Hostage Situation [Worm AU fanfic]

Hostage Situation

Part Two: Interrogation


Director Piggot

She looked at the teenage girl across the desk and slowly lowered herself into her seat. Drawing a deep breath, she counted silently backward from five, to prevent herself from saying something rash. Then she laced her fingers on the desk in front of her.

“You can't be serious about this.” This was her talking-to-Wards voice, the one she had perfected over ten years of working in this position. I am an adult and an authority figure. There is no permutation of this situation that I haven't already worked out ahead of time.

To her credit, the Dallon girl stood her ground, didn't scream, didn't throw a tantrum, didn't become irrational. She had seen all of that in her time in this position. None of it would have helped; it had never helped before.

“I'm absolutely serious about this, Director,” Panacea told her, standing up straight again. “I want my father out of the Birdcage.” She didn't use the word 'deadly'. A wise move on her part.

“Or you stop healing people.”

“Or I stop healing people, yes.”

Piggot waved a hand to indicate the outside world. “Just the general public, or -?” Her tone strongly suggested it had better be just the general public. The PRT had other healers they could call upon; rather, other capes whose powers allowed them to heal people with more or less efficiency, but they were scattered fairly thinly over the landscape, and no-one was as capable or as versatile as Panacea.

The girl folded her arms, obviously having caught the tone. “I mean everyone, Director. I stop healing people right now.”

“The Wards, downstairs -?”

“None of them is critical, or you would have called me a lot sooner.” She shrugged. “Let 'em heal the old-fashioned way.”

Piggot pursed her lips. “That is a problem. They need to attend school. Obvious injuries will draw attention. So will staying away from school. Either way, their secret identities are compromised.”

“Oh, I can see that it's a problem,” Panacea agreed. “It's definitely a problem for them. It might even be a problem for you. But I don't see how it's a problem for me.”

“They got injured fighting the Undersiders, defending you and the others in the bank!” Emily snapped. “Surely you owe them that!”

“Actually, I owe them nothing that anyone else in the bank doesn't also owe them,” Panacea pointed out. “I was the one who got the other hostages upstairs and out of the way of the battle. I engaged two of the villains, and got hurt on my own account. If the Wards had stood back and just let the villains walk out, which they fully intended to do, no-one would have gotten hurt at all. Not me, not Vicky, not anyone.”

Given that she had already lambasted the Wards on a very similar vein to this, Piggot decided to not pursue that particular line any further. “Clockblocker is covered in bug bites, and Aegis has a hole in his chest that would kill a normal person,” she pointed out. “These injuries will be a huge neon sign to anyone who watches the footage of the fight.”

“Again, I'm sorry they got hurt, but I don't see how it's my responsibility,” Panacea responded. “They'll survive. And maybe, next time, they might be a little more careful.”

Emily decided to leave that one well enough alone, too. “Very well, but you will be covering Endbringer fights, of course.”

“No.” Panacea's tone was matter-of-fact. “I won't. Not until my father is out of the Birdcage.”

Anger was mounting once more in Piggot's chest, and she breathed deeply to try to dissipate it. This is no time to shout, or try to pull rank; she's not in my chain of command. I literally can not order her to do this. If I push too hard, she walks out. I do not want that.

Once she had her temper under control, she looked warningly at the cowled teen. “Be careful,” she growled. “I have a very low tolerance for blackmail and extortion attempts.”

“Wrong and wrong.” Panacea's voice was flat. “Extortion is demanding money with menaces. You could probably equate my father's freedom with money; it's something I want, after all. But I'm not offering menaces. I'm not threatening to do anything. I'm just cutting you off from something that you were getting for free.”

Piggot seized on that. “Are you going to be demanding money for healing now? Because -”

“Oh, please.” Amy shook her head. “If I charged what it's worth – what it's really worth – you couldn't afford me. I was giving your people the equivalent of several weeks', or even months', worth of care from a top-flight surgeon, plus a whole trauma team, every time I laid hands on a patient. Call it ten thousand dollars a day, minimum. But no, I'm not asking for money. I'm asking for my dad.”

“Blackmail, then.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “You forget, I live with a lawyer. Blackmail is demanding money in return for silence about something. I'm not going to tell anyone about this if you aren't.”

