One More Trigger Pt 35 (Patreon)

Option Four

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

Hebert Household, Just a Little Later

Taylor

"Well, we're here. What's the big news?" Mr Clements asked as everyone got settled in their respective chairs.

Vicky and Amy had landed in the backyard just moments before, and even Missy had made it across town in a mad dash to get to the house on time. Only Parian was absent, and that was because her preferred mode of transportation was too slow. However, she'd been contacted, and Lily had promised to fill her in after the fact.

I took a deep breath. "Victor, Othala, and someone I'm pretty sure is Crusader, walked in through the back door of the Medhall building …" I checked the wall clock. "About twenty-five minutes ago."

Instead of the bedlam I'd been half-expecting, the room got very quiet. Lisa and Riley already knew, of course, and while we had our speculations, we were going to wait to air them. Emma and her dad shared glances and looked extremely thoughtful, while Madison started a whispered conversation with her father.

"Did you expect this?" asked Lily. "Because I can only think of a few reasons for that, and none of them are good."

Missy nodded. Vicky and Amy echoed the gesture. "The best case out of all that," Vicky decided, "is if they're robbing the place. Were they in costume?"

"Good question," I said. "No, they weren't. All three were in civvies."

"Well, what's been happening since?" asked Amy.

"And where's Danny?" asked Mr Barnes, looking around.

"Dad took the car out," I said. "I only had a few bugs on Victor and Othala, and there's been a suspicious run over the last few days of bug spray being bought up by individuals with shaven heads, so I'm guessing they're spraying everyone down when they come into meetings. I don't feel like sacrificing booster bugs, so Dad's driving a bunch of leaf bugs over to Medhall. We can't sneak an ear into whatever this gathering is, not at such short notice, but I can sure as hell tag everyone coming out."

"Okay, got it." Emma nodded thoughtfully. "So: thoughts on why three notorious supervillains might be walking in the back door of the Medhall building, late in the evening, in civilian clothing?"

"Attending a meeting of Supervillains Anonymous?" suggested Missy facetiously.

"Can't be," Riley said immediately. "I'd be there."

I chuckled, as did most of the people in the room. Lisa gave Riley a hug. "And me too, squirt."

Amy raised her hand slightly. "Maybe they're moonlighting as low-level employees who've got an after-hours clearance? They might literally be going in there to hang out in the executive break room and drink the expensive booze out of the wet bar."

"We'll put that down as Option One," Mr Clements said, pulling out a notepad and pen. He wrote for a few seconds, then nodded. "So, what's Option Two?"

I'd been thinking about this. "Option Two is that they've somehow got access, and that the Empire Eighty-Eight is using the building to meet in, without the knowledge of the people in charge. Big building, lots of meeting rooms, so on and so forth."

"Using … as … meeting … place …" he muttered, writing assiduously. "And Option Three?"

"Hmm …" Emma mused. "Option Three would be that they're meeting with the full knowledge of the people in charge. Like, they've said, 'we want to meet here' and Max Anders said 'yes, sir' and gave them access."

Madison shook her head. "That's basically Option Two with a few extra steps. Call it Option Two Point Five."

"No, it's still Option Three," her father said. "There are significant differences. Mainly the knowledge, but that does make a difference." He added a few words to his notepad.

"Which makes Option Four …" Lily began, then paused as though trying to fit her head around the concept. "Medhall is run by the Empire Eighty-Eight, and they're meeting in their own building."

Silence fell, with each of us working through the idea in our own way. I'd already been over it several times, but the others were mostly coming at it from a fresh perspective.

Mr Clements looked at me. "You and Danny clearly favour the idea of a full meeting of the Empire, given that he's delivering a bunch of your leaf-bugs there. Everyone else?"

"I think it's Option Four," Riley said, causing all eyes to turn her way.

"So do I," agreed Mr Barnes, "but I'm curious as to your reasoning."

Riley hesitated, but Lisa nudged her and made a subtle go-on gesture. "Kaiser's a proud man, but not just proud. He's toxic about it. He thinks he's smarter than everyone, and he's a control freak." She paused again, briefly. "I've … had experience with that kind of mindset."

I knew what she was talking about. Jack Slash had definitely been a proud man, and toxic with it.

"So how does that equate to Option Four, and none of the others?" asked Vicky curiously.

