Just a Phase [Worm]

Don't forget that Taylor is no longer the ENE region problem, legally they have crossed the T's and dotted the I's well enough that Taylor -I love loopholes- Hebert hasn't found a way of revealing the issue without falling in serious troubles with the law (which she isn't willing to break yet) and from her arrival in Boston the responsability of dealing with Phase's information contaiment and Ward training and indoctrination is that particular branch of the Wards Program.

The headache that are the YG newest restrictions and fines are better than having an Internal Affairs investigation which would have ended with those same YG findings, plus any administrative punishments recommended by IA, plus an immediate PR problem, plus both criminal trials and civil lawsuits, plus a politically costly (internal) scandal, plus one hostile teen who most likely would specifically hate ENE heroes regardless of anyone's actions after her disastrous introduction to the Wards AND would be In Good Standing therefore being really hard to punish or censor. Compared to that as far as the ENE Protectorate and PRT are concerned having to keep a close eye on both Ampere and Shadow Stalker while giving them the worse assignments and applying fines to reduce their salary to the legal minimum is a relief.

Sucks to be the Boston PRT/Protectorate/Wards and being forced to clean Piggot's mess.

 

I am surprised no one mentioned this yet but Emma was using standard abuser tactics when apologising to Taylor, which is to be apologetic (maybe even have it be genuine) but the thing is with abusers is that in the case of the abused forgiving them they will often times fall back into old habits thus keeping the abused (Taylor) in the same vicious cycle.

 

Which ironically enough she probably used so many times before to torture Taylor that she was more than ready to consider the message in really bad faith and run to the YG advocate to fill a complain, ironically enough considering him the only person in a long, long time to actually do something useful about the bullying.

 

Yep fool Taylor once shame on you, fool Taylor twice shame on her, fool her three times expect bugs in your lungs or rather a hand reaching into your chest cavity.

But yes Taylor has no obligation to forgive her abusers for any of their actions, because they had plenty of opportunities to stop when it became clear Taylor wouldn't respond the way Emma wanted her to so everything that happened is on the trio and not Taylor.

 

It also lets them manipulate the Authority they are apologizing from and makes the Target seem like the problem if after the first (or second, or even fifteenth) time they refuse to accept the apology and both forgive and forget. If the Target refuses to work with the abuser and keeps acting like they are an enemy out to get them, the Target gets painted as "paranoid" and gets told things like "this is NOT how to make friends". The Authority then concludes the Target is the problem and is "making themselves a target" or "bringing it on themselves." Pointing out previous apologies followed by more abuse falls on deaf ears since the Authority has labeled the Target the problem and any protests are either lies, manipulation, or self-delusion. I particularly hated the "The problem is you believe your own lies" line.

Actually, in a school situation you get considered insubordinate and punished if they make the bully apologize and you don't "forgive and forget" and act willing to "make up and be friends". Pointing out the number of times they have done that only for the abusers to wait a couple of days before starting up again just gets you labeled something like "oppositional" or "paranoid" or "poor me, everybody's out to get me" or something that makes the Target the problem.

 

The whole forgive and make friends thing never made sense to me, because why should I have to be nice to guy who was a total ass to me just because he said sorry, while it isn't good to focus on a grudge that doesn't mean you have to let someone walk all over you because they said two words.

Another thing to mention about that scene where Emma sends the text that if Taylor had gone to anyone but the YG about it she would have definitly had the forgive and be friends thing shoved down her throat. But she didn't and went to Jim who has probably been trained to handle such situations and reacted appropriately.

 

That if anything seemed to be the most unbelievable thing about the whole affair. An adult NOT trying to force Taylor to accept her abuser's apology and be civil to them? Not making Taylor the bad guy for "rejecting that attempt at forgiveness"? Not saying "Attitudes like that are why you don't have any friends?"
Forgiving one transgression or somebody who made a mistake and was out of line and apologized is one thing. Forgiving somebody who has done a harassment campaign before they have proven to have changed their ways is quite another. Especially if this isn't the first time they have apologized.
Saying "Fine, I'll accept it provided you stay away from me as I don't trust you to change your ways after the previous apologies. So you can prove it by never bothering me again." is for some reason viewed as wrong by Authorities, and often landed ME a punishment.

