6

It wasn't long before the Goldfish Poop Girls turned up the heat on their social-fu.

Phase two came with indirect attacks. Apparently they'd been dropping bugs in people's ears about the new kid. What they said was irrelevant; it changed from person to person, and all depended on what would get them the most agitated. Some, they dropped hints that he was aspiring e88. Others they played the 'save the princess' angle; flirting with various guys and then dropping a pouty lip about this mean ol' new guy who was making things rough for them, and how they'd be ever so grateful (pop the top button on their shirt, tug their tube top down just so) to anyone who dealt with them…

Sophia, of course, would sooner deep throat a dead rat than resort to those tactics. Her poison pen of preference was to drop hints within earshot of the more excitable e88 members about his possible sexual preferences. Or to hint to the junkies that he was a narc; after all he was certainly tall and broad shouldered enough to pass for an undercover cop. Or tell the other black students how often he used the word "nigger" when he talked to her (one thing dear old Wildbow never mentioned was that while the e88 was the largest WHITE race gang in the city, and the ABB took up the ASIAN gangsters, there were more than enough BLACK gangbangers running around Brockton Bay… and Winslow… to at least put in a showing. In retrospect it made sense really; you could hardly make hay as a white supremacist group without a black gang or two floating around for you to point at and pitch a fit about.)

The first hint came at lunch on a Tuesday. Taylor had called in sick, so Adrian was sitting alone at their table, digging his way through a calzone (he'd learned his lesson after day one and always packed a lunch) when a skinny kid with a leather jacket and a spiky faux-hawk slid into the seat across from him. "Hey."

Adrian looked him over. Even with a quick glance he could see a few signs of what gang the kid ran with; a couple of ambiguously aryan symbols on his jacket; a crude homemade tattoo of the SS symbol on the back of his middle finger. "Can I help you?" he asked coolly.

The gangly kid grinned. "It's chill, it's chill," he said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "Just a peaceful overture, 'kay?"

"Peaceful overture," Adrian repeated.

"Yeah. Some of the guys I hang with--" He looked around furtively and shook his arm; a bracelet with the symbol of the E88 slid down out of his jacket sleeve. "We were impressed with how you put that uppity Sophia ni--- uh, girl in her place." He stuffed the bracelet back up his sleeve out of sight. "She's been a pain since the day she walked in the doors here. Some of the guys tried to teach her some manners, but they didn't stick, so to speak."

"You got handsy with her and she beat your backsides like a drum set," Adrian corrected, taking a bite of calzone. "Hint for the future," he said with a mouthful of food, "Don't try to manhandle a chick with commando training."

"Commando training?" the faux hawk kid said, his eyes going wide.

Adrian realized his mistake and bluffed. "Calluses on her hands, arms and legs," he said blithely. "From pummeling the crap out of training dummies, breaking bricks, that kind of thing. Let's just say she's gotten a little more than just some time on the mat at the Y."

Faux Hawk swore under his breath, eyebrows raised. "Anyway… we saw how you handled her, and we figured you might be looking for a crew to hang with. We think you got what it takes to be one of us..." He stopped in mid sentence when he saw Adrian shaking his head, smirking. He scowled. "What, you think you're too good for us?"

Adrian swallowed. "Nope, I just think we'd be really bad for each other." At the kid's surly yet puzzled expression he started counting off on his fingers. "Okay, one: I don't really agree with all that race crap. More importantly, I'm a Memento survivor." he pulled a metal tag on a chain out from under his shirt and held it up for the kid to see. It looked like a med-alert tag, but the symbols were entirely different. "I got permanent amnesia. Everything before about a year ago is more or less gone."

"Wow. That sucks."

"Yeah. But point is, I don't even know what race I am. Hell, I think there's a good chance I'm Jewish."

Faux Hawk looked puzzled. "How would-- oh yeah, right. Nevermind," he said, as Adrian rolled his eyes and pulled several very expressive faces. He snorted and actually grinned. "Yeah, that'd be bad. Year down the road I find out I created the world's first Nazi Jew." He and Adrian snickered a bit at that.

Adrian counted off one more finger. "And the real big reason? Because the E88 has got all the wrong explanations for your problems, and all the wrong solutions."

"So you think us white people don't have any legitimate grievances? Is that it?" Faux Hawk snorted. "You can't be oppressed because you're WHITE, right?"

"No, I think white people have all sorts of genuine, legitimate grievances," Adrian said. "The fact that people can tell you that you can't be suffering oppression because of your skin color is one of them! When I see people get turned down for jobs because they don't have the right skin color, or they can't get into a decent school while another kid gets a free ride for having black skin, or some white kid gets guilt-tripped for things that happened before his granddaddy was even born, or some black guy gets tried for murder and gets a slap on the wrist because someone, somewhere, who might have been involved with his arrest said the "N" word, yeah, that's a load of crap. No, it's injustice.

"But none of those things are caused because of them being black. Or being an "inferior race." You raise someone in a lousy environment, with a lousy bunch of values, you'll get lousy results, no matter what color they are." The kid's face was getting stormy, so he switched tactics.

He picked up the plastic fork that came with his lunch and toyed with it. "Tell me, you ever heard of an old scam called 'let's you and him fight?'" Faux Hawk shook his head. "Well you can figure it out just by the name. Some guy gets two people mad at each other. Fighting mad. Then when they get together and start throwing fists, he's there arranging things so that no matter who wins and who loses, he gets the benefit-- say with a rigged gambling pool, or selling tickets to the fight… or just by getting two people he doesn't like arrested for disturbing the peace.

"Now maybe you didn't notice it, but while you've got people like Kaiser over here, inflaming things, telling you that all the problems in your world are the fault of blacks, they've got a-holes over on their side, telling them the same thing. Now ask yourself; who benefits the most from having both of you at each other's throats?"

A light seemed to go on in the skinny neonazi's eyes. He leaned in. "Of course," he said. "The JEWS."

Adrian's head hit the table so hard it bounced. "Just… just go, kid," he said, face planted in the tabletop.

