31

Trump Card

Part Twenty-Seven: Setting the Trap

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

Lung deposited the teenage girl in the chair and held out his hand. "Knife."

Hurriedly, Jin pulled out his switchblade and placed it in his boss' palm. Lung snicked it open and sliced the bonds on her arms and legs. "Do not move, girl," he ordered. "You won't like it if you do." His massive hand on her shoulder provided a very solid reminder of the threat.

She turned her head as if listening, which was about all she could do; a thick cloth had been tied around her eyes, and another around her mouth. The screaming had stopped once she'd been in the car and away from the scene of the kidnap, for which Jin had been profoundly grateful.

Handing back the knife, Lung nodded toward the girl. "Tie her to the chair."

Jin blinked; the chair in question was massively solid, and firmly bolted to the floor. Taylor Hebert, on the other hand, was stick-thin, and would have trouble weighing ninety pounds wringing wet. He could not see any conceivable way that she could escape the room, much less the building, even if she wasn't fastened to the chair.

On the other hand, Lung was standing right there, and to question his orders was a very terminal career move. Especially since this girl was linked to Hax, and in turn to the team which nobody in the ABB dared mention the name of. People died if that happened.

"Yes, sir," he said, and began tying knots.

He had a lot of rope, and with Lung it was always better to go for overkill than understated subtlety. By the time he was finished, the only part of her that could move was her head. Her legs had even been tied to the chair legs, so that she wouldn't have been able to move the chair around, like people did in the movies. That is, if it hadn't been already bolted to the floor.

"Check the knots," Lung said. The big man had not stopped moving since the girl was placed in the chair, and seemed to be trying to see into every corner of the room at once.

Jin checked the knots. They were all secure. "Sir, may I respectfully ask a question?"

The metal mask inclined toward him. "You may."

"Why do we need to tie her so firmly? She is nothing. How can she possibly escape, with you in the room?"

Lung growled deep in his throat, but the flattery achieved its required result. "Hax is unpredictable and can teleport. I am ensuring that even if she appears in the midst of us, she will not be able to simply vanish again with the Hebert girl."

Unless she can simply teleport her away from within the ropes, Jin thought, but quelled the impulse to say it. He didn't want to know how Lung might face that challenge.

"Unless … she can simply teleport the girl away from within the ropes," mused Lung.

Craaaaaap. Jin fought the urge to facepalm. It seemed that he was going to find out anyway.

Lung turned toward Jin. "We have to guard against that as well," the tattooed man decided. "Do we have any Semtex left?"

Jin thought quickly. "From the bank job? Uh, yes. I think we have three blocks left." What does he want with that? But he could only think of one possible use.

"Good." Lung turned away, obviously done with the conversation.

"Uh," began Jin, not liking the way this was going. "What do you want me to …"

Lung turned back. "Get them, of course. Tape them to her. Set up the detonators with a pressure switch under her, so that if she's moved, they go off. Then tie her to the chair." He threw up his hands. "Do I have to think of everything around here?"

"It … it will be done." Jin turned to carry out the appointed task. He swallowed heavily. In his time in the ABB, he had done many bad things, but this was the first time that he'd been ordered to rig a teenage girl with high explosives.

If I refuse, he'll kill me and order someone else to do it. There was nothing to it. He went off in search of the Semtex.

Life, he decided, was sometimes little more than a series of bad decisions.

Gloversville

Über stepped back from the open back door of the van, dusting his hands off. "Okay, see if it'll fit in there now."

Stepping up with the dimensional generator, I slid it into place. "Perfect."

"Good," said L33t. He waved an elaborate Tinkertech screwdriver. "Mind getting your metal-clad butt out of the way so I can fix that thing in place? Time's a-ticking, here." As I moved aside, he stepped in and held a bracket in place. The screwdriver dispensed a screw from its built-in magazine, then affixed it with a brief, deep whining noise.

"Hax." Über pulled me aside. "How's Alibi doing?" I could hear the concern in his voice.

Inside the armour, I bit my lip. "They've got her back at Lung's base. Currently, someone's wiring her up with plastic explosive. Obviously, they don't want me just teleporting in, grabbing her and 'porting away again." I hoped that the preparations I was working on would be good enough.

"Well, if I was them, I might object as well," he pointed out. "After all, it's the height of rudeness to set up an elaborate trap, just to have your victim bypass it altogether." We shared a moment of mutual amusement, then he started chuckling.

