"Damn you Sophia!" - Speech

' Why, Emma?' - Thought

Beta'd by BigCC

Droplet 3.5

+++Armsmaster+++

Later

Director Piggot's Office, PRT ENE Building, Brockton Bay

Armsmaster was already mentally bracing himself as he finished his report to Director Piggot. Today had been a very bad day for the PRT for a multitude of different reasons, and his report regarding the incident that had occurred inside Brockton Bay City Hall while they were trying to quell the violence caused by the most recent clash between the Merchants and the Empire was doubtlessly only going to make the situation that much worse.

"So." When Emily Piggot spoke, her voice was frostily cold and tightly controlled. "On top of us having to deal with a Parahuman free-for-all between the Empire and Merchants, which rapidly grew into an utter clusterfuck of vehicular destruction and property damage; an Independent Parahuman just waltzed into City Hall in broad daylight, casually immobilized two members of building security, and then just sauntered into an abrupt meeting with the mayor himself without so much as a by-your-leave before departing with absolutely no consequences. It that an accurate summation of events, Armsmaster?"

The Tinker withheld the urge to sigh in aggravation. The Director, as she sometimes did whether she wanted to admit it or not, just framed the entire event as in a way that laid every issue at the feet of the Parahumans involved without even acknowledging the failings and actions of the regular humans involved in the incident. Not an unexpected thing given her rather blatant biases, but it was more than slightly annoying to deal with.

"I am afraid not Director; the matter involving City Hall is a bit more complicated than you wish to attribute." he responded firmly. "Eyewitnesses clearly report that the two security personnel were the ones to both initiate hostilities and open fire with live firearms, both without any form of provocation from Riptide other than their presence. There is no law that would prevent Riptide from being in City Hall in costume, so the ones in violation of the law are the guards. The mayor himself also supports this stance, having already fired both men and had them arrested while instructing the police to press all available charges against them, up to and including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and reckless endangerment."

That response actually brought the Director up short, which was odd since he had already stated that pretty much verbatim in his initial report. It was evident she had only been half-listening when he had originally reported in, or at least had only paid attention to the parts that she had wanted to hear.

"I…see…" she offered after a moment, eyes narrow. She clearly didn't enjoy having the story she had already framed in her mind be disproved. That was just a shame for her.

"Furthermore, Riptide was accompanied by a young girl also wearing a costume. I think we can safely assume just who it might be based solely on their height." Armsmaster added, indicating a wall screen and accessing it with a quick eye-flick of his visor console, causing an image of Riptide and her young companion to appear on the screen.

"Dinah Alcott…" Piggot answered, a hint of disbelief on her face before she shook her head. "No wonder Mayor Christner is already on the war path; those idiots opened fire on his preteen niece!"

"I was able to do a quick background check on the two men in question while I was heading back from City Hall." Armsmaster offered. "Both applied for and were rejected by the PRT due to failing their psychological exams, both showing clear signs of extreme bias against Parahumans in general, to the point that one alluded that 'every one of them should just be shot before they can cause trouble.' Mayor Christner has already blacklisted the company that recommended them for the security positions and he was quite intent of having the backgrounds of all of the other members of his staff provided by that same company checked to ensure that such dangerously rampant bias will not cause him further issues."

The rather blunt warning in his tone made Piggot scowl slightly at him before she decided to move on. "Do we believe that Dinah Alcott is a Parahuman or was the costume simply some kind of ruse to at least partially disguise her?"

"Inconclusive at the moment, but current evidence seems to support the former. The mayor was quite evasive regarding just what, if any, powers that his niece, who is going by the alias Augury, possesses." Armsmaster offered bluntly. "He did, however, offer both electronic and physical statements provided by both Riptide and Miss Alcott regarding her initial kidnapping. To summarize, the mercenaries, who we currently believe to have been in the employ of Coil, knew exactly where to find Dinah Alcott when she was attempting to hide within her home, moving directly toward her hiding place without even slowing to search the area. While her bedroom cupboard might not be the hardest hiding place to determine for someone seeking a hiding child, the fact that they, at least as far as Dinah could detect, headed directly to her hiding spot after entering her room points to this being something more. They knew where she was going to be when they came in."

