Peg Smith
Jason heaved a put-upon sigh and ran one hand through his hair, visibly working up his nerve before swiping the projector through the next few images, stopping on an iconic shot of Chicago in the wake of Shatterbird. The shot, taken by some kid lucky enough to have their cell phone survive two of Shatterbird's 'screams', depicting a devastated Chicago in clear detail from high above. (Peg was pretty sure she knew where it had been taken from, and still wondered if Haunt had taken the picture; not many people could readily get to that spot safely) "Culminating, of course, in the events that lead to this unit's current form." Jason paused here. "I'm not sure this really requires explanation?"
Peg noticed Bad Canary hesitantly raising a hand, looking unsure, but Poltergeist was quicker on the draw, leaning forward onto the table with an overly-serious look on her face and saying, "I heard the Monster kid propositioned Shatterbird in front of, like, a million witnesses?"
There was some staring, as Peg was clearly not the only one to have not heard of such an incident. From the looks on Foundation and Menagerie's faces, Peg suspected she wasn't alone in being somewhat skeptical Poltergeist hadn't made it up just now.
Fiadh put paid to those doubts in short order, starting by leaning back in her chair with a deep sigh and muttering, "I hate the rumor mill," followed by once again leaning forward with her hands clasped together, and clarifying, "Yes, as far as we know that... event most likely did in fact happen. It's possible a parahuman ability caused a mass hallucination or... whatever... but not only were no local or non-local parahumans put at the scene capable of producing this type of effect, but what would even be the motive?"
Jason made a pained noise. "Cape psychology is unpredictable enough we can't actually dismiss that possibility, though."
Peg blinked at 'cape psychology'. Foundation looked similarly confused, and Bad Canary looked totally lost. Nobody else seemed put off by the phrase... when Foundation and Bad Canary didn't speak up for too long, Peg decided somebody should ask, so might as well be her. "What's this about 'cape psychology'?" Peg found the phrase uncomfortable and hoped this wasn't something ethically gross she was running through her voicebox.
Jason startled slightly, then made an apologetic noise. "Ah, sorry, I guess I'm too used to working with really experienced Heroes, I tend to forget this is somewhat cutting-edge science." Interestingly, Fiadh put down her mug and leaned forward, looking interested and making a 'go on' motion that Jason clearly wasn't expecting. Oddly, he looked more off-put by having half the room's attention on him than he had when it had been the whole room focused on him, earlier. Still, he marshaled himself and started explaining, dropping into what was clearly an only somewhat-practiced explanatory tone.
"Parahumans break almost every rule we thought we knew. I'm sure you all know that more intimately than me-" Here he gestured vaguely at Makeshift and Poltergeist. "-but while the physical component of parahumans is obviously divergent, what has only recently started to come into focus is the brain, or the mind if you prefer." Peg was already getting a sinking feeling. "There's been brainscan comparisons, questionnaires, studies of assorted data, and of course people who work closely with parahumans just notice things and talk with each other. Firm conclusions shouldn't be taken too seriously, it's all an emerging field-"
Fiadh cut in, "I think you're stalling," which had not been Peg's impression at all, but then Jason hesitated and something about how he did so made her think he was feeling caught. So maybe Fiadh was on the nose here?
Jason nodded ambiguously, took a deep breath, and continued in a firmer tone. "We've traded data with Aleph, both on their parahumans and on their non-parahumans, as kind of a control to make sure it's not... y'know..." He gestured vaguely upward, confusing Peg until he continued with, "... Endbringers, among other differences... and it's all pretty consistent; parahumans broadly run more fight than flight-"
Bad Canary hesitantly raised a hand, but it was Foundation who spoke up first. "Excuse me, I feel like you've skipped a step in this explanation?"
