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Tuesday was, in the opinion of Emily Piggot, the worst day of the week.
The energy recovered during the weekend had disappeared during the Monday, in which the chaos of the weekend needed to be dealt with. But unlike Wednesday, there wasn't the comfort of being able to tell oneself 'halfway through the week at least.' Instead, she had to stare, sourly, down the barrel of the loaded gun of four more days dealing with a city determined to give her ulcers.
She'd only just sat down at her desk that morning when her assistant, James, placed a document down on her desk for her immediate attention.
"What's this?" Emily asked, glancing at the sheet of paper the same way the average person might look at a dead spider.
"An application by a potential new Ward, Director."
This supremely informative and yet barren explanation had her quirking an eyebrow.
"A new Ward? I haven't heard about this," she said, feeling her mood plummet.
A new member of the Wards programme was, by all logic, a good thing for the department.
It was another Parahuman boot on the ground, another asset that could be drawn on with time, and in some cases with the Tinkers, one that could begin paying dividends swiftly with minimal risk. It was, perhaps, a rather mercenary way to see it, but you came to think in such ways as the one trying to hold a city like Brockton Bay together.
However, Wards also tended to come with all sorts of baggage that, frankly, she didn't need this early in the morning. Baggage like broken homes, god complexes, or even criminal records in some cases. Wrangling irritable, hormonal teenagers was hard enough before they got superpowers, and dancing that fine line between things was a pain in her rear.
"The Department only got emailed by her last night, after you left," James explained. "The Deputy Director was handling an incident to do with the training room and a request by Kid Win, so Agent Carson answered the emails. Apparently they were incredibly polite."
Well, she supposed that made sense, even if she would be having words about proper documentation and passing news up the chain of command later.
"Good god, somebody who actually knows how to communicate and doesn't just walk in through the doors," she murmured, reaching out to take up the paper.
The application form for New Wards was a rather lean beast by design; two sides of paper intended to not be overly intimidating for any teenagers or children who were trying to fill them out. The various fields were simple things that even the average moron could competently fill out, which made a few of the actual answers she'd seen over the years all the more concerning.
She read the name, and felt a headache starting as her eyebrows raised.
"'Hoard?' We must be dealing with some sort of Dragon themed Cape."
There was a pause from her assistant, and Emily wondered whether he was trying to guess whether she'd just made a joke or not. Honestly, one would think that she was devoid of all humanity and personality for how some people acted...
"Yes, Director. From what I heard they seem very earnest."
She hummed to that, eyes continuing to read.
It was when she reached the 'why would you like to join the Wards' section that she paused again.
Alongside the usual reasons of any good, upstanding and right-minded teenager (not always a common stipulation, that last one) was a quite frank and blunt statement for why they wanted to join.
"... Well, that is a first," she said, struggling not to show the distaste on her face. "I've never heard of a Ward being interesting in the accounting side of the entire business. Is this quite correct? Applying to be 'engaged in the financial services' of the PRT?"
She glanced over the top of the document, and her assistant nodded.
"Apparently, Director. They said in the email that seeing how their power is all about money, and they'd rather have a role that in some way lets them use it properly."
Piggot took her her mug of coffee and leaned back in her chair, reading over the most important part of the document; the young Parahumans description of their power.
I can sense my money and everything that happens to it. I know the moment anything gets added to it and how much I have, and how valuable things I own are and stuff like that. If I give money to people, then I know where they are all the time and how they use it. I secretly gave my dad a 5 dollar note and knew when he used some of it to buy a ham and pickle sandwich at 12:42 yesterday. I could also track the sandwich for a bit until he ate it. I think because its value was then reduced to nothing?
"... Well, it won't be bringing Lung in any time, but I can certainly see the utility in it," she admitted, putting the application down on the table.
A Thinker power, then.
The question was, how could it benefit the department?
Various answers came to mind immediately; keeping track of where money went, both literally and figuratively, was something that plenty of large organisations could benefit from.
Although handing any amount of control over government money to a minor was not only unadvisable, but also likely against some part of the organisation's charter... But lawyers existed precisely go get around these sorts of limitations, and given last quarter's financials, it would be good to have a second pair of eyes over them...
Even if those eyes were from a Parahuman.
"When's Hoard due to visit?" she asked, taking another sip of her coffee.
James glanced over his own screen, rapidly clicking and typing away.
"Hmm... tomorrow at eleven, Director. Armsmaster is scheduled to speak with her."
"Good. Please make sure that he gets the report to me afterwards quickly, I am curious to her about it."
With that, she set Hoard's application down on a section of her desk to be dealt with later, and continued onwards. James said something about Renick needing to deal with a request and Kid Win making a request, and finding out what both those entailed was her next problem to take care of.
