章 615: 54
Date
2011 February 15th - Tuesday - Earth Bet Time
"So what can you tell me about ABB?" Piggot asked the man standing in front of her. The man, one officer responsible for collating the information coming in from the street and confidential information, looked down at his notes before looking into her eyes again. She could feel the confusion radiating off him.
"Well, Director, it's weird. Very weird," he explained while nervously playing with the documents in his hand. "The analysts and even Watchdog expected Lung to begin an aggressive expansion now that the Merchants are gone. But he is doing almost the exact opposite. He defends when the Empire gets too close but otherwise ignores everybody. We even got info about some of his lieutenants leaving and trying to set up on their own."
She looked down at the desk where the same information was, only it detailed by her notes. "Any idea for the reason?"
He shook his head but answered with a small grin. "No. But we know he doesn't care for those who left him. One of them had already run afoul of BBPD. Apparently, he expected Lung's clout to cover his ineptness."
She snorted hearing that, but the moment of humor vanished instantly into the gaping chasm of uncertainty. "Can we get to someone who is in contact with Lung? I don't like this."
"No, Director. He only talks to people he can trust. Well, as much as he is capable of trusting anyone."
"Pity," she said, then thought about it a little. The officer stood silently in front of her desk, waiting for his boss to make a decision. "Okay. We can make use of this. Keep the watch on Lung, but deprioritize it. However, increase the watch on those who are leaving his service. Work together with BBPD to get them off the street. Also, ask Dragon for help."
The man nodded in understanding. "Yes, Director." Then he wrote it down, just to make sure he didn't forget.
Piggot collected the papers on her desk related to ABB, put them in a file, and placed it on the side, then reached for another packet.
She spent a minute semi-organizing it on her desk, then looked back at the officer in front of her. "Let's talk about Nazis."
The man began to talk without preamble. "They are the exact opposite. They have been aggressively expanding, taking over almost everywhere. No death yet, aside from the criminal element, only some injuries. The only places they avoided are the Docks and a few places where Dragon stopped them. We have her notes on those events, and the people captured are already in BBPD custody. Sadly, no parahuman was captured by her."
"I see. What about yesterday?" she asked curiously.
The officer grimaced. "Word on the street is that they lost something important. But we couldn't figure out what."
She was about to answer when her phone rang with a ringtone that indicated it was important. She signaled for the man to stay silent and picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Director Piggot. This is Dragon." said the woman on the other side. "I was notified that you are having a briefing about gang activity, and I have a few recent pieces of information that could be useful to you."
Piggot sighed, wondering what in the nine hells will she learn now. "Very well. Are you joining us on the screen?"
"Yes, Director. If you turn it on, I'm ready," replied Dragon.
She simply turned on the screen on the wall and bid the man reporting to her to sit. The screen came alive, and after some booting up, Dragon's face appeared.
She nodded towards her. "Director," then towards the man. "Officer Montesson."
They both returned the greeting, and Dragon immediately began to talk.
"I understand the PRT noticed the Empire is looking for something."
"Yes, but we can't figure it out, and Watchdog refused to take a look at something so 'frivolous'," replied Montesson.
Piggot just grimaced. "So I assume you know what that is?"
"Yes. But it's not what, but who." answered the Tinker smugly.
"Oh?" Now that sounded interesting to Piggot. "Who?"
"Purity, Director. She approached me recently, giving herself up in exchange for a few things."
Both people sitting in the room looked surprised.
"I hope you haven't given her a free pass? asked Piggot, arching an eyebrow.
"Not at all. She is currently in an undisclosed location, under house arrest. Placing her into prison or even Birdcage is currently not feasible. But we will make sure she will pay for her crimes."
Another eyebrow joined the previous one. "Not feasible? I'm pretty sure she is responsible for several murders."
Dragon grimaced, perfectly understanding the Director's disbelief. "I'm sorry, Director, but ethically I'm not comfortable placing the woman into a prison environment. At least for now."
