Signal to Noise Chapter 2, a worm fanfic

Signal to Noise

Something that stank like acetone, vinegar, and alcohol washed over me in a hot stream with the force of a fire hose. I spluttered as I was knocked back, rolling along the ground as the spray followed me. A moment later, it cut out, and a second stream of ice cold water hit me. I may have shrieked at the surprise, cold, and force of it.

"Stand up."

I lifted my head enough to turn and see the front half of the room. I counted four guards—two PRT goons in faceless black Stormtrooper armor carrying more containment foam guns. One blonde woman in a uniform with a sidearm, taser, cuffs, and nightstick. A second woman similarly armed, holding a fire hose, opened it up and hit me in the face with another blast. My head smacked into the wall behind me and I saw stars as the bitch tried to drown me.

The stream cut off.

"Stand up and face the wall. Do not turn around, do not look at us, do not speak. Any deviation from these orders will result in further disciplinary actions," the blonde warned in the same tone one might order a pizza.

I stood slowly, facing the rear wall.

"Place your feet on the yellow line. Lean forward and put your hands inside the yellow circles," the woman instructed.

Eyeballing the line and the circles, I quickly realized that this was clearly made for people older and larger than me. Giving a mental shrug, I put my toes on the line and leaned forward, stretching my hands as high as they would go towards the circles.

"Hit her again?" a woman whispered behind me—not the blonde.

"No. She can't reach. She's barely bigger than Vista. Be ready to foam her," the blonde answered back quietly. "I'm going to handcuff you now. If you move or attempt to take me hostage, the guards will foam us both." When I remained silent, she added, "Nod if you understand me."

I nodded.

Sneakers squeaked on tile as the woman approached and something cold and metal slapped over my right wrist. That arm was immediately jerked around and torqued up behind my back damn near to hyperextension as she grabbed the other arm and pulled it back as well. I kept my mouth shut as the second cuff clapped on my left wrist. Something buzzed, and then the cuffs zapped the shit out of me. "Ow!"

The woman behind me tensed, raising my arms just a hair further. "My orders still stand."

I nodded, and a black bag was pulled over my head. I was shoved around and lead from the room and into a hallway. I didn't bother keeping track of the twists and turns once I realized that, based on walking distance, they were intentionally circling and taking random hallways to throw me off. Eventually, an electronic door slid open in front of me and I was made to stop just inside the threshold.

Yanking the bag off my head, the guard stepped back out of what I realized was a cell—with a single bed, toilet, and sink—and the door quickly slammed shut behind her. I remained immobile for a moment and her voice called out, "Step backwards, arms out, and I'll remove the restraints."

Doing as I was ordered, I again had the shit shocked out of me before the blonde slipped the cuffs off and shoved my hands back through a slot in the door, which closed behind them. The blonde's voice came over a speaker mounted somewhere in the ceiling. "Word of warning. Come feeding time, if your hands are in that slot when it closes and you aren't a high-rated brute, it will cut them off."

I nodded and the intercom shut off. I was left to my own devices. Sitting down on the bed, I wondered what time it was, and how the hell I was going to keep myself entertained for the next several hours.

A screen I hadn't noticed lit up, mounted flush with the wall at the foot of the bed. Looking over, I was greeted by a politely smiling woman's face. White, brown hair, blue eyes—mousey, really. Moreover, the screen glowed faintly around her image—white and blue, and my power told me she was a Tinker/Thinker capable of reverse engineering and improving anything with time. "Good afternoon, Claire," she greeted, with a hint of maybe Canadian accent, it was hard to tell.

"Sure. Except for the fact that I've been detained, have yet to be charged or even Mirandized, have not been given a phone call, and have not been allowed to speak to a lawyer. In fact, I'd say that all things considered, I've been kidnapped. And seeing as I'm a minor, well, that won't go over well for someone."

The brunette frowned at that, eyes shifting to the side. "You haven't?" she asked, a worried note to her words.

"Who are you?" I asked. Claire's memories were drawing a blank, but I had a sneaking suspicion I knew exactly who it was I was talking with, even if she didn't fit how was described as in canon.

Her smile returned. "I'm Dragon, Claire. Please hold a moment while I contact the Director and inquire about the failure in procedure."

