A/N: QAI could probably give Saint an instant autopsy by just revealing herself and her full extent to him, as in not only his mind will asplode, but his whole body.

Bold for AI Assistant, in Draft 4 it takes a long time to make full contact, but it does talk.

Italics for Taylor's thoughts, possibly to AI Assistant. Huh, I never knew Earth Aleph had counterparts to the famous cooking sci-fi adventure games Bagel (Halo and I Am Bread over in Aleph, with something called "The Flood" replacing the fungi found in Bagel) and Mess Effect

Normal text for narrative. Yes, the chapter title is a cheat from Age of Empires 2, with a question mark added.


Chapter 1 (Draft 4): How Do I Turn This On?

Taylor Hebert's Perspective, Brockton Bay, Worm (Web Novel) Earth

My brain woke up before my body was quite ready to do so, in the evening of January 3, 2011. How did I know? Well, my body hurt, but I couldn't move it properly, and there was a display in the upper right corner of my vision. It read "Local Time 7:43:21, January 3, 2011" and "Mission Clock 00:000:12:00:00". AS I watched the mission clock ticked forward, one second at a time. Closer to the middle was a grey icon of what looked like a tank's profile and 0/150 next to it.

I don't even… what? And there was a white frame around the outside borders of my currently all dark vision, with each part of it somehow perfectly readable despite my not trying to do so. Since my body was clearly not ready to move with the soreness and fatigue, then the… whatever this was… was surely responsible for my mind waking up.

It looked like I'd triggered in the locker, eh, whatever. The alternative to the placid resignation route which I was trying very hard to do right now—BREATHE, TAYLOR, BREATHE!—would of course be to scream my head off, run around in circles in my hospital room waving my arms about, and wait to get tranquilized. Sure, I was terrified I'd probably gone nuts, but I'm sore enough from the healing injuries anyhow and loopy enough from the antibiotics still surging around my system, I have no desire to get tranquilized, thanks. I feel quite sore enough right now without having a dart stuck in my ass or some other part of my anatomy.

While waiting for my body to be ready to wake up, I might as well feel around this power a bit more.

There was a display on my upper left, showing two black bars on a pale background, with icons next to them with round black backgrounds. One was in green, with a dot in the middle, and a semicircle on top kind of like a door knocker—though it didn't join the dot, the dot was still distinct—and a chevron pointing down just under the dot. The other was an orange, empty circle, with a similarly orange lightning bolt cutting through it. I had no idea what the first one meant, but the second was probably electricity or energy or something. I didn't know how to get energy, since I wasn't dumb enough to try to electrocute myself, even if only with batteries.

I wondered what sort of powers might have an interface like this. Brute was possible, if it was remaining energy and stress… or maybe ramp-up level like Lung. Actually that would make literally every category possible if it was basically mana and stamina—hey, Dad liked the old Dungeons and Dragons game, don't judge me by my lack of a penis for knowing these gaming terms!—because there wasn't a power classification I could think of that couldn't have these two metrics applied to it.

But there was a problem with that theory, because if it was mana and stamina, or anything along those general lines, I should start with full bars which drained in battle. At the very least, I should have some level of passive recharge.

I didn't.

New Primary Objective: Determine Nature of Resources

A rather nasal female voice announced in my mind, and a box popped up in the upper right of my vision, right under the clocks and whatever limit the tank icon represented. It had a red outline, cropped-off corners, and the green icon on the top left, with a slash separating it from the energy icon at lower right. Focusing my attention for a moment on it gave me a text display of "Determine Nature of Resources: The two bars at the upper left are for some types of resources or other. What are these resources?"

Okay, this is probably some sort of interface that made me see life as being similar to a… ah crap…

…I swear, if this is like L33t's power…

Well, the guy could, supposedly, build ANYTHING once, but his work tended to end… messily, which was a real problem if I wanted to join the Wards. If I turned out to be a Tinker, despite the present lack of schematics and plans in my mind, I basically would have to join the Wards just to have the budget to build anything in reasonable safety without some Thinker or another potentially snapping me up. That was only if no pre-cog was already after me.

You might be wondering why I sounded so paranoid. Knowing that something is watching you and assigning objectives, whether from inside your head or from somewhere out there, makes people nervous. Nervous people tend to jump at shadows. Now, since those two were apparently bars for resources of some type, I'm reasonably sure they're not the only resources involved. Time might be finite, or the tank icon and associated number might be…

New Secondary Objective: What's the tank icon and 0/150 for?

