18

Chapter 18

I, Panacea

Part Eighteen: Whatever Happened to Alexandria?

Friday Morning

April 15, 2011

"What do you mean, Bakuda's been seen?" Brian stuck his head out of the kitchen nook. "Alexandria herself said she was going to take care of that shit!" He searched Alec's face for signs of amusement, and found none.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," the younger boy said, sounding defensive. "I was just trolling – uh, browsing, the PHO boards and I saw a mention of her. Thought you should know."

"Alec, what the fuck have I told you about using my laptop without permission?" demanded Lisa, storming along the passageway from her room. "If you've messed up my settings …"

"Hey, chill, chill." Regent hastily put the laptop on the couch beside him. "You left it open, so I thought I'd check the boards."

"Using my damn username," snapped Lisa. "I swear, if you've gotten me banned, you're never going to sleep again."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Oh, do tell."

Lisa stomped over to the couch and snatched up the laptop. "Cut your shit. And what about Bakuda?"

Alec put on an annoying whining tone that made Brian want to punch him. It was probably deliberate, too. "Briiian, she's making promises she's not keeping. Make her stop."

Brian had had enough. He stepped out of the kitchen and advanced on Alec. "I'll make you stop. What was that about Bakuda?"

If he hadn't heard Alec's aggravated sigh a dozen times before, he would have sworn it was genuine. "Okay, fine. Bagrat says she's been seen out and about. He might be pretentious as fuck, but that guy generally knows what he's talking about."

Lisa scanned the screen. Brian watched the lines between her eyes deepen. "Oh shit. This is fucking bad. Legit. Alexandria was supposed to be taking care of her and Oni Lee."

"What's bad?" asked Regent. "That Bakuda took down Alexandria or that she'll be probably coming after us next, like that creepy guy in Panacea's head said?"

"Yes," said Brian flatly. "They're both really, really bad." A thought struck him. "And she was supposed to be going after Oni Lee, too. If she went after Bakuda first …"

Lisa grimaced. "They're both still around. Great."

Brian took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. "Uh, right. Okay. What do we do about this?"

"Do about what?" asked Rachel, entering the common area; three dogs followed along behind her. "What the fuck's going on?"

"Alexandria didn't get Bakuda," Brian informed her. "She'll still be coming after us. And if she is, then so's Oni Lee." How the fuck did she stop Alexandria? Did she kill her?

"Okay." Rachel went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Wait, wait," demanded Alec. "'Okay'? Is that it? Is that all you've got to say?"

"Okay, we take her down ourselves." Rachel's tone was matter of fact. "She's a threat." She took a drink of the coffee. "If something's a threat, you either run away or take it down. I say we take her down."

"How the fuck is that a good plan?" demanded Alec. "A bomb Tinker is after us, so we go after her? Are you fucking dense?"

Rachel took a step toward him, her face darkening with anger. "Don't call me fucking stupid."

"I didn't call you stupid, I called you dense."

The auburn haired girl clenched her fists. "Don't call me dense, either."

"Okay, fine, you're not dense." Alec raised his eyes to the ceiling. "But in what way is that a good plan?" Brian wanted to chime in with agreement, but he didn't want to be agreeing with Alec right then, so he stayed silent.

"Actually, it's doable." Lisa spoke without looking at either of them. "Amy's friend gave us some very valuable intel yesterday. We know that you, Rachel, get captured when you go out for a walk. Bakuda grabs you, forces you to show her where the money is, then sets an ambush for the rest of us. So you go out, we follow along, and when Bakuda goes to capture you, we ambush her."

"Wait, so Rachel gets used as bait in the trap?" Brian didn't like the sound of that. "That's really risky. Rachel, if you're not comfortable with that …"

"Fuck it." Rachel shrugged. "She probably won't ever let up. So we deal with her."

Regent reached forward and turned the game console on. "You're all fucked in the head. If someone's on your ass, the only reasonable course of action is to fuck off and find somewhere else. Ask anyone from Kyushu."

"Not necessarily." By now, Lisa's grin was in what Brian privately referred to as 'run for the hills' mode. Someone's going to suffer, and hopefully it's not me. "I'm going to need a map."

Lisa tapped her finger on the map of Brockton Bay which Brian had located and spread over the table. "Here's the best place for Bakuda to be waiting. It's in ABB territory, and it's on a major intersection. So we draw her to a location of our choosing."

"How do you know she'll be waiting?" Alec sounded bored, leaning on the table with his elbows.

"Because she wants to take us down." Lisa's tone was matter of fact. "This is a big thing for her. We did the Ruby Dreams thing, Lung came after us for that, and he got taken down, in part by us. If she doesn't do this, the ABB's rep is tanked."

Brian decided to get back to the current question. "So how do we do this?"

Lisa looked smug. "We use her own assets against her."

"Hey, I'm good," objected Regent, "but even I can't make someone's ti- ow!" He rubbed the back of his head, where Brian had smacked him. "What was that for?"

"Behave," growled Brian. "Lisa, you were saying?"