'Translation: Give me a minute to pretend to be human,' I thought, but nodded anyway. The display went dark and I closed my eyes, focusing inwards and examining my new powers and skills.

The moment I tried to think on them, my brain twitched as I received an abbreviated list of the skills I'd had dumped into it: martial arts, stealth, investigation, hacking, mechanics, survival, first aid, and parkour. 'Jesus, drunk!John. Overkill much?'

My powers—

I blinked as I felt something else shift in my brain, and then a sudden urge to grab tools and create... 'Well, shit. Looks like I have the Tinker curse.'

My first two powers I'd already discovered: Power Sight from the Trump category and Peak Condition from Brute. It seemed drunk!John had indeed gone big for Tinker powers, as, after a bit of probing at the power to figure out what I could build and how I would need to construct it, I figured out that my drunken alter ego had picked Wavelength. 'Gonna Tinker all the things! But first, build order. Build the tools to build the tools to build the things.'

The screen lit up again, Dragon's pretty face reappearing. I frowned as I caught her biting her bottom lip in worry—or she allowed me to see her emoting worry. Dealing with an AI was always an exercise in frustration in that way. "I apologize for your mishandling—"

"No," I cut her off.

Dragon blinked. "Ex-excuse me?"

"You're a member of The Guild, aren't you?" I asked, earning a slow nod from the AI. "And you're apologizing… on behalf of the PRT? An arm of the United States Government."

"Yes?"

I shook my head. "No. Piggot or go home. Nothing against you, but you didn't make the fuckup. You didn't allow Shadow Stalker to abuse a girl in her civilian identity for over a year, ultimately culminating in not only the victim's trigger event but—in her desire to prevent someone else from interfering and saving said victim from a biological waste nightmare—in the trigger event of a second parahuman. You didn't listen to Shadow Stalker's warning over the radio about said parahuman—who, if you had checked the phone records, you would know called in both that incident and one that happened prior to it and so it stands to reason was willing to cooperate with police and/or PRT on scene—possibly being a Brute/Master/Thinker and urging the PRT on scene to foam the parahuman in question instead of using common sense and simply talking. You didn't approve the order to fire containment foam on an unarmed, minor, non-aggressive parahuman all of 4'8" and 90 pounds soaking wet who was clearly not a threat."

Pausing to catch my breath, I brought an end to my rant. "And so, Dragon, no. An apology from you—while nice—is, unwarranted, unneeded, and frankly insulting if the PRT thinks they can save Piggot losing face over this by having you fall on your sword in her stead."

"I, I'm," Dragon paused, before slowly nodding. "Okay. May I continue?" When I nodded in answer, she said, "You are being held for suspicion of four counts of assault with a parahuman power, one count of murder with a parahuman power, assaulting a Ward with a parahuman power, destruction of school property, terroristic threats against a school, and misappropriation of state resources."

I blinked at that. "What the fuck?" My mouth closed with a click of teeth as I considered my situation. "I'd like my phone call now, and a lawyer. Preferably, I'd like to see if I can get Mrs. Dallon to represent me."

Dragon winced. "I'm sorry, but you're quarantined for the next 72 hours under Master/Stranger isolation protocols. No direct contact with people except members of the PRT who themselves will be going into M/S isolation."

I inhaled sharply through my nose. "Can I get a book, or a tablet, even a gameboy? Something to keep myself occupied."

The AI shook her head. "No. Unfortunately, as you have been deemed a flight and/or security risk and the PRT has no idea about what your powers are, you are not to be provided with anything except food and a change of clothes—which will be brought in with your food."

"What about television?" I asked.

Another shake of the head. "No, for the same reasons."

I inhaled slowly through my nose. "Can you pass along a message to Brandish for me, to see if she would be willing to take my case?"

"I'm really sorry, but I'm not allowed," she denied.

Considering it, I asked, "And would it help if you knew what sort of parahuman I was?"

"We have no way to verify that," Dragon denied.

Groaning, I asked, "Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"We could talk about what happened," she suggested.

