17

Discretion 2.4

Next, I remained at the warehouse while Agate was sent out to look for the Undersiders' base. While it was unclear how long this would take, I expected that it would be easier now that Agate had at least seen them once, and they were likely to still be at base resting from last night, instead of gone somewhere else or split up.

If my enemy was Coil, why would I not look for his base first, you ask? The answer was twofold. Unlike with the Undersiders, I knew that his base was underneath a defunct Endbringer shelter. There were not many of those around, so finding it wouldn't be hard. The hard part would be getting value of out that information. His base was complex and Agate by herself couldn't effectively map it out and identify the key rooms, defenses, and hidden areas.

'That's not true! I definitely can. What's so hard about looking around a few rooms?'

Coil's base was basically a fortress. Mapping out that kind of structure required relevant skills and experience. What's more, I had no interest in directly assaulting it. I only needed to know where Coil would be alone in his base, which would be quite difficult if his person was currently at PRT, and his body double might not know or go to Coil's actual hiding spots.

'Nevermind that. Just look for the Undersiders' base,' I thought in reply.

Next, I dialed a different number.

When the call was picked up, there was no sound on the other side.

"Hello? Hello? Anybody there?"

Still silence.

"The hell? Network's been fucked up all day or something? I just want to know what's going on!" I muttered.

"Boss, you finally called! It's like you said, at 6:20 the bums came and left the goods behind, at 6:52 AM two big guys in civvies and sunglasses came by and took it. After that, I waited here the whole time and nobody else came to check on the drop point," a gruff male voice answered.

"Good. You got their photos?"

"Sure did. Sending them to you now."

After a few seconds, I received the images by MMS on the phone and smirked.

"You've done well, Novak. I will be in touch when I need you again."

O O O

'I found them!' Agate projected the view into my mind, and I confirmed that Lisa, Brian, and Alec were sleeping in at their base. Rachel wasn't there, but I expected that. With their location confirmed, Agate returned, and we continued the portal experimentation. A couple of the newly opened portals had closed already.

Agate quickly went back out after opening more portals. This time, she was equipped with some gripping gear, and we stole Brian's phone.

I combed through the data on his phone before returning it where we got it.

We didn't touch Lisa's phone out of caution that she might notice something amiss.

After that Agate stayed in the warehouse to monitor the portals. I checked on Sophia, who was still scoping out the best attack and escape routes.

I had told her not to be hasty. A successful operation needed lots of preparation, and the right opportunity.

As for myself, I went back to the apartment and got a couple hours of sleep.

O O O

Agate woke me up at 2:30.

'What's the progress with the portals?' I asked.

'I've been able to bring the portal life down to 23 minutes.'

Excellent. As I expected, the experiment was able to progress quickly due to the availability of space in the warehouse.

'But this is boring, Kaleidus.'

'Sorry Agate, but it's necessary. If you can think of a way to keep track of when the portals close without being there yourself, you could leave and look at the data later.'

'I can't do it. I need to learn more spells to make something like that.'

The only other option was a technological one. We could for example use a bunch of timed light sensors, and keep the warehouse in darkness, then detect when the light from a portal went out. However, I didn't have such equipment on hand. A mechanical solution with string and gravity might also work, to record when a portal closes and cuts the string, but I thought it was a lot of trouble for little timed saved. Once the portal life goes down to the single digit minutes, that kind of set up wouldn't be very useful anymore because Agate still had to be present to open more portals.

I went into the kitchen and found that Amelia was eating takeout.

"You got some for me too? Thanks."

I sat down and started eating as well.

"So, what are we doing today?" She asked.

"Actually we have an emergency. Taylor's dad is being targeted."

She spat her food out. "What the hell? Are you joking?"

"No, I'm serious."

Then I explained the situation.

"Are you sure we can wait for Taylor? Wouldn't it be better to deal with Shadow Stalker now?"

"Amelia, I've told you how my 'precognition' actually works," I said while putting up air quotes. "I can't predict the future. I simply had access to important knowledge about possible futures. What this means is that I can't predict precisely what will happen tomorrow or a week from now, but I do know what are the major things that could happen. This is much less useful against someone like Coil. His power is to basically split the timeline into two, make a different choice in each, and then choose the timeline with the best outcome for him after the fact. And I know that Calvert is Coil, so if he really is the one behind this, we have to analyze the situation on a much deeper level to win. We don't know whether we're in the timeline that he will eventually choose, or the one that will be collapsed."

"That's crazy. How are we supposed to win against that? If he loses, he'll just collapse the timeline."

"You understand why I am so cautious then. His power has two major weaknesses. The first is that time always passes, so the timeline he keeps isn't necessarily always a win for him. If he loses in both timelines, then he loses. That said, he can also use one timeline as a control, and the other timeline as a test. Which means as long as he doesn't do anything in the control timeline, the he can perform an unlimited number of tests until he gets one that works. The second weakness is that he is limited to two simultaneous timelines. If he has already made a split, and kept the timelines running for a long time, he can't use his power again in either timeline for smaller decisions. For example, if he treats an entire operation as a go or no go decision, then in the timeline where the operation goes ahead, if he suddenly needs to decide 'left or right', he doesn't have the help of his power anymore, if he chooses left then he can't choose right. Alternatively, he can decide to commit to the operation, then increase the operation's chance of success by continuously splitting the timeline for the smaller decisions. He can choose both left and right, and ensure that the operation succeeds. Of course, if the operation wasn't time sensitive, he could choose both left and right by attempting the operation twice. What this mean is—"

Amelia put up a hand to stop me. "Slow down, I think I'm getting confused."

I waited patiently for her to process it.

