It Gets Worse [Worm AU Fanfic] Complete

It Gets Worse

Part Nine: Anvilicious


Monday Morning, January 3, 2011
Brockton Bay

It started with a sneeze.

Mary Worthington was brunching with her best friend, with her baby in the stroller beside her, when the sneeze spontaneously erupted. It was a genteel sneeze, barely worth the name, but she did not manage to cover her mouth in time.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, mortified. “I am so sorry, Katarina. Whatever must you think of me?”

Katarina Aramis gave her friend a tolerant smile. “I think that you must be tired and a little worn down. Because no matter how delightful babies are – yes, yes you are,” she cooed, reaching down to tickle little Heather under the chin, “they do take up your time and effort, don't they?”

Pulling out a tissue, Mary blew her nose. “I suppose so. But every time she smiles at me, it makes it all worthwhile.” She took hold of Heather's tiny hand, her expression melting as the exquisitely perfect fingers grasped her pinky.

“I can see that,” Katarina agreed. “I would so like one of my own, even with all the difficulties and lost sleep. But James is just so busy all the time. It's as if the gallery is his baby.”

“Then make time,” Mary told her firmly. “If you want it, go and get it.”

Katarina nodded firmly. “You know, I rather think I will.”

They parted ways shortly thereafter. Mary went on to her favourite spa, where the attendants were sure to fuss over Heather as much as over her, while Katarina returned home. Mary would spend the next week sneezing occasionally, then it would go away, a mild winter cold come and gone.

It just so happened, however, that Katarina had inhaled a particularly virulent batch of the virus; it encountered a vulnerable section of mucous membrane and went to work. By the time her husband came home that evening, she had a cold well on the way. She was, although she couldn't know it, quite contagious.

She was also, due to her interaction with Heather, feeling in a mood to get closer to her husband. Ten years of marriage had not yet produced a baby, but then, they had never really tried for one before. The oncoming cold was leaving her slightly light-headed, not helped by the glass of red wine she had at dinner, so that night she gave it her not inconsiderable all.

Surprised and pleased, he responded well; what happened between them that night did much to rekindle the romance in what had become a rather routine marriage. By morning, she wasn't pregnant, though that would happen in time to come, but he did have a head cold.

Both of them ignored the symptoms on the first day, but on the second, they were too much to ignore. Katarina took to her bed, where the maid brought her regular infusions of steaming chicken soup; James, wearing slippers, a heavy bathrobe and with a blanket tucked around him, took up residence on the sofa and watched the news and other daily events while trying to come up with a new exhibition theme for the gallery. It was a slip of the thumb on the elaborate remote control that gave him his inspiration; instead of switching to the worldwide stock market pricings, the TV instead flipped on to a Western. At that moment, the scene was of a blacksmith shoeing a horse as the hero rode past into town.

He paused, watching the movie as it unrolled. His focus wasn't on the surprisingly clean-shaven and well-attired protagonist, but the surroundings. Wooden boardwalks, saloons with batwing doors, stagecoaches, the whole nine yards. After a while, he picked up the notepad that lay at his elbow and began jotting down notes. By the end of the movie – which he didn't bother watching – he had a plan firmly roughed out. The exhibition would concentrate not on the over-glorified violence and danger of those days, but the mundane daily lives that most people went through. Most especially, it would showcase those jobs that had been superseded by the march of time, but which had once upon a time been an essential part of society.

Blowing his nose, he picked up the phone and began to make some calls.

<><>​

Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tennessee

The Tennessee Iron Works Foundry had not matched up to the grandeur of its name when it first began operations, and it had declined considerably since then. Its origins dated back to the Civil War, turning out repeating rifles and revolvers and smaller paraphernalia for the war effort. Raw iron had come in; horseshoes, buckles, nails and dozens of other items had been produced and taken away.

Following the cessation of hostilities, the foundry had struggled on. There was always a market for nails and horseshoes, whether a war was being fought or not. Guns, too, were in demand, just not as much as before. Eventually, however, it had had to close its doors, as more modern methods of production had overtaken it. Grass had grown between the cracks of the concrete and the well-used tools and dies had languished in their various storage bins.

For decades, the property teetered on the brink of being demolished in place of something more upmarket, but it always seemed to be just a little more profitable to keep it on the books as a tax write-off than to actually do something with it. And then it was sold off. For the first time in years, the new owners actually came through and looked at the place.

These were people with vision. They had the building brought up to spec; the old tools were repaired, the dies brushed off and in some cases recast. When the foundry went into operation once more, it was again producing the iron nails and other items for which it had originally been constructed. But instead of going to hard-working farmers or new recruits to the Army, they went to collectors and re-enactors; people who liked to immerse themselves in a world long gone, perhaps to escape the grim realities of the present day.

A few days before, they had received an order for iron nails and replica blacksmithing tools. These they could supply. The client had also asked them if they could come up with a selection of anvils. Unfortunately, anvils were just a little out of the weight range that the foundry was used to dealing with, and so they were unable to manufacture them on site. However, making use of their widespread network of contacts, they were able to source no less than nine antique anvils.

