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“I feel like I should be a little offended that I need one of these,” Glory Girl said, playing with the ‘VISITOR’ lanyard around her neck. The smile she gave Vista took any bite out of the words, and the young heroes shared a light laugh before the elevator doors opened.
The PRT Archives could be accessed from any computer on the PRT’s intranet, but here on the seventh floor of the downtown PRT building was where researchers, reporters, or affiliated capes- like Glory Girl- could get in without breaking the rules and getting some inside source- like Vista- in trouble. This floor looked mostly like an ordinary office building, with shoulder-high cubicles forming rows through the otherwise open space. Three of the four walls were lined with windows, but with how large the space was, the center needed to be lit almost entirely by overhead electric lights.
There were people in business-casual attire working at some cubicles or carrying boxes of files around, a couple acknowledging Glory Girl and Vista with a smile or a nod as they passed. Vista seemed to be taking her job as escort and Ward ambassador very seriously, returning each greeting with a straight-faced nod of her head, while Glory Girl was, if not beaming, clearly very pleased to be here.
When they arrived at their destination- a console set into the ground in the middle of an intersection of cubicle rows- there was already someone occupying the middle of the three available chairs, moving a mouse and clicking on the keyboard occasionally.
“Deputy Director,” Vista addressed the man. He turned, revealing a smile on a hard-lined face, and stood to face them.
“Glory Girl, Vista.” He nodded to each in turn, and then turned his full attention to Glory Girl. “I was pleasantly surprised to hear that someone finally took advantage of our hero outreach program.” He extended a hand, which she took in a firm shake. “We usually keep things locked down to public-level access for convenience, but established heroes tend to enjoy expanded privileges in our database, so I had to come down here and unlock a few things for you.”
“I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you,” Glory Girl said, still smiling.
“Not at all. It’s a nice excuse to get out of the office and stretch my legs a bit.” Stepping around Vista and out of the way, he added, “I won’t keep you two any longer. On behalf of the PRT, we hope to see you again soon, Glory Girl.”
Vista nudged her cape-friend’s hip with her elbow. “I bet he’d prefer to see Princess Powerful instead.”
Glory Girl laughed as they took their seats. “They had to have been kidding when they suggested that. Even my sister Amy broke out laughing when I told her what your PR people tried to stick me with.”
The Deputy Director had left the console switched on, so Glory Girl was able to dive right in. She found the search box and entered her first query, clicked her tongue at the results, and then navigated the submenus to narrow down her search.
Vista leaned in. “So, it’s not like I’m not happy for the chance to hang out, but what are you really here for? If you want to know what being a Ward is like, you can just talk to me or Gallant, and if you’re after war stories, I’m sure your mom has a ton.”
“I’m looking for the kind of stuff that doesn’t get into cape elective courses or online message boards. Patrols and cape training are one thing, but there’s a whole other world of powers out there to explore, and a lot of it is behind a PRT firewall.”
“Soooo, nerd shit?” Vista asked.
“Yup, nerd shit. I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” Glory Girl said, directing a sidelong grin at Vista. “The thing is…” she tapped at the keyboard a couple of times, and her expression hardened when the screen refreshed with a sparse results page. “I guess there isn’t as much as I thought. Or if there is anything, it requires a higher security clearance or something. The few articles and video files I can find are things we have in the New Wave material at home already.”
Vista, clearly not too invested in the ‘nerd shit’, only responded with a short hum of agreement, or sympathy.
“I guess there’s more here, actually. It’s not my first choice, but maybe there are still some interesting things that only the PRT would have in here.” Glory Girl said, clearing out her previous search and starting a new one. “Policies that you wouldn’t find on their website, or personnel reports.”
“So you can read between the lines, and learn more cape shit without them actually telling you the cape part of it,” Vista said, nodding.
“Exactly.”
The two sat there for quite a while, and Vista eventually pulled out her phone to pass the time while Glory Girl scanned through patrol reports, summaries of team meetings, and policy memos. After checking texts and emails and responding to a couple of them, Vista was a bit surprised to hear Glory Girl suddenly speak up.
“Hey Vista, do they make the Wards go to regular therapy sessions?”
Vista looked up from her phone and blinked a couple times, the gesture partially hidden by her visor. “Uh, no. You have to see a shrink when you join, and they do checkups along with the yearly physical exam, but that’s it. Why?”