Riley took a deep breath. "It's not Option One. If they were low-level employees in Medhall, they're there for a reason. Kaiser would never let them risk firing or arrest by sneaking in after hours. And it's not Option Two, because Kaiser would never lower himself to sneaking into someone else's premises just to hold a gang meeting. That's what abandoned warehouses are for." She paused and looked around. "Does anyone disagree so far?"

"Nope," Lily said. "You're hitting the nail on the head as far as I can tell."

Riley smiled. "Good. Option Three … no. There's too much chance of the Medhall people getting sick of him ordering them around and dropping a dime on him. He wouldn't open himself up like that. The only way he'd have his people meeting in the Medhall building is if he either owned it or had a controlling interest, and could access security footage at any time to delete anything suspicious. In other words, Option Four."

"In other words …" Amy echoed. "You're saying that Kaiser is Max Anders."

Lisa, grinning as smugly as I'd ever seen her, held up her hand and snapped her fingers. "And the frizzy-haired brunette in the second row wins the grand prize."

Missy looked startled. "What, really? I spoke to him at a fundraiser last year! He congratulated me on holding my own as a Ward, and shook my hand! He was nice!"

"Probably because you were a blonde white cape," Emma interjected cynically. "I've been reading up on how people can get sucked into cults and gangs. Before you joined us, you were feeling less than fully appreciated as a Ward, yeah? He could probably spot that, and was laying the groundwork for maybe recruiting you if you ever showed bigoted tendencies."

Missy's eyes narrowed. "Motherfucker."

"Language!" scolded Riley.

I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing. Emma and Madison joined in, and Vicky and Amy were grinning too.

"Hey. Hey, hey, hey." Mr Barnes put his hands up for quiet. He was smiling as well, but he nodded toward the now embarrassed-looking Riley. "It seems that one of you has manners. Well said, young lady."

"Wait a minute." Vicky had lost her grin. "I remember that fundraiser. He spent time talking to me, too, about combating the local drug dealers. Mainly focusing on the Merchants and the ABB. Was he trying to recruit me, too?"

"There's a good chance of it," Lisa confirmed. "At the very least, he was sounding you out as a future prospect, seeing what your personal views were regarding minorities."

Vicky gritted her teeth. "Son of a …" She didn't finish the phrase, but we all knew what she meant.

"I can assume he wouldn't have tried recruiting me, then?" snarked Lily.

"No, but Lung might have," Lisa noted. "If Emma hadn't lit him up like a Christmas tree, that is."

Emma put her hand up. "Just so everyone knows, he totally deserved it. I thought he'd killed Mads."

Missy shrugged. "You had me at 'he totally deserved it'."

This time, everyone chuckled.

<><>

Across Town

Danny

Cruising through the late evening traffic, Danny tried to look totally normal. Nothing to see here, just another suburban dad out for a drive. The traffic wasn't too bad for a Monday night; not so heavy that he couldn't get into the lane he wanted, not so light that he was the only car on the road.

The passenger-side window was cracked open a few inches for airflow, though the door was locked. Danny had never been carjacked, and he didn't want to ever experience it. Taylor would be on it immediately, but it would be so goddamn tedious to get it all sorted out.

The leaf-bugs, as well as a few spare booster bugs, were all crowded on the ceiling and door pillars of the passenger side of the car. Danny was glad he had no particular aversion to bugs, because that would've given anyone even slightly entomophobic the screaming heebie-jeebies. Up ahead was the Medhall building, lights on here and there. Unfortunately, even with binoculars, he wouldn't have been able to tell which lights were security measures and which were evidence of people in the building.

"Get ready," he said, even as he began slowing down for the lights. In response to this, the bugs started flowing out of the car onto the exterior, moving in unison so smoothly and easily that he would've missed it if he wasn't looking.

By the time he pulled up at the lights, the entire passenger side of the car was covered with leaf-bugs, all flattened to the paintwork and emulating the colour of the car. The few booster bugs were lurking in the corners of the windows, pretending that nothing was amiss. Checking his mirrors, he could see that the drivers around him were immersed in their own little worlds, with their own issues to deal with.

When the cross-street lights turned red, he counted aloud for the benefit of the booster bug sitting in the window gap. "Three … two … one …"

The lights ahead turned green; he let out the clutch and applied gentle acceleration, and the car moved off. At the same time, the bugs abandoned ship, flying down and to the side to get out of the headlights of the following car. He knew they'd head straight to the Medhall building and surround it on all sides, locating every exit. It was all up to Taylor now.

