"What do you think?" He asked, his eyes flicking from one monitor to the next, where the entirety of the Oathbound and several nebulously affiliated children were being held.
It had come as a surprise to Collin to find not just Fleur present - something he half expected given the way she had largely attached herself to the new team after her resurrection - but to find Daniel Hebert there as well.
Wielding a three hundred pound combination sledgehammer and musket with casual ease. He might have assumed it was just Tinkertech - again, a reasonable precaution for a public cape like Taylor Hebert to take for her own father - but upon further inspection, it had become obvious that there was no Tinkertech at play to allow the device to be lifted by a normal man.
Somehow, Daniel Hebert - a man in his mid fourties with no previous history of any kind to explain it - was casually bouncing the a three hundred pound weapon on one shoulder like a stick of balsa wood.
It hadn't taken Colin long to make the obvious intuitive leap from that, to the recent attack on Lightstar - Fleur's ex-boyfriend - during a period of time when Daniel had been suspiciously absent from the Brockton Bay.
"None of them set off any obvious alarms, and preliminary questioning shows nearly no loss of memory or periods of time that could be fabricated." Dragons voice replied from inside the confines of his helmet.
Finding out that Dragon wasn't a physical person had been… odd. Not bad. Just odd. In many ways, the revelation had allowed for better communication and collaboration between them. Not needing to keep up the pretence of having limited attention to work with meant that the remarkable Tinker could - and often would - stay patched in to a near permanent line of communication with him. He had spoken more over the last few weeks than the previous few months as a result.
Something about what Dragon had said however, bothered him slightly - so he asked about it.
"Nearly?" He queried, his eyes pausing on a screen that showed Nexus and her Projection, with the Projection talking animatedly about something he couldn't hear as a result of protections put in place to prevent Mastering via audible stimuli.
He understood that it was functionally impossible to separate the two. In fact, he understood more than anyone except for possibly the Director herself, that they were only really holding the Oathbound because they were cooperating as allies of the PRT.
But it still bugged him immensely to see such an obvious flaunting of normal Master/Stranger procedure, even if it was in the form of Nexus functionally talking to herself.
"The surviving clone of Dinah Alcott professed to have spent much of her day, both at home and in school, sleeping." Dragon explained with some amusement, causing his frown to deepen.
It wasn't much, but the discrepancy was such that he would have to send at least one group of Agents to the school to canvas it - just to see if he could find any issues. If the majority if the girls classmates and teachers could remember her sleeping, or - if she was being discreet about it - simply not moving much, then he could check that one off as cleared.
If not, then he would have to brave explaining to Nexus why they needed to keep her charge in custody longer than the simple one night screening they were doing currently.
He had serious doubts that anyone on this team was compromised. But the point of the exercise wasn't to find Mastered victims so much as it was to remove potential victims from the short list of likely targets.
"Three of our men were injured and two more were killed during this break in. We don't know how long the Master has been planning this, but it's obvious he can implant commands that don't have to be followed until triggered later. I had suspicions with the Clements girl but the way our own agents waited until they could disable some of our defences without setting off a Master/Stranger alert cinches it." He stated, fingers drumming against his leg as he thought aloud.
"Very few known Masters have that kind of flexibility or control. He?" Dragon asked, her tone of voice businesslike but playful sounding. It was the tone if voice she used when she had come to the natural conclusion before he could manage to, which was increasingly common as they worked more closely together.
Collin might have found it annoying if he didn't also cherish those moments, moments where the ever unflappable Dragon demonstrated how very, very human she could be.
"Reports from our injured guards say the voice they heard before their fellows turned on them was decidedly male." He elaborated.
"As far as known male Master's go, it should either have been Heartbreaker or-"
"-Valefor." He finished for her, allowing the words to hang in the air for a moment before he moved on.
He disliked that the Fallen had decided to visit the city, but he wasn't surprised by it. It was easy to forget with all the strange happenings in Brockton recently - but the Simurgh had been defeated and the one who did it lived here. It made perfect sense for a Simurgh Cult to pay Nexus a visit.
