บท 1273: 34
Interlude 3.x (Wards, PRT)
Shortly after Armsmaster left with CRUCIBLE to meet with Director Piggot, Aegis and Vista went to another featureless closed room for debriefing.
Deputy Director Renick, Miss Militia, and a young man of Puerto Rican descent with long hair were waiting for them.
Aegis and Vista then sat down in front of the three, and Aegis unmasked himself.
"Your costume feels a bit stuffy, Carlos. Maybe I'm just used to hard plates," the unmasked person in the Aegis costume said.
The Puerto Rican youth gave him a smile. "That's because you never did any competitive sports, Dean. Skin-tight suits are common for a lot of them."
"Do you think they suspected anything?" Renick asked.
"No, sir," said Dean. "Not even Araliac seemed to notice anything off with my disguise."
Renick nodded. "Good. Let's get to the main point then. We'll start with you Vista, so Gallant's emotion-reading won't give you any biases. Your impressions of them, anything you thought was strange?"
The twelve-year old Ward gave a quick reply. "I didn't really notice anything strange. They were pretty much just how I thought they'd be, based on their video. Araliac and Skitter didn't talk much. Polychromic is just as intense in person. Is he really a Thinker 9?"
She knew from experience that such high ratings were very rare. She herself had an equally high rating of 9, but higher level Shakers were slightly more common. Labyrinth, for example, was another cape in town with a rating even higher than her own. She didn't know of anything Polychromic did that warranted that kind of rating, and was very curious. In the video, it wasn't even obvious that he had powers at all. They barely showed any of the actual fighting, to her great annoyance. But then again, she thought, a guy would have to be insane to fight Lung without powers, so he obviously couldn't have been unpowered. It made more sense that he would have an exceptional power, in retrospect, to have defeated the cape that could fight on par with Leviathan.
"Is that what he told you? We have him classified as Thinker 5 in the files," said Renick.
Vista looked at him oddly, then turned to Gallant beside her.
"Sir, maybe discussion about his rating should wait until we meet with Director Piggot or Armsmaster. Armsmaster seemed to indicate that was classified. I also have unusual emotion feedback about when he made that statement that could be relevant," said Gallant. He quickly came to the conclusion that it must have been classified even from Renick and Miss Militia, based on the emotions he was reading from them. Still, that was strange. He didn't understand why there was so much scrutiny over Polychromic and his team when they were fellow heroes. It didn't escape him that Armsmaster seemed to be treating Polychromic like some kind of bomb waiting to go off. Dean had never felt his superior officer so agitated inside.
Renick looked confused for a bit before realization dawned on him. "I see. We'll do as you suggest, then. If Vista has no further comments, then what did you feel from them, Gallant? Did you notice anything strange about Araliac or Skitter's emotions? Anything that could suggest some kind of Master effect?"
"I didn't detect any active effect happening, but I can't really identify victims of prior Master effects that were permanent. What I did observe was that they were both very anxious, especially Araliac. Skitter seemed to be on edge when she first met us, but calmed down after a while. Araliac's emotions were a bit hard to read. There were too many of them at the same time, but nothing that stood out to me as being the cause of a Master effect. It seemed more like there were a lot of things on her mind other than the meeting with us."
"Describe this tenseness in a more detail for me. What did they seem to be wary about? Any topics or things you thought seemed to be associated with their anxiety?"
"As I said, Skitter seemed to be particularly tense when she saw me and Missy. A little fearful, a little bit of shame, and a little resentment. But, it didn't feel like she recognized us or met us before, so I think the resentment part isn't directed specifically towards Vista and me. Maybe the Wards, Protectorate, or PRT as a whole."
Renick kept his gaze evenly on Dean. "You have the best judgement of your own power, so your instinct is likely correct. I'll have that noted down. Resentment towards Wards/PRT/Protectorate organization for unknown reasons. Anything for Araliac?"
"Whenever the conversation turned to powers, mostly. But like I said, she seemed to be distracted, so I'm not sure any of that is reliable."
"Alright. What about yourselves? Did you feel any sort of effect on you or Vista?"
