"Boring," Mouse Protector declared.
"This is the job," Wharf Rat replied. "If you wanted you could have hung out at the tower and I'd call you when I found something."
She sighed extravagantly. "But then we're not partners, Rat! If I just sit back and wait for you to call, then I'm the sidekick! Or maybe you're the sidekick. But not partners."
"Well, right now I've got a few hundred helpers that are checking the entrances, exits, and chokepoints for the smell of either of our subjects. But I'm not sure I'll get any hits, most of Trainwreck's scent is covered up by grease and soot and heated metal, and most of Circus's scent is covered by greasepaint makeup. So I have to be thorough, and thorough means slow," he said.
"This isn't slow, this is glacial!" she protested.
He started the car, and merged it into traffic. His normal ride didn't seat two, so for this journey to take the two of them they had to check a sedan out of the PRT motor pool. He found a gap and swung in, driving carefully for two blocks then pulling over into a parking space.
"Glacial," she repeated while he began mobilizing rats to search this area next. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? To make me so bored I'll leave Brockton Bay."
"This is how the work gets done," he said. "My first villains, I tracked them for about two weeks before I made my move."
"Bullshit."
"Seriously," he asserted. "Two weeks. Why, how do you do this where you come from?"
"I decide to kick butt, I arm up, I teleport to one of the local villains, I harass them until they're so mad they foam at the mouth, I make some jokes and I teleport out," she said. "And I hope that they're not on the toilet when I show up."
He paused, and considered that. "So, you can just teleport to anyone you've ever met?"
"Anyone I've marked," she said, crossing her finger over her heart in a X shape. Just like she had done on him as soon as she met him.
"And any villain you've marked, you can just show up any time you want to fight them again," Wharf Rat said.
She grinned. "Yup. Once I've marked the bad guy, they have to go the rest of their life with that sitting in the back of their minds. Anytime they're making plans, I might show up. When they're briefing their henchmen, I might show up. When they're fast asleep, I might dip their hands in a bucket of warm water. I showed up while someone was having sex, started critiquing them while doing a Marv Alpert impression. I'm a human Sword of Damocles."
"Sword of who?" Danny asked.
"And that's how I can tell that you don't do Rocky Horror shows," she said smoothly. "I don't really have to put people in jail, you see. Just by existing, just by doing what I do, I discourage a generation of kids that might become villains. I keep half of the American Midwest clean and quiet, because anyone who tries to rob a bank or kidnap a homecoming queen just might spend the rest of their life looking over their shoulder to make sure that I'm not going to kick them in the butt, make a speech, sword-fight them until they're either humiliated by losing or until they've aaaaalmost beaten me, then teleport away. Either way, it pisses them off and ruins their whole week. Over and over, year after year. So when some redneck gets stuck in a cow and has a trigger event, he either moves out of my jurisdiction to cause trouble or he keeps his head down and keeps his antisocial personality disorder and death-ray lasers to himself."
"A deterrent," he said.
"Yeah, that," she grinned. "So, I've usually got as much work as I could want, anytime I like. The more I hassle my villains, the fewer villains show up in my area."
He considered that. "So that's what brings you here. Not enough villains to keep you entertained in your backyard."
"That's part of it," she said. "And partly, I've actually eager to have a rodent-style team-up. C'mon, it'll be fun, and it'll give people something to talk about. How often is there news about capes that isn't the latest death toll from an Endbringer attack? And besides," she said, her voice dropping an octave and slowing a bit, sounding more lucid and sincere than anything else she had said, "I've been stuck in a rut. I need to try new things, need to find new ways to work. I have to mix it up or I'm going to get killed or get bored."
"Most people would have escalated from 'bored' to 'killed'," he pointed out.
"Have ya met me?" she replied, her manic grin and tone in place again.
Wharf Rat considered. "I've seen that sometimes you use a shield along with your sword. If I could teleport to anyone I'd marked, I'd make sure to mark all the members of the major teams, and have them give me a call when I was going into battle. Is there a chance you could use a really big shield, big enough to guard you and someone else? So you could watch their back from sneak attacks, or hold a line under a barrage? Or learn some first aid or paramedic skills so you can come to the rescue? You could quickly become the most in-demand member of the Protectorate, if you brought a shield or a bandage in the right place at the right time."
"I was really just looking for ways to mark more people so I could fight more often, not healslut for other people's battles," she said, drily.
"Hear me out. The first several times, or a dozen times, the bad guys are unprepared. They attack, but their attacks are getting intercepted by a giant shield. Any time they start to get the edge, you're there to save someone's life. Eventually, they start to anticipate that you'll be there, and they plan around that, even when you're not there."
"That's not a good thing," she reminded him. "Like, they start packing bigger guns so they can punch through the shield."
He shook his head. "That's not how it works. Bad guys that were going to bring a gun were either going to bring the biggest gun they thought they'd need, or the biggest gun they could get. One or the other. If they need a bigger gun, they're either going to spend more on equipment, which means more investment at the outset and less profit on the job, or they're not going to be able to get a big enough gun, in which case they'll cancel the job. Once they start anticipating you, they're either going to have less incentive to do the job, or they're going to have to quit out. Most villains or gangs can't afford to escalate more than they already have. And soon, fighting the Protectorate means fighting you, every time. And anyone that gets knocked out, or trapped in containment foam, or just distracted too long, gets marked."
Her face split in a wide grin. "That's pretty awesome."
"Thanks. I've become infamous for telling people how to do their job; I think you're the first person to thank me for it." He put the car from park to drive and merged with traffic again, sliding through a light and parking at the end of the second block down.
"As long as you don't try to tell me how to dress, we should be okay," she said, chuckling.
"Hang on a second, we've got a fight on the second floor, that building on the other side of the brownstone," he said, shutting off the car and stepping out. She was out ahead of him, vaulting over a slow-moving group of pedestrians that shouted in startlement and ducked away from the sudden motion. Wharf Rat ran behind her, pulling on his gloves. She got to the door well ahead of him, and she was kicking at the door to break it down when it popped unlocked from the inside. Two rats dropped off the doorknob as she pushed it open, and she paused to give them a salute with her broadsword before she charged for the stairs. She kipped up from landing to landing, and ran up the banister rail the last flight.
