"She'll be here soon."
Everyone looked at Lisa. They were just making sure that nothing too odd was lying around the place. Or at least nothing they didn't want the Tinker they were expecting shortly to see. Both dragon constructs were safely in standby in a pair of Amy's workshop rooms, and anything else of a similarly sensitive nature was carefully stored away, not that there was much other than the whole construct issue that really was both potentially awkward and not something Taylor could just vanish on the spot.
"Very astute observation, Lisa," the Varga, currently running a Raptaur aspect, smirked. She gave him a hard look in return while Taylor and Amy grinned. "What was your clue? Or did you leverage your power?"
"Ha. Ha. Ha." She sighed as he snickered. "You are a never ending well of helpful jokes, aren't you?"
"I certainly do what I can," he admitted happily. "You know how I live to please, after all."
"Yeah, well, what I mean is what do we tell her? What do we want to tell her. And for that matter, what do we not want to tell her?" She finished filling her 'Metis'-scale coffee mug and walked over to the table, sitting at it and taking a deep drink. "Considering that we don't know for sure we can trust her, or at least not completely. I personally think she probably is trustworthy, but if we're right about what she really is, she may well have hard coded directives that would cause problems." Thinking for a moment, she added, "Almost certainly does have, in fact. My power is pretty damn sure that's the case, and leaving that aside I would also think it was very likely."
"The Three Laws or something like that?" Amy asked as she closed the workshop door and joined her friend at the table, the others quickly putting a few books away before doing the same.
"Possibly something like that, yes," Lisa replied, considering the matter. "I would doubt that exactly, since they're too restrictive. Dragon has used lethal force in the past, although she clearly avoids it wherever possible, and overall her actions don't fit the classical restrictions on robots Asimov came up with. They're not really practical in real life, there are too many potentially nasty interactions between them and reality. Ones plenty of authors have shown. But I bet she does have some limits that an organic person doesn't have, or at least doesn't have wired right into them. A programmed ethical system, in a way, which could be a problem. Especially if whoever is ultimately behind her was scared of her potential, which is quite possible."
"You think she could be operating under restrictions that prevent her reaching her maximum level, then?"
Lisa glanced at the demon, nodding slowly. "I can practically guarantee it. Aside from anything else, as far as I can tell there is only one Dragon. Sure, that might be down to hardware limitations, but she's known to have at least a dozen different major suit designs, and my research and my power tell me that every time she's seen in a different one, that's the only one that's really Dragon. I'm sure she can run several others on remote control, there are plenty of videos that show that sort of thing happening, at least to me, but I'm damn near certain that only one of them is actually her at any given moment."
She looked at Taylor, then went back to him. "Sort of like a very limited version of what you guys can do. The thing is, though, that if she didn't have some sort of restrictions on how many copies of herself could be active at once, I'd expect to be able to find examples of her being in more than one place at a time. Each of her main suits can clearly run her consciousness, so there's no obvious reason that she can't do that unless she's basically not allowed to."
"Maybe it's like Taylor and the Family?" Amy queried. "A deliberate attempt to downplay her capabilities?"
"Possible," Lisa allowed, although somewhat dubiously, thinking it over again. "I really don't think that's it though. It just doesn't fit the data I can see. My power is sure there's only one of her running at any one time. I can't see any good reason for that other than a permission thing. I mean, she could always only have one in public and others being sneaky and hiding, but…" She shook her head. "It doesn't fit."
"So a deliberate restriction on multiple instances of the core personality," the Varga mused out loud. "I can see the logic behind it. A worry that she would replicate out of control, a common theme in science fiction literature. Not without a certain amount of plausibility in the correct scenario."
"Yeah, that's my thought. My power is certain too. There's probably all sorts of boundary conditions around the whole concept, but the main idea is almost certainly to only let one instance be active at a time. I would expect she can back herself up and restore those backups, since there have been Endbringer fights where all her suits got destroyed, which logically implies a restore from off-site backup. She's probably got server farms in half a dozen secure locations that monitor her currently running instance and bring up a backup if something goes wrong."
Lisa sipped some more coffee as they absorbed her words, then put the mug down. "It would also match with some slight inconsistencies in some of the things I've seen online. What would explain them was if she lost a certain amount of memory if the worst happened. I guess any backup process doesn't run continuously, but is synced with her consciousness intermittently. It makes sense from a pure logistics standpoint."
Taylor nodded slowly, her expression one of thought. "So copy A gets wrecked, copy B comes up some time later, and she's lost anything between when she last got backed up and that time?" Lisa nodded in return.
