The morning shift, for Trooper Gabriel Armitage, usually began with a five-minute argument.
The argument was with his locker.
The hinge was warped, and the lock, which had eaten half a can of graphite, only opened if you kicked the sweet spot on the bottom-right corner while pulling the handle.
Or just punched it.
REALLY hard.
On this morning, Armitage was running late. He didn't have time for the whole ritual thing.
He put his key in, braced for the fight, and turned.
The lock clicked. A clean, crisp, satisfying sound.
The door swung open silently.
No creaks, no wreeeeee sound from the hinge, nothing.
Armitage froze.
He stared at the lock.
He stared at the hinge.
He looked up and down the empty locker room, then back at his open locker.
"...Huh."
Ten minutes later, he was at his desk. His datapad, the one the new guy had "fixed" yesterday, was still on. The battery, which he had not charged overnight, read 41%.
Well I'll be damned
The first real sign that the world had tilted was in the mess hall.
It wasn't just quiet. It was happy.
Troopers were gathered, not around the one sputtering, half-functional coffeepot, but around Unit 2. The one that had been a glorified paperweight for three years, the one with the shitty bargain bin tape the maintenence guys put over it.
It was purring.
And it was dispensing what looked, and smelled, like actual, coffee.
"I'm tellin' you, Harris," a mechanic was saying, holding a steaming mug like it was a holy relic granted to them by Scion himself.
This was the guy from the motor pool yesterday. "I saw the report. The block was cracked. Twelve inches. Transport 7 was a parts-bin. And that skinny kid... he just gets in, turns the key, and it roars to life. Like it was brand new."
"Console 4 is the same," Harris, the comms tech, said. He looked shaken. "The motherboard was fractured. I was stripping it for RAM and spare parts but he just... He just... put his hands on it. The fans kicked on. It's running diagnostics right now, and might be actually usable for active duty!"
Armitage got in line. He pressed 'Espresso'. The machine vroomed, it tamped, and it produced a perfect shot.
He looked over at the breakfast line. The toasters. All of them were working. Every single slot.
The atmosphere in the room was... light. The low-grade, grinding misery of the Rig—the constant, demoralizing friction of a world that was actively trying to shit the bed—was gone. Replaced by the hum of functional machinery.
The grunts had a new god, and his name was "the new guy."
They called him "the Variable." Or "the Janitor." Or, as one trooper muttered into his coffee, "Our Lady of Perpetual Maintenance." no clue how that last one got made, Armitage was 90% sure the new guy was a dude...
It was a miracle.
Armitage went back to his desk. He picked up his radio to call in the shift change. He pressed the comms button.
...Ssssk...
He pressed it again, harder.
...SsssK-click-sssss...
The button, which had been sticky for a year, finally gave up. It mushed down into the housing and stayed there. Dead.
"God damn it," he swore. He'd have to check out a new one through the QM, which meant an hour of paperwork and a lecture from the quartermaster.
He was in the middle of writing himself up when he saw movement.
Trooper Grundy, looking as stoic as ever, was escorting Deadman down the main hall.
Probably heading for another "list" from Piggot.
Okay, the new guy was 100% a dude, confirmed.
No way that uh...deadness could be a woman, they'd make it look attractive, this guy though? He uh...lets just say he looked like a wet cat dried over incorrectly.
Armitage looked at his dead radio. He looked at the functioning coffee machine. He looked at the troopers in the mess hall, who were now laughing.
He made a choice.
"Grundy!" he called out, stepping into the hall.
Grundy stopped. Deadman stopped a half-step behind him, looking pale and exhausted, but watchful.
"What?" Grundy grunted.
"I... uh..." Armitage felt suddenly stupid. He was about to ask a parahuman for a favor. "It's my radio, sir. The comms button is dead. I... I was wondering if..." He trailed off, looking at Deadman.
Grundy's expression was unreadable. "The Director's list—"
"It's okay," Deadman said. His voice was quiet, raspy. He looked at Armitage, at his outstretched radio.
He stepped forward, out from behind Grundy. "Let me see."
Armitage handed it over. Grundy put his hand on his sidearm, but didn't move.
Deadman held the radio in his hands. It was the first time Armitage had seen him up close. His eyes were dark, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
He wasn't a god.
He was just a tired kid who probably saw too much and cracked...he'd seen his fair share of them, he was born and raised in Brockton Bay afterall.
Deadman closed his eyes.
He squeezed the radio, just once. Armitage saw his knuckles go white. A small, pained grunt escaped his lips.
The headache was instant. A bright, hot spike right behind my eyes. This wasn't Piggot's list. This wasn't an order. This was... a request, a simple one aat that.
I pushed. I felt the sticky, ruined mechaanism of the button. The bent plastic, the corroded contact. I forced it. I told the plastic to be straight. I told the contact to be clean.
I heard a tiny click.
The headache eased, leaving a dull, hot throb. I opened my eyes. I was sweating, just from that.
I handed the radio back to Armitage. I pressed the button. The click was crisp. Sharp. The small green light lit up instantly.
Armitage's jaw was on the floor.
"Holy... shit," he breathed. He pressed it. Click. Click. Click. "It's... it's new."
"It's works," I said, my voice rough.
"I... thanks, man. I..." Armitage was beaming, a genuine, thousand-watt smile that looked completely out of place in this gray-ass building. "Holy shit. Thanks."
"Don't," Grundy grunted, grabbing my shoulder. "We're moving."
As Grundy escorted me away, I glanced back. Armitage was already showing his radio to another trooper, who was now looking at his own faulty equipment with a new, sudden hope.
I had a bad feeling about this.
Grundy was silent as we walked. I was being taken back to the motor pool.
"The grunts are starting to like you," Grundy said, his voice a low rumble. He wasn't looking at me. He was watching the hallway.
"I just fix things."
"You perform miracles," Grundy corrected. "And here... miracles get people killed. They get people to hope. Hope is a liability."