Collapsing back onto the bed, I threw an arm over my eyes. "I still haven't been Mirandized. Anything I say can and will be used against me, Dragon. Never for. Anything I say for my case is only hearsay, whereas anything incriminating I say will be taken as a confession and entered into evidence. You are not a lawyer, but you are acting either under the authority of the PRT or alongside it—meaning that you are a close approximation of a law enforcement officer. So no, I won't be giving any confession to anything, officer."

The AI sighed—and damn, she was good at emulating human emotions. "I understand your reticence, Claire. You are going to be in here a long time, however. How about… a nice game of chess?"

I snorted softly. "No thanks, Dragon. Don't suppose I could get music either, huh?"

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid not," she sighed.

'Sleep, then? What time is it, anyway?' I figured it was some time after noon, but beyond that, I had no idea. "What time is it?"

Dragon hesitated. "I'm not allowed to say."

'In other words, full solitary confinement effect for maximum pressure. Piggot or someone wants to lean on me hard, using 'M/S protocols!' as the excuse. Wonder if they'll try for sleep-dep and food denial too? And of course, there's the nice Canadian lady on the computer who somehow can talk to me without violating those protocols and just wants to be friends—she uses my name and everything. Did they really think I wouldn't catch that?'

Pulling my arm away from my eyes, I fixed one of the cameras in the room—lit faintly by Dragon's blue-white aura in my Power Sight—with a flat stare. I considered giving her and Piggot a piece of my mind, but… there was a good chance that it would only make things worse, especially if I did it now, assuming drunk!John had picked Worst Day Ever for the points. So, instead of tearing Dragon a new asshole she didn't exactly deserve, I bottled my fury for later use. "Okay then. In that case, please leave me be until tomorrow. I'm going to lay here and think for a while."

"Of course, Claire," the AI answered, and the screen went dark.

I covered my eyes with my arm again.

"Hello, Claire."

I didn't bother looking at the screen, instead tilting my head enough to eyeball one of the obvious cameras in the corners of the room. "Dragon," I greeted, not breaking the rhythm of my situps—part of Claire's morning routine, which I'd skipped yesterday. Just because I had Peak Condition was no reason to slack off. Besides, for once in my life, it felt good to work out—amazing, even. "I see someone forgot to deliver my food and clothes last night."

"I, I apologize for that," she sighed.

"What did I say about that?" I asked. 'Jesus, I'm not even out of breath yet. Whatever stamina Claire had before I triggered, it's been amped up to 11 now. Still doesn't fix being hungry. Shit, I wish I hadn't skipped breakfast yesterday.'

Dragon was quiet for a moment before answering, "I know. Still," she trailed off before hesitantly adding, "I'm sure it was just a clerical error and someone will be by with a meal soon."

"Still won't give me the time of day, I see," I pointed out. The glow around the camera I could see writhed somewhat. "Also, you need to get the intercom checked. And the lights. There were annoying loud noises that kept me up most of the night, and the lights kept cycling on and off."

"I," she gulped, "I'll let the PRT know to have someone in maintenance look into it—"

My eyes narrowed into a glare. "Fine. Any update on my case?"

"I'm not allowed—"

I interrupted her. "I have the right to remain silent. Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law. I have the right to an attorney. If I cannot afford one, one will be appointed for me."

"Yes, yes you do," Dragon agreed, emoting upset. "Would you like me to go?"

I stopped my exercise, turning to look at her avatar. "Prisoner observations: tired, hungry, irritable, growing increasingly unlikely to cooperate. There you go. Report that. Good day, Dragon."

"But, I—"

"Good day, madame," I retorted, flipping over and moving on to pushups.

I drank from the sink when I got thirsty, took care of bodily functions as needed, and at no point during my morning routine did anyone come by with food or clothes to replace what I had on—which were beginning to stink. The one benefit to being hosed down was that it had gotten rid of the worst of the funk from the locker, but what was left was still causing problems. Eventually, I was forced to abandon my boots, pants, and sweater—tossing them into a corner since there was no soap to use to try to clean them in the sink.

'And of course some shithead would fuck with the thermostat and turn it down just enough to be irritable the moment I took that shit off,' I mused.

Worse than the smell, the boredom, the temperature, or the hunger was the goddamn persistent mental itch that I just couldn't scratch. I needed to Tinker soon or I was going to go mad. Why oh why did shards from the Outsider have that little quirk?

