There are times when my job is made harder than it needs to be.

Sometimes that is when a previously-unknown parahuman kills the most powerful cape in the city and kicks off a gang war between an unstable Tinker with a remarkably destructive specialty and a group of superpowered Nazis. The knee-jerk reaction is to double up patrols, call all hands to battlestations, make broad public statements about how this is the last time villainous parahumans will break the law, and make a concerted effort to go after the stronger side.

That is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Doubling the number of patrols means double the number of fights, which means double the number of injuries, which means double the down time even with Isidis providing discounted healing. A gang war is exactly the wrong time to have a valuable parahuman benched because they ran afoul of their natural counter. Most of the parahumans I work with understand this, even the younger ones in the Wards.

"What do you mean I can't have more patrols!?"

Sophia Hess. If she wasn't actually good at bringing in criminals she'd be in juvenile hall, then prison shortly afterwards if her behavior is anything to go by. As is, a little paperwork and a few rants are worth a noticeable drop in street crime.

"I mean that we anticipate an increase in Empire and ABB activity, and they are likely to be more lethal than normal," I say calmly, pushing down the mild disgust that wells up in me whenever a spoiled brat comes into my office demanding things. "For that reason I cannot allow an increase in patrols, especially given your penchant for wandering off on them." The unspoken threat of actually making something of her blatant violations of procedure hangs between us.

Sophia grinds her teeth together before stomping out. I take another sip of coffee, savoring the caffeine and the taste of a job well done.

The knee jerk response to hearing a junior demand a meeting is to deny them. The orders come from above and go down, not the other way around. Basic stuff, and entirely correct when working with regular people.

Exactly wrong when working with parahumans.

Each parahuman has their own issues, but most of them come with a form of egocentrism. They aren't normal people who will follow orders when it makes sense or when they don't know what to do. Thus, they must be indulged, allowed to have their tantrums, be given a pat on the back for every tiny thing they do right, and sternly reprimanded for their failures. It's like training dogs, but less pleasant and less permanent.

I turn back to the bottomless pile of paperwork and pull out the first page. Say what you will about the banality of filling out forms in triplicate, it's a break from talking to madmen and trying to get them marching in the right direction.


Over time, I've found myself gravitating towards particular types of parahumans and away from others. They're all crazy on some level but certain classifications are easier to deal with. Blasters, Strikers and Shakers tend to be fairly normal. Masters and Thinkers can't be trusted to not use their powers in social situations and should be treated as perpetually combative. Tinkers are generally the least difficult to work with. Away from a lab, most of them are essentially regular people, albeit distractible ones. So long as you don't allow them to go off on a tangent and make sure you never meet them when they have access to their full kit, you can almost trick yourself into thinking you're talking to a mere mortal.

That's why I wait three days before calling Kid Win to my office. He shows up in a red bodysuit and domino mask, the latter poorly concealing his concern. Good. That worry will make this easier. I lay aside a half-filled expense report and look up at him.

"Sit down," I say. He does, and I wait a beat for the silence to emphasize the importance of this conversation.

"You brought unapproved Tinkertech into the field," I state plainly, and Kid Win's face falls further. Good. This was cluster fuck of unimaginable proportions, more than partially due to his actions. He should feel like shit. "Could you please explain to me why you did this?"

"We were going up against Fenja and my pistols weren't doing anything," he mumbles eyes falling to his lap.

"So retreat," I say, placing a slight emphasis on the second word. "Wards are not supposed to engage during villain versus villain fights. As soon as the Empire showed up, procedure was to run away."

"We were winning though," he says, a little life entering his voice. "Aegis had taken out Regent early on, Vista and Clockblocker had one of Hellhound's dogs tagged and if we'd had a little more time-"

"You didn't," I interrupt, putting the steel of experience in my voice. "Fenja, Alabaster, Victor and Othala showed up. Please, tell me how you came to the conclusion that escalating against them was a good idea." A heavy hitter capable of taking anything they could dish out while knocking buildings to the ground, an unstoppable if minor frontliner, a sniper of parahuman skill, and the greatest known force multiplier in the city, all with body counts. The Youth Guard needs to try working with actual lemmings sometime to understand what it's like trying to keep the Wards safe in Brockton Bay.

"All we needed to do was take out Fenja," he protests, arm reaching towards me in supplication. "I would've had the element of surprise-"

"Kid Win, what does your device do? In broad strokes," I add, holding up my hand. "And tell me only what you knew before you deployed it."

He takes a moment, his eyes getting that far-away look Tinkers sometimes get when you ask them about anything remotely connected to their work. "Variable broad-spectrum energy projection, with the ability to modify the attributes of the output on the fly, including but not limited to intensity, speed of blast, fire rate-"

"Enough," I say and he stops talking, coming back to earth. "So you knew that you had a large gun that could shoot a wide variety of energy." He nods. I sigh internally.

"You did not know if it was reliable. You did not know when it would red-line. You did not know what, precisely, the baseline output of the gun was. You did not know if the base strength of the gun was powerful enough or esoteric enough to punch right through Fenja's distortion field and kill her, plunging the city into a bloodbath as the Empire turns the Bay inside out seeking vengeance." Kid Win's face pales. Good. The burnt hand learns best. "In summary, you knew that the gun was powerful and versatile and knew nothing about how to use it safely."

