Step 8.6
This is going to be a long meeting.
Technically the second of the week for me.
Talia wrote down everything I said, occasionally conferring with the men on either side of her. I brought all my old notebooks with me, which 'helped' in their words. I didn't see how. They asked me every question under the sun anyway when cracking to any given page would provide the answer. The same happened to Charlotte beside me. Guess they wanted to be thorough, but getting asked the same question three different ways took forever and became disgustingly repetitive.
Joseph Campbell and Dean sat off to the side, both clearly avoiding any acknowledgment of the other. Dean occasionally turned his attention to his phone, thumbing out answers with one hand.
Charlotte's parents and Dad sat off on the other side, quietly watching. Dad and Mr. Berman maintained stoic expressions, while Mrs. Berman took on a new expression of dread with each gruesome detail Charlotte and I revealed.
Five hours in, and we'd barely made it past "when did the bullying start" and "who was involved."
"And Madison Clements?" One of the other lawyers asked.
I sighed. "One of the ring leaders," I repeated. "With Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess."
"Who we can now positively confirm was Shadow Stalker," Campbell said, again.
He wore a fucking smile on his face. It was like Sophia dying and having her identity revealed in the Boston Memorial was the best thing that could happen. They showered us in pictures of her, asking if she was the same person who bullied us. They wanted to know how we figured out she was a Ward, and how we reacted to it.
Mrs. Knott, who sat on the other side of Charlotte, answered most of those questions.
"I told them," she said. "The staff at the school knew. Principal Blackwell made it very clear that we were to look out for Ms. Hess, and shrugged off any complaints we brought to her. Eventually most of the staff stopped trying, and the bullying escalated."
"Ms. Hess only became a member of the Wards eight months after the bullying started," Talia said. "The lack of action predates PRT involvement."
"We'll need to account for that," another lawyer said with a nod. "The PRT might try to argue it's not their fault if the campaign predated their involvement."
"The bullying wasn't as extreme," Mrs. Knott said.
"It got worse in my second year," I said in agreement. "Sophia became more physical."
"I remember that," Charlotte added. "I wasn't being bullied yet, but I saw things get worse. Everyone did. In the first year, Emma only spread rumors and picked on Taylor. Things got a lot worse after the summer break and we came back. A few students tried to get the teachers to do something, but none of them did."
"Winslow wasn't a good school," Mrs. Knott said. "Blackwell preoccupied herself with trying to keep the guns and drugs under control."
Someone started writing, and asked, "You mean Principal Blackwell knew about the guns and drugs and accepted their presence?"
Mrs. Knott frowned. "Yes."
I saw the look of disgust on her face. I agreed. I held no love for Blackwell, but I did see her plight. Winslow defined hellhole. Half the student body were gang members, or friends with gang members. I used a suit of super armor and quantum physical bullshit to shut down major drug and gun shipments into Brockton Bay, and even then I only caught so many of them. Blackwell, a normal woman whose job was supposed to be running a school, hardly had a means of completely preventing the presence of drugs and weapons on Winslow's grounds.
Holding that against her wasn't fair. Not that I planned to jump to her defense. Like I said, no love for Blackwell. Call me bitter. I didn't care. Blackwell could go ahead and hang on that cross. She made it for herself.
On and on the questions went.
One lawyer did flip through my notebooks, looking over them page by page and occasionally writing on a legal pad. Occasionally, when others became absorbed in talking about various legal codes I didn't understand, he'd ask me something.
"You say here that you think Madison Clements was more reluctant than the others?" He asked, pointing at a page I wrote on over two years ago.
I shrugged.
"She seemed less invested than Emma or Sophia. At first anyway. I think she started out just wanting to be in the popular crowd."
"Do you know if any of the other students were pressured to join in?" He asked. "By that I mean, did you ever see anyone else get targeted?"
"Yes?" I raised my brow. Has he ever been to highschool? "They picked on other kids. It's high school."
"Emma made it pretty clear to anyone who tried to say anything that she'd ruin them if they made a fuss," Charlotte said. "They picked on others, but when Taylor was at school, it was almost always her they focused on. When she left, they, um, they refocused on me." She shook her head, her eyes a little red. "I don't know why."
"Do you think your ancestry was a factor?" Talia asked.
"No," Charlotte said. "I mean, Sophia got into a few fights with the Empire kids at school. And she was black. I don't think she even knew I was Jewish."
"That never stopped Emma from threatening me," I said. "I've had Empire kids assume I'm Jewish because of my hair and name. Emma said she'd tell them once. I don't think she ever did."
Talia skipped right over that, asking, "Did Ms. Hess get punished for those fights?"
"Not that I remember."
