The early morning light shining on me stirred me from my deep sleep. I’d been dreaming about something strange, me and a group of friends going out and shopping at the boardwalk and Lord Street market. Vicky and Amy were there, Melody, Taylor, Lisa, Lily, and Melanie? It was very surreal, because I was there as Apex, but a sort of miniature version of myself, more person-sized. I remembered being happy that I could find some sundresses that actually fit me. Melanie kept wanting to go into expensive designer boutiques. Vicky had found a wide-brimmed hat that fit on my head, and had all but bullied me into wearing it.

  Taylor and Amy kept dragging the group into the shops that were full of dark clothing, edgy music, and dripping with angst. Melody and Lily were taking the opportunities presented by my having to stop and sign autographs to find some place to duck into and make out. We went and pigged out at Fugly Bob’s afterwards.

  It was a pleasant, if bizarre, dream. I shifted, feeling my beanbag underneath me. Taylor was sleeping, sitting upright against my side, her head cradled in my lower armpit. She was in her suit, but had her mask off, and had a line of drool seeping out of the corner of her mouth. She looked comfortable and adorable. The dark circles around her eyes revealed a level of exhaustion, so I very slowly and carefully shifted her so she was lying on her side on the beanbag.

  I slithered off the beanbag and stretched myself out while doing a status check. I seemed to be more or less healed up, if a bit stiff. I was starving, but I also felt quite bloated. My sleepy brain was still catching up with my body.

  The Nine, New Wave. Then the Nine again, in Winslow.

  Crawler.

  Amy.

  I paused in my stretches, sat upright, and placed a big hand on my lower abdomen. There was a weight I wasn’t used to carrying, and my abdomen curved in a way that it normally wouldn’t.

  I turned my focus and attention inward, shutting out the outside world the best that I was able. Feeling out organs I didn’t have names for, that likely didn’t exist outside my body. The large, heavy mass of a bulbous organ cradled in my hips and suspended from my spinal column. It was very active: shifting, squirming, squeezing, and throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I was very hungry, but I’d also mistaken the grumbling protests of my stomach. It wasn’t coming from my stomach, but lower down.

  I could sense a presence at the edge of my awareness. It felt familiar; I assumed it was Amy. I hoped it was Amy. The other was sleeping, peacefully, as far as I could tell.

  My power was also very active in my head. Had been all along. A steady warmth and shifting in my chest told me it was busy doing… whatever it was that it was doing.

  I’ll never have a normal day in my life. This is my fate, for every day to be some new insanity, every fight to push the limits of what my sanity can tolerate.

  I’m fucking pregnant with my girlfriend, and I don’t even have genitals.

  I resumed stretching while I thought that over.

  Is she my girlfriend?

  I felt an intense surge of emotions when she was hurt and lay there dying in front of me. She’d been my friend since childhood, same with Vicky, but was it more than just that? Sure, we’d also slept together, and there was something special about the two of us losing our V-cards together. We hadn’t really sat down and asked one another out or something, but I was leaning more toward saying yes than I was no, and it was by a decent margin.

  I glanced back at Taylor sleeping on the beanbag. I also harbored fairly strong feelings for her, and a bond that was a lot deeper than I would have ever imagined in the short few months we’d known each other. Her tendency to gravitate toward me also wasn’t lost on me. I was afraid that she had been going down a dark path when I’d first gotten to know her better, but I didn’t get that impression as much anymore. The stress, bitterness, and anxiety that reminded me of Amy, combined with the repression and deep-seated insecurities? A volatile mix, but one that was being displaced by friendship, camaraderie, and some much-needed emotional support.

  I grabbed an emergency blanket off one of the shelves in the apparatus bay with my tail and draped it over Taylor. I wanted to talk to her, but she clearly needed sleep.

  With that, I made my way into the station proper and up to the second floor. There was trash, messes, and stains pretty much everywhere. Someone had swabbed the floor hastily with a mop, and it smelled like strong chemical cleaners. I could see blood in the grout between tiles and along the sides of the hallway near the edges.

  The place was quiet; very few people were awake and moving around. There were a bunch of faces, some familiar, crashed on the sofas in the entertainment area. Lisa was sprawled on one couch with a blanket, in her Tattletale outfit. Rachel was sitting on a loveseat adjacent to where Lisa was sleeping and petting one of her dogs. I waved to her, and she gave me a curt nod.

  Watching out for her teammate.

  As hungry as I was and desperate to raid the kitchen, I had one stop I had to make before any others. I silently glided along the hallway, then lightly knocked on Mark and Carol’s door with my tail. A few moments and some rustling later, the door cracked open and Mark peeked out. I waved at him and beckoned him to come out with one claw. He nodded quickly, shutting the door, and I made my way over to the kitchen and dining area.

  I really don’t want to do this, but the anxiety must be killing them. Not knowing would be worse than knowing, at least for me. If it had been my child, I’d want to know.

  I sat next to a smaller table and pulled two chairs out. I didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes, but I did have to pull out a third chair.

  Mark, Carol, and Victoria came around the corner, and I gestured at the table. Carol and Vicky had clearly just woken up and were in hastily tugged-on casual clothing. They took a seat; the three all had a bad case of nervous energy.

  I kept my voice down. “Good morning. Did Eclipse or Flechette tell you much about last night?”

  Mark cleared his throat. “It’s Thursday. You were out the entirety of yesterday.”

  Well, shit.

  I dipped my head.

  “Melody told us that Amy was attacked by Crawler, and that it was… extremely bad. That you were going to try and do what you could to save her, but that you weren’t much better off.” Carol’s voice was quieter than I might have expected; she didn’t look like she’d slept much. “Where is she? Is she…”

  Carol covered her face, and Mark put his arm around her.

  “So first things first, she’s alive, at least, as far as I can tell.”

  Three sets of eyes were locked onto my face with unwavering intensity.

  “I–there’s no easy way to tell you this. Crawler hit most of her body with his acid spit. Crawler was the last of the Nine that I fought, but by the time I’d neutralized him, most of the damage to Amy was already done. Flechette and Eclipse did what they could for her, but couldn’t do much besides make sure she wasn’t exposed to more of the stuff and try and treat her symptoms.”

  I took a breath.

  How much should I tell them? Should I only touch on the basics? I’m not trained for this kind of thing.

  “I activated my power to try and stabilize her. As Eclipse said, I was in real bad shape myself. She’s inside of me currently. I’m pretty sure my power is working on her right now.”

  I sat up as much as I could, which wasn’t all that much, and placed a hand on my abdomen. I didn’t know if they’d even be able to tell if that wasn’t just how I normally looked.

  Carol had a look on her face like her brain had shut off. Vicky was crying, and Mark was still holding Carol close to his chest.

  I wished I could do more for them, say something to help.

  “You… ate her?” Carol asked, finally.

