Reality Intrudes [Worm/Matrix AU]

[Blade4]

I am not sure how Morrigan would beat Hookwolf. I just know it will be hilarious and brutal. If she wanted to stir the pot hard she has practically grenade it. Though would be fun to see her play with new wave to ...

Though the fact they all but I ow it's Taylor could get ugly fast. The rules are unwritten and people are good at making excuses to ignore them at need or ego.

 

[The Unicorn]

Nice chapter, I liked Piggot's POV, although I find it interesting that she didn't even react to being informed that Armsmaster, after challenging an unknown cape, attacked the cape without warning or identifying himself.
While I wouldn't expect her to admit it publicly, the fact Armsmaster gave Morrigan a valid self-defense argument should have pissed her off if she thought that would matter.

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Twenty: A New Wrinkle

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Taylor

"Sorry, I forgot to ask last night. How'd school go? Any trouble?"

Taylor looked up from her eggs and thought about her father's question. "Well, they must've been telling the truth about Sophia, because I didn't see her or Emma there. And nobody else tried anything that I couldn't handle."

The fact that she'd absolutely handled three of Madison's minions like rag dolls (and scared the fuck out of Madison and the other two) wasn't something he needed to know about, in her personal opinion.

"Good." He offered her a pleased smile. "That's excellent. You think you'll be okay riding the bus in today?"

She shrugged. "I can't see why not. If anything does happen, I'll ask Principal Blackwell if she really wants to go for round two with you." Blackwell had not enjoyed the first 'chat' with Danny, so hopefully the threat would keep her in line. Alternatively, Taylor figured she could kick the asses of anyone who tried to fuck with her. Being able to do that was something she could definitely get used to.

Danny nodded, evidently unaware of the direction of Taylor's thoughts. "Hopefully she's gotten the message by now." He frowned, looking a little more serious. "Though keep an eye out for any new staff members, or transfer students wanting to be your friend. The PRT probably hasn't given up on recruiting you, and the Wards would be ideal for infiltrating a high school situation."

"Totally." Taylor applied herself to her eggs once more. Any staff member at Winslow who tried to get on her good side by actually making the other students behave would stick out like Behemoth on a rampage, and she'd developed an aversion to forming new friendships inside Winslow since Emma had tried to bait her with a fake one.

Yeah, good luck with that.

About the only way a PRT plant could get anything on her would be if they incited an attack on her (or were lucky enough to be in the right place at the wrong time) and watched her wreck some asshole's day without breaking a sweat. But even then, she didn't have Morrigan's reality-bending Matrix powers (or at least, she didn't think she did) so any beatdown she handed out would be perfectly normal. She wouldn't be using her fist to bust a fifty-thousand-dollar helmet, for instance.

Still, caution was probably a good idea. Madison might bring a bigger posse the next time, and all the martial-arts bullshit in the world wouldn't be much use if they hit her from behind, then kicked her ribs in while she was on the ground. And if not Madison, then maybe Julia or one of the others. It wasn't as though Emma had been alone in bullying her, after all.

She looked at Danny again. "I'll be careful, Dad. I promise."

The look he gave her was composed of worry and pride in equal mixture. "Don't try to be a hero. Just come home safe, okay?"

That was a sentiment she could definitely get behind.

When he spoke again, his tone was more thoughtful. "But I'm going to be having a private chat with Alan about Emma. She knows about Sophia, yes?"

Taylor nodded, recalling how Emma had shown zero surprise at Sophia's trick of going into smoke form. "She totally does. No idea if he's aware of it, though."

"Good point. I'll leave that aspect out of the discussion." He lowered his glasses so he could give Taylor a moderately stern look over them. "But at some point, we are going to be talking about what happened in that restroom, young lady."

Well, crap.

<><>​

Medhall Building Sub-Basement

Hookwolf

"So, what're we gonna be doing about the bitch in the long-coat?" Bradley popped the cap off the beer with his thumb, sending it flying across the room into the trash can. Without waiting for an answer, he chugged half the bottle in one go. After a sinus-tingling belch, he kept talking. "It's not like we can guard all our stash houses twenty-four-seven. Even with the ABB down and out, we ain't gonna have anyone to take and hold territory."

"Morrigan." Kaiser didn't sound thrilled at the revelation. "The PRT got a name for her last night. According to my sources, she put a note on Armsmaster's bike when she left it for him to find. This was after she danced rings around Velocity, blew up Coil's base, and then curbstomped Circus."

"Christ on a cracker." Bradley raised his eyebrows in honest surprise. "She doesn't fuck around, does she?" He was starting to wonder if he should re-evaluate his ideas about how to beat her. Someone who could do all that in one night was nobody's goddamn pushover.

"This just makes it all the more important that we put an end to her before she circles back around to us." Krieg's tone was clipped and impatient. "She dealt with the ABB and Coil in just a couple of hours. Even if she goes after the Merchants next, it's not as though they're an actual gang. They'll hold her up for a day, maximum. After which, we're the only significant criminal organisation in Brockton Bay."

