Crisis 1.3
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The Composer
No one liked waking up from a nightmare, especially when they awoke in an unfamiliar room. Even more so when the unfamiliar room belongs to people who had promised to arrest you, given the chance.
It was an uncomfortable situation that none of the nurses or doctors seemed to pick up on. It was admirable in a way, them keeping up with their jobs despite what should have been, at least, a majorly awkward situation.
Maybe she owed that to their professionalism or more likely she owed it to her costume's paint having somehow dissipated, leaving only her plain canvas white outfit. It was the costume and persona of Acoustic over the identity of The Composer, leaving her as the follower rather than a leader. Convenient.
Preferable even.
They allowed her to keep her MP3, they even got her a legal pad and a few pencils when she asked for something to draw on. They were even keeping her civilian identity safe by allowing to keep her flu mask on. It was nice to know that her Reapers had earned a bit of Cape Rules when it came to secret identities. Everything was relatively nice, for a gilded cage.
Despite all the smiles she received, all the care she was given, she was being watched as if she were a felon. They could have been less obvious about it and just left the surveillance to the noticeable camera in the corner of her med room, but no, they had to add guards. Obvious guards at that, ones that would pace back and forth in front of her door for what had to be hours. They reminded her of a pendulum from an old grandfather clock.
An idea she had made a quick doodle of. It was on the page right after the drawing of the nightmare. She looked at said picture with a little apprehension. She wasn't one for such morbid art but she found sketching out her dreams let her expand her art in ways she couldn't see before.
Still though, the scene was a bit much. It had a bit of a surreal and Meta sense to it, depicting herself showing a picture of a trapped and tortured girl to a young woman with a melting face. Dreams were supposed to mean something, weren't they? If they did she had to wonder what that one meant.
"Ms. Acoustic?" A woman in PRT garb called from the mouth of the door, "If you're ready, please follow me."
With an easing breath Taylor stood and began to follow the woman down the PRTs narrow halls. She idly noticed that the building was very plain, the word spartan didn't even cover how plain she felt the building was. She had thought Grunge had got the inside of the building too, they must have removed all his hard work. Shame.
After a few minutes of turning down hallways that looked exactly the same and up an elevator, that looked like it was designed more for moving equipment instead of people, they arrived to a hallway filled with doors that had the word 'interview' lamented to their surfaces. She was sure the word 'interview' was supposed to be comforting but she knew and felt otherwise.
Even as the door was opened for her she dug into her mind to remember how Grunge told her to handle the PRT, how he instructed both Composer and Acoustic to deal with the questioning. Stay calm, don't be confrontational, speak as little as possible, and only ask for a lawyer when you feel cornered.
She played those rules over in her head a few more times as she took her seat in the very plain room. All there was were stark white walls and a table. She'd always thought there was going to be a two way mirror. She guessed one couldn't always trust what was seen on TV.
She sat there in the bit too bright room by herself for about five minutes before someone walked in, a sharply dressed man with a stiff back and a smile she was sure was meant to be charming.
"Hello there, Ms. Acoustic. I'm glad to see you're doing better." He greeted like he was a concerned acquaintance, sounding a bit too fake and chummy to her ears. Was he supposed to be good cop? What was bad cop going to be like?
"Thank you." She said as politely as she could, falling back onto Grunge's advice with the awkward as she tried to handle her surreal situation.
"We were quite surprised to see you there, taking a nap in the middle of a Cape fight. If you don't mind me asking, exactly what were you doing there?" Was that supposed to smooth? Friendly? Frankly this guy was ridiculous.
"I don't know. All I remember is waking up in your hospital wing." Nice, vague, and to the point. She wasn't keen on giving them any info on her Reapers.
"Really, nothing?" The man asked and received an affirmative nod, "That's disappointing. How about the events leading up to that, the last thing you remember?"
"Getting dressed and heading out to meet some friends."
"And these friends would be?" he stretched out the e too much for her likeing but she answered his question anyway, despite how obvious the answer should have been. Her group wasn't that bad after all. Everything they did, up until their fights with the ABB, were misdemeanors at best. Misdemeanors that they could not connect to her or hold her on.
