Chapter Text
January 26, 2011
Lasagna could be a difficult dish to get right. It was not the sort of thing that Thomas prepared for himself at home, not for the past few years. He had no time to boil noodles, assemble layers of sauce and cheese, and bake.
It was surprising that the PRT cafeteria offered a sausage lasagna that wasn't pre-assembled and frozen, even more surprising that it was decent, maybe even fairly good.
Thomas found himself silently tapping a finger as he waited for Doctor Gorse to finish his report.
"-completely normal. In fact, our veterinary consultant said the dog was in exceptionally good health."
"Everything went smoothly, then?"
Gorse made a high pitched, noncommittal noise. "Miss Hebert insisted on being present for the entire examination. Came all the way out here to the Rig."
"I'm sure she did." Thomas let the observation hang in the dead air as Gorse waited for a response. A complaint like this was nothing Thomas cared to resolve.
"Anyway…" Gorse cleared his throat. "I've got the forms right here. 'Master projection'?"
Thomas straightened fractionally, sending his chair rolling back a mite. "No. You said it yourself, it's a normal dog."
"You sure, sir? Nobody's going to question it."
"Very sure. Thank you." That creature's animal rights were a bargaining chip for the time being. It was going to be tricky to make Rachel Lindt work as an asset while she thrashed against the PRT's constraints, but there were certainly some convenient levers for keeping her content, or at least level.
"Have a good afternoon, sir." Gorse hung up, less enthusiastic than he'd been when he'd first placed the call.
Thomas stood and stretched, a short routine, then he smoothed out his suit before opening his office door. He wasn't the only one heading to the mess hall. He exchanged nods and smiles with his coworkers.
Meanwhile, in another world, at the bottom of a gravel-lined pit, Coil walked a slow circuit of the concrete walls of his future headquarters while his mercenary captains followed behind him, briefing him on their latest operations.
"-confirmed alive, sir. Cricket's on a peg leg now, and Stormtiger's missing a bunch of fingers." The newly promoted Jaw grinned, drawing evaluating and resentful stares from his fellow captains.
Coil paused, listening to a dozen boots crunch into crushed stone. Captain Meck sneezed, and Coil was glad his body glove extended over his face to block the dust, even if it was thin enough to let a chill through. "You established visual contact?"
"We fought," Jaw said, "Seemed like they weren't all better yet from being blown up. We chased 'em off and took a whole block of Hookwolf's old turf."
"Is it wise to try to hold this territory?" Piedmont interrupted. "That's the question."
It was amusing to watch the man scramble to retain Coil's favor, unaware that his arrangement with Tattletale was no longer secret. "We hold until we see evidence that Kaiser intends to provide backup to his disgraced underlings," Coil ordered, "He may write their territory off as losses, or pressure them to beg for forgiveness before he acts."
Mercenaries nodded. A chorus of "yes, sir" complemented the almost rhythmic greetings of "good afternoon, sir" following Thomas through the halls of the PRT building.
"Piedmont, how are narcotic sales?"
"Sir, we have-"
Coil's phone rang. "Give me a moment, gentlemen. Captain Godina."
The men and one woman halted and drifted into a loose huddle with Jaw as an outlying point. Coil walked out of earshot and checked the caller ID--Tattletale's code.
He answered. "You're early."
"Security team changed up its patrols. Grue says it's now or never." Her voice was urgent.
"'Now or never.'" Coil sighed. "You sold this entire operation to me as a limited-time opportunity, now the timeline compresses even more?"
"Ibis Servers is only hosting the data-"
"Until the end of the day, I remember."
Dead air.
This was an unusual operation. It was all Grue's idea, apparently, and it was a break from the pattern of Coil requesting information or an injection of funds, paying the Undersiders or giving them a cut. This time, they were paying him for the usual aid of his power.
He needed their reputation to swell, he needed them strong, but he also needed them compliant.
"I expect more careful planning in the future," he said, "Go ahead."
"On it, boss." He could tell Tattletale was bristling, even as she tried to moderate her tone.
In his other world he stepped into a bathroom stall, opened up the encrypted messaging program hidden on his phone, and sent the code that would order the Undersiders to wait and monitor the situation for five minutes. Then he flushed the toilet and washed his hands before continuing on to the cafeteria.
As Thomas waited in line, Coil listened to Piedmont try to spin a three percent uptick in revenue, a natural fluctuation, barely out of the margin of error, as a great victory.
Tilt waved at him from a seat by the door. He nodded in acknowledgement. Shadow Stalker sat next to her. He tried to recall if he'd ever seen her eat here. Odd.
By the time Thomas had sat down with his slice of lasagna, it was Captain Godina's turn to debrief. His spoon was halfway to his mouth when Coil's phone rang for a second time.
"You'll have to excuse me again." This time, he didn't wait; he let his underlings hear him bark "What is it?" into the cell.
Tattletale's voice was strained, pained even. "We had to retreat, Regent and me. Grue and Spitfire didn't make it."
"What?" Coil hissed.
The girl took a shuddering breath. "We didn't- The security guys had machine guns, Grue used his power, but the hallway was narrow, and-"
"Stop. I get the picture."
"Fuck," Tattletale whined, "Why did you give us the all-clear? Did your power-"
Coil hung up the phone before she could glean anything about the mechanisms of his ability. Honestly, he was surprised she hadn't cracked it already. It was a little tricky to gauge since approaching her in a throwaway universe usually gave her the last missing pieces of the puzzle all at once.
Two Undersiders dead or arrested was unacceptable. He dropped the world.