"What?" I asked, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth.

He shook his head. "Lung is going to be so pissed at you." Turning, he went over to assist L33t with securing the generator, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

He was right, of course. I'd roughed out a plan for rescuing Alibi and defeating Lung, but it required several things to go just right. However, if it did go right, Alibi would be safe, and Lung would be behind bars. Along with the rest of the ABB.

And yes, Lung would be incredibly pissed.

Opening the side door of the van, I climbed in. L33t and I had decided how the generator was to be connected up to the van's thoroughly non-standard power supply. However, we had agreed that a capacitor was absolutely essential for our plan of action, and the only one of those we had right at the moment was contained within my armour. More to the point, since the battle with Lung, it had become entirely integrated with the armour, to the point that it couldn't be removed.

So, if the mountain won't come to Muhammad …

With a sigh, I sat down in the seat that we'd modified. Two power cords lay on the workbench beside me, one coming from the van and one going to the generator. I called up a particular menu in my HUD and selected a specific option. A panel slid aside on the torso of my armour, and I plugged the cords into the appropriate sockets.

This wasn't the most optimal course of action; however, I didn't see that we had a choice. While the van could handle the normal running of the generator, I knew from my foray into Dodge's capabilities that the startup would require a massive frontloading of power. If we tried to jury-rig the van to supply the burst, it could burn out the engine, and then there would be all that bother with hazmat suits and radioactive waste disposal. The suit could handle it, but it would leave the capacitor virtually depleted. I wouldn't be teleporting any time soon, at least until I could replenish my stored energy supplies.

If I had even a day, L33t and I could redesign the generator to not require the high-end startup power drain. But we don't have a day. We don't have an hour.

For the moment, I could let the van keep the suit topped up, but once we got going that would also be no longer an option. I went through power settings, ruthlessly pruning away anything that I thought I could spare, so that I could dedicate power to the essentials.

Holocloak: off.

Manton field generator: off.

Teleporter standby mode: off.

Lower limb power supply: off.

External speakers: off.

Uplink to stun rifle: off.

Life support: off.

As I selected the last one, the lower part of my faceplate slid open automatically, and I breathed in the faint smell of ozone that always seemed to permeate the van. I was as ready as I was going to be.

The rear door of the van closed, locking into place; a few moments later, L33t climbed into the passenger seat. "Ready to roll?" he asked.

"Just about," I said. I wasn't, not really. We were just about to trust our lives to someone else's Tinkertech. Tinkertech that I had not personally disassembled, checked over, and reassembled. Intellectually, I knew that Dodge did good work; he wouldn't have a place in Toybox if he didn't. But it still felt wrong just to leap blindly into the unknown without testing it a little at first.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to test it. "Just gotta make a call first, and then we can go."

The call would be to Lisa; I had already prepped Alibi with as much data as I could cram into her processors. She would be on her own until I re-established contact; I could only pray that nothing drastic happened to her in the meantime. I knew that she was 'only' a puppet running off cues from my own brain for the most part, but dammit, I was still attached to her. We all were.

I took a deep breath and made the call.

Brockton Bay

Lisa plucked the phone from her belt just as it began to vibrate. "Tattletale here," she said cheerfully, as if she wasn't currently sitting astride a monster dog on a rooftop in the middle of ABB territory.

All that aside, it was a pleasant day. The sun was shining; if there had been any birds around, they would have been chirping. Nearby, Brian sat on Brutus, gradually leaking darkness; his posture hinted at absolute focus. Alec, sitting behind him, seemed a little sour for some reason. Irritated that we're associating with Hax, after she made him look like an idiot that one time.

Rachel, on the other hand, showed nothing but stolid acceptance as she sat astride Angelica. She knew what they were doing, and that they were being paid handsomely by Pwnage for doing it. Not that Lisa wouldn't have done this job for free – staying on the good side of someone like Hax was a good idea – but getting money never hurt, and Hax seemed willing to part with hard cash to get this done right. The intel's almost as good, and she's far better company than Coil. When Hax said 'no strings attached', she meant it. And I kind of like her as a friend. Even if she's an incurable smartass when she gets hold of my power.

"Hi," Taylor's voice was crisp and to the point. However, Lisa could read the underlying tension. While she couldn't be certain, Lisa was ninety percent sure that the 'Taylor' they were here to rescue was actually some sort of Tinkertech decoy, built using L33t's powers. And that the PRT still hadn't figured it out, which amused Lisa immensely. "They've almost got her tied up again. There's three blocks of Semtex taped to her stomach, a pressure switch under her ass, and there's also a remote detonator. I estimate that they'll be starting the interrogation in about two minutes. Plus or minus a minute or so."

