章 2476: 59
Chapter 59: Interlude 6-c: Fire For Effect
Interlude 6.c: Fire For Effect
In all her time in the Protectorate — first as a Ward, and then as a professional hero — Hannah had never before seen an entire division subjected to Master-Stranger protocols simultaneously, let alone two. Several people at once, sure, even the majority of a team, a couple of times. Engagements against people like Valefor or encounters with any of Heartbreaker's children tended to end with at least a few people in isolation, because human-affecting Masters were dangerous.
But everyone who had been at the Echidna fight had been separated and locked in for a minimum of two days, in the aftermath, to make sure that there weren't any lingering effects. Everyone. Including the Triumvirate.
And that, as far as Hannah knew, had never happened before.
She fidgeted a little in her chair in Director Piggot's office. A glance in her direction let her know that her discomfort hadn't gone unnoticed.
The scale of the event wasn't really what bothered her, though. Of course not. Hannah had fought in Endbringer battles before, against all three of them, and the scale of the Simurgh's influence was far, far more terrifying than just a trainyard. Her ability to reach and twist even the greatest and most stalwart of heroes, often without anyone realizing anything was wrong until months, years later, was far and away more frightening than something as upfront and blunt as having her body hijacked.
There hadn't even been mental coercion, either. Master-Stranger protocols were employed either way, but at no point had Hannah felt her thoughts forced into a strange or unusual shape during the event. Her body had been controlled, but her mind had remained untouched.
And yet…
The pistol holstered at her hip flickered and changed rapidly between several different shapes before she managed to clamp down on it and force it back into her standard sidearm.
And yet there was an unease coiled in her gut as she remembered back — with the vivid detail of her photographic memory — to the feeling of being a passenger in her own body, having to watch as someone else moved her arms and legs and controlled her power. Having to watch as someone else used her eyes and her fingers and her weapon to take aim at one of the three greatest heroes in the world.
Logically, Hannah knew that Taylor Hebert had to use a specific power to do that again. She knew that there would be enough warning and enough of a delay to intervene if it was even attempted. She was also a professional — she was perfectly capable of following her orders and acting in the best interests of the Protectorate and the PRT, rather than letting her feelings rule her.
That didn't stop her from feeling like she would rather be anywhere else than in a room with the girl who had almost used her to assassinate Alexandria.
"They've cleared the last checkpoint," Armsmaster rumbled suddenly. "They'll be here in ninety-three seconds."
Hannah straightened as Director Piggot nodded grimly.
"Good," she said. "It's high time I finally got some answers about what happened during that clusterfuck."
Colin — Armsmaster's — lips drew tight, just the slightest bit at the corners. Anyone who didn't know him well would have missed it.
It had been ten days since the Echidna incident. Three since Taylor Hebert — Apocrypha — had woken from her coma. The decision to give her a few days to recover after waking had been made shortly after they'd brought her in. There had been more than enough time to prepare for this meeting and come to terms with what had happened.
Hannah still didn't feel ready. She wasn't sure she ever would be.
It felt like no time at all before the door of the Director's office opened to reveal Danny and Taylor Hebert, who hadn't even bothered with a token domino mask, let alone her base powered form. Behind them were the pair of troopers who had escorted them.
"Come in," said Director Piggot. It sounded more like an order than a welcome, but Piggot had always been that way.
The pair stepped into the room, and behind them, the door closed shut. Outside, the troopers had undoubtedly set up their positions on either side.
Director Piggot gestured to the pair of chairs set in front of her desk. "Take a seat."
There was a moment of hesitation, but they did. Hannah squirmed uncomfortably when Taylor took the one closest to her.
Immediately, Taylor glanced in her direction, sharp and narrowed, just like Khepri, and it took everything Hannah had not to flinch, to keep her face steady and her eyes forward, instead of looking away. She was better than this, stronger than this. She had faced down plenty of things far more terrifying than one teenage girl.
Quietly, Hannah took in a deep, bracing breath and let it out slowly.
She's just a girl, Hannah told herself. It helped, a little. You have nothing to be afraid of, here.
"Thank you for coming in today," the Director opened with.
"I wasn't under the impression I had a choice," said Taylor.
"Taylor!" her father rebuked sharply.
And that? That, right there, made it even easier. It was the sort of thing said at one point or another by every teenager Hannah had ever met.
"You're right, you didn't," Piggot replied flatly. "In fact, if some of my colleagues had had their way, you would have woken up in a cell and we'd be throwing the book at you."
Taylor's lip curled. "Tagg."
Piggot's eyes narrowed. Hannah's jaw clenched.
Except she shouldn't let her guard down, either. Because every time she thought she had a handle on what Taylor was capable of, she proved Hannah wrong.
"Because you made a big mess," the Director went on as though nothing had been said. "Big enough to land almost two whole Protectorate teams in mandatory isolation. Big enough that Washington was prepared to get involved. Big enough that people were tossing around words like Birdcage or trial in absentia or too dangerous to let free. After all, Canary only Mastered her ex-boyfriend. You Mastered nearly two dozen people, all of them respected heroes, and with two of the Triumvirate amongst them."
