0800 Tuesday 11 January 2011
Taylor looked up at the imposing PRT building. 14 stories of gleaming glass, an impassive facade to the rest of the world. For some reason, it made her nervous. Fortunately, they didn't have to enter through the front lobby. The instructions they'd been given led them to the gym on the other side of the block.
"We're here to see Hannah," Danny told the clerk, who nodded in response.
"Here's a key for the locker, miss," he said. "There is a door at the end of the hall by the locker room. Press the button there when you've changed."
They'd been told they'd need a basic costume for the appointment, which meant a domino mask, and some clothes that could be disposed of afterward if needed. Taylor had gone for the basics – the mask, one of her larger but still ill-fitting t-shirts, sweat pants, and cheap sneakers. Not the kind of thing she'd want to be out heroing in, but good enough for this. Besides, it was also comfortable, but she had to be careful she didn't inhale too deeply. Even if the shirt gave way, there was still the sports bra underneath the top.
Her father was waiting for her in the hallway outside the locker rooms. "Ready, Taylor?" he asked.
"Boldly our hero sallies forth into the lair of the beast..." she intoned, before breaking into giggles. "Yeah, I'm ready," she continued. "Nervous as all heck, but ready."
With that, She pressed the button.
There was a buzz, and an attendant opened the door from the other side. "Go down the stairs at the end of the hallway, and follow the passageway to its end," he instructed. "Someone will meet you at the door there."
- - - - - - - - - -
Based on what she had to endure next, Taylor was sure that the sign on the door should have read "Abandon Hope, All Who Enter." With very little preamble, they were lead into the legal offices and handed all the forms necessary for power testing, Wards membership, and Branding.
Why are there so many Non-disclosure Agreements?" complained Taylor. "It looks like I'll have to fill out paperwork to make a phone call, use the bathroom, or eat lunch!"
The assistant from the legal office chuckled. "It would seem like it, right?" She replied, smiling. "You'll eventually learn the identities of your teammates, possibly those of the local protectorate. Most of that pile of paperwork is for that. Another portion of that pile is for You and your Father to review at home. There are some specific items pertaining to you that I'm not privy to. Someone above my pay grade will explain that to you."
"The important ones to fill out today are the releases for power testing, which you've already done, the NDAs for Wards' identities, and Wards paperwork." The assistant thumbed through the pile of paperwork. "It looks like you're just about done."
The intercom on the phone buzzed. Picking it up, the assistant had a short, quiet discussion with someone on the other end. Taylor had just finished reading and signing the last piece of paperwork, while her father had put the envelope containing the forms that they needed to review at home into his briefcase.
"That is excellent timing," noted the assistant. "The Director is ready to see you now."
- - - - - - - - - -
The office of the director, Protectorate ENE, was likened by many to be the lair of some legendary monster; Many went in, none came out unscathed. The truth, as Taylor found out, wasn't that far off.
"We've had to deal with the Director on occasion," noted Danny. "She's very good at her job, she has a low tolerance for shenanigans, and surprisingly for her job, low tolerance for parahumans."
"So, I shouldn't talk unless spoken to, answer honestly, and be polite?" asked Taylor, kind of nervous about the encounter.
"That, in general, is a good rule," noted the assistant, "for anybody. Director Piggot has her own issues but is generally fair. Don't waste her time, and you should escape with only minor injuries." The last was said with a smile.
With that, the door opened, and they went in.
The view from the windows was impressive, showing most of the city and the boardwalk, and a clear view of the decaying waterfront, and the rusting hulk of the tanker that blocked the main channel into the harbor. The rig, sitting out in the bay was clearly seen as well.
"Mr. Hebert, Taylor," said the director, seated behind an unusually clean desk," Please, be seated, and we'll get started." Seated in front of the desk was one of the leaders of Brockton Bay's Protectorate team, Miss Militia.
"First, the PRT, Protectorate, and the Wards would like to officially apologize for the actions of one of its members, which caused the incident. You know her as Sophia Hess, who is the Ward, Shadow Stalker."
Miss Militia took over. "Our investigation into Ms. Hess' activities have uncovered multiple violations of her probation, along with multiple counts of aggravated assault and attempted manslaughter. The evidence provided by you, your anonymous 3rd party, and Miss Clements has pretty much assured that she and her accomplice, Emma Barnes, will be tried as adults. Ms. Hess was moved into our detention block and is awaiting trial. Emma is under house arrest, also awaiting trial."
