"Here's your real work as a hero; helping us afford bacon!" Dad chuckled.
I smiled back. It was strained.
We were having our breakfast late. He'd spent the usual getting-ready-and-breakfast time calling the DWU and telling everyone to take the day off. Then, because that had included the secretaries, he'd called everyone else in the office or on the membership lists and informed them himself. As well as generally checking in with the workers because my dad really was good at his job.
But that had taken two hours longer than expected, so here we were having breakfast at 10. Dad had decided to make an occasion of it too, so we'd driven to the shops to grab bacon and fresh bread and a few other nice things. Because 'your mom said the small things were the most important'.
The bacon was really nice. Cooking together had been also nice, if novel. But it had made me realise that this was the first meal we were actually eating together in a week.
I'd felt guilty when scraping the eggs onto my plate. But we were here now, and dad seemed happy that we could make something nice of this moment. I was smiling too. And groaning at dad's joke, even if it did fall a little flat.
Because being a hero was more important than (missing family dinners) earning money. People were dying. And I was pretty sure dad had been getting takeout delivered to the DWU office anyway.
The silence stretched for a few more bites. Not fully comfortable, but normal.
Huh. The DWU. I realised (yet another realisation) that I hadn't really thought about that organisation since joining the Wards. But I did still remember them. Both in childhood memories and as the:
[Brockton Bay Dockworker's Union] [Goal: Find Work/Survive, Rebuild the Docks]
"Hey dad," I began.
"Mm?" He said with a mouthful of bacon and bread soaked in the pan.
"Is the union safe? With the war and all?"
He paused. Finished chewing and blinked a few times. Set his cutlery down and sighed just a little.
"I'll be calling people for the rest of the day. No one's been hurt, but the Empire did send a few guys to try and be threatening. No – no, don't worry Taylor, nothing happened."
I forcibly unclenched my fist. The thought of anyone trying to rough up my dad put me on edge. Because I know that dad would be front and centre, standing firm.
"It was just a few toughs. Who scarpered right quick when they realised that there were more and tougher guys behind me." Dad chuckled.
I grinned back, but it felt a little wry. He'd just confirmed that he'd been the negotiator. Again. Which was his job, but only the city and companies were in the position description, not gangs.
"So yeah, I'm going to be checking in from home for the rest of the day. The big fight yesterday might mean we get a small break." He sounded like he felt bad for wanting one himself.
"I'm probably going to coordinate the guys and see if anyone needs some, uh, hands or repairs." The little bit of enthusiasm dad injected into his tone died on the last three words. He knew how long proper repairs took. Not to mention bureaucracy for involving the city. Or the price in the first place.
And I'd seen just how bad a bunch of places were. Nearly half the block from Lung and Kaiser's fight yesterday had to be condemned. A whole load of places in the Docks would be getting quick and dirty jobs.
At least this was happening as we entered summer, not winter.
"You doing anything today?" Dad picked up his fork.
I hurriedly (finally) ate the forkful of food that I'd been holding in mid-air while I thought. Not because I needed to think about my answer, not at all.
Bah. I was being stupid. This was dad. Feeling guilty about not spending time with him was the worst reason to lie about my plans.
"I'll probably go to the PRT to see my friend… and do my homework properly. I was rushing it a bit and, well, now there's time. May as well get on top of things." I smiled at dad.
He didn't smile back.
Oh no.
"Dad?" I ventured, after a 20 agonising seconds.
He opened his mouth. Waved his fork for a second.
"I…" He waved his fork again then stabbed the final bit of bacon hard enough that the plate screeched. "I just want to know you're safe. I saw the news last night. They said you were near a fight." Dad trailed off.
I watched him. Waited for whatever would come next. I knew dad hadn't been very happy after my fight with the Merchants. But he'd been reassured by me getting stuck on console duty. It had rankled.
I understand that dad wanted me to be safe.
But it felt like he was still treating me like the twelve-year-old who'd just lost her Mom. Back then I had needed to feel safe. To be cared for and reassured. (While he'd forgotten me in his drinking.) But now? Well, I'd already had bad things happen. And I'd fought through it enough to become a hero.
I'd lived my life without someone protecting me. I didn't need it now.
Dad looked up at me and then looked sad.
"How can I know you're safe, Taylor?"
I looked down.
No. No, it was a fair question. Dad was, well, still my dad. Some of my problems were because of him, but not all of them. Not even most of them.
And dad cared. I cared about him too. It was just… difficult. There were a lot of things between us.
"Wards are always in pairs or larger groups. And there's always another Ward or dispatcher on comms. We check in regularly, and you know that they don't send us into fights without Protectorate backup." I hoped I didn't sound impatient, but dad's face tightened at my last point.
"And," I continued before he could interject, "there's no way any of us are being sent into a fight during this mess."
Dad sighed. But I'd spoken the truth and he knew me well enough not to tell me to stop helping the city. It would have been hypocritical anyway, what with his plans for his 'day off work'.
"I…" He paused again. "Okay. Is there anything I can do to help keep you safe?"
It was only because I'd been focusing on my body sense through the whole conversation that I noticed my shoulders tense. Otherwise I would have been too busy keeping a grimace off my face.
I had powers. And dad wanted to keep me safe? While he was talking down (probably armed) Empire goons?
Dad could keep me safe by staying alive. For another 40 years. At least.
If anything, I'd be the one keeping him safe. Who knew what the gangs would do to him if they found out my secret identity?
I took a few deep breaths while monitoring the tension in my muscles.
"Dad," I looked back up to meet his eyes, "I want you to get a phone."
Dad blinked. Then paled. Then his brow furrowed and his nose flared and his jaw clenched. All of a sudden, he didn't look like the man I knew as my father. He looked like the furious defender of Brockton Bay's dockworkers.
A man who would and had stood in front of the gangs and said 'no'.
A man who shouted very loudly.
Dad froze, the only movement being the breaths that dragged heavily in and out of his chest.
He looked up at the ceiling and clenched his fork so tightly his knuckles went white.
"Dad?" I asked. Tentatively.
He didn't look down, but I saw him blink. His shoulders came down and the room felt a little less dangerous. We stayed there for a minute. A tableau of a moment that could have gone so horrendously wrong.
"Mom made a mistake." And what a big mistake it was. "But I need to be able to contact you. You need to be able to contact me. If something does go wrong and we aren't together, we need to be able to check in."
Dad breathed out; a shuddering sigh that took with it the rigidity of his posture. He finally looked down. His eyes were glistening.
"I want to be able to know you're safe too, dad." I said softly. The moment felt precarious.
"I don't like thinking about how you've gone and grown up." Dad looked at me like he was seeing me in a new light. I didn't know if he liked what he saw. But I had grown up. And he kind of hadn't been there for parts of it.
"I'll think about it kiddo." He sighed.
I nodded. Then excused myself to head up to my room and pack my backpack for the day.
We both needed some space.
[>[>/^\<]<]
The rest of my day was simple.
Bus ride to downtown. Wearing some of the new clothes I'd gotten yesterday. The bus had been empty – the few people who'd be moving around at this time of day choosing to shelter from the war. Which hopefully would limit itself to night-time again.
Which was good, because I wasn't worried about people judging me. Not that had any logical reason to. I was just… Winslow hadn't faded entirely.
