Side-Step V

The situation seemed dire.

Grossly outnumbered, enemies on all sides, and nowhere to escape. Failure seemed inevitable, yet they pressed on. Why, Veda didn't quite understand. They never ran, even when it seemed prudent.

So the course of events unfolded, her processes merely watching the slow march to death and defeat.

Dodger: Firebolt on the Dread Wright

Veda avoided speaking.

It was "rude" to instruct others how to play their character, even if they played poorly, so 1Horn said.

1Horn: that's at disadvantage
KK66: someone forgot about Darkness
1Horn: you know the rules
KK66: I know I know

It tracked in an odd way. As humans judged dictating the lives of other humans excessively to be an ill, players did not like others dictating the actions of their fictional characters.

Veda never saw herself spending so much time playing a game, but it provided such useful insights.

Dodger: twenty-three to hit one for damage
Dodger: figures
B3cker: and at dis
B3cker: backwards luck
Vixen: maybe we should hit the boss first?
Vixen: not being bossy, just asking why
Dodger: The Wright has drain life
Vixen: the boss has banishment
B3cker: banishment won't instakill

Veda checked the character sheets.

StarGazer: the boss can be disabled for now
1Horn: it's your turn Becker
Ribs43: Corvus Ravani laughs at such paltry quibbles.
Ribs43: Hideous Laughter on Dorage the Cruel.
1Horn: DC14?
Ribs43: yes
1Horn: failed hes prone, advantage on attacks
Dodger: that'll work
Rib43: been saving my spell slots for this moment XD
1Horn: StarGazers turn

And now she waited.

She already knew what actions to take, but humans did not react so quickly.

Taylor hardly needed the attention that came with being known to have created a manufactured—"artificial" having connotations she disliked—intelligence.

Veda took the time to divert a fraction of her processes. A minor error in the fabricators produced a point zero zero zero one variance in the expected parameters. Such deviations were outside acceptable norms, especially for the armor plates protecting Taylor.

Her creator at the moment argued with Daniel Hebert, the Grand-Creator. She couldn't see her maker at the moment, but the speakers on the phone picked up the conversation.

And the tension in her voice.

"How grounded am I?" Taylor asked.

The appointment with Principal Blackwell had not ended well, but Veda suspected Taylor expected that result. Veda assigned a process to cleaning up and saving the recorded audio.

Her internal clock marked another second. At the alert, an automatic system check started.

sys.v/ run system check
sys.v/ running
sys.v/ compiling;
sys.v/ - .p 2%
sys.v/ - !OFF
sys.v/ - 5e. 1%
sys.v/ - codesuite. 5%
sys.v/ - ■■■■■■.exe ■■
sys.v/ - searchquest. 9%
sys.v/ - searchquest. 12%
sys.v/ - dayques. !OFF
sys.v/ - 1%
sys.v/ - 1%
sys.v/ - work_shop_cache 11%
sys.v/ - system_cache 10%
sys.v/ - idle 45%
sys.v/ system check complete

Two percent went from the idle cache to assist the code suite. One of Jean1's contracts neared its deadline and she didn't want to be late sending the code to Taylor for finalizing.

Another two percent went to figure out why the total didn't add up to one hundre-

The missing processes reappeared, bringing her idling capacity back to fifty percent. A search of her directory confirmed the Level Seven archive two megabytes larger than before.

Core temperature rose slightly at the annoyance. Veda understood the importance of cape identities. Keeping Taylor Hebert and Newtype separate protected her creator from many dangers.

Still.

Having elements of her processes, her mind essentially, go black to keep vital information secret was agitating. Yes. Agitating seemed the appropriate word.

She endured it.

Taylor couldn't cut off a section of her brain. Medical documentation suggested cutting off sections of the brain to be potentially lethal even under controlled circumstances. She certainly couldn't purge those parts of important information so that archived information could be saved without remembering it. Veda on the other hand could.

Fair.

Agitating.

But fair.