It didn't take Lisa's power to determine that when Lung interrogated someone, terms like 'splatter radius' were appropriate to use. Taylor doesn't want that. I don't want that. She waved her hand at Rachel, then gestured forward. The stocky girl took the hint and started her dog moving; the other two followed close behind. "We're a couple of minutes out," Lisa said. "Can she stall them for a bit?"

Taylor's voice was still matter-of-fact, but the tension was ratcheting up with every word. "That'll be difficult. I'll be going totally dark about thirty seconds after we end this call. I won't be able to talk to you or give her any prompts. She's been prepped, a little, but I can't guarantee any results."

"Dark? How long for?" Under her, Judas gathered himself for a leap; Lisa hung on as the monstrous dog crossed the gap. The building they were holding 'Taylor' in was just up ahead, but there would be a few guards to take care of first. Having their mission control go dark at just the wrong time was amazingly inconvenient. She's not Coil, Lisa reminded herself. She actually wants this to succeed.

"Unknown. Maybe ten seconds. Maybe a minute. Maybe more." She didn't like it either, Lisa could tell. Whatever she was doing, it would put her out of touch with the ongoing situation, rendering her incapable of assisting, right when they might need it the most. It's essential to the ongoing plan, her power told her. If she gets this right, Lung goes away. Which was a good thing; the Undersiders had escaped his notice with the casino heist, but this would put them squarely in his crosshairs once and for all.

Well, if it can't be helped, it can't be helped. "Roger that. Catch you on the flip side."

"You too. And thanks." Taylor disconnected the call and Lisa shoved the phone back on her belt. She ran over the attack plan in her head, looking to her power to add any last details. None came to mind. Showtime.

"Guys!" she called. "We're going to have to go in hot. Lung's about to start the interrogation, and she's not going to have any answers." Brian's head came up at that; he'd figured out the implications almost immediately, and didn't like them. Alec also had it worked out, though he didn't care as much. Rachel wasn't worried either way; attack now or attack later, it was all the same to her.

Alec shrugged. "So she can stall for a bit. No big." His lack of urgency showed in his voice.

"No. She can't. Take it from me." Lisa pointed ahead at the target building. "Third floor, other side of the building. We won't have time to circle around. We bust straight through." The original plan had been a lot more circumspect. This one was going to have to be brutal and loud to make up for it.

"Why can't the bad guys hold their interrogations in spacious warehouses with convenient skylights, like in every movie known to mankind?" groused Alec, but he loosened the sceptre in its loop at his belt anyway.

The dogs leaped over another gap, their pounding paws now gouging chunks out of the rooftops as they went. "Because convenient skylights are too damn convenient for capes to bust in through," Brian called back to him, nudging Brutus to greater speed. Blackness was pouring off of him, leaving a midnight-black comet trail. He pulled ahead of the pack; Lisa and Rachel fell in behind. The ABB base was directly ahead.

The dogs leaped across the last gap.

Lung's Base

Jin tested the last knot; it held firm. "Sir, she's ready." He looked down at the gangly girl with something almost like sympathy in his heart. Whatever connection she had with Hax, it would be far better for her to tell Lung immediately. The gang boss had said she would be released unharmed once she talked, but when it came to Lung, 'unharmed' was relative. The longer she made him wait for the answers, the harder it would be on her. Worse, the angrier Lung got, the more likely he was to take it out on everyone around him. Leaning down, he said quietly, "Girl, your only chance is to tell him everything, fast. Do you understand?"

Lung had been pacing back and forth in the room, his gaze flicking from side to side, as if he expected Hax to appear out of thin air at any moment. For all that Jin knew, he did. He turned toward where Taylor Hebert was tied firmly to the chair, plastic explosive taped to her body. Before the girl could give a sign to show she had heard him, Jin felt Lung's large hand wrap around his throat. Within the tattooed man's body, Jin fancied that he could feel the furnace heat seeking to escape.

"What did you say to her just now?" asked Lung, his voice menacingly quiet. "Are you in league with her?" Through the eyeholes of the metal dragon mask, Jin saw Lung's eyes narrow, flames already dancing deep within them.

