Notes at the end. Please read.
Elegy 1.2
The ringing of a doorbell, followed by the loud knocking on wood were the first things to filter into her sleep-addled brain. For a few moments, it didn't process for said brain's owner, before again, the doorbell rang, only this time the knocks became strikes.
Instead of acknowledging it, she let out a groan and covered her head with a pillow, her groggy mind rationalizing that if she ignored it then it would go away.
And for a time, blissfully, it did, until she heard the distinct jingling of keys coming into contact with wood, suggesting that the door to her flat had been opened.
Letting out a groan, she took the pillow and launched it at the door as it opened, the pillow hitting the chest of the muscular blond woman who had begun entry. The woman effortlessly caught the improvised projectile before glaring at her attacker, but instead of saying immediately she allowed the door to close behind her.
"Really Sarah, resorting to childishness already?"
Another groan came from the coach, "You know I despise that name, Erin. What do you want?"
"You were supposed to provide a briefing to Legend this morning on the Moretti case."
Her hand shot up and pointed towards the counter where several stacks of papers lay, "Third stack from right, USB in the folder. The bitch is a chemical tinker who specializes in aerosol dispersal and has a grudge against the crime family. You'll find her workshop in Bright Beach. No need to thank me. You can leave now."
Walking over to the the indicated pile, her lips curling in distaste at the various bottles of alcohol strewn about as she picked it up, but found attention drawn to an elaborately done up corkboard with various photos, newspaper clippings, blog posts, and other sundry, all done in a way that it leads to a letter 'M'.
"Still chasing ghosts," she asked cattily, knowing that it would piss off the other woman to question her competence. But frankly, she didn't care; she didn't like being the minder for what she thought of as an immature and too-coddled parahuman that should have been put on a tighter leash.
This drew another groan as finally Sarah rolled over, keeping her eyes covered, "It's ghost, singular, you musclebound cretin. Shouldn't you be off thirsting after Cache, hoping he'll notice you or something? Maybe if you use that trick with your clone-"
"Fuck you, Jigsaw. Legend wants you in office this afternoon," Prism hissed, before storming back to the flat, leaving a clone to slam the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.
For a moment, Jigsaw, also known as Sarah Livsey to her constant distaste, entertained the idea of giving into the petty urge of masquerading as Prism and sending Triumph a booty call text using a cloned phone, she was sure Prism's ex would drop everything in an instant considering the texts he intermittently sends her that Prism never answers.
As quickly as she had it, she quickly dismissed the idea; as delicious as the schadenfreude would be, Triumph didn't deserve to be caught in the middle of her petty indulgence. That and she was not keen on having to sit through another one of Legend's patented, "I'm disappointed in you" speeches. Seriously, the man could make a dog prone to using puppy eyes to get its way feel guilty for daring to use such a skill.
Still, there were times when she wished she could just smack down that shallow, dull-witted, oaf of a woman that dared to fashion herself as her handler. If only she understood that Sarah only tolerated Prism simply because it wasn't worth the trouble of sending her back to Legend a screaming and broken shell of a woman.
With a sigh escaping her lips and knowing her morning was now ruined, Sarah pulled herself upright on the couch, her unkempt hair falling flatly in front of her face. She knew she probably looked like death warmed over, but right now she didn't care. Instead of getting herself cleaned up, she instead reached to the table set a few feet from her - which was cluttered with so much junk as to look like disorganized chaos - to grab a plastic aspirin bottle, and with her other hand slid an empty tumbler closer. Next she grabbed a bottle of bourbon and poured the remaining contents into the glass. She then popped open the pill bottle, retrieving a pair of pills before tossing them back and chasing them down with the liquor.
Closing her eyes tightly in reaction to not only the taste of the overnight air-exposed bourbon but also the bitter taste of the biotinker-produced painkillers, she allowed herself to slouch back against the couch and let the cocktail do its work.
She bit back a curse as the sharp pain pierced her skull before it finally began to abate, an indication that the painkillers were hard at work reining in the Thinker-and alcohol-induced headache from the previous night.
As much as her power was a boon, it was a goddamn curse in other aspects. She wasn't even sure what it was that she hated more anymore, but it was a good tossup between the inability for her power to shut itself off for once, or that it had to filter every goddamn facet of information that it was processing before it went back in its fucking hole. Either way, more often than not, her power left her laid up and dependent upon narcotics and alcohol in order to provide her a few precious hours of normalcy and solitude from her thoughts.
