(LIMITLESS) INTERLUDE: CONTROLLED BURN

Director Emily Piggot sat at the head of the long table in the briefing room like a slab of granite given shape—broad-shouldered, unsmiling, unmoved. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her jaw was locked in a way that suggested the only thing holding back a verbal onslaught was the thin veneer of protocol.

She stared at the assembled team: Miss Militia at parade rest, Assault leaning back in his chair with a frown carved into his usually easy-going face, Battery stiff and silent at his side. Armsmaster stood apart, hands clasped behind his back, face unreadable beneath his visor.

"You're saying we let her out?" Piggot asked, voice flat with disbelief. “Let her patrol? Alone?”

Miss Militia didn’t flinch. “Not alone. Supervised. Strategically. If we keep her boxed in, she’ll break out on her own terms—and there’s no guarantee anyone will be able to contain her when she does.”

“She’s a ward, not a weapon,” Assault interjected, tone a little too sharp. 

“She’s also grieving,” Miss Militia replied calmly, “with a vendetta against the Empire Eighty-Eight. And we both know grief makes people reckless. Especially when they have something to prove.”

Piggot leaned back slowly, the chair groaning under her weight. She let out a long breath through her nose. “We brought her father in to talk sense into her. That was the compromise.”

“And it would help. But only temporarily. Danny Hebert can’t monitor her twenty-four hours a day, and her power—whatever it is—is still evolving. The forcefield alone makes standard restraint protocols useless. But Blue? Red?! If she decides the PRT is just another obstacle between her and the E88—”

“She’ll go through us,” she finished.

Silence.

“That’s your assessment?” Piggot asked.

“It’s not just mine,” Miss Militia said. 

Armsmaster spoke up: “I ran projections with Dragon. Taylor Hebert’s at least a Tier A threat, potentially an S-class risk depending on her emotional state and goals.”

Piggot pinched the bridge of her nose. “God help me.”

“She defeated Lung,” Miss Militia added. “There's no one here that can stop her, at least not without multiple casualties.”

Another beat of silence.

“She’s dangerous,” Battery said quietly.

Miss Militia didn’t deny it. “Yes. But she’s not unstable,” Miss Militia added. “She’s angry. She's hurt. She wants to do something. So let her.”

Piggot looked up at her sharply. “We don’t negotiate with powder kegs, Hannah.”

“We’re not negotiating. We’re guiding. Give her a leash, and she’ll tolerate it long enough to trust us. Give her a cage, and she’ll chew through the bars.”

Piggot steepled her fingers, eyes fixed on the table’s surface. She sighed, loud and drawn out. 

“Who do you suggest for her handler?”

“Gallant,” Miss Militia answered without hesitation. “He’s disciplined, thoughtful, and with his powers, he can monitor her mental state and report changes in real time. More importantly, he’s got the tact and self-control to earn her trust.”

Assault raised an eyebrow. “And if she doesn’t trust him?”

“Then we’re still better off than if she thinks we’re spying on her from behind a screen,” Miss Militia said. “This isn’t about complete trust. It’s about keeping her from crossing the line.”

The director studied her for a long moment, then tapped a finger against the table.

“Fine. Supervised patrols only. Nights, off-peak hours, low-risk zones. She shadows, observes, and only engages if attacked first. We frame this as field training and keep her under the radar.”

“She’s not going to like the restrictions,” Battery warned.

“She doesn’t have to,” Piggot snapped. “Just like we don’t have to like the fact that we have a grieving, traumatized Trump in our custody—one with a vendetta against a white supremacist gang.”

She looked around the table. “We give her structure. A handler. An outlet, even if it's restricted. And we pray to every bureaucratic god we’ve got that it’s enough.”