star

17th​ February 2011

Personal Log. 17th​ February 2011, 15:45 Eastern Standard Time

My first prototype laser module is coming along swimmingly. The power output is awful, and I doubt that the components will last for very long, but it should work nicely as a proof of concept, despite my having boosted everything as much as I could with scrap parts pulled from a dumpster. Even as is, the design should last long enough to help me get something going, and once I can afford proper component manufacture and have cracked a decent focusing assembly, I can push this thing closer to fleetspec. All things considered, it's amazing that I've managed even that much.

Note to self: Since the closest thing I ever had to an economics lesson was Gladly's class, I'm going to need some help.

As for Daystrom, mom's old computer upstairs is compiling the first test program I've copied straight from the book. Thank god that the development kit is about as old as that thing and still works. Beyond that… I need to get a real sense for what D-7 can do before I go for coding Daystrom proper, but a semi-autonomous dataminer should be done by Monday. If possible in a way that doesn't trigger contemporary cyber-security, as primitive as it is. Eric would be saying things about selling his soul in exchange for a fleetspec computer core right now, and I can't say I'm any different.

There's so much more I have to do. Thank god semi-duranium is a thing; for all its flaws, it's leagues ahead of anything around in 2011, and so will have to do until I can go and scout for the real thing. Mars, here I come.

Damn, I'm getting hungry.

End log.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

At its most basic level, the mess of parts in front of her consisted of an old remote control, a broken computer motherboard that had been slightly on fire at some point and something that… Eric… would have called 'generic junk electronics', though he wouldn't have imagined honest-to-god printed circuits from South-East Asia when saying it.

Primitive though they were, the materials were at least abundant, and were a pleasure to work with, not needing computer-assisted precision tools that would have made most contemporary engineers faint with what they could do. Now, an explanation why she had been bulk-buying laser pointers had been more of a challenge, but on her way back from the cemetary, she had visited roughly half a dozen stores that sold them, and then fished the rest out of the dumpster behind an electronics store.

Taylor glanced at the radio clock that simultaneously played the Oldies station and showed her that she had spent the last three hours accomplishing… not much. She had managed to rig one laser that would fit into a common pistol frame, but the power output was horribly low and the focusing lenses were of such abysmal quality that they were useless at anything more than very close range. That wasn't an issue just yet, given what she was building this thing for and it being a prototype, but it was something to keep in mind for the production model. What the prototype did have, and what she would put into the production model, was the possibility to retrofit it with a phase modulator and a working Nadion generator. It would still be a low-power Phaser and would have only the most basic settings, but it was enough to introduce the technology and, most of all, it would be primitive enough that she would be able to mass produce it. What she needed now were parts to complete it.

But… this prototype was the first truly tinkertech thing she had built; the few other pieces of equipment she had rigged up were merely modifications of what had already been around. Thankfully, she could hear the front door being unlocked, followed by Dad's heavy footsteps walking straight across the creaky floorboards that really needed to be fixed. She glanced at the clock and frowned. It was barely past lunch, as the crumbly remains of a plate of French Toast sitting on the edge of the workbench proved. What was he doing back?

"Down here, Dad!" she yelled, pre-empting his inevitable question. So summoned, Dad soon appeared in the door and stopped, taking in the way Taylor had transformed the room in maybe two or three hours of work. In one corner, the various crates were stacked in two neat piles; one she had dubbed 'random crap', the other, much more respectfully, 'Mom's things'. The space around the workbench had been cleared and was, along with the entire room, now cleaner than it had been in a decade. Opposite the workbench lay the remains of the broken TV that had been in here since she was old enough to remember such things, and though the tube itself was still fine, she needed more parts and better tools to finish that particular project. The remaining wall was taken up with a number of technical drawings that were incredibly crude even by contemporary standards, at least in her opinion, all related to Project Daystrom.

"Can you have a look at this for me, Dad?"

"S… sure, whatever you want, Taylor."

What she handed him was a small set of printer paper she had taken from the office upstairs and filled with, by now, much more neatly handwritten assembly instructions and explanatory drawings.

"Instructions for the T-1 Enforcement Laser Main Assembly." Dad read aloud before lowering the sheets and looking at her. "Taylor, what is this?"

She motioned to the workbench. "You know what Tinkertech is normally like."

Dad nodded. She knew that he had read up on these things and understood the silent question. "Needs constant maintenance, only the Tinker that built it can really understand how it works and/or make more examples." Thankfully he realized what she wanted, and leaned against the doorframe to read. Five excruciatingly tense minutes later, he looked up. "I'm not an Engineer, but as far as I can tell, this looks… surprisingly simple."

Taylor sighed with relief. "Thank god. I was never any good at writing instruction manuals." She walked over and picked up the soldering iron, checking the heat before putting the last few components and wires into place. She plugged in the power cable and then, when it subsequently failed to explode, she let it charge.

"So what exactly is it?" Dad asked again, though the worried tone of voice and the way he glanced at her creation made it clear that he had at least some idea.

"A laser pistol that just about anyone we sell it to can service. Because, no offence, if you can understand the manual I wrote, so can anyone. And it would be cheap too. The up front cost for a production model would be around thirty to forty Dollars per. This..." she motioned at the laser assembly, "this thing is just a proof of concept prototype, one that I wouldn't risk anyone but myself with."

The way Dad looked at her was weird. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be proud that you managed to rig up something like this from scraps in less than a morning, or scared that you think of actually using this on someone. Or that you will sneak out one night to fight crime." He paused and held up his hand to forestall her response. "I know that I don't have any place to keep you from doing anything, and that you're probably a lot more trained and experienced than almost all capes when they start out, but that doesn't change that you're my daughter and I worry about you. The fact that I can't stop you from doing anything doesn't change that I worry."

She only looked back at him without saying anything, but Dad sighed again.

"I'm sorry, Taylor. I keep bringing that up."

"I don't mind." she replied. "I'd be a lot more worried if you didn't. I was a lot more worried when I thought you didn't. But I don't." Over There, Taylor had often cursed at herself for ever believing that her Dad didn't care. Never again.

Nothing more was said between them for a few minutes, but the silence wasn't awkward. Eventually though, Taylor decided to break the moment and tilted her head at Dad. "So, what brings you home so early?"

"I took the rest of the day off. I need to make a few phone calls that are best done from home."