Piggot thought about the potential headlines. Teen hero refuses to heal unless supervillain father is freed. Even if the PRT managed to spin it to their benefit – and that wasn't necessarily a given, with Panacea's international reputation – it would certainly make capes in general look bad, and would almost certainly poison the well, as regarded the chances of Panacea returning to her regular healing duties. Especially for Endbringer battles.

I don't want to be seen as the Director who lost the PRT the services of Panacea because I didn't think things all the way through. There's got to be a way to get around this without caving to her demands.

Hm. Maybe there is, after all.

“In any case, the point is moot,” she observed, affecting a casualness that she didn't feel. “Marquis is in the Birdcage. The world's first, and so far only, truly escape-proof prison. They go in, and they don't come out. There is no provision for release, for any reason whatsoever. You can make all the demands that you want. We simply can't meet them. It's not only legally improbable; it's also physically impossible.”

As she continued, she made her tone was as magnanimous as she could manage. “I understand your feelings, I really do. If I had been separated from my father, I would of course want to get back into contact with him. But under the circumstances … “ Lowering her voice, she leaned forward across the desk. “ … well, I understand that Dragon can pass on messages to those inside, and it may even be possible to get return messages back. This would have to be kept strictly confidential, of course. Just between you and me.”

Panacea may have raised an eyebrow; it was hard to tell, under the hood that she was wearing. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Passing on messages?” Piggot shrugged. “Well, supplies have to be sent in somehow. Messages can go in that way. As for getting messages out -”

“I'm not talking about that,” Panacea interrupted. “I'm saying that I find it hard to believe that they would make a prison that it's impossible to pull people out of.”

“You do realise,” Emily retorted, stung by her tone, “no-one has escaped from the Birdcage in all the years that it's been in operation.”

Panacea rolled her eyes again. “Escape, sure. Modern prisons are pretty secure. You can't just tunnel your way out, or pick the lock on your cell door. The only real way out is with outside help, and that generally involves bribing guards. No guards, no bribes, no escape. But releasing someone just involves opening a few doors, and the prisoner can walk right out.”

She leaned forward once more. “I'm willing to bet – in fact, I am betting my healing against this – that they left some way to get people out. Just in case, say, some officials got Mastered, and the President's kid got Birdcaged for a crime they weren't guilty of. When daddy finds out, you can bet that he'll move heaven and earth to get junior home again. And if there was no way out, then there'd be a stink like no other. The Birdcage would be dismantled before they would let that stand. So yeah. You say that it's impossible to get out of the Birdcage; I'm betting that you can't escape, but you can be released.”

Piggot glared at her. “And if you're wrong?”

Panacea shrugged. “I don't think I am. And in fact, the thing is, I won't know the difference between me being wrong and you being stubborn. So I'm just going to assume that you're being stubborn. And just between you and me, I've needed an excuse to take a nice long vacation for some time now. While you look over the fine print for the Birdcage and see if there isn't some way to let Marquis out.”

Piggot grimaced; Panacea had called her bluff. “Okay, fine. I didn't want to go to this extent. I think it's time you saw the extent of the crimes that your supervillain father inflicted on Brockton Bay.”

“Oh, I think I know of most of it,” Panacea told her. “But I'll look at it anyway.”

“You asked for it.” Piggot accessed the PRT's criminal databases, then told it to call up the laundry list of crimes that they had managed to pin on Marquis before he went away. It made for an impressive display.

“As you can see, he wasn't above extortion, robbery with menaces, and even murder,” Piggot pointed out. “He was even implicated in the disappearances of more than one of his own men. This is not a good man, Ms Dallon. He's a vicious criminal.”

“Who was captured by the Brockton Bay Brigade when they broke into his house and attacked him in his civilian identity,” Amy retorted. “I was there at the time. I came within inches of being killed by Brandish, before my father took the blow instead; the blow that incapacitated him and ended the fight. They broke the unwritten rules and nearly killed an innocent six year old girl.”

Piggot blinked; she hadn't known that.

