Attempting to force compliance would imply that she has tried to find and speak with him, which she has not.
Quote: "Piggot? She's blacklisted you. Even beyond suspicion over your healing. No support, resources, or collaboration from the local Protectorate. She ordered limited contact and priority dispatch response for any appearances. Officially you're wanted for questioning, which is as much as they can do now, especially with the scrutiny she's under."
From Piggot this is exactly "Find him, I want to talk with him, while he is in chains". Even if slightly colored and aspected by Tattletale.
The whole point is that he has to start talking to them first.
1. PRT itself is corrupt and problematic. Informing PRT is likely to just lock it up in internal discussions for couple hours, hours that could have been spent preparing and informing other departments. The smart thing is to inform various services directly.
2. PRT is more likely to focus on maintaining status quo between Apeiron and Teeth (We are trying to prevent him from launching more Nukes) than to actually do something...
3. Piggot is temporary by this point, she is done for and whatever agreement she makes with Joe will likely become invalid soon, yet it will color any further deals and can be used by other direcctors (New Director: Agreement? You had no legal right to heal those people without prior testing and permission Piggot issued you was invalid, she overstepped her authority). There are ways Piggot can be 'ressurected', but currently she is dead politically and people will want her gone.
4. Joe is a 'nuclear' power. If PRT was open for a discussion, it would have been clear, PRT would have found a way to lift the 'limited contact' asap and other things, Joe would have had not so metaphorical diplomats at his metaphorical doorsteps.
The situation in the city is unstable enough as it is, and Joe's rapidly reaching the point that he's going to need to come to some sort of understanding/agreement with the local branch if he's actually going to do some of the things he wants to do (clean up the dark zone, finishing removing all the bombs from the ABB-conscripts
I seriously doubt Piggot will agree to that. If she agrees, she has to remove some of the policies and has to essentially 'clear' a nuclear mad scientist with a global master tech. Apeiron is Scary and Uncontrolable, from PRT's point of view he might as well be a nuke on a timer that they need to deal with. Having a team changes the narrative, but that will take time to process
From my point of view the right way is to bypass PRT in some way (and Joe has options, both legal and discrete ones).
It's his refusal to do so, solely on a Thinker power he himself has noted is not fully reliable, that makes things so difficult.
If Joe went to PRT, it might have went smooth early on (unlikely, not with his claims about Backuda, power testing and not with his passenger's potential reaction to Costa Brown), but he would have ended in birdcage by day six or with a round hole in his head (likely not from Victor) even Simurgh might have paid an early visit because of all the waves. Tetra was fourth after all, and Joe was only getting scarier from there.
To add to this, I doubt the PRT would even be that concerned if he wanted to stay Independent, so long as he was actively working alongside the Protectorate. They're not going to try and 'force him into the Protectorate'
Joe is a walking birdcage sentence... Celestial Forge doesn't care about laws, PRT would have been forced to ask questions and then arrest Joe on the spot. Some of available blueprints (memory manipulation) alone are enough to lock Joe up and throw away the key, that knowledge just shouldn't be, and that's before you remember grey goo, life fibers, planet cracking weapons and artificial intelligence.
The infared transmissions themselves are not visible, but her body does light up red during such actions:
To me it sounded like Tetra just 'grinning full 32' in excitement, 'flash' likely meant opening her mouth, not lighting it up, with Tetra's normal light always there, enchanting the effect.