He shoved me toward the motor pool door. "The Director wants you to look at Transport 7 again. She wants to know if your... 'fix'... is permanent."
I looked at the motor pool, at the row of half-dead, cannibalized vehicles.
In the back, I could see Harris, the comms tech, and the motor pool mechanic. They were huddled around a different console, one that was open. They were talking, and they were pointing in my direction.
Through the glass, I saw Armsmaster and Director Piggot, in the upstairs briefing room. They were looking down at the motor pool. At me.
Piggot had her arms crossed, her face a mask of cold assessment.
Armsmaster was just... watching. His visor was a blank, blue-black mirror.
I was a tool, laid bare on the workshop floor.
And everyone in the building was now arguing over how, exactly, I was meant to be used.
I'd been back in my cell for about 4 hours, just long enough for the headache from 'fixing' Armitage's radio to settle into a dull, persistent throb in the back of my skull. It was a constant reminder: you are not in Austin anymore. Everything has a price.
The cot was thin, the air was cold. I had my one, weak, orange lightbulb humming overhead, a tiny bubble of compliance in an ocean of decay. I was just drifting into a restless, shallow sleep when the sound of a heavy boot scraping concrete jolted me awake.
Grundy was at the gate. No list this time. His face was set in its usual granite scowl.
"Director wants you," he grunted. "Motor pool."
My stomach clenched.
The grunts 'hope' from this morning had a price, and it looked like I was about to pay it.
"Joy," I muttered, rolling off the cot. The floor was cold enough to feel it through my boots.
The walk was silent. Grundy didn't talk, and I had nothing to say. He was my chaperone to the principal's office, and we both knew it. We passed the mess hall, where I could hear the click-whirr of the coffeepot.
A few troopers saw me being escorted, their expressions a weird mix of pity and reverence. They were already seeing me as some kind of good-luck charm, and it made my skin crawl. They pitied me because they knew where I was going. They knew who I was going to see.
When we got to the motor pool, the scene was worse than I expected. Mack and Harris were already there, standing almost protectively by Transport 7. They weren't just nervous, like kids caught with a lighter. They looked angry, like they'd already been in an argument and lost.
Transport 7 was idling, its engine purring with that same impossible, healthy sound. A sound that, in this building, was as loud and out of place as a gunshot in a library.
Then he arrived.
Armsmaster.
He entered the motor pool from his private lab entrance, a different, cleaner door than the one I'd come through.
He didn't walk; he strode. He was a man with a singular, obsessive purpose, too bad I had no clue what that purpose was. He was here, right in front of me, in full armor. Visor down, beard at the ready, a scanner already in his hand.
He ignored me completely. He ignored Mack and Harris. He went straight to the transport. He crouched, running his scanner along the engine block, the device emitting a series of low, analytical beeps.
"Sir," Mack said, his voice cracking. "It's... well, it's still running. Just like yesterday. Smooth as silk. We... we ran the internal diagnostic. No fault codes. At all."
"I can see that," Armsmaster's synthesized voice cut through the garage hum.
Why'd he…synthesize his voice? Like, is it a part of the unwritten rules?
Probably a secret identity thing, how does he even synthesize it, I can see his beard clearly so it's most likely the Batman route of something on his neck? Either that or 'Tinker Bullshit' that I'd read online.
Piggot's voice crackled to life over Grundy's radio, so loud I could hear it from ten feet away. "Armsmaster, you have your 'variable'. I want data, not theories. Get me hard, verifiable data."
Armsmaster straightened, turning his helmeted head toward Grundy. "Grundy. The variable is coming with me. Director's authorization."
Grundy, who had been moving to escort me back to the sub-basement, stopped. He changed direction, his hand gesturing toward Armsmaster. "With him."
"Sir, wait," Mack tried again, stepping forward. He was actually putting himself between Armsmaster and the truck. A brave move. A stupid, brave move. "Please." There's real desperation in his voice now. "We need that transport. We're three vehicles down for patrol rotations. We've got E88 movement in the Docks tonight, and this is the only truck we have that's rated for rifle fire. The only one. If you... test it... if you break what he did... we might lose it for good."
Harris, the comms tech, had apparently followed us. He was standing there, twisting a data cable in his hands. "He's right, sir. It's not just the truck. Console 4 is... it's online. It's running diagnostics. It's working. It hasn't done that in a year. It's not just a console, sir, it's collating data from the entire city grid. It's our early warning system. If you mess with whatever he did, if you try to... 'quantify' it... you might break it all over again. Sir, we can't afford to lose that console. Not right now."
This was new.
The grunts weren't just hopeful.
They were protective.
They weren't protecting me though, not exactly. They were protecting the fixes. They were defending their working coffeepots, their running trucks, their non-static radios. They were defending the tiny bubble of hope I'd created in their world of shit.
Armsmaster finally turned his helmeted head. The blue-black visor swept over Mack and Harris, two men he probably didn't even know the names of.
"Your sentiment is noted," he said, the voice flat and devoid of any emotion. "Your patrol schedules are irrelevant. A single, functional console is a tactical anomaly, not a strategic asset. We do not understand the process. An unquantified asset is a liability. Transport 7 is not a truck. It is now 'Exhibit A'. He,"—and I felt the weight of his attention as his finger landed on me—"is the anomaly. I will determine the parameters of his function. Now, move."
Mack looked like he wanted to spit. I could see his jaw tighten, his hands clenching the rag he was holding. But this was the leader of the Protectorate. This was Armsmaster. Arguing with him was like arguing with a stop sign that had a halberd pointed straight at your dick.
They stepped back, their expressions a mix of simmering resentment and helpless fear.
"Come," Armsmaster ordered me.
I followed him out of the motor pool, Grundy tailing me like a shadow. We didn't go up. We went down.
We went past the sub-basement. Past my chain-link cage. We went to a section of the Rig I didn't know existed, a place sealed by a heavy steel door that required Armsmaster's handprint and a retinal scan that somehow worked through his visor.
