Hostage Situation

Part Thirteen: Luck is Where You Find It

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Sunday Afternoon, April 17, 2011

Office of the Director, PRT ENE

As far as Emily Piggot was concerned, good news came in three flavours. First, there was the good news that stayed good. She'd never actually encountered any of that. Then, there was the good news that ended up just being 'news'. This was something she was somewhat more familiar with. And finally, there was the technically good news that still managed to leave a sour taste in the mouth.

The last type, she was extremely well acquainted with.

"Okay, from the top," she said, closing her eyes so she could hear Armsmaster's voice without having to look at the phone on the desk in front of her. "You say Lung is dead. What's the confirmation status on that one?"

"Seventy-five to ninety-five percent, depending on witness veracity." He, personally, sounded fairly sure of it. "The physical evidence is a metal ball four inches in diameter, showing signs of extreme gravitational stresses, and massing an estimated one point three five tons. I won't know for certain until we can get heavy machinery in to extricate the ball from the sidewalk. Analysis indicates organic matter inside the metal shell. No life signs detected. The metal itself matches the spectroscopic signature of Lung's scales."

"And you're saying Marquis did it?" This was going to be the sucky part.

"That's what the witnesses agree on. He did something—most of them aren't sure what—and Lung imploded. One statement says that it may have been a Bakuda bomb, implanted in an ABB minion's neck, that he tore out and threw at Lung, but the latter part of that is speculation on the minion's part, because he didn't personally witness it."

"Do you have an opinion on the matter?" She would form her own ideas, of course, but his input would be helpful to go on with.

"I'm inclined to believe it. There are two minions who are willing to testify that Bakuda implanted bombs in their necks and Marquis forcibly removed them, and several more who still have them, according to scans. Bakuda is capable of creating devices that do far more than just explode, so one that implodes is entirely plausible."

"And Bakuda herself is still alive." She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Bakuda had been responsible for many deaths over the last few days, which put her on track to the Birdcage. Despite this being an effective death sentence, it still wasn't a kill order, so regulations had demanded they bring her in alive. It was a fine line to walk: if she'd been killed resisting arrest, there would've been no tears shed within the PRT building, but extrajudicial murder was not to be tolerated. While Emily disliked capes in general and despised villains in particular, that was a line she would never permit her people to cross.

"Correct. Immobilised until I arrived; Marquis had shot bone shards into her skeleton, and those of her minions. He used those to lock all their joints solid and cover over their eye-sockets. Once I tranquillised them, he reversed this process. Scans showed much of her equipment as Tinkertech, so I'll be studying it to see if I can shut down any dead-man switches she might've left active."

"The minions you've captured with bombs in their heads?" There was no way she was going to permit them in her building.

"We'll be holding them at Offsite Alpha, observing them remotely, until we know one way or the other." The Offsite locations were outside the city limits, guarded at a distance by troopers who knew the risks. Generally they were used for captured Tinkertech suspected of being unstable. A lot of Leet's gear had ended up there over the years.

"Probably for the best. And you managed to capture Oni Lee?" A feat she would've rated as being somewhere between 'ridiculous' and 'impossible', a day ago.

Armsmaster's tone managed to convey his agreement with this stance. "Marquis somehow trapped him in a box of bone with no direct line of sight outward. We pumped confoam in there, then tranquillised him. He was holding a live grenade with the pin out. If we'd done it the other way around, he would've died, but he possibly would've taken some of us with him."

Emily grimaced. The ABB assassin's intent was clear; if they'd just tried breaking open the box, he would've teleported at the first opportunity then released the grenade to kill his rescuers. He was that kind of asshole.

"Understood," she said, when he didn't offer any more details. "Keep me posted."

"Will do. Armsmaster, out." The call ended.

Emily heaved a ragged sigh as she leaned back in her chair. This shit never ends.

Sunday Evening; PRT Building Conference Room A

Coil

"I called this meeting to get you all up to speed on the Marquis situation, and to brainstorm potential solutions going forward." Emily Piggot gave the impression of someone who'd been mainlining caffeine for the last six hours and was entirely out of fucks to give, not a great combination for anyone facing her. "Before we start; does anyone here have any prior experience facing him? I took over here after he was put away."

