News has already broken that Cask died. No one has made any serious accusations, probably because all the local villains were a lot of escalation away from home invasion and murder. If the PRT suspects it was her, they didn't publicize that.

Still safe to walk around, then. She should still move on, away from here. Maybe head north. Any interesting powers in that neck of the woods?

Selection's limited if she's still avoiding the biggest cape cities. There's a shaker 12 who can reportedly more or less create her own environment, and a highly rated changer who can morph into impossible monsters. Each is with a traveling team, so could maybe be coaxed away from wherever they are right now. If she wanted to go to Toronto there's a cape who is almost Legend lite, toggling between the speed and invulnerability or the firepower. A hero who doesn't need to eat or sleep, which would have come in handy lately, but she's not likely to get him out of Boston.

Toronto sounds good to her. Far enough away that she probably won't be expected there either.

It's definitely that. She's kind of establishing a pattern if they do know this was her, but at least it's not a pattern that lets anyone predict her very well.

That's the idea.

Now that her hands are free, she can get another car and use that instead of taking the bus.

Cars are traceable. At least if anyone does track it down, it'd be the stolen-car police not the extremely-superpowered-serial-killer police.

Luckily for them, no one tries to get in her way for far enough that they probably aren't following her.

Good. It's going to be a long enough trip without that kind of distraction.

The Protectorate building is nice and obvious. Toronto's cape scene is on roughly the same scale as Raleigh's; it has a fully-staffed PRT department and hero team but isn't one of the big-name cities. A couple gangs mostly engaged in petty crime and only notable for the fact that they have parahumans attached, and an independent hero team who would probably be more accurately labeled rogues.

The target is also fairly conspicuous. Grumman doesn't really have a secret identity; it's a side effect of how he's either completely immobile or an extremely maneuverable bullet. It'd come out the first time he tried to have a conversation while walking. So finding out where he lives is easier than the last time around. Of course, identities are normally secret for a reason. Even if no one expects villains to attack someone at home, they have to be aware of the possibility.

Reconnaissance is part of what the drones are for. She sends them to scope out the target.

The drones spot what are probably alarm systems. Getting very close would be a risk. But they can tell there doesn't seem to be anyone living there except for the target and his mother.

Surprise is going to be crucial. If he runs, she won't be able to catch him. Probably neither of her tinkers know anything about alarm systems?

The new one definitely doesn't; the other would have to see the house's defenses up close.

How heavily trafficked is the neighborhood?

Not very. If she strolls by looking at the house, chances are no one outside it would see. It still wouldn't be that much better a view of the home defense systems than the drones could get, but it's something.

Risk is low enough. She'll take a walk. Casual-like.

No one questions her. A woman who is presumably Mrs. Stodt is visible inside the house but doesn't do more than glance at her.

Some of the alarms look like motion sensors, presumably turned off since it's the middle of the day. Cameras view the entrances from the outside but have fairly wide fields of vision. There's no stretch of wall that's obviously unwatched. Including the roof, though the drones could say that one already. (The devices look sufficiently different from what the Machine Army tinker could do that that power is no help here. Which is interesting; it's suggestive that there might be tinker tech involved.)

The house probably isn't impenetrable. But if there are vulnerabilities, walking past isn't going to reveal them.

It's more penetrable than the Protectorate headquarters, and catching him in transit is intractable. If she knew when and where he was going to be patrolling, she could try to arrange something that would require intervention.

Tinkertech home security is.. atypical. Does Toronto have any local capes who might provide such a service to teammates?

They don't publicize exactly what the specialties are except in the obvious cases, but there is a tinker on the team. She does have a tendency to make sets of interconnected small items; that could apply here whether it's for power reasons or not.

Hmm. So it's not completely unreasonable that this be here. Doesn't really help with circumventing it.

Does a few days more of observation turn anything useful up?

Nothing out of the ordinary. She can guess in advance when he'll be at work, but not whether he'll be actively out patrolling. He's probably never going to be completely vulnerable; she might have to pick a least bad option.

Which is probably going to be the house while he sleeps, again. She waits for his return and plans her route.

It's a bit of an awkward angle of approach. His room is on the ground floor and not on the side facing the street. But: teleportation.

The flash of light associated therewith can be kind of a giveaway. But perhaps no one will be watching.

They aren't.

Until she's approaching the wall and right up next to it, and by the time she tunnels through the wall he's half-awake and blinking. Once she's inside, wow those alarms are loud. And bright. And arranged directly around the person who needed to be woken up at a moment's notice; nice and considerate.