Faux Hawk got up and shoved off. "You're gonna be sorry you didn't make some friends when you could," he said… a halfhearted threat at best. He walked off in a slouch. "Just when he was starting to make sense..." he muttered.

Adrian groaned. His head hurt and it was only partly the fault of the table.

It was well after dark. Armsmaster was standing at the intersection of 4th and Main, overlooking the remnants of the latest gang fracas. Gangbangers were scattered about the street, most unconscious, some groaning and nursing their injuries. Most were bound up in coils of thick thorny vines. One in particular, however, was bound to a light pole by the remains of a metal anti-theft grille that had apparently been ripped off a nearby store window. It was a teenager, female, dressed in a full-body red and black suit and a gas mask of some sort. The scorch marks on the walls, pavement, and on a few of the gangsters made identifying her a certainty. "Spitfire," Armsmaster said. He sent his hovercam drifting over to get some footage of her. "What was her stake in this?"

He pushed the bobbing globe of the cambot to one side. It was a distraction at times, but he'd come to the conclusion with all the Youtube footage making the rounds of the internet, he was going to have to up his PR game and get some facetime online of his own, to bolster his flagging numbers. Hopefully a few selfies-- that's what the kids called these live videos, right?-- a few selfies of himself in action would increase his popularity.

One of the city cops standing by scratched his head. "From what we gathered, this was a turf fight between a couple of two-bit gangs," he said. "One side or the other saved up their milk money and hired Spitfire to give them some extra muscle."

"Faultline's crew doesn't normally take contracts anywhere in the city," he said as the cambot panned around them for a better profile.

The cop shrugged. "So Spitfire didn't tell her or it's too penny-ante for her to care," he said. "Anyway, the balloon had just gone up-- we arrived, saw Spitfire slinging that napalm spit of hers everywhere, and called you--"

"And we thank you for that timely response," Armsmaster said, reading off his teleprompter.

"Er, yeah. But just as we did that new guy dropped into the middle of it. Skinwalker, I think you called him?"

"Yes, that is the name the PRT chose for his file," Armsmaster said dryly.

The cop laughed. "Yeah, that guy's best of the best," he said. "Kickin' tail and takin' names. You gotta get him on the Protectorate; he could be even bigger than Dauntless!"

Armsmaster could feel his teeth grinding against each other at the mention of his biggest rival. With an effort of will he unclenched his jaw. "That is our objective," he managed to say. "What did he do?"

"Well, Spitfire there was just about to roast a bunch of gangers. He just drops down out of the air, right in between 'em, and tanks it--- fire splashing all over him, the boys and I thought for sure he was cooked. But the instant Spitfire runs out of breath he stands up, shakes the last of it off his cloak, and takes her and all the others out."

"How?" Armsmaster demanded. The cambot zoomed in.

"While Spitfire's winding up for another round of flame, he sort of waved his staff at her," the cop said. "And this torrent of blue white light falls down out of the sky on them. WHOOM." He mimed with his hands something falling out of the sky like the fist of an angry god. "Dunno what it was, it fritzed out the radios and the streetlights something fierce and knocked everyone it hit unconscious.

"There were a few left standing, so he spins around and points at each of them, and more light comes down-- only little short bursts, on each of them. Whoom. Whoom. Whoom. Whoom. Some of 'em were bright yellow, though-- could feel the heat all the way back here. The EMTs think it sort of flash heated them from the inside out… gave them instant heat stroke, basically, knocked 'em flat. The ones hit by the blue light, the EMTs dunno, but they say they're acting like they stuck their tongues in a light socket."

"And then?"

"And then once they were all down, he wrapped 'em up in those vines," the cop said, pointing. "Like they came shooting up out of the pavement. 'Cept for Spitty there. He tore down that grille and wrapped her up in it. Probably figured she'd just burn off any vines he tied her with."

It was at this point Kid Win came gliding over. The Ward had managed to pull a late night patrol with Armsmaster, and was doing his best to play helpful sidekick. He was holding the remains of one of the vines, now brown and brittle. "More like down into the pavement, sir," he said, pointing. "Not very deep at all, actually. See the roots? All said there's surprisingly little damage."

"He still vandalized a huge section of street and sidewalk," Armsmaster said pedantically.

The cop snorted. "Well I'll take a buncha holes in the pavement over a buncha holes in people-- or in my men-- any day of the week," he said emphatically. "Anyway, once everyone's down and vined up, he bandages up the ones that are most hurt, gives everything the once-over, turns into a big hoot-owl and flies away. All in the five minutes it took you guys to get here."

Armsmaster's lips pursed at the implied rebuke. "Be sure and get samples of those bandages he used," he said to Kid Win. Kid Win nodded. They'd already gotten earlier samples and given them to the techs, who were having absolute fits over their properties. Armsmaster fully intended to get some of these miracle bandages back to his own lab and figure out their secrets for himself first. He was getting tired of working his armored backside off only to have someone else steal a march on him.

"He does healing too?" The cop said. "You gotta get this guy on the team..."

Kid Win grinned. "That's kinda the plan, yeah," he said.

Armsmaster grunted. "Unfortunately he's not cooperating with our efforts to contact him," he said with the air of someone complaining about a disobedient house pet. "He apparently prefers to run rogue, rather than work with the proper authorities--- throwing everything into disorder and engaging in juvenile pranks, upsetting the balance of-- WAH!" While he was speaking something dark and winged dove out of the night, sweeping by mere inches past his head and striking the back of his helmet in passing. The cambot tracked it; It was a giant horned owl, already swooping down the street.

"HALT!" Armsmaster yelled fruitlessly. "Stop in the name of the law!" He turned to Kid Win, his cameras stuttering and his helmet feeling oddly lopsided. Had that blasted rogue damaged his helmet? "Kid Win, quick, tail him, I'll try to follow you on-- what? What??"

Kid Win was staring at him with an expression of barely contained hilarity on his face, as if he desperately wanted to laugh but was too afraid to. No, he was staring at the top of his head? Some of the cops were starting to laugh. "WHAT?"

For lack of a mirror, he turned to his cambot and pulled up the outgoing feed on his visor. Stuck on the top of his helmet by a suction cup was a pair of huge, fluffy, pink bunny rabbit ears.

