Price of Blood
Part Sixteen: Chasing Shadows, Part II
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Brian
Brian stared at Lisa. "No, that plan isn't
dangerous. It's
suicidal. Not only is Shadow Stalker carrying around a launcher that fires darts loaded with enough toxin to kill you twice over, but had you forgotten her habit of trying to murder me with
arrows?" He patted his side, as if to remind her exactly where the homicidal ex-Ward had shot him, not so long ago.
"Actually, that'll help a lot to prove that we're not working with her," Lisa pointed out, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Pretty sure they'll have some of her old arrows in storage. It'll be child's play to match one of those with your scar."
"It'll be even easier for them to drop us in a cell to await trial," Brian retorted. "Alec really needs to get his arm checked out and put in a cast, and you
know how Rachel feels about the PRT. Even
hint that the boss has been caught and we might be turning ourselves in, and she'll be gone faster than you can say 'Old Yeller got shot'." He felt in some way responsible for the debacle at the Hillside Mall, even though he'd had no choice but to accept Shadow Stalker's place on the team.
"No, true," Lisa admitted. "Whatever we do, we have to play it very close to the chest. Besides, if they turn themselves in with us, they've still got those stupid murder charges hanging over their heads from way back. That's just the PRT being dicks, if you ask me. Maybe once we catch Stalker, you and I can handle the handover. Leave the other two right out of it."
She sounded far too confident for Brian's liking. While her power was fucking impressive when used with the right data, she'd been known to face-plant spectacularly if she got caught in what computer nerds called the 'garbage in garbage out trap'. Before he committed, he needed to know that she wasn't operating on wishful thinking and crap data. Of course, he didn't want her thinking that he actually
doubted her. That way lay endless cycles of her trying to prove she really was the smartest person in the room, and him just trying to get some sleep. "Yeah, but how are we going to catch her? And you do know we're going to have to move out of the loft, because she almost certainly knows where that is by now, right?"
Lisa frowned. The glint in her eye told Brian she'd discerned the reservations he held about the whole deal. Whether she had a solution in mind was another matter altogether. "She can find it pretty quickly, yeah. Though she won't be attacking us right now. Mainly because she doesn't know Coil's been taken down, and unless someone tells her, she won't know he was also working as her contact in the PRT."
"And like you said, she's under orders from Coil not to attack us." To Brian, this sounded less like a solution than a stopgap. Trusting in Shadow Stalker's sense of duty to Coil didn't seem like the smartest idea in the world. "I doubt that's going to hold much longer. Especially if she's only getting radio silence from either number."
"Yeah," Lisa mused. "And the moment she decides she's not bound by any rules or regulations, she's likely to come after us with murder in mind." Which more or less mirrored Brian's thoughts on the matter, except that he was less certain about the ex-Ward's restraint.
He snorted. "Not least because you kept laughing at her all the time." Admittedly, it had been reasonably amusing at the time but if anyone could hold a grudge, it was Shadow Stalker.
Lisa put on her best innocent expression. Brian wasn't convinced about that, either. "Hey, don't blame me. We all contributed. I remember how you and Alec gave her a hard time, too."
"Yeah, well." Brian prodded the old scar again, feeling the distant ache. He wasn't going to pretend that beating up on Shadow Stalker as Spectre hadn't been thoroughly satisfying at the time. Of course, the time to pay the piper was rapidly approaching. "Once that happens, she'll be trying to spread the love as indiscriminately as she can. Won't matter if people said something or not. We're all targets."
A calculating look crossed Lisa's face. Brian didn't even have to hear her next words to have a bad feeling about this. "Actually, that's an interesting point. I wonder if we can make use of that?"
His wince of pain owed nothing to the scar, this time.
<><>
Taylor
While not exactly a cape geek, Taylor had been somewhat of an admirer of Armsmaster in her younger years. Looking back now, she wondered if nine-year-old Taylor Hebert would have believed it if she was told that sitting in on a lab design session with the iconic hero could be simultaneously boring and confusing. The disbelief would've doubled down if her younger self had been informed that Armsmaster was working with another Tinker to build powered armour for
her.
