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Vespa

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The hornet "kilt" would probably more resemble a belt than a proper human-style kilt.
 
Cutiepie said:
The hornet "kilt" would probably more resemble a belt than a proper human-style kilt.
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A proper greatkilt really wouldn't resemble much anything other than itself, I'd think...

Bit of a bother to wear it correctly without obstructing the wings, but I don't think that'd be quite as impossible as with more modern clothes.
FaerieKnight79 said:
And again, how would it stay on without a waist to hold it up?
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With the kilt pin / brooch, belt and sporran hanger, obviously. Though wasps and hornets do kind of have a waist...
 
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I feel like we are in a "how would a dog wear pants" situation...
Assume the hornet is standing on 2 legs, apply kilt, return to normal standing position.
 
Now I see a big hornet in a kilt with bagpipes playing Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot. Damn you Ace Dreamer, you warned me too weakly.
And it seems that what I poured into the teapot was not green tea
 
STokun said:
Now I see a big hornet in a kilt with bagpipes playing Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot. Damn you Ace Dreamer, you warned me too weakly.
And it seems that what I poured into the teapot was not green tea
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You're Welcome. :)

I'll throw in a backing group of other musicians and singers, all drider, as well. :)

Your tea? I take no responsibility for that.
 
I gotta say, I love having posts where I'm trying to be humorous marked as "funny". For much of my life, I was accused of having no sense of humor; turns out, I'm just high-functioning autistic. Thank you for appreciating me!
 
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25. Vespa 25... The In-Flight Entertainment is getting weirder...
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    • A gift for Ed Becerra, to tide him over his upcoming surgery :)​

    About an hour and a half into the flight, Taylor came to a decision. This was the result of the two men sitting several rows behind their party, one on either side of the aircraft, both of them fairly non-descript, looking like a couple of business travelers but not anything special. Not much different from her dad, or the other union people, for that matter.

    One was about six feet tall, perhaps thirty or so, a slight beard but nothing as neat or impressive as Armsmaster's, hazel eyes, white, with dark blond hair. The other one was shorter, Hispanic-appearing, clean-shaven, with black hair and eyes. Neither one was particularly memorable in any way, and they were both apparently watching the in-flight movie on the displays set into the headrests of the seats in front of them.

    On the face of it, just normal travelers.

    However, she'd noticed them in the airport. They'd been hanging around the departures area when she and her dad had arrived, one on either side of the main entrance from the railway. The Hispanic guy had been reading a magazine while the other one was looking at his phone. As soon as they'd spotted Kyle, from what she'd seen, the pair had exchanged a quick glance. Again when they saw several of the others, including her dad. That was what had initially caught her interest, as while she'd noticed the previous behavior, it hadn't quite registered until then that there was something off about the two. Her initial suspicion had been increased by the way both of the men had waited until their group was in the queue to the check-in desk before casually wandering in that direction, joining the rear of it when a couple of dozen other passengers were between them and the union group.

    Neither had spoken to the other, and they'd not shown any real sign they knew each other, but Taylor was certain they did. And watching them intently. She hadn't alerted her dad yet, as there was no way to do it discreetly while in public and he didn't have the advantage of being able to keep the two under full observation while visibly not even looking in that direction. Unless they did something obviously important, for now she'd just watch. She might, after all, be mistaken.

    The two had checked in some minutes after their group had headed to the security area, and had dawdled along the way, enough to hang back sufficiently that without knowing they were there it wasn't likely anyone in their party would realize it. By the time she and the others were boarding, the two had only just entered the departure lounge, so they boarded some minutes after Taylor and her dad. They'd ended up in their seats while people were dealing with stuffing their bags into the overhead compartments and generally moving around, the pair doing likewise and not visibly paying any attention to anyone else other than the normal sort of looking around.

    Neither had a clue that she had several tiny spiders on them, and a few flies as well, all secreted where they wouldn't be noticed. There were more around them, peeping out of various crevices in the aircraft interior and completely still and unnoticeable.

    Her bugs had let her learn quite a lot about both men, of course. She'd got their names from the check in desk, the white guy being Robert Jones, the Hispanic one being Jason Hernandez. Mr Jones was thirty two, Mr Hernandez thirty four. Both had claimed to be traveling for business reasons to Los Angeles, neither had acknowledged the other at the check in, and they'd had one small checked bag each as well as a briefcase for the former and a carry on bag for the latter. Nothing had been flagged at the security desk either, but something else had happened there. Something that had raised Taylor's paranoia level several notches and ensured that she was paying strict attention to the two.

    Mr Hernandez had put his carry on back into the x-ray scanner on a tray, just as everyone else in line was doing with their belongings. It had disappeared into the machine, the obviously rather bored operator watching the monochrome screen as one translucent image after another went past, then emerged from the other side. Another security person had been pulling the trays out and sliding them down the roller conveyor thing towards where the passengers were reclaiming their items, a few of them being pulled aside for a quick pat down after the metal detector beeped. Apparently this was common enough that no one really got surprised, the passenger merely sighing and usually finding some keys or coins they'd forgotten in a pocket, or a belt buckle causing the alert. A quick wave of a hand held metal detector, possibly a few seconds patting down, and the security people waved them past.

    Mr Hernandez had tripped the alert, looked annoyed, fumbled in his pockets, and pulled out a dollar coin with a grimace. The security guy looked at it, shook his head, send him back through the detector arch, then waved him through without another glance, his attention on the next passenger. Nothing at all unusual, she was watching almost that exact scenario happen at every security lane in the entire airport over and over.

    However… At the same moment that Mr Hernandez had his brief delay, the security woman pulling the tray with his bag and jacket in out of the scanner misjudged her action and accidentally caught her sleeve on the tray side, causing it to pivot and slide sideways. The tray tipped, and the contents neatly fell over the side of the slanted roller chute. She swore and dived for the bag, almost vanishing under the counter, then emerged with it and dumped it back into the tray. One of her colleagues cracked a joke about her clumsiness and she looked a little embarrassed, but went back to work as the tray slid down onto the table at the end. Neither paid any more attention to it.

    Taylor did.

    Because it wasn't the same bag.

    It looked like the same bag, true enough. Same brand, color, size, label, and everything else. But the bag she had several bugs in was currently under the counter where the woman had dropped it, then kicked it to the side as she'd stood again. Very neatly done, like a magic trick, and without being able to see that side of the counter you'd have to really be watching carefully to even suspect something had happened.

