. Everything in that set of pipes was going to end up there anyway.
Thrawn's voice was picked up by my units. "Ms Piggot, over here."
"Thrawn? What brings you out into the sun?"
"Coffee. And a chance to talk without bothering Recluse."
I mixed up a batch of polymers while reclining into my arms and listen from my lab.
Ms Piggot ordered a coffee, declining any pastries, before she eventually responded to Thrawn. "So?"
"Recluse doesn't want you in her lair anymore."
"So, that's it then?"
"Naw, not even close. You bitched at her enough that she's sick of you, but that just means you'll be doing your own driving from now on."
Ms Piggot's coffee was brought by the waiter guy, and she ignored it as she spoke. "So, you own these people?"
"Nope. Hey, Charlie, could you come here a minute, please."
The guy came over and introduced himself. Charlie explained that had gotten a cash infusion from Thrawn a few weeks back. In return, he was willing to let Thrawn have some discreet meetings here.
Ms Piggot asked if he was paying protection.
Charlie asked if his taxes were protection enough, or should he look into other means. He said he wasn't currently, but his past experience proved that paying taxes to support the Protectorate wasn't enough when Lung had come around. The Protectorate hadn't rebuilt his first cafe, and insurance didn't cover acts of parahuman in this city.
The polymer mixture finished hardening, and I moved the block to the solvent bath to selectively degrade some of the linkages.
Thrawn thanked Charlie for the drinks, and the man left to go back into the kitchen to do stuff. I couldn't tell what he was baking. Something involving an oven.
Piggot spoke up. "So, where's that leave us?"
"I'm making arrangements for a place to train. In the meantime, I can make a few more friends, I hope. There's at least Taylor Hebert, and I think one or two others at the dockworkers camp. I want you to start doing some free safety lectures and self defense courses there. I'll get Panacea to bring her special friend, and that's at least two that need to get some training."
Hey, Lisa said that like we were dating! Or was she being sarcastic? Or was this some sort of political thing? That last one made the most sense, I think. Amy had visited me while she'd been at the PRT. Lisa was probably waving the fact that Amy didn't like the PRT in Piggot's face.
"And then what? I'm not recruiting them for you."
Thrawn shrugs, "I don't care if you do. Panacea has no combat training, despite growing up with a family of superheroes, and then living at the PRT HQ for a while. Recluse is looking after her now, and the girl is deeply valuable. I'm using you to do my part in ensuring that nothing bad happens to her. An ounce of prevention is worth the lack of Recluse dragging herself out of her lair to rectify another situation. Especially now that she's producing imitation xenomorphs. Thankfully non-biological, but still."
Thanks, Lisa, thank you so much for bringing that up.
Oh, the dissolution was done. I triggered crosslinking in the solvent as a new supporting matrix, and a few seconds later, as the heat flux stabilized, I prepare to vaporize the polymer by evacuating the nitrogen gas in the tank. The tank starts heating to account for the endothermic nature of the reaction, and soon the vaporizing polymer gas was at the correct temperature. I initiated the magnetic fields and began spraying in the monatomic iron. This was terribly tricky and I leaned back to focus. The actively controlled magnetics fields were crucial, as they mixed the monomers, both reacted and otherwise. The cyclone effect also separated out clumped and improperly reacted monomers. The substrate had to be pure for the next step.
The critical density was reached and I activated the UV beams. They were all too weak individually, but the four of them crossed in the center of the tank to provide just barely sufficient energy in the tiny semi-sphere.
I raised the heat by a fraction of a degree around the sides of the polymer to increase the rate of vaporization and preemptively stabilize the pressure in expectation of a successful reaction.
The UV beams detected an obstruction, still far too small to be visible, and I triggered the ceramic attachment rod to snap down into place from the top of the tank.
Now, it was just a question of whether the electromagnetic smart monomers would adhere before the nanoscale tip of the attachment rod became too contaminated.
I held my breath and then laughed nervously as the sensors in the molecular conveyor belt on the rod detected drag as something, hopefully correctly reacted monomers, began to travel up the rod.
At 10% remaining distance along the conveyor, I started decomposing the fluorine for the next step. Wasteful, sure, but better to have to collect the wasted fluorine than lose any of the new monomers.
Well, that was it, either the production was stable in this test batch, or it was going to fail again.
I let my mind refocus onto more general priorities.
