2.2

-- Lt. Col. Tanya von Degurechaff Argent --

I let out a breath of satisfaction, and only then noticed everyone staring at me, aghast. I allowed myself a small smile.

I had underestimated them. Badly. I'd been worrying about landmines and Masters while they were assembling this laser-focused strike right at the biggest fault line in my group. They must have realized right away that a Thinker-based attack would be most foreign to my experience. They'd even hidden it behind another secret to distract Tattletale. And I'd very nearly put my own head in the noose when I'd called Weiss. Actually, had that even been my idea? The implications were frankly terrifying. For that matter, potential Mastering aside, they'd done all that without even technically violating the truce.

But in the end, I'd outplayed them in spite of it all. The general was easy, really. He overplayed his hand. He'd not understood the vital lesson my own experiences had beat into me: that the early twentieth century was a brutal and irrational period, for his nation more than most. What proud Imperial could look on the urbane, peace-loving modern Germany without disgust? Of course, he wasn't a Thinker. Her methods had been far more insidious.

Telling that story had been more than a little embarrassing, but it was plenty worth it to get my leg out of the trap. I'd have some explaining to do to Weiss, but it would be easy enough to come up with something he'd accept. I doubted the Meisters would take him now even if he showed up on their doorstep hat in hand. And judging by the locals' expressions, they had nothing else lined up. Or did they? It would hardly do to underestimate them again so soon.

I looked over at Tattletale to see what she was picking up, but she was just staring at me like the others, eyes wide. I frowned at her. This was no time for daydreaming. I ended up having to jostle her arm to snap her out of it. She shook her head but kept her eyes on me. Stillness broken, Piggot also shook her head and turned her laptop back around.

"This Dr. Schugel…" Lisa probed. "That wasn't the only incident, was it? And he's alive?"

What did that have to do with anything? Was something wrong with her power?

"Dr. Schugel's current status is a military secret. Though if you're really asking whether I murdered my superior officer, obviously not."

"... So he's not only alive, he's still doing military research."

I shrugged. I wasn't responsible for her deductions.

There were another few moments of silence.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Miss Militia offered tentatively, tone cloying. "That must have been very difficult."

"Oh, fuck you," I spat. She reared back. I'd heard quite enough of that at the time. "I did what I had to do to survive. That wasn't hard. You know what was hard? Reporting back after I had healed to test out the next prototype. But I did it anyway because it was my duty."

That was a matter of survival too, of course. Ever efficient, the Empire had found a use for that most useless of things, the disobedient soldier: executing her as an example to the others. Still, it had been hard. I couldn't afford a single hint of weakness. Not the slightest tremble, not an instant's hesitation. I'd had to literally bite my tongue to keep from asking about the new 'safety' mechanism. I'd snatched the orb without a word and was in the air as soon as I'd gotten my instructions. Everyone there had just thought I was infuriated beyond words, I think. Which, well, hadn't been far from the truth.

"What about the others?" Kid Win blurted. He sounded upset. "You're an impossible badass, fine, but what about his other... subjects?"

I barely kept myself from blinking at him. 'Impossible badass?' That was not how I'd come off from that incident. I suppose I hadn't gotten to the part of the story where I'd finally collapsed on the ground, barely aware of my surroundings, curled up around my arm and bawling my eyes out in front of the entire research team. After a couple days with the doctors, the humiliation had bothered me more than the pain. I'm not sure my reputation as a reliable, sober worker had ever recovered in their eyes. I'd had to fight to get some of the more lurid language taken out of the report or it might have tanked my whole career.

But if that was the impression they'd somehow taken away from the story, I'd hardly correct them. I'd preferred to be underestimated early in the war, but that hadn't really been possible for years. Even the Protectorate's mages, abandoned in Africa as the focus of the war moved to the shores of the Allied Kingdom itself, had recognized me immediately, by sight or magic signature. And of course, killing the Nine had been no way to maintain a low profile on this world.