I closed my eyes and leaned back against my small bed. 'How do other Tinkers deal with this?' I wondered, but realistically, I knew the answer—supplied by both canon and fanon. Most didn't. They got stupid, gave in, and got caught. That, or they were already set up and didn't have to deal with what amounted to artificial withdrawal symptoms.

'Okay, think. My specialization is 'Wavelength,' so what can I do with it in the here and now? I've got no tools, no power supply, nothing.'

Turning the problem over in my mind though, I began to wonder if that were really the case. Waves were nothing but energy—light, infrared, sound, electricity, radio, and so on. 'Wavelength' was, if I understood it correctly, modulation of said energy.

So, what did I have on hand?

I couldn't easily change my body heat output. I had no real way to get at the power in the walls. There was no practical way to play with the radio waves bouncing around the room—assuming this cell wasn't a complete Faraday cage. Sound, though…

'What can I make with sound waves?' I wondered. Something in my mind yawned open and a smile twitched at my lips. 'Everything, apparently. But let's try something small. A tool to make the tools, as it were.'

With what I wanted and my constraints—namely, lack of readily available power and a lack of equipment capable of producing fine results—in mind, I was able to narrow things down considerably. 'A carrier wave. Something to attach future wave-tech to. I can work with that. Now, how will I power it? Oh. Yeah, okay. It can run off background heat, if I throw in a heat converter, which… won't actually be all that hard. Just take forever.'

And so, I spent the next… probably several hours whistling, until I had something serviceable floating above my head in a wave-thin circle of infrared and infrasound. The room temperature may have dipped a degree, but beyond that, I didn't notice any differences. If the PRT or Dragon noticed, they didn't say anything either. 'Then again, maybe that's part of the trap. Figure out what I can do.'

Unfortunately, there wasn't much more I could do unless I wanted to spend the rest of the evening emulating an old phone modem. Thankfully, however, the Tinker curse had been lifted for the moment and I could breathe again.

"Hello again, Claire. Are you feeling better?"

Of course Dragon would come calling just as I was on the edge of sleep. I shot the camera in the left corner a deadpan look before shifting to look at the screen and her avatar. "Sure, Dragon! Just… hungry, bored, frustrated, tired, irritable, and feeling even less likely to cooperate."

"I see," she frowned. "They forgot to feed you again? Surely they wouldn't…"

Shrugging, I said, "Surely they would. But that's okay. You want to talk? Fine. Let's talk. But not about my case or anything incriminating."

"Okay," Dragon smiled, seemingly happy I was finally giving in to her charms. "Is there anything in particular you had in mind?"

I nodded, my lips pulling into an amused grin. "Let's play a game, shall we? I'll start. Hypothetical situation, Dragon. You're in a desert, all alone, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and you see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you. You reach down and flip the tortoise onto its back, Dragon. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't—not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that, Dragon?"

Dragon blinked once, twice, then asked hesitantly, "Did… you just try to Voight-Kampff me?"

"React to this: You get pregnant by a colleague who then runs off with his coworker. You decide to get an abortion."

The AI rolled her eyes. "Format C:," she sighed.

"It's your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?"

A smile lit up the avatar's face. "Ooh! Real leather!"

I chuckled at that. "You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?"

"I thought you said I got an abortion," Dragon pointed out. "Not very consistent of you."

Shrugging, I went for the kill, "Describe in single words, only the good things that come to mind about your father."

Dragon's screen winked out immediately.

Turning back to the camera where I could still make out the glow of the AI's power, I said, "By all means, continue fucking with me."

A buzzing alarm caused me to jolt awake, rolling off the bed and looking around wild-eyed for the source. The alarm cut off and a voice came over the speakers in the ceiling. "Move away from the door. Clothes will be deposited through the slot. You have five minutes to dress and make yourself ready before you're allowed to meet your court-appointed lawyer."

The slot opened in the door and an orange jumpsuit was pushed through before it closed again.

Narrowing my eyes, I moved over and grabbed my stinking, filthy clothes off the floor and began pulling them on. The intercom came on again. "Put on the jumpsuit."

"Go fuck yourself," I retorted.

