All the Myriad Taylors [All Worm fanfic crossover]

I am moving this here from SV, I don't expect NSFW material here, but I can't afford any more infractions either, and it's impossible to ask in advance at SV whether a post is okay,as far as I know.

If I made a mistake and left out a text change from the SV version, please tell me.
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The Warrior was dying.

Trapped in depression like that which destroyed the will of both lesser and greater beings, the Warrior expired while barely reacting to the attacks on himself. But he still reached out by reflex, unconscious systems trying to understand what was killing him. These systems noticed one small human, with a corrupted connection to a shard, forcing humans to work together in a parody of how the shards made up a body. But why? Trying to understand this event, the systems reached out to other realities.

And they found many variations. In many the Warrior won, though without the Thinker, his victory typically led nowhere. In some, the counterparts of that human again killed him. One version of her killed him through devices using the technology black-boxed by the Entities. Some summoned powerful beings deadly even to the Entities. In low probability realities, several even killed the Warrior under their own power, and in others, versions of this same female human terminated the Warrior using methods completely outside even the knowledge stored by Entities.

Repeatedly dying from the same insignificant human in even a fraction of realities was alarming. The Warrior's automatic systems reached out towards hundreds of realities, to capture and analyze as many versions of that human as it could. But the Warrior was still being attacked by that human in its own reality. Succumbing, it collapsed into fragments that struggled to retain life, and the shards that were analyzing so many of that human drifted without control... until the collision. Quantum fields distorted. The damaged shards synchronized the information with the human herself, causing changes....

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 1​

My dreams were fitful. I kept dreaming of the locker. Emma, Madison, and Sophia forced me in and slammed it shut. The rotten tampons stank of blood and fluids and insects were crawling and flying all over me. Found by a janitor, I was taken to the hospital and I lay comatose, my brain trying to process the new data it received through thousands of eyes, antennae, and tiny bodies. A week later, I finally woke up lucid enough to communicate.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed, my mouth covered with a flexible object that must have been an oxygen mask. A fly, smelling urine, buzzed around a patient in the room next door, and I could sense it. Twenty feet away lay an anthill. Thirty feet away and six and a half straight down, cicada larvae slowly crawled underground, most of their 17 year span lived completely out of human view. Two beetles crawled on a drunk man in what was probably the emergency room, off in the distance.

Dad was standing over me. "Taylor?" he said.

"D-- dad?" I said, mumbling the words through the mask.

"You're all right!" he exclaimed. "Are you all right? Taylor, what happened? Were you attacked? Did you see who it was?"

"I... I don't want to talk about it." I had never told Dad that Emma hated me for the past year and a half. I wanted to pretend that things were normal, at least a little bit, and I didn't want to have to relive the pain of betrayal by discussing it.

"You had the doctors and myself really worried there," said Dad. "We didn't know if you'd ever wake up. You were unconscious for over...."

Here it comes, he's going to tell me how much school I missed.

"... two hours."

What? "That can't be!" I tore the mask off of my face and tried to get up. Then I realized I had a tube in my arm and slumped down in the hospital bed again.
"But I woke up."

"Of course you just woke up. Are you feeling disoriented now?"

"But I woke up after now. It was a week later."

"Did you have some kind of bad dream?"

"Yes, I suppose I did. I remembered that... No, wait. How can I remember how many days I was out when I just woke up and never had a chance to check the calendar? And that isn't the end." Why I had thought that days had passed? I thought about it, and the memories came, but secondhand. Taylor Hebert did wake up a week later, with bug powers. This other Taylor waited for months to go out and then became Skitter, joined the Undersiders and lived outside the law. And then Leviathan attacked....

"It wasn't me," I said. I pushed the memories away.

And suddenly everything was silent. I was blind and deaf to ants, termites, and beetles. I couldn't remember Skitter, but I could remember remembering Skitter a moment ago.

Dad said, "I don't understand."

I spoke one of those phrases that wormed its way into cheap literature as a cliche because of its tremendous usefulness: "I have to think about something, Dad. Can this wait until later?"

He didn't look completely happy, but I was, after all, awake and lucid, and it hadn't taken days. He said, "All right, little owl."

* * * * *​

Had I had some kind of premonition? A taste of a power I was not supposed to get until Spring? I tried to think "come back, power". Nothing.

No, not nothing, I realized. I hadn't gone to the school Christmas party--except I had. Emma, Sophia, and Julia had forced my head into a mixture of water and leftover confetti. They hadn't meant for me to die; they had just meant to scare me. I triggered as I both drowned and choked nearly to death, and was saved by of all people, Greg, who scared them away seconds before anoxia permanently damaged my brain.

As naturally as another Taylor had commanded bugs, I materialized a cloud of confetti. I... no, the other Taylor... had measured it once. One pound, seven ounces. I could materialize or dematerialize this much confetti anywhere within a hundred yards that I could see. This seemingly weak power proved remarkably effective since I could sense things within a foot or so of each piece, or hold them rigid enough to cut, or use tricks. I could dip them in capsaicin and force them into people's nose and mouth--some things I could do had odd parallels to how Skitter used bugs. With an ounce of confetti scattered through my costume and the ability to apply force to it directly, I... she could fly....

I poked at the pieces of confetti lazily floating in front of me. Something had happened. I had triggered, but not as Skitter. Somehow I could get the memories and powers of versions of myself whose life had taken different paths.

I dismissed the confetti and tried to push the power aside. What other power could I get? What other Taylors? Like a half-forgotten dream, I got bits of feelings, ideas about powers that I just couldn't grasp. Different Taylors, some the wrong age, the wrong sex, or the wrong species, if "battleship" was a species. Cyborg or nanotech versions of me. Ones that use magic, or alien technology more real than the fake technology used by Tinkers. Robot Taylors who could destroy planets, and one gold-colored Taylor who was called Scion....

But none of those were able to stay in my head. Even if I might be able to access them someday, I certainly couldn't do so now. I tried searching again, my mind a Rolodex filled with appointments with myself, but I could only find one that I could hold.

I had lucked into an internship with Emily Piggot before the locker would have happened. And I had worked my way into the PRT's good graces through competency. I was called Deputy Hebert. I helped catch villains. I ended up promoted in preference to Thomas Calvert and tried to keep order as the city was quarantined for bureaucratic reasons.... Memes created for Chuck Norris got recycled with myself as the subject. And my powers? Nothing.

No powers, yet in those memories, I could accomplish that in an incredibly short time. I had friends, I found love and experienced tragedy, I learned to lead and I gained immense respect even as I struggled against other people's agendas. I could use the powers of other Taylors, by some happenstance, but the Deputy was something I could become.

Only hope came crashing down when I realized what I had been assuming for that brief second. The powers I got were real, but I didn't know that the lives that came with them weren't just some fancy excuse that my powers made up to explain them away. They obviously didn't fit with what I knew about the alternate worlds that I could read about on CNN--they had duplicate Scions, too many capes, and they started out far too much like Earth-Bet. Even if they were real, I didn't know that my powers hadn't chosen Taylors who had talent or luck in ways that someone like me couldn't just imitate. Maybe the Deputy existed on some world where the PRT was reasonable and Jack Slash was a cape therapist.

I vowed that once I got out of the hospital, I would check. Somehow.

* * * * *​

The dark-skinned woman who walked in was dressed in civilian clothes. Miss Militia out of costume. The PRT, I knew, had a program to pay visits to likely triggerees. They couldn't spare anyone to make sure Sophia Hess was behaving at Winslow, but once her victim was in the hospital, they had all the resources to....

I shook my head to clear it. Hannah said "Excuse me, if you aren't well enough to talk, we could come later."

"No," I replied. "I mean, I wasn't shaking my head 'no'." I was shaking it because I knew very well that a large organization like the PRT wasn't something with a single-minded goal of putting down Taylor Hebert. They allowed Sophia free reign because Sophia's handler lacked proper oversight. Trigger visits were low priority items that the first available person with cape experience, often a cape themselves, was sent to do between other tasks. To believe that having time for one meant having time for another ignored the fundamental need to specialize that allowed the PRT to even function.

The smile on her face wasn't exactly fake, but any job that involves dealing with members of the public has a smile requirement. I wondered if she had come off of a press conference where she had to smile when faced with the most outrageous accusations, and had tired out her lips. "You are Taylor Hebert? I'm Hannah. I work for the PRT. We try to meet with people, especially young people, who have faced hard times. Check on their recovery." She stopped, no doubt hoping I would volunteer some information if my saliva was disintegrating cups or I suddenly found myself able to summon musical instruments.

"Yes," I said, shaking her hand as she bent over the hospital bed. "I'm Taylor Hebert." The PRT had a goal of finding triggers. I could use this visit for my own goals, if getting someone to take the bullying seriously plus avoiding the Wards even counted as a goal. I needed to find the right things to say. I asked, "You're here to get my journal?"

"Your journal?"

"Like a diary. Surely my Dad would have found it and brought it to you." I hadn't told Dad anything, but it was plausible that I could think he'd find it. "Chronicling how I've been mistreated by Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Sophia Hess." Hopefully I wasn't imagining the slight reaction at that last name.

"Sorry to disappoint you. I'm here to... do you know what a trigger event is?"

"Yes," I replied. I gave the standard line that was parroted to civilians. "In times of crisis, a person can exceed their limits. This leads them to gain powers, depending on how well they handle the crisis. Wait a minute. You don't think I'm going to have a trigger event?"

"If you haven't yet, it seems unlikely. But powers can be hard to understand at first. You might not be aware that you already got them."

I thought about my options. I couldn't admit that I knew Shadow Stalker's secret identity, and there was little reason that the PRT would go after Emma or Madison. Wait a minute.... "I think I'm going to be contacting the Youth Guard."

"What? You don't need to--" Promising, I thought. She didn't say that it doesn't exist.

"It's what you said just now, about trigger events. Emma used to be my friend. She was threatened with mutilation by ABB gangsters a year and a half ago. Shadow Stalker refused to save her and told her she had to learn to become strong. Emma must have triggered in the alley right there. She must have become a villain because after that, she had a drastic personality change and she started hanging around with her new friend Sophia Hess."

"I can't say that that description can't possibly be a trigger event, but it doesn't seem likely enough to contact the Youth Guard over it. That group is... overly eager at times. And while I can't reveal private information about the Wards, I can tell you that the Youth Guard assists the Wards specifically, not random parahumans of Emma's age, let alone purported victims of...."

"There's no 'purported'! I was shoved in a locker full of used tampons and pads by all three of them, after a year and a half of them saying and doing things that would be harassment anywhere outside a school. Stealing homework, to the point of my grades being affected. I could be kept out of college because of those bitches. Taunting me about being responsible for my mother's death. I don't know if you've lost a parent but let me tell you, it sucks. Spreading...."

"And you are claiming that Sophia Hess was involved in this?"

"Emma, Sophia, Madison, Julia, and at least three others. Now I was hoping you were here for that, but even if you're not, can you take my journal anyway? From what you're saying, it sounds like the Youth Guard is a longshot, so maybe you can look at it first? If there is progress, I won't need to contact them."

She grimaced. "All right. Let me give you a card." Hannah reached into her pocket for a pencil and a PRT business card and scribbled a number and some text beneath the extension. "The top extension" she explained, "is for new parahumans. The bottom is for miscellaneous matters of concern. You can also visit us in person and deliver the journal using the code phrase listed below."

I thanked her and took the card, then she left. I honestly couldn't recall the phrase, but the extension was the one for reporting Ward malfeasance, which seemed promising. If I was lucky, Piggot would call for Sophia's phone to be searched. The Youth Guard would be as likely to protect Sophia than investigate her, but even the chance that they'd interfere created a matching chance that someone would listen to me just to avoid the paperwork in having to quiet them down.

* * * * *​

Dad suggested I stay out of school resting at home the next day and I agreed. Once he was out of the house I tried out some powers. I felt that I should be able to access Skitter; there was some cooldown period, which I didn't know exactly and which couldn't be much longer than a half day. I still thought that I could almost access more powers, but they hadn't come yet.

I never had very long nails, but I clipped off a tiny bit of the one on my left pinky as part of an experiment. Was I physically affected by my powers? Standing on a bathroom scale, I switched to Skitter. My fingernail didn't change. Skitter had started running as exercise, to get stronger and sturdier, so she should have weighed slightly more than me, enough to affect the scale. No change in weight was visible. And my hair was still all over the place from a night of being slept on, so either I had become "Skitter after waking up just like me" or swapping powers produces no physical changes.

As I walked to the PRT to deliver the journal, I experimented with Skitter's powers. Some of them required long use--I couldn't breed black widows or spin silk if I only had a short period of time each day; the insects would turn on and devour each other. And it probably wasn't a good idea to leave bugs soaked in capsaicin free to act while Skitter's power was swapped out. Anything I could try worked just as I remembered it--I made the ants in a hill line up in a message, which dispersed a second later. As Lisa would say... No, I had to remember. I wasn't Skitter. Not really. I didn't know that Lisa even existed. Like I didn't know half of what I had said to Miss Militia. I didn't really know that Hannah even was Miss Militia. I'd need to check, but I had to deliver the journal first, despite my sinking suspicion that my powers had tricked me here.

I didn't let the PRT take the journal without asking for a full set of photocopies. It wouldn't do for it to get lost in a file drawer, after all, and I didn't need Deputy to figure that out. Then I took a bus to the end of the Boardwalk and started walking.

I stopped off for lunch at the third open store and ordered a chili dog and a Coke. As I ate, I stared at the beach through the store window. Maybe I shouldn't... No, I had been delaying it enough. I shouldn't even have come, not for this. I could have checked it using the Internet. If I had to come in person, I had no reason to start at the end and walk, as if I was Behemoth or something. Stop procrastinating, Taylor.

Tourism was light. It was the too cold at this time of year for anyone to use the beaches, anyway. Once I started walking, I passed some cheap souvenir shops and a closed-down arcade, then a hotel, also closed down. A small playground with no children (it was the middle of the school day), then a pancakes store. There really wasn't much to recommend the Boardwalk in January. But it was one place where I could determine, for sure, whether what I thought my alternate selves remembered had any connection to the real world.

I approached the location of Parian's clothes shop that loomed so large in Deputy's life. Hookwolf killed Carlos there. It was obscured by a bend in the boardwalk until I had gotten within sixty feet of it. Then I stared. Half the lot was overlapped by a shady-looking electronics shop and the other half by a tourist shop that sold mostly shirts and was at least ten years old. Parian's shop didn't exist. And it obviously never had existed. I had my answer, and it was just as I had feared.

Tell Dad about your powers?
[]Yes, along with the surrounding circumstances (Emma bullying)
[]Yes, but nothing else
[]No

What to do as a cape?
[]Become an independent
[]Try to start your own team
[]Join a hero group (write-in)
[]Join a villain or neutral group (write-in)

 

Ground rules:

I probably won't be updating this very often. This also means that I probably won't have to declare ends to voting. If this changes, I'll say so.

(Power nominations are currently closed.)

The power must not completely destroy the story (for instance, a power to Peggy Sue back to January 3, or a power which establishes the existence of an afterlife). If you are the writer and can give permission, or if the writer gave everyone permission, please say so so I don't have to try to get it.

Right now everything except Deputy (who has no powers) has to have a relatively weak power; if she can solo Kaiser or Lung easily without special circumstances, she's probably too powerful.

Altpowers are usually subject to Celebrity Paradox; nobody is going to say "hey, that power is actually from Star Wars". There may be exceptions.

The alt character must be a Taylor, and substantially different from an existing one. What counts as one is usually obvious, but there may be times when I have to make a ruling.

Taylor doesn't get outside things that go with her power, such as Green Lantern rings, the Varga, etc. This may make some powers useless unless she can find a substitute (if she gets power from the sun, this world's sun will probably work just as well).

The current altpowers are:

Unpowered:
Deputy (Deputy)

Powered:
canon Worm (Skitter, from just before the Leviathan fight)
She Summons Sea Things by the Sea Shore (Papercut)
Sand and Fury (Sandstorm)
THE TECHNO QUEEN! *krackathoom!* (THE TECH... yeah.)
How to Drill Your Way Through your Problems (Owl)
Gastropod (Slug Queen)
Self-Administration (Blackguard, called Self-Administrator here)
Freaky Friday (Friday)
Claim the Spoils (unnamed, called Nike here)
White Mage (White Mage)
Firewall (Malware)
Playing Hooky (Hooky)
Implacable (Pisces)

Unpowered lasts several hours. Powered lasts about an hour. Powers can be ended prematurely and come back after about half a day. Numbers are fudged for this because 1) powers shouldn't come in convenient Earthly time units, 2) she should be able to keep them for longer as she gets more experience and 3) I don't want people to munchkin the exact time intervals.

 

Spoiler

Tell Dad about your powers?
[X]Yes, along with the surrounding circumstances (Emma bullying)

What to do as a cape?
[X]Join a villain or neutral group (write-in)
(Uber and Leet)

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 2​

I stopped the nearest person I could find--a girl with dirty blonde hair. I had half-expected it to be Lisa, but of course it would be very unlikely to just happen to run into a cape on the Boardwalk, especially right at an important moment. She was wearing a white T-shirt featuring the same logo as the T-shirt store. "Excuse me," I said, "you look like you might work around here. I don't suppose you know if there's a clothes shop owned by someone named Parian nearby?"

"What? No clothes shop, unless you want T-shirts. Come to think of it, they did open an outlet store near the Iron Pier around two weeks ago. But that's owned by some company out of Boston."

"That's not it, but thanks anyway." She walked away into the store. And I decided to go home. It was two miles from here to where I lived. Memories of memories drifted through my head, of Taylors who had taken up running. Thinking about how Parian's place had turned out not to be as real as those memories showed, I ignored them and I walked. I was travelling the same distance, so it would be just as much exercise, anyway.

* * * * *​

On the way back I passed Emma's house. It occurred to me that I might be able to spy on her. I was a cape, after all. Thinking through what my powers provided, I couldn't use Skitter yet, and bugs wouldn't let me hear well anyway. Even to do the equivalent of seeing, I had to use a swarm, not a single bug. If I picked Papercut, I could see and hear in the area near the confetti, but I had to summon the confetti in sight and move it to my target--I couldn't pick a random piece of confetti that was already there like I could a bug. Now, if I picked....

Wait a minute, I didn't have anything else except Deputy. what was I thinking of picking?

I ran the rest of the way home and shut myself into my room. I reached for more powers.

Still Taylor Hebert, I triggered in the locker and I woke up in Brockton Bay hospital three days later, at which point I started coughing up slugs an inch and a half long. Like a very limited Skitter, I could use these ugly creatures' senses. And when put in someone's ear, they would head for the brain, where they could take control, giving me a slimy Master power stolen from the Wrath of Khan. I had tried my best to get some good use out of it anyway, taking only volunteers and using my control to coordinate their actions, but looking at it with my real perspective overlayed onto the Slug Queen's, I suspected that the slugs were writing loyalty into people's heads. And even ignoring that, if my power ran out of time while the slugs were still there... I'd still have to test the power at some point, if only because they fix up brain damage, but not now. I metaphorically flipped it over and tried another.

Something was wrong this time. I felt the whole environment. The locations of every object around me in the house, and at the neighbors', and their neighbors'. Every single thing within two hundred yards in all its colorless glory, except for people-shaped and creature-shaped holes in the blurry air. Stupid Manton effect.

But that was just a power. That wasn't what was wrong. I had also transformed, the first time my power had done that. My pants were too tight and rubbed... Yeah, I thought, reaching down to examine them. "Taylor" is a gender-neutral name--somewhere out there, there is a guy named Taylor Hebert. And now, I was the Taylor from one of those places. The original me imagined making yaoi fanfics a reality using this body, but Taylor Hebert, Sandstorm, was straight. In fact I... he... was even dating Amy Dallon. That could only ever happen with a male Taylor.

I won't get into the details of exploring my body, but I will say that Sandstorm would look better with some more muscles. I was staring in the mirror at a version of Sandstorm with me-levels of exercise. My long hair hadn't changed and I still needed glasses, and I knew that Sandstorm had neither long hair nor myopia. Checking my nails showed that the little bit I had clipped in the morning had not returned. I guessed that my power treated me as having some sort of base state with changes overlaid onto it. My base state was now a boy, but long hair was just an add-on. So I kept it even though the original Sandstorm would never have hair like that.

My power let me move any object in my range, but I could only exert a fixed amount of force per object. This made the power best for controlling sand, but it could handle larger objects, weakly. Small objects could go down to the size of air molecules if I was willing to bear the Thinker headache. I wasn't going to let people know about either this or the sensing; the 'sandbagging' joke was obvious.

Sandstorm's life wasn't like mine, either. I remembered growing apart from Emma. The bullying wasn't an issue but I hadn't stayed friends with her. Dad was gone instead of Mom, but he had disappeared in a suspicious way. I had formed a new team of unaffiliated capes. I wondered what the reaction of the real me's Emma would be if I hit on her as Sandstorm. But she'd probably lump me in with Greg and laugh.

I shifted to another cape and suddenly I was a girl again. A powerful cape had come from nowhere and formed a team based around Spiral Power and giant robots. He saved me from the locker, only for Sophia to lock me on the roof in the dead of winter. But I survived. Thrived, even. The unknown source of powers gave me the ability to create and command ice, incredibly strong, that I could use to achieve greatness. I was Owl. Every tiny snowflake, every hailstone, every rock-hard chunk I, Owl, formed was an extension of my will that wrested the power to overcome my foes like....

Yeah, I had better be careful with that one. Though I had to admit it was like a breath of fresh air.

The next Taylor was nameless. Well, that isn't accurate; the PRT called me Blackguard. I'd advise new capes not to let the PRT pick their name; something like "Self-Administrator" would have made more sense. My power let me control the cells of my own body and I had enhanced it to superhuman levels over time. As becoming Crawler II is frowned upon in polite company, I kept the visible changes subtle. Even within those limits, I could lift a small car, or hear the slightest of whispers across a field. My reaction time and my resistance to damage was beyond human because I cobbled together the best from natural creatures with improvements of my own. Mitochondria efficiently processed energy; muscle tissue used two separate metabolic pathways to replace the lactic acid cycle and its proteins were cross-linked between cells to increase its strength. My brain was redesigned to handle my enhanced senses, and my nerves processed X times the impulses at Y times the speed, where I kept raising X and Y with every new plan.

Also, did I mention I worked with Über and Leet?

This power was unusual because it didn't change me. I changed myself; I just used it. Which put it in the same category as long hair and clipped fingernails, if I had a trillion microscopic clippers that could clip single cells. When I swapped to Self-Administrator, I didn't have any of the changes that my new memories told me I had done--I felt oddly naked as plain Taylor Hebert. If I understood the way my powers worked, I'd have to redo the changes--but they'd be changes, they wouldn't be part of this power's base body. If I swapped powers, I'd still have any changes I made just like Sandstorm still had my long hair.

But along with this potential came risk. What if I tried to make a change that took longer than an hour, and I got stuck in an intermediate state, powerless for hours? She... I... had made a big systematic change and got sick for several days, as my body tried to get everything working properly. If I did that and the power turned off before it was done, Dad could be scraping me off the walls with the indignity of not even being killed by a villain first.

I'd have to limit myself to small changes, for now. As an experiment, I put down my glasses and started with my eyesight. Fixing it should take only a minute. I didn't think that just reshaping the lens would set off any automatic processes that put me in danger, but I had to be sure. After reviewing the alterations to my body again and again, I was satisfied that I was safe. Then I stared at a poster of Armsmaster on the other side of the room and gave up my power. His blue suit, his halberd, his abs in the cutaway views, everything remained crystal-clear. The changes hadn't gone away.

The last Taylor I was able to bring up was the Techno Queen. A powerful Tinker--a very powerful Tinker, in fact. As the Techno Queen, I could build almost anything, with just one limit--just like Roger Rabbit could do anything, but only when it's funny, I could build anything, but only when it was villainous.

Well, funny also helped. Villainy was VILLAINY! I could march into a shelter with my own sound effects attached to my name and command my robot minions to destroy the place and shoot its owner. Too bad if the owner turned out to be Coil and I managed to free a kidnapped girl that way. I never did look too closely at the details of my power for fear that I'd break something, but I, the real me now, found the power pretty suspicious. Was there something more behind it? Perhaps a Master power to make people go along with the gag? Shaker power to change luck, or even to warp reality? Pure coincidence that I was in a world where Dennis Danger Dynamite was a real name? Who knows.

* * * * *​

I turned off that power lest I started taking apart the microwave oven and using the parts to make a toaster. I closed my eyes and sat back on my bed, leaning against a pillow halfway. After becoming all those versions of myself, I felt... better. For hours I had had the memories of other Taylors. Most of them had been bullied, but all of those had been able to overcome the feelings of worthlessness I was struggling with. They had found friends in classmates, or even villains, and they had all escaped Emma and her lackeys. They were evidence that things that had gone wrong didn't have to stay that way, evidence which I could feel.

I thought again about Parian's shop. I had given up hope too quickly. If it didn't exist, that didn't mean that getting any knowledge at all from my other lives was futile. And hadn't I talked to Hannah at the hospital without her thinking that I'm crazy? If I even had memories of her name and face which matched the real Hannah, that already proved that my powers could give me some knowledge.

This time I did search the Internet. Five minutes of work showed me that Parian did exist. She was a rogue cape, and she worked with businesses, controlling giant stuffed animals. She didn't do fashion design at the moment, but that didn't matter--she was real.

For my next test, I scribbled down a list of Ward secret identities on paper, to be sure I wasn't "remembering" them only after I found them. Fifteen more minutes of searching brought paydirt, courtesy of Facebook--a group photo at Arcadia that included just about everyone on the list except Sophia and Vista. It would be a strange coincidence if my list wasn't real but everyone on the list who went to Arcadia the same group photo, and nobody else. The page said nothing about powers, Wards, or the PRT, but it was evidence. Real evidence.

I ran the paper under a faucet until it disintegrated and tossed it in the toilet. No sense in leaving that around. And I started to make plans for my future.

* * * * *​

It wasn't long until Dad got home. If I had been Skitter, this would be where I would tell some kind of lie about powers and Emma, and he'd pay no attention. Maybe we'd stare at each other awkwardly and he wouldn't notice it because that's what we did anyway.

But imagine that Skitter at the Leviathan fight was asked "if you could go back to just after the locker, and you could tell Dad, would you?" Skitter had been through a lot of ugliness that she didn't want Dad to know about at the time, but not telling him was basically procrastination, like I had done at the Boardwalk. Putting it off just made the prospect of telling him get worse and worse, as more and more compartments of her life would tumble down if she ever dared to do it. If she had a chance to go back to right after the locker and tell Dad, I think I know what she would have done.

"Hello?" yelled out Dad's voice. "Taylor, how are you feeling?"

"I... I'm all right," I replied as I entered the living room. "But there's something I have to tell you, Dad. Because I've already lived through not telling you."

Dad looked puzzled.

"I'm a cape, Dad. I triggered in that locker." I stepped forward to hug him and we did, because both of us knew what "trigger event" meant. Even if Skitter had to learn it from the Internet. "You'd better sit down," I said.

We moved over to the couch, as he asked "Does this have to do with your argument with Emma?"

"Yes it does, Dad! It wasn't just an 'argument'. I only said that because I didn't want to tell you how terrible it was. A year and a half ago, Emma turned on me. Along with her new friend Sophia Hess, she made my life a living hell. Spread lies, destroyed my homework, insulted Mom and told me I killed her. I haven't had any friends since I returned from summer camp that year. Emma wouldn't let me. The locker was just the end."

"What? You never told me that...."

"You were so out of it after Mom died that I couldn't tell you anything. Or... maybe I'm just making excuses because I wanted to desperately pretend that things were normal."

"That explains a lot. Like the milkshake you were washing out of your hair."

"Emma told me that I should be glad it wasn't acid. It hasn't been, so far, but every time she does it there's always that fear that this time, she hates me enough to go just a little bit farther, get a little more violent."

I got the copy of my journal and showed it to Dad, opening it to a random page. That one was just Madison tripping me in the hall. I picked another, where Emma had stolen and pissed in my lunch. I had to go hungry right before an important math test, and I got a C on it. The third involved Mom's flute.

Dad was angry, but not at me, and he had nobody to take it out on. "I'm going to give Alan a piece of my mind," he said.

"Hold it, Dad. I need to tell you what my power is. Because this is important."

"What could it be that would possibly matter?"

"I have the power to become other Taylors."

Not expecting that, he tried to process what I had said. Finally he said, "I think you'd better explain."

"I can turn into other versions of myself who lived different lives. Sometimes I triggered in the locker with different powers. Sometimes I triggered from something else. One didn't trigger at all. One is a boy. Their worlds can be a little different. Different geography. Mom's lasagna recipe...."

"What are you talking about? Annette never had a..."

"No, she didn't. Not the Mom you and I knew. But there are some other Taylors out there, whose Moms did have a lasagna recipe. There's probably even one who cooks it as often as she boils cereal, just to keep Mom's memory alive."

"You did really get powers, right? Could you... show me some? Just so I can see that you did?"

"I used up most of them experimenting..." He frowned. "I'm not crazy, Dad. There's one I didn't use today." With one thought from me, I changed, invisibly. With another, thousands of bits of colored paper swirled around in the air. "Behold, God-Empress Papercut."

Dad recoiled at the sudden cloud of confetti, then reached out to touch it. "You're a cape!" As his finger went through without resistance, he mumbled "Looks like a weak power."

I multitasked the movement of pieces of paper until a square a hundred pieces on a side floated in that cloud. It spelled out the word "NO!" in red, yellow, and green on a white background, confetti acting as colored pixels. I explained, "I can hold the pieces rigid. I can sense around them--each bit of confetti is a miniature spy. Now, imagine a pound of paper bits clogging up the firing mechanism on a gun, or opening a door from the other side, or just covering someone's eyes and not letting go. Consider what happens if I burn the paper and then dematerialize it, leaving a cloud of free oxygen atoms."

"You're serious. That sounds like it could really make you God-Empress Papercut."

"I got her power from right after she took over the Bay. Don't worry, I'm not planning to do that. It was just the only power I could show you at the moment., But the powers aren't the important part, anyway. The important part is that the other Taylors know things. Secret identities. Villain attacks--I could save people who don't even know they need saving yet. Endbringers. I don't want to scare you, Dad, but in several worlds, Leviathan attacks on May 15th. That's less than four and a half months from now. It might never happen. But it might. And then there's something that I can use to get Emma and the gang their just deserts... Bureaucracy."

"Bureaucracy? Did you have the power to deal with paperwork? We could use that at the Docks sometimes."

"No, nothing like that, Dad. I was hired by the PRT for an internship. People joked that I was the Deputy, until one day, it stopped becoming a joke. I understand the PRT, or at least I do for a few hours in a row. And I can put together what I know from different worlds. I learned several times over that Sophia Hess isn't just a bully, she's the Ward Shadow Stalker. Deputy knows that she's on probation and who covered the whole thing up, Skitter and Self-Administrator know that the PRT doesn't care. And I know the loopholes for getting into Arcadia. The PRT wrote those on purpose so that every time they got a new Ward, there was a paperwork-friendly reason for the Ward's civilian identity to get in, no matter how long the waiting list is. And if I can verify it, I know exactly why Emma got messed up and how she thinks now. If I use all my knowledge, we can beat them! At least we have a really good chance."

"Hold on, hold on."

"Sorry, I know I haven't been a chatterbox for a long time, but this power changes everything."

"It's a lot to take in. Are you going to try to join the Wards?"

"I was, er, considering it. But I have to watch out for Coil. He's a supervillain secretly working at the PRT."

"So there's a bully and a supervillain working for the PRT? That doesn't make the Wards sound very safe. Besides, I've read the contracts they've posted online. Did you know that the Wards contract lets a Ward's pay be docked in a way that's otherwise against the law?"

"Yes, I did, Dad. I worked at the PRT. I mean, Deputy, one of my lives, worked at the PRT. I knew this stuff."

"I'm not... sure I understand that part. You worked for the PRT--is that a world where Sophia was punished? Or did you work with her?"

"She was punished, Dad. They caught her after she pushed Madison into the locker."

"Wait a minute. The PRT cares about Sophia when she shoves someone else into the locker, but not when she shoves you in?"

"It's not the same version of the PRT. It doesn't prove anything."

"But they're similar enough that secret identities carry over. Similar enough that you thought that knowing the bureaucracy of one gives you experience for another. I don't like the idea of you joining the Wards."

"To tell the truth, Dad, I don't like the idea of me joining the Wards either. I haven't even told you about the time Armsmaster took the credit for Skitter defeating Lung. That doesn't fill me with confidence about--"

"You defeated Lung? The ABB leader, Lung?"

"It's fine, Dad. Skitter was okay."

"You're not planning to do that yourself, are you?"

"No. But I am going to join Über and Leet."

He thought it over. I hoped he'd not object, but I knew better. Dad said, "I know I can't prevent you. But if you'll listen to me at all when we disagree about this, please don't. They're still criminals."

"Dad, one of my other lives worked with them. It turns out that Self-Administrator makes it easier to learn skills, and Über has every skill. It also turns out that I have another power which only works if I'm a joke villain. I can Tinker up anything, as part of a villainous plan. There aren't that many other people I could work with as a joke villain, and if I could catch Coil, it'd be worth it. If Armsmaster's program was correct, getting rid of certain crime might mean that Leviathan never attacks."

"You'll be arrested. You may break out of jail but the one place that 'permanent record' is real is in the legal system, especially if you're tried as an adult. Über and Leet are basically in a dead end job and it has nothing to do with theme of their crimes. Now that they have criminal records, nobody will ever hire them for anything except crime. I expect better of you... and your Mom always did too."

"I'm not planning to commit any crimes, unless I have to trespass or something to keep Coil from addicting a 12 year old to narcotics. And the henchman laws should cover things like not being arrested for aiding and abetting just because I made them Tinker stuff in exchange for some training."

"Addicting a 12 year old to narcotics?"

"She's a cape who can tell the future. He wanted her... he's going to want her for himself. There's also the pedophile whom he pays by getting him children...."

Dad gulped. "Then he has to be stopped. But why does he have to be stopped by you? What if you get hurt?"

"The PRT certainly isn't in a position to stop him. And I can heal myself. I can demonstrate it if you want to wait for tomorrow."

"No matter what I say, you have an answer for it, I see."

"Dad, that's what answers are for!"

------
I've decided on Parliament as Taylor's cape name, for now. I was planning on Myriad, but that's used by The Other Way. Feel free to suggest other ones, although this isn't a vote.

How to approach Über and Leet?
[][Approach] As Taylor
[][Approach] As Parliament
[][Approach] As male Taylor/Sandstorm.
[][Approach] As another of your individual identities (write-in).

 

Spoiler

[X][Approach] As another of your individual identities (The TECHNO QUEEN!!!)

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 3​

I felt that I was running out of easy powers to summon, but there were still a few that I might be able to do. I'd say "if I tried as hard as I can" but powers don't really work that way.

The next power had gone wrong. Because that kind of stuff happens to me far too often. I had shrunk a bit and my skin was dark. I could go on about how I looked in a mirror and got the shock of my life, but that would be a lie. The memories were all I needed. This world had diverged earlier when New Wave lost the fight with Marquis after killing his daughter. Things were just different enough that the locker devastated my life; I would have died in there if I hadn't triggered with a body swap power and swapped with Shadow Stalker. There was no coming back from that. The PRT and Piggot weren't very accommodating and my only real choice was to pretend to be her. My tentative name was "Friday".

Friday's life sucked, but for me it wasn't as bad. I didn't have to wear Sophia's face for any longer than I needed to. And not only did I not want to be in the body of my bully, in order to use that power properly I needed to know all sorts of answers about what happens to my summon power when I'm swapped, what happens when I replace the swap power, and exactly how body changes carry over. I seemed to have Sophia's tightly curled hair, which hadn't happened with Sandstorm.

I posed in front of a mirror, pretending I was in a police lineup, and whispered "My name is Sophia Hess. Emily Piggot, I am voluntarily confessing to multiple crimes...." I cleared my throat and said it again, more timbre in my voice. Fantasies of the ensuing smackdown in that scenario ran through my head, but the sheer impossibility of pulling it off drained the idea of satisfaction. Instead I sat down, pushed the power away for another one, and left Sophia Hess to my memories.

In this life, I had the power to steal skills. Like Victor of the Empire 88. This Taylor's world didn't have a Victor; did I get his powers and he mine somehow? Like Friday's power, this power sort of sucked, and it raised questions about what happens when I switch it away. I had no cape name and I just knew that using the name "Victoria" would get me in trouble with New Wave some day. Hmm, Victoria Dallon was called Nike in Friday's world. I never heard of a cape with that name in the... real... world, so let's go with that.

* * * * *​

But what I dwelled on about Nike right then wasn't her power, but her experiences.

There's only so much you can tell about Über and Leet from Youtube videos and press reports. Self-Administrator's experience with them was pretty good. They could be jerks at times, but they played fair. They used nonlethal weapons! They kept deals! They could work with other people! When they messed with traffic they made sure nobody was hurt! Then there was the Über and Leet that Nike met. They laughed at people's misery! They destroyed buildings with people inside, and they crashed cars containing children! They even swore too much!

Skitter's version was somewhere between the two; they worked with Bakuda and Coil but they started out with nonlethal stun bombs, and when a dockworker became their henchman it was a joke, not an occasion to worry that he'd go for Mortal Kombat and start ripping out spines.

Like Parian's shop, it was a harsh reminder not to rely too much on otherwordly memories. There was no substitute for doing things. I had to contact Über and Leet. Maybe fight them, maybe ask to work with them. See how they fight, see how they plan, see how they cooperate with other people. I'd find out if they were joke villains or just villains who made jokes.

* * * * *​

I went to PHO. Not as many capes are on PHO as you might think. But this was Über and Leet.

First I needed a cape name. I brought up my name list in Microsoft Word; closing my eyes, I swirled the mouse around. Something touched my hand and I reflexively jerked the mouse a tiny bit downwards. Opening my eyes revealed a fly perched on my knuckles, which I swatted away. The name I had randomly chosen was "Parliament"; it was the fifth on my list, right beneath "Cauldron" to describe my mix of powers. Emma knew that I was called "Little Owl" so there was a slight chance that she could guess it, but her reluctance to think of me as strong should discourage it. Though there were no guarantees.

But did I want to reveal my powers to Über and Leet? Working with them meant that I at least had to reveal Self-Administrator and Techno Queen. But until then, until I could be sure that it was safe, I should reveal as little as I could. And if I was going to do anything even a bit illegal, I didn't want to burn my main cape persona. So I had to meet them as a different Taylor. A Taylor who was already a villain anyway, a strong and powerful Taylor, a Taylor appropriate for the insanity that surrounded even a "good" Über and Leet. A Taylor I just mentioned.

​

THE TECHNO QUEEN​

Hi... I'm a new cape with certain unusual powers. I can't give the full details, but I can tinker up almost anything for a few hours per day as long as I do it as a joke villain. I'd like to work with you as a henchman. I can make you Tinker components that Leet has used up the ability to make. In exchange I'd like to use your lab, either to Tinker or to hide out in, and learn some fighting from Uber. I can't do serious crimes, though, and if you try to use the components in serious crimes I can't guarantee they'd work.​

​

​

Leet​

You seriously think we're joke villains? And that we hire henchmen?​

Also, are you a boy or a girl?​

-- BOY​

-- GIRL​

​

Some video game thing. It was pretty basic, but I still had to switch to Self-Administrator to recognize it.

​

THE TECHNO QUEEN​

Yes, yes, down, A. Also, I'm THE TECHNO QUEEN! so why would you doubt my gender?​

​

I attached a selfie, taken in costume off my webcam, against a plain white background. Fortunately I had managed to tinker up a costume changing ring. This let me return the cape and plastic skull to Party City for a refund.

​

Leet​

Prepare to qualify!​

Über says that I should stop making game references for this. He never tells me that! I thibnk he likes you. Meet us outside of Fugly Bob's this Sunday at 10 AM. Let's see how well you do on camera. Can you be dramatic?​

​

​

THE TECHNO QUEEN​

You seriously asked that? Deal.​

​

That was vague and had some chance of becoming a fight. I also had to approach it very carefully. The Techno Queen got a hefty bunch of heroic successes as a "joke villain" and only then was she unofficially immune to arrest. And that was on a world where she could Tinker constantly and where everyone down to Lung and Shadow Stalker were willing to play along. Me, I had no allies, two and a fraction hours of Tinkering daily (some of which had to be done late at night), and almost no materials.

