Chapter 15

Friday 28 May 2010

Lauren woke up to see her father and stepmom entering the garage with horrified faces. As she looked around, she understood why. The garage was in chaos, as time had been more important than neatness during her tinker fugue. Remainders of her phone as well as other leftover materials were scattered over the place. However, that was far from the worst. That was reserved for the table, on which Tia was lying unconscious with blood all around her. Lauren and Cameron were both lying on the ground, and from the groaning sounds, Cameron had woken up at the same time as Lauren. Finally, there was the damning bloody knife lying next to Lauren's hand.

Sophie immediately moved to Kyla, just as Cameron did earlier. However, her father turned to face her.

Lauren had seen her father this angry only once in her life, and that when he got the phone call informing him that his wife's murderers had escaped prison. Now, that anger was directed at her, making her feel scared as tears started to form in her eyes.

"Lauren! What the hell were you thinking?! This has gone too far! I could live with you making weird tinkertech in the garage. I reluctantly accepted that you would sometimes get a power that hurt yourself. I didn't protest when you decided to fuse tinkertech with your own body. I even took in the child you created to raise her as my own. However, it will be over my dead body before I let you mutilate my other children! I will now call the PRT and when they arrive, you will tell them exactly what happened! You are also grounded until the next school year!"

Tears started to drop over Lauren's face as she heard her father's anger directed at her. When he mentioned Tia's mutilation, she started to truly cry. It was that moment that her negotiation power happily informed her that she could avoid any punishment by pushing her father a bit harder, and letting him hit her, which would cause him to feel so guilty he would forgive Lauren anything. Lauren only cried harder as she realized how ridiculously amoral and screwed up her powers were. Tinker fugues that destroyed sentimental items, child creating powers that pushed her to basically get a child with a much older man, a main power that was forcing her to grab new powers every once in a while, and this latest, most horrifying tinker fugue yet. Lauren hoped fiercely that she had succeeded at giving Kyla powers, as it would be even worse if she had mutilated her sister for nothing.

As Lauren was crying, someone completely unexpected came to her defense. "Dad, Lauren is not really at fault here."

Dad turned towards Cameron, who was the last person that Lauren expected to utter those words.

Her father, still angry but now also somewhat confused, turned to his son. "Cameron, are you sure that Lauren hasn't mastered you with some new power? Less than a minute ago, you were screaming at her and calling her a bitch."

"Yes dad, it's not one of her powers, but my own! I just triggered with a thinker ability and got the ability to completely understand social situations, at least I think so. There is also another aspect to it, which tells me that your left is your weak side, which I suspect is due to your broken leg from a few years ago. It doesn't tell me anything about Lauren though, but that is probably because of her tinkertech foot. Hmm, does it point out weaknesses in people? Maybe I can test it on videos of local capes to be sure? Anyway, when I woke up and saw the state of the room again, I got the realization that Lauren had been in a Tinker fugue in the last few minutes, and was not in control of her own actions. She got a specialty that let her give powers to other people by putting tinkertech in their bodies and decided that Tia should be the one to receive such a power. Even in her fugue, she asked for Tia's consent multiple times and got it. The reason Tia is unconscious is because Lauren used some kind of stunning device to make sure she wouldn't feel any pain, so she shouldn't be in any danger. Ouch, my head starts to hurt! Is this a thinker headache? Okay, I should stop using these powers. Anyway, Lauren was not in a right state of mind and Tia consented to the tinkertech, so you don't need to be so angry at her."

Oh no no no. Did she actually cause her own little brother to trigger by mutilating her little sister?! What kind of horrible big sister was she?

As Lauren felt guilty and miserable, her father started to actually lose some of his anger. Familiar as he was with trigger events due to his job, he immediately moved to hug Cameron.

After some time, where both her siblings were being fussed over by their parents and Lauren was wallowing in self-loathing on the ground, Kyla and William also entered the room to see what the fuss was about.

"Lau! Why are you crying!" "Big sis!"

Her two youngest siblings, not knowing the horrible things she had done, came in to hug Lauren and try to cheer her up. Lauren's self-loathing was not strong enough to withstand their cheerfulness and she eventually stopped crying.

