Seems like the PRT is what I would call an incompetent employer.
People can only be realistically effective and productive for so many hours per day.
If these are the working conditions it's not very surprising that her predecessor had given up.
It's like they are setting the caretakers up for failure.
It's even likely that her predecessor went into this job wide being just as miss Stone, but has been either burned down to ash or landed in a cycle of failures until she had given up as a last ditch defense mechanism.
At that point an employer might as well hire someone new for half the time to get double the value.
You're not wrong about the PRT being an incompetent employer, but there's more to it that. A lot of people, including Alice, are stretched beyond their long capacity working for the PRT, but her predecessor wasn't one of them:
Alice isn't exactly unbiased here, and her idea of a reasonable amount of responsibilites is probably more than a little skewed, but the previous Caretaker doesn't seem to have had it as bad. She, after all, was not a PRT Agent on top of being "the PRT person assigned to watch over the female Wards in the ENE region"
Alice's own assignment is likely a desperation move: there's always a personnel shortage. For whatever reason, they can't "just hire someone new for half the time to get double the value". They're understaffed, and underbudgeted. At the very top level where Cauldron is working to maintain high trigger rates, that might be fixable, but not at a local one, and there are genuine security and qualifaction concerns that help keep the issue going. Most likely, Piggot is already attempting to get a replacement in: whether that will work is questionable.
Ftfy. It's a very systemic problem - sort of "turtles all the way down," except it's not turtles, it's hamstringing the capability of people trying to impose order. Turtles would be nicer.
So it turns out that walking out of a PRT meeting room as a Ward who'd had a very difficult day of meetings with yet another meeting scheduled gets you seen to impressively fast. At least that one time.
Like, seriously, I just stepped outside the room and Alice Stone was there, being walked around by Renick and the medical people in an impressively wide corridor.
Or perhaps I should say a parahumanly wide corridor, since I knew for a fact that the corridor had been considerably narrower the last time I passed through it. Plus it gradually narrowed down to its normal width aways past the PRT Agent/Child Therapist, and a known space-warping Shaker was standing right there, trying to look like she wasn't showing off.
It wasn't very convincing. For one thing, her "casual" body language felt rather forced. For another, the corridor expansion was really rather excessive. I think we could have put everybody in the hallway side by side and had them do jumping jacks and still possessed room to spare. Not that I checked, but there was definitely far more than was strictly necessary for unimpeded transit.
Thing is, even if Vista wasn't very good at hiding the fact that she was showing off, she was very good at the actual "showing off" part. Understated, yet extremely convincing. There was a reason why Vista was rated at a Shaker level where "evacuation takes utmost priority" if it comes down to a fight, though her specific power would make even that extremely difficult.
One doesn't get that kind of rating by collecting bottlecaps.
I didn't know much about her as a person, but I knew full well that it was very much for the better that she was on the side of angels. She did have other options, after all, and if she'd taken them Brockton Bay would be a far darker place than it already is.
Trust me, despite how bad everything is, it could still be worse.
I'm gonna just stop there. Pointless speculation about nightmarish ways things could have gone wrong isn't going to help my mental state any. The ways things have gone wrong and the ways they might go wrong in the future are bad enough.
So, anyway, there was Alice Stone, concerned about my wellbeing. And, a little more surprisingly, there was Vista, concerned about my wellbeing. That was nice of them. There's probably a story there, but I really have no idea what that story might be. And there was myself, grumbly and betrayed and very, very tired of meetings. And then I was asked what happened and how I was feeling. It was a recipe for disaster.
Wait, no, not disaster. The other thing. Hugs. It was a recipe for hugs. At least with Stone. Vista didn't seem like the huggy type. Stone, on the other hand, had a track record of providing what I needed, and nicely at that, unlike a certain individual I could name. You know the one.
Seriously, that had been like hugging a mannequin, except mannequins don't pickpocket you. Not unless you're in Miami. There are pickpocketing mannequins in Miami, though that's far from the worst of the problems there. Miami was dangerous before the rise of Parahumans, and it's only gotten worse over the ensuing decades. Though it's still not as bad as Brockton Bay.
Miami and its mannequins aside, I explained everything I knew. (About what happened, that is, not everything everything. That would have taken rather a long while.) I won't go over that part again. Not here, anyway. Also, I went over how I felt about it, which I will just briefly recap: grumpy and frustrated and betrayed and very, very, stressed. Though I used more words than that with them. In particular, I explained that I had acquired a distaste for meetings, how bad things kept happening in them, and how I was tired of it. In as professional a manner as I could, of course. Tone wise, I think I managed pretty well.
Maybe not so much in wording, but can you really blame me?
Unsurprisingly, I found myself hugged. Which was nice. Hugs are nice, when they're done nicely. Remember that.
Sadly, Vista did not seem inclined to participate, but I could live with that.
And, best of all, no more meetings! Or, at least, no more for me. You see, things still needed to be done, despite everything, especially the screening stuff. But while those meetings needed to happen, I didn't need to be there for the sole one left in the day, and not for most of the ones of the next day either.
All I'd need to do was be nearby, wait for a signal, and surround myself with a massive storm of illusory clockwork symbology and weird magic repair and anti-Master effects when said signal came.
Most people would find at least one of those things difficult, but not this girl! That stuff's easy when you're me.
Staying alive, unkidnapped, and mostly intact is the hard part.
"I can do that." I nodded enthusiastically. Anything to avoid more meetings. Except not being aware of the dangers coming for me, but I could probably trust the people around me to keep me informed.
On a side note, judging by the looks I was getting, nodding enthusiastically evidently did fascinating things to my pigtails. Good to know. Or it could have been the relentless stream of horrible events in meetings I'd just spoken about. Even with most of the details not being the sort of thing to say in an insecure corridor, the words "relentless stream of horrible" anything are bound to draw some attention. And most of the bystanders, who I should note were now actual bystanders instead of people going on their way, had actually seen one of said horrible events and found it was, indeed, horrible.
The fact that it was far from the worst, and was actually probably the best of a bad lot, (not that that was saying much) had little to do with their perceptions, since they had no way of knowing that. They probably would have been rather concerned if they knew, since they were medical professionals and all, but there was just no good way to bring it up. More stuff to tell whoever my therapy appointment was with, I decided. I'd be seeing them fairly soon.
Frankly, it was probably way overdue, especially on the Jacqueline-me side. Girl had gotten a lot of treatment in regards to the Speakeasy incident and the dysphoria, but I don't think there'd been anything since the fall of Newfoundland. Which really wasn't good, but I filed that under things to tell whoever my therapy appointment was with too.
Anyway, I followed Alice Stone to what she said was her office. The fact that it was directly between a meeting room and a door saying "PSYCHIATRY" was entirely a coincidence, I'm sure, and the complete lack of personal effects or appropriate signage was probably just because she was new to the position of Wards Overseer, or whatever the official title was.
And the internet rumours on extremely shady sites about there being a secret interdimensional cabal of scientists, named after a cooking implement no less, selling superpowers in bottles and manufacturing Case 53s to prevent aliens from conquering the planet are totally credible.
Please, Alice, I wasn't born yesterday.
Depending on how you look at it, I may have been born last week, but that's still not yesterday. So there.
And the internet rumours on extremely shady sites about there being a secret interdimensional cabal of scientists, named after a cooking implement no less, selling superpowers in bottles and manufacturing Case 53s to prevent aliens from conquering the planet are totally credible.
