"Huh."
Adjusting a couple of controls, Taylor listened through headphones while watching five separate screens show complex waveforms and graphs, along with a number of meters of various sorts that were moving around at varying speeds. Much of the equipment was of her own design, or at least heavily modified from standard specification, and a lot of it was much older and lower-tech than the shiny new toys she'd recently been able to acquire. Still, it did the job very well, and she was extremely familiar with it.
All this finally terminated in a neat, and to other people probably completely incomprehensible without a lot of study, mass of wiring and probes surrounding her original subspace transceiver, which had sprouted quite a lot of new additions in the last week of work. Ever since she'd finally narrowed her search to that one specific subspace 'channel' she'd been working on methods to decode the data she could practically feel moving back and forth from whatever it was that was at the far end.
An early discovery was that it was definitely coming from, or via, a barely-there microportal, that made the ones which potential Parahumans had look like a blazing searchlight by comparison. The signal was incredibly faint but very distinct, and her initial impression, which had only grown stronger with time and study, was that it wasn't meant to be found. As far as she could tell the originating what-ever-it-was seemed to be going out of its way to obfuscate the signal, using a number of methods to crunch the channel width right down compared to the other signals that seemed to be connections between Parahumans and their power source. Or potential Parahumans and whatever was possibly their power source.
She got the distinct impression that this thing was trying to be sneaky. The question was, was it trying to hide from her, or from the other similar things?
After a lot of thought she'd decided that the best fit to her data was multiple, closely related and most likely highly interconnected, power sources. She'd been able, with some tweaking of her latest hardware and software, to prove to her own satisfaction that Parahuman powers appeared to share certain bandwidth features, making her suspect they were essentially forming some strange subspace network that spread out through the entire volume surrounding the Earth. How far beyond that this went she didn't know, but a meta-analysis of her readings matched more closely to something like a hierarchical distributed network than anything else she could think of.
The protocols used by this putative network were complex and subtle in one way, and remarkably crude in another. Even without decoding the transmissions, but just by looking at the overall structure of the whole system, she could see it was very inefficient in how it utilized subspace. It seemed to be restricted to a small subset of the total available dimensional connectivity that her own systems used, and even there she was fully aware that she had a long way to go before she had something that was as good as could be made. She was determined to keep improving her work to that point although it was likely to be quite a long development process, but her own sense of professionalism demanded that she make it happen sooner or later.
If you were going to do something, do it right, was her internal motto, she thought to herself with a small smile as she tweaked a control, then watched the resulting changes ripple throughout her equipment. Making some notes, she nodded a little and kept working.
"The whole thing looks more like it's been… grown or something," she finally muttered, sitting back and studying her findings with interest. "Like it's just iteratively modifying itself, over and over, and slowly converging on a solution..."
Flipping through pages she scanned the equations, working out a mental image of how things worked. She had to bring in a couple more dimensions to make the topology fit but in the end she nodded again, jotting down a correction factor that developed into a long string of math. "But it started from something that's… not quite right," she mumbled, turning to the computer and paging through hundreds of entries in a spreadsheet, looking at how the calculated outputs changed over time. "The eigenvalues are all over the place… No one would design something this… random." The girl shook her head in annoyance. Paradoxically the randomness of certain aspects of the subspace signal made it more difficult to properly deal with compared to something sensible like her alien tutor channel. They knew how to do it right, and had done so.
She knew how to do it right.
But whoever or whatever was responsible for this apparently didn't. Or didn't actually care.
Taylor wasn't sure which was more potentially annoying.
Still, she was no quitter, and she was determined to get to the bottom of the strange signal. The whole Parahuman/subspace interaction was fascinating anyway but this one was riveting. It was so clearly designed not to be noticed it stood out like a lighthouse to her.
Grumbling a little at her inability to work out quite what about the whole thing was niggling at the back of her mind, making her think she was missing something obvious, she finally saved all her work, made sure the output from the current rig was being recorded for later analysis, and turned to watch her latest lesson. The alien TV show was currently working on power extraction systems and she'd been highly pleased to see that her own derivation of the same thing was very close indeed to that which the aliens were explaining. She'd independently arrived at almost exactly the same concepts and math, although theirs differed in some very intriguing ways that she wanted to understand.