In the meantime, the rest of the order would be much easier to fill; at that moment, the foundry was in the process of producing a run of nails. However, the rain system that had spread up the east coast from Miami was intensifying and although the damage of long disuse had been repaired, the roof was still old and water still found its way in. There it happened to find a section of wiring which had fallen prey to the local rodent population. Water dripped on to exposed copper, sparks flew and a short-circuit ensued. Throughout the building, the lights flickered, but there was no other result.

Or so they thought. As it happened, the equipment designed to ensure that cavitation did not occur within the metal being poured into molds had turned itself off to avoid damage from the power spike. Of the last few dozen nails made, a certain number ended up with a flaw embedded within them. Although invisible to the naked eye, these flaws ensured that the nails would break if and only if shear stresses were applied from a certain direction and over a certain amount of force.

When the short-circuit was discovered, the nails were, of course, randomly checked for problems. However, by sheer chance, those nails that were picked out were perfectly sound; all of the substandard ones slipped by and were thus packaged up. These were sent on to the next location. There they would be used to fasten together a heavy wooden table, which would then be transported north.

The anvils, on the other hand, were crated up and shipped directly to Brockton Bay. The smallest weighed in at seventy-five pounds, while the largest massed two hundred pounds of solid iron.

<><>​

Friday, January 14, 2011
Forsberg Gallery, Brockton Bay

James Aramis pointed. “Okay, set the table up over there.”

The table in question was large, requiring eight men to move it. This was because it was built from very thick planks, planed smooth by hand instead of machines. Heavy iron nails held it together; it would support the anvils which had been procured for the exhibition.

The anvils and the table were not the centrepiece of the exhibition; that would be the artworks which would surround and counterpoint them. Actual sculptures made of wrought-iron by those same blacksmiths who had used such anvils, paintings of the men at work, and other such pieces would be placed in this area of the exhibition.

'Over there' ended up being near one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The men hefting the table set it down with a sigh of relief.

“No, no,” he said. “Turn it ninety degrees, so that the end is toward the window. I want people walking around it, not past it.”

The shift boss nodded. “One, two, three, lift,” he ordered, and they lifted the table. Carefully, they shuffled around, turning it so that one end was near the window, then set it down again.

“Better,” noted Aramis. “Now, the anvils are crated up in the loading dock. I'm going to need you to uncrate them and set them out on the table. I've got place cards so that you know where to put them.”

The men headed for the elevator. Once they were out of earshot from the gallery director, one of them shook his head slightly. “Anvils?” he muttered.

“Yeah, anvils,” the shift boss agreed. “We use the trolley jack and we take it real careful. One of those things lands on your foot, you won't have a foot any more.”

Nobody argued with that.

<><>​

The PRT Building, the previous day

“Commander Calvert.”

Thomas looked up from the form he was awkwardly filling out with his left hand. “Yes, Director?”

Emily Piggot stepped into the sickbay and sat down in the chair next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

He could tell from the tone of her voice that she couldn't care less how he was feeling, but he went along with it. “I've been better,” he said non-committally. “They gave me something for the pain, and the sling helps. But a broken collarbone is no fun at all.” He paused a beat, then added, “Thanks for asking.”

From the twist of her lip, he could tell that she had picked up all the nuances of what he was saying. For his part, he resolved to think carefully about what else he said; the local they'd given him for the pain wasn't fuzzing his thoughts too badly, but he still wasn't on best form.

“Well, it could have been worse, I imagine,” she noted. “So tell me, what the hell did you think you were doing?”

“Director,” began the sickbay attendant. “Commander Calvert is -”

“In my chain of command. As are you.” Piggot's eyes never shifted from Calvert. “Kindly absent yourself. He will still be healthy when you return.”

The tone of her voice would have etched steel; from the corner of his eye, Calvert saw the man exiting the room with some haste. He watched her take a digital recorder from her pocket and thumb the switch on. “This is the record of an interview between Director Emily Piggot and Commander Thomas Calvert on Thursday, January thirteen, two thousand and eleven,” she enunciated. “Commander Calvert, please identify yourself for the record.”

Taking a deep breath, he cleared his suddenly-dry throat. “This is Commander Thomas Calvert, Parahuman Response Teams,” he said clearly. “What do you wish to know?”

“I will repeat my earlier question,” Piggot replied. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Splitting timelines was second nature for him by now. In both of them, he was still sitting on the bed with the clipboard on his lap. The delay with the sickbay attendant had given him time to think, and he had used it well. There are two ways I can go from here. Fortunately, I can try them both.

<><>​

Timeline A

Agree agree agree.

“You're right, Director,” he agreed. “It was my fault. I screwed up totally.”

A blink was the only indication he got of her surprise. “Keep talking.”

“You warned us,” he expanded. “You warned us about considering her to be a threat. But I was a field agent, like you, back in Ellisburg. You know how hard is is for us to not see a powerful parahuman as a potential threat.”

He could see her struggling not to empathise with him. It was hard for her, because her feelings toward capes started at 'mild distrust' and went up from there. He had picked this approach for that very reason.

“You know that I feel that way,” she snapped. “You've always struck me as being more of a moderate in the matter.”

“Just because I don't distrust them all the time doesn't mean that I don't see the threat that they pose,” he shot back, having anticipated such an answer. “I'm pretty sure that you've got a black file somewhere around here. I know that I have.”