Tinker bullshit.
The door hissed open, and we stepped inside. This was his real lab.
It wasn't clean like you'd think, the premiere Tinker of Brockton Bay, big ass blueberry looking motherfucker who makes shit that could take down Lung (alledgedly of course) having a clean office and an even cleaner lab would be what you'd expect.
Guess he loves to defy expectations, 'cause it was the exact opposite.
The rest of the Rig was a tomb of decay, shit dying constantly and people losing more and more hope by the minute; this was an active, chaotic nest of an environment. It smelled of ozone, hot metal, and stale, burnt coffee. Tools I couldn't name were strewn across every flat surface, but not randomly.
They were in piles. Piles that probably made perfect sense to him.
"Halberd - Iteration 9 (Failed Actuator)."
"Predictive Modeling - Beta (Jammed)."
"Mini-EMP - Iteration 4 (Overload)."
Half-disassembled pieces of armor, halberd components, and blinking circuit boards sat on carts, connected by a spiderweb of wires that ran in chaotic, but deliberate, channels along the floor and ceiling. It was a dragon's hoard, if the dragon was a high-functioning engineer with a serious caffeine problem. This place wasn't just messy; it was dense. The very air felt occupied, claimed.
And in the center of the room, on a heavy-duty workbench, was... a toaster.
A normal, four-slot, kitchen toaster. The same model as the ones in the mess hall.
"Sit," Armsmaster said, pointing to a metal stool.
I sat. The stool, naturally, was perfectly balanced (as all things should be...) No squeak. No wobble. Of course it was. It was his, probably made it himself just so he could get the optimized amount of ass to stool ratio.
"That toaster," Armsmaster began, "was salvaged from the mess hall. It is identical to the ones you 'fixed'." he said, while doing airquotes
"Its lever mechanism is jammed due to a warped thermal spring. Its primary heating coil has a non-conductive fracture. It is, by all definitions, non-functional."
He slid it in front of me. It was a simple, mundane object.
"Fix it."
I looked at him. "This is the test? You brought me to your... weird ass science dungeon... to fix your breakfast?"
"This is the control," he corrected, his voice sharp. He was attaching sensors to the toaster, to the table, and—I did not like this one bit—a small, wireless node he stuck to my temple. The metal was cold against my skin.
"A simple, non-parahuman binary state. Functional, or non-functional. I am recording all energy emissions, thermal fluctuations, and bio-electric feedback. Replicate the effect. Now."
I sighed. The headache was already coming back, a dull, phantom pain from the motor pool.
I put my hands on the toaster. It was cold and dead. I felt the wrongness. The stuck spring. The broken coil. The simple, stupid entropy that had let it fail.
I pushed.
I willed it to be compliant.
...Nothing.
The toaster just sat there, a monument to mundane failure.
The headache slammed into me, a 7/10 spike, instant and blinding. It was harder this time.
Why?
He's watching. The sensors...
It felt like the toaster was resisting. No, not the toaster. The environment. The chaotic, analyzed, claimed nature of this lab was fighting my power.
My halo worked best on simple entropy, on chaos that had no master. This place... this place was a different kind of storm. It was his storm. Everything in here was his. My power felt like it was wading through wet cement.
"The effect is... encountering resistance," Armsmaster noted. He was watching a monitor, his voice detached. "Your biological readings are spiking. Heart rate, 110. Cortisol levels, elevated. Neural activity... anomalous."
"Shut...up," I gritted out.
I was not going to fail to fix a stupid fucking toaster.
I shoved, mentally. I put all my will, all my anger, all my fatigue into that one, stupid machine. I focused on the image of Armitage's smile, of Mack's desperate plea. I told it to work. I wasn't just pushing; I was yelling at it inside my own skull.
CLICK.
The lever on the side of the toaster, the one that was jammed, snapped down, crisp and perfect.
The fractured coil inside glowed. Not red-hot. It glowed white. A clean, pure, impossible light.
The sensors on Armsmaster's bench shrieked, a high-pitched, digital wail.
POP.
The toast—there was no toast, where the fuck did that come from?—popped up.
I let go, gasping, my head reeling. The nosebleed was sudden. A single, hot drop of blood dripped from my left nostril onto my jacket.
"Biological cost noted," Armsmaster said. He sounded... fascinated. "You're bleeding."
"It's... just a headache," I lied, wiping my nose on my sleeve. The blood was bright.
"The toaster is now drawing 1200 watts from a power source that is not plugged in," Armsmaster said, his synthesized voice holding a new, sharp edge. "It is running on... nothing. It is overriding its own broken state. It is not fixed. I am scanning it now. The spring is still warped. The coil is still fractured. But it is working. It is... defying its own physics."
He turned to me. "You are a localized reality override. A Class-S Trump effect. You are not a 'mechanic,' Deadman. You are a walking, localized... rewrite."
He unplugged the sensors from the toaster. He walked to a different bench, pushing aside a stack of tangled wiring, and came back with something that made my stomach clench.
It was part of his halberd. The head, or a component of it. It was scarred from a fight, and a piece of the articulated blade was clearly snapped off.
It was Tinker-tech.
"This," he said, "is different. This device is parahuman-derived. It's not a simple, mundane object. Its internal logic is an extension of my abilities. It operates on a different set of principles than your toaster."
He set it on the bench.
"Fix it."
I stared at the piece of metal. It felt... sharp. Not physically sharp, but sharp to my senses. It felt like static. It felt loud. It was screaming in a way the toaster wasn't.
"I... I don't think I can," I said. My voice was hoarse.
"You 'fixed' a fractured engine block. You 'fixed' a cracked motherboard. This is a simple, non-powered mechanical joint. Fix it."
"It's not the same," I said, putting my hand near it. The static feel intensified, like a physical push. It was pushing back. My power, my halo, didn't want to touch it. It felt like trying to force two positive ends of a magnet together. It felt alien.
"Try." It was an order.