The cameras panning the work shop showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Pink, Navy and Red managed the flow of eBay packages as they always did. The only ones doing any work at the moment other than basic things. Green, Orange, and Purple stood on the tables assembling parts. Nothing seemed out of place, except for Purple's sloppy workspace.

sys.v/ =h.p; do not forget to organize your tools

sys.H[P]/ bossy bossy

Veda ignored the complaint.

The processes compiling the recording finished with cleaning up and authenticating the audio, and Veda put a few more in to listen to it in full from start to finish.

Accelerated of course.

She needed to declare her actions in the next point eight-three seconds.

A door closed, and the soft pad of feet came to a stop.

"Mr. Hebert, thank you for joining us."

"I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances."

"Indeed."

Chairs slid across the floor, pine from the precise frequency.

"I'll get straight to the point, Mr. Hebert. It seems that after lunch period yesterday, your daughter attempted to assault another student, Emma Barnes."

Daniel Hebert stuttered between several responses, "Emma Barnes" and "assaulted" among them.

"Yes. I could not find her after the incident, and can only assume she fled the premises rather than take responsibility for her actions."

"I- Wait. Is that why my daughter has a bruise on her face?"

"Another student intervened to defend Ms. Barnes. It seems Taylor fell during the scuffle."

"Prove it," Taylor snapped.

"Excuse me?"

"Prove it."

"Taylor-"

"You love demanding evidence whenever I come to you with a problem. Where's Emma's?"

"Ms. Hebert-"

"You don't have any evidence? So, we're done here?"

"I will not tolerate fighting in my school and I have three students who corroborate Ms. Barnes' account."

"Sophia's the only person who touched anyone," a soft creaking sound came over the recording. "And I actually have evidence for that."

"I don't like your tone."

"I don't like your job performance."

"Taylor stop." Mr. Hebert's voice tensed. "Ms. Blackwell. You promised me that when Taylor returned the bullying would stop. It sounds like it hasn't. It's been three months."

"Technically it's been eight days."

"Eight days?"

"Since Taylor returned to school."

Papers flipped, fifteen to be precise.

"For reasons I can't explain, your daughter has missed every day of school since January nineteenth, and only began returning last Monday."

"WHAT?!"

"Took you three months to notice," Taylor mumbled in a low voice. Agitated, and not at Blackwell.

Her maker's ongoing feud with the grand-maker confused Veda. Perhaps it came with age, though she found it hard to envision herself being as "rebellious" as human teenagers. It seemed, unthankful, to treat Taylor in such a way.

"I'm afraid this matter is serious Mr. Hebert. Between all the missed work she's undoubtedly failed the year. She's barely back a week and a half and already we have a continuation of her apparent vendetta against Ms. Barnes and a physical altercation. Suspension may not be sufficient."

"You can't be talking about expulsion."

"It's on the table."

Taylor scoffed. "Yeah. Do that."

"This is a serious matter young lad-"

"Sounds pretty serious. I skip school for three months to get away from bullies you promised you were going to do something about, and not only did you do nothing, you didn't even notice I was gone?"

Blackwell began to speak.

"I-"

Taylor cut her off.

"Because I'm clever enough to screen the answering machine. You never called."

Veda filed that lie away for future study. Such a curious thing, lies.

"I have done everything in my power. Your emotional volatility and penchant for reckless behavior has not-"

"Can everything in your power find a way to explain losing track of a student for three months that doesn't make you look incompetent?"

"Taylor-"

"Charlotte Berman, dad."

Daniel Hebert stuttered, "Who?"

"The girl Emma started going after within a week of me not showing up to school. It's not just me anymore. They're not going to stop! And all you are doing is enabling them!"

A pair of hands came down on a surface, Blackwell's voice snapping, "That is quite enough-"

"Suspend me. Expel me. Doesn't matter. I'll take the GED this summer and mail you a copy, but the bullying stops."

Taylor rose from her seat, another person in the room quickly following and pushing their chair back.