"The Reapers."
The man quirked an eyebrow, curiosity and confusion open on his face. Weren't interrogators supposed to be stone faced? Wasn't there supposed to be an art form to how they did things? "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your group."
It was her turn to raise an eyebrow, "Really?" She barely noticed it, the subtle change in posture and tone. The difference between Acoustic and Composer thinning just a little, she had to make the conscious effort not to fully slip into her other persona.
How could he not have heard of her group, how could he not have heard of her Reapers? Did he not have eyes? Did he not have ears? Did he not see the murals and landscapes that littered their city's streets? How their music and voices reached the ears of so many?
He was either deaf and blind or oblivious to an obnoxious level.
"Really," He said with a nod, "Is your group a new gang?"
Was he trying to insult her?
"We are not a gang." She felt her temper start to rise a bit at that. She wasn't nurturing thugs, she was creating a movement.
"That's what many say but in the end that's all they are." She decided yes, he was trying to piss her off. And she wasn't going to take it if she did not have to.
"Lawyer."
"This is not that type of situation Ms. Acoustic." The man said, the last bits of his façade of a friendly questioner disappearing. "Right now, as far as we know, you don't have the right to invoke a Lawyer."
"And exactly what does that mean?"
He was silent for a long moment, tapping his finger gently against the table. "Let's just say things are… complicated and we need your help to make sense of it. Co-operation would be appreciated. Now let's try going over your statements again. What was the last thing you remember before waking up?"
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Banshee
The most devastating part of her power wasn't her strength, her force field, or even her power to manipulate sound like a plaything. In all truth and by her opinion the most versatile and useful of her powers was her hearing.
That perfect hearing that circumference dozens of meters around her. Hearing that allowed her to ease drop through the interrogation room they were keeping her in. She heard every footstep and bit of gossip in the near entirety of the PRT building. She could still remember the NDAs she had to sign because of the ability when they found out.
Still, she had to appreciate it. It comforted her to know what was going on around her. Especially when it looked like she was being placed under Master/Stranger protocols, or arrested. The difference between the two was very slim.
When she had first awakened in the PRT infirmary she had found herself handcuffed with Brute class restraints and was asked some very pointed questions from the medical staff that had nothing to do with her health. She blamed he armor honestly; Glenn still scowled whenever he saw it.
After the unofficial questioning and medical checks were done she was taken to one of the 'interview' rooms for some more on the books questioning. During the trip she could hear whispers, pieces of conversation taken out of context and used to build a picture.
So far she had been able to infer that the Undersiders, Lisa's old team, had hit a transport carrying some Tinker tech Armsmater was going to examine. When Velocity and Dauntless arrived to intervene they made a break for it. As the Undersiders made a run for it a bolt of Dauntless' lightning caused the Tinker device to activate in Skitter's, whom she was assuming was Tattletale's replacement, hand.
Immediately after a distortion was reported and six other possible parahumans appeared seemingly out of thin air, some of them leaving nearly seconds after appearing using various means. Her best guess to what happened was that the Tinker device had a Stranger effect to it, one that effected memories to those within a range. A range she and a few others were included in.
She hoped, but didn't hold out for much, that none of the other Wards were caught in the blast.
As she was placed, rather firmly by a guy who must not have paid too much attention to the Brute segments of the PRT training course, she felt awkward almost instinctually. She had never expected to see herself in such a situation, at the opposite side of the table. To be the person being interrogated instead of the one who listened in. It was… odd. Almost disorienting.
She was questioned by a PRT agent she didn't know and she answered his first question readily. He asked for her name so she gave him her codename, status in the Wards and the serial number she forced herself to remember. Exactly how she was supposed to report herself at the beginning of a debriefing or, as she was pretty sure of at this point, a Master/Stranger situation. That stopped any further questions and a few words from his earbud had him heading out the room with barely a word.
She could hear why, quick words being spoken from Armsmaster to Piggot. Questioning each other if they believed she was lying and Armsmaster saying he was checking before he left the room, his footsteps clacking closer to her by the second.
Even as he walked away she could hear people in the room he formerly occupied speaking.
