Causal
February 7th, 2011
7:23pm
"Alright," Tattletale said after an obnoxiously loud slurp of her Big Gulp that did nothing to alleviate her annoyance. The heavyweight of 'precautionary' cuffs were still pissing her off even though they weren't there anymore and it still didn't surprise her that the Number Man knew how to pick PRT handcuffs with a pin. Alright, so whatever, unknown Thinker involving herself with Elf bigshot, big whoop.
She was saving her goddamn life, for Christ's sake.
It was amazing what a week and a half will do for changing opinions about how fucking petty the PRT really were. Knowing the pettiness was institutional did not make it any better. Knowing the person who made the PRT institutionally petty made it worse. "Hit me."
The TV screen in the unofficial official break room lit up with golden light.
And she was gone.
When she came back, the video was frozen at what she knew was the exact millisecond she stopped paying attention thanks to Contessa controlling the remote - '[Button was pressed without conscious input]' - The Number Man was crunching on popcorn on the other side of the table as Doctor Mother calmly, fastidiously finished up her neat, tidy headings on her notebook paper in blue pen.
Tattletale took a breath. Then she took another slurp. "You knew that would happen."
"Suspected," Contessa corrected with her eyes still forward.
"Suspected, my ass," she shot back. "That's as good as knowing."
She would have figured it out eventually, Tattletale told herself. Eventually, the pattern of simply not being able to think or even
see information would have driven her up the wall. She'd gnaw through her wrists before she just laid down and accepted
restrictions like that kind of bullshit. She knew she would. That was the only reason why she wasn't giving Contessa holy hell for not telling her that was going to happen.
She thought Scion had been just…blank.
Shit.
"Get anything?" The Number Man paused munching just long enough to play peacemaker.
She got her mind in gear.
"Farseer is super fucking hard core." Scion? She fucked people up so bad, Scion came to clean up her shit? Tattletale licked her lips. She had to know. "Did
this fall anywhere in your calculations?
Anywhere? At all?" She waved a hand. "I don't mean standard deviation shit - " and she caught the indulgent smile the Number Man was thinking of smothering - "but like, way out there at least?"
And if it did she was calling bullshit.
'[Can't have predicted this. Only Simurgh knew. And Farseer.]'
She held up a finger, blinking. "Simurgh knew something."
"Of course she did," Doctor Mother said simply. "We've found it best to assume she always knows something. But if she knew
this -"
'[Didn't know everything. Suspected. Predicted. Adequate measures taken, sure of conclusion. Sure of self. Scion would react to Farseer. Both used it.]'
"Okay," she said. So this was the kind of rodeo where no one knew what was actually going to happen, but being pretty okay with hitting that big red nuke button anyway on the off chance the grenade they were throwing around would hate the other guy just a bit more than you
knew it hated you. "Okay, I'm good."
Jesus H. Christ Hebert.
You are why we can't have nice things.
Last time she checked, Calvert was still sleeping off the disconnect from Clairvoyant. So that meant next time, it was her turn in the fun chair.
Contessa pressed play again. The golden light faded revealing that the entire Boeing 747 had just vanished into thin air leaving only a large patch of molten slag. Less than a second later, smaller, thinner beams randomly struck other places and people. No, not random.
'[Never random.]'
Contessa paused the video again. "Four hundred and twelve passengers, nine parahumans on site, twenty two hundred and thirteen civilians were eliminated in this purge."
"Quarantining a city of this size was always going to be a challenge. It would have tested the very limits of the typical construction," Doctor Mother said. She made a note. "We considered ourselves lucky, I suppose, that the Simurgh's targets were….small."
"Would?" Tattletale found herself asking.
"India opted not to quarantine New Delhi."
'[Twenty one point seven five million people. Damage to economy substantial, to national pride incalculable. Logistics would be strained beyond sustainable measures for India. Nation would likely collapse within a decade or two were a full quarantine to be attempted.]'
"Three minutes past the deadline," Tattletale said anyway.
"And Scion...pruned the populace." A look was exchanged between the older members at the table. Pruned. Tattletale would never like Doctor Mother. She wasn't the type to like anyone holding the proverbial gun to her head, but this person in particular liked to remind her that not all was sunshine and rainbows upstairs. She could understand greed. Ambition. Just plain evil. Doctor Mother had nothing to explain it. "Farseer told Alexandria that Farsight's second trigger wouldn't need to worry about a quarantine."