"N-no," Jin managed to choke out. "I told her to answer your questions quickly. I-I meant no disrespect." Although he was fighting for breath, he willed his hands to stay at his sides. If he so much as reached for Lung's hand, he knew he would die. If he was lucky, it would be fast.

Lung stared back at him; Jin imagined that he was deciding in his own mind whether it would be more convenient to kill Jin now or forgive him the imagined trespass. After an eternity of waiting, during which time Jin began to seriously fight for breath, Lung tossed him almost casually aside, where he landed heavily on his ribs. "Next time, speak to me first," grunted Lung, turning back to the girl.

Struggling to his knees, Jin sucked cool life-giving oxygen deep into his lungs. His throat felt bruised, and would undoubtedly show the markings of Lung's hand the next morning, but he was alive. There were quite a few he had known who were not so lucky, casualties of Lung's temper following the fight with the other dragon.

Plucking the blindfold and the gag from the girl's face, Lung leaned down so that his metal mask was mere inches from her nose. "Do you know who I am, girl?" he asked harshly.

She stared back at him, eyes wide. Jin heard a distinct whimper escape her lips.

Lung leaned closer. "Answer me!" he shouted. "Do you know who I am?"

If anything, her eyes went even wider. She leaned back as far as she could to get away from him, which wasn't very far. "Lung?" she whispered.

"Yes." His voice was full of satisfaction. "I am Lung. I have questions about Hax and … the team she runs with. You have been in their base. You will tell me how to find it. Now." He loomed over her, powerful and dangerous and angry.

She whimpered again. Sweat was running down her face and tears gathering in her eyes. She was so obviously terrified that Jin was almost cringing himself in sympathetic response. He might be too good at scaring her. She's too frightened to think. Of course, if I say anything, I will probably die.

"If you don't stop crying like a frightened child," Lung shouted, "I will give you a reason to cry!" His large hand folded over her shoulder, the thumb pressing on her collarbone. In a person of her size and weight, it would be as slender and delicate as a twig. Jin knew that Lung was easily capable of casually snapping it, both physically and morally. "Now tell me what I want to know!"

Jin was no stranger to death; he had killed Merchant trash and Empire skinheads, and never suffered a qualm. While he'd threatened mugging victims, and sometimes hurt them, he'd never killed anyone in the process (that he knew about). But he knew, here and now, that if Lung didn't get answers from the Hebert girl, he would start breaking bones. As fragile as she was, it would not take all that much effort for Lung to accidentally kill her. And if that happens, he may well blame us. Blame me.

"Respectfully, sir, may I speak with you?" Jin made his tone as deferential as he could. Please don't kill me … please don't kill me … please don't kill me …

Lung swung toward him; Jin smelt the smoke before he saw it, drifting up from behind the dragon mask. "What?"

I have to word this just right. "Sir, you're terrifying to someone like her. She's never seen anyone like you before. Her fear is so great that she can't speak." He had to hope that the flattery would help calm Lung down before the man decided to kill someone. Probably her, and then me.

The sound that emanated from behind Lung's mask was not particularly human; if he was pressed, Jin would have likened it to an animalistic growl. "She'll talk. They all talk."

"Yes, sir, of course sir." With his heart in his mouth, Jin stepped forward. "I merely wished to point out that I am not nearly so imposing and terrifying as you are. She will not be so scared of me, and she may answer my questions without crying so much."

"Hm." Lung sounded a little less angry, even as he preened very slightly. "Speak to her, then. I will listen, and tell you what to say." He stepped away from the chair to which Taylor Hebert was bound. Now that he was not staring fixedly at her, his eyes began to dart to every corner of the room once more.

Jin abruptly became aware of just how deeply he had dug himself into a hole. If she doesn't answer, then I'm screwed. He'll still kill her and then me. Why do I talk myself into corners like this? He stepped up to the chair and looked down at the girl. Her frightened eyes stared back at him, so wide that white was showing all the way around the iris. Carefully, he tried to moderate his tone to be less frightening. Although to be less frightening than Lung is no trouble at all. "Girl. Are you listening to me?"

Eyes still wide, she nodded hesitantly. Her glasses had been knocked askew by the blindfold; Jin reached forward to straighten them. She recoiled as far as she was able, then relaxed fractionally when he took his hands away again. Small kindnesses to captives will sometimes work wonders.

"What's your name, girl?" He knew it, of course. But he also knew that asking questions to which the answer was readily available made later questions harder to resist.