  “Mom!” Vicky jerked her head over at Carol.

  “Yes and no?” I sighed. “When I use my power on other people, I’m not fully in control of things. When I was treating Mark, and you saw me, I wasn’t moving my hand and doing all those things to Mark, my ability was. That’s the best way I can explain it.”

  “But why did you eat her?” Carol asked. “Couldn’t you have done the same thing to her you did to Victoria and Mark?”

  I shook my head. “Both of my lower arms were smashed to bits in the fight with Crawler, my back leg was pulped, and my body from the waist down was limp and unresponsive. Most of my guts were ripped out. All I had were my two upper arms, my hair, and my tongue to work with. I tried to stabilize her, and my power decided that my tongue was the best thing to do it with. It plugged her up with IV lines like I had with the three of you, and then it encased her. When I woke up a little while ago, my tongue was back to normal, and she’s down where I indicated.”

  I let my head and hair hang, mirroring my feelings at the moment. I was low.

  “I’m sorry, my power is strange and weird, and gross. I did what I could, with what little time I had. Amy had minutes left alive, if that. There wasn’t anything else to be done.”

  Mark coughed and sniffed. “How… Just how bad was the damage?”

  Victoria stood up and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around my neck and shoulder and hugging me.

  “Most of her body was hit. Her head and upper chest were mostly minor or superficial. Her abdomen was… extremely bad. There was virtually nothing left of the rest. I’m so sorry. It’s–I feel responsible for her being attacked. I’d thought I had killed Crawler, or at the very least, that he’d be disabled for longer if he wasn’t dead, when I left him to find the others and get them out of there.”

  Victoria squeezed me tightly, plenty tight enough that I could feel it; she must have had her shield up.

  If I could cry, I’d be bawling my eyes out right now.

  “Thank you for doing everything you could to save her, Morgan. I know you’d put her as a higher priority than your own safety.” Vicky squeezed me again. I gave a half-assed nod.

  Carol and Mark stood up and came over and joined Victoria in embracing me.

  Mark reached up and stroked my hair. “I don’t doubt you did your best, Morgan. You already saved Victoria and me that night. We were both up and feeling as good as new the next day.”

  Carol’s voice was hoarse from crying when she spoke, “I’m not mad at you. I just wish things could have been different. Maybe we could have made a difference if the rest of us had been there to help.” She kissed the tip of my head, where you would expect a nose to be.

  “Can we talk to her? Can she hear us?” Vicky asked after we’d held together a long moment and separated.

  “I don’t think so. From what I can tell, she’s sleeping, or maybe in some kind of medical coma right now. I’m trying not to say too much because of how gross my power can be, but I know it’s working on her, I can feel her, and a lot of activity inside. I need to eat badly, I had to make sure you all knew first.”

  Victoria wiped her eyes and laughed. “Power’s been out for a bit over two days, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff spoiling that you can eat.”

  I bobbed my head. “My thoughts exactly.”

  I made my way over to the two big chest freezers.

  “The kitchen crew came up here and cooked up what they could so it would keep better and wouldn’t go to waste,” Mark told me.

  I opened the first freezer, which was down to about a quarter full. It was still cool inside, but it looked like most of it had thawed. It wasn’t likely safe for anyone to eat without risking getting some stomach bugs. There was a lot of my fish leftover in here, which made sense. A bit harder to cook, and didn’t keep well unless it was being smoked.

  I started pulling out bags, tearing them open, and gulping the contents down. Some of it was still fresh and good, some of it wasn’t. It still tasted good to me regardless. I wiped out that freezer in no time at all and made my way to the other one, which had a bit more in it. I must have been working from a deficit, because the assorted raw meats and frozen vegetables in the first freezer seemingly didn’t make a dent in my hunger.

  The second one had more of our other frozen goods in it. All the specialty and treat stuff had been cleaned out, which was good. There were plenty of big bags of frozen fruits and veggies, along with some meats. I demolished the contents of that as well and left the lids open to air out. Bagging up the meat product bags in big trash bags and getting them tied off was a priority. We’d want to burn these.

  Victoria had stuck around while Carol and Mark had left. She’d been filling me in on some things while I was being a pig and gorging myself. She’d come back out to Winslow with Melody and Lily and had been the one who had transported me back to the station using some crane straps and tow chains. The medical staff had been running all Tuesday night and most of Wednesday, treating victims of Shatterbird’s attack.

  “Have we been in contact with PHQ at all?” I asked her when she wrapped up.

  “Mhm, yeah. Battery has been stopping in a few times a day, plus Taylor came back the next morning. Having her back here to keep an eye and let us know if anything is headed our way has been a huge relief.”

  Victoria moved in front of me and held her hands out. I took them using my lower arms, and we made eye contact.

  “Is it true what your sister told me?” Her voice was quiet.

  “Uhh…”

  “About you and Amy?”

  “I don’t know what she told you, but… I have feelings for her, yes. I’m still trying to figure them out. We haven’t had much of a chance to discuss things, between everything going on and… yeah. Everything going on.”

  Victoria broke into a wide smile and squeezed my hands. I squeezed back.

  “I’d like to try and keep things on the quiet side, if possible. At least until the two of us have had a chance to actually talk through things.”

  “Of course! You worried about what Mom might say?” Vicky asked me.

  I rocked my head from side to side. “Hm. Maybe a little, but not too much.”

  Victoria let go of my hands to cover her mouth and yawn. “Ugh. It’s too early. Part of me wants to go back to bed, but I’d probably better not.”

  “I don’t even know what time it is,” I admitted. “My phones are both destroyed, and the power’s out, too.”

  “Ugh, I know,” Vicky groaned. “We have a radio and extra batteries upstairs. Dragon brought in some supplies with her.”

  “Oh, shit. I should get over to PHQ and see what’s going on with Colin, see if I’m needed or can help at all.”

  “Do you want me to come over with you?” She asked.

  “Mm, yeah, sure, sounds good to me. Just let your parents know where we’re headed and get suited up. I’m going to go see if my Mom is awake upstairs and have a chat with her in the meantime.”

  The two of us split, and I made my way up to Operations. Mom usually woke up at the crack of dawn, so I expected she might already be awake and up here. I was right. She was sitting on a stool overlooking a map of the city and sipping on a coffee. She smiled when I came around the corner.

  The place had been wrecked when Shatterbird did her scream. There were a lot of computers, displays, and electronics in here that had exploded. It was a good thing the power went down when it did; otherwise, the place might have burst into fire. It’d since had a rough cleaning pass done, and all the broken glass and damaged electronics had been removed.

  “Hey, honey. I’m glad to see you’re up and moving. We were really scared by how you looked when Glory Girl brought you in, but Mel said you’d been through way worse.”