He knew the rest of the team would be at the house by now, talking over what they already knew, so it was time to get back. But first, he decided, he'd stop at a gas station and top up the tank. And maybe buy some snacks for the gathering. Plans were made more readily on a full stomach.

<><>

Ladybug

"Dad's dropped off the bugs and he's on his way back," I reported. "I've just put leaf-bugs, and a booster bug, on every car in that parking lot, and more leaf-bugs on every exit I can find."

Lily tilted her head. "Remind me what the leaf-bugs are again? I don't know if I got filled in on those."

"These," I said, holding up my hand as a leaf-bug fluttered to it. It landed, flattened to my palm, and activated the chameleon effect, fading almost totally out of view. "Also, they can ignore bug spray if they have to. Amy made them up when the Nine started spamming pyrethrin everywhere to counter me."

"I still say that totally wasn't fair," Riley said, but it sounded like she was just saying it because she thought it was expected.

"All's fair in love and war, munchkin." Lisa gave her a light noogie, then addressed the room. "So, we've figured out that Max Anders is none other than the biggest neo-Nazi in town. Medhall is no doubt Empire Central. What are we going to do about this?"

Madison flicked a few fingers to get everyone's attention. "Once this meeting's over, they'll go their separate ways, yeah? And we already know Crusader came to Victor and Othala's house alone. I say we should kick off Survival of the Unfittest tonight."

Silence fell for a few moments. "You think we should grab Crusader after he leaves to go back to his place," I said carefully.

"Totally." Madison grinned. "We disappear him. They'll have no idea where he is, until he shows up in PRT custody."

"I like it." Emma frowned thoughtfully. "Though we could expand our sights a little. I'm pretty sure we could take all three at once. None of them are big hitters, but Othala at least is a definite force multiplier."

"I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no." Mr Barnes ran his thumbnail over his lips. "However, this is very short notice. We're going to need to have a plan, with backups and alternatives, before we walk out that door."

Emma glanced at me and Madison, then nodded. "Absolutely. How's this for a idea …"

<><>

Danny

The radio was playing soft music from yesteryear and Danny was relaxed behind the wheel on the way back to the house, when a dozen fireflies fluttered out of hiding and lined up on the windshield. Blinking in sequence, they indicated a left-hand turn. He frowned, wondering what was going on, but followed their lead.

"I'm assuming something's come up?" he asked out loud.

The fireflies rapidly reassembled themselves into a plus sign and flashed once; he took it as 'affirmative'. Then they lined up to indicate another turn and flashed in sequence.

"Is it something urgent, or something that we just want to do?" It had to be one or the other, considering the fact that they hadn't waited for him to come back to the house.

Two vertical lines indicated that it was the second choice. He was okay with that; the team's operating structure emphasised the option of making good decisions even when not everyone was available for an opinion. Following the directions given by the fireflies, he drove through the streets toward an unknown destination.

<><>

Taylor

We were just getting organised when Dad drove up and parked behind the other two cars. He got out and looked us over, no doubt noting our lack of costuming. "I'm interested in what's going on here."

"Emma had a great idea." I grinned broadly. "Triple grab."

He blinked, and I saw him assimilating the concept. "Victor, Othala and Crusader?"

Mr Barnes nodded. "Bingo. Even if he rides home with someone else—unlikely, because his car's at their place—we'll get two at least, but three will be better."

"That math checks out, yes." Dad turned to Emma. "Brief me."

"Okay, so this is a nice quiet straight stretch of road." She gestured up and down the street. "Madison's been bringing air through here and making it leave its moisture behind in a sixty-foot-long block of the road." Madison had been practising a lot with altering the specific content of any given volume of air with her aerokinetic abilities.

He frowned. "Raising the dew point? Making the road slippery?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second. She's keeping all that humidity just off the ground. We want to stop them, not kill them."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Lily. "Victor threw a grenade at Sabah."

"We've talked about this," Mr Clements reminded her in a matter-of-fact tone. "I know you're angry at Victor, and you're totally justified in feeling that anger, but please, do not let it control you."

"They're coming," I reported as the bugs in their car crossed an imaginary line in my visualisation of the entire city. "One minute out. Three in the car."

Lily sighed. "I just wish I could punch his stupid face in, one time."