Mister Hebert straightened and his eyes narrowed into a glare. "If you think for one minute that I'm going to let you railroad —"
"Fortunately," Piggot cut across him, "I am the Director of the Parahuman Response Team, East-Northeast Division, and I remember what some of my colleagues like to forget: that decisions made in the moment are never perfect, and sometimes, all you've got is the least bad of a whole bunch of terrible options."
Taylor frowned, but didn't say anything.
"Make no mistake," she continued, "where that situation leaves us and what options are on the table will be discussed, later on. Before that, however, there is a very important question that both I and my fellow directors need answered."
She grabbed a folder from her desk, flipped it open, then spun it around and dropped it on the far edge, in front of the Heberts.
"This hero, right here." She jabbed her finger at the picture of a figure in black and gold, with panels of white armor. "Because all your other heroes? We can make some guesses. This one, however, we have nothing on. Nothing. And for a hero who can do those sorts of things? That makes us uncomfortable."
As though on cue, Armsmaster stepped forward.
"We cross-referenced known designs," he rumbled almost ominously. "Clothing patterns, symbols, apparent material composition based upon visual references. No match with known historical trends or textile technology. For all intents and purposes, that hero's…costume has no connection to any mythological figure on record."
"She wouldn't, would she?" muttered Taylor, sounding not at all surprised.
"Furthermore," Armsmaster went on, "the only reference to be found for 'Khepri' is of a minor god from ancient Egypt, who has no apparent connection to any form of mind control nor any of the abilities you displayed while making use of her. The only connection we have been able to draw between this mythological Khepri and the hero you used that night is the scarab symbol that appeared on her chest."
"We were prepared to write it off to some degree, since we don't know enough to say for certain that such a hero never existed, only that if they did, they aren't on record," Piggot jumped in. "That was before this."
She jabbed her finger at her keyboard almost viciously, almost victoriously, and the nearest visible screen jumped to life to display a program depicting two images: one was of Taylor, obviously taken from one of the building's security cameras. The other was the image of "Khepri," taken by someone's helmet cam from that night. Taylor's expression carried something like determination. Khepri's was simply intense. Rigid and carved from stone, with eyes that seemed to stare right through you and stripped away every lie you told yourself.
What was striking, however, was the obvious similarity. The lighting differences threw it off a little, could make you think it was just coincidence, but with another stroke of the keyboard, the facial recognition software ran its comparison and swiftly returned a damning result: 98% match.
Taylor did not look surprised.
"Further comparisons were run against references photos of you using other heroes' powers," Armsmaster added.
"All of them," the Director said, "returned results between forty and sixty percent. This hero and this hero alone," she jabbed at the image, "whose origins and existence we cannot verify anywhere in recorded history, resembles you to the point that the difference is within our software's margin of error."
She leaned forward, pinning Taylor with a hard stare.
"By your own words, your power lets you take the form and abilities of legendary heroes. Explain to me, then, why a hero that nobody has ever even heard of has the power to Master every cape we fielded against Echidna with the singular exception of a cape known to be immune to Masters anyway."
"Because she doesn't exist," Taylor murmured.
"What was that?"
"Because she doesn't exist," Taylor repeated, looking directly into Piggot's eyes. "Yet."
Piggot sat back, eyebrows rising. Hannah felt her own brow furrow, because the implication of that statement was… No. That couldn't be possible, could it? She had said "myth and legend," and that sure must mean that they were all fictional.
"Are you trying to tell me…"
"Preposterous," Armsmaster grunted. "That first night, you said your heroes were from myth and legend. Myths and legends are story, fantasy, things born of the imagination —"
"Because it was easier than admitting the possibility that they could all be real." Taylor closed her eyes and took in a deep, bracing breath as her father gave her hand a comforting squeeze. Hannah felt the weight of the bombshell about to drop as though it sat on her own shoulders. "Because it was easier than admitting she was real. Wouldn't you refuse to believe it, Director, if you found out that there existed the possibility that you could one day become Nilbog?"
It was targeted, intentional — and deeply troubling that she knew Director Piggot's classified military history. By the widening of her eyes, the splotches of red starting to gather in her cheeks, the Director realized it, too.
"How do you know about —"
"That's impossible," Armsmaster blurted out. "And fallacious. Even if it were possible and were true, one doesn't lead to the other. The reality of one's existence doesn't necessitate the reality of the others' existence as anything more than story."
"Maybe," Taylor admitted. "I don't…really know where the line is. But the reason why you couldn't find any references to Khepri is because that's not her real name."
"You don't mean to suggest that she's you," Hannah said. "Taylor, that's…"
Hard to believe. The only thing that came close to that was Scapegoat, whose powers were theorized to search possible worlds to copy undamaged body parts from. Even that was only a theory based upon power testing, and one that, as Hannah understood it, had several holes in it.
The idea that Taylor's powers — which she herself had claimed used mythology — could draw from legends that didn't, or even couldn't, exist… Well, even the greatest of powers had limits.
"Her powers did not even resemble yours," Armsmaster added.