It seemed likely that combining her own theories and theirs could lead somewhere interesting, and the more she learned the more she was able to work ahead as it were, so she settled down to watch and listen with a sense of purpose and enjoyment. Picking up the glass of coke with ice at her elbow she sipped it as the lead academic explained how quantum potential energy could be tapped from the underlying strata of reality, by now getting about eighty percent of the math first time, and nearly fifty percent of the words.
By the time she went to bed at just after midnight, having stopped to hug her father and talk to him for a while, she was tired, pleased, and slightly frustrated by her self-imposed task, but overall satisfied with how things were going.
Sooner or later she'd figure it out, she was pretty sure of that. And in the meantime she had lots of other things to do. Like start poking through that huge stack of Leet's Tinker gadgets that Brendan had mysteriously turned up with two days ago and handed over with a smile and a comment that any insights she could provide on the stuff would make a lot of scientists and engineers very happy indeed.
Taylor liked being helpful, and Tinker tech, while sometimes highly annoying, was a lot of fun to work on. Especially Leet's as it was if nothing else neatly made, compared to Squealer's…
She approved of neatly made equipment. It was much easier to get interesting data from.
"Hey, Emma," Taylor said softly, reaching out and brushing her friend's hair neatly to the side of her face, before resting her hand on the other girl's forehead for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and sat in silence, listening to the quiet sounds the monitoring equipment on the other side of the bed made. Emma's breathing was slow and steady, but other than that there was no sound from her, and no movement.
Leaning closer, Taylor rested her head next to Emma's, sighing a little. "I miss you so much," she almost whispered. "I'm going to find a way to bring you back. I promise you that. Back to me, back to your Dad, and your Mom, and Anne. I know you're in there somewhere. And I don't care how long it takes, I'll reach you."
Holding the other girl's hand in her own, she wished for an answering squeeze, but like always, got nothing. Even so she squeezed it gently herself. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I hope you can. Dad sends his love. Mom would have too, if she was still here."
Swallowing a little, she squeezed Emma's hand once more, then sat up properly. "School's going well," she said, still speaking quietly but no longer whispering. "I've made quite a few friends. You'd like them. Amy and Vicky Dallon are really cool. You know, Panacea and Glory Girl." She smiled a little, looking at her friend's face, serene in its blankness. "I didn't really think I'd end up knowing them when we were in junior high, but like I told you, Vicky is sort of a force of nature. She pretty much just grabbed me and said 'We're friends now!' Which was kind of weird in a way, but very Vicky."
Taylor chuckled. "Amy was really annoyed about it, she's kind of sarcastic a lot of the time, but she's smart and funny too. She works too hard at the hospital and you can tell its not doing her any favors. I think a lot of people take her for granted and it doesn't help. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever even says thanks..." She shrugged a little. "I know I would. I did, for what she did for you. Even if she can't fix you all the way, she really helped. And I like her a lot even aside from that. Vicky too, and their friends. I've met quite a lot of them so far. Their cousins are pretty neat as well, for that matter."
She sighed a little. "Amy's mom is… well, let's say that Amy's not entirely happy about some things and a lot of it is to do with her mother. Even Vicky is getting upset with the way their mom treats poor Amy sometimes. Their dad is a nice guy but he's got depression of some sort and hardly says anything. I went there last week to cheer Amy up with some of Guido's double chocolate cake, you know the one that mom loved, and he smiled at me but it was like he wasn't really in the room. Poor guy."
Falling silent she watched her best friend breathe, lost in her own thoughts for a while. In the end she heaved another sigh. "I wish I could help. I guess all I can do is be friends with Amy and Vicky and sometimes shove cake into them. Cake always helps." Taylor smiled a little at her own words. "Dad's having still fun with Gravtec. The Mayor's really pleased about the boats being moved, and it's amazing how fast a lot of business is coming back to the city, he says. Everyone at the DWU is happy about it too. All the security took a little getting used to but no one really complained since they know it's needed. I haven't seen so many people looking like they're enjoying their work for… well, ever."