Finally, her headache had transitioned from a head-splitting migraine that made her want to drive a pick into her skull to release the pressure, to a dull roar, which meant that she could finally get to her feet without tumbling over herself.
It also meant that she had to turn to the second part of her treatment, as this time she picked out a quartet of bottles from among a plethora of others and began to down them one at a time. At times she felt like an encyclopedia of pharmaceuticals with all of the shit she was dependent upon to function at a high level. Another pill to help keep her headaches at bay, a pill for anxiety and stress, another for blood pressure (because god forbid she work normal hours), and finally one to help her focus. All of it paid for by the Protectorate (for the most part), and if she were more cynical, she would accuse them of trying to addict her to this shit instead of trying to keep their golden goose going.
Of course, she wouldn't accuse Legend of this; the man, despite being the leader of the Protectorate, did actually give a damn about her well-being. But there was a stark difference between the will of the individual and the juggernaut that was the bureaucracy.
Still, he had never done her wrong. He had actually gone to bat for her several times over the years when her zeal to know and lord said knowledge over others had crossed the wrong people.
It was quite a different pathway than she had expected five years ago when she had pulled a runner after Coil's reach had finally exceeded his grasp and he followed in the path of all the Bond villains that he had styled himself after. She had been on her way out of Brockton Bay when an 'anonymous tip' had led the Protectorate to her bus; they had been quite happy to dissuade of her delusion.
Still, it could have been worse. Rather than being thrown onto a Ward team (or worse, WEDGDG), she had been transferred to the New York branch and put under Legend's direct supervision. As much as she wanted to mock him for being a caricature of those old golden era comics heroes, the man had been nothing but genuine, even if there was some of that wholesomeness that shouldn't be in the crapsack world that they lived in.
Still, to this day, she wondered what exactly had happened to Coil. He had been oddly smug in the days leading up to his death, and the only conclusion that she had been able to build was that he had found a new 'pet' to add to his little coterie. Who that pet was and what that pet did, still eluded her to this day. But what she did know was the next thing she knew was that all of Coil's accounts, even the ones that she had been eyeing to raid once she had offed the snake, were suddenly empty.
The next indication that something had gone horribly wrong was when the Protectorate, PRT, and police had discovered Coil's hideout, or at least, the location that was formerly Coil's hideout. What they had found inside could only be described as a war zone. There had not been a single survivor; not even Coil had managed to escape what had happened in there. All that had been found were bodies, shell casings, and a lot of individual applications of explosives.
The best that she could gather was that whatever Coil had found had bitten him in the ass hard, because every single crime photo she had been able to glean information from told her that Coil and his mercenaries had all been killed by one person. How one person could wipe out a fully kitted out base with over thirty mercenaries and all the defenses that Coil had in place was something even she couldn't figure out, because it had been done without any evident powers outside of the casual application of conventional firearms and explosives.
That was five years ago, and it had become a cold case that she had come back to several times over the years, yet had yet to glean any new insights into what had happened. Hell, she would have liked to have known who had finally put the snake down, if only to have a drink with them and share in what was obvious their shared mutual hatred for the bastard. Because you had to have had a serious grudge to have gone full Rambo on a base.
Of course, after that she'd have to arrest them, but meh, details.
Maybe she'd have an answer one of these days, but she sincerely doubted it. It was too cold, and there was never any other indication that whoever it had done this was in operation. Odds are they just went off the grid, or hell, maybe got themselves killed somewhere. Either way, it would probably remain one of those droll life's mysteries for the rest of her time.
No, her true focus, and the reason she had skipped going to give Legend a briefing, was 'M.' The man that both the Protectorate and WEDGDG claimed was nothing more than an urban legend whipped up by fantastical rumors and paranoid criminals pushed to desperation.
But 'M' did exist; she knew it, it was the only thing that made sense. It was insidiously subtle, where each incident taken individually would leave people with the belief that they were merely coincidental events. After all, the disappearance of the Endbringers had changed the relationship between 'heroes' and 'villains,' with quite a few in the halls of power pushing for more militant measures in dealing with what was no longer viewed as an acceptable tolerance.
Amidst all of the chaos and upheaval, someone had been quietly consolidating various disparate villains and rogues, through force or other means. It was such a fantastical idea, considering how notoriously unstable and tenuous - and especially how cutthroat - the criminal world of parahumans was. There was a reason there were only a handful of 'stable' villainous gangs, and even then one could argue that they were only stable in an extremely loose sense of the word.