She stopped to take the scene in, five or six skinheads surrounding a middle-aged black man, him curled in the fetal position while they kicked him back and forth. "I do love beating up white supremacists," she sighed, then drew her sword with a flourish, the steel ringing cleanly through the sounds of grunts and mutters. "So, what I want to know," she called out in her stage voice, "is are you men? Or are you mice?" The fight stopped, everyone froze, staring. Wharf Rat skidded to a stop beside her, staring down the hallway to the teenagers and the black man. He recognized the tattoos on their arms; these were the dregs of Kaiser's Empire, left behind when the villains searched for safer cities to hide in. He held his hands down at his sides, and two mice in his jacket dropped a pair of lead weights the size and shape of a roll of quarters down his sleeves and into his palms. He rolled them in as he made fists, and readied himself for a brawl.
Four skinheads charged forward, the other two bolted away. "Four men, two mice," she quipped, "like rats from a sinking ship." She leaped up and forward, spinning like a top as she passed over three of their shaven scalps and landed almost on top of the last one, her foot coming heel-first like a poleaxe and knocking him to the ground, either unconscious or so dazed as to make no difference. "And that'll leave a mouse on him!" Rats leaped out of the ceiling towards the two fleeing, driving them back towards the heroes. Wharf Rat stepped forward into a long right cross the used his reach to snap a fist into the first skinhead's face. The teenager tried to bat his arm aside, but the fist had too much momentum and just pushed past the block and knocked the teenager back with a bloody nose. Mouse Protector kicked back against the heel of one of the boys she had vaulted, and his leg went out from under him and dumped him on the back of his head. "Oh, I'm such a shrew!" In the same move she spun up to her feet, lashing out with the flat of her sword to slap it broadside against another punk, dropping him in one blow. "And now I'm just taking the Mickey!"
One of the two boys running down the hall was pinned to the wall by a ring of snapping, chittering rats, but the other one was charging straight for her back. The Wharf Rat snapped his hand out and a small white mouse flung out, soaring like a guided missile into the boy's face. He skidded on his shoes, arms pinwheeling as the mouse bit him on the sensitive septum between his nostrils. The third charging boy was nearly on top of Wharf Rat, arm cocked to punch the tall hero in the belly, when Mouse Protector appeared between them. She caught his arm in one hand and hooked his knee, throwing him to the ground, then leveled her sword on the boy with the mouse on his face. The boy raised his hands in surrender, and the mouse dropped off to land on the blade and scamper back up to her hand, up her arm, and then leap off her shoulder to land back on his jacket and scramble into his pocket with its mate.
The boy at the other end of the hall had his hands up, backed up hard against the wall by the ring of dark-colored rats. "I surrender too!" he cried out. "Call 'em off!"
Ten minutes later they were walking out the door past the cops, her sheathing her sword. "Okay, that was fun. Nice warmup, anyway. But when we left off, you were telling me how to do my job. Now I'm going to tell you how to do yours. Your power makes you an investigator, with access to all these cool senses and sneaky little cheese-eaters. And frankly I can see you spending hours going through newspaper clippings and stuff. But a huge part of these investigations is about finding the fixer and shaking secrets out of 'em. Street stuff, banging doors and getting answers." She slid into the car and buckled up while he started the engine. "Like, you take these guys we're after today. Circus and Trainwreck. You've told me that you barely have any idea what they smell like, but the only plan you've got for finding 'em is to try to sniff 'em out anyway. But my dude, these two are heavy into equipment purchases. One of them is a tinker, and you always find tinkers by tracking their equipment. This guy uses big secondhand machines, rebuilding hoopties into powered armor. So find out who's been stealing hoopties. The other one changes costumes every time she goes out. Seriously, that much fabric comes from somewhere, and she has to have a workshop where she does all that sewing. That and greasepaint, most places that sell that stuff in large quantities are selling to theatres, and maybe they'll remember who uses a personal credit card or cash instead of a business card."
Wharf Rat considered it while one of his minions sorted through a phone book at a booth. "Hmm. Every theatre makeup supply store is in the arts district, we should be able to get through them fast, straight from one to another."
"Now you're talking. Get out there, show your face, work the leads, and use your head. Don't ever let your power make you stupid," she advised him. "I've been at this a long time, and one of the greatest dangers is people letting their powers think for them. You're telling people how to do their jobs because you see it happening to them, but you can still miss seeing it happen to you."
"So this is the place," Mouse Protector said, climbing out of the car. "See, two days of investigating the right way is less boring than two hours of you using your rats to find nothing at all."
"Maybe," he said. "I don't really get bored much anymore, I've got more sensory input and stimulation than anyone else around, all the time. Here," he said, handing her one of the two bundles he carried.
She took it with a scowl. "See, this is the part of your plan that I like the least. We could still do this my way."
"My city, my villain," he said. "Now, that balcony up there is your mark. Just remember to wait for me."
"Sure, sure," she said, and started bounding up the side of the building. She vaulted from the ground to the car to the fence to the cornice of a window, to a balcony rail and then she scaled from rail to wall to rail and back, until she was in her spot, waiting for him. He walked in through the front door and took the elevator to the fifth floor, unrolling his bundle as he went. At the address, he had a few rodents sniff around. They were able to make out the slight scent of Circus's skin, or what he assumed her skin would smell like without the usual combination of heavy makeup, paraffin and whetstone oil. He knocked on the door, and heard someone inside walk to the door and look through the peephole. And then those footsteps moved fast away from the door towards the open window of the balcony, and more footsteps dropped into place from the balcony above.
And then came the grunts and smacks and thuds of two super-agile combatants fighting. "Shit," Danny muttered. "Shit, she's gone off-script. She's not waiting for me." He ducked low and scooped mice down to the crack under the door, and they squeezed themselves underneath quickly, scrambling up to unlock the deadbolt and unhook the chain. He tried not to fidget anxiously while he waited for them to finish. The mice could vaguely see two figures practically blurring as they punched and kicked their way through the apartment. A massive hammer appeared and disappeared, a sword flashed back and forth. The chain clattered and he burst in through the door.
"Dammit Mouse!" he shouted, his voice clouded by anger. "Stand the hell down!"
Mouse Protector backflipped twice, crouching next to the balcony window, and then reached behind her and pulled out a small white flag on a stick. "Fine," she said, sighing heavily as if badly put-upon. "Fine. Truce. Parlay." She waved the flag half-heartedly. The young man in the room looked from her flag to Wharf Rat's flag, his shoulders tense.
Half the room was scorched, as if a flame had rushed through and left in a hurry. Knives stuck out of everywhere, furniture was smashed. The centerpieces were cut in half, the lighting fixtures were bisected, and loose papers were still burning slowly. Only one table in the corner and its contents were undamaged. The young man was thin and pale, his face oddly smooth and undistinguished, a long oval with very cold eyes and no other expression at all, breathing heavily with a giant mallet in his hands. There were ribbons and jinglebells tied off to the handle of the mallet, brightly colored and jolly. And even staring straight at him, Danny could not tell if Circus was a girl who disguised herself as a man in her secret identity, or a man who cross-dressed in his costume livery.