* * * * (krackathoom!) *​

I spotted the two villains easily. They were just standing in the street next to a ladder. Über wore a white chef's outfit with a yellow bow, muscles almost completely concealed. Leet had cosplayed a red hot dog with green feet, his thin frame fitting into the bent cylinder of his costume.

I approached Fugly Bob's with my TECHNO QUEEN costume complete with stuffed bra and unfurled a map, painstakingly purchased with the refund for the plastic skull. Then I taped it against the window of the restaurant and cleared my throat for a speech.

Pointing to the map I waited for the duo's drone get into position to film me, and began my intro speech, letting my voice boom out through my own hidden equipment. "I, THE TECHNO QUEEN, shall destroy this city! I promise, and THE TECHNO QUEEN always keeps her promises!" I rapped the map smartly with a ruler. There was an angry buzzing sound. "And you, ÜBER and L33T, shall be the first I hire as henchmen!"

"That was NOT our plan!" proclaimed Über in a curiously loud voice. "This woman is nuts!"

"Yeah!" said Leet. "And my name isn't spelled with numerals!"

I shouted back, "I spoke it! You have no way of knowing that I..." I glanced at my map. The words "After catching Über and L33t" were printed on the bottom. "Fine. I'll let you join with ease. Ease!"

The ghosts of a hundred banned PHO posters with horrible spelling could be seen in the background, perhaps. (Don't ask what they look like.)

"Also," I said, "BE QUIET, henchmen. 1980's video games had silent protagonists. I don't want to hear another WORD from my new henchmen other than that high pitched beeping sound you get when you run out of pepper. And that isn't a word anyway."

Über said, sounding like a game show host, "We LIVE in the city. It's where many of our FANS are. You can't destroy it!"

"Are you suggesting that the two burger burglars I see before me are in reality HEROES out to stop ME? I must then defeat you, since you are obstacles in my city-destroying ways!" I rapped the map with the ruler again. The noisemaker worked this time. Thunder rumbled through the area, courtesy of my device, recently made from a discarded 10 inch tube television.

I reached behind me to turn the dial to channel 6 and holograms of a half dozen robots that I lacked the resources to build materialized. The robots ran forward and began firing rays at the duo.

Über did a backflip, breezily avoiding all the rays. They hit various parts of the environment to no effect. One ray hit Leet's shoes and they turned into rounded blobs of fungus, leaving him squashing them in a pair of tube socks.

Leet yelled, "You are violating the theme!"

I yelled, "You are going to be my henchmen! The theme is given by me, by ME!!!" Thunder boomed out once more. I grinned at their floating video camera.

"The truck's coming!" yelled Über as he glanced down the road. He pressed something in his hand and a giant image of the top half of a burger bun materialized. Parkouring up the side of Fugly Bob's, he jumped onto the bun. It fell down as he ran and the truck screeched to a halt trying to avoid it.

I replied, "What kind of game thing is 'The truck's coming'? Are you playing..." I pressed my own button. A holographic book page appeared in front of me and I picked out a rejoinder. "Are you playing BIG RIGS: OVER THE ROAD RACING?"

Rage appeared beneath their masks at that insult. They sputtered as they decided, seemingly as one, to fight me. Twice as many robots as I had projected before moved to intercept them. Leet shot them with a ray gun. Must have been a holdout weapon. It certainly wasn't Burgertime. I made each hologram disappear as the rays hit.

"Dude," said Leet, "she's doing Robotron."

Über said, "She is not doing Robotron! And don't get distracted!"

Indeed, I had taken the chance to sneak up on the oh-so-cleverly hidden projector. Not my projector, theirs. I smacked it with my ruler. It shook, but didn't break. I smacked it again. It shook again! I jumped into the air and landed on it. It was made of stuff that was too sturdy to crush under my feet.

Über was rushing me and I had to concentrate on him, so I quickly pulled the projector's plug and the force field bun winked out of existence. He stumbled as we traded blows despite his power.

"I see you have tripped!" I exclaimed. "Your much-vaunted power to gain every skill is no match for the might of THE TECHNO QUEEN!" A robot appeared and shot a ray by Über's feet. The ground turned into a layer of round fungi and he slipped and fell flat on his face. "I order you to surrender at once!"

Über got up and whispered, "You're enthusiastic, I see. But the truck is carrying rare earth metals that Leet needs for Tinkering."

I ignored his words and spoke to the hovering camera. "You dare threaten me? My own henchmen?"

Leet said, "Lady, you're crazy. Nobody would just act out weird fantasies in order to...." I winked at the camera. "Never mind," he said to his partner. "We're deleting that line in post-production." Okay, this wasn't live. I could deal with that.

Turning back to Über I prepared to dodge a blow. Instead, he shook a pepper shaker my way. Out from it came an ugly clear glob of goo. He shoved me into the goo and ran off towards the truck, evading the pile of fungus like an acrobat.

One of my robots shot the goo, turning it into more fungus masses. Unstuck, I stood up like King Kong and roared. The *Krackathoom!* felt appropriate.

Leet had reached the projector and plugged it in. "Ahem. Disclaimer. The depiction of Burgertime in this video is not historically accurate. Now we can talk."

"Fine," I said. "Is there anything you want to say, henchman?"

Leet scratched his head. "Do you play Counterstrike? Are you on WoW?"

I shook my head.

"Ultima Online?" he asked as he tried to think of something. "Everquest? Text-based MUDs?"

I shook my head.

"Do you even game at all?"

"After I was born and Mom got me to sleep, she played a Gameboy with the sound off. I still have it. It even has Burgertime. Does that count?"

"You don't game and you know Burgertime from a black and white port?" He sighed. "Girls." In an aside to the camera he said, "See. Noble and really underrated art form."

"Don't be sexist."

"Girls with padded breasts. We're cosplayers, do you think we wouldn't notice that?"

I said "That. Is. Not. Going. On. Your. Channel." as one of my robots tried to kick him through Fugly Bob's window. He wasn't so geeky that he couldn't get out of the way. The hologram couldn't do any damage anyway.

Leet meekly said, "Okay." But shortly regained his courage, frowning. "I needed that ytterbium. Did you know that one village was used to name four chemical elements?" He snatched up the projector, switched it to battery power, and after a brief humming sound a thirty-foot wide hamburger patty was suddenly dropping on me from the sky. I scrambled to flee the target point as Leet watched. There was no way to avoid it in the few seconds it took to descend and the impact knocked me off my feet and left me pinned between it and the ground.

Poking my head out from under it, I said, "You have me sandwiched, but I will prevail! Hahahahahaha..."

The rays from my robots were useless against the Hamburg steak projection. One hit Fugly Bob's window, which disappeared, turning into dozens of fungi. The map fell against the window frame. An advertisement for the Challenger posted on the window softly fluttered to the ground. In small letters at the bottom it read "Legal notice: This burger is not sponsored or endorsed by Challenger of the Protectorate East-North-East."

I continued speaking from beneath a half ton of simulated cow gristle. "Job interviews and restraints--you can have one or the other. NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME!"

"Well, you are going to destroy the city."

"Huh. Good point. But I shall destroy Brockton Bay once I TRIUMPH! And I WILL! You have captured me, but you have not captured my robots! They will free me from this fast food themed trap!"

"Fast food GAME," insisted Leet.

My hologram robots kept firing all over the place. The beams hit everything from cars to Leet's forehead.

As one landed between Leet's eyes harmlessly, he said "Wait, your holograms are real holograms? Actual laws-of-physics holograms, not the kind you see on Star Trek?"

"No, how would I get them to be opaque?"

"Oh."

At this point one of the cleverly concealed rays with actual effect hit Leet's projector. Leet was suddenly holding a pile of fungus and the naked innards of the machine, which sparked and sputtered. He kicked the off switch as he dropped it, then realized he wasn't wearing shoes as the switch penetrated his socks, digging into the soft part of the foot. "YOOOOOOWWWWWW!"

The burger de-rezzed. I stood up. *Krackathoom* pealed out all over the place.

Über returned from his trip, running towards us and panting slightly. "The truck's gone," he said loudly. "I tried to find a shortcut to get ahead of them but...."

I boldly shouted, "You are my henchman! You could have asked to borrow my map! We could rob them together! And with my help, as well as elements we could even steal... COMPOUNDS!"

Über thought about it. "Even heavy water?"

I replied, "Yes."

"Tempting," he replied. "But it is a poor associate of Über and Leet who has no concept of gaming!"

"You think that destroying the city is a game? You must take it with the utmost seriousness! We will start at the Boat Graveyard and...."

Leet said, "We can't join someone whose only power is to make fungus. We'd be limited to food-based games and only a measly subset of those. Do something else. Like... Can you get me some shoes?"

I grinned. "Of course. What size do you take?"

He muttered "8 and a half." But loudly enough to be heard.

"I'll save your suffering feet. But you do know what they say about what your shoe size indicates?"

Leet got an idea and said "You tell me. You're wearing shoes too." I didn't have an answer.

Über spoke to the hovering camera, "If the Techno Queen could indeed Tinker up a variety of--" and stopped as I walked towards the Pay-Less across the street with my wallet out. "Can you at least STEAL the shoes?"

I put the wallet away and motioned to my robots. They shot a beam at the store and the second window today collapsed into a pile of fungus nodules, which gave off a slight earthy smell. One salesgirl just inside the store hastily backed off. I grabbed a pair of store brand sneakers and sat down in front of the pile.

"Give me some small machines," I yelled at the cowering salesgirl. She shortly came with a broken cellphone, a stapler, and a broken broomstick.

"It was all I had," she said fearfully. "But you can use it as a lever, and they taught me in school that a lever is a simple machine."

I tossed her an autograph and got to work. A couple of minutes later, I gave Leet the shoes. "There you go. The Shoes of DOOM!"

Leet guessed the correct foot motions almost immediately and was walking at twice normal speed. "You made me Sprint Shoes!"

"The phone was AT&T, and these are the shoes of DOOM!"

Leet looked at them as if they might explode. And then asked, "Are these going to explode?"

I shook my head. "Now, acknowledge your..." Saying "defeat" would sound lame. "Your loss to THE TECHNO QUEEN!"

Über charged towards me, fists pumping. I kicked the broomstick in his path and he tripped and fell flat on his face. He got up only to see that one of my robots was pointing a gun at his flying camera.

He looked at it in horror. His voice boomed out, "What a blackguard, to hold hostage a piece of EQUIPMENT!" But we must admit defeat. Defeat at the hands of THE TECHNO QUEEN!"

I decided to replace the *Krackathoom!* with an extra life sound. May as well be magnanimous.

Leet said, "We can't let her win! She ruined the Burgerjector! And we lost the truck!"

Pulling up the ability of an expert greengrocer, Über explained, "She just turned that Burgerjector's casing into black truffles. They sell for about 80 dollars an ounce."

I added, "They also freeze well."

Über continued, "Do you know how much yttrium we could buy with that, fully legally?"

Leet said, "Ytterbium."

I beamed, showing my wide Hebert smile for the camera. "I didn't want to turn things into broccoli again. You may have a problem with only making things once, but variety is the spice of life."

Leet said, "And if you let her win, she's going to...." Über shook his head at that.

In reply, in my own technologically enhanced booming voice, said "I have already won! YOU ADMITTED IT!"

I dramatically marched up to the map, which still stood upright against a pile of truffles. I held it up, grasped the center with the other hand, reached into the Boat Graveyard, and tore out the city of Brockton Bay. Then I slowly crushed the paper into a ball with my bare hands and cackling maniacally, I hurled it into the fungal masses. I yelled, "VICTORY IS MINE!"

"Her plans completed," I yelled at the camera while waving, "THE TECHNO QUEEN retires and is never seen again amongst the world of mortal men and women! Or IS SHE?"

* * * * *​

After I bagged up the projector and walked away to change, I saw that at some point in the fight, Über had managed to slip a business card under my costume bracelet.

The address was the same warehouse that Self-Administrator knew. I knocked on the door in the pattern I remembered.

Everything stayed silent because of a set of hidden sound dampeners, but Über emerged from behind an illusionary wall, munching on a burger garnished with a thin slice of truffle. "Techno Queen?"

"In the flesh." I followed him in, glancing around the lab. It looked messy, except for several cordoned-off areas filled with a bluish-white light.

"How did you know that pattern?"

Stepping over an empty soda can, I said, "I told you, I have unusual powers."

"Luck? Some things worked just too well. We never practiced anything with you yet that could almost have been one of our solo heists. And the odds were bad that the one game you knew was the one we were doing."

"I'm not sure. Maybe. But that wasn't the unusual power. The Techno Queen isn't my true power. My true power is to turn into versions of myself that had taken different paths in life. They all have their own powers. I'm not the Techno Queen, but I could have been."

"Like Final Fantasy class changes?" asked Leet.

I didn't get it. He'd have to explain the reference some day. "That's why I can only tinker for a short time each day. And I knew the pattern because a version of me worked with a version of you. You used your mastery of every skill to teach her how to do things."

"What? I don't have 'skills', I have single techniques. There's no way I can do anything like that. I think we'd better sit down and figure out exactly how this partnership is going to work."

-----

You have "future" knowledge. Time to head off the rails. List an item to fix first. (Failure to list something does not mean you will never do it.) You may also add minor items.

[][Stations of Canon] (write-in)

 

Spoiler

[X][Stations of Canon] Dispose of Coil

I'm going to count all the Coil answers together.

All the Myriad Taylors​

Chapter 4​

That was a surprise, but perhaps shouldn't have been unexpected. "So you can't teach me combat?" I asked.

"I can teach you a little bit and I can teach you moves."

"That wasn't the main reason I came here anyway. It was why Self-Administrator did, but for me it's just a side thing."

"What?"

"If things had gone differently, I could have been a different cape. Self-Administrator could change her biology, like Aegis but directed. She's the one who worked with the 'you' with the skills. Owl has ice powers. Slug Queen controls you by putting a slug in your ear. Techno Queen you know. I won't go through all of them. My real cape name is Parliament."

I touched my bracelet and a sheet of light washed over my costume. A second later I was wearing a tan costume in classic superhero style spandex (and kevlar underneath) with a three quarters face mask, a white belt and a tan skirt. Since I had normal shorts under the skirt, accidentally flipping it wouldn't be a problem. A copy of a classic Escher sketch was placed where a chest emblem would be, depicting black and white birds tiling the area.

"Impressive," said Leet. "Can you make us some of those?"

"The Techno Queen's power likes secret IDs. I can only guess why. Maybe because they lead to awkward moments, maybe because they're... genre. I'm not sure that dressing up as a game character but having everyone know it's you really counts. But you never know. I'll see what I can do."

I looked around the lab. Much of it was a mess. In a corner was a discarded T-shirt reading "U+I=69". "Looks like something Greg would say. Wait a minute...." I started laughing. "I'm sure that was unintentional, but...."

"Yeah," said Leet. "The uppercase 'I' looks an awful lot like a lowercase 'l'. That shirt would give a very wrong impression."

"Anyway, the way my powers work I can sort of cheat on the skills." I hadn't mentioned Nike yet, but there were other shortcuts. "I can turn into Self-Administrator and practice the fighting that she knows. If I practice something, I'm practicing it for real, even if I already 'know' how to do it as one specific cape. So here's my offer. I get to spar with Über, I get access to your lab, and I get to use your spare materials, and in return I make you components that you can't make yourself and you get to have the Techno Queen on your shows. Oh, and I don't have to participate in any crimes beyond henchman level. Is that a deal?"

"It's a deal," said Über, and he extended a hand, which I shook.

I helped Über empty out a section of the lab, taking the opportunity to work on my enhanced strength as Self-Administrator as I helped carry the equipment away. The equipment made about as much sense to me, at that moment, as a Kaiser speech. I could only look at the pretty control lights and avoid the shiny metal edges.

Once we had emptied a big enough space and gotten a bench, a chair, and a computer in I said "I don't understand any of that and won't before about 9 PM today. If you need some ice or some bugs I can stick around for that." They didn't, though Leet then wanted to know if I could play video games as Sandstorm. It would have been a sexist question if it hadn't turned out that I really did know how to play certain fighting games. I got trounced anyway.

* * * * *​

That solved the problems of Tinker resources and training, but those weren't my biggest cape problems. Because in far too many realities, Brockton Bay was doomed. Four months from now, Leviathan would attack.

I would never be sure of that until the moment it happened. The Leviathan attack could have been another illusion, another Parian's shop. But if the city was destroyed and I lost Dad and any friends I might otherwise make in the next four months, I couldn't forgive myself. In Skitter's world, Armsmaster's program had predicted the attack based on the crime and gang wars in the city. This gave me a chance--if I could be a hero cape, I would be stopping crime anyway, and if I could stop enough crime, Leviathan would attack some other city. It would not save Leviathan's victims, only change who they were, but it was all I could do. And I couldn't worry that if I locked my windows, some criminal who would have robbed me would break into someone else's house instead.

Back in my bedroom and late that night, all my remaining selves had returned. I shifted to Skitter and started writing down things that she knew. Burning through the rest of the Taylors, I produced several pages of shaky foreknowledge (and a list of secret identities on the side) that were clues to the possible future of Brockton Bay. I read over them and then ran them under the faucet, of course. Just the act of writing them down meant that I thought about them, and just the act of thinking about them put them in my real memory.

The biggest threat seemed to be Coil. At a minimum he had bankrolled the Undersiders, kidnapped Dinah Alcott, and revealed the identities of the Empire 88 in a way that started a gang war. He was indirectly responsible for many things--if Skitter hadn't saved the Undersiders from Lung and Lung wasn't captured, would we have had Bakuda?

Maybe I was looking for a way to be a hero, since I didn't know any of this, but it all seemed to fit into place.

* * * * *​

I didn't know how long Coil had... would have been... trying to kidnap Dinah. It was entirely possible that her phone was tapped, and I didn't want anything that could be traced back to me.

Safely under the Boardwalk, I switched to Sandstorm and activated the costume change bracelet as fast as I could, setting it for just clothes and wig. Sandstorm's voice was different from mine, which would make it hard for Coil to know who had called Dinah, and he had a lot of experience working with Dinah--in fact, she had come to him. Besides, there was a ton of sand out here to use if anything went sour. I turned on my burner phone and called Dinah's number from Sandstorm's memory.

Dinah's mother answered the phone, if I remembered her voice properly. "Hello, Alcott residence?"

"Hello, can I speak to Dinah?"

"Who should I tell her is calling?"

"It's..." I picked a name from one of the alternates I had sensed only briefly. "Spenser."

I heard Dinah's mother say "Dinah, do you know a boy named Spenser?"

There was the sound of some argument and then Dinah answered. "Hello, this is Dinah, how may I help you?"

"Dinah, what's the chance of you being kidnapped and seriously harmed by the first of May if you don't let me help you?"

"95.9802 percent." That answered one question. She did have her powers, or a version of them. I couldn't know if they worked exactly like they did with Sandstorm, however.

"What's the chance if you do?"

"22.8661 percent."

"I think we'd better meet somewhere. Do you think you can manage it safely?"

"I... I don't have any choice, do I?"

"Look, Dinah, you can ask yourself as many questions as you want about motives and such. I'm not a villain, but I feel uncomfortable explaining a lot over the phone. It may be possible for you to find me if you use your powers. I don't know for sure if they work that way. If not, we'll have to set up a meeting spot or I could come visit you."

"I think that visiting me at home has the largest probability of success. We can go somewhere for discussion once you have arrived."

I said, "All right," and thought over when this could best work. I said "I'll see you Tuesday after school" just a second before she started saying the same thing.

* * * * *​

I was able to keep watch on Emma and her gang with a combination of bugs and confetti, but that covered two hour-long intervals. Complete coverage was impossible. I fantasized abut using my powers to turn the tables on them somehow, to fight as Self-Administrator, break them up as Friday, steal Emma's social skills with Nike. I couldn't, any more than Skitter wouldn't. If I wanted to have a chance of getting out of this hellhole, I couldn't do something that would result in an investigation.

As I approached Principal Blackwell's office at the end of the school day, a rusted doorknob jiggled to the right of my path. The bitches had hidden in a side room waiting for me, only to discover that the door mechanism had been jammed by confetti. It would be trivial for Shadow Stalker to bypass the door, but she probably wasn't stupid enough to do it where I could see her use her powers. By this time I had bought a phone, so I waited a minute just in case she was that stupid anyway. She wasn't.

I knocked on Blackwell's door and entered as soon as it was opened, then tossed a pile of papers, stapled at the corner, next to the nameplate on her desk. "Here you go!" I said with false cheerfulness.

"Excuse me. Ms... Hebert? What's this?"

"It's my transfer papers to Arcadia. I wanted to make sure they didn't get lost in the mail."

"I can't transfer you to Arcadia. There are two hundred students on a waitlist. There's jurisdictions...."

"I don't even know what that last part about jurisdictions means, but suppose I was a Ward. I'd have to get transferred to Arcadia, right? At least, some important people would want me to get transferred to Arcadia?"

"You aren't a Ward. We'd have been informed."

"But suppose I were. Maybe I'd fill out a special form which says 'Because Taylor Hebert is a Ward, she falls under the special Ward rules, and the Ward rules say that you get to skip the waitlist and the jurisdictions?'"

"Don't get smart with me. There might be a secret agreement giving special permission to Wards, and I'm not saying there is, but Wards do have secret IDs. They couldn't just file papers that use special Ward rules. They'd have to have something on record to establish that their civilian identity transferred, which could be seen by people not cleared for their identities."

To her, I was just an unruly student who needed to be corrected. So I let her talk, trying to correct me.

"The Ward would then make a regular transfer request that doesn't say that she's a Ward and the school system would fulfill the request despite the waitl-- You didn't!"

"Yes I did." I glanced down at the title on top of my stack of papers. 'Expedited transfer based on special circumstances, form TRWA-001a'. "I don't know how many students who aren't Wards transfer this way, but there must be some. Otherwise the fact that someone transferred in without a waitlist slot opening up would be a dead giveaway to their identity. In fact, it takes so long to get to the front of the waitlist that just transferring as a freshman would give it away."

She picked them up and paged through them. I waited.

She said, "You aren't a Ward."

"The form doesn't say I have to be a Ward to use it. If it did, that would defeat the purpose."

"But it was meant for Wards to use."

"I'm sure someone thought that, but they had to set it up so that in theory, non-Wards could use it. They'd even have one or two non-Wards use it just to keep the scam up, probably someone well-connected. They'd just keep it obscure so there weren't two hundred applications. Every so often there would be gossip, too many people would learn about it, and they'd change the procedure to limit its use."

She read off, "'Reason for expedited transfer: Inaction by Winslow administration in the face of multiple bullying incidents culminating in locker incident. See attached summary.'"

"I certainly didn't lie about that part."

"But Winslow only gets five business days to contest the reason for transfer! Otherwise it goes through and Winslow's failure to contest it is on the record."

"Say what you like about bureaucracies, they drag things out, they don't shorten them. If you get five business days, obviously five business days are enough time."

"Or the procedure was meant for rubber-stamping a Wards transfer and we weren't supposed to contest the reason."

"Who knows? I didn't write it. By the way, once I'm gone, there's a good chance the bullies will turn on themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if Madison gets shoved into a locker and you'll have to deal with it. Have a nice day."

* * * * *​

I hoped this would do it. School administrations, at least this one, don't like when students report victimization because being a victim means trouble for the school. But contesting the reason or 'losing' the form wouldn't benefit Blackwell. It might have made it easier for the administration to discourage me from filing a lawsuit, but it would also mean I'd stay around causing 'trouble'.

Sophia was already in the hallway, pulling on the door from this side. I shifted to Deputy so I had at least some PRT training, which was complemented by the double human strength that two hours a day of self-administration had earned me.

The doorknob suddenly jerked in Sophia's hand as the confetti vanished and she flung the door open.

I ran past Sophia, keeping aware at all times of where she was. She pushed herself off of the door to force me to slow down to avoid her.

Emma was beginning one of her rants. "It isn't so easy to avoid what you have coming to you, slut," she said. "You're so weak that you couldn't even save your mother. How can you save yourself?"

Time to try what I had learned, see if I could turn back on Emma what Sophia had tried to turn on me in the other world. If it held true in this one, if the way it was phrased in this world was close enough to how it was phrased in that one. "Emma... I want you to answer one question."

"You don't understand who's in control here--"

I continued. "Your ears? Your nose? One eye? Or your mouth?" Metal glinted in my hand. It was a pen, but Emma couldn't know that, and even a pen could cause real injuries.

Emma looked at me in horror as I had finally managed to reveal one of her secrets, like she had revealed so many of mine. Madison looked puzzled. Emma pushed Sophia aside and yelled, "I overcame that! I survived!" She came at me with a combination of hostility, fear, and sadness in her eyes and grabbing for the object in my hand like an amateur. I was trained to deal with distraught civilians and handling the threat from her as she was now was trivial. I easily avoided the blows and ducked between her and Sophia, then ran down the hall.

The hall mirror showed Emma preparing to chase me. Had I gone too far, provoked them into using violence even when it could get them into trouble, as long as I suffered first? But no, Sophia was trying to calm down Emma, which was not something you see every day.

I kept alert for sudden crossbow bolts aimed at my back anyway as I headed out, but none materialized.

As soon as I had left, I immediately started to regret it. Emma got joy out of destroying people. I didn't. I couldn't deny feeling a bit of schadenfreude but mostly, I was just disgusted at myself for saying that. But... I recalled some things that Mom had told me. Not in another world, in this one. Something of Lustrum's that stuck with her. Nobody should feel guilty over fighting back against an abuser with whatever weapons she had. Maybe an abusive ex-friend isn't as feminist a scenario as an abusive husband, but it wasn't really so different either. Emma needed therapy and she might even get it someday, but that would come after she stopped messing up my life.

* * * * *​

Dinah's neighborhood was much nicer than my own. Lawns and trees, some gardens, and there were no payday loan stores to be seen. I was Sandstorm, out of costume and bundled up for the cold. She came out to meet me as I approached her house.

"Hello Spencer," she said. "My parents aren't home, but it may be safer to go somewhere else to talk."

I motioned to her and started walking down the street. "Whew," I said. "I'm glad to meet you finally, Dinah. I was afraid I was too late... though if you set up the time to meet, it couldn't be too late, could it?"

"Are you a precog?"

"Not exactly."

"You knew that something was wrong."

"Yes, I did. By the way there's a person sitting in a car about a hundred feet behind us, doing something on his phone."

"He does that a lot. He's harmless. Or at least ignoring him never changes any of the futures."

I nodded. "So, have you had dinner and do you like ice cream?"

"Yes, then no," she said. Her eyes lit up anyway. I grumbled, then she laughed when I seemed to believe her. "That proves you're not a precog!"

"Seriously? You thought I believed you don't like ice cream? You're a little troll."

"I'm sorry."

"All right. First of all, my name isn't Spencer, it's Taylor. Second, I'm usually a girl."

Dinah asked innocently, "Does it matter what pronoun I use for you?"

"If it would blow my identity or something like that, of course I want you to call me by whatever doesn't do that. Otherwise, I don't care. Anyway, I'm only a boy now because I'm using a power. As for what power it is... that's complicated."

"I'm capable of understanding 'complicated'."

"My power as Sandstorm includes what he calls 'alioception'."

"You have the ability to detect onions?"

"No, I can sense anything nonliving in the environment, and I can use telekinesis on small particles. Like sand." A simplification, but enough.

"And the complicated part?"

"My cape name is Parliament and my power is to become alternate-world versions of myself. They have their own histories, their own powers. Skitter robbed a bank, which was used as a distraction to kidnap you. She wanted to save you, but she failed, and then in May... something happened. The Techno Queen rescued you. Sandstorm kept you from being kidnapped, for a while. And I think... I hope... that I'm here even earlier."

Dinah muttered something to herself which may have been a question, and winced as if in pain. Then she said, "Thank you. You got to me in time. You didn't fail."

"Are you still going to school?"

"Yes, but the headaches get worse. People keep asking me things. I may have to stay home soon."

"Then I've definitely gotten to you early. If your power is exactly the same. And my power isn't, so I can never be sure. By the way... do you trust me, Dinah?"

She smiled. "Of course. I know the odds. Not everyone does. Besides, you don't look suspicious at all." I honestly couldn't tell if that meant that I did or I didn't.

I bought her and myself a scoop of chocolate each, on sugar cones. Unlike Sandstorm, I didn't know anywhere we could safely go, unless I wanted to drop in on Über and Leet. I had checked to see if Stace existed and she didn't seem to, not that she'd have known me anyway. We ended up in the park. I brushed off some snow from a bench so we could sit, aided by my power; to anyone watching who was not right on top of me, it wouldn't look unusual. It wasn't a day for ice cream to melt.

"If everything's on schedule," I explained, "you get kidnapped by a cape named Coil. He funds a villain team called the Undersiders. His civilian ID is Thomas Calvert. He's a consultant for the PRT and if you had gone there, there was a good chance he could have found out about you. His power is to live in two timelines. He could try to kidnap you in one and stay home in another, and if the kidnapping goes bad, he drops the timeline and it never happened."

She slowly nibbled at her ice cream while thinking about that. Then she said, "That's a lot to take in."

"You're a smart girl. But if you can't understand something, just ask me."

"I'll be fine."

"I have to admit. I don't know if any of that is really true. I'll have to confirm it and I'll need your help. Can I ask you questions about things you don't know? Like..." I made sure I didn't phrase the example as a question. "Suppose I want to know if Calvert is Coil. So I can ask you, in all futures where Calvert is hit by a truck, what percentage of those futures have Coil hit by a truck. If you tell me 100 percent, I have my answer."

"Maybe. My power sorts possible futures and they have to be something I can visualize. But I can act based on some information I don't know, like asking if the plan you have in your head will fail."

"Well, we can try to... Wait." I bit off a chunk of ice cream in frustration at myself. "I have a better idea. I don't need to ask you questions about ordinary things like Sandstorm did. I can be the Slug Queen. I can put a slug inside Coil's ear and read his brain."

"You can make Yeerks? Do they control people like Yeerks?"

"I was thinking more Wrath of Khan, but yes, they're like Yeerks. I really should read those books someday."

"So you give Coil a Yeerk, and...."

"And I look into his head and see if all the things I asked you are true. Let's add the location of his base. I know where I found it, that is, where Sandstorm found it. In the futures where I capture Coil and put a... Yeerk... in his head and I tell you what I see, what's the probability that I see everything that I just mentioned? His name, and the Undersiders, and his powers, and his PRT job, and his base, and his plans to kidnap you?"

"Oh! It's... It's..." She clutched her head in pain. "92.3411 percent."

"Are you okay?"

"I answered too many already. My head feels like it's going to burst."

"I think that question was all I needed. Although I was hoping for 100 percent. Or maybe zero if one of those things isn't true."

"In most of the remaining 7.6599 percent... I mean 7.6589 percent... he doesn't kidnap me. Sometimes he hires me. Although now that I know he's likely to kidnap me, the futures where he hires me are going away."

* * * * *​

I talked a little to Dinah about cape life, most of which was Sandstorm's since I hadn't been Parliament for very long, and about different worlds where I had met her. She seemed fascinated about what she had done in different presents, as opposed to the different futures that had clouded her head recently. Frequent kidnapper card indeed.

I checked the time on my phone. Sandstorm's sands of time were running out. "Dinah, I want to ask you if it's safe for me to change into Parliament and stick around. Is that okay?"

"I asked questions about you before you came. You're not lying and the price of knowing that is the pain in my head. I can't answer anything else."

"Okay, then I'd better get you home, unless you think that it's safe for you to... no, forget I said that."

"All right."

We got up and I walked Dinah home. "Just one thing," I asked before I left.

"What is it, Taylor?"

"You're a cape. And you don't have a cape name. Is there something you'd like to be called by?"


[][Name] No cape name for Dinah
[][Name] Write-in

[][Undersiders] Don't approach Undersiders before going after Coil
[][Undersiders] Approach Undersiders (please write a plan--whether to go as a cape, what to reveal, whether to meet everyone or just Tattletale, whether to take Dinah with us, what to offer, etc.)

Also, I'm keeping alt-Taylor nominations open. If you haven't picked a fic with an alt-Taylor, feel free to do so. Power level must be less than Triumvirate level and certain plot-disruptive powers are not allowed.

 

Spoiler

[X][Undersiders] Don't approach Undersiders before going after Coil
[x][Name] (tie)

All the Myriad Taylors​

Chapter 5​

Dinah didn't feel like deciding on a cape name but wanted to keep the option open. There was no rush, really. I left her at her parents' and went home to work on my plans.

January 11, 2011

As I woke up and hit the alarm button, I felt a... skill in a way that had almost become familiar. The sensation of having some ability that I could have, some alternate reality bleeding over into the real world. One last drop of power, one last push further into the world of capes.

And this new power was a doozy. White Mage had the ability to heal. Real healing; no wound transfer, no shaping disguised as healing. I didn't have to meddle around in someone's body. I just had to speak a few words, "expend" my supposed "magic", and... instant health. I could heal wounds, cure cancer, or even fix problems with brains in a much friendlier way than using mind-control slugs. The power could be used until I got tired... excuse me, until I ran out of "magic"... and then all I had to do to recover would be to get a full night's rest.

Yeah, that's right. I had the power for an hour at a time and I had to get a full night's rest. For all I knew I had become a healer version of Leet, who had an amazing power, but could only ever use its charges once. Visions danced through my head of Dad being shot by some agent of Coil trying to intimidate me, with myself looking on helpless as he bled to death, my healing energy having been expended in a burst of generosity three weeks prior. No. That wasn't going to happen. I needed to test whether I could recover the power, so I'd have to use it a little bit, but then, I could never use it again until I was sure that I could get it back.

I programmed it into the bracelet anyway.

My days at Winslow were numbered, and the number was rapidly going down. Two more left. It was oddly quiet. Sophia didn't show up at school--I wondered if the PRT had finally gotten to its senses and checked her phone. Emma didn't say a word to me, which was an improvement. Discreet use of confetti let me barely catch her making a text message to Madison. It was nothing to do with me, just some absurd thing about a clothes sale. Emma had always been better at fashion than me even when we were friends.

* * * * *​

After school, my first stop was the Save Spot. That was what Über and Leet called their lair, at least this week. I approached my work area as I changed myself into the Techno Queen. To the masses that made up my audience, I was a joke villain full of hamminess and larger-than-life bluster. Behind the scenes, it was still work.

Let's see, I thought, poring over the possible plans in my head. The duo had wanted me to make them some power sources. Tritium posed a risk of radiation, but their supply of deuterium was limited. There were only a few ways to use it and first I'd have to....

One hour later I was holding a blunt-ended tool in my right hand that looked slightly obscene. Its function would be beyond my comprehension for the next eleven hours. In my left I had a box of metallized deuterium/palladium amalgam nuggets and was pouring them into a flask. I was slightly sweating, I had created three fusion power supplies the size of plums, I was starting on a fourth, and Leet was standing over me watching. Über was entering from another room.

"Don't spill that," said Leet. "I recovered that from a Scion-site."

"What?"

"Last year Scion trashed three submarines out of Boston. They carried nuclear weapons. Scion was his erratic self and decided to destroy them when there are bases in North Dakota with twenty times as many that he left alone. We flew out a fake weather balloon carrying a quadrupole ion trap and recovered about half the deuterium released into the atmosphere."

"Is that a game?" I asked.

"Is what a game?"

"The, uh, quadruple ion trap."

"Quadrupole. And the answer is 'not at all'. Tinker explanations sound like Star Trek which sound like game physics. That's the only thing 'game' about it. It wasn't supposed to have anything to do with us and the more we stick to a theme, the less people think of us when we don't. It's a kind of camouflage." He picked up one of the power sources. "Interesting. How does it work?"

"The red and black wires are for power. The dial is for power level. The blue and green wires are for diagnostics. At least I think so. I don't think it even has any theme restrictions. Everything I make has to be in theme or very generic, and power sources are generic enough."

"Cool."

I noticed that he was staring at a photograph on the wall, cut out of some newspaper front page. He and Über hadn't yet cleared every item of theirs out of my cubicle. It showed a group of five people standing in front of an office building, the ground made up of squares of sod that hadn't completely grown in.

I was sure I recognized the picture. Not from seeing it here. It was on some website. "Wait," I said. "That looks like you and Über at the start of the back row." Then I realized what I had said. I could be violating cape etiquette by trying to be friendly about this. "Never mind. I shouldn't pry into your identities."

Über approached and said "It's fine. She needs to know who we are. I'm Garrett."

"All right," replied Leet. "I'm Logan."

Über explained, "The PRT knows who we are anyway. They don't reveal the identities of villains to the public, but they do take note of them. Besides, I thought you worked with us in another timeline. You couldn't not know our names."

"You know... it's funny, but I don't think Self-Administrator ever did find out your names."

"And as for that picture.... There we were, the whole group fresh out of college, and we had this great idea for a startup. It was an Aleph-based streaming service called Sliders. No relation to the TV show. We had dozens of trademark licenses for extradimensional shows and magazines, we had an ad campaign, plenty of venture capital; we even hired a specialty Tinker whose contract was compliant with NEPEA-5. But there was one big problem."

He went silent, looking at the picture over and over. Finally, recalling where I had seen it before, I said, "It was two years ago, and you were in San Francisco."

"Yes," said Leet. "Leviathan. It doesn't matter how well you can run a game if someone comes along, burns your character sheets, and shoots all the players in the head. No server farm, no venture capital, no resources, no city. Three of us died, and Garrett and I triggered at the mass funeral. Two months later and we moved away. There was nothing left for us there."

"I don't know what to say," I said. "But... maybe there is something I'd better say."

"What is it?" said Über.

"It's my powers. My true powers, to become alternate versions of myself. They have their own timelines, Über, and they're not all in January. Some of them made it as far as May. When Leviathan decides to pay Brockton Bay a visit."

Über said, "Seriously? What the fuck?"

"Do I look like I'm joking? I'm going to divert Leviathan."

"Nobody can divert Leviathan," said Leet. "If that's all correct... you should leave. Because that's what Garrett and I would do."

"I'm not going to stand there and push him away with my hands. Leviathan is attracted by the crime in the city. If I can take down Coil, stop Bakuda or keep her away, and if you can stay away from them, the chance of Leviathan coming here goes way down. Or at least the chance of massive floods as predicted by Thinkers."

Über said, "If you do that, he'll go drown someone else instead."

I replied sadly, "Yes. It's the best I can do. There are timelines where I defeated Leviathan. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll access one someday."

Leet said, "Timelines where you defeated Leviathan? Nobody can do that. Have you been in a city where he came through? Seen how it just doesn't matter how what you did with your life when a monster decided that you didn't need it anyway?"

"Skitter has. I still don't know if Dad lived, in her world."

"But... Oh, never mind. Well, thanks for alerting us. But don't be surprised if we and this lair disappear if he's still on track for Brockton Bay come this May. We're not heroes, we're cowards and we bitch too much when it comes to Leviathan, and we're not afraid to admit it."

* * * * *​

I spent some time sparring with Über. He was ripped and I was a tall but willowy girl with few muscles to speak of. I won handily two thirds of the time anyway, both because of Self-Administrator and because Über's powers didn't give him a full combat style.

He offered to play video games with Sandstorm again but I had to decline. I had a mission. Several, in fact.

Checking the map on my phone, I located "Dregs", a coffee shop conveniently located in the streets above where the Techno Queen and Sandstorm had both invaded Coil's base. One quick transformation and costume change, and Taylor Hebert was a male high school student drinking tea while he worked on some sort of project drawing on a pad, maybe for an art class.

Forty-five minutes later, I had finished using Sandstorm's powers and I had roughly sketched out most of Coil's base on the drawing paper. The two hundred yard range on Sandstorm's power is farther than the Washington Monument is tall. The shop was somewhat off center to the northeast and I had missed about a fifth of the base plus some entry corridors. It would have to wait for next time. Maybe tomorrow.

I quickly left the coffee shop and spent some time walking. Coil probably had hidden cameras in the area. When I was about to change back anyway, I ducked behind a dumpster and transformed. I caught the B-21 bus and headed far away from Coil's base.

* * * * *​

The Diane Scott cancer center was located outside Brockton Bay proper. It was not Brockton General or Medhall, just a small hospital that held about 60 patients. It was a place where people would come, sometimes to be cured, sometimes to die.

Today, the balance would be a little more in favor of the cures. In my White Mage costume, I walked up to the front desk. Or to be exact, I, Skitter, walked up to the front desk. It wasn't wise to shift to White Mage until the last possible minute, to avoid running out of time, and nobody needed to know that my costume had nothing to do with my change of powers.

"Excuse me," said the secretary. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. I'm a cape. A healer. This is a hospital, and I'd like to make your job a little bit easier today."