"Some form of spotter? Possibly with a set of heat vision goggles capable of seeing through the walls of her home in order to quickly locate her?" Piggot offered, playing the Devil's Advocate for sake of analysis.

"Extremely unlikely. It is currently the middle of summer and the ambient temperature during the estimated time of the kidnapping was roughly eighty degrees. That level of heat would have severely degraded the effectiveness of any form of thermal scanning. Other means of scanning are also highly unlikely since we found no such devices amongst the mercenaries we arrested and having a lone spotter travel alone and separately would be both wasteful and would have attracted more attention." he answered simply. "More than that, multiple eyewitnesses have placed the mercenaries and the vehicle they were driving outside the Alcott Residence for several minutes, with no other vehicles moving through the area, before they stormed the location. I believe that we can take this as at least tentative confirmation that Coil is in fact a Parahuman, likely some form of Thinker if he was directing the mercenaries himself."

"Well, that bit of information will be useful going forward, so at least something decent came out of this day." the obese woman harrumphed gruffly. "The Empire/Merchant engagement ended up destroying over twenty cars, left over three dozen suffering some form of injury, and caused moderately severe property damage to the surrounding area. It's honestly nothing short of a miracle that no one ended up dead with Stormtiger, Cricket, and Hookwolf involved. And don't get me started on Squealer."

Armsmaster nodded in agreement. The fact that Mush had taken to using nearby cars as ammunition to try and keep Hookwolf at a distance was also something worth worrying over, but not important enough to bring up at this juncture.

And frankly, the less said about Squealer and her latest 'creatively designed vehicle' the better as far as he was concerned. Those monstrosities were an absolute disgrace to Tinkertech everywhere and inefficient to the point that it made him physically ill to study them at times.

Though that could also be due to the lingering smells.

"Did the mayor have anything to say about Riptide? Anything that could give us a better idea of just why they've decided to keep Dinah?" Piggot demanded. She had forcibly taken jurisdiction of the Alcott Kidnapping from the BBPD shortly after the case was opened, mostly justified by the presence of the Tinkertech Laser Attachments that were found in the possession of the mercenary team responsible for the initial kidnapping. So far, they had kept it quiet mostly due to the lack of information but Piggot was only willing to go so far to keep the heat off Riptide if there was even a hint that they were holding a minor against their will.

"Just his own belief that Dinah Alcott is indeed a Parahuman and that her attempted kidnapping was an attempt to get control of her and her power rather than anything to do with her relation to him." Armsmaster answered. "It would definitely explain why Coil went to such lengths to kidnap her in the first place, considering even the most generous estimation on the possible monetary gains of such an action would be significantly less than the expenses associated with hiring and equipping a mercenary team the size and level of the one that we detained."

"Hmm. And why has Riptide seemingly taken custody over Dinah in the aftermath?" the Director asked.

"Because both Mayor Christner and Riptide believe that Coil, though they have not mentioned him specifically, has yet to give up on attempting to acquire Dinah Alcott for himself." the Tinker answered tightly. The sheer audacity of this type of breach in the Unwritten Rules was galling for any Parahuman, but the fact that Coil was also targeting a child and was prepared to continue to do so until he acquired what he wanted was enough to cause even his own well-tempered self-control to start to unravel. "Until the threat that he represents is neutralized, the mayor has given his blessings to have her remain in Riptide's custody for her own safety, likely within their own workshop."

"Whose location we can only guess at, with only a likely presumption that it is somewhere near the water." Piggot grunted in annoyance. It was a logical conclusion for a Tinker that seems to specialize in water-based technologies. "That could mean anything from a gutted-out warehouse in the abandoned areas of the Docks to hidden somewhere in the storm drains. Tch. More annoyingly, even the mayor seems to be at least partially suspicious of us, given how cagey he's being with the information that he received from Riptide."