Glory Girl nodded toward the screen. “Check this out. It’s a report that’s attached to a policy update about PRT therapists. From-“ she scrolled up- “2001. I guess they changed the policy again later, because this update talks about mandatory weekly sessions. Anyway, the report is the interesting thing; this was back when each PRT base had a therapist on staff, like as a permanent position. Apparently that didn’t work out too well.”
PRT INCIDENT REPORT
0724-2001-NWA-A9-0821
Interview Subject: Clifford Hadel
Interview Specialist: Nora Blanett
Nora Blanett: “This is Special PRT Investigator Nora Blanett, interviewing former PRT psychotherapist and current criminal suspect Clifford Hadel. Please confirm that your identity and former position have been correctly stated."
Clifford Hadel: "You’re correct, that is my name and I… was a psychotherapist employed by the PRT Northwest, branch A. I normally saw both Protectorate heroes and Wards, and occasionally I would be responsible for current or former PRT or police officers, as I had a background in parahuman studies.”
Nora Blanett: “Were these additional duties assigned to you?”
Clifford Hadel: “Indirectly, yes.”
Nora Blanett: “Please explain.”
Clifford Hadel: “It was a trend with Director Escherson that when you were told about a problem through official channels, it was your responsibility to deal with it, even without official orders.”
Nora Blanett: “This was your understanding?”
Clifford Hadel: “It was something I had to pick up on. The truth is, nothing around here would actually get done without all of us pulling unofficial overtime, or doing things off the books and keeping quiet about it.”
Nora Blanett: “You’re saying you were aware of policy violations that you didn’t report?”
Clifford Hadel: “Is this relevant?”
Nora Blanett: “If I determine that it is, then yes. Please answer the question.”
“He really just lists them all, huh?” Vista leaned back in her chair, cocking an arm over the back.
“They have to be thorough, I guess,” Glory Girl muttered, scrolling down past pages of back-and-forth. “I’ve testified in court a couple of times, the prep work is a lot like this. They ask you the same thing like five times, and if you try to give an example, they’ll make you give them every example.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes, this is about what happened with Evan. Or Purgate if we’re using codenames.”
Nora Blanett: “Please use the hero identity names for any parahumans we discuss.”
Clifford Hadel: “Understood.”
“I get that this is like a decade old, but why is this cape’s name on here? It’s not even redacted or scrambled or anything.” Glory Girl was tilting her head, as if the text on the screen would change when viewed from a different angle. “Have you heard of Purgate before?”
Vista had perked up, and was now scanning over the screen with a hand cradling her chin. “I think there was a villain named Purgation or Purgatoria or something, but they were a villain in Europe. This is weird, did the Deputy Director leave you logged in with his clearance by accident or something?”
“No, that’s not it,” Glory Girl said. She put her hands back on the keyboard and exited out of the file. She clicked on one of the submenus of her search criteria, pulling up a dropdown menu. “See, the system won’t even let me try to search for stuff with a higher clearance than ‘Bronze 2’. And this file is…” A few more keystrokes brought the details of the report up. “Huh. It’s open to anyone, even the public. Maybe Purgate revealed his civilian identity, like New Wave? Or maybe he died, and put in his will that he wanted his name de-censored.”
“That’s pretty rare,” Vista said, “buuut, I have heard of that happening before. Okay, consider me satisfied.”
Glory Girl explored a bit more, opening a file full of budget items, one picture file with what looked like the therapist’s employee ID photo, and another with some kind of circular rune.
“What’s that?” Vista asked, practically looking over Glory Girl’s shoulder. “Just looking at it gives me a headache.”
“Evidence, maybe. If you squint, it kind of looks like a map? Maybe those scratchy lines are some kind of topo- tolographical thing? The way they show elevation on a map with wavy lines, you know?”
“It’s topographical I think, yeah.” Vista said.
Glory Girl scratched at her cheek. “Okay, let’s get back into the interview.”
Clifford Hadel: “Understood.”
Nora Blanett: “Let’s start with the incident itself. When did you become aware of Purgate’s actions?”
Clifford Hadel: “I learned that he went through with his idea a couple of hours ago, when I was… I suppose I have been arrested, now?”