Kaiser nodded thoughtfully. "She's already been chipping away at us. The stash house cost us Alabaster and Victor, and benched Othala even though she wasn't there. Last night bumped Stormtiger, Fenja and Menja off the roster for the duration."

Bradley finished off the beer; the bottle joined its cap in the trash can. "Gotta talk to O, boss. She's never gonna get back at the bitch who killed Victor if she doesn't help put Tiger and the others back on their feet."

"I believe I will, yes." Kaiser sighed. "Also, I'll speak to Purity and see if she's willing to come back in. Assist us in our hour of need. If she can bring Night and Fog with her, all the better."

Krieg cleared his throat. "Is throwing more bodies at the problem really the best solution, or do you have a deeper strategy here? Not many of us are reliably bulletproof, and we have ample evidence that she is a remarkably accurate shot."

Kaiser's lips thinned. "Yes, I do indeed have more of a strategy than that." He glanced from Bradley to Krieg. "Talk to every one of our people who have children in school. I want the names of every skinny white teenage girl with black curly hair, with or without glasses, in every school in Brockton Bay. Once we have that list, we can narrow it down. And finally, we're setting a trap tonight." As he explained, Bradley grinned.

Morrigan might have taken them by surprise twice, Bradley figured, but third time was definitely going to bite her in the ass.

<><>​

Miss Militia

Hannah looked out at the suburban house as the trooper behind the wheel slowly drove down the street. The number was prominently displayed on the rusting mailbox, and the street name was obvious on the sign at the next corner, so it was definitely the correct address. She knew the trooper in the back seat would be covertly getting footage of the house that they could study later, but she gave it a good eyeballing herself.

There was a front door as well as several windows; although there were steps up onto a small porch, the foundation sat low to the ground, suggesting a basement. And indeed, she spotted ground-level windows next to an untended flower garden. The house sat still and quiet, unsurprising given that Taylor would be at school and Danny at the Dockworkers' Association offices.

Without being told, the trooper turned the corner so she could examine the side and back of the house.

Small trees lined the fence for part of the way, but she spotted a second-floor window on the side of the house. There were more windows on the back of the house, along with a back door and small porch. The back yard was the size of a postage stamp, with a chain-link gate closing off access to the street.

"Two vans," she decided. "If Morrigan is indeed Taylor Hebert, and she's sneaking out without her father's knowledge, we need two different viewpoints to cover all the potential exits."

"Yes, ma'am," agreed the trooper in the back seat. "Rules of engagement?"

"Observe and record only." The Director had been firm on that respect. "No technology that can look through the walls. If we get evidence that she's Morrigan, then we can get the warrant to search the house, but not until then. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am. Entirely understood."

"Please make sure everyone on the surveillance detail knows it." Director Piggot hadn't been able to get a warrant to search the house—not that Hannah had expected her to—but they were free to watch the place like so many hawks. And if either Danny or Taylor Hebert did anything illegal outside the house, they were fair game.

"Ma'am."

"Good. Drive on." Unless Morrigan did something particularly egregious tonight, Hannah wouldn't be returning to this area, but the pieces had been put in place and the operation set in motion.

While it had been made clear that her command of the ENE department of the Protectorate was strictly temporary, pending Armsmaster's return, she was damn well going to do it right while she was in the hot seat.

<><>​

Taylor

Computer Studies was bullying-free, but that was par for the course. There weren't enough of Emma's coterie in Taylor's class to make a concerted effort, especially in the advanced section. The most they could do was fill her school inbox with abuse, which Taylor doubted would stop any time soon. Anyone could be brave when there were no consequences to be had.

Or are there?

On a whim, Taylor typed a line on the screen: Can you do something about these idiots filling up my inbox? She left it there for a few seconds, then backspaced it and returned to the current project: a basic data-to-graph display program.

There was no immediate reply, which disappointed her slightly but didn't surprise her. Neither did Morrigan appear out of nowhere to talk to her; Taylor was pretty sure that trick took a lot of prep (and also some privacy). The project didn't take long to finish, so Taylor saved her work and opened a window into PHO to see what was going on there.

Nothing jumped out at her about Morrigan being a new cape in town, thought in the 'Reported Sightings' thread, there were mentions of 'an Armscycle lookalike' being ridden around town by an unknown person in a long-coat and hat. The blurry footage of her riding the bike up the side of the building was dissected at length by some, and derided by others as being 'obv fake'. One poster, calling himself Void Cowboy, had posited that it was some new cape who had beaten up Armsmaster and stolen his bike for a joyride, but he was being laughed at by nearly everyone.

There were threads mentioning some kind of upheaval in the ranks of the ABB and the Empire, but only in the vaguest of terms. Any mention of the deaths of Victor and Alabaster, and even the capture of Lung and Oni Lee, were conspicuous in their absence. Even the explosion of Coil's base (and the subsequent takeover of the site by the PRT) was thought to be a result of an attack by the ABB on the Empire's Downtown turf.

