Queen Taylor

Loss

“T'o-Ba'sall have you seen my special egg anywhere?”
T'o-Ba'sall looks at Arry, “What special egg?”
“I didn’t want to leave you alone if someone managed to kill me. So, I laid a special queen egg with all of our ancestral memories and the abilities we’ve gathered. It took me a week to plan it out, and a day to lay it over the Christmas holidays. Anyway, I left it in this locker so that nobody could accidentally activate it.”
“I can’t say I’ve seen anything touch that locker.”
“Damn it!”

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Half a turn around the galaxy, and several dimensions to the orthogonal, a 15 year old girl is trapped in a locker, when the space becomes that much more cramped.
Taylor panics as something appears between her legs, forcing them uncomfortably into the corners of her locker. Any hope of getting out of the locker herself is dashed by this single thing.
“Fuck you, and fuck your friends too!” – Tears stream down her eyes as she bashes her fist against the back wall of the locker – “Fuck you and your friends you betraying bitch. I hope they pin my murder on you and you go to jail forever.”
Somewhere, she finds the energy to scream one more time as something crawls up her body and then her screams are silenced for a good long time. By the time the Janitor uses bolt cutters to open the locker and pull Taylor’s unconscious body out, the egg and the face hugger have both broken down and melted through the floor of the locker and the concrete floor beneath it. Which is unfortunate for the PRT, who are called in to investigate but can’t say anything more than it was very strong acid, and the girl is lucky to not have suffered any burns from contact or inhalation of the fumes. While she’s unconscious, she undergoes an MRI to see if she’s triggered, but all they find is some swelling in her brain from where she bashed her head against the inside of the locker repeatedly.

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Taylor looks at the kitchen clock and reluctantly tuns off the TV and puts her dirty plate in the sink for later. An hour really isn’t long enough for lunch. Palming her forehead, she snaps her fingers and her washing up is done and put away. Nodding to herself she invisibly pops back to the girls loo and checks that the door is still locked, which it is. She also can’t hear anyone in the toilets, or just outside. Dropping her invisibility, she saunters out of the bathroom feeling nicely relaxed after having a bully free lunch at home. Her grades are also starting to climb again, as it’s very difficult for the trio to steal the homework she’s left on her desk at home. Ducking back she snaps her fingers to style her hair, before leaning against a wall. A few seconds later Sophia stalks past, anger clearly indicated by her footsteps and the heat radiating off of her face.

A few minutes later, Taylor’s walking into world studies and, seeing Madison’s smirk, she checks her chair, glue, how juvenile. A discrete snap of her fingers in her bag and the chair is clean. A second snap and her textbook is in her hand, along with a script for a Tom and Jerry cartoon she wrote out one night last week, just to see if she could with her new powers.
“Good afternoon class.”
“Good afternoon Mr Gladly” they all call back.
“I want you all to split into groups of four, you have 5 minutes to decide on a Hero and write it down.”
Taylor sighs as every one groups up so fast she’s left with Greg and Sparky.
“What do you two think? Mouse Protector?”
Greg narrows his eyebrows, “Why her?”
“She’s one of very few nationally famous independent heroes.”
Greg nods, “Sparky?”
Sparky just nods along to whatever he’s got playing on his headphones. It sounds like Queen or a cover of one of their songs. Writing the name down on a scrap of paper, she hands it to Mr Gladly. As she gets back to her seat Julia comes into the class 5 minutes late.
“Julia, nice of you to join us. You’re with Taylor, Greg, and Sparky.”
“Can’t I sit with Madison?”
“Their group is full. You’re with Taylor.”

“Madison, I’m sorry you need to pick another Hero, Mouse protector is already taken. I want you to talk about how your chosen hero has shaped the way that parahumans are viewed.”

As Taylor is ‘rooting’ around in her bag for her notebook and pen, Greg says, “Hey, Taylor. Is this your homework? Do you mind if I have a look?”
Taylor looks up as Julia neatly takes the homework out of Greg’s hands, and passes it over to Madison.
Greg just looks at her apologetically, “Sorry.”
Madison quickly erases her name, and stands up to hand it in as her own work. As Madison gets out of earshot, Taylor throws Greg a bone, “No, it’s fine. I just wrote out the script for a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and I wanted to see what you thought of it. Having said that, I should probably hand in my own homework now.”

After handing in her own homework, Taylor goes on to do the group work on her own. Greg only wants to talk about his latest games or shows, Sparky was lost in his music as always, and Julia spent the lesson gossiping. She grimaces slightly as Vivian’s memories point out that Greg and Sparky are probably just as traumatised as she is, and deal with it in their own ways.

When the discussion period ends, Taylor stands up as soon as Mr Gladly calls for volunteers to give their class discussion. With the confidence of multiple adults and Yautja in her head, she gives a speech outlining how, as an independent hero, Mouse protector has shown that, not only is it possible for Parahumans to operate as heroes outside of the PRT, but also that having a theme can make all the difference between being seeing as a vigilante and a hero. As she returns to her own seat, she muses that there’s not a lot she can do to make her own theme more palatable to the general public. Especially given that it’s becoming apparent that she’s becoming like a Case 53.

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When the bell goes, Taylor is one of the first packed and, just as she’s about to leave, Mr Gladly calls her over.
“Taylor, I can see that you’re having problems. If you want help, come and see me and we’ll take it to the Principal.”
Taylor looks into his eyes, “Mr Gladly, I’m starting to wonder if you, along with most of the other teachers here, actually have a teaching degree. What ever happened to ‘See something say something’? You expect me, the victim, to stick my neck out on the off chance that history won’t repeat itself? Or that if my bullies actually do get punished, it will be with permanent removal from the school? Or how about that I will be assigned to another, better school? How many of you walked past my locker in January and did Nothing? No, I think I’m better off not relying on the professionalism of the teachers and staff here. Good afternoon, Mr, Gladly.”
As she walks out, Taylor thinks to herself, ‘I really shouldn’t have done that’. Right outside the door, Emma and her posse are waiting for her. Obviously her little chat with Mr Gladly gave them time to gather.

Not seeing any way to get past them without looking like the instigator, Taylor reluctantly allows them to force her into a corner.
[An: conversation is from Worm chapter 2.04] “Nobody likes her. Nobody wants her here,” Julia said.
“Such a loser. She didn’t even turn in the major project for art, last Friday,” Sophia responded. This is the first time that Taylor has to supress a laugh, as she handed it in the day before during one of the breaks.
“If she’s not going to try, then why is she even coming to school?”
“Ugliest girl in our grade.”
“What does she use to wash her face? A Brillo pad?”
“She should! She’d look better!”
“Never talks to anybody. Maybe she knows she sounds like a retard and keeps her mouth shut.”
“No, she’s not that smart.”

Taylor looks over their heads and has to force herself not to give an ironic smile as Mr Gladly comes out of the classroom carrying a stack of folders, turns around and locks the door. She does, however, raise an eyebrow and, when he looks her in the eyes, looks pointedly at the girls around her. Giving her a sad look, he just clutches his folders to his chest and shuffles past without saying a word.

“So glad we don’t have gym with her. Can you imagine seeing her in the locker room? Gag me with a spoon.”
“You should have seen her group fail in class just now. It was painful to watch.”

Taylor can’t help it, she giggles when Madison says that. After all, her group got the highest score out of all the groups in that class.
Emma gives her a poisonous look, “Is something amusing?”
“Oh, very. Madison’s comment has just made it clear that I’m getting to hear your groups juicy gossip. After all, you couldn’t be talking about the group that Julia and I were part of. Especially given we got the highest score in the class today. Isn’t that right Julia.”
There’s a couple of chuckles from the onlookers, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get to my next class.”
Very carefully, Taylor weaves her way through the girls with the aid of a very weak elf notice-me-not effect. As she’s walking away she looks back over her shoulder, “Oh, and Emma. That hairstyle did look good on you. I’m sorry that something happened to force you to adopt it, but that doesn’t change the fact it was a complement.”
As Emma goes white, Taylor walks away to the closest girls Loo. Once she’s sure it’s empty, she pops over to the loo closest to her math class and, after walking there, takes her seat at the front.

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After school ends, Taylor’s only left with the trivial task of dodging her tail long enough to pop home. The hardest part of the exercise is doing it from somewhere in the school that she could have gone anywhere. Once home she heads down to the basement, where she has a few eggs laid, and her current attempts at wand crafting are laid out on the old workbench. She carefully doesn’t look in the corner, where she’s covered that thing with an old tarp.
Grimacing, she looks at the eggs, she woke up this morning in the basement to find that thing there, and the eggs laid, loosely arrayed around it. She’s been forcing herself not to think about the implications of that fact all day. However, quickly checking over each of the eggs, she’s satisfied that none of them are the deadly type. With that done, and still having saved an hour on the bus ride home, she decides to cook something from scratch for dinner. Though, it proves to be a challenge to come up with something that uses the small amount of meat in the house, or that doesn’t undercook said meat. What she wouldn’t give for a fresh acromantula. Maybe tonight she should head out and get some fresh lobsters. Her mouth waters at the thought of cracking through their shells with her teeth and sucking out the juicy flesh. Pushing the thought to one side, she finishes the prep and sets the dish to cook slowly while she heads back downstairs, to try and make herself a workable wand. It doesn’t have to be super brilliant, just good enough that she can do basic charms and transfiguration with it.

The sound of her fathers truck pulls her out of her work, and she heads upstairs to start peeling potatoes for mash.
“Hey Taylor, that smells lovely.”
“Thanks Dad, the buses were quick so I thought I’d do something a bit nicer than our usual fare.”
Dinner passes with its normal, quiet small talk, where neither of them directly asks the other about their problems, and they then ignore the implied questions, because it’s easier than actually talking about their feelings. With that thought Taylor silently curses Vivian, and starts pushing her peas around her plate for a few minutes before she gets up abruptly, and takes her plate to the kitchen.
“I’m going upstairs to do some homework.”
“Ok.”

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Taylor listens as her Father does the washing up, then puts on the TV. The tell-tale hiss of a can of beer quickly follows the familiar creak of his armchair. Finishing her homework quickly, she heads to bed for an early night, hoping that the extra sleep will make up for the nightmares of hunting and being hunted in forests.

A few hours later, her Father’s snores wake her, and she carefully pushes the blankets off the bed, being careful not to catch them on her claws or tail. Looking down at her body, she knows she’s not ready to accept this part of her yet. So Queenie carefully opens the sash window in her bedroom, and slips out into the night. Her task is to find somewhere suitable to set up her hive, and also get some lobsters. On second thoughts, let’s get the lobster first.

Rather than popping to the coast, she takes to the roofs and enjoys the shear thrill of leaping from shadow to shadow, rooftop to rooftop, all absolutely silently, and without using any of her magical abilities. Once she gets to the docks, the buildings turn into derelict factories, and she spends half an hour or so just playing amongst the buildings, jumping from girder, to roof, to chimney. Even through windows, along the ceilings and walls. Eventually, she makes a game of kissing the foreheads of the sleeping homeless that occasionally find refuge in these places.
As Queenie finally slips into the water with nary a ripple, she wonders if they would thank or curse her if she brought them into her hive. It would be nearly midnight when she finally climbed ashore again, satiated for the moment and having enjoyed playing evade the sonar and electro sensitive sensors littered through the bay. Looking down at the two lobsters she’s holding, she looks at her claws and decides she doesn’t want to learn how to click them right now. So she pops home and fills the kitchen sink with some cold water before putting both lobsters in it.

Returning to her previous location she starts looking for an appropriate place to set up her nest.

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It’s nearing midnight when she hears a car engine switch off, and a car door slam. As she focuses her attention in that direction, a man’s voice becomes distinct from the background noise. “…the children, just shoot. Doesn’t matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?”
Some part of her ancestral memories reacts, and she’s suddenly crying in a crib as a woman with red hair dies trying to protect her. Standing in a hive on a planet gently pulling resin away from a small child with 4 arms, and using her psychic abilities to kill the xenomorph growing inside it. Pulling another child, this one looks like a spider, from another hive. Of finding a child in the street looking for a new mother. Of multiple Yautja sent against her far too young, and those she can, being saved and adopted into her hive.
Taylor agrees with her alter-ego, children need to be protected. With her tail lashing around angrily, she takes to the roofs, this time not even bothering to be stealthy. When she arrives at the location she heard the voice, she can see that there are 20 or 30 members of the Azn Bad Boys fanning out down the street and alleyways. Leading them is a shirtless giant of a man wearing an ornate metal mask.

Taylor doesn’t remember much after that point, only vague snatches of killing the gangers in silent and efficient ways, followed by lots of fire and then thinking that the earth looks pretty from here.

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On a rooftop nearby, four teenagers watch as Lung and a black monstrous cape battle it out a block down the road. Grue, a tall young man wearing a black motorcycle helmet with a white skull painted on the front, looks over at Tattletale, who is shivering violently in her skin-tight lavender costume.
“Tats are you alright?”
Tattletale snaps back, “What do you think? The rage dragon is currently fighting an unknown cape, and they aren’t losing. His fire seems to be having absolutely no effect on it, and I have no idea what it is. My power is telling me that it is built to kill quickly, efficiently, and silently. If it knew we were here, we’d be next.”
Regent pokes her in the ribs, “So why are we lying here?”
“Because it’s currently preoccupied with Lung, and if we try to escape it might hear us and decide we’re an easier meal than he is.”
“Fuck.”

As they watch, Lung bites into its back before recoiling in agony, Tattletale then adds, “And it has acid for blood, strong enough acid to hurt Lung when he’s starting to grow wings.”
After a few more minutes, Lung is starting to get a clear advantage over the monster, when it stabs its tail straight through his chest. With him unable to escape, they both immolate in a massive gout of fire, leaving nothing left apart from the collateral damage from the fight.
All four of them just stare at that spot for a few minutes until the soft purr of a motorcycle engine becomes apparent.
“That’s Armsmaster, we need to leave.”

 

Loss - Humanity

Danny wakes up early after a relaxing evening last night. With a yawn he clambers out of bed and checks on Taylor. Frowning slightly as he sees her bed empty, but clearly slept in, he does his morning ablutions before donning a dressing gown and heading downstairs. Even in his depression, he knows that she shouldn’t be up and around at 5am.
Making his way downstairs, he hears some splashing in the kitchen, and so makes his way in there, slightly confused by the fact that none of the lights are on. As he turns on the light, a claw waving from the sink makes him yelp in surprise. Down in the basement, the sound causes an egg to start hatching, and the queen to stir.

Holding a hand to his chest, and breathing heavily, he walks over to the sink and starts laughing when he sees two lobster paddling around in shallow water. As their claws are unbound, he just pauses long enough to top up the water slightly so that they can be completely submerged. Looking around the kitchen, he notices that the door to the basement is ajar. He knows his daughter has been spending a lot of time down there recently, so there’s a chance she woke up in the night and decided to do whatever there.
Making his way down the stairs, avoiding the creaky step, he flicks the light on and gasps at the sight. He’s unable to scream or call for help as a face hugger launches itself at his face and wraps itself securely in place. Staggering around the basement, he knocks over a bucket before the face hugger knocks him out.

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Taylor wakes up abruptly on her ovipositor in the corner of the basement, she can sense a face hugger is attached to a human man that’s lying on the floor beside a bucket. Leaping down to the floor, she scrambles over to the man and curses as she can’t see him properly. Finding the thing that allows her to change, she flows down into her human form and looks at her father, unconscious on the floor. Scrambling up the stairs, heedless of the claw marks she leaves in the wood, she pulls out the yellow pages to find the emergency number for the PRT.

She’s shaking so much that she miss dials twice before she finally dials it correctly.
“PRT emergency line, what is the nature of your call tonight?”
“M…My name is Taylor Hebert, and I’m a parahuman. I think my father may have been infected by one of my eggs.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that please.”
“My name is Taylor Hebert, and I’m a parahuman. I think my father may have been infected by one of my eggs.”
“Are you at 144 Merritt Dr?”
“We are. My father is currently lying in the basement, though I don’t know if it’s safe for anyone else to go down there at the moment.”
“I have added that to the case. How are you doing?”
“Panicky, I… I’ve been waking up down there only to find I’ve laid some eggs. I wanted to tell Dad, but I didn’t know how. And…”
“It’s all right Miss Hebert, can you tell me why you were down in the basement?”
“I don’t know. Dad’s snoring woke me up last night, so I went out looking for somewhere safer to use as my… base. Where I wouldn’t run the risk of Dad, or someone else, getting hurt accidentally. I remember getting some lobster for dinner, and then I heard someone talking about killing children. I have some vague memories, such as looking up at the earth and thinking it looks pretty. But that’s it.”
“Well done, the first responder is now only a couple of minutes away. Do you mind if I ask how long you’ve had powers?”
Tightly, Taylor responds, “Since the locker in January I think. Though they weren’t like they are now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been terrible to live through. What’s your favourite book?”
“A Mid-summers nights dream. I especially like the depiction of the fairy court.”
“Shakespear huh?”
“Yeah. My mum was an English professor at the college.”
“Was?”
Taylor’s voice falls, “Yeah, she died a couple of years ago. Car accident.”
“Miss Hebert, Taylor. I would like you to stay on the phone, the first responder has arrived, and they’re going around to the back of the house. We need you to stay put so that she doesn’t accidentally shoot you.”
“Wait, she can’t go down there, I’ve got more eggs.”
“Miss, I assure you that Miss Militia is trained for every eventuality. I need you to stay with me and keep talking. Be assured that she can handle anything you might have down there.”
“But…”
“Miss, Miss Militia is a Protectorate Hero. Do you remember what they do?”
“They help people, but my eggs…”
“Miss, do you honestly think that some eggs are worse than Hookwolf or Stormtiger?”

There’s the sound of gunfire from the kitchen and then a muffled thump, “Erm, Mr, I think my egg got Miss Militia.”
“…, …, Miss Hebert, when you say that, what do you mean?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say, they contain something I’m calling a face hugger. This jumps at you and puts something inside that changes you. It’s how I got my powers.”
“…, …, Miss, there’s a PRT van on the way, do you think you can get the two of them to safety?”
“I think so, I’ve been getting stronger so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“We, I would like you to get them both out of the basement and then close and lock the basement door.”
“I can do that, I’ll be back in a moment.”

A couple of minutes later she picks up the handset again, “Ok, I’ve dragged them into the living room and slotted the bolt closed on the basement door.”
“Well done…, Taylor, I have been told that the incoming team is going to spray you with containment foam and then transport you and the two victims back here.”
Taylor mumbles, “It won’t help.”
“I’m sorry, why won’t it help?”
“I can teleport.”
“…, …, Miss…, …, I’m just passing you through to my superior.”
“Um, ok?”
“Miss Hebert, this is Deputy Director Rennik.”
“Hello sir.”
“I understand from the operator that you can teleport, do you need to be able to see to do that?”
“No, and I’ve also got an alternate form. The instincts in that form are very, strong. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I see, and why would you think you might hurt someone?”
“I think something happened last night, I was looking for somewhere safer to put a base, and then the last thing I clearly remember is hearing someone say they wanted to kill children. I… I think I killed people, and I remember fire, and looking up at the earth and thinking it looks pretty.”
“I, see, do you think you would be able to get into the back of a PRT van on your own?”
“I just want my father to be safe.”
“We are going to see what we can do about that… I’m also being asked if you could put one of your eggs into a special box once we have got your father and Miss Militia to safety.”
“I can do that. I could just bring it to wherever you need it.”
“We would need it in that box. But, if you can teleport it from the basement to the back of an empty van and place it in the box that would be great.”
“I think I can do that.”
“Then we will do that, and we’ll bring both you and the egg back to the PRT.”
“Will someone take care of the lobsters in the sink, they’re for dinner.”
“Of course, we’ll also be posting a guard so that nobody falls foul of any other things that might be in your basement.”
“There should be two PRT vans pulling up now. I would like you to hang up the phone now and go into the van that has the open door. One of the officers will give you further instructions.”

