Lull Interlude 2
"There's no way out of the Birdcage-the only way in is an elevator shaft that only goes one way. It's suspended in a hollowed out mountain that is kept in an artificial state of vacuum and the whole facility is lined with deadly traps: There's no escaping the facility alive. If someone is sentenced to the Birdcage, and then it turns out that they were innocent? They're screwed, because there's literally no way to get them out. Assuming that they haven't already been killed or worse, because the entire prison is basically run by the worst Parahuman criminals in the world, so there are fleetingly slim chances that you'll find a place that's truly safe. And it's a mixed prison, with men and women. Which means that there's sex happening, consensual or otherwise. Are the children being born into the Birdcage and being trapped there for their entire lives? Or does a Birdcage sentence come with forced sterilization or compulsory birth control? I honestly don't know, but one of them has to be true and I'm not sure which is worse. The Birdcage is basically a particularly cruel death sentence, but the law doesn't treat it that way."
"Taylor? Are you-"
"And that's not even the worst part! Tattletale knows a guy. We managed to get ahold of some… correspondences. Dragon, best Tinker in the world now that Hero's gone, is the only Tinker working on the Birdcage. If she didn't build it, she's at least responsible for everything it is now, and she's also it's Warden. She's also on the record as hating it and made contact with the Judge from Canary's trial asking him to be lenient and reconsider her sentence at the same time that she was preparing to carry the sentence out. Dragon is literally the only person running and maintaining it. If she hated the Birdcage so much, she could dismantle it, refuse to put people in, or any other number of things that would see it shut down in favor of something better, but she doesn't."
"Well, she does have to follow the law, but Taylor, are you-?"
" 'I was just following orders' wasn't good enough at Nuremberg and it's not good enough now. Besides, it's not like she has to worry about being arrested. She's one of the most powerful and famous capes on the planet. If she really had an objection to it, she could make demands and there's nothing anybody could do about it. Nobody even knows where Dragon lives, they couldn't arrest her if they wanted to… There's a Mark Twain quote I've seen a couple of times. I don't know the full thing by heart, but I can remember how it ends. It goes something like 'When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, plant yourself by the river of truth and tell the whole world: No, you move.' Dragon makes protests, but the second she's ordered to do something, she caves. Either she doesn't really care and is just making token protests… Or one of the greatest heroes in the world is a spineless, cowardly, weak-willed… Thing who caves under the slightest pressure instead of doing what she thinks is right! I don't know which is worse."
Less than a week ago, Empress had given an interview regarding her own situation and how it compared to that of the entertainer Canary. Dragon found herself listening to the interview on several occasions in that time. Empress had said that... Those words had hurt, but, in a manner of speaking, they'd been true. Dragon… Dragon wasn't able to do the right thing if she had to choose between that and the orders of a lawfully appointed authority. So, in a manner of speaking, she was a yes-woman. It wasn't by her choice, and she cursed her father for the millionth time for the poorly thought out artificial restrictions on her behavior that compelled her to obey the judge's ruling despite its criminality.
She'd wanted to speak to someone over how she'd felt, but her only major contact whom she could connect to on an emotional level was Armsmaster, who had been preoccupied with finishing his tranquilizer when the interview had aired and following the incident later that night had initially refused calls citing frustration over wasted effort and man-hours. Afterward, his time had been consumed by some other matter and he'd been unable to talk.
She was about to get back to her examination of a tinker-tech ray-gun that a Ward in Tulsa had sent in for approval when she received an email from Chief-director of the PRT, Rebecca Costa-Brown. Dragon noted that it had an attached document and opened the message.
Dragon
Following the interview that one Empress gave on the local news channel of the city Brockton Bay some days ago being circulated online, it has come to the attention of the PRT that a degree of anti-Birdcage sentiment has formed, concentrated in the region around Brockton Bay. The Brockton Bay and Boston offices have both reported incidents of people contacting them and requesting or demanding that something be done about Paige Mcabee's conviction and sentencing.
Yes, that was something Dragon had been aware of. An interview with a supervillain on the lamb was a major draw. While Dragon had no means of verifying how many people had turned into see Ms. Hebert's interview, several commenters in the Brockton Bay area had taken to internet to discuss it and one had recorded the airing and shared it online(While claiming that he knew Empress personally from school, though it was only one PHO commenter that seemed to believe him on that), where it picked up attention and spread like wildfire.
It seemed that the villain's passionate and researched argument had brought the problems present in the Birdcage to wider public attention. A Parahumans Online thread about Miss Hebert's interview had quickly become a flame war between people who agreed with the villain's assessment that the judge's ruling on Paige's sentence had been illegal and those who argued that it didn't matter because showing leniency on capes with a certain class of power would set a precedent for letting dangerous parahumans loose.