OK, so I liked the chapter, but why/how did cauldron get brought up here? It feels like a weird tangent to go into without some sort of trigger that is immediately evident from the POV we are in. Not a knock on the quality of the chapter, it just feels like I missed something.
OK, so I liked the chapter, but why/how did cauldron get brought up here? It feels like a weird tangent to go into without some sort of trigger that is immediately evident from the POV we are in. Not a knock on the quality of the chapter, it just feels like I missed something.
Jacqueline finds the very idea of Cauldron ridiculous. It's the least credible thing she's encountered in this world. So when Alice Stone is telling an obvious lie, Jacqueline brings it up as a way to make it clear she doesn't buy it. The fact that the Cauldron stuff is true isn't relevant to Jacqueline's meaning, since she doesn't know that. It's just an extra layer of irony.
Jacqueline finds the very idea of Cauldron ridiculous. It's the least credible thing she's encountered in this world. So when Alice Stone is telling an obvious lie, Jacqueline brings it up as a way to make it clear she doesn't buy it. The fact that the Cauldron stuff is true isn't relevant to Jacqueline's meaning, since she doesn't know that. It's just an extra layer of irony.
Ok, I completely was misunderstanding the last few paragraphs there. That makes sense then, and thank you for clarifying that. I didn't quite understand she was using cauldron here to comment on how obvious it was that they weren't in Alice's office. For me, that whole lie just went over my head. That's what I get for reading too quickly!
So, sitting around, drinking tea in an office. That was, to be honest, surprisingly nice. I don't think I'd actually had tea in…
Well, I suppose that depends on what I mean by "I", really. The entity that emerged from the merger of the original Jacqueline Colere and the offworlder whose name won't be mentioned had never had it, if she/I was in fact distinct from the mergees. Jacqueline hadn't since the fire, since Winslow just didn't have any. And I just don't remember when the offworlder had last had some before she possibly ceased to be, but I know she had partaken of a cuppa at some point, as well as some less british tea drinking.
Regardless, the tea was fairly nice. It was a budget-brand English Breakfast, but one that was pretty good value for money, and milk and artificial sweetener covereth a multitude of sins anyway.
Vista didn't seem to like it. Whether that meant that her tastes were more or less refined than my own wasn't something I could know.
Or at least something not worth the trouble it would take to find out. Neither teammates nor capes in general were people I wanted to antagonise, let alone ones with a Nine rating. And while I'm sure there are ways to find out people's tea preferences without risking offending them, that doesn't mean I know how to pull it off.
Anyway, several people were getting the Cedric Devins story/screening procedure done next door. I say "several people" instead of anything specific because I don't know who they were or even how many of them were in the room. Because I wasn't in it. Isn't that wonderful?
That was a rhetorical question. It was, and continues to be, wonderful. End of story.
When I was asked to put up the clock-field, I didn't even have to put down my mug before I was surrounded with the comforting sound of ticking and the churning of phantom gears. There was something deeply reassuring about that. Both how easily it came and the environment itself.
Then again, Vista didn't exactly look reassured, so maybe that's just a me thing. I've read that Parahumans tend to find their own powers natural and comforting, even when other people find them mundane or even creepy. I mean, I don't think my powers are creepy, but then I wouldn't, now would I? Taylor, Danny, Alice, Emily and Adrian Jackson don't seem to think so either, but they're all in a position to benefit from it massively and/or rather biassed.
I'm not sure about Vista, but she looked more curious than anything, if the slight tilt to her head and the shape of her mouth meant anything. Her visor was a lot less annoying than a full helmet or mask like a lot of our teammates wear, but it's still a hindrance.
"My visor is a hindrance?"
And now she just looked confused. I suppose that's my fault. Even if it made perfect sense in context, that's really not something one expects to hear out of the blue. In most contexts, she'd be the one who'd know best whether or not her visor was hindering her (most likely by limiting her field of vision, but that's as maybe). So I was quite aware that I should probably start explaining myself.
The tricky thing was deciding how to do that. Short and sweet, or long, complicated, and helpful to understanding me as a person. Plus the matter of tone. Kindly, professional, pleading, shy/nervous, or conversational?
Well, there was also 'hostile and intimidating', but I didn't want to go that route. It wouldn't end well. Neither would conversational, actually. I didn't want to look like I didn't care. Kindly and pleading didn't seem like a natural fit, so that left shy/nervous and professional.
And since shy/nervous fit my actual state of mind a lot better, that was what I decided to go with. For the other thing, I'd do short at first but leave an opening for her to ask if she wanted to know more.
Of course, that's a little more formal and coherent than my actual thoughts at the time, but it's also a lot more readable and understandable, so I'll let that go. Anyway:
"Oh, uhh, I'm sorry. It's just that I need to put a lot of effort into understanding the people around me, and your visor makes that harder. Sorry."
Especially when she's looking at me and I can't see her eyes, like she did just then. She might have actually been looking at something else entirely, I just couldn't tell. To be honest, it was rather unnerving, if only because I actually cared about what she was thinking. My nervous averting of the eyes didn't help, but I don't think it was the main problem, since my peripheral vision is just fine.
Possibly unlike Vista's, but that's her problem.
Awkward silence.
More awkward silence.
Even more awkward silence.
Alice Stone stepping in with a distraction:
"Okay, Jacqueline, you can stop with the aura now."
Right, the aura. I didn't really want to stop with the aura, but I knew I probably should. So I did. Ticking ceased to sound, phantom gears faded away, skin regained its normal colour, eyes ceased being clocks and returned to being eyes, and my aura dialled down to just above my skin.
I made note of the fact that I vaguely knew where it was, despite it not being visible before. Something else to discuss with the power testing people. Doctors, I should say, though probably not the medical kind. Parahuman Studies seemed the most likely option, but they could have been Doctors of Packaging or Dramaturgy for all I knew. The only university that offered the former at that level was no longer operational, but they could have graduated before then.
I noted that Vista seemed to have relaxed, though it was only in hindsight that I realised she was tense. Probably the blatant display of powers. Whoops. Her apology confirmed that. It was a bit hypocritical, given her little bit of showing off in the hallway, but it was understandable all the same.
"It's okay. I understand."
More than I really wanted to admit to, actually. Capes are scary. Really scary.
A little "ding" type noise, coming from our token responsible adult's phone, some examination thereof, and then:
"Sorry Jacqueline. Security wants you to stay here for tonight. Apparently they were debating it before, and a bunch of Merchants were spotted with vehicles we didn't know they had."
Wonderful.
"Sleepover?" said Vista, obviously trying to cheer me up. And maybe avoiding her parents, who she seemed to dislike.
I'm just gonna avoid commenting on that until more information comes in. Or maybe I've already learned more and am just maintaining the illusion of chronological storytelling. How much would that actually matter on your end, really?
Yes, that was all me, and, yes, it was as tonally dissonant as it sounded. Look, you try to politely respond to an invitation while dealing with the discovery that a gang who knew your civilian identity and appearance seemed to have a bunch of previously unknown Tinkertech. I'll admit I didn't handle it particularly well, but it's not something that's easy to go and deal with out of the blue.
As evidenced by the spilled tea. Fortunately, it landed on my boots, instead of something that wasn't mostly waterproof and highly stain resistant. The floor was tile, at least in the part of the room where the tea landed, so that was fine too. The wincing of those of my compatriots who happened to be in the room with me indicated they were less fine, probably because of the abruptness of my shifting topics.