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An hour later, Taylor is sucking on a chocolate milkshake in a once grubby interview room. It’s now absolutely spotless, and even the two way mirror, hidden cameras and microphones have been cleaned to spotless perfection. At a loss for something to do, Taylor snaps her fingers and opens her current favourite book fresh from their bookshelf.

In another room on the other side of the building, Rennick and Armsmaster are watching the feed from the one surviving camera, the one on a tripod in the observation room.
“What do you think?”
Armsmaster scratches his beard in frustration, “Honestly, I don’t know. Whatever she did to clean the room also disabled my cameras and microphones. She has been cooperative, and hasn’t shown the slightest hint of aggression even to deliberate rudeness.”
Dragon’s voice comes from a nearby monitor, “I agree, I can’t see anything to suggest one way or another whether she’s a threat or not. If it was her that fought Lung last night, I don’t think she was aware of herself when she did it.”
Rennick shakes his head, “Alright, send in an officer to get her interview done, then move her to one of the guest suites. If she can teleport as easily as she got that book, we don’t want to spook her. The director will be in at 9 and she can take over. How are the victims?”
Armsmaster shakes his head, “Stable, however any attempt to remove the ‘face huggers’ leads to them tightening their grip, and putting the victims life at risk. We’ve x-rayed both of them, and also put them through an MRI, and so far as we can tell they are alive and healthy. We called New Wave for Panacea’s help, but Brandish brushed us off as it’s a school night and it’s not life or death.”

A phone rings, and Rennick picks it up, “Rennick!”
“Uh huh, uh huh, great. Get it to the labs asap.”
Putting the phone down he turns back to Armsmaster, “The face hugger has just released Mr Hebert. He came round a few seconds after it disengaged and they’re putting him through some tests right now.”

They turn back to the screen and watch as Taylor is interviewed by one of the more personable PRT officers. None of the control questions so much as flag her as anything other than she appears. Though, she does seem to have a level of knowledge on things that a teenager her age shouldn’t have acquired yet.

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Hannah (Miss Militia) Washington, wakes up on a hospital bed, with a sore throat and no idea how she got there. As she sits up, she realises that she’s in an isolation room. Suddenly she remembers the basement. The girl, Taylor, was trying to tell the operator something about the eggs, and she was attacked.
A speaker by the wall squarks, “Good morning Miss Militia, there is a domino mask on the counter beside you. If you could put it on, a doctor will be in momentarily.”
Looking around she quickly locates the mask and puts it on. Once she’s done, a doctor, wearing a positive pressure hazmat suit, lumbers in and picks up something from the floor, this is then passed to a similarly attired person behind him.
“Good morning Miss Militia, you will be staying here under quarantine for the next few days. At the same time, you will be undergoing master stranger observation, do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good. For the record, what do you remember from this morning?”
“I arrived on my motorcycle at 5:45am and proceeded around the house with the call playing over my earpiece from the console. Miss Hebert was upset but coherent as the operator kept her talking on the phone. I remember her being asked how long she’d had her powers, and she said since the locker in January. That should probably be followed up. Using a shim, I opened the back door to the property, and easily located the basement entrance as the door was wide open. I carefully walked down the stairs, and the creak of one of them must have alerted something. I then saw Mr Hebert lying on the floor with some white crab wrapped around his head, and a long thin tail wrapped around his neck. I checked his pulse, and it was restricted but still strong. I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye and spun around. One of those things jumped at me and I opened fire. That’s the last I remember.”
“You appear to have missed the face hugger, and it rendered you unconscious before your short term memory of the attack could be fixed. The face hugger is what we just removed from the room. I need to draw some blood and take your vital statistics. There is a private toilet behind that door over there. Do you have any questions?”
Having been through this multiple times during training, Hannah indicates a negative.
After that the doctors go about their business with quiet efficiency.

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An hour later Taylor is browsing the internet on the computer in the suite when she feels her father join the hive.
“Hey dad, how are you feeling?”
“Taylor?”
“You only need to think at me and I’ll hear it.”
“I thought I heard my daughters voice.”
“Huh? Dad are you talking to someone else?”
“Yes. Taylor, could you lift your right hand.”
Taylor raises her right hand, “Er, sure?”
“You’re really talking to me.”
“I thought we’d established that, and you only need to think, not just talk aloud.”
“I’m under observation, and they wanted to know if I had any side effects from my ordeal. I think that being able to talk to my daughter is a pretty large side effect.”
Taylor nudges her fathers mind to some of the ancestral memories she’s been dealing with, “Hmm, no not really. That’s just one of the smaller ones. If you look here you should be able to see more.”
“Taylor, how do you know this stuff. She’s just shown me memories from someone else… Um, I’m not sure that I can really explain it…”
“Dad, you’re part of my hive now. Um, I don’t know too much as there’s thousands of years of memories, but I’m a Queen of my hive. It might take a few days before you start being able to do somethings. Erm, there does seem to be a very important memory that points out that I’m an unfertilised queen, and that will have consequences for the people that join my hive.”
“…, Taylor, what you keep saying Queen and Hive. What do you mean?”
“Like ants, well that’s what someone called Hermione said anyway.”
“Taylor, Armsmaster is currently peppering me with questions. The most important one seems to be, will this happen to Miss Militia too?”
“Erm, it already is, her memories are already part of the hive. It seems like it takes a little longer for people to get access themselves.”

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Director Piggot heaves her bulk around in the office chair uncomfortably. Normally she’d have had an hour or so to recover from the journey in after her morning dialysis, but today something happened mere hours before shift change, and so she’s here.
“Armsmaster, Rennick, maybe you can explain why we have the entire protectorate, minus Miss Militia, in a meeting room at 0905.”
Rennick grimaces, and Armsmaster points a remote at the large screen monitor on the wall. A picture of a man and a teenage girl appear side-by-side.
“These are Mr Daniel (Danny) Hebert and Miss Taylor Hebert his daughter. Miss Hebert is a parahuman, and she called the hotline at 0515 this morning after her father stumbled into her nest and was infected with one of her eggs. Miss Militia responded to the call while the operator kept Miss Hebert talking.”
Assault raises his hand, “Excuse me for being ignorant, why aren’t we using code names?”
Director Rennick pre-empts Armsmaster’s irritated response, “That fact will become apparent later in the briefing. Suffice to say there is going to be a lot of swearing later. Until then we need to keep things in order so that you have the entire picture.”
“May I continue?”
Piggot waves him on.
“At 0540 Miss Militia arrived at the property and started to check the perimeter.
“At 0545 she entered the rear of the property while Miss Hebert continued to talk to the operator in the living room.”
Piggot interrupts, “Why was Miss Militia even there?”
“There was a large confrontation between Lung and an unknown parahuman. This involved the death of 24 ABB gang members through one of three means. A sharp blow to the head with a solid object like a hammer that penetrated the brain leading to instant death. Decapitation with a near surgically sharp blade. Impalement by the same blade. Or evisceration by claws of some description. Additionally, Lung was nowhere to be found. I was still processing the scene when the call came in.”
“Very well, continue.”
“At 0546 she descends the stairs to the basement. Precisely 37.5 seconds later there is a burst of automatic fire from an AAC Honey Badger. 1 second after that her radio goes dead and Miss Hebert comments on the gunshots.
“After this, the operator dispatches 2 PRT vans and recalls myself to the HQ. Deputy Director Rennick takes over the call and, after Miss Hebert has retrieved the victims from the basement and ensured it’s locked, informs her that she will be foamed as SOP. This is when she informs him that she can teleport.”
Assault chokes on his coffee, “What? She lays eggs and she can teleport?”
“Please keep the outbursts to the end of the briefing. The teleportation was then demonstrated when she retrieved one of her eggs and placed it in a lock box in a closed PRT van.”
Armsmaster clicks the remote again, and a view of the back of a PRT van plays on the TV. Taylor is visible from the corner along with a large gunsafe that as been hastily emptied. The picture fuzzes slightly as she disappears with a pop, a few seconds later she reappears holding a leathery egg, which she puts in the safe before sitting on one of the benches.
“At 0622 Miss Militia and Mr Hebert were admitted to the isolation wards in the HQ, where they were X-rayed and subjected to an MRI. This is a picture of the face hugger as it appeared on Miss Militia. Miss Hebert was led to interview room 4 and left to her own devices for an hour. During which time she displayed the ability to clean and repair the room to its original condition before summoning a book from her home bookcase.”
Another click of the remote shows this happening.
“Whatever she did while cleaning, also cleaned all of the hidden cameras and microphones, including 2 that I wasn’t aware of. Fortunately, it also permanently disabled them at the same time. At 0642 the face hugger released from Mr Hebert and he regained consciousness. At 0655 we interviewed Miss Hebert before transferring her to a guest suite. Her school has been informed that she will be absent for a few days at a minimum.
“At 0705 the same thing happened with Miss Militia. Things were going perfectly until 0815 when this happened in Mr Hebert’s room.”
Another click brings up a side by side view of a medical observation room, along with the guest suite. As the film plays Danny starts to talk out aloud to thin air.
“At 0845 the same thing happened to Miss Militia, though she was able to speak to both of them. Miss Militia also reports that they have access to all of her memories, and she has access to all of theirs, including what she calls ancestral memories. At 0855 we convened an emergency meeting. I also took the liberty of asking Miss Hebert to clean this room before we used it. She was gracious enough to consent, and allow herself to be recorded.”
Another click and they watch the results of the cleaning.
Piggot grumbles, “At least I know why this damn chair is so uncomfortable. I need to break it in again.” – more loudly she continues – “So we have a security nightmare sitting in guest quarters here.”
Rennick shakes his head, “Or we have a security panacea. The three of them have a potentially completely secure communication system. We have to assume that they all have the same security clearance, as whatever Miss Militia knows, so potentially do they.”
Dauntless removes his helmet and runs his fingers through his hair, “Two unknowns also now know the identities of not only us, but also the wards. Miss Militia has a photographic memory, unless something has changed that I’m not aware of.”
Armsmaster nods, “Indeed, they do. And we know theirs.”
Assault laughs, “That’s why you’re not using code names for them. It’s pointless.”
“Exactly.”
Piggot groans, “Please tell me that’s all there is to it.”
Rennick looks absolutely sour, “No, far from it. During the call, Miss Hebert referenced her trigger event. This is a locker at Winslow High School on the 4^th January 2011, 2 hours before this photo was taken, Miss Hebert was pulled from the locker by the janitor. Note the hole in the floor. This is lab 3 where the face huggers were taken after they fell from the victims faces. These containment and examination devices were rated for Biohazard level 4, as well as fire, reactivity, and health hazards for acid, alkali, corrosives, and radiation all at level 3. The acid that has eaten through them is identical to the residue found at the school.”
Armsmaster takes over, “We believe that we have the first ever case 61, a person that has gained parahuman abilities without a corona or another parahuman gifting them, such as Teacher. Who are classified as case 60’s. What’s more, Miss Militia claims that all those that are infected by her eggs gain the same abilities as her own, minus the ability to lay eggs. The downside being that they are part of Miss Hebert’s hive.”
Piggot groans, “Just what we need. What are her preliminary ratings then?”
“Trump 8, because just from what she’s demonstrated, she can grant teleportation, telepathy, summoning, and whatever that cleaning ability is.
“Master 1, because people become members of her hive.
“Mover 5 tentatively though it depends on range.
“Stranger 6 because of her mover rating, and because Miss Militia reports that she has been using invisibility at school.”
Battery frowns when Armsmaster stops there, “What about the other ratings?”
“I do not wish to speculate until we have confirmed their security clearances.”
Triumph asks, “Will she be joining the wards?”
Armsmaster shakes his head, “She can’t. I don’t mean she’s too old, I mean that she has access to too much sensitive information, and almost certainly will gain access to more. Her security clearances will need to exceed those allowed to wards anywhere.”
Assault hits the table with his fist, “Fuck! So what do we do then?”
Piggot takes a sip of water, “I presume that’s precisely what this meeting is about. We’ve all got the background information and, unless we want to lose Miss Militia, we have to assume they’re staying here.”
Everyone around the table is painfully aware of just how short-staffed they are, and grimaces abound.

 

Loss - Trust

In the future, Hannah would never be able to explain why the ancestral memories held so much fascination to her. However, in the present, she found herself drawn to them like a moth to a bonfire. Tens of thousands of years of evolution, all recorded in Taylor’s brain. Hundreds of thousands of battles, evolution, and wars of attrition, every one of which were ultimately won, allowing her memories to be passed down from generation to generation. Then there were the Yautja, Skali, and Laprey, and their technology and weapons. If she’s honest with herself, especially their technology and weapons. Plans for making starships that can traverse the Galaxy in a matter of years. Of weapons that can crack open planets, or vaporise a person with pinpoint accuracy from 100 yards away. Of facemasks that not only provide life support, communications, and telemetry, they also provide multiple different vision modes and targeting for the weapons.
And so, Hannah whiles her time in M/S following her usual practice of examining memories, only this time they’re not her own.

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Apart from one phone call to the office, to let them know that he was off for a couple of weeks due to being involved in a parahuman incident, Danny was left to brood on the last few years of his life. Vivian’s memories weren’t helpful for his sense of well-being, as they clinically listed out all of the symptoms of grief, followed by a deep dive into untreated chronic depression and borderline alcoholism in an effort to self-medicate. Being able to talk to Hannah and Taylor occasionally helped with his isolation. When he could drag Hannah away from the ancestral memories, he found that she was a genuinely pleasant woman with an absolutely horrible past. A past that he was able to partially relate to, through his experiences with many of the Dockworkers that had found their way into his employ.

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While the other two members of her hive were being kept in minimum contact isolation. Taylor was constantly busy, for some reason, Armsmaster seemed to think that the entire building was filthy. Though, so far as she could tell, the cleaners did an adequate job. Still, it got her out of the suite for a couple of hours every day, and she even got a private tour of the Wards quarters. Though, weirdly there was some talk about Shadow Stalker being reassigned to Anchorage in Alaska.
Yes, Sophia was a pain, but she was a symptom of a much larger problem at the school, and dealing with her had been a trial. But it was now a manageable trial. Taylor looks down at her hands, claws. Her changes have been accelerating since she accepted that she and Queenie are the same person. In many ways, it’s been a relief knowing that she’s not human. In other ways it’s like she’s lost something important. With a sigh, she turns back to the latest timed ‘Mental aptitude test’ as if she couldn’t recognise ‘keep her busy while we work out what to do’ make work when she sees it.

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Director Piggot looks at the report in front of her with a combination of chagrin and anger. The report details all of the bugs that Armsmaster has found though out the building, even in her dialysis machine, after the new ‘Specialist Cleaning Service’ has done a thorough deep clean on different rooms and corridors. At the bottom of the report is a request for a PRT approved technical maintenance company, to come in from the west coast and examine the phone, networking, and computer systems for physical taps. The cost is almost 5% of the PRT ENE annual budget, somewhat ameliorated by the fact that that Armsmaster’s own signature is on the bottom authorising half the cost to come from the Protectorate budget.
Grimacing slightly, due to the galling fact that they can no longer trust the local approved contractors, as someone with high security access to the building has to have planted those bugs. Picking up her pen, she puts her own signature to the request before folding it up and personally walking it to Armsmaster’s lab.

As the door to his lab opens, Piggot leans heavily against the frame to catch her breath. Something that she’d have never needed to do 15 years ago. Arrayed out in front of Armsmaster are 4 groupings of electronic devices. Armsmaster himself is bent over the counter, deep in thought. Raising her hand to her mouth, she coughs loudly causing Armsmaster to startle.
“Director, I didn’t hear you open the door. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Piggot lifts the report, “I wanted to have you send this through protectorate channels rather than PRT channels. Also, what have you found?”
“There’s a stall by the desk over there. I have identified 4 distinct types of bugs that we’ve found, all of which have some level of smart avoidance in them. These ones all have components manufactured in Europe, these ones are from India and Asia, this small group here appear to have been bought locally and would have probably been picked up in our next scheduled sweep. Finally, this group here were tinker tech. All of them show similar methods of failure, though no two have failed in exactly the same way. What I’ve managed to determine is that Queenie’s power seems to be disrupting the careful doping of the material that the chips are printed on. Structurally, this has no effect on the physical properties of the chips, however microscopically, it can close off gates, make areas conductive, or non-conductive, where they should be semi-conductive.”
“While that’s interesting, I’m more concerned about what you’ve determined by their locations.”
Armsmaster nods, “The European sourced devices were all found in areas that PRT officers have access to. The ones from India and Asia tended to be in areas that call staff and office workers have access to. Finally, the Tinker-tech ones were found all over, often sparsely and in highly sensitive areas like the console, your dialysis machine, and the conference rooms. Each one, not only placed for maximum coverage, but also for the smallest chance of physical discovery. This is in direct contrast to the other two groups where they were placed to remain hidden even if there was a corresponding lack of audio or visual quality.”
“Why weren’t they found in your regular sweeps of the building?”
“Shielding, and active countermeasures. Electronics scanning equipment is often passive, however we use active scanning with infrared detectors and electromagnetic resonance. If you look at this device, you’ll see it has a hood that can drop over the lens of the pinhole camera. This is linked to an infrared sensor and will trigger within 2ms of sensing infrared light above a certain level. This also shuts down the device for an hour by dumping the capacitors in a directed radio burst away from the lens. Additionally, all three of these groups use passive power induction to work by charging from our radio communications while the lights in the room are off, and then using that charge to record and transmit when the lights come on.”
“What about the 4^th group?”
“All battery powered devices dropped in publicly accessible areas, so probably cape groupies or gossip columnists looking for stuff to brag about.”

Piggot nods as she absorbs the information about how compromised they are, “What about Queenie?”
“So far, she has completed her GED, has college certificates for Math, Psychology, English Language, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. All given to her as ‘Mental Aptitude Tests’ to measure any changes in her cognition. She’s likely to get an Honorary Degree in Engineering if the ‘visual and spatial’ and ‘Artistic Design’ tests come back from California with a positive validation. We actually just threw those tests in because we were running out of things that didn’t need physical apparatus or parental permission to test. We have a request for a video call with Dr Yamada from the parahuman asylum to talk to her and provide a professional evaluation on her health and psychiatric knowledge. As you know, she spends a day a week at every east coast protectorate facility on top of her normal workload of looking after the inmates there, so it could be a few weeks before she’s able to make the time.”
Piggot frowns, “Go back to the engineering degree, what did she do that’s so special?”
“She drew out a design for a solid state jet engine. The brief was, ‘What do you think the aircraft of the future will look like?’”
“And?”
“I built it in a fugue, it’s over there in the corner. It’s 27.3% more efficient than a mechanical design of the same size. With better materials I think I could get that number up to 30%. It uses a non-intuitive design paradigm that goes against everything we’re taught about engineering.”
In a tone that heavily implies the opposite, Piggot says “I see.”
“It’s great isn’t it. Imagine what we’d be able to do with this insight into engineering. What else have we missed that this will…”

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Deputy Director Rennick looks at the journal written in neat cursive, and accompanied with print outs and glued in examples.
“You’re sure that this is genuine?”
Commander O’Donnell nods, “My squad found it while we were securing the Hebert’s house. Miss Hebert had it hidden behind a loose board at the back of her wardrobe. I was able to get a sealed warrant for the cell phone text messaging history for the three girls, as well as historical records of all the e-mail accounts they’ve been given by the school. We would need to get a court order to unseal the records for use in prosecution, however it’s already been enough to determine the veracity of the findings. When the judge saw them, she immediately activated the probation conditions for Shadow Stalker, stating that there was a clear and grievous violation of the agreement.”
“That explains her transfer to Anchorage, I assume it’s to the juvenile parahuman detention facility there?”
“It is. 600 miles from the nearest road, across terrain that is generally considered inhospitable in the summer.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Served several months there on punishment detail several years ago. Supplies are dropped off once a month by train, and in the winter you’ll occasionally end up eating oats and beans so much that you go through hate and into boredom. The whole place is powered by a micro nuclear reactor that’s buried 100m outside the facility.”
“The director would have preferred to have a choice about that, but that’s not your problem. You just did your job. What about the other two?”
“Can’t touch them as they’re civilians, and it’s unlikely the PD will be able to do much, given the corruption there.”
Rennick sighs.

