Hank McCoy popped up the holo of the pit’s layout. The Lantern regarded it, and shook his crimson-skinned head in resignation.

“I would like to mutter something disparaging about humans, but you are hardly the only species with such self-destructive tendencies,” he sighed. “Thank you for your help in this matter.” He gave both Iceman and Cyclops assessing gazes. “Well done, both of you. Flux tried her best to seal this, but could only keep one conduit plugged at a time, and it would be burned loose before another could be stoppered. The speed with which you did this was as important as the power to freeze it in the first place.”

“Thank you, sir!” Cyclops replied politely, but he did not get up, nor open his eyes. “Now I just have to wait for my eyeballs to thaw...”

“What are you complaining for? I feel like my blood is pumping subzero anti-freeze!” Bobby groaned. “Oh, and happy to help, Mr. Lantern, sir!”

“Let me escort you home quickly by way of thanks...”

---------

One suborbital express inside a Mach 50 or so force bubble later, we were lowered down on the roof of the Baxter Building. The Lantern waved once, and a solid column of light prevented the sonic boom as he headed up out of the atmosphere, back to LaGrange Station.

McCoy hurried his blue furry butt off to add the dimensional conduit data to the database of such stuff. There was obviously a need for targeted Interdiction efforts and Gate Disruptors after what had happened at Chattanooga. Set up four of them on the conduits that had been torn open, fwip! They would’ve cooled off with supernatural speed on their own.

“Showing off in front of the High Guard.” I held up a hand for each of them, and Scott and Bobby smacked them, grinning despite themselves. “Excellent teamwork, by the way. When did you figure out that move?”

“We talked it over after Scott opened up his sapphire beam,” Bobby admitted. “He had me testing it out and seeing the effects compared to what he could do.”

“Opinion?” I asked neutrally.

“He can concentrate a lot more cold into a tight area than I can, but if he widens it out, we’re pretty equal. His is a monoline effect, however... the force of the beams neutralizes molecular motion, so everything gets cold, but he can’t do anything like build up ice in any form, unless he starts freezing atmosphere, and that’s so bloody slow...”

“Quick way to create a vacuum in an enclosed space,” I noted, listening to that.

Bobby, about to say more, pointed at me to acknowledge the point, then over at Scott, who just nodded. “When he shoots me, the heat-cancelling just refracts right through me, and I have no problem redirecting it as I want to. I can either bring in twice as much water to freeze, double the area easily, or really bring the cold... or if we’re both pushing it, a whole lot more.”

“I can guarantee you that if what you said about an Ice Age is true, you really, really pissed someone off by outright freezing that shit.” I gave them both a thumbs-up. “That is a LOT of hellfire you froze solid and are now feeding to the Land. Someone lost a lot of energy they aren’t getting back!”

“There would have been demons or something coming out of that sooner rather than later, right?” Scott asked.

“That was the general intent. Any flaming Entity from the hereafter might have been able to hijack the link, or perhaps be allowed to use it with favors traded...”

“Any other ways to close it?” Bobby asked.

“Bring in enough raw force to disrupt all four conduits at the same time. Build some Gate-breakers and shatter each conduit at the same time. Get some mages to make a big Ritual and call on some great powers to close them up. Supercharge the Veil and shatter them with a wave of mundanity...” I shrugged. “Drop an asteroid on them at speed?”

Ask Sama or Briggs to put their foot down in the middle of them...

Actually, there was a fair chance Dealer or I could Dispel them, Suppress them, and then cap them for a better solution, too. Things got wonky on Dispels with blood sacrifice, however...

“Go rest up. It’s going to take you hours of Meditation to restore your Cores, so you’re vulnerable. Shoo.”

Grinning and half-staggering, they headed to the lift and the ride down to their rooms.

I watched the door close, and turned towards Grimm Engineering.

-------

Mr. Hill, Ben, and Flint rose up out of the edge of the dirt area reserved for Earthjumping as I basically boomed into a hovering position next to it. They watched me jittering about in place, and I let the flight effect lapse, dropping to the ground.

“Busy day?” I asked neutrally, a few stray arcs sizzling off into nowhere.

“Moved maybe ten thousand tons of rubble,” Mr. Hill replied, breaking a long cigar into thirds and passing out two of them to the other two. He struck the match, and passed it around after lighting his own short stogie. “We broke down the big stuff, then I Weighted everything and Grimm wave-smashed it into pieces Marko could handle, and he walked them down to the disposal site, leaving the non-stone behind. Fifty bucks a ton. Not a bad day’s work.”

The other two nodded, but there were no smiles. After all, every area they worked in was a disaster area where often thousands of people had died.