"We're a zero tolerance state," someone said. "She should have at least been suspended."
"Favoritism," said another. "Same old same old. Capes get special interest and naturals don't."
"That the bullying predated any knowledge of Sophia Hess' status can't be ignored," Talia said. "We should assume the PRT will bring up mitigating factors in their defense, namely the state and conditions at Winslow which are beyond the PRT's direct control."
"We can sideline that."
So it went. For hours. Be a lie to say I never cried. I hated every second of it, and kept glancing at the clock waiting for it to be over. On the bright side, my obvious emotional discomfort and apprehension meant I didn't have to pretend to be a traumatized teenage girl. How very convenient.
"We should take a break," Dean said eventually. "It's been hours."
"We still have a lot to cover," Joseph said. "We should-"
Talia interrupted him. She stood up, said 'fifteen' and then left the room after waving to a woman sitting by the door.
I rose from my seat and left the room quickly after. Dad followed me, maintaining a ten feet distance as I walked down the hall. I went into the lady's room and sat down in a stall. I waited a few moments to see if anyone followed.
No one did.
I pulled my phone out and started typing.
sys.t/ how did it go?
sys.v/ we are prepared
The gangs had spent the last few days keeping to their comparative silence. I'd busted up a drug stash and just plain busted on three empty buildings the Empire abandoned.
The truth dawned on me slowly.
The Empire was going underground. They'd even retreated a lot of their social media presence. I expected that response, but not this soon. Not when the Empire held such a strong upper hand on the crippled ABB and the divided Merchants. On the one hand, it did mean the threat of gang war passed with a whisper. On the other hand, it meant Kaiser was getting smart and sooner than I wanted him to.
The bright side is it did free up my time to get things moving on other projects.
Like the murder of a certain elderly activist.
sys.t/ let me see
While I'd been sitting and reliving my traumas, Veda was pulling double duty as herself, and me, while talking to Dean. I reviewed the log quickly, looking through everything to make sure it looked alright.
The hardest part honestly was teaching Veda that most people used conjunctions.
NT: I'm online
NT: Did you manage?
DS: yeah
DS: I set it up like you said
DS: took me a few minutes
DS: not super tech smart
SG: That's fine
SG: I just need the router's MAC
Dean provided the address before the meeting even started, and Veda had spent the past few hours toiling. Dean did us the favor of installing a small USB sized wireless connector to one of the routers in the server room. That's all Veda needed to get past the bulk of security without setting off any alarms.
Teacher isn't the only one who can use an inside person to get past basic security.
I accessed the router and checked the connection. Building a generic, non-tinker tech wireless device the size of a thumbnail is not easy. Well, it is easy. Just unpack a commercial wireless device and pack the contents into a small space. I could build a tinker tech solution, but if anyone found the damn thing all eyes would immediately turn on the now small number of tinkers in Brockton Bay. Likely they'd turn to Newtype, since the PRT wouldn't be dumb enough to try and hack BC's servers.
So, no tinker tech. Plausible deniability and all that. I managed it, but it came at the expense of range. I needed to be in the building to connect.
Dean didn't need to know that part.
sys.t/ Veda?
sys.v/ it is going well
sys.v/ system security is surprisingly robust
sys.v/ but it is not a problem
I nodded to myself. I went back to the log and kept reading.
NT: We're in
SG: Give us a few hours
SG: Remove the USB if you can before you leave
SG: We don't want anyone to find it
DS: I know
DS: You remember the deal?
NT: We remember
SG: we will look over the files
SG: we can meet later in the week
SG: at the graveyard
I couldn't begrudge Dean being a bit uneasy about letting a cape freely access the computers of an organization dedicated to opposing "special treatment" given to parahumans. He didn't want me accessing personnel files, case records, human resources, or anything like that. 'I can't let you just do whatever you want. People have rights.'
I really wish he wasn't so principled, but I might like him less if he weren't.
So fine. I only accessed the files he gathered onto his computer, and Veda poured through them looking for leads. Hunting through other files could wait. Time spent on narrowing things down now would pay off later anyway.
sys.t/ anything interesting?
sys.v/ searching records
I didn't have time to read everything, so I quickly looked over the highlights.
What Dean made us promise to look at were things Blue Cosmos didn't really hide. Confidential and non-public information, but nothing particularly personal. I didn't expect much, but if I could find any leads I'd have some weight to throw Dean's way.