"Positions," Mr Barnes said.

As we'd practiced so many times before, we jumped back into the cars. Because Dad's car was there, we didn't have to cram in like we'd had to on the way out. Dad still needed briefing, and Emma and Lisa weren't integral to the plan, so they got into his car. I was in Mr Barnes' car, along with Lily, Madison and Missy.

"Fifteen seconds," Lily said, once we were settled. Her innate sense of timing was very useful.

"Good," said Mr Barnes. "Madison … mark."

<><>

Aerodyne

"On it." Madison concentrated.

Having the natural breeze dump all its moisture in the one specific bounded area wasn't all that difficult—water droplets were relatively easy to nudge around with air molecules due to their size—but this next trick would be a little more strenuous.

Fixing the entire volume in her mind, she made sure the water droplets wouldn't go anywhere, while pulling a certain fraction of the air out and not letting any more rush in. The air pressure dropped; physics took a hand then, and the temperature reduced as well. More physics happened, and the heretofore-invisible humidity in the air condensed into fog.

"And … now," said Taylor.

As though prompted by her words, the headlights of a car turned the corner and approached them from behind, vaguely illuminating the interior of the vehicle. As it came up to the fog, the headlights changed hue to fog beams and the car slowed.

"Missy, you're up," said Mr Barnes.

<><>

Vista

Missy took a moment to thank her lucky stars for being assigned as the team liaison, even if Director Piggot had had other ideas on how it should work. Pulling off this sort of thing never happened in the Wards. Then she got down to business.

Starting just inside the fog so that the people in the oncoming vehicle wouldn't see it happening, she took hold of the section of road (and the air above it) and stretched it massively, increasing its length by a factor of a hundred or so. A moment later, the car entered the zone of stretching. From the outside, it looked weird; she couldn't see the car itself, but the headlight beams were oddly truncated and they were travelling at somewhat less than walking pace. While the car would normally have been through in just a second or so, now they had half a mile of fog to drive through.

They'd worked on a concept called the Escher Snare, where she could trap someone within twisted space and make it virtually impossible for them to get back to normal terrain, but it was hard to keep them in if they had external visibility. Taking that away with darkness and fog allowed the Snare to work much better.

"Stopping the car now," she said out loud.

Maintaining the volume of air with the fog in it wasn't as intensive as setting it up, so now she had the wherewithal to spring the next part of the trap. Concentrating carbon dioxide in front of the slowly moving car, she fed it into the air intake for the engine. The result was entirely predictable; starved of oxygen, the engine sputtered and choked, then cut out altogether.

Having gone barely twenty feet into the fog, it rolled to a halt at the side of the road, just up ahead of them. The driver's side door opened, and an ordinary-looking man got out.

Missy looked at Taylor. "Tag, you're it."

<><>

Ladybug

"Way ahead of you, o mistress of space and time." I'd had six ketamine bugs perched on top of the car, and they were flying forward from the moment the car began to roll off to the side of the road.

Two bugs headed for Victor—the booster bug in the car had visually identified him when he got back out of the meeting, though we still didn't know who he was—while four more buzzed into the car and homed in on the passengers. In each case, one hung back while the other went in for the sting.

The fact that six bugs were incoming at once must have alerted him on some unconscious level, because he slapped his neck before the first bug was properly able to start its injection of the ketamine/batrachotoxin mix. I zipped the second one in and gave him a full dose on the other side before he could react. His head came up and he began to turn, while his hand darted into his jacket for (I figured) either a gun or a phone.

Almost at the same time, Othala and Crusader each got a solid dose of the same substance. They started struggling to get their seatbelts off and Crusader popped out a couple of ghosts, but then the ketamine took effect and they slumped down again. Victor took a half-dose from a second bug, which overwhelmed his resistance. He face-planted in the asphalt with his hand still in his jacket.

We got out of the cars, and I headed over to Victor with Amy in tow. She made sure that he'd stay asleep, then Vicky stepped in and picked him up. "Do me a favour and open the door for me?" she asked Lily.

"So, what's the endgame?" Dad asked as Amy and I went around to the other side of the car. "If it comes out that we're the ones who grabbed them, the rest of the Empire is more likely than ever to come after us."

"The next bit was Amy's idea," I said. "She says she had it because of all the accident cases she's had to deal with in the hospital."

