I woke early, well before dawn, set my insects to their day's work. I hurt just as much as yesterday — more, if anything — but it didn't hold me down the same way.
Yesterday was past.
Today?
Today, I had work to do.
I looked at my costume — the armor was still intact, but the lens was still cracked. I pulled it on anyway. I'd have to fix that tomorrow. And get spares: no point getting caught out this way again. Actually, I could stand to stock a lot of other things: food, water, crafting supplies, defensive tools (I had only had one spare battery for the taser). I hadn't really furnished the place yet, and I'd hardly even begun to address the apartment in the city. Hadn't imported the bugs I wanted. Hadn't even identified half of the ones I could use!
So much to do.
Faultline's card had just had an address, a number, and a single line: "There are others like you. Would you like to know more?"
I'd copied the information on it, and left the card itself in a dumpster — probably no tracking device involved, but why risk it?
Something to address later.
It would be interesting to meet her, and her people. Her reputation was one of competence, the kind of 'working smooth' that Grue had probably modeled the Undersiders on. Pretty much the opposite end of the villain scale from the gangs, and verging on rogue territory. I wasn't even sure if she did heists for herself, or only for her clients… and she'd take legitimate jobs too.
I repacked my utility compartment, making new pepper bombs to replace the ones I'd used on Cricket. I set new darts and a new CO2 cartridge in the taser, then replaced the battery. Tested it. It crackled nicely. I checked charge on my several phones, adding one I'd never used before. There'd been a text from Tattletale on my 'villain' phone while I was asleep, asking for a meeting soonest.
I thought about my plans for the day, shrugged, and texted back "Nine?" while I filled every carrying space I had with the most dangerous bugs I had.
I could fit her in before things got too crazy. It would be nice to see a friend.
And, behind all my plans for the future was the thought I'd been avoiding. Depending on how things went, there might not be a later.
···---···
Another breakfast at my table, light this time. A bagel, and some cream cheese. Had to save room for seeing Lisa.
Coil was as punctual as ever.
"Chance of trouble by lunchtime?"
Dinah was rocking back and forth, knees clasped to her chest. It didn't look like she'd slept. Stress?
"Too many questions. It hurts."
He nodded.
"Pet, it's necessary. There's someone out there hunting me. Hunting us. And if it comes down to it, I'll take away your candy."
She twitched at that, a full-body shiver.
My hand clenched around my napkin.
"Chance of trouble by lunchtime?"
"Zero point three seven seven percent."
He nodded, and turned to the screen. He clicked his controller, and it brightened.
"Chance that this person is working against me today?"
"That's not a person, that's… what is that?"
"He — or she — goes by Skitter. And not all capes look human. Chance of anyone looking like that working against me today?"
"Zero point seven nine four percent chance."
He sighed.
I sighed.
That, right there, was the best argument for concealing my identity I could imagine. A bullet dodged. And one I could have seen coming — I knew he used pictures to prime her for his questions, and I hadn't even thought about it before walking into that meeting! But I didn't really look like that, did I?
Three lessons learned. One, I wasn't prepared enough. I'd have to try and fix that. Two, routine precautions matter. Three, it's not what you don't know…
Another click, and the screen flickered.
"Chance that Cauldron is working against me?"
"Zero point three eight seven percent."
Cauldron? I'd never heard of them, but if they were in the weight class of the other threats he'd discussed… I'd have to fix that.
Later.
"Major Trumps…"
I half-tuned out the list. That exchange earlier settled the question of why, exactly, he kept her drugged. It wasn't just to mitigate the headaches that went with her power. It was to control her, too. Could be worse, too: I wondered if there was any difference between making a credible threat to a precog of her caliber and carrying it out. But… his power, whatever it was, had been strong enough to capture her.
How do you catch a precog off guard? A question with some pressing and practical applications for me at the moment.
I was hoping that knowing the questions he was asking — and the answers he was getting — would be enough.
Either way, it wouldn't be long now.
