46.1 Interlude Weld
Weld moved into the PRT cafeteria feeling the press of tired and frustrated bodies around him. It was the feeling of people who had pulled long shifts and had longer ones ahead of them. The sense of exhaustion and near-frustration was understandable, really. The Parahuman Response Team was about responding to parahumans, not general disaster relief. The entire department seemed to be stretched to the limit trying to manage the situation in the city.
That was probably because there didn't seem to be any practical difference between a Brockton Bay parahuman event and a major disaster. That might not have been strictly fair, but given the past week Weld couldn't deny it. Between Apeiron and the ABB, every clash seemed to be the kind of event that for any other city would involve a week of news coverage with special graphics, dedicated analysis, and memorial segments.
And that was 'just' the past week. A week that seemed to have stretched on for months. He could barely believe it had only been seven days since he flew down from Boston, an emergency transfer in response to what everyone naively assumed was the worst thing a department could possibly endure. Only Brockton could take the butchering of a Ward on live television and have it end up as a footnote in their list of disasters.
Well, people had been wondering what it would take to shift public attention away from what happened to Aegis. It turned out there was an obvious answer that had slipped past everyone. All it took was a mounting series of disasters culminating in the total catastrophe the city had seen the previous night.
He'd been in the thick of it, right alongside the troopers and guardsmen. And it had been horrible. Fighting conscripted civilians was a nightmare even without considering the waves of death that were being regularly thrown your way. The conflict had put his durability to the test, and he'd gotten an up close and personal look at the impact of those bombs on people who didn't have his level of resilience. It was the kind of thing that almost made him long for the days when he couldn't feel or smell.
Almost, but not quite. That might be selfish, but even after the horrors of the previous night he found himself relishing the sensations of the crowded cafeteria. Even with everything dialed down and muted he could still feel it. The press of the crowd shifting the temperature and humidity of the area. Body heat, the presence of other people, such a small thing that made such a big difference.
And he could smell as well. The air going into his lungs wasn't just for the purpose of speaking anymore. It carried hints of the world around him. Subtle hints, ones he could barely detect, but they were there. Sweat, salt, the smoky edge that came from dealing with the fires of the disaster, then deciding to seek out food before you had time to shower or rest from the night's exertion. If the scents were like this for him, ghosts of a hint that he was half convinced he was imagining, then they must have been positively clawing for everyone else. A pressed mass of desperate humanity, bringing with it the signs and scents of a night's labor.
And Weld was part of that mass, connected to it. Connected on a base level, built on something that everyone, no matter who they were, could understand and seek out.
Food.
The cafeteria has converted itself to an even more industrial style of operation than you usually saw in these places. This wasn't about providing a choice of dishes or any kind of tailored plate. It was about getting something hot and nourishing into the troopers before they had to be called out again. The staff was preparing trays and handing them out as fast as they could move the line. If anyone had special dietary requirements or allergies it seemed they were either being trusted to make their own arrangements, or find something they could handle from the assorted items spread across the lunch tray. Most likely the selected items were chosen to be as inoffensive as possible while also providing the fuel needed for another shift of work.
Weld happily grabbed his own tray as he reached the end of the line and moved into the expansive dining area. It was crowded and buzzed with a constant murmur of background voices. Even so, he had no trouble finding a place to sit. Really, it was the only place for him to sit. A reinforced plastic-coated chair had been set up by a small table in the corner. A table that was already occupied with a girl in a purple costume, sitting across from said chair and working her way through an identical tray of food.
Weld slipped into the seat, feeling it creak slightly under the weight of his body. Feeling it, not just noting it from the sound or the placement of the material. That was important.
He put thoughts of the significance out of his mind as he smiled at Flechette. "Morning." He said with good humor.
"Afternoon, technically." She replied as she continued to dig into her meal. "Though that's not going to stop me from counting this as breakfast."
"Glad to see you're doing better." He offered, and considered where to start on his own tray.
That seemed to dampen a portion of her enthusiasm for her meal. "Yeah. I still don't know what that was." She looked troubled over the idea. "Nothing like that's happened to me before." There was a small sigh. "And I still say I could have stayed in the field."
"Right, and risk you having another attack when jumping between buildings?" Weld tried to play things light, but he couldn't keep an edge of concern from his voice. Based on her expression, or at least what he could see beyond the tinted visor of her costume, she had picked up on it too.
"I know." She admitted. "I know you had to be careful. I just hated being locked down when everybody else was out there, trying to help."
"Well, I mean if you feel that bad about me getting stuck with Shadow Stalker…" he said with a wry smile.
"She's not that bad." Lily countered. "Though I wish she'd let up on the teasing."
Weld did smile at that. "Come on, it's hilarious." He saw her face and quickly clarified himself. "Okay, it's hilarious how far off the mark she is. What's hilarious is 'why' she thinks it makes you uncomfortable." Despite everything, Weld saw the corner of Lily's mouth quirk up, causing him to smile wider. "How is that going, by the way?"
The girl shrugged slightly, her attention shifting to the small but beautifully made cape streaming over the back of her chair. "Um, good? Maybe?" She let out a sigh. "It's not easy."
"Is this kind of thing usually easy?" He asked.
She shrugged. "No? I don't know. Not like this." She pulled out her phone and started sifting through messages. "Garment's great. I mean, she's funny and coordinated and so confident in everything she does, it's just…"
"The talking?" He asked. Lily paused for a moment before giving a slight nod.
"This is going to sound awful. I mean, I thought I was better than that." She winced and looked at him, but he waved for her to continue. She took a breath before moving on. "Like, the thing with her body doesn't bother me, whatever it is. Even without a face."
"Though I imagine it might make a few things difficult." Weld quipped and saw Lily's cheeks flush.
"Anyway." She said quickly. "If that was the only problem it would be just fine, but it's more than that. The way she communicates…" She glanced down at her phone and swiped through more messages. "She's so expressive in person, but when it comes to getting words out it's like there's this wall." She tilted the phone to show Weld scores of detailed messages from Flechette's side, all with single word responses from Garment. That kind of correspondence had practically become Garment's signature, but it didn't make things easy.
"A lot of time capes are dealing with more than they seem to be. It looks like there's some clear reason for their problems, or that they've got everything under control, but there can be these whole other layers of issues they're struggling with." Memories were welling up when he spoke. Old and painful ones, and not just for him. He had done circuits as the token Case 53 spokesman. He'd seen how bad things could get. People who looked like they were barely able to get by, struggling with the deformity inflicted by their powers only to have some additional physical or mental constraint that ended up defining their existence. It wasn't a happy line of thinking.
"Yeah, I get it." She sighed. "Do you think she's a Case 53? Have they confirmed anything yet?"
"If they have I haven't heard about it." He answered honestly. There was a time when he would have been the point of contact for someone like Garment, but that time was past and he wasn't sure if it would come again. Not that he regretted his decisions. His brief window of freedom that came following his release from medical observation had ended the moment the purpose of his video calls had become clear. It wasn't enough for the Director to prove insubordination, but it damaged their working relationship and he hadn't been in her good books to begin with.
They didn't officially blame him for falling into the bay. There was no practical way they could, but that incident and the situation that followed was linked to him. Director Piggot had been hoping to receive a popular, dedicated, and experienced Ward to serve as team leader and advance the broader goals of the PRT. Instead, she got a disaster, one that he was in no way to blame for, but one he was still tied to.
The worst they could pin on him was following Armsmaster into battle. Thinking back, it had been something he was a little unsteady about, but everything had been unsteady in that situation. Armsmaster's lapse in judgement was being blamed on a convenient concussion, but apparently Weld was expected to be clearer headed while in the aftermath of a bombing spree and having needed to be cut out from the material of the rig.