"Yes and no," Taylor said. "She's not…me, she's what I could have become. A version of me that got different powers. She made choices that I…couldn't approve of."
Piggot's brow furrowed.
"She was a villain," Hannah concluded.
It fit with what she was saying, but adding a piece of logic to an absurdity did not automatically make it less absurd.
Taylor's expression twisted into a bitter, rueful smile. "Depends on who you asked and what part of her life you're talking about. Early on? Yeah. Later, she joined the Protectorate and led a team in Chicago."
"Putting aside exactly how absurd this is, let's table that discussion and assume for now that you're right and you're telling the truth." Piggot laced her fingers in front of her on her desk and leaned forward again. "From her powers, it was obvious that you could have used her and ended the Echidna Incident much, much sooner than you did. When Alexandria asked you if you had any hero who could do that, however, you said no. Why?"
Taylor grimaced and looked away, uncomfortable. The echo of Khepri's confidence and surety was now entirely absent.
"…The heroes I use affect my…how I think ," she admitted at length. "The more I draw on them, the…deeper the connection, I guess, the more…influence they have."
Armsmaster grunted. "That first night. When I came upon you while you were using 'Siegfried,' you were willing to fight me."
The pieces started to come together.
"Because that's what Siegfried wanted more than anything: a good fight," she confirmed. "What happened there… That was just because I was fighting Lung, a dragon. That level of influence came from a superficial connection to a portion of Siegfried's legend that wasn't even detailed. With Khepri…"
"She's you," Hannah realized. "Assuming her Trigger Event occurred around the same time —"
"It did."
"— she was your age, she looked like you, she thought like you, she lived the same life, up until that moment. If you used her, then she could…"
Take you over completely.
"Yes," Taylor said quietly. "That was why I didn't want to use her. Because it would be hard to tell where I ended and she began. She already nearly…consumed me once; I didn't want to take the chance of letting her try again."
Piggot leaned further forward. "You used her before the Echidna incident?"
Taylor hesitated and took a deep, bracing breath, then admitted, "During my Trigger Event. She was the first hero I ever used."
A wave of sudden horror shot through Hannah's stomach.
"Oh my god…"
It was easy to see it. Easy to imagine how it might have gone. Winslow, descending into a hellhole as a wrathful Taylor Hebert — a wrathful Khepri — delirious in the wake of her Trigger and charged with all of the emotions that entailed, twisted each and every person inside into her slave and used them to violently punish her tormentors.
From there, when the PRT and Protectorate were called in…they would have had to put her down. Her and maybe even a significant number of the people under her control. If they even could have, considering what Khepri had been capable of.
"I pushed her away as soon as I realized what was happening," Taylor went on. "So that she couldn't make me into her."
Mister Hebert gave his daughter's hand a comforting squeeze.
"So, you refused to use her at first because you were afraid the lines would blur and you'd have trouble telling yourself apart from her," the Director concluded. "And in the end, you used her anyway."
"Because I didn't have any better options," Taylor replied unapologetically.
"Mastering two dozen people was your best option?"
"Because even if I had to use Khepri and stop pretending she wasn't real, I didn't want to become her."
One of Piggot's eyebrows rose. "Isn't that the same thing? Using her and becoming her?"
Taylor's nostrils flared and her brow drew tight. "No," she said firmly. She almost spat the word out. "Khepri is…was an ends over means person. The goal mattered more to her than the people did. Even if I have to use her power, I refuse to let myself fall into her way of thinking."
"Some people would call her way simple pragmatism."
"Would you?" Taylor challenged.
Piggot let out a heavy breath through her nose. "No," she said at length, "I don't suppose I would."
"You're belaboring the point, Director," her father broke in. "You asked why she was hesitant to use Khepri, and she answered, even the parts she was uncomfortable talking about. I think it's time we move on."
"You are being rather…forthcoming about all of this," Hannah commented, addressing Taylor.
"Because that was one of Khepri's… It's one of my biggest hangups," she admitted. "Trusting people in authority. Trusting people in positions of authority."
"And I can't blame her for it," Danny Hebert added stonily. "Every authority figure in her life for the past two years has utterly failed her."
Including me, went unsaid. Hannah heard it still.
"If I'm going to learn from Khepri's mistakes, then that means staring her problems in the face, rather than running away from them. It means I have to deal with my hangups, too, if I don't want to wind up repeating them."
Piggot's eyebrow rose. "And you're saying you trust me?"
"No," Taylor replied bluntly. "But of the PRT Directors I know… the Directors Khepri knew, you're the one I distrust the least. Because you might be a lot of other things, but you're also fair."
Now, Piggot's brow reversed course and drew down together, furrowing.
"You don't just get personality from your heroes," she said, sounding somewhere between accusatory and skeptical. "You get knowledge. Even memory. Things they knew, things they experienced, things they took for fact."
"Yes."
"How complete?"
Taylor frowned. "…Complete enough."
"And Khepri? How much of her life do you have access to, when you used her?"
