Exactly how capable is Taylor right now? If teeth brushing is so difficult, how is she getting onto the toilet by herself?
Speaking from experience, simple things like putting on socks and pants, using the toilet, and showering will be impossible without aid for upwards of a month. There are tools for some tasks, like sock aids, shoehorns, reachers/grabbers/sponge sticks, shower/toilet chairs, safety hand bars, etc. She'll still need someone during the day to help her on/off the wheelchair for ~2 weeks.
Maybe you can bring some of the Dockworkers in to help watch her, and add handrails/wheelchair ramps to the house? According to the WoG Post there isn't a shower downstairs. She'll need carried upstairs or settle for sponge baths. There's also the issue of the front door stairs. They'll likely need a wheelchair ramp installed or an automatic garage door opener. That's assuming that her wheelchair can get in through the inner garage door.
Thank you very much for the information! Also, I am sorry you had that experience. It has actually been one and a half weeks since the healing, and Panacea did mess with her metabolism and musculature some to help her recover faster, but absolutely you are right and I appreciate the information. For now, you should assume that her dad helped her a bit, but for things in private her dad has asked Lacy and other female dockworkers to come help out. Yes, this is absolutely a retcon. But I don't want to make this too much about the difficulties of being highly immobile, beyond the emotional impact. Discussing exactly how she goes to the bathroom is just going to get tedious.
However, you will note that her Dad has not been going to work: he has taken a break to be on hand for Taylor and also construct various useful things around the house. The front step isn't getting fixed, but he did install a ramp over them.
Overall, I am planning that Taylor will stand in another week and walk in two. Past that, she'll be putting in a lot of work to regain full function, but Panacea's adjustments will wear off. (Panacea doesn't like to advertise that she's a biokinetic, so she never mentioned these adjustments, but she can make them easily and without being noticed, so she does.)
The point is, this fanfic is not mainly about Taylor dealing with physical disability. It's going to be, for at least some time, a Bureaucrat Wards Taylor doing spycraft in a less-than-friendly world.
A/N: Sorry about the long period of time before the update, it took me a while to get going with this because I got distracted by other things in life. But SysAdmin is back, and here to stay. Also, yes. Wyrm is what I have decided to rename Python. Haha look at me I am so funny.
All the lovely helpful people talking about programming on internet forums love to tell you why everyone should learn to code. "Coding is like learning a new language!" they proclaim. "Coding helps you think in new ways!" they expound. "If you learn to program, you not only get a valuable skill in the modern economy, but also improve your ability to formulate plans and solve problems." I've heard that one at least three times on StackOverflow alone.
But none of them ever mention the dreams.
Did you know that if you spend four hours after dinner (a delicious bean-based sloppy joe, which is maybe partly at fault?) doing nothing other than solving Project Euler problems in C++, you start seeing semicolons behind your eyelids when you finally close them? I woke up twice in the night in a cold sweat, with memories of a glowing screen and inscrutable type errors glowering in my amygdala. I wish I could have just programmed it in Wyrm, with its intuitive syntax and multitudinous packages, but nooooo, I had to decide it was time to face the reality of memory allocation.
Ugh.
Honestly, though, it's worth learning. Not because any regular programming I do won't be possible in Wyrm – far from it. Dragon's programming language is a beautiful thing, and she's my new favorite tinker. (Sorry Armsmaster – you'll always have a place in my heart. And underwear drawer, I guess. What was that marketing agency thinking‽) Wyrm is a high-level programming language, though: it can play with files all you like, but it can't directly reach out and touch the bytes. Why would you need to, unless you want to pull root-level shenanigans that aren't supposed to be allowed, or read and analyze supposedly deleted data?
But me and my power, we do need to play in the jungle gym of ones and zeros. It's where we thrive. And yes: nothing is stopping me from just writing Wyrm code to do simple file searches and posting and editing, and I'll do plenty of that. But for those unique situations where people hide or delete evidence, or where I need to change a security system or twist a backdoor to my benefit?
Nothing will do but C++.
And Assembly, I guess, but I'm not crazy.
So I spent last night doing my level best to learn it and make a few useful snippets of code. It's part of the plan. See, I've had a couple of days to think about it, not to mention the sleepless clarity of 5 A.M. this morning. The trouble is, I can join the PRT and protect people, and I'd be a hero, but not a hero.
Mom taught me that. Not on purpose, I don't think, although for all her warmth I wouldn't put a little sneakiness past her. She showed me what a hero was when she let me read To Kill a Mockingbird. She showed me what a hero was when she accidentally left 1984 out on the coffee table and I snuck it to my room and read it cover to cover.
She showed me what it meant to be a hero when she stood up for her student, whose allegations of rape against a wealthy donor's kid were ignored by the university.
It just took me this long to learn what she'd taught me. Would she be proud, or disappointed?
The university didn't appreciate what she'd done, of course. They didn't dare to retaliate visibly, but Mom never quite got tenure, and I heard her crying in the kitchen with Dad a few times. But the student? She was still a student, and that rapist's name got plastered all over the media. The Stansfields had never quite made up for that black mark on their reputation.
So, what is the difference? What separates a hero from a hero? After all, the PRT fights back the encroachment of crime, and Brocton Bay University fights the even more dangerous encroachment of ignorance. What is that quality they imitate, though it floats beyond their reach? Mom knew, and now I know. Martin Luther King knew it, too, as he sat in Birmingham Jail: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." A hero may compromise with crime and may parley with practicality. A hero makes alliances with other heroes, and keeps them even when dishonesty and minor evil is required, for they work towards the common good. Society runs on heroes, functions only because those many practical good men do something, and evil does not triumph.
But sometimes compromise is too damning, too dirty to be permitted. Sometimes hiding the truth to maintain the trust of the public is like building a dam with no outlet. So we also need heroes, like my mother or MLK or Atticus Finch. People who fight not for the greater good, but for the greatest. Those who champion honesty, transparency, and freedom. And nobody is safe from such people. Not villains, not heroes, not the PRT or the United States government or anyone at all. As a small child, and even now, I am a fan of the Protectorate. But I am also a citizen of the Bay, and I can see the crumbling walls and the gang tags. MLK's imprisoned words again put it best:
"So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent—and often even vocal—sanction of things as they are."
And as I consider his words, a poem I'd read years ago becomes the forefront of my consciousness, and I am certain about what I will do.
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."
I won't just be a Ward, a hero working to fix the systems from within. I'll be a hero. And if they call me a villain, it will only betray their own myopia.
My alarm rings, jarring me out of contemplation – it's time for morning physical therapy. I'm almost strong enough to stand if assisted, I think. The doctor says it should only be a few more days. But it's still so tiring.
Ugh.
Alright. It's time. I've done physical therapy, moved, stretched, almost got out of the chair. Lacey came over and helped me "shower", which I appreciate. She's proof that the Protectorate doesn't have a monopoly on heroes. And when I got done, Dad had breakfast made for us both. Honestly, you wouldn't think the barest bit of physical activity that the doctor orders should count as a workout, but I'm always sore after it, and these days I'm far more hungry than I used to be. I've put on maybe ten pounds in the last week, and somehow I didn't even notice. Just thinking about that makes me feel fat, but I touch my stomach and I still feel like paper layered over organs, though now it feels like there's a bit of muscle in the way, actually.
Anyway, it's time. Not to go visit the PRT, or to take Armsmaster's phone call. I guess Watchdog isn't done chewing. They must have a pretty long queue. Queue's a funny word – so many vowels, and they're all useless. I'm stalling.
Nothing for it. Just got to log into my computer, log into PHO, access the central server, and introduce myself. Untraceably, of course, but that's easy when you have the kind of access I do. Here goes.
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♦ Topic: A Modest Introduction
In: Boards ► Boston ► New Capes ► Cape Verification
Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Posted On Jan 20th 2011:
Hey everyone, I'm Sudo, a new cape in Boston. This thread is by way of introduction and verification. I won't say too much about the nature of my powers, just that I know more than you want me to, and I'm not a tinker. I am a hero, by which I mean that I fight against injustice. I'll be seeking out corruption and abuse of power, then shining a light on it for all to see.
(Showing page 1 of 58)
►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Hey, how'd you get that tag? I only got mine after the mods had a fit over my username. Also, speaking of mods, you know you gotta post some kinda proof, if you're on this board, right? Wait, how'd you get verified already with no proof?
►Tin_Mother (Moderator) (Banned)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Procto is right, @Sudo. You aren't allowed to make a post here with no proof. I suggest a photo in costume, if you've been seen around, or some kind of demonstration of your powers. I'm giving you a warning, and I'd like to have a stern talk with whichever mod gave you those tags.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
No thank you on the warning, @Tin_Mother, and I unfortunately can't tell you which mod it was.
►Tin_Mother (Moderator) (Banned)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Don't talk back to mods, @Sudo. We're here to keep the peace and rules. I'm banning you for 24 hours and taking down this thread.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
No thank you. I don't like to get banned, and you're being rude. You can have the ban yourself. And this thread is staying up, it's important to me.
►Char
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
...What.
What just happened. @Sudo, did you just ban a mod? Did you just ban Mother? What.
What!
►Dragon (Verified Cape) (Guild)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Well, now. This is interesting. I'd like to know how you did that, @Sudo.
►Mr. Mephistopheles (Admin)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
What the hell???
This... shouldn't be possible. Tin_Mother called me in, I was expecting a standard hacker.
Except, the server has no record of Tin_Mother being issued a ban by another user, she just -has- a ban now. With no source. And Sudo is supposed to have user data, like approximate geography, and post count, and IP. And all of that is missing. It's all missing. Except for the IP.
The IP is from our central server.
Nobody is IN our central server, it's cooled by a river and not a pleasant place to hang out and post stuff, but that point's moot, since this isn't an IP of a computer connected to the server, it's the ACTUAL SERVER.
And there's just straight up no option to do admin actions on Sudo, though Tin_Mother swears there were. Or to delete this thread.
It's like Sudo is the server. Calling it now, folks, it's a ghost.
