Earning Her Stripes
Part Twenty-One: A New Era
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Monday Morning, September 13, 2010
Office of Director Emily Piggot, PRT ENE
Emily sipped at her first coffee of the day—she could handle the stuff, if she went light on it—as she settled into her office chair. The 'skim sheet', a listing of the highlights of the previous 12 hours that she'd be dealing with, was ready to hand; she picked it up after switching on her computer. Long experience had her setting down the cup before she took in the information on the sheet. If there was anything particularly egregious on the page, she didn't want to be dealing with it and wiping coffee off her keyboard and screen.
The very first item made her thankful she followed the practice, even as she paused and read it through twice more. "What the actual fuck?" she muttered.
A vigilante before becoming part of The Real Thing, Shadow Stalker had been known for her violent tendencies for a while now, but she'd been getting better … hadn't she? Her association with Firebird and Blockade—both of whom Armsmaster had nothing but glowing praise for, for two different reasons—had seemed to be stemming the worst of her behaviour, at least until last night. But then she'd apparently gone axe-crazy in the space of hours, attempting to murder some random citizen in his bed, then holding two more hostage in the middle of the night.
It got even better. The dry, concise phrasing told her that Stalker (whose shadowy form the PRT still didn't actually know how to confine) had been captured and handed over to the PRT by her own (ex)teammates, and was currently under sedation in a cell because they had no idea what else to do with her. Armsmaster had added a note that he was working on 'countermeasures', but there were no other details.
Taking a hit of her coffee—this was going to be one of those mornings, she could already tell—she deliberately moved her eyes onto the next item on the sheet. Prior to whatever mental break Stalker had had, The Real Thing had busted up an Empire dog-fighting ring, and the PRT had been called in to scoop up Cricket and Stormtiger, both of whom had been through the wringer. Stormtiger had cuts, bruises and a few broken bones, while Cricket had first-degree burns all over her face and no hair from the neck up, as well as a moderate concussion.
As far as Emily was concerned, it was no more than either of them deserved, for all the pain and suffering both of them had handed out to their considerable number of victims over the past few years. She had to admit, The Real Thing could not only talk the talk, but they could also walk the damn walk, especially considering that they'd apparently chased off Hookwolf during the course of the fight. Hookwolf didn't normally run from battle; given the damage to Stormtiger, Blockade must have been handing out whoop-ass in industrial quantities to make him change his mind.
Emily Piggot wasn't one to personally express approval of capes applying excessive violence, but in Blockade's case she would've been happy to shake the man's hand; anyone who could make that damn Nazi turn tail and run was okay in her book.
Except Lung. Lung could go fuck himself.
With a sigh of faint satisfaction—it was nice to have at least two asshole capes off the street for the moment, however long that lasted—she went back to drinking her coffee and reading the rest of the sheet. The rest of it was somewhat more boring, but these were all details she'd have to remember to address, this being the point of the skim sheet.
At one point, as she set the cup down, it jittered slightly and she saw ripples forming in the liquid. She paused, waiting for something else to happen, but apart from a barely audible rumbling that quickly faded away, there was nothing. Making a mental note to check it out if it happened again—it was almost certainly a cape doing cape things—she went back to reading the sheet.
Her intercom buzzed. "Ma'am, Trooper Mendelsson here to see you."
She frowned slightly. Mendelsson was a solid troop, but per her recollection, he'd been rostered for guard duty on the roof. "Send him in."
The door opened to admit Mendelsson, who was carrying a cloth shopping bag of all things. "Ma'am," he said, coming to attention and saluting.
"At ease, Mendelsson," she said at once. "What's this about?"
"We just had a cape land on the roof, ma'am. Blockade, of The Real Thing. He had this for us. Said it would help keep Shadow Stalker in one place, ma'am."
Emily's interest, already piqued, increased considerably. "Really." It was both a question and a statement. She supposed that a Tinker who had spent time with the recalcitrant cape would have more of an insight on how to contain her shadow shape. Still, it was impressive work. "What is it?"
"Cuffs, ma'am." Trooper Mendelsson placed the bag on her desk, then gently eased the three items out of it. Two were indeed heavy cuffs made from a shimmering grey metal, sized for a teenage girl. To her moderately trained eye, they looked adjustable for a snug fit. They possessed no integral lock, but with their hasp-and-loop securing system, any ordinary set of handcuffs could be used to make them into a set of wrist (or ankle) manacles. While she was no judge of such things, they looked sturdy enough to hold anyone. Anyone who couldn't become shadow, at any rate.
