Chapter Text
Back home after speaking to the police and letting Dad know I'd solved a murder, it was time to consult my newest research project. And time to consider what I should do with some of my known bad-boys. The corrupt evidence room sergeant was keeping his head down, like many others. I could provide enough evidence but…
No. Wait until he decided that he'd been missed. It wouldn't just give me more information but provide more solid lines the FBI could use to roll up his associates.
One thing I'd learned. It wasn't enough to beat up a bad guy. You had to ensure you did so in a way that didn't see him walking out of the courtroom—or just being the kind of loss criminal networks priced in.
So for now, I'd wait.
But now for the meat of the night. My networks and programs had been searching for anyone in the city or surrounding areas with the name of "Max" or some variation.
The list was very large, but fortunately, that was what filters were for.
Anyone born after Kaiser's appearance, or who would be too young to take a role could be dropped. As much as a two-year-old toddler running the E88 made me snort, I didn't think Maxine Millar fit the profile. Individuals who were obviously non-white were also removed from the list. Some ideas were sufficiently low probability that I could discount them.
Then came individuals who were so physically different in terms of weight, or those with obvious physical disabilities. They went into the "highly unlikely" pile.
The next filter was wealth. Kaiser, in his speeches, spoke with an educated tone, so he either had good speech writers or had the kind of education that came from tutors or a high-quality school. He might be self educated, but even that required some degree of wealth—and he likely had it, because he'd inherited the Empire from All Father.
Which spoke to long-term ties with the Bay.
So new immigrants or those who were just here for "the job" also went into the unlikely piles.
That left forty individuals. All male, all with long-term connections with the Bay, all middle-class or better.
I leaned back and closed my eyes, my bugs continuing to work under the house. Dad was asleep, and the house was silent. He hadn't been thrilled at me being near an ABB cape, but equally…
I had helped them. Lung might be a criminal, but he wasn't a fool. Turning on someone who had done them a good turn would only hurt the ABB in the long run.
Am I leaving a worse problem to grow? I shook my head. No. The fact remained—the Empire had an ideological goal. The ABB just wanted to become wealthy and powerful, and that ultimately made them less dangerous.
Maxwell Stevens… City Council Member, argues for stronger laws, lives downtown. Bugs and fingers flicked over the screen. He was seen in different places, at the same time Kaiser was verified to be elsewhere. Then I started with gait and build analysis. A person's build would be easy to disguise under the armor, although it did let me remove Max Jenkins, the 7 foot tall basketball hope of Brockton Community College from my list, along with the morbidly obese Maximilien Dorn, but gait was a different matter. That was born from a life time of moving around, getting used to your own body. Not impossible to change… but difficult.
Especially if you were confident in your armor's anonymity.
It was two before I had my positive, and I sat back in the seat, feeling like I had been punched.
Max Anders? Max Anders?
But the screen still had a split screen image. Max Anders giving a speech at the Brockton Bay Business Association, Kaiser giving a speech to a crowd of chanting skinheads. Gait analysis, 80 percent similarity.
Even their speech patterns are similar, now that I'm looking at them…
But now… I started looking at other information. Max Anders, schooled at Harvard. Pictures of him, pictures of him… but never with minorities, save for formal settings. Still not enough. It wasn't like the college provided a 24-7 view of his whereabouts.
But Max Anders, married to Kayden Anders, recently separated, according to the gossip rags.
At nearly the same time that Purity stopped associating with the E88.
It didn't take me long to call up images of Kayden-she had a homepage as an interior decorator, with several images and even a video of her showing off some of her work.
There were plenty of images of Purity, granted, the glow made it difficult to get a close look, and the flying…
Gait analysis, 40 percent similarity. Mainly due to a lack of images of Purity walking.
But it doesn't matter. Kayden Anders had a public residence. Finding her, stalking her, and verifying her identity would be relatively easy, especially if she wasn't operating with the Empire and that would lead me right to Max, and if he was Kaiser…
I sat back and exhaled. I have a heck of a problem. Medhall and its associated industries provided nearly twenty percent of the Bay's gross domestic value. More in tax terms, given that Medhall was known for not playing games with their tax exemptions, and nearly a quarter of the Bay's budget was funded by them.
Take Kaiser down, what happens? The remains of the Empire keep existing. Principal Thomas said they were a franchise. So the franchise heads fight. Maybe someone mismanages Medhall and hurts the Bay, which strengthens the Empire.
Or, I could simply reveal who Kaiser was. If I was right, I expected Medhall had been under the Empire for a very long time, if it wasn't simply their creation from scratch. It would explain how the Empire was laundering more money than all the sources I'd found could account for.
Or even worse, Between the Feds and the Empire fighting, Medhall could simply collapse. And that takes nearly a quarter of our budget, endless jobs… It would destroy the City even more so than now.
And even worse, the people who no longer had jobs would remember the days when the Empire existed as the city's golden age. Destroying Medhall might destroy the Empire, but I couldn't think of anything more likely to strengthen white supremacist attitudes.
And yet, I couldn't just leave them. The status quo was intolerable.
No wonder every little girl wanted to be Alexandria, because I really wished there was a way to punch this problem.
I got up, turning my computer off, and walked up to sit on our porch, looking out towards the bay. I could see Medhall, the tallest structure in the Bay illuminated, flaunting its dominance. And yet, I expected most people working in that building had no idea it was part of the E88.
If it was. I still had to verify my findings.
In fact, I expected that there were more than enough minority employees to ensure that nobody would ever dream that Medhall had any truck with the likes of the E88.
So think…
Medhall couldn't be destroyed. It would have to be… subsumed. I would have to prune the Empire, destroy the empire, but do it in such a way that Medhall would remain functional, would continue to contribute to the Bay.
Prune his parahumans away from him, so he couldn't act out, then… what?
Medhall was privately held.
I would learn more about it. I would learn everything I needed to know about it. I would confirm Kaiser's identity and then if he was Max Anders…
Well, what was the cheesy term? Right, I would make him an offer he could not refuse, and as for Medhall…
Employee owned was a thing and it was only fair that if Medhall had played a role in the harm done to the city, it play a role in rebuilding the city…
But tomorrow I'd verify my findings.
Tonight? I would sleep.