Yet 'M' was somehow able to do it; the evidence could not lie. Not to Sarah.
Of course, she had brought it up several times over the last year, seeing the nascent threat slowly morphing into something more grand. And even if the statistics did indicate crime - especially parahuman crime - was going down, it only served to further unsettle her because it wasn't a sign of improvement that her superiors believed, but could only be the gathering storm of something far more.
Grabbing a somewhat clean glass, she proceeded to fill it with a liquor she didn't even care to identify, then she grabbed another folder and flipped it open, reviewing the information again for what felt like the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours.
After nearly two years of badgering, Sarah had finally been able to get her hands on the entirety of the casefile involving Senator Michael Talbot of Arizona. It contained everything, but most importantly, it contained the first and only reference to 'M'.
'M' had hired a desperate rogue by the name of Quikslip. Quikslip had formerly been a member of The Elite, one of their assets involved in corporate espionage, but had made the unfortunate mistake of angering Bastard Son. As a result, she had been desperate enough to accept a job from 'M' to divest Senator Talbot of his private files, files that in the hands of the supporters of NEPEA-5 would have crippled any attempt to repeal it. It had been while in the process of accessing the Senator's hidden safe that Quikslip had been apprehended.
But it wasn't the crime that interested Sarah; it was the interrogation and the events after that mattered.
When they had attempted to interrogate Quikslip, she had intimated that she was already dead, saying that 'M' did not tolerate failures. The only thing that mattered was how much was said before she died. It hadn't mattered what the Protectorate had offered her. She had said nothing more afterwards.
Because of the crime and the political ramifications, Quikslip had not been turned over to the Protectorate - a legal oversight that would be fixed a year later - but for Quikslip it would ultimately prove to be fatal.
Less than six hours after she had been transferred to federal holding, she had been found dead in her cell. Her body was left lying in her cell bed peacefully as if she were asleep, with a small ornate card with a cursive, fillagreed 'M' laying on her chest.
The subsequent investigation into the death of Quikslip had discovered that every single recording device, including the tinker-tech ones, had all been turned off for thirty-two minutes. Long enough for whoever was responsible to eliminate Quikslip and exfiltrate undetected.
Of course, this was when the political balloon had gone up with someone leaking to the media not only the details of crime, but also what was contained in the files that Quikslip had attempted to steal. This, along with the fact that Quikslip had been found dead and that the only beneficiaries of her actions were the pro-NEPEA-5 members of Congress, had resulted in a scandal that had shaken Congress. On both sides of the NEPEA-5 debate there had been a slew of resignations that had changed the landscape of the law, including Senator Talbot himself, as the accusations and finger-pointing claimed victims on both sides of the aisle.
And it was in this atmosphere, along with the pride of several different groups involved, that the case would be memory-holed as deeply as possible. That was why it had taken so long for Sarah to track it down and get her hands on the unredacted case files.
She slammed shut the folder again and tossed it back onto the table, watching it slide across and off and sending the contents fluttering out and all across the floor. Satisfied with her fit of pique, she proceeded to toss back her glass, the self-infliction of the bitter drink only adding to her focus and irritation at the same time.
What 'M' had done, from what she had been able to glean through the liberal use of her power, had been nothing short of sublime in its execution. Because, distilled down to its very essence, 'M' could not lose. Whether Quikslip had been successful or not, 'M' would have been ready for either eventuality, but by failing it also served to send a message to those who were already gathering under his aegis his view on not just failure, but failure and being caught. And by executing Quikslip as he did, 'M' reinforced the image of his power and reach being far beyond that of a typical criminal gang.
Politically, the entire scandal would only benefit him, because it showed the instability and fickleness of Congress to the Rogues who may have been previously willing to work within the constraints of the NEPEA-5. All it would take was one bad week and their entire lives could change in an instant. It caused many to start looking for protection… and just look at who was in the wings willing to be that protection through proxies?
None of this was helped by the fact that the investigation had been a half-assed attempt at the beginning, with the investigator under pressure from the powers-that-be to quickly close the case and be done with it. As a result, it had been pushed as the prevailing belief that 'M' had been a red herring planted by the corporate team that had been revealed to be attached to several pro-NEPEA-5 entities to lead the investigators away from them.
In the end, the case was closed and then tossed in a dark hole.
But that also only served to highlight what could only be meticulous planning. If 'M' had the skill and resources to reach inside of a federal prison, then they likely could whisper in the right ears and manipulate the outcome they wanted.