"The contents of Sophia's ward trust fund will be transferred into a trust fund in your name. We will understand if you wish to not join the wards after learning about this, the trust fund and any compensation we make will still be yours." The director stated. "To that end, we will offer assistance with getting entry into Arcadia, along with financial assistance. Also, your health care expenses for the next 3 years will be handled by the PRT. And finally, One-half of the recovered Wards payments to Winslow High School is yours as financial compensation." With that, she pushed a folder over to Miss Militia, who handed it to Danny, who began reading.
The agreement was short and to the point. While the compensation wasn't much from the PRT, some of the benefits were outstanding. "You'll understand that I'll want to consult our lawyer about this before signing, just to make sure everything is above board."
"I understand perfectly, Mr. Hebert." director Piggot responded. "Please note that Brockton Bay's board of education is offering compensation as well, but you'll have to handle that. We did advise them to be generous since they are as much at fault as we are in the matter."
"I think, that despite all this," Taylor said quietly, "I'd still like to go forward with Ward's membership. I realize that Shadow Stalker isn't like the rest of the Wards."
"I agree with my daughter," said Danny, nodding. "We went through the options, and came to the conclusion the despite all the issues, the Wards program was the best option."
"We'll let you continue the process, then," noted Miss Militia, as she stood." You've got some calls to make, Mr. Hebert, and Taylor has her power testing to undergo."
v^v^v^v^v
Danny was lead to a waiting room by the assistant, where he could fax copies of the agreements over to the DWU's legal team, while Taylor was lead down to testing room #1 by one of the local Protectorate. Battery was one of the more approachable members of the local team, being friendly and outgoing. Her costume was a dark green, which had something resembling circuit board traces on it. Her face was mostly covered by a matching helmet and mirrored visor, though part of her brown hair could be seen under the helmet.
Their first stop was a cafeteria. Battery had given Taylor a card that would cover her lunch, and the hour was spent, mainly in commiseration about having to fill out paperwork, and light conversation. Then, as they finished, the conversation continued as they worked their way downstairs.
"...And here we are." Battery had been making small talk on the way down, making it perfectly clear she didn't want to know Taylor's name. Battery had groused "...that it's hard to get the newbies to look up to you when they're taller than you are...". She had let Taylor know with a smile that she was only gently ribbing her. "I'll be watching from the observation booth," she said, pointing to a set of windows halfway up the wall. "Don't worry about breaking anything in here, there's a couple of forcefields to protect everyone."
With that, Taylor found herself in the room with several people in white lab coats.
"Since you've stated here that you have a changer ability, we'll need to establish a baseline, and work our way up from there..." noted one of the lab techs...
The next hour was basically a more advanced version of what Taylor and her father had done a couple days prior. Lift weights, check reaction times and hand-eye coordination, and endurance. The checks that the PRT could do, that Taylor couldn't, were durability and penetration resistance.
Panacea had arrived soon after she had completed the basic physical tests, which had shown some improvement in her physical strength and stamina, less so in her hand-eye coordination and speed. Next up was impact resistance.
v^v^v^v^v
Taylor picked herself up off the floor. "Ow," she groaned, "I feel like I've just been hit by a truck." Amy was already checking her over. "No internal injuries, minor bruising, and a sprained ankle." She looked impressed. "May I have your permission to heal up the ankle and bruises?"
Taylor nodded, watching as the healer applied her power. Again, the outflow of energy, which concentrated around her injuries, which healed, and then flowed back to Panacea.
Another testing tech piped up from the control console. "Actually, that was actually supposed to be a car," he said sheepishly.
"Supposed to be?" was Taylor's somewhat stressed reply. "You mean I just took the equivalent impact of a pickup truck?"
"No," explained the tech," you just took the equivalent impact of a loaded semi tractor-trailer at 60 miles per hour. A normal person would have been turned into salsa with that."
Taylor looked down at herself. It had hurt quite a bit, but thanks to Panacea, she wouldn't have any bruises. Then, she started to shake a little bit as the adrenaline wore off. "I... think I need to sit down." Panacea helped Taylor over to a bench.
"We'll take a break for a moment then," said the first lab tech. "That, and I need to talk to my assistant..."
v^v^v^v^v
Taylor got to sit for a bit, while the two assistants had a shouting match just outside the testing chamber door. A couple of medical types had been checking her over, including a portable scanning device that verified that she had no broken bones, and was in generally good health. Panacea looked kind of miffed that they would double-check, but it was standard procedure.
The first lab tech came over to Taylor. "We're very sorry, but we've appeared to have a malfunction with the test gear, even though it had been checked over for use this morning. We won't be able to do equivalent tests on your changer form..."
"Forms," said Taylor absentmindedly.
"Excuse me?"
"I have two changer forms."
