I'm not sure what I expected when it came to getting arrested for the first time in my life. I guess I was expecting to be sitting in an interrogation room for a few hours all by myself, handcuffed to a table with one of those big wall-to-wall one-way mirrors so people could watch me sweat underneath too-bright and too-hot lights with an old-fashioned clock on the wall that let me know just how much time was passing.
Movies and TV have lied terribly to me, because no such thing happened. Maybe it was because I was at an Air Force base instead of a police station that made a difference. I still felt cheated a little bit. Also I was concerned about the state of my hair, because I'm pretty certain that after all of that wild flying it was an absolute mess. Not that I could do much given the handcuffs that were still latched around my wrists, now in front of me instead of behind me but still on my wrists all the same.
Instead of an intimidating interrogation room I was in what I was pretty sure was just a conference room, given the projector hanging from the ceiling, two flat screen TVs mounted side-by-side one wall and a snack table. The room stank of coffee, courtesy of an old coffee maker sitting at one end of the snack table. And I wasn't exactly alone either.
Two MPs armed with rifles stood at the door, with a third Airman, an officer I think, sitting down across from me with his nose in a book. An obscenely vulgar book with a painfully lurid depiction of a very, very underdressed and very voluptuous woman.
He giggled a lot while reading it.
Even worse, he was the same bastard that had outflown me.
At a glance, I was pretty sure that he was younger than Dad, by maybe ten years I wanted to say, possibly more. It made his gray hair stand out a lot despite his youth. Grudgingly, I had to admit that despite going gray early he wasn't bad-looking despite a scar on his face that skipped down over his left eye to score the top of his cheek.
It was kind of hard to take him seriously though, given his quiet giggling as he made his enjoyment of his sleezy porn novel embarrassingly obvious. And judging by the thinly-veiled annoyance and disgust on the faces of the two MPs guarding me, who happened to both be women, they found his behavior about as amusing as I did.
Bastard.
Unfortunately for me, he had volunteered himself to sit with me while my Dad was being flown down from Brockton Bay, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to that conversation. Or any conversation at all, since it reminded me of.. Well..
A particularly loud giggle drew my attention from the downward spiral my thoughts had nearly slid into, instead replacing them with annoyance. I almost wish that the Bastard was still watching the Simpsons on the conference room TV despite the fact that he had talked almost nonstop the entire episode.
He then had spent the past twenty minutes being an absolutely shameless pervert, giggling at that disgusting book of his.
"Oh Jessica, you dirty, naughty girl~!"
Or commenting about whatever passage grabbed his attention.
Eww.
Eww eww eww eww eww. I finally turned to glower at him, then pointedly glanced at the handheld radio that sat on the table between us.
"Can you please turn the TV back on?" My voice wasn't as clear as I would've liked, but despite some static my voice was loud and easily understandable as long as I didn't talk too fast and took care to carefully enunciate, and paradoxically made sure that I was whispering as quietly as possible. But that would swiftly get worse, the closer that radio was brought to me. It was power bullshit, but I'd discovered earlier while hesitantly and awkwardly trying to communicate that any radio receiver closer than just outside of arm's reach, I tended to overload. It only took three handheld radios to realize that.
I tried to look on the bright side, that I'd be able to talk to Dad again, and not on the little fact that he might be getting a bill for three handheld radios when he finally arrived.
Bastard glanced up at me from over his book and quietly chuckled.
"She finally speaks," he said jovially, then lowered his eyes back to his book as he flipped a page. "Dunno why I should though. You didn't seem that interested earlier in the Simpsons."
"I changed my mind," I answered with a roll of my eyes.
"Hmmm. Well, unfortunately, you'd be the only one watching and I don't want to waste electricity. Save the environment and all that. You understand," he answered flippantly without even bothering to look up at me from his book.
"... The TV was already on when we came into this room an hour ago."
"Oh, right after we took off to chase you down, I radioed back here and passed on an order for someone to come in here and turn on the TV for me so I wouldn't have to waste time picking up the remote and doing it myself. Your flying is absolute shit so I knew it wouldn't take long to catch you. And by the way, that hiding in the clouds crap only works in video games. Bad video games."
For a moment, I could only stare at him.
"... You are such a basta-!"