  I walked up to the table next to her and rested on my elbows. Leaning over, I used some of my hair to give her a side-hug. “Sorry for the scare. That was… A bad night. A real bad night. But a big chunk of the threat the Nine posed has been reduced or neutralized. How are we doing, outside of that?”

  She studied my face for a long moment, not answering. She asked, “Neutralized?” after a long pause.

  I sighed. “They’re dead, and I killed them. I just don’t have the time or space to really parse that right now; everything happened in the space of a few minutes, and Amy, Melody, and Lily were all in danger the entire time.”

  Mom parted some hair from in front of her face and kept looking at me as if there was a facial expression available to read. She seemed to make up her mind eventually and turned to look at the map. “We lost a solid chunk of the workforce to injuries, but casualties were fairly low because people were able to take cover. It will slow reconstruction efforts somewhat, but the bigger impact was with the heavy equipment and generators being inoperable.”

  She turned back to look at me. “George has assembled a parts list of things we need to get the power restored here, and we have a second list for the equipment and generators for the FEMA supplies.”

  “Okay. We’ll make a flight over to Boston first thing. Either Victoria or I will handle it. Getting things restored is a top priority.” I reached out and tapped the ferry on the map with a tentacle. “How about the ferry?”

  “That’s one piece of good news. It was out crossing the bay when Shatterbird hit the city, which put it out of range of the resonance wave. It’s fully functional. Otherwise, we’d have a big issue getting relief supplies down to the southern half of the city.”

  “Small victories,” I muttered.

  Mom reached over and placed her hand on my upper arm. “I’m worried about you, Morgan. How are you holding up with everything?”

  I took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m doing okay. Not great, but not bad, either. I’ll feel a lot better when I find out what Amy’s condition is, and check in with Dragon on Colin.”

  “It’s not that I doubt you, but are you being entirely honest with yourself? You’ve been through a whole heck of a lot. Melody has been struggling, and your Dad and I have been talking her through some of it.”

  “Buh. Yeah. She’s had a really rough go of things, and so little time to acclimate to changes in her life. Director Piggot is trying to avoid putting too much work on her plate, but it’s hard with how few bodies we have to handle things.” I paused a moment. “Really, though, for right now, I’m okay. Maybe not later, but currently no issues, beyond what I mentioned.”

  She took a drink of her coffee and gave me a tired smile.

  “Vicky mentioned a radio to contact the Protectorate?”

  Mom nodded quickly and slid off her stool to retrieve a large handheld unit, which she passed over to me.

  I called in to PHQ to let them know I was coming over. By the time I was done with that and chatting with Mom, Vicky was all good to go in her Glory Girl outfit. It was looking a bit rough around the edges, with several stains, patches, and hand-sewn repairs made.

  The bleach or whatever it was that she used to get the blood out of the top did a pretty good job, but pristine, bright white was a hell color for a costume, as I knew all to well. We’d stepped out onto the helicopter pad and the bright morning daylight.

  She was running her fingers over the repairs and the bloodstains. I walked up behind her and gave her a tight hug from the rear.

  “Don’t fret over it. You look as gorgeous as ever in it, and those are your battle ribbons.”

  She snorted. “Battle ribbons? Really?” She leaned back into the hug, though, putting her arms over mine.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  “For Amy? Or something else?” I whispered back.

  “Mhm. Everyone in the family is beating themselves up that they weren’t there, that they couldn’t help, or maybe prevent things from going like they did.”

  I squeezed and massaged her shoulders while she was standing up against me. The tension she felt was present in her muscles, her neck, and her shoulders as stiff as a brick. “I’m hoping my power doesn’t get too creative with fixing her up. But to be honest? It shouldn’t matter at all if it does. The only thing I care about is that she’s healthy and whole. I couldn’t give less of a flip if she’s green or purple or has a crab claw or something. Those things are secondary concerns.”

  Victoria closed her eyes and rested her head against my upper chest and in the valley between two thick armor plates. “I know. And I feel the same way. I know she’d be worried about how she looks, though. And you know how stupid people can be.” She let out a soft grunt as I worked a particularly stubborn knot on her neck. “I’m scared the Nine, what’s left of them at least, will try and do something drastic, too.”

  “We’ll deal with that if it happens. Best to try and be prepared, and then not get too caught up running in loops. They’re wounded, lost the bulk of their group, and have some real kick-ass heroes and villains up their ass the moment they pop their heads out. They fucked up coming to our city to play their games, thinking it was going to go just how they planned.”

  Victoria made a noncommittal sound in her throat. I gave her a little shake with my grip on her shoulders.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Fine, fine, you’re right. Brockton Strong,” she grumbled.

  I turned her around and lay down so that we’d be eye-level. I took her hands in my own.

  “I know you’re down. I am too. I think most of us are. We’ve been kicked in the gut when we were already on the floor from an Endbringer attack. What’s left of the Nine isn’t going to beat us, Vicky. Even if we do wind up losing people in some hairbrained suicide run. It won’t matter. We’ll mourn their passing, celebrate our victory, and the defeat of another monstrous entity. Our city, our mission, and the people we care about will go on. The world will become just a tiny bit of a better place to live for everyone.”

  She was quiet for several long moments before speaking. “Do you really believe that, or is that a motivational speech for me?”

  I squeezed her hands. “I really do believe that, Vicky. Even if we lost people, we’d have ended the threat of a group of true monsters that have been running amok for years. I can’t tell you why other people join hero organizations, or why they continue fighting. I’m sure some people do it to get out of jail or to collect a paycheck. I do it because this is exactly what I want to be doing. I don’t want people living in fear, or with this looming sense of dread their entire lives. I want to give people hope for a better life, even bad people. When people feel like they don’t have better options, that’s when they do radical, dangerous, or evil things.”

  Vicky gave my hands a squeeze back, but it was a sorry thing.

  “I didn’t really understand why you were fighting Leviathan like you were, at the time. That helps a little, but I’m still… I have a lot of doubts and fears,” she admitted.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I very nearly died fighting Leviathan. At least, I’m pretty sure I did. One of those things that’s not exactly easy to tell with my unique situation.”

  “Weren’t you scared?” She dropped her eyes down to the landing pad beneath us.

  “Of course I was, Vicky. I was terrified. But I was more scared for other people. For you and Amy, for Melody, for Taylor. Everyone else, of course. I just… I knew in the moment, I was certain that a lack of action on my part meant people dying. It could have been you or my sister. I just could not let that happen. So I charged him, fought when the opportunity presented, or when I was needed to peel him off others, and I supported and saved people the best I was able. I wasn’t thinking about my safety or well-being, unless it came down to me needing to be careful because of my passengers.”

  She leaned forward and rested her forehead against my chest. I was surprised that this was coming out, here and now, but I was glad that she was opening up about things. She needed to. She hadn’t quite been herself since the attack, and I expected that it was these things she was bottling up that were dragging her down.