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Taylor steps down from the back of a PRT van, “Sweet glorious sunshine, oh how I’ve missed you.”
Susan O’Donnell, in her civilian garb, smiles at Taylor’s antics. Despite being 15, a week and a bit of virtually unlimited food has seen her grow up like a weed and fill out like a woman. She could now easily pass as someone in her early 20’s, hence a shopping trip to an out of the way mall near Downtown, part of the more upmarket area of the city. Susan was there because of the more inhuman aspects of Taylor’s growth, the short tail, darkening skin on her hands and feet, and claws developing on both.

30 minutes later, Taylor is staring, with disgust, at a pair of loose jeans. Susan has just pointed out that they’d never fit over her tail, and she also has less control over the claws on her feet than she does her fingers. God damn it, she likes her ratty jeans and hoodies that she can just fade into the background wearing. Dumping it back on the rack, she winces and then hands it to Susan, along with the fresh gash down the leg. As Susan starts to laugh, Taylor sticks her tongue out at her, “Look, I can’t help it if I’m not used to having claws yet.”
“I know, it doesn’t stop it being funny though. It is why I’m here with a bank card after all.”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Miss I can still wear pants. I’m now relegated to only wearing skirts or dresses. Do you have any idea how much that makes you stand out?”
Susan steps forward and looks up at her pointedly, “I don’t think standing out is something you need to worry about.”
Suddenly a young girl runs up to them and blurts out, “70% chance I won’t be kidnapped if I stand with you.”
Taylor crouches down next to the girl and growls, “Who’s trying to kidnap you?”
The girl points at the entrance where a few men have just stopped outside, “63% chance that one of you dies if we stay here.”
Taylor reaches up and yanks Susan down, heedless of the holes she’s just put in her blouse, “I can get us back to the PRT.”
“55% chance I get kidnapped if you take me to the PRT. It was 70% last week.”
Susan shakes her head and pulls out her phone to dial the console, “Console, this is O’Donnell, we have an attempted kidnapping of a minor at the South Street Mall. What’s your name sweetie?”
“Dinah Alcott.”
“Dinah Alcott, she seems exhausted, exhibiting some sort of precognition, and is clearly scared. How long do we have?”
“45% chance that everyone in the store dies in the next 5 minutes.”
Taylor softly says, “Dinah, I know somewhere that should be safe. However it’s dangerous in its own way.”
Susan stares at Taylor and then abruptly hangs up, “No, no, no no no, we are not going there.”
Dinah holds her head in pain, “93% chance I’ll be safe there. 80% chance you will die if you don’t come with us.”
Decision made, Taylor reaches out and grabs both of them before they’re engulfed in fire. “Taylor No!”

Susan’s voice trails off as they reappear in pitch darkness. She jumps and swallows down a scream as Taylor takes hold of her face.
“Susan, I’m sorry I can’t completely control my face huggers yet, but I can slow them down. Do you understand? I think I can even give one to you so that you can put it on your own face. But there’s too many eggs here for me to stop you from being infected. My memories show that if you relax and don’t fight it, it will be more gentle and won’t knock you out. Do you think you can do that?”
“Can’t you just kill them?”
“As soon as I kill one, all the eggs will hatch, and I can’t stop them all. If I had more experience, I’d have been able to stop these two from even hatching.”
“Taylor…”
“Susan, if we leave now, these two will seek out other people. If I kill them you’ll both be infected anyway, and I’ll have to kill the rest. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want any of this.”
Taylor barks a laugh, “I didn’t want this either, but I didn’t have a choice about the locker. I’m giving you the best choices I can think of at the moment.”
“Give me the face hugger.”
“Hold out your hands palm up, then bring it towards your face. It will do the rest, and try not to panic.”
Once it latches on, Taylor holds her hands until her eyes stop looking so wild, “Are you ok now?”
Susan nods, and Taylor releases her hands, “Dinah, I want you to shut your eyes as I’m about to turn the lights on.”
Susan wonders why Taylor is turning the lights on now, when suddenly she’s blinking the stars out of her eyes and looking at, at least a dozen, unopened eggs crowded around something that’s stuck to the wall. Sitting on one of the opened eggs is another face hugger that’s pointing at Dinah. She looks down as she hears a gasp, and sees Dinah stumbling backwards and tripping over an overturned bucket. Taylor comes back over from the stairs and kneels down beside Dinah.
“It’s OK, these won’t hurt you, they’ll just make you part of my family. See, look at Susan she’s fine.” – Susan waves weakly – “Now, do you know how your power works?”
“I think so, people ask me a question and I have to answer with a percentage?”
“What sort of question?”
“About the future.”
“I want to know what effect you being part of my family will have on your chances of being kidnaped or killed in the next week. But you don’t have to answer right away. First of all, do you think you can be a big girl like Susan and accept the face hugger without fighting it?”
Fearfully eyeing the face hugger, and then looking up at Susan, she nods. Then closes her eyes as her headache gets worse. Taylor doesn’t see the last part as she’s already turned around to pick up the face hugger before turning back.
Eyes slitted against the pain, Dinah opens her mouth and brings the face hugger to her face. As with Susan, Taylor holds her hands until the instinctual panic subsides and her body realises it’s not actually dying.
“Well,” says Taylor cheerfully, “Let’s go back to my apartment and you two can watch TV or something until they come and take you into quarantine.”
Susan looks like she’s trying to say something, and stamps her foot as they disappear in a flash of fire.
“Well, make yourselves comfortable, I’m just going to change into something more comfortable.”
Taylor then changes into Queenie before lying down and seeming to go to sleep.

 

Loss - Innocence

Aegis looks around the absolutely spotless common room, the tired and dirty Wards providing a stark counterpoint. It was something he was still coming to terms with, as there was always stuff left out, the stain on the couch from one of Kid Win’s experiments, or the permanent marker on the counter doors from when Clockblocker decided to confuse everyone.
“Panacea, Glory Girl, thank you both for joining us, we appreciate it. And Panacea, I personally very much appreciate you healing me up. Everyone, today went very badly and I’d like to go over what we did right, what we did wrong, and what went wrong despite doing everything right. Who wants to go first?”
Everyone just stares at him with exhausted eyes, “Ok, fine, I’ll go first. We shouldn’t have swapped costumes. It didn’t work, and it would have left Clockblocker without even the minimal protection his costume provides.”
Vista says, “We didn’t have enough intel on the undersiders, so they were able to blindside us with their better planning. I’m going to have a shower and get changed.”
Helplessly, Aegis looks around, “Anyone else?”
Gallant sighs, “I think Vista is right, we didn’t know enough. Can we put this off until Miss Militia gets here?”
“Isn’t she in Master Stranger?”
“They’re accelerating her through the last few days as she’s the only Protectorate member on site. It was in the e-mail we were sent after the bank. Director Piggot is apparently going to debrief us personally.”
Aegis looks chagrined, as his own phone was destroyed in the fight with one of the beasts, “I didn’t actually know that, as my phone was destroyed by Hellhounds dog thing.”

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Piggot and Rennick both stare at a monitor that’s currently showing the interior of Taylor Hebert’s suite. A clearly frustrated Commander O’Donnall is typing angrily at the computer while a young girl is watching cartoons on the TV. Just visible at the bottom of the image is a monster that appears to be sleeping near the door. Both the Girl and Commander have things attached to their faces.
Rennick looks up, “What do we do with them?”
“Who’s the girl?”
“According to the last call that Commander O’Donnall made, a Miss Dinah Alcott. Niece to the current Mayor, and apparently a parahuman. She is now the 4^th person known to have been affected by a Face Hugger.”
“Do we know what her power is?”
“Something to do with percentages, that’s all we could glean from the phone, as it died during the teleport to Miss Hebert’s home. Additionally, according to our analysists Miss Hebert’s current form is likely to be the same thing that fought Lung and killed the gang members.”
“And Lung?”
Rennick leans over and uses the mouse to bring up the transcript of the recording of Taylor’s call to the PRT.

Operator:“I see, and why would you think you might hurt someone?”
TH:“I think something happened last night, I was looking for somewhere safer to put a base, and then the last thing I clearly remember is hearing someone say they wanted to kill children. I… I think I killed people, and I remember fire, and looking up at the earth and thinking it looks pretty.”
Operator:“I, see, do you think you would be able to get into the back of a PRT van on your own?”
TH:“I just want my father to be safe.”

Piggot shakes her head, “What’s your point?”
“Where can you look up to see the earth? Probably the same place that we look up to every night and see ourselves.”
“Why are you being obtuse?”
“Because our meeting is being recorded.”
“Fine.” Piggot shuts down the computer, “We’re off the record now.”
“I think she has two mover ratings for teleportation. The first is the one she uses seemingly without thought, and is only noticeable due to the slight pop of displaced air.”
“Yes, go on.”
“The second uses the flames we saw when they returned to her apartment. I think they can go anywhere, even the moon.”
“And everyone that is part of her hive will be able to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Bollocks. Right, all of her records are now eyes only. Get it all printed out and scrubbed from our servers. The same is true for everyone that is part of her Hive, as of now.”
“Why?”
“We literally can’t afford to prosecute her for anything. If she gets spooked or afraid, we have someone that can literally bugger off to who knows where and just return, at their leisure to do whatever they want. What happens if the E88 get their claws into her, or the Elite, Yangban, or even Geschillicraft? She can’t be imprisoned, because Mover, and a Kill Order is just going to piss her off and get a lot of good people killed or suborned. The only thing we can do is try to keep her on side so that she doesn’t go off the deep end.”
“Aren’t you being pessimistic?”
“Hardly, if Elisburg taught me something, it’s that Parahumans can’t be trusted. They’re all fucking traumatised and even the best adjusted of them still have that lingering trauma buried deep in their minds, colouring their thoughts, and making them unpredictable. Miss Hebert’s thing seems to be expanding her hive. She can either do that here, with us, where we have some control over who becomes a member. Or she can do it away from our oversight.”
“Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a little?”
“Miss Alcott and Commander O’Donnell are two examples just today, she could have taken them literally anywhere, and she chose her basement. I bet that she’ll end up getting someone else with a face hugger before the end of the week, possibly two if we don’t let her out of the building.”
“What’s the wager?”
“Doing the paperwork for the new parahuman department that we need to create.”
“Fine, what’s the department?”
“Watchdog ENE.”
“We can do that?”
“We can, as long as it has a local focus. Which ours will. I’ve been looking at it for a few days, and their mandate will be PRT and Protectorate internal affairs, anti-thinker, and counterintelligence. Invisibility, teleportation, precognition, whatever it is that Miss Hebert does that kills bugs, and enough people to actually make a department. This is assuming that she doesn’t dip any further into the bag and pull out yet more powers.”
“You think she will?”
“Are you willing to bet she won’t?”
“Ah, no?”

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It is with some relief that Miss Militia receives the news she’s passed both Quarantine and M/S. As soon as the doctor gives her the go ahead to leave, she pops into her quarters and, with a click of her fingers, changes her outfit for a clean uniform. She then registers where she is, before sheepishly popping back to the isolation ward and walking out.
“Doctor Hope, I need to register a change in my powers.”
The doctor looks up from his paperwork, “Oh?”
“I just teleported to my quarters.”
“Thank you for letting me know, I’ll add it to your file for your upcoming re-evaluation. It is likely that it will be annotated as part of Queenies trump power.”
“Er, ok, I’ll be off again then.” Miss Militia pops off, marvelling at just how natural it feels to do that.
“That’s because it is natural. Apparently, it’s an ability natural to a species called a House Elf.”
“Taylor?”
“Yep, you were thinking too loudly.”
“I’ll have to find a way to get a handle on that then.”
“There’re references to something called occlumency in here somewhere. Apparently it was used to protect your mind.”
“I’ll see if I can find it. I need to check my mail now.”
“Ok, I’ll go back to napping then.”
It doesn’t take long for her to check her mail, as at the top is an urgent e-mail from the Director, asking her to come to the directors office as soon as she’s released. Standing up she takes two steps to the door, and with a pop she’s in the secretaries office, eliciting a startled eep from the secretary.
Miss Militia mumbles, “That is far too easy.” – she turns to face the secretary, and more loudly – “Good afternoon, I have an urgent message from the Director to see her as soon as practical.”
“She’s currently meeting with the deputy director, let me call to see if she’s available.”
Nervously, her power shifts her weapons around into things she can grip. A faint green glow accompanying each change.
“You may go in now.”
Pulling herself together, she marches into the directors office, “You wanted to see me, Ma’am?”
Piggot indicates a chair, “Please take a seat. Miss Hebert, and now Miss Alcott are providing us with quite a thorny problem. At the same time, the arrival of Miss Alcott has opened more doors to us. Presuming we can get her parents or guardians buy in, we would like you to be the senior protectorate member of Watchdog ENE.”
Miss Militia’s eyes widen, and she can feel Taylor’s interest, “Why me?”
“Quite simple, you’re already part of Miss Hebert’s hive. This means that, if we’re right, you’ve got the same mover, stranger, and shaker ratings as she does. We can’t ask Miss Hebert to join the Wards, as your personal security clearances are higher than those allowed by the Wards. Your area of responsibility would expand to include everywhere that the PRT ENE covers, which is the whole of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire north of Manchester. As with WEDGDG, you would primarily be Protectorate and PRT internal affairs, along with providing counterintelligence and anti-thinker capabilities to the PRT and Protectorate. You may have noticed that I didn’t say anything about how Miss Alcott came to our attention, just as I assume you’re aware of the fact that Commander O’Donnell is now a parahuman. Tentatively a case 62, as Miss Hebert is a case 61.
“You don’t have to decide now, as we haven’t even contacted Miss Alcott’s parents, and we won’t until she is free of the face hugger. I’d rather not have them screaming at my staff about getting the monster off her face. Is there anything that you’d like to add?”
Miss Militia thinks for a moment, “I believe that we will need a Tinker budget as well.”
“Depending on what comes from Armsmaster’s investigations, that may actually be impossible. We’ll discuss it further when those results come back.”
“Thank you for the consideration. I may send you some questions later as I think of them.”
“Please write them down and hand them to my secretary, anything to do with Miss Hebert and her hive is now classified as eyes only.”
“Won’t that cause problems with record keeping?”
“Yes, but a small inconvenience for us is a massive hurdle for intruders. Consider it your first lesson in anti-thinker and stranger techniques. If it requires physically being in a location to read a document, then that document is inherently more secure than one on a network. Not secure by any means, as the only way to truly secure something is for it to not be written down. That’s probably enough for this meeting, we now need to debrief the Wards after the bank heist this afternoon. Conference room 3 in 15 minutes.”
Miss Militia stands, “Yes Ma’am.”

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Miss Militia is waiting in the conference room when the Wards, along with Glory Girl and Panacea, all walk in. With a smile that reaches her eyes, she walks over to the two visitors and takes off her gloves.
Reaching out with one hand towards Glory Girl, she says, “Thank you for sticking around. I’m sorry it has taken so long for this debriefing to be arranged.”
“Don’t worry about it, it was a good excuse to hang around with Gallant.”
“Ah, yes.” – she then turns to Panacea and holds out her hand – “Thank you too for sticking around, and for also healing their injuries after the…”
Miss Militia trails off, as Panacea’s eyes glaze over and she says, “It’s so beautiful, I can see it growing in you. Morphing to match you as much as it’s changing you. I wish I could see the source material.”
Wide eyed Miss Militia shakes her head at Panacea and Taylor. However, neither of them pay any attention to her pleas, and there’s a couple of pops as Queenie appears, places an egg in Panacea’s hands and disappears with a pop.
Miss Militia sighs when she sees the petals open, even as Panacea is still wide eyed and in a power fugue, “Everyone back, you especially Glory Girl. If you interfere you are just going to get you, and possibly other people seriously injured.”
Glory Girl, predictably, ignores her when the face hugger latches onto Panacea’s face. Reacting quickly, Miss Militia grabs Panacea’s hand and pops to the other side of the room.
“Glory Girl, Panacea is fine. However, the face hugger has seriously strong acid for blood. If you injure it, it will bleed all over her and probably kill her.”
When Glory Girl instead ramps up her aura and charges, Miss Militia idly notes that she’s not affected by it, while also picturing the UK Antarctic Research Station that she did her cold weather survival training at. Launching herself at Glory Girl, the two of them disappear in a gout of flame and reappear in the middle of the abandoned station.
Glory Girl, in her skimpy skirt and bare midriff top, starts to shiver almost immediately, “What are you doing, we have to get that off her. Where are we?”
“We’re in Antarctica, and we’re here because you were trying to kill your sister.”
“I wanted to get that thing off her, not kill her.”
Miss Militia pulls her mask down so that Glory Girl, no Victoria Dallon, can see just how serious she is, “Victoria, do you even know what that thing is?”
“No but?”
“It’s called a face hugger. It is implanting a symbiote into your sister stomach and is harmless to her. In an hour or so it will fall off, several hours after that it’s carapace will break down releasing the acid that is it’s blood. Now, have you cooled down enough that you’re no longer going to ignore the advice of people that actually know what they’re talking about, or do we have to stay here for another minute or two?”
Teeth chattering and fingers starting to turn blue, Victoria says, “I’ll be good.”
Miss Militia lifts her mask back into place before flaming them to the cafeteria, where she summons her winter coat from her wardrobe before laying it over Victoria’s shoulders, and then orders two large hot chocolates.