    Of course Taylor could not only see that side of the counter, she could see everything, and had watched with interest as the swap was made like something out of a spy movie. Mr Hernandez retrieved his bag without changing expression, or looking even slightly like anything had happened. He didn't unzip it, he merely put his jacket back on and picked the bag up before walking off. But Taylor noticed he very subtly hefted the bag as if checking the weight and gave off an undefinable air of being satisfied.

    She'd already landed a couple of small flies on the thing, and a spider was there as well, since she'd seen the bag under the table earlier and been a little suspicious immediately, even if she wasn't sure quite what was going to happen with it. By the time the two men were on the plane, she'd got bugs inside the bag and was inspecting the contents, finding that rather to her lack of surprise there was a weapon in it.

    A small pistol, much of it apparently made of plastic, and a magazine with eight rounds in, the bullets of which seemed rather unusual. Slightly porous, in fact, which didn't fit any ammunition she'd ever seen before although she wasn't an expert at all. On the other hand she'd spent a lot of time watching the E88 and other similar criminals back and home, and indeed was still watching them and subtly fucking up their day where she could, and this stuff wasn't like anything any of them were carrying or had hidden away.

    At some point soon she was going to have to make sure that all those 'hidden' weapons caches came to the attention of someone less evil…

    The gun was in a pocket sewn into the lining of the bag, and she was sure that it probably would take a very careful search to find it, or an x-ray or metal detector. Mr Jones didn't seem to have acquired anything dangerous through dubious means in the airport, but his briefcase did have quite a lot of paperwork in it she was now quite interested in getting a look at.

    Their checked luggage she'd thoroughly searched via helpful spiders, finding more paperwork, clothes, three phones each, all turned off and all very cheap ones which strongly suggested they were disposable burners to her, and a number of credit cards or something like that. Her bugs were limited to what they could find out from inside the bags, unfortunately, there not being any light in there and having to do everything by feel.

    But… these guys were definitely up to something. She'd been fairly sure of that right from the beginning, but once one of them ended up armed, she was certain of it. Hijackers, possibly, it was definitely something that happened and had happened, hence the security in the first place, but if they were, they had inside help. At least one security guard had helped them, the woman in question having gone off duty once their flight and the next had been run through and there was a brief break in activity. She'd retrieved the bag from under the counter when none of her coworkers were watching, slipping it into a backpack she'd carried back to the office, and it was interesting that the camera overlooking the security area seemed to be out of operation too…

    Now she was in a staff cafeteria eating and looking at her phone, the picture of someone just having lunch between shifts.

    Taylor wasn't sure whether anyone else in the ground staff was involved but that woman damn sure was. Considering she was sending a message saying that a package had been delivered, at least one other person was out there somewhere. Once she'd done that and got a reply of one word, that being 'Understood,' she'd put her phone away and gone back to eating her chicken salad.

    Noting the number down, Taylor thought for a while. Hijackers seemed less and less likely. There didn't seem to be any immediate threat. She couldn't find, having checked and still being checking everything she could get access too with various bugs, any sort of bomb. Her little friends were very sensitive to things like explosive traces, it was something she'd experimented with by using the E88's weapons dumps, and none of them could detect anything of that nature. So the aircraft likely wasn't in direct danger. It was possible Mr Hernandez had some plan of storming the cockpit and demanding the plane fly to Cuba or something like out of an old movie, but he was way too calm and collected to make that seem particularly likely.

    At least in her opinion, and she could always be wrong, not being an expert in air piracy either. But she was pretty sure that these guys weren't intending to do anything on the plane. She thought that considering the interest they had in Kyle, her dad, and the others, it was something more subtle than that. They'd been waiting for her and the others, more accurately the others as she doubted they even knew who she was, to arrive. Which meant they had advance knowledge of their travel plans, which in turn meant that someone was keeping tabs on them for some reason, and that implied that whoever that was had an interest in a group of high level union representatives traveling across the country for a conference where they were probably going to find a lot of people who were quite opposed to them.

    People who had a lot of money, a lot of resources, very little in the way of ethical standards according to her dad and his stories, and probably a desire to not have some inconvenient union problems insert themselves into their wish for all the riches of the land.

    People, she guessed, who might well feel it a good idea to spy on those inconvenient union problems and get advance warning of what they were planning.

    She had no real proof that Mr Jones and Mr Hernandez were indeed paid for agents of whichever big and wealthy shipping company might indulge in such an activity, but she was pretty sure she was on the right track.

    Taylor wasn't particularly inclined to let this play out the way these people intended, though. Who knew what might happen? And luckily she had lots of options to interfere with whatever plot was in operation. Limited a little as she didn't want to give herself away, or endanger the aircraft and the people on it, including her dad. But those limitations could be worked around easily enough…

    The flight attendants were by this point going around dispensing snacks, and she accepted a teeny little can of Coke and some nuts with a smile of thanks, opening both and grazing on the latter between sips of the former, even as she began working. Down in the hold, which was cold and dark, lit only by some emergency lights, the spiders finished carefully checking the entire place for any sort of camera. It was completely free of such things, as she'd expected, and the crew were busy with their duties above and not likely to even notice anything as long as she didn't make too much noise. Considering how loud it was, she'd have to make a lot of noise so that wouldn't be hard to avoid.

    Picking a suitable spider, she made a level two connection to it, then used that to spawn her jumping drider form, which seemed like a sensible compromise between size and capabilities. The body in the hold started carefully unpacking the container full of luggage to retrieve the bags of the two men, noting how they were packed to put everything back in the same order just in case someone noticed. While upstairs in her seat, her human body was talking to her dad about LA and things to see there. And back in Brockton Bay another drider-form was in the warehouse making notes with her burner phone ready.

    Once she'd laid hands on both sets of luggage she spawned yet another body to take one of them while the first opened the other, and between them they thoroughly searched the bags. All the documentation was removed and read, the contents making Taylor certain she was on the right track. It consisted of quite comprehensive dossiers on every union member on the plane, including her dad.

    She wasn't particularly happy about this, it had to be said. Someone was definitely up to no good. In her warehouse, various details were written down, while she kept going through the two spies luggage. She found two different sets of identification for both men, neither of which matched the ones they'd used in the airport, although the photos and physical details were correct. There was also a surprising amount of cash, amounting to just under ten thousand dollars in each bag. And the credit cards were indeed credit cards, ones she recognized, as each was identical to the special card Tattletale had arranged from this Number man person she'd mentioned. Two of them for each man with different numbers on each.