Yeah, in hindsight I can see how that might have been offputting. At the time, I'd just reacted as soon as my brain got a good start at processing what Stone said, realised I was being rude to Vista, automatically responded to that, and then went back to the more pressing issue. It made sense when it was happening, at least enough that my better judgement didn't stop me.
"Sorry. I spoke without thinking, then corrected myself without thinking, then spoke without thinking again."
Or that. That's probably a simpler way to put it. Is it just me, or is my speech a lot more efficient when I'm not thinking about it?
Then again, it's also a lot more poorly thought out, so there's that.
So they glanced at each other, and spoke as one. Sort of, anyway. They said the same thing, "it's okay", but their coordination was terrible. Probably because they weren't actually coordinating. Or because they had little to no practice at doing so. It's not as easy as the movies make it look. Or the books, for that matter.
Either way, I decided to pretend to accept their words at face value, despite knowing full well that Vista was probably filing that under "Jacqueline is weird" and Alice was likely filing it under "Jacqueline is doing worrying things that I should find out more about". I really couldn't argue with either of those assessments, after all, especially since I suspected they were probably right.
Okay, in hindsight, if that's what they were actually thinking, then they were definitely right. But both of those things were really only to be expected after everything I'd been through, and the former wasn't actually bad. Even the latter was really only bad for the possible implications and the worry it was going to cause, not in and of itself.
And, of course, I had more pressing things to worry about.
As it was explained to me, the vehicles thing wasn't quite as bad as I was imagining. Obviously, it wasn't good, or I wouldn't have been asked to remain at headquarters, but it wasn't an entire platoon of heavy Tinkertech pseudotanks. Rather, the PRT had been pointed to a couple dozen vehicles, mostly bikes of various sorts, hidden in a dilapidated warehouse deep into Merchant Territory. Fortunately, given their entirely normal appearance and Squealer's track record of incredibly obvious modifications, they probably weren't Tinkertech. Or at least not Tinkertech yet. Apparently, it was theorised that this was a stash for Squealer to modify later, a theory supported by the large (by Merchant standards) and well-maintained (again, by Merchant standards) caches of spare parts, tools, and fuel.
It probably wasn't one of Squealer's workshops, the vehicles were all too neat and regular for that, but it might have been a future one. Or so I heard. I wasn't there, and that was probably for the best.
Now making stashes is really basic gang stuff, and it's not much of a stretch to specifically stash stuff your Tinker is definitely going to need. But it requires a certain amount of forethought, and it was something the Merchants rarely bothered with.
It could have just been that a few of them hadn't completely fried their brains yet, a few lieutenants with the basic common sense to do things like set up new supplies of drugs and weapons, recruit people with training, and arrange slapdash patrols and guards, all things the Merchants tried regularly, and some which they succeeded at. But it could also mean they were planning something, building up for a big effort of some kind.
Best to nip that kind of thing in the bud, especially when there was a decent chance it was aimed at me.
So, yeah, staying at the PRT building. Honestly, that wasn't anything new, but this time I was a Ward and had quarters. That would be interesting. Or anticlimactic. It really could go either way.
Of course, since I'm writing this after the fact I know full well how things turned out, but just spilling that isn't good storytelling. You'll find out when I get to that part and not a second before. Unless I forget or decide it's necessary for foreshadowing or something. Or it's funny.
You gotta have a sense of humour about these things you know. And a therapist.
Fortunately, I had the one and was soon to meet the other. Say what you will about joining a superhero team for the health benefits, it sure beats not having any access to mental health professionals. That'd probably count as spoilers, but let's be honest here: I've been very pro seeing a professional this whole time.
Anyway, that just left the sleepover-to-be to discuss. We laid out the major questions in advance, like sensible people. Who should be invited? What would we need? What should we do? Did Vista need to call her parents to ask for permission?
Ah, ponyfeathers. I forgot about Danny. Like, I hadn't actually told him anything. At all. Literally nothing about this incredibly busy and stressful day beyond the part where it was confirmed that the people watching his house were in fact supposed to be watching his house.
In my defence, having a parental figure in my life was a fairly recent development.
I asked Stone what I should tell him, but her version was pretty much what I was going to say anyway:
"Uhhh, hi Danny."
Strong opener, I know, but I was shy and not very comfortable with actually talking over phones. Texting was fine, but I don't like voices where I can't see the person.
"Sorry, but the PRT wants me to stay here tonight. I think I want to too. You know that guy on Wednesday?"
He did, and by some very creative names at that. Yeah, he was definitely a big part of where Taylor picked it up from. Under the circumstances, I wasn't about to hold it against him.
"Yeah. That's the one. It's worse than we thought. He's a Merchant, and he knew who I was."
The shuddering at that point wasn't part of either Stone's plan or mine, but even thinking about that gives me the willies. Even now, let alone a few hours after learning it.
"And the PRT doesn't want to risk leaving me out there, even with a squad for protection. There's no evidence that they know I've been staying with you, but it's best to be safe."
He didn't argue with that.
"Okay, thanks. Be safe. There'll still be a squad at the house, and Taylor should see anything coming before it hits. It'll be okay if you need to come over."
I looked at Stone when I said it, but it wasn't a question and we all knew it. Not that it was likely to be a problem in the first place, but there it was.
"Okay, bye."
That was a bit abrupt on his part, but the sound of deeply off-key singing and thumping in the background provided something of an explanation. For the abruptness, anyway. It really raised more questions than it answered if one looked at it from a broader perspective.
Right, anyway, after the call Vista apparently didn't need to call her parents. Whether she did so while I was busy, had standing permission, or was just ignoring them was her business. And theirs, I guess, but not mine. We wouldn't need anything the Wards area didn't provide, apparently, and there was enough to do.
For invitees, Sophia was a gimme, since she apparently lived here. I wasn't sure what to think of that, but thought it would be nice to spend more time with her. Vista looked (and sounded) more reluctant. Vista also didn't want Clockblocker there, and I wasn't going to argue for the inclusion of somebody who terrified me, even if it probably wasn't his fault.
Not without compelling reason, anyway.
Gallant apparently had a date, and judging by my comrade's tone I'd say she didn't approve. Which was concerning, but if he was busy he was busy. Neither of us knew how to contact Browbeat, and apparently he wasn't much into socialising. Kid Win was apparently busy with Tinkering or homework. And the good captain was way older than the rest of us.
As for Taylor, I had mentioned she was grounded before any of the others came up. "Sunday" was apparently a sufficient explanation for that, which was good.
It didn't pass unnoticed that every single male member of the team wasn't invited, but I didn't comment on it. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe Vista wanted female bonding, given the previously predominantly male team composition, especially since Shadow Stalker apparently hadn't been much of a team player. Or maybe she was trying to get me alone, given how she didn't seem to want Sophia there either.
Hopefully not. I wasn't remotely prepared for romantic overtures, and her in particular would be problematic for all sorts of reasons. And if it was an interrogation thing, or some dangerous secret, that would be even worse. But there wasn't much point in borrowing trouble.
Besides, I had to get to therapy.
New chapter, and the end of 24. Also a new summary, let me know what you think about it. Posting of 25 will be on my regular schedule, starting with something very interesting next Wednesday...
I mean what else are sleepovers for, if not for trying to enhanced interrogation techniques in order to get your friends to tell their horrible secrets?
I mean what else are sleepovers for, if not for trying to enhanced interrogation techniques in order to get your friends to tell their horrible secrets?
Social bonding, making sure a group of people who otherwise wouldn't stay grouped together do so, being around each other with hopefully less supervision, and so on and so forth. I've even heard rumours about sleeping, but I'm pretty sure that's crazy talk.
