It was the same dream as every time before: a world on fire and choked in ash. Of uncountable screams, from all manner of lungs, but also of something else. A world rendered desolate as the last vestiges of life are snuffed out. A barren, lifeless rock adrift in the cosmos, as silent as the grave that it bore witness to in its last moments.
And then something changed. Slowly at first, as activity ruined the utter stillness that had previously existed. Barren rock that had previously only the accompaniment of smoke and ash gave way to clouds containing life-giving water. Dull brown gradually losing its fight to green as life began to return back…
And then she woke up, her eyes opening to darkness.
Only the darkness was infinitely more personal. It existed both to remind and mock her because it was a darkness that was not one birthed by a lack of light, but one of sight.
Releasing a sigh to bury the pang of sorrow and frustration that burgeoned at the edge of her thoughts. There was no point in dwelling in that which she could not control.
For now.
Letting herself lay in bed for a little while longer, her forcibly honed internal clock leaving her aware of what time it likely was, she then finally rose once her mind was sufficiently roused.
Reaching out to her nightstand, her fingers danced over the wooden surface a few moments before making contact with her glasses. Retrieving them, she slipped them on her face, a hint of bitterness creeping as she put them on not to see better, but to hide the cloudy orbs that used to be vibrant green from others.
Getting up, she deliberately bypassed the stick she knew was resting by the door frame. As much as she needed it, she hated the additional physical reminder of her disability.
Taking a fortifying breath, she stepped out into the hallway, her hands lightly grazing the walls to provide tactile sensory input and prevent her from stumbling or worse.
It was bad enough that already, two months on, that she could differentiate the texture of the wallpaper that signified the approach to the stairs that would take her into the living room. Idly, she noted the scent of bacon as she moved adroitly through the living room to the kitchen, only glancingly bumping off the coffee table on her journey.
Finding the chair around the table, she slid into it with a practiced ease even as she listened to her father work, unaware that she was there judging by the fact that he had yet to acknowledge her.
It was honestly still rather strange how her hearing seemed to pick up just a bit better now. Cross-modal reorganization the doctor's had called it, where the brain was trying to compensate for the loss of one of the senses by enhancing the sensitivity of others.
With her father, she could hear the whisper of cloth on metal, or skin, as he moved around, the way his feet landed on the floor with a different timbre. Even she could faintly hear his breath when he moved around and exerted himself. It wasn't superhuman, but it was certainly…different.
"Oh," he startled, obviously now noticing her presence, "morning Taylor, you scared me. Are you up for some bacon and eggs?"
"Sure," she offered with a slight slur in her voice as she offered the best smile she could, which was difficult with the tenderness and pull on the skin even now. It probably came off more as a grimace, if she were honest. But she made do with the best she could.
It was a quiet breakfast that was served up and consumed shortly thereafter, with the only difference between the two of them was that her scrambled eggs were served in a small bowl, while the bacon was served on a small plate. A few times in the process, the spoon slipped from her hands, the numbness and lack of feeling coming and going, but neither of them acknowledged it. It was an unspoken agreement that had taken place almost a month ago.
They just wanted it to be as normal as possible, even in spite of her handicaps.
She could easily recite her injuries, if she wanted. She could easily imagine the scars, having felt them all herself, in spite of the pain it brought. But in the end, it didn't matter to her, because she would live with them, and defeat them all eventually.
Listening as her father picked up the dishes and moved towards the sink, she simply sat there, listening to him, sensing the tension and awkwardness in the air. She knew he was trying to delay this talk, it was the continuance of the talk that they had almost a month ago when she had finally worked up the courage to reveal it. It had taken everything back then to keep herself together, but it was probably even harder for him that day. The full recognition of his failures along with the scars and burdens they both carried now.
It had not been an easy talk, and it had only been because she had doggedly latched onto his guilt that she was able to even get him to give in. To give her the opportunity that she knew was coming now.
The water then turned off, and she listened with rapt attention as he dried off his hands, the cloth rustling on skin, before he put the towel down and walked to the chair. The wood creaking as he sat down in it. However, instead of speaking he just silently brooded, no doubt in her mind that he was staring at her.