Lisa ignored the interruption. "She's gonna have spotters out. Probably with radios. We locate a couple of those …"

A Little Later

Danielle Liu leaned against the wall of the alley and tried not to scratch at the scar at the base of her neck. It was difficult not to, especially when it itched. She didn't remember much about getting the implant, except for the pain and the screaming. Her own screaming, mainly.

I still can't believe my own brother turned me over to Bakuda, she thought bitterly. Okay, so he had one too, but fuck, he could have lied or something. The betrayal still hurt, almost as much as the knowledge that she now had a bomb in her fucking head. One that Bakuda could set off just by thinking about it. And it might not even kill me quickly. She had seen the look on the face of the one guy as he melted in front of her. It had been neither painless nor quick.

I should be at work right now. Secretary for a legal firm wasn't exactly the dream job she had yearned for all of her life, but she would have given a lot to be there instead of where she was. Lurking in an alley, clutching a two-way radio, hoping that Bakuda wouldn't simply decide to make an example out of her for some bullshit reason, or no reason at all.

A movement caught her eye; she moved to the entrance of the alleyway. There was someone walking down the street, on the far side of the road. She was stocky, auburn, dressed like a man. That fitted the description of Bitch well enough. But even as she lifted the radio to her mouth, she paused. She's not leading any dogs. That's not right. Bitch would have dogs with her. It must be someone who looks the same, but isn't her.

Before she could continue the thought, an unnatural blackness rolled over her. Hands grabbed her from behind, and she was yanked back into the alleyway. She yelped, dropping the radio as she tried to fight off her attacker. Unfortunately, any cries for help she might have made were muffled by the blackness, barely reaching her own ears. Whoever it was, they were both taller and stronger than her. She struggled anyway, wishing just for once that the common stereotype about Asians applied; being a martial-arts expert would have been so handy right then. But before she could even complete that thought, an arm went around her throat and began to squeeze …

As Brian lowered the unconscious young woman to the ground, Lisa picked up the radio. She fiddled with it for a moment, then nodded. "Excellent. The fall didn't damage it."

"So what's the callsign?" asked Brian. "If we're gonna be gaslighting them, we need to know what they're using to identify themselves."

"If there's this many of them, Bakuda won't worry about giving them individual codenames," Lisa countered. She turned the radio around to show him the number 73 scratched into the casing. "This is what they'll be using."

"Wow," Alec commented, failing to sound impressed. "That's so original. I think I might faint."

"So can we do this now?" asked Rachel, stomping into the alley. Brutus, Judas and Angelica trotted forward to greet her, wagging their tails happily.

"Not yet," Lisa said. "We need to grab one more for the best effect."

Just a Little Later

Joey Chou considered himself smarter than the average gangster. He had found a perch on a rooftop next to a fire escape , giving himself a bird's-eye view of the street below. This way, he'd be far less likely to miss Bitch if she came by. He shuddered to think what Bakuda might do to him if she did pass him by and he missed her. So he dedicated his time to scanning the street, over and over again.

So long as this fucking thing is in my head, I do what Bakuda wants. I really don't care what happens to some white chick. I'm looking after Joey Chou first, last and always.

Leaning forward, he scanned the street again. There were a few pedestrians, but none that fitted the description of Bitch. However, there was someone walking three dogs on leads. From this angle, he couldn't see her face, but he could see that her blonde hair was done up in some sort of braid. Could that be a wig?

For a moment, he considered it, then decided that she simply wasn't stocky enough to be Bitch. Also, her clothes were well-fitting and feminine. From what he understood about Bitch, she either didn't care about that sort of thing or she was a dyke. Not her, then. Relaxing, he began to scan the street again.

Footsteps crunched in the gravel behind him. "Excuse me. Building super. You're not allowed to be up here." It was a deep, commanding voice.

Oh, for fuck's sake. He began to turn, already opening his mouth to explain to this interfering asshole that he was ABB and if the guy didn't want -

The sceptre jabbed him in the middle of the chest, making him convulse from the electrical shock. His muscular control over his own body totally disrupted, he crumpled, his radio beating him to the rooftop by a narrow margin.

Brian turned the twitching ABB guy on to his stomach and began to secure his hands behind his back. "Seems to me," he observed, "that you like tasing these guys altogether too much."

"What's not to enjoy?" Regent retorted, twirling the sceptre in his hand. "They put on a show, then they fall down."

"If I had to explain it, you'd never understand." Reaching over, Brian picked up the discarded radio. "Here we go. You're … let's see, now." He turned the radio around. "Number Fifty-One."

Regent struck a pose. "I am not a number!" he proclaimed. "I am a free man!"

Brian shook his head as he got up from beside the supine gangster. "Seriously? That show's older than both of us put together. And I do not believe that you've ever watched it."

"Not deliberately, no." Regent grimaced slightly as he took the radio. "But when my father decided to catch the reruns … well, let's just say that nobody asked him if he could change the channel."

There really wasn't anything that Brian could say to that. I'm sorry your dad's a massive douche who Masters everyone he meets? It seemed a little inadequate.

"Now can we do this?" demanded Rachel, somewhat to Brian's relief.

Brian grinned. "Yes. Now we can do this."