  “I started off strong. Most of us did. But as people started dropping, while our classmates and friends were dying, I started to lose hope. I was scared out of my mind too, and things just seemed to keep getting worse and worse. Wh-when…” Her breathing hitched, and she squeezed my hands. I returned it.

  “When Dean died, I managed to keep going, but then Eric fell too. Dad got knocked out by a piece of debris. I took him to get medical attention, and I didn’t want to come back.” She let out a quiet sob, and I let go of her hands to press her into my chest in a tight hug. I stroked her hair and cradled her head as she cried.

  “I could have done more. I could have made a bigger difference. I’m so ashamed of myself, I feel like I don’t deserve to be with the rest of you all.” Her words were interrupted by her crying and irregular breathing. The poor girl was falling to pieces in my arms.

  She continued, “It’s different when we’re fighting other capes, even some of the strong ones. I just felt like it was this insurmountable obstacle we couldn’t get past, all we could do was weather the storm and try and survive until it was bored or was driven off.”

  God, I wish I could shift back and hold her. Give her kisses and have a softer body to support her with. I don’t dare with Amy.

  I wanted more than anything to hold her against me and kiss away her tears. I’d have to make due with what I had available. Who I was, in this form, made for parahuman combat.

  She cried for a long time, and I just held her and stroked her head while she let everything out. Eventually, she calmed down some, sniffling heavily against me.

  “Listen, Vicky. There’s no shame in being scared of a fight, or in a fight. Especially not against an Endbringer. You are as valid as anyone else here, don’t think for a moment that you’re any less of a hero or of a person.” I pulled her back some so I could look her in the eyes.

  “Amy didn’t fight on the front lines. She’s still a hero, isn’t she?”

  Victoria nodded her head.

  “You almost certainly saved your Dad’s life, Vicky. If he’d been knocked out and left alone, he would have drowned in the water or been swept away by a tidal wave. I don’t know anything more heroic than saving your family’s lives. You fought. You contributed. You saved people’s lives, not just your Dad’s, but all the other people here. Who cares if you weren’t right there when he was killed? I sure as hell don’t.”

  She nodded again and mumbled, “Yeah.”

  I continued: “We’re all just human, Vicky. We get scared, we cry, we fight, and sooner or later, we all die.”

  “You fought Leviathan like you weren’t scared of dying.”

  “In that moment, I was so focused on trying to keep him off other people, rescue people, and keep my passengers safe that I really wasn’t.”

  I took her hands again. “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be scared, or feel ashamed for having felt it. I’ve felt like I’ve had a new lease on life after recovering from my accident. I just want to try and do things to help other people out. And we’re doing that here, now more than ever!”

  She closed her eyes and held my hands. “I think I get it, what you’re saying.”

  I stood up on all fours and did a little dance, stepping from one side to the other, and slowly bringing her hand up and spinning her in a circle like we were in a ballroom. She let out a little laugh. We goofed off, doing our little impromptu dance before I brought her back around and took both of her hands again.

  She was smiling and blushing, a glimpse of her old radiance peeking through.

  “Vicky, you’re Glory Girl,” I told her.

  “Um… Yeah?” She tilted her head.

  “I don’t like seeing you feeling down and out, doubting yourself, and entertaining gnawing and nibbling dark thoughts. That isn’t the Vicky I adore so much. The Vicky I adore is an effortlessly confident woman, the woman who saw their friend turn into a giant monster and didn’t let her wallow in her shame. So now I’m returning the favor. You’re breezy and floaty, and despite what Carol insists, the woman who even gravity can’t keep down.” I sashayed my hands back and forth, to and fro between us.

  Both her blush and her smile deepened, and she laughed at the crack about her mom always yelling at her for floating around. She got into the game of dancing with our hands, pushing and pulling as much as I had been.

  “ Glory Girl isn’t just a heroine, she’s a symbol and a beacon of hope for young girls who aspire to grow up and be like her. And Glory Girl is only a fraction of Victoria Dallon. Don’t let yourself forget that, or think that it’s the other way around. It isn’t. You’re awesome, Vicky. You’ll have doubts like anyone else, but don’t let them pull you down, yeah?”

  We stopped our dance, and she hugged me tightly. When she stepped back, she was aglow, smiling, her cheeks warm, and her hair tousled.

  “There she is!” I said with a laugh of my own. “Hit us with a bit of that, GG! I’m sure we could all use a little boost of your aura.”

  She nodded firmly, and I felt something wash over me, leaving tingly warmth in its wake. I didn’t think it affected me in quite the same way that it had when I was Phoenix Strike.

  A few moments later, the door to the helipad opened, and a yawning and stretching Tattletale walked out.

  “Hey, Apex. Glad I caught you while you were awake and still here. We need to talk,” Lisa said.

  I turned partially so I could address her without my back turned. “Oh, hey, Tattletale. We were just about to leave for PHQ. Can it wait until we get back?”

  Lisa finger-combed her hair after another stretch or two. “Actually, can I come with? That would be better. I need to have a talk with you and your Boss Lady.”

  I looked over at Vicky. She read my mind, nodding back at me. “I’ll go get an armband. Be right back.”

  Victoria glided off to get Lisa a bright BS armband. I lay down so that Lisa could get on my back.

  “I’m a bit surprised you’re willing to go over there to talk to her, given she’s not exactly under any obligations not to arrest you after the attack on Wards HQ,” I told her as she got settled in and I secured her.

  “The thought hasn’t slipped my mind, but it’s important enough that it’s a risk I’m willing to run,” she replied.

  I nodded. “Okay. Just as long as we’re on the same page. I’ll make an argument for you if it comes to it, but you did what you did, and she ultimately is my boss.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m aware. If I get arrested, I get arrested. Bigger things to worry about at the moment.”

  I took a breath and sighed. “Tell me about it. Did you get any updates about the battle the other night at Winslow?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No, people have been pretty tight-lipped around us since the attack on Wards HQ.”

  “Alright, well. Let’s save it until we get in there, that way we won’t be rehashing the same things over and over.”

  Glory girl flew back up from the front of the building and extended a neon orange armband to Lisa, who promptly strapped it on nice and snug around her bicep.

  “Hmm. Actually, there is one other thing, before we leave,” Lisa said.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “We should also bring Taylor along. She’s involved in this as well; it’d be better if she were present.”

  I rose up and hopped down with a splash of water. Barely more than an inch or two now in the courtyard. I was looking forward to when it’d be fully dried out. We made our way into the apparatus bay where my bed was, and Taylor was still asleep. I walked over and rubbed her shoulder with my lower arm. She blinked, yawned, and rubbed her eyes.

  “What time is it?” She asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Thanks, Shatterbird,” I chuckled.

  “What’s going on? Something happening?” Taylor asked between yawns.

  “I need to meet with Piggot and Apex. I want you to come along too,” Lisa said.