Sorry, situations like this strike a little close to home for me. They (school psychologist, Dean of Students) say bulling like that is harmless, I'm too thin-skinned, making mountains out of molhills, but even with a few years of therapy and 25 years to "get over it" I still have a few scars from it, if my attitude is any indication. It's not like they (the school psychologist or the Dean) have to live every day in fear of what will happen and if you are going to be attacked in the hallways then blamed for "allowing the situation to escalate to violence" and "Not de-escalating the situation", or "Not ignoring it".

Yes, I was harassed in 8th grade and high school, just about everything Taylor went through but The Locker and the e-mail (I was a computer geek and _I_ didn't have an e-mail address until senior year when Hotmail offered free web-based e-mail addresses in '96, and could only access it from school or the library) or social media stuff (that hadn't been invented yet) I also went through. It's nothing new. I tended to get more violence and far fewer physical "pranks" than Taylor however. Oh, I never had a teacher tell me to sit on a dirty seat, at least the teacher made me clean up the mess around me the bullies made saying "You're responsible for keeping your area clean. It was clean when you came in, it should be clean when you leave". Even if she would ignore them throwing crap at me to make the mess.

 

Fuck the law, and the people demanding it be followed like holy writ.

The system fucked Taylor, and so she owes it nothing. In fact, she doesn't owe shit to the laws, the system, her father, the wards, the so-called "heroes," the protectorate, the PRT, and certain not a fucking thing to the government.

They fucked her, then said she had to shut up and deal with it like a good little pawn. Fuck them, and everything they love, stand for, created, hold dear and desire. If they didn't want Taylor or others to hit back, they shouldn't have started playing dirty pool.

 

My point was exactly that the law as written is entirely on Taylors side, and all the things they're doing to Taylor, is using their influence to bend the law.

I was talking about the fact, that even if Taylor decide to become a run-away, they don't have a good legal argument to use that for putting her on probation, as the extent of a crime being a run-away is, is truancy and loitering, and outside of a corrupt court, that press for hundreds of times the normal sentence for those crimes, the crimes of truancy and loitering is at most getting you a sentence to juvenile hall measured in weeks, which isn't enough to get Taylor to accept a probation agreement to avoid.

Even if Taylor is also caught in petty theft while being a run-away, the punishment a juvenile get for petty theft in a fair court, don't extend a sentence to more than at most months in juvenile hall, so even then they don't have much of an argument for forcing Taylor on probation.

And most likely Taylor wouldn't need to sink to petty theft, if nothing else Parahumans are interesting, so even a poorly made street performance that involve Parahuman powers, could probably get her enough money to survive.

 

In Taylor's case she has a few things weighing in on her favor.

1. An acknowledged problem between her and Emma and Sophia. Bad enough it was required to send one of them to another city to keep them apart.
2. Taylor kicked up enough of a fuss to get the Youth Guard to open an investigation. And they found enough shit in a week or so they basically shut down the ENE Wards till they got to the bottom of it.
3. This was not a casual contact. "Phase" as a temporary alias is not in any messaging system directory. Emma had to social engineer contact info out of Armsmaster to send that message.
4. Points two and three to the Youth Guard make it basically a major suspect in their investigation trying to contact the primary witness of the same investigation. That would get anyone slapped down, hard. As James said, the PRT should have already blocked messages from Shadow Stalker and Ampere to "Phase" in their official messaging app. The fact we see Emma getting a "Message blocked" bounce back in the first interlude shows it is possible.
5. The contents of the message. In which Emma not only admitted how she got around the normal restriction to contact a Ward without a full ID, but also used Taylor's real name in the message. That should be the violation of OpSec that gets Wards yelled at who are actually friends. In the context of the situation as already acknowledged? It could be seen as a threat to "accidentally" out Phase. Also it said Emma wanted to "apologize for everything over the last two years." While not a direct admission? It is suggestive, given the other acknowledged facts.
6. Politics. Taylor is one of the few Wards who isn't part of their Omerta towards the Youth Guard. She is doing a fire sale business in handing them crowbars to pry up areas that other Wards keep quiet about. So as the goose laying golden prybars she is an ally to help and consider her side valid till disproven.