The temptation to correct everyone's misapprehensions was strong, but Taylor shut it down. She wasn't sure precisely how anonymous a PHO account really was, and she had no desire to out herself to the PRT just because she couldn't keep her mouth shut online.

It was getting close to the end of the period, so she closed the PHO page, double-checked her project, and sent it in. She was just sliding her textbook into her backpack when the bell went, allowing her to shut down her terminal and be among the first out the door. World Affairs was likely to be her most problematic class, especially if Madison had grown a backbone since the confrontation in the restroom, so she wanted to get in early.

<><>​

World Affairs Classroom

Madison

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Madison glanced from the glue-covered chair to the door and back again. She'd had to duck out of Math class a couple of minutes early (Mr Quinlan hadn't even noticed) so she could get to World Affairs in time to treat the chair. This was her last chance to put Hebert back in her place. Physically correcting her was totally off the board, so pranking the fuck out of her was the only remaining option.

On the upside, Madison was a past master at pranks. However, on the downside, she'd seen Hebert go all Chuck Norris on three girls at once, and she wasn't in love with the idea of that happening to her, hence her question.

Julia gingerly touched her jaw, which Madison didn't blame her for. Hebert had well and truly rung her bell with that one elbow-smash, and she'd been dizzy for a good ten minutes afterward. This close, Madison could see the concealer covering the bruise.

"Sure," Julia said, with a vindictive curl to her lip. "What's she gonna do? Beat us up with witnesses all around, and Mr G right there?" The fact that Mr Gladly wasn't actually looking at them as he prepped for the lesson didn't seem to worry her.

"Okay, yeah, good point." It was a fact that every time Hebert had complained about them, it hadn't been hard to counter-complain, with their voices drowning hers out. If she actually started getting violent with them in Sophia's absence, they could maybe even get her expelled. Emma would have to be happy about that, whenever she returned to Winslow.

That Emma would be returning to Winslow was something Madison maintained as a matter of faith. Between her own strong will and her lawyer dad, nothing ever kept her down for long.

The classroom door opened, and Hebert strolled in. Madison pretended to be in close conversation with Julia, while they both covertly observed her. Come on, don't look. Just sit down.

When Hebert dropped her backpack alongside the desk, Madison felt an inner squee of malicious joy. It's working, it's working! But then Hebert grabbed the chair and took a step over to where Madison was sitting. "Hey, I think you got our chairs mixed up." She spoke in such a frank, disarming tone that Madison was taken totally aback.

"No, Taylor," she began once she'd figured out what to say. It was supposed to be a condescending speech about how that was definitely Hebert's chair, and how she should sit down because class was about to begin, but she never got past the second word.

Between one instant and the next, Hebert's free hand moved, and Madison's wrist was in the grip of what felt like a steel vise. Worse, Hebert was twisting it so that her wrist, elbow and shoulder locked up in direct sequence. Nerves were pinched in a way that sent a cascade of agony up her arm and out into her body. Madison's eyes and mouth opened wide with pain, though her throat closed until her voice was just a tiny squeak. Hebert lifted, and Madison stood up obediently, because she had no desire to make the pain any worse.

Madison was vaguely aware of Hebert pulling one chair out from under her and replacing it with the other, but she absolutely was not paying attention to that, because her entire universe was centred around the white-hot core of searing magma that had replaced the nerves all the way down her left side. Then Hebert guided her down again and released her wrist; the entire ordeal had taken just a few seconds, but twinges of shock were still chasing each other up and down her arm as Hebert took her chair back over to her desk. It was only when Hebert sat down that Madison was able to pay attention to anything other than her arm, and she felt the glue squishing out from under her new denim skirt.

"Thanks, Madison." Hebert smiled and waved. "Much appreciated."

"Mads!" hissed Julia. "What the fuck? Why did you let her take your fucking chair?"

"Ahem." Mr Gladly actually said the word out loud instead of clearing his throat like a normal person. "If I can have your attention, please?"

That was when Madison realised that not one person in the classroom—not Mr G, and not even Julia, who was sitting right beside her—understood what Hebert had done. And now her prank had rebounded on her in full. Instead of inflicting the glue on Hebert, she now had glue all over her own skirt, and everyone would know what had happened when she stood up. And if she didn't stand up now, she'd be glued to the chair by the end of the period.

For the first time ever, she fully understood the meaning of the phrase 'damned if you do, damned if you don't'.

And she hated it.

<><>​

Morrigan

"Well, damn." Leaning back against the wall in Operations, I watch the show while eating gruel. "Kid's got game." The joint-lock is one I recognise; I've used it myself from time to time. Gotta say though, the chair-switch is slickly done, and that's all Taylor Hebert.

