3.4 Allegro Believe it or Not I'm Walking on Air
A/N: Warning a one line suggestion of a monster being more of a monster than he was in canon, no details, just a suggestion of a Slasher being a Pedo as well.
Armsmaster and Miss Militia were heading up to a closed session meeting of the PRT Directors to give direct testimony. It was such a minor event to draw such attention, but the last action of Clef, of Drum herself had elicited a reaction near enough to panic from every Thinker in range of detecting the result. The entire WEDGDG group was down with migraines.
With Dragon's assistance, they'd talked Miss Hebert --along with most of Clef itself-- to relocate to a regional testing area in Boston. Only Uber and Leet had stayed behind, ostensibly to take their assault boat back to mooring. They were also preparing to undergo inspection from the Coastguard, having offered to sell the design.
Hannah turned to Collin, in the elevator as they rose to the top floor. "How screwed is Clef potentially?"
Armsmaster paused in reviewing his footage of the aftermath. "It depends on how vocal certain directors are about sending a teenager to take down every S class in sight. And whether we can keep it quiet to keep them from coming in force to hunt down Drum herself."
"Tagg?"
With a small smirk, Armsmaster noted, "Ask me no questions… I strongly suggest NOT advancing any requests to move them to Protectorate status."
"Why not?" Miss Militia asked. "They appear quite able to work with us."
"Because if they accept that level of membership, they will be under military authority."
"Shhhhi..." Miss Militia stopped herself from finishing that as the doors opened. Director Piggot's visage changed from sour to momentary chuckle as she guessed what they were talking about.
"Director, shouldn't you already be in the meeting?"
The sour face came back in full force. "It was recommended I recuse myself over the chance Miss Hebert has already acquired an unreported Master power."
"Seriously?" Hannah's incredulous bark of response spoke volumes.
Armsmaster merely nodded.
Emily squared her shoulders. "But I am not going to stay on the sideline when they question my officers on site. And I won't leave you hanging as you give testimony for the Protectorate side of things."
They were moving down the hallway to the official conference room. As an aide turned to knock on the door the quiet was broken as the door opened to reveal both living and holographic avatars arguing. The sound was quite loud.
The words being thrown around were just short of threats. The only part of the room that seemed to be tranquil was three seats occupied by Danny Hebert, Uber and of course Quinn Calle. The man was unflappable.
Coming in with her people got the attention of Director Tagg among others. "What is SHE doing here? She agreed to recuse herself from these proceedings without submitting to M/S protocols, I move that Director Piggot be suspended until those …"
The bang of her fist on the table broke through the furor. "That is quite enough!" Director Piggot enunciated in the pause. "If you have forgotten, you ordered the presence of my people to give testimony on this situation. You are all just FINE, right? Freaked, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. So why don't we get down to the people who saw what happened, asking them to give their assessment on what happened, why and why you shouldn't all be wearing brown pants --yet."
Before the flabbergasted directors could get going again, Chief Director Costa Brown spoke up from her position behind steepled fingers. Her lack of direct input in the meeting up to this point had encouraged the others to quibble and dither. Her voice now threw cold water at all of them. "Yes, lets. We will now return to Robert's Rules of Order, thank you Director Piggot." She nodded her head to the seats, her avatar raising one hand to deliberately catch attention to her muting all microphones except hers and the witness position. "Armsmaster, as the local commander, I want your take on this 'power thief' ability."
Colin took the position still showing a green light on the microphone, clearing his throat. "This afternoon the independent group Clef became aware of an assault group targeting a civilian flotilla containing the new Ward Golem..."
He drew them through the steps taken in clear and concise statements. Moving to the final stage, he noted that "Miss Hebert performed an action which has assisted her group in combat situations before, to add another power to everyone within range that removed the uniqueness of that ability against her members. To whit, she passed out the ability to fly to those still on the Clef assault craft."
"And when she took that power permanently as her own?" Costa Brown's question was the first interruption in several minutes.
"I had just given a spoken order to stand down to Drum herself. An unfortunate choice of words, as she dropped her weapons while focused on the man claiming to just be yet another powerless mercenary hired to assist the real terrorists."
