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Topic: Gray Boy Trumped?
In: Boards ► News ► Events ►America
Zach5353 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Wannabe Artist)
Posted on June 20th, 2010:
Did you guys just hear? CNN is reporting that one of Gray Boy's victims was freed from his time loop up in Boston. Supposedly this new cape literally teleports in, uses a whole bunch of tinker gear and pop he's free. The victim is on his way to the hospital.
Noble'sTorch (Experienced Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
I heard, and this is a big damn deal. Gray Boy was one of the capes that was an S-rank threat all by himself, and shutting his still-lasting effects down is a pretty big deal. Whoever this Cape is, the Protectorate/PRT should offer reasonable hourly salary for 'breakouts,' as well as helping keep his/her visits secret until after he/she has left, so nobody (like the S9) tries to take him/her out or keep her from freeing people. If they're a Tinker, offering to just outright buy the necessary tools would also be an option, but Tinkers tend to be pretty possessive of their best stuff.
Dansen (I need some coffee.)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Yeah, I watched that CNN report. What a way for a newbie to make an entrance !
YoikoChan (Experienced Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
A cure for Grey Boy victims? If this is a joke, it's seriously bad taste. My dad's been stuck in a shack in our old house for the last ten years. This had better not be a fucking prank.
EDIT:
Holy shit, it's real. I can't believe it. Is there any way we can contact her?
FIX'DIT: corrected gender. Hard to tell it's a girl on the vid...
Xiflex (New Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Its a big deal alright, but I wouldn't get my hopes up to far regarding the victims. Most people would be incurably insane or otherwise completely gone within weeks when trapped like that, and most of his victims have been stuck for a decade or more. Bar some serious mental rewiring (with all ethical concerns that has, if there is even anyone capable of that), these people are probably effectively dead, and will stay catatonic or basketcases the rest of their lives.
Its nice to have hope, but in this case, I don't have much.
Replied on June 20th, 2010: (New Member)
Re:Xiflex (New Member)
It's cyclical. Victims go insane but they don't stay insane. Eventually they get used to the torture and it becomes their new normal. After that, they stay pretty lucid. If the loop is long enough you can hold conversations with them. The PRT does make sure that the ones in long loops aren't left isolated. They even have psychiatrists that give them regular therapy.
Scholastic Protector (Another Young Man With A Job)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Just saw the vid on YT, if I didn't I wouldn't even believe it. Someone out there can finally get those people out, even if its just to finally rest. Kudos to you Time Lady!
For something silly: Quick someone write a Grey Boy x Time Lady fic! This new epic rivalry is ship worthy! and yes i know Grey Boy is dead but Time magicks says otherwise!
Wyrmling (Lurker)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Well its nice for the families anyway so great work, Time Lady!
Wait a tinker with a knack for Time stuff, thats pretty high up there isn't it? tinkering whys i mean?
Zach5353 (Veteran Member) (Wannabe Artist)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Well, all she's done is disable the time loops, right? I mean, is she going for the 'noble' lady or just gender? Because if all her tech is good for is teleporting and disrupting time effects, that's not so useful and assigning a 'rating' for one showing is kind of jumping the gun. Though that Star Trek teleporter thing she used is probably worth its weight in rare earth metals to anyone.
Could you imagine her helping get more people to Endbringer fights?
Archer Xl (Verified Cape)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Time Lady, interesting name. Still doing something nobody thought was possible.
Awesome. I wonder what the slaughterhouse 9 will think of this?
Sasha13 (New User)
Replied on June 22nd, 2010
This is huge. I've got an uncle stuck in a Gray Boy loop, and it's pretty horrible. That's a heck of an accomplishment for a first appearance. I hope the Protectorate/PRT tries to hire this cape. She's a Tinker, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if she could duplicate the effect as well. I know I sure don't want a Tinker version of Gray Boy running around.
Redhill (Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Let's be logical about this, people.
First question: How did this 'Time Lady' know her solution would work? There are three obvious possibilities.
1/ She has been experimenting on other Grey Boy victims. There is no public record of this, but we've all seen the rumours about unrecorded victims.
2/ She can generate her own time loops, allowing her ample freedom to experiment.
3/ She has some kind of remote scanning technology, allowing her to study Grey Boy's victims from her lab.
The first option would be deeply worrying, and the second would still make her dangerous.
Second question: What is her motive? Here, there are two obvious possibilities.
a/ She wants to free Grey Boy's victims.
b/ She wanted to field test her technology.