He still didn't like thinking about that fight, not with what came afterwards. The entire thing had been pure chaos on every level, right up until the horrible finale. He had managed to take a hit from Lung, one that Armsmaster probably wouldn't have been able to endure, but the impact sent him over the side.
That had been bad. The pitch black water, groping around trying to find some kind of support or landmark or anchor line for the rig and getting nowhere. The way the time bled into meaninglessness, trudging along the bottom of the bay, his feat sinking into the muck and refuse that littered it. Every random piece of scrap that stuck to him, making things worse, harder, more hopeless.
At that depth with that much silt in the water there was barely any indication when it shifted from night to day. A change in the color of the water, one he half thought he was imagining in desperate hope. Nothing that could be used to tell time or direction. It just left him trudging along, trying to not give up, to find some way out of the-
"Weld? You alright?" He blinked up at Flechette's concerned expression.
"Oh, yeah. Fine." He said quickly. From her expression he saw that wasn't going to be enough and relented. "I was just thinking about Saturday night again."
Her expression immediately softened and thankfully she didn't pursue the matter. She knew how bad something like that was for him. Just the fact that Apeiron had dragged him out of the bay would have probably been enough to bring him into Lily's favor even without everything else that had happened.
On that note Weld looked down at the 'hot food' portion of his tray, some kind of chicken dish. He smiled and reached into his pocket for a glass bottle. Lily's eyebrows rose.
"That's not tabasco?" She asked.
"Nope." He responded happily, lifting the stopper and enjoying the subtle scent of spices that wafted out. Lily let out a cough and he could see her eyes squint and blink furiously through the tint of her visor. "One of the PRT troopers, Corporal Breaux, got it for me." He lifted the bottle towards her, showing the hand written paper label and causing the girl to press back into her seat. "His grandmother makes it. Old family recipe, apparently."
"I see." She said in a strained voice. Weld started shaking generous splatters of the red liquid onto his chicken, enjoying the warm tangy scent. The conversation on tables around them died down as troopers turned to watch.
Lily cleared her throat and edged her chair slightly back from the table. "It's still weird actually seeing you eat." She admitted. There was an unsteady edge to the final word and she was watching his plate with wary eyes.
"You and me both." He replied. The cafeteria had provided plastic utensils, making things easy for him. The split second of contact now afforded him before he merged with metals was a godsend, but it didn't leave any good options when dealing with metal knives and forks.
Well, there was one, but that was a bit weird even for him. Whatever changed the surface of his body had made shapeshifting easier. He could handle more detail, shift faster, and even try out different shapes without the buildup and practice that usually required. In some of his first experiments with food he had tried out the idea of forming utensils from the material of his hands, letting him mime holding a knife and fork that were actually part of his body. He was impressed that he could manage it, but the experience was unsettling. Like eating with your hands. He could actually feel the food on the 'fork' before it reached his mouth. No, it still was easier to just deal with plastics.
Not that there wasn't potential in essentially forming tools in your hands. Before he'd been limited to crude blades or axe-like structures. Sometimes blunt instruments, but he was usually more comfortable using his fists and various unarmed techniques. The slight shift to his control and the detail of his shapeshifting opened up more options.
But that was a matter for future experimentation. Right now, he'd had a long night and got to enjoy a warm, spicy meal all to himself. He speared a piece of the now vibrantly red chicken and lifted it into his mouth, relishing the bloom of flavor as he chewed the bite of meat. Across from him Flechette had seemed to have stopped breathing and he saw one of the troopers at a nearby table reluctantly pass some folded bills to the man sitting across from him, but he was too immersed in the flavor too care.
Lily's posture gradually became less guarded as the chicken dish disappeared. Weld savored every bite, even enjoying what he could sense of the texture of the meat and the admittedly soggy vegetables. Once he was mostly done she dropped her voice as she leaned in.
"That's incredible." She whispered conspiratorially. "And Apeiron just…" She made a nebulous gesture and Weld nodded.
"Honestly, it's probably an open secret at this point, but yeah." He whispered back. "One use of the blue lines to heal and he picked up what was wrong, and he said he fixed what he could." He said, repeating the story in far less detail than what he had needed to provide to the medical analysis team. "Bit of effort on the bottom of the ocean and he was done."
"Do you think he can do more? Or help other people?" Lily specifically wasn't mentioning Gully. His friend had done stellar work during the attack and recovery, enough to be noted in a number of news articles, but everyone in the know understood why she was here, and that it was only a matter of time before more Case 53s followed her.
"I'm not sure." He admitted. "Apeiron was skeptical about it. Said it had to be specialized and sometimes he couldn't do anything." His mind wheeled with the implications of that phrasing. "But with what happened last night, what that showed, who knows?"
The reactions to Apeiron's transformation had been divisive. For some, Weld included, it was as good as confirmation. Technology specifically to address mutations, and then that shows up when the man experiences critical injury and tech breakdown. What else were they supposed to think? That wasn't even getting into the clearly biological tendrils and happening to speak ancient Greek with perfect pronunciation.
The only competing ideas were that the man was deeply invested in schools of bio-tinkering that he had never used or displayed in the field prior to his injury. In a battle where he was clearly throwing everything he could at the ABB, up to and including that giant robot, they were supposed to believe he had an entire avenue of side research he'd been sitting on until it spontaneously got away from him?
Weld knew about the flaws in pattern recognition, how confirmation bias colored the way you saw the world. He was aware that he might be projecting, hoping to find something that wasn't there. When he'd had nothing to go on but a few off hand statements from Apeiron he might have admitted his assumptions were mostly hopeful. But with what had happened last night, what doubt could there be? Why else would Apeiron have the ability to help cure a Case 53?
Lily nodded slowly and poked at her food, then glanced back to her phone. Suddenly things fell into place.
"You're wondering about Garment? Whether Apeiron could help her?" He asked.
"Maybe? I don't know." She admitted with a sigh. "Garment is so energetic and positive about everything she does. I know what it's like for other capes with those kinds of issues, the ones who can barely function. I wouldn't want to try to put Garment ahead of them. I don't even know if Garment would want help, or if there's even something to treat." She looked at her phone again. "We've been texting since we met, but in some ways it feels like I barely know her."
"Maybe after things calm down." Weld suggested. "And I mean, you are 'grounded' for a while, right?"
She scoured at him. "Only until they're sure I won't have another attack. They don't want me seizing up when I'm swinging between buildings." She shook her head. "Though I still don't think that was a seizure. I've seen people have seizures and that was something different."
"Do they have any idea what caused it?" He asked, dragging a piece of a bread roll through the remaining spicy sauce on his plate.
"Still ruling stuff out." She explained. "Worst-case scenario would be epilepsy, but that's not looking likely. Other theories are some kind of reaction to what was being thrown around that night, either Bakuda's stuff or something from Apeiron's equipment, but that should have seen more cases."
"And it happened before whatever caused the blackout." He added "So that would leave the energy trails and everything Bakuda was throwing around."
"Neither of which were exactly new. There's a possibility that it was a one-off attack, some kind of weird bomb that you and Shadow Stalker avoided."
"Brute and breaker. Harder to affect." He replied. "Could make sense, but we weren't close to any attacks at the time."
"I know. They've been over this. They might end up writing it off as a one-time event, but that's not exactly comforting." She sighted. "It's going to be desk duty and foot patrols until they come up with some kind of answer."
He put on a slight smile. "Oh, tragedy of tragedies. You're going to have to walk down on the street with me and the other mortals rather than dancing between buildings with Shadow Stalker."
