1.8: Interruptions
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
When Amy woke it was, as usual, with considerable resistance. She did not appreciate the cruel claws of wakefulness pulling her from her rare moments of sleep. Never had, and never would. She groaned internally. Her alarm hadn't gone off. She could just go back to sleep, and… she sniffed. Was that coffee? And bacon? Crap, she'd forgotten to set her alarm hadn't she, Carol never made her breakfast before Amy had to be up to get to school.
She grumbled aloud, rolling to the side so she could kick her legs off the bed in a well-practiced movement… and promptly fell off it with a loud thud.
"Ow."
"Amy?" called a voice she couldn't place. "Are you alright?"
"Mrgh," she grunted back, struggling to a seated position and finally opening her bleary eyes. Which showed a large entertainment center that they certainly didn't have. She rubbed at them, as if that would somehow make it make sense.
There was a shuffling from somewhere behind her. "Kiana, no," said the voice from before, with an air of habit, "this is for everyone, so you're going to have to wait."
A responding 'huff' punctuated the lightbulb going off in Amy's head. Right. She had gotten ditched by Vicky being a ditz, and gone home with Mei for dinner. Which turned into dinner and a movie. Which turned into her spending the night because Vicky hadn't even checked her damn phone. Probably went on a date with fucking Dean or something after. Hopefully just a date, because if Vicky had stood her up because she was getting laid (gag) Amy was going to kill her.
"Stupid Vicky," she muttered, standing up a bit unsteadily. The girls had better not take as long to shower as Vicky did in the bathroom, because she did not want to wait that long.
"Bathroom?" she asked, a bit louder, looking around. Ah, the two girls were in the kitchen, with Bronya nowhere in sight.
"Should be empty," Kiana called over to her. "Down the hall, on the right. Not the left, that one's the basement."
She grunted something that sounded vaguely like a 'thanks' in return, making her way in the indicated direction… and almost falling flat on her face when the basement door opened up and Bronya stepped out, directly into her path. She probably would have fallen if Bronya hadn't caught her, holding her up with one arm.
"I apologize, Amy. I did not mean to cause you to fall."
Amy grunted a response rather than swear at the girl and steadied herself, at which point the girl released her grip. Bronya closed the basement door behind her with a surprisingly loud 'thud,' then stepped out of the way.
"Are you looking for the restroom?" Bronya asked.
Amy set her jaw. "Yeah." And if this tiny nerd wanted to beat her to it she was gonna have another thing comi–
"There." She indicated a door.
…she could escape The List for now.
Amy scowled and checked her phone again. Vicky still hadn't texted her back. She could text Carol, but… that wouldn't go well. Mark was out for the usual reasons. Aunt Sarah or Uncle Neil would bring in Carol. She scrolled through her contacts, stared at Crystal's entry. To bug her, or not?
Her frown lingered as she skewered some scrambled eggs to a piece of bacon. Mei was a startlingly good cook, as it happened, and actually went to some effort for morning breakfasts. She usually just poured some cereal, herself.
"Amy, is something wrong with the food? I'm sorry, I didn't ask what your preference was, but you were still asleep, so–"
"Huh? No, why would there be?" She looked up to find Mei giving her a concerned look.
Mei hesitated. "You seem displeased."
"...not the food." Amy shook her head. "Food's good." She took a deep gulp of coffee and made a face at the bitterness. It didn't really do much to take the edge off things. Her sleep had been garbage, and she was going to have a headache by noon at the latest. Whoever had decided couches were an acceptable place to sleep should go to the Hague.
"Hm. Our schedule for this day has changed," Bronya said suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Mei asked.
"Arcadia is closed today."
Amy looked up from her coffee, shaken from her efforts at caffeine-based divination. "Wait, what? We just got back in, we don't have any holidays."
"Not a holiday, but a credible parahuman threat. School has been closed while the authorities handle the situation."
Amy blinked and checked her phone. No new texts, but one unread email saying much the same. Which wasn't much at all. She scowled and fired off a text to Vicky, then duplicated it to Crystal.
Amy blinked. A large… ape? How had that happened? Were Uber and Leet up to their dumb nonsense again?
Amy looked up from her phone to find that she'd missed something, because now Kiana was whining.
"Not only do I have to go to Winslow, you don't have to go to school at all? What's 'fair' about that?"
"Should have gotten better grades then," Amy said, shrugging. She'd never been an academic genius, but she'd done it. Buckle down and do it and it'd happen just fine.
Kiana pouted. Bronya raised an eyebrow. Mei sighed. "You should get going, Kiana, or you'll end up in detention again."
Kiana blinked, stared at the clock, and bolted from her seat, quickly enough that her still-damp hair whipped into Amy's cheek. Amy glared, but the other girl's retreating form proved impervious to her gaze.
If only she had eye lasers…
"Morning, Dauntless."
"Morning, Assault," Shawn answered, placing the coffee pot back in the machine and turning to regard the other man. It wasn't exactly easy to tell, given the visor, but… "Long night?" he ventured a guess.
Assault grunted. "Yeah, city was nuts last night. Only managed to snag a few hours."
Shawn frowned. "Wait, what happened? I didn't get a call." He stepped aside from the coffee machine, which had presumably encouraged the visit in the first place.