Just a Little Later Again

Lisa took a deep breath and pressed the button on the side of the radio. "This is Number Seventy-Three, on the corner of West and Fairfield." As she spoke, she considered the chance that the girl had been someone that Bakuda knew personally. She put a bomb in her head. Pretty sure that means they weren't close.

There was a pause, then a mechanical voice crackled from the speaker. "Bakuda. What've you got, Seventy-Three?"

"I can see her." Lisa grinned at where Rachel was standing by her dogs, then continued. "The dog girl. Bitch. She's walking north along Fairfield with three dogs. She's not looking at me."

They were standing on a rooftop, back from the edge, well away from either West Street or Fairfield Drive. Down below was French Avenue, which was where they needed to be.

"If she knew you were reporting to me, her dogs would be all over you. Bakuda to everyone in that area. Converge, but don't get too close. We don't want to tip her off."

Lisa listened as the acknowledgements trickled in, then nodded to the others. "Hook, line and sinker. Alec, give it about a minute, then make your call."

"Sure thing." Alec fiddled with his radio for a moment, then looked over at her. "Think this'll really work?" She didn't have to use her power to know that he was still dubious.

"If there's one thing I've learned over and over in this business," Lisa said cheerfully, "it's that people see and hear what they expect to be there. Give them something plausible to look at, and they'll never question it."

"How do you know she'll drive up this street?" demanded Rachel. "It's not where you told her I was."

"No, it's not," Lisa agreed. "But from where she'll be starting, coming up this way will be the fastest way to cut you off, from what Alec will be telling her." She pointed at Regent. "Okay, showtime."

Alec nodded, and clicked his radio button. "This is Fifty-One. I've got a view of her. She's turning west on to Colson."

"Follow her, don't lose her, but for fuck's sake don't alert her. Keep an eye on those damn dogs. If they start growing, assume she's seen you."

Lisa released a pent-up breath that she hadn't realised that she was holding. Despite the bomb Tinker's mechanical monotone, she could still ascertain basic facts. One very important one was that Bakuda was still buying their ruse.

Regent was looking at her. She nodded encouragingly. "She's still fat and happy," she said quietly. "As far as she's concerned, Rachel doesn't have a clue."

"Shit, this would really have worked if we hadn't been warned, wouldn't it?" Grue sounded unhappy. "We had no idea how far they were willing to go to get at us."

Lisa grinned at him. "Yeah, but we know where they are and the opposite doesn't apply." She glanced at Regent. "We could lead her in circles all day, or just fade away every time they get close."

Regent shook his head. "Fuck that noise. Let's see this through."

The surprise was evident in Grue's voice. "Really? Not so long ago, you were all about running away."

"That was before I saw how Lisa was jerking her all over the landscape," Alec said. "I wanna see how this turns out."

"Oni Lee's involved," Lisa warned them. "It could still go bad."

Regent shook his head. "I still have no idea why nobody's sniped that bastard from three hundred yards away."

"No kill order, for one thing," Grue pointed out.

"So what?" Regent spread his hands. "Who says it has to be a sanctioned kill? This is Oni Lee. He's already got a body count of his own."

"Yeah, but -" began Grue.

"Fifty-One, do you still have her in sight?"

Regent lifted his radio and replied in a lazy drawl. "Sure, I've got her in sight. Fat and happy and stupid, still walking down Colson."

Lisa face-palmed. He repeated what I said! And that's sure to piss her off. "Jeez, I hope you didn't -"

"Seventy-Three, can you still see Bitch?"

Rapidly, she composed herself. "Yes, I can see Bitch. Still on Colson. Near Kingswood."

"Good. Stay on her. We're just coming up to … French. We'll use that to cut her off."

Lisa keyed her radio, forcing herself to sound calm and collected. "Will do." Just as she was starting to relax again, another voice sounded on the radio.

"Bakuda, this is Sixteen. I'm on Colson, near Kingswood. I can't see anyone at all."

Bakuda spoke next. "Sixteen, rendezvous with Fifty-One or Seventy-Three. They'll be able to point her out."

"That doesn't sound good," Grue said, sounding worried.

"No time," Lisa snapped. "Everyone, mount up, now. We've got about sixty seconds to be in place."

As they scrambled on to their selected mounts, the radio crackled to life again. "Uh … this is Twenty-Five. I'm, uh, on Colson, too. I think I can see Sixteen, but I can't see anyone with dogs."

Lisa was still climbing on to Angelica when Regent clicked his radio on again. "Wow, are you guys blind? Fifty-One, here. Bitch is right there. Three dogs. Are you sure you can't see her?"

He dropped the radio so that he could hang on. Lisa had already clipped hers to her belt. She shouted, "Go, go, go!"

Rachel whistled loudly, and the dogs surged forward. The next few seconds were a terrifying blur; one by one, the dogs leaped to the roof of a one-storey building, and then to the ground. As jarring as it was, they landed on the pavement without serious incident; at a nod from Lisa, Rachel sent the dogs galloping down the street.