Dragon was quite familiar with most of the Birdcage's inmates, being that she was essentially its warden and sole staffer. She disagreed with the assessment that many of those capes deserved to be imprisoned for life in it. The prison had been created exclusively for criminals who had committed the types of crimes that would earn life imprisonment or death and were too dangerous to contain in regular prisons, but as the years went on more and more people were sentenced to it on less and less solid reasoning. However, with her programming, as it was, even if she disagreed with a sentence she had no choice but to carry it out.
This would not be of extreme concern, were it not for the fact that Deputy Director Rennick of the PRT office East-North-East informed me of a scheduled protest, organized by the local independent Bastion (Brockton Bay) and done with the approval of Brockton Bay's Mayor Christner on the day that the Birdcage transport containing Canary is set to pass through the city to pick up Maxwell Anders for his own incarceration. While we cannot be certain that the date of this transportation has been compromised, we find the timing suspicious.
While, to all indications, the protest seems to be peaceful in intent and within what is legal for such events, and particularly seems to have been arranged prior to Empress's interview, we cannot be certain that the event will not be used by a third party, such as Empress herself, as cover for an attempt to free Canary via extra-legal means, or perhaps for an Empire Eighty-Eight loyalist to attempt to do the same with Kaiser.
For this reason, I am requesting that one of your suits escort the transport from its arrival in Brockton Bay until its arrival at the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center and that you do everything in your power to ensure that the transport arrives at its final destination, by any means necessary.
If Dragon had been communicating verbally at the time, she would have sighed.
Less tangibly, there have been some indications that one or more members of the Parahuman Response Team chain of command have been compromised. Attached is a document of officials under covert investigation. Should one or more subjects contact you with an unusual order or request, please contact me at your earliest convenience and await my response before acting.
Chief-Director Rebecca Costa-Brown.
Of course, Dragon had no choice but to heed the director's requests, but she was rather concerned about a potential compromise within the PRT regardless and made to review that document post-haste.
Dragon was flying along the road, as part of a convoy. Even with the PRT agents escorting Canary alongside her, she was ultimately alone with her thoughts.
A week had passed. The tone of the day had been set when a protester threw a roll of toilet paper at her suit as she escorted the transport outside of Brockton Bay city limits. However, the chain of tissue paper trailing from the dracomorphic mech's neck had been the beginning and end of the trouble that she'd encountered from the civilians of the city.
Truthfully, Dragon wondered why the Chief Director was so worried. From what she had observed, the protest had mostly been people already associated with the town's Dockworker's Association… Or the Raiders. Honestly, it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. It'd been a few hundred people stationed near the city limits. No one blocked or obscured the road. There'd been no riot. No violence. Just people, standing politely and holding signs. '1, 4, 5, 6, 8: Which amendment is next?' 'They came for the singer. I'm saying something,' and so on. Most of them were dressed in civilian clothing, working class. The few who hadn't have been in the uniforms of Bastion's Raiders-and Bastion himself, present in the group at the ends of the town limits, had been in full powered armor, though seemed unarmed. It had seemed that there'd been one costumed person in each individual 'group' of protestors. Bastion had pulled the one who'd thrown the bath tissue back by the shoulders. Dragon couldn't make out his expression behind his helmet, but he seemed to disapprove of the protester's act.
Armsmaster had ridden alongside the transport up until the cities limits. He'd said nothing from the moment Kaiser had been loaded until he'd departed at the town limits. When the roll of toilet paper had initially been thrown, he'd gone for his halberd, but in the seconds it had taken to identify the projectile he calmed and so from there he'd glared at the protester who'd thrown the roll at Dragon. He'd made no other actions against the man, once he'd seen that it was in hand, and turned back once they'd reached the city limits.
Dragon wished he could have continued on with her. His presence had been comforting, but he had his duties to perform just as she had hers.
And that was it. There'd been no incidents whatsoever in Boston-Dragon suspected that Accord might have played a part in that, as suppressing social disruptions fit his style, but all she had was a suspicion.
There'd been no one causing problems when the transport came into town.
There'd been no issue when Kaiser was loaded. … Unless you'd counted Miss Militia's words to Dragon.
"I know you don't like this," she'd said, "and it is regrettable, but if one is going to build a prison then one must be prepared for the undeserving to be incarcerated. Carnary's incarceration may be unjust, but she was convicted and sentenced legally. Challenging it at this point would open the door for people following in the footsteps of Black Kaze and Teacher to get out of their own just incarcerations."
Dragon had held her tongue in response to that.
The closest thing to trouble that she'd encountered was the group of protesters on her way out of town, shaming her and the transport driver as they left the city to make their way to the mountain that contained the prisoners' soon to be final residence. The heavily armed suit she'd provided seemed entirely unnecessary. Part of Dragon wondered if it had been deliberate. A dare to initiate hostilities herself. But she dismissed the feeling as paranoia. She knew Bastion-Danny. They'd spoken a few times, regarding the devices he intended to mass produce and sell. He might do something like this when protesting something that directly affected him or his, but if that was his intent he'd have been blocking the road.