Armsmaster raised his hand. "I fought him once, thirteen years ago. It ended … inconclusively. I didn't have the training or equipment I do now, but he was also younger and less experienced. I'm not sure how it would turn out if we fought again today."

Thomas hid his smirk. Translation: he handed me my ass, and he could probably do it again.

"I'm surprised you're alive to tell the tale." Holbrook, another strike squad commander, raised his eyebrows. "He's got a reputation for being an unrepentant murderer, after all."

Miss Militia cleared her throat. "Unrepentant, yes, but not indiscriminate. I've been reading his file. He clashed with the Brockton Bay Brigade on several occasions, defeating them each time except for the very last instance. On any of those occasions, he could easily have killed or permanently crippled one or more of them, but let them get away with minor injuries. And he was careful to hold back from harming or killing women or children."

"Great," Thomas sneered. "So, he only murders men, and only when he feels like it. I feel so much better now."

"Didn't he kill Iron Rain?" asked Triumph. "I heard somewhere that he did."

"There's a question mark over that in his file," Miss Militia said. "Apparently, a recent conversation he had with Alexandria has posited a secondary scenario, which also fits the situation at the time. But as he's the only witness to the events, and the new interpretation benefits him, we're taking it under consideration rather than adopting it without question."

The Director cleared her throat as a means of getting the meeting back on track. "We're not here to discuss his past misdeeds." Clear in her tone was the inference that such a discussion could go far into the night. "We need to work out a strategy for how to deal with the current problem. In case you hadn't heard yet, he more or less single-handedly captured Bakuda and Oni Lee today, and killed Lung."

"Murdered, you mean." Thomas wasn't usually one to insist on specific wording (unless it benefited him) but Marquis' presence in the city was not something he was comfortable with, and he had zero qualms about steering the discussion in a direction hostile to the bone manipulator. "Lung was Birdcage bound, but he didn't have a kill order."

Surprisingly, it was Piggot herself who shook her head. "Lethal force is permitted to save one's life, and to save others. Lung was, by all accounts, both ramped up and on a rampage. He attacked Marquis, and was threatening Panacea. Marquis used a Bakuda bomb to end him, which argues strongly against premeditation. As much as I hate to admit it, in this particular instance, he's actually in the clear."

And there was the elephant in the room. An uncomfortable silence fell, during which Thomas continued to research (in his other timeline) ways and means of dealing with Marquis.

Director Piggot

"So … we're absolutely certain Panacea is Marquis' daughter?" ventured Holbrook at last. "There's no doubt in the matter?"

"As certain as we can be without an actual DNA test, and Panacea has yet to agree to submit to one." Not that Emily had made the request as yet. She didn't want to alienate the girl any more than she absolutely had to, and she personally believed it was true anyway.

Everything would've been much simpler if he'd stayed in the Birdcage where he belonged, Panacea's little tantrum to the contrary. That hadn't happened. With him released, she'd done her best to keep that fact under wraps. Again, her wishes had been ignored by a capricious universe.

"Before we go any further," Miss Militia said, "I just want to make sure I'm on the same page as everyone else. Our primary aim here is to figure out a way to induce Panacea to voluntarily walk away from Marquis, correct? Once he no longer has her as a protector, he won't be able to dance between the raindrops."

Armsmaster didn't look thrilled at the idea. "The downside of her abandoning him is that he would then feel free to relaunch his villainous career. The man once faced down Jack Slash and made him leave town. Lung was about the only one of our current crop of villains that I would've seen as being able to beat him, and we saw how that went. Eleven years in the Birdcage hasn't slowed him down that I can see."

"Purity's a flying Blaster," protested Triumph. "How could he beat her?"

"He doesn't have to." Emily sighed. "She's friendly with Panacea and she's trying to distance herself from the Empire. If anything, they'd probably make common cause with one another and go after Kaiser together."

Calvert rubbed his chin. "Let's assume we can't convince Panacea to turn her back on him. What would he have to do, how badly would he have to break the law, for her to decide to abandon him of her own free will?" He looked around at the stares he was getting. "Hypothetically speaking, of course. We need to know what we're dealing with, here."

Emily wasn't sure what was going through Calvert's head, but she took the time to remind herself that the man was a snake and always would be one. "Well, hypothetically speaking, if anyone attempted to frame him for a crime he didn't commit, I would hypothetically hang that person out to dry." She met each person's eyes in turn, Calvert's last of all. "So long as we're going with hypothetical situations, of course."