Panacea stabbed her finger at the screen. “He never threatened harm to women or children, ever. He never dealt in drugs or prostitution. He made sure that the families of his men were cared for. The ABB and Merchants both deal in women and drugs, and they don't care much about whether the girls are of legal age. The Empire Eighty-Eight deals drugs, as well as beating up and murdering minorities of all kinds.”

She took a deep breath. “Just recently, I had to help the victim of a vicious beating; she was a black college student. Her only crime was to walk down the wrong street at the wrong time of day. The beating could have left her crippled for life, or dead. And yet, Skidmark, Lung and Kaiser all walk free today. Nobody tries to capture them and send them to the Birdcage.” Her voice was bitter.

“Marquis was still a criminal and a murderer,” Piggot persisted, trying to regain lost ground. “Is still a criminal and a murderer, that is. He's known or suspected to have committed over -”

“Yes, I know he committed assaults and he killed people,” Panacea agreed. “You've made that point. He was a supervillain. It's what they do. But he stuck to the rules, such as they were, and never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, from his point of view. As for the number of people he hurt, I'll match that with the number of people I've helped, the lives I've saved, in the last year alone. Even not counting the three Endbringer attacks that I attended since this time last year. Count that in, and I think you'll find that the death and harm that he caused are just a drop in the bucket. You really want me to call up that list? Because I can and I will.” She met Piggot's eyes. “I'll make it really simple. My father has spent ten years in the worst hellhole in the world. I want him out. Leave him there, and I stop healing people. Let him out, and I'll not only start healing again, but I'll also make sure that he doesn't go back to his old ways.”

“You can't make a guarantee like that. There's no way you can enforce it.”

“Sure I can.” Panacea turned on her heel and started toward the door. “I'll just ask him not to.”

Piggot blinked. “Wait, where are you going?”

Stopping at the door, Panacea turned. “You're going to want to think about your decision.” What might have been a smile crossed her face. “Take your time. I'm in no hurry.”

The words she didn't say hung heavy in the air. But you are.

“Wait – we can talk -”

“No. We can't. We're already starting to go around in circles. You need to understand that I'm actually serious about this. I'm going home now. Later, I might go to the Boardwalk. Or see a movie. I won't be going to the hospital. Or to see the Wards.”

“Listen – we can compromise -”

A pause, one hand on the handle. “Explain.”

“You go back to healing, while we explore options regarding Marquis. Total transparency. You get to view all our findings -”

“No.”

“No?”

“I believe the word is familiar to you. All that'll happen in that case is that I'll see only the findings that you want me to see.” Panacea turned the handle. “You know where to find me.”

Piggot watched her open the door and walk out; as soon as the door had closed behind the teenager, she pressed a button on her intercom. “Master/Stranger situation, stat! Target is heading for elevators from Director's office. Prepare for detention and isolation of target, tentatively identified as Panacea.”

Keying up security cam footage on her computer, she watched the girl head for the lift, then enter it. The doors interleaved shut behind her.

<><>​

Reports on Panacea's projected capabilities – never conducive to a good night's sleep – had indicated that she would be effectively immune to any bacterial agent, or even chemical agents with discernible smells; with sufficient warning, she may well be able to generate a bacterium or mite capable of secreting a counter-agent. Even those without smells were not guaranteed to work without fail.

Fortunately, there were other methods available for detaining people whom the PRT wanted to detain without ever coming face to face with them. So it was that, when the elevator was two floors down, discreet nozzles in the ceiling filled the entire car with containment foam.

The elevator went all the way to one of the sub-basement levels, where hazmat-suited techs carved the foam containing Panacea out of the rest of the block; from the movements and muffled sounds, she was alive, conscious, and very unhappy about the situation. This was not their problem; they conveyed the chunk of foam to a sealed cell, where a spray from above dissolved the foam, leaving her sitting up as the spray turned to water and washed the tacky soup down a drain-hole.

<><>​

Director Piggot pressed a key on her computer that activated a sound link to the cell, already showing on the screen. “Are you well, Miss Dallon?”

Panacea wiped her mouth, then got up and stared up at where the camera was apparently visible. “Alive. Well. Not happy. What the hell do you think you're playing at?”

“I'm sorry, Miss Dallon,” Piggot told her with real regret. “I have to ensure that you're not being Mastered, and that you haven't been replaced by a Stranger.”

