Scene 23 - October 16th

Exterior Docks, Continuous

Quinn Kaufman

“Well, that could have gone better,” Canaveral sighed.

“Yeah, I got a gun pointed at my head,” I complained. “And you just let a supervillain get away!”

He shrugged. “That bit wasn’t as bad as you think, really. If Max hadn’t shown up, I would have let them leave and they’d just get picked up by the police that are surrounding this area. Speaking of which...” He pressed a hand to one of his cowl’s fins. “Send them in, please. As for Max, well... there are parts of this whole thing that a lot of people don’t realize.”

“Such as?”

“First off, there are supervillains and then there are supervillains,” he said. “Not everyone is an insane murderer like Cobalt Red or Graviton. Hell, not everyone is an incidental killer like Motael or Voltage. In fact, most villains try to avoid killing - particularly in New Venice, where the Mountain King redefined the rules of engagement back when he was active.

“Second has to do with secret identities. See, the MLED knows a decent number of villains’ identities,” the hero explained, “but we don’t make use of that information. Because there are also villains who know heroes’ identities - DMO servers aren’t as secure as they like to pretend, unfortunately - and there’s a truce of sorts to lave those secret identities out of the whole hero-villain business. If we go after them in their identities, they’ll come after us and our families, and vice versa.”

“Mutually assured destruction,” I commented as police officers began appearing and arresting various chained up thugs. One of them approached Canaveral and took custody of the keys that Maxwell had left.

“Exactly.”

“I guess I can see why Max might not be a high priority, if he’s no killer,” I ventured, “but he was right there!”

“I was getting to that. See, the other reason that identities are off limits is that there are so many shapeshifters, illusionists, roboticists, cloners, and the like out there.” He sighed. “And while it’s not exactly likely, it’s happened enough that someone thought to be committing a crime was actually being impersonated that any competent lawyer can get a case thrown out, if the arrest is only based on identity. Even between different appearances of the same costumed persona.”

“So...” I considered this for a moment. “Are you saying that you can’t arrest Maxwell because you didn’t actually see him commit a crime?” I asked. “And if you arrested him for previous crimes, his lawyer would argue that they were the work of an imposter?”

“That’s essentially it, yeah,” the hero confirmed. “It’s a pain, I know, but it’s the way it works. It’s pretty much impossible to connect different appearances of a costumed person in a way that stands up legally without using their actual identity. So even though I know that, say, Max stole a book on ancient English magical artifacts last month - even though I was there and saw him do it,” he complained, “I can’t arrest Max for it tonight, because it could have been an imposter back then.”

“...that seems kind of stupid and contrived.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Canaveral sighed heavily. “Tell me about it, kid. I don’t mind all that much for Max - he’s not actually a bad person even if he’s a thief - but for some people...” he shook his head. “Anyway. The point of all that is that the MLED - which loves ranking people in fours, by some reason - has created a four-tiered system for how to respond to supervillains. Basically, it ranks people by threat level - low, medium, high, plus a null ranking for vigilantes - and gives guidelines on how to respond to people on each level.

“Max is ranked as a low threat despite his power and skill, because he makes an effort to be non-lethal - more than that, to not even really harm anyone. Since he’s ranked low, I ignore what I know of his identity and let him go, unless he’s committing a crime in front of me or I have reason to believe that he’s about to.”

“So he didn’t break the law tonight,” I said, working it out, “and he’s obviously about to go and move his hideout, so you don’t try to take him in.”

Canaveral stared at me. “Yeah, basically. Move his hideout?”

“He mentioned that the drug deal was happening right outside his hideout, and that’s why he sent in an anonymous tip,” I defended my reasoning. “That narrows his location down to just these four buildings here. He knows you know that now, so he’s probably going to move - it’s not like it’ll be much of a problem for him if he can teleport like that.”

“Well reasoned, kid,” the hero said after a moment. “Mazel tov.” I blushed at the praise, and found myself grateful for the mask that hid my face from my hero. “But honestly, I know Max pretty well. He’s probably not going to bother to move.”

“What would move Maxwell up the threat ranking?” I smirked. “If he started to act intelligently, and moved his hideout?”

Canaveral chuckled for a moment, before telling me, “If he started to kill or seriously injure heroes or civilians, that would automatically take him up to mid threat. His hammerspace magic is potentially very dangerous, especially since he’s recently expanded into teleportation, so he might even be bumped to high threat.”

“Is the only difference between mid and high how actively dangerous they are?” I asked, “with low being people who stick to non-lethal regardless of potential danger?”

“It’s all about expected danger, at least theoretically,” he said. “In low, serious injury or death is considered unlikely, whether because of a lack of power on their part or because of a lack of intent. In mid, it’s considered a strong possibility. In high, it’s considered nearly a guarantee.”

“That’s... not a lot of gradation.”

Canaveral shrugged. “Take it up with Director Shepard. I didn’t design the system - I complain about it for the same reason, actually. Same for the power classification system.”

“What’s that like?”

He glanced at his wrist for a moment, then at the police officers - they had finished carting away the subdued gangsters, and now seemed to be waiting for us to finish talking. “You know what? My patrol is nearly finished, and the officers here need to get our statements on this fight down before you can head home and I can head back to the MLED Compound for another debrief there. Why don’t you come around to the Compound in a few days, when I’m on-call instead of patrolling, and I can answer more questions then? I’ll introduce you to the Journeymen and any other members of the Champions that are around. That way you can see who you might be working with if you decide to register as a hero, and get more testimonials than just mine.”

I tilted my head at him. “You really think I’m still considering being a hero after having a gun pointed at me the first time I ever go out in costume?”

He gazed at me appraisingly. “Yes, I think you are. Are you?”

“... enough that I’m tempted to take you up on the offer of introductions for more reasons than just fangirling over Anima,” I admitted.

Canaveral wore an odd expression in response to my joke, but after a moment he said, “Then come on out. Worst case scenario, you don’t like what you hear, and you decide to register with either the MED or MMD. Or just the DMO generally, I suppose, if you’re not going to use your powers in your career.”

I thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a difficult decision, though, as it wasn’t exactly final. It shouldn’t even require me to make my decision when I came in, since I still had almost the entire one-month grace period. “I’ll have to check my schedule,” and talk to my dad about this crazy night, “but I should be able to. What would be the best time?”

“Well...”