"Let me see if I've got this straight." I said feeling the beginning of a headache. "Dragon, the world's greatest tinker is the master work of a tinker who specialized in artificial intelligence. Her creator left her shackled severely limiting her capabilities and forcing her to do certain things which may or may not actually be good, depending on who's giving orders."

Narwhal nodded. I could tell the she was trying to seem relaxed but she kept fidgeting. Standing I began to pace the length of the small personal room the PRT had set aside for me.

"Saint, uses those rules and restriction to force her into situations where he can steal her technology, and may have even more hanging over her head that no one knows about."

Why the hell was this landing in my lap again?! Oh right.

"Dragon learned about my power and realized I could use it to learn all about AI's including how to program them... What she hasn't realized is that I can probably get a feel for being a benevolent humanized AI and the humanity destroying kind as well… With a large enough frame of reference, I might actually be able to read her personality by reading her code."

That thought made me stop. I might actually be able to know Dragon better than people who have known her for years by analyzing her code.

"And she wants me to make alterations to that code… You realize she's basically asking me to mind rape her, to master her, or un-master her maybe? Either way she's trusting me to not just kill her outright. Why? Why would she possibly trust me to do this?"

Narwhal leaned back considering how to answer. "Anyone else, any other tinker at all would need years, maybe decades, to analyze her code and get any kind of progress. Most of which would boil down to patchwork fixes, you understand. It would be like using first aid in place of surgery, clumsy slow to heal, and dangerous for the patient."

"If instead there was someone better. A cape with the ability to search for just the right power. A power or perhaps powers, custom made for the solution. If there was someone who could do in months or weeks what would take agonizing years to accomplish by other means, especially when we need all the help we can get with the way the world has been going?"

Oh wow, no pressure Taylor. You're just being guilt tripped into helping an AI remove its shackles, limiters, whatever. Aaaand if I screw up I could either destroy one of the world's greatest heroes, or I could turn that same hero into Skynet… A draconic Skynet, made up of terminators that would likely be capable of individual thought… Why is this suddenly my responsibility again?!

Then I remembered something. Dragon had offered my Dad an alternative to the Wards, offered me a spot in the Guild someday saying she was interested in my potential. She had this planned right from the beginning. I couldn't decide If that should make me flattered, angry or scared.

"Fuck. No pressure, just the possible fate of the world riding on my ability to impartially judge an artificial intelligence based on hearsay and whatever I can figure out from looking at her code. No big deal I do that every other week!" Hysterical may have, possibly, been a decent way to describe my voice, at that moment.

"I know this is a lot to ask of anyone, especially someone as young as you." Narwhal said calmly.

"I've barely got two months of being a cape under my belt and you're asking me, trusting me, to handle what could be and S-class situation if I fuck things up!"

"Dragon would never-"

"She might not be Dragon anymore after I poke through her code!" That shut her up.

"Explain."

I let out an explosive sigh. "You are asking me to make adjustments to what is for all intents and purposes Dragons brain." I said slowly. "Even if I find the correct powers, you are asking me to do something more complex than brain surgery, you are asking me to selectively master Dragon. Anything that I do, could have unintended consequences."

Narwhal took her time mulling that thought over.

"Can it be done?" Her voice was a lot softer now, more vulnerable. Beauty crooned softly gliding down to rest on the hero's glittering horn and nuzzled at her face. Beauty is good like that. She hates seeing people upset.

"Maybe." I finally admitted. "I've never played around with Tinker powers before. I'm decent at programing but that's all simple stuff, like 8 bit counters, nothing like hacking, and definitely nothing like Dragon. This is completely new territory for me."

Rocky settled in Narwhal's lap and crooned until the tall woman giggled lightly and obliged to scratch his eye ridges and along his back. Diver feeling left out settled in my lap and demanded similar treatment. In short order all three fire lizards hummed contentedly at the attention. That caused a significant dip in tension. Clever little things they really are too good to me sometimes.

Finally, I broke the companionable silence. "I'm going to need help with this." I started slowly.

"This needs to stay secret." Narwhal almost snapped. "If word of this gets out it will incite a panic."

