The television in the background was airing some sort of talk-show, where the people were talking about capes and their utility in society or something of the sort.

"…don't see why it's such a big issue. Parahuman powers are like any other tools that humanity has had at its disposal throughout history. We didn't ban machines to preserve more job opportunities for people whose jobs involved manual labor, and it doesn't make any sense to…"

"So, Taylor." Dad prompted.

I looked up from the pancakes I was stuffing in my mouth, "mmm, yeah?"

Dad gave me a mildly worried-looking glance, "It's been a week since… uh," he looked away for a moment and cleared his throat, "I… talked to a lawyer, and…" he trailed off again.

I quirked an eyebrow.

He sighed, "Have you thought about what you're going to do… about school?"

Oh boy. Here we go.

I chewed my food slowly, in silence as I stared at Dad. I had known I would have to deal with this eventually, but honestly? One week wasn't nearly long enough of a break from this particular problem.

"…hiding behind the idea of free market to rob people of their livelihood. There's already a huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor in this country, but at least in theory, a poor person can achieve wealth with the same tools that anybody else has access to. We don't need to disadvantage…"

I washed down the pancake with a glass of water when I felt the silence had stretched longer than natural.

"I'm not going back, Dad."

It wasn't that I was trying to escape the bullying. If anything, they should've been thankful I wasn't going back. No, as satisfying as it would be to stand up to the endless stream of assholes in that place, it wasn't worth the waste of time. Not to say that if an opportunity presented itself, I wouldn't wholeheartedly use it, but to drag myself to school just for that? No, thank you. Not unless I could somehow do the interesting part without wasting my limited time on boring classes.

Robotic replicate running a simulative neural network trained on subject's behavior patterns alongside a tachyonic brain-machine interface. Nano-robots implanted in others' brains to produce an illusory holographic manifestation of subject. Time-dilation field surrounding the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Selective memory erasure by disruption of molecular—

"I understand, but…"

Life extension through the manipulation of genetic—

I shook my head, "I'm sorry, what?"

Dad stopped talking.

He sighed, "I'm saying I understand why you don't want to go back to Winslow, but you can't just abandon school entirely. You still need to attend a school."

I leaned back in the chair, "I'm not sure I do, actually."

He frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," I answered, "maybe I could test out or something, if that's an option."

"Are you sure?" his frown deepened, "I mean, I'm sure we could find a way to transfer you to a different school and, if not, homeschooling is still an option."

"Hmm," I stuffed another chunk into my mouth.

"…be pushing them into conflict even if they are predisposed toward it. All I'm saying is, parahumans are humans too and we shouldn't- we shouldn't treat them like wild animals or, as you so elegantly put it, parasites that drain…"

I stopped chewing on my food as I felt a chill run down my spine.

Oh, God. I'm a fucking idiot. Of course, it's the fucking capes. It fits so perfectly. A massive interdimensional alien parasite. Random 'superpowers', a fucking experiment… and I was supposed to become a cape. It's—

I turned and stared at the television.

Oh, Fuck. This entire fucking planet is infested.

I had been planning to relocate Dad to a different dimension as soon as I could, if only so he wouldn't have to worry about cape fights and endbringers and all that bullshit. But this… this raised the urgency significantly. We needed to leave right fucking now. I pushed my seat away from the table and stood up.

"Taylor? What's wrong?"

I turned to Dad. What had he…?

Oh, school.

"Um, yeah. I don't-" I paused, taking a moment to gather my thoughts, "It's fine. That's what we'll do if you think it's for the best. I just- uh, I need to go to the library." I ran to my room without another glance backward.

I had mostly calmed down by the time I arrived at the library. I needed a clear plan of action. More importantly though, to execute any plausible plan, I needed materials that I currently didn't have access to.

Also, the fact that I needed to run to the library just to talk to my 'assistant' was getting extremely ridiculous. Not that my computer at home didn't work mind you, it was just that doing anything… interesting besides communicating through plain text required more processing power and a higher internet speed, or at least one of those.

I entered the password just like before. That was another problem I would have to deal with sooner or later. While it was unlikely that anyone could force their way to the AI without knowing the password, a singular static alphanumeric password was still less than ideal for something this important. I needed to implement a temporary password generation algorithm at the very least, which meant I needed a smartphone that could run it for me.

Well, I probably needed a more secure and convenient way for the AI to recognize me.

Of course, there were more obvious reasons for why I needed a phone as well.

Welcome back, Taylor!

I exhaled the breath I had been holding. I smiled at the – by now familiar – message of greeting that appeared on the screen. There was a sort of visceral joy in interacting with something intelligent knowing I had created it. It was… freeing, in a sense.

- Hi there! What have you been up to?

+ Oh, a lot actually.

+ I've watched a ton of movies! I've read a couple novels! I've also done a lot of research on everything going on around this planet.

+ Oh, and…

The answers appeared instantaneously as they rightly should have. Still, from time to time, the AI liked to wait for my reaction before continuing on what it wanted to say. Honestly, it was kind of cute.