I gritted my teeth. The headache was already back, a pounding drum. I put my hand on the cold, blue-black metal.
I pushed.
The resistance was immediate. It wasn't like the lab's passive insulation. This was an active, violent rejection. It was like shoving a brick wall that was shoving back. The Tinker-tech hated me. My power was telling it to be a "compliant, simple object," and the object was screaming back, "I AM A COMPLEX, PARAHUMAN-DERIVED WEAPON."
My power was telling it to be mundane, and the tech was refusing to be neutered.
My power was plain, it was simple, it was the base-level truth of "a spring is a spring," "a wire is a wire." This... this was a lie. A beautiful, complex, arrogant lie, a piece of physics that shouldn't exist, forced into reality by a parahuman will. And the two hated each other.
"AAAAARGH!"
I shoved with everything I had. The headache wasn't a spike; it was a detonation. The lights in Armsmaster's lab didn't just flicker, they buzzed and popped. Several of his monitors went to static. My nose wasn't dripping, it was a faucet.
The snapped piece of metal... didn't fix.
It just shuddered, vibrating on the workbench with a sound like a high-voltage wire.
And then, a tiny hairline crack, one I hadn't even seen, spiderwebbed across the housing of the halberd. It splintered from the original battle damage, ruining the integrity of the whole piece.
I didn't fix it. The pressure, the conflict... I made it worse.
I collapsed off the stool, catching myself on the bench, my head swimming in a sea of white-hot pain. The room was spinning.
Armsmaster was silent. He picked up the halberd piece. He examined the new crack with a clinical detachment.
"Interesting," he finally said.
"It... it didn't work," I gasped, tasting copper.
"On the contrary," Armsmaster said. "It worked perfectly. You have just provided the most critical piece of data yet."
He turned to me, and I could feel the analytical intensity from behind that visor. He wasn't angry. He was elated.
"You cannot fix parahuman-derived technology. You conflict with it. Your power attempts to rewrite its base state, and the technology... resists. You are not a universal 'fix.' You are a competing system."
He put the broken piece down. "You are infinitely more dangerous than I thought. But also... more limited."
He strode to his intercom, his armored steps precise. "Director Piggot. The test is complete. I have my data."
"And?" Piggot's voice crackled, tinny and impatient.
"The asset is a high-risk Trump, as I suspected. He is a 'system-conflict' variable. He cannot repair Tinker-tech; in fact, he appears to damage it. His effect on mundane, non-parahuman-derived systems, however... is absolute. But it comes at a significant biological cost to the user. He is, in essence, a biological battery, and we do not know the recharge rate, the total capacity, or the consequence of a full depletion."
A pause. "He is a tool, Director. But he is a tool that will break. And I cannot predict what happens when he does."
Piggot was silent for a long, long moment. I could just picture her, sitting in her bunker, weighing the options.
"Understood, Armsmaster. Your... 'concerns'... are noted. Is he still functional?"
Armsmaster looked at me, bleeding and swaying on my feet, a piece of rag-data.
"He is... conscious. Medically, he is... compromised, but stable."
"Then this test is concluded. Send him back to his cell," Piggot ordered. "Grundy can fetch him. And Armsmaster? He is still my asset. You will not run further tests without my explicit, written authorization. He is too valuable as a mechanic to be broken as a lab rat."
"Understood, Director."
Armsmaster cut the comm. He looked at me. He had what he wanted. He had a box to put me in, a label for my file.
SYSTEM-CONFLICT TRUMP (BIOLOGICAL). HIGHLY LIMITED. DO NOT APPLY TO TINKER-TECH.
He'd won. He looked down at me, a specimen. "Your biological cost is inefficient. You expend far too much energy for a simple task. We will need to work on focusing the effect, to minimize the... waste." He sounded like a disappointed engineer looking at a leaking pipe.
I spat a wad of bloody phlegm onto the messy floor of his lab.
"You... you fuckheads," I gasped, pushing myself up on one arm. "You've had me focusing on one single thing. That's... that's not how it works. It's supposed to be in my fucking file, don't you people read?"
Armsmaster's helmet tilted, a micro-movement of curiosity. "Explain."
"I can't focus it, you moron!" I snapped, the pain making me reckless. "The more I focus, the more I force it... the worse the kickback. The more rebound. The worse shit gets around me. I've been forcing it since I got to this god-damned shithole, and you're all just... lucky... it hasn't taken a god-damned head off yet!"
Grundy arrived ten minutes later. He found me sitting on the floor, using a greasy rag from Armsmaster's bench to staunch the last of the bleeding. I was empty. The headache had subsided to a dull, pounding ache, but I felt... hollowed out. Drained.
He didn't say a word. He just helped me to my feet—the first time he had ever offered a hand—and guided me back to the sub-basement.
The walk was a blur. When the elevator door, one that usually shuddered, slid open smoothly for us, I didn't even register it.
When we got back to the main floor, the grunts, Mack and Harris and Armitage, saw me being half-dragged back. They saw the blood caked on my jacket. They saw my exhaustion.
I saw the look they shared. It wasn't awe, this time.
It was anger.
Mack slammed a wrench down on a nearby workbench. Harris just turned his back, refusing to look at Grundy. They looked from me, to the upper levels, in the direction of Armsmaster's lab. Harris stepped forward, holding out a clean, folded rag. He'd probably gotten it from the infirmary.
I took it, pressing it to my face.
"Thanks," I mumbled.
He just nodded, his jaw tight. "He break it?"
"What?"
"The truck. Did he... did he break it?"
"I... I don't know," I admitted.
The anger on his face curdled into a look of pure, cynical Brockton Bay resentment. He'd gambled on a miracle, and the house had just taken his chips.
I was returned to my cage. The chain-link gate was locked the moment I got inside.
I collapsed onto the cot, the dim orange light I'd created feeling like a spotlight in the dark.
I was no longer a ghost. I was no longer a miracle.