If things went well, she wouldn't have to endure any more of this. If they went badly… well, I'd gone to war with Brutes and Shakers before. A Thinker might be more dangerous, but… if in doubt?
More bees.
···---···
Lisa walked through the door and waved at the barista. She knew the place?
She took a seat across from me and glanced at my face, her almost universal half-smirk vanishing for a moment.
"Black eye."
I nodded. "Cricket."
"Empire problems?"
I thought about whether they'd be coming for me… but if they did, it wouldn't be on Cricket's account.
"Don't think so. She didn't make it out of that fire."
Lisa's left eye twitched.
"But you did."
I nodded.
A pause while we ordered — waffles and hot chocolate for both of us — and she looked at me again.
"You're taking risks."
I nodded.
"I try to minimize them, but this isn't exactly a safe job."
She sat back, looking me over.
"You could sit back. Enjoy life. Most people get a little less active after they buy their farm."
I thought about it. A veiled warning that I could die? I knew that. There were worse things than death, I suppose. It was my last hope of seeing my family again. And, whatever my thoughts on it, it might be taken out of my hands entirely by one of the villains. It was true: I could die any day now.
But not while I had work to do.
I looked her in the eye.
"I can relax when I'm done."
She held my gaze for a long moment, broken by the delivery of our breakfast.
I went for butter and syrup on mine; Lisa liked strawberries and whipped cream instead.
Halfway through my first waffle, I broke the silence. "That was the urgency? Seeing me after I crashed the truce meeting?"
She waggled a hand. "Half of it. That stunt you pulled has people buzzing." She grinned. "Pun intended. Someone mean enough to fight Lung and subtle enough to evade notice until now… there's a lot of rumors on the street right now."
"Any I should worry about?" I took another bite.
Another hand-waggle. "Not really, not yet. Lung wanted you dead anyway, and the Empire is more concerned about Purity's faction, and what will become of Victor's, though it really does seem like the Empire's pulled itself back together. Hookwolf and Krieg together? The rest will fall in line."
I chewed. Swallowed. More work for later, then.
She studied me a moment. "It was for Purity?"
I nodded. "Krieg thought — thinks? — that she worked with Lung to set up Kaiser. Part of that was that no one had ever heard of her 'source.' "
She hadn't been taking my calls, but I really couldn't blame her. Separated, divorced, whatever the situation had been — and it had been bad enough that Kaiser had plans to use the child as leverage — I'd killed the father of her child, and in a way that might leave her feeling responsible.
That wasn't something that you got over easily.
I knew.
How much of what I was doing, was I doing in the memory of my father? To make his empty grave a monument, a marker for the moment when the future of this city changed?
I looked up again. "I owe her for the hunt for Bakuda. Letting her, her kid, take the blame for something I did… would have been a poor way to repay that debt."
Lisa shook her head. "Still risky."
"Had to be done. Other rumors?"
"The Merchants are gone" — she paused to smirk at me — "but I guess you'd know about that already."
I took another bite rather than answer.
"And Coil? Well that brings me to the other reason I'd asked to see you — besides the chance to share waffles. He doesn't really care about you right now. He's convinced there's some new heavyweight Thinker in town, and has offered some real money to anyone who can put a name to his nightmare."
She paused to spread some more whipped cream on her waffles. "Which makes a change from his usual superiority schtick. You've been pretty well-informed, lately. I didn't think you'd finger a hero — but I can tell you, whoever they are, they're not Protectorate — and I did think you might enjoy a chance to set one villain against another… and get paid handsomely for it."
I thought about it, about Coil's concerns, about my own suspicions about what was going on with Dinah's predictions, about Tattletale doing contract work — or more? — for Coil. But ultimately, it was easiest to just tell the truth. Besides, while I still didn't know what Lisa's power did, the name practically screamed 'don't try to lie to her.'
"A couple of the E88 villains came out of retirement for the civil war, but I don't think any of them are Thinkers. And I don't know of any new villains who've come to town, besides the Travelers."
