Setup 2.1
December 27, 2010, Brockton Bay, 1:10 PM
I called dada immediately, no answer, expected. I recognized the message as the one we set up on each other's Panic Button app. It would be activated by a gesture on the phone screen, even if locked, dada's was the symbol Pi. The phone would turn silent immediately, begin GPS tracking and send a text. I opened the panic button app and there was dada's big blinking icon on the map, another tap and the shortest route was mapped. He was about a kilometre away, and definitely in trouble, because that was a blind lane at the edge of the E88 territory.
And I still hadn't fed him the Plot Armor! Damn! I broke into a full on sprint, and called 911.
They assured me that they'll send someone at the location in 5 minutes. I then let Gamer's Mind do its work. Analytical calm suffused me. 5 minutes might be too late, on a hunch, I let mana pour into my body much like I'd do during meditation, but with the goal to boost the body. Suddenly the world felt less real than me. I felt my speed and all my physical stats jump up considerably, and I was glowing Cherenkov Blue as MP started dropping slowly. That would not do, I took a detour into an alley, took out a bag from my inventory, wore one of my freshly bought hoodies. Pulled the hood down, pulled down my sleeves to cover my hands, covered my lower face with a dishrag bought for the kitchen - all the while sprinting. I rejoined my route, only 400m or so to go, I was going faster than the cars on the street. Thankfully it was the afternoon lull and almost no pedestrians were around. I was getting quite a few low-medium priority AI messages but I didn't have time to go through them.
I reached the lane in question and saw the problem immediately, dada was on foot, hands up in a placating gesture, flanked by two muscular white men. Mook 1 (that's what his title was, I don't remember the name), lvl 21, had a gun pointing at dada. Mook 2, lvl 13 had a knife in his hand. Both had shaved heads, Mook 1 actually had a swastika shaped patch of hair on his head! They were possibly trying to mug him because of his brown skin. The gun was thankfully pointed at his chest, that was good, I didn't expect to get time to feed him the plot armor if he got shot in the head. A part of me was having a major panic attack, thankfully that part had been told to sit and gibber in a corner of my mind, Gamer's Mind saving the day again.
I slowed down to a normal human running pace, let go of the boost and took off the dishscloth. Then not-quite-yelled, "Hey!" No need to startle the gunman, they both turned to look at me, this time I yelled, "I've already called the police! Get away!" Mook 2 ran, Mook 1, in obvious indecision, shot dada, thankfully in the heartless side of his chest. He began falling, I sprinted towards them, Mook 2 was yelling something while running away, I didn't pay heed, spy-glasses had already caught their faces hopefully well enough for later use. Mook 1 turned towards me and got 2 shots off, I felt one hit my arm, less than a quarter of my HP dropped, good enough, I was at almost point blank range by now.
Mook 1 got another shot off, panic clear on his face, it hit my shoulder, another third of HP down. No biggie, I pushed down at the gun with my left hand while hitting his elbow upwards with my right palm heel, applying the full power of 14 STR (a normal adult has around 10, though both those muscleheads had more STR than me). Something cracked, his arm bent at a very unnatural angle, a sliver of bone jut out from his inner (now outer) elbow. The gun fell, I kicked it away mid-fall, used the same motion to pivot and sprint towards dada, who'd just finished falling.
I heard the strangled warbly yell of Mook 1 and his receding footsteps, good that he was running away, Mook 2 was nowhere to be seen. I palmed a Plot Armor fruit from the inventory, gave a quick look around for street cameras, none expected, none found, just Mook 1 going around the corner, cradled hand dangling. Kneeling in front of dada, who was probably just registering that he had been shot and I was here, I grabbed his head from behind and lifted it. He opened his mouth to say something, I pushed the fruit in and closed his mouth, "Eat, right now." his eyes widened, but he complied and gulped, I observed him, his HP was almost half, still dropping slowly, but his VIT value turned from 12 to 12+?. Ah, all good.
Dada managed to croak out, "Tasted like chicken. What was that?" I replied, "Limited immortality, conserve your strength, stay awake." He gave a shaky nod.
I put pressure on the gunshot wound with one hand, seemed like it hit his right lung. With the other hand I took out my smartphone, connected to the anonymous server, opened the spy-glass feed, copied out the video from me turning off the mana boost till right before I fed dada the fruit, and had it attached to a mail, to be sent from my official account. That done, I called 911 again and told them I need an ambulance. They put me on hold for a few seconds, then told me Glory Girl was nearby with Panacea and was flying in with her. I thanked them, told them I'll get back to putting pressure on the gunshot wound, and cut the call.
