Adrian awoke.

  It was an abrupt awakening, No nausea, no throbbing head either...whether due to the sophistication of whatever Tinkertech drugs had put him under (doubtful) or his own lycanthropean metabolism (far more likely), he went from the pure vellum black of total unconsciousness to complete wakefulness in an instant. His mouth still felt like dried-out clay, dammitall, and his eyelids felt like glue.

  The world. The whole world was GONE! Without warning, a sense he'd never known he'd had shrieked out in distress. Swept in sudden panic, he reached out with all his senses, his body keening. The trees, gone. The grass, gone. The birds and squirrels and feral cats and dogs and raccoons and insects and brooks and puddles of fish, the earth and stones, an endless choral thrum of green he'd never even been aware of was now GONE, replaced by a terrifying, endless void. Frantically he struggled to bring his own emotions back under control before they drowned him.

  An atonal, gender-neutral voice spoke, riveting his focus to it. “PULSE ACCELERATING. BLOOD PRESSURE APPROACHING NORMAL.” two pads of something cool and wet were passed over his gummed-shut eyes.

  Eyes closed, he took assessment of his physical condition. He was in a semi-reclining position on a thin padded surface, with thick manacles around his wrists, ankles, shins, torso, upper arms, forehead, and throat. He was NOT in lycanthrope form-- he suppressed a violent surge of alarm at that. He was nude, which gave him another throttled surge of alarm; and he could feel wires running over his body and tabs, sensors or something more sinister, stuck to his bare skin in various locations.... his face flushed with shame and outrage as he realized that there were plugs and tubes... inserted into certain more.... personal locations.

  Hr rumbled silently to himself in growing rage. There was gonna be hell to pay for this, once he got out of this.

  Where was he? What could he tell? Even in his human shape his senses were abnormally keen. He listened, smelled, tasted. Small room, probably ten by ten or so, he could hear the metallic echo of his own breathing. Metal walls?

  Eyes slit,he carefully took stock of his surroundings.

  “SENSORS INDICATE PRISONER IS AWAKE.”

  ...Dammit.

  It was not a typical steel box, that is to say the sort one would expect in a dungeon or dock-yard, all rivets and rust and cold grey plate. Nor was it the coffin-like confines of, say, a trunk or school locker (which, his addled subconscious footnoted, would have been a fine bit of irony, all events considered.) No, this was a proper metallic chamber, a smooth, brightly illuminated cell, with walls, floor and ceiling of what looked like brushed stainless steel. Black bubbles recessed in the corners of the ceiling indicated the location of hidden cameras. There was no obvious door, no window, no viewport or wall monitor. The ceiling was one uniform, illuminated white surface.

  Adrian felt his insides go cold. The cadence was off, the delivery was oddly clipped and flat, but there was no mistaking the voice; he'd listened to it in PRT news releases and on police scanners religiously for days. His heart rate doubled in an instant. “Tagg,” he croaked.

  The speakers clicked, paused, then spoke again. “Correcr.”

  He started to speak, but only coughed and rasped on his own rag-dry tongue. There was a faint whirring and a pipette pressed itself against his mouth. He parted his lips and a cool spray of water wet the inside of his mouth. He swallowed gratefully, resenting even that much. “So what do you want, Tagg?” he growled, trying to keep his voice cool and steady.

  “You assume I want anything.”

  “You've already got me under arrest, you don't give a damn about the rule of Law enough to fuss about reading me my rights, and you're too cowardly and paranoid of Master-Strangers just to come in and gloat, so it you have to want SOMETHING hella important out of me,” Adrian said, putting every ounce of Skinwalker's acid snark into it he could manage.

  It sounded hollow in his own ears. Motors whirred and the test bed slowly rumbled into a more upright, seated position. The speaker clicked again, and Taggert replied. Delayed record-and-broadcast? Adrian wondered. “You talk as if you aren't already under full protocols,” Tagg replied dryly.

  Baffled by the non sequitor, Adrian tugged at his restraints... or tried to.

  This was bad. This was very bad. But his heart only started to hammer when he realized that he couldn't move. Not a finger, not a toe. The upswell of fear drove him to rashness; he reached for his power and tried to shift. And his power did not respond. He reached for sunfire, for moonfire; nothing responded. His heart began hammering against his ribs as he lay there, paralyzed.

