Apprentice
The room was just the right size to feel claustrophobic, but maybe that was just my nerves speaking.
The custom built reclining chair from my test with Number Man had been moved here. The blond man himself was still here wearing a new red/silver shirt and tie combo behind the bulletproof glass that separated the testing room from the technicians' equipment on the other side. Dr. Michael Ruther, senior PRT parahuman expert was peering at a computer screen with him, pointing as they talked. Other nameless people, some I recognized and some I didn't, milled around in the background.
The rest of the room had been cleared out for space. Armsmaster had already claimed a corner by the door and gave me a small acknowledging nod. I nodded back.
"Nice to see you again, in better circumstances," a hero in gold and white said with a quirky smile showing through his face mask as he approached me with his hand out. I recognized his Spartan style helmet and the buckler the size of a dinner plate strapped to his left arm. Dauntless was a bit of a rising star with the ability to 'charge' items that eventually took on powers and grew in strength. If the empowerment truly didn't have a cap, he could stand toe to toe with Alexandria or Eidolon someday.
He was also not my biggest fan. His thoughts were running around in circles. He didn't like the thought of having someone in his head. He kept remembering a scream from an angel in Madison. I almost backed out, but at the last moment decided to stay. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
"I'm not sure this is better, exactly," I said as I shook his hand. I remembered seeing his crackling white form in the sky when I had gone down to the Bay bleeding my anger out from seeing who Shadow Stalker really was.
"Well." He shrugged one shoulder. "It's not worse."
I knew why he was here. Dauntless and Armsmaster were to be my bodyguards, in case the projection 'Master' cape decided to strike again. A reasonable precaution, if that Master had ever existed in the first place.
I didn't tell anyone where the tooth monster had come from. I wasn't even sure of it myself and with everything that happened afterwards? The dead people in some kind of circuit? The
Eldar. I didn't know where to begin explaining, so I just didn't.
I told them I had been following the threads of Shanghai, which was true. I had been. Then I was attacked, and I had no idea why.
Also true.
I just didn't correct the conclusion they reached. What was I going to say? My Thinker powers hate me?
I sighed out loud and Dauntless huffed with a bit of amusement. "We gotcha, kid – Farseer," he corrected himself. I had to smile a little at hearing my cape name from the mouth of another hero. Choosing a good name was a surprisingly difficult task. No one wanted to keep Maelstrom, even if just to distance myself a little from the chaos my trigger caused.
Thinking back, I'm not entirely sure why I chose Farseer. Felt right. And wasn't taken.
"Don't worry," Dauntless said in lieu of a goodbye as he turned away.
Easier said than done.
I went to the center of the room and sat in the chair. I filtered out the dusky smell of old leather and the little squeaking noises the chair made. Director Piggot was on her cellphone by the projector screen in front of me, arguing with someone named 'Jim' while Dragon watched me from the cameras.
That last one was a guess. I have no idea where or what Dragon is doing. It was starting to creep me out. She wasn't a hole, like the Endbringers were. I was confident that she felt emotions just like any other person, but there was no evidence for that. No ripples, no threads, nothing. She just didn't
exist to my powers. It put me on edge.
"Alright!" Piggot barked as she slapped her phone shut. "Let's get this show on the road, people."
The projector screen bloomed into a satellite image of North America as everyone behind the glass rushed to their stations except for one blond man in a red shirt with a silver tie. The Number Man looked up over the top of his glasses and laptop screen like he knew I saw him just then. He winked at me, then looked back down. Armsmaster and Dauntless took up sentinel positions to my left and right, far enough away not to crowd me but close enough to reach into my space. Dauntless angled himself to allow his shield a full range of motion both in front and behind me.
After a moment of hesitation, Armsmaster nudged me a bit with his hand. An almost, but not quite awkward shoulder pat. I appreciated the effort, smiling a little as I tried to relax. Armsmaster internally crowed, glad I hadn't fixated on the more popular Dauntless.
Armsmaster and Dauntless were rivals, or something. I wasn't sure what to think of that.
Dragon spoke then and I fought down the flinch of surprise. "Normally, I would strongly advise against this."
"Taking down villains?" I asked skeptically.
"Finding them," Dragon said. "Like it or not, villains wear masks for the same reason heroes do. Anonymity. Their identity as a cape is kept separate from their civilian lives. It gives them a safe place to retreat to."
"You mean it protects them from the consequences."
"It keeps them from feeling cornered," Piggot cut in. Her heels clicked on the floor loudly as she walked over to her chair by the projector screen on the wall. "Cornered criminals with powers who feel like they have nothing to lose can and will do a lot of damage, ruin a lot of lives before they are stopped."