A moment later, a jeep came hurtling around the corner, straightened up from a wild fishtail, and roared toward them. Lisa pulled the radio off her belt; lifting it to her mouth, she said smugly, "Seventy-Three here. Surprise."

The driver of the jeep slammed on the brakes; the rugged vehicle screeched to a halt, greyish smoke pouring off of the tyres. In the passenger seat, a costumed figure stood up, raising something that looked like a really big gun in their direction.

As the dogs pounded closer to their intended prey, Lisa looked down the barrel of what her power told her was a forty-millimetre grenade launcher. Behind her, Regent moved; through her power, she got the impression that he was making some sort of gesture. He's screwing with her aim. In response, the barrel of the launcher dipped dramatically, until it was pointed straight down inside the vehicle. There was a gush of smoke as it fired, then a translucent golden globe radiated out from that spot. Right then, Lisa decided to forgive Alec for any transgressions for about, say, the next week.

Rachel whistled another command, and the dogs split to the left and right. Brutus and Judas went left, while Angelica went right. All of the dogs avoided the rapidly-expanding hemisphere; even as they passed by, it got out to about a ten yard diameter, then popped like a soap bubble. At about this point, Oni Lee collapsed into ash.

He jumped too late and got caught in the effect. Whatever the effect was, Lisa wasn't quite sure. However, she was glad that she'd missed it. Knowing Bakuda, that wasn't a happy-friendly-hug type of grenade.

Guiding Angelica back around in a circle, she sent the dog trotting toward the stopped jeep. "Keep an eye out!" she shouted. "Oni Lee might still be around!"

While the others scanned the area, she paid closer attention to Bakuda and the guy in the driver's seat. They were alive, but not in a good condition. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened to them. Pain, and lots of it.

Brian

"What do we do now?" He was asking more out of reflex than anything else.

"If we just leave her, she'll keep coming after us." Lisa wasn't answering the question so much as thinking out loud.

"Okay, why don't we -" began Regent.

Lisa spoke over him. "We can't kill her, because unwritten rules."

"She wanted to kill us," objected Rachel. She was leaning forward on Brutus, her hands flexing slightly. Wants to give the order anyway. We can't stop her if she does.

"No, she's right," Grue put in. "If we killed her once she was helpless, that opens us up to everyone else coming down on us like a ton of bricks." He paused, then went on reflectively, "And I'm not sure that Taylor would really approve anyway."

"She wouldn't," Lisa agreed immediately. "It would alienate her. She'd think she couldn't trust us. Also, Amy's friend wants Bakuda alive, remember?"

"Well, okay, fine." Lisa couldn't see Regent's expression, but she knew he was rolling his eyes. "What do we do with her, if we can't kill her? Because I'm not letting her go."

"Way I see it, we've got one option …" began Grue.

Lisa slid down off of Angelica and went over to the still-running jeep. "I agree," she said, checking the driver's pulse. It was rapid but strong. He twitched when she touched his neck. She turned the vehicle off, then moved on.

"Two options," Regent offered.

"What's the other one? And we already agreed not to kill her." Grue's voice was firm.

"No," Lisa stated as she rounded the jeep. "We're not letting you hijack her." A small part of her mind protested. Having a Tinker at our disposal would be very useful. She grimaced. Until the other capes in Brockton Bay realised that we were holding her in slavery. And then we're dead.

Again, Regent put on that deliberately-annoying tone. "I never get to do anything fun."

Lisa ignored him, pulling off Bakuda's left boot and sock. After that, she carefully removed the toe rings she found there. For good measure, she appropriated the woman's goggles as well.

"Unmasking …" Grue reminded her warningly.

"This is what she needs to set her bombs off," Lisa pointed out. "You don't leave Tinker shit in reach of the Tinker." Each of the rings went into a separate pouch in her belt. The goggles she hung around her neck. Then she started zip-tying the woman's wrists together, attaching them to a handhold.

"So what are we gonna do with her?" Rachel sounded impatient.

"That's easy," Lisa said cheerfully, pulling out her phone.

One Phone Call Later

Colin slowed down when he saw the jeep. It was slewed across one lane, part-way into another. From what he could see, it held two people. The call said Bakuda and some ABB flunky. A flick of his eyes brought up the latest image of Bakuda, and he compared it with what he could see. She's not wearing goggles, but apart from that …

"Armsmaster to Dragon. I'm on site. The tip seems accurate. One jeep, two occupants. Visual inspection suggests that one of them is Bakuda. They appear to be unconscious." Another flick of his eyes toggled a different visual mode. "Infrared scan indicates that they're alive."

"Copy that." The little green dot in the upper-left field of his HUD showed that she was streaming his helmet feed. "That's what it looks like to me, too."

Parking the bike, Armsmaster swung his armoured leg over the saddle with the ease of long practice. "Moving closer to investigate and apprehend."

"Understood. Be careful."

"I'm always careful." He unracked the halberd from his back and made it extend to its full length in one easy movement. Using the HUD, he set it to stun-shock mode and advanced on the vehicle. Neither occupant reacted to his approach; once he got around to Bakuda's side of the jeep, he paused to examine the situation more closely.