But I was wondering what the other Wards would think. Vicky knew fashion and had been happy with what I'd ended up with. But my team was more important. I didn't need their approval. But I could trust it like I couldn't trust other people. So I was a little nervous.
Those thoughts had prompted me to get off a few stops early and buy some more hair products and other personal supplies to stock my Wards room with. Hopefully the gang war would calm down by next week, but if I was still spending almost every night on patrol, I'd need some extra pads.
And I got some snacks for the hell of it. Because I had money now. (Well, about 20% less after yesterday, even with Vicky paying for some things. But still, it was mine. I could do what I wanted with it.)
My buoyed feelings stayed high while I took one of the secret entrances into the PRT building and grabbed my gym clothes from the Wards base. I didn't lift weights like the boys (minus Chris) did. Instead, I copied Missy's routine of treadmill, rowing machine, and boxing.
Today was mainly boxing. I didn't go too hard, because there was patrol later. But that was also kind of the problem. There was patrol later. Stupid regulations forcing me to wait when I wanted to be helping.
So, boxing. It helped get some of the frustration out anyway. I could relentlessly pound the bag like I couldn't the gangs. Although the stamina building was useful.
And after the fight with the Undersiders I'd started working out how to incorporate warping into my fighting style.
I kind of wondered what it looked like from somebody else's perspective. A tall lanky girl pounding the bag then suddenly appearing behind or beside it. Slowly (by trial and error) figuring out how to turn momentum from just before my warp into a kick or elbow strike as I reappeared.
My body sense was the only thing allowing me to make progress without an instructor. Being able to know how the muscles and tendons were reacting was invaluable.
I kept hitting the bag until my knuckles were bruised.
[>[>/^\<]<]
Assisting the first responders really shouldn't have started to feel boring.
Like, I'm pretty sure there was a shitty purgatory for people who did good things but didn't enjoy it.
Because Kid Win and I were doing good work. But it also felt like I'd… adjusted. Adapted. The psychology thing about people who win the lottery normalising their new situation.
I shouldn't feel this way. Like helping the ambulances was just another class at school.
It's not like I felt bad helping paramedics or anything. I was still using my power to warp through the city and spot who was dead versus mortally wounded. And I'd figured out a new tricky with my body sense where I could focus on the sensations from my fingertips and compare that to my own pulse as a sort of pre-triage.
But…
Seeing Lung and Kaiser fight yesterday. I'd realised that helping first responders was still, ultimately, responding. Reacting. Waiting for the gangs to make their move and then mitigating. Containing.
Not actually protecting anything or anyone that was already hurt. Panacea could heal. But I wasn't Panacea.
The best way for me to use my power to help the city was to stop the people that were ruining it.
It was only logical. When I'd fought the Merchants, a whole gang had been stopped. A minor one, sure, but it was still progress. When my team had fought the Undersiders, we'd learnt critical information about them. Even losing in a fight had given more benefits than arriving after the villains had done their deeds to… give everyone their money back?
What use was doing that when the Undersiders – or any other villain – could rob the bank again?
But the Undersiders had targeted the bank and we'd fought them. The message to the villains of the city was 'here is the line'. Because the villains were, at heart, bullies. They'd keep pushing until they found a line. Then they'd probably test it.
Lung and Kaiser yesterday had disregarded all care for collateral damage. The Protectorate had gotten involved with their fight. To contain it, but Lung was a special case. You couldn't stop him.
But like how the Trio at Winslow had had hangers on, the villains had their gangs.
The PRT Image department had drummed into me how important public perception was. I thought they needed to consider how the villains perceived us too. The villains and the gang members under them.
"Console, this is Kid Win. Seneschal and I arriving at point." Kid Win's update sounded clear in my ear, shaking me out of my mind wandering.
I was warping across rooves as he flew above the street. An ambulance sped round the intersection up ahead and pulled up near a car made entirely of crystal. No. The car and a chunk of sidewalk had been turned to crystal.
People had obviously been caught in that.
I hated the part of myself that would rather fight the asshole gangers that threw the grenade instead of helping the paramedics here. Wanting a fight is bad. Against all of the morals that my parents taught me. Be the better person. Turn the other cheek.
But dammit! I wanted this to stop.
A final warp landed me next to the ambulance. Kid Win soared down to tell the paramedics about the portable pulse/blood pressure detector he'd tinkered together out of a few spare suit modules. I was pretty sure he made a second one during the trip we just made.
My mental map covered the area and…
Oh. That crystal bomb had effected people.
There was a man with a crystal leg. A woman who had half of her arm caught. (A vertical half, with static where her underarm should be and crystal that I could sense clear as anything except for the blurry edges where it met her flesh.)
I warped to a paramedic to inform them that the man's leg was crystal all the way through.
Kind of blue. Like halfway between a fancy diamond and a sapphire. But not faceted. Just smooth. With all the wrinkles and moles and hairs the man had in life. Perfectly preserved in a way that a sick person would see as priceless.
A squeal of tires.
My head snapped back down the street Kid Win and I had travelled down.
In the distance, a… jeep? Was speeding towards us.
Above it, a floating mass off… I couldn't make it out. Damn my eyes. But anything floating meant a parahuman power. We were downtown, so…
Rune. Empire. Chasing some ABB?
I toggled my mic. "Console, this is Seneschal reporting Rune following a speeding vehicle on –" I checked my HUD "– Clove Boulevard. Heading towards us and the paramedics."
"Copy that Seneschal." The PRT dispatcher on console said.
Kid Win's [determination] and [anticipation] sharpened and he flew over to me. Maybe I wasn't the only one wanting to be more proactive.
Gunshots. Muzzle flashes from the – I could now see that was definitely a jeep. Looked almost military, really.
In return, a car door shot forwards from Rune's floating mass. The jeep's driver managed to swerve out of the way, but the projectile door slammed into the asphalt with a screeching crunch. Then rose, crumpled in half, back into the air while the people on the jeep fired again.
Those were assault rifles. Fuck the gangs for making the PRT lessons about different types of gun sounds useful.
"Those are Coil's mercenaries. Not surprised he's pressing the Empire while they're fighting Lung." Kid Win said, busy teleporting in his combat equipment.
Coil…
Oh. The snake guy that hired mercenaries. No one ever saw him on the field – which made some people doubt that he even had powers. Just enough money to hire enough mercenaries to hold some of downtown against the Empire. Enough money to equip them with tinkertech too.
It didn't matter if he had powers or just cash. He was still using it to build a petty kingdom. Still just a bully.
But Coil was elsewhere and thus currently unimportant. There were villains right in front of me.
"The vehicle is firing on Rune, who is launching objects back. They're getting closer to us and the ambulance, Console." I sounded impatient. I was impatient. I wasn't going to hide it. We were assigned to assist the paramedics and now, finally, assisting the paramedics meant doing something about the gangs who were way too busy fighting to care about killing paramedics. Probably.
The Geneva Conventions counted for gang wars too, right?
"Kid Win and Seneschal, this is Console. The Director has authorised you to stall Rune. Protect the ambulance and any civilians and do not give chase if Rune flees. Assault is on his way."
It felt like adrenaline had been coiling up in my adrenal glands like a snake about to strike. And with the dispatcher's words, it (and I) was free. My blood sang.