Nora Blanett: “But you knew about the idea itself before that?”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes, and so did the Director. And the Deputy Director, and-“
Nora Blanett: “Please stay on topic, Mr. Hadel. When did you first learn about Purgate’s plan?”
Clifford Hadel: “It was about a month ago. June… perhaps June twentieth. There should be a paper trail, dated reports. Unless…”
Nora Blanett: “Please describe what happened at that time.”
Clifford Hadel: “It was my regularly scheduled session with Purgate. It’s no secret that his powers interfere with his personal life, and we usually started by checking in on how that was going for him.”
Nora Blanett: “Was that the case in this session?”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes, but we quickly moved on. Three days before, there had-“
Nora Blanett: “This was on the seventeenth?”
Clifford Hadel: “Oh, it would be, yes. June seventeenth. You remember, Bright Knight had been injured by that new group of villains, Severance. Or maybe that was the name of the specific villain, I can’t recall.”
Nora Blanett: “That’s a pretty big detail to forget.”
Clifford Hadel: “Just because I have a specialty in parahumanity, Ms. Blanett, that doesn’t mean I follow the tabloid cape circuit religiously. I know that Bright Knight was harmed by Severance, and that the heroes of the Protectorate and the PRT have been unable to capture them, but the particulars are not important to me.”
Nora Blanett: “Interesting.”
[There is a short pause]
Nora Blanett: “On the twentieth, you and Purgate discussed the incident between Bright Knight and Severance, is that correct?”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes. It affected everyone here. It made such a splash, it even made national news I think. As far as I know, Purgate isn’t especially close to Bright Knight, but in the aftermath of the incident, when people were afraid that something similar would happen again, all of the Wards felt that-“
Nora Blanett: “You include Purgate in that?”
Clifford Hadel: “What?”
Nora Blanett: “You said ‘all the Wards’. This included Purgate, is that correct?”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes. Yes, Purgate and the other Wards all felt that their ability to make a difference was hindered by our- by the PRT’s regulations. Keeping them out of fights, restricting them to PR events and ride-alongs, that sort of thing.”
Nora Blanett: “How do you know the standard duties of a Ward?”
Clifford Hadel: “…excuse me?”
Nora Blanett: “How do you know the standard duties of a Ward?”
Clifford Hadel: “I’m a parahuman psychotherapist, I worked directly with Wards. Why wouldn’t I?”
Nora Blanett: “You said that you don’t follow cape news. You said you didn’t know if Severance was a group or a single villain.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes. Well… I couldn’t tell you about action figure sales or villain arrests, but the daily duties and responsibilities of the Wards- and the Protectorate for that matter- are very much my business.”
Nora Blanett: “Were your business.”
[There is a pause]
Clifford Hadel: “Yes.”
“What a bitch,” Vista said. At Glory Girl’s questioning look, she added, “what? Just because I’m young, that doesn’t mean I can’t swear.”
“It’s not that, Vista.” Glory Girl said, rubbing the corner of one eye with her thumb. “My mom’s a lawyer when she’s not Brandish, you know that, right?”
“I remember, yeah. What does that have to do with this?”
“This interrogating person- Nora Blanett- reminds me a lot of my mom, or the criminal lawyers she’s had me talk to before. It’s not that she’s being a bitch, she’s just trying to find inconsistencies, poke holes in his story. It sucks if he’s innocent, if there are no holes, but this is how we catch the bad guys who we can’t just handcuff and stuff in a patrol car. She probably doesn’t have anything against him, it’s just how interrogations work.”
“I guess,” Vista muttered. She shifted to get a better angle, scratching her cheek idly with the hand her chin rested on.
Clifford Hadel: “Yes.”
Nora Blanett: “Let’s get back to Purgate. You said he felt…”
Clifford Hadel: “Held back. Hindered, is the word I think I used. He wanted to do more than the Protectorate would allow him to, and one of the ways I helped him process those feelings was to help him bounce ideas.”
Nora Blanett: “What kind of ideas?”
Clifford Hadel: “Art ideas. You’re familiar with Purgate’s power?”
Nora Blanett: “Yes. Are you qualified to perform power implementation consultation?”
Clifford Hadel: “No, but-“
Nora Blanett: “And that is what you did. Correct?”
Clifford Hadel: “It was never in an official capacity. I helped-“
Nora Blanett: “Describe in detail your interactions with Purgate which related to his power.”