Though, just why 'M' was focused upon NEPEA-5 was one question even her prodigious powers and skills had not been able to ascertain. For all intents and purposes, 'M' could have achieved the same end result with even less effort, while still keeping himself hidden in the shadows. Instead, he had gone with this large spectacle with multiple layers of deception and subversion that would have made Machiavelli gush with praise.
The arrogant part of her wanted to insist that 'M' had been sloppy, but it then came back to everything else that she could reasonably attribute to 'M' through collating so many events over the last four years that were starting to look more and more interconnected. If there was one thing 'M' wasn't, it was sloppy. No, there was a legitimate reason for what 'M' did, even if she couldn't see it.
Letting out a sigh, she rubbed her eyes.
She needed more information, and there was only one person who could give her access to that information.
ASiS
"Jigsaw, it's good to see you," Legend greeted as Sarah stepped into his office, "close the door and please take a seat."
Biting back snark, because dammit, Legend was too wholesome to inflict it upon him, Sarah instead took off the ridiculous top hat of her costume and settled herself in a seat, watching as Legend leaned back in his chair, looking her over.
"You look like hell," he finally said, a wry smile flitting across his lips, which while it was obvious he was trying to joke, there was concern underlaid within it. Honestly, it did warm her dark heart just slightly, knowing that it wasn't the concern of a leader, but human-to-human.
"You know how the work is," she replied, taking her own opportunity to lean back in her chair, if man wonder wanted to crack jokes, she was clear to snark back "ungodly hours, pay, zero thanks, and no vacation time. Speaking of which,how much vacation time do I have?"
The smile turned into a pained grimace, "How much have you had to drink today?"
"Obviously not enough if I'm in the office," she chirped, "So, what has you bothered enough to drag me in for a social call, Legend? You're usually quite happy with me doing my own thing."
"Can't I be worried for you?"
"I mean, I certainly won't begrudge you if you want to be concerned for me, but you don't have anything to worry about, I'm fine. The Moretti case was a cake walk, hardly merited a quarter of my attention, boss."
Silence greeted her, and she had to wince at her power trying to read the situation, both because she didn't want the pain, and she honestly didn't need to know what was obvious.
"Have you heard from Nihil?"
She offered a shrug, "Last time I heard he was at the Kyushudenryoku Genkai power plant helping them get the entire site decommissioned. That was what, three months ago, I think? "
"And Bitch?"
"You know we're not on talking terms, Legend. I sold her out. That's a betrayal she'll never forgive me for, even if it was in her best interests."
His lack of reaction and continued stare at her caused her to huff.
"And just because we're not on talking terms doesn't mean I don't check in on her from time to time. She's actually doing rather well the K-9 program you set up. Not that I'm keeping tabs or anything, she may take offense to that."
"And when were you going to tell me that your prescription demands were getting worse?"
Maybe she should have unleashed her powers, she opined even as she winced at the accusation and disappointment in Legend's tone. Letting out a sigh, she shook her head.
"Honestly? I was hoping you wouldn't notice," his frown deepened even further, "I spent quite a lot of money to get it off the books and here you are rubbing it in my face. Obviously I needed to pay more for discretion."
"Dammit, Sarah. This isn't a joking matter, if you are having problems with your powers—."
"They're my problems, Keith, and as much as I appreciate your concern, and I do. You and I both know, that in the grand scheme of things, you cannot, even with all of your powers as the head of the Protectorate, you still answer to the Chief Director of the PRT, and it will be an extremely cold day in hell, before Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown compromises on anything in regards to the services I provide."
She then slumped, in her chair, a bit of that old despair that always seemed to lurk in the shadows of her mind rearing its ugly head, reminding her again of her curse.
"I think we both knew it was going to come to this after last year, Keith," she could still remember the horror in his expression when she had been found passed out in a pool of her vomit from mixing too much alcohol and painkillers from an especially bad Thinker headache on a critical case, "Most high level thinkers that suffer headaches from overclocking their powers rarely last beyond decade, they die doing something incredibly stupid, or they literally think themselves to death," she then offered a lopsided smile, "I'm just going to enjoy the time I have left and prove to everyone I was the smartest bitch in the room."
"I can see if I can get you an appointment with Panacea?"
"You think the government is going to fork over ten thousand just to ask if they are able to spend two hundred thousand to heal me," she left out a watery laugh, because dammit, why did Keith have to be such a good person, "you really are a boy scout, Keith."
