AN: Trigger warning out of left field. You're approaching it when "Moral event horizon" pops up. I, uh, toned Shepard done a touch there to lessen the impact a bit?

Set up for finally doing the deed next chapter.

...

"Well." I said after spending all of five minutes going over the relevant wiki, news pages, and forum posts, both compiling all of the useful information together and then reading through it myself. "It's a short list. Either Thinker's are rare globally or Brockton Bay just has a shortage. Actually, I can probably answer that pretty easy come to think of it." I tasked my hive mind to start gathering that data for me while I turned most of my human attention to Aimei.

I clicked a page on to the projector. "First up, Uber. Not exactly the kind of Thinker we were, uh, thinking of. Can make himself a master at any skill he wants. But if I'm looking at it tactically I could see how he could turn on super data analysis or something for our purposes. Would still be at human limits but peak human limits is certainly far better than what I can do on that side of things."

Next slide. "Victor. Striker / Thinker, kinda? Can steal skills from people he touches. Is in the Empire, married to Othello. Depending on what he has absorbed or." I swallowed. Think tactically Taylor, tactically. Even if it's distasteful. "If we had anyone we decided could stand to lose some skills, he could be useful. I'd need to do more research to see if they actually by into the Empire ideology assuming I can even gleam that from what's available online. Even if I have all the pieces, I'm not exactly an expert psychologist."

Next slide. "Coil. Suspected Thinker, but that's more of a "Anyone have a better idea?" sort of way. Somehow holds territory despite not having any parahumans of his own or having ever displayed a power so I'd probably take that bet myself. Also likely too high profile for us regardless at the moment."

She nodded at my tactical appraisal. "Will have to deal with him at some point. He's probably the most dangerous in the city."

I blinked. "Huh?"

"It's one of those things." She said with a wave of her hand. "Sneaky types. Holding territory but not doing anything with it? Has highly trained mercenaries? I know his type. Illusive Man types. Kaiser is a threat you know. Lung is a threat you know. You commit your attention there and Coil gets away with whatever he wants because you're not paying attention. It's the threat you don't know that's most dangerous and he's up to something, mark my words."

I mulled it over and then nodded. She was probably right. I could play out my school situation with that logic. If anyone else had been working against me there I wouldn't have noticed because Emma, Madison, and Sophia were the threats all my attention was on.

"Noted. So current threat assessment is Coil, Kaiser, then Lung?"

She gave me a slightly surprised look. "You picked that up?"

I rolled my eyes. "I do pay attention, you know. Lung is obviously the most dangerous in a fight but with what we're doing that's not what we're measuring. Kaiser has a larger gang, dangerous ideology, and political power. Take Lung out and Kaiser has the manpower and drive to take over the city. Take the Empire out and while Lung might spread out a little he just doesn't have the parahuman capital to do much more. And really, it's kind of like a sleeping dragon situation. If the Dragon is already awake, you've got nothing to lose. If the Empire spreads over the city, that's still a lot of parahumans to have to deal with to contain them. If Lung tries to do the same thing then they could call in some heavy hitters, remove the singular power parahuman crime lord, and suddenly Brockton Bay is free of parahuman muscle."

I tapped the desk. "Hell. The pessimist in me wants to say that so long as Lung doesn't make too much of a nuisance of himself the PRT is content to let him hang out. Lung doesn't volunteer for Endbringer fights but I'm guessing they think he'll participate if one shows up."

She gave me a wide grin and slipped into a teasing tone. "Excellent analysis. Sure you're not a Thinker yourself? You've been learned this shit via osmosis from me in, like, two days."

I shrugged. "Well it's simple when you get down to it, right? Reject what you think you know, reject what people tell you they know, and then look at the facts as they are. Everyone's afraid of Lung. Why are they afraid of Lung? Because apparently no one can beat him in a straight fight. People are less afraid of Kaiser. Why? Because he's not overtly as strong. Plus, if you're white he'll probably leave you alone. And the majority of the population is white, so. Maybe a mix of some "not our problem" mentality there. But, getting distracted."

Last slide. "Tattletale. Member of the Undersiders. Again, unknown power but suspected Thinker. Given that the Undersiders have avoided getting arrested or even any serious confrontations that's another bet I'd be willing to take...hm." I paused as my hivemind had finished going over all the data sources I'd thought to direct them to. "Looks like Thinkers account for about 5% of the parahuman population going by official sources. 7% once I factor in things posted on the forums and such that indicate ones that slipped by. Like, Tattletale and Coil wouldn't be on the official one as unconfirmed but look heavily like they are."

