RWD: 5.x (Interlude)(James Tagg)

The hum of the garage door was a grinding, weary sound, a fitting end to a day spent wrestling with a hydra of bureaucratic inefficiency and

5.x (Interlude)(James Tagg)

The hum of the garage door was a grinding, weary sound, a fitting end to a day spent wrestling with a hydra of bureaucratic inefficiency and political grandstanding. James Tagg killed the engine of his sedan, the silence that followed pressing in on him. For a long moment, he just sat there in the dark, the scent of stale cigarette smoke and recycled air filling the small space. His suit felt tight, a straitjacket of responsibility, and the back of his neck ached with a tension that had been building since the 0800 briefing.

The press conference had been a shitshow. He’d stood at the podium, a target for every flashbulb and pointed question, and announced the Kill Order on the group calling themselves the Peacekeepers. He’d delivered the lines with the requisite steel in his voice, projecting a confidence he absolutely did not feel. The words had tasted like ash. A necessary step, he’d told himself then, and repeated it during the inter-agency video conference that followed, a miserable affair where men in different cities offered opinions that were either useless or self-serving.

Now, he was home. The Towers. The one place that was supposed to be insulated from the filth he waded through every day.

He stepped out of his car, the door closing shut behind him. Through the connecting door, he could hear voices—his family, gathered for dinner as always. Margaret’s birthday had been four days ago. Her sister was visiting from Toronto with little Nathan. The kid had been a bright spot in an otherwise hellish week.

Tagg paused with his hand on the doorknob. Something felt wrong. The voices were too measured, too careful. Margaret laughed, but it had that brittle quality she got when trying to keep things normal during a crisis.

He pushed through the door.

The dining room table was set with the good stoneware. His wife, hair pinned up and hands too still in her lap. His daughters in sweaters from their college bookstore, sitting side by side, trying to look smaller than they actually were. His sister-in-law, pale, eyes bright with a brittle energy—her son in a booster chair with a bib that read CHIEF TASTER.

Feeding the child, with easy rhythm and a practiced little curve to his wrist, was a man in an immaculate charcoal suit and a balaclava.

"Come on, champ," the stranger said, voice warm and encouraging. "A bit more and you get dessert. Your aunt makes excellent apple pie, I'm told."

Nathan giggled, opening his mouth for the spoon. The four-year-old was completely at ease.

Everyone else was not.

Margaret sat rigid in her chair, hands folded too tightly in her lap. Sarah and Jessica—home from Cornell for their mother’s birthday—stared at their plates. His sister-in-law, Carol, had one arm wrapped protectively around Nathan's shoulders even as the boy leaned toward the stranger.

Movement in his peripheral vision made Tagg's attention flicker to his ankle holster. Three figures stood sentinel around the room. The girl on the right wore tactical gear over a form-fitting bodysuit, her mask insectoid in design. The ceiling above her crawled with hornets twice the size of his thumb, their wings creating a low, omnipresent drone. He'd seen the footage from the bank robbery—this had to be the one they'd tentatively dubbed as Skitter.

To the left stood a figure in similar gear but with a skull motif. Black smoke leaked from the edges of his mask, pooling around his feet and spreading across the floor in a thin layer that made the hardwood impossible to see. Grue. They had a file on him—small-time villain, worked solo until recently. The darkness he generated could shut down all senses, block radio signals, interfere with most forms of detection.

Through the sliding glass door, Tagg could see a third figure on the patio. Hellhound. One of her monsters lay beside her like a horse-sized guard dog, its exposed muscle and bone plating gleaming wetly in the porch light. Two more lounged further behind clearly at ease by the fence.

"Director Tagg," the suited figure said without looking up from Nathan. "Please, join us. Your dinner's getting cold."

Tagg didn't move. "What do you want?"

The stranger tsked softly. "Now that's not very polite, is it Nathan? When someone invites you to dinner, what do you say?"

"Thank you!" Nathan chirped.

"That's right." The stranger finally looked up, the eyeholes of his balaclava revealing nothing. "Your wife worked very hard on this meal, Director. The least you could do is sit."

Margaret's voice was steady, but Tagg heard the plea underneath. "James. Please."

He walked to his chair, movements deliberate and controlled. The revolver at his ankle felt insignificant against the threats surrounding them. He sat.

Margaret served him with trembling hands—pot roast, his favorite. He didn't touch it.

"I asked you a question," Tagg said.