Thomas branched off into Thomas A, who texted Tattletale to hold for another ten minutes, and Thomas B, who sent a longer message to warn about the equipment of the defenders, then ordered a cautious approach. He didn't like conducting Coil's business here, but none of the half dozen PRT officers had a line of sight to his phone screen. Besides, they were laser-focused on scarfing down lunch before break time ended.
Thomas A cleaned his plate quickly, then rose from the table and bussed his tray. Thomas B took the time to savor his food.
Halfway to the exit, Shadow Stalker got ahead of him and lingered on the threshold. He hadn't seen her approach. Only one of the pair of big blue doors was propped open, letting Shadow Stalker block the space with a wide, solid stance. Hit head-on by beams of sunlight, her mask glowed.
From her, a confrontational posture was nothing new. He opened his mouth to greet her, but her eyes brought him up short, just barely visible amidst the gloom within her mask. She was staring him down.
Alarm bells rang in his head. On a hunch, Thomas B glanced over to the doorway too. Shadow Stalker was there, watching him.
Goosebumps flared across his skin, burning. Before he could gather his thoughts, wondering if he should cross the entire cafeteria to the South exit, a booming voice split the air.
"Coil!"
Two hearts seemed to jolt still. Thomas desperately wanted to believe that he hadn't heard a pair voices in stereo, Tilt A and Tilt B in perfect synchronization, but he could not deny his senses. This ambush had been planned. Scheduled.
His first thought was a reproach: 'She lied about Victor.'
In both worlds, he reached into his pocket and blindly entered the sequence of button presses that would activate his agents within the headquarters. Seizing the halls between the cafeteria and the entrance, even for a few minutes, should let him escape.
If memory served, there were fewer than ten employees present in the cafeteria. An officer moved behind the service counter and closed down the steel grate over the window to the kitchen, blocking curious stares from the chefs. Still, Thomas wasn't sure he could put this cat back in the bag.
His train of thought took a sharp turn. He'd done his due diligence! When the possibility had emerged that Tilt could have outed him, he'd set up a method to test her. She'd passed. Twice. How…? When…?
'Stop,' he chastised himself, 'You can rage about the loss of your primary identity later. It's time to focus on escape.'
After a beat of hesitation, he also summoned his last resort, knowing he'd have about ten minutes to call it off.
Thomas B studiously ignored the accusation. It took effort to keep his hand moving steadily, shoveling now-tasteless pasta into his mouth.
Thomas A was unable to hide the fact that he'd been startled. He made a show of searching the room. Eye contact with everyone gathered, one by one, would help sell his confusion. 'Coil? Where?'
His blood ran colder and colder as he confirmed each new pair of eyes locked on him. He wasn't only a suspect, he was the only suspect.
Tilt was to blame for that, he saw when he finally let his eyes fall on her helmet. She was standing on top of a circular table with her lance crackling with light and pointed directly at Thomas' stomach. She was backlit by the low sun, shading the ridges of her armor.
Forcing himself to keep eating, forcing his other self to laugh, he addressed Tilt: "I thought Wards weren't allowed to bring weapons into the cafeteria."
He had to stifle the first words to rise to the tip of his tongue: 'I've killed you before and I'll do it again. Do you have any idea how easy it was?'
A pair of clicks echoed behind him as Shadow Stalker cocked her crossbows.
"Woah," said one PRT employee.
"Hey," said an officer.
Encouraging. At least a part of the crowd was focusing on the irregularity of the Wards' actions. As he chewed mechanically, Thomas B watched, from the corner of his eye, a handful of office workers quietly flee the room. He wasn't just the center of attention because Tilt had singled him out, he was the ranking officer in the room. He could work with this.
"Why don't you come down from there?" He started. "We can-"
Tilt must have taken oratory lessons through Monique, because her voice drowned out his. "Commander Thomas Calvert is a powerful precognitive! He plans to become the Director of this branch and use his position to eliminate Coil's competition while shielding his alter ego from legal action."
A frustratingly accurate summary, even if she hadn't conceived of the fact that Coil, as an identity, had an expiration date. As Tilt repeated her speech in universe B, Thomas A chose to focus on her description of his powers. He smiled. "I certainly wish I could have seen this coming."
He earned a few awkward laughs.
Tilt continued her announcement. "His power shows him a single hypothetical alternate chain of events in real time. Please be on watch in case he mentions information that he should have no way of knowing."
Thomas had to bite his cheek to keep a 'damn you!' from spewing out. He needed to calm down, but Tilt should have absolutely no way of knowing about his power, unless she was lying about the very nature of her own, not just its target. "You actually believe what you're saying, don't you?" 'I pity you,' said his tone.
'However,' he thought, 'You're still vastly underestimating my power.'
In world B, bystanders were beginning to ask why he was just sitting there. Someone approached him, and he pushed himself violently away from the table, sliding his chair into the man's knees. Sprinting, he drew his service pistol and emptied it at Tilt, who leapt at him from the table before crumpling into a wheezing heap.
"Where in hell did I make a wrong step?" he wondered aloud. One moment sprang to mind: telling Tilt he'd be available to 'chat' today. Making an appointment with her for the time block immediately after lunch service.
"You good?" called Shadow Stalker.
Calvert didn't hear a response from Tilt, but he did hear Stalker's boots land on one table, then another. She wasn't stopping to give first aid.
The South exit was almost within reach when black cords lanced through his peripheral vision. Pain erupted in his left arm and right leg, five distinct pinpoints. Arrested momentum threw him onto his back and dragged steel through his muscles.
