Chapter Text
Robert’s mouth twisted in confusion. “It’s called the what?”
“The Deviant Variant Management Program,” Blazer repeated. “I know it’s a lot of big words for you there, Rob, but I think you can keep up.”
Roberts signed drastically into the phone. He rubbed at his brow. “Why the hell did you have to spring this on me at 11 pm? Did you think it would make a nice bedtime story? I only function at a minimum of five hours not having to think about my job.”
“It’s…”
Robert sat up on his couch at the hesitation in Blazer’s voice. He’d expected a smooth jab in return. Instead, the hero just sounded tired.
“It’s happening tomorrow. Rob, it’s literally happening tomorrow.”
“What? What are you talking about? What is happening tomorrow?”
“You remember I told you about the SDN’s possible change in policies? Well, after sitting on the decision for like, years, out of the blue they announced that the government is shutting down the containment facility here in LA. It’s the first one to shut down, but eventually, all of them will be gone or used only for the most dangerous deviants. The government is…sort of ‘leasing’ them out, and they had an auction today…”
Robert could easily guess where this was going. “Oh my god. You. Did not. Do that.”
“…I did. Yeah. It was me who made the call.”
Robert breathed out very, very slowly. Trying to rein in his disappointment and anger, and said, “Why?”
There was an extended silence on the other end of the line. Eventually, she said, “Because that’s our job. I don’t see this any differently than taking in anyone into the Phoenix program. I want to do the right thing here, Rob, I really do, but they don’t make it easy for me. If doing the right thing is taking on someone and ‘reforming’ them like the government wants, and treating them like a fucking person at the same time, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“You-” Rob stopped himself. “You…fuck me, you might be right. I just…” He put his head into his hands. “Why me?”
“The other branches are accepting them as well, and a lot of private companies have taken them on as incarcerated laborers. I guess the SDN would do that too, but it’s going to take some time to figure out what hero work looks like for these guys. There’s still a lot about the situation I’m in the dark about. I need you for this. You’re one of the only people I know willing to give them a chance.”
God damn it, she was right.
“Alright. Alright! I’ll do it. Can I go to sleep now?”
“I’ll let you go. But just know that you won’t be in this alone. Chase will help you. And there are emergency services available if something goes wrong and they become a danger to us or the public.”
“Great. That makes me feel so much better. Goodnight.”
Robert hung up the phone before she could say the same. He felt petty afterward. She had told him she wanted to do the right thing, and damn it, he believed her.
He lay back on his couch, taking several deep breaths to calm his racing heart. A lot of emotions churned inside him. Anger at Blazer for springing yet another problem on his full-to-the-brim plate. Bitterness that the government had taken so long to do something so basically humane, and yet going about it in the most denigrating way possible. Fear at what controlling a much more violent individual might entail.
Disappointment in himself for assuming they would be violent at all.
Robert definitely wasn’t getting his five hours tonight.
--
Robert had tossed and turned all night thinking about the new hell awaiting him. He couldn’t get himself to calm down. He even tried meditating, for whatever that was worth. If he’d known the true scope of what was to come, he would have called it the greatest sleep of his life.
Because in the morning, Robert’s problems doubled.
It didn’t occur to him until he saw the armored truck pulling up to the front of the building that he had forgotten to ask Blazer just how many of them he was expected to babysit. He assumed one, and he was wrong.
Rob’s jaw literally dropped when two individuals walked out of the back of the truck, male and female, accompanied by two armored guards. Robert didn’t know what he’d expected. The internet passed around a lot of horrific monstrosities – people made of toxic goo or stone or something equally painful-looking – and in his mind, he knew those were the worst-case scenarios. But it did surprise him just how…normal, they seemed.
The lady had horns and purple-red skin and looked for all the world like a demon from a fantasy novel. Her eyes were a solid gold. Otherwise, she appeared normal, if a little tall and muscular for the average woman. Her dark red hair was pulled into a bun behind her horns, which made her look a little too put-together compared to the rest of her appearance.
The man had the head of a bat. That was pretty much it. He was about the same height as Robert, with an extra foot of ear. One of those ears twitched as Robert met his pupilless, milky eyes.
Besides that tiny motion, neither of them betrayed anything of their thoughts behind their stony expressions and those inhuman gazes. Each of them carried a small gray duffel bag slung around their shoulders. They wore matching white jumpsuits with red bands around the chest and arms, marking them as deviants. As though that wasn’t obvious enough.
To Robert’s surprise, they didn’t wear restraints. They walked out of the truck calmly and unimpaired, their guards’ guns put away at their sides. The whole situation felt like dropping kids off at a twisted sort of summer camp. Robert’s mouth tasted dry at the thought.
“Two?” he said, before his stupid brain knew what he was saying.
The man beside him – Anthony, the transfer coordinator, he had introduced himself as – gave him a strange look. “Were you not informed?”
“I guess not,” Robert said under his breath. He turned to the little balding man and asked, “So how’s this supposed to work?”
The man gave him a tight-lipped, professional smile that made Robert dislike him a lot more than he already did. “It’s a fairly easy process. I have some paperwork to go over with you and instructions about their central management device. Do you have an office you’d like to do that in, or…?”
“Sure. This way.” Robert motioned for them all to follow. Not knowing what else to do, he took the strange group into the empty break room. The lobby felt too formal to be the first introduction the new guys got from them. Introducing the team could come later. He had given them each explicit instructions to stay out of the main areas, at least for today.