So helpful… especially because hovering my attention on it gave me nothing else. Unfortunately, my body still wasn't in favour of waking up yet. Knowing what the voice was would be most helpful in getting me to stop trying to wake my body up faster than I probably should…

New Secondary Objective: Discover Source of Notifications

I wonder if this is a taste of L33t's everyday irritation. Well, time to try thinking really loudly.

HELLO, NOTIFICATION PERSON! PLEASE RESPOND!

… Hmm, the details on this objective state that "The source of the notifications will eventually make full, interactive contact once mission development is at an adequate stage, but perhaps you can persuade it to converse before that time?"

I have no idea what might interest a really nasal and tinny feminine voice in my head. Therefore, I have no idea what might get it to converse with me. It seemed I would have to put off that secondary objective, most likely considerably beyond my waking up.

I will have to do research into different types of video games, presuming this is one, to look for types with a counter like the one next to the tank icon, to get a feel for what it was. It LOOKED like number of tanks I could have out of 150, but for all I knew it was mental garage space for summoning underlings from said mental garage to battle, or maybe an inventory list.

Dad liked to play Dungeons and Dragons, so I'm more than familiar enough with basic roleplaying gaming concepts. If I had an inventory based purely on number of items (given the tank icon I could probably fit tanks inside, if it was an inventory) and not their weight, then thou shalt not diss the inventory, lest I put thee and thy house in it, in separate slots too. Even if it was weight in pounds (let alone kilograms!) then that still meant I'd be a hell of a lot stronger than I used to be before triggering.


Over the next day, after convincing Dad that I would be fine on my own and that he should go back to work during his usual hours at the Dockworkers' Association for the work day before the Locker Incident and my expected release date, I poked my way around the interface. There was no need to alarm him with random spacing out and expressions when I couldn't keep surprise from showing on my face after all. Unfortunately, the hints in the interface were less helpful than I'd been hoping, since focusing on the two resource icons just gave me question marks instead of actual displays, probably as I hadn't figured them out yet.

However, I did discover a few things of interest, such as the zoom in and zoom out function. This meant my power almost certainly contained at least one of Thinker, Master or Stranger. I could zoom out to see a sea of darkness and myself represented by a stick-figure icon, with the text "CMDR" under it, likely for "Commander", since that was what it read as. My hospital room was shown as explored territory, until I poked my head out the door and part of the hallway lit up or I could zoom in on any object that I could see. The details were fuzzy though depending on the amount of data my senses had on it.

I wasn't going to mess around resource-wise or with a potential inventory until I left hospital. Disappearing hospital equipment, if I couldn't figure out how to replace it in time, would be… hard to explain. Yes, let's leave it at that. I would not risk needing to explain (if it somehow comes true) my idle fantasy of managing to fit the hospital in my inventory and having it count as one item. Of course, in my idle musings I also wondered what would happen to the people and equipment inside if I did such a thing…

My mind disturbs me sometimes when it gets bored. This was a natural part of the human condition.

I also couldn't test a possible inventory on food, because there could be cameras monitoring the patients, and I had no intention of outing myself as a cape.

Well, since trying to mind-control even the gnat I spotted in the room had failed, I probably wasn't a Master despite my apparent label when I mentally zoomed out (hurrah, out of body experience…), at least, not of insects. If I couldn't influence such simple-minded organisms I doubted I could handle anything bigger. Could I build things then?

Whoa, okay, so while there weren't any schematics ramming their way into my head just from my triggering, I could still mentally call up some designs if I phrased the thought correctly. Wait… why are they all murky and come in trios?

New Primary Objective: Choose Initial Tech Tree: United Earth Federation, Cybran Nation, or Aeon Illuminate.

Paying more attention to the Objective tab gave me the details of "The other two tech trees will be made available later, once the first has reached Tech 2."

Okay then… what are the initial benefits and downsides of each tech tree, O voice in my head?

The United Earth Federation is generally considered average in characteristics early on, and have boxy grey and blue aesthetics. The Cybran Nation has the best stealth in build-up against basic sensors, and have access to many mobile stealth options, with black and red aesthetics. The Aeon Illuminate has the worst build-up stealth, and also worse stealth overall, with white and green aesthetics. Due to the lack of a functioning Armoured Command Unit, the Cybran Nation is strongly recommended, as the build-up should be less flashy.

Well, it's not like there weren't heroes with villainous-looking equipment, and I could switch to the friendlier white and green Aeon colours later, once I'd reached this "Tech 2". And at least I was sure I was s Tinker now…


A/N: Taylor's thought about the hospital is possible with SupCom pop cap mechanics.