CLICK "in the latest news, Brockton bay..."
CLICK "--known as the Slaughterhouse Nine were, there are no other words for it, exterminated by--"
CLICK "--sudden instability in the European markets has led to surges in the local economies, surprisingly sending them on a positive upswing. Some experts are attributing it to--"
CLICK "-- The disappearance of the cape motorcycle gang known as the Teeth has destabilized the power structure in--"
Fallout. Adrian had known there'd be fallout from all his actions, and lots of it. Considering the whole point of his existence in this Universe was to butterfly away as many GrimDark fates as he possibly could, it was a given. It still caught him off guard.
Suddenly, in the span of a single day, the Alliance was the center of attention for every news channel, hero team, government and military agency and Cape organization in the Western hemisphere. Even before the dust had settled on the battlefield, questions and demands began to fly, people closing in waving microphones, cameras-- and badges.
The response from all the Warcrafted had been as swift as it had been uniform.
They'd freaked.
To a man, they'd portaled, hearthstoned, vanished in clouds of smoke or bursts of light, leaving the officious people crowding them yammering amongst themselves in confusion. It had been easier than it should have been, Adrian reflected later; whether by luck or by clever design, most of the attention had been focused on Dragon and her new feather-covered ward, so the rest of them had managed to slip away (or bolt for it) before anyone realized what was happening... much to the frustration of every authority figure and member of the fourth estate present.
One could only imagine how frustrated the would-be interrogators became when Shar'Din doubled back and portaled Dragon and Canary, giant robo-dragon "suit" and all, to the Lost Workshop's garage. It had been a tight fit, but they'd they'd made it. Thank goodness the A.I. had the foresight to add a modular android "sub-body" to this build of her robotic form. Said gynoid was now puttering about the Alliance's secret base, the larger bulk of her body parked in power-down mode next to the bus. Well, where the bus had once been-- damned Teeth.
Adrian was glad they'd spent so much time expanding the base; despite being a veritable warren of warehouses, workspaces and makeshift modular rooms, it was getting a bit close. Not quite crowded-- but with everyone's family and significant others now gathered in, privacy was in short supply.
Not that it was likely to change soon. Their families were still confused and frightened, and victory or no the members of the Alliance themselves were badly battered. It had been a long, protracted and often gruesome fight, and at the end of the day for all their power and bitter life experiences, they were all terribly young. Everyone had gone to their private chambers, busied themselves consoling and explaining things to their confused and upset families, or to their workshops to bury themselves in some project or other... retreating into the stronghold to lick their wounds.
"--- rampant speculation about these new capes; many of them seem to defy the standards we've come to expect--"
Click.
"---Celebration in the streets at their downfall, and mourning in private corners, as their victims are remembered. It is hoped now they might rest in peace--"
Click.
"---destabilize the balance of power in Brockton Bay, as long speculated? Will this seeming 'victory' only bring more bloodshed as--"
Click.
Taylor burrowed into his side on the couch as he flipped through the channels and sites on the big screen. The moment they'd returned to base and squared everything away, she'd retreated to her quarters, thrown herself in the shower and not come back out for a good hour.
Even under the sound of running water Adrian couldn't help hearing her softly crying.
When she'd come back out she was in her human form and wearing the loose pastel-colored scrubs she normally wore for pajamas. She'd beelined straight to the couch in the main room. Some of their sudden guests stared as she passed, but she was clearly out of damns to give. She huddled up on the overstuffed cushions and didn't move.
The rest of the team seemed similarly inclined. The adrenaline crash was hitting most of them hard; they were all starting to realize just how close it had been, just what many of them had been forced to do. Grue and Mama Crow (that was the Cape name she'd chosen) had gone off somewhere, Adrian didn't know where. Brian's little sister had been a shaking mess. Lok'tara had stalked off to her warehouse-slash-private zoo, stonefaced. Shar'Din had been scurrying around, muttering to himself and doing... something arcane, his distracted explanations confusing even Adrian. Greg Veder, eyes haunted, dirty, dishevelled and clad in battered, blood-spattered armor, had taken his upset parents aside and was busy explaining to them that he'd just killed someone...
Even through all the walls Adrian could hear the shouting and cries of dismay. His ears laid back; this was probably a conversation everyone on the team was going to have with someone, he realized.
click.