"Still not going to say who, huh?" Taylor asked, having deduced what he was referring to. "I'm sorry, I---"

Dad interrupted her with a raised hand. "I'm going to call Elijah in New York."

She raised her eyebrows. When she was younger, she had visited that part of the family a few times, and each time, she had been highly encouraged not to ask about what they did for a living as well as not to talk too much about what she saw, all on threats of being grounded for a month. It wasn't until shortly before Mom's death that she had worked out why.

There were still plenty of things she didn't know about Dad's heritage other than that he ultimately descended from a small nowhere village in southern Ireland. Her Grandfather had adopted the Hebert surname for reasons that had never been discussed in her presence, and there had also been some sort of falling out that had never really been mended. What had happened at the funeral had shattered what bonds there still had been. Dad probably still didn't know that she had heard most of that conversation, though she couldn't remember much of it, having happened years before she had triggered. On her road to recovery, the only thing she had ever steadfastly refused was to try to recover any additional memories from that awful day. The lovely Bolian woman that had helped her so much during those years had eventually relented. Taylor, who still remembered the woman fondly, mentally apologized.

"Dad… are you sure?"

"Damn right I am. There is more at stake here than my own pride, or your Uncle's, I won't pretend that you don't know what my father said at the funeral, or what my family does for a living. All that means contacts I can use."

She glared at him, and he held up his hand. "No bodies in ditches, I promise." Taylor believed him, but she also sensed that she was about to learn a lot more about the Hebert family history. Not that she really had any great desire to see that particular branch in person. Still, it was what Dad needed.

"Good luck, Dad."

"Thanks." He handed her the manual and ruffled her hair as if she was still eight years old, and Taylor found that she didn't mind. Dad was on his way back to something like what he had been before The Accident. If doing this gave him joy, then so be it.

"Just so you know, Kurt and I spent most of yesterday and today going over a few possible candidates for you. They're all inside the perimeter fence," he said, making it obvious that this little factoid was a requirement for him, "and if you've got time later, maybe you can help me narrow it down."

"How much have you told him?"

Dad shook his head. "Only that I may have someone on hand who needs a discrete building with such and such requirements. He's smart enough not to ask too many questions and knows that I hate the Merchants as much as he does."

Hardly surprising. The last time the Merchants had tried to make inroads on the area guarded by the DWU, it had landed Kurt in the hospital for two months, and had anyone but Dad been the effective head of the Union at that time, it would have cost Kurt his job.

"Oh do go ahead then, peasant. Because..." she said, making an appropriately regal gesture even as she grinned. "I am your Queen."

"Well, I didn't vote for you." came the instant reply. "But I'll do it anyway."

God, she had missed this.

Upstairs, she could hear him walk over the creaky floorboards to the phone. Minutes later she heard his voice through the small opening in the door.

"Hey Elijah. It's Danny. I need to talk to you."

She deliberately tuned out the rest of the conversation, fully closed the door and then turned back to the workbench. The module was about three percent charged now, which was faster than she had anticipated. She felt both the module itself and the cable that connected it to the socket. Thankfully, both were no warmer than what she expected under this sort of load, as heat-shielding of any sort would require metal work, and she couldn't do that around here.

While she waited, she made a mental note to get a lab where she could actually test a low-powered laser like this, but that was probably too much to ask. Thankfully, one thing working with the Field Teams had taught her was to make do and improvise. Not quite on this level, to be sure, but still.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

The module was charged, and seemed to be holding at capacity. She had decided to let it sit until tomorrow, if the capacitor array still held at an acceptable level by tomorrow, then she would consider building a test bench somewhere to actually fire the thing. She closed the door and walked up the stairs, to see Dad sitting at the kitchen table, resting his head in his hands.

"How did it go?"

He looked up, and to her relief, he smiled. "Better than I thought. Your uncle and I had a good talk, and it was… refreshing, to say the least." Dad turned and looked at her with a slight worry. "He insisted on coming up himself."

Ah. That explained why he looked a little distressed. "I'll try not to turn his car into a nuclear reactor, I promise. Does he still drive that---"

Dad laughed. "I was actually trying to ask you if you minded him being there. He didn't exactly disagree with my father when they were here."

"I've faced everything from Orion pirates over Cardassian hardlinders to that most dreaded enemy of them all, the Admiralty. Trust me, I can handle someone who totally and completely isn't involved with things that would fall under the RICO act."

She looked at the kitchen radio's clock that was blinking 0:00 since they had bought the thing back in 1998. "He's my uncle. He shows respect, I leave him alone."

"Somehow, I am led to believe that you are serious, and that you could make him run away, screaming in terror." he said, his smile turning sad.

"So why is Uncle Ely coming down himself? If you wanted to borrow someone to look all intimidating when we go to Winslow, and don't you go thinking I didn't work that part out, why not just send some of his goons?"

"Really?" Dad was genuinely puzzled at her question it seemed. "Maybe it's because his niece was being bullied and he has kids of his own? When I told him what it was about, he said he was coming, and he's every bit as stubborn as you are."

"Whoopdie-fucking-doo, Dad." Taylor replied. "That still doesn't change that he stood by while my so-called grandfather insulted Mom." That sort of thing was and always would be an instant sentence to banishment from the family for anyone.

"Oh trust me, sooner or later he and I will be having a talk that'll end in us either punching each other or getting really, really drunk. Or both. Probably both."

Taylor cracked her knuckles one by one without saying anything and pointedly looked at Dad.

"I'll pass that message along too." he said.

She knew that she was in no fit state take on anyone much stronger than herself, but it was the principle of the thing.

"I'll go cook something for dinner."

"Thanks, Dad."

While he went off to raid the fridge, Taylor went in search of her notes for that holoprojector.

Interlude 1 – Enter the G-Men

The following takes place on Monday, 21st​ February, 2011

Hoover Building, Washington D.C.

"Sir, I have Special Agent Carter from the New York Field Office on line One."

"Put him through, Gladys." Anything to get away from reading budget reports.

"Yes, Sir." came the curt reply, and once again, the FBI Director was reminded that while the men and women in his job came and went, professionals like Gladys remained. She had been in that office since the early Clinton Administration, plying her Directors with home-made cookies and stern glares, depending on what they had done.

The blue LED on his desk phone blinked. He picked up the receiver and pressed the corresponding button.