If I were underestimated, they'd under-commit when they came after me. I'd kill their people, seizing the initiative and leaving them that much weaker when I retaliated, a tidy little defeat in detail. If I couldn't have that, it was best to go the other way. Raise the perceived cost of taking me out to the point that tolerating me looked cheap by comparison.

At least, that's how it should work. However much my reputation grew, I'd never actually run out of mages eager to skewer themselves on my bayonet. You'd think they'd have learned after the first couple hundred, but such is the insanity of war, I guess. Well, until the breakthrough. They'd run then.

I shrugged at Kid Win.

"I haven't kept track. I had other things on my mind."

He looked unsatisfied, but I couldn't tell him what I didn't know.

The fallout hadn't seemed so bad at first. Embarrassing, sure, but no one had rubbed my face in it. I'd received plenty of well-wishers in my medical bed, many seeming genuinely upset over the incident. Dr. Hersche came to me in tears. It had been so uncomfortable I'd found myself apologizing to him to get him to leave. I'll admit I let the unexpected show of solidarity go to my head. I'd started probing for support to oust Dr. Schugel, and the response had been so positive I'd gotten bold.

I'd been such a fool. Me, the sophisticated, modern urbanite, conned by a bunch of primitive rubes! It had all come crashing down when I'd overheard several of my 'allies' -- Dr. Hersche prominent among them -- discussing my unsuitability for my role. 'The military is no place for a little girl,' and so on, a lot of it backed up with my own words taken out of context. A real slap in the face! I'd thought after all my hard work, after maiming myself for the cause, I'd earned some respect. But no, they'd just been giving me enough rope to hang myself!

It'd been an especially harsh lesson in the ruthlessness of Imperial office politics. I'd been accounted a bit of a stickler for professional comportment back in my salaryman days, but I'd never have dreamed of holding an employee to account for making a small scene after receiving a serious injury. Not so long as they pulled themselves together by the end of their physician-recommended leave of absence, anyway. Well, what should I have expected from such a proud and warlike people? I doubt it was even malicious, really. Pouncing on the first insinuation of weakness was practically a reflex, one the Imperial military only honed.

Was it unfair? Of course it was. Easy for them to look down on me when their maiming wasn't on the table. Did they really think they could have maintained an officer's aplomb in that situation? I'll grant the Empire produces some tough bastards, but I didn't see any of them offering to prove it. I'd have been happy to help!

Was it bad policy for engendering a productive work environment? Absolutely. A wise investor doesn't toss an asset after a single disappointing quarter. It's one thing to discipline employees for malfeasance or long-run unproductivity, but for a single moment of weakness in exceptional circumstances? That sort of culture of fear could only incentivize counterproductive ass-covering.

Nonetheless, that's how it was, and it was my responsibility as a citizen to understand and follow the rules of my new society. In time I adapted, learning to give as good as I got.

I hadn't appreciated the nuance at the time, though. I was hurt and angry and in retrospect I admit I overreacted. And it was a bitter pill, having to work alongside Dr. Schugel to quash the conspiracy I had fostered. I hadn't done anything I could be formally censured for, but the atmosphere got pretty tense. Hard to say how things might have developed, had I stuck around. I'd had my second meeting with Being X eight days later, and I was back on the Front by day nine. I didn't leave any friends at that post, that's for sure.

"Well? Any further ambushes?" I prompted Tattletale.

"Ambushes?" Piggot asked, eyebrows raised.

I ignored her denial. A bit shameless, but that's to be expected of a public figure.

"Argent, that wasn't--" She cut herself off and sighed. "No, that's it. You've won."

I frowned at her. I wasn't sure I appreciated that attitude, especially after her slip-up.

I turned back to the director, preparing my thoughts.

"We seem to have drifted off topic. As to the decoys: I'm assured they were beyond saving. Their deaths were tragic, but it was Bonesaw who killed them. A bullet was a mercy, nothing more."