Of course Taylor thinks the PRT will shuffle this under the rug, again. Which is why she doesn't go to Weld, her (alleged) Ward team leader. Nor Gauss, her Protectorate mentor. Nor escalate the complaint to Director Armstrong. She immediately goes to the Youth Guard to get them to file a complaint over all of their heads. Well "immediate" after finding out where James's contact info is buried in her phone.

 

Is that even legal? She didn't sign those NDAs her father did, so it's him who can be punished for her breaking them, which mean it's not a crime she's liable for to break them, and if it's something she can't be punished for, are they allowed to use force to prevent her from doing it?

And isn't there laws against NDAs being used to cover up crimes.

 

We need to accept that as far as this fic is concerned everything the ENE has done is not illegal enough for the people in a different jurisdiction to be concerned. My interpretation is that the Wards NDA were signed by her before meeting the Wards and discovering who SS and Ampere were, and therefore legal. The problem from Taylor's PoV is that she is not a lawyer especialized in NDA's and those laws are complex enough that reading a few books won't help without years of focused study on them so she really can't understand yet the strict limits of an NDA in the eyes of the law.

Plus in my omake at least they acknowledge that she can go to court as long as she does not reveal the fact they are wards, and even then is not outright impossible, just harder to do, not to mention that the PRT is technically not covering up the crime, they are slowing down the investigation so much that it will take years before a judge sees it, not illegal per se but close enough that they will get in hot water if they cross any more lines.

 

A few critiques. One, there is alot of "talking heads" in here. Frankly I can't keep track of who is saying what dialog.

Two, using Taylor's real name in the meeting. If they are already walking on egg shells they don't want a PRT team leader to mess up and publicly call her "Taylor" at this early stage. Even if "public" is in a PRT and Protectorate only area of their HQ.

Three, making sure the ENE can't contact here didn't seem to be done. Since Emma did it. For suggested changes, if set before that message? "One advantage of refusing testing is her temporary ID is only in the restricted directories. Protectorate team leaders, Directors and their seconds plus people on her "need to know" list like Weld and unfortunately her Youth Guard rep. So it's not like her bullies can contact her up here, and hopefully that will give her time to cool off."

Or if set after, have the question brought up on how the hell Ampere got Phase's contact info. "She wheedled it out of Armsmaster. And worse the little shit used Phase's real name. Reed made sure to point that out, once he got it redacted from the system, as Ampere sending a threat. We got a formal block on anyone in the ENE contacting Phase directly now, but it still didn't help us with getting her on board."

Which leads to, Four. "Dealing with Phase" didn't include any way to get her to willingly participate. The lack of ideas on how to stop her by force was a good way to segue into it, "Instead of thinking how to lock her up, maybe come up with ideas of how to get her to want to stay?" It could also tie into their own legal butt covering, "I know we documented things so legally we didn't. But as far as Phase is concerned this department is part of the coverup."

 

Very suspicious that they didn't involve the local Youth Guard rep in a discussion about Taylor now isn't it.

As for what they should do is challenge the ENE department for jurisdiction on the case regarding Taylor since she is legally listed as their ward so they should be involved in any criminal investigations that involve her any meaningful capacity.

For a way to get Taylor to willingly participate I would say that the Boston department should be the ones to blow the lid off the cover up and punish Sophia and Emma plus those who helped cover up their crimes such as the school. While it might be a bit late at least they can say it got done by them in a visble way that Taylor can't deny, and while it might not solve all Taylor's problems with the program at least she will be more willing to give the Boston department the benefit of the doubt and participate a little bit to see how she likes it.

 

I’ll do some rewrites later during the day incorporating your concerns.

This was a troubleshooting meeting in order to anticipate problems, YG rep is an specific source of headaches so he will never get an invite.

As for asking jurisdiction on crimes performed by ENE Wards? If they ask Piggot and Armsmaster will tell them to go to hell, if they go through channels then even with incuestionable evidence of corruption, which the ENE region has so far avoided, if an entire regional command needs to be audited it would need to directly involve Legend and Costa-Brown because the scandal would reach the point where congress would not be amused. Far too above the pay grade of the deputy director, not to mention that doing so will get him in enough political problems that by mutual agreement everyone in the meeting decided against poking that landmine.

 

Well my second suggestion would be to call Rebecca Costa-Brown and have her solve the issue discreetly in a way that has the Boston department looking like the good guys in Taylor's eyes.