She stood up and walked to the window, pulling the blind aside a little and looking out across the city. It was a nice sunny weekend morning and from here it looked calm and peaceful. "It's going to be a good summer, I think," she said without turning around, watching a fairly large trawler chug slowly towards the open ocean, small figures moving around on the deck. "We're supposed to be getting some very warm weather, so lots of barbecues."
Watching a bus drive past down on the street, stopping to let a couple of people disembark, she then raised her eyes to the sky. The full moon was visible as a ghostly version of what it would be at night, high above the horizon. A small white figure zoomed overhead, making her smile. "There's Vicky now," she went on. "Flying must be really cool."
Turning back to the room she let go of the blind, then returned to her chair. She pulled one of her modified phones out of her pocket and fiddled with it for a few seconds, tapping several icons in sequence. "This is something I've been working on," she commented quietly, reaching out and holding it above Emma's forehead. She watched the screen for thirty seconds, nodding a little as she saw what she expected. "Just wanted to double-check," she added very softly as she saved the readings and put it away. "But it's not you. I was kind of hoping it was."
She pulled her backpack onto her lap and removed a book from it, then put the pack on the floor again. "Let's see… where did we get to last time? Oh, yeah." Turning pages, she found the right spot and cleared her throat. "On the day that the hunted unicorn crossed the valley of Erl Alveric had wandered for over eleven years. For more than ten years, a company of six, they went by the backs of the houses by the edge of the fields we know..."
When her father came in ninety minutes later, she was still reading, and still holding Emma's hand.
"I don't know how much longer I can take it, Vicky," Amy grumbled to her sister as she stomped along, feeling far more hard done by than she thought was reasonable. Carol was being a bigger ass than usual, even though the blonde girl next to her had gone off on their mother like nothing she'd ever seen before. Vicky was usually, and surprisingly if you only knew about her as Glory Girl, much more diplomatic where the elder Dallon was concerned. Amy could understand that even as she found it immensely irritating, as Carol was Vicky's biological mother but not hers.
Even so, the two girls considered themselves as much sisters as if they'd shared a womb, and Vicky had spent a lot of time over the years comforting an upset Amy who couldn't understand why the older woman was often so dismissive or abrasive towards her. She'd done nothing to warrant it as far as she could see but there was certainly something behind the whole thing, something that at times made her wonder why on earth she'd been adopted in the first place if that was what Carol thought of her.
To be fair, she wasn't physically mistreated, she was fed, watered, and clothed perfectly satisfactorily, and had most of her material needs met without any real problem. But psychologically she hadn't been handled well, she was old enough now to realize that consciously, and the difference between how their mother treated Vicky and her was stark and plain to see.
A lot of it had gotten much worse when she'd gained powers, too. She liked her powers, on the whole, but the shine had worn off very quickly once she worked out that Carol was never going to let up on telling her all about the responsibilities she had, and how she should help people, and on and on in that vein. Leading in the end to her feeling so guilty if she didn't spend as much time as possible doing something that was really starting to become more of a penance than a duty, and had long left the vicinity of being interesting for the most part.
The bit she found particularly hard to bear was then, having spent literally hours every day fixing people, often from the results of their own idiocy, to the point that she was nearly falling over from exhaustion, that Carol would start being a shrew about overworking. Because it reflected badly on New Wave's image or some such self-serving shit.
At times she rather felt that Carol Dallon was a bit of a hypocrite.
Sure, she was grateful to the damned woman for giving her a home, and in some ways she both respected and loved her, but at other times she really wanted to punch her right in the eye and scream, "Stop being such a bitch!"
Which would not go down well. Not even a little. Even though she was pretty sure she could take her even without powers…
Vicky, next to her, was giving her worried looks as she walked. Normally her sister tended to fly everywhere, but today Amy wasn't in the mood for that, or being held, or anything else of that nature. Nor did she really want to go home right now. She was still tired from the other day, and grateful for her sister's insistence to both her and Carol that she spend the day in bed recovering, and lay off the healing for a couple of days too. That had not made their mother happy, but Vicky had folded her arms and glared in a way that was genuinely impressive.