"Nothing overt, no. But…" he hesitated a bit. It seemed a little unfair to bring this up, as he was pretty sure it wasn't a Master effect, and was Vista's own personal issue. It was too late, however, as he'd inadvertently indicated there was something more, and Renick wouldn't let him back out of it now.
"Just say it, Gallant. We're taking all precautions, even if you aren't sure. These were our orders. We at least need to note it down, even if you don't think it means anything," Renick said.
"Vista was unusually happy when Polychromic talked to her. I think it's just because he was complimenting her, though, in a way," he said, finally.
Vista was taken aback and felt embarrassment worming up her face. She couldn't deny it. She thought their motto was really cool, and Polychromic seemed to get things. He called her the most veteran ward, and treated her with a lot of respect. Respect that nobody in the Wards or the PRT seemed to give her, despite her actually being the most experienced. Yet, becoming the leader wasn't even on the table for her. They skipped her over for Aegis after Triumph left, even though he'd barely been a parahuman for a year. She knew her age would be a barrier to getting acceptance from subordinates, but she hated it anyways.
Like Polychromic said…to be a hero is to walk with death. They could suddenly die at any time out there, but they still treated her with kid gloves. She was a soldier that fought more than any of them, why didn't that count for anything? It was stupid. Like her useless costume that was supposed to make her look cute. And Clockblocker. Not that she had anything against him—she could even appreciate some of his jokes—but he was so much more immature yet he'd still probably be ahead of the line when it came to future Wards leadership, just because he was older.
Dean felt Missy's embarrassment suddenly turn into a wave of frustration and anger. He reacted immediately. "I'm sorry, Missy. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with you being happy to be complimented. You deserve the recognition." He regretted his words, and especially that he brought it up in front of her. If there was any real concern, he could have at least talked to Renick privately about it.
Dean's voice took away all of her anger in an instant, and replaced it with mortified embarrassment again. He must have read her emotions and completely misunderstood! She berated herself for her lapse in emotional discipline. Now her crush must think she had a fragile ego that needed validation and got angry when called out on it.
"I'm not angry at you, Dean. It's just—never mind," she said. It was awful. She couldn't even explain why she got angry, because she would sound exactly like the little kid she didn't want them to treat her as. Because a kid complaining about not being taken seriously was typical immature behaviour from children. They were all staring at her now. It was so unfair.
"Sorry," Dean repeated himself. "I mean what I said though. Really. You deserve it. It's my fault for making something out of nothing." He desperately tried to fix his mistake, but Vista wasn't having any of it. She just kept feeling more shame and frustration as he kept talking. It didn't make any sense. He knew she had a crush on him. He would have thought that giving her the same recognition would help, but it didn't. It just went to show that his powers didn't make him a social maverick. Reading emotions was only half the battle, he needed to learn the right ways to respond. He had a long way to go before he could live up to his name.
Renick coughed to get their attention. "Putting that aside for now, then. Was there anything else notable you observed? Even just general things about their personality or team dynamic."
"Polychromic has very good control over his emotions. He gives me the sense that he's very experienced in similar situations. Talking to the press, making speeches, dealing with us professionally. It could just be his Thinker power, but it feels more like confidence from experience. If he wasn't a cape before, he must have had a very public or big leadership role of some kind in his civilian identity," said Dean.
"That's very interesting. It's quite rare for people who were already very successful to become capes, especially with powers very high on the scale, at least based on the fraction of historically identified capes we know of. There are many theories about it, but most experts agree that it has something to do with being less susceptible to the emotions necessary for triggering. But it's not unheard of for social Thinkers to get a boost like that either. Definitely noting this one," Renick said as he wrote.
"I also had this feeling that he wasn't taking the PRT seriously. It's hard to describe what emotion that was. But it felt a bit as if to him, registering with the PRT was just going through the motions. A chore that had to be done. Bored, but resigned, kind of. When Armsmaster talked about cooperating on patrol schedules, I even felt a bit of disdain."
"That doesn't bode well. Noted."