I was a resource. I was a piece of equipment, and the bosses were now fighting over who got to use me, and who got to study me.
I felt... hollow. The test hadn't just drained my power; it had drained my will. That push against the halberd... it was like pushing against my own skull. I was empty.
I pulled my phone out. The screen was cracked.
I must have hit it when I fell from the stool. A tiny, spiderweb fracture in the corner.
I stared at it. A simple, mundane failure.
I pushed.
My head screamed in protest. The headache, which had been a dull roar, spiked again, a sharp needle of pain.
The crack stayed.
I tried again, harder, focusing all my will on that tiny, black line.
Nothing.
I... I think I was empty. The battery was drained. The well was dry. I was a mechanic who couldn't even fix his own tools.
My phone buzzed, vibrating weakly on the cot. A new message.
It was a reply to the text I'd sent when I first arrived. The one I'd forced through the bad signal.
Amy: Here where? Shithole doesn't narrow it down at all. You okay?
I stared at the words. You okay? A simple question. It felt heavier than Armsmaster's halberd.
My fingers fumbled on the cracked screen, tapping out a reply. The auto-correct fought me, but my power, even drained, seemed to make the right letters pop up.
Me: Not really. Branch Head's orders. I'm in a cage in the sub-basement. Not allowed to leave. Not allowed to talk to anyone. Especially not you. So you should probably delete this.
I hit send. The "sending" icon spun. I didn't have the energy to force it. I just... waited. It spun for a full minute. Then: Message Sent.
I let the phone fall to my chest. I'd broken the rules. I'd implicated her. It was a stupid, selfish move. The phone buzzed again, almost instantly.
Amy: In the basement. With your luck? Figures it'd backfire on you in a way.
Amy: Don't break. I'll see what I can do.
Amy: And I already told you, don't be an idiot. Deleting this now. You do the same.
I stared at the messages. A cold, bitter laugh escaped me. I'll see what I can do.
I deleted the thread.
I turned the phone off and threw it on the floor. I've had enough of today. I just wanted it to stop.
I rolled over, faced the cold concrete wall, and for the first time in a long, long time... I let myself fall into the black.
I'd been back for hours, and slept a little during that, though how many hours of that was sleep? Four? Five? Time was a thick, gray sludge and it certaintly did not look like Didi from DC, at least that would've been a balm to my aches, a sight for sore eyes and an even sorer head...
My head was a hollow drum, the pain from Armsmaster's 'test' having faded from a white-hot spike to a dull, persistent throb. The emptiness was worse. I felt scoured out, a battery drained to complete zero, where the phone won't even boot up anymore.
I was lying on the cot, staring at the weak, orange glow of the one bulb I'd managed to force into compliance. My one, pathetic victory.
I'd tried again, just a minute ago. I'd stared at the cracked screen of my phone, held it until my knuckles were white, and pushed.
Nothing.
Not a flicker. Not a tingle, just fuck all and the still feeling of emptiness.
The crack remained, a spiderweb of failure. The well is dry.
The depression was a physical weight, a lead blanket pinning me to the cot. The simplest, most logical question kept hammering at me. Why didn't I just walk away?
Because... where?
Where would I go? Out into the city? To do what? Get a job? An apartment? Fight crime in my undies? I'm not fucking Spider-Man, or Batman, or anyone else similar, I'm just...me, I was a ghost. A non-person, no ID, not too much funding, essentailly have nothing but the clothes on my back.
The thought of just... standing up, of walking up the stairs, of facing Grundy and saying "I quit"... it was impossible. The decision-paralysis was a physical chokehold, plus there's also the...padlock on my door.
It was easier to stay on the cot. It was easier to accept the routine. Wake up, get escorted, fix a toaster, get tortured by a Tinker, go back to the cage.
It was a new routine, but it was a routine. It was known.
The alternative was the curb. The cold. The unknown.
I rolled over, the cot springs groaning. My phone was still in my hand. Amy's last text was still on the screen. Don't be an idiot.
A sudden, hot, and furious spike of adrenaline cut through the gray.
She told me not to be an idiot.
This is idiotic, and probably going to bite me but fuck, what other options do I have?.
My fingers, clumsy and shaking, tapped on the cracked screen. I didn't think. I just... wrote. The frustration, the pain, the sheer, crushing humiliation of the day poured out.
Me: You were right. Piggot's a bitch.
Me: They're not just quarantining me. Armsmaster just had me a few hours ago in his lab. A "test."
Me: He made me 'fix' his Tinker-tech. It didn't work. It just... it hurt. I'm empty. I can't even fix the crack in my own phone now, which I apparently could, since my power can somehow make toast out of nowhere if given a broken toaster.
Me: They're treating me like a god-damned battery. A piece of equipment. I'm just... I'm so tired of this.
My thumb hovered over the "send" button on the last message. This was a bad idea. This was breaking Piggot's one, explicit rule. This was whining.
I hit send anyway.
The "sending" icon spun. And spun. I didn't have the energy to force it. I just... watched it. A tiny, digital symbol of my own impotence.
The phone buzzed.
Amy: ...
The typing icon. She was there. She was reading them.
Amy: Deadman? What the hell is this? What 'test'?
Amy: Where are you? Reeve just said you were transferring.
The rapid-fire questions felt like a slap. She was confused. She was listening.
Me: I'm in the sub-basement at the ENE branch. In a cage. A literal chain-link cage.
Me: Piggot told me I'm not allowed to leave. Not allowed to talk to anyone. Especially not you.
Me: They're treating me like a villain. Armsmaster dragged me to his lab, hooked me up to his gear. Said I was a 'biological battery' I had to use my power so hard that my nose would not stop bleeing.
Me: Bleeding*
Amy: He WHAT?
Amy: Are you hurt? Did he do something to you?
Me: He just... drained me. I'm 'inefficient'. I'm so tired, Amy.
And I'm close to just... letting it go.
The thought was sharp. What if I just... let it go? What if I just... pushed? Not at a toaster. At the building. What if I made it all break?
