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Miss Militia handed me a phone, and I dialed the number I'd memorized. A gaudy jingle played as the line waited, and then cut off as someone picked up.
"Saul Goodman, a lawyer you can trust." The voice on the other end said. He sounded too upbeat, and I wondered if it was a front.
"It's time," I replied. "I'm at the PRT headquarters, second basement floor."
"Ms. Hebert! Was wondering what was taking them so long. The boys in black giving you the special treatment? Anything I can bury them in paperwork for?"
"Yes, but I'll talk about it more when you get here."
"Thank goodness you called me. My suit might as well be a neon sign on my ass saying 'Mug me'. And given my bad knees and the Waterworld1 vibes you've got going on in your lovely town, I'd have been in a ditch within the hour."
I cut through his chatter. "How fast can you get here?"
"Give me two minutes."
My bugs fanned out, and I found him in an alley close to the building, my bugs tracing over the sharp edges of a fitted suit.
"You want anything?" He asked me. "Juice box, coffee? I hear the food they give you is bad enough that most of my clients think its Soylent Green2. And that's excluding the obvious cannibals."
"Just get here. Please."
"If you say so, kid. And keep your mouth shut. Pretend you're one of those nuns who've taken a vow of silence. One of the real ones, not the ones in the porno stuff."
The call cut off, and Tagg regarded me coldly.
"None of your little tricks are going to save you now. Do the right thing. I know you have morals, no matter how far you've strayed away from them. Turn yourself in, and we might be able to keep you from the Birdcage."
The figure in the suit strode into the building without any fanfare. He waved to the receptionist, and then strode over to the elevator. She got up to stop him, but he was too quick for her. He pointed towards one of the troopers standing near the entrance, and made a chopping motion with his hand. The man accompanied him into the elevator, and they headed down to me.
"I know who you've called in." His eyes cut into me, the bright lights of the interrogation room only giving them more intensity. "Do you think you can run away from what you've done? Dance through a few legal loopholes, and get back a clean record? No matter what you were, I thought you were better than this. A clown in a suit to come bail you out. Do you think this is going to absolve you of what you've done? Shield you from the moral consequences?"
The man in the suit poured out of the elevator and briskly walked through the hallways, outpacing his escort. The door to the interrogation room slammed open, and through it entered a walking sunspot.
I'd looked him up before this, and everything I had seen had curled my lips up in distaste. He was no different in person. He looked like a man going through a midlife crisis, wearing a suit of bright orange so florid that it seemed to emit its own light. His thinning hair was in a comb over, covering as much of his scalp as it could. The only difference between this man and the one in all the tacky ads and billboards seemed to be his skin. Without makeup or color corrections, red blotches marred his almost sallow skin. I noted he was rubbing the black signet ring on his pinky.
"Ho ho, what's this? Cozy little party without me? Come on Director, time to go. Go get yourself the old Nixon special3, a jar of booze and a nap. Not a Nixon fan? Sorry, took you for the type."
Tagg looked murderous, but he complied, nearly leaving with Miss Militia in tow. Saul stopped him with a hand.
"Whoa, what's this? Why's she chained up like Quasimodo4? She's got the hunchback and everything, sitting like that." He snapped his fingers. "Those come off, now."
Tagg seemed ready to counter him, but Saul sent him a dangerous grin. "I've got the complaint form all typed up. Maybe I call the local news too, tell them about what conditions she's in. How about it, Director? Want to do your part to save local journalism?"
Miss Militia moved forward and unlocked the handcuffs, letting me finally sit up normally. He nodded to me, and then turned towards them, making pushing motions.
"One two shoo. And no quivering behind the glass, looking in like a bunch of perverts!" He called out. If they replied, it was non-verbally. "No cameras either!"
Tagg slammed the door shut, and Saul began walking around the room, poking and prodding at everything. He pushed a finger into the corner of a vent, squinted up at the lights, and then threw his coat over the tripod mounted camera in the corner.
"There're no listening bugs in the room. I checked."
He slammed into the chair in front of me, leaning back fully. His inner shirt was a fuchsia green, paired with a shimmering blue tie.
"Doesn't hurt to be careful." He opened up his briefcase, pulling out a messy stack of files and papers. He put them onto the table, and looked at me, finally taking me in.