At least now, armed with knowledge of who they were dealing with, they could better take precautions. Valefor was known to need eye contact for his power to work. It was an obvious weakness that made ambushes and subterfuge a preferred tactic for the Fallen cape, and it was one he was hoping to capitalize on. He and Dragon were already hard at work outfitting a small group of PRT officers with sealed helmets and small head mounted cameras that would play back their surroundings on a screen inside the helmet with just enough of a delay that it should fail to constitute actual eye contact with the Master.
What's more, for all Valefor seemed to be attempting stealth, invading the PRT headquarters and going unseen was basically impossible. A number of street side cameras had recorded his entrance and exit. If the officer watching said cameras hadn't been Mastered then they might have had him there and then.
Unfortunately, the Director felt - and Colin agreed - that the likelihood of Valefor targeting the exact people required for such a daring move was unlikely given the PRT's own stringent policies. It was much more likely that he had been watching the building, discreetly following people home, and then Mastering them until enough officers were converted for his plan to line up properly.
Which meant that the Oathbound aside, a fairly sizeable number of the PRT's people were currently in Master/Stranger containment. Even Colin himself wasn't immune - once enough personnel were cleared to run operations again, he would be
He allowed his gaze to pass over almost all the visible displays showing active containment rooms - something about that 'almost' bothered him but only mildly so he ignored it - and then turned back to his current project.
Close to an hour late, Colin found himself traversing to narrow hallways of the PRT building en route to the Wards headquarters. The downtown headquarters - while as secure as it could feasibly be made - was nowhere near as physically secure as the Rig had been. The downtown headquarters had actually been more of an administrative building than anything else, with the Wards program located there purely for the convenience of the Wards themselves. Colin still to this day found himself petitioning for funds to repair the original Protectorate Headquarters out over the bay at nearly every major meeting the department had - even though he knew how impractical such a task would be.
It wasn't just that it would be expensive - it was more than that. The Rig itself had been in large part, Tinkertech - the source of the force field sold to the city by Uppercrust in order to defend it from any potential freak storms, tsunamis, or the most likely option - Leviathan. So until they could get said Tinker to visit the city - a service the department simply couldn't afford while paying Nexus - the Rig would be left to languish in the waves.
He was more than prepared to restart his workshop from backed up files, but the loss of physical assets, tools, and materials had been almost crippling for a short period of time after the damage was done. If Dragon hadn't generously donated a fairly sizeable amount of his current tech to him, he wasn't sure what he would have done.
Absently, he nodded towards one of Miss Militia's projections guarding a door as he passed it, the strangely lifelike entities having taken over many of the security duties in the building while most of the normal personnel were on leave or in containment pending being cleared of Master influence. It didn't really nod back to him, but that was fine.
No one who worked in this city would ever dare to dismiss the potential sapience of a Projection after all.
At length, he arrived in front of the Wards common area, waiting the requisite ten seconds for the warning bell inside the room to go off, and then entering. Inside he found about what he expected. The most recent transfer - Flechette - and Emma Barnes, who still had yet to be rebranded, sitting down and watching television. That one was an odd friendship if ever he had seen one. As much as Lily had been made aware of Emma's troubling history with arguably the most destructive Cape in the country, she also shared a sense of 'otherness' with her. Neither Ward was particularly well known to their current team, and so seemed to take a sort of comfort in each other's company - even if they rarely seemed to actually agree with each other on anything.
Both Wards were turned to face him as he entered the room, so he didn't bother with pleasantries.
"Where's Kid?" He asked, glancing around for signs of the other Tinkers presence in the immediate vicinity. Kid Win had become increasingly withdrawn and secretive after the mishap that had landed him in his current position. He would have - in all likelihood - been moved to another department already, but strong opposition from his parents has slowly forced the PRT to walk back from that position. Colin supposed that the original reason for moving him - possible retaliation from the group of villains he had technically killed a member of - had largely passed, but one could never be too sure.