"Bakuda and the driver seem to be either unconscious or faking it very convincingly. Their hands have been zip-tied to the interior of the vehicle. There is a pile of ash in the rear of the jeep, along with what appears to be a great deal of Tinkertech ordnance. Do you concur?"

"I do. The ash seems to be of the same consistency as that which Oni Lee leaves behind. Did you see the zip-lock bags and the note taped to the dashboard?"

Colin had not. He swung his gaze to the dashboard; as Dragon had pointed out, there were two small plastic bags, as well as a note, attached to the dashboard with professional grade duct tape. Each bag held a metal ring; one of the rings was somewhat larger than the other. The note was brief and to the point: Don't let the rings touch. Look in the glove compartment. It was signed with the letters Tt.

Removing the bags from the dash, Colin brought them close to his visor, careful to not even bring the plastic into contact. The close-up inspection revealed minute details, resembling circuit boards, inscribed into the metal of the rings. "Dragon, does that look like Tinker work to you?"

"It certainly does. I would infer that we are looking at Bakuda's detonation trigger, and that it was indeed Tattletale who called it in. Look at Bakuda's left foot."

"I swear, you're better at using my helmet sensors than I am." But his grumbling was good-natured as he looked down. Sure enough, the bomb Tinker's boot lay next to her foot, a sock draped over the top if it. Around the base of the big toe was a groove; Colin would have bet his halberd that the larger of the two rings would fit neatly into that groove. "So. Rings on toes. She selects the bomb somehow ..."

Dragon must have realised the next step at the same time as he did, because they spoke in unison. "Using the HUD in the goggles."

"Exactly," he said. "And then she crosses her toes to set off the one she's chosen."

"Which means that the goggles must hold the data for where all the bombs she's set are. And possibly the codes to disarm them."

Colin popped the glove compartment. Inside, along with a roll of the same duct tape and the expected goggles, was another note with just one word on it: Hi!

Grabbing his halberd, he spun around, raising the weapon defensively.

"Colin, what's the matter? What happened?"

"That note means I'm being watched," he said tensely. "Nobody ever leaves something like that unless they've got you under observation." He scanned the rooftops on both sides of the street.

"It could be just a ploy to mess with your head," she suggested. "My analysis of Tattletale's actions to date suggests that this would not be out of character for her."

"True," he agreed, but he did not relax. Instead, he activated the polarisation for the visor. "However, there are more effective ways of doing that. I think – ah." His eyes narrowed as he spotted something protruding over the parapet of a building opposite. Sunlight glinting from a window on a taller building made it almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but the polarisation handily defeated that. "And there they are. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the top of someone's head."

"You're not wrong," Dragon admitted. "Oh, and they just waved." The slim arm was clad in purple. "That's the colour of Tattletale's costume, isn't it?"

She was right, of course. Activating the grapple-line mode of his halberd, Colin pointed it at the edge of the rooftop. A press of his thumb caused the capacitors to discharge into the high-powered electromagnets, launching the grappling head toward its target. It struck, clamping on to the ageing brickwork. He triggered the rewind function, locking his gauntlets on to the shaft of the halberd as it yanked him upward.

His boots struck the side of the wall first, then the halberd reconnected with its head. Latching more tightly on to the brickwork, it swivelled so that the shaft swung up and over, depositing him on the rooftop with relative ease. He turned to face the villains that awaited him, the halberd releasing its grip on the edge of the roof and re-purposing itself as an offensive weapon.

It was times like this, he decided, that made all the hard work and long hours in the lab truly worth it.

Four parahumans faced him. He recognised them all from their file photos; Grue, Tattletale, Regent and Hellhound. The latter had three enormous lizard-rhino-dog monsters behind her; he'd seen photos of those, too. For a moment, he wondered about the absence of their newest member, but then recalled that it was a school day. No large swarms of insects seemed to be in evidence, so he decided that he was safe from that quarter, at least for the moment.

"You gonna fight me?" he called out. A flick of the eyes activated his HUD lie detector.

"Wasn't in the plan," Tattletale replied with an irritating grin. She wore a skin-tight lavender costume with an eye design worked into the chest area, and a domino mask. "We just thought we'd hand over Bakuda and go on our merry way."

TRUE, the detector reported.

"Bakuda's secured," he replied shortly. "And you're still wanted for the bank job, and for being accessories to the murder of a PRT officer. At the very least." He hefted the halberd. "Make this easy on yourselves. Give up now."

"The bank job was at the behest of Coil," she replied. "You know, that PRT official? Yeah, he was a supervillain. So whoever offed him did you a huge favour. Plugged a massive security leak. Also, that Amber Alert that was due to come out today, where the mayor's niece got kidnapped? That was Coil, too. We didn't know we were just a diversion. But once we found out, we fixed our mess. We saved the girl and got her back to her parents."

"And Calvert?" he asked. His detector was reading TRUTH on every statement, but he wanted to shake things up in case she was quoting from a prepared script. If she sees it as a story, then she might not give appropriate reactions to truth or falsehood.

