“Defiant,” Tagg interrupted him. “You’re not in a position to make demands.”
He’s a hard man, Piggot thought. Army, PRT squad leader, a general, not a politician. Ironic, that they’d butt heads. “Director Tagg, you asked me here as a consultant, so allow me to consult.”
Tagg turned his attention to her.
She continued, “I don’t like this scenario any more than you do. But let’s hear Defiant’s demands before you reject him out of hand.”
Director Tagg didn’t reply, but he turned his attention back to Defiant and he didn’t speak.
“Dragon and I have discussed this in-depth. We need the present Directors to admit culpability for the incident, and we need to clean house, with in-depth background checks and investigations into any prominent member of the PRT. We can’t maintain things as they are with the spectre of Cauldron looming over us.”
“You’d have us fire any number of PRT employees at a time when we’re struggling to retain members?” Tagg asked, almost aghast.
“And relieving capes from duty at the same time,” Defiant said. “With so few employees, it’s ridiculous to continue working to shut down leaks and control the flow of information. Dragon has expressed concerns over having to do this in the past, and between the two of us, we’ve agreed that the censorship stops tonight, at midnight.”
Tagg rose from his seat, opening his mouth to speak-
“I agree,” Piggot spoke before her successor could.
Heads turned.
“It’s a misuse of resources,” she said, “And we do need to clean house.”
“You don’t have a position to lose,” Tagg replied.
“I wouldn’t lose it anyways,” she retorted, “I’ve had no contact with Cauldron.”
Keene clapped his hands together once, then smiled, “Well said. We have nothing to fear if we aren’t connected to them.”
“You realize what they’re doing, don’t you?” Tagg asked. “How does this investigation happen? Dragon has her A.I. rifle through all known records and databases. We defeat the sole purpose of the PRT, by putting the parahumans themselves in a position of power!”
“That ship has long sailed,” Keene commented, “With the revelations about Chief Director Costa-Brown, if you’ll pardon my saying.”
“You’re pardoned,” the Chief Director’s voice sounded over the speaker, crystal clear. “I think this would pose more problems than it solves. We’ll have to turn you down, Defiant.”
“Then I don’t see much of a reason for us to stay,” Defiant replied.
“And if you leave, the assumption is that we’ll be left without Dragon’s ability to maintain every system and device she’s created for us. The PRT without a Birdcage, without our computer systems or database, without the specialized grenade loadouts or the containment foam dispensers.”
“An unfortunate consequence,” Defiant said.
“Not a concern at all,” the Chief Director replied.
There was a pause. Dragon glanced at Defiant.
“No?” Defiant asked.
“No. We’ve been in contact with an individual who has a proven track record with Dragon’s technology. He feels equipped, eager, almost, to step into Dragon’s shoes should she take a leave of absence.”
“Saint,” Defiant said. “You’re talking about the leader of the Dragonslayers. Criminal mercenaries.”
“My first priority is and always has been protecting people. If it’s a question between abandoning the security the Birdcage offers the world at large or requesting the assistance of a scoundrel-”
“A known murderer,” Defiant said.
“I wouldn’t throw stones,” Tagg replied, his voice a growl.
“-A known murderer, even,” the Chief Director continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “I will take security without question.”
Defiant looked at Dragon.
“The second dilemma I have to pose to you two,” the Chief Director continued, “Is simple. What do you expect will happen when the next Endbringer arrives? Between Dragon’s brilliant mind and Defiant’s analysis technologies, I’m sure you’ve given the matter some consideration. Without the Protectorate, how does the event tend to unfold?”
Piggot studied the pair, trying to read their reactions. They were so hard to gauge, even if she ignored the armor.
“It doesn’t go well,” Defiant said. “It doesn’t go well even if we assume the present Protectorate is coordinated and in peak fighting condition.”
“We can’t afford a loss,” the Chief Director said. “You know it as well as I do. Now, tell me there isn’t room for a middle ground.”
Dragon turned to Defiant, and moved with a careful slowness as she set one hand on his arm.
“We get through the next fight,” Defiant said. “Then we clean house.”
“I think that’s an acceptable compromise.”
■
“This event,” the reporter spoke, “Points to something else entirely, a fatal flaw in the system, the latest and greatest representation of the Protectorate’s steady collapse.“
“Too rich,” Jack commented, smirking. “Across the board, I love it. Fantastic.”
Hookwolf, pacing on the opposite side of the television, grunted a response.
Bonesaw was crouched by the side of a machine. She watched with hands on hips as Blasto ratcheted in a bolt at the base of a tall, black-handled lever, his movements jerky with the internal and external mechanisms that forced them.
“The Protectorate declined to comment, and in light of recent events and allegations of deep-seated secrets, their silence is damning.“
“Almost ready,” Bonesaw said, her voice sing-song. “You’re next, Hooksie.”
Hookwolf glanced at her, and then at the contraption.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” she said, her tone a taunt.
“Not of… this. I’m questioning if this is the path we should take.”
“I’m expected to bring about the end of the world,” Jack said, still watching the television. “But this is rather tepid for my tastes. I’d like to hurry it along, inject some more drama into the affair.”