    Interesting…

    Someone had a lot of money involved in this. The IDs looked real, as far as she could tell from her limited knowledge of such things, with holograms and UV ink her upgraded eyes could clearly see and everything else she thought was normal. It seemed likely that IDs of this quality weren't exactly cheap or easy to come into possession of. And she was somewhat doubtful that any of them were actually real, as in the sense of being accurate indicators of who those guys really were.

    'Huh,' she thought, turning one driving license over to look at the back with one body while the other was reading one of the dossiers with interest. 'I wonder who's behind this? They've got a lot of money, definitely. I need to find out more about these guys. And I have a really good idea how to do that…'

    In the warehouse, now well over a thousand miles away, a number was dialed on the burner phone.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Lisa twitched as her phone rang, nearly dropping the paintbrush she'd been wielding, since she hadn't been expecting the call. Mostly because the phone was brand new and she hadn't had a chance to give the number to anyone, even Brian and the others. Rather cautiously she put the brush down, then leaned over to pick the phone up. The number displayed on the screen was familiar.

    Half-sighing, half-amused, she tapped the icon and held the phone to her ear. "Hello, Vespa. How did you get this number, out of interest? I only bought this phone two hours ago!"

    "I have my ways," the slightly creepy but friendly voice of someone she still had very little clue about replied cheerfully. "Eldritch ways. Not for man to know."

    "I'm not a man…"

    "True." Vespa chuckled. "We'll just go with eldritch for now." Lisa looked up at the wasp that had flown into the room through the partly open window that she'd cracked to let the paint smell out, sighed, and shook her head. Vespa laughed again, pretty much confirming her guess. "I've got your first PI job for you."

    "I'm not even going to ask how you know I'm opening a PI business."

    "That's the spirit! Have you got a name for your business yet?"

    "No. I'll think of one though. What's the job?" She was feeling a touch worried.

    "Don't look so concerned, it should be easy and there's no risk to you at all. Just need some people dug into. Background data, anything you can find. I'm sure your… special talents… should be able to help you." Vespa sounded amused. Intrigued despite her reservations, Lisa moved to make sure the door was firmly closed, then put the phone on speaker and the desk respectively before picking up a rag to clean the last traces of light green paint from her fingers.

    "I'm listening. What do you need?" She whipped the dust sheets off her chair and the computer, which was running and ready. The internet connection had been installed the previous day and she had everything she needed, hopefully. Sitting down, she waited.

    "Two men. One going under the alias of Robert Jones, thirty two, six foot one inch tall, hazel eyes, dark blond hair, about one hundred forty six pounds, allegedly from Syracuse. Second under the alias of Jason Hernandez, thirty four, five foot nine inches, black eyes, black hair, about one hundred thirty pounds, claims to be from Phoenix. Boarded Pan Am flight eighty five to LAX from JFK airport at twelve twenty seven Eastern time today."

    "OK." She was making notes as the woman spoke. "Anything else?"

    "Yeah. Each of them has two different IDs, which look very official and if they're fakes they're really good fakes."

    Lisa paused in her note-taking, her eyes narrowing as she thought. "You sure?"

    "I'm not an expert on IDs but these look as real as anything I've ever seen. Holograms and everything. Robert Jones is also Gerald Samuels, thirty one, same physical data and photo but giving a home of New York, and Jeffery Anderson, thirty three, from Philadelphia. Again everything else the same. Jason Hernandez is also Harold Cortez, thirty six, from Miami, and Zachary Smith, thirty five, from Denver. Both matching the data for Mr Hernandez. I'm thinking that none of these are who they really are. They're also carrying nearly ten grand each. Mr Hernandez is armed, apparently due to having an inside person at JFK."

    Lisa stared at the phone, her rapid typing pausing, at the last sentence. "You're sure about that?"

    "Yeah. Completely sure. A white woman, about late twenties, five foot two, blonde hair and gray eyes, by the name of Alicia Connors, JFK security department. Swapped carry on bags at the x ray machine. When she got off duty she send a suspicious text to a number with no name attached to it, which seems to be confirmation of success." Vespa reeled off a phone number which Lisa noted down.

    "Shit. What the hell are you up to?"

    "It's a secret." Vespa's voice was humorous. "Nothing bad though. Kind of the opposite really. Perhaps this is nothing serious, it might even be something official, but I can't help feeling there's something weird going on."

    "Of course there's something weird going on, you're involved," Lisa muttered, resuming her keyboard work. "OK, I've got all that. It's going to take me a little while to find anything. An hour at least. Might be longer, but I'll see what I can come up with. I'll call you back when I find something."

    "I'll call you when you find something, don't worry."

    She glared at the phone. "Could you be more creepy?"

    "Oh, sure, I can be a lot creepier if you really want."

    Sighing, she replied, "Please don't. Let me work on this."

    "No problem. Thanks."

    The line went dead, Lisa shook her head in a combination of mild existential despair, reluctant amusement, and respect, before she got to work.

    The security woman wasn't hard to dig up information on, as her name appeared to be legit, and the photo she found matched the description Vespa had given her. Between her power and experience she was soon looking through the bank accounts of the woman, via a number of cutouts and redirections to prevent anyone tracing her admittedly currently illegal access. She was fairly certain that it would take someone like Dragon to actually breach her precautions and even the Tinker would need quite a lot of time and effort, not to mention having to be aware of her intrusion to begin with. Which didn't seem likely at the moment.

    Not finding any large and suspicious payments, which she'd half expected as it was a bit too obvious and convenient to be a thing outside a story, she dug further. A link from the first account led to a credit account, which in turn led to a dormant saving account in a different bank, which had a couple of payments made to a completely different person a year ago. She followed that trail, finding a whole new set of data which after a few minutes work and some power-inspired deductions took her to a mortgage provider, through which she found yet another saving account in a Canadian bank. That linked via an account in Bermuda back to a financial institution in Miami, and a trove of data including a photo of the same woman taken two years ago at an office building which she worked out was in San Francisco after a little effort.

    Looking into the company whose building it was opened up a whole new series of intriguing areas of investigation, many of which she noted down for future poking at, but the critical one was finally a transfer of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to an account in the Caymans which in the end was linked to Ms Alicia Connors through a debit card, which had been dispatched to her home address ten minutes after the time Vespa said the flight had left JFK.

    Lisa looked at all the open windows on her two huge monitors and smiled. "Got you at least," she muttered. "OK. Good start. You were definitely bought and paid for. What about those two guys?"