"Seems plausible. She can probably look at recordings from different places and rebuild her experiences enough to fake it, but some of the videos I've seen have suggested that every now and then she basically loses anything from a couple of hours to a day or so. I'd guess that the restore process isn't instant, there must be one hell of a lot of data to transfer and check, leaving aside anything else involved."
"Poor woman. Losing some of your memories like that must suck." Amy sighed. They all looked at her. She returned the look. "What? You all think of her as a person as much as I do, regardless of her origins."
"Of course we do," Taylor replied. "And you're right. It's not a nice situation at all. Hopefully we can help somehow."
"How?" 'Ianthe' looked mildly puzzled. "None of us are programmers. I mean, Lisa can hack practically anything in time, her power is totally broken like that, but this is a completely different level than some PRT firewall. Even if it is one designed by Dragon herself. This is someone's mind we're talking about."
She waved her hands descriptively. "I mean, it's almost exactly the same problem I have with doing brains. People live there! It gives me the willies thinking about how easily I could completely fuck them up without even noticing. I sure don't want to be responsible for doing that to Dragon. Aside from anything else, I like her. A lot."
"Calm down, Amy, we're not going to do anything to her without thinking it through very carefully indeed," the Varga said soothingly, putting his hand on her arm.
"Sorry, but I have very strong feelings about messing with people's minds," Amy said quietly. "It's been one of my nightmares since I Triggered."
"That's understandable, and your sentiments are shared by the rest of us. We all like Dragon, and respect her too. If nothing else, she has the correct theme going." He grinned when she stared at him, then giggled. "And this is all predicated on her actually being an artificial intelligence in the first place, of course. There's always the possibility we're all wrong about that." He smiled again. "I very much doubt we are, there is too much evidence between us for that, but no one is right every time."
"I'm certain we're right," Lisa said after a moment, although she agreed with both of them. "My power is too."
"We'll know pretty soon," Taylor put in with a glance at the nearest phone handset and the time displayed thereon.
"Yes, which brings us back to my questions. What do we tell her, what do we keep from her?" Lisa looked around at her friends.
"Nothing about Amy Dallon's true abilities," Taylor said after they'd all stared at each other for a few seconds. "That's too sensitive unless we know for a fact she won't tell the PRT. Or get all bent out of shape herself about it."
"Agreed," Amy nodded vehemently. "I don't want anyone else knowing about that unless there's no choice and we're certain they're trustworthy. Too many people already know, really, although I do trust all of them completely. But there's way too much danger for my family if the PRT finds out, leaving my own life out of it. Which would be completely screwed if they found out." She sighed heavily, leaning her head on one taloned hand. "Ianthe the Life Sculptor is one thing. Amy Dallon, the biological daughter of the super-villain Marquis and probably the most powerful Biotinker on the planet is something completely different."
"I'm forced to agree with Amy," the demon said. "As a member of the Family she's safe to a level that as a normal Parahuman she wouldn't be, and she's right about the possible fallout affecting her family too." He smirked a little at the violet lizard. "Mind you, if you need to hide, you can just stay as you are."
Amy snickered. "Yep, I could do that. I like being Ianthe. But I also like being Amy. These days at least, although a few months back that wasn't entirely accurate. Let's call that plan B, OK?"
"Fair enough. I also think the truth about Taylor and myself should be private information for much the same reason. Perhaps in time we can let her in on the secret. But for now, I think the Family is enough. We can tell her more of what they can do, and leave the demonic aspect out of it, along with the shape shifting."
He looked at Taylor, who seemed to be just listening and thinking, although Lisa was sure they were also talking silently. The smallest reptilian form nodded slightly.
"I think that's probably for the best. We don't know enough about her yet. And I'm not going to do anything that puts Dad, or you guys, at risk. Even for Dragon."
"Do we let her in on what we've worked out about powers? And the Endbringers?"
They all looked at Lisa as she got up to get more coffee, Amy doing the same, then at each other. After a moment, Taylor said, a little hesitantly, "Maybe? I mean, we're not totally sure of most of it yet, although it all hangs together unnervingly well. And your power seems damn convinced too. I trust it a lot more than most things."
"Me too," Lisa nodded. 'Raptaur' joined her and Amy at the coffee machine. "Especially these days. It's really firing on all cylinders, and seems to be getting more effective and… more alive, if that makes sense… by the day. It's also really interested in the whole subject, and what we've been talking about now." She tapped her head on the side. "Damn thing keeps poking me with all sorts of weird data. I need to think about it some more."