But it was all too true. There was no pressing reason for Taylor to actually be in the room, apart from fielding random questions about the exterior themes of her powersuit. They'd settled on exactly
how she wanted it to look like a giant scarab beetle—which parts would resemble a beetle and which would still be humanoid—and the colour scheme (blue and black) quite early on, and were now working on the wings.
Or rather,
arguing about the wings.
Personally, Taylor couldn't figure out what the actual problem was about. She was getting powered armour to allow her to be a superhero without revealing herself as the Swarmbringer, and this armour was going to allow her to
fly. Even after sitting there for ten minutes with her head going back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, she still had no idea what most of the technical terms actually
meant.
"Guys," she pleaded at last.
If I don't say something, they may just argue with each other for the rest of the day. Both Tinkers turned and stared at her, as if they'd forgotten she was even in the room. "What's the problem? Maybe I can help."
Armsmaster took a deep breath. "My young colleague and I are having a disagreement about exactly how the anti-gravity panels should be incorporated into the wings of the power armour." He turned his head momentarily toward Kid Win, and his lips tightened. "I'm of the opinion that the panels and their attendant control mechanisms need to be incorporated into the wings in a distributed array, so that any incidental damage won't knock out too much of your flight capability in one shot, and so that power supply to the panels can be streamlined as much as possible. This will allow for a potential increase in flight speed and agility. Integration and efficiency; that's what we're looking for, here."
Taylor watched Kid Win roll his eyes behind his tinted visor. The teenager tended to wave his hands around when he spoke, apparently trying to demonstrate what he was saying. "But integration
isn't efficiency, not when you're talking about maintenance and ease of replacement. These G-negative lifters are pretty finicky, and if you spread the components out through the wing, it makes it harder to get at the part you
want to get at. I mean, yeah, there's
some loss in power because you've got to route it through a few extra conduits, but only a little bit. And it's made up for when you spend half an hour instead of half the day fixing a minor glitch. Especially when everything's standardised instead of custom components, so you can swap out one for another if necessary."
A pained sigh drew Taylor's attention back to Armsmaster. The older man seemed to be frowning, but it was hard to tell behind his opaque visor. "You're forgetting one important fact. While we're marketing Scarab as an independent Tinker with Protectorate support, she isn't actually a Tinker.
We can do field repairs on our suits.
She can't." His helmet turned in her direction. "No offence meant, Ms Hebert."
"None taken." But something Kid Win had said nagged at Taylor's brain. "Swapping out …
wait a minute. Maybe if I had spare lifters with me, if one was damaged, I
could do field repairs." She wilted a little as they both turned to stare at her. Or at least, Kid Win was staring. She couldn't see Armsmaster's eyes, but she assumed the Protectorate hero was doing the same.
"Uh, no you can't," Kid Win said almost gently. "Like Armsmaster said, you're not a Tinker. There's no way you can take apart one of these wings and replace a damaged lifter, even if you had spare parts on hand. No matter how easy it looks, non-Tinkers just can't get a grasp on how the technology works." He spread his hands and essayed an awkward smile. "Sorry, but that's just the way it is."
"No, no," Taylor said hastily, before the idea got away from her. "Could you make self-contained modules containing the lifters and everything needed to make them work, that can be snapped into sockets in the wings, and snapped out again if I needed to replace them? So literally all I have to do is plug and play?"
Each Tinker raised his finger and opened his mouth, presumably to refute her. Both paused. Slowly, both mouths closed and both fingers lowered, then they turned to each other.
"That's … I can see how to do that," Kid Win said, the last few words tumbling out of his mouth. "Really, really easily. Like, mega-easily. If we make all the lifter modules the same shape and size and power requirement—"
"No, that's a bad idea." Armsmaster overrode him. "The wings can be made to work more effectively with specifically shaped anti-grav panels, of different sizes. Forcing everything to adhere to one shape or size will hamper her flight capabilities."