Taylor hesitated. In a way, that was an answer by itself. "…I would have done it differently, if I'd had that knowledge beforehand. Going after Coil. Dealing with the Travelers."
"Because Khepri did those things, too," Armsmaster breathed.
"She did," Taylor confirmed. "She also…"
She trailed off, biting nervously at her lip.
"Taylor," her father chided gently.
Taylor sighed and sagged a little. "She also fought Lung, on her first night out, for the same reason I did. Same time, same day."
Armsmaster sucked in a breath, reeling. Hannah felt the surprise keenly, too — like a kick in the gut. The implications of that…
"She met Armsmaster, that night," Taylor went on. "She met Tattletale, eventually became friends with her. She fought Bakuda, she eventually came up against Coil and the Travelers, too. She…"
"She did everything you've done," Hannah concluded.
It was eerie, to think about it. To seriously consider it. If it was all true… it must have been so much worse for Taylor herself, realizing the similarities and having to wonder how much of it was coincidence, born from their circumstances, and how much of it was predetermined, immutable — fate.
Taylor nodded. "And some things I haven't. Mostly because when I fought those enemies, they didn't…walk away to come back and fight another day."
Piggot frowned. "You don't want to join the Wards because Khepri already did it."
"Yes," came the answer, then a furrowing of the brow. Immediately, "No. I don't…"
She paused, sighed, and tried again. "There're things I know, now. Things Khepri knew. People, events, circumstances… A lot of them are important. Not just to my life, but to tons and tons of other people."
"But you don't plan on telling us," Piggot concluded.
"No. Not right now. Some of it, not ever."
Piggot's nostrils flared.
"Do you have any idea how irresponsible and selfish —"
"And what if I'm wrong?" Taylor rebuked. "All of those lives? They could be ruined. All of those people could be hurt or killed. A lot of Khepri's knowledge has borne out, but not all of it. Coil and the Travelers was a fight that happened almost two months early. If I'm going to start acting on the things that happened in Khepri's past, then I have to be absolutely sure they can actually be used to predict the future."
"And how do you plan on verifying that?" Piggot asked. "Are you going to wait for some random event to occur as an immutable sign?"
"By predicting the one thing that everyone says is unpredictable."
They all stiffened as they followed the train of her logic and came to the only real conclusion.
"An Endbringer," Hannah whispered.
Because there was nothing else it could be. The Endbringers were the only major threat that the PRT's team of precognitive Thinkers could not, to a one, predict using their powers. Not even WEDGDG's best and brightest. The PRT and the Protectorate had been trying for years to find one for whom the Endbringers weren't a gigantic blind spot — unfortunately, to no avail.
"You know when the next Endbringer attack is?" Piggot demanded furiously.
She didn't answer. Danny Hebert gave her hand a squeeze.
"Taylor," he said firmly. "Tell them."
She hesitated, but after a moment, she sighed and nodded her head.
"Here," Taylor affirmed, "in about four days. It'll be Leviathan."
"And you weren't going to tell us?" Piggot spat. "Do you have any idea how many lives we could save if we knew when and where the next Endbringer attack was going to be? You stupid, shortsighted, little —"
"And what happens if it's not here and it's not Leviathan and it's not four days from now?" Taylor rebuked. "What happens if you get everyone ready to fight him in Brockton Bay, only for Behemoth to show up in Yellowstone two weeks from now? You'd be out of position using strategies and equipment designed for an entirely different fight!"
"Then we adapt and deal with it!" Armsmaster said brusquely. "All Endbringer battles to date have been organized adhoc with little to nothing in the way of prior preparation! Even in the scenario where we prepared for the wrong Endbringer in the wrong place at the wrong time, we would be little worse off than we would otherwise be!"
Taylor jerked back, eyes wide and mouth open, as though this had not occurred to her, before.
Then, she fell silent, her brow furrowed, and behind her glasses, her eyes glazed over, like she was going back through a memory or trying to remember a fact she'd read, somewhere. Next to her, her father turned to her, looking a little concerned.
"Taylor?"
She snapped back, looking towards Armsmaster with something like awed understanding.
"Your algorithm," she breathed, and he flinched back, jaw working, mouth flapping, and it was his turn to look utterly stumped. "That's what changed things. That's why we had forewarning for Leviathan and Behemoth."
"How did you…" he began, then stopped, like he'd realized the answer to his own question. Instead, he said, "We weren't even sure it would work."
"And it still might not," Piggot interrupted, although she eyed Taylor with a considering look. "Taking this all as gospel will do us no more favors than dismissing it outright."
"Director —"
"Having said that," Piggot went on, "we will treat it with all due seriousness and consider it valid information going forward. You realize, however, Taylor, that this doesn't exactly make your position better."
Taylor scowled. "Because it only makes me more valuable as an asset. That doesn't mean I'm going to agree to become a Ward, just because you want me even more, now."