She gave him a dry look. "Coil wasn't going to give up, and he wasn't going to go away. What happened was for the best. Trust me on this. The PRT would not have looked good if it ever came out." Her grin became even more irritating. "You're welcome. Again."

His detector had not flickered from its TRUTH reading even once. She believed every word implicitly. Maybe that's her power. To make even herself believe her lies. "You're Tattletale. The so-called psychic. Why should I believe you?"

"Because you've got a lie detector in your helmet," the lavender-clad villain pointed out quite accurately. TRUTH. "From what I've been told, anyway." TRUTH.

Who the hell would have told her?

"Armsmaster, how did she know?"

He didn't bother denying it. "I've reason to believe that it can be spoofed. People have done it, recently." The bug girl. Skitter.

"No." She stared directly at his visor. "One person. And that person was telling the truth, then." TRUTH. "You were the one who changed things." TRUTH.

What – I – how … He tried to rein in his spinning thoughts. Did I make her into a villain?

"What's she talking about? What did you do?"

"I'll tell you later," he sub-vocalised, without moving his lips.

Although he thought that he'd been careful, Tattletale grinned again, then waved. "Whoever it is that you're talking to, say hi for me."

Dragon's voice was measured. "She is very perceptive."

So I'm learning.

But Tattletale wasn't done. "Oh, and by the way, what he's going to tell you later is that he was a dick to someone we know, who wanted to be a hero, and now that person has gone the villain route."

TRUTH.

"Oh, Colin." Dragon's voice was a sigh. "What have you done?"

He drew himself up. "I did what I thought was right at the time."

Tattletale snorted. "Like no cape in the history of the world has ever said that before. Nobody ever sets out to do the wrong thing. That bit just comes naturally, after a whole lot of bad decisions."

TRUTH.

Gritting his teeth, Colin hefted the halberd, double-checking that it was set to a non-lethal stun mode. He also deactivated the lie detector; it was starting to get on his nerves. "Be that as it may, you're still wanted. I'm taking you all in. Do yourselves a favour and don't resist. It'll go better for you that way."

Each of the teenagers opposite him, bar Tattletale, tensed up at his words. Regent raised his sceptre, while blackness billowed out around Grue. Tattletale held up her hand, still grinning that infuriating grin. "Nope. You're gonna have to put us on the back burner. There's a more important matter that you've got to deal with, and any fight with us would waste precious time."

He gritted his teeth again, reactivating the detector. She was really very annoying. "And why would that be?"

She pointed toward his belt. "Those goggles. Have you checked them out yet?"

He couldn't resist glancing down, to where Bakuda's goggles hung from his belt. He didn't even remember putting them there after opening the glove compartment. "Not yet, but I've deduced that they're how she picks out targets. Is that the important information you were going to tell me?"

Her air of insufferable smugness intensified. "Nope. The information is this. Bakuda was planning to create a massive diversion so that Oni Lee could bust Lung out of the PRT building." TRUTH.

The grin fell off her face. "She's got bombs planted all over the city, and those goggles can help you find them. If they get set off, we're looking at hundreds of casualties. And we don't know that some of them might not have been set to go off on a timer already. And there's one more thing."

TRUTH.

As the detector flashed green yet again, he felt a chill run down his back. "What's that?"

"A lot of those bombs are designed to kill one person only. The person they're implanted in." To make her meaning crystal clear, she turned her head and tapped the back of her neck, up under the skull. "Right there. Innocents. Parents. Children. It doesn't matter to her."

TRUTH.

It was as if she knew every button to press to get his attention. Fucking Thinkers. But even if she was spoofing his lie detector, he knew that he couldn't ignore the warning. "Very well. But I will find you again. And if you're lying to me …"

"I'm not. We're done here." She began to turn away, then paused. "Oh, and one more thing."

He was beginning to hate that phrase. "What?"

Atypically, she hesitated. "There's something … you're going to want to keep it on the down-low. Alexandria was supposed to go after Bakuda last night. Bakuda's here today. What do you think that might mean?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed for the smallest of the three mutated monsters. The others followed, more warily. Colin let them go; his entire attention was on the lie detector readout. The last question hadn't registered, but the statements before it had.

TRUTH.

Thursday Night

April 14, 2011

As long and distinguished criminal careers went, Bakuda's … wasn't. She had gotten away from the debacle at Cornell more by luck than good judgement. Not long afterward, she had been approached and recruited by Lung, who apparently didn't care that she was only half Japanese, or that she'd been born in Ohio, or that her maternal grandparents had emigrated to the United States just after the Second World War.

It was one of the reasons that she wore the mask; while it made her sound creepy and robotic, it also erased all traces of accent from her voice, so that those of Lung's flunkies who took stock in such things wouldn't know that she couldn't even speak Japanese.

She hadn't been at Cornell to learn the language of her mother's parents. Nor had she been intending to start a villainous career. But after she had triggered with powers – and the less said about that, the better – she had done the best she could with what she had.

It hadn't been enough to get everything she wanted, but at least she had evaded capture. And learned some very valuable lessons in the process. And so, when Lung offered her a large amount of money to make use of her Tinker talents for the ABB, she had hastened to put some of it toward the most intensive workshop security that she could manage.