There's some silence. I take the opportunity to drink some coffee. It's excellent. A benefit of having a master Tinker on base who's addicted to the stuff.

When it becomes clear that Kid Win can't come up with a logical argument for his breach of protocol, I continue. "Lucky for you the worst case scenario didn't happen. Instead, your attempt to shock Fenja into unconsciousness missed, entered Medhall's power grid, blew past every safety precaution, and destroyed several terabytes of information and hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medhall computing assets." I take another sip of coffee. Damn it's good. Almost enough to consider letting Armsmaster go to town on the rest of the kitchen.

"You cannot pay this back. I can't touch your trust fund, and there's not nearly enough there anyway. If I docked every dollar you made from now until your graduation to the Protectorate, that wouldn't be enough. Maybe there would be enough if I did that and confiscated your Tinkering budget." At that his head pops up, dread on his face.

"Instead, Medhall has agreed to an out-of-court settlement. You will work with their scientists in their labs for no less than ten hours every week. A neutral third party Tinker will appraise your end designs, and the patents will be given to Medhall while also allowing you to use the designs non-commercially." The end result of two near-sleepless days on the phone while the dialysis machine flushed my body clean of toxins. Calling in every scrap of goodwill and favor the PRT and Protectorate had on Medhall, endless arguments over minutiae, all to keep a teenager with the power to level buildings from feeling the full consequences of his actions.

If I keeled over and went straight to hell, I'm not sure I would notice until I went to get more coffee.

"You are removed from all patrols until the debt is paid off, and you will dismantle the cannon." I see him want to complain, want being the key word. He forces it back down and nods. It seems he understands the magnitude of his fuck up. I nod towards the door. "You are dismissed."

He stands stiffly, pushes in the chair, and leaves the room, closing the door carefully. Hard to believe he's my favorite Ward. Aegis is too willing to simply take his punishments and learn nothing, Clockblocker is more willful than an unbroken mustang, Browbeat has yet to do more than superficially join the group, Gallant's power makes lying to him too difficult, Shadow Stalker is a rabid dog, and Vista is well on her way to a mental breakdown.

Kid Win is the only one among them who is properly responsive to feedback, negative and positive, while also not having the baggage of an involuntary Thinker power that colors every social interaction he has. I expect that he will take over as a Protectorate branch head in time. If the cannon is anything to go by he certainly has the power for it.

I finish the mug and search for another. It's cold, but Armsmaster has found a way to make even the chilly, bitter dregs of day-old expresso appealing.

If parahumans weren't so damn violent, I could almost be thankful for them.


"Parahuman name?"

"White Rose."

"Desired designation?"

"Rogue."

I raise an eyebrow at that. The woman- girl, I remind myself, she's Wards age, not Protectorate- who kills Lung on her debut and cripples an ABB gang member soon after wants to remain neutral?

"Business pursued?"

"Luxury goods, materials are inconsequential."

I spare a look for her lawyer. He seems slightly familiar. I've probably seen him before. I look back to the girl.

"Taxes?"

"Standard parahuman anonymity code. No revelation of identity."

This girl is willing to pay taxes twice in order to keep a secret. Given that her parents probably cover most of her living expenses, that makes sense right now. It'll be interesting to see if she keeps it up when she's on her own.

White Rose turns her gaze to mine, and I take the opportunity to appraise her as well. Her mask changes every time she steps out into public. The first night it was something reminiscent of Gallant's knight theme. When she went out to lunch at the now-destroyed Italian restaurant it looked closer to a skull with roses growing around it. Today it looks like a number of petals layered themselves over a human face, with cheekbones too sharp to be natural, flat black lenses where the eyes should be, and no mouth.

While the representative of the city and White Rose's lawyer hash out the details and ensure that she won't accidentally destabilize the local economy, I try to see something human beneath her shell. Something that I can read and understand.

All I see is perfect stillness. The kind of serenity that a corpse has.

This is the problem with Changers. They play at being human, and some of them spend a lot of time looking like one, but they're never quite the same after they Trigger. They always do something, something small, that tips you off to their true nature. Like the uncanny valley, but it's usually not a situation of feeling too stiff. Their movements can be too natural. Or too powerful.

The representative of the city passes a form to me and I sign it absentmindedly before passing it to White Rose. I won't pick a fight with her over her attempts to play harmless civilian. My words would only fall on deaf ears and push her away. At any rate, reality will assert itself soon enough. She'll have her little shop, things will go well for a while, and then it will all come tumbling down when the rest of the world makes its expectations for her clear. The day that happens, the PRT will be waiting.

Not much is left to discuss after that. The legal counsels shake hands as we walk to the door, the newest parahuman in the Bay officially a Rogue willing to join the Anti-Endbringer Force. That's one piece of good news at least.

A hand covered in bone places itself in front of me. I look at it, then to the parahuman it's attached to. She seems to have shrunk a little.

"Have a good day, Director," she says, voice earnest and cheerful.

I grab it and keep the revulsion off my face, giving it two firm pumps.

"Have a good day, White Rose."