Chapter Text
“This makes me nervous, Taylor,” Danny said, pacing back and forth. Lacking a good place for this sort of strategizing at the office, they were in the basem*nt at home, which the two of them had slowly been transforming into a home gym. It wasn’t anything professional, but between the old scrap they’d found and Taylor’s ability to use her ring to weld things together – plus the ability to simply make items that had mass of their own – it served more than well enough. The clear center of the room made a good place for pacing.
“We don’t have a lot of choice,” she said apologetically. “We can’t turn to the PRT for fortifications without owing them a favor, which neither of us wants, and this is just the sort of test New Wave would want us to figure out mostly on our own before they sign on. If we can do this while working with them to handle whoever or whatever this is, it’ll win us a lot of points. We need to batten down the hatches.”
“Don’t get me wrong, the Union can handle most anything on its own,” he said, mostly just repeating arguments they’d both made over the course of the hours they’d been down here. “But the worst we’ve had was a much younger Hookwolf and his buddies, all of whom are straightforward. They didn’t even have many minions. The Merchants, though, they’re everywhere, and as pathetic as Skidmark is, he’s a lot cleverer than he is smart and he’s got a Tinker on his side.”
“What about Uber and Leet?” Taylor asked, hoping to inject new life into an exhausting argument. Danny snorted.
“As useful as they’ve been over the years, I don’t think they want to get involved in cape politics any more than they already are. It’s a dangerous business.”
“As a backup option, then,” Taylor suggested.
“Fine,” Danny sighed. “Fine. But backup only, and only if we can find a good way to repay them.”
“I can probably help with that,” she shrugged. “My ring can get a grip on his tech, more or less. I think if I offer him a certain amount of access to my scans, he’ll agree to help, and everyone knows he and Uber are a package deal.”
“As more than one person has learned to their detriment,” Danny muttered. “Alright, then. The dockyard will have to be our priority. If...hmm. Just a moment.” He went upstairs to the phone, Taylor following after a foot off the ground, and dialed. “Adam? I know it’s late, but – of course you’re still at the office. I’m calling Denise, she’ll lock you out tomorrow.” A pause. “Of course. But I do have a quick question for you. NEPEA, it’s all about who’s in charge, right?” A longer pause. “Right. So technically Blue Lantern can do work for the Union and even get paid, she just has to be operating under the authority of a non-parahuman, and she’d have some very high taxes to worry about. And it would be good for us to have a working relationship with her before things get started, right?” He nodded. “Right. Okay, thanks. I’m going to work out a few things with her after this Tinker drug business and the Merchants targeting us. Right. Okay, thanks.”
“Well, you can help us put things together,” he said. “Obviously we could back down on the lawsuit and let you just have some sort of foreman, but –”
“Absolutely not,” Taylor said. “I can help a lot of people by doing this right, and I refuse to back down just because we found an easier way.”
“Good girl,” Danny grinned. “That’s the Hebert way. That means that tomorrow, you and I are going to go down to the Union and spruce things up a bit, once we've had a chance to make some plans. We'll do that while you're at school. How’s your homework?”
“I can handle this,” Taylor promised. “I’m behind on a few things, but I can catch up this weekend. The ring is great for taking notes.”
“Good. Then get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow we’re working for a living.”
It was hard to fall asleep, but thankfully not because of anxiety. The ring didn’t cure that, but it did make it a lot easier to work through and understand. Instead, adrenalin kept her up for nearly an hour before Taylor’s fight or flight instincts calmed down enough to feel tired, and she spent the remaining time before falling asleep thinking up defensive ideas to try to bore herself to sleep. Unfortunately, she’d developed a lot of skill at 3D modeling in her head since gaining powers, and that didn’t work very well either; so it was that she woke up in time for school feeling like she’d barely slept at all.
“You look how I feel,” her dad mumbled as she slumped into her chair at the breakfast table. She mumbled something unprintable and missed her bowl on the first try, but managed to bring a spoonful of cereal to bear eventually. “You spend all night imagining scenarios too?”
“Uh-huh,” Taylor said.
“I keep worrying about that new drug turning into a zombie thing,” he told her. Taylor paused, then shuddered. “Yeah.”
“Half of my ideas were lethal,” she said. “Razor wire and James Bond nonsense. That bomb guy must have gotten it on my mind.”