It would be really ironic if electricity just super charges Taylor due to Emma's added presence during Taylor's trigger event coupled with Sophia's presence.

 

Never forget that Costa-Brown is not exactly an accessible figure or a merciful one. If things escalate to the point anyone needs to call her she will end making an example of everyone involved, and not necessarily the kind of example you want. During the meeting no one was joking about being exiled if they rock the boat without a damn good reason, whistleblowers are never liked inside a government organization.

 

True, but at the same time informing her or someone higher up on the chain of command of the potential incident before it turns into a shit show that needs their attention would probably be a good thing because a teaspoon of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

There’s making a memo to your supervisor, and there’s calling a person tasked with the parahuman affairs of the whole country, organizing task forces to deal with a city being destroyed every three months and reporting to the president and congress about the constantly deteriorating situation. She won’t thank you for interfering with a minor disciplinary issue of a different jurisdiction (remember, she gets to deal with the aftermath of SH9 rampages, everything with less than a dozen deaths is a minor issue for her) unless you have rock solid evidence of corruption by Director Piggot or the cape you’re trying to woo is Alexandria 2.0.

Anything less, she expects that Directors deal with it directly, or that they use appropriate channels and proper procedure to request an Internal Affairs investigation.

 

There are probably members of her staff that are there to deal with complicated and potentially damaging situations such as these that don't require her direct action all Armstrong has to do is contact her office with his complaint and they could probably work on it from there without Rebecca getting involved. I am not saying to call Costa-Brown's personal number with this issue just that Armstrong can kick the issue up the chain of command to get it solved since his hands are tied due the actions of the ENE department.

 

Or have some passive-aggressive sniping in the next meeting where he is being harped on "When will Phase finally get with the program?" And frame the blocker as the 'interminable' investigation into the two Wards that abused and triggered her. And how that delay of justice and restitution is preventing Phase from seeing the Wards in a positive light, any Ward not just Brockton's.

Which puts Piggot in a bind. She doesn't want to conclude the investigation, because it will lose her two Wards. But if she keeps it open she is admitting to other Directors and her superiors she can't conclude a simple investigation into her own Wards in a timely manner. Which is a stunning level of incompetence. Or she considers an investigation into abuse of power by her own people to be something to put at the bottom of her priority list.

Armstrong: Toss a time-bomb into my department, will you? Here, let me light the fuse on some of the bombs in your own department.

This is different from deliberately setting off said bombs, "All" Armstrong is doing is putting timers on them. Denying Piggot the ability to defer them indefinitely by using the pressure on him to get Phase fully inducted into the Wards. Or possibly Protectorate given Hebert stubbornness to drag things out.

 

Thats one way to get the problem solved without having to draw in the main office just toss it like the hot potato that it is directly into Piggot's face in a way she can't deflect it onto someone else.

 

That's a way of seeing things, but I think that any dirty laundry between Piggot and Amstrong would be done in private while they keep a relatively united front for the rest of the PRT directors. And the reason is politics and the ability to actually get their jobs done.

For that I think that we need to see what politics is about at the regional director level. Let's take for example from which directors the political pressure to get Taylor into power testing comes from.

Most PRT directors wouldn't care a rat ass that a girl is not getting into the program, Boston office is far from them, Wards as resources are hard to use during national emergencies and for trading between teams since both things need parental approval, not to mention that no matter the powers they have strict limits for field deployment and tactical use, no one will put Flechette to hunt the SH9 under normal circumstances even if they realize just how deadly she is. But on the other hand cities who contribute capes to WEDGDG will be far more interested in seeing Phase abilities catalogued in order to prevent interference and also as a training tool to extract information from power protected sources, while other cities such as Vegas will be keeping an eye on people like Taylor since they deal with a disproportionate amount of Thinkers and someone capable of bypassing their defenses, both physical and extrasensorial would be invaluable to some of their missions. So in order to pressure Amstrong the directors of those areas negociate with some of the very valuable time of Thinkers under their command, either offering an increase in thinker resources, or just the opposite, reduce Boston priority for Thinker support. They can affort to be agressive with him because they don't depend in Boston for any support other than maybe some lab time (Amstrong is very interested in the study of powers so I'm guessing he got a very nice power testing lab).