As unpalatable as the Marquis situation was, the last thing she wanted was to have the local villains lose trust in the PRT to negotiate in good faith. While she would jump on any chance to have Marquis re-admitted to the Birdcage legally, she would damn well cross every T and dot every I on the way there.

"Of course," he agreed, so smoothly that she was almost willing to believe that she might've misread the subtext of his meaning. Whether she had or not, she wasn't going to take back what she'd just said. "But what do you think Panacea would allow him to get away with?"

"Anything he's legally allowed to do," Armsmaster said flatly. "Given the missteps we've gone through to get here, that's far more than it should be. But she's also asked him not to commit criminal acts and he's agreed not to, implying that if he goes back on his word, she's likely to lose faith in him."

Emily cleared her throat. "Which means that if we're going to put him back in the Birdcage, we need rock-solid evidence of him committing an unmistakeable felony that Panacea can't call entrapment on. And he needs to have actually done it. Anything short of that isn't going to fly. Are we all clear on this?"

Assault, who'd been leaning back without contributing until this point, sat forward. "Just gonna interject here. Isn't 'not framing someone' supposed to be the standard for deciding whether someone goes to the Birdcage? Or have things changed since I last checked the regulations?"

That generated a few uncomfortable looks around the room, but nobody spoke up against him. It wasn't as though he was in the wrong, after all. Emily's lips pursed as she checked her feelings against Marquis; she hated the man and everything he stood for, certainly, but not enough to break the law over.

"Nothing's changed." Her tone brooked no dissent. "You will, however, admit that the current situation is anything but normal. Marquis was legally sent to the Birdcage, and was released under highly irregular circumstances. By rights, he should be still in there."

"We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one." Assault's light tone belied the serious tone of his words. "He survived ten years in the world's touchiest pressure cooker, denied his Constitutional rights—"

"You and I both know the Supreme Court laid down the legal precedent—" she snapped, cutting off what she knew would otherwise be a lengthy rant.

He rose to his feet, shouting over her. "Because they were scared! They were weak! They feared losing control, so they went straight to fascism to snatch it back!"

"Assault, that's enough!" Armsmaster was standing now as well, even as Battery tried to pull her husband back down into his chair. "Stand down! You're out of order!"

"I'm not the one who's out of order here." But Assault had regained control of himself. His voice was still hard, but he was no longer shouting. "The Birdcage is nothing but a slow-motion death sentence. I know it, and you know it. The difference between you and me is that you're just fine with it." He stepped around his chair and headed for the door. "I need some air. The stink of self-righteous hypocrisy is really starting to irritate my sinuses."

"This doesn't get out to anyone." Emily didn't think he'd do anything stupid, but it had to be said. "Not a word."

He stopped at the door and half-turned to look back at her. "Oh, don't worry. I won't tell a soul that you're in here conspiring behind the back of a man who only got out because of his daughter's wish to know her biological father, seeking any kind of excuse by fair means or foul to send him back there. With the way bad news spreads in this city, I won't need to." Opening the door, he stepped through and closed it behind him, firmly enough that the table vibrated for a second.

Battery stood. "I'll go after him. Someone fill me in later?"

Velocity nodded. "Sure thing."

"Thanks." She darted out of the room, closing the door a little less harshly than Assault had.

Silence fell in the room once more, until Holbrook broke it. "So, I'm assuming we'll be going with some kind of surreptitious surveillance?"

Emily nodded jerkily, pleased that someone else had picked up the ball. "That's one of the stronger options we have. Armsmaster?"

"I can work something out reasonably quickly," he agreed. "Question: should I bring Dragon in on this? She's usually very good with remote units."

"Perhaps." She felt she'd answered too quickly, but that couldn't be helped now. Dragon had shown her views on potentially Birdcaging Panacea, but hopefully those didn't extend to sending Marquis back. "Just so long as she's aware that this is a precautionary measure only."

"I hate to have to suggest this …" Calvert's tone made it almost sound as though he were sincere, which she doubted on sheer principle. "… but what do we do if Panacea ends up being subverted by her father? He's reportedly very charismatic, and she's gone this far for him already. It wouldn't be the first time, or even the tenth, that a troubled hero has defected to the side of villainy."

