* June 30, 2006 *
It had been long months since he'd come to the city of Brockton Bay. Almost immediately he'd begun seeing his power glitch.
It had only gotten worse since then.
Two timelines.
In one, the order was to kill a little girl in her school. They knew where she would be down to which seat. Time and place. Easy.
In the other timeline, same thing except they were to catch her and haul her off where he had a very nice set of tools to make the girl scream and beg for the pain to stop. Then drugs would be the next step, washing away the pain and very quickly establishing a dependence.
Two ways he could win this. He was Coil, after all, the mastermind from the shadows who could create two timelines and choose which one to keep. Binary decisions were his specialty, as was winning.
His mercenaries were waiting, and (despite the distaste many had for the group) were wearing uniforms or looks similar to what the E88 used. Even to the point of leaving a cellphone behind that had been acquired from an E88 member during a skirmish earlier in the year.
There was a series of clicks over the radio.
"Go," said Thomas Calvert/Coil in both timelines.
The old security guard was quickly overcome and tossed to the side. He'd be a later witness to the idea that it was all Empire 88 Nazis doing the dirty work. One of his mercenaries dropped the cellphone that would be further evidence, where it would look as if it had been dislodged in a struggle.
Getting to the room in question without making an excessive amount of noise or getting anyone's attention was a primary part of the plan. Success in both timelines.
Going through the school, straight to classroom 109-A. Squad does a silent weapons check, all around signal that things are running smooth. In through the door.
Timeline A: Kick open the door, send a spray of bullets at the girl who was just staring wide-eyed behind her glasses at the door, then take off. Mission accomplished and... TIMELINE ENDED.
Timeline B: Kick open the door, use a tear gas grenade to remove chances of someone deciding to be a hero, then grab the girl and run.
Get back to the van, slapping handcuffs, leg shackles, blindfold, and gag on the girl in very short order.
AVOID THE FREAKING TANK! MAKE THAT TANKS?!
WHY WERE THERE TANKS?! AND AN APC? WHERE THE HELL DID THEY COME FROM?!
Okay, have to remember to give a bonus for the van driver as pulling off that kind of maneuver outside an action movie was actually quite impressive. Though with considerably more cursing than was typical of such movies.
Duck into this garage, change van for an SUV, go to the next rendezvous which switched the cargo to a hearse which drove sedately to his operation at the Blofeld Crematorium (which had been very handy for when he had to make bodies vanish).
That one timeline had abruptly ended without input from him and without warning merely indicated that he was right and the cause of his problems was one Taylor Hebert.
His men strapped the little girl to a table as soon as her cuffs and blindfold were off.
"Now, Taylor Hebert, what do you have to say for yourself?!"
"MFF?"
"Would someone take the gag off?" asked Coil. "Kind of hard to interrogate the prisoner when she's gagged. Just saying."
"Oh, thanks," said the little girl as soon as the gag was off, she looked up and over. "Oh wow. Is that one of String Theory's cesium-ultraviolet cutting lasers? I thought they had all been destroyed."
"Yes, yes, it is. And no - I have three of them," said Coil, preening slightly. It was nice when his victim understood their situation. Though a bit more horror would have been good. "Do you know what I'm about to do with it?"
"Considering the placement," said Taylor, apparently ignoring the whole strapped-to-a-table thing. "You're going to re-enact the scene from Goldfinger aren't you?"
That caused him a bit of a pause. "Yes, actually. It's a classic for a reason. Any last words?"
"Oh no, woe is me, how ever can I survive?" said Taylor with some enthusiasm. "Shriek. Scream."
"You actually said 'shriek' and 'scream'," noted Coil.
"Well, what you may not have known is that I am... Doctor Curlyhair, Girl Genius!"
"Yes, we know who you are," said Coil as he flicked the switch that caused the laser to emit a bright purple beam.
"Oh. Well, darn. You do realize that there are people with big guns looking for me?" asked the still-not-worried Taylor.
"They are being directed to a more worthy target," said Coil. He split the timeline.
Timeline A:
"Now, Doctor. It is time for me to exterminate!" declared Coil as the laser slowly began to cut through the table the girl was on.
"Exterminate!" yelled out the girl on the table, managing to give it a weird inflectionless tone. Which was spoiled by her giggling a moment later.
Timeline B:
A nod brought one of his new hires, a Doctor Pitter, out with a syringe.
"This is going to hurt. Lots. But once you acknowledge the new reality, I'm sure we can find uses for you," said Coil.
The needle went in, the girl complained about the cold. Then nothing.
Literally nothing. Both timelines had just stopped. Then ended.
