The nearest middle school?  There was an online scan of a yearbook photo.  A girl with curly black hair and glasses, stick thin, hugging a red-haired girl.  The body type was a match.

There she is… With Emma, too.

It didn’t answer everything, but she could feel a piece of the puzzle click into place.

A pretty damn big piece of the puzzle.

She set the trawler to abandon its monitoring of web traffic and start digging through archives at the city hall, to scan the old security footage from the hundreds of cameras around the city, and to check all local news articles.  The goal was always the same: to look for the girl with the slight build, curly black hair and glasses.  Taylor Hebert.

Well, now we know how she’s gonna get in touch with her, if she remembers she wanted to do so.

I suppose it might get awkward that Dragon doesn’t remember their last conversation when she does.

She had to manage this carefully.  Colin’s own experiences indicated that approaching the girl would be a delicate process.  Having a real conversation with her would be doubly precarious.

Oh, certainly.

It would be reckless to attempt to contact a parent, but she could try being discreet to get some kind of verification from the parents.  Just to be certain.

Ohh boy.

Danny time, huh? Maybe we won’t get to see it, but whatever Dragon is going to do to get discreet verification, chances are Danny will be confused and maybe upset.

And maybe begin putting some pieces together himself.

She cut the connection to the monitor, but left the video feed open so she could watch him.

Ooh, peeking. Let’s see what Army does when he doesn’t realize Dragon is watching.

Another check of the Birdcage.  Another check of the class S threats.  No changes.

She made contact with one of Richter’s programs.

Or not. Maybe later.

It was a web trawler, designed to monitor emails for high risk content.  Were there any clues about what the Undersiders were doing with the stolen data?  Were they selling it online?

Not quite, sorry.

She didn’t find any such clue.  Instead, the trawler had copied an email sent to the police station.  It had been highlighted and intercepted because the trawler had caught the words ‘Sophia’ and ‘Hess’ in the message body.  Shadow Stalker’s civilian identity.

Ooh boy.

Wait. If I remember the message body of the email correctly, her name wasn’t in there. I guess maybe the email app added a “Sent from Sophia Hess’ phone” or something?

She read the archive of texts that were attached to the email twice over.

Nasty stuff, eh?

Then she did a search for a student named Taylor at Winslow High School.  Nothing.

I guess her absence got to the point where they removed her from their listings, possibly believing her to have died to Leviathan (it’s entirely possible that Danny thinks this too). Or maybe Taylor had herself removed, but I’d imagine that would require parental confirmation.

Also, I don’t remember Taylor being mentioned by name in the texts we read, either. That’s more immediately excusable than the message body thing, though, since it’s entirely possible Regent attached more than what we saw.

Anyway, Dragon is onto something. Between this and Skitter’s unusually strong feelings about joining the Wards after finding out who Shadow Stalker was, she has all the evidence needed to figure out that Skitter is Taylor, thanks to Regent.

“I see.  Damn it, I’m itching to throw on my costume and get out there to help, but I can hardly do that, can I?”

“No.  I’m sorry.”

Yeah, no, you lost that right. Threw it away in an attempt to become a legend.

He sighed.

“One last thing.  I’ve read the transcript.  As far as I’m aware, you offered options to Skitter, and she refused all of them?  Including the invite to the Wards?”

Yep! She had her reasons.

“Right.  She was being stubborn.”

“Having interacted with her before, did you get the feeling it was just stubbornness because of hostility towards you?”

“No.  It was… unexpectedly strong, as resistance went.  What stuck in my mind was that she said she’d rather go to the Birdcage than join the team.”

That is quite a strong sentiment.

And now it’s too late, even assuming Sophia does flee from town.

“I read that, myself.  Curious.  Okay, Colin.  I think we’re done.”

“Sure.  Bye.”

See ya.

“Bye.  I’ll be in touch.”

“Any speculation on why?  Perhaps the thinker 7 on her team?”

I mean, yeah, Tattle has something to do with setting Skitter on this path in the first place, but if you’re suggesting that Tattle’s power is doing something to Skitter… not quite.

Then again, manipulation is a strong suit of Tattletale’s, and Dragon knows that. It’s not an unreasonable suggestion.

“Tattletale?  Perhaps.  I don’t honestly know.  I’m not good at figuring people out even when I know all of the details.  Except for you, maybe?” he smiled lightly.

Heh. You don’t exactly know all of the details about her either, though.

“Maybe.”  Her generated image smiled in return, even as she felt a pang of guilt.

“It seems she is a committed villain, now.  And she is still with her team, despite what was said at the hospital.”

Which is honestly impressive.

Also, if only you remembered Bitch’s betrayal, you might’ve had a few things to say about that.

Colin’s eyebrows rose fractionally.  “How committed?”

“They are now employing Regent’s full abilities.  Shadow Stalker was controlled, and they attacked the headquarters.”

To be fair, there was no indication that Taylor knew about those abilities.

