Director Manfree took a long sip of his coffee, breaking eye contact with the prisoner to glance at his office's wall clock.
1 AM.
"Let me try another tack," he said, turning back to the prisoner and gesturing at one of the items on his desk. "Do you recognize this object?"
"Yessir," the prisoner said in a southern drawl, sounding infuriatingly calm. "That there is an evidence bag."
Director Manfree closed his eyes and massaged his temples, praying for patience.
"Wonderful. And do you recognize the object inside this evidence bag?"
"Of course. That's mah shotgun."
"The same shotgun, to be clear, that you threatened to shoot one of our wards in the head with a few nights ago?"
"Yessir. But, if'n it's any consolation, I sure would've felt awful bad about shootin' that little lady, and I weren't expectin' to have to."
"I'm sure Hex will love to hear that," the director said, deadpan.
"Well, I certainly hope so. I wouldn't want there to be any awkward feelins or nuthin' if we were to be workin together."
The director took another sip of his coffee.
"To remind you again, Tex, you are currently in our custody, not interviewing for a spot on the team. The protectorate has, in the past, allowed former villains to serve their parole with us, but that discussion will have to wait until the judicial proceedings for your numerous documented crimes have concluded. Any such arrangement is months away."
"Well, sir, I'm sure that you folks have your rules and procedures and whatnot. But you seem like a clever fella, and I'm sure that with a lil' bit of bureaucratic wranglin', you could have that gun out there solvin' problems fer ya, insteada sittin' on yer desk causin problems fer ya, iffn' you can deduce my meanin'."
Manfreed cocked an eyebrow.
"You can't possibly believe, even in this fantasy where we absolve you of all past crimes and deploy you immediately, that we'd let you keep the gun. Our PR department would have a field day."
"Oh, well then, that might be somethin' of a stickin' point, sir. Fightin' capes is dangerous work, and I wouldn't really feel too comfortable workin' without mah shotgun."
"A sticking point."
"Yessir."
"Tex, they aren't...there's no...you aren't..."
The director trailed off into an inarticulate noise of frustration, throwing up his hands.
"Do you even have a power? Or do you just drive around in your beat up truck shaking down pawn shops and holding minors at gunpoint?"
Tex lifted his handcuffed hands to his face, rubbing his day-old stubble. The PRT officers on either side of him tensed, grips tightening on their containment foam sprayers.
"Well, I'm glad you brought it up, sir. That's actually the other thing I was fixin' to talk to you about this fine evening."
The director took a deep breath, visibly calming himself.
"And what would that be?" he said in a level voice.
"Well, sir, I'm afraid I'd have to make it a condition of my employment by your fine institution here that I not be obliged to use my power under any circumstances. I'm sure a reasonable fella like yourself understands."
The director's head slumped forward into his hands.
~o~O~o~O~o~
The door to his office clicked shut, and he was alone again. Director Manfreed took his glasses off, laying them on the table with a soft click, and rubbed at his eyes until he saw dancing spots.
He wished he could go back in time, shake his younger self, and tell the idiot to stay as far away from Vegas as humanly possible. It'll be great, they'd said. Sure, Vegas has a reputation, but the PRT's adapted. We're on top of things now. You'll have more thinkers working under you than the entire midwest.
That reminded him. He put his glasses back on, blinked a few times to clear his vision, and picked up the phone.
"Yes, sir?" he heard immediately. His assistant sounded tired, but somehow still chipper.
"Any news from the thinkers?" he asked.
"Nothing major, sir. We're still green."
"Did Plot Twist ever get back to us?"
"Not yet, sir."
"What about Railroad?"
"He said things are 'going off the rails', but he says that a lot. Nobody seems to know whether it's good or bad."
"Spoiler Alert?"
"We're acting on the information he provided, but he gave us explicit instructions not to communicate his assessment to you, sir."
"Of course he did. What's the status of our other two prisoners?"
"Both contained. Brainfog is asleep, and our instruments aren't picking up anything suspicious. Metric doesn't appear to be tired; he's still pacing his cell mumbling about dogs."
The director sighed.
"Alright. Let's just get this over with."
~o~O~o~O~o~
"OK, so. You know that feeling when it's 3 AM and you've been working on your college admissions essays all night and you really want a taco, but nothing's open nearby, so you hop into your parent's BMW and drive downtown and there are a few places open, but you don't know any of them, so you just pick one and head inside and order a taco, and it's fine, really, but it doesn't have that extra little oomph like the tacos you got in mexico that one time when you were doing volunteer work in indigenous villages during the summer, and you start to wonder whether you picked the right taqueria?"