Veda highlighted a few things that I did find interesting.
sys.t/ that's a lot of personnel transfers
sys.v/ most in legal and human resources
sys.v/ I noticed as well
sys.t/ lots of promotions to positions outside the city
sys.t/ and the replacements came from New York
sys.t/ BC's main HQ is in New York
Hard for me to make anything about that. The promotions and movement of personal came out in a weekly news letter, and there seemed to be a lot of them to me.
sys.t/ access some other chapters
sys.t/ compare their turnover
The cagiest part of the plot to kill Dean Stansfield that resulted in the killing of Sam Stansfield came down to motive. I could guess at the reasons, but there must be more to it than just silencing and sidelining Sam Stansfield without creating a martyr. If they wanted to merely silence him and push him aside, the schemers should have enacted their plan before he gave a public speech. They arranged for something to happen afterward, so the speech played into their plan. Somehow.
The records Veda found suggested an almost one hundred percent turnover in several parts of the Brockton Bay chapter of Blue Cosmos. Why completely replace the legal and human resources departments? Did bringing in new people and getting rid of old ones play into the plan? For what purpose?
I got up and tucked my phone into my pocket.
Veda could keep culling files while I multi-tasked.
Dad stood in the hall when I got out.
I didn't let it show on my face, not here, but I felt the discomfort crawl up my spine. He'd become even more doting since Boston, but he made it weird by always staying at a distance. Always there somewhere, watching, but never stepping up and saying the words that really mattered. Namely, the two-word combo of "I'm" and "sorry."
So I walked past him and said nothing.
If he wanted to make this super awkward, I could make it super awkward.
And super awkward it was.
"Is everything alright?" Mrs. Berman asked me at one point. Dad and Charlotte's dad were talking to Copeland on the other side of the room, and the lawyers had left the room momentarily for something.
"It's fine," I said.
She obviously didn't believe me, but unlike someone I knew she didn't push for answers I clearly didn't want to give.
I just hoped none of the Blue Cosmos bigots asked me anything about it. The last thing I wanted was any of them butting their noses into my business any more than necessary.
I found being asked about the bullying insulting on an unreal level already. Maybe that came from how little most of the lawyers around me seemed to really care. Their eyes widened and their smiles grew whenever some new detail emerged hinting at some other grave offense. That I suffered at the hands of my peers and an uncaring system seemed secondary to the prospect of being able to "litigate" the issue.
No wonder people hate lawyers.
Charlotte soldiered it better than I did. She looked and sounded melancholic, but she maintained a bitter smile.
I hadn't talked to her since the memorial, but I kept a sharp ear and eye out.
If anyone ever saw her with Carlos – Aegis – they kept their mouths shut. Veda policed various boards and social media, searching for any sign that someone might connect Charlotte's name or face to a boy she dated twice. Canary did say something on her media profile, expressing her condolences for Carlos' death. Guess she remembered, or someone reminded her, that he'd been at her concert. She mentioned friends and family, but said nothing about his date that evening. Maybe as a cape – even a rogue – she saw the inherent recklessness in identifying Charlotte, even if Carlos was dead.
So far, nothing came of it.
Hopefully it stayed that way. Charlotte still seemed in a lurch, and she hardly needed a bunch of vultures descending on her. Well, no more than we'd already invited.
"No," she said. "I didn't do anything. A few kids tried to defend Taylor when the bullying first started, and they got it pretty bad. I was afraid, so I didn't do anything. I don't know why they focused on me. I wasn't popular or unpopular. I just went to school there and went about my day. No one ever paid that much attention to me."
"Might be the reason," Talia said. "You were an easily isolated target."
Charlotte shrugged.
"I only went to Winslow to be with Emma," I said. "My grades were good enough to start at Arcadia, but Emma's weren't. Most of our friends from Middle School went to Arcadia without us. I didn't really know that many people at Winslow when we started."
I didn't really believe that, of course. Saying it just helped me take some heat off Charlotte. The lawyers seemed to like talking to her more than me, and she gave more detailed answers.
Emma's attacks on me always felt personal. Directed, not opportunistic. My relative isolation at Winslow might explain how she get the student body so whipped into line, though. I'd never given it that much thought. I always attributed Emma's success in bringing an entire school to heel to her relative wealth, charisma, looks, and my lack of all three qualities.
"And you have no thought about why your friend would do what she did?" Some asked.
"No," I lied.
Truthfully, I'd gathered some ideas, but ultimately they didn't matter. Emma did what she did and it was monstrous.
The meeting went on for hours. Many hours. Many monotonous hours.
"It won't be like that at the trial will it?" Charlotte's mother asked when we finished. She looked at her daughter and me with concern, but my dad assured her it would be shorter and more intense.
"The defense lawyers will be even worse," he said with a small glance to me.