On the other hand we got a much closer relationship between Boston and Brockton Bay. The cities are close, a little more than an hour away by civilian car, probably a fraction of that in helicopter so each city is their own closer source of reinforcements in case of an A or S threat.They probably share other things, I can see Piggot negociating for example lending some of Armsmaster's tinkertech creations to Boston in exchange of using their superior laboratories for testing and saving that way a large chunk of money if she was to use her own resources.

Note that said close proximity cuts both ways, criminals can and has moved assets from city to city (from guns and drugs to whole teams such as the Travellers), and the moment law enforcement loses its capacity to act as a deterrent they start to move in. We see this after the SH9 attack on BB when both Accord and the Teeth move to gain a foothold in the city, with the former making an alliance with the Undersiders in the process, we also see the opposite effect years before when the Teeth were kicked out of BB and migrated to Boston. So both offices need to share real time intelligence on their gangs in order to block such attempts.

Now if Amstrong attacks and humiliates the PRT offices in BB he might or might not solve all of his problems with Phase, but at the same time he provokes the immediate dismissal of at least one fifth of the ENE Wards and makes an enemy of the Brocktonites when a rift between both offices will make harder to get accurate intelligence and support to deal with the threats coming his way now that the city is going to be a little less stable than yesterday.

Is not fair, but no matter how angry is Amstrong for Piggot's actions he knows better than to suddenly destabilize his sister city even at the cost of a Ward. And he can apply some less extreme passive agressiveness himself, banning the BB capes from his own testing labs he pushes the price of those tests on Piggot for example.

 

The thing is, Piggot already started the rift by trying to use Armstrong to launder her Ward problem. Now Kamil has both a resentful Ward On Paper Only that not only he can't use? But is fomenting a toxic atmosphere within his Wards team due to her well earned distrust and resentfulness. And on top of that he is having pressure to get Phase active, and by your speculation having difficulty getting resources he normally could, because of Piggot pulling a Karma Houdini.

Think of Kamil being the designated driver, then Emily after a night of drunken debauchery puked in his car, refused to help clean it up or pay to get it cleaned, and stuck him with her bar tab the next morning.
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The relation between the two departments is already tainted. And even if the other Directors pretend not to notice? I'm sure the rumor mill got around at how Piggot screwed Armstrong over. Which would affect her ability to get help or people from other departments. They are all going to be looking for the poison pill in this deal, and make higher demands to offset what they know has to be there, even if they can't see it.

 

I agree, but consider Kamil's personality when measuring the actions he is willing to take. Do you think he is a man that would choose the most antagonistic solution to a problem? Because exposing Piggot to the rest of the Directors and making her already precarious situation any worse will most certainly won't help with keeping the peace in either BB or Boston.

 

If this shit goes on long enough? Hell yes. The more Piggot's unwillingness to own up and take the consequences of her actions and inactions forces Armstrong to pay for them? At some stage Armstrong is going to decide Piggot is drowning and he doesn't want to be dragged down with her. Blame shifting is a well honed bureaucratic skill, and if the situation Piggot threw into his yard like a bag of shit starts making significant impacts on Kamil's ability to run and get support for his own department? Then he is going to engage in some finger pointing to push the blame for "Phase" well she isn't just sitting on the bench, but isn't even showing up in the stadium. He is going to decide Piggot shot first and push the blame for this impasse back to her.

Edit: another reason to retaliate on some level? If other directors see Piggot can get away with this shit against Armstrong, with no consequences or pushback? Then they will see they can shove problems off on him and give him the short end of the stick without complaint or consequences. Again, if for nothing else than the integrity of his own department he'll will push back and shove the blame at least partially back to Piggot, because souring that relationship isn't the only thing in play.

 

I can imagine that Kamil has a ruthless streak to him because remember while we have currently only seen him as someone who is trying to be a friend and ally to Taylor he is still a PRT director who is in a city that has both Accord and the Teeth in it so that does require him to have a degree of ruthlessness to him if he wants to get anything done. Even more so if he has to go up against Accord frequently having to out think a Thinker on occasion should give him the political maneuvering skill necessary to get back at Piggot for dumping the whole mess on him.