Cities across the country had a lot of rubble to dispose of, and the trio’s ability to dispose of or move a lot of stuff became known to disaster relief officials rather quickly. Dealer’s ability to put roads back together with huge Stone Shapes meant she’d also been working multiple days, flitting across the country rebuilding stuff. Occasional opportunists had her put in bridges or fix other roads or train tracks or low spots or shore up a dam or other things if their City Engineers were on the ball and had the guts to ask, and the smarts to line it all up for her to do with readiness to pay what she charged.

She was probably still doing rebuilding stuff.

“I got four hours of gravity work with Dillon afore I call it a day,” Mr. Hill went on coolly. “Anything on your tickets?”

Marko and Grimm puffed away, shaking their heads.

“Good. I got an invite to Master Logan’s, and yer invited along. Bring something good to drink, and we’ll play some cards.

“Marko, check the inventory and the job board for us, get us set up for tomorrow before you head out for chow. Grimm, anything pressing?”

“Nope, just doing maintenance on some of the fancy stuff. Whatta ya got in mind?”

“Some property came up. Like some feedback on it.”

Grimm nodded. “Sure, give it to me, I’ll take a look.”

“Girl, how much more you got to do before this trip of yours?” he asked me.

“We’ll be heading up to it tomorrow. Figure two or three weeks to prep it, do a shakedown cruise.” I pointed at Grimm. “Don’t get my pilot too drunk to fly.”

“Four of Dealer’s, and then yer on a slurry, Grimm.”

Ben rolled his baby blues. “How’m I s’posed to play cards like that?” he groused.

“Badly!” Flint interjected, and all three of them laughed as I shook my head.

“I’m checking in on Fixer and Beetle. You guys take care, and one of you better clean out Master Logan.”

“Dealer plays no favorites with cards, girl,” Mr. Hill puffed. “She’s dealing for us!”

“Then enjoy your game, and make sure my pilot gets home safe!”

------

ElectroFix operations was busy humming along, processing E-copper and purifying it before Electro and/or Mr. Hill got to it. The E-Silicon/Germanium processor was in the middle of being disassembled and reworked to Terran standards, at which point the production of superconductive transistor chips could begin.

McCoy and Parker could both re-align the volturium processor if something got really screwed up, and Dillon was good enough to take care of any normal adjustments that had to be made, as he’d be the first to realize something wasn’t right when he was processing lengths of it.

I had to admit that contributing modulated voltage and making a thousand dollars a minute doing so was a special sort of feeling.

A couple more talented guys had come on board after Boston, and even Octavius had made quiet inquiries of Mr. Hill if he’d be willing to front for some... more commercialized technology for revenue purposes. He, Norbert, and Mr. Hill were gonna have a sit-down when we came back, while Octavius prepared some tech.

I thought the Antennae tech plus some Octavian designs for prosthetics could be a real winner for the crippled, as long as we kept the price down. Norbert was already most of the way done designing a production line for the stuff with Jenkins. He’d probably finish it during the trip when he was recovering from working on Reed’s stuff.

I got directions from one of the guys, and soon zipped in to where the two men were going over the last adjustments to their suits.

They were both in shades of green, with Jenkins being darker and his suit bulkier, since he was the muscle of the two. Norbert’s was more designed as a multi-adaptable tech pack, with waldo-arms, modular attachments, and more onboard computer power.

What they did not do was put down the holos of the designs they were using, and I arched an eyebrow at the sight.

“Dammit, I need a torsion ring for this part!” Ebersol swore, as he worked on his tech pack.

I held one out for him. “The Tinkerer always uses #6 for his mechanical torque relays.”

“Right!” Ebersol agreed, taking it from my hand and immediately fitting it into the servo’s mechanism. “Damn old man getting clever with the gear arrangements, just to see if I can handle them...” he trailed off and looked at me standing there, while Jenkin had his mouth open and was slowly moving his hand towards the holo display to change the settings.

“Coagulant Foam Four. Suit Sealant Number Nine. Fire-eater Spray Two. Insulator Seven. Bubbly Goodness?... Muscle Memory Follower Foam.” My eyes shifted slightly. “Nice mixer array. Nice wing servos. Nice transfer interface. Nice anti-grav units, both of you. Nice power cell upgrade.”

They looked at one another, looked at me, and Jenkins held out his hand in a ‘pay up’ gesture. “I told you!”

Ebersol swore and handed the hundred over in front of me and my arched eyebrow. “Did you even have to see that?” he asked me, gesturing at the holo.

“No, I’d have known as soon as I scanned the suits,” I said reasonably, and pointed. “Seriously, the Vizard finds out you’re copping his anti-grav, he’ll try to kill you both. You at least modulated the wavelength at least twenty angstroms into the Richards Bands, right?”

“Uh...” Jenkins said brightly.

“Who did the polymers?” I asked suspiciously, as the formulae weren’t on the holo. “Don’t make me go looking.”

Ebersol sighed. “Petruski,” he muttered.