That was when the door opened, and several people strode into the room, the one leading being a woman clad in an Airman Battle Uniform, ABUs just like Bastard and the two MPs at the door save for the silver stars on her collar. Bastard's smut novel disappeared so damn fast it could've been a Stranger power as he rapidly and smoothly rose to his feet to snap off a picture-perfect salute. I guess it took being a very high-ranking officer to get him to behave.
"At ease," she said and almost immediately Bastard slouched and his hand started to creep towards a bulging pocket at his thigh when she added, "Captain Hatheway, if you even think about getting out that smut of yours, I'm ordering that book burned right in front of you and I'll have your book collection confiscated for a month."
Bastard, or I guess I should call him Hatheway, froze on the spot, then lowered his hand looking like she just threatened to shoot his puppy.
I liked her already.
Behind her was a Protectorate cape I didn't recognize, followed by two people in suits. But the only person that I paid attention to was the man impatiently following them.
Dad.
When he finally saw me, he didn't quite shove the two suits out of his way. That would imply that he still registered them in that particular moment as people. Not that I was much better given how I practically knocked over my chair jumping to my feet, and then Dad was doing his best to crush me in the biggest hug that he could and I was hugging him just as hard.
"Just so you know," Hatheway drawled, "if you'd given us a chance, I was gonna give you the key to those handcuffs." The higher-ranked officer quietly sighed and gave him a thinly-veiled glare that he cheerfully ignored.
I blinked.
Dad blinked, and looked as if he couldn't decide if he wanted to be upset about me being in handcuffs to wondering about said handcuffs. I wondered about said handcuffs too for that matter, and when I pulled back, I found myself staring dumbly down at my wrists. My handcuffs had been matte black and joined with a hinge rather than a chain. Said hinge had sheared like it was made out of putty.
Ooops.
We really didn't have a moment to talk, or the privacy to do so. Dad made do by pulling me into a corner of the room. One of the two PRT agents tried to approach, and Dad shot him a look of such withering, contemptuous disdain that the man paused, then took a very deliberate step back. Then he turned to me, and his face melted into something like weary relief and concern and exasperation with anger and annoyance around the edges. He took a deep breath, then fished a painfully familiar-looking post-it note out of his shirt pocket.
"'Gone flying Dad, be back soon, love Taylor. So, when you wrote 'soon' here," he said, pointing a calloused finger at my sloppy handwriting, "did you mean later today after getting yourself arrested by the Air National Guard? Or was the plan to get home before half the government started calling the house?"
I cringed at his snarky sarcasm and wished that the radio was closer, not that Dad knew about me and radios yet or that I even had the words to begin explaining just what was going on in my head that sparked my impromptu jaunt out of Brockton Bay, beyond the growing homicidal urges involving exercising my new powers on the three girls that caused me to get them.
So I sort of grimaced and shrugged and made vague gestures with my hands before settling in one of those universal 'hell if I know' gestures that most people got regardless of what language they used.
"Little Owl, I'm gonna need a little bit more than that before we sit down with the base commander and two PRT officers," he replied with an arched eyebrow.
I winced again. Thought about it. Recalled a little more about what had been going through my head. And my mouth set into a hard line when I recalled the probably dumb idea I'd had before leaving Dad that note and going on a flight.
Walking to the Barnes' house in the middle of the night wasn't exactly the smartest thing. Planning on threatening her into leaving me alone with my new powers… yeah, admitting that wasn't going to look good, especially given what I saw through her bedroom window with my vastly improved vision.
Something hot and murderous and violently hatefully angry coiled in my belly and pounded in my ears, and it took Dad firmly shaking my shoulder to bring me out of it. I.. guess that I must've been doing something because everyone in the conference room, and I mean everyone, was staring at me with wary caution.
Ooops.
Brigadier General Cathryn Harper was the current commanding officer of Barnes Air National Guard Base, which made her the Woman In Charge. She was shorter than me by a head, not that it matters much with everyone seated around the conference table, with pale blond hair pulled into a painfully tight-looking bun and had a stocky, solid-seeming build. That might've been the ABUs, but I got the sense that she was a woman that took her fitness very, very seriously. The very first thing she did, after giving Hatheway a Look that easily translated to 'shut the hell up or else' was lay down the law, and Hatheway, bastard he may have been, at the very least had the decency to attempt to treat the situation with the seriousness it deserved.