Jason looked befuddled and more than a bit frazzled, and was visibly relieved when Fiadh leaned forward a little more and clarified, "Fight-or-flight is a summary of how people respond to dangerous or stressful situations. Fight is, of course, fighting the threat, while flight is fleeing from it." Here she paused and added, clearly as an aside, "There's actually a wider range of common responses, such as 'freeze', but for law enforcement purposes we mostly care about the fight and flight options." She took another sip from her mug, then returned to the primary explanation. "Officer Henault-" Jason cringed very slightly. He really didn't like being called that, did he? "-is saying that a threatened parahuman is more likely than a threatened non-parahuman to aggressively defend theirself, rather than trying to run." Then she leaned back, visibly relaxing.
Jason nodded enthusiastically; Peg started to wonder if this was an actual passion of his as he continued. "Notably, studies indicate this is true even when a parahuman's ability offers little or no direct offensive capacity, or is extremely well-suited to enabling an escape; Movers of any kind will move toward an attacker more often than they will try to escape. This holds true even if there's a clearly-defined goal that is not advanced by aggression."
Fiadh blandly remarked, "Anyone who's helped with Ward training can tell you that much." Peg was mildly disturbed to note that all the non-Makeshift Protectorate Heroes, as well as Jason, winced. Fiadh clarified that, "Most Wards will, when first starting out training exercises, try to take down 'bad guys', even when explicitly told the goal of the exercise is to evacuate civilians, put out a fire, etc. It tends to take a few failures for Wards to learn better." Her expression tightened, lips pursed angrily. "Some never learn better, unfortunately."
None of this was helping with the sick feeling in Peg's gut, and she was half-considering making an excuse to leave for a few minutes when Jason spoke up. "Returning to the original point, the evidence is that parahumans are overwhelmingly more likely to... think in a non-standard way, if that makes sense?"
Surprisingly, Bad Canary spoke up here. (Actually, this seemed to surprise everyone, not just Peg. Well. Maybe not Makeshift; Peg wasn't sure what 'surprised' looked like on them) "You mean, like... autism?"
Peg was drawing a blank on the word. (It didn't sound like a real word to Peg, but nobody else responded like it was weird, so...) Jason shrugging and saying, "Sort of," didn't exactly help, so Peg was relieved when he continued with an actual clarification. "Some powers are directly tied up in personality. One of the Slaughterhouse- the Wild Hunt, excuse me- members, Burnscar, has lowered impulse control, no apparent guilt, and several other psychological alterations when sufficiently close to a fire, while able to generate fires at will with her power." Peg's jaw dropped in horror at the mental picture painted, but somehow it got worse as Jason continued with, "But there's a growing body of evidence that less obvious changes are common, like the fight-or-flight point we just covered. So..."
Fiadh finished the sentence for Jason. "... you can't rule out a parahuman doing something just because of a lack of motive, certainly not for a largely-unknown or entirely-hypothetical parahuman."
While Peg and Bad Canary (And possibly Foundation? She looked a little green...) digested that, Jason clapped his hands together. "But yes, as far as we know Monster openly propositioned Shatterbird." He paused, seemingly for effect. "I've had public relations people insist I don't mention it if I can, because it fits a little too neatly into the narrative of an S9 fangirl going on to take over her idols' group." An S9 what?
Makeshift spoke up. "Profiling indicates she's not a 'fangirl', I assume?" Peg shifted uncomfortably at how Makeshift said fangirl. Was that disapproval at the idea of a fangirl?...
Jason shook his head. "There's some concerning signs. We couldn't get a hold of anyone who identified as a friend to her civilian ID, and that kind of isolation has concerning connotations, but her father, her teachers, and most acquaintances paint a picture of a girl who idolizes Heroes and who would become a Hero if she got powers."
Fiadh spoke up here. "Of course, she didn't go to the Protectorate to become a Ward, and in fact mislead them into thinking she was an adult." There was a pretty clear undertone of disapproval there.
Peg blanked at that sentence, mind going back to the awkward teen girl in the school photo. She clearly wasn't the only one, as Menagerie leaned forward (Careful to not crowd his bird), and with quite a bit of concern and disbelief asked, "How?"