Coil blinked and realized the little girl was no longer restrained to the table. Looking around in a panic, he realized that she had somehow relocated herself to his Laser of Doom and was working on it?
"SOMEONE SHOOT HER!" yelled Thomas Calvert.
"Where?" asked one of his minions.
"ANYWHERE, JUST SHOOT!"
Most of his soldiers present immediately went full auto to shoot at the girl, who abruptly vanished.
Instead, Thomas Calvert/Coil had a very good look at his Laser of Doom that was now sparking and had blinky lights that hadn't been blinking just a moment ago. "Oh. Shit."
Fortunately, he'd planned for just such a thing and had a quick-escape hatch a few feet behind him. After the explosion shook the corridor, he congratulated himself on his forethought and decided to get to his office.
He said a few unpleasant things when he found that bulkheads had sealed off areas and he had to manually crank doors open along the way.
* Meanwhile *
Captain Cavill read the data scrolling up on his HUD. "Really? He has an underground base with an access on Fleming Road. Blofeld Crematorium? Largo Exports? Tell me he doesn't have a Stromberg Office Supplies or a Goldfinger Investing."
"I cannot do that," said JARVIS's voice in his ear. "Because he actually does have a Goldfinger Investments."
Captain Cavill checked the telltales on his squad. "Even if he hadn't done this, I'd want to shoot the man."
Sergeant Lonehawk tapped his mike. "Jarvis. If he's full-on Bond villain, he's got to have a self-destruct. Right?"
"Oh yes," said Jarvis. "Three in fact. The main one would topple several nearby buildings as he made his way through a secret escape tunnel. By the time they'd parked I'd already disabled it. Terribly primitive security, didn't even isolate his servers to an internal-only network. Shabby."
"Anything else we should worry about?" asked Captain Cavill.
"He doesn't have a shark tank he drops people into, so that's one trope he's missing," stated Jarvis. "He has a number of others though. I have already dropped sectional fire doors and other barriers... ah. Doctor Curlyhair herself has arrived and she appears to be rather unhappy."
Captain Cavill clicked through channels to a command frequency. "Doctor, I really must insist you not get involved."
"Why, Captain, I'm not participating at all. I'm just making popcorn."
"Right," said Captain Cavill, not convinced at all.
"Madam, you are doing the Scooby Doors thing in Coil's base using your ninja techniques."
"That's just my clone. Clones. I'm really not there."
Captain Cavill was momentarily silent before he decided to ask the obvious question. "You have ninja techniques now? Ma'am you really need to let your security detail know about these things."
"Why, Captain? Do you want to learn ninja techniques?" asked Taylor innocently.
"We WILL be having that conversation, Doctor." Captain Cavill let out a deep breath that somehow conveyed both a certain frustration and a degree of anticipation. "Sitrep, Jarvis?"
"Marine cordon of area is complete," said Jarvis, deciding that cat and bag were well separated at this point. "Protectron units 3 through 8 are responding."
"Just imagine if he'd gotten the real me," said Taylor.
"In that case 2B would have already have killed everyone involved and we would be hunting for Coil's base," stated Captain Cavill. "He only got this far because we wanted to verify identity and track down the base."
"2B, 9S, 2A are all on a mission," said Taylor. "Apparently that copy of the laptop had some things I wouldn't have left in there. Need to fix that problem. Jarvis?"
"I'm marking all of the entries and exits on your map," said Jarvis. "The ones in red contain explosive-laced hallways and should be avoided. Some of which ARE isolated from the network and will require manual disarming. Likewise, his personal escape tunnel has a number of traps in it. Those, however, are network-linked and disabled."
"Squad, we have a path of entry," said Captain Cavill, changing direction slightly and using an onboard system to indicate a particular exit. "Prepare to use the jump jets, on my mark."
Jarvis made a thoughtful noise. "Be aware that both Hebert parents are present and heading for the same entryway. I do believe they wish to discuss things with Mister Calvert."
* Base *
A blur of white labcoat and black hair came out of one door and dove through another.
Fully automatic gunfire followed as the mercenaries charged down the hallway, then Fletcher threw a grenade into the room for good measure.
There was a satisfying explosion as one would expect.
"You think that got her?" asked Fletcher.
"Maybe you ought to throw a couple more, just to be sure!"
Everyone's heads slowly pivoted to where a little girl's voice had come from. Which was not the room they'd just blown up.
Fletcher pulled out another grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it into this other room. Where it hit an invisible forcefield, briefly turning it visible, and bounced.
"Oh shit!" exclaimed more than one of the mercenaries before they all scrambled into the blown-up room in order to close the door.
"Woohoo!: called out a little girl's voice after the explosion. "Isn't this fun?"
"NO!" yelled back most of the mercenaries.