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Piggot and Rennick both enter the conference room and stop. Rennick sighs and mimes handing money over to Piggot.
In one corner of the room, Amy Dallon is caressing a face hugger with a look more commonly found on Armsmaster and Kid Win’s faces when they’ve just discovered something, and their power is now driving. In the other corner, are the Wards.
In a commanding voice she says, “Ok, what’s going on?”
Vista says, “We don’t know, Panacea shook hands with Miss Militia and then got this glazed look on her face. She said something about it being beautiful and wanting to see the source material. Then this massive black monster pops in and hands her that thing.” – Vista points at the open egg sack on the floor – “Next thing we know, Miss Militia is telling us all to move back and not to interfere. Vicky ignores her and tries to grab that thing, and suddenly Miss Militia can teleport, and the two of them disappear in a flash of fire.”
Piggot pinches the bridge of her nose, “Ok, everyone take your seats, Rennick, phone Miss Hebert’s suite and tell her to come back to Conference Room 3.”
While the Wards are taking their seats, Piggot fills a plastic cup with ice water from the ubiquitous fountain, before throwing it over Amy’s face. She can see the moment the cold water shocks her out of the Fugue state, and she realises her predicament.
“Miss Dallon, you are quite safe. Take a seat and all will be explained shortly. You were in a power driven Fugue.”
Amy’s eyes widen and she hurries to find a seat. Less than a minute later, a monstrous form appears in the conference room.
Piggot uses her parade ground voice to bark, “Human! Now!”
Startled the monster shrinks down to a young woman wearing a skirt and tee-shirt, “Miss Hebert, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Three people have been infected by your eggs today, Miss Alcott, Commander O’Donnell, and now Miss Dallon. The first two you get a pass for, as there was no good choice, but you shouldn’t have put them in that situation in the first place. However, Miss Dallon is currently scared out of her mind with one of your face huggers wrapped around her head.”
“But she said she wanted to see the source material.”
“Did you check to see if she was in her right mind? Did you ensure that she understood the consequences of receiving an egg?”
Taylor manages to sound very small when she says, “No?”
“Then I believe that you owe Miss Dallon an apology. Later you will need to explain to Mrs Dallon just what has happened to her daughter, and why it happened. Finally, I want you to promise that you won’t deliberately expose anyone else to an egg without talking to me about it first. Do you understand?”
Taylor nods, “Yes. I’m sorry Miss Dallon, I thought you wanted to see one of my eggs. This face hugger is from a symbiotic egg, so it will make you part of my family. You’ll get all sorts of cool abilities, such as teleportation and invisibility. Oh, and being able to talk to anyone else in the hive. May I go now?”
“No, you’ve forgotten the promise. Once you’ve given it, you will sit here where I can keep an eye on you.”
“But Dinah.”
“You can both talk now, or is the timing wrong?”
“We can.”
“Where’s Miss Militia?”
“She’s in the cafeteria buying Hot Chocolate for Victoria.”
Piggot nods as if she’s just confirmed something, “So, if something did happen to Miss Alcott, you could respond in an instant?”
“I could.”
“Then you will sit there and keep Miss Dallon company while she adjusts to what’s happening.”
Sullenly, Taylor sits beside Amy and says, “I really am sorry, I honestly thought it was something you wanted.”
Amy gives her a sarcastic roll of her eyes before saying something very rude in ASL.
“Miss Dallon, I would appreciate it if you would keep that sort of language out of my conference room.”
Amy flushes scarlet.
“Miss Hebert, your promise?”
Sullenly Taylor says, “I promise that I will try and speak to you before exposing anyone else to one of my eggs.”

Victoria and Miss Militia both walk back into the conference room, Victoria still shivering. Following them is Rennick.
“Good evening, Miss Dallon, are you feeling better?”
Victoria nods, “Still cold though.”
“Understandable,” – Piggot looks at Miss Militia – “hence the hot chocolate?”
Miss Militia nods, “1997”
Piggot winces, “Definitely hot chocolate then. Be careful of your fingers Miss Dallon, it might be tempting to hold the hot chocolate, but you should allow them to warm naturally.”

“Wards, normally at this point you would go through a self-directed de-brief, where we encourage you to see the mistakes you made, what you did well, and where you could improve. Instead I will say that you did well for being called out of school into a situation where you had zero intel. Clockblocker, Aegis, you know that you made a mistake in switching costumes.”
All of the Wards look at her as if she’s grown a second head, “What? Did you think I only existed to shout at you? Normally, this would be Armsmaster or Miss Militia’s job, however events are conspiring against us, so tonight I’m your mentor. In military parlance I am you CO or Commanding officer. The only times you should ever see me normally is if you have screwed up by the numbers, or I’m pinning a medal on your chest. Armsmaster and the rest of the protectorate are all in Washington, Oregon, for their Biennial operations training update. Normally only one or two members would be pulled away for this at the same time, but that’s not what happened. Instead, Miss Militia was the only member left here due to M/S screening. Then at 1545 Central Bank was robbed, which pulled all of you, with the exception of Vista, out of classes in order to respond. At 1550 Commander O’Donnell called the console to report a kidnapping in progress. We have a saying in the Army and the PRT, ‘Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.’ Due to the quick actions of Miss Hebert here, the kidnapping was stymied before anyone was killed. Though both Miss Alcott’s parents are currently in ICU from gunshot wounds. No Miss Dallon, you may not go and heal them. Let the doctors earn their pay, you have more things to be concerned with than two people that will be fine with a few days on a drip.”
Piggot looks pointedly at Clockblocker before she continues, “Without that last part of the puzzle the whole thing would have looked like a massive coincidence. Whatever they hoped to gain from Miss Alcott’s kidnapping, whether it was political or financial is now impossible, as she is now a case 62 like Miss Dallon here. For your information, the PRT has different classifications for parahumans, the most famous of which is Case 53, but each and every one of you falls under a case number. Miss Hebert is the first ever confirmed case 61, her powers came from somewhere else, and she doesn’t have a corona Gemma or Polenta.”
Amy quickly grabs Taylors hand and briefly gets a glazed look in her eyes before they widen and she starts to sign in ASL.
“Miss Dallon, Miss Hebert doesn’t understand sign language yet. Though I have no doubt that she will be fluent in it within around 4 hours. As I was saying, she does not have the key marker for the most common type of parahuman, even case 53’s have a corona Gemma and Polenta. She is also a power granting trump. The reason why I’m being so open about this, is that one of the side effects of granting powers, is that she gains access to all of the memories of every member in her hive, just as each hive member gets access to her memories.”
Miss Militia takes a deep breath, “The reason I was in M/S is that I was attacked by a face hugger, and I’m part of Miss Hebert’s hive.”

There’s silence around the table, and then Vista is the first one to take her mask off, “Well, this is currently pointless. Hi, I’m Missy Byron, thanks for saving my friend today.”
Taylor waves, “Dinah says hi, and she’d like to see you, my suite has loads of cameras in it, so you’d need your mask. Oh, and can you tell Mrs French that her art assignment is going to be late.”
Vista starts to laugh, “Of course it’s going to be late. So are you joining the Wards?”
Taylor looks sharply at Miss Militia and then looks at Piggot, who shakes her head, “There are a multitude of reasons, but no they won’t be part of the Wards. They will also be outside the Protectorate as well. However, they will still be based here, so you can still socialise, there will just be things they can’t talk to you about.”

One by one the other Wards unmask to Taylor.

---

Omake

Arsenal looks down at her host as it is finally free to move around again. Seeing that it’s going to walk somewhere, she pokes the bit of it’s brain that triggers the teleport. Suddenly her host is elsewhere, but she couldn’t see how it happened. There she goes, poke, still nothing. Ohh, Shaper’s coming, maybe he can help, poke this bit here and then show this bit to Shaper.

 

Loss - Control

Carol (Brandish) Dallon walks briskly through the PRT HQ, her short heels clicking on the floor with every step. Adding to her disgruntlement is the fact she was on her way home from the office when the call came through. Amy has been involved in a parahuman incident during a debriefing, and needs a parent to come in.
Maybe she’s finally snapped and shown that she is her father’s child. Some part of her objects to that line of thought, as it’s not Amy’s fault her father is Marquis. She squashes that thought ruthlessly, as Amy first showed her true colours with that flower. She stops and wrestles with that thought for a moment, Amy was 9, she just wanted to give her a pretty flower. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t understand how dangerous that sort of thing is. She hates that she has to keep reminding herself of these things.
She flashes her badge at the security guard, one that she was given because she’s a Hero, she’s a Lawyer, and also because her daughter, her daughters both socialise here regularly. Waving the badge over the scanner at the elevators, she taps her foot when the doors don’t open immediately. Walking in, she swipes her badge again and selects Directors and Administration from the options that appear on the panel. Cursing, not for the first time, at the fact they randomise every time you swipe a badge.

A couple of minutes later she arrives at Director Piggot’s office. Taking a few moments to straighten her clothes, she walks in and stands in front of the secretary’s desk.
“Mrs Dallon to see the Director.”
The secretary picks up the phone, and Carol notices a brief flash of light under the Directors door.
“The Director will see you now.”

Carol walks into the office to see Director Piggot sitting at her desk, Amy and another girl are sat to one side, and Miss Militia is stood at ease behind the director. One thing that does catch her eye is the strange, bone white, face mask that Amy is wearing. On the table is a rather thick file.
“What has Amy done now?”
When anger flashes in Amy’s (Panacea) eyes, Taylor takes her hand, before leaning over and whispering, “Don’t worry, you’re part of my family now. That can’t be changed.”
Ignoring the two of them, Piggot says deceptively mildly, “What makes you think it’s something Amy’s done?”
“Well, she’s wearing that face mask.”
“Interesting. I need you to read and sign this before we continue.” Piggot slides over a sheet of paper.
Carol picks it up and glances it over while pulling out her pen. Then she stops and starts reading it more carefully.
“What’s this? It’s not an NDA.”
Piggot smiles, “You’re right. It’s the Defence Secrets Act of 1911.”
“Why not an NDA.”
“No signature, no explanation.”

The room goes silent for the next 10 minutes while Carol reads over the law in question very carefully. Finally, she signs the document and hands it back to Piggot, who looks at it before handing her another copy of the law, “This is yours, for reference.”
“I’ve signed, what’s going on?”
“I’d like to introduce you to Miss Taylor Hebert, the cause of your daughter’s current predicament. Miss Hebert.”
“I’m sorry Mrs Dallon, I gave Amy an egg when she said she wanted to see the source material. However, I should have checked that Amy was in her right mind before paying heed to her request.”
“Biotinker? You let a biotinker near my daughter?”
Piggot barks a laugh, “If she was a biotinker, we’d be having a very different conversation. No, she’s the first ever confirmed case 61, and part of that is that she’s a power granting Trump. That, is a face hugger. It is the medium through which the powers are permanently and irreversibly granted to someone. Miss Militia is one of the first to have gone through this, the other one is still in M/S. Your daughter is the 5^th.”
Carol looks at her sceptically, “Still sounds like a biotinker.”
“Miss Hebert is actually a changer, and is currently in her alternative form. In her natural form she lays eggs, and fought Lung one on one until he grew wings. We think she then teleported them both to the moon.”
Taylor blurts out, “I did?”
“Yes Miss Hebert, we think you did. As I was saying, Miss Hebert is a power granting trump. After 10 days, Miss Militia has already demonstrated both forms of teleportation, heightened reflexes and a basic brute package. All of this information is classified eyes only, so I better not see you writing it down anywhere.”
Carol has to supress her instinctive reaction to the news. But the Director continues inexorably, “The reason for this is that Miss Hebert’s powers allow everyone that she grants powers to, to communicate with each other and look at each other’s memories, including the memories that came with her power.”

Amy’s eyes widen in panic at the idea, and Taylor takes her hand in her own. Immediately Amy’s eyes glaze over slightly, and she shakes her head to push her power away.

“This is our file on Panacea. It is now also eyes only, but over the last hour I have been reviewing it. I will be requesting that a qualified professional with the right security clearances takes a look, but at a first glance it seems like Miss Dallon is currently living in an emotionally neglectful situation, bordering on abusive. If this proves to be true, I will be seeking to take custody of Miss Dallon, as we cannot afford to have someone that can teleport, turn invisible, and disrupt certain types of electronics, suffer a psychological break and either go on the run, or go postal. Do you understand?”
Carol swallows her instinctive response of ‘What, you want me to coddle her now?’ and seriously considers what she’s just been told.

The face hugger chooses that moment to release and fall into Amy’s lap. Taylor summons a cup, and water, before handing it to Amy.
“Thanks,” Amy croaks, “I would imagine that’s what the doctors at the hospital were talking about when they joked about having a rubber breakfast during their degree years.”
Taylor’s eyes go distant, “You’re welcome, and yes, it’s almost exactly like having a stomach pump tube inserted.”
Amy looks at Taylor strangely, “How would you know that?”
“Vivian, was a prescribing Psychiatrist, and you have to be an MD for that.”
Piggot interrupts, “How are you feeling Miss Dallon?”
“I, uh, weird, as I can half feel the symbiote but it’s rapidly disappearing. I couldn’t affect the face hugger at all.”
“Good. You’ll need to stay here for a few days for observation, but you should be good to go by the weekend.”
Carol growls, “What’s this about staying for observation?”
“Your daughter has just been granted a new set of powers and, in a few hours, will have access to the memories of everyone else in the group. At least one of which has some highly traumatic moments that may pop up. So, staying for observation is not optional.”
Miss Militia glances over at Taylor before saying, “I don’t think Miss Hebert or Dallon need to be here for the rest of this.”
Piggot looks back, “You’re right, you may go. Can you send the face hugger to the lab please?”
A click of Taylor’s fingers, and the face hugger disappears. Then the two of them disappear in a gout of fire.
Piggot then turns to Carol with a gimlet look in her eyes, “Miss Militia, thank you for observing, I think this now needs to be a private conversation.”
Before disappearing with a pop, Miss Militia says, “Understood Ma’am.”

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The next morning, everyone is woken up to the sound of a massive explosion rocking the building. As alarms blare throughout the building, Taylor appears in the atrium with a pop. As she appears she can see injured PRT personnel littered around the area like discarded dolls, glass and metal sticking out of limbs and torsos. Quickly looking around, she heads over to one that’s bleeding heavily, and tries to cry. Desperately she shouts across the hive link, “Dad! Hannah, Miss Militia I mean! I need you in the atrium, I can’t cry and your tears can save people.”
A couple of pops later and both of them appear next to her.
Danny pulls Taylor into a brief hug, “What do you need Honey?”
“I can’t cry, so you two need to perform triage. If it’s life-threatening cry on the wound, it will heal it, otherwise bind the wounds.”
Commander O’Donnell comes jogging in, shortly followed by a wheezing Amy, “Belay that, Jonson, Truckle you’re on triage, Red band Blue band. Miss Militia, could you get the bands from the infirmary? Jones, Martin, Stevens, you’re on the blue bands, patch them up and make sure they’re not going to die in the next few hours. Hebert Sr, Miss Militia, Panacea, you’re on Red bands, they will all be life threatening injuries, stabilisation is the name of the game here people. Queenie, you’re on Search and Rescue, find the injured and bring them back to the atrium, go native.”
Amy looks startled, “I need to get to the hospital.”
Susan turns around and looks at her, “They have surgical and trauma teams at the hospital, we have none of that, and neither do the people out there. You’ll provide more meaningful help here, where there isn’t anyone that can patch someone up long enough for them to see a doctor, than you would at the hospital. When we’re finished we’ll be heading to hotspots as first responders and providing the same services there. Our aim is to ensure that as many people will live to see a doctor as possible. Do you understand?”
“But that’s were everyone will be going?”
Susan shakes her head, “No, that’s where everyone that is capable of moving will be going, what about the people who can’t move? Now, can you help?”
The sound of more explosions goes off in the distance.
Amy nods, I can, I do this fairly regularly at the hospital.
“I meant mentally and emotionally, we all know your reputation.”
“I can.”
“Good, you’re on the red bands. Remember, stable not healed, we have too many people to look after for healed.”

Apart from Mr Hebert looking like he’s going to throw up or pass out multiple times during the first 15 minutes, the whole thing proceeds efficiently. With Queenie depositing 3 or 4 people at a time in a gout of fire, before disappearing with a pop.

This continues for over an hour, long enough for ambulances and PRT transports to start getting through the gridlocked traffic into the underground parking garage. There they start to take the stabilised casualties off to the various hospitals. A massive wrench is put into their operation when Taylor spots an Asian boy, probably around 12 years old.
“Help me! Somebody help me.”
She starts to make her way over to the child, when another woman beats her to him. Suddenly a bomb in his head explodes and the boy, woman, and everyone within 10 yards is turned into green goo. Taylor’s mind goes blank at the sight and Queenie runs off to the largest concentration of explosions.

Back at the PRT there’s a moment of bedlam as the 4 hive members just freeze for a moment, as the Queen falls back to instincts. O’Donnell pulls on all of her training to wrench her mind back to her own and shouts over the shared mind and aloud, “Everyone, we’re still needed here! Dinah, what’s the chances that we’ll be able to pull Taylor out of this state?”
“6.4%”
“Shit! Ok everyone, it’s not FUBAR yet, Militia, your now on S&R! Start from Taylors LKL and carry on, Mr Hebert, we need you to keep working with Panacea to save as many lives as we can. Dinah, I need you to try and keep track of Taylor and update Console with what you know.”

Into this comes Director Piggot, strapping on a ballistic vest. Scanning the room she identifies O’Donnell as the person in charge, “O’Donnell, sitrep!”
“We’re running red, blue triage and S&R from here, Queenie has just gone AWOL after seeing something that’s not relevant right now. Miss Militia has just taken over S&R so we’re down to two healers. Miss Alcott is tracking Queenie and staying clear of everything.”
“The Deputy Director?”
“Walking wounded Ma’am, he was caught in the initial blast.”
“Understood, I’ll take command, I need you to keep on top of the situation and co-ordinate with Militia and console to locate the worst hit areas of the city. Mr Hebert, your daughter is going to be Ok, you’re doing a brilliant job here. Everyone, get to it you know your jobs. O’Donnell, a private word.”

“What happened to Taylor?”
“She saw a boy calling for help, and then his head exploded. Similar thing to Dinah, saw a child in need and couldn’t help herself.”
“Damn, well at least we know now rather than when lives are actually on the line. Imagine what it would be like if Bonesaw was the child that triggered this.”
Susan shudders, “That would be bad.”
“Back to the millstone.”

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Queenie traces a route into the trainyard where she can smell injured people. Slowing down she starts to stalk the area, slowly moving into a container city that has been turned into a maze for humans. Seeing someone walking around with a weapon, she pounces on them and pauses just before delivering the killing blow.
The person stinks of fear and something else, following the scent of something else she finds a rough incision on the back of their neck. Her head turns curiously, and suddenly her inner mouth shoots out and crushes something inside the wound. Satisfied, she spits it out beside the persons face and takes off to find another person. The second person she finds is a stocky female that’s bleeding from a gut wound. A dog whines next to her as she approaches. Cocking her head to one side as the female releases her bladder and weakly tries to scrabble backwards while holding the dog. A quick pounce and Queenie has the girl and dog in her grasp, flaming them to her hive members she drops them off before returning to her previous position. Prowling around she comes across someone that stinks of gun residue, blood and fear. A cloud of darkness flares out from him, only slowing her down slightly as she has to rely on her senses of smell and hearing. A judicious application of force while he weakly hits her with his fist and the darkness recedes. She flames him back to her hive members and stalks more people. Those that stink of fear and something else, she snaps at the something else and leaves it beside them. The ones that just stink of fear, she kills.

Who ever it is that keeps shooting the bombs is shouting more and more incoherently as her minions are systematically taken out, one way or another. The explosives become erratic enough that Queenie has to pop occasionally to avoid them. Curiously, she comes across a male that is tending to an injured female, both of whom are hiding below a walkway between two containers. As soon as she’s spotted, the uninjured male runs while the female swears.
“Not the PRT, don’t send me to the PRT.”
Queenie runs the back of a claw down her cheek, before the both of them disappear and reappear in her nest. As she disappears in a flash of fire, the female screams, “The PRT, I’ll take the PRT!”

With no other prey around, Queenie stalks invisibly through the trainyard, eventually coming to the well-lit, open area. Standing on the back of a Jeep is the person that’s shooting grenades. Not seeing any cover, she trusts in her invisibility and stalks slowly across the area, keeping to as much cover as she can. Suddenly one of the grenades, that should have been a clear miss, bounces off a box behind her and turns into a black hole. As she scrabbles ineffectually on the ground the female laughs.
“Hahaha, you thought you could sneak up on me. I, Bakuda have beaten the slayer of Lung. This is the start of a new era for the ABB. Drive.”

Helplessly, Queenie tries to pop out, only to reappear in mid-air and lacking the little traction she had before. With a cry she falls into the black hole, and the black hole vanishes in a flash of fire.
In the ash there’s movement, and a chest burster pushes free before shaking its head. With a pop, Danny appears, and lifts the chest burster out of the ash on the floor before disappearing back to the PRT.

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Now that the bombing has stopped, something that coincided with the ‘death’ of Miss Hebert, mundane first responders are able to pick up the slack. Mostly PRT troopers, as some of the exotic effects used are absolutely horrific. Director Piggot’s expression as she directs the troopers could be carved out of granite. She’s not sure when it was discovered, but at some point Danny or Miss Militia cleaned off one of the presumed victims, and disabled the bomb in the back of their heads. As soon as that was discovered, she set Danny and Miss Militia to switch off between cleaning all of the incoming wounded before they were triaged, and crying into the wounds of the worst of them.
She also had to force Miss Dallon to retire after she visibly started flagging 3 hours into the disaster. Especially after the news that one of the victims blew up in Brockton General Hospital, turning the entire ER into a sea of living, boneless, humans as all the calcium in their bones and teeth were turned into saline.
Reluctantly, she also refused to allow the Wards and Glory Girl to assist with the initial S&R, as trained men and women were having trouble with what was found. Tomorrow they would be allowed to help with the clean-up, but today, today is full of horrors that they shouldn’t ever need to witness.
With a tired sigh, she looks over at the most recent addition to her office. One that she never thought she’d ever see in here. In a playpen in the corner, a chest burster is snoozing on top of a teddy bear. Certain death no longer being quite so certain anymore.

The brief lull in her day is interrupted by her radio buzzing to life, picking it up she glances at her computer to see if there’s any new updates she needs to be aware of, “Lady here.”
“Lady, I’m just patching you through to the team house sitting the Hebert’s.”
“Go ahead.”
“Director Piggot, this is officer Andrews. There is knocking from inside the basement, what do you want us to do?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, that’s all she needs, “Is there anything special about the knocking?”
“No, not. No wait, it’s now ‘shave and a haircut, come quick’.”
“Thank you Andrews. I will send someone to deal with it. *click click* Console, could you ask Miss Militia to pop up here please?”

A few seconds later Miss Militia appears in her office, “Militia, the Hebert team has just reported someone knocking from inside the basement. Would you check it out please?”
Miss Militia just nods before disappearing with a pop, “You, human now. There’re some pullups in the bag there.”
When the chest burster doesn’t do anything, Director Piggot growls, “I know you’re awake, Human Now!”
Where there was a chest burster now sits a child of 3 or 4 years of age, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Goo goo gah gah?” – Piggot stares at her until – “I’m sorry?”
“For what?”
“Losing control?”
“Wrong, not telling anyone about this possible trigger. It happened twice before this, we should have been told. What if it had been Bonesaw, or a Fallen trap? Worse, imagine it was the butcher killing a child in front of you. All parahumans have triggers, frankly I’m surprised yours isn’t small spaces. Uh uh, I’m talking and you’re listening. You have understandable trust issues, but you have people you can be absolutely certain you can trust because you know them better than anyone else could. Talk to them, ask their advice, and above all, if you think there might be a problem tell them. Miscommunication kills, I’ve seen it too many times in my life, I don’t want to see it again, with you or the Wards. Now get your pull-ups on before Miss Militia gets back and consider your reactions and where they came from. You need to be in control of your own power, not the other way around. You’re a good person Taylor, you just need to learn how to regain control over your instincts. Normally you’d have years to learn this, but if there’s one thing being in this shithole of a city has taught me. It’s that we never have years here.”
As Taylor pulls on the pullups, falling over in the process, she asks, “Why are you here then? Why tell me these things?”
“Because I pissed off too many powerful people, but they couldn’t just ignore me. So now this is my city, and I’ll be damned if I see it fall to chaos. Why you? You look like a child? You remind me of myself when I was younger? Because I don’t want to see you die or lose people because you couldn’t control yourself? I’m dying? Pick one.”
“You’re dying?”
Piggot nods, “Kidney failure, parting gift from Rinke. Christ, I wish I could drink.”
“Why not get it healed?”
“Spores, can’t have a transplant, don’t trust parahumans not to set them off accidentally.”
“What about Panacea?”
Piggot laughs, “You saw what she was like with your face hugger. What if she’s the same with the spores? Bang, Brockton Bay becomes the next Ellisburg.”
“Phoenix tears?”
“No Taylor, they only work on current injuries. My kidneys have been failing for years. I’ll keep going to spite him and everyone that said I can’t, a giant fuck you to Rinke.”
“You could have a face hugger.”
“It’s kind of you to offer, but you can’t be a Parahuman and a member of the PRT. It’s those triggers and blind spots I was talking about. Maybe when I’m on my death bed, or they finally kick me out. But not now. What’s taking Miss Militia so long?”
Taylor picks up a dummy and a rattle and puts the first in her mouth while shaking the second. A few seconds later, Miss Militia pops in with a frightened looking teenager in a purple bodysuit, and wearing a simple domino mask. Piggot looks at her then Taylor and puts her head in her hands, “Fuck, you heard all of that didn’t you.”
Miss Militia nods, “Yes Ma’am.”
“Who’s this?”
The girl opens her mouth to reply, but Miss Militia beats her to it, “Sarah Livesy, born 1995, left home after her parents abused her powers and changed her name to Lisa Wilbourn. Tried to stay under the radar by moving from place to place and preying on people as a pickpocket. Was picked up by Coil’s mercenaries December 2009 and given a 9mm job interview. Has acted as the POC between Coil and the Undersiders since their formation in February 2010. Robbed the Ruby Dreams Casino in January, and were the children referred to by Lung. Robbed Central Bank yesterday under duress due to pressure from Coil. It’s likely that Bakuda targeted them directly as revenge for the casino while also trying to draw Taylor out. Is currently scared and frustrated as her power is giving her a migraine and telling her that I’m psychic. Doesn’t want to die and believes that she has something inside her that will kill her.”

Lisa slumps with relief as she realises that she’s not going to die, what she’s not expecting is for Miss Militia, who should only have the ability to create weapons, to summon a teaspoon and then cry into it before holding it out to her, “Drink this, it will help with your migraine, then you can talk to the Director.”

Not seeing any choice, she drinks the tears, and is surprised when her migraine vanishes.
Piggot looks up from her hands, “What name would you prefer us to call you?”
Lisa licks her lips, “Lisa?”
Miss Militia places a hand on her shoulder, that’s supposed to be comforting, “That background information wasn’t supposed to be our equivalent of 9mm negotiation, it’s the only way that you could believe that this isn’t a situation you can bluff your way out of.”
Piggot takes over again, “Lisa, you can thank Miss Hebert over there for your current situation. Though, I would imagine she was around 10 foot tall, black, and had wicked claws and a deadly looking tail when you last saw her. You put me in a difficult position, as you have, for whatever reason, just joined a hive and become a case 62.”
“Coil,” Lisa blurts, “Coil, I didn’t want to go to the PRT because coil has people here and he’ll just have me killed or relocated.”
Piggot barks a laugh, “Well, you don’t have to worry about him finding out that you’re here through his moles. Your existence has just become an eyes only secret. What we are going to do now is talk about how you can find gainful employment in our organisation…”

 

Loss - Family

Amy looks at her front door with new eyes. It’s been a week since Taylor handed her an egg, and if she’s honest with herself, she’d ask for it again knowing what she knows now. She smiles at the mental hug from Taylor as her mood drops slightly. She’s not alone anymore, there are people that care about her and her wellbeing. In the case of the Director, because she doesn’t trust parahumans as far as she can throw them, so the less of them that can go off the deep end the better. In the case of the hive, and that’s what it is really, a hive, with Taylor as the queen, but in the sense of a Queen Ant rather than a Queen royalty, she’s found something. Vivian’s memories are amazing, and painful at the same time. She can’t help but holding her up against her own mother, and finding her own mother wanting. Taking a deep breath, she pulls her key out of her pocket and walks up to the door. Softly opening the door, the click of the tumblers loud in her ears, she pads in silently and soon hears her mother on the phone.

“Sarah, what am I going to do?”
“Love her, she’s still your daughter.”
“I know, and I try, I really do. But she’s so much like him.”
“Carol, Amy is not, and never has been him. That’s why you adopted her remember. So that she would grow up in a loving home where people wouldn’t use her for her father.”
“But she’s different now, I can’t talk about it.”
“NDA?”
“Worse, laws.”
“Carol, you need to talk to someone about this stuff. You can’t keep bottling it up.”
“I’m fine, I’m handling it.”

Deciding that this was a conversation better left unheard, Amy pulls away from the living room and heads upstairs to her own bedroom. When she opens her door, she sees Victoria dozing halfway up the wall, a book open on her lap. For some reason the scene strikes her as funny and she giggles. Victoria starts awake and sends the book flying.
“Amy!” Victoria flies away from the wall to catch her in a hug, “You’re back, how long were you standing there?”
Smiling, Amy ducks under Victorias hug, and jumps onto her bed, “Vicky, aura!”
“Oh, sorry. But still, how are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“Freaking out, irrational, neurotic, emotional?”
Amy laughs “No, actually just fine. How about you?”
“Bored, I was all set to help with the clean-up after the bombs, and then Mum banned me from the PRT building, on pain of grounding.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, and it’s so unfair. I have to try and catch Dean out on patrol, and you know how hard that can be.”
“Especially this last week yes?”
“Oh yes, they put him on search and rescue, except he doesn’t stay at one location. Instead, he goes to a destroyed building, walks around and over it and then is driven to the next building.”
“Any idea why?”
“Yeah, his emotion sensing is great for finding people that are close to the surface, if they’re alive that is. Anyway, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, Taylor’s the only one there that’s our age, and she’s been a big baby all week after the bombings.”
“What about Dinah?”
“She’s 9, and well…”

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Dinah looks up at Director Piggot, who’s holding her hand in the elevator. Her other hand is leaning heavily on a walking stick.
“Are Mummy and Daddy ok?”
“They’re alive and stable, that’s all I know.”
“Why are you here then?”
“As an underage parahuman, I’m your temporary guardian until your parents recover or the courts decide otherwise. I’m a soldier, that makes me a hard ass by definition, but it also means that I care for every single person under my purview.”
“What does purview mean?”
“The range of authority or responsibility.”
The doors to the elevator open and the two of them walk out to find the ward her parents have been assigned to.

Piggot leads Dinah to a reception desk, “Director Piggot, and Miss Alcott here to visit her parents.”
The nurse looks up and registers what was said, “Please, take a seat and a doctor will come and talk to you in a minute.”
When the doctor arrives, he takes them into a side room, “Good morning, thank you for coming. The situation with the Alcott’s is, complicated. They were both shot multiple times with tranquiliser darts. Specifically Sodium Thiopental, in a dosage that was close enough to the LD50 that your parents are lucky to be alive. However, they are both in a coma, and we don’t know when or if they will come out.”
Desperately Dinah says, “What about Panacea?”
Gently Piggot says, “You know why she can’t do it.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“It never is, it never is.”
Later, Piggot holds Dinah as she cries when she sees her parents lying there with beeping machines and bags full of liquids.

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Vicky pulls her knees to her chest, “That’s horrible. I can’t imagine what it must be like.”
Amy puts her hand on Vicky’s knee, “Sure you can, look at Dad and remember what he used to be like. Now imagine it changing overnight. On the subject of Dad, I’ve been doing some research, and I think there are some things I can check for. Though, I’ll want to talk to a doctor before we make any changes to his medicine.”
“Woah, woah, what do you mean changes to his medicine?”
“Vicky, I can’t do brains, you know that.”
“I know, some Manton Limit.”
“Something like that. That doesn’t mean that I can’t see the brain. I… I’ve been studying medicine while I’ve been cooped up at the PRT, and I’m fairly sure that I can see what his dopamine and serotonin levels are, as well as if there’s anything wrong with the production of them. If I can work out how to translate what I can see to what doctors use, we can tailor his medication to his condition. Maybe even change it to a different SSRI if the current one has absorption issues.”
Vicky punches her on the arm gently, “Hey, no technical discussions.”

After they’ve just been sitting together for a while, Amy asks, “Vicky, do you think that Mum loves me?”
“Of course she does, why do you ask?”
“She was on the phone to Aunt Sarah when I came in, and I overheard them talking.”
“Amy, adults like to vent sometimes, and they say things they don’t mean when they do.”
“Where did you learn that one? AP Psychology?”
Vicky laughs, “No silly, I just made it up. Of course AP, well paraphrased from it anyway.”

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Danny walks up to the gates of the DWA (Dockworkers Association), the whole place looks different now. More, run down. He knows that it would only take a few, ok a lot of, clicks of his fingers, and the whole thing would be as good as new. But it doesn’t change the underlying issues, the work just isn’t there, and hasn’t been for nearly 20 years.
He walks through the slowly rusting chain link gate and around the drop bar, shaking his head at the fact that Jordan is asleep on the job. Though he can’t exactly blame him, most of the guys, and the odd girl, here have, other, sources of income. As he walks to the office, people wave and call his name, and stop what they’re doing for a moment to have brief conversations.
Eventually he makes it to the Administration Building, where his office is.
“Hey Ruby, how’s things?”
“Bad, but then you knew that. Works drying up because of your absence.”
“Sorry about that, it was unavoidable.”
“I know, PRT and legal shit. How did you get on?”
“There was a lot to come to terms with, and I need to talk to legal about NEPEA5.”
“Oh, is there a problem with Sean?”
“No, I now fall under them.”
“Seriously?”
Danny nods and clicks his fingers, the worn couch by the wall returning to pristine condition instantly.
“Sorry to hear that, are you ok?”
“Yeah, I’m ok. I just need to find out if we can afford to keep me employed here.”
“What do you mean?”
“NEPEA-5 has disclosure requirements, and if you don’t meet them there are rather hefty fines. Once you’ve made the disclosures, a government drone then checks to see if it would give you an unfair advantage in your career over a mundane person.”
“But what about Parian?”
“Bespoke high fashion, dolls, and cape costumes. We looked into it when Sean joined. She gets away with it because her power doesn’t help her with the design of her clothes, only the construction. If she was making high street clothes it would be different.”
“What about Sean then?”
“We argued that a man with a laser tape measure could do the same thing just as easily in this job. Being able to tell the exact angle and distance to a target isn’t exactly that useful when you’re moving around containers.”
“And you?”
“That’s why I need to speak to legal. I’m sorry, there are issues around my powers that I can’t talk about.”
“I hope it works out. I swear that you’re the only reason why we’re not owned by the E88.”
“I’ll probably still be here in some capacity, even if I can’t do negotiation anymore.”
“You’d make a great Janitor.”
“NEPEA-5”
Ruby looks at him sourly.

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“Colin, I’m leaving the Protectorate.”
There’s a tink as Armsmaster drops the screw he’s trying to put back into his armour, “Hannah, why wasn’t I told before?”
“Because the paperwork to create Watchdog ENE hadn’t been confirmed yet.”
“How long?”
“May 1^st. We’re looking for an appropriate premises.”
“Not the Rig?”
“We can’t, it would be a conflict of interests. Though I’m sure we’ll still see each other regularly.”
“Why? What about our group?”
“Because I’m the only experienced parahuman that is suitable.”
“What about Assault or Battery, or even Dauntless?”
“None of their powers are suitable for Watchdog.”
“But I know you, I know your routines, and you know me. I can predict you, you make sense. What am I supposed to do without you? You know what I’m like with new situations.”
“The same thing you did with Mouse Protector and myself when we were wards. Have your meltdowns, shut yourself away occasionally, and slowly get used to the new state of things.”
“She always knew how to drive me batty.”
“She did, but in a way that you could understand.”
“What’s going to change for you?”
“We’re going to cover the whole of the ENE PRT region. Not just Brockton Bay.”
“That’s going to be a large area to cover.”
“We have a high-level mover. That means that apart from long hours on the road for the first month or so while we visit all the regional offices, transport and coverage should be pretty much instant.”
“What about Endbringers?”
“S&R and battlefield intelligence, for the adults.”
“Why aren’t they joining the Wards?”
“Security clearance. Everyone that’s joining already needs a higher security clearance than the wards allows.”
“I see. Why haven’t I been notified about this?”
“You’ll have to see Director Piggot if you want answers to that.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s classified.”
Colin grunts, and finally picks the screw out of the case, “I hope you do well.”
“Thank you, see you around.”
“You too.”
There’s a faint pop behind him and he goes back to maintaining his armour.

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Rachel looks around her room with a bemused expression on her face, Angelica and Brutus have both clambered into their respective baskets. For some reason they shipped her to Philadelphia for evaluation, and she has an actual bedroom rather than a cell. There’s a colourful book case with books on it, a desk and a couple of chairs.
There’s a knock on the door behind her and a woman’s voice calls out, “It’s Dr Yamada, may I come in?”
Rachel grunts, then says, “Suit yourself.”
The doctor comes in and sits on one of the chairs, “How are you?”
“Fine”
“And your room?”
“Fine.”
“What about the book selection?”
“Can’t read.”
“What do you do for entertainment then?”
“Look after dogs.”
“Where?”
“All over.”
“Do you like any TV?”
“Cartoons can be fun.”
“What about films?”
“They don’t make sense.”
“Why?”
“Because of questions like that.”
“What? Like why?”
“Things are or they aren’t. Doesn’t matter why. Dogs understand that, same as lying.”
“In what way?”
“People say one thing and mean another, or they say something and not mean it at all. Up is up and down is down. You’re either fine or your not, why say you are when you’re not?”
The doctor nods, “Yes, people are complicated, and I would imagine it’s often frustrating not being able to understand them. Has it caused you many problems?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you’d like while you’re here?”
“Somewhere to walk my dogs.”
“We have 2 acres of land here, as long as you don’t try to leave the premises you can walk them where you want outside. Just be back for meals and your appointments.”

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“Mr Laborn, as you can see, this is a closed court in order to protect your identity. We have heard the evidence, is there anything you would like to say in your own defence?”
Brian looks up at the white judge and thinks carefully before he replies, “Your honour, my sister lives with her mother. She’s an alcoholic and druggie who makes ends meet with her pussy. Our hood ain’t the best, and the men she brings back to the house are worse. Says they’re her boyfriends, but they ain’t no such thing. They stick around coupla weeks fore they’re gone again. My sister’s getting to the age where she’s pulling their eyes.”
“I see, and why not go to the Protectorate?”
“Social Services ain’t done nothing, and I weren’t old enough to join the protectorate.”
The judge makes a couple of notes, “Why crime though, surely a boy like you has lots of prospects.”
“There is no work round there, so you either work muscle or take stamps. Can’t help my sister on stamps.”

Brian looks over as the PRT lawyer approaches the bar where they have a whispered conversation. His shoulder blades start to itch, and he can’t help looking behind him at the PRT Goon holding a containment foam sprayer.

“Mr Laborn, you would normally be looking at 20 months in a juvenile facility for Grand Larceny, along with multiple hours of community service, and a felony record. In light of the lack of violent crimes, Mr Simms here has asked that the court offers you 200 hours of community service, and 6 months as a probationary ward in New York. We will reconvene tomorrow for sentencing.”

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Lisa looks around her new apartment in oh so sunny Burlington, Vermont. Easy commuting distance to her office in Brockton Bay, Maine. She’d objected, but her other option was even further north in Caribou, Maine. She hoped that Brian and Rachel were doing ok, as she’d bargained her computer hard drive for a promise they’d get fair treatment.
Walking over to the balcony, she looks out at Lake Champlain, which is visible over the tops of the near by buildings. A boring city where a brief bit of research tells her virtually nothing happens. No major gangs, no real parahuman presence. Plattsburgh just across the lake in New York State, being much larger, seems to syphon all of that away from this city.
Suddenly she smiles widely, of course, that doesn’t mean she can’t go shopping in Miami, or even visit the west coast once she’s found a few discrete places to pop to. They probably wouldn’t even notice if… Lisa cuts that thought off as Susan’s questioning presence reminds her that she no longer has any expectation of privacy. None of them do, and it’s somehow both better and worse than being with the Undersiders. Her power doesn’t give her headaches around them, because there’s no deeper motives than those she can already know. Worse, because she can’t just hide away from everyone and pretend she’s fine when she’s not.