"---discussions with the PRT about these events have been postponed--"
click.
"---concerned activist groups are pointing out that these new 'heroes' appear to be almost entirely underage, and are demanding to know--"
Their mixed bag of "guests"... consisting mostly of their parents... had quickly retreated with their various offspring to various offsprings' private quarters. They were mostly meek and subdued, too shell-shocked to raise much fuss yet.
click.
"--- The Wards, yay, they're heroes in trai-ning, they're the Wards, yeeeeeah, no use com-plai-ning---"
Taylor stirred against his side and buried her muzzle in the crook of his neck some more. At some point she'd shifted back to wolfen. "Oh please no," she grumbled. "Not that. Change it now."
"Why?" Adrian cocked his ears down at her. "I figured you'd want some mindless cartoon or something to take your mind off things."
"Not THAT mindless." She groaned and looked up. "The old 'Wards:Teen Heroes' was a good show, but then they dumbed it down to this..." she gestured at the screen; several grossly giant-headed Chibi versions of the Wards, past and present, were anime-jumping across the screen. "It's nothing but stupid plots even a stoner wouldn't laugh at and fart and poop jokes. Change it.." she whined and pawed ineffectually at the air, trying to reach the remote.
Half-teasing, he held it up over their heads. "Come on, it can't really be THAT bad," he said.
FWEERRRRRRT! "Ewwww, Clockstopper, you SHARTED!" "I know. Boy do I wish this helmet had vents--"
Adrian's muzzle wrinkled up in disgust. "Ah. I stand corrected."
Taylor chuckled. "You're not kidding. There's a reason Vista isn't in the show."
"She isn't?"
"No. They were going to make a baby version of her, in diapers and all. According to PHO gossip, she threatened to use her powers on the CEO to cram his head up his--"
"Yikes," he chuckled. "I can imagine." Adrian hastily hit the 'next channel' button on the remote.
click.
"Come and knock on our door...take a step that is new..."
"Huh. Three's Company. I haven't seen that show in... wow, a long time." He settled in a bit. "Pity the lead died so young. He was a brilliant physical comedian. Buster Keaton could take notes."
Taylor nodded. "There are lots of 'oldies' cable channels," she said. "Old TV sitcoms, black and white serials, silent movies-- anything and everything gets pulled out of mothballs and put on the air these days." A smile flickered on her lips briefly. "Partly because it's so difficult and expensive making new shows these days... but kind of because..." her eyes cast down a little. "Because so many people have taken to looking back to the 'good old days' before--"
"Before Scion," Adrian finished for her. "Before the Endbringers, and the villains, and the Yangban, and all the other crazy awful stuff started." He nuzzled her. "Right?"
She sighed back and nodded. "I guess everybody reaches a point where they wish they could turn the clock back--" she stopped herself. For a few seconds they just listened to the old sitcom jingle. She suddenly looked into his eyes; for an instant he imagined he saw Jack Slash's face, in his last shocked moments, reflected in her eyes. A blink and it was gone; but he knew it was in there, somewhere... "Will the crazy awful stuff ever stop?" she asked him, pleading.
Her words went straight to his heart like a dart of pain, but he managed to keep his voice steady. "They have to, don't they?" he said. "From time to time." He rubbed her shoulder with the arm he had wrapped around her, his eyes as haunted as hers.
They both fell silent, an unspoken tension filling the air. To both their surprise he was the first to crack. His breathing went ragged; his eyes grew wet and tears began spilling down, wetting the fur on his face in dark streaks. He'd handled being flung into the brutal streets of Brockton Bay-- being displaced, separated from everything and everyone he'd known-- with panache. He'd pulled it together after having a teenage kid die in his arms. He'd made it through his one-man war against the Merchants. He'd held it together through all the dying, through all the killing... but he was like anyone else; he could only box away so much before it all spilled out.
His own breaking point caught him off-guard. The words spilled out before he even knew he'd said them.
"That... girl... that little girl..."
Taylor clung to him in alarm, but she said nothing as he babbled like a fool, staring fixedly ahead. "That... she... I don't know what's wrong with me, she was a monster. A monster--" his voice cracked. "I... I had... I have... two nieces back home, not much older or younger..."
The age Riley had been when she'd been abducted. The age Riley had been when she died.