Thus, when the HUD in her goggles flared to life with multiple warnings, she immediately knew that she had a real problem.

There was no overt warning; the door hadn't opened, and she hadn't heard footsteps. The pressure-plates in the floor were quiescent, so nobody was sneaking up behind her. But there was someone in the workshop with her, all the same.

To begin with, the IR sensors were certain that a human-shaped object had just appeared in the workshop behind her. In addition, the CO2 filters were reporting an increased workload, and the laser scanners were painting a human shape closing with her position. A flying human shape, one who had apparently just teleported into the most secure Tinker lab in Brockton Bay.

The bomb Tinker turned fast, a half-assembled trap-mine in her hands. Hovering in the air just a few yards away, heavy cape draping over her shoulders in a way that would set the most stylish parahumans to weeping with envy, was every villain's nightmare.

Alexandria.

"Back off, bitch!" snapped Bakuda, knowing that the mask would translate it into a mechanical monotone but not caring. She brandished the uncompleted mine in the flying woman's direction while beginning a retreat of her own. "If I set this off, it'll do something unpredictable. Kill you, kill me, create a miniature black hole … who knows what it'll do? You want to be responsible for something like that?"

Alexandria drifted forward, slowly but inexorably closing the distance. "I think you're bluffing," she said flatly. "You're not showing the appropriate respect for something that volatile."

Shit. Bakuda didn't know how she knew that, but it was true. So much for the goddamn mask wiping all stress out of my voice. Which was the other purpose she had designed it for. She backed up a little faster, angling to put a bench between her and the hero.

"Now, put it down, carefully," Alexandria went on. Bakuda wished she knew how the hero managed to pack so much menace into just five words. Even Lung required overt threats to put the fear of God into her so thoroughly. "Do not use your fingertips. Do not press any panic buttons. If I see you attempt to press anything, I will come over there, and I will break your arms."

Using the heels of her hands, Bakuda put the mine down on an empty section of her bench and kept backing up. Behind her goggles, she was busy with her HUD. "Why haven't you already done that, then?"

Alexandria's tone was calm and steady. "Because I'm fully aware that I'm facing off a Tinker with a very destructive speciality in her own workshop, and I'm fully aware of the potential for disaster if I happen to cause you to panic. I don't want you to panic. I want you to listen. And to keep your hands in full view. Thank you."

Under her mask, Bakuda grinned viciously as she raised her hands once more. I don't need my hands to set shit off, but you don't know that, do you? "Listen?" she repeated. "To what?" She backed up to another bench.

"I want you to work for the Protectorate," Alexandria stated flatly. "You'll get a salary and all the resources you need."

Okay, now she's just bullshitting me, trying to get me off guard. Bakuda eyed the benches, their contents, and the relative positions of Alexandria and herself within the room. Not perfect, but it'll have to do.

"Yeah, sure – like fuck I will!" she spat, turning to dive and roll under the bench behind her.

"Bakuda!" shouted Alexandria, lofting into the air to pass over the benches separating them, just as Bakuda had anticipated. She already had the HUD commands queued up, and her toes crossed within her boot. I am gonna have to rebuild so much shit.

The first bomb to go off was the black-hole grenade, behind Alexandria and to her left. It immediately started sucking in everything in its vicinity. The bench it had been sitting on went first, crumpling and crushing itself into an absurdly tiny space. Thousands of dollars worth of components and finished bombs followed very shortly, sucked into the point-mass. Caught in the powerful pseudo-gravitational surge, Alexandria was momentarily dragged backward, before she poured on the power and began to struggle forward again.

Keeping track of her progress via the workshop sensors – those not being distorted by the baby black hole's intense gravity field – Bakuda was impressed. But not so impressed that she didn't set off the other bomb just as the Triumvirate hero passed over it. This one was the time-freeze grenade. More shit to rebuild. Oh, well. Better it than me.

As far as Bakuda could tell, Alexandria had no idea what hit her; one moment she had been seconds from laying hands on the bomb Tinker and the next she was engulfed in the time-stop field. She must have been watching me rather than the stuff on the benches. Her bad luck. The time-freeze grenade had been rolling across the bench toward the baby black hole when Bakuda set it off, so her timing had been better than even she had hoped. Timing. Hah. I kill me.

The tiny black hole fizzled and died; this was followed by a thunderous crash, as the ton or so of super-compacted debris fell to the floor. However, Alexandria was left floating above the bench in the globe of stopped time, her cape drawn back behind her dramatically. Although stationary, she was straining forward as if trying to break the sound barrier and save the day. Around her, small objects had also been captured, frozen in motion toward the now-defunct black-hole effect. They weren't going to be going anywhere now, and nor was Alexandria.

"Holy shit." That didn't feel nearly effective enough. "Holy shit!" she yelled. The adrenaline was just now starting to wear off, and she felt a wave of exultation welling up from deep within her. "I took on fucking Alexandria and won!"