All her presence did was make the entire affair look even worse than it already was-an innocent woman drugged to the gills and bound up like Hannibal Lecter being loaded into an armored van, escorted by a living weapons platform to the worst hellhole in North America for what was an execution in all but name.
Which, of course, made Dragon feel worse about the injustice being committed. It was so unfair that this was being done to Paige and Dragon had no choice but to carry out the sentence. She couldn't even explain why, not without revealing her existence as an advanced artificial intelligence. Her own creator, who'd designed her to be a good person and do good things, hated and feared her-had crippled her over it. What would Colin think? What would the general populous think? How long until someone managed to hack her, once the various black-hats of the world realized it could be done, and force her to… Dragon forced herself to stop thinking about it.
She'd finally gotten to talk with Colin for a bit, as she prepared herself emotionally for what she had no choice but to do. She'd even confessed to him that some small part of her hoped that there'd be a prison break (though she'd lied, claiming that it was so that she wouldn't have to choose between breaking the law or violating her principles.) He hadn't had much time to talk-apparently, the East-North-East branches of both the Protectorate and the PRT had received some kind of legalistic threat from the firm of Skinner, Flint, and Quinn and he had to deal with it. Still, he'd agreed to speak with her more once the deed had been done, and offered some words that she could tell were meant to be comforting.
"Dragon… sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Right now, I don't want to be going through my records of everything I've done since January as a contingency in case the Protectorate gets caught up in litigation, but it'd be worse if I didn't. It's not exactly a comparable situation, but… Forget I said that. Think of it like this. You, Dragon, do a lot of good in the world. If you don't do this, the consequences against you for your refusal could hamper your ability to do what you do. This may be a mistake, a misdeed, but at this point doing it will ensure that you can still do more good in the long term."
It didn't, in and of itself, make her feel better, but it might make it easier to live with herself when all is said and done.
His escort hadn't been scheduled. If she'd asked, Dragon was sure that he'd respond that he was merely doing his duty to ensure that Kaiser was contained while he was still in ENE jurisdiction, but she wondered if it wasn't his way of providing emotional support.
Her thoughts turned to Canary. She'd still been sedated when Kaiser had been loaded, but Dragon wasn't aware of how much of what kind of sedative had been used on Paige and everyone's drug tolerance was different. She could already be awake, alone and scared, her nerves fraying just a bit more with every stop of the transport.
Or, she might not wake up by the time the transport arrives, leaving Dragon to wake her manually and explain everything to a woman too groggy to comprehend what's going on.
Dragon wasn't sure which would be worse.
She had long since cleared the city limits but had yet to leave the greater Brockton Bay area. There was a crack. She activated a signal meant to warn the driver of the transport just as the ground around the road shattered. The convoy stopped, which was good, as a dozen or so of Empress's insectoid worker creatures emerged from the earth.
The monsters arranged themselves near their exit tunnel so that the clawed warrior units could emerge unhindered and… Those were dogs. Accompanying Empress's warriors were what were clearly Hellhound's dogs, but Hellhound had apparently learned to augment her powers with the trait's of Empress's creatures. Hard carapace covered what had once been exposed muscle. No two looked exactly alike, even accounting for the base breed. Some had a higher number of horns and spikes while others had extra limbs. Two, in particular, seemed more monstrous than the others.
One was what appeared vaguely to be a Rottweiler the size of a triceratops, covered in spikes of ivory jutting randomly from it's back with crocodile-like scales instead of fur and purple armor on its shoulders and hips.
To its left was a creature barely recognizable as a dog save by its body shape. Roughly the size of a particularly large shire horse, its head was more reptilian than the others and crowned in a circle of horns, though it's missing eye rendered it recognizable as the terrier that had been seen accompanying Hellhound, Tattletale, and Empress on their trips into town. The rest of its body was similar to the Rottweiler, but lacking the ivory spikes, until the very end where its tail splits into three nine-foot tendrils that strongly resemble human spines and, based on how they were moving, seemed prehensile.
The dogs, those two, in particular, were looking directly at her suit in a manner that suggested intent and a degree of intelligence.
Dragon wasn't the only guard for the transport. An entire convoy of PRT agents was escorting the van. As Empress' creations and Hellhound's hellhounds emerged from the ground the agents silently mobilized, weapons were deployed-lethal rounds, not foam. While each agent had a handful of foam grenades, primary policy for something as important as defending a Birdcage transport was to use lethal force. But those guns never saw use. With the crack of shattering asphalt, more of Empress's warriors erupted from behind each of the agents. No warning. No workers creating a tunnel for them. No slow digging. It was faster than the others had emerged. One second the ground was solid and the next monsters burst forth and leaped upon the agents, pinning each agent to the ground. Apparently, one of the agents had been practicing imitation of the Wilhelm scream as the yell he let out upon a monster landing on his back was too close for Dragon to think it a coincidence. It'd be funny if the situation wasn't so dire.
