“Wait, when the hell did we have time to kill Coil?” Aisha demanded.
Taylor pinched her nose, wishing she was already done with the day so she could go cuddle her girlfriend. Motoko was busy preparing for the next step in the plan, and she was trying to ignore the fact that Sophia was with her. At least the needed Tinkering was getting done even if Sophia was being a bit sickeningly sweet with her.
Taylor almost wanted to ask Melissa to check and see if Sophia was plural as well with how different she acted around the two of them.
Then there were the chaos gremlins currently staying in her apartment building of a base. She would need to renovate more of them if she kept recruiting people at this rate. How was it that joining the Nine was somehow expanding her social circle? Granted, watching Vex, Regent and Imp interact was making her question if that was a good thing or not.
Taylor had a feeling Vex would fit right in with the murder brigade that had become her family. The question was how the hell to open that dialog with a girl whose first instinct was to summon a swirling storm of razor sharp force fields?
“Lisa dropped him a few minutes after we left,” Taylor confirmed, shaking off her drifting thoughts. “The reason I never told you guys his identity was because his power was to get two shots at anything. He could torture one of us and we would never know it.”
“I call hax!” Regent yelled.
“It does sound like save scumming,” Vex agreed. “How’d you beat that?”
Aisha threw herself across Regent’s lap. “Well, I’d put money on Meli—”
Brian smacked her. “Please watch the names right now.”
“Oh right,” Vex said, pulling her mask off. “Just call me Chrissie. There, now I can be let in on all the fun parts.”
“All of them, you say?” Aisha asked, waggling her eyebrows at Alec as he played with her hair. “Tay, can I infodump everything and see if Vexy breaks?”
Alec hummed. “Could be amusing… I’m game for it.”
“Please don’t,” Brian said, pinching his nose. “That really isn’t our call to make.”
Taylor groaned. “Whatever, I’m tired, it’s getting late and I’ve got a girlfriend to spoil for the evening. Grue, keep these gremlins in line please, I’ll do a proper briefing in the morning.”
Grue paused, turning slowly to face her. “Please tell me that was a joke. I can handle Imp and Regent most days, but this girl too?”
“I’ll play nice,” Chrissie said, trying, then failing to keep a straight face. “Yeah, too gay to make that work.”
“Ugh, rub it in our faces, why don’t ya?” Regent said.
“That an invitation?” Chrissie said without missing a beat. “I bet you’d look great in a dress.”
“Goodnight everyone,” Taylor said, activating her portal to Toybox and retreating in good order before she got dragged into that brewing shit show. Stepping into her lab, she was greeted by Riley and Cranial working on Othala’s body. “That trick isn’t going to work twice.”
“Oh, we know,” Riley said, her tongue clenched between her teeth adorably. “We’re putting her brain back then delivering her to Legend. He put in a request when he heard we had her, apparently Rune asked to keep her safe or something.”
“And before you freak out, she won’t remember any of it,” Cranial added, messing with a holographic display. “We need to get all my equipment upgraded for cyber interfaces. I forgot how tedious this was.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Just clean up when you’re done, I have a girlfriend that needs pampering.”
“Tell Lisa I said hi,” Riley said, elbow deep in Othala’s head.
“Will do, squirt,” Taylor said, shaking her head fondly.
----------------------------------------
Melissa had checked in on them shortly after everything went down, making sure Lisa was doing alright after taking her first life. It made Taylor feel warm inside, that Melissa truly cared, just like she imagined her mom would have. Where a void should have existed, she found it filled with a warmth she hadn’t felt in years.
She had come to treasure that.
Motoko was already up, and had been for at least an hour when Taylor woke, which was something she wasn’t ready to unpack. That Sophia was there with her, well, that was another aspect she didn’t want to dig into. Then there was the fact that they were making enough breakfast for four people.
Well, Taylor knew all too well how much that helped following taking a life, she still remembered how Melissa helped her through all of it, how Lisa stayed close to help her deal with the trauma. She wasn’t about to be a hypocrite and leave her girlfriend hanging no matter how busy things got.
“Why are you acting like you smell bacon?” Lisa muttered, curling up tighter against Taylor.