He screamed.
Shadow Stalker answered, "Dude, come on, you look guilty as hell like that."
He collapsed that world.
At least now he could explore different branches of his ongoing conversation with Tilt. He felt more solid too, after gunning the hero down, even if her armor had likely kept her alive. He'd needed the catharsis.
Thomas C split off from Thomas A.
"I know that this is inappropriate for me to ask, but someone needs to arrest Commander Calvert." Both Tilts nodded to Shadow Stalker. "We don't have the authority."
Heads turned to exchange glances and whispers.
Thomas C ignored Tilt and sidled over to agents Tanaka and Horton, the two closest to his own rank, even if it was a wide, wide gap. "Just to make sure things go smoothly, no conflicts of interest, I'm going to engage Master-Stranger protocols as if I were compromised. Captain Horton, you're in charge here until the situation is resolved. Please address Tilt's concerns."
Horton's eyes bugged out. "But-" He shot a glance at Tanaka, who had seniority over him. "Oh, right."
Protocols for circumventing mind control called for one link in the chain of command to be skipped when passing the baton, usually to prevent a compromised agent from deposing an immediate superior, but it worked here too. Thomas liked having his spokesman pawn off-balance.
Meanwhile, Thomas A retained control. "That won't be necessary," he said. "Nobody is under arrest."
Tilt gestured sharply. "Sit him down for questioning, then. The truth will come out."
'If this is going that way, I'll be the one outside the one-way mirror, not you.' Thomas pulled out his cell phone and began scrolling through his contacts list. "Let's have you sit down with Doctor Wells instead. He'll come and get you, okay?" He made his voice sound gentle.
Shadow Stalker spoke up: "How about you at least deny it instead of trying to make Tilt seem crazy?"
"We can all just wait until the psychiatrist shows up." Thomas savored the murmurs provoked by the word 'psychiatrist' as he sent off a quick text.
Tilt took a breath so deep it was audible from twenty feet away. "I'm happy to let you stall for time. When Doctor Wells gets here, he'll realize his expertise doesn't apply."
'She'll wait?' Thomas' heart rate dipped slightly. 'Apparently her uncanny knowledge doesn't extend to the agents Coil has subverted.'
In universe C, Thomas placed a call to agent Garner, who should be leading Coil's men on the inside if he remembered the schedule correctly.
"Yes, sir?"
"Gamma three-four-four," Thomas whispered the code that would identify him as Coil, "Change of plans. Secure as much product as you can and retreat."
"Uh, product?" The background of Garner's end of the call was surprisingly quiet. No gunshots. No shouting.
Thomas gritted his teeth, keenly feeling all the eyes on him. Anyone overhearing this, and several were, would assume he had agents in the field on some vital mission, just another reason to put an end to Tilt's pathetic plea for attention, but on the other hand, Thomas was severely limited in what he could say. "If any of the Empire's personnel pursue, lethal force is authorized."
"Sir, I don't know- We've got other problems-"
"Dude! He means we're hitting personnel files and then bugging."
"Ah," Garner said, "Gotcha, but we're a little stuck right-"
Thomas hung up. Of course they were facing resistance, but it was nothing they couldn't handle. Their fellow agents were completely unprepared for a full eight of their comrades to turn on them, and any Ward they encountered could be convinced they were on legitimate business. 'Especially since the only other Ward on base is Kid Win, in his lab. I would have known if Tilt had brought all or most of them to the base at once.'
The double agents would have to be framed as belonging to some other puppeteer, of course. No small loss. 'Oh well.' It was worth it for a small chance at bringing things back to normal. Now to deal with Tilt.
Horton was trying to coax Tilt down from the table. "Kid, come on, a PRT agent couldn't get away with being a secret supervillain. Stuff like that just doesn't happen."
"We'll be more comfortable talking if you step down to our level," Tanaka added.
"I'll hand over my lance and come down if you promise to get Director Piggot, and Deputy Director Renick too. Don't let him leave and let me and Shadow Stalker sit in on the questioning."
Horton looked to Tanaka for approval, who peeked at Thomas, then nodded.
"Alright." Horton turned to Thomas with a sigh. "If we're doing this by the book like you said, then yeah, sorry Commander, we're gonna have to all sit down and hash this out."
"I think I'd like to wait here until the Director or her Deputy arrives," Thomas said. 'You are not getting me into a sealed room.'
"I actually already called them," said another agent, who was ignored.
Tanaka frowned, but Horton seemed ready to accept it until Shadow Stalker interrupted. "I thought this guy was supposed to be in charge here. 'Smoothly' you said."
Thomas sucked his teeth. "Even so."
Horton scanned the crowd. In both worlds, the assembled employees, as their confusion faded, were becoming annoyed. In world A, that annoyance was directed at Tilt, but world C's bystanders were waiting for Thomas to get out of their hair. 'This plan backfired.'
Tanaka gave Horton's shoulder a little push. "Commander Calvert, sir," the acting commander said, "I think I have to insist that you come with us to meeting room F."
"Room G-2," Tilt countered immediately.
"Sure."
Tilt hopped down to the floor, sealing the deal.
'Unacceptable,' Thomas thought. G-2 was an interrogation room, even if it was set up to appear welcoming. It locked from the outside, it was equipped with listening and viewing devices, it was secure. No.
He dropped world C, shooting Horton on his way out this time.
Time to press the issue of Tilt's mental health.
An opportunity appeared when a human resources employee piped up. "Excuse me, Tilt, could you elaborate on any of this. Where's the proof?"
Tilt shook her head. "The proof is on its way."
