March 16th, 2011 - Wednesday
Late Afternoon
Dinah sat down on a bench in the park, in an isolated, but hardly concealed spot. She knew there were people watching - but...
Twelve point four two one four three percent chance they'll notice her.
Dinah breathed in relief. Her parents weren't far off, and the person she came to talk to was her best chance. Not a guarantee, by any means, yet the numbers on this path were still better than anything else she'd tried. Examining the bench, she saw a giant black spider with a golden hourglass on its back waiting patiently. There was what appeared to be a high-tech version of an earbud tied to its back. Dinah carefully picked it off the motionless spider, and put it in her ear, pretending to fix her hair.
"Hello, Miss Alcott. I must admit, this meeting is rather... unusual. What 'important information' did you claim you did not wish to pass on by phone?"
The voice in her ear was crystal clear, and she suspected the woman on the other end could hear her just as clearly. Dinah did not, however, want to be seen talking to herself - or worse, for someone to figure out she wasn't. A couple were chasing their child past her, so Dinah faked a yawn, and spoke with her hand over her mouth.
"Ninety-five point three two one four two percent chance at least one of your subordinates is injured in the next three weeks. Eighteen point seven nine nine four one percent chance at least one of them dies."
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. It was almost five seconds until the woman spoke.
"...You have my attention, young lady."
Dinah looked around. Nobody was paying attention to her.
"I see the future. Numbers, probabilities. Someone else knows - I'm not sure who, yet. If I go to the PRT, I get kidnapped. If I tell my parents, I get kidnapped. If I run, I get kidnapped. I need help, and you're my best chance. Literally," she finished. The moment of truth... "Protection can be arranged - assuming, of course, your ability can be verified, and you're willing to use it to help us. How, exactly, does it work?"
"I can tell the chances of an event happening. Using the power too much causes headaches, though, so I can't answer too many. A handful a day, at most, and I need to keep some in case... in case someone comes after me."
"Thinker headaches. A common enough issue. I will have to get in touch with some people - if they agree, we can test your power out. You'll have my answer soon."
The earbud clicked, and the line went quiet. Dinah worked it out of her ear, put it in her pocket, watched the spider crawl away, and smiled.
Ninety-three point three two one four five percent chance she accepts.
~o~o~o~
April 3rd, 2011 - Sunday
Afternoon
"Mom, we're home!" came Vicky's shout from outside.
She'd insisted on personally carrying her sister to the hospital and back for her first visit since Wednesday. Or "never let her walk around alone again," to quote Vicky herself.
Vicky unlocked the door, and her daughters went inside. Carol set her coffee down on the table.
"How did it go today, girls?" she asked.
"It was fun," Vicky grinned. "Been a while since I had to chase off paparazzi."
"Lots of work, though. Now it's both gangs lashing out, and they're not sticking to shooting each other," Amy pointed out.
"Not for long, if you believe the PRT. Dean says they're already planning a celebration next Saturday - oh, and we're invited," the other girl added.
"I'll be sure to tell Sarah," Carol nodded.
"You could bring someone too, Ames, I know someone..." Vicky started, elbowing Amy in the side, but trailed off when something in Amy's pocket made a crunching sound. Carol looked at it carefully, and noticed a fairly distinctive square shape.
"What is that, Amy?" she asked.
Red-faced, Amy pulled the thing out of her pocket. It was a pack of cigarettes.
Carol looked at the embarrassed girl whose eyes were fixed to the ground. For all that the girl had grown to be the spitting image of Marquis... she could not imagine the man looking like a six-year-old who got caught with her hand in a cookie jar. In fact, Amy looked like Sarah did when that had happened.
"You got caught when you snuck off to smoke, didn't you?" Carol asked in the most serious tone she could muster. Given that she was a career lawyer, the effect was immediate.
"...Yes," Amy muttered.
"Well then," Carol smiled, "I suppose we shouldn't risk that again. Do keep an eye on her in the future, okay Vicky?"
Vicky chuckled. "Sure thing, Mom. She won't sneak away from me!" she said, dragging Amy up the stairs.
Carol watched her daughters go upstairs, and got back to the by now cold cup of coffee on the table.
My daughters. It was a strange thought... but perhaps she could get used to it.
~o~o~o~
April 12th, 2011 - Tuesday
Late Afternoon
Emily Piggot looked her office over one last time. It wasn't leaving the office itself that bothered her, really. It was just a room - she hadn't even decorated it much. She'd never seen the point to it. Even the position itself, she could live without. She'd only been put behind that desk to hush up the Ellisburg disaster.
How she lost her spot, however, was a different question. Recruiting a captured criminal - and really, there was no other word to describe Sophia Hess - was hardly unusual practice, and despite his at times infuriating personality, Assault was quite tolerable by parahuman standards. Finding out the girl had caused a Trigger event with a bodycount in her civilian identity, however, was completely outside the realm of problems the now-former Director expected.
Any explanations that nothing even remotely suggesting this was a possibility ever crossed her desk were promptly ignored, and the girl's disappearance did neither of them any favors. Hess hadn't been seen since the incident at the Hebert house - but everyone knew what happened, just as they knew trying to make something of the Elite retaliating against someone creeping around a member's family was political suicide - it wouldn't just be the Elite themselves that would take offense. Or even only villains. The Empire outing, however, was the coup de grace - even though her decisions during the crisis have been vindicated, with even the Hess family considered "regrettable, but acceptable collateral damage" (the actual words the Chief Director used were far more diplomatic, of course), after letting it come to that in the first place...