"To be judiciously fair, the likelihood that the gangs have managed to acquire some form of moles or similar informants within the PRT is…uncomfortably high." Armsmaster pointed out distastefully. "Someone as well aware of the harsher realities of the world like Mayor Christner would likely already have suspected such and would react accordingly, and Riptide has already proven themselves to be very pragmatically paranoid in her own interactions with law enforcement. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Riptide provided the mayor with secondary copies of the reports he gave us for his own safekeeping, just in case the originals 'mysteriously' disappear."

The Director's nostril flared slightly in a show of anger, but she quickly forced herself back to calm. It was admittedly galling to admit, even just to herself, that her own organization was not free of traitors or corruption. Add in the manpower deprivations that PRT ENE was currently facing, which meant she barely had enough men to keep an active presence in the more affluent areas of the city and the fact she was being forced to keep going as normal with little to no support or reinforcements in sight, and Piggot literally couldn't afford to start a witch hunt within her own ranks to try and root them out.

That both a civilian (particularly a member of the local government) and an Independent Cape both shared such a poor opinion of her and her organization that they were already taking measures to protect themselves should their suspicions prove accurate was simply adding even more fuel to that particularly painful fire.

"Inform Triumph of everything that happened, tell him to keep it quiet and that if he has any questions to bring them directly to me." she ordered brusquely, before pausing a moment and shaking her head. "On second thought, inform Miss Militia of everything and have her pass it on to him. Is there anything else that you feel needs reporting?"

"Two things, ma'am. Firstly, the Mayor's Office was bugged before Riptide visited." Armsmaster stated. "Upon arrival, Riptide utilized a Tinkertech device that located and isolated all of the aforementioned listening devices, before neutralizing them before she left without ever approaching their locations. Mayor Christner requested I take a look at them, which I did. Two of them seem to be legitimate devices that match standard equipment, so they were likely planted by one or more of the Alphabet Agencies investigating the Mayor's Office for whatever reason. The other two are significantly less sophisticated and are likely plants slipped in by one or more of the gangs. The mayor has requested some form of anti-bug measures be provided for his office to keep this from happening again."

Piggot immediately wanted to deny the request as a conditioned reflex, but paused to think. There might be an opportunity here. "How long would it take you to design and assemble such a device. One that could be operated by a normal civilian."

"I could have one ready in less than ten minutes of assembly time. I assisted Dragon and Masamune in designing a similar device not that long ago." Armsmaster replied easily. "I have an upgraded and advanced version of it installed in my own workshop to prevent any kind of unapproved surveillance of my own work. I would not even need to access my own material budget to prepare it, most of the components I'd need I already keep for maintenance on my own systems, and the rest are simply general parts that I always keep in ready stock."

"Very well, take care of it." Piggot nodded. "The regular maintenance that Tinkertech requires will have you near the mayor more frequently going forward. Try and strike up a rapport with them man and see if we can get anything more."

"As you say." the Tinker replied with a stiff nod.

"And the second matter?" the Director asked.

"According to the Mayor, Riptide was able to confirm my own line of investigation: the laser rifle attachments we acquired from the mercenaries were indeed purchased from Toybox." Armsmaster stated. "Riptide apparently has some form of connection with them and contacted the group regarding the Alcott Kidnapping and the circumstances surrounding it. While they refused to break client confidentiality, Toybox has already informed Riptide that their own investigation has resulted in the buyer, likely Coil, being blacklisted from any further dealings with their organization. That means that his mercenaries will only have a limited amount of Tinkertech to work with going forward until he runs out completely."

Piggot's face briefly flickered in annoyance at the mention of the rogue Tinker collective, again not surprising. Toybox was an organization that she had never hidden her disdain for; Parahumans that sold their skills and services to the highest bidder, who acted with no form of control or limitation on what they were allowed to do outside of each other. Locating them was all-but impossible considering that their hideouts were always undetectable and that they moved around quite frequently.

Sadly, she could do nothing to them. Standard orders were to allow the Triumvirate to deal with Toybox for whatever bizarre reasons. It made absolutely no sense, but any attempted protests that she could make would be fruitless, and Brockton Bay already had enough on its plate to deal with that she was not going to even attempt adding another Sisyphean task to the list.