A newly-created Thomas D listened to the ominous claim, but Thomas A interrupted after the word 'proof'. "Excuse me, Miss Ingram, I'm sure you mean well, but it is a very bad idea to encourage delusional thinking, especially in someone with a history of hallucinatio-" He bugged his eyes out and slapped a hand over his mouth.
"You piece of shit!" Stalker cried.
'Thank you for the confirmation.' He wouldn't have imagined Shadow Stalker lending a sympathetic enough ear to learn something like that, but good on her.
Thomas snapped his eyes to her, then to Tilt. "I am extremely sorry. It just slipped- Everyone, please pretend you didn't hear that!"
He could see Tilt's shoulders heaving--suppressed anger?--but other than that, she seemed calm. "Don't try to provoke me."
Muttering rustled through the cafeteria.
"-confidentiality-"
"-how could he-"
"-illegal-"
"-she okay?"
He'd turned the crowd against him, but this was no longer a serious accusation, it was a psychotic episode, a medical emergency. Everyone's posture changed, now sheepish, as if they'd just noticed how ridiculous Tilt looked up on that table.
"I'll stop talking." Thomas bowed his head to Tilt, then sat down in the nearest chair, putting his back to her. Shadow Stalker was pacing now, impatient. He kept an eye out in case she decided to try to tranquilize him, but she and Tilt would both be detained in that case, giving Thomas plenty of time to wake up and make his counter-move. Armsmaster's formula ran its course with a speed proportional to its nearly instant effectiveness.
In universe D, Tilt was fielding more useless questions. Thomas A went ahead and dialed Garner. He didn't get a chance to give the ID code.
"We're still stuck!"
"Under fire?" he asked "Pinned down?"
"No, sir, the damn walls closed in! Pretty sure it's Vista."
"She's not on base." 'Not supposed to be on base,' he corrected himself.
"What did he say?" Tilt asked Tanaka.
Someone else answered, and Thomas' head whipped around.
"'She's not on base,' he says." Tilt removed her mouthguard to reveal a grin. "You mean Vista, right? I was waiting for this. Tell us who you were calling!"
Thomas ended the call. "I have agents in the field."
Tanaka fished his radio out of a coat pocket. "I'll confirm with the Director."
'Shit.'
"I appreciate it." Tilt checked her phone. "In the meantime, it turns out I do actually have some proof I can show you. If you're an officer, you'll find an email in your inbox with no subject. The body has a list of fourteen names. These are all PRT agents who secretly work for Coil--for Commander Calvert."
"Nonsense!" Thomas couldn't stop himself from objecting.
"If you check the hallways between here and the lobby, you'll find places where Vista sealed the walls together with her power. Yell through the gaps and find out who's inside. They'll be armed."
For the first time, the bystanders seemed truly suspicious.
"Horton, can you take a look?" Tanaka pressed his radio receiver against his shoulder.
"Sure."
"I wonder if it's the same people from the email." Shadow Stalker laughed. "What a coincidence that'd be."
Tanaka raised the receiver back to his ear. "Director says no active operations right now."
'No, no, no!' Thomas had been caught in a lie. He was sweating now, a stress reaction he couldn't conceal. His rescue party was trapped. He was trapped.
Tilt jumped off her soap box and walked over, visor pointed right at him. "That's the problem with having a set contingency for everything: your enemies can trigger them too."
Thomas stood straight up, chair screeching on tile, to glare down at her "This has gone far enough." 'Two can play at that game.'
Thomas D made a show of checking his phone. "Aha!" He interrupted Tilt as she explained who Coil was to a new employee. "I just received an email from the Deputy Director. Forwarding it to the officers in the room now. It seems that Tilt has roped some troopers into this episode. They've been causing trouble, but I've ordered Vista to lock them down."
In this world, the audience was confused once again.
"Wait!" Shadow Stalker took a step forward, but Tilt waved her back.
She wasn't going to try to set the record straight? Well, that was consistent with her posture so far--she'd gone to great lengths to avoid appearing petulant or defensive.
For the first time, Tilt seemed to be at a loss for words, pausing, hesitating. Finally, Thomas could capitalize and begin using his power more proactively.
World A vanished from his sight. Thomas D stayed on his fake phone call, waiting to see Tilt's reaction to Thomas E's next move.
His latest incarnation got off the phone and sighed. "I just spoke with Director Piggot." He gave Tilt a sympathetic look. "She's not happy that you've been inciting disorder. She wants you taken into custody."
"-what?-"
"-just a mistake-"
"-not actually against the law-"
Thomas clapped his hands to silence the crowd. "The charges are apparently preexisting. It's none of my business, and it's none of yours. None of you."
Tilt flinched when he mentioned 'charges'. She wasn't aware that he knew about how she'd been playing with guns--guns bearing defaced serial numbers.
"This is bullshit!" Shadow Stalker said. "What about you?"
"I'm in deep trouble too, of course, for what I revealed." He looked at Tilt. "I really am sorry."
"You fuck-" Shadow Stalker cut herself off when Deputy Director Renick burst through the south entrance. He arrived in timeline D as well, but was greeted by an ongoing awkward silence.
Lieutenant Green was with him, fully kitted out, down to the rifle slung over his back. 'Good.' He was one of Thomas' employees.
"What the blazes is happening? Where's Vista? I had to walk all the way around…" Both Renicks took in the sight of the gaggle of rubbernecking employees, the officers posturing as if they were in control of the situation, Tilt on high. "What's this now?"
"Tilt is having-"
"Calvert is Coil!" The Tilts harmonized..