Assault stepped up to it, poking at it to make a new pot. "It's a mess, let me tell you. First, Purity quit the Empire last night. Or that's word on the street, anyway, she hasn't said anything official. Hookwolf got in an argument with her, and she left. Blasted at Kaiser when he tried to stop her."
He frowned, turning that over in his mind. "So the Empire is down their fastest flier and best blaster?" That would make engaging them much easier. "They're not going to take that lying down."
Assault shrugged. "Yeah, but not much we can do about it. And if that means they get distracted with infighting, even better."
Shawn nodded slowly. If the Empire did split, like they had after Allfather's death, and Iron Rain and Kaiser's resultant falling-out, then… well, it might increase the overall amount of cape fighting in Brockton Bay, but less coordination was still better than more. He hoped.
The coffee machine beeped, and Assault began pouring himself a mug. "Anyway, on top of that we have… three confirmed cape fights last night. That I know of. Glory Girl, Laserdream, Battery, and Triumph got in a very extended fight with Munsin and Oni Lee. Nobody won or lost – well, Triumph lost, broke an ankle, but that was an unstable-ground thing more than anything. Flattened a chunk of the docks, though. Munsin proved that we'd been underestimating her, but still no idea by how much."
Ah, Shawn thought, drinking his own coffee. That would explain why Assault was up all night; he and Battery were… he didn't know how they defined their relationship, actually. Together. And lived together, certainly. He must have been pulled in by simple proximity.
"And the other two?" he asked after a moment's silence.
"Visage was on the warpath," he answered, then took a drink of his own coffee. "First they beat the crap out of Gargoyle when he tried to rob an all-night gas station, then they brawled with Crusader, Alabaster, Victor, and Othala. Mouse Protector joined in to give Visage a hand with that one; Ravager hopped in and tried to take out Mousey for about a minute before realizing that was a stupid-ass idea. Street was pretty much totaled."
Huh. "What color was Visage?" The enigmatic independent appeared to be an armored humanoid figure of solid energy (jury was still out on whether this was a power-generated armor, a transformed Breaker-type state, or a projection), but their color varied between appearances, and with it so did their powers. Usually, it was somewhere in the cool greens and blues, which seemed to generate a larger, more durable form that in the former case could bind opponents with energy 'ropes,' and in the latter could generate stationary energy barriers.
"Kind of a reddish-purple." Shawn didn't remember that one; Assault seemed to see that and continued. "A bit smaller than usual, spiky, angular. Very fast and strong. Every time Alabaster got back up they just smacked him once and he went down again. If there were any other special abilities, they didn't show any."
"Huh. Some sort of up-close-and-personal form?" Dauntless' money was on a customizable projection of some sort. But given Alabaster's imperviousness to pain, genuinely putting him down with one hit meant a rather strong attack. Especially if they did it again every six seconds when his body reset to 'healthy.'
Assault shrugged. "I'm not about to guess how the hell that power works. Haven't seen that form since my early days in the Bay, though. Before your time." Assault finished his mug and stuck it in the dishwasher. "Oh, and before I forget, your meeting this evening got moved to the afternoon, don't know why. Check your inbox, Battery almost missed it."
"Thanks, I hadn't noticed," Shawn answered, finishing his own mug. Good thing he'd taken the files home with him last night. Otherwise he might not have had enough time to finish.
When she arrived at the front gate, Kiana was still wallowing in the injustice of Winslow being in session while Arcadia, which by all accounts was objectively better in every way, got the day off. It wasn't until she saw the security guard standing just inside the entrance that she snapped to attention. That was unusual and very suspicious. She never saw school security at Winslow, for basically any reason at all. At the very least everyone else seemed to find it as strange as she did – the yard was full of students muttering to each other and sneaking glances at not just the security guard at the front gate, but a couple others scattered throughout.
What the hell?
Kiana scanned the yard again, and adjusted her course to take her over to a pair of people she sat next to in Math class, affecting a perplexed frown. "Hey, Daniela."
The short Latina girl nodded. "Morning, Kiana. Don't suppose you did the math homework?"
Kiana coughed. "Not uh… not really, no. Was gonna rush some of it during lunch if nothing came up."
Daniela laughed, though her friend Steven, a tall, lanky pale boy, looked annoyed. "Are you ever going to do your homework at home?"
Kiana gave an awkward laugh. She tried, honestly! It just… didn't usually happen. "Maybe someday!" She gave him a cheerful smile, then frowned. "But uh, what the hell is up with us having security all of a sudden?"
"Beats me," Steven shrugged. "I'm just happy they're around. Break up fights earlier, you know?"
Daniela looked around, then leaned in to the two conspiratorially. "I heard that Blackwell was doing a big crackdown after the last couple days. That locker thing, the fight in the cafeteria, you know. They actually searched a couple lockers and called the police on Felix Vance and Kim Imai, and a bunch of other people are missing today."
Kiana gave a thoughtful 'hmm' and lowered her voice, pretending she didn't already know the answer to her question. "Those two are dealers, right? Since when does Winslow actually bust a dealer who isn't a complete moron?"
"Maybe she's scared that the fighting in the city would come here? Lot of cape fights last night. Lung got in a fight with Kaiser, Damsel of Distress showed up in the trainyards, and New Wave got in a fight with a giant monster living in the bay!" Steven grew more animated as he went. Kiana blinked. That… really didn't sound right.