Using a handkerchief, Amy opened the passenger side doors and put Othala and Crusader well under, then hooked out Crusader's wallet and showed me his driver's license. I took note of his home address and called it up on my phone, then took personal control of the bugs within that location. It only took me a minute or so to do a sweep of the apartment, and I smiled.

In the meantime, Vicky and Lily finally got Victor into the car. It seemed he was prone to bumping his head on the door-frame, but nobody would notice. Probably.

"Got him," I said as I headed back to the car. "Either he's a Crusader fanboy or he's the genuine article, because he's got a full costume stashed away there, plus a spare. Also, what I'm pretty sure is a Confederate flag, hanging on the wall."

Mr Clements nodded. "Which means stage two is a go."

"I hadn't been filled in on stage two yet," Dad said. "I get the impression that it's sneaky, but I have no idea what it actually is."

"Oh, it's sneaky alright," Riley said. "In fact, it's downright evil, and that's coming from me."

Lisa chuckled. "You're gonna love it."

<><>

The PRT Building, About Two Hours Later

Deputy Director Renick

Paul was looking over the latest projections on crime figures following the capture of Oni Lee, when there was a knock on his office door. Looking up, he frowned. There were no appointments scheduled for this time of the evening, which meant this was out of the ordinary.

"Come in," he called.

The door opened and the PRT duty officer, a Lieutenant Harrison, leaned in through the doorway. "Sir," he said, with a hint of ill-concealed glee in his voice. "There's been a development with the Empire Eighty-Eight."

That was a phrase that nobody should ever be happy about, so Paul was immediately intrigued. "What kind of development?"

"Five minutes ago, a car rammed the security bollards outside the building. When we investigated, there were three capes in the vehicle, all costumed and drunk off their heads. Victor, Othala and Crusader. They're unharmed, but they'll be sleeping off the alcohol for quite some time."

Paul stared at him. "Wait. Go through that again. You're saying that three Empire Eighty-Eight capes attempted a drunken ram-raid on our building, without backup? Are we even sure that they're actually the capes they're costumed as?"

"That's a good point, sir, and one that we've taken into account. Right now, we're holding them on suspicion, until we can get them under an MRI. But Sergeant Prower's faced Victor and Crusader before, and he swears blind that it's them."

"I see." Paul's mind spun as he tried to work out the series of events that would lead three Empire capes—not the big hitters by any stretch, but definitely formidable in their own right—to drink themselves into near-insensibility and then crash a car in the one location that would lead to their immediate arrest and incarceration. Pulling himself out of that rabbit-hole by his bootstraps, he asked himself a far more pressing question: what would Emily do?

The answer was brief and to the point. She wouldn't ask dumbass questions. She'd secure them first and ask questions later.

"Any orders, sir?" asked Harrison.

"No orders, no. But do we have facilities that can hold them? Especially Crusader?" He had a mental image of murderous ghosts roaming the building, killing everyone they came across.

Lieutenant Harrison nodded. "Director Piggot had orders in place for if we ever captured him. His ghosts always mimic what he's wearing and carrying, so he's been disarmed and stripped of his armour. There's padding strapped to his hands and feet, his arms and legs are fastened together, and he's chained to his bed. Also, he's got a blindfold strapped to his head. If he does send ghosts out, they won't be able to see or hurt anyone. And if it turns out that he can ignore things that are attached to him, he also has taser prongs strapped to his body."

"Understood." Paul hesitated. "I have one order. This needs to be kept under wraps until definitive proof has been located, one way or the other. Tightest security, need to know only. If it's them, we want to keep the Empire guessing for as long as possible; if it's not, we don't want to look stupid by making claims we can't back up. Also, I want bomb disposal looking that car over, immediately."

"Copy that, sir."

"Dismissed, Lieutenant. And well done."

"Thank you, sir."

Lieutenant Harrison vanished and the door closed behind him, leaving Paul to lean back in his chair, pondering the bizarre turn of events. What were the odds? He couldn't even begin to calculate them; it had literally never happened before.

A few minutes later, he sat straight up again, and made a call.

"Duty officer, Lieutenant Harrison speaking. How may I help you, sir?"

Paul took a deep breath. "It's crossed my mind that the events you spoke to me about may be part of an elaborate Trojan scheme. Bulk up exterior security on all points, and have the guards do regular eyeball checks on all prisoners instead of depending on cameras."

Harrison didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Don't hesitate to call me if anything unusual starts to happen."