Who worked for Coil anyway. Well, at the very least, their leader worked for Coil. So, probably not a mystery he wouldn't have already checked.
She smiled a moment, and then nodded, stretching her arms above her head.
"Say, I've been thinking about going shopping today. You want to come? Make a girl's day out of it?"
I tilted my head. That was the kind of thing you did with friends, normally, wasn't it? It had been… a very long time.
I nodded. "Sometime after lunch. In the afternoon, maybe?"
Her grin sharpened, then softened into a smile. "I'll see you then. And if I'm not shopping now, then I've got some work to get out of the way."
She set down a couple of bills, tipping generously.
When I protested, she simply said that "I called the meeting. Next time, you can get it."
I settled back into my seat and waited.
···---···
A quarter to noon.
I checked my phones, rechecked my sense of the people within Coil's base. Thought about what would need to be done. Thought about it going wrong.
I started, and grabbed my 'civilian' phone, speed dialing 1.
"Quinn Calle."
"It's Taylor. This is important. If, for some reason, I can't make our next meeting… tell the Protectorate: if Jack Slash lives, most of humanity dies within the next decade. Probably within the next two years. If Dinah makes it, have them ask her for details."
"Understood." His voice was the same even, unruffled, tone he always used.
I envied him that calm.
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
I hung up.
Twelve more minutes. I began concentrating swarms. I'd kept them to the minimums I needed to sense, until now, with others hidden between the walls, or in the vents. No sense risking early discovery. Now? Now I needed to have punch where it might help. I focused on areas where I might need to intervene: Dinah's room. The ceiling above the bottleneck. The back ways out.
Places where I could stop him from taking a hostage, or making an escape. The mercenaries weren't the target: they were just in the way.
The base had two main entrances — one for small groups, and quite discreet, and another much larger one that looked to be for delivery or construction vehicles — but both bottlenecked shortly afterward. I hadn't studied infantry tactics, but that long hallway, with sandbags piled at one end and very large gun mounted pointing over it… well, it looked like they planned to hold that corridor.
There was a back way out from his office, which led into the municipal sewer system, but I'd take care of that. Spider silk could be extraordinarily tough, and that of my spiders seemed tougher than usual. I wasn't quite sure why, but I suspected it was the same reason the honeybees appeared to harvest pollen more efficiently when I directed them: my power provided… guidance. Whatever the source, I was glad of the result.
Right now, it meant that that emergency exit was going to be shut tight. It could be opened… but it would probably be easier to just go through the wall instead. And if he did that? Well, there were a lot of insects in the sewers. I wasn't sure how much good they'd do against someone who could walk through walls the hard way, but I'd find out.
Ten minutes to go.
The guards were on their normal rounds, with most sleeping in their barracks. Coil had apparently decided that 48 straight hours of high alert was enough, and had stood down to normal amounts this morning. None of the Travelers were present.
I wasn't complaining.
Coil was still in his office. The phone rang — a rare occurrence. Generally, he called people, not the other way around.
"Yes, Tattletale?"
My heart froze.
"Now?"
Fuck.
Fuck.
No time for that. I grabbed the as yet unused phone, flipped through my notebook.
"This is a soft target, considering your skills. You shouldn't need my support."
I paused, the number Brandish had given me half-dialed.
"Indications within the Protectorate of increased patrols?"
No way to hear the other side of that conversation.
"I'll remind you that you work to my schedule, and that being kept on standby for two days is nothing more than earning your retainer, even if it makes the job harder. The Travelers should provide ample distraction."
He paused, listening. Nodded once. Twice.
He looked at the clock on his wall, considered it a moment.
"Very well. Go in… now."
Huh.
I'd figure that out later, there were barely six minutes till noon!
I dialed.
"Brandish here."
"I'm here. He's in his office. Guards are at half-strength from yesterday — same number in the base, but more in the barracks and less on post. Straight up fifty-percent reduction across the board. No capes visible, aside from Coil and Dinah."
"Go." A pause. "We're moving. Target's dropped security levels…"
She must be wearing a headset. I turned my attention outward, keeping a corner of it focused on the base.