Daniela rolled her eyes, mouthed 'I'm sorry about him' at Kiana, and started to pull him away. "Can't believe everything you read online about capes, dude. At least use PHO, rather than whatever weird fringe boards you can't stay off of."
"But PHO is censored! It won't tell you what the PRT doesn't want you to kno–" His rant was cut off by the start-of-day bell, for better or for worse. Mostly for better. She wasn't sure what PHO was, but from what Daniela had said it might be a useful information source on the current goings-on. Or at least better than a madman's rambling.
Kiana sighed, adjusted her backpack, and got moving. If weird monsters were really attacking the city at night, the least they could do was take Winslow out while they were at it. You know, as a public service.
"...these are just preliminary investigations, but the picture they paint is alarming." Shawn paused to let that sink in before continuing to his conclusion. "I think we should investigate more thoroughly, particularly given Miss Clements' confession. This is much more complex than it seemed at the start, and I have no explanation for the parahuman involvement at all." Shawn glanced around the room, doing his best to hide his unease.
The meeting room wasn't the one Shawn had expected; instead of one of the standard briefing rooms, they were using one of the nicer rooms typically reserved for long-distance consultations and Director meetings. The wooden 'C'-shaped central table was not completely filled, but neither was it sparsely attended. One one end, Director Piggot sat next to Deputy Director Renick, covering the PRT end of the meeting. On the other sat Armsmaster and Miss Militia, representing the Protectorate end of affairs. Battery sat in between them, though closer to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, as his fellow assigned investigator. He, of course, stood in the open end of the 'C' to give his presentation of the facts so far.
A sense of foreboding had coiled in his gut when he'd first seen the list. The investigation had to be more significant than he had thought, if it warranted the direct presence of the Protectorate leader, PRT director, and both of their lieutenants. Normally, these sorts of status reports only required one PRT and one Protectorate representative, not twice that number, and the most senior representatives of each. That obviously explained why the meeting had been moved – it was difficult at the best of times to get that many schedules to line up – but even without much of a head for politics he could see the warning signs.
He hesitated, then decided it was as good a time as any. "Speaking of, Director, Armsmaster… I assume some of the significance has to do with the redacted name in the reports, but I wasn't cleared to see it. I'd like to request to be read in on that, as it seems likely to be core to the investigation."
Piggot's mouth had thinned to a narrow line, and she sighed. "I was hoping we could get through this investigation without that, but… yes, I'll approve it. Probably should have done so from the start. Armsmaster?" She looked over at the man. "Any objections?"
Armsmaster shook his head, a frown on his lips, eyebrows furrowed. "No objections, I'll sign off on it." It was odd, Shawn reflected, to see the man without his helmet. Presumably nearly as odd as it was for them to see him without his. But that was the protocol for meetings in secure rooms, and he approved of it for that matter. It was better to have the interpersonal connection from face-to-face contact. Though wearing his helmet would certainly have helped him feel a bit less uncertain giving that briefing.
Piggot grimaced. "The redacted name in the reports is Sophia Hess. You'd know her better as Shadow Stalker."
Shawn's eyes widened, and he resisted the urge to curse. That explained far too much. The focused investigation, the redacted identity, and possibly the parahuman involvement. It even explained his own assignment – it wasn't just because he needed the experience, but because he'd been present at Shadow Stalker's hearing. He hadn't been much more than a mouthpiece, but he had seen all the evidence of her vigilante career, as well as the arguments in her defense. He had context that his fellow heroes would need to get second-hand.
"Allow me to confirm something," Armsmaster said, not giving Shawn nearly as much time to absorb that as he'd have preferred. He acknowledged the feeling that brought up in him, the feeling of persecution, and let it go. He knew Armsmaster was jealous of him, likely disliked him in general, but he'd never known the man to deliberately undermine others. It wasn't a personal jab.
"You said that Principal Blackwell could not produce the security tapes, because the security cameras had been offline for several days, correct?"
Shawn nodded, glancing at Battery. She'd been the one to actually have that conversation, he was just synthesizing. "That's my understanding."
Armsmaster followed his gaze to Battery, who nodded in assent.
"In that case, Director Piggot, I'd like to formally request to add Dragon to this meeting. She has some crucial information." Wait, what? How had the Tinker become involved in this situation? She hadn't deployed a suit to Brockton Bay in ages, and he was fairly confident she lived in Canada. And didn't go outside – if you didn't count suits, at least – in any case, so how she could be personally involved was beyond him.
Piggot frowned, training an irritated stare at Armsmaster that Shawn privately felt could drill through bulkheads, given time. "You should have told me about this before now, Armsmaster. I don't appreciate surprises."
Armsmaster just looked back impassively. "You'll understand why I didn't after her input."
She scowled, drumming her fingers on the table, but finally nodded. "Fine. Loop her in."
Armsmaster inclined his head, activating his standalone visor, and a moment later one of the telepresence units activated, the sphere inset into the table limning itself with blue light before a hologram of a woman's shoulders and head appeared.
Dragon looked much the same as she had last time Shawn had seen her. Very average in appearance, pretty in an unremarkable way, with pale skin – not surprising, given her evident agoraphobia – and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.