"First things first," she firmly stated as she directed her gaze towards the two PRT agents and their Protectorate escort. "I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone in this room that the PRT and Protectorate assets present are only because I have decided to permit it."
The cape, a helmeted man in green and silver, cracked a grin at that and shrugged. The PRT agents were less amused.
"With all due respect General Harper, all Parahuman activities and crimes are strictly underneath the purview of the PRT," he stated, not quite daring to scowl. "That you even have this young lady in custody and haven't surrendered her to us is already well within our rights to protest."
"Miss Hebert here has, according to my reports from just this morning, recklessly endangered no less than three civilian flights, violated a no-fly zone, failed to log a flight path with the FAA, failed to follow the orders of an on-duty air traffic controller," as General Harper continued on, Dad slowly turned to stare at me, "failed to follow the orders of a military officer, attempted to evade military pursuit, and was flying without a pilot's license. She's also damaged three hand radios, the comm unit of a HMMWV, and most recently destroyed a pair of handcuffs."
Dad raised an eyebrow and glanced at me. I felt my cheeks grow hot and broke eye contact, though not before he gave me a tiny smile that lifted my spirits a little.
"First of all General Harper, you have my sincerest and very much heartfelt thanks for having Taylor brought in as safely as possible. Being from Brockton Bay, I understand better than most the possible risks when it comes to having Parahumans sniffing around, especially when you don't know if they're safe to be around." The General glanced at my Dad and gave him a very slight nod.
"Second," Dad continued, "I was under the impression that at times an allowance might be made for a new Parahuman's behavior, particularly if no lasting harm or injuries were involved."
That was when one of the two PRT agents cut into the conversation.
"I fail to see why this remains a military matter," he argued. "By law, the young lady here should be immediately surrendered into PRT custody. The Air National Guard has no jurisdiction in this matter."
"This is a military matter because Miss Hebert at the time presented herself as a foreign aircraft with a wingspan of forty-three feet, almost no radar return and was cruising at Mach 2 at an altitude of thirty-three thousand feet," the General calmly retorted. "Military assistance was requested by the PRT ENE division because I was led to believe that the Protectorate had no assets currently available to or capable of pursuing Miss Hebert here after she was tracked departing from Brockton Bay at 3:19 am this morning."
Eyes glanced towards the cape in green and silver, who immediately snorted and raised his hands defensively. "Hey, don't look at me, my boss Legend is the guy you get if you want some kind of super flyer. I might be a mover but the only way I fly that high is by coach, and definitely nothing close to that fast." The argumentative PRT agent gave him an annoyed look, but the other smoothly slid into the conversation.
"Be that as it may General, the laws remain quite clear, even when it comes to tinker tech vehicles," she said with the sort of slickness in her voice that I usually associate with TV lawyers. Or Emma's dad. Or Emma. The radio sitting on the table let out an ear-piercing squeal that wasn't intentional at all, cutting off Dad before he could inject himself back into the conversation.
"I'm not a tinker," I said with more than a little growing irritation that I was being talked about rather than talked to. It was enough to make my voice come out louder and kind of distorted through the little walkie talkie still sitting in the middle of the table, marred by lots of hisses and pops and sharp crackling. I guess it didn't sound nice, since most everyone winces or flinched at the sound of my voice, though Dad had a startled look on his face, then he started to look a little hopeful that I was, you know, talking, even though I really, really wasn't comfortable with talking even in this way. Still, I took a careful breath and focused on whispering, and when my voice came out of the handheld radio again it was clearer and quieter, with less distortion. "For that matter, before you keep treating me like a milk-bone between two hungry dogs, I should just tell you now that I can't, shouldn't be a cape."
The PRT agents didn't seem to like that but before they could get started, the Protectorate cape leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table with a crooked grin.
"You wouldn't be the first new Parahuman to have doubts about whether or not they wanna be a hero. Didn't think too much of it either when I first got my powers. But you should still learn what you're capable of, and the Wards program really is the best and safest option for training in how and more importantly when to use your new abilities, safest for you and safest for everyone else around you even if you later decide that this life isn't for you. At the very least, it offers power testing to figure out what exactly your powers are. What we instinctively know we can do and what we're actually capable of aren't usually crystal clear."
He… He had a point there. There were still things about my power that were.. let's say fuzzy. And not fuzzy like an old sweater or a kitten, more fuzzy like an old pair of glasses or a really, really dirty window. Then I considered what I was absolutely certain about my powers and felt my lips curl into a grimace.