The third was a simple block of the same metal, four inches by two by one. She frowned, eyeing it. While she could understand the utility of the cuffs, the function of the block was a mystery to her. "What's that for?" Perhaps to supply power to the cuffs?
"It's for Armsmaster, ma'am." She couldn't see Mendelsson's face, but she thought she heard a smile in his voice. "Blockade said to give that to him so he wouldn't 'borrow' one of the cuffs for testing. He said this is what he calls 'good steel', and Shadow Stalker can't phase it, or phase through or around it. Put one of these cuffs on her, and she isn't going anywhere. Ma'am."
"Ah." She'd heard the phrase 'good steel' before; Armsmaster had included it in his report to her about his encounter with Blockade. It was apparently what the suit and Firebird's throwing discs were made of, and Blockade claimed it was unbreakable. Armsmaster had expressed his doubts, but hadn't been able to secure a sample to test this out.
Well, now he had one. And the PRT also had a potential way to prevent Shadow Stalker from simply walking out of the building through the nearest wall; at least, one that didn't involve the ethically dubious method of 'keep her sedated indefinitely'. She nodded in approval. "Well done, Mendelsson. Dismissed. I'll take it from here."
"Ma'am." The trooper saluted and left her office.
Taking up her phone, Emily speed-dialled a number, connecting to Armsmaster's lab out on the Protectorate base in the bay. It rang exactly once before being picked up. "Yes?" She took no offense from the brusque tone; he got that way when he was working on anything he thought was important.
"How quickly can you get here? I've got something here I think you'll be interested in."
Nine Minutes and Thirty Seconds Later
Armsmaster
Colin turned over the block of metal in his gauntlets, studying the play of light on the surface. "It certainly looks the same as what Blockade uses in his suit," he admitted. "And so do the cuffs. I'd have to get this back to the lab and do durability tests before I can give you hard numbers on what it can stand up to."
"Assume I'm less interested in its overall ability to withstand damage, and more interested in how well it can contain Shadow Stalker." Director Piggot hefted one of the cuffs in her hand. "For something that was constructed in the last eight hours, it looks damned good. But will it work as advertised, or will Shadow Stalker just leave it on the ground and walk away?"
If there was anything Colin was familiar with when it came to Tinkertech, it was the difference between expectation and cold hard reality. His tech rarely failed; that much he knew. When it did fall short, it was because it had encountered something (or someone) that it just wasn't rated to handle. Which was why he had three separate halberds, each with a different set of internal mechanisms, set up for different potential opponents or conditions.
Most other Tinkers were a different story. They built their tech to do something—to shine in a given area—rather than to be good in a specific way. As such, they often assumed their area of expertise made them unbeatable in that field. Sometimes it did … and sometimes it fell flat. This never ended well.
Kid Win's tech was an exception to the rule, but not in a good way. The boy had yet to figure out what his tech was intended to do, so he didn't excel at anything. Even if it was supposed to be something special—as Colin's tech was able to be hyper-efficient—nobody knew what that was, either.
Blockade's tech, as far as Colin could figure, specialised in being durable (and bulky, but mainly durable). That included the very metal with which it was constructed; as he'd explained to Colin on their first meeting, if some 'jerk villain' could break his stuff with their powers, then it wasn't strong enough.
Colin had his doubts about that. Everything was breakable, for a suitably loose definition of the word. He himself was making progress on a nanothorn concept that seemed capable of cutting through even the most durable of materials, though he was only able to make it work for a few seconds at a time. Its interaction with the block of 'good steel' would definitely be recorded and passed on to Blockade.
But that was for later. Right now, they had a pair of cuffs to test out.
Director Piggot
Shadow Stalker, minus mask and costume, looked almost peaceful as she lay on the bed within the cell. Given her potential to spill the secrets of the members of The Real Thing, from spite or just a desire to secure some kind of deal, everyone present had signed an NDA to the effect that they would not speak of anything they learned from her to non-approved persons. Sophia Hess's own identity had been included within that NDA, because it made sense to cut down on what otherwise threatened to be ever-expanding paperwork.
