A day after the creation of Saturnia, director Piggot's office.
"I do not, Director, appreciate you arming a man before he came into my office." Glenn Chambers growled.
"I do not, in fact, care." Director Piggot responded.
"I will be filing a complaint about you trying to have me killed."
"Good luck, I had Armsmaster look over the shotgun the moment it was returned and he took note of the firing pin being filed off revealing the shotgun would not fire. He's logged that in his report."
"The shells could have still gone off."
"Training bean bag in blue and red shells had confoam capsules instead of buckshot, the most that would have happened in the off chance Mr. Hebert had another shot gun with him to load was a mess and probably some bruises." Director Piggot explained." All of which you deserve. Though I expected explaining your posters would keep him from shooting you, though the man was a wreck despite his showing at the negotiation table. The shotgun worked as a mimzy. I was hoping you would say something that would at least get you punched. I mean he cold cocked Alucard. Clearly your greasy weaselly ass made you seem less a threat."
"Where exactly did you get this hate for me Director? It can't be my suggestions or planning for Druid."
"Chambers. You know damn well why I hate your ass. You turned Elisburg into a rampaging success by glossing over how many we lost there and burying the numbers under propaganda. You set me and Alucard up to be the fucking focus of the world, the fucking hand to watch, while the other stole their wallet. The loss of PRT personnel in that hell hole is not even mentioned save for some fucking flavor text at the bottom of a stat book some where and the exact numbers are not there. You trivialized the death of many good people to promote the PRT."
"In case you didn't..."Glenn started.
"Oh I'm not done. that gods awful tight uniform you made for me to wear as Slayer, Alucard's fucking zuit suit, It was because of you I was forced to adopt Amy to 'humanize ' Slayer and at the same time you set up the PR stunt that nearly got me murdered by a serial killer, and don't think i didn't spot your signature at the bottom of the form telling me to cease and desist allowing Alucard to go on Martha, with all the lawsuit threats that brought up. Clearly no one told you he hadn't signed anything before you started trying to lawyer up and scare tactic me. " Emily growled.
"In case you didn't know. Director. Piggot. " Glenn continued as if uninterrupted. "Doing all of that is my job."
"And shows how much a out of touch psychopath you are." Emily snapped.
"And yet I'm still employed and in charge of all the PR departments." Glenn shrugged. "So my efforts are very much appreciated."
"There is a reason that a range target with your face is the most requested at all PRT Armories."
"I know, who do you think had those put into circulation." Glenn grinned.
"Get the fuck out of my office Chambers, let Florida deal with you, and let it be known I'm going to push even harder to have your satellite office here forced into Boston."
"You've tired a few times already Director. " Glenn shrugged." I still have more pull than you in the circles that matter."
"OUT!"
A Week Later, Arcadia.
Greg Veder stared at the group he was there to show around Arcadia. He wasn't exactly sure how he kept getting this job, though Vicky wasn't here this time, it was another one of the new girls that was helping him, pretty sure her name was Amy.
Amy had immediately zeroed in on two other girls of the group of six new comers and started chatting them up while everyone was waiting for the class schedule sheets to be printed out.
He recognized one of the girls from his first year in high school when he still went to Winslow before he cheated out of it into Arcadia.
Not that anyone knew that.
Still the girls name was Taylor something or another, if he recalled correctly, he was pretty sure he might have had a crush on her, granted he recalled having a crush on every girl back then. He still did from time to time, and every so often he acted on it, saw the result and dropped that route like a bad habit.
He butted in to the conversation between the three asking Amy how she knew these two, simple conversation, all three of them were cute after all, and even if his powers didn't allow him to Don Quixote his way into any of their pants he could at least not look like a complete loser and maybe slowly build up trust before risking asking them out.
Was it Don Quite? He knew it was Don something.
In any event his constant routeing like he was playing Chrono Cross, wound up with him being viewed as a guy who was just kinda there, alright, but a bit of a geek. He wasn't a reject like he had been when it was just him and Sparky, but he wasn't king of the school. Checking out how people would react to everything he said before hand had taught him perhaps he should watch his mouth a little more. And now that there weren't gangers around stealing his Adhd meds every day he could focus a little better too.
Still the question he asked to Amy and the other girls resulted in three wild eyed stares as they all did their best to come up with an answer, which all three blurted out at the same time.
Greg let that route drop.