The first would be deeply preferable, but the longer we go without a second victim being freed the less likely it becomes. We will have to regretfully conclude that she was only interested in the technical problem, not in ending suffering.
DasBrot (Just Passing Through)
Replied on June 22nd, 2010
Gray Boy was scary. Good riddance to his memorials. Certainly wouldn't want anyone else figuring out how to weaponize his ability, but it had to happen eventually. I'm only glad the one dabbling in it seems to be fairly benign so far.
Time Lady (New Member) (Provisional Cape)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
That's a good point about the Slaughterhouse 9. Thanks for mentioning it. I couldn't believe it when I found out that Gray Boy had over six thousand victims all over the US and Canada. I (ironically) don't have the time to run all over the USA to help release his victims. I'll have to think over a real solution. Hopefully soon.
Zach5353 (Veteren Member) (Wannabe Artist) (Warned)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
You better not be pulling a ******ing prank. That's in real poor taste and can get you *****ing killed!
Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
Please don't try to be a Moderator. If you have a problem please use the Notify Moderator link.
L33t (Verified Cape)
Replied on June 20th, 2010:
Am I the only one having a strange sense of deja vu when I hear about this cape?
DeadCunning (Experienced Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
A tinker with power over time… it's got to be. It's finally happened. Don't you guys see? She's from the future! All hail our future overlord(lady?)!
Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
I just finished chatting with Dragon and I'm going to give you 'Provisional Cape' status, Time Lady. You managed to impress her by posting from a closed library's Internet connection with all of it's terminals turned off. She's still trying to figure that out.
Ooghhgoo (New Member)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
So the theme is time?
Depending on what she can actually build, this has some pretty scary implications.
Should we start checking if anyone matching her description starts winning a lot of money
BobRobOriginalBob (New Member) (BANNED)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
Man, 'she' is probably some weirdo gay freak that wants to be a woman. Did you see that picture? No breasts at all and kind of short and skinny. Just another damned Napoleon complex messed up mother****er.
I hope the Slaughterhouse 9 visit him at home to teach him a lesson.
Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main)
Replied on June 20th, 2010
Comments of this nature are a violation of the user policy. Enjoy a month off from Parahuman Online. And don't bother trying to spoof your IP. Your phone isn't that cool.
Dragon kept a virtual eye out on that thread even as she finished backtracking Lady Time's IP address and location again. Just to verify that it really was coming from that hardware router without an incoming traffic that she could follow. At first she had thought it was some stupid kid trying to pretend to be a cape. She didn't want another Jenny Worth. But it appeared that 'Time Lady' really was online through a closed library. (Or at least was someone with really good Tinker gear).
Private message from Brilliger (Moderator: Protectorate Main): RE: Provisional Cape
From Brilliger: I do hope you are Time Lady. I know that several members of the PRT and Protectorate would like to meet you. Dragon really was impressed by your hack.
From Time Lady: I don't know how I go about verifying my Cape ID, sorry.
From Time Lady: How do I go about setting up a meeting with Dragon or someone like Armsmaster? I have an idea how to help those poor people without making a target of myself. Man, I can't believe I didn't even think about the fact that the Slaughterhouse 9 might get upset.
From Brilliger: I can forward a message. Dragon is probably out of the USA right now, so if you are in the Eastern Seaboard area, your best bet would be Armsmaster in Brockton Bay, Twinker in Boston, Double Time in NYC and Manifold in Washington D.C.
From Time Lady: Armsmaster might be easiest. When could I meet him? And where?
From Brilliger: I can let him know. He'll probably PM you shortly.
From Time Lady: Thanks!
Dragon gave a virtual nod at that. She turned her presence back to another communication, this time with her virtual face and voice.
"Armsmaster? Do you mind if I disturb you?" Dragon asked from the speaker of a disabled screen. She knew he was in his room, but respected his privacy to not just turn on the camera.
"Sure, go ahead, Dragon," he replied
He looked tired, she noted. He was probably up late last night again. "You should be getting more sleep, Collin."
"Lung, Kaiser and Hookwolf got into a turf fight over on 9th and B Avenue. It's a real mess, but no one really won. They all left after we all showed up." He gave her a shrug.