She honestly had to wonder what he saw when he took in her scarred visage. Did he see a monster? Did he see a freak? Maybe he saw a cruel reminder to all of his failures as a father and husband.
There was a bitter part of her, one that zealously protected itself with the spirit of a dragon guarding its hoard, that felt it was only right that he felt all of that. He had left her to rot, only giving her a modicum of what he should have as a father.
But then there was another part, that only felt sorrow. Because she was as damned as he was. She had never truly reached out to him and let him be a father to her after Mom's death. And by the time she had finished grieving it had simply been too late for the both of them.
Maybe that was the bitter truth of all of it. They both were so damnably broken after Mom's death that they hadn't a clue on how to connect without that medium that she provided that it took another tragedy for them to even build a fragile, tremulous connection that could easily break with the slightest of turbulence.
It was a cough from her father that finally broke the tense silence as it appeared he finally worked the courage to broach the subject.
"So Klaus called this morning," he began, obviously searching for the right words, "he says a package came in last night."
She knew she shouldn't have, but she couldn't help but perk up at the statement. Klein Saunders was the lead mechanical engineer for the dockworker's union, the man who was the troubleshooter for the union in fixing a lot of their equipment. He was also the only person who could probably have been useful for what Taylor had wanted to do. It had been through him that she had asked for help.
Of course, what she had wanted to be made was something way beyond probably what Klein could do, but he had friends who could help but also be discreet. Because discretion was necessary for what she was trying to do, especially if it led to what she wanted it to.
"So if you would like, we can go down to the dock this afternoon."
Just one more step towards getting the last laugh.
AEH
Danny Hebert was a failure, there was no point in deluding himself from that reality. Not only had he failed his wife, but he had gone on and then failed his daughter. For the rest of his life, he would never forgive himself for what had happened to Taylor.
Even now, it was a struggle not to look over at his daughter in the passenger seat of the truck and not weep at her scarred visage.
Never in a million years would he have imagined Emma Barnes of all people would attack his daughter with an industrial-strength drain cleaner at school. That she would scar his daughter and destroy her beautiful eyes.
But it had happened, and it hadn't been the only thing he would discover over the next week as his daughter was kept in a medically-induced coma to heal.
A year-long bullying campaign led by what he had believed had been a family friend. A school that had willingly refused to do a damn thing despite the preponderance of incidents. All of it culminating in a psychopathic assault that had been filmed.
He had seen it once. And that one time had left him emptying his stomach. The screams of his daughter as her face burned, the desperation as she sought relief by clawing at her face, and the laughter of those animals.
He was not a violent man. But if he ever got five minutes alone with Emma Barnes, he would do everything in his power to visit even a fraction of the hell that had been inflicted on his daughter.
But that was a fantasy that he used to ignore what the true cause of this all was. He hadn't been there for his daughter, not for years. And his negligence had caused all of this.
The school has been quick to settle. They had no choice in the matter, the video had been posted on social media and the FBI had become involved because of the nature of the attack. Six million dollars for what they had allowed to be done to his daughter. If it hadn't been for her care, he wanted to make them bleed for more, but with the medical bills piling up and the need to ensure her quality of life would be decent, he couldn't afford to take them to court, not when it would cost her.
So he had chomped the bit, accepted the money in installments, and worked to try and make things better for his daughter. He had tried to get her on the list for Panacea, but the hospital had deemed the majority of treatment as cosmetic surgery, and the replacement of her eyes would have been prohibitively expensive with the payment demanded up front. Attempts to get insurance on the side had likewise been a failure, it simply did not cover 'cosmetic' surgery like repairing the damage those monsters had done to his daughter.
So he could do only what he could to help his daughter, with the limited funds he was provided, as the school had only agreed to pay in semiannual installments. Almost all of the first installment had been consumed by the medical bills, taxes, and the lawyer fees for the trust fund. They had been left with just enough for some quality of life additions to the household and a small spending stipend.