Taylor wrapped her arms around him and hugged him till her arms ached.You could be a native of a place as hard and cruel as Brockton Bay. You could be a veteran of whatever war you could name. But some things were just too brutal for even the toughest survivor to take without breaking down.
They settled in together to watch the show, trying to soothe new scars with old memories.
***
Flechette had the feeling she was in over her head. This was NOT how after-action debriefings were supposed to go for a Ward. Right now she should be, not to put too fine a point on it, beelining for the nearest PRT Director to spill her guts about her unsupervised activities over the past, what, 72 hours? More? With one of the most notorious Rogue Cape teams in the Tri-State area.
Instead, she was following one of them around their "secret base" like a lost puppy dog, watching as the eccentric elf-like cape did.... she had no idea what he was doing. He was roaming all over the place, from the rafters of the faux-warehouses providing the Lost Workshop with its faux shell to the tunnels underneath, stopping to pick at strange symbols painted or carved or even embossed into the walls, adding to some, erasing others, rambling to himself in a mix of half-sentences in English and something he'd called "Sindorai."
They were currently in the tunnels below the base again. Shar'Din was connecting two clusters of glowing symbols with a brushline of silver paint, the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration as he smoothed the silver goop onto the rough stone. She was starting to wonder gone a bit barmy, like Mryddin... or whether he'd always been and she was just recognizing it now. "What exactly are you doing?" she finally asked.
He looked over at her like she'd startled him, a smudge of silver paint on his nose. "Getting ready," he said. "Or, ah, finishing getting ready-- this is sort of a project I've been working on and off on ever since I got the Truth laid on me by Adrian-- ah, you call him Skinwalker I think." He pulled the hip-bag he had slung over his shoulder around and absently turned it inside out, seemingly studying the ornate embroidery inside, then squinting up at the work he was doing on the wall, then back again.
Flechette nodded carefully. Even after all she'd seen (it had been a whirlwind few days), she wasn't so sure about the story that Shar'Din and his... associates... had spun for her. Weird illuminati-like organizations, ancient conspiracies, cosmic entities with inscrutable plans--- a growing part of her was beginning to suspect the whole thing was a put-on or worse, a come-on to lure Capes into some sort of Scientology-esque Cape Cult. "Getting ready?"
"Yeah. Seeing as what we just did, we've probably finally attracted their attention."
"Uh. They who?"
He stared at her with his glowing green eyes. "You know. Them." He turned his haversack right-side-out again and slung it behind him. "All the 'thems' we told you about. Thinkers. Powers and principalities. And maybe a couple of others." He flicked his eyes briefly upwards to space, where a most unholy angel waited.
Flechette felt ice briefly trickle down her back. "You mean, ah--"
He picked up his tools and headed for the spiral staircase back up into his private workshop proper. "Exactly. We're supposed to be hidden, but at this point it's like hiding an elephant under a tarp--- even if they can't see us, it's pretty obvious something's there." He stopped and adjusted something that looked like a cross between a crystal growing kit and a dreamcatcher attached to the wall.... one of dozens she'd seen in peculiar and obscure locations all over the base. "We don't just need to be unseen, we need to be unlocateable.
"But like I said, I've been noodling on this ever since I got the Encyclopedia Arcana downloaded into my brain... and.... if I did this right.... even if they know where we are, it won't make any difference; they won't be able to find us. We won't just be invisible, we'll be untouchable."
"Even... her?" Flechette asked.
"Yes." He plugged something into the center of the crystal mandala. "Even the Ziz." The mandala began to glow. softly. "If I've done the arithmancy right, anyway."
****
Mr. and Mrs. Veder were.... coping. That was the best word for it. It was hard to say if their current situation was better or worse; from having their only child vanish into thin air, to having him reappear on their doorstep as a Cape-- a literal knight in literal shining armor-- to being spirited out of the middle of a terrifying Cape battle to... this place. His quarters, in his hero team's secret base, apparently.
And apparently their boy was not only a Cape hero, but an incredibly prosperous one as well. His quarters had every comfort of home and more, and his weekly stipend was more than his father's income. Mrs. Veder had nearly fainted when her little boy had made gifts of jewelry to them both--
Then they had learned that this was to be their home for the foreseeable future, whether they liked it or not. The beautiful rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings their son had given them as gifts were actually some strange sort of Tinkertech, and meant for their protection, the comfortable if not opulent quarters were layered in reinforced concrete and steel.