“Why would – oh.”

Piggot nodded, even though Amy couldn't see her. “Using your story to get Marquis released, yes.”

“So why couldn't you just damn well ask me? Lie detector or whatever?”

“Most lie detectors can be fooled, especially by someone with a very good knowledge of the human body.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Well, I'll be calling your family, as well as bringing certain other talents to bear here -”

“Oh shit. You realise that Carol has always considered me to be one step away from Marquis, unless I'm kept on the straight and narrow.”

“You might have considered that before you chose this particular course of action.”

“She's one of the reasons I'm doing this.”

“I don't understand.”

“Of course you don't. I bet you had a mother who actually treated you like a daughter, and not like a stranger who happened to be living in the same house.”

“I -”

“And you probably never had to contend with having a sister who gets all of the attention and the praise, no matter how hard you try to earn even one-tenth of it.”

“So … you're saying you hate your family?”

“No, no. Mark's okay, but he's just there. Vicky's everything I could want in a sister. But Carol is … that disapproving teacher who never, ever shows any sign of approval, and is ready to bust you for the slightest infraction. That's what I grew up with. That's what I'm tired of living with. That's why I want you to release my father. So I can have my real family back.”

By now, Panacea was sitting with her back up against the wall of the cell, uncaring of the puddles on the floor, arms around her knees.

“So go ahead, call them. Get your experts in. I'm me, and I'm not under influence. I'm serious about what I want.”

She lowered her head to her knees, and didn't seem inclined to say any more. Piggot keyed off the mic on her end, and made the call.

<><>​

Armsmaster

He was waiting with the Director and Gallant in the area outside the isolation cell when the Dallons arrived. The briefing had been minimal to non-existent; she had told him to wait until everyone was there.

Glory Girl was the first one in. “What's going on here?” she asked. “Why's Amy in an isolation cell? What's going on here?” She moved toward the cell; the two PRT guards reacted slightly, lifting the nozzles of their containment foam dispensers. “Hey, chill, guys. We're on the same side, here.”

“Please stay back,” one of the guards requested in a voice that made it clear that this was not actually a request.

Glory Girl turned to the others waiting there. “Dean, tell me what's going on here. What are you doing with Ames?”

“It's not me,” replied Gallant; his armour was showing signs of the fight in front of the bank, and he was moving carefully. “The Director just told me to attend. I'm still not sure why.”

“I'm suspecting a Master/Stranger situation,” Armsmaster stated. “But I lack details.”

Director Piggot gestured at the girl sitting on the floor within the cell. “I wanted to get you all here together before explaining this, so I didn't have to go over it more than once. I need you to give me your best estimation of the mental state of that person, including whether or not you believe that it is really Panacea, and whether she is in her right mind … or being controlled by someone.”

Armsmaster's head came up. “What happened?”

Piggot took a deep breath. “She came to my office and revealed that Marquis is her father.”

Armsmaster looked over the assembled group for their reactions. Brandish and Flashbang looked unsurprised, while Glory Girl's eyes widened slightly. She didn't know. Gallant let out a small “uh?” of surprise. He controlled his own reaction; he hadn't known either, but it didn't mean that he had to let the world know about it.

“I presume that she said more than that,” the Protectorate hero commented.

“She did,” agreed Piggot. “She told me that she wanted Marquis released.”

At this, Brandish's eyes narrowed; Flashbang still didn't seem to be reacting very much. Glory Girl's eyes widened again.

“Crap, really?” asked Gallant. Again, Armsmaster withheld his reaction.

“Yes, really, Mr Stansfield,” Piggot told the Ward acidly. “Now, as Armsmaster has pointed out, this is a Master/Stranger situation. I very much urgently need to find out if she has been Mastered, or has been replaced by a Stranger, for obvious reasons. So, my question to you is, is this Amy Dallon, and is she in command of her own mind?”

“Let me begin,” Armsmaster suggested, stepping up to the inch-thick plexiglass of the isolation cell. Within, the girl sitting on the floor did not react. Armsmaster pressed the intercom button. “Panacea.”

Her head came up. “Yes?”

“Are you the superhero Panacea?”

“Yes, I am.”

“State your full civilian name.”