"Director, Deputy Director. Armsmaster, Miss Militia. Dauntless, Battery." She nodded to each of them in turn. "It's good to see you all, though I'm sorry about the context."
Piggot crossed her arms and let out an annoyed sigh. "Just get on with it, Dragon. We don't have all day."
"Of course. Dauntless, if you wouldn't mind?" She gestured to the center where he stood, and he circled around, taking a seat next to Battery. The moment he sat, the central projector lit up, and Dragon's hologram moved from 'seat' to 'center.'
"I received a tip on Monday about this incident, via an anonymous email, approximately thirty-seven minutes after the call to emergency services was made by Miss Kaslana. Before you ask, it was anonymized well enough that I didn't feel it would be feasible to backtrack it."
"Monday?" Renick asked. "Why did it take this long for you to bring this to us?"
"I was doing some maintenance on several core processing units, so lower-priority activities like tip processing were delayed. Additionally, I needed to verify the content."
"And this content was?" Piggot asked, drumming her fingers on the desk again.
"It purported to be security footage from Winslow High School that morning. I have examined it thoroughly, and it is, as near as I can tell, unaltered except for the start and end times. It is possible that the video has been falsified, but it would require a high-level Thinker's involvement, which I believe to be unlikely at this time."
"Footage from Winslow High School. Who already told us that no such footage existed." Piggot's ire had only grown, though her death glare was at least not directed at anyone in the room.
"That's correct. The attached message informed me that they did not send the Brockton Bay PRT the data directly due to uncertainty about the implications on the investigation, and saved the footage in the first place due to concerns about the Winslow administration's 'well-known corruption.'"
Piggot's grimaced. "That reputation is exaggerated, but I suppose it proved useful in this case. Let's see this video."
Dragon looked around the room, gaze lingering on Shawn before she looked back to the Director in obvious question.
Piggot waved a hand irritably. "We read him in on Hess earlier, just get on with it."
Dragon nodded, and her hologram shrank, taking up the corner of a newly-appearing holographic video screen, paused on a still image of a number of students milling about in a hallway. She gestured, and the image shifted slightly, subtly washing out the color from most of the image, leaving several figures still fully saturated, all teenage girls. He recognized Miss Barnes, Miss Clements, and Miss Hebert, and he supposed the fourth teen must be Shadow Stalker. He'd never seen her face before, but she was a Black girl of about the right height with similar hair, so she presumably matched.
The trio of girls encircled Miss Hebert against her locker. The footage didn't have audio, and he doubted it was high enough resolution for lip reading, but their body language was clear enough. The three were taunting their target in some manner. Miss Hebert, for her part, stood there stoically for some time before turning to her locker, working the combination lock. The trio of girls tensed up, and the moment the locker opened, they moved, even as Miss Hebert jerked back with surprise. Miss Hess shouldered forward, efficiently knocking her taller victim off-balance and forcing her into the locker before slamming it shut. As she did, Miss Clements and Miss Barnes turned around and closed in on Miss Hess, somewhat obscuring the view of the other students, and saying something as onlookers started to react. It wasn't until the crowd had thinned out that the three stepped away from the locker, revealing the new padlock. The locker itself seemed to shake slightly, but Shawn wasn't sure if that was really the case or just him projecting. That poor girl had to have been trying to force her way out, even if it was futile. After an exchange between the three, they split up, leaving the hallway empty, save for a few unidentifiable pieces of refuse that had escaped the locker. The video stopped.
"I can confirm with seventy-six percent accuracy, given this video quality, that the individuals in this footage are indeed Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Taylor Hebert," Dragon added.
Shawn glanced around at the others. Director Piggot was red with anger, hands white-knuckled where they gripped the desk. He was a bit worried, actually; given her physical condition, that couldn't be healthy for her. Armsmaster looked impassive as always, though his eyes seemed to be a bit narrowed. Angry, maybe. Battery and Miss Militia both looked as angry as he'd ever seen them, though neither said a word. Deputy Director Renick simply looked affronted.
"Agent Palmer," Renick said before Piggot could speak, "sent me an update on Winslow's response to the situation just before the meeting." Shawn didn't recognize the name. "She provided a list of students that Winslow had turned over to police or otherwise disciplined since Monday, and said that Principal Blackwell was instituting a 'thorough crackdown.' It took my secretary ten minutes to confirm that, while those students all had been taken into custody or disciplined by the school, a large number of them were rounded up during last night's gang activity, not by the school as reported."
Piggot let out a deep, shuddering breath before sweeping her gaze around the table. "I want a full investigation on Winslow High School, Sophia Hess, and Agent Palmer. Palmer has done a piss-poor job of monitoring Hess and Winslow. I want to know since when and why." Her hands curled into grasping claws. "She'd best hope that she's just incompetent and needs to get busted back down to the grunt squad, because if there isn't a damn good explanation for this she'll be lucky to get a job in the public sector ever again." She ground her teeth loud enough that Shawn could hear it, then looked over to Armsmaster. "I want Hess grounded until further notice." The man nodded. "Confine her to quarters or stick her in the brig the moment you have the justification for it. Renick, get them everything they need on Palmer. You have full authority to pursue this investigation anywhere you need to. I will not have this kind of corruption in my city." She grinned, but it wasn't a happy grin, more of a vicious showing-of-teeth. "If someone, I don't care who, has a problem, point them at me. I'll deal with the politics. You just get the job done. Understood?"
