Loss - Trust

In the future, Hannah would never be able to explain why the ancestral memories held so much fascination to her. However, in the present, she found herself drawn to them like a moth to a bonfire. Tens of thousands of years of evolution, all recorded in Taylor's brain. Hundreds of thousands of battles, evolution, and wars of attrition, every one of which were ultimately won, allowing her memories to be passed down from generation to generation. Then there were the Yautja, Skali, and Laprey, and their technology and weapons. If she's honest with herself, especially their technology and weapons. Plans for making starships that can traverse the Galaxy in a matter of years. Of weapons that can crack open planets, or vaporise a person with pinpoint accuracy from 100 yards away. Of facemasks that not only provide life support, communications, and telemetry, they also provide multiple different vision modes and targeting for the weapons.

And so, Hannah whiles her time in M/S following her usual practice of examining memories, only this time they're not her own.

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Apart from one phone call to the office, to let them know that he was off for a couple of weeks due to being involved in a parahuman incident, Danny was left to brood on the last few years of his life. Vivian's memories weren't helpful for his sense of well-being, as they clinically listed out all of the symptoms of grief, followed by a deep dive into untreated chronic depression and borderline alcoholism in an effort to self-medicate. Being able to talk to Hannah and Taylor occasionally helped with his isolation. When he could drag Hannah away from the ancestral memories, he found that she was a genuinely pleasant woman with an absolutely horrible past. A past that he was able to partially relate to, through his experiences with many of the Dockworkers that had found their way into his employ.

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While the other two members of her hive were being kept in minimum contact isolation. Taylor was constantly busy, for some reason, Armsmaster seemed to think that the entire building was filthy. Though, so far as she could tell, the cleaners did an adequate job. Still, it got her out of the suite for a couple of hours every day, and she even got a private tour of the Wards quarters. Though, weirdly there was some talk about Shadow Stalker being reassigned to Anchorage in Alaska.

Yes, Sophia was a pain, but she was a symptom of a much larger problem at the school, and dealing with her had been a trial. But it was now a manageable trial. Taylor looks down at her hands, claws. Her changes have been accelerating since she accepted that she and Queenie are the same person. In many ways, it's been a relief knowing that she's not human. In other ways it's like she's lost something important. With a sigh, she turns back to the latest timed 'Mental aptitude test' as if she couldn't recognise 'keep her busy while we work out what to do' make work when she sees it.

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Director Piggot looks at the report in front of her with a combination of chagrin and anger. The report details all of the bugs that Armsmaster has found though out the building, even in her dialysis machine, after the new 'Specialist Cleaning Service' has done a thorough deep clean on different rooms and corridors. At the bottom of the report is a request for a PRT approved technical maintenance company, to come in from the west coast and examine the phone, networking, and computer systems for physical taps. The cost is almost 5% of the PRT ENE annual budget, somewhat ameliorated by the fact that that Armsmaster's own signature is on the bottom authorising half the cost to come from the Protectorate budget.

Grimacing slightly, due to the galling fact that they can no longer trust the local approved contractors, as someone with high security access to the building has to have planted those bugs. Picking up her pen, she puts her own signature to the request before folding it up and personally walking it to Armsmaster's lab.

As the door to his lab opens, Piggot leans heavily against the frame to catch her breath. Something that she'd have never needed to do 15 years ago. Arrayed out in front of Armsmaster are 4 groupings of electronic devices. Armsmaster himself is bent over the counter, deep in thought. Raising her hand to her mouth, she coughs loudly causing Armsmaster to startle.

"Director, I didn't hear you open the door. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Piggot lifts the report, "I wanted to have you send this through protectorate channels rather than PRT channels. Also, what have you found?"

"There's a stall by the desk over there. I have identified 4 distinct types of bugs that we've found, all of which have some level of smart avoidance in them. These ones all have components manufactured in Europe, these ones are from India and Asia, this small group here appear to have been bought locally and would have probably been picked up in our next scheduled sweep. Finally, this group here were tinker tech. All of them show similar methods of failure, though no two have failed in exactly the same way. What I've managed to determine is that Queenie's power seems to be disrupting the careful doping of the material that the chips are printed on. Structurally, this has no effect on the physical properties of the chips, however microscopically, it can close off gates, make areas conductive, or non-conductive, where they should be semi-conductive."

"While that's interesting, I'm more concerned about what you've determined by their locations."