He paused and looked down at the table. "In my opinion she was as surprised at the result as everyone else was. It was NOT her conscious decision to take HIS power away."
Almost immediately, every light in front of the attending Directors lit up for a question.
Director Costs Brown glanced around slowly. "How many of these lights have an actual question?" Several went dark. "Questions that relate to the actual event and not speculative queries about other powers she may have drummed or taken already?" Four other lights dimmed, including Tagg's as he visibly quivered with anger.
"Director Armstrong?"
"In the aftermath, it was decided to encourage those members of Clef not otherwise occupied, Drum especially, to relocate to a testing facility just west of Boston itself. Whether she is a threat as Tagg says, or the second coming of Scion, what kind of idiot would put a power thief and power sharing Trump within a few dozen miles of the Butcher?! Not, I point out with full disclosure to the Director of the area."
Another light lit in the center of the table where another avatar of a head appeared. "That idiot would be me, Director."
"Dragon, may I ask why you chose to interject into this meeting?" Director Costa Brown seemed like she was ready to reach for a stiff drink --or an aspirin.
"Ma'am, the question was asked. I facilitate these conferences, it is within my purview to monitor their content." Her 3d avatar was replaced with a projected wireframe map of the New England area. "There are three available facilities for testing flight related powers on the east coast. This one is closer to Boston, yes, but it was not the only one that one of my transport systems visited today." The map expanded to encompass the entire country. "We have not been able to completely suppress the news of this new facet of Drum's powers. We have already noted a shift in the movement patterns projected for the Nine, Elite and Butcher herself."
His microphone was still active, so Armstrong's reaction was audible. "Butcher is in motion? Why was I not informed?"
Dragon's avatar appeared next to the map. "WEDGDG noted a sudden lack of the presence of the Teeth in their usual haunts. Drones tasked with monitoring her movements continued without any visible change, but all orders for pizza and fast food in the area claimed by the Teeth dropped to a skeleton crew's needs during the dinner rush. Unless they were already on the road, they immediately started out on the first rumor."
Other dots appeared on the map.
"And these others?"
"Known parahumans reacting. Some by moving toward the Bay, others visibly moving away. The number of flights booked to Alaska has almost tripled."
"Thank you, Dragon." The clear dismissal was enough to have Dragon clear the map and her avatar from the table. "Miss Militia, do you agree to Armsmaster's take?"
Hannah, who had moved to the 'witness' seat while Dragon spoke, answered calmly. "I think this is an opportunity. Whether accidental or by purpose, Drum has shown the ability to shut down powers that are too dangerous to leave be. She could finally end the Siberian!"
A hand held by Costa Brown's avatar stopped her. "Just the events."
Gathering herself visibly. "Sorry. Yes, it seemed unintended. It may be an obvious extension of the way her power works that hasn't been noted so far."
The light over the witness seat dimmed and her microphone went dark as well.
"Director Tagg, if you can keep yourself in check, I can unmute you before you explode. Can you?"
His terse nod proceeded a considering look by the Chief Director.
"I will keep it brief ma'am. We need her in the Protectorate, now. An asset like this cannot be allowed exposure to villain elements. She needs the protection we can provide on a military base, remote enough to control or interdict the kinds of forces that will array against her --or her location."
His microphone dimmed as he inhaled to add more, causing him to deflate.
Emily looked to the side and noted Quinn Calle had his hand over Danny Hebert's own. The lawyer locked eyes with the Chief Director and leaned forward to press his own request to speak.
"We recognize Quinn Calle, legal representative for Clef and Miss Hebert. You have something to say?'
"I was wondering when the first request to have her sent to the Birdcage to depower the hundreds of capes incarcerated there would come? Or perhaps McMurdo base? It would almost seem that the Directors have forgotten that the person in question is a sixteen year old girl, an affiliate hero of an independent group that does not acknowledge direct control from the PRT or the Protectorate outside of emergency powers."