Her lips pursed even tighter, confirming his supposition. The term 'black file' was only used between non-parahuman members of the PRT, referring to a file composed of ways to take down currently-friendly members of the Protectorate and other teams, should they ever turn on their allies. Such a file was in no way sanctioned at any level of the PRT, and was never officially acknowledged. By mentioning it, Calvert had just rendered the recorded interview null and void.

“Fine then,” she muttered, turning off the recorder. “But you were ordered not to run a threat assessment.”

“But I didn't,” he protested, his expression and tone conveying – he hoped – innocence. “I never wrote a single word down, never gave an order to anyone.” He tapped his temple with his left forefinger. “It was all in here. A thought experiment, you might say. Daydreaming, even. Woolgathering. Just thinking about ways that it might just possibly be viable to take down such a cape, should she turn out to be hostile.”

“And look where it got you.” Piggot nodded at his sling. “Electrical burns and a broken collarbone.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “And you were right. I have absolutely no intent of ever attempting anything hostile against her. Which I suppose is the point of what happened to me. I'm totally convinced that it's a really bad idea to even consider trying to take her down.”

“Which I could have told you before,” Piggot pointed out. “In fact, I believe that I did. Specifically.” Despite herself, he could see, her attitude toward him was softening. He had screwed up, taken the hits, and admitted his error. It's hard to stay angry at someone who keeps agreeing with you.

“Yes, you did.” He gestured at his injured shoulder. “And you were totally right. I didn't see how right you were, before, but now I do.”

“Good.” She stood up. “You're not going to try this again?”

His laugh was short, totally lacking in humour, and absolutely sincere. “Do I look like a suicidal moron?”

Her answering smile was dry. “I had wondered. Consider yourself on leave until that shoulder heals.” Standing up, she moved toward the door. “And Calvert?”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Sometimes I do actually know what I'm talking about. You might want to consider that.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Good.” She turned and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Slowly, he allowed himself to relax. Well, that could have gone worse.

<><>​

Timeline B

Deny deny deny.

“What do you mean, what the hell was I thinking?” He matched his tone to hers.

“I mean,” she snapped, “that very shortly after I warned you against antagonising a reality-manipulating cape, you obviously did exactly that, considering the situation that you ended up in.”

“Obviously?” he retorted. “So what, just because you have the theory that someone may have triggered with omniscient reality-manipulation abilities, as soon as someone has an accident thereafter it's because they did something to upset that cape?”

“The timing is pretty damn suspicious, Calvert,” she said hotly. “As are your injuries.”

“What about my injuries?” he asked. “My computer short-circuited and zapped me, and I fell off my chair and broke my collarbone.”

She leaned forward, her glare becoming more intense. “We think that there was an attempted attack on Taylor Hebert's father this afternoon. Police arrested a stranger found in the dockyards. He had electrical burns and a broken collarbone. They also found a steel pipe with burns on it that could have been made by a lightning strike. Also, Hebert reports nearly being struck by lightning. My theory is that this stranger was about to attack him and was struck by lightning. At almost exactly the same time, as far as we can tell, you had your mishap with the computer, suffering near-identical injuries. What do you say to that?”

“I think,” he snarled in reply, “that coincidences still happen, reality manipulating cape or no. Electrocution is a very common form of injury in the home. And the collarbone is one of the easiest bones in the body to break.” He waited till she opened her mouth to speak, then went on. “Has anyone checked the background of that supposed assailant? That might be an easy way to find out who's paying him to attack Hebert and why – if, in fact, that's what he was there for.”

Her eyes promised him dire retribution for cutting her off, but she nodded reluctantly. “The police say that he's a known member of the Empire Eighty-Eight, but that he says he quit the gang after Kaiser was captured.”

Calvert snorted. “Yeah, anyone can say anything. I think that's case closed on that one, yes? The Empire kidnapped the Hebert girl and got hammered. One of the members didn't get the memo and went after her father.”

He held up a finger as Piggot went to answer. “Now, I'll admit that the lightning strike seems a little coincidental, but it could have happened that way, especially if this guy was holding a steel pipe over his head like a lightning rod. But what I will categorically deny is that I had anything to do with it. Why would I even want to attack either the girl or her father? You gave us chapter and verse on her powers. It sounds like the height of stupidity to me.”

“I have no idea why you'd want to be so idiotic,” she agreed, “but the truth remains that your injuries correlate closely with the intruder's, and so does the timing. I think you went after Daniel Hebert. I just don't know why.”

“Well, you can think all you like,” he told her, “but unless and until you get solid proof that I've got anything to do with this – any proof, any at all – I would advise you to refrain from throwing wild accusations around. Because no matter what you might decide it looks like, having an odd accident happen to someone is not actually proof of anything except that they've had an accident.”

“Yes, but -” she began, but he overrode her.

“And even if it is this Hebert girl's power at work, there's still no proof that it's a result of me trying something against her. Maybe she's had a bad day and her power's acting out. Maybe it's malicious and likes to target people for no good reason. Maybe it's inaccurate. Maybe it's got backsplash. All you've got is the supposition that she's reacting to a potential attack on her, that her power's able to target just those involved, and that it's responding in a proportionate manner. None of which you've got any proof for. Have you?”