  From out of the walls a toneless, gender-neutral voice echoed. “Prisoner 001, cease attempting to activate your parahuman abilities, or disciplinary measures will be taken.”

  “You can't hold me like this!” Adrian shouted desperately. “This won't hold me for a minute!”

  “I As you may have noticed,” Tagg went on, “You are currently in a in a new... call it a restraint system designed by our Tinkers just for troublesome prisoners just like yourself. It operates by actively blocking the signals in your voluntary nervous system. You can breathe, your heart continues to beat and so on, but you could not even blink if I did not allow it. But that's not all!”

  “Really?” Adrian couldn't help saying aloud. But his voice was faint; his vision was starting to tunnel.

  “Yes, the synapse impeder does a marvelous job of shutting down paranormal abilities, as well,” Tagg said. “Our researchers say it's a side effect--- blocking the voluntary nervous system triggers the innate safeties of cape powers, that keep one from injuring oneself with their own abilities. Convenient, isn't it.”

  “So no, I don't think you're going anywhere,” Tagg concluded. “Not till the PRT and the United States government is through with you.”

  Fear, denied, quickly devolved into terror. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Time for the formalities,” Tagg replied. “There was another clipped pause, then Tagg replied. “Adrian Smith, alias Bayleaf, alias Skinwalker, alias, eh, etcetera etcetera...Welcome to the PRT ENE Parahuman Confinement Facility. You are being detained here till your trial and sentencing for a laundry list of federal and parahuman crimes, ranging from parahuman tax and business regulations clear up to Master-Stranger violations and violation of the Endbringer Truce. Get used to your arrangements, you're going to be here or someplace like it for a very, very long time.”

  “Master-Stranger-?- we invented the Simurgh blockers! Our tech BLOCKS Master effects!”

  “By opening a back door for another Master effect method entirely,” Tagg replied. “Or did you just conveniently forget to mention that to your buyers?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Adrian opened his mouth to furiously protest, then stopped. Was he right?? The Simurgh blocking effect itself was a complete accident, a side effect of trying to control and nullify Glory Girl's Aura. It would not take much fiddling to find a way to do the opposite, to amplify and spread a Master-Stranger effect-- whether by the wielder, or even against them--

  “This is going to be a clean sweep.” Tagg said. “We already have the names of the Alliance, along with those of the Empire 88, the ABB... but you represent the most immediate threat, and so we begin with you. And your known accomplices, who are being rounded up as we speak. Aisha and Brian Laborne. Taylor Hebert.... ”

  Adrian's stammering heart turned to lead as Tagg read off the names of all the members of the Alliance, and the Undersiders, New Wave, even of Faultline's crew. He gritted his blunt, all too human teeth. For the hundredth time he silently cussed himself out. Coil had, unsurprisingly, kept dossiers on the identities of more than just the Empire 88. And in all the efforts they'd made to keep Coil from releasing those files to the public at large, it hadn't dawned on any of them that the man could simply just open his mouth and blab what he personally knew—!

  “We're offering a simple deal,” Tagg continued. “You're had. It's that simple. But if you give us all you have on your sponsors, we might find a way to keep you and your little friends out of the Birdcage.” Adrian felt his blood freeze. There was no possible way he could know...had he captured someone else from the inner circle of the Alliance, and they'd blabbed? Did they have a spy or a traitor? Adrian cursed himself inwardly as he realized YET AGAIN how absolutely dismal his operational security had been.. how many people HAD Adrian told the whole of his own mysterious origins?

  He couldn't help it; he laughed. He laughed at what a clownish, FANBOYish goob he'd been. “What-- what makes you think that I had any sort of sponsor?” he asked. He could guess, but he had to know.

  Tagg's response was as steady and unyielding as a machine gun. “From the moment of your debut in Brockton Bay, you made one mistake, over and over. You moved too quickly. We followed your trail backwards and forwards; in a matter of days you went from literally crash landing in the Harbor, penniless, to being a rankable threat. You had funding, gear, and a network of support and contacts-- civilians, heroes, rogues, villains---a double damned VIGILANTE TEAM, even. most Tinkers, even the most powerful, take years to accumulate; a base of operations--”

  “a base of....” Adrian tried to deny.