"Something that stuck out to me was when he talked about his powers. There was the part about his Thinker 9 rating, which I'll wait until we're cleared by the Director for, but even besides that it was strange. When he said he was a Thinker, it was with a feeling of irony. As if it was only technically true. And there was also proudness and arrogance. Is it possible that he wants us to think he's a high level Thinker, and is actually smart enough or otherwise has some means to pretend to be one, but really isn't?"
Renick narrowed his eyes. "You're saying that he meant he was a thinker, lowercase, not the PRT rating, to mislead us?"
"Maybe, but I don't know how somebody could pretend to be a 9 on the scale, if we have evidence for that. Or maybe his Thinker powers aren't his main thing. Because when he said he had some other 'minor powers', the emotions that pinged me most were…gleeful furtiveness and ambition, oddly enough. I don't think ambition mixes with 'minor' powers, unless they can grow."
"A grab-bag then? I do hope he stays on our side, if any of these minor powers turn out to deserve a rating higher than 9," said Renick. "But I doubt that. Even if he is ambitious, he could also just be overestimating himself too much."
"Sir, can I ask why we're scrutinizing CRUCIBLE, and Polychromic, so heavily? Is there some reason to think he might not stay on our side?"
"I'm afraid most of it is classified," said Renick. "Even from me, it seems."
"Is it just because of Araliac's other identity and suspicions about her being Mastered?" Renick hadn't told them who it was, but it wasn't hard to piece together. Victoria had already told him about her sister running away, and combined with Araliac's abilities, it was pretty obvious. Victoria said her sister was Mastered, and going by this investigation, the PRT was suspicious about it too.
"That's only part of it. The PRT is also concerned about their methods, and other recent alarming events that may or may not be related. What I can tell you is that their battle with Lung and Oni Lee raised a few flags. Lung is still comatose, and we think it was deliberate .Polychromic also took threatened to kill Lung to trick Oni Lee. That, combined with the remains we collected from the scene of the battles…Miss Militia had some observations there," Renick explained.
Attention turned to Miss Militia. "At the scene where they fought Lung, we recovered samples of debris from what appeared to be jam tin grenades that I recognized from my time fighting in Africa. We also recovered the remains of a compound bow. The bow suggests that he didn't have the means, or time, to acquire a gun before, and the grenade suggests a mentality more suitable for guerilla warfare than patrolling the streets. Despite his apparent competence, he is almost certainly a new trigger with few resources, and a potential willingness to ignore the unwritten rules to win at any cost. This paints a dangerous picture with Skitter using lethal venoms and Araliac sending Lung into a coma. What we are concerned about is the possibility that they will treat any conflict with villain groups as total war. We don't need Brockton Bay turning into a warzone, our job is to keep the peace and protect the public."
Dean and Missy was quiet taking in the new information.
"And here I was glad about a new hero team appearing," said Carlos with a sigh. "Brockton Bay just can't get a break."
"We're done here then. You will be called when Director Piggot is ready to see you."
O O O
As Carlos, Dean, and Missy went back to the Wards lounge room, it was empty.
"So...recent events that may or may not be related, he said," Vista broke the silence. "Shadow Stalker?"
"They haven't told me anything you guys don't already know. Just that she violated her probation and has been removed from the team," said Carlos.
"Now I really am the only girl on the team," said Vista. "Still, I'm kind of glad. Stalker was a jerk. Serves her right."
"It's not right to say that, Missy. Regardless of her shortcomings, she was our teammate. And she was pretty good at her job, at least," said Dean.
"I know, I know. I can't help it, she was just so...mean," said Missy.
"Dean's right. Although to be frank, I don't think her presence on the team was good for our team dynamic. Working together well and having the right attitude is also important. Whatever happened, one thing is for sure. Our newest member came at just the right time. Speaking of which, I'm going to check on Steven," Carlos said.
"Might as well come with you, we have nothing else scheduled right now, right?" asked Dean.
Carlos nodded, and all of them went into the console room.
"Oh, hey guys. You met the new team in town?" Steven asked as they came in. He was a moderately handsome teen with Caucasian features and brown hair. Sitting down, it wasn't as obvious, but he was also on the tall side. He had a well-built muscular body, but the rest of the Wards had secretly speculated his power might have had something to do with it.