"Do you think Dragon's theory is right?" From the slight accent she could guess it was Miss Militia.
"I find ignoring any possibility when dealing with parahumans is a foolish mistake." Taylor was fairly certain the new voice belonged to Director Piggot, "And even if she's wrong any information we can get on this situation is invaluable, especially since the other one isn't giving us much."
Taylor wondered what that meant. What could have been so out there that people who routinely dealt with everything from the unlikely to the impossible on a weekly basis pause for thought? And who was this other one that the Director mentioned? Another Ward caught in the blast? Her train of thought was interrupted as the door to her room all but slammed open to reveal a familiar figure in blue and silver power armor.
"They say you claim to be a Ward." Armsmaster said with his voice gruff, as usual, but the way it sounded was different. It wasn't the same exasperated and unsociable curtness she was used to, instead it was the gruff sound he made when dealing with a possible hostile. As if he saw her as an enemy.
It didn't feel right.
As bad as he was with people he treated them… fairly, professionally. They were his allies, or close enough, not his enemies. Not suspects. Even at his most insensitive, at his most invasive, he was better than this. When she found the Stranger or Master who did this, who made her friends and teammates forget her, she was going to make them pay.
"Yes." She said evenly, repeating her codename, the series of numbers they'd forced her to remember along with the phrase of the week that was supposed to help clear up the situation. It didn't.
Stupid Master/Stranger protocols. What was the point of them if people weren't going to listen or believe you?
"That's not this week's code phrase." He said flatly, causing Taylor to mentally curse. How was she supposed to prove herself to the man if nothing she did made him believe her?
It frustrated her to the point she had to force herself to ask, "What do you want me to do? I'm following protocol and you don't believe me. What do I have to do to get you to listen?"
Armsmaster was quiet for a moment, time lapsing into the uncomfortable, before saying "The matter will be brought under review later. For now there are still questions for you to answer."
"Like what?"
"What do you remember before waking up in the hospital wing?"
"I got ready for patrol with Gallant and was about to leave the building before everything went black. I saw some stars and then I woke up in the infirmary." She said quickly, giving him the cliff notes version as he was known to like.
Of course Armsmaster had a problem with it, "Gallant isn't scheduled for patrol until the day after tomorrow."
"It's what happened." She said, her voice conveying all her irritation and frustration.
"So you say." He said, sounding disagreeable as ever. "Certain facts aren't lining up to meet your statement."
"Like what?"
"Besides your code phrase being vastly wrong and your costume making you look like a villain?" She was almost certain he was raising an eyebrow under that stupid visor of his. "Neither the PRT nor Dragon have any record of you."
She stifled any of the annoyance or anger that rose from the shot at her armor down and instead focused on that one bit of information Armsmaster was offering her. She had to, because what he just told her was impossible. Because what he described was impossible.
She knew the PRT had records of her, and if they did so did Dragon. They had digital and paper copies of her recruitment, the stats from her power testing, every report she made after patrol. They had every bit of her life since she joined the Wards written down, and not just for bureaucratic purposes but for security.
Security for when a Stranger or a Master, or a Tinker who could imitate the effects, decided to muck with people's memories. It was a way to verify that yes the person wasn't lying about being an ally, or those saying they were a friend was really Stranger trying to get into their facilities.
For her not to exist on either database was next to impossible. People would have more luck stealing the information than deleting or altering it. From what she understood every Tinker employed by the PRT helped add a layer of security to their networks as a form of initiation. And Dragon's files were Dragon's; Taylor couldn't imagine someone hacking her computers.
He had to be messing with her, testing her. Seeing if she was willing to keep up her "Lie", she would have thought his Lie detector could have settled that by now.
"I am a Ward." She said forcefully. She may not have like how things were handled at times but she liked the people and their cause. She would even say she was proud of being a member of the organization. Or maybe it was something different. Maybe it wasn't them under the effect of a parahuman, maybe it was her.
"I believe you believe that." He said, "And you are helping yourself by telling me this. You just have to keep on answering my questions."
She was silent for a moment before she answered, "What do you want to know?"
"Let's start with your name."
"…. No."