Lily smiled back at him. "I doubt you'll be that casual about it once she decides to 'scout ahead', disappears for twenty minutes, and comes back with a quarter of her ammo expended."
Weld nodded grimly. "I've read the patrol reports." There wasn't much else to do while he'd been stuck in medical observation. "That girl has 'dropped' or 'misplaced' enough bolts to supply an army. You think someone would have done something about it but…"
"Brockton Bay. Priorities." Lily finished his thought while shaking her head. "My arbalest makes its own ammo and I still need to account for every shot after patrols. Even the ones for setting grapples or zip-lines."
It was a depressingly understandable aspect of the city. There was no motivation to curb what was probably seen as an over eager Ward when it would just bring down consequences for them and give ground in the hero/villain stalemate. Hell, past a certain point it was probably self-sustaining. Once you'd looked away once there was no way you could bring it to someone's attention without taking part of the blame yourself.
Understandable or not, it was a destructive mindset for a department to hold. It was no wonder the Youth Guard rep had been such a terror. All the little band-aids that had helped the situation from boiling over were nothing but targets when half the city was angry and looking for someone to blame.
"We'll at least have something of a reprieve before that." He explained. "Shadow Stalker's off duty. Full night shift means home rest, and they're actually following policies to the letter."
"Well, lucky me, looks like that console duty and morning nap means I get to stay on watch." She quipped, taking a sip of the juice that came with her tray.
"I think Kid Win's still here, probably down in his lab, but he was on observation duty rather than in the thick of things so the regs aren't as strict. Clockblocker, Vista, and Browbeat were stood down at first light, mandated home rest until mid-afternoon at the earliest. I think they're going to have both of us in rotation as much as they can. At least as long as we're living on site."
She smiled. "God bless guest accommodations." She glanced towards the floor. "Though to be honest, I prefer it to the Wards HQ. After the number of times the building was hit, and the other attacks in the city, I don't want to think about getting stuck down there."
Images of an inky blackness pressing in around him flashed into Weld's mind and he focused on clearing them. He wasn't there, not anymore. He was here, above ground, natural light. He could feel, he could smell. He wasn't cut off.
"Have you heard any word on the apartment hunt?" He asked Lily, mostly as a way of distracting himself.
"Nothing solid." She replied. "I get the sense it would have fallen completely off the map if Mrs. Garrick hadn't been pushing for it. Same with you?"
He nodded. "Not the biggest priority. They got my chair and stereo set up in the guest room, so I'm alright there for a while."
"You heading there next?" she asked.
"Yeah. Four hours of downtime. Would have been more, but I've got semi-noctis status and we're in emergency measures, so regulations are a bit looser." Strangely, the downtime hadn't been as essential as it used to be. He still enjoyed it, but things were different now. He wasn't trapped in a numb body with music as his only connection to something real. There was a world of food, light, and warmth waiting for him. Before the time he spent with his albums was the only chance he had to feel human. Now there were more opportunities than he could count.
"Then you should be able to catch me before I get off shift." She replied. "Though I'm probably just going to be providing a reassuring presence for recovery forces."
"Hey, somebody has to scare away the villains." Weld said, getting a slight smile. "Anything else planned?"
"Not for today. It's all damage control out there. Sounds like they might let us do independent patrols tomorrow." She glanced down at her phone. "Garment found a place for her shop right before everything went to hell. She's still online and says she's fine, but there were some big gaps in her replies last night." She shook her head. "I'm thinking of checking in, get a chance to see the place and make sure everything's alright." She looked up at him. "Uh, that's not weird, right?"
He blinked. "Okay, I know I was on Broken Hills but that doesn't make me an expert on relationship drama. In fact, I'd recommend against basing anything on the relationships in that show."
"Oh, come on, you were perfect for that show. It's like you were made for the trashy teen drama genre." She said in a teasing tone.
Weld snorted out a laugh before replying. "Okay, I don't think I'm anyone's favorite person around here right now, but I'll see what I can do for the schedule. Try to get you a foot patrol in the area. With how well Garment does PR they'll probably be happy for you to stop by."
"Thanks." She nodded. "I'd just like to check up on her, more than single word texts or YouTube videos. Though it feels kind of petty worrying about something like that with everything else going on."
There was a dark look behind Flechette's eyes as she spoke and Weld knew exactly where it was coming from. The conversation had been sticking to… well, not exactly happy topics, but ones that were at least the least horrible of what was happening to the city. Just acknowledging the situation made all other concerns seem petty and meaningless.
"It's natural to be concerned about the people close to you. The rest, it's just too big to really comprehend. It kind of blends together." He offered. It was horrible, but true. The ideal hero was supposed to care about every life, but when you got to large enough numbers… what was the saying about tragedies and statistics? It was accurate, in a way. The city was full of people suffering, but it was the handful where he could connect a face with a name that elicited a real reaction from him rather than just the dutiful hero's work to help people.
It seemed like it cheapened things, but it didn't really matter. He'd been doing this long enough to tell, been in enough bad places. When you pulled someone out of rubble they didn't care if you felt a personal connection with their wellbeing or were just doing it out of a sense of general morality and duty. It still got them out of the rubble. Somehow he doubted that would make it onto the posters. He could see the marketing campaign now: 'Heroism! It's about helping people you don't really care about'.
Weld had been on the streets all night. Shadow Stalker's company wasn't exactly pleasant, and she seemed to have a unique but equally unpleasant regard for his connection to Apeiron. Different from the general suspicion he got from others, but no less unpleasant. Working with rescue forces had seen them tour the worst of what the city had endured. The blackout zone was getting the most attention, but the damage of Bakuda's strikes was being felt over a much wider area. And then there was the aftermath, the part nobody liked to talk about because nobody had a solution.
"Uh, you were on console, right? Did you see what happened to the ABB conscripts?" The question sucked the life out of the conversation leaving them sitting in silence as the wall of noise from the rest of the cafeteria seemed to press in around them.
"Yeah." She said softly. "Once they got Apeiron's code tied into the systems it was down to tracking and pickup. There were a few holdouts, but after Lung most of them just gave up." She shook her head. "The PRT collected whoever they could of them, but it looks like some escaped into the blackout field. No signals from there."
Weld nodded. Given that the PRT couldn't actually help them, at least not without provoking a violent response from Bakuda, it made sense that some of the press-ganged civilians were taking their chances on their own. He could only hope that whatever caused the field wasn't blocking something critical in the implanted bombs and wouldn't end up causing some catastrophic failure. He hadn't seen or heard about any accidental detonations, but nobody had a good idea of what the effect was capable of or how it might interact with Bakuda's technology.
"They're isolating the people they recovered. It was general holding when I got off shift, but I think they're trying to set up some temporary accommodations, sort out the families from the long-term gang members, maybe even allow visitors." She continued.
"Better than what they did last time." Weld muttered. It wasn't exactly equivalent, but finding out that people had been dragged out of their homes on master suspicion hadn't sat right with him, and not just because of the association with Apeiron's healing. Of course, that turned out to be retroactively the right call for entirely unrelated reasons. Anyone being held by the PRT couldn't be recaptured by the ABB. It was something that would have had more credibility if the PRT hadn't also missed the fact that the recapturing was happening, or the fact that the ABB was swelling its ranks by an order of magnitude.
"Not sure if any of that is going to come together properly. I think they're leaning on the Guard for relief supplies, but everyone in the city needs help." Flechette looked out the cafeteria window at the mostly tranquil scenery of Brockton's Downtown area. "Well, half the city needs help."
"It is a pretty stark divide." He could just be describing the damage, but Weld knew things went further than that. It was the poorer half of the city that had seen the worst of the attacks. The opening barrage a week ago had been spread fairly evenly, but after that the gang fights, territory disputes, and the previous night's strikes had all been centered around the ABB's territory, and the less prosperous part of the city it resided in.