"But if I made each individual lifter smaller, but designed them so they could snap together to make larger panels, and you improved the efficiency of the surrounding sockets so they worked well together, that would allow Taylor to swap them in and out as needed," argued Kid Win. Waving his hands in the air, he sketched out shapes only he could see. "In fact, if we rebuild the wings themselves to be modular in construction—hell, the entire
suit—we could set it up so she can swap out components from less urgently needed suit systems to keep essential ones running." He looked down at his own suit, then held up his gloved hand. Slowly, he flexed his fingers.
"Ooooh." His voice was filled with sudden enlightenment.
Armsmaster tilted his head slightly. "You seem to be taking this idea of modular construction to remarkable lengths," he noted. "Do you think it means something?"
Taylor wasn't quite sure what he was referring to, but Kid Win certainly picked up on it. "Maybe. And by that I mean, holy crap, yes. I think … I think … I think I need to do some Tinkering. Like, right now." He jumped to his feet. "Taylor, you're amazing." With a certain air of purpose, he advanced on a nearby workbench.
A little confused, Taylor turned to Armsmaster. "Uh, what just happened? Do I need to be worried?" She knew that
something had happened, and that she was apparently going to be getting a modular suit, but beyond that, she had no idea why Kid Win was so happy.
"No there's no cause for concern." The older hero rose to his feet. "Your question apparently just helped Kid Win reach a breakthrough about his powers. Congratulations for that, by the way."
"I, uh, thanks?" Taylor stood up as well. "Do you need me anymore?" Arcane mutterings and the crackle of soldering had begun to arise from Kid Win's workbench. She was pretty sure she couldn't really help with that sort of thing.
"Not at the moment, but don't go far." Armsmaster gave her a rare smile. "Kid Win and I should have the first iteration of your suit ready in a day or two." He patted her on the shoulder, then nodded toward the door. "It seems that Panacea has just arrived, looking for you."
"Oh, thanks. See you later." Taylor turned toward the door. When she was sure Armsmaster wasn't watching, she surreptitiously rubbed her shoulder. If the man wasn't careful, his shoulder-pats were likely to leave bruises.
The lab door hissed open as she reached it, revealing Amy on the other side. "Oh, hey," the healer greeted her. "How's things going in here?"
There was a crackle and a "Yeowtch!" from Kid Win, and Taylor winced slightly.
"Oh, it's definitely going," she said. "C'mon, let's walk and I'll fill you in. Is the commissary open? I'm hungry."
Amy smirked, linking her arm through Taylor's. "You're always hungry. But that's okay. I'm hungry too. Let's go eat."
Taylor grinned. Amy was always good company. "Sounds like a plan."
<><>
Shadow Stalker
A Few Minutes After Midnight
Okay, time to find out what the hell is going on.
Sophia had spent an uncomfortable evening on the rooftop. Finally, once she was sure the time was correct, she checked the burner phone. There had been no missed calls from Coil, which merely served to feed her growing paranoia.
Has he figured out I'm a plant? Have the Undersiders made up something about me? But that didn't really make sense. If she was running the show, she'd want to bring a potential traitor back in so they could be squeezed dry of information.
Shutting it down, she turned on the other phone to check for text messages. Almost immediately, one popped up. She quashed the irrational feeling of relief—
someone knows I'm still out here—and opened the message.
New developments, it read.
Need you to attend confidential briefing. C.
Frowning, she went through the message again, trying to divine the hidden meaning behind the terse phrasing. What the hell did 'new developments' mean, anyway? This was a break from the way Calvert had been doing things up till now. If she went anywhere near the PRT building, there was a chance that someone might recognise her. They wouldn't capture her, but if Coil or one of his assets got wind of it, the whole mission would be burned and she'd be back on probation.
On the other hand, Calvert obviously needed to talk to her about
something. She decided to accept that he'd probably done this sort of thing before and knew what he was doing. The phone was down to thirty-four percent of battery; as she watched, this dropped to thirty-three percent. Galvanised into action, she tapped out a quick answer.
Cant come to P building. Dont want to make C suspicious. Where meet?
Running her eyes over the message, she nodded slowly. That should do it, she figured. With a prolonged press of the power button, she shut the phone down altogether. Tucking the both of them away again, she straightened up and looked around.
Okay, now where am I going to sleep tonight?