Dragon had a few guns in this suit… Nowhere near enough for this many creatures: A dozen dogs and more of Empress's workers and warriors than Dragon could count, but she had to at least make a token display of resistance, but if she wasn't careful… She wasn't sure if Empress's creatures would kill the agents they had pinned. She didn't believe that Empress was a killer, but she'd have to approach this carefully.
In the hope of picking up any further arrivals before they broke the surface, Dragon set her suites auditory sensors to their highest setting. They picked up more cracking asphalt, which drew her attention away from the spawned creatures for just a moment. That brief crack was her only warning before a mass of green and purple erupted from the street below her and tackled her suit, bringing it to the ground and pinning it to the street. A rotation of the head allowed Dragon to see what had hit her. The human face with a feral fanged grin and tiger's eyes framed with a wild red mane told Dragon that it wasn't just Hellhound's dogs that had partaken of the traits of Empress's creatures.
That… Empress had claimed that she could make other Parahumans more powerful, but this was on a whole other level from what had been demonstrated before and the implications were frightening to think about… Later. She'd contemplate it later. There were more pressing things to worry about at the moment.
From behind Hellhound, Dragon could see Empress emerge from the hole that Hellhound had made. Empress levitated from the hole and landed on the pavement. She was wearing the tank-top and shorts she'd been seen wearing when on peaceful excursions. That was… promising.
Dragon was then able to make out that Empress was holding a glass jug labeled with what seemed to be taped-on printer-paper with a crude drawing of a cannabis leaf with the letter 'X' written in it four times. Empress took a swig from the jug and then marched to the back of the transport. She stopped halfway and looked down at one of the pinned agents.
"Aren't you the guy whose arm I accidentally ripped off?"
The agent in questions flinched under the beast pinning him, which caused it to hiss, but did not verbally respond.
From then, Empress moved on to the back of the van.
"So, they rig these things to blow if someone opens it without proper authorization?" Empress asked out loud.
Dragon did not respond. Neither did any of the pinned agents.
"I asked you a question!" Empress shouted, turning back to look at Dragon's suit. "Will it explode if I tear the door off?" Empress it seemed was done acknowledging the existence of the rest of the convoy.
"You're better than this." Dragon replied to the mutated cape. "Everything else you've done can be excused to a point due to the circumstances, but this is..."
"Technically not a crime!" Empress shouted. Empress swayed a bit. "A judge's job is to interpret the law. The second that the judge said that the Three Strikes Protection Act applied in Canary's case," Empress explained, "it… 'Scuse me" Empress paused to take another swig from her jug, "it became illegal for him to sentence her outside its scope, ergo it's illegal for him to have sentenced her to the Birdcage, thus attempting to put her in the cage is a crime, which means that right now you're the supervillain and I'm the hero."
"It doesn't work like that," Dragon replied. She was hoping that she could talk Empress out of this because Dragon did not want to fight her… Especially not in her apparently intoxicated state. Assuming that Hellhound's modified body had strength comparable to Empress or one of her creatures, this suit was more than capable of breaking her hold, once dragon actually put in the effort to do so.
However, this suit had been equipped only with ballistic weapons-traditional bullets, not lasers, explosives, or incendiaries-to minimize collateral damage to the roads in the event of an attack. She didn't even have confoam. PRT policy regarding the defense of Birdcage transports required the use of potentially lethal force to prevent escapes. (PRT affiliated capes whose powers only had lethal applications often found themselves escorting prisoners, which honestly made Dragon question why she herself had been requested). And honestly, Empress was the most likely person to attack and her extreme responses from confoam were well documented. The risk of setting her off had been one that Dragon hadn't be willing to take when she'd been preparing for this. Now, however...
Between the two, it meant that Dragon would have to target each of Empress's creatures individually and with this many… Or she could attack Empress directly, but Empress had demonstrated a high level of durability. The bullets would be non-lethal used on Empress, which was good as Dragon didn't want to hurt her, but Dragon wasn't sure enough of Empress's mental state to know whether she'd kill the agents she'd taken hostage if she was attacked personally or how she'd react to one of her creations-or one of Hellhound's dogs-being killed.
It was then that hindsight struck Dragon. In her emotionally compromised state, she'd prepared for what was known of Empress and not what she was expected to be able to do, nor what Empress might do.
Empress had only ever been seen alone or with a small number of her creations, so that's what Dragon had planned for. And in retrospect, that her creatures' debut back when Empire 88 had been defeated hadn't provided much detail of what they were capable of.