The Docks had seen Tuesday night's fire, a fire that was mercifully extinguished before it could spread. It was where Saturday's Cape Blackout had lingered the longest and where the Dark Zone had disrupted things further. The actual area of the effect was not that large, but it stretched nearly the full width of the city, cutting off transport and communication for nearly a fifth of the city. Beyond that you had damage from the initial strikes that hadn't been fully cleared, much less repaired. That was only compounded by constant fighting. Then a second round of precision attacks had been launched, strikes on infrastructure, combined effects that seemed designed to spin out of control, or just brutal shootouts with other gangs, police, or Protectorate heroes. Finally, you had whatever elemental trails had been spread from the point where the ABB ambushed Apeiron. Most seemed harmless, but chasms, walls, even just banks of smoke or fog were an impediment in an area it was already hellish to traverse.
There wasn't even an attempt to calculate the property damage at this point. The focus was on the injured and helping the people who had been displaced. That was the big thing. People affected by the attacks ranged from simply needing to leave an unsafe or inaccessible home to having lost everything they owned. Thousands were impacted and the city wasn't designed to accommodate a substantial number of their own population suddenly needing housing and care.
And with half the city nearly untouched it was creating tension, resentment, and a level of irreverence to the situation. Everyone in the building had been through the fires, seen the attacks and the damage that had been done. They knew the severity of the situation, but it didn't seem to have sunk in for everyone. Parts of Downtown were open for business and you didn't have the same sense of disaster you normally got in this kind of situation.
He could understand not wanting to dwell on it. He and Lily had avoided the topic for as long as they reasonably could. But they were avoiding something they had dealt with extensively, not something they were actively ignorant of.
And he was being stood down. Four hours of music to get his head together, then back out there. He felt conflicted about it, but there wasn't much he could do. This wasn't a problem you could fix with brute powers. The best he'd be able to do was provide some reassurance. The sight of heroes on the ground helped when tensions were running high. They were a safety net, a sign that something was being done, and that someone would be there to stop things from getting worse.
The only meaningful difference he, or really any of them, could make would be putting out a call for help. No doubt that would happen. There would be a round of public announcements, personal appeals from local heroes for support and donations. Of course, that would need to wait. They had to get the fires out first, tally the damage, figure out what was even safe to work on, and try to manage the aftermath.
He had a sense that 'management' would be a key priority. So much would come down to how they decided to frame the previous night's events. Whether it was a disaster, a clash between villains, the act of a mad bomb tinker, no doubt the spin had already started. The fact that it had been broadcast live restricted the free rein the PRT usually had in these circumstances and Weld hoped that might lead to appeals for support, beyond the usual emergency services, going out a bit faster.
"They aren't deploying me for a while, so I'll be back on console after we finish here. That means right back into the recovery reports." Lily said with a grim expression. "I haven't gotten any updates since I stood down, but everyone was talking about it being a miracle the fatalities were so low."
"Apeiron's site?" Weld asked, and Lily nodded. That had come out of nowhere and been a godsend. The level of coordination it facilitated both during and after the attack was on a level beyond what most PRT control rooms could hope for. He wondered how much of Lily's console duty had involved just reading from Apeiron's work.
Her and anyone else in the country who cared to. Apeiron had put everything out live and public. Even without the ABB broadcasts the rest of the country would have been able to stay abreast of the events through that site. The fact that it had sprung up as Apeiron had been fighting the ABB showed an incredible ability to multitask.
Or that he was working with another person. It was one of the theories that had floated around, the idea he had support and connections beyond Lady Khepri and the Undersiders. It made sense, given his resources and the value of his abilities, but it was still just a theory. It wasn't until that giant robot appeared that it became a credible theory, that people started looking at the operation of the site and its database as if there might be more than one hand in it.
The work was certainly thorough enough to justify multiple authors. It had even provided information on conditions in the combat area, the stability of buildings and accessibility of roads. There were safety instructions for dealing with Bakuda's active bomb effects and information on how some of them could be safely managed or dissipated. The same had been put forward for the blackout area and elemental paths, though without information on exactly what they were or how to remove them. The best they had was a late morning update about the expected dissipation timeline with no guarantees. Possibly a month for the blackout effect, while the paths were unclear. At best there was the suggestion that some part was expected to dissipate within two days, despite the effects in question showing no signs of diminishing.
"It made a huge difference, but that's also freaking people out. Nobody knows how he was managing that, but being able to pull accurate medical data on people half buried or immobilized while inside the blackout effect…" She trailed off, shaking her head, and Weld understood the implication. It wasn't surprising, not with everything else the man had done, but being able to get detailed medical scans of someone without needing contact while inside an area that apparently blocked every type of scan and transmission, that was a major concern.
Of course, after the previous night there was no shortage of 'major concerns' being applied to Apeiron. Concerns serious enough that Weld was seriously worried about the situation. The Protectorate wasn't comfortable with significant powers that existed outside their jurisdiction. The entire purpose of the organization had been a reassurance to the public. Accountability for capes and a way of regulating the worst aspects of parahuman society. The entire organization only got off the ground because Hero, Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon had signed up at the same time. The very existence of the team was founded on having the biggest stick.
There were things out there that might be able to stand up to the Triumvirate. The fact that it was now the Triumvirate was evidence enough of that. The thing was, those were always monstrous, uncontrollable things. Forces of nature as much as anything else. None of them, none of the S-class threats or rival forces of the world were treated as people. They were threats, first and only.
He was worried that Apeiron was being slotted into that category. That he was going to be declared even more untouchable than current policies regarded him. He was worried about what that would mean for Apeiron and for everyone who needed his help.
Weld sighed and looked down at his tray. He had barely touched more than the chicken dish. The other items held little appeal, not even the fruit cup or brownie. It felt wrong to waste food knowing it could be in short supply in parts of the city, but his caloric needs didn't actually increase with his new senses. He could live with letting the rest of this go. Unless…
"You want my brownie?" He asked, and saw Lily rise out of her funk.
"I knew there'd be advantages to meeting you for lunch." She said while accepting the dessert.
Weld shrugged. "Normally I'd give Hunch first pick, but since the move I need to choose another favorite for that privilege."
"How's he doing?" Flechette asked. "Haven't seen him since the last training exercise between our teams."
It could be a casual question, or one inquiring on activities and intentions towards the city. "I was able to call Boston once they let me out of the medical ward. Hunch picked up that something was off right away." He looked down at the matte metal of his skin, enjoying the lack of glare the polished surface used to cause. With the flat texture in the right light, with the right clothing he might even be able to pass for human. "He wouldn't let it go, started using his powers for hints so the supervising agent had to cut things off." The sheer excitement on the hunchbacked boy's face had been incredible. For the hundredth time Weld desperately hoped things would work out in this city, if just for the promise of a better life for people like Hunch. "Spoke with Director Armstrong for a little while afterwards. Things have settled in Boston, but he's still not happy with Director Piggot."
"I can understand why." Lily said.
Weld nodded. It was a bad situation, like being caught between arguing parents. Resentment from the Boston PRT wouldn't help things on the ground in Brockton, but he couldn't smooth over the bad blood with nothing but his own efforts. "Apparently Aegis is fitting in well. Credited with helping drive Blasto out of the city after the Blackout." It was a good moment for the Ward's troubled career and the stigma that had attached to it after the disaster at the bank. That kind of image wasn't going to leave the public consciousness for a long time, as evidenced by one article on his fight with Blasto's creatures being titled 'Plants vs Zombie'.