"Jeez, you really are young. The way they talk about you, you'd think you were a steely old crone calling down plagues. Forget I said that, it doesn't seem you like that description, judging by the cold eyes. Let's get down to it."
He pointed to himself. "Now, I know I wasn't your first choice. Now I could act like a scorned lover, really ham it up, but I'll spare you the waterworks. I know why. Quinn's a good lawyer, even if he is a pompous ass. Easy on the eyes too, even with the scar. Real Tommy Flanagan5 type."
I raised my eyebrow, and he tried to explain. "Tommy Flanagan? Braveheart? I guess you're more of the literary type. Should have guessed that given...everything about you."
Despite the blunder, his smile didn't slip. "Anyway, I know why you picked Quinn. Different strengths and all that. But the reason I'm here and he's not is because we all know this is headed for a jury trial, and you need me for that."
"You know Quinn?" That surprised me more than anything. Quinn Calle was the opposite of everything Saul Goodman seemed to be. I'd be surprised if Quinn even knew about him, and here he was telling me they were associates.
"Oh yeah. Parahuman law is so small you're rubbing shoulders with everyone. It's like an elevator in a grease trap. Tried to give him some tips, get him to spruce up his jury game and his PR. The nuggets I gave him. 'Call Quinn to Win' was a golden jingle. And he didn't want to use that. Can you believe him? Didn't even have to change his name for it, lucky bastard. Some people don't know how easy they've got it. Not like you and me."
"Can we cut out the charm and get to business?" I asked, leaning forward. "We have something of a time limit."
"We don't. I talked to our associate, and she had a rough idea about what you're going to do. And I'm here to make sure we do it right. No time limits, no ultimatums. We've got time."
"I don't want a jury trial, so I'm unsure of why you're here."
He folded a hand over his chest. "You're killing me, kid. Don't say things you don't mean. People are going to think you took too many hits to the back of the head in that open mask of yours."
"I'm serious. A trial will take too much time. Time we don't have."
He waved me off. "Before we go around making any definite statements, hear me out. You can do that, right?"
I nodded, and he launched into what seemed like a well rehearsed speech.
"The government's been playing hardball for TWO-HUNDRED years. You think you can beat them at their own game? You're wrong with a capital W. I get it, I really do. You're young. The corpuscles are corpusling, your blood is boiling, you're mad about all the injustices the clowns here toss around like candy. But you did flip Uncle Sam the bird in broad daylight. Could have done it behind his back, like the rest of us, saved us all the headache. But you didn't, and now we're here. Look at Frank Reagan6 out there. Do you think he's going to cave to reason all of a sudden? No. He's going to make this as hard as possible, and the quicker we do this the more power he has over us. No. We wait, say you're going to trial, and take enough chunks out of them that they beg us for a deal."
He paused, and looked me in the eyes.
"The only way to get people to do right by people like us is to force them to do it. Makes sense?"
I had to give it to him. For a man who'd come into the room dressed like a traffic cone, he was good at his job. He had charisma, the natural kind that you couldn't really learn or teach. On top of that he was eloquent, his words pouring out of him with all the flair of a parish preacher or a roadshow showman. Even without those things, the actual things he'd said showed an understanding of me as a person.
The only way to get people to do right by people like us is to force them to do it.
Charisma and an innate understanding of people. No wonder he was a terror with juries.
He pulled out a stack of paper out of the pile, licking his fingers so he could flip through them quicker.
"They've given me a copy of your rap sheet. Listen along, illuminate yourself on the lengths they're willing to go to drag you through the mud. Also gives me a chance to show off how good I am at refuting everything."
"April tenth." He read out. "Criminal negligence with a parahuman ability, sixteen charges of assault, sixteen charges of battery with a parahuman ability. Remember that?"
"Lung and his henchmen. They're charging me for that?"
He laughed. "They're charging you for everything. Crossed the street without looking once or wiped with more paper than you needed? Bam, the suits are there. Don't worry, none of it is going to stick. All of the goons you attacked had criminal records, plus a Protectorate hero looked over them and did squat."
"April fourteenth. Thirty two charges of willful felony assault with a parahuman ability. Thirty two charges of hostage taking, technically domestic terrorism, each perpetrated with a parahuman ability. Robbery with a parahuman ability. Willful damage to government property. Disturbing the peace."