The Berman's might interpret it as concern. Dad and I both knew there wouldn't be any cross examination, though. Charlotte too, probably. Mrs. Knott seemed to avoid us after the meeting. Maybe she'd figured out something was up and didn't want to get involved.
"It's late," Mr. Berman said as we left the building.
Dad glanced at his watch. "Just past nine."
"It felt like more than twelve hours."
Tell me about it.
"You alright?" I asked Charlotte.
"Oh, I'm okay." She smiled. "Life goes on, right?"
I nodded. The Bermans went their own way, and Dad and I got into his truck to go home.
"Is Charlotte okay?" He asked.
"She's enduring."
And silence followed.
If I thought a twelve-hour grilling over my torment sucked, the silence on the drive back to the house dared me to complain about it. The irony of course, is that I wanted to be done with teenage drama bullshit. You would think that would be over with. Instead, I got to continue the tradition of melodramatic crap, with my dad instead of teenagers.
So why did the awkward silence with my father feel like teenage drama bullshit?
"I have discovered something alarming."
Thank you Veda. Distractions away!
I pulled my phone from my pocket as Dad drove.
"What?" I asked.
"The night Samuel Stansfield died, over eighteen gigabytes of data were wiped from the Blue Cosmos servers," Veda said.
Eighteen?
That is a lot for a non-tinker tech system.
"Any idea what was in the files?"
"No," Veda said. "They have been thoroughly destroyed; however I have traced server points to them elsewhere. The data was all stored under a file titled 'Operation British.'"
"Cute name," I mumbled.
What did they need eighteen gigabytes for, and why delete it after Samuel Stansfield died?
"Most of Mr. Stansfield's files have also been removed from the network," Veda continued. "His personal accounts have been wiped, and his email cleared."
Damn. I hoped that poking around his files might point me in the right direction. If Sam Stansfield planned to break ranks, surely he had compelling reasons. Reasons he must have talked about with someone. His correspondences could be useful if they still existed.
"I have however found several pieces of malware that have not been deleted. One records his key strokes and sends the data to another server, while another intercepted his emails and duplicated them."
I raised my brow.
"Oh, really?"
"Really," Veda replied.
I grinned.
Amateurs.
"Can you trace them?"
"I can, but it will reveal that someone has accessed Mr. Stansfield's account and tried to get to his files."
"We have an easy solution for that."
I glanced at Dad and raised a finger to my lips. He shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. I dialed the number and cleared my throat before pressing call.
"Hello?" Dean asked.
"Mr. Stansfield. It's me."
"One moment."
I heard talking in background, and the scuffing of a chair against the floor. A door opened and closed, and Dean asked, "Did you find anything?"
"Is everything okay?" I asked.
"Just a meeting," he said. "I can't talk about it."
I admit, part of me wondered if I could push and get inside info on the legal team.
Oh well.
I used his brief pause to let Veda do a quick scan. I wouldn't put it past anyone who installed key loggers on their own leaders to set up listening devices.
"Did you find anything?" He asked again.
Veda returned an all clear, and I said, "A few things. Someone was spying on your grandfather. They were logging his keystrokes and duplicating his emails. They covered their tracks after he died, but they did not delete the malware. Probably assumed it wouldn't matter with all the files gone, or they want to know if anyone accesses his computer and accounts."
Dean was quiet for about a minute.
"You want me to use his computer?" He asked.
"Yes," I said. "StarGazer and I could do it, but whoever we're looking for will know someone is looking for them. Given recent events, they'd probably immediately cast suspicion on us and as my PR rep recently told me, getting into a spat with Blue Cosmos is a lose-lose situation."
"Kati would say that."
I raised my brow. "She would?"
"She's pretty well known in political circles," Dean said. "Do you remember Rep. Louis?"
"That BC guy who ran for the house last year?"
"Yeah. Kati buried him. She basically handed the election to Butcher."
Right. Someone won an election with the last name Butcher. I remembered the jokes that went around after that. I mean, come on. A 'Butcher' running for office in the Northeast. The jokes almost wrote themselves, however cruel and unfair they were. It's not as if you can choose your last name, least of all when you are fifty years old and capes came along in your twenties with nicknames and costumes.
Kati did say she normally worked in politics.
"Must have cost you a lot to hire her," Dean said.
And I noticed at that point Kati had yet to say anything about money.
Huh.
Dean didn't comment on my silence.
"Give me an hour or two," he said. "I can get into his office and I know his login. I can get in and if anyone looks it'll just seem like I'm clearing his office out and tidying up."
"That'll give us cover to track down who was doing the spying," I said. "We also noticed a lot of personnel shifts. Particularly in HR and legal. Do you know anything about it?"