"And let me guess, you can't tell me why?" asked Piggot, almost growling, while Montesson stayed wisely silent, letting the two women talk.
"I'm sorry, Director, but yes. But to cheer you up, Purity shared several actionable information about the Empire. Though I don't yet know how much is still usable… "
"Hmm, anything interesting?"
"Well, how about the identity of Kaiser?" asked Dragon, once again smiling smugly. "Sadly, due to the Unwritten Rules we can't act on it, but it would allow us to focus our efforts on catching the man with his pants down."
The two inhabitants of the room perked up hearing that, but Piggot scowled after hearing the phrase 'Unwritten Rules'. Once again, for no reason whatsoever, parahumans were protected from prosecution.
"So who is it?" she asked.
"Max Anders."
There was a brief silence before she spoke again. "Well… that is not as surprising as I expected. But yeah, I can see it. Thank you, Dragon. Anything else?"
"Nothing as important as that. I will send over the data I've collected, but currently, I'm busy preparing for the next Endbringer attack."
"Anything concrete?"
"If they hold to the pattern, then it will be the Simurgh and within two weeks. I have been analyzing previous attacks, trying to find some commonality but I have yet to pinpoint where it is going to happen."
"Very well, good luck with that," Piggot said a little angry. "But now we have to redo our analysis of the Empire…"
"Understood, Director. Have a nice day," said Dragon, and the screen went black.
Piggot sighed once again, cursing the city, and turned towards the officer. "Well Montesson, let's start once again…"
Date
2011 February 17th - Wednesday - Earth Bet Time
She reviewed the logs of the latest factory line that came online and emulated a smile. Being an AI was sometimes really useful.
She had already produced several thousand basic drones capable of stealth and projecting shields that Taylor created, multiplying her ability to protect people. Next to that she also managed to create some updated troop transports, which, once again thanks to Taylor, were equipped with inertia cancellers that allowed them to reach supersonic speeds without the passengers feeling anything.
Several hundred small-sized dragon-shaped armored suits bolstered her own fighting force, all of them connected to a central controlling system, where one of her forks was continuously improving her capability to control them. Though she called them small, they were almost three meters tall, and two wide.
She designed them for fighting earthbound enemies and for search and rescue.
Next were the medium-sized suits, which ranged from five to eight meters, depending on their purpose. One of them was for flying enemies, with increased speed and maneuverability, while another was earthbound but was equipped by a shield projector, which made it capable of projecting great shields, capable of even withstanding the strikes she recorded from the Leviathan.
Using four of these, she could create an area covered by shields. She planned to use these for the field command stations and the medical area.
And the final model was the Titans.
Gigantic twenty-meter-tall constructs, hopefully, capable of going against the Endbringers. Sadly, she only produced three of them as of now, but hopefully, that would be enough.
If she could get up into space and to the asteroid belt, her mining and manufacturing would speed up enough that she could drown the world in dragon-shaped armored suits. Not that she would…
Unfortunately, the presence of Simurgh stopped her before she could even start designing something that would take her there. Best not to chance it.
Of course, aside from her personal army, she expanded her production of other equipment she supplied the Guild and PRT with and updated the containment foam, making it more stable, durable and cheaper to manufacture.
She also built another Medi-Gel factory that would supply the Guild and certain units of the Canadian government, while making sure that the facility she was building in Brockton Bay in Taylor's name was well on its way.
Thankfully, the local workforce was rather competent, and the addition of her new drones sped up a process extensively. And even when the construction was finished she could keep several people from the Union as workers because while it was mostly automated, she couldn't fully do that without revealing her nature, thus the need for a few people being there.
For her other project with the recycling facility, she was already taking in metal from all around the docks. After a talk with Danny, instead of attacking the Graveyard, they started with the warehouses around her facility.
Seeing as she owned most of them, with Danny and Taylor owning the rest with only a few of them belonging to savvy investors, it was rather easy to go through them, gut them for metal and collect trash and recycle it.