Admin, signing off.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Well. Ghost in the Machine, huh? I guess that's one way to provide proof for verification. Also, banning Tin_Mother? Whattttt
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 56, 57, 58
(Showing page 2 of 58)
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker) (Ghost in the Machine)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Ooh, ghost in the machine? I like that one. Also, yep! You've figured out my cunning plan to get verified. Next step? Go be a ghost in someone else's machine, and tell everybody about the nasty crimes against justice I find. I wonder which corruption I'll uproot? Best to start small, I think.
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Sudo, I like the desire to be a hero, but I have to warn you: going snooping in people's computers is actually a crime, and a serious one if it's government computers. If you come to your local PRT office, we can help you turn that on villains. Be a hero with us. Don't be a vigilante like this.
►Uber (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Hey @Reave, quit being a PRT shill. Sudo's gonna fight the power, and man, you're the power. Just because someone's being anti-this-establishmentarian doesn't make them wrong.
Hey @Sudo, you've got allies in Leet and me. We don't like the tight-laced tyrants much, and you seem like you've got a sense of humor. PM us anytime.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker) (Ghost in the Machine)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
@Reave First of all, the PRT probably has its fair share of little corruptions, and I'll be digging them up if I get bored, but it's not like I'm setting out to break the law for the hell of it. I'm looking for people who are getting unjustly screwed over by those in power, and making that kind of thing public. Don't want to experience my attention? Easy, just don't act like slime.
@Uber, I like your material, but I don't think I can work with actual villains. Start doing a better job of keeping your stuff from hurting innocent civilians, and maybe I become interested in helping, or even featuring. But primarily, I'm a hero. I'd work with entertainers, but only if they were good people too.
@Everyone, if you know about a miscarriage of justice that's being kept under wraps, shoot me a PM. I'll delete it without a trace, and nobody will know you told me, but I will do my best to bring it to light.
►Antigone
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
What the hell? Did you just ping everyone to come to this thread?
►Chaosfaith
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Wait how the hell did you ping everyone to come here?? Is that every user on PHO? WTF!
►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
Wow, I think that's the worst example of Reply All Syndrome I have ever born witness to. @Sudo, be more careful please?
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker) (Ghost in the Machine)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011:
...oops.
I promise I won't do that again. Sorry, guys.
►Dragon (Verified Cape) (Guild)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011: @Sudo, I'd like for you to contact me, maybe we can work together on some projects.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker) (Ghost in the Machine)
Replied On Jan 20th 2011: @dragon, read the tag. Why do you think I put it there? I'm not a tinker. That said, if you need something hacked for the side of good, let me know.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 56, 57, 58
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Colin looked at the PHO icon and moved his eyes in the pattern that closed the window, then closed his eyes and took a little breath. And sighed.
"Dragon?"
A/N: I stealth edited it so that she posts in and claims to be from Boston, since several people have pointed out that it would be pants-on-head stupid for Taylor to tell the truth about where she's from for no reason. I am trying not to hand her the idiot ball or the genius ball, but writing is a new skill and also I am not very smart. I will do my best, but I appreciate y'alls input. So, stealth editing. And before you say it's weird that so many brockton bay natives are commenting here, Boston and Brockton are neighbors so the dedicated cape fans are going to be keeping track of at least the new capes section in both boards. This is not to say Armsmaster can't still put 2 and 2 together to get 4, but it shouldn't be that easy.
Hi, everyone! Sorry about the month-and-a-half hiatus, life ain't a kind place. But I'm back from the dead now, with a nice long chapter and a new story, in which Taylor dies but gets OP powers as a consolation prize. Also, it's definitely a comedy story. I promise.
In other news, I have decided to make this story less grimdork than I had planned. I've done a lot of thinking about writing, and I don't want to write either a fix-it fic or a being-taylor-is-suffering. I am aiming for taylor-has-allies-but-doesn't-lack-enemies-and-actually-struggles-or-sometimes-but-not-always fic. I hope you all can enjoy that.
Taylor Hebert
Saturday morning came and went, Lacey's friend Sherry helping me get clean and ready to face the rest of the day. Dad helped me with my PT, and I finally managed to stand up! Clinging to his arm, and he had to help lift me to actual standing, and I only managed to stay there for thirty seconds, but still! He tried to crack a joke about it, which is amazing, even though he got choked up and couldn't actually say the funny bit. I remember the last time he joked around with me – it was the morning of the crash. He shut down after that, couldn't go to work or cook or eat, almost. I resented him so much. Honestly, I still resent him. But I look at him, and that yellow-orange rough scent is getting little streaks of fluffy green in it, and I can't. Can't forget, but can't hold onto it. If he's getting better, but I'm being the problem, then we still can't be fixed. That's unacceptable.
So I make myself smile, and compliment his burnt eggs and toast-which-is-just-bread, and that warm green texture heats me up from the inside and eases the chill in my bones.
It works better than turning up the thermostat would, which we can't afford anyways. Not with 20k extra medical debt on top of the mortgage and everything else. Dad left the bills on the table by accident last night, and I snuck a look. God, I want to fix it, I want so much to fix it, and it's only three barest threads that keep the bank systems from accidentally forgetting the debts exist. I might get caught of course, since they might have hard copies somewhere – probably do, actually. I was tempted enough to log into my Webster account and go gardening in their systems, and holy hell, they still use COBOL. COBOL!
Also, I'm going to be a hero and a Hero if it kills me trying, but a bank robbery? That's not the kind of thing I want on my conscience. Not even if it's a victimless crime – no such thing, really. But still, I can't compromise my ethics like that. I don't remember who said it originally, but power corrupts, and corruption's the opposite of a Hero.
But none of that would stop me, not when Dad's getting new lines on his face late at night, punching a calculator's keys while frowning at those papers. Not when that pain, that debt, is my debt, my hospital stay, my fault.
No, I have to believe that I'll catch the school for their neglect, that we'll sue them and crush them in court. We don't have the money for a lawyer, but that just means we need such watertight evidence that someone takes it on contingency. (That's the internet's favorite bit of advice, when it comes to lawyers.) So when I catch the school, catch that psychopath Blackwell, and cleanse everything in the burning light of day, they'll pay not just pain and suffering, but medical costs as well. And it would be rather odd if when that happens, we mysteriously never incurred that debt in the first place.
So I leave it alone. It'll be okay. It'll all be fixed when I tear that psycho's world and career down around her deaf fucking ears. When I win.
That can't happen soon, though. Much as I'd like the first thing Sudo does for the world to be exposing the corruption at Winslow and the suffering of one Taylor Hebert, that would be just a little obvious, especially with the PRT soon to learn that Taylor Hebert is herself a recently triggered Thinker. No, Sudo's debut has to be something national, after which a tipoff from a 'concerned student' would bring that national scale attention down on little, evil, corrupt Winslow. And that'll take time.
Fortunately, that time can be useful. Armsmaster called on the burner at 10, like he'd said he would in the one SMS already sent to it. We'd been keeping it in a dead microwave in the basement, since you can't be too sure about trackers. (Dad's idea, he's really gotten into the secrecy thing. Keeping me safe is the most important thing in his mind, which is touching, but, well.) Anyhow, we took a little trip to the corner store to answer the planned call. Honestly, Armsmaster is maybe a little bit uptight – the call came at 10:00 to the exact second, and he barely established we were listening before he explained the procedure for a subtle entrance to the PRT building.
And that's what leads Dad and me to ask the PRT trooper just outside the HQ's side door at 3 in the afternoon about the weather.
Taylor Hebert
"Hello, have you noticed the rain recently? Shame about all the sun."
"If I were a plant, I'd love a mixture of the two."
"If you were a plant, I'd swear off of salad."
Honestly, I have no idea who comes up with these passphrases for the PRT, but I almost wish I wasn't a parahuman so I could have that job instead. It's probably the most inane thing I or Dad has ever said, and I'm sure that trooper was laughing behind his mask. If he was, though, he didn't show it, just led us up a tight staircase (a jostling mess, if you're being half carried and half pushed in a wheelchair) before knocking on a windowless door three times, and waiting.
It didn't take long before the door opened, revealing a man in six-foot-tall blue power armor, trimmed in silver, parting at the chin to reveal an impeccable beard. Armsmaster, of course, though the Director was currently out of her office to minimize risk. The Protectorate head had been very clear on that, as well as informing me that multiple government officials in other branches would be informed of this meeting, and would be conducting M/S testing on Armsmaster and "Trooper Stevens" afterwards. Wouldn't tell me who, though, only that he was absolutely certain they could be trusted. By the PRT, anyway, but I didn't trust the PRT as far as I could throw them, which wouldn't be far even if I did have any muscle on my skeletal arms.
At least I didn't look like a frog anymore? Emma loved to tell me all about how I looked, even before she inexplicably threw me away like a used tissue. It was once complimentary, but I could hardly remember those days. These days, it was whispers of my round belly, my too wide mouth, my skinny limbs. Well, at least now I don't look like that anymore. A skeleton barely shrouded in flesh, yes, but my potbelly is gone and my mouth is surrounded by fatless skin, cheeks sunken and mouth looking more thin than wide. Not a good look, no, but if I am a skeleton, then I am in Emma's and Sophia's and Blackwell's closet, and I mean to be very inconvenient.
Oops, Armsmaster is talking, I should pay some attention. "I finished sweeping this office for bugs just before you came, and disabled the three I found, only one of which we already knew about." He looks kind of embarrassed. He ought to be, that's dangerous to me. "Is there anything you need, in order to begin digging up moles?"
I can tell Dad wants to use this moment to negotiate, but I squeeze his hand to stop him. There's no need to make demands now, and I'd rather get the moles found quickly so I can be safe. Gratitude and my services for the PRT at large will let us negotiate later, but for now, I'd rather just help.
"I don't think so, sir. I'll start focusing on it now."
He nods, and I switch my attention. My extra sense, no longer ignored, almost blinds me, drowning out everything else. The world is a miasma of green and yellow and red and purple and fishy and sweet and a kaleidoscope of things that don't have words in the English language. Somehow it all seems to make sense at once despite the complexity, and by some process that seems both organic and crystalline at the same time, the organization's structure begins to form logical concepts and even words in my head.