Armsmaster nods, "The European sourced devices were all found in areas that PRT officers have access to. The ones from India and Asia tended to be in areas that call staff and office workers have access to. Finally, the Tinker-tech ones were found all over, often sparsely and in highly sensitive areas like the console, your dialysis machine, and the conference rooms. Each one, not only placed for maximum coverage, but also for the smallest chance of physical discovery. This is in direct contrast to the other two groups where they were placed to remain hidden even if there was a corresponding lack of audio or visual quality."

"Why weren't they found in your regular sweeps of the building?"

"Shielding, and active countermeasures. Electronics scanning equipment is often passive, however we use active scanning with infrared detectors and electromagnetic resonance. If you look at this device, you'll see it has a hood that can drop over the lens of the pinhole camera. This is linked to an infrared sensor and will trigger within 2ms of sensing infrared light above a certain level. This also shuts down the device for an hour by dumping the capacitors in a directed radio burst away from the lens. Additionally, all three of these groups use passive power induction to work by charging from our radio communications while the lights in the room are off, and then using that charge to record and transmit when the lights come on."

"What about the 4th group?"

"All battery powered devices dropped in publicly accessible areas, so probably cape groupies or gossip columnists looking for stuff to brag about."

Piggot nods as she absorbs the information about how compromised they are, "What about Queenie?"

"So far, she has completed her GED, has college certificates for Math, Psychology, English Language, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. All given to her as 'Mental Aptitude Tests' to measure any changes in her cognition. She's likely to get an Honorary Degree in Engineering if the 'visual and spatial' and 'Artistic Design' tests come back from California with a positive validation. We actually just threw those tests in because we were running out of things that didn't need physical apparatus or parental permission to test. We have a request for a video call with Dr Yamada from the parahuman asylum to talk to her and provide a professional evaluation on her health and psychiatric knowledge. As you know, she spends a day a week at every east coast protectorate facility on top of her normal workload of looking after the inmates there, so it could be a few weeks before she's able to make the time."

Piggot frowns, "Go back to the engineering degree, what did she do that's so special?"

"She drew out a design for a solid state jet engine. The brief was, 'What do you think the aircraft of the future will look like?'"

"And?"

"I built it in a fugue, it's over there in the corner. It's 27.3% more efficient than a mechanical design of the same size. With better materials I think I could get that number up to 30%. It uses a non-intuitive design paradigm that goes against everything we're taught about engineering."

In a tone that heavily implies the opposite, Piggot says "I see."

"It's great isn't it. Imagine what we'd be able to do with this insight into engineering. What else have we missed that this will…"

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Deputy Director Rennick looks at the journal written in neat cursive, and accompanied with print outs and glued in examples.

"You're sure that this is genuine?"

Commander O'Donnell nods, "My squad found it while we were securing the Hebert's house. Miss Hebert had it hidden behind a loose board at the back of her wardrobe. I was able to get a sealed warrant for the cell phone text messaging history for the three girls, as well as historical records of all the e-mail accounts they've been given by the school. We would need to get a court order to unseal the records for use in prosecution, however it's already been enough to determine the veracity of the findings. When the judge saw them, she immediately activated the probation conditions for Shadow Stalker, stating that there was a clear and grievous violation of the agreement."

"That explains her transfer to Anchorage, I assume it's to the juvenile parahuman detention facility there?"

"It is. 600 miles from the nearest road, across terrain that is generally considered inhospitable in the summer."

"You seem to know a lot about it."

"Served several months there on punishment detail several years ago. Supplies are dropped off once a month by train, and in the winter you'll occasionally end up eating oats and beans so much that you go through hate and into boredom. The whole place is powered by a micro nuclear reactor that's buried 100m outside the facility."

"The director would have preferred to have a choice about that, but that's not your problem. You just did your job. What about the other two?"

"Can't touch them as they're civilians, and it's unlikely the PD will be able to do much, given the corruption there."

Rennick sighs.

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Taylor steps down from the back of a PRT van, "Sweet glorious sunshine, oh how I've missed you."

Susan O'Donnell, in her civilian garb, smiles at Taylor's antics. Despite being 15, a week and a bit of virtually unlimited food has seen her grow up like a weed and fill out like a woman. She could now easily pass as someone in her early 20's, hence a shopping trip to an out of the way mall near Downtown, part of the more upmarket area of the city. Susan was there because of the more inhuman aspects of Taylor's growth, the short tail, darkening skin on her hands and feet, and claws developing on both.

30 minutes later, Taylor is staring, with disgust, at a pair of loose jeans. Susan has just pointed out that they'd never fit over her tail, and she also has less control over the claws on her feet than she does her fingers. God damn it, she likes her ratty jeans and hoodies that she can just fade into the background wearing. Dumping it back on the rack, she winces and then hands it to Susan, along with the fresh gash down the leg. As Susan starts to laugh, Taylor sticks her tongue out at her, "Look, I can't help it if I'm not used to having claws yet."