"T-Taylor Hebert." She was still breathing fast, but his relatively gentle tone made for a potent difference from Lung. The 'good cop bad cop' trope was certainly as old as the concept of policing, and possibly older than that, but there was a reason for this. It worked.

"Hello, Taylor. My name's Jin." There was a minimal risk in giving his name to her. It wasn't as if she would learn if it was his first or last name. Even if they did identify him, he was already a wanted criminal, and it wouldn't significantly change matters.

She seemed to be calming down a little, although her gaze kept flicking to Lung as he stood there with arms folded, looking like a particularly vengeful deity. "Uh … hello?" Her voice was still hesitant, but she wasn't crying any more.

"Get on with it." Lung's voice was heavy with menace; the Hebert girl cringed back, and Jin had to exert all his willpower to not curse Lung, even inside his own mind. Some fearful corner of him was sure that the leader of the ABB could smell out such treason, spoken or otherwise, and he wasn't taking any chances. He is a dragon, after all.

"Taylor, Lung would like to know anything you can tell me about Hax's base," he said, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible. It wasn't easy; he hadn't attempted anything like this for years, not since he'd been a negotiator for the gangs on the Boston waterfront. As a mid to high level enforcer in the ABB, threats came more easily to him than honeyed words, but those same skills told him that threats would do little to loosen her tongue.

The girl opened her mouth. "Hax -" she began. However, a loud crash, several rooms away, interrupted her. Two more thunderous noises sounded, one after the other, followed by sounds of more complicated destruction.

Almost in the same instant as the second and third crashes, Lung spun around and gestured to the guards posted at the windows and doors. "Go!" he shouted. "Go and find the intruders! Kill them, whoever they are!" Hefting their weapons – mainly pistols, but with a few submachine guns – they hurried from the room.

"What is that?" shouted Jin as shots were fired and men screamed. "Who's attacking us?" He could hear some sort of deep rumbling or roaring, which he couldn't identify. All he could really tell was that the crashing sounds were getting closer.

"I don't know." Lung's voice was getting deeper, as his body began to expand. He moved toward the doorway. "But whoever they are, they're dea-"

Before he could finish the word, the wall burst inward, spraying Jin with shattered plaster and pieces of studding. Two great monsters, each an unholy cross between a lizard, a rhinoceros and a dinosaur, thundered into the room. Jin heard a sharp whistle, and the creatures changed course. One of them leaped at Lung, apparently wishing to sink its great shark-like teeth into him. He jumped out of the way, only to land in the path of the other bizarre monster, which slammed its enormous head into his body. Together, all three crossed the room in just a heartbeat, striking the outer wall with a tremendous impact. It gave way, tumbling them all out of the room and into the sunlight beyond.

A slim figure with curly dark hair and a white full-face mask appeared from the clouds of dust and strode fearlessly toward him. Jin raised his gun – he wasn't even sure how it had found its way into his hand – but his fingers spasmed and he dropped it. Cape. Regent. Monsters. These are the Undersiders.

Regent, as befitted his name, was carrying an elaborate sceptre of some sort. However, instead of swinging it at Jin, he poked the end at him instead. Jin went to brush it aside, but the prongs found his arm, as he … Prongs …

He realised the danger too late, as the shock knocked him sideways. Barely conscious, he heard the boy call out, "Found her!"

Gloversville

Über climbed into the driver's seat and started the van. "Next stop, Brockton Bay," he declared in his ringing tones. Putting the vehicle into gear, he pulled away from the parking spot and began to drive away from the convention centre.

"Where are you going?" asked L33t as he tapped away at the complicated-looking device that went along with the generator. "I'm finding it hard enough to put the right settings in if we aren't moving."

"We just pissed off two guys connected enough to rate parahuman bodyguards," Über told him as he swung around a corner. "I'd rather not deal with them if I don't have to." He had a good point; while I'd put the the bodyguards down pretty effectively, I hadn't done anything they couldn't recover from reasonably quickly. And unfortunately, people like the guys who'd been outbidding Über were likely to be the types to hold a grudge or two.

"Yeah, yeah, stop whining," L33t bitched as he tapped keys. "Okay, I think I got it. Hold on to your brain cells!" His finger stabbed a button on the control device, causing several things to happen. First, the van's engine stuttered, then recovered. Second, the capacitor in my suit underwent a massive drain; I watched the readout go from a solid one hundred percent down to less than five percent in under a second. Third, an opaque grey shimmering rectangle appeared in the street ahead of us.