The stranger—Hollowpoint, it had to be—continued feeding Nathan. "Work must have been stressful today. All those cameras, all those questions. 'Why did the PRT wait so long to act?' 'How can you guarantee public safety?' 'What about the missiles?'" He mimicked different reporter voices with unsettling accuracy. "Exhausting, really."

"If you're here to—"

"Which daughter do you like least?"

The words were conversational, almost absent-minded. Hollowpoint hadn't even looked up from Nathan's plate.

Sarah made a sound like she'd been punched. Jessica's fork clattered against her plate.

"Excuse me?" Tagg's voice came out as a growl.

"It's a simple question." Hollowpoint wiped mashed potato from Nathan's chin with practiced ease. "Sarah or Jessica? If you keep up this unpleasant attitude, I'll have to kill one of them, and I thought I'd let you choose. Professional courtesy."

The room went silent except for the drone of wasps and Nathan's happy humming as he kicked his feet under the table.

Tagg forced his shoulders to relax. Forced his breathing to steady. This was psychological warfare, nothing more. Show no weakness, give no ground.

"Nathan," Carol whispered, "let's go wash your hands—"

"He's fine where he is," Hollowpoint said mildly. "Aren't you, buddy? We're having such a nice conversation."

The boy nodded enthusiastically. "He knows about dinosaurs!"

"I do indeed. Did you know that some scientists think T-Rex might have had feathers?"

As Nathan launched into an excited response, Tagg studied the intruder. Young, based on the build and voice. Late twenties at most. Comfortable with violence—the casual threat against his daughters proved that. But also controlled, methodical. The way he handled Nathan showed practice with children, or at least an understanding of how to manage them. A young father or older brother perhaps.

The meal continued in surreal tableau. Hollowpoint fed Nathan the rest of his dinner, keeping up a stream of child-friendly conversation about dinosaurs, space, and whether Superman could beat Batman in a fight. The armed capes remained perfectly still, silent sentinels that turned a family dinner into something out of a nightmare.

When Nathan's plate was clean, Hollowpoint produced a napkin and gently cleaned the boy's face.

"There we go. All done. You ate wonderfully."

"Can I have pie now?" Nathan asked hopefully.

"In a moment. I need to talk to your uncle about grown-up things first. Why don't you tell your mom about the velociraptors while you wait?"

Hollowpoint folded the napkin and placed it beside the empty plate. As Nathan began an enthusiastic explanation to an uneasy Carol, Hollowpoint's attention shifted fully to Tagg. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

“The Kill Order,” he began simply. “I’m dissatisfied.” 

Tagg stared at him but didn’t respond. The cape continued.

“You had a city that was,’ he said, “for the first time in more than a decade, approaching a state of equilibrium. The major gangs had been dismantled. The streets were quiet. And your response was to declare war. To sow the seeds of a conflict that will inevitably drag this city back into the chaos my associates and I worked so diligently to quell.”

"Don’t pretend you’re a charity," Tagg said.  “Launching ballistic missiles from within the US borders. Crippling federal networks during a crisis. Escalating to weapons of mass effect made by a known Tinker who specializes in terror bombing. That’s not the actions of spomeone looking out for the safety of the people. You want to help? Join the Wards. File the paperwork. Follow the goddamn law.”

“Spare me the catechism,” the villain replied, amiable as steel. “The quaint idea that processes and institutions you built for peacetime have any relevance now is… retarded. Frankly, I am disappointed. I never believed that you lot could find a whole new low of incompetence to descend to. But you did, and that in way is rather impressive. Congrats.”

Tagg glared at the cape.

Hollowpoint tilted his head, then sighed. “You were handed a gift and your first response is to paint a target on my back? What were you idiots thinking? Did you and your handlers truly believe antagonizing me was a sound strategic decision? Did you imagine I wouldn’t simply kill all of you if I concluded it was the most direct path to a lasting peace for the common citizen?"

Tagg sneered, a reflexive mask of defiance. “You think you’d survive a war with the Protectorate? With the full might of the U.S. government?”

The masked man shrugged, a casual, dismissive gesture. “Perhaps not, who knows. It’s a question neither of us can answer until the bodies start piling up, isn’t it? But let’s entertain the thought. Let’s say you win. What’s the cost? Are you willing to pay it? Because I can assure you, the price of my head will be steep. Would you like specifics? Fine. Forty-three PRT personnel and three Heroes live within a twelve-mile radius of this house. I have their addresses, their schedules, their children's schools. How many people would need to die in their sleep before you realize this is a dead end? Let’s not even talk about your woefully insufficient cybersecurity—I could cripple your entire power grid, financial markets, and essential infrastructure with but a line of code. The ways I could hurt you are as varied as the faces of men. Killing me doesn’t solve that as I have multiple dead man’s switches already in place. My death would simply plunge this country into a decade of chaos it would never recover from. A victory, hence, under the conditions stated, would be a Pyrrhic one, Director.”

