Wake-up Call – Chapter 105

[Piggot]

"My appointment was half an hour ago," I say to the secretary barring me from Tagg's office.

My former office.

My former [secretary].

"I'm very sorry, Miss, but the director is taking an important call at the moment," she says with genuine apology, even if the excuse is anything but.

That's part of what made Jasmine so…

Not useful.

No, not that.

"Fine," I grunt with a bit more emotion than the annoyance warrants before I drag my hands off the glass surface of her desk and go back to the cushioned bench partitioned into three distinct seats along the wall in front of the door to the local PRT's director seat of power.

Because I'm pretending to be an entitled twenty-something rather than…

Me.

And because I don't want to speak to her.

She's… kind enough to offer some polite conversation to a stranger just to help me pass the time, but I'm, right now, precisely that.

A stranger.

To the woman that worked for me for almost a decade.

"Miss?" she says from behind the slab of glass her computer sits on, her tone tentative in a way that doesn't imply Tagg's done playing games and will receive me right now.

"Yes?" I ask, lifting my gaze from my knees and trying to come across as less curt than my current mood warrants.

"Are you… your surname. Are you related to Emily Piggot?" she says.

I try not to wet my lips or have my breath hitch.

Amy's upgrades, as usual, prove invaluable in that regard.

"She's my aunt," I say, the excuse coming off easier every time I use it.

"Ah. I usually wouldn't assume, but you both have the same gorgeous hair, and I… How's Emily doing? It's been a while since she retired," she says, her smile… quintessentially Jasmine.

Damn it.

"She's doing fine. I moved here for college, and I've been helping her around the house. She's much better now that she doesn't have to deal with the stress of the job," I tell her with my own entirely inadequate smile, only lying in about half the things I tell her.

"Ah. That's a relief. I always worried that her health… I just wish she would've taken some healing, you know? But she could be so stubborn about that—well, you should know that better than me, particularly if you're living with her," she says with a bit of a relieved giggle.

I can't even pretend to be affronted.

"Yeah. Stubborn. That's putting it mildly," I tell her with a surprisingly genuine smile.

"Don't get me wrong, that was more of a virtue than anything, given the job she had to deal with. But I always worried."

Damn it.

"There's nothing to worry about," I tell her. "I've…" I hesitate on what to say next, but…

I remember my last day here. The tentative offer of friendship that never was. The words I left unsaid with a forceful, distant goodbye.

Damn it.

"I've been working her over," I confide with half a grin. "I'm pretty sure I've almost convinced her to get healed."

"Really?" she says with a surprised smile that makes me feel at least a hint of guilt.

"Yes. Director Armstrong recommended a few healers with no ties to anything unsavory, and auntie has been considering them," I say, not quite lying except in the timeline of events and on how, precisely, 'auntie' took the well-meaning offer.

"Oh, that's… that's so good to hear," she says, her shoulders slumping into something relaxed as the surprised smile softens. Then, she goes to say something and is interrupted by a buzz coming from her computer. "Ah, it seems Director Tagg will see you now. He's… Well, he has a very particular sense of humor, just… just keep that in mind," she says, all relaxation forgotten as the smile stops being purely Jasmine and has a bit of bitter wariness tinge it.

"Thank you for the warning," I tell her as I stand up, maintaining the slight smile of somebody who just shared some commiseration about her ornery aunt rather than dwell on precisely what manner of poolboy-flavored madness likely awaits me behind the doors to my former office.

Then, as I walk by Jasmine's desk…

"Hey, can you… could you tell your aunt that Jasmine says hello?" she asks with more vulnerable eyes than I would've expected.

Damn it.

"Of course," I say, my smile brightening.

Then I turn fully toward where I'm going, away from the woman who genuinely wanted to help, and my smile drops entirely.

And as I walk past the door…

Well, it's a good thing my expression is completely neutral now.

"Have you gone completely [insane]?" Tagg says as soon as the door swings closed behind me and before I can even take a seat.

I have to remind myself that I'm currently about twice as strong as the man is.

It doesn't do much to soothe my nerves.

Because, where I should have been meeting with a ranting madman who delights in keeping everyone around him off-balance for reasons that were never apparent, I'm now seeing a military man, back ramrod straight, eyes narrow with something that looks very much like barely restrained fury, his hands clenched into fists over the armrests.

Yet again, I have to hold back the urge to wet my lips.

"Isn't that what a trigger event is?" I finally shoot back, forcing myself to move to take the chair in front of him, thankful for how broad my former desk is and for the safety margin between us.

"Don't fuckin kid around with me, [Emily]."

"What? Can dish it but can't take it?"

… Stupid hormones. I swear acting juvenile was supposed to only be part of a persona.

"From [you]? From an engineered war machine? No, I don't think I can," he says, leaning forward, hands almost trembling when he forces them open to steeple his fingers as he rests his elbows on my desk.

I arch my eyebrow.

And [breathe].

Amy has done wonders with that. I have a passive warning system that reacts with a spike of cognitive enhancers at some distinctive scents, like blood and gunpowder, while still acting like a regular sense of smell most of the time.