"Kid Win, you're on defensive. Blast anything that Rune launches too close. Stun anyone in the jeep if you can." At my words, my teammate's [anticipation] bloomed into [determined acceptance] with a hint of [revenge]. Which wasn't new. Everyone except Carlos and Dean had been feeling like they wanted to pay the gangs back for the damage they were causing.
I warped down the street onto a rooftop and crouched down on the dirty gravel. The jeep sped past me and was met with a volley of laser blasts. Kid Win had sent out his targeting drones just after I'd warped away from him.
"5 in the jeep. 2 in the front cabin, 3 in the tray with assault rifles." I reported.
I kept a facet of my attention on the distances between the jeep, ambulance, and static people around the crystal area.
The rest, I focused on Rune. Who had entered the range of my mental map. And wasn't alone.
I knew Rune was a teenager, thus likely to be the smaller static-shape, but that didn't help me figure out who the taller person was.
Frustrating. But this was an opportunity I'd been waiting for. For the whole week.
I had to be patient. My plan for the Empire's capes was to fight them as individuals. Kid Win had shown his presence by attacking the jeep. Which…
A focused barrage of lasers bounced off the jeep. I'd seen those lasers destroy walls. In burning buildings, but… still. A third barrage, from a higher angle, caused the static-people in the jeep's tray to collapse in a slump.
The jeep's screeched as the driver slammed on the brakes to slow and turn down a side alley. Away from Kid Win. Our orders were to stall. We could fight here – in defence of the civilians – but we'd definitely get in trouble if we chased the jeep.
And the Empire capes – villains – were more important.
Rune's mass of concrete, pieces of car and buildings, and… a mailbox… slowed and drifted downwards towards the street. Some of the hovering chunks lowered into a crazy levitating staircase – except the steps had 5 feet between them vertically.
The taller static-person next to Rune jumped from the central platform to flip and drop down the staggered platforms. Of course, the villains did acrobatic tricks. Of course.
A chunk of road suddenly shot towards Kid Win. A laser barrage, waiting for that moment, blasted the asphalt into rubble. Which rained down onto the road over the other Empire cape.
Who dodged all of it, swinging two miniature scythes to deflect the small pieces away too.
Only one Empire cape used those weapons. (They were Asian in origin, which the Nazis had conveniently forgotten.)
Cricket – I recognised the metal cage that covered her lower face now – followed up dodging the raining road pieces by also dodging a few shots from Kid Win's pistols. She had enhanced reflexes and some audio power that induced nausea or ruined your sense of balance.
Okay. Kid Win could delay her. I didn't have to rush to help him.
Stall Rune, my orders were. And I would follow them. Because stall was a synonym for halt. And halt was a synonym for stop.
Rune's central platform was rising again, all the random debris following. But she had just flown past the roof I was crouched on. And all of her miscellaneous material was forming a defensive shield. At the front.
I stood, warped, and tasered Rune in the back. She shuddered and slumped forwards as rust, dust, and ozone drifted into my nostrils.
And then all of the floating stuff began to fall. Shit!
Shit shit shit!
"Kid! Rune's down but she's falling! Catch her and I'll hold off Cricket!"
My teammate's static-shape flew forwards, [alert].
I warped back to the ambulances and hit the ground hard. I'd picked up a little momentum from gravity. Not enough to knock me over. But enough that Cricket managed to dash to halfway between Rune's falling mess and the paramedics in the time I took to recover.
She was fast. That was bad. But manageable.
The jeep had turned down the side alley and was nearing the edge of my mental map. They were gone. I shifted that last facet of my focus to the fight.
Warped behind Cricket, who ducked under the taser's sparking end and sliced at my leg with one of the scythes. My mental map let me raise my leg enough for the blade to impact my shin guard.
Warped away. Warped next to her shoulder and – Cricket jumped upwards to knee my elbow.
I warped away. Warped back in the same spot, then warped to her other side and jabbed – a mini-scythe sliced up my bicep. I ignored that, but she still leant away in a bending motion and whipped the other arm forward.
I warped away. The cut wasn't bleeding badly – not that my cuts and scrapes bled much anyway nowadays – but too much deeper and that would have cut enough muscle to impair movement.
Enhanced reflexes meant enhanced. Got it.
"Kid Win?"
"Just dropping Rune on a roof!"
"All good." It wasn't. Not entirely.
Cricket had used the time to get close enough that this was nearly a hostage situation. Even if the paramedics were bustling everyone to the ambulance or away from us.
I warped behind Cricket. Then in front. Then beside. Behind. Diagonally behind. In front – a blade caught my chin. Behind. Beside. Other side. Other side. Directly above her. In front but five feet away.
We stared at each other. Cricket had one mini-scythe (Kama. That's what they were called) pointed at me. The other aimed upwards.
She tilted her head. Narrowed her eyes. Brought her right hand down from where the Kama had been aimed at me – when I'd been in mid-air – and pressed a button on the front of the high collar – almost turtleneck – of her costume.
An artificial voice sounded out. "You are not bleeding."
I swapped a facet of my focus from my mental map to my body sense. And what had been a background awareness of my injuries gained clarity. My arm wasn't bad but the cut on my chin went from just below my jaw up to my bottom lip. That would definitely be bleeding on anyone else.
Oh. And my inner ears were being messed with.
That's right. Cricket's audio-kinesis. Apparently, my shared power from Aegis could adjust things to mostly maintain my sense of balance. It seemed like a constant effect, which was probably why.
I grinned at the Nazi. Her reflexes had me beat in a fight, but she still couldn't afford to ignore me. Tactically, I was the Clockblocker in this fight. All I had to do was keep her focused on me while the civilians got to safety and –
Cricket jumped to the side as a laser barrage hammered the road where she was standing. Damn her enhanced reflexes.
Then she ran forwards. I warped behind her, but she ignored me. Gah.
I warped beside her and jabbed. She sidestepped way too easily and darted towards the ambulance. I warped in front of her then immediately behind but she leaped forwards and the taser passed through air. Gah.
In front again then beside where I lunged out and – fuck! Cricket had reversed the grip on her Kama and slammed the blade into my taser. She smacked it out of my hand.
"Seneschal, I can't target her when you're so close." Kid Win was [frustrated] and [conflicted].
My plan hadn't worked. I couldn't use Clockblocker's tactics. But I had to make Cricket focus on me. So who on my team could take her down?
Oh. That'd work.
"Fire at her anyway. I've got a plan."
"Alright. But this isn't on me." Kid Win was still [conflicted]. But that was okay. He [trusted] me. And he'd trust me more after I pulled this off.
I punched forwards and warped in front of Cricket. Warped behind her when my arm was halfway extended. Warped back to her front when my mental map showed one Kama blade heading backwards.
She leant back from my fist and knocked my arm aside with the Kama she'd kept in reserve.
I retreated to a rooftop and turned to come at her from a new direction. She sidestepped a focused burst of Kid Win's lasers.
"Keep them wide." He had to trust me.
I warped beside her and followed the pattern. She knocked my arm aside again and nearly sliced (or stabbed) my leg before I retreated.
Kid Win's lasers this time were scattered enough that Cricket had to dive and roll to avoid them. It still barely slowed her down. And she was getting close to the ambulance.
Fine.