Within less than a minute, Glory Girl appeared over the rooftops, carrying Panacea in her arms. Actually, no, Victoria Dallon appeared carrying Amy Dallon, they were in civvies. I observed the both of them and set the results aside to check later. They landed a few metres in front of us. I got another AI assist message which I ignored. Victoria immediately shot off, possibly in search of the mooks. Amy came at us with hurried steps and knelt down to put a hand on dada's neck. I knew her lines well from research, so I cut her off before she could ask.
"Right lung gunshot wound, you have his permission to heal him." My newly acquired social reading told me she was both impressed and irritated by that. She gave me a curt nod. I removed my hand from the wound, it had stopped oozing blood already. Amy gave a quick summary as she worked, "Bullet fractured right 4th rib at the front, broken piece embedded in lung, fragments, bullet perforated right lung through and through, and got stuck in the back 5th rib, lung partially collapsed, no major arterial damage. All fixed." She then put her hand at the entry hole and plucked the slug out, the skin of the hole reknit... neat. Dada sighed and almost drifted off to sleep with relief. She held the slug out to me and said, "This will go to the police. Let him rest a bit, will take care of the shock."
I nodded and tried to pick up the bullet from her hand. My finger touched her palm, my hand slipped from the sudden spike of pain in my arm and shoulder, which suddenly felt slick with blood. What the fuck just happened? I noticed the newer, more urgent prompt in my mind.
AI assist alert!
TransDimensional Scan detected!
TransDimensional Scan examined.
Processing results archived - Panacea01
Response generated.
Simulating baseline human response as per anonymity protocol!
Stop simulating?
[STOP/Y]
"Shit! You've been shot too! Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Amy asked, grabbing my hand again, this time with irritation and exasperation. Well, I couldn't back out now, why couldn't it simulate a perfectly normal healthy body? I guess because my HP was still barely half full. I'll have to change the protocols later. I feigned a grimace and replied with a slightly tired inflection, "Didn't notice, adrenaline I guess." She shook her head again, muttered something like 'foolhardy' with more spikes of exasperation, then asked "Do I have permission to heal you?"
I had an idea, but I had to act upon it quick, last few times while meditating when I tried to sense the mana flowing through me, I got a sense of my whole body through the mana, which felt like It could go to the atomic level and beyond if I pushed the sense. It was overwhelming, so I didn't pursue it. But now that I saw that a number of processing results were sitting like files in the message archive. I diffused a tiny amount of mana through my body and looked for the blue glow, nothing, good. I started sensing through my mana, but instead of processing the sensing through my own brain I just opened a message to myself like I do and just dumped the sensing part there, the message kept on recording, my mind was clear. I'd already checked that I could record my regular sensorium and dump it as a message, it played back like a fully fleshed dream/memory. I'd check later how the mana sensing message plays like. For now I was prepared, and Amy was growing impatient.
"Hey, hey, strong man, stay with me. Do I have your permission to heal you?" I feigned a weary nod. Good, she thought I was going into shock. I kept a passive sense of her healing my simulated body, it was amazing, biomass was being created and destroyed to align things up, knit tissues, even push a bullet out of my collarbone, brilliant! I chose not to delve too deep into the sense, will check the recording of this later. Amy was rattling off her usual summary, "Cracked scapula, bullet extracted, the arm is just a flesh wound. Still, the rest of your body is very well maintained, probably the only reason you were still functioning for so long after getting shot. There, all done. Here's another one." She handed me both the bullets. My HP actually topped off!
Amy looked at me skeptically. "If you don't mind me asking, your eyes are fine. Why do you still wear glasses?"
I smiled, "Because I'm a Nerd!" She snorted.
I expounded, "thanks for the healings by the way, also, let me show you the real reason I wear glasses." I took out my phone and played the recording of me handling the mooks, probably the only brag fuel I'd have in my civilian life.
"Ouch! You were pretty brutal there!" Her words were probably admonishing, but her tone was that of admiration.
"Hey! Imagine what Victoria would do if you were shot and the shooter was firing a tinkertech cannon at her."
Her eyes widened. "The guy would be paste." She was annoyed? Ah, Glory Girl's use of excessive force is quite famous in the forums.
I nodded, "Thankfully I'm not an Alexandria lite, so I had to be content with breaking his arm."
"Breaking? You mangled his arm! I hope Vicky finds him and brings him over soon."
"He was actively, repeatedly firing a gun at me. Please don't offer him any more than first aid. You might be inclined to heal everybody, but if you heal him completely, that guy will be just broken out of prison by some Empire cape and then they'll come to our house to kill us properly next week."
She seemed dismayed. "I, I should heal everybody."
"There's no should there, you offer to heal out of the goodness of your self. It's your choice, not an obligation. It's like saying Kaiser is obligated to kill non-whites."