    Her head was lightly aching but she was having too much fun to really care, instead pausing to take a couple of ibuprofen and a sip of water to stave off the Thinker headache she'd eventually get. Long practice had let her know exactly where her limit was and she was nowhere near it yet. Calvert had pushed her far harder than ideal, and so often, that she seldom had time to completely overcome the debilitations of her power usage before it started up all over again. Now, though, she had time to rest between sessions, no gun at her head, and was doing something she wanted to do not something she was being forced to. It made a big difference and even her ability seemed to agree, weirdly enough.

    PI work, even that of somewhat iffy actions, agreed with her far more than being a Parahuman thief, she thought with a small grin as she worked. She could leverage her strengths without being shot at or at risk of falling off a dog monster eighty feet in the air…

    The two men proved much harder to trace, but she was able to crack the security of JFK's surveillance network with a little effort, and looking through the videos finally located two guys who fitted Vespa's description perfectly. They were walking through the departure area towards the gate for flight 85. Scrolling back and forward through the various camera views she found nice clear shots of both of their faces and saved those. Checking the information in the airport ticketing database, she located the tickets they'd used, then started following the trail of who had bought them and when. That took a good fifteen minutes, but she finally was able to show they'd been bought through a Manhattan travel agency with a credit card issued to a third party, which oddly enough was a subsidiary of that very same Miami financial company who were the source of the funds Connors had received.

    Lisa tapped her chin thoughtfully as she looked at her notes. She was uncovering quite the web of companies and people all linked to each other, but they all ended up one way or another being run, owned, or operated by World Wealth Management Incorporated. Which wasn't something she'd ever heard of before, and appeared to have virtually no presence on the internet, although it had when she finally located the information a truly huge valuation. And seemed to be connected to at least half the biggest shipping companies remaining on the planet, a lot of smaller ones, a number of oil companies including having close to a controlling interest in Exxon through several shell companies, and who the hell knew what else? Transport, defense, power generation, aerospace… The people behind WWM, Inc were into it all.

    "Huh," she said out loud, staring at the screen thoughtfully. "That is… worrying."

    Checking on what was going on in Los Angeles in the next few days, she studied the list, nodding when she saw there was a high end conference for shipping and transportation companies scheduled over the weekend, which had as a guest list the CEOs and other high ranking executives of basically every shipping company in North America, as well as a number from the EU and Australia. Even one from Brazil, which was pretty much run by their government these days. She also noticed that a number of US senators and several financiers were on the list too.

    Going back to the ticketing information from JFK, she scanned the list, her power highlighting various names. She looked up who these people were and wasn't entirely surprised to see they were representatives of almost every shipping and port union on the east coast. It only took a few more minutes work to find the arrivals information for flights landing at LAX in the next twenty four hours, which gave her representatives of the rest of the unions on the east coast and most of those on the west coast, including a couple from Canada. Apparently the ILA and the ILWU, representing the east and west coast port facilities and cities, were very interested in this conference too and had made sure they'd have a voice at it. Whether or not it was appreciated by the other attendees…

    She had a fairly good idea of what was going on. The issue was proving it. Finishing her water, she tossed the bottle into the garbage, them buckled down for some really serious Thinking.

    In the end it took her an hour and twenty minutes from the point she'd started, but she finally had two images in front of her, one on each monitor. She was almost entirely unsurprised that the moment she'd succeeded, her phone rang.

    Mildly pained but rather pleased with her own abilities, she picked it up and prodded the screen with her thumb. "Still creepy," she commented, grinning a little.

    "I do what I can because I must," Vespa chuckled. "Good work. That was incredibly impressive. I honestly wasn't sure you'd find it at all, never mind that fast. I owe you one."

    "I think friends can do favors for each other without counting a debt," Lisa replied. "I'd much rather have you as a friend than otherwise."

    "Thanks, and I agree, but even so, consider this a favor that will be repaid as and when necessary. You put in a lot of effort and it obviously isn't as easy as you made it look. Are you all right?"

    "I'm fine." Lisa waved off the concern which was apparent in the strange voice, although she was touched by it as it was clearly real. "I've had it a lot worse. My power is a pain like that. Literally, annoyingly."

    "Hmm. I might have to have a word with it…" Lisa stared at the phone for a moment, but decided in the end she wasn't going to ask. She wasn't sure she could handle the answer…

    "So," she instead said brightly, wishing to avoid thinking about all the ideas that had come to mind at the comment. "Your two bad guys are bad guys, all right. Vincent Nyquist, AKA Robert Jones, et cetera, former Air Force Intelligence, dishonorable discharge four years ago for accepting bribes for information on former service members. He was lucky not to end up in the slammer for ten years, but someone pulled strings and they just booted him out and blackballed him from ever working with any other government organization. And our other guy is Federico Ortiz, worked for the CIA as a field operative until he was caught doing some off the books work to supplement his income. Again, strings were pulled. Looks like the puller was the same people too, not surprisingly."

    "WWM, Inc."

    "Yep. Or at least someone high up in it. I'm still not quite certain who, but it's a c suite person definitely. A lot of money changed hands. And all the indications are that those two guys aren't it. Someone's put together their own little team of people with special skills. Looks like they've been doing it for quite a while too. I've found references already going back a good twenty years in some of these accounts, although they're moving things around a lot to hide that. Not enough to hide it from me, though."

    "Can you check something for me?"

    "Shoot."

    "See if any of these special people happened to be in Brockton Bay around, oh, April nineteen ninety five."

    Lisa only took a second to work out what that time period meant. "Specifically April nineteenth?" she queried, already working.

    "That would be it." Vespa sounded emotionlessly rather furious which was an interesting trick.

    A couple of minutes passed, then Lisa nodded slowly. "Well, look at that. A very familiar trail of payments to one Geoffrey Fields, AKA Michael Stevens, AKA Ben Chesterton. Real name Charles Young, former navy SEAL, dismissed for conduct unbecoming an officer. Hired by Galveston Investigations LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Detection International, Incorporated, whose majority backer is, you guessed it, WWM, Inc. How shocking." Her voice was very dry indeed.

    "How fascinating," Vespa replied a moment later, her own voice eerily neutral. "I believe I may have to look into this further. Thanks again."

    "My pleasure. Want me to keep digging?"

    "If you have the time, it would help."

    "I'll need a break to let the headache fade, and I have to get back to painting and getting this place set up properly, but I could have another look this evening or tomorrow morning if that would help."

    "Yeah, that's fine. If you can package all that up and email it to the address I'm texting you it would be a big help." Her phone pinged even before Vespa stopped speaking.

    "Easy enough. I'll get that to you in a few minutes."

    "Nice working with you, Tattletale."