"Circus, we did not come here intending to fight," he said, keeping his voice level and calm as he addressed the villain. "At least, that was the plan," he stressed, glaring at Mouse Protector. He lifted the white flag he carried.
"Partner, we may need to discuss your temper," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'd like for everyone to stand down, put their weapons away," Wharf Rat said. "We've all got too little to gain and too much to lose, so we should relax and discuss this."
The hammer disappeared before Mouse Protector's sword was sheathed. "Discuss what?" the villain said. Was the voice disguised? An affectation? It was an odd voice, soft and high, but not enough to be sure.
"Amnesty," Wharf Rat said.
The heroine reacted to that. "Whoa there partner, I'm sorry to cut in but you don't have the authority to offer amnesty from either the Protectorate or the law."
"Amnesty from me," Wharf Rat clarified.
"I'm listening," Circus said.
"Two sets of terms. First, is that as long as you do not commit any further crimes with your powers or costume, I will not track you, pursue you, threaten you or interfere with your affairs."
"Hmm," Circus said. The sound gave the impression of a nod without a nod.
"The second may be more of a sticking point, but hear me out. There is something you want. I know there is. You have performed a long series of cat burglaries, netting large amounts of expensive merchandise. You have probably pulled a dozen jobs of arson-for-hire, using your powers to fool arson investigators and insurance investigators. And you were one of Coil's hirelings. We saw his receipts, we know what he was paying you. You have been taking in a huge amount of money, but you don't live lavishly. You need the money for something. It's very possible that whatever it is, I or the Protectorate can help you get it. If you trust me with that information, I'll do what I can to help you, and then you'll never need to do that sort of work again."
Mouse Protector stared at the man with open-mouthed disbelief. Circus looked from the Wharf Rat to the Mouse Protector, and then straightened out of his defensive crouch. He reached for the buttons of his shirt. "It's expensive being me," he said to start.
"First of all, that was weird," Mouse Protector said, as they drove away. "Second of all, good job now you've made promises you can't keep. And third, seriously someone should talk to you about your temper."
"You almost ruined everything. And almost got killed. Circus is dangerous. Faster than you, better armed than you, more ruthless than you," he said, his voice hard now with emphasis rather than anger. "If he hadn't been trying to protect the costume on the table, you would have died in seconds because you jumped in, or you would have had to teleport away and we'd have had this villain out looking for vengeance instead of looking for solutions."
She sighed. "So, that brings us back to those promises you can't keep."
He chuckled and eased the car out of the parking lot. He still got nervous driving, kept expecting someone to come flying at him from his blind spot and smash them, or the brakes to fail or something. "Can't keep? Are you kidding me? This is probably the only city in America where I could take care of this in a single afternoon. You don't know that much about the capes of Brockton Bay, do you?"
"Apparently not. But my first point still stands: that was hella weird."
"Hella weird," he confirmed.
"How did you find this place?" Mouse Protector asked as they walked up to the three-story house. It wasn't quite a mansion, but clearly whoever lived here was doing very well for themselves.
"It's listed. That's sort of the point," Wharf Rat said, pushing the doorbell.
A minute later, Glory Girl answered the door. "Oh, the Protectorate," she said. "Usually you guys call." A rush of calm and contentment washed out from her.
"Sensitive subject, other people's secrets I've been trusted with," he said. "I'm actually here to see your sister."
The young hero blinked in surprise. "Well, my parents aren't home, so I'll have to ask you not to leave the parlor," she said, opening the door and beckoning them in. She offered them seats but no refreshments, removing the awkward question of how one would drink without removing their masks or helmets. She walked away, leaving them to look around the room for a few minutes. A coffee table, four chairs, an end table with an empty ashtray, and a curio cabinet with a few prints of newspaper clippings about the exploits of the Brockton Bay Brigade or its current incarnation, New Wave. The walls were painted a blend of dark indigo to palest mauve, and somehow looked tastefully done despite that. The furniture was light and airy, and the window brought in a lot of sunlight. It was a comfortable room that still conveyed the character of their family and their team.
Amy walked in, and smiled when she spotted them. "Hello again, Wharf Rat," she said. "I should thank you, I've been meaning to send you a letter or something."
"Panacea," he said, standing. He offered her a hand to shake, and she took it awkwardly. "This is Mouse Protector. Mouse, meet, Panacea."
"Behold! The Mouse Protector has-."
"Ignore her."
"Ignoring her.
"But, but behold..."
"Panacea here," he said to the other heroine, "has the ability to alter the biology or anatomy of anyone she touches. She has traditionally used this for healing, but it's a bit more broad than that."
"Far more broad," Amy said. "But, I'm just now starting to explore that. Do you know what free time is? I never did. From the time my powers became obvious, I've not had a moment of free time. But now I do. And I have you to thank for that, Wharf Rat."
Mouse Protector sat back down. "Oh, and why's that?"
"He got me thinking outside the box. Thinking like a biokinetic and not a healer. Look, I used to put in over a hundred hours a week at the hospitals. Anytime I wasn't eating, sleeping, studying, or helping my sister out of one of her accidents, I was in a clinic or a hospital floor. And the number one thing was cancer. Brain cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, leukemia, melanoma, on and on and on. It's widespread, it's lethal, and it gives more advance notice than stroke or heart disease. And, because it's so invasive and tenacious, it takes a while for me to cure it. Especially since the doctors would only let me work on cases they had completely given up on. It was ruining my life, and I was just so, so tired of it. And then this guy, casually in conversation, asks me why I don't just custom-build a virus to kill the cancer."
"Seriously?" Mouse Protector asked, turning from one to the other.
"Yeah," Amy Dallon said. "You know it would take most tinkers years to come up with a custom virus that could do that. Human science probably won't figure it out in fifty years. I took my time, made sure it was stable, made sure it wouldn't attack anything except cancer, wouldn't mutate or transfer to a different host. I took my time, carefully and thoroughly. It took me a weekend. There is now a ward in the Central Hospital where cancer patients check in for a week, hang out with the other patients, catch a cold, and get their cancer cured. It's lovely. Children and adults, the elderly, all in there together. All thinking they were going to die, but now they are going to live. All of them with the same cough, fever, and sniffles. Do you know what they call themselves? The Sneeze Guards. It's adorable. It gave me my life back, and all of them too. Now I visit the hospital once a week to deal with transplants, strokes, infections, and things like that. I'm still saving literally hundreds of lives a week, but now I have time for myself. I might even get a boyfriend."