She paused, apparently waiting for something. When nothing happened for a long moment, she spoke, her voice low and deadly.

“No, Commander Calvert. I have no proof for it. I have a lot of examples of her power reacting in a timely and deserved manner. I can't prove that her power only ever works in that way, but I believe it. So you can bet that I will be opening an investigation into you, into every facet of your life, turning over every stone, until I find evidence that either proves or disproves my belief once and for all.” She paused then, like him, spoke just as he was about to make a comment. “You've got sick leave. Use it. But don't leave town.”

“With pleasure.” He deliberately left it vague about which part of her statement he was referring to.

“Good.” She stood up. “This ends the interview.” She clicked off the recorder, then turned toward him. “Are you working for Coil?”

The suddenness of the question startled him into a laugh. “Ha – no, Director. No, seriously. That's the last thing I'd ever do. What makes you even think of that?”

Her eyes narrowed, leaving him wondering what was going on behind them. “No reason. But we'll be checking that angle too. Whatever you are up to, we'll find out.”

She moved toward the door; as she opened it, he spoke up. “Director, just one question. Why are you telling me all this? Why let me know what you suspect me of?”

Her head turned, her eyes raking over him. “Because I know you've got every second file clerk slipping you information. It's the way you work. If we started an investigation on you on the sly, you'd have chapter and verse before the day was out.” She showed her teeth in what might have been a smile. “At least this way, I get to watch you squirm.”

With that, she left the sickbay, closing the door quietly behind her. Almost, he terminated the timeline. But he didn't. He had learned his lesson.

It's not totally unsalvageable yet.

<><>​

Friday, January 14, 2011
Forsberg Gallery, Brockton Bay

The forklift was small enough to fit into the freight elevator. Its tyres were large and soft, the better to travel over the polished-marble floors without leaving marks. Upon its tines rested a forge to go with the anvils. It was actually a genuine forge, built from fired clay bricks, and looked authentic as hell, despite being only about fifty years old. Once it was put into place, the bellows and blacksmithing tools would be set up around it.

“Set it up at the end of the table,” James Aramis directed the driver. “Careful, now.”

Yeah, yeah, careful is my middle name, the driver thought sourly, but he schooled his features to politeness. “Yes, sir,” he agreed. “Careful it is.”

Manipulating the levers of the forklift with all the skill at his command, he eased the small vehicle forward, the electric motor humming audibly. The forge was resting on a pallet, which would be concealed with window-dressing once it was set on the floor, but the problem was that he had to get it dead straight to start with; any attempt to move it might just scratch the marble, and Mr Aramis would go ballistic.

Brow furrowed with concentration, he lined up the forklift and brought it in toward the table. Just as he was about to lower the forks and see how that looked, he was distracted by a fluttering motion out of the corner of his eye. Looking around, he jumped as a large monarch butterfly flitted right into his face for just a second. “Whoa!” His hand brushed one of the controls and the forklift jolted forward slightly, bringing the forge sharply into contact with the end of the table.

Normally, this would not have been an issue. The table was three feet clear of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined this floor of the gallery; the impact should have moved it barely an inch. The forge was unmarked by the collision, the rugged brickwork shrugging it off.

But with a sound like several simultaneous gunshots, a number of nails gave way all at once; the table lurched forward, the far legs folding underneath. With a loud crash, the end of the table hit the floor, forming a ramp that ended right next to one of the windows.

The first anvil, the smallest one, began to slide down the table, then the second. And then they were all in motion. There was a certain inevitability to it, the only thing standing in their way being the tempered glass of the window.

Aramis' mouth was opening, whether to shout orders or to say something else, when the smallest anvil hit the glass, side on.

The glass cracked, but the anvil stopped.

<><>​

Coil's Secret Underground Base
At the Same Time

Timeline A

Thomas Calvert climbed from the back of the van. It had been an absolute pain – quite literally – to get into the costume with the broken collarbone hampering his movements, but sacrifices sometimes have to be made. Into the base he strode, his mercenaries stiffening to attention as he passed by. He nodded in return; the base seemed to be in good order, although he made a mental note to check on the moisture detectors, and to have the wall in the lower levels reinforced, just in case.

He'd had to wait a day before returning to his base, just in case his movements were under observation. But it seemed that his conversation with Piggot had had the desired effect, and that any suspicions had been diverted from him. Though where they got the idea that Thomas Calvert was working for Coil, I have no clue.

That was something he would have to investigate, he decided. It probably wasn't something that he could glean from his network within the PRT – while Piggot knew about it, it wasn't exactly breaking the rules to find out information through backchannels like that – so he would have to use more illegal means. Fortunately, I have just the thing.

Entering his office, he closed the door before sitting down at his computer. Typing left-handed would hamper him a little, but he could manage, he decided. But first things first; he hit the power button to wake the computer up from its electronic slumber.

Except that it wasn't slumbering. Almost immediately, the screen came on; lines of data were scrolling up the screen, almost as if he were performing a search. But I just got here. His expression went from puzzled to horrified in seconds as he realised just what was going on. Someone's tapped into my system from the outside and is going through it.

