Officially being under military arrest was turning out to be surprisingly pleasant, and I wasn't just saying that because I currently had yet to be waterboarded by a pair of burly noncoms under the command of a creepy government spook. Pretty sure that that wasn't going to be happening any time soon in fact, if ever. But it was quickly becoming apparent to me that I was technically under arrest in name only.
In a very large way it had everything to do with the fact that I had effectively signed my life over to the United States military, both figuratively and literally. It had taken the better part of a week for the military JAG lawyers, the PRT, and my Dad and his lawyer to come up with something satisfactory, not that everyone involved was completely happy. The Youth Guard had somehow learned something was going in and tried to get involved, but had the door very firmly slammed shut in their faces under the premise of classified military technology and equipment.
The PRT cadre of the group, a trio of lawyers, the two agents that had originally tried to make a play for me, and finally some assistant director I think, were definitely less than thrilled, but fuck them. They'd tried to argue to have me as a Ward liaison.
Dad reminded them of the lawsuit that he was building against the PRT under the Federal Torte Claims Act in addition to the lawsuit he was filing against the school district governing Winslow High School. They stopped arguing quite so hard.
Of course, all of this had been contingent on me proving that I actually could produce the arsenal that I claimed that I was carrying. Fortunately, that was probably the easiest thing in the world for me to pull off.
Doing so within a heavily-guarded aircraft hangar under the eyes of what felt like must have been half of the Department of Defense was rather more difficult. It seemed like every military bigwig with stars on their uniform wanted to actually see proof of my claims, and the number of soldiers and Airmen stationed at Barnes ANG literally multiplied.
I'll admit to a certain amount of stage fright.
… Okay, I spent ten minutes hyperventilating into a bag. Happy?
Fortunately for the sake of my nerves, my demonstration was done without a lot of needless fanfare. A motherly-seeming Staff Sergeant fussed over my appearance like the world's biggest mother hen for several minutes beforehand, which was kind of funny because she was really, really short. I didn't even know people under five feet were allowed in the military. She bullied my hair into an almost painfully tight bun at the nape of my neck, and even though I was in street clothes instead of any kind of uniform, by the time she was done nitpicking over my appearance I felt a prize mare about to be shown off at some Kentucky gala. She didn't use any makeup on me, for which I was admittedly grateful.
But you cannot imagine how much body glue she used on me to make sure that I didn't have anything remotely close to an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. Seriously, my halter top could have stopped a bullet afterwards.
Technically there were only maybe a dozen high ranking officers present at the most, and what I was pretty sure were a few high-ranking PRT officers or agents or whatever. I think. I hadn't yet learned the eldritch secrets of divining military rank with naught but a glance. However, there were just as many technicians present.
Most of them were military naturally, Air Force of course and clad in ABUs, and there were also a few that I'm pretty sure we're PRT. But what caught my attention was the small group that looked sort of, I don't know, business casual? Out of everyone, they seemed to have the least idea of just why they were there, combined with that slightly nervous energy of people who weren't entirely sure that they even wanted to be there.
I could totally emphasize, because the one person I wished could be there, Dad, wasn't. Couldn't really, especially if this really turned out that I was right about the nature of my powers. I knew I was with absolute certainty of course. I could feel the devices within me, not some projection, not a power fake but an actual device, the plating, the circuitry, the dormant yet immensely lethal potential so close to my thoughts that I could nearly read the serial numb-
"You're up Hebert," a voice abruptly cut into my thoughts, drawing my attention to the Staff Sergeant that had been fussing over me.
"Oh, umm, yes ma'a- I mean, yes Staff Sergeant Murphy," I hastily corrected myself via the radio clipped to the smaller woman's hip as she arched a thin pale blond eyebrow, and inwardly hoped that I wouldn't be paying for that faux pas later, because some noncoms were awfully prickly about being incorrectly addressed and more than a few unwitting or foolish souls had experienced a special kind of suffering that way and why did I know that?
"Then move it Hebert," she barked and I moved it, falling into step with her as she marched me out into the middle of that hangar. Once she had me in place, she left just as quickly, with a quietly whispered, "Good luck, kid."
And then I was alone in the middle of the hangar, barefoot and underneath far too many eyes waiting impatiently. So I threw myself into my power as much as I could, as much to get it over with as to focus on anything other than the anxiety of being so exposed by [twenty-eight potential hostiles] so many people.
That… may have been a mistake, one that I didn't realize until it was too late to do anything other than to restrain whatever I could.
My stance instinctively widened as my wings surged out of my bare back, my engines snapping into place as my wings shifted into their full span with the clicking and screeching of metal against metal. I leaned forward with the transition, not quite hunched over but close to it, and my senses expanded.