"You didn't know that before you had them shot, though."

"I didn't know they were decoys at all. But neither of those facts matter. We have to take the situation as it is, not as it might have been."

"Panacea could have--"

"Gotten caught in Bonesaw's trap? We didn't even shoot the Bonesaw decoy. She just exploded when the Jack one died, spreading who knows what all over." I continued at her unpleasant expression. "Ah, we irradiated the area on Tattletale's advice. Thoroughly."

She sat back and considered. Gallant interrupted just as she started to nod, though, surprising everyone.

"Wait. Were they really beyond saving?"

What? I started to speak, but he interrupted me.

"Not you. Tattletale. She told you that in the first place, right?"

... Well, shit. I glanced at her as she glanced at me. She did not look entirely confident. What the hell, Lisa? I need to know these things!

"Well, the director's right that Panacea could have helped them. It really would have been risky, though."

Reasonably well done, but it was Gallant that had caught her, not the lie detector.

"And without Panacea?" he pressed.

"... Maybe, maybe not. My psych profile on Bonesaw is mostly built from news reports, it's not perfect."

Piggot had caught onto the evasion now, too.

"Give me a percentage. Your best guess," she instructed.

Lisa bit her lip, eyes darting around. Fuck. Well, as an Imperial myself, what could I do but counterattack?

"You know, there's an American saying I think might be relevant here," I interrupted, drawing attention away from Tattletale. "Something about glass houses?"

I glanced around, but no one wanted to play along. Fine, then. I continued, letting a harsh edge enter my voice.

"How did Shadow Stalker die, again? Was she really beyond saving?"

That pissed them off. Even Miss Militia, despite her determination to play the good cop.

"Yes," Piggot grated at me. "She was inside Echidna. There was no way to get her out."

"Hmm. But there are clones of living capes running around, right? Sounds to me like it was risky, not impossible." Accusation delivered, I made a point of relaxing my posture and tone a bit. "But hey, I get it. Sometimes all your options are bad. Unfortunately, it's not me you're accountable to. Does the public understand the whole sequence of events, there? Her family?"

Now they were truly angry. I let them stew over the threat.

"Blackmail, then?"

I waved the words off without voicing a lie.

"I'm a believer in the rule of law. Your policy on these sorts of incidents is entirely up to you. Consistency is all I ask."

"... I see."

Well, I think they got the message. Time for a bit of conciliation.

"You know, I don't want to be enemies." The director's eyes flicked down to her laptop and she grimaced a little at what she saw there. What? There was no way Notarin had called back in, right? I hadn't said anything that should have activated her power, anyway. Was Piggot checking her email? Whatever. "You did try to have me killed, but that was just a misunderstanding. I don't hold a grudge."

Still ignoring me, she grimaced again at her screen before finally looking up, expression still on her face.

"How very... mature of you."

I shrugged. It was very mature for someone of my apparent age, but I wasn't about to sabotage these negotiations for the sake of verisimilitude. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to come up with an excuse.

"Honestly, I'm used to people trying to kill me." Well, let's not minimize it too much. "Don't mistake me, though: absolutely no one gets used to trying to kill me. Don't push your luck."

"... Right." She sighed. "I am duty bound to enforce the law. If you don't want to be enemies, I advise turning yourself in. Your crimes, while serious, are substantially mitigated by circumstance and could be further mitigated through cooperation. It's not within my power to make promises, but the courts have proven willing to accept very lenient plea bargains in... somewhat similar situations in the past."

"The terms of this deal would involve joining the Wards, right?"

She frowned but didn't seriously try to deny it.

"Most likely, yes."

What a farce! She declares herself an incorruptible agent of the law in one breath, then offers to make it all go away in the next! These were the tactics of a Mafia Don, not legitimate authority. Something tugged at me about that thought, but I couldn't quite grasp it. I obviously had no interest in such an awful offer of employment, but I decided to dig a little.

"And my men?"