"Director Shaw. What can I do for you, Bill?"

"Listen to what's likely to be long story, Sir. Remember that bank-job hostage situation thing in Philadelphia two years back, when we thought that the Westies had hired some rogue capes from the West Coast for the job?"

Shaw sighed with disgust. Rarely had he wanted to slug a woman as much as Costa-Brown when she had tried to muscle in on the case, the moment someone had breathed 'cape' where the Philly PRT could hear. He was sure the feeling was mutual, what with Congress and the DoJ stubbornly resisting her attempts at getting her hands on the Bureau's Parahuman Support Branch.

"How could I forget? It was a Charlie-Foxtrot of a case, even without cape involvement."

"Yeah well, this morning, the same informant who tipped us off to that job in the first place made contact again and I met him." Carter sighed and Shaw could hear his hesitance over the phone. "He said that Elijah Hebert is taking a trip north, to Brockton Bay."

Being told that the right-hand man of the acknowledged leader of the Westie clans was doing something unexpected out of the blue was certainly enough for the SAC of the New York Field Office to take notice. It had to be big too, because by calling him directly, Carter had by-passed a chunk of the chain of command. Normally, it would be more something for Director Henderson, the head of CID, but the man was still on bereavement leave, and Carter had worked for Shaw when they had both been with the Cyber Division. The man was highly competent and not prone to rash actions like this, unless he had a very good reason.

"And he said Hebert would make a stop in Boston to pay his respects to Accord."

That made Shaw sit up and take notice. The Westies had been able to fill the vacuum left by the mutually assured destruction of the Italians and the Russians in the 1990s because they had taken in the Irish fleeing from Accord's take-over of the Boston underworld. Eventually, an uneasy peace had been established between them, with the only real stipulation being that Accord stayed out of New York as long as the Westies stayed out of Boston and both left the other's interests elsewhere alone.

"So what sort of bloodbath can we expect?" he asked, calling up Hebert's file on his computer even as he spoke. "And what the hell is making the Westies think they can take on Accord like this?"

"That's just it, Sir. Seems that Hebert genuinely says that this is to be a social call. My source claims he doesn't really know the full story, but apparently the Westies really, really want to make sure that Accord knows they have no intention to move back into Boston, which is apparently why Hebert is making the visit in person and even called ahead."

Shaw was massaging his temple, a headache slowly coming in. "So why would he go north? Setting up operations in that cesspit is bound to upset even more capes, and we all know how that turned out when the Italians did it."

"We've been trying to find out all day, Director. All we have is that Hebert said something about his niece having been in the hospital for a few weeks."

That triggered a small something in the back of Shaw's mind. He clicked through the pages of a file filled with supposition and maybes, to find what he was looking for. "His younger brother is living in Brockton Bay. Widowed, one daughter."

"And he's head of hiring for the Brockton Bay Dockworker's Union. Why am I not surprised?"

Good. Carter knew to look into his customers. "At least these people have a sense for the classics." He chuckled and reached for his thankfully still warm coffee. "With an in like that, the Westies can expand up there no problem, especially if they reach some sort of agreement with Accord." The mug was emptied.

"The locals won't like it, but Hebert isn't the type to start stacking bodies when he can make it happen another way. Especially when he operates in a city as infested with capes as Brockton Bay. One thing is weird though. Even with his brother acting as a hookup, Hebert is not the sort usually sent on tasks like this. He's their money guy, not an enforcer type."

Carter's frustration was obvious. He had been investigating the Westies since taking over the New York Field Office three years ago, and accomplished exactly nothing. The FBI and the NYPD were very well aware of who the major players were, but making anything stick had proven to be next to impossible, in no small part due to Hebert's efforts. He was a fucking genius at hiding and obscuring funds, while keeping his own, entirely legitimate interests entirely clean. Much to the annoyance of anyone who had tried that particular angle to get at him. Of course, until very recently, the New York Mayor's office hadn't exactly been all that helpful either.

"So what's Old Man Jonny's angle?" The acknowledged leader of the Westies was only known by his nickname even among those who knew his real one, and he was where he was because he knew to pick his fights. It was why the Westies had risen to the top after 1994, and while the other gangs had not. So far.

"As far as we can tell from over here, he's fully endorsing the trip, for what it's worth. Hebert wouldn't make it if he wasn't."

Shaw kept silent for a moment, as a thought occurred to him. "Could it be possible that we should take this at face value, that this really is just a family social call?"

On the other end of the line, Carter puffed and the Director could hear that he was typing something into his own computer.

"He's not the type. I mean why now? Best we can tell, he hasn't left New York for three years, Director."

Shaw frowned, but then his mind went to the likeliest conclusion. "Do we know that for sure?"

"Not really, as much as I'd like that to be different."

What Carter didn't say because Shaw was all too aware of it, was that attempts to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Westies had failed repeatedly. Some had been lucky and merely been almost beaten to death, whilst some had disappeared outright, never to be seen again. Because of this, much of what the law enforcement community 'knew' about the inner workings of the Westies had been discovered by inference and deductive reasoning. Even the PSB Thinkers had troubles accurately deducing anything of value. As much as it pissed him off, he knew that their security was one of the reasons why they had prevailed, where so many other non-cape gangs had died.

"Yeah, my official assessment is that however much he might be visiting his brother and niece, there is more to it than that. It's not his primary purpose."

"Agreed."

"So what are we going to do about it, Sir? I have some of my best guys on standby, but there's always the risk someone else takes notice, especially in a city as cape infested as Brockton Bay."

The way he hadn't mentioned the PRT told it's own story, one that had dogged the New York Field Office from the moment those glory hounds had been founded and the spandex brigade had based itself in the same city. Shaw considered his options. Carter was someone he could trust to do this the right way, but he knew that sometimes even FBI Agents let passions get in their way.

"Tell them to remain in the background, to not intervene, to treat this is recon only. They are not to be noticed, understood?"

"Yes, Sir." In the background, Shaw could hear Carter type something, presumably an inter-office E-Mail or something. "My best guy is off today, but we'll get this started by tomorrow."

"The timetable is up to your office, Special Agent Carter. Don't screw this up."

tbc

Again, liberties were taken with the layout of the house. Making the call here that in this AU, Danny drives a 9th​ Gen, 1994 model year two-door short cab F-150, in a classic red and white stripe paint job. 5.8l Smallblock V8 Engine.