"Have you heard anything from New York?" He asked as Lily worked through the brownie.
"Just a few check-ins. Some of my old team was worried when they found out March followed me here. Jouster wanted me recalled, but there was too much momentum behind things." She looked uncomfortable. "They're reevaluating a lot of the decisions made regarding her, after what happened to Apeiron." Lily shook her head. "Nobody knew she could hit like that, either in terms of power or coordination."
Weld nodded slowly. Nobody was sure of Apeiron's level of durability, but it was enough to list him as a high tier brute even with the most conservative estimates. March punching through it like that was terrifying, for a lot of reasons. Anyone who had tried to downplay her significance was going to have a hard time justifying that stance at this point.
They had some more light conversation as the last of Weld's desert disappeared with Weld trying to keep things to lighter topics. The efforts were of middling success, but they at least managed to skate along the surface of Brockton's darker issues in the time it took to clear their trays and leave the cafeteria behind them.
"So, you have your albums picked out for your downtime?" She asked as they picked their way through the halls.
"For the most part. Thinking about circling to one of my older playlists." He saw her eyes glaze over and recognized the familiar look of someone who asked to be polite, but was desperately hoping to avoid a lecture on music theory. "How about you? How long before you head out?"
"I've got a couple of hours on console before Clockblocker gets back on shift, then we'll be patrolling based on recovery reports."
"Clockblocker?" Weld said, raising an eyebrow. "And what does Garment think of that?"
"God." Flechette huffed. "One cell phone picture and suddenly people are shopping you into heart bordered pictures. I swear it was never this bad in New York."
"That's because the public ships everyone in the New York Wards with everyone else in the New York Wards. It all gets lost in the noise." She gave him a sour expression. "Hey, don't look at me. I was on Broken Hills, remember? They managed to get my character tangled up in two separate love triangles during half a season of that show. I'm still getting mail about it."
The girl cracked a smile. "You know, it's kind of refreshing to know Brockton can be crazy over regular cape stuff instead of just the giant cape disasters."
"Probably a bad sign if rabid internet fans are the most comforting part of this mess." He quipped. "Anyway, I should get some downtime before my afternoon shift, so-"
There was a buzzing from the pocket of his costume. He recognized the vibration of his cell phone. His new Wards-issued cell phone. His mind immediately jumped to possible disasters that could be unfolding, but the lack of any call on Flechette's side suggested it wasn't a 'all hands on deck situation'. That didn't leave many possibilities, and few of them were pleasant.
Biting the bullet, he reached into his phone and looked at the screen. The name of the caller was clearly displayed in bold text.
'Apeiron'
He went stock still while staring at the device. Flechette leaned over to look at the screen and her jaw dropped.
"Apeiron has your phone number?" She said in a rushed whisper.
"No." He replied in the same tone. Why they were whispering in an empty hallway… Well, it didn't make sense, but a lot could be forgiven under the circumstances. "I was issued a new phone after my last set of calls. It's official use only. Nobody has the number. Even I'm not even sure what it is."
Flechette looked at the buzzing cell phone like it was a live bomb. Weld couldn't help but think that analogy badly undersold the significance of the situation. "Are you going to answer it?" She whispered.
"Uh…" He stammered. What were his options, really? Technically the edict on communication was still in place, but practically it was ridiculous to even consider following it right now. What was he supposed to do, let Apeiron go to voicemail? Oh god. He suddenly realized how long the phone had been ringing. Apeiron was going to go to voicemail!
Frantically he thumbed at the screen to answer the call. There was a terrifying moment when the call connected and the call timer began to progress, only for Weld to stare at it blankly before jarring out of his stupor and raising the phone to his ear.
"Hello?"
He wasn't sure what he expected. Maybe a jarring crash of thunder would have been appropriate, or some deep boom of a reply. Instead he heard the same voice of the man he had spoken with back on Sunday night. The most dangerous tinker on the planet and he was as casual as ever.
"Hi Weld, it's Apeiron. I was hoping you had some time to talk."
"Uh, yes? I mean, sure. Yes. I can talk." Lily's own phone began buzzing. She quickly moved to quiet it, then froze as she looked at the screen. Quickly she turned to so he could see the message displayed.
'Dragon: Weld, keep Apeiron on the line for as long as possible. Director Piggot and Protectorate forces are being informed of the situation.'
His mind struggled to process the message as he heard Apeiron's reply. "That's great."
"Um, right." He wrestled with how to proceed. "How did you get this number?" The question jumped into his mind and he blurted it out before he realized he might as well have opened the conversation by accusing Apeiron of a crime. A minor crime compared to the scale of what had happened the previous night, but still, not the tone he wanted to start with.
"Oh, it was easy enough. I'm glad I could get ahold of you. After our last exchange things didn't end up as well as they could have."
There was another buzz from Flechette's phone. She quickly showed Weld the message before putting the device on silent mode.
'Dragon: Proceed to conference room 7-F as quickly as possible without disrupting the call.'
"Yeah, I heard about that." Weld replied unsteadily. Everyone had heard, though he had been closer to it than most. Apparently Dragon herself had been the one monitoring his contact with Apeiron on Tuesday night. Somehow he had noticed the presence of the other tinker and they had ended up working together. Right up until they stopped working together, Apeiron tried to bribe Dragon with super technology, she had torn up half the internet trying to catch him, and then decided to move to Brockton Bay.
That was an oversimplification, but smarter people than him had been puzzling over that case and the reason for Dragon's new enthusiasm for catching Apeiron. Concerns about master effects were being thrown around, but mastering a tinker to chase you down from the other side of the country made about as much sense as the original idea that Apeiron mastered Panacea to tell everything to the PRT and then get contained on master protocols. If there was a 'master' effect in play it seemed to only work to make life harder for Apeiron himself.
"I do imagine the story's made the rounds."
He wanted to ask for more details, for some explanation of the event, but found himself frozen. The conversation was like walking a minefield only with nuclear bombs under every trigger. The knowledge that every word he said, the precise tone of the utterance and the duration of every pause was going to be picked over by an army of thinkers did nothing to calm him down. Robotically he started walking towards the indicated conference room, keeping his phone to his ear as he moved.
Flechette was walking beside him, holding her own phone up in case of any new messages from Dragon. Or anyone else, he supposed. His only orders were to drag out the conversation. He had a tiny window where he could ask anything he wanted, before someone else tried to take over the call, or he was used as a mouthpiece for some official statement.
What was he supposed to say? What did he want to say? Sure, he was free to say it, but not free from the consequences, for him or anyone else. If he tried to send Apeiron towards Gully he would only ensure his friend was so closely monitored any hope of actually finding Apeiron would drop to zero. He could try to ask about the tinker's own origin. It seemed overly personal, but with what was revealed last night there was a hope that he might be willing to reveal something, share some common detail.
His mind jumped back to the previous night and a single question came to mind. One that had been burning away at him with concern, even with the updates to the site suggesting things were fine, that Apeiron had things under control.
"Are you alright?" He asked with complete sincerity, and waited for the response.
"I'm… recovered." He said with a slight pause. "It was a hell of a night, but I'm back on my feet."
Weld felt a deep-seated tension evaporate. The sheer intensity of what had been displayed during the broadcast had been harrowing. There was a real concern that there would have been some lasting damage, something that even Apeiron couldn't fix. The scale of the injury, the clear pain and near uncontrolled manner of fighting, and his limp form floating over the water before being carried off, or teleported, or whatever the suit had done.
But it was okay. Apeiron was okay. He was still active. Weld knew that wouldn't be as much of a comfort to some of the people listening. He wasn't sure what would have been enough to comfort them, beyond an announcement of an impending six-month coma and desire to sign over all his technology assets to the PRT.
