Capítulo 585: 24
Date
2011 January 15th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
The unfortunate fact of being the director of the PRT North-East was that weekends were a luxury. Ever since she became the Director, she worked more and more on Saturdays, even sometimes on Sundays.
Unfortunately, because Brockton Bay was Brockton Bay, she couldn't spend the weekend catching up on her paperwork. She had to put out just as many fires as on a normal weekday.
And this Saturday was the same. She was sitting behind her enormous desk and doing paperwork. Currently, she was reviewing the final paperwork about the Witness protection of the Hess family. Despite the date, she was rather happy to do it. It got rid of her as a major irritant, and they even managed to keep everybody silent about it.
And it looked bad on the Chief Director, who was the biggest pusher of keeping Hess on the force, instead of putting her in a deep, dark hole. And anything that hurt that woman made her happy. She really hated Chief Director.
Though knowing Murphy, it would come back to bite her and the PRT in the ass at the most unfortunate moment. She could swear that the entire city was cursed.
Hearing a chime, she looked up from the documents she was perusing at one of her monitors, noticing a message with elevated priority. It wasn't marked urgent enough to make her worry, but it still made her sigh.
She clicked on it, just to be surprised. It was a request from Dragon, for a meeting later in the day, with her and Armsmaster.
Now she was worried. Dragon was famous and busy enough, and meetings with her were rare enough on a Director's level that she couldn't help but worry. The message said little, just that it was easier to explain in 'person' and it wasn't anything dangerous or major.
Despite very much wishing to not accept the meeting request, and just go back to putting out the usual fires. She reluctantly clicked on the accept button.
She wasn't expecting much, but she was a little curious about what Dragon wanted.
It was exactly five minutes before four when there was a knock on her door. She called out without looking up. "Come in, Armsmaster."
Say what you want about the man, but he was punctuality incarnate. And just as she expected, he strolled into the room in his armor, shined to perfection. He nodded at her but said nothing, just stood to the side, waiting for the proper beginning of the meeting.
She was rather thankful. During the day a small skirmish occurred around the border of the ABB's territory, and she was still dealing with the paperwork.
Exactly at four on the dot, the big monitor on the wall of her office turned automatically on, with a sign saying that Dragon was calling. She took a quick glance at Armsmaster, wanting to see if he was reacting to his friend calling.
She didn't really have time for hobbies or simply to rest, but indulging in gossip never hurt anybody. She even placed a bet on them, through a proxy. Maybe she would get lucky with that because she could use something that wasn't death and destruction.
She clicked once again on the accept button, for some reason feeling as if fate was watching. She decidedly did not like this feeling.
Just as Dragon's face came up on the screen, the door opened again, and the tired and panting figure of the Deputy Director entered the room.
"Apologies everyone, I was just dealing with the last of the Winslow case," he explained while nodding in greeting to the others, including Dragon.
"Hello, Deputy Director Renick, Director, and Colin. No problem, I just joined." came from Dragon.
Armsmaster just nodded, but she had questions. "Yes, hello everyone. I'm sorry, Dragon, but I need to deal with this first."
"No problem, Director. I'm in no rush," she replied with a small smirk.
"Right. Well, Rennick, what can you tell me?"
"As you saw from the paperwork, Director, the family is in witness protection. Miss Hess is on the way to a correction facility in Texas. I believe it is near Houston."
That was good news. The farther that stupid little girl was, the better she would feel.
"What about the other girls and the school?"
"The Clements girl got probation, due to her action and mandated therapy. I believe the family is considering moving from the city."
She wished she could move from the city.
"The Barnes girl is tougher. They deemed her non-compos mentis and is currently at a facility dealing with such cases." Even Dragon grimaced on the screen after hearing that. "This family is also planning to move, ostensibly to be closer to the girl."
"And the victim?"
"Their lawyer got them to agree to the settlement really fast, and they signed everything. We didn't even hear a peep from them."
"At least that's good news. The school?"
"The police started a quiet investigation with the support of CDC. The only reason they are keeping quiet because everybody agreed that making this public would only cause unnecessary panic. And hinder the investigation."
"Good. Get the documents to me by Tuesday," she told him, then turned back to Dragon. "Again, I apologize Dragon. How can we help you today?"
Dragon smiled at her, which almost immediately had her senses flaring. The woman was planning something. She would bet her remaining kidney on it.
"I'm informing you I recently bought a property in your city and am planning to set up a recycling facility."
"What?"
"Your fair city contains a rather extensive amount of metal. Granted low grade, but some of it is pre-world war two."
She was about to ask why that was important when Armsmaster let out a small sound. "Anything to say, Armsmaster?"
"Yes, Director," he replied, then turned to Dragon. "For sensors?"
"Yes, Colin."
He nodded and turned back to her. "Director, due to radioactive contamination, pre-world war two metal, is a must for very delicate sensor systems. Most of them are 'mined' from sunken ships."
"I see. And you think it's worth setting up a facility just for that Dragon?"
"Yes, though I will make use of the other metals too. And just to cheer you up, I will also station a few suits at it. On paper for simple protection from the gangs. But if they were to run into villains during routine flight exercises…" she finished her explanation rather leadingly, and a smirk.
She was not happy. This would only lead to bad things. "How long would it take you to set it up?"
"A few days? Maybe four. Depends on what local workforce I can find."
"So short?"
"This would be the setup to start the recycling process. I would continue to build up the facility, increasing its production. I also had some recent breakthroughs and will be sharing them soon."
"With whom?"
"The world, Director."