"Yeah. They were interesting, and intense. Maybe a little too intense," said Carlos. He didn't go into any detail. Their operation was also classified from the rest of the Wards, and he wasn't the one who actually met CRUCIBLE face to face. But from Steven's view on the console screens, it would have looked like Aegis had been there at the front doors.
"I like them. They've already accomplished a lot for being such a new team. When was the last time the heroes had a major victory over the villains? It's been years since a strong villain was arrested, but they got both Lung and Oni Lee on their first night," said Vista with a defiant look.
Carlos looked surprised. He thought they had all been pretty concerned after the revelations from Renick and Miss Militia.
"Oh yeah. And Araliac and Skitter are just teens like us, right? No way I would've taken on Lung for my first fight. That's seriously hardcore," Steven said with admiration in his tone as he nodded to Vista's opinion. He'd been active for a few months now, and had been quietly testing the waters solo with small-time perps. The worst he had been involved in were a few minor skirmishes with Victor and Othala, the Merchants, and a couple Undersiders. But they were just skirmishes to test his power, so both sides held their own and got away for the most part. He built a little reputation, but compared to CRUCIBLE, he hadn't accomplished anything of real substance. Not like he would want to, either. He wouldn't have even dared to fight capes like Lung and Oni Lee. They were known for being dangerous murderers that fought evenly against all of Empire 88's ten-plus capes by themselves. Crazy.
Encouraged, Vista continued. "And…to be a hero is to walk with death," she said mimicking Polychromic's serious tone. "You can just feel how dedicated they are."
"I totally caught that speech from here, man," said Browbeat, referring to the monitoring screens and recording system for the HQ entrance. "Fuck, I'm glad somebody's willing to take the heat, you know? I don't think I could ever do it."
"Come on, Browbeat, you're a Ward too now. Fighting's part of the package," said Vista, slightly disappointed in his attitude.
"Are you trying to scare the new guy, Missy? The fights that Wards get into aren't really that serious, Steven. There's not really a risk of death here. The villains know better than to try and seriously hurt a Ward. The PRT would come down on them hard," said Carlos with a chuckle.
Missy frowned. "You guys weren't here when Saccharide volunteered to join a Simurgh fight in '08. She never came back. They kept it on the down low, but I know what really happened. They left her in the quarantine because she heard the scream for too long. Sure she didn't have to go, but that kind of thing is our duty as heroes. And sooner or later, if you join the Protectorate when you're eighteen, you'll have to fight villains and go on patrols at least, whether you want to or not. You won't be able to just stay in the console room all day."
Carlos found no response to that. He glanced at Dean who was closer to Missy, but Dean gave a helpless look back. He had not realized how serious Missy took her job as a Ward either, and neither of them had been in the Wards during 2008. Dean also didn't want to continue offending Missy by arguing.
"Sorry, Missy, I just prefer the peace and quiet. I'm only here because the rules for Wards are pretty chill. We don't have to fight anything too dangerous if we don't want to. I don't think my family would be okay with me joining the Protectorate either," said Steven.
The team was silent in the heavy mood for a while.
Then, Dean noticed the screen showing the entrance. "Hey, they're doing something out there. What are they saying to the press now?"
"Hold up, I'm bringing up the audio," said Steven.
They watched as Araliac suddenly revealed herself as Panacea.
"Woah, that's Panacea?" Steven was shocked, but it wasn't much of a surprise to the other three Wards.
"That's next level stuff right there. Look at the reporters, they're eating this up. It's all a big stage to them. The age-old debate, prevention vs. cure, symptom vs. root cause, except she's framing it in cape psychology and politics. The root of injury, disease, and economic woes, huh. And she wants to cure it all. Ambitious…" Steven started rambling to himself.
Dean watched with a growing sense of dread. It was one thing to join another team, but telling the press before her family about why she quit? He could just imagine the kind of reaction Victoria would have over this. And she'd probably blame him somehow for not taking the opportunity to persuade Amy to go back home.
Rubbing his temples, he decided that he needed to contact his girlfriend before she found out by herself, and prepared to send her a text.
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