"That's great." He exclaimed, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. Once again, the knowledge that his every intonation would be put under a microscope, was probably being put under a microscope, it was unsettling. But there was nothing he could do but press on.
It occurred to Weld that he should at least try to direct some of the conversation before it got taken completely out of his hands. Maybe have a chance of clearing the air or dealing with some of the bad blood that had built up. Not likely, there were probably rivers of it now, flowing from every paranoid member of the organization, but he could try.
"Uh, last night, it was pretty rough." He said, making the understatement of the century. "A lot of people are concerned about it, and everything around it. It would really help if you could clear some of that up."
Weld tensed. They needed to get some actual exchange of information if they were going to stop things from turning into a powder keg, even if it was probably the last thing Apeiron wanted to talk about.
"Yeah, that's actually what I was calling to talk about." He replied.
Weld almost missed a step as they entered the meeting room. A team of office workers frantically arranging chairs around the conference table. One of the PRT command staff was already set up with a laptop and headset and silently waved them into position at the head of the room.
"I'm sorry?" Weld replied in the most level voice he could manage.
"Last night got out of hand on just about every possible level. I figured people would be on edge, so I called to try to head off things before we get another one of those messes, like what happened the last four times I tried this."
As it stood Weld could only count three, but he wasn't going to argue with Apeiron over semantics, not with this chance on the table. Something occurred to him. He hated it, but with the reason Apeiron had dropped the call with Director Armstrong he had to be open about it. There was no way that Dragon wasn't tracking the call with everything available to her. Weighing his options, it was probably better to be upfront about it and not damage what was apparently the only connection the Protectorate had with Apeiron.
"Just so you know, this is my official phone. I can't guarantee the line is secure, or that people won't be listening in." As he spoke more staff filed into the room with enough communications equipment between them to support a Cold War CIA cell.
"I'm well aware. Same situation as with Director Armstrong, right?"
Weld shifted nervously. He was feeling unsteady and the chairs were filling up with no indication that any would be provided for him. So, having an awkward and incredibly important conversation while on display in front of a highly critical crowd, half of whom would hate him for the very association he was being used to facilitate.
Well, at least it couldn't be any worse than that Broken Hills autograph signing.
"Probably exactly the same." Weld admitted, ignoring a handful of hard glances from the technicians in the room. "They'll almost certainly going to try to track the call."
"Don't worry about it." He replied without concern.
Weld blinked and looked over to Flechette who was displaying equal confusion. A glance at her phone showed no new messages from Dragon, so he continued.
"Are you sure? Because I don't know how far it will go. Dragon might be trying to trace the call." He checked with Flechette to see if there was any update about Dragon's attempts to trace the call.
"I'm sure. It'll be fine." Apeiron assured him again. It was mystifying. Was he counting on them finding him? Calling from some secondary or disposable location? The idea of setting up a second layer of contact, using the traced call to bring out people for an in person meeting… well, it wasn't impossible, but it seemed unnecessarily convoluted. That wasn't the sense he got from Apeiron. Nonetheless, he was willing to keep the call going while knowing Dragon was narrowing in on his location at which point…
At which point what? What exactly was the local Protectorate supposed to do if they found a location for Apeiron? After what he had demonstrated against Lung, if he could bring a fraction of that to bear they would stand no chance. Diplomacy was their only option, and Weld wasn't sure how this department handled that kind of thing. The sense he got from his time in the city was something along the lines of 'not well'.
Weld gave Flechette an uncertain look as one of the technicians lifted a sheet of paper with something written in black marker.
'Speakerphone.'
Weld grimaced, but lowered the phone and turned on the requested mode. With no further instructions he groped for something to say. Looking at the room with its collection of worried and frustrated faces he decided to once again just go with honesty.
"There are a lot of worried people here." He said, looking directly at the technicians. "Everything that happened, everything we saw last night, it's got them on edge."
There was a sigh through the phone followed by looks of disbelief from the assembled spectators. "I can understand that. I hope at the very least people understand that whatever was done, it was preferable to the alternative? Even Dragon was willing to prioritize the critical threats when she arrived."
"Yeah, I think so…" He drew out the word as a technician listened to something on his headphones before frantically writing a note and holding it up for Weld.
'The Attack Names'
Weld tensed. This was one of the most concerning aspects to come out of the fight, even if it wasn't directly damaging. The rate it spread and the fact that it even worked on capes with his kind of resistance to master effects was concerning, but that was the only concerning part of it. Concern over what it could mean, not what it did, because on every level of analysis it came across as a harmless effect that was at worst tacky and misplaced.
"People are worried about the effect that appeared when you were fighting Lung. The names thing, after you transformed?" He tried not to put too much emphasis on the word 'transformed'. He wished he could derail the conversation and dig into any Case 53 connection, but this was a monitored call, and a chance to lay some major fears to rest.
"Ah, that." Came the reply. There was a pause and the sound of someone taking a breath before he continued. "Okay, that wasn't supposed to be active."
"What?" Weld asked in concern.
"It's harmless, but not something I use. Look, it should be pretty clear I have effects that influence how I present myself, right?"
The question brought up images of Apeiron staring down Bakuda while perfectly framed by the sun, or him artfully arranged even while horribly injured and barely conscious. Of his costume actively rearranging itself into a new style to compensate for damage.
"Yeah, I've heard that theory." It was never confirmed, and there was no clear mechanism for it, but the results were just too consistent and striking for there not to be something in play.
"It's related to that. Not something I keep active, but with the damage and the rest of the mess around the fight it ended up active. Like I said, it's nothing to worry about."
Oh, people were worrying. Just the implied mechanism behind it was terrifying, no matter how harmless it was. Still, Weld pressed on, trying to resolve any part of the mess that he could. "So it's some 'effect' for showing off attacks? And you keep it with you?"
"It's related to a lot of other elements, and like I said, not something I activate. It's not going to hurt anyone, but I understand why people are concerned."
His tone made it clear that was the end of the explanation Weld would be getting. He doubted it would be enough for the people who would pick over this call, but it was better than having nothing but random theories. The idea of a malfunctioning show-off technology was a lot less scary than some kind of infectious master effect, even if you could theoretically draw implications from the technologies that would need to be involved.
The malfunction, it also tied in with the transformation. Technology not working right, things firing without being intended. Everyone could see his attitude, the way he behaved when he started to change. The explanation for that attack name effect easily translated to the transformation. He wanted to ask for clarification, but between the people watching and his own concerns over what the answer could be he relented.
Another technician approached him and held up a note for him to read.
'Blackout Effect'
Weld managed to keep himself from cringing, probably a good thing as they seemed to have brought out video cameras, for all the good that was supposed to do. He supposed it would give a good view of Flechette standing awkwardly next to him holding a phone with Dragon's text messages on it.
He put his frustrations aside and focused on how to broach the topic. "There's also a lot of concern over whatever caused the blackout." He tried, leaving out the concern over the fact that it was effectively an EMP, the fact that it blocked radio transmission, the fact that it obscured visual and infrared observations, the fact that it destroyed a section of city as effectively as Shatterbird, the fact that it would apparently persist for weeks and the fact that it hadn't even deployed as a weapon, just an accidental discharge from a lucky hit by Lung.
Or the fact that both it and the robot apparently matched up to a decades old cartoon to such a scary degree that it was apparently giving members of the Think Tank headaches.