Some more liberties are taken, in this chapter and the story in general, with the background fluff of Star Trek, things that are considered sensible by myself and others.

Danny 4.8.1

21st​ February 2011

Monday

After an amazingly quiet weekend spent connecting with his daughter and doing things that had fallen by the wayside for too long, the annoyingly cheerful beep of this particular brand of alarm clock tore Danny from his sleep. Using moves practiced since childhood, he turned off the alarm and reached for his glasses. Once the world had resolved back into sharpness, he glanced over at the empty side of the bed, as he did every morning, and sighed sadly, as he also did every morning. However, unlike every morning since The Accident up until a short time ago, Danny grinned as he heard Taylor rummaging around downstairs.

His daughter had turned into an early riser for similar reasons he had, and he knew that when he walked downstairs, he wouldn't find a morose teenager trying to mumble a few words before slinking back upstairs, but rather a confident, determined woman. A young woman who, in spite of the twinge of sadness that was so much like his own, and that followed her everywhere, was diametrically opposite from who she had been on New Years.

He started the rest of his morning routine and continued to think.

Danny and his daughter talked, and if anyone had suggested to him three years ago if he could ever be so happy about exchanging more than a handful of polite nothings with his own daughter, he'd have called that person crazy. And now, it was pulling him out of his own misery. For that, he would forever be thankful to her.

"YES! MWHAHAHAAA! SUCCESS!"

He heard the triumphant yell reverberate through the house as stepped out of the bathroom. For a moment, he considered running downstairs, but it didn't seem as if his daughter had been in any sort of danger. So he continued downstairs at a sedate pace, letting his nose lead him to the coffee machine. Taylor wasn't in the kitchen, but he could hear the muted noise of the TV from the living room. Fortified with a steaming mug of the heavenly brew in his hand, and munching on one of the cheese and cream bagels that Taylor had to have bought on her morning run, he decided to join her. She wasn't in there, but the connecting door to the garage was open, as was the window on the opposing side.

Danny was taken aback when he heard the truck's engine revving once, before turning off. He crossed the living room and entered the garage just in time to see Taylor opening the garage door for ventilation.

"Morning, Dad!"

Danny tilted his head and noticed that while the hood was up, the engine looked normal from here, albeit a lot cleaner than before.

"It's not a Mister Fusion, so I take it you weren't up too long?"

She shook her head, keeping her face utterly straight. "Na, I'd need parts for that. I did rebuild the alternator though, it was on it's last legs. As soon as I can kludge a proper connector cable, I'll reprogram the ECU too. It needs some work."

Danny sighed, but smiled. "Somehow, I'm not surprised that you can build one of those."

"Yeah, the fuel from trash part is ridiculous, but beyond that, the movie's representation of fusion power is remarkably accurate." Taylor grinned and reached for a cup of coffee sitting on the truck's dash. "I promise, I won't do anything else to it without asking you first."

Danny shifted his head to the side. "So why the alternator?"

"You mentioned that it felt wrong, and I wanted to do something nice." Was she blushing? She was. Taylor was actually blushing. Deciding to take it the proper way, Danny took a sip from his own mug.

"Thanks for that, Taylor. Really, I appreciate it."

She only nodded in response, but then looked at her wristwatch. "Give me another five minutes and she'll be ready for you to go to work."

"You know you don't have to do this, right?"

She looked at him and nodded. "I know. I want to, though. I can't really do much more without starting to take apart the appliances, and no practical work make Taylor something something." Taylor paused. "Speaking of which… I think you were right yesterday."

"Be still my beating heart, my teenaged daughter thinks that her dear old dad was right about something."

"Oh shut up." Taylor replied with a laugh. "And I'm not a teenager any more."

That was something that Danny still had trouble getting used to. Knowing was one thing, but seeing what looked a lot like that teenager at the same time was something else entirely. Still, he was getting used to it. Others… If you spent more than a few minutes with Taylor now, it was obvious that she wasn't the normal fifteen year old North American girl. For anyone who had known her more than in passing before The Accident, it would be even worse. If she was about half a foot shorter and looked her age, together with her demeanor, she would probably be able to fool just about anyone into thinking that she was her own mother. Even with the messy pony-tail she had taken to wearing.

Oddly enough, Danny hadn't actually realized this until late on Saturday, when he had found her sitting in the exact same chair her mother had used, leaning back in the exact same way, furiously writing in yet another notebook with the same serious frown on her face Annette had used when grading papers or doing anything work-related. What had surprised him was that he had felt a warm happiness instead of something else, knowing that at least a part of his beloved wife was still around.

"So what was I right about then, oh Daughter dearest?"

"I can't just knock on an office door and be all 'Commissioner Gordon, would you like to buy what for all intents and purposes looks like tinkertech, and oh, please don't tell anyone I'm Danny Hebert's daughter, especially not the PRT'." She sighed. "It's still difficult to operate like this again after so long Over There."

"His name still isn't Gordon." Danny replied, remembering Saturday, when he had come back from some last-minute groceries shopping and found her in the kitchen, cooking lunch while whistling a tune he hadn't heard since his childhood. "So you are..."

"Setting up the front company for me to use, before I do anything else."

"I'll get our legal people on it. If there's anyone who can find the loopholes it's them. There are always some, but the PHCAs seem to be very tight."

"Yeah, but I have yet to see a law or protocol without any. That, and people are going to ask a lot fewer questions if a company uses that building instead of someone who is officially not even sixteen yet. Even if the only employees are me and you." Taylor got out of the truck. "No offense Dad, but it really sucks when people think you're a minor."

"Eh, none taken. My ego isn't that easy to bruise. Besides, I like helping you where I can." Even if all that he did would be to sign on the dotted line where she wanted to and offer advice when she asked for it. Which would be fairly often, because as she had said repeatedly over the last few days, she was no economist. That said… No, that idea would be a very hard sell indeed. Best not tell her anything before he had talked to Eli. Given everything, making assumptions was not something he felt comfortable with. Not where there was potential to draw Taylor's ire.

"So, we're going to check it out today?"

Danny nodded. "Yeah, right now, if you want to. They don't expect me for another hour, two, tops."

All Taylor did in response was to toss him the keys and tell him to have breakfast.