Oh, she thought. You
are a smug bitch, aren't you, Hebert?
She held up a finger. "Who - "
"Later."
Fine.
The video continued to play.
She was sure she was supposed to be paying attention to Scion and some part of her was, but it was coming back in drip feedings of nonsensical. The storm wasn't much better in that regard, but that was something she could see with her eyes. She read the report. The real Top Secret one, not the one sitting in Piggot's file cabinet. Give her two days, and the girl could swallow a good chunk of a continent.
That was done at the seat of her pants, thousands of miles away, while Hebert had still been physically in Brockton Bay. There was something about the words between 'bury the eastern seaboard' and 'anywhere' that really put things into perspective.
'[More.]' Her power whispered.
'[Farther. Bigger...]'
The shit show right on the other side of the rift was the cherry on top of the shit sundae, and there was a whole lot of shit. Literal proof of aliens. Footage that had somehow spread despite the blanket info bans put in place with most Endbringer battles. Info still spread despite that though.
It was those ones right there. With the swooping, bird of prey designs or organic bone ships.
'[There.]' Wraithbone, no doubt about it.
'[Simurgh knew what was in storm. Knew about these ships. Knew Farseer. Scion knew. Farseer didn't. Was shown.]'
The fuck?
'[Device was made for Farseer. Would do something to Farseer. Device triggered storm Farseer could already make, why? To show. Wanted a response. Wanted a certain response.]'
From Farseer?
'[From us.]'
"Simurgh wasn't fighting," Tattletale breathed out. "Well, she was, but it was for show?"
'[Farseer, low self esteem. Bullied teenage girl.]' "She wanted to
hurt Hebert."
'[Wraithbone ships. Empty. Alone. Dead.]' She rubbed the bridge of her nose, then her temples. That didn't mean anything unless Simurgh was trying to guilt trip the elf about...something something loneliness?
Did the Simurgh just lose her mind?
No.
It was never the first answer. "How much goodwill would Farseer have, right now, if Leviathan
hadn't died?"
"None," The Number Man said. "She'd be deep in the negatives."
"As it is, she's barely pulling through right? Her storm over New Delhi, all three Endbringers on a target, all of them make it out, people die, nothing to show for it except Scion, who pops up to kill more people." She grabbed her drink then put it down. She didn't feel thirsty anymore. "And he had to, at least those people in that plane."
'[Never random.]'
"Or thought he had to."
'[Never random.]'
Unless you tell me what that means, fuck off already, she thought. "What a mess."
She watched the gaping hole in the sky close, slammed together like a surgeon with a golden suture. She watched the golden man lunge for the Simurgh. There was no real body language there to read. Just aggression on one side. And nothing on the other. It was like Simurgh was frozen.
'[Waiting.]' She twisted away from the searing blows, angling them away from certain spots on her body.
'[Bases of her wings.]'
Then it was as if the video flickered. One moment there was a white haired angel, then there was something large, devoid of humanity. A second flicker showed a silver woman. And Scion faltered.
The video paused.
"The fuck was that?" Her power was silent. "The fuck was that?" she asked again to her companions.
Cauldron exchanged looks over her head.
Doctor Mother tapped her pen on the table.
"She called herself Eden," Contessa answered quietly.
'[There had been two.]'
"Then that's how we get him." She leaned back in her chair. She knew they were looking at her for an answer, but for once she felt pretty good about her place here. If there was one thing her power was great at doing, at the expense of
ruining her personal life, it was digging up dirty laundry. She knew everything she never wanted to know about relationships.
That? That had been a
human reaction to the death or departure of a significant other that still hurt.
That meant everything.
'[There had been two.]'
"Alright, so I have a few ideas, but first?" Tattletale grinned. "I'm going to need a bit more information about this whole Cauldron shindig you got going on here than what you've decided to hand out. Fair?"
Contessa didn't make the decision. That told her more.
"Fair," Doctor Mother replied. "Welcome to Cauldron, Tattletale."
February 8th, 2011
7:12am
Other viewers of the video were focusing on different things.
The PRT Los Angeles conference room was relatively empty today. Some new personnel returning from sabbaticals, leave, holidays needed to be caught up, and others were still running the details on the ground. The large table shaped vaguely like a painters palette with its arrowhead shape and rounded edges was cluttered with paper. It was late, again, a hundred and one priorities taking up precious day time in a city that refused to sleep.