"I could still—"
"Thank you, Keith, I really do appreciate that you care about me. Even if Panacea could roll back the time and damage, and give me a fresh brain, it'd only be extending my prison stay."
"Sarah, that's not what the Protectorate stands for. You are free to leave whenever you wish. You've done your time, and you've done a lot of great things. I wouldn't stop you from leaving, in fact, I wouldn't even blink at it."
"You may not, but the PRT will never accept me being free. I'm too dangerous of an asset to be left to my devices, not to mention the value lost. They'll either slot me into WEDGDG and it'll end up with someone ending up dead, or they will disappear me into one of those off-the-books SPEAR units and use me until I can't go on."
Legend stiffened, "How do you—," he then slumped slightly, "of course you'd know about them."
She honestly felt bad for Legend. He was a good man, and in a better world, he would be the example to hold up to everyone dreaming of being a hero. And he did his damndest to hold Protectorate to the same standard he espoused, but he was the only good man in a den of vipers, and there was only so much he could do, and too many compromises he had to make.
It was rather sad.
"I may be on the side of angels, Legend, but I would be stupid not to notice when they disappeared Regent in Florida. With a power like that, he'd be one of hell of an asset for them, and he's low maintenance. It was when Aisha triggered that Costa-Brown really tipped her hand. Brian is not exactly the most observant, but I do not have his failings, and faked grades were a dead fucking giveaway that something was up. Aisha does not have the attention span to be a B honor roll student."
"You've known this for years then, and you've done nothing with it? That's never unlike what you used to be."
"Because, despite my misgivings on Aisha's age, and Alec's overall drive in life, it is probably the best thing for the both of them. Living the life of a villain, or a rogue, especially in the current atmosphere, is not exactly a fruitful profession, or career that allows one to live to a tender old age. At least with this, they have a chance."
They both fell silent, and Sarah Livsey, the villain formerly known as Tattletale, let out a sigh.
"Look. Keith. I know this isn't exactly how you wanted any of this to go, but we can only work with what we got, and I, unfortunately, have a brain with a nearly expired warranty. It sucks to suck, and I don't like to dwell upon it. So, instead, I distract myself with alcohol, drugs, and solving problems for people who are too stupid to figure it out for themselves, and right now, I have a problem that none of you are actually paying attention to."
"I find that unlikely, Sarah, WEDGDG is usually on point with warnings."
"And we both know the party line that WEDGDG is a highly effective Thinker organization is bullshit that is fed to the politicians in order to keep that monkey barrel of misfit thinkers under PRT control. Lest we let the federal government take it over and they get convinced that we need to kill Scion before he decides to do the same to us, because one thinker just happened to taste purple during one of his cold reads and the rest of the lemmings decided to drink the kool-aid too."
The wince from Legend was all the validation she needed to know she had hit the spot. WEDGDG was a decent organization, but it had blindspots that those in the know, or those with their own thinkers, may be able to escape notice.
Like 'M'.
"I knew this was going to happen sooner or later once you got your hands on the Talbot file," Legend finally said, and she knew right away that she won as he removed his domino mask and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "but are you sure you want to do this, Sarah? Both WEDGDG and Washington both believe that he doesn't exist."
"You know me too damn well, Keith. There's something out there being built, something I don't think any of us are prepared for, and it all comes back to one person. If you really care about me, you'll give me this."
He stared at her, as she took a deep breath, the feeling was right, because she knew, in spite of everything. In spite of her curse, in spite of everything she had done up to know, she knew this would be her magnum opus.
"I want to go after 'M.'"
So, a lot has kinda changed so far. Coil is dead. The Undersiders are spread far and wide. And Tattletale has become one of the PRT/Protectorate's best criminal troubleshooters. But her power comes with a curse.
Yes, I know Thinker's do not necessarily think themselves to death. But I am taking a bit of an author's fiat in order to stimulate drama by expanding upon the so-called 'migraine' aspect of the thinker power to be a bit more impactful in the long-term, but also give a push in the direction for Tattletale to move in. Because up until now, she has largely been basically a slave of the state, a well-paid, well taken care of slave, but a slave nonetheless, because her worth is too much to be allowed to roam free.
That and frankly, Tattletale is just tired of changing masters and being on the run. So she has spent the last 5 years, doing, as she has so eloquently put it, being the smartest bitch in the room.
And now she has set her sights on her next conquest.