"Something gives me the impression that you're eager to get out of the house."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Up until 2005, the building Danny pulled up in front of had been the home and operating location of Federated Machine Tools, a small company with just sixty employees. It had served the bay area from before the First World War up until the economy had tanked after the riots, and the last CFO had taken what was left of the company's bank accounts and absconded for greener pastures. Danny remembered that FMT had folded within less than a week after that. They had defaulted on just about every outstanding loan and bill, but with the state the city was in, all he had managed back then was to sell off what stocks of finished and partially completed product there had been.

The building itself, the machines inside, and hell, even the office furniture, were still as they had been left, with the exception of five years and change of dust. The reason why none of it had ever been sold was unclear, but according to the files, somewhere between the IRS, the BBPD and the courts, enough doubts about ownership had been created that it had never happened, and in the shuffle that was the continually declining Docks area, the Union had completely missed those valuables until Danny and Kurt had compiled this list. Danny made a mental note to buy his friend a case of beer for having driven by and checked this place out after hours.

The building itself was a gilded age former rope factory that had been fitted with a modern roof in the early 90s, which meant lots of red brick and cast iron window frames. In terms of layout, it was a very long one-level building, except for a small second floor office area and a cellar that had been just storage. Kurt had ended up recommending this one largely because the utilities were still connected, only needing to be turned on again. From Danny's end, the biggest advantage was that it was only two blocks down the street from his own office, so she would always be close. The reason why Taylor had been so excited, according to her at least, was that the machinery that was still inside would 'prove useful'. The tone she'd said that in had worried Danny slightly, however he wouldn't say anything unless she started carrying a white cat around with her.

Taylor looked up from her sketchbook and out at the building. "Yeah, this really looks great, Dad. Not too many windows facing the road, and the way the second floor is set up, I could mount a lot of stuff on the roof that you could only see from the air."

Said second floor extended in a U-shape that was facing away from the road, and as Danny sat there and wondered, car keys in hand, what she meant by what she had said, Taylor pulled her hair into an impromptu pony-tail and jumped out of the truck. The property was unkept and wild, but the path to the front door was still passable, so while he locked the truck, she was already inspecting the front door. By the time he reached her, she was grumbling about the lock being useless and that she could open it in seconds even without a hyperspanner. Instead of asking where his poor, innocent daughter had learned such skills, he spoke up.

"Use these instead please," he said, bouncing the keys in the palm of his hand. He then stood straight, before quipping, "Now, in the name of the Brockton Bay Dockworker's Union, I hereby give you permission to use this building as your workshop and corporate headquarters for your as yet to be established corporate entity."

"And in the name of said entity, I accept. Now gimme. Please."

With a short, barking laugh, Danny handed her the keys. She unlocked the door and was inside almost instantly.

The inside was pretty much as it had been described to him, though not as dusty as he had expected. Taylor had crossed the lobby already and was checking keys to find which one led to the main factory floor. The door needed some oil, but beyond it lay a treasure trove of mothballed machines, unused parts, dusty filing cabinets and… opportunity, as Taylor would say. Sure enough, when she saw the rows of machines and workbenches she grinned, with an almost feral air. "Ohhhh yes, now this I can work with."

"Should I be worried? Do you want a white cat and a slowly turning chair next?"

"Naa. Would be against my service oath." She turned around towards him and became serious. "Really, the biggest limitation I have is that I can't go very far with your toolkit. Those machines..." Taylor gestured at the semi-dark machine hall and its covered contents. "This a damn sight better than that. Sorry."

"Taylor, the things you've told me about… I'm not surprised that you'll need more than a tool kit Kurt stole when the Ticonderoga decomissioned."

"Ah, so that's why it says 'U.S. Navy property' on all of it. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

"And you never had a shit CO?"

Taylor shrugged in a way that said 'Eh, fair.' and turned back to the hall. "Soooo, as soon as I've gotten at least a part of this dusted off, over there would be the main work area, and---"

Danny listened and watched with a fond smile as his daughter almost bounced through the building and was glad that even with all the time that had passed for her, she still was able to sparkle with the boundless enthusiasm that she had inherited from her mother. Anyone who tried to get between her and any target she was setting herself was bound for a bitter disappointment. Was Brockton Bay ready for that, paired with what she told him was a fantastically advanced technological base? Probably not, but as much as they would have to take care not to rock the boat too quickly and suddenly, he would be with her every step of the way.

"--- so I think I can cannibalize some of the stuff I don't need for parts, I need the space for the Computer core anyway, and without them, you could park a bunch of Class 2s back there. Some we can probably sell on the open market, some I'll leave mothballed. Sound good, Dad?"

"Sounds nice."

She smiled. That right there, that was why he would do anything and everything for her. Which was why he would be going shopping today.

Taylor 5.9.1

21st February 2011

"Personal Log, supplemental.

"I need to do something nice for Dad and Kurt, because they couldn't have found me a better workshop if they'd tried even harder. Within an hour of Dad leaving me here, the lights came on and the water in the bathroom worked. They really pulled through for me.

"But it's obvious that, somehow, I have to be in two places at once from now on. Cleaning this place up and keeping it that way is going to be a job and a half, it's close to nightfall now, and I spent most of the day just making a rough inventory of what's here. This place is a treasure trove, and not only because of the machine tools. Much of the office space has been cleared out, but there are enough computers and components thereof left that I can start on the hardware side of Daystrom. The hard-drives are the biggest possible failure point here, given how most people treat their computers. Note to self, look into Solid State Drives for storage. Thank god for the one good thing about Winslow, the computer classes. Without those, I'd be doing a lot more primary research."

"I have to find a way to automate some of the processes I'm thinking of though, or the Endbringers will kill us all before I get anywhere. Goddamnit. Whatever being sent me back, how about the rest of Field Team 42? Or at least my toolkit?[Pause] No? Screw you then. I'm going to do this anyway."

Taylor stopped the recording. Something was niggling at the back of her mind. She might be unable to forget anything, but managing an ever-increasing amount of information was something she'd had trouble with learning. Thankfully, a number of Federation species had a neurological make-up very different from humans and that could be useful, and a number of ways to manage one's memories had been taught to her. Even so, she couldn't bring what she knew she had read somewhere and that would probably be helpful to the fore. And, from long experience with the technique, she knew that forcing it when something was like this wouldn't do anything, so she put it aside for the moment and concentrated on the computer parts in front of her.