“Shit,” he muttered. “No … no … no.” His left hand flew over the keyboard, shutting down windows as fast as he could. Whoever was on the other end would know something was going on, but right now, cutting off the leak was of prime concern.

<><>​

Timeline B

They'll be watching me.

He didn't know that for certain, but he would have done it in Piggot's place, and she was at least as paranoid as he was, perhaps more so. Ten years of running the local PRT station, while the city slowly went to hell around her, would not have served to make her any kind of complacent. So he had planned on being under surveillance, and was working on being the most boring target for such in the history of espionage.

The previous night, he had slept in his own bed. It had been an uncomfortable rest, due to his injury, but he had gotten through the night. In the long hours before getting to sleep, he had planned out his next moves.

Wander around town for the next few days, while gathering my resources. Then leave town. Between the mysterious and possibly vindictive powers of Taylor Hebert and the suspicions of Emily Piggot, Brockton Bay was getting far too warm for him. He had no intention of drawing the ire of Taylor Hebert again; once had been definitely too much. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

He still hadn't decided exactly where he would move to. A city with a relatively high parahuman population would be ideal; one with a strong crime index would also be helpful. Boston would be too close, New York too large.

Still considering his options, he strolled down the street in the general direction of a good restaurant that he knew. The Forsberg Gallery was just up ahead; the display banners outside described an upcoming exhibition. He briefly considered attending; if he was under surveillance, it would make an ideal time to break away from his watchers.

He never heard the window break, far above.

<><>​

Timeline A

When the last tab had closed, he used the trackpad to select an icon and click on it; this showed him that the firewalls were down and his computer was fully vulnerable. He clicked again to reactivate them.

A window popped up. AUTHENTICATE USER.

Of course. Changing security settings – such as turning on the firewall – required a password to be entered. How it had been turned off was something that he would have to find out. Is there a traitor in the base? He would have bet good money that there wasn't, but stranger things had happened. Now I'm going to have to vet them all. Again.

Working as quickly as he could, he tapped out the authentication code with his left hand, then reached across to hit Enter. However, instead of showing up USER AUTHENTICATED as it should have, instead the screen flashed red.

INTRUDER DETECTED, the words spilled across the screen accusingly. ENTER AUTHENTICATION CODE IMMEDIATELY.

Taking a deep breath to settle his nerves, he re-entered the code more carefully. I don't know what's going on, but I can't make any mistakes now.

For a long moment after he hit Enter, the screen went blank. When it came back on, his blood ran cold.

INTRUDER INTRUDER INTRUDER.

BASE SELF-DESTRUCT ENGAGED.

DESTRUCT IN 15:00:00.

“What?” he blurted. “No! I did it right!”

Ignoring his words, the numbers began counting down, the two digits on the far right whirling so fast they were a blur. Outside his office, a siren began whooping in the tone he had selected for 'evacuate the base immediately'. The drills he had held were paying off, he noted absently; running boots outside the door indicated that nobody was standing around asking what was going on.

But he didn't move from the chair. I can still fix this.

Forcing himself to stay calm, he carefully entered a second code. This would freeze his computer; it would take several hours to unlock it, but in the meantime, he would be able to go into it and manually turn off the self-destruct directive. Double-checking each of the memorised characters, he finally nodded and pressed Enter.

HACKING ATTEMPT DETECTED.

SELF-DESTRUCT IN 05:00:00.

“No!” he shouted. “No! What's going on?” At the back of his mind, he knew, but he didn't want to admit it, not quite yet.

There was one last code he could enter. This would wipe the entire system, force a reload from backups. He would lose everything that hadn't been backed up in the last week.

Christ. It's a rock and a hard place.

Her power is trying to force me to drop this timeline.

This is the good timeline.

Fuuuuck.

Gritting his teeth, he entered the final code. With his forefinger, he stabbed at the Enter key.

NICE TRY, SUCKER.

SELF-DESTRUCT IN 01:00:00.

For a long moment, he stared at the message on the screen. “But I didn't even code that in,” he protested. “Who wrote that?”

Then his survival instincts kicked in; leaping from the chair, he darted to the door. Almost a minute to go. Maybe I can still make it.

But the door refused to unlock, even when he frantically tapped out the code on the keypad. After two further attempts, he gave it up and turned back to the computer. There was less than thirty seconds to go. Hopelessly, he watched the numbers scroll down to their inevitable conclusion. With less than ten seconds to go, he raised his eyes and one fist to the ceiling.

“But I wasn't going to do anything!” he screamed.

When the explosions went off, he lost consciousness almost immediately, so he was never quite sure whether it was the shockwave that killed him or the falling rubble.

<><>​

Timeline B
Forsberg Gallery

“Stop – stop it!” James Aramis' voice rose above all others, but it was too late. The second anvil hit the first, transmitting the shock of impact through to the window; what had been a few cracks spread almost too fast for the eye to see, and became a hole. The first anvil slipped through and disappeared, falling toward the pavement far below. But the second anvil was a little larger, and hung up just for a moment … until the third anvil hit it.

One by one, they slid down the length of the table. Had the slope been a little less pronounced, or the craftwork on the table left it a little rougher, disaster might yet have been averted. But such was not to be. Two men each tried to grab an anvil, but the handholds were not good and the momentum too great; one was dragged along briefly by the mass of metal, while the other lost his grip immediately.