Her job was the actionable. Not the hypothetical. What could be done, now. What can be capitalized on, now.
What the fuck do we do
now?
Leviathan was dead.
"Do we have the information requested about the killing blow?" Rebecca Costa-Brown asked, hand already held out to receive the thin manila folder. She frowned at it, and glanced over the first page. Parahumans weren't quite as focused on hiding identities in non-Western countries, which made some things easier. She almost snorted at the typical Indian show name, but swallowed it back.
Kill an Endbringer and she will call you whatever you fucking want.
"Status of secondary?"
"Deceased," someone in the room reported.
"Shame," but kinetic force was of little use against Behemoth or the Simurgh anyway. "Wormhole creation and destruction, first name Behar. Aryan descent - " she flicked through the rest of it. Team member of Farsight. She could use that. From observation, there was some reluctant affection there. "Forward the standard offer, double reward, add reconciliation bonus with Avni Singh. With any luck, she'll just show up in New York."
That still got her.
Farseer let the woman walk away because all along, she knew that Behar would answer when called.
And never bothered to say a
single fucking thing.
She nodded at the screen and obligingly it began to play. This had been the seventeenth time she'd seen this from start to finish over the last twelve hours. The first time for this particular team up, but it would be the second night they would have with less than three hours of sleep. It was only the thought that Richards was probably watching this compulsively, even in his sleep, that was keeping her from feeling overworked.
No good deed went unpunished, as the saying goes.
The room hushed like it was a movie theatre. The click-clacking of pens and pencils on desks and low murmurs were the only sounds.
"Ex - excuse me," the lights brightened as her deputy director squinted. "Is Farseer...an alien? You have to admit those ships - "
"She has all the memories and mannerisms of Taylor Hebert," Rebecca said. "Let's …" She sighed, loosening her blouse's tie. "Let's not speculate on that, just yet."
Oh, if only you
knew.
The reveal that Scion had a partner, even if they poorly understood what she'd known for decades caused a slight stir. After watching him single out and murder thousands of people, some affected with something, and some not, it was just one more mark on the column of 'What We Wish We Knew About Scion.'
"Kid's dangerous, even Scion responds," Ramahi said deceptively lightly. That was the cutoff point. If you did something, and Scion showed up, it was automatically the Biggest Thing. Scion never seemed to have a rhyme or reason to why he did what he did. The only standard was that it had to be a disaster.
This counted.
"We don't know why yet," she replied. "You are free to ask her when she wakes up."
"If she wakes up," someone else muttered and she didn't turn around to see who. She knew who it was.
"Don't ruin this for
anyone, Jacobs," she hissed.
The ending was coming up. Job done, whatever it was, Scion hovered alone in the sky above New Delhi. He looked around, taking a second glance, from someone whom most things didn't warrant a first glance.
Paranoid.
"Focus the big one first," Farseer had said.
"But if [Scion]'s agitated? Give him space?" she had murmured nervously, right before.
There was something wrong with the girl's power, and she
knew it. There were ships in the sky made of the same material around her locker, and Farseer didn't show any surprise. But they were empty. Just as lifeless as the rest.
Not the plane.
The plane had been full of lives that were now all gone.
Where
exactly did the creature in ENE PHQ come from that day?
Where did
Farseer come from?
A natural trigger.
Ships in the sky.
She was going in circles.
For all she knew, she just got a glimpse of what made up Farseer's shard. And it was one no one should have had.
Like us.
Scion floated over to the MCD building's roof, where a girl with sight powers stood alone in terror. She felt a twinge of guilt at how easy it had been to abandon her. Even knowing that she had her orders. Even with the mistaken belief that she would be safe.
Scion reached out a hand.
By habit, Rebecca found the file in the repository of her mind.
Emergence of power-induced extra sensory orb on brow, i.e. third eye. Gemma activity stabilized. Granted honorary United States citizenship due to events in New Delhi, in medical containment, LA.
Documented Induced Third Trigger.
February 8th 2011
9:17pm
Rebecca Costa-Brown's day didn't end when her work hours did. There were a few phone numbers she knew to hang up everything for, no matter how seldom she was called like this. The President. The Secretaries of Defense and State. The Attorney General.
"This is an absolute shit show," Jeremy Matthews, current Secretary of State barked at her. He waved a hand at the screen in front of him, where she knew that video would be playing. She was beginning to hate it.