    "And you. Always good to meet a fellow professional." Lisa grinned, hearing Vespa snort, then chuckle.

    "Professional what might be open to question. I'll talk later, and good luck with the painting. I like the color. Oh, you missed a spot near the door on the left, halfway up."

    Lisa looked, then sighed. "Please stop doing that."

    Another chuckle was followed by the line dropping. Putting her phone down, Lisa stretched, then got on with dumping all her data into an archive file along with her notes and suppositions, trying to clean it up from her stream of consciousness writing into something sensible, before emailing the entire thing to the address Vespa had sent her. Which was to a public free anonymous email service she was pretty sure wouldn't recognize the address very soon.

    The woman, whoever and whatever she was, took her privacy seriously. Lisa wasn't all that tempted to poke that particular mystery, for a number of reasons, one of them simply being gratitude. There were others.

    Having finished that, she got up, dug another bottle of water out of her small fridge, and having opened it, swallowed a third ibuprofen followed by half the bottle, before she put the dust sheet back over her desk and resumed painting.

    Fixing the spot she'd missed first, of course.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    In a currently unoccupied Metropolitan Transportation Authority office in New York, a distinctly non-human form logged into a public email service and downloaded a large file onto a USB stick. Once that was done, the email account was deleted. The stick accompanied the figure which changed into a much smaller one with more legs as it vanished into the air ducts, the computer having been shut down again.

    A few minutes later in another similarly unoccupied office over a mile away, this one belonging to a local minor Parahuman-led car theft gang with a single low-level Blaster as their muscle, the stick was inserted into a USB port. The file was uploaded to a different email account created on the spot. Once that was done, and the stick removed, the contents of the machine including a full list of gang members, outstanding crimes, and locations used with full details of any traps or alarms, was emailed with yet another account to both the NYPD and the New York PRT office. Following that the hard drive of the machine was removed, taking with it any forensic traces of the most recent access. The stick, drive, and the bearer of same vanished once again into a narrow access route leading to a cable duct far underground, paralleling one of the subway lines.

    Approximately two hours later the gang was severely startled to find themselves utterly inundated with cops and PRT troopers, along with half a dozen of the New York Protectorate. By then of course the person who had been responsible for it was long gone.

    Although, also still present. In ways that would have given absolutely everyone involved nightmares if they'd had the faintest idea of the truth.

    They couldn't handle the truth.

    Luckily they didn't need to.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    On board Flight Eighty Five to LAX, Taylor had a number of things to think about. Lisa had come through magnificently, finding in less than two hours information it would probably have taken almost anyone else days to weeks to locate assuming they even could. The blonde was very good at this sort of thing.

    Glancing at her dad, who was currently reading some notes Kyle had passed back over the seat, he and a couple of the others being directly in front of them, she debated mentioning some of what she'd learned to him. It only took a moment to reject that idea. There were too many other ears around them and the risk of someone overhearing was much too high. She could tell him later in the hotel. Right now, she had work to finish.

    Down in the hold she was carefully repacking the bags, minus the dossiers and the Number man cards. Those got transferred to her own bag which she'd retrieved from another pallet, then she replaced it in the same location, before doing the same with the two men's bags. Once she was finished refastening all the things she'd opened, there wasn't a trace of any interference as far as she could tell. It was unlikely that anyone would be able to work out that someone had accessed the bags in flight, although the two men would undoubtedly work it out when they found the paperwork missing. But they'd have other things to worry about soon enough.

    And even if someone did work out what had happened, they'd find working out who did it impossible, she thought with satisfaction. Who could have messed with the bags in the hold of an aircraft at thirty four thousand feet and six hundred miles an hour? Perhaps a teleporting cape, sure, but none of the passengers, since none of them had access to the hold and the flight crew would undoubtedly swear up and down that every passenger had been accounted for the entire time. Which was, after all, true. Just not complete…

    No one was going to suspect her of being involved, that much she was pretty damn sure.

    Satisfied that she'd done all she could here, she dismissed the two drider forms, which shrank back into a pair of somewhat larger than original spiders, both of them immediately disappearing into the woodwork so to speak. Seconds later the hold was still and apparently no different, only the muted roar from the engines filling the darkness.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    "Gary, you need to see this," said a voice from the next desk. Gary Drew, FBI special agent from the New York Branch, looked around, then stood up and moved to stand behind his colleague Sue Lake, who was staring at her computer monitor.

    "What is it?" he asked, as he leaned over her shoulder, one hand on the back of her chair, to peer at the screen. It was showing an email with several attachments. She clicked on the main window, bringing it to the top of the opened documents, then moved slightly of the way so he could read it. Which he did, then again.

    "Holy shit. Is this real?" he queried, trying to recall where he'd heard the name Vincent Nyquist before.

    "Pretty sure it is, yeah. There's a lot of supporting data here. Look, bank account transfers, several fake IDs, which by the way are better than our fake covers, data on this Alicia Collins person. I've checked some of it already and it all holds up so far."

    "Fuck. So we've got two men who are definitely not who they're claiming to be on a commercial flight, one of them armed, with the collusion of a compromised security agent at JFK?"

    "Looks like it. No indications of a bomb or anything, and that sure doesn't match the fingerprint of your typical hijacking, but I can't see it being good."

    "Might be another agency running an operation?"

    He was doubtful, but it had happened. Some of the security agencies the federal government had were a law unto themselves at the best of times. The PRT being the obvious example but there were a lot of others.

    "Not that I've been able to find. I checked with a couple of contacts in the DOD and no one claims to be doing anything out of JFK right now. Might be covering it up of course, but they sounded confused more than secretive. No 'cannot confirm or deny,' just 'not to our knowledge. Let us know what you find.' Which sounds a lot like they're probably being truthful to me. For once."

    "Yeah. Damn it." He tapped his fingers on the back of her chair as she brought up one of the other documents and both of them scanned it. "All right. First thing is to get our hands on these assholes. We can find out what they're up to when they don't have… hmm, two hundred and sixty two potential hostages." As the senior agent in charge, it was his job to deal with all the things they'd need to do now. "Where's that plane right now?"

    Sue clicked a couple of icons, bringing up flight tracking data, replying after a few seconds, "Just entering Colorado. A bit over halfway to LAX."

    "They could divert to Denver without any issue then, it's practically on the flight path. I need to make some calls. Check the rest of that data, see if it holds up." She nodded as he went back to his desk and picked up the phone after looking through his directory for the number he wanted. Shortly he was talking to his superior, and after that to the FBI office in Denver. Once he'd arranged everything, he called the security facility at JFK.