"You don't seem to realize the position you're in. Taylor, you Mastered nearly two whole Protectorate divisions, plus the Triumvirate. That's no less than twenty-five counts of Assault with a Parahuman Ability. In the process, you compromised the security of both the East-Northeast and Chicago PRT. That can be considered espionage. Your actions, whether they were intended to do so or not, directly led to at least two people losing their lives, during an unsanctioned raid on private property. That's breaking and entering and felony murder. You're treating this as though it's a debate about whether or not you will be joining the Wards, rather than what it is: a preliminary discussion about just how long we're going to be pushing for your probation to last."
"I think I understand my position just fine, Director," Taylor replied coldly. "I understand that all of those things are only valid concerns if you have a strong enough monopoly on force to actually coerce my cooperation. I can go toe to toe with the Triumvirate. You can't force me to do anything. I don't have either the time or the inclination to play junior hero, doing PR stunts and sitting at a console. So why exactly do I need you?"
"And here you are, proving exactly why you need us. If that response was supposed to sound like a mature, reasoned argument, it failed. What I just heard was the petulant response of a teenager who thinks she knows best after a couple of months of experience and only three actual fights."
Taylor rallied. "Khepri —"
"Is not here," Piggot cut across her. "You are. Taylor Hebert, Apocrypha. Fifteen years old. Not Khepri, hero, villain, whatever form she might take. You. Whatever knowledge or experience she has and whatever she accomplished is irrelevant. What matters is what you know and what you've done."
"So I should just ignore it?" Taylor demanded. "Go back to pretending it never happened? Forget everything I learned from her and the way she lived her life?"
"You're not using what she knew and what she learned, you're letting it control you," Piggot rebutted. "This is not the time or the place to let someone else's bias determine your actions — and certainly not someone whose choices you yourself claimed to disagree with."
Taylor didn't reply, immediately; she watched Piggot's face with furrowed brows, uncertain, as though only mental inertia kept her from agreeing with the Director's point outright.
"Taylor," Hannah began, trying to sound softer and more compassionate than Piggot, as she had found that sort of approach worked best with the other Wards, "Khepri is…isn't you. Even if she shares a name and a common history, you aren't her. You stuck to the hero path from the beginning. You're stronger than her. You made better choices. If you let her influence your decisions now, won't that be giving her more validity than you want?"
"You are your own person," Armsmaster added. "And Khepri had nothing to do with who that is."
Danny Hebert looked like he wanted to say something, but seemed to decide to hold his tongue.
And Taylor… Taylor didn't say anything, either. Her mouth moved a little, like she was chewing on her words to make them fit past her lips, but she didn't seem to have any response. She looked like she was coming up blank.
"Khepri," Danny Hebert started, "is not the only issue of concern regarding Taylor joining the Wards, Director."
Piggot folded her hands on her desk and turned to him. "Such as?"
"Sophia Hess," said Danny, and Hannah sat back, closing her eyes, as a thread of dread wormed through her gut. Dread, and not a little guilt. "I'm not entirely comfortable with the implication of your organization's competency and willingness to support my daughter, given you didn't, for nearly two years, realize Sophia Hess was carrying out a bullying campaign unchecked."
"Eight months," Armsmaster interjected — unhelpfully, Hannah thought. "Shadow Stalker only entered our custody and became a Ward in late August of last year."
Danny's lips drew further down. "My point stands."
"The Shadow Stalker situation was a series of errors and miscommunications, at least some of which was predicated upon favorable testimony given at her probationary hearing," Piggot replied. "We dropped the ball. Yes. Some of the blame lies on Principal Blackwell's shoulders, for enabling her. Some of it is ours to carry, because we thought she was rehabilitating. That her psych evals were improving greatly contributed to our somewhat laxer oversight."
"If that's supposed to comfort me, Director," said Danny, "it really didn't."
"Aside from our apologies, there's not much else I can offer you, Mister Hebert."
"How about an assurance that something like that will never happen again?"
"You know as well as I do that the best I could do was say that we'd try," Piggot answered. "The officers at the PRT and the heroes working for the Protectorate are only human, Mister Hebert. I can promise, however, that your daughter's situation is such that she would receive a great deal more attention and a repeat of any such event would be prevented to the best of our ability, as a Ward."
"Because she's powerful," Danny shot back.
"Because she'd be our responsibility," Piggot corrected, "and we already fucked things up once. I can't promise you nothing bad would ever happen or that there wouldn't be bad blood between her and someone else in the Wards or Protectorate, either now or down the line. I don't have that kind of power or foresight. What I can promise you is that Taylor would be a lot safer and have much better support as a Ward than she does now, and that working with those you may dislike is a skill everyone should learn, including parahumans."
And Danny…subsided, not quite looking satisfied, but thoughtful, like he wasn't quite sure whether or not that was a good enough answer to allay his concerns. Defused, that might be the way Hannah would put it.
"Were there any other issues you felt needed addressed?"
"Yes, actually," Taylor spoke up. "Several."
Attention turned back in her direction, and there was something…different about her. Not visually. She looked the same. It was something…else. Something in the way she held herself, in her posture, some subtle thing that Hannah couldn't quite put her finger on.
"First and foremost, Director, I would like to ask, what will happen to Tattletale?"
Piggot frowned and didn't reply immediately. "…You're using your power, aren't you?"