"Well, you wouldn't believe it, but Time Lady popped onto the Parahuman Online boards. Somehow she's tapped into a hardware router in your Brockton Bay's public library. As far as I can tell, all of their computers except one server for their book look up service are all turned off. You might want to look at it, but it's not a priority. She wants to meet you. Probably as soon as possible. The mod Brilliger on the boards has sent you a private message about it," Dragon explained. "Do you mind if I am here virtually when you meet?"
"No problem on that case. Hmm." Armsmaster was going down the primate messages and the thread that Time Lady had posted on. "All right. She says she can be at the dock in ten minutes. I'll let the PRT guards there know she is coming. We'll be in the lobby meeting room, okay?"
"I'll be there. Oh, how sad. Ronald Greer died on the operating table," she said while she 'looked' off to the side like she was reading another screen.
Armsmaster just grunted. Who?
He managed a shower and was finishing pulling on his armor as he got a notice that a visitor was just arriving at the dock at the bottom of the Protectorate base. He had his visored helmet on as the elevator lift went down.
"Officer Brand? This is the person claiming to be Time Lady?" he asked as he stepped out of the elevator into the small lobby.
"Yes, sir. Appeared right out of thin air right where you told us she would be."
"Um, hello," Time Lady said.
Thin and not very tall, Armsmaster noted. Straight reddish hair, with a hint of freckles and green eyes under her fedora. Probably wouldn't be that tough to figure out who she was, if it wouldn't break the unspoken rules. "I understand you have a solution to the Gray Boy victims? Let's go into this meeting room and you can make your pitch."
Time Lady nodded, following him into the small room filled mostly with a table and six chairs. They walls were painted an unapealing pale green.
"Dragon asked if she could be here. Not physically, but by video chat," Armsmaster stated bluntly.
"Hello, Time Lady. I'm Dragon. Nice to meet you," the face that appeared on the screen said.
"Nice to meet you, Dragon. I'm a big fan. I have to admit that Alexandria was always my favorite, though," the girl replied meekly.
"That's fine." Dragon looked like she was going to continue, but was interrupted.
"So you have a solution to the Gray Boy victims?" the man there stated bluntly.
"Um, yes." She reached into her leather overcoat and pulled out her Chroniton Absorber. "This is good for up to twenty uses before it overloads so I need to drain it before that happens. I'm willing to let the Protectorate use this as long as it is returned after twenty uses."
"Why not the PRT?" Armsmaster asked, his tone still unfriendly.
"I don't think they would be able to protect it from a villain wanting to steal it while its being used. I would prefer that only the most trusted people actually use and carry it. This little row of lights will turn red if it in danger of being too full."
"What will you do with the temporal energy? What dangers does it pose to the user? Or if it was shot at a person?" Dragon asked. She was pretty sure that the PRT would want to have the device thoroughly tested.
"Not much to a person, really. It might chop off a few years off their lives if you had it on them for five minutes. And I would really, really suggest you don't overload it. You might end up aged to death. Or an infant. Or worse," Time Lady explained. "I'm going to use the excess chronal energy to work on some projects that might help a lot of people."
Armsmaster frowned at that. Her phrasing was specific, but she was not lying. His new lie detector was working pretty well then. He looked down at the device and 'stretched' out his ability to Tinker. And blinked in shock, as for the very first time, he could not visualize any way to optimize the gun like device. "How much power does this thing use to draw out the chronal energy?"
The Time Lady blinked at him. "It, uh, has about a terajoule I believe. But you would have to use it for years before it would need to be recharged. And its not very dangerous, you can't accidentally cause it to explode." There were ways to get around that, but she wasn't going to mention that.
Armsmaster was suddenly very attentively looking at the chronal absorber on the ratty conference table. "It has the power of a nuclear bomb in it? But it's safe to handle?" They had sensors that were supposed to spot this sort of thing. "What does it run off of?"
"A sort of antimatter-matter fuel-cell battery in a very tough casing. It would probably take a directed energy weapon capable of vaporizing titanium-coppelius to even get into it. And that would just start slowly unravelling the antimatter string containment. Mostly light and low radiation." She gave them a shrug. "That was actually going to be part of what I insisted on, that you don't try to take it apart. Otherwise, I'll have to take it back."
"And you made it?" he demanded.
"I would rather not go into that right now. Do you, or do you not, want the use of the item to free those people from that torture?" Time Lady countered in growing frustration.