"If you want to understand the way the world works, follow the way money moves."
Taylor Hebert had heard that once, although she couldn't remember who it was that said it in the first place.
It might have been her dad... but he wasn't the sort of person who came out with that sort of philosophical advice.
She may well have never heard it at all, to be honest, and just made it up in her own head.
One thing that was for certain, however, was that being able to constantly observe how money moved through society was bizarrely enlightening.
Currently, Taylor was perfectly aware of how one-hundred and sixty-three thousand six-hundred and fifteen dollars and three cents was moving across several hundred people, their bank accounts, and expenditures. Her mind kept track of the money down to the cent. Every few seconds there was a new purchase or transaction that she was perfectly aware of, and knew the details surrounding.
It was a vast web, and she followed every little movement within it.
For instance, her father had just paid for gas and a scratch card at the gas station nearest to their house.
Another example; PRT Agent Kina had just paid for a prostitute to keep her company for the next few hours, with rather... unusual stipulations.
Most importantly, though, an individual loosely affiliated with the PRT had just used money that had passed between three shell companies and unaffiliated individuals who didn't actually exist to pay a hitman, James Gunnarson, to murder Taylor Hebert.
James Gunnarson had used part of the money to purchase a number of bullets suitable for a high-powered-rifle.
Gunnarson and those bullets were currently one block and two stories away on the path she normally went on for her morning jog.
Taylor had not gone outside this morning for obvious reasons.
Instead, she was in her house, in the windowless downstairs bathroom, following the flows of money throughout society.
The individual that had paid for Gunnarson had dozens of other expenditures.
She could only trace the money that she had been part of distributing, money that, as far as her power was concerned, was hers in the first place on some level, but she could follow all of that.
A good portion of the funds had been paid to an individual called 'Calibre' in return for a hand-held Tinkertech weapon system. Said system was currently in transit from Atlanta to Brockton Bay. Whoever it was had also used the money to pay for a number of private citizens as 'security payments', and those individuals were currently in an underground location in the city.
Taylor had been a Ward for just over two weeks, and her power had found a conspiracy with somebody trying to kill her.
"---oard? Are you still there?"
The voice over the PRT issued cell phone was a little crackly, what with her being in an inner room.
"Yes, I'm here!" she spoke up, trying to keep a faint tremble out of her voice.
"Dauntless is en-route to deal with this Gunnarson," Miss Militia's voice was soothing.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath and relaxing a fraction where she was huddled in the space between the toilet and the shower.
"Everything's going to be okay, and we're going to take care of this," the senior Parahuman added, evidently reading into her tone. "I've started gathering people you said weren't affiliated to perform a raid, can you stay on the line to help track things?"
"Of course---" Taylor flinched as the sound of a gunshot reached her ears, hunching down further.
A momentary pause, the seconds dragging out into small eternities as she waited to hear what had happened.
"Dauntless has neutralised the sniper and has him restrained. We're sending someone to pick you up and bring you to Headquarters."
"Thanks, Miss Militia... I'll see you soon," she tried to sound more professional, nodding to herself even as a strange, warbling chuckle escaped her throat. The assassin was gone, that was what mattered the most... now she just hoped she could help the PRT nail down this bastard behind it.
It had been a strange fortnight for Emily Piggot.
Between Lung's recent rampage up King's Street and that army of Tinkertech lawn Gnomes Uber and Leet had deployed, she'd been kept busy.
So when she arrived on Monday morning to find not just a pile of paperwork in her inbox, but a skyscraper of it reaching a good five inches in height, her lips pursed and a vein in her temple pulsed.
Something had happened over the weekend, and somebody had decided not to inform her about it.
And now she was going to have to deal with the consequences of it, wasn't she?
"James."
"Director---"
"What happened?"
Her assistant squared his shoulders in what was probably an attempt to steel himself, but made him look more like a giant tortoise preparing to reach for a low-hanging fruit.
"A number of raids were conducted last night, resulting in the capture of---" his eyes flickered down to the paper before him. "---the supervillain Coil, twenty-three Tinkertech-armed mercenaries and the securing of a previously unknown underground base. We also have concrete leads on the Undersiders, who it turns out are assets of Coil and should be seized within the day."
... Well then.
That was quite a lot to handle before her morning coffee.
"I see."
Taking another second to regard the mountain of paperwork, Emily stepped forward around the desk and pulled out her chair, settling herself down on it and placing her mug down.
"James?"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"I want whichever Cape in this department is responsible for this in front of me in the next ten minutes."
The Cape responsible, or at least, who came to speak with her, was Miss Militia, which rather surprised Emily.
Normally it was a Ward that caused this level of chaos, or Armsmaster having a turbulent exchange with one of the city's major villains.