“Don’t think we can train sharks to do that,” Danny said, though not without regret. In response, Taylor formed a half-dozen miniature flying blue laser sharks in the air and performed a half-hearted aerial ballet, making him choke on his coffee.
“Well, that’s one way to wake up. Want a ride to school today?”
Taylor did, so after they’d finished and she’d filled a thermos with tea they climbed into his truck and set out for Arcadia. It was rather out of the way for the Docks, but he’d assured her more than once that he could afford to come in a little late – particularly if he was planning to work late as well. On one turn, something in the truck’s internals groaned audibly.
“You’ve gotta convince someone at the office to look this thing over for you,” Taylor told him. He shrugged.
“Never seems like there’s any time for it. Can your ring do anything?”
“Uh...hold on.” She focused for a moment, and the ring pulsed a barely-visible blue bubble of light over the whole vehicle, totally unseen outside in the dim morning light. She examined the results for a moment and nodded. “Well, it looks like the struts for the wheels are wearing out and the thermometer is a little misaligned,” she said. “I can’t fix the struts while we’re in motion, but the thermometer shouldn’t be too hard. Let me just...” she cracked her neck and tried something she’d thought of after coming up with the mental trick to link thousands of sensors while looking for Piggot. In between her hands, hidden below the level of the windows, a miniature version of the truck’s thermometer assembly sprang to life. This nearly caused her father to swerve into traffic.
“Holy sh*t, don’t do that without warning a guy!” he yelped, jerking the wheel back into place. Taylor winced.
“Sorry! I’ve been working on this trick, it’s linked to the one in the truck itself. What I do to this one will happen to that one.”
“That’s a good trick,” he admitted. “Did you come up with that yourself?”
“Basically,” she shrugged. “It’s based on some stuff from a fantasy book in Mom’s ‘good but bad’ pile, about the wizard detective guy?”
“Oh, that one,” Danny nodded. “I never got far there, but I think I get it. Can you fix it?”
“I can try,” she shrugged. Ring, can we adjust the sensor?
Thermometer sensor misaligned. Realignment adjustment: rotate two degrees counterclockwise, reseat, and resolder connections. Commence?
Commence. The ring obediently shifted the sensor slightly and pushed it back into place, the truck making a very brief snapping noise as the component slotted in, and then a tiny soldering iron formed above her model and applied heat to the connections. In the real engine compartment, she knew, it would just transfer a little of the heat from the engine’s normal operation to do the job, since there wasn’t room for the soldering iron and the visual was for her benefit anyway, but the result was the same: on the dash, the temperature indicator edged back from the slightly overheated position it had been in. Danny nodded.
“Excellent job, kiddo. That’s a handy ability. How did you know how the thing works?”
“I’ve scanned a lot of vehicles by accident or otherwise, since I got my powers,” Taylor said. “And I can work on Tinkertech. The technology involved in a twenty-year-old truck isn’t much of a stretch.”
“A handy stretch indeed, though,” he grinned. “Alright, here we are. I’ll talk to someone about the struts, I guess. Have a good day, okay?”
“Okay, Dad,” she smiled. “I’ll come to you after, okay?”
“Sounds good.” He glanced up. “Oh, is that Panacea? Could you get her attention for me?”
“Wh – oh, yeah,” Taylor realized, and hurried over to where Vicky was setting Amy down. “Hey, Amy!”
“Oh, hello, Taylor,” Amy smiled. “Did you let your dad know?”
“Yeah, he’s actually over there,” Taylor said, nodding at the truck. Danny waved. “I think he wanted to tell you something, too.”
“Oh, alright,” Amy said in surprise, and went over. She and Danny exchanged a few words, and then Danny reached out of the truck and gave her a firm handshake, grinning. Amy, looking surprised from the back, managed to shake back well enough and then stepped away. Danny waved at her and Taylor, who waved back, and then drove off.
“What was that?” Vicky asked, waving as well.
“He was just thanking me for keeping Blue Lantern in the loop, with her warning him about the drugs,” Amy said. “Since the Merchants might be going up against the Union soon, and all. And he thanked New Wave for being willing to work with Blue Lantern so much, since we’re normally a lot more insular.”
“Well, she’s a good hero!” Vicky smiled. “I like working with her, especially since she can shut down my aura.”