Director Manfreed drummed his fingers. At least it was better than hearing the man elaborate on his excessively detailed dog death calculations.
"Sure."
"Right! So, here's what I can provide. With the full resources of the protectorate at my disposal, I can create a swarm of self-replicating star-shaped robots that will blanket the entire world over a period of less than a year. The bulk of the swarm will spend its time scavenging electronics and scrap metal to swell their ranks, but a small fraction will spread out over the globe in search of restaurants and eateries. These bots will divide themselves into groups of five and hover directly in front of the door.
"Now, here's the brilliant part. Anyone walking out of the restaurant will be able to yell a number from one to five, and the bots will understand. They'll also be able to light up, and they'll average together all the numbers they've heard, and that many stars will light up. When I said this part was brilliant, that was a pun; not sure you caught that.
"Anyway, if I'd yelled "Three!" on my way out of that taqueria, because it wasn't bad, but I wasn't going back, you know, and if one other person had yelled out "Five!" earlier, then four of the starbots would be lit up. And then if you came along, and you saw four stars lit up, and the place just down the street had five, maybe you'd go there instead.
"It makes the world legible, you see. Instead of having to guess, or ask your friends and try to piece together their totally subjective impressions into a coherent narrative, everyone's forced to compress their opinion down to a single clear measurement, and all of them are aggregated, so everyone knows exactly how good every restaurant is in a perfectly objective way. The only problem is getting people to yell their reviews. I'm thinking of calling the project "YellPlease!", to encourage them, and-
"Fascinating," the director broke in, interrupting the man's rambling. To his credit, Metric shut up and sat there, leg jiggling like a hyperactive piston.
The director cleared his throat.
He wanted to change the topic. He really did. He had important questions for the man in front of him, questions pertaining to the safety of the city. More than that, he wanted to get home and sleep.
But he couldn't help himself. His curiosity was getting the better of him.
"Why do they..." said hesitantly. "Why do they have to be star shaped, exactly?"
"Oh man, great question. I considered a wide variety of possible shapes and symbols, actually, but stars were called to my attention because of the Michelin star system, which you can see as a sort of crude precursor to the YellPlease! swarm. Once I had the idea, I realized it was perfect. The swarm has to light up, and stars are bright, so it's thematic, plus stars are happy and exciting, like a gold star on a paper - they're going to light up gold, of course - so people will have positive affect for the swarm and won't be scared when they see it devouring their local trash heap like a cloud of high-tech locusts.
"And remember, director, that with my considerable abilities at your disposal, Vegas will be ground zero for the YellPlease! swarm's deployment. Visitors to the strip will be able to dine secure in the knowledge that they are eating the objectively best food available..."
~o~O~o~O~o~
Director Manfreed stared at his coffee after Metric was finally led from the office. After a moment, he pushed it away, reaching into his desk drawer and retreiving the bottle of Bourbon he kept for special occasions.
This whole situation certainly was special, nobody could deny that.
He retreived a glass, as well, pouring himself two fingers. He slammed it back, poured himself another, and then after a moment's hesitation put the bottle away.
He was still on the job, after all.
With a sigh, he picked up the phone.
"Yes, sir?"
"Are the thinkers still green?"
"Green with an asterisk, sir. Inflection Point reports that the odds of the world, quote, being transformed atom by atom into a sterile cloud of chintzy glowing stars, end quote, has increased from 0.0001% to 0.001%. Headquarters has informed us that this doesn't merit attention from the existential risks department at the moment, but has asked us not to aggravate the situation if possible."
"That's...that's great. Is Brainfog still asleep?"
"Yes sir. Should I have him woken up, or would you prefer to wait until tomorrow morning?"
The director looked at the clock again.
2:30 AM. How long had he let that lunatic rant for?
He could head home now, grab a taco or something on the way, and get a solid three or four hours of sleep before he had to be back in the office.
"Tempting, but no. Send him up. Our records indicate he may have a breaker state, so make sure he's collared."
"Of course, sir. Give us ten minutes."
~o~O~o~O~o~
The boy across from him blinked stupidly, clearly still half-asleep.
He would've felt bad for the kid, if it weren't for every single word that came out of the idiot's mouth.