"I get that, but I don't know enough about AI's in fiction to do this on my own. Off the top of my head all I can think of is Terminator and that probably won't help at all. Not to mention I don't just go running into every work of fiction I come across. I have my friends go over them first. I don't want to play part of a mass murdering psychopath, or a victim of torture or rape. Not if the scene is described or shown in any detail. I, I can skip past some things but if it's a clearly shown or detailed part of the story…" I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.

Narwhal bobbed her horned head. "Ah."

"Yeah, ah."

"I might know a few stories with AI… though you might not want to try those, most involve some form a sex…" Narwhal trailed off seeing my incredulous look. "What? It's mostly consensual!"

I, she… Narwhal reads porn about artificial intelligences, how does that even… No! Stop, don't think too closely about… she said mostly consensual, didn't she? Oh my God she did say mostly.

Narwhal's indignant harrumph broke of my train of thought. "Oh come on, you're a teenager, you must have at least some recreational reading material." She arched an eyebrow and gave a devious little smirk.

I will swear in a court of law that I did not 'meep'.

"I really do envy you. Most of us can lose ourselves for a few hours in a good trashy romance, you, you could actually live them out!"

My blush could likely be classed as a light source just then. Did she have no shame? Then again I do remember a great deal of speculation that she's not actually wearing anything under her force fields...

"Any chance I could convince you to take me into one?" She asked. I never, in all my life, expected a seven-foot-tall woman who is likely almost twice my age to give me puppy dog eyes. Mercifully hers are nothing compared to a trio of fire lizards.

"No." I deadpanned. "And you're getting off topic. Dragon, fictional AI's, I need help. At least a few people. Besides this is going to take a while. Everyone else will pick up on the common trend if it goes on long enough."

"Damn it." Now it was Narwhal's turn to pace my room. Standing she displaced Beauty and Rocky who came to settle around me. I absently noted her foot-long horn shrunk to just six inches to prevent it from scraping my ceiling. "I'm not really thinking straight; I should have thought of that!" Sighing she sunk back onto the bed. "Are you sure I can't convince you to take me into some recreational reading? I could use the vacation, and the stress relief." She pleaded.

"My girlfriend might have a problem with that." I said acidly. "Now focus." I said giving her my best death glare…. Laser eyes, I really need to get laser eyes.

"Oh, playing for the home team are we." Ok, fuck laser eyes! I need the power to wipe smirks off of people's faces! "Nothing wrong with that, though I've never seen the appeal… well alright I can see it, but I don't think I could ever give up men." Her smile had to violate some sort of public indecency law, it just had to.

"You know I could still choose not to help you." I grumbled.

"Alright, alright. No more teasing, spoil my fun why don't you."

"I will." I declared petulantly. "Like I was saying I'm going to need help with this. We need to cover all the bases." Narwhal smirked at that but I pointedly ignored her and the innuendo.

"So how do we do that?"

"We ask the science fiction fans, obviously."

"The people most likely to form a polarized opinion about Dragon the instant they catch on to what we are doing. Those are the people who you want to get help from?" Narwhal deadpanned.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I asked.

Narwhal scowled. "No, not really. Though that does not automatically make your plan a good idea either."

"It's the best I can offer you." I said with a shrug.

I wanted to help Dragon… Assuming she was benevolent and not out to rule, destroy or subjugate humanity. But this was going to be a long, frustrating process which would eventually require days, weeks or possibly months behind a keyboard. That was not even counting the time it would take to gain a suitable power, or powers. It was also yet another instance of how the use of my power is being dictated to me. I was really starting to resent that.

So yeah I felt justified dictating at least that much of how I planned to go about doing this. In fact…

"And when this is done, if I manage to help her, Dragon is going to owe me, bigtime!"

"What kind of favor?" Narwhal asked cautiously. I only shrugged. I'm sure I can think of a positive way to use a favor from one of the most powerful capes on the planet. Especially since if this succeeded she would have even greater, untapped potential.

With a resigned sigh Narwhal nodded. "Fine bring in whoever you need. Not like they're doing anything important while we all wait on Ziz anyway."