"Well, that at least removes one of his organization's only real advantages for the time being." Piggot allowed. "You've already studied the attachments we confiscated; just how long will it take for them to wear out?"

"Each attachment is designed to be disposable, capable of firing anywhere between twenty or thirty shots before burning out. That capacity will likely erode toward the lower end as time goes on, even if they are being kept in secure storage." Armsmaster answered with a slight tilt of his head. "Unfortunately, it highly likely that Coil bought them in bulk and given how rarely we've seen him actively make use of them, he's likely got a substantial stockpile built up. It is now a finite source, but unless we can find where they are stored and either seize or destroy them, his mercenaries will likely retain access to them for some time to come. Even afterwards, we will still be dealing with the threat of hardened mercenaries armed with regular assault rifles."

The woman opposite of him rolled her eyes, much to his confusion. "Yes, well, that is true enough." she allowed blandly. "If there is nothing else you need to report…"

"No, Director."

"Good. Step up operations to gather information on Coil and bring him into custody. Now that we know that we're likely dealing with a Thinker, have proper protocols activated in full." Emily ordered, eyes flashing in anger. "If that cowardly snake thinks he's tough enough to get away with kidnapping children in my jurisdiction, then it is time we start acting like a mongoose and ferret him out of whatever hole he's hiding in before bringing him to heel. And Armsmaster, I do not want New Wave or Riptide taking him in. Coil has been too low-key until now to have pulled this kind of shit without some kind of reason. I want him in our cells and being interrogated for every detail on why, post haste."

' As well as ensuring that all the credit for his capture goes to the local Protectorate and PRT.' Armsmaster finished in his own head, reading the unsubtle undertone in her words.

"I will do my best to see that it happens, Director." he replied honestly.

"See that you do." Emily replied bluntly. "Dismissed."

As Armsmaster left the Director's office, he sourly wondered if Riptide realized just how much work that they had just dumped onto the Protectorate with their latest stunt. Likely not, and even if they did it was unlikely that they even cared.

One minor thing that Armsmaster had neglected to mention to the Director was the way that Mayor Christner had described Riptide. ' The strangest mixture of being incredibly young, idealistic, and naïve, and yet completely and utterly paranoid,' was the general summation of the man's words. The paranoia was both understandable and even commendable when one was an Independent Tinker, but the description of the young Parahuman as naïve and idealistic bothered Armsmaster a bit. The Director had little to no trust in Parahumans, her doubts about any 'idealistic' heroic Cape that refused to join the Protectorate were large and her opinion of them was scathing at best.

To Emily Piggot, Parahumans needed both regulation and observation in order to not cause chaos and could not be trusted to their own devices.

While such an attitude had its uses when dealing with Villains, it caused no ends of tension and friction when dealing with more neutral or even allied Parahumans. One of the better examples that often came to his mind was her refusal to trust the Protectorate Capes to provide proper oversight, training and supervision for the Wards, and thus she had the Wards Base transferred from The Rig to the PRT Headquarters almost as soon as she was appointed as ENE Director. In doing so, she regularly demoralized the Wards if anything went wrong on their deployments by dressing them down like they were a bunch of PRT recruits, utterly ignored the negative effects that Shadow Stalker's continued caustic behavior had on the rest of the Wards just by forced association with her, regularly demanded results that were well beyond their training and experience…the list went on.

Armsmaster didn't know how much longer Brockton Bay could be held together and kept from violently detonating even with, as Assault had once so eloquently described her, 'a hardass bitch with a chip on her shoulder the size of freaking Mount Rushmore' in charge. All it would take is one small spark to set the entire city ablaze and he was starting to suspect that Riptide might just be, or could easily become, that spark. The idealism and determination of a new Cape trying to make a difference, clashing with the cynicism and mistrust that a bigoted fatalist like Emily Piggot endorsed, was not something that he wanted to witness, especially since it could very easily end with him being ordered to attack Riptide.

