Upheaval 1.03

The next day, Dad called in to the school saying that I wouldn't be attending that day. The reason he gave was that he didn't trust them to keep me safe when I came home covered in scratches. Next, we called the PRT. As this was the non-emergency line, a cheerful receptionist picked up on the third ring. "Parahuman Response Team, how can we help you?"

Dad was barely able to keep a handle on his temper, but his white-knuckled grip on the table told more than the level of his voice. "Hello, my name is Daniel Hebert. I need to arrange for a meeting, as soon as possible, to discuss assault, theft and abuse of power perpetrated by one of your Wards in their civilian identity."

The line went silent and we weren't sure if she was speechless or had muted her end. Finally, after more than a minute of tension, she was back. "Mister Ebert, we can set up an appointment for noon today at the PRT building. Is that acceptable?"

"It is. Thank you." And with that he hung up, letting out a heavy breath. I gave him a hug.

"Thank you for all this, Dad," I said, and I meant it. After more than a year of going through the motions of life, he was finally doing something for his family again.

Next, Dad called the Association and asked Kurt and Pete to keep an eye on things. We'd be out for the day, after all. We made breakfast together, veggie-and-cheese omelets, and sat down on the couch to channel surf. We ended up settling on some weird game show from out of Reno, where contestants had to answer trivia questions or get sprayed in the face with various sauces and other nasty liquids. We shared a pitying look, silently mourning the state of American education and entertainment, but watched it anyway. Finally, we got my stuff together and hopped into the car, driving down to the PRT headquarters.

While the Protectorate kept its resources in the bay on a modified oil rig that had been rebuilt into a military fortress, for human-resources issues and public relations they also kept an earthbound office on the nicer side of town. As we drove, we didn't speak much. Dad switched on a smooth jazz station and took calming breaths. We pulled into a parking garage across the street and I had to steady myself when we walked toward the PRT building. It was a monolith, and it made me feel uncomfortable to look at it. I didn't know if that was my own nervousness or it had been planned by an architect to feel intimidating.

We walked inside and I could feel dozens of eyes on me, as well as knowing that cameras were tracking our every move. Dad gave my hand a soft squeeze and we approached the front desk, where a pretty blonde with her hair in a pixie cut gave us a carefully-practiced smile. "Good morning, what can the Parahuman Response Team do for you today?"

My father spoke evenly, trying to tamp down his own anger and anxiousness. "I'm Daniel Hebert, and this is my daughter Taylor. We have a meeting scheduled for noon."

She tapped on a screen behind the desk and clenched her jaw for a moment. "Yes, here you are. If you'd have a seat over there, please, an agent will be with you shortly." She gestured to a set of simple chairs and two faux-leather couches, furniture that wouldn't look out of place in a doctor's waiting room. We took our seats and I took a look around the building. The walls were painted baby blue, a smattering of potted plants breaking up the monotony. The desk looked like some sort of linoleum, an off-white color that looped in a half-U shape to separate the receptionist from the visitors. There was a large glass-and-steel staircase behind her, and closer to our section of the room was a heavy-duty elevator like one might see in a hospital, with the wide doors. The entire place felt too small compared to the exterior view, so I was certain there were more rooms hidden somewhere in the back. Interestingly, there were no televisions or music playing to help keep visitors occupied. Dad picked up a crumpled issue of People, the cover story about Canary's trial.

After several minutes, a uniformed PRT trooper came down the stairs. He had dark skin but bright blue eyes, and the kind of crooked-toothed smile that I'd seen on people who'd been punched in the mouth more than once. "Mister Ebert, if you'd follow me please?"

I shot Dad a look. People were always getting our last name wrong. As we followed, he corrected the officer. "It's Hebert, actually. Originally French."

"Oh, really? Cool. My great-grandmother is French. Some of us think she's Creole and just wants to sound fancy, though." So this guy must be the one they call on to help calm people down, leave them relaxed and disarmed.

"I didn't catch your name," I interjected.

"Oh, sorry," he said with a sheepish chuckle. "PRT Agent Darren Mitchell, at your service." One floor up, he led us down a hall to a series of conference rooms, all with wood-paneled doors and frosted glass for the windows. Inside was an older man, possibly a little past Dad's age, with graying black hair and sharp bone structure. He reminded me a little bit of Peter Cushing. Seated beside him was a stunning darker-skinned woman in a navy blue suit, her long black hair spilling down her shoulders. "Mister Hebert and his daughter here to see you," Mitchell said before stepping outside.