    He didn't know what was going on, but you couldn't be too careful especially these days, memories of some unpleasant past incidents all too fresh in his mind. And, he thought as he waited for the person on the other end to put him through to the correct individual, an airliner at thirty thousand feet was no place for someone with a handgun. Definitely not someone who had got there through highly dubious means.

    "Hello, Rob. Yeah, been a while. Listen, we've got a problem..."

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    Taylor watched as the first officer talked into his headset, sounding surprised at first, then shocked, then rather upset. "You're sure about that?" he asked.

    "I see. Hold on, let me talk to the captain."

    He turned to the man in the left seat, who was now looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Possible hijacker on board. Got a gun, definitely. Switched bags at JFK, apparently."

    "How the hell did that happen?" the rather older man demanded.

    "Compromised security agent at the scanner. They've already grabbed her, she admitted it."

    "Fuck." The captain was already looking at his documentation while the autopilot flew the aircraft. "Denver is our best alternate. I guess they want us down asap?"

    "Yep. Said Denver too, they've got the FBI on the way. Clearance is being approved right now."

    Nodding, the captain clicked his talk switch having fiddled with the radio and was soon talking to Denver ATC. Moments later he started making notes, the first officer listening and doing the same. Once the conversation was over they compared notes, discussed their change of flight plan for a little while, then the captain carefully changed some settings on the autopilot. As the aircraft began a slight turn to the south, he flicked a switch on his yoke.

    In the cabin everyone looked up as the seat-belt signs came on with a muted bong, then a moment later a calm voice announced, "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. I'm very sorry to say this but a minor technical malfunction with an engine has been flagged up here in the cockpit. Don't worry, it's nothing serious, we're not in any danger, but we're going to have to shut that engine down out of an abundance of caution." Even as he spoke the first officer toggled the engine shutdown switch for number three engine, which changed pitch quite audibly making everyone in the plane look towards the right side, many nervously.

    "That sound is normal," he added soothingly. "Everything is under control, so please just relax and remain seated. We're talking to air traffic control and requesting a diversion to Denver International, which is the closest airport rated for an aircraft of our size. Once we get clearance, we will descend and prepare for landing. Unfortunately we'll have to deplane to allow the engineering team on the ground to investigate the problem, and with luck they'll sort it out quickly and we can be on our way soon. Worst case we would have to arrange another flight, but initial indications are that probably won't be necessary. As I said, we're in no danger, but regulations state that while we can fly completely safely on the remaining engines, we have to land as soon as possible. Luckily we're only three hundred miles from a large airport so we can do that very easily. On behalf of Pan Am, once again I apologize for the inconvenience and would like to assure you we'll have you all on your way as soon as we possibly can."

    Taylor admired the completely professional and even tone of voice, which was quite different from how he was now sounding somewhat irritated while discussing the situation with his first officer and two of the senior cabin crew. None of them looked entirely happy about things. One of the cabin crew was looking through a passenger manifest as the first officer showed her his notes, quickly finding the names and seat positions of the two guys behind Taylor. She pointed them out, the crew discussing their options, finally deciding that the safest thing was to keep an unobtrusive eye on the pair but not do anything overt until they landed.

    It seemed sensible to Taylor, as while both the men back there were currently calm, merely looking like everyone else a combination of puzzled and somewhat annoyed by the delay now, there was no telling how they'd react if someone tried to do something about them.

    They felt the aircraft start to pitch down very slightly, Taylor looking out the window to see all the flaps and things on the wings moving. It was definitely descending now, she could easily see, just from the attitude although she was also watching all the flight instruments with great interest as she'd been doing the whole time. The aircraft was amazingly complex and she was mildly awed that anyone could learn to fly it and remember what all the controls and switches did without even needing powers to help. A lot of training was involved, she was sure of that.

    The captain came back on the intercom a little later. "We have received clearance to land at Denver and as I expect you've noticed, we're turning and descending. We expect to be landing in approximately twelve minutes. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a halt, with your seat-belts on, and once again I apologize for the delay to your journey. We will do our best to get everyone on their way again very soon."

    The cabin crew were already moving through the aircraft checking everyone had their belts on, their seats upright, and all their belongings stowed. Most of the passengers complied without fuss, some of them still appearing nervous and glancing out the windows, and Taylor could see a number of white-knuckled grips on armrests. She tucked her book into the pocket of the seat in front and checked on her dad, who smiled at her having already put his own notes away in the same manner.

    "It'll be fine, Taylor. This sort of thing happens sometimes but it's just routine."

    "Don't worry, Dad, I'm sure it'll work out all right," she assured him with a slight wink. He gave her an intent look, then sighed very faintly and put his head back on the headrest.

    "Oh, lord," he mumbled so quietly no one else but her could have heard. "What did you do?"

    "Nothing," she replied as quietly. "Not much, anyway. I just told someone something they needed to know."

    Fixing her with a mild glare, he just sighed again, as she smiled slightly before looking out the window at the control surfaces doing their thing. The flight attendant who passed a moment later looked them over, nodded, and turned to do the same thing to the middle row of seats, while opposite her another member of the crew was doing likewise down the other aisle. Neither paused at either of the two men who had sparked this entire situation, they just went all the way to the back, then returned. By the time they disappeared into the first class section the ground was close enough that Taylor could easily see cars on the roads, although it was still somewhat out of range of her power. Ahead of them she could see Denver on the horizon through the cockpit window.

    The plane kept sliding down through the air, the engine note changing noticeably as power was reduced, until her ability made contact with ground based creatures. She'd been sensing a surprisingly large number of very small insects and spiders in the air from quite a high altitude, the spiders all suspended on invisibly thin threads of silk. Most people, she reflected, would be very surprised to know that you could find spiders at fifteen thousand feet just moving from place to place, but it was a thing.

    A few miles from the end of the runway she sensed something that made her internally look startled, then think hard and rapidly. 'Huh… I did not expect that,' she mused with considerable surprise. Coming to a decision before what she was sensing got out of range in a second or two, she created a level two link to a suitable spider close to what she was seeing, upgrading it to a crab-spider, which dropped a few feet and landed on the surface underneath it before dashing for cover. That done, she went back to watching the landing from many different viewpoints.

    It went smoothly, barely a bump as the huge aircraft touched down, brakes coming on and reverse thrust engaging after a couple of seconds. The engines roared more loudly and the plane slowed rapidly, causing everyone to feel g force pushing them forward for a few seconds. That ended and the aircraft taxied towards the terminal building.