The cambot was working perfectly: it had the ears in completely in frame with his outraged, helmeted face.

"SKINWALKERRR!"

In the distance, a faint "Hoo hoo hoo hoo" could be heard.

"Hey, Fag."

Adrian turned around, his eyebrows raised. They'd just finished a really pointless round of dodgeball (dodgeball, for crying out loud. What was this, gradeschool?) in Gym. It had been seriously tiring-- not because it was difficult, in fact the opposite: he'd expended an incredible amount of effort to not do too well, to actually let a bunch of teenagers who looked like they were moving in slow motion to him occasionally pummel him with volleyballs. He'd showered, and was trying to get dressed and on his way without incident. Apparently it was not to be.

One of the bigger Juniors, a bruiser on the football team with a shaved head and a swastika blatantly tattooed on his shoulder was standing behind him, towel around his waist and shower water beading on his shaved head. He had two other thugs still in their gym gear standing at his shoulders, doing their best to block everyone else's view. "Yeah, I was talking to you, fag," he said. "We found out what you are, fruit. Come on, deny it."

Adrian stared at him in silence. He drew it out for several seconds, making it awkward. Then, just as they were starting to twitch and shuffle self-consciously, he spoke up. "What the hell is anyone supposed to say to that?" he said, his voice redolent in genuine disbelief, projecting his voice so everyone could hear. "There is literally no way to--" he hopped to his feet; the three trying to intimidate him backed up a step. It was easy to forget just how BIG the new guy actually was.

He addressed the room, arms thrown wide and his projecting his voice. "I mean seriously, am I wrong? What am I supposed to do to prove I'm NOT gay? Pull a cheerleader in here, hump her in front of you--" he grunted and made some crude hip thrusting motions-- "Spike her into the floor like a football and yell 'TOUCHDOWWWWN!' ?" He planted a foot on the bench and pretended to shoot the horns to an imaginary stadium audience.

Several of the guys in the room snickered, but stifled it when the skinheads glared at them. Lacking any clever answer, Skinhead #1 opted for the standard tactical approach of the domestic cretin: ignoring everything and plowing onward. "Yeah, we know what you are," he said. "We don't like your kind around here." His his smirk was now a full on snarl. "Think you're so clever... running around with that little Hebert lezzo beside you for a fag hag--"

The new kid's face suddenly darkened. Deep inside Adrian's chest the wolf rumbled. Those standing nearby heard that faint sound and suddenly looked nervous. Adrian pushed the wolf back down and looked the lead E88 in the eye with a deliberate poker face. "Fella, I may not be clever, but I ain't the one who came into a locker room, took off his pants, and came over with two of his boyfriends to ask if the new guy was gay."

"OHHHhhhhhh!!!"

It took a moment for the words to work their way through the strata of bone in the goon's head. When they hit pay dirt, he swelled up and lunged.

Even as they started moving Adrian was already in motion. He grabbed the towel around Skinhead's waist and whipped it away. One twist of his wrist and he had a rat-tail in his hand. Before Skinhead even had time to yell and cover himself, Adrian snapped the end of the rat-tail right in his fruit and veg.

Skinhead went down, shrieking and clutching himself. Before his two buddies could react the towel whipped out again, striking each of them right in the septum, underneath their noses. They tumbled backward clutching at their bleeding faces.

"Cover that up," he said in disgust, throwing the towel over Skinhead where he was curled up on the floor. He reached down to pick up his shoes.

Unfortunately for Adrian, he'd forgotten that there were more members of the E88 in the room. The gym coach came thundering into the room just as the rest of them dogpiled him.

Blackwell, predictably, gave him in-school suspension while the other students got off fairly light. Of course, in spite of Bayleaf holding back, several of them were sporting black eyes, broken noses, missing teeth, and other injuries that would keep them out of classes for a few days at least, but still, it was the principle of the thing that bugged him. The bruises and welts stung--- he could not heal them immediately without giving the whole game away-- but not quite as much as the mocking, triumphant looks from the Trio as he passed them in the hallway.

They were going to go after Taylor next, now that they thought he was out of the way. She'd have to go it alone for a few days, but that was unacceptable. He was going to have to smarten up.

Taylor skipped over the broken front step, opened the front door and walked inside. It had been… well, not a horrible day, but a bit rougher than they had been for a while. Adrian had been given in-school suspension, and had to spend a portion of the school day sitting in one teacher or another's office serving it out. The cutting remarks behind her back had started up again once everyone saw she was on her own, and Sophia and the others had taken a few passing shots at her-- elbows in the side, papers knocked to the floor, that sort of thing. But she could endure, at least for a couple of days.

When she came inside she was surprised to find her father sitting in the living room. Danny Hebert was sitting on the couch, holding a Smartphone of all things and laughing till tears streamed down his face.

"Dad?" Taylor said, dropping her book bag.

"Oh hey, Taylor," he chuckled, wiping his eyes. "I got something to show you."

"A new phone?" she asked.

He glanced down, seemed to realize what he was holding and glanced up again. "I—Yeah," he said. He deflated a little. "A, uh, friend gave me two Smartphones, one for each of us. Even paid up for a full year, internet, the works. He was insistent..." he coughed. "Taylor, sit down." Taylor sat down on the overstuffed chair by the couch. Danny looked at his daughter earnestly. "Taylor, I owe you an apology," he said. "First off for being so distant all this time after your mother…" he hesitated. "After we lost her. I've been just going through the motions, and I haven't been here for you."

He flipped the phone over in his hand. "And, more specifically, I'm sorry about this," he said, with wry amusement. "It was foolish of me to pin the blame for your mother's death on a piece of technology, of all things. And as dangerous as this city can be, having one of these things on hand could save your life!

"I'm not going to let that sort of foolishness affect my decision making ever again. Or at least I'll try not to... Here." He handed her a slim case. She opened it, inside was a slim, glossy black rectangle. "Here, turn it on," he said, demonstrating. The screen lit up.

"Wow," Taylor said. "Is this friend of yours rich? These things must've cost a fortune!"