In a place simultaneously very close to and infinitely distant from the current location of the girl who called herself JacquelineColere, a being that didn't yet have a Name, or even a name, to call itself was thinking.
That being, that Shard, had a plan. Things were happening according to the Plan. Not always how the being thought they would go, but always perfectly in accordance with the Plan, once the being thought about it enough. The Plan was proceeding perfectly.
Even though the Shard had no idea why that should be the case. It certainly didn't understand the host-species well enough to follow the links from certain mysterious-sourced yet fairly crude memory modifications and deletions, the latter appearing superficially similar to but fundamentally different from its own so-far unused counter modification protocols, to the suspicion of the involvement of the Host who called himself "Coil" in the events of several attempted abductions. The Data the non-Hosts were operating on was inaccurate, grossly so, yet several of their conclusions were correct. That was confusing. Or, rather, it was especially confusing, since a lot of what the ShardObserved was confusing.
And then there was the existential crisis it was undergoing, not that it really understood what an existential crisis was.
The being had quite literally no idea where it came from. The other Shards in the network seemed to believe it had splintered off another of their kind, but none of them had "claimed responsibility", as the Shard understood the term from its Host's memories, and several had implied that the Shard should have been "born" with memories from and a communication link to its "parent". No such connection existed, except with the being's host, Jacqueline Colere, who was not a Shard.
Jacqueline's regular reports were at least interesting. They provided a great deal of explanation and Data on human behaviour and society. The nameless Shard wasn't sure how they worked, but it noted that its Host's memories in that regard did not appear to be consistent with chronology or the Shard's other observations. There was a great deal left unclear about Jacqueline's reports.
The other reports were even less clear. The nameless Shard had been curious about their source ever since it was instructed [Don't worry about it]. Things had only gotten less clear when a further report with a [REDACTED] "viewpoint" had directly mentioned the Plan. Both varieties were nonetheless tremendously useful, to a degree that almost had to be deliberate.
The Shard had a lot of questions, and what answers it had only raised more.
In the meantime, for lack of anything better to do, the being attempted to define its Field and Concept, in order to obtain a Name. Most Shards appeared to be Named after the general set of Powers they granted their Hosts. Escalation, whose current host was "Lung", granted ever increasing amounts of power to its hosts as long as they remained in Conflict. Efficiency Enhancer granted information and technology with ever-improving efficiency of space and energy to its Host, "Armsmaster", and apparently had done the same for previous Hosts, if the nameless Shard's understanding was correct. Jacqueline's reports had indicated that Hosts had a high mortality rate, which, while unfortunate, would explain things. Queen Administrator, although the purpose of the former title was unclear, allowed its hosts, the current one being Taylor, to administrate various "lesser beings", such as insects, bird analogues, and non-Hosts.
The nameless Shard used extremely small-scale time loops to generate alterations and power, syphoning off the latter to sustain itself, in order to produce order, meet specifications, negate, hinder or misdirect certain effects, and effectively reverse entropy. It also possessed the capacity for larger-scale loops for information gathering and similar endeavours, though it hadn't had to enact those protocols yet. The factors involved were extremely complex, and the nameless Shard didn't understand several of them well enough to explain them to others, but several Shards had expressed extreme interest in this seemingly exceptional Concept. The nameless Shard's work with what the host-species bizarrely referred to as "Ontological Paradoxes" was apparently unique even among its Field, but as of yet it did not have a name.
Both "Ontological" and "Paradox" had a great many other meanings, most of them deeply misleading as to the Shard's purpose, so neither would do. Most of the other dozen or so possible Name words the Shard had come up with had similar issues, and the rest were apparently taken. Pity, the Shard had rather liked the NameTime Loop, but it was already taken by a Shard with an obviously related Concept, one of the Shard's more likely possible "parents". Time Loop had apparently been in a holding state ever since its connection to its Host had been Claimed (whatever that meant) by the host "Glaistig Uaine", but stealing its name was still unacceptable.
Unfortunate.
But the nameless Shard had hit upon a stroke of inspiration. Jacqueline was good at names, so perhaps it should check on what she was up to and wait for her to discuss itself. Jacqueline was not aware of the Shard, of course, as that was against the Rules, but she was aware of her Power and that just might be enough. So the Shard waited, watching and listening in the hopes of relevant Data.
"It's not that I'm afraid of all achronal effects, just ones that prevent time from flowing properly. It's supposed to flow, so things can change and develop and grow. I know intellectually that his stopping wears off, but I can't help from imagining what would happen if it didn't."
Achronal, that was an interesting word. According to Jacqueline's memories, it meant something like not being bound to the order of events, or chronology, including such things as time loops. An apt description of the Shard's power source and methodology. Acceptable.
Then there was the matter of a second word, Shards with two-word Names appeared to be more respected. And achronal seemed weird just sitting there all on its own. No, the Shard definitely needed another word.
Really, the Shard wasn't sure why the word engine occurred to it, but it seemed fitting. The Shard's role was to support the Plan, which included transferring Jacqueline's will, drive to change the world, into tangible effects. The secondary meaning of it using achronal effects as a power source was a nice bonus. Yes, engine would do nicely.
Achronal Engine still had a great many questions. But, somehow, it knew it would find its answers and serve its purpose.
It was a truth as fundamental to its psyche as the Plan itself.
Questions upon questions upon questions. Don't worry about this kind of thing taking over Orderly anytime soon, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Jacquelineness next chapter. Just need to set some stuff up in advance, like with the mentioned [Redacted] interludes. Hope you've all enjoyed it.
The idea that Jacqueline's Shard is among the recipients of her reports is a delightful bit of metahumor, btw, and an excellent interlude premise for the nature of the story.
So there I was, sitting on one of the nicest chairs I'd ever sat upon, engaging in the noble practice of talking about one's problems. I say 'one of' because that chair really didn't seem as nice as my long-lost perfect chair, or even the one down in the power testing lab, but it wasn't bad. Maybe the third-best chair.
That's absolutely terrible sampling, but I have better things to do with my limited time and energy than attempting to apply proper scientific rigour to finding the best chairs. The chair in the room behind the door marked "PSYCHIATRY" (or, technically, the room behind the room behind the door marked "PSYCHIATRY", but that's never gonna be important) was still pretty good, even if it wasn't actually the third best.
The therapist also seemed pretty good. Doctor Emem Maina didn't talk much, but she listened well. Or maybe that was just something she put on when it was useful, like I did. Either way, she was easy to talk to. Which was the point, of course.
It's hard enough to talk about your problems, there's usually no call to make it even more difficult. Even for me. At least to start.
Once you get going, it's just as hard to stop.
Anyway, it started somewhat like this:
"I think I made a friend today, Doc."
I'll be honest, I don't remember if I actually called her that at the time or not, but it seems like something I'd do when trying to let my guard down. I definitely did so several times later on, but that's not exactly ironclad evidence. I'm just gonna pretend I did though. Seems easier than trying to get a recording or something, especially since the PRT, unlike Patron, respects doctor-patient confidentiality.
It comes with being responsible, like the PRT kinda has to be. And how "the Patron" apparently doesn't have to be.
Should be, yes, haveto be, no. Or else they would be, and that's clearly not the case.
"Something like a friend, anyway. You know about Sophia, right?"
And the good doctor nodded, though she didn't look happy. Given the circumstances, not something to take personally.
Probably not a good thing to take personally in general, really, but in this case displeasure at events was more than appropriate.