Thrawn's voice came back into my thoughts. "About what? Just tell the PRT that you figured you'd take up teaching, and that you have no idea why Pan-pan the Angry Medic is dragging along a plus one to safety lectures and self defense. If you can't think of any reason why you'd do it, tell them you're getting paid to do so."
"You want me to tell them I'm getting paid? That they shouldn't bother investigating Thrawn paying a former PRT Director to teach at a homeless camp?"
It looks like Thrawn is handling things fine with Piggot, so I start maintenance on my squiggles. One at a time, but still, many hands make light work.
"You got your first payment from The Brockton Onsite Security Solutions. Do you think that company has any idea I'm using their company checks? Have the PRT investigate all they want, the books balance. Anyway, this money is part of their community outreach program. Doing their part to get the city back together. Now, they've got all the necessary emails on their server, of course, but it seems like the actual community initiative never managed to become public or even be noticed by anyone in the company. Sad that, but they apparently did allocate the necessary funding for hiring a self defense instructor to teach at a camp."
"I see."
I could almost feel the seemingly innocent shrug Thrawn made as he continued. "If you'd rather the PRT tear apart one of the few functioning companies in this city to try and trace my finances, well, that's your prerogative. Of course, then Panacea will never get any self defense training, and Ms Hebert won't either, since that girl seems content to follow Panacea's view on the PRT."
Hey now, Thrawn, that's… ok, yeah, that's fairly accurate. That's only because it's sensible though. Amy does know them better than I do, and I check things with dad, so that's just me being smart.
"You sure do talk a lot."
"Gotta fill the silence. Besides, this is a win for me. I'm trying to convince you that we're not bad people, even if we break some laws, and at some point you'll either accept that or run to the PRT."
"Thrawn, why aren't you running this town?"
"Recluse might try to kill me, and even if she doesn't, we wouldn't be friends anymore."
"That's it?"
"Emily, be sensible. What would I get for running this town? The Marquis came the closest of anybody, and the Brockton Bay Brigade, what would become New Wave, took him down. I'm rich, but I'm not immortal or invincible, I've got a nice life and want to keep it that way. I don't need those kinds of risks."
"I've never met a villain that could be content with that. Argue all the bullshit you want, but that's what you are in the end. You could-"
Thrawn's smug voice interrupted Piggot. "Madcap. Yeah, I know about him. Calvert had a lot of files on ways to publicly pressure you without breaking the unwritten rules. I also know about Shadow Stalker's probation, and how much the PRT has screwed that up. You don't have the monopoly on trying to turn people around, and you certainly don't have room to throw stones over making compromises."
"So, it always comes back to moral waffling with you, doesn't it. That must be convenient when Xanatos gives you your actual orders, the ones you're not sharing with me."
Thrawn snapped back in sudden anger. "Like it always come back to your bigotry and power mongering with you. There's only your puppets in the Protectorate, the villains you need to bring under your control or kill, and the pathetic rogues you ignore."
Ok Lisa, that was pretty bitter sounding and not really accurate there. I spoke up to just her through the comm system. "Hey, Lisa, you doing alright?"
Piggot's voice was dryly irritated as she responded and stood. "I see. That attitude must be useful for you in your extralegal negotiations."
Thrawn took a breath and continued in a calmer tone. "Yes. Yes, we've each got our problems and biases. No, Xanatos isn't my boss, or a Master." Thrawn laughs a bit and makes a motion that looks like he's waving Ms Piggot back to her seat.
I guess that might have been a response to me and Ms Piggot at the same time?
"I certainly got my pride, and the continual insinuation that Xanatos is dictating my choices offends me."
"What then? You're just a regular run of the mill crooked businessman? With your own private army."
"The tinkertech weapons and mercenaries I inherited from Coil. I mostly use them as a taxi service and for putting out fires. Literally once, but mostly figuratively. Seriously, Emily, just look at what I've actually done, what Recluse has actually done, and everything we've asked of you. The rumors are as worthwhile as they have actual evidence. Stick around, it's more of the same. I'm not asking anything of your skills that you don't think isn't a decent use of them. Besides, don't' think of it as getting fired, think of it as…"
"Getting served with an eviction notice at my place of work?"
Thrawn laughs, "Yes, exactly. I may have pressured Recluse too much while trying to win you over, so we'll both give her a bit of a break, and you can do some good out in the field."
"Alright then, but I'm still not going to be parroting the company line."
"What's the matter, you don't like working for The B.O.S.S.?"