"Not really," Dean said. "I assumed the new legal team was brought in to," – Dean paused – "to tackle something the old one wasn't really experienced enough for. I don't know about HR. Honestly, I mostly work with the volunteers. I don't interact much with other parts of the organization."
They brought in a new legal team to go after the PRT over Shadow Stalker. I hardly needed my suspicions further confirmed, but that worked. I just didn't see how Dean and his grandfather fit into the picture. Teacher worked long term. What often seemed like random chaos rarely turned out that way. He wanted something, and he worked against the PRT to get it. How did Blue Cosmos fit in and why would he try to push Sam and Dean out?
"Has anything unusual happened the past few weeks?" I asked. "I got busy with Leviathan around the corner, so I haven't had the time to really dig into this until now." There is a bright side to the gangs retreating a bit.
"Not really," Dean said. "People have been respectful, or irreverent in ways I'm accustomed to around here. There's a few jockeying to move up now that some vacancies have been made, but that's typical of professional nonprofit types."
"It is?"
"Two kinds of people join nonprofits," Dean said. "True believers and ladder climbers. The latter are always looking to move up into however few paid positions there actually are. My dad's setting up to take over, and that comes with shuffling."
My brow went up.
"Shuffling?" I asked.
"Yeah. I mean, you've probably noticed Blue Cosmos has a bit of a division, right?" He asked.
"The bigots and the believers?" I asked back.
"It's more complicated than that," Dean said. "My dad thinks the organization should get more aggressive. More focused on politics and legal pursuits. He's replacing some of grandfather's people with his own and restructuring the chapter."
My index finger tapped against my leg.
Dean's father is restructuring the chapter.
And how the hell did I broach that without risking Dean turning away from our partnership? If Teacher wanted to attack the PRT, and Sam Stansfield was getting ready to make a break, then replacing him with Dean's father made sense.
Oh fuck.
It worked even better if Dean died in the assassination attempt.
If Dean died, then the conspirators could explain his grandfather's reverse in opinion, and his father's new aggressive vision, as the product on the same catalyst. Grieving men facing tragedy, one who 'surrendered' and another who 'fought on.' Two birds, one stone.
Fuck that's good, in an 'oh god that's terrible' kind of way.
The most obvious immediate beneficiary was Dean's own dad. Did he know anything? Was he the pet?
"Dean," I said in a low voice. "Do you suspect anyone?"
It seemed smarter to ask that than to come out and say what I thought. I needed Dean, and the issue with the malware on his grandfather's computer reinforced that. I didn't want anyone to know I was coming for them. I wanted them to think I bought the cover story of some Empire thug gone rogue.
"A few people," he said. "But my experience here is that everyone either loved grandfather, or tried to stay on his good side to help their chances to move up. I get the Teacher thing. I can't imagine Greta ever willingly trying to hurt him. If he can control people like that, I'm not sure anyone here could know who would or wouldn't do something like that."
Wish I had an update on that, but I couldn't ask without Ramius realizing I intended to keep investigating Sam Stansfield's death.
"Dean," I said. "I'm not asking who would want to get rid of your grandfather. Your grandfather wasn't the intended target. I'm asking if there is anyone who wants to get rid of you.
The line went silent.
"Oh. Right."
"Is there anyone who wants you gone, Dean? Or who might not mind being rid of you if it helped their goals?"
"I-I don't know? I mean, Victoria Dallon seems to hate my guts, but I don't think she'd kill me."
"She doesn't hate you that much," I said. She did follow him the night of the assassination without complaint. Whatever Glory Girl might be, happy to see anyone die wasn't it.
"I can't really think of anyone else."
And that was unfortunate.
"We'll just have to dig then. We need evidence. The PRT won't take any action that might target someone in Blue Cosmos without good evidence."
"Give me a little time and I'll send an email or something from grandfather's computer."
"StarGazer?" I asked.
"I am inserting my own malware that will track the other malware," Veda said. "It will delete itself as soon as it completes that function."
I hung up and sighed.
Dean, it turns out, is too much of a nice guy for his own good, and not one of those cheesy internet ones who are just assholes.
I closed my eyes. Dean was the only one intended to die that night. The solution his grandfather's driver had would have saved his life. Killing the man would just make a martyr anyway, someone who died with their last public words being a condemnation on his own legacy. Killing Dean on the other hand would produce a martyr for the cause of Blue Cosmos, or at least, the radical version some of its members wanted to make the only cause. It made more sense to kill Dean, even if his grandfather was the victim of the outcome.
"Didn't Ramius tell you not to get involved?" Dad asked.
"Ramius wants me to stay out of Blue Cosmos and Teacher's crosshairs."
"Shouldn't you?"