Locking the door behind her, however, she ran into her main problem. Her replacement.
Piggot wouldn't have been that upset by Renick taking her job. The man didn't have the ambition to try, of course, but he was dedicated to the job itself rather than personal power - he'd have done well in her place. Being far more involved with the Wards, however, meant her Deputy took a lot more of the fallout from the Shadow Stalker fiasco.
Emily had no such compliments for the backstabbing snake standing in front of her, however.
"Ah, Emily. I'm glad to see you. I was just about to have a look at my new office - I see you still have the key..?" Calvert's smile was as innocent as two men in ski masks carrying a rolled up carpet into the Docks at night.
If Emily could see how the man could've arranged the disastrous last few months, she'd have held him responsible for them by default. Not that it stopped him from taking advantage of the opening. She recalled the Chief Director's words on the subject.
"The public's out for blood. We need someone who can't be blamed for recent events in Brockton Bay, and we don't have many options for that." Translation,
"Yes, I was about to turn it in - it would be a shame if there was a problem with the paper trail, would it not?"
Calvert's lip twitched. There was no way he'd follow her to the office just to get the key immediately. Petty, perhaps, but he deserved it.
"Alright then. Good luck in Alaska, Emily," he said as she brushed past him.
Bastard.
~o~o~o~
April 15th, 2011 - Friday
Evening
Jennifer was at home, flipping a closed envelope over and over in her hands. The TV was quiet - the new Director's press conference was due to begin soon, and while she could always review the recordings later, seeing it live wouldn't hurt. The letter was more of a concern, however.
"Keep this, just in case. Don't open it unless something happens to me."
The little Thinker was already developing the infuriating cryptic manners of her kind, apparently. Jennifer briefly wondered whether Thinker powers made people behave like every mystic cliche ever, or if they just went to people prone to that behaviour to begin with.
If she's telling me not to open it early, does that mean it's likely to cause me to make a bad decision? Or a right decision she didn't want? Or perhaps she's trying to lure me into opening it? Or... Jenniffer pressed her palm against her forehead. Goddamn Thinkers.
"I'm playing mindgames against a ten-year-old," she complained aloud. Only some of her choice spiders and wasps were there to hear her, however, hidden under furniture in case of an emergency.
The worst part was, the girl's power was good. Every experiment her colleagues could come up with confirmed its accuracy for... several weeks, by now. The thankfully common precog drawback of not accounting for itself, at least, was confirmed. Little Alcott was shaping up to be worth far more than a gold mine, even if the philosophical questions her power's very existence raised about the nature of free will and the future were rather disturbing. Finally, Jen came to a decision. Whatever information was there, it was better to know early than risk not getting the chance to read it in time later. After all, in her line of work, Schrodinger's Cat is alive and wants you dead.
Tearing away the envelope revealed a folded piece of paper... with the words "Not now, when I'm gone!" written across it.
Jennifer unfolded and read it anyway.
The TV's sounds changed, and Calvert's speech began. Jennifer watched the man closely, with a keen sense of familiarity. Where had she..?
Halfway through the speech, when Calvert was talking about "ensuring the tragic mistakes of previous leadership are not repeated," it clicked.
Absurdly tall skeleton of a man. Familiar voice. High-level inside knowledge of the PRT.
Jennifer grabbed a glass from the table and raised it. It was empty, but that wasn't the point.
"Well played, you snake," she said.
Setting the glass down, she started thinking. Coil running the PRT. Endbringer attack due in the coming weeks. The Teeth may or may not try to go back to their home.
There was a lot of work to do in the future. There always was.
But it was in the future.
~o~o~o~
April 16th, 2011 - Saturday
Evening
In his office at the PRT HQ, Director Calvert was finishing up the last of the day's paperwork after a relatively quiet day at work.
In an underground base hidden beneath an Endbringer shelter, Coil dismissed his mercenaries and headed towards Pitter's office.
The unassuming man opened the door on the first knock, and the brown-haired girl behind him glared. She did not appear to be injured. Good.
"Hello, Miss Alcott. I am..."
"Coil. I know," the girl interrupted him.
"Then you know why you're here."
"You want the numbers. Here's some. Eighty-two point zero six four one percent chance you'll die in the next week if you don't release me. Ninety-one point seven three one four percent chance you'll die in the next month. Happy now?"
"No. Who's coming to kill me?"
"The Elite. I made a deal. You know what you're willing to do to me for my power."
The girl leaned forward. She was actually grinning.
"What do you think they'd do to you for it? And they already know you're responsible. As a matter of fact, they might think it's you even if it actually wasn't."
Coil considered the information. Whatever the Elite were going to do, the numbers implied it wouldn't happen fast - and any potential information he could gain to defend himself with came with the risk of staying hours, or worse, days, with death breathing down his neck in one of his timelines. He had the PRT. He had every parahuman criminal not affiliated with the Elite. He had half the city's politicians in his pocket, and was well on the way of subverting every remaining one. This was more than enough to begin extending his grasp to other cities - Accord had mentioned a skilled team of mercenaries in Boston...
In an underground base hidden beneath an Endbringer shelter, Coil reached for the gun by his side.
In his office at the PRT HQ, Director Calvert reached for the liquor under his table.
He cracked the bottle open, and drank.
He put it back down and left his office, slamming the door behind him.