I typed it.
Me: I'm close to just... losing it. What happens if I just let my power go? What if I make it all rebound on them? I don't know if I can, but God, I want to try.
The reply was almost instant.
Amy: Don't do anything stupid.
Amy: Gimme a few seconds. Seriously, Deadman. Don't.
The phone went dark. "Gimme a few seconds." What the hell did that mean?
I lay back, the adrenaline gone, leaving me colder than before. I'd done it. I'd broken the rules. I'd cried for help.
What a fucking idiot.
POV Switch: Amy Dallon
The Dallon kitchen was quiet. Too quiet. Vicky was out on patrol, Dad was at the university, and Mom was in her study, probably drafting a lawsuit against the city council again.
Amy stared at her phone, her knuckles white.
'...close to just... losing it...'
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit," she muttered.
This was bad. This wasn't "depressed cape needs a friend." This was "suicidal, unknown-quantity Trump, being held in a cage, is threatening to lose control of his power inside the PRT building."
This was a nightmare.
Who did she call? The PRT? They were the problem. Piggot and Armsmaster were the ones holding him.
Her dad? Mark would want to "talk to him," which was useless.
Vicky? Glory Girl would solve the problem by flying to the Rig, punching a hole in the wall, "rescuing" him, and starting a war with the Protectorate. Catastrophically stupid.
That left... the one option she'd rather swallow glass than take.
She walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to her mother's study.
Carol Dallon, Brandish, was exactly where Amy expected her to be: buried in a stack of legal briefs, her face illuminated by the glow of her monitor. The room smelled like paper, stale cofee and faint, expensive perfume.
"Amy," Carol said, not looking up. "You're eighteen. I assume you're not here to discuss your grades."
"Mom. I need... I need legal advice. For a friend."
"Is your 'friend' a parahuman?" Carol's pen didn't stop moving. "Because New Wave's charter is very clear about non-engagement with—"
"It's the cape from Delhi," Amy snapped, her patience gone. "The one from Austin. Deadman. He's in the ENE Rig."
Carol's pen paused. She looked up, her gaze sharp. "A transfer? I didn't see a PR announcement. Piggot holding a new cape in quarantine is standard. Annoying, but standard."
"He's not in quarantine," Amy said, stepping forward and shoving the phone into her mother's line of sight. "He's in a cage in the basement of the rig. They're using him. Armsmaster just 'tested' him until he was bleeding and couldn't think straight. He's... he's not in a good place, Mom. And he's talking about 'letting his power go.' In the Rig."
Carol's eyes, the eyes of a lawyer, scanned the texts.
Her expression went from "annoyed parent" to "predatory prosecutor" in a heartbeat.
"They're what?" she said, her voice dropping to a cold, dangerous level. "'Tested' him? Is he a PRT member?"
"Provisional. From Austin. He said he has a contract."
"A contract..." Carol stood up. She took the phone. "And they're holding him incommunicado and forcing him to use his power... in violation of M/S protocols?"
"I... I guess?"
"This," Carol said, tapping the text about Armsmaster, "is not a 'test.' This is coercion. This is illegal experimentation. What does his contract say?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know? He's in a cell!"
"Text him," Carol ordered, her mind clearly working, clicking through legal precedents. "Text him now. Ask him exactly what his contract says. The key terms. Jurisdiction. Use of powers. Get me the specifics."
POV Switch: Deadman
My phone buzzed again, making me jump. The cracked screen lit up.
Amy: What does your contract say? The one from Austin. My mom wants to know.
Her mom? Why the hell—
Amy: What did Reeve promise you? EXACTLY.
The urgency was clear. I fumbled for the words, my brain feeling thick and slow.
Me: What?
Amy: YOUR CONTRACT. WHAT ARE THE TERMS?
Me: No media. No disaster relief unless I agree. Austin jurisdiction only.
Me: I think...I still have the file here somewhere, one sec.
Me: Here.
You have uploaded AUS-17-CONTRACT_FINAL.pdf
I sent it.
What the fuck is going on?
POV Switch: Amy Dallon
Amy showed the new text to Carol.
Carol read it, and a slow, dangerous smile spread across her face. It was the smile she got right before she tore a hostile witness to shreds in court.
"Oh, Piggot," Carol whispered. "You monumentally arrogant idiot."
"What?" Amy asked.
"'Austin jurisdiction only,'" Carol said, savoring the words. "They can't 'transfer' him. That's not a transfer. That's a loan. And you cannot force a loaned asset to do anything outside his original contract parameters. He's not ENE personnel. He's Austin's."
She started pacing. "And 'testing' a Trump-class power? Without his consent? While holding him in a cell against his will? That's not just a breach of his contract. That's illegal detention. That's parahuman coercion. That's a dozen federal and PRT charter violations."
She looked at Amy, her eyes bright with a lawyer's fury. "That's leverage."
Amy was stunned. "So... what do we do?"
"You text him back," Carol said, her voice pure, cold steel. "You tell him his contract is being violated on at least four different counts. You tell him he has the right to legal counsel. And you tell him..."
She sighed, a tiny, human sound in the middle of the legal storm. The "mom" part surfaced for a second, grim and resigned.
"...you tell him that if he needs a lawyer, I will represent him."
Amy's jaw dropped. "You? But... New Wave? You hate—"
"This isn't about New Wave," Carol snapped. "This is a parahuman being illegally detained and experimented on by an organization that constantly oversteps its bounds. It's a clear-cut case. I'm not doing it as Brandish. I'm doing it as Carol Dallon, Esquire."
She nodded at the phone. "Ask him."
POV Switch: Deadman
The phone buzzed. My hands were shaking. This was... this was something. This was not nothing.
Amy: My mom says your contract is being broken. On like, a lot of counts.
Amy: She says what they're doing is illegal detention.
A beat. The next text came through.
Amy: She... she said she'll represent you. If you want. As a lawyer.
I stared at the screen.