She grumbled aloud, rolling to the side so she could kick her legs off the bed in a well-practiced movement… and promptly fell off it with a loud thud.
"Ow."
"Amy?" called a voice she couldn't place. "Are you alright?"
"Mrgh," she grunted back, struggling to a seated position and finally opening her bleary eyes. Which showed a large entertainment center that they certainly didn't have. She rubbed at them, as if that would somehow make it make sense.
There was a shuffling from somewhere behind her. "Kiana, no," said the voice from before, with an air of habit, "this is for everyone, so you're going to have to wait."
A responding 'huff' punctuated the lightbulb going off in Amy's head. Right. She had gotten ditched by Vicky being a ditz, and gone home with Mei for dinner. Which turned into dinner and a movie. Which turned into her spending the night because Vicky hadn't even checked her damn phone. Probably went on a date with fucking Dean or something after. Hopefully just a date, because if Vicky had stood her up because she was getting laid (gag) Amy was going to kill her.
"Stupid Vicky," she muttered, standing up a bit unsteadily. The girls had better not take as long to shower as Vicky did in the bathroom, because she did not want to wait that long.
"Bathroom?" she asked, a bit louder, looking around. Ah, the two girls were in the kitchen, with Bronya nowhere in sight.
"Should be empty," Kiana called over to her. "Down the hall, on the right. Not the left, that one's the basement."
She grunted something that sounded vaguely like a 'thanks' in return, making her way in the indicated direction… and almost falling flat on her face when the basement door opened up and Bronya stepped out, directly into her path. She probably would have fallen if Bronya hadn't caught her, holding her up with one arm.
"I apologize, Amy. I did not mean to cause you to fall."
Amy grunted a response rather than swear at the girl and steadied herself, at which point the girl released her grip. Bronya closed the basement door behind her with a surprisingly loud 'thud,' then stepped out of the way.
"Are you looking for the restroom?" Bronya asked.
Amy set her jaw. "Yeah." And if this tiny nerd wanted to beat her to it she was gonna have another thing comi–
"There." She indicated a door.
…she could escape The List for now.
Amy scowled and checked her phone again. Vicky still hadn't texted her back. She could text Carol, but… that wouldn't go well. Mark was out for the usual reasons. Aunt Sarah or Uncle Neil would bring in Carol. She scrolled through her contacts, stared at Crystal's entry. To bug her, or not?
Her frown lingered as she skewered some scrambled eggs to a piece of bacon. Mei was a startlingly good cook, as it happened, and actually went to some effort for morning breakfasts. She usually just poured some cereal, herself.
"Amy, is something wrong with the food? I'm sorry, I didn't ask what your preference was, but you were still asleep, so–"
"Huh? No, why would there be?" She looked up to find Mei giving her a concerned look.
Mei hesitated. "You seem displeased."
"...not the food." Amy shook her head. "Food's good." She took a deep gulp of coffee and made a face at the bitterness. It didn't really do much to take the edge off things. Her sleep had been garbage, and she was going to have a headache by noon at the latest. Whoever had decided couches were an acceptable place to sleep should go to the Hague.
"Hm. Our schedule for this day has changed," Bronya said suddenly.
"What do you mean?" Mei asked.
"Arcadia is closed today."
Amy looked up from her coffee, shaken from her efforts at caffeine-based divination. "Wait, what? We just got back in, we don't have any holidays."
"Not a holiday, but a credible parahuman threat. School has been closed while the authorities handle the situation."
Amy blinked and checked her phone. No new texts, but one unread email saying much the same. Which wasn't much at all. She scowled and fired off a text to Vicky, then duplicated it to Crystal.
Amy blinked. A large… ape? How had that happened? Were Uber and Leet up to their dumb nonsense again?
Amy looked up from her phone to find that she'd missed something, because now Kiana was whining.
"Not only do I have to go to Winslow, you don't have to go to school at all? What's 'fair' about that?"
"Should have gotten better grades then," Amy said, shrugging. She'd never been an academic genius, but she'd done it. Buckle down and do it and it'd happen just fine.
Kiana pouted. Bronya raised an eyebrow. Mei sighed. "You should get going, Kiana, or you'll end up in detention again."
Kiana blinked, stared at the clock, and bolted from her seat, quickly enough that her still-damp hair whipped into Amy's cheek. Amy glared, but the other girl's retreating form proved impervious to her gaze.
If only she had eye lasers…
"Morning, Dauntless."
"Morning, Assault," Shawn answered, placing the coffee pot back in the machine and turning to regard the other man. It wasn't exactly easy to tell, given the visor, but… "Long night?" he ventured a guess.
Assault grunted. "Yeah, city was nuts last night. Only managed to snag a few hours."
Shawn frowned. "Wait, what happened? I didn't get a call." He stepped aside from the coffee machine, which had presumably encouraged the visit in the first place.
Assault stepped up to it, poking at it to make a new pot. "It's a mess, let me tell you. First, Purity quit the Empire last night. Or that's word on the street, anyway, she hasn't said anything official. Hookwolf got in an argument with her, and she left. Blasted at Kaiser when he tried to stop her."