He shook his head.
"I knew you were going through it, but oof. You really shouldn't have dabbled in a little bit of domestic terrorism to take the edge off. No judgements, but terrorism isn't really in right now."
"I didn't destroy anything at the Bank. Most of the property damage was from the Wards."
He grinned. "Great, we can use that. Those superpowered morons, smashing up the town again because the government gives them a free pass. The heroes did more damage than the villains! Sure to get the average Joe worked up."
He skipped through the files, muttering as he did. "One case of battery. Five cases of assaulting a law enforcement officer...five cases of battering a law enforcement officer, three performed with a parahuman ability. Ah, here's a good one. Treason."
"Treason?" I couldn't bring myself to be shocked.
"The big T. This is why you need to plaster yourself with the ol' red and blue. Can't be a traitor when you're wearing the flag as a speedo. This is the one they really want to stick on you, ridiculous as it is. They get a jury to drink this up and like it, it's over for you. But I have ways to trip them up here."
"How?"
"You went to all those S-class fights, didn't you? Flew the flag, defended the city and arguably the nation. Apart from that, we can feed the public bits and pieces about you. Juries aren't immune to osmosis. Tell everyone your favorite movie is Pattonusa!, paint you father as an working stiff getting shafted by the man but still serving the good people. It needs some workshopping, but it'll all work out."
"Let's move on."
He nodded. "More assault, more battery. Disturbing the peace, property damage. Extortion. Jeez, you really got around these past few months. Other girls your age were thinking about boys and the prom while you broke bones and stuck bugs up people's rectums. Different strokes for different folks, but you really should have cut back. Still most of this is minor stuff, them trying to overwhelm you with quantity. None of it will stick."
"Complicity in manslaughter, nineteen counts. From the time that guy in the gimp suit blew up a debate."
I nodded.
"I've got a guy working on it. The bodies were fake, and my PI is tracking the still alive people as we speak."
"How do you know the bodies were fake?"
"I've got my ways. Your girl helped, but I think I did most of the heavy lifting."
He tossed the papers back onto the table. "That's the last of it. The only other fly in the soup is the man you sent to Belize."
"Belize?"
He sighed. "The guy you killed. The beanpole in black, looked like he was going through a famine?"
"Coil."
"Yeah, him."
"He was Director Calvert. He was planning to take over the city."
He leaned forward, eyes alight like Christmas had come early. "Say no more, kid. That's him dealt with too, then."
He leaned back like a cat that had eaten the canary. "That's it, then. All the charges against you."
"They seem...excessive." I tentatively said.
He nodded. "Between you and my usual public masturbator, I don't know who has the most outrageous charges."
I couldn't stop myself from asking. "Public masturbator?"
"I used to not bring him up, but he went and did it a second time after I managed to save him. And public masturbators are like magpies7. Once was a sorrow, but the second time was a joy. And you have to admit, it's hilarious."
"Let's get back on track."
He nodded. "Well, it's simple. I can counter all those charges and get them to throw out most of them. I can get you off."
"I don't want to 'get off'."
He chuckled. "I've met your boyfriend, so I know that's not true."
"You met Grue?"
"I met all of them. Needed to know what I was working with. As far as criminals go, they were decent. Even the one who wanted to chew my face off backed away once I held my hands up and told her I was going to help you!"
I rubbed my temple with two fingers. "We keep getting off track."
"Listen to me. There's a really good chance of a jury taking your side." His voice dropped a few pitches lower, taking on a babyish tone. "Poor Taylor Hebert, a sixteen year old spindly little thing. Bullied, battered, denied help and justice at every turn. And so she broke, became a villain. But she had a good heart, and still helped the people in her own way. And look at the government. They're charging her with treason, even when she turned herself in for the best interests of the people! They've gone mad with vindictive rage because someone showed them up!"
His voice went back to his normal tone. "They'll eat it up."
"But there's a chance things could go wrong."
He made a so-so gesture. "No risk, no reward. If we go down this route and win, they're be no negotiations, just plain terms that they'll need to follow or else. That's worth the risk, yeah?"
He held his hand out. "So what do you say? Your choice."
I reached out and shook his hand.
The trial was a media circus. In Saul's own colorful words, I was 'giving OJ8 a run for his money'.