"You're right about that," Danny said wryly. "I've been reading the manual, this thing has more computing power than my desktop at work." He pointed. "All those little icons are something called 'apps..'"

"Phone, email, calculator...what the heck is angry birds...internet? Holy crap, this thing has a camera??"

"The lens is on the other side. You can take stills or videos. Even post them on that Youpage thing."

"This is unbelievable!" She moved over to the couch and hugged him. "Thank you..."

"Hey, don't thank me. Okay, thank me, I'm happy to steal the credit." He chuckled. He watched her handle the phone like it was a faberge' egg.

"What were you looking at earlier?" Taylor said suddenly.

Danny began chuckling again. "We had a cape incident at the Dockyards today," he said. "Why I'm home early."

"Oh my gosh!" Taylor's hand flew to her mouth. "Was anyone hurt??"

"No, no," Danny waved his hand, shaking his head. He got a little more serious. "But it was a nasty bit of work. Armsmaster showed up at the offices; the Protectorate had intercepted some radio transmission-- one of the incoming ships was hauling human cargo." His face soured, he looked as if he wanted to spit. "Slave traders."

"Oh my--"

"Yeah. Armsmaster was there to do the bust, along with a couple others. Velocity and a couple of Wards, Shadow Stalker I think." He started chuckling again. "But before anyone could move in on the ship, one of the local rogues got on board first..."

Taylor felt herself grinning in glee. "Oh no. It wasn't..."

Danny turned his phone around so she could see the screen too and hit "replay." Armsmaster was onscreen, standing on the end of the dock in his best heroic pose and making grandiose gestures. "Kid Win, get around the other side but keep your distance, we'll try to-- what the--"

There was a commotion on the ship. Screams and shouts in what sounded like Chinese, the pop pop of some small gunfire, and the bellowing of something large and upset. As Danny and Taylor watched, several Chinese sailors made an appearance, running for their lives from the angriest looking walrus Taylor had ever seen. It was wearing a red beach blanket tied around its neck and had a big "W" across its chest in some sort of paint. One by one it chased, pushed or in some cases scooped the slavers up on his nose like a beach ball and tossed them over the rail. There were dozens of resounding splashes as criminal thugs hit the water of the harbor.

"OH my--"

"Yep," Danny said, chuckling so hard tears were forming in his eyes again. "Wonder Walrus saves the day again."

"WONDER WALRUS?"

"That's... what... they call him..." Danny choked.

Taylor and Danny watched as, over the course of fifteen minutes, the redoubtable walrus ran amuck on the ship, hunting from deck to deck, chasing down every last member of the crew and tossing them into the drink for the police and the Protectorate to fish out and tie up. Some of them had handguns and opened fire on him; that only seemed to make the walrus angrier. Those crewmembers got tossed a little further than the others.

Finally, after the last crewman was secured, the walrus disappeared belowdecks, and returned escorting a line of people, some men, but mostly young women, down the gangplank and to the shore. Many of the women sobbed in relief as they made it down to the dock; more than a few stopped to give the walrus grateful hugs.

Armsmaster was waiting at the foot of the gangplank to greet the walrus, clearly looking like he wished to be anyplace else. "The Protectorate thanks you for your help," Armsmaster gritted out. "We couldn't have done it without you..." he choked a little. "...Wonder… Walrus."

"Somebody didn't get the bu-ust," Taylor singsonged.

Armsmaster glared at the walrus.

The walrus stared at Armsmaster.

Without warning the walrus lunged forward. It wrapped its flipper around behind Armsmaster's head, pulled him in close, and planted a gigantic, whiskery walrus kiss on the Protectorate leader's face.

Taylor shrieked and fell over on the couch laughing. On the tiny screen, Wonder Walrus could be seen giving the poleaxed Protectorate hero a pat on the head, turning and diving into the Bay.

Danny watched out of the corner of his eye as his little girl lay there clutching her sides and laughing herself sick…. And pondered things.

When the fracas on the Docks had died down (and Danny and the other dockworkers had recovered from their hysterics) Danny had gone back to his office to wrap things up for the day (even without the police running around, he didn't think he, or anyone else, was going to get much work done today.) He'd found a gift-wrapped box sitting on his desk, sealed in a ziploc gallon bag still wet from the Bay.

Bemused, he'd opened it. Inside had been the phones, along with receipts showing they had airtime and internet paid up through the next year. Along with them had been a note.

Dear Mr. Hebert;

You do not know me. Maybe someday soon we will meet in person. Even if we do not, know that I am a friend.

I know about your tragic loss, and I send you all my deepest condolences. Losing a loved one is like having your heart ripped out, only to still feel it beating in pain in your chest. I know how you want to run from that pain, to hide from it deep inside yourself and never come back out. But I'm telling you now, for the sake of your daughter you cannot do that any more.

Taylor's a good person. But right now she is being tormented, not just by her own loss but by three sadists at her school who have been bullying her with impunity, from the moment she entered high school. I will tell you no more beyond that: it is neither my place nor my duty to disclose that, or to persuade Taylor to reveal it. As her father that duty, I'm afraid, lies with you.

There is one thing you must remember: She has told you none of this not because she is "keeping secrets" or because she mistrusts you, but because she cares for you-- she's seen how broken in spirit you are and it hurt her to think of adding to your pain.

She suffers in silence because she loves you. Never forget that.

There's dark days ahead (but then again, aren't they always?) and the two of you are going to have a lot of secrets to spill to each other. But you're not going to go forward if you don't trust each other first. Have faith in each other, and faith in God. You will see your way through.

And in that vein, Mr. Hebert, you cannot let your pain and loss be an excuse for handicapping yourself. The ability to communicate quickly to anyone, anywhere, is a gift of the modern age, and a vital tool for life or death situations. You cannot afford to wait to get to a pay phone in a crisis. Enclosed are two state-of-the-art smart phones and their chargers. All the bells and whistles, plus a few extras, and built as tough as a wrench. Give one to your daughter, keep them charged and keep them with you at all times, because they just might-- no, almost certainly will-- save your lives someday.

