Plans

"So, tell me why I shouldn't go after Nilbog?" I asked.

I was having dinner with Amy, having delivered her to the cannibal world to look over Blasto's work.

He'd created a fast-growing form of plankton that needed less sunlight to grow; as the levels of sunlight increased, the plankton would actually grow less quickly, down to the level of regular plankton at normal levels of sunlight.

She'd given her seal of approval after making a few tweaks, and we were going to incubate the plankton using the compost from the village below, and in a couple of weeks I was going to release it onto the shores of the Atlantic.

It'd take a while to spread, but once it did, I'd be able to start introducing some fish from Earth Bet. Our fish stocks were actually better than those in Earth Aleph because Leviathan had made many fishermen too anxious to continue their work.

I'd have to be careful in how I introduced the fish; introduce too many and they'd eat the plankton faster than it could reproduce. Get the food chain wrong, and the whole thing would collapse.

Amy stared at me.

"He has arranged to release plagues when he dies," she said. "And they probably won't be coming from his body, so you can't just pop in and send him to space or something."

I scowled.

"I want his power," I said. "It'd make terraforming Earth Het a lot easier. Right now, it'd take me a couple of hundred years to terraform Mars, but I'm betting that the more tinker skills I get the faster it will go."

"Why go to all the effort?" Panacea asked. "Wouldn't it just be easier to take them all to another world and resettle them there?"

"Where would I take them?" I asked. "Every world I have access to has serious problems. We've got Endbringers, Silent Hill has the Simurgh…and it's pretty much hell even without her. Earth Het is facing potential destruction in twenty years. The zombie world has a potential pandemic, and the Giant world has man eating giants."

"Even so," she said. "It'd be easier for you."

"Well," I said. "There's a few reasons. First, it's going to be a test bed for things I can use to help restore other places."

"What?"

"It seems like every place I go is a postapocalyptic wasteland. If I can save places as badly damaged as this, maybe I can save them all."

I ran across so many of those places that I was starting to wonder if any worlds existed that were actually in good shape.

"Plus, I'm not sure that I'm going to age," I said.

"I'm pretty sure you won't," Amy said. She stared down at her coffee. "I don't think you'll ever have kids either."

That stung a little, but it was possible I'd eventually get a power to change my own biology, or maybe I could create an artificial womb.

"That means I might be around for a long time," I said. "Things like climate change, or the cumulative effect of Endbringer attacks on the environment…it's academic for most people because they don't think they're going to have to live through it."

"Most people aren't sure they'll be here ten years from now," Amy said pensively. "We all thought Victoria was immortal, and she's dead now."

"Well, if I have to live here, I want to make it the best place to live that I can. I don't want to experiment anywhere there are billions of people, because what if I get it wrong? Their world is empty, and if it all goes to hell, I can just move them."

Another reason that I chose not to share with Amy was the idea that if I ended up having to fight Scion, it was possible the battle would destroy a lot of the world.

I might need a world for the people of Earth Bet to evacuate to, or I might want to restore Earth Bet. There was no scenario where having an extra, empty world was a bad thing.

"Well, attacking Nilbog is likely to make it all go to hell," Amy said. "He's probably got more than one plague waiting, and that's why nobody has tried to destroy him so far.

Maybe I could read his mind to find out where all his plagues were located. I'd have to get some kind of stranger power, though. My telepathy didn't have the range to let me be undetected, especially since he had thousands of creatures of unknown power.

I'd get to him later; it wasn't like he was going anywhere.

"I've got to get back to school," Amy said, looking at her watch. Her eyes widened as I inventoried ten thousand dollars into the inside pocket of her jacket.

"Ten grand," I said. "It's a first payment. I got it from salvaging the boatyard."

Also from upgrading the scrap man's machine so that it ran partially on solar energy, but I didn't mention that. He preferred that no one know that he was working with me, and so I now took payment in his house and made deliveries in the early morning.

"I can't take this," she said.

"Yes, you can," I said. "Even if you won't take money from healing, this isn't healing. You're providing specialized work that nobody else can do, and there's a premium for that."

"It's not right," she muttered.

"Your family is gone," I said. "And Carol didn't leave you any money. You're going to need money for college and money to live on after that. It'll take a million bucks after taxes to even have a modest lifestyle if you aren't getting paid for what you do."

It had hurt her, not being in the will. Carol Dallon had gone out of her way to exclude her. The Pelhams didn't feel the same way, but they weren't exactly rolling in cash even after the inheritance.

Nobody wanted to buy a house that had been the site of a Slaughterhouse attack for fear of hidden boobytraps left by Bonesaw.

"I go over everything that Blasto does, but he's still better at the biological stuff than I am. I need a third set of eyes to make sure that we're not creating a world ending biological plague or something."