"No, he's not." Renicks pointed to the floor. "Get off of there. Don't be stupid."
"It's true," said the Shadow Stalkers, "She told me everything."
Renicks furrowed their brows.
"Director Piggot wants to move forward with the you-know-what charges," said Thomas E. "Tilt is understandably upset."
"I see. The mess in the hallways is her doing?" Renick scanned the room. "Captain Tanaka, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to ask you to arrest Tilt."
Shadow Stalker tensed.
"Don't." Tilt held out a hand, palm flat. "Deputy Director Renick, before you have me cuffed, hear me out. Vista warped the hallways to trap traitors hired by Coil, by Calvert. You can get the truth out of them. Also, Calvert claimed that I directed those agents and that he directed Vista; anyone here can confirm that, but he didn't correct you when you assumed it was me just now. Isn't that weird?"
"I was getting to that," Thomas said.
Meanwhile, in universe D, Tilt addressed Renick unprompted, still watching Thomas like a hawk. He let her speak. This world was like a control group now. He had Piggot's fake arrest orders in his back pocket, he had thoroughly examined Tilt's arsenal of rhetorical moves, and he was ready to parry each one.
Thus, he was caught off-guard when the next words out of her mouth were a complete non-sequitur: "Tattletale of the Undersiders should have arrived about ten minutes ago to surrender herself to PRT custody."
Tanaka stopped in his tracks.
"Excuse-"
"Excuse me?" Renick's voice overlaid Thomas' for a second, and two men exchanged a glance.
"Jinx." Shadow Stalker chuckled, but it sounded forced. The revelation had shocked her too.
"Explain yourself immediately," Renick finished, mustache bristling.
Thomas' mind raced. Before he could even begin to formulate a riposte, he was stuck puzzling out why Tilt was acting so differently under two situations that were near-identical from a tactical perspective. In both worlds, the threat of arrest was imminent, the only difference was whether Renick was looped in, and that could change in a heartbeat. Her power, whatever it might be at this point, was the biggest looming possible explanation. She was reacting to information that transcended dimensions, just like Thomas. Hair raised all over his body.
'It could be Tattletale whispering in her ear.' He tried to comfort himself, but Tilt would never have revealed a connection to the villain if that were the case. Damn.
It hit him that the Undersiders' heist must have been staged too. Tattletale hadn't contacted him with an update yet. Was it all a ruse to trap him in the PRT building? Hell, for all he knew, Grue, Spitfire, and Regent were sleeping in, never having heard the brand name 'Ibis' in their lives.
Tilt pressed on. "Coil founded the Undersiders with Tattletale as his proxy, planning to grow them into a gang that could rule the criminal world in Kaiser's place. Maybe Lung's too."
Shadow Stalker added, "He's in charge of the PRT at this point, like we said before you got here, so he and Coil are the Undersiders' only real opposition. Controlled chaos."
"Call Director Piggot to check, please sir," Tilt said, "She should have been informed by now."
"I'm, uh, on the radio with her right now, sir," said Horton, "She's asking how Tilt knew about it. She sounds upset."
Tilt hopped down to the tile, replaying actions from the now-defunct world C. Her visor pointed at the space between Thomas' eyes, dead-on. "I know because Tattletale doesn't work for Coil, not really, she works for me."
"Fucking seriously?" Shadow Stalker muttered.
"Even if that's all true…" Renick glanced at Thomas, bewildered. "More ties to the Undersiders aren't healthy for your position, you understand."
Thomas held his facial muscles stone still, even as sweat trickled down his temples. He still had options. Tilt's revelation had opened up at least one new path. "Deputy Director, are we going to believe the words of a child villain? Our Wards' safety is our highest priority, and it seems very possible that Tilt has been deceived by a Thinker, perhaps even hit with a mind-altering power."
"Tattletale isn't a Master." Tilt sounded calm. "If I was writing her file, I'd call it an 'inference generator' to summarize."
Walls seemed to close in on Thomas, not because of Vista's power, just absurd claustrophobia, hitting him in a wide-open room. Old fight or flight reactions resurfaced from his field agent days, from the flesh-choked streets of Ellisburg and other moments he'd been convinced he was a dead man walking.
'What have I learned?' he coaxed himself back on track, even as his breath heaved and his heart pounded. 'She's probably getting most of her information from Tattletale, who could have also supplied the clues for her past hunts. I'm left with one data point: her divergent reactions. Was she a Trump who could jack in to other Thinkers' information streams? Something like that would explain how she'd held her own against Tattletale.'
Thomas collapsed universe D. He was in a worse position there, even if Tilt could bring up Tattletale at any time.
Thomas F made a split second decision and ran for the South exit again. Shadow Stalker pursued, as expected, but this time there was an extra element in play.
Thomas grabbed Renick around the shoulders, dragged him around to shield him from Stalker, and pressed his gun to the man's temple.
"Nobody move!" He had to shout over the gasps.
Renick growled deep in his throat. "So, it's true, is it? And here I always thought the Director was too harsh on-"
Thomas felt a pain in his chest like the twinge of a muscle or the misfire of a nerve. He looked down to see a polished steel cylinder protruding from the spot above his heart, touching Renick's back.
Shadow Stalker held one of her crossbows up to the lips wrought on her mask and blew imaginary smoke from the imaginary barrel.
Thomas' first thought was that she'd mastered the trick of phasing a tranquilizer through an obstacle, perfectly timed to re-solidify before impacting the target, but then the pain intensified. It ramped up from the initial shock until he felt like his heart was being torn to shreds.