Loki rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, that game's about to come to an end. Bluepills are closing in on her, because someone couldn't spell 'opsec' with three tries and access to a manual of field regs. The PRT's been picking up on the breadcrumbs you've been laying down, and they'll be watching her house as of tonight. On top of which, that gang with the stupid name—Embolism Sixty-Nine or whatever it's called—has kids at school scoping out every girl who looks even vaguely like her. Plus, they're apparently planning some kind of trap for you when you do go out. How are you gonna deal with that, Motormouth?"

"Same way I deal with everyone else who wants to pull shit with me," I retort. "Make 'em regret it so hard they never try it again."

Brave words, I know. Up until now, I've been able to make them work. This time, though, I'm faced with a unique challenge: a Matrix server where I can't just log out to escape my problems.

Step one will be to break protocol just a little, partly because I can, and partly because I love the look of utter bogglement on Loki's face whenever Captain Hornblower okays my latest idea.

<><>​

Winslow Cafeteria

Taylor

For the second day in a row, Taylor was eating lunch in the cafeteria like a normal student, and it felt weird as fuck. Emma wasn't there to trade cutting quips with Madison just loud enough for her to hear, and Sophia wasn't there to upend her food tray when she was distracted by Emma.

Even sitting with her back to the wall, she didn't feel entirely at ease. She was used to being ignored by the rest of the student body—excluding those who were determined to make her life hell, of course—but now she could swear she was being watched by some of the older students. The weirdest thing was, she was pretty sure she'd never even interacted with them before. She sure as hell didn't know their names.

Wards, she decided. They have to be Wards. It seemed that her father's prediction of the PRT putting people in the school had been right on the money.

Should I make eye contact and show that I'm onto them, or pretend total unawareness and try to convince them that I'm not Morrigan? It was a tricky question, and one that she was entirely unequipped to answer.

At that moment, a phone rang in her backpack, startling the crap out of her. Wait, did one of them slip a phone into my bag when I wasn't looking? It struck her as something a super-powered kid might do.

Picking the pack up, she searched it for the source of the sound, finally locating it in one of the side pockets. The second surprise came when she pulled it out; it was an odd-looking model, identical to the one Morrigan used. Okay, now I've got zero idea of what's going on. Frowning, she flicked it open and held it to her ear. "Uh … hello?"

"Hey, Taylor." It was Morrigan's voice, brisk and cheerful as ever. "Had to bend protocol a bit for this, but I needed to talk to you directly and I figured this would be less disruptive to your day than if I jumped into your head and wrote you a note."

"Ah." Taylor blinked as she assimilated this. "Okay, so … you're aware that I'm currently being eyeballed by some people I'm fairly sure are Wards, right?"

"Hah, nope. They're not Wards. Those are Empire Eighty-Eight kids. Well, their parents are Empire, but you get what I mean. Seems Kaiser's passed word to look for girls of your basic description."

"Ah." That put a whole new (and somewhat terrifying) complexion on the matter. With a supreme effort of will, she restrained herself from either hiding under the table, bolting from the room, or looking directly at any of the people covertly observing her. "What do I do?"

"Right now, Kaiser's just got them collecting names, so you don't do anything that might make you stand out from anyone else." Morrigan sounded as serious as she ever got. "That includes not kicking their asses, no matter how tempting it might be."

"Right. Got it. Don't kick their asses." Taylor figured she could handle that part. "Was there anything else?"

"Yeah, actually. The PRT's put your house under surveillance, and the Empire's planning a trap for us tonight. This whole gathering-names thing is in case that doesn't work out. I gotta say, Kaiser's thorough as fuck."

"Um …" This was sounding more problematic by the second. "A trap …?"

Morrigan actually laughed. "Don't worry. We got this. Letting them set a trap for me is the best way I know of for them to willingly get together so I can kick their asses all at once."

Taylor would have protested at this point, but she'd seen Morrigan in action. "Okay, but what about the other thing?"

"Oh, the PRT surveillance? That's easily dealt with. So, when you get home, this is what I want you to do …"



End of Part Twenty

 

[Tribe Scientist]

Darn, a cliff-hanger for the next nine months or so...

 

[Skyguy345]

Is she going to report them to the police?
Lawyers?
Maybe make the empire and PRT fight?
So many possibilities...

 

[Blade4]

Is she going to report them to the police?
Lawyers?
Maybe make the empire and PRT fight?
So many possibilities...

Click to shrink...

That would be quite plausible. Danny could say he sees people watching his house and daughter and the police see that and try and mouse trap them. Heard of stuff like that were one police group was trying to prove a guy was a pedo so sent him stuff. He went to the police so another group is trying to backtrack this sick pedo ring and ended up with both police departments trying to jump each other.

Morrigan is probably going to have so much fun with them though getting gangs and prt to fight.

 

[Ack]

Reality Intrudes

Part Twenty-One: The Dance Begins

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
[A/N 2: This is a two-parter. The second part will be in Part 22, posted in about 24 hours.]