She frowned.

"You're saving a world, and maybe a lot more than one," I said. "We're creating proven technology that can make things better. It'll never be released here, but there are other worlds that would love to have you. You'd be a Rockstar on Earth Het; you'd have women throwing panties at you."

She flushed red and ducked her head.

"I'll take the money," she said. "But…not the panties thing."

"I can hook you up with a lawyer who can help you with the taxes aspect."

Our world wasn't as difficult about buying large things with cash as some others, but there were still tax concerns.

I reached out my hand and inventoried her, and then I teleported away.

I left a hundred-dollar tip.

Angie the waitress had just discovered she was pregnant, even though she hadn't told anyone else yet. She was about to need some money, and from what I saw in her mind, her boyfriend was a deadbeat.

It wasn't like I had time to help everyone. I had to focus on the big picture.

I dropped Amy off in front of Arcadia. I didn't have time to troll the Wards today.

Instead, I was meeting with the new President of the Brockton Bay Restoration Project. I'd been calling it a charity, but I doubted that many people would be contributing to it.

I already had three patents under consideration by the patent office. I'd been warned that sometimes companies would steal patents and make money off of them because they thought the original patent holder didn't have the money to litigate.

Given that I wasn't above using telepathy for blackmail, and in the worst case, I could just steal their factory equipment over and over until they got the message, I wasn't too worried.

Scanning the area with both my telepathy and my eyes, I appeared inside the office of the man who'd replaced my father.

The Dockworkers had managed to keep the Empire from nominating their candidate, and this was the man who was holding it all together.

I would have thought it to be bittersweet because the Dockworkers had been Dad's life, especially after Mom's death. Meeting the man who'd replaced him should have made me angry, but I couldn't help but like him.

Keith Brown was a tall African American man who had been raised in Brockton Bay before he went into the military. The Marines weren't what they had once been; parahumans had overshadowed him, but he'd actually fought foreign parahumans in secret.

He'd seen men die, and he hadn't let it embitter him toward parahumans.

My father's job had involved negotiating contracts, using diplomacy to intercede between parties who were diametrically opposed to each other, and being comfortable with the rank and file.

"Taylor," he said. "Are the guys working out all right?"

"They're working out great," I said. "I heal them every time before I take them over, and the guys you picked do great work."

I paid them good money, and I'd thrown free healing for all of their family members in as a perk. The healing before they went to Earth Het was so they didn't transmit anything to the sick people there.

"So…why are you here?" he asked.

I'd felt a little guilty for not hiring the Dockworkers to disassemble the ships in the Ship graveyard. Unfortunately, it would have taken years for them to finish, and I wasn't sure my eighteen million would have been enough.

So, I hired as many of them as I could, and hopefully I'd be able to hire more through this. "I've got more work," I said.

He smiled, genuine pleased. Times had been hard enough for the Dockworkers over the past few years before the bombings and the zombie plague.

"What sort of work?"

"I'm creating a new organization," I said. "The Brockton Bay Restoration Project. It'll be a nonprofit dedicated to helping Brockton Bay back on its feet. Hopefully, the Dockworkers will be part of that."

"I'm sure we'd be happy to help you in any way we can," Keith said.

"The thing is, I need somebody to head up the project. Somebody good with people, somebody who won't back down when they get threatened. I need a hero."

He frowned.

"I'm not sure I know of anybody working here that fits that description; there are heroes here sure enough, but what you're talking about is somebody with experience on the contracts side of things. My assistant doesn't have enough experience to take on anything of that scale."

"There's one person here that fits," I said. "One person who has some experience as a paralegal before he got disgusted with the whole system."

"Me?" he said, surprised. "I'm no hero."

"There's a family in Guatemala who would argue with that," I said. "And an entire village in Honduras."

His hands tightened on the desk.

"Powers," I said. "This isn't a job I'd give to someone who wasn't a good man. But being a good man won't be enough. I need someone who is willing to make the hard choices while still remaining a good man."

"What kind of hard choices?" he asked.

"The kind that involve working with criminals," I said. "My next step is to talk to Accord. He loves to create plans to save the world. I'm going to get him to give me a plan to save Brockton Bay."

"He's crazy," Keith said, disturbed.

"He'll never know that you are involved. As far as he's concerned, I'll just be threatening people into doing what I want."

"Then why tell me?" he asked.

"Because you need to be able to trust me," I said. "And because you're able to handle it. I'm not asking you to commit a crime, but the powers that be seem to want to throw this city away. Have you seen FEMA trucks anywhere? Did they declare this a disaster area and send Federal aid? No."

He frowned, then nodded.

"I'd have to leave this position, and I've only been here a couple of months."