I'd never noticed it, but every time I'd read something in my life, the words had turned from a visual stimulus into a concept in my head. That was an actual process my brain had to go through, and until now I hadn't noticed – but the words I perceived through my extra sense don't go through the same mechanism, and suddenly it was obvious. The concept of >print(CURRENT_SYSTEM.COMMON_NAME)
identifies itself with "Parahuman Response Teams East-North-East", the words >print(CURRENT_SYSTEM.NODE_LIST)
returns a sorted list of seemingly random numbers directly into my awareness.
So clearly, getting powers has messed with the way my brain works.
In any case, I'm not going to get much further without some way to match the IDs of the members of this organization with their actual names. Maybe… "Armsmaster, could you give me a list of names of PRT and Protectorate employees? I think it would help me figure this out faster, and definitely help you understand my answers."
He didn't respond, and I thought he was ignoring me, until I saw a piece of paper slowly sliding out of his armor's upper arm armor (there's got to be a better word for that?). Wow, he's got a printer in there? Also, no response but immediate compliance? He's disturbingly direct, but I kind of like it. Efficient, maybe.
Wait. Efficiency. The way I'm reading those concepts is… not great. Sort of a weird half-sibling of both C++ and Wyrm on opposite sides of the family. If I keep looking at the System like this, it's going to take me forever and a half to check each member of the local PRT branch. Be better if I had some way to treat it like a database instead of a class structure… maybe there's a language for that? "Hey Armsmaster – know any programming languages for database manipulation?"
It's really hard to read his facial expression when all I can see is the bottom of his face, but he seems to be just… looking at me. Did I do something wrong? Is he offended? Have I blown all this up somehow, maybe I should be less informal, or maybe I'm just unlikeable and nobody will be my friend – all of a sudden, he cracks a grin out of nowhere. I'm so lost.
"Do I? Have you heard of Object Query Language?"
I shake my head – no – and from out of either nowhere or his armor's literal ass, he pulls out an entire whiteboard, then starts projecting onto it from a tiny speck of light on his visor while writing in erasable marker from what appears to be his fingertip. Amazing. And the whole time, he's got the goofiest grin just visible from under his visor.
"Alright – so – OQL is a relational query language, kinda like Sequel – which based on your face you have also never heard of, going to have to redo these slides on the fly, so basically you have a database as part of a class structure and you want to get only parts of it based on logic rules, or edit it or whatever, so you might say something like 'SELECT Name FROM Pizzashop.Employees WHERE Salary < 30000' (he pauses to write it, somehow both hurriedly scrawled and incredibly neat, on the whiteboard) "and that would get you a list of all the names of the employees who make less than 30000 a year, in our fictional database. Wait, actually, I should ask – how much programming experience do you have?"
Yikes, he's an awful teacher. But he's so into it, I can't bring him down. And besides, just the enthusiasm puts him way ahead of anyone at Winslow. Still, though, I feel like any minute there'll be a spitball in my hair or shavings on the papers in front of me. But it's safe here, they can't get me here. I tell him I'm mostly self-taught, about my Wyrm and C++ experience, about how far I am on Project Euler. (I carefully don't tell him about the scripts I wrote for sneaking around on the internet, or my intimate knowledge of the guts of PHO. He's suddenly like a puppy, all wiggles and happy barks, but I still can't trust him – anyone – like that.)
"Alright – so – you know how class structures work?" He doesn't even wait for my nod. "Ok so basically when you have a database in your class and you want to get bits of it, you can use OQL to easily grab the bits you want. The components of the query are as follows: the 'select' clause, which you always need because it says what parts of the data are being selected and what you are doing with them, followed by the 'from' clause, which says where in the class structure you are getting the data from. Then there's a bunch of optional bits after that, to specify more things about the data…
Taylor Hebert
Alright! That should be about… done! I look up and proclaim, maybe a bit too excitedly,
"Alright, Armsmaster, I've got it done! Highlighters in different colors to show spies I'm certain of by allegiance, possible spies, non-spies that are actively detrimental to the PRT or Protectorate, and an underline for merely useless employees. Honorary mentions include some guy named Thomas Calvert who's your highest placed spy, Battery has some allegiance to an organization outside the PRT or Protectorate – although that organization seems allied with both? – and Shadow Stalker, while not a spy, is strongly detrimental to system integrity even though she's the most effective Ward at completing the system mission. Oh, and Director Piggot has very high efficacy rating but strangely low uptime, leading to an overall system utility which seems pretty low for such an important position. Any questions?"
I watch as he opens his mouth. Then closes it. Then opens it again.
His jaw hung there, loudly saying nothing.
Did I mess this up? What did I do wrong? I thought he maybe liked me?
"That's… in great detail. I am… very impressed, if this all turns out to be true."
Oh.
Now it was my turn for my jaw to flap like a flag in uncertain wind. Wait, he can see that part of my face – the mask I'm wearing doesn't cover everything. It's my old Alexandria helmet, dug out from the bottom of my closet where I put it when I was eleven. I used to have such fun, imagining I was Alexandria (my favorite of the Triumvirate) and Emma…
Emma…
What happened to the Emma who laughed and jumped around as Mouse Protector, quipping beside my stern and silent Alexandria, whose only vulnerability was giggle fits from witty lines? Had I heard her laugh, her real laugh, since that summer?
Had anyone?
Wait, I'm in front of Armsmaster, he's waiting for me to speak, I need something to say, quick quick quick! Uh, "I'm so excited to join the Wards once all these spies and traitors are gone, and I can be safe!" Yikes, I sound lame, and maybe a little insincere? I'm not actually excited, in fairness – it'll just be more high school drama – but I definitely want to join, and quickly. I just need their protection. And-
"Oh, unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen."
What the hell. What the actual hell. Just as I was starting to trust you. You pull something like this! I find my fist tightening around the papers, and I quickly roll them into a tube, text side in. You can't protect me, I won't help you!
He notices my sudden stress, and backs up a step, raises his arms.
"Wait, wait. I just mean that we can't exactly fire employees on the say-so of an anonymous thinker who we can't tell anyone exists. There are laws against that, and even if there were not, our contracts keep us from firing people without sufficient reason. So I can't promise that everyone you've marked a spy is going to get fired and/or imprisoned."
"Then why the hell should I bother giving you the list?!"
"I said wait! First of all, we will absolutely be investigating all these people. Working for a federal agency makes you subject to certain types of warrantless search, and this is an occasion for that if ever there was one. Anyone we can prove is guilty is going to jail, as the law demands. And we will definitely not let any information about your abilities get to anyone on the spy list you're providing. We will keep you safe. True information about you will be kept on secure systems – and if the infiltrations are as high level as you indicate, we can't consider any of our existing computers secure, which I will be working with Dragon to fix – and nobody except those above the rank of Commander in this branch, and our direct superiors, will have access. To be frank, you're too potentially useful to risk in any way at all."
"Stop! You just said you won't let the spies have 'information about my abilities'. Not 'information about me'. You're going to let them know I exist? WHY!"
"Owl, calm down! I'll tell you, but you need to trust me on this! You have a good power and good instincts, but you're young and your inexperience is showing. I have a great deal of experience in information security – I built my career writing many of the programs and protocols that protect identities of Protectorate capes – so trust that I know what I'm doing. Alexandria used to explain it by talking about magicians. She'd go on and on about them and their inventive tricks – she loved stage magic, made a hobby of it, I've no idea why the PR wonks didn't jump on that – and she'd explain about misdirection. A good magician, she said, hides some things from the view of the audience, but it's hard to make something invisible. So instead, you obfuscate and misdirect. The coin gets moved to the left hand right away, but you distract the audience with the right, and they never see it. People stop looking if you give them something to see.
What's more suspicious: a masked girl quietly entering a side entrance of the building, sneaking into the director's office, then leaving equally quietly, with a suspicious gap in a few schedules? Or an ordinary new Ward, joining with a mediocre power, not worth anyone's effort to investigate? That's what we'd do. You'd join the Wards, and to everybody outside their quarters and this office, you're… probably a tinker, one without obvious effects. We could pick your specialty to make any intel you produce less suspicious, too. I'd build you some gadgets to wear, and nobody would look past it. How do you feel about being a Surveillance Tinker?"
…He called me Owl. Dad used to call me little owl. I miss him. Even though he's right there, he's not. He hasn't called me little owl in… years. Since mom.
"…Owl?"
"Yes. Every new cape gets a temporary codename. I chose Owl for you, since they're natural predators of moles."
I like it.
Colin Wallis
She's a skilled listener. Most don't have that skill. I pride myself on the ability to stay silent and pay full attention. Prevailing opinion in psychology indicates that most people are planning what they will say next in any conversation. Dragon has told me that I should endeavor to be like most people in conversation, but I value listening.
Chris doesn't really listen, to my everlasting frustration. He's always thinking in five directions at once, and I can tell that when I speak to him he is barely paying attention. He could be a great tinker, if only he would focus and learn from others. But this new 'Owl', she listened to me talk about OQL for 57.8 minutes. Nobody but Dragon has ever listened to me talk about computer programming before, and it makes even her uncomfortable, though I don't know why. But Owl? Owl listened to every word, kept track of questions without dropping her attention, and asked them at appropriate moments! She didn't derail my explanation even slightly!
She did lapse into some unfortunate behavior near the end of our meeting. I had a difficult time explaining our future course of action because of it, but in the end I think she was mollified. She gave me the list, anyway – not that I couldn't get it myself from my helmet recording of her making it, but the principle stands.
Given the… depth of the mole infestation the PRT is suffering, I'll have to contact Dragon about a total overhaul of our systems. Maybe a decoy system for those we are investigating? It can be repurposed once we've rid ourselves of the spies to provide curated 'leaks' to those spies we choose to 'miss' in our purge.
Looking over the list, I have no doubt that the names therein are responsible for most of the Birdcage Transport hijackings I've had the indignity of responding to.
I'll be glad to be rid of the pests.
Emily Piggot
I turn my swivel chair (not my swivel chair) in the crappy spare office I'm using to allow me access to the filing cabinet on my right. Bending down, I wince at the sharp spasm of back pain. Back pain or organ pain? Back pain, this time. Opening it, I tuck away this month's budget report and withdraw the Youth Guard's most recent painfully polite complaint. They have a way of calling you a child slaver or your Wards child soldiers while only ever using words like 'excessive', 'time', 'danger', and 'commitment'. Honestly, why does an NGO get to dictate terms and fine a federal LEO? Since when did we give civilians access to classified documents and schedules, to employees? Why do they have so much power?