There!
A white panel van (the choice of villains and heroes alike, apparently) turned the corner and entered the parking garage for the Heritage Insurance Tower, circled round to the lowest parking level, skirted the orange cones blocking off the lowest level, and came to a stop near a corner. The driver climbed into the back, trading a uniform and a baseball cap for a green on white costume. Eight parahumans were in that van, a significant concentration of force by anyone's standards.
Noon.
"Ready?"
"Ready." There was an odd sense of echo, hearing the response through my phone and through my insects both.
Coil's lunch came through the door, borne by Mr. Pitter on a tray.
Chicken Caesar salad today, apparently. Sparkling water.
I waited for the tray to be deposited on his desk before I said "Go."
Seven parahumans piled out, only four of them bothering to walk. Manpower led the way through the small room, into the cage behind the electrical equipment
Panacea remained behind, alone. I wondered at that — was she just too valuable to risk? Was she incapable of healing herself as she healed others? Was she simply incapable of fighting?
It couldn't be that last. "The dose makes the poison" was one of the most ancient principles of medicine, and she had a power of astounding scope and flexibility. Whatever she did, doing enough more of it would have to be deadly. And if she had the fine control to match her power (and rumor said she did) then she could kill with a touch as easily — more easily — than she could heal.
Maybe that was why she didn't fight. I could respect that kind of dedication.
The guards at the main entrance fell almost immediately.
Maybe if the vault door had been shut… they were, after all, very well trained. Good training meant that, with no alarm given, they went from complete surprise to having put a three round burst each into Manpower's chest before he reached them.
More than enough to stop any human in their tracks, even if it didn't kill them.
Not nearly enough to stop a Brute. He was on them and they were down, limbs cleanly broken.
I guess if you're assaulting a base of highly trained mercenaries and you have Panacea on tap, you could go for faster incapacitations than normal.
I felt through the base, noted reactions. The guards at the chokepoint — four in number, two on the heavy gun — were looking down it. One was reaching for his radio.
"They heard that. No alarm yet."
I could hear Brandish repeating my words.
New Wave came up on the corridor chokepoint and paused. Globes of light grew in Flashbang's hands. He nodded, once, and threw them down the corridor. They bounced like rubber balls, ping-ponging across it before they reached the guards… and burst, throwing all of them down. A third bouncing orb, larger than the rest, and hurled by Manpower turned back into Brandish on arrival, who manifested what looked like lightsabers. Right down to the ability to amputate a hand, which she demonstrated on one who went for a holdout weapon. Lady Photon was only seconds behind her, fist glowing with light, and Manpower led the rest of the team to join them.
The mercenaries here too were promptly incapacitated.
Less than a minute from exiting the van.
I hadn't seen the kids fight yet, but the adults were more than competent.
Skilled, as anyone who lasted more than a decade at this had to be.
Practiced, with the kind of teamwork that showed just as many years of fighting alongside each other.
They'd taken the maps I'd given them, the descriptions of guard rotas, the security assessment he'd had on them (it could be summed up as "dangerous in a straight fight; would have to be handed one gift-wrapped"), and turned it into a tactical plan… which they'd just executed as if they'd practiced it a dozen times before.
It was easy to forget — the bright white costumes, gradient-fill emblems, and tiaras (for the women) made it easy — that there had been a time when New Wave had seemed like the natural successors to the Triumvirate. Not in raw power, but just as the Triumvirate (in that lost, golden age when they numbered four) heralded the rise of the Protectorate, the unmasked families of New Wave had seemed to be a new way in truth, a new model for the caped community. And if they didn't have the sheer power of the Triumvirate, they'd still lasted years with public identities, open targets for every villain they'd ever fought, with only a single death among their number.
The Triumvirate themselves had done no better, for all their titanic power.
A strand of my attention twitched. The two in the security room were beginning to react.
"The security room has seen you."
