41-5 Interception (Interludes: Interrogation Room)
New
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Miss Militia:
In Hannah's judgement, "Grue" was taking the news about just who his employer was and what that wretched excuse for a human being had been doing (if not precisely who it had been done to, neither Sophia nor Jacqueline nor any of the other victims needed that spread around) about as well as any decent human being in his position reasonably could have.
By which she meant he clearly believed it (at least after a certain amount of proof was shared), was as viscerally repulsed by Coil's actions as he should have been, and wasn't trying to push the blame for his own actions on anybody else as he broke down.
Hannah wasn't without pity for the boy. As much as he'd hurt people, and as much as he should have known that nobody secretly sponsored a team of underage supervillains for benevolent purposes, she knew Brian Laborn had never meant for this to happen.
(Especially considering his sister, the one Coil had promised to help him get custody of, fit the profile of Coil's apparent preferred victims almost perfectly. Hannah hadn't explicitly mentioned that, but it evidently hadn't been hard for him to put the pieces together.)
Discovering that one was party (or was expected to be party) to torturing children had a way of forcing the best out of people, when they didn't darken their souls irredeemably by knuckling under and accepting it. Hannah knew that the hard way.
(In more than one of the hard ways, actually. But that's another story, one that she doesn't like to think about unless she really has to.)
Idealistically speaking, Hannah's job today was to give Brian the chance to make the right choice. Hannah believed she was doing exactly that.
More cynically, her job was to exploit his guilt and the pressure of the situation to manipulate him into doing what the PRT wanted. Hannah couldn't exactly deny that she was doing that too.
It wasn't about to stop her. That "what the PRT wanted" was for him to stop making things worse for everybody, himself and the sister he'd supposedly gone into supervillainy for included, and start contributing positively to society justified it pretty well.
So Hannah supported Brian Laborn through his breakdown as best she could telling him that it was going to be okay, that he could still make things right, that he didn't have to worry about Coil any more.
Expectedly, that did take more than a few minutes. But Hannah was prepared for that. She waited until she had his full attention to start laying things out. And she was fully prepared to answer any questions he might have along the way.
Brian:
"What happened to Coil?"
Brian honestly wasn't sure why that was the first coherent question to force its way through the shock and confusion and never quite explicitly acknowledged tears. It wasn't like there were any good answers, and if he couldn't trust Miss Militia when she said he wouldn't have to worry about the [bear] again he probably couldn't trust whatever she responded with.
"A kill order was issued, and one of our capes fulfilled it. Trust me when I say you don't want all the gory details."
Which meant it wasn't Miss Militia who did it, not with the slight but present distaste for whatever happened in her voice. She didn't mind that Coil was dead (and Brian really couldn't blame her), but she didn't like how it happened. If she'd been the one to do it, Brian was willing to bet it would have been as simple and quick as a bullet between the eyes.
Maybe it had been Assault, or possibly Battery: Brian had a general idea what tended to happen when Brutes of their level didn't hold back against squishy humans. Or perhaps Shadow Stalker had gotten vindictive, the "ex" vigilante was harsh enough under normal circumstances that Brian didn't want to think about what she'd do if given free rein against somebody who'd crossed as many lines as Coil had. Or it could have just about any of the others, a lot of powers could get very messy indeed if the parahuman in question was so inclined.
In theory, it didn't matter. The important thing was that Coil was dead, and would never threaten anybody Brian cared about again.
In practice, Brian had crossed enough lines himself that he was morbidly curious about what would happen if he ever really drew the wrath of the PRT. He realised, belatedly, that that was why he'd asked what happened.
But finding out was less important than not drawing said wrath, so Brian dropped the subject and asked (without ever quite explicitly asking, in case Miss Militia took it as an aspersion on her character) how he could avoid that.
And if he could get Aisha somewhere safer than their mom's custody and have a little less to feel guilty about, that'd be great too.