  Taylor paused in rubbing her face to peer up at Lisa.

  They did that ‘talking with a few glances’ thing the two did, and Lisa went, “It’s about Dinah.”

  That got Taylor’s attention. “Give me a minute to hit the bathroom and wash my face, and I’ll be right back down and good to go.”

  “Sure, we’ll be here in the meantime,” I told her.

  While she was getting cleaned up, I looked over at Vicky. “Hey, I’m getting the impression my schedule for today is already going to be blown wide open. Any chance you can stop in with my Mom and get her list of supplies and make a run?”

  Victoria clicked her tongue and tapped her chin. “Would it be better sooner, or can it wait?”

  “Mmm. Probably sooner, if I’m being honest. It’s the parts and materials we need to get power restored for here and the dockyards, and to get some of the loaders and equipment running. Might be stuff for the PRT in there as well, not sure, think they’re coordinating on this supply run.”

  “Oh! Well, yeah, that would be better sooner than later! I didn’t have anything special planned. I was going to go help move supplies with the gear broken, but that’d be a better use of my time. You still want me to go over to PHQ with you, or should I go get started on that now?”

  “Lisa?” I asked.

  “We won’t need Glory Girl there with us for my thing,” Lisa replied.

  I gasped and held a lower arm to my chest. “Why Lisa! Did my ears deceive me just now?”

  I got a huge eye roll out of Lisa. Vicky tilted her head, not getting it.

  “She actually used your cape name, GG. I’m so proud of her.” I reached a tentacle up and patted Lisa on the shoulder. She rolled her eyes again and fussed at my tentacle, not making any real effort to push it away.

  Victoria’s eyes lit up, and she said, “Oh! Thank you for that. I know it’s not much, but the other nicknames did bother me.”

  Lisa grinned at the admission and held her hands out. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do!”

  Victoria waved and made her way upstairs, and must have passed Taylor along the way, because she came down just moments after she left. She walked over to the beanbag and retrieved her helmet, pulling it on and tucking the neck into her suit.

  We made our way outside and took off for PHQ. I flew high to try and keep a lookout for any trouble or any attacks that might be headed our way, but it seemed quiet all around. We landed on the roof, and there were two officers posted at the entrance. One of them radioed in downstairs when we landed.

  “Good morning,” I dipped my head to both of them. “Tattletale requested a meeting with me and Director Piggot. I also need to see Dragon and Armsmaster, to see if there’s anything I might be able to do for him, if he needs anything still.”

  “The meeting is extremely urgent, top priority, if you could pass that along,” Tattletale said.

  “One moment, ma’am,” the officer on the right said to me. In the meantime, I set down Taylor and Tattletale.

  The officer with the radio spoke up after a short discussion on his radio. “Okay. She needs to be searched and accompanied by one of you and an officer at all times.”

  I looked over at Lisa. She held her hands up and said, “No arguments from me, go right ahead.” The officer stepped forward, asked for her utility belt, which she provided, and frisked her. Taylor kept the belt when he was done.

  “You can proceed to medical. The director will be available shortly. An officer will meet you at medical to accompany her.” He gestured at Lisa.

  Thankfully, the building had power restored already, and we could take the cargo elevator down to the medical floors. After a brief conversation with the receptionist and meeting up with Lisa’s security detail babysitter, I was told to wait a moment for a Doctor to come out.

  We didn’t have to wait long. Dr. Calloway came out to see us. He didn’t look as well put-together as he normally did, but he looked pretty good, all things considered. Tired, more than anything. He gave me a smile and a wave.

  “Apex, you’re here to see Armsmaster?”

  I nodded and held up the Vivian I’d shifted on the flight over. “Yes, I’m no Panacea, but my pocket Doctor does a pretty solid job of some otherwise real nasty stuff. Can we see him? Does he need medical attention?”

  Calloway looked between me, Tattletale in her armband, the officer, and Skitter.

  “You can come back, and we can discuss further,” he told me.

  Taylor held her hand up. “I’d really like to speak to him as well, if at all possible.”

  “I was told that Tattletale is to be under a parahuman guard,” the officer behind us protested.

  “Do you have a radio?” I asked him, and he nodded.

  “Wards have a radio, too? Can I see it?” He nodded again and handed the radio over.

  A quick chat later, and Weld was on his way up. He carefully stepped out of the elevator and waved to us as he walked over.

  “All good now?” I asked the guard.

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “No problem,” I replied. “I know you’re following orders, but Tattletale doesn’t have any sort of abilities that would make her dangerous or difficult to restrain.” I looked over at her. “Sorry for the handoff, I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

  She shrugged and grinned at me. “No biggie. We’re waiting either way.”

  I turned my head over to Weld and warned him: “Careful, Weld. She’s a real maneater.”

  That got a loud groan and a middle finger directed my way, and both Taylor and I chuckled.

  “This way, then,” Dr. Calloway led us back through some wide hallways designed to accommodate gurneys and hospital beds. One of the goofy-looking robots that I recognized as one of Dragon’s medical remotes rolled out of a room to meet us. It had part of its brains exposed, with wires and circuit boards packed into it in what looked like a tinker rush job to bring it back online.

  Calloway stopped and turned to me, and I sat on my haunches and rested on my elbows in the hallway. Dragon’s medical bot screen was broken, but her voice came through. “Apex, Skitter. I’m glad you’re here. These have been a trying couple of days.”

  Dr. Calloway turned to Skitter and me. “Armsmaster was attacked by Mannequin two days ago. He found a way to infiltrate Armsmaster’s quarters and attacked him there. He suffered multiple deep puncture wounds, one on the shoulder and three in the abdomen. His face was also slashed, causing irreparable damage to one eye.”

  I held still while Calloway was speaking. “He was in a critical state that would have needed immediate intensive care and intervention. We got him in for surgery and were prepping to work on him when Shatterbird’s attack hit the city. We lost power, computers, lighting, and the majority of our medicine, which was in vials or needed to be frozen or refrigerated.”

  I don’t like where this is going.

  “We were able to stabilize him for the time being, but we weren’t able to do the full extent of the procedures we were planning on at the time. Due to the abdominal wounds, infection set in quickly. We’ve been managing his symptoms and pumping him full of fluids and antibiotics, but…” Calloway sighed. “His prognosis isn’t good. We were just debating on whether we should risk moving him to another facility, but there’s a fairly significant risk to his life if we do.”

  I eyed the doorway. Extra-large doors, I should be able to get inside without too much of a struggle.

  “How open is the room? Can I fit inside?” I asked.

  Calloway looked over, then shook his head. “Not comfortably, no.”

  “Okay. Bring him and whatever equipment you have him hooked up to out here, where I can get to him. Vivian packs a punch, so we’ll see what she can do. I’d be surprised if she couldn’t at least improve things over what they are now, but no promises.”