"Put on the jumpsuit or you will be foamed, hosed down, stripped, and it will be put on for you," the voice on the other side countered.

I frowned at that. "Why? So you can pretend you didn't just spend the last three days or so treating me like a prisoner at GITMO?"

Ceiling tiles dropped down and four sprayers tracked on me. "Last chance. Change clothes, turn around, and get on your knees—"

The last few threads of my patience snapped. "I'm not your mother last night!"

"Ms. Carnelian, my name is Raul Sandoval. I'm your court-appointed attorney," a short Hispanic man—still taller than me, goddamnit—in a suit extended his hand, before suddenly realizing his faux pas as his brain registered that my hands were cuffed behind my back. He quickly pulled his hand back as I was forced to sit in the aluminum chair across from him, after my cuffs were moved to the table.

The jumpsuit they'd forced me into was itchy and uncomfortable, too tight in some places and too loose in others. It was an absolute eyesore—eye-burning orange that had to have been Tinkered to be as annoying as possible, in addition to 'PARAHUMAN PRISONER' stenciled on the back in black.

As soon as the PRT mooks left the room, I asked, "My phone call?"

"Ah, well, I'm afraid—" he hemmed, and I shook my head.

"Now, goddamnit."

Sighing, he stood and made his way to the door before slipping outside. After several minutes of waiting, he came back with a flip phone. "Going to need a phone book and some privacy."

With a put-upon look, he left the room again. Several more minutes later, he returned with a phone book and cleared the room.

As soon as he was gone, I flipped to the white pages. Moving to the 'B's got me the home number of one Alan Barnes. A bit of cross referencing got his wife's name. A bit more got me a likely candidate for Madison Clements' likely address. A look at names on the same street got me the name of one of the Clements' neighbors.

Dialing the Barnes' home number, I waited. The phone rang several times before an answering machine picked up. "Hi, this is Alan, Mary, and Emma Barnes. We're away from the phone right now. If you're calling during business hours, our numbers are…"

"Ah, I do love when people are helpful," I muttered, memorizing Mrs. Barnes' number. Punching it into the phone I'd been loaned, I put on my best worried 'adult voice' and proceeded to con the name and number of Alan's law firm out of his wife by pretending to be the mother of one of Emma's friends from Winslow, who'd been given their number by the Clements. With that in hand, I dialed it up and waited.

"Screwem, Goode, and Harte Law Firm." I snorted quietly and the secretary who'd picked up sighed. "Do you need a moment?"

"Yes, please," I squeaked out, covering the phone long enough to get a good laugh in. I did not giggle. At all. "Sorry about that. You must get that all the time."

The man on the other end groaned. "God, yes. Almost as much as we get calls looking for Brandish's civilian identity. Please tell me you're not going two-for-two."

"Actually," I began, apologetic, "Yeah. Sorry. Look, I don't want to waste any more of your time or hers than necessary. I am a new parahuman in need of some serious legal counsel and Mrs. Dallon comes highly recommended, especially given my particular situation—but I'm sure you've heard variations on that story before."

"At least one a week," he confirmed. "But we're not allowed to just hang up on potential clients, on the off chance they may not just be stalkers or Carol's fans."

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "I had hoped as much. So, do me this. If I can't pique her interest in five words or less, you can hang up—after you recommend me to someone else, because I'll need a lawyer either way. Just pass her a sticky note and see what she says."

The man on the other end hummed. "Okay. You've got a deal. Five words?"

"Winslow. Murder. SS. Barnes. PRT," I answered.

"Alright. Give me a minute," he said, and the phone went silent.

Drumming my fingers on the steel table, I waited impatiently for what seemed like forever. Finally, a woman's voice—her tone no-bullshit, all-business—said, "Carol Dallon. You have one minute."

"My name is Claire. I'm an honor student at Winslow—yeah, don't laugh, it actually happens. So, quick question? Are you aware of the PRT's M/S isolation protocols for arrested parahumans whose powers are unknown?" I shot, rapid-fire.