Wednesday Evening, January 5, 2011
Surveillance Van outside Hebert Residence

Sergeant Janice 'Smokey' LaSalle, PRT

It was a quiet night, warm in the van, though enough of the cool outside air was being filtered in to keep it from getting stuffy. Janice leaned back in the folding chair as she watched the screens. The concealed cameras on the exterior of the van negated the requirement for windows or bulky cameras with zoom lenses, making the task of surveillance so much easier.

It was still boring as fuck, though.

The Hebert girl had gotten home around a quarter to four, and her father an hour and a half after that. After it got dark, the lights had come on, and they'd seen the occasional shadow against a curtain; enough to say with some certainty that Hebert father and daughter were still home. Nobody had tried leaving via either the front or back door, anyway.

As anonymous as the vans were, it would still be very much on the nose to have them parked directly across the street from the house they were watching. As such, they were some little way down the block; the wonders of high-quality zoom allowing them to image the front door with ease, even from a hundred and fifty yards away. The team watching the back door from the side street had a narrower range of places they could set up, due to a hedge on one side of the back gate and a high fence on the other. Still, they'd done their best.

The vans couldn't keep visual tabs on each other, so when surveilling potentially high-threat targets like this, SOP was to maintain a regular check-in schedule. After double-checking the clock readout, she clicked her radio headset pressel. "Penguin One to Penguin Two. No incidents. How copy, over?"

The guys in the other van must have been watching the clock as well, because the answer came back in less than a second. "Penguin Two to Penguin One, copy five by five. No seals on the ice here, over."

She wrinkled her nose but replied anyway. "Receiving you five by five. I copy no seals. Penguin One, out."

It was a twofold problem. When setting up for any kind of covert op that required radio comms, codenames were essential. It was also a fact of life that they couldn't always be the cool-sounding ones, and in truth it was best that they had no relationship to the task at hand, just in case unfriendly ears had access to that radio channel. Their comms were encrypted, but even that was no guarantee of privacy when tech was getting cheaper all the time.

Thus, they were 'Penguin', and of course, the other guys had made appropriate observations each time they'd checked in. It had all meant the same thing—the Heberts had not left the house—but it did get irritating as time went on.

Still, they had a job to do, and people had different ways of dealing with boredom. Janice liked to listen to true-crime podcasts; not cape crime, just ordinary normal-person felonies. It made real life feel that little bit more exciting.

"Front door is opening," reported Michaels, her second. "Looks like … it's the kid. Subject Tango."

Janice scanned the screens; not just the one that showed Taylor Hebert descending the steps to the path, but the others as well, just in case she was deliberately (or inadvertently) distracting them from something else. "Other screens clear," she reported. "Call it in. I'll watch her."

"Yes, sarge." Michaels hit his own pressel, and began reporting the situation to Penguin Two.

In the meantime, Janice watched Taylor Hebert stroll down the path to the sidewalk, turn right—toward the surveillance van—and keep on coming. She wore a light jacket over T-shirt and jeans, and was carrying something Janice couldn't make out. It looked like a flat plastic container, perhaps a foot square and three inches deep, but even zooming in made out no extra details.

"What's she doing?" asked Michaels, after he got off the line. "And what's that she's carrying?"

"You know, I have no idea." Despite her sarcasm, Janice had the uneasy feeling that Taylor Hebert knew they were in the van and was coming to bang on the side of the vehicle. It wouldn't be the first time they'd been made, doing something like this. "Why don't you get out and ask her?"

He paused, uncertain. "I don't think that's the best idea, ma'am."

"And that's the correct answer. The doors are locked, and she can't see us in here. If she bangs on the side, we ignore her. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, ma'am." He looked somewhat happier. "Wish I knew what that was, though."

"You and me both." She didn't think it was a bomb; the report from Assault and Battery indicated someone who had few fucks left to give, but who wasn't actively at the blow-shit-up stage. Even the analysis of the self-styled Morrigan (if it was even the same person) pointed toward someone who was going after criminals but had boosted Armsmaster's bike on a whim rather than as part of her night's planned activities.

The footage of her riding the bike straight up a brick wall, and down it again, had spread through the ranks of the PRT like wildfire. Janice still wasn't sure if it was legit, or if someone had put together a plausible-looking piece of footage, but it sure as hell looked real to her. The shakiness actually helped sell it; faked footage was usually clear and steady.

It also didn't hurt that the site had been identified and investigated, and the tyre marks on the wall had been matched to Armsmaster's bike. If someone had set that up ahead of time, they'd gone far above and beyond what such a hoax called for.

Taylor Hebert walked straight up to the back doors of the van; Janice knew this because there was a blind spot there and she couldn't see the girl on any of the cameras.

"Shit," muttered Michaels. "What's she doing?"