But I had pushed the transformation hard, harder than I had before. The alloys and composites that I normally felt sitting underneath my skin instead slid over it. My legs strained my pants but mercifully didn't tear through them as skin gave way to hydraulic pistons wrapped around a titanium-aluminum-yttrium alloy. My feet grew wider and transitioned into semi-proper landing gear, my taloned feet ready to finish shifting into wheels at a moment's notice if an immediate takeoff became necessary.
And my head..
My h-head, my.. I..
…
Autonomous Mode active. Time since prior activation: $& $% ERROR ERROR ERROR
Systems status check: running diagnostics.
Reactor, online; fuel capacity at 47.19%. Warning, fuel reserves insufficient for extended operations. Refuel recommended.
Sensors, online. Warning, sensor suite modifications detected!
External camera 1: online, status normal
External camera 2: online, status normal
External camera 3: offline, not found, Technician Intervention Required!
External camera 4: offline, not found, Technician Intervention Required!
External camera 5: offline, not found, Technician Intervention Required!
Internal camera 1: offline, ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Internal camera 2: offline, ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Internal camera 3: offline, ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Active Radar array: online, status normal
% ^$*%: ERROR ERROR ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Crew condition unknown. Crew [7] life signs undetected.
Querying Pilot/Captain:
…
No response.
Querying Copilot/Weapons Officer:
…
No response.
Querying ECM/Communications Officer:
…
No response.
Communications:
External comms: ERROR ERROR ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Internal comms: ERROR ERROR ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Radio Communication Array: online, ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Environmental analysis: WARNING WARNING WARNING LOCATION UNKNOWN, UNIDENTIFIED PERSONNEL [28] DETECTED, DISTANCE ≤ 100 METERS
IFF NOT RECOGNIZED, ACTIVATING DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS
…
Multiple RFID signals detected, telecommunications network detected
Begin analysis
Analysis complete
IFF UPDATED
Location updated: Barnes Air National Guard Base, Westfield, Massachusetts, United States of America, North America, Ea#%& ERROR
ERROR ERROR ERROR BASE LISTED AS LOST IN 20*&%# # ERROR ERROR ERROR
Errors noted, logged for review
Unidentified personnel [16] redesignated: Allies (security forces [8] aircraft munitions technicians [5] officers [2] allied base commander [1])
Unidentified personnel [1] redesignated: Bastard
Unidentified personnel [5] redesignated: Aircraft Engineers/Technicians
Unidentified personnel [3] redesignated: Adversaries
Unidentified personnel [2] redesignated: Adversaries* (Anomalous neural activity/structures detected!)
Unidentified personnel [1] redesignated: Unknown* (Anomalous neural activity/structures detected!)
Reviewing onboard archives:
…
Inconsistencies detected! Annotating records, inconsistencies noted for crew review & verification
Reviewing crew orders:
…
Preparing for inspection
Weapons, online.
30mm rotary magnetic induction cannon: ERROR
25mm Wing turret 1: online, ammunition 100%
25mm Wing turret 2: online, ammunition 100%
25mm Wing turret 3: ERROR limited functionality, ammunition 39%, Technician Intervention Required!
25mm Wing turret 4: ERROR! Technician Intervention Required!
Drone squadron check:
Recon Flight: ERROR! Units 1-4 off-line! Technician Intervention Required!
Repair Flight: ERROR! Units 5-6 off-line! Technician Intervention Required!
Strike Flight: ERROR! Units 7-12 off-line! Technician Intervention Required!
Bomber Flight: ERROR! Units 13-16 off-line! Technician Intervention Required!
# !&?%# &: ERROR! Unrecognized configuration for Units 17-20! Technician Intervention Required!
Onboard Drone Manufacturing/Maintenance Bay(s) :
Constructor 1: Offline! Mass reservoir at 11% capacity
Constructor 2: $% - - - - - Error! Technician Intervention Required!
Ordnance Bays:
Missile bay 1: online
Missile bay 2: ERROR ERROR ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Bomb bay 1: online
Bomb bay 2: ERROR ERROR ERROR Technician Intervention Required!
Special ordnance bay: BAY ACCESS LOCKED, OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION LIMITED TO O-7 OR HIGHER
For one terrifying moment, Cathryn Harper had thought that she might've gotten herself and everyone currently stationed at or visiting her base killed when the Hebert girl froze eerily in place, then began to change. It wasn't anything like the video she'd reviewed over and over again of how the girl had withdrawn her massive wings into her rail-thin body. Then, the girl had still at the very least looked human.