"Jesus Christ." That was Triumph. "Don't even think about that. Panacea's solid. She's a hero."

"So was Fidelis." Velocity grimaced. It wasn't surprising he'd brought up that name; they shared a military background, after all. The cape originally known as Fidelis had been a Marine at one point, but her power had literally corrupted her to the point that she was now in the Birdcage, having rebranded under the name of Crock o' Shit.

"All the same." Calvert almost steepled his fingers like some fucking low-budget movie supervillain, but then he laced them together instead. "We have to remain aware of the possibility, and have some strategy in place to forestall the outcome if she does."

Emily took a deep breath. "I can't argue against that. If she did end up as a villain at his side, the whole city would be in trouble. But whatever we decide on, we can't jump the gun on it. With all the good she's done, she deserves the benefit of the doubt until we're absolutely certain about what's happening. Understood?"

This wasn't solely for Panacea's benefit, or even mostly so. While Dragon was in Emily's mind as being the most likely to be able to subdue a villainous Panacea, Emily hadn't forgotten the Canadian Tinker's views on unilaterally attacking the girl for something she might choose to do. Holding back until confirmation had been absolutely verified was a recipe for potential disaster, but Emily rarely got to pick and choose her battles these days, and this one had been lost before it began.

Coil

"Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way." Thomas wasn't one hundred percent sure that Piggot was buying his assurances, but it didn't much matter.

PRT strike squad commander Thomas Calvert wouldn't have anything to do with whatever happened to Panacea. While he'd occasionally considered that it would be nice to have her permanently on hand as his personal medic, he'd never actually gone into the dedicated planning required to place her under his thumb. Conversely, if she ever had to heal him in the normal run of affairs, there was a strong chance that she'd make him as a cape.

All of which simplified the math considerably.

Panacea was of no direct use to him, and her ongoing assistance to Marquis made her a liability. Murdering her father, however many attempts it took to get it right, might just trigger a city-killing rage, promoting her from 'liability' to 'mortal danger'. Fortunately, there was an obvious solution to both: the death of Panacea.

He wouldn't do the deed himself, of course, either in his villain persona or as Thomas Calvert. But he had mercenaries in his employ, a few of whom were adept snipers. Even then, it would not do to have a captured assassin admit who he was truly working for.

The man on the street had no particular problem with supervillains hiring people to commit the crimes of theft and murder (so long as it didn't happen to them personally); this was more or less accepted as what supervillains did. But becoming known as the man who'd put a hit on Panacea's head would surely place a target in the middle of his own back. Marquis would bend heaven and earth to get a line on him, and New Wave would quite likely work with the notorious villain toward that end. And once they got their hands on him, his continued survival would be a tricky business at best.

Far better to either ensure that his shooter either never got caught, or didn't live to tell what he knew if he did get caught. Never a sentimental man, Thomas decided to plan for the sniper's demise from the outset. Besides its utility in cutting off unwanted loose ends, this plan also allowed for him to plant false leads for the investigation that would inevitably follow.

None of his sniper-trained mercenaries had sufficiently Asian features to pass for members of the ABB, so that was a no-show from the start. It might be possible, he figured, to send in a sniper who could pass for an Empire Eighty-Eight sympathiser; the backlash against Kaiser and his cretins would be something Thomas could readily take advantage of. But the most insidious concept was the one that held his attention for the longest: what if he was carrying PRT ID?

As ridiculous as the notion initially sounded, he could see it actually working to his advantage, especially in the long run. There was always a vocal minority in the city who were willing to believe the worst of the PRT; they would eat this up with a spoon. But even among the PRT's more moderate supporters, there would be that secret niggling doubt.

The concept of Panacea being taken out of the picture by a PRT covert operative because of her support of Marquis wasn't totally unbelievable, especially given some of their past fuckups. Rumours would fly thick and fast across the city, and the court of public opinion would have a field day. Best of all, Piggot would be out.