It was a serious question. She was tough as they came, but everyone was vulnerable when they slept. Plus, there was no fucking way in
hell that she was going to sleep on a rooftop or bare floor somewhere; not if she had better options.
Home was out. Even if the PRT didn't have her parents and brother ready to rat her out if she showed her face, they were almost certainly watching the place and would have to 'arrest' her if she went there. She would have to work to avoid even the most inconsequential slip, especially if Calvert was right and Coil had people inside the PRT building.
While Coil's security setup was admirable in its own way, the fact remained that she had no idea where his base really was. She knew that it was probably underground, but this didn't actually help her in any meaningful fashion. Most specifically, it meant that she wasn't going to be able to knock on the door and ask if she could use her room for the night.
Paranoid bastard. Just because she'd been infiltrating his organisation to try to bring him down from within was of no consequence to her annoyance with him.
Okay, so I'm gonna have to go somewhere else.
She was reasonably sure she could find the Undersiders' base pretty easily—if she got nothing else out of this whole shitshow, that alone was worth the price of admission—but they'd been mistrusting of her
before the Hillside fuckup. There was no way in hell they'd let her in the front door now, much less loan her a bed for the night. And while she
could attack from surprise and kill or subdue the lot of them—definitely 'kill' in Grue's case—she still hadn't been given the okay by Calvert to break cover. The last thing she wanted was to be put back on probation just because she couldn't wait another fucking day.
So she was going with option D. It was an idea she'd come up with some time ago, but never actually implemented before now. Leaping off the rooftop and going to shadow, she started moving in a generally southerly direction. As she went, she kept her eyes open for garish neon signs. What she wanted was a motel in a specific price range: not so affluent as to have all their rooms filled, but not so seedy as to be offering rooms by the hour.
It took her three tries, and most of an hour, to locate what she was looking for. Both of the ones she passed up were on the low end of the economic scale. In all honesty, she would've been astonished if things had been the other way around.
Up until now, she'd been staying relatively low and sticking to the shadows. She didn't know who else had been briefed on the mission and who thought she'd just gone villain. After her dramatic 'escape' from the PRT building, they'd probably made her supposed crimes public. On the upside, this would solidify her credentials with Coil, while on the downside it meant any patrolling heroes may just try to apprehend her.
Not that they'd succeed, of course. She stifled a snort at the very idea. But it had the potential to be irritating as all fuck, especially if she was out and about—like right now—without any backup, or a bolt-hole she could duck into. That had been how the PRT caught her the first time around, after all. She only wanted a good night's sleep, or at least a good morning's sleep. Once Coil and Calvert got back in touch with her and she got a chance to tell her side of the story, she'd learn whether it was time to go on the offensive yet or stay on the down-low.
Ghosting on to the roof of the motel, she swung over the edge of the eaves and landed lightly on the upstairs walkway that serviced the motel rooms. A smile creased one corner of her mouth as she noted that each parking lot space had a number painted on it. It was as good as a directory to check for empty rooms.
The first room, as she leaned her head in through the door, had someone snoring noisily on the bed. Swearing to herself, Sophia pulled back out of the door and moved down the walkway. She was getting more and more irritated every second, especially since the next two she checked were also occupied. These held couples, fortunately asleep.
It wasn't particularly hard to read between the lines. These people were cheating on their other halves, so they'd come to the motel for essentially the same purpose as those frequenting the by-the-hour venues. No cars in the parking lot meant that they didn't want an inconvenient security-camera shot of their license plates showing up in evidence at any time in the future.
For a few moments, she considered just going into one of the rooms and tranqing the people sleeping there, then rolling them out of bed and zip-tying them so she could use the bed. It was a tempting plan, but she eventually decided against it. She didn't want to unnecessarily use up her stock of zip-ties or the few tranq darts she had left, and people had been known to work their way out of being tied up before. The idea of keeping them quiet by threatening to expose their infidelities crossed her mind, but she dismissed that as well. It was amazing how stupidly stubborn some people could get if they decided someone was trying to put pressure on them. No, it was probably best to keep looking.