Alice Stone:
Everything was going according to plan, from what Alice could see and hear from the other side of the one-way glass. She wasn't fully recovered from the complicated events of yesterday, she'd only awoken half an hour ago and wasn't even medically cleared for duty yet, but she wasn't about to miss this.
Honestly, she probably could have handled it herself, but it was a needless risk and Miss Militia was more than up for the job. The Blaster was the better choice, really, if only for the way the sudden escalation to the Deputy Leader of the local Protectorate conveyed just how serious things were.
It was probably overkill, in the end. Brian Laborn, like most teenagers, wasn't nearly as complicated as he thought he was. By this point his thought process was centered around three big levers: his fear of what the PRT could do to him (augmented by the way he knew they were arguably justified in at least some level of harshness), his guilt (both in his own actions and, now, in his complicity in Coil's), and his concern for one Aisha Laborn.
(Who, in all honesty, seemed to need it. Alice didn't doubt that in a decade the girl would be entirely capable of taking care of herself, but as of now she was in that dangerous state where she only thought she could, and Alice didn't disagree with Brian's assessments of the parents who should have been doing the taking-care-of. It was a volatile combination anywhere, let alone for an African-American in Brockton Bay.)
Alice's, and now Miss Militia's, job was to weave those three motives together and get Brian to not only sign up to be an official "hero", but also at least try his best to live up to what that was supposed to mean.
Somewhere else. Between his distinctive powerset, the way the last attempt at supervising probation had gone and the extremely poor first impression he'd made on the Wards, trying to rebrand "Grue" as a hero in Brockton Bay would be a nightmare on several levels. Alice didn't expect much resistance to that: it wasn't like there was much tying him to the city besides Aisha, and with the ABB basically destroyed as a credible organisation the Empire would undoubtedly become even more of a threat than they already were soon enough.
And now Brian Laborn would leave in a heartbeat, if only he could take Aisha with him. And the PRT was prepared to let him have it. Not without conditions, of course, but nothing unreasonable.
It would, of course, have to be Aisha's decision to go. The PRT simply couldn't move children (who weren't convicted supervillains) around the country against their will. That said limitation was a legal and ethical one rather than a matter of physical or practical incapability didn't make it any less real.
Beyond that, Brian would have to undergo a few months of carefully monitored probation and training until he was a legal adult, then serve at least a year in the Protectorate under only slightly less scrutiny. His salary and any merchandising profits he made would be garnished slightly to repay those he'd hurt, and he'd have significantly less control over matters like cape names, costumes, and appearances than the Protectorate usually gave their heroes. And, of course, custody of Aisha would be shared with a PRT approved guardian until at least Brian's eighteenth birthday. (And, unless Brian managed to clean up his act dramatically, which in all honesty wouldn't be entirely unexpected, probably quite a bit longer than that.)
Brian could even pick where he wanted to go, albeit from the rather short list of departments that were interested and were confident they could handle him.
It wasn't a particularly harsh deal. A lot of people would say it was a lot nicer than the teenager deserved, and Alice couldn't say she entirely disagreed. It was, however, the deal most likely to turn Brian Laborn into a hero at least somewhat worth the name, and Alice Stone knew better than most just how badly those were needed.
Nothing would be signed today, in the end. Brian would be given a few days to think about things, to consult with an attorney, and to talk with any family members he wanted to talk to before any sort of deadline came.
The deal wasn't even the only option being laid out: there was another deal available that would simply return Brian Laborn to civilian life in a year with his record sealed, not to return to capehood. And no effort had been made to hide the fact that he could escape from any normal prison or juvenile detention and return to supervillainy, or simply take his chances with the courts. He had choices.
But only one choice provided a ready-made way to redeem himself, in his own eyes or those of others. Only one choice would give the PRT no reason to think ill of him. And only one choice would provide him the chance to personally make sure his little sister was safe.
And in the end, as important as it was that Brian Laborn be given the full scope of his choices and the chance to properly consider them, as important as it was that it was a choice (and an informed one at that), Alice Stone knew there was really only one choice Brian Laborn could possibly make.