 

But what is the limit in this case? Other than sending Taylor under dubious pretences and the SNAFU that came from Emma's phone here was no additional problems coming from BB, and you can even argue that the later was its own punishment since it triggered the YG investigation. Even more during Kamil interlude, mere days after the YG when to BB he mades no mention of Piggot or Armsmaster complaining abut Phase's complains, which means they actually decided to be discrete about the incident (and Piggot probably did her stress relief by screaming at both Emma and Colin until their ears bled).

Plus we have Taylor's issues to take into account. Despite her obvious and logical dislike of the cover-up her complains are directed towards others trying to control her life and how the actions she takes are how she recovers that control. She won't see the Boston PRT as the ones doing the right thing, but as people using justice as one more tool to get her into the program, and she might or might not thank people for that, but she's not going to stop using the free time loophole to stop being a vigilante either.

I agree that he has the potential to be ruthless and politically capable, but in the political game between equals is often the discrete and meticulous actions behind the curtain which win the day, not the screaming recriminations.

In the specific case of Amstrong exposing Piggot plans to the directors at large she can counter with the fact that A) Its completely legal and also way cheaper than other alternatives, B) she managed to contain a PR issue (not disaster or any colorful description) with minimal fallout and C) she is in the process of rehabilitating two Wards that would otherwise be lost to the penal system (that more often than not splits out hardened criminals) and even with YG restrictions she might have them well trained and disciplined in time for their graduation to the Protectorate. She even gave Boston an excellent Breaker-Stranger cape that just need some attitude adjustments for their program (and one not even on probation at that), What else could Boston ask of her? The worst part is that many of the directors are both pragmatic and they won't be affected one way or the other if her ruse falls apart and would see the logic of Piggot actions and dismiss the pitfalls of her chosen method as giving enough rope for her to either hang herself or get up from that hole she dug, so no need to waste any more energy on that.

End result? Piggot in general is politically covered in the short term, BB is irritated at Amstrong and they show their displeasure with delays in intelligence reports and other small nuisances and Boston still has an antagonistic Ward in paper only, who moonlights as a vigilante.

 

I'm not talking a a direct attack, but an indirect one. The next time Armstrong is being pressured to "get Phase on board with the program", so they can find out how her power ticks?

"Phase has leveled some serious accusations at two of the ENE's Wards. It is why she is currently in my department rather than her home town's after all. And I'm afraid as long as that investigation remains unresolved, it is a hard block on getting any power testing cooperation out of Phase. Once the investigation is concluded and any appropriate charges and punishments are recommended? Well that would give me a carrot to offer Phase to get some cooperation."

Armstrong doesn't have to go full J'Accuse! here. More like the Tenth Doctor's "Do you think she looks tired?" Present the investigation remaining open as a blocker for any progress with getting Phase into power testing. Armstrong himself won't speculate on why the investigation has yet to turn out any results. But it will turn some of the people pressuring him to asking themselves, and Piggot, how long an internal investigation into two Wards can possibly take. Basically don't let Piggot be able to string out the investigation indefinitely, or at least do so without consequences.

At which points the powers over both of them have to ask themselves, is Phase interesting enough to pressure Piggot on the investigation into her Wards? Asking for progress reports, why things are taking so long, and such. Make her have to explain to their superiors on a regular basis where the investigation is, and why it is still open.

Worse case? Those higher ups say if Piggot is so strapped for resources she can't conclude the investigation in a timely manner? They can send some people to take it off her hands. Which puts Piggot in a bind, she's been asking for more help deal with her problems. She can't let an outside investigator look at this, but if she refuses them she is saying she has the resources to handle the situation. Which would undermine any other requests for support, and set an expectation for a timely resolution to the investigation.

Rather than Armstrong taking the heat alone for Phase's stubbornness? It spreads the blame around, and the higher ups might decide Phase is worth more than one or both of Piggot's misbehaving Wards. And Armstrong is acting with apparent reasonableness, asking for a timely result to an investigation from a fellow Director so he can use that to do his own job. Because "rehabilitating" them doesn't fly if you are saying the accusation is still an open investigation, that comes after the investigation concludes and charges and punishments are recommended. Otherwise Piggot claiming the investigation is stalled to 'rehabilitate' her Wards is admitting they are guilty as sin and she can't turn in the investigation without them being charged for serious enough crimes to yank them from the Wards. Not something she wants to admit to others.