But the money would never be enough to truly salve the wounds. How could they? Taylor no longer had any function in her eyes and the scars on her face from the chemical burns were something that would likely never be removed.
The first week after she had returned home, she had locked herself in her room, rarely leaving it and barely talking to him. He had given her space, because he honestly did not know how to handle the situation. How could he even bridge the gap between the two of them after so long being estranged from one another.
It was only into the middle of the second week that Taylor had finally emerged from her room, and if he were honest, he had been relieved. He had been worried that she would forever shut herself from the world.
Unfortunately, that relief had been short-lived, as that night she had placed in front of him a stack of papers with intricate and professionally done blueprints and diagrams without a single blemish or correction. It was then that she told him she had powers.
He had honestly been horrified. He knew tangentially about powers and the cape scene, but it was just the basics. There existed a segment of society that had powers, with a predominant part of them engaging in what would best be described as straight out of comic book hero and villainy. The idea that his daughter, who was blind, could even become involved in that lifestyle was chilling.
But that hadn't been the conversation. And frankly, he hadn't even been prepared for what the conversation had been. Instead of anything like the childish notion of being a hero, Taylor had instead said she had wanted to build things, that she had ideas that could change the world. But the first thing that she wanted to do was build something to get back her sight.
He had honestly been incredulous, to say the least, at the very idea. What Taylor was talking about and showing him was so completely over his head he hadn't even a leg to stand on in the argument. What sane parent would be, if he were to be perfectly honest. What she was trying to explain might as well have been a foreign language to him.
But she had been determined, showing a side that he had never before seen in his daughter. It hauntingly reminded him too much of Annette in how driven she was in getting what she wanted. A darker part of him was left momentarily wondering at the time if this was maybe her communicating from beyond the grave.
He wanted to tell her no, that purchasing the various things that she needed for whatever this thing was would stretch their funds beyond their limits, that they would have to tap into the family savings in order to even meet it. But he had held himself back, because, at the end of the day, he was a coward. He had already failed his daughter once, and seeing her being so passionate and driven, he, in the end, simply could not say no to her.
So he had spent the remains of the stipend to purchase Taylor a laptop. After that, he had dipped into what remained of their savings to purchase every single component that she had requested, along with paying for its assembly, but not before ensuring that a patent, at Taylor's insistence, had been submitted in order to protect it. He knew already that there would be questions asked soon, especially by both the trust fund and the child protective services, once they became aware of the spending. If this failed, there was a good chance that they would quite possibly take his daughter away.
That had been a month ago, and now here they were, pulling up to the Dockworker's Union, a broken man holding onto just a modicum of hope that whatever was going to take place today, would be something to restore just a little bit of that relationship between the two of them.
Getting out of the truck, he moved over to the passenger side to open the door for Taylor, who gingerly stepped out, her eyes covered in thick black heavy sunglasses, but the rest of her head and face covered in a hoodie and a shawl. Another one of the victims of the attack had been her voluminous hair, the doctors having to shave it off in order to prevent infection on the burns. Taylor hated it to her very core, having admitted in passing that it was the one thing that truly still connected herself to Annette. Now it was gone.
Settling her laptop bag onto her shoulder, he then reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, intending to lead her into the building and eventually to their destination. He knew it must rankle on her nerve to be led around like a child, if there was something this new side of his daughter embraced and wanted more than anything, it was her independence.
Thankfully, she remained quiet, accepting the reality of what she was being led into was unfamiliar territory for her. Instead she left her cane unextended, the closest thing to a sign of trust that she could give.
All through it all, eyes were upon them. While it was the weekends, there were still people running the DWU simply because it could not afford to lose work opportunities just because too many others would take Saturday and Sunday off. For his people, any job taken was a meal on the table, clothes on their back, or tuition for their children and he would have been negligent to not try and give them the opportunities.
So he led her into the machine shop where Klein was patiently awaiting them.
"Hey Bossman," the man in his mid-thirties with close-cropped brown hair greeted them before his grey eyes shifted to Taylor and his expression froze for a moment, before he quickly recovered, "Miss Hebert."