Amusingly enough, if there was room in this situation for humour, Stalker had been enclosed in a full-pelvis cast to keep her hip immobilised until it could undergo proper medical attention, so for the moment it looked like she was wearing a giant diaper. This was why they were testing out the cuffs immediately; medical intervention was best left until the patient could be taken off sedation after the fact, to avoid any potentially problematic interactions.
"How do we contain her once she's awake, if the cuffs don't work?" Emily asked.
The question was one she needed an answer for before they went any further with the trial. On the other side of the polycarbonate window, right at that moment, the cuffs were being fitted, then connected together by handcuffs which were then linked by a chain to a ring-bolt in the floor. Stalker was still out to it though they'd removed the IVs, leaving just the life-signs monitoring patches under the gown they'd given her for modesty.
Armsmaster gestured at the oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling. "From my study of her activities, she never spends long inside solid objects, so my supposition is that she still needs air, no matter what form she's in. As soon as the tech exits the room, we'll be able to flush the oxygen and replace it with nitrogen in seconds, if we have to. If she wants to breathe, she'll have to use that mask. Which requires her to be solid."
"Hm. Okay. Carry on."
Armsmaster spoke a few words into his microphone, something about administering an antagonist, and the tech wrapped a Velcro band with a small device attached to it around Stalker's upper arm. He then moved unhurriedly to the airlock-style exit door and tapped in the code to let himself out.
Once he had cycled through and the outer airlock door had closed, Armsmaster said, "Commencing test."
The device strapped to Stalker's arm must have done something, because her eyes snapped open and she stared around. She tried to reach up to rip it off, but the cuffs didn't quite allow enough play to pull it off. However, this made her aware of the cuffs; half-sitting up, she looked more closely at them, then at the floor where the chain was secured, then finally at the polycarbonate window and the spectators beyond.
"What the fuck?" she demanded, her aggravated tone reaching Emily quite easily, even via the speakers. "What is this shit? Where am I? Why am I cuffed up?" She felt at her face. "Who unmasked me, goddamn it?"
Armsmaster leaned toward Emily. "She'll be able to hear you," he said softly.
"Good." Emily cleared her throat. "Good morning, Shadow Stalker. You've been unmasked because that's routine for all capes we place under arrest for criminal activity. You are in a holding cell in the PRT building, where you will remain until your arraignment. Have you been Mirandised yet?"
"No, I damn well haven't been Mirandised yet!" Stalker seemed to be building a fine head of steam. "This is bullshit! I know my rights! I'm a goddamn hero! You've got no call unmasking me like that! What even am I under arrest for, anyway?"
Emily had written down the names in her notepad, and she'd used a Miranda card as a bookmark. "You've been accused of attempted murder against one Danny Hebert, and of the false imprisonment of Alan and Zoe Barnes with threats of violence, and assault and battery against Alan Barnes. At the moment. We might have determined more charges before you see the judge this afternoon."
Stalker shook her head violently. "No! No! That's bullshit! I've been framed! They're just jealous of me, and they want me off the team!"
"Be that as it may," Emily forged on, turning her eyes to the reference card. "You are currently under arrest, and I've informed you of the charges. You have the right to remain silent. If you should choose to give up this right—"
It was just about then that Stalker must have realised she wasn't bluffing her way out of the situation. The shift to shadow form was fast, even though she still had to be suffering from the effects of the sedative. However ... the cuffs did not shift; they remained stubbornly solid, though still clasped around Stalker's ghostly wrists.
Then came the next problem; with Stalker's initial lunge off the bed, the cuffs had nothing between them and the floor, so that was where they fell with a loud metallic clatter. Instead of slipping free, Stalker went with them, her shadowy form going prone on the floor. She went solid almost at once then back to shadow again, wrenching and jerking at the cuffs. While she was in shadow form, they wouldn't budge, only moving when she was solid.
"Add a count of attempted escape in there," Emily observed, watching the proceedings with interest. "It seems to me that she can't move them at all when she's in her Breaker state. Do you concur?"
"I do," agreed Armsmaster. "This is utterly fascinating data, right here. Those cuffs should be easily within her weight limit, but even if they weren't, she should be able to slide right out of them. Why can't she, do you think?"
Emily snorted. "You're the cape and the Tinker in the room. I have absolutely no idea, and zero desire to bend my brain into pretzels trying to think of an explanation. When you figure it out, submit a report."
"I'll certainly do that." Armsmaster paused, as Shadow Stalker went solid again, inside the cell. She was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, hair snarled down over her face, glaring at them.