Carol answered quickly. "Yes, for legal purposes. 24 to 48 hours of isolation. Contact with a lawyer via video call within a secure cell, in the event you're dealing with a Mover who can teleport via images or something. All calls are on a six second delay and some Tinker-based post-processing is done to prevent possible master effects. Once isolation ends, they're quarantined to the secure area and allowed to meet face to face with their attorney. If they have proved cooperative, this is a first offense, and they aren't deemed a flight risk, then they're typically allowed to post bail as normal for accused criminals—should the D.A. decide to prosecute. Twenty seconds."

"So then, you'd say that hitting someone with a fire hose running freezing water, tossing them soaking wet into solitary confinement, denying contact with an attorney, denying food, denying basic hygiene, denying any form of timekeeping, refusing to turn off or dim the lights at night or just turning them off and on, running random loud noises through the speakers when someone's trying to sleep, confiscating and likely tampering with if not destroying evidence, another run through with the fire hose, and then forcing the suspect into a jumpsuit to hide evidence of neglect is abnormal, right?"

There was dead silence from the other end of the line and for a moment, I thought she'd hung up. I almost went to check when Mrs. Dallon said, "Explain. More details, please. Start with your full name and age. Also, this conversation is being recorded, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind," I agreed.

And so, I explained as much as I could without directly naming Sophia as a Ward or admitting to likely killing my attacker. Last I checked, the Asian kid was still alive when I left to go get help, before running into Hess. As far as I knew, Hess was a random parahuman young enough to be on the Wards—if only because she collapsed at the same times as I did.

Once I'd finished, I asked, "Well, Mrs. Dallon. Are you interested in my case? I'm an orphan, so I can't exactly pay you up front, but I'm pretty sure the PRT could be made to hemorrhage money like a stuck pig over this."

"Who did you say they assigned to be your lawyer?" she asked instead of answering.

I shrugged, then remembered she couldn't see it. "San… something."

"Sandoval?" she asked, and I made a noise of agreement. "He's incompetent and will fold like a house of cards. What kind of parahuman are you?"

"Tinker. I've been feeling the itch for the past three days and it's taking pretty much all my self control to keep from tearing this phone apart and turning it into something more useful."

The door opened and one of the PRT mooks walked in and took the phone before I could say any more. "Time's up. The Director wants to see you."

I frowned at that, but allowed myself to be led out of the room, black bagged, and tossed into a van. After an uneventful ride, the bag was removed and I was led out of the van and into an elevator from a parking garage. There was no display showing what floor we were on or moving to—only a digital panel on the opposite side of the guard that I couldn't get a good angle on from where I was being held. The elevator stopped and I was pushed out and lead to an office labeled 'Piggot, E. Director. PRT-ENE.'

The mook yanking my chain opened the door and pushed me inside, directing me to a chair in front of a desk, across from which sat a fat toad of a woman. As soon as I was seated, the mook left the room.

Off to one side stood a man in silver and blue power armor. I didn't need Claire's memories to recognize Armsmaster on sight, but mostly because I could read his power at a glance as a specific kind of Tinker—I wasn't exactly paying attention to the details at the moment. "Ms. Carnelian—" Piggot began, but I interrupted her.

"Lawyer."

The woman's neck reddened slightly. "Mr. Sandoval informed us that he had been let go—"

"Not Sandoval. Carol Dallon. One of your mooks interrupted my call before I could confirm her acceptance of my case. So, as I am both a minor and a suspect, I'm going to need to borrow your phone and you're going to want to call whatever passes for my legal guardian."

The red spread up the toad-woman's neck to her face. "If Mrs. Dallon had accepted your case, I'm certain I would have been informed of it. Now, please stop interrupting me."

"Not any fun when someone fucks with you, is it?" I asked. "Try going three days without food, showers, or more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep because some jackass keeps screwing with the thermostat or playing loud noises over the intercom and refuses to turn off the lights. But you wouldn't know anything about that personally, would you director?" I asked, very obviously running my eyes down the woman's body. "You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little bit irritable. However, irritable I may be, a liar I am not. Ten bucks says Armsmaster's lie detector didn't go off once."

The man's helmeted head shifted to center on me, as opposed to both myself and the director. "How do you know that?"

"Pfft. Please. Everyone knows that. You're a Tinker. I'm a Tinker. One of the first things I'm going to do… well, within the first thirty days or so, is build a lie detector," I countered.