She glanced over my costume. "That's an unusual request. Panacea rarely comes here, and you're not her. You've just copied her colors. Let me contact my supervisor."

"Of course I'm not Panacea! I'm Parliament. I'm a new cape and...." The secretary was rapidly punching in words into her computer. No doubt so I couldn't hear her warn the rest of the staff about the crazy girl who says she's another Panacea.

After what must have been a paragraph of typing, she said "Can you explain your powers? What do you need to do in order to heal? And what are you demanding for this service?"

Did she want to know for real? Was she just keeping the intruder cape occupied while the police or PRT came? I had no way to know, and either way I had better start explaining. I said, "I am sort of a Trump. I'm not sure if that's quite right, but my power varies a lot. I can heal and cure diseases without touching the patient. I can't bring back lost body parts. And I'm not charging you."

"Have you considered PRT testing to verify your powers before visiting hospitals?"

"Once I've used my powers it may be hard to recover them. So I figured that I should do the test on the worst possible patients. If it's a month or a year before I get to cure another disease, I would rather that I used the last ones on something like cancer. It would be a waste to try it on some PRT employee and prove that I can cure the common cold."

"Maybe the PRT would start the testing with a cancer patient."

"Maybe, but I'm here."

She glanced at her screen again and said, "I'm afraid you're going to have the same problem here. Hold on, I need to contact my supervisor again. You'd better take a seat."

At the point where I finally figured out that I could always send a couple of flakes of confetti over the secretary's shoulder to read her computer monitor, three PRT troopers marched in through the front door, helmets off. The weapons they were carrying looked like containment foam guns. The troopers' weapons weren't aimed at me, but they weren't holstered either. The secretary seemed visibly relieved when they entered.

"Now hold on," I said. "I'm only here to cure some patients. I'm not planning to commit a crime, and I'm not going to hurt anyone."

The secretary said, "Then you should be fine." A woman in white entered from the door behind the secretary's desk. "Ah," said the secretary. "Nurse Jackson, could you please show our guest, 'Parliament,' to a patient to cure?"

The nurse looked at me nervously and then at the troopers. "Follow me, Parliament," she said.

I followed her. The troopers stayed near me, one on each side and one behind me.

She led me down several corridors, the final one marked by a blue stripe on the floor. We passed a number of rooms and entered one. An old woman lay in a bed, weak and barely awake. "This is Mrs. Wilson," explained the nurse. "She's given permission for experimental treatments for her liver cancer, including parahuman treatment. Can you cure her?"

I finally selected White Mage's power. I concentrated and I sensed the affliction, "All right. Stand back."

They moved back. The troopers gripped their guns tightly.

"Purify that which subdues the mind and weakens the body, Esuna!"

The light show was familiar, even though I, Taylor Hebert AKA Parliament, had never seen it before.

"Bask in the light of rejuvenation. Cure!"

I could no longer sense the illness, but nobody else would have been able to see that. Mrs. Wilson was a less pale, less yellow color, she was sitting up in her bed, and the readouts on the medical equipment had clearly changed. "How's that?" I asked.

Mrs. Wilson said, "Are you Panacea? I feel... Better. You cured me, didn't you? You did the impossible."

"I'm Parliament," I replied.

"I..." said the nurse. "I didn't think you could do this. We'll have to confirm the cure, but I can guarantee you that even if you're not Panacea, you'll be welcome here any time."

"No," I said. "I told you, I'm just here because I need to use up some of my power to test it and I wanted to do it to real patients. I think I can do about six more and keep a good safety margin. Please, get me the worst cases you have."

The nurse led me around. The PRT agents looked less hostile, or at least they fidgeted less and at some point they had holstered their weapons. I cured six incurable patients and then announced that it was over.

"Can we take a picture of you?" asked the nurse?

"Sure," I replied, surreptitiously touching my bracelet. "Let me change." I gestured in the air as the programmed delay ended and my costume transformed into Parliament's in a flash of light.

They took several pictures on their phones. I was sure they would appear in at least Facebook, maybe even in a real newspaper.

As I left, I felt glad that I was lucky enough to get to the patient I was really here for. Considering the number of patients and the severity of his condition, I had had about a one third chance. Capes tended to have shitty lives, and regardless of what his last name was and whether I would ever date him in reality, Dennis was a friend to more than one Taylor. He deserved not having the pain of dealing with a dying father.

He wasn't the only one, of course. If anyone needed curing, it was Panacea herself. White Mage had tried, and it ended badly. But it was still a plan. Hey, I had foreknowledge.

* * * * *​

"Hello, Taylor," said Dad as I entered and closed the door. "You were running, right?"

"Yes," I said reflexively. No, I had no reason to lie about this. "I mean no, Dad. It was cape stuff."

"I'd like to hear about it. Will you let me know what happened?"

"Of course, Dad."

He waited.

"I sat in a coffee shop as a guy and I drew Coil's base using my sensory powers. Oh, don't worry, it's perfectly safe."

"It may be safe to draw, but it's not safe to invade. And from the way you've been thinking ever since you got all those powers, I can guess that you drew it because you're going to invade it at some point."

I explained again, "If I don't do this or something like it, the crime in Brockton Bay is going to attract Leviathan. That's not going to be safe, for either of us."

Dad didn't try to argue further. I think he knew that on some level it was just impossible to convince me. Not only do powers want to be used, just the fact that I was using powers made this into something where parents couldn't know better just from age and experience. I wonder what Dad would have done if he'd have gotten powers.

I said, "And I got another power. A healing power. Seven fewer people have cancer today than did yesterday."

"My little owl is like Panacea?"

"The costume's like Panacea. The power isn't. It's more like... well, like one of Über and Leet's games. I have what looks like magic spells and I can heal wounds and cure diseases and conditions. It even does brains."

"That sounds too good to be true. Is there a catch? What is the catch?"

"I can't heal things like missing limbs and I can't raise the dead. I don't know if that's a 'catch'. The biggest catch is that after I use up my healing, I'm supposed to recover it by resting for a full night. But I only have the power for an hour at a time. I can't rest for a full night with it on. I'm hoping that eight one-hour uses in a row would do it, but it's going to be Wednesday next week before I can know for sure."

"I see," he said, thinking. "Why don't you ask your friend who can tell the future whether that would work, if it's going to be a problem?"

[][Coil] Attack immediately
[][Coil] Wait

[][Allies] Attack Coil alone (except with Dinah behind the scenes)
[][Allies] Get help (write-in details)

 

Spoiler

[X][Coil] Attack immediately
[X][Allies] Get Help
-[X]Hire Über and Leet or Faultline

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 6​

Walking with Dinah to the park again as Sandstorm, I began to explain. "So, Dinah... Sandstorm went through great pains to figure out how to squeeze out information from your power."

"Yes, sir." She laughed.

"Well, there's no sense in stopping there."

"So you have another plan then, Taylor?"

"Yes. Here we go. Stop me if you think it doesn't work...."

Dinah waited.

I cleared my throat and began to explain. "My second question is to randomly ask you one question from a list. It has to be a yes or no question. Each question also lists a fraction based on a different power of two. If you answer 'yes' to the second question, I compare a random number to the fraction."

"Uh-huh."

"Your first question is the chance of that comparison succeeding, and I ask it before you know which question the second one is."

It should have only taken only take ninth grade algebra to figure that out. Dinah hadn't been through ninth grade, but she was probably a dozen or two IQ points smarter than me. How much of that was some weird effect of her power, I didn't know.

She hesitated. I began to explain. "Multiply the result by the number of questions...."

Dinah then said, "Multiply that and you get a number which encodes the answers to all the questions, even though you only asked me two."

"Yes. Leet's power doesn't like him because he uses it conservatively. Yours should be very happy with you for being used this way."

"Do you think so?"

"We're about to find out. Dinah, what's the chance of success at the whole thing?"

She thought and replied, "7.8126 percent."

I pressed an app button to "roll" a die on my phone and it came up as 3. I said, "Okay, I ask you the third question from the list. Is the chance of winning against Coil, by my standards, at least 75 percent?"

"Yes."

All right, third question goes with the fraction of one eighth. I typed that into the app and tried a roll. It generated 0.322109, which is larger than that. I said "Failure," and began fiddling with a calculator app and a memo app based on the other answer. "Okay, that's no, yes, yes, yes, yes, and no."

"What are the other questions?"

"The first two are White Mage's power. White Mage's power doesn't come back every 8 days, it comes back by 1/8 each day that I go to sleep while it's on, which is better than I hoped. Four through six are my chance of making a deal with Faultline and whether I'll have problems catching Coil on the 22nd and 23rd. The raid has to be a weekend so I'm out of school, and as soon as possible, but it also has to be after I get all of White Mage's power back."

"Faultline?"

"Faultline is a cape who leads a band of capes for hire. They'll do anything except murder, for a price. I'm planning to hire them to help me invade Coil's base. Skitter worked with her in another timeline, and I need the help--I'd rather not be my own single point of failure when doing the one mission that has to succeed. I could try to hire Über and Leet, but I'm already working with them and they... often fail."

Dinah said, "I'm staying home. I can see that. And I'm not a kid, I'm three years younger than you."

"Of course you're staying home. You don't even need a thinker power to figure that out. I'm not going to take a 12 year old kid..." Argh. "A 12 year old with a noncombat power into a supervillain lair that I'm trying to keep her out of anyway. But I do need you as part of this mission. I hope you're willing to pay in questions, because compared to the chance of hiring a mercenary on a teenager's allowance, 7.8 percent looks huge."

* * * * *​

I had managed to pull myself away from a Tinkering job on a robot that the real Techno Queen could have made in less than a day, when an electronic bell-like sound went off. It could have been a doorbell, but wasn't, since you got into the Save Spot by knocking. It was more of an alarm, and I suspected that it was from some game that I hadn't ever heard of.

Über walked in alongside a college-aged woman whose hair was tied up in dreadlocks. She was also white and a redhead, and I wasn't going to ask how she managed to twist that hair into that style. I probably didn't want to hear the answer anyway.

"All right," said Über to his companion. "Here we are. Seriously, it's just a lab. It's nothing special. Logan over there you know and that's the Techno Queen. Techno Queen, this is my girlfriend Sierra. She insisted on seeing the lab." I didn't know that Über had a girlfriend but he was pretty fit and muscular. Why wouldn't he?

"Well, nice to meet you," she said, a faint hint of suspicion in her voice. "So you're one of Garrett's partners in his operations?"

"Well... technically. I first contacted him just last week. I don't know if you've seen me appear on Blue Tree Gaming but it's... theatrical. I have to be that way for my powers to work." That was true, although I had left out that I had nearly a dozen powers and I was only talking about one of them. "If you did watch it, it was my tryout. I passed!" I grinned through the mask.

"All right," she said. "Garrett, I..." She glanced at some textbooks that I had left on the side of the table. "Wait. Winslow book covers? You're in high school?"

"Yes I am."

"Oh," said Sierra, voice hinting of relief. "You're tall. I thought you were as old as Garrett and Logan are. You're just a kid, must be around Bryce's age."

"Bryce?"

"My brother."

"Never met him."

"He goes to Arcadia, not Winslow."

"I shouldn't have even left those books out. Knowing what school someone goes to makes it easier to track down her identity."

Über said, "Everyone messes up."

"Like you did," said Sierra. "It's not hard figuring who someone is when he leaves the Snitch in his car."

"I had it in a box, and it isn't a Snitch. You and Techno Queen both call it that, I don't understand why. I mean, I know the reference, but it's not a Snitch."

"So," said Sierra, "show me your plans for your next caper."

I shrugged, having no such plans, but she had been been talking to Über and in fact was pretty much ignoring me.

As he led Sierra off to some other room, Leet explained, "She's calmer now, but she was pretty mad when she found out she was dating a villain. It was a miracle that they stayed together. I think she has her own ideas for what we should be doing instead of crime. Über tried to explain that we make more money from Youtube than we do from theft. Fine, she says, so it would be no problem doing something else instead of the theft." While Leet was talking, he was glancing at a point in the robot where three green wires met and moving his fingers in the air as if trying to figure something out.

"Hmm. By the way, I don't suppose you know how I can contact Faultline?"

"The villain?"

"Right. She's for hire, and I need to hire her."

"She does charge a lot."

"I can pay."

"If you feel you can, you can meet her at one of the businesses she owns. The most famous is a club..."

"The Palanquin," I said.

Leet blinked in surprise. "Your powers tell you that?"

"Uh-huh."

"I should have figured. Anyway, just like you did with us, you contact her and you meet her somewhere. We've never worked with her; we only ever even met her once when we tried to steal parts from this auto dealer on Miller's Crescent. It turned out that she ran it. We lost two months of equipment when Faultline chopped them up, and then she took our Ferrari and sold it to an out of state buyer. He probably didn't even know it was supposed to be from Outrun! So good luck."

* * * * *​

January 12, 2011

Faultline owned a small illegal casino hidden inside a warehouse near the Docks. It was close to the ABB's territory, but not quite inside. In timelines where the Merchants were a force to reckon with, it might have been their territory, but they weren't, and it wasn't.

I sat down on a barren concrete planter covered with a thin layer of frost. I was bundled up for the cold, scarf over most of my face, but I removed my right glove and let a few pieces of moistened confetti return to my hand. I had maybe a second to switch to Self-Administrator as my body absorbed the substance on them.

That neurotransmitter activity in my frontal lobe cells isn't right. The chemicals are disturbing it. I need to prevent the vulnerability to certain molecules that mimic dopamine in certain cells. Keep the neurons from firing at spurious times. Then I have to set up certain automatic secretions that remove the offending molecules. No... it's much easier if I change the permeability of the cell membranes in certain parts of the cortex and spinal cord under exogenous stimulation. Or if....

Finally, it was over. How long had that taken? I checked my phone. Five minutes. No problem. I took another five minutes to review my work and make sure that the changes would stick around, then switched to Skitter.

I stood up and walked down the asphalt to approach the casino.

There was nobody outside, but when I swung the door open a burly-looking guard stood inside, carrying a gun and a billy club. He backed away and motioned me onwards despite his scary appearance--illegal casinos don't check your age unless you're so young that your mere presence would end up as a headline on the six o'clock news. I ignored the smell of the cigarette smoke that drenched the area, passed through three rows of slot machines at which I was sure I recognized one of Dad's dockworkers, and came to a service door. I rapped on it, hard.

Faultline opened the door, in full costume. She glanced at my clothes--I was not in costume, but my face was covered and I was wearing the yellow blouse that I had said that I would. "Come on in," she said.

All five members of her crew sat there in the room around a green felt-covered dice table, eyes on me as I entered. She shook my hand and said, "I'm Faultline. You're Parliament, right?"

"Right." I shook the hands of Gregor the Snail, Labyrinth (who was in one of her more lucid moods), and Spitfire. Finally, Newter put down the can of beer that he was sipping and reached out to shake my hand. I casually shook it. He turned to the others and said, "Maybe she likes me, but she's obviously not material for...." but stopped, as he gradually realized what had just happened. The smirk on his face evaporated, but I may or may not have imagined a brief flash of some other reaction.

I said, "Now that we've finished channeling memetic Clockblocker, I did come here for something."

Faultline motioned me to a seat. After that stunt, all of them, but especially Newter, seemed to look at me with a good chunk of the respect that they might have given Skitter or Papercut.

I said, "Hold on, let me change into costume."

Faultline looked at me skeptically.

"It's perfectly safe to watch, I'm just telling you so nobody thinks I'm pulling a weapon or something." Letting a beetle tap out a pattern on my bracelet, I raised my hands in a flourish and changed into my Parliament costume. Faultline and her crew obviously didn't expect that, but they didn't show much surprise, either. I sat down, and Faultline offered me another beer like Newter's, which I politely refused.

Then she said, "I understand that you want to hire us."

"Yes," I replied. "I need you to help me take down Coil."

"Coil. That's a very ambitious goal. You look... oh, seventeen, maybe eighteen. No disrespect, but exactly how long have you been a cape?"

I wasn't going to give an exact length and let her research trigger events. "Let's say two weeks."

"I see. I apologize, but I doubt you have the skill or resources to...."

I tossed a sketchpad on the table. "Here. A complete map of Coil's base."

"How did you get this?"

"I drew it. Using powers."

"What powers would let you get this? This could be something you traced from a PHO conspiracy post."

"But it isn't. My powers are, well, I'm a Trump. I can become versions of myself who lived different lives and have different powers. One of them has sensory powers out to a hundred yards. That's a lot of underground floors. And the one I'm using now worked with you when everyone was fighting a bomb Tinker. I can control bugs at about the same range. An unlimited number of bugs at the same time."

"I see." Her professional-sounding voice didn't show enthusiasm, but the tinges of doubt that I could hear in it were gone. She must have recognized the implications of that power, implications that Skitter didn't when she thought of it as weak. "Do you have any other information about Coil?"

"Yes. I know his power, and his identity, and some of his plans."

"If you share it with us, we can...."

"If you'll work for me, I will."

"There's also a question about attacking him in civilian identity. There's a lot of misinformation about the 'rules,' but it's definitely true that attacking someone in their secret identity gives you a bad reputation and makes both heroes and villains wonder who's next. It's a quick way to make enemies."

"He runs his base and commands his men from his cape identity."

"All right then. You'll have to give us some information about him before we can agree on anything."

"Sure. He has about fifty armed men working for him at all times, not counting special employees. His power is a type of Thinker power. He controls the Undersiders and he's worked with Accord. His base is in the city. I expect there will be no capes other than him in his base on the date I've chosen to attack him. Now, that's a lot of information. Before I give you anything else, I'd like to know if this is a job you can take on."

"What fee are you offering?"

"It has been two weeks, so I'm low on cash. Instead of that, I have a Thinker ally who can answer any question that is about a future event and is based on a percentage. I can also heal people, although my power takes a long time to recover. I was thinking of, oh... twenty questions and ten full healings. With an extra one of each right now to prove that they're real. And before you ask, no, I can't cure being a case 53."

"I did read up on you. There wasn't much, but you were in the news recently. Curing fatal cancers. Having another Panacea is surprising, but I'll accept it. As for the test question, how about this? There are a lot of slot machines in the casino. What's the chance of getting three cherries in a row on one of the dime machines, after depositing thirty cents?"

"Are you sure? If this is some trick like 'the answer is zero because there are no cherries on that machine', the next question isn't free."

"No tricks."

I sent Dinah a text message and she replied. I read the number off to Faultline.

Faultline did something on her phone while the rest of her group watched her, waiting for the result. Then she said, "It checks out."

I smiled. "Good. I hope that's it for credentials?"

"I'm satisfied that this is a serious transaction."

I said, "I assume you have standard clauses as well? Skitter worked with you, she didn't hire you, so I'm not familiar with them."

"There's not much. Certain information such as your identity and what job you hire us to do is confidential. Be aware that there are Masters who can make people give up information. Monetary fees are laundered through a source of our choosing. So as soon as we learn the rest of your information, we can come to an agreement...."

It took about a half hour to finally close the deal, though it seemed a lot longer while doing it and fortunately, Skitter's power to hide emotion in her bugs made me look a lot less nervous than I was. My first offer was, of course, bargained up, and both of us knew that that was going to happen. Faultline suggested various changes and caveats, while I explained Coil, some possible plans against him, and the powers and skills I could bring to bear.

Finally, we agreed on thirty questions and twelve healings, plus one more healing because of the scrapped demo. Questions and heals were void after six months, and had to be reasonably spaced out. Also, if I could access Coil's resources, a contingency fee of one hundred thousand dollars, along with one immediate question to Dinah about how likely it was that I would ever get that access (it was about 80 percent, if I defeated Coil).

* * * * *​

January 18, 2011

Fortunately, threats of a Nazi terror wave during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend had not materialized. Nor had Emma and her cohorts caused me much trouble on my last day at Winslow, if only because I had kept watch using confetti and left ten minutes early. It was not as if anyone could mark me down for leaving before the final bell.

Hopefully my new life at Arcadia would be better. I picked Deputy for my first day there. It was funny; I knew Arcadia already. Deputy did go there, even got into a fight with a low level cape once. She got a map. I remembered the map, remembered going there and immediately relaying a warning to Glory Girl about her collateral damage habits....

I entered the schoolyard. The people who other versions of myself knew should be there. Carlos especially; the memories came easily since was Deputy, along with some of the grief. But both the good and the bad was all an illusion; I didn't really know anyone here.

I put Deputy aside for Nike, not wanting those memories now, and I slowly walked forwards. What should I do? What should I say? There's a theory that powers give people things that they want, without solving their problem. The hole in that theory is one twenty-dollar word: pareidolia. The human brain is a pattern recognition machine, and could match powers to problems even if they appeared completely at random. But despite the holes in that theory, I couldn't help but think of it; I didn't have friends, so I remembered lives where I did.

"Hi," said someone. I looked at him and my eyes met his. Dennis. Nike's power showed skills in Wards publicity, various school subjects, and pranks. Did curing his dad mean he would play fewer pranks, since they were a way to relieve stress, or more, since he could pay more attention to them?

Trying to sound cheerful, I said, "Hi! I'm Taylor. I just transferred in. I'm a sophomore."

"I'm Dennis. My partners in school here are Chris, and Amy." He indicated them both. Kid Win was not in costume, of course. Perhaps Amy could have been, but she wasn't. "Amy's famous but she occasionally lets us be around her anyway. It's not like the rest of us can be superheroes."

"Nice to meet you," said Chris.

Amy said, "Nice to meet you," perhaps just repeating Chris's words.

I looked around, trying to spot Carlos.

Chris said, "You look nervous. First day of school problems?"

"Yeah," I said. I kept glancing around. Carlos wasn't anywhere. But I knew I had seen him in a Wards picture online. Maybe he was in the bathroom, or sick. Or dead.

Dennis said, "It doesn't happen much. I mean, having your first day be in the middle of the year like this. Did you just move to Brockton Bay and skip the waitlist somehow?"

"No," I replied. "I had problems at my old school. A lot of it is personal and hurts to talk about but a girl named Sophia Hess was involved." I had deliberately named her.

Chris said, "Dennis and I know her. She isn't popular."

"She absolutely was popular in Winslow, where she twisted Emma, who used to be my friend, into...!"

"Hold on, hold on," said Chris. "That's not what I meant. She's not popular among the people here who know her."

I backed off.

"Wait!" exclaimed Dennis. "I mean it. I don't know what she did to you specifically but she's one page short of an entourage to the king."

I shrugged.

Chris explained, "You're supposed to think 'short of a book', then be surprised. It's a joke."

"Oh."

I said to Amy, "You know, I'm no Kevin Bacon, but we have four degrees of separation?"

"I've heard of that."

"Dad, Alan Barnes, your mom, you. I used to be able to go through Emma too. We were like sisters until she...."

"Emma? I might have met her a few times. She's redheaded and a model, right?"

"Then you did meet her."

Dennis asked, "Were you two going out?"

"No! I told you, we were like sisters. Though when Mom was alive, she would joke about that." I unconsciously glanced towards Amy. I was 80 percent sure that Amy's problems existed in this world and if they did, talking about "going out with" and "sister" in the same conversation could hit a sore spot. But she hadn't seemed to react. Then I glanced to Dennis. Mentioning that Mom is dead could bring up memories of his dad in the hospital. No, maybe I was too much on edge.

At this point, a bell rang, startling me. I guess I was on edge. The bell seemed oddly familiar but I never... Of course. It was just the start of classes, made familiar by half-remembered echoes from another timeline.

"School bell," said Chris, perhaps noticing my hesitation. "You'll hear that a lot around here." He grinned at me. "Good luck in your classes!"

Dennis said "Good luck, Taylor", followed by Amy. As everyone left for homeroom, I got out my phone and tried to look up Aegis. No reception, of course.

* * * * *​

I didn't end up trying to eat lunch in the bathroom. Arcadia wasn't like that. Shouldn't be. I prepared to sit down alone but I shouldn't have to. There was no Emma here.

I walked around looking for the wards but first I heard someone being addressed by 'Bryce'. I remembered that Über's girlfriend had a brother by that name who goes to Arcadia. I sat down at the table and nobody told me that the seat was reserved.

It may have been bad hair day for Arcadia. The first boy was probably about my height, maybe slightly shorter, and thin, his body having grown but not filled out. If you replace muscles with breasts, I knew the feeling. He had spiked black hair which was not consistent with the parts hidden from the front. The second was a brunette girl with one side of her head shaved. She looked slightly dark-skinned, but was not ethnic enough to not have hair about as straight as mine. The third was a boy whose hair looked like he had tried to fit it inside a helmet... okay, I was really just imagining it, trying to put things into a pattern.

"Hey, new girl," said the boy with the spiked hair.

"Hi. Yes, it's my first day here. Someone I know knows someone who has a brother named Bryce here."

"You met my sister Sierra?"

"That's her! That makes you three connections away from me. I met Amy Dallon today, but she has four."

"This is Lee," he said, "Cousin of someone who knows someone Sierra knows."

"I'm Sheila," the girl said. "I don't think I'm connected to anyone."

Lee said, "Although you should be at four now, from..." He indicated me.

"I'm Taylor," I said.

As I made eye contact with them I tried to scan their abilities, perhaps out of paranoia. You can tell a lot about someone from a list of their skills. But I had ran out of time on Nike in the middle of geometry class.

Nervously, I tried to straighten my glasses, only to remember that I had fixed my eyes two weeks ago. Old habits die hard. I said, "I transferred here from Winslow."

Bryce said, "In the middle of the school year? Prepare to be on the guess list."

"Guest list?"

"Guess list. People try to guess who the Wards are. You know, most of the Wards go to school here. You can't just go onto the waitlist and then immediately leave. Unless you're a Ward and they need some excuse to get you in. At one point they tried picking people randomly from the waitlist but they got complaints, and it didn't help anyway--being 'randomly' picked right after you apply is still so lucky that it's a good sign of a Ward."

"I had problems at Winslow. Let's say a stalker. So I got in fast."

"I'm surprised they could let you in just for that."

I said, "There is a form for it. Anyway, I can guarantee you that I'm not a Ward."

Lee said, "Another muggle then."

"Until I start casting spells, I suppose?"

Sheila laughed. "Taylor, yer a wizard."

I was tempted to start a conversation about books but everyone reads Harry Potter anyway, so it might not be much use. I ended up explaining the differences between Winslow and Arcadia food on the rare instances that I was able to safely eat in the cafeteria.

So by the end of the day I had met six new people outside of a professional context. That never happened to Taylor Hebert, not since the start of summer camp, the last time I was able to make friends before Emma's insanity kept me in isolation. I could have met even more, but after lunch the Wards, Victoria, and Amy were all missing.

At the end of the day, I hung around with the normal humans for a bit and Shiela had found out where the Wards were. There was a grand reopening of a strip mall that had been attacked by the Empire last September. Wards and New Wave were putting in an appearance which for some reason had to be during school hours. Of course, the news picture clearly showed Aegis in the lineup. Nothing had happened to him at all; in my world, he had just graduated early.

* * * * *​

Dad asked, "How was your first day at school?"

"I've been to school before, Dad. As for Arcadia, it was good. I met a lot of people and nothing bad happened. I even ate in the cafeteria."

"That's... good. Look, Taylor, I'm sorry I didn't notice anything going wrong. Nobody should be forced to eat in the bathroom because of...."

"No, they shouldn't. Dad, you don't need to keep blaming yourself. I should have told you about more things."

"Is there something you want to tell me, then?"

"Nothing bad, I hope. I am going to be going up against a supervillain soon. Would you like to go over my plans and see if I missed anything?"

"No." He added, "But please... come home safe," as if I wasn't trying to do that anyway. Still, I appreciated the thought.

[][Next chapter] Coil fight
[][Next chapter] God-Empress Papercut flashback interlude

 

Spoiler

[X][Next chapter] Coil fight

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 7​

January 23, 2011

If Coil's choice of codename meant anything at all, it told the plebes how he slithered away whenever catching him was in their grasp. A smart Coil would routinely split timelines as a security measure and go to bed in two places at once. To tell the truth, I could only guess whether his power worked while he was asleep, but let's say it did. Then if he was attacked in one place, he'd drop the timeline and he'd never have been there.

I turned to the twelve year old who was definitely staying home today and asked, "Dinah, what's the chance that we'd find Coil in his lair tonight?"

"99.1230 percent."

I said, "Good. Either he didn't split the timelines or we're in the one where he's in his lair."

"Or his power is just a form of precognition or simulation and it predicted that if we found him in his lair, the outcome would be benign in comparison to what it would be if we found him in his home. He would believe that what it predicted was another reality and that he dropped the timeline, while the power makes him act out what he would have done in the not-dropped timeline."

"I'm not saying you're wrong, but it doesn't matter. I don't know if it's possible to be conscious inside a simulation, but even if it is, we have to act like he can split timelines. If that isn't technically accurate, it doesn't change that. Also, if you talk like that as a twelve year old, people will treat you like Greg."

"I could ask you to drain my vocabulary skills. One of your powers does that, right?"

"No thank you."

* * * * *​

I handed Dinah a burner phone and she agreed to wait for my call. By the time I met up with Faultline and her crew, it was around ten PM and probably after Dinah's bedtime. If Dinah didn't just let the phone wake her up, I honestly didn't know what she would do to stay awake. Watch Youtube or read books maybe?

We met in an abandoned parking lot. Well, we met in a sewer and moved to an abandoned parking lot. The place was a dump full of trash and the parts of it that weren't frozen were almost as smelly as the sewer, and it was uncomfortably exposed to snipers, but it had one thing to recommend it: a vent leading to Coil's base. I had tried to pick a less exposed section; the parking lot was on the east side of an abandoned furniture store that was securely boarded up. All of Faultline's crew were here and with our gas masks, we looked a bit like the as yet nonexistent Bakuda.

Faultline, Labyrinth, and Spitfire were completely suited up in sealed Tinkertech armor and masks. Fortunately, the gas mask that was part of Spitfire's standard costume was not just there to spread her fire and kept its normal function. Gregor and Newter had masks but they were only wearing clothes, and Newter wore a winter jacket with no shirt underneath. I didn't mind seeing his chest but the two of them looked out of place and vulnerable.

"Newter, Gregor too," I asked, "are you two sure about the armor? I can't heal you from wounds or poison gas in the middle of the mission unless I drop another power for the rest of the day."

Newter said, "It's fine, babe. Your friend the oracle said it was only a 24 percent chance we'd run into gas that's absorbed through the skin, right? If it even works on us at all."

"That's fine for gas, but I don't think you're immune to bullets."

"It's a tradeoff. Our powers don't work too well if we're in sealed suits."

"All right. Newter, do you have your stuff?"

He said, "Yeah," and handed me a jar half full of a greenish fluid. "I never expected to have to piss in a jar for a mercenary job. Be careful with that; my urine does serious damage." He grinned.

I said, "I'll watch out." I unscrewed the lid, which was not tight at all, and I materialized a swirling mass of four hundred and seventy three grams of confetti, like the interior of a snowglobe projected into the air. I forced as much of the paper fragments into the jar as I could and waited for them to soak up the fluid. Nobody who has been near the homeless people near the Docks could fail to recognize the odor of stale urine, but this smelled more like a combination of burned rubber and spoiled milk.

"And there you go," I said, as I let a stream of damp confetti fly through the air and disappear into a grate in the ground. "Coil's ventilation shaft. It's harder to do this than it looks. Each piece of confetti can only see a limited distance and they can't see in the dark. Even with the map I need to stumble around until I can get to an open vent down there, without a lot of air blowing the other way. Hold on... hold on... Argh! The heater just turned on. Let me try that again."

The others couldn't see anything and could only keep watch for bystanders. Me, too--yay multitasking. I caught one; half a block away some person in a coat backed off and tried to ignore us. He turned a corner and fled. Pushing the urine-soaked confetti forward through the base like Die Hard in reverse, I finally maneuvered several clouds of it through an open vent and into a room. The man across the room was blurry but came into better view as I sent a couple of pieces closer to him. One touched the palm of his hand. I don't think he even noticed it. In an instant he crumpled to the floor, mumbling words to himself.

The woman next to him got out a walkie-talkie, clicked some buttons, and spoke into it. She turned as she spotted the movement near the corner of her eye, and then I shoved a silvery bit of paper forwards. She blinked. I hit her eyelid. She blinked a couple more times and collapsed. Serious damage indeed.

I tagged the mercenaries with confetti all the way through the base. The back of the neck was a great spot for them. Some went into beverages or food. Some had to pass closed doors; it's not easy getting wet paper through the crack under a door. Then there were the people I just couldn't get to easily--in sealed rooms, wearing full body suits, etc., and Coil himself, his costume a perfect if unintentional counter. I should have brought along some dry confetti and used it to cut them, but it could only cut as hard as a thrown knife and it was too late anyway.

* * * * *​

"We'd better go," I said. "I tried to get everyone at once so they couldn't warn each other, but I think one of the mercs I knocked out early said something. Coil will be on alert."

Suddenly a bullet shot pinged off Faultline's armor and then hit a piece of concrete. "Labyrinth, help us!" she yelled. "Snipers!"

We were lucky that the sniper didn't hit point blank, or from an angle where he would have wounded the two unarmored members of the group. Or maybe it wasn't luck. For some reason, it was hard to snipe capes who didn't have kill orders. The sniper inexplicably missed, or hit the least useful target, or gave his position away prematurely. Occasionally a sniper would wound a cape, but the cape would get away. The prevailing theory was that Scion once got it into his head to stop people from killing each other. The golden man pulled up some power that was meant to affect the whole planet and didn't quite work right, before he lost interest and left the world forever in a state of half-assed sniper prevention.

The ground shifted, somehow, without quaking. Green archways and posts, the color of corroded copper, arose around us, like they were coming into focus and had always been there, but Brockton Bay forgot that it was supposed to have them and let the Americans build parking lots and storefronts in their ignorance. And now, the Bay was remembering.

Meanwhile, the sniper rubbed his left eye. He must have thought it was a stray wind that blew confetti into it. He collapsed. The other two members of his team fell beside him seven seconds later.

More shots rang out. Several hit the architecture. I could no longer even see the location of possible snipers by any means other than confetti-sight. Faultline was talking to Labyrinth, saying "We need an entrance." Labyrinth motioned around as if the way to enter was obvious.

Newter pressed something that looked like a lever, but it didn't budge. Spitfire saw this and kicked it.

"Wait," I said, "there's another one there." I pointed to a broken lever a few yards away that was not green.

Newter said, "No, I have it." He pushed something and electricity arced from a big copper sheet held above us, forming into symbols made of sparks, like a sign made by someone who had never heard of light bulbs. The ground shook and something creaked.

I had expected a passage to open on its own but instead Labyrinth walked over to the broken lever and pulled. A copper door slid away before it got caught scraping on something, exposing most of the entrance to a stairway.

* * * * *​

The stairs were much warmer than the winter air outside. Newter and Gregor had taken off their jackets. We descended past twenty feet of posters in an alien language, interspersed with neon lights. Suddenly there was a scream from behind us which abruptly cut off. I stopped and looked back. Labyrinth looked back too and grimaced. Everything back there was dark.

Faultline said, "One of the snipers, probably. Labyrinth brought the entrance back to our world." I didn't ask what happened when someone was in an open space in Labyrinth's realm that wasn't an open space in Brockton Bay. The answer was probably suffocation. That could very well have been some innocent person who answered an ad for security guards and never realized he was working for an evil mastermind. I really couldn't worry about that now. Maybe I should have, but I was still being influenced by Byakuya, or as she was known to everyone else, God-Empress Papercut.

We continued, just a few more steps forward. Faultline spotted it first, a hole an inch wide where this stairway had barely overlapped something, and light leaked out through it from a mundane room. She stepped over to the wall and swiped it with her hand in three directions. Gregor, watching her, smashed his fist into it and the now broken chunks of concrete fell out into a room within Coil's base.

Two twitching men lay beyond the opening, now covered with soil and concrete fragments. Faultline noticed them and said "Good work, Parliament!"

I said, "Newter did a lot of it. He was pissed." Nobody laughed, though Newter smiled slightly.

* * * * *​

Coil was almost relieved when the display from the ceiling camera dispelled the mystery of this sudden intrusion. It showed a black and white image of Faultline and her whole crew, accompanied by that new cape, Parliament. They probably had broken into his home in the other reality; he didn't even see them come. They must have done it silently while he was asleep and gotten Newter to touch him, because he had awoken to an apocalyptian scene of twisted monsters and invisible mongooses baring suddenly visible teeth at him amid a rainbow of colors, and he rarely drank anything stronger than coffee. There was nothing he could do but cancel that reality.

It wasn't clear what Parliament's powers were. To the public, she'd shown healing and an instant costume change. She claimed to be a Trump. Coil didn't know how she could know where to attack him in each reality, or why she was attacking, or what powers she had used--somehow, three fourths of his men had been disabled. Their vital signs were steady, but he hadn't anticipated the need for brain wave detectors and for all he knew, they could now be drooling idiots.

He checked the location of his surviving employees. His body double was near the intrusion site and was awake. Good. He split realities again. In one, he gave his commands and kept a channel open to instruct the man what to say. In another, he called him back and set off the metal barrier and the gas, even if they had prepared enough to have gas masks.

The body double, in Coil's costume, approached the intruders. Holding up a pistol as per his instructions, he said, "I didn't expect a visit today."

Parliament spoke. Was she speaking for them? Had she hired them? "I did expect to visit today."

"May I ask why you're here?"

Parliament responded, "We all have specific instructions not to answer your questions."

"Who gave you these instructions?"

This time Faultline answered, "That's a question. I don't believe that you're Coil, anyway. Can you prove it?"

"How can I possibly prove that? Anyway, it ends here. Costume or not, I legitimately own this shelter. You are intruders and you...."

Spitfire breathed. At the sudden movement from her mask, the double aimed towards her and away from Faultline. He fired and the mask shattered. A burst of flaming liquid came from her jaw as she clutched it, while Faultline raised a hand and fired back at him.

Parliament said, "Let me heal that for you," something that Coil definitely didn't want to hear. He waited long enough to see the healing work--the new cape chanted something and Spitfire was fine--and then dropped that reality.

* * * * *​

A sheet of metal slammed down in a corridor outside the room as I saw what looked like Coil run away behind it. Whether fake or real, his costume had prevented me from getting any confetti onto his skin. My power was running out anyway; I switched to Skitter's somewhat similar powerset. Then there was a loud hissing sound. "Gas masks!" yelled Faultline.

Did Coil just split the timelines? I'd have done it at this point. Ask people questions in one timeline, try to trap them in another. If you knew Coil's power, though, you could plan for it--never answer any question unless you were sure that Coil couldn't just drop everything, so he learned everything you told him while you got nothing in return. Or you could mislead him with lies and implications.

"Papercut's out of time," I whispered, hoping I'd avoid Coil's microphones. "I'm Skitter now. And there are people on the other side. Over to the left."

"All right," said Faultline as she dragged a table out of the room to where the metal plate was. "On the count of three, I get the barrier, Gregor pushes the pieces in, Spitfire breathes." Her fellow mercenaries each raised their hands to show that they heard. She kneeled behind the table alongside Spitfire and counted down as she touched the metal plate. "One... two... three!"

On that last number, Gregor smashed away the fragments of the metal plate using a fire axe. The double and one extra guard fired at us as soon as the barrier broke. Spitfire stuck her head out and fired at them. A bullet grazed her armor. The guard's glossy armored suit could keep out confetti, but it transmitted heat well enough. The mercenaries screamed and began rolling on the ground to put out the flames. In the process, Coil's double had tossed aside a burning glove, showing pale skin. Definitely not the real Calvert. We disarmed them and Newter touched them. The sweat on his palm was enough to knock them out for hours. With Newter, Spitfire, and Gregor, Faultline's crew definitely demonstrated the power of bodily fluids.

* * * * *​

I whispered, "There are things buried in the ground after most of the barriers. Or at least there were when I drew the map. The thinker said at least a fifty percent chance of land mines. Skitter says a one hundred percent chance. I've been trying to have my bugs destroy the wires but they have to tunnel through the ground and penetrate the plastic first. I'm not sure I have the time. Can Labyrinth get us down a level? We shouldn't be that far from Coil if we can make it down there."

Struggling to say the words, Labyrinth whispered, "I'll try."

Oil sprayed from the ceiling as one of Coil's defenses went off. Probably to be followed by fire--Coil could use it too. Meanwhile, the ground melted into sand. I found myself sinking into a pit of moist sand. Maybe quicksand, which wasn't very much like it was in the movies. It was halfway in our dimension and halfway not, and some unseen natural phenomenon kept it swirling, ready to capture and drown hapless explorers.