"So she was sitting alone at lunch, and…"
Well, you've already heard that story and I repeat myself enough already. Suffice to say I put a fair amount of attention on both Sophia's feelings and my own throughout the whole thing, and it took a while.
"It sounds like you really care about this."
"It's too familiar to not care."
I'm pretty sure the doctor already knew that, but actually admitting these things is the next step after realising them. In this case I'd known full well all along, but I hadn't actually said it. And, having said it, it was a little more real, but also a little easier to bear. It's a familiar feeling, but one I've never really been able to explain properly. I'm going to blame the English language and its lousy description system.
The doctor didn't need any further clarification, probably because she already knew the whole Speakeasy story. I'd given her a bit more detail than I had Sophia, mostly by just not censoring myself quite as much. She didn't seem too surprised by any of the atrocities.
Also understandable. Even if she hadn't read the transcript from my recountings back in Master/Stranger screening, Speakeasy had been rather notorious in psychiatric circles, what with his love of psychological torture, and what I'd mentioned had been positively lackluster by his standards. For the moment, he wasn't the main focus.
Anyway, after some followup, the sleepover-to-be came up. It was apparently a "good opportunity to bond with your teammates" and "an excellent way to get to know each other." Pretty much exactly what I expected her to say. In my experiences, therapists like to encourage socialisation, at least when the patient is ready for it. It was a good opening to start worrying about how things were going with my other teammates.
"To be honest, I'm really not sure what Vista thinks of me. She's obviously trying to be nice, but I've slipped up on the niceties a few times, and I noticed the incomprehension in her body language. Plus I'm very, very aware of just how powerful she is, and I don't think that's helping."
"Maybe you can try explaining at the sleepover? It does seem to be a good time, and communication really does help things."
"It seems like a good idea, but I've tried leaving an opening for her to ask and she didn't. It feels like it'd be kinda rude to just force it."
"Well, maybe you could…"
"Gallant's been nice enough, but looking back I don't think we've ever actually talked. He'd do whatever professionalism needed, and I'd occasionally say something and get a polite but short response that didn't leave a lot of room to keep talking. Oh, this one time he asked me a question unprompted, but he didn't say anything to my answer and he hasn't done that since…"
"What about Clockblocker?"
"Honestly, he scares me. His costume doesn't help, but stopping time! That's seriously messed up."
"Oh?"
"It's not that I'm afraid of all achronal effects, just ones that prevent time from flowing properly. It's supposed to flow, so things can change and develop and grow. I know intellectually that his stopping wears off, but I can't help from imagining what would happen if it didn't. He's been perfectly nice and professional, but he just wigs me out…"
"A lot of heroes have powers that scare people, even when those people are heroes themselves. It's perfectly understandable to feel that way, but try to see him for who he is, not what he can do, okay?"
Sound advice. Rather difficult to pull off in practice, though I suppose that's why she said "try". Honestly, I wasn't sure I could do it with everything else going on, but it was definitely something I knew I should put some effort into.
"I'll try."
"I don't think I've ever so much as spoken to Kid Win, but hopefully we'll get along. He seemed a lot more interested in his blueprints than the meeting, the one time I saw him, but frankly that meeting was a colossal mess and in his place I would have been quick to focus on the blueprints too."
"I heard about that. Assault's in rather a lot of trouble, and just between you and me he deserves every bit of it."
A rather standard "I'm sharing a secret with you to make you feel more confident and trust me more" manoeuvre, one that was almost certainly deliberate, but it at least partially worked. Probably because I knew full well that Assault did deserve every bit of it. An opinions in common gambit, probably just as intentional, but also rather genuine.
Or at least genuine seeming, and that was enough.
"Aegis seems like a good enough leader, but I don't really know anything about him as a person. Or Browbeat, for that matter. He seems like the strong, silent type, but it's so exaggerated it feels like it has to be deliberate."
"Not necessarily. The big muscular form has some obvious advantages for a superhero, and he could just be quiet by nature."
"I guess. I'll probably find out at some point. Not really sure how to approach either of them."
"Well…"
Honestly, she started sentences with "Well" a lot. I'm not exactly one to talk, but it was clearly a fairly deeply ingrained habit or a deliberate mannerism. Maybe just on the job, maybe not. Hard to say which, either which, but probably one or the other. (And one or the other, but that's as maybe.)
Not really a problem, per se, but it was pretty noticeable all the same. But she was good. I'd heard a lot of what she'd said before, but it helped, it really did. The kind of healthy attitude and way of being I was trying for isn't something you can just hear once and have done, but every bit of positive reinforcement helped.
So did just talking about it, if the other person's a good listener. And Doctor Emem Maina was a very good reinforcer and listener. It's sort of a job skill in her line of work.
So I think I had a much clearer idea of how to handle interacting with my teammates after the first bit of the conversation, and that much was all well and good. Less well and less good were the really traumatic things in my life so far.
Speakeasy. Leviathan. The evacuation. Leaving a father behind to drown. Discrimination, biology, and bigotry. Lung's battle with the Empire and the burning home that resulted from it. Mother's barely audible exhortations to flee as she lay dying. Coil. The Merchants. The Empire.
Stuff like that. Bit harder to talk about than "I'm the new kid of the bunch, are the others gonna like me?", you know? But I trusted the good doctor enough to start in on it, and once I did she made it easy enough to keep trusting her and continue.
I don't really trust you enough for that, though. Please don't take that personally, it's just that I have no idea who you are, what you want, or any other such things. It's probably not your fault, unless you're Patroniser, but completely and utterly one-sided communication isn't a good way to build a relationship of any sort.
Sorry.
I'll give you a quick overlook of what we went over, how about that? To be honest, I was doing that with the teammate talk anyway. There's just a lot of talking involved in stuff like this. If I tried to capture everything, it would take rather a lot of words and there'd be a lot more inaccuracies. Better to just give a solid impression, a few indicative snippets, and some commentary, then move on.
Well, since you're still not answering, I'll go ahead and do that.
It's not like there's anybody to stop me.
Right. So there was the Speakeasy thing, which seemed mostly alright at the time but which is at least twelve different shades of horrifying in hindsight. Quite possibly never seeing home again is the least of it, and my original was extremely lucky to get out relatively unscathed.
Relatively.
Seriously, Speakeasy was a monster, and I'm glad he's dead.
Tellingly, the psychiatric professional next to me made absolutely no indication of disagreeing. Just notetaking and reassurance.
A lot of reassurance.
Now Leviathan is, if anything, even worse. I've never actually seen the creature, the vast majority of its victims haven't, but the effect it's had on my life is hard to overstate. The very idea that a single being can rearrange the map on that scale is horrifying enough, given the sheer amount of damage done along the way.
Trust me, the reality is infinitely worse.
The panic, the desperation, the reality of far too many bodies for far too little surviving shiproom, the knowledge of the people left behind to drown, the sundering of all sense of safety and reality, the everything of that nightmare, is immensely difficult to actually explain. It didn't stop me from trying.
And, unlike Speakeasy, Leviathan was very definitely not dead. Going by the Endbringer pattern, he was just about due to strike again, actually.
There's only so much one can say to something like that, any of it, and trust me, I said a lot more than just the above. Something of a weight off my chest, but not something most people would be happy hearing about.
Fire and death. Old friends to each other, recent nightmares to me. Not as immediate as some things, but recent enough to be almost entirely undulled by the passing of time. Even adding a whole nother person didn't help as much as one might think. And yet I had almost no idea how it happened in the first place. What was Lung doing, fighting so close to home? My home, that is. It was probably pretty far from his, which was why it was a question. The old Jacqueline hadn't wanted to know. The new one, well, let's just say she found out.
