The Aftermath

Owen returned to work still feeling as if everything was surreal. The official line was, bizarrely, that the Sixes-and-Sevens were a group of amateur actors. They had intended to do performance art in front of the assembled press to gain some publicity. The Event Team and Charisma department had cleverly intervened (by some mechanism no one was fully willing to explain) and convinced them to stage their improvisational theatre to the Eternity Unicorns convention instead – which had, indeed, gained them a small measure of fame when some video recordings had gone mildly viral.

Either the event, or the video, or everything combined, had led the gang to splinter irreparably. No-one, it seemed, wanted to be part of a gang that was so uncool that they cosplayed as cartoon villains in public. The threat level on the 'gang' had been down-graded away to nothing and Owen had been swiftly recalled to the main counter-terrorism office. Owen had even received a half-apology for having his 'role-playing' analysis ignored.

"You look unsatisfied," said his mentor after pulling him into one of the tiny meeting rooms that required one to trade personal space for a small measure of privacy. "I thought you would have been thrilled to be finally free. You always maintained they weren't serious enough to be terrorists."

"They aren't," said Owen. "But they aren't harmless little kids either. And I mean, we all know that thing about them being amateur actors is pure nonsense. Sure, they aren't terrorists in any meaningful sense, but they are edging the line into being criminals. And everyone can be radicalised into going too far. I don't think we should give them more attention than their behaviour warrants, but we shouldn't be whitewashing them like this either. If we don't keep on eye on Peter, particularly, then I really think we might one day come to regret it. I don't know if I can square going along with this fantasy coverup with professional ethics."

"Yeah, about that," said his mentor, turning his laptop screen to face Owen. "Have a look at this."

"That's… Peter?" asked Owen.

The photograph made him looked different, cleaned up and dressed in a tidy suit as he was, but not different enough for Owen to have any reasonable doubt. It was the photo's caption and accompanying text that was causing Owen to disbelieve his own eyes.

"Peter's a member of the Charisma department?" asked Owen, needing it to be verified out loud.

"Turns out yes, he is. Would have been really helpful of them to have told us, but you know how Charisma feels about consorting with us more lowly types."

"But… but…" stuttered Owen. "Why? He wasn't observing the gang like I was. He was the one driving everything."

"Agent Provocateur," said the mentor with a shrug. "Remove the problem group by getting them to commit an unambiguous but minor crime they can be arrested for before they do something more serious."

"Surely that would just get thrown out for entrapment," protested Owen.

"If their lawyers could prove it. No defendant has succeeded in arguing entrapment via Charisma since the Monroe trials."

"That's…" Owen trailed off, unable to put into words the distaste he felt.

He felt some mild contempt for most of the members of the gang, but you couldn't spend that much time with people without coming to understand them a little. They'd have been better off working or studying to improve their situation rather than just complaining about it all the time, but most of them were just kids who would outgrow it in time. They didn't deserve to be tricked into a jail sentence over some childish rebellion.

"They only send in agents in the lower grades," said the mentor impatiently. "People who honestly don't have enough power to convince someone to do something against their personal morals."

Owen considered Peter's complete inability to keep the gang members to the same script and admitted that had some point. Peter wasn't forcing any of them to do anything they didn't want to do. But if Peter hadn't been there in the first place, it was unlikely that it would have entered their heads to want to do it in the first place.

"It still—" start Owen, but he was cut off.

"If you want to change the world," said his mentor, "run for public office. We're here to actually do the work."

A second realisation distracted Owen from his moral dilemma. "Wait. The whole idea of committing a crime right in front of the entire world media, and therefore making Aquatown look bad and upsetting the Powers That Be, that was all the Charisma department's idea?"

The mentor grinned. "I get the feeling that it was Peter's idea personally. Lee Harrow would never have signed off on it, anyway. But yes, that embarrassment is one of the reasons this version of reality is going to be accepted without question and never mentioned again. Understood?"

"Understood," said Owen. At the end of the day, nothing had happened. Owen was now free to move on to analysing real terrorism threats. Why rock the boat?

