The BSA was originally created to be the organization that coordinated those who stood on the line between the monsters and humanity. It still filled that job, but its scope had expanded to be the line between normies and supers as well. It wasn’t a BAD organization, not in the cartoonish, mustache-twirling sense. It was a necessary, lumbering bureaucracy funded from the resources recovered from groups like monster hunters and sales to the private sector of both resources and their technology patents. They were the ultimate middle-managers of the apocalypse, and like all good middle-managers, their primary skill was claiming credit for the work of others while deftly avoiding blame.
They were also the go-between for humanity and defense systems, like Kaiju-guns (which seldom worked outside of promotional videos), to advanced peacekeeper weapons and armor (which usually worked, provided the user manual had been translated correctly from whatever ancient, hyper-advanced language it was originally written in).
Their third role was peacekeeper forces and direct intervention for non-kaiju threats, like true supervillains and dimensional invasions. They were the direct support for the academy, wall-bounties, and both state and federal teams, but they also ran a small army of ‘emergency enforcers’ who were pure humans specially trained and equipped with the best of the best equipment for dealing with superhuman threats and assisting the super teams.
Good in concept, but the tinfoil hatters were convinced, for good reasons, that the emergency enforcers were black-ops teams. Too many of their lower-profile operations resulted in unexplained disappearances, silent witnesses, and ‘shot trying to escape’ cases. I understood it, but I firmly supported the fact that alphas should go after alphas, because when humans were faced with people that could turn them into mulch with a blink, they tended to turn ‘capture’ into ‘lethal force’ simply out of fear. It was basic self-preservation, painted in bureaucratic grey and sanctioned by a federal budget.
It was like that experiment back before most cops were outfitted with powerful non-lethal as well as lethal weapons. Small, feminine women started joining the various police forces, and many of them, because their threshold for feeling threatened was far lower than the big bruiser males, gained a suspect kill ratio in the double digits. It wasn’t because they were evil; it was because they weren’t as intimidating, and situations where intimidation and physical force could have ended them fairly peacefully turned into gunfights as the women were forced to protect themselves with lethal force.
That wasn’t the case so much anymore; there were lots of effective female police officers now, but suspects knew that no matter how aggressive they were, 50 kilovolts at 19 milliamps would turn them into a flopping fish. It changed the face of law enforcement among normies.
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But supercops? If the only thing between you and instant death is a thin layer of armor and a recursive plasma cannon, that cannon becomes a much more attractive option. The Emergency Enforcers, of course, had access to a huge variety of nonlethal alternatives, but most of them were not guaranteed to work on most alphas. It was hard enough finding LETHAL weapons that worked in a lot of cases. Their entire job was a terrifying game of Russian roulette where they had to hope their tech was better than the Alpha’s biology. It bred a certain… finality to their decision-making process.
That and a ton of case studies were embraced in the websites, and to be honest, despite my initial trepidation about another useless class, the concepts were fascinating. I had no intention of becoming a superhero—been there, had the finances ruined by one—but if I was able to process energy like a normal alpha, my huge variety of potential special effects up to and including complete molecular lockdown would make me a shoo-in for a team anchor. The sheer strategic utility was a thing of beauty, a symphony of controlled violence and support that I could conduct, if only I had the fucking batteries to power the orchestra. When the time came to leave the class, I was, against my better judgment, hooked on the subject matter.
“Doctor?” I asked as we unplugged and folded our new school-issue tablets. I wouldn’t hit Vilnet with it, that was for certain… heck, I wouldn’t even do it from the school’s network. My paranoia was a well-honed survival tool. If I needed it, I’d head off-campus to find a solid hardlink in a dusty library terminal, the kind of place where the digital ghosts were of the scholarly variety.
“Yes, Mister Doyle?
“I’ve been running through the justice center’s files on takedowns of certain medium-profile reprobates. Is there a better source of details? I am hoping to get into team support and logistics, and a better idea of the strengths and vulnerabilities of certain classes of Alpha would be pretty useful, but most of the records just talk about who and where… the how is mostly useless quotes. ‘We utilized a synergistic application of force,’ which is a bureaucratic term for ‘we hit them really hard until they fell down.’ Who helps a lot, but as you know, most of the actives keep their take-down abilities secret, not that I can blame them.”
He nodded, a flicker of genuine interest in his eyes. “That’s the biggest reason right there. Unless a takedown happens in front of a digicam, it’s usually kept quiet by both the BSA and the individuals involved. I hate to have to say wait and see, but until you are in a better place, your security rating is going to be too low to get into the real meat of a lot of the encounters. However, the Monster Hunter records are kept a lot looser; would that help? I like where your head is at.”
He gave me a few more sites, one of which required a visitor password that he was happy to provide, and I decided that this particular remedial class, taught by a normie who seemed to actually get it, was worth my time. Who knew?