Hm. Maybe Tattletale had talked it over with the others to not use those abilities too early, so as to not scare the new member away?

“Not much to say.  I met her on her first night in costume.  She seemed genuinely interested in becoming a hero.  I suspected she would go that route on her own, so I didn’t push her towards the Wards.”

Or he could say this.

*sigh*

I mean, there’s some truth here, but he’s blatantly leaving out the important parts and he did at least suggest the idea of joining the Wards.

“Yes.”  She had something she wanted to ask, in regards to that, but it could wait.

“I ran into her two more times after that, and the reports from other events match up.  She went further and further with each incident.  More violent, more ruthless.

I suppose that’s technically true, though she wasn’t all that violent the second time you met her.

Every time I saw it or heard about it, I expected her to get scared off, to change directions, she did the opposite.  She only plunged in deeper.”

Which seems to have happened once again after your stunt at the hospital.

“You’re lost in thought,” Armsmaster spoke.

“I am.”

Yeah, it’s been a while since anyone said anything.

“Care to share?”

She shook her head, on the monitor.  “But you can answer some questions for me.”

Sharing these thoughts would get a little awkward. 😛

“Go ahead.”

“Skitter.  What happened?”

He flushed, made a face.  “I’m not proud about it.”

That’s an unusual sentence, coming from you.

“You broke the truce when you said what you did about her.  You risked breaking the ceasefire between heroes and villains that stands whenever the Endbringers attack.”

I mean, he’d already thoroughly broken the truce, but yeah, I suppose that adds fuel to the fire.

“I broke the truce before that.  I set others up to die.”

Exactly.

There was an awkward silence between them.

“Skitter,” she spoke.  “Tell me of her.”

I guess Dragon’s getting the full story, from Army’s perspective, including the bit about Taylor and the Undersiders being the ones who really took down Lung the first time.

In the end, his feelings towards her were another reason she couldn’t tell him the truth.  He would be hurt, feel betrayed.

“Oh no! My computer waifu isn’t real!”

I guess the only reason he would have to feel betrayed would be the knowledge she’d lied to him. That’s why the introduction to the reveal is arguably more important than the reveal itself. Gotta make sure he understands that you don’t tell anyone normally, and the fact that you didn’t tell him before was not because of distrust of him, but vice versa, that you’re telling him now means you do trust him more than others.

Rules prohibited her from asking him to alter her programming, obligated her to fight him if he tried.  But there was just enough ambition and willingness to circumvent the rules that she suspected he might attempt it.  If she told him what she truly was.  If he didn’t hate her for her lies.  If he didn’t betray her in turn, to escape and pursue some other agenda.

If he doesn’t share Richter’s views on AI safety.

She was afraid of going up against the Dragonslayers again.  Nine times, she had been certain she had the upper hand.  Nine times, Saint had turned the tables and trapped her.

Sheesh.

All the more reason to keep your true nature secret, I suppose. Don’t want anyone else exploiting you the same way Saint has.

Dragon worried she would never be able to beat Saint until she found a replacement for Andrew Richter.

That might be tricky.

So why is it that no one but him could alter you? Is it security measures, or that the code is too complicated? I’m guessing the latter.

She stared at Colin.  Was he the person she needed?  It was possible.

Hm. I mean, programming isn’t his specialty, but he does seem to be fairly skilled.

Would she approach him?  She doubted it.  Dragon craved it, craved to grow again, but she also wanted Colin’s company, his companionship and friendship.

Better hope he doesn’t end up in the Birdcage, then. Though at least you’d still be able to watch over him there. Can you talk to the prisoners once they’re inside?

They were so similar in so many respects.  She could not deal with most people because she was not a person.  He could not deal with most people because he had never truly learned how.

I see… that sounds like a phrase that keeps popping up regarding autistic people I know. I’m not going to immediately go “Armmaster is autistic”, but this has put the idea in my mind.

They both appreciated the same kind of work, even enjoyed many of the same shows and films.  They were both ambitious, though she could not tell him exactly how she hoped to reach beyond her inherent limitations.

Sounds like they’re a good match!

Possibly even for more than friendship. Though really, is there that big a difference between a healthy romantic relationship and a particularly intense friendship with a carnal aspect for those to whom that last part applies?

She had been so humiliated that she had only reported the loss of one of the units.

They had violated her.

They basically knocked her out and stole her bodies. Yeah, “violated” might be a good word for that.

Her current agent systems were an attempt to prevent repetitions of those scenarios.  Biological computers, vat grown with oversized brains shaped to store and interpret the necessary data, they allowed more of her systems and recollection to be copied over than a computer ten times the size.

So that’s what the fetus thing was. It was Dragon in a sense – it was the computer, the agent system, she was currently running on.

They felt no pain, they had no more personality than sea cucumbers, but it was still something she suspected she should keep under wraps.

Yeah, or at least loads of metal.