Janice was about to shush him when she heard a noise from the doors; an almost imperceptible scraping sound that she couldn't identify at all. The hair rose on the back of her neck. "What the—" she began … then the back doors clicked and opened. The locked back doors.

"Oh, hi." Standing there behind the van, Taylor Hebert offered them a smile. As they gaped at her, she pulled the top off the Tupperware container she was carrying. A mouthwatering odour rolled over Janice, grabbing her attention and reminding her that the snacks she'd packed were remarkably bland by comparison. "I baked some sandwich cookies. Want some?"

<><>​

Morrigan

"Okay, then," I observe as I sip my not-quite-coffee. "That settles it. Picking the lock that fast, with homemade wire picks? Either she had a promising career as a car thief before we ever showed up on this server, or she got all my implanted skills, not just the combat-facing ones."

Loki frowns as he stares from me to Hornblower to the screen, then back again. "Captain, it can not be a good idea to keep going on like this. I feel for the kid, but she's damn near as skilled as a full Operative with none of the context, none of the guard-rails. Her personality's already shifting as we speak. People are going to notice."

I finish off the coffee substitute then step up so I can bop him on the back of the skull with the tin mug. "You never read back in her file as far as I did. Before those little shits in the bathroom got their skanky claws into her life, she was outgoing and confident and happy. Her personality's not shifting, you doink. It's reasserting itself, and for the better."

Loki rubs his head and scowls at me, then turns to Hornblower. "Captain …"

Running her thumbnail over her bottom lip and frowning thoughtfully, Hornblower eventually nods. "I tend to agree with Morrigan. If the Hebert girl had ended up with her personality in its entirety, she probably would've beaten up the people in the van and either stolen it or blown it up. Baked goods is a direction I don't think we've ever gone."

"Except for the Oracle, yeah," I agree. And I'm not remotely like the Oracle. Never will be. Not enough patience for the dipshits of the world, for one thing. In or out of the Matrix.

"But Captain, still …" Loki makes his appeal for sanity one last time. Tough shit for him; sanity need not apply when I'm on deck.

Hornblower makes a horizontal slicing motion with her hand, cutting him off. "We'll see how this plays out."

I'm pretty sure I already know. Taylor's not doing things exactly as I would, but she's definitely putting them off their stride, making it easier for me to sneak out of the house when it's time for me to go.

I'll say this for her, looking at the stunned expressions of the PRT personnel in the van; kid's got style.

<><>​

Taylor

There were two people in the van, a man and a woman, and Taylor mentally apologised to Hollywood; as far as she could tell, they'd gotten the details exactly right. It looked precisely what she would've thought an FBI-style snooper van would look like. On the outside, it had the decals advertising a plumbing company (and no doubt if she rang the number, she'd be assured that it was genuine) but inside there were chairs, screens, computers and other electronic equipment.

And strangely enough, not a plumber's wrench in sight.

"What the hell?" demanded the male agent. "Did you just pick the lock?"

Taylor shrugged. "How would I know how to do that? I was just bringing you some cookies."

The woman frowned, peering at the contents of the Tupperware box. "You baked these … since you got home?"

Taylor nodded earnestly. She wanted to laugh out loud at the looks on their faces, but controlling her expression had become a whole lot easier since Morrigan came into her life. "Sure. I saw the van, and I thought you guys would appreciate something nice and fresh instead of whatever snacks you brought along. So I got to baking." Tucking the lid under her arm, she took one out of the box and bit into it, savouring the still-warm texture. "Try one," she added a little indistinctly. "They're great."

"Yeah, but how did you know we were here?" demanded the guy. "This is an unmarked van."

"'scuse me." Taylor finished chewing and swallowing the bite of cookie. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to speak with my mouth full. Anyway, yeah, this is a quiet neighbourhood. We know who owns what vehicles around here. You parked this van in view of our front door, right after a couple of PRT agents showed up to ask me some pointed questions about …" She paused and leaned forward so she could lower her voice. "… one of your Wards." Straightening up again, she spoke normally. "Honestly, it wasn't rocket science. But seriously, did you want a cookie?"

The woman eyed the container wistfully but managed to restrain herself. "I appreciate the offer, but there are regulations about this. Accepting foodstuffs from people who know they're under surveillance isn't exactly permitted. You can see the potential for a problem there, right?"

Taylor shrugged as expressively as she could with the lid under her arm. "Okay, your loss. Anyway, where are Agents Saunders and Everett? They were a lot cooler than you guys. They actually had the manners to knock on the front door and ask questions directly rather than lurk outside like vultures. I bet they'd eat my cookies. Also, are you tapping our phone too? Because that would be really rude."

"We aren't tapping your phone, miss." The woman spoke firmly. She might have even been telling the truth.

"Oh, okay." Taylor offered the cookies again. "Are you sure you don't want one? I'll try as many as you want, if you really think I've put something in them. They're nice. One of Mom's recipes."

"No. Thank you." The woman seemed to be gritting her teeth slightly. "We're … fine."