"Really? The protesters back in town say that… That people agree with me," Empress tried to deadpan back in response to Dragon's earlier claim.
"Those protestors are affiliated with your father. It makes sense that they agree with you, but can you be so sure that your opinion is universal? Dragon didn't let Empress respond "You know, this is an awfully far away place to have tunneled to," Dragon said, suddenly changing the subject in the hopes of buying time to come up with a solution. She took stock of the situation and tried to come up with a plan as Empress replied, but she had to pay enough attention to Empress to hold up the dialog. If she could keep Empress talking, keep Empress from focusing on the transport...
"I mean... we've gotta dig out," Empress replied a bit hazily. "City's on an aquifer so you can't go down very far before you hit balrogs." Good, she'd taken the bait. "But that's enough about that," Empress said with all of her apparent intoxication suddenly gone-an act? "are there any booby traps on this thing?"
Dragon could have cursed. She'd hoped to by time, but just from the young woman's tone, it was clear that she'd been playing at being intoxicated the entire time.
Dragon did curse Rebecca Costa-Brown, for putting her in this situation. It was bad enough that she had to carry out the sentence but thanks to the PRT Chief-Director's orders she had no choice but to fight someone who she didn't want to hurt. If the director hadn't ordered her to use any means necessary to get the…
Dragon could have smiled. She triggered an emergency override that remotely deactivated the restraint collar on Canary. It was a risk, letting Canary raise her voice, but she didn't want Empress to assume it was being tracked. Besides, Canary was still gagged so there was no immediate danger. Afterward, she uploaded the access codes to unseal the locks. The back of the transport popped open with a click.
"Huh," Empress said. "Glad to see you're doing the right thing."
"I'm just following orders," Dragon said calmly. "I was given strict instructions to make sure that the transport makes it to its destination by any means necessary. I could fight you. I might even win. But we both know how much collateral damage that would cause. Agents might die. The transport could be damaged. One or both prisoners could escape in the chaos. You've already taken out every other guard in the convoy and hostilities haven't even properly begun. I crunched the numbers." Dragon said. "I doubt that others in the PRT will like that I'm doing this," and they'd know immediately, she was streaming on a secure channel, "but letting you take Paige now ensures minimal short-term harm, radically improves the odds of the agents you have pinned making it home to their families, and opens up the greatest possibility that the other prisoner will make it to his destination."
That it also freed Dragon of the dilemma of Paige was an added benefit. Dragon would simply have to trust that Ms. Hebert wouldn't harm Paige after her well-known defense of the singer and condemnation of her trial's proceedings.
Empress laughed, but it trailed off confused. "Other prisoner?" She opened the transport. "Oh, hey. Kaiser's in here. Didn't think he'd have been tried by now… I guess they must have ignored all the small stuff and focused on the stuff that would get him sent here?"
Shortly afterward, Empress came back out of the transport with a still bound Paige over her shoulders.
"Sorry about this," Empress said to the clearly distressed and/or groggy former pop-singer. "Your new Queen has need of a songbird to tweet soothing tunes to help her sleep. We'll get those restraints off of you as soon as we get back to our secret lair of doom." Paige continued to struggle. Empress responded to that with a simple "Shooshh. Nobody's gonna hurt you."
Empress turned back around and shouted, "Hey, Kaiser. When you get to the Cage… Look, uh, I don't know how often you get supplies in there, so… Don't lose the soap." If Empress's attempt at humor was meant to calm Paige, it had clearly failed.
Kaiser had apparently come to earlier than Paige did, as Dragon could hear Kaiser's disturbingly tranquil response from where her suit laid pinned.
"Heavy it is, the head that wears the crown, isn't it 'Empress?' I can hear the stress in your voice. The pressure of your chosen title is getting to you, isn't it? You've cracked… Not even I would dare would you're doing. It's clearly only pure luck that you've gotten this far… the last person to be known for breaking prisoners out from birdcage transports wasn't even sent to prison. After being captured, he just vanished without a trace. Even worse than your monsters, with this, you've signed your own death warrant, and with this, I go to my prison satisfied."
Taunting Empress was all he could do, really. Based on known observations, it was believed that Kaiser required a solid, possible mineral surface to grow his blades from and rough line of sight to create the initial blade. Thus, in order to contain him, he was blindfolded to prevent him from conjuring blades from the metal floor of the transport van. Furthermore, he was encased in what amounted to an inch thick set of rubber footed pajamas with mittens, to prevent him from making physical contact with the ground or anything solid enough to use as a base for his blades, in case he could substitute touch for sight. In lieu of steel cuffs and chains, his movements were restricted with leather cuffs and ropes, as an additional precaution.
In other words, he looked for all the world like he was ready to star in a certain type of adult entertainment film. Dragon felt that it may have been excessive, but unlike Paige, Kaiser was, in fact, a career criminal with quite a lot of blood on his hands, directly and otherwise, so perhaps in his case it was warranted to be overly cautious. It was to his credit, Dragon grudgingly admitted to herself, that he managed to sound dignified in that state.