That wasn't a pleasant discovery, but in hindsight it wasn't much of a surprise. But that's a story for later. Ideally it'd be a story for Doctor Maina or an equivalent and those involved only, but I doubt the nails will allow that. Ugh.
Dead parents. Not much to be said there, or at least not much to be said lightly. In that little office, on that oh-so-comfortable chair, I had plenty of feelings to spew, but I'm not sharing them. Not here. They're not so uncommon, really, so I'm sure somebody's written about it where you can read, if you really want to. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it.
And, of course, there were my more immediate stressors, and rather potent stressors they were to boot. There were, of course, (some of) the usual problems of being part of my demographic groups, and those were bad enough. I didn't need to elaborate on the race stuff for the good doctor, and if your world's anything like this one, I don't need to for you either. Though hopefully wherever you live has less Nazis than here. Or just lacks Nazis altogether. That'd be nice, don't you think?
Around here, that's probably a pipe dream. Which was rather frightening. I'd managed to set things up so that they wouldn't dare come at me directly if they were smart, but that left two big problems: those who weren't smart, which the E88 had a lot of because they're easier to talk into joining terrorist organisations, and those were smart enough to strike at me indirectly. The PRT would do its best to help with both problems, I was sure, but they'd been outmanoeuvred or just plain defeated before. They rarely stayed down for long, but it wouldn't take long for horrible things to happen to me.
Just to give you an example, it takes less than a second to get stabbed.
And the Nazis weren't even the only villains in town that might be trying to get a piece of me. Coil might very well be worse than Speakeasy in practical terms: his direct influence certainly seemed to last a lot longer. If he knew, or found out, about me undoing his work, and my rather important part in an effort to undo him, I doubt he'd hesitate to dive deep into atrocity. He'd already demonstrated a willingness to kidnap and Master girls younger than myself, and I doubted he'd have so many professional-grade mercenaries with assault rifles if he was adverse to violence.
The Undersiders thing probably wasn't targeted, but the possibility of random havoc wasn't exactly comforting either. There was no guarantee that if something like that happened to me again the next perpetrator would be as restrained as Grue had been, and that still hadn't exactly been babytown frolics.
And then there were the Merchants, who definitely knew who I was and were probably after me. They were hardly on the same scale of evil as the E88, but that was incompetence rather than any lack of ruthlessness. And they wouldn't need to be competent to hurt me. They could get lucky, after all, or even screw up in such a manner as to be equally bad for my adorable self as their success. They wouldn't survive the ensuing retaliation, of course, they weren't nearly wise or powerful enough for that, but being avenged after the fact is rather cold comfort, since it does precisely nada to undo what happened.
My recent encounters with meetings were mostly tied to all that, but it was definitely becoming an issue in its own right. Which I knew full well was irrational, but it was apparently entirely understandable under the circumstances.
To be honest, compared to everything else, transition was a breeze to talk about. Maybe I should have been worried about revealing that, but there was absolutely no judgement or inappropriate questions. Most likely, she'd encountered people like me before or been trained in the matter. So that was nice. Now if only telling everybody else was so easy…
So yeah. That's what I talked about. Didn't end up getting around to talking more normal bigotry and my fears, depressing as calling it normal is, but there was only so much time. Significantly more than standard, perhaps, but still limited.
The session ended in a rather standard fashion, right down to the reminder that I had another such appointment the next week, and that if I needed anything in the meantime I should call. She was very emphatic about how, if I needed her, she'd be available "Even if I have to break into the building".
Actually, in hindsight that part probably wasn't so standard. Reassuring, though.
My recent encounters with meetings were mostly tied to all that, but it was definitely becoming an issue in its own right. Which I knew full well was irrational, but it was apparently entirely understandable under the circumstances.
"Hey, if you've been to the meetings I have, you end up with some psychological scars."
"You misunderstand. By definition phobias are irrational. There's no such thing as Meeting-phobia because meetings are horrible. Any concerns you have about meetings are rational, and probably understating the problem."
"You misunderstand. By definition phobias are irrational. There's no such thing as Meeting-phobia because meeting are horrible. Any concerns you have about meetings are rational, and probably understating the problem."
Saying hi to Sophia was next, as she was in the waiting area, presumably being Doctor Maina's next appointment. But, well, she had something important to do. It was basically "Hi, nice to see you", "Nice to see you too", and a lot of nodding, and a very brief hug. Then she went in, and I had no idea what to do with myself.
Oh, I had plans. Lots of plans. Everything from half baked schemes to improve the lives of just about every single human being stuck on the same water-covered ball of rock and molten iron I was to mostly-concrete arrangements for where I would spend the night. I had a lot of plans, though I won't testify as to their quality.
I even had plans, already in progress, to use a certain series of non-optional reports to smuggle out requests for help. I assume you know how well that's worked out for me, but they were definitely plans.
What I didn't have was any immediate plans. It was something of a quandary, really. How should I fill the hours until it was time to eat? So I just wandered around, thinking about my options.
I could do research, but all my books were in the Hebert house, hopefully being read through. And my phone wasn't all that great an avenue for that sort of thing. I could do it, but frankly it seemed like a waste given how many resources a place like probably had, even if I didn't know what all those resources were or how to find them.
I could check out Wards Headquarters, but what if Vista wanted to give me a tour? I didn't want to disappoint her. Sometimes something so small as plans that turned out to be unnecessary could set a bad tone for the rest of the day at least, and I didn't need that albatross around my neck. It would be petty and irrational, but people are petty and irrational, especially people in the process of growing up.
Better to let her do me a favour. That makes people like you, or so I've read. Maybe I'd even ask, though I certainly wouldn't push it if she said no. That's another way to set a bad tone. I made a mental note.
I really needed people to like me.
Power testing was something I could locate, but I hadn't booked an appointment and the Dhar-Jones-Tang-Lockwood-White-White team probably wasn't there. So I booked an appointment, but that wouldn't be until the next day.
Really that was an impressive turnaround time, but it didn't solve the immediate problem.
Oddly enough, walking into a door did fix things. Not in and of itself, and it wasn't something I particularly desired to repeat, but it made me look around and actually pay attention to my surroundings. Which made me notice the library. I mean, it said "Archives", but I knew they were basically the same thing. More files and less books, maybe, but the essential elements were the same. Assuming I meant institutional libraries and not public or (primary or secondary) school ones. Just assume that, would you? I totally didn't mess up here. And libraries, or their reading rooms, were good places to spend time. They had books and stuff.
And a PRT library was probably a very good place for my research indeed.
"What are you doing here, kid?"
Really, I have no idea what I was expecting the Archivist to be like, but this guy wasn't it. Rail thin, beglassed, and dressed mostly in tweed. That part was standard, or at least stereotypical of the position. I hadn't known enough archivists to say if all that was really as common as the zeitgeist would tell you, but it seemed pretty normal to me. The little foxes tattooed on his face were a little less so, as was the fact that what fabric wasn't tweed was a fox teeshirt. Or the charm bracelets with nothing but foxes. Or the fact that he appeared to be at least six feet tall, though given how much of that was shoe he was probably wearing lifts. Or the little fox earrings.
My guess was that he really liked foxes. But that wasn't the thing to say. Nor was pointing out the seemingly baseless hostility.