Except when I inhale deeply.

That? That forces open an organic valve running atop my palate, over a very complex remodeling of the olfactory epithelium. And that's where the magic happens. In this case, 'magic' means 'arbitrary reshaping of the most basic of human innate capabilities.'

So I take the air in.

And with it, I can distinguish trace amounts of Lisa Wilbourn's presence, recent enough that I can confirm her role in getting me this interview, and some other odors that seem to be part of the janitorial staff, given their persistence. But the one that interests me the most is Tagg because my former office has enough of his baseline scent that I can quickly detect any deviations from it, and so I know that his anger is, for once, not an affectation.

"Tattletale warned you not to try to hide your emotions from me, didn't she?" I ask.

"I don't know what you're talking about. The regional PRT directors, current and former, have never had any contact with a villainous Thinker," he says.

"Really?" I ask with an insolence that should be punctuated by popping a pink bubblegum bubble.

"Really. Now, as to the insanity that the current, heroic Thinker apparently interested in signing up with us has brought to my desk… What the [Hell], Emily?" he says, gesturing at… well.

Me.

Me being just slightly taller than I was in my prime, with toned muscle showing past the short sleeves of my black shirt and through the tight, purple leggings that I wear to sell the image of my secret identity.

At me being Emily Piggot in a way I haven't been in years.

"[You] told me to get help," I remind him.

"Oh, you [definitely] need help," he replies.

I snort.

Can't quite help it, really.

"I'm far better than I ever was, Tagg. I'm an [effective] asset in the defense of this city rather than a goddamn bureaucrat doing a terrible job of not being a special forces who belongs in the field. I am—"

"Playing with fire."

"Bioterrorism, really," I correct him.

According to my enhanced olfactory senses, he doesn't take the quip well.

"And that's another one. If you'd contacted Blasto or somebody we already knew to be unhinged enough, that would stop right there, but you've turned Panacea from a harmless PR campaign into… What do you think will happen when it leaks that she can do [this]?"

"That I'll murder some very stupid people, if the scenario you're implying ever happens."

"You? [You]? And pray tell, [Emily], how will you stop the [Nine]? Because Bonesaw and Mannequin dropping by for a visit are almost guaranteed to happen the moment they learn that we have the most powerful biotinker in the world finally flexing her limits. Or maybe the Elite will do a recruitment drive. Heck, given the human experimentation angle? I wouldn't put it past Gesellschaft—"

A steel ball bearing flashes between my fingers and rolls across my knuckles before it disappears again.

This time, it's him that raises an eyebrow.

"You went through a metal scanner before getting into the goddamn elevator," he says.

"I've got a diamagnetic organic pouch filled with my own preferred ammo. I'm never unarmed, Tagg. And Amy is never alone."

He closes his eyes, takes his own deep breath… and leans back.

The man dramatically deflates as he sinks into his chair, and it starts turning to his right and to the window behind him before he corrects it and swivels back to face me.

He still doesn't open his eyes.

So I take it as my turn to talk.

"I'm living proof that these upgrades work. They've been tested on the field, under live fire, and tweaked again and again. Some of them are adapted to my particular organism, but we could have a workable, standardized package to hand out to selected operatives in a matter of days. We can bring the fight to [them], Tagg. We can finally—"

"How can you be so fucking stupid?" he says, finally opening his eyes.

"You've been itching for something like this for [ages]," I accuse, remembering his diatribes about wartime. About us versus them.

It occurs to me that he never quite explained who 'us' was supposed to be.

"I want something to eradicate threats I can't contain, and you come to me with… what? A minor Brute and Thinker package? One that requires people to sign up to [stop being human?]"

"To be [more]. Just the benefits? Just the improved health and recovery? I guarantee half of the elite forces will be queueing up as soon as they catch even a whiff of the rumor mill. Those guys live or die by the slightest edge they can manage—"

"And you're giving them that edge? The great equalizer to go against the likes of [Crawler]?"

"Don't be fucking ridiculous. This isn't what this is for."

"Then [what] is it for? What problem does this solution of yours solve?" he says with a barely suppressed snarl.

I look at him. Straight at him. Straight into stormy, angry, narrowed eyes.

But I don't see him.

I see… Mike. Carl. Jones. Jess.

I see people trained to be the best of the best. To be goddamn elites. To be the terror of a battlefield that was just being defined as we learned our new weapons and equipment.

And I see each and every single one of them torn to pieces by the capricious monstrosities of a deranged parahuman.

"You know," I say with a low voice that is more accusing than anything I could have thrown his way.

"No. Not really," he answers, almost softly.

So I clench my jaw as tight as I can because at least my new teeth can take it, and, my jaw muscles twitching under the pressure, I lift my head to look straight at him.

And to see him.

"Only me. Only me and Calvert. Out of all the people sent to that Hell, only two humans survived, and it turned out that one of them was a parahuman all along. Now tell me this doesn't make a difference. Tell me none of the people who bled by my side would've come back with me if I—"

I stop talking just to swallow something bitter that prickles all the way down my throat.