“Amelia Claire Lavere.”

There was a distinct pause before he replied. “Isn't your name Amy Dallon?”

“That's the name they gave me when they adopted me. But my name is really Amelia Claire Lavere.”

All of the readouts on his helmet HUD lie detector were giving a solid green result. He clicked off the intercom and turned toward Piggot. “She's telling the truth.” He looked at Flashbang and Brandish. “What's going on?”

Flashbang shrugged. “When we adopted her, we shortened her name to Amy. Gave her our surname. Can't remember her original name, but … “

“That was her name,” Brandish snapped. “The name he gave her.”

“'He' being Marquis?” asked the Director.

Brandish nodded curtly. “Yes.”

“Hm.” Armsmaster turned back to the intercom, and pressed the button once more. “Panacea. Have you been using the identity of Amy Dallon since you were adopted into New Wave?”

“It was the Brockton Bay Brigade back then, but yeah. Amy Dallon's my official name.”

“How did you come to discover your father's real identity?”

“From an old minion of his. I encountered him a few weeks ago, while I was walking to the hospital. We talked, a lot. He told me about my father. My real father. What he was like. How he was captured.” The look she sent toward Brandish at that moment should have cracked the plexiglass.

“I understand that he was attacked in his own home, while you were present,” Armsmaster noted. “Is this true?”

“Yes, and the woman who's been pretending to be my mom for the last ten years nearly killed me.” Her voice was bitter. “My father saved my life, and for that he got to go to the Birdcage.”

Gallant and Glory Girl were both staring at Brandish now; she compressed her lips and ignored them.

“If you're referring to the unwritten rules, they weren't really around back then,” he told Panacea.

“No, not until that guy killed Fleur. Then people really started paying attention to them.” The bitterness in her voice had not decreased. “Funny how that happens.”

Armsmaster drew a breath. “Tell me about why you want Marquis released.”

“He's my dad. He was a supervillain and a murderer, and he was still a better parent than I've ever had since.” The matter-of-fact tone in the teenage girl's voice came through strongly.

“You have to understand; what you are demanding isn't possible.”

“Sure. Just so long as you understand that if I don't get what I want, you don't get what you want.”

Emotional markers were high, but aside from that, she was batting a solid thousand. Either Panacea believed implicitly in an elaborate series of lies, or everything she was saying was the honest truth. Which begged the question. He spoke carefully into the intercom.

“What, exactly, do we not get?”

“Any more healing, ever.”

<><>​

There was a babble of voices from behind him. Armsmaster waited them out. He pressed the button again. “Am I to understand that you intend to withhold healing from everyone who needs it unless your father – Marquis, the supervillain – is released from the Birdcage?”

“Yes.” She nodded once, sharply.

“You do realise, that's a very selfish act.”

“And I'm not allowed to be selfish? Everyone else is selfish! Demanding that I heal you all, any hour of the day – that's selfish! I just want something back of my own. I want my father.”

“Miss Dallon -”

“Lavere.”

“Miss Lavere, then. Are you aware of the amount of suffering that will ensue from you doing this?”

“It won't be me doing it. You know what I want. If I get my father back, you get back Panacea. If I don't … you don't.” She sat up. “And by the way. Now that my foster mother the lawyer is here, I'd like to enter a complaint about being kept in unlawful detention, in inhumane conditions, as a minor.” She gestured at the cell, the water still lying in puddles, at her bedraggled costume.

“You're still under Master/Stranger protocols here,” Armsmaster told her. “Until we can determine your identity and state of mind either way, we can't risk letting you out.”

But Glory Girl had turned to her mother, and was talking urgently to her. Flashbang was looking unhappy as well. Brandish's expression was more and more sour by the moment.

“One more question.” Armsmaster's voice was sharp. “Did anyone else put you up to this? This minion you spoke of?”

“Not in the slightest.” In the cell, Panacea shook her head. “He just filled me in on what I didn't know before. This is all my idea. And in case you're wondering, he died last week, on the roof of the hospital. We were watching the sunrise together.”

<><>​

Armsmaster keyed the intercom off and stepped away from the cell. Piggot came to meet him, gesturing Gallant to accompany her. Together, they moved away from the Dallons, who were talking among themselves.

