"Is she in there with you?"

"If she is she can't talk to me."

"Maybe Tattletale can tell. Or the empath."

"It'd be nice to know if there's anything to be done for her, yeah. Her name was Nikki, I have her ID."

Lucien is honestly not sure what the conversationally appropriate way is to respond to the recently resurrected friend whose death you were responsible for about the person who probably died to make her resurrection possible! 

Hopefully the correct answer is awkward silence cause it's what he's going with, apparently.

"I have a different power now - I guess the same defensive one but I'm not a tinker anymore."

"Skitter said Jack Slash got hit with a van?"

"Yeah, I can hit people with vans. It's less, uh, fun, but it's oomphy."

"There's a reward for killing him, 2 mill apparently. Would have been more but the PRT capped it to prevent people from making bad decisions."

He will leave out the bit where Regent said the reward might even cover Lorica's speeding ticket. 

"Way less than I figured I could make tinkering."

"Oh um. About that."

"I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be recruiting you."

"I have no idea how old I legally am now."

"How old you are?"

"Would I be a Ward, or, uh, in for the duration."

"Oh, I'm not sure."

"I'd be recruiting you for the Undersiders, not the Wards." he says, embarrassed. 

"- why would I want to be an Undersider. Why would you, for that matter."

"After Leviathan attacked, the PRT was unsure about whether to promote me or punish me. His retreat through my trenches killed a lot of capes - a fourth of the ones who died during the fight were killed then. A few of them blamed my parents, said it was a simurgh plot."

"Skitter showed me her territory afterwards - it was one of the harder hit places in the city but was recovering faster than most. She told me she was a villain because it's how she thought she could do the most good, and that if I joined she'd want me to do the same - focus on construction and infrastructure rather than fighting. And she told me they paid better, and would fund my parent's tattoo removal as a signing bonus."

When he had joined he had not considered how embarrassing explaining this to his dead friend would be!

"They um, also are probably a safer team to be on than the Wards right now. And a more politically powerful one - within the bay at least."

"Safer and more politically powerful. How?"

"Leviathan changed things. Killed Armsmaster, Dauntless, Gallant, a bunch of New Wave. And um, you."

"The Undersiders all survived, and with Kaiser dead the Empire collapsed. The Undersiders inherited a lot of resources from Coil and an alliance with the Travelers. With the ABB defunct after the bombings they're the most powerful group left. Even the Merchants are gone - the nine killed most of them."

"Undersider's divided the city up among themselves and their allies and no one is left who can challenge that.

"Politics-wise Tattletale's been using Coil's money to fund relief and reconstruction and she's persuaded quite a few politicians that they'd be better off if they were friends with her." 

"I guess that sounds like the sort of thing she'd do. I don't really see myself going villain."

"I'm actually a rogue - unless you count unlicensed construction as villainous I suppose. So's Parian."

"Parian?"

"Controls dolls, had a fashion career. Went up against the nine to protect the people in her neighborhood."

"There's also a thinker who's a rogue that the Undersiders are allied with."

"Are the Undersiders all done with robbing banks and stuff now or are they just making nice with rogues?"

"As far as I know they only ever robbed the one bank. The Undersiders own a bunch of the banks in Brockton Bay now - easier to finance reconstruction through loans to local business then most other methods." 

This was non-zero his idea.