Good people are hard to find, and I'd hate to lose two of them. Take care of yourselves.

Sincerely,

A FRIEND

He'd never felt so conflicted about a gift. Part of him wanted to cry in gratitude. Part of him wanted to fling the thing out into the bay. But… he couldn't argue with this "anonymous friend" about letting his grief control him. And if what he was saying about Taylor being bullied was true… he felt a flare of anger he quickly pressed down… then he wanted her to be in contact whenever, wherever, for her own safety.

And short of having her carry around a CB Radio in her backpack, well, this was it.

"Did you see Armsmaster's face? Omigosh, play it again!"

He smiled. Definitely worth it.

...Halloween night...

Shadow Stalker cursed and swore as she leapt from one rooftop to the next. She was in a foul mood. Which was reasonable to expect, considering her personality, but for a change she had a reason. The tosspots at PRT had been talking up this new cape, Skinwalker. they had a real jones on to get their meathooks into him, and were pushing everyone, Protectorate and Ward alike, to bring this guy in. They had even started offering signup bonuses to anyone who persuaded the guy to sign on the dotted line. Extra privileges, all sorts of things. Bigger expense accounts for the Tinkers, you name it.

So naturally this dog-faced a-hole had been impossible to find.

So she'd been doing a maybe-not-quite registered patrol on Halloween Night… keeping the little kiddies safe, of course, she thought to herself with an eyeroll… when by sheer stupid chance she'd stumbled across Skinwalker. She couldn't believe it. He'd been standing on some residential street, just-- handing out candy out of a pillowcase. No, not candy: trinkets. Plastic toys, miniature flashlights, glow-sticks, that sort of thing. The kids had eaten it up. The parents too, once they got over their freakout at a seven foot whatever tall werewolf handing out goodies to their kids. She'd watched him from the shadows for a while. He'd hung there for about a half hour or so then transformed into an owl and flown off, the goody bag in his talons, to set up shop five or six blocks away.

By blind luck she'd tagged the bag with a tracer dart as he swooped overhead. From then on she'd spent the night using the HUD in her mask to track him. It had been infuriating. She'd get close, within ten or fifteen feet… but only while she was intangible. The moment she went solid, no matter how well she'd hidden, no matter how quiet she was, his ears would prick up and he'd start peering about in her general direction. Was she slipping up? Getting sloppy?

No. Crap. He had some sort of danger sense, or something. That had to be the explanation--

Well, Sophia thought to herself as she peered over the edge of the rooftop at the trick-or-treaters in the street below, she had all sorts of ways to persuade...

"Trick." The voice, like Darth Vader without the wheezing rasp, was right behind her.

She whirled around, crossbow at the ready. He was standing no more than six feet behind her, holding something in one hand and smirking down at her. "I think you mean 'Trick or Treat,' " she said-- even as she snapped off a shot on the word "or." Most jokers got caught flatfooted by that trick; they weren't expecting you to pop a shot a couple of words before you finished your witty repartee.

He wasn't. He dodged the dart by the simple expedient of leaping over her, landing on the ledge behind her as nimbly as a cat. She whirled around--

SPLAT.

"Nah," he said as she fished the banana cream pie out of the eyeholes in her mask. "Just 'Trick.'" She heard the beating of wings; he was of course long gone by the time she could see again. Her tracking dart was jammed point first into the roof at her feet. She swore and sputtered. How the hell was anyone supposed to catch a guy who could literally sense…

Then it clicked. He'd somehow been able to sense where she was, except when she had been intangible.

She had an edge. Better yet, she realized, he had a "tell." Any time she'd gone from one state to the next he'd started looking around for her. He couldn't help it; it would be like hearing a gunshot or seeing a flash of light out of the corner of your eye and not responding. She'd bet her next week's expense budget that he'd do that no matter the form he was in.

She almost cackled out loud. Screw the Unwritten Rules. She was going to track him down no matter what form he was in and--

Then she saw where the concrete ledge had been scratched up with the point of her tracking dart. The message he'd scratched in the stone made her freeze.

I HAVE YOUR SCENT NOW

The implication was clear. She could track him, get him to expose himself-- but he could track her, too. Her language smeared a sulphurous blue streak in the sky.

"Hey Taylor, long time no see. Sorry I haven't… oh hey, new phone?" Adrian said.

Taylor looked up; she had been leaning against her locker, waiting for him, apparently. She had her new phone gripped in between her thumbs; probably playing one of the games he'd downloaded into the thing. "Oh hi Adrian, I've been waiting for you-- uh just a second." She looked at the phone again. There was a twang and a squeal and the sound of blocks falling. "Die, piggies, die," she said under her breath. "Uh yeah, it's a new phone," she said, brushing her hair back, careful not to dislodge the glass butterfly perched there. "My Dad finally cracked, I guess. Or someone gifted them to him and made him crack..." she gave a nervous offhand laugh.

He looked at it and whistled. "Wow. That looks… major league expensive," he said.

"Yeah, time paid up for a full year, digital video camera, internet, email, the works," she said. "Even these little cool games and..."

"Does it make phone calls?" he quipped. In his head he smirked to himself. She had no idea how many extra "works" that thing came with. Thanks to Parian, he'd gotten contact with a Tinker rogue who'd broken about a hundred FCC regulations and jailbroken the bejeezus out of the thing. It had only cost him about a half dozen AOBs (mark II) In trade. The guy was paranoid, and liked to back up his security backups. Plus he thought the little steampunk-looking robots were nifty.

Then Bayleaf had opened the case and enchanted the inside with about a hundred protective Runes, case and components alike. That thing probably had an armor class somewhere around that of battleship plate. Adrian wondered how long it would be before they noticed that their phones never really quite ran out of power or air time…

"Har har. Yes. Which makes ME very happy. Now Dad and I can stay in touch, reach each other in case of emergencies. Which is very copacetic." Her smile got a hitch in it. "Of course we both took blood oaths to never use the things while driving..."

"Wise," he said. "Oh, gimme your number?" He pulled out his own phone; it was the same as hers-- but didn't show it, of course. It looked a bit battered, and had a cheap protective case. They both hunched over their phones and fiddled with the buttons, swapping their phone numbers and their email.