Shaking his head to shake off those worrying thoughts, he started to make his way towards the garage so that he could make his way back to The Rig. Miss Militia would be there cooling off after the fight with the Empire and the Merchants. As a Noctis Cape, she did not need to sleep at all (a fact he would admit to being slightly envious of) but she still felt the effects of mental strain and exhaustion and required rest and relaxation in order to recuperate from them.

' She is not going to thank me for putting this on her plate.' he mused to himself. Triumph, or Rory Christner, was a young and emotional young man who was going to be told that his younger cousin was currently in the custody of an Independent Cape for reasons that he would need to take up directly with Director Piggot. Colin would admit to not being the best at social interactions, and even he could predict that this was going to go down about as well as leaving Assault and Clockblocker unsupervised at a high society gala.

Hannah was far better at social situations than he was, though. Hopefully she'd be able to break things to Triumph in a way that wouldn't have him barging into the Director's office shouting at the top of his lungs and demanding answers.

He knew that it wasn't a likely occurrence, but hoping had never hurt anyone.

Same Time

Living Room, Thomas Calvert's Home, Brockton Bay

In one timeline, the tall, thin black man known as Thomas Calvert was sitting in his living room easy chair, absently enjoying a show on the television. In the second, however, Calvert was currently in the midst of a bloody rampage through his neighborhood with the combat shotgun and Uzi that he kept in a well-hidden and secured safe within his home, roaring out his anger and frustration as he let himself give full vent to his spleen after one of his neighbors dared to interrupt his brooding via deciding to mow their lawn.

It was one of the smaller pleasures that his power provided, the ability to indulge in the petty and frankly stupidly violent overreactions that anyone with any measure of sanity would instantly banish from their minds after they formed. It was also remarkably good stress relief.

He decided to end his 'venting' timeline as the BBPD started showing up, deciding that a firefight would do nothing more to help his mood, while the man in the remaining timeline rose from his chair to grab a beer from his fridge. That bit of stress relief had taken some of the edge off, but he was still utterly furious. It had been week since the clusterfuck that was his attempt to finally obtain his Pet and his ill mood had yet to dim, with the message he'd received from Toybox notifying him that his 'attempted breach of the Unwritten Rules' had earned him a blacklisting from their organization had only worsened his mood.

He hadn't been able to actually do much 'real' work since. He was simply too angry to concentrate and needed to keep his secondary timeline open to vent lest he accidentally lose control of his temper in a 'safe' timeline and risk even more damage to his organization.

' Riptide is doubtlessly responsible for this setback as well.' the villainous mastermind seethed for the nth time as he returned to his chair. ' Only eight rifles and their attachments were checked into the PRT evidence lockers, so that meddling pest must have taken the other two, somehow managed to backtrack them to Toybox, and then went and started tattling. One day, when I have the time and luxury to do so, I am going to track down that worthless collection of cowardly lab rats and ensure that they suffer suitably for this insult.'

At the very least, Pyrotechnical was unable to do anything about the equipment that Coil had already purchased from Toybox, and was even refunding the payment he had just sent in for the order he'd place only a few days prior to his blacklisting. Small mercies, he supposed.

Still, Tinkertech that could be readily used by regular people was not an easy thing to acquire. There was a reason that Toybox made most of their money not from one-of-a-kind creations that were specially requested by America's most affluent and well-to-do, but rather from the large quantities of simple, easy-to-use items that anyone with two brain cells to spark with could make use of that they provided. Those laser attachments were easily one of Pyrotechnical's biggest sellers and made the Tinker most of his money each year.

Unfortunately, the number of Rogue Tinkers near Brockton Bay that he could attempt to do business with (or could be 'acquired' for his service) was close to nil. The nearest viable option was Blasto, Boston's resident Biotinker, but that option was simply too much effort for too little gain. Blasto did not sell his services, and he had a small army of bio-engineered beasties under his control acting as his personal guards and enforcers which would make forcefully recruiting him a meat-grinder for his men. His Tinkering was almost exclusively linked to growing subservient lifeforms and he made very little that other people could use, other than Blasto himself occasionally using organic grenades filled with some variety of noxious substances.