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PRT Commander Susan O’Donnell, for the next 3 days anyway, escorts Esme Watts through the back streets of the Market district in an unmarked car. Esme is a well to do black woman from Bangor Social Services, and one they had driven down especially, because there’s no chance that she is affiliated with the E88. Something that a brief walk through the local Social Services department with Prospector, formally Tattletale, providing live commentary, showed a disturbing lack of. The only black people working there were the janitors.
Susan puts a reassuring hand on Esme’s as they smoothly pull up in front of a ratty tenement building. After ensuring that her taser, handcuffs, baton, and confoam grenades are all in their correct places on her belt, Susan pulls on her helmet and gets out of the car, then walks around to Esme’s side. Outside the car, Susan can already hear multiple people having sex in the area, and the smell of drugs is strong enough she wonders how other people can’t smell them. Together they both walk into the foyer and pause at the graffiti and refuse strewn about. While Susan’s trained eye quickly identifies Merchant tags, Esme pulls a notebook out of her shoulder bag. Then she starts scribbling furiously before taking a couple of photos with her phone. Spotting something on the floor, Susan pulls on a pair of gloves before moving some rubbish out of the way with her foot. When she bends down, she picks up a broken syringe with a needle still attached. A gasp has her looking back at Esme, only to see her taking a photo of her hand. Slowly, they make their way up 3 flights of stairs, as the elevator appears to be out of order. As they reach the second floor it becomes apparent that it isn’t, someone’s just using it as a bedroom. As they reach the 3^rd floor, Susan looks for a doorbell on apartment 3B, unable to find one, she pounds on the door with her fist and steps back. They hear the sound of a chain being put in place before the door opens a crack.
A young teenagers voice calls, “Yes?”
“Social Services.”
“Mum’s busy at the moment, come back later. Word o warning, she don’t normally do girls.”
Esme bristles at the insinuation, “I am not here as some customer for a slutern bitch, I’m here to check up on the living situation of one Aisha Laborn.”
“You’d be the first, got any ID?”
Esme hands over her ID and the door closes. Susan can hear the girl use the phone and check that Esme is legit, soon there’s the sound of the chain again, and the door opens to reveal a young teenager. The girl looks Susan up and down before looking back at Esme, “Why the goon?”
Susan smiles behind her helmet, “E88.”
The girl looks Esme up and down again, “Fair enough. You’re too comfortable to be local. Well, come on in.”

After little more than a minute of looking around, Esme says, “Aisha?”
“Uh huh, took you long enough to ask.”
“Are there any other minors here?”
“Nope, just lil old me.”
“Commander, Aisha needs to be removed from this living situation immediately.”
“Hey! I ain’t got it that bad, at least we live in the Docks, better than the slums in the south.”
Esme points at a dent in the wall, “That doesn’t change the fact that this living situation isn’t suitable for a teenage girl. What benefits does your mother receive?”
Aisha snorts, “What do you think we are, white? Ain’t no way we get benefits around here.”
“I see, not even child support?”
“If we do, she ain’t spent it on me.”
“Well, pack a bag, we need to get you into a safe environment. The Commander here will arrange that, won’t you.”
“I, er what?”
“The PRT does have guest suites, I’m sure that you can arrange for Aisha here to use one until a more permanent situation is found.”
Aisha looks at Esme as though she’s just sprouted horns and a tail, “Wait, you were serious?”
“Of course, I came here to evaluate your living situation, and I’ve spotted 3 used condoms, and a used tampon in 2 rooms, one of which was the kitchen. There’s also the dent in the wall, and the discarded needles outside. Well, what are you waiting for?”
Aisha leaps and hugs Esme before turning to run to her room, Susan holds out her hand and says, “Wallet!”
Aisha stumbles and turns around before handing over Esme’s purse, “And the cash.”
“A girls got to keep in practice.”
As Aisha packs up her stuff, Esme takes her purse back, “I guess I should have been more careful when she hugged me.”
“No, the hug was genuine, she took it at the front door.”

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Glumly, Brian uses his phone call to call his sister.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“Aisha, it’s me.”
“Brian? This ain’t your number.”
“I know, I messed up and I’m waiting for my sentencing.”
“Ah fuck, what’cha go and do that for?”
“You, I wanted to get you away from Mum.”
“Well, you’ll never guess what happened to me today.”
“You sound chipper, so you skipped school?”
“Nope. Some social services lady came down from Bangor and had a PRT escort to check on my living situation.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ve got my own suite at the PRT building, Vista’s just meeting a friend next door. How good’s that? And I checked, looked up their number and the lady is legit, they’re getting me out of there. Not only that, but she was black, you ever heard of a black social worker?”
Brian shakes his head, “Can’t say I have.”
A beep sounds in his ear, “Sorry sis, I gotta go, the phone’s beeping at me.”
“Take care of yourself Brian.”
“I will, and I’m glad you’re safe. Maybe come and visit me in New York at some point.”
The line goes dead as his quarter falls through to the cash box.

 

Interlude

Director Rebecca Costa-Brown stares into the monitor as if she could burn Emily Piggot with just her gaze while the other east coast directors chatter excitedly.
“Emily,” she says slowly, “why are we only hearing about the formation of a new Watchdog ENE in the end of month meeting?”
Emily looks up at her camera, “Because it was a purely administrative task that only needed doing through Washington DC, and the Federal Government.”
“What about the thinkers?”
“We have those.”
“Who are they?”
“Classified.”
“What are their code names?”
“Classified.”
“Everyone on this call has the security levels to know this information.”
“That only helps when it’s not Eyes Only.”
Rebecca grinds her teeth, Emily knows that she can’t just hop on a plane to look at some documents, and Alexandria doesn’t have the right clearances.
Director Kamil Armstrong hmms, “Emily, why did you choose to make those records Eyes Only?”
“One of the new thinker assets discovered that there were visual and audio bugs spread throughout the HQ. In a follow up search we found at least one data tap. SOP in this situation is to assume the network is completely compromised, so I ordered the newly discovered parahuman and their abilities to be classified as Eyes Only. If you don’t mind bringing forward agenda item 8, it has become germane to this discussion.”
Rebecca frowns as she recalls that item, Case 61 and 62.
“Quick vote, all in favour say aye.”
“We’re agreed, Case 61.”
Emily nods, “We have the first ever confirmed Case 61. Because of that we have had to invent a new case number, Case 62. You should have all received a letter by secure mail. This will give the details of the new case number, and it’s classification level.”
Rebecca has to nod along as the secure letter arrived just before the meeting, and it requires a thumbprint or it will incinerate the contents. And of course, it’s her doubles prints that are registered in the PRT so that Alexandria can hand over secure packages.
James Tagg explodes, “Why are you sitting on the case 61 given this? Surely, we should be ensuring that they’re under our control and using…”
“Because we can’t control them, if you want to see their file, pop by and you’ll understand. Suffice to say, the saying that you get more flies with Honey than Vinegar is very appropriate for this situation.”
Armstrong nods, “I understand, I may actually take you up on that one afternoon.”
The director for PRT ESE shakes her head, “You’ll have to wait for the summer before I venture up to Maine, far too cold.”
Rebecca screws up the ball bearing that she keeps as a stressball, “Moving onto Agenda item 5, large scale changes in parahuman deployments.”
Emily smiles, “Lung was beaten 3 weeks ago, and is currently presumed dead.”
Rebecca sighs as everyone starts talking at once yet again.

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Thomas (Coil) Calvert curses as he closes yet another timeline. All of his eyes in the PRT have been compromised leaving only his moles. His pet thinker has gone missing, and the new Brute, Changer, Mover rescued his second pet thinker. At least his moles still think he only calls them about inconsequential things. Opening a new timeline he calls his mercenary team, “Bravo team, are you in position?”
“Affirmative, ready to move on your order.”
“Ensure your body cameras are transmitting.”
Thomas smiles as 6 images appear on his monitor from his team, “You are a go.”
Quickly and efficiently his men drive up to the Hebert’s house and pile out of the van, each one taking aim at a PRT vehicle or trooper. At T-40 seconds the perimeter is secure and they’ve pulled out a ram. T-70 seconds they’re in the house and he can see the sealed basement door.

“Breaching in 3…2…1…go!”
The men pull the door of it’s hinges and push it to one side before throwing an LED flare down the stairs. Carefully making their way down the stairs, Thomas sees the outline of several eggs.
“Bravo Team, Grab an egg and torch the rest.”
While one of the team throws a phosphorous grenade, one of the eggs is bundled up and carried back to the van. The grenade goes of and the entire house is engulfed in flames. Then all six cameras go statically before clearing up again. That’s when the first man screams and something comes out of his front before retreating with a slorp. One by one his men are taken out to the percussion of gunfire. As the last man falls, he sees the silhouette of whatever caused this, and he closes the timeline.

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Kaiser walks confidently into his board room where the other parahuman members of the E88 are all sat, waiting.
“It is a good evening to be E88. Lung is dead, as is the creature that killed him. Victor?”
“This is the footage from Uber and Leets Snitch stolen from their private servers while they licked their wounds. As you can see, Bakuda created some sort of singularity. Unfortunately, we can’t confirm a body, however as you can see, the creature is pulled into the singularity while the snitch is straining against the pull. When the singularity collapses in a burst of fire, there are a couple of frames to show that only a few parts of the creature were left. We assume this is simply due to the singularity collapsing before the creature’s tail had been consumed completely. Additionally, during this conflict the ABB lost 40 of their regular recruits, and an unknown number of pressganged civilians.”
“Krieg, what’s the word on the streets?”
“Bakuda is still consolidating her hold on the ABB, recruitment is at an all time low because of her use of civilians. We have gained ¼ mile of ground that used to be ABB territory, though we are butting heads with the Merchants who are also moving in like the vultures they are.”
“Brad?”
“Dog fighting profits are up since someone collared Hellhound, they’re now a nice starter for the cage fighters. Somethings happened in the docks, and recruitment is up from that angle.”
“StormTiger?”
“PRT was seen in the Market district, nobody knows why, and the niggers ain’t talking.”
“Keep an eye on that, anyone else?”
Rune speaks up, “Sophia Hess and Taylor Hebert have dropped out of school.”
“Could be linked to the dockworkers, well done.”

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“Yes Sally.”
“Mayor Christner, there is a lawyer from the state department along with some state police and a box truck.”
“What do they want?”
“They have a subpoena for records sir.”
“Send them in.”

The door to his office opens and in comes a smartly dressed Lawyer, “Good Morning Mr Mayor.”
Christner gets up and walks around his desk to shake hands, “Good Morning, to what do we owe the pleasure of a visit?”
“We have a subpoena for your social services department, however I was directed here when I tried to serve it.”
“Whatever for, this should just be a routine matter.”
“They claimed that it was outside the scope of our remit.”
“Well, what records do you want?”
“All of them?”
“What? You can’t be serious?”
“I’m afraid I am, a social services rep from another city was called in to deal with a case recently, and the child’s file said that the living situation was healthy and satisfactory.”
“Why would someone need to be brought in from another city?”
“They were black.”
“Surely we have black social services workers here.”
“Apparently not.”
“What did they find when they visited then?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss an ongoing case involving a minor.”
“Well, when are we going to get the files back?”
“Once they have been reviewed by an independent body from out of state.”
“But what about the active cases?”
“New case files will be opened for them in other nearby cities.”

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In the Hebert’s basement, a glowing white portal opens underneath two eggs, which fall through and land in a mud hut on a pre-industrial earth, where they open and release their cargo.

 

Discovery

Aisha kicks her feet in the air over the arm of the sofa while she lies there watching cartoons. Everyone that’s been staying in Taylor’s suite is doing stuff today, and she’s not been to school for 2 days now. So she’s bored with a capital B. She always wondered what it would be like not having to go to school, or keep half an ear out for the latest boyfriend, and now she knows. She’ll also find out tomorrow if she has to return to hell or not, she very much hopes not, as there’s no way she wants to keep barricading her bedroom door when she’s at home. Not that her father’s much better, self-medicating with booze for the pain, and then lashing out when he’s good and drunk.
A soft knock on her door has her on her feet and skipping for the door, when she opens it Vista is standing there.
“Um, hi.”
“Er, hi? Do you want to come in?”
“Thanks.”
“What brings you to my door?”
“Just wanted to see if you wanted some company.”
“So bored and lonely huh?”
“Yep.”
“Why don’t you just go…” – Seeing Vista’s body language start to shut down, Aisha mimes poking something with a barge pole – “Right, that topic, not touching it with a barge pole. I think there’s some micro-popcorn here, would you like some?”
“Sure, thanks.”

Half an hour later Vista muses, “I wonder what’s so special about Taylor’s basement.”
“Why don’t you have a look?”
“Dunno where she lives.”
“I do.”
“Huh? Why?”
“She’s the locker girl. The sacrificial lamb the teachers gave to the preppy kids. Gotta know where not to go, as it’s bad mojo to be associated with that sort.”
“What? Why were you so friendly then?”
“Cos she ain’t in school no more. Obviously. Look sister, you need to know that in high school, perception is reality. The bitches there’ll make up shit if they even have half a hint that you’re fair game. It may have escaped your notice, but I’m black. They sink their fangs into me and I’m meat. Winslow is, fuck, I dunno how to explain it without it sounding like I’m making stuff up. All the teachers are slow boating to retirement, so they don’t care anymore, if they ever did. Rumour has it that Mrs Knott still has some fire, but can’t do shit. I’ve seen two stabbings since I started, and the police turn up and nobody seen nothing, they go away and the kid goes to ER to be stitched up. If ya ain’t a chink or white, you keep your head down.”
“To be honest, I think I only understood about half of what you just said, and that was bad enough. So what happened to Taylor?”
“Dunno, there’s video going around of her being pushed into her locker by the trio, Sophia Hess, Madison Clements, and Emma Barnes, the current queens of the school. After that, she disappears for a month, and comes back different. You could see her spine straightening every day. Hey, do you want to explore her basement?”
“I can’t go out in uniform.”
“Then don’t, I’ve got a Benjamin in my shoe, why don’t we meet at the donut place, get some donuts and then bus over there.”
“Benjamin?”
“$100.”
“Oh.”
“Also, it’s probably my last day here.”
“Why’s that?”
“I looked it up on the handy dandy computer they let me have, emergency removal only lasts for 72 hours. After that, I either go back to my Mum’s or a court puts me in the system.”
“Well then, let’s go.”
Aisha smiles, “You need to get changed first.”
“Oh yeah.”

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After the novel sensation of being thanked for using a Benjamin, and getting loads of smaller notes from the donut shop as well as a massive box of donuts for the two of them. Vista finally makes it over the road.
Aisha looks her up and down critically before dragging her around the corner and adjusting her clothing slightly, and applying a touch of gel to her hair. Making similar changes to her own clothing and body language, they look as though they’re a couple of 15 year olds heading home.
“Ready to go Missy?”
“What? I haven’t introduced myself.”
“Look, it’s no biggie to work out. Honestly you were the hardest one I’ve worked out. It’s fairly public knowledge that Dean is dating Victoria. It’s also very public knowledge that Glory Girl hangs out with Gallant. From there, just head over to the arcadia sub board on PHO and see what the gossip says about them and who their friends are. The big clue for you was Dinah asking you to hand work in for her. I haven’t worked out who browbeat is yet though.”
Missy stares at Aisha gobsmacked, “How did you learn to do that?”
“Girl needs skillz if they’re going to survive Winslow. Ya need the same skillz if you want money for food and clothes.”
Impulsively Missy hugs Aisha, “I’m sorry you needed those skills. But please don’t tell anyone.”
“Look, I’d like to think you’re a friend, or becoming one. It’s why I said. Anyway, let’s go and we can chat more on the bus while pretending to gush about Makeup and fashion. Be warned you’re likely to get called a race traitor more than a little, and I’ll be called all sorts of things until we’re solidly into the south docks. That’s where the E88 and ABB transition, after that you may get more than a few suggestive comments. You need to ignore them, if you react you make us a target. I do not want to be dodging catchers, do you understand?”
Missy nods seriously, “Do you know where all the gang territories are?”
Aisha shakes her head, “No, just the boundaries around docks and market. Oh, and that most of Downtown proper is gang free cos that’s where the PRT are. So, the ABB pretty much control everything to the north of Winslow and a large chunk of the Docks. E88 controls the commercial district, and up into the south docks. And the Merchants are in around the Market, Trainyard, and docks. Nobody wants the slums on the south end, as there ain’t anyone there that can afford anything. Come on, there’s our first bus.”

Missy is very glad that Aisha warned her about what was going to happen on the bus, as once they had a seat together, Aisha pulls out a set of in ear headphones. After showing Missy that they weren’t plugged in to anything she hands her one while putting the other in her ear. Aisha then takes a week old copy of a teen mag from her bag, and the two of them talk quietly, while Missy tries to ignore the threats and slurs that are hurled their way from the marked gang members. There’s a bit of peace when ABB gang members board, and the two factions stare at each other. Finally, by the time they get off the bus, Missy feels like a piece of meat. Eventually, the journey is over, and Aisha pulls her off the bus.

“Sorry about that, are you ok?”
Missy nods, “I’m ok, how do you stand it?”
“Go to the Boardwalk, I try to avoid Downtown wherever possible. And you’d probably catch me dead if I ever set foot in the commercial district after dark. I know I miss out on the cheaper outlets, as the Boardwalk is more boutique services, but it’s better than being shanked.”
“Which way now?”
“We can get another bus to the docks, then backtrack, or it’s a 20 minute walk towards the docks from here.”
Missy shudders, “Can we walk?”
“Sure.”

As they walk, the houses in the area turn from being well kept and maintained into just well maintained, and finally as they get closer to Taylor’s house the houses gain a very much patched up look about them, with fading paint, cracked putty in the windows, the odd broken roof tile that has been glued or taped back into place.
Suddenly Aisha grabs Missy’s hand and pulls her back round a corner, “Goon squad.”
Missy looks round the corner searchingly, “Where?”
“The battered red Ford pickup, the black Mustang, and in the house.”
“How can you tell?”
“No rust and clean licence plates.”
“Huh?”
“Look at the other cars. Ain’t none of them been cleaned in a while, and the chrome has rust spots.”
“How do you know this stuff? Actually, I probably don’t want to know, as it’s going to be horrifying.”
“It’s not that bad. Truancy officers make the same mistakes.”
“Maybe, but most kids I know would be playing hookie to go to the beach or to catch a film, and I have a feeling that’s something you’ve not done too much.”
“Oh, I have. It’s a great way to avoid attention.”
Missy looks at her as if she knows there’s a lot that just hasn’t been said, “Ok oh wise one, how do we get into the basement?”
“Can you make fences shorter?”
“I can, why?”
“Look over this fence, tell me what you see.”
Missy stands on tiptoes and looks over, “The side of the house, why?”
“Look at the bottom.”
“It’s the basement window there’s no way you’d get in there it’ll be locked.”
Aisha pulls out a library card, “This is my window opener. Come on, let’s go around the back and find a basement window that can’t be seen from the street, and I’ll teach you how to open this sort of window with a card. Then I’ll tell you how you don’t even need the card.”