"Oh, that's right. Underground base in a coastal city? I bet you got really good pumps to keep it dry. Mind if I look at them?"
"YES!" yelled back most of the mercenaries.
Things went silent for a long period after that.
Fletcher cleared his throat. "You know, it's the quiet that REALLY worries me."
Jones checked the door, slowly easing it open, which was only helped when the hinges gave up the ghost and decided they were going to break down.
Jones spent a few moments with his head out the doorway. "Looks clear."
The main power went out. After thirty seconds the emergency lights kicked in.
"That there is right ominous," said Clements in the dim red lighting.
"Testing one two three," came from the overhead speakers. "This is Coil, your boss. Find the little girl, kill her, bring me the corpse and I'll pay two million dollars for the bounty."
The mercenaries all looked at each other for a few moments.
"Did he sound kind of desperate to you?" asked Fletcher.
"You think?" asked Jones.
"Dae ye think th' lassie is a parahuman or something?" asked MacDougall.
"Parahumans die of lead poisoning as easy as anyone else," pointed out Jones. "Or at least most of them do."
There was a cracking noise that seemed to emanate from one of the overhead pipes followed by a gurgling noise from that same pipe.
MacDougall cleared his throat. "Ah think th' wee lassie fun th' pumps keeping this steid fae filling wi' cooncil juice."
"Speak English, man!" said Fletcher, beginning to walk down the corridor. "Okay, here's the plan. We get out of here, head down there. Find her, put a bullet in her, split the money."
Clements nodded, following behind, his laser rifle held ready. "Simple. Good plan."
"Considering th' wee lassie is running rings aroond us 'n' is some kind o' cape, ah'ament sure this is aff tae wirk oot," said MacDougall. The aged Scot checked his beloved howdah pistol before lowering it to a ready position.
There was a brief crackle before
music started playing from the overhead speakers.
"That damn girl is playing with us," said Jones, glancing up at the loudspeaker sitting on the ceiling as he walked.
"Ya, because she be playing 'Yakety Sax', ya think?" asked Clements.
"Ah thought 'twas th' Benny Hill theme," grumbled MacDougall.
"The girl's ten, how does she even know the Benny Hill theme?" asked Spencer.
"Because her mother actually likes the program."
"Smith? Was that you?"
"Not," said Smith, who didn't like his own voice and tended to not speak very much as a result.
At which point there was a shimmer in the air and three of the most imposing power armor suits the mercenaries had ever seen were simply there, with two before them and one behind.
"Aw, shite," summed up MacDougall, carefully laying his howdah pistol on the ground. "Be canny wi' this, tis an antique 'n' worth a month's wages."
Jones, to every other mercenary's horror, tried to shoot one of the power armors. It did nothing.
Alas, the return fire did absolutely do something.
* Sergeant Adrienne Omondi *
Being posted to a city with literal Nazis who would kill and/or torture her without hesitation was bad.
Being able to kill any Nazi that would do that or worse to her as long as they started it, well, it was a bit more palatable.
She'd covered the sleeping little girl with a blanket on more than one occasion where that little kid had just run out of energy working on one project or another. She, like the rest of her squad, were taking the attempted kidnapping of their protected VIP very seriously.
Even personally. She was, for all intents and purposes, not just the VIP they were assigned to protecting. No, especially after seeing some of the tech she'd produced, she was THEIR little girl.
Breaking into the base, they'd seen the torture table. They'd detected old blood that hadn't been scrubbed away on various tools and surfaces.
No, the "space marine" squad were all and one in a cold fury.
Adrienne retracted a section of armor plating, took out another relay, then settled it into place at the junction of the hallway and another room. The armor snicked closed again, and the squad moved further.
"Four, make sure you get footage of the weapons."
"Done, One," Adrienne replied. It was difficult at times not to use the proper responses for a Marine but adaptability was another of the things the squad had been chosen for.
Seeing some text pop up on her Head's Up Display, Adrienne/Four relayed that. "Nest is secured. EOD has permanently disarmed last entry."
"Back to stealth mode," said One, the Captain making a gesture and then fading from view as the tech went to work.
There was a slight distortion in the air, but it was really only visible when they were moving. The more rapid the movement, the less effective their stealth mode worked.
"Heavy weapons ahead, ready to drop stealth and engage forcefields," said One.
The raspy voice of their Gunny and heavy weapons specialist chuckled. "They think they've got heavy weapons? Is it time for Bessy at last?"
"First we check to make sure they don't have any prisoners or the Asset," said One. "Five?"
The sensor officer settled into a crouch, put the little wheeled robot on the ground, and let it scurry forward and around the corner. A window opened on her HUD as the video was streamed.