I inhaled. "I'm already in the reticle, dad. If not as Newtype, then as Taylor Hebert. He exposed all those identities to embarrass the PRT and set them up for a lawsuit, and if he was willing to kill Dean to get what he wanted then he's willing to kill me. Or Charlotte. Or even you. It's not like he makes a habit of being direct."
Dad didn't respond to that, and frankly, I made it up on the spot to make him stop pestering.
I held no intention of ignoring Teacher treating the world and the anchors holding it down as a plaything. Especially not with my progress in Brockton Bay.
I never planned to keep myself confined to this 'locker' my entire career. The whole 'school' needed righting.
I turned toward the street.
"Where are you going?" Dad asked after I hung up.
"Tinkering," I grumbled. That comment might have carried a double-edge. "I'll be back for dinner. Don't forget to call Kurt. I need a shift at the factory early in the morning or Trevor will be there all day and I don't want his mom to keep dropping by looking for him. It's not safe for her."
Dad did nothing. Again. Maybe it's a catch-22 to expect my father to give a damn about me while simultaneously wanting him to keep his distance, but his return to ambivalence left a bad taste in my mouth. Moreover, he returned to ambivalence only when it wasn't going behind my back and doing something 'for my own good.'
Kati seemed okay. I still felt off balance around her most of the time, but much of what she said made sense and I looked her up online and saw a pretty good record of success in the political theater. Dad suggested I needed help with PR, and I agreed, and Kati seemed right for my first foray.
So naturally, he responded to our agreement by going behind my back and telling someone my identity. Excuses aside, it's the fucking principle. I shouldn't have to keep worrying about what Dad is doing while I'm not looking, but by some twisted turn of fate I did and that fucking sucked.
The frustration occupied my thoughts all the way to changing into my costume and walking to my factory.
Traffic improved without the threat of a gang war, even with the tourists coming back to the city. Tack that onto my list as a win. Helped that entire sections of the city did not need to be policed often I guess. Objectively one could call that a great success and I'd take some credit for it.
When I got into the workshop, I pulled my mask off and settled in.
"Hello!" Lafter called. She sat on the couch watching TV like she usually did when we weren't really doing anything.
"Hi, Lafter."
"How'd it go with the vampires?" She looked over her shoulder at me. "Do I need to break out the holy water?"
"No," I said. "But keep it around."
"Okay."
I shook my head.
Green and Orange gathered my tools while Red collected the parts I wanted. I got to work putting the power core together, and set the fabricators to produce some of the parts required for the design.
While they did that, I checked through the email system I set up for the factory. Kati sent me a few files detailing the questions for my "interview" with a reporter. Trevor asked for some clarification on some of the parts for the manufacturing line, and Steve had reported a few of the guys getting harassed for taking my job offer.
I needed to watch that closely. I proved my ability to defend the factory, but the employees were another matter. I needed to get some employee housing set up nearby.
Until then, keeping a close eye on things would be difficult.
I ignored the movement behind me, perhaps hoping she'd think better of it and not-
"I'm bored."
I sighed.
"I know you're bored Lafter."
She tapped her foot on the floor.
I finished the power core and had Green hold the processors up for me to work on. I remained standing because I spent the day in a chair and didn't feel like sitting more. Orange brought the parts over from the fabricators as they finished and I arranged them for easy assembly.
Lafter sat down on the table edge.
"Gotten awfully quiet around here."
"The gangs are hiding," I said. "It's finally sunk in that they can't win a straight fight, because I won't fight straight and even if I do you're just going to run rampant through their territories. That was the plan, remember?"
"Yeah. That was fun. This is boring."
"You do realize the point of all of this," – I raised tools and waved them around the room – "is reducing the crime rate?"
Lafter pouted. "Yeah. And it's boring."
I rolled my eyes.
Veda piped in, offering, "I can locate some members of the ABB or Empire for you to punch?"
"Don't enable her," I said.
"I'd like to be enabled," Lafter replied, raising her hand.
"We've gone entire weeks without getting into fights," I said. "You didn't complain."
"You were planning stuff, so I could indulge in the anticipation! Now we're just sitting around and watching and it's so boring!"
Well… she's not wrong.
"Give me a moment."
I ignored her and assembled the parts I put together. Green and Orange pushed the ball closed. I sealed the ball and checked the surface. Looked good.
"Turn him on, Veda," I said.
Been awhile since I built a new Haro. His eyes flashed, and the gyroscope came online and righted him. He turned left, then right, and then looked up at me.
"I hereby dub thee, Yellow."
"Hello world, hello world!"
"Why'd you make another Haro?" Lafter asked.