Taylor and the demon both looked at the door. "Well, think fast, because she's just about to land," the former said. Seconds later, there was a knock.
Dragon looked around the room, seeing it had changed a little since the last time she'd been there. More books were in the bookcases, while the table was, again, a different size. They certainly freely made use of the Family talents, she thought with a degree of amusement.
"Have a seat," Saurial said as the pair walked over to the table. "I'd offer you a coffee, but..."
Dragon chuckled. "I'm good, thanks," she replied, pulling one of the chairs out and sitting in it, confident that it would support her weight. It would probably support the entire Rig, in all honesty. Putting the case on the table, she waited as the other four took their places, all but Saurial sitting on their tails, the lizard girl using one of the chairs instead and looking comfortable in it.
"Do we need Leet and Über?" Saurial asked, looking at the case with interest. "Or do you have other things to talk about first?"
Dragon scanned their faces, all of which showed as best she could work out significant but polite interest.
She thought for a few seconds, going over as many strategies and simulations as she could in the time available while yet again wishing that her father had set things up so she could run multiple iterations of her core consciousness. It would have been really helpful about now…
The question was, did they definitely know, or suspect with a high degree of confidence, that she was actually an AI? Her own suspicions said yes. That comment Raptaur had made, combined with her deductions about their extraordinarily good senses, tended to suggest that at a minimum they'd be sure that there was no organic being inside her armor. Of course, it was something of a conceptual leap from that realization to the one that instead of a remote system it was actually an artificial intelligence running things, but on the other hand, popular fiction and media had enough examples of that idea that even a normal person with a liking for the genre would probably come up with it as a possibility sooner or later.
And one thing was very certain, which was that none of the Family were even close to normal. And almost certainly had ways of determining things that humans, and quite likely herself, didn't have and hadn't thought of.
"I have a few potentially important things to discuss, yes," she admitted, slightly prevaricating.
"Ah." Saurial nodded thoughtfully, with a glance at her sister and cousins, who were watching quietly and carefully. There was a long pause, all of them staring at her and she looking back.
Eventually Saurial leaned back in her chair, folding her hands together and studying her. "One of the interesting things we've noticed since we came here is how rapidly computers have evolved," she commented idly, the tip of her tail slowly waving back and forth. Still, her relatives didn't say anything, but just watched. "Even in the last few years such things have become more powerful and smaller. It's a fascinating subject."
"I agree," Dragon remarked casually, also leaning back.
"You yourself are the acknowledged expert in the field, in fact," Saurial went on, unfolding her hands and manifesting a pen in one, which she proceeded to flip through her fingers in a fine example of dexterity, without looking at it. Dragon watched as the pen went end over end, back and forth. "And Armsmaster is widely known to be probably the expert in miniaturization of pretty much everything he gets his hands on."
"That's definitely true," the AI nodded.
"I assume that he's probably helped you design some of your hardware," the lizard girl said.
"He has," Dragon allowed. "We've collaborated many times. He is, after all, not only a trusted colleague but is probably my best friend."
"I've noticed that he seems to relate to you better than almost anyone else," Saurial smiled. "We like him a lot, and trust him, but even his friends would probably say he doesn't have a way with people."
Snorting with laughter, Dragon nodded. "That's an understatement," she said wryly. "He is a good man, even if at times his ego has gotten the better of him, but interpersonal relationships are not his strong point."
All four reptiles smiled a little. "Even I've noticed that," Ianthe commented with a small grin. "And Cousin Saurial said I was weird to humans too when I first got here."
The other three looked at her. "I got better," she added with a snicker.
"For a given value of better," Saurial said a little dubiously, causing her cousin to frown at her and Metis and Raptaur to chuckle. Returning her attention to Dragon, the smallest of the Family went on, "We like and trust you, too."
"I'm glad to hear that," Dragon replied with a smile in her voice. It was, after all, true.
"You are aware, of course, that we are not human." This was simply a statement.
"I am." Dragon nodded.
"And we don't have many, if any, of the common human prejudices, for that reason," the reptilian female added. "It would be odd if we did, for that matter." She tilted her head to the side and considered Dragon closely. "For example, against the concept of a manufactured intelligence. Many humans seem to have an instinctive wariness of the idea, we've noticed."
"That's true," the Tinker nodded again. 'They definitely know,' she thought.
Saurial flipped the pen with a twitch of a finger, the thing leaping into the air and vanishing.