Apparently there was some legion of supervillains-- Mr. Veder didn't care about all the fancy details; they were a clandestine, illegal organization of Capes funding their globe-spanning conspiracies by selling black-market super powers, they couldn't have been more obviously a supervillain league if they'd had "Evil League of Evil" printed on their team jackets-- who the Alliance were trying to thwart, and who wouldn't hesitate to use family, friends or other innocents to get leverage over them.
The Veders were a pair of very disoriented country mice who'd just learned there was no road back to the farm from the stately manor that didn't run past the cat.
"I don't know, Anna, I don't know what to do," Charles Veder said to his wife for what had to be the hundredth time. "We... we're losing everything. Our careers, our home, our name--! What that, that Skinwalker told us about this, this is going to be like Witness Protection times a thousand. I don't know...There has to be someone else we can go to--!"
Anna sat on her son's living room sofa and watched her husband pace and run his hand through his thinning hair. "We don't have a choice, Charles," she said. She was no less unhappy than him. "We can't rely on anyone. Not the police, not the government, not the PRT, noone. Who are we going to turn to?"
He was starting to answer when the door opened. Greg entered, still dressed in his battered armor. It had been hours since they'd all returned from the battle; he had stopped in for barely a second to check on them and to reassure them he was all right. Neither of them knew where he'd vanished to, but now here he was.
Something in his eyes, though, kept them from saying anything that first came to mind. "...Mom?" he said. "Mom, I need your help with something..."
She followed him through the maze of stairs and doors and hallways. "I'm sorry I left you alone," he told her. "I got back to my blacksmith shop, I was gonna take off my armor, but I crashed on the cot back there instead--"
"It's okay, son," Charles said, doggedly tagging along behind. "We, we watched the news reports. You went through hell out there. Just, we just thank God you're alive--"
"What was it you needed us for?" Anna said.
Greg stopped at one doorway. "I was on my way back to you when I heard her," he said quietly, nodding at the closed door. "This is Lok'tara's room-- her warehouse really, it... never mind not important." He swallowed. "A lot of bad stuff went down out there. For all of us. Some of it worse than others... something real bad happened to Lok'Tara. I..." He looked lost. "I don't know how to deal with crying girls--"
The door opened up on a sizeable room, a former storeroom or small warehouse from the look of it. Daylight came down through the green plastic skylights overhead; cages and pens lined the walls. The open area in the center was scattered with balls, chew bones, and other pet toys, and the far corner was gated off and filled with bags of pet chow, cat litter and other supplies.
There were animals of course. A few cats roamed here and there. There were a few birds in the rafters, flying in and out through an open window near the eaves, along with a couple of squirrels. To the Veder's astonishment an enormous eagle of some sort was sitting on a perch nearby in an apparent place of honor.
Of dogs there was only one; an enormous mastiff lying by its master's side in the center of the room. The hulking, green skinned girl, Loktara, that was her name, was kneeling on the floor there, her muscled shoulders stooped and her head hanging low. Her hands were clutched in her lap around a tangled snarl of leather straps. Dog collars, at least a dozen of them. The mastiff raised its head and looked at them and let out a low, mournful moan.
"Lok'Tara?" Greg said softly, edging closer. "Are you okay?"
The girl didn't raise her head, but they could see her cheeks were smeared wet. "No," she half-snarled.
In spite of how frankly brutish and dangerous the girl looked, Anna felt her heart go out to her. "What happened, dear?" she said as kindly as she could.
The girl never took her eyes off her hands. She opened her fists and held out the ragged strips of studded leather. "My dogs," she said.
"What, the Nine--" Greg started. The girl grimaced and nodded jerkily. "All of them??" Greg blurted out.
Lok'Tara closed her eyes, squeezing them shut. "Yes," she whispered.
"Brutas? Judas? Delilah?" Greg rambled, horrified. "No..."
Lok'Tara waved one massive hand, indicating the cages lining the room. For the first time they noticed that the dog kennels and houses were standing open and empty. "I took.. I left them at the other dog run," she said, her voice cracking. "With the others. While I had the new kennels brought in."
"Oh no," Greg said, stricken.