Nobody could see if Wharf Protector was smiling, but his voice sounded like he was. "That is tremendous, Amy, I'm thrilled to hear that it worked so well. You would have thought of it yourself if you'd had five minutes to think clearly about it without any pressure. I kind of want to give you a hug."
"I kind of want to hug you back," the girl laughed. She stood, awkwardly as if conflicted, and he swept her up in a big bear hug that lifted her off the ground and gave her a fatherly squeeze. She put her arms around him and hugged the man that had changed her life. Then he set her down and they stepped back, and Amy was still smiling. "Okay, so what brings you here today?"
"Need a favor," Mouse Protector said.
"We're testing a theory," Wharf Rat followed up. "The best way to beat a supervillain is to make them not want to be a supervillain anymore."
She froze. "I can't do anything with people's minds. I just can't."
He nodded. "Yeah, I figured that was probably the case. Fortunately that's not what I meant. We've got a case, and let's say the patient was engaging in criminal activities just to afford some extremely specific, extremely expert surgery. The patient is convinced they absolutely need this surgery, and I'm in no position to say otherwise. But it's going to cost millions. Or, about half an hour's attention from you."
Amy sat back, toying with her long brown hair as she thought. "Beating a supervillain without fighting them. It sounds like it's perfect, too perfect. Nothing works that well. But I'm ready to try. And what's more, I'm going to say this is not a favor to you, but maybe even a favor from you to me."
"I don't follow," Danny said.
"Look, in the past year my folks and my family have fought against Lung three different times, and different members of the Empire four times. And each time the fight was inconclusive or too dangerous to continue. My sister and the Wards have fought against the Travelers and the Undersiders twice each this last year. And each time the villains escaped. But if I can take someone out of circulation? I'll be the big success story. This will be my year. I won't be the noncombatant that hangs out at the clinic while everyone does the important work of making the city safe."
"I didn't realize it was that bad," he said. "I'm sorry that you have to resent them for that."
"Eh, it's not really as bad as that," she said. "I overstate a bit. But the core idea is sound: I would prove myself to them in a way I never have before. Take me to my patient."
Circus met them at the apartment, which was already halfway to being fixed up. The scorch marks were still clinging stubbornly, and the dining table had been converted to a coffee table by sawing off the legs, and the broken chairs were missing. The oval-faced androgyne looked them over, eyes cold and reptilian.
"Panacea, meet Circus. Circus, this is Panacea. She will be your doctor."
"Hero, not a doctor," Circus said. "No Hippocratic oath."
The girl pulled herself straight. "No, I'm not accredited. But I've saved hundreds of people every week since I was thirteen. There aren't many doctors that have done as much as I have. Any ethical or professional standards that a doctor maintains, I have far exceeded. I have lived a Hippocratic oath for four years now. And I'm the best chance you've got."
"And besides," Wharf Rat said. "If she double-crosses you, nobody is going to trust this arrangement ever again. Whether she plays straight or double-crosses you, I get what I want from you, but I'm a big-picture thinker. I don't take out a villain, I take out gangs. All three ABB villains at once, both Merchant villains at once, three Empire villains at once. It makes sense for me to make sure you can trust me on this."
Circus nodded, and stepped aside to let them all enter. Panacea directed the gender-fluid villain to the couch, relaxing back. "No, don't strip, I can do this with nothing but a touch of my hand to yours," she said. "Now, describe to me exactly, exactly what you want."
Five minutes later they were holding hands, and Circus was drifting off to sleep. "Converted a few spare red blood cells into a dose of anesthetic," she said. "Just so you know, I can do this. Or I can lock Circus into a vegetative state forever. I don't need to kill, and they'll never feel pain again. I want you to know that we've got this option."
"Noted," Wharf Rat said, "but we'll stick with Plan A." Mouse Protector looked thoughtful though, as if tempted by the alternate plan.
A half hour later Circus was changed, and waking up. The superpowered assassin did not crack a smile or express thanks, but only looked at Wharf Rat and said, "There was one more thing."
"And we'll be back when we've got it," Wharf Rat said. "Panacea, thank you for your help, you were tremendous."
"No, thank you," she said, heading for the door. "I still say this is two favors I owe you."
They were walking out to the car, when Mouse Protector coughed awkwardly. "Hey, uh, Panacea, you're a hell of a healer, in addition to these other talents. And I was wondering if it was okay for me to mark you. If I do that, I can teleport to you from wherever. Maybe you could call me and I could come to help you with something. Or maybe I would drop in front of you, bleeding out, without warning. You know."
Panacea chuckled. "I really, really hope you don't just teleport in on me on the brink of death, but in your line of work, that's more a 'when' than an 'if'. Yeah, do the thing, we'll settle accounts later."
After they had dropped the girl off back at her house, they turned to the west side of downtown. The address took a bit of finding, the building was entirely unremarkable.
"Hello?" said the short young woman. She had a Middle-Eastern cast to her features, and long black hair.
"Yes, we're looking for a parahuman named Parian," Wharf Rat said.
She went defensive, seeming to shrink back on herself without overtly moving. "Why?"
"We need an outfit designed," he said. "Or, rather a couple dozen outfits."
She arched an eyebrow. "No fighting? Nobody gets hurt? You just need a superpowered fashion student?"
Wharf Rat glanced over at Mouse Protector. "I didn't know you actually studied fashion. That actually makes this a lot easier."
She waved them in. "I've never heard of the Protectorate getting involved in anything that didn't involve violence somehow. Is this outfit going to be used to strangle someone? Or do you think I can make powered armor or something?"
"Nothing like that," Wharf Rat said. "Circus just needs a dozen outfits, reversible, mix-and-match parts, so she can pick whatever look she wants. She's not good enough to make them herself, but you are."
She took a startled step back. "Circus the villain? What are you doing getting costumes for her? And what am I getting out of this?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. Her eyes narrowed and she subconsciously took another step to the side to put her back to the doorway. The apartment was clearly that of a fashion student, covered in swatches and sketches and bins full of supplies and fabrics. And a lot of those fabrics started to rustle, almost subtly, as if she was ready to defend herself from trouble using what was at hand.
"We're getting costumes for Circus because one of the reasons she steals and kills is so she can afford the perfect costume. If she gets her costume, she doesn't need to do that anymore. And we'll be paying you fair market value," Wharf Rat said. He noticed her costume draped over a chair, an outfit and wig and mask that were modeled on a traditional doll, a curly-haired moppet with petticoats. The kind that people make horror movies about. He did not shudder, but he did turn himself so as not to see it anymore.