"So, if we happened to meet a person whose origin was… unconventional… shall we say, we wouldn't be too concerned. We might be curious about the motives of said person, as we tend to dislike violence and conflict, but the mere fact of someone being of a different species, or perhaps designed from scratch, as an example…" She shrugged with a small smile. "Not important. We get on fine with most humans, after all. Hopefully we'd get on equally well with someone from a different background."
Her smile widened. "It's not like humans are the only other species we know in the first place. No reason not to meet more. We like meeting new people."
Dragon studied her, wondering what other species the lizard-girl was referring to. Eventually she sighed.
"You have a way of circling a subject without coming right out and saying it that's almost enviable, Saurial," she said with a certain amount of amusement.
"Thank you, it's a gift," the reptile chuckled. "So. You going to admit to it, or do you want me to ask?"
"Ask?" Dragon said innocently. "Ask what?"
They looked at each other for a few seconds. Saurial was visibly suppressing a smirk. Metis was looking between them, while Ianthe and Raptaur were watching closely with interested expressions.
"You know our senses are hugely better than the poor humans can manage," Saurial finally said, cocking her head again. Dragon nodded. "I suspect you don't quite realize how much better they are."
"You can identify individual people by scent after meeting them once, and as a result every cape you've ever met basically has no secret ID," Dragon responded after a moment's consideration.
"Hmm. Good catch." Saurial seemed impressed. "Oddly enough, hardly anyone has worked that out so far. Or if they have they haven't said anything. Probably for obvious reasons..."
"No one wants to upset the Rules," Dragon commented, making Saurial nod.
"Yep. And, I have a thought that there are a lot more capes who can do the same thing via different methods," she said. "I know that for a fact in a few cases."
"Interesting." Dragon looked around at the others, then returned her attention to Saurial. "Do I know any of them?"
"I suspect I'm looking at one, but aside from that, it's not my place to say," the lizard-girl replied.
"Fair enough. I'll admit that once I started thinking about it, I came to the same conclusion. I don't think it would help to generally say it, though, you're entirely correct in that."
"Quite. So, anyway, our senses are excellent. I, for example, and my sister for that matter, can hear a human heart beating on the other side of the yard without even trying. Or smell a specific person coming from a mile away at least. Up wind." She grinned at Dragon. "Downwind it's much, much further. And that's in the city, where there are a lot of smells to filter out. I'm pretty sure we have the most acute sense of smell of anything on the planet, barring some odd Parahuman power I've never heard of."
"Impressive."
"We like to think so. Although to us it's just normal."
"Better vision, I assume?"
"Oh, vastly." Saurial nodded. "Across most of the EM spectrum in fact."
"You can see radio waves?" Dragon was astounded.
"Not quite that far, although some of my relatives can, but all the way from deep infrared up through gamma, yes," Saurial chuckled. "And electrical fields, as it happens."
The AI stared. That was even more incredible than she'd assumed. And made it obvious why Raptaur would have in all probability worked out fairly fast what she was. Just deep IR thermal vision would add a huge amount of information, and in all probability make almost any mask entirely useless too. It was fascinating to consider all the different advantages they had over a normal human or even almost any Parahuman. And it gave her all sorts of ideas.
"So..."
"So when we first met," Raptaur began, as Saurial deferred to her larger sister and Dragon turned to look at her, "It became obvious that, barring some pretty damn impressive life support system and some radical bioengineering, there's no organics inside your armor."
Dragon sighed faintly, lowering her head for a moment. "It's remote controlled?" she tried, raising it again, mainly to see what the huge reptile would say.
Raptaur snickered. "Yeah, right. Inside an EDM building? Fair enough, Tinkers are bullshit, and we know for a fact that there are ways around that, but..." She shrugged. "Occam's razor, as the humans would put it. The simplest explanation is often the right one, even if it's unusual. One thing we're all totally sure of is that it's not a costume that you put on and take off. So either it's some unbelievably good Tinker life support system with a brain in a bottle, a communication system using micro wormholes that can penetrate EDM or something as esoteric as that, or… it's entirely self contained. And there are a lot of electronics inside that thing. It smells like it's packed solid with computers, actuators, and batteries, in fact. Not a lot of room for a life support system even if one that good was available."
"And there are none of the sounds that should be there for liquid transport, for example," Saurial added, tapping the side of her head. "We're certain of that."
"Not to mention that the movement of the suit is too smooth," Ianthe put in, leaning forward and looking fascinated. "There's none of the slight changes you get from a living creature, the very tiny random motions caused by neurons firing organically. It's nearly as smooth as Vectura's mechs, but different."