"So that we'll be able to leave someone here at the factory to help out and watch things," I said. "The first six don't cover all our bases anymore. I'm going to build two more after this."
She nodded. "What colors are they going to be?"
"Blue and," - I paused and stared at the wall - "White?"
Lafter gave me a deadpan look.
"You're running out of colors."
I sighed, "I'm running out of colors."
"How about a Haro named Bob?"
"We're not making a Haro named Bob."
"Of course we're not," she replied, "You are!"
"I get it. You're bored."
Lafter smiled and nodded. "Very."
"Play a game."
"All play and no work makes me a bored girl."
"It's not always going to be action, Lafter."
"How'd the talk with the pretty boy go?"
I frowned. "I don't have anyone else for you to punch."
She shrugged. "Just thought I'd ask."
Not like I didn't sympathize with Lafter's 'boredom.'
I didn't have a plan. Well, I did, and I didn't.
I spent months working to bring the gangs down to the point operating openly was impossible. One can never get rid of crime but you can get it under control. The sheer power and speed of the Gundams and Veda gave me the opportunity to do what so many other capes couldn't. I bid my time, waited, and struck out harder and harder as I got better positions to make the blows stick.
It fucking worked.
It worked too well, almost. I got exactly what I wanted. I entered a new phase. I won the war. I needed to win the peace. A nebulous goal if ever there was one.
I planned for it, but so many things went wrong along the way. The Empire remained strong in manpower and capes, and Bakuda could arm run of the mill ABB with bombs that could probably match a cape. I lost my access to the gang's phones and social media when they recoiled, and my eyes throughout the city became increasingly limited as they started taking communications seriously. The gangs could sit back and build up if I gave them breathing room, but finding where to choke them became harder than ever.
I felt like standing in a doorway with a foot on both sides and I didn't know which way the door would close. I didn't know how to proceed, and a single misstep could undo everything.
But passivity wasn't an answer either. I needed to keep going. I just didn't know how. Teacher and the Endbringers were my long term goals, but I needed to keep the city in check to really go after them.
I still had my plan, but it had a gaping hole titled "what now" in it.
In the void I busied myself with busy work. Building more Haros, specifically ones to help manage the Factory and keep an eye on the city. I designed new tech. I finally got around planning a third suit. A new GN drive would be ready in a little over a month.
Actually.
"Veda, where are we on the simulator?" I asked.
"The program is eighty-four percent complete."
"There." I stood up and turned to Lafter. "I have something for you to do."
"What?"
She followed me as I walked to Astraea and opened the suit up.
"Get in," I said.
Lafter looked at Astraea, and then at me. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Lafter climbed inside and settled herself. The suit closed, and Veda locked the controls automatically.
"Start up the simulation," I said.
"Starting," Veda said.
"Whoa!" Lafter exclaimed. Astrea's head turned left and right, but the arms and legs remained locked. "This is tighter than I thought it would be."
I frowned. Because your bust line is bigger than mine.
"Get used to it," I said. "I can build the next suit to fit you better, but it'll still feel like being in a can. Do you see the flight track?"
"You mean the 'please tell me this isn't Superman 64' rings?"
I tilted my head to the side. "Yes?"
"I see 'um."
"Good. Veda, start the tutorial. Lafter, pay attention."
"I always pay attention."
I rolled my eyes and stepped back.
Veda did a quick – which is still long really – run through of the control scheme inside Astraea, all perfectly simulated in a dummy environment. I couldn't simulate the g-forces of flight or the 'weight' of piloting a Gundam with it, but I'd build a fuller simulator later. For now, it would be good enough to get Lafter started on the controls. I didn't know how well she might learn them, given that she didn't build them or understand the mechanics.
The Air Force spent years training a pilot, and the Gundams were a lot more complicated than a fighter jet.
It also got Lafter out of my hair and entertained.
"Hey, Taylor? Why am I upside down? And underwater?"
Occupied. It kept Lafter occupied.
"It will take time to adjust to the responsiveness of the GN Vernier propellant," Veda said. "I suggest capping the accelerator with your left thumb and right forefinger."
Lafter's response to that was a blunt, "What?"
I went over to my workstation and pulled up the design for Gundam-03. I hadn't quite thought of a name for it yet, but I'd put together a basic design. Though, I needed to redesign it now. The compressor and dampening configuration I used in Astraea didn't cut it for the output levels I knew the GN Drive could achieve. I needed to test and adjust the design of both my current suits before getting started on a third.
And of course, I had time.
After an hour, I decided it was too much time.
Tinkering is great. I loved tinkering, but the fucking anxiety almost ruined it. This itch in my limbs, a need that set my foot tapping restlessly against the floor under me. Normally I wished for more time to tinker. Instead, I wished for something more concrete to do. A way to keep advancing.