He frowned, turning that over in his mind. "So the Empire is down their fastest flier and best blaster?" That would make engaging them much easier. "They're not going to take that lying down."
Assault shrugged. "Yeah, but not much we can do about it. And if that means they get distracted with infighting, even better."
Shawn nodded slowly. If the Empire did split, like they had after Allfather's death, and Iron Rain and Kaiser's resultant falling-out, then… well, it might increase the overall amount of cape fighting in Brockton Bay, but less coordination was still better than more. He hoped.
The coffee machine beeped, and Assault began pouring himself a mug. "Anyway, on top of that we have… three confirmed cape fights last night. That I know of. Glory Girl, Laserdream, Battery, and Triumph got in a very extended fight with Munsin and Oni Lee. Nobody won or lost – well, Triumph lost, broke an ankle, but that was an unstable-ground thing more than anything. Flattened a chunk of the docks, though. Munsin proved that we'd been underestimating her, but still no idea by how much."
Ah, Shawn thought, drinking his own coffee. That would explain why Assault was up all night; he and Battery were… he didn't know how they defined their relationship, actually. Together. And lived together, certainly. He must have been pulled in by simple proximity.
"And the other two?" he asked after a moment's silence.
"Visage was on the warpath," he answered, then took a drink of his own coffee. "First they beat the crap out of Gargoyle when he tried to rob an all-night gas station, then they brawled with Crusader, Alabaster, Victor, and Othala. Mouse Protector joined in to give Visage a hand with that one; Ravager hopped in and tried to take out Mousey for about a minute before realizing that was a stupid-ass idea. Street was pretty much totaled."
Huh. "What color was Visage?" The enigmatic independent appeared to be an armored humanoid figure of solid energy (jury was still out on whether this was a power-generated armor, a transformed Breaker-type state, or a projection), but their color varied between appearances, and with it so did their powers. Usually, it was somewhere in the cool greens and blues, which seemed to generate a larger, more durable form that in the former case could bind opponents with energy 'ropes,' and in the latter could generate stationary energy barriers.
"Kind of a reddish-purple." Shawn didn't remember that one; Assault seemed to see that and continued. "A bit smaller than usual, spiky, angular. Very fast and strong. Every time Alabaster got back up they just smacked him once and he went down again. If there were any other special abilities, they didn't show any."
"Huh. Some sort of up-close-and-personal form?" Dauntless' money was on a customizable projection of some sort. But given Alabaster's imperviousness to pain, genuinely putting him down with one hit meant a rather strong attack. Especially if they did it again every six seconds when his body reset to 'healthy.'
Assault shrugged. "I'm not about to guess how the hell that power works. Haven't seen that form since my early days in the Bay, though. Before your time." Assault finished his mug and stuck it in the dishwasher. "Oh, and before I forget, your meeting this evening got moved to the afternoon, don't know why. Check your inbox, Battery almost missed it."
"Thanks, I hadn't noticed," Shawn answered, finishing his own mug. Good thing he'd taken the files home with him last night. Otherwise he might not have had enough time to finish.
When she arrived at the front gate, Kiana was still wallowing in the injustice of Winslow being in session while Arcadia, which by all accounts was objectively better in every way, got the day off. It wasn't until she saw the security guard standing just inside the entrance that she snapped to attention. That was unusual and very suspicious. She never saw school security at Winslow, for basically any reason at all. At the very least everyone else seemed to find it as strange as she did – the yard was full of students muttering to each other and sneaking glances at not just the security guard at the front gate, but a couple others scattered throughout.
What the hell?
Kiana scanned the yard again, and adjusted her course to take her over to a pair of people she sat next to in Math class, affecting a perplexed frown. "Hey, Daniela."
The short Latina girl nodded. "Morning, Kiana. Don't suppose you did the math homework?"
Kiana coughed. "Not uh… not really, no. Was gonna rush some of it during lunch if nothing came up."
Daniela laughed, though her friend Steven, a tall, lanky pale boy, looked annoyed. "Are you ever going to do your homework at home?"
Kiana gave an awkward laugh. She tried, honestly! It just… didn't usually happen. "Maybe someday!" She gave him a cheerful smile, then frowned. "But uh, what the hell is up with us having security all of a sudden?"
"Beats me," Steven shrugged. "I'm just happy they're around. Break up fights earlier, you know?"
Daniela looked around, then leaned in to the two conspiratorially. "I heard that Blackwell was doing a big crackdown after the last couple days. That locker thing, the fight in the cafeteria, you know. They actually searched a couple lockers and called the police on Felix Vance and Kim Imai, and a bunch of other people are missing today."
Kiana gave a thoughtful 'hmm' and lowered her voice, pretending she didn't already know the answer to her question. "Those two are dealers, right? Since when does Winslow actually bust a dealer who isn't a complete moron?"
"Maybe she's scared that the fighting in the city would come here? Lot of cape fights last night. Lung got in a fight with Kaiser, Damsel of Distress showed up in the trainyards, and New Wave got in a fight with a giant monster living in the bay!" Steven grew more animated as he went. Kiana blinked. That… really didn't sound right.