I appeared in front of her, swinging a haymaker. Which was an awful punch to throw when your opponent was faster. Or in any way trained. Both of which applied.
But as my haymaker arced forwards, I was behind her, beside her, a distance in front, beside, other side, behind, a rooftop, and – as I visualised slamming my fist into the punching bag – behind and to her left. I'd shifted my stance during my flickering act, so instead of aiming straight, I was aiming slightly right.
It wasn't my strongest punch. But I hit her in the spine. And the way she jerked confirmed that she didn't have a brute rating.
I was gone just before my mental map showed both Kamas slicing through where I'd stood.
"Do two bursts." I told Kid Win. He was both [impressed] and [worried]. He was right to be. Cricket was nearly at the ambulance and the paramedics were still hoisting a stretcher with crystal-leg man into the back.
I saw and sensed a smaller volley of lasers zap towards Cricket.
She dove – I warped – and stood, bringing her arm up, Kama blade along her forearm to cut and shove me aside.
I paused.
Cricket used her momentum and whole body weight to slam into me with a strangled grunt.
The second burst of lasers – fired just before I'd warped – pelted us.
Cricket seized up and collapsed awkwardly to the grimy asphalt. I unpaused. Checked my body sense. No inner ear disruption. Good.
Hopefully the paramedics could stitch my arm and chin too. Or Panacea could fix me up if I passed by the hospital.
Regardless, this was good.
I warped over to my dropped taser. Warped back. Looked down at the unconscious Empire cape. Villain. Bully who would go after paramedics.
Then tasered my second Nazi.
This was excellent.
[>[>Peasant<]<]
Judy was putting her hair back up in a bun when she turned the corner. It had been a long, long day – long week – in the burn ward. And she still had a few minutes left on her break before she was back to being on call.
It took her a few seconds of walking to spot Panacea. White robes with a big red medic cross on the front and back. Though Judy could only see the front, crumpled up from how the parahuman was tightly curled up in one of the few actually comfortable chairs that littered the halls of Brockton General Hospital.
Her hood was pulled up, covering the frizzy brown hair, but the red scarf she wore across her face had slipped down. Her legs were tucked underneath her. It didn't look like a very comfortable position.
But… she was asleep.
Judy slowed and stopped in front of the chair.
Judy had occasionally accompanied Panacea when she did her rounds. When other nurses or doctors did their rounds, they checked injuries and bloods and generally kept their patients healthy. When Panacea passed through, people were healed.
It was almost enough to make one believe in miracles.
But for all that Panacea had saved more people than most doctors did in their lives, for all that she was the one parahuman in Brockton Bay that actually did some good with their power, she was still just a teenage girl.
A teenage girl, perpetually grumpy and always showing up with clear signs of sleep deprivation. Doing her best to hide it and keep helping.
It was admirable. Probably not sustainable, but Judy wasn't that much of a hypocrite to tell her girl how to balance her workload.
Still, no matter how much Panacea helped the hospital, they shouldn't let her work more hours than the trainees. She was still in high school! And the comment from one of the night-shift receptionists about the girl turning up at 2am more often? More often?
It's not like they'd turn her away though. Panacea helped, and Brockton General desperately needed help.
And Judy didn't know her. Not really. The nurses that did know her had stopped trying to take care of her after that shouting match last year.
Current policy was to be as helpful to her as they could. No need to irritate the person solely responsible for preventing a health system emergency in the city.
Judy still felt conflicted about the situation. But the last few minutes of her break were over.
She walked on and let the girl sleep.
In the past four hours, I had discovered new smells. In my ruminating and half-desperate attempts to distract myself during those hours, I had not discovered which smell I hated the most.
The burnt stench of plastic, paint, and plaster were not new. I'd hated that smell for the first few nights of the past week. Then it had been burn injuries. Something about the smell combined with people's expressions.
Then tonight had happened. Was still happening. And Bakuda had gotten…
…
…creative.
Like a toddler that doesn't understand that other creatures have emotions. And, on an impulsive whim, decided that finger painting and pulling the legs off frogs should be combined into one activity.
I was numb to it now.
But I hadn't been when we'd come across a house that had melted into a pool like one of those marbling effects in resin. It had taken us too long to realise that the parts of the room-temperature sludge coloured pink and red and with slivers of white were people. We only managed to understand the layout of the liquid-house-pool because everything on the block had the same floorplan.
The frozen explosion (the bomb had exploded normally then flash-frozen everything) had been more visually scarring than olfactory. But that effect had been recognisable as ice at least, so we'd waited. And tonight just happened to be unusually warm for early April. So the exploded-people had been defrosting.
The acid we were dealing with now probably took the cake. It was worse than ozone-and-shit smell of the lightning one.
I don't know why I kept thinking about it.
Why I was even focusing on the smells.
I knew it was a form of disassociating. I was only keeping one sixth of my attention on what my body was actually doing anyway.
(Standing around doing nothing while Clockblocker froze and unfroze the little girl who'd lost her hair and half her cheek so the paramedic could stop her dying in this retched vinegar-bile-acrid-chemical-hell.)
It was kind of like everything was too real. So, I'd… like… focused on one thing to block out the rest. Cause I needed to be functional. Stay in the moment.
I'd spaced out on patrols a few times this week – though nothing so bad as those first fires last Friday. If I could tell my body was going into shock and adapting to that biologically, I should be able to react mentally as well.
My powers meant I could go on autopilot for a while. But that wasn't efficient. I needed to be aware of what was happening. Bakuda had these… bombs. And I or my team – or the Protectorate – could face them in battle.
It was my duty to document the villain tinker's technology.
So, I was selectively tuning out?
Or selectively tuning in. Focusing on one thing that was (horrific inhumane murder) real and letting the rest go. So that there was something. At least.
Better to be wearing horse blinders than a full blindfold, right?
It was better. Even if I couldn't remember what the paramedics had been saying when we arrived here. Or what the time was – or how long we'd been trying to save the two survivors.
Despite all that, I could remember that we'd arrived pretty soon after the bomb was… used. And that if this family had been in the habit of eating in the kitchen – not in the lounge in front of the TV – they might have had enough time to escape out the backyard.
So…
I was fine.
Standing. Waiting.
My attention split between my body, my body sense, my team's emotions, and the last two facets in my mental map.
Clockblocker was much less fine. He'd been able to freeze the mother and girl so the paramedics could wipe the acid off their bodies. But some of the acid had… eaten enough… that his power considered it part of their bodies.
He was full of [regret/guilt] and [helplessness]. Kind of like how he felt on Sundays. I didn't know what was going on there, just some (distinctly serious) comment about not liking hospitals from a few weeks back.
It was like all of us Wards had something we were escaping fr–RATATAT.
Gunfire.
I immediately warped onto a roof up the street. Closer to where the shots had come from. Spun into a crouch to see without being seen.
More shots.
Individual pops. Another loud stutter of some kind of assault rifle.
The PRT had given us lessons on identifying types of guns and gunfire. A national initiative, because even in places that weren't gang infested, the arguments for guns as self-defence felt pretty valid when we had parahumans. (But I doubted the training was as useful in other cities.)
I warped forwards to the end of the block.
There. Bright flashes in the night. Coming from either side of the road. At an intersection? Or an alley?