"What?" Mouse Protector blurted. "You can't-"
"The Protectorate pays well, and I don't have many expenses," he said. "So I'll be paying you out of pocket."
Sabah blinked at them, and the room settled around them. "Let's talk turkey," she said, pulling out a chair.
"Now, Trainwreck is never seen out of his power armor," Danny said as he into the car. "So that means one of two things. Either A: he literally never leaves those things, which his personal hygiene would support, or B: he's just so hard to recognize out of the armor that he could be nearly anywhere. I think we should start with the assumption that A is true, because B would mean that we have next to no chance at all to find the man at all."
Mouse Protector climbed into the passenger seat, and buckled up. "Optimistic, but otherwise sound reasoning. If the options are to try to fix something or give up entirely, one should probably at least give it a shot."
"So that means that we're looking for a powered-armor tinker that is not going to be maintaining any sort of legitimacy. No house papers, no bank account. That means no access to buying his supplies legitimately. And from there, we can conclude that he steals his materials. Large volumes of metal and moving parts. Often rusty, battered or visibly repaired. He goes through a fairly high quantity of it, because he changes his look pretty often. Sometimes just one limb at a time, sometimes a full overhaul. So he's probably stealing cars, lots of them, but sticking with the ones that are least likely to be missed, older or abandoned." He started the car and put it in gear.
"Right, he steals a lot of hoopties," she said with a nod. "I think we covered this."
"Thinking out loud," he said, shooting her a look. "So, junkyards? Scrapyards? Impound lots? Long term parking? Black-market vendors that can't report the losses?"
She shook her head. "Nope. If it was a junkyard, there'd be some sort of police report for it. Maybe he can steal a car that nobody cares about, but he can't do it without knocking down their fences or causing other damage. I already checked, nothing like that being reported. Impound lots or long-term parking have guards and we haven't heard anything about that. We could start checking shady car dealers that don't have paperwork for their merchandise, but that sort of theft gets you shot at, and the reports of gunfire don't make a pattern that matches that. So some of our starting assumptions are wrong. Humor me real quick, drive me around to the nearest trailer park."
"What?"
"Drive me to the white-trash-est, redneckest, mullet-wearing-est trailer park you've got," Mouse Protector said. "I want to test out a theory."
He shrugged, and waited for the flow of traffic to ease before he pulled out of the parking lot. "I really don't have that bad a temper," he said. "I don't blow up a lot. I saw that you could have gotten very seriously hurt back at Circus's place, and it just got me really freaked out."
"Do you usually freak out by yelling at people and shaking your fists?"
"Everyone freaks out differently," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and easy and not defensive. "Look, I only really lose control like that when someone's going to get hurt. I don't want anyone getting hurt. I get protective. That's a good thing, right? It's not like I'm a mean drunk or start fights when I get insulted."
"Oh, I know," she said. "I test everyone's patience, and you've been one of the most easygoing folks I've ever worked with. But when you do go off, you go straight past "annoyed", past "ticked off", past "angry", and you stop one step shy of "immediate violence". Now, I'm grateful that you stop that one step short, but that's not really a normal reaction. You've got a ton of stuff bottled up, and you keep that lid on until you can't control it anymore. You know that the Protectorate has psychologists on staff, right? You can get some talk therapy, complete confidentiality; maybe even prescribe you some medications. It's possible you've got a chemical imbalance that makes you rage out like that."
"I don't 'rage out'," he scoffed.
"You mutilated and humiliated Lung," she said gently. "Then you dropped a building on him. You hit the Merchants with a landmine. A frickin' landmine, Wharf. Neither of them has invulnerability, and you hit them with a landmine and exploded their car, and nearly killed Skidmark with a cinder block dropped off a roof. That's not normal, Wharf. Most people back off of a fight if the only way they can win it is like that. You don't back down. You need to learn how to de-escalate. You beat Shadow Stalker to a pulp and left her for dead on a rooftop. Your people dragged Night behind a truck. Othala and Rune are probably still in a hospital. You nearly got Trickster with another landmine. I legitimately don't know how you haven't killed anyone yet, and I think it's only because you're lucky."
"It's not as bad as you make it sound," he replied.
"What part of it was wrong then?" she shot back.
He was silent for a few blocks as they drove. "I didn't leave Shadow Stalker for dead, I called an ambulance for her."
"And then you walked away before you could be sure she was going to survive," she pointed out. "You're a pretty hard man, whether you admit it to yourself or not. There's a lot of coldness in you, along with all that anger."
He half-turned to see her in his peripheral vision without taking his eyes off the road. "Did someone put you up to this? Did the Director ask you to talk about this with me?"
"She should've," Mouse Protector grumbled. "But no, most of this is just off the cuff. I started reading up on you before I showed up, I've legit been waiting for a chance to do a team-up. A lot of those things I read about seemed a bit extreme, but I was not really seeing the pattern until I saw you fighting the skinheads. I watch a lot of people fight, and my specialty is making them fight angry. I find psychotic criminals and I goad them to extreme measures to get them to fight angry. You get there from a standing start, Wharf. If that one skinhead had even tried to fight smart at all he would have pummeled you. Fortunately, non-capes tend to fight stupid when they see the mask. I think that's what saved you back there. And then in Circus' apartment, I saw it again, how fast that anger can turn on someone you're working with. I think anyone that fights at your side is going to see that, not just me."
He sighed, and considered for a minute. "I'll talk to someone. But I'm going to be damned careful about it. I've got a director with a grudge against me, and she has our entire Tower bugged."
"Why does she have a grudge against you?" Mouse Protector asked.
Danny thought about slamming down the phone and then trying to rally the other heroes against the PRT, how he had stomped and snarled. "It's not important."
"Uh huh. Look, armchair diagnosis time: I think you mentally separate the world into two groups: people you need to protect, and enemies. Don't treat people like enemies if you don't want them to act like your enemy."
He spun the wheel as they made a gentle turn. "And yet here we are, making arrangements and brokering deals to reform these supervillains."
"Okay, it's not a perfect theory," she admitted. "Holy crap this is a trailer park to beat all trailer parks! I think this place has an illegal taxidermy market. I can smell the inbreeding from here. And that over there? That's a dog fighting ring. Right out in the open. This is the birthplace of mullets, my man."
He chuckled. "So, we're here. What's your theory?"
"My theory is that there should be at least two dozen cars up on blocks here," she said, opening her car door. "But somehow there's not a single one."
Wharf Rat stared around, and saw what she saw. "Damn," he said. The place was lousy with rats, he was able to mobilize them in seconds. The grass was saturated in motor oil in several places, brake fluid, rust. But none of it was sunk in deep into the ground. When cars broke down around here, they either got fixed or got removed.