"Yes, we do. I hope in the future that you will trust us more. Armsmaster, I believe that we should only allow the most senior and trusted Protectorate members use this with very strict instructions on how to do so." Dragon 'looked' over at the young teen from the screen. "How long would it take you to discharge the absorbed chronal energy?"
"About five minutes? It would probably take me longer to walk from the Transmat station to the fuel port," Time Lady mused.
"How many hours a day are you willing to work on this?" Armsmaster asked bluntly.
"I could fit in five or six hours right now. I may need to send out more than one of these." It might take a bit to hunt down more of the chronal absorbers.
"More would be better. Dragon, you'll handle the logistics of this?" Armsmaster asked. "Time Lady, I think we'll use the PRT headquarters. Dropping the shield out here would invite more problems."
"You just make sure that the teleporters are all onboard," Dragon said.
"Absolutely," he agreed. Armsmaster then turned to her, handing her a business card. "Call this phone number when you have a hard number on the devices."
"Sure. Thanks," Time Lady replied as she stood up.
"No, thank you. You are doing a really good thing here," Dragon said sincerely.
"Right," Armsmaster added after a moment.
They couldn't see it, but she had a huge smile on her face under the scarf.
Danny shook his head as he watched the TV, munching on his toast on Monday. The doorbell dinged, surprising him. He stood up while looking confused. He walked to the front door, blinking at Taylor's new friend.
"Good morning, Mr. Hebert!" Lisa called out. "Is Taylor awake yet?"
"Not yet. Let me go wake her up and see if she's planning on going out. Okay?" he asked.
At Lisa's nod, he headed up the stairs to pound on his daughter's bedroom door. Lisa quashed the urge to steal something to eat.
"Hey, Lisa!" Taylor called out as she came into the kitchen, her dad right behind her.
"Hello, Taylor." Lisa gave her a wide smile. "That really helped with my headache."
"No problem. Have you had breakfast?" she asked as she pulled out her own bowl and the box of cereal.
The other girl shook her head, her blue-streaked flying around. "Nope."
"Yes, you can have a bowl, too." Taylor laughed at her look.
Danny just had a grin. "Are you going to be going to Winslow High School in the fall?"
"Yes. I just have to do some extra legwork since I've moved into the area," Lisa lied with perfect aplomb, ignoring Taylor's questioning look.
"I hope you two have some classes together. Oh, the Protectorate is back in the news. They got almost a few hundred of the Gray Boy victims freed in only a few days. Seems like Time Lady has made a lot of friends," Danny said, pointing at the TV with his fork (with egg still stuck on it).
"Interesting," Taylor said blandly. "Hey dad, you're going to be late if you don't head out."
"What?" He checked his watch, then looked at the clock on the wall that was actually a bit hard to spot. "Damn, you're right. Think the battery on my watch is failing again. Good catch, kido." He shoveled the last of his eggs in his mouth, grabbed his toast and headed out to his old truck.
The door had barely slammed closed before Lisa looked over at her. "Time Lady? Really? And only two days to go public?"
"What? It's a perfectly valid name," Taylor said defensively.
The blonde's eyebrows rose at that. "In memory of your mother? How does that work? Oh, where's her shop? And the gizmo that revved up your brain." Whoops. Better slow down on the use of power, she noted to herself. The key on a chain around Taylor's neck was the key to her shop.
"I don't have a workshop. And my mother wasn't a cape, if that's what you were thinking." Taylor stretched her skinny arms above her head with a yawn. "I'm going to take a shower first, then we can talk about it." Her disguise must need extra work, she bemoaned silently.
"Sure. Can I have another bowl of cereal? I only had half a hamburger last night," Lisa said plaintively. And it was absolutely true. She only had half of it so she would be really hungry and wouldn't be lying today.
"Go ahead!" Taylor headed to the bathroom after grabbing a change of clothes.
Lisa munched on her Captain Crunch, a slight smile on her face. At the sound of the shower, she was moving up the stairs, a bobby pin in her hand from her first visit on Saturday. She needn't have bothered. Taylor hadn't locked the bathroom.
She opened the door and her hand snatched out, quietly kiefing the key. The door was shut just as silently and she tiptoed back down the stairs. She looked at the key. "Clock in the front room? Funky. Okay then."
She put the key in, turned the lock and opened the door. With a vulpine grin on her face she stepped into the TARDIS. She blinked once at the impossible vista.
Then Lisa grabbed her head and screamed.