Then again, whose bright idea was it to shove a bunch of high school children into the enforcement arm of a federal military/police force? Or any arm, honestly? A bunch of dangerous, dangerously powerful, and dangerously inexperienced children calling themselves heroes and bearing the weight of the law in their uncalloused hands? And why why why do they have to be my responsibility?
A ringing. The interoffice ringtone, coming from the phone on my desk. I pick up.
"Ma'am? This is Detective Stevens, reporting in on subject Taylor Hebert as ordered. Subject has left their home and proceeded in a motor vehicle with Subject's Father along Chapel St. to Prospect, whereupon they proceeded to the PRTHQ and entered via a side entrance at 1457 hours. Subject was in a wheelchair, wearing an Alexandria Halloween mask. Subject's father likewise wore a mask, although his was a Mouse Protector brand helmet. At that point, we were unable to follow. Subject left via the same entrance at 1723 hours and proceeded along the reverse route to home, stopping at Koon Thai to pick up an oddly large dinner. Subject has not left the building again. We believed this to be important enough to tell you immediately, as this has been the subject's only departure from home except to be pushed around the block on occasion, not to mention that her destination was HQ."
I seethed.
"I see. Well done, Detective, I await your written report. A brief question: did you perhaps think it might be a good idea to tell me when the subject came to PRTHQ in the first place? Or did you judge a report after a possible security breach to be more useful?"
"…Apologies, Director. I did call when she left her house by car, as it was a departure from the norm, as well as when she entered the PRT, but you did not pick up either time. Because of that I judged it better to wait until a resumption of normal activity."
Huh, so I do have some competent agents after all. I'll have to speak kindly – can't apologize from above, of course. Why didn't I pick up? Oh right, I was busy switching offices to prepare for the arrival of that… thinker… 'Owl'… person… who came in through a side entrance…
"Thank you for the explanation, Detective. One more thing: which side entrance exactly was it?"
"Charlie three sierra, ma'am. Why?"
Damnit.
"Because this case just became your top priority. I want to know everything about her and everything she does. In particular, I want you to figure out if she has any gang connections at all, school or otherwise. I'll get you a warrant for a cable tap, should you decide you need it." Obviously, that means I'm telling you you need it. "Good evening, detective." I hang up.
I hate it when two complicated things merge into a hot mess. Maybe the information we get from Owl will resolve this? If it's mediocre, or doesn't show one gang's spies, that'll show her hand – no gang would burn all of its assets in a LEO just to ingratiate one more, no matter how highly placed. On the other hand, if she reveals moles from every gang, and investigation validates her intel, that would be a pretty clear indicator that Sophia Fucking Hess is selling me a bridge she doesn't own. Again.
But I can't take the chance that she isn't.
I hate this god damn Wards program. Every problem I have, I swear.
Fact the first: The Library of Congress has a pretty solid database. Digital files of everything they have, a catalog of it all, and enough space to hide… well, pretty much anything.
Fact the second: I need somewhere to keep any evidence Sudo decides to display to the world. Somewhere with good uptime, somewhere with lots of space, maybe even somewhere with preexisting database software.
Fact the third: The government has the twin virtuous vices of needing to look good and needing to do a great many things, which means it is likely to have the largest collection of dirty little secrets of any organization.
Fact the fourth: I like irony.
I'm sure the direction of my thoughts is clearly visible by now, and were it not, merely looking over my shoulder at what I'm doing on our clunky old PC would suffice to make it clear.
'Hey, Taylor, what website is that?'
'Oh, it's just the Library of Congress. I'm hacking into it to partition a secret part of their servers to house illegally gained evidence of scandal, which I will use to become a parahuman investigative reporter the likes of which the world has never seen. I'll do my math homework later.'
'Now, Taylor, you know you need to get your homework done before any internet time. Do it first, and you can hack the government afterward.'
Is most emphatically not how that conversation would go. Which is why I've got my precalculus book open next to me, my notebook on the other side, and a few problems half-done. It's also why I'm glad that our (metaphorically) rusted old PC is facing away from the door, so that I have my back to the wall sitting at the thick oak desk.
Mom's oak desk. Her pride and joy, though not nearly as much as I was, its inlay and engraving must have cost a fortune. I don't know where she got it, but it's an old style. Definitely antique, the top shows tiny signs of repair work done to fix scuffs, and the drawers are constructed the old way – no metal rails, just precision woodwork. The museum would probably want it, I'd guess. But Mom would never sell it, never give it up. She'd sit here on the PC (which wasn't old then) or her Q2010 laptop, later, and type in the afternoon sun. I'd sit on the corner, or on her lap, whichever was warmer, and I'd ask all kinds of little questions about her work. My purpose, of course, was to get her to pay attention to me instead of that Fujitsu she was so proud of, and it always worked. She'd answer every single question, even the ones where the answer was 'I don't know', and she'd never hold back. I was just a kid, then, but she'd never dumb it down. Not for me.
And then I'd get bored, since there's only so long an eleven-year-old can sit on a hardwood desk in the warm sun listening to detailed literary criticism or feminist theory, and I'd go find Dad and bother him until he told me all about his day at the Union, and who he fought for, and I'd keep pressing him until he came out with a story which made me laugh.
It never took long.
…getting lost in thought does not actually make it easier to hack the Library of Congress.
Fortunately, all I'm doing is making a secret partition of their database that I can link to and they can't delete. Easy stuff, if you've got root access, and I always have root access. This is the last thing I need, before I can become the vigilante investigative journalist that – apparently – I was always destined to be.
…there's an idea. Not a whole lot of people read PHO. Well, actually, kind of a lot of people do. But not everyone – it's mainly the young and hip. Lots of adults, especially the elderly, watch TV or read the papers for their news. If I want to reach everyone, and I do, I probably should contact some papers and stations and arrange to leak it to them before I publish. I reach for the dust-covered black plastic phone sitting in its cradle on the right side of the desk. I flinch.
'so that was impromptu office politics 101 with Professor Thompson today, why don't you tell me about what you and Emma did this mor-' and then an awful crunch, and then nothing, and then the phone had fallen from my hand and hit the floor on it's coiled wire and when had it fallen? I didn't notice.
I withdraw my shaking hand, place it back on the keyboard. I focus on the terrible contrast between my skin and the awful shade of tan until I can see my fingers clearly again. I taste salt, wipe my face.
Maybe it would be best to contact them over the internet. Yeah. Phone lines can be traced, that's why I can't call.
Maybe there's some email server I can send untraceable emails from regularly? I look it up. Shock and surprise, Dragon maintains an email server for anonymous parahumans. I won't even be breaking any laws if I use it, but I bet Dragon can still trace the access points.
I root access into it, and start sending nicely worded emails to local news agencies in the Boston area, as well as even more nicely written letters to the New York Times and other big-name papers and shows. Something along the lines of
'Dear editor of this paper,
Nice to meet you, I'm Sudo. I investigate corruption, I pull no punches, I am a parahuman and the ghost in the machine. You can find me on PHO, I'll be posting whatever I find there. If you employ me as a freelancer, though, I'll give it to you two hours in advance of that post. I obviously can't guarantee that no scandal will ever involve you, but if they do I recommend you publish it extra hard, since I'll be publicizing it no matter what you do. Anyhow, if advance notice and detailed evidence of government, corporate, and criminal scandals interest you, email me back at this email, sudo@paranonymous.dgn. I won't charge much, just 10k for anything deserving a Pulitzer, 5k for anything big, and 2k for anything small. If you don't publish it, you don't need to pay me. Sound good?
Hoping for a productive relationship,
Sudo'
But much more polite, of course.
When I'm done, I check my PHO messages, and I'm unsurprised to find one from Dragon. She seemed annoyed in the thread of my introductory post, and I expected a complaint. Instead, I get some odd rambling:
Dragon: Have you ever heard anything by the singer Canary? Personally, I've listened to everything she wrote, at least before she was arrested last year. Supposedly something about assault with a parahuman power, although if I knew the details of such a case I would certainly be prohibited by law from disclosing them. I'm only suggesting you look into the singer Canary.
Dragon: On a completely unrelated note, did you know that canary birds used to be taken underground in cages? Miners would sacrifice them so they could feel safe from mine gasses. Personally, I feel that putting a canary in a birdcage and carrying it underground would be a miscarriage, if you know what I mean. Good pun, yes?
Dragon: Also, while I don't entirely approve of you hacking PHO like that, I must say I do like your style. And while I support the hard work the government does to protect the people of this fine country, I can (in an entirely abstract sense, as I would not legally be able to comment on any classified information) certainly say that it has its share of closeted skeletons that ought to be aired out.
Dragon: Thank you for listening to my music recommendations.
Okay, weird. Dragon's the best tinker in the world, and certainly a competent individual. Why is she sending me harebrained PMs about Canary and birdcages and miscarriage and oh. I feel stupid now.
Very witty, Dragon. Very witty indeed.
Sudo: I understood your pun completely. I think it's a very good joke – I like reading all sorts of literature, and I appreciate the deeper meaning behind your writing. Thank you for the recommendation.
I begin to look into Canary's case by making an uninvited entry into the PRT secure systems. It's not hard, when all you need to do is find the login page, and then you're done. I pull up her file (every parahuman has one, and some have multiple – like me, probably, by now). I also pull up every bit of information the DOJ has on her case, and I don't like what I find.
First of all, her power testing, mandatory for incarcerated unknown parahumans.
It shows she has minimal odd physiology (feathers in her hair, coronas pollentia and gemma) but nothing else. There's an automated note that sometimes odd physiology comes with a brute rating. None of that justifies the Brute 7 rated restraints that she has been made to wear without pause almost since her arrest last year. Brute 7 restraints have a schematic available in the PRT's database. They're basically a block of solid tinkertech metal weighing 80 pounds and covering the entirety of both arms as well as binding them to the waist and restricting the motion of the knees. They're wild overkill, since no power testing has shown any brute rating whatsoever, and to my mind they constitute cruel and unusual punishment. There's even a note in the same file as the schematic warning against wearing them for more than a 48-hour period, not to mention several complaints from defense lawyers that the restraints unfairly prejudice the jury against the defendant.