She grimaced.

"We can work something out." She hesitated, then dragged out the next words. "It's not like we could hold you if you changed your mind. You don't have much to lose."

What? Of course she could. I wasn't helpless without an orb, but there wasn't much I could do against a concrete cell and a thick steel door. Not quickly, anyway, and they'd have cameras. I carefully hid my confusion. Maybe she meant she couldn't both hold me and make use of me? That was certainly true. And I suppose it was hardly worth going to so much effort for some recruits just to drop them in a cell.

Of course, that assumed the effort actually was to recruit me. She'd been eager enough to ship me off to Germany, where I'd have been useless to her. An asset you can't control is worse than useless, and she was right she couldn't control me. There were a lot of perks that might interest an inexperienced local -- mentorship, civic duty, legal standing, the security provided by being a member of a team -- but she had no reason to believe any of those would tempt me. The frankly insulting compensation package certainly wasn't going to do it.

So maybe it wasn't that simple? If her true goal was to remove me from play, getting me to let my guard--

Lisa rapped her knuckles on the desk. I glanced over. She shook her head.

OK, then. I frowned. If not that, what did they have in mind? If--

"Look, Argent, this isn't some complicated scheme. They've got some idea how out of their depth they are and this is just flailing."

The director glared at Tattletale.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh? Is this offer just a pretense to manufacture an opportunity to murder Argent in her sleep?"

"No, it is not," Miss Militia said harshly.

Tattletale waved her off.

"I know that, obviously." She made a frustrated noise and turned to me. "Look, everyone else in this room put together hasn't killed ten people-- Oh?" She looked at Miss Militia, then at the agent, though I had no clue how she could possibly have read his blank face plate. "Well, maybe a few more. My point is that it's no one's go-to. It's just not how things are done, barring exceptional circumstances."

"And these aren't exceptional circumstances?"

She grimaced.

"Perhaps. But they still haven't decided to try to kill you, and if they did, the attempt would be laughably amateurish, by your standards."

That logic was a little dubious. Catching someone is almost always harder than killing them, after all, and they should have plenty of practice at that. There is something special about lethal combat, though, and newbies do have a tendency to slip up. Did that extend to plots and ambushes? It was hard to say. Who'd put a neophyte in charge of one?

Well, if I wasn't going to trust Tattletale on this sort of thing, why did I bring her? I nodded and turned back to the blank-faced director.

"I decline."

She arched an eyebrow.

"I thought you were a believer in the rule of law?"

"Earth Bet's America hasn't been diplomatically recognized by the Empire nor has it entered into a Status of Forces agreement or any similar treaty. From the perspective of Imperial law, you have no legal authority over me at all."

"But Earth-91's America has been recognized?"

"Earth-91?"

She briefly explained the convention.

"It has been, but that's not relevant. Imperial law lacks any principle of interdimensional equivalence. If you wish to receive recognition, you'll have to get in touch with the Imperial Office of Foreign Affairs."

"And how exactly would I do that?"

Sounded like her problem. I shrugged. She slapped her hand on her desk, suddenly angry.

"Do you actually expect me to indulge this nonsense? America hasn't recognized the Empire, either, and it's not surrendering its sovereign right to enforce its laws on its soil for the sake of an empire that can't even be contacted. You're here now, and there's no way back. Whatever Imperial law says, you are under my jurisdiction."

"You're welcome to your opinion, I suppose. If you attack me, I will defend myself."

She leaned back and grunted.

"So that's it, then?" she asked, bitter. "All those words and in the end it's all about who has the bigger stick?"

"That's been my experience, yes," I grated, surprising myself with my own bitterness.

We regarded each other in silence for long seconds, stretching out to half a minute. Miss Militia looked like she was about to speak up at one point, but she didn't. Tattletale was just staring at me again.

Ultimately, it was the director who broke the tableau, dragging me from increasingly dark thoughts.

"What are your plans going forward, then?"