One by one, in a stately train of destruction, each anvil hit the hole in the window, opening it ever so slightly more, then vanished through.

Finally, in counterpoint, the blue monarch butterfly that had caused the entire debacle floated to the hole in the window, hesitated there for a moment, then flitted outside.

In the silence that followed, James Aramis broke the habit of many years.

“Fuck.”

<><>​

The first that Thomas Calvert knew of anything amiss was when the anvil landed in front of him. Had he not paused to read the banner, it would have crushed him utterly; as it was, it punched its way into the concrete with a shattering impact, sending cracks radiating in all directions.

Instinctively, he split time; one version of himself stayed where he was, while the other leaped backward. That one died, as an anvil landed right on top of him.

Another split; a leap to the left. Another anvil, another messy death. A leap to the right. A fourth anvil landed, once more a direct hit. He stopped splitting time after that, staying right where he was, as four more anvils rained down around him, filling in the gaps between the first four.

His ears were still ringing from the tremendous crashes, his throat scratchy from the concrete dust thrown up by the impacts, but he vaguely registered that he was standing in a circle of eight anvils, each with its horn pointed directly at him.

Anvils? The fuck?

And then the last one landed, on top of the first. It smashed down so hard that the first one was driven below ground level, the ringing of metal on metal so loud that it overrode the previous clamour in his ears.

I'm still alive. Resolutely, he ignored the warm trickle down his left leg and repressed the whimper that arose in his throat. Still alive. Oh god. I was nearly killed. By anvils. Falling from the sky.

It took him a few moments to notice that the last anvil wasn't pointing its horn directly at him, but somewhere off to the side. He leaned forward and looked along the line, to see what he had already half-expected. With renewed purpose, he stepped over the closest anvil and set off in that direction.

<><>​

Amanda Curren stifled a yawn.

It was a slow afternoon on the reception desk at the Brockton Bay PRT building. School wasn't out yet, so the teenagers weren't flooding through the lobby and buying posters and such at the gift shop. There hadn't been any alarms; the guards in the lobby, as bored as Amanda was, were watching the newsfeed on the screen in the corner or chatting in low tones, not made any easier by their full-face helmets. She glanced around to ensure that her supervisor was elsewhere, then tapped a few keys on her keyboard. Up in one corner of her screen, a small window opened, with a classic comedy espionage show. She'd channel-surfed on to one of the episodes a week ago, and had become quite addicted to it.

Just as she did so, the slightest of shudders went through the building. It was there and gone in an instant, leaving her wondering if she'd even actually felt it; a few moments later, she thought she heard a very distant explosion, or something like it. Pausing the show, she clicked the button on her headset that allowed her to listen in on the guards' chatter. “You guys hear that?” she asked.

“Yeah,” the corporal in charge answered. “What was it? Any alerts?”

“Not yet,” Amanda told him. “Might want to look alive, guys. Someone's gonna come make sure we're all doing our jobs.” As she did so, she minimised the window with her show. Then she maximised the window with current alerts. Nothing was showing up.

Since Kaiser and the bulk of the Empire Eighty-Eight had gone down – she still got the giggles when she thought about how – the rest of the gang had been very quiet. The ABB and the Merchants rarely did anything in downtown. And surely if there was a cape battle going on, someone would have phoned it in.

“Kowalski, report.” That would be the lieutenant who had just stepped out of the elevator. Amanda knew what the report would be, so she clicked over on to her regular channel and did her best to appear alert and on the ball.

And not a moment too soon; a few seconds later, George stepped up behind her. He wasn't bad as supervisors went, although he would have a few choice words for her if he caught her watching TV shows on duty. No matter how boring it was.

“Anything on the alert feed, Amanda?” he asked quietly.

She checked it again, although nothing had popped up since she had last looked. “Nothing. But whatever that was, it was either really big or fairly close.”

“And we should've gotten a notification either way.” He sounded puzzled. She could understand why.

“I don't know either,” she offered. “Maybe it wasn't a cape battle?”

He snorted. “What else sends a shock wave like that?”

“Maybe someone blew up a bank?” She figured it was safe to make a joke.

“We'd still get an alert in that case.” He paused. “Let me check something.” She leaned out of the way, vaguely aware of the guards forming up under the lieutenant's direction, as George tapped a few keys on her keyboard. Opening a window on her computer, he went through a series of menu choices that she hadn't even known were there. A map of the surrounding area popped up, with a series of radiating circles centred around a specific spot.

She blinked. “What … ?”

His tone was pleased. “They installed a seismograph last month. Seems like it's paying off.”

She tilted her head, trying to make sense of the map. “Why, that's the Forsberg Gallery. What could be happening there?”

“I'm not certain,” he mused. “But whatever it was …”

He trailed off as honking horns and screeching tyres, audible even through the two sets of automatic doors, drew their attention.

“Uh, maybe something is happening out there,” she ventured.

“Here,” he muttered. “Let me see.” Going through yet another set of menu commands, he brought up the feed from the outside security cameras. Cars were indeed stopping and swerving, all to avoid a pale figure, almost skeletally thin, that was walking in a direct line across the road toward the PRT building. Oddly enough, he had his right arm in a sling.