"Yeah, I figured people would be worried about that." He said, as if it even came close to covering the significance of the event. There was a pause before he continued. "Look, I want to reassure you, but that doesn't mean open access to the details and technicalities of my abilities. The parameters I gave you last time still stand." Which would be nothing about his abilities or the Undersiders. It seemed generally reasonable, but right now Apeiron's abilities were all anyone was concerned about. "That effect was unintentional, obviously, and was contained as quickly as possible. You don't need to worry about recurrence and as for the effect, I've already updated the projected timeline on my website."
"But it's something you can work around? Can you get rid of it?" Weld asked. Just the communication and travel barrier presented by the effect was crippling, and it didn't help that it effectively isolated Merchant territory from the rest of the city, giving them near free rein.
The answer that came was more serious than Weld expected. "If you're prepared to let me act with impunity in the city then yes, I can deploy equipment that could remove the field. As I'm fairly certain has been determined already, it's an arrangement of charged particles. It responds to any electromagnetic field or dispersed conductive material. Though I will say, if you're willing to allow me the freedom to act I'd start by dealing with the issue of the several hundred people currently confined to Alan Shepard Park in South Beach. That is, assuming the concerns regarding the potential mental effects of my healing technology have been sufficiently resolved."
He felt a brief shock at Apeiron's reference to the holding location for the ABB conscripts before he remembered where the tracking technology had come from in the first place. Of course, Apeiron knew exactly where the PRT was holding everyone they relocated, and apparently he wasn't overly happy about it.
Because who the fuck would be? His own battles with the forced soldiers of the ABB had been a personal nightmare, but Apeiron had covered half the city before taking the fight to Lung. And getting horribly injured, but that very much didn't stop him. Now they were in the aftermath, and Apeiron was offering to help resolve the situation.
But of course, life wasn't that simple. Or at least Brockton Bay wasn't that simple. A technician rushed up with a report displayed on a tablet. Just the abstract and a few highlighted sections were enough to get the point across.
"Bakuda is threatening mass detonations at any sign of your involvement." Weld read. "Even the implied presence of your technology. And that's on top of her standing threat to the PRT."
"Well, that figures. Should have expected it anyway. I guess it will just have to wait until I can crack her Deadman's code." His voice had a kind of tired confidence that was almost unnerving to listen to. Both exasperation and inevitability blended together in a way that should never occur. Absolute certainty in his abilities mixed with frustration at the need to use them.
A gesture from Flechette brought up a text from Dragon, composed of a quick summary with considerably more concerning details. Weld felt like swearing, but didn't want that either on the recording or the call to Apeiron.
"According to Dragon…" In fact it was directly according to Dragon. "The code is unsolvable. Fundamental aspects of it are based on irreconcilable computational problems. Uh, she's apparently worked out the proof showing it can't be resolved without the original coding."
"Yeah, well we'll see about that."
Another message popped up showing more proofs and complicated equations. "It looks like Dragon's pretty sure of it. It doesn't look possible." For some reason that elicited a single laugh from across the line. "Apeiron?"
"Sorry. Well, Dragon might be confident, but I've finally gotten a decent computer together so we'll see what a 'fundamentally irreconcilable' problem really is."
The confidence would have seemed smug from anyone else, but Apeiron found a way to make it seem natural. Looking around he could see the rest of the technicians didn't find the idea as endearing as he did. Probably because of the legitimately terrifying idea that so far Apeiron had been operating with what he considered to be a sub-standard computer system. It was the kind of thing that could put his confidence in his untraceability in frightening context.
There was a rumbling sound from over the line that left everyone in the room utterly stunned. There were some confused glances before Weld realized it was on him to ask the question.
"Um, Apeiron? What was that?"
"Workshop being remodeled. Don't worry about it." He sounded casual, but there was a hint of delay in his speech.
Something had happened that he didn't expect. Something in his workshop. Even if he used robots they shouldn't be able to surprise him. Well, ideally. There were some concerns about the level of autonomy his robots demonstrated. But the most likely explanation was someone was there. Someone moved something or shifted something and made that sound. Was it the Undersiders, or did he have other people he was working with? Was it the tinker behind the giant robot? How many were there?
Next to him Flechette spun her phone for him to see, revealing that he wasn't the only one excited about this development, though for very different reasons.
'Dragon: Call confirmed from Apeiron's workshop.'
'Dragon: Tracking Apeiron to workshop.'
'Dragon: Weld, extend call.'
'Dragon: Do not let the call end.'
'Dragon: Tracing continues.'
'Dragon: Additional resources being secured in support of tracing attempts.'
'Dragon: Satellite telemetry available in 90 seconds DO NOT LET THE CALL END.'
All in all Weld thought he did a fairly good job at keeping a straight face under the cameras and Dragon's messages scrolled past. There were people handing him notes or raising signs on what to talk about. He was left to direct the conversation with Apeiron. It was a thrilling freedom, but somehow he didn't think trying to direct things to Case 53 cures would go over well. Instead, there was a burning question that even he could recognize the importance of. He braced himself and pushed forward.
"I think the important thing, especially considering this call is about laying concerns to rest, what everyone wants to know, what are you planning to do next?"
It was the million-dollar question. After what he had displayed everyone was terrified of what could come next, where Apeiron would escalate things. The absolute city shattering attack on Lung was enough to leave people shaking. There was a sense of wonder and terror at what Apeiron's next move could be.
"Ah, right. I'm going to be completely honest here. The next thing I'm going to do…" Weld tensed as the assembly of the room leaned forward in apprehension. 'is have a nap."
Nobody actually fell out of their chairs at the complete non-sequitur, but it was a close thing. "I'm sorry?" Weld tried, looking at the phone in his hand with a mystified expression on his face.
"Weld, I am tired. I shouldn't need to explain this, but that fight wasn't exactly a pleasant experience for me and the following night wasn't much better. I've been awake for more than thirty-two extremely hectic hours and the week before that wasn't exactly peaceful. I am going to get some sleep and actually try to recover from this mess before I take any further actions."
Weld's head was spinning as he tried to process things. "You called me, you personally reached out to the Brockton Protectorate for the first time, to say you were going to sleep?"
"Sleep, rest, recovery, taking a break, call it whatever you want. I know people are concerned about what I'm going to do next. Well, here it is. I'm taking a break. You don't need to worry about any craziness from me because I am taking a day off. Maybe two, on the off chance this city can keep itself from boiling over for forty-eight hours."
It was probably the last thing people would have expected. Even so, there were people who definitely wouldn't believe it. The assumptions that Apeiron was a master planner lost some steam but hadn't completely died away.
"So, you're just letting us know that you're going to do nothing?" He asked, feeling like he was repeating himself. "Uh, you said you were alright. Are you still recovering?"
"Weld, I'm fully recovered, but I seriously doubt anything good can come from pushing on after everything I have been through, even past what you saw of the fight. Trust me, you don't want to know the literal Hell I had to deal with last night."
The phrasing struck through his disbelief at the situation, mainly because of years of public relations training emphasizing never to use the word 'literally' as an intensifier. Unless you were talking about actually dealing with hell it was to be avoided. It was the kind of grammatical quirk he wouldn't have expected from Apeiron.
He smiled internally at the idea as he responded. "Look, I get you not wanting to be involved in more conflicts, and I'm grateful for this call." Actually, he was mixed on that. It was good to have a line of communication, but this focus of scrutiny while finding himself in the middle of a scrum of technicians and analysts wasn't a pleasant experience. "But if you could meet with the Protectorate, or even open communication…"
"Literal. Hell." The voice that echoed through the room had notes of exhaustion and frustration he hadn't picked up on before. It made the prospect of talking the man around from his decision seem ludicrous.