Taylor suddenly giggled. "What?" Adrian said.

"Oh, its just me, doing something so stereotypically teen," she said. "I've never actually had anyone to swap this stuff with, not since..." she stopped.

"Not since Emma, right?" Adrian said. Taylor shook her head. "Hey, they haven't been giving you more crap, have they?"

Taylor sighed. "Just the usual," she said. "A few shoves, some namecalling. Getting the rest of their Goldfish Poop gang to say nasty things in earshot..." she shrugged.

"Hey." he said. She looked up. "It'll get better, I promise." She smiled uncertainly at him.

"You know, I was kind of wondering..." she said. "Maybe we could hang out sometime? After school, I mean? We only see each other in class or the hallways, and…" she shrugged, ducking her head, obviously trying to turtle up in case he rejected her.

His own smile shrank a bit. "Look, I think you should know, I'm gonna be kind of seriously busy for the next couple of weeks," he said. "Mostly getting ready for the Holidays." He tapped her butterfly jewelry by way of explanation. "I might even be missing a few classes..."

"Oh." She looked downcast, but tried to hide it. "I understand--"

"Hey." She stopped at the interruption. "I'd love to hang out with you, really. Been trying to figure out how to broach the idea myself," he said. "But… well. Obligations… Tell you what. Can we maybe get together New Years?" She brightened. "They're doing a street party thing for the big countdown. We'll go out, eat some bad food-cart food, point and laugh at all the new years' drunks--- paint the town red. Whaddya say?"

"I'll have to ask my Dad about it," she said, smiling. "But yeah, sure."

"Hey, meet your Dad, too, that's good," he said. "I'm sure I'll make a good impression--" He popped his collar and slicked his hair back, then mimed ringing a doorbell. "Ding Dong." he pretended the door opened. He slouched down and did his best Beavis and Butthead imitation. "Hi, Mr. Hebert, I'm here for yer daughter. A hur hur hur--" he mimed a door slamming in his face. Taylor laughed. "Oh yeah, I'll make a real good impression. Drive up on my Harley..."

"You have a Harley?"

"Kinda-- it's a Schwinn with a cardboard cutout taped to the side." He pretended to pedal frantically. Taylor was laughing so hard now she had a stitch in her side. "Okay," he said when she calmed down. "It's a date then."

"I… guess?" Taylor said.

"If I don't see you before then… I'll call ahead of time. Okay?" He looked at her earnestly.

"Okay." The bell blatted. "Ugh, time for class with Gladly," Taylor said, shoulders sagging in disgust.

"Aww. But if we do Weally WELL, he might give us a COOKIE," Adrian said, earnest and wide-eyed.

Taylor snickered. "Did you get your half of the report done?" she asked.

"Impact of capes on the world?" He held up some printout papers filled with notes. "Yuppers."

"Let's go face the music then..." They headed off down the hall.

"Really, he's not THAT bad," Taylor said.

"Are you kidding? He's a living cliche'. He's like a character from one of those 80s teen comedy movies who keeps trying to use "cool teen speak" and can't get it right..."

Adrian hadn't been dissembling about being busy. People were snapping up every toy he made as fast as he could make them, and ordering more through his email account. It had gotten to where he had taken two days and built a desktop clockwork assembly line to build the more common components of his widgets. It was busy cranking out little gears, levers, and camshafts night and day from scrap metal he fed into the hopper at one end. Half those components were fed to another auto assembler and turned into miniature ratiocinators for the alarm-o-bots and their yet-to-be-completed bigger brothers.

But cranking out stocking stuffers wasn't what was going to keep him busy. He had been cracking down mostly on the Merchant drug dealers, busting them up, destroying their merchandise, sending the dealers to the cops wrapped up like birthday presents. They'd gotten more aggressive as a consequence. More and more of them were carrying guns; more than a few of them had started bringing large, angry dogs on chains with them, presumably in the hopes the dogs would scent him early and sound the alarm, or attack him if he got close enough.

But still Skidmark, Squealer and the other Merchant capes were still laying low. It was frustrating. With all the chaos coming up in the timeline, Adrian wanted at least one cape gang defanged and out of the way, and the Merchants were his target of choice-- simply for the fact that they seemed the least organized and effective, and thus the easiest challenge. The Empire just had too many capes, and too strong a hierarchy… if Kaiser fell there were a half dozen others to take his place. Coil was currently untouchable. Lung and Bakuda would bring down half the city (and squash him like a grape, if he was being honest with himself.) But take out the Merchant capes, especially Skidmark and whoever was pulling his strings, and the rest of the Merchants would fall apart like wet newspaper.

First it was time to drop some bugs in some ears again...

It was well past sunset again. Armsmaster was out doing a solo patrol in the south side of the City, following no patrol route in particular and frankly, sulking. His conversationalist wasn't getting much headway in pulling him out of his pout either. "It's obvious that this-- rogue-- is targeting me in particular for public embarrassment," he said grouchily. "His stunts and pranks disproportionately end up involving ME. Everything he's done has been calculated to make me look like a fool!"

"You could be biasing the results," Dragon pointed out, her icon in his HUD cocking an eyebrow. "You have dedicated considerable time to trying to track him down, and in steadily increasing amounts. It just may be that you're merely the first, ah, target available." She carefully avoided the phrase "fall guy." "Besides which his jokes have generally been fairly harmless.."

"He turned into a tree, hid in an orchard and pelted me with crab apples!" Armsmaster snarled. He reined in his temper with difficulty. "Every time I have encountered him my approval ratings with the public have gone DOWN..."

"Probably because you are the only one not LAUGHING," Dragon said. "Public figures who can laugh at themselves gain more popularity and trust; they're perceived as being more human and relatable. Look at the Wards. They've had run-ins with him as well. Shadow Stalker got hit with a pie… she stood there on a rooftop squalling and yelling like a scalded cat, and got nothing but complaints from parents about her cursing.