They even found several antiqued cars in various disrepair hidden under tons of debris. While it didn't yield as much useable material, it was a nice test for the facility, allowing her to streamline the processes and train the people up without undue strain.
And it was something that would need to be done sometime in the future, so why not now?
They were around halfway done with the buildings they owned, and she was already training people for the eventual harvesting of the Boat Graveyard. They would leave the big ship blocking the bay for last, its size would be too much for the facility currently.
According to Danny, thanks to her plans, they would soon need to start hiring more people. Hopefully, that would help a little with the local economy.
The debate about Medi-Gel was also almost finished. Even America's usual schizophrenic self managed to come to an agreement and the Medi-Gel would be accepted wholesale, with the usual regulations.
The rest of Serenity's patents were much easier to accept, as they didn't really change the world as much as the medicine her friend created.
Even she was already manufacturing the equipment and hauling it to different parts of the world in case it was needed.
She also had to dedicate an entire fork just for negotiations with the companies who wanted to buy licenses for the technologies she patented. She was looking forward to shocking Taylor with how much money her inventions made.
Of course, she wasn't just handling Taylor's inventions. She was using the virtual space and her nature to the fullest extent to experiment and innovate.
Her innovation, however, was mostly in software technologies and sciences. She of course updated her own programming as much as possible, created new algorithms for detecting various events and things. Revamped the entire Endbringer system, making it much more efficient and effective, and created several consumer-grade security solutions that would allow the common people to protect their computers. The income from that alone was a nice sum.
She was also in the middle of negotiating with several medical equipment manufacturers for the chance to review their software and improve them, for a nominal price of course.
One of her other lesser jobs was keeping an eye on Alice (who had chosen the codename Nero) and reviewing her creations. Sadly, around eighty percent of what she designed was almost too horrific to ever put into production, but she knew that stopping a Tinker from designing this would have a negative effect on them, so she let her do it as long as she managed to complete the task they assigned to her.
Her upgraded ConFoam grenades were good enough, she barely had to improve them, and were already in production. The fact that she managed to open up the time bubbles with explosives earned her enough goodwill that she was no longer under house arrest. And to Alice's delight, it even managed to generate a small but persistent fan base.
She even observed the woman affixing several letters and drawings to the wall of her workshop that came from the relatives of the victims.
Her current project was almost finished, and Dragon knew Alice and her new friends in the Guild were already planning a viewing party.
Maybe if the time is right, she could invite Colin?
Date
2011 February 19th - Friday - Earth Bet Time
Before Vicky and Amy left last week Saturday after a hearty breakfast, they decided they would make it a weekly thing. At first, she suggested that she could sleepover at the Dallon house, but the sisters shot it down.
They were many reasons given, but it boiled down to the fact that her entertainment system was much better than theirs.
After sleeping on it a little, she wasn't as angry with the fact they figured out she was a parahuman. Well, she was a little, but those were her insecurities speaking.
She spent the rest of the weekend with her dad, with him assisting her in installing a few more devices to the house. So now they had a fully functioning shield that covered the house and garden, which could isolate them from the outside. They also had their own water and air supply, with Taylor designing an underground hydroponics farm, but they had some stuff piled up, enough to last for a week or so. They also had their own personal Medi-gel dispenser, and Taylor made a taser for Danny that with a flick of a switch could be turned into a gun.
According to Danny, it was unnecessary, but she wasn't taking any chances. She only had one parent left and by the gods, she would make sure at least he survived.
In the virtual space, she only spent two nights with the girls, preferring to concentrate on her training or experimenting with Tess.
Plus, the knowledge from both Tess and Admin that the next Endbringer attack was so close made her a little jittery, and only the fact she could go out in the virtual space calmed her down.
Fortunately, after a recent bout against the Leviathan, Behemoth, and Simurgh, she was confident she would be able to stay alive. Winning, or even killing the constructs, was another question.