That seemed to hit her hard. While she was contemplating it, I took a peek at her and her sister's observe results, wow, that was a nasty, nasty mess. And they're such ridiculously overpowered capes! And there's a quest too! Oh this one's gonna be long term. I'd have to take this one step at a time. First step, I dropped 3 points into charisma to push it up to a solid 15, I'd need it.
"That's, that's, you're twisting words!" She seemed further panicked. I raised my hands.
"No, no, it just sounds the same to me, think about it okay? Also, if I may ask, why do you only heal for free?"
Now she was outraged, "You're saying I should take money for healing?"
I raised my hands further, "No! Not at all, don't judge before hearing me out! You're definitely a biokinetic, a generic healing cape would have to surgically remove the bullets before applying regeneration. And the skin you created was not pink and raw, it was fully matured skin. With your powers, you could do so much good! I understand that healing is close to your heart, then why don't you develop single use retroviral drugs targeted at specific diseases that die if they mutate? You could heal millions of people with terminal conditions! And you could patent those drugs to pharmaceutical companies with contracts stating they cannot overprice them. You could personally offer cosmetic services for money, while still healing for free. Also, you realize people don't value anything that they don't pay for? Most people just take you for granted with your healing. You could offer heroes physical tune-ups turning the squishy ones into at least brute 2! I realize I'm ranting, it's just that you could do so much good! Instead all you do is run yourself ragged making rounds of hospitals healing a few hundred people per week!"
I tried to pour as much frustration and persuasion in my delivery. Her moods changed dramatically between outrage, surprise, panic, confusion, realization and curiosity. The police were arriving, Victoria flying ahead of their car. I cut my diatribe short and shrugged at her.
She just stood dumbfound for a while and said, "Can you just write down the things you said? I sorta lost track at the retrovirus. What's your name by the way?" Heh, Amy, we'll make a biotinker out of you yet!
"Ah, I'm Aveek, and that's my cousin Dev, give me your email, I'll have a much more concrete set of ideas sent to you in a day or two. I think they caught the shooter, you should go check on him."
She still had my phone in her hand, I didn't take it, just tapped open an empty contact for her. She started typing in her details.
Victoria landed in front of us. I got a prompt about trans-dimensional influence detected and negated, ah, so that's what the previous prompt when she came with Amy was for.
She started animatedly talking to her sister, "Hey! Amy, you should see what that Empire thug's hand is like, it's like completely wrecked!"
Amy sighed and said, "Yes, I saw the video of it happening."
"Where? Show me!" Victoria was actually jumping with anticipation.
Amy turned towards me, I gave her a go-ahead gesture. She showed her the video.
Victoria turned to look at me, I got another aura prompt. "Hey, dude, you're badass man! You sure you're not a cape?" I feigned an adoring gaze, then a disgusted look and backpedaled.
Amy turned to her and hissed, "Vicky! Aura! And that's rude! And no he's not, I healed two gunshots in him, and he did that while being shot." The she waved her arm at me, "Vicky, meet Aveek, a man that's almost as violent as you, and not for lack of trying."
I waited till the prompt auto-archived. Then came forward, shook her hand and took my phone back, "Hello Victoria, nice to meet you. And yes, you should control yourself from mastering people like that." Her look turned immediately stormy.
"It's not mastering. It's classified as a shaker effect. And you weren't much affected by it, were you?" She's guarded as she says it almost by rote.
"I'm always very suspicious when my mind tells me to do things that I wouldn't otherwise. And the classification may be whatever, making people do things they wouldn't is called mastering people. Your aura is producing endorphins in people's brains, It's a wonder no one is addicted due to overexposure yet!" Vicky's face was stony. Amy was as stiff as a statue, her jaw slightly open.
Amy recovered first. "Don't bicker you two, both of you are too violent for your own good. Aveek, you should wake your cousin. You two need to give your statements." Then she walked away towards the police van. Clearly lost in thoughts.
The officers were coming over to take the statements, oh, I knew that guy. He was the one who came to our house for police verification of proof of residence. Nice fellow. I gave a parting shot to Victoria before approaching the officers. "Anyway, she's right, I just get worked up when I think my thoughts are being controlled by someone. I'm sorry, look at me rambling, you guys are an established Hero team, you must have taken care of these problems already, some tinkertech in your official costume to control your aura possibly. Anyway, big fan of both of your work! Thanks for the help!" I waved and walked away nodding at myself. Hopefully all the seeds sown will bloom without too much conflict.
Dada was woken, he was well rested and felt like a million bucks apparently, I'd read that a Panacea healing does that to you. The statements were given. Amy apparently gave the thug only basic first aid, set the bone and didn't heal the break, before leaving she told me to also mail her about Vicky's aura addiction theory and possible countermeasures, 'it might not apply, but it's an interesting hypothesis to consider' she said.