I frowned. I could see the logic to that, but it also rubbed me the wrong way. If an unpowered guy in a ski mask held up a gas station, the police would be trying to track that person down. People like Kaiser, Hookwolf and Lung, was it really just a numbers game that let them walk around free?
"So you what, ignore them if they're not wearing a mask?"
"Take the E88," Piggot said instead. "Can you imagine what would happen to Brockton Bay if every single cape in that gang didn't have that anonymity? If Hookwolf could only be Hookwolf and no one else."
Not pretty, I imagined. Hookwolf himself was a nasty character. He was like the teeth creature, able to turn himself into nothing by blades and hooks. He was known for being vicious and bloodthirsty. Still.
"If that anonymity didn't exist, perhaps not so many people would be willing to break laws." I felt Dauntless' amusement jump at that.
"That goes both ways. I'm sure you remember New Wave."
Dauntless' amusement evaporated.
Yes, I remembered. Fleur was a member of the same New Wave family movement Amy Dallon was part of. After they unmasked themselves, Fleur was killed in her civilian identity. I'd read that E88 claimed credit for killing her murderer.
"It doesn't have to go both ways," I said. I looked to the side at Armsmaster. "Why can't just the heroes be protected?"
He grunted. "We don't have the monopoly on Thinkers, or the ability to find identities." He sighed a little before he gritted out, "Much as I wish that were not the case."
Piggot gave us all a sharp smile. "Checks and balances, the great American way."
The way she said that was loaded with an old, tired derision. She wasn't any happier about the status quo than I was, but had to deal with it.
"Then why – "
"Are you here?" Piggot nodded at the projector. "Because checks and balances only work if you
can check and balance. There are certain villains that don't bother with the polite fiction, because we lacked good options that would save more lives than it jeopardized. Now we have one."
I understood. "Who's the target?"
"You don't have to do this, Taylor," Dragon said. "There are other ways that aren't so high profile."
Yes, there were. Why go for the slow startup when I could start making a difference now? The Chief Director had that train of thought, and I agreed with her. I could do so much, right now. There was a reason she wanted me in Watchdog. Pretending I was just another teenager, or Ward wasn't going to work.
So let's go in the opposite direction.
"I know." I settled back into the chair. "Hit me."
The satellite image zoomed in on Canada until I could see the definition of cities as gray tumors on verdant green and dirt brown. The image moved around until it found one city. I could tell it was large and had grown larger recently with the way the city seemed to have two or three 'rings' of buildings. The screen split. One half settled on the view of a large white dome and leaning tower. The other showed a picture of a man with wavy dark hair and stubble grinning at the camera between two women, a blonde and brunette kissing his cheeks. Everyone's mood took a sharp downturn with anger and disgust.
"Nikos Vasil," Dragon introduced the man as water crashed against a beach from the speakers. "Also known as Heartbreaker is active in Montreal."
Heartbreaker. An emotion manipulator that used his powers to give himself a harem of women that he used, and then threw away when he got bored of them.
"So far he has proven difficult to pin down, and always seems to know when the authorities are closing in. His," Dragon paused on the word. "Harem includes several parahumans and some of his children also possess powers. We have to assume any and all bystanders in his range will be at risk during operations, and he has turned Protectorate and PRT members before."
I stared at the image. There were trees in the background of a park. The leaves were just beginning to turn orange. The brunette woman had her eyes closed, enthusiastic as she leaned into him. The blonde had her eyes open, stare unfocused and she was slightly turned away. The tendon on her neck was a bit pronounced, mid tremble. New conquest.
It was a recent picture, taken this past fall.
I reached out into the ocean, feeling my way through. I felt through each ripple and thread, discarding the ones that didn't match what I was looking for. It didn't take long.
Found you.
I pulled, imagining I was siphoning the threads through the eye of a needle. I wanted to know where he was staying right now.
My mind was hammered with a barrage of images and sounds. I flinched back, which made Armsmaster step forward.
"Were you spotted?"
"No," I waved him off. "I just got a lot. He's in an apartment complex in the city."
No good. I knew that wasn't any good. I dove right back in, deeper, to the currents. I was vaguely aware of Dauntless and Armsmaster retreating, as if my personal space had expanded. If Heartbreaker stuck to the city, he was practically untouchable with dozens of people around him at any moment that he could turn into soldiers. If we could get the drop on him and manage to gas the place, we'd get a few. Gas doesn't travel very fast, not in an apartment building, not fast enough to guarantee it would get him. Sniper? That left all the women and children to deal with. That was if none of them were able to warn him. It would be easier if he was isolated.
I continued looking, observing every future. There were so many. I didn't have that surety I had before, when I was completely open and submerged. I just had little touches, glimpses of it. Subtle nudges of gut feelings. I wasn't doing this right. I knew I wasn't. But I couldn't risk it.
