The next few days were a strange mix of familiarity and awkwardness. I could tell that Paul was adjusting to having me around, but slowly. When he was with Anne, he relaxed, falling back into his role of paterfamilias, with the easy informality and parental affection they had shared before. Whenever I entered the room, things became a bit awkward. Anne and I had developed a bond, trusting each other freely with our secrets; Paul, new to our relationship, always seemed a little uncomfortable. Especially when we started talking about money. Or powers. Or the aliens. Or school. Gradually, though, the older man began to thaw. An aura of formality still wove through our conversations, but he showed signs of opening up bit by bit. The newest addition to the house arrived – a physiotherapy rig, designed to allow patients to recover on their own once away from an automated bed. The hospital sent us a bill for it, of course. A mere two hundred and fifty dollars a week. Covered by insurance, assuming you had any. Paul insisted on paying this time. I decided to keep quiet. Fortunately, after the first couple of days, he’d stopped reminding me about my promise to give him a list of expenses, and I’d quietly stopped compiling it. Truthfully, Anne should have received half my take, since her bots had been the reason I’d survived the Grunter mansion. And the Blackhats. And, well, a lot more. Meanwhile, Paul took over paying for groceries, utilities, and other household costs. My funds – what little I was spending now – went into buying things for my power to consume, and to craft into new weapons and equipment in line with my blueprints. Also, I kept stockpiling nanofibre weave. Because you never know when you’ll need some. A few days of physio confirmed that Paul’s muscles hadn’t atrophied over the weeks on the bed. Heal had done its job quite well, indeed. As a result, I decided to whip up a treat for Saturday dinner. Mutton roganjosh, egg biriyani, and a variety of flatbreads that Cooking enabled me to craft to perfection, washed down with a glazed caramel custard. “Wow,” Anne dug into her third helping of biriyani, the rich red gravy of roganjosh soaking through it. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Andrew.” Even Paul smiled wistfully. “Your cooking is really good. This reminds me of… well, stuff my mother-in-law used to make.” “Not Mom?” asked Anne. Paul shook his head. “Your mother never really got into the more – involved – dishes your grandma made. They were too busy arguing for that.” “Oh boy – do we have lost family recipes or something?” “I doubt it. Sangeeta wasn’t a particularly innovative chef – she just took good recipes, and executed them well. Really well.” He sighed wistfully. “One time she sent your mom these really delicious stuffed peppers…. Between her shipping them and their arriving, they’d fought about something else, so Hilary was still mad at her. She ate one and then decided she wasn’t hungry.” “Ouch. What a waste.” “They weren’t wasted.” Anne’s eyes were wide. “Dad. You don’t even like stuffed peppers.” “These weren’t ordinary stuffed peppers.” “Did you eat them all?” “Well, Hilary was going to throw them out. Would’ve been a waste.” He sighed. “Andrew’s cooking is like that. Really good food, made properly, right out of a recipe book.” “But not innovative,” I chuckled. “Well, no. Don’t get me wrong – it’s delicious. I wouldn’t expect more from a starred Michelin restaurant.” “That’s cool. I just like to eat, and if you want to eat good food, you’d best know how to make it.” “That’s true of more than just food, you know.” “Like my crafting powers.” I pursed my lips. “If I want really good equipment – I need to know how to make it?” “That’s what your ‘blueprints’ power seems to suggest to me.” He paused. “You both have fairly complex powers, but a few things sort of stand out. Like your nanobots, Anne…. they’ve a lot in common with drones. I might be able to suggest some tactics.” “You know how to operate drones?” I asked, puzzled. “Of course I know how to operate drones. I was a construction foreman.” “Sorry, but what’s that got to do with drone operations?” Paul sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Do you know anything about modern construction techniques?” “Uh… bricks go into a wall, there’s cement and concrete, and somehow a building comes up?” “It’s rather more complicated than that. The first thing you need to know is, a building - any building - isn’t built by a single person.” “Right, there’s a lot of workers.” “There’s a lot of different companies. Take Welby