5 minutes later, and a couple of applications of Missy’s power, the two of them are crouched down beside the window.
Aisha whispers, “Now, windows like this almost never have locks on them, just a bar latch, if you watch as I push this gently, the window has a little give in it, that’s cause the spacer that the latch sits in when it’s closed is larger than the latch. So what I do is push the card around the bottom of the window like this, then jiggle it back and forward till it pushes the latch up like that. Et Viola, one open window. Course on basement windows like this it’s just a party trick as they’re thinner than my head is, and if you can’t get your head through you can’t get your body through. If you were doing this, I’d just expand this bit here where the latch fall into the window, then push gently and it will open without needing to do anything else.”

Taking the hint, Missy manipulates the space so that they can crawl into the window and not need to climb down to the floor.
“Can you do anything about getting more light through that window?”
“Sorry, no. It’s still taking up as much space for the suns rays, it just looks bigger locally. Ok, that’s not quite true, but I can’t do it without us getting caught, as I need to compress the space around the window as much as I expanded the window.”
Aisha pulls out her phone and unlocks it, allowing the screen to illuminate the basement slightly, “Huh? That actually makes sense.”

A few hours later, they both wake up on the floor to Missy’s phone ringing insistently. Groggily Missy brushes a massive spider out the way and pulls her phone out of her bag, “Hello?”
Dean’s voice comes over the phone, “Missy, where are you? Your shift started 15 minutes ago.”
“Shit, I guess we fell asleep. I’m out with Aisha and we had plenty of time.”
“What were you doing?... No don’t answer that, it’s your own time, just get here as quickly as you can.”

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Dinah walks into the courtroom with Director Piggot, “What’s the chances someone will try to kidnap me if I go home with my uncle?”
Urgently she tugs on the directors sleeve, then when she stops, she whispers into her ear, “63.5% chance someone will try to kidnap me if I go home with my uncle.”
“What about your family being hospitalized during the attempt?”
“46.5%”

Dinah and Director Piggot both sit through 3 or 4 hours of discussion between social services, Mayor Christner - Dinah’s uncle, and the judge. Eventually the judge says, “Ok, I think I’ve heard enough.” At this point Director Piggot stands up.
“Your honour, I believe that there is one person you haven’t heard from. I think that her opinion probably carries more weight than anyone else in this court room.”
The judge nods, “Come on up miss and take a seat.”
Dinah dutifully takes a seat in the witness box.
“Now before I ask any questions about where you’re going to stay, is there anything you’d like to say?”
“I’d like the director to be my guardian.”
Apart from the judge, everyone in the courtroom just stares at her, “And why would that be?”
“She’s nice, though she can be a bit too serious at times. She took me to see mum and dad. And she’s less likely to get hurt if someone tries to kidnap me again.”
“Someone tried to kidnap you?”
Dinah nods, “I had to run away from them, and Taylor and Commander O’Donnell saved me in the mall.”
“Who’s Taylor?”
“Um…” Dinah looks at the Director.
Piggot sighs, “I need everyone except the judge and Dinah to leave the room.”
When nobody moves, the judge bangs his gavel, “Everyone out.”
With the courtroom clear, the judge turns to Piggot, “What is it you couldn’t say in front of the others?”
“Miss Taylor Hebert is a monstrous cape who’s powers are slowly transforming her from a human form into some sort of hybrid. She has also granted Dinah parahuman powers. I can also confirm that the home invasion was actually a kidnapping attempt.”
Dinah pops across the room and back, then turns invisible and reappears, just to prove a point while the Director puts a hand over her face and sighs.
“I see, and you’ll be putting her in the wards?”
Piggot shakes her head, “We have created Watchdog ENE, and a mover stranger like that is ideal for that sort of work. It will also keep her off of the streets where she could be kidnapped again.”

Everyone else files back in, “In light of Miss Alcott’s statement, and information that was brought to my attention I am going to award custody to Miss Emily Piggot. Mayor Christner, if it wasn’t for the kidnapping risk, Miss Alcott would be going home with you. We will revisit this in a years time if Miss Alcott’s parents have not woken up.”
As they leave, Dinah whispers to herself, “Chances Director Piggot will die in the next year?” 20.43%

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Taylor squirms uncomfortably in the passenger seat of a PRT issue unmarked car while Hannah drives them to the next office they need to visit.
“Take the next left.”
Hannah nods, and Taylor goes back to thinking. At the moment she really envies Lisa, who has been tasked with ensuring that plenty of locals know that she’s just moved in, and that she “works from home”, which basically means taking her laptop to the local café and people watching while she keeps an eye on the hive mind.

“Pull over, I need to concentrate on something.”
Hannah looks over even as she pulls over to the side of the road, “What’s going on?”
“Close your eyes, you should be able to feel it. A couple of eggs have hatched.”
Hannah closes her eyes, and tries to find what Taylor’s feeling, then she feels the face huggers latch on, though they don’t have good enough senses to identify who or what they latched on to.
“Ok, they’re not being destroyed. We can worry about it later when who ever it is joins the hive.”
“What do you mean by they’re not being destroyed?”
“I get vague feelings of loss and anger occasionally, as though the eggs have been destroyed. But they’re always still there. I really want to find a better place for my nest, but so much has been happening recently.”
Hannah nods, “Maybe we can take a drive at the weekends. What’s going on with your schooling?”
“I have no idea, the only thing I’ve been told is that there’s no rush for it.”
“What do you think of our new offices?”
“I think they’re neat, fairly hard to find, and kinda pokey on the outside, but lovely and spacious on the inside with plenty of internal rooms we can teleport into and out of. What about you?”
“I think that the hardest part I’m getting my head around is being an open cape to disguise the fact that I’m Miss Militia.”
“I think the idea that Piggot and her advisors had is that as I can’t exactly hide the fact that I’m a cape, or that I can grant powers, we shouldn’t even try. Instead we should limit what people see of those powers. That’s why it’s so important for Lisa to establish an identity in her new city. There’s enough people that know who she is, that they’ll assume we placed her there for protection.”
Lisa smirks over the hive, “Oh you do love me. You’re missing the biggest detail. We’re forcing people to guard against teleporting strangers. By focusing their attention on that, they’re going to be less defensive against purely thinker based deduction. Which is where Dinah and I will be coming in. It will look like I’m a glorified secretary that happens to be able to teleport and go invisible. And Dinah will be taking on a more traditional wards role, costume and mask included due to her age. She will then be seen accompanying you or O’Donnell as she learns the ropes. If there were any other wards with good data gathering abilities, and weren’t already so well established as wards, I’d be wanting to poach them. As it stands, Vista is probably the only ward who’s abilities could be turned to watchdog requirements, being able to warp space so that she can listen in on conversations, or even bend space so that she can use a laser microphone from around a corner. We’ll also be doing our fair share of criminal chasing, just to be seen doing stuff.”
“As you seem to be so clued in, what else will we be doing?”
“Initially, we’ll be investigating the gangs in Brockton Bay and around the three states we cover. What we’re looking to do is shut down their finances, identify people in official positions on that are on the take, and develop routs for parallel construction of evidence where they are not parahuman related. Dinah and I will be coordinating to also try and predict major gang activities. Finally, you will be performing out of hours cleaning operations in all PRT and protectorate facilities. By you, I mean anyone that doesn’t have a directly useful thinker ability. It shouldn’t be too onerous, as you’ll be using your house elf abilities. I do have to wonder why they’re called house elves, as they look more like traditional goblins or hobgoblins rather than brownies or elves. Anyway, you were wondering about where to build a hive, my power really hates the idea of Mars, so that’s probably a good place for your main hive. Then find a cave in the mountains for your secondary nest.”
“Right here, and we should get into the town in a couple of miles. According to the notes, the PRT office is above the Walgreens.”
“That would be great, but I don’t currently know where Mars is. Additionally, I’d prefer somewhere that we could evacuate our friends and family to without needing to worry about if they’re going to suffocate or not.”
Hanah laughs out loud, “Taylor, you can just look up at the right time of night and see it. Also, aren’t you waiting on a large shipment of wood samples to come in? Once you have a wand you can make a habitat there easily.”
“Don’t forget that one’s I’ve got one, everyone else will be getting one too.”

Hannah skilfully pulls into a parking space outside the pharmacy and they both go up to inspect the office. Much to the mild consternation of the staff, though Lisa assures Taylor and Hannah that it’s because they’re disrupting their work rather than because anyone at this PRT branch is doing anything more than being lax on how long their lunch hours are taking.

 

Discovery – Magic

Amy smiles as she clicks her fingers, and her bedroom is perfectly tidy. Heading downstairs, she clicks her fingers and each one of her chores is done as she passes. Heading to the fridge, she pulls out the ingredients she needs for a sandwich while her coffee makes itself.

Amy pauses for a moment, and then turns slowly to look accusingly at the kettle that’s now on the stove, heating nicely while the French press hangs in mid-air, a scoop of freshly ground coffee suspended from the measuring cup.
“Taylor?”
“Yes Amy?”
“I thought we had to click our fingers to make stuff happen.”
“Erm, that’s what my memories show happening.”
“Ow, fuck my head. Let me know when you’ve worked it out, as my power has just bombarded me with so many possible implications of this.”
Amy looks confused, “Taylor, who was that?”
“That was Lisa, you might know her better as Tattletale.”
“The person that shredded my world with only a few words in the bank?”
Lisa’s voice comes back, seemingly more distant, “I’m sorry about that, I really am. I… Just look ok, it’s not like I’m hiding anything here.”
Angrily Amy replies, “I will.”
There’s a mental sigh from O’Donnell, “Take it to the ring girls, take it to the ring. Put on some gloves and body suits and beat the crap out of each other in the ring. Don’t hold onto your anger like this.”
“But she destroyed my life in a few words.”
“She did, and with the right training and impulse control, she’d make a great therapist. It’s why all PRT personnel have mandatory group therapy every month, why we all receive special training for dealing with thinkers. Finally, it’s also why our handbook has ‘Do not let them talk’ in bold.”
“Would you lot please shut up. It’s Saturday, I don’t have school, so I’m trying to sleep.”
“Missy, what did you do that for, now they know you were listening… nuts I just did it myself.”
Miss Militia joins in, “Missy Biron, Aisha Laborn, the Director will see both of you at 10am this morning. You better have a good reason for this.”
Danny is the last to join the chattering, “Susan’s right, take it to the ring and beat your frustrations out on something. Plenty of people will say it’s not healthy to do that, but it’s still the way we do it in the Dockworkers, and have been for as long as I can remember, and it was commonplace when I joined. If you can’t do that, have a good cry with a close friend. Though it usually takes a few pints for the men to get to that stage. Shit, I didn’t mean to think that.”
As laughter fills the mental landscape, everyone turns their attention to what Amy was doing.
Amy shrinks back with stage fright, “Erm, a little space here?”
Taylor smirks, “They just want to know what you’ve discovered.”
“Erm, well, the coffee started to make itself while I was making a bacon sandwich.”
“Hmm, there is this.”
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Minerva McGonagall looks at a student, “Aside from their ability to pass unnoticed, and apparate through nearly all protections, house elves can perform simple wish magic. Things like bringing things too them or sending them away. Levitating things, animating them to perform tasks that they know well, and their most often used ability, cleaning and repairing things. They can’t do complicated things like transfiguration or charms like the cheering charm, that require understanding how to shape magic.”
“So why are they servants?”
“Two reasons that I know of, the most important is that they genuinely seem to enjoy it. The second is that they live in a symbiotic relationship with us. They don’t generate their own magic like we do, so they need to get it from their environment. Some time in the past they started getting it from witches and wizards by forming a bond where they directly receive magic from the witch or wizard. They can also form a similar bond with a highly magical location like Hogwarts.”
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O’Donnell frowns, then pictures her sidearm disassembling as if she was maintaining it, to her surprise, it does exactly that.
“Everyone, look at this.”
Exclamations of shock go out as they all try similar things, with varying results, Amy is the first one to ask, “How did you do that? As I can’t get the coffee machine to dismantle.”
“We are trained to be able to dismantle and rebuild our weapons for maintenance until we can do it even in stressful situations. I can strip down a containment sprayer in around 10 seconds to clear a blockage.”
Danny hums, “So it’s likely to be down to how well you know what you want to do. I wonder if you could disarm someone with this.”
Hannah adds, “We have people coming down from central with the appropriate clearances to do power testing. So, let’s wait until they arrive next week before playing around with this.”
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Emily Piggot is currently very much not a happy woman. Despite having had the required background checks and training to foster children, she never expected to need it on a personal level. But now she’s looking after Dinah, who is surprisingly self-sufficient for someone that was a normal 11-year-old not so long ago. This however, is not the cause of her mood, just a contributing factor.
“Missy Biron, Aisha Laborn, do you two have any idea how much danger your put yourselves in? Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn’t have even considered going anywhere near that house. The eggs that Miss Hebert lays come in two varieties. Symbiotic and parasitic. The reason why we haven’t moved them yet is that there is a possibility that at least one of them is of the parasitic variety. We just don’t know. Given that Taylor herself doesn’t remember laying any of the eggs, we can’t trust that she knows either.” – Emily points at the large pile of paperwork on her desk – “This is all the forms, risk assessments, and failure plans that I am having to read through before we can move those eggs safely to a new location. Armsmaster has been busy for the last week designing a drone that can safely retrieve the eggs and place them into a van. We can’t risk using people to do it, for the simple fact that the acid in their blood eats through everything we’ve tested it on.
“You could have died in that basement and the first thing we’d have known about it is if we found any part of you when we came to move the eggs. Missy, I expected better of you. You have been a Ward for 3 years, and excelled in each of the classes we offer.
“Aisha, I don’t know you well yet, but you seem to be street smart. Would you have gone into a Merchant Den like this?”

Aisha shakes her head, “Oh hell no. There ain’t no way I’d do that as I don’t want to be forcefully inducted.”

“Well, why did you go along with this then?”

“Let’s see,” – Missy tries to indicate that Aisha should just shut up – “risks wise, Merchants, they catch me, shoot me up and I end up like my Mum. Seeing the basement, something happens and I end up like Dinah, cool powers that will enable me to escape if I’m forced to go back to me mums, cool powers that will enable me to hide, and a sure fire way out of the cycle that’s going on there as a Hero. See, here’s the thing, knowing what I know now, I’d have tried to persuade Missy to go sooner. But I didn’t actually know about those eggs, or that’s how they got their powers. I just figured it would be a good way to see where Locker girl lived without painting a massive target on my back.”

Piggots voice goes into a low growl, “Locker girl?”

“Yeah, Locker Girl. I’ve got the video on me phone. Ain’t nobody stupid enough to post it online though.”
“Phone!”
“You can’t have it.”
“Oh, but I can. Until 3pm today I am your legal guardian, now phone, and unlock it.”

The two of them are left standing there for nearly 15 minutes while Emily reviews the film, transfers it to her own phone, checks that it transferred ok, and then transfers it to a secure server.
“Normally, I’d assign the two of you something unpleasant, like console duty, or mucking out the toilets. However, this was done in your civilian identity, and Aisha isn’t cleared for console. Instead, you will both be escorted to Sargent Jones, who is giving a class on risk assessment. There you will listen and learn why what you did was so stupid. As I know that I will be seeing you both again, there will be a test on it later.”
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“Colin, what are you doing?”
“I’m working on a drone, though I can’t talk about why as it’s classified.”
“I have the same security clearances as you, and something about it is clearly bothering you.”
“Believe me, if I could talk to you about it I would. You always seem to be able to explain things in a way I understand. But it’s not you, it’s the medium.”
“The taps?”
Armsmaster nods, “Indeed, and the company we’ve contracted should be here in a couple of weeks, on the 16^th May.”
“When do you think the drone will be done?”
“I think it will be ready for testing on Monday.”
“Colin, are you remembering to sleep?”
“I am, I got 6 hours last night, and I’ve scheduled 8 hours for tonight with a half work day tomorrow.”
“Colin, what about how long you’re working on stuff, you need to relax.”
“Of course, Henry Ford pioneered the 40 hour working week after years of experimentation. He found that after an 8 hour shift, productivity drops due to increased mistakes. I ensure that no protectorate members are scheduled for more than 40 hours a week, including myself.”
“That’s supposed to also include other work as well.”
“I tinker for fun outside those hours.”
“Has there been any news about Bakuda?”
Colin grunts, “The kill order was denied because she stopped the bombings before it got to the judge. Instead we have an outstanding warrant for her arrest for 500 confirmed murders, 1,000 cases of GBH and countless cases of ABH.”
“What about the deaths caused by Queenie?”
Colin just scowls, so she drops the subject.
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Missy sits quietly in the passenger seat of her mums car listening to her talk about the inanities of her life along with the latest list of things her father has done wrong. Instead, running through her head are images of truckers being found dead in their trucks after the uranium or plutonium burned their way through their bellies. Of horribly mangled bodies from companies cutting corners on safety and shelving units falling down, or having limbs cut off because the machines they were working on didn’t have $20 guards. The material was the same stuff they’d covered in the Wards training, but this time it was accompanied with the dire consequences of just why the processes and procedures existed. What’s worse is that Danny kept poking in and pointing out that he’d seen this happen time and time again, or stories from when his father had had the same problems.

To be honest, there’s probably something wrong with her, as she never felt ill even once. At the same time some of the officers she was sharing the class with had to leave for that reason.

“Missy, are you listening to me?”
“Sorry Mum, I was just thinking about the course I had to attend.”
“What was it for?”
“Risk assessment, after a friend and I did something the director thought was stupid.”
“So why did you do it then?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time?”
“Missy, we raised you to be more responsible than this. How could you be so irresponsible?”
“I didn’t do it as Vista if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What? No! What would the knitting circle say if you ended up in hospital, or worse made the news?”
“Would it really matter?”
“Of course, if they think we’ve raised a hellion then it would affect both your fathers and my own business. Then who would pay for your schooling, or your food and clothing?”
“I would?”
“You need to save that money for your graduation. Beside, we’re going to the Stanfield gala at the gallery tonight, so you need to be ready at 6. The Barnes, Dallons, and Anders will all be there. Though you should be careful of how much time you spend with Emma tonight, as there’s rumours going around that the Barnes are in trouble for some reason. We don’t want to get tarred with their trouble if they are. Of course, I’ve got your favourite pink dress out, and the teddy bear bows to put in your hair. It’s a shame what happened to the Alcott’s, as it means Dinah won’t be there. The Mayor should be though. I hope that I don’t have to remind you not to double dip again.”
Missy mourned the fact she couldn’t just head to the Wards quarters as she felt trapped in the car with her mother.
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“Mrs Watts, court normally doesn’t open on Saturday afternoons. Can you please explain what we’re doing here?”
“Your Honor, we removed one Aisha Laborn, seated to my left, from her mothers custody after testimony in a closed hearing brought her living conditions to Law Enforcements attention. I was brought in from out of town, and following the standards we use in my office, I made the decision to remove Miss Laborn into emergency care.”
“I see. Mr Laborn, what are you here for?”
“I would like custody of my daughter.”
“I see, given the state of her mother, why didn’t you have custody before?”
Aisha watches stone faced, as her father who has always been a hard ass to Brian, and stifling to herself, breaks down and starts to cry. “Your Honor, I took some wounds in my youth cage fighting, and couldn’t afford to get them fixed. They healed bad, but I was still able to teach. Over time I developed pain in the bones and joints affected. I…I used alcohol to make the pain go away. I’m a hard man Your Honor, always have been, probably always will be, and when I’m drunk I can lash out. Mrs Watts is helping me with the paperwork for disability and Medicare, and she thinks that I can have proper relief in a few weeks.”
“And the mother?”
Esme speaks up again, “We tried to contact her multiple times over the last three days, including two home visits. There was no answer at the door, though we could clearly hear that someone was in.”
“I hope that it didn’t put you out, having to come all that way for a failed visit.”
“Not at all, I’ve found my workload in the area has become quite heavy. Though the state police have needed to be my escort rather than the PRT.”
“I see, I hope we don’t have to meet too often then. What about her future accommodation?”
“We would petition the court to remove custody from Miss Laborn’s mother, and grant custody to Mr Laborn pending a review in 6 weeks to see how his alcohol use has changed.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I propose that guardianship should remain with the PRT for the duration, with Mr Laborn visiting to discuss her educational and social needs.”
“Miss Laborn, do you have any thoughts on this matter?”
Aisha shakes her head, “Only that it was getting very uncomfortable at home, I’m happy to stay at the PRT where I don’t have to worry who’s going to open my door. Course dad would be better, when he’s sober.”
The judge nods, “Then, I’m glad this has been a relatively painless hearing. Mr Laborn, I hope to see you here in 6 weeks time.”