“You’ve said,” Amy said drily. “Come on, guys, we’ve got class.”
_-0-_
After school, Taylor flew off to the docks with only a brief stopover at a storefront a couple of Empire guys were robbing. The owners thanked her, and accepted her assistance in removing the remains of the window – in true Brockton Bay fashion, easily removed from the inside for replacement – before she headed over to the rally point for the work on the Union facility. There, most of the bosses she’d talked to the day before were gathered in the open doorway of a large garage workshop, currently packed full of a bewildering variety of materials and supplies.
“Lantern!” her dad called out as she landed. “Welcome to the party. Ready to have fun?”
“Yes, sir,” she grinned. “What do we have so far?”
“Plans within plans,” he said, gesturing at the garage. “This is most of the stuff we were able to gather for our defenses, plus everything anybody thought would be useful. We’ve got fences, barbed and razor wire, old machinery, a few tons worth of concrete, and full authority to use all of it, straight from the top.”
“Mr. Atkins agreed?” she asked, surprised. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. Bill Atkins, the head of the Dockworkers Union in Brockton Bay, had been out of the city for years. Getting on in years and finding it difficult to get around as easily as he used to, he’d taken to running the union from afar and handing more and more responsibilities to Danny as his de-facto successor. These days, according to her dad, he only signed the paperwork and left nearly everything to him, but he would have needed to do more than that to sign off on some of the equipment she could see.
“He did,” Danny nodded. “Bill doesn’t like the idea of those lunatics shooting up the docks any more than your or I do. We have free reign, and in Brockton Bay, that means more than a lot of places.”
“I’ll say,” Taylor agreed, a little bewildered. “What do you need me to do?”
“Let’s take a look at the blueprints, shall we?” he asked. This they set to with a will, cheerful argument and new ideas flying, until the sun really began to set on them, along with the promised long tour of the exterior of the facility. When they finished making their decisions for the moment, Taylor stood up with a groan and cracked her back.
“Okay, I don’t think this is going to get better without a ton of effort we don’t have time for tonight,” she said. “Everybody ready?” Men and women nodded, and Mohammed, the security chief, raised his radio to his mouth. “Good. Let’s get going.”
“Alright boys and girls!” Gunther Olsson, the most experienced of the foremen, called. “Foremen, t’ your places! Fine detail people, get to t’ table! Lantern, on my signal! Mohammed, call us out!”
“Station one, stand by,” Mohammed called, and a chorus of replies sounded through the radio. “I’d like everyone at the guard stations to keep an eye out for watchers. We don’t mind if people see, we just don’t want them getting in the way.”
“Roger-dodger, bossman!”
“Aye, sir.”
“да.”
As the affirmatives came in, Mohammed ticked off names on his list, nodding along, and eventually turned to Taylor. “Sounds like we’re all good on our end.”
“Okay,” she nodded. Then, over the radio, she said, “o-okay, everyone. Make sure everybody’s out of the danger zone and the plans are set up and we’ll get started.” She waited for anyone to call for a pause, then reached up and pulsed her ring. A barely-visible wash of blue light, more obvious outside in the dusk, spread from her to the edge of the fence that marked the DWU’s property, spreading over tools, equipment, and construction supplies. Most of the yard it left untouched, but every tool with an edge or a bit found itself with a new, sharp blue edge, be it shovels or drills. Then, her ring collating the data into a single format, a scale model of the union facility’s first quadrant sprang to life before them.
At the traditional architectural scale of 1/64, the model took up no small portion of the now-emptied garage. A dozen men and women, the Dockworkers with experience building models and playing strategy games, sat around the table it rested on, leaned in, and started making their changes. Taylor, for her part, lifted into the air and took up position above the quadrant of the yard they were working on, which included the main gate, the security hut, and the front part of the actual Union office. There, with her light shining gently on everything in the yard, the Union began to work.
Great blocks of concrete rose out of the ground as the model-makers, using power-made scalpels to indicate their cuts, took the technique Taylor had used on her dad’s car to a whole new level. Where the concrete was gouged out, dockworkers – represented in flimsy holograms on the model – rushed in with newly-mixed concrete and long steel beams and fence posts, welders and rivet guns, barbed wire and all the tools such things required. Coordinating with radios, the workers who would normally be using one of the Union’s limited supply of cranes, cherry pickers, and lifters had donned the climbing harnesses normally used by men working on power lines, along with crash helmets, and would raise a flag when they were ready to go up. The model-makers, unable to do the fiddly work on that scale, would then lift them in the model, their actions translating to real life as Taylor’s power responded to their actions and lifted the men from the ground and into position.