“…event at Arcadia High School is sure to draw attention from aross America. We, the public, want answers. The death of Vikare marked the end of the golden age, the end of an era where becoming a superhero was the expectation for anyone and everyone with powers, and even those who decided to work in business or public affairs with their abilities were termed ‘rogues’…“
Bonesaw took ahold of Hookwolf’s hand and led him to his seat. She stepped back, glancing over the contraption. The only light was cast by a small desk lamp and the glow of a computer monitor, an island of light in the middle of an expansive, wide-reaching darkness. Desk, engine, and tinker-designed seats, surrounded by an absolute, oppressive darkness.
“It doesn’t sit well,” Hookwolf said. “I can’t articulate why. My thoughts are still cloudy.”
Bonesaw hit a button, and the lights began to flicker, the engine beside her starting to hum with a progressively higher pitch. With the flickering of the lights came glimpses of the things beyond. Light on glass and wires.
“I’d rather a Ragnarök than-”
Bonesaw hauled on a white-handled lever, and Hookwolf’s voice cut off. The flickering of the lights ceased, and the room returned to darkness.
Jack sighed.
“…threatens to mark a similar occasion…“
Bonesaw stepped over the body of a dead tinker in a lab coat, stopping in front of Jack. “Strip.”
Jack shucked off his shirt, and then pulled off his pants and boxer briefs. The blades that hung heavy on his belt made an ugly metal sound as they dropped to the tiled floor.
“…and cover yourself up,” Bonesaw said, averting her eyes. “Shameful! You’re in the company of a child, and a girl, no less.”
“Terribly sorry,” Jack said, his voice thick with irony, as he cupped his nether
regions in both hands. He stepped back and took a seat, leaning back against the diagonal surface behind the short bench. Cold.
“...The reality is clear. The repercussions of what happened today will change the relationship between hero, villain and civilian. It remains up to them to decide whether it will be a change for the better, or a change for the worse.”
The segment ended, and the television turned back to the news anchors at their desks.
“Pretentious, isn’t he?” Jack asked.
“Likes to hear himself talk,” Bonesaw replied. “Which do you think it’ll be? Change for the better or change for the worse?”
Jack smiled.
“It’s a given?” she asked. She pressed the button, and the lights started to flicker again.
“I think so,” Jack commented. “But I almost hope things do turn out well.”
The lights were flickering more violently now, to the point that periods of light matched the periods of darkness. Between the spots in his vision, Jack could see more and more of their surroundings.
Row upon row of glass case lined the underground chamber, each large enough to house a full-grown man, though there were only fetal shapes within at present. Each was labeled. One row had cases marked ‘Crawler’, ‘Crawler’, ‘Crawler’… ten iterations in total. The next row had ten cases labeled with the word ‘Siberian’. The one after with ten repetitions of ‘Chuckles’.
One column of cases dedicated to each member of the Nine, past and present, with the exception of Jack and one other.
“Makes for a greater fall?” Bonesaw asked.
“Exactly,” Jack replied. He glanced at the one isolated case, felt his pulse quicken a notch. It was the only one that was standalone. ‘Gray Boy.’
“I guess we find out soon!” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the whine of the engine.
Bonesaw only laughed. She hauled on the switch with both hands, and the room was plunged into silence and darkness.
20.y (Interlude; Accord)
If Accord didn’t know better, he might have thought this little soiree was located here with the sole purpose of irritating him.
Wait, he did know better. Tattletale. She would have done this just to beleaguer him.
The Forsberg Gallery. The building had once been a pristine, albeit distressingly asymmetrical construction of glass and steel. Now it was a shattered ruin. There was little rhyme or reason to the design, and navigating was something of a chore.
To his right, as he ascended a staircase, there was a wing that jutted out from the side of the building, six stories up, like an architectural tumor. With the damage done by Shatterbird’s attack, the only glass that remained in the building was scattered across the floor like a winter frost. The offending growth on the side of the building had sustained some damage, more likely a consequence of the vibrations than damage from the glass itself, and the reinforcements that had been made to shore it up only served to make it uglier.
Inelegant, unbalanced.
His power immediately began supplying answers and solutions. He was on his guard, and the first thoughts to his mind were of offense and harming others. As clear as if he were seeing it for himself, he could see a pendulum, disguised among the steel frame of the building, swinging from a point above, and he could hear the sound of steel on steel, like a sword being drawn from its sheath, only at twelve times the scale.
With the appropriate design, the impact would be clean, almost muted. His enemies, isolated within the wing, would make more noise, screaming as the reinforcing struts and the rivets holding intact beams to the larger structure were shorn away. The end result would see his enemies dead, and the building improved, more balanced.
Ten minutes to draw up the blueprint. Eighty to a hundred minutes of labor, depending on the skill of the craftsmen. Two hundred and forty five minutes of labor if he did it himself… and the result would be stronger, better and more efficient if he did. One thousand, four hundred dollars plus salaries.
Impractical. Getting his enemies into the area would be hard. Impossible, if they had any intelligence at all.