  Calloway looked over at Dragon’s remote, and then the two of them headed into the room. Not long after they rolled out Colin and several machines he was attached to. It looked like a dialysis machine; he had oxygen, an IV pump with multiple different bags. There was a ventilator there too, but it wasn’t being used–yet.

  My heart rate picked up upon seeing the ventilator. My anxiety woke up and reared its ugly head.

  “Doctor, could you please put that machine in the other room? It uh… it makes me very anxious seeing it.” I pointed at the machine in question.

  I saw Calloway’s eyes light up as he drew the connection, and he hurried to roll it back where it had come from. He stepped over to talk to Taylor quietly when he came back out. “I know you wanted to talk to him, but If you have a strong sense of smell or a weak stomach, I recommend keeping your distance.”

  Taylor pulled off her helmet and nodded to the Doctor. Dragon finished plugging up his machines to a wall outlet and gave me space to approach.

  Dr. Calloway wasn’t joking about the smell. Old, rotten meat, sickly-sweet moldy onions, feces, sulfur, and ammonia were all present in strong quantities.

  “He’s in and out of lucidity, and on a lot of painkillers.” Her voice sounded stressed, and I think it was the only time I’d ever heard her stressed. Not even during an Endbringer attack. “I did what I could with the medical supplies and equipment I flew down, but he already had a severe infection by the time I’d gotten here.”

  Her voice dropped low. “I would be very grateful if you could do anything for him, Apex. He means a lot to me.”

  “Let me see what Vivi can do for him. She did a pretty great job on Victoria, and Victoria and Mark were both in rough shape Tuesday morning.”

  “Who is Vivian?”

  I chuckled. “The nickname I gave this invention of mine. In honor of terrible surgical horror movies from the 80s. It’s supposed to be Vivi, as in vivisector, but I couldn’t call her that, so she’s Vivian instead.” I patted her big, bulging form with my other hand.

  “Why are you… Err. Referring to yourself in the third person?” Dragon asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Forgot that sort of key detail. I don’t control her; my power does.”

  “What? Truly?” Dragon’s voice sounded perplexed.

  “Yep. Can’t explain it, just works. I grow her, and ask her to do things, and she just kind of goes off and does her own thing. Alright, here I go.”

  Colin seemed to be out for the time being, his eyelid closed, and the other bandaged.

  “I have a suite of cybernetics printed out and ready for him, but he’s in too poor a condition to try and install any of them.”

  I pulled his blankets aside and started undoing his bandages and wound dressings. “Bring them for me to take a look at? I don’t know if Vivi will want anything to do with them, but it’s worth a shot.”

  Dragon rolled off, and I got a chance to look at my former boss.

  His colors were awful, a mix of yellows and grays present in his face. He was breathing fast and shallow, drenched in sweat, and his lips were dry and cracked. I let Vivian handle taking off the innermost layers of his bandages. She got straight to work with two dozen appendages right away, slicing and cutting away the remaining pieces.

  Colin was fit and had a solid build, but his abdomen was swollen. The areas around where they’d cut him open looked an angry shade of red, and one side of his incisions was open with gauze packed into his abdomen. The smell was overpowering.

  Dragon rolled back out with a pair of surgical trays covered in vacuum-sealed packages of shiny, expensive-looking doodads. I recognized the eye, and that was about it. She set them on a rolling cart and moved it next to the bed. She took up a position next to Colin’s side, but out of the way, and the whirs and clicks of many lenses focusing sounded.

  Vivian started using my altered fingernails to cut the stitches on the giant incision they’d cut into Colin. He was sliced vertically from the bottom of his ribcage to just above his pubic area, straight down the middle.

  She had four limbs pulling out gauze and dumping it on the floor, two limbs working the incision, and the ports on her sides were opening up, with dozens of tendrils ranging in size from the diameter of a pen to finer than a strand of hair. Some of the heavy tendrils slid into his skin over major arteries on his neck.

  Once the gauze was out, a whole bunch of tendrils started roaming around and poking at and into various organs and areas inside of Colin’s abdomen. She pulled the sides of his abdomen back and glued them in place with that red foam of hers for better access. My hand went over the middle of Colin’s abdomen, and my fingers started twitching and jerking in a way that didn’t at all look like the way a person moved their hand or fingers.

  Dragon clicked on a pair of powerful floodlights and directed them at Colin’s abdomen to provide better lighting. “This is captivating, Apex. You’re not consciously controlling any of that?”

  I shook my head. “No. I wouldn’t know where to even begin. I know first aid and CPR, and that’s about it.”

  Taylor had kept her distance, along with Dr. Calloway, and the two looked to be holding a quiet conversation with one another.

  My stomach, or rather, my belly decided to suddenly get noisy, and I felt a mass shift and twist around inside. The pressure and weight downstairs had been steadily growing, as had my paunch. Vivian seemed to make up her mind, with whatever it was she was doing, and she got to work. One of the veins that ran down the back of my fingers when I had Vivan out started to bulge and extend, a blue tube growing down the back of the scalpel-like bladed nail until it reached the tip. My hand lowered into Colin’s abdomen.

  What followed required a biohazard bin and liner to be brought over, because she started cutting things and oozing out goopy foam behind the blade, sealing the wounds. When she’d separate something fully, a spindly, bladed limb would spear the organ or body part like a fork and dump it off the side of the bed with a careless disregard. It was almost comical, like she was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. She cut a kidney out entirely, dumped it in the trash, and then proceeded to spit red foam and pink slurry in its place.

  Dragon extended her own manipulators and took samples of what she was spitting out, and after the third or forth time I got the impression that Vivian was giving Dragon’s limbs and tools the stink eye, she wound up reaching out with a finger and flicking Dragon’s limb away, and then turning to look at the robot with her big, glassy eyes on the back of my arm.

  Dragon cleared her throat. “Excuse me for intruding. May I please have a sample of the things you’re using? Just so I can try and understand?”

  Vivian responded to her. My fingers twitched and curled, like a crustacean or arachnid might do. Dragon extended a few empty vials, and Vivian proceeded to spit into them with different, gross-looking mixes of fluids and foams. Then she made a literal shooing motion at Dragon and resumed working.

  I coughed. “I um. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I’d say Vivi might be a bit sassy about others interfering in her work.”

  “I’d say that I’ve been admonished, yes. Do you know what she’s doing right now?” Dragon asked me.

  I shook my head as another organ was dumped into the trash.

  “Well, the closest I can draw a parallel is a kind of biological 3D printing that’s only theoretical research currently. She seems to be somehow determining the health status of the organs by touching them with those probes, and then making a decision to repair or replace. This is decades ahead of bleeding-edge medicine, and that’s being conservative. And we’re not even remotely close to doing it in situ the way she is.”