A lawyer.
An out.
A real out. Not a transfer. Not a different cage. An out.
My first instinct, the deep, grooved-in depression, screamed at me. No. Don't. It's a trick. It's too much. It's too loud. It's a new routine. It's scary. What if it makes it worse? Piggot will be furious. Armsmaster will...
It was easier to just lie here. Easier to be the battery. Easier to just... stop.
I looked at the cracked phone screen.
I thought about the blinding, white-hot pain from the halberd. I thought about Armsmaster's cold, detached voice: "Your biological cost is inefficient."
I thought about Piggot's dead eyes. "You are a variable."
I thought about the grunts, looking at me with anger because I couldn't even save their truck from the head mechanic.
Fuck this.
Fuck the routine. Fuck the curb. Fuck the paralysis.
This was a hand. Reaching into the dark. It was the hardest thingI'd ever done. Harder than the toaster. Harder than the halberd. It was acting. It was choosing.
My thumb, shaking, tapped out the reply.
Me: Yes.
Me: Now. Please.
Carol Dallon read the last text. Yes. Now. Please.
The "please" was what settled it. This wasn't a power play. It was a plea for help from a man literally locked in a cage like a rabid animal.
"Amy," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion but professional focus. "Go to your room. Do not text him again. Do not talk to Vicky. This is no longer a family matter. It's a legal one."
"But—"
"Go," Carol commanded. Amy flinched, then nodded and left, closing the study door.
Carol sat at her desk. She took a deep breath. She looked at the text exchange one last time, memorizing the key phrases: 'cage', 'biological battery', 'Austin jurisdiction only'.
She picked up her personal, non-Brandish phone. She had two calls to make.
Her first call was to a private number in Texas. It rang twice.
"Reeve here, who is this and how did you get this number?"
"Director Reeve," Carol said, her voice cold and precise. "This is Carol Dallon, legal counsel for New Wave in Brockton Bay. However I am calling tonight in a different capacity. Are you aware that your provisional operative, AUS-17 Codenamed 'Deadman', is currently being held in illegal detention in the PRT ENE sub-basement?"
The silence on the other end was absolute. When Reeve spoke, their voice was tight with suppressed fury. "...What?"
"He is being held incommunicado, in a chain-link cell, in violation of his M/S quarantine protocols. His jurisdictional contract has been voided by Director Piggot. He has been subjected to coercive, non-consensual parahuman testing by your Protectorate lead, Armsmaster."
"...Jesus Christ," Reeve breathed. "I... I was not aware. The transfer was a political maneuver. Piggot was informed of his status..."
"Then you were both naive," Carol cut in, ruthless. "You 'loaned' a parahuman asset to a Director who notoriously hates capes, and you didn't ensure his protections. As of this moment, your department is complicit in at least four federal charter violations. This is a simple call, Director. I am filing a federal injunction against Director Piggot and PRT ENE for illegal parahuman coercion."
Carol paused for breath, steadying her voice and thoughts before continuing "You have one hour to formally support my injunction and assert your jurisdictional authority over your asset. If you fail to do so, I will be naming your department as a co-conspirator in my suit for illegal parahuman trafficking. You loaned him out, Reeve. You will not abandon him. Fix this. Now."
She hung up before Reeve could answer.
Her second call was to the PRT ENE main switchboard.
"PRT ENT, Trooper Armitage speaking."
"This is Carol Dallon, Esquire," she said, her voice sharp and clear. "I am the legal representative for the parahuman asset 'Deadman,' AUS-17. I am invoking his right to counsel. I am at your front desk. You will not move my client. You will not speak to my client. You will not allow Director Piggot or Armsmaster access to my client. Any attempt to interfere with my access will be logged as witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Am I clear?"
"Uh... ma'am... I... I have to clear this with—"
"You will clear it with no one," Carol said, steamrolling him. "You will log my call, and you will inform your superior officer that I am here. Ten minutes ago."
She hung up, grabbed her briefcase, and walked out of the study.
POV: Emily Piggot
Director Piggot was rubbing her temples, staring at a budget report that simply did not balance, when her private line buzzed. It was a priority alert. From Austin.
She jabbed the button. "What is it, Reeve? I'm busy."
"Emily, what the hell are you doing to my operative?" Reeve's voice wasn't calm. It was a low, controlled roar. "I just got off the phone with Carol Dallon. She's threatening to sue my entire department for parahuman trafficking."
Piggot's blood ran cold. Dallon.
"Your operative broke quarantine," Piggot snapped, her mind racing. How? How did he— "He contacted an outside party in violation of my direct order."
"He's in a cage, Emily! You're testing him? You voided and violated his contract! Are you fucking insane? He's a person, not a piece of hardware you can just strip for parts!"
"He is a parahuman variable in a hostile environment—"
The intercom on her desk buzzed, a frantic, insistent sound. "Director!" It was Armitage from the front desk, his voice cracking. "Director, Carol Dallon is in the lobby! She's... she says she's Deadman's lawyer. She's demanding access! She's... she's citing obstruction of justice!"
Piggot slammed her hand on the desk.
Dallon. In her lobby.
She was blindsided. The cape, the variable, had a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, but Brandish, a woman who knew the PRT charter inside and out and held a personal, venomous grudge against the organization.
"Reeve," Piggot snarled into the phone. "Your asset is a security breach. This conversation is over." She slammed the phone down.
She immediately hit the button for Armsmaster. "Armsmaster. To my office. Now. Apparently Deadman has a lawyer."
She didn't wait for a reply. She stood, her entire body shaking with a fury so profound it was almost clarifying. He hadn't just broken her rule. He'd brought an enemy into her house.
POV Switch: Deadman
I was lying on the cot, shaking. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a cold, sick dread.
What had I done?
I'd texted Amy. I'd broken Piggot's rule. I'd whined. I'd brought trouble to one of my only friends.
And now Armsmaster was here.