There was also the… other reason he had become a fixture in the Bay. He wouldn't say Kid got special treatment but well…
He got special treatment.
Treatment that was part of the reason Colin was here to speak to him in the first place. He had demonstrated a facility with the rapidly changing situation in Brockton Bay that Armsmaster himself had largely lacked.
"I think-" Lily began but was spoken over by Emma, who pushed herself up on the back of the couch she was sitting on to be eye level with him.
"When am I going to be allowed on patrol." She asked in a deceptively calm tone of voice.
"When you have a costume, a name, and the requisite training." He replied automatically, having long since grown tired of this particular argument.
"That's bullshit! I can't get an appointment to even talk to the god damn PR people! Let me help! I can find the guy you're looking for!" She growled at him, earning an uncertain look from Lily who quickly shut her mouth and leaned away to watch how this would play out.
"Believe it or not, I would dearly love to. But your past conduct and lack of discipline preclude that possibility. Make no mistake - you are on probation. You are here and not in a prison cell because your situation is - in part - my fault. I'll speak to the Director - but the fact of the matter is, you are as likely to get yourself spontaneously killed by Nexus as you are to be helpful - and that would be a waste." He explained, aiming for earnest and mostly just coming across as brusque.
Emma recoiled as though she had been slapped in the face, and for the first time he could remember, her expression took on a decidedly vulnerable cast, then became enraged.
"Your mystery villain will be after my family too! It's obvious he's got a hard on for that dork - you have to let me-" She tried again, more forcefully.
"No. I do not. As of an hour ago we have already found and relocated your family to Boston via Dragoncraft. You will be staying here for the duration of the crisis - I expect you to keep me or the officer on duty updated on the number of Parahuman's you can currently detect within the building." He stated firmly. The girls lips pressed together into a thin line as she regarded him.
There was a short but awkward silence, and then Lily interjected - clearly attempting to change the subject.
"Chris is in his lab." She said, pointing past the fuming red head with one slim finger.
"Thank you." Armsmaster responded, quickly turning to walk past them but finding himself once more unsurprised as they followed him.
A minute later he was punching in the access code to the lab while ignoring the two silent Wards behind him. What he emerged into was both unexpected and… not.
"Chris. I need your opinion on a piece of tech we recently acquired from Leet." He stated without preamble, eyeing the other tinker as he fidgeted with several objects at once. Without his hands. From the center of the room - where he was hovering like he was possessed.
Which, to hear him tell it, he sort of was.
Chris had - in his own words - professed to have 'found' his specialty. Armsmaster sincerely doubted it, but recent experience told him he probably shouldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand.
After all, for all that Chris seemed to think he was specialized in 'ghost tech', The Protectorate had been called away to deal with multiple outbreaks of what he could only describe as malicious animal sized strangers. He probably would have stuck to that classification and started looking for either a Master or a Bio Tinker somewhere in the city as little as a month ago. Nexus casual relationship with what she insisted were in fact ghosts, combined with Chris' recent side gig as the cities ghost expert had changed his position on the matter. It helped that so far, only Dauntless and Miss Militia had proven effective at dealing with such disturbances.
He tried not to think too hard about what connections that made, happy at least that the weekly resurrections Nexus was performing should provide similar resources to other departments should the need arise.
Chris blinked at his sudden entrance, his eyes going from a fluorescent glow to his normal countenance - then abruptly fell to the ground with a grunt.
"Thanks Luke. Really." He grumbled, shaking his head as though coming out of a trance before turning to look at Colin.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that? I've got the ghost protocol stuff you wanted on the desk over there. Luke says some of those reports aren't ghosts though so I didn't reference or include them. You might have to go directly to Nexus about the talking cats and stuff." He explained. Colin nodded along with the update, glancing over to find a fairly thick stack of papers sitting on a nearby work bench before turning back to his Ward and opening his mouth to speak.
"Who's Luke?" Lily asked, earning a tired sigh from Emma. Colin considered ignoring the question but knew it would have to be addressed eventually anyway - and so chose to take a moment to educate the girl.