"Okay, fine. Get me out of these stupid things, and we'll talk. I've got information you're going to want to know."
"The cuffs stay," Emily stated. "We're not so stupid as to just let you just drift out through the wall when you decide you want to go."
"Then get me medical attention for my hip. Get me Panacea. I'm telling you, The Real Thing isn't nearly as neat and tidy as you think they are. I can give you all the down-low, but I want healing first."
"What sort of information are you talking about?" Armsmaster didn't sound very interested. "We've already been warned that you're likely to try to disseminate the real identities of your ex-teammates far and wide. That isn't going to buy you any special treatment."
"That's only part of what I've got to tell you. And I want a lawyer, too."
"That reminds me." Emily took out the card again. "I've already advised you about your right to remain silent. If you should choose to give up this right, anything you say can and will be taken down to be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. And if you decide to answer questions now, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney." She slid the card back into the notebook and replaced it in her pocket. "Do you understand these rights as I have read them out to you?"
Shadow Stalker pressed her lips together and breathed through her nostrils, evidently not wanting to answer, but eventually gave a reluctant nod. "Yeah, I understand."
"Excellent." Emily gave her a faux cheerful smile. "So, with those rights understood, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Get me back up on the bed and fix my fuckin' hip first, and then we can talk." Shadow Stalker grimaced. "The painkillers are really starting to wear off now, and it fuckin' hurts." She paused. "Oh, and anything I tell you about what they've done, I've got immunity for. That's how it works, right?"
Emily glanced sideways at Armsmaster. He seemed to think for a second, then nodded fractionally. She agreed with his assessment; with the cuffs proving their worth, Stalker was far less of a flight risk, so getting Panacea in to heal her hip wouldn't be nearly as risky. "If you give us good information about events we don't already know about, we'll definitely take your cooperation into consideration when it comes to the charges you'll already be facing."
Stalker shook her head. "Fuck no. Immunity down the line."
"Not how it works, and you know it." Emily gave Stalker her best 'don't try that shit with me' look. "We'll take it into consideration, and that's the best assurance I can offer. Otherwise, you can maintain your right to say nothing to anyone, until we can get a lawyer with the clearance for your specific circumstances."
Stalker turned her head away. "Okay, fine. Just so long as you listen to what I've got to say about those two-faced bitches."
"Oh, we'll listen." Whatever it was Stalker wanted to talk about, there was a good chance that the more she ran her mouth, the deeper she would mire herself in legal troubles. And Emily was always in favour of taking advantage of the mistakes of other people.
Monochrome
The Boardwalk, A Little Bit Earlier
Emma (in her Firebird costume) and I looked up as Madison's Blockade suit came in for a landing nearby. "Done," she reported. "They should have no trouble holding her now."
"That's if they actually try it out." I didn't know if they would or not. "If she gets out again, I'll probably have to kill her, and I don't really feel like doing that." I would if I had to, especially to protect Dad, but it wasn't my go-to.
"I'm thinking they will." Emma sounded sure of herself. "After all, what have they got to lose by trying?"
I nodded. "I hope you're right. Let's patrol."
"Come on up," Madison invited, as grip-handles extended from the shoulders of her power armour. "Better field of view, and it'll look kinda cool."
Emma looked at me and I shrugged, seeing no problem with it. "Sure, okay." Leaping upward lightly, I landed on the suit's right shoulder and grasped a handle. "If you want to do all the walking, that's fine by me."
"Works for me, too." Although Emma had to do a little parkour work to get up next to where I was, she still managed it with impressive ease. Whatever changes her power vial had made to her were subtle but absolutely undeniable.
"Wait," I said before Madison could move off. "I want to try something." I'd applied my protection to various items before, but never something made out of Madison's 'good steel'. Shifting my weight, I pressed my hand flat against the armoured shoulder of the suit, and exerted my power for a moment.
"Whoa, that was weird. All my readouts just went strange."
"No shit," I breathed, lifting my hand away from the metal. "That was … I'm not sure if that's even possible, what I just saw."
"What's not possible?" asked Emma. "You just did your durability thing, didn't you?"
"Yeah." I shook my head. "Normally when I do it, stuff becomes about ten times as tough, right?"
"What you said," Madison confirmed. "What happened with the good steel? Didn't affect it at all?"