Most of the Directors had the presence of mind to pale visibly, while the Chief Director merely considered. Tagg himself seemed to consider the thought as if it had merit.
Danny Hebert leaned to the side, to be heard on Calle's microphone. "If you think anything like that will be that easy, you are failing to consider a simple fact. Every obstacle put in front of my daughter since the start of her High School career has been met, conquered and pushed aside. If you think that you are qualified to stand in her way, then you are just another obstacle. Make sure someone brings popcorn, the fireworks will be AMAZING."
******************
There were campers outside the building for us to sleep in, girls in one, boys in another, with a set of pop up tents for the Troopers in between. The facility had changing rooms with showers but no sleeping facilities itself. The transport could be used for additional sleeping areas but might be re-tasked on short notice so all our stuff was in the campers.
We were flying through an obstacle course inside a building that would normally be used to house multiple 747 sized aircraft. The rings were suspended or on poles and had lights with colors matching the wrist bands they'd handed out.
We'd been on site for maybe an hour before they noted that the others were gaining in speed and aerial ability the longer we practiced. This mode of flight was unusual in that conscious control of the flight vectors was required. Kim and Ino started out with less instinct to the movement, but quickly learned to accelerate faster than my own rate. Of course this could easily be related to a fear of falling I gained as a young child --too many times climbing to retrieve a frisbee from the roof, or some tree that Emma challenged me to… Huh, now I wonder why she felt a need to push me into the things she was afraid to do.
Anyway, the weirdest thing to come out of the testing was that Greg was a fucking natural. I swear he acted like he'd been doing this kind of movement all his life.
"Come on, slowpokes!" He had taken the lead again as we finished the red rings, the order of the rings in the course visibly a bright green for the first of them, gradually shading into blue.
I swear, Greg was flying along backwards on his back. "How are you flying like that?!"
Greg didn't pause, but he reoriented on me as he swept through the first ring, turning to look at me while flying backwards toward the next one as he answered, seeming to be lying on a flat surface, one elbow resting on nothing to hold his head up. "What do you mean?"
Sparky managed to elucidate my frustration. "She means annoyingly, brah."
Well, Sparky had little room to talk. He was apparently standing on something and had that Oar of his held out like he was steering something. It dawned on me. "You are on a surfboard!" I found myself looking at a receding Greg. "And you made a flying carpet!"
Madison flew up to me and giggled. "So what do you imagine is going on?"
In my eyes, her arrow showed, as well as the colored blots of powers. And on her back I could see that she was imagining faerie wings. "You are doing wings, like Tinkerbell?"
She simpered and flew off, also backward, although she turned her head to change direction slightly to hit the next ring centered.
I considered it. I'd been thinking of each lift point like a separate hand holding me up, having to manage all the points separately. Instead I thought of them as a suit with all the points like engines attached to the wings of a plane. That smirking shithead had called himself the Red Baron, but I wasn't planning to be a biplane flier. Maybe if I thought of it as a vehicle I was flying?
My mind drifted to an old TV show Dad had liked enough to save on tape. Air Wolf. A helicopter then. I envisioned my means of flight around me and then accelerated to catch up with the others.
*****************
Technician 1, "Something changed. She's moving faster through the course, her flight characteristics changed significantly. Before she seemed to fly in a standing mode and had to slow and reorient herself in straight lines. Now she is stalling and changing orientation while in the classic Superman pose."
'Superman?" the second tech scoffed. "What are you, some kind of Aleph junkie?"
"You can pretend that movies before the 80's don't exist but Superman movies were around for the seventies you Philistine." The older tech griped back. "And if one were to talk about Aleph imports, your Pokémon collection would…" He slowed to a stop as something registered on his monitor.
The ring that Drum was passing through was one of the smaller ones on the course, meant to be more difficult as it was turning slowly. As she had passed through, the ring had been cut in two spots. The line would have been horizontal if Miss Hebert had been, but she was leaning to the right to start a turn to that direction.
Triggering his PA system. "Hold test! Hold test!" He called out. Flicking a switch to bring the lights up fully, he flicked the alarm for a low key event, an alert of a possible problem. "Everyone hold your position please."