Even if the Director was cleared of all involvement (difficult at best with Thomas and his moles deliberately muddying the waters), stringent questions would be asked about how she could possibly have missed something of this nature being planned in her own building. And in the unlikely case that she defended herself well enough to keep her position, one stranger in the crowd with a pistol could put her down for good. All the shooter had to do was shout 'This is for Panacea' before he pulled the trigger, and everyone would automatically assume they knew his motives. No scrutiny at all would fall on Commander Thomas Calvert, stepping into her position in the PRT's hour of need.

Everything was an opportunity, really. The trick lay in knowing how to pull the strings in the right direction.

Purity

Kayden relaxed on the sofa with Aster lying asleep beside her. All was right with her world.

The sound of water gurgling down the drain reached her ears, then Theo stepped out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a dishtowel. "I've finished washing the dishes," he said diffidently. "Is there anything else you wanted me to do?"

"Not right now." Kayden gestured to the armchair. "Come and sit down if you want. I've got to go out later and keep the pressure up on the ABB. If someone doesn't, Lung and Bakuda will think they can just keep …" She paused at the expression on his face. "What?"

"Hadn't you heard?" This was the most animated she'd seen him in some time. "I was looking online earlier, and they were saying that Lung's dead, and Bakuda and Oni Lee have been captured. PHO's going nuts over it. The PRT's being very close-mouthed, but nobody's actually saying it didn't happen, not even the usual ABB shills."

She blinked. "Lung's … dead? As in, actually deceased, not just beaten badly and crawled off to recover?" That last image didn't jibe with her understanding of Lung, but neither did the idea of someone being able to kill him. God knew she'd tried hard enough, every time they'd clashed.

"That's what they're saying." As far as she knew, Theo didn't share her views about how the Asian crime gang was so much worse than the Empire, but he definitely seemed happy about this. "I think the main reason the PRT is trying to sweep it under the carpet is that Marquis is the one who's supposed to have done it."

That was something else Kayden was still trying to get her head around. Panacea being Marquis' daughter was one thing—that particular revelation had given all of Amy's previous talk about her absentee villain father a lot more context—but the fact of him being out and about in Brockton Bay, released from the Birdcage by the PRT themselves, had been quite another. She'd been inclined to dismiss it as a hoax until she saw that the major news services were running with it.

When Brandish had responded to a news reporter's question on the matter with an extremely terse 'No comment', that had nailed it down for her. If he were still inside the Birdcage, New Wave would've wasted no time in broadcasting that fact. Instead, they were acting like someone had kicked all their puppies.

Her phone rang, and she picked it up before it could disturb Aster. "Hello?"

"Hello, Kayden. I presume you've heard the news about Lung's unfortunate passing?" Max barely bothered to hide the glee in his voice.

"Yes. Theo says Marquis was responsible." She kept her tone neutral along with her word choice, just in case there were unfriendly ears listening in. They'd been incautious during their last conversation, and she didn't wish to repeat the mistake. Also, she didn't actually want to give Max any kind of encouragement, even by accident.

"That's what I heard, too." He sounded slightly irritated, as though being robbed of the revelation was a personal slight. "If it's true, the city owes Marquis a debt of thanks. But have you heard the other news, about Panacea?"

She smiled to herself but didn't let it come through into her voice. If Max ever thought I was mocking him … she shuddered. Pass. "That she's his daughter? Yes, actually. It's certainly interesting news, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just more evidence that truth is stranger than fiction."

"Yes," he said patiently (or at least, patiently for him), "but it raises an interesting point. When Purity intervened with Saint to save Panacea's life, that put him in debt to her, wouldn't you think?"

She barely restrained herself from groaning out loud. He was really pushing the 'debt' angle, which was hypocritical as hell given that he only acknowledged his own obligations to people when it was convenient to him. "I'd imagine that would be a matter between the two of them. It's not like anyone who wasn't involved at the time would have a stake in the matter, don't you think?"

"If you say so." That was one of his more irritating phrases, indicating that he intended to undermine her meaning with weasel wording until it conformed with his version of matters. "The last time Marquis was in Brockton Bay, Allfather was still running the Empire Eighty-Eight. He's coming back into the city with minimal support and none of his old minions. If he's smart, he'll be forming an alliance with the strongest faction within the city."

Which of course meant the Empire Eighty-Eight, and thus Kaiser himself. Max could be amazingly subtle in some ways and about as blunt as a baseball bat to the face in others. Marquis had been a big player in the city at one point, and Max was certainly seeing the benefits of having such a well-known cape connected to the Empire by even the most tenuous of commitments.