She had cannibalized the computers she had found, and was sitting in the small electronics lab, busy stripping them down to the base components. In her head, the various circuit boards, chips and other pieces were already coming together in a way that far, far outstripped what the manufacturers had intended, and she needed to build several more clusters like this one. At least for base, if incredibly slow, functions, one would do. At least with everything limited like this, she'd keep it cool by rigging every fan she could find, and wouldn't yet have to look into some sort of alternative system. Of course the means to manufacture new printed circuit boards quickly had been among those things that had been sold, but finding about a quarter pallet's worth of prototyping boards in the basement had been useful, though a lot less so than the sole remaining, and unfortunately very small and very slow PCB printer. Until she could afford a larger one, the cluster would be an absolute nightmare of daughter boards and cross-wiring. It wouldn't be helped by her not having really done any manual PCB design since that fourth year archeo-engineering class she'd taken at the Academy. But she knew she had to start somewhere, and that was the best she could do without the ability to buy server components on the open market.

Even so.. her stomach growled, and Taylor decided that de-soldering the next CPU socket could wait. She finished the board she was working on, before turning off the iron and standing up. Her dad had said that he would be around at sixish to pick her up, and after glancing at the clock, she decided that she couldn't wait to be legally sixteen. Again.

She still had something to the tune of almost half an hour before he would arrive, so she decided to do something she had been looking forward to for a while, but had lacked the facilities for. The idea she'd had was still not ideal, but what else would you use an empty store room thirty metres long, as wide as two shipping containers side by side and filled with only empty space for?

Using the one pallet jack that was working right now, she manhandled an old, and thankfully empty, steel drum, which was probably almost as old as the building, into place. Next, she retrieved what she had created over her lunch break with things brought from home and a few spare parts from her workbench that she'd found around the building.

Fitting the T-1E Module with a provisional pistol grip and trigger had been a matter of a few minutes over her lunch break, and amazingly enough, the charge was still hovering at ninety-seven percent, several days after she had disconnected it from the power cable in their basement. It was no more than hand-warm either, though that was bound to change soon enough.

She had never learned to shoot conventional guns, but while she hadn't managed to break Ben Sisko's record on the phaser rifle range, she knew how to handle energy and particle weapons fairly well. So she adopted a stance that was similar enough to what she'd read online about two-handed pistol shooting and took careful aim.

One pull of the trigger, and with a low wine, a ruby red beam of of coherent light lanced out from her and impacted on the barrel. Taylor checked the module… no, the crude pistol, and found that it hadn't shaken anything loose. As she had expected, the shot had drained about seven percent of the charge, and while Taylor had a number of ideas how to improve it, as a proof of concept it would do. And, given that this was Brockton Bay, it would function as a serviceable personal defense weapon.

The module had three settings, full power, half power and off. Without a phase modulator and a Nadion generator, this would be it, no stun setting or any of the more exotic ones yet, but luckily… there were ways. Generating a phase shift was possible, if you were willing to go a non-standard route and accept certain inefficiencies. However, Nadion particles presented a problem. More materials science than anything else. Creating them with the crystals used in the Nadion emitters installed on starships was merely the most energy-efficient way.

For almost two centuries this had been done by, somewhat ironically, phase-shifting the emissions from a number of other particle sources. Most of those were, with the technology available on EarthBet in the year 2011, obtainable, at least theoretically, but the process itself required shielding. Shielding that, at the moment, only synthetic duranium could provide.

For which she needed a fusion core, for which she needed components that needed very tight specs, for which she would need an old-style 3D printer, for which she would need computer assists in design, for which she had to make Daystrom work.

Since all that would take time, she decided to concentrate on the phase modulator when it came to weaponry. That technology was not only within much easier reach now, but would allow her to create laughably low-yield versions of the phase weaponry that Earth had used during the Xindi crisis and the Romulan War.

Upon checking the drum, she could see that yes, even at the low-power setting, the laser had melted a hole through the thin metal. Still hot to the touch, it cooled down quickly. Taylor had started to rebuild her tool kit, at least as far as she could. In lieu of a tricorder, yet another item on her to-do list, a measuring tape would have to do. The hole was barely more than two millimetres wide; but she had expected that. Not the most powerful laser even by EarthBet standards, yet one that wasn't blackboxed. Dad had understood the manual, and had fully understood the drawings when she'd shown him those.

For a long while, the shoot and measuring process repeated itself, until the charge was run down to a point where no more beams could be generated.

"Taylor?"

She looked up from the barrel at the open door leading upstairs. That had been Dad's voice, so she shut off the pistol, stuffed it into the waistband of her pants and walked back upstairs, closing the door behind her. Dad was waiting for her in the small electronics lab where she had done most of her work today, holding a small backpack by the top carrying handle. Where this morning, the space had been a bunch of dusty workbenches of equipment, it had been cleaned off and most of them were now covered with things. One held the disassembled computers, another the broken PCB and office printers that would be turned into a 3D printer once she could wire up the control circuits, and the last an old old cork noticeboard that was slowly being covered with post-its and scraps of paper bearing notes and project ideas that had yet to make it into her notebooks. In the centre of it was something that she was unsure if she should pursue. It was this collection of circles and lines that Dad was looking at.

"So what's this going to be, Taylor?"

She smiled fondly and with wistful remembrance. "If I ever do it? The Watney."

"Your last ship?" Dad asked, grinning after Taylor nodded in response. "Nice to know that some things never change."

She knew that he was referring to that beautiful sunset picture of the Ticonderoga that had been shot during the ship's final cruise with the 7th​ Fleet, somewhere off Okinawa. It was hanging, pride of place, in the living room above the TV.

"I wanted you to know what she really looks like," Taylor explained, still unsure if she could really justify taking the time, for something that was ultimately a vanity project. As if sensing her worries, Dad crossed the distance between them and placed his arm on her shoulders, hugging Taylor to his side.

"Kiddo, from what you've told me, there's plenty of stuff over there I'd love to see."