"Are the updated visors ready?" He asked Chris without directly answering her.
The frazzled looking boy pointed gingerly to the wall behind him, where several seemingly simple visors to match each Wards costume were hanging. Impatient, Colin gestured for Lily to take the one marked 'Flechette' and mimed holding it up to her face.
He personally had no need of the things - he had made the modifications necessary to his own helmet within days of determining it was required, which was why he hadn't bothered reacting to or commenting on the human shaped cold spot standing directly behind Chris, visibly only because of said modification.
There was a short gasp from Lily, and then a barked 'Stranger' following which the visor went from her face, to her hand, to flying across the room and straight through the cold spot at waist height.
Where it promptly shattered against the far wall.
"Those aren't especially costly to make, but please refrain from damaging another one." He commented mildly.
"What the hell is that?" The confused girl asked, backing slowly towards the door, her head darting back and forth as she tried to see something that was neither visible in the normal light spectrum - or physically tangible at all.
"Chris' ghost pal. Sad right?" Emma said absently, as accustomed to this as anyone else who had spent more than a few weeks in the ENE department.
"O-oh. So… it's a projection?" She asked, calming down slightly.
Emma shot her a put upon look but managed to keep her response civil.
"Nah. Ghosts." She said bluntly.
"But-" Lily tried to reply.
"We've got one in the tunnels under the building too. I try to keep her company when I can. You'd probably like her." Chris added absently.
"Why are you all so calm about this?" Lily blurted out forcefully.
Armsmaster sighed, walking over to deposit the belt Nexus had presented to him before going into Master/Stranger containment on a nearby bench and nodding at Chris to explain.
"Uh…" He said, seemingly temporarily blindsided by being forced to talk to both girls. Emma's eyebrow shot up in a mocking manner Colin thought was eerily reminiscent of Taylor Hebert when she was in a bad mood, and Chris cleared his throat.
"So uh… the city has ghosts? I dunno. Ghost stuff has just been happening a lot recently. We keep getting people who definitely aren't Parahumans that can do minor stuff like levitate a pencil an inch in the air trying to sign up for the Protectorate, and I think six out of every ten calls we get now are about ghost stuff. Usually its just stuff like someone's dead aunt doing their dishes or even nothing at all - but once in a while there are these tiny malicious fu- ones that break stuff and hurt people. I call them Type One and Type Two spirits. Luke is a Type One - I don't really know where Type Two's come from, but they all have these white masks and look like animals." Chris hurriedly explained.
Lily looked from Chris, to Colin, then finally - to Emma.
"Don't look at me. I only do Parahumans." She responded flatly and with obvious annoyance, cocking one hip and eyeing the Visor on the wall labeled 'That Bitch'. Armsmaster chose to ignore the way Lily's eyes flicked down then back up again while the red head was distracted, then spoke.
"Chris. That's unprofessional. She's your teammate. Act like it." He barked quickly with a nod towards said visor.
He also chose to ignore the look of surprise Emma shot him at the statement.
He hadn't been lying when he said he was personally responsible for where she had ended up. His Ward started it, and as much as he was no longer willing to give the problem children under him as much leeway as Shadow Stalker had once had, he refused to abdicate responsibility for their safety or well being.
Besides, he had more important things to do. He needed Chris' opinion on the meta material in Leet's belt. He needed to incorporate greater anti ghost capabilities into his equipment - as those were overwhelmingly what the PRT was responsible for in this particular city - and he needed to update the Director on the current situation before going into containment himself.
It was a pity - he knew Dragon had long since decided to ask Nexus for assistance with acquiring a body, but presently her lack of eyes to interact with Valefor was too much of a boon to give up.
"Yes sir." Chris responded to him dutifully, shooting an unhappy look at Emma before standing to remove the offending tag from the wall.
Truly, the work of a leader was never done.
A/N: I honestly wasn't going to update today but it is - or was - Gooey 's birthday so. Here you go. Happy Birthday.