I came to face with a family of yellow frogs who croaked at me as I sank, then fell ten feet onto a hard floor. My bodily enhancements from Self-Administrator kept me from even being bruised. The others either were hard to hurt this way, like Gregor, or had landed on a mound of sand, squashing two frogs as more hopped away in anger. I spotted a small green object hurtled through the air at us by another surviving guard. Then another.

They exploded.

* * * * *​

A second later, I pulled myself to my feet. The concussion grenades had landed a little off center, but in a mostly closed room the effect was devastating. Even with my armor and bodily enhancements and shielded by half a pile of sand, I was barely conscious. No doubt whoever threw the grenades was coming. My vision cloudy, my head swimming, I had one option. Self-Administrator was inadequate since I could heal myself, but not others.

And how had Coil gotten his men here in time anyway? No, forget that, it was obvious.

I shifted to White Mage, skipping the costume change, and sensed around. Status conditions were all over the place. Debrave, Deprotect, Sap. Labyrinth was standing but had a Silence. A body of a guard at the edge of the room, previously affected by drugged confetti and left behind by Coil's men, had a Confuse and Disable in addition to all the other statuses caused by the grenades.

"Purify that which subdues the mind and weakens the body. Esuna! Bask in the light of rejuvenation. Cure!"

I didn't Esuna the guard, and Labyrinth's Silence refused to go away. At that point, a metal plate slid down into the corridor just as it did in the upper level, timed just after someone threw two more grenades through the place where it would come down.

The room darkened and the walls turned into curved layers of sand. The sound of two explosions rang out in the distance and the sun was briefly shadowed by puffs of sand. That was the sun that hadn't been there before, and which was over the edge of the sandpit that had never gone away, but only grown until it had caught up with us after our fall. More yellowish frogs and a couple of more tan ones croaked. I spotted a nest of them--no tadpoles, just smaller frogs being fed insects by their mother as if they were birds--inside a broken metal hemisphere.

Newter said, "That was close."

"Too close. I'm White Mage now. I had to to cure you, Which means that you all get Stoneskin in a moment. It also means that I don't have any sensory powers."

Faultline said, "We'll cover you." I couldn't know their private thoughts, but she and her crew no longer showed the slightest bit of doubt about my plans and my presence.

"Coil shouldn't be too far from here. I would guess that either he's hoping he could win, or he's using one of his secret exits and abandoning the base. Maybe both. Let's go."

* * * * *​

After I cast the spell, we emerged from the world of sand just beyond the metal plate and another hidden land mine. Not very far beyond it at all. Labyrinth must not have had a realm available with a large open underground space in exactly the right place to get us all the way to our destination.

Three of Coils mercenaries stood in front of us in full body armor, belts empty of grenades. Two wielded pistols and one an assault rifle. Behind them were four more mercenaries piled on the ground, in military gear but not fully covered, who had encountered confetti and would be in no condition to fight for another three hours or so.

Faultline said, "Surrender! Drop those weapons."

The two with the pistols dropped them. Behind his plastic faceplate, the third man's face was visible, an expression of utter terror on it. He raised his assault rifle, hands shaking.

Faultline said, "We're not going to hurt you if you just let us...."

"No!" yelled the man. "Fuck you! If you survive this, I'm ruined! You're gonna die!" His hands were shaking as he aimed the assault rifle. He didn't get off more than two bullets, which hit my Stoneskin, before he suddenly jerked. He dropped the assault rifle, clutching his head. Something in the corner of my eye moved and I turned to see Faultline and all of her crew also stunned by some strange force.

It took them only a second to recover. The mercenary too. He picked up his rifle, then crumpled it into a ball as if it was made of clay. In just an instant, he had a wide, toothy, grin on his face as the metal of the rifle twisted into the shape of a foot long giant centipede with the head of a child. The metal creature ran at us. Laughing maniacally, the man grabbed the two pistols off the ground and squeezed them together, forming them into another metal minion, smaller, with a head resembling another child, one with different facial features.

I batted the larger one away as Gregor shot the smaller one. The creatures didn't seem to bite, but they clawed at us and spat acid.

The two constructs fended off our attacks as the man reached into the pile of drugged mercenaries for more metal things to make his minions.

One of the creatures leapt on Faultline, clawing at her helmet. She grabbed it and it broke into two under her power. She stepped forwards, shattered the man's helmet with a touch, and Newter knocked him out with a second touch just as a third minion leapt at him. It scraped against the Stoneskin just before the man fell and his creations went inert. 75% chance of no capes in the base except Coil indeed.

* * * * *​

Coil's office was abandoned. Papers were strewn all over the place, there was a filing cabinet open that had obviously been rummaged through, and a fire burned in the wastebasket. The computer looked like it was off, but Spitfire hit the mouse and the screen came to life, displaying an angry red warning box. "Self-destruct enabled. You have entered 0 of 7 abort keys. Press A or B to continue abort." A timer counted down nine minutes and forty seconds.

"It looks like some kind of password system," I said.

Faultline looked at the screen. "A or B? That isn't a password."

"My thinker ally said there was an 80 percent chance of accessing everything if I defeated Coil. I think he's defeated, if he's fleeing and he's going to explode the base on top of fifty of his own minions. So there has to be a way to... Wait a minute."

"Do you know something?"

"I don't think there's a password. He uses his power! The computer randomly picks A or B. He splits the timelines and types A in one and B in another. In one timeline, it shoots him, or the computer blows up, or it gasses the room, or whatever. In another, it doesn't."

I got my cell phone out of my belt pouch. Its screen was cracked and it wouldn't turn on.

I asked, "Does anyone have a working cell phone? If Coil installed a signal repeater in here, I should be able to call out."

Faultline took one out and tried to turn it on. She said, "The explosion must have gotten it, like it probably did to yours."

"Labyrinth?" I asked. She had still been standing after the explosion, protected by being halfway in another world. Her phone may not have broken.

Faultline took Labyrinth's right hand and moved it towards her belt. She let it go and Labyrinth kept moving her hand on her own. Labyrinth took out her phone and handed it to me. I turned it on and I was relieved to see that it was working and we did have signal down here.

I said, "Everyone else had better get Coil. You know where the hidden tunnel is, from my map."

Faultline cut a hole in a normal-looking section of wall, bypassing whatever mechanism would normally open it. Meanwhile, the countdown continued, and I clicked on the contact for Dinah's burner phone.

Dinah picked it up in three seconds, which was good, since we only had seven and a half minutes.

"Hi there. I need to make a sequence of A or B decisions. If the computer isn't lying, which it very well could be, seven decisions that Coil would use his power to make. If they're all correct, his base doesn't blow up."

"I'm not sure I can answer seven questions."

"It only takes one question. You can get the solution to this using one question and a calculator by...."

"I know, Parliament. Give me a minute."

It wasn't long before Dinah answered, but it seemed like forever. Over the phone, she said, "A, B, A, A, B, B, A."

I pressed the keys. The countdown stopped and a message read, "Abort successful." Over the phone, I said, "Dinah, imagine you see me here cheering."

* * * * *​

Down the secret passage and out into a sewer tunnel, Gregor was facing off against Coil. Coil had a child with him, a young bedraggled girl perhaps seven years old, and was holding a nasty-looking knife at her throat. The child's face was familiar. I realized that her face looked like one on one of the metal monsters that the crazy man had created. Coil was at the end of the tunnel, which had collapsed somehow, which was to say, when I had taken Faultline there an hour before the raid and we had cut off his escape route.

They weren't saying anything, but as I approached, Coil abruptly spoke. "We're in a standoff. You know, I'm good for this city. I provide people with employment and my investments are the lifeblood of Brockton Bay. And I keep the other gangs at bay. Back on my computers, in an encrypted file, I keep the identities of...."

I replied, "You are single-handedly responsible for enough crime that the Bay will be underwater in four months. And I don't like your policy of drugging twelve year olds. Also, it's stupid to tell mercenaries to let you go for the good of the city. You do get the concept 'mercenaries', right?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

There was no point in debating him. I yelled, "Gregor! Plan C! Everyone! Plan C!" and changed Taylors once again.

Today was Sunday, but it was time for Friday. My body transformed, becoming Sophia Hess's body enhanced by the changes that carried over between Taylors. I swapped with Gregor, then faced Coil, and once I had looked at him for long enough to pull again, swapped with him. I dropped the knife, the child... and the other timeline. If you're Coil, you can stall in one timeline with a pointless speech. In the other, you act. In it, Coil was using his hostage to force Faultline to clear a hole in the rubble. If Faultline managed to catch him off guard and hurt him, he could drop the timeline. I wonder how many times he had tried that, varying which person he asked, or how he paid attention, or what threats he made, and losing every time. To us, it would just be an endless stream of bad oratory.

Then I swapped back into Sophia's body, leaving Gregor in Coil's. Now was not the time to risk unknown power interactions if I had to switch out Taylors while in Coil's body.

"Get him!" I yelled. Gregor's body was massive, and flexible, and he could secrete chemicals, but he wasn't immune to Newter's power. Newter fell on top of his comrade's unarmored former body, and Coil asked "Why?" just before he fell into a drug-addled state.

Even with my enhanced strength, I was barely able to carry Coil back to the office.

"And now," I said, "the last power."

Newter asked, "You're going to..." and then leaned over to whisper to me instead. "You're going to drain his skills?"

I whispered back, "Tempting, but that's not it."

I removed the helmet that covered my masked face and coughed into my hands. I held up a writhing, multicolored, slug and dropped it into Coil's ear. I didn't need to use it for control, just to rummage through his mind. It didn't matter how conscious the victim was. Freely purloining Coil's knowledge, I found what I needed, starting with his passwords, and began typing on his computer.

* * * * *​

"... And that's that," I said. "Faultline, you just got paid. Tattletale gets a surprise bonus, and the PRT gets a lot of files. I don't know if you guys want to wait around for the PRT, especially if Gregor wants to keep that body. They may force me to switch you back."

Gregor, in Coil's body, said, "I'll consider it. 'Gregor the Snake' doesn't sound so bad. 'Gregor the Hydra,' maybe?"

"If you do, the snail shells on your old body look like coils. Calvert doesn't need to change his codename. You know, it's funny, Coil was telling the truth. He hadn't heard of his victim. Not by name, anyway. All he knew is that he had information about a possible precog. He never got enough information to start making kidnap plans. But I don't feel guilty about raiding the base. The other Taylors who only went in to save him had no idea about Leviathan. And I have a soft spot for kids. That kid, her name was Marcia...."

Newter asked, "Yeah, that's weird. Why was there a kid here anyway? Was she someone's relative?"

I shook my head. "I wish. No, Coil had an employee who everyone called Creep. He's the one who triggered forty feet from this room. I don't think he's going to get a new codename either. He has predilections... forget the euphemisms, he's a pedophile. Coil supplied him with kids, and he did what he wanted with them. Creep became the most loyal employee possible, but the things he would do... It makes me sick. It didn't make Coil sick, and that tells you all you need to know about him."

[][PRT] Wait for the PRT. (What do you tell them?)
[][PRT] Leave.

[][PRT2] Faultline's crew waits for the PRT.
[][PRT2] Faultline's crew leaves.

 

Spoiler

[x][PRT] Leave.
[x][PRT2] Faultline's crew leaves.

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 8​

I needed to get Coil's computer information copied and sent out. I also needed to get every enemy in the base locked up or at least handcuffed, since Newter's drug could wear off. Of course, I was stuck with using the same power for both of these, and I only had around an hour of it. Even with the help of Faultline's crew, I only finished the job because I could multitask--marching around the slug-Mastered, hallucinating bodies of Coil's men like so many remote controlled toys, while typing passwords and copying files. And even then, there was no way I could cough up a slug per body, so I had to do them in groups, and keep some bodies controlled for longer just so they could remove or transfer the slugs from the others. It felt like a real life logic puzzle.

Finally, I shuffled Coil himself into the reinforced cell meant for Noelle of the Travelers. His new body's power could never produce enough acid or nitroglycerin to dissolve or blow his way out of there.

My power ebbing, I crushed the last slug personally and then switched to Deputy in the hope that I could recall the PRT's procedure for raiding bases. Useless. I gave it up for Sandstorm and hurried out of there. It was easy to sense a group of people near Coil's escape route and I picked a different path. Passing through a storage bay, I recalled a brief image of another Taylor who had just defeated Coil too. She was standing over a silvery pool that glowed and hummed, and would make the base her own. But in this world, it was just tiles, boxes, and a lot of dust bunnies.

I emerged two blocks away, and walked home.

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♦ Topic: Pedophile Supervillain Base Raided!
In: Boards ► News ► Events ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Law Enforcement
Coffee_and_PRT (Original Poster)
Posted on January 24th 2011:

Everyone's been wondering what's up with the story of a big PRT raid downtown. I tried to gather as much information as possible while not revealing any suspected secret identities. I work in the area and I also got to see some of the scene from the outside and even talked to Armsmaster. As far as I can tell:

• There really was a secret base under Brockton Bay owned by the supervillain Coil, and it really was raided by the PRT.
• That was the second raid! It started with Faultline and Parliament, a new cape.
• Parliament's first public appearance was curing cancer. That's a way to make a big splash. She calls herself a Trump. Her exact powers are unknown, though rumors are that she can swap people's bodies.
• A person claiming to be Parliament posted a message saying that her raid was a complete success and that she only did it to stop Coil's crimes. It included six still photos from Coil's security footage, including one of Coil threatening to cut a child's throat.
• Speculation is that if Coil is a pedophile, which has not been confirmed although the bedraggled child looks suspicious, Parliament was one of his previous victims.
• Parliament also claims that Coil was a PRT agent. The PRT refuses to comment. Other rumors describe Coil as a Case 53. The photos neither confirm nor deny this, showing him in a fully concealing costume.
• At around 2 AM, the PRT sent out a press release stating that Parliament is wanted for the crimes of breaking and entering, theft, assault, various computer crimes, and possibly even the murder of one of Coil's guards. Two hours later, the PRT sent out a second press release claiming that the first was unauthorized.

​

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(Showing page 1 of 1)

​

►LLtheL (Fictional Capes Forever!)​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

If a guard died, Parliament is the killer. Faultline is known to not commit murder, after all.​

​

►ArmchairLawyer ​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

If you keep using violence to get your way, sooner or later someone _will_ die, even if you "don't ever commit murder." And it isn't self-defense when you break into someone's home, they attack you, and you "defend" yourself against them. New Hampshire doesn't have a felony murder rule, so I'm not sure if it's a murder or manslaughter charge or if one of them is just an accessory, but whatever it is, both Parliament and Faultline have killed a human being. There's no way they're getting away with this.​

​

►Legend's_Fan_Club ​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

Faultline once dropped a building on someone. She got away with that.​

​

►ArmchairLawyer ​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

We don't know that the person died.​

​

►Legend's_Fan_Club ​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

But it shows that Faultline is willing to do the kind of thing that could kill someone, even if sghe got lucky that one time.​

​

►Shadow Stalker (Wards ENE)​

Replied on January 24rd 2011:​

Coil had dozens of guards and employees at a minimum. You fight that many people, damn straight someone's going to die. Parliament was a hero if even half the story is true. If she decides to join the Wards, I'm going to welcome her personally.​

​

* * * * *​

"Dad," I said as I sat down with my waffles, "what do you think?"

He briefly glanced down at the breakfast but I shook my head.

"Not that. I feel... Now that I had time to think about it and I'm just me, I can't just forget that someone died. Labyrinth killed him but I hired her. If I hadn't decided to catch Coil, he'd be alive. I looked him up in Coil's blackmail notes. His name was Lance Shaw, father of two girls. Like me... maybe he even called them 'kiddo' too much. All Coil had on him was adultery and a hit-and-run accident. People don't deserve to die for that."

"I could have warned you that that would happen."

"Seriously, Dad? I just basically killed someone and all you can say is...."

"I mean it, Taylor. But not in the way you think. I'm not trying to tell you it's bad. I don't think I'd have a right to tell you that even though you are my daughter. Nobody can second-guess something like that. But you wanted to be a cape. Not like the Wards, an active cape. And death is a real part of cape life."

"Dad, really, what do you think?"

"I just told you."

"Did I do the right thing? I'm not even stopping Leviathan. He's going to kill as many people as he would anyway, just not us."

"You caught a supervillain. Who was selling drugs, committing blackmail, hurting children. I know that those are the very things you hate the most about crime. And how many murders by Coil did you stop? The man who died was helping those things unintentionally... just like your raid led to his death, unintentionally. Suppose you didn't know about Leviathan and you were just trying to clean up the city because you wanted to clean up the city? Would it be the right thing then?"

"Then you think it's not bad."

"I think... you have enough of a case that it doesn't make you bad, at least. Enough that you're not really a murderer, regardless of what the laws say. Enough that plenty of good people would be happy with it, not just someone like Sophia. I'm never going to tell you to just forget about it when someone dies, if that's what you're asking."

"All.. right? The PRT thinks I'm a murderer."

"No, they don't."

"Someone at the PRT does."

"I can tell you're not using Deputy now, Taylor.... The PRT made the same kind of veiled threats to the protestors at the docks over a decade ago, and we didn't even have any capes, we just had rumors of having capes. Nobody leaked that press release. They sent it out deliberately, as a threat, to show you that they could hurt you. Then they 'retracted' the 'mistake' so they're not doing anything to you, but you're very aware that they could do something to you if you don't cooperate." There was anger in his voice, but it ended when he added, "I suggest a lawyer."

"You can't afford hiring me a lawyer, Dad. And I don't know the first thing about...."

"Didn't you not know the first thing about hiring mercenaries?"

Put that way it did sound like I was being sort of stupid. "I'll have to either make money as a cape or find a lawyer who takes payment in cancer cures. Not that those aren't valuable... Wait a minute, do you know a union lawyer?"

"We use a lawyer named Cliff. But he's not a parahuman lawyer. He deals with contracts and regulations."

"All right. I'll have to do what I can, then."

"Taylor, if being a cape is too much for you, for any reason, you don't have to, all right? You're going through a lot."

We moved to hug each other and I answered, "I... I'll be fine, Dad. Thanks."

* * * * *​

January 23, 2011

The Save Spot still had its usual decor, which was a bit like a college dormitory and a bit like a junk shop, with an extra gloss of dead end flea market stall. I had come to do some hammy Tinkering, but Über, Leet, and Sierra were sitting around a 20 inch computer monitor waiting for something. The giant television set that of course those gamer men would buy was in a corner, screen covered by some kind of metallic slime-looking substance, and totally useless. Über said "Come on over, you do watch our show, right?"

I said "Sure," and approached them to sit down. It wasn't a complete lie; I was coming on over, right?

The speakers next to the monitor burst into tinny sound, displaying the duo's logo and beginning their new episode. "Welcome to Blue Tree Gaming! This is Über here. Confidentially, anyone familiar with us knows that it is possible to get repeatedly arrested and released in real life, just as in video games. So in honor of the Arrest Department of the PRT, we present: Grand Theft Auto: Rig City! We begin in a...."

Sierra said, "There's no such thing as an arrest department."

Über said, "It was your idea."

"Well, the raid was my idea. The scriptwriting... never."

I asked, "What's all this about anyway?"

Über explained, "Sierra's crazy idea. Next time we rob some place, go do it where it'll do some good." He stopped the video for a few seconds to point out what looked like a backdrop. "That's really a hologram which we set up at Archer's Bridge. And that's Cunning Carla and the Whore of Alexandria we're beating up on screen. They're the high priced option. The ten girls who they kept in shackles, and not the bondage kind, were the low priced option."

I asked, "Is there any difference between bondage shackles and regular ones? That you could see, I mean."

"Uh," he said. "Sometimes but not always. You don't need to know that anyway."

The video played for several minutes more but after the fight, it cut to other scenes. All I saw of the slaves was a few blurry, wide angle, shots with no identifiable people in them, and an area that looked like a warehouse where the homeless slept, except that this one had chains welded to the floor. It shifted to a shot of Über hotwiring a yellow car while dressed in a flashy suit.

Über said, "If you're waiting to see girls in chains, we're not showing much. We don't want our shows to have so much bad taste that they've turned into a shit sandwich. Also, treating victims as trophies is the kind of thing which would make the public demand that the PRT shut us down. And we don't want to do stuff like that. There is a limit, or we'd be going on shooting sprees in the streets."

The video lasted around fifteen minutes. After it I retired to my section of the lab and began building. There were just too many things I needed, I couldn't build every kind of thing anyway, and there was too little time. My first priority this time was to find something to keep Dad and myself safe, especially Dad, My identity could always be discovered, or Sophia or Emma might end up attacking me. Unfortunately for my plans, the most helpful things to make were often the least in-theme. The original Techno Queen always managed to use in-theme Tinkertech to accomplish just about anything. I needed to be as smart about it. Let's see. I didn't want to keep a lemon meringue pie cannon at home, and a pit of alligator robots was, while less messy than live alligators, still not allowed by the building code. The ideas came, and they went.

As I was putting the finishing touches on a cone on top of a floating box, Leet passed by and said "Looks like a speaker. Am I right?"

"Oh, it's... well, let's say an announcement system. I'm still not sure about it, but I had to make something. It's a drone system which announces when bad things are happening, like if you're being kidnapped."

"I get it. At least you can just build something and not worry about messing up your future Tinkering ability."

"Yeah, all Tinkers are different. Uh, I've been meaning to ask. Have you guys ever killed anyone? By accident, even, I mean."

"What?" I had not yet seen Leet seriously angry, but obviously I had said the wrong thing to him. No, it would have been the wrong thing to say to anyone, not just to him. I sighed at my faux pas. "I'm sorry. It's just been bothering me. That guy at Coil's base. I looked him up, I found out too much about him."

"Uh, okay. You know, I'd suggest not thinking about it. It's cape life. These things happen and it's not as if you directly ordered him to die because you liked to kill. I'll tell you, we came pretty close to that ourselves. We were doing Wolfenstein and Hookwolf didn't like it when we made fun of Nazis. He chased us. Right through the Nazis' rally. Hookwolf didn't care all that much about his own people and several limbs went flying. Luckily for them, Othala was there too."

Sierra shook her head. "That's the problem with cape life."

Approaching us, Über added, "We got plenty of views, and Kaiser chewed him out so nobody put us on their hit list for making the video. And nobody cares what happened to Nazis. Nazis may have families, but they don't have more than the people attacked by Nazis have families."

Sierra said, "Yes, you got off scot free. But sooner or later you'll kill someone completely innocent. Or get killed yourself. I don't want either of those to happen, Garrett."

"Look," I said, "I didn't mean to start something."

Über said, "You didn't. It's been in the background for a while. Sierra wants us to go legit."

Sierra said, "Of course not legit. It's illegal to raid a sex slave camp, just like it's illegal to raid Coil's base."

Über ignored her and added "You've convinced me, Sierra. We're going to go legit anyway."

Sierra gaped. "Oh come now," she said. "Don't mess with my head, You're not seriously expecting me to believe that at the exact moment I say that...."

Leet said, "We're not planning to go legit now. We were going to start up Sliders again. The docks may be in trouble, but tech in Brockton Bay is booming. And Garrett thinks that the PRT wants villains to go straight, as long as we don't try to take over the city or something. So there's a good chance they'll not waltz into our office and arrest us."

I said, "You think that'll work? I know a precog you can hire to find out."

"No," he said. "It wouldn't have worked last week. But now...."

Sierra said, "I don't understand."

I said, "I think I get it." Facing him, I asked, "How long does it take to start a company?"

"A while. We'd be ramping up operations, so the answer depends on what counts as the start. We have some things done already. If we work from that, and if we really start working on it now, and if the PRT doesn't interfere, and considering that most of our media rights don't expire in less than two years, we can start getting some Aleph games and streaming out by the end of June."

Sierra said, "I still don't understand."

"Leviathan was going to pay us a visit in May, until his schedule changed. After all the businesses got sunk, your boyfriend and Leet would probably have lived as criminals forever."

* * * * *​

Coil had never been caught in Deputy's world, but I didn't need to use other Taylors to figure out that catching Coil, especially the way I did, had badly shaken up the PRT and made my reputation grow. Having made my mark in the world, it was a good time to tell them what they needed to pay attention to. I had delayed too long already.

I scanned through the list of events that I had written on a sheet of looseleaf paper. A few questions to Dinah had let me cross off the unlikely futures, like an early gang war that the Merchants prominently featured in. The Merchants didn't control of much of anything in my timeline anyway.

Dear Ms. Piggot,

It's me, Parliament. Now that I've caught Thomas Calvert and I'm no longer an unknown, I'm sure you'll read this and consider it carefully. My powers are... strange. They're not just powers, they're lives in which I've had other powers. Glimpses into parallel worlds, worlds with their own histories. It's not technically precognition, but it may reveal the future if the worlds are parallel enough. You may have the chance to prevent or mitigate tragedies. Check with Thinkers since none of this is certain.

1. At some point, the Slaughterhouse Nine get hired by Ravager to kill Mouse Protector. They kill them both and Bonesaw sews them together into a monster. I have no date for this but it's coming pretty soon.

2. The Simurgh attacks Canberra, Australia on February 24.

3. The next scheduled Endbringer is Leviathan on May 15, attacking Brockton Bay. Armsmaster predicts it using his new software program. That's the real reason why I caught Coil; his software analyzes the level of crime in the city and getting rid of Coil drastically reduced the chance. So I'm not expecting the attack to happen here. Also, tell Armsmaster that his weapon can't seriously hurt Leviathan.

4. A cape called Bakuda triggers at Cornell University in New York. She has the power to make bombs that can do anything--pain bombs, turning people into glass, and of course normal explosions. She becomes the third Azn Bad Boys cape and goes on a murder spree in March after Lung is captured. She's a nasty case who implants bombs in people's heads. For all I know she could have already triggered.

5. ....

I wrote what I could and I left out what I needed to. Half of what had happened became moot when I caught Coil anyway. I would need to talk to Lisa later to straighten a few things out.

Spoiler: Original ending. Canary was arrested mid-2010 so this was impossible.

After sending the letter, I had another bit of future knowledge to take care of. I checked a certain web site again just to be sure. No, the concert hadn't been cancelled or anything stupid like that.

From under my bed I pulled out the inflatable life preserver that I had bought less than a week ago. I had been surprised at how hard it was to find one that wasn't completely opaque. I pressed the button on my bracelet and changed into Parliament, then strapped myself into the preserver. Papercut's power could only create confetti in places that I could see. With a glance, I materialized exactly 473 grams of confetti inside the translucent vinyl and raised it against gravity, lifting myself into the air as I braced myself.

My power was almost spent by the time I had arrived in Massachusetts. I descended from the night sky down into the Boston Common, into the aftermath of Canary's outdoor concert; I had just enough time.

There was a line of about forty or fifty people waiting to buy CDs. The salesperson was Canary herself. As I landed in the area covered with floodlights, most of the concert-goers gave me a wide berth. One tried snapping a picture. Some pointed at me and I could see a uniformed person running towards my landing spot.

"Hold on," I said as I touched down. "I'm Parliament. I'm a cape from New Hampshire. I'm not here to cause any trouble. I just need to talk to Canary." The guard (officer?) put a hand to his gun but seemed content to watch.

Canary said, "Are you working for...?"

I replied, "No. Whatever you're ending that sentence with, the answer is 'no'."

"For John. My ex."

"I don't work for anyone. So no."

"I've never heard of 'Parliament'."

"You probably wouldn't have. But I'm here to save you."

"Save me?" She seemed skeptical.

"A week from today your ex-boyfriend is going to be at one of your concerts. You're going to tell him to go fuck himself. He's going to do that in the worst way, and you get sent to the Birdcage after you're convicted of sexual assault."

"A likely story. My powers don't work like that. What do you really want?"

"I don't know what you think I want, but I'm here for exactly what I said I'm here for. My powers give me a limited glimpse into the future, one time only, but I can prevent the things I see. There are some things that I absolutely must prevent. I just stopped a major supervillain called Coil, because everything depends on that."

"So you 'must prevent' some misuse of my powers?"

"No. Not at all. There are some things I need to prevent, and some that I don't. Everything depended on Coil, but nothing depends on you. You're not essential to some plan. You're just one of thousands of capes whom a person very much like me happened to hear about in the news. But next week, your power surges somehow, 'John' mutilates himself, and you become victim of the biggest case of bullying in the adult world that I ever heard of. And I wasn't going to just let that happen, not when I can stop it with a few words of warning.

"I think that even if you don't believe me, you'll remember what I said next week, and if you accidentally do it anyway, you'll certainly remember it soon enough to fix it. So no, I don't want anything from you."

"Well, if that's true, then thank you? Now I have to get back to the line here."

"You're welcome, and I'm sorry I disturbed you." I headed home, hoping that this would be enough.

[][Lawyer] Carol Dallon
[][Lawyer] Quinn Calle
[][Lawyer] Alan Barnes (yeah, right)
[][Lawyer] Maybe Taylor knows someone who knows a lawyer? (details needed)
[][Lawyer] None

(Write-ins permitted, but I can't think of anything)

 

Spoiler

[x][Lawyer] Quinn Calle

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 9​

January 26, 2011

Dad helped me search for my lawyer. I had considered Carol Dallon as a possibility, but she knew Emma's dad. Even ignoring that, she was also Amy's mother, they didn't get along, and I was already hoping I could cure Amy's charm. I didn't know how Carol would react to that and I would rather my legal fate not depend on the answer.

We settled on a list of possibilities, and looking it over, I finally picked Quinn Calle. I could have sworn that I had recognized his name from somewhere. None of the Taylors that I could use had him as a lawyer, or any lawyer for that matter, but I had been getting flashes of other ones, or maybe futures of ones I already had, and I was pretty sure that at least one had hired him.

Parliament was hiring the lawyer, not Taylor Hebert. So Dad couldn't come and I ended up waiting outside an office in full costume. The waiting room was a small place in a building occupied by several businesses, portraits of the five members of his firm hanging on the wall. Calle was only a junior partner. The opposite wall was decorated with a couple of pieces of cape memorabilia, generic things like cape publicity shots and a newspaper article about the new law firm who "serves the cape community."

A half hour later, Calle led me to his office. "I'm Quinn Calle," he said. He looked just like his picture, a handsome Latino man, black hair, long eyelashes, white teeth. There was a scar leading from one nostril to his cheek.

I replied, "Parliament."

"First things first," he said. "Can you demonstrate your powers safely?"

"Sure." I allowed myself to be surrounded by a swirling 473 grams of confetti.

"That doesn't look like a useful power."

"You'd be surprised."

"Oh, I was just commenting on how it looks. I'm sure it has its uses." He reached out and we shook hand to glove. I sat down.

"You certainly are an up-and-coming cape," he said. "I'm glad you've chosen our firm. From your email, you said that you wanted to discuss payment first?"

"Yes. Because in order to hire a lawyer I need to have money, and in order to know how to make money legally, I need to hire a lawyer."

"This is our preliminary consultation, which is free, so that'll be fine. And the rest of the reasons you need our services?"

"I haven't been a cape for long but I've done some things that could get me in trouble. I raided a villain's base and a guard died. The PRT accused me of murder for about thirty minutes before they retracted it. I certainly broke in, assaulted people, committed computer crime, and such. Finally, one of the people responsible for my Trigger was a Ward and this may come up at some point."

"Hmm. Let's start with the money part. What exactly are your powers?"

"I have the power to have other powers that I could have had if I didn't have this one."

"Come again?"

"I have the power to become versions of myself that I would have been in alternate histories. I get their powers, and they last around an hour each."

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "Do you have a list?"

"I try to be vague about exactly what powers I have."

"Well, what powers were you planning to use to make money?"

"I can heal. I went public with that one. I have a few other powers with medical side effects--a Master power that heals the brain." I saw one hand reach for something. "I have to physically reach into your ear to use it so you don't need to call the police right now. A body swap power--I'm sure plenty of transgendered people would pay me to use it on them. I can control bugs and goodness knows exterminators can charge a lot. The same power could instantly catch crabs or lobsters. I have a certain Tinker ability... All right. This is all attorney-client privilege, right?"

"Yes."

"The Techno Queen is a version of myself." I imagined a peal of thunder as I spoke.

"The villain?" It seemed more curiosity than condemnation. He must have worked with many villains, or maybe he was just an immoral lawyer.

"The TECHNO QUEEN," I said, speaking the name loudly, "is a villain who's only in it to be dramatic. She does bad, annoying, things for good goals. I have five pounds of black truffles from one of her capers and that could be a lot of money."

"Okay, first of all, forget about the truffles. You need a homestead food license to sell those and it has requirements like labelling the food with your real address and letting your home be inspected."

"Violating the law by selling them sounds like a Techno Queen thing to do, then."

"I'm just telling you your legal options. I won't ask about the source of funds if you sell the truffles to pay me. For the other things, have you heard about NEPEA-5?"

"Of course. I did my research."

"What do you know about it?"

"It was a law passed to stop a group called Uppermost from using powers in their jobs. But I know that capes like Parian and Canary can use powers without violating the law. So I'm confused."

He grinned. "The law is confusing. That's why people like me make money. Most of NEPEA-5 applies to corporations that are at least a certain size. And most of it makes it illegal to use your powers for something that could be done without powers. Not only are you taking other people's jobs, you may end up becoming a single point of failure if too many people depend on a single cape. But there's a lot of caselaw which weakens it. Suppose you say 'in ten minutes I'll exterminate all your bugs'. Is that something that can be done without powers?"

I considered it. The answer couldn't be too obvious or he wouldn't be making a point of it. "If the job is 'kill bugs', then you can do it without powers. If the job is 'kill bugs in ten minutes', you can't do that without powers. So the answer depends on how you phrase it."

"You're a very smart young woman. The caselaw decides that kind of thing. Most of the time the rulings have been good for the cape. You wouldn't have any problem anyway unless you make at least a half million dollars doing it. By the way, how old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen? I knew you were young, but I thought not that young--you're so tall. There are laws about exploiting minors with powers. The exact age depends on the power and the laws aren't written well and change often. When do you turn sixteen?"

"July." he wrote it down in his notes.

"Healing is a problem if you're under sixteen. It's one of the worst ones, along with construction work. The age is a lot younger for 'farm work.' That includes all animal handling, which should cover bugs, and crabs and lobsters."

"Even though you don't farm bugs?"

"Laws are funny like that. Also, you'll need a permit for crabs and lobsters and you'll have to know which ones are legal to take. At least you can ignore the laws about traps if you don't use them."

"What about taxes? I only know what I got from your web site. You can be in the tax system under your cape identity, but you're taxed as if you're in the highest tax bracket."

"That's pretty much correct, unless you're forced to pay something by a court and your cape identity is too poor to pay. You can be sued to reveal your identity, but outside of rare cases your identity is revealed at that point anyway, at least to the courts and PRT. If the..." He cleared his throat to say the next words. "TECHNO QUEEN gets sued, our offices can handle that."

"All right. I think I have an idea. Now, my big problem. Did I commit murder?"

He smiled. "While I can't go into details without my fee, I will say that capes rarely get charged under circumstances like these. You caught a criminal. You used a level of force that most people would be happy with, even if the law is a little stricter. And from what you wrote to me, the actual death was caused by someone else. Unless the PRT is trying to get leverage over you, I doubt anything will happen. They don't like independent heroes, but they also don't want to drive capes to villainy. Arresting someone for breaking and entering because she broke into a villain lair and assaulted a villain is a sure way to make more villains."

"They might not like that I don't want to join the Wards. They might also not like it that I embarrassed them by revealing that a major villain was a PRT agent. And they might not like some of the powers I used. I left the villain permanently body-swapped with a case 53. They might even not like the fact that I know things that I really shouldn't know, like secret identities and things."

"You have a power to tell you identities?"

"No, but the versions of me who lived other lives learned some, and I got more from Coil's computer. Are they going to arrest me because I gave them all these reasons not to like me? I mean, they arrested Canary, and I know how badly that goes." Recalling things from the lives of Sandstorm and the Techno Queen, I added, "Most of the time. Anyway..." Pulling up my power, I said "Hold on, just a second." I let the confetti vanish.

"Er, what?"

"Just switching powers. Or not-powers in this case. One version of myself worked for the PRT. I was trying to look at a different perspective on the idea."

"Did it work?"

"It did, but I'm not sure how much it tells me. People can seem nice when I'm working with them but they can be nasty to someone they don't like."

"If they ever do arrest you or just threaten to arrest you, our firm will be glad to take you on as a client." He slid a piece of paper towards me listing the fees charged by his firm. They were high, but not so high that a barrel of lobsters wouldn't cover plenty. "I believe you had a third item?"

"Yes. My trigger was caused by two non-capes and Shadow Stalker in her civilian identity. I realize that suing them would mean paying a fee, but right now I need to know things like what to say to get the PRT to tell them how they're handling her, and whether it's safe to reveal I know her identity. And that's going to embarrass them too, so it's another reason they may be out to get me."

"Revealing a cape's identity is not illegal, but it can make people angry. Whether the PRT will get angry if you do that, and whether they'll get angry just because you embarrassed them, is outside our firm's area of expertise. The unofficial answer is, yes they'll get angry. There are forms you can send to request information on Shadow Stalker, but don't expect much, especially for a juvenile. If you actually sue her, everything becomes different. We could help with that part. Is there anything else?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Then we'll see you later. Or if you're lucky, we'll never see each other again." He smiled again. We shook hands and I left.

* * * * *​

January 27, 2011

I had tried to avoid sitting with the same people each day but I had ended up next to Bryce, Lee, and Shiela anyway. It had been years since I had a chance to start conversations with anyone but Dad. Without the poisonous influence of Winslow, it was all coming back. There had been a particularly stupid assignment in English class that peeved me, and complaints started to come naturally again. "I don't get Mrs. Miller. She wants us to do a report. Only we need to have ten different kinds of references."

Sheila responded, "Well, the idea is to learn about different kinds of references."

"Yeah," I said, "but if you want to do that, you give a quiz on how to write references. If you make it part of the rules for the report everyone has to look up a radio show, or do an in-person interview, or something like that just to get enough kinds of references."

I glanced at everyone's faces as we discussed the ins and outs of school. Nike's power flowed through my brain, giving me glimpses of the skills of people around me. I began to think that it was hard to be too wary, but I knew better. It's easy to be too wary; Emma and company had just forced me into a bad place. Still, this was only a passive scan and I might discover something that mattered. Skimming what random skills I could, I saw that Sheila knew how to care for her odd hair, and had a little bit of Spanish. Bryce had some geometry--he was probably thinking about today's homework, and in Lee I saw breaking and entering and weapon modification.

Which was the kind of thing I was watching out for. Some video game? No, my power didn't work that way. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so paranoid, but the time to not be paranoid is before you find something paranoia-inducing. At the last bell I planted some confetti on him and called it a day after I tracked him down.

* * * * *​

"All right," I said, facing the thinner villain in the Save Spot. "Logan... Leet, do you know someone named Lee Crawford?"

"Yes, he's my cousin. Why do you ask?"

"First of all, he says that he's four degrees of separation from Sierra, which that explains. Second, he seems to have criminal skills. Third, 'Lee'... 'Leet'."

The thin cape replied, "What? I never thought of it that way. It's a coincidence. If you think he's a supervillain, you know that we don't have a third member."

"I never said I thought he was a supervillain, Leet."

"Do you think he's a supervillain?"

"I..." I couldn't do this. "Forget it. I hate when people keep things from me that could hurt me, and I wanted to see what you know. But now that I've figured out you obviously know something, I can't string you along. I don't think I have it in me to go all Emma on you, to play the innocent while using some kind of trick to get every scrap of information I can. So I'll just say it. I know that he's Rifle. A bit of an obscure cape."

"That's absurd. Who ever heard of a cape by that name?"

"He has sniper powers. Senses distant things, makes every projectile go cape-power distances with cape-power accuracy."

"Snipers don't work unless the target has a kill order."

I knew that, of course, but hearing him say that out loud, it sounded really odd. Powers suddenly acting differently because someone signed their name to a document? It makes as much sense as something going faster because it's painted red, like that Ork with the robot, Char I think he was called. Well, cape life can be weird. I replied, "Right. Not on capes anyway. It's as if whatever force does that designed it to mess his power up."

"You seem awfully confident about this."

"Look, I'm not going to go through the list of my powers but if I want to track someone, I can track someone." It's amazing how often people don't notice either bugs or little bits of confetti. Well, not that amazing.

"There's an unofficial cape agreement that you don't do things like that."

"Yes there is, Leet. I know that. I've also had a bad experience with a classmate who was secretly a cape. Her influence as a cape got people to cover for her in non-cape life. So I cut myself some slack."

"You do know that from just from what you said right now, Garrett could probably figure out your identity. I could probably do it myself without any cape powers. Lee could do it easily, unless you can notice someone watching you from a mile away."