"I know, it doesn't stop it being funny though. It is why I'm here with a bank card after all."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Miss I can still wear pants. I'm now relegated to only wearing skirts or dresses. Do you have any idea how much that makes you stand out?"

Susan steps forward and looks up at her pointedly, "I don't think standing out is something you need to worry about."

Suddenly a young girl runs up to them and blurts out, "70% chance I won't be kidnapped if I stand with you."

Taylor crouches down next to the girl and growls, "Who's trying to kidnap you?"

The girl points at the entrance where a few men have just stopped outside, "63% chance that one of you dies if we stay here."

Taylor reaches up and yanks Susan down, heedless of the holes she's just put in her blouse, "I can get us back to the PRT."

"55% chance I get kidnapped if you take me to the PRT. It was 70% last week."

Susan shakes her head and pulls out her phone to dial the console, "Console, this is O'Donnell, we have an attempted kidnapping of a minor at the South Street Mall. What's your name sweetie?"

"Dinah Alcott."

"Dinah Alcott, she seems exhausted, exhibiting some sort of precognition, and is clearly scared. How long do we have?"

"45% chance that everyone in the store dies in the next 5 minutes."

Taylor softly says, "Dinah, I know somewhere that should be safe. However it's dangerous in its own way."

Susan stares at Taylor and then abruptly hangs up, "No, no, no no no, we are not going there."

Dinah holds her head in pain, "93% chance I'll be safe there. 80% chance you will die if you don't come with us."

Decision made, Taylor reaches out and grabs both of them before they're engulfed in fire. "Taylor No!"

Susan's voice trails off as they reappear in pitch darkness. She jumps and swallows down a scream as Taylor takes hold of her face.

"Susan, I'm sorry I can't completely control my face huggers yet, but I can slow them down. Do you understand? I think I can even give one to you so that you can put it on your own face. But there's too many eggs here for me to stop you from being infected. My memories show that if you relax and don't fight it, it will be more gentle and won't knock you out. Do you think you can do that?"

"Can't you just kill them?"

"As soon as I kill one, all the eggs will hatch, and I can't stop them all. If I had more experience, I'd have been able to stop these two from even hatching."

"Taylor…"

"Susan, if we leave now, these two will seek out other people. If I kill them you'll both be infected anyway, and I'll have to kill the rest. What do you want to do?"

"I don't want any of this."

Taylor barks a laugh, "I didn't want this either, but I didn't have a choice about the locker. I'm giving you the best choices I can think of at the moment."

"Give me the face hugger."

"Hold out your hands palm up, then bring it towards your face. It will do the rest, and try not to panic."

Once it latches on, Taylor holds her hands until her eyes stop looking so wild, "Are you ok now?"

Susan nods, and Taylor releases her hands, "Dinah, I want you to shut your eyes as I'm about to turn the lights on."

Susan wonders why Taylor is turning the lights on now, when suddenly she's blinking the stars out of her eyes and looking at, at least a dozen, unopened eggs crowded around something that's stuck to the wall. Sitting on one of the opened eggs is another face hugger that's pointing at Dinah. She looks down as she hears a gasp, and sees Dinah stumbling backwards and tripping over an overturned bucket. Taylor comes back over from the stairs and kneels down beside Dinah.

"It's OK, these won't hurt you, they'll just make you part of my family. See, look at Susan she's fine." – Susan waves weakly – "Now, do you know how your power works?"

"I think so, people ask me a question and I have to answer with a percentage?"

"What sort of question?"

"About the future."

"I want to know what effect you being part of my family will have on your chances of being kidnaped or killed in the next week. But you don't have to answer right away. First of all, do you think you can be a big girl like Susan and accept the face hugger without fighting it?"

Fearfully eyeing the face hugger, and then looking up at Susan, she nods. Then closes her eyes as her headache gets worse. Taylor doesn't see the last part as she's already turned around to pick up the face hugger before turning back.

Eyes slitted against the pain, Dinah opens her mouth and brings the face hugger to her face. As with Susan, Taylor holds her hands until the instinctual panic subsides and her body realises it's not actually dying.

"Well," says Taylor cheerfully, "Let's go back to my apartment and you two can watch TV or something until they come and take you into quarantine."

Susan looks like she's trying to say something, and stamps her foot as they disappear in a flash of fire.

"Well, make yourselves comfortable, I'm just going to change into something more comfortable."

Taylor then changes into Queenie before lying down and seeming to go to sleep.