"Excuse me there! Sir!" Mouse Protector cried out, with the lilted tones of her stage voice. "Stop there!" she yelled, and then took off at a run, leaping over a Big Wheel tricycle with a forward flip, and then over a laundry line with a high round-off. The man ran with a rare determination, legs and arms pistoning and he didn't even look over his shoulder. It was like he watched COPS and critiqued the criminals what they were doing wrong, making notes for a day like this.
Danny sighed and had a couple dozen rats sweep in front of the man, leaping up to startle him. The man stopped too suddenly, his feet going out from under him, and he dropped on his butt in the grass. Mouse Protector stood over him, and Danny approached at an easy amble. The rats could smell industrial quantities of ether and methamphetamines on the redneck. He was wearing jeans and a wifebeater shirt, but the man looked like a polo shirt he was wearing would still be a wifebeater shirt.
"Ease up, man," Danny said, reaching down to give the man a hand up. "We literally don't care, we're after supervillains today. Just tell us who takes the cars away when they break down."
"City sends a guy," the meth-chef said, looking them over warily. "He shows up in a tow truck, stamps a notice on the door, hooks up the car and hauls it off. Says the city's got a rule about abandoned cars or broken-down cars, so they haul it off to the junkyard. Doesn't pay nothing for 'em, just seizes 'em and drives off."
"What does the notice say?" Wharf Rat asked.
"Shit man, I dunno. Who reads that stuff?"
Mouse Protector grinned. "So, somewhere around here is someone that never throws anything away. Where is she?"
"How'd you know that?"
Mouse Protector looked around the blatantly obvious stereotype that surrounded them, then returned her gaze to the man. "Maybe I'm psychic."
"Okay, so a description of the tow truck, and a copy of the notice," Danny said. "Not bad. I mean, I'm disgusted that this worked, but not bad."
"Don't tell anyone I'm teaching you all my tricks," Mouse Protector quipped.
He chuckled. "Let's get back to the tower, we can make more of this from there."
Once they were back on the highway, he started speaking again. "So, I'm sort of wondering how it is that you lecture me about my methods being too harsh when you carry a sword everywhere."
"Oh, this?" She said, unsheathing it in the narrow confines of the passenger seat and somehow making it look easy and graceful. "It looks like just one weapon, doesn't it?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Check it out," she said, turning it this way and that. "The tip of the point here, chisel-cut for penetration on high-density materials. I use it for robots, constructs, things like that. Sometimes I stab out a lock with this thing, smashing the mechanism so I can get through a door. It's not really appropriate for power armor, because it will either not penetrate and will be useless, or it will penetrate and I'm almost certain to maim or kill someone. So, this edge of the blade here, razor sharp with very very small serrations, you see 'em? Perfect for cutting ropes, cloth, similar materials. The other edge looks sharp, but if you look you'll see it's rounded off a good bit. Swung hard at the right spot, it'll strike hard enough to break bones, good for regenerators that need to be slowed down a bit. But if you pull back a bit or hit a softer target, it'll just leave a hell of a bruise. The flat of the blade will leave a good bruise, but distributes the force a little broader so it's safe to land a headshot most times. The handguard here is just what it looks like, basically a set of brass knuckles. This pommel here? The gaudy little stone? It's plastic, it covers a needle and a dose of fast-acting paralytic. Good for a knockout shot when you need someone unharmed. By my count, that's six weapons, that let me pick the exact level of violence appropriate to any situation."
"Damn," he said, impressed.
She preened a little. "Well, I've been doing this a long time. You work up some tricks after a while."
"I could try modifying my hologram landmines for containment foam instead of antipersonnel charges," he conceded. "But I'll need help from our tinkers, and we're still not 100% sure what bombs Bakuda boobytrapped and which ones she didn't. It's hard to modify them without worrying about blowing up the whole building."
"It's a start," she said. "But you shouldn't drag people behind trucks."
"White supremacist," he reminded her.
She sighed. "You shouldn't drag people, even racists, behind trucks. Honestly, you should make containment-foam grenades a big part of your arsenal. Your rats can carry them and pull the pins, so you can bring that in on people's blind spots to trap them instantly. You can maneuver them anywhere you want, silently and efficiently. Surely that's easier than actually carrying landmines around?"
"It's worth a shot," he said. "They are a bit limited. They don't shut off anyone's powers, just immobilizes a couple of limbs, so it only really takes some people out of the fight. And they're a little slow to expand, I need to get the drop on them in a big way."
"Surround someone with three grenades and pop them at the same time, one of them will get him," she said. "And it reduces someone's overall threat level. They can't escape or pursue, you can call in reinforcements if you need to. And anyone tough enough to ignore containment foam is too tough for your rats to hurt on their own anyway."
"I'm trying not to rely too much on tools," he admitted ruefully. "My first few times out I was carrying a crowbar, duct tape, things like that. But now that I'm on a team with a tinker, it's too easy to solve every problem by just saying 'have someone else build a machine to fix it'. It's kind of like what you were saying about how we get stuck in our own ways of thinking and we start getting stupid. If I just grab a bunch of weapons, I'll start thinking the answer to my problems is to use those weapons. And now Armsmaster is making me a suit of powered armor, and dozens of remote-controlled drones with onboard weapons, and it feels like a lot of what I'm going to bring into the fight is going to be from him, not me."
"Figure out how to make it your own," she said. "Powers give you opportunities, watch for those opportunities. Keep asking for outside opinions, keep consulting other people for their observations, ask people to tell you how to do your job."
He blew a slow breath out. "Okay, that really turns a lot of things around for me. And it does sound like damned good advice."
"Yeah," she said, buffing her fingernails on her chainmail and admiring her reflection in them. "I'm pretty awesome."
"Wanna catch a wanted murderer?" he asked, pulling over.
She grinned widely. "Do I!" she drew the sword and leaped out of the car, following his lead.
"So, Wharf Rat," Director Piggot said as she approached. "I did not realize that the Protectorate was operating a catch-and-release program with supervillains."
Danny finished signing off on the return of the car to the motor pool and handed the clipboard back to the clerk. "That's a pretty one-sided assessment of what we did."
"You used your personal funds to buy material from an unaligned rogue parahuman on behalf of a villain wanted for murder," she replied. "If there's another side to this assessment, I'd like to see you sell me on it."
He paused in place to gather his thoughts, unaware that he was just looming silently over the woman with his inscrutable mask staring straight at her. "Okay, it's like this," he said. "Villains tend to be folks that want a lot of money. Some of them just because it's money, others need it for a purpose. Like Circus, she was looking for something specific and expensive. By brokering a deal to get her what she wants, we remove the impetus behind her crimes. Now mind you, Circus is still a dead-eyed sociopath, and nothing I've done will change that. But she had been a sociopath with a reason to kill and steal, and now she's not."