******************
I had been catching up to the rest that had gotten ahead of me when I had my insight. Madison was just ahead of me on the Rings as I cleared one. There was a flicker of sparks as I made it through, cutting right to catch up with her when the PA 'hold' command had been given.
I looked around and noted Greg pointing back behind me. Why couldn't I hear them?
Flicking on the comms. "Why is everyone so quiet?"
"Um, they are shouting at you, Drum." Madison noted.
"Shouting? I only heard the PA."
She shook her head from her position just a dozen feet ahead of me, beyond my virtual windscreen. Wait, it was muted in here. Maybe I was thinking of it as being 'safe' and 'enclosed'? I imagined a set of windows and opened them. Now I could hear them. Well, I heard something. It felt like wind and sounded like a motor running…
Madison was drifting closer.
CRAP.
I pulled up and kept my distance. "Move further away Ma-Majoret! I think my flight system includes blades!"
"Yep, that would do it." I heard this from the comms now as Greg turned his on. "You sheared through that last ring you passed through. Want to bet this flight power comes with something like a forcefield built in?"
His voice wavered as he saw several of the PRT guys that had caught a little of the flight effect turn and spread around the edges of the building. They'd been doing their own thing, having less flight speed or effect than we did. And they had been keeping closer to the ground in case the power had run out suddenly.
I dissolved my visualization of the helicopter to go back to the initial flight surfaces. This would be a lot easier to deal with if I could just drum up more flight for them too.
My face was being monitored of course so the lead technician was alerted and asked what had changed.
*************************
"Yes, Miss Hebert, we are monitoring your facial expressions in real time. What did you just realize?"
I winced and turned to look toward the suspended offices where the techs were on overlook. "Um, I normally can't put my arrow on anyone that isn't present within my line of sight."
I could hear the hmm as the second tech began to speak, the first tech shushing him.
"But I thought of trying to give more flight out and my arrow just lit up on it. I could always point my arrows to myself to stop from passing out powers. But that doesn't appear to be true for any extra powers I've gotten."
Technician 1 made a note and flagged an update for the Directors still working through their conference. "Can you add to the flight power given to the volunteers from Brockton Bay? Oh, and gentlemen, please refrain from imagining methods of flight involving fast moving blades as those rings are not cheap!"
I lifted a knee as I took out my sticks. I was focusing on the PRT guys.
Ra-ta-tatta-tat-tah, tick tick tick ta-tatta ta-tatta tum.
I hadn't shown off that I'd incorporated a drummable surface on my knee pads before now. The way those two looked to each other made clear that it had been noted in the documentation. Did they advertise for people suffering with obsessive compulsive disorder for that job or did they just navigate their way to it naturally?
The Troopers glanced at one another but soon lifted off higher with less fear of suddenly losing the power of flight. And they immediately showed they were familiar with flight using something like a jetpack. They all took on a bent elbow horizontal flight for speed with their legs dropping down as they slowed.
Rocket packs.
"Does the PRT have rocket packs?" I asked.
Technician 1 cleared his throat. "We do. It isn't common knowledge and the various Directors would like to maintain that for now since the Tinker that created them hasn't been able to improve on the fuel requirements involved. Ten minutes of flight time is a little low for real usage. But we have simulators in training that have become quite popular among the rank and file. We have several of them here to help those who don't know quite HOW to fly but have the power to do so."
Technician 2 tsked visibly as he gestured to Technician 1 now floating slightly above his chair.
"You are becoming part of the experiment."
*********************
Looking up from her phone, Cherie Vasil considered telling Jack Slash about the new rumor developing about the Independent Team Clef.
Jack seemed to notice her attention. "You have something to add?"
Cherie swallowed. The man had a presence that only her father's power could match. "N-No, just more rumors about what she can do. That and smoke trying to make it look like they took the kids south."
"I see." Jack's smile suggested that she would be talking through a new slit in her throat if she interrupted again.
Cherie made a zipping motion across her lips.
