The officer walks them to a room, knocks twice, and enters without waiting for a response. It's an office, and there's a woman on the other side of the desk there, and three chairs in front of it. "Hello, welcome. I'm Director Emily Piggot. Please, do sit."

They sit.

Walta's mother says, "Thank you for - well, for the program being here, I suppose. We were hesitant about it, but it's really the safest option for a parahuman in the end."

(Walta looks dubious at that but doesn't say anything.)

"Yes, that's true, especially for a young tinker. I wouldn't be surprised if other teams and people had already approached her."

"Yep. Fire guy, never got his name. Kaiser. There's also this guy called Glam, but he's nice. Didn't want stuff."

"So, yes, being openly with the Protectorate grants a measure of protection even not taking into account the allowances and backup. She should be wholly safe."

"Kaiser- You didn't tell us about that, young lady."

She shrugs. Her parents sigh. "Well, you'll be safer now. Thank you for taking the time to meet us, too, Director."

"It's no trouble. The next meetings she will have today should be unaccompanied by parents, however."

"...We'd really prefer to learn as much about her new - situation - as possible."

"I understand your concern, and it is of course only natural as parents of a young parahuman, but I assure you Waltana will be in very capable hands, here. And some of the parts of these meetings include some team bonding, and it would be a bit awkward to have adults hovering, don't you think?" She asks that with a fixed but very well-practiced smile.

"Call me Walta. Please."

"That makes sense," her father comments. "Perhaps we could talk to someone else while she's in these meetings? We actually do have a lot of questions, and we wouldn't want to take up too much of your time."

"What sorts of questions would those be? Perhaps I could direct you to someone who could best answer them."

The new tinker's parents are mostly concerned about her education and gang activity near their home.

"I wanna know if I can bring in some of my old stuff. I'm sure you'll inspect it for safety or whatever, but I made a lot of tools already..."

"You can have someone inspect it off-site before bringing it here. As for education and gang activity, I believe Mr. Hammond already said your family could move here? And Walta can decide whether to go to Arcadia first and then only come out as a hero later, or vice-versa."

"First thing, I think. Get me used to tinkering with rules and making some nice stuff and knowing the team. Get me a break, too. Also there's a lot of 'it'. Though I lost scads of it to Leviathan."

(Her parents wince.)

The Director nods. "Then we could have her heroing at the earliest in about a month. We will also need a cover story for why she moved, but that should be easy enough."

"Also, the accident I caused a while ago. I - it was my fault, pretty much. I'm sorry. But I'm glad it doesn't sound like I'll be going to jail over it. I can't stand to not tinker at least a bit for more than eight hours at a time. In juvie you wouldn't let me at any tools, for uh obvious reasons, and that would literally drive me insane probably."

"—did someone make it sound you were going to be arrested?"

"Armsmaster did, yes. Though admittedly I was, uh, very nervous and anxious at the time."

"At worst you would have been fined."

"State I was in then, I'd wonder if I could sell y'all stuff to pay back the fine, as I don't have much of any other way to. And if you do fine me you can take it out of the Wards pay, now. I wouldn't resent it one bit, ma'am, it was a stupid miscalculation that seriously hurt people, even if I was panicked."

Her father says, "I want to set up an appointment to discuss moving here, but it's not urgent on a scale of days. And I'd like to get my daughter's school arrangements taken care of immediately if possible. Other than that, I think we've covered everything for now."

"We can call you to schedule this appointment, and your daughter's education will be dealt with with utmost priority," she assures them. "We should have all the paperwork ready by tonight."

That seems to be everyone's concerns taken care of. Her parents thank Director Piggot for her time again.