"And justice for all her previous crimes? We just make a mockery of the due process and the concept of accountability?"
"Not at all," he said. "I didn't give her amnesty from the police or the Protectorate, I just told her that I personally would not pursue her. I didn't make promises on anyone's behalf but my own."
"You work for me, and you pursue who I tell you to pursue," she said, her angry eyes narrowing.
He sighed. "That's a larger issue, and one that deserves its own conversation. But I've got two major points to bring up in defense of my actions. First, I now have an informant on criminal activities in this city that I didn't have before. Nothing was discussed in open terms, but the deal that we made was so lopsided that she has to know she's in my debt. Secondly, there's the public-relations angle of this."
"The public-relations angle is what I'm worried about," Piggot barked at him. "What am I going to say when people ask me why my newest Protector, formerly a rogue vigilante, is now making back-room deals with known villains on his own terms? How do I sell that to the public?"
He held up his hands, palm out. "Okay, maybe the word I'm looking for isn't public relations, exactly. Street credibility? Black market gossip? I dunno. But hear me out. I'm the guy that all the villains in the city know as the guy that wiped out half their number. I'm the boogeyman that took down four factions of villains, the guy that walked casually into an ambush outnumbered twenty-to-one and walked back out in a show of strength. I'm the reason they check their locks and sleep with one eye open. And if it gets around that I'm cutting deals, offering a truce, they'll be interested in that. They might mistrust it at first, but they trust each other more than they trust me. I might be able to get them to approach me to discuss terms, people that I couldn't catch or couldn't fight might be convinced to stand down peacefully. And then new villains, up and coming, might look at this. Someone who's desperate last week might have only seen crime as a way out. But next week he might see two ways out: crime, or talking to the Wharf Rat."
"Don't talk about yourself in the third person," Mouse Protector nudged him. "Seriously, not even I do that."
"It was just that context," he replied.
"No bantering," Piggot said, glaring. "I'm not happy with this. You need to clear these things with me first. I want villains put on trial in front of a judge, not kid-gloved and bribed into behaving themselves. That's not the Protectorate, that's not the PRT, and you are not bigger than those organizations, Rat. Clear it with me first."
"But," he said, his voice soft, "what if I don't?" He kept his tone reasonable, as if just asking a question for the sake of curiosity. "I know that the other heroes all do exactly what you say, but nothing I signed gave you sole executive discretion over my words and actions. I didn't actually sign away my right to personal independence. We've got a working relationship, and you've got more authority over me than I do over you, certainly. But if I don't play ball? Do you dock my pay? Written reprimands? Do I work the overnight shift for a month? Certainly there's a precedent, you can give me some perspective."
Mouse Protector was furiously mugging at him to stop, miming a cut throat and zipped lips. Piggot was already glaring at him, so her reaction didn't change. "You don't challenge me, mister," she said. "You have no idea the leverage that I have over you. I can make your life suck exactly as much as I want it to suck, and there is nothing at all you can do about it."
Danny took a calming breath. It was easier to argue with her in person than over the phone, he was realizing. It was easy to read her and see exactly what was going to drive her to make mistakes, push her to say things she wouldn't normally say out loud. "Madame Director, that comment made it sound like you are threatening me with some very belowboard revenge if I don't stay aboveboard enough for you. It sort of compromises your moral authority when you tell me you're willing to break the law because I bend it. And without moral authority, this isn't about the Protectorate or the PRT, it's about a personality conflict between yourself and myself."
Piggot looked from Wharf Rat, to the motor pool clerk who was almost out of earshot as he worked busily on this clipboard, to the Mouse Protector, back to Wharf Rat. "Submit your plans and suggestions to my office, and I will give them my attention. Don't go around me on this," she said, and turned to stomp away.
Wharf Rat leaned towards Mouse Protector. "If I die in a terrible accident that is completely impossible to link to that woman, I want you to cry at my funeral. Maybe throw yourself on my coffin."
"I'll scream about how the good ones always die so young," she promised him. "By the way, out of the blue, I just now realized why your director has a grudge against you."
He chuckled. "That? That's not the reason. I've been poking at her every day since I got here. C'mon, let's get some information on this tow truck and this notice that they leave behind when they steal broken cars."
She walked beside him, keeping up with his long strides. "And what your director just said? Like, she just said?"
"I'll cope," he said easily. "C'mon, let's get lunch."
"I think I'll pass," Mouse Protector said. "I'm starting to think I'm a bad influence on you. Look, stay out of trouble. I'll be back sometime. Probably when it's really inconvenient for you. This won't be our last team-up, count on it. And when I come back, I expect you to be less angry. And I want you to stay smart, keep thinking, find opportunities and don't get stuck solving all your problems the same way. Okay? And stay out of your director's way, don't make her follow through on whatever that threat was. I don't want to have to throw myself on your coffin for a while."
"Okay, you're acting weird," Taylor said as they stepped off the bus.
"What, it's a nice little park," Danny said with a small smile.
She shrugged. "Granted, it is a nice little park," she said. "But it's not a reason to delay getting lunch, unless you're stalling."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. It felt weird to not be wearing his long trenchcoat. "Look, after the stuff between me and the Director, I could use some time away from that place. Everything bugged, everything reported, it's just creepy. And maybe also I've got another agenda," he admitted.
"Uh huh," she said, trailing it out expectantly.
He led the way, walking west. "Well, right now I've got just a bit of Wharf Rat business that can't have anything to do with the Protectorate," he said. He paused by the garbage can at the edge of the park, and picked up a few bottles that had missed the mark.
Taylor sighed. "I should have known something like that was going on."
He chuckled. "You're a smart girl. You probably should have known." He took a folded paper note and tucked it into an empty, dry plastic bottle, and sealed it shut, then casually dropped it down the nearest storm drain. "C'mon, let's walk to our restaurant from her. Only, maybe just a bit to the north for part of the way."
The teenager rolled her eyes. "God, dad, what are you up to? Why the skullduggery?"
"I'll tell you what's up with the skullduggery if you tell me what's up with the vocabulary?"
She made a face. "My new gimmick is to be an aquatic hero. So Armsmaster has assigned me some reading to make sure that I can do the job, and more reading to make sure I can fool people into thinking I designed the armor myself. And that winds up including a lot of nautical terminology, so a dictionary of nautical terms was included, which all sounds really pirate-y. So, your turn, spill."