"Bessy?" asked One.
"Bessy," confirmed Gunny/Three.
A moment later the space marine stepped around the corner, and a hand-held (as long as you were wearing sufficiently heavy power armor) 50 cal firing mixed explosive and incendiary rounds spoke briefly.
The fortified mercenary position in the next room found that argument quite compelling.
The four Marines of their six-person squad continued looking for individuals to let them have a very bad if brief day.
* Doctor Curlyhair *
She had four D-Rank jutsu, plus Academy taijutsu, plus she was in really damn good shape for a ten-year-old, plus the "Academy Three" (disguise self, substitution, and clone), plus she could put out three shadow clone copies of herself at any given point, plus her throwing skills, plus the tree-climbing and water-walking, and that didn't even include what she could do with the potions she'd snagged from the Witch House on the way.
When all of her clones had dismissed themselves, she'd made more - and these had her supplies copied as well.
So, apparently Mister Coil supervillain had expected a ten-year-old girl he could torture and had instead grabbed one of her clones. Who, being one of HER clones, had a tracker/transceiver on her person at all times.
"FREEZE RAY!"
Taylor ran past the icy statue that blinked at her after she passed it. She felt like laughing because this was so much fun!
"FREEZE RAY! FREEZE RAY! SHIELD WATCH! LIPGLOSS TASER!"
Yeah, she'd seen that movie from Earth Aleph had it had given her almost as many ideas as that Star Wars movie. Then she'd had a week of building things-that-looked-like-other-things because of a James Bond film. Q, played by that Desmond Llewelyn guy, had been her favorite for obvious reasons.
Though the "bacta tank" was going to be a lot more useful than her lipgloss taser. Hard to make the parts on that small enough. Maybe she ought to work with that Armsmaster guy, he was supposed to be really good at fitting things into small areas.
Oh, these mercenaries ought to look up once in awhile. It was in their own best interest to learn that lesson.
She was helpful that way.
"Web grenade!" called out Taylor as she threw the little invention from her stash.
Field testing under combat conditions was something that needed done after all.
Hmmm. She just got another technology base. Have to look at that later.
* Coil *
The door opened and he dove through, jamming his hand against the emergency close/lock command. Now he'd have to boot up his computer and enter a six-character password to unlock it. One inch thick steel door in a reinforced frame blocked anyone who might seek him harm. No little girl was going to come after him now!
"Now I just need to kill that little bitch," said Coil aloud to himself. "Flood the corridors with sarin gas, that should do it."
"What did you just call her?"
Thomas dove towards the table with his gun in the top drawer, even as he was reeling at the impossibility of someone being IN his secure room.
A weighted steel pipe smacked him in the extended arm with enough force that the entire arm seemed to be wrapped in pain. Followed immediately by a similar smack to the side of his head.
Whimpering slightly, Thomas Calvert looked up from where he'd landed on the floor. "You. You're Danny Hebert."
"Yes," said Danny Hebert, hefting the pipe in one hand and looking quite coldly furious.
Movement to the side showed someone else in the room.
Annette Hebert smiled, but it was not a nice smile at all. More a baring of teeth than anything else.
"Now, Coil," said Annette Hebert. "I think we need to have a chat."
"How, how did you get in? It's impossible, there's only that door," protested Thomas Calvert.
"Oh, and your secret escape passage," said Danny Hebert, looking as if he was ready to get very creative with that pipe.
"But..." began to protest Coil.
Annette Hebert shook her head. "No. Now, what did I hear you call my little girl?"
He started screaming, then pleading.
They didn't kill him, but they did turn him over to the Marine contingent afterwards. Fortunately two of them happened to be on hand, in their power armor in stealth mode. Just in case.
Oddly enough, Thomas Calvert never appeared in Brockton Bay again after that.
* Perks This Chapter *
20.0200 Deuyivan Construction (400CP) (Endless Space) (Knowledge Future Tech):
Gravity is a drag. Good thing you've learned quite a lot about anti-gravity. With this knowledge, you are capable of building ships, structures, even colonies capable of ignoring the pull of gravity. Want to set up a proper colony, not a bunch of orbital platforms, around a gas giant? No problem. Want to dip your toes into an event horizon? Now you can, for a little bit. Ignoring the majority of issues brought about by gravity is very, very important when it comes to space faring. If you don't believe me, well, you don't know shit about space travel.
FREE: Cosmic Strings - you know about the various shortcuts between star systems in your local group, allowing for FTL travel between the various stars in that home constellation. You still need the tech and manufacturing to build the ships needed for that sort of thing.
FREE: Model Import Mod - every faction has its own signature look. All your technology will have that signature appearance, chosen when this perk manifests.