Now that everyone had calmed down, Evan released Cameron and addressed Lauren again, although now no longer with fury:

"I'm sorry that I overreacted, Lauren. I should have realized you wouldn't do something horrible to your sister if you're in the right state of mind. If Tia is indeed all right, then we'll wait until tomorrow morning before contacting the PRT. We'll just mention that Cameron has triggered and you got a similar power to your tinkertech foot, which you used on Tia with my permission. That said, I'm still disappointed that you didn't even talk to me before giving your sister tinkertech surgery! You will still be grounded for a month, you will be taking over all of Tia's chores during that time, and you are forbidden on using tinkertech on your siblings unless you ask my permission and explain exactly what you are going to do. Do you understand?!"

Lauren, ignoring her power which still tried to show her ways to lessen her punishment, said "Yes dad. I'm sorry for doing this to Tia and I promise to try and force myself to talk to you whenever I get another such power."

"It's probably the best I can hope for. That said, do you know what kind of power you gave to Tia?"

"I only know I wanted the power to keep Tia safe. I don't remember at all what I did when making the tinkertech, and looking at the visible part on Tia's belly doesn't make me understand it any better."

"Well, the PRT power testers will be able to figure it out tomorrow."

Dad then turned towards Cameron.

"Cameron, son, I'm sorry that you had to go through such a horrible trigger event. However, now you have powers, are you okay with joining the wards with Lauren and Kyla?"

Lauren had not yet fully realized that her young brother was now a parahuman too. However, now she thought about it and his powers, she couldn't help but think how relatively lucky he had gotten. Like hers, his trigger event was resolved almost immediately, and his powers almost seemed to be tailored for him. Social situations was exactly the thing Cameron had problems with, and now he had the exact power that let him understand them. The finding out weaknesses thing he mentioned seemed also pretty great, especially if he could just watch video's, write down the weaknesses of villains, and let the PRT or the protectorate deal with them. Lauren knew that neither she, her father, or Cameron himself would like him to actually go out and fight villains, so she was happy to see him get a supportive thinker power.

"Sure dad, especially if Tia also joins."

Yeah, no way Cameron was not joining the wards. Lauren knew he was still somewhat fascinated by capes and wouldn't turn down the chance to become a ward. Also, dad would have signed him up either way, as lone Thinkers were prime targets for kidnappings.

"Ugh … What happened? Wait, Lauren, did it work, do I have powers now?!"

It was this moment that Tia finally became conscious. Before Lauren could even think of answering her, Tia was immediately hugged by Sophie, who had been watching over her.

After a minute where Sophie, Cameron and dad were all hugging Tia and asking whether she was all right, Lauren was finally able to talk with her.

"Tia, I'm so sorry for doing that to you! You didn't even understand what exactly you were agreeing to and I couldn't have known for sure whether it was safe."

"If I got powers from it, then it was definitely worth it! Do you have any idea what they are though? I don't really feel any different."

"Uh, I know the tinkertech was supposed to give you powers that would keep you safe in some way, but I don't know any more than that."

Dad chimed in here, probably to make sure Tia didn't start doing possibly dangerous power testing on her own. "Tia, you can go to the PRT tomorrow, there they have all the equipment necessary for testing your powers.

"Ugh, okay dad."

The rest of the evening was spend playing monopoly with the whole family, as Sophie and dad wanted to keep their traumatized children close. Lauren, still feeling guilty, didn't mind spending the evening playing with her siblings.

It wasn't until she went to bed that Lauren realized she didn't have a phone anymore. Needless to say, she wasn't happy when she went to sleep.

Saturday 29 May 2010

For the first time in more than a week, Lauren didn't grab any new powers in the morning. This was done out of spite with her powers, which she started to suspect were some sort of sentient being. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep this up, thanks to said powers mastering her, but not grabbing new powers for a day was still possible.

As she went downstairs, she heard her father on the phone with deputy director Renick.

"Yes, it is exactly as I said. Yesterday evening, both my son and second oldest daughter gained powers. … Both of them are doing fine … We don't know Tia's power, and I rather would not explain my son's power on the phone … I gave Lauren permission to use tinkertech to give Tia powers, so it's not her responsibility … Yes, I will tell her, see you in an hour!"

O wow, her father was actually covering for her with the PRT.

"Thank you dad!" Lauren said as she hugged her father.

"No problem, Lauren. I don't want them to put loads of restrictions on you or punish you hard for something you didn't have any control over. Just don't do something like that again without asking me about it!