"Chuckles found them all there. He killed them--" she seemed to struggle to breathe. "Just... hacked, and-and ripped them apart... one had puppies..."
"Christ," Mr. Veder said, his voice thick with nausea. "What a world."
Lok'tara sobbed, great heaving gasps that seemed like they were going to tear her apart. Without a second thought Anna Veder hurried over and threw her own arms around the orc girl's heaving shoulders. For a wonder, the girl once known as Bitch didn't throw the touch off. She leaned into it, sobbing, as her loyal hound nuzzled and licked at her face and Greg's mother crooned in her ear. "Why? Why, why, why?" she sobbed.
Anna Veder knew better than to try answering. some kinds of pain, there are no words for. She just crooned and gently rocked the grieving girl as best she could. Moments later she was joined by her son, who threw his own armored arms around them both. Then, awkwardly, the patriarch of the Veder clan as well.
Who can we turn to? Anna thought. We can do what these children have-- and turn to each other.
****
It was 12 oclock noon precisely on a Thursday when a gleaming black limousine pulled up to the front door of the PRT building. The driver exited and held the door open for his passengers. The first to disembark were two men who were clearly bodyguards; they were dressed in simple dark suits, sunglasses and earpieces, and there were obvious if subtle bulges under their suit coats at the armpit.
Next was no less than Carol Dallon, dressed to the nines in what her family liked to call her "lawyer destroyer" bone white business suit. She carried a slim black phone and nothing else. Next was one of her office compatriots in an off-grey suit, a shorter, balding man with a bit of a paunch, but who carried himself with a professional air nonetheless.
The final person to exit the limo was a young black man. He stood a solid six foot tall, and his pale grey suit hung from his broad shoulders in perfect tailored lines. He had short, neat cornrows, and wore dark sunglasses, a bluetooth earpiece, and a power tie as straight and sharp as a knife. He carried a silver metal briefcase that was handcuffed to him at the wrist. He paused briefly to brush an imaginary speck of dust off his lapels, then strode toward the front doors of the PRT. The bodyguards went before and behind him, the two lawyers flanked him.
They stepped into the lobby. He approached the openly staring officer at the front desk and gave her a dazzling smile. "Hello," he said. The lady at the desk couldn't help reflecting his voice was somewhere between Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones, silky smooth. "My name is Brian Laborne, I am here representing Azaroth LTD. concerning the bounties on the leaders of the Teeth and the Slaughterhouse Nine... I believe I have an appointment with the director?" He trailed off expectantly.
The officer shook off her stupor and reached for the phone.
Minutes later they were all ensconced in a meeting room on the top floor, Laborne and his associates flanking one side of the long business table, Piggot, her deputy director, and Armsmaster on the other along with a few bean counters from the PRT offices. Brian had opened the case and passed a stack of papers over to the Director for signing, and Carol Dallon was explaining the contents thereof. It was hard to judge by Piggot's expression, but everyone present got the impression the contents didn't please her.
"...First real issue is the Kill Order bounty on Butcher-Scar," Carol said. "The bounty on Butcher as leader of the Teeth, and Burnscar as a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, were both quite substantial... but as they were the same person at the time that Skinwalker brought about their demise..." she shrugged. "The Alliance is willing to waive the lesser of the two bounties."
"Generous of you," Piggot grunted. "Some will try to claim that the PRT is trying to cheapskate you, though."
"Which is why our first suggestion is that both bounties be given in the name of the PRT and the Alliance jointly to a deserving charity organization," Brian Laborne said. He graced her with a charming smile. "I understand that there is a fund set up for civilians who suffered injury and loss in the attack?"
Piggot couldn't help but nod in approval. "That will buy a lot of good will in the city for both parties," she agreed. "And the disposition of the others?"
"The Cape Hemlokk is on record for taking down no less than Jack Slash himself, and with the assistance of their newest member, Sunbird, jointly taking down Bonesaw."
Armsmaster shifted in his reinforced chair. Did the man have to wear his full battle-rattle everywhere? "The issue of their 'new member'..." he began.
