I'm just about to start eating dinner when an alert pops up on my phone. It's my tracking software compiling an automatic report for me. Taylor Hebert just got done with school with perfect attendance for the day. Huh. I could've sworn we killed her last night. Let's trawl through the data, make sure it isn't flinging me a false positive. My tracking software operates by trawling social media sites and any available data feed, collates it all, and gives me something to work with. This information was gained through a combination of teacher entered attendance records, and school security footage. And she is present, no doubt about that.
"Apollo! I thought you said there weren't any survivors in that explosion!"
"I said there weren't any human survivors Tech Support. If she's still alive and kicking she's either not human anymore, or she wasn't there to begin with. You know how literal my power is. And either one of those gives us valuable information."
"Well that may be, but that's a right fine mess we've made though. If she wasn't on alert before, she definitely is now. Go tell the goon squad we're not done here, I'm going to do some more in depth research on our target." He leaves the hotel room slightly miffed. Petulance doesn't really look good in a suit, but all fresh triggers need their egos pricked sooner or later.
Let's see, looking through her school records... She recently transfered in from Arcadia. Hmm, school transfers are standard practice for fresh Wards, but there aren't any of those in this town. School records in Winslow depict her as a serial delinquent, not unexpected. Social media depicts... a concerted bullying campaign that mostly succeeded in driving her off social media.
I'm sorry, what the fuck? Said campaign was orchestrated by the queen bees of the school. And the recently unmasked Ward that had her home firebombed by the Nazis. Said firebombing coincided suspiciously closely with Taylor's transfer. Looks like the only reason she wasn't prosecuted for all this was how phenomenally bad it would have made the PRT look if it ever went to court. Like wow, I'm actually kind of impressed at the balls it takes to just brazenly walk out and about after all that. Good thing we're not planning to take this to court then, isn't it?
Looking at the data it looks like we made a few bad assumptions regarding the timeline. I seem to have found a video of her trigger event. We previously assumed she had her trigger event in the confrontation with Anthony, but it seems she had a bit more experience with her power than that. She wasn't at her place because of a confrontation with the Nazis of all people. Figured they would've gotten along like a house on fire considering what they did to the girl who triggered her. And then there was the fatal mistake Randy made with the local mercenaries. Silly of him not to lean on family connections in the first place, but I'm not blaming him after what happened with Grandma.
Diving into what happened the day of my Brother's death, it seems the timeline was a little bit more impressive than I thought it was. Almost immediately after the Taylor girl ripped through downtown at speeds that should've seen every single window on her route shattered at the least. I only figured this out because my data mining programs found an anomaly with peoples clothes getting ruffles by the wind all the way down main street. I didn't even know for sure it was her until a couple seconds of footage caught her on top of the house walls scouting. Mental.
From the direction she was going, and came from, the Undersider's base of operations is somewhere in the docks district of town. Unfortunately the camera coverage over there isn't nearly enough to pinpoint their location. Apparently that, and other large sections of the city are in massive disrepair. That and the ABB have apparently made it a habit to wreck any cameras in their slice of town whenever they find them. Annoying. I guess that means I'll have to deal with the possibility of Lung, or the serial suicide bomber interrupting this operation. Good thing I'm a backline kinda guy.
Moving on with my research, I look over to the only altercation there's any footage of. The Boardwalk robbery. She wasn't moving nearly as fast here than she otherwise would have. Probably getting used to her powers then, and not at all angry enough to use it to her full potential. And the guards managed to shock her with their handheld tasers. Good to know. Getting the PRT reports are easy enough as well. They have her as a brute/breaker four plus, mover four plus, and striker five plus. That mover rating should be a six or seven from what I gathered, and that striker rating was a complete surprise to me. Good to know what I need to plan around. I take out my phone.
"Vinny! The hit didn't go as planned. I need Horrorshock, a brute immune to electricity, and three more squads of guys." He makes confused noises at me.
"No, that was a Transformers character. Hasbro actually sent us a letter about that. No, I'm talking about our electricity tinker. You know, the Russian?" More confused noises.
"Cause it's the only thing fast enough to tag her, and she's already shown a weakness to it. Look, can you get it done or not?" Affirmative noises.
"Excellent. I'll meet them tomorrow at the airport." I hang up. Honestly, he should be glad I'm going through him at all.
"Holy shit, you know how much of a pain in the ass the mercs were when I gave them the bad news?" As Apollo opens the door again.
"Quite a bit less than I care about. Now. Question time."
"Oh, son of a bitch, do we have to? The idiot grunts already gave me a headache."
"Of course we have to! I'm not letting that bitch slip through my fingers again! First question. How many of the Undersiders survive against the team I'm building in a straight fight?"
"Only Grue survives in a straight fight. What a waste of a question. This is a getaway crew, you think they're going to fight fair?"
"True, but I'm not planning on fighting fair either. Next question. What are the chances the Undersiders come after us if we kidnap Taylor's dad?"
"Forty two percent." I raise my eyebrows.
"Wow, what a cold-hearted bitch."
"Could be team dynamics. They already stuck their necks out over your brother."
"Maybe. What are the chances the Undersiders come after us if we kidnap one of them."
"I can't answer that. It's too similar to the other question." I grunt in annoyance.
"What are the chances our people run into significant trouble from the locals, other than the Undersiders, if we're careful in our search for them."
"Fifty percent."
"...Yeah, I'll take those odds. Send out the boys while we're waiting for our team to assemble. Never hurts to have more information on our targets."
AN: And just so you guys know, Taylor's blank power is fully functioning against this guy
Powers gained this chapter
Inexhaustible QE Comm Link (Eclipse Phase) (100CP)
Two fingernail-sized Quantum Entanglement communication arrays. If each is installed in a separate device, those two devices can communicate instantaneously no matter the distance. Unlike standard QE comms in the setting, the qubits are not expended when information is transmitted. It has the bandwidth of a high-speed fibre optic connection.
