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It was quiet now.

No, it had been quiet the entire time. No one was interested in talking during that entire ride, most people sleeping or on their phones or simply refusing to look at anyone else. This was the true USARILN truck experience, wasn’t it? No one chirpy enough to talk to anyone else. Not even Marcus, who had been able to keep a positive attitude for the longest of times. Just a looming sense of dread and exhaustion that accompanied the knowledge that they weren’t heading back to the institution after all. What had the Director wanted them for in Washington anyways?

Surely, they weren’t there just to thwart off a monster attack that none of them were equipped to handle, were they?

Alone in the library, Brent stared aimlessly at the blue screen of the monitor. The lights were dimmed within the study, a blue pallor cast over him. The art gallery may have interested him before. A massage chair sounded great, considering how he never had a chance to do any stretching after all that running. He’d have loved to chow down as well, sample the culinary skill of Zhang’s subnatural maids. A nighttime walk down the beach would have done miracles for organizing his jumbled up thoughts as well. But he was here instead, in a small library, surrounded by the technology that his magic wanted to devour so badly, no eyes here to observe what monster machines he cooked up.

But he wasn’t here to indulge in his curiosity either.

More than a dozen tabs to different news sites, both national and local, as well as various social media outlets. Youtube as well, and a couple constantly refreshed Google queries. But there was nothing ‘fresh’. Nothing on social media provided a harrowing first person account, and even news reports seemed to only be handling general, broad information. Tragedies turned into statistics. Wide pans of rows of evacuees, instead of personal accounts. And, above all…a wealth of shots from the cameras that they had been cuffed with, ‘leaked’ to show the DC incident from the position of the subnaturals of Unit B. And none of them, from what he saw, showed what had occurred during the evacuation team’s encounter with the regular mob.

As a matter of fact, all those released clips served to make them look…heroic.

Not a single smear. Not a single stain. Not a single sin. For a city that hated subnaturals, for a city that had been attacked by subnaturals, the media was reporting on the incident with as much tact and as little prejudice as possible. There was that one video of Christmas, healing injured masses like some sort of Jesus figure. There was himself, giving out orders like some sort of superpowered GI. There was Angelic, aiding with the rescue as if she hadn’t just screamed a bunch of civilians to death. And there were reddit threads. Oh, so many reddit threads, people just playing with what to name the new heroes of DC, the new team that will replace the Precursors.

Before his amethyst eyes, more of those vapid, shameless comments scrolled by, not a single one pointing him towards what had caused everyone to turn away from each other, to enforce a steely, tense silence.

Nothing.

Nothing but lies.

But crimes didn’t disappear just because people looked away.

[i]He dove deeper.[/i]