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Upbeat Hyena
Chapter 11

-VB-

Gasconade grimaced.

“Are you telling me…?”

“That the mayor may be in on with the cults?” Director Josephine Namichyan finished for him. “Yes. I am very much saying that. I just found about it yesterday.”

“Then why haven’t we arrested him?!”

The ebony-skinned yet East European appearance-carrying beauty sighed as she leaned back into her chair. The two of them sat in her office in PRT Seattle’s headquarters, which was a small building without any armor, consisted of only four floors, and employed five dozen agents, half of whom were bureaucrats and office drones. For a city of Seattle’s size, it was a sorry state of affairs for a PRT branch, but Gasconade had somewhat expected this.

After all, Seattle ranked in the top ten safest cities for civilians, and from what he’s seen and heard, it may climb the ranks yet again within the year.

Because safety reeked from Seattle.

If someone broke into a car, then before the police arrives - before anyone else who wasn’t on the scene, really - the Demon Cult would.

Dressed plainly in clothes like any other, they would convince the perpetrator to turn themselves in. Police have apprehended them before, the cultists, but none of them had committed crimes that the police could prove nor parahuman evidence. These cultists were absolutely everywhere as well, “infesting” all walks of life in Seattle and its suburbs. Hell, there was a rumor that he overheard only last week - one month since he and the director met the “princess” of the demon cultists - that lands as far south as Portland, Oregon had cultists now, though that “cult” was closer to a traditional gang despite their hardline stance against other criminals and a lack of offense against civilians.

A lack of offense against civilians was the theme of these demon cultists. They were nice, they were cute (he met one that was super cute), they were polite, and they never touched civilians.

The same could not be said about criminals, and how the criminals were treated depending on their crime. He’s already gone out on patrols and found results of some of the cultists’ works. Thieves would be stripped naked, muggers would be whipped, and murderers…

Accidents happened, and the cults seemed to recognize this. They also had a method to look into a person’s mind, which was something that’s been described by more than one victim of the cult. They described “worms digging into my head.”

Gasconade never wanted to be at the receiving end of whatever that parahuman power was.

The reason why the cultists weren’t caught, however, was 1) they had good lawyers, 2) evidence never seemed to turn up, 3) the city didn’t care to pursue cases against the cultists, and 4) apparently, the mayor was in on it.

“... Because the mayor is not only too popular, he’s only peripherally involved with the cult right now. He’s met with a few people from the cult, but that was mostly to get their support for himself,” she replied with a sigh.

“Why is the PRT allowing people to even meet with an obviously illegal and criminal parahuman organization?” he asked instead incredulously.

“Because, and I am being honest and sincere here, it would be unconstitutional to not let them.”

“... What?”

“Freedom of religion. Did you forget about that?”

“It’s a little different today than what that was meant to protect when it was first made!”

“Not really.”

“Come on-”

“You have to understand that the vast majority of the cultists are very odd but harmless,” she interrupted him. “In fact, nearly a quarter of our local donations come in from the cult.”

Gasconade closed his eyes. “We are being funded … by the very people we’re trying to stop?” he asked.

“It’s less than ten percent of our overall budget, so you would be overestimating their contribution,” she hummed. “We are trying to stop them, but considering what we saw, I don’t think it’s a possibility.”

He remembered what he saw but he constantly doubted it at the same time. “Couldn’t it have been an illusion? Some sort of shaker effect? A stranger effect?”

“It could have been, but PRT itself has documented in the past month more than a hundred different ‘demons’ so it wouldn’t be wrong for us to assume that there are more. One hundred is already a large number of … power-enabled individuals,” she waved. “It’ll take all of the West Coast Protectorate heroes to fight off that many, never mind the cultists and whomever else among them who are parahumans.”

“Why isn’t a member of the Triumvirate here instead of me?” This was far different of a situation than what he had come to expect. The more he learned about this place, both from personal and anecdotal encounters, the more he saw how vast his task was. How impossible it was. “Because expecting only me to do something about this is stupid but they sent me here anyway!”

“The last time Alexandria came around, she achieved nothing before leaving. This was before there was a PRT branch here in Brockton Bay. The cults, and their capes, are either tucked away in a pocket dimension of some sort or have access to another world.”

Gasconade stilled before giving up on reacting. “It’s just bombshells after bombshells with this city, isn’t it?”

The director scoffed. “The problem is with how we intend to unravel it all.”

“Unravel? This situation is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

She gestured at him to explain.

“We have an undeclared warlord on American soil.”

Director Namichyan opened her mouth to retort, stopped to consider, and then frowned as she closed her mouth. “So what, we’re just going to let them operate? Let them expand?”

“No,” Gasconade declared quietly as he leaned forward. “We can’t tackle them directly. They’re too big. We have to fight them on a different battlefield.”

“And what would that be?”

He laid down the newspaper that the director always seemed to have a daily copy of. He didn’t care for the brand or their political leanings. “There’s nothing bad being written about the cults beyond the obvious signs. They are a cult, they worship capes, and their capes are ugly as fuck.”

“And?”

“We should fight them with the newspaper. Seattle doesn’t need fighters; it needs Thinkers.”

“... Let’s try that. You know what’s up and coming?”

“What?”

“Something called the internet…”