"Duuude," the kid said, yawning. "What's going on?"
"You're in our custody," the director said, taking a sip of his whisky. He'd considered finishing it before he started the interrogation, but honestly, who gave a damn at this point?
"Custody?" the kid said, eyes bugging out. "You're putting me in the wards? That's not cool, man. I ain't no little kid."
The director sighed.
"No, Billy. We aren't putting you in the wards."
"Oh. That's fine then."
"To be clear, and I really don't feel like I should have to repeat this as often as I do, you are currently under arrest. We don't even know what we're going to prosecute you for yet, let alone what legal status you'll have in a few months when the courts are done working through your case."
After an agonizingly long pause, Billy's eyes flew open again. "Wait a second. How did you know my name?"
"We started to get suspicious after the third or fourth time Tex called you 'young Billy' while you were out in costume together. We don't like to pry into secret identities as a matter of policy, but there are limits to our discretion. That thrall you brought in when we arrested you earlier wasn't even wearing a mask, for God's sake."
Billy blinked again, looking confused.
"What's a thrawl?"
"The human being you turned into a puppet?"
"Oooooh," Billy said, as if he finally understood. "That thing isn't a human. I know, I got confused too, because it talks and stuff, but it's just a garbage can our nerd built. I don't think it's really a puppet, either, since it doesn't have strings or nuthin'. Or if it does they're, like, really tiny strings so nobody can see 'em."
The director sagged a little in his seat, downing the rest of his whisky in a single gulp.
"Oh shit, are we drinking?" Billy said, finally noticing the glass. "Fill me up bro!"
"No, we aren't drinking, Billy."
"Is the party over? I didn't black out, did I? Usually my head hurts more when I black out."
"Billy..."
"I can't believe I blacked out during our welcome party. It must have been a rager. I always used to tell my dudes that cops probably party harder than anyone. Nobody to get 'em in trouble."
"Billy, we aren't the police, for one thing. For another..."
"Wait! Where are my dudes? Are they sleeping it off somewhere? Justin, uh, he's fine, but I should probably stick with him. Dude looks up to me, you know."
That brought the director up short.
"You're...are you saying you've created more than one of these mind slaves?" he asked, very cautiously.
Billy wrinkled his brow.
"Ignore that question," the director said. "How many dudes do you have, Billy?"
"Oh, I gotcha. I mean I've got, like, a lot of friends, like a bunch, but only two of 'em are my dudes."
The director relaxed a little. He knew this whole thing was still going to end horribly, somehow, but at least it wasn't going to end in a horde of zombie dudebros tearing his city apart.
There was another pause.
"Look," the director said, his voice tired. "I have a couple of questions for you, Billy. Once you've answered them, I'll be happy to let you go back to sleep, and we can discuss everything else in the morning. Does that sound good?"
"Yeah," Billy said, yawning again. "That sounds good."
"Alright. First question: what the hell is going on?"
"Oh man," Billy said, "you asked the right guy. See, it's pretty complicated. There's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of big plots and big players, but I've been keeping track of all of it, and I think I have most of the important stuff worked out."
The director opened his mouth, then closed it, unsure what to say. Instead he picked up a notepad and pen from his desk, gesturing for Billy to continue.
"So, basically, like, everyone's after us. There's these dudes, the High Rollers, and we were, like, working for them, and they seemed pretty cool, but then it turned out they're a bunch of dicks.
"And then there's these other dudes, I forget their name, but the guy in charge was, like, in prison because the old High Rollers dude screwed him, and now he wants revenge even though that dude is dead, so he's mad at us, also we tried to blow up his place I guess. He's like super dangerous, there's this guy Benghazi who works for him that makes talking refrigerators that hurt when you punch them, but like he makes a lot of them, and there's this other guy whose power I forget but who seemed pretty tough.
"Plus you guys are super mad at us because we almost shot that one chick, on top of all the crime stuff. And then there's this samurai and this giant robot that are after the cans of soda pop Benghazi gave us after we kidnapped his girlfriend, but we let her go so I think we're cool with him.
"So we were, like, everyone's out to get us anyway, maybe we should try doin' our own thing, you know? Just us against Vegas, three Brain Bros takin' on the world. But then we thought that we'd probably get murdered in, like, a day, so we decided to join the good guys for a while and let you sort it out for us.
"And here we are."
~o~O~o~O~o~
End