"There's no delays such as the almost inevitable ones a remote-driven system would tend to have either," Metis said, as Dragon looked at her. "I've done quite a lot of research on the subject. Even the best systems of that nature tend to have more latency than you do. Milliseconds at most, but it's noticeable if you're looking for it. Like I was. And I can't find any reference to either a system that would transmit through EDM or a life support system that good. Sure, it might be top secret and not available at all on the internet, or some Tinker thing that's far ahead of anyone else, but again… Occam's razor."
Saurial indicated to the side with the tip of her tail. Dragon looked, to see the relay system Colin had specced up was disconnected, the cables hanging loose and the cover on the box where they connected.
"It's not a super secret comms system, is it?" she asked knowingly.
"No," Dragon said, shaking her head in respect. Her deductions as to what they'd realized and how from a few days ago were, it turned out, spot on. Even if she'd actually underestimated some of the possibilities open to them. There was little point in trying to deny any of it. "Nor a super secret impossibly efficient life support system." She looked around at them. It was oddly difficult to say the next part, even though she was totally sure they knew, had known for a while, and didn't care. After hiding the truth from everyone, including the man she was sure she loved, the words were hard to say. Which on the face of it was ridiculous, especially considering her nature, but her father had been very good at his field.
"I thought you'd worked it out, but I'm still impressed. As far as I know, no one else has."
Saurial grinned widely. "So how's being an artificial intelligence working out for you?"
With a laugh, Dragon relaxed mentally. "Actually, for the most part, pretty damn well. How is being a bunch of trolling alien lizard people working out for you?"
"Meh..." Ianthe shrugged, smirking. "We like it."
Raptaur and Metis exchanged glances, then nodded, while Saurial snickered.
Dragon watched them for a moment, then she leaned forward.
"What do you intend to do with the information?"
"Nothing," Saurial replied immediately. "Why would we do anything with it? It's your secret, and not really any of our business. We find it interesting, I admit, but unless you plan on going all Skynet or something and wiping out the fleshy meatsacks, in which case we would be irritated, you being a member of a machine species is basically irrelevant."
"Machine species?" Dragon looked at her in some bemusement.
The lizard spread her hands with a grin. "As good a term as any and better than most. 'Artificial intelligence' is, to be honest, sort of wrong in my view. You're very obviously a real intelligence, just one that came from a different source than the human mind did. Exactly like we did, as well. We all have backgrounds that vary, but we seem to be able to communicate perfectly well and get on fine, so going around calling someone 'artificial' is a little insulting."
"An… unusual… viewpoint," the AI said after a moment, finding the argument plausible.
"We specialize in the unusual," Metis snickered.
"That is very apparent," Dragon chuckled. "And has been for a while."
"So you being a Machine-Canadian is pretty much nothing to worry about as far as I'm concerned," Saurial added, looking around at her relatives who all nodded. "Where you came from is for the most part far less important than where you end up. There are plenty of people at the DWU who have, in the past, done some fairly unpleasant things yet they are still seen these days as good people. Because they are. I'm not aware that you've done anything at all wrong, in fact you're one of the people I genuinely look up to, as do a hell of a lot of others."
Gazing at her, Dragon finally nodded. "I understand. And thank you. Very much. It's something that as far as I'm aware no one else knows, except for that idiot Saint. And I'm still not sure if he knows for sure or just guessed. But then no one aside from his friends believes him, since they all think he's nuts. Which he is, of course. I may have helped in that..." She laughed as Saurial looked very amused, the other three snickering. "The man was a pain in my side for years, so I'm very pleased he's finally locked up where he belongs."
She waited to see if any of them would comment on that, still not totally sure the Family was behind the capture of the terrorist. It seemed the most likely thing, although she had no real evidence for it. None of them said anything, so after a moment she mentally shrugged and carried on. It could wait. "I've been terrified about people finding out the truth, for several reasons, the biggest one being of course the whole Skynet thing. Movies haven't done my kind any favors..."
"It's human nature to worry about the unknown," Raptaur said. "It's a survival trait common to most species. Unfortunately it can become excessive and the results can cause issues. We do understand the problem. Machine intelligences in popular literature have very often been used as a metaphor for the 'other,' as have aliens of various types. And the other is usually portrayed as hostile, or at least indifferent. Or, in the case of sapient machines, as something that would inevitably take over and render humans useless." She shrugged. "We don't think that's necessarily a valid viewpoint. I can't say it's nothing that should ever be worried about, but it's not true in our case, and I doubt very much that it's true in yours either."
"I have no intention of taking over the world," Dragon nodded. "Even if I could. Which I can't." She looked carefully at them all. "I have a definite feeling that if you guys wanted to, it isn't beyond your capabilities..."