That just sounded like more paperwork for her.
Date
2011 January 16th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
On Sunday morning, they dressed up nicely, took a detour to a florist, and went to visit Annette at the graveyard. Both of them spent time in front of the grave, telling her what happened, or just simply sharing things.
It was a somber affair, but both agreed that they felt lighter after it.
After leaving the graveyard, they went out to Annette's favorite café for breakfast. Not much talking happened there. Taylor didn't know because of the need for secrecy or that both of them rather stayed silent and contemplated things. At least she felt like thinking about stuff.
So much changed over such a short amount of time. Half the time she didn't know what was happening. And the surreal scenarios that Admin was dreaming up for her to train in also didn't really help. Sometimes she just wanted to yell, sometimes she wanted to lock herself into her room and cry. From relief or sadness, she didn't know.
This small talk with her mother really helped her out. She let out several things she didn't or couldn't tell anyone. She also vowed to get some help with her emotions. She needed help, and as his father's handling of the school proved, asking for help actually worked.
She would try with Admin, and if that didn't work with Tess. She didn't really want to ask her father about it. Because, on one hand, he wasn't the most emotionally intelligent person, on the other hand, he himself was in the middle of therapy.
She spent the rest of the day tinkering. Mostly upgrading her new phone with better security, processor, programming, and everything else she could think of. She also began to put down a plan for a gynoid body for Tess. She wanted to hang out with her friend.
The afternoon was, however, spent with her father, watching movies, and playing with some simple board games.
Monopoly was much more interesting when you can use your power to remember what you've read on the internet about the game.
On a totally unrelated note, her father swore vengeance upon her.
The night was spent in the virtual space. Tess joined her again. Apparently, she created a fork just for this. That made her feel warm and fuzzy.
The first thing she did was tell both Admin and Tess her realization about herself. Tess recommended a therapist. She agreed, but also mentioned that she couldn't be really truthful without mentioning Admin. And everything she had read told her that honesty was needed.
Tess sadly agreed with her that therapists would immediately cry Master if she would mention him.
Admin, however, told her he had some training programs for that. It seems he was prepared for everything. Dressed in Japanese clothing and with a white goatee, he began to instruct her on the fine art of meditation and yoga. At least this time she could practice this freely in the actual world.
She kind of wanted to have her dad join her. Watching him trying to twist himself into a pretzel would be hilarious.
While that went on, Admin took Tess to a separate instance of the virtual space for her to experiment with Tinker tech. She could try out ideas there that she couldn't in real life without wasting any precious material or endangering herself and her environment.
After Admin declared her finished with her first lesson, they started up the power practice again. This time, however, they had Tess observe the practice and give advice about fighting, or procedures, techniques.
It was a rather fruitful training session. She felt calmer and even felt herself becoming better at it.
As a finishing event, she decided to try Leviathan again.
Although Tess was against it initially, not wanting to put her against something so monstrous, she and Admin convinced her to allow it. Though she insisted on joining her as a coordinator, providing her tactical information as she does at every Endbringer fight.
For some reason, now that Tess was here and helping with the fight, it was much more real than previously. Her experience and knowledge added a layer of realism to the exercise that it hadn't had before.
She still got her butt handed to her rather fast, but at least she stalled it for half a minute. She wasn't really satisfied with it, but according to Tess, that was a tremendous accomplishment, seeing as most capes couldn't hold it up for more than a few seconds before inevitably dying.
That somehow didn't make her feel better.
Date
2011 January 16th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
He saved the recording from the interrogations to a special folder. It would be useful later in the game.
The fact the PRT was hiding this was only a bonus for him. The question was, how could he use it to the maximum effect?
Maybe use it as an opening salvo, highlighting the PRT's and Protectorate's inability to handle the Wards and protect the children of the city. People were rather vehement about protecting children.
Then he sent several files to his Tattletale for further analysis. Maybe her work could give him an idea.
He was surprised about Dragon moving to the city, at least partially, but he didn't have enough information about it to make any decision. He would need to wait for more to happen.
But for now, he needed to review the skirmish the Empire had with ABB. There were no capes sighted, so the reason for it wasn't clear. He instructed a few people to dig deeper. He couldn't allow gang movements to happen without him causing them or knowing why it happened.
He was so close; he could almost taste the victory.
Date
2011 January 16th - Sunday - Earth Bet Time
Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown put down the phone with a heavy sigh. Apparently, the gods hated her. It seemed Dragon made her first move. And it was moving to Brockton Bay.
She couldn't decide to cry or laugh at the absurdity. The AI accidentally chose the one city where Cauldron didn't (couldn't) interfere.
Hopefully, it wasn't because she was aware of this fact.
Though her arrival would probably hasten whatever was going to happen in the city. Still, she would consult Contessa about their options.
She really wanted to trust Dragon. She was a pleasant person, but she couldn't help but shake the feeling that it would be a mistake letting her go free.
It didn't help that for the last few days Thinkers and most importantly precogs were in an uproar all over the world. None of them could point out what was wrong or went wrong, but all of them agreed that something big changed.
Even Contessa was having trouble seeing what caused this.
Their current theory was the new blind spot, Serenity the mystery cape. A cape who, after helping the Guild arrest the Dragonslayers, and probably freeing Dragon, vanished.
And that made her worry. Capes only did that when they were planning something big. Though now that she thought about it, Dragon, deciding to move to Brockton Bay, could indicate that Serenity lived there.
Sending a message to Contessa to investigate it, she sighed and turned back to the endless paperwork.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder