Reality Intrudes

20

Thomas Calvert leapt to his feet and roared in frustration, punching his desk. His head exploded. He split the time line and he screamed as he was shot in the chest. He split the timeline again and his car exploded. One more split and he was run down by a truck. Another split and he tumbled into the bottom of a ditch and scrambled into a culvert. A semi stopped and he heard a gurgling noise then a whoosh as the flame front chased down the drainage and into the culvert. Split, shot. Split, grenade. Split knife in the ribs. Split, nothing.

Thomas blinked. In both timelines he continued down his escape route to the car. He got in and at the same time turned the key in both ignitions. He realized his mistake as he heard the high pitched whine. He dove out of the car. In one timeline he got full thickness burns over the rear fifty percent of his body. In the other he was decapitated by the door skin as it fluttered away from the car.

Thomas watched as the door opened in reality and snarled at the woman in the hat. She looked at him, shook her head and motioned. Two men in PRT trooper uniforms stepped through the door and drug Thomas back through it.

Contessa turned and looked at the graffiti on the garage wall. "I will still kill him Hat. Time is, after all, on my side." Contessa blinked.

Reality Intrudes

Alice snorted at Jim "Have fun?"

Jim sighed "Killed him down to one and nearly got the other. Hat picked him up."

Alice grunted and rolled onto her side "Good enough. We will get her ass later too. Got to be interdimensional or something. That Haywire idiot made a portal. I'll figure it out."

Sherrel poked her in the boob "Stay in your lane. I got that shit. You get me one point two one gigawatts or better of electricity."

"Ouch! Hey, don't poke the baby feeder!"

"Jim, poke the baby maker."

Jim sighed and pulled her into a spoon. "Aren't you supposed to stop being horny at some point?"

"You better hope not Gaijin. Best you will ever have." Janice and Sherrel flipped her the bird and laughed.

Alexandria walked in "Jim, what the hell did you do to Contessa? She is doing paths so much she can't even talk anymore."

Jim snickered "I left Hat a message. I figured she might get to fucking Calvert if I didn't whack him quick enough. Vagaries of the battlefield, I got one of him but the other just got crispy fried. She got him before I got the next attack off."

"By the way I am still killing that fuck. You don't get to fuck with my protégé. We don't need him anyway. We can use the Endbringers as test beds and then when Goldie goes nuts like you all think he will, we will whack him. I didn't spend ten years building a retirement fund for that fucking retard to make it useless."

Alexandria snorted "And now branching out into every dimension."

Jim shrugged "Planning phase but, more baskets."

Alexandria pulled him to his back "Speaking of eggs."

Reality Intrudes

Lisa turned her back on the Superliner and shuddered. Amy snickered "At it again huh?"

Rachel rolled her eyes "Alphas, they fight and fuck."

Taylor poked her "They do more than that. For one thing they teach us how to make a fortune for our kids."

Vicky nodded "Do a lot of worrying too. Not sure I want those jobs. It hasn't wrinkled one of them up yet, but those old wives tales have to have some basis in fact."

Lisa cleared her throat "Paladin fucked Calvert up hard. He is out of play."

Taylor shrugged "Not dead. We will get him later if Jim doesn't."

Amber, leader of the thinker zero crowd weighed in as she got a marshmallow stuck and into the perfect spot to turn it a golden brown "So the drones?"

Lisa shrugged "Tested. Need a little more work. Those actions need to be slowed down. The targeting system is nearly overrun at eleven hundred rounds a minute. The drones themselves are fast enough and stable enough but the elevation and traverse mechanisms need a little more work. They will work now though."

Amy grinned "So, now we just have to wait and we can time stop the next Endbringer that shows up."

Amber snorted "Only if we can get the protectorate and their people out of the way, the Endbringer in a space cleared of other people and it holds the fucker."

Rachel shrugged "Black hole grenade if the time stop doesn't work. Alice just wants one so she can play with what it's made out of."

Amy sighed "Her poor kids."

Taylor smiled "Well they do get Jim as a dad. He is pretty cool."

Reality Intrudes

"Jones Trucking is owned by Paladin." Armsmaster read over the WEDGDG report "We didn't know this sooner why?"

Emily Piggot sighed "MIRIS is operating on a shoestring so their networks and reporting systems are old, slow and barely interface with everyone else's. In other words lack of crosstalk. Jones trucking just now became a big enough economic factor to attract Wetdogs attention. It did have registered parahumans as co-owners and workers though so MIRIS knew about it and has even helped them get some permits and things."

Miss Militia snorted "Because Paladin isn't a parahuman, just the victim of one."

"Who makes good lemonade." Assault grinned. Battery backhanded him in the chest.

Emily smiled. Assault frowned in concentration playing the last few minutes over in his head. "Life handed him lemons, and yes, he does. So, school is out, the wards have permission and are going into the rotation covering Paladins operations on the Gray Boy zones. Starting with the one in Amherst."

Armsmaster nodded "There will be two Protectorate members rotating in for coverage for the six weeks the Wards are deployed. One week per pair. Miss Militia will be on site the entire time of the wards deployment as the chaperone."

"We have a tractor and trailer, worked by Paladin Security and Jones Trucking. All of the PRT Directorates are receiving them now. This truck and trailer combination will function as dormitory, armory, shops, tinker facilities, offices and in the worst case, a redoubt. You will find the manual downloading into your phones. Please take the time to study it. There will be a test before you can deploy."

"During your time with Paladin Security you and your partner along with Miss Militia will be put into a small three person team and your powers synergized by Paladins thinkers. Other Protectorate members from other directorates will also be present along with their wards and will be undergoing the same testing and training."

Assault blinked "So a live fire summer camp? I mean, Amherst? Whatever is left of the Teeth and Accords organization are bound to show up."

Emily chuckled "Almost certainly in Accords case. He apparently had left a plan and his organization purchased him and the ability to unfreeze him. You can expect some test from his organization but the Boston Protectorate is applying substantial pressure to him as well. We do not intend to have another pitched battle in a city. That being the case you will engage any attempt to penetrate the perimeter as hard as possible. While lethal force is not authorized in a general sense do what you have to to put them down, hard."

Armsmaster nodded "The rules of engagement are also uploading to your phones. There will be a test on them as well. Alexandria is often on site." He paused and everyone looked at Assault. Who sighed. Battery nodded her head and smiled tightly. Armsmaster continued "When we are not on mission with Paladin we will be conducting our normal patrol schedule here. While crime has in fact dropped to below the national average, the criminals that are left are evolving."

Assault did have something to say this time "The leaves and trash blown into the time stop zones gives away the locations with Paladin protections. The criminals focus elsewhere."

Emily nodded "And we will be too."

Battery nodded "Have we gotten more time stop rounds for the PRT Troopers? We are going to be putting some pretty serious pressure on Lung."

Emily smiled again "Yes, finally supply has caught up to demand across the PRT, so much so that if you look at your calendars you will find a time and date for pistol qualification and issue on them. Before you deploy you will be qualified on the M9. Sidearms will now be required carry items on and off duty. We have several very concealable models for you to choose from and purchase, at a very nice discount. On duty you will carry the M9. Hip or shoulder holster is up to you and Image to work out. You will carry on magazine loaded with five time stop rounds and one magazine loaded with normal nine millimeter rounds." The protectorate heroes blinked.

In the Protectorate lounge after the meeting Assault looked at Battery "OK what is going on. Piggot never smiles, and now we just spent an hour looking at her smiling nearly continuously."

Velocity chuckled "She is topped out on the promotion ladder and her directorate has settled down into something reasonable. I think she deserves some time to relax."

Triumph frowned "Knock on wood. Plus I heard Bakuda caught her in a couple of those healing things. An accident. She was trying for Alexandria to fix her eye."

Battery blinked "I thought that was Panacea figuring out she was a blaster."

Hannah shrugged "Does it matter? Velocity is right and she is healthier." The others all nodded and Battery getting out her phone got the rest of them started on everything they needed to do.

Reality Intrudes

Dennis watched Missy on the range and shook his head. Missy was a demon with a pistol. Freaking thing looked like a cannon with her using it, but she could put bullets wherever she wanted them and her face was locked in a permanent grin.

Pistol qualification and rig familiarization, to include how to drive the thing. Who knew big trucks had automatically shifted mechanical transmissions? All in a simulator of course, or on the trailer fort thing that was staying here at the protectorate but still. That thing was amazing. It was all space expanded on the inside. You could probably carry a ships worth of stuff in it. A big ship.

No wonder Jones Trucking made all that money with those land trains. Three of these trailers apiece without the room dividers. He had heard they could carry ten thousand tons per trailer. The tractor had that section on the back where the gunners and electronic warfare officers worked. Plus the sleeping quarters for all of the crew.

Then there were the prison trailers. He had been through one of them on the simulator. Along with a hospital trailer. Amazing.

Dennis looked at the grinning dancing Missy, who had just put fifteen rounds through the same hole fifty meters away.

Dean stepped up to him "Well. One of us is happy."

Dennis sighed "Yeah. Too bad Sophia was an idiot."

Missy had walked over "You just liked her ass."

Dennis shrugged "It is a nice ass."

Missy rolled her eyes "Well if someone doesn't tear it off on the containment wall in Gary you might see it again. If she pulls her head out of it and Predator or Paladin don't kill her."

Dennis nodded "Predator beat her up a bunch. She doesn't seem to hold a grudge." Missy and Dean looked at him. "What? She doesn't. She does what she is going to do then leaves you alone."

Missy nodded "To find medical attention."

Reality Intrudes

"So." Taylor walked along with her hand on the pistol grip of her single pointed M4.

Jim shifted the M21 in his arms a bit. "I don't much. A button, maybe a tear her and there."

"Ass. You know what I mean."

"I thought you were getting it. We amble along, making money in the way that we do and all these folks do what they do. It works out." Jim shrugged.

"You are the worst you know that. None of this is what these people would be doing without you around. Alice would have been a mad bomber. Sherrel would be a drugged out idiot making hillbilly tanks. I would be, I don't know, not the heir apparent to the killer man. Rachel would be monosyllabic and socially maladjusted."

"She's still monosyllabic."

"Not with me."

Jim grinned like a monkey "TMI!"

"I will shoot you." Jim had to stop walking and put his hands on his knees after resting the rifle butt on the ground. He laughed until his sides hurt. Taylor finally giggled "Ass."

After he recovered and stood up he grinned "My only plan was to make enough to retire. That's still my plan. People just keep changing the conditions so it's-"

"Survive, improvise, adapt and overcome. Yeah yeah." Taylor settled somewhat and they kept walking the perimeter.

Janice looked at Rachel where they were walking about fifty meters to the left and fifty meters behind Jim and Taylor "She even walks like him. You are going to have to do something Rachel."

Rachel shrugged "I like it."

Janice snorted "Well Panacea could give her a Jim."

Rachel nodded "Make it fully functional too. Then she can give me one. Got to take care of all this bullshit first."

"Plus let Taylor get of age maybe?" Janice asked.

Rachel snorted "Meh. Age is a number."

"An important one though."

"That's what Danny says."