"Glory Girl, go." She rocketed by as Brandish moved down the corridor at a jog. "Our friendly Stranger reports that the alarm's probably about to go off. Same plan, just faster, ok?"
Nods all round, and Laserdream accelerated away, followed by Manpower and Flashbang at the best pace they could set.
The alarm was loud, more like an Endbringer alarm than anything else — perhaps repurposed from one.
Coil jolted upright from his desk; Dinah curled into a ball and hid beneath her bed, in a corner behind the door. He moved toward her room and I readied the swarms I had on the ceilings there: if he tried to take her hostage, I'd take him down first and worry about the consequences later. But three steps away he paused, and turned away.
Had he sensed me? Why now, and not before?
"He's not moving to take her hostage yet. I've got her covered if he does."
Glory Girl had reached the security room, and she simply smashed through the door, pinning one to the wall before picking the other up and slamming back into the wall. I had to wonder if that was a skull fracture… but either way, they were both out. She made a slower return to the chokepoint and floated there, arms crossed, barring any exit.
Coil paused a moment, locked the door to his office, and went back to his desk, and picked up the phone.
No answer.
"Trickster? The base is under assault."
I followed his conversation. "Coil's calling for support — the Travellers."
"How soon?" Brandish's breath came in the metronome-regular breaths of an athlete.
"Don't know. I'll be able to give you warning when they get here." I thought about the general area, as insects surged to lay down a wider network. "At least a minute of warning, maybe more."
"Then we'll just… have to be… faster." Again she turned into that ball of light, and Lady Photon grabbed her and increased the speed of her flight.
Coil was dialing again.
No response.
The barracks spilled into a hive of activity at the sound of the alarm, people waking and going for their weapons. Laserdream, floating near the ceiling, poked her head into the doorway and unleashed a stream of independent lasers so dense they looked like jellyfish tentacles, flailing across the room and scourging the soldiers within. Again, their training was good, and a brief hail of shots poured through the doorway — most far too low to reach her. A stray or lucky pair of shots did pop her forcefield, and she pulled out of view for a moment.
A buzz from my backpack. My 'villain' phone. I ignored it.
What remained in the barracks was smoking devastation: if no one was dead, it was by her skill and mercy both. Even by the time Manpower and Flashbang caught up with her and took the door, none were stirring. Those still conscious had apparently chosen the better part of valor. The three heroes began a cautious room-clearing procedure, working their way through the kitchen, storerooms, and other parts of this section of the base.
Shielder broke off toward the vault, jogged forward far enough to see it, and simply set up a forcefield blocking the entire corridor off. The two soldiers guarding the vault emptied their clips into it without visible effect — he was living up to his name.
Brandish had agreed with me that, whoever or whatever was in there, the time to find out was not in the middle of an assault.
Another buzz from my backpack.
Lady Photon flew into the anteroom before Coil's office, took several shots to the forcefield, and replied with lasers; Brandish transformed back. They began to hunt for some way to open it.
I was starting to understand why the PRT, and the nations generally, had abandoned efforts at fighting capes with armed forces. Given surprise or overwhelming force, it wasn't futile. Let the capes have either advantage, let alone both, and you had a one-sided slaughter. The mercenaries hadn't even had the odds with them: thirty in the base, but only eight on duty to face the seven heroes.
Coil blinked. "The secret exits too?"
I checked my swarms. Still undisturbed. How the hell had he found out about that?
He steepled his fingers a moment.
"Surrender?"
He rose and went to the massive vault door that guarded his office reached out as if to open it… and then turned away.
"Or revenge?"
He returned to his desk and began typing.
"New Wave?" His voice was incredulous.
Could he access the surveillance system from there?
He removed a pistol from a drawer, and set it on his desk.
"He's identified you. Armed with a handgun."
A grunt was my only answer from Brandish: she was too busy trying to carve a hole in the vault door with a long blade that looked like it had been cut from a bolt of lightning. I'd give Coil this much credit — he bought vault doors Lady Photon couldn't just blast through.