Towers, for instance - I worked on it fifteen years ago. We had the developer, Sheridan Welby, who owned the land; then there was the architect he hired, Wells Turner. The architect in turn hired a structural engineering firm to do the design calculations and work out how much concrete, how deep a foundation, et cetera was needed. With me so far?” Anne yawned. “Yeah, Dad, we follow.” “Finding it boring, are we?” “Not at all, Dad!” Anne replied sarcastically. “I love hearing about your job! Especially stuff you’ve told me five hundred times!” “I’m hearing it for the first time,” I said. Paul grinned crookedly. “Don’t say Anne didn’t warn you. Anyway, after the structural engineers were done, the architect had a completed design which he handed over to Welby. Then Welby hired a civil contractor to build the place. Who in turn hired a bunch of subcontractors.” “Why the subcontractors?” “Because each contractor is a specialist in a particular trade. Electrical. HVAC. Firefighting. Plumbing and sanitation. Lifts. Escalators. Data and networks. Interior fitouts. Painting. Each has its own skillset, and just because you can pour concrete doesn’t mean you can build a fire control system to code.” “Okay.” “Now the problem is, each contractor is a separate company working for a profit, so there’s a temptation to cut corners ever so slightly. The specification says a fire damper every fifty feet? Make it fifty-five, and the system will still work fine - but you save ten per cent on costs. Apply three coats of anti-corrosion paint instead of four, twenty-five per cent cost savings for the painter and it’ll be fifteen years before someone notices. To prevent things like that from happening, developers hire a Project Engineer - a firm that walks across the site and checks that everything’s up to code.” “Doesn’t the city inspect the building?” “They inspect it after the whole thing is built, not midway through. Project Engineers also get certified by the city to do in-progress inspections. That’s why they’re paid by the developer, not the civil contractor.” “Ah - so they prevent the contractor from cheating the developer.” “Exactly. The only challenge is - you’ve got a building site twenty floors high, each floor twenty thousand feet across, and you’ve got to inspect it at least twice a month.” I could see the problem. “You need a whole lot of people walking around.” “And taking photographs, and storing them for future reference. Which means many, many hours of climbing up and down ladders, because the only lift installed at the site is busy moving materials up floors throughout the day.” Paul paused. “Or, you can get a camera drone and have it fly around the site.” “So - project engineers need to operate drones?” “As do construction foremen. Because the project engineer is usually in his fifties and doesn’t particularly like doing the ‘scut work’ of drone piloting, so he delegates it to the contractor’s hourly staff.” “That makes sense.” “Plus, back then, construction drone operators got paid an extra $25 an hour. You bet I got myself drone-qualified fast.” I laughed. “That does sound like the sensible thing to do. Why’d you stop?” “I was volunteering in the CWA for a while, then a friend suggested I stand for office. Got into it and, well, found my calling.” He sighed. “Things aren’t the same now, I suppose. I’ll have to figure out what the situation on the ground is.” “I could probably sneak in and snoop around,” suggested Anne. “With your power,” Paul sighed, “that makes the NSA look like privacy advocates.” “Yes, with my power,” agreed Anne. “I didn’t choose it. I wish I’d gotten something like Andrew - or like Lady Lumina, maybe. Ultras don’t choose the powers we get, Dad.” “I know, dragonfly,” said Paul. “At least, my mind knows. My heart wants you to still be the little girl who … needed me to help…” Anne got up and hugged her dad. “I love you, Dad,” she whispered. “You help me just by being here. That’s all I need.” Paul clutched his daughter, tears running down his cheeks. Anne looked at me. “Andrew. Come here.” I got up and walked over. Anne looked at her father. “Dad. This is Andrew. He’s stood up for me, fought by my side, and helped protect our home.” She took a deep breath. “I choose him to be my brother. Can you treat him like that?” Paul’s eyes were red, but he nodded. “Okay. I understand. Andrew - I’m taking a leap of faith. If Anne trusts you, so do I.” RELATIONSHIP WITH PAUL DRAKE INCREASED. PAUL DRAKE IS NOW FAMILY (8). “I will always try to be worthy of your faith, Paul.” I replied. “Thank you for having me.”