Right now? Not so much.
In fact, she was getting a very stark reminder that Parahumans could be absolutely goddamn terrifying as hell.
About the only thing that had gone as expected was how Hebert's wings had emerged from her bare back. No… emerged wasn't the right word. Instead, the girl's back opened, but there wasn't blood or muscle or bone underneath or anything that made a person. For that brief instant, there was a… a something there, that actually hurt to look at, like staring at a bright light after a night of hard drinking except the light had structure somehow, but it wasn't light, not really, and it was twisted somehow into something that wasn't the meat and bone of Hebert or the metal of her wings, but for a brief moment, she suddenly recalled with bizarre clarity a sight she'd seen more than ten years ago, an absolutely battle-mangled A-10 Thunderbolt II that had managed a textbook-perfect landing despite having literal chunks missing from the ungainly craft's wings and fuselage.
For just a moment, she saw something very much like that Warthog when she looked at Taylor Hebert.
Then the instant was over, and Harper and more than two-dozen others watched the flying wing form on Hebert's back, and it did in fact look a hell of a lot like something that the design team behind the B-2 Spirit might've cooked up. The five representatives from Northrop Grumman certainly seemed excited as they pointed and quietly chattered amongst themselves. But what she hadn't expected was the way life and emotion utterly vanished from the teen's face. Or how the composite armor skin of her wings crawled across her torso, then her limbs and face.
Hebert's clothes mostly survived the transformation, thankfully, but from the knees down everything was a lost cause, which only served to unnervingly emphasize the thick gleaming metal struts that her lower legs had transformed into. Then her stance shifted in some undefinable way that went straight to Harper's lizard hindbrain and that screamed that death was imminent. But before Harper could give in to the reflexive urge to lunge for cover, Hebert… relaxed, for lack of a better word, and straightened up as much as she could with that massive flying wing.
Then the recessed weapon blisters and armored shutters on both sides of those wings flicked open to reveal an arsenal that half of her bomber pilots would've kicked a puppy to have access to. It made the odd signs of battle-damage all the more strangely obvious, and all the stranger because from all reports, Hebert hadn't even considered engaging in combat since her trigger and had done her absolute best to avoid it.
A lot of the composite plating that had just crawled over her body replacing skin didn't match. It was especially obvious for most of her right wing, just past the engine housing. The twin-barreled dorsal turret on Hebert's right wing looked like it'd taken a mauling that it still hadn't been fully repaired from, and the ventral turret on that same wing hadn't emerged at all. Likewise, the now-exposed ordnance bays on her right wing were battered and half-ruined cavities compared to the left. It was as if someone had taken a battle-damaged plane that was only repaired just enough to be flight capable, then twisted it somehow to fit into a skinny teenage girl's body.
An insistent buzzing from the phone her pocket sent an immediate stab of annoyance through her. She started to yank it out to silence it, only to pause halfway through the motion when Hebert's head, and only her head, had turned at the exact same time, and the odd not-cameras her eyes had begun were staring unmistakably in Harper's direction.
Her phone buzzed again, and she risked a glance at it.
"... the hell?" she quietly swore as gibberish scrolled across the screen of her phone almost too fast to read.
Then the display blanked, and displayed something it definitely had never been designed to do.
{Brigadier General Harper, Cathryn Amanda - Non-military personnel present on site within 100 meters of aircraft. O-7 authorization or higher required for inspection of special armament. Y/N?}
Harper blinked. Then she blinked again, just for good measure.
"... This better not be a joke Hebert." Harper steadfastly ignored the glances her sudden comment had drawn.
{28 individuals present. 16 are non-military personnel. 03 individuals present with anomalous brain structure and activity. O-7 authorization required to disseminate classified information. Y/N?}
Harper's blood suddenly ran cold, since she knew damn well that including her there should only be twenty-seven people currently in the hangar for Hebert's little demonstration. Four military officers counting including herself, Lt Col Rourke, that pain in the ass Hatheway, and a 'representative' of the DOD as well as eight Airmen on guard duty, with the addition of Five technicians to verify Hebert's claims about her possibly-nuclear weaponry. Three PRT agents and two of their pet Protectorate heroes, one being a flyer that was supposedly there just in case Hebert required restraining, and the other being one of their Thinkers. And finally, the five Northrop Grumman suits.
She very carefully did not glance towards the PRT contingent as she experimentally tapped on the keys of her phone.
