Emily wasn’t so sure.  “It’s… a change.”

It does mean another opportunity for the Nine to pick up a new member and shake up their tactics, unless they take out the rest first.

“Not a good one?”

“The closing line reads, ‘Thanks for the help.’  I can’t help but read it in a sarcastic tone.”

You’re reading it right, then. Maybe that’ll tell Legend who sent this.

“The bug girl?  Skitter?”

Bingo.

Emily nodded.  “Exactly.  As good as it is to have one more member of the Nine dealt with, this shifts the balance of power towards another group of villains.  It also serves to move up our deadline.”

You mean because there’ll be fewer tester rounds now before they say they’re done?

I don’t know that that’s a bad thing for Brockton Bay specifically.

It might be a bad thing for the world because it’d increase the chance of Jack leaving the city when the tester rounds are over, assuming they keep going with the game, but for Brockton Bay in particular, them leaving would be a good thing. Not so much for the next town they go to to recruit (the game only allows them to recruit one member if they lose), though.

“What do you want to do?”

“Call a meeting.  Protectorate and Wards.”

Time to attack?

“Alright.”

■

I guess we’re skipping to the meeting.

“How so?”

“Family.  I wonder if it is harder or easier to get through the day if you have people waiting for you at the end.”

Hmm.

I suppose she did say she hadn’t wanted kids. But family goes beyond just that. Legend and Arthur could be considered a family even without Keith.

“Yes.”

Heh. Both, then?

She smiled a little at that.

They entered the lab, and Emily Piggot very carefully measured the expressions of every person in the room when they noticed Legend.  Awe, surprise, amazement.  Sometimes ambivalence.

I suppose these people don’t see him as often as some of the PRT folks closer to the action.

What could she take away from that?  If she were to promote one of them, should she promote one of the awestruck ones, or one of the taciturn?  The starry-eyed might be in the PRT for the wrong reasons, but the ones who were unfazed by the presence of one of the most notable heroes in the United States could easily be plants, hiding their emotion or simply too used to the presence of capes to care.

The former is probably safer.

“The note?”

“No traces of toxins, radiation, powders or transfers.”

Transfers? Is that a thing in real life or just their term for traces left by a power used on the paper or the writing?

“Why the priority?  We get letters from cranks every day.”

“The man who delivered the message reported a fairly convoluted series of safeguards to protect the identity of the sender.

Interesting. Did they not mention that it ultimately came from Skitter, then?

Or is this not her message? Cauldron seems more the type to get that convoluted about it, but why would they send a message to the PRT?

Apparently the man who gave him his instructions was given the note by a civilian, and ordered to find a random individual to deliver it to the PRT, all with compensation arranged.”

This does sound like Cauldron’s style. It’s just that it could very well be Cranston’s style too.

Also, which part of it do you envy, Piggy? You said earlier that you didn’t want kids, so is it about the romance instead? Or are you lying?

Legend nodded.

“He knew the price of admission,” she said.

Yeah, he did choose to do this with Legend, after all.

Legend smiled.  “You’re always straight to the point, Director.”

“But the child is good?  A boy or a girl?”

I’ve been wondering that too, but who knows. Maybe Legend and Arthur have decided to raise them without gender expectations. I’m pretty sure that’s a thing some parents choose to do, maybe especially those involved in the LGBT community.

“A boy.  Keith.”

Not a bad name.

“You’ve heard there are some third generation parahumans on record?”

Ooh, how easy is it for them to trigger? Is it the same as for second-gen, or is it even easier?

“For a while now.  We knew they were being born anyways, right?”

“We did.  But nothing’s official until it’s on record.  But the point I was getting at was that there was apparently an incident.”

…oh?

“Oh?”

That’s my line.

“In Toronto.  A five-year-old manifested powers.  A third generation parahuman.”

Oh dear. How damn powerful is that going to make them?

Also at least it’s not in Montréal. That would raise questions.

“Of course.”

They walked past the reams of public servants, government employees and Piggot’s own people.  Emily knew she was not the only one overburdened with work, not the only one sweating, trying and failing to keep cool.

I’m also sweating, trying and failing to keep cool, but that’s because it’s currently 29°C out, in the shade.

The rest of her people were staying awake with the benefits of coffee more than anything else.

The moment the city’s problems end

(which is very likely never), all the PRT mundanes are going to fall asleep at their desks at the same time.

She couldn’t turn away everyone that volunteered or was sent to Brockton Bay to assist her PRT division, but there were too many.  Space was at a premium, and there were too few places where she could establish secure offices, where buildings didn’t threaten to fall down and where assistance was actively needed.

May have to think a bit outside the cubicle.

Still, she’d sent people away when she could.

“How’s the family?” She asked.  “You adopted, if I remember right?”

Oh man, is this where we learn about Legend’s orientation, about how the guy is about as straight as his (rainbow) lasers?

From this, it really sounds like Legend is happily married, or at least has an official partnership with a loving boyfriend, and they’ve adopted a child together. If that’s the case, I’m really happy for them. 🙂

(It’s worth noting that gay marriage wasn’t legal in the U.S. yet when this was written, though it’s entirely possible Wildbow decided to use his power over this world’s timeline since the 80′s for good for once.)

“We did.  Arthur was worried that a surrogate parent would give birth to a parahuman, and if that happened, he’d be out of the loop.”

I love how casually this is established, too.

Arthur is a good name for a dad.

“I’m reading up on our opposition.”  She wouldn’t apologize, but she couldn’t keep the sympathy from her face.

Yeah, she has nothing to apologize for here (if either of them has, it’s Legend, for butting in on what she’s watching), but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be respectful of his loss.

“I flew up to check if you were in your office, and I saw the video.  My fault for seeing what I did.  It wasn’t a good day.”

Yeeah.

She nodded curtly.  It hadn’t been.  One could even suggest it was when things started to go bad.  The loss of Hero, the first time a truly dangerous villain made an appearance.

Oh yeah, Siberian being another early parahuman absolutely supports the thing I was talking about re: strong early capes.

“What did you want to see me for?”

“A note delivered for you at the front door.  We gave it a high priority.”

Skitter’s message?

“You’re taking the standard precautions?”

Making sure there’s no letter bombs or powers involving writing or paper at play, I would assume?

He nodded.  “It’s already on its way to the lab.”

“Join me?”  She lifted herself out of the chair, keenly aware of the differences in her and Legend: parahuman and human, male and female, lean muscle and eighty pounds of extra weight, tall and average in height.

Casually flies around and firmly planted on the ground (more firmly than average, even).

Also I’m still getting the vague impression that Piggy doesn’t like parahumans all that much, and took this job to help protect against parahuman threats more than to support the friendly parahumans, even though public perception of the heroes is one of her main Things.

This little Piggy wanted to protect her fellow pigs against the big bad wolf.