The lead tech scribbled on his clipboard for a bit. "So Noted. Are there any other abilities you have like this that we need to test before we move on?"
"It appears that I have several limited uses per day powers that do various effects," explained Taylor. "One of the more useful ones is this..." with that, she reached out to touch a bruise on Panacea's hand. It was one of the better-known things about the healer is that she couldn't heal herself. "May I?" she asked – it seemed the right thing to do, mainly because Panacea herself had done so.
"You may," answered the healer. She watched as Taylor reached out and touched her hand, and said a pleasant-sounding word in a gentle voice. The bruises around the one she touched faded away while the tech watched, along with the PRT medical personnel.
"Thank you," said Amy.
"You're' welcome," she replied. "It doesn't do much," noted Taylor, "heal up minor things, help with headaches... real small stuff. I have 5 others I know what they do as well. I've got about 40 in total, some of which appear to be destructive... Very destructive. I haven't figured out how to use them yet. There are a couple more that I think are more effective healing, but I'm not sure..."
More scribbling on the clipboard. "So what do some of the ones you've figured out how to use safely do?"
"Could you turn down the lights? You will also want to put on some dark glasses..." asked Taylor.
Dark eye goggles were put on by the staff out on the floor, and the lights dimmed.
"I can either generate a flash of light," she said, demonstrating. A flash nearly as bright as a strobe light briefly illuminated the room. "Or, I can generate a more constant, lower level of light as well." The area around Taylor was illuminated by the light equivalent to a 40W light bulb – enough light to see by in the immediate area, but not a lot of light.
"Interesting," noted the other testing technician, who was running scanning equipment. "No IR or UV radiation. Just visible light."
- - - - - - - - - -
Other moments from Taylor's power testing that the observers found memorable...
"Whitney?" Asked Franklin, yawning.
"What?" Whitney was also yawning mightily as he answered.
"I think It's a good time to take a nap..." was Franklin's reply as he laid down to sleep on the floor, as Whitney joined him.
Up in the booth, Battery and the other three assistants all chuckled.
- - - - - - - - - -
FOOM!
With a flash, a ball of fire erupted out on the testing floor.
"Yeah!" shouted Whitney in excitement.
"Really, compared to that cement truck," noted Franklin, "That was only a 3 or 4."
He then reached over and pinched off a bit of his companion's hair that was smoldering.
- - - - - - - - - -
Very few people can describe the sound of a lightning bolt as it strikes. All the people on the floor knew was that there was an almighty
BANG! Which caused the testing chamber to ring like a very large bell as the blast waves rebounded off the walls multiple times.
Fortunately, the only ones out on the floor were Taylor, Whitney, and Franklin. Even then, the latter two were in an enclosed space to observe.
"Now that was more like it," noted Franklin, writing down his observations.
"Yeah," replied his partner. "However, the director is gonna be pissed."
"Is that because the test subject blew through the force field into the wall, nearly melting a panel of very expensive to replace armor plating?"
Whitney nodded like his head was on a bobblehead doll. "That and she asked us not to break things again."
- - - - - - - - - -
"Hi, I'm Elizabeth, and I'm taking over for Franklin and Whitney as the Director wanted to have words with them." She flipped over a couple pages on the clipboard. "Since we can't test any more destructive powers, we've decided to ask you to demonstrate your changer powers...Eeep!"
When the female researcher asked Taylor to demonstrate, she switched to the hybrid form. Then, she realized that her clothes may not have survived the transformation. She glanced down and was somewhat relieved that her shirt had become something more like a sports bra, and her pants more like shorts. Her shoes and her domino mask had completely disappeared.
"That's...impressive?" Elizabeth noted. "You have wings, are they functional?"
Taylor gave a couple of gentle flaps and was soon flying lazy laps around the large room.
"We'll have to arrange for flight testing, then to see what your performance limits are," Elizabeth added.
"Sound's good to me," Taylor replied, nodding. "If there are any classes I should take on it, I'd like to get them out of the way so I have an idea of what I'm doing in the air."
"That's a very good idea."
- - - - - - - - - -
They ran through the physical stuff again, though they didn't retest her impact resistance. She was significantly stronger, and a little bit faster because of her longer stride. Her stamina was way up, as she jogged laps around the room without tiring at all.
"OK, let's see the second changer for... Oh my gawd...." with that, Elizabeth fainted.
Up in the booth, Battery said it best. "Powers are Bullshit."
She keyed the intercom, hoping it still worked after the high-intensity electrical discharge. "I think we're done for today," she announced. "If you'd like to change back, we'll go over out preliminary results with you in a bit."