Über began to slow down as we approached the portal. "It's a bit small," he said doubtfully. "And I'm not sure if it'll be high enough …" Leaning forward, I peered through the windshield. I couldn't be certain, but I got the impression that he was indeed correct.

Then I heard something that grabbed my attention; specifically, the sound of squealing tyres from behind us. I turned to look, and my heart sank; it was an expensive-looking car, and the way it was gaining on us, the driver wasn't just interested in passing the time of day. "Guys, we gotta go!" I shouted.

"Floor it!" yelled L33t at almost the same time. I grabbed for a handhold as Über floored it; the van might have looked old and decrepit, but a Tinkertech cold-fusion power plant will afford a startling amount of acceleration.

"Get ready to close it!" snapped Über; he hung on to the wheel, aiming carefully at the centre of the portal. "Oh, shiiit, it's not high enough …" I glanced back over my shoulder again; the car was a lot closer and still coming up fast.

Just before we hit the hole, I braced myself. But to my surprise, there wasn't even a jerk as the edge of the hole in spacetime impacted the front of the roof of the vehicle. As it was, the entire roof was sliced off of the van; as far as I could tell, the edge of the portal was cutting it like a monomolecular blade. I wondered if Dodge had any idea of this application of his portals.

I heard a distant clang, which must have come from the roof falling to the road after being cut free of the van. The sound was cut off sharply as L33t hit the button to close the hole behind us.

Über braked sharply to a halt; the van ended up almost in the exact centre of the space in which we had found ourselves. I looked out the window; a shimmering grey floor met a shimmering grey wall, which in turn became a shimmering grey ceiling. Looking up, I saw more of the ceiling through the space where the roof used to be.

"Dude." Über pointed upward. "You're paying for that." His voice was oddly flat, lacking much of its resonant tones. I wondered if the shimmering grey surface was anechoic, whether it absorbed sound or simply refused to reflect it.

"Hey, not my fault!" L33t's voice was likewise almost swallowed by the silence that infected this place. "Wow, shit, my voice sounds weird. So does yours." He worked his jaw, as if he was trying to pop his eardrums.

"I don't think this place reflects sound," I suggested, raising my voice slightly to make myself better heard. It was going to take some getting used to.

"First thing we do, we put in proper walls and floor and ceiling," Über decided. "Anyway, we've got a rescue mission to complete. Think you can get us back to Brockton Bay without cutting the van in half or landing us in the Boat Graveyard?" His tone as he addressed L33t was only mildly censorious; I would have been astonished if that was the worst mishap that the boys had encountered in the old days. For my part, I could not help feeling anxiety, not only over Alibi, but also the Undersiders; they were the ones going into harm's way to rescue her, after all.

"All right then," L33t decided after some more work on the control device. "We're going to need an exit point. Hard numbers. Hax, you were getting those, right?" That was my cue to call up the HUD on my goggles, and access the positional data that I had stored in the armour's memory banks.

"Yeah, I was," I said. "You've got the numbers for the exit point we just used, right?" I couldn't just tell him my numbers; it was almost certain that Dodge's devices used a different format for positional data than I had set up for the armour.

"Sure," he agreed, and read out the figures. I repeated them back to him, and he corrected one of the digits. After fixing the error, I double-checked with him. This time, he agreed with me.

Then I put up my figures for location versus his figures for location. As I had expected, they were utterly unlike each other. I had latitude, longitude and elevation in feet from sea level; Dodge's positional data involved some weird three-dimensional transforming formula. Mentally cracking my knuckles, I put the light-spot on to Über and concentrated on understanding Dodge's math. Thirty seconds later, I had it figured out.

Applying that information to the other figures took only a little longer; within a couple of minutes, I was able to read back to L33t the formula he was supposed to plug into the remote. Über put the van into gear and drove over to a spot on the wall that L33t indicated, and stopped once more.

"Where are we going to come out?" he asked. I could understand the trepidation; a transposed digit or two could see us ending up underground or a thousand feet in the air. If we even appeared on the right continent.

Or the right world, for that matter. It was a sobering thought.

"If my calculations are correct, it should be where we teleported to after leaving Coil's base," I said. "We haven't put anything new in that spot, have we?" I was pretty sure that we hadn't; since I had joined the team, the boys had actually acquired a grudging pride in their newly-found cleanliness and neatness.