"I'll think about it, Dad," she promised. "So, you're here to pick me up?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but there's something we need to take care of first." He placed the backpack on one of the few empty spots on the nearest workbench and pulled out a small cardboard box. It was, as Taylor could see from the pictures, a pre-paid clam-shell cellphone. This… was big. After The Accident, cellphones had been banned from their household, to the point that it had taken Taylor considerable soul-searching before she had started using the small civilian communicator that Starfleet had given her, as ridiculous as it sounded now. The small pang of guilt that she had felt then was long gone, but somehow, the sight of a phone not unlike the one her mom had owned brought a piece of it back.

"I'm sorry but… Taylor, I'm not going to risk you ever getting stuck somewhere without a way to call me or..." He swallowed, clearly trying to force words out that he found difficult. "Or call for help. Not again."

"Dad, you--"

He cut her off. "No, Taylor. You don't get to tell me that none of this is my fault. I let you down so much that you felt you couldn't trust me, or come to me with your problems. And unlike you, I haven't had a decade and a half to get over that. This..." He motioned at the box and at the backpack. "This is me trying to make amends. As much as you may think I don't have to, I think I do."

Taylor sensed that he was in full 'stubborn Dad' mode, so she decided that picking her battles was the right thing to do. Besides, you always needed two to dance, and things had gotten bad.

"Okay," she said instead and took the box when dad offered it to her. Thankfully, he had chosen the boring black model. When she held it in her hand for the first time, it… something needed to be done. Using a motion long-practised on the holodeck, she rapidly half-turned her hand and flipped the phone open in a smooth, one-handed operation. The flick wasn't quite as slick as a 23rd​ Century communicator, but she would change that. Along with adding the chirp. Couldn't go without the chirp.

"Taylor, are you okay?"

Dad's voice pulled her away from her nostalgia and back to the present. "Sorry, Dad. I just remembered something."

"Good, I hope."

She nodded.

"Great, because if there's one thing I've realized since you came home, it's that moping over her like we have been isn't what your mother would want. I bought one for myself too. Don't use it up quickly, though."

"I won't, Dad."

"Good. I know you know better than that, but let me be a dad occasionally, okay?"

"Sure."

Taylor flipped the phone back shut with a reverse of the previous motion and placed it back in the box for the moment.

"And this one… please take care with it, okay?"

Taylor was very surprised when Dad handed her a collapsible police baton of the type that was very popular among East Coast police departments.

"Where did you get one of those?" Taylor couldn't help but asking, even as she extended it with one swift move. Thank god for the mixed martial arts classes at the academy.

"Called in a favour with a contact at the PD. When I explained to him what I wanted it for, he was all to happy to give me one," he replied, and then cocked his head slightly. "Do I want to know where you learned how to use one of those?"

She collapsed the baton again before shoving it into her pocket. "Mixed martial arts classes, remember? Some things are like riding a bike."

A slightly awkward silence settled on the lab, before Dad cleared his throat. "I've gotten started on some of the paperwork, but it'll take legal a while to get as far as they can. Got any ideas on what to call it yet?"

"Yeah," Taylor replied. She felt vaguely ridiculous about it all, but she had to play by the rules, however stupid she thought they were. "I'll tell you later."

"Soooo… are you ready to go?"

"Joey's?"

"Yup. I called ahead, they'll have our usual ready by the time we get there.."

"Ooooh, fancy."

Shutting off everything in the building and locking the doors was a matter of minutes.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Joey's was located in a relatively safe part of town, in a building that had been constructed during the tail-end of the city's good years. As such, the presence of an Italian corner restaurant straight out of the likes of The Godfather was out of place, but Taylor knew that it was mostly for show. It worked though, because even now, in the middle of the week, the owner had no cause to complain about foot traffic. Watching Dad stand in line, Taylor looked over the other people in the restaurant. Most of the people were from what remained of Brockton Bay's middle class, which was appropriate for the area, and she couldn't see any obvious gang members. If anything, this part of town would be belong to the E88 core territories, but it was at the fringes, in that fuzzy part of town where it slowly turned into the suburbs but not quite yet.

And of course, even Brockton Bay Nazis needed to eat. Probably. Beyond that, they were from all walks of life, from the brown-haired woman with her presumable daughter in front of Dad to two men right behind herself.

By the time Dad reached the counter, the woman ahead of him was already walking out the door, and she got the first good look at the girl. Normally, Taylor wouldn't really have bothered, but the girl's face… a tiny part of Taylor's heart clenched as she saw her fully. It was both the face and the way her eyes shined as the girl talked to her mother, but it very much reminded her of Eric, and how a small, guilty part of her mind had pictured her own daughter in the years since he had died. Because of this, Taylor stared after them far longer than she would have, and it only for this reason that she ever even noticed the three men from rising from their table to follow them outside. It was her Starfleet officer self that noticed the suspicious bulges, in the wrong place for a phaser clipped to a utility belt but obviously meant to be concealed, that they were men of military age, despite obviously trying not to show it.

Just as they passed through the entrance and Taylor was about to go after them, Dad placed his hand on her shoulder. Taylor flinched very slightly and looked at him. "Call the cops. Something is going on with those guys."

Before he could say something, Taylor extracted herself and began moving. He would be so furious later, but right now, she had to act.

As she shuffled through the other customers, ignoring annoyed yelps and whatever else they said, she considered her options. The baton was still in her pocket, but at least she wasn't entirely unarmed. The Laser was altogether too lethal for now. Taylor knew that what she was about to do was very, very stupid. She was in the body of an out-of-shape fifteen year old that had been bedridden until only a short time ago, and she was about to go up against three men who were none of those things. At the same time, she couldn't just stand by and watch. Because of what the girl reminded her of, because she knew all too well what it was like to lose a parent and because she had sworn an oath to defend those in need. Hopefully, she was jumping the gun, but something told her that it really was what it looked like. If it wasn't? Fine. All that would happen then was that she would get yelled at by a few cops. If it was and she did nothing? Guilt was a powerful motivator.

So she pulled the baton from her pocket, glanced back at the restaurant where Dad was already on his phone and then slowly made her way towards where the three men were slowly tailing the woman and her daughter.

She needn't have worried. The street was as empty as you could expect from this part of town at about eight in the evening. Meaning completely void of persons. The woman had parked a relatively fancy late-model Cadillac a block or so down the street. Right next to a streetlamp, but that didn't really stop them. As Taylor watched and ducked down behind the cars to remain out of sight, she saw one of the men hitting the woman on the back of her head with a baton of his own. He caught her as she was about to fall down, while another grabbed the girl and gagged her with something that Taylor couldn't see from her position, and dragged her off into a side alley.