As if to validate her decision, the very next room she tried was empty. A discreet flash of the tiny hand-light she kept in her utility belt showed that the bed was still made up and the floor was empty of luggage. That was good enough for her.
With a sigh, she shrugged off the backpack and started divesting herself of the costume. While it had obviously been designed to be comfortable to wear for long periods, she'd been in it for nearly eleven hours now, and there were certain bodily needs that needed to be attended to. The first person to design a proper superhero costume that could be easily adjusted to go to the bathroom in would probably win some kind of award. Or be accused of being a cape themselves, on account of having achieved the blatantly impossible.
With a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth at that mental image, Sophia laid out the last of her costume on the floor beside the bed and padded into the bathroom in her underwear. As she'd hoped, there was a fresh towel on the rack. It seemed that whatever passed for room service here simply set up the room for the next occupant as soon as the last one vacated, rather than waiting for a guest to actually sign in.
Excellent.
Closing the door, she turned on the light, squinting against the sudden glare. Her priorities were toilet, shower and bed, in that order. While the clothes in her backpack weren't daisy-fresh, they'd have to do for the time being. In the morning, she'd check for messages from Calvert. With any luck, he'd have a green light for her. She bared her teeth, imagining the looks on the faces of the Undersiders as she confronted them.
I'm coming for you.
<><>
Undersiders Base
5:00 the Next Morning
Lisa
"Okay, we're doing what again now?" Alec lay back on the sofa with his arm in a sling and a sour look on his face. There were several good reasons for him to be irritated; the early hour, his injured arm and his inability to use the controller
because of his injured arm, just to name three. Lisa knew she was about to add a fourth to the list, and possibly a fifth.
Rachel glowered from the other end of the same sofa but didn't add anything to Alec's question. Brutus sat at her feet, the solidly-built Rottweiler panting happily as she slowly and methodically brushed him down. She'd been out half the night looking for him, and had only gotten back a couple of hours beforehand. Lisa didn't even bother trying to list the number of reasons she might have to be pissed off at the world.
Brian grimaced, but soldiered through the explanation like a trouper. Lisa had to give him props; once he was on board, he went all in. "Lisa believes Shadow Stalker is likely to come after us, here, in the next six to twelve hours. She'll be shooting to kill. We've got two options. One, we bug out. Two, we set a trap."
"Can't we do both?" asked Alec. Lisa was pretty sure he wasn't being facetious. "Set up remote cameras, Claymores, tripwires, pressure pads, the whole works. I'll make popcorn, and we all watch while Shadow Stalker sneaks on in here, trips the wrong switch and gets her asshole blown through the top of her head. Not that anyone'll be able to tell the difference."
"And if the pieces are small enough, nobody'll even know she's dead," Rachel put in unexpectedly. She went back to brushing the dog, while Lisa digested the fact that at least two of her teammates were somewhat more bloodthirsty than she'd previously realised.
"Uh, there's a couple of flaws with that plan," Brian said hastily. "We don't have explosives and we don't have an explosive expert. I'd really like to keep this base if possible, and I certainly wasn't planning on killing her." He looked over at Lisa and raised his eyebrows, as if to say
help me out here.
Lisa entered a couple of commands on her laptop then turned her attention to the discussion. "No, Brian's right," she said as Alec opened his mouth, probably to argue the point. "Explosions draw attention, and it would have to be a really big and really hot explosion to obliterate her like that. The type they call the FBI and PRT in for. We really don't want that kind of attention. Brian and I were more talking about capturing her and handing her over to the PRT as a sign of good faith."
"And what stops them from trying to capture us at the same time?" It shouldn't have been a surprise that Alec hit the same talking point Brian had used earlier. "Thoughts and prayers?" Which, in the past, had turned out to be slightly less useful than a tinfoil parasol against Behemoth.
"Brian and I were going to do that ourselves," Lisa said. "They've got less reason to come out in force against us. If we call ahead and say we want to hand her over, there's a better than even chance they'll let us do it, just so they can get their hands on her. There's got to be any amount of sensitive information she's got inside her head that she could spill to whoever, if she decided to start talking." At least, she hoped the PRT would think the same way. With Coil out of the picture, she no longer had the dubious safety net of his patronage to fall back on. Of course, some safety nets were portable, she reminded herself as she checked the laptop again.