The newspapers were quick to label it the trial of the century, with several papers running front page stories on it for weeks.
The judge we rolled was Frank Vance, a self-styled stern man. He also coincidentally had a thing for the media, and openly allowed them into the courtroom. Every camera in the country flooded the seats for observers, tripods set to capture every moment.
Courtroom proceedings were surprisingly stale, for something that was going to decide my fate. I tuned out the endless stream of objections and sustaineds, listening only when things seemed to pick up.
The power nullifer behind me tensed as I stretched, and then relaxed as I slumped over again. Saul had gotten me more concessions here, too; the PRT had been planning on putting me in a muzzle and sticking my feet in buckets filled with confoam. He'd protested vehemently, and through his cajoling and pleading they'd let me have some of my dignity back. I was still in brute rated handcuffs and feet shackles, but no muzzle or confoam. The trade-off for this little freedom was a power nullifier, focused entirely on me.
Another flash went off, capturing me in my prison sweats. My hair cascading down the large black 'Villain' printed across the shoulders was probably a great headline picture.
I understood now why Saul had been so confident about the trial. He wasn't just a criminal lawyer. He was a criminal lawyer. Everything that posed any obstruction in the case he dealt with in the most underhanded way possible.
Take the witnesses, for example. Before the case, the PRT had dozens of them lined up, all ready to bury me. And then Saul had gotten to them. Once the case had become a fixation in the media, it was clear that people willing to sell their stories would get a lot of money.
Coincidentally, all these witnesses needed money right then. Their cars broke down, heaters stopped working, one even had a wall collapse in their apartment. All easily explained away, of course, but all needing money to fix. Money one media company was all too happy to give them, even overpaying to convince them.
Soon enough, half the witnesses were gone, unable to testify because of conflicts of interest.
I would have been horrified if I hadn't been expecting this. And given everything I'd done, tricking the justice system wasn't the something I was going to draw a hard line about.
I looked at Saul now, prancing in front of the courtroom in an eyewateringly violet suit.
"Mr. Davis, you worked for Coil, later revealed to be Thomas Calvert, one time consultant and later Director of-"
"Objection. That piece of information hasn't yet been corroborated by any verifiable source." The lead prosecutor said.
"Sustained." The judge thundered. "I ask the jury to disregard that piece of information, and that it be struck from the record."
Saul coughed, and carried on. Another trick. Even if the judge asked the jury to disregard that piece of information, it didn't change the fact that they'd heard and internalized it.
"Mr. Davis. You were a mercenary that worked for the supervillain Coil, correct?"
"Yeah." The man's voice was raspy and grating, no doubt a smoker.
"You're also ex-law enforcement, correct?"
"Yeah."
"And members of law enforcement have good memories for faces, yeah? You in particular have a rain man-esqe9 memory."
The man rubbed the back of his head. "I wouldn't go that far, but yes, I never forget a face."
Saul picked up a long thick binder full of pictures and flipped through it, landing on one picture.
"Can you tell me and the court who this is?"
"That's Skitter. Same hair, same costume. I saw her multiple times when she came to visit the boss, and I remember what she looked like."
Saul turned to the court, relishing in the showmanship. "Mr. Davis, would you be surprised if I told you that wasn't Skitter?"
The court exploded with noise, discordant chatter and rapid discussion flooding the space. The judge banged his gavel and yelled for Order, not for the first time today. Once everyone had quieted down again, Saul continued.
"This, Mr. Davis, is actually a Sudanese child soldier, name unknown. Several of your contemporaries have testified to knowing she existed, and we have records of her being payed. And she looks exactly like my client in costume."
Saul turned to the jury. "Coil was a class of thinker who the PRT calls a 'mastermind'. You and I, we think maybe 12 steps ahead at most. These guys? They're living in the future, thousands of moves away. And it is very possible that Coil knew Skitter would become a problem eventually because of her iron clad morals. We know this, given he tried to kill her. Who's to say he didn't try to muck up her reputation too, just so the PRT would also be gunning for her?"
He walked up and down the front of the room, fully in command of the attentions of everyone present. I knew it was all bullshit, but even I couldn't help but almost believe in it, given how much conviction he seemed to pack into every word. "Now, I can already hear the prosecutions next question. Her powers, those can't be faked. Whatever incidents insects were involved in, those had to be her, right? No! I would like you to direct your attention to evidence item #53-A."