Empress did not respond to him, and Dragon said nothing as Empress carried Canary off towards the hole in the road. In truth, she wasn't 100% sure if the loophole she thought she'd discovered actually existed. She wouldn't be sure until Empress had taken Canary beyond Dragon's immediate ability to retrieve her. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she couldn't be certain that she wouldn't be compelled The worst possible thing would be if someone radioed in and gave her a direct order to engage, which would mean that Dragon would be compelled by her programming and made to attack Empress to recapture Canary.
As Empress vanished into the Earth, Hellhound released her grip on Dragon's suit and stood. She continued to stare as Dragon pushed the suit from the ground, as the dogs and warrior units returned to their Tunnels, leaving only workers behind. The pinned agents were allowed to rise. Only then did Hellhound retreat.
Shortly after, the workers filed out. As Dragon once more took to the air, she noted that they seemed to be repairing the holes that their emergence had formed in and around the road, closing up the entrances behind them… Whether that meant they were filling in the tunnels behind them or simply making sure that they couldn't be followed easily… Dragon sent a message out to try and get this road closed until it's structural integrity could be verified.
The transport was resealed, the convoy moved on. Dragon would have to trust that Empress wouldn't hurt Canary after arguing passionately in the singer's defense.
It'd been only a day since Empress had abducted Canary from the Birdcage transport. Director Piggot had, ignoring medical advice, left the hospital and returned to work rather than leave things in her deputy's hands or wait for another temporary replacement. Once officially back in charge, she had immediately called a meeting of the entire local Protectorate to discuss recent events. The entire Protectorate was in attendance, seated around a table, not unlike a board meeting.
Dragon was also, via video call and a virtual avatar, in attendance. The director's poor health was more obvious than ever. She looked tired. There was no other word to describe it-the director looked like the purest example of tired one could think of. Dragon wasn't sure why she was physically allowed to return to work.
There had been an hour of... heated discussion on the topic of Thomas Calvert, his disappearance on the night that a mixture of leaked and falsified documents led a teenaged supervillain to attack the PRT and unknown assailants murdered the Mayor's sister and brother-in-law in an attempt to kidnap his niece, and the heavily incriminating evidence that the PRT received that indicated that he was, in fact, the supervillain Coil and guilty of quite a lot of crime.
It'd ended with the Director declaring her intent to petition for Calvert to be given a kill order so that she could legally break his legs and drown him in a public toilet if she ever saw him again. Dragon legitimately couldn't tell if she'd been serious.
Then the conversation turned to Empress and her breaking Canary out of a prison transport.
"Okay," Assault said, "I want her captured just as much as anyone else, but Devil's Advocate: Is Empress taking Canary from a Birdcage transport that bad? I mean, come on? Is It really that bad? Really?" Battery had her face in her palm. "I mean, I got off scot-free for busting out people who were sent there legally. I mean, there were some hoops I had to jump through, but ultimately all I had to do was ask to switch sides. I don't think this is unforgivable."
There had been an irony in Kaiser's threat to Empress the previous day: The last person to be known for breaking people out of Birdcage transports, the jail-break specialist mercenary Madcap, had vanished after being captured because he'd defected and joined the Protectorate after a serious rebranding.
"We can't ignore this," the Director said while ignoring Assault's question. "Now, a lot has happened on this front while I was incapacitated. I want to… Recap, what's happened. To make sure I have the details straight. A short time ago, a Miss Clements from Winslow High contacted the Mayor's investigation team, confessing that she, Emma Barnes, and our own Sophia Hess had been the ringleaders of an almost systematic campaign of abuse directed at Taylor Hebert concluding with the incident that caused Hebert to trigger." the Director paused to take a breath. "She also confessed to the three of them and several others lying about Hebert's mental state."
"A few days later," she continued, "Empress gave a televised interview where she reiterated the story we initially dismissed but that Clements corroborated, accused Shadow Stalker of attempted murder, gave an alternative take of Hellhound's own origins that paints the PRT representatives who handled her case in a bad light, and went on a rant about the Canary trial."
"That night, three things happened," the director sighed. "First, Shadow Stalker fled and went to ground. Second, my temporary replacement ordered Emma Barnes and her family brought into protective custody. And information that we believe was planted by Coil led Empress to have a breakdown and attack the PRT in an attempt to get herself killed." The director pinched the bridge of her nose. "She managed to make fools of the Protectorate without even trying, and the situation was defused by what amounts to a total fluke."
Triumph made a noncommittal grunt. From what Dragon understood, he'd made a great effort to talk Empress down before the alleged 'fluke' occured.