The remainder of the power testing revealed her actual power in perfect clarity: her singing is both supernaturally good and renders listeners extremely suggestible after an extended period of exposure. That suggestibility was found to last up to one hour at the extreme end. It's also not just suggestibility to her: anyone can give the listener commands, and they'll obey them just the same. So, reading the victim's statement, I have to wonder: how did he get past the security guards on the way to her private changing room? He wasn't cleared, and they had been specifically instructed to keep him out two concerts ago – it was in the security company's files. In response to this finding of the power-testing team, she'd been made to wear an anti-master gag, which prevented her entirely from the use of her voice, and had the same complaints from defense lawyers that they make the defendant look like a serial killer – I mean, 'unfairly prejudice the jury'.
What is completely inexcusable was the lack of removal of the gag at any point in her months-long incarceration. Not even to speak with her lawyer, not even to tell her side of the story, not even to request a lawyer.
There, in the case files, is the victim's statement. There is the officer-in-charge's report, and there below it is the forensic reconstruction written by his team. In a separate file is a detailed description of every item of physical evidence, from the victim's bloody kitchen knife to his detached dong. And yet nowhere is the suspect's statement, only a brief note that she'd not given a verbal statement, but had signed the OIC's report of events.
Which would not be the most suspicious thing, except that that note had been written prior to her lawyer arriving to take her case. Her lawyer, by the way, was not only a public defender with an awful record and far too many cases for her time, but was also the OIC's cousin. Fancy that.
I dig into their family, and find that the OIC and public defender were both from Madison, and had lost their shared grandparents and both sets of parents to the Simurgh. Since they worked elsewhere, they now appear to be the only family each other has. Their bereavement is a direct result of an attack by a feathered monster that appears as a woman and masters large groups of people to commit heinous acts of violence by means of what some describe as a scream, and others a song.
Where I come from, that sounds like motive.
I dig through ancient interrogation room recordings (which really should have been with the case files, according to the PRT's 'How To Document an Investigation' guide, but were instead quietly left in the local server) and find some seriously incriminating evidence. The session in which Canary signed the document was actively painful to watch.
The OIC was alone with her in the room, and placed the document before her, facing him. He told her that it was the true version of events, as far as his investigation could determine, and (since she was restrained by anti-Master and -Brute tinkertech) told her that tapping her foot would be taken to count as a signature. He then proceeded to instruct her to sign, and when she shook her head and tapped out 'l-a-w-y-e-r' in morse code, clearly took notice.
"Lawyer? Are you asking for a lawyer?" She nodded her head vigorously. "Well, monster, you'll get your lawyer when you sign. Till then, no lawyer." He got up in her face. "You hear me?! Sign!" She stayed stock still for over thirty minutes as he ranted at her, until her foot moved – more a twitch than a tap, but maybe still intentional – and he sat back, apparently satisfied, with an Emma smile on his face. The one she gets when she's made me shrink back or cry, when she's really ripped at my wounds.
I'm going to get her free, and I'm going to put this guy in jail so hard he'll have window-bar imprints on his ass when he's sixty. Fuck you, Lt. Ernest Linkletter.
As if that wasn't enough, the public defender (Sasha Linkletter) had only had two closed door meetings with her client, which came to ten minutes. Total. And the mask and manacles still hadn't been removed.
By now, the trial is almost complete, and I find emails between Lt. Linkletter's second account and Judge Regan, asking the judge to sentence Canary to the birdcage despite the three-strikes rule in return for forgiveness of poker debts.
Disgusting. Other emails from Lt. Linkletter include emails to various news agencies leaking either carefully curated or entirely false information about the trial to various news agencies (explaining the incredibly bad press she's gotten) and an email to the DA on the case about scheduling 'another lucrative game of golf'.
With the jury currently in deliberation, I have very little time before it's too late for Canary. This is the kangarooiest of courts, and I have to save her from these supposed 'authorities' refusing to hear or believe her, instead ruining her entire life.
They are our protectors, yet they assume the worst of us. They are our peacekeepers, yet they ignore our pleas. They are the judge accepting bribes, the police officer intimidating witnesses, the beat cop shooting an unarmed man, the politician crossing fingers as he talks. The principal of a high school accusing the downtrodden girl of troublemaking.
I will show the world their lies.
I save all of the evidence into one file tree in my hidden Library of Congress evidence storage, write out a guide to it and a summary of my conclusions in the same place, and send a link to every news agency who'd responded to me in the four hours since I'd sent out the introductions. I also sent it to the New York Times, although they hadn't responded yet, since it's the New York Times. This is Pulitzer quality, I told them, and waited for the fireworks. At the same time, I also entered the DOJ and PRT central email servers to place a sender-free email with the same link and a warning that it was about to be public (so they should start arresting before people start fleeing justice) at the top of the inboxes of Chief Director Costa-Brown and AG Holder.
With any luck, at least one of those news networks will pick it up and drop it on the public. With even more luck, those responsible for this fiasco will already be in custody by the time that happens, although I'm not holding my breath. Speaking of, the air smells wonderful, and I haven't eaten since breakfast at six, and it's two in the afternoon.
I'm not that strong, not this soon after- anyways. So it takes me longer than is strictly ideal to roll my way into the kitchen. On the other hand, it only builds the suspense, so finding Dad frying onions and making omelets came as a welcome surprise.
When life gives you eggs, huh?
"Hi, Dad."
"Hey, kid. I'm making lunch. How many omelets d'you think you can fit inside that scrawny stomach of yours?"
Hey, rude, you know it's not scrawny, not with that mini-potbelly Emma loves to remind me about. Except – wait. I haven't had that since the- anyway. It's totally flat these days, maybe a little concave, and I can just barely feel what little abdominal muscles I have just under the skin.
…I wonder if I'll stay a non-lumpy stick forever, or will I go back to being a frog?
"Probably only two, but with plenty of mushrooms in them, I hope!"
And with that, he turns back to the stovetop, pan on one of the two working burners. It's odd, what's been between us. He talks to me, and I to him, but… it's still limited. It's not that I wouldn't tell him about important things anymore, but…
We only have two ways of talking, these days. We can do small talk – how many omelets would you like, think you can stand for two minutes today, stuff like that. Or we can do big talk, strategy talk: how to join the Wards, how to stay secret in the meantime, finding a way to fix my schooling. I told him about the bullying, finally – I was so helpless, and I needed to convince him to fight for me – but when did I start needing to convince him that I was worth a fight?
When did he start needing to be pushed to take care of me?
I know when.
But what I'd never do, what I can't do, is spill my guts to him. He can't know how I feel, about the burning rage in my heart where a tiny metaphorical effigy of Principal Blackwell burns. About joining the Wards, spending more time among teenagers that hate me. About what it actually means to be a Hero. About Sudo. I can trust him with my back, if I show it to him in detail. But I can't trust him with my heart, to hear what's wrong and listen and trust me anyway – I just can't.
Is that wrong?
I don't know.
Maybe, though – if instead of telling him it's about me, if I can be asking about him instead – maybe I can try to talk about what's hard. And these omelets smell amazing; onion, egg, mushroom, they all have their own smell. A hint of a well-used spice mix, which is almost empty but hasn't been used in over a year. All those scents mingle from the pan, filling the room with something new: rather than the usual mildew smell from the water stain on the cupboard above the range, the kitchen smells like… home.
"Dad, have you ever seen someone get completely abandoned by the people who were supposed to protect them?"
He freezes, turns around with a sad – no, mournful – look on his face. Wait, why? What does he think I'm talking about?
"I mean, as the head of the DWU. Did you ever wind up helping someone like that?"
His shoulders come back down – when did he raise them – and his face gets an odd expression – shame? No, relief. "Yeah, little owl. That's what the DWU does. When our people get" and I can tell he is not saying 'screwed over' "unfavorably treated by their employers, we come in. We give them other options, and the support they need to negotiate properly or find something new. We've got resources, and we've got more negotiating power than any one of us. A DWU member doesn't say 'pay me right or I quit', he says 'pay me right or we all quit'. 'Cause we've got each other's backs."
Yeah, but what if you're like Ms. McAbee? What if nobody knows, if your employer can shut you up? I give voice to the question: "What if you can't find out, if the worker doesn't or can't say anything? What if the bad stuff's kept secret?"
"Well, that's when it gets hard. But we can't let that pass – if employers can get away with that, then we can't trust 'em. So we've got to keep them on the straight and narrow, and mostly we do that by catching them when they hide things and slapping them all the harder for it. That extra pain they get – it's not about them being especially bad to the workers, though they usually are. It's to impose costs."
Wait, it's not about getting them punished for being greedy bastards? "What do you mean, impose costs?"
"Remember this, kiddo: the only way you ever get a big group of people to stop doing something is to make it a bad bargain. You can raise hell about immorality, you can talk their ears off, but at the end of the day, they do things if it's good for them, and don't if it ain't. So we impose costs when we catch them hiding things, and pretty soon any scummy manager thinking about keeping his employees quiet about an OSHA violation or a late paycheck gets to weighing his odds, and decides it isn't worth the hell he'll catch."
"I… think I get it. Someone's got to find out when the bad apples try things, and make it public, so that all the good folks can wield that collective power?"
"Right. Now eat your omelet. You need more than just skin and bones, or don't they teach you anything in biology?"
What, bio? The most non-science science ever invented? Where the teacher blathers on about herd dynamics and leaving weaklings behind for the lions, but ignores it happening right in front of her?
"No, actually, but I read the textbook."
He laughs (he laughs!), and I take a bite of the admittedly heavenly omelet.
We continue chatting. It's only small talk and a bit of school-switching planning, but it feels warm. Like a sunbeam on the couch.
It's crucially important, when starting a project, to establish estimates for how long that project will take. In CS they have a running joke about project estimates: to figure out how long a project will take, make your best guess, then double it and go up a unit. I heard that one on StackOverflow at some point. So it's important to do better than a quick guess. Always break your project up into parts, estimate their sizes, assign them each a time estimate of their own, then add a fudge factor and task-switching buffers.
Unfortunately, when it comes to my 'Post on PHO about Canary' project, I'd just gone with my best guess: an hour. So of course, to do it properly, I'd need about two days. Past Taylor is always being the thorn in the behind of Present Taylor. Ugh.