I briefly considered how much I should tell her, but she'd made that decision easy. If she was determined to be my enemy, I wanted her to know as little as possible.

"None of your business."

She scowled a bit but didn't seem surprised.

"There are concerns about interdimensional disease. We'd like you to meet with Panacea, who will cure--"

"No," I cut her off. Did she think I was an idiot?

"No?" she asked, annoyed. "Panacea is by far--"

"Don't bother with the 'just a healer' B.S.," Tattletale explained condescendingly. "She threatened to give Skitter cancer when she healed her after Leviathan."

Kid Win jerked at that. Lisa's eyes widened.

"Oh. Oh! This is incredible! You're going to have Thinkers poring over every word of this meeting. All I have to do is say the word and they'll dig into all your little secrets! Shadow Stalker constantly--"

"Tattletale!" I barked.

She looked over at me and shut up. I inspected her for a moment. What the fuck was that? What possible advantage could we get from just tossing out all our potential blackmail? Well, now wasn't the time to get into it. I turned back to the director.

"No Panacea. I'm willing to provide a report from an unpowered doctor and that'll have to be good enough."

"... Fine. I believe that's all we need to discuss."

She turned her attention back to her laptop, dismissing me. Not so fast, director.

"What's the timeline on the bounty payout?"

She looked back up, patience running out.

"It will take as long as it takes. Believe it or not, the verification process for a hundred million dollar payout doesn't end with a single interview."

Well, fair enough. But I had plans for that money, and they didn't involve sitting around for... days? weeks? Well, what could I do?

"Over two hundred million, counting the Undersider's cut."

"Oh, it's not even close." She shot me an unpleasant smile, the first I'd seen from her. "We wouldn't want to trouble you with any complicated tax forms, so we handle all that for you."

I frowned.

"You don't know what my expenses are. How could you calculate... Wait, do you mean personal income tax?"

"... Yes? What else would it be?"

"Corporate revenue, obviously. I plan to reinvest virtually all of it." I shook my head. "Startups need all the capital they can get. Taking such an enormous amount out as personal income right now would be counterproductive in the extreme."

"And you're planning to pay appropriate taxes for this... business?"

My frown deepened.

"... Yes? Is there some reason I wouldn't?"

I looked at Tattletale, who rolled her eyes at me.

"Criminal gangs generally don't," the director dryly responded.

... What?

"Who said anything about a criminal gang?"

She stared at me for a moment.

"Well, it doesn't really matter. The deduction is calculated in a manner similar to income tax, but it's in fact distinct. It's written into the law creating the bounty program in lieu of any other taxes. I believe the choice was mainly motivated by identity concerns."

I grimaced. I guess I'd have to scale things back a bit.

"Fine. I suppose that is all, then."

We exchanged stiff nods, Tattletale rose, and we left the office, PRT minder back on our heels.

I stewed as we walked. That had not gone as well as I'd hoped, and not purely due to enemy action. I'd thought Tattletale and I were on the same page, but clearly not. Her power was incredible, and I'd let that distract me from the fact it was attached to an impetuous, undisciplined, inexperienced teenager. And I'd made my share of mistakes, too. High stakes negotiations had once been an important part of my role as an HR manager, but I'd clearly gotten rusty. Well, it certainly could have gone worse. We'd just have to work at it and be ready for the next one.

I didn't allow myself to lose track of my surroundings despite my thoughts, so I was able to avoid the young man coming fast around a corner as I approached. He tossed out an apology as I dodged around him, but he froze when I offered one of my own. I took a closer look. Late teens or early twenties, maybe. Casual clothes. Pretty fit. Bandage poking up over his collar on one side. A little young to be an agent, right? Maybe an intern. When he just kept still and stared at me, I finished maneuvering around him and continued on my way.

A\N: What about Corporal Richter? Tanya just forgot. She'll kick herself about it later, but there was a going on here and he's not really at the forefront of her mind.

Edit: Spelling fix