Hannah flinched and looked closer, but there was no sign of transformation, none of the telltale indications of her power. There wasn't even the slightest flicker of gold from her most basic Breaker ability.
"I'm doing exactly as you implied I should, Director Piggot."
"I never said for you to run away and let others fight your battles," Piggot countered.
"I'm not," Taylor said firmly. "I'm relying upon the wisdom of those far older, wiser, and more experienced than me. After all, that is your primary argument for why I need the PRT and the Wards, isn't it?"
"You're letting Khepri —"
"No, because you did have something of a point, Director," Taylor cut across her. Piggot's eyes went wide as her nostrils flared. "Allowing Khepri to influence my decision is not necessarily the wrong choice, but she is biased. Jeanne has no connection to either side; all she does is allow me to profess my concerns and present my own arguments more clearly and concisely."
Jeanne? Hannah's mind raced to identify heroes who had that name, but the only one that immediately jumped out was —
"Joan of Arc," Armsmaster muttered.
"You say that…Jeanne doesn't influence you, but that isn't what I'm seeing, Taylor," said Piggot, as though he hadn't spoken. "Your posture. Your diction. The way you're talking, the way you're looking me directly in the eye — the only thing that hasn't changed about you is your physical appearance."
"And yet, she has no opinion for or against the PRT," Taylor rebutted. "She has no baggage regarding this situation. She has no connection to you, to anyone in this room, or to your rules and regulations. Her thoughts and feelings aren't affecting my judgement in the slightest. She is, quite literally, the definition of a neutral party."
Then, a slight smile. "In form and function, my utilizing Jeanne to help me articulate my issues is no different from Armsmaster using the lie detector he has hidden in his helmet."
Danny went rigid and immediately demanded, "What?"
Armsmaster himself stiffened, grimacing, "How…"
But once again, the question was one they already knew the answer to: Khepri. That was most likely the secret to any bit of inconvenient or privileged information she had — she had learned it from her alternate future self.
It played merry hell on their infosec. Hannah dreaded all of the possible things Khepri might have known, all of the possible state secrets that might now be in her head, and what she could do with them, if something happened to convince her she should.
Or if a Master or Stranger got ahold of her and extracted them from her.
"You brought a lie detector to this meeting?"
And Taylor just set her hand over his, a calming gesture that seemed to soothe him at least a little. "It's fine. After all, I'm sure that the results only validate everything I've said so far."
Armsmaster didn't answer her. In a way, that was an answer itself.
"In any case," she continued, "Director, I would like an answer to my question: what will you do with Tattletale? Is she to become your hostage, to coerce me into joining if I try to say no? Do you intend to threaten her with legal action, or else with conscription into the Wards herself, if I refuse to join?"
"Nothing of the sort," admitted Piggot, looking as though she'd swallowed a lemon. "Lisa Wilbourne, alias Tattletale, is currently under our protective custody while she consults with us on the uprooting of Coil's organization and the seizure of his assets. Under the understanding that she doesn't resume activity as a criminal, either independently or as a member of the villain group known as the Undersiders, we've agreed not to press charges or attempt to coerce her into joining the Wards."
"I see," said Taylor. "Thank you."
Piggot tilted her head back a little. "It was decided that it would be counterproductive towards fostering any measure of good will with you. I considered it not worth the effort, since the only significant crimes on her record are the bank robbery in April and killing Coil, and both of those could be argued on the basis of duress."
"As she was recruited at gunpoint and feared his reach far exceeded her capacity for escape, one would think 'duress' a bit of an understatement." Piggot's sour expression curdled even more. "Nonetheless, the sentiment is appreciated. Thank you for your understanding, Director."
The Director looked like she very much wanted to say something that was probably nasty and sarcastic, but knew better than to do so. Instead, she asked, "You said there were several concerns you needed addressed. The others?"
Taylor inclined her head. "Yes. Secondarily, the issue of my placement, were I to join the Wards."
Her father took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Brockton Bay is home," he added. "We — neither of us wants to leave. Not permanently."
Piggot frowned and took a moment to respond.
"Our general policy," she began slowly, "is to keep members of the Wards and Protectorate in their home city, except when a specific request is made for transfer by the member — or his or her legal guardian — or the situation prohibits it. The only members subject to transfer without such considerations are those for whom there was no other choice — those, in other words, who would face jail time and as such are not afforded the same protections and considerations willing applicants are given."
She took a breath.
"As you have not yet been formally charged nor are any charges pending — yet," she continued, "and as your personal identity has not been compromised such that we have reason to believe your or your father's safety is at risk, you would be placed under the authority of the East-Northeast Division. Mine."
"Can you guarantee that?" Taylor asked.
Piggot straightened indignantly.
"I am the highest authority in your case. If I say you're mine and you're staying here, that's all there is to it."
"Can you guarantee that, however?" Taylor pressed. "Can you, in good faith, promise me that I will remain in Brockton Bay and not find myself transferred across the country? To Las Vegas or Houston or New York?"