There is also something else you should know. Thanks to your music video, the PRT is going to rush your debut. You will spend the next days at the PRT building getting PR lessons, finalizing your cape name and costume, and leaning wards protocol as well as rules of engagement. Kyla, and now Cameron and Tia too, will join you at the lessons, but won't have their debut rushed. They now plan on having your big public debut on Wednesday evening where they want you to use your singing powers. That way, they can play off your video as a teaser for your debut."

Oh shit, her debut was already in four days! She didn't even have a good cape name yet, or any good costume ideas aside from demanding protection for her head and torso.

As Lauren's siblings came downstairs too, Lauren started to pay attention to a new sort of sense she had ignored until now. A new power was allowing her to sense the milk and cheese in the fridge, as well as some other things in nearby houses. Paying attention to them revealed that most of them were also milk products. However, there were some weird exceptions. She was able to feel the insides of what were probably the stomachs of the neighbors' children, probably because they just ate breakfast. Even worse, she could feel the breasts of mrs. Murray as well as the milk she was feeding to her newborn son right now. Eww!

Ugh, this might be her most awkward permanent power yet. At least it had some uses, as it would allow her to know the location of her teammates at all times, as long as they drank some milk before going out. Additionally, she had the feeling that she could give the milk certain properties. The power reducing aspect didn't seem that useful, but making her other powers stronger was certainly appealing.

Now she was thinking about her powers, she also remembered the moment yesterday when Cameron was attacking her. Even before he tried to hit her, she already knew that he was going to punch her. Even more so, she instinctively knew how to disable him despite never having had any self-defense lessons. Did that mean her unknown thinker power was some sort of combat thinker power? That would definitely be useful as she didn't yet have any strong powers for close quarters combat.

Lauren was soon put out of her power musings by Kyla and William being their usual enthusiastic selves. However, in Williams case, the enthusiasm was tainted by jealousy as he was now the only sibling without powers. Dad and Sophie, clearly not wanting William to continue that avenue of thought, were extra attentive to him and repetitively assured him that it didn't matter whether he had powers or not. Lauren was very happy that William had been asleep when Cameron and Tia had gotten their powers, otherwise he might have tried to get powers on his own by hurting himself or something.

Before they went to the PRT, dad spoke to them:

"Cameron, Tia, I know you won't like this, but I am going to lie to the PRT about what happened last evening. If I would tell the truth, then they might give Lauren severe punishment and put heavy restrictions on her power, which we don't want them to do. So will you please stay quiet when I'm doing that and not say anything to the contrary?"

Cameron and Tia looked somewhat confused by that until Cameron suddenly nodded.

"Okay dad, I understand and won't talk about it."

Tia nodded too, but clearly wasn't as sure of it. Both she and Cameron were always dead honest and couldn't even understand why people lied, just as they were utterly unable to understand sarcasm. Lauren was more confused about Cameron's sudden look of understanding until she realized he just got a social thinker power that was tailor-made to help him in these situations.

Unlike Wednesday, Lauren and her siblings were brought to the PRT by their father, as he had to go to work there on Saturdays anyway. Lauren far preferred this over the PRT troopers who were either moles or had disgusting habits her power couldn't help but pick up. Before they entered through the back entrance, her father provided some domino masks for them in a weak attempt to hide their identities. Like she usually did whenever she had the opportunity, Lauren changed into her ice form before putting on the mask and following her father and siblings into the building.

For the fourth time in a week, Lauren entered the office of deputy director Renick, although now in the company of almost her whole family. When Lauren saw the haggard state of the man, she felt a bit guilty as it was likely somehow her fault.

"Good, you are here! Now we can finally start to figure out how to solve the mess Lauren created during the last 24 hours. Evan, could you please explain what the hell happened last evening that caused two of your children to gain powers on the same day that Lauren was already causing me and our PR department to work overnight?!"

Yeah, she was definitely the cause of Renick's sleep deprivation, and he clearly wasn't happy with her.

"My daughter's music video is actually unrelated to what happened in the evening. During said evening, Lauren got a short-lived power that would allow her to give people powers via tinkertech, similar to what she did to her own heel. She came to me and asked whether she could use it to give Tia a power, and I eventually agreed after she managed to convince me that the procedure was safe and the power was going to be beneficial.