Dancing wasn't really her thing, but she tried anyway, executing an extemporaneous victory jig. As a finale, she grabbed a piece of scrap paper, balled it up, and threw it at the frozen hero. It struck a boundary only a few feet away from Bakuda, and hung there. This time, it was Bakuda's turn to freeze, with the realisation that she'd been an arm's length away from being trapped herself causing ice water to trickle through her veins.

"Fuck." She stared at Alexandria. The woman had been powering toward her while the grenade rolled away; half a second either way, and she would have been either trapped in the time bubble or captured by Alexandria. "Fuck." That was too fucking close.

There was a small fridge in the corner of the workshop, ostensibly there to keep certain components chilled until they were ready for use. However, she also stored beer in it … because, well … beer. Heading over to the fridge now, she lifted her mask, popped the cap off a bottle, and chugged it down. The ice cold liquid seemed to rejuvenate her brain, speeding up her thought processes.

Okay, so what do I do now? I've got a member of the fucking Triumvirate stuck in time like a fly in amber. Pretty sure the ratio in there's ten billion to one, so even if she gets out in one-tenth of a second, that's thirty years. So she's out of the picture. But what about the other two?

The first bottle was unaccountably empty, so she opened a second one and considered her options. If they were keeping tabs on her, they'd be here right now and I'd be kinda screwed. And if they can find her, they can find me. And once that happens, I am definitely screwed, and not in a good way. Legend and Eidolon, of course, favoured ranged attacks, which would play to their strengths and her weaknesses. I guess I was kinda lucky that it was Alexandria who came looking for me.

She drained the beer, then hurled the bottle at the time-freeze field. It stuck there, hanging upside-down in midair. Within, Alexandria stared fixedly forward; she obviously hadn't realised her predicament as yet.

I could close down this workshop and go elsewhere, but that leaves her to be found, along with all that evidence inside the time-freeze field to point toward me. No, it's better if I stay. I'll just have to mark out the field boundary before I do anything else.

Another thought intruded. What about tomorrow? I still need to fuck up the Undersiders before I start the bombings. She looked over the workshop, at the damage created by the black-hole bomb and the area presumably enclosed by the time-freeze field. That's tens of thousands of dollars right there. I don't know if I can afford to hire Uber and L33t right now. She grinned savagely. That's fine. I'll do it all myself. I don't need those losers.

Earlier on Friday Morning

April 15, 2011

Contessa sighed. How did she get herself into that situation? A minor exertion of her power would have given her the answer, but all she needed to know was that while Alexandria wasn't dead, she was out of the picture until something could be done to save her. This is going to disrupt matters. Fatally? She checked the plan in her head. No. Just more to do. Seventy-three extra steps to deal with it. I don't need her immediately, and it won't harm her to stay there for a while. This might go as far as to teach her some humility. The last bit was a private joke; teaching Alexandria humility, she knew, would take far fewer steps than that.

Pulling out her smartphone, she typed up and sent an email without looking, much less paying attention to what the email said or who she was sending it to. That task complete, she put the phone away and boarded the bus. Step complete. In the process, she gave the bus driver a wide smile and a generous tip. This would give him a boost to his day, and he would avoid a traffic pileup which would otherwise cause three people on the bus to be late to work.

Washington, DC

Miranda Lange was proud to be an American. Moreover, she was proud to assist, even if it was from behind the scenes, with the running of the office of the Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Teams. A minor aerokinetic with the ability to mimic any sound she had ever heard, she was also fortunate enough to be a reasonably close match to Alexandria, in body if not face. She kept her blonde hair cropped short, and there was a metal mask and long black wig in her closet at all times.

Originally, she had been brought on board to impersonate Alexandria, but after several years, she had been cleared for the full secret behind the deception. A Tinkertech face-mask allowed her to masquerade as the Chief Director when needed, freeing Alexandria to perform acts of derring-do while Miranda was making public appearances as the Chief Director.

The discovery that the head of the PRT was a parahuman had initially somewhat shocked her. However, after a careful explanation of the situation by a business-suited woman whose name Miranda hadn't quite caught, it all became clear to her. Rebecca Costa-Brown was the best choice to run the PRT; she had proven that many times over since it had been formed. And if she was a parahuman, so what? If all that Alexandria needed was a helping hand to keep the secret, then Miranda was absolutely willing to do her part. It wasn't as if anyone was being hurt, and Alexandria was much better at being a hero than she was.

Her laptop chimed, signalling an email. She clicked on it, noting the familiar header; a thrill of anticipation ran through her body. Do I get to be Alexandria today? Please let me be Alexandria.

As she read through the email, her shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Being Rebecca Costa-Brown was more strenuous, and she had to talk more. Her power let her replicate the Chief Director's voice exactly, but she still hadn't gotten the hang of projecting her personality in the same way. Still, they were depending on her to do the job, so the job would get done.

Picking up her phone, she dialled a specific number, leading with a series of digits not used by any normal phone number. This diverted the call through the Chief Director's office line, making it seem as though the call was coming from there.

The phone on the other end rang just once before being picked up. "Piggot."

Miranda took a deep breath, 'tuning' the sound that came out of her mouth to match the Chief Director's voice. "Emily, this is Chief Director Costa-Brown …"

End of Part Eighteen