As for the Tinkers within Brockton Bay itself, they were, until quite recently, all unsuitable for his needs for a number of reasons. Armsmaster's specialty in miniaturization and efficiency tended to cause the end products of his Tinkering to be highly complex and difficult for anyone else to use. Kid Win was a possibility, but the scatter-brained boy but had yet to discover his specialty and was thus an unreliable and unfavorable option for the moment. L335 was L33t, while Squealer was a drug-addled whore who simply wasn't worth the efforts sobering her up enough to be useful would take. Lung's newest recruit, Bakuda, was another possibility, but one he'd immediately dismissed after some research and a few simulated timelines. That bitch was a paranoid psychopath with a superiority complex larger than the Great Wall of China and all the common sense of a fucking flea.

' Riptide however…well now Riptide owes me quite the debt considering how many times they have interfered in my business.' Calvert thought avariciously as he absently popped the top off his beer and took a drink. ' I had already intended on acquiring them eventually, but this little incident has only moved them up on my list of priorities. Not only have they tried to deprive me of my Pet, but now they have interfered with my dealings with Toybox. I will make this foolish child regret sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. Soon enough, all of your secrets will be laid bare by my Tattletale and then I'll be able to hunt you down to every last bolt hole and hiding space you've managed to acquire until you are left open and exposed. Then you will start to repay me for all the troubles that you have caused me recently…'

Finishing his beer, he absently reset the empty can on the end table by his chair before picking up the remote and changing the channel, absently surfing through them in search of something mindless and easy to listen to…ah, a rerun of this year's Super Bowl. Suitably mindless and easy to watch. He was more of a baseball man himself, but this would do nicely.

Settling in, Thomas Calvert allowed the mindless background noise of a Super Bowl rerun to fill the air as his mind started tick over plan after plan designed to humble Riptide and bring them to heel quickly, efficiently, and abruptly.

The Next Day

Bedroom, Lisa Wilbourn's Apartment, Brockton Bay

Lazily stretched out across her bed, Lisa was actually quite busy, using her eyes, hands, and brain to rapidly shuffle and sort through the data she'd been presented. The previous day, Coil had abruptly contacted her, and his cold, clipped voice had been enough to tell her just how angry he was even without her power, before instructing her that she was being assigned additional resources and funding for the purposes of tracking down Riptide and ferreting out all of their secrets.

' So, you managed to do something that well and truly pissed off that Snaky Bastard, eh? Well done, girlie, but now he's got an utter mad-on for you. Oh well, that actually helps me for the moment.' the Thinker thought with a grin.

Again, it didn't take her powers for her to connect Coil's rage with the recent botched/attempted kidnapping of the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott, which had occurred on the same day at near the exact same time as the Undersiders' robbery of the Brockton Bay Central Bank. Obviously, they'd been meant to act as distractions to lure away the heroes so that Coil's mercs could kidnap the kid…and, given the man's newly incensed hate-boner for Riptide, it was likely the water-based Tinker had somehow managed to interfere, put a stomping onto the mercs, and then take the kid herself into protective custody.

The fact that Riptide seemingly hadn't yet returned Dinah to her parents had made Lisa curious, which was never a good thing for anyone involved. A cursory examination of the Alcott family's online presence revealed nothing other than the fact that they paid people to manage most of it for them, but then Lisa had thought back to the heart of the matter; why would Coil try and kidnap Dinah Alcott in the first place?

The first and most obvious answer (Money) was right out, and after a second she decided that the second (Influence) was out as well. That left the third and, in her opinion, most likely option: Power. A bit of digging and a bit of power use had pointed a number of clues that validated her conclusion: Dinah Alcott had recently Triggered and was now a Parahuman. Now the question was, what kind? Coil had a rather well-hidden (to everyone but her at least) contempt for the more mainline types of Parahumans: Brutes, Movers, Blaster, and Shakers; viewing most of them as little more than living expendable resources, useful but not all that invaluable or worth the kind of heat this kind of thing could bring down on him. Instead, the man seemed to covet the more subtle kinds of powers for his personal pawns: Thinkers, Tinkers, Strangers, and Masters.