Taylor got out of her shower ten minutes later, feeling much more human. Her long hair was a bit damp, but she would wash it tomorrow. It always took forever to dry-
WHERE WAS HER KEY?
The young half-alien quickly checked the bathroom over, not finding the key. She looked at the drain on the sink, but decided that the key and chain would not have managed to fall all the way down by itself. She wrapped a towel around herself (and double checked to make sure she had not worn it into the shower).
She quickly checked her bedroom, then headed down the stairs to let Lisa know what she was going to be a bit. Only Lisa was not in the kitchen. In fact, the bowl of cereal was suspiciously full.
That sent Taylor stomping towards the front room and the open door on the TARDIS.
"That bitch." She almost hissed that out. She slipped in the door, totally prepared to unleash the dogs of hell on her 'friend' when she spotted Lisa trying to pull herself up by the control console. "What did you do to yourself?" Her voice still carried a lot of anger.
"Walked in the door and had my power ripped from me," Lisa said woozily.
"Oh, shit. How did that happen?" Taylor stepped over to help her up. Her hand was tightly gripped on Lisa's bare forearm.
"If I had my power, I might figure it out. Shit-shit-fuck. Damn it, without my powers, I'm going to helpless out there on the streets-?" Her blue eyes went wide as it struck.
A crazed impressions of a pair of gigantic, unfathomable aliens that shed portions of their bodies across alternate realities as they came to Earth blasted her mind, causing her to stagger for a second.
"What the hell was that?" Taylor asked as she kept the other girl from falling.
"My power came back," Lisa said happily.
"No, that vision of the planet-sized pair of aliens," the young hero asked.
"The what? I... sort of remember that I saw something, but I don't recall that." The blonde looked confused at that. "How did you see anything?"
Taylor blinked her large, brown eyes. "Oh, I guess I might be a tactile telepathic. Except I'm pretty sure I don't know how to use it. That could be a problem."
"The hell? What the fucking hell? You're an alien?" Lisa then blinked. "Oh, and you might want to grab your towel before it falls off.
"Gah! Oh well, I might as well change into my outfit." She headed off to the door opposite the main door, her key clutched firmly in her hand while holding her slipping towel with the other.
Lisa followed behind her casually. She waited about a minute at the door that Taylor had disappeared into, then knocked. "You decent?"
"Decent enough," Taylor shouted back.
Lisa opened the door and blinked at the large bedroom, filled with books, clothing, dressers and wardrobes. "Someone likes clothing. So how about I get the less abbreviated version of 'what the hell?'."
"All of this I didn't know existed before Friday," the brunette explained as she pulled up a sturdy set of slacks and tucked in a button up blouse of black.
"Really? You just stumbled into all of this? No hints from your mother?" She didn't sound convinced.
"My mother used a device to turn herself into a normal human, to disguise herself and hide from her race's mortal enemies, the Daleks. Then she died in a car accident." That still hurt.
"And you found the trigger that was supposed to revert her and it turned you into one of them. That's interesting. How is the double heartbeat working out?" Lisa asked curiously.
"Double what?" Then Taylor thought about it for a long moment. "Huh. I do have that, don't I?"
"You have a lot of information in your head you don't know yet, don't you? So an entire alien knowledge base? Damn, now that's a cool Thinker power." That got her to whistle in appreciation.
"Um, I think she was the equivalent of a teen, but she knows a lot by our standards. She was thrown in as the lowest ranked officer on the TARDIS and of the ten people here, was the only survivor because she was manning the quinery control station. The Daleks were getting really good at taking out the control rooms to cripple a TARDIS. So now I have a broken time machine ship that I probably can't fly and a lot of really advanced gadgets I don't dare let any Tinkers get a hold of because they're likely to blow up the planet." Taylor finished tying up her boots, then stood up. "I'm still very angry at you. You stole my key and broke into the TARDIS."
"I borrowed the key to force you to let me in, because you weren't going to for months. If ever. Once I really knew, you don't have an excuse to keep me out," Lisa countered firmly, looking her directly blue eyes to Taylor's brown ones.
"You-" Taylor was seething, but didn't retaliate because of one simple thing. She did not seem to be lying. And Taylor was honest enough with herself to see where the other girl was coming from. She slumped back to sit on the bed. "I just wanted it for myself for a while."
"And you would have kept not letting anyone in. So I sort of shoved you out of your comfort zone. And besides, this is big. Aliens are real!" Lisa had a wonder in her voice she thought she had lost out on the streets all these last few weeks after she ran away from home.