"What about our mysterious boss?" That was Alec. "He was the one who put Shadow Stalker on the team in the first place. He isn't likely to be happy that we're handing her over to the cops." His tone indicated a basic understanding of the facts rather than any kind of worry about the consequences. But then, Alec had never really been a consequences sort of guy.
Brian looked at Lisa. "I think we should tell them. It's not like it'll change anything." She could tell where he was going with this. He was a straightforward sort of guy who liked things to be laid out plainly—as much as this could be done by a supervillain, anyway.
In any case, she agreed that this would have to be done sooner or later. Better it be done in a controlled situation so she could soften the impact as much as possible. "Okay, let's do this." She turned to Alec and Rachel. "There's stuff about the boss I've never told you because he told me not to. I only filled Brian in a little while ago."
"Okay, so why are you telling us now?" asked Alec immediately. This was one of the reasons Lisa was often aggravated with him. He wasn't stupid—far from it—but he liked to pick and choose the times when he actually got around to using his brain.
Lisa took a deep breath. "I'll get to that in a second. First off, the guy we were all working for was Coil." She glanced again at the laptop and flicked to a new screen. A prompt popped up, and she entered a string of characters, then clicked Proceed.
"Coil?" Alec echoed Rachel's frown. "Isn't he basically the invisible man of Brockton Bay crime? No real powers, so he has mercs do all his dirty work?" He tried to flip his sceptre left-handed and swore as he dropped it on the floor.
"That's by design," Lisa assured him. "His power … let's just say, it was powerful but not flashy." She thought she knew what it'd been—it was a moot point by now, of course—and whether it was actually the ability to create and destroy entire universes at a whim or just weirdly specific precognition, he'd been a
bastard to plan against.
"You keep saying
was," interjected Rachel bluntly, proving she wasn't stupid either. "Why?"
"Because something happened to him around the time we were kicking Shadow Stalker loose at the Hillside Mall yesterday," Lisa said. "He's dead." Brian shifted, and made a
go-on motion, and she grimaced. Someone was going to have to say it. "And he wasn't just Coil. He was also a PRT officer of some sort."
"What the hell?" Alec and Rachel were both on their feet, but it was the boy who spoke. Brutus barked at the sudden disturbance. "Shadow Stalker was a
PRT mole? Coil's organisation was a
PRT front?"
That was actually a spin on the whole idea that Lisa hadn't considered. For a brief moment, she entertained the concept, but rejected it on several aspects. "Well,
she thought she was a mole. But she'd actually committed crimes that they were on the verge of arresting her for. She didn't know they were on to her, but he wanted a useful idiot, so he spun her a line and pulled her out of the PRT building just ahead of the PRT and Protectorate." She didn't
know all this was true, but her power was prodding her strongly in that direction.
As Brian had before, Alec stared at her with understanding dawning in his eyes. "So
that's why—"
Brian rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we've been over this before. That's why Lisa was laughing nonstop the whole time Shadow Stalker was with us."
Alec's gaze turned accusing. "You knew all this time and you
didn't tell us? Why do you hate us so much?" He held the back of his good hand dramatically up to his forehead. "Oh, the missed opportunities! Oh, the humanity!"
Distracted by Alec's over-acting, Lisa almost missed the
hmph! sound from Rachel's direction. Looking toward the stocky girl, she caught the hint of a smile before Rachel put the scowl back on her face. "What?" Rachel demanded, glaring at her.
"Nothing." Lisa smirked, then turned back to Alec. "And the reason I didn't tell you was so you didn't let it slip by laughing too much, or dropping hints. People expect weird behaviour from me, but you barely ever laugh."
"Still not fair," he grumbled. "You got all the fun."
"We're getting off track," Brian reminded them. "We were working for Coil who is now dead, but he recruited Shadow Stalker first. Sooner or later, she's going to realise her mission's a bust and she'll come gunning for us. With lethal darts."
"How many's she got left, anyway?" asked Alec. "She was firing them off like she had an endless supply, there."