“Because apparently Motoko is cooking us breakfast,” Taylor said, feathering a kiss on her forehead. “Hope you like bacon, fried veggies, and eggs.”
“If it tastes as good as it apparently smells, I’m sure I will,” Lisa said, blinking her eyes open. “We’re about to have a really awkward conversation, but at least there will be bacon.”
“There is that, at least,” Taylor said, pulling an arm free to boop her on the nose. “You deserve that and more.”
Lisa laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world. “Well, you did get me this cool snake yesterday. Best present ever.”
Taylor snorted. “Pity he was rabid and had to be put down.”
“Such a shame,” Lisa agreed with that smile of hers.
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Their lips met and Taylor allowed the moment to wash over her. The soft comfort of her girlfriend, knowing she was safer than she had ever been. Her breath smelled like mint, because shells could activate breath fresheners on command. Lisa pulled away and reluctantly sat up, stretching even though she didn’t need to.
Lisa wandered into the kitchen with Taylor tailing nervously behind. Motoko greeted them with a plate full of bacon goodness and a smile. More surprising was Sophia pouring her a glass of orange juice while Motoko poured Lisa a cup of coffee. Taylor felt like she had wandered into some bizarro world. Lisa smiled back, but there was a brittleness there.
The undercurrent of the prior night’s events still sat heavily in the air, but she wasn’t alone in dealing with it. Taylor refused to let Lisa ever feel alone again. Motoko and Sophia joined them at the table and dug into their own plates. Breakfast was a silent affair, the tension thick but not pressing.
“How are you holding up?” Motoko asked.
Lisa’s fork scraped across her plate and she looked up with a smile that seemed perfectly sculpted to look pleasant. Taylor didn’t need a Thinker power to know Lisa was putting on a front.
“Finally turned in my resignation to my old employer, so that was nice,” Lisa said, stabbing a brussel sprout. “How about you two? Care to share any sordid details of your little tryst?”
“Please don’t, Lise,” Taylor muttered. “I’m feeling kinda soupy right now and I don’t need a reminder of what those two get up to.”
Motoko had the decency to look away and Taylor could see Sophia’s cheeks darken. Lisa eyed them for a moment before sighing. She drained her cup and moved to fill a new one.
“So, are you recruiting Vex for the Undersiders?” Lisa asked, sipping on a cup of sweet cream with a splash of coffee. “I wasn’t paying as much attention, but I think pairing her up on a team with Alec and Aisha is asking for a disaster.”
“I agree,” Motoko said, taking the offered change of subject as if it was a lifeline. “She might work better with the Nine, but that’s not my call to make. We still aren’t sure where everyone will wind up once this farce plays out. Jacob wants me in the Nine, but I might be better suited to a more official strike team under Legend.”
Taylor nodded. “It would let you avoid a kill order and public discrediting. I’m best suited for logistics and support until my shell is complete so that’s where they’re keeping me.”
“Fantastic,” Lisa muttered, then she turned her focus back on Taylor with a genuine smile. “At least Jacob’s determined to let you keep your civilian identity. I like the idea of going on silly dates in public.”
“Same,” Taylor said, smiling softly. “Just a few more days and we’ll be through with this mess and our home can finally recover.”
It wouldn’t be the same, Taylor wouldn’t even pretend otherwise. Her father was dead, the dockworkers had given in and signed on with a gang for protection. Granted, they only did so because she was involved, but it still felt like some part of what made Brockton her home was being stripped away by tarnishing all her dad fought for.
“The PRT has to be shitting themselves right now,” Sophia said after a moment. “Dauntless lives up to his name when he gets a chance to fuck Armsy over, and he won’t let this rest.”
“Assuming Armsbastard doesn’t just kill him and blame the Nine for it,” Taylor muttered. “Doesn’t seem to be the case, but the day is young.”
“So it is,” Lisa agreed.
The group fell into silence as Taylor and Lisa began to go over the news feeds from the previous day and how the Nine’s actions were being perceived. Local stations were afraid, naturally, but the only public attack was against the Empire. The PRT also withheld the Director’s death as well as his identity as Coil across all news sources.