Daniela rolled her eyes, mouthed 'I'm sorry about him' at Kiana, and started to pull him away. "Can't believe everything you read online about capes, dude. At least use PHO, rather than whatever weird fringe boards you can't stay off of."
"But PHO is censored! It won't tell you what the PRT doesn't want you to kno–" His rant was cut off by the start-of-day bell, for better or for worse. Mostly for better. She wasn't sure what PHO was, but from what Daniela had said it might be a useful information source on the current goings-on. Or at least better than a madman's rambling.
Kiana sighed, adjusted her backpack, and got moving. If weird monsters were really attacking the city at night, the least they could do was take Winslow out while they were at it. You know, as a public service.
"...these are just preliminary investigations, but the picture they paint is alarming." Shawn paused to let that sink in before continuing to his conclusion. "I think we should investigate more thoroughly, particularly given Miss Clements' confession. This is much more complex than it seemed at the start, and I have no explanation for the parahuman involvement at all." Shawn glanced around the room, doing his best to hide his unease.
The meeting room wasn't the one Shawn had expected; instead of one of the standard briefing rooms, they were using one of the nicer rooms typically reserved for long-distance consultations and Director meetings. The wooden 'C'-shaped central table was not completely filled, but neither was it sparsely attended. One one end, Director Piggot sat next to Deputy Director Renick, covering the PRT end of the meeting. On the other sat Armsmaster and Miss Militia, representing the Protectorate end of affairs. Battery sat in between them, though closer to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, as his fellow assigned investigator. He, of course, stood in the open end of the 'C' to give his presentation of the facts so far.
A sense of foreboding had coiled in his gut when he'd first seen the list. The investigation had to be more significant than he had thought, if it warranted the direct presence of the Protectorate leader, PRT director, and both of their lieutenants. Normally, these sorts of status reports only required one PRT and one Protectorate representative, not twice that number, and the most senior representatives of each. That obviously explained why the meeting had been moved – it was difficult at the best of times to get that many schedules to line up – but even without much of a head for politics he could see the warning signs.
He hesitated, then decided it was as good a time as any. "Speaking of, Director, Armsmaster… I assume some of the significance has to do with the redacted name in the reports, but I wasn't cleared to see it. I'd like to request to be read in on that, as it seems likely to be core to the investigation."
Piggot's mouth had thinned to a narrow line, and she sighed. "I was hoping we could get through this investigation without that, but… yes, I'll approve it. Probably should have done so from the start. Armsmaster?" She looked over at the man. "Any objections?"
Armsmaster shook his head, a frown on his lips, eyebrows furrowed. "No objections, I'll sign off on it." It was odd, Shawn reflected, to see the man without his helmet. Presumably nearly as odd as it was for them to see him without his. But that was the protocol for meetings in secure rooms, and he approved of it for that matter. It was better to have the interpersonal connection from face-to-face contact. Though wearing his helmet would certainly have helped him feel a bit less uncertain giving that briefing.
Piggot grimaced. "The redacted name in the reports is Sophia Hess. You'd know her better as Shadow Stalker."
Shawn's eyes widened, and he resisted the urge to curse. That explained far too much. The focused investigation, the redacted identity, and possibly the parahuman involvement. It even explained his own assignment – it wasn't just because he needed the experience, but because he'd been present at Shadow Stalker's hearing. He hadn't been much more than a mouthpiece, but he had seen all the evidence of her vigilante career, as well as the arguments in her defense. He had context that his fellow heroes would need to get second-hand.
"Allow me to confirm something," Armsmaster said, not giving Shawn nearly as much time to absorb that as he'd have preferred. He acknowledged the feeling that brought up in him, the feeling of persecution, and let it go. He knew Armsmaster was jealous of him, likely disliked him in general, but he'd never known the man to deliberately undermine others. It wasn't a personal jab.
"You said that Principal Blackwell could not produce the security tapes, because the security cameras had been offline for several days, correct?"
Shawn nodded, glancing at Battery. She'd been the one to actually have that conversation, he was just synthesizing. "That's my understanding."
Armsmaster followed his gaze to Battery, who nodded in assent.
"In that case, Director Piggot, I'd like to formally request to add Dragon to this meeting. She has some crucial information." Wait, what? How had the Tinker become involved in this situation? She hadn't deployed a suit to Brockton Bay in ages, and he was fairly confident she lived in Canada. And didn't go outside – if you didn't count suits, at least – in any case, so how she could be personally involved was beyond him.
Piggot frowned, training an irritated stare at Armsmaster that Shawn privately felt could drill through bulkheads, given time. "You should have told me about this before now, Armsmaster. I don't appreciate surprises."
Armsmaster just looked back impassively. "You'll understand why I didn't after her input."
She scowled, drumming her fingers on the table, but finally nodded. "Fine. Loop her in."
Armsmaster inclined his head, activating his standalone visor, and a moment later one of the telepresence units activated, the sphere inset into the table limning itself with blue light before a hologram of a woman's shoulders and head appeared.
Dragon looked much the same as she had last time Shawn had seen her. Very average in appearance, pretty in an unremarkable way, with pale skin – not surprising, given her evident agoraphobia – and long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.
"Director, Deputy Director. Armsmaster, Miss Militia. Dauntless, Battery." She nodded to each of them in turn. "It's good to see you all, though I'm sorry about the context."