"Later on, he sneaks up behind ClockBlocker while he's doing an interview with a blogger on the street and sprinkles Soy Sauce on him, slavering and licking his chops." She stopped to chuckle at the memory. "He turns around, sees a seven foot werewolf holding a plastic fork and knife, screams like a little girl and nearly jumps out of his costume… a minute later he's laughing along with the guy holding the webcam about how 'Skinwalker got him that time.' Guess whose PHO ratings went up and whose went down the next day?"

"So I'm supposed to pretend to find his antics humorous?" Armsmaster said scathingly.

"No. I've seen you trying to fake laughter. In a word: Don't."

"I don't find anything this Skinwalker does humorous in the least," Armsmaster growled.

Dragon sighed. And that's the whole problem, Colin, she thought. When a person made of silicon and computer programming is easier to make laugh than you are, you have ISSUES.

Armsmaster was just cruising past the Ferry South when he saw it. There was a whistle and pop, and a firework burst somewhere over the middle of Shantytown. Then a second, then a third, showering the sky with rosettes and sparkles. "It's him!" Colin blurted. "It has to be!"

"How can you tell?"

A fourth rocket went up. With a dozen staccato pops, letters formed:

ARMSY

IS A

DOINK

"Call it a hunch," Armsmaster growled. He revved the motor on his bike.

"Colin," Dragon said, her voice steady and soothing. "Now don't do anything rash… Colin--!" Armsmaster wasn't listening. He hit the accelerator and roared off down the road, his siren blaring.

He had slowed down considerably by the time he reached the point he had calculated the rockets were launched. The Shantytown didn't exactly have a regular street grid, and the makeshift roads between the makeshift houses often more resembled those of some old European village, with zigs and zags and hairpin turns.

He was barely moving at a crawl when he reached the open patch where the rockets came from--- a bare patch of dirt that might have been the lot for a house at one time, edged with crumbling sidewalks and half-vanished pavement. The rocket stands were still standing in the middle, smoking slightly.

His bike suddenly stuttered and stalled, its running lights dimming, and then glided to a halt, completely shut down. The monitors on his armor fizzed with static, his HUD turning into snow and winking out. He dismounted in a forward roll, coming to his feet with his halberd in hand.

Skinwalker was standing on the other side of the square, holding a--- Colin squinted; it looked like an overlarge remote control, with brass buttons and fittings and a rotating satellite dish on the end. "Ah, the gnomish universal remote," Skinwalker said, his baritone voice cheerful. "Always fun at parties." He pushed another button on it. There was a crash behind him; Armsmaster looked back and saw a chain link security gate covered in wires and blinking christmas lights pop up from the ground on steel spring hinges like a gigantic mouse trap and crash into place, blocking off the exit. Sparks popped and sizzled as the locks made contact. If that wasn't visible warning enough, the "Danger: High Voltage" signs would have been a clue. He saw similar gates pop up at the two other exits, then still more flipped down, closing off the top… locking his damnably slow-flying cambot outside, he noted with annoyance.

The remote in Skinwalker's hand fizzed and sputtered and made an odd "sproing" sound. "Ah nuts," Skinwalker grumped. "Well, it did its job anyway." He dropped the device into a pouch on his belt and gestured up at the blinking, buzzing, light and sign covered cage entrapping them. "Faraday cage," he said. "You like it? Wanted to make sure you didn't do anything rash-- like call a bunch of your friends to ruin things."

"You've finally crossed the line, Skinwalker," Armsmaster said, hoping the cambot could hear him over the buzz of the electrified cage. holding his halberd at the ready.

Skinwalker replied, protecting for the cheap seats. "Have I? You're the one who's been running up and down the length of Brockton Bay, shaking the trees and rattling the locks, trying to hunt me down-- all because after our first meeting you wanted a rematch." He pulled an impossibly long wooden staff out of the pouch at his hip. "Well, here it is. A genuine no holds barred cage match." He spun the staff around, dropping into a combat stance of his own. "Let's see what you've got, Hal-Beard." At some unseen signal, music began to blare: Armsmaster bit back a groan of annoyance. Really? The Star Trek Pon Farr Duel Music. He braced himself as the wolfman rushed him.

Their staffs flew in a blur, cracking against each other in a flurry of strikes and parries. They crossed staffs, straining against each other. Skinwalker's muzzle was next to Armsmaster's ear when he spoke.

"I hope you're recording this because we haven't got much time."

Startled, Armsmaster rolled fell back and rolled away. Skinwalker backflipped clear in the opposite direction. They circled each other warily. As soon as his back was to the cambot hovering outside he spoke again.

"I'm sorry about this, it was the only way to contact you without tipping my hand. Don't let anyone see your recordings of this. You have enemies in the PRT." His voice was just loud enough for Armsmaster to hear, with his enhanced audio microphones. The Cambot wouldn't be able to pick it up at all, not with all that buzzing wiring in the way. And anyone watching the footage wouldn't be able to read their lips, either, thanks to all the blinking lights and warning signs obstructing the view.

If this was a prank or a trick, it was a damned complex one. Armsmaster waited till the cambot had circled around to the other side. "Enemies? Who?" With his wolfen ears he should have been able to hear that, Colin hoped.

"Coil."They came together in another flurry of blows. He kept speaking even as he fought. "Make this look good-- he's going to be going over it with a fine tooth comb. He's got spies all up and down your organization." He deliberately left an opening, took a hard blow from the butt of Colin's halberd across his forearm. "Not bad for a stuffed shirt," he said aloud, breathing heavily. "Your girlfriend oughta found something by now."

"Dragon found traces of illicit data traffic. But how do you know it's him?" He tried for a sweeping kick, only to come up short.

"Too long to tell. But nearly everything in this city traces back to him." He leaped across the makeshift arena, snarling, and grappled with Armsmaster for his halberd. He spoke through his snarling teeth. "The Undersiders are his cats paw; he pays them to pull jobs to distract you at the right time. The Travelers are under his thumb too--"

"How?" Armsmaster hissed through gritted teeth.

Skinwalker snarled and shifted his stance. "One of them is a case 53 monster with a messed up power." He let Armsmaster knock him away again, rolled in the dust and retrieved his staff. "But he's got way more than that."