They all answered the same, and it was the same answer almost word for word that Dennis, Carlos, and Dean had offered, and the one Vicky gave when asked how she met Dean.
More Wards then.
Greg shrugged to himself sticking his hands in his pockets as he waited in the main route for the papers. He had heard there was going to be a public announcement of new Wards at the end of the month. There was always the rumor of Wards in Arcadia, and it didn't take him much effort to find out that was true given the number of plain clothes PRT people in the building.
He spent a lot of time routeing himself when he got bored in class, sneaking out walking down various places in the school and he had heard and seen a lot of things he wasn't supposed to all while sitting in class.
Every so often he just went and broke into some where he wasn't supposed to just to see what was there, one time he got a hold of the answers to a test by running up to the teachers desk and reading her study planner.
He had to do that six or seven times redoing the route to get all the answers, and he still intentionally got one wrong because a route when he got them all right showed the teacher accusing him of cheating with a 100.
He had hoped powers would make his life exciting, but it was kinda boring really, he could make three routes in his head and play them out in real time, or at faster speed all within a second, if that long, then he could pick the best one that worked. After a incident early on that nearly got him shot when he thought he could be a cape, he always left one route alone, marking it as his safe route.
It wasn't a complete future prediction, he had yet to win a lotto, but he could tell if a scratch card was gonna win before he bought it so he could easily make some pocket money, he never found on yet that won big, at least not in any of the stores that didn't give a shit about some underage gambling.
It helped in games a lot too, but it wouldn't predict if the system would crash or the servers would go out, just what some one else might do, or how some one would react if he said something. That saved him from getting banned from PHO way too often too.
He glanced over to the three girls. Emily Taylor and Amy, they all seemed to know each other, though Taylor looked like a deer caught in headlights, she was constantly checking around her like she expected something to happen.
Yeah she was from Winslow alright, probably triggered there. Sparky had told him the school had closed for a while and a bunch of police and PRT were swarming the place.
He felt bad for her and wanted to say something, but at the same time he didn't know how. Sure his powers gave him unlimited chances to try to say something, but that didn't help him say anything clever or give him the actual courage to talk to a girl.
Ahh well the printouts looked finished, they could start the tour now. He could focus on trying to talk to a girl later,for now he had another tour to give.
Director Piggot's office.
"Alright. Lay it on me, what are we looking at?" Director Piggot asked.
Jessica D'liss smiled , it was a look that made Emily glad this woman was on her side.
"Well after a full investigation we are pretty much going to be able to nail the entire staff of Winslow save about six people to a wall and then start selling rotten fruit.
Blackwell is never going to see the outside of a cell again with all her counts of indirect child abuse, embezzlement, and basic corruption.
Given the state of the school and the state of the students and even the teachers it's little surprise.
That every member of the staff flipped on her in a second showed how far loyalty went. Her secretary is being charged with almost as many things.
And by the way all the endangerment charges and child abuse charges are being listed as separate accounts.
That's two hundred and sixty three separate charges. If she fails to wiggle out of one of them they all get her, and if she does manage to wiggle out of one she still has the other two hundred and sixty two charges to get through."
"A fan of the death by a thousand paper cuts I see. What about the main perps?"
We have five girls being charged. Madison Clements, Emma Barnes, Jessica Schmidt, Rachel King, Mimi Thompson, and April Jones. Those are the five that Madison named with her plea deal."
"Is she getting a plea deal?"
"Not in the slightest. She tried for it and there was no agreement made and she still spilled. She's been collecting data on what's been happening almost as long as Miss Hebert has. None of it has painted her in a good light. It's not doing anything for Hess either. I'm surprised you are keeping her."
"I have my reasons. I don't like it but I have them. Miss Hebert was the final choice and she didn't care as long as Hess left her alone. Given Hess is under constant watch, that shouldn't be difficult to do. I also don't expect Hess to survive if she gets on Miss Hebert's bad side, her power testing was rather impressive." Emily hummed.
"Well that's your issue not mine. " Jessica shrugged. "Mine is to absolutely destroy Barnes and his entire team which I am highly amused to see includes Carol Dallon. Evidently they are getting the whole firm into this. Not that it will help them."
Emily raised an eyebrow at the glee on the woman's face. Forget the earlier smile, this one reminded her of Alucard when he was about to do something she wouldn't fully approve of.
"So what are we looking at timeline wise?" Emily asked.