Sarah was crying silently. Jessica had her arms wrapped around herself.

"You're describing mass murder," Tagg said.

"I'm describing next week Tuesday if you maintain this course." Hollowpoint stood smoothly. "But I don't want that. I have no intrinsic desire to kill heroes or governemnt officials. You are, for the most part, a stabilizing influence. A net positive. But if this—this panicked, reactionary flailing—is the quality of decision-making I can expect from your leadership, I may be forced to seriously reconsider that stance"

Tagg’s mind raced. It could be a bluff. But he’d seen the intelligence reports. The missile technology. The sophistication of the cyberattacks. The fact that they’d armed warheads with tinkertech bombs meant they likely had Bakuda. This revelation in-turn over rule previous assumptions that dangerous capes like Canary and Lung were out of the picture. The threat was probably credible. Even a small chance that it was true made it an unacceptable risk.

“What. Do. You. Want?” Tagg ground out in the end.

“First, the Kill Order is to be rescinded. Publicly. You will cite new intelligence that clarifies our status as a rogue but ultimately anti-villain organization. An independent peacekeeping force, so to speak. Second, you will cease all active operations against me and mine. We are to be treated as a third party with a mutual right to operate in defense of Brockton Bay without interference. In return, I am willing to be… cooperative and non-hostile. Intelligence and technology sharing. Coordinated strikes against mutual threats. There is much we could accomplish together.”

"That's impossible. I don't have the authority—"

"You don't. But Senator Martinez does. So does Congressman Wright. Deputy Director Wilson of the CIA was particularly receptive after our conversation this afternoon." Hollowpoint adjusted his suit jacket. "The political machinery is already in motion. Consider your part in this a formality."

Tagg stared at him, bewildered. “Then why are you here?”

"Because you're the face they pushed forward. The tough-on-crime director who doesn't negotiate with terrorists. They one they sent onto the television to announce this folly. You get the personal visit." Hollowpoint walked around the table, stopping behind Sarah's chair. She flinched as he placed a hand on the back of it. "I like to make things crystal clear, so every one understands, on a visceral level, that safety is an illusion."

His hand moved to Jessica's chair.

"Your daughters seem lovely. Cornell's a good school. Biomedical engineering and political science, if I recall correctly. Sarah's thinking about medical school. Jessica interns at the state capitol this summer." His voice was conversational again, which made it worse. "Carol's husband doesn't know about Nathan's real father, does he? That would be an ugly conversation. Though not as ugly as explaining to him why his son's daycare exploded."

"You son of a bitch—"

"I'm pragmatic." Hollowpoint returned to his original position. "I don't want to hurt your family, Director. But I will if you make it necessary. This isn't personal. It's simple maths. The lives of millions outweigh the lives of dozens. If I have to choose between your daughters and the city’s well-being—Well… that's not even a choice.”

“That’s all I have to say really.” Hollowpoint turned to Grue, nodding. "Please enjoy the rest of your evening."

Darkness flooded the room instantly. Tagg couldn't see, couldn't hear, could barely feel through the oppressive black. His hand found Margaret's across the table and held tight.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the darkness vanished.

They were alone. No capes, no monsters, no suited killer. Just a family sitting around a dinner table with too many empty chairs.

Nathan broke the silence. "Where did the dinosaur man go?"

Carol pulled him close, tears streaming down her face. "He had to leave, sweetie."

Tagg stood, pulling out his phone. He needed to call this in, needed to—

"James." Margaret's voice was steady despite everything. "What are you going to do?"

He looked at his daughters, traumatized but alive. At his nephew, blissfully unaware of how close death had sat to him. At his wife, strong and scared and trusting him to make the right choice.

The phone felt heavy in his hand.

"I don't know," he admitted. And for the first time in his career, James Tagg truly didn't.

The pot roast had gone cold on his plate. He sat back down and began to eat mechanically, tasting nothing. Around him, his family slowly began to speak in hushed voices, comforting each other, pretending things could go back to normal.

Outside, storm clouds gathered over Brockton Bay.