He stumbled back with an airy cry, dragging Renick with him. The bolt wasn't a tranquilizer, it was lethal, it was in his heart, and it was in Renick too. The two fell to the floor in a heap while Renick tried to speak but gurgled up blood instead--punctured lung.
Thomas didn't have time to release the timeline before darkness swept in from the edges of his vision to swallow him up.
While Thomas E argued back and forth with Tilt about who controlled Vista and the rebelling PRT agents, another branch formed, and Thomas G bolted again, North this time.
'One more try.'
He drew and fired from the hip, staggering his shots. Shadow Stalker was forced to stay in her Breaker state or risk being hit, even as she circled closer to him.
Tilt's sprinting footsteps echoed behind him, and he braced himself to push through the pain of her taser, make it to the door, and shut it behind him. Kid Win's oversight committee had originally wanted the thing tuned low enough that someone with a pacemaker could survive it. With his conditioning, Thomas should be fine.
He felt the expected impact, but found himself staggering into the wall next to the door to avoid falling. His head spun.
It didn't feel like he was being electrocuted, even as sharp, clenching pain bloomed from his side. He spun to face Tilt, moving backward through the doorway at the same time. Something wet trickled down into the seat of his pants.
Shadow Stalker was solid again. He emptied more bullets to keep her at bay. He made sure to save one for Tilt, for after he grabbed her lance by the haft to make an opening.
Tilt advanced, moving at superhuman speed.
'No,' he thought, 'I'm just in shock. My kidney… Somehow…'
He noticed that she was holding her lance upside-down. A wad of construction paper clung to its butt end--now held forward. The paper was dotted with beads of blood along crumpled accordion ridges, which were wrapped around the base of a two inch steel spike.
Thomas repositioned his pistol and fired, a final boom in his ringing ears. He was unable to see the result; his vision jolted into blurriness as Tilt lunged. It felt a lot like the one and only time he'd been shot in the line of duty, through a vest of course.
'Ellisburg aside, I've had a lucky career, haven't I?' he reflected as his body reeled back from a salvo of heavy impacts. His shoes tap-danced, squeaking for purchase, his arms flailed, he dropped his gun and didn't notice, the only thing he recognized within his field of vision was the flexible haft of Tilt's lance, which seemed to snap back and forth in a rubber band pattern from the force it was under.
The front of his body was sticky with blood, but Tilt didn't let up. She drove him into the hall. He forced his arms into position to shield himself, but he was too slow to keep Tilt from sending her next rapid-fire thrust somewhere open: heart, liver, lung, stomach, repeat.
Finally, he fell, letting his vision coalesce into something readable for a beat, even as it shifted. Tilt was still in a fighting stance. Her shoulder heaved with exertion, one of her pauldrons was shattered, and she was spattered with red, striped from waist to face.
Thomas G died.
As soon as world H was created, he decided it would have to be sacrificed. He let himself fall to the floor, clutching his midsection and hyperventilating. Long ago, he'd mastered the art of shunting all of his panic off into one of his incarnations, siloing, compartmentalizing.
Thomas E barely faltered, even as the mob swarmed his other self, cooing and asking if he was okay. It was strange to be viewing a panic attack this severe from such a solid standpoint, but he did his best to ignore that entire universe.
"I've seen how you make a point of talking to every employee on base," he said, "At the time I commended it, but I'm betting that's when you convinced those agents that I am a supervillain."
"Again," said Tilt, "They won't know anything about this except what Coil told them. What you told them."
The argument had been going in circles like that for some time. Thomas E spotted the construction paper extension on the end of Tilt's lance. It wasn't exactly the same colors as the haft itself, and the swirl pattern, drawn on in marker, didn't quite match the true angle. Christ, he could even make out the scotch tape attaching the circular cap to the wrap which concealed the spike.
How could Tilt be so ruthless? It was so at odds with the girl he'd encountered from a distance those months ago, hustling through the hallways with her shoulders hunched, overawed. More than any other Ward, she'd balked at violence; she was quick to apologize, quick to cry. For a moment, he let himself imagine that it was somebody else standing before him, wearing her costume.
But no, now that he thought it over, since Tilt had misunderstood how his power worked, she believed that simply establishing the threat of his death and showing it to him in his so-called 'hypotheticals' would be enough to keep him trapped here, forced to defend himself verbally.
He wondered how the Tilt he'd left behind covered in his blood was going to live with herself. When had it dawned on her that her murder was real? When Thomas had stopped breathing? When Renick had caught up to her with a pair of handcuffs?
The Wards weren't even afraid of collateral damage--Shadow Stalker had likely killed Renick too. According to their warped assumptions, Thomas' power would clean all that mess up for them.
That was where Tilt's resolve came from: she trusted Thomas; she knew he was too smart to get himself killed twice at once. She hadn't underestimated him after all, in a show of respect that was both touching and terrifying.
"Alright, let's get to the bottom of this, right now." It was Director Piggot's voice reverberating from the radio speaker mounted on Lieutenant Green's vest.
An image lingered in Thomas' mind: Tilt in her scavenged pre-Wards costume. Piggot's voice brought him back to the early meetings about her accession to the team. Threads plaited together. A new gambit formed in his mind.
He was now feeling steady enough to drop timeline H and create timeline I.
"Director Piggot." He placed himself directly next to Horton's phone to be heard over Tilt's repetition of earlier speeches. "I'm glad to hear your voice, but unfortunately, I'm compelled to inform you that your early fears about Tilt's powers have come to pass."