After an hour of lunch and talking, though, I only have one hour left before my 'two hours post distribution' deadline. Nothing for it, then; don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. First things first, check my email, and… yep! That's an angry email each from CD Costa-Brown and AG Holder, and several emails ranging from incredulous to thankful from the news agencies who'd written back. A couple more newsies have responded to my first email, so I drop them the link and explanation, then pop open a text editor and begin to write.
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♦ Topic: Canary Birdcaged by Kangaroo Court
In: Boards ► Sudo ► Sudo's News and Who's Whos
Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Posted On Jan 23rd 2011:
Hello, Internet!
I'm here to tell you about a grave miscarriage of justice in our very own beloved United States. Before I do, though, I guess I should tell you why I do what I do. I'll be sure to put out more philosophy posts, op-eds, theory tabloids, whatever you want to call them. I'll be putting them over on Boards ► Sudo ► Sudo's Opinions and Ideas, though, and mostly keep this area for my whistleblowing threads.
Oh right, why I do this. I am sure my detractors will start in on me with accusations like "You must hate cops" or "Real heroes work with the PRT, not against it" or other absolutist statements like that. They would be missing my point if they did. I do not espouse such absolutist philosophies. For all that I am a zealot and an extremist, I remind you: 'the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be'. I fight not only for the rights of those crushed under oppression but for the smooth functioning of the American system.
We the people are raucous and disorganized, in need of governance. It is for this purpose that we set a few of our own above the rest, tasked with playing a callous game of chess with our lives and freedom. It is necessary to have a callous and immoral leadership, for all that the leaders accept damnation by leading well. They are the goat we send to Azazel. We need them.
I do not just refer to politicians by this argument, but all those we charge with the power of enforcement. Police officers and soldiers are cursed to carry guns and authority in the full knowledge that they must use them to enforce fairness and legality, despite the distaste of use of a gun or authority over another human.
The trouble is that a gun can be misused as easily as it is used, and yet removing all guns or all authority from those we set above us defeats their purpose. Instead, we must ensure they are careful in their use. We train police officers to think before firing, we train judges to consider the specifics before resorting to pure precedent, and so on.
That is insufficient. Any weapon will be used too freely if there is no cost for its misuse. And here my role appears: when a heinous abuse of the public trust occurs, I show it to my fellow members of the public, so that we may rise up and punish those unworthy to govern us. I don't do this because I hate those who abuse their power over the weak, although I do, but because I wish to lessen the severity and frequency of that abuse. I won't catch every quiet criminal, but I hope I can catch enough that others consider me as a potential consequence of their actions, and reconsider those actions as unwise.
This brings us to today's topic: Bad Canary.
She is a singer, a pop star. Many of you have listened to her music, have purchased her albums. Some may have seen her in concert, even. And yet in the past year, she has been arrested for malicious use of a parahuman power, and the media has twisted around to curse her and make her repulsive in your eyes. Why? I bring you the truth of the matter.
On September 3rd, 2010, Bad Canary AKA Paige McAbee was arrested by the PRT in connection with the mutilation and sexual assault of her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Henry Sera. Mr. Sera had (look away, children) cut off his own penis with his kitchen knife and inserted it repeatedly into his rectum, before calling the police and collapsing unconscious from blood loss. Upon recovery, he testified that, while under the influence of her power, Ms. McAbee told him to "go fuck yourself", which he was mastered into doing as a result. This would constitute sexual assault with a parahuman ability, IF it had been true.
Mr. Sera had lied.
Briefly, some background: Ms. McAbee separated from Mr. Sera due to his physical abuse and gaslighting during their relationship in March. He began harassing her in public and following her on tours. In June, she received a restraining order against him. In July, he was banned from any backstage areas of venues where she performed, and photographs were distributed of his face to the security company Ms. McAbee's agent had hired. If he attempted entry into the backstage area where the alleged assault took place, he would have been stopped – and indeed, both the security company and Mr. Sera's own testimony state that he was told to leave immediately but forced his way past the guards.
Why is this important?
Bad Canary underwent PRT power testing during her incarceration, which proved that her singing and speech do not control people. First, it is only her singing, and second, it only renders people vulnerable to control. Someone listening to her song becomes completely suggestible and obeys all outside instruction, from anyone. Someone listening to a recording thereof may become slightly more suggestible, but this is uncertain from the data.
So how, I ask you, did Mr. Sera manage to avoid leaving immediately when instructed to, if he was indeed under the effects of her powers? And since he clearly was not at the time when he confronted the security guards, and security recordings show that she did not sing at all (or indeed open her mouth) after the concert until he entered her changing room, how would he have become under its influence before confronting her?
No, a sane reading of the facts clearly indicates that when she told him to "go fuck yourself", he merely saw an opportunity to use the law against her by pretending she had mastered him into self-mutilation. In reality, he is a psychopath and a perjurer, and she is innocent.
So why is she about to be sentenced to the birdcage?
Well, the officer in charge of her case had recently lost his entire family to the Madison attack, with the exception of his cousin, who worked as a public defender in the same city as he did. Lt. Ernest Linkletter and Sasha Linkletter, LLD, were and are in great pain from their loss, and understandably prejudiced against anything resembling the cause of that destruction. Ms. McAbee, a woman with feathers and a voice that masters people, more than fit the bill.
This does not excuse their actions.
Lt. Linkletter extorted her confession, deliberately enforced cruel and unusual punishment during her incarceration, bribed Judge Regan to sentence her to the Birdcage despite the three strikes rule, had an unprofessionally close relationship with the DA, and arranged for his cousin to be Ms. McAbee's lawyer. He made it impossible for her to move or speak during her time in jail, and indeed to communicate with her biased lawyer or request a different lawyer. He released biased information to the media, and otherwise kept the investigation and trial entirely behind closed doors, in order to influence the public against her. He also hid evidence of those crimes.
In short, he constructed a kangaroo court with the express goal of throwing Ms. McAbee into the Birdcage to satisfy his vendetta against the Simurgh.
The good citizens of the United States, likewise angered by her disturbing resemblance and generally disturbed by Master powers, cheered rather than investigate or protest.
First, now that the truth has come to light (and I have attached proof [here]), we must unite in her defense and demand her freedom.
Second, I urge you all to think long and hard about the unconscious biases you hold. Master powers are scary and disturbing, yes, but remember that no cape chooses their powers. Often, they bear an uncanny resemblance to a character trait of the empowered individual, but usually in a monkey's paw kind of way. For instance, I might imagine that Paige merely loved to sing, so her powers gave her the ability to sing perfectly – so magically perfectly, in fact, that it became a problem.
The person and the power are different, and the former has no control over the latter's type. Do not blame them for their power: it doesn't matter what you have, it matters what you do with it.
In short, everyone: a travesty of justice occurred and must be corrected. A bad man framed a good woman, and a bad employee of a good system corrupted others to drag her to hell. The proof (or rather, a secure copy of it) can again be found at [this link]. Consider not only what you can do to prevent this in the future, but what your ready acceptance of the seeming truth says about you.
Thank you for reading, although I know that this writing is rushed and subpar. Hopefully the good folks over at the news agencies I told about this two hours ago have done a much better job.
(Showing page 2 of 6)
►Aloha
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Holy hell. This is a government conspiracy of the highest order.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Hah! No, it isn't. Trust me, you'll see worse in the coming months. Just you wait.
►Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Sudo, please do not announce your intention to commit further crimes against the United States Government. The theft and disbursal of confidential information from government computers is a federal offense.
►Sudo (Original Poster) (The Guy in the Know) (Verified Cape) (Not a tinker)
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Yeah, under the CFAA. I'm well aware. I intend to commit all sorts of crimes: sanitizing the infected from the halls of power typically involves criminal activity, as while in the halls of power the infected are not lazy. If I have to work outside the law to preserve the integrity of the law, that is just what a Hero has to do sometimes.
Know what else is illegal? Marching in protest in Birmingham in contempt of a court order. Tell me it was wrong to do it anyway.
►Mr. Fabuu
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Gotta admit, that was a fairly solid rebuttal. Hey Brilliger, shouldn't the PRT and Protectorate be sitting still and taking their licks from this? Yelling about it kinda seems like you condone that lieutenant's actions.
►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Hey! Don't you talk shit about the PRT. They work hard to keep us safe!
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Sit down, @Chilldrizzle. It's not that simple. The PRT was responsible for a screwup of national proportions, you can't just wave that away with "all the good they do".
►Char
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Heyyyyy, look at that! A rare Void sane post! must_be_the_last_one_of_the_season.gif
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Hey, don't make fun of me like that! Just because none of you all know about the secret power-granting conspiracy in charge of the PRT that orchestrates all their incompetence is no reason to laugh at the only one smart enough to figure it out!
►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 23rd 2011:
Aaaaand we're back. Power-granters behind the scenes this week, is it, Void? Guess the lizards of yesteryear got tired and retired, huh?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
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Steven Costa looked up from his screen at his beautiful wife, who was washing the dishes. (He'd made dinner, after all.) "Hon, come see the newest ridiculous Void theory, it's hilarious!"
Hi, everyone! The chapters just seem to get longer and longer, huh. Anyways, I'll be trying to post once a week here, and a bit more often/whenever I feel like it over on Region. I hope this chapter is a bit easier to follow than the last.
I live! But Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Sorry, everyone. I got a job and research project and an informal class, and POOF went my time. And my sleep schedule. Anyways! I can't promise super regular updates, to be honest, but I'm on vacation right now, so I'm doing lots of writing. Gonna do my best though. Also, this chapter is written but not super thoroughly edited, sorry. If anyone decides their favorite thing is beta reading, lmk. I'd love to have another pair of eyes on my words before they become public and semipermanent.
Enjoy the extra long update! Interludes and a new arc coming next. Trying out past-tense first person, I think I like it. Seems smoother to read, for all that it's a bit odd to write. Thank y'all for reading, and enjoy.
(Also, yes. Brockton Bay is now a modified high-population metropolis version of New Haven. Fite me.
Winslow.