"Oh, it affected it." I stared down at the metal shoulder I was perched on. "It went from 'stupidly tough' to 'can't touch this'. I'm pretty sure that if I tried to break it when I was enhancing it, it wouldn't break."
"Well, that's definitely an interesting power interaction," Emma observed.
"Isn't it just?" Madison sounded equally intrigued. "Uh, Monochrome, if Firebird offered to teach you how to use some kind of simple weapon, like a staff or a sword or something, would you be okay with that?"
I looked across at Emma. Before I knew who she was, I'd watched the footage of her doing all sorts of fancy tricks with Armsmaster's halberd, and thought she was pretty damn badass. But if she could do that with a spear with an axe head, surely she could teach me to use something a lot simpler. "I guess. But why?"
Emma answered for the both of them. "Because no matter how strong you are, you can always do with that extra bit of leverage and reach that a weapon can give you." She paused. "Especially an unbreakable one."
That was … an extremely good point. And after all, one of the reasons I'd decided to take over the team was to ensure their strengths were put to good use. This sounded like a damn good use. "Okay, we'll see how we go with that."
"Excellent. I'll forge you up a staff once we finish the patrol."
"Don't forget we're on lawn care duty today," Emma cautioned.
"Lawn care duty?" I looked curiously across at her.
"Yeah." She hunched her shoulders. "Our dads talked to your dad, and he decided that we need to come over and do some weeding and mowing. My dad's already paying to repair the damage I did."
"Maybe by then we'll have our applications back, too." Madison sounded hopeful.
"You're both going for Arcadia, too?" I glanced across at Emma and got a nod in return. "You realise I won't stand for any more of that shit you pulled at Winslow, right?"
"Yeah." She hunched her shoulders again. It seemed to be a thing she did whenever she remembered how much of a colossal bitch she'd been to me. "And like we keep telling you, we've changed. That's not us. Not anymore."
"You told me that once or twice before, just to catch me by surprise and fuck me over," I reminded her. "So, you'll excuse me if I don't totally take you at face value this time."
"That's fair," conceded Madison. "We've made a lot of progress, but we've still got a long road to travel yet."
Emma nodded. "One day at a time."
Armsmaster
Panacea stood in the infirmary, her hand on Shadow Stalker's arm. The ex-hero was masked up—no sense in requiring more NDAs than necessary—but she was still firmly manacled to the floor via the good-steel cuffs.
Colin had spent a little time in the lab before the New Wave healer showed up, running a few preliminary tests on the sample of good steel that Blockade had gifted him. While he still didn't believe in anything being truly unbreakable, that belief now had a few dents in it.
Nothing touched the stuff. Nothing. Not his best diamond cutting wheel, not his high-intensity laser, not the plasma blade on his primary halberd, nothing. The laser had warmed it to a fine heat, but even at max intensity, with just as much energy pouring out of it as went into it, there was no sign of weakness or deformity.
And when he'd activated the nanothorn effect and brought the block in contact with it … the nanothorns broke. He'd never encountered anything they couldn't disassemble on a subatomic level, until now.
It had to be breakable. He just didn't know what with.
"Done," announced Panacea, lifting her hand away and stepping back from Shadow Stalker. "Your hip is entirely repaired. Just so you know, I had to draw on the muscles around it for repair, so you're going to have a limp until you can build them up again."
"Hey, no, fix the damn hip properly." Shadow Stalker pulled uselessly on her manacles. "This is bullshit."
"I'm not being paid for premium service, you don't get premium service." Panacea waited until the cell door opened, then stepped through. "Just so you know, she's got another issue. Somewhere along the line, she's managed to pick up a whole lot of asbestos particles in her system. Right now it's not overtly life-threatening, but in time she's going to end up with major problems if it's not removed."
"You can't take it out now?" asked Director Piggot.
Panacea shrugged. "Sure, but it'll count as another operation. Plus, it's spread all the way through her system, including her brain. Taking it out would be a basic service, but repairing the damage it's done so far would count as a premium service with a brain charge on top, because I've essentially got to give her everything a going-over."
It was just another aspect of life in Brockton Bay that the one major independent hero team had a rogue healer in residence. Panacea charged the minimum rate that NEPEA-5 allowed, with extra for short notice. She was defined as a surgeon, and thus charged two hundred dollars per hour or part thereof. This was surprisingly affordable, considering that there were zero other charges surrounding this, and Brandish refused to allow what she called the 'medical insurance protection racket' to get its hooks into her daughter's cash flow.