“You can hang out in here,” Robert told them, trying not to be awkward and failing. “Sit down, if you want. I’m sure this won’t take all that long…”
The two deviants looked at the chairs, then back at him. The woman went to the closest chair and sat, and the man just stood there, staring at Robert.
He left them there with the guards, leading the man Anthony to one of the private meeting rooms. They spent about half an hour going over protocols and other boring stuff: who to call if this or that happened, what to do in this situation. It wasn’t anything new to the Phoenix program. The government had spent a lot of money ensuring that all supers stayed under their thumb. Blazer was under strict ethical clauses on when or where to use her powers. Almost anyone with any modicum of ability had a limitation agreement with the authorities. How those authorities enforced those agreements was different in each situation. Most of the time, it was by monitoring devices. Each of the members of the Z-Team, all being former criminals, had a wrist bracelet that could incapacitate them at any time, along with a kill-switch surgically implanted into their heads. These guys came with all that, too, and a lot more.
“You’ll need a new central management device, separate from your other one,” Anthony informed him, pulling out a little black remote from his bag. He handed it over. “It is naturally coded to your fingerprint. It can do everything the other one can, but there are several additional dials used to control the deviants. It’s rather complicated. Essentially, each of these dials changes a series of electrodes in the brain, signaling the release of certain neurotransmitters. You have a dial to help make them sleep, one for pain – only to be used if necessary, or course – one for frontal lobe activation, and one for dopamine levels. That one is more complicated than just one hormone, but essentially, that is what it controls. The handbook goes into more detail about everything. The one thing you should absolutely remember is to never adjust them too quickly. If one is in a certain range, another can’t be in a different range, or other configurations. That is why it’s very important to read the handbook.”
He said the last part as though he knew Robert had no intention of reading it. Well, he might skim it, but purely for curiosity’s sake. He found the entire thing to be stupid and barbaric. He had no intention of using the vile thing at all, just like he’d never had to use restraints for any of the Z-Team.
Not one.
Not even Flambae, that insubordinate prat.
“It’s quite a marvel of engineering,” Anthony continued. “Without it, there would be no safe way to ensure these metahumans could intermingle with the public. Now, we no longer need to use rudimentary drugs to gain what we want, but can rely solely on the deviant’s brain chemistry to keep them behaving like proper citizens. With this, we all get to progress.”
The man said the words like he actually believed them.
“Speaking of…”
Anthony pulled another file from his laptop bag. He opened it and handed the papers over. They were information on each of the deviants Robert would be handling.
“Both of these I understand were specially chosen by your supervisor because of their histories. Neither were brought into the rehabilitation programs as young children, but instead spent most of their formative years under our radar, likely hidden away by parents or relatives. The other thing they have in common is a history of criminal activity. We call this one Malevola.” He tapped the front page, showing the female with horns. “Born in Australia. She was brought on at seventeen. She was a hard one to pin down for a long time. Powers include night vision, portal creation, and wound transfer. For that, you don’t have to be too worried. She heals quickly and doesn’t feel much pain. The other one…”
The man flipped to the appropriate page. “Designation Sonar. He also heals quickly and possesses heightened hearing. His echolocation ability helps him make up for a lack of vision. He can read, but anything written needs to be enlarged. He is, compared to the other, much more of a concern to us.”
The little man interlaced his fingers and said gravely, “Since you seem somewhat uninformed, I must say: this isn’t just anyone you’ve taken on here. Sonar is one of the most elusive and dangerous deviants we’ve ever had to deal with. He’s escaped from our facilities three times, once for half a decade, and is one of the driving factors in the rapid advancement of this technology. His…volatility made him the perfect candidate to test our newest advancements in cognitive management. He’s responded very well to it over the last few years, but nothing can be said for certain. The instructions for his cognitive management device are different from Malevola’s. Make certain to go through them carefully.”
Every word out of the arrogant man’s mouth made Robert want to throttle him. He considered it a feat of human achievement to stay still in his seat while the man talked about experimentation like one would a work of art. In the end, all Robert could choke out was an unenthused, “I see.”
“And another thing to note: Sonar has an alternate form, one that is much larger and more destructive than he appears normally. Given the chance, he would gladly use this form to rip everyone in his vicinity limb from limb. This new management device has so far proved effective in suppressing it, but where there is a gun, there is always the possibility it might go off.” The man leaned back in his chair. “Suffice it to say, we didn’t have many options on where to send him. He was a candidate for euthanasia, but that was outlawed before his trial date could be set. Luckily, your superior informs me that you are quite gifted in managing challenging cases.”
Anthony raised an eyebrow at him, and Robert wanted to take those words and stuff them down this arrogant little man’s throat.
Damn you, Blazer…
They went over a few more inconsequential details, but by that point, Robert was hardly listening. He had concluded that he hated this person and wanted him gone as soon as possible. Pocketing the management device, he made vague promises to read the handbook and do everything the exact way he was supposed to do them, yada yada.
They returned to the meeting room to find the occupants in the same state as they left them. One guard was sitting at a table while the other leaned against a wall. The woman was still in her chair, while the man with the bat head – the dangerous one, according to Anthony – remained standing in place, his arms now crossed. He stared at the floor, face unreadable.
Anthony quickly left with the two guards. He said nothing to the deviants – not even a glance in their direction. It was as though he were all too eager to wash his hands of them.
“Well,” Robert said to the two strangers in the break room after the others had disappeared down the hall. He cleared his throat. “My name is Robert Robertson. I’m a dispatcher here at the SDN. On their behalf, I’d like to welcome you to the Z-Team.”