The man gestured to the other side of the table. "Please have a seat. I am Wilson Renick, deputy director of the Brockton Bay PRT. This is my colleague, Hannah Roosevelt. While Armsmaster is in charge of the Wards' actions in costume, we are more the administrative side."

Hannah's eyes were sharp and dangerous, her expression coldly neutral. "This meeting was called because you are aware of a Ward's civilian identity, and have leveled multiple accusations. I'd appreciate if we could broach the subject."

Dad nodded. "Just yesterday, we put together that Shadow Stalker, in her civilian identity as Sophia Hess, has been carrying out a campaign of abuse against my daughter." He turned to me. "Taylor, you know all this better than me. Could you…?"

I squared my narrow shoulders. "I'm Taylor Hebert, and I attend Winslow High School. Ever since my enrollment there, every day, I've been under constant attack and abuse by Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess, as well as their hangers-on." I saw Hannah pull out a tablet and begin typing on it. "Emma was my childhood friend. Ever since I can remember, we were sisters in all but blood. She was closer to me than her own big sister Anne. Two years ago," I had to pause and take a shuddering breath. "My mother died in a car crash. I utterly fell apart, and spent more time at Emma's house than my own. I can't even count how many times I cried myself to sleep in her arms."

Renick quirked a brow while I sniffled. "This is saddening, of course, but I don't understand what it has to do with our Ward."

"I needed to give context," I replied. "This is significant, because the year before last my father sent me away to summer camp to try and get my head on straight. I came back feeling better, feeling that I'd come to terms with my mother's death. When I went to Emma's house, she had a new friend with her, who I later learned to be Sophia Hess. Emma hurled abusive words at me and, when I tried to run home, Sophia tripped me. I bit off the tip of my tongue, which took weeks to heal, and I was left with other scrapes and bruises. From that point, the pair of them made it their goal to ruin my life in as many ways as possible."

I slid a scrap of paper across the table, covered in writing. "That is a list of my school email accounts and their passwords. No, you're not wrong: a student is normally only permitted one school account, but mine were continually filled to the maximum with hate mail. I haven't deleted any of it, but I have copied it all to a drive. You'll find that many of the mails come from Emma's and Sophia's accounts, but almost every girl in the school has sent me hate mail. No matter how many accounts I need, the school has done nothing to address the fact that my inboxes are overfull with hate mail."

I then slapped the journal on the table with as heavy a thud as I could safely manage. "After the first week, when I realized this wasn't going to stop, I started recording every offense against me. I've been punched, shoved, kicked down a flight of stairs, publicly insulted within sight and earshot of teachers, and nothing was done. What was the last straw for me, though, was when they destroyed my mother's flute."

I had to take a breath and Dad took over, pulling out an older digital camera. "My wife, Annette, wasn't the most talented musician but she always loved the music, and it helped to soothe her in stressful times. Taylor needed anything she could get, obviously, and she'd thought that the flute, at least, would be off-limits. Instead it was stolen from her locker, destroyed and contaminated, then left for Taylor to find before being stolen again." He passed them the camera, a photo of the flute on the screen. "After hours of cleaning, we were able to restore it to that state."

"How did you get it back?" Hannah asked.

"That was yesterday," I responded, taking the reins again. "I only took the abuse because Emma used to be my friend, and because the school did nothing. But when she crossed the line, I stopped caring. I insulted her right back and she attacked me." I touched the bandaids on my face. "Amazingly, she got detention for fighting. I guess openly shrieking and clawing at another girl's face is something even Winslow can't ignore.

"Then, at lunch, Sophia approached me and said she was impressed with my spine. She mentioned that she would have defiled my mother's memory sooner if this was the result." I looked down for a moment. "My adrenaline was still high and, to be honest, I absolutely hate her. So I leapt off the table and attacked her. Despite being in the middle of the cafeteria, even after she pinned me and let me up, nobody came in to punish me. Nobody broke it up. I demanded my flute back from Hess. Next period, I found it in my locker. The locker whose combination I'd changed that morning. The combination that no-one but me knew. Since the locker was undamaged, my father and I discussed what it all could mean. The only answer that made any sense was that Sophia was Shadow Stalker."

"What I don't understand, though, is that Shadow Stalker only started working for you recently, right? How did you not catch all of the abuse?" Dad had a good point.

Renick and Roosevelt shared a look. At length, the deputy director replied. "If your claims have merit, this represents a colossal failure on many parts. Monitoring our Wards' civilian activities is dangerous on the grounds of privacy and human rights, which leads to a delicate series of checks and balances. If Shadow Stalker has been acting as you say, this means she's had help, people covering up her actions. Would you permit us to make copies of your journal?"