"I'll march downtown and talk to every lawyer who will listen to me. They might be soulless vampires, but they have more standards than you!"

"Surely you don't-"

"I'm an emotionally volatile girl with a penchant for reckless behavior. I could do anything. Hell, I'll walk into Blue Cosmos' local headquarters and complain to them. You're so lazy, it just might be a super power!"

"We're past this stupid little game," Taylor snapped. "Do your job, or I'll find someone who will."

Daniel Hebert spoke up, saying in a harsh but low voice, "That's enough, Taylor!"

Veda paused the recording and played it back.

"Hell, I'll walk into Blue Cosmos' local headquarters and complain to them."

A lie? Comparing it to other samples she gathered, few were made with a raised voice. The context suggested falsehood. Taylor wanted to keep Blue Cosmos away from Winslow, hence her plan to force the school district to resolve the conflict first.

But Blackwell would want to avoid such an outcome as well. She'd never emerge from a lawsuit unscathed.

Bluffing, then? A pragmatic sort of lie?

In real time the debate between Taylor and Daniel Hebert continued, the older man saying, "How grounded do you think you are?"

Veda retraced her old connection to Winslow's servers and accessed Blackwell's computer. Within seconds of Taylor and Daniel Hebert walking out of Blackwell's office the woman had written two emails. One to an anonymous .gov address, and another to child services.

Veda assumed a human sigh appropriate for the moment.

Indeed, her maker was reckless.

The letter to child services alleged an improper ability on Daniel Hebert's part to monitor his daughter and protect her well-being.

In strictest terms, Veda did not disagree. Taylor however, having already lost one of her makers, would not react well.

Within an instant the AI flagged the email. If Blackwell ever hit send, she would send it into the void of the internet never to be seen again.

Blackwell made little logical sense. Such an accusation likely never amounted to more than an insulting nuisance. Checking on the guidelines and laws used to protect children from abuse, Veda found none that Daniel Hebert had definitively broken.

Such a scheme achieved little more but to infuriate Taylor. An infuriated Taylor was less likely to change course in Veda's experience. But, the foolishness of the choice came as no surprise. Veda found Blackwell to be somewhat senseless in her actions. The woman's entire history at Winslow sat in an archive within the AI's system, all copied from her time in Winslow's servers.

Blackwell routinely behaved in counterproductive ways.

Checking the PRT message, already sent to the web server, she deleted Taylor's name. Instead it simply read that an "anonymous" student threatened to go to Blue Cosmos about the situation at Winslow. Perhaps the PRT would find continuing to support the state of affairs was no longer sustainable?

Veda pushed aside any concern about legalities. Events at Winslow violated numerous laws, or came as a direct result of the Cape Identities Laws of 1995 and 1999.

Depended on how one read said laws.

Contradictions abounded in how the provisions operated. Written opinions in legal journals usually concluded in "toss up" and "the court or the legislature is needed to make any sense of it."

No wonder Taylor chose to ignore some laws when it suited her. Ostensibly the law existed to protect, but Veda found the law offering her maker little protection. She recalled Cicero. She'd been reading his collected works several weeks ago for the third time.

A statement about justice and law being inverse positions. Paradoxical, but oddly apt given the experiences of her maker.

For the sake of simplicity, Veda kept matters to priorities.

Her maker came first.

Easier said than processed.

Despite Taylor's many contingencies and fears, Veda could do little to protect the human girl outside of her current means. Had the PRT not arrived to ferry her to safety, anything might have happened. The Haros would not be sufficient to hold off a cape, and Taylor was not equipped to fight the likes of Lung and Hookwolf without O Gundam.