  Dragon opened a drawer near the bottom of the robot, and cold fog rolled out from the tray. She carefully placed the vials into the tray and closed it.

  The surgery took about an hour and a half by my estimation, and by the time we were done, there was a pile of rancid-smelling Colin parts in a bin. She’d touched on nearly everything in his abdomen at one point. When she was done, she spritzed the now-dried foam holding the flaps of his abdomen open, which popped free. A large quantity of red foam was liberally sprayed around into his abdominal cavity, then she sliced the sides of his incision off and glued them back together. While she’d been working, she’d also been using tendrils to poke around his chest, some of which felt like they’d been penetrating deeply.

  His shoulder got a quick pass, but didn’t seem to need much in the way of work. Colin was looking dramatically improved; his color was far better, and his breathing had slowed. He was still sweating some, but it didn’t look to be nearly as hard as he’d been sweating before.

  Dragon pulled out the cybernetic eye and unsealed the package. Taking it in a manipulator, she placed it on a smaller surgical tray and offered it to Vivian. She did the division trick again, making a multitude of extremely fine, barely visible tendrils, which she used to poke, prod, and roll the eye around. After a moment of what appeared to be contemplation, she sprayed it down with a yellow oily substance and then an orange foam and moved up to remove the bandages and packing from Colin’s eye.

  Whatever she’d sprayed on the eye, it was bubbling and fizzing along while the micro-tendrils worked away at the implant. A few snips, slices, and daubs later, she picked up the eye, held Colin’s repaired eyelids open, and stuffed it in the socket with a wet pop. It got another spray of pink foam, and then that was that. She went back to sleep.

  Colin was stirring, and Dr. Calloway came up to check in on his patient. He looked over at Dragon. “I’m assuming you were studying all of that?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I recorded everything as well, for further review and evaluation, as well as gathered some samples.”

  Calloway, Dragon, then Taylor, and I had a chance to speak with Colin.

  She filled him in on the tracking, chase, and confrontation with Mannequin that she, Assault and Battery, did. They’d managed to track him out of the building, intercepted him a few blocks away, disabled him, then killed him. They had knocked him pretty hard, and his torso separated briefly. Taylor saw an opportunity and pulled the pistol I told her to get issued. She’d dumped half the magazine into where his organs were exposed and visible behind a transparent barrier, and after a few shots, it’d breached. After parts of his organs started leaking out, he’d taken one of his knives and finished himself off, running it through his other torso piece.

  He beckoned her closer, and she leaned in. He placed a hand on her shoulder and whispered something to her. She went beet red, nodded her head quickly, then stepped back. She turned away from us. I could see her wiping her eyes behind me.

  “Apex,” he croaked. Dragon offered him a cup with a straw, and he took several long swallows.

  “You tangled with the Nine, too?” He asked me.

  I chuckled. “I wouldn’t say we tangled. I told them to get the fuck out of my city or face the consequences. They didn’t take the offer.”

  “What happened?”

  I shrugged my lower arms. “I killed six of them. Four escaped. Slash, Bonesaw, Siberian, and Shatterbird are still out there. The rest are in bits and pieces or in the morgue downstairs.”

  “Good, you–” He hacked with a wince. “You did the right thing. They’ll abuse any leniency or quarter you give them.”

  I nodded slowly at him. “I wasn’t going to murder them in cold blood when they asked to talk to me, not unless they made me. I gave them a chance they honestly didn’t deserve, but that was more about my conscience than anything else. They weren’t interested. So I attacked them before they had a chance to respond and took four out immediately. Amy Dallon was seriously wounded; they’d taken her hostage.”

  “I was meaning to ask about her condition when we had the chance,” Dragon said.

  That got a big sigh out of me. “I would really prefer not to get into it; it’s extremely weird, even for me. She’s alive, and I think, recovering.”

  “Understandable. I won’t pry. I wish her the best, and you, Apex. You–” I held a hand up to Dragon’s bot.

  “Later, okay? Let’s get Colin comfortable and situated on a clean bed. I need to go meet with the Director on other urgent business.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” she agreed. “For now, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Let’s talk soon.”

  I dropped a clawed hand on Colin’s shoulder. His temp had come down. “Get some rest. Heal up. We need you, but not before you’re ready.”

  He grabbed my wrist and squeezed it, looking up with one eye. He looked like he was going to say something for a moment, but settled for a sharp nod.

  We separated, I grabbed Taylor, and we headed up to the admin floors with Lisa and her minder. Weld was having an animated conversation about Boston attractions with Lisa, who also seemed oddly into the conversation when we came out.

  “Making new friends?” Taylor asked in the cargo elevator.

  “He’s surprisingly good company, and I’m as shocked as you are,” she told Taylor with a smirk.

  Taylor hip-bumped Tattletale, who bopped her back.

  The elevator dinged, and after a short wait, we were let into a conference room with plywood and sheets of plastic where the windows were previously. Director Piggot and Miss Milita were sitting next to each other at one end.

  “You may wait in the reception area, thank you.” Director Piggot told the officer when he came in behind us. He turned right around and left, closing the door behind himself.

  “How did things go?” Hannah asked me as the other two were getting seated.

  “He’s doing much better after a little TLC. Awake, lucid, and in one piece once again. Probably be a few days before he’s back at one hundred, but people tend to bounce back quickly when I have Vivi work on them like that. New Wave was up and about the next day.”

  Piggot made eye contact with me. “Thank you, Apex, for treating him. You saved me from making a difficult decision.”

  I dipped my head to her. “I want to see him well and back on his feet as much as anyone else. Calloway told me that medevacing him was risky. I doubt he’ll need it now, but if he does, he’ll be in much better shape for it.”

  I shifted on my haunches to try and get comfortable, then dropped to my elbows. I tried not to think about what was going on with Amy, or how exactly she was going to… come out. I was very uncomfortable now, though, the pressure she was putting on my other organs was an ever-present reminder.

  Taylor provided her updates of events. I went next, starting with the New Wave battle in the rail yard, treating Flashbang and Glory Girl, taking in all the wounded, then fighting the Nine a second time at Winslow. Eyes grew wide and Miss Militia, who I think was taking minutes, was having to scribble furiously. I had to clarify the parts where I literally ate Crawler and what I’d done to save Amy’s life. I didn’t go into detail about where she was currently.

  That concluded the summary of events. Piggot turned to Lisa and had a fairly cranky look on her face. “I sincerely hope that you have a good reason for asking for safe passage with Apex for this meeting. I feel like you’re abusing the goodwill of Brockton Strong, and that depending on what you have to say today, you might not be leaving our custody.”

  Lisa sighed and placed her palms on the surface of the large table.

  “What I have to tell you is likely something you’re going to have a hard time believing, but I need you to believe me when I tell you. And yes, I know the irony of the person who lies asking to be taken seriously,” Lisa said. She took her armband off and handed it to Taylor. “I’m willing to be arrested, if that’s what you have to do to believe me.” She looked over at me. “And she’s right. It was unfair of me to ask for an armband, but thank you for providing one.”