A number of silent curses followed from her as she began to quickly cross the distance. A quick glance revealed that a white van was parked there. Luckily for her, the men seemed to be busy; while one operated a handheld radio, presumably talking to someone, another was trying to restrain the girl, while the third was busy trying to make it look like someone had broken into the woman's car. The latter of which had turned his back to Taylor, so she could approach him with a few quick and almost cat-like steps. The mixed technique taught at the Academy took its cues from a number of others, like Earth's own Krav Maga, so the moves Taylor used were tuned for maximum efficiency with the least power needed. One further advantage was that she was tall for her apparent age, so she managed to hit the mook holding the woman just right and he went down like a sack of Ferengi beetle snuff. The mook behind the van had neither seen nor heard anything, but the one holding the girl yelled out before Taylor had a chance to do anything else.

He shoved the scared girl into the van, slammed the door closed and pulled a gun from his pocket. Taylor never never find out if he underestimated her because of her slim build or because he knew that his buddy was on the other side of the van, but he didn't just shoot her like he could and probably should have, but instead merely raised it at her.

"Stop it right there, girl."

"Fuck off, asshole!" Taylor replied, before moving quickly, trying to cross the distance before he could pull the trigger. She managed, if only barely. The first swift move of her baton knocked the gun out of his hand. He tried to grab her, but she ducked down under his arm and felled him with a swift hit to his kneecaps. Had Taylor been at full strength, he would have needed knee replacement surgery at that point. As it was, he crumpled to the ground and yelped, holding his knee. A swift application of the haft of her baton to the back of his head as he went down ensured that he remained down.

Before Taylor could do anything, before she could even turn around, the third man grabbed her from behind. However, she had moved ever so slightly at the last second, so she still had some leverage. She used it to elbow him in his most vulnerable point. As expected, he let go, but surprisingly did not go down. He was however, still distracted enough to allow Taylor to re-adjust the grip on her baton, turn on her heels and then kick him again. In the exact same spot. This time, he fell down. It was followed up with another disabling hit to the head.

Taylor breathed heavily, but there was still something to do. She kicked the gun under the van, before trying to find something to restrain the three mooks with. Appropriately enough, the wanna-be kidnappers had brought cable ties, as she discovered when she searched the first two of them for weapons. All three had been armed, so she removed their pistols with as much care as she could, using a paper handkerchief to touch them only as much as she had to. Up next, all three of them would find themselves with their arms and legs bound. Thankfully, the girl's mother was only bruised, but would still need to get checked out. As Taylor looked up from the woman, she saw her father running down the side-walk.

"Damnit, Taylor! What the hell do you think you---"

It was Dad, angry and proud at the same time.

"Can you look after that woman? She was hit on the back of the head, and..." she interrupted.

He looked at the scene nodded, and knelt down next to her. "She's only bruised, but...I told the cops to bring an ambulance, just in case."

She deigned not to ask for whom that ambulance had been intended for.

Of course there was one thing yet to do. She checked the vitals of the two men closest to her and then cautiously opened the door. Inside was nothing other than the girl, utterly terrified, and seemingly close to passing out.

By this time, Taylor could hear sirens starting to approach up the street, both police and an ambulance by the sound of it, so she reached out to the girl to remove the gag and restraints.

"Come on, don't be scared. I'm here to help you." she said, trying to smile as friendly as she could.

Instead of giving an answer, the girl muttered something. Whatever it was, it seemed to satisfy her, and she nodded. "Okay." she said and let Taylor help her out of the van. "How's my Mom? They..."

"My Dad is with her, and the Ambulance is coming."

With wailing sirens and screeching brakes, a police cruiser and an ambulance arrived on scene. Thankfully, the girl's mother had come around on her own, and Dad was sitting her up against her car, while two EMTs came running. The police officers approached them, but Dad only motioned in Taylor's direction.

"I'm Taylor. What's your name?" she asked, ignoring the officers. "I'd like to know what to call you."

The girl looked up at her, and smiled again. "My name is Dinah."

What she didn't know, and would not find out for a long time, was that some hours later, in a re-purposed Endbringer shelter under a few buildings in Downtown, a supervillain started to curse loud and varied enough to make a drunk Klingon blush. He cursed at his men, at his own impatience, the Director for calling him at that particular moment. and at his, unusually for him, bad luck. Because for the first time in quite a while, one of his plans had failed. And in spite of his time-bending powers, there was nothing he could do about it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

tbc

Yes, Undersiders, bank robbery, distraction, what have you. I know. Consider this though, would even coil go for a plan that convoluted unless he'd tried the easier option first? Yes, he could game out every possible failure point, but that takes time even for him, and unlike the Imperial Japanese high command, he's not the type to seek anything but the easiest and direct solution, unless he has to. IMO.

You may also ask: "Y U do this, trekchu?" My answer could be long and detailed, but boils down to: "Because fuck you, Coil."

I know that in the real world and in most conditions, a Laser beam does not behave like this, but remember what I said about certain setting rules I was going to follow? Easily visible energy beams is one of those.

Re phase weapons vs phasers. Okay, going by everything I've read/seen, on memory alpha and it's beta counterpart, these are not equivalent. Alpha describes them as a "phased particle" weapon, but never specifies what particles are used. The episode "Silent Enemy" refers to them as phased energy weapons. What it does specify however, is that they are a precursor to phasers as we know them. Because of this, I decided to split the difference and go with my headcanon from way back when, i.e. the original run of Enterprise, and proceed as Taylor does in this chapter.

This is the thing I mentioned where I made an executive decision.

The move she does with the phone is one that's legend in the Trek community. It dates back to the days of the original series. So much that in one DS9 episode they made a joke of it. Along with a bunch of other references. Go watch it, the entire thing is a love letter to the original series and Star Trek as a whole. And yeah, it is possible with the right model of clamshell phone, I've done it myself.

Reference to Taylor's martial arts skills is first made in the informational post. You can't believe how tempted I was to include the nerve pinch in spite of what I said earlier.

Thus endeth Arc I. Arc II will be coming soonish, but the promised interlude will come some time later this week/early next week. :) I need to write something else for a few days, lest I burn out on Worm.