"Interesting. Would look like Brockton Bay actually has a disproportionate amount of Thinkers, in that case. I'd imagine you qualify as one yourself."

I thought about that. "Hm. Oh, yeah. Almost certainly. Thinker...4, maybe. because of my range? 6 if you're actually in my range due to effective omniscience? Something like that. I'd have to actually read the classification guide if there's one available, that's just based on the numbers and effects I noticed while looking up Thinkers."

I frowned slightly and stuck my tongue out at her slightly. "It seems I'm picking up your bad traits too. Getting distracted by tangible subjects and rambling on them... So what's the plan Commander?"

She rubbed my hair affectionately. "Don't point your tongue at me unless you mean it." She winked. "But they're endearing traits. Adorable, even. And the plan is simple. I'll handle Uber, you handle Tattletale. Get a trend of movements and such of the internet. See if you can track her down and do some observation with those bugs of yours. I'll scout Uber as a possibility."

I sighed. "Because my sensibilities demand I ask, even though I think I know the answer, we're going to work with villains instead of arresting them why?"

A slow blink on her part. "Hm. Either of them cross the moral even horizon? Cold blooded murder? Torture? After that it would be a mater of figuring out how likely they would be to repeat..."

I glanced at my gathered data. "Nothing on Tattletale. Looks like the Undersiders specialize in robberies and being "Getaway" specialists. Very clean on collateral. Uber...there was an incident with him and Leet beating of prostitutes as a video game skit. There was public outrage even on their channel so it was an isolated incident. People like watching harmless villian's do funny things and get beat up, not psychopaths. Who knew? And rape isn't on that list?"

A wince, and she actually looked mildly uncomfortable which was a first. "One of those societal things. Rape is a form of torture and is sometimes included along torture techniques. It just gets it's own special slot in people's minds because the vast majority of people won't ever have to deal with other kinds of torture but an unfortunate number of people, especially women, will be raped. It's the same way that if you offered to sell someone life insurance for a plane ride and another person Endbringer insurance on the same plane ride the second person would be more likely to take it."

She gave me a sad look. "Something I hope you don't have to deal with, but another one of those things it's best you have in perspective. My infiltrator training included how to handle torture. Emotional, physical, sensory. All of it. And, uh, in whatever specific forms it might take."

I nodded slowly. "Ok...I can see that. I wouldn't want...that to happen to me but I wouldn't want to slowly be dismembered either. One's just far more likely to happen than the other. Well. If I wasn't a hero. I'd imagine that our rates of torture are higher than the standard."

Another sad look. "Mm. In the same way that they are in the military and for spies in particular. Hence getting training for it. I should probably actually teach you some things. You know."

"Yeah." I returned the look. "It's better I know the skills and not need them than find myself strapped on a table somewhere with no idea what to do about it."

She rubbed my head. "I think you can cheat a bit with that outsourcing you can do to your bugs. But I'll focus on the real things when we deal with that stuff, which will be soon, because if you were dependant on that and it got taken away you'd be especially vulnerable."

"Yeah. The stuff we talked about earlier. Scope of experiances and all that. If I'm always outsourcing and then I can't, the 8s and 10s that I'm used to become 10s and 12s. I get it."

We were both silent for a minute while she gave me time to get my head back into the game.

"Ok...ok. So do you want to get started on Uber and Tattletale?"

She shook her head. "No. We're going to go ahead and get me into Armsmaster's lab so I can build my damned Omnitool. We'll keep out tasks in mind after that."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "So before I even do any real training, before we've recruited a Thinker, before we even have a decent plan, you want us to sneak into the most secure spot in the city long enough to build something and then sneak by out?"

She tisked and reached onto the shelf behind her before tossing something at me. It was a Clockblocker hat. "No. I'm sneaking into the most secure location in the city and building something You're going on a tour of the facility, eating dinner in their cafeteria, and providing over watch for me in the process." A quick grin. "And then breaking me out of the local jail. Normal people jail, not super powered jail. There's no way I'm managing all of that -and- getting back out. Not without revealing I'm not just a normal human, anyways. And being a normal human they'll have to toss me over to the normal police!"

I palmed my forehead. "I. What. You...fine. Just. Fine. I need to stop underestimating your particular brand of crazy before it drives -me- nuts."

She nodded sagely. "Exactly."

"Alright, let's get on with this if we're doing it."