He jabbed and thrust as Armsmaster parried. "Worse, he's got powers. He's a time tweaker-- Heisenberg effect on a macro scale. He splits time, creates two temporary timelines--"

Armsmaster swore aloud at that. "--then picks the one he likes to keep when the waveform collapses," he concluded. His werewolf sparring partner gave a quick nod. Armsmaster's mind raced ahead at the implications. That would be why the Undersiders and Travelers were so successful. Coil runs two timelines, one's a go, the other's a no go. If they succeed, he collapses the second timeline. If they fail, he collapses the first.

Armsmaster actually took a blow to the ribs. The implications were staggering. If Coil was careful with that power he'd be untouchable, able to erase any mistake he made as if it never happened. He could commit the most brazen crimes; he could walk out the front door of the PRT with top secret files under his arm, or torture prisoners for information, then just collapse the waveform and keep the timeline where he kept his nose clean... and leave his victims none the wiser. He shoved the halberd between Skinwalker's legs, tripping him. Skinwalker hit the ground. "Where's his base? Do you know that?"

Skinwalker grimaced and rolled to his feet again. "Under the City. an Endbringer shelter that fell off the books."

"So why haven't you tried to take him out?" Armsmaster grunted.

"Three words: Load Bearing Boss," Skinwalker said.

"His base is wired to explode," Armsmaster concluded. An underground explosion downtown, with Brockton Bay sitting on that enormous aquifer... it would bring down multiple skyscrapers, killing thousands.

They danced in a circle around each other. "That and worse. He's got a dossier on the Empire Eighty Eight capes-- their real names, everything. If things get hot he'll release it to the press."

Armsmaster felt ice down the back of his neck. If Coil broke the Unwritten Rules that badly it would be war. Instant war, with no mercy and no quarter given.

They spun in their dangerous ballet."It gets worse. The Case 53? She absorbs people. Eats them, makes evil clones of them-- complete with twisted versions of their powers. Nilbog 2.0." Armsmaster felt his already-chilled blood freeze. If Coil pushed the big red button, every cape in the region would respond to the crisis.They'd come swarming in just be fodder for an army of monsters. Armsmaster had visions of psychotic clones of Legend, Eidolon, Alexandria rampaging across the world... And thus far, the needle on Armsmaster's lie detector hadn't wavered. Skinwalker was telling the absolute truth. "What's he waiting for?" Armsmaster said. It certainly sounded like Coil had all the tools at hand to hold the entire city hostage. What else did he need?

"the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott." Armsmaster scowled in confusion. "She's a precog. The most powerful ever. She can give predictions as percentages... and she can't lie. Her power won't let her."

Armsmaster kept his expression stony as he kipped to his feet. He could feel the blood draining from his face. "If he leverages her power with his--"

"With her, he'll be unstoppable," Skinwalker said. He hopped backward and did a fancy flourish with his staff. "Not bad, Armsmaster, but not good enough," he said, projecting his voice so the cambot picked it up. "Come on, you want to be in the big leagues, don't you?"

Armsmaster didn't quite have to fake his growl as he pressed his attack. "Why are you doing all this?" he said, equally loud. He hoped Skinwalker could pick up what he was trying to say. Why all this? Even if there were spies and infiltrators, why not just... drop a letter, or speak to one of the Protectorate higher-ups directly?

Skinwalker grunted. "Think about it," he said.

Armsmaster's mind raced. It had to be more than just infiltrators Skinwalker was worried about, more just than some PRT troopers or office workers playing double agent. It had to be someone highly placed; so highly placed that even the most clandestine information would pass through their hands. "Who?" Colin demanded.

The wolfman hesitated. He closed with Armsmaster, got in a weapon-clinch with him, then to Colin's utter shock, deliberately faked Armsmaster pushing him backwards into the electrified wall of the cage. The wolfman snarled as sparks flew and bulbs blew. Under the cover of the tesla-coil buzz of shorting wires he snarled one name:

"Thomas Calvert!"

Armsmaster leaped back. The wolf-man fell forward onto his hands and knees, his back smoking slightly. "A bit more voltage than I intended," he wheezed. He clutched his chest with one clawed hand. Green light swirled, trailing across his chest and over his back. He moaned as if in relief. "Well," he said, getting to his feet and leaning on his staff. "I'll admit it, you're better than I am." He gave Armsmaster a toothy grin.

Armsmaster would later kick himself for walking right into it. "Then why are you smiling?" he said, still holding his staff at the ready.

Skinwalker gave him a wide-eyed, wide-open-mouthed doggy smile. "I... am not left handed!" He spun his staff in his right hand and thrust the end through the fencing. He struck a large red button Armsmaster hadn't noticed before. There was a loud BLAAT; the lights went dark, the fence wiring stopped sparking and the makeshift cage collapsed outward, leaving the alleyways free.

"So it is time for me to go..." He said with a bow. "Oh, and I'm sorry for this too."

"Sorry for WAAGh!?" From every corner, from under trash cans and from beneath trailers, out of the shadows and through holes in fences and walls, came dozens of tiny, knee high robots with rotating strobe lights for heads. They surrounded Armsmaster and swarmed over him, clinging with suckers and claws and little magnet hands, blaring and tooting and flashing blinding light of every color in his face. Several began spraying him with fire-suppressant foam. Others began trying to dismantle his armor from outside with screwdrivers. He began flailing about with his halberd, trying unsuccessfully to detach his assailants.

"Catch you later, Armsy," Skinwalker said. He transformed into an owl and leapt into the sky.

"Get off, you little--- SKINWALKERRRR!"

Skinwalker, aka Bayleaf, aka Adrian Smith, arrived home at his lair. He climbed down through the skylight and collapsed across the bed. Auurgh. "Faking" a fight hurt almost worse than fighting for real.

The clock next to his bed chimed. "It's now six AM." it said sweetly. "Time to get up."

Adrian groaned. "Tell you what," he said to noone in particular. "Let's take today and tomorrow off, whaddya say. We'll start.. the next phase then..."