"Afternoon, Klaus," he offered back to the man, "I have someone here who has been looking forward to a certain package since I told her this morning. Mind getting it out?"
"Sure thing," the man responded, turning and heading back into his office to retrieve the package, meanwhile, Danny guided Taylor to a table for her to set up. Pulling out a chair, he helped retrieve her laptop, plugging it in, before setting it up. He didn't know half of what she did on the laptop, only in the initial days adding a few programs for her to use. Other than that, whatever she did on it was her own work.
It was as they were finishing up, and Taylor removed her hood and shawl, that Klaus returned, holding a box that could easily pass for a hatbox.
"Here it is," he declared, placing the box beside them, before looking between himself and Taylor, "Hey, Danny. Can we talk?"
"Sure," he then led him away from Taylor, even as his daughter started running her hands over the box. Once they were out of hearing range, he then focused on Klaus, "what did you need?"
"Look Danny, I know you told me to keep things as discrete as responsible," the man started, looking back towards Taylor, before coming back to him, "but some of the things on that list, and the directions for assembly. You know some of the channels I had to use to avoid certain eyes. Questions were asked."
Danny couldn't help but grimace. One of the worries he had, based upon his own research, was the Parahuman Response Team or Protectorate discovering that his daughter was a parahuman. They spent an inordinate amount of resources looking for strange purchases or materials disappearing. Klaus, he knew, had some backroom connections that would have hopefully avoided their gaze. But like any backroom connection, it could also draw the more unsavory types. In this case, he knew it was the Empire Eighty-Eight.
"And did you say anything?"
"Fuck no, Danny. You know how I feel about those jumped-up pricks. I told 'em it was none of their fucking business."
It probably wasn't the best response to the Empire. But honestly, what was there to say? That he was helping out the daughter of his boss? At least there was a chance they would just write it off and go on their way. But if not, then there were other options.
"Just let me know if they keep asking, Klaus, okay?"
"Sure, boss."
Danny's eyes wandered back to his daughter, who already had the box open and the object within it and out. A long cable led from it to her laptop, the computer active, but the screen may as well have been gibberish to him. But to Taylor, she acted as if it made the most sense as she was typing at a rate that honestly made his mind whirl. All the while, her focus seemed to be on it, despite her lack of vision.
The object in question, on the other hand, was the first time for him to see it beyond the various diagrams and blueprints that Taylor had placed in front of him a month ago. It was certainly unique in its appearance, a trio of blocky devices arranged upon a wreath-like headband.
It was like seeing a ghost, Annette had the same intense look when she was deeply focused on something. And to see that from his daughter as well? Well, he really couldn't put it into words as to what he felt due to the complexity of it all. Instead, he merely stepped away from Klaus, a silent dismissal given for the other man who understood it and left them. He walked over to a chair at another desk, settling in the chair and watching his daughter as she worked.
He had to wonder just how she was doing it all. She hadn't been forthcoming on what her abilities really were, but she seemed to be a deft hand with computers and technology, even if the terms and concepts were utter gibberish to him just from the few glances he'd gotten at her work. But he would be the first to admit his strength lay in administration and people.
Honestly, though, he hoped that whatever she was doing would work, if simply because it would give his daughter something to strive for. He had a feeling that if this worked, then maybe things would work out, both for her and also them.
He was suddenly roused with a start, his brain rebooting at the sudden sensation of cold, clammy hands on his face? Where was he? When did he fall asleep?
"It works," a soft, quiet voice, almost in a daze spoke, causing all thought to vanish as he looked from the arms and up to the source of the voice.
It was Taylor, her expression of so many different emotions seeming to hit all at the same time that she was unsure of exactly what she should be feeling. But there was one expression that he would never forget: the tears trekking down her cheeks as sightless eyes conveyed so much emotion despite their damage.
"It works," she breathed, "I can see."Last edited: May 24, 2024724AlSmashMay 3, 2024View discussionThreadmarks Seed 1.2 View contentAlSmashShareholder Award RecipientMay 4, 2024#57Seed 1.2
There was something to be said about the feeling of proving the naysayers wrong. They had told her that she would never be able to see again. The high of proving them not only wrong, but hilariously wrong, was a high that she was still running on, four days later.