Lisa let her power mull the question over. "Maybe half a dozen," she decided. "She'd shot both her launchers pretty well empty by the end of that fight. Coil wanted her dependent on him, so he gave her the bare minimum to go on with." It definitely sounded like what the man would do.
"And how exactly did you plan to trap her?" Brian's voice was matter of fact now. That was one of the things Lisa liked about him; once he decided he was on board with something, he went all in.
Lisa steepled her fingers in front of her, and gave them her most evil grin. To be fair, it wasn't much different from her
least evil grin, but she was making an effort. Really. "Well, you remember how I told you guys a while ago how she's vulnerable to electricity when she's phasing through things …?"
<><>
The Same Morning
8:05 AM
PRT Building
Taylor
Amy stirred as the car bumped down on to the ramp leading under the PRT building, then yawned and stretched. I smirked and nudged her. "Oh, we've finally woken up now, have we?"
She stuck out her tongue at me, then spoiled the effect by yawning again. "Oh, hush. The main part of my job is to stay near you as much as possible, until the powers that be are absolutely certain there won't be any more incidents. They never said I had to be awake for it."
I nodded, fully aware of what she meant by 'incident'. "And how long's that going to take, exactly?" Not that I had any problem with Amy being my near-constant companion; it was nice having a friend I could confide in again. But it had to be irritating that she couldn't go anywhere without me.
She shrugged and stifled another yawn. "Heat death of the universe? The Simurgh takes up knitting as a hobby? Director Piggot goes on a date with Legend? I'm pretty sure they're working on the basis that they'll know it when they see it." Which, if her analysis was correct, meant 'forever'. She shuffled her butt to a more upright position. "I just wish Armsmaster had waited till a more civilised hour to ask you to come in."
As Dad pulled the car into the Visitor carpark and killed the engine, I snorted. "You were the one who decided to stay up and catch that movie marathon. You've only got yourself to blame for getting to bed so late."
"You stayed up too!" she objected, but I could see how much she was enjoying the argument. I was, too. Amy was fun to be around, once I got through the protective barrier of snark, and we regularly argued about everything and nothing, just for fun. Dad had been concerned the first few times, but now he just rolled his eyes and ignored us. "How come you aren't tired, too?"
I opened the door and got out. "Because I slept through half the movies. Seen 'em before."
Her eyes widened in mock betrayal as she climbed out as well. "You never told me that! Or that you slept through the movies! I thought you were leaning up against me just to be cute!"
"Excuse me, have you
met me?" I spread my hands. "I don't do anything to be cute. I don't know
how to do cute!" That was more Madison's line, and I wanted as little to do with anything that reminded me of any of the Trio as possible. "I was just leaning against you because you were comfortable. Like you leaned against me for most of the car ride over."
"Oh." That seemed to take her aback. "Um." A slight flush darkened her cheeks but before I could ask why, a PRT guard approached us.
"Good morning," he addressed us. "Mr and Ms Hebert, and Panacea? I'm here to escort you up."
Dad switched his mildly amused expression out for a more serious one. "That's us. Lead the way."
"Yes, sir." The guard moved off, and Amy and I fell in behind with Dad following us. We got into the elevator, and he punched in the floor number. Amy and I liked to try to see if we could feel the movement of the elevator, but neither of us ever had. The numbers on the display scrolled upward faster than I could follow them, and then came to an abrupt halt.
We stepped out of the elevator, Amy holding back another yawn as we did so. "So, uh, can I ask why we've been called in so early?" I ventured.
Unsurprisingly, the guard shrugged, which was kind of impressive given how much armour he had to be wearing. "Above my pay grade, ma'am. I was just sent to collect you."
"Okay. Well, thanks anyway." I shared a vaguely mystified look with Amy—she didn't seem to have any more of a clue than I did—and decided to wait and see what the big fuss was all about.
I didn't have long to wait. We followed a by-now familiar path to Armsmaster's lab. As we stopped in front of the door itself, the massive door unlatched and slid open. "Enter!" called the Tinker from within.