In the silence following the statement Weld noticed the attention of the room had shifted away from him and the call. He followed their gaze to find the form of Director Piggot standing in the door of the meeting room looking out of breath and out of sorts. She gave him a questioning look to which he could only gesture nebulously. She cut him off with a wave and moved to take a seat, turning a hard glare on him. The much more cheerful form of Assault and a mortified looking Battery followed behind her.
Weld stared at them for a moment before Lily presented another message from Dragon reminding him to keep the call going. He steadied himself and looked back down at the phone.
"Apeiron, if it's not possible to meet, would you consider talking with Director Piggot?" He asked, looking at the large woman. "Even just coming to an understanding would go a long way to helping things."
"Weld, I didn't make the best impression on Director Piggot and she didn't make the best impression on me. Somehow I doubt jumping into a negotiation right now will improve things."
He watched as the woman absorbed the tinker's words stone-faced. "Are you sure that's the best idea?"
"Weld, I haven't slept, I've barely eaten, and I've dealt with serious medical treatment. That combination hardly puts you in the best mindset for a productive dialogue, and I doubt the Director's in any better condition."
Suddenly broaching this topic didn't seem like the best idea. "What do you mean?" he asked, hoping for some clarification that would defuse the situation.
There was a sigh that caused the director to raise an eyebrow. "What I mean is I seriously doubt that Director Piggot has gotten much more sleep than I have over the past day and a half. I would also be surprised if she has had a proper meal since the crisis started. As for medical situations I'm not going to make any assumptions there, but it's clear there are issues that are being managed, and I doubt a city-wide attack and its aftermath are conducive to proper medical care."
Weld swore he could see the Director's expression harden as Apeiron continued to speak. Battery looked progressively more embarrassed in inverse proportion to how much Assault seemed to be enjoying the display.
"What I'm saying is I seriously doubt any discussion between two individuals who have been engaged in protracted stressful work while sleep deprived, hungry, and probably imbibing excessive amounts of caffeine…" An assistant froze while about to place a coffee cup on the table in front of Director Piggot, with half the room seeming to round on her presence. "will have any positive results, even if they were well disposed to each other to begin with. I'm going to get some rest and come back to this when my primary motivators aren't going to be exhaustion and blood sugar. I would recommend the Director do the same."
The room was absolutely silent. Not the intentional damping of sound that came from a great number of people trying to work without making noise. The kind of stock silence that only true shock can bring on. Apeiron had just essentially told the Director she needed to have a snack and take a nap before he would speak with her. Weld doubted the fact that he was applying the same principles to himself would soften the blow at all.
He half expected the Director to speak up then and there, jump on the call and get into what he could only imagine would be a screaming match with Apeiron. Instead, she checked one of the screens and gestured for him to continue.
"Is that everything?" He asked.
"Pretty much." Apeiron answered in a tired voice. "And thank you for restraining yourself on any overly presumptuous questions regarding my abilities and resources."
Meaning direct questions about the attack that brought down Lung, the appearance of a giant robot, the red fibers, the transformation, the source of the elemental trails, the mysterious aftermath of the container yard, the potential other tinkers, the location and resources of his lab, and any number of a dozen other concerns that were massive issues, just not pressing issues. It said a lot about the man that questions about the active effects present after his battle needed to be prioritized over concerns that would otherwise be of paramount importance. He supposed that was what happened when you had a dozen aspects of a cape that all counted as 'paramount importance'.
"You're welcome." Weld answered politely. Flechette showed another text message from Dragon demanding for the call to continue and he realized the natural stopping point he had arrived at. "Um…" He stammered, trying to think of what to say. Something that would drag out things, what, so Dragon could find his workshop? He seriously doubted facing Apeiron in his workshop would be any easier than facing him on the street. He was trying to mitigate conflict, not help stoke… whatever it was there was to be stoked between Dragon and Apeiron.
"Is there something else?" Apeiron asked.
"Uh, it's just…"
"Is this about Dragon tracing the call?"
Weld blinked. He knew. Of course he knew. He must have known from the start. And he wasn't the least bit concerned.
Weld took a breath. "It's not going to work, is it?"
"Not likely." He replied. "Not to disparage her efforts, but it's pretty much a lost cause."
It was a bold statement that he wouldn't take seriously from anyone but Apeiron. Weld looked over at the Director who checked a screen, then nodded at him. Getting the meaning he nodded back.
"Well, thank you for calling." He said lamely. He shook his head and continued in a more serious voice. "I can't tell you what this means. It's a seriously important step."
"If we can conclude this without any mounting accusations or blanket restrictions I'll consider it a win." He heard Apeiron take a breath. "I will be accessible through PHO. YOU can contact me if needed, otherwise I can assure you I have no plans for anything but Recovery for the next few days."
From the way he said Recovery Weld wondered if there was any significance to it. Flashes of the state of the city jumped to mind, but he pushed away the consideration for another time.
"Thank you." He looked over at the Director. "We'll be in touch."
The call on his phone ended and a half dozen technicians confirmed as much to Director Piggot. Slowly she climbed to her feet and faced the room.
"This has been a significant event. Contact has been made with a highly volatile cape and assurances of a period of non-action have been made. Official department stance will be determined pending the results of detailed analysis of the conversation, but initial impressions are encouraging. Apeiron does not appear to be an immediate threat, at least not in a direct capacity. This will have significant impacts on upcoming policy decisions, but our primary objectives continue. Recovery efforts and peacekeeping against opportunist actions from remaining gangs or third-party powers."
The speech was delivered with the cadence of a press conference, sounding almost rehearsed despite being concocted on the spot. It was a reminder of how proficient the Director could be when dealing with the public.
"I would like to commend all of you for your actions during this period, particularly our Wards. Weld conducted himself admirably as the primary point of contact, relaying questions and following instructions admirably despite the unforeseen nature of the call."
"Thank you Director." He replied.
She gave him a slight nod. "Your continued efforts will be needed to support the breakdown and analysis of this call. Weld, given the situation your downtime will need to be delayed. I'm afraid the Think Tank will want to speak with you regarding the events of the call."
"I understand Director." He ignored Assault's grin from behind the Director's back. Apeiron had just extolled the virtues of downtime and recovery, only for Weld to find himself thrust into the grind once again. Still, as hard as he'd, as everyone had been working, none of them had been blown apart on a live broadcast only to pull themselves together and win the day.
As far as he was concerned, Apeiron had earned his rest.
Jumpchain abilities this chapter:
Shipping the Product (F.E.A.R.) 400:
Prototypes are one thing, but what about actually getting the damn thing distributed? An item or weapon doesn't help anyone if it's the only one of its kind. You will find your ability to create has increased dramatically in efficiency, letting you use the materials for three of the same items to actually make five while streamlining production lines rather quickly. As a bonus, logistics have increased enough where your shipped supplies are harder to intercept, keeping any allies you have fresh with resources!
The Alchemy Machine (Shivers) 400:
Created by the legendary alchemist Louis Garcon, this mysterious machine combines modern science with principles passed down from ancient Egyptian times. Should you have any alchemic ability or knowledge, using this machine will not only drastically enhance the potency of anything you create, but also significantly boost the output. Careful experimentation may even let you learn to automate the alchemic process, allowing the machine to produce indefinitely if provided with supplies. Without such knowledge, though, expect significantly more experimentation before you achieve anything of note.
Technical Certainties (Ace Combat) 400:
Some engineers are always second guessing themselves, sticking to maintenance of machines that others use. You're so sure of your skills that you're capable of altering fighter planes to great effect, making them noticeably better than they were fresh out of the factory. Upgrades will be easy provided you have resources, and your technical prowess will ensure your plane can serve whatever role you wish of it. You could even slave the controls of ground weapons to your computers, becoming a conductor of war from the skies. You might even be knowledgeable enough to build the next superweapon...