"Depends on how long they want to draw this out, everything's pretty much damming right from the get go, but i expect they will use every delaying tactic they have, right now Barnes is trying to get us to deal with the School Board and city side of things before we go after individuals, but that matters already being settled out of court, quite a ridiculous sum the Heberts will be getting too.
I don't feel it will make up for a trigger event, but it should ease the pain a little. The lawsuit against the girls is going very well and several of their parents have settled , but the criminal charges are still being applied.
So they'll have to pay, and still serve time in juvie, though there is talk of trying Barnes and King as adults due to their parts and age, Clement's lawyer managed to get that option removed from her due to the information she provided, but she's still looking at being in juvie until she hits 18, and the records won't be sealed like normal underage records. It's something that is going to stay on her file, all of their files really."
"That's a bit of a change from how it's supposed to be isn't it?"
"It is. But we have Capes and the Youth Guard to thank for it."
"Really?"
" Yup. Because of a capes powers anything they do while underage needs to be recorded and not sealed in case something comes up when they get older. Normally if one is tried for something as a Juvenile it can't be used against them when they become adults.
Due to powers Cape kids were not allowed the right citing dangers, see City of Cleveland versus Mighty Max." Jessica explained."The youth Guard lobbied hard to change that and to get underage capes to have the same treatment as non-capes when it came to the 'to adult ' transitions."
Jessica sighed.
"It backfired spectacularly. The supreme court got so tired of the protests and the arguments and the constant everything, particularly in the wake of the Holy war when everyone was still trying to recover from that, that they collectively said 'Fuck it.' and made all Juvenile cases the same as Cape cases.
The Youth Guard managed to annoy the Supreme court enough that for the first time in decades they all voted unanimously on something. So now, the only difference be tween a Juvenile crime and a big person crime, is the age bracket."
"I cannot think any one was happy with that result." Emily huffed.
"No . No they were not particularly since now , just like capes, no one is allowed to hide the names and faces because they are under aged. Canada and most other countries do not agree with this and have other methods they use for such things, but well... this is the US..."
"That tracks." Emily sighed. "Granted with seeing what these girls did, I can't find myself to be too against everyone knowing what sort of shits they are."
"True enough." Jessica shrugged.
PRT underground parking lot.
Danny whistled as he regarded the car parked in the lot. He had come in for a bit more paperwork for the lawsuit and due to Miss D'liss having a few more things to offer in regards to the settlements.
He had parked his fathers old truck in the underground parking deck of the building as instructed and was on his way out when he spotted a gorgeous classic corvette pulling up to park nearby.
The car was a classic dragster style '64 model. A stingray hard top with a extended engine showing a chromed to the hilt ram scoop jutting out of the front of it. It was a classic royal blue that practically shimmered under the harsh lights of the deck with expertly painted blue purple and silver flames painted as coming out of the front wheel well.
The glass was tinted but he could see plush leather bucket seats inside of a navy blue coloration. The car even had the old red dice hanging off the rear view mirror going for it. It wasn't stock for the year but it was an absolutely awesome looking car.
"This is gorgeous." Danny hummed to himself.
"Glad you like. I've spent a lot of time getting her rebuilt."
Danny turned his head as the Deputy Director moved out of the drivers side door and walked around to the front where Danny was with a small smirk.
"She's a restoration?" Danny asked.
"Got her out of an old storage place that was having an auction down in Richmond before I came up here. Only got her running about a year ago and she's finally finished now. "Renick offered. "Had a old '53 that i never managed to get running before I sold it and found her."
"Never really had a head for auto work myself, I can keep one running, but not enough to restore something like this. It's a beautiful car." Danny nodded.
"Well thank you. "
"Any chance of selling it. My daughter did get a bunch of money and my birthday is coming up." Danny joked.
"Nah, she's still got a lot of tweaks to do here and there on her still, but I don't think I'll start another project car, unless i can find another '53."Renick nodded. "Miss D'liss have you come in?"
"Yeah, she had some paperwork and a starting estimate of the settlement from the school." Danny chuckled." Lot of zeros."
"After what your daughter's been through I cannot say she doesn't deserve it. You have a good day Mr. Hebert." Renick nodded and turned heading towards the building.
Danny took a last look at the car before heading to his beat up truck, the engine of it clanking to life as he pulled out. Taylor would be getting out of school shortly and he wanted to pick her up and see how things went in Arcadia.