He dismissed the thought, but others were already flooding into place. Him and his two Ambassadors in the offending wing, connected to nearby buildings by an arrangement of steel cables. Not one pendulum, but seven.
One pendulum would cut the tumorous wing free. It would swing out on the steel cables, between the two buildings. With the right angle, it would swoop between the two nearest buildings. The right mechanism, and one cable could come free at the right moment, allowing a change of direction. They wouldn’t even lose their balance, as the angle of the floor and centripetal force kept them steadily in place.
With attention to details, they’d even be able to step free of the platform, as though they were departing a ski lift. The wing would then slingshot into the rubble of a nearby building, cleanly disposed of. The Forsberg Gallery would be pulled apart, steel cut from steel by the shearing blades of the pendulums, the weight and movement of the mechanisms serving a second purpose by magnifying the damage, pulling individual pieces free of one another and setting the complete and total destruction of the building into motion.
The unseemly Forsberg Gallery would crash to the ground, with many of his enemies inside, while he and his Ambassadors watched from the point where they’d disembarked.
He loathed making messes, but cleaning up after the fact was so very satisfying, whether it was mopping up the gore or seeing the lot cleared of debris.
Thirty two minutes to draw out blueprints for the pendulums and work out the sequence needed for best effect. Three hundred to three hundred and forty minutes of time to set it up. He could estimate costs north of eleven thousand dollars, not counting salaries. None of the materials were particularly expensive in and of themselves, and he had any number of businesses in his pocket where he could acquire those materials at a significant discount.
Somewhat more practical, but impossible. He didn’t have the time to set it up, not for tonight. It made for an elegant image, if nothing else, somewhat soothing.
No sooner had he turned away from the idea of violence than other thoughts were forcing their way into his mind’s eye. The outstretching wing being transformed from an edificial cyst to a bridge, with similar connections networking the entire city, each bridge and connection point changing individual points of design into a series of gradients. Architectural styles and building heights would change from a stuttering, jilted progression to something flowing, a seamless wave-
Accord closed his eyes briefly, doing what he could to shut it out. It didn’t help. He had a sense of the building as a whole, could imagine reconfiguring it, removing the parts that jutted out and using them to fill gaps towards the building’s center mass. He’d worked with his power to see things through the various lenses of viability: money, resources, time, personnel, but that was almost a detriment now.
He opened his eyes to search for something to take his mind off of the irritating aspect of the building’s design, but he saw only glass shards, discordant in how they had fallen throughout the building. Some had been swept out of the way by people who’d taken up residence in the Gallery, but the heaping, lumpy piles of glass, dust and debris weren’t any better. He caught a glimpse of a soggy sleeping bag and the scattered contents of a supply kit and wished he hadn’t looked.
Images rifled through his mind. A network of wires, drawn taut by a weight plunging through the elevator shaft, moving in concert to sweep the glass shards and signs of human life into the elevator shaft. The same wires would catch his enemies, mangling them as they were cast down after the rain of glass. Between the long fall and the thermite that could reduce the mess to a fine, clean ash, even more durable capes wouldn’t be walking away.
No. It wasn’t constructive to think this way.
On the uppermost floors, plexiglass and a large volume of water mixed with a high concentration of carbon dioxide and a sudsing agent, sweeping th
rough the building. Staggering it, so the water from the highest floor could clean away the soap-
Rearranging the glass shards into a kaleidoscopic-
“Citrine, Othello,” he spoke, interrupting his own train of thought. “Distract me.”
“I’m not so comfortable with this vantage point,” Citrine said. “The climb only tires us out, and the vantage point doesn’t suit any of our abilities. It puts us in a weak position.”
“Sir,” Othello whispered.
“…Sir!” she belatedly added.
Accord was ascending the stairs just in front of her. It might normally be impossible, but here, it was easy: to turn and deftly slice her throat with the folded blade within his cane. Quiet, efficient.
He stopped partway up the stair case and faced her, saw her unharmed and unhurt. His Citrine, young, blond, wearing a goldenrod yellow evening gown and a gemstone studded mask. Her hair was immaculately styled, her makeup flawless, with a yellow lipstick that matched her outfit without being garish.
Accord’s left hand folded over the right, both resting on top of the ornate cane.
She stopped, glanced at Othello, beside her. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Everything and everyone in the appropriate place,” he said. “Not just in terms of physical position, but socially. Courtesy and acknowledgement of status are pivotal.”
“I know, sir. It’s not an excuse, but I was tired from the walk and the climb, and I was thinking of strategy, in case we were ambushed. I will endeavor to do better, sir.”
“We all have to do better. We must all strive to improve. A step backwards is a tragic, dangerous misstep.”
“Yes sir.”
As if he were watching himself on film, he could see himself pushing her down the stairs. Not so steep a fall as to kill her, but the pain would enforce discipline, and the act of discipline would both help drive the point home for her and quiet his own thoughts.
But the bruises, cuts any broken bones, her inconsistent attempts at suppressing any sounds of pain as she joined him on the trek to the upper floor? It would only make things worse. More disorder.
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