Taylor tilted her head. "And I think they are behind Parahumans, though I'm not sure of the specifics." She'd have to do some research.
"Huh. That even makes sense. So what are you doing getting dressed up like this?"
"It's my Time Lady outfit." Taylor added a pistol to a shoulder holster that would be hidden under her jacket, a back up sonic screwdriver in a back pocket, her Transmat beacon and finally a small forcefield generator. Just in case. She took out a small pocket device that she made sure was turned on. "Perception filter, active." She grinned at Lisa.
"Nice. It messes your memory? So even after just seeing you, I can only see the red-headed version of you. Unless I squint? Or look out of the side of my peripheral vision?" Lisa tapped her toes anxiously. "Can I come?"
"You want to come with me to the PRT Headquarters? And you don't have a costume," the taller girl countered.
"Puh-lease, I could make a cool outfit with the stuff here, even if I'd have to wear a belt. Besides, its not like you are doing anything really dangerous, right?" She had a wide grin on her face again.
"And joining the Wards might get you off the street?" Taylor noted softly.
That caught Lisa off guard. "Well, maybe. But I think they'd try to send me back to my parents. And I'd rather die." She headed over to a wardrobe. "So what should I use for a name?"
"Insight. Your power lets you figure things out, right? Oh, I need to grab that from the medkit, just in case." Taylor pulled out the medical scanner and nano-dispenser, stuffing them in another pocket.
In about ten minutes, Lisa had changed into another pair of dark slacks, a ruffled blouse and a garish red and black vest. She had somehow found a sort of ceramic-white half mask that covered the top half of her face and and covered the hairline on her forehead. With her hair tied back in a tight ponytail, she looked totally different. "Insight, ready to go!" the new cape declared.
"I just hope Armsmaster won't get upset."
"Do I get any gadgets?" Insight asked hopefully.
"I should probably give you a perception filter, too. Dark hair? Green eyes?" Taylor said.
"Sure."
Another small box was pulled out and Taylor started working on it for five minutes with a sonic screwdriver. "There we go. Let's go get the chronal absorbers and deliver them to the Protectorate and PRT."
Time Lady led them back to the control room, making sure to lock the door and have her key around her neck.
"Is that the Endbringers?" Insight blurted out in surprise as she looked at an LCD screen on the control console.
The proto-Time Lord walked over to her to look at the floating gold particle screen. "Yes, I think. Not that the TARDIS is in any shape to be used to attack them. It's missing a large chunk of its mass and it would take it centuries to heal up."
"Heal? It's alive." Insight blinked. "It is alive. Whoa."
"Well, now to use the Transmat after grabbing the widgets."
Insight looked at her suspiciously. "What is a Transmat?"
"Teleport beam, basically. Think Star Trek."
"Sheesh. What couldn't these guys do?"
Time Lady opened her mouth for a second, then closed it. "You know, I have no idea."
The other girl just stared at her in shock. It took Time Lady calling out to her from the door for her to following again.
Dauntless sighed as he checked his watch again. Ten minutes late and-
A double flash of red streaming particles turned into two figures.
"Are you my contact today?" Time Lady asked. She had a cardboard box under her arm.
The armored and fantasy themed hero looked over at the other girl.
"My companion. And yes, she's a parahuman," Time Lady explained.
"I'm Insight. Nice to meet you," the second figure said.
"You should have called ahead and let us know," the young Protectorate hero noted.
"Sorry, I was running late because of her," Time Lady grumbled.
Insight just snickered at that even as her keen eyes looked over the hero in front of her.
"But anyways, I have the five chronal absorbers. Who's going to be transporting them first?" Time Lady asked.
"Myrddin was here first. He's the leader of the Chicago Protectorate and doesn't like people wasting his time. But I guess if you had a reasonable excuse... What sort of powers do you bring to the table, Insight?" Dauntless asked as he shouldered his lance.
"A type of thinker where I can figure things out. I can't use it a lot yet and it gives me headaches," she admitted mostly in truth.
"Come along then." He unlocked the door to the 'arrival' room with his security card and eye scan.
Insight was looking around with eager interest.
Dauntless knocked on the door to another room, opening it at the 'enter' that sounded out from inside it. "She was a bit late because her friend decided to join her."
Armsmaster and the robed figure of Myrddin were watching them the new entrants intently.