"From what I've heard, he's not going back into being a villain." Kayden would've said something about hating to burst his bubble, but she didn't want to lie to him. "Panacea's asked him to give up crime, so that's what he's done."

"Still, a debt is a debt, and Marquis is by all accounts an honourable man." Max was nothing if not persistent. "If Purity happened to ask him to do a favour for an associate, surely he would feel duty bound to pay off his obligation to her."

"That's if she asked." She wanted to shut this down but wasn't sure how to do it without being openly rude to him, and she had no desire to open that particular can of worms. "Besides, I'm fairly certain she did it to save the girl, not to get into the father's good books."

"Any court of law will tell you that intent matters less than results." Although his voice was still smooth, she could tell he was starting to get impatient with her. "The deed was done. Saint was ready and willing to hurt or kill Panacea, and Purity saved her. If Marquis doesn't ally with someone before the next fanatic comes and takes his daughter hostage again, she may well end up dead this time. Wouldn't you agree that it only makes sense for him to work with the only people who have acted in his interest since his return?"

She wanted to tell him that he was really pushing the boundaries of plausible deniability, but that in itself would shatter the fragile illusion that they were spinning. "I have no idea, because I'm not him. Personally, I'd imagine that a reformed supervillain would do their best to keep away from any influences that might try to drag them back into the life. But that's just me."

"Let's face it." He didn't even bother acknowledging her point, probably because he didn't want to give it any kind of legitimacy. "In today's climate, any villain who tries to rebrand as a rogue or a hero is only fooling themselves. Nobody's going to cut them any kind of slack. The PRT will be waiting for him to make one wrong step, and that's if they don't manufacture some kind of wrongdoing to catch him on. To be honest, I would not be in the slightest bit surprised to learn that the PRT is actively discussing ways to separate Marquis from his daughter, so as to more easily bring him down when the time comes to lower the boom."

Her eyes narrowed. She'd heard that phrasing before, and it had always preceded something he'd learned from one of his moles within the PRT. "I … see. Wouldn't that look bad for them, if it got out?"

"Well, first it would have to be proven. And even if it was, half the public would refuse to believe it, and most of the remainder would say 'good'. After all, a villain is a villain, and doesn't really deserve the same civil rights as good solid upstanding citizens." Now Max's tone was entirely sarcastic. "And these are the same people that Purity is risking life and limb to try to be a hero for."

Kayden set her jaw. "I don't care. Now that Lung's dead and the others are in captivity, this is her chance to mop up the ABB once and for all."

She could tell that Max was smiling in that irritating way he had. "Wherever she is, I wish her luck." Before she could retort, he ended the call.

Hand clenched around the phone, she carefully put it down. Max could always get under her skin, even when she was determined not to let him put her on the back foot.

"Are you okay?" Theo was looking at her with concern in his eyes. If anyone knew what it was like to have her ex screwing with their head, it was her stepson.

"Yes. No." She grimaced. "Your father wants to make overtures to Marquis, and he's trying to recruit me to do it for him."

Theo looked doubtful in the extreme. "Panacea's a hero. Would she even agree to something like that?"

"I wouldn't have thought so." She paused to run her hand through her hair. "But he made a very good point. Saint's just the first idiot to try to use her as a hostage to get other prisoners out of the Birdcage. If Marquis cares about her as much as I do about Aster, he's going to want to protect her."

"And my father wants you to pitch the Empire as potential protectors," Theo guessed, accurately enough. "What are you going to do?"

"The only thing I can." Kayden picked up the phone again, and looked around. "Pass me my handbag, please?" The card with the number she needed was in there.

A Little Later That Night

Panacea

"Is this really a good idea?" Vicky sounded grumpy. Unsurprisingly so; I'd called her after I got off the line with Kayden, and interrupted her plans to go and see Dean. When she'd heard what was going on, she'd given him a raincheck and come straight over. This didn't mean she was happy with the situation, or anything close to it.

"There is much about this situation that's potentially very bad," Dad noted. "The worst idea possible would be to ignore it and assume everything will turn out for the best. Purity helped save your sister, so we owe her the courtesy of hearing her out."