Piggot crossed her arms and let out an annoyed sigh. "Just get on with it, Dragon. We don't have all day."
"Of course. Dauntless, if you wouldn't mind?" She gestured to the center where he stood, and he circled around, taking a seat next to Battery. The moment he sat, the central projector lit up, and Dragon's hologram moved from 'seat' to 'center.'
"I received a tip on Monday about this incident, via an anonymous email, approximately thirty-seven minutes after the call to emergency services was made by Miss Kaslana. Before you ask, it was anonymized well enough that I didn't feel it would be feasible to backtrack it."
"Monday?" Renick asked. "Why did it take this long for you to bring this to us?"
"I was doing some maintenance on several core processing units, so lower-priority activities like tip processing were delayed. Additionally, I needed to verify the content."
"And this content was?" Piggot asked, drumming her fingers on the desk again.
"It purported to be security footage from Winslow High School that morning. I have examined it thoroughly, and it is, as near as I can tell, unaltered except for the start and end times. It is possible that the video has been falsified, but it would require a high-level Thinker's involvement, which I believe to be unlikely at this time."
"Footage from Winslow High School. Who already told us that no such footage existed." Piggot's ire had only grown, though her death glare was at least not directed at anyone in the room.
"That's correct. The attached message informed me that they did not send the Brockton Bay PRT the data directly due to uncertainty about the implications on the investigation, and saved the footage in the first place due to concerns about the Winslow administration's 'well-known corruption.'"
Piggot's grimaced. "That reputation is exaggerated, but I suppose it proved useful in this case. Let's see this video."
Dragon looked around the room, gaze lingering on Shawn before she looked back to the Director in obvious question.
Piggot waved a hand irritably. "We read him in on Hess earlier, just get on with it."
Dragon nodded, and her hologram shrank, taking up the corner of a newly-appearing holographic video screen, paused on a still image of a number of students milling about in a hallway. She gestured, and the image shifted slightly, subtly washing out the color from most of the image, leaving several figures still fully saturated, all teenage girls. He recognized Miss Barnes, Miss Clements, and Miss Hebert, and he supposed the fourth teen must be Shadow Stalker. He'd never seen her face before, but she was a Black girl of about the right height with similar hair, so she presumably matched.
The trio of girls encircled Miss Hebert against her locker. The footage didn't have audio, and he doubted it was high enough resolution for lip reading, but their body language was clear enough. The three were taunting their target in some manner. Miss Hebert, for her part, stood there stoically for some time before turning to her locker, working the combination lock. The trio of girls tensed up, and the moment the locker opened, they moved, even as Miss Hebert jerked back with surprise. Miss Hess shouldered forward, efficiently knocking her taller victim off-balance and forcing her into the locker before slamming it shut. As she did, Miss Clements and Miss Barnes turned around and closed in on Miss Hess, somewhat obscuring the view of the other students, and saying something as onlookers started to react. It wasn't until the crowd had thinned out that the three stepped away from the locker, revealing the new padlock. The locker itself seemed to shake slightly, but Shawn wasn't sure if that was really the case or just him projecting. That poor girl had to have been trying to force her way out, even if it was futile. After an exchange between the three, they split up, leaving the hallway empty, save for a few unidentifiable pieces of refuse that had escaped the locker. The video stopped.
"I can confirm with seventy-six percent accuracy, given this video quality, that the individuals in this footage are indeed Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, Madison Clements, and Taylor Hebert," Dragon added.
Shawn glanced around at the others. Director Piggot was red with anger, hands white-knuckled where they gripped the desk. He was a bit worried, actually; given her physical condition, that couldn't be healthy for her. Armsmaster looked impassive as always, though his eyes seemed to be a bit narrowed. Angry, maybe. Battery and Miss Militia both looked as angry as he'd ever seen them, though neither said a word. Deputy Director Renick simply looked affronted.
"Agent Palmer," Renick said before Piggot could speak, "sent me an update on Winslow's response to the situation just before the meeting." Shawn didn't recognize the name. "She provided a list of students that Winslow had turned over to police or otherwise disciplined since Monday, and said that Principal Blackwell was instituting a 'thorough crackdown.' It took my secretary ten minutes to confirm that, while those students all had been taken into custody or disciplined by the school, a large number of them were rounded up during last night's gang activity, not by the school as reported."
Piggot let out a deep, shuddering breath before sweeping her gaze around the table. "I want a full investigation on Winslow High School, Sophia Hess, and Agent Palmer. Palmer has done a piss-poor job of monitoring Hess and Winslow. I want to know since when and why." Her hands curled into grasping claws. "She'd best hope that she's just incompetent and needs to get busted back down to the grunt squad, because if there isn't a damn good explanation for this she'll be lucky to get a job in the public sector ever again." She ground her teeth loud enough that Shawn could hear it, then looked over to Armsmaster. "I want Hess grounded until further notice." The man nodded. "Confine her to quarters or stick her in the brig the moment you have the justification for it. Renick, get them everything they need on Palmer. You have full authority to pursue this investigation anywhere you need to. I will not have this kind of corruption in my city." She grinned, but it wasn't a happy grin, more of a vicious showing-of-teeth. "If someone, I don't care who, has a problem, point them at me. I'll deal with the politics. You just get the job done. Understood?"
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