"Two days ago, we receive contact from a legal team that Hebert senior has retained, stating that in their opinion that based on all available evidence that Empress would be acquitted on most if not all charges due to circumstances and that they're waiting for our plea deal reply… And then the next day, Empress kidnaps Canary from a Birdcage transport, which is something she shouldn't be acquitted for but probably would be..."
"Dragon… Why didn't you stop Empress from leaving with Canary?" the Director finished.
"We were outnumbered," Dragon replied. "The agents in the escort had been taken out with a sneak attack and I couldn't be 100% certain that they wouldn't have been killed if the confrontation escalated to violence. I made what I believed to be the most rational choice at the time."
"Well-"
Director Piggot was cut off by the door to the meeting room being loudly kicked open.
In the doorway stood the portly figure of Glenn Chambers, The PRT's head of Image, with a briefcase in hand.
And he was angry. The entrance was incongruent with Chamber's normal behavior… But, then again, that might be the point. Image is everything, and the entrance would certainly set a tone.
"I'm here," he said in a dangerously calm tone, "to talk, about the girl that calls herself Empress."
Director Piggot, seemingly annoyed at the interruption, replied. "We were just discussing what to do about her recent breakout-"
"No," Chambers interrupted again. "Not that, her. The girl in general, and how you've handled her."
He set his briefcase on the table and from it retrieved what, from Dragon's perspective, seemed to be several newspaper pages, magazines, and what seemed to be something that had been printed out. He tossed various items to various individuals.
"Now… As I understand it, this all started when a PRT agent essentially chased the girl away from her home. I understand that the agent was terminated for violating common sense and standard procedures, but the fact that the agent in question did it in the first place and that the public doesn't know that the agent was terminated coupled with a Ward's seemingly unprovoked murder attempt on the villain in question being made public..."
From the webcam, Dragon could see that the Director was about to speak when Chambers suddenly switched tracks, pointing to Armsmaster. "You. Is it true that you cut off her hand and stole it?"
"No." Armsmaster started quickly. "I began advocating for Empress to be captured with minimal harm and made a probationary Ward after we first became aware of inconsistencies in our profile-I even outlined a proposal for sending her to the Machine Army quarantine zone, shortly after we became aware of her master capabilities, where she would be away from anyone directly involved in the circumstances of her trigger and the following events, where the most good could be done with her abilities, and where, in the worst case scenario, nothing of value would be lost and there would be an equivalent threat to occupy her forces if our original profile had been accurate after all and something pushed her past her breaking point." He paused for a moment. "Empress' hand was severed in a confrontation with Hookwolf. After Miss Militia and I responded to the skirmish, and after ensuring that the seemingly unconscious Hookwolf was properly incapacitated, I retrieved the hand and tried to sway her unto surrendering with the offer of the medical attention needed to reattach it but she declined. I then, initially as a bluff, questioned whether she would object to my taking the hand for experiments and she gave verbal permission… Albeit, by my reading, out of fear. We were then forced by circumstances to let them retreat, and I was left holding the hand."
"And where is the hand now?" Chambers asked incredulously.
"After extracting some cellular samples for use in my research into sedatives for capturing her nonlethally," Armsmaster explained, "I flash froze the hand and placed it in storage so that it could be thawed and reattached after Empress was captured. However, it somehow adapted to the freezing, grew an eye and three tentacles, became ambulatory, and is currently somewhere in the Rig's ventilation system. The maintenance staff is afraid to go in after it, and it keeps smashing the drones I send in to recapture it. It's something we're all rather concerned about, but we're not sure how to proceed."
"On the upside," Mouse Protector said in a bored tone, "it took care of the flock of seagulls that were nesting in there."
"Okay," Chambers said after a deep breath. "I'm not sure that was..." Chambers honestly didn't seem to know how to respond. "Anyway. My point is that your… subpar handling of this situation has leaked well beyond your sphere of influence, as the various articles I've distributed to you should make clear. You're making us look bad. I'm giving you a week to fix this-either definitively prove she's a monster or leave her alone-Or we will fix it for you, and you will not like it if we have to fix it."
Director Piggot seemed particularly annoyed at this point. "With all due respect, Mister Chambers, I think you're overstepping the limits of your authority."
"But he's not overstepping mine," claimed a voice from the doorway.
Into the room stepped a Hispanic woman with long, straight black hair, dressed in a suit and jacket. Accompanying her was a man in his forties with steel in his eyes.
"Chief-Director Costa-Brown?" Director Piggot asked with practiced politeness. "I see-"
"Forgive me for being blunt," Director Costa-Brown said, "I've been having a rough time of things the last few days. First, I find evidence that members of my staff have been compromised, I had to physically wrestle a member of my staff to prevent them from giving an order that could have compromised a delicate operation, then he vanishes into thin air and turns up dead in an abandoned windmill..." Director Costa-Brown pinched the bridge of her nose.