“Armsmaster, your analysis?” Piggot's voice was sharp.

“She's telling the truth, as she knows it. Not even attempting to hide anything. She believes implicitly in what she's saying.”

“Gallant?” The Director turned to the Ward.

The teenager took a deep breath. “She's angry, upset, determined, and there's a longing there. Also, a little bit embarrassed, but that's probably to do with being in a cell like this.”

“Any sense of duplicity?”

“No.” Gallant looked the Director in the eye. “As Armsmaster stated, she believes implicitly in what she says. And she has mixed feelings about seeing her family.”

“Unsurprising,” the Director murmured. “With what she's revealed about Brandish … “

“I'm surprised that she's been walking to the hospital, in the middle of the night it seems, to heal people, and no-one else knew about it,” Gallant put in. “Not her parents, not her sister.”

“They didn't?” Piggot raised an eyebrow. “Wait, how do you know she was going there in the middle of the night?”

“She met him while she was walking there,” Gallant explained. “And they watched the sunrise from the hospital roof. Which suggests to me that she walked there in the middle of the night. Or she went there in the evening, and spent all night there. No-one else came with her, because no-one in her family knew about it.”

“Something to be investigated,” Piggot noted briskly. “Okay, analysis.”

“So far, I cannot state that she's anyone but who she says she is,” Armsmaster told her carefully.

“And she's not throwing off any weird or out of place emotions,” Gallant added.

Piggot nodded. “Very well. So she's not lying or insane.”

“I've met insane people.” Gallant shuddered. “She's not insane.”

“Now what?” asked Armsmaster.

“Now the family speaks to her.”

<><>​

Glory Girl

When Piggot gave them the nod, Vicky and her parents moved up to the cell. Dad reached out and pressed the intercom. “Amy girl,” he began. “What's going on? Why are you doing this?”

“It's not you, Mark, it's me.” Amy moved up to the plexiglass. “I can't take this any more. The pressure. I need someone who's in my corner. Who understands.”

Vicky leaned across to the speaker. “I'm in your corner, Ames. I understand.”

Amy's eyes were sad. “Sorry, Vicky. It's not enough.”

“What do you mean, not enough? You're my sister. We've known each other forever.”

“Ten years, more or less, Vicky. And you're right. I could never have had a better sister.”

“Enough.” Mom's voice was sharp; her courtroom voice, the voice that stated that the bullshit had better stop, because Carol Dallon was going to kick ass and take names until it did. “Amy Dallon, why are you doing this?”

“You know why, Carol. You've been scared this day would happen since you adopted me.”

Vicky frowned. “What do you mean?” She turned to her mother. “What does she mean?”

“Nothing.” Mom stared through the plexiglass. “It was a mistake to take you in. I knew that then, and I know it now.”

“Mom!” Vicky's protest was a wail. “You can't mean that! Amy's your daughter, just like me!”

“Hardly. You heard her. She's the daughter of Marquis. Every day I looked at her, I saw him. And now he's coming out in her.”

Vicky shook her head. “Mom, you can't think -”

“I don't think. I know.” She gestured at the girl in the cell. “Who but the daughter of a supervillain would demand to have him released? Who but a villain in the making herself would hold the whole world hostage to her demands like this?”

“I hardly think she's holding anyone hostage, dear,” protested Dad. “She's just saying that she's not going to be using her powers any more.”

“After she spent years making sure that everyone knows that Panacea can cure anyone of anything.” Mom's tone was cutting. “Giving out healing for free. Healing the members of the Protectorate and the Wards. Attending Endbringer battles. Making herself indispensable.”

Vicky shook her head. “That's not being evil, Mom! That's being a hero!” She turned to the intercom. “Ames. Was this all a big plot of yours?”

An electronic chuckle. “No, Vicky. It was just me, healing people because I couldn't see any other way to go. I couldn't not do it. I didn't see another option, even as I got closer and closer to burning out. Well, now I have another option. And I'm taking it.”

Piggot stepped forward. “If you could ask her questions, so that we could see if she knows the answers?”

“Oh. Ah. Right.” Dad leaned in to the intercom. “Amy girl. Birthday before last. What did I get you?”