"Okay, I think I get it. If time isn't a factor, then he can never lose because he'll always collapse his losses. If time is limited, then he can only try a limited number of times before he loses the window of opportunity. And he can't keep the timelines running for too long or else something could happen in either timeline that needs his power again."

"Exactly. From our perspective, we can take advantage of these weaknesses in two main ways. If we are the ones with the initiative, then his time is limited to the period before we finish whatever we are doing. He will lose if he doesn't find the winning strategy before we win. Alternatively, we can try to analyze his behaviour to determine when we are in a prolonged timeline, or when we are in a very recent split. We can therefore try to force an error on his part by making him commit to a timeline with something disadvantageous to him but which he is unaware of. Like now, he doesn't know that we know about his plan to kidnap Taylor's dad, so he's more likely to commit to this timeline, instead of keeping a 'safe' timeline where he never contacted Shadow Stalker."

Amelia's eyes lit up in understanding. "And because he doesn't know about us, we have the initiative when we decide to finally move, and he will be limited by time because we would be moving to deal with Shadow Stalker in both timelines. I get it now!"

I laughed. "You got it."

I laughed even harder internally. Although the situation was artificially constructed by me, the logic was sound. In fact, I was exploiting the same weaknesses in the real fight against Coil. I had forced Calvert into committing to the timeline where he was stuck at PRT, and now I had the initiative. Moreover, the PRT definitely wouldn't release Calvert anymore until Shadow Stalker was found and investigated.

At 3:15, Taylor called.

"School's over. I'm coming now. My dad's fine, right?"

"Yes, Shadow Stalker hasn't made her move yet. Once you get here we can make our own move and take her out first."

"Good."

O O O

It was nearly 4 when Taylor arrived, and we met in an alley a few minutes away from Shadow Stalker's position.

Shadow Stalker was hiding on a nearby rooftop that had a good vantage point over the parking lot where Daniel Hebert's car was parked. The plan she had been given was to strike right when Daniel was getting in the car, and force him to drive to a designated location. Now she was just waiting for the next hour until Daniel appeared at the end of the work day.

"Ready, Skitter?"

"My bugs are in position."

"Go for it."

I watched through Agate as Shadow Stalker twitched a few times. We waited for a few minutes, then then she collapsed.

"She's down, good job Skitter!" I gave Skitter a thumbs up.

It was too easy. The combination of powerful anaesthetic and Skitter's bugs to deliver it surreptitiously was simply amazing. Once I convince Araliac to modify Skitter's bugs, it would be even more ridiculous.

"Let's wait for a while before picking her up. I want to know if there's anybody else monitoring her from Coil's side."

"Okay," said Skitter.

"The anaesthetic isn't going to last very long with the amount we injected. We should apply more if we're going to wait," said Araliac.

I nodded at her. She unscrewed the cap on the bottle where she was keeping the new liquid anaesthetic, and Skitter manipulated more mosquitoes to suck it up and go back to Shadow Stalker.

"By the way, how did the police investigation go?" I asked Skitter.

"They didn't really ask me much. It seemed like they already had a lot of evidence. They arrested Emma and told me she and Sophia are probably going to juvie. And apparently Madison confessed to everything? Was that your doing?"

"Yes, it was. I was able to collect some evidence, but the biggest thing, the locker incident, couldn't be pinned on them without a straight confession."

"How did you get her to confess?"

"I blackmailed her," I said shamelessly. "I showed her some of the evidence I found and told her that if she didn't confess, I would report all three of them as equally guilty. Or, she could confess and point out that she wasn't involved with your attempted murder in the locker and get a lighter sentence."

"You blackmailed her into confessing? What kind of hero are you? And when did this even happen?" Araliac crossed her arms as she asked in an incredulous tone.

I shrugged. "It worked. Besides, police interrogators do it all the time. Haven't you seen the movies? They always try to cut a deal with the underlings to get the dirt on the boss. This is what I was working on before you suddenly decided to run away from home and messed up my plans for the weekend."

"What? You ran away from home?" Skitter asked. "So when you said you quit New Wave…" She trailed off as Araliac turned away and kicked a pebble on the ground.

After an awkward silence, Araliac spoke again, in a quiet voice. "Yeah. I ran away from home. I couldn't stay there anymore, not after…that fight with Carol. She always thought I'd become a villain with my powers, and I'd have proven her right by knocking her out. I quit New Wave too. It's better this way. I was always the odd one out anyway. New Wave is a family of beautiful flying forcefield users, and I was just…the healer adopted from a villain." She leaned with her back against the wall without looking at us.

Skitter looked at me, then back at Araliac, then back at me again. Although I couldn't see underneath her mask, I was fairly sure that she had to have a helpless expression right now.

I shuffled closer and whispered loudly to Skitter. "Give her a hug!"

"Uhh?"

"You're both teenage girls, so it's better for you to do it than me! Hugs always make you feel better," I whispered again.

"I…um…"

"I can hear you, Polychromic. I don't need a hug, I'm fine."

I sighed dramatically, and dragged Skitter over to Araliac. "Time for a group hug!" Then I brought them both together in a hug just as I announced.

"Everything's going to be alright. People are suffering, gangs are rampant, Endbringers are destroying cities every three months, and Scion is going to destroy the Earth, but it'll all be fine. We're going to save everyone. We're heroes. The world won't end for another two years. We can change things!"

"You really know how to inspire people," Araliac said sarcastically. "I feel so much better now that you've reminded me that the world is going to end in two years!"

Skitter laughed.

Araliac gave her a strange look. "Why are you laughing?"

"Haha…ha…uh…the joke? It was pretty funny…"

"What joke?"

"You know, Scion is going to destroy…the…you…weren't joking."

O O O