The first real intrusion on the average citizen’s life had been the bombings instigated by the ABB.  Frightening, but it had been easy for the average person to believe they wouldn’t be one of the victims, to shrug it off as the same background noise of heroes and villains that they’d experienced for much of their lives.

Yeah, until they stepped around the wrong corner at the wrong time.

Now, between Leviathan, Shatterbird, the fighting and the formation of territories, everyone had reason to worry and give serious thought to who they needed to support and how they were going to protect themselves.

Especially when some of the people forming territories seem to be more hostile than others, and some of them do better jobs protecting them than the PRT.

Just as the parahumans had invaded the lives of those in the city, the paperwork seemed to dominate Emily’s life.  It crept onto the walls, onto bulletin boards and whiteboards.

This story is largely about things that creep, after all.

Notes on the local players, timelines, messages and maps.

The shift from uniform typed words to countless styles of handwriting, it said something about the innumerable voices, the break down of the cohesive, ordered whole.

Oh yeah, I suppose it wouldn’t be all her handwriting.

What resulted were hundreds, thousands of self-interested voices.  One in five condemned her, two in five pleaded with her for assistance in some form, and the remainder simply expected her to perform her duties as a cog in the machine.

Sounds about right.

She looked over the sheer volumes of paper around her office.  The PRT handled cases where parahumans were involved, and these days, it seemed like everything and everyone was touched in some way by the heroes, villains and monsters of Brockton Bay.

I mean, I’m pretty sure we don’t actually know any named characters who have nothing to do with capes, but that’s a result of the story being about the capes, so from our perspective, that’s all the people we’re going to hear about. (Unless Wildbow trolls us with an Interlude about someone entirely unrelated to the plot, but that’s not really his style.)

In-universe, though… yeah, Shatterbird (by Shattering the city), the other Nine (by attacking lots of civilians), and the Undertravelers (by taking over territories in most of the city) have really caused almost everyone to have some aspect of their lives be affected by parahumans.

…by the way, Piggot didn’t mention the rogues.

Every time the other precincts had the slightest excuse, they would claim that it was the PRT’s responsibility.

Oh jeez.

If they had no excuse at all, they would claim it a joint responsibility.  Until she read over the cases in question and either signed off on them or refused them, the job was in her hands.

Damn, that really does put a lot of work on her.

As far as the ones passing the buck were concerned, it was out of their hands.

Regular police: *passes the buck*

Director Jemily Piggot: “Dude, I’m already holding like a hundred of these! At least give me a bag to carry them in or something!”

She couldn’t help but notice the way that the pages at the bottom of the pile were neatly organized, tidy, everything in line.  The newer pages, the ones at the top, were the sloppy ones.

Getting more stressed as you went along?

Pages were slightly out of alignment, some dog-eared or stained.

Treating important documents like this, how could you!

(I had to put two out of three copies of my work contract in my windowsill to dry off yesterday. Turns out my bicycle bags weren’t as waterproof as the seller claimed. I’m honestly surprised I managed to save the papers.)

The same progression could be measured in the print.  The older pages were typed, printed as forms with everything in its place.  Abruptly, it all shifted to handwriting.  Shatterbird’s destruction of everything glass and everything with a silicon-based chip inside.

Ohh, right, that’d do it. I was kind of wondering why they were using so much paper.

Computer screens and computers.  The handwriting, too, grew less tidy as the rise of the piles marked the passage of time.  On occasion, it would improve for a day or two, when her captains and sergeants complained about illegible handwriting, but it inevitably slipped back into disarray.

Before she knows it, she’ll be a doctor instead of a director.

Also I guess captains and sergeants are ranks that exist in the PRT.

A strong metaphor, Emily Piggot thought.  Every part of it said something about the current circumstances.

Things getting steadily worse and by now it’s so bad that it’s hard to tell what’s even going on sometimes?