Clifford Hadel: “It all related to his power. Parahumans can have civilian names and cape names, but there’s only one person. Only one identity, and that identity is shaped and influenced by the power.”
Nora Blanett: “Describe these ‘idea bouncing’ interactions, then.”
[Clifford Hadel sighs. There is a short pause.]
Clifford Hadel: “I logged all of my notes- which is required- and those include any ideas with his power that we discussed.”
Nora Blanett: “Please give me your recollection.”
Clifford Hadel: “On the twentieth, we talked about the most dangerous way his power could be used. Self-propagating.”
Nora Blanett: “Did you endorse this use of his power?”
Clifford Hadel: “It’s not my place to endorse or forbit anything to do-“
Nora Blanett: “Did you endorse-“
Clifford Hadel: “I did not. I did not endorse any use of Purgate’s power, I simply listened to him, discussed implications for himself and others, and reminded him what limits the PRT places on powers like his.”
Nora Blanett: “Did you aid in the production of a self-propagating event?”
Clifford Hadel: “Define aid.”
Nora Blanett: “Did you draw diagrams, provide technical insights for him to use, connect him with others who would do the same, or in any way contribute to the production of a self-propagating event?”
Clifford Hadel: “No. I provided Purgate a space where he could safely explore and talk about the idea without judgement, but I never did anything more than that.”
Nora Blanett: “Did Purgate ever signal that he intended to produce or release a self-propagating event?”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes. Never seriously, but yes.”
Nora Blanett: “What do you mean, ‘not seriously’?”
Clifford Hadel: “He talked about it the same way that a frustrated office worker might talk about bringing a gun to work. It was to blow off steam, not a serious plan.”
Nora Blanett: “Did you find it to be troubling behavior?”
Clifford Hadel: “Of course I did. Of course I did. He’s fifteen years old, and he has the ability to-“
[There is a short pause]
Clifford Hadel: “Parahumans are frightening.”
Nora Blanett: “Yes they are.”
Clifford Hadel: “But they’re also people. They’re human beings, who- we were never meant to have that much power. Psychologically, the human brain can’t really perceive the world at that scale, where one person might have the power to wipe out a city or kill… well. It’s at least a hundred by now, right?”
Nora Blanett: “The event hasn’t been entirely contained yet due to its unique nature, so the final death toll may be much higher, but yes, at least a hundred.”
Clifford Hadel: “God. I know the part I played in this, but… well, I should have spoken up. I was a coward, told myself I was just following orders.”
Nora Blanett: “Whose orders did you follow?”
Clifford Hadel: “Director Escherson ordered me to encourage Purgate to make- what did you call it? A self-propagating event?”
Nora Blanett: “Is there a record of these orders?”
Clifford Hadel: “Sure, if you read between the lines. But I know what you’re getting at. Yes, this was that kind of indirect, unofficial order that I talked about earlier.”
Nora Blanett: “And you interpreted this order to be… what, exactly?”
Clifford Hadel: “To encourage- even manipulate- Purgate into using his power to make a self-propagating event.”
Nora Blanett: “And to use it?”
Clifford Hadel: “I don’t know.”
Nora Blanett: “You don’t know-“
Clifford Hadel: “I don’t direct PRT activities. The director wanted a bomb, I don’t know if he wanted it as a threat, as leverage, or if he wanted to use it, or…”
Nora Blanett: “You’re speaking of Purgate’s self-propagating event.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes, that’s what I mean when I use the word bomb.”
Nora Blanett: “And you manipulated a Ward into creating that event on your own initiative?”
Clifford Hadel: “No. No, there isn’t a paper trail but it wasn’t my idea. If you look at the memos, the responses to my reports, Director Escherson all but says that we need Purgate to use his abilities to their full extent.”
Nora Blanett: “Those were the words Director Escherson wrote?”
Clifford Hadel: “That or something similar. I don’t know. He’s got plausible deniability, of course. He always adds qualifiers, or phrases something as a hypothetical, but it’s clear what he’s getting at.”
Nora Blanett: “Clear to you.”
Clifford Hadel: “Not just me. Escherson was like this with the PR people, the handlers for the capes, the PRT officers, everyone.”
Nora Blanett: “Please calm down, Mr. Hadel. Becoming agitated will help no one.”