  “At Canberry you had a damned team bus,” Tagg's synthesized voice somehow got even drier and more monotone. “It's not much to deduce the existence somewhere of a GARAGE.

  “Nobody gathers that much equipment, influence, and sheer firepower in that short a time. Who is bankrolling you? The Yang Ban? Toybox? The Kingsmen? The Elite?”

  “...Cauldron?”

  “...What are you laughing at?”

  Adrian blinked. Under other circumstances the mention of Cauldron might have rattled him. But he knew better; he had spent months online researching after his arrival, and the first thing he had learned was that Cauldron had made one clever move-- it had allowed its name to slip into common usage, feeding on-- or perhaps even creating and spreading-- countless conspiracy theories and urban myths about themselves. That one sentence made it clear; despite getting the jump on everyone, Tagg really did have no clue. He had tripped backward into catching the Alliance with their pants down, but he was flying blind all the same--- just rattling off a laundry list of the more popular internet cape conspiracy theories. In context it had about as much substance as “Simurgh Plot.”

  In the control room, Director James Tagg of the PRT took pause. The dark-haired young man on the monitor in front of him had started to chuckle; a deep, throaty sound that would have sounded more appropriate coming from something more feral than the naked young man. “Toybox?” he repeated. His lips out of sync with his words due to the video delay. “The Yang Ban? Did you forget the Freemasons or the Illuminati? How about the Lumber Cartel?” He laughed until he choked. “What, did you just go on Parahumans Online and copy Void Cowboy's greatest hits?”

  Somehow, impossibly, the prisoner was staring DIRECTLY into the lenses of the cameras, staring right through the screen into Tagg's eyes. “What good would it do me to tell you my secrets? The truth would blow your little mind, and you could never accept it. You're so paranoid you'll believe anything-- and so hidebound it'll be anything but the truth!”

  Neither of the technicians dared look up at Tagg from their consoles.They could imagine the look in his eyes well enough, anyway. After an eloquent pause, he spoke. “Are the troops in position?” He said into his phone. “...Good.” He stepped up next to one of the desk jockeys. “Show him.”

  Adrian squinted as a rectangle on the far wall suddenly began to glow. An image slowly came into focus; sunset over Brockton Bay. When he saw what it was, he swore under his breath. It was live footage, aerial views interspersed with street level--- of a very familiar run-down irregular city block, a lopsided collection of seemingly abandoned warehouses. Armored PRT vehicles and troops could be seen moving into place, cutting off all the streets and alleys, as PRT VTOLS and armed drones dropped into place overhead.

  Adrian's chilled heart turned to frozen lead. Fool, fool, you stupid fool, echoed his inner voice. You were invisible to masters, strangers, and thinkers, but enough boots on the ground and eyes on the lookout could find the slimmest needle in a dozen haystacks.

  “I think you need to see this,” Tagg said almost casually. The PRT commander almost smiled... almost... as the defiant expression fled from his captive's face.

  “In case you haven't guessed, we found the location of your, I believe you called it 'the Lost Workshop?' Now we are moving into place, and waiting for the last of your ALLIANCE--” he spat the last word. “--To trickle their way back in. Once they're done... we close the net.” He sneered. “For future consideration, the next time you want to set up a secret lair, word of mouth advertising isn't the smartest move.”

  Onscreen, the block of battered, abandoned looking warehouses... rippled. A corona of light began to form; the mismatch buildings were limned in purple light. There was a tremendous flash and the screen whited out. When it cleared, the collection of buildings was... gone. A few outside walls still stood, but everything inside, foundations and all, were missing, leaving a lopsided hole six feet deep.

  The tinny echo of the Skinwalker's rumbling laugh echoed over the intercom. “You're not the only one who can make contingency plans, Tagg,” he said. “Good luck finding the Lost Workshop now. Shar'din just took it down a dimensional rabbit hole even Doctor Haywire couldn't find.”

  There was a garbled bit of noise that might have been a profanity, and the video cut off.