Taylor turning up that evening with an entire chocolate cake, the best one Amy had ever tasted, and almost sitting on her to get her to eat some, had also helped a hell of a lot. The tall lanky girl was very odd at times in her outlook, but unremittingly cheerful too, to the point it was impossible to be annoyed at her. And Amy had a strong suspicion that aside from Vicky, Taylor was probably the best friend she actually had.
Which was why they were heading in the general direction of Taylor's house. Amy had decided that she had to get away from Carol for a while, Vicky had told her in no uncertain terms that she wasn't to go and hide in the hospital, she wasn't in the mood to wander around the Boardwalk looking at idiots doing cape spotting or some such garbage, and it was Sunday. A nice sunny one too, as the weather was rapidly warming up as spring progressed. So she'd ended up thinking that a walk in that direction would at least get her some exercise, which she probably could do with, and if they ended up finding Taylor, whose house she'd never been to yet, so much the better even if it wasn't at the level of a definite plan.
"She means well..." Vicky began, knowing exactly what she was talking about.
Amy stopped dead and fixed her with a dead-eyed stare. The other girl flinched a bit.
"Does she? Really?" Sniffing, Amy shook her head and resumed her motion, waving her arms around in her annoyance. "Could have fooled me sometimes. Sure, she's not as bad as she probably could be but fuck me, she's hard work. 'Think of the image of New Wave, Amy. It's your responsibility to use your powers for good, Amy. No, you can't charge people for healing them, Amy.' Which is fucking ridiculous, do you have any idea how much money the hospital is charging the people I heal?"
"Um… A lot?"
"Try about twice whatever you're thinking about," Amy muttered viciously. "Sure, I do emergency cases and Endbringer stuff and all that for free, I've got no problem with it, and terminal cases too, but some of the random shit I see because people are dimwits who do stupid things then have the insurance cover for 'Parahuman Healing Services' is just nuts." She viciously kicked a branch that was lying on the sidewalk and watched with satisfaction as it flew over the road and disappeared into the bushes on the other side, barely missing a large black SUV that was slowly passing them. The vehicle didn't slow and she ignored it.
"If I got ten percent of that, I'd be filthy rich by now," she added in aggrieved tones. "New Wave would be rich, even. But no, it's somehow not ethical for me to profit from my powers. Even though Carol makes a mint profiting from her lawyer powers and other people's misfortune."
Vicky snickered almost involuntarily. "That's kind of mean," she replied. Her hands in her pockets, Amy just kept her head down, looking for something else to kick. She was in a kicking sort of mood right now and had nice steel-toed boots on, which were good for that sort of thing.
"Yeah, maybe, but it's not wrong either. God, she pisses me off sometimes."
"Really? I hadn't noticed," her sister said in a light voice, draping an arm over her shoulders. Amy sighed and let her. "Honest, Amy, she's not actually evil. Just… strict."
"And really, really making me want to scream," Amy groused as she walked along. "If she'd just lighten up and let me live my life it would be easier. But recently she's been even more… Carol… than usual, and it's getting on my nerves something horrible."
"Yeah, she's been odd, I have to admit," Vicky sighed. "I think it's something about how the city has changed in the last few months."
Amy glanced at her. "What do you mean?"
The blonde waved an arm at the general area. "Haven't you noticed? Ever since Gravtec flew the ship out of the bay, things seem to have calmed down in a very odd way. The gangs are hardly seen at the moment, the E88 seems to have practically gone into retirement, the ABB are wandering around pretending that they're just security consultants, no one knows where Lung is, even the Merchants are keeping their heads down. The whole Dock area has been fixed up somehow, and no one knows who paid for it. And the bay's coming back to life too. I've never seen so many ships out there as there have been in the last couple of months. It's freaking her out I thing because she doesn't understand what's changed and why."
Vicky thought for a moment as Amy considered her words, not having thought about it quite like that before.
"I think she might also be worried that something big is going to happen because things are better right now. You know what she's like sometimes."
"Paranoid and irritating," Amy mumbled, shaking her head.
"Little bit, yeah."
"I guess you might have a point," the brunette girl said after a couple of hundred meters. "I hadn't really noticed how much things had changed."
"Because you're either in school or the hospital," Vicky pointed out good-naturedly. Amy blushed a little. "You need to get out more often. Live your life, don't just stay inside all the time. You're getting all pale and pasty."
