"Hot boys. - none of your crew, you're too young for me. And fucking over assholes."

"She wants him to fuck men. ...he also wants this, to be clear. And - hurting bad people is all I got from that? Up to you if you want to go into detail or not, but if it could affect us we should know." Or she can just find out with her power but that is impolite, thank you Brian.

"She's the goddess of revenge. She's into that. If you just kinda don't like her, whatever, I'll leave, but if you fuck with me or you hurt a little kid or something I'll get you."

"She likes revenge," Lisa reports, "he'll go after us if we turn on him and he'll go after anyone who hurts children."

"Oh boy. Can I interest you in an asshole who totally hurts lots of children and richly deserves lusty vengeance?"

Shit, does she tell him to stop and make it clear she knows or does she not stop him and risk it maybe ending in a much bigger disaster? 

...Alec's not going to say it with an audience, she'll get to him first, it's just one more impending disaster for her to juggle.

"When you say children, how young do you mean? Most of us are legally children."

Brian isn't sure he likes this avenue of conversation! And not even because he doesn't really want to call down a power-granting 'goddess of lust' on his mother!

"Here's our car, we need to get to the doctor quickly, can you follow on the horse? We won't drive too fast."

"You're not kids to me but you're close. I can follow along but the Comp Lang's gonna run out soon."

"I'll still understand you and should be able to get simple stuff across but my power will run out eventually so don't abuse it. Remember to give me vocab, my power's better given something to work with."

"The plan is we go to the doctor, Brian gets treated, then we need to find our missing team member - didn't have time to tell you about her, we'll probably end up fighting some people, but I don't have a lead yet. We'll take you to an apartment first, get you food and stuff. We'll need to be careful, the city's a warzone and Bakuda's goons will be looking for us. Better you stay behind and heal her when we bring her back, unless you're great in a fight."

Can't understand English anymore.

"No great shakes." He follows them on his horse.

They really ought to talk this over in the privacy of the car but all of Brian's attention is taken up by driving while dodging bomb craters and debris and feeling like every building they pass could explode and fall on top of them and so could his nose.

"Are we taking him to the hideout, or?"

Taylor is conflicted about adding someone to the team! She is already conflicted about planning to betray them to the authorities and now she's additionally conflicted about betraying someone else! A wanted man who just escaped from prison and then saved her life on a whim! But she can put that aside until they rescue Rachel so she can betray her. She really really doesn't want to dwell on what Bakuda might be doing to Rachel right now.

The alternative is asking Coil for an apartment and she doesn't want to tell Coil about the new cape until she has to, although realistically it won't be long before he finds out anyway.

"We can't do it by halves, he won't want to work with us if we don't trust him in our base. And he'll need help, at least at first, he can't even order food on his own. We're unmasked to him anyway."

"So dish. What all can he do besides healing and horses?"

"And languages," Lisa reminds him. "I can't tell you, though, he's a team member now. And I need my power to find Bitch, I'm this close to a headache already."

"What about this Calistria, anyone heard of her?"

None of them have, and the internet apparently hasn't either.

Hmm. Maybe she'd better ask Coil to look into 'Calistria', if there's any danger from that angle it's worth letting him know a bit earlier.

They arrive uneventfully at the address Lisa said the boss said the private doctor was at. 

The doctor insists on going by "Q," on the basis of "why should only capes get to have a secret identity" and also "this is a great excuse not to have my diploma framed on the wall." (Lisa can confirm that he is, in fact, an M.D. and doesn't waste time digging into why he's not, well, a public doctor. Coil wouldn't pay an incompetent, he wants the Undersiders healed.)

At any rate, he successfully extracts the capsule from Brian's head with only a little nosebleed to show for it. Said capsule will probably go to Coil; Lisa hopes it activates at the worst possible moment.

"Lisa, how quickly can you find Rachel?"

"I appreciate the show of faith but I'm not sure," she admits. "I've messaged the boss, he has his own sources. I don't have much to go on and if we play 'hot or cold' trying to find the right ABB hideout we'll be spotted. ...also, she might be held near Bakuda."

"She's injured and we're healed. If we're going to risk a fight better do it now while she's not expecting us to come back." 

"You said Lung escaped. He is probably looking for Bakuda or with her already. He'll want to establish he's still in control of the ABB, she'll want him to publicly accept what she did to her 'recruits'."

"So we need to find Bitch but only if she's not near Bakuda, got it."