It was heady, and it was exhilarating, and it was almost shockingly exhausting the more they worked. Taylor managed to hold herself in the air for first five minutes, and then twenty, and then nearly forty-five, but by then she was barely a foot off the ground and groaning with exhaustion.
Status? she demanded of her ring.
Power generation unable to keep up with expenditure, it warned. Local hope generation is sufficient for further expenditure, but Thaumaturgic Reach technique is not yet refined enough to use energy efficiently enough for current purpose. Recommend cancelation of effect.
No can do, Taylor grunted. I need to see what my limits are, and this is the first time we’ve run into any. How can I expect to move the ship if I can’t handle this?
For user safety, recommend cancelation of effect.
No. We keep going.
...command override accepted. It didn’t sound terribly happy about her decision. Drawing on ambient hope generation. Taylor felt a surge of energy as it did this, the power allowing her to rise back into the air, but it was nothing like starting at full power, and she groaned with the new strain.
“Lantern, are you okay?” a dockworker standing by called.
“’m fine,” she gasped. “Keep goin’!”
“This is Ed, Lantern’s gonna hurt herself if she keeps this up!” the man said into his radio. “All hands, down on the deck!”
“You heard him!” Gunther bellowed over the radio. “ Modeling team, set down everything heavy or fragile! ”
“I can keep going!” Taylor groaned, trying to rise higher. It didn’t really work. Everyone ignored her, and the strain dropped somewhat as the heavy stuff was set down. “Come on!”
“No,” her dad said sternly from below her. “Cut it out now, Lantern. We don’t need you hurting yourself.”
“I-gah, fine,” Taylor snarled, and let her ring cut the power off. Immediately, it felt as if she’d run a marathon while carrying the other marathon runners, incredible weight crashing down on her back and bearing her to the ground.
Emergency power employed, her ring informed her. Combat abilities restricted while power regenerates. Regeneration rate: ten percent functionality in thirty minutes. Fifty percent functionality in one hour, twenty-three minutes. Full power in two hours, eighteen minutes.
That’s pretty fast, Taylor managed as she gasped for breath on all fours, her dad’s hand on her shoulder. Why’s it faster at higher levels?
Hope begets hope, her ring said seriously. The increased reserves grow more quickly the more they recover. For this reason, extended combat relies on the presence of –
“Are you alright?” Danny asked Taylor, now that she was able to breathe on her own again.
“I’m fine,” she managed. “I was trying to figure out my limits.”
“Congratulations, you found them,” he said drily. “I’m guessing you can't do that again easily?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Not tonight, for sure. Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine, Lantern,” Gunther said, coming up to one side. “We had enough warning t’ get everyone down to t’ ground, no trouble. Not even a scratch on the equipment, neither.” He looked concerned. “I won’t have my workers hurtin’ themselves tryin’ t’ do work they shouldn’t.”
“I understand,” Taylor nodded. “Sorry. I got worried, is all. I mean, if we don’t finish this whole thing as soon as possible, the Merchants might come attack the Union, and we won’t be ready. And if I can’t keep the Union safe, how can I keep the city safe? And what about the ship? That thing’s huge, way bigger than a couple of fence posts and fifteen people! How am I going to –”
“Let me stop you right there, kiddo,” her dad interrupted. “You’re spiraling. Breathe. Okay? Breathe.” Taylor did, sucking in a deep gulp of air, and suddenly realized that her ring hadn’t interjected the way it normally did when an anxiety spiral began. “Okay, you’re good. You’re fine. Mohammed, what would happen if the Merchants showed up right now?”
“We’d get out the cranes and the trucks and toss ‘em out just like we did the Empire,” Mohammed said calmly, having come up behind them. “It’d be a risk, but we’re Brocktonites. It’s a risk just going to the grocery store.”
“Right,” Danny nodded. “And Gunther, if the ship turns out to be too big a project to do all at once?”