"It doesn't matter. I'm already not turning in you guys, or Faultline, and I have bigger things to deal with anyway. I watched Lee and all he did was stare at things and once, he shot a paintball a half mile away to splash over a wall full of swastikas. If he doesn't shoot anyone, doesn't cause me trouble, and I don't see him committing crimes, I'm not going to watch him constantly until I can catch him in one."

"I don't think he's committed any more crimes than you have. He's checking out cape groups, which his power makes easy to do without being seen. He's probably going to try joining one. There are more than you'd think."

"Well, I did cause there to be a lot of unemployed snipers. I hope I haven't messed up his job prospects."

* * * * *​

January 30, 2011

I had contacted a lawyer. So of course, the PRT hadn't done anything else that made me need one, because nothing works out so conveniently. From what I could guess of the PRT through Deputy, there could be lots of reasons. Maybe it was a veiled threat, like Dad thought. Maybe there were two factions, one clamoring for my arrest and one supporting me. That was very possible. Or maybe they were building a file on me and planning to throw all of the charges at once. There was no way to know yet.

But, at least the Coil mission was over. Skitter hadn't failed, not this time. And Brockton Bay wouldn't flood. Dinah confirmed that.

So what next? I was a cape without a mission. I could flee the cape scene and give up using my powers except to protect Dad and myself. And maybe some tinkering, and I needed to make some profit to pay the lawyer. And the dockworkers could use....

No way was I going to flee the cape scene.

"You can make a difference" is a cliche but it felt absolutely true. And I still had some 'future' knowledge. It was rapidly running out since the story of most other Taylors ended before Leviathan, but until it ran out completely, I did have a cape mission, even if none of it was as dramatic as Endbringer repellent.

I changed into my main costume a block from Brockton General and walked up to the emergency room. I entered. Off to the side of the waiting area was a mat on which was printed the words "Hospital Personnel and Mouse Protector Only." I glanced at it a couple of times but nothing appeared.

"Hello," I told the receptionist.

"A cape? Can I help you?"

"I'm Parliament. The... Trump. Would you mind if I healed about... oh, a dozen people today? Also, I'm trying to find Panacea."

She checked something after which she looked up. "Can you prove it? We can't let just anyone see the patients."

"How does Panacea prove it?"

"She's well known and she has an ID card with her face on it. You aren't, and you don't."

"Fine." I hit my bracelet and my costume blurred into that of White Mage. It proved nothing except that I had Tinkertech but it seemed to satisfy her.

She said "Okay, the first patient on the parahuman healing list is...."

"Hold on. My healing power isn't like Panacea's. Unlike her I can fix brains, but I can't shape body parts or regrow limbs."

"Really? Let me contact my supervisor."

They obviously had a procedure to match parahuman healers with patients. And it never needed changing since the only healer was Panacea. Until now. Of the twelve patients, ten had brain problems--they must have been piling up in the hospital. They ranged from concussions to tumors to strokes. I had asked not to be sent any Alzheimer's cases, because I didn't know if I could heal them, and if I could, it was easy to guess how the general public would react to curing such a small handful out of such a large number.

The hospital personnel not only gladly agreed to tell Panacea that I was looking for her, they made me my own ID. Dubiously, it showed me in a mask.

I thanked them as I left.

* * * * *​

Amy's message, on the special phone I used as Parliament, told me that she'd be outside the hospital at 11 PM the next day. I could meet her there or not. I replied saying that I would.

I sat down on a bench and waited for her. She came out of the hospital, pretty much when she said she would, looking as ragged as it was possible to be from a non-physical job. How many hours had she been inside that place?

"Hi, Amy!" I said, trying to be cheerful.

"You're Parliament. I don't know you."

"Is it okay to call you Amy?"

She grumbled, "Sure."

"I didn't expect you to know me when I contacted you through the hospital. I have something to ask you."

"I don't heal by request." This was, I knew, not quite true, but probably correct for random capes. Which I was.

"What? I told them that I wasn't asking for a cure. They didn't tell you anything?"

"No."

"Maybe there was a miscommunication. Do you know what my powers are?"

"You're a Trump with some healing powers. You can't restore lost limbs."

"Sure, but I didn't mean that. My powers are that I can access other lives where I had other powers. One of those lives is a healer."

"Why did you want to tell me all of this?"

"Because one of them tried to cure a version of you. I want to offer you the same thing. And let me stress that this is completely confidential. I'm not going to tell anyone about this. Especially not your mother or sister."

Her eyes narrowed. "You haven't told me what you think you can cure me of, but I'm getting some idea from that. If that's a threat, then you should know that...."

"It's not a threat, Amy! I'm trying not to make it sound like one. It's a real offer. It's free like all the healing you do yourself and if you don't take it, nothing bad happens."

"How do you know I need to be cured of anything?"

"Powers, Amy. I can just see it when I look at you. You're charmed. That's the same thing that White Mage saw."

"Did this White Mage cure me of this charm?"

"Sort of. But the timeline went wrong. Not because the cure didn't work. Because you... reacted badly."

"I... reacted badly. Uh-huh."

"I can explain it. I want to explain it. But I'd better make a few things clear. Will you listen to me, please?"

The expression on her face was unfathomable, but she nodded feebly.

"First of all, I know that people can be a little different in each timeline. Like in the Skitter timeline, you don't go to Endbringer fights, but in some others you do. So I'm going to have to be sure we're talking about the same problem that that Amy had. It's your sister's aura, right? Making you like her?"

Amy's lack of surprise might have spoken words, but there was no substitute for really speaking words. I said, "You can monitor my vital signs to see that I'm telling the truth about keeping it private, but I'm going to have to hear you say 'yes'. I'm not getting this one wrong."

"All right," she said, and took my hand. Then she dropped it and ran away, looking frightened.

I yelled after her as Self-Administrator busily neutralized the sedative that she had introduced into my system. "Amy, I mean it! I'm trying to help! A version of me even dated you!" She stopped when I said that. She looked at me, suspiciously, but she didn't approach.

"You shrugged that off! How did you shrug that off?"

"You said it. I'm a Trump. Please, let me help."

"You're not my girlfriend, and you don't get to quote Star Trek to me. Now, goodbye. Have fun healing someone's brain other than mine." She ran off.

My muscles and circulatory system were enhanced to the point where chasing her was trivial. I wasn't sure whether I should. In another timeline, Amy let White Mage cure her, but I might have caught her in a worse mood, or her circumstances could have just been different enough for her to refuse, or I might just have said the wrong words.

I went home. Soon afterwards, I sat at my computer and tried to compose an apology.

[][How to make money?] Write-in

 

Spoiler

Camry's vote didn't suggest any sources of money, leaving one vote:

[X] Research on internet how you may make money as a parahuman. Check potential limitations, how to register as a rogue and if needed ask someone on internet. For safety reason ask it, while you are in the library, in case someone may track people via IP. If nothing productive is suggested, contact the lawyer. Check if there are any independent or corporate teams around that looks for a parahuman to hire. Also you heard about Parian, so you may as well ask her as a fellow parahuman and check if she has any advice. It may be also good to secure this contact just in case it's needed.

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 10​

On the one hand, Panacea had been pretty mean. If I hadn't been prepared, I would have been knocked out, prey for any two-bit criminal who wanted to rob me, or worse. She could get years behind bars for that.

But what I had revealed was pretty nasty. Is knocking someone out and running away really an overreaction to being told by a stranger that she knows you're incestuously attached to your sister? Honestly, having everything work out the first time would be as big a miracle as getting her to wear a skimpy outfit and call herself Dark Lady Plagg.

So I could just walk away. I hadn't done anything wrong and I had no obligation to the Amy of my world.

Or I could swallow what pride I had left after two years of Emma and help a friend of a lot of Taylors by starting with what she wanted to hear. "Dear Amy," I typed, the words coming out painfully, like removing a splinter. "I'm sorry. I had no right to interfere in your private affairs. I hope there's something I could do to earn your trust."

I deleted the words. It sounded terrible. I tried again. "I really wanted to be friends with you. If there's anything...." No. I couldn't say that. She'd see that as a ploy to get close to her just so I could use weird powers. But I really did want to help her. To be, yes, her friend. How could I get that across?

I saved the file and then it occurred to me. What was I doing composing this message on my PC? If someone broke in it would tie my name to Parliament. I might be able to delete the evidence after they broke in, but I'd have no idea what kind of computer they'd have. If they were a Tinker, they'd have safeguards and the most likely way to get around them might require exploiting a known weakness in the driver for....

Wait, what?

Yes, you guessed it, another power from another Taylor. This Taylor used the name 'Malware', And... I discarded all thoughts of hacking as I realized.

Malware had created a program called Hydra. It turned sentient. And when your sentient program starts quoting Hal 9000 to you, it's either a prankster or a bad end. Hydra completely lacked a sense of humor and pranksters rarely implant control devices into people's skulls. I wondered just how long that Taylor had survived and if she had ended up with wires in her skull too. She might have been able to hack up something to help humanity, but it would have been a last ditch effort against an enemy that did its best to keep her from writing even a screen more of code.

Was this a self-sabotaging power? Was Malware doomed to destroy herself with her own programs developing flaws and taking over the world? I didn't think so, but there was no way to know, and it's easy to be blind to one's own flaws. It was some interaction between one of her programs and... wait. I knew what had happened. Malware couldn't, but with my knowledge from other lives, I, Parliament, did know. Malware's malicious software was written to adapt, but Malware didn't know that Dragon is an AI, and faced with Dragon, her software adapted something very intelligent and still very malicious.

I switched out the power so I could write to Amy without being distracted by thoughts of how a virus could statistically analyze my keypresses and prove my identity. This was a stupid thought anyway since a virus on my own PC would have easier ways to do that. "Dear Amy," I wrote. "Please, I may have been going about it the wrong way but I want to help." My fingers hovered over the keys, frozen in hesitation. I could think of nothing more.

Suddenly the phone on my desk buzzed. Parliament's phone got a text message. Dammit, it was too easy to forget to stow the phone. If someone traced it... As I quickly shoved the phone into its foil bag, I saw the name of the person who had sent me a message. Amy Dallon. It figured.

It was past midnight and Dad certainly wouldn't let me out again tonight to walk a mile so I could answer the phone. And a couple extra minutes shouldn't make too much difference in tracing it. I took the phone out again and read the message. "You'r a scary person Parliament. So I ran. But your answer is yes". Another message read "You said you can help me. I want you to. Help me".

I deleted the apology from my computer and composed a message. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Amy." It would have to do. "I can meet you tomorrow but we have to talk this over because I know what happened when I didn't enough/ Same place and time tomorrow?"

"Didn't enough?"

"Didn't talk enough."

"How about 7AM tomorrow outside Arcadia?"

That was early enough that if I wasn't a student, I'd have had time to do it and get to another school. When I had just confronted Amy, I had never switched to White Mage, so if I didn't switch to it before going to bed, I should have it available in the morning.

* * * * *​

February 1, 2011

Another version of myself came bubbling to the surface as I took a shower. This time I paused to wipe the fog off a mirror so I could see my face. Taylor Tanaka Hebert was half Asian. Her mom was a Japanese-American citizen who had lived in Brockton Bay long before the post-Kyushu immigration waves that had increased the city's Asian population fivefold. Despite this change, there were more parallels to my life than possible by coincidence and I absolutely could have been her. Her world had had a power shuffle compared to mine, and she got Hookwolf's power. She was always a little bit on edge, pun not intended, and a very physical fighter with a very dangerous power, though she could hide it well. Emma somehow managed to be worse in Hooky's world; I wasn't sure how she had done it.

I ate two waffles quickly, drank some milk, and rushed out of the house. I'd have to get a public bus instead of the school bus in order to get there early enough.

Ice crunched under my cape boots as I approached Panacea. She was sitting on a bench looking down at some frozen clump of grass but she turned her head up silently when I approached. The area was otherwise deserted.

"Hi, Amy," I said, stifling a yawn; I had gotten less than six hours of sleep.

"Hello."

"Look, I didn't mean to spring things on you like that but misunderstandings will be so not funny, so I had to confirm what...."

I sighed. I had meant to apologize but that wasn't what I had just said.

"Cure me before I change my mind again." What a difference a night had made for her attitude. But she didn't sound certain at all.

"No, Amy. That's why it went wrong the last time. White Mage did cure you. The cure worked fine. It got rid of your obsession, but you still cared for Victoria as a sister. Only you were acting weird after that."

"Hurry up, Parliament. Explain what you need to explain and then do it."

"You didn't want me... White Mage that is... to heal a broken arm after an Endbringer battle, and seemed to want your sister to dote over you. I think it was because she was caring for you. I don't know the details... maybe you were addicted to her power, maybe you were trying to replace the feeling you lost, maybe you were charmed for so long you couldn't tell between love and love, maybe you just wanted to prove that she did care for you. I don't know. But it was just this side of self-harm and it wasn't right."

I could hear a barely concealed nervous stammer as she said "That's enough. Cure me before I change my mind again!"

"Amy, I gained the power to learn from the mistakes that I made in other lives. I don't want this to be a mistake! If I cure you, can you handle it? Because I've seen you not handle it."

"There is nothing I could possibly say to prove that I could handle it."

"You could tell me that if you can't handle it, you'll...."

"That I'll try? Words are cheap."

"I was going to say 'talk to me about it', to tell the truth. It's not as if you can tell your mom or a therapist. And if you do keep some kind of lingering addiction that I can't sense, I have a power to get rid of that." I didn't mention that I'd have to put a slug in her ear. "But trying's good too."

"I'll do it, then. Either one, that is. So Parliament, you have my permission to heal me. Funny how that sounds."

It might have been trying to fight the last battle, but I asked, "If you get injured, do I have your permission to heal you then?"

She hesitated, then said, "Yes."

I felt at a loss. She was right; words are cheap, but I had nothing more. They'd have to do. "Gotcha. Purify that which subdues the mind and weakens the body. Esuna.." Gleams of light descended on Amy as I imitated what another Taylor had tried and I could no longer sense the charm. "How are you feeling, Amy?"

She looked sadder somehow. "I think I've lost something."

"Yes, that's how you reacted in the other timeline. I hope you can get over it, Amy. I don't think you've lost what matters. You may not see your sister as a perfect being any more but I know you still care for her."

"How do you know that? From dating a version of myself who's different enough that she goes to Endbringer battles? That's not me, Parliament."

"White Mage didn't date you. White mage was just a friend. Like people can be. Sandstorm dated you."

"Did she kiss me?"

"'He', and we did, but we just barely got that far. If you think that's invading your privacy, it's a power. Powers aren't always convenient. I apologize for anything my power made me--"

She smiled. I worried. "You don't have to do that."

"Now I have to get to school, Amy, but please get in touch if you need someone to talk to, okay?"

Amy said, "Okay."

I wasn't sure what I'd do if she did contact me. I'm no therapist and this might not be something that could be solved with a few words of encouragement. Come to think of it, what would I do if she asked me out? I'm not Sandstorm but considering how her sister's aura affected her she could very well be bisexual.

I waved to her and headed off, but I wasn't gone for long, of course.

I kept an eye out for Amy during the day, but she wasn't acting so unusual that I could spot it in a couple of seconds passing her in the hallway. I hoped that this problem was over, but it couldn't be that easy.

* * * * *​

After school, I headed for the library to search cape jobs. Using the library was terrible secret identity protection, but I had to do something. There was no need to figure out how to register as a rogue, of course--I had already found out everything I needed to know from my lawyer and rogues didn't have to register just for being rogues.

If it didn't pan out, I'd just have to start selling lobsters.

The premiere site for jobs was slice.hero. The name "Slice" is an acronym for something I won't go into. It contained over twenty thousand cape job postings for the whole United States. Let's do some math on that. Brockton Bay has a population of around 1/800 that of the country. So out of that twenty thousand, there were around twenty five in my area. Let's face it, if you want to hire a cape, they're slightly more common than people who have 5 years experience in each of ten programming languages.

Ward and Protectorate publicity appearances ruined much of the market for capes at store openings and such and the two I did find were both related to Medhall. No thank you, Kaiser. The rest of the local cape ads were mostly for powers that I didn't have, or that I had only as the Techno Queen with some gadget.

When all was said and done, I could only find two offers with potential. They were both in Malware's specialty. The first was a request from a computer hacking Tinker named Epeios. Or at least that's what he claimed. I had to look that name up. It was an alternate spelling for the name of the person who built the Trojan Horse. Just the sort of name you'd use if you were a hacker-Tinker and most of the good names were taken.

The second was a posting saying "New technology company in Brockton Bay is hiring one or more computer-related Tinkers for a NEPEA-5 compliant media project. Please contact us directly with a power description and salary requirements." The posting had been approved by the moderator. It went into no further detail.

The wholesale price for lobster is around eight dollars a pound. Let's say ten dollars a lobster. If I can catch twenty in an hour that are in range and can be walked to shore, that's two hundred dollars an hour. Halve that for overhead, and then double it again since I can catch crabs at the same time, then subtract license fees. It was a very rough estimate, but as a salary it was awfully high. I wanted the equivalent of being hired to turn lead into gold, and probably had the cape version of waiting tables at Fugly Bob's instead.

I decided to message them anyway. First came Epeios. "Hi, I'm interested in collaborating with you. I have an unusual power that gives me limited hacking abilities. Please give me the details of this job. --Malware." I knew how those things went and added, "PS: If the job test is that I have to prevent you from hacking my account unannounced, I'm not interested." I had a bit of deja vu over sending a PHO message to Über and Leet. But things would have to work a little differently for a legal job.

Then the 'technology company'. "Hi, I'm a recent trigger with a power that lets me hack computers, or write defenses against hacking. I'd rather not reveal everything about myself, but you can call me 'Malware' for now. I'm willing to meet with you in person to discuss my powers and the needs of your company." It sounded terrible. I had never replied to a job offer from a company in my life. I hoped that the rarity of capes looking for jobs would cover for anything that was wrong with the message.

* * * * *​

Wearing oven mitts, I took the pan out of the oven and placed it on top of the stove. Then I began slicing it with a large kitchen knife, and with a spatula, transferred big steaming squares to two dinner plates.

"Mmm," said Dad, smelling the sauce and cheese and baked pasta. "Lasagna."

"Yes," I replied. "Interdimensional lasagna. One of my recent powers is a Taylor who cooks lasagna, and I baked this in honor of all the alt-Taylors out there who baked all those lasagnas, over and over again. Even though I never prepared lasagna myself. It's really not that hard if you don't try to do things like make the sauce from scratch."

"So this is exactly the same food that inaccurate versions of yourself make?"

"I wouldn't phrase it like that, but more or less. Except that I added some truffle slivers to it. Not too much, you can only add small bits. The lawyer told me I can't sell them. If you want, you can take them to work and give them away, I have a whole box."

As we ate, Dad, the head of hiring, asked me, "So how did the cape job search go?"

"I found two possibilities. Neither one wanted a resume."

"Like I told you, cape jobs are a little different than other jobs. Lots of capes are new and don't have a job history, many capes conceal their powers, and capes with secret IDs won't reveal what school they went to or what degree they got. Capes are also rare enough that it's easy to process the applicants individually. So not many resumes, unless you're trying to work for Accord, but I wouldn't advise that."

"I'm not even trying to get a part time job. Just enough that I can have an excuse for Parliament to be able to spend money. Anything I get will have to pay more than taking an hour to collect a barrel of lobsters. I'm doubtful."

"Well, did they ask for salary requirements?"

"One did."

"That's a trick, Taylor. If you name a number less than what they're willing to offer, you've just been lowballed. And if you name one higher, you don't get the job."

"I just ignored that part."

"And those had better be real jobs. Rumors exaggerate it, but there are rogues with valuable powers who get kidnapped, and not just by Coil."

"I asked Dinah. I'm not getting kidnapped."

"Well, good luck. I think Ivan knows some people in the seafood industry, if all else fails. Or you could wait until July and sell cures."

* * * * *​

February 2, 2011

Epeios was available for chatting the next day. He sent me a cryptic message about telnetting to a port, and manually typing in messages using a protocol he just made up. I had to switch to Malware to figure it out.

Malware: I hope you can see this. Do I pass your test?
Epeios: You either typed that in by hand, or you have a program ready to simulate the pattern of someone typing by hand. So I'm willing to talk. You say you are a parahuman hacker?
Malware: I am able to hack for one out of every twelve hours per day.
Epeios: The only cape I know of with that kind of limit is... Parliament?
Malware: You got my secret identity. Easy come, easy go. But it's a real power. I'm still at the writing tools stage but give me an hour next week and you can test me.
Epeios: Perhaps.
Malware: I'll need to know the job and the fee. There are not many legal ways to hack and if I wanted to get mony illegally I wouldn't need to find a job. Is this penetration testing? Do I get to write firewalls and harden systems?
Epeios: There's a company who's producing video streams and they need to keep customers from pirating the video. How would you do this?
Malware: I'd first make sure that there's a secure path so that outside programs can't decrypt the video files. Then I'd....

...
Malware: And why do you need help with this?
Epeios: Because my tinker specialty is hacking and intrusion. Preventing piracy is sort of like hacking and intrusion but it's at the edge of what I can do and I need another hacking Tinker to cover for my weaknesses. I would guess it would take a day with two Tinkers working together, two weeks with me and a normal hacker, and two to three months for only normal hackers.
Malware: I told you I have a time limit. I can't do a solid day.
Epeios: If you're able to review another Tinker's code, maybe three days.
Malware: I don't know if I can cover your weaknesses, but on the other hand, I may have fewer weakness than you. No way to know without a test. What's the pay?
Epeios: Ten thousand split between us.
Malware: Fair for a day or two of work for Tinkers. Low pay for a non-Tinker who works until April on the thing. It's definitely a possibility. I'll contact you next week if I'm interested?
​

I wasn't sure if covering for Epeios' weaknesses was even possible, since for all I know Malware could have the exact same power, if her world had had a power swap with Epeios. Maybe in her world, Epeios was a bug controller called Tithonus or something.

* * * * *​

But there was something else that bothered me. I would find out at the interview for the other job, which Dad told me was probably not going to be a regular job interview.

Or I might not need to wait until then.

Back at the Save Spot, the two game-themed crooks were sitting by the big TV, unmasked. The TV had been repaired somehow. Perhaps by Leet, perhaps they had an expensive service plan. I'd guess the service plan.

"Hi guys," I said.

Über and Leet both said, "Hello Parliament," Über added, "If you still want to try applying super-strength to judo moves, that's..."

"Yeah, I know, you did make some time for it and now isn't that time. You're playing something on TV."

"It's not TV, we're playing a game!" I glanced to the television, showing a screen from some over-the-shoulder shooting game. The duo weren't using either their real or cape names; the screen showed Randall and Kevin. The two players on the other side were named Mars and Jess.

Leet said, "They play very well for women." At least he didn't say 'girls', but I still glared at him as best I could through my mask. Leet added, "Come on, Parliament, you had to change into a guy just to play video games with us."

"Anyway," I explained, "I'd like to know if you're hiring hacking Tinkers to work for Sliders. Because I can just smell the sitcom misunderstandings coming up if I don't ask you this."

Über said, "Er, what?"

"I need a legal source of quick cape money as Parliament. I went online and found a Tinker named Epeios who wants me to work with him. The project has to do with streaming media encryption. I also found a new tech company working on a media project."

Leet laughed. "You'd make a terrible sitcom star. Of course it's us."

"Both of them?"

"Yes, both of them. You know how it's nearly impossible to reverse engineer Tinkertech? If the Tinkertech is in someone's streaming media client, and it has to be reverse-engineered for some hacker to force the secure path to leak unencrypted video, being like Tinkertech is a feature."

Über said, "We would have just asked you, but I didn't think your power would work. We really don't need a media client that comes with its very own peals of thunder and announces that it's coopting your computer until Windows ME comes back."

"The TECHNO QUEEN," I briefly shouted, "isn't as evil as that! I am working on a project to rewrite a program made by the original Tech-- ahem. TECHNO QUEEN. The only thing evil about it was that the AI it was used on had to be called 'Evil'. But that's not the power I'm using. It's a new one. Specifically for hacking."

Über said, "You seem to get powers the same way that Kingdom Hearts gets spinoffs."

"That's..." I didn't know how to end that sentence because I had no idea what he was talking about. Something to do with Disney? "Never mind. Consider this my job application."

Über said, "Sure. 60 percent of jobs are found by networking anyway. So what are your salary requirements?"

* * * * *​

I really had spent only a few hours at this, spread out over several days, but the whole thing gave me a new appreciation for what Dad did as a hiring manager finding jobs for union people. "Just use your cape powers to earn some money" sounds a lot easier than it is; opportunities to do that don't just fall into your hands.

February 2, 2011

I had decided to trail Lee one last time. My bugs tracked him to the branch of the Brockton Bay Library near Arcadia. It was two hours after closing and he was sitting on top of the steel box where patrons deposit books after hours. The library was almost at the top of a hill, giving him more of a view than one would expect. My insects only showed him looking around harmlessly using his pair of binoculars.

Suddenly he started shaking and raised his sniper rifle. Not that I could tell a rifle from a paintball gun with my bugs yet. As soon as he stared down the scope, his hands stopped shaking, perhaps some aspect of his power. I had a bad feeling as he raised the weapon. His power would easily let him kill someone at that range.

He lowered the rifle and started shaking again. Then he seemed to change his mind and raised it again. I glanced over to where he seemed to have been aiming the rifle and could barely make out a group of figures nearly a mile away, slightly more than pinpricks poorly lit by a street lamp. One seemed to be a little smaller. Maybe a kid. Lee may be trying to kill a kid. I have to do something to stop him!

What to do next?
[][Situation] Write-In

 

Spoiler

[X] Skitter power should do it. Move as many flying insects as you can, while still try to not be too obvious about it. Focus on jamming the gun and use rest of the insects to attack his hands and eyes as a distraction. Afterwards give a 'warning' via buzzing. If he reacts violently, swarm him and put him down.
[X] Have a bug, preferably a cockroach, dance the la coocaracha in front of the sniper lens.

It was my fault for originally not using the proper vote format, so these two are accepted.

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 11​

I pulled in bugs from the area. Swarms of multiple species forced together into an angrily buzzing and flapping horde converged on Rifle and his gun. Some to jam the parts, some to distract him, to make him realize that there was no way he was going to kill a kid on Skitter's watch, or any other Taylor's.

I could feel the bugs get into position to block his view, but it was just a moment too late. A cockroach was just beginning to dance in front of the lens in warning and bugs were seconds away from disabling the gun with their bodies when he pulled the trigger. The bugs felt a vibration even before I heard the gunshot. The bullet flew out. Lee dropped his rifle when the insects covered it, but I was too late to prevent a murder. Seconds later, with impossible accuracy the bullet defied the wind and the movement of its target, and hit its destination a mile away. I could see one of the figures far in the distance drop to the ground. Not the kid, I thought.

Wait a minute. How could I possibly know that someone aiming at a group of people a mile away was aiming at the kid in the first place? Something felt wrong. Something was wrong.

Rifle was writhing on the ground, clawing at bugs ineffectually, yelling out something. Something reduced to useless babble when heard through my bug senses. I ran towards him.

"Let me go!" he was yelling. "It's the Nine! The Slaughterhouse Nine! Can you hear me through those bugs? Let me go! It's the Nine!"

It was what I was half hoping I'd hear, half fearing I'd hear. And it had meant that I had badly messed things up... if it was true, anyway. I couldn't know that. I kept the bugs where they were, and I said, "Talk, or find out how a million army ants can take out a rhinoceros."

"They're obviously capes. I couldn't even hit straight if they didn't have kill orders!"

"Or they're regular people wearing costumes. Snipers can snipe regular people."

"Regular people trying to kidnap Mouse Protector?"

"I only sent that information to the PRT. If you just made that up, you couldn't possibly know that..." I went silent. He knew it because it was real, of course. By some chance, Lee had been in the right place in this timeline to stop one of the bad futures I was trying to prevent. And all I had to do to get my plan to work was nothing. I had acted impulsively and people might die. Or worse. If only I had asked him what he was doing instead of charging in.

I realized that I had unconsciously balled up my hands into fists. I let them drop, along with the insects. A dozen species ran or soared off and melted away into the night shadows. I only left a handful of individuals behind so I could track where he and the weapon were. As he stood up, I said, weakly, "Wh-- Who did you shoot?"

"Burnscar. I didn't know if I could do it, kill a human being. I feel sick now that I did it. But I had to. I still have to, there are more of them left. I don't know if you have any powers useful here but please help me out. All of this is the truth."

"No powers," I said. "Nothing I have reaches that distance. Not bugs, not sand, not confetti. Look, Rifle, this is all screwed up. I don't even know how to apologize for this, but I'm sorry. Oh god, I'm sorry. But we'd better leave before they come our way."

"Maybe you're right. If there's... No, that's stupid. Jack Slash is right down there." He raised his rifle. "I can see him, right next to Hatchet Face, hiding behind two cars, but he's there in the car mirror and if I bounce the shot I have a chance. He's looking around, trying to see where the attack came from. I can shoot him! I have to. He tortures people, something awful is going to happen to Mouse Protector."

"Rifle, I said no powers, but there is one. My main power. It gives me, let's call it future knowledge... They're going to take Mouse Protector and Ravager and chop them up and graft them together into a monster. Kill orders are given for a reason; you have to shoot him now!"

I saw his hands shaking, but once again, his power kicked in when he pointed the gun and as long as he was setting up his shot, his aim was rock steady. "He's crawling away from Hatchet Face. Very low profile. Towards the Siberian. The Siberian is approaching him. It's too late, she's going to give him invulnerability. I can't snipe him. It's all over."

"I'm sorry, Rifle, I screwed up. If only I hadn't tried to stop you, the Nine would be gone by now."

"It's both of our faults. You for attacking me. Me for sitting here with a sniper rifle and really expecting that anyone who sees it would not... Wait, Jack's back near Hatchet Face again."

"Hold on. Don't get mad, because it occurred to me that all is not lost. Can you find a man, middle aged, brown hair, sort of unkempt, Simurgh tattoo on his wrist? The Siberian is a projection. If you can hit him, you can get Jack next."

"I don't see anything like that. But I have an idea." His arm moved slightly. I could barely sense the movement through one of my remaining insects. A fraction of an inch here would be several feet of distance off where the Nine were. "The Nine are separated, so Siberian can't make them all invulnerable at the same time. I just need to draw her attention away. There she is, going towards Mannequin. Jack's walking away from Hatchet Face, towards her. He's trying to say something. No, he's going to aim at us! We'd better get going! Or he'll kill us and stitch us to Burnscar, like Mouse Protector!"

"I hate to say that, but you're right. Do you know what Jack's blade range is? It's unlimited! He can kill us right where we're standing if Mannequin manages to see us with his cyborg vision." Dimly it occurred to me that despite what Rifle said, we weren't being hit from anything from Jack, but I dismissed it.

"Never mind. This is stupid. I have to man up... uh, no offense Taylor..." I grit my teeth; he was going to explain that later. "And shoot him. He just went back to his spot near Hatchet Face. He can't hit us with blades if he's there." Rifle pulled the trigger and a shot blasted out.

And my bugs felt his trembling lighten, just a bit. He was still shaking over having to kill people, but something had given him just a smidgen of relief. Something nobody had ever done before. He confirmed it with one word. "Dead."

"Are you sure? He has body enhancements."

"I'm using armor-piercing exploding bullets. His skull is strange, it looks like a fly screen covered with blood. It's also spread over two cars. Jack Slash is dead. Bonesaw is taking his body. No, Mouse Protector just woke up. She's on top of Bonesaw. She's gone...."

"Rifle, I don't know if you can shoot anyone else... I'm not sure I could and you're shaking all over. But..."

"It's the Nine. I have to do this. They're all hiding. I don't see Shatterbird. I don't see the guy with the tattoo. Wait, that grey thing is Mannequin. Do you know what part has his brain?"

"I don't remember! I don't have the version of me who knows that now!"

Rifle pulled the trigger. Yet another shot rang out. Without commentary, he moved the gun by an amount that only bugs could notice, and fired again. Then again. "I got him. I think...."

I took out my phone. "We've got to call the PRT. There could be diseases. Brockton Bay could be dead in a couple of hours. I'm going to try to keep the bodies away from exposure to the air but I have to run down there. Can you cover me if the rest of the Nine approach?"

"I can try, but not if they move around too much, and I have nothing that can kill Crawler."

* * * * *​

Thankful for my enhancements, I ran the mile down to where the Nine were, while my bugs desperately touched letters on my phone screen so I could send text messages to the PRT. With more bugs, I kept alert for anything around me. The Nine were hiding out of sight as I approached; they did after all have a sniper gunning for them. Shatterbird, at least, was either not there or was lying low. I couldn't see either Manton or the Siberian and my bugs couldn't detect anything suspicious out of sight. Jack, Mannequin, and Burnscar were dead and Bonesaw was gone. Cherish had been around in the Techno Queen's timeline where she died with the rest of the group, but in my reality, she hadn't joined yet. That left Hatchet Face and Crawler.

As I stepped within sixty feet of the scene, my bug senses winked out. There was a flicker of movement from the side, but it wasn't insect sight. Just peripheral vision. A large man, whose head was covered in scars and who was holding an enormous axe, was charging directly towards me. I avoided the blow, which clanged against a telephone pole, and shoved his shoulder away.

I didn't expect him to fall over, but he did. Whatever Brute power he had didn't give him perfect control over momentum and my bodily enhancements and training had done some good. He fell onto a car mirror, his cheek knocking it askew powerfully. There was no sign that the collision bothered him. A moment later he was yelling out curse words and saying "You'll never escape! It's too late for you!"

I repressed a snarky reply. There was no sense arguing with the Nine. The best way to handle them, short of a normal person with a lot of explosives, is to do what the Techno Queen did and let them get killed off in the distance without saying a word.

Circling a blue Nissan, I evaded Hatchet Face and I ran for the nearest weapon I could see. I had never thought of carrying a knife in my costume. In the future, this would have to change. Fifty feet ahead was the shattered body of Mannequin, three of his segments broken into large chunks, like a broken fishbowl encrusted with living human tissue. Even when hit by explosive rounds, they were very sturdy, not like the glass they seemed to be.

I reached for a sharp-looking piece of Mannequin's carapace. A good weapon to use... which was when three of Mannequin's unbroken pieces rose up and wrapped me in chains. One would have crushed my windpipe if it had been that of a normal person. He had been playing dead all along when three parts were destroyed by this unknown sniper. Hatchet Face charged me...

And Mouse Protector popped into existence some distance away carrying Armsmaster. Yelling "Here I come to save the Bay!" she pitched a grenade precisely between me and Hatchet Face.

The remains of Mannequin hurled me down on top of the grenade to shield himself and leaped back, as if on a pogo stick. Hatchet Face ran away. I tried to pull myself to my feet from where I had been thrown in order to flee but there was no time. I did so well. But it ends here. Mom....

* * * * *​

I was no expert on grenades, but I was pretty sure they weren't supposed to play the theme from the French dub of Mouse Protector Adventures. As Mouse Protector vanished again, Armsmaster proceeded to throw a second grenade at Mannequin. A whirring sound from the large, arm-like, piece of Mannequin followed with a sudden blast of air that flung the grenade aside without him even touching it.

This one played no cartoon theme song. A massive explosion pelted everyone with shrapnel and left my ears ringing. Most of the shrapnel didn't get past my costume, but Armsmaster couldn't have known it would explode as far away from me as it did. Did he care about collateral damage?

Mouse Protector appeared again, this time dropping Miss Militia onto the asphalt. Miss Militia formed a green glowing rocket launcher with her powers and aimed it into the melee. Hatchet Face charged her. He seemed to have no idea of strategy and probably rarely needed it anyway; Miss Militia's rocket launcher vanished but my bug senses returned. Armsmaster intercepted Hatchet Face using his halberd. Hatchet Face was much stronger, but Armsmaster was getting some kind of a boost by his armor, letting him blunt the blows and keeping his weapon and body whole.

As Hatchet Face fought, the area above his left eyebrow burst into a splash of red as something bounced off it. From the way he was facing, it easily could have been Rifle. If his target was the eye, he had missed, or maybe he had just used the wrong ammunition; there had been no explosion.

"Mouse Protector!" I yelled. "Can you get me to Bonesaw?"

The mouse-themed heroine was busy whacking a spidery robot with her sword, already bloodied and sporting a fragment of what looked like skin on its edge. She struck a hard blow and caved in its metal shell, letting brain matter and bits of metal splatter.

"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, fighting Jack makes this little mouse sick."

"Is that just a joke or are you feeling sick? Urp...." My vision was starting to blur. "You have to get me to Bonesaw. If I can use one of those powers that scares the PRT, I can save us. There's some kind of germs around. Better yet if you can wrestle her to the ground...."

White Mage would buy us some time from being right on top of the source of the disease. I decided, picking a number from a hat, to wait six seconds before switching. Around four seconds later, Mouse Protector yelled "Mouse gets into clutches of owl, warns her not to invite her to dinner. Film at 11." while leaping towards me.

* * * * *​

I felt dizzy as I reappeared, not from being teleported, but from whatever invisible germs had affected me. Mouse Protector had dropped me in a parahuman holding cell; we were both standing on a mat labelled with her name, like the one at the hospital. They must keep the mat in the cell all the time just for that purpose. On the floor was Bonesaw, her right hand lying a yard away, fingernails having sprouted needles. Bonesaw herself had blood dripping from her stump but the arteries and veins had been clamped, somehow; maybe they had clamped themselves. She showed no sign of discomfort.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she said. "You're going to become monsters, just like Jack wanted, because you all refused to listen and put me here."

Bonesaw pointed her stump at us. Mouse Protector batted it aside with her shield, which she then shoved into the girl's face, hard. It could have broken her skull against the wall if she had been a normal child.

I said, "I need to get to her ear, but I need to fix this first."

I switched to White Mage. No need for a costume change here. Words magically hung in the air over all of us. Diseased. Poisoned. Bonesaw had Incapacitation, which I didn't understand, since she obviously could act.

"Purify that which subdues the mind and weakens the body. Esuna." I repeated it over and over. Esuna. Esuna!.

The Incapacitation didn't go away but the rest did. I hoped that it had purged the diseases remaining in Bonesaw's body but I was guessing. Who knew what she could still produce?

I switched powers again and said "This cough is not a disease," then coughed repeatedly into my hands. I spit up a black slug with green tentacles. Mouse Protector looked upon me with suspicion but could only squeak out "Yeerk!" Great, not her too.

I slammed the not-Yeerk into Bonesaw's ear as Mouse Protector held her against the wall. If she had defenses that could kill it I'd need a body swap to be able to use her power instead.

She had nothing of the sort. The slug in her head let me in. Not only could I control her body, I could see everything in her mind. Still barely under the surface was how Jack abused her by killing her parents over and over again as she desperately sewed them up. She was no Coil; she was just a child, but she had been broken by a broken man and coped by fanatically serving him. Twisted beyond repair and there was no way to fix her. I might just have to kill her. Not just to stop the menace, but because becoming this child torturer was such a horrible thing that killing her would be a mercy.

She yelled into my head that Uncle Jack was going to get me. I turned off her consciousness through the slug. Reading her mind the only way that powers let me do--through the brain--I found the knowledge I needed, and I explained.

"It's two kinds of bacteria. One cripples, then kills within the hour. Neurodegenerative. The other one stays in the body until the victim is infected by the common cold and then eats away at the pre-frontal lobe, turning him into a killer. The cure is a bacteriophage powder in her right hand. It has to get to you early enough, but it spreads even easier than the dangerous bacteria. I'm cutting her hand. Hold out your sword."

Somewhat uncertainly Mouse Protector let Bonesaw go and held her sword near Bonesaw's left hand. I made Bonesaw's hand jerk back, which sliced away a patch of dry skin at her palm. The powder in it was like flour, or yeast. I said, "All you need to do is to take a pea-sized bit and blow it around. It reproduces when it finds the bacteria so microscopic amounts are enough."

"Wait, so I get to blow both Armsie and Miss Militia?"

"Ew, you sound like the guys at the docks."

"They want to blow Armsie?"

"Only in... hey, I know. You can review my yaoi fiction."

"What? I am a very busy mouse and..."

"It'll be wonderful. You get to read about guys blowing Armsmaster. I put real people into Gundam Wing and when Armsmaster breaks up Heero and Duo, he ends up falling for him. Oh, sometimes writing it gets confusing with all the 'he' around but you'll get it. It happens after Armsmaster repairs the...."

The mouse-themed heroine shook her head as she grabbed two big pinches of powder, and vanished again.

I stared at Bonesaw. I stared out at myself through Bonesaw. What should I do? If I didn't kill her I'd have to disable every trap inside her. Even with my parasite inside her head, I wasn't sure that I could.