"... Testing my powers anywhere outside of a dedicated targeting range is probably a really, really, really bad idea."
"You wouldn't be the first Parahuman with unusually destructive applications to the powers, but our facilities are uniquely equipped for-" one of the two PRT agents started to say, and yeah, I realized that I should probably clear up a few misconceptions and quickly. So I did.
"I mean the kind of targeting range meant for bombing runs or artillery barrages," I said to cut him off. "Unless you want me to bring down an entire building or three." Everyone stared at me with gazes ranging from annoyance to curiosity, and I felt my cheeks grow hot from embarrassment but forced myself to spit it out already.
"With my wings out I have four recessed turrets dedicated for anti-aircraft combat if I'm going subsonic, I think, and maybe for strafing land vehicles too. I haven't tried to fire them. Was afraid of what might happen to whatever I was aiming at." Hatheway's eyebrows rose, though his expression remained one of cool near-disinterest, the bastard. The Protectorate cape looked a little confused and started to open his mouth but I kept going.
"Bays between my engines and my fusel- my uhh, body, hold a mix of air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles, bombs, and… ummm… whatI'mprettysureareclustermunitions." I tried not to flinch at the way General Harper suddenly seemed to sit up even straighter somehow and became even more serious-looking. One of the PRT agents looked a little lost, but the other clearly realized the significance of what I just said, judging from his slightly ill expression. I wasn't exactly a military nut, but I'd done a little reading before and after I'd gotten out of the hospital, and as it turns out, cluster bombs are one of those things that are kind of heavily frowned upon.
By international law.
"I think I've also got some kind of remote weapon system in the bays between my engines and my wingtips," I thoughtfully added. Both of General Harper's eyebrows rose and Hatheway started to look a little incredulous and maybe kind of jealous, which I totally wasn't smugly enjoying deep down inside. Honest. "Feels like they're for fighting in the air? But most important is my eyesight. Even when I was over thirty thousand feet in the air, I could see the ground well enough to read and follow road signs." Maybe that wasn't important to them. But to me? Someone who'd grown up all but blind without their glasses? It was incredible. Plus it also let me effortlessly pinpoint targets to annihilate from the air but I tried not to dwell on that.
That's when I looked at the two PRT agents. "There's some more stuff that I'm really trying hard not to think about, but my point is, I can't be some kind of hero cape, not with that kind of casual firepower. I'd do absurd damage the moment I tried to use my powers in a fight. In fact, the entire reason I even ended up flying along the coast was because I snuck out last night to… to scare one of the girls who… I-I wanted to scare her into leaving me alone." My voice grew harsh over the radio again. "But when I looked up into her bedroom window, one of my other bullies was with her. And she was putting on a costume."
Everyone understood the implications of that statement.
"I nearly dropped a one thousand, two hundred kiloton warhead on that house right then and there, and it took every inch of self control I had to do something else, anything else. So if you think that I want anything to do with the organization that's backing one of the girls that almost killed me, you are out of your fucking minds." At some point, I had risen to my feet and was glaring at them, and a part of me was suddenly and intimately aware of them [male 1.87 meters tall, 77 kg mass, heartrate 114 bpm, Beretta M9A1 17+1 9x19mm rounds, 34 additional rounds - female 1.72 meters, 63 kg mass, heartrate 109 bpm, Sig Sauer P226 18 9x22mm rounds, 34 additional rounds] and how anxious they both suddenly were, the man moreso than the woman.
"So, how many of those nuclear weapons are you carrying?" Hatheway asked, which suddenly had me blinking in surprise. "Because you didn't say. Is it two? I'm betting two. Also, did you know that when you get really upset, your eyes glow red and look like old-school bombsights? Because that happens too."
Bastard.
And then I realized that I'd revealed something in my arsenal that I really hadn't wanted to yet. Or ever really.
Ooops.
Author's Note - Yes, Captain Kevin Hatheway is a Hatake Kakashi expy and I'm not even sorry. Wasn't intentional, but when I started writing the smug sarcastic bastard more and more Kakashi just crept in there and I figured, fuck it. No, he doesn't have powers. He's just a cocky arrogant bastard. Like most pilots, really. Not 100% satisfied, but I'm forcing myself to stop nit-picking at this chapter. For now.