He didn't meet her eyes. "Okay, so the Director basically forbade me from negotiating with any more villains. But, you know, I've got a good lead and I just want to finish what I started.."
"You're obstinate and contrary," Taylor corrected, "and you're thumbing your nose at her to prove you can."
"I'm right, she's wrong, and everyone knows it," he said, with a rush of heat to his voice. "I know I'm right, she knows I'm right, but she just needs to stamp down any idea that wasn't her idea so she can prove she's got power over us. She's a control freak that wants unquestioned authority over every detail of our lives. And until I kneel and kiss her ring, she's going to keep grinding at me. But this is important, life-and-death important, and I can't wait patiently for an insecure despot to get over her own ego and get out of my way."
Taylor walked in silence for a minute. "So, tell me about Trainwreck."
"The guy has an accomplice, an independent gypsy tow truck driver," Danny started.
"You can't call them gypsies, it's racist," Taylor said.
"Even if the guy is an ethnic Romani?"
"Seriously?"
"Anyway, the accomplice travels to poor neighborhoods, posts a bogus notice that the city is seizing the car, and he drives away with it. Nobody argues against it, and nobody bothers reading up on the laws to find out that it's not legitimate. He's stealing cars and the victims don't even know they're being robbed," Danny said. "And he brings them back to Trainwreck, who turns them into armor plating and servos and stuff like that. So I'm taking a message to the truck driver, for him to pass on to Trainwreck. And then hopefully the tinker replies and I learn what he needs to stop being a villain, and we make those arrangements."
"Good luck," Taylor said. "So that's why you invited me out to lunch."
"No, it's just why I chose this place," he said. "I've been tied up with the Mouse Protector for the past few days, and I haven't had a chance to talk with you since you joined the Wards. What's it like, being Benthic?"
"Well, for one thing Glenn is just as bad as you led me to believe," she said. "My armor is literally built to keep my posture good. Any time I'm not swimming or walking, the joints slide into a locking mechanism that keeps my back straight, shoulders back, chin up. Oh, and the voice modulator makes me more polite. If it hears me call someone sir or ma'am, it starts automatically adding that to the end of my sentences if I don't say it myself from that point on, so it can keep me respectful of my elders even if I forget or don't care. What the shit is that, really?" She stomped her foot in frustration. "And he wanted all the armor panels between my ribs and my hips to be transparent, said I have a nice midriff and it was potentially an asset to the Protectorate. I filed a report for sexual harassment, and he dropped the issue."
Danny stopped. "We have to go back, sorry. I need to kick Glenn Chambers around like a soccer ball."
"Funny," she drawled, tugging his arm to get him walking again. "So, the work itself is actually a lot of fun. I did a few laps around the bay, mostly for some publicity pieces, and I love it. I'm going to start campaigning to keep me out in the water. I can argue that it's to catch smugglers. I can argue that I'm doing research on marine life. It's just really cool down there. Color-corrected night vision, infinite rebreather, pressure-resistant armor with a force field array to assist, seriously it's the best way to explore underwater. And, may I say, I was entirely right about Dauntless's power."
He grinned over at her. "I'm not surprised, but I'm still glad to hear it."
"Not only can he charge his power's energy into items other than his spear, sandals, shield and helmet, but it's more effective if he does," she said, sounding very proud of herself. "I mean, the cumulative effects of focusing his power are really impressive, but if he takes off a few days here and there he can do a lot of good. So I've got a ring with a lightning shock, and in the armor I just fire it off continuously to charge the capacitors that run the armor. It acts like an infinite power source or a never-ending battery, for almost no space at all. It turns out that when you're designing powered armor, one of the most important things is mass and space. Anything you can do to conserve space or weight can be used to build up other systems. And the propulsion system gets a boost from Dauntless's power again, a small chain with a boost like his sandals. Not enough for me to actually fly and get up off the ground, but enough to push against water and increase my speed. Or, if I leave the armor off and move carefully, I can kind of walk on water. Anyway, the other ring gives me a force field. Again, a small one, but better than nothing and I can restore it instantly if it gets knocked down so it's a little protection from every attack. The armor's got some cool on-board weapons, like a rapid-fire containment-foam mini-grenade launcher and a sonic attack. So that's cool."
"And the other Wards?"
"Have all been way too busy to even look at me," she said. She sounded a little disappointed by that. "It's almost finals week, so we're all working our butts off for school. No patrols and no missions this week for us, your team is covering all that stuff. We make it up in the first couple weeks of summer, we go full-time hero while the grownups enjoy summer vacation."
"But school has been okay?" he prompted.
"School's been very okay," she replied, breaking into a new smile. "Thanks."
"If anything else goes wrong, I want to be the first to know," he said. "Even if I can't help, even if I'd just get in the way. Please Taylor, do that for me."
She leaned over to give him half a hug. "Fine, yes, okay. So, have you heard from the Dockworkers recently?"
He chuckled. "I have, yeah. They tell me that there's good work, and that the people I hired are working out well. And that people miss me, and still root for me. And they don't say anything about the other stuff, but it still bothers me. I was doing all of this to try to get the ferry going. That was what my original goal was. I figured this would all be worth it if I got the ferry running. But now I find out that I'm farther from that than ever before, with bigger obstacles than before. The director is shooting down any suggestion I've got that might actually help people in a long-term way. Apparently we, the Protectorate, are extremely indebted and beholden to the establishment of the city. The wealthy, the powerful. The ones that want to stay wealthy and powerful and want everyone else to be poor and desperate so they're easier to exploit."
"Easy," she cautioned.
"I'm taking it easy. So power calls to power, and now that I'm an equal partner in the organization that can move mountains, I'm forbidden to even write letters or emails on the subject. And the Boat Graveyard, and the enforcers on the Boardwalk, and the mayor's crooked real estate deals, and the crappy state of every high school that isn't Arcadia." He sighed, and his shoulders sagged, his chin dipped, and for a second he actually showed the weight that he felt on himself all the time. "This wasn't supposed to be easy, but it was supposed to be possible. I'm hitting too many dead ends, too many roadblocks."
"Let's eat, and discuss this later," she suggested.
Author's note: Canonically Circus was referred to as gender-fluid. This has been reinterpreted slightly for purposes of this story. This is not intended as any sort of slight or disrespect or exclusion of any gender identity.
Also: I am genuinely disappointed that some of the theories coming up in the reviews are better than what I've already got written out for the story. On the other hand, I'm also surprised at how some of the theories are foreshadowing what is going to be happening in another ten-to-twenty chapters. But in the interests of fairness, I won't say which ones are eerily spot on with my outline, and which ones are directions I kind of wish that I'd gone.