"Explain." Piggot's voice was rough--more hostility than he'd expected.
"Armsmaster has provided me with proof that Tilt has been in contact, not only with Hellhound, but with Tattletale as well, and likely with the rest of the Undersiders. She has devised a very foolish plan to tarnish the PRT's reputation in Brockton Bay. That's why she turned herself in. Expect the other Undersiders, including Hellhound, to be poised to break her out."
Tilt flinched and locked her gaze onto the phone. Apparently, as much as Piggot had taken a liking to the girl, she had never deigned to share her true first impression.
Meanwhile, Thomas I hedged for the possibility that Tilt had lied about Tattletale and could prove it. He got close to the phone again, but he worked to convince Piggot that Tilt was in the midst of a psychotic episode.
"You believe that Tilt has been working on the Undersiders' behalf this entire time? It was them who prompted her to join?" said the Emily in world E.
"I'm afraid it's a possibility we have to investigate." His throat was growing raw from the effort of making himself over Tilt and Shadow Stalker's protests.
"But why?" Piggot hissed. "Why would she do that?"
"You outlined this scenario yourself, months ago. It turns out she's merely a thrall to her power after all." Thomas sighed. "I believe she's done enough damage that it's time to activate certain measures, which--apologies--I'm aware I'm not supposed to know-"
"That's enough Thomas," Piggot snapped.
Tilt perked up for a moment, the kicked-dog lines of her posture giving way to a hopeful tensing at the hint that the Director might be ready to defend her.
"You're right. Take her into custody."
Thomas smiled, trying and probably failing to make it look rueful to an outside observer. Ironically, Thomas might have lost this battle if he had been up against Wards who had never broken the law. 'Crime doesn't pay,' he thought.
'It's an odd brand of respect Emily has toward Tilt,' he mused as he dropped universe I, 'She's willing to believe that Tilt infiltrated the Wards on a villain's behalf, played us all for fools, and nearly got away with it too, but the suggestion that she might have acted on a bout of delusional thinking strikes her as impossible and personally insulting.'
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Thomas split timeline J off from timeline E. He watched Tanaka and Horton guide a numb Tilt down from her perch. Horton took her lance while Tanaka dragged her hands behind her back.
In both worlds, Shadow Stalker turned into a gray wisp and leapt toward Tilt.
"Stop this instant!" yelled Renick, "Unless you want to end up in jail alongside your accomplice here!"
Shadow Stalker turned solid atop a table and let out a wordless yell. "You're making a mistake!" She pointed. "He's Coil!" She sounded like even her belief had been shaken by now.
Tilt's cuffs snapped shut, and the ringing of the noise seemed to hang in the air, a sustained note. Thomas J followed her toward the exit, ignoring the death glare emanating from behind her eyeshield. Thomas E stayed behind and showed Horton the spike attached to Tilt's lance--more gasps.
He decided that universe J would be the one where he'd make an effort to remain in his position at the PRT. Slowing down to linger in Tilt and Tanaka's blind spot, he sent the code to call off his final failsafe. It would be an uphill battle, but he was feeling optimistic.
Tilt, on the other hand, was dragging her feet, head bowed, practically hanging by the elbow from Tanaka's grip. Her breath huffed and Thomas thought he heard stifled sniffles. She'd gone from staring him down to being unable to look in his direction at all.
'There's the Tilt I know.'
"I'm sorry it had to end this way," he murmured to her, "But the PRT isn't the sort of organization you can trifle with."
A growl welled up in the girl's throat, and she snapped to attention.
"Hey!" Tanaka interpreted the sudden movement as a struggle.
At nearly the same time, Tilt E fell totally still.
"He's wrong!" Tilt J shouted. "I can prove my power didn't tell me to do any of this! I'm doing this because I found out he's Coil! I had to do something!"
Interestingly, Tilt E erupted with the exact same plea a moment later.
"How can you possibly prove something about what's happening inside your mind?" Piggot sounded ten years older than she was yesterday.
Thomas raised two pairs of his eyebrows. He was eager to know as well. 'This ought to be good, but I'm afraid you're too late to weasel your way free.'
"I don't have powers!" the girl screamed at the top of her lungs, "Scan my brain! Call Panacea! I'll prove it!"
"That's ridiculous," both Thomases said, "We've all seen what you've accomplished--Othala, Hookwolf, Rune…"
"Tattletale helped me fake it!" She wrestled with Tanaka, twisting around to address the crowd head-on. "I'm sorry! I lied! I joined the Wards under false pretenses! I'm just trying to help! I'm sorry! I only want to help!" Her breath ran out amid a choked sob.
It was an on-the-spot fabrication. It had to be. Tilt's power was fake too, of course, but Thomas had just seen Hebert's real power firsthand, whatever it was.
Shadow Stalker picked up on the nature of the play too. "Hear that! Her power couldn't have told her to do any of this if she doesn't have one!"
Renick shook his head. "It will take time to verify."
"'I'm afraid it's a possibility we have to investigate!'" Shadow Stalker put on a mocking voice.
"No!" Thomas cried.
"You're right," said Piggot. "Tilt could, at the edges of conceivability, be telling the truth." She groaned. "About everything."
A pair of Shadow Stalkers closed in on Thomas. One was ahead of the other, and she ghosted through him and yanked his wrists into the small of his back. She had no handcuffs, so she just held him there. Nobody stopped her.
"This is ridiculous!" Thomas dropped timeline J just in time for Stalker to grab him again in E.