I nodded, nervous to the point of shivering. Authority figures had failed me for the last year-and-change. I didn't have much faith in anything coming of this, but I needed to cling to hope.

"Good. I hope I don't have to reinforce that revealing a parahuman's civilian identity is a felony offense. After we make the copies, we'll contact you later with the results of our investigation. If you speak of the details of this meeting, you will be charged with hindering a police investigation as well as violation of Vikare's Law."

Hannah stood and opened the door, ushering Mitchell back inside. "Agent Mitchell will take you to have copies made. Have a good day, Mister and Miss Hebert."

Mitchell gave us his easy smile. "So, what're we copying?"

I wiggled my journal. "A journal of abuses. It's not exactly compelling evidence, but hopefully you guys will be able to get something out of it."

As we went to a nondescript office space to make copies, Mitchell discussed some of the things that were done to me, offering a sympathetic ear. Normally I would have closed down, but he was one more person to listen to my pains, another heart to be swayed. Never forget the little people, I reminded myself.

(BREAK)

By the time we left, I was exhausted. I took off my glasses and rubbed my face, letting out a groan. "How do you handle stuff like this at the Association, Dad? I felt like I was gonna throw up through most of that."

He ruffled my hair and I squawked in protest. "You did great, Little Owl. I'd think you were an old hand at all this if I didn't know better. Now, wanna swing by Fugly Bob's for some comfort food?"

I smiled and nodded. If a war veteran chef didn't know how to make comfort food after a stressful situation, there was no hope. The eponymous Bob stuck to the back of the restaurant as much as he could, since his scars could put people off their appetite. From what I recalled, he was a member of the Army's bomb squad and threw himself in front of a bomb to save his comrades. He survived and was honorably discharged, so he used his G.I. bill or whatever to open a burger joint.

Even during school hours, the place was packed. Word had it that Bob was planning to start a franchise. If he could duplicate his recipes in other states, he'd overtake McDonald's. As we entered, someone called my father's name. "Dan! Hey, man!"

The lanky arm flailing back and forth was attached to a miniature Sasquatch, a shaggy-haired redhead covered in so much coarse hair that he resembled some sort of missing link. Gerry, if I remembered his name correctly, was one of Dad's more troublesome dockworkers. Not that he caused trouble or anything, but because Gerry was relatively frail he couldn't do too much work on the docks, and being a high school dropout his prospects with anything more than menial labor were limited, to put it kindly. Beady brown eyes were nearly hidden by round cheeks as he gave us a beaming smile. When he got older, if he put on some weight, he'd make a killing as a mall Santa.

Dad gave me a one-armed hug. "Wanna order for us, sweetie? I'll check on Gerry." It made sense, the hairy man hadn't had much work with the Association recently; lighter labor or simpler clerical work had dried up in the last few months. I stepped up to the counter.

[PRT Headquarters, Protectorate East-Northeast]

Wilson Renick looked at his coworker and, dare he say, friend. "So, the Heberts?"

Hannah Roosevelt, Miss Militia when in costume, nodded and held up her tablet. "The deceased mother, Annette Hebert nee Rosier." She let that surname hang in the air for a moment.

"And that's the same Rosier family?"

Hannah switched to another tab, showing several surveillance photos of a broad-shouldered man, bald and sporting a brown goatee. "Known associates of 'Kane' before the subject went dark. Annette Rosier herself was sighted at several Lustrumite demonstrations here in Brockton Bay, but interestingly she seems to have cut ties before the real violence started. Based on when she stopped showing up to rallies, and an anonymous tip that led to several arrests, it looks like she flipped on the others."

Wilson pursed his lips. This was worrying. That mysterious man had been loosely associated with numerous suspicious events, not only across the United States but all over the world. "Now the question is if we should believe the girl."

"Sir, if I may, even if this is some sort of resurgence scheme, there's always the chance that it's also factual. I don't think we lose anything if we assign a couple of competent agents to investigate. And, if it turns out Shadow Stalker has been violating her probation and attacking civilians, we need to take action and clean house."

Renick nodded, running a hand through his hair. "It makes me feel like a horrible person that I'm hoping this is a case of corruption and abuse of power. Kane – at least that was his designation – was before your time. There was an undercurrent of paranoia, always wondering if he'd show up in the background of something. He was the intelligence community's bogeyman, and then he suddenly vanished. I want him to stay gone."