Foundation fiddled with a piece of her costume, hooked a thumb at her face, and said, "Y'get that with tall girls, especially tall girls in a costume that hides the rest of their physique." From the expression on Foundation's face, Peg got the impression there was an embarrassing-but-amusing story there. Foundation pinking slightly as she continued seemed a pretty strong confirmation. "You sure Monster didn't do it on accident?" Peg was pretty sure the implication there was that Foundation had experienced exactly such an accident herself. Certainly, the woman was taller than most of the men Peg knew...
There was a meditative silence in which Peg got the distinct impression neither Jason nor Fiadh had considered the possibility this was a misunderstanding rather than a deception, and Peg mentally added a notch to each of their stooge counters, a little disappointed. She'd been starting to forget they were PRT stooges, especially Jason, but at the end of the day... stooges.
"Returning to the briefing..." Fiadh remarked in that overly-bland 'this isn't an order, but actually it is' tone, then went to take another sip from her drink -only to discover to her apparent disgust it was finally empty.
Jason mumbled, "Aaaah, where?..." while alternating between digging through papers in front of him and fiddling with his phone. Eventually Jason glanced in the direction of the picture of Chicago, quite clearly felt very stupid, and after a brief check of his papers resumed talking. "As with any Nine attack our info is murky, with many questions yet to be answered, but broadly speaking the Nine announced themselves, Monster and Matchmaker were in the area and engaged them, and killed at least Jack Slash personally."
As he was moving to change the projector's image again, Poltergeist remarked with amusement, "I think literally everybody knows about that."
It then turned out Bad Canary did not, which led to Menagerie getting out a decent-sized tablet from one of his costume's larger pockets and showing her The Video, the one where Monster introduced herself to the world and took credit for Jack Slash's death. (Also extremely bizarrely asked him if he was going to repent? Why the hell would you ask that of Jack Slash?) In turn this led to Fiadh commenting in a mildly bored tone, "The other girl is almost certainly Matchmaker. Presumably she wasn't in costume, hence blurring her out." Bad Canary looked a bit green by the end.
Once everybody was back on roughly the same page, Jason resumed with, "That's not the entire reason why we believe it, but it's one of the pieces of evidence. We also know Mannequin died and the evidence is it was probably Monster and probably happened before this video. Shatterbird's, ah, very public confrontation-" Poltergeist snickered. "-also seems to have ended with Monster killing her. Hatchet Face died, though it's currently unclear who and why, as he was killed by a known example of Bonesaw-tech, but not an example that clearly points at Bonesaw as the killer. Bonesaw herself is unaccounted for, but given her track record it's very doubtful she's dead or otherwise neutralized." Peg abruptly remembered Haunt had claimed Monster had wanted her help to deal with Bonesaw, and wondered if she should mention that. "The Siberian is also unaccounted for; we have a few witness reports placing her in the city not long before the Scream, but strangely she doesn't seem to have participated in the attack. Burnscar and Crawler are known to have survived, and we have reports placing Burnscar as moving with the group."
There was a notable pause before Menagerie spoke up. "Are you saying Monster killed at least three of the Nine, by herself, in less than a day?" It was pretty obvious the thought bothered him quite a bit, and he hugged the chicken a little tighter. At this point, Peg was inclined to think the chicken-hugging was an emotional comfort thing.
Jason winced. "Yes, but for one thing the Nine's mystique is really overblown, they lost members continuously. The group persisted for years, but only Jack Slash goes all the way to the group's earliest days. The Nine losing three members to one cape isn't unprecedented and you shouldn't let Monster loom too large in your head because of it."
Poltergeist broke in again. "So wait was this like a coincidence, one of those amazing stories where everything that can go wrong does go wrong and the survivors either laugh or cry into their beer as they retell the story-" Peg was disconcerted at how serious Poltergeist's delivery of this description was, as if this was something she'd personally been through several times. "-or did little miss murder hunt the Nine down?" There was a pause while no one answered, digesting the implications raised by the question, before she added, "'Cause damn, if she hunted them down she deserves a medal but also the PRT has been struggling to pin these assholes down for two decades, right? How the hell did she manage that?"