  Tagg growled and tugged at his sleeves. So the freak bastards decided to pull a Toybox, had they? He should have expected something along those lines. He stood and tugged the wrinkles out of his jacket sleeves. “Let's give our guest a few hours in solitary,” he said through clenched teeth. “We'll see if he's more cooperative then.”

  The punk was some sort of were-beast after all. An animal-themed changeling. Trained Green Berets crumbled in such conditions. He couldn't imagine with such heightened instincts and senses the punk would do much better.

  Adrian lay there in his restraints, his breath loud in the sudden silence. The glowing monitor in the far wall went dark, followed by the dimming of the hidden lighting of the cell itself. Soon he was lying in total darkness, his own breathing and heartbeat echoing in his ears.

  He knew what Tagg was trying, and he was no iron man. Sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, both were custom made to break anyone. Already the silence was more than smothering, somehow worse than the mere absence of sound (for all his pulse thundered in his ears.) He could feel his power straining, reaching out to...

  Reaching out... into nothing.

  For the first time, he truly became aware of it. It was like an epiphany; beneath all the other myriad roles he had played since arriving on Earth Bet, he was a Druid. He had pushed it to the back of his mind, behind Tinker, Leader, Vigilante, Actor.... he had been fundamentally transformed, into something with a tie to the energy of the living world far deeper and greater than any other sapient being currently on this planet. He had learned he was separated from the Emerald Dream of Azeroth, and had dismissed it from his mind... oblivious to the fact that every world had a Green of its own, and he had been connected to this one, a symbiosis going on in the background, as unconscious and unnoticed as breathing.... and, just like breathing, unable to ignore it now that it was cut off.

  He was a druid, a neophyte still childishly new to his bond with the land and sky. And he was cut off from the Green.. Had he been a bit more mature, had he actively cultivated his bond with the leylines of the planet, his current circumstances would have mattered little. Even under the influence of the PRT's immobilization frame, he should have been able to pull in some small desperate trickle of power, some thread of connection.

  But he was in a metahuman-proof prison cell on board the protectorate Rig; an electrified steel and glass box suspended in the heart of a latticework of several hundred tons of concrete and iron, in turn submerged in the cold waters of the Atlantic--- To his senses it was a cold, dark and fathomless void that swallowed up the light of the Green.

  In defense, he did the only thing he could... he shut down. His eyes slid closed as the void rose to claim him.

  *****

  Slowly the lights in the Lost Workshop flickered back to life. Sparks flickered, lamp flames bloomed, eldritch sigils glowed with life. Down in the sub-basement level, Shar'din lay prostrated and unconcsious in the middle of a ley diagram that filled the room and crawled across the floor and ceiling. Sparks still popped and flew. It had been translated down from a working that originally took a good half dozen high mages to cast. Only the fact that the original work had been meant to move an entire fortified city rather than a mere city block made it possible for him to succeed.... but succeed he had.

  The Lost Workshop now resided in Earth Bet's Elemental Plane of Air.

  All around members of the Brockton Bay Alliance and their civilian family and friends untangled themselves from toppled furniture and shelves and one another and shakily got to their feet. “Well,” Fennek said weakly from under his overturned beanbag. “That went smoother than I expected.”

  “Got that much right,” Tattletale said, dusting herself off. It had been, for a dimensional transition; the entire complex had been yanked out of the earth, thrust sideways through a dimensional vector and then left hanging suspended in space... the entire tumult having been limited to a single violent shake, as if the entire facility had been in the back of a truck going over a pothole. Now comes the question of “where are we?” she thought to herself. Her power, for a shocking change, remained mum.

  Slowly everyone trickled into the main meeting room, looking about fearfully... or gawking out the warehouse windows in shock at the endless, cloudy blue Nothing that lay outside. They gathered round the main table in the center of the room. The seats slowly filled up, but noone even stepped close to the head of the table. Every eye fixed there, waiting to see who would lead them now.

  A few minutes passed. A half hour. An hour. Finally a cloaked lupinoform figure slipped its way through the crowd pressing the walls and stepped to the empty first seat as if it belonged there. A thick box of folders labeled “plan B” settled on the table with a thump. She faced the crowd and pulled back her hood.

  “Good,” said Taylor. “You're all here.”

  “It's time for Phase Two.”