We'd changed locations for the occasion, going down to the Boardwalk and finding a picnic table to sit and look out over the ocean, anonymous in the evening crowd. Vicky wore a hoodie while I just rocked my usual outfit. Not one person in ten recognised me out of costume anyway; the moronic bank robbery had proven that. Even the Undersiders' so-called psychic bullshit artiste hadn't picked me out of the crowd.

"Well, should we be out in public like this?" Vicky persisted. "You're already a known villain, but if Ames and me were seen meeting with Purity in public, Mom would spontaneously develop the power to bring people back from the dead, so just she could kill us several times over."

I sighed, aggravated. "I told you, she'll be meeting with us out of costume. And don't forget, you pinky-swore not to out her."

Dad chuckled warmly. "Ah, yes, that most binding of oaths."

I stuck my tongue out at him as Vicky said, "It is, between us." She looked around. "Where is she, anyway? And if you trust her that much, why am I here? It can't be as muscle."

Just at that moment, I spotted Kayden. This time she was without Aster, but wearing the same smart clothing as before. Looking at her, nobody would've picked her as the airborne Blaster who'd been one of the Empire's biggest hitters for years.

"Not muscle," I said quietly. "As a witness, so if there's anything I need to tell Carol, you can back me up." I waved to Kayden; a moment later, she spotted me and came over.

"Oh." Vicky nodded. "I guess that makes sense." She'd had a crash course in The Universe According To Carol Dallon recently, and didn't bother claiming that I needed no such witness. Which was good, because me bursting into laughter would've confused Kayden considerably.

"Hello, Amy." Kayden stopped a few paces away. "Marquis, I presume and … Glory Girl?" She didn't back away, but I saw her tense up.

"Patrick Matheson." Dad half-rose from his seat as he introduced himself. "Or at least, that's what my new ID papers say. Amelia Claire, you already know. Her sister, Miss Dallon, is here to observe and act as an impartial witness to our conversation. Please, sit down. You have my word that there will be no undue hostilities."

Vicky nodded. "Yeah, what he said. And I wanted to thank you again for helping me save Ames from that asshole." She snorted. "There wasn't enough of him left to fit in a teacup."

"Well, that was my general plan." Kayden relaxed enough to sit down opposite Vicky, next to me. "I wasn't about to give him the chance to get off one last screw-you shot."

"Which he would've taken, if he could." Dad reached diagonally across the table and shook her hand briefly. "You did an exemplary job of removing the threat. However, you did not contact Amelia on a whim. What news did you have that is so important that you wanted a face-to-face meeting?"

Kayden took a deep breath. "Well, Kaiser called me earlier this evening …"

Glory Girl

"… and so I called you." Purity—if Vicky hadn't spoken to her on the night they saved Amy, she would've had trouble believing the petite mousy woman was her—rounded out her tale. "While Kaiser is a narcissist and an egomaniac of the highest degree, I don't believe he was lying about any of it. And I also think he's not wrong about you being under threat from fanatics."

Amy looked pensive. "I was warned about this possibility by Director Piggot and others."

"Well, how many Teacher stooges are there out there anyway?" Vicky demanded. "I can and will punch them out as needed."

"That won't be necessary," Amy's dad said blandly. "I had words with him following Saint's … craterisation. He refused to see reason, and his existence was an ongoing threat to Amelia's wellbeing. So, I ended the threat."

Amy didn't seem overly troubled by the news, and Purity actually gave him an approving nod. "Wait," Vicky objected. "You murdered him?"

"No, I ended the threat." Marquis repeated his words in exactly the same tone. "It could not be murder, because outside laws do not apply within the Birdcage. I had no recourse to any higher authority to take him in hand, and if he'd managed to contact any of his thralls outside the facility, they would've indeed been willing to repeat the whole sorry scenario again. So, I made certain it would not happen a second time, in the only way I could be certain of it."

"Vicky, enough." Amy kicked her under the table. "Dad said the problem was dealt with, and it's not like we can wind back the clock. Dad, do you think anyone else might try it?"

Marquis frowned, running his thumb and forefinger over his chin. "There are other capes in the Birdcage who have students of a sort out in the world. I don't recall hearing of any with the same level of brainwashing or devotion that Teacher's people had, though."

"Me neither," Purity said. "But that doesn't mean anything. We'll call that a tentative maybe, for now. How about the other problem? The PRT?"