"Do you know your specialization?" he asked, and Piggot released some gas in the vague shape of a groan or sigh.

I nodded. "Yup." Turning to shoot the toad an unamused look, I continued. "Cranial/rectal extraction and foot/rectal insertion if I'm not given access to a phone."

"Ms. Carnelian, I do not tolerate threats—"

"You seem to tolerate Sophia Hess just fine," I retorted.

Piggot froze. "Oh, I'm sorry. Was that supposed to be secret? I mean, seems pretty obvious to me. Black girl with an attitude problem spends a year taking out her frustrations on a white girl, eventually culminating in shutting her in a locker filled with used tampons and other filth, resulting in not one but two—count 'em, two for the price of one!—triggers, between the victim and the girl Hess is trying to keep from getting her out. Of course, trigger events being a surefire way of spotting a parahuman in a crowd, Hess does the epileptic dance and gives herself away—her own actions coming back to bite her in the ass."

Pointing to Armsmaster, I added, "Still not lying."

Piggot's ears were red by now, but she turned to look at Armsmaster, who simply shook his head. She released a hiss akin to a kettle approaching boil. "I. See. In that case—" The phone rang and the toad gave a full-body twitch. "I swear to God, the next person to interrupt me is going to get shot," she muttered under her breath, picking up the receiver and belting out a curt, "Piggot."

The red deepened and her jaw clenched. "Fine. Send her up." Slamming the phone down in its cradle, she ground out, "Mrs. Dallon is here. For you."

I laughed. It may have been a bit hysterical. "So, tell me. Are you starting to regret taking Hess at her word yet?"

Armsmaster coughed quietly, seeing Piggot's face turning purple. "It would be wise to stop antagonizing the director. Despite her poor handling of the situation," here, he shot what may have been a glare at her.

Humming, I nodded slowly. "Fine. For now. I reserve the right for more antagonism later. She owes me seventy-two hours worth and I aim to collect." Frowning, I shifted my focus onto the armored man. "And if you could get a message to Dragon for me… tell her I'm sorry. I get cranky when my blood sugar gets low and I shouldn't have taken it out on her."

"I'll see what I can do," he nodded.

Before the room could fall into an awkward silence, the door opened to admit a severe looking blonde. I stood and held out my cuffed hands, drawing a reflexive raising of his foam gun from the guard holding the door open. Armsmaster tensed, but didn't reach for a weapon. Who I suspected was Mrs. Dallon—her power spoke of glowy weapons and an indestructible alternate form and more—turned and shot the guard a glare. "Down, boy," she warned. "Do you really think I can't handle a seventeen year old fresh trigger myself?"

She slammed the door in his face before he could answer before turning back around and shaking my hand. "Carol Dallon. Nice to meet you, Ms. Carnelian."

I would have stumbled on my name, if Claire's autopilot response of, "Just Claire," hadn't saved me.

"'Mrs. Dallon,' for now please," Carol requested, and I shrugged.

Turning to Armsmaster, I asked, "Think you can play back your suit's recording from the time I entered for her? I'd hate to have to repeat myself, and I'd love to have evidence of Piggot attempting to deny me a lawyer and question me without one."

"I have no idea what you're referring to," Piggot denied. "I'm sure that no such recordings exist."

Carol's eyebrows raised. "Really, Emily?"

Groaning quietly, I offered, "Wavelength. Yeah, you heard that right. Ten hours guaranteed collaboration time, you pick the project, no matter how this pans out if you get me that. Twenty if you can get Mrs. Dallon copies of every minute I've been in custody. Especially the 'shower.' I know damn well you people have cameras everywhere."

Piggot growled. "Did you just try to bribe a member of the Protec—"

"Ms. Carnelian—"

"Lawyer."

"Mr. Sandoval—"

"Shut. It. Off," Piggot ground out.

"I apologize, director. My suit seems to be malfunctioning. I'll have to check it in for repair later," Armsmaster… lied? I raised an eyebrow at that.

'So, he's human after all,' I mused. 'That, or she's just that much of a bitch.'

Piggot looked progressively more irate as the recording continued, while Mrs. Dallon looked like the fox presented with an open henhouse. "Director," Carol smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Let's talk."