A drifting possibility flitted into my awareness. I reached out to it, and when I touched it I had to smile. This was it. I grabbed it and
pulled it closer. I peeled hundreds of errant threads off of it, like I was breaking ore off a gem.
It had to go just like this.
"In six days, he will be in a suburb home in Pierrefonds-Roxboro. White brick house, two car garage, double sided white door with a small garden in the front of the turret. Rue de la Morandiere," I said out loud. After estranging a woman and her husband, making him decide to visit their grown son to give them time off. "Early morning, everyone will be there."
"
Thank you," Dragon said.
I opened my eyes, not sure when I had closed them. "Don't thank me yet. He preps several safe houses at the same time. You'll have to make him choose that one." I paused and shifted in my chair as I looked around. Dauntless was sitting in a chair near me as Armsmaster stubbornly stayed standing. Piggot was nearly sprawled out in her chair and several technicians were missing. Number Man had gotten a coffee and donut from somewhere.
"…How long did that take?"
Piggot checked her watch. "About an hour and a half."
"Damn," I said. It didn't feel lie it had taken that much time. Still strategically useful, but I could read in the Director's head that she wished it didn't take me so long. Aside from just having faster reaction speeds, my precog would be useless in a fight. I'd have to be constantly looking forward beforehand and I didn't think I could monopolize heroes like Dauntless and Armsmaster for unimportant things. Then I asked, "PRT Canada already wants to launch a raid on Heartbreaker, how can I help?"
"We," Piggot began, waving a finger around in the air to encompass the 'we.' Or maybe the finger was pointing upwards because of what happened last time my emotions got the better of me. Either or, really. "Don't want you anywhere
near Heartbreaker. Thank you, but no."
Dragon agreed. "You've done a lot for us already."
Double damn.
No, this wasn't the end of the path. I could still work with this.
I settled back into the chair. "I can at least give you the rest of the details. Five of his children have Master powers." One of them was
here, in Brockton Bay. I looked to see if his father sent him, but it didn't seem like it. I'll bring it up with Piggot later. "Two boys, two girls are on site. The eldest boy can touch someone, and sense what they will do for up to three hours. You know about the second, fear inducer. Eldest girl is an emotion manipulator like her father…"
Hours later I was finally done. All of Heartbreaker's safe houses, all of his 'family' and all of his victims including current PRT members. The guy had made a field trip to kidnap an actress in Vancouver, but apparently he could do subtle if he felt like it. He had long term plants in stores, in hospitals, in schools. Well, to be more accurate, he had
some plants. His daughter, Cherie Vasil had more.
I told them all of the ways the raid could go wrong if I wasn't there helping to oversee the operation. There were paths where they pulled it off perfectly without me, but those were fewer. Did those even count? That would just be leaving it all up to random chance that events would play out that way without anything guiding it. I saw how I could help, if they allowed me to.
That was a big if, right now.
"You helped take down
Heartbreaker?" Kid Win said with more than a little disbelief as he leaned in to his camera, his red and gold helmet getting big on my computer screen.
"He's not down yet." I shook my head as I etched more lines into the crystal I was holding. Bits and pieces of shaped wraithbone littered my workbench. "They have to actually go after him first." And I had to pass Piggot's Trial by Gallant with flying colors before she would even consider petitioning WEDGDG and the Chief Director for permission for Farseer to assist. There were a lot of paths that said 'no.'
But not
all of them.
"But
still," Kid Win said. "Where do I sign up for Watchdog?"
His name was Chris. Under his gold and red armor, he had brown hair that tended to stick up with helmet hair and brown eyes. He went to Arcadia High and had math homework he really should have been doing, but that was low on his priority list.
Maelstrom was a
Tinker, and Armsmaster had asked
him to help her out. He just
couldn't screw this up.
I didn't look too deep. Just enough to confirm for myself that he wasn't another Sophia. He was too earnest for that, I thought. Too concerned with putting his best foot forward for the new Tinker. He was also happy that I was having trouble figuring my stuff out, but not in a malicious way. He had dozens of unfinished projects and his own heap of frustrations with his inventions. He had started to think that he was holding himself back.
"Tell you what, get a few Thinker powers and build something that will solve world hunger and I'll put in a good word for you," I said with a cheeky grin.
I knew he rolled his eyes. "Hardy har har. I'll be lucky to build a working
cannon."
My stomach twinged, smothering my laugh.
Kid Win noticed, frowning a little. "You okay?"
"I – " Another twinge. I set the crystal circuit board down and closed my eyes, hanging my head in abject despair as I realized what it meant. After four days, it had finally happened. "…I need to go to the bathroom."
"Oh," he said. Then he got it.
"OH."
"Yeah."
"I'll just…wait then?"
"Okay."
Fuck.