"You'll be working with the Dockworkers quite a bit, and it'll be a few months before the money starts rolling in and you're doing much of anything. But eventually, you'll be able to make a difference in the lives of everyone…not just the rich who are deserting the city in droves, but the common man.

"Just what sort of things are you wanting to do?"

I had him.

It only took thirty more minutes to get him to accept. We'd sign the papers tomorrow, and I'd have him looking for a small office shortly afterward.

Property prices in the Bay were in the toilet at the moment, even more than normal, and so told him that I wanted him to purchase a small, free standing structure. It wouldn't matter if it was an old church, or an old garage, as long as it was in the right kind of location.

Purchasing the place would mean that I could secretly add security measures. I had plans in my head for a bulletproof spray insulation for example. I could reinforce the building, and I would dig a basement if it didn't already have one.

Checking my watch, I switched to a new red suit, and I appeared at the front door of Accord's current base. I knocked politely at his door.

A beautiful blonde woman in an evening gown opened the door. She had a mask studded with gemstones. Everything was in yellow, including her lipstick.

I could have simply attacked Accord and his Ambassadors, and my speed was great enough that I could probably have killed them all before they could react.

However, there was a chance that whatever I got from Accord's powers wouldn't be what he had. Even if it was, it would be at level one, and maybe Accord had the equivalent of level one hundred with his power. I couldn't afford the time to level something like that up.

However, if he refused to help me, I was going to beat all of them, and kill them if they were horrible people.

"Miss Hebert," she said.

"Harvest," I said. "I'm wearing the suit."

"I thought your suit was a hoodie and sweatpants," her voice was a little arrogant, but she was afraid of me. She suspected there was a chance that I would murder them all if this meeting went poorly.

People just had all sorts of preconceptions about me.

"That was before I discovered Armani," I said. I looked at my watch. "I wouldn't want to be late for my appointment."

She nodded and led me through his place.

Everything here screamed money. The walls, the flooring, the paintings on the wall. Everything was perfect in proportion and placement.

I'd taken the opportunity of doing a flyby yesterday and scanning everyone to get an idea of what powers I might be facing, and of what sort of people I would be dealing with.

She led me to a large, heavy wooden door.

A discreet knock at the door, and a moment later she opened it.

He was shorter than I would have thought, barely over five feet. He was wearing a white, tailored suit that looked almost as good as mine. His only concession to being a cape was a mask.

"Accord," I said, stepping into the room. I kept my posture straight and my face professional.

"Harvest," he said. "I was surprised to have you call my secretary on the telephone. I would have expected you to just break in here and start killing everyone."

"I still could," I said. "You haven't done anything to anyone I care about, but you all have powers I'd very much like to have."

I was lying, of course.

Of them all, only Accord and Citrine had powers that I really wanted, although Lizardtail might give me the ability to give an area of effect to my healing power and Ligeia had an interesting water power.

All of the Ambassadors were in the room; apparently Accord didn't trust me.

"However, you have something that I want. May I take a seat?"

He nodded.

"What could I possibly have that you might want? You don't seem interested in taking over territory. You have money through the bounties on the Slaughterhouse 9. What could I have that you would want enough to forego our collective powers?"

"I want you to save my city," I said. "And later to save the world."

"What?" he asked.

"When I kill or beat someone, I get a weaker version of their powers that I can make stronger through practice, potentially beyond the strength of the original. However, that takes time."

"You want my plans?"

"All of them," I said. "World hunger, world peace, everything."

"And what would you offer me in return?" he asked, sitting back in his chair.

"Nothing," I said. "Other than the opportunity to finally see what you've been working towards all these years come to fruition."

"What can you accomplish?" Accord asked. "You have a kill order on your head, and nobody would legally work with you."

"I can build tinkertech that is reproducible by anyone," I said. "And I know how to make the tools to make the tools too. Australia wants to make me a citizen, and if I decide to make them the next great superpower, how to you think the other nations would react?"

Accord frowned, but his mind was already racing, making inferences with such lightning speed that even I was having trouble keeping up.

"They'd come after you," he said. "Especially the CUI."

"And what would happen then?"

"You'd get stronger exponentially," he said. "And you'd kill as many of the CUI parahumans as you could."

"What are the odds that I could take over a nation?" I asked. "If I just started killing people at the top and worked my way down until I found people who were willing to work with me?"

"They'd try to work around you," he said.

"I've got a lot of thinker powers," I said. "And before I try to take over China, I'll make sure to acquire as many as I can. I'm capable of dropping meteors on their cities if they don't agree."

He stared at me.

"I believe you."

"I have no plans to attack the CUI openly," I said. "But there are more subtle ways of exerting influence."

"Let's talk," he said.