"Okay." Taylor grinned. "I'll just go ask the guys in the other van, see if they want one." Shoving the rest of the cookie in her mouth, she carefully replaced the lid on the container while she chewed the mouthful.

"Don't bother," the guy said flatly. "They aren't allowed to accept food from surveillance subjects either. And before you ask, yes, we've got the authorisation to do this."

Taylor finished chewing, then swallowed. "Oh, I assumed you had. You'd have to be total idiots not to, yeah? It'd be way too easy to check. I'll just go and see if they want some anyway. They might surprise you."

Humming the Mission Impossible theme just loudly enough for them to hear, she turned and strolled in the direction of the second van. Behind her, she heard the van doors shut, and the click as they locked it again.

<><>​

Director Piggot

Emily looked around as her phone rang. Her computer was shut down and she was just prepping to leave—Renick would have the helm for the night shift—but she was still in the chair, and she'd never been one for work-to-rule. Taking it up, she thumbed the answer icon. "You have Piggot."

"Ma'am, this is Lieutenant Foley, in Operations. There's been a development in the Hebert surveillance. One minute ago, Taylor Hebert came out of her house, apparently picked the lock on the back of Penguin One, and offered them cookies she'd just baked. She's on the way around to Penguin Two as we speak. What should they do?"

Emily could read between the lines as easily as the next person. The operation was well and truly blown. Both vans had been made.

The fact that the Hebert girl had not only baked cookies in advance but also possessed the wherewithal to pick the lock on the back of a van spoke volumes to her capability and forethought. This would've been far more palatable if she hadn't technically been in opposition to the PRT at that point in time. The sheer chutzpah inherent in offering the agents baked goods merely underlined the points Assault had made in his report.

With resourcefulness like that, she would make an exemplary Ward.

But of course, there was always a catch. In this case, the catch was Taylor Hebert's sincere disinclination for joining the Wards. And of course, it didn't help that she was showing every sign of being a medium to high level Thinker, over and above the pre-existing Mover and Brute (and possibly Breaker) ratings.

All of which meant that the PRT had to be extremely careful about not applying too much pressure to join the Wards (and apparently weren't being careful enough with their surveillance tactics). Considering Ms Hebert's pre-existing animus toward Shadow Stalker in particular and the PRT in general, it would not take a huge amount of provocation for her to join a gang; or worse, form one. And given what she was already suspected of pulling off as Morrigan over the last two nights, she could do the PRT an immense amount of damage if she so chose.

Not to mention the Protectorate; if she kept targeting Armsmaster and breaking his equipment, she could rack up a massive repair bill in a remarkably short time. It was fortunate this time that she'd chosen to return his motorcycle, albeit damaged. And that wasn't even addressing her proven potential for stealing or destroying PRT assets.

So far, the only bright spot in all this was that Armsmaster and Velocity had been manifestly afterthoughts in her night's activities. Her targets had been very specifically the Empire Eighty-Eight and the ABB (not to mention Coil) and she'd done them all a significant amount of damage. Oni Lee, Lung, and Circus were in custody, Victor and Alabaster were dead (and Coil strongly suspected to be the same), and Emily was reasonably certain that Stormtiger and the Valkyrie twins were significantly injured.

All of which she would have thoroughly approved of, had it been the Protectorate or PRT who'd carried it out. As it was, Morrigan was currently a loose cannon of the highest order and she needed to be brought into line one way or the other, if only so she didn't do serious damage to Brockton Bay by sheer accident.

But all of that was secondary to the crisis at hand. Emily took a deep breath. "Pull the Penguin units back immediately, and roll out the secondary surveillance assets. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll pass those orders on immediately. Was there anything else, ma'am?" Foley didn't sound thrilled, but things could've been a lot worse. This was what backup plans were for.

"No, that will be all." Emily ended the call and leaned back in her chair.

Armsmaster had built drones that could perch on nearby rooftops and keep an eye on the house that way; they could be on station in less than five minutes, relaying imagery to the vans. The coverage wouldn't be as comprehensive as the vans themselves could produce, but it was far better than nothing. And more to the point, the Hebert girl wouldn't be able to interfere with them, even if she knew they were there. Not without drawing attention by scaling the rooftops, anyway.

Your move.

<><>​

Three Hours Previously
An Empire 88 Safe House

Kaiser

"The trick with this sort of bait is to make it irresistible to the idiot targeting us while not being so egregiously blatant that she realises it's a trap." Max looked around at the rest of the currently active cape contingent of the Empire. "So this trap has to be believable. Sun Tzu says to never corner an enemy utterly, to always leave a way out: that way, they won't commit all their strength to fighting because they're putting some aside for an exit strategy. I believe we can flip that script this one time."

Bradley hitched his chin upward. "What, we leave her no way out? Because I don't give a shit how rough she handled Lars and the girls; once I get my hands on her, she's done."