"Is one you should best just leave lie, Armsmaster," Mrs. Dallon said, smiling sweetly at the Tinker hero. "Even ignoring how poking about Sunbird's identity would trespass on the Unwritten Rules about a Capes alias, Dragon has already hired a team of lawyers and investigators to look into the obvious irregularities in Bad Canary's precipitous conviction. Irregularities like unconstitutional proceedings, compromised members of the jury, dirty money--- oh, Dragon's legal eagles are going to be up in the Judge's and District Attorney's business with a wet suit and a flashlight. You REALLY don't want to insert yourself or your local Protectorate or PRT into the middle of all THAT, I assure you." Armsmaster looked uncomfortable and sat back. Message delivered.
Piggot looked a bit constipated. "I want to state for the record that this is highly irregular," she said. "In the case of bounties on Kill-orders, the normal procedure is for the recipient, whether Cape or civilian, to report in person. This applies to even Rogues and Villains, who are afforded a 24 hour extension of the Endbringer treaty to collect--"
"Except when they're not," the young man sitting across from her interrupted. Overpriced sunglasses or no, his expression was far too easy to read. "It's been the Alliance's personal experience that while the small fry obey the rules, things like the Unwritten Rules and the Endbringer Truces are treated more like 'guidelines'--" He made quote marks in the air with his fingers. "By the big fish. Like the Government. Or the PRT. Or the Triumvirate. Or anyone really, who start feeling their oats and think they have enough political clout to get away with it." He folded his hands in front of him. "That's why they've hired me as the corporate financial officer of Azeroth LTD to act as their proxy for this exchange, and paid Mrs. Dallon and her associate a rather large retainer to stamp out any legal issues." He smiled humorlessly. "Just to avoid any sudden need to have us delayed, rescheduled, forced to disclose unnecessary private details of our cape members or our corporation... or to have us detained while the proper authorities 'sorted things out.'"
He reached into his open briefcase and turned on the laptop inside, as he handed Piggot a sheet of typed paper. "We worked out the disposition of the remainder of the reward money ahead of time; on this paper is a list of offshore banking accounts to which each Alliance member's share should be deposited and what other individuals should be given a share of the take. Breaking it down, Shatterbird was taken down by a joint effort between Shar'Din of the Alliance and Flechette of the New York Wards; Shar'Din agrees that the bounty on Shatterbird should be divided between them-- cite me no PRT regulations, he swears he'll mail it to her stuffed in envelopes if you don't.
"While Hemlokk did engage them in combat, Hemmorhadgia and Hex of the Teeth were ultimately eliminated by two members of the Brockton Bay Dockworker's union. A married couple, which makes it tidy--"
There were blinks of surprise. It could have made a social psychologist's thesis, studying how people of Earth Bet had been conditioned to think no mere mortal could ever be a match for a Cape. "How, exactly--?" Piggot ventured.
"Ran them down with a forklift," Brian said dryly. "Then a quick tap to the forehead with a shotgun." After a moment's pause while that sank in, Brian continued. "While Manikin was a solo takedown by Vindicator, it was a group effort by Vindicator, Skinwalker, Lok'Tara and Fennek against Crawler and Chuckles.There's some argument as to whether to count Hatchet Face, since Bonesaw had apparently spliced them together..."
....
Thirty minutes later, Brian Laborne and his entourage walked out the front door of the PRT and slid smoothly into the rental limo they'd commissioned just for this visit. In the briefcase were several sizeable government checks for various individuals, as well as a great deal of documentation confirming that several LARGE sums of money had just been transferred by wire to certain anonymous offshore accounts.
Fifteen minutes after that, Piggot received a phone call in her office on a particular secure line. The Director in Chief spoke almost before the receiver reached Piggot's ear. "I'm going to guess you failed to detain them as we wished," Rebecca Costa-Brown said with a sigh.
Piggot pursed her lips. "Yes, we were unable to detain them as you wished," she said, not-so-subtly emphasizing the you. "They sent a legal proxy, who was accompanied both by lawyers and bodyguards. Any attempt to trump up an arrest, or 'detaining for questioning,' would have raised a stink that you would have smelled all they way up in your penthouse office." She couldn't help but feel a touch of schadenfreude at getting that little dig in.
"They were more than prepared for our clever little foot-dragging, red-tape tricks, too. After the third attempt by our PRT beancounter to try and suggest there were "irregularities" and there "might be delays or complications" in transferring the funds, they dropped a counter-offer... they would pay the reward recipients, particularly the civilians, out of their own discretionary funds, to be reimbursed by the PRT at a later date." Piggot smiled humorlessly. "They even had a press release ready, about how they were willing 'to help out the PRT in its time of fiscal struggles'... 'so that the people who contributed and sacrificed so much wouldn't have to suffer the slings and arrows of government red tape, waiting for their recompense." Et cetera, et cetera."