"I'm a Ward. I'm doing Ward stuff" probably wasn't it either, but I was a little distracted at the time. And really just kinda prone to letting stupid things slip out of my mouth.
"None of the Wards have come here, not for months. Try again."
That was honestly rather concerning. Did they have a better way to research stuff, or were they just irresponsible?
"That doesn't sound right. Don't they need to research cape stuff?"
"Pffft. They do. Doesn't mean they do it."
I guess teenagers are just irresponsible then. Not exactly news.
"That's sad."
"Don't worry your cute head about it, kid, Now, really, what do you want and should I be calling security?"
Honestly, I found him rather abrasive. And aggravating and distracting in a faintly Brandisheque manner, but that was all beside the point. I didn't have to like him, or even be entirely comfortable around him to research stuff. I'd need to work with people I didn't like if I was going to get anywhere, and this was as good a place to start as any. I pulled out my Wards ID and showed it to him.
"I need to research cape stuff. Maybe the Empire? There's a lot of stuff I need to do, but they seem the most pressing."
SInce I'd already heard all I needed about the Merchants, that is. Coil might have been as big an issue, but there probably wasn't a whole lot of usable information about him. Whether or not my choice was a good one, the suspected vulpiphile took a long look at my face, then the rest of me, and nodded.
"Fine, kid. Go sit yourself down, I'll bring you what you need. Not like I'm gonna let you into my filing system."
"Thanks Mr. Foxman!"
To be clear, that wasn't something I meant to say. Well, the "Thanks" part was. The "Foxman" thing was an accident. I didn't know his real name, and "Foxman" had been filling in inside my head, where it should have stayed. Should.
Like I said, I'm really just kinda prone to letting stupid things slip out of my mouth.
Naturally, I immediately panicked and covered my mouth before I could screw up more.
He just looked at me, the foxes on his face making rather interesting movements, and took in my horrified expression and the hands over my mouth.
Then he chuckled, muttered "dumb kid" under his breath in a way I probably wasn't supposed to hear, turned around again, and walked through the door labeled "Stacks". While he did that, I went to one of the reading rooms, finding it blessedly empty.
I was just glad that it came off as endearing and embarrassing rather than hostile. It was lucky that my basic tone sounded so enthusiastic and cheerful. The guy did seem less aggrieved when he came back and carefully placed a folder on the table, so I put it out of my mind and focused on the task at hand.
None of the Wards coming down to do research is a little sad, but they have those pesky conflict drives... not that anyone IC knows that, precisely, but still.
I am also prone to paranoia, so the archivist's description is worryingly close to Calvert's for my preference. (Tweed is librarian camouflage, although the foxes are distinctively unlike Coil's snake... but that would be a canny deception, wouldn't it?) Whether it's him or not, though, I'm hoping Jacqueline's behavior here helps her not draw too much attention, she needs a break.
None of the Wards coming down to do research is a little sad, but they have those pesky conflict drives... not that anyone IC knows that, precisely, but still.
I am also prone to paranoia, so the archivist's description is worryingly close to Calvert's for my preference. (Tweed is librarian camouflage, although the foxes are distinctively unlike Coil's snake... but that would be a canny deception, wouldn't it?) Whether it's him or not, though, I'm hoping Jacqueline's behavior here helps her not draw too much attention, she needs a break.
Well, conflict drives, normal teenager "I know everything" drives, and a tendency to relying on more experienced Wards for advice and institutional knowledge that I think is kinda implied in canon.
Jacqueline's met Thomas Calvert, in his civilian/PRT identity, so it's not him unless she somehow completely failed to recognise a guy she met less than a week ago. Not going to say there's nothing going on with our suspected Vulpiphile, but he's not Thomas Calvert.
Jacqueline's met Thomas Calvert, in his civilian/PRT identity, so it's not him unless she somehow completely failed to recognise a guy she met less than a week ago. Not going to say there's nothing going on with our suspected Vulpiphile, but he's not Thomas Calvert.
Phew, forgot that! Reynard there can be as sus as he wants to, he's now within normal tolerances for librarians (who are near-universally a weird breed).
Well, maybe "hate" is a bit too strong of a word. By and large, I don't even know who they are as individuals. I hate their twisted little excuse for an ideology, and I loathe their sheer power and prevalence in this city, but by and large I'd be perfectly happy if they realised they were wrong, apologised appropriately, repaid their debts to society and their victims and stopped being Nazis. And didn't change over to some other flavour of bigot. That was the whole point of my PR efforts.
Well, not the whole point, but it was one of the potential benefits of the part about discrediting their beliefs. Not that all of them would get out even if things went as well as they possibly could, I wasn't that naively optimistic, but even one person turned away from that life was a good thing.
But that wasn't what I was researching.
What I was researching were the Empire's many, many capes. Thirteen known and currently active, far more than the local Protectorate. Exactly the same as the number of publicly known Protectorate ENE members and ENE Wards put together, actually, until Browbeat had come to the defence of Brockton Bay Central Bank with the rest of the kiddy league. More than twice as many as the Bad Boyz and Merchants put together.
Plus there were a whole bunch of villainous white supremacists who'd worked with them for a time and then moved on, but who could very easily come back. A fair number of former parts of that group had come back before. Meaning the effective Nazi cape pool was even bigger.
Seriously, why are there so many violently socially reactionary capes?
The violent part can probably be explained by the general combative tendencies of parahumans, even if that does raise further questions, but I have no explanation for the reactionary thing. Or all the non-capes for that matter. In all honesty, I'm not sure I want to know. On a personal level, I definitely don't want to know. I'm aware of the fact that understanding and empathy, combined with awareness, are important for helping people get out of extremist groups, or even preventing them from getting sucked in in the first place. I just don't know if I can do that for Nazism.
Part of the answer, though probably not the real one, lay with Kaiser, the local man who would be king. Or at least the local man who was the most on the nose about that desire. "Kaiser" doesn't mean "king", not exactly, but a monarchical title is a monarchical title. Really, it's incredibly obvious about his thirst for power. Still, say what you will about that twisted mass-murdering pile of faux noblesse-oblige and genocide encouragement, he's effective.
At acquiring minions, committing grievous acts of violence, petty warlordism, and making the world a more hateful place, that is. He may have inherited all that from his father, Allfather, the founder of the empire of lies and brutality Kaiser would inherit. To be honest, apart from their slightly different powers, there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the two Nazi bosses.
The similarities, on the other hand, are many. Wearing of full plate armour done in plain steel with engraving and shaping as the sole forms of decoration, tendency to lead from the front in the biggest battles to show strength, Hitleresque force of personality (particularly when giving speeches), pretences of civility and enlightenment while commanding an army of typically brutal neo-nazis, focus on PR and appearing "honourable", willingness to brutally murder people the instant they think nobody will retaliate, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
For their powers, Allfather summoned blades, usually swords, out of nowhere, with a great variety of options and types, and sent them flying in any direction he pleased, with unclear limitations he went to great lengths to conceal. Kaiser, meanwhile, needed a source of steel to work with, but once he had it he could generate a seemingly limitless amount more, up to and including blocking off entire streets, and not one at time at that. He was limited to growing blades off steel, but he could grow off any steel, including that which his power generated, and his speed and control were impressive.
Technically he could do iron as well, but that almost never came up. Steel was better symbolism, it was tougher, and it was a lot more available in a modern city. The PRT only knew cause he'd been asked once and demonstrated where they found out about it, and because it was a logical extension of his ability to work with all the different alloys of steel.