Danny Hebert shifted. "Taylor, is this about…"
His daughter favored him with a look, little more than a pointed glance. Hannah could not have been the only one to realize there was something more to it, something unspoken that neither of them looked ready to talk about. Danny subsided, question apparently answered, and Taylor turned back to Piggot.
"Can you guarantee that I will not be transferred under the authority of Alexandria? That it will not be decided that I — and the Protectorate and PRT — would be better served under her guidance?"
Slowly, the Director's brow drew together and her lips pulled tight.
"You tell me that the PRT offers me wisdom, both from my elders and the chance to gain my own under their auspices," Taylor went on. "You tell me that I have neither the maturity nor the experience to handle my power in a way that doesn't endanger myself or others. Will you make me earn that experience under the wing of the woman who told me the only available option was to let my friends die? The self-same woman who proclaimed that heroism is about choosing to sacrifice others for the greater good?"
Piggot leaned forward, expression hard and serious. "I protect my people, even if that means from the other Directors. You want to stay here? Fine. I'll make sure it happens. You want to never work with Alexandria again? Consider it done. If you despise her that much, then as long as I have a say in it, you'll never set a single toe in Las Vegas."
But Taylor did not seem satisfied.
"I see. And if you maintain that position in the face of pressure from your peers and even your superiors, how quickly do you think you would be removed and replaced by someone more willing to compromise?"
"Even Directors can't remove other Directors that easily —"
"Can't they?" Taylor asked. "How long have you languished here, Director Piggot? How many times have you requested aid in order to root out the likes of Lung and his ABB or Kaiser and his Empire? Even Skidmark and his Merchants remain, a festering wound. How many times have those requests been turned aside, with only platitudes offered as excuse?"
Director Piggot did not look happy — neither, however, did Danny Hebert. His face, Hannah noticed, was a stark mirror of Piggot's: the deeper her frown got, so too did his own deepen.
"And now, through accident and happenstance, the Empire fractures under its own weight. Through my own effort, Lung, Bakuda, and their ABB were brought low. How easily might the other Directors force the issue, under the logic that I am simply too big to be left here to help you mop up the remnants of the gangs that even now are still falling apart?"
But this was not the final blow.
"How likely, do you think," Taylor said pointedly, "that they would offer you all the resources necessary to restore this city, contingent upon relinquishing me unto their authority? And if still you were to refuse them and the resources they offered, would they not then take that as grounds to remove you, for failing in your solemn duty to protect and serve this city?"
Danny Hebert grunted softly and muttered something that sounded like, "Politics."
"Considering the circumstances, your reticence is understandable," Armsmaster cut in. "However, even if the Director could make such a guarantee on the basis of your posting, you would still be unable to avoid Alexandria's authority."
Taylor's head tilted a little to one side. "Oh?"
"The Endbringers," Hannah spoke up.
Taylor frowned and Danny grimaced.
"The Triumvirate leads the charge against them," Hannah said. "Alexandria most of all. If you intended to avoid her authority, you'd have to never participate in an Endbringer battle."
Taylor sighed. "And I would never do that," she admitted softly.
Danny Hebert startled.
"What?" he squawked. "You're goddamn right, you would! If you think I'd actually let you run off into a fight with an Endbringer —"
"As opposed to cowering in a shelter," Taylor shot back, "on my knees, hoping and praying that I'm not killed without even the chance of fighting back?"
"As her parent and legal guardian," Piggot cut in; her lips twitched just the slightest, like she was trying to hold in a smile, "you're well within your rights to demand that she be kept out of any Endbringer battles."
Armsmaster grimaced. "Unfeasible," he opined. "She beat Lung at the strongest he's been since the Kyushu battle and came away without a scratch. We literally can't afford to leave her on the sidelines."
Danny Hebert did not look happy to hear that.
"Even so, we would make sure she was as prepared as possible beforehand," Hannah offered as a compromise. "We most certainly wouldn't allow her to participate without a sufficient degree of training, pending a review of her limits."
Danny didn't look quite happy about this, but it seemed to mollify him a little.
"So if you didn't think she was ready, you wouldn't let her attend."
"No," said Piggot. "In spite of what some of the tabloids might say, the PRT and Protectorate are not in the business of fielding child soldiers. Although Taylor's situation — and in particular, her power — is such that she may have a more active career before graduating to the Protectorate than the average Ward, the intention is and should always be that sending her into the field is an option of desperation."
"When we have no better options," Armsmaster agreed, although his expression said he didn't. "The Endbringers…often qualify."
"And it seems that without us to say no, she would attend anyway," Piggot added.
"You intend to hobble me," Taylor accused, eyes flat and face grim.
"We intend to do what we do for all the Wards under our umbrella," Piggot rebutted. "Make sure you have as safe an environment as possible to learn to effectively leverage your power, such that by the time you're ready to join the Protectorate, you are as prepared to be the best hero you can be as we can possibly make you."
"A gilded cage is still a cage, Director," said Taylor, "no matter how big it is or how pretty the bars. You offer protection and room to grow, yes — but it comes part and parcel with restrictions and regulations. You would have me sharpen my sword, but never take it into battle."