The image was black-and-white, but Amanda was pretty certain that the person – cape, whatever – didn't have a normal skin tone. And he was walking steadily, with purpose, ignoring traffic utterly. Which meant a certain fixity of intent, or the ability to not have to worry about such things as a car hitting him, or both. Either way, this was serious business.

George obviously thought so too. “Lieutenant!” he called out; the officer's head turned. “Incoming. I'm putting it on the screen.” All five guards looked at the screen in the corner; with a few more keystrokes and a mouse-click, George had the security feed up there.

“Hutchins! Jensen!” The orders were loud enough for Amanda to hear them without being patched into their channel. “If this guy causes trouble, foam him down!” She guessed that he was addressing the two guards equipped with containment foam dispensers.

“Should we drop the shutters?” she asked quietly. Containment foam was a part of the induction at the PRT building; every employee had to undergo being encased in the off-yellow substance, just so they knew what it felt like. It was guaranteed non-carcinogenic and non-toxic, but nobody actually liked it. For her part, Amanda had still been scrubbing the residue out of her hair a week later; she didn't want to go through that again.

“Let's wait,” George decided. “It might provoke him into doing something. Maybe we can calm this situation down without resorting to harsher methods.”

The honking and screeching ceased as the tall form reached the pavement. Still moving at that same implacable pace, he walked up to the automatic doors, which of course parted for him, as did the inner set. Amanda saw the guards become more tense as he entered the lobby proper. It looked to her as if the man had been doused in a greyish powder from head to toe, clothes and all.

A moment later, the ominous atmosphere was dispelled as the man stopped and sneezed violently, the very action shaking powder from his clothing. A second sneeze racked his body, then a third.

Abruptly, the lieutenant gestured for his men to lower their weapons; Amanda couldn't hear what he was saying over the radio, but she guessed that he had given an order, because the guns and foam sprayers were pointed at the ground. The officer stepped forward to face the newcomer.

“Commander Calvert?” he asked. “Is that you?”

<><>​

Calvert repressed another sneeze, and looked at the blank faceplate. “Yes, Lieutenant, it's me,” he said thickly. “I need to speak to Director Piggot.”

“I … yes, sir,” the lieutenant responded. Stepping back, he gestured to his men, who stood down from their various positions of readiness.

Stepping forward, Calvert approached the desk, where a well-groomed older man stood beside the receptionist. “I need you to contact the Director immediately,” he instructed them. “Tell her that it's Thomas Calvert, that she was right, and that I will tell her everything.”

The woman glanced at the man – obviously her supervisor – and he nodded. “Yes, sir,” she replied belatedly. “I'll do that immediately.”

She must have been a little flustered, because when she hit keys on her keyboard, the first thing that Calvert heard was the soundtrack from a TV show. He recognised it almost immediately from the main character's catchphrase: “Good thinking, Ninety-Nine!”

The supervisor, his expression unimpressed, cleared his throat sternly; the woman, looking mortified, shut off the sound and tapped a few more keys. “Uh, Director, this is Amanda down in Reception. Yes, I have Commander Calvert here to see you. He says to say that you were right and that he'll tell you everything.”

He was barely listening; the sense of relief washing through him nearly made his knees buckle. That was no accident. I'm where I need to be.

“Uh, sir? Commander?” Abruptly, he became aware that she was addressing him.

“Yes?” He pulled his attention back to the here and now.

“You can go straight up. She'll be waiting for you.”

Not bothering to answer, he turned on his heel and made for the elevators; behind him, he heard the supervisor say ominously, “Amanda. My office. Now.”

But her fate was not his concern. Thomas Calvert only had one person's well-being in mind at the moment. He stepped into the lift; the doors interleaved shut behind him.

<><>​

When the knock sounded on her office door, Emily turned on the voice recorder and assumed an expression of polite interest. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened and an apparition in grey stepped inside. Emily stared. It was Calvert, of course, but …

“My god, what happened to you?” she blurted.

“Anvils,” Calvert replied hollowly, and somewhat obscurely. “Too many anvils.”

Anvils? She eyed him as he came closer, shedding a coarse grey powder. She recognised the smell of it from across the room, along with another one, more acrid. “Is that … concrete powder?”

“Close.” He collapsed into a chair, coating it with more of the grey stuff. “It's concrete dust. Anvils.” The last word was a groan.

As curious as she was, Emily decided to cut to the chase. “You said that I was right. Explain.”

He took a deep breath, then coughed a few times. Finally clearing his throat, he looked at her. “You were right. I was trying something on Taylor Hebert. Specifically, I wanted to see how well her power protected her father. The man on the Docks, he was in my pay.”

Her eyes widened slightly at the frank confession, then narrowed once more. “Keep talking. I need to know why.”

He nodded. “I'm Coil.”

It took a moment for her to register his statement. “Wait – the supervillain Coil?”

Jerkily, he nodded. “I think I'm supposed to tell you everything. Well, that's it. I've got powers, I'm a supervillain. I tried to find out whether Taylor Hebert's powers protect her father. Apparently, they do, quite well.”

Emily paused for a moment to take this in. “And what was the aim of that?”