"No." Max shook his head. "We leave her what looks like a way out. Let her think she's not committing herself fully. But then, once she's in the trap, we slam the door on her. Hit her from all sides. Take her down as hard and fast as we can."

"She's real good," warned Lars. Currently out of costume, he waved his walking stick. "She was fighting Lung as well as the girls, then me an' Oni Lee at the same time. Every time I thought she was off-guard, she really wasn't."

"I don't give a shit if she's off-guard or not." Bradley clenched his fist, then had blades slide out of his skin to cover it in razor steel. "When I'm armoured up, I'm bulletproof. She can waste all the ammo she wants."

"The little cow hit Lung with a motorbike," Fenja interjected. "That would still hurt you."

"Not if Krieg slows it all the way down first." Bradley gestured toward the rest of the capes in the room. "Yeah, she's dangerous one-on-one. Not denying it. But once we take away her cute little toys, I'll totally be able to give her the beatdown she's begging for."

Cricket pointed from herself to him and back again, then mouthed the word 'we'.

Bradley didn't even try to argue. "Yeah, good point. We'll give her that beatdown. She wants to fuck with the Empire, she'll learn that the Empire can fuck harder than anyone else."

"Ew!" Tammi screwed up her face with distaste. "Phrasing!"

"What, 'fuck'?" Bradley gave her a broadly amused raised-eyebrow look. "That one time Skidmark nearly sent you off your flying platform, you were swearing harder than he was."

"That's different, and you know it." She wrinkled her nose at him and turned away.

Max sighed. "Enough. Bradley, leave her alone. Tammi, you know what he meant."

"Yeah, I do." Tammi gave Bradley an even dirtier look than before. "And that's the problem. He does mean it that way."

"Be that as it may." Max cleared his throat before the argument could flare up again. "Gather your best prospects, the ones you figure you would've been bringing into the Empire shortly anyway. Grab up some initiation fodder. We need to make it big enough to get her attention, but small enough to make her think she can take us."

Bradley smashed his metal-covered fist into his similarly-clad palm with a clash of steel on steel. "Hell yeah."

<><>​

Taylor

Before she was halfway around to the second van, she heard its engine start. She moved to the side of the street and waved as it passed her by; the other one was moving as well. Just like Morrigan said they would.

Taking another cookie from the box, she ate it while she strolled back toward the house. But the calm was a façade; the moment the vans were out of sight, she broke into a sprint. Dashing in through the front door, she pulled it shut behind her.

Her father came to his feet as she entered the living room. "They've gone?"

"Yup." She grinned at him. "Soon as they realised I knew about them, they got out of here."

He shook his head, a worried expression on his face. "I still think I should've gone out with you."

"Nah." She gestured with the Tupperware box. "Even though they didn't want any cookies, they didn't see me as a threat to be reacted to. If you were there, it may have been different."

Also, I couldn't have picked the lock on the van with you there.

Reluctantly, he nodded. "I don't like it, but I like having PRT vans watching my house even less. Maybe I should've called up Kurt and the guys, got them to come over."

Taylor dropped the cookies on the sofa and spread her hands. "Maybe, but that would've exposed them to scrutiny as well. Best we keep the PRT's gaze on us." She gestured toward the kitchen. "I think I'll head down to the basement. I'll be doing my homework down there until I go to bed, if anyone asks."

The look he gave her carried all the suspicion that only the father of a teenage girl could muster. "And if I happened to look down there before you come up and go to bed?"

Her gaze was filled with pure innocence. "Then plausible deniability will no longer be an option."

Muscles worked in his jaw as he stared at her, clearly trying to divine her intentions, and just as clearly failing. "… is whatever you're doing actually necessary?"

"I believe it is, yes." Morrigan had said they were trying to save the world. This was about as 'necessary' as things got.

He took a deep breath and bit his lip. "… are you going to hurt people?"

She looked him in the eye. "Do you really want to know the answer to that?"

"Taylor …" He trailed off, looked away, then looked back again. "I'm not sure what to think anymore. You're my daughter. It's my job to protect you. But you beat up a cape and stole her phones, and now the PRT is surveilling you. What changed from last night to tonight?"

"Three villains are in custody and another one's dead. Also, a hero got beaten up and his ride was stolen, because he was being an idiot." She paused at his shocked expression. "I'm not going to give you details because what you don't know, you can't talk about. But that underground explosion last night in Downtown? Wasn't an accident." She gestured toward the kitchen. "But now I have to get going. I'll try to be back before midnight."

From the fresh expression of shock on his face, he knew exactly which explosion she was talking about. His knees gave out and he dropped back onto the sofa. "Please come back safe."

She raised her eyebrows. "I've got no idea what you mean, Dad. I'm not going anywhere. If the PRT asks, that's what you can tell them."

Turning, she headed into the kitchen, then trotted down the stairs into the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said. "Let's do this."



End of Part Twenty-One

 

[Luminatira]

Time to fuck up the Empire even more ^^