Location was unimportant. The gangs were having a firefight in a neighbourhood. Where people were living.
A single warp took me back down the street – on the street, next to Clockblocker. He'd ran forwards and into the middle of the road to draw attention. But within arm's reach of the ambulance in case he needed to freeze it. And his expanded and frozen shield was in place, hanging in mid-air in front of him.
"Two groups, mainly pistols but at least one assault rifle."
Clockblocker turned to me, [shocked] then [ready]. "So, the gangs."
I hummed. "Might even be the group of ABB that threw the acid bomb."
[Anger], [frustration] and [vengefulness] flashed through Clockblocker. "Guess we're calling this in." His tone was dark.
"You do it, I'll get more details."
I warped away before he could respond. But I heard his update over comms.
Heard the dispatcher query if the ambulance and civilians were safe.
Found a roof close to the firefight and activated the earmuffs Kid Win built into my visor so I wasn't deafened by the firearms one-house-and-a-fence away from me.
"…police are responding." Said the dispatcher. (A different one to last night.)
The building I was standing on had once been one of those corner shops that were dotted around suburbs. Whether it was a house or just boarded up now didn't matter. It was next to the gang members, and I was looking down from the roof.
Four men with bald heads and darker shaded areas on their skin – tattoos – were crouched in an alleyway and behind a black-painted ford mustang. The one behind the mustang reached up and shot his pistol wildly across the road before reaching up with his other hand to grab something and throw it to the three in the alley, who fired – there was the assault rifle – to cover him.
The other side of the road had two static bodies lying on the sidewalk. One still, one shifting slowly. Dim streetlights from two houses down illuminated a pool of liquid – larger underneath the still one – that was too dark to be water. The three other ABB (the injured on the sidewalk were Asian and wearing shades of red and green) were hidden behind a garden fence.
Which meant that the Empire were firing at a house.
My shoulders tightened and my hands formed fists.
"Console, there are four Empire members with pistols and an assault rifle. Five ABB, two wounded." I said quietly.
"Understood Seneschal. The police will receive that information. Keep helping and protecting the paramedics."
I shivered. The involuntary motion suppressed slightly by Aegis' power, but…
The utter wrongness.
Of walking away from this.
I was a hero. A fucking hero. Looking at a fight. Where people – even if they were bad – had already gotten hurt. Where nazis were shooting at a suburban house. That – I shoved more focus into my mental map – had people inside. Hiding under beds in the back of the house but that didn't matter.
There was no way I was walking away from this.
Because that's what the spirit of my orders were. 'You're with paramedics tonight; focus on them.'
'Don't step outside your little box.'
'Walk away.'
'Be a bystander.'
But that wasn't happening. I was done with… fucking all of this… gah!
The gunfire still flashed and banged, dampened by the tech in my visor, but impossible to ignore. Short bursts of potential injury and death. Each group tentatively taking their chance to try to win this round of senseless violence.
A long breath wound its way out of my chest.
Thoughts were flashing through my mind almost too rapidly to register. But even that was too long. I needed to do things, not waste time.
'Help and protect the paramedics.'
I was not suited for helping the paramedics. In power and personality. I could tell who was dead or alive on arrival, but Clockblocker was the defensive one. If the ambulance was attacked, my protection would be taking out the attackers.
"Understood, Console." I said. The words were… both a weight off my shoulders and a decision that settled heavy in my stomach.
My mic went off.
I would do what the dispatcher said. Even if it wasn't what they meant.
The sirens that I'd been hearing but not processing finally registered in my mind. And were heard by the gangers. Unless the swearing that filled the sudden absence of gunfire was about something else.
The cop car entered my mental map, speeding. It turned an intersection up ahead, headlights shining down the street.
It felt like the world was holding its breath.
The police car, slowing down as it got near the danger it couldn't see.
The ABB, caught after committing arson. Two bodies not yet dead on the ground.
The Empire, spotting and shooting without question.
Me, up on the roof.
I sensed the adrenaline release in between beats of my heart. Drew my taser and set it sparking.
The very air was anxious in anticipation.
My plan for this situation had been made weeks ago. The gangers were not prepared for me, and I would overwhelm them.
The cop car stopped in the middle of the street. A door cracked open.
"–yeah, round here. Sirens might've scared 'em off though." A police officer stepped out of the car, keeping the door between him and the street.
The headlights flicked off and the street was plunged back into the twilight of one-in-three street lights working.
Without the headlights' glare, I managed to catch a very important detail. The officer's skin was almost as dark as the night behind him.
Fuck. This wasn't going to end well.
One of the empire goons said something muffled. Then the assault rifle on my mental map turned from the ABB (in front of the house with the hiding innocents) towards the police car.
It wasn't even a conscious decision, the way I warped down to the alley and jabbed my taser into the belly of this racist shit-stain. Like flinching from a hot stove, I paused as soon as his convulsing caused his finger to yank on the trigger.
The barking burst of bullets was nearly next to my ear but all I could see was the skinhead's pained grimace as he collapsed.
If the world had waited with bated breath for the fight to start, then this microsecond after the opener was nothing but relief.
The police officer yelled, ducking back behind the door.
The other Empire shouted, noticing their fallen companion.
And the ABB raised pistols towards both the empire and the cop car.
I unpaused and warped before the breath had filled my lungs. Appeared and dropped a knee into the back of the ABB member closest to the police.
Warped next to the Empire guy crouching at the car and shoved my recharged taser into his back.
Up to the roof to stand and reach sideways. Then warping between the last two Empire and shoving one's arm aside while jabbing the other in the shoulder. Mr Left shouted in alarm while Mr Right gibbered and sagged to the curb.
I stepped away and warped behind Mr Left. Kicked him in the back of the knee and got his shoulder blade with my taser as he went down.
The air smelt like gunpowder and ozone. (And satisfaction.)
The gun barrels I could see past the static-hands of the ABB were shifting towards me. Guess everyone had heard the Empire goons' groans.
Three warps took me into the middle of the street, then down the road – out of sight – then behind the ABB. Be in the open to grab their attention, disappear and reposition, then back to recommence the attack.
Taser the one in the middle. Let the other two see me lunge towards Mr Right the II and warp to jab Mr Left Jr in the neck. It was interesting, but easy, fighting crouched foes. This felt… almost mechanical.
Mr Right the II swore (in… Chinese?) and stood up to yell: "CAPE!"
Part of me wanted to laugh. Part of me wanted to gesture towards the five other gang members I'd taken out in the time it took for the cop to find cover and draw his weapon. The reasonable part of me won out.
"You are under arrest. Come quietly or you will face additional charges." My words were loud, firm. I didn't want the police to jump to conclusions and assume I was a villain. And I'd learnt from facing the Merchants all those weeks ago.
(Hmm. Two weeks? No, surely it had been more.)
Mr Right the II – it should be Miss Right the first actually – dropped her pistol. I stepped forwards, keeping my taser charged while reaching with my other hand for the cable ties kept in a pocket hidden in my costumes' armoured mini-skirt-thing.
The ganger in front of me was shaking. Her head swivelling between me and their collapsed criminal companions. She – a girl older than me, but thin and with a burn scar patterning her cheek – said something stammered in… huh.
I really should do some basic language classes.
Another step. She looked down. Closed her eyes.