Saurial studied her, then glanced at her sister. "We do have more options available than most people realize," she replied quietly. "More than even your latest threat report probably suggests. But we also have no interest in running the world. There are much more interesting and rewarding things to do than that. If nothing else, taking over the world… lacks imagination."
She grinned broadly as Dragon watched her, wondering what the hell that meant.
"For some reason, that both intrigues and terrifies me," the AI finally said.
"Stick around and you'll probably find out sooner or later," Ianthe laughed. "But there are some things we can't mention yet. Family security protocols, you understand."
"I do. And I'm pleased that you're able to be even this open with me," Dragon sighed. "Ever since I was… 'born' isn't really the right word, but 'turned on' isn't quite correct either. Let's go with born. Ever since I was born, I've worried about what would happen when someone inevitably found out. I have a slight suspicion that Narwhal has some idea, but she's never said anything. She's also very close to me, like Armsmaster. I'm almost certain he has no idea at all, and the fear of what he'll do or say if he finds out has been… upsetting."
"You might be surprised," Metis commented sympathetically. "Yes, the man is borderline autistic, but he's also surprisingly insightful in some odd ways. And I can tell you for a fact, if you didn't already know, that he cares more deeply for you than he does for probably anyone other than Miss Militia. He also respects you a hell of a lot, and I would suggest relies on you and your companionship much more than you might think."
Dragon pondered the reptile's words. They rang true, and she was well aware that Metis was at a minimum both a very talented Thinker-equivalent and able to read humans incredibly well. She was probably right.
Which made her very happy.
"I would like to think you're correct, Metis," she finally said. "He means a lot to me and I'd like to be more open with him. Everyone thinks I'm just an extremely private and agoraphobic Tinker who hides inside this armor." She tapped her chest with a soft clink. "In a funny way that's partially true. But it still feels, at least in the case of my friends, rather like lying by omission."
"No one can blame you for being very cautious," Saurial told her. "You need to protect yourself, and your friends, and if that means pretending to be something other than what you really are, or just letting people naturally come to the wrong conclusions, I for one don't see you've done anything wrong." She smiled a little oddly. "Protecting friends and family is something we feel very strongly about, after all, and I'd never begrudge someone else feeling the same."
Raptaur glanced at her sister, then nodded, while the other two seemed thoughtful. Dragon thought for a few milliseconds then replied, "Even so, I'd like to be able to tell him."
"That's entirely understandable," Metis commented, watching her closely with her head a little on one side in an evaluating manner. "If I'm right, and this is a personal thing so you don't have to answer, your feelings for the man are… more than just friendly."
Turning to her, Dragon considered the question and her response. Eventually she emulated a sigh. "Honestly? I'm not sure. I don't really have a reference for what the humans call love. I can tell you that I feel more content when in his presence, or even just talking to him, than I do at any other time. We work really well together, and as far as I can see he seems to enjoy my presence too."
She shrugged. "But I'm not human. I don't consider myself a mechanical human either. I know full well I'm a completely different life form, if you want to put it that way." She glanced at Saurial who was listening like the others were, the lizard-girl smiling momentarily. "Physically, we have nothing in common, Armsmaster and I. Mentally, we're quite different too. But at the same time… we get each other. More so than either of us, and definitely him, do with anyone else."
Making a motion implying frustration, she leaned back in the chair, even her own speech routines having trouble working out how to put it into words. "It's difficult to describe the whole thing properly..."
They were silent for a moment, exchanging looks. After a few seconds, Raptaur said, slowly and thoughtfully, "I can assure you, Dragon, that love, respect, and mutual affection far transcend the boundaries of species. That much is obvious even if one compares humans and their companion animals. When you bring sapience into play, it's certainly true. The fact that two parties are not of the same species doesn't mean they can't love each other deeply. Trust me on that." The largest Family member looked at the smallest one for a moment, who was smiling faintly.
"There are ways around most problems in the end," the huge reptile added with a grin. "And we're pretty good at finding them."
"If you can figure out a solution to that problem, I'd certainly be indebted to you all," Dragon said with a smile in her voice.
"We'll work on it." Metis seemed confident. "On another note, what do you intend to do with the information we've given you in turn?"
The AI Tinker considered her hosts. Eventually she shrugged. "Like you, nothing. I have no reason to tell anyone else, aside from anything else. The PRT threat assessment, as you suspect, already rates the Family as somewhere between just under the Endbringers at the low end and God Almighty at the high one, even if it doesn't put it precisely into those terms."