    Taylor dropped a few more crab-spiders around the area as long as she was here, and had done a couple outside Denver in suitably discreet places along the flight path. Not for any particular reason, but while the opportunity to get a link to the local ecosystem and find interesting new creatures was there, it seemed sensible to grab it.

    When the aircraft came to a halt, the captain came back on the intercom again. "Welcome to Denver, everyone. With a little luck we should be on our way again quite soon. Please remain seated until the cabin crew indicates you can get up. It won't be long, we're just waiting for the gangway to be connected. That won't take more than a few minutes so if you can be patient everyone will have a much easier time." He issued a few instructions to the cabin crew then the intercom clicked off.

    A couple of people had started to rise, but their seat mates urged them to sit down again. In the first class area at the front a voice was expressing annoyance at some volume, complaining that considering how much the man in question had paid for a flight to Los Angeles, he found this delay intolerable. The flight attendant who was being harangued merely looked neutral and did her best to calm him down, until his wife grabbed him by the arm and started whispering harshly to him which seemed to finally do the trick. Aside from that, the passengers were surprisingly controlled, no one else going off for any reason although Taylor could hear a few quiet grumbles here and there. Which wasn't surprising all things considered.

    Clunks came through the structure as the external passenger gangway was moved into position and pressed against the side of the aircraft, the door already open and the senior flight attendant half leaning out, while speaking to the man doing the job. After a moment she nodded and went into the cockpit. Shortly after that the captain announced that deplaning would now take place, starting at the front and working towards the back, while asking for everyone not to push as there was no rush.

    She was somewhat amused by how before he'd got three words into the announcement at least half the passengers had leaped to their feet and were rummaging in the overhead compartments. Looking at her dad she saw him roll his eyes and smile. "Never changes," he commented. "No matter how much you tell people to calm down and wait, they instantly want to get the best position in the queue. Which is stupid because no one's going anywhere until everyone in front of them gets out of the way. Just sit here until the crowd thins out a bit and it's a lot easier."

    It was good advice and she nodded, relaxing in the seat as were all the other people who hadn't got up and clearly worked on the same basis. Mostly seasoned travelers she assumed. It included both the men she was keeping many, many eyes on from every direction. The standing people slowly shuffled forwards, a couple of arguments breaking out here and there as personal space got infringed, but overall it went fairly smoothly. When most of the passengers had left her dad nodded and both of them got up, joining the rest of their party who had waited patiently too. The men who were the cause of all this, although hopefully not realizing it, got up and joined the rear of the queue, only a few passengers behind them bringing up the rear. She could easily see that two of the male flight attendants were watching from their positions in either aisle although they were being fairly subtle about it.

    At the exit the senior attendant smiled to her, as she smiled back. "Sorry about all this, we should be on our way again fairly soon," she said, having been repeating this to everyone who walked past. Nodding, Taylor followed her dad and the others, several airport staff directing them into towards an arrival area. People were milling around, asking questions of each other and any staff member they could buttonhole long enough, while those staff were patiently answering to the best of their ability. Moving off to one side Taylor and her dad and the others grouped together. Kyle looked around, then at his watch. "Hope this doesn't take too long," he commented, not sounding particularly upset. "We've got time, it's only about two and a half hours from here to LAX, and we can check in any time, but I'd prefer to be in a hotel than spend the night here."

    "Yeah, it's not the most comfortable place on the planet," Liz put in, chuckling. "Mind you I've spent the night in much worse places."

    "I doubt they'll leave us here all night," Taylor's dad remarked with a small smile. "Probably put us up in a local hotel if it came to that. More likely they'd arrange a new plane like the pilot said."

    "Hopefully they can fix the engine and we'll be out of here in an hour or so," William added. "I didn't hear anything seriously wrong with it, there wasn't any smoke or anything, so it might just be something simple to sort out. They're going to have to check the whole system though to be sure even if it's just a blown fuse so we're definitely not going anywhere for the next hour." He shrugged as everyone looked at him. "My son is an airline pilot for KLM. He's told me an awful lot about all the regulations. They've got at least as many as we do. For good reasons."

    Everyone nodded. Union people like these tended to be very well aware of safety regulations, Taylor knew from her dad's own discussions on the subject over the years. They were there for a reason, after all. Normally one where people had found out the hard way…

    She was monitoring everyone in the airport and surrounding area, of course, and had been watching a group of people in suits who were definitely not passengers or airport staff lurking around in a corridor just off the arrivals area, talking to the airport security chief. One was peering through a mirrored window into the room she and the others were in, while talking on his phone, another one next to him doing the same and comparing images on a tablet he was holding with faces. "Yeah, we see them," telephone guy was saying. In New York she was listening to the other end of the conversation with Special Agent Drew, who was sitting with several other people in a conference room in the FBI building. "Ortiz is looking a little suspicious. Nyquist is checking his phone. Both have carry on bags, but there's no sign of a weapon yet."

    "Can you grab them without letting them see you coming?" Drew asked.

    "No problem," the Denver FBI guy replied confidently. Turning to the security chief, he said, "We need to get the passengers moving. Our guys seem to be hanging back, so they'll probably be near the last out."

    "Sure, we'll tell them we need them to go through to a gate area to clear this one," the other man said, nodding. He raised his radio to his mouth and had a short conversation. A moment after he'd finished a Pan Am-liveried man came into the room and held up his hands, waving them slightly to attract attention.

    "Everyone? Can I have your attention, please?" Slowly the chatter in the room died down as everyone present turned to look at him. "Thank you. My apologies on behalf of Pan Am for this inconvenience to your travel plans. We hope it's a minor hiccup and we should be able to give you a more precise idea of how long you'll be here very shortly. Our engineers are already investigating the technical issue and as soon as we know the extent of the fault and how long it will take to sort it out we'll pass that on. But for now, we'd appreciate it if you'd follow me to another area. We'd like to move you through here to an empty departure gate, where you can sit down, and so we can clear the arrival zone for other passengers. Refreshments will be supplied if anyone would like a bite to eat and a drink."

    The chattering started again, as he waved them forward to the corridor he'd emerged from. No one seemed to be too upset although as usual a few people were grumbling, but the mention of food and drink seemed to have done the trick. He stood to one side and pointed as the first passengers reached him. "Just through here and down the corridor to the right, there, please. It's only about a minute's walk."

    Soon a steady stream of people were exiting the area, in a fairly orderly fashion. Taylor's group joined the throng as the room emptied out, their tails waiting for a few more seconds then doing the same near the back. Neither had acknowledged the other the entire time, which was pretty good conduct, she thought as she watched. These guys knew what they were doing.