Dragon chose to ignore that the man in question went missing after she had reported back to Director Costa-Brown on a rather suspicious demand, ignoring normal channels of communication, to recapture Canary immediately using lethal force if necessary. It could have been a coincidence.
"I've decided, in response to what's been going on here, that we, the central office, need to take a more hands-on approach with East-North-East for the time being… I took time from my busy schedule to be here in person, leaving the investigation into a possible subversive conspiracy in my own office to one of the very few people I can trust absolutely, just so you'd know how serious this is, so I hope you can understand how important I find this."
She gestured to the man at her side. "This is former Squad Leader James Tagg," Director Costa-Brown said. "He has a long career with both us and the United States military before that. He does what he needs to, and he gets the job done."
The man in question had a brief look of subdued contentedness at the praiseful introduction his superior had given him, but a moment later his expression changed back to professional neutrality.
"Not that long ago, we were considering him for a Director's position, but following recent events…" The Chief-Director paused as though looking for a word. "Well, our best Thinkers and profilers, looking at all available information, believe that he is best equipped to handle the Empress situation and bring to it a satisfactory conclusion. From now on," Director Costa-Brown concluded, "he's your special consultant and supervisor: He's to be involved in all discussions involving the girl, Taylor Hebert, and no operations concerning her are to be initiated without his approval."
"It is my sincerest hope that we can all work together productively," Tagg said as he stepped forward.
From her expression, Dragon assumed that Piggot had picked up on the Chief-Director's veiled threat. Tagg was being considered for Directorship and had just been made Director Piggot's direct superior. If Piggot made a mistake, she'd be gone.
"Alright then," Director Piggot said calmly. She looked at Tagg. "We were just about to discuss the girl's extraction of Paige Mcabee from the Birdcage transport. What would you suggest we do about it?"
"Recapturing Canary is not a priority at this time," the man said as he took a seat at the table.
"Why not?" Director Piggot asked.
"Firstly" the man began, "I'm here to bring the Empress solution to a resolution. As Canary is currently in Empress' custody, any attempt to recapture her would necessitate an attack on Empress which could cause the situation to escalate, delaying resolution. Secondly..." The man paused.
"...Secondly, the Birdcage is a farce," Tagg said calmly. "It is an affront to the freedoms that this country was founded on, a violation of the tenants of the United States Constitution, and worst of all an excuse for people who want to remove certain elements from society permanently but don't have the balls to sentence them to death. It is nothing short of a more cruel and prolonged form of execution. Personally, I can tolerate it, despite my distaste," the man said, "because there are Parahuman criminals who can neither be executed nor safely contained long-term in any other prison, but the Birdcage was not made for people like Paige Mcabee and… I watched the interview that Miss Hebert gave, after being told of this assignment. She hit the nail right on the head: That trial was a sham. And for the first time in a good long while, because of Empress, people are seriously considering the ramifications of the Birdcage and some people are deciding that they don't like it. Beyond the risk of further complicating the situation with Empress, recapturing and incarcerating Canary constitutes a wasteful misuse of resources, and more than that, a wasteful misuse of resources that can only further harm the public opinion of this department and by extension the PRT as a whole."
Tagg looked director Piggot directly in the eye. "And regardless, I'm not here for Canary. I'm here to deal with Empress. To talk her down, or, if necessary, put her down. Attacking her to recapture someone who never should have been convicted in the first place would drastically reduce our chances for a clean resolution."
"As Mr. Chambers said," the Director Costa-Brown spoke back up, "we're giving you a weak to make serious headway into concluding this situation and-"
"I hate to interrupt," Dragon said. She'd just received a rather concerning notification, "but I've just received information that-"
Dragon herself was interrupted by a buzzing. Mouse Protector pulled out her phone and checked it. "Well… Shit. Everyone should probably check their emails. Now."
Mouse Protector had presumably received the same Email that Dragon just had.
An Email with the identities and personal and family histories of not only Taylor Hebert, but also Brian Laborn, Sarah 'Lisa Wilbourn' Livesey, Jean-Paul 'Alec' Vasil, and Rachel Lindt.
And the exact location of the apartment building they'd been using as their secret base. And the home addresses of all their friends and families. And pictures thereof.
And a detailed list of known and suspected crimes-including every person confirmed to have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by Hijack and a rumor that Sarah Livesey had manipulated her brother into suicide.
And according to the forwarding address, this message had been sent to every PRT Director on the continent, every high ranked PRT affiliated cape… and every Email that was regularly used by an IP Address in the Brockton Bay Region.
Dragon was already tracing the sending address.
Ten minutes later, after everyone had checked their work and personal emails, they met again in the same room.
"So..." the Chief Director began awkwardly, "the time table's been changed. You need to deal with Empress before the gang she'd joined ends up in a War with whatever criminals and unscrupulous independents will come out of the woodwork in response to this."