Über looked at L33t, who shrugged. Then he turned to me. "If you haven't put anything there, it's clear. But how are we going to get the van through to the garage? There's too much stuff in the way." I could see where he was going with this, but I could also see where he was making the mistake.

"Dude. We don't need the van. We leave it in here." L33t gestured at the four walls that now surrounded us. "Don't you get it? This is our new base."

The armour was no longer needed to provide the kickstart for the generator, so I unplugged that, as well as the feed from the van. It was only a trickle, given that most of the excess from the van's power plant was going toward the dimensional generator. I had six percent power; enough to walk around with and do minor tasks, but not enough for any sort of brawl.

Lower limb power supply: on.

Pulling back the side door, I climbed out of the van. The shimmering grey surface felt smooth under my feet, though there was ample traction. Seeking to test my theory from earlier, I stomped hard on it. My foot stopped, but there was no sound. It was weird.

"Okay, then." L33t climbed out of the van and pointed at the nearest section of wall. "If I've got this right, the portal will form there and lead straight back to our base." He held up the remote and hit the button … and the portal formed, right where he'd said it would. Still a shimmering opaque grey, it was somehow a different shimmering opaque grey from the rest of the pocket dimension.

Stepping forward, I stuck my head through. Information flooded across my HUD as my armour reconnected to the outside world. Better yet, L33t had hit the mark dead on. We were indeed inside the base. I passed all the way through, looking around, thinking about the next step in the plan.

With a rush, the connection with Alibi re-established itself. I could hear through her ears, see through her eyes. She was healthy and whole. And, it seemed, riding on a giant dog in front of Lisa.

"Hi," I said to Lisa through the link with Alibi. "How's things?" As I did so, Über and L33t exited the portal behind me. I turned to them. "Guys, the plan's on track, but we've gotta move fast to be ready for the endgame."

"Pretty good, you?" Lisa didn't seem the slightest bit surprised that the previously uncommunicative Alibi had suddenly started talking. I pinged Alibi's location beacon and got a rough cut on their speed. Then I had Alibi turn her head to look back past Lisa; not far behind, following relentlessly, was a metallic-scaled and very pissed off Lung.

"What do we have to do?" asked L33t. No hesitation, no whining about how I was ordering him around. We were a team, and it showed.

"Back in Brockton Bay," she/I told Lisa. "And just in time, it seems. Gonna need about ten minutes to get some stuff done, then you can come on in. Think you can hold out that long?" To be honest, I was being a little conservative with the ten-minute estimate, but I would rather have too much time than too little.

At a fast walk, I led the way toward my workshop. Without pausing, I tore down the warning poster on the door, crumpling it up as I went. No sense in tipping him off.

"We'll just have to do our best," she said. "Make sure you don't go too much over, all right?" I couldn't contact her powers via Alibi – how useful would that be? - but Über's power had given me some pretty effective cold-reading skills, and I knew that she was shading the truth a little. The dogs, were having to push to keep ahead of Lung; the bigger and nastier he got, the harder it would become. They've already been in a fight with him. A second one might not go as well. In addition, I couldn't be certain, but there seemed to be something wrong with Grue's right arm.

Entering the workshop, I pointed at the elaborate Tinkertech pillars decorating each corner of the room. "We've got to disconnect these and set them up at the corners of the base itself. And we've got ten minutes to do it in." I was going to try to do it in five; the more spare time up our sleeves, the merrier. And I did not want the Undersiders getting hurt on my account. Or more hurt, if I was right about Grue.

Über frowned. "I've been meaning to ask. L33t can't make more than one of anything. Nor can you. Or has that changed?" His point was valid; externally, the pillars looked almost identical. The truth, of course, was a little more complicated than that.

"They're not all the same," I explained. "There are two activating pillars and two reflecting pillars. I made one of each, and I supplied the plans for L33t to make the other two." To be honest, at the time I hadn't been certain that little loophole would actually work, but it had come through in spades.

"Given all the stuff you've helped me rebuild, you're totally welcome," L33t pointed out. Pulling the Tinkertech screwdriver from his belt, he headed purposefully for the pillar in the far corner. "Come on, dude. Give me a hand here. These things are way heavier than they should be."

I moved toward another pillar, taking a screwdriver of my own from the work bench. I just hope we can get set up in time. Despite the urgency of the situation, I had to stifle a grin at the pun.

End of Part Twenty-Seven