In Hannah's judgement, "Grue" was taking the news about just who his employer was and what that wretched excuse for a human being had been doing (if not precisely who it had been done to, neither Sophia nor Jacqueline nor any of the other victims needed that spread around) about as well as any decent human being in his position reasonably could have.
By which she meant he clearly believed it (at least after a certain amount of proof was shared), was as viscerally repulsed by Coil's actions as he should have been, and wasn't trying to push the blame for his own actions on anybody else as he broke down.
Hannah wasn't without pity for the boy. As much as he'd hurt people, and as much as he should have known that nobody secretly sponsored a team of underage supervillains for benevolent purposes, she knew Brian Laborn had never meant for this to happen.
(Especially considering his sister, the one Coil had promised to help him get custody of, fit the profile of Coil's apparent preferred victims almost perfectly. Hannah hadn't explicitly mentioned that, but it evidently hadn't been hard for him to put the pieces together.)
Discovering that one was party (or was expected to be party) to torturing children had a way of forcing the best out of people, when they didn't darken their souls irredeemably by knuckling under and accepting it. Hannah knew that the hard way.
(In more than one of the hard ways, actually. But that's another story, one that she doesn't like to think about unless she really has to.)
Idealistically speaking, Hannah's job today was to give Brian the chance to make the right choice. Hannah believed she was doing exactly that.
More cynically, her job was to exploit his guilt and the pressure of the situation to manipulate him into doing what the PRT wanted. Hannah couldn't exactly deny that she was doing that too.
It wasn't about to stop her. That "what the PRT wanted" was for him to stop making things worse for everybody, himself and the sister he'd supposedly gone into supervillainy for included, and start contributing positively to society justified it pretty well.
So Hannah supported Brian Laborn through his breakdown as best she could telling him that it was going to be okay, that he could still make things right, that he didn't have to worry about Coil any more.
Expectedly, that did take more than a few minutes. But Hannah was prepared for that. She waited until she had his full attention to start laying things out. And she was fully prepared to answer any questions he might have along the way.
Brian:
"What happened to Coil?"
Brian honestly wasn't sure why that was the first coherent question to force its way through the shock and confusion and never quite explicitly acknowledged tears. It wasn't like there were any good answers, and if he couldn't trust Miss Militia when she said he wouldn't have to worry about the [bear] again he probably couldn't trust whatever she responded with.
"A kill order was issued, and one of our capes fulfilled it. Trust me when I say you don't want all the gory details."
Which meant it wasn't Miss Militia who did it, not with the slight but present distaste for whatever happened in her voice. She didn't mind that Coil was dead (and Brian really couldn't blame her), but she didn't like how it happened. If she'd been the one to do it, Brian was willing to bet it would have been as simple and quick as a bullet between the eyes.
Maybe it had been Assault, or possibly Battery: Brian had a general idea what tended to happen when Brutes of their level didn't hold back against squishy humans. Or perhaps Shadow Stalker had gotten vindictive, the "ex" vigilante was harsh enough under normal circumstances that Brian didn't want to think about what she'd do if given free rein against somebody who'd crossed as many lines as Coil had. Or it could have just about any of the others, a lot of powers could get very messy indeed if the parahuman in question was so inclined.
In theory, it didn't matter. The important thing was that Coil was dead, and would never threaten anybody Brian cared about again.
In practice, Brian had crossed enough lines himself that he was morbidly curious about what would happen if he ever really drew the wrath of the PRT. He realised, belatedly, that that was why he'd asked what happened.
But finding out was less important than not drawing said wrath, so Brian dropped the subject and asked (without ever quite explicitly asking, in case Miss Militia took it as an aspersion on her character) how he could avoid that.
And if he could get Aisha somewhere safer than their mom's custody and have a little less to feel guilty about, that'd be great too.