“If they did, my plan was to ingratiate myself into her life until her powers protected me as well,” he explained frankly. “I severely underestimated the scope and power of her abilities. She saw me coming long before I'd ever even heard of her.”

A dry smile twisted Emily's mouth. “Not the first time I've heard that of her,” she agreed. “So what made you think you could even get away with attacking her father like that?”

For a long moment, he hesitated, then spoke. “I have powers.”

She put aside her surprise at the admission to address the concern behind it. “So does Kaiser. He didn't fare very well either. What made you think that you're different?”

He grimaced. “My power lets me try out an option then drop it if it doesn't work, with nobody the wiser,” he admitted. “But her power gets around it. She hit me in both timelines.” His voice rose. “This is the first time that's ever happened! It's not fair!”

She fought down her amusement. “You broke your collarbone in this, uh, timeline. What happened in the other one that made you pick this one?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh god. Everything.”

Emily was starting to see where this was going. “So a series of unfortunate accidents led you to this point, right?”

“Not accidents. Never accidents.” He shook his head violently, showering concrete dust on to her desk. “All planned. By her power. Days ahead of time. Waiting for me to find out about her and go after her father.”

“Okay,” she said. “So what happened to you today?”

“Anvils,” he replied. “Eight of them. No, nine. They fell out of the sky, outside the Forsberg Gallery. Around me. A neat circle. One after the other. The ninth one landed on top of the first one. It was a message.” He stopped, apparently reliving the experience.

“Message?” she prompted.

“I can get you any time, any place,” he stated. “No matter how far you run, I will get you. And you will never see me coming.”

“Sounds about right,” she agreed. “But what I'm curious about is why now? You said yesterday that you weren't going to go after her any more. Why did you?”

“But I didn't,” he insisted. “I was actually making plans to leave town. I wanted no more to do with her.”

“And then a bunch of anvils landed around you.”

“And then …” He shuddered. “Yes.”

“So what do you think it means?”

He raised haunted eyes to hers. “I think it means that her power knows about my power, and wants me to spend the rest of my life giving her the best life she can have.”

She pursed her lips. “Or she just wanted you to come in and give yourself up. You've already admitted to being a supervillain, so I could have you placed under arrest -”

At that moment, the lights in her office flickered and buzzed. Without missing a beat, she went on, “- but on second thought, I think it would be amusing to watch a former supervillain work to make someone else's life better for a change.” Her smile became razor-edged as she added, “Without ever letting her know what you're doing.”

The buzzing stopped, as did the flickering. She let herself relax slightly. That was the right call.

Resignedly, he nodded. “Well, I suppose that I'd better get to it.” He stood, then paused. “There's something that I want to know, but I'm not sure that I want to know. If you know what I mean.”

Emily gestured. “Spit it out.”

He grimaced. “If I had ignored the anvils … what then?”

It was a good question. She typed rapidly, bringing up the Forsberg Gallery website. “Ah, so that's where the anvils came from. A pioneer days exhibition.” She clicked on a tab. “And … ah ha.”

“Ah ha?”

She turned the screen so that he could see. “Antique pianos. About six of them. Answer your question?”

“Oh, yes.” The hollow tone was back. “It does indeed. She even had that planned out.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe they were just there to answer any doubts that you had.”

“Is there a difference?” He turned and made for the door.

As he put his hand on the door handle, she cleared her throat. “Oh, and just by the way? We know about your base.”

He nodded. “I know. Leave me some of my assets so that I can do what I've been told to do?”

“Certainly.” Her tone was magnanimous. “We might need you to do work for us too, once in a while. So long as it doesn't interfere with your new job.”

He turned to look at her, his expression that of a man with his unmentionables caught in a slowly tightening vice. “You don't give an inch, do you?”

Hers was that of a well-fed cat, with canary feathers in its whiskers. “In your case, not on your life.” She paused a beat, for perfect timing. “And Calvert?”

“Yes?”

“You might want to change your pants. I believe you've wet yourself.”

“Anvils!” It was a wail.

The door closed behind him; Emily checked the website and dialled a number into her phone. “Hello, yes. This is Director Piggot of the PRT. I'd like to talk to your manager, please. Yes, it's about the anvils. Yes, I'll hold.”

As she waited, she leaned back in her chair and allowed herself a smile.

Anvils. Well, she's got style, I'll give her that.

<><>​

Later That Evening
The Hebert Household

“Hey, Dad, check this out.”

Danny stepped through from the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand. “What is it?”

Taylor pointed at the TV screen. A reporter was pointing at a circle of what looked like anvils embedded in the concrete; she had the TV muted so that the woman's lips were moving soundlessly. The caption read Amazing Escape from Death. “Does that look like something that would happen normally?”

Danny stared at the screen. The concrete was cracked around the anvils, but they were placed with almost millimetric precision in a circle, the pointy bits – he had no idea what they were called – aligned inward.

“Yeah, no,” he agreed. “That could very well be your power at work. Has anyone been hassling you recently?”

She shrugged. “Nope. The new teachers at school have been really good at keeping an eye on that sort of thing.”

“Huh. Well, let me know if anything else like that happens.”

“Okay.”

He went back to cooking dinner, and she went back to her homework. Life went on in the Hebert household.


End of Part Nine

Part Ten