[There is a long pause]
Clifford Hadel: “He didn’t want to, at first.”
Nora Blanett: “Who?”
Clifford Hadel: “Purgate. We’d talked about what he could do with his power, but like I said it was never serious. So when I started bringing the conversation around to it more, focusing more on the actual execution-“
Nora Blanett: “What do you mean by that?”
Clifford Hadel: “What do I mean by what?”
Nora Blanett: “Execution.”
Clifford Hadel: “Purgate’s power requires a medium. Different mediums have different effects, or they do different things better.”
Nora Blanett: “I’m familiar.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes, well… Purgate can’t normally create an effect that’s self-replicating or self-sustaining. Paper, plaster, he even tried blood, as I recall, but anything more than an extended duration was just theoretical.”
[There is a short pause]
Clifford Hadel: “I said that Purgate was frustrated, and he was. He wanted to fight villains, to hurt them, even. But he had- he had lines that he wouldn’t cross. Rules that kept him on the side of good, let him be a hero. He was a good kid, and he never would have done this if it wasn’t for me.”
Nora Blanett: “But you blame the Director.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yes. The director read my reports, read the notes that I don’t submit for any other case, that he had to issue an order for me to submit them. He read them, read what I was doing over that month, and he approved of my work.”
Nora Blanett: “He told you this directly?”
“Jesus, what did Purgate do?”
Glory Girl frowned at the screen, scrolling down past another argument. “He calls it a bomb, but I’m pretty sure he’s being metaphorical. And ‘self-propagating’ means that it makes more of itself, like a virus. If Purgate could make something like that, he could be as dangerous as Nilbog or the Machine Army.”
Vista slumped back in her chair, head lolling behind her.
“I’m thinking it’s like a chain explosion. An explosion that causes another explosion, that kind of thing. They talked about a high death toll, right? If Purgate’s power targeted a building but blew up a whole city block, that would make sense.”
Glory Girl blinked hard, and then rubbed at her eye.
“Maybe…”
Nora Blanett: “Did you inspire, encourage, or otherwise promote the self-concealing aspect of the event?”
Clifford Hadel: “No. I didn’t even know that was a part of it until he released the thing.”
Nora Blanett: “You had no knowledge of the event’s ability to evade detection or containment?”
Clifford Hadel: “Not to the degree that it has now.”
Nora Blanett: “Explain.”
Clifford Hadel: “The ‘event’ was always going to be easy to spread once we realized that Purgate could digitize it. It’s hard to contain email spam or a computer virus, so that was always going to be a problem if it ever got released. But I never knew that it could… control people. Change how they think about it. What is it they call it, that kind of power? Guise? Stranger?”
Nora Blanett: “A Stranger power often helps disguise a cape or make them appear different.”
Clifford Hadel: “Yeah, that sounds right. I didn’t know there was any kind of Stranger aspect to the thing.”
Nora Blanett: “How would you describe the ‘Stranger aspect’?”
Clifford Hadel: “I don’t know… all I know is what I saw, what they told me. It seems innocuous, right? You can see someone scratching their faces off, blood pouring out of their eyes just from looking at it, and you’ll step right over their corpse to pick it up yourself. Some cape tried to make a program or filter that would delete it, but it slipped through. I think I heard that the original symbol that Purgate made was put in a box marked ‘hazardous materials’ or something, and the label changed to ‘sensitive materials’.”
Nora Blanett: “That report has not been confirmed. We have a copy of the artifact that Purgate used to initiate the event here. Did you provide any guidance or feedback on specific elements of this design?”
Glory Girl had joined Vista in leaning back, eyes closed as if asleep.
The blood now freely leaking from their tear ducts pooled around their brows before overflowing and dripping down onto the carpet.
An intern who had been working on this floor approached the two, and saw their console open to the PRT database system. His intention had been to ask for Glory Girl’s autograph, but that didn’t look very likely now, so he glanced at what the two young heroes had been reading.
“A transcript… oh.” There was another file open, and the intern reached around Vista’s bruise-purple body to reach the mouse.
The other file was a picture of some kind of symbol or rune. There were odd lines over the surface, criss-crossing and overlapping each other to create an impression of a three-dimensional shape, like an optical illusion of an impossible cube.
The intern thumbed a droplet of blood away from his eye and continued reading the interview with renewed interest.