Frankly, a pillar of the community. Winslow turned around the slow decline of the Bay and provided the education to turn its languishing sailors into the heart of the shipping trade in the northeast United States. Responsible for the economic boom which returned relevance to the Nutmeg State, Winslow was also directly connected to the firm which designed the first shipping container. The patent injected a frankly absurd amount of money into the Bay's infrastructure and the state's coffers, resulting in a flourishing of infrastructure, building, and population. At the time of the container's invention in the mid-fifties, the Bay contained a respectable one-hundred-sixty thousand people, and the suburbs housed another fifty thousand more. With the immense population growth allowed by the burgeoning transportation and mercantile industry, not to mention the shipwright's docks, the bay hit a million inhabitants by 1960 and just kept on growing. It reached peak population at three-point-two million as of the 1995 census, in those heady days when capes were new and the future uncertain. When the Hubble Telescope sent humanity visions of hope amidst the stars, and the Protectorate and PRT showed the world there was hope amongst men too. When Behemoth made its second unwelcome reemergence in New York, establishing his dreaded pattern, and Leviathan was yet an unknowable disaster of the future rather than the death of the world's shipping industry.
When I was born.
Mr. Winslow, unfortunately, did not make it to that year – he died in 1980, and the shiny new high school built in the Docks to accommodate the children of those same workers whose lives he so improved was given the honor of bearing his name.
Briefly, I should digress about the Nutmeg State. We proud residents of this south-facing coast proudly name ourselves nutmeggers, even though we're officially the Constitution State. Not many of us know the story behind the name (though everyone in Mr. Whistlehoff's seventh grade history class heard the whole business every time he forgot to make the lesson plan for the day, and some of us paid attention back then.) It goes back to the eighteen-thirties (and here he'd push his too-large glasses up his nose) when a Canadian judge decided to develop a writing habit. He published a rather satirical serial in the local paper featuring the snarky adventures of fictional Yankee from Slicksville, appropriately named Sam Slick.
Not content to merely limit himself to Canada where he belonged, Judge Halibut (Halibutton? Been a while.) decided to talk some trash about the good, proud people of New England. Among his many claims is the story of shrewd Connecticut merchants who cut wood into the shape of nutmegs and sold them to unsuspecting suckers. This notion and eventual nickname caught on with just about everyone else, and eventually people forgot why we're nutmeggers and simply became proud of our mysterious heritage.
So here we all are, proclaiming ourselves nutmeggers, when the reality of the matter is a shame and embarrassment. It's a pretty name, and most of us think it's a bit odd but certainly ours, but its interior is just a hive of scum and villainy.
Sound familiar?
Winslow is a pretty place, or was, once. It was built just at the tail end of the brutalist movement, and thankfully avoids it entirely. Instead, it embraces the soul of the new (at the time) deconstructivist movement, and its flowing geometry encases its three floors and basement in a fashion more suitable for a runway than the docks. It's graceful, it's all glass and steel and glancing sunlight and glittering angles, and it does an excellent job of hiding the interior. Granted, it once was as inspiring on the inside as it is from the sidewalk, but those days are long past. Now, it's a nutmeg that's either far past stale or oaken.
I still remember that inspiring moment when it came into view on my first day of freshman year. I'd seen it before, of course – it's fairly close to our house – but now it was real, it was now, and it was going to be mine. And then, of course, I went inside, and got to smell the 'nutmeg' for myself.
I know its interior well, now. Every nook and cranny and crevice, every shortcut and circuitous route and all the popular paths between classes. I know which bathroom is best for hiding, which routes the Trio usually take between classes, where the empire kids smoke, where the ABB kids share out their edibles, where I can go to avoid all that. I know which clubs belong to which gangs, and which students have the Trio's numbers favorited. Every ugly crevice, from the oddly shaped janitor's closet near Principal Evil's office to the pool on the roof.
Just kidding, there's no pool on the roof – what kind of fantasy land do you think this is? Winslow doesn't even spend the money to clean the existing tiny pool in the basement – it's so green and disgusting that I've never once hidden down there, for fear of my personal tormentors deciding I need a dunk and me catching a long-forgotten illness from the previous ice age. Although, having a pool on the roof would be a very Winslow thing to do: money spent ostentatiously in the past on an object of questionable utility, only to be disregarded in the present and leak through all three floors. I could see it.
Most days, my extensive experience of evasive options aids me heavily. Today, though, it went entirely unused. Obviously not through any bravery of my own, hah! Hiding always has been and always will be the smart choice when it comes to Sophia. No, on this regrettable Monday I was very simply unable to reach any of my customary hideouts. Hell, I couldn't reach most of my classes. These past few weeks have been a fairly new experience for me in many ways – for instance, I have gained a new appreciation for the ADA. Winslow, like all government buildings, is ADA compliant. A ramp allows me access to the front doors just fine, and on most days, the elevator would bring me to whichever floor I need to access.
Today, though, when I rolled in the door just prior to homeroom, turned left towards the elevator, and began my circuitous path to Mr. Mirangue's classroom, I came face to face with the Trio+. Sophia was there, ever the lone wolf, an angry sneer on her face. Emma, too, makeup impeccable yet marred by her viciously satisfied grin, and backed up by Julia (the manipulative snake) and the rest. And Madison. Who just… stood there, an unreadable expression on her face. Regret, or embarrassment, or pain, if I was forced to place it, but all of those were impossible on her.
They were standing in front of the elevator, blocking my path. Except, they weren't? I rolled my chair closer to the elevator, and they seemed to part, malicious grins belying their newly passive behavior.
It was only once I reached the elevator and turned around to the control panel that I realized why. The floor number was missing from the display, and the buttons didn't work. Just as I realized the sabotage, fucking Emma poked her head around the corner.
"What's the matter, Taylor? You didn't break the elevator, did you? That would be awfully clumsy of you, though I suppose it's to be expected." She swept her gaze up and down my chair and body, as though gesturing broadly to 'all of that'.
Julia put her clearly rehearsed two cents in next. "I tried to be friends with her, once, you know. But she was just so clumsy she broke that, too. Maybe she was doing it on purpose?" and before my seething hatred could boil over, another of the pack spoke – "I bet she did break it on purpose. That's defacing school property, you know. Someone should tell the principal about that." – I went cold.
So that's your game. Before class even started.
So be it. I rolled myself out of the elevator. If I can't even spend the day in school, what's the point in being here at all? Except, I have a mission. More accurately, Sudo has a mission. Holding that in my mind like a cowcatcher, I rolled forward and turned aside their verbal abuse. What's that, Emma? I'll get fat sitting down all day, you're just worried about me? What's that, Julia, something about bulimia? Sophia, did you just 'trip and kick me by accident'? Can't hurt me anymore. Not more than you already did.
They didn't follow me to the library, and I was able to slip into the computer room without notice. Mrs. Knott saw me, of course, but I've hidden out here before. She was never going to stop me from having somewhere safe to decompress. I powered on a computer and logged in without incident.
I was worried, when logging in, that there was a separate server I didn't know about before, disconnected from the student server. Fortunately, the school's administration had no such luck or competence. Blackwell spent an awful lot on physical security, actually – the cameras were high quality and all functional – and I honestly question her budgetary priorities in a school this run-down and dysfunctional. But I suppose digital security was an acceptable corner to cut, since everything – and I mean everything – was stored on the solitary main server. That server, if my power isn't on the fritz, is physically located just a few meters away, in the closet adjoining the computer room. Thankfully, I don't need to physically access it – a digital login is just fine.
First, obviously, I opened up the Library of Congress filesystem, ready for my FERPA-defying copies. Next, I looked for the security camera data from the last two years. That should contain enough damning evidence to put Blackwell and the rest of the staff in serious hot water, all by itself. Oddly, though, there was a deleted section on the first day back from winter break in the camera for the hallway my locker is in.
Oddly my skin-and-bones white ass. That's deliberate deletion of evidence, and not that skillfully either. Does Blackwell not know that the system keeps a double backup? I grabbed both backups as well as the server logs showing it was her account that deleted the primary.
All in all, I copied over all the security camera data, the server logs, everyone's emails, and just for good measure an entire bitwise copy of the whole system. Congress has the space to spare. I was peeking through Blackwell's account data and email history, including the locally deleted emails (does she not understand that deleting an email only deletes your copy, not the server's?) and starting to wonder just how many scandals this literal criminal has swept under the rug in her tenure, when the intercom system blared.
Will Taylor Hebert please report to the Principal's office? Will Taylor Hebert please report to the Principal's office, thank you.
Very well, then. Time to face the dissonant chords.
I rolled my way in. It was already getting taxing on my arms, but I managed the trip in under ten minutes. The secretary took one look at me, then resumed looking at her computer and clicking with focus. A good act, honestly, but I just spent Homeroom invading everyone's computer. Yours has been running minesweeper and nothing else since 7:36 this morning, and you're the one who does intercom announcements. That makes this a power play, and you're not powerful. I'll wait and I don't care, but you don't get an excuse for making me do so.
"Hello, Ms. Blackwell's Secretary, I'm here in response to the summons over the intercom. Would you like me to wait?"
She just glances at me, raises an eyebrow like I'm being loud among a library's bookshelves, and looks back at her computer. Fine, then. I see how it is.
I'd been practicing meditation for something like ten minutes when she coughed like she was trying to imitate Dolores Umbridge and stated, "Hello, Miss Hebert. Glad you could make it. Ms. Blackwell will see you now."
Ought to make her ask again – pretend I didn't hear her. My, aren't those motivational posters nice? "Those who try may fail, but those who succeed always tried" overlaid on a cat playing with a ball of yarn. An odd mismatch between serious and stupid, but then, the paint scheme matches the person, as they say. "–Hebert? Did you hear me?" Ah, time to go, then.
I raised an eyebrow and give my wheels a push. Not fast enough to hit her, but she stumbles as she moves out of my way. That's a thing the chair has going for it. Everyone moves out of the way when I move. In a collision between a standing person and my chair, I'd not come out the better, but though everyone seemed to want to 'oops didn't see you' bounce me off their shoulder onto the ground – well, it's a bad look to knock over a cripple. So people get out of the way, now, almost allergic to my presence. Suits me fine.