With Tia's permission, Lauren proceeded to fuse the newly made tinkertech with her body. Unfortunately, as the power was short-lived, I hadn't informed my other children about what we were doing. So when Cameron came in, he misunderstood the situation and became furious at Lauren. I believe the feeling of betrayal and rage caused him to trigger there and then."

Renick became silent after dad's statement. After a few moments, he answered:

"Okay, that actually makes sense. However, Evan, you know that you were not allowed to let your daughter use untested tinkertech on another civilian, never mind that she gave Lauren permission to do that! I will have to report this to director Piggot and she will certainly not be happy with it.

As for you Lauren, as you got permission from your father and you haven't yet had your lessons regarding wards protocol, I cannot fault you for this. However, in the future, you should know that you cannot use tinkertech on civilians unless it has been tested and approved by our local tinkertech committee. The only exception is when me or the director give you special permission.

Now Lauren, I believe your father has already informed you about this, but thanks to your impulsive idea of uploading a music video under your cape persona, we now have to rush your debut. Luckily, Glenn chambers believes we can change this potential PR debacle into a PR boon, as long as we focus on your singing powers during said debut. He also wants you to continue your Viewtube channel, although under your new cape persona and with songs approved by the PR committee. However, this means that you will be required to come to the PRT every day until your debut to quickly catch up on wards protocol, PR training and such.

As for young Cameron and Tia, I assume you are both going to join the wards?"

As Cameron and Tia nodded, Lauren felt mostly happy that she was able to continue her music channel. She really had come to love singing and wouldn't mind if that was going to be a major part of her hero career. Especially as she wasn't going to accomplish anything for the city in the wards anyway.

"Could you both tell me about your new powers?"

Cameron immediately went into a detailed explanation of his power, similar to what he told yesterday. However, he added something new:

"I tested out my new weakness power on some old Triumvirate video's yesterday. It didn't seem to work as well as in person. However, while I got a large headache, my power eventually provided me with the knowledge that Alexandria's weakness is suffocation. It does make a surprising amount of sense, as even invulnerable bodies should need oxygen."

Wait, when did Cameron manage to look up these video's? Did he stay up late into the night just to test out his powers?

Renick immediately interrupted Cameron: "Okay, Cameron, stop right there! You must not share weaknesses you manage to discover of higher ranking heroes with anyone else! Whenever you discover something like that again, keep quiet about it and only inform me or Director Piggot personally. It would be disastrous if all the villains got to know about the weaknesses of our top heroes. As for the rest of you, forget what Cameron just said and do not under any circumstances share Alexandria's weakness!"

O wow, Lauren didn't know that this would be so big of a deal. Well, at least she wouldn't be the only ward that had personal meetings with the director anymore.

"Okay, another potential disaster averted. Now Tia, could you tell me about your power."

"Uhhm, I don't know what my power is? Lauren said something about it keeping me safe in some way, but I don't know how."

"So, you have no idea what power Lauren's tinkertech gave you? Oh well, we were planning on putting you through power testing today anyway. However, this means I can't yet have your father sign the wards contracts, as I need confirmation you actually have powers beforehand. Luckily doctor Gibson is already available, so you can go there right away accompanied by your father.

As for Lauren, you can go to the PR team and decide on a costume and a name. Glenn chambers gave us some nice ideas during the meeting and the PR team was very happy to work them out.

Finally, Cameron and Kyla, you two can go directly to the wards area. All other wards should be there today, so Cameron and Tia will be able to meet their future team members. Hopefully without exposing them to unknown master effects or drugs."

Ouch! Lauren really hadn't been kind to her new teammates, hadn't she?

Cameron still had something to say: "I don't know what Tia's power is either, but my weakness power tells me that Tia's weakness is 'whatever she is committed to do'. I have no idea what it means though."

Renick thought for a moment about this. "I still don't have a clue what Tia's power could be, but I will mention it to doctor Gibson."

As Lauren and her siblings went their separate ways, she was anxious to see what costume ideas the PR team had prepared for her, and whether they had been able to come up with a good name. After all, she herself had no good idea for either.

AN: Lauren faces the consequences for her questionable decisions. It could have been a lot worse had Cameron not triggered with a postcog-social/combat thinker power and had her father not painted her biotinkering in the best possible light to the PRT, taking part of the blame by himself. Tia's power will become clear in the next chapter, but I will hint that it is very similar to the power of a Villain in the later half of Worm, although with a downside.