We went to the police station, submitted the paperwork, submitted the video evidence, got quite a few pats on my back for my 'stone cold composure' - pff, if only they knew. I didn't completely release Gamer's Mind till we'd reached home, gotten in and locked the door. At which point I let go of Gamer's Mind completely, removed all the emotional suppresion, grabbed dada and broke down into sobs of apology. I'd almost gotten him killed just because I got excited and forgot about the Plot Armors.
After some awkwardly extended man-hugs. I switched the basic emotional control on and made some tea for the both of us, didn't try to start any conversations because we were both still reeling from all that happened. Just generally enjoyed a peaceful moment, today was a tad bit too eventful.
I finally got some time to run through all the unarchived AI messages and windows I skipped through after I got the SOS.
Quest Created: Save Dev!
By performing a repeated action, the skill Sprinting is created!
By performing a special action, the skill Mana Boost is created!
Sprinting skill has reached Lvl. 2
Sprinting skill has reached Lvl. 3
Sprinting skill has reached Lvl. 4
Mana Boost skill has reached Lvl. 2
Mana Boost skill has reached Lvl. 3
Mook deterred verbally : +400XP
By taking a specific kind of damage, the skill Kinetic Resistance is created!
Kinetic Resistance skill has reached Lvl. 4
By performing a repeated action, the skill Unarmed Combat is created!
Quest Completed: Save Dev! : +8000XP
LEVEL UP! You've reached Lvl. 7
LEVEL UP! You've reached Lvl. 8
TransDimensional influence Detected!
TransDimensional influence Examined!
Processing results archived - GloryGirl01
TransDimensional influence Negated! - GloryGirl01
Amelia Claire Lavere alias Amy Dallon / Panacea
Title: The Woobie
Class: New Wave Hero
Level: 38
HP: 250/250
SP: 79.99T/80T
STR: 6
VIT: 12
DEX: 11
INT: 14 + 30 = 44
WIS: 14 - 10 = 4
CHA: 7
Desc: Amy's goal in life is to not turn into a villain. To prove it to herself and her adoptive mother, her only pastime activity is going to hospitals and healing people, which she doesn't enjoy. She is afraid to use her powers creatively and even more afraid to affect brains. She is also addicted to Glory Girl's aura due to long term exposure and thinks she's in love with her sister.
Parasite Shard Power: Biokinesis. Her power allows to shape and manipulate living or dead organic matter according to her will, it also comes with advanced biological knowledge that allows her to shape biology to desired effect. Her power is making her depressed because she's not using it creatively.
Status effects: Agression (power induced), Depressed (power induced), Depressed, Addicted (master power induced). WIS -10, INT +30
Victoria Dallon / Glory Girl
Title: Collateral Damage Barbie
Class: New Wave Hero
Level: 54
HP: 230/230 + 1000
SP: 5000/10000
STR: 11 + 70 = 81
VIT: 12 + 50 = 62
DEX: 11 + 15 = 25
INT: 15
WIS: 13 - 10 = 3
CHA: 12 + 20 = 34
Desc: Victoria's identity revolves around being a hero powerful enough to be called the next Alexandria. Also her aura makes people around her very suggestible. Those combined make her very prideful and somewhat callous. She's known to use excessive force and often severely injures baseline human thugs.
Parasite Shard Power: Force Field. A force-field that manifests a few millimetres from her skin, allows her super strength, flight and nigh invulnerability. The field drops every time it catches a sufficient impact and takes time to recharge (generally 1-2s) harder the impact, longer the recharge.
Parasite Shard Power: Fear/Adoration Aura. An aura that effects everyone around her in the range of 4m and generates Endorphins if they're friendly to her, or Adrenalin+stress hormones if they're hostile to her. She can consciously focus to suppress the aura but not turn it completely off. Empathy-related power users are immune to this aura.
Status effects: Agression (power induced). WIS -10, STR +70, VIT +50, DEX +15, CHA +20
TransDimensional Scan detected!
TransDimensional Scan examined.
Processing results archived - Panacea01
Response generated.
By performing a special action, the skill Mana Scan is created!
Mana Scan results archived - Panacea02
Quest Created: Save The Woobie and The Barbie from themselves!
Stat points allocated CHA + 3
TransDimensional influence Negated! - GloryGirl01
TransDimensional influence Negated! - GloryGirl01
TransDimensional influence Negated! - GloryGirl01
It was then that I realized, the Dallons were not NPC's either! Did being a cape make one a PC? But that didn't fit Taylor! Ugh, Insufficient data. Speaking about Taylor, I have to go to her in the evening for our first Tutoring Session...
How many troubled teenage girls would I have to deal with in one goddamn day?!