"Everything out of your mouth-" Renick pointed at Thomas, "and her mouth," he pointed at Tilt, "and hers-" he pointed at Stalker, "has been 'ridiculous'! If I could, I'd put all of you under arrest just for that! For being silly!"
Thomas glanced at Tilt. She still wasn't looking at him. She'd gone completely limp, kneeling on the floor while Tanaka stooped down to keep a light grip on her cuffed arms. For some reason, that made Thomas furious.
Back on the run, he created universe K and wrenched himself away from his captor. Using sequencing knowledge gathered from all of his test runs, he shot Tilt down, then suppressed Shadow Stalker to buy himself a clear run to the North door.
This time, it was a gunshot that ended his escape attempt.
"Who did that?" he roared. Some random officer had dared to-
With a jolt, he realized that he hadn't dropped K yet, and that he'd spoken in both timelines. Everyone in E was staring at him like he was crazy.
He dropped K and kept E as the closest thing he had left to a safe haven. His only remaining out was to repeat escape attempts, returning to this point, to Shadow Stalker's custody, after every failure.
In branch L, he found himself flat against the floor, pulling a table on top of himself so that Stalker had no room to solidify close to him. The entire crowd worked together to root him out.
In world M, he emptied his clip into the massive window that comprised the West wall of the cafeteria. He sprinted into the shower of twinkling shards and leaped to his freedom, shattering an ankle in the process. Even with him in freefall, Shadow Stalker beat him to street level.
Universe N saw him killed for trying to take Renick hostage again.
As the gears of his mind worked to piece all of the failures together into something coherent, his mouth worked unbidden. "How did we get here in the first place, Tilt?" He let emotion tinge his voice. "Why target me? I've been a friend to you. I hoped and tried to be a role model too! Why betray me?"
She did not respond. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe he was incoherent at this point, with his words spread out over too many different worlds to be legible, scattered and scrambled like a radio signal tainted with static.
Shadow Stalker had dragged Thomas E to the North exit, and he planted his feet on either side of the door, resisting.
In world O, Tilt rose to her feet and silently joined back in on the effort to keep Thomas contained.
In world P, glass shattered again. For a split second, Thomas thought his hand had run ahead of his brain and shot the window again, but his pistol was still holstered. And, it dawned on him, he'd heard that ear-breaking crash in E as well.
A massive, round figure landed at the epicenter of the explosion of glass, shards scattered around his booted feet. His skin was gray-white and translucent, revealing the outline of the skull beneath his bald head. A modified kevlar vest stretched across his chest, but his belly was bare and studded with spiral growths like sea shells.
A rope dangled behind him, loose now that he'd used it to swing inside.
As soon as he landed, he surged forward and wrapped his hands around the neck and shoulders of the first officer to pull a gun on him. He held the man up as a human shield and, almost gently, choked him into unconsciousness, andThomas thought he saw his lips mouthing a countdown.
"This will go more smoothly if guns stay in holsters, please." The cape had an accent, eastern european, broadly, but Thomas couldn't quite place it.
A figure in black had been hanging from his back, and now she unwrapped her arms from his neck and dropped to the floor. Thomas imagined her costume as the kind of thing a bomb squad member would wear to a formal gala: heavy bulletproof plating--almost a flak jacket--over a heavy skirt studded with pouches and holsters. Her face was covered by a welding mask whose only decoration was a jagged red and blue streak down the center. A ponytail dangled over her collar.
"Hand over Thomas Calvert," she said, "Then we're off."
It took Thomas a moment to spy the third member of the crew--a yellow and orange streak skittering among the rafters and ventilation shafts that formed a canopy over the dining hall. Newter had used Gregor the Snail's attention-grabbing entrance to sneak inside.
Labyrinth, the fourth mercenary, must have been elsewhere. But, as he registered the fact that Piggot had been silent this entire time, he realized that her power was already in evidence.
As if to answer his thoughts, stone bricks began to emerge from the tiled floor and the paneled walls, sprouting like mushrooms. Light fixtures were swallowed up, to be replaced by blackened iron sconces, hanging lanterns, and standing candelabra.
Banners unfurled over the walls, resplendent with green and purple dye and embroidered with winding maze patterns. Chains rattled above, and Thomas saw that the girder rafters had been replaced by wooden beams--whole tree trunks stripped of bark and thickly lacquered.
"Director…" Renick spoke cautiously. "Faultline and her team just made an entrance. Advise?"
Radio silence. The signal was stifled under the hundreds of tons of stone comprising the castle fortress that Labyrinth had just dropped into the same space as the PRT headquarters.
"I don't think she can hear you, Deputy Director." Faultline scanned the room.
Green reached for the butt of his rifle.
Faultline dropped into a crouch and rested a hand on the stone. "Keep your hands where I can see them, everyone. I can open up a chute into the dungeons in a blink. Don't try me." She loomed like a specter in the dimmed light and the smoky haze now filling the room.
Thomas glanced at Tilt, who was whispering back and forth with agent Horton. 'Well played,' he thought to her, 'But you couldn't account for everything, could you?'
One final time, he struggled free of Shadow Stalker's grip and fled. He zigged and zagged, serpentine, continually branching off new timelines and running in new, random directions. Tranquilizer bolts picked off the unfortunate among his incarnations, but now he was using both of his worlds to accomplish the same immediate goal.
He was nigh unstoppable.
However, his destination was the same no matter the world. Gregor tried his best to shield Thomas from projectiles as the man ran into his arms, but as all paths converged, Shadow Stalker was given a clear target.
For the first time since Thomas had purchased his power, he watched two universes fade to black at once, but even then, he knew his escape had been secured.