"Roger that, sir."

Paul ended the call and sat back in his chair. Victor, Othala and Crusader weren't as dangerous or as momentous a capture as Hookwolf or Purity would be, but their loss would be a distinct blow to the Empire all the same. Now, if only I could figure out why they all chose to go on a drunken bender on the same night.

He suspected he'd only learn the answer to that conundrum when Emily had them interrogated following their return to sobriety.

<><>

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Kaiser

Max was partway through reading an evaluation report when his phone rang. The name that showed up in the Caller ID field alerted him to the fact that Hookwolf was on the line. That meant Empire business.

Putting down the report, he took up the phone. "Yes?"

"Yeah, it's me. Listen, you heard from Justin since last night? We were going to meet up this morning and go do a thing, but I haven't seen hide nor hair."

The phrase 'go do a thing' indicated that they'd been planning some kind of cape-related shenanigans, but Kaiser wasn't worried about that. Hookwolf was big enough and ugly enough to take care of himself and Crusader both. It was a little strange that the young man had flaked on an appointment with Bradley; by all accounts, the two had a rapport.

"I presume you tried his landline?" It was the first thing he thought of. If Justin had let his phone go flat, or lost it somewhere, his home phone would still work just fine.

"That and his cell. Left messages on both of 'em. Nada."

"Well, that's a problem." If Crusader was unavailable to Hookwolf, it meant he was just plain unavailable. "Wait a minute. Last night, he said he got a lift with Alex and Diane. He might've stayed at their place if his car wouldn't start. I'll give them a call now, and give him a piece of my mind about not having his cell on him at all times."

"Okay, yeah. Appreciate it."

Max ended the call, then accessed Victor's number. The man always answered by the third ring, even when he was in the shower. Not this time; it just rang and rang.

After ten rings, he ended the call then rang Othala's cell. It did exactly the same thing, the ringtone repeating over and over until he ended that call too. Just to check, he tried Crusader's cell, with exactly the same result as the other two.

A tiny worm of worry started twisting and turning in his gut. He took a few moments to find Victor's landline, and call that number. It also rang out. The worry was more pronounced as he accessed Krieg's number. This time, it only took one ring for the phone to be answered.

"Designated Solutions, James Fliescher speaking. How may I help you, Mr Anders?"

"Justin's not answering his cell," Max said briskly, "and neither are Alex and Diane. Would you have any idea why?"

There was a pause on the other end, one that Max judged was long enough for a puzzled thought process to go through. "No. I have no idea. Do you think something has happened to them?"

"I don't know yet. Reach out to the others in the social group. Make sure they're all well. Don't worry about Bradley; he's the one who called me about Justin."

"Understood. I will keep you posted." Krieg ended the call, leaving Max to lean back in his chair and try to unravel the problem in his own head. Unfortunately, he was remarkably devoid of clues.

Eventually, he called Bradley back. "There's more of a problem than we thought. Alex and Diane aren't answering either."

"Shit. That is a problem."

He didn't bother agreeing with the highly obvious statement. "James is checking on everyone else. Do a drive-past on their place, see whose cars are parked outside. Then check Justin's."

"I'll get right on that."

"Let me know what you find out." Max ended the call, frowning.

Empire capes had vanished before, but they were invariably new recruits who had decided they weren't cut out for the life—the politest term Hookwolf called them was 'weaksauce'—and skipped town in the middle of the night. But even though Crusader wasn't yet twenty-one, he was as dedicated to the cause as anyone in the Empire, and the idea that Victor or Othala might be having second thoughts was simply ludicrous. Which meant that something else was going on.

What it was, though, was a mystery to him. No cape battles had been reported by the news services, and PHO was making no mention of the PRT having captured any Empire capes overnight. Besides, the understanding had been that everyone would go home and have a quiet night in before resuming business as normal in the morning.

I don't know what this is, but I don't like it. Not one little bit.

<><>

Around That Time; the PRT Building

Miss Militia

Hannah scanned the report of the previous night's apprehension of the Empire Eighty-Eight capes. Her eyebrows raised as she absorbed the information. "Drunk, in costume, driving a civilian car? Crashing into the bollards outside the building? Really?"

"That's what we've got to go on with," Director Piggot told her. "I agree; about the only way to make it easier to apprehend them would've been to call ahead to warn us they were coming, but they were definitely handed to us on a silver platter all the same."