Her tone was dry. “Nothing, Mark. You forgot.”

“What?” He frowned. “I'm sure I remembered … “

Vicky shook her head. “No, Dad. She's right. You forgot her birthday that year. You got her a gift certificate two weeks late.”

“Oh.” He shrugged, gestured to Mom. “Carol, your turn.”

Mom took a deep breath. “Amy, what are you intentions in the unlikely event that your father is released?”

“Get a place. Move in with him.”

“And when he recommences his criminal career?” Her voice was sharp.

“I'll make sure he doesn't.”

“And how will you do that?” Her tone was derisory now.

“I'll ask him not to. For my sake.”

“So what do you think he'll do instead of criminal activity? It is all he knows, you realise.”

“Well, actually, Carol, all he knows right now is the Birdcage.” Amy's voice was very dry. “Only the worst hellhole in the civilised world. And he's been there for ten years. Somehow I don't think he'll want to go back. So maybe he'll be happy to take a rest. Smell the flowers. Maybe even come to the hospital with me and assist with bone reconstruction.”

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“Well, gee, until we ask him, we'll never know, will we?”

“I don't much like the tone of your voice, young lady.”

“And I don't much like being locked in a cell like this, but we can't all have what we want, can we?”

Vicky cleared her throat. “Uh, Mom? Can I talk to her?”

“Very well,” huffed Mom. “But remember. She's not your sister, not really. She never has been.”

“As far as I'm concerned, she is, and she always will be.” Vicky leaned in to the intercom. “Ames, can you hear me?”

“Sure thing, Vicky. What do you want to know?”

She bit her lip. “When was the first time I kissed Dean?”

“About two days after you started going out with him.” Amy grinned. “You couldn't stop talking about it. By the time we went to sleep, you'd planned out your married life together, and named all six of your kids.” She paused. “Of course, a week later, you had your first fight with him and dumped him, but that was kind of par for the course.”

From behind her, Vicky heard Gallant – Dean – mutter to himself, “Six kids?” She ignored him, and fought down her blush.

“Uh, okay. What did I say to you after we fought Skidmark for the first time?”

Amy looked up and assumed an expression of concentration. “As I recall, it was 'Ew, ew ew. Ew ew ew. Ewwwwww.' And then you went and had about three showers.”

“Oh god, yes. I remember.” Vicky turned to the others. “That was the most swearing that I'd ever heard in my life. I felt icky for days.” She turned back to the intercom. “Last question. What did I do when I first got my costume?”

Amy snorted, the sound carrying through clearly. “You refused to take it off for about three days. Mom had to threaten you with grounding just to make you take it off to have a shower. You even slept in it.”

“Haha, yeah.” Vicky turned from the intercom. “Okay, I'm satisfied. She's Amy. Dad? Mom?”

Dad nodded. “I agree with Vicky. Carol?”

Mom frowned, didn't answer. Vicky reached out, put her hand on her mother's arm. “Mom?”

“I'm thinking.”

“What's to think about, Mom? It's Amy in there. You know it. I know it. Come on, tell them.”

Carol Dallon drew a deep breath and turned to the PRT Director. “I believe that that's Amy in there. If you say she's not under outside influence, then I believe you.” She paused for a long beat.

“But I'm not so sure that she's in her right mind.”

“What?” Vicky grabbed her arm again. “Mom!”

Her mother shook her hand off. “Think, Victoria. She wants to have Marquis released. She's willing to have a supervillain, one who was sent to the Birdcage, let back into the world.”

Dad grimaced. “Dear, he is her real father.”

“And that's my point. She's not rational as far as he's concerned.”

“Well maybe if you'd told her about this years ago, so it didn't come as a big surprise now, we wouldn't be in this position,” Vicky snapped.

Director Piggot cleared her throat loudly. Everyone looked at her.

“I would much rather you not have a family argument right here and right now,” Piggot told them sternly. “You agree that it is your daughter in there?”

“Well, it's Amy, yeah,” Vicky supplied. “No doubt about it.”

“Unfortunately,” Mom put in, “it's also an Amy who intends to withhold healing from those who need it until her demands are met.”

“Which leads me to my next question,” the Director noted. “Where do we go from here?”


End of Part Two

Part Three