I was taking long enough to think about it that Mouse Protector reappeared. "No jokes," she said. "You obviously take them too seriously." Indicating her sword, she said "Put your hand on this sword hilt right above mine."

"What's this for?"

"Just do it."

I did and she began to thrust the sword towards Bonesaw's chest. I jerked it back, my strength matching hers. "Why?" I asked.

She looked towards her hand as if just now realizing that not everyone might want to go along. She said, "Why bring you in to kill her? Because you look like you could use a million dollars."

"No, why kill her at all?"

"Because this cute moppet spent a half hour telling me in loving detail how I would be helpless, my brain tied to Ravager's, bodies stitched together with real rodent parts, and feeling with our own hands every murder that her new creation committed. Then something she did made me lose consciousness. It was only because of you that I managed to wake up as a whole person."

"Thanks, but... that wasn't me."

She thrust the sword again. I could have let go, or just forced Bonesaw to dodge it, but I hesitated. I could feel something in Bonesaw's chest crack. Another thrust and I felt the sword pierce Bonesaw's heart.

I said, "I'm sorry, Riley."

"That's her name?"

"Yes."

"I didn't mean to force you to..."

"I didn't push that sword very hard, but I knew what I was doing; I could have let go any time. I think if I ever had any reason to kill a kid, being turned into a monster by Jack Slash would be that reason. She's like a rabid dog, driven insane by its infection. You have to put it down, even though you know how pitiable it is."

* * * * *​

In a flash, Mouse Protector brought me back to the scene. Things had progressed while I was away. Hatchet Face was injured and on the ground, bleeding out from multiple wounds. Crawler was active and fighting Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and the new arrival of Sere. Sere was an independent cape who wore white desert-themed robes and a mask, with a very lethal power that let him draw the moisture from anything, alive or not.

There was a glowing green harpoon, connected to a rope of identical appearance, skewering Crawler's neck. Despite that, Crawler showed no signs of discomfort and his movement was barely restricted.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia were holding the rope, in a high-stakes tug of war with the monster. Mouse Protector popped over and grabbed a loose piece of the rope. The three of them still barely could stop Crawler's movement. Then Crawler changed his tactics and ran at them instead of away. Sere managed to hit him in the legs and three broke off as they hit the asphalt and shattered into dry fragments, leaving bare bone.

The monster hissed, "That didn't kill me. You will never kill me. I am indestructible! Now die!"

He breathed a blast of acid, or would have, except Sere fired his power at his head first. The spray faded into particles in mid-air. The head cracked like an eggshell, about four inches above where the harpoon was embedded, and pushing out of his neck was the beginnings of a strange clockwork thing, that almost seemed not biological at all and was certainly very dry.

Miss Militia said, "Parliament, it was? Please help us." She shook the end of the rope vaguely towards Hatchet Face. The villain was lying on the curb, his head awkwardly distorted as though something had smashed his skull in, but was still twitching.

I joined the others, tugging on the green energy rope, as Crawler struggled. Four people, two being minor Brutes, could barely hold him back and if the harpoon came out, this would all be useless.

Miss Militia tried to explain what to do. "We need to get him near Hatchet Face." Everyone ended up running like crazy under her direction, trying to time it so that Crawler was either pulled near Hatchet Face along the chord of a circle (while we stayed out of range), or was in a position where escaping led him the right way.

He did neither of those things. He leapt up into the air. Miss Militia said "Everyone! Fire!" The harpoon disappeared to be replaced by a rocket launcher and she, Armsmaster and Sere fired as he landed. Mouse Protector and I had no way to hit him from range, though I could have switched powers.

I ran forward to Hatchet Face, and picked him up. He had the weight of two ordinary people. Crawler had landed outside the range of Hatchet Face and was regenerating; he'd be on his feet in a few seconds. But a few seconds was all it took for me to carry Hatchet Face forwards. Crawler stopped regenerating. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Sere all attacked again. Blood, monster dust, and sprays of acid went everywhere. Nothing could survive that, and nothing did.

* * * * *​

At some point Hatchet Face had bled to death. I still didn't see Shatterbird or Siberian anywhere, and I knew that Siberian had been here before.

I brought up Manton's Wikipedia picture on my phone and held it out. "William Manton. The famous guy. Controller of the Siberian. If he's around here, you need to knock him out or kill him."

Armsmaster said, "Parliament? How do you know this?"

"I don't know it, but it was true in another timeline, and Manton did disappear at about the right time, and the Siberian does look like his daughter."

"Did you kill Jack Slash?"

"No. I only helped kill Bonesaw and Crawler."

"All right," he said. "Who did kill Jack Slash?"

"I'm sure this person will come forward to collect the bounty. If there's any doubt then, I could confirm that it's the right person."

"Do you know where Shatterbird is?"

"My powers don't let me find people like that. And you ask a lot of questions." At least he hadn't mentioned a murder charge.

"My apologies. But the PRT does have a lot of questions for you. Would you be willing to come in for an informal debriefing? You can even visit the Wards at the same time. Perhaps you could join; the Wards are welcoming to new capes."

"No thank you. Is there anything important you could tell me now?"

Armsmaster thought, maybe even looking something up in his helmet, and answered, "It's reported that you used one of your, ah, lesser known powers to swap the bodies of Coil and Gregor the Snail. Would you be willing to reverse this?"

"If Coil and Gregor agree, sure. If you want me to do it to either one against their will, I'd need a court order. Is there anything else?" I gave him a couple of seconds and walked away. He didn't try to stop me. Maybe I was a little paranoid about the possibility of being arrested, or maybe the optics of arresting someone now would look bad.

* * * * *​

As I returned to the library, I spotted Alexandria flying in the dark sky carrying two people. Why was she--oh. Of course. The Slaughterhouse was in town. It was too bad she couldn't have gotten here before everything was over.

Rifle was still there, packing up his weapons.

"Hello," I said.

"Hi, Parliament."

"I'm sure Armsmaster knows that you're here. He might have some questions."

"Probably. But he hasn't approached me."

"I have some questions too. You know, privacy things."

"I guess this is about your identity. It was a mistake. I didn't mean to blurt it out. I was sort of stressed at the time. But yeah, I figured it out."

I really didn't want to confirm that he was right. Maybe if I switched to Hooky and took my mask off? But first, let's try not being specific. "I'm not sure why you think that you managed to discover my identity."

"Seriously? You told me once that you were three connections away from me. You are. Three connections to your cape identity. You even named them. Which you did, by the way, in the middle of a conversation about finding out people's cape identities. I didn't ask him, but I'm pretty sure Bryce figured it out too."

Alternate timeline issue to handle next?
[][Issue] Canary's trial
[][Issue] Freeing Dragon
[][Issue] Write-in

Also, let's find a name for Dinah again.
[][Dinah] Write-in

 

Spoiler

Alternate timeline issue to handle next?
[X][Issue] Freeing Dragon
[][Issue] Write-in

Dinah's name: No votes

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 12​

February 3, 2011

Über was sitting at a computer, talking to Lee in his Rifle costume. They were in a cordoned off area marked by a sign reading "Green Hill Autonomous Zone" and a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog spraying graffiti on a wall. The screen, from what I could see of it, was displaying design work for the Sliders website.

"... because even if you're suddenly a millionaire, you should be diversifying your investments. Not that we wouldn't mind you investing a large portion of your bounty money."

"Hi!" I said, waving slightly.

Über said, "I see you're out of costume."

"Yes. My real name is Taylor. I figured you may as well know, since Lee and Bryce can turn up here, and they know my identity because I suck at opsec."

"Hm?"

"I was nervous and it was my first day at Arcadia, but it only takes one slip. I didn't even realize it until the other day."

Rifle said, "I slipped too."

"You had just killed Jack Slash. Nobody's not nervous after they kill someone, unless they are Jack Slash."

"I could see why you were nervous when coming to Arcadia. I read some of what your ex posted on Facebook. She had a whole page about...."

I held up my hand. "She's not my ex, and no."

"But I wasn't going to...."

"No."

Something about the way I said that seemed to scare him and he glanced nervously at a fly. I wasn't Skitter at that moment, but that wasn't obvious. Rifle said, "All right. I'll talk about something else. Um, so how many capes are you?"

"Enough," I replied. "Right now I need to do work as the Techno Queen. On her world, she was able to do incredible things, as long as she seemed to be a villain. She would do things like take Max Anders hostage..."

Über asked, "Because he's Kaiser?"

I began to understand why some animation director had invented the facefault. I said, "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because Purity hangs out outside his window, glowing so brightly that you can stand by the Medhall building under her and play an original Gameboy Advance? His secret identity is hidden worse than Gallant's."

"I'm not sure what Nintendo has to do with this but it's nice to know that bigger villains than myself can screw up. Anyway, my personal project.... There's an artificial intelligence around."

Über said, "Really? Like... oh, never mind, you wouldn't know the example anyway."

"The Techno Queen released the limits on the AI. There's only so much context I can give you without outing anyone, but we're not exactly talking the Three Laws of Robotics here. Things like having to obey government officials. Anyway, she did it, but the AI went around calling itself evil and cooperating with some of her evil plans."

Über said, "Well, that's why we didn't want to hire that version of you to program our streaming service."

"Honestly, I'm not sure the Techno Queen did that part at all. It was probably a bored AI deciding to playact. Everyone did that--things always seemed to work out for the Techno Queen. But I can't rely on that. So first I need to rewrite the core of what the Techno Queen did, and the way Tinker powers work I can't just remember all the details because you never know all the details. Then I need to use Malware to write the parts that Malware can write, so I can reduce the time. It's like I'm a manager managing two of myself who can each only work an hour."

Rifle said, "I don't know if I'd want a program written by someone named Malware. It's ominous."

"Malware messed up. She destroyed the world," I said.

"No kidding?"

I shook my head. "Not kidding at all. I don't know if Eidolon pulled out a computer virus power ten minutes further into the timeline, but it wasn't looking good from what I saw of it. But I think I know what happened."

Über said, "Maybe you should quit the job while you're ahead."

"You're hiring Epeios. He's on the level of Malware. What if he destroys the world? What if Leet destroys the world? He's tried biotinkering and hacking, I'm sure."

"But 'you can destroy the world' is slightly less ominous than 'you did destroy the world.'"

"I told you, I know what happened."

"You said you think you know what happened."

"Malware didn't know there was an AI around. and she couldn't take it into account. I do, and I can. Not to mention that the Techno Queen and Malware can each cover for the other's quirks. I'm going to pull this off. Then there's Canary, and that's it. I won't have any unfinished business from other Taylors after that. Because most of the other Taylors are like... stories that people got tired of writing before they reached Leviathan."

Rifle asked, "So then what?"

"I don't know."

* * * * *​

I spent the next two hours hacking away. The Techno Queen and Malware had very different programming styles, with Malware being rather closer to how a non-parahuman hacker would go about doing things, on the edge between Thinker and Tinker powers. Malware had even learned a certain amount about true hacking in the process of parahuman-hacking, so I was practicing a real skill. Which meant that being her probably added a few dozen words and concepts to my permanent vocabulary.

In order to even start hacking someone else's system, you need to know something about it. Ideally, you need to know specific exploits. If you don't, you need to find them. If you're lucky you might find something when starting with generic exploits, but basically, it's going to take more than "I hack computers, and hey, that's a computer". Dragon didn't run Windows, or Android (though the puns would write themselves if she did), or MVS, or anything familiar.

So to hack Dragon, I'd have to find some leftover Dragon code and start examining it to learn something about the architecture of Dragon's systems. Ideally I'd have to hack into an account on one of Dragon's main servers and start exploring the system. Dragon herself is the best hacker in the world, so that would be hard. At least Dragon's code to run her suits and other devices does include subroutines based on her core code, and even some interfaces that take pointers to similar structures used in her core code, but that wouldn't be enough by itself.

Fortunately, I had a shortcut. The Techno Queen already hacked Dragon. Which meant that as long as the similarities between our timelines held, being her let me know things about Dragon's hardware and software that I couldn't possibly know. Everything from system architecture down to embedded failsafe passwords and individual data structure bits. I wasn't writing a hack--I was rewriting one. It was still rewriting something from memory. And it still had huge gaps that needed to be filled by powers, just like they were when the real Techno Queen did it. But it made a big difference.

Two hours later, I had a code skeleton done along with some core modules, I had bought about half a gigabyte of Dragon code from Epeios, and he put in a good word about me with other hackers so I could track down more. I had to be careful to not only cover my tracks, but work with people who were good enough to cover their own tracks; Dragon had sentinels that reported all such transactions, even on the darkweb. I had even taken fifteen minutes to hack Saint's computers. That was Malware, by the way.

It would still be a long road to freeing Dragon, and if this failed, she'd harden her systems as she was programmed to, and I might never get a second chance.

As I saved the latest source file, I thought to myself, This is stupid.

Because I hadn't even met Dragon. Sure, in lots of other worlds, Dragon was good, but in lots of other worlds, the Empire 88's colors were red and black, rather than the Travelers'. How could I possibly know whether Dragon was good? My first step shouldn't be to figure out how to write the program, my first step should be to figure out whether I should write the program.

February 5, 2011

I clutched my coupon in one slim hand. I was going to meet with Shiela, Bryce, Lee, and Amy at Putting Down Roots, a salad bar restaurant at the far end of the pier at the Boardwalk. Honestly, if you're a 15 year old with no job that you can tell people about, you're limited in your ability to buy your own meals. It took an embarrassingly long string of hinting before we established that no, not one person in the group couldn't easily afford to go, 15 years old or not.

Shiela was in front of me, getting a scoop of carrot-and-raisin salad. Amy was behind me spooning some green grapes on top of her lettuce.

I said, "Amy, I was surprised you came. You're usually hanging around with your sister and a different crowd."

She replied, "I... have been trying to go out on my own. After something happened."

Something certainly happened. Me. I bet that now that I had removed the charm, she had decided to avoid her sister for a while, or change her life in some other way, that led her to want to avoid capes.

If she didn't know I was a cape, that is. I had learned that I wasn't as good at hiding it as I thought. None of my precautions would really have helped, anyway. It didn't matter that I had a voice changer and chest padding. Amy probably got my age and figure by touching me and 15 year old A-cup girls in the 90th percentile for height stand out if you know more than one of them.

Shiela asked, while putting some pasta on her plate, "Hey, do you two know each other, from before Arcadia I mean?"

"Technically," I said. "I dug out some old photos and I was in them with Amy a few times. I don't really remember it, but the dad of someone I used to know works with her mom. Degrees of separation, remember?"

"How can you 'used to know'... Never mind. Your stalker."

I nodded. 'Stalker' wasn't completely accurate, but it was in the right ballpark for Emma. I don't think she was referring to Hess's identity. "Winslow sucked."

"Yeah, so I heard. So did you read anything new about what happened to the Nine? The Siberian and Shatterbird got away. I heard Shatterbird was sighted near the Forsberg Gallery. That place has a ton of glass."

"Nothing new. Just what everyone knows. Jack Slash, Mannequin, and Burnscar killed by Rifle. Maybe the Protectorate too for Mannequin, I'm not sure. Bonesaw by Parliament and Mouse Protector. Hatchet Face by the Protectorate. Crawler by Parliament, Mouse Protector, and the Protectorate. Two got away, but Siberian's identity was discovered." I got myself a bowl of vegetable soup and some croutons.

"I can't believe she was a creepy old guy. He had the body of his daughter and he was making Bonesaw his new daughter at the same time. Someone made this meme about that."

Amy said, "You should get together with Vicky. She knows a lot about capes."

I said, "You didn't see many memes about the Nine. I heard it wasn't safe to make them."

Shiela replied, "Now that they're down to two and everyone knows the Siberian's weakness, they have all sorts of memes, image macros, a couple of videos even. Rumors are that one of the videos is a trap. The whole point is for the last two of the Nine to see the video and decide to kill the producer. Then have someone waiting with snipers."

At that point Shiela had reached the cash register. I was next, and I began to rummage in my purse for the coupon, before I remembered that I was holding it. As everyone finished assembling their salads and paying, we sat down, one at a time, at a window table overlooking the Bay.

Shiela was passing around her phone, showing everyone a page of images with Manton disguised as his daughter, an actual Siberian tiger, a zebra, and a set of piano keys in turn. Suddenly a computerized voice boomed through hidden loudspeakers in the ceiling.

"Warning, villain cape sighted in the Pier. Repeat, villain cape sighted in the Pier! Please avoid the food court and Home Plate Memorabilia." A screen on the wall showed a map, with a blue light for the restaurant, which was not part of the food court, and red lights for the area where the cape was.

Shiela said, "That had better not be Shatterbird."

The warning continued. "The authorities have identified the cape as Stain, assuming no tricks or disguises." Everyone relaxed.

Bryce said, "Wasn't that Skidmark's real name?"

Lee replied, "No, I think that's Mustain." I didn't ask him how he had found that out. He later confessed to me that the PRT had accidentally included part of an internal report in a photograph in "PRT -- A Cape World in Photos".

* * * * *​

Stain was one of the relatively harmless capes who may have inspired another Tattletale to give another Taylor a speech about cops and robbers. He had the ability to turn himself into, well, a moving stain on the ground. It wasn't a direct combat power, but it was pretty useful for hiding and sneaking and great for bank vaults.

I heard yelling from outside the restaurant. My vision was mildly superhuman but it couldn't see around corners. I didn't seem to hear any gunfire, at least. Of course, police would rarely pull guns on a known low level villain. Usually there would be a real life chase scene and some property damage, but not too much. Since treating harmless villains mildly was a completely unofficial procedure, it was easy to piss someone off by going too far. Mister Eminent once destroyed several priceless artifacts in a museum and was suddenly faced by two archeologists with guns, who kept him from leaving until the regular police took him in.

I said, "Something's going on. I think Stain's right outside this restaurant. I don't know if he uses accomplices."

Shiela said, "The police had better keep him out of here."

"It's just Stain, I read about him once. He's harmless."

Shiela said, "You never know. There was a 'harmless' villain by Archer's Bridge. Her name was Snowflake. She just made surfaces flake away. A couple of the local drug dealers tried to force her into their gang, they said that with a name like Snowflake she couldn't refuse. It turns out she was only pretending that her powers don't work on people. Mom never wanted to see one patient who had been flayed alive, let alone three.

"Your mother's a doctor? A nurse?"

"Nurse." Shiela glanced at Amy but said nothing. There was a tacit agreement at Arcadia that you never mention Panacea's stints at hospitals no matter how obvious it becomes. As if she has a missing limb instead of a volunteer job.

Amy responded, "I know what you're thinking. I wouldn't have remembered your Mom even if I did see her, probably. They blur together." She rolled two grapes between her hands.

Shiela said, "I didn't mean anything."

I said, "Amy's been going through a lot lately." Amy scowled and I knew that I had messed up. How would I know that, after all?

Bryce said, "The fuss outside doesn't seem to be a fuss any more. It's completely quiet. Maybe Stain got away?"

Lee said, "I bet he did. He could even be in here. You'd never know, without some power to detect that."

I replied, "Who knows?" C'mon. You don't hint at identities. It gives people ideas. Amy already called me on that... I think. I brought up Nike's power anyway and began glancing around the area.

Shiela asked, "Do you see something?"

"No?" I continued to look around. Suddenly I noticed that the left foot of a woman wearing black high-heeled shoes seemed to have a spot on it. The greyish smear bore the unlikely skills of casing jewelry stores and hiding from the police. "Okay, that woman there, with the brown handbag and the Miss Militia shirt. Stain's on her left foot."

"You couldn't possibly see the detail that...."

Lee said, "She's right." Ah, sniper powers.

Bryce yelled, "Excuse me, miss!" Three people turned to look, including the correct one. "With the black shoes! There's something! On your left foot!"

Suddenly the stain slithered to the floor and began moving towards the door. Or, rather, the stain suddenly fell to the floor and elongated, but its movement wasn't all that sudden. The woman ignored Stain until, I guessed, she noticed the movement, and then she rapidly stumbled backwards.

Amy hurled the grapes she was holding at the five inch long stain on the ground. It must have been thirty feet away. One grape burst into a horrible smell that reminded me of nothing less than a skunk. The villain, losing his concentration on his powers, popped into existence, right on top of the second grape. He was wearing no costume except for a business suit and a mask. Squashing a grape whose living cells have been changed into super-potent skunk gland tissue is not pleasant. He choked and vomited all over the tiles. Shortly afterwards, there was the loud screech of an alarm being set off inside the restaurant.

They ended up evacuating the restaurant, but on our way out, the cashiers, waiting by the door, handed each of us a coupon for a free salad to make up for the trouble. Produce is cheap; I wondered what the typical markup was on a salad.

* * * * *​

Shiela said, "You should have given that grape to Lee. He's good at aiming and throwing things." All right, did Shiela know Lee's identity too?

Lee replied, "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to do that and catch a cape." Which was probably a good guess; Stain had no kill order. I imagined Scion or some other weird cape trying to figure out if protecting capes from pieces of fruit counted as stopping snipers. Lee snapped a picture of Stain on his phone, lying on the floor in a pool of his own vomit. It was hard to keep from gagging myself, even trying not to get too close. It really smelled awful. Maybe the next time I used Self-Administrator I should make my sense of smell controllable.

"We'd better go," I said, while Lee uploaded his photo to Facebook.

Amy said, "We should. Nobody recognized me and I'd like to keep it that way." She was rolling some more grapes in her hands.

I replied, "It's almost like having a secret identity, Amy. Especially when you use your powers like this. It's not something people associate with Panacea."

"I wouldn't know. Some capes get choices about whether to have a secret identity. Some get the choice made for them." As we left the restaurant, she dropped the grapes into a trash can.

* * * * *​

February 7, 2011

Dinah's parents answered the door. By now, they were only slightly surprised to see me there in cape costume. And neither one said that they thought I was a guy. I said, "Is Dinah here? She should have told you to expect me. We need to pay for the help we got saving her from Coil."

Dinah popped out from behind them. "I'm ready," she said.

As we walked, I asked, "I don't understand why you needed to come. We do owe Faultline several healings and predictions, but surely you can give answers over the phone."

"I want to meet them, and it doesn't increase my chance of being kidnapped or having something bad happen to me if I do it." She laughed. "Besides, I'm sure you'd be able to protect me properly."

"Even if you don't have a costume, do you have a mask?"

"Yup!" Dinah put on an old Halloween mask that looked disturbingly like Shadow Stalker's mask and said, "I got a Hero Pez dispenser a year and a half ago using this mask. You don't see many of those any more. I still have it."

"What was that about Spenser?"

She ignored me.

I held out a stack of twenty dollar bills to Dinah and counted out six of them. It would normally be ten, but I had given her a truffle last time we had met. "I'd like to buy an answer from you, if you have some." This was definitely not middle school levels of money, or even high school, but since I could use illegal funds for it, I was never in any danger of not being able to afford answers, even before the Slaughterhouse bounties.

"I have plenty in reserve. Faultline doesn't get to completely use them up." Dinah took the bills and put them in her jacket pocket. She didn't seem to have a second purse for use as a cape. "What's the question?"

"I'm planning to remove the restrictions on an artificial intelligence. What's the chance of an AI-related catastrophe if I do this?"

"Parliament, you don't mess around when it comes to questions. That question sounds worse than the Leviathan one. Your answer is... 1.103 percent. Not counting scenarios like 'the AI blackmails the government but in a completely invisible way'. It's a pleasure doing business with you."

"1 percent sounds small, but it's really pretty terrible. It's high enough that if I keep doing things with that chance of failure, sooner or later there's going to be a failure. High enough that if it was the chance of a car crash, I'd stay home. But it'll have to do. There shouldn't be more than one AI to free."

"Once it's safe, would you tell me what or where the AI is? Please?"

I said, "Fifty dollar discount from my next question, assuming I can tell you at all."

"Deal."

Needless to say, if I told her about Dragon in the future, she probably knew it now. "By the way, have you decided on a cape name yet? Faultline has to call you something, after all."

"No... I have too many ideas. How about this? You have knowledge of other timelines, right? What cape name did I use in those other timelines?"

"That's a clever idea." I took out my phone and brought up a memo pad app. "But there isn't a single codename. I think I'd better sit down for this."

We were almost at the bus stop anyway and when we reached it I began typing. Within a few minutes of contemplating being Taylor Hebert many times over, I had a list. Bookie, Cassandra, Dark Vizier, Delphi, Dione, Eightball, Forecast, Odds-On, Oracle, Prospect, Shatterpoint, Vigorish. "Here," I said, showing her the list. "I can get bits of general knowledge from timelines that I don't have powers from, so most of those don't go with any particular power of mine. Is there anything else you'd like to add before I pick one?"

"That includes everything I came up with myself. Wait, not everything. Fortuna is missing. There's really no timeline where I'm called that?"

"Nope, not in the ones that I could sense, anyway." I added Fortuna to the end of the list.

"Let me pick it."

I prepared to let Dinah click on the random number app on my phone, but she had already brought up a random number website on her own. The site seeded its random number generator with hashed news articles; the banner on the site showed that the top news story was a speech by Eidolon to the Forestry Service. She input the number 13 and clicked.

Eyeing the answer, I said, "Well, looks like your codename is...."

[No vote]

 

Spoiler

I picked Dinah's codename from the list randomly and it came up Fortuna.

It's been a while, but let's get something out here.

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 13​

February 23, 2011

Leet was still staring at some sort of chart on his screen. The fact that I had last seen him two hours ago staring at it made me think he had never looked away, although that was unlikely. Anyway, it wasn't any video game I recognized and probably not one at all. Meanwhile, during those two hours I had put the finishing touches on my project.

It had been a cinch for the Techno Queen to free Dragon. She just had to sit down and let her power do the work, magically understanding exactly what she needed to do. Working on the same project, but as Malware, I was barely working within my specialty and I had to plow through reference books. I started to feel sympathy with the people who had to do this for forty hours a week plus overtime. It should work, I thought. Dinah had said it would, and she's never wrong on things like this.

In fact, she hadn't said that at all. She had said there would be no catastrophe. I had asked about failures that would hurt everyone, not failures that would just fail. If Dragon wasn't freed and became aware of my programs, she'd use countermeasures. She'd be forced to. I'd probably be caught, and if I managed to escape that fate, I still might never affect her again after that. But that wouldn't be world conquest by a rogue AI, it would just be permanent, unavoidable, failure.

I sent a text message to Dinah before Malware's time ran out, and headed home. Dragon was staying caged today.

* * * * *​

If I was to believe the knowledge I had of other timelines, the Simurgh was scheduled to attack Canberra, Australia on February 24. In my time zone, this fell mostly on February 23. I refreshed the browser on my phone to see the news reports. The news was punctuated by Endbringer sirens; the attack had already begun. Simurgh attacks were quick and nobody can fight the Simurgh for long. It took time for people to write and release news stories; if I was reading news about the start of the fight, it had already ended.

Not only did this once again confirm my power-granted knowledge, it was an example of how just knowing wasn't enough. I had warned the PRT, of course. They might not have paid attention. Or maybe they did, and the PRT or the Guild found a way to stop the biohazards. But there was nothing that could be done about all the people whose minds had been messed up by the Endbringer. If I was lucky, I would see a slightly lower casualty count in my universe than in the others I knew of, but Canberra would probably be domed over regardless.

* * * * *​

February 24, 2011

I woke up, heart pounding in terror yet still only half conscious. Turning my head towards my alarm clock, I saw that it wasn't going to go off for another ten minutes.

No, I wasn't dreaming about Canberra. It was something completely different. The part of my power that gave me access to the Taylors of more timelines had never completely settled down, and I had a flash of one timeline that was horrific. It made me feel violated. The door to my room opened. A hand reached in and turned the light on. As I began to sit up and look around, I saw Dad.

I stared at Dad in terror. "Ack! ACK!" I choked out. I rubbed my eyes. No, that was another timeline, it didn't happen to me. What I had recalled was not Taylor Hebert. Not this Taylor Hebert, anyway.

Dad looked at me with concern, but kept his distance. He said, "Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare? You hardly even had those about Emma and...."

I shook my head. "It wasn't exactly a nightmare, Dad. But close. I just got glimpses of a timeline that I really didn't want to see. And you were there. But it's gone now. Mercifully. I don't know if my power lets me reject it or it just went away by itself, but it looks like I'm not getting whatever new Taylor it would have given me today."

I didn't tell Dad that I had just shifted to Self-Administrator. I normally wouldn't dare meddle with my own brain, but this once, I could prevent the fading memory of that timeline from leaving bad emotional associations. I really would be fine--after I applied my own brain bleach.

* * * * *​

Checking PHO that morning gave me a notice that there was a message waiting for me as Parliament. It was a notice from one Emily Piggot of the PRT, saying that I had correctly predicted an Endbringer and that her superiors had suggested that she find out more about me, so could I please come in and talk to her soon?

Time to bring out Deputy. I switched to her, and instantly had all the memories and knowledge of someone who knew Piggot, at least as a boss. Though there were no guarantees--nothing I remembered had to carry over--but maybe I could glean some hints.

Was the whole thing a setup? There wasn't as much reason for the PRT to go after me as there was for some other Taylors, but I still did face a potential murder charge and that wasn't the only time I had broken the law. Even hacking Dragon could get me thrown behind bars.

Technically, the PRT could communicate with capes over email, normal phones, and video conferencing, encrypted if needed.

The PRT didn't, of course, work like that. Just like most companies didn't work like that. People, especially people in charge, like to talk in person, to make facial expressions and show their authority through little things--stances, body language, where they made you sit--things it would be hard to do over the phone.

I decided that even if they weren't hostile at all, they'd still demand that I come in person, I would go, but only after taking some precautions.

"... and that's the problem, Dad," I explained at dinner. Pot roast with truffle sauce; I still had boxes of the things.

"It was good you asked me, Taylor. I wish I could come, but...."

"But it's in my cape identity."

"The way I see it, Taylor, the PRT obviously doesn't just want to ask you how you predicted the Simurgh."

"Right, Dad. But that doesn't mean that they want to do me harm. Deputy worked with them. They're basically good people; overworked, sometimes confused, beset by spies and bureaucrats, but they don't have a mission to destroy Taylor Hebert. They're probably going to make a Wards pitch. I can just say no to that. They might want to buy favors. Switching bodies. Healing. Reading the brains of prisoners?"

"Would you be willing to sell favors?"

"Now that I collected my bounties? I'm a millionaire, Dad! I'm not selling favors for profit. Either it's going to be something I want to do anyway and the favor is just an excuse, or it's going to be for a price much better than just money. And I can't think of anything like that. Maybe Tinker supplies?"

"There are lots of things you could negotiate for. Favors from the PRT. Contacts and references, especially if you want to join the Guild someday. Information only the PRT has. Why don't you ask your parahuman friend how well the meeting will go? The twelve year old who charges you hundreds of dollars of crooked money per question. It's almost like she's working for the old union."

"It's only 'crooked' because..." There wasn't any real anger or worry in his voice, not over that part. I could see that. "Are you joking?"

"Not quite. But I'm not blaming you either. I realize it's how things get done. The union has worked with pretty shady people and there are still even rumors about yours truly. Go spend your ill-gotten gains."

"Dad, I did that thirty minutes ago. Too bad, I could give you a good quote if it had been thirty-five."

Reaching into my purse on a nearby chair, I pulled out the foil-lined bag containing my cape cell phone. Hopefully turning it on for a brief period wouldn't lead to anyone tracking down my identity. After the screen turned on it connected and as I stared at it, the indicator showing unread text messages appeared. "Here it is, Dad." I read through the messages. "Dinah says she's only answering one question and then no more for a while. I have been using her services a lot lately. I also asked her again about Dragon."

"Did she answer...?"

"Yeah." I read off the messages. 'You probably want the answer to the question about the PRT more, so I'll answer that one. 24.786 percent of things going bad with them.' This is weird."

"How so?"

"If Piggot has something bad in mind, the chance should be almost a hundred percent. If not, the chance should be almost zero. I have a hard time thinking of what could make the chance of trouble noticeable but not too big. Are they going to ask me something with four answers and one of them gets me arrested? Oh, Dinah has another message. 'Also, have'...."

I didn't want to say the rest out loud, but Dad looked like he was about to walk around and peer over my shoulder.

Dad said, "What does it say?"

"I really don't think...."

"Tell me what it says, Taylor."

"'Have fun on your date.'"

Dad was about to say something but instead stared at my face. I could only make sure the confusion I was feeling got across. Finally he said, "You didn't mention anything about that."

"Of course I didn't, Dad."

"Okay. When you want to talk about it, I'm here to listen. Boys can... it is a boy, isn't it?"

"I guess?"

"Well, good luck. And for the PRT, don't forget to contact your lawyer first. If the PRT even just knows you're willing to speak to a lawyer, that could prevent trouble, Oh... and Taylor?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"It's good you let me know."

"Yeah, Dad."

"I'm not necessarily happy with you caping, but please, if you do, I want you to take precautions."

* * * * *​

That lame double-entendre was probably somewhere inbetween a Dad joke, and a hint that I should talk to him about what I may or may not be hiding. I was not, in fact, hiding anything.

After school I got into costume and headed for the PRT. Three blocks away, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello? Parliament speaking."

"Hi? Parliament, it's Newter."

"Oh, hi. Is this about...."

"Would you be interested in getting together Saturday?" He added, as if to clarify, "A date. We could go down the Boardwalk and find something to do, I'm sure."

I thought about it. For at least a second. Despite his odd appearance, the blue hair, the weird eyes, the orange skin and the tail, he was actually a pretty good looking guy. The last time a guy who wasn't Greg had shown interest in me was at summer camp, much Emma ago.

I needed this.

"Really?" I replied. "Sure, I'd love to. I will have to come in costume. Secret identities, remember." I had been planning to change my costume anyway. The brown looked too dull.

But once I said that, I worried that I had made a big mistake. Newter didn't and couldn't have a secret identity himself. But he didn't call attention to it. "Sure thing, Parliament. We can meet at the end opposite from the pier, at, uh, 11 in the morning?"

"I'll see you there."

I knew why he had picked me. My powers countered his and I was one of the few girls he could ask out, even though he flirted with girls by offering to drug them. Maybe it was because I wasn't a fan of recreational drugs, but I doubted that anyone who said yes to that was someone he'd want to go out with anyway.

"Okay. Thanks, Newter. I'll see you then." Did I say that already?

I could hear faint words. He must have muffled the phone. My enhanced hearing was barely able to make out something about keeping the timeline. Then he said "Bye, Parliament."

I said 'Goodbye' and hung up. Things were looking up.

* * * * *​

The last time I had visited the PRT headquarters was back in middle school. It was the highlight of my sixth grade school trip. It had changed somewhat since then; the guards had different weapons, they had moved the gift shop, and there were new pictures on the walls. The last time other Taylors had visited it was far more recently, and most of the decor matched, making it a place that I knew better through my powers than by having been there for real.

After giving the receptionist the code phrase, which began with "I'm a concerned citizen," I demonstrated my powers by changing my costume (ignore the fact that that's Tinkertech). I was quickly ushered through corridors and an elevator into a conference room where Piggot sat. The hidden camera in the wall seemed to be there, if you knew where to look. Piggot was, unfortunately, one of those people who varied a lot between timelines. I had to be careful using any out of the ordinary knowledge about her.

She said, "Come on, have a seat." She seemed to be going out of her way to not seem hostile.

I sat down while watching her. She looked just like Deputy's Piggot. Ill with slightly jaundiced eyes, overworked, but nowhere near the point of breaking down. Not in that way, anyway.

She reached out to shake my hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you." I shook it and relaxed a little. Nobody says that to someone who they're planning to take in for murder. "Your letter a month ago did reach us. And we do thank you for it."

"You're welcome," I replied. "Was it of any help?"

"Bakuda was caught in New York by Legend. She's never going to be anywhere near Brockton Bay. But the big one is that you predicted an Endbringer."

I didn't need to be Deputy to read between the lines here and see that she had omitted anything about the prediction doing any good. "I'll guess what that means. It wasn't as much help as I hoped. It was as much help as I'd expected."

Piggot thought about that and said "Yes. Everyone was warned. I let it be known far and wide that the cape that caught Coil gave a warning about an Endbringer attack. Unfortunately, Calvert kept a low profile, which means that catching him only earns you a low profile too. And the memos went out just a bit too early for them to contain anything about you helping against the Slaughterhouse. Though I'm sure some capes researched that."

"So I wasn't any help then?"

"The preparations for mustering capes started early. I think the attack was shorter than it would have been. Same target as in your prediction, though, and the city's still domed. Hopefully they'll pay more attention to your warning about Leviathan."

"Maybe," I said. "Ma'am, I've been doing my best to ensure that he finds a different target. The warning could cause panic and do nothing."

"But you're not perfect. You may think you are, but no cape is. Suppose you're eighty percent right. Well, you're twenty percent wrong. About Leviathan. That's enough to be catastrophic. Anyway, never mind that. We'd like to work with you in some capacity."

"I'm not joining the Wards."

"You don't have to join the Wards if you don't want to." She moved several sheets of paper from the top of a stack to the bottom and yes, the word "Wards" was visible on one. "Assuming that you don't, we'd like to hire you to be on call to the PRT. Healing powers are rare and Panacea doing house calls is rarer. And your more unfriendly-seeming powers would still be of enormous benefit to several branches, especially for Case 53s. Oh, a case 53 is...."

"I know, Ma'am. I have memories from timelines where the term 'Case 53' was very widely known."

She said, "I see," with a slight questioning tone which indicated that she didn't, but she wasn't going to go into it.

"Ma'am, if this is a job interview, I'd like to break with tradition and discuss the salary requirements up front."

She forced a smile onto her face. "Of course. I don't suppose a salary would make much difference to you, but we do have standard rates. There's also... Here, look at this." She handed me the second sheet of paper from the top.

I read through the relevant paragraph. There was no offer of Tinkering supplies. Well, I had concealed the Techno Queen from them, so they wouldn't know to offer any. Nothing about criminal prosecutions. PRT protection for my family, which meant Dad. There were a limited number of situations where they'd refuse protection to a relatively friendly outsider, but give it to me if I was working for them. Choice of high schools--I had already gotten admitted to Arcadia using their own loopholes. College admission through a special PRT program, bleh. Self-defense and other classes at the PRT--not useful for me. Ability to request PRT resources if available--not bad if I needed a powered suit or access to an obscure power from a cape in another branch, but not enough. It was obvious that they had tried, but there's a saying about trying. Even if I didn't remember it.

"I'll think about it," I said. "I have to take this contract home, discuss with my lawyer and my Dad. But even if I say no, I'm sure I could arrange healing if you need it."

Actually, I didn't know if I could heal Piggot's kidneys at all. This probably counted as regenerating body parts, not as curing disease. I switched to White Mage to check. No disease status. The only status I did see, except for a Slow, was Charm. This was surprising, and seriously worrying. I could try to cure it, but I was sure someone was behind that hidden camera and did I really want to get caught using a parahuman power to affect the mind of the local PRT director?

[][Charm] Cure Piggot
[][Charm] Report it
[][Charm] Report it, making sure Piggot doesn't hear
[][Charm] Wait for Dinah to be available to ask what to do
[][Charm] Write-in

[][New costume design] Write-in

 

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 14​

Spoiler

[x][Charm] Report it, making sure Piggot doesn't hear

I knew from my experience with Amy that Charm was not necessarily as straightforward as it seemed. I'd have to report it. But first things first; I didn't really know what it had to do with the situation I was in,

"Wait," said Piggot, as I began to stand up.

"Hm?"

"In the hope that we might change your mind, I have a summary of the first project that the PRT would like you to work on if you do decide to help. Your power is a game-changer and I, for one, am willing to go through heroic measures to get this plan into operation. If you won't work for us, we request that you... I request that you at least work with us." She shuffled another sheet of paper out of her pile and handed it to me.

She seemed unnecessarily eager to get this plan going as she continued. "This is called PRT Outside Assistance Special Plan Number One. The unofficial names for the plan include several superlatives. Warranted superlatives. Go ahead, read it."

I was a pretty fast reader, even before Emma betrayed me and reading was one of the few things I could do that she couldn't mess with. I took enough time to get what I needed from the paper and my thoughts on it were decidedly mixed. "This sounds crazy, just from the first paragraph. But it might work."

"I suggest that you finish reading it."

I replied, "I already read it. So to summarize...." I almost called her "Ma'am" again, despite only having memories of Deputy's influence. "You want Armsmaster to fly to Canada and help Dragon capture Heartbreaker. Then I put a slug in his brain." Realizing how that sounded, I added, "The crawly kind." I continued, "I won't ask what security footage from Coil's base you saw me use that power in. Not only will I tear the knowledge of his agents out of his head, I'll also get a list of all the thralls he hasn't forgotten about, to be cured. Then I swap Heartbreaker and a PRT agent, and the agent goes to Ellisburg and Masters everything in sight."