That wasn't to say she was satisfied with herself. Nor was she willing to rest on her laurels. Far from it, the Focus, as she called it, was merely a proof of concept, cobbled together from various components that were not purpose-built to fulfill the purpose that they were achieving here. If she were to be honest, it was a small miracle it was performing as well as it was, considering.
For everything it could do, there were significant limitations linked to the hardware itself. The imagery it created and fed to her brain were cast in a ghostly purple-blue-violet, with limited fidelity, providing more of a rough shape and outline than a concrete image. Then there was the issue of the imagery losing cohesion if you turned your head too quickly, or if the object surpassed a certain velocity. The less said about range, the better, fidelity collapsed after five meters, with it completely lost at eight.
The battery was about what she expected. It gave her about an hour of power before it ran out. That was, of course, dependent on that she didn't didn't abuse the refresh function. Then it ran down as low as ten minutes.
But that was all hardware limitations, something that could easily be fixed with purpose-built components and better materials. What mattered at the heart of it all was the operating software. Sobek, the name she had given it at the suggestion of her power, worked perfectly. As a matter of fact, it actually exceeded her own expectations, despite the fact that she had literally been fed the script line by line.
For all of its limitations and drawbacks, the Focus was a piece of engineering marvel. Even she could understand the tech and concepts were several generations in advance of what currently existed. Just the fact that it was working as well as it was simply miraculous.
Of course, therein lay the problem.
It all came down to capital. Building a purpose-built, possibly limited-run model of the Focus for the visually impaired was costly, but it was the commercial version that she had planned meant for multipurpose use that would both revolutionize the world and be the single most costly starting endeavor, from creating the production methods, forges, and logistical network to support it. At least until Phase IV, when things would really begin to accelerate as she would have enough capital to flex her power and knowledge.
But the one major block into all of this lay not in any one person, but a congressional act passed to protect the economy from too much influence from capes, NEPEA-5. Oh, she could understand it on paper, the worry about the impact Thinkers would have on the economy, and the dependency created by using Tinkertech for any project, if the Tinker died, how would it be maintained. That was how it was largely sold, but when she had written a report on it, she had noted that there were so many loopholes and backdoors that benefited only the government and corporate fiefdoms with ties to the aforementioned, that it was obvious it was control and manipulate capes into one of two outcomes, either become an asset of the state or corporations, or become a villain.
It was both brilliant and insidious at the same time, and if it wasn't the source of her problems, she may just give credit to the writers where it was due.
But it all came back to the fact that by legal definition, she was a cape. Which made her vulnerable to NEPEA-5 and its labyrinthine example of lawfare cloaked as protection for John and Jane Q. Public.
There were a few workarounds she could use. But at the end of the day, it all came down to whether the responsible agencies of the government classified her technology as Tinkertech
If it wasn't depressing she may have found it funny: But the rule of thumb the PRT and Protectorate was pretty much a bastardization of Clarke's Law where any sufficiently advanced technology was Tinkertech. Of course, there were caveats to this rule, where reproducibility could remove the label, but the onus was on the cape to prove it, not the government.
It was this stacked deck she had began chipping away at a month ago with the assistance of her power, creating blueprints not only for the proof of concept Focus, but the production design as well. Furthermore, she had prepared patent applications for the commercial version, and depending on how her meeting with the Protectorate went, then she would submit that one as well. If she could provide the various points of evidence that undermined the salient point of their standards, then it would provide her options in the event that they did decide to classify her technology as tinkertech.
Which, on one hand, she could understand if they did so. The technology stuck in her head were several decades in advance of what existed on Earth Aleph that may as well be Tinkertech, considering the advanced materials and understandings necessary to field a production model Focus. Which was also why she was preparing several papers to send to scientific and medical journals so she could attack the overarching problem of technology differential. If she could get these establishments to understand the underlying principles and the feasibility of what she was working toward, then it would make her life and job much easier.
But it all had to start here. How her meeting the PRT and Protectorate went would decide how she would need to proceed.