A buzz from my backpack. I took out the phone, looked at it. Another text. "Pick up. Life or death. T"
I muted the line on one phone, and called Tattletale on the other.
"This is not the best…"
"Coil has to die."
I blinked.
"What?"
"If he gets out of his base alive, he will kill the both of us. And probably all of New Wave."
"What?!"
"His power. He's a strong Thinker, in some ways the strongest I've seen. He took Dinah, hell — he took me. All he needs is time to think and a tiny chance, and he can make it happen!"
"We'll have to talk."
"Fine — when we're shopping! But he can't leave alive."
Did I trust Tattletale? In some ways not at all. She was a villain.
In other ways… when I was at my lowest, she'd reached out to me, with no reasonable hope of reward.
Did I trust her? If she'd been working for him, he might give testimony against her… I wasn't sure.
I was sure that I owed her, and extending her the benefit of the doubt wasn't half the debt.
Fine.
I thought about it. I could try to talk New Wave into it.
If they didn't agree? Could I kill Coil, in cold blood? Knowing that he'd kidnapped and killed? Believing that he'd do more, that a PRT prison couldn't hold Thinker who'd infiltrated the PRT?
I still had swarms positioned at the chokepoint, he'd have to come past there. If they didn't agree…
Then I would see him dead. Panacea was near, but she couldn't raise the dead and she didn't do brains. The fastest way would probably be through the eyes… but safest to try all the approaches simultaneously.
I thought back to what he'd said. Revenge.
"If he didn't have a chance to escape, would he try to take everyone with him?"
"Shit. Yes."
"How?"
"Self-destruct, probably. Or Noelle."
A mad joke ran through my head: 'a self-destruct going off when the villain died? This really was a Bond-villain base.'
"Noelle?"
"She's in the vault."
"On it."
I hung up on Tattletale — and we were going to have words, later — and unmuted the other phone.
"Brandish? It looks like he may be trying to take you with him. Just found out there's a self-destruct."
"Self-destruct? Earlier would have been nice." She had most of a doorway carved out.
"Didn't know about it earlier."
"Fine. GG! Get over here! Everyone, our friendly Stranger has just informed me about a self-destruct. We're getting Dinah out fast, along with Coil, and we're leaving. The PRT can send in bomb techs afterward."
The seconds while Glory Girl rocketed through the corridors were long indeed. I thought about mentioning Noelle, but her door was still locked… and the correct response would be the same anyway.
Fire alarms are a even easier to pull than deadbolts. I had a swarm set off the fire alarm for the tower above. 'Self-destruct' could mean anything from 'room-clearing charges' to 'hole in the ground.'
On arrival, Glory Girl began slamming into the door outline, pausing for a second to fly back in between charges. On the fifth one it crumpled into the room. Gunshots rang out — Coil's accuracy was impressive. But with Lady Photon there, forewarned, he only hit force-field. Which was odd… wasn't Glory Girl invulnerable? Then again, probably hard to let your niece get shot, even if she can take it. All three heroines entered, Lady Photon breaking left and into Dinah's room. A moment more, and she had the girl in her arms and was flying for the exit; Glory Girl and Brandish remained, backing the villain up against the back wall.
"Surrender?" Brandish's voice was calm; the way her weapon crackled in her hands, forming jagged edges, wasn't.
"Tried that." Coil's voice was as calm as ever.
What? When?
"Afraid I'd rather you kill me. Quicker."
She nodded, and decapitated him.
A vast and furious roar rose up.
"I recommend leaving now."
Brandish paused to vanish her weapon. "Don't intend to leave you behind, Stranger."
"I'm clear. Go!"
I was sitting in a cafe almost half a mile away. I was fine.
They, on the other hand, were trapped in a base with whatever Noelle was… and a lot of explosives. And a bunch of incapacitated mercenaries.
Flight lets you really move when you need to. Even Shielder took to the air. Panacea moved up to the driver seat of the van, and had it running for when they got there.
They were two blocks clear by the time I felt the first explosives go off, and the tower was largely evacuated.
At the time, I even thought that was the end of it.