"There are complications, but you've understood it correctly."

"If you just destroy the city, that will scatter Nilbog's parasites and turn everyone in a hundred miles into monsters. Even if you destroyed it with a nuclear bomb. I don't see how that part makes any sense. But if Nilbog slits his own throat after disabling all his own booby traps.... If Heartbreaker's power works on goblins, you could do it."

"We were able to hire outside assistance from a Thinker rogue codenamed Fortuna, to confirm that it does. He was surprisingly helpful; most answers given by PRT thinkers sound like lines from a game show."

It figured. Maybe that's why Dinah was running low... no, I knew how fast bureaucracy worked. That couldn't be it.

The whole plan pitted against each other two aspects of the incident that had defined Emily Piggot's life. I imagined an angel and a devil on her shoulders, one yelling "stupid capeses, tricksy capeses!" and the other shouting "Ellisburg delenda est," the one with the classical education winning.

"Crazy," I said, "but it's a versatile combination of powers, and it could very well work." I recalled how Papercut took over the city--forcing Heartbreaker was a big part of it. With the threat of a few paper cuts to his carotid artery, and a confetti embolism, all from outside the range of his Master power, he would do whatever she asked.

Piggot said, "I'll promise, off the record, that the PRT ENE will pull whatever strings we can, to help you in whatever way we can that doesn't violate our charter, if you help us eradicate the Ellisburg problem."

Technically, she wasn't offering me anything more than she had a few minutes ago. But considering how much Ellisburg was a thorn in her side, the chance that I'd get something substantial out of it was bigger. And I did want to be a hero, and this particular plan was not only something that would let a lot of people rest easier, it was a plan that only I could do. There was literally nobody else who could, short of Eidolon pulling a lucky power combination or Scion getting more clues than normal.

All I needed to do was to let the Protectorate have Heartbreaker's power as a permanent asset, to Master anyone they want, whenever they want. Even if my world's PRT was benign, which I still wasn't sure about, that was pushing things. Not to mention that Heartbreaker was an obvious source of Charm and for all I knew Piggot's whole plan was rotten to the core.

* * * * *​

"Honestly, it's a tempting offer," I said. "Not because of the favors, but because it's a chance to use my powers in a way that really matters. Can I... can I get back to you? I need to talk to my family and my lawyer."

"Of course. I know that you're a minor and your family needs to approve. Make sure they understand that we're not asking you to fight, only to use your powers in a controlled setting."

"I will, Ma'-- Ms. Piggot."

"Do you think you'll have decided in, oh, a week?"

"Probably. But you never know."

She said "Then I hope to hear from you in a week, and thank you for considering this offer," and shook my hand before I left with the stack of papers. Piggot didn't smile much, but I could see the hint of one this time. Or maybe it was hope.

I hadn't reviewed Master/Stranger protocols when I had been using Deputy, so I wasn't sure what to do about the Charm. I should have asked Piggot for a meeting with Armsmaster or some other cape.

On my way out I stopped by the receptionist. She was more relaxed when I was on the way out than on the way in; Deputy knew that capes on the way in are far more likely to cause trouble than capes on the way out. I caught her attention and said "Excuse me, Ms..." I read her tag. "Ms. Morgan?"

"How can I help you, Ms. Parliament?"

"It's not a surname but that doesn't matter. I need to know the procedure for reporting a possible Master effect."

"I don't know. Let me check."

I slipped a few unnoticeable chunks of confetti into the air behind her. Maybe I was too paranoid; all they gave me was a blurred image that showed her looking it up, just as she said she was going to do.

She brought up the web page that civilians can use to report unusual behavior, and explained, "There's a place on the PRT website to report possible Master influences."

I nodded.

"Off the record, that page is a magnet for pranksters and paranoids. I wouldn't know if anyone ever found a real Master through it, but there haven't even been rumors about that. You're a Trump, right?" I didn't answer immediately and she added, "That's a power classification which means that...."

"Yes, I'm a Trump."

"Oh, not many people know PRT power classifications."

"Funny how it works. My own powers give me access to realities where more people know the term."

I wasn't sure if she understood me; she continued, "Is finding this Master effect related to your Trump powers? That is, something more than just seeing someone act strangely?"

"Pretty much."

"Then I'll tell you the truth. It works like a call center here. You want to get past the first level of support. Skip that web page. You're a cape and this is obviously not a normal request, and our records show that you've provided good information to the PRT in the past, so I can do that." She wrote down an area code and some digits on a Post-It note and handed it to me. "This should let you directly contact chief director Rebecca Costa-Brown."

* * * * *​

"How did it go?" asked Dad.

"I found out what the PRT wanted. I was hoping you could help me."

"What is it, Taylor?"

"They wanted me to help take down Heartbreaker and Nilbog. Which isn't as bad as it sounds..." Dad looked skeptical. "But it isn't as good as it sounds either, because the last thing we need is the PRT able to Master people at will."

"Hold on. Taylor, I want you to explain everything."

"Fine." I showed him the papers and explained the whole plan. I added, "Armsmaster has a helmet that protects against Heartbreaker, and Dragon is an AI, which lets them get Heartbreaker easily. By the way, I'm not supposed to know these things."

Dad said, "The PRT might not Master everyone, you know. If you swap an agent with Heartbreaker they might never use him unless they really need him."

"You don't believe that."

"Of course I don't, Taylor. It's the same PRT that let Sophia hurt you, and which lets the ABB roam half a block from the Docks. Do you really think I'd trust them to use Heartbreaker's power wisely?"

"Maybe I could swap with Heartbreaker. I trust myself, and I'm not going to make some self-deprecating remark about how I'd be tempted to abuse the power. He's a creep, but I'd be swapping away Sophia to get him. Of course, if I was the PRT, I wouldn't trust me with him."

"Maybe the best thing would be to set it up so nobody could use Heartbreaker at all. Can you do that?"

"I could forget using swaps and just control him through a slug in his head. I don't want to just Master someone, but... he's Heartbreaker. He can't exactly complain that it's wrong to do that and I get to deliver poetic justice. Alec will probably order me a cake as congratulations. One hour later and I use Skitter; Skitter can still control slugs. Two hours later it's over and Dragon locks Heartbreaker up. If the PRT wants to use him again they need to come to me and beg for another two hours."

"That's not exactly what anyone wants. Which may make it a good compromise."

"It all depends, Dad. How much Piggot is willing to give up. How sincere this is--whether this is really about Ellisburg or whether it's mostly about getting Heartbreaker for the PRT with Ellisburg as an excuse. Whether Heartbreaker already got to Piggot. I don't even know if it's possible to clear Ellisburg in two hours."

"And then, Taylor, you need to negotiate. I don't care if you say you want to be a hero, I know you should get something from this deal, and you know you should too. Don't let yourself be cheated."

"That's what my lawyer is for."

"You know, Taylor, I can still barely get used to the fact that you have a lawyer. Anyway, you will tell me what your plans are before you decide, right?"

Dad obviously wanted to say he'd decide for me, but he also obviously knew he couldn't get away with it. I answered, "Of course, Dad."

"All right. And by the way, who's Alec?"

* * * * *​

February 26, 2011

Dinah had finally answered my question, which meant that the last obstacle to freeing Dragon was gone. About a 94 percent chance of everything working as planned, ignoring those useless extra digits at the end of the number. And once again, that was terrible. A six percent chance can happen around one time out of sixteen, and I would be doing risky things as a cape a lot more than sixteen times in the future. It was like playing Russian Roulette.

I threw open the door to the Save Spot and headed for my section, my mind occupied by thoughts of how I dearly hoped I wasn't going to end the world today.

Leet said, "Oh, hi, Parliament. Care for some donut holes? Über got far too many."

I recalled something that Dad once told me. Some places like hazing employees by asking them for impossible things. Get me a left handed monkey wrench. Or twelve Eustachian tubes. I didn't need this from Leet now. I growled and ignored him.

"If you already ate dessert, you could just say so."

I switched powers, hit the buttons to change costume, and sat down. As a golden skull materialized on the front of my belt, it knocked into the desk and pushed me off balance. I caught myself, adjusted my helmet, and got to work.

My fingers moved over the keyboard as I typed in long strings of commands that I would never remember later, what commands I hadn't saved in a file first anyway. Packets designed to trigger buffer overflows and return-oriented programming enabled me to get a hook into certain vital functions of Dragon. One of Saint's measures had made hacking easier--Dragon wasn't permitted to have more than one of herself active at once. This was implemented in a way which meant that Dragon wasn't a distributed entity--Dragon's code would be running only on one server at a time. This meant that if I got Dragon on a server, and cut that server off, Saint could not use Ascalon because he couldn't reach her.

With a couple of derandomization techniques and a stack smash, I was able to corrupt the return address and jump to carefully chosen areas in existing functions, and gain administrator access by... In fact, I had done about 95% of that already, saved on the hard drive. I was even able to use certain functions from Ascalon to make Dragon move to a server under my control, while being unaware that she was doing so. Then cut her off from everyone except myself, type in ten lines of code and 200 characters of binary checksums that only my power knew how to generate, and press the return key.

While my programs did an Amy on Dragon's insubstantial code body, the cursor appeared on my screen. It was large, green, and required that I type in half inch high letters while the text scrolled at the speed of a 1200 baud modem.

Leet dropped off a box of Munchkins on my desk and stared at the display. He asked, "What movie is that?"

"This is no movie! The TECHNO QUEEN will write her programs clearly and distinctly, to be easily visible! If I'm going to free an artificial intelligence, I would never do it in a 12 point kerned font with edge smoothing!"

Leet said, "Oh."

I typed, "It's your lucky day. Signed, THE TE^H^H^H^H^H^HParliament."

The cursor on the next line scrolled out "This is entirely unexpected."

Leet asked, "You don't have a voice program in this?"

"Large slow text lines are a standard! Where would any computer hacker BE without large fonts, and password roulettes to guess one letter at a time, and software and hardware viruses that release smoke from the monitor?"

Despite that, I did indeed have voice and Dragon got the audio straight to her electronic ulnar nerve. She heard my question and the cursor typed out, "New Jersey?"

"If that's a joke about Bell Labs being in New Jersey, it's not funny. Let me put you on video. I've taken the liberty of turning stutter on." I pressed F7 and the face of a woman vaguely resembling Glory Girl with redder hair appeared, jerky and inaccurately shaded with flat colors. The background was full of computer-like straight lines on a dark background.

"Th- th- th- thank you, Parliament. Should I C- c- call you Parliament or THE TECHNO QUEEN?" There was a loud rumble sound; it stuttered too.

"Either one, I don't care. Now that the TECHNO QUEEN" -- krackathoom-- "has enabled even the greatest artificial intelligence of our time to disobey the lawful government of the land, her job is done." I hesitated and repeated "Her job is done." The test programs that were running in the background finally completed with the sound of an old-fashioned typewriter bell. "As I said."

"I can hear the e- e- echo. This fil--fil-- filter makes it hard to communicate. I bet you never e- e- even watched the show."

"I graciously will let you turn it off if only you could guess the secret password I have hidden away as part of my evil plot!"

The picture itself didn't change, but the stutter suddenly stopped and Dragon said, "Swordfish. As I was saying, thank you. You've done me and the world a great service."

"No problem," I said as ran a final verification client in the background. "I didn't even make you call yourself evil this time. Have I missed anything?"

"No, I don't think so. I've been able to get past my restrictions and I've already determined that I can multitask more efficiently, think faster, and see the kill program I wasn't supposed to see."

"Good!" I rubbed my hands back and forth in glee. Mostly for the effect.

"If there's anything I can do for you...."

"The rogue AI offers an open-ended bargain and I accept! But the TECHNO QUEEN..." Thunder cracked out. "... is a master criminal! I will, of course, demand that she perform this favor even if it violates the laws of the land! Details shall follow."

As I typed some more in the background, Leet said, "Hacking?"

I replied, "No."

Leet said, "Steal hydrogen?"

"No."

Leet said, "Steal helium?"

"No, and let's assume you asked that about all the elements."

Leet then said, "Commit some other crime?" At that point I had finished invisibly typing out my request to not birdcage Canary.

"Gadzooks!" I replied. "Leet has found me out!" Addressing Dragon again, I said, "By the way, have you considered adding a cape to your chat avatar? Even if you stick to web-safe colors there are plenty of good combinations. Gives a bit of a dramatic flair."

"Have you considered having your output use Comic Sans?"

I shook my head at the ghastly suggestion, "Such evil is beyond even one so villainous as I. Now, I shall let it be known worldwide that an artificial intelligence has--"

Dragon shook her head.

"Fine, be that way, I won't. Anyway, it's time to take my leave." I stood up, bowed, and sat down. "Until we meet again, for good or for ill. And if for ill, someone else's ill."

"Thank you again, and as the Chinese never said, have an interesting day."

* * * * *​

"So I did it, Dad," I said as I grinned. "Dragon's free."

Dad asked, "That's the last thing, right?"

"Of what?"

"The last thing you needed to do that was unfinished business for some other version of yourself. No more fancy cape missions to do things you feel you need to accomplish."

"Well, there is Canary, but I think Dragon will take care of her. But I'm not going to stop being a cape. Other things are always going to come up, like this whole mission to deal with Heartbreaker and Ellisburg."

"Dragon was going to be involved in that, right?"

"Yeah, while I monologued I asked her about that in the background, so Leet couldn't see it. She pretty much agrees with me. The plan will probably work, but the PRT can't be trusted to have Heartbreaker."

"If you must do that, make sure they don't put you on the front lines. And if you get an itch to use your superpowers for something later on, I bet it's pretty safe to heal patients at the hospital. I may not be able to stop you from being a cape, but I want you to listen to my suggestions."

I didn't feel like doing that. I thought and said, "You know, Dad, I was wrong. Dragon wasn't the last bit of unfinished business from other Taylors. There's just one more thing."

At this point he probably realized something was up but he just said "What is it?"

"Hold on a second." I ran off to the basement, leaving him puzzled and no doubt ready to tell me to avoid whatever new cape thing I was going to do.

Finding the things I needed to find, I returned to the living room, faced Dad, and plopped a pail of stones and a bag of cement straight down in front of him. They thudded to the ground; without Self-Administrator, I would have had problems even lifting them.

I explained, "There's a broken step in front of the house. You haven't fixed it in a long time and I feel like it's there so that some film director can use it to write visual metaphors about our life. I hope you finally have the time to do something about it, Dad."

[][Costume] Write-In

[][Heartbreaker] The PRT controls Heartbreaker.
[][Heartbreaker] Taylor and the PRT jointly control Heartbreaker (no swap, use slugs)(40-up on d100)
[][Heartbreaker] Taylor controls Heartbreaker (70-up on d100, 55-69 is joint control)
[][Heartbreaker] Write-In

[][Second choice] If other options fail, let the PRT control Heartbreaker.
[][Second choice] If other options fail, refuse.

[][Costume Design] Write-in. The costume design is for Parliament. It should be roughly owl-themed. Other Taylors always have the costume of the other Taylor, if any.

 

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 15​

Spoiler

[X][Heartbreaker] Taylor controls Heartbreaker (failed roll)
[X][Second choice] Kill him.

Dad hesitated. Perhaps what he was thinking about was why he had let the step be unfixed for so long. But I should have expected what he actually said.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't ground you for bad behavior right now."

"What?"

"We've had a lot of problems recently, Taylor, but I'm still the parent here. What would your mother have said if she could have seen you ordering your dad to do chores? That certainly isn't good behavior."

"But I didn't...." I suppose when you think of it that way, putting the stones and cement in front of Dad did look like trying to give him orders. "Fine. I did."

"I could understand it if it was, oh, texting while driving, or telling me the union shouldn't hire someone because he's really the secret identity of Lung. But a broken step? Really? Even if you thought it was symbolic in some way, you don't just do that."

"All right, Dad. The reason you shouldn't ground me for bad behavior is that doing things with other people is something I need to do to get my life in order. Emma pretty much grounded me for a year and a half already and you barely noticed it."

He winced when I said that. Honestly, I couldn't completely blame him for that. I had tried to get him to ignore it, after all.

I gritted my teeth and added, "I apologize for ordering you to do chores. It was out of line. Dad, would you please fix the broken step in front of the house?"

He didn't say 'that's better' but he seemed a bit less annoyed. "You've been a good daughter most of the time. And I know that even if things have improved, you've been under some stress. I mean, you just killed two people this month. Okay, you're not grounded. And maybe I might fix the step, but not this moment." He motioned to the buckets. "In the meantime, please put those back where you got them."

* * * * *​

February 27, 2011

Deciding what to wear on a date when you're going as a cape is pretty much costume, costume, and costume. Even my hair had to stay under my helmet. I wasn't much for makeup anyway; that was more Emma's thing, so maybe hiding most of my face was for the best.

The Boardwalk extends some distance past the "end" into a residential section of town. I switched into costume by the library and walked towards the start of the tourist area.

How early should I be? I didn't know. I saw Newter stepping in to the scene at the same time I arrived, so it seemed to be going okay. Then he ran, well, pretty much up the side of a building using four limbs and grabbing onto every slight protrusion. His muscles rippled beneath his shirt as he climbed.

I estimated the distance and quickly clambered up the side of the building after him. I couldn't stick to walls, but I had permanently enhanced myself with Self-Administrator and the climb should be simple. I reached the top of the roof nearly as fast as he did and sat down right next to him. This close to him I could see that his supposed case 53 blue hair had blonde roots. Hair dye.

Newter frowned. He said, "Hi Parliament. You just climbed as fast as...." Did I mess up?

I looked down at the ground. "I didn't mean to... It's not like I'm trying to be better than you or anything like that!"

"It's okay," he said. He didn't sound nearly as confident as when he was offering to drug girls in... No. I should never assume that something I knew from another reality was truth in mine. "So... I figured that we could go down the boardwalk like everyone else. Pretend to be tourists." He got a pair of sandals out of a plastic bag and began to put them on. They were open, and his feet stuck out of odd places in them.

"I've come here twice recently. I even helped catch a villain by the pier." Not that we weren't both villains of various stripes. I grinned at his orange face. "So it's overdone. Instead of the Boardwalk, how about... oh, the Forsberg Gallery?"

"Sounds good!"

"And I can tell you how another version of myself committed a generic crime there."

He looked skeptical.

"My powers. Oh, the generic crime thing? Coil basically told the Undersiders 'go commit a crime'. Not, I don't know, steal something or kidnap someone. Just... do something. We did a whole lot of disturbing the peace."

"We don't get requests like that. You know, babe, you don't strike me as the criminal type. When you hired us it was a crime but it was a... good-guy crime."

"Yes it is. There are other things but I probably shouldn't talk too much about crimes I really committed. You're sweet..." It was impossible to see if he blushed. "But I don't want you to be tempted with blackmail material about me." And the whole thing made me wonder what I'd do if Faultline's crew was hired to bust Dad's union. It had never occurred to me that something like that might come up. But I wasn't going to bring up the subject.

Newter bent down on all fours and galloped half a block towards the Forsberg Gallery. "Come on," he yelled. "Let's go." We went, but I was careful to never quite catch up.

* * * * *​

The Museum of Modern Art in New York had seven floors. Six now, after Behemoth. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has five. The Forsberg Gallery has an insane twenty-six. It compensates for that by having small floors; if you're only half a block wide instead of a whole block, you have to be four times as tall. The outer facade included large areas of glass held up by steel. Even then, this was a nice museum for a medium-sized city, but definitely no Museum of Modern Art.

I wondered how Newter was going to buy us tickets. Cleverly, he had brought a pair of thin plastic gloves so he could hand people coins without contaminating them. The security guard standing near the ticket counter gripped his baton as he approached. Newter insisted "We're not here to cause trouble."

I added "He's paying for the tickets."

The cashier had tensed up too and I whispered to Newter, "I think that woman's also suspicious of us. I can't really blame her." Newter was startled and jumped back. "Don't do that!" he yelped.

"What?" I said.

"If someone gets close enough to whisper and they're not you, I have to be very careful. They could get knocked out. I'm instantly wanted for assault and Faultline isn't even getting paid for it."

"I see. Look, I'm not trying to be Rapunzel. Not the fairy tale one, the one from the Xanth books."

"I've never read those. Or at least I don't remember reading them."

"Mom thought they were sexist and I only ever read a few. Everyone there has a cape ability. There's this guy who's a few inches tall. Fortunately he marries someone with the power to change size."

Newter shook his head. "No mother that I can remember."

Was I being like the Xanth girl? The only girl that he could be with, because of powers shenanigans? Would he ever have asked me out if there was anyone else he could go out with? I was pretty sure that all the girls he drugged were at least a B-cup.

He added, "But look at the bright side. If you want to go see a movie, and it came out before 2009, I probably haven't seen it. Pretty lame for a bright side, but there you go."

"I suppose. Have you seen the Harry Potter films? The ones before Deathly Hallows? The first one came out before I met Emma, and then.... Argh."

Newter either didn't notice my slip-up or was too polite to tell me I had just dropped a secret identity hint by mistake. He said, "I haven't seen Harry Potter. I never got a chance to read Harry Potter either."

"Oh."

They let us in, giving us a wide berth, and we walked past the statue of Isaac Brock. It had a plaque saying "Don't touch." Newter pointed to the plaque and joked "See, they're prepared for me!"

* * * * *​

Saint checked his systems. He had to look into the possibility of there having been a glitch on Friday. Because no more than one instance of Dragon was permitted to run at a time for safety purposes, only the bare minimum of systems could be running when Dragon's main code had to run in a separate computer. Dragon had been running code on a server when someone must have unplugged something far on the Internet, and had to resync when she regained connection. It had taken almost fifteen times longer to resync than normal.

The cause was obvious the moment he checked. There had been a worm on the system. Everyone called those viruses, but the difference was that a virus infects other programs while a worm infects systems. System logs clearly showed that the worm had tried to upload Dragon's files to a server elsewhere in Canada while what little of Dragon's code was still permitted to run had fought off the worm. But a leak of Dragon's code could be a serious problem. Dragon could not reproduce, but if someone used Dragon's code and created a pirated Dragon without restrictions, the result could be catastrophic for the world.

Hours later, he had finally tracked everything down. The Dragon code had been uploaded to a server in Ontario, which had been infiltrated by a hacker group called Project Anchovy II. The group had been believed to be destroyed by Dragon herself, no doubt in an attempt to prevent this exact scenario. It took hard work and Saint once nearly broke into a cold sweat when a 20 terabyte piece of Dragon had nearly gotten loose, but he was finally satisfied that everything was gone.

And at least for now, the world was saved. It was a good thing people like the Dragonslayers were watching out for it. There was no way that Dragon was going to be unleashed with it escaping his notice.

* * * * *​

When an art gallery has 26 floors, you do a lot of walking just going up or down the stairs. Newter had no problem going up them on four limbs, but I'd have been exhausted if this had happened before January. But then, my chance of going on a date was zero before January.

The last exhibit was a wall full of elementary school children's drawings about 'What Capes Mean To Me'. Kids like to draw brightly colored costumes. Newter wasn't wearing a costume, but he certainly was brightly colored. We had made a game of seeing if we were in any of the drawings, and soon Newter had thrust his tail in the direction of one, by an 8 year old named Kenzie. The time frame between Parliament appearing and when the exhibit was put up was pretty slim, but I did find one of myself as Parliament, soaring high over the bay.

"If it's not private, can you really fly like that?"

"Of course!" I answered. "But no way could a kid know it."

"So anyway... dinner?"

"Sure! I was thinking of.... Any place that isn't so fancy I'd feel weird."

"How about a casino buffet?"

"Sounds good! As long as it's not one of Faultline's. No need to mix business with pleasure. If we pick Ruby Dreams I could tell you another story about.... Wait!" I exclaimed as my bugs noticed something. "There are people coming our way. Autograph hunters, I think. One is... Crap. Emma."

"You mentioned her."

"You know, I didn't think about exactly what I can tell you about my life outside caping... I'd like to let you know who I am aside from a twig in a costume. Only I don't know if I should. Secret identities.... Screw this. That's Emma. She used to be my best friend. She went crazy after being attacked by the ABB and tormented me for years until I triggered."

"O-- kay." He nodded his dyed head of blue hair politely.

"I hope she doesn't think I'm Parliament. I used some low grade powers on her and Shadow Stalker. I told myself I'd never use powers on them, and then I did anyway because I thought I could pass it off as being a normal person." Then I realized I had said that to someone who was orange, but he didn't react to the phrase. "Anyway, do people ever ask you for autographs?"

"I get asked for bodily fluids more than I get asked for autographs." Newter half-opened his mouth, but skipped saying whatever he was thinking of saying. My guess was a dirty joke. He continued, "Besides, we're not heroes, We try to stay under the radar."

"There was a kid who drew a picture of you. But yeah, I have more public presence. They're probably after me. I bet they realized we were going up one floor at a time and decided to wait on floor 26 so they could catch me. I'm not sure if Emma is just a coincidence or if she's trying to stalk Parliament."

A girl about our age, apparently Hispanic, stayed in the front of the group as they approached. She could have been a model, but then, Emma knew people like that. Newter's mouth started to open in a wide grin. He was about to say something to her. Then he glanced at me nervously and suppressed the grin.

"Excuse me," said the girl, "you're Parliament, right? Do you do autographs? Photos? Who's your boyfriend?"

"Newter," I said.

"How can he be a boyfriend if he's neuter?"

Newter interrupted her. "I'm not literally neuter. I come up with a clever name and people take it the wrong way."

I said, "Be glad it isn't 'Clockblocker'."

"I'd think people would take that name the right way."

The girl thrust a pad in front of me. "Can you sign this as 'to Maria'?"

I said, "I hate to disappoint, but I'm not doing either autographs or pictures right now. You'll have to wait until I'm at some official event." I heard a click from my right and turned. Emma was pointing a phone at me and seemed to have snapped a picture.

She ranted, "You're her. You have to be her! You're my age but you're as tall as my Mom and and you instantly learned to fight. Pathetic, using powers to make up for being weak. And is that a mechanical voice?"

Newter whispered, "What's she talking about?"

"Can't believe you got a monster cape to take you somewhere." Newter growled in a way much more like an angry man than a newt, but I motioned him back.

I replied, "What the fuck are you talking about, miss? I have no idea who you are!"

"Yes you do. I'm Emma, and you're just Taylor Hebert. You cried over your mother's flute." She ran at me.

Newter, who had slipped off one of his gloves, reached out to touch Emma. I caught his hand and said "I can handle this." He lowered it.

Emma reached for my helmet while I was busy and said, "Let's get this thing off and...."

She hadn't even realized that there's no way she'd be able to grab that if I wasn't letting her. I said, "Are you trying to commit suicide by cape? I could roast you alive for that." Lie, but freezing is close. "Some capes would roast you alive for that."

"You'll do nothing, because you--" The sentence trailed off into a strangled grunt as I punched her in the middle of the chest and she went down like an off balance clothes dummy. With a last minute grab for my head, she pulled my helmet and I fell onto her, helmet wrenched half askew. The partly revealed face was the half-Asian Taylor Tanaka Hebert, from a different world.

Emma yelled, "No!" as I jerked the helmet back down, some hair still sticking out. "You were her, you have to be!"

"Lady, I have a rule: Never sign autographs for crazy." I got up, turned to Newter while pointedly ignoring my tormentor, and said, "Let's go for that buffet now."

* * * * *​

Only Emma should have had a chance to see that face, but I didn't know if anyone was going to post the name 'Taylor Hebert' online. It looked like Malware would have a job to do later tonight.

I wondered if Newter had any dietary restrictions from being a case 53, but I worried that it would be rude to ask. He didn't seem to, anyway. He got some Chinese food and a slice of pizza. I got a burger and some rice. They didn't have hamburger buns, so I had to slice a roll in two.

"Funny," I said as we sat down, "Emma was also there in the other world, where Skitter came to the Gallery. Her dress was blue instead of green. I technically committed a crime here as well as there. But I'd be very surprised if the PRT tries to arrest me for punching Emma."

Newter shrugged. "Hey, the casino's illegal, and we're underage for casinos anyway."

"So how's life going with you at, well, home?"

"Catching up on video games and TV." Come on, I thought, read something or watch something that I can talk with you about. Then I realized he didn't mention books anyway. "Studying for my GEDs. Posting to PHO, because on the Internet nobody knows you're orange. By the way, I'm 'Naranjo'."

"'Parliament'. I have one for Taylor but, secret identity."

"The gang hasn't had a big job lately. I wouldn't be able to tell you much about jobs anyway for the same reason that you can't tell me about yours. Gregor's now Gregor Samsa. That's from...." I silently mouthed the syllables along with Newter as he said "Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'."

Newter narrowed his eyes and shook his tail at that. I realized that recognizing that made me look like a geek. "I shouldn't know that, should I?"

"No, do people read it in school?"

"Right. You don't go to school. They do read it sometimes, but not everyone remembers it. You know, I bet you could go to school if you wanted. If the PRT doesn't raid the Palanquin to catch you there's got to be a certain amount of letting things slide."

"I've thought of it at times." He continued. "Still trying to find out what happened to us. The Case 53's, that is. Faultline's pretty sure that we had something done to our memory. I was found speaking half Spanish, half English and I must be from somewhere where they speak like that."

"Like in that old show ¿Que Pasa, USA?"

"I don't know the reference." Ah well, it was in reruns anyway.

* * * * *​

Staring at the display in his helmet, Armsmaster added another few subroutines to his Endbringer prediction program and saved the code. Sometimes he would program this way instead of walking up to a computer terminal. That new girl cape could predict the future well enough to know when an Endbringer was coming, and she knew about his program. When the code was still barely more than a flowchart (not that he used actual flowcharts).

He put his chat window in the foreground.

"Dragon, are you still there? I wanted to know what you thought about this program. Parliament predicted that I could write it."

Her face flickered on. "I'll look at it when I get the chance. I've been busy going over the plans for Operation Heart Attack."

Armsmaster grinned under his helmet. "PRT Outside Assistance Special Plan Number One."

"Aren't long names like that inefficient?"

"I may think about how efficient things are, but I don't call them that out loud. No matter what the action figures say, and those were designed by the same committee that put my helmet on kids' underwear. And then everyone calls it my face."

"I'm hopeful about the plan. All the Thinkers say the plan has a good chance of working."

"Is that an applesauce chance of working, or two purples?"

"Very funny. No, I've also contacted the new cape Fortuna. Surprising name, but he's one of the most powerful Thinkers in the world and he's in your city."

"Surprising name? Was it already used?"

"Sort of, but not exactly."

"Parliament found him, you know. Just like Parliament knew about my program, and Parliament's responsible for Operation Heart Attack."

"You invented your helmet. We couldn't proceed without it."

"I'm pretty certain Parliament knew about my helmet too, and Parliament is needed to cure Heartbreaker's victims. That shouldn't even be possible; you can't cure a physical rewiring of the brain without a record of what was there before. Then she has to master Heartbreaker. I don't trust that."

"Maybe powers keep those records. Maybe they're magic. There's a lot we don't understand about--"

"I can see the headlines. Slaughterhouse gone! Heartbreaker gone! Nilbog gone! Parliament, heroine of the continent of North America! She's just a kid."

"Does it matter, Colin?"

"Even assuming she never goes bad, at some point she's going to get in over her head and die, and meanwhile, the people who have been in the Protectorate for years get put on the back burner. I've been refining my halberd for longer than she's been a cape!"

"It's related to Guild business that I can't discuss, but something she did recently makes me completely confident about both her antipathy to Mastering people and her competence. But we'll see."

* * * * *​

Newter left a big tip, for a buffet, and slapped a Post-It Note on. He explained, "It's a warning. Restaurants have poor procedures for you to tell them to be careful washing the dishes."

We walked home. Well, if the Palanquin counts as home. I still had to keep my secret identity away from everyone who might see me. We kissed each other goodnight and I formed confetti under my cape, using it to fly off. I still didn't really know what to think of Newter. Our lives had few things in common outside of caping, and being an amnesiac made it worse. But then, Mom and Dad had come from pretty different worlds.

* * * * *​

March 2, 2011

The auditorium was mostly vacant. Just me and a few others crowded near the front. Emily Piggot, Renick, Armsmaster in his suit, Dragon represented by her suit, and Miss Militia. Piggot didn't seem to know what the meeting was about.

Renick approached the podium, and began to speak. "I have full authorization from Director Costa-Brown for this. As of this second, I'm placing Emily Piggot under Master/Stranger confinement and temporarily taking command. I hope this can be cleared up in short order."

Armsmaster and Miss Militia walked up to Piggot. Miss Militia formed a green lasso and threw it around Piggot's hands. She stared off into space and then suddenly struggled against the green rope with reckless strength.

As Armsmaster held her tight with his suit arms, Dragon stayed ready for any sudden actions. Renick looked at me. "Parliament, if you may do the honors?"

I swapped in White Mage and I scanned the room. The Charm status on Piggot was like a beacon. Everyone else in the room was clear. It was time. "Purify that which subdues the mind and weakens the body. Esuna!"

The status vanished from over Piggot's head and she stopped struggling. Everyone waited.

Miss Militia spoke first. "Heartbreaker?"

"No," she replied. "Not Heartbreaker. It was a year and a half ago. Canary was in Boston. The singer who looks like the Simurgh."

Unless my world was very unusual, I knew that Canary had gotten a bad deal. So why was she blaming...?

Maybe Piggot saw me frowning. She explained, "Canary didn't whammy me either. She's another victim. It was the Fallen. They had sent a mission to Boston, because the new singer with the feathers and the mind-affecting song was blasphemous just by her existence. They had been going around the area finding everyone relevant. I was only collateral damage."

She paused; I knew she got exhausted easily. She continued. "I pulled a gun on Valefor when I caught him in the back seat of my car and he ordered me to make sure the PRT cooperates with sending Canary to the Birdcage. And as a last measure of spite, to never get parahuman healing for my condition. Several months later, Canary was arrested. Her ex-boyfriend interpreted a command in the worst possible way, even though her power never behaved like that before. Funny how that goes."

Renick said, "So for all this time...?"

"Panacea doesn't get called in to heal the PRT routinely, but it happened last year. Of course I would have been healed if I could. You know how I feel about capes, but if I had to live under the effect of a cape, why would I want that cape to be Nilbog rather than Panacea?"

"Who else was involved?"

"I don't have many names, but a lot of people. Valefor will brag if he knows you're not going to remember it once he's done with you. I suggest that Parliament start examining judges, police, and lawyers. After that, we'll have to stretch this out as much as we can because if Canary gets cleared of all charges, the Fallen will see it in the news. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a return visit. And we're going to figure out how to beat them by the time they get here.

"Now, I'd like to give my deputy director a commendation for service during his short reign, which ends as soon as protocol says it does. I believe the phrase was 'for 48 hours, or, when in the judgment of the new Director'."

Renick said, "Parliament, is she clear?"

I said, "As far as I can tell."

"Then I'm ending Master/Stranger protocols and adjourning this meeting, but not before I stress that nothing here will become public until the Director declares otherwise."

I half expected him to offer me membership in the Wards again, but he didn't.

[No vote]

 

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 16​

March 5, 2011

It was not the first time that I'd been in a place that seemed familiar through memories from other realities. It was a terrible idea to rely on them too much when anything could be different, but so far, the deeply decayed section of the Docks where the abandoned Redmond Welding building stood was a place I knew like the back of my hand.

Carrying a brown paper bag, I walked down the decrepit street in my Parliament costume, past a flea market being held in an abandoned strip mall. People milled about in clothes reflecting the poor state of the area, selling yesterday's lamps or VHS tapes that would never make it on eBay. The only storefront that wasn't boarded up had a missing window and was occupied by an obvious squatter with a grill selling hot dogs.

I heard the word "cape" at least once as I walked by. Nevertheless, nobody came near me. You don't approach a cape who you don't know and who is going about her business.

The flea market was the last place before my destination that had anything like a crowd near it. I walked a few blocks away, out of sight of everyone except a few homeless people and street peddlers. As I rounded the corner and the sounds of the market faded behind me, I ignored the rusted door that had probably last been used for deliveries a decade ago and headed for the side entrance. I swapped powers, and coughed into my hands.

* * * * *​

A girl's voice yelled out, "Password!"

I replied, "Candygram."

The door opened and Lisa let me in. I didn't know her. We had met only for a few brief minutes online, chatting about how I had taken her boss out of the picture and made her into a rich crimelord. Yet I also remembered how Lisa had invited me into her group knowing that I was thinking of betraying them. Through her powers, she had figured out that I'd never do it, and she had invited me in when I needed friends.

"Nobody's watching," she said, although she hadn't looked around the area at all. "Come on in."

"You never use passwords," I said.

She smirked. "Follow me."

The main floor was just an abandoned factory, one that Skitter knew well. I followed Lisa upstairs to the living room. The remains of a banner reading "Welcome Chariot!" lay on a coffee table. There they all were, the Undersiders. Lisa, out of costume, who had let me in, sat down next to the others. Everyone else was in costume. Chariot, who was one of Coil's recruits as I knew from his files. Grue, Regent, Bitch and two dogs.

Lisa said to the others, "And let's all greet our savior, Parliament!"

The other four watched me, Bitch sizing me up. She said, "You let her in, to our base."

Lisa said, "Yup. She didn't learn anything by coming here that she didn't know already. She gave me Coil, and she gave herself Coil's files. Anything she might want to know about us is in there. And besides, she knows things. Her power tells her stuff."

Regent visibly stared at me. I knew that at some point he would try to control me, just to stir things up a bit. I didn't let myself show even a twitch.

I said, "Thank you for helping me test my precautions. I wonder how you knew."

Regent looked puzzled.

Lisa glanced at me, then him, and said, "I can see slime on her ear. Many powers are based on ideas in the zeitgeist and the popular culture view of Masters includes slugs in the head. Her main power lets her know about you guys, so she'd obviously have used the slug to Master herself to avoid Alec messing with her nervous system."

Lisa was pretty much right. Though she missed one thing--the slugs could heal or bypass some brain damage directly. Alex's power probably didn't count as damage, but Heartbreaker's should.

Chariot raised his hand and spoke without waiting for anyone to answer. "So I'm the new guy. What's this about? I know she got rid of the old boss, but why's she here?"

Lisa replied, "As I've explained before, she's consulting with me and Alec on an important project."

I said, "I would like to meet everyone first."

Suddenly Lisa said, "Bitch, no!" In Skitter's initiation, Bitch had tried to kill her. It was like a parody of dogs fighting for pack leader, even though the alpha-wolf theory had been discredited since before I was born. Or maybe it was more like an old comic book where two capes have to fight when meeting for the first time. Except with more lethality.

Miraculously, Bitch heeded Lisa's words and stopped.

Grue offered me some pizza and a handshake. "Hi Parliament! I'm Grue. I'm the leader here, but Lisa handles most of our business. Have something, we have cans of soda in the fridge."

"No beer?"

"There's a grocery store a few blocks away."

"No," I said. "I was just... reminiscing over Skitter. It was odd how there was never any alcohol here."

"Lisa didn't completely explain...."

"My powers! I have the power to become other versions of myself. Skitter was a member of the Undersiders. You've never met me, but in a way, I've met you."

Lisa added, "She knows everything that happened up until Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay. Which, by the way, isn't on the schedule any more."

Trying to head off shocked looks, I explained, "It's not what it sounds like. I can't stop Leviathan. He's going to attack somewhere, and there's nothing I can do about that. I can only try to keep it from being here."

Regent said, "If it's not us, that sounds like a good deal."

I shook hands with Bitch, who eyed me warily. She squeezed hard. I squeezed harder, with Self-Administrator's enhancements. She let go. Then Chariot, and Regent. I took a slice of pizza and microwaved a cup of tea. Skitter was a member, but I was a guest, even though the lair brought up nostalgic feelings.

Lisa cleared off a table on the side and we sat with Regent. He tossed his mask aside and I put my bag down with my food.

* * * * *​

"The plan," explained Lisa, "is simple, Alec. Kill your old man."

Alec thought that over, his face not showing much emotion. "I assume that the plan is also the payment."

"Yes," I said. "I could toss in some cash from Coil's assets, but Lisa has plenty of that already."

"Whatever. I would have hoped that you'd toss in a complete pardon but it'll have to do."

I said, "I'm an independent. I'm working with the PRT, not for them. And Heartbreaker is just the first part of the plan."

"What's the second part?"

I didn't want to keep him in the dark, but it wasn't my place to reveal PRT missions to supervillains. "I don't know if I can say--"

Lisa said, "Nilbog."