From where she was playing with one of her creations, Bonesaw nodded. Annoying Jack would have gotten her promoted to 'materials' for Bonesaw to work with much sooner. And she wasn't quite ready with her current piece of work. The parameters that Jack had set were quite specific as it was supposed to be an infiltrator unit. Working around Hatchet Face's power neutralizer was interesting, but combining it with their other source of materials and convincing it to play nice with those powers had been quite trying. That and changing the looks of the combination of the two to allow it to pass as a completely different --civilian guise-- that had been a masterwork.
Jack nodded to the table where her creation lay as she worked. The window open so Crawler could take part in the discussion of tactics was a small thing, despite the disgusting eating habits Crawler had --picking cows out of the holding pen as they moved and eating them in two or three bites.
The train was a wonder. Mannequin had been barely willing to redesign the standalone cars of the train to fit in as cargo containers. Crawler's car was behind theirs, with openings that he could extrude an eye and ear through while still eating. Of course he could also talk out of the tentacle thing he'd grown the ear on, that was as disgusting as it sounded. Spots of acid burned on the floor where he drooled when he thought no one was looking.
Self-contained cars with their own camouflage systems to appear to be regular cars let them travel without issue. It was slow going though, as they had to forge papers and electronic entries every few days. And Bonesaw had to cause accidents with inspectors. A heart attack here, an amnesiac drunken car wreck there. As long as there wasn't an obvious pattern or parahuman involvement, they would have no problems.
Jack considered their latest guest. One of Heartbreaker's kids. Savvy enough to hitch a ride on cars bound for Brockton Bay. Dumb enough to knock on their roof entry without enough fear to keep her presence hidden to the Nine.
Dumb, yet pliable.
Jack preferred that as a feature on his little group.
While he didn't deliberately start out looking for a --ah-- harem, he had noticed a trend so far. Females that didn't repulse him lasted longer, at least those without obvious attachments to men that weren't him. The Siberian was an outlier of course, but even an imaginary girl fit his requirements as long as Manton was content to be a driver and otherwise silent member. Mannequin was sexless, but in a way that suggested a doll made for that alone. Only Crawler was 'male' but lacked enough in the way of a drive to consider sexually.
And his little Bonesaw, well he was already a monster, even if he did keep their relationship chaste. And she was so handy in reconstructing the faces damaged by trigger events. Shatterbird had not been lovely at first go, but once Bonesaw had removed the extra weight and erased the scars on her body from being pushed into the recycling plant's glass storage silo, the woman had been a pliable member. Especially since he'd hinted that Bonesaw's touch ups were required to keep the looks intact.
Smiling in a way that made Cherie shiver, Jack considered how he would have Bonesaw --ah-- 'edit' Miss Hebert and any of her friends they could take alive.
Mostly alive for some of them.
********************
The carcass of a shark washed ashore in the hours after the fight.
At midnight a form dragged itself out of the water into the wan moonlight, and breathed out a green mist from lungs designed to hold more dangerous forms of atmosphere.
Gas collapsed wearily into a man shape. Glancing to the side, found him looking at a woman's nude body.
"Stop looking at me, you perverted old man." She sat up in the moonlight, covering her chest with one arm. "It is far too cold to be getting goose flesh for your jollies."
Looking away, he heard the sounds of her large form moving out of the water's edge again. A great head brushed his hand as she held still for him to mount. This way she could supply their means of travel for a while to get up the cliff. If she changed because of being observed, he would switch to a cloud of gas to hide her again.
Training. Drilled into them over the years.
But now they had to consider if they counted as 'free agents' since none of their handlers were in contact. And there was no good reason to go looking for those handlers since they would only be put back to work again.
No reason at all.
Geoff found his thoughts echoed by the grinning monster face supporting his legs as he sat astride the head of the beast. Holding onto her antler horns he felt like that kid riding the Luck Dragon in flight --albeit his steed was just climbing cliffs.
Meh.
He still considered shouting and throwing his fist out. But he kept quiet, in case it drew eyes on his wife's monstrous form.
.....A flight risk.