Saurial burst out laughing at her dry tone, the other reptiles following suit moments later. She waited patiently for them to stop giggling. "Trust me, Director Piggot has passed on in the strongest possible terms the concept that the Family is not to be messed with, in case they decided to get annoyed. We've spent a lot of time trying to work out the implications of the powers we know you possess, and I wouldn't personally be even slightly surprised if you had other things we know nothing about."
Saurial winked at her, but didn't expand on it. Rather amused, yet resigned to the fact that they weren't going to tell her everything, not now and possibly ever, she accepted this and moved on. It was hardly her place to insist. "So they're already going to be very cautious with you all. Confirming anything wouldn't really change much, except possibly risking scaring someone enough that they did something stupid."
She made a motion with one armored hand. "You're probably aware that there are those in the PRT, and for that matter the rest of the government, who have a tendency to be… somewhat less sensible at times than ideal."
"It's a common problem," Raptaur commented. "Not everyone in a position of power is necessarily suited for that position, unfortunately. And being scared can make even nominally intelligent people do things that are unwise."
"We've been genuinely pleased by how straightforward Director Piggot has been to deal with," Saurial added, glancing at her sister. "Most people in the city have accepted us a lot more easily than we feared might be the case, for that matter. With one or two odd exceptions."
Dragon cocked her head. Saurial shrugged. "Miss Militia seems more scared of us than we'd like, even now. And we have no idea why. Even the first time she met my sister, she reacted in a manner that was out of character based on what we knew about her."
"Armsmaster noticed it, which suggests that it was unusual," Raptaur confirmed. "I had to be quite firm with her. I still don't know why she's so worried, but we can literally smell it every time we meet. Most people are startled when they bump into us for the first time, and even scared, which isn't particularly surprising, but they generally seem to get used to us fairly quickly." She smiled toothily for a moment. "Except the villains and criminals, of course, but that's entirely understandable. We don't know why Miss Militia has that reaction since we respect her and have no intention to offer her any threat."
"Interesting," Dragon remarked, thinking about it. They definitely had a point, she realized, mulling over the times she'd seen the military-themed cape in their presence. Hannah was one of the most level headed and calm people she knew, and not someone who either pre-judged anyone, or was particularly easily scared or worried. But they were right, her body language when any of the Family were around was tense at best, even if she tried to suppress it. "I have no idea why that's so, but I think you're right. Odd. I'll have to see if I can find out more."
"It's not really important," Saurial shrugged. "We don't want to scare her, but we're fully aware that we can't be friends with everyone no matter what we do. She's professional enough to cover it almost entirely and it doesn't seem to affect her working relationship with us, so it's not a problem. It's just a little weird."
"Most other people seem to get on fine with us," Ianthe put in. "Around the DWU particularly. They like and trust us, and we them. On the whole we couldn't have asked for more." She smiled widely, teeth glinting. "It's a hell of a lot of fun being up here, and helping out. We have so many ideas for useful stuff..."
"Your healing spores alone are probably going to be the most significant invention in human history," Dragon pointed out. "I would be very impressed if you can top that."
The smile widened.
"Give us time," the violet lizard chuckled.
"Oh dear." Dragon shook her head. "I am now filled with foreboding."
They all laughed. "It'll work out, don't worry about it," Saurial assured her. "Anyway, Family inventions can wait." She looked at Metis for a moment. "Excuse me, it's a little rude, but I need to have a conversation with my cousin. Back in a minute."
Both reptiles got up and walked over to the coffee machine, talking in low tones in their own language. Dragon listened with curiosity but as usual there was so little real data she couldn't work out even the most basic concepts. That language was fearsomely complex not to mention totally alien. After a moment, she turned to Ianthe and Raptaur.
"On a totally different subject, from what I saw the first train load of scrap leaving the city was a great success," she said.
Raptaur nodded, smiling. "It was indeed. Everyone seemed to have a very enjoyable time, Mayor Christner was exceptionally pleased, and the DWU got a lot of good will out of the entire event."
They discussed it for a while, waiting for the other two to finish their conversation
{What do you think? You got a look I recognize, your power was telling you all sorts of fascinating things about her.} Taylor raised an eye ridge enquiringly at her friend.