20 minutes later, they’re both sitting in the back of a PRT car.
“Ashy, are you ok?”
“Yeah dad, I’m doing great.”
“Did anything happen at your Mum’s?”
“Brad tried to get handsy a couple of times, but I’m quick me.”
“I should have fought harder to keep you, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok dad, it was probably the best choice when I was 4. Ain’t no one look at me twice then, and Mum weren’t so bad. Course, the 88 weren’t such a problem either then.”
“True dat.”
“I didn’t think you knew how to cry.”
“My da beat it out of me, like I beat it out of your brother.”
“How’s school?”
“s’ok”
“Do you have any friends?”
“One or two.”
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Emily heaves her bulk out of her chair and walks around the desk to shake hands, “Mr Laborn, thank you for coming. I’m Director Piggot, and one of the qualified carers here.”
“Mrs or Miss?”
“Director.”
Mr Laborn looks surprised, “Director Piggot, first of all, thank you for looking after Aisha.”
“You’re welcome, though we don’t tend to make a habit of taking emergency cases, we are listed as such.”
“What I don’t understand is why Aisha is still suitable for your guardianship.”
“Take a seat, and I think we should let Aisha explain that.”

“I, well, er,” – The normally smooth Aisha finds herself tongue tied in front of her father – “Missy found out that there might be something interesting in Locker Girls basement, so, erm. I kinda already knew where she lives, only so that I could avoid it. And well, I may have suggested I had a Benjie, and we could get a bus there.”
Mr Laborn nods, “And where did you get the money?”
Aisha glances at Emily, “Um, I found it.”
“Where?”
“On the boardwalk?”
“Oh, Aisha, I thought I taught you better than that.”
“You also taught me that survival was more important than morals.”
Emily furrows her eyebrows at that, but files it for later, “What Aisha may or may not have done in the past is probably a conversation you should have in private. Anyway, Aisha, I believe you were telling us about your adventure.”
“Erm, there’s not much to tell, we, er sneaked around the back of the house and into the basement, there we fell asleep and Missy’s phone woke us up.”
Mr Laborn gives her that look, “Aisha, even I know you’re missing out the important details. Such as why you would just fall asleep in a basement.”
“I have powers Dad. I have powers alright. And they’re not sucky. Even better, I’m not the only one with those powers either. They’re my ticket out of the rat trap, and ending up like mum.”
“You didn’t need to do that, you could’ve got a good education, moved out west and made a career of it.”
Aisha laughs, “That’s a joke right? Good education at Winslow, worst school in the state. Where the only way to get ahead is to be one of the popular girls, and then get onto a sports team. And there ain’t no way they letting another nigga on the team after Sophia, not till I’m too old anyway. The 88 would break my leg fore that would happen.”
Emily nods and makes a couple of notes, “Mr Laborn, we are going to be giving Aisha placement tests for Arcadia, and subject to her passing them, she will be joining Arcadia Middle school after the spring break.”
Mr Laborn looks at her, “What’s the catch?”
“She has powers, and she needs to learn how to use them responsibly. There are also clear indications that they are going to be impossible to hide long term, so we’re not going to even try. Instead, we’ve started a new Watchdog ENE, for your information, Watchdog is a joint PRT and Protectorate that deals with internal affairs and counter intelligence. The youth part of the department will be focused on learning how to use their powers to judge situations, evaluate information, and also when it is appropriate to use their abilities for those purposes. It will be much like the Wards in that aspect, and we expect that there will be a lot of cross training involved. What there won’t be is any sort of showing the flag patrols, and they won’t have even the limited powers of arrest that the Wards do.”
“Will they be taught to defend themselves?”
“Of course, alongside the Wards. They will also be taught the ins and outs of citizens arrest.”
“How would we afford to send her to Arcadia?”
“It would be part of her membership of the Watchdog Youth, as a good education is a must for any sort of intelligence or internal affairs position.”
“What sort of hours would she be expected to attend?”
“During Middle school, she’d be scheduled as if it was an afterschool club, so one or two hours three or four nights a week. Obviously, she’d still be able to come in to socialise when she’s not scheduled. Once she reaches high school, she’ll be using this as her career option, and be expected to handle minor assignments on her own. In Aisha’s case, I suspect that we will be looking to hone her existing skills and teach her ethics.”

With a mounting sense of dread, Aisha realises that her father, and the PRT are going to actually be keeping an eye on her. So she’s traded safety for her freedom to do whatever she wants as long as her mother thinks she knows where she is.
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Missy is so bored that she’s worked out how to watch cartoons with Aisha. This event at the Gallery is, about as exciting as having to choose between console duty, or homework.
One bright spot is the second hand schadenfreude she’s getting from Taylor as Emma looks absolutely terrible. Oh, her outfit, hair, and makeup are still perfect. However, her smile keeps slipping, and her eyes are puffy. Additionally, someone has filed her fingernails right back to the quick, instead of the elegantly long perfectly manicured nails she’d normally sport. The final thing, and the one that would have torn at her heart strings if she didn’t know what Taylor had gone through, is the haunted expression and hyperawareness that she’s exhibiting. Almost certainly a PTSD response, according to Vivian’s memories, which spoils her enjoyment of the look.

She can’t help herself as she giggles during part of ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy’ that Aisha is watching.
“Are you ok there?” Missy looks up sharply to see Dean.
“Oh, what, I’m fine.”
“Oh, good. Look, I’m sorry for shouting at you the other day.”
“No worries, I needed the wakeup call anyway.”
“How are you doing?”
“Busy, I’m supposed to be socialising, so I thought I’d corner you rather than wait for my brain to start leaking out my ears.”
“Well, if you want some entertainment, double dip a carrot stick.”
Dean shudders, “No thanks, I have no desire for everyone in the room to find a reason to tell me how unhygienic it is to double dip.”
“So what’s this gala for?”
“Officially? Humanitarian relief for Canberra.”
“And unofficially?”
“The usual, networking, fishing for investments, and showing that you’re still alive.”

 

Discovery – Reality

Thomas stumbles for a moment as his timelines suddenly seem to split out into infinity. Then they collapse to the one where he is trying to check out the new Watchdog offices, instead of heading to the PRT. Quickly splitting off a new timeline, he collapses as again it seems to split off into infinity before he finds himself on the floor clutching his head.

Staggering to his feet, he slowly makes his way home and calls in sick, checking his power every minute or so. Once he’s around 500 yards away from the building, his timelines split normally. So in one he goes home to sleep, in the other one he heads to his base to oversee day to day things that shouldn’t need any attention.
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In the office, Susan O’Donnell dips a paper towel into some dyed water and tries to clean it without clicking her fingers. Once she succeeds a few seconds later, she dirties the paper towel again and tries it again, and again, until a 10 minute timer goes off. Nodding, she clicks her fingers and the dye vanishes from the water and all the water drops around the bowl, and on the table disappear. Pulling out a couple of pistols from a gun cabinet, she sets them out and starts a new timer. There she dismantles the weapons one at a time, before reassembling them trying to use her magic to do it faster and faster. A flash of fire behind her distracts her for a moment, and Hannah (Miss Militia) walks into the room from the closet that they’ve designated the arrival room.
“Good morning, you ready for a scintillating day of paperwork?”
“Uh huh, just let me finish my training.”
“What are you doing?”
“Visualisation at the moment, I’ve just finished practicing being able to use the cleaning ability without snapping my fingers.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit risky?”
Susan stops the timer she had going as she turns around, “How so?”
Hannah clicks her fingers and one of the chairs appears next to her, “For parahumans with hard to control abilities, we teach them to associate a mnemonic with the ability use. When they do it enough, they normally find that it gets harder and harder to use the ability without the mnemonic. This then reduces the accidents that happen. That’s what the snapping fingers feels like to me. A mnemonic that they use so that stray thoughts don’t trigger their magic.”
“I didn’t consider that.”
Hannah laughs, “Neither did we until Vista joined the wards. Walking into the Wards room was an adventure as her powers kept reacting to her emotions. Clockblocker is another one that had trouble, his power would activate if he received a scare, or was stressed. I’m sure you’ll be able to read about lots of cases where mnemonics have been used to teach parahumans to use their abilities.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“Don’t try to stop using a mnemonic, train a second one that you can use as well. A feeling in your head, a specific visualisation, or a word or verbal action like clicking your tongue. For Vista it’s hand motions. Whatever you choose, be consistent and be prepared for it to take around a month for it to start sinking in and 3 before it’s natural.”
“See, that’s pretty much the opposite of what my training says. We’re taught to drill everything until we don’t need to think about it anymore.”
“I’m sure that once we crack wands, well I say we, as it seems that it’s a task Taylor’s taken on herself. Anyway, once we have wands, we’ll probably be doing that with the more useful spells once we learn them.”
“Don’t spells seem a bit, you know, wishy washy and unscientific?”
Hannah coughs and deepens her voice, and in a credible impression of Armsmaster says, “Yes, well in actuality it is the manipulation of the thermatological field through the use of intent combined with verbal and somatic mnemonics and structures to create an effect in the real world. You will note that where we use Latin, the Chinese and Indians are still able to cast spells using their own language.”
Susan frowns, “That doesn’t make sense.”
Hannah laughs, I know, I have some ideas on that, but I’ll want to run it past the scientists once we have some wands. I think it’s like trying to build a house with sand rather than bricks. If my idea is right, then their whole schooling process is to make their magic more structured so that they can build up complicated things, while house elves don’t seem to be able to do that. Anyway, we actually have work to do, so let’s start.”

They both make their way over to their computers, and Susan is the first one, “We have a bunch of moles and dirty officers to find. At this point it would be nice if we could just stick a tracking charm on them and wait for a hit.”
Hannah nods, “I have here rumours that Medhall has parahuman ties to one of the gangs.”
“Ouch, that’s going to be a tough one to crack.”
“I disagree, if we can tie it to a gang, then we can bring in the feds. They can then do the work of disentangling it, while we watch for which parahumans come out to play.”
“Ok, I’ve got an internally raised issue from prospector, she says that coil is a parahuman with some control over time, and is a bigger player than we think because of it.”
Hannah nods, “That’s going to involve a lot of staking out and boring work, we should probably look for potential locations to stake out. And then use it as a training exercise as much as anything else.”
Susan nods, “And get Quincunx to validate the locations we pick before Missy, Dinah and Aisha join us, Taylor and Lisa can be sent off on their own I think.”
“I’d prefer to send them together for the moment.”
“Agreed, we also need to visit the other 80 offices across our area.”
“Taylor and I did all the ones in Maine with permanent employees, that was only 10. I think that’s what we do with the other two states. We can then do a few other offices a week until we’ve got them all.”
“What’s going to happen with Vista?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. There aren’t any plans to transfer her out of the Wards, and until someone makes a decision on that we can’t do much. However, we’ve got until she gets to high school before we have to worry too much. You never know, we might have cracked Polyjuice by then too.”
Susan barks a laugh, “Not a chance. Though, how much do you want to bet that at least one of the scientists will take a face hugger to the face next week?”
Hannah shakes her head, “No bet, and we need to add scouting out nesting sites to the list. Also requisition the best quality telescope you can.”

Susan looks alarmed, “We need to set up a creche in here, and have some sort of ready excuse as to why any of us might be absent for a few days to a week.”
“Why? What just occurred to you.”
“I just imagined taking a bullet to the head to test the phoenix rebirth.”
Hannah winces, “They would do that wouldn’t they.”
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Mike looks over at his long-time friend and colleague. Sitting with them is Steve from legal, and Rupert from the Dockworkers Union, “Danny, I’m sorry, we cannot afford to employ you anymore. We even called Rupert in from New York to see if they could think of anything. Rupert.”
Rupert shakes his head, “Nepea-5 was designed by Disney and Hollywood, and demands that we pay you competitive wages for every job that you do. Additionally, we have to have advertised the job for 6 months without any suitable candidates turning up. Finally, your powers are so versatile that we can’t even use the unrelated clause, or the one you used for your dockworker, no significant advantage clause.
“Currently, you are the HR manager, Tender negotiator, General Manager and occasional handyman. That’s 3 well paying jobs that we’d need to advertise for, at competitive wages too. Which is a problem, as you haven’t taken a pay rise for the last 5 years.”

Danny looks down at his hands, “Why is it so difficult for me?”
“Paperwork.”
“What?”
Mike shakes his head, “I know, that was my reaction. What it comes down to is that you can teleport, and your powers also make paperwork a trivial part of the job. How much time do you spend getting stuff from files or putting it away in files, or going to another building to get files. Same with writing out stuff, how much time is spent on actual paperwork? We all know that there’s not enough work for any one of those three positions, which is why you do all three, but the people that enforce these laws, they don’t care.”
Rupert takes over the conversation again, “You’re not the first person this has happened to, but to my knowledge you are the first union man. We’ve got a meeting scheduled with the warehouse, police, railroad, merchant, air, and teamsters unions, and we’re going to table a motion to lobby to have Nepea-5 repealed or amended so that, at the very least, people can continue to be employed in a position they’ve had since before they gained powers. Presuming we are successful, the job will be yours. But we can’t afford to take this to the Supreme court in the hope that they’ll overturn it. Especially given the way that Canary’s case seems to be going.”
Danny looks confused, however Taylor, Aisha, Dinah, and Amy all start paying attention, “Who?”
“Pop singer. Her powers give her a perfect singing voice, as well as the ability to influence people who hear her voice. She’s being charged for causing her ex-boyfriend to cut of his own junk. However, the jury has been stacked against her. The judge’s daughter has been taken by Heartbreaker, and the prosecution is presenting her in brute restraints, including a gag. So she literally can’t speak to anyone, not even her lawyer.”
“Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”
“ACLU already has a pro-bono appeal lined up based on points of law and civil liberties violations during the case. However, as they’re seeking the bird cage, it’s thought by many to be too little too late. Due to the protections that the prosecution have placed on her, she can’t change lawyers, as that requires her to speak to them in person at least once.”
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Amy heads into the kitchen with her phone, “Mum?”
Irritatedly Carol looks up from her paperwork, “Yes Amy?”
“Did you know that Canary is on trial?”
Carol sighs, at least this is not something to do with the hospital or her powers, “Yes, I did. New wave offered my services pro-bono, but we were denied because we might prejudice the Jury.”
“How about the fact that the Judge’s daughter was taken by Heartbreaker?”
Carol shakes her head, “I know, that’s why the appeal is going to succeed. But that won’t help Miss McAbee. It’s also fairly certain that the Judge and Prosecution are all going to be disbarred. The PRT is being useless again, and quite frankly, I think someone high up is playing politics with the girls life.
“Look, I know I haven’t been the best mother to you, but I’ve tried. However, a lot of my harshness is because I know you can do far more with your power than you do. Your father’s abilities were terrifying in how versatile they are, so I hardly think yours are any worse. If the PRT had any idea what you could actually do, then I’m sure they’d have had a pre-signed arrest warrant, and possibly a kill order.”
Amy sits down heavily on a chair that wasn’t there a moment a go, “Why tell me now?”
“You’ve changed, you’ve become more stable. And Sarah has been talking to me a lot over the last week or so because of it.” – She holds up a hand – “I’m still not going to see a shrink, I don’t need that. Ever since you first played with Victoria, I’ve cared for you. Possibly not as much as you deserved, but I did care. What’s going on with Paige could easily be you, with Bonesaw and Nilbog both still active problems in the USA it wouldn’t take much for them to pin you to the cross and sacrifice you to public fear.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got paperwork to finish.”
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One after the other, all of the children in the hive make their way to Lisa’s apartment.
Dinah shakes her head, “Are we going to let them get away with this?”
Taylor just huffs, “I’m going to set up a new hive on Mars tonight, there is no way that I’m going to let any of you suffer like that.”
Aisha brightens, “Why don’t you lay an egg for Canary?”
“Then what? I can’t hide it.”
Lisa thinks for a moment, “Could you make an invisible face hugger?”
“Maybe, they don’t usually have the intelligence to actually use magic though.”
Amy’s eyes widen, “Then don’t rely on it’s intelligence, look they’ve got memories of something called a demiguse, the hair of which is used to make invisibility cloaks.”
“That could work, though I’m going to need help with designing it. Lisa, would you mind if I brought my ovipositor here?”
Lisa’s eyes widen, “You know they’ve now got internal sensors in the basement don’t you. They were added after mix and match over there broke in the other day.”
“No big deal, I’ll just go and hunt a whale or something so that I can make a new one here.”
Everyone just stares at her, “What?”
Aisha shakes her head, “Taylor, people don’t typically talk about eating a whale casually. They especially don’t typically just casually mention they can go and hunt for one just like that.”
“Huh? But they’re super easy to find, as they’re constantly making noise. Sharks on the other hand, especially tiger sharks, are fun to hunt.” – She changes into Queenie – “I’ll bring you all back some lobster too.”
With a flash of fire, she’s gone.
Missy looks at the others, “So, who’s up for working out where Canary is being held and how to get there?”
Lisa just sighs, rubs her temples, and opens TOR on her laptop.
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With Lisa and Taylor both busy, Aisha looks at Dinah and Missy, “Have you two looked at the memories of Arry’s friends?”
Amy carefully sidles closer, as this sounds like it’s going to turn into a Glory Girl moment. Dinah shakes her head, but Missy’s eyes glaze over, then widen. Amy also has a look too and her own eyes widen too. She’s about to say something when Dinah pins her with a stare, “87% chance that Aisha’s idea works.”
“Aisha… What, is, your, idea?”
Aisha smiles widely, “We knock over a dog fighting ring, tonight. Wearing black bodystockings and balaclavas.”
“Aisha, you’ve only just got the ability to teleport, why would you want to do this?”
“It’s all new innit, you teleport and do magic, but it ain’t instinctive for you yet. In a body stocking in front of Hookwolf, Cricket, and Krieg, you’re going to freeze, and not think clearly. But the only way to survive is to become like Taylor, like Queenie. You saw what happened with Hermione, she needed an external stimulus to change. We either wait years like thingy that begins with an x, or we do it now. Can you honestly say you’ve never wanted to be able to roam the city as freely as Glory Girl does?”
Missy shivers, “Hookwolf doesn’t pull punches, even for children.”
“I know, sometimes they grab some sport and put them in the ring with a couple of dogs. I’d rather be lynched. So, Amy, whatcha say, do you want to actually get some action and revenge on the people that put so many people in hospital?”
“No killing.”
“Gotcha.”

Missy looks at Aisha, “Why are you actually doing this, I’ll go looking if you don’t spill.”
Aisha crumples, “I just don’t want to be a victim no more. It’s why I helped you find shit, as if you, a hero, was interested in it, and having seen what was happening with Dinah and Taylor. It was my way out man, check my mind if you don’t believe me. I think you may actually be the first friend I could actually relax around, and I’ve only known you for a bit over a week.”
“What about Dinah?”
“She didn’t get me like you do. Probably means your families as shitty as mine is. You’ve seen those memories, of how close they were like that. I want that. I want a real family, not just whatever it is I have.”