"Hey!"
"It suits you."
"...Hey!"
They grinned at each other, Amy feeling rather happier. Vicky could generally cheer her up sooner or later.
Both girls looked up at the sound of a yell somewhere close. "What was that?" Amy asked.
"Someone in trouble," Vicky replied immediately, about to leap into the air. Amy grabbed her by the wrist. "What?"
"Don't just go diving in, think for once, will you?" her sister snapped. "Remember the last time?"
Vicky looked embarrassed. They both did. All too well.
"Let's go see what it is before you start throwing cars around this time," Amy added, heading in the direction the yell had emanated from, and which was now producing a lot of vicious shouting. Clearly at least two people were having a violent disagreement at best. Vicky, clearly itching to fly into action, nevertheless followed obediently as the pair rounded the corner of a side street and stopped. Twenty meters further on two people were watching another pair roll around on the sidewalk. Three of them, including one of the individuals on the ground, were dressed in clothing that made it abundantly apparent that they weren't really people who would be considered law-abiding citizens. This impression was reinforced by the crowbar one of them was holding, and the knife the other standing one was.
The fourth person looked much more like a dockworker than a gang member, being around mid thirties, dressed in heavy boots and denim jeans with a typical work-style jacket over a flannel shirt. He was swearing in at least four different languages as he gave the much younger man a fairly severe beating, in a manner that made it obvious he was no stranger to this sort of thing.
Amy and Vicky exchanged looks.
She got the impression that they were witnessing a mugging that had gone rather badly askew from the point of the muggers. Their victim wasn't quite as cooperative as they'd probably expected, and the one who'd taken point was also taking a lot of bruises, although he was fighting back viciously. His friends seemed more amused than anything else, giving him pointers in loud voices and laughing when the older man kneed him very solidly in the groin. Neither of them was watching anything but the fight.
"Bit bold of them to do this in broad daylight, isn't it?" Amy whispered to her sister.
"They're stoned out of their heads, I can smell it from here," Vicky whispered back, shaking her head. "Merchants, maybe, but there are a lot like them who aren't really part of one of the bigger gangs. Especially a bit further towards the docks."
"What are they doing here?"
"No idea. Probably got lost or something." Vicky cracked her knuckled and started to move forward quietly, none of the men noticing. Amy, feeling unusually combative due to her overall frustration level, instead of staying back as she normally would, followed right beside her.
Her sister gave her a look. She returned it with interest. Vicky shrugged, smiling a little.
Amy smiled back, then pointed to the one with the crowbar. The other girl nodded. Both moved calmly into position, then Vicky said, "Hi!" in a bright cheerful voice.
Both men whipped their heads around to gape at her. One seemed to recognize her even without her costume and paled, while the crowbar-wielding guy reflexively took a swing at her.
She grinned as his weapon bounced off her face. Then laughed outright when he toppled over, flat onto the ground and out like a light. Amy lifted her hand to her lips and blew on her outstretched finger.
"Oh shit," the conscious one yelped very quietly. He turned to run.
And got about a meter before Amy poked him in the neck like she was fencing. He also measured his length on the concrete with a fairly solid thump, making her wince and smile in satisfaction at the same time.
"Nice one, Ames," Vicky said admiringly. Amy chuckled, then they turned to watch the last of the muggers get the shit kicked out of him. The dockworker didn't seem to need help, the pair decided, as he was now on his feet doing unto the putative mugger what that one had intended to do unto him.
Eventually, Amy said in a louder voice, "That's probably enough." The man, who was about to stomp on his assailant's groin, paused, then looked over his shoulder. His eyes scanned both of them, before lowering to the two comatose muggers on the ground, and widening a little.
"Ah," he said, lowering his foot and turning around. The heavily bruised young man behind him groaned and tried to crawl away. "Stop that," he added without looking, flicking one arm out with his foot and making the guy fall prone again with a grunt of pain. "Glory Girl and Panacea, if I'm not mistaken," he went on, looking at the sisters. "Nice work."
"Same to you," Amy replied politely. "Do you need some healing?"
He looked down at himself, then held up a grazed fist and flexed it. "Nah, I'm good, thanks," he chuckled. "No need to put yourself out, young lady. Thanks all the same."