Jason sighed. "We're not sure. Monster has successfully dissembled about the exact nature of her power repeatedly, even when a tinkertech 'lie detector' was involved, so it's possible her power has a notable Thinker component she's hidden. Matchmaker is known to have a sensory component to her power, but interrogating Heartbreaker's 'family' has left it unclear what the range is on it, how precise it is, and so on. We just don't know the answer here."
Fiadh spoke up. "It's clear that Monster and Matchmaker deliberately sought out the Nine once the attack started, with an improbable amount of success. It's possible they crossed paths with the Nine through dumb luck -Monster was ambushed by Mannequin in a local Rogue's store, according to testimony from multiple sources- but there is no doubt they have some parahuman ability to find people at significant distances. It's the details that are uncertain."
Canary again raised a hand like she was waiting to be called on, but when everyone's attention focused on her she switched to pointing at Menagerie's tablet, the screen frozen on Monster's lidded gaze. "Ah, is- um. Is this normal?" Peg was about to ask what that meant when Canary squeaked and clarified, "I mean, she just -um, she just murdered a man, and I know it's Jack Slash, but you... can see a lot of blood and... she seems really calm?" Peg found herself with a bit more respect for Bad Canary; with how off-kilter she still looked, Peg hadn't expected insightful thoughts just now.
Jason ran a hand through his hair again, which Peg was starting to think was a nervous habit. "Ah, well..." and then he just trailed off.
Just as the silence was turning awkward, Fiadh spoke up, Jason looking extremely relieved to be taken off the hook. "No, that's not normal, and it's given a couple Thinkers a headache already." Fiadh leaned forward onto her interweaved hands, and the resulting angle let Peg see just over the shades to see how distant her focus had gone. It felt a little bit intrusive, like Peg was getting a peek into Fiadh she wasn't really supposed to be seeing... "The kind of person who turns to murder quickly, who keeps turning to it habitually, they tend to get something out of it. You can see it in their eyes, hear it when they talk immediately afterward. It might be abstract, a feeling of exerting control over the world around them so they don't feel helpless, or it might be more primal, a base enjoyment of the act. Monster, by all reports, seems unmoved or angry in the aftermath. A man's life is over, and it doesn't matter to her. It never mattered to her."
... and now Peg was feeling uncomfortable for an entirely different set of reasons.
Menagerie spoke up, sounding awkward. "I feel that's a bit... prejudi-"
And then Poltergeist interrupted, louder than she'd been at any point prior. (Not that she'd been quiet, but... not this loud) "So we're looking at someone who's maybe emotionally detached? Like are we talking an actual, I dunno, disability sort of thing, or what?"
This prompted Jason to speak, seeming also relieved to have the attention pulled away from whatever had just happened with Fiadh. "That -well, I wasn't trying to- anyway, that goes nicely into the... individual stuff. Psych profiles, history, all that. And in, uh, Taylor Hebert's case, we... suspect her trigger event changed her." There was a pause while multiple people tried -and failed- to not glance at Makeshift. (Peg was embarrassed to include herself in this list) "We're-" Jason glanced at his phone, apparently forgotten in his hand, and put it away before continuing with, "We're in the middle of interviews and so on, talking to the school, family, friends, so this is very much an incomplete picture, but broadly speaking she seems to have been a very cheerful but somewhat isolated girl before her mother died in a car crash in 2008."
"So-" Peg found herself starting to say without thinking, but Jason was already shaking his head. (For some reason Bad Canary looked a bit lost?)
"We're pretty sure she triggered later. Everything we've gathered indicates she was... well, callous as it sounds, a normal sort of unhappy." That did in fact answer Peg's question, even if it was an answer she was pretty unhappy to hear -if your mother dying wasn't the worst day of your life, what else happened?- so she kept quiet as Jason kept talking. "The pre-existing isolation means our information is spottier than I'd prefer, primarily coming from her father and one once-friend by the name of Emma Barnes, but they both agree that while Ms Hebert was more withdrawn and moodier afterward, nothing they report suggests anything parahuman was happening. Acquaintances are in basic agreement, too, up until a bit over three months ago. We're still working to get more complete info, but on January 24, Monday, her locker was torn open, filled with blood, and her classmates all report oddities surrounding Ms Hebert starting from around that time, though most of them don't seem to have suspected a parahuman ability. The school did its job and avoided drawing attention to the evidence of a parahuman ability being involved while letting the local PRT office know of the possibility, but school staff don't seem to have noticed anything further, so..."