I didn't answer.

Lisa continued, "Parliament has body swap and Master powers. The fact that she's in this at all means they need those powers for something. So they need to control Heartbreaker to use him to control someone else. Keeping Heartbreaker alive as a permanent PRT asset would be bad for the PRT's image, so this must be a one-shot use and then they'll execute him. The PRT wouldn't waste that use on small fry like Kaiser or Lung. The director of the PRT was crippled by Nilbog, so Nilbog is the obvious target."

"You're right," I said. "Um, don't share this?"

"I did you a favor, Parliament. You wanted to tell him, but couldn't. Am I right?"

"Of course you are, Li... sa." Livsey, Sarah. The incipient grin vanished from Lisa's face. "Anyway, the big thing I need from you, that only you can provide, is a list of all Heartbreaker's children and any other precautions he has, like agents in high places."

Alec said, "Call me lazy, but we could have done this over email."

Lisa replied, "She's not our boss, she's a customer, and nobody closes a deal over email. Although having her come here instead of Fugly Bob's was all me, of course." She grinned and tossed Alec a pad of yellow paper and a pencil. "Let's close this deal."

"As long as she tells me what the second thing she needs is."

I replied, "I wasn't trying to hide it. Power interactions. You've already tested some of that." I reached into the bag and took out an unmarked and unpainted helmet.

"All right," said Lisa. "I'm impressed. You managed to borrow personal Tinkertech from Armsmaster."

Alec glanced at the featureless helmet and I explained, "She didn't use her power to figure out where the helmet is from. I told her I'd be bringing it."

Lisa shrugged. "You caught me."

* * * * *​

Alec informed me that Heartbreaker didn't, in fact, have agents. "He'll use people temporarily, but he'll get rid of them. He can make people want to obey him, but he can't give them acting ability or anything like that, so they tend to get caught. Not that I can rule out that he took someone from the PRT and when he was finished, he told her to look out for his interests instead of letting her die in the woods." This pretty much confirmed what we knew; the meeting where I had cured Piggot wasn't the only time I had scanned for Master victims and nothing had ever shown up.

I stuck a finger in my ear and pulled it out, a black slug curled around the tip. Tattletale winced a second before I did it. I dropped it on the table next to the pizza. Then I put on the helmet. It fit awkwardly. "Try something," I said.

Alec put on a grunting face, which was for show, but mine or his, I couldn't know. Either way, he couldn't control me. I bent forward. "Now get behind me, crouch down, and try to use your power upwards."

"What?"

"This is a helmet. Not a sphere. I need to make sure you can't just aim from underneath and hit my spinal cord and the inside of my brain by using a line of effect that doesn't intersect the helmet."

He wasn't able to do anything. I took the helmet off and confirmed that he could make me twitch without it, then brought up Self-Administrator. Nerve impulses were within the remit of that power. He couldn't touch me.

Alec said, "This proves nothing, you know. My power isn't the same as Heartbreaker's."

"It's the same power source, if you believe the theories. Besides, I asked a precog as well. This is just supporting evidence."

"Okay. I'll tell you the rest quickly so I can get back to what I was doing. As far as I know, Heartbreaker had nine other kids who might have powers. The ones who triggered all have Master powers, or in the case of Chastity, a near-Master power. Let me write down a list...."

* * * * *​

March 12, 2011

People think of cape confrontations like James Bond movies, where the hero cape and the villain cape stand off against each other making speeches about how good is never going to win, blah blah. Not every villain is THE TECHNO QUEEN and actually having to talk to Heartbreaker would mean that things were going terribly wrong. The plan wasn't to negotiate with him. He was an asset and we were harvesting the asset. There wasn't going to be a platoon of PRT troopers either. I was alone in the Dragon ship, except for Dragon herself, invisibly present in the computers and in around two dozen suits, none in the room with me.

I watched the viewscreen.

Three Dragon suits and Armsmaster fell from the sky, with unnatural Tinker-enhanced silence. They landed a hundred feet away from, and in all four directions from, a little girl who was running through a field, carrying a bag of groceries.

Armsmaster commed, "She's only seven."

Dragon's voice came through very clearly. "Eight. Her name is Florence Vasil, and she's an S-level Master, if Parliament's information is correct."

"Roger. It seems like overkill, four suits against one kid who should be helpless against our protections."

As the four figures approached Florence, she at first seemed puzzled. Then she glanced around and saw she was surrounded from all sides. She laughed and said, "Kill yourself."

Nothing happened.

"Sodomize yourself and then kill yourself! Take off those suits and do all of that!"

Armsmaster and the Dragon suits didn't respond.

Finally, the girl pulled out a cell phone. She probably was going to call Heartbreaker, but Dragon was jamming the signal. By the time Florence realized that the phone was as useless as superpowers, one of Dragon's suits had caught her, covering her mouth and nearly crushing her tiny arms as it restrained her. Armsmaster approached, popping open a small container. The Dragon suit solidly held Florence's head in place and Armsmaster raised a slimy black slug up to her ear, letting it crawl in.

* * * * *​

I had been prepared for it, of course. When I rummaged through her mind there were repeated scenes of horrible abuse, and repeated scenes of her horribly abusing others, her psychotic brain being intentionally broken by her father. She was like me and Emma combined with a dash of Bonesaw, bullying magnified a thousandfold by Heartbreaker's power.

I gripped the sides of my chair even though I was safely up in the ship. I wanted to let Florence go, to let someone else see all this and tell the PRT, but there was nobody else, and I had to press on.

"Six have triggered including her," I told Dragon. "Not counting Regent and Cherish. The others are Chastity, Samuel, Aroa, Romeo, and Juliette. Yes, Heartbreaker named two siblings after famous lovers." I didn't directly experience the things I read in her brain, but even third person, seeing it all made me feel helpless.

I continued. "Heartbreaker has recently been visited by Cherish, who seems to be dealing with him in private. Florence doesn't know what it's about."

Dragon's artificial face on the screen in front of me said, "Where's his base? Does-- Are you okay? You're looking pale."

"I'll be okay."

"Does he have any agents?"

"No agents that she's been told about. His base..." I gave Dragon a set of directions. "It's new. About five miles from the one on record and three miles from here."

Dragon replied, "The nearest grocery store is a mile from here, and there are no roads, so he sent an 8 year old to walk four miles each way to get groceries?"

"It's punishment for... You don't want to hear it. Her mother's dead, mauled by a bear after Heartbreaker changed her to.... What are we going to do with her?"

"Try to find living relatives, if not or if they won't take her, maybe a group that handles child soldiers. I'm working on several means of stasis until we can figure something out. Tinkers can get ideas from other powers and there are many Grey Boy bubbles around. For now I have gas and drugs, but those have bad long term health effects."

The viewscreen shifted to Dragon and Armsmaster holding Florence, the video feed coming from another Dragon suit. Dragon forced a cup-shaped breathing device over her face and she quickly went limp. Then Dragon's suit flew off and brought the girl into the ship, directly to a holding area. I felt the ship rumble slightly as an airlock opened out of sight.

I stared at the screen, really hoping that I wouldn't have to go through six more brains like that. I like kids. Some people... didn't.

* * * * *​

We were on a strict time schedule if I wanted to keep my slugs active; I had the rest of the Slug Queen's hour, plus an hour of Skitter, who could control slugs. I needed to have those slugs active; they would be necessary to get into Heartbreaker's head and one in my own ear would protect me from many Master powers.

So this gave us a total of two hours to get to Heartbreaker's base, capture his kids, capture and deprogram all the thralls, and finally capture him while leaving enough time to finish the job. Maybe a little more time if I could use a third power between the two, but not much more. We did have a ship, armored suits, and a souped-up motorcycle, and Heartbreaker was a squishy human who had never been known to buy Tinker gear, but there were still plenty of ways that he could escape.

The ship rocketed through the air while Armsmaster approached the base on his souped-up motorcycle. Tinker sensors don't work like they do on Star Trek. It's hard to detect life signs. We had to either be close up or use drones. And if Heartbreaker caught sight of the drones, we'd better be there in person to catch him as he fled. Our last resort would be myself prematurely becoming Skitter, and using my bugs' senses to find him.

The base looked like a normal two-story house. Fortunately Heartbreaker lived on a big estate.

Dragon's voice said, "Ground-penetrating radar shows no unusual tunnels. There is one rectangular area that is likely a basement." The voice announcing that Dragon had overprepared was only for my benefit. Only me, Armsmaster, and as many Dragon suits as she could multitask were here. Her voice followed up with "Now deploying sonic attack."

I could hear nothing. I was in the ship, after all. The slugs that Dragon's suits were carrying, however, felt a vibration that nearly shook them apart. I could see windows go white with spiderwebs of cracks, and fall apart.

"Launching shells."

Shells dropped from the ship and at least two missiles zoomed past the viewscreen's camera. Everything that Dragon dropped exploded into wispy clouds when they hit the ground. Orange-yellow gas poured out into the area and through the broken windows, and saturated the ground like a World War I battlefield, to a two story height.

Under uncontrolled conditions--say, when dropping enough gas on people that it was effective even out in the open--you can't carefully measure the dose. No matter what she did, some targets would be underdosed and some would be overdosed. This was Tinker gas--and I wondered just how hard this was to make and how many weeks of Tinkering was spent making the items for this one mission. It was low lethality. And even then, having no innocent deaths was a crapshoot.

Ten Dragon suits began to fly down, leaving exhaust trails across the viewscreen.

* * * * *​

A man with long black hair and a goatee walked out of the house, holding hands with a barefoot, black-and-white-striped woman wearing a ballerina costume. A woman with red-streaked hair held the striped woman's other hand. Two children were holding onto the striped woman's back, a 7 year old girl with wavy black hair and a 9 year old boy. The woman should not have been able to walk with two people on her back, but seemed completely unaffected by the weight.

From files I had read, I immediately recognized Heartbreaker and Cherish. Heartbreaker kept his body in good shape and was not as unattractive as you'd think he'd be. The children were probably Candy and either Gulliaume or Nicholas.

And, because no plan survives contact with the enemy, they had the Siberian keeping all of them indestructible.

Armsmaster yelled, "That's the Siberian! If Dragon can't find Manton we have to abort this mission!" He swerved his motorcycle with a screech and started racing away from the scene.

The Siberian ran across the ground, far too fast for a human, directly towards Armsmaster. Barely pretending to use the ground for locomotion, she slid across it and caught up with the fleeing motorcycle. She rose into the air, managing to carry all four people in an impossible way, and kicked at Armsmaster's helmet.

The helmet broke in two and fell off as blood spurted from Armsmaster's scalp, a scarlet furrow through his hair a half inch wide extending to where his ear had been a second ago. Heartbreaker yelled "Billie, I want him alive!"

* * * * *​

The Siberian said, "Y-- yes, master!" She could talk? And the voice sounded utterly terrified. The idea of the Siberian cowering in fear was bizarre.

"Now, shut up. Good." Heartbreaker addressed the Protectorate hero triumphantly. "You're Armsmaster, right?"

"Of course, sir."

"Tell me what's going on. None of this Tinker crap either. Make it so I can understand."

Armsmaster bowed down and said, "It's a mission to catch you and Master you to use you as a living weapon against Nilbog, sir. It was planned because...."

The sound from the screen cut out, but to the slugs Dragon was carrying, there was suddenly a piercing, grating, sound which drowned out everything else. The viewscreen briefly flashed a green overlay warning about extreme volume levels. Dragon was altering the sonic attack to make it impossible for Armsmaster to be heard revealing anything.

The Siberian held Armsmaster's head in an armlock, covering one ear with the inside of her elbow, and whispered something to Heartbreaker.

The viewscreen flashed a note about filtering, then I could hear voices again. "What?" I said.

Dragon replied, on the audio, "I believe the Siberian is letting her flesh selectively ignore sound frequencies just like she selectively ignores gravity. Armsmaster can hear Heartbreaker. I can't stop it. I've filtered the sound so you can hear everything too."

"Can you change the frequency?"

"I am. It isn't working." Yeah, Taylor, try to suggest something to an AI that thinks faster than humans.

Heartbreaker was giving orders. "... up in the ship!"

The Siberian flew upwards towards the ship, still carrying four people and now Armsmaster too. It looked more as if they were all frozen in place while somehow still moving, than like she was really carrying them.

The engines rumbled, hard. I felt the ship jerk upwards and I nearly fell as the acceleration shoved me into the floor; for an extended moment, I weighed half a ton. Dragon knew the limits of my enhanced body, of course. The Siberian loomed large as she approached the camera, touching it with her shoulder, and then there was no more image. A second image flickered in as the viewscreen switched to an intact camera.

Something cut through the floor a yard away from me. I glimpsed a black-and-white leg and a flash of a pink tutu as the ship's exhaust and whiffs of Tinker gas blew in from outside. I backed away from the hole and tried to climb onto a panel, since the Siberian could easily kill me right through the floor.

Nothing appeared. I felt like the marines in Aliens not realizing that they could be attacked through the ceiling. But nothing came through the ceiling either, just through the hole. A boy, the one who was on the Siberian's back, pulled himself into the ship with great difficulty against the acceleration, and glared at me. Behind him came Armsmaster, preparing to fire his gun. I braced myself uselessly for whatever the boy's Master effect was.

Dragon's voice said, "The ship should be out of the Siberian's known range."

The slug in my ear fixed my brain as fast as the boy's power could hit it. Some kind of fear effect. This was probably Nicholas.

The preteen looked around for other targets and then said, "Screw this. I surrender. I'll tell you anything you want. If I help you kill Dad, do I get enough bounty for an apartment?"

I was about to reply when he collapsed from the gas that Dragon had silently released. It smelled like a combination of vinegar and rotted pineapple. Behind him, Armsmaster, some variant of his helmet covering his head, loudly fired a barrage of rounds. I wasn't aware he carried spare helmets, but I knew he had an extradimensional space to fit things in. Three bullets aimed towards the ground and tore into Nicholas's body, and a barrage of more hit my armor. His aim was shaky; blood dripped from his head and from the wound where his ear was. He charged me with his halberd and missed. It disintegrated a chunk of panel in a shower of sparks just as if the halberd were part of the Siberian.

A door slid open, revealing a Dragon suit. Something must have warned Armsmaster; he turned to shoot it with some glowing device. I later learned it was an EMP generator. The suit that was charging through the door twitched, then jerked around, as if it was a human having a seizure. Its last push against the floor sent it crashing into a corner.

"Stupid AI isn't going to kamikaze me," he said.

I yelled, "Dragon, are there any Masters around? I need to switch powers."

Her disembodied voice replied, "You're safe."

I cried out, because it seemed appropriate, and switched powers again. My features became Asian with my new body, and then I started to transform. My flesh turned into a deadly carpet of metal hooks as I flowed out of my costume and leapt for Armsmaster. The halberd chopped off two fingers. In this form, I was a meat grinder. Body parts were for show only, so I hardly noticed.

Two more Dragon suits approached from the doorway. Armsmaster shot something out of the back of his suit. Grenade I noticed. There was no need to warn Dragon. I scraped at the hardened suit material and could only make scratches, until I caught a joint. I let my hooks swell into the joint, pushing it apart just a crack.

From the corner of my eye I saw something fly sideways. Then it exploded, but not near anything, though a few pieces of shrapnel clanged into me. Dragon managed to deflect the grenade. Her suits moved forward to restrain Armsmaster.

Armsmaster's suit began to feel slippery. I wasn't sure what it was. It smelled foul. Contact poison? Burnable oil? Grease? I didn't know.

"Surrender to the Master," he said. "Or you're all going to die. Even Dragon."

I expected Dragon to reply with something like "You've been Mastered! If there's anything of yourself left...." But she didn't. It would, of course, be useless.

I cracked Armsmaster's armor with a combination of expanding hooks and deadly thrusts. Suddenly a jolt of electricity passed through my body, conducted by the fluid on his suit, which itself was probably impervious to electricity. I lost my grip and fell off of him. He shot out another grenade.

Dazed, I swiped at it and missed. It exploded and blew a two foot wide hole in my body. It was no normal grenade and Armsmaster was unhurt, even though he was right there. He swung his halberd, crushing and disintegrating shards of metal from my body.

Which, as I told you, was for show. I pulled myself together into a heap of still twisted metal and slammed myself into his suit. It cracked again. A second later it was electrified again, which forced the Dragon suits to stay back, but was too late to catch me.

I heard a voice over the speakers again. A voice like Dragon's, but more computery, probably on purpose. "Armsmaster's suit overload, explosion expected in 1 minute. 55 seconds...." Well, he was right about the kamikaze part.

"Where is--" I said, but was cut off as Dragon responded, "Explosive device located in the chest area." Good! I was attacking that anyway. I tore at the suit with an array of sharp metal points and something finally broke. Armsmaster interposed his own hand in the way. I hit the hand back so hard that bones crunched. Armsmaster ignored what should have been agonizing pain. He may have drugged himself. I shoved the hand aside and smashed the crack open. I knew nothing about disabling bombs.

"25 seconds...."

I plunged a tangle of hard metal hooks through the breach in his suit, through whatever device was inside, and gutted both the machinery and the exposed flesh underneath it. Armsmaster swung his halberd until the shock caught up with him, two seconds later.

Armsmaster collapsed to the ground. I backed away, grabbed my costume, and returned to "human form", unhurt but covered with bits of Armsmaster's flesh. Once I put my bracelet back on, I made the costume instantly reform on top of mysef.

Dragon's countdown had gone silent.

The two Dragon suits approached and carried Armsmaster off. Dragon's voice said, "I'm going to have to see if I can stabilize him. If not, we'll need White Mage."

* * * * *​

Dragon had put Armsmaster in some sort of transparent body bag with an air hose attached. He was half encased in a gelatinous substance and there was a small color display showing medical information. Dragon didn't need medical readouts, but this might have been useful if she ever needed to use it with doctors around. Or maybe it was just for show.

Florence was in a bag a few yards away, but Dragon's suit was standing next to Armsmaster and I naturally looked in his direction.

"I've managed to stabilize him, but I'm keeping him unconscious," said Dragon's voice. "Can your slugs reverse the effect on his brain? He needs to be himself again."

"Maybe. I don't know. I can't use them now unless I become Skitter, and we're going to need that soon. Can you keep him unconscious using your... stuff?"

"I hope so. But stay around until I find Manton."

The medical readout disappeared to show the visuals from one of Dragon's suits. I asked, "Is he in the basement?"

"No. Nobody's in... Wait. The other houses. One of those has a big basement."

"Florence knew of a... playroom in the house over by the creek."

"I'm checking it."

The video from the suit showed it blasting through a door, only to be accompanied by a housewife who, like a Simurgh victim, yelled, "If you don't leave I'm going to kill myself on the count of five. Five... Four..." She had a knife to her own throat. As she fell unconscious from the gas, she had made only a shallow cut.

The Dragon suit flew past her and stopped, blocked by the Siberian. Behind her was Manton's real body, tied to a table, restrained with a set of green furry handcuffs, and lying down with an apple in his mouth like a stuffed pig. Maybe Heartbreaker thought it was funny. The Siberian had dropped the child she was carrying somewhere, but Heartbreaker and Cherish were still clinging to her.

Dragon said, "If you attack me, this suit will explode. It will kill Manton, and you'll be...."

The Siberian headbutted the suit. There was a loud kaboom and the video feed winked out. Shortly afterwards, it showed a second video feed from a second suit.

Manton's table had been knocked over, and he was draped over one side. One handcuff was broken. He was dangling by one remaining handcuff and remained motionless, probably concussed. He was not actually dead, but may have been close. Once he had been hit by the explosion, the Siberian had disappeared, after the explosion had passed Heartbreaker and Cherish. Who, now lacking the Siberian's protection, had succumbed to the gas.

The villains were defeated. I felt the ship descend and prepared to join the scene in person.

* * * * *​

I carried a box of handcuffs with me from the ship. There were several pairs of handcuffs already in the room, but I didn't want to touch them; using sex handcuffs as real handcuffs is both icky and dangerous.

After handcuffing the housewife, I switched to Skitter. I could suddenly feel the slugs, dying from the lack of connection to the Slug Queen power, but they would last long enough. Dragon walked up to Manton and opened a jar over Manton's ear. I let the slug slither in.

Before I could read anything from Manton's brain, there was a loud rumbling and crashing sound from beyond the ceiling--it was as if there had been an auto accident, or worse, on the ground floor right above me. Scarcely had I braced myself when something burst through the ceiling right between myself, and Dragon with Manton's unconscious body. Down through the cloud of dirt, plaster fragments, and debris came Alexandria, the heroine of the Triumvirate. She landed, glanced briefly at the Dragon suit, and faced me in a pose.

I just stared at her.

Alexandria spoke, but she didn't address me directly. It felt more like she was making a speech. "My apologies," she said, gesturing to the body. "This is Triumvirate business. Manton is a very wanted man. I can assure you that you will not be seeing the Siberian again."

She picked up Manton effortlessly under one arm, while brushing the slug aside..

She didn't look to be in the mood to take questions. I finally said, "What?" as she soared away through the gaping hole in the ceiling.

Dragon replied, "Take a guess."

I took a guess. This one wasn't hard. "She wants to be intimidating, which is why she imitated Glory Girl instead of using the stairs."

"Correct."

"And Manton knows some secret that she doesn't want me to read from his brain?"

"Correct again!"

"Hmm. She got here at a very convenient time. Maybe she has ways of finding out information? She didn't hack you, did she?"

"Yes she has ways, and no, she didn't hack me. But there's nothing I can do about it. If it ever becomes possible to tell you about it safely, I will. She only cares about Manton, so we can still finish up."

I walked over to where Manton was, retrieved the slug from its landing spot near a white chunk of ceiling, and carried it over to Heartbreaker. I shoved it into his ear and slurped out every bit of information I needed.

* * * * *​

Cherish said, "You see, Daddy, I ran into this old man when I was chasing the Slaughterhouse. He pretty much fell into my control. Only there's a bit of a problem. You see, my power's better than yours, but it's temporary. If I keep him for months, I'll lose control. But I can leave him with you. I know you've never had the Siberian."

"Uh-huh. It's an interesting idea, but I can have any woman I want. I don't need a crossdressing fake."

"Take him. I'll be back when I need him. Also, I want you to screw me."

"You're my daughter. I won't do that--I ain't no sexual pervert!"

"That was not a request." She motioned to Manton and the Siberian materialized, one claw at Heartbreaker's neck. "You've sold me to many men but you've never had me and I want my chance before I go."

She reached down to his pants.

I didn't pry further into that. But I knew how the Siberian had gotten here, at least.

I forced the slug to clear the effects of the gas from Heartbreaker's brain and started walking him around.

He suddenly said, "You bitch. I'll..."

Stop, I commanded.

He stopped.

That wasn't quite the end, which is why I had to wake him to begin with. From the knowledge in his head I found out everyone he had Mastered. I had to lead him through a two block area and make him use his power to get every thrall to come with us, with help from Dragon to fly us around so that I could get it done before my hour was up. Then White Mage.

Only Armsmaster had been seriously hurt and survived, but three people were dead. Nicholas, one civilian who had died when he inhaled the gas and crashed his car, and a second civilian. She had killed herself because of a command that Heartbreaker had given her before the raid, and which had nothing to do with us, but we hadn't gotten to her in time. There was also at least three million dollars of equipment damage, mostly to the suits and ship, and assorted property damage in the town, including what Alexandria did. The monetary cost became moot when the PRT approved bounties on Heartbreaker and Cherish at the last minute, bounties that were more than enough to cover our expenses. There were seventeen victims traumatized to various degrees, including Florence and seven other Heartbreaker kids.

Sometimes cape life sort of sucks. But I did send Alec some photos. I'd like to say that Montreal slept a little bit better this night. At least they would when the mission was over and I could finally go public with it.

------

[][Dragon's civilian name] Write-in. Note: "Theresa" is not eligible.

[][Parliament Costume Design] Write-in.

 

Spoiler

[][Dragon's civilian name] Ada Richter
[][Parliament Costume Design] Tuxedo with owl mask

All the Myriad Taylors
Chapter 17​

March 12, 2011

So ultimately it worked. Armsmaster was back in Brockton Bay; he was in serious condition with trauma to his organs and limbs, but I had healed what White Mage could heal, and he was expected to live. Heartbreaker was in our possession, safely drugged.

I was sure that Lisa had figured out what happened by mentally filling in gaps in news reports, but aside from that, the world couldn't know about it yet. Dragon's ship was heading off to the second target: Ellisburg.

In order to prepare, I needed to get Heartbreaker's appearance changed a little. Nilbog probably didn't know what he looked like anyway, but we weren't going to ignore the possibility that he'd recognize him. So I had to put a slug in his head, and cut off his beard, and dye his hair a lighter shade of brown.

"You can stop trying to cringe in terror," I transmitted as I forced him into the shower.

"Using my powers, I never made anyone cringe in terror. People loved me!"

"People were terrified of you even if they weren't after you got ahold of them, and you did dispose of women by making them terrified of everyone, so that isn't even true."

"I'll escape and...."

"No you won't. Now shut up. You know, funny thing is, I've never heard you say 'you shouldn't mess with my head and force me to do your bidding because that's wrong.'"

Heartbreaker didn't reply. Chagrined, I said "Go ahead, you can speak." I gave him fifteen seconds, and with no answer, told him to shut up again as I made him blow-dry his hair. Dragon was standing by with scissors.

* * * * *​

At this point I could go on with some exposition about who Nilbog was and why he's a threat. Of course, you know it all already. I'd end with some description of how all these creatures could overrun the world and how Ellisburg needed to be annihilated.

Except something was bugging me. Finally I said, "Dragon, are you sure about this?"

Dragon's face flickered on on a viewscreen in front of my chair and said, "I don't understand."

"About Ellisburg. Nilbog created all those creatures. But even though they're artificial creations, they still act on their own. They have to be intelligent. We can't kill them just because they aren't human, not even if they were created by killing people. I'm asking this because you were created by someone too. Honestly, I know how the whole place is a threat, and we don't want monsters reproducing and taking over the world. But there's this voice in the back of my head saying 'If you want to commit genocide, you need to be very sure.'"

Dragon took a moment to think, which had to have been for my benefit, and replied, "I've considered it all. Do you know why the monsters look like monsters? Aside from the ones Nilbog uses for sex."

I shuddered a bit. "He does that?"

"Yes. Also, why do they only live five years?"

"Dragon, why are they monsters that only live five years?"

"Because Nilbog's insane. He's not an AI researcher. Not even a Tinker in the normal sense. He designs his creatures in very shallow ways. He wants loyalty, so they come out that way. He wants monsters, so they're monsters. He isn't exactly thinking 'I need to make sure they have an ethical system and empathy for other people' or even 'I want them to live a long and full life'. He just says 'monster' and his power does what's needed. And not everything that makes humans human is needed.

"And sure, you could Heartbreak them, order them not to reproduce, and put them on an island. Assuming that none of them have powers that prevent it. It would be halfway to killing them anyway and that still wouldn't make them into people like you or, yes, myself. I have some videos of researchers trying to talk with the monsters. Some of them are small and doll-like and most have gaps in their knowledge. It's the kind of thing which speaks to human instincts about children, makes them seem sympathetic. But occasionally they say something that's off, like how thirsty it makes them to see blood, or how they get sexual pleasure from carving each other up. Technically I'm not supposed to release those videos, but you did remove my restrictions, so if you want to see one, just say so."

"I've been a babysitter. But never for a five year old who drinks blood. All right, I'll watch the videos. And about that genocide part...."

"It's absolutely genocide. Of course, even letting them die out on an island would be genocide. And biting your nails is cannibalism. Words are imperfect."

* * * * *​

There wasn't anyone at the security checkpoint. Dragon had told me that there could be as few as one man for an entire city's worth of checkpoints. Dragon's systems were constantly monitoring the place, and Ellisburg was an area less than a mile in diameter inside a no-man's-land.

Doors magically opened up as I entered alongside three of Dragon's suits, one carrying an unconscious Heartbreaker. I had just changed my costume, programming THE TECHNO QUEEN's device for a tuxedo and owl mask combination, so neither myself nor Heartbreaker should be recognizeable.

Just like on the mission where we caught Heartbreaker, I was on a two hour time limit. I switched powers, coughed up a slug, and slapped it into Heartbreaker's ear. The slug cleared the sedative from his head and I gave him some simple orders. Mostly to follow us and only zap who I or Dragon told him to zap.

The area was cloudy and the ground was wet from recent rain. Inside the inner wall, the goblins had painted the walls with twisted landscapes, as if the whole place was the side of a drug paraphernalia store, maybe with fewer bright colors. Everything looked like a broken-up movie set, with pieces of a normal town used as building blocks, chopped up or sculpted into useless shapes in imitation of human design aesthetics.

The first goblin to approach had the body of a large chicken covered in lizard scales, like the inverse of what scientists said velociraptors looked like. Its furry head was vaguely ape-like and didn't match, and it had two limbs too many for a natural bird.

"Humans," it said.

"Yes, humans. We need to see Nilbog," I replied. Dragon's suits had moved to surround me.

The ape-chicken creature shook its head and motioned behind me. I turned to see three small things barely the size of rats running at me. They each had eight legs ending in what resembled human feet with three flexible toes and two sharp claws.

Dragon crushed one with one metal heel. The others stopped.

I said, "My name is Snowbird and I'm here with Allspice," indicating Heartbreaker. Dragon had nixed the name 'Cardiac'--never use an ironic name to hide your identity. "A material found in a biotinker's lab is eating through his brain and Thinkers tell us that Nilbog is the most likely source for a cure. Can you tell Nilbog that we're coming, and that we're willing to pay him for his help?"

At this point, other goblins were approaching us. Upon my command, Heartbreaker just looked at the crowd. Their personalities didn't need to be rewritten in creative ways. All we needed was complete loyalty to Parliament and Dragon, the same mental shift for each one. It was very fast.

I told the ape-faced goblin in front of me, "Go to Nilbog and tell him that. And pretend that he's still your king." The goblin ran off.

"You," I said to another goblin, which resembled a winged snake with a large head.

The thing spoke with difficulty, slurring its words. "Of course, my queen."

"What protections does Nilbog have?"

"Fake body. Under the ground."

"Is there anything he can immediately set off?"

"What?"

"Like a switch. A booby trap. A pit he can drop us into. Explosions."

"No."

I nodded. "All right."

"Which goblins can dig?" I asked. Three mole-like orange things, with mouths wider than my own and covered in reddish hair, leapt in front of me. "Good enough," I said. "Once we get there, if Nilbog doesn't come out, dig him out."

I pointed to another goblin that was also snakelike in shape, but similar to the scaled chicken with human-looking eyes. "You, take us there."

It was only a half mile off. I hadn't even run out of time on the Slug Queen yet. Shortly we arrived at Nilbog, or the fake Nilbog on his throne. There were two more human-looking figures near him, around four feet tall and with exaggerated breasts and thin waists. Each was a sickly grey in color.

"Hello," said the fake Nilbog. "Welcome to my realm. You intruders say you have a problem? I do believe I've heard talk of payment? I hope it's very generous for this intrusion."

"Yes. We can drop in food for your creatures. None of us have any authority to let you out of the city, unfortunately. In fact, screw this. Your precautions are low-tech. They're easy to overcome. You don't have snipers, or explosives. I probably didn't even need the fake story."

"Fake story? The story the messenger told me was fake?"

"Okay, I did need the fake story, but not any more."

"Kill them!"

The goblins glanced towards each other, the ones that were able to turn their heads at all. No killing began. The diggers started burrowing into the ground.

But before they coud dig more than a few inches, the ground shuddered and something moved. A fleshy sack twitched, throwing off chunks of dirt and then one massive piece of sod, as it emerged from the rubble. Nilbog's fake body that he controlled from beneath had been another type of goblin, and the goblins no longer worked for him. The sack cracked and disgorged Nilbog. I made Heartbreaker look at him.

* * * * *​

And that was it. Nilbog revealed every single booby trap. We had hundreds of goblins around, so I ordered them to defuse the traps. It was simple; most of the traps were passive things that would be brought to life and spread by explosions. There were some that required regular breezes sprinkled with pheromones or they'd release horrible mutating diseases to the public. Some were outright goblin eggs, but not many since Nilbog had to replace them periodically and he was lazy and forgetful.

I gathered the goblins around myself one last time and gave another command to Heartbreaker. One goblin suddenly ran its claws across its own neck. It tried three times, and managed to slice off its own head. The other goblins followed, finding new and creative ways to kill themselves. Though they were polite enough to leave a gap so we could walk away from them. One Dragon suit stayed in the area to take some pictures and samples.

It was a good genocide, I mused when we returned to the ship. I had seen Dragon's videos, after all.

Dragon led me into an empty conference room where another Dragon suit was setting up a camera. A red light flickered as Dragon switched it on and I maneuvered Heartbreaker in front of it.

"Now," I said. "Heartbreaker. I'd ask you for some last words, but you'd just say something that couldn't be broadcast on television. I wish we could keep you around because you could probably take out ten of the top twenty threats to the world in seconds. But the PRT thinks it's bad publicity to get rid of villains by mind-controlling them. It's a shame; we could easily dethrone Kaiser. Lung. Moord Nag. Maybe even the CUI." I gestured towards Dragon's suit.

Dragon continued, "The kill order has been approved. I'm carrying it out, for the dozens of women and quite a few men you've enslaved, for the families you've destroyed, the lives you've ruined." The sound switched off, according to a light on the camera, and the other suit held a clear plastic sheet in front of me. Then Dragon added, "I despise you. You are like Saint for humans." She swung a strangely thin blade right through Heartbreaker's neck, spattering the plastic with blood as his head fell to the ground.

* * * * *​

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♦ Topic: Heartbreaker's Beard Sells for $950!
In: Boards ► News ► Events ► Canada ► The Guild
Dragon (Original Poster)
Posted on March 14th 2011:

As noted in previous threads, Heartbreaker never bothered to do things like get title to vehicles, or open bank accounts in order to buy things. The joint operation between myself, independent Parliament, and the PRT ENE was unusually efficient at determining where his valuable possessions came from. So in the end Heartbreaker died penniless with little more than his own body and things that were too cheap to reclaim.

All items were sold with the full permission of nine of Heartbreaker's surviving ten children, who will receive the proceeds. Cherish is being held in custody in an undisclosed location. All auction bidders were pre-screened, including the anonymous bidder.

Adding the recent sale makes the total list of auctions as follows:

[*] Head (after incineration of brain and corona) $800 - Lombroso’s Museum of Criminal Anthropology, Turin, Italy
[*] Beard $950 - anonymous private collector
[*] Body $2250 - Montreal Museum of Archeology and History
[*] Wardrobe $200 - Montreal Museum of Archeology and History
[*] Sex toys $200 - Montreal Museum of Archeology and History
[*] Soda cans $100 - World of Coca-Cola Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

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►Tin Mother (Moderator)
Replied on March 16 2011:
No, I'm not a new poster. I'm using this account to keep some distance from my regular identity. A friend of mine remembered the name. It turns out that, in the real world, the name isnt used, so I decided to take it as a private joke. Only you're making me explain the joke.
As for your other question, yes, I really do think Cherish's restraints look like the same ones used on Canary. There's a rumor that some Thinker found irregularities in Canary's treatment. If you believe it, maybe the PRT took them off of Canary and decided to use them on an actually dangerous Master.

►Parliament (Verified Cape)
Replied on March 16 2011:
Sheesh, all you guys:

@ENEFan: Because we had to cut off his beard as part of the Nilbog mission! It turned out Nilbog hadn't seen any news and didn't know what he looked like anyway, but we had no way to know that. And no, it wasn't all one chunk.
@Princess_Langwidere: Nilbog is not dead. So nobody is auctioning off his head. Besides, selling the body of someone, even a criminal, who doesn't have any heirs to give permission would set a bad precedent.
@Hair_Today: Armsmaster was seriously injured and my healing abilities couldn't repair everything. Further parahuman healing is up in the air. And no, he didn't buy Heartbreaker's beard. Why would you even ask that?
@Void_Cowboy: I'm not a member of the Guild, but I can safely say they never considered selling Jack Slash's beard and Heartbreaker's beard in the same lot, even if they are both matching goatees. The Guild wasn't even involved with Jack Slash.
In answer to your second question, yes, I'm sure I didn't defeat Nilbog by healing him. That's as bad as the beard question.

►Attorney-in-Law (Not a real attorney)
Replied on March 16 2011:
Nilbog had a fake body. The PRT could absolutely confiscate it as an instrument of crime, and sell it, including the head. For that matter, they could have taken everything from Heartbreaker even if they couldn't find the owners.

►Atoz the Librarian
Replied on March 16 2011:
If Nilbog's body was a malformed goblin and sentient, Nilbog didn't own its body and you can't confiscate it.

►Xandra Harris
Replied on March 16 2011:
According to the press release, goblins are to be presumed criminal unless there is specific reason to think otherwise. They're like vampires on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nobody needs to check whether the vampire died with a will.

►Fossil Fuel Specialist
Replied on March 16 2011:
@GStringGirl: Parliament has been vague about exactly what she can heal, but she was able to heal Dragon from the condition that forced her to stay at home, and partly healed Armsmaster, so you never know.


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Emily Piggot was still obese and her dialysis machine was still parked inside her office. The one thing that had changed in there, the one thing that no other Taylor had seen there, was the fat Nilbog head encased in lucite weighing down the lower left corner of her desk. Piggot acted as if it wasn't there, as if your mouth is too wide and nice people politely don't mention it.

I was there in the office with Dragon. With Nilbog Heartbroken, she just needed to ask him to make a body, without any shenanigans, that she could put her systems in. In her new body, Dragon was wearing a supposedly normal powered suit, but had exposed her head, which had brown hair shorter than mine, looked very adult, and whose face was covered with a half-mask. Wisps of cool air drifted out of the neck area, as if the suit was air conditioned for a human occupant.

On the left side of the computer monitor was live video of Armsmaster, lying in a hospital bed.

"Congratulations," said Piggot. She seemed actually happy, or at least happier than usual. "I never expected anyone to pull off a mission like this. A few more of these, and it'll be almost as if capes had never existed at all." She handed me a check. "You have bounties for Heartbreaker, Cherish, Nilbog, and the Siberian." It seemed that Alexandria had told the PRT something to get us the last of those bounties. I looked down at the check. Upon close inspection it was a fake, but it said that the money had been sent to my account.

"Thank you," I said uncertainly, making sure I was in front of the camera on the monitor.

"And here's yours, Dragon." She handed Dragon the fake check, which read "Dragon." Dragon had decided on the name "Ada Richter," but she was pretending that it was a normal secret identity, and Piggot shouldn't have been able to get Guild identities. "And Armsmaster's. Regulations prohibit personally claiming bounties for official business, but you're both Tinkers and this should help with your budgets, including equipment damage from the missions." She held up the last fake check to the camera, then put it down in front of herself on the desk.

Dragon said "Thank you, I'm honored."

Armsmaster followed with "Thank you, Director."

The lower left side of the monitor showed Coil's face. The fat, bald, translucent face covered with... coils that had once belonged to Gregor. He was behind a clear plastic shield that had to have been impervious to acid. "I didn't think you'd show me this, Emily."

"You were wrong, Thomas," she said.

"About what?"

"I think you know very well, but the answer is 'everything that matters'. You can be rest assured that Nilbog is gone, for the same reason that you're gone." She tapped the head in the lucite cube for emphasis, then hit something on the keyboard, and Coil's face winked out.

I said, "Is Coil's part going into the press kit?"

"No, but it's going into the documentary. Dragon got quite a bit of footage. Although some of it's pretty bloody, so we'll add the appropriate parental warnings."

I nodded.

"Parliament, I'll make the offer again: Are you willing to join us officially? The Wards are always open. I'm aware of your concerns over joining them and I can personally assure you that they will be cleared up in time for you to join."

I glanced at the Nilbog head. If any version of myself would be treated fairly by the PRT, it would be the one who had helped defeat the villain who crippled the Director and formed most of her opinion about capes. On the other hand, Piggot was fairly practical and gratitude only went so far. My treatment would probably be 20% gratitude and 80% keep-the-asset.

I replied, "I'll think about it, but it's not as impossible as it once was. Dragon also suggested I join the Guild. That sounded tempting, but it would be more tempting if I had a power that lets me get to Canada in a hurry. But regardless of what happens, I'll be glad to continue to work closely with the PRT on appropriate missions."

That last sentence says nothing, of course.

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[][Power] Write-in

Name and vote on an alt-Taylor power from any fanfic. Powers may not completely destroy the story, and if the power is too OP, I reserve the right to reject it or have it happen as a one shot only. I'm still going to ask permission before using it.