Over in the event team office, Sam was watching someone else attempt -- and utterly fail -- to rock the boat in a far more personal way.

Sam had not mentioned his new knowledge of Mark's abilities to anyone, although he knew a few of the more perceptive members of the team must have suspected something. Still, all the members of his own team were maintaining the fiction that Mark had nothing to do with the weekend's events. Sam was even willing to admit that Mark might have been right about wanting to remain incognito. After finding out that Mark was Top Tier, Sam found himself wanting to give just that extra measure of respect he would have given Lee Harrow or his colleagues. Which was silly. It was the modern world, after all, and Mark had no more inherent rights than anyone else. If Mark wanted to work as a junior member of the event team, then he was a junior member of the event team. Sam could perhaps blame that primitive fear of all ungifted humans – 'do what he wants or else he'll make you' – but in this case Mark wanted to be treated without any particular respect. Sam persevered, and continued to treat Mark like any other idiotic puppy that hadn't quite been housebroken.

But it was hilarious on a whole different level when other people didn't know. Specifically, when they were answered with a completely different reaction from what they were expecting based on that fundamental misunderstanding.

"Hello," said the equally young-looking boy who had barged into their offices to loom over Mark. "I'm Peter from the Charisma department."

Peter laid strong emphasis on his department name, which Mark entirely failed to react to.

Mark turned in his chair but didn't stand up. Sam wondered if he should try to subtly give Mark some hints about normal behaviour. Sam could not, himself, have written an etiquette book on when it was appropriate to remain in place, when a simple gesture of half-standing before retaking one's seat was acceptable, when one was expected to instead offer the other person a chair. and when one was expected to join the other party in standing… but he knew when it felt wrong. And a 'junior member' greeting someone for the first time while staying seated like Peter was the one petitioning Mark for his attention felt wrong to Sam (and clearly Peter as well). Sam shrugged to himself and decided to let it go. Mark would figure it out, or he wouldn't. Either way, it wasn't likely to do Mark himself any harm. Nothing was likely to do Mark himself any harm.

"Mark from events team," Mark replied.

"Oh, so you know you're in the events team, do you?" asked Peter.

"Yes," said Mark. "I selected this department after a great deal of thought. I want to help make people happy."

Margaret came to lean against Sam's desk. "Mark has no idea who Peter is, does he?" she asked quietly. "He doesn't recognise him from Saturday at all."

"Nope," replied Sam. "And we're not going to tell him."

Peter was practically standing on his tip toes trying to make himself look bigger. "We're the ones who solved the problem with the Sixes-and-Sevens gang."

"Congratulations," said Mark with what Sam knew to be utter sincerity and Peter would inevitably take as sarcasm. "It was great that you were there."

"Yes," said Peter, "It was. The Charisma department is important in keeping the government functioning for the lesser teams like events."

Mark nodded. "Exactly."

"And I," said Peter even more strongly, "I am a very important member of the Charisma department. Not like you, who is just a member of the events team."

Sam thought the intentional insult of that would get through to even the oblivious Mark, but Mark just earnestly congratulated him once again. Sam supposed at the end of the day, Mark did agree with Peter. He probably did also subconsciously believed that people with Charisma were inherently better. Despite whatever game Mark wanted to play here, a lifetime of conditioning could not be so easily overcome.

Peter hissed like a kettle coming to boil and stormed out of the office without even pretending to take a civil goodbye. The office members echoed the noise in a sigh of disappointment. They had been enjoying the entertainment, not to mention the schadenfreude of Charisma's rare embarrassment and corresponding feline insistence that no embarrassment had occurred in the first place.

The star of the show just looked a little confused, before shaking his head and returning to his computer.

Mark finished his investigation on which neighbours, precisely, had the right to object to a street party depending on a number of complex interlocking factors. It was somewhat tedious work, but he went home pleased overall. His first week might have been a little rocky, and a little lacking in meaningful things to do with his time, but it was just his first week. Things had settled down, and they were sure to get even better. He was even making friends from other departments. And best of all, he was going to do it all without anyone knowing about his Charisma!