Piggot heard something creaking on the other end of the line. Perhaps Director Costa-Brown was stress-testing her phone receiver. Or maybe, she thought gleefully, it was the insufferable woman's teeth grinding together. She had to admit that the Alliance had made a fairly masterful move. If the PRT had been made out in the Media to be not merely stingy but playing tight-fisted parsimonious games with the bounties they had promised, all absolute hell would have broken loose. Piggot had made the only move she could, and Director Costa-Brown was in check.
The Director finally spoke. "Director Tagg is going to be fit to be tied when he arrives," she said finally.
"My heart truly bleeds for him," Piggot said.
It had happened, finally. Piggot was being put out to pasture. Despite fighting tooth and nail to keep her position here in Brockton Bay, and to do her job in the best way she saw fit, she'd known on some level it was inevitable.
"It is regrettable," the Director in Chief was saying. "the Bay area is experiencing what seems to be an unprecedented turnaround despite the chaos. But ironically the turnaround is so sudden that it has raised questions--"
"So I was told," Piggot said sourly. Translation: 'it happened so fast, why didn't it happen sooner?' And 'we're not giving you any credit for what seems to be a fluke.' And best of all: 'You've upset the status quo.' That one in particular left a bitter taste in her mouth; recalling how it 'the status quo' had become her mantra ever since she slid behind the desk. At first she'd tried to push back, to make things better. but continual underfunding and understaffing and red tape had beaten that out of her, to the point she was just grateful when things didn't get drastically worse from week to week. She'd learned to fear disruption more than she feared decay; only now after she'd actually seen that change was worth the price of the chaos.... now she was being let go for not staying on the same dead-end treadmill.
Screw it. Thanks to Panacea (and no less to Skinwalker for guilt-tripping her into it) she was physically fit for the first time in over a decade, and walking around in a body that looked younger by at least two. It was long past time to find a tropical tourist trap someplace and find out if the rumors about cabana boys were true.
What was nearly giving her heart failure over it though was who they had chosen to replace her. James Tagg. Calling him a 'war hawk' was an undeserved flattery; it implied he had actual military virtues: military bearing, military discipline, military efficiency. Those who worked with him had much better terms for him: Miles Gloriosus. REMFO. Niedermeyer. Paranoid control freak. Xenophobic bigot. The term used most in reference to him, by a long lead, however, was "Asshat."
The very idea of people with Cape abilities running about as free people seemed to drive him into a frothing rage. One of his more temperate suggestions for 'the Cape problem' had been enforced conscription of all confirmed capes and fitting them out with exploding collars to control the recalcitrant. He had continually raved about how 'out of control' and mismanaged the ENE protectorate, Brockton Bay in particular-- even as he opposed and voted down any request on her part for more funds, more equipment, more staff, more Capes...
Well, now all this was HIS steaming hot dumpster fire to deal with. She felt a moment of actual sympathy for the Protectorate heroes and especially the Wards.
Then she reflected on what Tagg's reaction to the Alliance's shenanigans was going to be. And what the Alliance's reaction would be to Tagg... particularly Skinwalker, who seemed to have a soft spot for the Wards... "You know, Director, I think I'll stay in touch with the ENE office," she said. "In an advisory capacity, you might say."
"Indeed."
"Yes, there are some, ah, unique peculiarities to the area. It would only be advisable."
"I..."
"Well I'm sure you're a busy woman. I know I am, I do have a desk to clear out. Goodbye, Director Costa-Brown." She hung up. She turned to her desktop, pulled out a very particular business card with a very particular email address, and sent out an encrypted missive.
Be advised, Director James Tagg incoming as new head of PRT ENE.
Do keep an eye on the children
PIGGOT
She shut off the desktop and leaned back in her office chair. "Damned right I'm staying in touch," she said. "Like hell I'm going to miss what happens next."
The deep throated chuckle that echoed out of her office sounded less like something coming from a hall of heroes, and more like something one heard in a storm-lashed laboratory before they unleashed the monster on the hapless village below.