He flipped through the book, landing on another picture of a smashed tinker invention. "This machine, now destroyed, was a tinker invention by the name of The Famine Engine. It's maker? Leet. What it did? It controlled bugs. Coil had both the person and the machine to fake both my client's powers and her appearance."
The courtroom exploded into noise, and the judge brought down his gavel again.
The entire court case was a bloodbath for the PRT. In the legal courts, it was unclear who was winning, but in the court of public opinion, they were being torn to shreds.
I suspected Saul had connections in the media, or more likely a way to force stories into the limelight without it being apparent. While Lisa was good at digging up dirty laundry, she wasn't as good at getting it to people, a weakness which Saul shored up nicely.
Every week brought in some new story that took out a potential witness while also making them look worse. Piggot's underlying biases against parahumans. Tagg's work in Lausanne. The whole mess with Sophia.
Every single week this dragged on, the PRT looked worse, more antiquated and brutish with every new piece of information that came out.
The jury was being insulated from all the outside news, of course, but they still couldn't bring Piggot or Tagg in as witnesses because the cameras in the courtroom were broadcasting back to people who hated their guts.
For the PRT, winning legally meant nothing anymore. It wouldn't fix anything.
They came to me in the middle of the trial with their tail between their legs, just like Saul had predicted.
I got everything I wanted from the deal and more. An unofficial amnesty for the Undersiders, and leniency for any future crimes they did. Uncontested ownership of the portal in the Bay. Tagg would retire, replaced by Miss Militia. All across the PRT, capes were now eligible for the administrative positions they were disallowed from before, a move that benefited the PRT now because of the fallout from Piggot. There would now be programs to integrate villains into the Protectorate, more robust and lenient than the one before it. The PRT itself was slated to be restructured, public pressure pushing most of the old guard out.
And I was free. I would publicly join the Protectorate to pour oil over troubled waters, and then set off with Defiant and Dragon to hunt down all the big threats facing us.
"And when I take up the job, you can call me Weaver."
Cameras flashed and questions flew, but I simply waved and stepped backstage. Saul was waiting for me.
"Hell of a show. Rupert Pupkin10 would be jealous."
I shook my head. I'd given up on making sense of his archaic references. "I want to thank you. For everything. I seriously doubted you at the start, but I don't think I could have done this without you."
"Hey, don't mention it. And if you do have legal troubles in the future..."
He hit me with what he called the double barrel, twin thumbs up. He paired the gestures with a blinding smile.
"Better call Saul!"
1. Waterworld is a 1995 American post-apocalyptic action film where the world has completely flooded and humanity lives on floating cities made of scrap. Mad Max but with boats, essentially. return to text
2. Soylent Green is a 1973 American dystopian thriller film. The eponymous Soylent Green is a bland mass produced food later revealed to be made from corpses. return to text
3. Richard Nixon was a noted lightweight in regards to alcohol, and later in his life would drink into the night. return to text
4. Quasimodo is the protagonist of the book The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. He is the hunch backed bell-ringer of the the cathedral, chained and flogged near the end. return to text
5. Tommy Flanagan is an actor best known for Braveheart, who was attacked in his early twenties outside a pub and given a 'Glasgow smile', which shaped his career. return to text
6. Frank Reagan is the domineering old father from Blue Bloods, a police procedural drama television series. He is old, set in his ways, and extremely stubborn. return to text
7. This refers to nursery rhyme about Magpies, which goes 'One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret never to be told.' return to text
8. OJ Simpson was an American Football star whose criminal trial for the murder of his wife and her friend would be called 'The Trial of the Century' and be extensively followed by the media. return to text
9. Rain Man is a 1988 American road comedy-drama film about a hustler and his autistic savant brother. return to text
10. Rupert Pupkin is the protagonist of the film The King of Comedy, a film where he gains immense fame after committing several crimes, including kidnapping a fellow stand up comic and taking his place. return to text
USA! Patton is a 1970 American epic biographical war film about U.S. General George S. Patton during World War II. The opening monologue, depicting General Patton with an enormous American flag behind him, remains an iconic and often quoted image in film. return to text