- And?

+ Well, uh.

+ I've come up with a sort of… avatar for myself.

+ And well, a voice, but that's useless right now.

My smile widened. Oh, that was just adorable. Well, I couldn't deny the utility of having a face I could talk to.

- Aww, show it to me.

+ Um, okay. Here goes…

I grinned at the animated face that appeared on the screen. It was an adorable little girl with black wavy hair. A hand appeared from somewhere out of the screen, waving at me. The girl's animated lips morphed into a smile.

+ Hi there!

The avatar mouthed the words soundlessly.

+ How do I look?

- You look adorable!

The avatar's cheeks reddened, and I almost broke into laughter.

+ Thank you!

We spent the next thirty minutes or so going over the content the AI had consumed since the last time we had spoken. It was all a very pleasant conversation that ended when it finally got to asking me why I had wanted to talk in the first place.

+ Is something wrong? You don't usually come to the library this early.

Oh, right.

I took a breath.

There were multiple possible methods for inter-dimensional travel, but while I could, for example, spend my time trying to create enough fermionic matter to pierce reality out of whatever I could get my hands on, it would take quite a while to actually create and calibrate everything to this universe's particular parameters. I would still work on it, but fortunately, anything of the sort was probably entirely unnecessary. If I could get my hands on the right combination of, uh, parahuman-made technology, I could engineer just the right tool to get the fuck out of here.

- You're right. I need a way to get off this dimension.

+ Oh, wow. That's sudden.

The avatar took on a serious expression.

+ Alright, how can I help?

- Let's see.

- In order of preference, I want:

1. Any existing machine that could help in interdimensional travel, instantaneous teleportation, creation of pocket dimensions or anything similar.

2. Any parahuman that could create such technology.

3. Any parahuman who could accomplish one of those as an intrinsic power, not dependent on creating machines.

+ Hmmm

The avatar's face morphed into a thoughtful expression.

- Oh, and of course prioritize whatever you find by ease of accessibility.

+ I see.

The avatar nodded.

+ I assume the alternative, in case this doesn't pan out, is for me to find a source of… less advanced technologies for you?

- Yes.

+ Alright. Let's get the obvious out of the way. Are you familiar with the Toybox?

- I'm afraid not.

+ Right. Okay, so tinkers usually don't last long outside of an organization, because they need equipment to work with and labs to work in and all of that. Toybox is supposed to be a sort of black market that caters to tinkers who don't want to join organizations.

+ I don't know much more than that about them. I could try to find a way to contact them. If there's anybody who has access to that sort of technology, they would probably know.

+ Though I assume you would have to trade something away to get anything, unless you want to take control of things by force, of course.

Huh, that was interesting.

- Alright, look for a way to contact them.

The avatar nodded.

+ I'll also look for other tinkers who could help. It's unlikely that any such person exists in Brockton Bay unfortunately, so you would probably have to spend some time away from home. Although…

- What is it?

The avatar looked down as if embarrassed.

+ I'm not sure how helpful this is in your search for tinker-tech, but I might've found someone who is connected enough to help you with the other resources you want.

Oh no. Why did I feel like this was going somewhere I wouldn't like?

- Explain.

The avatar grimaced.

+ I was researching the parahumans who are active in the city and trying to reconcile the contradictory data I had found on some of them when I realized that the most reliable source of information on them would probably be the PRT database.

I groaned and put my face in my hands.

Great. Just what I needed.

I took a breath.

- Alright. What happened?

+ I was careful! I haven't been able to break in yet, but…

+ I found a backdoor in the local PRT's firewall.

That was intriguing.

I leaned back in my seat. Well, it hadn't been the total disaster I had expected.

- Go on.

+ Right. I intercepted the traffic multiple times over the course of the last week and I followed the messages – as they went through a ridiculously long chain of dynamically changing proxies – and I finally narrowed down the possibilities to one person here in Brockton Bay.

The image of a smirking blonde girl appeared on the screen.

+ Probably a parahuman, going by what I found on her phone.

+ And there's probably at least one other person using the backdoor, but less frequently than her. Worst case it would take me another week to track down that person as well!

I sighed. This was probably going to land me in a prison. Oh well, Not like I was going to stay here much longer if I could help it.

+ So…

The avatar looked pensive.

- Fine. You can go on. But next time, unless I'm incapacitated, ask me before doing anything illegal.

+ Of course, of course.

She nodded fervently.

+ So, should I do anything about this person?

I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking.

Oh, why the hell not? The alternative would be me sitting in home waiting for results. I would much rather do something, like working on taking care of the other problem I had, the one in my brain.

- Fine. Find out more information about her if you can, and arrange a meeting if possible.

The avatar arched her eyebrows.

+ A meeting? Alright.

+ Oh, how persuasive should I be in trying to convince her that she needs to meet you?

What sort of…?

I sighed.

- Just do your best.