He, of course, takes the opening.

"I walled a city, Emily. I walled an entire city of doomed people begging for their lives because there was no way for us to tell who of the poor bastards was suffering and who was pretending just long enough to stab one of us in the neck. I [saw] what happened when we tried to help. When we were soft. You're not the only one who's seen friends die."

He holds my gaze.

And we're both furious.

I can smell it. I can hear his heartbeat. I can see the minute shifting of pores on the skin under his eyes, the rush of blood on the side of his neck. I can see his anger as keenly as I feel mine.

It should be easier to agree with this man.

"Guns and armor," he says. "That's enough of an equalizer against anything but the big threats, and against those? There's nothing in that little experiment of yours that is worth the goddamn risk and hit to PR we would take if—"

"Cognitive enhancers," I finally say.

He freezes.

"[What?"]

"Not part of the standard package. The nervous system is the one that needs more careful retooling, and Amy can't simply mass produce a general boost to intelligence. But imagine our best researchers. Our best [Thinkers]. Imagine the key, select personnel under this organization being a few minutes away from having improved memory. Perfect recall. Faster learning and processing. Imagine how it would be if all those certified geniuses suddenly were [more]. And tell me that isn't worth it."

[He] wets his lips.

And I still refrain from doing the same thing even as I allow my grin to come out.

***

"This is still insane," he says after having read all my notes and files on the successive iterations of what my body has been turned into since I retired from his current post.

"It's not a sane world anymore," I needlessly point out.

So needlessly that I don't even get offended when he rolls his eyes.

"I'll still have to run this by the other directors. I doubt Costa-Brown will be happy about the press release when it finally comes out."

"Just point at what I managed to do since I got augmented—" I say, almost dismissively.

That is, until I'm interrupted by a broad palm slapping my desk.

"That is [precisely] what I'm not going to do," he says.

"What are you—"

"You—you don't really get it, do you? After all of this, you [still] don't get it."

"Get [what]?"

"Your powers? Your rampage through Brockton Bay? Why do you think that's a point in your favor?"

"Because we can [hand out] those same powers, for fuck's sake—"

"Yes! Yes, we now can turn every single green recruit into your action hero self, Emily, and what would that green recruit do without your skills, training, years of experience, and intimate knowledge of this particular battlefield?"

"They—they could… would…" I drift off.

Then I blink at him.

"Tattletale put you up to this, didn't she?" I finally say.

"I don't know who that Tattletale person is, but she sounds like a young woman who understands very well that raw power is no substitute for careful planning," he says.

My eye twitches. I don't bother to suppress it.

Nor do I suppress the impulse to flip him the bird.

"How un-Lady-like," he mutters, the capitalization on my former callsign loud and clear enough that I toy with the idea of flipping a ball bearing straight between his eyes.

"You're insufferable," I say.

"And you're a hellion too stubborn to die," he answers.

"Flattery will get you nowhere. You're married."

"If that damn poolboy—"

"Go marry him. It's now legal."

"Polygamy isn't."

"It should be soon enough, if Dragon has her way."

At that, thankfully, he shuts up, and his eyebrow slowly rises.

"And how would [that] factor into anything?" he very deliberately asks.

"You'll have to ask Armsmaster about the particulars," I say before I push my chair back and stand up, finally done with… [him].

Of course, the moment I turn back toward the room's exit, it's the moment that a ball of paper hits the back of my head.

It takes a great effort of will to go still rather than explode into motion.

"Of all the puerile—" I start.

"Pick it up," he says.

And, just to avoid arguing the point, I turn around and get the projectile from the grey carpet—

"What [the fuck]," I quite restrainedly say.

"Your registration as a Protectorate-affiliated independent cape, [Lady]," he says.

I glare at him over the crumpled paper.

He smiles.

And I flip him the bird as I turn around—

"[Gnhrk!"] he… states?

"All right, I'll bite; what was that?" I ask him over my shoulder with my hand already hovering over the doorknob.

"Nothing," he says, his face going from red to a shade of puce that I only know about because of my mother's misguided attempts to teach me to be girlier.

"It sounded like a sea lion's mating call," I point out.

"Just a minor inconvenience," he says.

Then he shuts his mouth tightly enough that his lips become a thin, white line, and his shoulders shake up and down.

And me, deciding that I'm not up to whatever it is that Tagg has decided is a proper follow-up to his poolboy routine, open the door.

"Fucking Thinkers," he says as a way of parting.

And, at least on that much, we can agree.

=======================

You'd think this would be the last time you saw Tagg in this fic, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you?!

…

Okay, that's not a spoiler for next week https://www.patreon.com/posts/wake-up-call-107-94234083?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link (or the one after). That will actually delve a bit deeper into some as-of-yet unanswered questions regarding Piggot's journey. Don't expect them to be any saner than what's already been shown. Now I've got an Oregairu fic to catch up on, and then the rest of the week to write the next Puella Monstrum and the first, much-delayed chapter of my latest original. Wish me luck; I'm definitely going to need it.

As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!