Hannah pursed her lips under the bandanna. "Has the car been checked over?"

"With a fine-tooth comb." The Director shrugged. "Nothing. We even analysed the glove compartment lint, and it was nothing out of the ordinary. Deputy Director Renick put everyone on high alert last night, just in case, but it turned out to not be some kind of elaborate trap."

"And the MRIs came back positive." Hannah was looking at the section of the report showing the medical results.

"They did. The people we have in custody have active corona pollentias. They are capes. All the evidence we have indicates that they are who we've been led to believe they are." Director Piggot gave Hannah a tight-lipped smile. "All I need now is their side of the story. Because I really, truly want to hear their explanation for how they got to where we found them."

Hannah nodded. "I'll do what I can." She'd heard what Piggot hadn't said: It won't change the outcome, but I could do with a good laugh.

She took the report with her, as much for use as a prop as for reference, and entered the interrogation room. Already handcuffed to the table there was Othala, wearing prison orange instead of her bright red costume, though she'd been allowed to keep her eyepatch. She glared at Hannah as the latter seated herself, the current weapon an M1911 holstered at her hip.

Despite having an instinctive knowledge of how to use every weapon she could generate, Hannah had undergone sniper training, because there was more to putting steel on target than just shooting straight. She'd learned patience, stillness, and the ability to fade into the background until people almost forgot she was there.

If she spoke immediately, she knew Othala would shut down and refuse to interact. So instead, she reached into that skill, settling down to out-wait the other woman. Her breathing became deep and regular, as measured as a metronome. As Othala became more and more agitated, Hannah stilled her own reactions.

It took Othala less than three minutes to crack. "This is fucking bullshit!" she burst out.

"Have you been Mirandised?" asked Hannah.

"I've got no idea why I'm even—" Othala paused, taken aback by the question. "What?"

"Have you been read your rights yet?" Using two fingers, Hannah dropped a Miranda card on the table. Othala stared at it like a chicken hypnotised by a snake.

After blinking a few times, Othala apparently decided to brazen it out. "Wh-why would I need you to read my rights? I haven't done anything wrong."

"I'm just looking out for your best interests," Hannah said, deadpan. "Everyone's heard stories about people talking themselves into prison terms, right? If you haven't had your rights read to you, I can do it now."

From the way Othala's eye shifted, she'd definitely heard the stories. She visibly wavered back and forth between defiance and accepting Hannah's very reasonable offer, and finally settled on common sense. "Okay, fine," she huffed. "You're already treating me like I'm guilty. You might as well read me my rights. Even though I've got no idea what I'm supposed to have done."

"Good thinking. Better safe than sorry, and all that." Hannah took up the card, although she'd already memorised its contents. "You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to give up that right, anything you say can and will be taken down …"

Othala sat quietly through the reading, visibly trying to put up a brave front, though Hannah could see the way she was biting her lip. With each carefully enunciated line, the tension in Othala's jaw ratcheted up a notch. Hannah pretended not to see it, and she very carefully did not allow the smile she felt to cross her lips. Even though she had a bandanna across her face, it would still be visible to those who were looking hard enough, and she didn't want to risk Othala being just perceptive enough to notice.

Once she'd finished, she put the card down again. "Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you?"

Othala nodded jerkily. "Um, yes, but I still don't know what's going on. Am I under arrest? What happened? Why am I here? How did I get here? Where's my husband? Why are you reading me my rights? What am I supposed to have done?"

As Hannah had expected, reading Othala her rights had given her the chance to regather her thoughts and muster her defiance. This was all part of the plan; resistance couldn't be broken unless it was first brought into play. The whole idea was to set her up before knocking her down.

Hannah slid the card back into her pocket. "Okay, now we've got that sorted out, do you wish to exercise the right to be silent?"

She knew she'd hit the right note when Othala shook her head. "No! I want to know what's going on here! Where's my husband? Why am I under arrest? What am I charged with?"

"Alright then." Hannah leaned forward. "Diane Grayson … that's your name, right? At least, that's what your ID says." Opening the folder, she slid Othala's driver's license onto the table.

"Yeah, that's me." Othala did her best to give Hannah an intimidating glare. "So, answer my questions already."