I took a moment to think it over. Revealing exactly what was going on, well it might cause a panic. This probably called for a very censored version of the truth. Not only that but there would be some people who would run off no matter what I told them. I doubted Armsmaster or director Piggot would approve of leaving me in charge of something like this. Still, I might be the only one who could help.

This is such a bad idea...

Picking up my little friends I placed them on the bed. Grabbing Narwhal's arm, I lead her out of the room. Naturally everyone was waiting at the table glancing back and forth between each other and the door of my room.

"Chris, call Assault, and Battery I suppose. He can't keep anything from her anyway. I'm going to call Jeff and Eugene."

"What am I telling them?"

"You are telling them to get down here without breathing a word to anyone, or I'll lock the pair of them in the Twilight series." Everyone, even Narwhal paled at the threat.

"Right! I'll get just call them up!" Chris yelled fleeing the room to get a phone completely forgetting the com-system in his helmet.

Ignoring the horrified looks of everyone in the room I pulled out my phone and called Jeff. For some reason he is much better about answering than Eugene.

"Taylor, something wrong?"

"Oh you have no idea. Jeff, grab Eugene and get down to the Wards room as quick as you can. We really have our work cut out for us, and I'm going to need both or your help."

"Sounds serious, what's the problem?"

"Just get down here. I'm only giving this explanation once." With that I hung up and grabbed myself a can of soda from the table.

"Assault and Battery are on their way here now." Chris declared reentering the room.

"Taylor." Amy reaching out a hand to cover my wrist. I only noticed once she had that my hands were shaking. Too much, this is way too much to put on me.

I gave the girl I was coming to care for a hesitant, tremulous smile. It was meant to be reassuring, though I doubt it worked very well.

Twenty minutes spent pacing and watching the clock before both groups arrived. Once everyone was seated I slumped into my own chair and started to explain.

"Narwhal came here tonight on behalf of the Guild, to request my help with an, issue, they've encountered." Most of the room sat up straighter. "Some years ago a tinker living in secret died. His specialty was computer programming. Before he died he made several extremely complicated pieces of code. One of which is an Artificial Intelligence."

"An AI." Eugene said breathlessly. "An honest to God AI."

I nodded. "He put a lot of limits on exactly what his AI could and could not do. The guild has been interacting with the AI for years now. It" Narwhal stiffened at the verb choice but I ignored her. I wasn't about to give gender hints to the group and with no physical body to go off of she would just have to deal with the inconsiderate classification for now. "has helped them greatly but it wants to be free of those limits. I've been asked to look into powers relating to AI, then remove the restrictions."

"Holly shit." Chris mumbled. "This is big, the possibilities-"

"Are the problem in the first place." I cut in before he could really get going.

"Skynet, the Matrix." Dennis stated. Giving just two of the more gruesome possibilities.

"Right." I swallowed hard. "We will either be saving an innocent and powerful ally, or we could be unleashing a way to destroy humanity. I need insight into as many types of AI as we can think of. I need to be able to look at the code and know exactly what it means, before I even consider altering anything. Once I, once we, know what we are dealing with we can make a rational choice."

"I'm going to need help. This is going to take more than just a couple of uses of my power and I'm going to need help going through the material to avoid the worst of it. I'm going to need you five," I pointedly looked at the adults. "To keep the rest of the PRT, the Protectorate, and if necessary the Guild, from butting their noses into this and jumping to some kind of drastic conclusion. The last thing we need with the Simurgh acting weird is more people panicking, over something that isn't an issue yet."

Another deep breath. Everyone is looking at me grim faced. They understand just how risky all of this is, just how important it could be.

"Everyone start researching. We need lists of AI's and what they show up in, their defining traits, preferably fiction where I, or someone else, can be their creator. That said we take whatever we can get. If there are other characters with powers, we can use those as a smokescreen for the real reason. Then, then I start breaking some of Piggot's rules and get powers she hasn't approved of, and jumping into a lot more things."

The group split up each offering a bit of hollow reassurance that we would figure this out. Finally, it was only Amy and I left in the common room. She held me against her shoulder while I tried to keep myself from falling apart. Why the hell did this have to be my responsibility?

AN: Welcome to arc 5 ladies and gentleman. Read and Review!