Alice Stone:
Everything was going according to plan, from what Alice could see and hear from the other side of the one-way glass. She wasn't fully recovered from the complicated events of yesterday, she'd only awoken half an hour ago and wasn't even medically cleared for duty yet, but she wasn't about to miss this.
Honestly, she probably could have handled it herself, but it was a needless risk and Miss Militia was more than up for the job. The Blaster was the better choice, really, if only for the way the sudden escalation to the Deputy Leader of the local Protectorate conveyed just how serious things were.
It was probably overkill, in the end. Brian Laborn, like most teenagers, wasn't nearly as complicated as he thought he was. By this point his thought process was centered around three big levers: his fear of what the PRT could do to him (augmented by the way he knew they were arguably justified in at least some level of harshness), his guilt (both in his own actions and, now, in his complicity in Coil's), and his concern for one Aisha Laborn.
(Who, in all honesty, seemed to need it. Alice didn't doubt that in a decade the girl would be entirely capable of taking care of herself, but as of now she was in that dangerous state where she only thought she could, and Alice didn't disagree with Brian's assessments of the parents who should have been doing the taking-care-of. It was a volatile combination anywhere, let alone for an African-American in Brockton Bay.)
Alice's, and now Miss Militia's, job was to weave those three motives together and get Brian to not only sign up to be an official "hero", but also at least try his best to live up to what that was supposed to mean.
Somewhere else. Between his distinctive powerset, the way the last attempt at supervising probation had gone and the extremely poor first impression he'd made on the Wards, trying to rebrand "Grue" as a hero in Brockton Bay would be a nightmare on several levels. Alice didn't expect much resistance to that: it wasn't like there was much tying him to the city besides Aisha, and with the ABB basically destroyed as a credible organisation the Empire would undoubtedly become even more of a threat than they already were soon enough.
And now Brian Laborn would leave in a heartbeat, if only he could take Aisha with him. And the PRT was prepared to let him have it. Not without conditions, of course, but nothing unreasonable.
It would, of course, have to be Aisha's decision to go. The PRT simply couldn't move children (who weren't convicted supervillains) around the country against their will. That said limitation was a legal and ethical one rather than a matter of physical or practical incapability didn't make it any less real.
Beyond that, Brian would have to undergo a few months of carefully monitored probation and training until he was a legal adult, then serve at least a year in the Protectorate under only slightly less scrutiny. His salary and any merchandising profits he made would be garnished slightly to repay those he'd hurt, and he'd have significantly less control over matters like cape names, costumes, and appearances than the Protectorate usually gave their heroes. And, of course, custody of Aisha would be shared with a PRT approved guardian until at least Brian's eighteenth birthday. (And, unless Brian managed to clean up his act dramatically, which in all honesty wouldn't be entirely unexpected, probably quite a bit longer than that.)
Brian could even pick where he wanted to go, albeit from the rather short list of departments that were interested and were confident they could handle him.
It wasn't a particularly harsh deal. A lot of people would say it was a lot nicer than the teenager deserved, and Alice couldn't say she entirely disagreed. It was, however, the deal most likely to turn Brian Laborn into a hero at least somewhat worth the name, and Alice Stone knew better than most just how badly those were needed.
Nothing would be signed today, in the end. Brian would be given a few days to think about things, to consult with an attorney, and to talk with any family members he wanted to talk to before any sort of deadline came.
The deal wasn't even the only option being laid out: there was another deal available that would simply return Brian Laborn to civilian life in a year with his record sealed, not to return to capehood. And no effort had been made to hide the fact that he could escape from any normal prison or juvenile detention and return to supervillainy, or simply take his chances with the courts. He had choices.
But only one choice provided a ready-made way to redeem himself, in his own eyes or those of others. Only one choice would give the PRT no reason to think ill of him. And only one choice would provide him the chance to personally make sure his little sister was safe.
And in the end, as important as it was that Brian Laborn be given the full scope of his choices and the chance to properly consider them, as important as it was that it was a choice (and an informed one at that), Alice Stone knew there was really only one choice Brian Laborn could possibly make.
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