Over and above all that, she had 'basic service' where the base problem was dealt with and the patient sent on their way, and 'premium service' where the client was given a top-to-toe total fix. The second took more time and more effort, so she naturally charged extra for it; also, what she called the 'brain charge' multiplied the cost of the entire operation by ten if she had to make any changes to the brain.
The Director closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "This just keeps getting more complicated. Take the asbestos out of her. Basic service only. However she got that shit inside her, she's lived with the results of her own stupidity so far, she can keep on living with it."
"Copy that." Panacea waited until she was let back into the cell, and set to work. Moments later, she came out again, carrying a plastic baggie that contained a respectable pile of asbestos fragments. "Done. Mom'll be sending you the bill."
"Understood." Director Piggot nodded. "Thanks for coming down at short notice."
"Hey, I'm being paid overtime rates for this and it gets me out of school for half an hour; plus, I just got paid twice. Trust me, I can live with that." She gave Colin a brief wave on the way past. "See you guys around."
After Panacea had entered the elevator taking her up to the first floor, Director Piggot turned back to Shadow Stalker. "Your hip is fixed, as per your request, as is the problem you hadn't even told us about. Now, if you're going to talk, talk."
"Okay, fine," grumped Shadow Stalker. "The first thing you gotta know is that Blockade's not a guy. She's a chick named Madison Clements."
Director Piggot folded her arms. "I'm pretty certain we already warned you that blatantly outing your ex-teammates isn't going to buy you any favours."
"No, no, it's relevant, I swear." Stalker sounded genuine, so the Director nodded for her to continue. "She's friends with Emma Barnes, who you've probably already figured out is Firebird."
Colin was already doing face and body matches, and came up with a ninety-five plus percent chance that Stalker was telling the truth. "Even if this is true, you're giving us nothing we'd be inclined to act on."
"Well, no, but how about this?" Shadow Stalker leaned forward. "Emma and Madison used to bully the fuck out of another girl at high school."
"The same one you bullied?" asked the Director before Colin could. "Taylor Hebert?"
"Uh …" Stalker saw the trap looming before her, and shut up.
"You were friends with Emma and Madison before they ever got powers, weren't you?" Colin pressed. "Bullying is bad, but in itself it isn't an indictable crime. You're going to have to try harder than that."
"Okay, okay. How about how they got their actual powers? And what they were going to do with them?"
Director Piggot gestured with two fingers. "Go on."
"Well, it started when I, uh, we found some weird vials …"
Director Piggot
As the sordid tale unfolded, Emily figured she could pick the exact spots where Shadow Stalker was eliding over her own part in the affair. There was no way, she figured, that Stalker would have taken such a passive role in the whole situation, especially given the way she'd gone after the Hebert girl's father so single-mindedly. But she didn't call the girl on the lies, preferring to let the tale play out and give Stalker all the rope she needed to hang herself.
It was interesting to learn that Taylor Hebert herself had some kind of powers, though Stalker seemed intent on downgrading them, as though Hebert didn't deserve any kind of respect whatsoever. Emily had her own theories on the matter, but chose not to air them at the moment. It would've been far too much of a distraction.
"Interesting," said Armsmaster, after she trailed to a halt. "So, assuming Ms Barnes and Ms Clements are indeed as bad as you say they are and you're the misunderstood hero in all this, why did you attempt to murder Danny Hebert?"
"I didn't!" The denial was automatic, almost to the point that Emily could have sworn that Stalker herself believed it. "That was Emma!"
"Danny Hebert says otherwise," Emily said bluntly. "And so does the arrow you left behind, with his blood on it."
"I told you before," Stalker insisted desperately. "They're trying to frame me! All of them!"
"Okay, we're done here." Emily glanced at Armsmaster and hooked her head toward the exit. They both headed toward the elevator, ignoring Stalker's swearing and shouts and excuses.
Once the doors had closed behind them, Armsmaster looked at her, tilting his helmet. "How much of that did you believe, Director?"
"The basic details, mainly." She smiled tightly. "Her account of who was responsible for that whole thing happening? Not in the slightest." But still, she'd follow up on what she could, with Taylor Hebert.
If The Real Thing was hiding anything else, she'd find it.
End of Part Twenty-One