"We have it under control - "
"You call this
control?" The stubble on his jaw seemed to rise like bristles on a riled boar. "This on the web, one dead and two in medical containment - "
"With all due respect, sir, yes. As well as could be expected." Better than expected. This was an Endbringer fight with all three of them present you jackass, she thought.
"With all due respect - " his mouth worked. His wide, white mustache twitched. He laughed mirthlessly. "With all due respect, Becca, we both know you mean kiss my ass."
"Kiss my ass,
sir." She stared him down. "What do you want from me?"
"What do I want?" Behind his glasses, watery blue eyes were wide with fear. "I want - I've got - we've got a teenage Simurgh on our hands with an American citizenship! And you ask me what I want?" He leaned forward over his desk. "Answers! Solutions, damnit!"
"It's not even - " He tried to say something, but she just spoke over him. "It hasn't even been a week. Jeremy, we're trying, but if you tell me to work faster, I
swear to God - "
His eyes darted around the camera. "Richards have anything?"
"Did he give you anything?" She just barely managed to reply without the vitriol threatening to break loose. She knew the man hadn't, but as always she was the one being asked as if her hands weren't tied behind her back. "You want solutions? Give me some breathing room. Reign in Basler."
"What," he croaked. That was never his solution. To give his attack dog of an Attorney General the order to stand down.
"If you don't want to shit out a Presidential Pardon, you get him to stand down and work with us. I need it." She let him see how serious her request was by subtle changes of her body language. Slumping shoulders, drawn expression, minor tick in her right eyelid behind her glasses. "We need the good will, the PR, the illusion of control or we are reaping the whirlwind."
"The President - look, the phone is ringing off the damn hook. We've got India, we've got Germany, England, we've got fucking Russia on the Red Phone and kid's asleep." He spun in his chair, hands up. "With
no fucking eyes!"
Yes,
that. Rebecca was this close to obtaining a court order
requiring Panacea heal Farseer.
"This has the characteristic look and feel of a complete fiasco," Goffin commented from across the other screen, calmly sipping hot chocolate. The bastard was probably wearing slippers under his desk as well.
"We've - "
"Covered that, I know," Vincent Goffin, Secretary of Defense nodded. "I have fewer concerns here. Any risk of sedition so far?" Rebecca nearly sighed in relief as she shook her head. Farseer was a Thinker however. The possibility was guaranteed to cross her mind eventually. "And we managed a score from India, offers look interesting, especially concerning the CUI. Keep me up to date, would you?"
His screen went dark.
Now much calmer, Matthews drummed his fingers on his desk. "Update me first."
Then he too was gone.
Thanks, Goffin, Rebecca thought and wearily began to wind down her night at the PRT Headquarters in Los Angeles.
February 8th, 2011
11:51pm
In PRT ENE in Brockton Bay, Piggot's night was just beginning.
Again.
It was always going to be so fucking inconvenient with the Hebert's wasn't it?
"You've got a visitor."
Danny looked up from the bed of one of the more comfy cells they held fresh triggers and people they didn't want to offend while still keeping them contained and watched. Probably the very same his daughter had been in not too long ago. His eyes were bloodshot and she knew he hadn't slept at all in almost a week. He was rhythmically opening and closing his right fist and managed a weak smile.
Piggot didn't know what she would have done if he had also turned into an elf.
Keeled over and died from a heart attack, probably.
"Annabelle?" His voice sounded as tired as he looked.
His daughter's handler closed her eyes. "Oh, hun."
"Guess it runs in the family."
Piggot muted the mike. "What do you think?"
The woman didn't hesitate, to her credit. "I'll take the new case on, it's fine."
Still, Emily Piggot searched the blonde's face for any sign of uncertainty. "It's likely Taylor will be given other solutions, but we have no problems keeping a familiar, friendly face near."
"Thanks, Director."
You put more of my men in M/S containment, she thought.
Don't thank me.
Ever.
And don't even get her started about where the unknown teenage Thinker had disappeared off to!
"You're welcome," she said and felt she could be forgiven the stiffness. On her way out, she grabbed the papers from Renick, pulling another all nighter. "Sitrep?"
"Nothing's on fire, no current monster attacks, and the coffee is ok, so the situation is better than it was before," Renick answered. "More seriously though, while testing is still going to take a while, results so far seem to show we aren't going to be dealing with any negative side-effects from Danny Hebert's power. So some good news at least."
Some good news, she thought to herself incredulously.
Some good news.