"Putting on a mask doesn't make you a Parahuman. Let me guess, she said she's a thinker of some sort?" Armsmaster said in a cold voice. He hated it when people did this.
"Ah," Dauntless managed to say. Oops.
"Why, yes I am. Like the fact that you are being aggressive because you feel threatened by being in the same room as Myrddin and Dauntless. Some issues about feeling like you are being left behind, that you tinker devices aren't keeping up with the- szszszs?" Insight was saying, only to blink as her voice turned to static. She looked over at Time Lady and started glaring.
"No tearing people down with your power," Time Lady ordered. "Otherwise I mute you." She had her sonic screwdriver which was emitting a tone gave it a wave while pointing at her.
Armsmaster was positively burning holes in the young woman with his angry stare. "Yes, heroes don't tear down people." He wasn't really like that, was he?
Myrddin nodded himself. "While that was interesting, I need to get going. Gray Boy hit a lot of people in the Chicago Metro area. I'll drop off one to Legend and Alexandria, who are going to fly around to several locations that Dragon has mapped out. I should be back in about an hour, all in all."
He took the proffered cardboard box and then with a tap of his staff on the floor, disappeared.
"Well, I guess we should be off, too," Time Lady said. "I've got some thing I can do while waiting."
Armsmaster held up a hand. "One second, please. The Protectorate and PRT would like to be able to get in contact with you and make it easier for you to call us securely. So I procured one of our high end secure phones for you use. Just so you know, it masks itself so we would not know where you are or can track you. Just in case you were worried." He held out a blocky 1" thick smartphone.
"And you can even use it to call us if you are running late," Dauntless said with a grin that you could hear in his voice.
The young half-alien nodded even as she pocketed her sonic screwdriver. "Um, thanks? I guess." She was staring at the phone very closely. Where the hell had she seen that before? It looked really similar to a popular one, but it had a few small differences.
"Um, Armsmaster? Sorry about that, but you kind of hit one of my buttons about my power," Insight half-lied to the local Protectorate leader.
He nodded. "You wouldn't believe how many people (though mostly teens) try to bring their friend along to join up also. I jumped to a conclusion. It's rare to find two new parahumans at the same time."
Insight had to bite her tongue as he did not apologize for his action, just explained it.
"Ready, Insight?" Time Lady asked with her hands in her trenchcoat pockets. She needed to add something to help keep this outfit cool inside.
"Sure, oh master oh master."
"That's not funny," the other girl retorted.
"Says the girl with the mute button," Insight replied frostily.
With a flash, they disappeared and reappeared in between two transmat devices.
"I was trying to keep you from pissing him off enough so that didn't burn the bridge into the Wards. Which I'm pretty sure you were about to do. It was less violent that pulling on your ponytail which was my first thought," Taylor said as she pulled down her scarf. "I definitely need to figure out a way to keep myself cooler while wearing this."
Lisa opened her mouth, then rethought. "Okay, it was better than letting me rip into that jerk or pulling my hair. So what are you going to do now?"
"First? I'm going to do something really, really scary."
That got raised eyebrows in question.
"I'm going to move the TARDIS into my bedroom. Luckily, it has an improved Chameleon Circuit, so it leaves a mundane duplicate behind."
"And why is it scary?" Lisa asked.
"Because I'm not sure if it will blow up if we dematerialize. I don't think it will, but it's a non-zero possibility," Taylor admitted candidly. "I'm just trying to figure out if I should do a fast hop or take it slow."
That got the other girl thinking hard, her head starting to pound in pain. "Fast. I get the feeling that if you take it slow, it might lose control."
"Okay then." Taylor trotted off to the control room and started manipulating the controls, floating holographic screens showing her 'programmed' flight. She looked over at Lisa. "Did you want to get out?"
"No, I trust you. You think you can do this, so we should be fine," she replied.
"Brake is off-"
"How do you have brakes on dematerializing?" Lisa demanded.
"-and initiating."
A heavy hum filled the front room of the Hebert's as it vibrated in sympathy. Taylor swiped three controls and slapped a palm onto the actual metal. Another hum filled the air as her dresser appeared in the TARDIS control room.
"And... I think that's it? Oh, let me put the brake on."
"Taylor? Why didn't we just drag the clock up the stairs?" Lisa asked suddenly.
"Because it's heavy?"
"But it would not have blown up!"
Taylor actually thought on that for a second. "Oh. Right."