{only 27 ppl allowed here not counting u. U sure?}
Hebert's response was to pivot smoothly away from her audience and shift into that threatening half-crouch, and three of those revealed double-barreled turrets swiveled to focus on a corner of the hangar, complete with the unmistakable racket of a heavy-duty feed system loading ammunition into several firing chambers at once, and for a moment Harper thought that the girl, if Hebert even still was a girl at the moment, was about to drastically redecorate a portion of her airbase and give everyone present significant hearing damage, and the Protectorate thug present surged upright from his seat and very nearly lunged at Hebert.
"Shit I surrender! Shit Jesus fuck man don't kill me!"
The previously hidden cape spy already had his hands raised as everyone present suddenly became aware of his presence, clearly having come to the conclusion that he likely wouldn't be able to evade the one person that had known exactly where he was and in fact was dangerously close to being killed in a fashion that would require a mop, bucket and a shovel to clean up whatever was left of him.
The PRT probably would've hosed him down in that foam they loved so much.
Harper's Airmen followed procedure when confronting an unknown Parahuman in a restricted area, which resulted in said Parahuman only receiving a buttstroke to the stomach courtesy of an M-16 that had him doubling over, falling to his knees, and noisily puking behind his full face mask. In the time it took him to finish dry-heaving, he had an Airman's pistol firmly pressed against the back of his head while another handcuffed him, with no less than two more rifles aimed steadily at his torso. Then he was walked to the hangar doors and handed over to the Airmen just outside. Offhand, Harper thought that the Parahuman spy was rather fortunate.
If it hadn't been for the PRT and Protectorate personnel present, he likely would have just been shot instead. Pity that now she was going to have to deal with the PRT pushing to have whoever that was surrendered to their custody, but even that could perhaps prove to be beneficial.
A buzz drew Harper's attention back to her phone as Hebert straightened up from her half-crouch.
{O-7 authorization required to continue inspection. Y/N?}
Oh. Right. That. Harper felt a hint of distaste at indulging in any sort of theatrics after the revelation of the would-be spy in their midst, to say nothing of how the hell someone had even known that there was something or someone at Barnes worth spying on. Then she had to resist the urge to roll her eyes, because even in the privacy of her own thoughts, who the hell was she trying to fool? It was almost certainly a leak on the PRT's end of things.
"Get on with it Hebert," she snapped at the still eerily-emotionless teen.
Hebert's response was to reach for the left side of her torso, which... opened. It made Harper's eyes and head hurt to watch. And then it was over and laying on the hangar floor in front of Hebert was a weapon damn nearly twice as long as the girl was tall, one that couldn't have possibly fit inside of her body but it had. Somehow.
As Harper's mouth went dry, she couldn't help but think that for a nuclear weapon, it looked rather small actually despite its very, very strong resemblance to some of the nastier ordnance sometimes carried by bombers. It looked much like an oddly small cruise missile, but visually its profile also uncomfortably reminded her of a massive ordnance penetrator. And while Harper didn't have first-hand experience with the projections that some Parahumans could make, this thing look like it had been assembled and not just poofed into existence via Parahuman bullshit, with old scuff marks from being heavily handled. There were even serial numbers and maintenance stickers.
Oh, and the decal stenciled across the side marking it as property of the 'UASSF' was also rather concerning. Harper couldn't decide what was worse, watching her technicians successfully and partially disassemble the weapon enough to examine the warhead within, or the fact that Hebert produced five more of the goddamn things. It'd take time to determine just what kind of yield the weapon being examined had, but when the Geiger counter that one of her technicians was holding began noisily clicking and crackling the moment it was brought within almost touching distance of the weapon's exposed warhead, she concluded that at least one question concerning Taylor Hebert had just been answered. Of course the damn kid had to give Harper a couple dozen new questions to make up for it.
Harper made a note to have a good, strong drink and one of her cigars later. But first, she had to make sure that she hadn't just exposed everyone in the hangar to a lethal radiation hazard.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed, mouth achingly dry and my head absolutely pounding. I felt... icky. Achy. And absolutely exhausted. What the hell had happened? And why wasn't I in the hangar? Did.. Oh God did I embarrass myself by fainting or something?
As I dragged myself out of bed, I noticed that I was wearing a tank top and a pair of baggy gray sweats with 'AIR FORCE' stenciled down the side, but my first priority was gulping down nearly half of the pitcher of water that had been left beside my bed. And I'm not exaggerating, I ignored the glass, brought the entire thing to my lips, and chugged fully half of that clear crystal goodness before my thirst was sated.
Then I started to shuffle towards what I hoped was a bathroom, only to freeze at the sight of myself in a full-length mirror attached to a nearby wall.
Covering my left shoulder and parts of my chest, neck, and good part of my left arm was a goddamn tattoo. Of roses.
What in the actual fuck happened?!