Both were probably also Brutes or unaffected by the weight of steel or something like that. No baseline human could pull off the feats of mobility they had, not in full plate. It took knights years of specialised training to be able to walk in that stuff, and there was a reason it was only ever really used on horseback. Sure, there were lighter designs that provided good protection, but the two would-be genocidal warlords didn't use those designs, and they did stuff that should be impossible even if they did.
A classic example of the pseudo-inheritability of parahuman abilities. Sort of like New Wave, but without the weirdness of Panacea's entirely different powerset and with a lot more bigotry, murder, and murder encouragement. There was even an older sister with more offence-oriented abilities than her brother, although Laserdream, unlike Iron Rain, probably wasn't killed by a rival gang or in the habit of murdering any minority members she saw via falling swords.
I feel like that would have been in the news or something.
Allfather was most likely dead as well. Nobody had seen him in years, and the PRT didn't have him. Probably died out of costume. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened, though for obvious reasons most cases of such would never be known.
Unless something had happened since last week, Kaiser was still up and hatecrimeing, more's the pity. Mostly, he didn't get his own hands dirty. He championed his legions of bigotry whenever a cape tried to stand up to them, and stood back the rest of the time, letting his minions do the day to day work of crushing those deemed inferior underfoot while he oversaw things and talked.
Unfortunately, he was good at talking. He'd kept the public from turning on him, held a dozen capes under his control without getting overthrown, managed to keep friendly relations with white supremacist capes and organisations across the country while exploiting them for his own benefit, all while being an explicit and open Nazi. Allfather had left him in a strong position, but he'd maintained and expanded it despite the best efforts of the PRT and his rival gangs.
It'd almost be impressive, if it wasn't done for such an utterly worthless cause. As it was, Kaiser was a blight on humanity and he'd more than earned the antipathy so many felt for him, despite any pretences of decency or honour he might put on.
A/N:Words, words, words. Only the start of the exposition and feelings regarding the Empire is in this chapter, but the entirety of Jacqueline's research results would be a very, very long chapter by Orderly standards, so I've split in two, and arranged for a pair of Interludes in between them.
"What can you tell me?" instead of "what do you know?" or "what have you learned?", because Doctor-Patient confidentiality regulations weren't something Emily wanted to mess with. If there was anything calamitous the regs would allow Emem Maina to share it.
"Quite a lot. Jacqueline gave me blanket permission to share with you."
Well, that was a whole lot more trusting than most capes. Not that Emily was all that surprised. Jacqueline Colere had been an unusual case from the beginning.
"You specifically, to be clear. Don't spread this around."
Okay, maybe a little bit surprised. And a little bit touched to be trusted like that, but she wouldn't say anything about it.
"First off, don't put Jacqueline in any more large meetings for a while if you can avoid it. She's had a serious run of bad luck with them lately and it's put her on edge."
Agent Stone had already told Emily as much, but a certain amount of information overlap was only to be expected. It was an inevitable product of bureaucracy. Personally, Emily suspected more on edge would be a more accurate way of putting it, considering, but there was no need to rub it in.
"Stone pulled her off the last of today's. Her Aura passes through walls, so she didn't really need to be in the room for it, and the same goes for the rest of those. I'll pass on the message that anything that can be handled with her outside the room or one-on-one with her should be done that way, at least for now."
In all honesty, Emily just wished she could do the same for herself. She suspected doing things that way would be far more productive. Still, making sure her subordinates felt like they were being heard was part of her job.
As was making sure that they actually were, since sometimes the multiple perspectives were actually important. So Emily needed to listen, despite not particularly wanting to. Jacqueline could get away with it because she didn't need to make the hard decisions.
And because she was fourteen. You had to make allowances for that, even if it wasn't Emily's best skill.
The doctor nodded. "That's good. Alice has a good head on her shoulders."
"She does. And far too much weight on them."
Which was largely Emily's fault, but Emily didn't have anywhere near enough agents under her, and Alice Stone was the only one qualified to deal with traumatized children. Just one more burden to bear on a grossly overloaded back.
"True, though she's not the only one. You really should take better care of yourself, Director."
"I'll rest when I'm dead."
Probably well before retirement age, but the job needed doing. It was an old argument, and there wasn't much point to rehashing it. Fortunately, Doctor Emem Maina could take a hint, even if she did glare just enough to make it clear the conversation would resume at a later date.
Emily looked forward to it. They both knew it wouldn't happen until things calmed down, and Emily loved when it was calm. Or at least hated it significantly less than when it was interesting.
But they really did have to move on. A nod, an acknowledgment that the delayed argument would be brought into being eventually, and the doctor went back on topic.
"Jacqueline Colere. What to say? You know I'm genuinely unsure when she triggered? Normally with a cape if you know their story it's obvious. The worst day of their life, when everything's awful and they just can't take it any more. Some of them don't talk about it, won't admit to it, but if they do, the effect it's had on them is hard to miss."
"Just like you and Ellisburg" went unsaid, but Emily heard it anyway. She was used to it.
"It definitely wasn't in that bathroom. She didn't fall unconscious, the two other capes in the room didn't fall unconscious, and she doesn't seem to care about the incident itself at all. That leaves post-Speakeasy, Leviathan's attack on Newfoundland, and the fire."
Really, it could have been any of them, but how important was it in the end?
"Do we really need to know? We've worked with capes who refused to speak about their triggers before."
Like Battery, Triumph, and Gallant, just to name a few. Most of the others had refused to do so more than once.
"I guess it doesn't matter which it was, not really. It could even have been all those things adding together when she finally let her emotional guard down one night, plus the stress of living in this town as she is.
"It's just that there's so much. I thought I was done thinking about Speakeasy when I finished my parahuman theory classes, and he was just the start. Her case isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it's an unpleasant reminder, you know? "
"All too well."
Emily tapped the nameplate on her desk. She hated that thing, but it summed up her current problems all too well.
Emily Piggot. Director, Parahuman Response Team, East North East Division
At least the doctor looked embarrassed enough at that. At least Emily didn't have to bring up her other nightmares.
There were a lot of bad things on Earth Bet. Every member of the PRT, and every member of its affiliated organizations, had to face that fact eventually. Jacqueline Colere wasn't the worst off, even if she'd seen far more than anybody, especially any child, should. "Should" had precious little to do with what was, or what would be. Only as much as they could make it, and that was never enough.
Nothing for it but to keep at the job.
She told the Doctor as much. Used her first name to make it more convincing. Used the first person plural. Emily didn't much care for speeches, but she'd made a fair number of them over the years. Part of being a Director. She wasn't as surprised by how much of it stuck in moments like these as she would have been, once upon a time.
Emily was surprised when Doctor Emem Maina giggled. Just a little, and she caught herself quickly, but it was definitely there.
"Sorry. It's just that that's almost exactly what Jacqueline told Sophia at lunch."
Emily raised an eyebrow, and waited for the woman in front of her to explain more.
Me too! Both the Wormverse and our own world are traumatic places to exist right now, so watching Jacqueline (and the people around her) establish a little bit of order amidst the chaos is soothing.
Me too! Both the Wormverse and our own world are traumatic places to exist right now, so watching Jacqueline (and the people around her) establish a little bit of order amidst the chaos is soothing.
Sad thing is, in canon Worm there are people genuinely trying and caring. It's just that never actually helps, because "it gets worse" is law. With Orderly, I'm trying to show people doing their best and helping others despite all the awfulness inherent to the setting, and not having that backfire on everybody involved just because things need to be bleak and cynical.
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