Good. Now we could be done with this–
She pulled a grenade from the belt slung round her hips I hadn't paid attention to (with my eyes or my map) and shoved it in front of her. Her other hand holding the pin. I paused.
Waited two seconds. Unpaused but stayed frozen still. Focused all of my attention on being in the moment. My mental map was dodgy with things people were wearing. I'd gotten too confident.
I couldn't afford to miss anything else.
She was rambling words that I couldn't understand. The tone kept wavering between pleading and threatening.
This was… literally the worst scenario.
Of course Bakuda would arm the ABB groups with a number of grenades. Or even if this was only a normal one (what a fucking shitty world we live in to wish for just a normal grenade), the family in this house was in danger. And the other ABB still unconscious on the ground would certainly be hurt.
"Put the grenade down." I tried to sound firm. Her stream of words paused for only a moment before her arm shook and she repeated a phrase with urgency.
Shit.
I raised my arms slowly, taser still charged in one hand. Trying my best to communicate with my eyes through the visor and the night's darkness, I slowly shifted my weight and knelt forwards.
God this was a dumb plan.
Thankfully, thankfully, the ABB girl quietened when she saw me move into a surrendering pose. My arms were still pointed up at the dark sky, away from her.
Her arms still shaking, she lowered the grenade.
Alright. Okay. Good.
I nodded slowly, grateful for the single hostage negotiation seminar I'd had. Not useful at the time or with the Undersiders, but practical enough to help me here.
Staying still and smiling in a way I hoped was calm – and that I hoped could be seen in the dim light – was nerve wracking.
But this was good. This was being a hero. And doing what the PRT wanted me to do. We could resolve this. Things would work out and we wouldn't need violence.
I breathed in through my nose, slow and calm. Using everything but words to communicate to the human in front of me. Gunpowder still lingered, faint whiff of blood from the ABB who had been shot before I arrived. And… tomato?
Weird, but never mind.
The ABB girl's hands were hovering over her belt. She'd fallen silent, face twisted with emotions I couldn't read in the night. But her breaths were slowing. The fight or flight fading.
For once, for once, everything was aligning. People were choosing peace. The world was working as it should.
My mind processed the loud-but-muffled bang of a gunshot a split second after my eyes saw the flash of light.
My brain processed the flash of red spraying from the ABB ganger before me another split second after the noise.
A full second shifted my focus back to my mental map.
There was a static-shape crouched behind the shattered window of the house whose garden we were in.
A buzzing nothingness built in my ears as I registered that someone in the house that the Empire had shot up had just…
The ABB girl was on the ground. She'd been knocked over by the…
Oh. That was what brain was showing me.
She'd still been holding the grenade in both hands when she was shot.
The pin had been pulled when she fell.
I barely moved my body. Warped half-a-flowerbed forward. Grabbed the grenade from between my knees. Held it to my chest.
Warped straight up. As high as I could.
Paused.
Didn't breathe. Didn't blink. Not physically. I couldn't like this after all. But the mental time was appreciated.
A noise, both too deep and too shrill. Some cross between a whoomph and a whine.
So, this grenade was tinkertech. I didn't see any effects. And my mental map wasn't active while I paused. I'd figure it out later.
What was more important was the… no.
They'd joined the fight. They weren't a civilian.
They'd shot someone who was surrendering. Regardless of how they started the night, they were no longer innocent.
But the thing that got me? That made my brows want to furrow and mouth want to sneer.
Was that things had been going how they were supposed to.
The hero offers mercy and the scared henchman – woman – accepts the exit clause. Diplomacy ends the fight, not… not some twisted yielding to the stronger fighter. That was just more of the gangs' might makes right bullshit.
I'd achieved peace. Even if it was small.
And then some fuck with a gun decides that…
Decides… what?
Vengeance for involving their house in a gun fight? If so, you shot the wrong side, idiot.
Self-defence could have been justified. But the guns had stopped. The fight was over, dammit. This person had just started (and finished) a new one.
The whoomph-whine stopped with a sound like thirty zippers being zipped in different directions.
I unpaused. Felt gravity drag at me as I split my focus. Warped back down, an inch above the grass. Noticed the slight impact with the earth more through my body-sense than my actual nerves.
Stood and observed.
Small things fell from the sky. Rubbish and newspapers. Tiny fragments of glass I only noticed on my mental map.
So, it had been some black hole grenade. And I'd gotten it far enough away. Good.
The police car and its two officers were okay. One must have walked closer while I was… trying to do the right thing. They were currently crouched behind a different car.
"Hey!" The front door of the house, newly adorned with bullet holes, was being opened by the static shape that'd ruined things.
A guy. Younger than my dad. A visible gut tucked into chinos and a checkered button up shirt. He stepped closer, into the dim ambiance of the streetlights that weren't really working.
There was pasta sauce all down his front. Right. I'd smelt tomato.
Guess he was having dinner late. Got interrupted.
"Just wanted to say thanks for getting the rest of them." His hair was buzzed. "When they yelled cape and things quietened down, I came up to check." I didn't like his face. "Glad I caught that last chink before they got you." I didn't like his chuckle either.
The police officer had got up and would join us soon.
Three of the ABB existed in graphic detail on my mental map. The one who was dead when I arrived. The injured one who must have succumbed. And the girl that had been ready to do the right thing.
Pasta man in front of me chuckled again. A bit nervously.
My mental map showed a shotgun on the floor. Inside the window.
"Why did you come look?" I had to know.
"Oh," he smiled (too easily – he'd just killed someone), "they said cape and then things were quiet so I reckoned the cape – you, of course – had dealt with it and it was safe. Lucky I brought a weapon just in case."
"What if it was a villain?"
"Ah, yeah. But I mean, there's just Lung now, right? I reckon I'd know if he was around."
Did…
Was this man…
My chest felt tight. Blood roared in my ears.
"She was surrendering. She was surrendering and you shot her. Killed her." I stared into his eyes. Tracked his family, both police officers, and a still drifting bit of newspaper on my mental map. Unclenched my fists when my body-sense reported tension in my finger-muscles.
"They were shooting up my house!" He sounded indignant.
"That was the Empire across the street."
He looked lost. Shook his head. Noticed the policeman.
"Well at least they're more proactive than the cops." He sneered.
I wanted to punch him in his tomato-stained stomach.
Instead, I turned to the police officer. "You saw the shot?"
Dark eyes scanned me furtively. A slow nod of a dark brown face. It was enough.
Mr Pasta Sauce looked confused.
"You are under arrest for murder. Come quietly or face further charges."
"What!? But I–"
"Are you resisting arrest?" I cut him off.
"Resisting?! Arr…" He spluttered and turned red. "I'm not being arrested! I bloody helped you out with the criminals! Not like this guy did anything!" He jabbed an angry finger at the cop.
I warped onto his roof, turned to the side, and charged my taser.
Warped down beside him and held the sparks to his shoulder as he gibbered and crumpled.
Stepped back to where I was and finally holstered my taser. Now the fight was over. I wished this guy had had a good reason. Instead, he'd just been racist. And violent.
"That's not how arrests are supposed to work." The police officer said quietly.
I swallowed.
He was right. But.
"The city isn't working how it's supposed to work." I looked back down at the unconscious guy. "Too many people have forgotten that death has consequences."