Fiadh apparently finished the thought. "... no connections were drawn until weeks later, even though they really should've been drawn much sooner." She sounded strongly disapproving there, though Peg wasn't entirely sure what the disapproval was focused on. There was a lot to potentially disapprove of here.
Regardless, Jason nodded absently. "And with that much remove from the original event, memories are spotty, physical evidence has vanished or turned murkier, and so on." Then he shook himself and re-focused on the room. "So we've only got tentative theories on what her trigger event even was, but we've got a good body of evidence from afterward of the right kind of subtle oddities for a parahuman ability to be involved. People simply couldn't find her during lunch hour anymore, classmates noticed she stopped looking tired, her sick days stopped completely... it's all in her file, if you're interested." Then he tugged at his tie again, still looking uncomfortable. "So we're pretty confident on this timeline." This was followed by a small sigh. "So yeah, drastic shift in apparent personality, sufficiently drastic we suspect her trigger influenced her in some fairly overt way. Her father has been cooperating, letting us check journals and so on, and what comes before her trigger event isn't happy, there's some angry stuff that's been dug up, but nothing suggesting she had murder on her mind, while after..." He shook his head, clearly not really happy to be talking about it. "Really casual talk of murder as a solution to problems. And not just problems like the Endbringers."
Fiadh spoke up here, sounding thoughtful. "I wonder how that is from the inside."
Jason blinked. "Pardon?" He clearly wasn't the only one confused.
Fiadh frowned just a little. "You're a normal kid one day, then the next you think murder is a fine answer to life's problems. Does it seem weird and alien, thoughts brought on by your power, like demonic possession? Does it just feel like the same kinds of thoughts you always had? If it's the latter, how do you reconcile your new thoughts with any old thoughts they don't mesh with? What's the story she's telling herself? With the picture painted I'd assume -did assume- that this is an angry kid taking her rage out on the world, like she decided what happened to her was bad enough she should just kill people in revenge, but... none of the school kids died, nor any teachers." Almost the entire room reacted to that; Peg hadn't considered that angle, and was clearly not alone. "Angry vengeance, but not against the people who were closest to your trigger event? Who at least some were likely involved in it happening? Weird. And all our reports and that footage are consistent; she's calm. Weirdly calm. So...?"
Peg turned that thought over in her head for a minute, not really listening to what other people were saying in response. (It didn't sound like much anyway) She couldn't quite wrap her mind around the idea. It made her think a little of puberty, of how she'd seen boys and girls alike switch from 'ew, cooties' to 'I'm intrigued and interested' in a matter of weeks, only that wasn't very helpful because Peg had never been one of those girls who thought boys were gross. The men she'd found admirable as an adult had a lot of overlap with the boys she'd liked when she was a kid, and she'd always just rolled her eyes at the weird things other preteens and teens had said while trying to defend their changing opinions. Still... if it was something that had been done to her, something she didn't necessarily recognize had happened... Peg wondered if maybe it was a little like growing up in an abusive household. Terence had been, well, quite a shitty person when Peg had met him at 16, and it had turned out his parents were worse and he just didn't understand that a lot of what he'd grown up with as normal was not normal and also was really awful for no reason. It had taken a lot of talks, a lot of asking him what he thought was the purpose of garbage rules like 'if a kid leaves the table for any reason, everything they hadn't eaten yet goes in the trash, and they can't eat snacks between meals', to get him to start recognizing that he'd been instilled with a lot of shitty behavior... but once he'd understood it, he'd taken to improvement like flame to a candle, a steady effort to make himself better. By the time they'd parted ways when he was 21, he'd been... imperfect, but far better, and still trying to improve.
Maybe this was like that, where Monster -where Taylor- had a thoughtless background of 'normal' she didn't really question, didn't realize how effed up it was, and could be talked around to better behaviour by just getting her to see that.
Peg hoped so.