It's a nasty circle in a way.
One foot on either side of that metaphorical door looking either way.
I set one of the screens to play the news when music didn't help. I'd become more conscious of it after my little chat with Kati. She warned me not to get too caught up in what other people said or thought. 'No one can operate that way,' she explained, 'and still be honest with themselves.' Still, I wanted to know what was going on.
I worked on a new inertia neutralizer design while I listened, occasionally looking back to make sure Lafter hadn't broken anything.
News about me faded within the first few days after the battle. People went on to the other things going on in the world. The Slaughterhouse Nine for example. A few hundred dead, including three members of the local Ward's team.
Needed to remind myself to just not get too obsessed with that.
I might have managed to win a bunch of fights against some dangerous capes, but the Nine ran rampant for years. The Protectorate threw entire teams at them and somehow the core members of the group managed to keep going, especially for the past couple years since they recruited Bonesaw.
"In other news, a robbery today shocked Boston. Until now the city had many optimistic that it was on the path of recovery since the months long gang war that plagued the streets before Leviathan attacked a mere few weeks ago."
Figures. Save the city from a monster and it's all back to normal two weeks later.
"The robbery was perpetrated by associates of Damsel of Distress, also known as Ashley Stillons since a leak of PRT data revealed both the government agencies plans to try and recruit the villainess, and exposed her identity. Damsel made waves in the aftermath of the Endbringer fight, with some capes accusing her of taking advantage of the battle to let her rivals die. Experts however have expressed doubt that her actions really break the so called 'truce between capes.'"
Well, they weren't wrong.
No one in their right mind would ever interpret the rules as saying someone couldn't back out of an Endbringer fight. It's not like Damsel killed any of her rivals. She just didn't help. Still. It rubbed the wrong way. She showed up to the prefight meeting for what? To see if Accord and the Teeth showed up? Even the fucking Butcher tried to fight Leviathan.
"The robbery however turned bizarre when two members of the Empire Eighty-Eight, Night and Fog, appeared to foil it and hold the perpetrators until the PRT arrived."
I raised my head and looked at the screen.
Say what now?
The report came with video. Two capes, Night and Fog I assumed, fled the scene with an overturned car and three men left behind in the middle of the road. The PRT and two members of the Protectorate showed up to arrest them in another clip.
The reporter continued, saying, "Director Armstrong of the Boston PRT had this to say."
The camera changed, Director Armstrong standing behind a podium.
"As you all know, Boston cape culture is a bit different from the norm. The relations between heroes and villains here is different. Crime here is different. We encourage Purity and her associates to turn themselves in, but the fact of the matter is that they are not our priority so long as their activities remain untroubling for the local population."
The news played it off like the PRT was keeping its priorities straight. It seemed to me more like the PRT decided to willfully ignore Purity and her group so long as they weren't being a problem. Not hard to see why, pragmatically, at least.
Maybe Purity wasn't talking out her ass?
Not sure how I felt about that. She'd killed people in her time in the Empire. A change of heart isn't exactly a legally prescribed get-out-of-jail-free-card. I don't know what exactly made her want to leave the Empire. She said something about someone she couldn't live without. Boyfriend? Pretty sure she used to be a thing with Kaiser. Wouldn't put it past the man to be a misogynistic dick, though.
"The robbery is the latest in a spree of crimes committed by Damsel of Distress," the reporter continued. "This thus far unnamed criminal organization has run rampant through the city since the battle against Leviathan and the weakening of many of the city's other criminal elements. Despite this, the PRT has insisted that the situation in Boston is much better than before."
"The crime rate in Boston has declined," Veda said.
"It's higher than before Teacher's stupid stunt," I said. "How is Lafter doing?"
"There is improvement." That well, huh? "There are several reports with optimistic data on Boston's recovery."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Veda."
"Yes?"
"Is this your way of discouraging me from doing anything in Boston?"
"No."
"Veda."
She went silent long enough for it to be obvious and awkward before saying, "You have a habit of of taking unnecessary action?"
"I'm not going off on a trek to Boston on a whim. My plans don't always go the way I'd like," - I glanced at the news report - "but I'm not that impulsive."
Not normally, at least.
Circumstances forced my hand sometimes.
It can be hard to keep on track with my plans, especially when things go wrong.
I got as far as I did by striking with good timing, by being bold. I wanted to keep doing that. Keep my momentum going. Kept the villains on the back foot with no way to predict what I'd do next.
I glanced at the screen again, foot tapping against the floor.
Honestly, it's Veda's fault. The thought didn't even cross my mind until she mentioned it.