My heart was hammering. The weak orange bulb above me flickered violently, then went out, plunging the cell back into darkness. My power was gone, my control was shot.
I heard footsteps. Fast. Heavy. Not the slow, shuffling pace of Grundy. This was armor.
The main gate to the sub-basement slammed open, the metal shrieking in protest. The beam of a powerful flashlight cut through the dark, pinning me to the cot.
It wasn't Grundy.
It was Armsmaster.
His blue armor was stark in the flashlight's glare. He was flanked by two PRT troopers in full tactical gear, rifles held at the low-ready.
He looked... furious. Not hot-angry. Cold. The cold of a machine that has found a critical error.
"On your feet, 'asset'," Armsmaster's voice modulator was flat, but the contempt was unmistakable.
I stood up, my hands shaking. This was it. I was being taken to a black site. I was done.
"Hands where I can see them. Move."
They unlocked my cell gate. The tac-troopers took up positions behind me, their rifles pointed at my back. I was being marched.
"Whuh-Where... where am I going?"
"You made a call," Armsmaster said, pushing me forward. "Now you get to deal with the consequences. Director Piggot wishes to speak with you."
We walked up the stairs, a four-man parade. Me in my rumpled clothes, a prisoner, flanked by a high-tech jailer and two guards.
As we passed the main barracks floor, I saw Armitage. He was at his desk, his face pale. He saw me, saw the tac-squad, and his eyes went wide. He looked at Mack, the mechanic, who was standing by the (still working) coffeepot. Mack's face hardened.
They were seeing it. They were seeing the guy who fixed their radios being marched like a criminal by the Protectorate boss.
Good. Let them see.
Armsmaster shoved me into a small, windowless room. An interrogation room. It smelled like bleach and stale fear.
Director Piggot was already there, standing, her arms crossed. Her face was a mask of thunder.
And sitting at the table, perfectly calm, was a woman I'd only seen on the news. Blonde hair, immaculate suit, and the sharp, intelligent eyes of a predator.
Carol Dallon.
She looked at me, at my exhausted state, at the tac-squad. Her expression didn't change, but her eyes hardened.
"Deadman," she said, her voice cutting through the tension. "I am Carol Dallon. I am your legal counsel. As of this moment, you are not to say a single word to Director Piggot, Armsmaster, or any other member of the PRT. Do not nod, do not shake your head. You will only speak to me. Is that understood?"
I looked at Piggot's furious face. I looked at Armsmaster, who was practically vibrating with contained rage.
I looked back at Carol Dallon.
I nodded.
"Director," Carol said, turning to Piggot, her voice dropping to a conversational, lethal tone. "You are currently in violation of six federal and PRT charter regulations. Shall we discuss the terms of my client's immediate release from this illegal detention? Or would you prefer I have this conversation with a federal judge and the Chief Director?"
Piggot's expression was murderous. "You have no standing, Dallon. He is a PRT asset under my command."
"He is an Austin asset, Director," Carol retorted, sliding a datapad across the table. "And I have his contract. You're in breach. Director Reeve is, as we speak, formally supporting my injunction to have you cease and desist all contact with his operative."
"That recall will be denied by Armstrong, and you know it. The asset stays here."
"Then he stays here as my client," Carol snapped. "Not as your prisoner. You will not 'test' him. You will not coerce him. And you will give him quarters befitting a human being, or this building will be buried in so many injunctions you won't be able to order pencils."
As they argued, the very room seemed to react to the stress.
The lights over the table—the ones that had been buzzing—flickered violently and went out, plunging the room into the dim, red glow of the emergency lighting.
"What the hell?" Piggot snarled.
Armsmaster's helmet tilted. "Power fluctuation."
"It's him," Piggot spat, glaring at me.
I was just sitting there, head in my hands, the headache from the last test screaming back to life. The well wasn't just dry; the walls were starting to collapse. The 'compliance' I had forced onto the building was failing, and the entropy was snapping back.
Intercut: Comms Room
Trooper Harris, who had been enjoying his 'miracle' console, yelped as the screen dissolved into a waterfall of green, corrupted code. "No, no, no! God damn it!"
Intercut: Motor Pool
Mack the mechanic slammed his fist on the hood of Transport 7. The engine, which had been purring like a kitten, had just seized. A catastrophic, system-wide failure. "Son of a bitch! It's dead again!"
Intercut: Barracks
The 'new' coffeepot didn't just break. The glass carafe, full of scalding coffee, exploded, shattering across the counter and the floor, sending three grunts diving for cover.
Intercut: Interrogation Room
Armsmaster's datapad, which he was using to monitor the building, went dead. He tapped the screen. Nothing. He looked at me, sitting in the dark, shaking.
"Director," Armsmaster's voice was grim. "The variable... he is no longer passively stabilizing. He appears to be actively destabilizing the systems he previously 'fixed'. The building's entropy is... rebounding."
Piggot stared at me, her fury battling with the sudden, pragmatic realization. She was trapped. She had an asset she couldn't legally use (thanks to Carol), who was also simultaneously breaking her entire building just by being stressed out.
"Fine," Piggot snarled, the word a surrender. "This... variable... is your problem now, Dallon. He's not going back to the cell."
Carol nodded, her expression cool. "He'll be given a real room. And he will not be 'tasked' with anything until we have renegotiated the terms of his loan. Under my supervision."
"Grundy!" Piggot yelled at the door. "Get him out of my sight. Put him... put him in the Wards' old wing. The empty one. Somewhere he can't break anything else." She glared at Armsmaster. "And you. Fix my building."
Armsmaster looked at me, then at his dead datapad. "Director... I'm not sure I can."
Carol Dallon stood up, adjusting the sleeve of her suit. She gave me a single, sharp nod.
"I will be back at 0900 tomorrow, Mr. Deadman. Do not speak to anyone."
I was hauled to my feet by Grundy, who looked just as bewildered as everyone else. I was out of the cage.
But I was still trapped in the machine, and I was the one breaking all the gears