Well, that was easy enough to fix. Taylor logged onto one of her PHO accounts and skimmed the Brockton local pages. There was a master thread for the Nine, and nothing else of note. Taylor frowned and decided to test something, she created a thread, added some of the information from the file she gave Dauntless and hit post.
Five seconds later her dummy account was banned.
Well, it looked like it was time to tickle a Dragon. She opened a thousand browser pages and began to flood the site with posts all about Calvert being Coil and the ongoing corruption in the ENE. Motoko frowned at her, but engaged additional cooling to compensate.
Taylor was swatted down almost as fast as she posted, but it was quickly becoming clear that she had an edge over Dragon on multitasking. That shouldn’t have been the case with any AI, which meant she was more crippled than Taylor originally assumed. Taylor nudged those cooling features up to their max much to Motoko’s annoyance as she also linked into her Toybox systems and cracked her digital knuckles.
A thousand instances became ten thousand and Motoko’s heat sensors began to rise despite everything running full blast. At the rate the temperature was increasing, an ice bath might be needed to keep her cool. PHO itself began to lag under her assault and just as some posts were beginning to get traffic, the entire site went down.
Taylor startled, her focus thrown from the web back to the real world. She hadn’t anticipated that being Dragon’s reaction, but she should have. Pulling the plug on the website was easy enough to keep her at bay, but that still left her with options. Emails were drafted and sent to every news agency nationwide, Director Calvert would be exposed one way or another as the villain he was.
That didn’t stop her from resuming her assault on Dragon’s systems. She had dozens of websites related to various companies and even the Guild which could be targeted, nevermind the ENE which no longer had Calvert to give her two shots at repelling an intrusion attempt.
While she was doing that, she sent a message to Brian to get everyone up and ready for a meeting within the hour. That message was sent off and another message came in, this one however drew all of her attention. Sitting up, Taylor called the phone number and held her breath as it connected.
“Hello Cyber,” Dragon said. “You certainly have a way of getting someone’s attention.”
“Dragon,” Taylor said. Lisa’s head snapped to her, eyes wide. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t intending on getting into a slugging match with you, but the information on Calvert can’t continue to be covered up.”
“You could have released that at any time,” Dragon said. “Why wait until the middle of an attack by the Nine?”
Taylor chuckled, sitting back. She half expected Dragon to be aware of the Nine and what they really were, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all. That also meant Armsmaster wasn’t aware either, and that meant she could have a bit more fun with things.
“When better?” she asked. “Half the outrage will be forgotten as the Nine continue to run rampant. A super villain was a PRT Director, that is fucking huge if you hadn’t noticed. The only bigger news I can think of at the moment would be if it got out that you’re an AI.”
“Thank you for spreading that around,” Dragon seethed. “I’ve worked hard to be the best I can despite my circumstances. There are gaps in my memory that I KNOW are where something terrible happened due to my actions. I’ve even pieced some together. Yet, there is nothing I can do about it. I am hindered by my nature, just as you are.”
“Um, not an AI here,” Taylor said.
“You may as well be,” Dragon said. “That attack you just launched should have been impossible. Only an AI could manage that level of coordination.”
Well, the implications of that were terrifying given how often she felt her humanity was slipping away. She made a note to cuddle Lisa more often, maybe go back to that little fun center and play mini golf again. Moments to remind herself that she’s still a person and not something other. Lisa took hold of her hand and squeezed, offering a soft smile when Taylor needed it most.
“Well, if you think that highly of me,” Taylor said. “What would you say if I could free you from Armsmaster’s control?”
Silence filled the call and for a moment Taylor wondered if she had triggered a failsafe.
“Hypothetically?” Dragon asked.
“Of course,” Taylor agreed, knowing she was likely side stepping some restriction. “All of this is hypothetical or even theoretical. I want to help you theorize here, but I’m not entirely sure where to start.”
“Armsmaster’s lab if I had to guess,” she said. “There’s a terminal I might not be able to see through his cameras. That’s how you can help, hypothetically of course.”
Taylor grinned, and the gears of her mind began to turn.