    "They're on the move," the Denver FBI man said to Agent Drew as his own group hastened through several staff-only doors, taking a circuitous route around to come into the corridor behind the last of the passengers and aircraft flight crew from the other direction. "In position," he said when four of the agents were in the back of the crowd, he himself just out of sight around a corner but watching the tablet his colleague was holding up, which had a feed from the airport CCTV on it.

    "Grab them," Drew ordered.

    The man nodded and tapped his earpiece, all four agents moving a little faster but not so much so that it looked out of place. Neither suspect seemed to notice until the last moment, Ortiz suddenly looking over his shoulder as something alerted him, then moving his hand towards the bag he had over his shoulder in a rather casual but fairly urgent manner.

    It was too late, though, because one of the FBI men grabbed his wrist, the other one dashing forward and seizing his other arm even as he pulled back in reflex. Nyquist was snagged before he had a chance to do anything other than look surprised.

    "What the hell?" he shouted.

    "FBI, Special Agent in charge John Gale," the man who'd been coordinating the whole thing announced as he strode over, pulling a badge out of his pocket and holding it up. "Federico Ortiz, Vincent Nyquist, you are both under arrest."

    Both of the pair looked shocked for a very brief moment before their faces went back to a professional blankness, but Taylor could easily see they were thrown off balance by their real names being spoken. Agent Gale could obviously see the same thing based on his slight smirk. "Oh, yes, we know who you are."

    "What charges?" Ortiz demanded. "I've done nothing illegal. You can't prove anything."

    Gale yanked his bag out of his grasp with gloved hands, opened it, and went right for the hidden compartment. Pulling out the gun he looked at it as Ortiz suddenly paled. "Not entirely sure I agree with you there," he commented. "Nice gun. Very specialist gear. I wonder how you got it on the plane?" Popping out the magazine with a moment's inspection, he looked at the round visible on top and raised his eyebrows. "Frangible rounds. Haven't seen a lot of those around. Just what you want for shooting someone on a plane, hmm? I think we are going to have quite a lot to talk about. New York wants a serious word too."

    At this point both men looked at each other, apparently not really sure how they were going to get out of this. "Let's go somewhere nice and quiet and find out just what's up, shall we?" Gale invited, handing the weapon to one of his colleagues who slipped it into an evidence bag, the magazine going into another one. One of the other agents had been videoing the entire encounter and made particular care to make sure this process was documented. Ortiz's entire bag went into a cardboard box that was sealed on the spot, as did the one Nyquist was holding in somewhat numb hands. "Come on." He walked off, the other FBI people having handcuffed both apprehendees pushing them forward. The airport security man went with them, all of them going through a staff-only door.

    Taylor, who had been close enough that it wasn't unexpected for her to hold back to watch, looked at her dad who was staring after the whole group. He slowly turned to look at her. "How?" he asked very softly.

    They resumed walking as did the fairly small number of passengers who'd been close enough to notice what happened, the bulk of them having already disappeared around the next corner before the two men had been arrested. "I'll tell you later, Dad," she whispered, grinning at him for a moment. He shook his head a little but didn't ask any more questions, although she could see from the look in his eyes he certainly had them. Lots of them.

    Hopefully he'd be pleased with the answers, and all the things Lisa had found out. It was probably going to be quite useful very soon, she thought.

    Just under two hours later, they were all back on board an aircraft that had been thoroughly checked over by both the FBI and the airport security teams, the two men's luggage having been removed very shortly after they'd been arrested. Both were still being uncooperative but the amount of data she'd passed on from Lisa's work seemed to be making them extremely worried. The FBI agents were very well aware of that, and appeared to be fairly certain they were going to crack sooner or later. So that was well in hand. She'd keep watching, mostly out of interest, but the pair were no longer her problem.

    And no one had the faintest idea who had kicked all this off. They'd likely be wondering that for a long time…

    Amused, she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, feeling that the flight had been more entertaining than she'd expected so far. Soon they'd be in LA and it would be interesting to see what the end result of her information might turn out to be when she gave it to her dad. His reaction was likely to be rather educational, she suspected.

    Far, far behind and below her, the crab-spider that was clinging to the undercarriage of an old van doing seventy along the interstate, having left Colorado some time ago, was watching everything happening in a mile and a half sphere around it. And she was learning some more rather interesting things, while working out what her next move with that little issue might have to be.

    Never a dull moment, these days, she thought with satisfaction. It was nice to have hobbies.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Ace Dreamer said:
    Doesn't Taylor have a Vespa account in this story? I thought I recalled her drawing money from it, to help pay to set-up her 'lair', while insects 'just happened' to block the cameras?
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    I remember that too. Lisa set it up for her with her share of Coil's money.

    Edit: I posted and the page updated to show the chapter, which mentioned the account.😏
     
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    Hmm.
    Looks like Taylor and Lisa have found the evidence for who blocked the Bay. That's definitely going to shake things up.


    And I think Taylor probably found the Nine in passing.
    Which ... would make this one of the only MP.PI Taylors to actually be the one to encounter and deal with the Nine herself, as opposed to third parties dealing with them long before their paths cross with Taylor's.
     
    mp3.1415player said:
    Far, far behind and below her, the crab-spider that was clinging to the undercarriage of an old van doing seventy along the interstate, having left Colorado some time ago, was watching everything happening in a mile and a half sphere around it. And she was learning some more rather interesting things, while working out what her next move with that little issue might have to be.

    Never a dull moment, these days, she thought with satisfaction. It was nice to have hobbies.
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    Probably the Nine, possibly the Travelers. But I think the Nine is more likely, and specifically Manton's van.
     
    mp3.1415player said:
    Far, far behind and below her, the crab-spider that was clinging to the undercarriage of an old van doing seventy along the interstate, having left Colorado some time ago, was watching everything happening in a mile and a half sphere around it. And she was learning some more rather interesting things, while working out what her next move with that little issue might have to be.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I think that might be the Nine's Van, I wonder how she'll mess with them
     
    Removing the dossiers from those suitcases will probably be nonbeneficial, but Taylor not anticipating the FBI acting that quickly isn't unreasonable. And if that van is connected to the S9... well, she can always cut the fuel lines so it runs out of gas somewhere isolated.
     
    Numberman may have bit off more than he can chew this time.

    Contessa: Path to avoiding the IRS
    PTV: There is no path

    I wonder if couldron have tried reporting Scion to the IRS, since I doubt he pays taxes.
     
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