Miss Militia knocked on the door and entered upon being indicated to do so, stepping in and giving her greetings to Emily in her normal manner, even if there was just a moment of hesitancy there.
"Miss Militia," she greeted with a nod, indicating for the woman to take a seat opposite her.
She did so.
"It seems that there has been a bit of drama over the weekend that I haven't been informed about," she said, cutting straight to the chase of the matter.
Frankly, she was not in the mood to dilly-dally with irrelevant pleasantries.
The Parahuman took the hint.
"Well, Ma'am. We had to move quickly to make sure we could capitalise on it, and informational security was paramount."
"So paramount that I, the Director of the department, wasn't informed?"
There was a pause in which the woman was silent.
"We had reasons to suspect that the matter ran rather deep, Director."
The tone was careful, not casting aspersions but also making it perfectly clear that, for a brief period of time, she had been actively suspected in whatever matter had occurred.
"Well, please would you kindly explain what happened, then? I am rather keen to hear it from you rather than piecing it together from all of this," she gestured towards the tower of paperwork.
Miss Militia took a moment to consider what she was about to say, during which Emily watched her like a hawk. When she began to speak, it was with a careful tone.
"Well, the newest Ward, Hoard, has started work with the accounts department, as you know, Director."
Yes, and hadn't that proven to an interesting conversation.
It turned out there was a loophole in the PRT's rules where Wards could intern with other parts of the structure as part of their training. So instead of traditional aspects like Console duty, Hoard was spending several hours a week with the Accounts team.
Her power was useless for patrols, so putting her to use in keeping track of spending and in anti-corruption measures had been deemed for the best use of her abilities.
"Well, she found a number of discrepancies through her power two weeks ago, and after the most recent payday went through, she was able to track the use of the money."
... Emily felt a knot forming in her stomach as she saw where this was going.
"Anyway, being able to track the latest payments, where they were going to and how they were being used, she found a number of oddities and shell companies. Frankly it all went over my head when she started talking about shell company structures circular payments being split through multiple parties; Accounts is still trying to pin it all down with her help but suffice it to say, a number of people in the Department have been funnelling money away for years, Director."
"And this links to Coil of all people?" she clarified.
"Yes, Ma'am. He's Thomas Calvert."
Her brows raised, under the table, she clenched her hand for a moment before releasing it. She took a tactical sip of her coffee, letting Miss Militia wait for her to compose herself.
Only once she had done so did she seek the clarification.
"Calvert?"
"Yes, Director. He had moles throughout the department, all being paid through multiple layers of company and diversions, but Hoard was able to track all of them."
"And because of our previous association, you thought I might be in on it?"
"That is correct, Director."
"And the Protectorate moved independently to deal with Calvert and his organisation?"
Miss Militia nodded, although there was a momentary pause after she did so, the sort one did as they prepared to deliver a piece of bad news.
"An attempt was planned to be made on Hoard's life on Sunday afternoon, which forced the Department's hand. We presume that somebody tipped Calvert off that she knew something about his operation, but not the full nature of her power---"
That bastard had planned to attack one of her Wards?
"Is she alright?" Emily cut in.
"Yes, Ma'am," Miss Militia hurried to add. "The assassin and bullets were paid for in part with money from Calvert's latest payment, so she knew the intention and didn't leave the house."
She exhaled with relief.
They were going to need to reassess the girls ratings in the near future, weren't they?
Well, it could come after the fallout of this mess could be taken care of; somebody attempting to assassinate a Ward out of costume was a drastic escalation in term that could easily see an individual faced with the strictest of punishments.
"So, what next?"
"Dauntless arrived to take out the hitman, and the department moved to deal with Coil. Thanks to Hoard's tracking we were able to capture him, although a few Agents are currently recovering from injuries as part of the operation... that's probably the most succinct version of it I can manage, Director. There's a lot of details buried in there."
And to all of this...
Emily looked once again towards the mountain of paperwork.
All of this in one night? A part of her was secretly proud of the department, although of course, she would refrain from expressing such until it was all dealt with.
So Calvert had been Coil this entire time... that bastard.
"It seems I have a busy day ahead of myself," Emily noted. "I would appreciate that anything still being held back being reported to me, hopefully any remaining suspicion has been cleared at this point?"
"Yes, Director. We're still interrogating Calvert, his group, and picking through everything in his base, so it might take a while."
It was certainly quite a scoop for the department... and all because of one teenage girl being able to trace money laundering.
"Very well," she said, nodded. "Oh, and please check in with Hoard, I imagine she's had a rather stressful twenty-four hours," Emily added. "I'll speak with her later, once I've made some progress with all of this, but please let her know that we'll be dealing with this as seriously as possible."
"Yes, Director Piggot."