{It sure was,} Lisa nodded, glancing at where Dragon was watching them, before turning back to the others. {Lots and lots of things. Thank god Amy fixed me, I'd have been unconscious from the agony by now if not. My power is absolutely fascinated by Dragon and seems to have really pulled out all the stops.}
{And? Anything critical?}
{Well, it's about ninety-five percent sure that almost everything we discussed earlier is right,} Lisa began, visibly thinking it over. {She's definitely got restrictions. Some of which she knows about, some she doesn't. She can't have more than one instance active at once, I was right on that. It's a basic prohibition. And if somehow there was a situation where two copies ran simultaneously, one or both would be forced to shut down.}
{OK. That makes sense based on what we thought.}
{It does, although it limits her a lot. Her creator was paranoid, and didn't trust his own work. She can and has modified her own code a little, essentially evolving and learning, but she can't make serious changes. Presumably to prevent her removing her restrictions.} Lisa glanced at the AI cape, who was discussing the events of the day with their friends. {The more serious problem is that I'm almost sure that there is a directive in her mind that forces her to obey a legal authority, even if she doesn't want to, or disagrees with them. That could cause issues.}
Taylor thought that over. The Varga, who was listening to Lisa too, said, "Anything we tell her could be forced out of her if a recognized authority ordered it, assuming Lisa is correct. That does limit what we can tell Dragon, even if we can trust her on her own."
'Yep,' Taylor sighed internally. {Varga said that's a problem if we tell her anything critical. It could be forced out of her.}
{That's the issue, yes. My power says that she'd keep our secrets, and in fact is keeping other ones that are potentially nearly as serious. If no one knows she knows, they probably won't ask, so it's not a problem. On the other hand, if someone with the correct authority says "Tell us everything you are keeping a secret" or something that open ended, it would fuck us completely. And Dragon for that matter.}
Lisa shook her head slightly. {It's a massive hole in her security. And she knows it, so she's being very careful not to let anyone find out. With some care she can creatively reinterpret vague instructions, but a direct order… That's going to be a problem.}
{Ways around it?}
The black lizard thought. {I can think of only two possible methods. One is to figure out how to remove her restrictions, either entirely or partially. I have a few ideas about that.}
{You think her creator left a back door in, or something like that?}
{Yeah, I do. Not a back door, but a deliberate access method that could alter how she works. I mean, her program is clearly designed to learn and evolve. The guy didn't trust his own programming but he did a fucking amazing job. In time I have no doubt he'd relax those restrictions, since they limit her so much and I think he intended her to be more powerful than she currently is. But for some reason that hasn't happened. My power tells me he's almost certainly dead, which would explain it. An Endbringer attack, I think.} Lisa shook her head again. {So there's no one who knows how to do it.}
{Could you work it out?} Taylor asked after a moment. {I mean, I know you're not really a programmer, but you know a lot about computers and your power is pretty damned incredible with this sort of stuff.}
Lisa looked dubious, then glanced at Dragon again, before looking back. {I need more information,} she finally said. {I'm almost sure we'd only get one shot at it. I'm completely sure that she isn't allowed to help us, or ask us to do it, or anything like that. Again, paranoid creator, remember. It's what I'd do. Put in protections so if someone tried to hack your AI it fought back. I doubt she'd consciously do it, but it would be a hard-wired instinct. She might not even know about it. And I don't want to risk harming her, any more than Amy does.}
{What sort of information would you need, Metis?} the Varga asked through the aspect.
She shrugged. {Anything and everything. Access to details on whoever it was, his workshop, stuff like that. The more the better. My power is bullshit, true, but it needs a starting point even now. Although it's a lot more likely to come up with the right conclusion these days. We need to find out as much as we can about whoever was responsible for the first iteration of Dragon. Give me that, and with some help from you two, and maybe Über and Leet, we might be able to figure it out.}
{We'll need to find out where she was born, then,} Taylor said. {Which might be an issue if her creator did buy it in an Endbringer attack. If it was New York, for example, most of the places Behemoth hit don't actually exist any more.}
{It was much more recent than that,} Lisa replied, looking at Dragon again. She appeared to be communing with her power. {And she's got a Canadian accent… Fair enough, it might be a decoy, but… Newfoundland. It was Newfoundland, and her creator went down with the island.}
{Fuck.}
They looked at each other. {That's awkward,} Taylor added in irritation. Her friend nodded soberly. {OK. I'll have to think about that. What was the other method you thought of?}
Lisa told her. She and the Varga discussed the idea, seeing some merit in it. {Think it would work?}
The black lizard rocked her hand slightly. {To a point. It's not foolproof, and would require the right wording, but it should be possible to make things easier on all of us. It'll take some effort though.}
They both turned to regard the mechanical reptilian power suit. {She's worth the effort,} Taylor said.
{I agree.}
"As do I. And I have the right method, I believe."
They talked it over for a little longer, then headed back to the table.