"OK," she said, slightly surprised. Most people tended to jump at the chance of some parahuman work in her experience. On the other hand most of the ones she met were in the hospital. "What about him?"
"Pain's a good teacher," the man said with a look down. "I think he's learned an important lesson today."
"I have, yes, sir," the younger man said faintly, face down on the ground. "Ow."
Amy almost laughed. He sounded like he meant it.
"What do with do about these guys?" she asked.
The dockworker pulled a phone out. "I'll handle it." He looked at the ones she'd turned off. "How long will they be out?"
With a small shrug, she replied, "Probably about an hour or so. They're just seriously asleep."
"Not bad at all," he laughed as he prodded an icon on the screen and held the phone to his ear. "Thanks for the assist."
"No problem, sir," she smiled. Vicky waved to the guy and they turned and walked off.
Behind them they heard the man say, "Hey, George. Funny story..."
Feeling like she'd achieved something useful, Amy was in a considerably better mood at the moment. They resumed their walk towards the Hebert neighborhood, Amy no longer sulking and only mildly miffed at life in general. Vicky seemed relieved and pleased, and soon they were laughing about recent events. A couple of large black SUVs passed them going in the opposite direction a little while later but neither of them paid any attention.
Taylor opened the door and smiled widely. "Hi, guys," she said. "Amy, what's wrong?"
"How do you do that?" Vicky demanded, staring at her.
"She's looking slightly annoyed but cheerful otherwise, leading me to deduce using my Observational Power of Observation that she was really upset earlier but you managed to cheer her up somehow," Taylor immediately replied, which made Amy start giggling. "Did you throw a car at someone and miss again? I want to see that, it sounded hilarious." She grinned as the blonde sighed heavily.
"It was," Amy chortled. "Very. But sort of embarrassing too."
By now the blonde girl was scowling, making Taylor step forward and quickly hug her. "We all believe in you, Vicky," she said with a smile. "Don't let the haters win. Or the car owners."
"You guys are horrible," Vicky mumbled, but there was no heat to her words, and she was clearly suppressing a smile. "Hey, want to go out for ice cream or something?"
Taylor looked past them to a couple of people that were mowing the lawn on the other side of the road, then back to her friends. "Sure. Let me tell dad where I'm going. And grab a coat."
Shortly she was back, closing the door behind her. They walked down the path and turned onto the sidewalk, heading for the tourist district a couple of kilometers away. Taylor waved to one of the neighbors who watched them go past before returning to reading a newspaper as he sat on his front porch. Amy was looking around with interest.
"Seems like a nice neighborhood," she commented. "I always heard it was a bit run down, but it looks pretty good."
"Quite a few people moved out and others moved in recently," Taylor shrugged. "They fixed up a few of the houses, and what with the way the city's been getting more money in these days, a lot of the roads are getting fixed and stuff like that. Dad says it looks like it used to about twenty years back now. He likes it."
"So do I," Vicky said. "The whole place is much calmer right now."
"Yeah," Taylor agreed happily, nodding to a man who jogged past in the other direction, who nodded back. "It's really great. Hopefully it will stay like that."
They kept walking and talking, Amy recounting the story of what they'd seen on the way over, which made Taylor laugh. By the time they reached the ice cream place her friend seemed to be entirely over whatever had upset her, which Taylor was pretty sure would turn out to be her mother. The whole situation there was bad and she was still trying to think of something she could help with, but so far nothing seemed to jump out at her.
Eventually they were sitting on a bench near the shore eating ice cream and watching the tourists wander hither and yon pointing out cape related things and gawping at the Rig. Taylor relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather, still idly pondering in the back of her mind the oddities of her ongoing research at home.
It was when two of the trawlers in the bay sounded their horns at each other, the sounds at slightly different pitches and heterodyning into a complex waveform that rang across the water, that she had a sudden insight and nearly dropped her ice cream cone while trying to extract a notebook from her jacket to write it down while she thought of it.
Vicky and Amy seemed to find her juggling cold ice cream extremely funny. Her stuffing it into her mouth to get rid of it, scribbling frantically, then moaning in pain from the resulting ice cream headache was even more amusing to them...