' He was making plans to forcibly recruit Riptide while he was still planning this out, so I doubt that Dinah's a Tinker.' Lisa contemplated. ' And any Stranger power worth the effort wouldn't be so easily caught by a bunch of mercs. So that leaves either a Thinker or Master power. Of the two, a Thinker type is the likelier kind to be worth all the effort and risk involved, particularly if they're on at least the same level as me.'

That thought had her grimacing. Lisa was a bit too useful as a member of the Undersiders for Coil to risk seriously fucking her over with torture or drugs that might render her unreliable, but a twelve-year old kid? Yeah, that poor girl would have likely disappeared into a locked room and never been heard of by anyone ever again, constantly drugged up to her eyeballs with some kind of addictive poison to keep her nice and compliant. That was just the kind of thing that a ruthless bastard like Coil would try and pull; absolutely pissing on the Unwritten Rules as long as he was sure he wouldn't get caught. Something as trivial as a person's age wouldn't even cause him to hesitate to apply any and all methods at his disposal to ensure his new acquisition's 'compliance.'

Shaking that rather disturbing line of thought away for now, the blonde-haired teen returned to her analysis of Riptide. She still hadn't found any visible indicator to just why the water Tinker had switched to performing day patrols rather than keeping to her previous focus on nighttime outings. That it had been fortuitously timed enough to foil one of Coil's more ambitious plans would normally have been a red flag, but there was not a single speck of data that seemed to indicate that Riptide had any form of insight into Coil's organizations or plans.

' Pure coincidence. It has to be. Otherwise, she'd likely be beating down the doors to that Endbringer Shelter he's retrofitted into his personal bond villain lair before tossing him to the PRT.' Lisa thought out as she picked up one of the newer reports she'd just gotten in. ' Hmm…what's this…? Riptide was at City Hall today? What could that…?'

Her eyes quickly devoured the words of the brief, but highly informative, report that one of Coil's moles in City Hall had provided on the incident, her power analyzing everything and rapidly spitting out deductions and conclusions. ' Huh…one of the Boss's affiliated companies has been sneaking men like those two mouth-breathing neanderthals into places as security guards to plant bugs and give him access to a few more backdoors. Not a bad trick, but it looks like those two idiots just shot that plan in the foot, at least in City Hall. Boss might even need to liquidate that shell company and the other assets associated with it if Mayor Christner starts spreading word about what happened. This 'Augury' has got to be Dinah. So she and Riptide decided to pay her uncle a visit and the man willingly let Dinah leave with Riptide as well…Interesting…'

The rest of the report was pretty much a list of PRT Troopers coming and going, followed by the arrival of Armsmaster, with an added note at the bottom indicating that the bug they'd planted in the mayor's bookshelf had been disabled just prior to the Mayor's meeting with Riptide and then destroyed right before the Water Tinker left. Three guess on who was responsible there…

' Now if I were Riptide, I'd be keeping my head down for a bit.' the Thinker considered, nibbling on her lip carefully as she considered everything. ' They likely won't be going on any patrol for at least a few more days, maybe another week tops, before resuming their normal night patrols at least. That should give me time to get some remote monitoring equipment set up around where she's showing up the most. Getting a bit of actual footage or their armor and weapons in action will at least give me some idea on just what they is capable of doing and how to fight them.'

She didn't like pulling this kind of shit. Lisa honestly felt little to no regret about doing this to most of the Capes in Brockton Bay, but that was because more than half of them were villains and the rest were mostly paid government employees, both groups she had some kind of axe to grind with. Riptide on the other hand was very obviously neither of the two and the fact that they was messing up Coil's schemes only endeared them more to Lisa. Still, if she was going to survive, then she had to at least appear to be following orders…for the moment at least.

"Time to start making some phone calls…" Lisa mused absently as she reached for her phone.