And so far, she was less than impressed, sitting here in a meeting room awaiting for whatever government official they decided to foist the issue upon. Her father was currently outside, as she wanted to do this herself. On the surface, it'd probably be unwise, but the issue was that she needed to both establish herself, but also not muddle the waters with the Protectorate that this was her father using her. She needed the credibility in order to be successful, and relying upon her father to win her battles would not be beneficial, especially considering how the world would view her through the lens of her 'disability'.
So there she sat, with both her laptop and the hatbox with her Focus, waiting for whatever government agent they deigned to send to her. She was hopeful she at least got a fair one, but she wasn't going to delude herself.
As if summoned, the door to the room opened.
"Miss Hebert, I'm," he trailed off. She had to restrain a sigh as she knew exactly why he had stopped. It had only grown tedious, even if she had only encountered it more in the last few days: that people would pause whenever they laid their eyes on her.
"This is Agent Faro," a woman's voice interjected quickly, "and I'm Battery."
"Nice to meet you," she greeted, though she had to wonder exactly why Battery would be here. The Protectorate cape was not a Tinker of any kind, so it wouldn't make sense for her to do any analysis of it.
"So, Miss Hebert, you want to join the Wards," Faro started, not offering an apology for his faux pas as he simply barreled on, "you do understand falsely applying to the Protectorate is a criminal offense with a penalty of five years in prison and a fine of fifty thousand dollars?
Are you serious, she had to refrain herself from asking, not quite believing what was taking place. But it was not worth losing her cool over, it may have been a mix up, though Faro's attitude was getting under her nerves.
Taking a deep cleansing breath and burying her irritation for now, reminding herself she was still fifteen to them and didn't have a knowledge base of technologies decades in advance of anything mainstream, she offered a smile even if it pulled at the muscle. A petty part of her hoped it made Faro uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry there must have been a miscommunication. The reason I am here is actually to get certification that my creations are not tinkertech."
"Excuse me," Faro spoke again, incredulity laced heavily in his tone. She let her smile turn into a frown, because it was becoming obvious that Faro had a problem with her. Even if there wasn't a miscommunication, if you were coming in to possibly recruit someone, you wouldn't be a complete and utter asshole out of the gates.
"If there was a miscommunication, I am sorry," it was Battery that then spoke up, though the way it sounded, her head was turned away from her, probably staring down Faro, "I'm not exactly an expert on Tinkertech, we usually leave that to Armsmaster, but he is currently on The Rig."
She had to bite back an irritated retort. Honestly, why was she surprised, it seemed to be par for the course in her life when dealing with any type of governmental organization. Instead, she just let out a sigh that held back only a tad bit of disappointment.
"Then I guess our business here is concluded," she declared, gathering herself to her feet and extending her cane.
"Please wait," Battery cut in, causing Taylor to turn her head to look at her, "I think we all got off on the wrong foot. I know I can't help you with your Tinkertech-"
"It's not Tinkertech," Taylor cut in.
"That may be," Battery quickly adjusted, "but you still have powers, Miss Hebert. If you really are as you claim to be, then wouldn't it be better to join with the Wards? Tinkers are highly coveted in the world today. With the Protectorate, you could have a place to work and safety from those who may not have your best interests at heart."
"As compared to who," she asked archly, now letting her irritation bleed through, she hadn't come here to be recruited into the Wards, yet they were trying to push her into it, after messing up in the first place, "you sit there and claim you would have my best interests at heart, but so far, I don't see it. You haven't asked me what my powers are, or what my device does, instead you've gone for trying to soft-selling me something I didn't come here for."
"I apologize if you feel that way, Miss Hebert. Perhaps we could reschedule?"
"Perhaps," she offered, extending the olive branch, while she was certainly frustrated by what had taken place, it shouldn't slam the door between them. It may be that she would eventually end up with the Protectorate, it may not, but she would be a fool to rule it out.
Turning, she headed toward the door, keeping her cane at the ready, though she knew the path back.
AEH
"Battery, Director Piggot is in a meeting-."