The officer grunted. Tilted his head back to look up at the night sky for… I didn't know what he was looking for. I'd stopped knowing what I was looking for amid the stars when Mom died.
"Well, thanks for making this a smaller mess than it could've been." He gestured back towards the bodies on both sides of the street.
I nodded. Remembered it was dark. Guess the black hole grenade had caught a streetlight.
"Yeah." I finally looked into the eyes of the man whose life I probably saved. "Stay safe."
He let out a breath.
"Wards are supposed to be in high school." He sounded sad.
I looked away. "Cities aren't supposed to be at war." I think I sounded bitter.
"Yeah," he said. "Stay safe."
He pulled out his radio and called for a transport.
I warped my way back down the street.
Appeared next to Clockblocker. The ambulance was gone.
"Speak of the Devil – and his Seneschal shall appear." He said wryly. "I was just about to call you over comms."
I sent a little focus to my team's emotions. Pulled it back to my body sense. My own emotions were almost too much at the moment. Understanding Clockblocker's could wait.
"Thanks for waiting."
"Nah, don't worry about it." He stepped forwards to balance on the edge of the curb. "You got them?"
"Yeah. Cops are calling a wagon."
"Nice."
God. We both sounded like robots.
"A PRT van is coming. We got permission to end patrol early."
I felt relieved.
I wanted to feel anything but relieved.
The Empire and a sympathiser would be rounded up. More than half of the group of ABB that sent us and the ambulance out here in the first place were dead.
The acid cut through the gunpowder lingering in my nostrils.
It smelt a little bit like justice.
A little bit artificial.
It mostly smelt wrong. Because my city wasn't working how it should. And people didn't want it to.
[>[>/^\<]<]
Director Piggot's office was more impressive than the woman who used it.
A large dark wooden desk, unadorned and simple but bluntly intimidating because of it. Chairs for guests, smaller than the Director's high backed ergonomic… no, she was too pragmatic for a throne. But this room, at the corner of the top floor with its two walls of windows that overlooked the mostly-lit city at night, this was a domain.
"Do you want to tell me what the hell you were doing?" The Director asked, face pinched and tone caught like she'd eaten a lemon. Blond bob looking thin and skin sallow like something vital had been drained from her bones. Yet, her glare wasn't diminished an inch.
I scanned through my mental map and used my body sense to analyse all the different things in my blood. Kept my breathing even.
"I was doing what was right."
She glared at me. I made sure I didn't move a muscle, standing straight and tall. If that meant she had to look up at me from her desk, then… oh well.
"No, you weren't. You were doing what you wanted to do." Piggot clicked through something on her computer and tilted the screen towards me. "Tell me why, when you were assigned to paramedics, I have been forwarded a police report that mentions you."
Right. So that was how she found out. I hadn't doubted Clockblocker, but… confirmation was good.
"At the last location, we heard and reported gunfire from up the street. Console told me to protect the ambulance, so I made sure that no one was going to shoot at the paramedics." Piggot's face twisted as I spoke.
"I am not a fool, Seneschal. I can read addresses and a map. The ambulance was in no danger from that gunfire." Her tone hardened. "Tell me: why did you disobey orders?"
My jaw clenched. But the rest of me stayed still. I knew she couldn't see my eyes through my visor, but blinking still felt like I'd lose this… unnecessary contest.
"I can't help paramedics with victims of acid attacks. I could stop the gangers who threw that grenade from throwing another. There were police at the fight and innocent people in the houses. If I can't help the paramedics assist the wounded, I can help by preventing the number of wounded from growing." I'd tried to balance (and hide) the appeal to emotion with logic. Because what I'd done was logical.
"Seneschal." Director Piggot went to continue, then sighed. "Stop thinking that you know better. You don't."
My teeth ground together. The muscles on my face longed to pull into a grimace but I kept them still.
"Learn to communicate." Her eyes were like flint. Sharp and stony. "If you had followed procedure and requested to engage, then the dispatcher might have let you. What you did with Cricket and Rune yesterday was good. Excellent even. Which is why I'm especially annoyed at how you didn't think tonight.
If the dispatcher – who is probably tired from working overtime through this week of hell – gave you orders you disagreed with, then you kick it up the chain of command." Piggot practically growled the last bit.
An urge to say… anything… burned in my throat. "How could I wait for the chain of command when they were shooting in a neighbourhood? I can't wait when people could die."
Piggot looked at me. Blinked first. (It didn't feel like I won.) "And what if you had died? We wouldn't have known until Clockblocker found your body. You should have asked. Or at least just told us what you were doing."
I had to hold myself still.
"Seneschal." It felt like Piggot could tell what I was feeling anyway. "I would have told you to engage. Because it was the right thing to do. But you did the right thing the wrong way."
I was clenching my fists so tight that my nails might have broken skin. If I wasn't wearing gloves.
"You may dislike our systems. But ignoring them entirely is foolish. You want to fight the gangs? Fine. I want you to fight them. Just stop fighting my PRT too."
I closed my eyes. She made sense. Blunt, logical sense. I had been treating the whole PRT like the Winslow administration. (Cruel, utilitarian, self-interested.) And there were some similarities. Authorities trying to tell teenagers what to do and how to act.
But I shouldn't disregard it. That was true.
And yet.
Yet.
Any regret I had was burned and buried under the weight of my sheer frustration.
I had done the right thing. Everybody knew it. Piggot would have told me to do what I did. And yet, I was being chewed out for it. This was the outcome we both wanted. But because I didn't do it her way, I was wrong.
I wasn't wrong. She wasn't really wrong either. But she was bludgeoning things with her authority. Can't control the gangs? Why not take out your lack of control on the heroes?
It was just so… inefficient. If things were supposed to work this way with the PRT, was I really wrong to just do the right thing myself?
It would be quicker. Easier.
The Director looked down at the papers piled in stacks on her desk. "Dismissed, Seneschal."
I nodded. Walked out the door. Walked down the corridor. Seething. Thinking.
[>[>/^\<]<]
Clockblocker had returned to base while I was called up to the Director. Which meant that it was just him and Gallant on console when the door slid open for me.
I'd stopped focusing so hard on my body sense and released my grip on my posture on the elevator down. So, when I stomped in, Dennis – out of costume – tilted his head from where he was spread out on the couch and winced.
"Piggy chew you out?"
I found the release clasps for my visor and didn't hide my grimace. "Apparently, I did the right thing the wrong way."
"Well. That's bullshit."
Gallant got [worried]. I looked up at him and saw his helmeted head quickly turn back towards the console screens.
I waited for what I knew was coming.
"Did something happen on your patrol?" Gallant asked.
Because the console shift had gotten even worse since my stint last Sunday. Since Lung and Kaiser's big fight, Wards on console were basically shadowing the dispatchers who directed actual patrols. Because blah-blah exposure to violence blah-blah protect the kids.
It was stupid.
Dennis was looking at me, [questioningly].
"Yeah, tell him. I'm gonna shower."
Which I did. Washing away all the smells that I'd probably picked up tonight. Lathering and rinsing my body lotion twice because my brain just would not be quiet about how my city was wrong.
Things weren't working how they were supposed to. It was like the gangs had infected the public, changing what people wanted until even the goals of my city were in conflict.