“We do it a bit at a time,” Gunther said promptly. “Just like anythin’ else that’s too big t’ do in one fell swoop.”
“And how would we do that, Gunther?”
“With help, of course!” the big man laughed. “I get it, Danny. You, kid, have fallen for what we in t’ Union call Cape Arrogance.”
“Just like Panacea,” Danny added.
“Right, just like her. Or Armsmaster, who seems t’ resent every time he needs backup in a fight wit’ t’ Empire or t’ ABB. Y’ don’t seem like the sort, most of t’ time; what gives?”
“Uh, my powers,” she said weakly. “I strained them. I don’t think the stuff that usually helps with anxiety like this is working right now.”
“Well, there you go,” Danny nodded, patting her on the back. “Give ‘em a few hours to recover, see how you feel, work out if this was a power thing or an efficiency thing.”
“What?” she asked.
“Pretty much the difference between one guy with a pile of bricks building a house and a team of builders with years of experience doing it. The one guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing might take years to do what they can in two or three weeks.” Danny smiled at her. “A first-time technique like that is always going to have some bugs.”
How efficient was that? Taylor asked her ring.
Efficiency at under 8.4 percent of projected efficiency, her ring informed her. Initial trial run of Thaumatic Reference Technique proved viability, but improvements are required.
No kidding, she agreed. “Okay, it was an efficiency thing. One I can improve, and will. Can you guys imagine being able to use that on a battlefield?”
“Now that is a thought,” Mohammed mused. “A very interesting one. Hmm.” The short man bent his head in thought, humming and sketching things out in the air with a finger, eyes far away.
“So improve it,” Danny encouraged her. “Think it through, do better next time, and get home for the night. We’ll handle cleanup.”
“What? No!” Taylor said, struggling to her feet. “I can help with that at least!”
“No, you can do the work of ten cranes for forty-five minutes,” he corrected her gently. “Which is quite a lot. We’ve got plenty of work to do here, and we got the heavy stuff out of the way early. Go home, sit down, eat a snack, and finish your – uh,” he stopped, obviously remembering that they had an audience. “Well, take care of things at home. Can you fly?”
“Not yet,” she sighed. “Give me half an hour, I guess.”
“Okay, then you can head up to the conference room if you like,” he said. “We’ve usually got some bags of chips and bottled water up there. Rest, kiddo. Okay?”
“Ugh, fine,” she sighed. Then, after a pregnant pause, she added, “thanks.”
_-0-_
In the way of parents everywhere, the order to rest and eat something turned out to help immensely. Taylor was able to catch her breath after a few minutes, and felt gradually better over the course of the next half hour until she felt her hope aura spring to life again around her like the warm, comforting hug of an old friend. She sighed in relief.
Can we afford to keep this up? she asked reluctantly.
Energy expenditure minimal, the ring assured her. Current reserves: 10.013%.
How do reserves work, anyway? And power generation?
Power generation draws on energy available from local compatible emotions, mainly hope.
Other emotions work? Taylor asked, startled. I thought it was just hope.
Hope is the most efficient source by far, it explained. However, the emotions of joy, bravery, and certain examples of will are also effective.
Huh. How’s regeneration doing now?
Local hope is at a high level due to Wielder actions, it said proudly. Regeneration at slightly above predicted levels. Current estimation of time to complete recharge: one hour, forty minutes.
And if we go home?
Please specify home coordinates?
Where I sleep, Taylor rolled her eyes.
Time to full recharge at ambient hope levels at location designation Home: approximately three hours.
Huh. Taylor considered this, sipping her juice box, and then frowned. Hey, what were you saying about extended combat problems earlier?
Extended combat requires significant influx of Blue Lantern hope energy. While the presence of an established Blue Lantern can mitigate the long-term cost of such a weakness, particularly where the Blue Lantern has already been active, a Blue Lantern is at their best in combat when aided by a Green Lantern, whose powers are significantly boosted by the presence of a Blue Lantern power ring.
There are other lanterns?! Taylor demanded. Where the hell are they? Why aren’t we getting any help? Why am I running this whole thing on my own?!
In response, her ring flickered and showed a hologram of the little blue guy who’d made her ring, or given it to her, or...whatever. This time, he looked much sadder.