"I don't care, Janet," she responded, storming up to the door and rapping on it, before opening and storming inside, closing the door behind her.
Inside, a squat, rotund woman with a blonde bob-cut hairdo sat behind a desk, her focus snapping up from the computer she paying attention to, her eyes narrowing in irritation at the interruption, "I apologize, Johnathan, can we continue this at another time, it appears that something has come up that needs my attention."
"Understandable, Emily. How about tomorrow around two?"
"That should work, by then I should have everything ready."
"Very well, until tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
With that, Emily Piggot, Director of the PRT ENE, cut the video link, looking back to her, "You better have a good explanation on why you decided to barge into my office while I was in a meeting discussing Shadow Stalker's reassignment, Battery."
Truth be told, Erin Moore née Maxwell did not like Piggot, professionally and otherwise. The woman was not subtle with her disdain for capes, at times not even making the effort of showing her hatred for both the Protectorate and villains equally. Emily Piggot checked every box in everything her police officer father had warned her about toxic leadership creating a burgeoning clusterfuck that would only end in scandal or tragedy, or both.
But she also believed that she had to work within the system as well, because going outside would only bring more problems for everyone. Which, in this case, she was following the chain of command and going to the person who should be made aware of what was going on.
"I want an immediate investigation and formal note of censure entered in the file of Agent Theodore Faro."
There was a moment of silence as Piggot's beady eyes narrowed, "Explain," she tersely demanded.
"You are aware that we had a prospective Ward candidate come in today."
"I was made aware this morning, yes. Where is this going?"
"First. It wasn't a Ward interview, Director, it was a meeting to inspect Tinkertech requested by a Tinker. Second. Faro, within less than two minutes of the meeting started, began threatening the Tinker with a fine and jail time for falsely applying to the Wards. Third, and most importantly, that Tinker's name was Taylor Hebert."
There was an even longer pause, as Piggot seemed to process it for a moment, before she closed her eyes and reached up to rub the bridge of her nose, inhaling a deep breath, releasing in accompaniment a simple and concise, "Fuck."
Each Protectorate and PRT station had what was internally referred to simply as the "Red List", it was a list of individuals who were of interest to the department, or were highlighted that any interactions that took place between the principal and the department were to be strictly controlled and kept cordial, in order of escalating known issues. In this case, Taylor Hebert was on that list because one Sophia Hess, better known within the department as the Ward Shadow Stalker, had been involved in an extended bullying campaign against her. And while Hess hadn't been involved in the attack that had left Hebert scarred and blind, she had been brought into focus during the FBI investigation. Her identity as Shadow Stalker was protected, but it was a very thin veneer that put ENE in a precarious position that could open it to scandal and censure.
Suffice to say, the standing orders regarding Hebert were to be as hands off as possible. Though, further up, only privy to those of a high enough clearance, to add Hebert to a watch list as the teenager ticked quite a few of the boxes for classical trigger conditions. If she did trigger, then they could deal with the issue behind closed doors, all the while burying the full extent of Hess' malfeasance.
"How bad is it," Piggot finally asked.
"It's still salvageable, Director. Hebert was open to possibly having another meeting. I would, however, recommend we take a lighter touch on her. She was rather annoyed at how badly we handled the entire situation."
"And do we even know what her Tinkertech is?"
"Unfortunately, no. All I can say is that it was kept in a box that she could carry with no difficulty."
Piggot sat there, considering her words, and Battery had to wonder what was going through the other woman's head. Piggot was dedicated to the cause, even if her personal opinions clouded her judgment from time to time, but Hebert was a delicate balancing act in the best of situations.
"We'll give it a few days, let things cool down. Reach out to some of your contacts in the police force, see if they'll be amicable to keep an eye out for anything going on around the Hebert's. I doubt anything will happen, but it's best to be safe in the event that there are any leaks."
"Will do. And after that?"
"We'll give Hebert what she wants. Let Armsmaster know what took place, and tell him to make sure his schedule is clear soon. Once we have his report, we'll go from there, but I do not want a repeat of today. I'll deal with Faro."