She even tried to devise a device that would protect people from the Scream, but sadly, if she wanted it to be manufactured by everybody, she could only create ones that would be useful against Masters.
According to Admin, Simurgh operated on a level where devices were rather useless, though that didn't stop Taylor from refining and sending over her anti-Master device to Tess.
Aside from that, she finally managed to figure out what her real codename would be. Though Amy and Vicky (and the avatars of their powers) helped. At first, she wanted to go with Current, after convincing Vicky that Lightning Girl was a stupid name and no, she won't be using Magnet Girl.
However, in the end, she chose the name Lux Arcana, based on her secrecy and the countless secrets she harbored and on her wish to bring light to this dark world.
Of course, Amy immediately called her dramatic and edgy, but she didn't really care. Much.
She liked the name, and that was it.
Date
2011 February 21st - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
Lisa loved and hated her new arrangement.
She loved it because she was out from the thumb of that asshole Coil and hated it because, even on Sunday, she was in her new office, working.
Usually, she wouldn't be here, she would be enjoying a glass of wine and watching a stupid romantic movie using her rather cooperative power to figure out things about the actors, then posting them anonymously on the net and watching the meltdown of the fans.
But no, Dragon was worried about the Endbringer attack and wanted another set of eyes to look over the data. Though what the AI (as if she couldn't figure it out) thought she would see was beyond her. But because she quite enjoyed living, she buckled down and went over everything. She highlighted a few events that could attract the Simurgh.
Unfortunately, Dragon herself setting up shop in the Bay was one of them, as was Serenity and her Medi-Gel, who was probably living somewhere around there too.
Thankfully, several other events around the world could attract the monster's attention. For example, there was some kind of technological deal going down in Australia, or several Warlords in Africa were in talks about uniting their land to protect their people.
Even her power was at a loss at what the youngest Endbringer would choose.
So she spent Sunday night looking through even more data and sending it to Dragon when she found something.
Date
2011 February 23rd - Tuesday - Earth Bet Time
Taylor came back from her morning run and exercise in high spirits. She saw a cute guy that was also running, and he smiled at her.
She couldn't remember if that ever happened to her. So, after a luxurious shower, she joined her father at the breakfast table.
"Morning, Dad!" she said with a smile on her face.
"Morning, honey." replied her dad over the newspaper. She already set up a soft light projector that could project any news he wanted, but he insisted on the paper, saying it just wasn't the same.
"What's the plan for today?" she asked while once again she poured herself solidified sugar.
Danny gave a disapproving glare at it, but she just shrugged unapologetically. "We are finishing one of the bigger warehouses today. And I have few interviews with some people we are planning to hire."
"Wow, that's great!"
"Yeah… Almost can't believe it," he said with a smile. "And what's got you so chipper this morning?"
"Well, there was a…" she started to say with an impish smile on her face, but a well-known sound interrupted her.
The wailing of sirens.
Her face immediately turned serious while trying to remember what the siren meant. Her father was frozen in his seat, and she could see he was rather scared for some reason.
Ignoring it for the moment, she stood up, and with a few quick steps, she was in the living room.
"TV, Endbringer attack!" she barked.
The projection immediately came alive, showing one of the bigger news channels, and several screens that were showing data from the servers Dragon was using to track the Endbringers.
"Where is it?" asked Danny, almost in a whisper, from behind her worriedly.
"Hmm, it seems it's heading for Australia." at the same time she said that the sirens fell silent. She turned her attention towards the news channel and unmuted it.
"… for those who are just tuning in, the Endbringer known as Simurgh is heading for the Australian continent. Experts say that based on its heading, the Endbringer is aiming for the southern part of the continent. The PRT, Guild, and various other organizations are already en route. According to some sources, Dragon is even planning on debuting some new countermeasures." the newscaster looked to the side as somebody slipped them a fresh paper. "This is just in. Dragon announced that the target is Canberra!"
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