“I see you have realized that if one ring exists, others must also. And in turn, you have asked why no other aid has been sent. For this, I apologize; in the universe to which I am native, the first Green Lantern of Earth was swiftly joined by five others, and even they were not enough to protect the world alone without aid from many mighty allies. Your world, though not threatened from beyond the stars as theirs is, is a far crueler place, and were I able I would send the entirety of the Blue Lantern Corps, and a contingent of willing Green Lantern volunteers, to aid you. But I cannot.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I am a Guardian of the Universe, and it is my duty to protect it from all manner of threats. I found your world when dealing with one such threat, an attempted incursion from your universe to mine by a being of great and terrible cosmic might and very little creativity. Its lack of original thought made it vulnerable to my counterstroke, but the hole it left in the barrier between universes closed swiftly, and I was forced to act swiftly in turn. I barely had time to send one ring through, and had to decide quickly which would be most effective. Call it hubris, but I decided that the rings of my Corps would be the most effective in this area. But still, it left you alone.”
His eyes hardened, and his shoulders firmed. “Blue Lantern Taylor Hebert, of Earth Bet, I say this unto you now: be it against the greatest and most terrible of enemies, be it with the aid of a Corps or utterly alone, I believe firmly that a single Ring, a single drop of hope in a world long since left without, is enough to save your people. I cannot come to your aid myself, for I am limited; I cannot send the backup, the training, the information you deserve, because to shatter the boundary between universes would invite many terrible threats to that which I am bound to protect. But I can have faith in you , child, alone and mighty, and your ability to breathe hope and life into a world that needs it. Be the light in the darkness, Taylor Hebert. Let hope shine bright. And when the time comes, you will know to speak the words.”
And the message ended.
_-0-_
When Danny got home, he found Taylor doing agility exercises – which mostly consisted of jumping over steel bars of varying heights – in the basem*nt, muttering under her breath. Her ring was glowing slightly, and a little lens was sitting over one eye, delivering data to her in some way, but otherwise inactive. He leaned against the wall at the base of the stairs and watched for a while, thinking.
“Hey dad,” she huffed when she finished, dripping with sweat. “Wanna try?”
“I’ll leave the jumping from building to building to the young, thanks,” he smiled. “I thought I told you to keep your ring off for the night.”
“It’s never off,” she shrugged. “But I know what you mean. I had it on low power mode while I figure some stuff out about the technique we used. You were right, like I said; it was mostly about efficiency. But it takes a lot of weird math to work out exactly how to route everything, and I was getting antsy, so I decided to multitask.”
“So I see,” he nodded. After a moment, he sat down on the folding chair beside the bench she was sitting at, normally for jumping exercises, and handed her a water bottle. “You look a little more pensive than just figuring out new ways to triple the output of any given work crew. What’s up?”
“Am I that transparent, that quickly?” she smiled, accepting the bottle.
“Dad instincts, long left to atrophy, return to the fore,” he said imperiously. “What’s up, kiddo?”
“I...” she hesitated, then turned to face him fully. “I don’t know if I want to talk about it yet,” she admitted. He frowned.
“Taylor, the last time you did anything like that, you nearly died.”
“I know!” she said. “And I’ll tell you soon, I swear. But right now I kind of had my mind blown two hours ago, and I don’t want to talk about it until I have things straight in my head, you know?”
“I suppose,” he said. “What’s the basic premise, then? You don’t have to tell me all your ugly issues or anything, but I need to know how bad it’s going to get so I can help if it starts to go out of your control.”
“It’s about my powers, and...where they came from,” she said reluctantly. “I swear it’s not bad, just sort of a lot. Can I tell you later?”
“Absolutely,” he smiled. “Come on, I’ll bet you didn’t eat before you came down for Batman lessons.”
“Running on a full stomach is horrible,” she complained.
“You still need a decent meal now,” he shrugged. “Come on, we’ll make enormous Caesar salads. Healthy and delicious, all in one fell swoop! I even got fresh herbs to sprinkle on there.”
“No one else I know does that,” she informed him, tossing aside a sweaty towel to be laundered later. “They all gave me weird looks when I suggested putting fresh herbs on your salad.”
“It’s not for every salad, that’s for sure,” he agreed. “But it is for this one. You can chop the herbs, vanishing cutting boards are much better for that than normal ones.”
“Yes, sir,” she laughed, and followed him upstairs.