It was just wrong. Even the PRT was acting contrary to what it supposedly wanted. Prioritising restrictions before doing what even they said was the right thing.
The real thing keeping my anger fed was that there were so many obstacles. To me being a hero. Making a difference.
And these obstacles were things I couldn't fight.
Rather hard to taser racism. Or attitudes. Or organisations.
For lack of anything else better to do, I stepped out of the shower and mentally ran through my plans of how to combat the gangs and their capes. Yes, it felt like brooding. But it was still useful.
I stalked back into the main room while letting my hair down.
Gallant glanced back again. He was still [worried]. That had been pretty constant, even if other emotions had come and gone during the time when Dennis had presumably been letting him know what really happened. (I'd told Dennis the details on the ride back, partly as thanks for covering for me.)
When I sat down on the couch Missy and I had permanently claimed, Gallant started gathering his [courage]. Or [motivation]. There was a mix of stuff in there and I was still too mad at the underlying state of everything to care.
So, I stared at the bowl of popcorn Dennis nudged towards me and barely registered the sounds of the TV channels he was restlessly flicking through.
Leant forwards to grab some popcorn. It was still warm. Very buttery. It got mashed between my teeth. I almost longed for a carrot or something. A resisting hardness that I could crunch.
I felt like breaking something and carrots would be a lot healthier than… chairs. Or… (rules) something else.
"You know that Piggot's stressed too, right?" Gallant said. No this was Dean; caring, well-meaning Dean.
Of course, I knew that Piggot was stressed. She'd looked sick when I'd first met her, but in her office just before she'd been positively gaunt. But the stress of Piggot, or of the dispatcher, or even me wasn't the point. The point was that the system was slow and… gah. Fuck it.
Large parts of the system – all the PRT's procedures and checks and rules – were unnecessary.
"I did the right thing Dean." I did. And I got chewed out for it. For a pointless reason.
"I agree. It sounds like the Director agrees too, and that's rare." Dean said, then paused.
I was still staring at the popcorn bowl, but his rising [trepidation] made my hands want to curl into fists. He was on my team though. I knew where we stood. I could trust him to do what he thought was best, even if we disagreed on what that was.
"The city's a mess right now, and you've been involved in a lot since you joined." Dean continued, voice firmer but never harsh. "Point is, being a Ward isn't usually like this. We're in training for the Protectorate. Which is why the procedures and protocols are so important. For making arrests stick, for getting admissible evidence in court, all that legal stuff that society needs."
Training. For the Protectorate. Who were also bound and restricted. Maybe less than us. But they still answered to the PRT.
"And while Image goes on about public relations and stuff, the most important part is that the people see us as accountable." He stressed the word like it was a real, tangible thing. I wanted to laugh. Guess New Wave's message (faded and tarnished over the years) had rubbed off on him. Probably through some osmosis from dating Vicky.
Dammit.
I liked Dean. Dean the person. He was kind and thoughtful and always looking to help and improve himself. But his only lens for the world was himself. He couldn't imagine the system being bad because it had always helped him.
"Accountability can be a thing on Earth Aleph. The only thing that matters in Brockton Bay is power." In the corner of my vision, Dennis shivered, feeling [apprehensive].
Dean's [worry] was joined by a tinge of [moral concern].
"At the moment, maybe. But we'll be in the Protectorate at some point. You have to remember the long run." Dean [commiserated].
Or at least, he thought he did. Because he hadn't gone through Winslow. I'd focused on the long run there. On getting out, entering college, a far-off future hope that things would get better without my having to do anything.
That hope had ended with me abandoned in a cold, empty metal locker. Where the other students had ignored me or laughed. And the teachers hadn't even fucking noticed.
Organisations were focused on themselves. So were people, mostly. At Winslow, the Trio's goal only included me as a way of making the group feel better about themselves. The DWU wanted to have a better position for themselves and rebuild the docks, which they associated with themselves.
The Protectorate wanted to protect, which was noble but didn't disprove the self-focus thing. 'Protect' was even in the organisation's name.
And my team.
[Wards ENE] [Goal: Be Heroes]
Well, that was noble. But it was still all about us.
So, without people pushing for things, acting, making changes, organisations would just keep doing what they'd been doing already. And organisations resisted change.
The PRT was, at some point, given its procedures and protocols and red tape by some person or group strong enough to make them change. And now the PRT had had all those rules for long enough that it defended them like it was defending itself.
There was no real reason. Accountability covered some things, but there was no real justification for why the PRT never tried anything new.
(Tattletale's answer to my question about the PRT – the balancing of PR and S-class threats, Endbringers, a shady conspiracy? – rose in the back of my brain. I didn't push it back down.)
"Hope isn't enough to make things better. You need to do things." I didn't know if I sounded more tired or angry. Maybe just bitter.
My teammates – those in the room – grew both [solemn] and [reflective].
But Dean's [worry] hadn't abated. "That's true. But… just don't do anything rash. Even if we have to work harder, things will get better."
"Yeah." I nodded. Was I being honest? I didn't know.
I certainly wouldn't do anything rash. I'd spent enough time thinking through plans and hypothetical fights for anything I did to be rash. If he'd asked me not to do anything dangerous, then I would have been lying. But just being a Ward was dangerous with this war. So–
"Empire Eighty-Eight leader Kaiser has issued public demands for the ABB to cease their bombings and surrender themselves to face justice for all of the upstanding citizens that have been killed in this crusade."
A news reporter. Blonde and blue-eyed girl who was either wearing a push-up bra or had gotten breast implants.
Dennis switched the channel again and [angrily] threw some popcorn at the screen. "Fucking nazi news."
The frustration that had been simmering in my blood since getting called into Piggot's office had slowly ebbed while I was talking to my team. They'd understood where I was coming from. And they didn't condemn me.
But this.
Kaiser. Daring to… to fucking have the nerve to pretend at civility and lawfulness when he started the war.
The utter fury that ran through me felt like my entire body was immersed in boiling water for the briefest millisecond. Then the heat faded – no – got pulled down and compacted into this heavy ball of cold. The hairs on the back of my neck and arms raised. Electrical signals racing down my nerves, adrenaline readying my body for action.
But what settled in my gut next to that compressed icy ball of rage was a… direction. Not purpose, my purpose was still the same. I just had a new way to advance it.
Because the PRT wasn't going to change, and I wasn't strong enough to push them.
So, I wasn't going to. Changing the PRT would be inefficient. And the PRT's inefficiency was what frustrated me so much about them.
Besides, I was my own person. And my powers were my own. The PRT's rules only applied to Seneschal.
I stood up and went back to my room. Put all my focus into my body sense because regardless of Dean's sudden spike of [concern], I wasn't going to do anything rash.
No.
No, I was going to do something very methodical.
My laptop booted up quickly. I kept my breaths measured, even if I wanted to be away from my desk – out there, getting something done.
Connected to the internet. Changed PHO accounts. Sent a message.
Got out a fresh notebook. Started writing. Putting the energised plans and tactics in my head onto paper where I could properly compare them. Analyse them.
Prepare.
The computer screen kept drawing my eyes. My question to Tattletale sent. I couldn't take it back. I didn't want to.
Same purpose.
New direction.
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♦ Private message to MoriartyStan:
DenethorHater *New Message*: If I wanted to stop the Empire, where should I go and when?