"Diane Grayson," Hannah said formally. "You are under arrest for underage drinking, aiding and abetting in the attempted destruction of government property, and multiple crimes all connected to your activities as the supervillain Othala, including but not limited to felony murder, hate crimes and grand larceny. Your husband and your friend Justin are also in custody. We know your husband is Victor, and that Justin is Crusader, and they will be charged accordingly, except for the underage drinking."

"No." Othala shook her head frantically in a blatant attempt to hide her incipient panic. "That's bullshit! That's not true at all! I'm not Othala! Why would you even think that?" She paused. "Wait, underage drinking? Is that why I felt like shit when I woke up?"

Hannah nodded. "Tests gave you a zero point one blood alcohol content after we pulled you out of your husband's car. Crusader was on zero point one three, and your husband was on zero point one seven. Would you like to tell me why you chose to get drunk on your husband's bourbon and go cruising around town in full costume?"

Othala stared at her. "We did what?"

Hannah judged that she wasn't faking her disbelief, but didn't actually care. "Drove drunk, in full costume, then rammed the car into the barricades in front of this very building, apparently in an attempt to crash into the lobby."

She opened the folder and slid the photos out onto the table. They were screenshots of bodycam footage, and showed all three villains being hauled out of the wrecked car by armoured troopers. It was clear from the imagery that they were utterly wasted. The one of Othala vomiting into the gutter was particularly evocative.

"That's not me!" Othala's claim was as reflexive as it was pointless. "That's not us!"

Hannah allowed a steely note to creep into her voice. "I assure you, we can prove an unbroken chain of custody from the moment we pulled you out of the car to right now. The car is registered in your husband's name. And when we fingerprinted you, they matched the ones taken back when you went for that joyride with your friends at age fourteen. The people in those pictures are you and your friends." She paused. "What I'm curious about—what we're all curious about—is why you got drunk and went driving around in costume. What were you celebrating? The capture of Oni Lee? I mean, I can totally understand. Even as villains go, he's pretty scummy."

"No! I mean yes, he's a total asshole, but we hadn't been drinking. We were just driving back home from seeing friends. We weren't—I mean, I have no idea where those stupid costumes came from, or who put them on us."

Again, Hannah suspected the villain was being genuine about the confusion. Unfortunately for Othala, she still didn't care. "Well, that's interesting. We got a warrant earlier this morning, and we searched your homes … and found your spare costumes, along with enough evidence to identify you and your husband as members of the Empire Eighty-Eight several times over. Crusader is in much the same boat. So, what were you meeting with the rest of the Empire Eighty-Eight about?"

"Nothing," Othala said quickly, in exactly the tone of voice that meant 'something'. "I mean, we were seeing friends, not the Empire Eighty-Eight. And I don't know about any costumes. For all I know, you planted them."

Hannah raised an eyebrow. "Then you wouldn't mind giving me the names and phone numbers of the friends you were seeing, and you can guarantee they'd verify that you came over to meet them last night? And be able to tell me what you talked about?"

Finally, Othala saw the pitfall yawning in front of her, and behind as well. "I … uh, I want to exercise my right to be silent now. Also, I want a lawyer. And my phone call. You have to give me a phone call. It's the law."

"We can do all that, certainly." Hannah stood up and slid the photos back into the folder. "But think about this while you're sitting silently in your cell, waiting for us to arrange your lawyer and your phone call. Victor and Crusader have worse crimes against their names than you do. They're almost certainly going to ask for plea bargains, and that will involve testifying against other members of the Empire Eighty-Eight. Think about what Crusader's got on you, what he could prove against you." She walked to the door, then stopped and turned back with her hand on the handle. "The way this sort of thing works, whoever gets in first is the one who gets the deal. Everyone else is shit out of luck. Right now, you have a very narrow window of opportunity, and it's getting smaller by the second."

"I keep telling you, you've got the wrong people," Othala insisted, apparently forgetting her choice to stay silent. "I'm not Othala."

"So you say." Hannah tilted her head toward the door. "I'm going to speak with Crusader now. Let's see what he has to say about all this." With that, she opened the door and walked out, closing it behind her.

Director Piggot met her a little way down the corridor. "Think she'll cave?"

Hannah waggled her hand. "Seventy-thirty. She looked pretty worried a couple of times there, and if we can let her stew in her own juices for just a little longer, her lawyer will probably be able to convince her to take whatever plea-bargain the DA offers her. If she's smart."

The Director snorted and looked at the closed door of the interrogation room. "If."

"True."