The invitation obviously didn't include the guard, because he simply headed off down the corridor. I stepped inside with Amy, and Dad followed close behind. The door slid shut with a solid
thud. I looked around, to see Armsmaster standing alongside a large rack, which bore …
"Oh, wow!" I exclaimed, my eyes opening wide. Slowly, almost reverently, I moved up to the rack and put out my hand. The suit of armour on it looked
amazing. Whatever coating they'd put on it felt slick under my fingertips. It was painted shiny black and a deep vibrant blue, and it really did look like a cross between a human being and a scarab beetle. The wings weren't visible right then, but there were large bulges behind the shoulderblades. And there were
also …
"Wait a minute," Amy objected, pointing at the detail I'd just noticed. "I know you're going with a bug theme, but Taylor only has two arms, not four." She'd be able to fix that oversight if she wanted, I knew. But it would probably take a lot of persuasion, and the armour
already held a second set of arms. These emerged halfway between shoulders and hips, and the hands hung down to the knees.
"We're aware of that." I could almost have sworn Armsmaster smiled at her tone. "She can opt to slave them to either one of her arms, to leave them inert, or use her heads-up display to manually direct them to take hold of something or strike at a target."
"Holy crap," I managed. "Holy
crap. How …"
"How did we get it built so fast?" This time, Armsmaster did smile. "It was your suggestion to Kid Win. He realised that we could streamline the process with modular components, not just for the wings but for the whole suit. We spent the first few hours working out the requirements for each module, then he designed them and I modified the designs for greater efficiency and ease of manufacture." He gestured toward the large screen that overhung the workbench.
Dragon's face faded into view on the screen.
"Once we had the finished designs, Armsmaster and Kid Win created one of each, then passed them on to me. I analysed them, then started the manufacturing process. Once I had enough of each one, I assembled the suit and ferried it down to Brockton Bay."
"Of course, this is a first iteration," Armsmaster cautioned me. "The outer armour plating is about all that's going to survive from version to version. But with the modular construction, we can literally snap out an old unit and replace it with a better one within minutes, rather than rebuilding the whole thing from scratch."
I shook my head in wonder. "This is
amazing. I thought I'd have to be waiting days or even weeks. I have no idea how I'm ever going to repay you for this. Where's Kid Win? I want to hug him."
"I sent him off to get some sleep," Armsmaster informed me. "He was showing signs of wanting to disassemble my halberd and incorporate it into his armour. You'll be able to thank him later, once he wakes up."
"No repayment necessary," Dragon added.
"Just be the best hero you can be."
"Thanks," I said, tears filling my eyes from the intensity of my emotions. I wrapped my arms around Armsmaster's bulky armoured torso and gave him a hug anyway. "You guys are the
best."
<><>
Sophia
A loud voice yelling harshly in her ears brought Sophia out of a deep dreamless sleep, aided and abetted by the hand that grabbed her shoulder and shook it roughly. She woke up with a start, not entirely sure where she was or who was yelling at her, but knowing that
nobody pulled that shit on her. Throwing the covers off, she pulled free of the grasping hand and rolled off the bed into a crouch on the floor, looking around wildly to piece together what was going on.
Motel room—
bed—
shit, Calvert! She backed away from the large unshaven man who loomed over her even when she stood up fully. "Who the fuck are you?" demanded the man. "What the fuck are you doing in my motel?"
"Just leaving," Sophia said. "I don't want trouble. I'll just grab my gear and go." She looked toward where her gear had been laid out on the floor beside the bed, and stopped when she realised one very important fact. It wasn't there any more.
The man snorted with amusement, and his eyes flicked toward the doorway to the room, where the maid stood with her cart. "Yeah, as if, girl. Your gear stays here and so do you, until the cops get here. Breaking and entering, trespass, probably theft too."
"I'm no thief!" Sophia's outrage was real. She'd never broken into a house and stolen anything, and she wasn't about to start. "I'm a hero!"
"Pfft, yeah." His tone was disbelieving. "I'll believe
that when I see it."
Sophia glared at him. It looked like she was going to have to resort to violence for this one.
It was a good thing violence was something she had no problem with.
End of Part Sixteen
Part Seventeen