"You're fifteen."
"I'm a world class Trump," Taylor countered. "My array of options is nearly limitless. To ask me to train and master each one is the work of a lifetime, not a mere two years!"
"Then we'll work with you to fit as much as we can into those two years," replied Piggot, "and continue to work with you if you stay on with the Protectorate, afterwards."
"And how many lives would be lost, that I might save in that time?"
Piggot let out a short breath through her nostrils; someone else might have called it a snort. "And you think a single girl, even as powerful as you, is enough to make a dent in all of the thousands of people who die in this country every day?"
"Maybe not," Taylor admitted. "But isn't being a hero about trying anyway?"
"So you've decided that the best way to do that is by being independent, without support of any kind, answerable to no one?"
Taylor's lips thinned.
"No. I've decided that it's more important than being answerable to anyone. Being a hero is not simply a job I would go to, day in and day out, nor is it a label, to be given and taken away simply on the say-so of a bureaucrat in his office. I refuse to be in the business of trading lives or posing for cameras. If being a Ward means being Alexandria's kind of hero, then I outright refuse."
Piggot folded her hands on her desk.
"And if that means inventing your own limits to how much you can help people, rather than accepting someone else's?"
"How do you mean?"
"For all that you decry the restrictions placed on the Wards and your personal issues with Alexandria," said Piggot, "you're ignoring a lot of the things that we do bring to the table. How easily can you find crime to fight, by yourself? If a confrontation were to occur between the Empire and the Protectorate, how quickly could you reach it? Would you even know it was happening?"
Taylor didn't answer, lips beginning to purse.
"What about numbers?" Piggot went on. "Your…Hundred-Faced Hassan, was it? If all you had to worry about was a bunch of unpowered people, I'm sure that would be enough. But if you were up against the entirety of the Empire's roster of capes or, say, the Teeth up in Boston, would it be so easy to handle all of them with a single one of your heroes, all at once? Wouldn't it be better to have someone — a team — to handle the others, while you fought the biggest threat?"
She leaned forward.
"That, above all, it what the Wards, and later the Protectorate, can offer you. Support. The network you need to know where and when you're needed, the teammates who can watch your back while you fight Hookwolf or the Butcher, and the expertise to help you find the limits of your powers. And if, later on, you decide that it isn't working out, you don't have to stay."
"You're saying you wouldn't force me to stay on if I didn't want to," Taylor clarified.
"I'm saying we'd do our best to accommodate you, within reason, if there was a concern you needed addressed," said Piggot. "And if you were still unsatisfied? Yes. Neither the Protectorate nor the Wards is meant to be a lifelong obligation. Like any other job, you do have the option to quit."
"No strings attached?" Danny asked.
"You would likely be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the identities of your teammates," she replied. "But otherwise, no. The PRT is an oversight program, not the CIA or NSA. We don't put anything into your permanent record that would in anyway hamper your life or career, and you aren't required to stay in a governmental position afterwards."
Taylor still didn't look quite convinced.
Danny turned to her. "I think it's a good idea."
Her head whirled around to him so fast Hannah thought she might have heard her neck crack. "What?"
"I'm not saying I don't have reservations." Here, he looked back to Piggot. "And I'm pulling the plug on it the minute I hear the first thing about something like Sophia Hess happening again."
"Reasonable," Piggot allowed.
"But," he said, "I'm willing to give it a shot, if it means you're safer and you have people to help you in…in the ways that I can't. I…can't be part of your life as a hero, Taylor. The Wards can."
"That doesn't mean they'll be a good part," she argued.
"It doesn't mean they'll be a bad part, either," he rebutted. "So… All I'm asking, is… give it a try? Give them a chance? For me?"
Taylor hesitated.
"And if you're miserable and it's horrible and it doesn't go right, I won't say anything if you want to quit. You can even tell me you told me so."
For several seconds, she didn't reply. The set of her brow and her lips told the story of her thoughts, how she was weighing what had been said and her father's words. Hannah waited, unsure it would be enough, unsure that Danny Hebert had managed to reach his daughter and convince her as the Director had not.
At length, she turned to Piggot. "I have conditions."
Piggot smiled. "Then let's discuss them."
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
This is not the end. This was merely the path that made the most sense with the direction of the story - because when you look at it, the only way Taylor was going to avoid the Wards was if she was, from the word go, adamantly against joining, in which case this chapter had little to no meaning. Establishing her as unsure in the previous chapters meant that, in the end, Piggot would be too convincing. Taylor and Jeanne did manage to get a few punches in first, though. Man, those lines were fun to write. Jeanne is friggin' awesome, and too few Nasu stories feature her at her best.
Where we go from here, however, is not as certain as it might seem. Depending on how far past Leviathan the story winds up going, there might yet be fruit to bear from this plotline.
Continuing with what seems to have been the running theme of this arc, this was hell to write. It languished for quite a while, and I had a lot of trouble making it work at all. I still feel like there are parts that need more - more meat, more dialogue, more narration. But this is already 8k and it already took me long enough to get it written, so I'm not going to stretch it out any further.
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