  I looked over at Director Piggot. “I explained to her before I gave her one that she wasn’t assured any form of immunity or protection, given she violated the terms of the agreement when she and her team attacked Wards HQ.”

  Director Piggot dipped her head to me, then turned to Lisa. She licked her lips. “Very well then, tell me what is so important.”

  Lisa took a big breath, then let it out slowly. She reached up and took her mask off and placed it on the table, then she looked at Director Piggot.

  Straightening a few strands of hair from out in front of her face, she said, “My former employer, Coil, who is the person responsible for driving all the attacks from The Undersiders against your PRT division and assets, has decided that we are more of a liability than an asset.”

  Piggot pursed her lips and tapped her pen on the tabletop. “I’m not surprised. This is the nature of things when you’re working in the criminal underworld and doing organized crime. That doesn’t immediately change my opinions on anything.”

  Lisa tapped her extended fingertips on the tabletop. Her eyes were sharp and focused intently on Piggot. “That’s the first of several things I have come here to talk to you about.”

  Piggot made an open-handed gesture at Lisa to continue.

  “I’d like amnesty for myself, and potentially some of my teammates. Not all of them are interested; some I expect are going to cut out and disappear, if they haven’t already. I want protection for myself. I’m willing to join PRT Intelligence Division as we’d previously talked about, but I’d prefer to join the Protectorate and stay here, if possible.”

  “Really?” Taylor asked Lisa, her voice quiet.

  Lisa glanced at Taylor and nodded, then looked back at Piggot. Piggot placed her pen on the table, then leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She was staring Lisa down, her steel gray eyes hard and cold.

  “You have a lot of balls making that request after stealing a treasure trove of classified data from us just days ago. If you’d come forward in good faith prior to that, your requests would have been granted with little in the way of questions.” Piggot's voice was as cold as ice.

  “There are other things you need to know. I just wanted to put forward what I’m after at the front.” Lisa got another hand motion out of Piggot, then continued. “I know extremely detailed information about Coil’s operations, where his assets are, who his people are, where they are, what his plans are, and what parahumans he has on his payroll. I’ll give up everything in exchange for my requests. I’m also willing to give up my own assets if my personal requests can be met.”

  “And what’s to prevent us from simply arresting you and getting the information out of you from a containment cell or interview room?” Piggot asked.

  Lisa tapped her fingertips on the table again. “You know as well as I do, Director, that interrogation and even… enhanced interrogation have mixed results, especially against people who are trained to resist it. And most, if not all, parahuman data extraction techniques don’t work on Thinkers, which I am.”

  She looked around the room, making eye contact with all of us.

  “There is a much bigger problem at hand, one that concerns all of us,” Lisa said after turning back to face Director Piggot.

  “I’m listening,” Piggot told Lisa.

  “It’s two-fold. The first threat, and the lesser of the two, is that we have another S-class threat here in the city. One that isn’t yet on the PRT’s radar, and one that has to be dealt with before much longer.”

  The room was dead silent.

  “The second sounds far-fetched. It’s not, and I can explain how, given the chance. But, essentially, the world is going to end in the next couple of years if Jack Slash isn’t killed here in Brockton Bay. The Slaughterhouse Nine haven’t left yet, and they’re up to something. I know where they are holed up. We have to kill Jack at any cost. ”

  “Define ‘end of the world’ and why you think this is the case,” Piggot said. Her voice was more serious than I think I might have been, in her situation. It sounded far-fetched.

  “Jack is going to cause a butterfly effect event that will take place between two to five years from now. When the event happens, ninety-seven percent of the world’s population will be killed within the space of one week. This information is coming from a precognitive parahuman, the most powerful precognitive in the world. She is also being held prisoner by Coil, and a big part of the reason why he’s been so successful.”

  Piggot’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about Dinah Alcott.”

  Lisa’s eyes widened somewhat, and Taylor’s head jerked over to Director Piggot.

  “You knew?” Taylor asked.

  Piggot took her eyes off Lisa’s for a moment to make eye contact with Taylor. “We had suspicions, but no proof, and we also don’t have the information available to effectively act on it without potentially also getting her killed in the process.”

  Taylor took a deep breath and looked like she was going to say something, then she deflated.

  “What is it?” Piggot asked Taylor.

  Taylor, in an admission that surprised me with how open she was being, said, “I was going to get mad, to say that the PRT knew all along and didn’t do anything about it, but then I realized that… We’ve essentially been in the same boat. Apex and I were going to try and do something too, and we came to the same conclusion. We need to do something, but the risk to her is extremely high. We’ve been waiting for the chance to come up for air to take action, but it’s been a non-stop onslaught since Leviathan attacked.”

  Taylor buried her face in her gloved hands. I placed a hand on her back. Piggot turned back to Lisa.

  “Let’s say I believe you,” she told Lisa. “And we’re going to act on these things, with the information you provide to us. There’s something I need to know about you.” She pointed a finger at Lisa. “I need to know why it is you are coming here, now, with this information you’ve likely known for some time, excluding the bit about the Nine.”

  Lisa looked over at me and Taylor, then back at Piggot. “Would you believe me if I told you my opinion about the way of things has been swayed by these two idiots, their pipe dreams, and visions?” She gestured at me and Taylor with her hand.

  Piggot leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and stared at Lisa like she was going to bore a hole through her forehead with her eyes alone. After a long pause, she said: “I’d believe that’s part of the reason, but not all of it.”

  Lisa cracked into a huge grin. “I never thought I’d agree with Apex on this assessment, but I think I might actually like working for you.” She drummed her fingertips on the table. “Fine, fine, you’re right. You’re an awfully good reader of people, for someone of your background. I do feel swayed by the things my best friend is doing. How can I not want to believe in such a lost cause, hopeless romantic idea? But the thing that keeps me up at night? The thing I simply can’t bear to think about? I can’t stand losing. And losing to Coil is a slap in the face I wouldn’t be able to live with. I’d rather be a turncoat than lose to that guy.”

  Piggot stared Lisa down once again, and Lisa seemed to be staring her right back, just as intently.

  Piggot leaned back in her chair once again and said, “I believe you, and it’s good enough for me.” She looked over at Hannah. “Gather the core Operations and Intel teams and get them in here right now. And get Legal to draw up papers. Tell them I don’t care if they have to use one that’s got coffee stains or has to be handwritten. Make it happen.”

  “Ma’am,” Miss Militia said, standing and leaving the office at a rapid clip.

  Piggot looked over at me. “I hope you didn’t have plans. Seems we’re going to be busy for the next couple of hours.”

  I rubbed Taylor’s back some more. “Just another day in the life, Director. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to make Jack Splash.”