"I still have trouble believing that bit," Vicky interjected. "I know the PRT. It's their job to uphold the law. They've got whole rules and regulations about it."

Marquis raised one eyebrow in a totally bullshit move that Vicky still wasn't able to pull off in the mirror. "That, my dear, is because you've never been opposed by them. They will of course play by the rules when dealing with capes that they approve of. When it comes to the opposition, however, the exact rules and regulations have been known to go by the wayside when it comes to apprehending a problematic target."

"Yeah." Amy spread her hands. "Remember what we were talking about at Dad's house before we dug up that … well, before we did that digging? Carol and Mark and the others would never have beaten Dad if they didn't pull the bullshit they did, and they didn't even know I was there until the fight was basically over and done. Dad had to throw himself in the way of a shot to make sure I was okay."

"But that wasn't the PRT," objected Vicky. "Sure, that was Mom and Dad and Aunt Sarah and the others, but they didn't know you were there. It wasn't like they were deliberately targeting you to force Dad to surrender."

"They essentially were, but without knowing what, or rather, who was in that closet," Marquis corrected her. "They just knew that I valued whatever was beyond that door. But we were speaking of the shortcomings of the PRT, not of the Brockton Bay Brigade."

"Yeah." Amy tapped the table with her finger. "Did the PRT penalise the Brigade for playing fast and loose with the rules, and for endangering a minor? Hell, did they even try to take me away from the team who'd kidnapped me from my father? Nope. They just rubbed their hands together because they'd finally caught Marquis, and ignored the rest of the bullshit that was being pulled under their noses."

"And I suspect the current crop aren't altogether different in attitude," Marquis observed. "While there are a few sticklers for the rules here and there, the vast majority feel so overwhelmed by the new villains arising everywhere that they're willing to overlook a few irregularities here and there, so long as the desired results are arrived at. Which means that if we were to seek any kind of protection for you from the encroaching threat, we would have to look toward some other place than the PRT."

Vicky frowned. "You're Panacea. Surely they'd protect you."

"But they'd separate me from my dad at the first opportunity," Amy pointed out. "And there would be endless excuses as to why I couldn't see him right then. Once they had us apart, they'd bend the regulations into a pretzel to figure out a reason to put him back that they'd be able to spin as 'he broke the law', so I wouldn't go on a permanent healing strike."

"Okay, um, how about New Wave?" Vicky offered. "We can totally protect you."

"New Wave captured him, back in the day," Purity reminded her. "You may be on good terms with him but having faced your mother a few times across the battlefield, I will gladly tell you without any kind of bias that she never lets go of a grievance. And if she was initially opposed to his release, well …" She let her voice trail off.

"She's not wrong," Amy agreed, while Marquis nodded along. "Carol does grudges really, really well."

"So where can you go for protection then?" asked Vicky. "Not the Empire Eighty-Eight. You'd never hear the end of it. I'd never hear the end of it, just from being nearby."

"No, not the Empire," Marquis' tone was definite. "I dislike their core beliefs, as much as they have core beliefs, and Kaiser is indeed a narcissistic egomaniac. We might last a week before I'd be forced to kill him, but that's being optimistic."

"If you killed Kaiser, then the entire Empire would be out for your blood," Purity warned. "Even with me gone, they have a lot of big hitters, and they'd all be wanting to prove their leadership potential by killing you."

Marquis looked thoughtful. "That might be an interesting fight. I wouldn't endanger Amelia Claire that way, of course, and no doubt some of them would attempt to take her hostage."

"Or just kill her, to fuck with you." Vicky was pretty sure she knew what she was talking about. "There are some total assholes in that bunch."

Purity nodded. "I can't argue with that. The trouble is, we've basically ruled out everyone you can go to for protection. So, what are you going to do?"

"I have half an idea, but I don't know how you'll go for it," Amy began.

Vicky looked at her curiously. "If it's better than the alternatives, we're listening."

"Indeed," Marquis agreed.

Amy took a deep breath. "Dad … Kayden … why don't we team up together?"

As Marquis and Purity stared at each other and then at Amy, Vicky found herself undergoing a presentiment of the future. One that involved a lot of yelling.

Mom is going to go fucking batshit.

End of Part Thirteen