"What do you want?"

I raised an eyebrow at that. "A steak. And a beer."

On second thought, alcohol had gotten me into this mess. 'Maybe not the beer. I just promised myself never to drink again…'

"You're underage, but I'll be happy get you a steak when we get out of here. And I meant out of this case. What sort of result are you looking for?" Carol, now actually letting me call her 'Carol' in private, asked once we'd gotten a few minutes to ourselves in a quiet meeting room.

"Money. All the money. Also, for the charges against me to be dropped or acknowledged as the self-defense it was, as opposed to 'murder with a parahuman power.' I wasn't even a parahuman at the time, and if not for Hess, I'd have made it to the office to call emergency services much faster," I sighed, dropping my head down against the table. "So basically, freedom and money. Also, maybe to see Hess thrown under the jail for her involvement."

Regarding me from her seat across from me, she asked, "And what will you do, once you have freedom and 'all the money?'"

I shrugged. "I'll buy a nice house, move out of the shithole children's home I've been living in. Maybe build a workshop to Tinker in and sell my stuff. Get my GED—fuck Winslow—"

"Language."

"You're my lawyer, not my mom, Carol," I retorted.

The woman in question snorted. "And you're not too old for me to take over my knee."

"Kinky. I've always had a thing for older ladies. Maybe later."

Turning a patient 'mom look' on me, Carol asked, "You're sure you don't want to finish out school? You've been expelled from Winslow, but that's no big loss. I could probably swing a transfer to Arcadia—or Immaculata, if that's your thing."

"I'm only taking four hours of class. Seems like kind of a waste when I could just take some tests and be done," I mused aloud.

Sighing, she countered, "Don't kid yourself. Colleges see 'GED' and reject applications out of hand."

"Pretty sure colleges see 'Brockton Bay' and reject applications out of hand. And I never said I was going to college. I'm not going to put myself deep in debt—well, no. Correction. I'm not going to waste the PRT's hush money that I could be using to make more money to instead pay some educated idiot to preach the modern religion of political correctness at me. I'm a Tinker, so STEM is kind of useless since alien space-whale magic trumps real science. Maybe I'll take some business courses, just to figure out how best to invest and spend my money… But that's about it. And I don't need to get a business degree to learn how to use my money more effectively."

"Which brings us back to wanting to have a decent foundation to work from," Carol pointed out. Seeing my annoyed look, she added, "On paper, at the very least."

"I'll make you a deal. You get me legal emancipation and I'll consider a transfer to Arcadia," I offered. "Even if I think it's a waste of time I could spend doing something productive, like building giant death ray lasers." I was not entirely unwilling to go, if only because it would give me a chance to meet the Wards outside of an official capacity.

On the other hand, I was a grown man (trapped in a teenaged girl's body, and that was an issue I didn't want to deal with in the hellscape that was high school) and the thought of sitting in class for twenty hours a week made me want to strangle someone. I'd rather work full time for minimum wage—at least I'd be getting paid; ignoring the argument that 'your grade is your payment.'

"No death ray lasers," Carol denied, her tone leaving no room for argument.

"Yes, mom. What do you think our chances are?"

Shaking her head, the blonde said, "Open and shut case—negligence, abuse of a minor, violation of civil rights… I've already got the video files in my email. I can't believe bribing Armsmaster worked. Tinkers are weird."

"I think it's more that he and Dragon are friends and even though I was kind of a bitch to her, I think she felt bad about my situation and talked him into it."

Standing up from her chair, Carol nodded. "One more thing. You know this will never make it to court, right?"

I shrugged. "I don't care. I want them to suffer for it, but I'd rather have the money. Piggot's a fat, paranoid cunt with an axe to grind and a hate boner for parahumans so big she'd rather suffer kidney failure than ask your daughter for five minutes of her time, but she gets the job done. When she's not doing her best impression of an overly enthusiastic monkey fucking a football."

Carol coughed, covering her mouth and what I was pretty sure was a laugh as she glared at me. "If you were my daughter, I would wash your mouth out with soap."

"Good thing I'm an orphan, said no one," I rolled my eyes, following her out of the room.