Into the doorway, and steel in my jaw, and iron in my spine. Funny saying, that – my jaw has more carbon than my spine, or something? Odd, but I'm distracting myself. I rolled in, and immediately the bitch – Blackwell, I mean – began her borrowed lies. "Miss Hebert, you know that sabotaging school property is a very serious offense? I'm afraid I will have to suspend you again."
I played the skeptic. This is never going to go my way, but everyone who's ever been on the internet knows there's nothing more annoying than arguing with a skeptic, especially when you can't quite prove it. The least I could do is annoy my personal archnemesis in return for the extra helping of administrative assholery I'd have to endure. So, "Pardon, but which school property are you referring to? I'd like to know what precisely I'm being suspended for, this time. On the record, of course."
Not that she'd keep any record of this, but those words ought to make anyone in power uncomfortable. It worked, a little. She seemed taken aback, as she replied just a little too stiffly, "The sabotage of the elevator this morning. The buttons and control circuitry are damaged beyond repair. They'll have to be replaced."
"And why would I have done that? Actually, how would I have done that? I've got no tools, no leverage, and no strength. Have you seen me lately? I could not physically damage that panel if I'd tried." It was never going to work, but it was worth saying. See if I can ping whatever conscience she has left.
"I am quite reliably informed that you are at fault for the sabotage." And that's an error: lost connection to host, that is. I was pretty sure before, but proof she doesn't have one is so easy to collect.
Fine, then. I can play games too. I want something too. I changed tack.
"It's a shame, then, that I'll have to be transferred to Arcadia, since with the elevator in disrepair, this school isn't exactly ADA compliant, now is it?"
I could see confusion mix with the schadenfreude that lined her features, and knew I was getting somewhere. "What do you mean, Miss Hebert? I'm sure by the time you've returned from your suspension, the repair man will be done with the –" I interrupted her. I knew it would piss her right off, so I did it intentionally. I wanted her mad, so I could lead her in – "There are many elevator repair men in the city, aren't there?"
"Don't interrupt me, Hebert, and yes, there are. All the more likely we can have this fixed quickly."
"Gosh," I mused aloud. "And with so many, they must surely be unionized."
She clearly had no idea where I could possibly be heading with this.
"In fact, pretty much all of the repair workers here are unionized, aren't they? Probably under the biggest one in town, the DWA, 'less I miss my guess." My tone turned into a drawl. If Emma can use her father's influence for herself, well then, so can I. "Be awful hard to get repairs done here if the DWA decided to blacklist Winslow, now wouldn't it? Probably have to close down, there'd be a big investigation into the financials" – that drew a flinch, interesting – "and a lot of mud on people's faces. All a hypothetical, of course."
She could not help herself. She knew I wanted her to ask, but she needed to know. It was all in her grimace as she asked, "And why, pray tell, would the DWA do such a thing?"
"Well, that's unknowable," I said, as the corners of my mouth quirked up. It wasn't a smile. "But it could be that their head of hiring, who's pretty much the de facto head of the whole thing, got tired of his poor crippled daughter being abused by an uncaring Winslow administration, and decided to pull some strings. Hypothetically, of course."
She blanched. It was a good look on her. I decided to let her stew for a bit, let her reach my conclusion on her own. In the meantime, I contemplated the best way to leave the room. See, when you're wheelchair-bound, being in a room with a closed door is a considerable amount more confining than one with an open door. A walking person with muscle mass finds nothing particularly difficult about a door, but while I could probably get one open it would be by no means graceful. And yet, I needed a graceful exit to cap off my – frankly – blackmail. So, do I ask Blackwell to "open the door, if you'd be so kind?", using politeness as a blade? Or do I wait until she dismisses me, then raise my eyebrow and stare pointedly at the door, forcing her to bite back a response to rudeness? I still hadn't decided, when she opened her mouth with an equal mix of hesitance and shrewd cunning in her eyes, and asked, "And if, hypothetically, his daughter wasn't attending Winslow?"
"Why then, she'd have to be attending Arcadia – it would seem to be fair recompense for the slights, of course – and it would need to be quite prompt. Strings would have to get pulled one way or another."
She gave me a long look in the eyes, then nodded. "I'm still suspending you, until next Monday. Hopefully you won't return here then, if you take my meaning." Well screw you too, Blackwell, you unfair sociopath. Not that I'll complain – it was the parting shot, meant to reestablish a power dynamic, so I'll allow it, bend with the bluster. Besides, not like I want to be here. I decide: "Very well. I have a hard time with doors nowadays – if you'll see me out?"
She did, and I took pleasure in watching the secretary's face as she recognized the complete lack of victory in Blackwell's eyes. Choke on it, Umbridge.
I was home alone. Wasn't stupid enough to roll home alone, and the secretary couldn't be bothered to call Dad and get him to pick me up (or probably let him know at all – I'd have some explaining to do before tomorrow). Fortunately, the busses of Brockton Bay are still one of the best-functioning and safest parts of our dear city, and completely safe, to boot. It was one of the best effects the Marquis had on this city, along with stability and relative peace during the inevitable economic decline. He'd been practical, effective, and above all, ruthless – all in the pursuit of peace and protection of innocents. Oh, he'd been a murdering SOB, but hell, I've grown up here fifteen years now, and there's never been one without at least one murdering bastard in control of local crime. It's just that the Marquis was a gentleman about it, and these days there's Nazis and sex slavers lurking around street corners. But somehow, his influence stretches all that way forward in time, his bus truce still holds, and I got home safe.
And then, of course, came the waiting. Boredom has long been the worst enemy of the teenaged, more hated even than the alarm clock, and I have never been an exception. I tried to sit quietly, read further ahead in my history textbook, anything. But I itched, somewhere in the back of my mind. It took me a while, but I identified it eventually. I pulled up the Library of Congress archives, and Sudo set to reading.
It was a disgrace. Winslow was a disgrace and a cesspit. Not even just the students, no – something like half the teachers would be incarcerated felons if even one clean cop could read their emails! I felt surprised, yet unsurprised – cold in my head, yet cold in my stomach as well. This level of depravity – I was by turns upset and relieved that what Winslow and Blackwell did to me was by no means limited only to me.
Blackwell herself was owed enough jail time that her corpse would have to be buried in her cell.
Holy shit.
I wrote it up. I wrote it all up, in a scathing letter for PHO, in informative diagrams for the news agencies, in carefully labeled detail for the police. I wrote the emails, I prepared clarifying PHO information, I reorganized the evidence in a new LibCon partition. I did everything, met every expectation my first appearance had established and exceeded them. And then, mouse hovering over the 'send' button – I found myself unable. It was – it was too close to me.
It was an awfully quick way to be outed as Sudo, is what it was. Because, reading that exposé, most people will shudder in horror – but a clever few, and certainly someone on the taskforce dedicated to finding me, will ask 'qui bono' and then, well. Taylor Hebert isn't far and away the worst victim of Blackwell or the other evil psychopaths running that pile of garbage and textbooks – I digress. But I'm the most disgusting and terrible case in recent years, and it's a bit of a smoking gun. Who might be Sudo? Why, this girl who just triggered and has a bone to pick, of course?
Not like I won't be helping the authorities plenty, of course. I have nothing against them. They keep order, and are mostly full of good people who want to help. I'll be proud to be a Ward, and then a Protectorate cape. But. But can't they see I'm doing my civil duty to the world? Revealing scum masquerading as protectors, helping clean house for everyone! But all they can see is my effect on those all-important first two letters of PRT. All they can see is I damage their image. Didn't everyone learn as a child that tidying your room isn't just sticking everything in the closet and sweeping the rest under the carpet? Being actually clean is better than seeming that way, even if you have to do more work to get there, and people get to see your garbage on the way to the trash.
So I don't plan to be arrested anytime soon, and therefore I can't post this. I can't.
God damn it.
But maybe – maybe if I untangle a few scandals elsewhere, maybe specifically focus on Boston for a bit. Maybe if people get used to the idea that I'm from Boston, build a profile of me in their heads that doesn't match the real me. Like Armsmaster said – the best way to get someone not to see something is to give them something else to look at. That's why I plan to get publicly announced as a surveillance focused tinker – close enough to my actual skills that I can fake it with his help, and if I get outed by a villain, shucks but not the end of the world. Who's going to look close at a tinker 2? Forget kidnapping, extortion, all that. Hell, forget trying to actually kill me during a patrol – not worth the chance of the Triumvirate making a personal visit. As long as I'm not worth the effort, except to those who already have me, then nobody will bother finding out how much effort I'm worth. And Director Piggot and her bosses? Well, what kind of idiot kills and cooks the goose that lays the golden eggs?
No, that illusion will keep me safe, and this one will too. So who is Sudo? Best to make as full a picture as I can, even if I'm leaking barely any of it to seem like I'm trying to leak none. First of all, Sudo lives in Boston. Sudo's female, since I probably shouldn't pretend to be a guy – too hard to write like one. There's all sorts of little things… the instinct that it's dangerous to be out after dark, the understanding of female issues and lack of understanding of male ones, all those little idiosyncrasies would add up, and one wrong note can spoil the symphony. No, best to make Sudo be like me, but elsewhere and in a different situation.
So. Sudo's a white woman, from Boston for consistency, and she's… mmm, 23? Old enough to justify an eventual move to Brockton, because there's no way I'm keeping the focus away from my beloved broken bay for long, and young enough that I can seem that old in my writing style. Kids? …yes. One, his name is Steven, hers is Valorie. Valorie Carmichael, she was a teen mom, now single parent. Triggered when… a government official denied her food stamps and she couldn't feed Steven or herself on her meagre salary as a waitress. Went to school at… Harvard, investigative journalism, bright future until her parents died and there was nobody else to take care of Steven, so she had to drop out. Applied for food stamps when she ran out of money, but the government official was… her ex's sister Melody, blamed her for his suicide. Triggered due to that desperation and corruption, but can't bring herself to report it, Melody's hurting too. Wishes she could forgive Melody, wishes Melody could forgive her, and they could both be a part of Steven's life.
A familiar amount of tragedy, these days, in the Bay. A distracting amount, too. Not much of Valorie will make it into Sudo, but a little will. She'll probably move to Brockton, start looking at schools for Steven, and that'll be how Sudo finds out about Winslow.
For now? Taylor has escaped it. I'm finally free. The rest can wait.