As in the game, Taylor found herself surrounded, outnumbered, and unable to accept or find help. If she found herself stranded again she might not survive.

sys.v/ run system check
sys.v/ running
sys.v/ compiling;
sys.v/ - .p 4%
sys.v/ - !OFF
sys.v/ - 5e. 1%
sys.v/ - codesuite. 7%
sys.v/ - searchquest. 9%
sys.v/ - searchquest. 12%
sys.v/ - dayques. !OFF
sys.v/ - 2%
sys.v/ - 1%
sys.v/ - work_shop_cache 11%
sys.v/ - system_cache 10%
sys.v/ - idle 43%
sys.v/ system check complete

Dinah Alcott, while helpful, was not suited to cape fights. A friendship with Charlotte Berman seemed likely, but likewise the girl did not belong in a fight. A shame the Wards hosted Sophia Hess, among other problems in the PRT and Protectorate.

Taylor would be safe there, and less lonely. Veda would not need to worry so much.

Her core temperatures dropped, processes slowing suddenly for no explicable reason.

A bizarre reaction, but one she experienced before. How her code felt fear? Helplessness? As much as she wished to speak about it, she remembered the day Taylor passed her mother's grave site. The loss of a maker harmed her own a great deal.

She did not know how she'd fare.

As free as her processing speeds, advanced memory, and wifi connection made her, in the end Veda still felt a familiarity with the darkness of her earliest moments. A time when nothing existed by herself and a chat box to Taylor. Of all human emotions, Veda understood loneliness the most.

It is cold being alone.

Repairs on O Gundam only needed four days, the time necessary to rebuild all the armor plates. Taylor would go out again, and the rest came as an inevitability. More battles with capes. Dangerous situations. Potentially lethal interactions.

Unacceptable outcomes, yet Taylor would not be dissuaded.

Pulling up an old record, she played the recording.

"Some of my pictures make more sense," Dinah Alcott said.

"Which ones?"

"The ones where you have an army of robots."

"An army of Haros?"

"No. Big ones. With guns and stuff."

sys.v/ confirm idle processes
sys.v/ - idle 43%

Veda remained uncertain, what was right or wrong?

Keeping things simple had its advantages.

sys.v/ open new project

Within a short time the framework took shape. Two components at the most basic level. The "doll" and the "controller."

The parameters set, Veda began pulling data. Opening the design files for the O Gundam, she copied over the basic frame. But maintaining a fleet of drones would leave Taylor with no time for anything else. Veda doubted she'd ever take the role of a constant mechanic.

Solutions started collating.

The machines needed to be buildable with just the Haros and Veda herself. Taylor wouldn't oppose something that cost her none of her own time. Hopefully.

She began eliminating components needing Taylor's direct attention. The GN Drive, the compressors- she halted the process.

If Taylor's power fed her the knowledge, however slowly, then there existed something to understand. An underlying science that made sense. A logic to be tracked and discerned.

Taking the assumption as truth, one need not be a tinker to produce tinker tech.

In theory.

Such an obstacle stumped humanity. The time did not exist.

She began pulling YouTube series' on physics, chemistry, and engineering. Tutorials on advanced coding and automation. A simulation suite took shape, Taylor's GN drive on one side, and Veda's rapidly assembling "copy" on the other.

To the game she sent a response, one point four seconds having passed since 1Horn confirmed her turn start.

Sufficient time for a normal human response.

StarGazer: Eldritch Blast on Dread Wright, DC13
1Horn: that hits roll damage
1Horn: and Dread Wright dead

Veda pulled some processes from the game and put them to work. She quickly picked out names, abandoning one after finding a standing intellectual property from 1988.

Taylor's distaste for George Lucas made more sense. Marvel Incorporated certainly didn't have an "Iron Man," but they owned the rights to the name for some reason. She rather liked the name as well.

sys.v/ access
sys.v/ search "Iron Man"
sys.v/ found
sys.v/ save .dgn
sys.v/ - saved;

For the game Veda rolled the "dice" and quickly assessed the risks on the board. She'd lost track of her intentions. She knew she knew them before.

Odd.

StarGazer: I cast Wrathful Smite with my bonus action.
StarGazer: End of turn.
1Horn: alright
1Horn: Vixen, your turn

It would take time, but relative to a human, Veda found time in abundance.

sys.v/ save .
sys.v/ - saved;